How She Closed $500M in Real Estate | NGDR Ep. 1

Patty Maurer Williams is a Denver-based residential real estate agent with LIV Sotheby's International Realty. She's closed over $500 million in sales at an astonishing 98% close rate. With more than 23 years of experience, she began with a background in interior design before building a longer-term career in residential real estate. Patty Maurer Williams, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Of course. How's your day going?

Good. Towards the end of the year, so it's a lot of planning for next year.

Yeah, 100%. You started originally in interior design before moving into real estate. What do you think pulled you into real estate and how do you think that actually improved your effect, I guess, in the real estate market?

It helps my real estate career a lot, especially with listing homes and staging, et cetera. But basically what happened is I was I was doing permanent fixture selections for custom home builders. And what that means is back in the day when they used to build spec homes, they needed a designer to pick out what tiles, what carpet, what colors, et cetera. And I would pick all of that out for a home that necessarily didn't have a buyer yet. And then the buyers would come into play and sometimes I'd work with them and sometimes I didn't. But working with the buyers made me think about getting my real estate license. So I did. And now I incorporate— the best part is I get to incorporate my interior design with my real estate career.

So do you still do interior design along— like if like a buyer or seller, someone has interior design work, would you still like offer or do you want to primarily focus on real estate at this point in your career?

A lot of time. I mean, it depends on the size of the jobs. Like I just had one currently where they sold their entire home furnished and the home I sold them isn't furnished. So that's a huge job. I turned that over to a designer friend of mine. But as far as like walking through a listing and getting it ready to sell and how the things I think it needs to have so it sells for top dollar, that's great to have an interior design background on that. And also I've had buyers that are building, you know, new construction and I do help them kind of go through the process of that too.

Interesting. So would you say it gives you kind of like an added a t— I guess all the real estate agents have this, but you have this kind of special way of looking at like, oh, I have this extra kind of view for, you know, specific specificities. Like you're able to, I guess, pick up on stuff that other people might not be able to pick up on, right?

I think, you know, I have more of a designer eye. I think all real estate agents that are good anyway usually have someone that they can rely on, a stager or something like that. And I do have a stager just because time becomes the problem. When I first started out, I used to stage my own listings and I don't have time to do that.

Yeah.

But I do, you know, other brokers use other people to do that. But when I'm walking through a listing or whatever, I can make what I call the ABC list. And that's like, A's are all the things they need to do for sure. And B's are like, here's what you could do if you want to increase the value of your home. C's are like a wish list.

Yeah. Interesting. So you're able to like say the right thing. Would you say most people just go through all A, B, and C? Or would you say like, what's the—

Most people do A with me and I'd say the majority of B. And some do, some will do like the overachievers will do all three.

Yeah.

And then there's other people that it's just kind of overwhelming for them.

Yeah.

Yeah. Makes sense. But I also have amazing vendors. So like if I, if one of my things was you really need to paint the entire, the interior of the house so it's more neutral, I could have one of my vendors over there and have a quote within a day or two. Wow. Yeah, so I have people that can help them get things done if they don't have the time, you know, to coordinate that themselves.

Wow, okay, that's amazing. Of course, I'm sure that helps the people you work with a lot.

It does, they like it.

Yeah, I would assume.

I consider myself full-service concierge kind of, real estate.

That's probably, I guess, that's probably, I would say, one of the reasons you succeeded so much, especially. I mean, would you think so? Like, if you were 18 and starting again today, like from zero, nothing, what do you think one thing that you would do differently in your career than the past you did, I guess? And what do you think something that you would've just kept, like, I did this perfectly, I'm not gonna change it at all?

If I could go back to my young self, I would say to set better boundaries because there's some people that just are never going to be happy and as a person like me, that's all I want is to, you know, make sure that everybody's happy and everybody's taken care of and there's sometimes it's just not possible and you need to let those go because they steal and rob the energy of you from working with the good people that don't behave that way.

Yeah.

Um, and then the thing that's always worked for me is making it about the people. This isn't about me selling them homes. It's not about telling everybody I'm a real estate broker. Um, it's really meeting people, listening to people, and solving a problem. Like, most people want somebody to either solve a pain or provide a pleasure, and, you know, that's your job to figure that out.

Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. So you think you would have just stopped working with the people who are constantly asking, I need this, I need this, I need this, and not really return.

At the beginning, every young broker kind of— you just take everybody. But over time, like I said, you'll learn there's certain people that will just suck all the energy from you, and that makes it harder to get other people because your energy is so low.

So you wanna prioritize like high leverage clients, you would say like, not high leverage, but I'm saying like more clients that will, I guess, more upside.

