Welcome to our monthly feature, Close-ing Time – in partnership with TheClose.com.
In this episode Chris Linsell from TheClose.com talks about the impact of the election for the real estate industry. According to Chris president-elect Biden will introduce new legislation since democratic policy around housing are more rooted in the idea of assistance. This may provide a cash-infusion into the real estate market. Next, Chris focuses on a few election promises of the president-elect regarding the real estate business and analyses the impact it will have in the market when/if they are implemented.
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Chris Linsell can be reached at chris@theclose.com.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Right Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide. And host through the show and today is our monthly series called closing time with Chris Lynn Zell from the clothes.com. This is a partnership between keeping it real and the clothes.com. And let me tell you about the clothes. Now the clothes.com is a kind of real estate website designed to give agents teams and brokerages actionable strategic insight from industry professionals, they cover real estate marketing, lead generation technology and team building strategies. From the perspective of working agents and brokers who want to take their business to the next level, please visit the closed.com That’s th e c l o s e.com And subscribe to their newsletters so you can get notified every time they publish an article and with us as always is crystallin Sal, he is a staff writer and real estate coach for the close. Chris is the closes resident expert on real estate topics ranging from marketing, lead generation transactional best practices, and everything in between. He’s a licensed agent in the state of Michigan. Chris has been part of hundreds of transactions from modest rural starter homes to massive waterside compounds. When he isn’t writing, you’ll find Chris fly fishing or performing on the stage of his community theaters production. Although probably virtual productions at the moment, hopefully, soon, you’ll be back on the fit the physical stage. But Well, Chris, welcome once again to keeping it real. We’re excited to have you,
Chris Linsell 2:19
TJ thanks for having me. Really great to be back. Good, good to see it feel like it’s been a feel like it’s been a wild time. We’re in some sort of weird time warp. So I can’t tell if it’s been a month or a year since we’ve talked to each other. Good to be
D.J. Paris 2:32
by? Yeah, I agree. It’s so for people who are listening. There’s a lot of people that are watching live right now. So we know if you are watching live, it’s November 10. But for those of you listening, it might be a week or so later. So as of today, obviously some some big news in the last week or so around the presidential election. President President Elect Biden is is purported to be the winner, although there will be some questioning of that process over the next several months by our current President Trump, who is exploring some legal options to make sure those votes are are valid. And obviously Michigan was was one of the one of those states that was in play during the election. So very exciting time. So what was it like in Michigan during the election?
Chris Linsell 3:22
Well, exciting is an interesting word to choose for it honestly, you know, all things considered. It was it was fine. It I got up and voted on election day, I was in line at my polling station, 15 minutes before the polls opened, I was 17th in line and the whole process went pretty smooth. And I would say just in general, in Michigan, the process was was relatively smooth, I can only speak from my own experience and those, you know, that I’m connected to, but generally speaking, things were okay. But you know, I want to I want to point out that, you know, I probably had a little bit of a different, you know, kind of frame of reference when it comes to this election than many of the people around me because, you know, like you I’m thinking about this in terms of how it’s going to not only affect our country, but it’s how it’s going to affect our business, how it’s going to affect our real estate, the real estate market and the real estate industry in general. So really, really interested to see, you know, how things shook out on election day, and very curious to see how things are gonna work moving forward
D.J. Paris 4:32
here. I was really interested in seeing how the market would react on Monday of this week. So on the ninth, I have a closing of my own coming up and I needed to move some cash out of the market to to for a down payment when when it closes and it was a sizable amount of money and I was really nervous because I wasn’t of course sure what the outcome of the election would be. And I wasn’t sure how the market would react to either candidate winning or losing. And so I talked to my father who really knows the market much better than I do and, and I said, I better get out a week or so ahead of time just in case the world collapses. And it turns out yesterday, and I haven’t looked at the market today, but yesterday, the market was up significant, significantly, more than than what was expected. But it was also on the heels of the Pfizer announcement that they have a possible vaccination that is, as of right now is showing about a 90% effectiveness. And that may go down over time as they do more trials. But very exciting news. So so far, the market seems and I don’t know if that was the response was more to the presidential election or the Coronavirus vaccine announcement. But the market has responded quite favorably so far to what they believe is going to be a Biden President presidency.
