Real Estate Underground

Decoding Real Estate Success with Jim Remley: From Brokerage Building to TikTok Tales

• Ed Mathews • Season 4 • Episode 129

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Unlock the secrets of real estate success with Jim Remley, a seasoned professional whose career spans over three decades. From a remarkable start listing 150 properties in just his second year to building and selling a 17-office company before the 2006 crash, Jim brings invaluable insights to the table. Discover his strategies for recruiting and retaining top talent, the nuances of fostering the right culture within a brokerage, and how his eRealEstateCoach program can elevate your business to new heights.

We also tackle the complexities of real estate transactions and the often-overlooked challenges faced by unrepresented buyers. Learn why negotiating buyer agent commissions could be more impactful than you think, and how emotional and psychological factors play pivotal roles in selling a home. With insights into the varying state regulations and the investor mindset, we paint a comprehensive picture of the current real estate landscape, equipping you with the knowledge to navigate this ever-evolving market.

Balancing work-life with continuous learning is no small feat, but our discussion reveals how it's possible—and rewarding. We draw inspiration from leaders like Jimmy Iovine and authors like Robert Cialdini, Brene Brown, and Angela Duckworth to explore the art of servant leadership and personal growth. And for a touch of humor, hear about the unexpected rewards of becoming a micro-influencer on TikTok, complete with a joyous story about socks that perfectly rounds off an episode filled with valuable insights and light-hearted moments. Join us on this journey as we celebrate the big wins and the small victories along the way.

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Ed Mathews:

Greetings and salutations. Real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us. Hey, if this episode or any of the episodes that you're watching, first off, thank you. But secondly, if something resonates or you get something out of it, I would really appreciate you to subscribe, leave a comment and certainly share it with friends, because that's what helps us grow. So today's episode is a really interesting one in that not only is it for the real estate investors and the folks out there because we're going to teach you how to talk broker but also it's for the folks that are actually real estate brokerage and professionals out there, because this gentleman, jim Remley, is the best of the best in terms of teaching you folks, the brokers out there, how to run your businesses. So, jim, welcome to the show and thank you for your time today. It's good to see you.

Jim Remley:

Absolutely my pleasure. And just a little shout out to Ed here. Ed was on my podcast recently, so if you want to learn about the investment world, which I know, he's an absolute expert we did a great podcast with Ed.

Ed Mathews:

He crushed it. Thank you very much. That was a lot of fun, yeah, and so hopefully, hopefully, somebody out there got something out of it, they did, it was great. But so, jim, for the folks that don't know about you and your e-real estate coach program and all that, why don't you tell us about yourself?

Jim Remley:

So 35 years in the business. I'll make this. Backstories can be really boring, so I'm going to be really brief, but 35 years in the business. I got in the business when I was 19 and 20, did really well in the first couple of years. I listed 150 properties in my second year did really well. And then I opened my first company. We grew that from one office to 17 offices over about 10 years, sold that in 06, got lucky right before the crash and I worked for NAR for 10 years teaching all the designation programs, abr being one of them accredited by a representative. And then I had a buddy of mine open a real estate company in Southern Oregon, came down, became an owner in that company. We grew that from 30 agents agent company to 250 agent company and I we got that to up to $1.4 billion in sales, 3000 transactions a year. Wow, yeah. So that's my the quickest backstory right there. Wow, yeah, so that's the quickest backstory right there.

Ed Mathews:

All right, and so, in terms of where you fit in the marketplace today, why don't you talk? Let's talk about your brokerage training and the course, because, obviously, if you're an agent out there versus a broker, you're a pretty good fit for brokers. Might not be as good a fit for an agent, right, in terms of the training you provide.