Realistic clients. Ones that, you know, there's a reason that I am a realtor and that you hire me and that's because I'm good at what I do and I know what I'm doing. And if my clients appreciate that, then they'll listen to me. Not that they have to do everything I'm suggesting or maybe their budget doesn't allow that, but they're looking to me for guidance and they appreciate that guidance. But there's other people that even though they're hiring me as a realtor, they think they're smarter or can do better. And at that point you're like, I don't know why you'd hire me then.

They're like, you helped me sell my house, but this is exactly what I want to do.

But let me tell you exactly how we're going to do it kind of thing. And those are the kinds of people you just have to get rid of.

You just want to avoid them. Makes sense. Um, after I guess you learned this, never mind. You have a 98% close rate. What do you do to make sure that deals actually close? Just for context, the average real estate agent will have a close rate around 85%. So what do you think you do differently to actually get that 98% and even strive for higher numbers than that?

100% a problem solver. So let's say it comes down to inspection items or something like that. I don't just say, oh, we can't make that work. Like, I'm going to go to my vendors, I'm going to get quotes, I'm going to figure out what it's going to take, you know, so that we can— everybody can come to terms. In real estate, it's really about win-win. It's not a win-lose situation. A good transaction is about win-win for both sides. And I just think I'm very good at going out and getting the information I need so that we can get to the closing table and do it smoothly.

So you just try to eliminate all the problems. Like, so you think that real estate agents, like, some, like, you know, let's say just like Joe the real estate agent, um, you don't see them doing like the exact same thing. You think—

I don't necessarily know where to go for complex different things. Yeah, they don't, they don't necessarily have like the list of vendors that I have that'll answer right away, you know, for me. And some of them just don't have the tenacity. I very much have tenacity. I always have my whole life. Um, Because when I put something under contract, my whole goal is to get it to the finish line.

Yeah.

Um, and that's what I focus on, is getting it to the finish line. And what makes me successful is that in a real estate transaction, there's lots of things that come up that my clients don't even know about. My job is to keep all of that from them and only share with them the things they actually need to know or be part of, because they have busy lives.

Eliminate the noise.

I'm in the background solving problems. And making sure everything's going smoothly. And then younger agents or agents that like drama, they will bring the clients into it. And that's when transactions get harder is if one agent, one, doesn't know what they're doing, or two, likes drama, it just gets more contentious.

Interesting. Would you say that your close rate has improved throughout your career? I guess You've gone—

Oh, for sure.

Yeah. You think so?

Oh yeah. Yeah.

100%.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. I didn't start off that way.

Yeah. What do you think it probably started off around?

I closed, I mean, I would say maybe like 75%. I think at the beginning my biggest learning curve was the listing side of it, not the buyer side. But honestly, as a new agent, most agents start off more with buyers and then they work their way into listings. So there's just a learning curve.

Makes sense. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Of course. What does a normal week look like? Like you wake up at, you know, what is a normal week, day in the life, I guess, as you know, if it's—

but yeah, what is it like this time of year isn't exactly the same because of course December and January tend to be a little bit slower. So like I said, it's a lot of business planning and what am I going to do for next year? But on a normal day, like when it's busy, you know, I'm up by at least 6. Sometimes it has to be earlier, but my first thing is I journal in the morning and I write down what I'm grateful for. And then from there I work out. Working out for me is like, I have to do it. It's the only way to start your day. It just gives you all the endorphins and everything. And then I get cleaned up and I'm ready for work. And that is either going into my office if I don't have appointments or it's, you know, going on a listing appointment or meeting buyers, coordinating inspection repairs, something like that. It's just, and every day is different. So it's not, the only consistent thing is, is The waking up, writing in my gratitudes, and my workout, that's consistent. And then every day could be just random.

Random. Yeah, it makes sense. You got like so many different buyers, like different personalities. Oh, I gotta go to this part of town, that part of town, right?

There's a lot of driving. Yeah, a lot of driving when it comes to buyers. Um, but I'm born and raised here, and I think that's also useful because if somebody comes into town and they don't really know where they want to land I have the diversity to be able to kind of help them narrow into what or where I think they would enjoy being instead of, you know, some people come in because I talked to a friend and they just focus on an area. But after I've met with them, I'm like, have you ever considered this area? Um, and that's nice having, you know, been here my whole life of knowing the different areas.

Makes sense. Initially as a real estate agent, were you kind of like oh, I have so much free time, what do I do with this? I guess of course starting off you would say, oh, you don't have enough deal flow, right? Initially as a real estate agent, were you like, oh, what do I do with my time? If I was to start as a real estate agent or someone listening to this podcast, what do you think that this is what I should fill my first week up with?