Chris Linsell 5:53
Yeah, you know, I saw this, I saw the same things. Full disclosure, I am invested in in a couple of different places. And certainly not giving any kind of investment advice here, just commentary. But yeah, I saw the same thing. markets, markets bounced close to 5%. At one point up, which is, which is great. tech stocks certainly saw some decline. You know, and again, who knows exactly what the motivations behind that are. But you know, I always I’m always cognizant of what the real estate market is doing in connection to the stock market, because the two things do have some connections, depending on the angle at which you are viewing these things, you know, how they’re how they’re oriented with one another. In, you know, President Elect Biden is going to bring to the table some some new ideas and some new policy initiatives, at least that’s what his campaign has promised. That really could shape an interesting part, not just of our economy at large, but of the real estate industry. And I’m for one, I’m very curious to see if this was, you know, they say that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. I’m I’m one very, I’m very curious to see if some of the campaign poetry actually becomes reality, especially when it comes to real estate.
D.J. Paris 7:18
Yeah, well, they’re definitely President Elect Biden, assuming he is he’s sworn in, I’m assuming all everything looks, looks go there. Unless some massive widespread fraud is on earth in the next few months, which I suspect likely is unlikely, of course, to happen. But but who knows. But assuming he is sworn in, in January, you know, he does have some uphill battles with respect to, you know, the Senate and the House. So won’t be an easy ride for him to get some of that poetry into prose.
Chris Linsell 7:51
Well, let’s, let’s dig into a little bit of poetry. What do you say you want to talk about some of that? I would love to Yeah, okay. Great. So so, you know, just for stir, first start off by saying, I’m not going to in this conversation, I’m going to do my absolute best to not engender any kind of political preference here. That’s not really what this conversation is about, I certainly am going to go on record as saying, I have political leanings and things that I believe, and you’re welcome to check out my personal social media, if that is of interest to you. But this conversation is more about our industry and trying to understand how policies and potential policies affect real estate and the business of real estate. So let’s assume that elect President Elect Biden is going to move into the White House in January. Biden’s you know, his policies around housing are much more. You know, I struggle with using the word subsidiary or substant, because it’s not that all of Biden’s policies just want to provide subsidy. But a lot of his policies are based on this idea of assistance. And that is a significant kind of one ad compared to the Trump administration’s policies that were much more about deregulation. And this is a pretty classic conservative and liberal battle here. You know, conservatives, again, not speaking for everybody and not speaking in any kind of, you know, in all situations, but often conservatives are branded as the as the group that think that people should have the right to make their own individual decisions with their own individual money or decisions. And and the more liberal party believes the government has a role to play in providing programs or assistance to allow people the opportunity to have You know, potential decisions that they wouldn’t have otherwise. And Biden’s housing policy is no exceptions to this, the kind of the flagship policy that Biden has talked about, and one that I believe that in one way or another we’re going to see in the early days of his presidency, is this $640 billion housing initiative designed to make homeownership more affordable for more Americans. And so $640 billion is a lot of money, and it can do a lot of things.
D.J. Paris 10:35
Yeah, I’m curious on what, what that $640 What type of programs would be would be implemented as a result to make it easier for others to become homeowners?
Chris Linsell 10:47
Well, he’s named a couple of highlights here, the first thing he’s named is a first time homebuyer downpayment tax credit, of up to $15,000, of course, there’s going to be some eligibility requirements on this. And, you know, for those of us who are working in the industry, we know $15,000, it only goes so far, especially if you are in a really competitive market, you know, if you want to put 20% down on a home $150,000 Home that 20% is 30 grand, so you still gotta come up with $15,000 on your own, even if you qualify for the for the maximum here. So, you know, there’s a lot of people that are saying, you know, is this even enough on the progressive side of things, but let’s just assume for a minute that it is enough, and it will make a difference for a lot of a lot of potential homebuyers. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that it’s not just first time homebuyers who would potentially qualify for this, there are people in Biden’s camp who have also floated the idea that teachers, first responders, public and government service workers would also be eligible for this downpayment tax credit. And in those cases, those folks wouldn’t necessarily have to be first time homebuyers. And that could be very significant for us.
D.J. Paris 12:05
So he would basically his administration would identify groups of people that he believes could use some additional assistance, maybe they’re more service focused to the public. And they would say, hey, as a as a thank you to some of the service you do for us as a society as a for our country. You we can even use this outside of a first time home purchase, this could be applicable to a second, third fourth type of transaction.
