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Key Factors RealEstateAF
Educational Podcast for Consumers, Mortgage & Real Estate Industry Professionals. We'll Talk About It All! Key Factors podcast, powered by https://ReviewMyMortgage.com . Your Host Mark Jones invites Industry Pros to help uncover & educate on the key factors of various topics. There’s something for everyone so let us be your guides and get educated. Subscribe & Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Facebook, Instagram, & all other podcasting platforms. Host : Mark A Jones Founder of ReviewMyMortgage.comProducing Branch MangerSr. Loan Officer. NMLS ID# 513437NMLS Consumer Access: http://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Key Factors RealEstateAF
ReBuilding a Real Estate Team in 2025 - Zach Castillo | HomeBase Team
What really separates top-producing real estate agents from those who struggle to find consistent success? Zach Castillo, co-founder of The Castillo Group in San Antonio, shares his remarkable journey from physical therapy student to real estate powerhouse, revealing the strategic mindset that's fueled his decade-long success story.
"I subscribe very early that it's all about lead generation," Zach explains, cutting through industry noise with refreshing clarity. His story is particularly compelling because it began almost by accident—from persuading a college professor to pass him so he could pursue real estate to building a team that closed 50 properties worth $10 million in their first year.
The conversation dives deep into what truly drives sustainable growth in real estate. While many chase the latest marketing trends or technology, Zach attributes his success to something far more fundamental: "I'm just going to listen to you and I applied what they said." This willingness to follow proven models rather than reinventing the wheel has been his competitive advantage.
What makes this discussion especially valuable is Zach's transparency about the challenges of team building, including the difficult lessons learned through losing team members and having to rebuild. His "prenup" approach to agent partnerships now ensures clear expectations from day one—wisdom gained through experience rather than theory.
Perhaps most compelling is Zach's evolution from defining himself entirely by his real estate success to finding greater balance and fulfillment: "If I could go back and talk to myself 10 years ago, I would say define who you are first." His practical advice for struggling agents—focus on winning just four days a week by adding one new prospect daily—offers a simple but powerful framework anyone can implement.
Ready to transform your real estate business? Listen now and discover why consistent action, proven systems, and proper tracking create sustainable success in any market condition.
Key Factors Podcast is Powered by ReviewMyMortgage.com
Host: Mark Jones | Sr. Loan Officer | NMLS# 513437
If you would like to work with Mark on your next home purchase or as a partner visit iThink Mortgage.
Yes, like I always say, if you need to cuss, just use it the right way. There you go. Is there anything you don't want me to mention? I'm very transparent, so you can ask me anything. Okay, all right, good deal, I like it. Jc, I'm ready when you are. If you want to count us off, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:Three, two, one. Trying to become a homeowner is so frustrating. I mean, I wish it were easy to find out what options or things I may qualify for there actually is an easier way.
Speaker 3:I'd love to tell you about it there is.
Speaker 2:Uh, hold on, let me call you back. Okay, I'm interested. What's the catch?
Speaker 3:there's no catch. If you have two minutes, I can literally show you. Now it's really catch. There's no catch. If you have two minutes, I can literally show you now.
Speaker 4:It's really easy. Sure, let's go.
Speaker 5:It's going to coach you line by line and have you answer some questions that will identify the best loan products for you, starting with the property address, which is specific to the area, which programs will work for you.
Speaker 6:It's going to guide you through a series of numbers, loan options, and give you everything so you can choose what works best for you.
Speaker 2:Well, I had no idea there were so many options out there. For me it was so easy, it was so quick.
Speaker 3:And you didn't even have to run my credit. I know I told you in less than two minutes. Right, Did I make it?
Speaker 1:You did, let's go All right, let's go and welcome back to another episode of Key Factors Podcast Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance, and I'm your host, mark Jones, and we are powered by ReviewMyMortgagecom, the largest index of mortgage programs in the nation, and on this discussion I invited two guests, but only one of them was able to join us today, so shout out to the other guests that couldn't make it. She'll love to see this when it's all said and done, but what I've been doing lately is asking ChatGPT to tell me a little bit about my guests, and before I intro, I would like to read this to you guys. So we've got.
Speaker 1:Zach and Mariana Castillo are a dynamic duo behind the Castillo Group, one of San Antonio's top real estate teams. Known for their experience, dedication and client-focused approach with years known for their experience, dedication and client-focused approach. With years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors navigate the market, they have built a reputation of delivering exceptional service and results. Whether it's negotiating a deal, guiding a first-time homebuyer or leveraging innovative marketing strategies, zach and Mariana are passionate about helping people achieve their goals of real estate. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce Zach Castillo, zach how are you?
Speaker 7:I'm good, I'm good. I need Chachi BT to gas me up more. Not bad right, that's pretty good, not bad.
Speaker 1:So in this discussion, since we don't have Mariana here, it's all on you, I know.
Speaker 7:Fortunately, it's not the better half, right, that's what I like to say. It's the other half.
Speaker 1:The other half. So, Zach, tell us about yourself. Where did you come from? Where did you guys grow up? All that good stuff?
Speaker 7:Yeah, good questions. I'm originally from San Antonio, okay, or not really, originally my military family.
Speaker 1:Try and talk into that mic, there we go.
Speaker 7:Perfect. My parents are from San Antonio Okay, my dad's military. So I was born in Lubbock, texas, and then, at the age of three, moved to San Antonio. I've been here ever since then, grew up through all my life in San Antonio. Then, when I graduated graduated from Warren High School, okay, went to Texas State. That's where I decided to go and expand my wings, but didn't go too far, sure, and that's where I met Mariana, actually, Y'all met at.
Speaker 7:Texas State. Up the street we met through friends. Okay, I had a fraternity brother who was there, my little brother in the fraternity. He was from San Antonio as well too. He was from San Antonio as well too, and he introduced me to Mariana. Just one night I was drunk and went up to her I was 19 years old and said hey, I'm going to rock your world. Yeah, she looked at me and was like you're disgusting, Get away from me, that's awesome.
Speaker 8:Back then it wasn't really popular sliding to people's DMs, so I slid to her DMs, yes.
Speaker 7:And ever since then. That was 2008. So it's been a long time.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, for me as well, and it's funny because I went off to college. What year did you graduate? College or high school? High school, 07. 07. Okay, I was 04. So I'm just a tad older. But when I graduated it was like okay, I need to get out of here so I can experience some stuff.
Speaker 1:So I went over to Abilene, okay, so not too far away but, still a little ways away, that I had to make the trips to come back and visit and act like I was totally out of the state and whatnot.
Speaker 7:Yes, but not really. You were just down the street. I was down the street, I was 45 minutes away, so it was good enough. I got the college experience.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 7:And I think that's, at the end of the day, what I was very grateful for, because I did not do anything that I went to college for yeah, so are you safe to say what did you graduate with? I did, physical therapy was my main focus, so it's exercise and sports science with a physical therapy emphasis. Literally.
Speaker 4:I tell everyone.
Speaker 7:That's when I found real estate. So I found real estate when I was like 21 years old. I was begging my teacher. I remember specifically PT 3400 as an anatomy class. Wow, I knew I wasn't going to become a physical therapist and I just begged the teacher or professor. I said, please just pass me. I got my real estate license. I'm going to go sell real estate. Yeah, I just need you to give me a 60, which is what.
Speaker 7:I needed to pass so I could walk the stage. I had my family coming in and when I got my grade they got a 60. So I was like, perfect Boom.
Speaker 1:I'm going to real estate At that time, weren't they doing that transition? Physical therapists needed to now have a doctorate degree.
