Agent Marketing Broker Interview Joe Homs

Hi everyone, welcome back to the AM Network. It's Christina here with Agent Marketing. We're here with Joe Homs today. He is a broker and he's been in the business for 40 years. So I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to you, Joe. Give us a little bit of a backstory on, you know, what made you get into real estate. get into the industry in the first place?

Well, as you said, I started out 40 years ago. I bought a home, and a couple years later I bought an investment property. And this, again, remember, 40 years ago. There was no internet, there was no— hardly any cameras, you know, so definitely no cell phones. So, you know, back kind of in the Stone Ages. So I decided at the time after buying my investment property that, you know, now I'm a landlord. I needed to know what the heck a landlord does. And the only really kind of resources back then was actually getting your real estate license.

Oh, okay.

So I went and bought a course, and it was books back then. It wasn't online. And studied the course, went in, passed the test, and just, you know, kind of fell in love with real estate.

Oh, that's awesome.

My dad had introduced me to that because he had a lot of properties that he used to rent out as well. But once I got my first one, it was like, wow, I can do all this stuff, you know? And back then it was a lot different than it is now.

Right.

We used to be able to do a lot more different things back then than we can now, but it's just been a great ride.

Yeah, I mean, that's really great to hear that, you know, you kind of found what it sounds like a passion and you just kind of stuck with it. So you started off as a real estate agent?

Correct.

And then you moved into becoming a broker?

Correct.

And what was the reason for that? Why did you feel like you wanted to become a broker?

That happened kind of recently, actually. My daughter came to work with me at a brokerage that I was at. I was under another broker at the time, and I had told her after she graduated from college She wanted to, you know, come work with me.

Aww.

And so I said, okay, well, go get your license. And then since she graduated from college, she was able to go back, you know, very shortly after that because I asked her, you know, you need to go back to school and get a broker's license so that at one point we're going to open up our own shop. The broker I was working with became ill, and so he had to close the shop down. This was about 3 years ago. And so then we decided to open up our own brokerage. So she's the actual broker. I'm a broker. Her husband, my son-in-law, is also a broker. We've got about 20 agents in the office right now. So it's, it's, you know, within the last 3 years we've grown it to that point. You know, I'm in my 60s. There's no really reason for me to start up a brokerage or anything. That's why I have her. And, you know, she's—

And you're just kind of guiding her through it?

Exactly. Oh, she's, she's guiding me through it. You're guiding each other through it.

That's awesome. What is the company? What is the company name? You want to tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, H&M Realty Group.

Okay.

And we're out of an office in Laguna Hills. And we primarily focus on investors.

Okay.

Because I've been flipping properties for 40 years. And my dad taught me the business and I passed that along to my daughter and my son-in-law. And the agents that we have in our office are basically investor-focused. They also flip properties. I teach people how to flip properties.

Wow, okay, that's awesome.

And so that's kind of what the focus of our office is right now.

Okay.

Since I've been in the business for over 40 years, I still do have normal buyer clients, normal seller clients. So I deal with that as well. But I also do mostly flips. Like, we have like 5 flips going on right now.

Dang, that's awesome. So are you— I mean, that sounds like a lot of multitasking is going on. Do you find it hard, or is it something that you kind of perfected over the years?

Well, if you want to use perfected, that's a good word. Multitasking is a good word, but I think the point that I would like to make on that is, as a real estate agent, If you're not doing everything that's involved with real estate, we do property management as well. We have investors that we work with. We purchase properties for them, buy and holds. We do flips. If you're a real estate agent and you're just focused on working with buyers or sellers, you're really selling yourself short.

Short?

Okay. Because as a real estate agent, You know, at the end of the day, you need to fund a 401, you need to check for retirement. When you get to my age, you know, if you're your age, you're like, what, in your 20s or whatever?

Yeah.

So it's like, okay. And when you get to my age, you know, that stuff becomes really, really important, but you have to start at your age.