You should definitely educate yourself on the market, what's happening in the market. I really, back in the day, used to preview a lot of properties, meaning I didn't have a client, but I would set up a preview appointment and I would go in and I'd look at the properties. And it was great because you'd look at all different ones in the neighborhood and then you'd kind of get a sense of like, oh, for the money, this one makes more sense than that. And going in and out of them kind of helps you get a feel for what should cost what. And then obviously over time, when, as you're writing contracts, you get even better at it. But I spent a lot of time previewing. And then it's all about meeting people. So you've got to put yourself in places where you're going to meet people.

Well, it's just networking, you'd say.

Yeah.

Yeah. Makes sense. What do you think the first thing, like let's say you're working on a deal and there's something that is starting to kind of feel like off, what would, what was the first thing that you would look for? Like what do you think the first, I guess, place that deals tend to fall apart?

Oh, inspection. Inspection. That's typically— yeah. So like when I do listings, I do pre-inspections on them because if we can eliminate any of the items before the buyer even gets there, the transaction will just go smoother. Because depending on where the buyer's at in their stage of buying a home, some of the inspection things can really scare them, even though I've been doing it forever. And it's like It sounds like a big deal, but it's totally solvable, you know, that kind of thing. That doesn't necessarily mean that calms them. So if you can eliminate the majority of that beforehand, it's better.

Makes sense. So like, if I guess you just wouldn't want to bring like, oh, like we don't know if we have asbestos in the house, let's just try to sell the house and they're going to bring the inspectors and, you know, they figure out—

Well, and then that's going to be a problem, right? One of the ones that I, even if One of the ones that I find is a big one is the sewer line. So I usually always have a sewer line scope done because a crack in a sewer line can be a really big expense, especially if it's not in the yard and it's in the street. And either way, it's going to have to be fixed. Nobody— a buyer's not just going to not take the house or buy the house and not fix the sewer lines. So the seller might as well know at the beginning. Yeah, so just trying to eliminate the big scary things. I always have my homes inspected too.

You don't want to cover up, you're saying, like different random stuff about when you're trying to sell a house?

Yeah, you definitely know. So your whole duty is basically your fiduciary responsibility is to disclose any, um, you know, knowledge, pertinent knowledge that you have. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to go investigate for it, but if if they did tell you or you saw, you know, you've got to disclose.

Would you say that's one reason that a lot of agents will say like, you know, we're not just— we're just not going to expect inspect the house so they can, you know, probably because they don't want to disclose things. But like I said, either way it's going to come out true one way or the other, and the seller is going to end up having to pay with it anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Yeah, I mean, that way at least I know like if there's little things or whatever, I wouldn't make my sellers if the inspection came back and there were smaller things, I wouldn't make my seller necessarily fix the smaller things. What we want to know is the big things.

It also costs—

like, what is their— the costly things. What is their inspection going to come back with so that the seller, you know, understands, like, here's the things that he could call out?

Yeah, okay, makes sense. It also causes— you think, like, a lot— definitely it causes a lot of noise, um, if you're like Here's like 5 things you have to fix before we sell the house. And they're like, let's just sell the house already, you know. But yeah, you can fix that all before then.

So I'll say I have a mentor that always tells me, go slow to go fast. And what that means is getting all your ducks in a row, like making sure the house is set up and show ready, making sure you have all the information on the house. So if somebody's excited about the house and they call and they have a question, you have the answer. You don't have to wait and then the excitement starts to wane. Yeah. You want to be able to answer as much as you can right away so that the excitement stays there.

Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, very interesting. So you mentioned initially, like, right, that you said that you try to avoid dramatic and like kind of spend time, like extra time, oh, you know, we need this and this, this people when they're trying to sell their house. What are like subtleties you would look for in a client when you meet them for the first time that like, this is not going to be it, or this is going to be a great—

Their mannerisms. Sometimes you— that's hard. I mean, usually you can tell just by how they walk you through the house and talk to you, like whether they're going to listen to you or whether they're in complete denial about, you know, how the house actually represents itself. Um, sometimes you don't find out until later. I had a client and they said they were going to do everything I asked them to do. I told them it needed to be staged. It, it literally had the artwork in it was Star Wars posters. That was the artwork. There was like no accessories. It showed terrible. And, uh, so I staged it and he went bonkers because brushed brass was in the staging and he hated brushed brass. And I was like, well, we're not trying to sell the house back to you. We're trying to sell it to buyers. And right now that's what's in. Anyway, we went, it was very, it got very contentious and I just let him go. I was like, I— we're not— that's one of those he thought he knew more than I knew, and I finally just said, you know what, you seem super smart and know what you're doing, you can do it by yourself, because I just had to walk away.

