From Teacher to Top Agent: Debora McCarty on Jacksonville Real Estate, Deals That Almost Died & What It Takes to Survive This Market

Tracy Hayes  0:00 

Here we go, 321, Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast. My guest today started her career in the classroom, teaching students how to think, how to learn, and how to navigate complexity. She brought every one of those skills into real estate, and it shows serving Jacksonville, St. Johns County, and the surrounding communities with Watson Realty. She's built a reputation on calm under pressure, deep market knowledge, and a client-first approach that goes well beyond the closing table. Please welcome Deborah McCarty to the show.

 

Debora McCarty  0:33 

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

 

Tracy Hayes  0:35 

Is McCarty.. McCarty is definitely not a Brazilian name, though.

 

Debora McCarty  0:38 

I was married for close to 25 years, and I kept the name, and it's a name that I.. it became me.

 

Tracy Hayes  0:50 

Yeah, yeah. Tell us, just give us some groundwork. You're from Brazil. Tell us, how you got to the States. What, how old were you? What, what brought you hear?

 

Debora McCarty  1:00 

I was almost 30, and I came here to get married, and I was a homemaker for close to 25 years. I have always loved real estate. It was something that I really wanted to do, and when I got a divorce, I thought, well, what can I do? I decided to go be a teacher, and I was pretty much

 

Tracy Hayes  1:25 

a stay at home

 

Debora McCarty  1:26 

pretty much the whole time I was a stay at home mom. Yeah, yes,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:30 

okay.

 

Debora McCarty  1:30 

And I got my teaching certification, and I went to teach at Fruit Cove Middle School, which is the school of my heart. I taught for four years from 2018 to 2022 and I became a realtor in 2021 right after Covid, and that's when I decided, hmm, maybe I should be a realtor full time, and that's what I did in 2022

 

Tracy Hayes  2:02 

uh two, when you came here to the States originally, how old were you when came?

 

Debora McCarty  2:09 

I was 30.

 

Tracy Hayes  2:10 

You were 30 already. Okay, so you're an adult already?

 

Debora McCarty  2:12 

I was an adult

 

Tracy Hayes  2:13 

already. Bilingual,

 

Debora McCarty  2:15 

already bilingual.

 

Tracy Hayes  2:16 

Okay, so simulating and interacting with others of the English persuasion was wasn't too difficult.

 

Debora McCarty  2:28 

It was not very active in my community. I was a professional volunteer at the schools my daughters went to, so it was really a part of my life being with the community, and I just brought that over with me when I decided to be a realtor,

 

Tracy Hayes  2:46 

just in case, because we do have - we have a lot of - I've had numerous ones on the show that have immigrated to United States. Some of them didn't even know the language, which is amazing. I think that's an amazing story to learn the language and become a successful real estate agent all there in a brief period of time from the teaching standpoint, because if I saw the one thing I did see on your LinkedIn, you got your degree while you're in Brazil, your undergraduate degree. Yes,

 

Debora McCarty  3:14 

I have a major in business, and when I came to the US, of course, I started working here, but I had children, and I decided that I needed to stay home to take care of them. This is a very natural outcome in for a Brazilian person to have children and take care of them. Well,

 

Tracy Hayes  3:38 

from the being eligible to teach, though, obviously they go back and try to get your transcripts correct. How did they piece that together from a Brazilian university to Florida certification? To

 

Debora McCarty  3:55 

get that certification, you have to translate all of your transcripts, and has to be done with an approved company by the state, and once you get all that documentation in place, you have to apply for that teaching certification. You still have to go through an EPI program to learn classroom management to learn how to not only teach, you're not learning how to teach the subject, but you're learning classroom management, and that you need training for that. It's not easy to teach children praise. Yes, all of my teacher friends, they are amazing. They have a quality that is impressive. I, it's, it's definitely,

 

Tracy Hayes  4:51 

you know, a talent and a temper or temperament to do. I was an education major. And but I didn't go and went back and taught when I was about 30 and I did it for one year and I'm like yeah this is not for me I grew up in a different generation I don't have I don't have the patience and the yeah it is

 

Debora McCarty  5:14 

hard being a teacher is not easy no though yeah it's

 

Tracy Hayes  5:18 

well let it let alone the hardships and stuff that you learn about, even in St. Johns County, there's not, you know, we like to think we're a very affluent county, but not everyone is, and obviously we know there's, there's kids on, you know, supplemental lunch and stuff like that, and you know, obviously we know there's, you know, I call them, you know, if you want to go, broken families, divorced family, you know, single mom, single dad, you know, in their kids are bouncing back and forth, and the drama of that can be, if it's not, yeah, these kids go through a lot, and and then the teacher has to be a part of that all day long. So, what, what actually did they, did they, or were you teaching Spanish? What did they, what they assign you? I