Chris Linsell 12:34
That’s correct. Yeah. And so again, you know, all of these things are in the campaign promise phase. So you know, certainly don’t scratch any of this stuff down in stone, attack it to your wall yet, but the way that it has been talked about is kind of a double edged sword, the first edge is to provide some infusion of cash, specifically into the real estate market, which has a tendency to find its way to end users, that’s the sellers of the homes pocket. For the most part, of course, there are going to be some bumps along the road there, you know, you gotta, you’re gonna have to pay a commission on your transaction, you’re gonna have to pay title insurance, you’re gonna have to, you’ll pay insurance, or you’ll pay maybe insurance on your mortgage, or an interest on your mortgage. But generally speaking, when you put your down payment down, a big chunk of that is going to make its way into the sellers pocket. And so that sort of down payment tax credit, is a great defacto economic stimulus because it intends to infuse a large chunk of that cash straight into the economy and not just into the pockets of, you know, the dozen biggest businesses in the United States. So that’s, that’s kind of the double the double side of it, you’re providing assistance to people, while at the same time you’re providing some lift for the general economy. And you know, actually now that I really think about there’s there’s kind of a third edge to which is an incentive to draw people towards those service related jobs to toward a teacher towards being a first responder towards being a service worker. And, you know, I don’t have the hard numbers in front of me, but I was just reading this morning, that all of those those major job fields listed here are all taking hits right now. Because quite frankly, people don’t want to put themselves in the in the line of of harm, so to speak, when it comes to COVID. And so some other incentive to kind of continue the flow of people into those sorts of industries, I think is another benefit there.
D.J. Paris 14:39
And I’m going to pause for a second and for all of our listeners or viewers to sort of have an understanding about what you can do as an agent with this information. The reason why we’re providing this is so that you can take this information out into the field and speak to your sphere of influence, speak to your contacts, your previous customers, your future customers. And Chris gave a lot of wonderful disclaimers at the beginning before launching into some of this this information, which is to say that we, of course, don’t know what’s actually going to make it into into effect. Come come January or throughout that presidency. However, this is great information that 99% I’m just making that number up, of course, but the vast majority of your clients aren’t going to be aware of, unless, of course, they’re part of this industry. So hopefully, you can take some of these data points, and begin to have these conversations with those appropriate disclaimers. saying, here’s what we’re hearing out in the field. So hopefully, this is really helpful, because it gives you a reason to pick up the phone and start talking to your renters, people that you know that that are thinking of moving maybe people in the service industry, or just to be seen as a as more of a knowledge expert in our field. So anyway, I’m sorry, Chris didn’t mean to stop the flow there. But I wanted to let everyone know, this is great stuff, please take notes.
Chris Linsell 16:03
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, actually, on that note, you kind of took the next out sentence right out of my mouth, you want to kind of thinking about this as a real estate professional. This provides you with an opportunity, this conversation happening right now, in the beginning. I mean, we’re in the beginning of November. But whenever you’re listening to this, this gives you an opportunity here, because let’s think about what the next eight to 10 weeks is going to look like for most of us, most of us, our business is going to slow down a little bit. That’s the typical kind of mid November to the end of December, slow down, as our clients are spending more time, you know, doing holiday related things, we’re probably spending a little bit less time, you know, face to face or on the phone with people. And we have an opportunity to be thinking about what our strategy is going to be when we hit the ground running in the beginning of January 2021. And if you have got a prospecting strategy, specifically, if you’re reaching out to first time homebuyers, you should be internalizing this first, this first Biden potential policy and saying to yourself, how can I use this information to leverage my conversations with potential buyers, because ultimately, there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to be thinking to themselves, Boyd 2021 comes around, this is going to be my year for prospecting, I’m going to do all sorts of outreach, you are not the only person that has thought of this. So you have to be thoughtful about creating competitive advantage. And if you can use if you can leverage these programs that are available to everyone, but make yourself appear to be the exclusive knowledge point for having these discussions and conversations in your local community. You can really capitalize on this opportunity as a buyer’s agent.
D.J. Paris 17:56
And I’ll also tag on to that conversation you can have this is probably a setting yourself up for a much longer term transaction but with sellers say, here’s some pro programs that are possibly coming down the pipe for buyers, Mr. or Mrs. homeowner. And if you’re thinking about selling there are going to be likely if some of these policies go into into effect, more buyers on the market with a little bit more purchasing power. And assuming if we assume that rates will not spike up in the near future. You know, if you’re thinking about selling in the next several years, here’s some things that are there, you know, incentivizing buyers, potentially incentivizing buyers with to so it might even help get the sellers in line for thinking about moving.