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever sold a house with someone who's worked in real estate and like something they've said you kind of taken to another deal and like said, wow, that was pretty smart? Or you think it's— it genuinely— generally when you work with someone like you're the I mean, you're 9 times—

you learn something. Every transaction teaches you something. I mean, I've been doing this 23 years, and in every transaction you tend to learn something new, whether it's, you know, an inspection thing that you've never run into before, or, um, the way another agent does something, and you're like, oh, that's a great idea of how they handle, you know, whatever. It also could be that they didn't handle it well and note to self, you should pay attention to that too. But I think in this business, and that's how you grow, is you're just always learning and every transaction teaches you something new and your responsibility is to learn from that and grow from it.

Yeah, makes sense. When you're working, like, let's say you're selling a house and the buyer's agent, do you tend to find that working in that kind of relationship, it becomes annoying? Or you would say it's kind of like a mentor mentee type of thing? It's kind of like, oh, this is, you know, a good moment for, you know, I don't have to focus as much. Like, how would you say me acting as a buyer's agent? Yeah, when, when you're a seller's agent and the seller's agent is like much less experienced, would you say?

Oh, um, it's typically— it's not— it's usually the other way around because most of the time listing agents have been in the business longer. You got it. Your goal is that in most real estate instances is to be stronger on the listing side. And as you progress and not as many on the buyer's side, less time. So it's usually flipped around. It's usually you're the— I'm the listing agent and I have a new buyer's agent on the other side that doesn't really know what they're doing. If they're willing to learn or they're respectful, then it goes smoothly. I had one, he just didn't know what he was doing and he wasn't willing to learn from it either.

Yeah, a lot of real estate. Yeah, of course. A lot of real estate agents fail. I think there's something like 3% of real estate agents make money, or not money, but like make a living. What would you say separates them from the people? Would you say it's just like the will to just be dumb and like learn?

It's nasty. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got to be a go-getter in this business. You've got to be willing to meet the people. But like I said, it's not just meeting people, it's truly being engaged in, you know, who they are and listening to their wants and needs, getting to know them, getting to know their families.

So it's just really being like a people person and like wanting to learn.

Yeah, you know, they say that, although I will tell you most salespeople are not necessarily people— like, I would consider myself more of an introvert, but if you asked anybody that's around me, they'd say, oh my gosh, she's an extrovert.

Yeah.

But I, if I wanted to, I could literally just be a hermit and I'd be okay.

Sit in the Rockies and, you know, not talk to people. Yeah.

Yeah.

When you're working with people who are trying to sell their house, right? You're a more experienced agent. You're working with more people who are trying to sell their house. People tend to get emotionally, they're like, you know, I want to sell for this price, this price, this price. I'm sure you've felt that. And how would you say, that you deal with. Like, you know, this is absurd. You're not selling like 40% extra. Um, uh, which, you know, yeah, right.

And, and that's kind of what's happening right now is the market's adjusting downward because of all the craziness from 2020 and through '23. Um, I'm just very— what I tell all my clients is I'm going to give you all the information I can so that you can make the best decision that you can. And then at the end of it, we'll decide, am I a fit and we're good to work together? Or maybe you'll decide I'm not a good fit for you, or I might actually decide that you're not a good fit for me, depending, you know, because taking an overpriced listing causes me so much stress because I take my clients on so personally that I just can't have that weighing on me knowing that if I listed it at that and it was never going to sell for that. Um, so it's really a matter of having honest conversations with the sellers, showing them the comps that you're using, and trying to explain to them why there's differences. Usually they'll be like, well, my neighbor's house sold for XYZ, You know, and it's like, okay, well, your neighbor's house sold a year ago or in a different market, or your neighbor's house had updated bathrooms and kitchen and yours don't.

Yeah.

You know, it's just educating them.

Just a lot of education. Makes sense. And you pride yourself on being the most kind of, I guess, knowledgeable about the market, or you try to be, right? How, how do you stay up to date with like all of the news that's affecting your neighborhood and how, how do you think that you get it?

I don't pay attention to news. I pay attention to the market. Like if you're doing this full time, you're in the market.

Yeah, like I don't, you know, first of all, how do you get, how do you get the information that actually helps you like make a difference in the way you talk to clients?

Honestly, it's from being out there working and seeing how the market's going. I mean, I, I get stats from different things like my title company or our office sends out market reports, you know, things like that. But I would never get my knowledge from the news.

Yeah, you're not going to sit down with a client and be like, you know what, there's 42% increase this year.