Speaker 7:Yes, so I didn't know that. I wish I would have, they would have told me that. Because then they said it was super hard to get in, super like you got to know all these things, and that one class was like one of the filter classes, that PT 3400. And I knew at that moment that just wasn't what I was passionate about. I did like an internship and it was just not fun. And I also in my head I was like I entrepreneur mindset, I don't like the cap on my income, I want to be able to have limitless opportunities. And I remember asking that person owned that and I said how like, how are you doing? Like, how do you grow this? And he shared kind of the backend and the frustrations of it and then I knew there would be no way I could thrive in that.
Speaker 7:I didn't want to do that at all, so I just did it to just finish off, and it sucks that I didn't get to use my degree, but I did learn a lot. Oh, absolutely Just life experience.
Speaker 1:Well, kristen, my wife. She went to school for almost the same thing, found out you had to have to doctorate. She was doing kinesiology, wanted to be a physical therapist concept, worked at a PT clinic, all that, and then switched over to nursing. So she got her degree in kinesiology, then went over to UT health science to get her BSN for nursing and now she's doing real estate and insurance Interesting. Yeah, right. So yeah, now if you could tell me how I know you found real estate then what was that like? What was your journey in the discovery of real estate? That was a complete accident.
Speaker 7:It wasn't. If you would ask me, like at 19, I would be like are you getting real set? It wasn't even on my radar. I mean, I watched million dollar listing. That's when it was very popular then um, which kind of ages me because that's when it first started. That's fun. But I remember um, we had some friends who went to a and m? Um at college Station and we went to go visit them and we happened to stay at a really cool complex that they were at. It's called Aspen Heights. Okay, eventually they came to San Antonio and I thought there was a cool concept. You could rent a house but you had the amenities of a apartment Right, a pool, gym, all that fun stuff. And Mariana's dad he does developing and building.
Speaker 7:And I said hey, well, what if I pitched this idea to him? What if I say hey, san Marcos is a good place to do it, it's up and coming, it's growing.
Speaker 7:We're not really up and coming, but it was it was in that renovation time where they were trying to become a big school and I said this would be a great opportunity. So we actually found everything. We found a piece of land, we found a real estate agent. We helped design the plans. Funny enough, we pre-leased the whole property, holy cow. So, me and Mariana, we found the property manager. They said well, you know, we'll help us do this. And we went through and we started selling and basically pre-leasing the place because we needed to have investors for that project. Come to find it, the investors pulled out. Um, we had to really home all these people about a couple months before they're supposed to be moving in.
Speaker 7:I was very naive. I thought they could build a whole apartment complex in two months. I don't know why I thought that, but that was a wishful thinking. Yeah, but I, I the property manager and the real estate agent there he was a broker and he said you know, I asked him for a job. I said look, you've already seen what I could do. How about we work together and we do property management? I was doing all the student property, so hired me on as a leasing agent and I got to really learn that business, helped him build it and build systems around it, and that's when I found out I really had a passion around it and then I asked him. I said, hey, well, can I get a raise, because at that time I was going to pay like 28,000 bucks? Sure, yeah, and I was only 21 years old, it was good enough.
Speaker 7:But then we were finally going to graduate, finally get done, and I said I really want to make more money. And he said I can't pay you more in this business, unfortunately. Um, but he showed me his 1099 and said but this is what I did last year in real estate sales. And I was like, oh, 700,000 bucks, that's, that sounds nice, sign me up. And oh, $700,000. That sounds like fun, that's nice, sign me up. And he said if you're willing to do it, I'll pay for your license. He paid for my license Back then. It was very easy. Sure, I literally just click, click, click, went through classes and I got my real estate license like two months.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that. I'm going to add that to the notes, the idea of it back then it was easy.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it was super easy. And then, so that's kind of what started it. And we started in San Marcos. I did apartment locating. Okay, that was a super easy job. I just got to convince people to write my name on an application and I got a hundred percent rent. Um, so I started doing that. But eventually me and Mariana were like, okay, we're not going to stay in San Marcos, we're going to, we want to move back to San Antonio. Sure, so that was in the fall of 2013. And we found he was with Keller Williams. So he recommended us with Keller Williams in San Antonio. And that's when I jumped in and said, ok, let's do full time sales and do it by myself. And so that was August of 2013.
Speaker 1:Holy cow.
Speaker 7:Almost 12 years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. So I guess before you even got your license, you were already working on an actual real estate development project with your father-in-law yeah, or soon to be father-in-law at the time.
Speaker 7:And that's actually what my passion is I love development, I love designing, I love building. I love that part of it, and so it allowed my creative juices to really go in there. And since I created it, I love to sell what I create, of course, so then it was easier to sell at that point. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those conversations are always intriguing. I have a Gilly good friend of mine on here um quite often and he does a lot of development down on the South side of town. Um, doing a good job of it right now and it, uh it always gets a lot of questions from the people out there that are going well, how do I get into that? How do I I mean the first step is money? Uh, for sure that's. That's um so in your growth, from going from leasing agent to real estate agent and was Mariana doing this all alongside you? Not yet.
Speaker 7:So she didn't join until 2014,. 2015 ish time period. So that first couple of months I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't even know what I signed up for. So I signed up for like to train with Keller Williams, Right? Um, I, at that moment in time, um, again 12 years ago, I was the youngest person in the room. I was 24, 20, yeah, 24 years old, Um, and every time I'd go in and everyone was old enough to be my grandparent, to be, completely honest, or my parents and I would get that a lot.
Speaker 7:So I remember I didn't know what I was signing up for and they said you got to call people. I was like, oh, I'm not going to do that. Open house is like, ok, I could do that, right. And then I didn't realize I actually had to lead, generate and create business and leads. So that was kind of a shocker. And so then I basically just trying to teach myself, but I was terrified, um margaret, like if you would have heard me.
Speaker 7:I remember there was one moment and I it's a pivotal moment in my life I started calling expired listings okay and I remember calling this person and I just kept saying, as it was ringing, please don't answer, please don't answer, please don't answer. And then I it's one of those answers, but it's like you've reached the wrong number. I was like dang you, like completely like I thought someone was going to answer, I called to get a voicemail. It was a wrong number, but I had all that anxiety and I realized, dang, this is, this is scary like I don't know what I'm doing, because I didn't know when you won.
Speaker 7:Really, I would say like once I moved to san marcos and came, I didn't really keep in touch with my friends and even if I did, my friends weren't buying homes at 24 years old. So I just didn't know what I was doing. Um, so at that moment I joined a team. I joined, so I did it by myself for about six months and realized it was hard. I sold two property, or three properties. Two of them were pieces of land for my father-in-law to develop. One turned into our house that we built, okay, and then one turned into our house that we built okay. And then was mariana's aunt and I helped her aunt um sell her house, did it, you know, within a month. So it was like a really cool win to have yeah, my first sale.
Speaker 7:Then I had another client and I always remember her, laura haley. I'll never forget her. She made me run around the whole city of san antonio and she never bought a home.
Speaker 7:She's a realtorcom oh man and, um, I just remember I was like man, this is hard. So I decided you know, if you tell me what to do, I'll do it, and I get scared of people a little bit. So like I needed that accountability, it was 24. So I joined a team and I did a buyer, I was a buyer agent and I did pretty well. I mean, I think that first year I closed about 16 deals. Okay, really learned a lot.
Speaker 4:And that was in what year.
Speaker 7:That was 2014.
Speaker 4:Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 7:And then Mariana joined towards the end of that year and she was like, okay, I'm going to. She joined, the team we were on was doing more of the listing side, and eventually we came to a part where like, okay, I think it's time that we do this on our own, and we decided to open up the Casio group, and that was March of 2015. So we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary.