Chris Linsell 18:45
Yeah, that’s a great point DJ. And in fact, they actually kind of reminds me of another thing I wanted to mention, which is another another kind of bullet point in the Biden plan. And this is one I feel very confident we’re going to see is an extension on the moratorium for evictions nationwide. And here’s why this is important to us. This is important because it does two things. First, it creates some delay in what could be a cascade of housing problems that will affect the market in significant ways we can get into that another another time, another time. But the second thing it does is it provides a little bit of heart palpitations in the wrong direction. If you are the owner of of rental properties. Sure fact, you know, as I am not the personal the sole owner of any rental properties, but invested in one way or the other in a couple of Airbnbs that that we typically use as long term rentals during the non vacation season. And this eviction moratorium is great for the people who can’t pay the rent but for those of us We’re trying to pay a mortgage. Yeah, we need, we need that rent. And so this is a chance for you as a real estate agent, to start doing some soft outreach to people who own rental properties and say, look, the market, your specific corner of it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better in the next three months. Yeah, but the the, if you have tenants who are not paying the rent, now, they don’t have any incentive to pay rent, I mean, of course, we want them to pay rent, but if they don’t have a job, they can’t do it, you can’t you have no recourse against them, here is what’s going to happen over the next few months, this is a time for you, as a real estate professional to reach out to those folks to create a relationship, provide them with some options and say, Look, if you see at the end of the road here three months from now, that you are going to be in trouble on your mortgage, we should start talking about selling this property now so that you don’t find yourself in that Jeopardy. And, you know, for better or worse, there’s always some uncertainty about what Donald Trump is going to decide or not decide to do. Biden has not exhibited those same properties. He has said very explicitly that this is an important part of our national recovery. And so I think you can pretty much take it to the bank that this eviction moratorium is going to be extended. And so right now is the time, you should start having these conversations with rental property owners, because they may not have recourse and may find themselves in very sticky financial situations, three or four or five months down the road, they can avoid those now. And you can be the best agent in your community by providing it with them with some options.
D.J. Paris 21:44
And if you’re listening thinking, well, will there be assistance to the mortgage owner or the mortgage? The lender, sorry, the owner of who has to pay their mortgage? You know, we probably aren’t the best podcast for that information. But there are lots and lots of podcasts out there for investment focused podcasts that talk about this nonstop right now. So I you know, definitely look out there to see what programs might be coming to assist the home owner or the investor as well, because I’m sure there is that has been discussed at length on other shows.
Chris Linsell 22:19
Yeah, absolutely. If you’re if you’re not familiar with those, definitely check out the bigger pockets podcast. Oh, yes, those guys do a lot of great stuff when it comes to investment conversations. Yeah, we don’t have I’m not keyed in specifically to that end of things. But I can tell you, you know, markets respond to, to scarcity and to inventory. And when the when we have no real impetus to push people out for non payment, it’s harder to to find that recourse. And so, you know, we just want to make sure, as real estate professionals, we’re providing this, you know, at first, it’s not just service, it’s just knowledge, we’re trying to provide members of our community with the knowledge they need to be able to make good decisions.
D.J. Paris 23:04
Yeah, and just as Chris mentioned, and I’m so glad I had blanked on on bigger pockets. So that is that would be my choice as well. Amazing website for anyone who’s interested in learning about investments as an as an agent, or even just as a consumer. There’s probably no greater resource online, then bigger pockets.com. So yeah, bigger pockets. Great, great suggestion there, because let’s talk about discrimination.