Yet, no. Yeah.

Yeah. Makes sense. So you're just going to figure out like, oh, these 5 houses didn't sell this week. Usually they do sell. What do you think?

We're going to look at price reductions. We'll look at properties that didn't sell and they were expired. Right now, to list a property and come up with pricing, I actually pay more attention to the other actives it's competing with because the market is changing so fast. I want to look at similar properties and their price points and say, okay, what's going to make ours the next one to go under contract? Because instead of— instead of, okay, we priced ours and that helped the other ones go under contract, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you just want to like list with knowledge that the other house is like $500,000. You want to list at like $490,000.

I think I was talking, right, just a little bit on the competitive side. Um, people have started to go back to pricing high and waiting for an offer, and buyers are just not trained that way after the last 5 years or so. Um, but all my listings, when we price a tad competitive and they're in show-ready condition, will move.

Yeah, I was, I was under the impression that if you price it low, like intentionally low, so that you get like people fighting over, I think it works in certain markets. Like I know it works in Manhattan, it doesn't work in like suburbs of Manhattan.

It works tremendously during— yeah, um, and it still kind of works Now, you know, back in 2021, '22, I mean, people were paying like $100,000 over asking. It was ridiculous. Now it's more like— I've had listings where it's like 10 grand over to get it because there's been more than one offer. It's smaller numbers, but the demand's still there.

Yeah, yeah.

And for the turnkey properties that are priced right.

So yeah, it's just— okay, yeah, got it.

Um, there's a lot of overpriced junk on the market right now.

People— you do—

a lot of people—

I don't think people do this, but people don't list their house without a real estate agent mainly.

Well, there's for sale by owners and things like that. I haven't necessarily ever had to work with them like that.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, there's people that list their own houses. I think they find out it's harder than you— it's harder once you get into it. But there's those people. I— and honestly, if they want to list their house themselves, that goes back to the people that think they're smarter than you. And I'm like, yeah, about it.

I've been doing this for 20 years. I know what I'm doing. How would you say COVID affected, I guess, the market as a whole? Would you say those couple of years, it was 2 years here, maybe 3, 1 year there. How would you say those time, like that time was impacting the market and still impacting?

It made insanity. Lowering those interest rates as low as they did jacked the prices up so dramatically. Um, people were out— I mean, they were buying junk and overpaying for it. Um, it was insane. Now things have turned and it's— and it isn't that way anymore. And that's why I said the interest rates now went up high and you have all these high prices from what happened during COVID And it can't sustain itself because of affordability. So now the prices have to start coming down to have affordability until interest rates come down. And interest rates are never going to be what they were in 2020 and '21. If they could even just get in the 5s, that would be a great interest rate. But people that think they're going to go back to 3s, they're not. That's not happening in my lifetime anyway.

You worked during 2008, I'm guessing.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

That's the most work I ever did for the least amount of money I ever made.

Yeah. How would you say that was comparative to COVID or you would say, um, that's just crazy.

So different. Yeah. So the problem during COVID is we didn't have that much inventory anyway. And then we had all these people wanting to move out of cities and get farther away. In '08 and '09, we already had a balanced market and a balanced market for Colorado is like around 20,000 homes on the market. We were already there. And then the financial crisis happened and all these people that had no money down and zero, you know, money down on homes couldn't make their payments. And so then the market got inundated with short sales and foreclosures. So now we have way too many homes on the market and not enough people that can even afford to buy a home. So the prices fell very sharply. It was a lot of short sales, lots of foreclosures. It was very rough. Wow. I mean, we didn't really start to come out of it until starting in 2013.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's at least in the whole US, there's more houses on the market now than I think in any other time. It might be like there's one other period, but there's a lot of houses. I think 1.4 million.

How would you say that affects the United States? I would say in Colorado, we're not the highest amount we've ever had. On the market, but we're way higher than— like, during COVID there's— there'd be times where we only had maybe 2,000 properties on the market. And so that's why there was so much, you know, overpaying and everything else. Um, and those numbers have just consistently rose this year as far as, um, number of properties on the market.

Makes sense. Were there any beliefs that you had initially when you started your career that you think that you don't have anymore? Like something—

yeah, I was gonna have, uh, flexible time. Yeah, most people are like, I'm gonna go into real estate so that I can decide my hours. Well, if you're good at it, you work a lot. So I work weekends, I take calls in the evening. You can set boundaries, and you know, if the nice thing of it is if I wanted to, you know, plan a trip or I wanted to go visit one of my kids I can because most of the time I, you know, I can work from anywhere unless I'm showing a buyer. Um, but it's definitely not a thing where you feel like you have all this free time and you, you know, your clients want you to pick up the phone and answer. Yeah, it's like being a lawyer, but, uh, not like, um, well, no, it's, it's not that good because if I could bill hourly for everybody that called me and spent time with me, I'd be retired. Unfortunately, we can't charge hourly, but yeah, you're, I mean, you're just kind of always on.

