At Whom Should You Be Mad, REALTORS®? with Leigh Brown

You're listening to Crazy Shit in Real Estate. You'll be amazed at all these wild but true situations that others have found themselves in, because on this show you'll hear uncensored, unbelievable stories from the world of real estate.

I'm Leigh Thomas Brown. Let's dive right in. Welcome to a special edition of Crazy Shit in Real Estate, also known as Real Estate from the Rooftops, also known as Holy Smoke, y'all, can I really just spend a minute working on my real estate business instead of of trying to read more legal briefs and figuring out what's going on. If you feel me, give me an amen in the comments and go ahead and share this with a realtor friend. Because I want to talk to y'all about a couple of the things that are flying across our desktops right now when you're in real estate. The first one is that in the giant class action lawsuit, which was in October, remember how the timeline works. In October, the jury said that the realtors were bad guys, and we got the huge settlement dollars where they charged NAR with $1.8 billion. They trebled it. They went after all the big companies. And then in March, we get the news that there's a proposed settlement. Those rules are going into place right now. Hence the phrase proposed settlement. We're still operating under something that hasn't yet been finalized. Well, all of that stuff that's going on right now that is structurally changing real estate is scaring the pants off of buyers and agents alike and sellers really don't know which end is up. Did you notice that the plaintiff from that lawsuit has started his own real estate company? What a coinkydink. And you know, and all I want to say to him is, welcome friend, welcome. When you sold your house, you didn't negotiate in a way that you were happy with, with your agent. So you agreed to a contract and got your house sold. And then sometime later you called a lawyer and said, this doesn't feel good. And so that very same guy who didn't like that the contract he signed was uphill went after the entire real estate profession. And must I remind y'all again, it is the fifth largest piece of the United States GDP. So little Mr. Angry Seller in Missouri wants to take down the big man. Okay, well, now he's getting into real estate with this new company that's going to be flat fee. It's called Landian. So land and guardian. And all I can say is Welcome. Because one of the things that I love about real estate, there are a million different business models and friend, yours is nothing new. There's been lots of others that have started them and some have worked and some haven't. It depends on the consumer where you are. It depends on the quality of service. It depends on if the quality matches the price. And what I've noticed in reading about this is that he just came up with this on his own after being the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. Baby, you didn't come up with this, but that's fine. We welcome you. Maybe you'll make it, maybe you won't, because one of the secrets about real estate is that it is pretty easy to get in. You can get your license, you can start a brokerage. And I don't know if this young man has a license or if he's just starting a brokerage, because you can do either depending on your state laws. But I do know this, it's hard to survive. And the way that you survive is by providing value. And you can be a low-cost provider and survive and do well if the value matches the cost. You can be a high-cost provider and survive and do well if the value matches the cost. So all I can say to him is welcome. And I'm pretty sure he's about to find out that the cost of doing business is significantly higher than what he wants to charge at $49 a showing, because he might not yet know about errors and omissions insurance. He might not yet know about the cost of marketing. He might not yet know that even if you are a commission field, you're still going to have to pay Social Security and FICA and all that fun stuff. So Welcome, friend. We'll see what happens with you. And frankly, I'm glad that the consumers where you are will now have another benchmark by which they can evaluate what they want to do for real estate. I'll just say that from my perspective in North Carolina, I have competed with low-cost providers in the past, and sometimes they win and sometimes I win, because ultimately it's the consumer that gets to pick. And that's what has to be protected in real estate. And so the second thing you guys are hearing about right now Well, there's a whole bunch of them, but one of them is a viral video from a real estate coach that says real estate agents may be criminally liable for antitrust. I don't know all the details on that yet, but I will say this. I've asked my legal counsel if that's a true video and she said probably not. And so I'm just going to say that if you get all wound up about a video, if it's involving legal things, go to your legal counsel and in many of your state realtor associations, you can go to your legal hotline and ask the question. It will keep you from getting wound up unnecessarily. Although at the core of it, it is really good advice and, you know, don't violate antitrust. So I give him all the credit for that. Now, the third thing you've seen today is for everybody who's been mad at the National Association of Realtors, they're doing something productive. So we're going to give them a thumbs up and a high five. And that's your responsibility. You can be mad when they screw up, but you got to say yay when they do it right. They are appealing to the Supreme Court what the DOJ continues to do in chasing real estate. Now, this is in specific around the clear cooperation policy. If you're a normal person who somehow watches Leigh Thomas Brown videos, hey, what's up? The clear cooperation policy just said that as a real estate agent, unless I had all of everything documented with full disclosure, I couldn't keep a seller's property in my hip pocket and not let the rest of the market know about it. Those of us that are in the business look at clear cooperation as a way to make sure buyers can see the whole market. The other side of the argument was that sellers might not want the whole market to see them. And then of course, it should set off some fair housing red flags and some alarm bells. So in general, the idea of clear cooperation was if you're going to be a part of a cooperative system, then you have to cooperate. But that's under fire right now because there are agents and brokers that say that violates their business model. Their business model is to have private listings that nobody knows about except for their besties. We'll see what the Supreme Court says. At a minimum, whether you like the policy or not, let's just be glad that we're taking the real estate battle to the Supreme