Chris Linsell 23:28
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, racial discrimination in America. It’s a very big topic. And one, though, DJ, though our conversations are quite enlightening. I don’t think we’re going to solve this one in the next 22 minutes here. So hopefully not. So luckily, there are other people that are thinking about this. So Biden has made it one of his marquee issues, racial discrimination in America, that certainly extends into housing. You know, for those of you who aren’t totally read in, I don’t know how you couldn’t be at this point. But, you know, Vice President Elect Harris, former Attorney General of California, also a woman of color, very connected to these sorts of issues. And Biden has made it very clear, there’s been a couple of specific press releases. He actually talked about it in a town hall. It’s all over his website that he has, has pledged to close the racial housing gap. And the to not, you know, this is again, this is a very dense and sophisticated topic. But the long and the short of it here is that homeownership rates, mortgage approval rates and general wealth status in America. There is an extraordinary gap between white Americans and Americans of color, specifically black Americans. And this is amplified in the housing community. Because four seven did something like 78 79% of Americans Your largest source of wealth is the equity in your home. And when less than it’s something like a fifth of black Americans own homes compared to two white Americans, it’s pretty clear that there is, you know, there’s a gap here. And that gap extends into the practice of getting a home as well. So there have been a number of bullet points that have been kind of proposed as a part of this fight. One of them is a proposed national standard for home appraisal, so that homes in neighborhoods that are primarily populated by people of color, aren’t ranked or valued lower just by, you know, deference of, of the population that lived there. There have proposed public credit agencies designed to be more accessible to Americans who have been systematically disadvantaged by the current systems, some proposed reinstatement of Trump’s rollbacks of housing discrimination studies and monitoring. There’s a lot that goes into this here. What is what real estate agents should take away from this? What they should what they should scratch on their sticky note and make an action item for themselves? is two things. The first is these conversations, especially if you live in a major metro area are going to be happening amongst everyone. Because something like a national appraisal standard is going to by definition, lower the appraised value of some people’s property, you this is just a problem. This is the same not everyone’s going to win. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. The market as a whole is going to see itself rise. But there are going to be properties, neighborhoods, even some communities that a system like that would at least temporarily not benefit. Sure. And so in that regard, in that regard, you know, I again, try not to be political here. Personally, I think a national appraisal standard, the sentiment is correct. But the execution on it is theoretical. And so when I actually get it into communities, I’m not totally sure it would serve the purpose that that those who are proposing it would think it would. So here’s what real estate agents should be doing about this. We have a Believe it or not our own political advocacy group, our PAC, which is the real estate, realtors political action. They are an extremely influential group. I would bet just about everyone. If you are if you belong to an MLS, I bet you our PAC has reached out and has designated a representative for your MLS, make your make your thoughts known about this, reach out to our PAC talk, talk to them about what’s important to you and your community. You have a voice in determining how this legislation if it becomes legislation is enacted. The second law,
D.J. Paris 28:10
so yeah, also say sorry to interrupt personnel for everyone who is a member of a local association. As Chris was mentioning, if you’re part of an MLS, you’re likely part of what what at least here in Chicago, we call local association, you know, different areas may call it different. But wherever you’re paying your MLS dues to, as Chris said, you likely have an arkpak representative, but also there’s likely and at least here in Chicago, it’s a voluntary donation to our PAC. And for a lot of agents, they they tend to ignore that but you know, if you’re able to and and your finances allow for it, I would encourage everyone to donate because that pays for these representatives. You know, there’s what 1.6 million Realtors Am I that’s the last number I saw it might be more or less at this point. But but a lot of people’s jobs really are in many ways dependent upon these, these, these these activists that work on your behalf, but they also need funding. So if you’re somebody who normally does not, if it’s an optional donation, and it’s you know, within your budget, I encourage you to throw a few dollars there away because they are working on your behalf. And as Chris was mentioning, you have a voice to influence how they act when they meet with with political members to to try to influence them.