Do you tend to work, I guess you say you primarily try to do as a listing agent. Do you tend to work on both sides, like helping people, I don't know, source and no, no, never, not usually.

Honestly, it's a huge liability to be on both sides of a transaction, especially like, let's say I have a relationship with the sellers. Like they bought from me before. I, you know, I know them from somehow. And then this buyer comes in the picture and I don't know them from Adam. If something went wrong, they could easily say I was biased towards the seller or whatever. And I just try to keep myself out of any of that.

So you're trying to— yeah, that makes sense. It's a lot of headache, I'm guessing.

Yeah. Like, I'd probably just refer it to another— the buyer to another agent in my office. Yeah.

It's not worth the extra commission.

It's not worth the liability.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the biggest constraint is right now in your business? Would you say it's like time, focus, um, in my business? Yeah. Would you say, or it's just kind of like, you know, scaling, you know, he's just— it's just time?

Yeah, I think for me it's always— yeah, just, you know, I'm at the end of the year and you evaluate, okay, here's where I've gone, where do I want to go, what's going to get me there, what changes do I need to make to get there. Um, and some people don't want to do that. I, I happen to do that. I'm not just comfortable at where I've been. I'm always wanting to go to the next level.

Makes sense. I guess that's why you got to where you are today.

Yeah.

Yeah. Are you big at like reassessing, like looking back every couple months, every quarter maybe, and saying like, what did I do well this quarter and what do I want to keep doing and what did I do like wrong? Like, oh, I should have done more of this.

No, I'm not good at that every quarter, but at the end of every year I am.

Yeah.

I should actually, and that's actually one of my goals this year is to actually reevaluate each quarter, like what's working, what's not working. Sometimes you just get so, you know, busy keeping everything afloat that, you know, you're not sitting back and analyzing it. But I need to make more time for that. Yeah.

Do you think a lot of agents do that? I'm doubting.

No, no, no. I don't even think the majority of agents actually do business planning.

Really? You think it's just—

yeah.

How do you— how— like, let's say first day as an agent, would you go to a brokerage. I'm guessing that's probably the best idea, right?

You need to go to a brokerage that has good training. Like, you wouldn't— like, Sotheby's wouldn't be a good place for a new broker to be because they just don't have the training programs to help you. But like Coldwell Banker, maybe Keller Williams, something like that usually has more training.

Yeah.

Um, as a new agent, that's where I'd go.

Have you ever— I've seen like movie stars become real estate agents just because they can just sell houses to friends. I don't know.

Oh, I've had people like that too.

Yeah. Would you say that's—

They don't usually know what they're doing because they're not in the business on a daily basis.

That makes sense.

But I've seen it.

Yeah. What do you think most agents, I guess not most agents, but have you seen some agents do something extra that just like, it seems pointless to you? Is there anything that you can point out like, you don't need to be doing all of that, or you don't need to, or maybe you do need to be doing, all of that?

Well, usually what I find is that most brokers avoid the thing that you should be doing, like making phone calls to your past clients or putting yourself out there to meet new people or whatever. And they do busy work and they think they're working, but it's not the right kind of work.

Yeah, it's just like, like turning a paper.

It's just, it's making you feel better because you feel like you're accomplishing something. But in the end, if you're not, if you have no clients that you're buying or selling real estate with you really haven't achieved anything.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I see a lot of focus on what moves the ball, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Would you say you got— that's something you learned? Are you something you've always been good at? Or do you think you did? No, I had to learn. Yeah, makes sense. If a young agent listened to this episode, what do you think is one thing that they should implement this week? Do you think I'm guessing you're going to say like, you know, not doing busy work and actually doing stuff that, you know, moves the ball.

Well, meet somebody. Or, you know, like I find as a new agent, educating yourself is great too. Like take, if you don't have really anything else to do, take some time to go learn the MLS searches better. Or, you know, some, like at the beginning I got my GRI, I got my ABR and my CRS, like I went and got certifications and things like that, and that helped teach me more about the business and things like that too. But it also looks good on my resume too because I have them.

Have you ever thought about going solo as a solo agent, or you don't think it's like without Sotheby's? Yeah, or not. I don't know. No, definitely not.

No.

Um, you've never—

I have no desire. I just want to just deal with my clients. I don't want all the other stuff.