Speaker 1:Congratulations on that Wow.
Speaker 1:That's not an easy feat, Matter of fact, I'm going to be asking some questions later about the process of building your team, because I myself, I got in the business in 2012 and the first year my first full year I was a top producer. I mean it was like, hey, what's he doing over there? I was using top producer. I mean it was like, hey, what's he doing over there? I was using social media and at the time we didn't have assistants. We didn't have that extra that you could have these days. So it was like, well, do I start building a team? What do I do here? Because there was too much business for me to handle at the time for one person, but utilize social media and it grew and grew. To handle at the time for one person, but utilize social media, and it grew and grew. So, with you guys going through that process, at what point in time did you feel like, okay, it's time to grow a team.
Speaker 7:From the day one. So when we decided, okay, we're going to build a team, we made that commitment, we're going to build a team.
Speaker 7:We're not going to be just real estate agents. The way my brain works, I'm very systematic and more of like an operations guy than it is on the, like, sales side, sure, um? So through that I was like, okay, I'm going to build the team. Um, we were keller williams, so we, that was the model. The team model was what we were kind of ingrained into our head. So from day one I said, okay, I know I'm not supposed to do paperwork. We didn't have a lot of business coming in, so we worked our butts off to say, okay, let's get business. And within 30 days we hired our first assistant Wow, some college girl that we just said, hey, we need part-time work, eventually turned into like foolish part-time work, sure, sure. And we said, okay, this is where we're going to go and we just started adding in people and adding in admin and leverage that route.
Speaker 7:And that first year, between March of 2015 to the end of the year, december 2015, we me and Mondiana closed almost about 50 properties $10 million in volume and we knew, okay, we need another agent to help us. And so then that year, in 2016, we started building the sales side of our business and we hired our first agent recruit, which is actually she's still with us today. How cool. Her name's Daryl. She's our operations leader and now she's not doing sales anymore, but she's doing and helping us run our team. But yeah, she came in almost nine years ago and that was our first hire and we decided OK, from there we're going to start building. And we just started building and adding and following the model.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Now I I've been speaking with many different team leaders, uh, uh, owners of uh, real estate groups, et cetera uh, especially on the mortgage side as well and there comes a time in a team's growth process to where you either lose some team members, you add more team members, you find out that that's maybe not the right fit for that position, so you move them to the other side of the transaction the selling side, or on the marketing side, et cetera. When you guys were going through that let's call it growth trajectory that you were on, what was the, I guess, most important thing for you guys to hone in when you were seeking out new team members?
Speaker 7:Yeah, great question, I mean, and I think a lot of it. I'll say I didn't know it at this time, but we started building as the market was growing. Okay, so that's one thing.
Speaker 7:I retrospect if you would have talked to me six years ago when the market was doing pretty well. That's one thing I retrospect. If you would have talked to me right six years ago when the market was doing pretty well and it was on that good growth, yeah I you'd be talking to a different zach I did. I was very egotistical, I thought I was pretty the shit. I thought I knew everything, um, and I wrote the market.
Speaker 1:If it means anything, you are the shit I appreciate that.
Speaker 7:but I learned and I said there's like going by, like wow, I'm a badass. And then I realized, okay, there's some things I learned. And I realized I learned that the wrong way. And also it was in my twenties my upper, like late mid to late twenties. I didn't know what I was doing. I got to a point where I was building, I just was testing things. But I learned so much during that time and I would say what I, what I was looking for, were people who were like me.
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 7:I was very lucky and very grateful that I found a lot of people who were driven money hungry. They wanted, they love success and they're highly achievable high, high achieving people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 7:So, as we were bringing them into our world to us, it was like you sell automatically, like 18 to 24 homes your first year. That's just what we do. Like that was the Castillo group. That's who TCG was. You come in, we help you make money. I remember Daryl being a part of the world. She's like I want to go to London Perfect, let's create it. Put it on the dream board and bam, within a year she was in London. She bought her Louis Vuitton purse, got her Mercedes and we were very big on helping people achieve that goal. A lot of early people. They bought their first homes, they got their cars, they got everything. We were very big on it. So we're very high production based people, yeah. So when I was looking for someone, I was looking for someone who said, yeah, I want to close two, three, four homes a month, said, perfect, let's, let's do this. Yeah.
Speaker 7:So that was the people we were looking for and we were lucky that we found some good people. Some of them now they're, you know, they have their own team or they've separated, but they're doing great things now. Um, and I think that was one of the things I'm the most proud to say to be around those people, because nowadays you don't find that many high achieving people, and I think I just was in this lucky spot where we got a good group of people.
Speaker 1:Um, now I've realized they don't exist as often and I'm glad you said that because that that is uh as often, and I'm glad you said that because that that is uh becoming a reoccurring topic on this show. Um, and it is the the level of expectations not meeting the level of drive and hunger and passion and fire that it should have to have. The expectations that these newer agents have coming into the industry yeah, very true. Before we talk about that, I wanted to ask a question regarding the team or team members that end up going off on their own. I'm good friends with a couple of folks Andrew and Gail being one of them that, just like myself, we've lost team members for them going off to do better things and, in our opinion, it's almost as if we go into this knowing that that is not only a possibility but it's highly likely for that to happen. Yes, that being said, what are your thoughts when that comes about? I mean, is it one of those situations where you let them know how to off board from the team?
Speaker 7:That's a great question and it beforehand it was. I was in La La Land. Everyone's going to stay with us. They're going to stay with us forever, yep. Um, I have a had a coach last year who amazing coach. She's changed the way that we operate our business.
Speaker 7:Um, she brought into me the law of three and she's like the law of three is you're going to have your top third, your people who are automatically your Navy SEALs, those are the people who need your most attention. You're going to have your middle third. Those are the people that pay the bills. Yeah, then you have your bottom third. You ignore your bottom third, and it sounds rude. I didn't have that bottom third as much, or that middle third as much.
Speaker 7:I had all the top third and I was like, okay, this is cool. So I didn't know of this law of three, I didn't even. There's a lot of people call it different things, but the concept is like 80-20.
Speaker 1:So when they told you that, that it didn't really click, then it didn't.
Speaker 7:And she's like you're gonna figure it out, and I said okay yeah and eventually, I remember I told her I was like you're right, you're, I have to plan, for one out of three people will leave, um, and maybe sometimes two out of three. We have to be okay. So I didn't have that experience at the beginning. We did have some turnaround, but it was also I would see other teams and I never the comparison side would come up and oh, I don't want to be the revolving door, I don't want people coming in and out. And I remember there was a couple of people I would be like, yeah, we don't want to be like them, we don't want to be like them. Well, we ended up being like them and so I think what I learned from that was I wish I would have known that in the beginning and have that expectation.
Speaker 7:As I'm getting, I'm in rebuild mode. Luckily I have so much experience, so much knowledge. That's made this rebuild easier. But also frustrating, because I had to acknowledge one out of three won't make it. Yeah, and it's sad. But I also share that with my agents. I let them know, you know we, we might not be a good fit, that's okay. We won't know until we're probably three, four, maybe six months in. It's true that it's not a good fit.