Court and maybe cooler heads will prevail. Because the bigger issue we have with that DOJ problem is that those guys keep attacking realtors and then we come to an agreement and then they undid it and said, nah, we're going to keep going after you. Well, that is pretty unfair. And the way that the American system really works is, y'all, it's due process and I just don't think the realtors have had due process. It's very shifty shady. Now let's talk about the core issue of all these things. If you're getting all these headlines, you're going to stay ginned up and mad at the world, at plaintiffs and lawyers and government agencies. And all that does is get in the way of you serving your buyers and sellers. I've talked to my buyers and my sellers this morning about their transaction. And I did that before I focused on all of this. And so I need you, my real estate pros, to focus on serving your neighbors through professional real estate so that they can get their American dreams in the right pathway before you get sucked into clicks and taps and headlines. And at the end of all of this, I'm going to have to make another point here. You need to know who to be mad at. I'm just going to say that being mad at class action lawyers Probably not the most fruitful anger, but I understand it. It's why we should all be asking our elected officials to pursue tort reform in Washington, D.C., which they not going to do because most of them are lawyers. But if you have a congressional race in your district, why not ask the candidates where they are on tort reform? Ask them if they too realize that that woman spilling coffee on her lap at McDonald's all those years ago has created a nightmare in this country for anything to operate properly. Now there's another crowd you might be mad at. You might be mad at this plaintiff because he worked the system to destroy real estate. Now he's wanting to line his own pockets with it. I wouldn't be mad at him. He's operating in the system that we have. And as real estate professionals, we should always welcome a new business model in because if I'm better than that, I need to show that to the consumer. And if it's better than I am, Maybe I'll have to adjust because that frankly is why the free markets work. So let's don't be mad. Let's be focused and be excellent. And then you might be mad at the National Association of Realtors because you think they haven't done enough. Friends, they just don't have as much power as you think. However, the work that they have done historically has been fairly positive. Now, could they have done more? Sure. What's going on right now is, are we in a great place of really strong leadership? Not so much, but I don't think it's because we have bad individuals. I think it's because the organization has what could be called strategic drift. We have lost our way, y'all. The National Association of Realtors, if it will focus with laser beam accuracy on real estate, we could do a whole lot of good. We need to let go of pet projects that have to do with DEI and everything else, because it really sounds good, but it's not going to mean nothing if we have let real estate get away from the American people. And you also got to see that NAR may have lost its way, but it's still able to pursue going to the Supreme Court. And so I, for one, am glad that my dues dollars are taking this battle forward. Now, I'll also point out that you should be mad at the DOJ. That's actually an agency to be mad at. And if you wonder what that's got to do with you, you're a voter. We're in an election year right now, and the DOJ is run by the Attorney General, who is appointed by the sitting administration. So the Biden-Harris administration are the ones that gave us Merrick Garland in this particular DOJ. If you don't like this particular DOJ, vote accordingly. I vote on real estate lines primarily. That is my pet issue. Many people are one-issue voters, and I know y'all are going to jump up in the comments now and have your say, and that's fine. I love the First Amendment. I'm not the one trying to censor like some other people are. But you want to pay attention to what's going on and think about what matters to you when you vote. You've got to pick your priorities. I am going to vote for a change in the DOJ. Now, that also means that if you know President Trump or if you know Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, they should call me because I should be their housing guru. Everybody share this with @realDonaldTrump. And I don't know what J.D. Vance's Twitter handle is, but I really should be the one doing housing all the time. But anyway, you also could be mad at the Consumer Federation of America, that little NGO which is not funded by anybody trying to be helpful to real estate. They're funded by big banks and they give money only to the Democratic side of the aisle. And they are a bunch of busybodies trying to destroy everyday working realtors and they're driving the DOJ's engine. So you can be mad at a government agency. Well, not really government. They are kind of government-ish. They're an NGO. They're non-government, but they're not elected. And they still have far more influence and power than you, a taxpaying American citizen, have. So you can be mad at them. That's very righteous anger. Be mad at the government agencies, be mad at the trade association, the plaintiffs and the lawyers. But what I want you to realize is this, y'all, we live in a broken world, and in a broken world, it looks like evil has its own way. Well, what you can do is, first of all, get yourself right. And second of all, be the person who asks better questions and is willing to continue working while you're asking questions and doing your homework. I'm not done with my research yet, so make sure that you subscribe and you'll come back for more because I'm going to keep digging into this. I do have emotions about real estate, and if you are a troll or a bot who have come here to tell me why my people are table dancers and terrible, you can just go right along because I do believe in the American dream and I believe it should be available to every neighbor in every zip code. And if they choose to pursue it, they should have the right to have a professional real estate agent with them on that ride. I'll see y'all as I finish doing some more research.

As always, I'm so super thrilled that you joined in for more crazy shit. And if you're a realtor, investor, inspector, lender, or just a regular human being who happens to have an unbelievable story that you need to tell the the world about, or you just need to one-up the story you just heard, then make sure to DM me on Instagram @leithomasbrown or tweet me @leighbrown, or frankly, any social network where you hang out. I'm there. And if you had some fun, then you totally want to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes.