We kick off our Rewind Week with an episode from our sister show, Stacking Deeds.
Asking questions is the key to making connections, and today we connect with top Manhattan real estate broker Vickey Barron! She’ll teach YOU how to ask the right questions to buy the right properties and build the right team. In our headlines, scams are on the rise….so what are some of the biggest real estate scams? We’ll share. And speaking of share…I’ll share some trivia that travels coast to coast.
This show originally aired on August 15, 2023, so ignore any mention of current events. To see the original show notes, visit The Inquisitive Investor: Vickey Barron on How Asking Questions Elevates Your Real Estate Game (stackingdeeds.net).
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
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Join Us Wednesday!
Tune in Wednesday as we continue Rewind Week with an interview with Jason Tartick.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Filthy Rich or Miserably Wealthy? (SB 1481)
Episode transcript
📍 Live from the back of Ruth, the realtor’s car. It’s the Stacking Deeded Show. I’m Ruth’s neighbor at part-time Mechanic Doug Broadcasting live from the spacious, luxurious trunk recording studio. Asking questions is the key to making connections. And today we connect with top Manhattan Real Estate broker Vicki Barron. She’ll teach you how to ask the right questions to buy the right properties and build the right team. In our headlines, scams are on the rise. So what are some of the biggest real estate scams we’ll share? And speaking of share, I’ll share some trivia that travels coast to coast and now. Two people who are too legit to quit. Crystal Hammond and Joe Sa Sea. Hi. Too legit to quit. Welcome everybody. That was a good Mc Hammer reference. I was gonna say, welcome to the late eighties podcast. Well, it’s a reminder not to try to take care of all your friends and go broke like he did in the the beginning there. I was just thinking that Crystal. There’s a lesson right there, man. If you go back and see Mc Hammer, that guy had everything and lost it all. Exactly. You gotta do self-care first. Put your mask on before assisting others. But welcome to the show. It’s condo crystal here in these Twitter streets and Instagram streets. And I’m here with my buddy Joe, give us your handles. Oh, average Joe. Sorry, you’re looking at me. You’re like, come on, man. I’m feeling the pressure Crystal. It’s average Joe money on Twitter, and of course Stacky Benjamins podcast on Instagram. And Crystal. , okay, you should say all of your guests are your favorites, right? You should say that. Like all of your kids niece, control nieces and nephews. Yes. But we may have our favorite guest here today. Yes. I’m just saying. Yes. Yes. Vicki Baron. She’s gonna dropped some gems today that I didn’t even know. I didn’t know. She’s one of the top realtors in the United States. Well, she’s one of the top realtors in New York. Her average day is selling a $50 million property. That is her average day. And she didn’t grow up that way though. Crystal, we’re gonna hear all about that. We’re gonna hear some great takeaways, but before that, we have a great headline. So, Ruth is off and running today. So why don’t we get off and running? Let’s go. So this first piece comes to us from Finance Buzz, and this is written by Becky Holloway Holiday. Becky Holiday, and it is about real estate scams. And while I think that our dieters aren’t the type of people that are gonna get scammed, there’s some interesting stuff in here, crystal, that we all need to watch out for. Because as you’re dealing with Facebook, marketplace is an example when you’re furnishing a residence, right? Great place to go for things to put inside of a rental property, Facebook marketplace. You can get cheap stuff. Yeah. And rehab it very inexpensively and make a house look beautiful. There are tons of scammers there. Yeah. Tons of scammers in the house buying market. So this would be great to go through these. The first one that they have. Business email hacks and wire transfer fraud. Do you know Shannon Allen? Yes. I was gonna say a friend of ours went through this very publicly on Facebook ’cause she was pissed and, and rightfully so. ’cause they can get ahold of your email. They hack the title company and your realtor. Yeah. They can hack their emails and they send you an email like, oh, the night before closing. They’re like, there’s been a change. You need to wire your funds to this account. Instead she fell for it, wired that money and oops, it was a scamster. Always, always think th rice not twice but thrice when someone sends you a wire transfer request. ’cause that’s something that’s irreversible and they cannot protect you when you wire transfer your money to the wrong person. Yeah. It’s not like when you buy something using a credit card and you’ve got the credit card protections wire transfer, that money is gone. And I believe the number was $55,000 she sent to a hacker. Here’s the deal, because we had her explain it. Maybe Crystal, we can put in the show notes a link to the Stacking Benjamins episode. Mm-hmm. Where we interviewed her about this and she tells the whole story. But here’s some of the key moments. If there’s a change, the day before you’re supposed to send a big check, you really want to get your guard up, number one. Yeah. Number two was they somehow had hacked into the title company system, so they were able to see these emails back and forth. And then the email that she actually was responding to only had one letter different than the real email. So if you’re looking at a cursory level, it just looks like the same thing. Right? It looked like the same exact person. She didn’t notice, obviously, till well later that it was one digit different. So when you’re sending those big checks, especially on a wire transfer, I love the th rice. Think rice Well, ’cause they do say that you look at the email address and if it looks off, but I wouldn’t have noticed just one letter off in that email address at all. No. And I think it was like an e change to an I or A, you know, or an L change to an I where it was really, really small. Second on this list, lock out agreements and processing fees. A prospective buyer wants to complete a sale quickly. The piece says, and get you to sign a contract with a lockout clause, which prevents you from selling the house to anyone else. This is horrible, terrible, yes, betting on your desire to finish the transaction so it doesn’t drag out for months. This scammer. Asks you for processing fees or even a reduction, the agreed on price in order to complete the sale. So what happens is, that in this lockout agreement, and then they start renegotiating everything, right? And you’re locked into the transaction, you’re gonna have to pay a fee to get out of the transaction. And they are renegotiating the hell out of every single thing that’s inside of here that’s horrible. And they catch you at a desperation because now you’ve taken your property off the market and you really, really want this to work. ’cause now it’s like you’ve already wasted all this time and money. Here comes another mortgage payment that you didn’t wanna make. That’s the whole point of you selling the house. And now you’re just stuck. We’re gonna hear from Vicki Baron later about negotiating about how to talk to people. And it’s funny because they say here that a red flag is cash buyer, someone who is rushed and pushy. Vicki’s gonna teach us to be a little bit pushy, crystal. She’s gonna tell you how to take control. But also if somebody’s really taking control on the other side, mm-hmm. You need to really think why are they in such a big rush? And have your questions prepared and ready for these whys also. And then number three on the list, cashiers checks and refunds. This is another big one. And these happen also like Facebook marketplace, when you’re actually trying to buy something, , first of all, something is too good to be true. Then walk away or be very suspicious. This one is when they’ll send you a cashier’s check for tens of thousands of dollars, and a lot of times it’s several thousand dollars more than the confirmed amount, and the fake buyer asks you to keyword again another red flag Word. They ask you to wire transfer the surplus back to them, and then