Yeah, that wouldn't What are the benefits of going with a brokerage versus going with, like, you know, by yourself?

Well, by yourself, that means that you are your own broker, and that means that comes with a lot of other responsibilities. It's like, like I'm running a business for, you know, me and my clients, even though I'm with Sotheby's. Like, I still have my own bookkeeper, I do all my taxes and everything like that, but I only have to pay attention to me and what I'm doing. But, you know, if I were to go out and start my own Patty Maurer Homes company and brought on anybody, then they, they're under me and I'm responsible for them now. I also would have to figure out how am I going to be syndicated on MLS. There's a lot of things that a big company like Sotheby's can provide for agents that an individual could never provide for themselves. They couldn't afford it.

That makes sense. Makes sense. Got it. Um, what do you think is one question that I didn't ask that you think is vital? That I should have? If you— maybe a better way to phrase it, if you were watching this episode, what is the question that you were like, you know, I want it, I want that question. Like, you know, I don't know. Yeah.

I'm not really sure because you did cover a lot.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the best advice I could give somebody young is show up, make sure you're prepared, because being on time and being prepared, people want and expect. Of course. Sometimes some of these agents take it too lackadaisical and then you just lose the respect.

You think one difference between someone who succeeds in real estate and someone who doesn't is that they're just like eye on the ball and they're focused and they're— that's what you think, or something else?

Yeah, I mean, another thing, and I wish I was better at this, I'm very ADD, so if you can track your numbers too, that really helps. Like knowing, okay, I went on 3 listing appointments, I got one of them, or—

and then seeing your progress and saying, oh, right.

Yes, I think that's super helpful. I'm so ADD that like I'll write it down in one notebook and then I don't know where I wrote it down. Um, but I think, you know, tracking your numbers is super helpful.

Yeah, I'm sure there's like some— there's definitely a software for that, or I feel like—

I'm sure there is. Yeah, remember how I told you I'm 56?

Yeah, yeah, that might be a bit hard.

Um, I like other people to do software.

Yeah, you're like, you— yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, that's— I'll have my assistant do it or whatever. I don't want any part of it.

Yeah. How you focus initially on, I guess, getting referral clients, right? That's a big part of your business. And would you say that you have too much deal flow right now or you don't have enough? And if you were—

No, this is the standard for the end of the year. Like there's, in my opinion, like I'm a workaholic.

But yeah.

What?

Like overall throughout the year, I guess in general.

Oh, I mean, it goes in spurts. Like at the beginning of the year, like I literally in one week took 10 listings and I was like, I don't know if I'm coming or going. Like, it just was bonkers. And then there's other times where it's like, you're— now you've got the listings up and going or whatever, now you're, you know, coordinating contracts on them, or— and it's not quite as crazy.

But then, you're—

like I said, everything's different. Like, this time of year, it's just quieter. So I try and take this time to, you know, I usually will travel a little bit more this time of year, and I'll— and I take the time to do my business planning and then evaluate what What processes did I use that worked and what didn't, and get rid of those and bring on new things.

If you're a home— if you're selling your home in Colorado, and you— what are the 5 things that you should look for in an agent?

Uh, experience, market knowledge, um, the ability to literally think outside the box. Like, every home isn't just a home. Every home has a story, and you need to figure out who you're telling that story to so that you're getting the right buyer into it. And then they need to be able to problem solve. They need to be able to know how to get— because getting a listing under contract, everybody thinks is the hardest part. It's not always the hardest part. Sometimes the hardest part is holding the transaction together, whether it's because of an appraisal problem or an inspection problem, you know, something like that. So you need somebody that's educated and capable of handling those types of issues when they come up.

What do you think most agents neglect when—

waiting—

selling a house or buying?

They're very bad communicators.

Very bad communicators.

So a lot of agents, the number one complaint I think with NAR, that's National Association of Realtors, that sellers say is their agents list their house and then they never hear from them unless there's a contract or something. It's shocking, but it's true. And it's— if you can imagine being the seller, it's a very anxious time. They want to hear from you even if you don't have an update. It's like, hey, we haven't had any showings this week, here's what I've done, we're working on it, you know, whatever. But they want to be—

you know, they want to see momentum, right?

Yeah. And they don't want to just feel like they're at the back of the pack and, you know, you got the listing so now it's not important.

How do you balance that 'Cause you said you want to try to keep the client as out of picture as possible and only fill them in on stuff that they need, but you also want to also give them enough communication.

Well, that's more problems.

Go ahead.

That's more problems. I usually have a weekly call with my sellers that updates and we had these showings, here's the feedback we got. We did this marketing piece or whatever. And some people want that in an email, some people want it in a phone call. Whatever they decide is their choice, but at least it's an update.