Speaker 7:So now, in our agreement, one thing that I'm doing now that I didn't do is I'd send it to you, mark, and just let you read it, and if you had much like a prenup Really Like I learned that 10 years later was we're signing a prenup. So when somebody gets in relationship or partnership with us, I'm now sitting down with them, walking them through that and I'm saying this is what would happen if we don't stay together. And I want you to be aware of that because that is the most important part that everybody wants to know what's going to happen to my leads. Will I get paid? Can I work the business? We're going to have that conversation day one and we're going to sit down and talk about it. I'm not going to let you interpret it a different way that I interpret it, which I interpreted the way the lawyer wrote it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah, and I'm also very grateful that you mentioned that, because that in itself is a key factor that I want to hone in on regarding the expectation and not just expectations, but the level of expectation and the depth that you see into the future that you're crossing off. All of these would be, could be situations that more than likely are going to happen, and a lot of folks out there, like you said, go into it with rainbows and unicorns thinking this is all going to be peachy for the next rest of our lives, till we retire, and that's just not the case. Realistically, I myself have had to rebuild multiple teams, the Mark Jones team, especially in this last let's call it phase chapter season of real estate.
Speaker 1:We were all high on our hogs for 20, 21, 20, and some of 22.
Speaker 7:And then it's like holy cow, what happened? That's when leadership, my leadership skill, had really challenged me. And there's one quote I remember going back to and I've heard it before multiple times but your business grows to the extent that you do, and during that time I remember like I wasn't growing.
Speaker 7:During 2015 to 2020, I was on. I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching, investment classes, seminars, everything. I was seeing that return coming back. So it was all about growth mode. When I thought I was there, I was like, oh, I'm good and I wasn't investing as much as I did before. Now, this time I am back in there. I mean I'm completely invested in becoming the best leader, best real estate agent, best father, best man that I could be, because I'm happier that route, I will say to go into that route. I didn't have kids yet. My daughter's going to come until 2018. My first one and our second one 2021. So during that time period it was I was a little bit blessed that I just went all in Absolutely, and I appreciate that, because I don't know how I would do that, because it's a struggle today, a big struggle, but luckily I have experience that makes up for that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Now, I don't know how old the girls are, how old are?
Speaker 7:We got a six-year year old and a three year old who's almost, who thinks she's 13.
Speaker 1:They all my gosh so, um, the idea of and this is totally left field, but you brought it up the idea of being a high volume producer, a high achiever, a runner and a gunner, um, like myself concept, I get it. It is difficult and even going OK is do we want to have kids or do we want to? It's a hard decision, absolutely. Then, when it happens, it's like a shock. Now everything changes. What the heck do we do? The same thing that you were doing before, but now you've got a different priority. That that is needing to be adjusted. Once you guys had the kids, you know, and after that, did life get better, easier? Was it more of a? My level of drive is here. Now I'm on a new level type concept.
Speaker 7:Good, I mean it was. I think the hardest part was we had kids, then we got hit with COVID, so that was also oh, that's right Impact, so 2018, then bam, we had 2020 COVID.
Speaker 1:And then it was busy, busy, busy, yeah, and it was busy, busy and 2020.
Speaker 7:And then it was busy, busy, busy. Yeah, it was busy, busy. And then we had Zara. She came in 2021. So both my daughters are adopted, so she came in in 2021.
Speaker 7:And I remember I was like, okay, how do I make this all work? And I think the biggest thing I also want to do is like they are my priority. Yeah, my business is my priority too. But I had to reassign a new role of my world and I realized that in the beginning I was real estate, Like if you ask me who's Zach, Zach is the Castillo group with Mariana. Like we were real estate agents. I've changed that completely now being a father.
Speaker 7:But I remember watching Jason Kelsey did a documentary and I forgot what it was on, and I remember he said something that I resonated with and he says I'm a husband, I'm a dad, I just happen to be a professional football player. He's like, but this is who I am. So, like you see his house and you saw everything he was in, I was like you're just a normal family man, dad, Like you know, like they're one of the realest like families I could see. And then he said I happen to be an NFL football star, I mean, one of the best. And that stuck me and said you know, I need to identify who Zach is, because I didn't know who Zach was. And then I happened to run this real estate company, Right and I. That took me a little while and as COVID came in and and all that was parenting and being all that it allowed me to look inward Didn't also help. That's when my team was falling apart too.
Speaker 1:We were seeing everything.
Speaker 7:And I said, okay, I have to really focus on myself and figure out who I am. Because I was in hustle culture. Nothing against it, I think you know it got me to where I was. But if I could go back and talk to myself 10 years ago, I would say define who you are. First, because I wasn't happy that first round, sure, this second round, business isn't as it was before, but I'm happier. Life is different. Yeah, life is different, and I think my daughters did allow me to, they challenged me to actually think about that. Yeah, without them I don't think I would have thought about, I think I would still be that egotistical.
Speaker 1:Totally different perspective.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's funny that you mentioned that. That's another thing that I want to hone in on, and I too went through that who am I phase? It was probably, oh, I would say, right around the twenty, twenty one ish. Business was booming. I at that time I'll be honest with you guys out there, as I always am didn't want to be seen as Mark Jones the mortgage guy. I just I'm more than that, guys, don't you know? I'm an entrepreneur, I'm founder of Review my Mortgage, I'm doing all these other things. But at the ground level it was Mark Jones, the mortgage guy, or the branch manager or the whatever you want to call it, the leader of the group. And at that time I was going through a lot of soul searching to go OK, what is it that defines me? So to speak.
Speaker 1:And I think it almost goes back to what we developed in going through the process of becoming a top producer that hunger. You are a successful person that is willing to work harder than the next guy to achieve whatever it is that you're set out to do, and a lot of folks out there don't believe have that mentality as they go into this real estate journey.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I don't think so and I think that's hard and I also get it. It's a weird business because, yes, people come in, they say I want the flexibility, I want to be able to be my own boss but I always go back to them and I tell them I said, look, that's perfectly fine.
Speaker 7:And then I teach a lot of people in our market center and a lot of coach, a couple real estate agents. But I think the biggest thing that I'll go and people like I want to make 100k everyone always says that 100k, yeah, say perfect. Let's review what you've done, like the last month. If you were to pay someone a salary of $100,000, which would you know, let's just say $9,000, $8,000 a month Would you pay yourself that money today, knowing the work that you did? That's a great question and people would be like, no, I wouldn't. So why are you asking for a hundred thousand dollars? You're not acting like a hundred thousand dollars. And I think that's one of the biggest is some people show up as a $2,000 person a month. That's okay. I don't want 2000 month people. I want people who want to make a hundred thousand dollars. So they come and they show up like that.
Speaker 7:Yes, there's flexibility and I definitely get that, but the flexibility comes with the price. I do get to pick up my daughter, I do be able to go, I'm able to go to events and things of that, but at what cost? Well, there's a cost of. Sometimes I am working until eight, nine o'clock at night. Sometimes I do have to take a late phone call or, on a Saturday morning, get up because that's when my client needs me or that's when my agents call me asking a question. There's, there's a cost to it. I'm okay with that cost, Cause I do love the freedom. That's right.
Speaker 1:And and a lot of to add to that. I believe a lot of folks um tend to skip over the hard work piece to it. Um, despite what took place in your journey, all the while you had to put in, the effort you had to put in the hours. Uh, to put in the hours. Uh, who was it?
Speaker 7:uh, steve collins talks about the actually my dad's or my family's first real estate agent? No way, yes, I've known him since he's like he's a long time ago. He is a stud.
Speaker 1:I've had him on here before and it was just like talk to me more please oh he, he's so good he hit you with some powerful, powerful words and and he. We talked about the, the power of, I think it's like 10,000 hours or something like that.
Speaker 7:Oh yeah for mastery.