boom, your bank comes back and says, by the way, their original cashier’s check was fraudulent. So now you’re stuck with whatever that tens of thousands of dollars is on the hook, and then you’ve paid them extra money. Yeah. ’cause you thought you had the surplus. So you’re in the whole quadruple tenfold of where you started. Cheryl, my spouse, almost fell to a scammer working a similar scam on Facebook marketplace. She found a beautiful piano that somebody was giving away. And if you know anything about pianos, you know that a lot of times when people move from a bigger house to a smaller house, there isn’t room for a piano, and so few people want pianos that the resale markets can be really bad. So she talks to this guy on the phone, which by the way, doesn’t happen a lot with scammers. A lot of times they don’t wanna talk to you. This guy talked to her on the phone and said, Hey, it’s a beautiful piano. Showed her all kinds of pictures of it and said, here’s the thing, we just can’t fit it anymore. I’ve tried to sell it. You can take it for free. I just need you to Venmo me the money so that I can have movers bring it to your house. And Cheryl’s like, Hey, we just need to Venmo this guy 600 bucks and we’re getting a free piano. And I said, we’re not getting anything. We’re not gonna get anything. She’s like, what are you talking about? Look at these pics. Like Crystal. It was all so legit. It was so legit. Beautiful. Too legit to quit. Yeah, right. Exactly. So then I actually talked to the guy and I said, I can’t Venmo you any money. You let me bring my mover up to where the piano is and I will hire my mover. And he had 50 reasons why we couldn’t use my mover, why we, it was always, and I’m like, well, okay, if I can’t move it, it’s the same deal. I just wanna use my mover, not your mover. Couldn’t do it. And the guy ended up really then going to the pressure tactics it talks about in this piece. So what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was bad. Number four on this list is notice a pendency in this scam. A buyer waits until you’ve entered the closing phase. This is almost the same thing we talked about above. Money’s an escrow before demands a discount usually for quote repairs. Mm-hmm. And then when the seller refuses to negotiate, the buyer files a notice of Pendency or Liz pendants, which means there’s a pending lawsuit on the property. Effectively it means you can’t sell it to anybody else. We’re back to, can’t sell to anybody else, and now you’re forced to negotiate and red flag if the buyer’s outta state has little online presence. This is where Crystal, I think. Mm-hmm. Working with buyers that have professional realtors is huge. When you get into this seller orchestrated transaction with no pros involved. Right. For scammers. Yeah. The scamster, it’s like the more people involved, the less sure they shy away into the bushes. Sure. Because what’s one of the first things that those Nigerian emails say, Nigeria, you know, I love reading those. . They say, you can’t tell anybody about this. , that’s their big thing with the scam because once you probably repeat it out loud, you’re like, darn, what the heck was I about to do after you say it, or try to explain to someone else and they’re like, Hey idiot, you need a reality check here. These scamster, they don’t want you to go through professionals, so that’s actually a good way to have some protection for yourself, A professional. Absolutely. Yeah. I consider people go about the cost. Mm-hmm. The cost of the pro. Think of it as insurance. This is a huge transaction you’re making when you’re buying or selling a piece of real estate. This is one of the biggest transactions of your life. This really is, unless you’re buying like million dollar cars and Ferraris. Sure. I don’t know about that unless you’re Vicki Baron. Exactly. Manhattan. This is a really big deal, you should definitely take it seriously. What’s number five on our list? Unsolicited buyers wanting off market sales. Here we go. Then these fraudsters, they’ll approach you unsolicited and then their communications are oddly specific, an air of legitimacy. And the end game is that there’ll be an offer that’s far below market value, or it’s an attempt to fish for your personal financial information. Now, this is important too, because this is one that you don’t disclose too much too early, because a lot of times they will be phishing then whoops, scamster has happened. And there you go, boy. And number six on this list we’ve seen. Before we’ve all heard horror stories about people that bought a house and then they find out the person they bought the house from Crystal didn’t even own the house. Yeah. It’s a forged deed. And so there’s a really big red flag here. You need to get the property tax bill. Yep. If you can get the tax bill or you can see what the existing mortgage is on the house. Those are two key pieces that can help you stay away from a scammer and like the recorder of deed’s office, there’s a lot of different public records that should be available to you. And that’s the other point of using professionals. ’cause title companies, insurance companies, that’s their job to find this stuff too. There’s a few more on these lists, like suing a seller for not disclosing known issues. The We buy homes, people can be, oh, that’s a big one. Not all scammers, but they can definitely be scammers, short sales and flopping. A buyer who presents himself as an investor but is not known in the community, doesn’t have an online presence, will often, yeah, do some ugliness and upfront administrative fees. If you’ve got, Hey, I’ve got all of these fees because I have a buyer waiting, you just gotta pay me X amount of money. It’s the same thing Crystal is I got a piano, you just gotta pay 500 bucks to get it moved. Yeah, same thing. Okay, how do we avoid being scammed? You are in control here. Always have the negotiation ball in your hands. You call the shots, you make the rules. So if something smells off, it’s off. ’cause I had a friend scan for trying to buy, I think it was some really expensive, shoes in bulk and PayPal them the money. And it’s that’s not even a reasonable, well I haven’t bought anything on Facebook marketplace, but it’s like if you’re going outside of their channels to buy stuff, like they don’t protect you in that way. So just go through your protected channels and then keep the negotiation ball in your court my way or the highway. That should be your, that should totally be your guiding light. I like the bottom of this piece, so I’m just gonna read it. It says, before you enter into the process of selling your home, it’s good to have an action plan in place. Like these steps from the Federal Trade Commission. They have a guide on what to do if you’ve been scammed. We will, uh, have this piece in our show notes and you just go to the bottom. It also says, if you suspect you’ve been the victim of a wire transfer, cashier, check fraud. Contact your bank immediately to see if any transactions can be reversed In the story we told earlier about our friend Shannon Allen, they were gonna do nothing Crystal but the two banks on the side. I believe it was Chase and Bank of America. Neither of them wanted anything to do with it. She ended up getting the F B I involved. Yep. And once she got the F B I involved, she finally got them. To actually take action and get her money back, money back. That is the bottom line too. She got her money back, but it took a lot of blood, sweat, tears and fighting, but she was able to get her money back. Try to avoid this in the first place. Cashiers check and wire frauds, those should be immediate, immediate red flags. Tell grandma, tell everybody this too, because you know, they are the target audience, unfortunately. So definitely, definitely your red flag. Suspicion should definitely go up. Yeah, and at the bottom of this it says if you think that you’ve been involved in a transaction which was a crime, of course, contact your local F B I office. It says there is a Good Samaritan practice. Also file a report with the F T C so other people don’t get scammed and alert the Better Business Bureau. Those are good stuff Coming up next. Vicki Baron, I think we’ve already told you just how much we really like this woman. She was on a show, you know, we’ve got the listing shows for New York and