 

Debora McCarty  5:59 

speak Portuguese. Okay, first of all, I do speak Spanish as well. It is helpful, but I was a computer education teacher, and it was an elective, so I had 36 students in each period. It was challenging,

 

Tracy Hayes  6:17 

yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  6:18 

because being an elective, students are there, they may not be that interested in learning,

 

Tracy Hayes  6:26 

especially 36

 

Debora McCarty  6:27 

especially 36 yeah, and especially the fact that they are middle schoolers,

 

Tracy Hayes  6:33 

yeah, yeah, so they're all over, all over the place, I imagine you have that few that really are engaged and really want to go further than you have the other end of the spectrum, dragging everybody down, trying to get attention, whatever it may be. Okay, so you start, you see, there's a little overlap, right? So, what gets you interested in real estate? What happens

 

Debora McCarty  6:55 

is something again that I had been interested for many, many years, and I wanted to be able to help people. This has always been something that it's part of me. I was a, I am still a Girl Scout, and I, this part of helping people and helping girls lead and being involved with girls, and then, of course, boys at school. It was something that was very close to my heart. And helping people buy or sell houses is very much like teaching computer education. You are educating them, you are trying to do your best to get them to where they want to go, and it is an amazing experience.

 

Tracy Hayes  7:46 

You have to stick with the process.

 

Debora McCarty  7:47 

You have to stick with the process. Absolutely. Yes.

 

Tracy Hayes  7:50 

Yeah. So you're.. do you meet somebody who's already a real estate agent that kind of brings you in? What's kind of your first interaction as you're going to take the test, or you just go, 'Hey, I want to do real estate. You find out where to take the test and go. How's that actually happen?

 

Debora McCarty  8:06 

Yes, I think that is exactly how it happened. I did not have one person who was helping me go through the process. I decided that that's something I wanted to do. I took the course. I knew that I wanted to take the course in person. I did that course in 2020 during Covid, and the only company that was offering that course in person was Watson, and that's the one that I went. I went to the School of Real Estate with Watson, and

 

Tracy Hayes  8:38 

so I was sitting in there with a mask on.

 

Debora McCarty  8:40 

Yeah, so I took that course in person during, I don't remember, I think it was six weekends, and it was a great experience. And I said, this is what I'm gonna do, and I took the course, and I passed the exam first time. So

 

Tracy Hayes  8:59 

excellent. What are some of the things that you didn't know about real estate that you're sitting in there in that course and you just went, wow,

 

Debora McCarty  9:09 

there are many things you don't know when you're taking the course. I had done a lot of research to understand the role of a real estate and I wasn't surprised, I was, I didn't go into the business thinking that, oh, my brokerage is going to give me leads, my brokerage is going to give me listings for me to sell, no, I went into the business fully aware of my role and the work that I had to put in, in order to grow my business, so I, I am big on education. I love learning. I have taken every course at Neefar that there is, and when I want a. Course, that they do not offer. I go to Orlando. Oh, good for you. Yeah, that's what I do. And so I'm big on education. I am big, big on making sure that I know everything that is available to help my clients.

 

Tracy Hayes  10:14 

What would you say to someone getting started, you know, like you, 2122 even maybe 23 the importance of scheduling regular, or obviously you're going into Ne Fars calendar. What are they offering, and getting it on your getting it on your calendar, in putting that, whether it's daily, weekly, or monthly, putting so many hours of daily, weekly, or monthly into education,

 

Debora McCarty  10:41 

I I, I truly believe in education. If you know your work, if you know your trade, you can service the best that you can provide that best service for your client. I would always recommend, at least once a month, you take something at Nefar. It is all free for us. Most of them are free for us. I have taken part of your dues, you're already paying for those, you're already paid for it. I have taken the same course twice. Yeah, because sometimes when you take a course in the very beginning of your career, you don't get everything, you don't understand everything you were being taught. You need a few years under the belt in order to.. oh, now I get

 

Tracy Hayes  11:31 

it. Yes,

 

Debora McCarty  11:32 

what they were taught. I call that sticking

 

Tracy Hayes  11:34 

it to the wall. You got to have a wall to stick it on, and if you don't know where the wall is, you know nothing to stick on.