Speaker 1:yeah, there you go and folks like us forget about that concept. Why? Because we've already gone through the idea of becoming the expert in our craft. We fell in love with it some way shape or form that allowed us to mush forward through the tough times or push further than the next person that you're competing with, so to speak, and a lot of folks that are not only getting into the business but also have been in the business have never pushed themselves as hard as maybe the next person that is considered a top producer expert, and they're looking around right now going where's all the business? Well, there are phases in this business. You could have been the most successful top producer in 2020, 2021, even 2012. Who cares? It's about the next day and the next day. So until you put in that work to build the team, to lose people, to lose sleep at night, to lose hours with your family, et cetera, do you even deserve to have the residual type aspect of this industry?
Speaker 7:Yeah, and it is a hard thing that it's. It's an iceberg effect, you don't know what's under the water.
Speaker 7:You just see what's on top. And I remember, like this, everyone like, well, I want what you have and I want what you do, and you know people don't know that it. When we first started, it took me like three years to finally approve me and my dad to get a raise. We were on a salary even though we were selling because we were investing back into our business, absolutely. And then I remember we were okay, we're finally gonna enjoy the fruits of our labor and we went hard and we had a great life and we kept going and people were like we want that and I said, yeah, but this was five years of work, exactly, and going in of. Also, we very big on our financial thermostat of like setting what do we need to do? Mariana, she is a killer. She's a killer real estate agent. She loves it and, like this month alone, she's our top producer five closings that she's going to have this month and.
Speaker 7:I'm just like dang. When the market is slow, you're still consistently about five deals a month. People ask how do you? How does she do it? And I'm like she just hustles, and I know hustle is just the easy way to say it. But where she works her database, she works her relationship. She follows up when she says she will. She connects well with people. She understands that it's about finding the next deal. Yes, you know, when I earn a client and I have to service them, that's awesome, but I still got to go find my next one. Every day. It starts from zero. That's right, and we got to be always focusing on who's next, who's next, who's next, and we've just always thought that way. So I think that does help.
Speaker 7:Um, it's one of my worst things that I hate about myself. It's also one of the best things I hate about myself. I'm never settled with what I have. Like I always want more, but I say that in a healthy way. Like I go and like I want more for myself and other people, sure, but if I don't have something I'm chasing, I can't like it's just not fun, absolutely so. For her and I it's always okay. This is great. What's next? Let's keep going. Um, in the meantime, now we're enjoying what we've done. That's one thing I didn't do and now I'm enjoying everything that we do work and I'm very grateful what we have. But, yes, I do want to still keep going. It's still building and it's something that I've learned that that's okay to keep wanting more.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And now that you've gone through the lumps of top producing building a team, losing a team, rebuilding a team you have the perspective that is a lot different, that allows you to take a bird's eye view on what you guys are doing, that gives you the permission to have the life, if that makes sense. You know where you can inject it, you know where you can't, whereas, let's say, somebody that has not put in the work, they'll continue to take those breaks to go to the family event. What have you? And then wonder why they don't have production or where's the next prospect coming from.
Speaker 7:Very true.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? It does.
Speaker 7:And I, well, I'm very bad at my delivery. So I always will say like when I there's times I go back in conversations like man, I should have said that differently, but my intention was that, like you can't let off your foot off the gas, you got to keep going. Now I would say it more in a rude way, but very direct. But it's true, Like I, it's not that I don't celebrate successes, I just know it doesn't matter until it closes.
Speaker 7:Like at the end of the day it's not closed. So you need to keep going, cause what if it doesn't close? I've had deals fall apart the day of closing oh, absolutely, and it's just like crap. Now that's not my only deal. I have a lot of other deals, but still I don't like not hitting my goal, so that pisses me off if I don't hit my goal. So I go back and I realize I constantly, always have to replenish what I'm doing and every day is zero, like I can't just be like. I got it Even this week. I'm starting this new thing of winning the day and making sure every single day I'm adding somebody into our database that wants to buy or sell or join our team. Today is Tuesday. I'm still at zero. I've lost Monday and I lost today. I'm still in the process of going. It's like okay, can I just win more than I lose?
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 7:And that's something our coach brought into us last week and I it really took it, blew it out of my head. I was like, okay, all I got to do is win more than I lose.
Speaker 1:Are you using any kind of trackers or anything like that?
Speaker 7:Um, really, it's a simple tracker Win by. Oh no, we're not using that. It's just more like a poop emoji if I lose or a money emoji if I win.
Speaker 4:I like it.
Speaker 7:We're starting to incorporate that in our team and say, okay, did we add somebody to the database? Because if we're doing that four times out of the seven, we're winning the week, right. So that's really kind of just helping us make it simple. Sure, and I think, going in yes, we have to constantly go, but it's like football and you go in the playoffs. You can't win last week's game and walk in like, yeah, we scored all these points and we're walking in. No, you're walking with zero Clean slate. So you got to start all over and you got to win more than you lose. And now in our playoffs, our goal, when we hit the championship, did we hit our goal? And so just changing that perspective allowed us to look different. But it's also for people. It's this business you have to win every day.
Speaker 7:So if you got a new client yesterday awesome. What are you doing today to get another one? What are you doing to get another contract? Are you moving people down the pipeline?
Speaker 7:And there's the great thing about our business there's a lot of different cycles and phases. There's your current clients, there's the clients you just acquired, there's people on your contract, there's your leads there, lot of different ones, but you got to focus on the lead measures that are going to get you those lag measures. And I I just subscribed very early that it's all about lead generation and I'm just that annoying guy when people give me, hey, well, this isn't working. I was like you're not lead generating enough. And they don't like that answer. And it's, you're just not lead generating enough. Now what I learned is I built it off cold calling.
Speaker 7:Sure, it's prospecting the hard way the hard, the hard way, the hard way. I didn't realize there are other ways, but it's still the same thing. If I do an open house and get leads, I still got to call and prospect.
Speaker 1:Well, let's put it this way you don't do an open house to not get leads. I mean, that is the intent of it. And there's a lot of folks out there that will do an open house and say, okay, I had great foot traffic, great, how many of those turned into a prospect that turned into a client that is now under contract? Well, none of them. Well then, what are you doing? You're doing something wrong. You wasted a Saturday.
Speaker 7:Absolutely, and I think with my daughters it's I'm choosing to do an open house than spend time with my daughters. Absolutely, and I'm okay with that decision.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 7:However, I'm not okay if I don't show up and I do bad. There's been times where I'm like I just freaking, wasted my time, that's right. And if I go home and I my audience finds out I wasted my time she's going to be mad. Hey, we like we're, we're in business together, we're partners and in life and in business. But when she goes out, it's like, okay, great, you're going to go out on that appointment. Okay, are you going to get right an, she's like you didn't close it.
Speaker 7:You didn't get the listing. And I'm like, no, and I give some stupid excuse, that was just because I lost and I wasn't strong enough to close the deal. But now I'm going into those, I'm like I'm not not closing this because I could have spent time with my girls or I could have done X, y and enjoy this moment. Now that's the perspective I look at. So if I'm going to do it, I'm going to make sure I walk out of there with that listing agreement, that buyer representation. I'm going to win that opportunity. Or I've done everything that I know that I can sleep good at night. Tell my family hey, I did the absolute best I could, absolutely, and that's all I can do, because not everyone's going to say yes, but if I did the absolute best, I'm not going to get mad at myself, right?
Speaker 1:And I think it has a lot to do with the mindset of the failures. So, for example, you don't get too, too excited when a deal closes, and that's not because you don't feel that excitement, it's just. That was the intention. Yeah, I set out to prospect this person. I now have them as a client, I now have the buyer's rep agreement or the listing agreement, and the goal was to sell this property or sell them a property. We did that, so now the next thing that I have to gauge my progress on is where's my next prospect coming from Exactly? That's more important or more appeasing and gratifying for you as a top producer, I would imagine, just like myself than the deal closing.