Right.

You know, which is what I'm teaching my, you know, kids, my daughter and my son-in-law. Yeah, we're flipping property, we're making really good money on the flips and stuff, but you need to take a little bit of this and put it aside for your retirement. Right. You don't think that that's going to come, but believe me, it does. It comes.

Right. And faster than—

So I think a lot of agents sell themselves short. They either, you know, for whatever reason don't want to do it or are scared of doing it or whatever. Some of them wake up late. I actually met with an agent the other day, a different office, and she wants to learn how to flip. And so I'm teaching her how to flip properties. So it's something that, I mean, every agent should focus on everything to do with real estate, anything that is happening in real estate, because that thing may fall aside. You may start working with more buyers, you may start working with more sellers, the market may take a dip, okay? And then, you know, you turn into somebody that's going to be handling short sales. For example.

Right. Okay. Are you guys taking on new agents right now?

All the time.

All the time? Okay, great. So anyone local, I mean, if you guys are interested, you can definitely, you know, reach out to Joe and maybe learn a little bit about flipping homes, or if you're seeking advice or interested in joining their brokerage, we'll definitely get them your contact information. Okay, Joe. So now I know you said you've been in the business for about 40 years. So you've experienced pretty much everything. With all the recent changes in this day and age with technology and everything, how do you feel about up-and-coming businesses like— or not really up-and-coming, they're kind of established now— Zillow, Purplebricks?

How do you feel about that? Unfortunately, it's not positive, and I've spoken with several other agents about it. And I think that as a group of agents, as an organization, we've kind of done ourselves a disservice in basically farming out, you know, our material for other people to really sell back to us. Because, you know, I've fallen into that trap where, you know, I remember the days where Zillow used to have basically 1 or 2 agents on there.

Mm-hmm.

As their preferred agents. I think they have like, I don't know, maybe 3 or 4 now. And then they sell you back the leads that, you know, our organization basically provided to them to begin with. I never really received much success with that. The leads that I was getting, you know, weren't, you know, really good leads, let's just say. So I never had success with that. So I kind of stopped that early on. And other social marketing avenues. For me, kind of the same way. I don't know if it was because of my age or what, but I try to keep up on everything that's going out there.

Right.

Facebook, Twitter, you know, all the normal stuff that people your age are looking at now.

Right.

I try to keep up with all that stuff, but to sit here and tell you that I got a Facebook lead the other day, no, that doesn't happen. I wish it did. I wish it did, but that doesn't happen. You mentioned Purplebricks. Purplebricks, actually, I read an article the other day where they're actually going out of the business here.

Oh, really?

Yeah. You know, they couldn't basically put it together. There was a lot of other issues involved with that. I'm actually in a transaction right now with a Purplebricks agent. And, you know, it is what it is. It's something that I think they wanted to Uberize what we do.

Okay.

And it's— and to me, I don't think honestly this industry would ever, ever be Uberized because this industry is about a relationship that you have with a client.

Okay.

And how do you Uberize something like that? You know, when you come to me, let's say you wanted to learn how to buy an investment property. When you come to me, you're going to come to me and you're going to interview me. You're going to go, how many years have you been doing this? What kind of experience do you have? How many properties do you own? How many properties have you flipped? I mean, those are the honest questions that investors should be asking of real estate agents.

Right.

Okay? Because if you're going to work with a professional, then they better be professional on their end.

Right.

I mean, you know, if you went out and got your license like 2 weeks ago, And let's say you were at a meetup and somebody says, well, I'm looking for a really, really good real estate agent that knows how to work with investments, and you raise your hand. It's like, okay, when did you get your license? 2 weeks ago. You know, it's like, okay, you really need to like learn a little bit more before you get to that point. It's, you know, it's not like, you know, we're going to stop you in any ways because Most of my agents that I have are brand new. In fact, they're in your age group.

Okay.