Jim Remley:

Yeah, brokers might not be as good a fit for an agent, right In terms of the training you provide. Yeah, I have a coaching program for brokerage owners and team leaders called my website's erealestatecoachcom for anybody that's interested. But my specialization is helping brokerage owners and team leaders recruit experienced agents, so that's my niche in the coaching world Through that. We also have a coaching program for agents which people can sign up for. It's a dollar for the first month for an agent, so we make it really easy for agents that are looking for coaching as well. But for brokerage owners and team leaders, we've got an incredible kind of starter webinar you can jump into called Rockstar Recruiting, and it's two hours of the best recruiting ideas from top recruiters from across the country, and you can find it at eRealEstateCoach Just go to the top, click the link and you go right in that webinar.

Ed Mathews:

It's interesting, one of the people. She was actually a mentor of mine very early in my career. Her name's Amy Rio and when I met her she was a broker and she had I don't know two, maybe three agents in her office. Now she runs one of the largest brokerages in the state and this is probably going back 12, 13 years. It's in hundreds, maybe even thousands, of brokers at this point I know it's several hundred. Wow, and it's amazing what you can accomplish when you bring the right people into your team, right.

Jim Remley:

That's right. It's all about the culture right and attracting agents.

Ed Mathews:

And so, in terms of, obviously I'm an investor right, so I steer this back in a minute but I am curious about the slice of the business. A former corporate guy I'm curious about what does a broker look for in terms of the attributes of an agent that's going to fit in with a particular culture? Like, what is that process that they need to go through?

Jim Remley:

I think, like any good recruiter, I look at us as being like NBA coaches, nfl coaches, and I think of us as that kind of high level recruiter. There's a difference between that style of recruiting where I'm recruiting very specifically, very intentionally, than a lot of recruiters out there who are just like anybody that can fog a mirror come on in and we'll sign you out. That's a whole different kind of recruiting style than I teach. So to give you one example of that, when we're talking about niches like you have a very specific niche with investment properties I might, if I'm looking to grow that inside my office what I might do is I might go ahead and look at in my MLS who are the top agents that are selling the most apartments, who are selling the most duplexes, who are selling the most class A commercial buildings. Whatever my niche is I'm looking at, and if you are one of those agents that I might reach out to you and say, hey, I just ran some numbers this morning. I noticed you're the top guy in the County for selling duplexes over the last 12 months. I don't even know if you're aware of that, but congratulations. Right, and the reason I'm reaching out is we're looking to expand our investment side of our business and looking to add somebody into the mix that's got the skills, like you, and I just wonder if there'd be an opportunity for us to talk.

Jim Remley:

You're doing really well in it. If nothing else, I'd love to pick your brain. Would you be open to a conversation? And now I'm doing several things. Number one I'm doing something his own broker probably hasn't done. I'm recognizing his performance. I'm stroking his ego by talking about your expertise in the market and then I'm saying, hey, we're going, hey, we want to grow this, and people like to be in a position where they're going to be growing along with a company and they love that. So a lot of things that go into that kind of conversation.

Ed Mathews:

Absolutely and obviously. In my corporate world, I took a very similar approach. Right, hey, you're a superstar and love to learn from you. And oh, by the way, we have a role that kind of looks like what you do for a living. Right oh by the way, we have a role that kind of looks like what you do for a living.

Jim Remley:

What a coincidence.

Ed Mathews:

Hey, but it's interesting, obviously your technique would work in a lot of different businesses. Why did you choose real?

Jim Remley:

estate as your vehicle. That's because I grew up in real estate. I've been 35 years in the business and for me what's happened is, as a top producing agent for years myself, I was recruited all the time and I really quickly saw what does work and what doesn't work, what resonates and what doesn't resonate with me. And then, as when I flipped over to becoming a broker-joner, I had to have this paradigm shift where before my customers were buyers and sellers, but as soon as you decide to be a team leader or broker-journer, your customers are no longer buyers and sellers. We think that, in fact, that's a question I always ask my people when they come to work for me as employees. I'll say what do you think we do here? And they'll say we sell real estate. I said that is not what we do here. What we do is we serve agents who sell real estate. They sell real estate right. So real estate, they sell real estate right. So our customers are our agents.