Yeah, it's better than just, you know, nothing, right? Or anything. Do you tend to try to go for open houses or, you know, ask around in the neighborhood?

Um, I don't like open houses. Yeah, when you're a new broker, you're going to need to do open houses. I don't know if I told you, I might have told somebody else, my first deal I did in real estate was from an open house. I think it closed for $1.2 million, and that was literally my first buyer ever, and I got him from an open house.

That's amazing.

Which is funny that I don't really like them, but I'm very ADD, so sitting in a house, that's—

yeah, yeah. I guess that's, uh, it's also, it's hard to get people to come to the open houses. I think depends on how—

in suburbia, yeah. Central Denver, like urban areas, get a lot more traffic at open houses than suburbia.

What do you think the difference between selling your house in like central Denver— like, let's say a person wants to move from central Denver to, you know, you know, Boulder or something like that. What do you think?

That's like doing the same move.

Yeah, I guess so.

They're the same people. Uh, like Denver, Denver and Boulder is just two different locations, but it's basically— except for Boulder is even more expensive than Denver.

That's true.

All right, so I— but it'd be more like if somebody— the difference would be if somebody moved from central Denver to suburbia like Littleton or Lakewood or Greenwood Village. That's a diff— like a completely different vibe.

Yeah. So do you have any tips for people who are, let's say, they're sick of the, you know, so much noise, something like that, um, and they want to move to Littleton or one of these small towns outside of Denver so that they can still commute into school or work or whatever, but they still have like, um, yeah, yeah, they just need to, you know, explore.

I, at first I'd say get a knowledgeable, you know, buyer's agent, um, because they can help kind of guide you into the right neighborhoods at what price points you're looking for, etc. But I always tell my clients, even after I've shown them property, if there's an area they like, I'm like, come back here on the weekends, go for a walk, drive through it, you know. I always tell my clients, I'm like, what kind of cars are parked around. Like, is, is there a beater car and it never moves? You know, like that kind of stuff affects, you know, property values and things like that. So I just tell my clients, you know, or if a neighbor's out, go talk to them. Most of them are happy to talk and they'll tell you things you want to hear and maybe stuff that you need to hear.

You've, you've gone to door, like door-to-door, I guess not door-to-door, but maybe door-to-door, um, saying like, what's the deal in this neighborhood?

No, it's usually somebody will be out in their yard or something and I'll just be like, hey, I just showed the house next door. What do you think? Sometimes I'll just say, hey, why are they selling? Because the neighbors know everything. Or I'll say, how long have you lived in the neighborhood? And some people will be like, oh my God, I've lived here 20 years. And you're like, oh, what do you love about it then? And you just start a conversation.

Yeah. And if the seller or the buyer likes it, then that's a good sign.

Yeah. It helps them kind of get a better feel than what just what I'm saying to them. People that are actually living in the community sharing their information is good.

I'm guessing it helps also, like, if you're selling, um, a house. I mean, I guess helping someone buy a house in a place that you already know a lot. Like, do you think you get a competitive advantage because, you know, you know, you know Littleton like the back of your hand, um, because you've sold, you know, bought so many houses or sold something?

Well, and I've lived here, you know, my whole adult life, so Yeah.

How would you say Colorado real estate market has changed over the past, I guess, two decades?

Colorado used to be affordable. So I've done a lot of relocation clients— that's people that are moving here for jobs— and it used to be really easy for companies to get people to relocate to Colorado because the quality of life is great. They love, you know, the four seasons, they like the skiing, the weather, everything like that.

It's amazing.

But it was actually affordable. And now we're one— I think we're the most expensive not on water state in the United States. So that, you know, it's just the growth here. There's amazing growth. The number of people are here. Um, it's just changed so much. I mean, I think about places where there was open land when I was a kid that is just city. So it's Yeah, so spread out now.

I mean, I guess when it's sunny, I think the most sunny days in the world, right, in Colorado, like at least Denver area, right?

We have over 300 days of sun, you know, every year. And it's great because even though it snows here, the sun comes out, it melts it, and you're like, oh, you can ski with your—

like, you don't even need a jacket, just—

right, you can ski. Yeah, it's amazing. There's times you do need one, but, but yeah, there's definitely times where it's— the sun's out and it's beautiful.

Of course, of course. That's basically it. I mean, thank you so much for coming on.

Um, you're so welcome. I'm impressed with a 15-year-old doing this.

Yeah.

Uh, if you need something or have questions, feel free to always reach out.

Thank you so much. Thanks. Take care.

Okay, take care. Bye-bye.