And they're just young people starting out and wanting to learn this business. I teach them the traditional and then I move them into the investment role of real estate. So, you know, it's something that can be easily taught. Okay. Same thing with flipping. You don't need, you know, sorry, but you don't need to spend $10,000, $20,000 for people out there that are going to teach you this. I mean, I do it all the time. I, in fact, I spoke at a meetup last night and I provided them with material, and I don't charge people for that. I mean, this is information that I've gotten over the last 40 years that I kind of pass along, especially to young people, because I want young people to be successful.

That's so sweet. See, and that right there This conversation that you and I are having, the fact that we can connect on, you know, a real level. And, um, you know, it's with doing things online, you— it takes that away from it. It really does.

Absolutely.

It devalues the importance of an actual connection. And I mean, I don't know about anyone else, but if I were selling my home, I would want to meet with the person that's selling my home. I'd want to Get a feel for, you know, who they are. And like you said, ask them important questions. How long have they been in the business? Do they have a lot of experience? Have they— how many homes have they sold? Or, you know, what have you. But, you know, yeah, I understand.

And that brings up a really interesting topic too, because as a real estate agent, we do go out and we do interviews. You know, for you people out there, you know, who are looking to sell your home or buy a home, the interview process is probably one of the most important things.

Right.

But you have to remember, it's not a beauty contest, because if you and I were out there, obviously she would win. Okay, so you have to go to the next step and you have to ask those questions. How long have you been doing this? You know, what is your experience? The biggest Questions that I always ask people to ask agents. Do you own your own home? Okay, if like, if you're a real estate agent and you don't own your own home, how are you going to give me advice on the purchase? Okay, so then you decide you become an investor. Do you own investment properties? Okay, when's the last time you bought something? Should I buy something now in this market? Okay, California. Remember, I've been doing this for 40 years.

Yeah.

I've been up and down in 3 cycles. Okay. So I know the time to buy and I know the time to sell. This is the time to start thinking about selling your investment properties. 10 years ago, I would be sitting here saying buy as much as you can, which is what I did. Okay, right. And now I'm actually selling my properties off.

Wow. Okay. And working with your daughter so closely, when you bring new agents on, do you guys teach them together? Is it something that you Do you start off and then she kind of finishes, or how does that—

We've decided that any new agents that come to our office, she does basically all the paperwork and, you know, here, this is what you need to do. You need to go to OCAR, you need to sign up for these specific classes. Once you're done with those classes, you come back and see me, and then I start them off on their training. Okay, so brand new agents, I focus a lot on, you know, the Twitters, the Facebooks, all that, because that's what they want. Right. Okay.

Right.

And then I get them socially conscious, basically is the best way to say it, so that when somebody's searching their name, it's going to pop up. You know, I'm a real estate agent, I work at H&M, and you know, this is my, what I call a hero clause. This is, you know, this is why I'm the person that you should pick. Okay? So we work on a lot of that stuff, and then as we're going along, We work on contracts and I do things a little bit different in that we find actual fine properties and I actually have them start writing offers. Sorry agents out there, but yes, I do have them write offers, send them because I want to have them experience the interaction back and forth from an agent.

Okay.

Whether the offer is low or not good enough, I still want them to hear that. You know, why did you send this offer? It's like super low. What were you thinking? All that stuff they're going to experience anyway.

Right.

So I want them to experience it, you know, ahead of time. I don't do a lot of traditional, like, you know, go knock doors in the neighborhood because to me, honestly, I think that's really old-fashioned. Although there's a lot of agents out there that have their little farms and they're very successful and You know, kudos to them. You know, that's awesome. If that's what you want to do, if that's what you want to, you know, go knock on doors, then I'm not, I'm not going to stop you. Yeah, but that's not something that we focus on.

Do you provide any marketing tools for them? I know you said you set them up with all the social media things and get them their— you mentioned their hero, like, statement, why they do it or why they, you know, they should be chosen. But do you provide them with like business cards or anything? So you provide them with business cards?

