0:00 Hey, welcome to today's episode. Today we have a special returning guest, Gary, he's coming back to share some interesting stories today. This episode was called deal breakdown, recover cool, interesting stories in real estate. If you not have not heard the episode, please go check it out. We covered a unique strategy to generate leads your way. And hope he learned a lot in the episode below. Check it out. But today we have Garrett coming back. What is your cool, interesting story? The Good, the Bad, the Ugly? Let's hear about it. 0:29 Man. Okay, so I'm going back to the very beginning, June 2014. When I started, I started on a real estate team. And as I mentioned, the other episode took me oh, five and a half months before I got my first deal, so I thought I was terrible at it. I probably was, but I thought it was absolutely terrible. I needed to quit, right? Yep. Seven months. It took you seven months. Yeah. See, it's such a common thing. And those agents that are like, Man, I haven't gotten a deal. Nice. I mean, it's, it's it's hard. Right? Yeah. Right. It takes a while. But so I'm on a team. And, and my team leader feels bad for me. So he comes to me one day, a couple months, and he says, I've got a slam dunk client for you. Which like, okay, it's awesome. I, you know, I'm sitting there, not understanding what I'm supposed to do all day. Like, what kind of job is this? There's nothing for me to do, because I have no people. So hands me this guy's guy's name is Simon turns out he's a 20 year old guy. Military. We live in a pretty military area. And I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm just really excited. Right? So we meet and we walk through what the process is he signs a buyer brokerage agreement. And then we go and see like every possible house that exists because I don't know how to control. You know, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm excited to. And we finally pulled the trigger on this house. Get under contract. He's excited about it. Well, we've gone through the home inspection timeframe, we've cleared all that we're like, I don't know, a week, a week and a half away from closing. I get a call from him one night, every contingency has been removed, including the appraisal. I get a call from him one night at like 10:30pm. I don't know why I answered I wouldn't know. But I answered. And I get on the phone and say, Hey, Simon, and the first thing he says is Garrett. If the seller doesn't drop the price, 20 grand right now, right now I'm walking, I'm walking. I'm like what? He says if they don't drop the price, 20 grand right now and walk in. And so you know, I'm kind of freaking out anyways, I want to get paid. And I want him to get this house. And I know we can't do that. So I call try to calm him down, say Simon, they don't have to do that. Of course, I will ask for you. But there's no reason they should do it. And he says if they don't do it, I'm walking, I'm walking, and I'm going to the papers. That's what he said, I'm like papers, this is 2014 Even then no one's going to the papers, right? That's not going to scare him. So I'm like, Alright, whatever I'll call him. So the next day, I called the agent who's just not nice anyways. And I say, Okay, I'm just doing this because I have to, right, so don't get angry at me. The buyer wants you to guys to drop the price. 20 grand, who's gonna walk away, and the guy just starts cussing me out, man, just so angry at me, you know, a terrible conversation, right? And I'm like, I get it. And then I hang up. So I called my client back and I say, Hey, I talked to them, and they're, you know, unwilling to drop the price. 20 grand. And so he just starts cussing me out, even though I have nothing to do with this, right? I'm just stuck in the middle. And he says, Garrett, I've got a friend who's a Harvard lawyer, and I'm going to the papers. And I'm like, I still don't understand the thing about the papers. But okay. And so he says, I'm going to sue them. So all right, and I'm sitting there. So I hang up the phone and I go to my team leader. I'm like, Dude, what is this real estate? Like, I've never had a deal before. You told me this is slim. This is terrible. A couple hours later, I get a call from the agent. And I had my team leader on the call this time but get a call from the agent and he hops on. He says, Garrett, your client just called me and cussed me out. I'm like, wait, what my client called you the listing agent? He's like, Yes, he did. He cussed me out. So I cussed him out. And then he told me he was gonna sue me. So I said, I'm gonna sue you. And then he hung up. But I'm like, What is going on? Anyways, long story short, from threats of lawsuits and going to the papers and a Harvard lawyer. My very first deal ever finally fell apart. And they kept the EM the earnest money, deposit, whatever. And I finally was able to call Simon said, Hey, I don't think we're a good fit. So I fired him and moved on from there. But that was my first experience getting cussed out over the phone, a client who thinks he can get 20 grand off after we've cleared all the contingencies, threatening to go to the papers again, whatever that means is his Harvard lawyer buddy, his mom calling me from California. And even though I'm in Virginia, like I have no idea what's going on. And I hate real estate at the time of right because I wasn't making money anyways. And yeah, that was my very first client didn't close but that was my my I've got plenty of bad stories, right? Anyone who's been in the industry a long time as bad stories. That was one of the worst ones especially since it's my first time. 4:51 One thing I really want to say on this is the finding your first class or finding your first client is always it's always like very scary, but it's necessary. 