Speaker 7:Yeah, my favorite part and I look at the sell cycle ends for real estate agents is when they sign an agreement with you, Like that's truly they got to that, because the rest you can control a lot of it. But once they say yes, it's really weird. People change after they sign that agreement. They're not as crazy, they're not as interviewing you and grilling you and on your ass about everything. When they hire you it's like everything goes away, yeah, and now they trust you. To me that's the more exciting part. So when they hire me, I'm very big on that experience, because now I just got to deliver, which I know I can't because- 10, 000 hours you've done there yeah, and a lot of it too.
Speaker 7:We've built our team around that. So our, when people partner with us, our agents it's like just get them to sign with you, we'll help you, take care of the rest. We have admin to help you, we have marketing like we'll take care of the rest.
Speaker 7:I just need you to get them to say yes gotcha and so everything we're focusing on is okay just get people to say yes, because if I get a new client every single week, well, I should. I should sell 30, 40 homes, absolutely. All I got to do is let them follow the process and if they don't, I have enough people that I should still sell 30 homes. That's right. So it's just the way I've kind of focused on and like right now, my main goal is can I get a new client and then every week, can I get a new contract? They're not all going to close, but that alone, if I'm only working 40 weeks, hey, that's good enough business for me. I'm sure it's good enough for business for a lot of other people, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It is yeah, and I guess. One last question before we dive into some current events and what's going on with the market but what would you attribute you guys' success as a team to the most If I had to pick multiple things leadership, prospecting, et cetera Because from what I gathered thus far, you're not doing anything crazy out of the ordinary doing promoting TikTok videos and on billboards or anything like that. So what is it that adds that?
Speaker 7:That makes it? Yeah, that's a great question and it's weird I guess this isn't my answer. I think it's because I am so operations-based and systemized and model-based. You tell me it works. I'm gonna run the model. I'm like, yeah, that works. So I've followed a lot of models and I've followed other people who've been as successful and they say do this. I've learned to just say what if I just do what they're telling?
Speaker 4:me to do.
Speaker 7:Because most of the time people say no, I don't want to do that. I'm going to try to do it my way. And I've learned with my team. I would tell them what to do and they don't do it. I'm like why do you think I'm telling you this? Like, do you think I'm just telling you this? Just to tell you.
Speaker 1:So you're saying it's not just me that?
Speaker 7:No, it's not just you. And so then? But then I also put that mirror in front of me and say, well, if they're telling me this too, right, why am I not doing?
Speaker 8:it.
Speaker 7:Good point and I said, okay, I'm just going to subscribe to what people are telling me to do, and so that was from the beginning. So when people said, build a team, okay, build a team, all right, you have agent help you with that. And I think, as I go back, I always had a coach, a business coach, and I had accountability. So if I go back, I had somebody who was feeding me the models and systems. I was the person that I'm just going to listen to you and I applied what they said.
Speaker 7:I didn't do it a hundred percent, but I had some type of playbook or some type of guide. If I'm trying to do this my own, you're wasting time because people have done it beforehand. Might as well just follow, because they're leaving the breadcrumbs for you anyways, and I'm very big on that when I teach people like I will tell you everything I do, right, it is up to you to actually take it and apply it. It's not easy, all right, it's simple, but it's not easy. But I do know if I just follow the model, then I'm good. So I leave a lot of the success to having a coach and following and having a model that I actually fell in love with and follow.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and from my perspective, basically what you're saying is you have the ability, unlike many, to be able to work on the business, not just in the business.
Speaker 7:Yes, I don't have to work a lot in the business. I think people think about that. I can work two to three hours in my business, which is lead generating, going on an appointment a day and really I'm focusing a lot on the business. How I tell some people and I don't mean it rudely but if I can sell homes and run my team, run my business, I'm up at. You know, we have power hours, I have power ups, all these things, all these meetings, one-on-ones, and I'm still able to sell two, three homes a month, then you have no reason that you can't either. The only difference is my database. I have a history of it, correct, but anyone has a history of their database is just actually following the plan and putting in place, which that's the hardest part. It's boring to do that. I know it's not fun.
Speaker 7:I try to make it fun, but I know it.
Speaker 1:And that is the tough part of this business that is the part that you get the most rejection. That is the part that takes the most time and it's daunting at times when you're someone that has never been in sales or never had to justify their value to a stranger in many cases and get told no, today I got told no, I had a great person who joined, who's going to shadow our team today.
Speaker 7:We had a great conversation and he's like oh, I decided to go somewhere else. I'm like what? And I'm like this sucks.
Speaker 8:And.
Speaker 7:I'm like this is, it's the conversion rate. Everyone talks about it and I'm like well, crap, okay, yeah, but I'm mad at myself because I didn't hit my goal that I talked about winning day. Did I add another person to the pipeline? No, I haven't. So that's what I'm more mad about, not the fact that he said no, it's the fact that I put my all my eggs in that basket. Yeah, so I go back. Okay, as long as every single day, I can add one new person to my pipeline, which I did. Add him to the pipeline. He's still a nurture for us. There you go. However, like that's where I'm actually more mad at, because you know, if I lose a deal or something, I'm mad because I don't have something to replace it. Right, if I had something to replace it, which I remember during covid times, I was like oh a deal loss whatever no biggie, no biggie.
Speaker 7:We got like 15 more comments if, but the truth of it, that's a different feeling, when you know you have a good pipeline and you know you have it, and so that's the reason why we get mad at ourselves, because we know the things we're not doing that we should do, which it's in the model if you follow the model and you don't have to do it a hundred percent. So for everyone who's listening, don't go a hundred percent in. You could just do it 70%. Yeah, that's better than what you're doing today.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of folks that ask me and I'm sure you get the same kind of questions is what is the key to success? What is the thing that separates you? How do you get your business? Where does it come from, et cetera? Where does it come from, et cetera?
Speaker 1:And for you out there listening, zach filled you in on something a moment ago that is gold the idea of not finding and this sounds cliche, but not finding the one thing, but doing all of the things to make sure that, hey, if I'm going to determine if open houses is going to work or cold calling expired listings, you got to find your niche. You can't just dive down this hole with one way of getting business and think that you're going to be successful. Now, not all of those work for everyone, but they do work all of the time, if that makes sense. It's like we all start with the basics and I mentioned this quite often when it comes to well, what's working for you now? And I tell my loan officers, I jumped back in at the beginning of this year into producing and now I've got a bunch of loans five, six million, seven million in the pipeline. They're like well, what are you doing? The basics.
Speaker 1:Calling my database Literally calling the database, returning the phone calls, doing doing the open houses all of the things that I'm telling you guys to do.
Speaker 7:I'm doing a lot of them which is crazy to think because one. I appreciate you for sharing that, because I think there's a lot of team owners and people just like you and I had to jump back in production and I you know a lot of the masterminds I go through.
Speaker 7:I'm hearing that constantly. It's like I'm having to jump back in production, to have to jump back in production. And I remember there was a time where getting out of production was like the golden land. It was like you got to get out, let everybody else do it. And then I realized why did I stop producing, like I'm actually good at it?
Speaker 1:I thought the same damn thing. I had the conversation with my operations managers. We both were like you never should have stopped producing. I know I, you never should have stopped producing. I know, I mean that phone call, mama. I made it and I picked it back up a couple of years later, Mama, I got to go back into it.