Yeah, we have business cards, we have yard signs. I connect them with my lender who's connected with Agent Marketing, quite frankly. I think Agent Marketing is like a fantastic tool for a real estate agent because like, you know, you can pick a property, it downloads all the information. If it's your listing, you can upload the photos higher quality, get, you know, better website look and stuff like that. But yeah, that's probably one of the first things that I put them on. It's because your company and the product that you have is just so easy to use that, you know, the minute that the website's created, they're shooting that out through Facebook, Twitter, you know, here's my listing. Which is another thing we do in my office. I always do a co-listing agent with me. I mean, I just took a $2 million, $2.2 million listing in Dana Point, and I made one of our rookies my co-listing agent. And why do I do that? Well, I need to get them exposure.

Right.

Okay?

Right.

And, you know, if I have somebody like you working with me, I'd rather have a pretty face on there, okay, that maybe they're actually going to look at the material that's provided by Agent Marketing and, okay, here's This $2.2 million property in Dana Point, by the way, it's a great buy. It's got a fantastic ocean view. And so, you know, it goes out on their social media. And so it gives them that exposure and people start looking at it going, wow, you just got your real estate license a couple of weeks ago and you've got a $2.2 million listing? Yeah. You know? Yeah, absolutely.

Right. Okay. So it's definitely a win for you, a win for the rookie.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah, I can totally see how— man, I mean, if I am ever interested in getting my real estate license, I'm definitely gonna head over towards you.

Thank you.

Because I feel like you just take such a good leadership role with everything that you're explaining for all these people. I mean, you're really doing them more of a favor in a sense as bringing them into your business because you're teaching them so much. And, you know, I haven't really met anyone who— okay, let me put you on my listing as a co-listing agent so you can You can kind of get yourself started. That's a really awesome thing to do for someone else.

I think it's awesome that, you know, that was kind of actually new with the MLS. New, what, 4 or 5 years?

Right.

You know, they actually added a co-listing agent on there, and I thought, wow. I mean, what that tells me is like, that's additional, you know, marketing.

Right.

You know, like, why not?

Yeah, why not?

What people are you reaching out there that I'm not reaching?

Exactly.

Obviously, you're reaching the millennial crowd.

Right, right, right.

I'm reaching, you know, the baby boomer crowd, okay, my age group, you know. And so, you know, who knows, maybe you have somebody that, you know, is a high-tech person and they invented an app or whatever, and then they see that on your feed and they go, yeah, let me call her and find out what's going on with this, you know. That's just additional marketing that when I go and do a listing presentation, I can tell the seller, you know, this is one of the marketing tools that I use.

Right, of course, yeah. And I mean, so you, I would say that you're what, pro team then? Definitely like for real estate agents, they should be a part of a team, they should go for that.

When I get somebody your age group, okay, the biggest hurdle is, you know, you're young, you're brand new. If somebody, you know, you're talking to somebody my age and, you know, you're coming over to list my home, I'm gonna go, gee, how long have you been selling real estate? 2 weeks? You know? And I always tell my agents, well, That's not a problem. You answer because I am working on a team. The average age of our team, which is me, okay, the average age is over 40, 50 years experience in real estate, okay? They don't know that just one person has 40 years, but that's what the team will get you. The team will get you, you know, that expertise, let's say. Yeah.

Awesome. So, Joe, What is your take on short sales?

You know, I'm actually kind of glad you asked me about short sales. There is not a lot of short sales right now. They're very limited. But, you know, let me kind of go back with a lot of what I was saying before. You know, new agents, motivated agents, even experienced agents. So, you know, a little bit over 10 years ago, we had a crash. Okay, and everybody was kind of looking at everybody else going, how do we sell houses? What do we do? And then all of a sudden, you know, this short sale stuff came out of the blue, and it was you either learn how to do short sales or you get left behind. Okay?

Okay.