 

Debora McCarty  11:39 

So, it is very important to continue your education, no matter how long you have been with the business. You have to continue your education. I just heard this morning a realtor is was listing this flat fee listing with sellers, and they were using forms from 2017 What is up with that? Yeah, we have had so many changes since then. It's incredible that there are still professionals out there that are not aware of the changes. Now,

 

Tracy Hayes  12:15 

I've clearly seen, and, like I said, your episode 331 so hundreds of real estate agents, and obviously the market conditions. When I started this podcast in June of 21 in five years, you know, we know in May of 22 is when the rates went up, and you know, obviously different is the market has changed attitudes, whatever. Obviously, you were taking the course during Covid, when you could just stick a sign in the yard and you're getting multiple offers, it was crazy. We still have a demand here, but I think you're bringing up a good point that the education is giving you confidence, and if you go and look at any of the top agents who are really thriving right now, where other agents have tapered off in the same market, others are.. I've got an agent coming on here a couple weeks. We're talking the other day, she says she's doing more now than she than she was then, and it's she's trending up in her business is increasing year over year, because I guarantee you, when I have a talk with her, it's because she's regularly educating, staying top, I guess, out in front of your clients, right, being aware of what's going on, so you could talk confidently to them.

 

Debora McCarty  13:25 

Absolutely, this is very important, very important. And it shows being confident on what you are doing is very important. It's your client is needs you, your client wants you to be providing that guidance throughout the process, and it is a long process. It is not an easy process, and you need to know what you're doing. So, very important education, it's top, top of the line. So, you

 

Tracy Hayes  13:54 

go to class at Watson, you get there, so you just, just naturally progress there. That's obviously one of their main ways they recruit people, is offering the class, and you go there. What have you found as far as have you been with the same broker the whole time? Have you had different leadership?

 

Debora McCarty  14:13 

I have had, I've been with the same brokerage all five years, and I have, I had three brokers, three brokers. Yes, three different leadership, three different leadership. One

 

Tracy Hayes  14:24 

of the topics we always bring up is I believe in the ages I've talked to, choosing the brokerage could make or break it. Now, you got lucky, you didn't probably didn't even really shop, you took a class there and just naturally went on and progressed, but but it could be one of two things, either they had great leadership, or you just had a drive to overcome, and, and you got it right, you know. There are some people that just can naturally go out and get, but you've seen agents come and go in the last five years. How many of them is because they're just not I. They had wrong expectations, or maybe they're not interacting with the leadership, or the leadership wasn't good enough, wasn't the right fit for them. That's a better phrase.

 

Debora McCarty  15:09 

I have a little bit of a different opinion about brokerages. I love Watson, of course, it is my brokerage, but I could do what I do anywhere, and it doesn't matter what that brokerage can give me, or my expectation, what it should give me. If I can do my work anywhere, I can be successful anywhere.

 

Tracy Hayes  15:31 

Just don't get in your way,

 

Debora McCarty  15:33 

basically. But I do my best not to, of course, we all make mistakes. This is something that it is part of life. We all make mistakes. I try very hard not to make too many, and that's why I became a broker associate myself, because I wanted to make sure that whatever I was doing was correct, and I wouldn't necessarily depend on on some other people to guide me and I love my broker, she is amazing, and she has been top broker for many years, and I appreciate that, but I'm like I said, it's the brokerage in itself,

 

Tracy Hayes  16:18 

you're focused, you have the work at you, have the, you have the work ethic, and you understood. I want to use it. You understood what it takes to do well in this, in this business. I would, I think you'd probably agree. A broker may able to exasperate your abilities, bring more out of you, possibly with your with the right business set. When did you, you said you did a lot of research, and I kind of want to lead it and try to get this out of you. You just, you obviously sounds like you had a real estate agent mindset, you weren't, although you're still learning as you go, but when you entered the business, you already had a good idea of what it's going to take to be successful. Where did you, where did you research that? Where did you build that picture, you know, that 30,000 foot picture of what a real estate agent is? Where were you going and looking and finding out

 

Debora McCarty  17:20 

I went to so many places, remember, I am a computer education teacher, so I was on the internet the whole time, I was on YouTube, I was on Facebook, I was on Instagram, I was just browsing the internet, looking for stories, looking for ways to be successful. I, I still today, I listen to so many coaches out there because I want to learn. I want to become the best real estate agent I can possibly be for my clients, and there's always something new, there's always something interesting to apply to your business, but going back to what a new agent really needs is consistency, being consistent with what they choose to do, you know, there are the basic ways of getting business, which is knocking on your neighbor's door, and if one day I am out of business, nobody, I cannot get a listing for whatever reason, I would knock on people's doors. You know, the basics work,

 

Tracy Hayes  18:39 

right?

 

Debora McCarty  18:39 

You go and you go do your work. You go talk to people. This is very important to be always talking to people and be out there.