Chris Linsell 29:31
Yeah, yeah. 100% 100% I think it’s also important to, to remember to this is the sort of thing that you don’t have to be a donor like like DJ said, you don’t have to be a donor to reach out to our PAC. Yes, you they are here working for you whether you donate or not. And you know, there certainly is, you know, there’s no price of admission for that email or that phone call. Right. The other thing I think is worth mentioning here. And I say this with all due respect to the men and women who are in the current administration. I am confident that there are people in the current administration whose intentions were good and remain good, and who are genuinely approaching their policy initiatives from a place of deregulation in an attempt to, you know, privatize once again, the decision making process for Americans. That being said, there have been decisions and executive orders that have come out of the Trump administration that have genuinely been had negative effects on housing discrimination, specifically on studying and correcting housing and housing discrimination in America’s especially America’s largest cities. And this is something that we are going to under a Biden administration, I think, see some pretty radical changes around so there’s two things that I want realtors to be cognizant of here. The first one is, you have two choices, when it comes to these changes, you can either be supportive of change, or you can be resistant of change, but the change is going to happen. And so you have a chance to be an advocate for positive change in your community by getting out in front of this issue, talking about it with your, with your clients, with your prospects with your community, and being a voice a voice in the leadership for change. The second thing I want you to keep in mind is, under the Trump administration, quite frankly, there has been a bit of a desert when it comes to studying housing discrimination. Most studies have stopped. Honestly, I tried to write an article about this earlier this year, I could not find reliable recent data from the government because it just didn’t exist. Biden, I expect is going to turn this around. And what this means for real estate agents is, there’s going to be a lot of people looking at this, talking about it thinking about it, especially in major metro areas. So if you work in these areas, it is this is a someone who’s ringing the bell here, you have to make sure that all of your I’s and lowercase j’s are dotted, my friends, all of your T’s are crossed, because there are going to be people who are looking at these issues very closely. And even if it is unintentional, even if it is built into the backlog systems of your brokerage for many years ago, it is now time to reevaluate just like we all should be doing on a regular basis. It’s time to reevaluate our own personal business practices to make sure we are 100%. aboveboard, to make sure we are not not doing anything, even unintentionally, that would violate fair housing law, because this issue is going to come into scrutiny very, very soon. And you don’t want to be under the microscope on this.
D.J. Paris 33:02
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I know we’ve covered that topic. In previous conversations. However, it’s worth repeating which what you just did so eloquently, is really for everyone listening and watching to understand that it’s a really good idea to educate, re educate yourself, or, or, you know, add an additional skill to your to your tool belt, which is to say, Where do I have any conscious or unconscious biases? Am I accidentally or intentionally leading a client down a path that may be in violation of some of these, you know, changes to camo or even just existing rules and regulations? So we, you know, whether you have some of these inclinations or not, it’s, it’s worth just, you know, running a gut check, Chris, as you’ve used that term before, and sort of trying to see, okay, where could I where am I, you know, maybe getting into a gray area? And how can I be more in front of some of these changes? Because you’re absolutely right, in a more liberal in a more democratic type of presidency, this idea of, of just let the free market decide is going to be maybe de emphasized. And there’s going to be a stronger emphasis on regulation, which would mean, more possible more scrutiny on real estate agent behavior. And certainly, you know, obviously, our licenses to all of us listening or watching are, are extremely important. Probably the most important part of our business is keeping our license in good standing. So this is a great time to really reevaluate. am I actually doing everything aboveboard, and not to suggest anyone isn’t. But there as Chris said, there may be some unintentional decisions that you’re making or unconscious decisions you’re making that that might be perceived as quite negative or maybe detrimental to your career.
Chris Linsell 34:59
Totally tell Really and you know, I think, DJ, I think it was you that that shared this with me, I can’t remember if it was you or if it was another conversation I had about the phrase in walking distance when it comes to property descriptions, you know, like, I never thought of that phrase as being discriminatory until somebody and I think it was you brought up to me that those who who are in a wheelchair or can’t walk very easily, those who, you know, are clearly covered under the Americans with Disability Disabilities Act, and under the fair housing discrimination rules. These are folks who that phrase is discriminatory against Sure. And, you know, what I have said that I’ve used that phrase in listings. And I, I know without a doubt, that there was absolutely no malice intent here. Sure, but let’s just call a spade a spade. This issue is going to be talked about more. And we live in a society and we are in a current media climate, where there is a lot of sensitivity happening around these particular issues, especially when it comes to race. And it just given the events that have transpired over the last 12 months. And now, given the fact that we have a former Attorney General of the fifth largest economy in the world, in the White House, who is going to be looking at racial injustice very closely. This is something that real estate agents, like you just be silly to not be proactive about it. So as you are thinking about your 2021 plans, be thinking of put this into the calculus, what are you going to do to be proactive about this? What are you going to do to be a leader in your community about it?