And I was in the camp that I'm going to learn how to do short sales. And back then, I would like kind of call it the Wild West.

Okay.

Because everybody was just like doing whatever they wanted to do and learning the process along the way. So I became, you know, a self-described expert on short sales. I was actually knocking on doors and, you know, telling people, I'm a real estate agent. I know that, you know, you've stopped making your mortgage payment and the bank is foreclosing. I'm here to try to help you out of that mess. And I was probably doing 10 to 15 listings a month just by doing that, just by knocking on doors, okay? So then I get the listing and then obviously it's upside down and that's, you know, the definition of a short sale is that they bought it at $500,000, now it's worth $250,000, but their loan was $500,000 because the banks got crazy back then and they were doing what I call warm body loans. If you had a warm body, they gave you a loan. Well, then they also gave loans for 100% of the properties. Like, does that make sense? You know? So I kind of knew back then that we were going to head into this direction, so I prepared myself. So anyways, I'm learning the process of doing short sales. Back then it was literally, and I'm not exaggerating here, I would get an investor to give me a price on the property. I would send it to the bank and the bank would be just like, Joe, thank you for sending the offer. We've accepted. It's like, seriously?

Yeah.

That's like a starting offer. I thought you were going to counter, you know. And no, they did not have any systems in place. They didn't have anything. They— I mean, nowadays it's like the opposite end. They've got appraisers on staff. They've got people that actually, you know, look at the transaction. They figure out the numbers. In fact, most of the short sales that you find online today are probably 90% of the actual value of the property. The same thing with the REOs, okay, bank-owned properties. They're about 90% of the values of the property because they've gotten very sophisticated over the years and they're not letting properties go. I mean, we were buying properties at probably, I'd say, 60, 70% of the value. to 50% of the value of the property at the time, I had investors just literally calling me left and right. You know, Joe, do you have any more? No, but I'll put your name on the list. When I get the next one, you'll be up next. Okay, and just literally I had investors. And why did I work with investors? People ask, well, why did you work with investors, not just regular buyers? Well, let me tell you the reason. Back then it took probably 6 to 9 months To negotiate the short sale, okay? Nowadays it takes a short period of time, which is great. But back then it took about 6 to 9 months because you had one guy and he had a stack of paperwork like this. And I'd be calling him every day and he'd be going, okay, here, you're on top again. Uh, yeah, okay. And then next day it's like I'm down at the bottom, I'm calling him again. Well, did you approve it? Yeah, okay. You know, it's like it was a long process. Right.

Okay.

Well, if you have a regular person that's buying the property, they're not going to wait 6 or 9 months.

No.

Especially here in California, everybody wants everything like this.

Yeah.

That's just the way it is.

Yeah.

And so I dealt with investors who really wanted to buy the properties to hold on to them to rent them, so they were always there. I'd call them 6 months later, I'd go, hey, remember that property I put you in here? They finally sent me the approval. Are you ready to go? Yeah, Joe, we're ready to go. I didn't have like Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones like, oh no, we bought a house 2 months ago. I don't know why you're calling.

Yeah.

Anyway, so short sales, agents have to understand that when times are bad, things change. And you kind of have to roll with those punches. So short sales today, like, I don't do a lot of short sales. I do see agents doing short sales. I do see companies that are representing the agents negotiating the short sales, which is something that came up along the way. The other thing was there were some unscrupulous agents early on that were charging clients fees of $5,000.

Oh, wow.

The state put a stop to that a few years after that. I never ever charged my clients a penny. I figured, you know what, you're losing your house, why am I going to charge you to get out of this mess?

Right.

So I never charged them anything. You know, it's like if we can negotiate the short sale, we get done, I get paid by the bank, which is another question. When I'm knocking at the door and I'm going, you know, I'm a real estate agent, I can help you out of this mess. We can list your house, and they're going, "Well, who's going to pay you?" I go, "You're not going to pay me. The bank's going to pay me." Oh, okay.