Jim Remley:

And that mind shift of oh if. In order for me to grow GCI, in order for me to grow profit, there's only one solution I need more customers. And my customers are the agents that worked for me. So if I'm an office that's got 10 agents and I've had 10 agents last year and the year before that and the year before that then I am losing money because costs have gone up and then, no doubt, my, my, my cost of operations gone up, which means my net profits gone down. So I need more customers, and that's the whole mind shift change.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, I bet you're, I bet you. There's a whole bunch of eyes that go wide when, when, they make that realization right.

Jim Remley:

Right, exactly so, just a mind shift.

Ed Mathews:

Cause it's not just, it's not pretty good chance. The folks around you, the offices around you, are growing, so are you losing money by not growing from an internal rate of return, but also your top line revenue opportunity is getting reduced as you sit there and do nothing.

Jim Remley:

And there's something else out there right now, which is a big kind of monster under the bed, that's going to come out on August 17th, which is the NAR settlement. So the NAR settlement is going to put a bunch of commission compression pressure into the market, whether we like it or not. We can pretend it's not going to happen, but it's going to happen. So we're already starting to see it happen, and so that means that you're again to your point. Top line growth is going to be compressed in terms of GCI coming to the front door, which the only solution for that is to hire more agents.

Ed Mathews:

Right, and so let's talk about that compression. So how do you think this settlement is going to affect the marketplace? Me as an investor? I may buy 5, 10, 15, 20 properties a year, right Buying. So the commissions I pay is a pretty large line item in terms of my operating agreement or my operating statement. So I'm curious let's get your crystal ball out how is this going to change the way we operate?

Jim Remley:

So in the short term there's going to be like a resistance test of what can I get away with, how far can I push the limit on this? So the resistance, people are going to be pushing that number down. So in my market I'll give you an example. In my market it's very common to have as a buying agent commission of 2.5%, 3%. That's a very common number. We're already starting to see that be pushed down to 2%. We may see it be pushed even further.

Jim Remley:

My personal opinion is that it will settle and it's going to settle back to probably the rates, maybe a little bit less than what it was previous to the settlement, a little bit less than what it was previous to the settlement.

Jim Remley:

And the reason I believe that is because it all boils down to marketing for a seller.

Jim Remley:

As a seller, regardless of whatever you're offering, you're still going to get offers now that include a line item that's going to say hey, mr or Mrs Seller, we want you to pay on behalf of the buyer agent commission of X dollars, right, whatever that number is going to be and it's going to be similar to what we were getting before you, as a seller, will have the option not to pay it, you can negotiate it.

Jim Remley:

But if all the offers that are coming to you have that line item on there and a buyer cannot afford to write a check to their agent and you say, no, I'm not going to write that check, you're excluding the studies show, you're excluding about 50% of the buyer pool. So if you say to me, if you're listing a property, you say, hey, you know what, jim, I don't want to pay a buyer's agent, or I'm only going to pay a buyer's agent a super discounted fee, then what's going to happen is the buyers aren't going to come to look at that property. They'll look at the eight other properties that a full fee is being offered because they don't want to write the limits. So that's my personal opinion.

Ed Mathews:

How about that? Yeah, what's that I said. Compensation elicits behavior. How about that?

Jim Remley:

Exactly right.

Ed Mathews:

So when you talk about because I was always interested in this dynamic, because one of the reasons that there's a share is that if I were an agent and I was listing Jim's property, I want the buyer's agent to be able to come to the property and show that property. I don't have to be responsible for showing that property to every human being that's interested in it. I don't know, it's a leverage thing for me.

Jim Remley:

Yeah, it's time and it's effort and it's expertise, right. And so there will be a rise in the short term, for all the agents listening to this, of unrepresented buyers. So there's going to be a group of buyers that say you know what, let's just skip having an agent represent us because I don't have the money to write a check and I want to see all the listings on the market. So we'll just go directly to the sellers or the listing agents and say, hey, we don't want to be represented, we just want to have you show the house or we don't go to an open house. Now here's the question mark. If, when I'm talking to a seller, a list of potential listing, I need to have that conversation about, about unrepresented buyers and here's my conversation that I would personally have I would say now listen, we may get some unrepresented buyers that come to the table that don't have an agent.