5:00 Man, there's like, what's the point? To me freedom in this business means the freedom to choose who you work with. Right? That's really what freedom is. So, yeah, if they're not a good fit, don't work with them. That's fine. Go find somebody else to love you. You know, that's huge. 5:18 The second part of that is us. Being real estate professionals always stuck in the middle in most cases. It's not always the good middle. No. 5:31 Absolutely right. You know, I'm sitting there, like, I can't do anything about this. Right? I'll give you a suit. You don't have time to give you a super quick one. Another one. Let's do another. Let me give you a fast one. So a couple of years in I don't know this 2017. Got a buyer and seller, or excuse me, a buyer? Oh, yeah. And a buyer or seller, but this is them buying their house. And the house is I don't know $350,000? Well, first appraisal comes in, it comes in $70,000. Low. So my buyers excited. The seller obviously isn't, excuse me, the seller says we're not selling to you for that, which I don't blame them. And so I go to my my buyer, and he's like, alright, well, I understand that. And I said, Well, we can change lenders and get a new appraisal, and we'll see what happens, right? Change, lenders get a new appraisal, new appraisal doesn't come in 70 low, it comes in 30 high. So it was $100,000 Different appraisal, which I don't know how that happened to this day. And the sellers excited and my buyer is livid, right? Just totally convinced that the seller has some relationship with the appraiser and somehow bubble blah, blah, blah, just so angry, which I understand his frustration, so angry. And so to me, it seems like it's a lawsuit, you know, frustration all the time. He says, I'm going to sue the seller, right? And I said, for what he said, I'm gonna sue the seller, because they obviously had something to do with this appraisal. And I said, Well, we can't do that, right? That the bank chooses it X, Y, and Z says, well, then you need to get me out of this deal. And it was the same thing. We'd clear all the cookies. I said, we can we can drop right now. Right? But I want you to know, it would be breaking our contract and the seller absolutely has the right to come after you. He says I don't care. He's cussing me out. Right? I don't care. You need to get me out of this deal. Right? So I call the agent Nope, we're not letting up. Okay. Call my buyer back. This is the husband. And I say, look, I talked to my lawyer, I talked to the other person, this is where you stand, man, you're gonna lose. If you go to lawsuit, we're gonna lose, we're gonna end up having to pay, you know, all the damages and the fees and blah, blah, you would have paid and now you just won't have a house. You need to buy this house. He's like I will you just stubborn at this point, right? I will absolutely not buy this house. I don't care. Let them sue me. Let them come after me. And I'm just like, bro, this is bad. He said, I don't care. So finally, after trying to convince him, I call his wife who's tried to stay out of it the whole time. Right? She knows how he gets I call his wife. And I just say, I'm not trying to go behind this guy's name was Jim, I'm not trying to go behind Jim's back at all. I am genuinely worried for you guys. Because you're going to have spent the same amount of money that you're going to buying a house and now you just won't have a house. That's not a good thing. So I'm just telling you, so you, I don't know what you know. But please talk to him. I don't I hate him saying I hate saying that. He needs to move forward. But he needs to move forward on this house. Or you're in a much worse position. Anyways, I get a call from him about an hour later, just cussing me out. You really talked to my wife, how dare you go behind my back how you Baba, blah, blah. And I just tried to say, look, bro, I care about you. That's why I don't want you to get sued and lose. My lawyer said flat out you will lose. And he just got so angry. On the day of finally they agreed on the day of walkthrough. He wouldn't talk to me. And on the day of closing wouldn't talk to me. He was convinced that was somehow my fault. Right that you'd like you said, you're saying we're in the middle baby, think about that. I had nothing to do with it, except I protected his best interests. And here I am in trouble for that. Right. And sometimes it's just like, You know what, you can't win. But you do what you believe is best and right for the client to the best of your ability, and what falls will fall and you know what, they're not in my database anymore. I'm not trying to get referrals from them. They're in a house, you know, and I genuinely wish them the best. But, man, they just was so angry. And dealing with people like that is really draining. It's what I think people don't tell you when you get into real estate is how emotional it can be. Right? Or at least how emotional people can be. And we aren't really prepared for that. We're like, Oh, I love people. That's what I'm gonna become an agent. Like we've never had a client. Once you have a client, you might not love people as much. And then let's talk after that habits. 9:48 So what I'm gonna say two things about this. Sometimes you have to be at peace with the decisions you make, wouldn't matter the outcome. And second is people's hardest thing in business, and people weren't involved in it. like sunshine and rainbows, but 10:04 it's so true. It's so true man. You're getting, you know, like my neighbor selling her house. And it's a $23,000 commission, something like that, which is amazing, right? I had the numbers blow my mind in this industry. It's such a great opportunity. But she's selling her house and I have to work against. She said, it's literally next door. It was like, Hey, can you go check the fireplace, the gas fireplace, and I was like, Man, I don't have time for that. And then I'm sitting there thinking, you know, check out the last episode for me as a Christian real estate agent, especially. I'm sitting there thinking like, Yes, I do. I can run over and she's paying me $23,000 I have barely done anything it sold in two days. I can run over and check it. It's okay. Right and just being able to show up and do it well, and recognize that that reaction was just from nine years of getting beat up by hard transactions right? Most people are amazing to work with. Plenty of people are tough. And and like you said, you got to be okay with your decisions and recognize that people are tough. They just are you see them at their best you see him at the worst man. That's why I'm a huge advocate for teams, or at least being at a community like what you guys are doing being some sort of network, so you can share those struggles together. I don't know how anybody does this on an island man. They need to find somewhere to connect because it's hard. It's hard. 100% true. 11:23 Well, I hope you enjoy this episode. Where can people find you online? 11:27 Yeah, man, so faithful. agent.com Yep, they can check us out there. Check out our podcast, the faithful agent podcast. Get our course that's at Faithful agent accom or email me Garrett, GA RR e TT at Faith legion.com. I'd love to help or hear your bad stories and commiserate with you because I'm happy to do that. So thanks for having me on, brother, 11:46 everybody. Thanks for tuning in here. Thanks for your time for everybody. Go like share, subscribe, you know what to do. We'll see you next time. So thanks for tuning in.