la the hot property shows. Well, she helped create one of the predecessors for those current shows. Her average day is selling $50 million in real estate, but she didn’t start there. She started in a whole different place. And you know what, what I love about what you’re gonna hear is that no matter where you’re starting, you can get there too. And a lot of it is just how you connect with people. And the one thing Vicki’s great at is connecting with people. So she’s coming up next, but first I believe Doug’s got some turvy for us. Crystal, you mind knocking on the cup holder there? Oh yeah. Doug, wake up. Hey there, dealers. I’m Ruth train conductor and mechanic neighbor Doug, and it’s time for my property pop quiz. Today we’re talking about getting railroaded, kinda like how Ruth convinced me to do this job. Wait, did I say convince damn art? I’m correct. I was trying to say coerced anywho, it was on this date in 1870 that the US achieved true transcontinental rail capability. While most people think that happened at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869, that connection only got you between Omaha and Sacramento. Nah, it was the rail connection that happened on August 15th, 1870 in Strassburg, Colorado that actually let you travel from your beach house in Jersey to your beach house in Malibu. But that’s not our trivia question. No. What you may not know is that while many of those old timey railroads have stopped using their vast tracks of land, they retained the land rights. Now many communities are getting permission to use those rights of way for things like bike and hiking trails. So here’s our question. What happens to neighborhood property values when all that increased foot traffic comes through? I’ll be back right after I finish laying my Barbie across the tracks of my model Railroad. I’ll save you Barbie. Hey there, dieters. I’m Polar Express expert in Model Railroad, Baron Neighbor Doug. Well, I’m sure those Conestoga wagons were the sweetest whips on the Oregon trail. Today is the hundred and 53rd anniversary of true coast to coast luxury travel in North America. But now that we’re all like hashtag van life and being driven around the Bay Area and our self-driving Teslas one are the railroad robber Barons doing with all that land they had. Well, they’re letting communities convert them to parks and bike trails, a movement called rails to trails. More importantly, should you freak out if you own a house near an abandoned railroad that’s being converted to a path where all those unwashed through hikers will soon pass our trivia question. This week has got your back. The question was, what happens to local property values when the increase in foot traffic? Well, It’s horrible news for all. You get off my lawn boomers because according to a study by the National Recreation and Park Association, homes located next to a trail have a positive premium of between 3% and 5%. Another study found that living near a park trail or Greenway may raise your property value even as high as 15%. And crime. In most cases, crime actually decreases near rails to trails projects because the increased traffic keeps bad people on their toes and away from your house. Get it right, doesn’t matter, because sounds like everybody wins in that deal, just like we’re all about to win as Vicki Baron joins us in the town card. Well, She wins ’cause she gets to sit up there in the air conditioning. I’m stuck back here in this dark sauna. Ruth calls a trunk. Hey Crystal, move over. I think that’s Vicki Baron. It looks like it. Hey, go over Vicki. Come on in. How are you? I’m well, thank you. How are you guys doing? Are you gonna pick me up? Do I get in? We are. Can you get in? This is not as sketchy as it feels like, Vicki. We promise. Yeah. You’re not going to keep me hostage. No. Alright, perfect. Although we’d like to just to pick your brain because you’ve done so many amazing things and I thought when you got in the car, you’d immediately say, Hey, it’s me, Vicki. ’cause that’s like the Vicki Baron open, isn’t it? It is. Except you said Hi. It’s Vicki Baron. So you kind of took it from me, Joe, I’m sorry. And he would also like to apologize for saying, we wanna pick your brain. That’s like the most, Ugh. Cringe worthy question. It’s like, oh yeah, we want, well, you know what you can pick away. And that’s me. Crystal knows how cringey I am in here too soon, Vicki. But you begin the forward of this project. You were knee deep in it, which, you know, just a huge endeavor. I wrote a book a year and a half ago and it was the blast, but it was way, way. This is a big project. You said the pandemic though changed everything for you. How did the pandemic change everything? Well, actually, how it changed it for me is full disclosure. I am a workaholic. I do love what I do and when I do something, I give it my all. But sometimes we don’t come up for air to really look at opportunities in a different light. So the pandemic forced many of us to do just that. And during the pandemic, what it did is it showed. It allowed me and my devoted clients to realize that the value that I bring to them is in a category, which mostly has to do with the creativity side, the value side, understanding what properties have more value and negotiating. It’s not as much, this is a kitchen, this is a bathroom. Here’s your southern views. So I could successfully transact sitting, locked up in my house anywhere. So in fact, yesterday I had clients walking through a beautiful project and I sold them something through the pandemic. They lived in Palo Alto. I never met them. Yesterday was the first time I ever met them face to face. And that showed me that I can bring value to help an investor or to help a buyer or help a seller. And I don’t physically have to be standing there because of the years of understanding the lay of the land and the buildings and the value and what questions to ask. I can do that sitting almost anywhere. So that was number one. And it allowed my team, I have a very devoted team that I could not succeed without them, and they’re very capable. So what it did is now that the pandemic is, I. Not over, but certainly calm. When I’m in the office and that phone call comes, typically I have to be there and then I look at my team, I’m like, you go, you’ve got this and I’m here to negotiate and help when we partner together on that part of the transaction. But you take them out and they’re in great hands. So really empowered them to show their skill sets and they’re all very skilled and that’s the way the team operates now is I may be there, I may not physically initially, but I’m always there and I’m definitely there on the negotiation component part of it and answering questions. Vicki, I think that brings up the importance now of really embracing technology more. I mean, there’s opportunities. All over the place. And if you put together a great team embracing, I think the pandemic did that for all of us, right? Hopefully. Yes. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. It opened my eyes to transact in a different way, and it gave us more hours. And then in those extra hours, you can be creative to think of other ways to bring value to your clients. Now, people think that because, you know, your average day is maybe a $50 million property or more, or north of that, that you were always, Vicki working in gold plated stuff in these beautiful spots. And man, reading your story, that was not at all the case. I’d love for you to tell everybody just the story of how you actually got the name, Vicki. Oh. My mother was a single mother who was stressed and you can imagine in the fifties, was just scared to be in that position. And she, for whatever reason, thought I was gonna be a boy. So she had the boy name picked out, did not have a girl name picked out. So I surprised her. And when she was leaving the hospital, the nurse chased her down and said, excuse me, you can’t leave. We need a name on the birth certificate. And my mother being this strong-willed person that she is, she said, listen, I don’t have time for this. I’ve gotta think about this. I’ll call you in a day or two. I’ll come up with something. And they said, I’m sorry Miss, but you cannot leave without a name on this certificate. So there was a woman in the lobby and she stood up and she said, well, I think Vicki