Jim Remley:

Now we're going to have to make a decision. Do we want to accept that offer from an unrepresented buyer or not, from an unrepresented buyer or not? The reason why you may not I'm just going to throw this out there. In working with all the buyers that I work with and all the clients I work with. About 70% of the time when you're working with an unrepresented buyer, you're going to have an offer failure because they just don't understand the process, the finance and the inspections. They can't control their emotional state and there's a million reasons why.

Jim Remley:

Now that's my personal number. You'd have to measure that yourself personally, but for me, 70% of the deals that we have an unrepresented buyer don't come together. So that begs the question do you want to accept an offer from an unrepresented buyer or instead do you want to say to them no, we won't accept your offer until you get representation, either with an attorney or with an agent? Right, no-transcript, it can't be just the X percentage. I got to charge a little bit more because I'm doing twice the work, so those are all things we got to think about when we're in this mix.

Ed Mathews:

Sorry, so basically a babysitting fee. Babysitting fee.

Jim Remley:

Right, exactly Not the full fee, but some full fee but something.

Ed Mathews:

So it's interesting because I think about this. I come at this from the perspective of an investor, right and B and folks that think like me, which there are a lot of them. We look at a building and it's just nails and copper, wire and wood and shavings. Right, there's no emotion. That said, if we're talking about my home, entirely different story, right?

Jim Remley:

There's an emotional attachment.

Ed Mathews:

There's an emotional attachment. I have memories there. I have a family who's going to have probably a hard time leaving that place. We've got a sentimental. There's a sentimentality about it, but also there's and I can't explain it but there's always that self-worth piece of it. What do you mean? My house isn't worth that right. Somehow it's related to what do you mean? I'm not worth that right Exactly, and it's not the same thing. But they feel like the same thing. Right, and talk somebody through that. So I think you're 100% right. Obviously you're right. You know this better than I do. But in terms of the, there are like I've bought plenty of properties where I have, I've been unrepresented and I just use an attorney, and probably easier in Connecticut because Connecticut's not a title state, it's a. It's an attorney driven state. I have to have an attorney anyway. The title driven states. I think that's where buyers, particularly investors, are going to have a decision to make.

Jim Remley:

I agree a hundred percent. It will be different with clients that are what I would call a serial client, that is, an experienced buyer. That isn't. There's no 70% failure rate. It's probably the inverse they're very high close rate because they're experienced buyers.

Ed Mathews:

Oh, and their reputation's riding on it, right, if an investor and I get the reputation that you know, yeah, he writes a lot of offers but I didn't close any of them.

Jim Remley:

Yeah.

Ed Mathews:

I'm dead. I'm dead Right.

Jim Remley:

Yeah, You're not going to. You're not going to get any deals.

Ed Mathews:

Right. So so, in terms of the, in terms of that process of shaking this out, is this a short-term thing Like hey, let's see what 2024 into 25 brings, or is this going to be like a prolonged multi-year cycle where we've got to figure this out?

Jim Remley:

I think it'll shake out very rapidly. I'd say six months after the settlement goes into effect, we'll have adopted a new kind of standard of practice in the industry and that'll be the standard of practice going forward. Agents are very good at rapid adaption. We saw it in COVID where we thought, oh my God, the world's ending and boom. Everybody had a great couple of years and they just rapidly adapted. It'll be tough. You'll see a lot of agents shake out.