Sign me up.

Sign me up. That's awesome. You know, because they ask, "What are you getting out of it, Joe?" And I go, "You know, in my case, I was doing a lot of double end deals. Okay, so representing the buyer and the seller. So I was getting the full six percent. And then, you know, again, along the process, the bank gets more." sophisticated. They're going, okay, well, we don't want agents to double in the transactions anymore, so we're going to cut you down to 4%. And I said, okay, well, that doesn't work for me. So, you know, but, you know, I kind of went along the process and, you know, today we are where we are. I actually bought a couple of short sales myself, which again, nowadays they don't let you do that stuff. They want you just representing, you know, the The seller in the transaction. They don't want agents being a participant in the transaction. So like I said, Wild West back then, okay? And then reality hits you today, okay? It's like very regulated right now.

Yeah, very different. Very different. In such a competitive market, when you're teaching these new agents that are under your wing, what do you advise them to kind of beat out their competition? How do you help them do that?

Well, the biggest thing is to get them socially connected other than they have a Facebook, personal Facebook page, and here's me at the beach.

Right.

Or here, me at Disneyland with Mickey behind me. It's like, the first thing I tell them is you have to have a business persona, okay? And everything, sorry, everything has to be business related from here on.

Right.

I don't want to see, you know, gang signs or whatever that's on there. Okay. I don't want to see any of that stuff on your page. So we create just their, you know, business page. And then I tell them, even your personal page, you know, this is 2019. People can see anything and everything that you post.

Right.

Okay. So you have to be very careful. I tell them not to get anything political. Okay, because, you know, are you Democrat? Are you Republican? I tell them not to, you know, engage with, you know, their opinions basically, because, you know, everybody has an opinion, but it's not the same as yours. Why are you going to give your opinion to somebody else? You're trying to get a client to like you.

Right.

Do things like that. I volunteered at the park today to help the homeless. Awesome stuff, okay?

Right.

Put that on your social media, okay? I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. I took a lady and I crossed her across the street, okay? It's like, come on, do social stuff that is a benefit to you. Positive.

Yeah, positive stuff.

You know, just basically preparing them for that stuff, making them feel a part of the office and the team, okay? So whether it's on my team or other— another agent's team that they're on, you know, they need to feel a part of that team. I have them do open houses, which are very important, okay? For 2 reasons. One, that's where they're going to get a lot of business to begin with, okay?

Right.

And 2, because I don't like doing open houses, okay? So I let them do open houses. I teach them how to do an open house, and it's not literally Go to the house and open the door because that's what people think. No, there's literally work involved. Okay, right. There's there's marketing involved the minute that they walk in.

Well, thank you so much, Joe. We absolutely loved having you here with us.

Thank you.

And if you guys want to get in contact with Joe, I will definitely leave his information down below. How would you want them to contact you? Is there any?

I think the most important. thing about what you just said is contact me, okay? I'm very easy to find online. joe@johoms.com is my website. 949-625-4533 is my phone number. You know, literally, this is 2019, just, you know, Google my name and you'll find everything. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. I promise I'll answer, okay? If you call me, I'm old-fashioned. I do answer my phone. Okay, if you tweet something or you contact me on Facebook, it may take me like half a day to figure out how to answer it, but I will answer it. Okay, I may have to ask my daughter, okay, if somebody like they tweeted this thing to me, it's like, what is that?

What?

And they say, well, they want to know about this. I go, oh, okay, you know, then I answer back. But yeah, the most important thing is If you're interested, contact me, please, you know.

Yes, don't worry, we'll leave everything down below so you guys will have all the resources and, you know, how you want to reach him or the team in general. So thank you guys so much for tuning in again. We'll see you next time. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below. Let us know if you want Joe back and we'll bring him back and have him talk a little bit more, maybe about flipping houses. I mean, if you guys are interested in learning about that, we're more than happy to give you that information. Alright, bye-bye!