Speaker 7:Well, then I realized, OK, I'm going to approach it differently, I'm going to do the model I'm going to. If I'm telling my agents to do, I'm going to do it as well too. So I've been playing the model and then going through. It's not fun, but I know it works Right. And I know all you got to do is just follow the database Absolutely. And the database isn't just people, you know, it's leads, it's whatever. And we've built a huge database in our 10 years where I go in and like all the business I want is in that database. I know it's there. I just have to actually do the job.
Speaker 1:You got to work it. I just got to work it, people out there didn't have problems. They wouldn't have us to solve them.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's like what?
Speaker 1:do we do. Well, go find somebody's problem you can solve and there you go, there's a paycheck.
Speaker 7:Very true and so, yeah, I mean it's a different approach and I'm excited about this new journey because I'm coming in. I still actually want to sell a ton of real estate.
Speaker 7:That's awesome, but I want to do it efficiently. I had a vision as going as like how do I build a real estate team so big and so good enough that I would also want to house my business there? Cool, and that's basically what we're building here Now. It's called Homebase, as we rebranded it, and the main goal is let my home base take care of everything and I can work on my relationships. I can run multiple business or run multiple roles. It's just let me show you how to do it. But I got to.
Speaker 7:Also, I can't preach what I don't do, and so I follow it. My database is on it. I get graded on my database every single week. I'm not as high as some of my agents, and I know that, but I will give myself a pound back. I grew by 16% based on my score yesterday, but that's little things we've put in place. It's like, okay, let's just work on the database, get doing that. And if our coaches say, just do that and you'll be successful, right, okay, well, I'll just do what you're telling me. Why say no? If you've proven it to be correct? I love that. So that's, that's kind of the new era. I'm just saying yes and subscribing and I'm also being careful what I say yes to now.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Protecting your time Matter of fact, I learned that, gosh, it had to have been maybe eight years into the business. My coach told me hey, I'm giving you permission to say no. I'm like, what do you mean? Yeah, your time is valuable. There's just some things that you have to say no to. Not everything, not everyone you can help. Oh, okay, light bulb. Then it was like okay, now I've got a little bit more time to do more of the things that actually do move the needle.
Speaker 2:Jc how are we doing on time?
Speaker 1:53 minutes in.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've got probably about another 10 minutes or so. So, with that being the case, if you want to throw this reference up, jc, I've got a couple of things. So I'm going to preface this next quick conversation on the following, and for those that are listening and not viewing, I've got a red fin up at it's San Antonio, texas market data. Let's see here. It says the San Antonio housing market is somewhat competitive. Homes in San Antonio received two offers on average and sell in around 73 days. The median sales price in San Antonio was $250,000 last month, down 3.9% from last year. The medium sales price square footage in San Antonio is at $151, down 3.5% from last year, showing the median just under 250, number of homes sold 849, and medium days on market. So I want to play this quick video and then we'll comment about what's going on in the market, what we're seeing and what we're doing to stay relevant we're doing to stay relevant.
Speaker 4:According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales dropped to about 4 million in 2024. That's the lowest since 1995. So what can buyers and sellers expect moving forward? Well, we've got real estate broker and president of our New York, stephanie Birkin, here with the answer Steph, good to see you, good to see you, al. Okay, so let's start with mortgage rates. Where are we right now, and can we expect them to drop at all this?
Speaker 8:year. Yeah, so, just like you said, we've been through a tough year. I'm feeling optimistic about 2025. Okay, the rates as of this morning were in the high sixes 6, 8, 7, 5. I think we're going to be. We've been hovering above 6%. We've dipped into 7. I do think that they're going to ease a little bit. But I really want people to adjust their expectations right. Plan for 7, because we've seen them there. Be pleasantly surprised by 6. Do not hold out for 3. That 3 number I just don't think that we're seeing again. And I just want to make a note quickly that the mortgage rates don't directly track what the Fed is doing right, so they're more impacted by the 10-year Treasury. So when you see these headlines Fed's cutting rates, fed's cutting rate it's much more gradual in terms of the impact for the mortgage rates.
Speaker 4:Okay, so how does this impact inventory and does it favor buyers or sellers?
Speaker 8:Yes. So we see that rates affect pricing. So does supply, and demand. Inventory is really tight right now. Why? Because a lot of homeowners are locked in to this sub 4% rate. They don't want to give that up. Buyers have a lot of pent up demand because it's still an unaffordable market right. So what we're going to see is when these rates ease a little bit and supply is freed up by some new construction. I don't think that's going to fundamentally change the market, but it's trending in the right direction. That will help demand. That will help loosen up supply. We're seeing these small, steady improvements that are going to get us back to a normal, stable market. So don't think drastic changes. Think small, steady improvements. That to get us back to a normal, stable market. So don't think drastic changes. Think small, steady improvements. That will get us back to behind us is the worst of it. We've turned a corner. We're going to get more normal and stable.
Speaker 3:All right, come on down the line here, all right. So, as buyers are continuing their hunt, what are some?
Speaker 8:tips to keep in mind. So I know it sounds simple, laura, but you have to understand your finances and a lot of people don't. It's a new year. Go through the motion as if you're getting a mortgage. It'll make you get organized. You can figure out what you have in liquidity in cash, what your credit score is and then what you can afford. Right, you want to look for these assistance programs FHA, va. It helps you not just with down payment but with your closing costs and, as we know, buying.
Speaker 8:Anybody who's been through it. It's so personal. Understand what you want and what you need and educate yourself on the market. And also, it's never too late to start saving, especially for my millennials and my Gen Zers out there. Every check that comes in, take a little bit off of it and put it into savings. And buyers are looking different now, laura. We're seeing more cash buyers. People are forgoing the financing process or having it be more delayed. The median age is 38. Now People are waiting a little bit longer. We're seeing more female single buyers. It's outpacing the men buyers and warm up the process to stand out. It's personal right. They're two humans, so warm it up to stand out as a buyer.
Speaker 1:Okay, so JC, you can kill that. There were some good things talked about there. That was the first time I had watched that clip, so it's always like oh shit what are they going to say on this?
Speaker 1:USA Today, and a lot of times it's a lot of fear mongering this case. I think that was pretty good advice all the way around. The one thing that I do recommend to those listening that are maybe home buyers, renters, et cetera, is to get off of the media only because when they do these things like this, they're talking about the industry as a whole and real estate is local. It does not matter which market you're in, guaranteed it's different than the next market. Um, that being said, zach, what do you think about what's going on in our market in San Antonio?
Speaker 7:Yeah, no, I will say I'll commend her because that's a really she. She talked very well and gave hope for people, and I think a lot of people have always talked about fear. But I think, going in, um, a lot of people don't want to talk about real estate. They don't want to talk about you know, we're I mean, we call people all the time and they're like, oh, I don't want to talk about it, I'm not ready. I think the biggest thing that can take away is put that fear away and just talk to someone about it. Um, our mission at our team is delivering the dream of homeownership through an exceptional real estate service. One person, one home at a time. Love it With that.
Speaker 7:I want to sit down with you, I want to talk with you. If it doesn't make sense for you to buy, it doesn't make sense to buy. However, if you want to buy, let's leave with a plan, because I can give you a plan. It's up to you. It's like a model with real estate. It's up to you if you do it. But I'm here and I have that knowledge and that expertise that I could tell you exactly what you need to save, how much it's going to cost. Here's roughly what it might look like. We don't know, this is today's numbers, but at least give you some information and at least give you a plan. Absolutely, I think a lot of people, when I hear that, just talk with a real estate agent, talk with a mortgage officer, and say this is what I want to do, how can I do it and is it possible? I think it's more possible for people than they realize. But what I do, love that you put on there put your wants and your needs.