Jim Remley:

And the three things I'm telling my own agents, my coaching team and everybody else is you have to have three things right now that maybe you didn't have before. You need to have a really good buyer presentation. So this is going to be. We have a 12 point kind of process. We're walking people through about a really good buyer presentation, just like you have with the list seller. You have a buyer presentation. You also need to know the buyer representation or forms, agreement forms. In your state you got to know those cold and then you got to have good scripting, that where you can explain things to people in a way that makes sense that they're going to feel comfortable signing an agreement with you and working with you for six months or three months or however long you've signed that If you don't have those three things when August 17th hits, you're going to be in trouble and you're going to be exiting the business problem.

Ed Mathews:

Right, right, yeah, it's interesting. I find that, even on my side of the business, I was at a conference, raise Masters down in Phoenix. Yeah, tom Bilyeu was speaking and the first thing he said was okay, let's talk reality. 95% of the people in this room won't be in this business a year from now. And everybody was like right, it's not wrong, it's just reality. Is it being? Is that people don't adapt and they don't have systems to be able to adapt?

Jim Remley:

Right.

Ed Mathews:

Folks that figure that out early on survive. The ones that don't don't.

Jim Remley:

They just don't Exactly.

Ed Mathews:

Right, all right. So hey, I know we're a little pressed for time because you have a big meeting coming up, so I am going. I promised you I would stay on the clock and keep this to 30 minutes, so I'm going to live up to that responsibility. Perfect, let's get to the final four, all right? So first question my purpose is please finish that sentence is.

Jim Remley:

Please finish that sentence. My purpose is to help as many brokerage owners and team leaders grow their organizations in the next 12 months that I possibly can.

Ed Mathews:

How about advice? I always find that leaders like you and me and others we've been blessed with a lot of mentors over the years, and personal and professional, and so curious what was the best advice you ever got and also, who gave it to you?

Jim Remley:

Oh, the best advice I ever got. I had a piece of advice from a broker I worked with years ago and he would walk around his offices and he big, he owned seven offices. He walked, he would walk around his offices and he would always ask everybody. And he was really funny guy, cause you'd always come in in a three piece suit. You don't see brokers doing that anymore. Three piece suit tie.

Jim Remley:

And I would say, why are you dressing up so much? And he says I'm dressing up because you might need me to, and so your principal broker. You might need me to meet with a client or to talk to somebody and I need to look the part. And I thought that was really a really good thing to think about. But what he would say to everyone every time he would walk up and talk to you and say I want Jim, I want you to, I want you to answer this question Am I meeting your expectations? Am I meeting your expectations? Is the company doing everything we can do to help you and it's just a great thing to think about is asking your clients? Am I meeting your expectations? If you're working with broker, if you're the broker asking your agents, are we meeting your expectations? Just a great question to ask.

Ed Mathews:

It is indeed, but a guy that I have come to admire totally different business. Jimmy Iovine the producer, the record producer yeah, he came from nothing, right, he knew nothing about the business. He, basically, when he started out, he was the guy that got coffee for the folks in the studio, right? And one of the ways that he was allowed to get into the room and learn and then grow and become, you know, the Jimmy Iovine yeah, Very simple thing, and that was he was always of service, right, Love it. And that was his advice in the. It was a documentary I was watching and he said be of service. And I have always gravitated myself towards servant leaders as well and I tried in that. I think that organizations function way better when the person driving the bus understands that that bus doesn't roll without the folks who are making it happen, right?

Jim Remley:

You got it.

Ed Mathews:

Servants are Yep, it is All right. Third thing so leaders, almost universally, are readers, and these days, reading is just so many different things. Right, it can be physical books, it can be audio books, it's conferences, it's webinars, it's YouTube videos, whatever. So I'm curious about two things One, how do you make an information and sharpen your saw? And then also, what author or creators are you paying attention to these days? Who are you learning from?

Jim Remley:

I think for me. I listened to a lot of podcasts, yours being one, and it's a great podcast, but I'm also somebody who listens to Audible all the time. I was just telling my wife I'm listening to a book about the Civil War right now. It's a 13-hour book and in the last week I've listened to 10 hours of it. I'm like, how did I find 10 hours to listen to this? It's amazing.