Lynn is, she was from the South. I think Vicki Lynn is a pretty name. And my mother said, Vicki Lynn. Vicki Lynn. All right, good. Put it down, Vicki Lynn. And there you have it. So I thought, you know, whoever this lovely woman was, it could have been worse. It could have been worse, but that’s how Vicki Lynn came about. Well, just a glimpse into your childhood, you also said you learned a valuable lesson growing up. It involves an old show. The Crystal. Some of our listeners might be too young to even remember. You know, leave it to Beaver Crystal Present Company included. I did not want Leave it to Beaver. So she has no idea. Vicki, what does leave it to Beaver have to do with your childhood? So, I’m a believer that we are the architect of our life. Where we start doesn’t define how we finish. , part of the. Inspiration to write the book. Is anyone, any child, any teenager or adult that’s kind of lost feeling less than focusing on their shortcomings? My answer to that is we all have something. We all have value, and we can all bring value if we dig deep enough and identify who we are, accept who we are, and be the authentic self and the best version of you. So as a child, I used to watch, leave It To Beaver. I just liked the whole thing. I liked the little picket fence, the cookies that she gave, ward and Beam Crystal. This was such a show. It was like the perfect family. Vicki. I mean, mom was in the kitchen and dad came home from work and just think about that. Yeah. Prototypical fifties family that Vicki’s life wasn’t. Yeah. And she had her pearls on. And then, you know, I’ll never forget Wally saying to be W be, it’s not like she’s gonna sock here or something. I mean, the dialogue was just so precious and funny. But it was this environment that was very predictable, very peaceful, very warm, very cozy. June was not a single stressed out mom having to carry two jobs to put food on the table. And you know, ward was there to support her. And I did not have that in my household. I had a mother who. Was, and I dedicated the book to her ’cause she was remarkable and I learned so many wonderful things from her. But she had a really, really tough life. I mean, we lived in motels at times when, you know, she brought us from Baltimore to California. A single mother determined she was definitely not sitting home waiting for someone to figure things out, but we couldn’t afford a plane. So she put us on a train and it took us three days and we landed in California and you know, we had to stay in motels because she didn’t have enough money to rent proper homes. But she figured things out. She got a job and we ended up, she bought a house and she figured out how to get through all of it. And she taught us some real values. But watching Leave it to Beaver. I thought to myself, that is the life I want. I want a predictable, calm life, a house. I don’t want the stress. I just want that calmness, and I just wanted that. So to have that, you have to make certain choices. Had I decided to go out, I was raised in the area, everyone was on drugs, everyone. Had I taken that lane, well that’s not what June would be doing. So I’d literally say, would June do this? Absolutely not. I will say no to the cocaine. June would never do that. Just say no to the cocaine beef. Just say, I’m not doing the, be happy to. I used to be fearful as a child. I didn’t wanna be a senior citizen eating Alpo. To this day, I don’t know anyone eating Alpo, but I didn’t want to eat it good. So I pedal on my bicycle and do a job and save part of the money. And I bought my first real estate at a young age because I figured it was better to own than rent. And I don’t know, I just, yeah. Well, that’s an interesting story too, and I want to talk in a minute about your first properties that you bought. Talk about creative financing. Vicki, you were a pioneer in the area of creatively getting what you wanted. But before we get there, sticking with this idea of leave it to Beaver, the perfect house, I feel like for a real estate investor that fix up a house tries to put a tenant in it, you do the same thing. I think still today on a much higher level, don’t you? When you’re working with a seller, aren’t you trying to create this feeling inside the house that’s kind of this warm, fuzzy, leave it to beaver kind of, I could imagine the perfect life happening in this space that, isn’t that your job? Yes, 100%. So, you know, I did it before I was licensed by buying properties and seeing the potential and. Bringing them to their best version of themselves. And I do the same thing with my sellers. I walk in, I wanna do a coffee table book at some point that says, caution that sofa could cost you a half a million dollars. And I say that because I walk into a home and people will say, what do you think I can sell this for? And I’ll say, Hmm, with the sofa or without the sofa. And they look at me and I say, well, with the sofa we might get 2.9 million without the sofa, we might go to 3, 4, 3 5. Well, guess what? They get rid of the sofa. So you know, these oversized pieces of furniture that swallow up a room and the clutter and the mistakes that are made. You know, I try to fix all that. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see? Well, first of all, all properties are not equal. One of my favorite things to do is it fascinates me. So my curiosity keeps me up at night. But why is it that two buildings on the same block built in the same year? They go on the market and one outperforms the other by a big shot. The delta is huge, so you have to ask yourself. It’s not location. They’re both three bedrooms. Why is one selling more? And they were built the same within a year of one another. But it’s the materials that are used, it’s the way they weather. Some of them do not weather well. So when I’m helping people buy a place, I tell them out of the gate, I’m trying to get you in. I’m already thinking five, seven years from now, you’re gonna call me to sell it. And that I’m already thinking of resale on everything that I do. I think resale. So the mistakes that are made, some of them are in the bones themself, so don’t pick those if you have an option to buy something else. The other is in just what people do with the product. There are some people, I’ll sell it to them, they call me to sell it, and I’m like, wait a minute. What happened here, it’s a train wreck. When you bought it, it was adorable, and now it has a sofa twice the size needed. Everything is two full, and you picked really wrong colors. And when people walk in, it’s an emotional sale or if a tenant, it’s emotional. People will spend extra money when they emotionally connect with something. Staging your house then I would think is just easy. You should do it. I think I hear you saying no, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. If you don’t, let’s go back to the early days stories. Your first job is selling medical care products to people who are on welfare. What’s amazing is people that don’t know you don’t know, Vicki, that you have this amazing ability to phrase things in a certain way to make things happen. And a lot of it, I feel like is things that people could learn if they paid attention. But let’s talk about getting that job. You’re 18 years old and your sister’s going for a job and you end up getting hired. How did that work? So my sister said, Vicki, why don’t you come with me? I have a job interview and we need to stop at gco, which was a department store to buy mom a pair of slippers. I said, okay. So I got my like Joni Mitchell t-shirt and my little thing, and I hopped in the car and. We drive to the location and I’m sitting in the car and she’s upstairs in the interview and it was so hot and I thought, I’m just gonna get out of this car and go sit in the lobby. Maybe they’ll have air conditioning. So I get into the lobby, no one was in there. It was the end of the day and I guess the receptionist had gone home. So I let myself in and I’m reading a magazine in the lobby and this man in a suit comes out to walk my sister to the door after her interview and he looked at me, he said, oh, I’m so sorry Miss, I’ll be with you in a moment. And I kind of looked at him. He said, aren’t you here for an interview? And my sister. Started to shake her head no. And I said, I held up my hand. I said, well, it depends like for what? So