Speaker 7:We might not get everything we want. Right now, house prices have gone up. I think that's just the unfortunate part. I mean, it's great. Equity is growing, but our average San Antonio person can't buy the average home or even the median home right now. That's correct.
Speaker 7:But one thing I do know and I track the market very well one out of three homes is new construction. New construction is leading a lot of our sales. That's right. They as well are bringing our values down. If you look at existing homes, they actually prices are pretty stable and a little bit growing, but they're not moving as quickly because new construction is actually down on their prices. They have something we normal humans can't provide.
Speaker 1:They have the capital, they have all the benefits and the features and the rate and the rate, everything You're right.
Speaker 7:Yeah, so I think it comes into just talk with someone about it, because you just don't know what you don't know and just don't shut the conversation. I think right now we're a time where rents and mortgages are very similar. Yeah, I would rather be putting money towards something that could potentially grow and versus being an apartment, and I'm still settling. If you're in an apartment or you're in a rental, you are probably still settling, absolutely. So if you're okay settling, why don't you settle with a home at the exact same price?
Speaker 1:That's such a great point and a powerful concept in it. Um, because a lot, a lot of folks tend to allow fear of finding out or fear of asking the how question overcome them versus just hey, get it all out there. It doesn't mean you have to move forward. But she mentioned something that if you are considering going through the mortgage process or buying a home, start pretending like you are and a lot of folks really don't understand what that even entails.
Speaker 1:So, that being said, reach out to a realtor, reach out to a mortgage lender that can at least give you a blueprint. Hey, I don't need to pull your credit or anything like that yet. If this is what you're wanting to do, here are the steps. This is what we look at, and a lot of times it goes by CIA credit income assets. That's what we want to look at. Matter of fact, we made a funny video real today, with my loan officers. Talking about it was like a recreation of the Maury Povich show.
Speaker 1:The results are in, and that is a lie. The idea of a lot of people not applying because they think student loans are going to keep them from being able to qualify, or a poor credit score is going to keep you from qualifying, or not having a down payment All of those are myths. Given the situation. The goal is to find some good advocates that can give you that right information, guide you, be the light that's guiding that path, so to speak. That being the case, I mean I know there's a lot of folks out there that are having some tough times in real estate, whether you are with a team, individual agents, mortgage lenders out there. I want to ask the last and final question to you, zach. What would you recommend? What would you give them in way of some type of advice to get them back on track, or on track to begin with?
Speaker 7:Yeah, I would say, have a really good business plan. I know it's very cliche, easy to say, but I believe that the first step to even self-mastery is one where am I going? What is the goal that I want to accomplish? Again, people will tell me $100,000 is what I want to make. Let's be real. You know, I'll start bringing that number down. Say, if you walked away with 60, would you still be fine? Like, yeah, I'd still be okay. What about 50? Yeah, I could do 50. What about 40? Nope, can't is 40. We need to be around there. Let's just get there. I think, yes, I'm all about dreaming big, I'm extremely about dreaming big, but when it's this market and it's hard, it's what is really needing to happen. Yeah, if you only need to clear $5,000 a month, okay, that might be just one closing. Where are you at? And we could do. You know, in my team I do the math backwards.
Speaker 7:That's, and tell you exactly how many people you need to have for that, then it's saying, okay, then I need to get to that number. But if you're constantly shooting for 100K and you're never even getting close to it, that's not a real goal. And I think we just have to be real with ourselves and say what does this need to look like? And understand and subscribe that it's going to take 90, maybe 120 days to see those results. And I tell this to so many of the agents that do, unfortunately, leave me and they leave during that first three months. I said, man, if you would have just kept going on, you would have seen the fruits of your labors. But it does not come until month three or four when you start seeing it, that's right.
Speaker 7:But I would go back into the last thing is focus on winning your week, winning more than you lose. You got seven days out of the week. Can you win four out of those seven days? And in those four days can you add one new person to your database that's thinking about me wanting to buy or sell in the next 12 months? If you do that, every single week, you have 200 people and I call them nurtures 200 people that are wanting to make a move in the next year. If you only have a goal of selling 12 or 20 of those, you're golden. So if every week you can just add one or four people and do it one a day and the reason I say one a day, it's because you want to win four days out of the three.
Speaker 7:Yeah, because there are days when, more than you lose, you just win more than you lose. If you do that, you're eventually going to make it to the playoffs and you'll hit your championship, which is your goal.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And, that being said, for those of you out there that are listening and this resonates with you the first step in taking this is to make sure you're tracking what you're doing. There's no way to actually change the plan if you never wrote the plan down to begin with and you're just flying by the seat of your pants. It's almost like the idea of taking an individual dart to shoot at a dartboard or grabbing all the darts dart to shoot at a dartboard, or grabbing all the darts and throwing them at the dartboard and hoping that you hit the bullseye. It's one of those things that a business plan, your activities tracking, gauging the results at the end of the week, month, whatever it may be, to determine what needs to change. Do I need to turn up or down the level of activities that I'm doing so that I can get to the results that I sought out to achieve? Bottom line right.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Last thing I would add on that it's you know I use this analogy to a lot of people when I say this is like me going to my doctor and saying, hey, here's all my issues, I'm tired, I don't feel well, my back is hurting, all these problems. And they say, all right, let's get a blood test. I'm like, nope, I don't want a blood test, just tell me what's wrong with me. The doctor is going to tell me. I can't tell you what's wrong with you if you don't go do the activities which I need your blood to get, the examples to be able to say, okay, what is wrong with you're doing. It's unable to be coachable and show you an action plan because you don't even know what you're doing, and be honest with yourself and say, hey, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. At least you acknowledge that.
Speaker 1:So Amen to that. Well, Zach, this has been a great discussion. I'm saying thank you for having me yeah. I mean, we've been neighbors for quite some time now, the first time we're having a discussion like this. So maybe we'll have you back on when Mariana can, uh can, join us.
Speaker 7:We get some insight from the better half. Yes, you'll probably get more of her raw moments. I love it.
Speaker 1:No, it was. This was great. Um, again, thank you for joining me on this discussion. Those of you out there, um, I appreciate the continued support and, as mentioned and uh, and as committed to, I promise to continue to bring you guys top producing experts in the field of real estate, mortgage lending and entrepreneurship, so that we can continue to share our nuggets Because, at the end of the day, it doesn't do us any good just living in our brains. These are experiences, these are trials and tribulations that we've been through, and our goal is to help you in any way, shape or form, not step on the same landmines that we have already. That being said, guys, I will catch you on the next one.
Speaker 2:Trying to become a homeowner is so frustrating. I mean I wish it were easy to find out what options or things I may qualify for. There actually is an easier way. I mean I wish it were easy to find out what options or things I may qualify for.
Speaker 3:There actually is an easier way. I'd love to tell you about it.
Speaker 2:There is a hold on. Let me call you back. Okay, I'm interested. What's the catch?
Speaker 3:There's no catch. If you have two minutes, I can literally show you now. It's really easy. Sure, let's go.
Speaker 5:It's going to coach you line by line and have you answer some questions that will identify the best loan products for you, starting with the property address, which is specific to the area, which programs will work for you.
Speaker 6:It's going to guide you through a series of numbers, loan options, and give you everything so you can choose what works best for you.
Speaker 2:Well, I had no idea there were so many options out there. For me it was so easy, it was so quick and you didn't even have to run my credit.
Speaker 3:I know I told you in less than two minutes. Right, did I make it?
Speaker 2:You did, let's go.
Speaker 3:All right, let's go.