Jim Remley:

But in terms of sales books, a great book that I'm revisiting right now. There's two books actually three books but Robert Caldini's Influence If you haven't read that, maybe one of the best books ever written on sales. It's a really good book on sales. Another book that I'm looking at right now, or reading right now, is Daring Greatly by Brene Brown Great book, all about the psychology of pushing yourself outside your comfort zones. And then another book by Angela Duckworth is called Grit. So if you haven't read the book Grit fantastic book about the human trait that enables all leaders to rise, no matter where you came from or what educational level you have this is a great book.

Ed Mathews:

Excellent, I'm going to. I haven't read Duckworth's book. My wife just put me on to Brene Brown, she's a huge fan of hers. Yeah, great book. Excellent. I haven't read Duckworth's book. My wife just put me on to Brene Brown, she's a huge fan of hers.

Jim Remley:

Yeah, great book.

Ed Mathews:

And yeah, so I've just started reading her stack of books. They're voluminous.

Jim Remley:

Yes, a lot of them yes.

Ed Mathews:

And so the last question of the final four is this Please finish this sentence. Success means.

Jim Remley:

I think that's interesting because success changes over your lifetime, doesn't it? So for me now, success means trying to have work-life balance, but that's the biggest challenge. It's very difficult. My wife and I bought a house in Las Vegas and we were able to spend a month there in April, which was pretty amazing, but when we came back, it's been a lot to try to say oh, we were gone for a month. How do you come back and deal with all these millions of fires that are going on now? And I think driving towards work-life balance is the biggest challenge for successful people.

Ed Mathews:

It's true, because it's so easy to get burned out, right?

Jim Remley:

Yeah, or it's easy to get addicted to work. It can be easily. I enjoy work, so my problem is I'll keep working, and so to stop it and just take a break is important.

Ed Mathews:

Right, excellent, all right. Hey Jim, I'm curious when you're not talking about real estate and saving the world from bad brokers, what do you like to do for fun? I hear Vegas.

Jim Remley:

So I assume that we like to go, we like to travel. I'll say that so we like to travel. We travel all over all the time. I'm a snowboarder and a skier, so we live in Oregon, so there's a lot of snow here, and so we're able to get out in the mountains. That's nice.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah.

Jim Remley:

So that's, and we own RV parks, so we also. We do a lot of work in campgrounds, so we like the camping lifestyle as well.

Ed Mathews:

Fantastic, so when? If folks are interested in learning more about your coaching program or the podcast, the Real Estate Coach podcast best way to learn about that and get in touch?

Jim Remley:

So best way is just go to my website, erealestatecoach e, like elephant realestatecoachcom, you can hop on there. We've got our podcast where you've been featured, and many other top, top professionals in the industry, so that's all free. We got a lot of free content in there, but we also got that rockstar recruiting webinar there as well. And then, if you want to follow us on social, we're everywhere TikTok, youtube, everywhere at eRealEstateCoach, there as well. That's our handle.

Ed Mathews:

Excellent. Yeah, my daughters. Whenever I mentioned TikTok, my daughters cringe. They're like oh my God, don't go on TikTok, I won't be. I'm not going to be on TikTok. Lip syncing to you know music, that's just not my thing.

Jim Remley:

Can I tell you a quick funny story before we wrap up is that I've been on TikTok for a couple of years now and I'm really proud of myself. I got to 12,000 followers, which is a lot for me, right, my little group, my little micro influencer group. So somebody reached out to me about a week ago and they said hey Jim, you're a micro influencer.

Ed Mathews:

Now we're going to send you a set of socks.

Jim Remley:

I've reached the pinnacle.

Ed Mathews:

I've gotten socks as a result of my mic drop. Right, I've done it. I've accomplished my goals. Yes, thank you. Excellent, I micro influencer and I have the socks to prove it I got the socks to prove it. It's awesome, Jim Remley. Hey, as always, it's a pleasure to see you. My friend continued good fortune.

Jim Remley:

Thank you so much.

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