you know when there’s an opportunity and a door is open, like, tell me more. Like, I don’t know, maybe I am. And maybe I didn’t know that. So I said, but before you continue, I have a quick question. He said, what’s that? And I said, do you happen to know how late Jim Co is open? And he looked at me so puzzled and he said, no. He said, why? I said, well, I need to go and buy my mom some slippers. So then he looked more confused and I said, well, do you want me to pick you up a Perry? He said, no. And I said, okay. Well, I have one more question. Do you mind if my sister uses your phone to call the store to make sure that they’re open and then I can walk back with you and. I have a few questions for you. So he said, sure. So we walked back and sat at his desk and you, you, you have questions for him. He’s doing all the interviewing. You’re 18 years old. I got some questions for you Mr. I said, I have a couple questions for you. So I said, first of all, I was reading your brochure and I’m curious, how long have you been in business? So then he tells me, and I’m like, so what is this f h b, healthcare and what do you do? And he explained and he said he had a contract with the state. And I said, well, what exactly is my sister interviewing for? What would the job be? And he explained to me, and then I said, well, how many people do you have doing it? And he said, we have like 12 or 14 people. I said, okay. So talk to me about your number one person, like the person knocking it out of the ballpark. Who are they? What are they like? I’ll never forget, he looked at me like he didn’t know. I said, just think a little harder. Like who are they? Funny, serious, old, young. You know, who are they? Where did they come from? Sales, what were they doing? And then he couldn’t really answer that. So I said, how about the person you’re about to fire? Like, that’s not cutting it. What are they? Like, describe that person to me. So then finally he looked so confused. So I said, let me ask you this. If I did this job, would I have fun? He just looked at me. He’s like, he’s probably thinking, where did she come? He said, fun. I said, yeah, fun. Like, is it fun? Is it like torture? Am I gonna hate this job? Well, I have fun. It’s important to have fun. And he started laughing. He said, I have a good feeling about you. Why don’t you just try this job? And then I said, I had enough nerve to say, well, a couple of things I have to explain to you. One, I can only do it for the summer because I thought I was gonna go to school to be a nurse. That was my big plan. I said, and number two, I don’t have a car. ’cause we don’t have the money for two cars. So you have to hire my sister if you hire me. ’cause she’s my ride to work. So I have to hire a sister. If I hire you, okay, I’ll hire you both and you can drive with her. Your sister comes out of the bathroom and you’re shaking hands with your new boss boss. She’s like, what the hell just happened? My question during that whole thing, I don’t know what you thought when you read this Crystal. My whole thought was, where are these questions coming from? Viki? Are you just curious about people? Very curious. Yes, very curious. People fascinate me. So as a child, I. Some people felt like, oh, poor Vicki. Her childhood wasn’t June Cleaver. I thought my childhood was perfect because it was a university, right in my living room. I got to watch behavior from family members and there were train wrecks and I used to just watch it and I was curious like, why are they making the same choices that have certain outcomes you cannot plant? Tomatoes and expect potatoes. So they were making choices and I studied it to a point I could almost predict the outcome. Like, this is gonna happen, they’re gonna respond this way. It’s like problem solving lessons at age eight. And it really did come in handy. So I do find people and patterns fascinating and you know, I think it’s better to understand before you’re understood. So if you take the time to really understand someone and what their position is and their needs, then you can take the time to have them understand you and the two of you can decide if you’re compatible and it’s a win-win or not. So that’s how I approach almost everything is I’m just fascinated by people and I’m curious, I ask a lot of questions. That was one of my favorite parts of the book. ’cause that’s not the first time you’ve done that. You’re like, Hey, what are the top qualities of the person that’s doing the best and the top five qualities of the person that’s doing the worst. asking the questions and the curiosity, it’s a way to set yourself up for success too. ’cause you did talk about it being a match yes. So I’m someone like I have plenty of weaknesses or areas that I’m not strong and that’s okay. So what I discovered in life, you know, I read in the book I had a speech challenge, so I was like age seven. And to this day, there’s certain things I challenges with in the language category, but you don’t die. People are still gonna respect you, love you, like you, and trust you. It’s okay if you’re not perfect in every category. So the other thing the pandemic did is it gives you time and everyone should spend time taking stock of who they are. Where they are, where they wanna be. And what are your strengths? Strengthen your strengths, not your weaknesses. I’m not good at language. I’m horrible. I cannot sing. It does not stop me. However, I’m known for singing in the elevators because I have a captive audience. And so it’s a perfect place to just go for it. Just keep practicing, Vicky, just keep practicing. I took three years of voice lessons and they took my money happily. I was not any better when I finished, but it was fun, and that’s what it’s all about. You know, the other thing I took from that, that also Crystal, is you see how many deals get held up because we don’t know what the seller’s motivation is. We don’t know what the buyer’s motivation is. You know, there’s so many situations that Vic, you just put out there and you ask, and what’s the worst thing that somebody can say they don’t tell you? But I don’t know. I found that almost a hundred percent of the times when I actually asked the question that it helps me build the bridge that wasn’t there before. That’s what I got out of that. That you build a bridge with this guy. Mm-hmm. Your sister was about to go into an interview. You weren’t in an interview, you were just building a bridge with him, and then you could ask him whatever the hell you wanted. Yeah. And it truly is. And then when you read later on in the book with the same Dr. Binner that founded that company and he needed me to shake bushes to find doctors. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It said that to him, you understand? I have no idea what I’m doing. And he said, that’s excellent. I like that. I said, you like that? I don’t know what I’m doing. He said, yes. ’cause you’re green. You don’t know that it can’t be done, but you’re creative enough and you’ve got the courage. I have confidence you’re gonna figure it out. And that made me wanna run that much faster to do a good job, because I knew he had confidence in me, but I did have to figure it out. And in that chapter, I kind of give an example of. Which I do in real estate. It’s like the world is in abundance. There’s opportunity everywhere and there’s a solution to all problems. But you have to first peel back the onion, ask the right questions to understand the end before the beginning. So if I understand, if you’re my client and I ask you a bunch of questions, because I’m really trying to figure out the core of the need and how we’re gonna get to that finish line, and then I work backwards of how we’re going to achieve that. And I think it’s a missed opportunity when people do not take the time to do their homework, ask the questions. And you know, sometimes I’ll tell people I’m not the right fit, like do not hire me. There was someone that wanted to hire me and I said, I don’t know how to get to your house. Like I don’t know where it is. You do not wanna hire me. He said, no, I wanna hire you. I’ve done research and someone told me you’re great. That’s lovely, but I don’t know how to get there and I’m really not interested in going. So there’s probably a lot of people that are a better fit and I will help you, but it’s not