D.J. Paris 36:48
Yeah, I think that’s a really great place to wrap up. You know, there’s been so much great information here, I suspect, this will be a very popular episode of ours as I think real estate agents nationwide, are watching and listening to try to understand what are these possible changes that are coming? And and how can I, you know, really start to brace my business and brace for some of these changes, and and not that they’re negative, but just how can I? How can I absorb them now and start to take action. And, and I think this was really, really help. I mean, everyone listening, how great is Chris, this is awesome, awesome stuff. I’m saying that to Chris, because it’s a strange thing to say to somebody, but I’m really saying it to the audience. So I want everybody to shoot Chris a message to let him know how much you appreciate some of this, this information. Because really, you know, that’s the whole intention of the show is to help provide really timely information to agents about how to improve their business, but also to protect their business. And so we just spent a few minutes on protection. So if you’re not up on some of the racial concerns and issues around housing, now’s the time to educate yourself, as as you know, we’re winding down the rest of the year, spend a few minutes and educate yourself, there’s lots of resources online, to make sure that you are acting in a way that will protect your license, but also will protect the benefits of your clients. So make sure that you’re doing that. But Chris, once again, this was just been an amazing, amazing episode, I really appreciate all the work that you put into this show, in partnership with the clothes I want to also before as we’re wrapping it up to also remind everyone, the clothes.com is a free service. It’s it’s basically an online, newspaper, an online blog, of all things that agents want to know about to help grow or protect their business. It’s an amazing resource. They have incredible writers like Chris on staff, and the articles they publish are really substantive. They these are not, you know, five things to do to grow your business which says like reach out to customers. And you know, there’s lots of these lists we find online from from the various sites that maybe aren’t as full of actual steps, but the clothes that really is prides themselves on amazing content. So the clothes.com is where you should be going and reading their articles. And also, they have a premium subscription service as well. The regular content available for everyone but the clothes Pro. Chris, can you just briefly tell our audience about that?
Chris Linsell 39:27
Yeah, clothes pro available. It’s got a free trial two week free trial. After that, 30 bucks a month that $30 gets you exclusive small group coaching once a week. I do a coaching call with my partner Sean Beaudry, who’s been in the business for 25 years. 12 years as a real estate coach in the Keller Williams Hall of Fame. Really, really knowledgeable guy. Every Monday tune in we do we call it the kickoff and kick ass call about getting yourself ready for the week. You also have a huge resource library full of templates, and scripts and downloads that you can use to plug right into your business as well as major access to some significant courses including six simple systems to transform your real estate business, and Sean Marjorie’s brand new course how to survive and thrive in a changing market, things that we’re definitely facing right now. So lots of value there. And ultimately, when you’re close pro member, you get everything that you get on the close, you just get some extra personal attention with it. It’s really great for agents who are looking to take their business to the next level, you know, we we I tell people on a regular basis, the clothes Pro, this isn’t for part timers who are who are, you know, satisfied to kind of flounder at six transactions a year, if you are ready to step up your business, the clothes pros for you.
D.J. Paris 40:51
Yeah, so everyone go to the clothes.com be if you’re not already a diehard reader of their content you should be and they don’t post, you know, 20 articles a week to make it really difficult to follow, they post three to five articles a week at most, and each one is absolutely worth your time. And then please explore the close Pro as well, you already know free, free trial is amazing, you can see how much how much value it provides to you. And then 30 bucks a month is about as inexpensive of an option as I’ve ever seen for this type of service. So give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed. We’re the biggest possible fans of the closed.com here on our podcast. We’re grateful to Chris for coming on every single month taking time out of his own coaching business, his real estate business and his writing for the close to to share some of this knowledge with your with our listeners and viewers. So Chris, thank you. Once again, on behalf of Chris and myself, we also want to thank everyone who’s watching and listening to this episode and remind everyone to help our our podcast grow is please tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit and really this particular episode, I think everyone could benefit. So send this out to everyone in your office. Of course that would help our numbers but it really is going to help every agent in your office as well. This is something we do as a complimentary service to the industry. And we’re hoping that you’re willing to share it. And then last, please follow us on Facebook. Find us@facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod. We not only post every episode we do, but we find an article online. For example, every single close article we post on our website as well, because we’re big fans and honestly there’s there’s not much that we find that’s ever better than what the close writes. But we post articles that we find online every single day designed to help you grow your business. So facebook.com forward slash keeping it real pod and also last visit our podcast, visit our website, keeping it real pod.com. And we have every episode we’ve ever done, you can actually scroll all the way to the bottom if you wanted to and to listen to all of our clothes episodes. We have them broken down into categories, we try to make it easy so you could literally listen to every Chris Lynn sell the clothes.com interview and really, you’ll get a lot of great information there. So Chris, thanks once again and we will see you next week or next month. Sorry.
Chris Linsell 43:09
Looking forward to a DJ can’t wait. Thanks, guys.
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