me. So, you know, just be honest with people. There is a whole subtext around negotiation in the book story after story. Part of it involves something that we won’t get to more, which is about tearing up the script. Like a lot of us have a script we’re gonna work from. Throw that in the trash and just connect with people. I love that. I wanna sacrifice that story for a different one, which is negotiating In one of your first houses, you see another, leave it to Beaver property. You just wanna live there. You’re sure you wanna live there. You present things differently to this person than they’ve had things presented before. So you end up with this fairly weird deal. That you create. Can you walk us through this? ’cause I think this is pretty powerful. Most people think we gotta negotiate one certain way and Vicki, you blew that out of the water with this particular negotiation. Well, first of all, I love looking at real estate. In fact, yesterday when I was out with someone, they were from Palo Alto and I’m looking at property and if I’m on vacation, my friends wanna go to museums, I wanna go to open houses. And they’re like, you’re not gonna buy, we’re in Kansas City. You’re not gonna buy a house. I’m like, I know Kansas City’s beautiful, Vic, I just wanna see it all. Before I was licensed, I spent my weekends driving to open houses and I stumbled upon this. Leave it to Beaver. Amazing five bedroom house with a, a pool and a cabana. I could not afford this house. But I walked through it and the owner happened to be there who was an older gentleman and he could see my enthusiasm ‘ cause I could see this house transformed. It was amazing. And I left and I couldn’t stop thinking about the house. I kept thinking about it for a day or two. So then I called up the agent and I had an aha moment. I said, no, I’m living in that house. That’s my house. And he said, okay. I said, but the problem is I don’t have the money to buy the house, but I do wanna live in that house. So I have an idea. Why don’t you call that owner up and I can sit with the owner because maybe I. We could own the house together, but I’m the one that lives in it. He lives somewhere else. And then I know how to transform properties. I will fix it up and then I promise to sell it in three to five years and we will share in the profits. It’s a great idea for him. He’ll get far more money and I’m the one that’s gonna do the work. And I think it’s a good idea. Hold on a sec. Can I stop right there because I want our dieters to hear that loud and clear. You went, and this is what you said earlier, Vicki. You went right to the solution. This is the end. This is the picture you drew the agent, the complete picture of where you want this thing to end. And then that brings them on as a co-conspirator to help you get there. Yes. ’cause now they know what the end game is and we all wanna help other people. So I just want people to hear that loud and clear. ’cause I think sometimes we get so focused on the roadblock. We don’t think beyond the roadblock yet like you just did. So keep going. ’cause this only gets better. So the agent repeated what I said, a little confused. He said, well, that’s never been done. I said, that’s the beauty of this is it’s gonna be the first time that this is gonna happen and it’s gonna happen with this house and this owner. It’s perfect, a perfect idea. And he said, well, I just don’t know. And I could tell he was reluctant to sell the idea. So I said, okay, so here’s my suggestion. Why don’t we just team up together? You get the owner, bring him together, we will talk to him together. I am confident he’s gonna wanna do this. Well, I was wrong. He did not wanna do it because he said, he said, Vicki, he got a kick out of this suggestion though. He did. He couldn’t believe that I was suggesting that. He said, wait a minute, so then we’re owning it together, but you’re living here. He said, I’m a little old for this venture. I mean, if I were younger, maybe I’d agree to this, but at my age, I wanna just move on to the next chapter of my life. I’m not interested in a partnership. So I said to him, that makes me a little bit heavy and makes my heart heavy. I mean, a little bit sad. It makes my heart heavy. I don’t like that answer to be quite honest. So I have another question for you, but I said I’m gonna stop talking and if you could just be creative and kind and think of another idea that allows me to be in this house, cooking in that kitchen, and sleeping in that bedroom. Just give it some thought. And then come back to me. I can’t wait to hear what you say. So owner of the house said, well, let’s see. Interest rates, by the way, were 13 or 14% really high. And he said, how much can you afford a month? And I was a little embarrassed to tell him, ’cause it wasn’t a lot. So I said, promise not to laugh. He said, yeah. I said, okay, this is my budget. He brought out a pencil. He said, I tell you what, if I carry the mortgage at Simple Interest is so amazing. Unbelievable. At 3%, well he didn’t even say the math, 3%, we’ll make the payments. So then I did the math afterwards, which meant he was giving me a mortgage at 3%. Simple interest for 30 years to own. And Vicky, what year is this by the way? Oh, it had to be maybe 1980. Three. Yeah. Interest rates, what? 12%? At that time they were 13, 14%. Yeah. They were insane. Yeah. And the realtor was just sitting there. He couldn’t believe that I strike that deal, but the man wanted to help me. He did. And he saw how much I love the house. And I said to him, you understand, no one, no one that’s gonna love this house more than me? Like I understand this house and love this house. And his wife had died and he just wanted to sell the house. He was a real seller, and I think he wanted to help me, but that would’ve never happened had I not had the nerve to even come up with a goofy idea and then present it to him. And then when he shut it down, I didn’t just say, okay, thank you. Goodbye. I. I’m like, okay, well now the ball is in your court. You need to come up with an idea to get me to be in this house. All of a sudden he’s got homework. Yes, by the way. And I always think every one of your stories, I think that the story’s gonna end with, and then the other person said, F you. And they never do because they don’t. We naturally wanna help each other. And I think that if we give people the benefit of that doubt and we build a bridge, which I think is a theme through all of your work, I think that in leading authentically, you know, if you’re guarded, they’re gonna be guarded. Crystal. I see we’re getting close to the next property we’re looking at. But Crystal, you wanted to ask about a certain celebrity. Yes. The bet you had to get Barbara Corcoran on to teach your first training class, the marketing module. Yes. Okay. So first of all, I’m gonna tell that quickly, but before that, when I was nine years old, A girl down the street gave me a pair of hand-me-down shoes. They were so beautiful and I couldn’t afford those shoes, but her parents could. So I was so thrilled to have them. And I put them on my feet. I was dancing in my bedroom and I looked in the mirror and I just felt so good and I had so much hope in my heart, and I’m like, girl, you’re going places. The reason I share that is if you really just take a moment and don’t lose hope and believe that you know, around the corner there is. Opportunity and then you have to be awake and work hard to go get it. But sure. But it’s out there. So when Barbara Corcoran, I’m in a meeting and we were putting together this course, which is kind of like an M B A in real estate for a group of agents. And we needed someone to teach a marketing course. You know, we don’t pay. It’s like we need a volunteer to teach the marketing course. So I was sitting there, so let’s think of the most expensive person possible. So then the light bulb came on and I said, oh my gosh, I’m so excited I’ve got it. Leave this one to me, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got it. I know who it’s gonna be. They said, who It’s gonna be Barbara Corcoran. And they just started laughing and they said, Vicki, Barbara Corcoran is not gonna teach our little real estate class. Are you kidding me? She has her own show. And then my heart got heavy and I looked, felt kind of sad. I said, you guys, I see her doing it. The perfect person to do this, she is gonna do this. They said, well, do you have that kind of relationship with her? I said, I’ve never met her before in my life. I don’t know. They They thought you were doing the crack? Yeah. I said, well know, I know of her, but I don’t know her. So then they said, Vicki Baron, you know, we know you can do a lot of things, but we bet there’s no way, there’s not a chance in how you’re gonna get her to teach this class. So then I, when you bet me I don’t like to lose. So I’m like, okay, the bet is on. She is teaching this class. So I left the meeting and then I kind of forgot about it and it was about five, six days later I’m on Park Avenue and it was kind of drizzling and it was late at night and I’m walking with my husband down the sidewalk and all of a sudden I. I look and I’m like, wait. Getting out of one of those rickshaw things, those bicycle things. I’m like, that’s Barbara Corcoran. And my husband doesn’t know why I’m so excited. I’m like, that’s Barbara. That’s Barbara. So I start running Barbara, Barbara stop. So she stops and she turns around and I get to her, I’m kind of out of breath. I’m like, hi Barbara, you don’t know me. My name’s Vicki. And I thought you would’ve said, wait a minute. I thought you would’ve said it’s me, Vicki, I, it’s Vicki. No. Hi, Barbara is, hi. It’s me Vicki. But you don’t know me. But the truth is, I am an agent. Unfortunately I’m not with the firm that you sold, but that’s okay. But the truth is I need your help. And she said, you need my help. And I said yes. And then I told her the story. I said, I’m putting this course together and you came to mind like I see you teaching this class. And they all laughed at me and they were so mean and laughing like I had a crazy idea, but I know it’s not crazy ’cause I see you doing it. And I really, really, really hate to lose. So now the bed is on, and if I don’t get you to do it, I lose. And if I, she said, hold on. So you’re telling me that you are putting a course together and you think I’m gonna teach that course? And if I say yes, you win. If I say no, you lose. I said, don’t say the lose word. I really hate to lose. Just say the win word. She said, well, here’s a question. Is there money involved? And I said, money, no, unfortunately we can’t pay you. She goes, no, no, no, no money in the bet. And I said, no, they didn’t offer money. Why? And she said, well, if there was, I’d want 50%. And I said, of course you would. And I gladly give it. But there, I don’t think there’s any money. And then, this is a funny part. She stands, she said, who is he? And she said, he’s kind of cute. And I looked at him, I’m laughing. I’m like, okay, one for the team. Here we go. ’cause Barbara Corkin has to teach this class. It was so funny. So she said, here’s my card. Call me, email me and let me think about it. And she taught that class. That’s amazing. The book is, every Move Matters. Unlocking Value at Life and Real Estate. You have heard maybe one, not even a 10th, maybe 2% of some of the amazing stories. So many quotables. I’m gonna be quoting, uh, sharing a lot of your quotes on social media. ’cause there’s so many amazing quotes. Vicki, the book available everywhere. Yeah. It launched two days ago and you can get it here it is. The cover of it. You can get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart. There are a few other places I should know the answers to, but I don’t. Yes, I think it is widely available. It’s a Forbes book, so I think it’s available pretty much everywhere. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us and for helping our dieters be better at communication negotiation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you for picking me up today. And Ruth’s been, Ruth just kicks us out of the car That’s She’s kicking you out now. Vicki. Get outta the car. I’m getting out. Thank you. Right is over. Wow. What a great conversation with Vicki. I really had a pleasure of talking to her. And she’s in Manhattan, like Manhattan is a pretty big deal. So to be running Manhattan, that’s huge. And I also liked how asking good questions is the key to connecting. I. I love drop that. I absolutely love the fact that you don’t get anywhere you’re already at. No, you’re already at, no. So just telling people and think about the words she used when, you know, she’s talking to the guy who owns the house and says, that makes my heart hurt. Like, use your emotions. Emotion. Yeah. You, but it better be an authentic emotion. It does. Um, she brought emotion to it and then she just puts it in their court. And the other thing is, Most of us wanna help each other. I don’t think, we think that like people want to help other people. They generally want to, not everybody does. But I think if you lead, like Vicki does, where she starts with, I think you want to help me? Mm-hmm. So I’m gonna let you help me, and here are some solutions. She had some really great solutions. And then turn the ball back on him so that okay. He’s like, all right, let me figure out how we can make this work. So he went from saying no to, all right, let me think about how I can make this work. It is so amazing. I’ve thought back over my career. ‘ cause I’m somebody that doesn’t ask for help nearly enough. But I think about people who have asked me for help and some people who’ve been really successful after I help them because they’re not just doing it with me, they’re doing it with other people. And it’s great to see that when you ask, just ask if you’re struggling with somebody, just ask. Ask your community. It’s so, so good. We’ve got a question from a listener, and this was an email that we received that I just happened to bring along with me. I had to print it out so that we could take it in the car crystal, but this comes to us from Laurie here and Lori says, what are the most critical upgrades a condo needs to help with resale, say for an eighties condo to update to current date trends? What do you think is most critical when it comes to updating? Ooh, thanks for the question, Lori. I. So I think it depends because nowadays, have you seen how some of the markets, I’ll put a link to this in the market, but this couple on Airbnb, they have this fire lookout tower that they turned. Yeah. So you actually have to climb up to get to the front door. An eighties themed condo would be super, super cute, and I think that there’s a market out there for it. So for updating, you can either embrace the eighties, Theme. ’cause that could be a really cute Airbnb or , stylization. ’cause that could be a really good selling point. Like, Hey, this is a cute exclusive Airbnb. ’cause this Airbnb is booked. I think it was like the next, what, like 600 days or so? No, it’s, what is the wait list? Over 1600 people are on the wait list. 1600 people want a book, 1600, this fire tower. And so they fixed it up, embraced the fact that it was a fire tower. Yeah. And oh my goodness, crystal, the views from this fire tower. It’s beautiful. You need to link to this in the show notes so people can, yeah, definitely People can see it, but their ability to. I mean, this is obviously an extreme example, but I agree. You know, I mean if you put up some Janet Jackson, Duran Duran posters, you know goodness. Oh yeah. And just embrace the eighties. How about the phone with the curly cord? Yes, absolutely a little boutique. I mean, remember, you know, with had Carson, we talked about my Airbnb experience where, you know, there was nothing attractive about the house. There was only one bathroom in this condominium, and it was upstairs. It wasn’t big, it wasn’t great, but there were pinball machines and there was a foosball table, and it was absolutely super. When there was nothing else to sell, they did exactly what you talked about. But I do think there are key rooms. I think there are key places where you can get that value. Every study will tell you now on the condo, you might not control the outside, but if you can control the outside, That walkup is so important because people make a decision within the first two minutes whether they like the place or not. That’s a study that Marriott did. Mm-hmm. About hotels that I think goes to all real estate. I noticed that this person did that in this not great neighborhood, and definitely the condos next to it, not very well taken care of. This had brand new siding and also they had put these really frankly cheap lights along the walk up along the sidewalk that walked up, but they were pretty, and it gave you just a little bit extra, which was neat. So that when you open the door and you look to the left, then you see the pinball machines first thing and the arcade machines. You’re like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then you don’t notice until you’re there for about half an hour that there’s only one bathroom and it’s upstairs and it’s tiny. Oh man. And the stairs are kind of cramped. And the bedrooms were definitely pretty cramped, but they led with the good stuff. But yeah, the kitchen. Kitchen, definitely kitchen and even appliances, those old eighties appliances are having a comeback, like those fancy pants colors, like the cute colors, those are making a comeback, but it’s easy to paint cabinets to give a refresh in a kitchen. Upgrading appliances is a good one. Refinishing floors, touching up the bathrooms. Yeah, those are the bathroom, kitchen and outside are generally your three big payoff. And then to your point, embracing what this house really represents. If you’ve got a fire tower, make it fire towery. If it’s an eighties condo, embrace the eighties, especially if it’s gonna be for a, uh, short-term rental situation, because you wanna lean into what you’re leading with. Now, if you’re trying to flip the house, I think you might go the opposite way because everybody’s not gonna be into the eighties crystals. You know what I mean? That is true. That is true. We wanna make it neutral. If we’re gonna resell it, we wanna make it neutral. We wanna make it the biggest number of people we want it to pop for and for those people. We wanna get rid of all the knickknacks. Mm-hmm. We wanna get rid of all of the things that show us in our family. You really want to, for inspiration, go walk through a Crate and barrel store ahead of and make it look like Crate and Barrel. Hire a stager, a stager will get that home sold so quickly. A stager has an eye. The stagers have staged properties in the areas so they know what to do no matter what condition the property is in. I would even recommend starting with a stager. That’s fabulous. They’ll, yeah, they will tell you what to get rid of. They will bring in what’s needed because the new person, they’re trained. To have someone walk in. And Vicki talked about that too, you know of Yeah. Sofa. Just, yeah. Someone you know, walking in and yeah, that sofa that cost her a lot of money. You need a stager to come in to tell you what to do. And if you’re thinking to yourself, I just need to keep costs low, we totally get that. I had this situation, crystal, with my house. I was trying to sell that. I ultimately decided, frankly, to rent out, because it was at the beginning of the big 2007, 2008 bubble, and I was trying to get the house sold. As the market was just beginning to slip and unfortunately we didn’t get it sold and then I became a landlord. But what was interesting was I really didn’t wanna pay a stager. That was back when I had gotten my financial act together, but I thought, I think I know enough about this and I don’t wanna put a lot of money into this, especially since it was kind of a last ditch effort. I kind of knew that, especially in Detroit where if you remember, the auto companies were the first ones that were really shaking during that whole 2007, eight crisis, and companies were declaring bankruptcy. That was just beginning to happen, and I thought, okay, staging will work, but if I put a lot of money into this, it could be for nothing. So what I did, stagers were happy to just come out and I just paid them for an hours of their time. I think I paid 150 bucks consult. 150 bucks for stagers to just walk around the house with me and go, okay, repaint this color, change that light fixture. Put this over there. This sofa needs to go. You need a smaller sofa like Vicki was talking about, A rug would be great here and gave me maybe, maybe $400 and changes to the house. Mm-hmm. Mostly doing what we talked about, making my house look more like Crate and Barrel. Totally. Making it look like Crate and Barrel. And it was funny when Cheryl and I got done with it, I remember some relatives came in, they’re like, your house looks awesome. And I’m like, it kinda looks like a Crate and Barrel store is, is what it looks like. Yeah. But you know, we went to, uh, state sales and we bought some really cheap pictures and they were so generic, but they looked good to everybody. Yeah. You know, they were non-offensive and so people could imagine themselves being there. We had had, by the way, some wonderful artistic touches. ’cause we had twins and my daughter’s room had this beautiful wall that had like flowers in this meadow and all of these dogs and cats and stuff. The stagers told us to paint over that, to get rid of it. And I’m like, but it’s beautiful. And the stager goes, I know it’s beautiful. You know, it’s beautiful. If somebody comes in here without kids, they immediately say kids’ room, and they’re gone. And they’re like, I don’t have kids so I can’t live here. I’m like, but it doesn’t take any imagination. And the stager goes, you shouldn’t expect your buyer to have imagination. Well, like going back, don’t expect your buy going back to Crate and Barrel. Crate and Barrel stores are designed to get you to spend money. So when you’re staging your place, you want that buyer to open up that wallet and say, yes, yes, I’m sold. So that’s a good, good frame of reference. It totally is. Great stuff. Thanks for the question. Lori, if you’ve got a question for us, crystal, how do people share their questions with us? We’ve got a few more that we’re gonna work through here in the next few weeks. Yeah, we do. Thanks. We love this. So head to Stacking deeds.net/voicemail and we will answer your question on the show just like we did for Lori’s today. Coming up next, man, we’ve got some great shows coming up the next few weeks. Crystal, I can’t wait for people to hear what we got. I think we’ll keep it to ourself though. I have some interviews that I’m very excited about, like I wanna share now, but I can’t wait for these other books to come out ’cause these have been some great books. Like one benefit of this show is getting some great book recommendations and it isn’t all gonna be authors coming up. We’re also gonna have some people that are just like you. Yep. Working their way through real estate people in different parts of real estate telling their story. We have one woman who’s just rocking the world of real estate in New Mexico. I think, is it New Mexico or Arizona? I. I think it’s New Mexico. I think so. But she’s in the southwest. We should just say the Southwest New Mexico Gaona. There it is. Yes, exactly. She’s in the border, right of those two wonderful states. But we’re gonna hear her story. We have a collection of people you’ve never heard before that you should hear from. And people that you definitely know being in this community , we’re gonna try to keep it diverse and fun and well definitely Stacking deeds. E crystal. Exactly. So head to Stacking deeds.net. Slash show notes to get the show notes hand delivered to your inbox every week written by yours Truly. That’s gonna do it for this week. Yes, definitely written by the brilliant Crystal Hammond. We’ll see everybody next week. Doug, I think you got it from here, man. What should we have learned today? So what should we have learned today? First, take some advice from guest Vicki Barron. If you aren’t asking the right questions, you’re setting yourself up for failure in life and real estate. You’re not gonna have fun if you’ve made the wrong decision because you didn’t ask the right questions before you made your move. Second, before you begin a negotiation on a property, watch out for scammers by avoiding shortcuts, trying to make the process faster, actually help scammers steal money from your deal. But the big lesson, maybe you use some of Vicki’s advice to open a few coffee shops, then you’ll literally be in a New York state of grind. Or is that figuratively? Thanks to Vicki Baron for joining us today. You can find a link to her book at Stacking deeds.net/books. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking deeds.net.
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