 

Tracy Hayes  18:50 

Attest to this, for someone to someone might be listening. Obviously, I think we all.. if someone said, 'Hey, go knock on 100 doors today, you are going to get a deal, and you're going to get paid extra 1000s of dollars for that deal. Most people would go and figure out, hey, let me go knock on doors, can I do it before noon time, if they could do it. Unfortunately, life is not quite that way. You may knock on 500 doors before you get that first deal, but the next three doors and knock 5012 and three might be three more deals. You just don't know what's going to happen when you say consistency. Explain that, or in your experience, your consistency. What were you doing consistently? You felt, and it probably is still a cornerstone to your business right now. You consistently do it that you feel is getting you that business.

 

Debora McCarty  19:52 

So, when I took my, my real estate license, and I decided to go full time in 20. 22 I participated in on a ninja installation, and it was really a breakthrough. The

 

Tracy Hayes  20:09 

book, Ninja

 

Debora McCarty  20:10 

Ninja Selling Podcast, the Ninja Selling book, and what it involves in building relationships, because I think I didn't want to knock on people's doors. I don't like people knocking on my hot out there, man. Knock on doors today, it is hard. No, people don't want to talk to you anymore. In there is a privacy aspect that you, you need to respect, and a lot of times it's challenging, so when I took that ninja installation, I realized that I could get my business done through relationships, building relationships, and that's what I do today. I send note cards, I, if I am talking to a client, the client doesn't respond. I reach out in different ways, because I still want to connect with that person. I still want to help that person. So, to me, it's very important that it is not transactional, it is not just about, you know, me being building my business and making money. I want to help my client, and there are so many people out there who don't have a direct path to selling a home, you know. Oh, I just want to sell a home because I want to buy another home, I want to upsize or I want to downsize. Sometimes it is not a direct line,

 

Tracy Hayes  21:41 

they don't know the timelines,

 

Debora McCarty  21:43 

they don't know the timelines. Yes, sometimes their transaction is actually complicated. Yeah, right now I have three properties going through probate, and it is, it's tough. Yeah, it's not easy. I, it was not just putting the house on the market, there are so many other components to helping that family get through this, and that's the part that I appreciate that I like the most. It is the ability to be helping these people the best way I can.

 

Tracy Hayes  22:17 

Build it, building relationships is definitely obviously if there's a.. if I was to pick three things that everybody talks about that I've had on, and I only have top producers on people that are doing business, so relationship is thing, but it can.. the term relationship has a different meaning to different people. What are some of the things that you do, you because it isn't, they're not walking into your retail store and saying, "Hey, I want to buy something, or, you know, sitting there, and you're just sitting at the desk at Watson, they go, "Hey, Deborah, we got another call, someone wants to list a house, or someone wants to buy a house. It doesn't, yeah, you've got to go and build up a momentum, a snowball effect over time in building these relationships. When you meet someone for the first time, and you're like, oh, this person is cool, they live in the area, I want to get to know them. Obviously, I'd love to help them buy or sell homes, because that's what I do. But what are some of the things that you try to do when you meet that person, because building a relationship, it takes a number of times of meeting them, and that sitting down with them, and so forth. What are some of the things that you do to start a new relationship to add to your, your book and circle?

 

Debora McCarty  23:35 

It is not something that I do on purpose. It is natural. It is very natural. I really like to connect with people. I like to be friends with people, and naturally we, we stay connected, and I am big on building this relationship in a way that it's not forced, I'm not gonna, you know, sometimes I have this one huge is a client who became a friend, right? I helped her, I helped her brother-in-law, I helped her mom, and we are all friends, and we go to each other's house, and we go out for dinner, and we go do things together. This is the kind of relationship that I'm talking about. It is not anything that's forced, it is natural, and it is really about enjoying that moment, because when you enjoy the moment and you give yourself to that friendship, it'll only good things will come from that.

 

Tracy Hayes  24:46 

This particular one, you obviously sound, sounds like you had a family in mind answering that question. How did you, how did you first meet? Was it at church or at the school, or

 

Debora McCarty  24:56 

that's a great one too, because I was selling a mobile home. Me, okay, and this was one of my first sales. It's been a couple of three years or four years. Time flies. Yes, but I met the brother-in-law at an open house. I am big on open house. I love open houses. I know a lot of realtors don't, but I believe in the act of doing real estate. You go out, you go to an open house, and you talk to people, you're gonna get better at talking to people because you are doing it, and it is great. So, I wasn't, and you're doing your education, so you're confident, exactly. So I was in an open house, and he, they, the family just came into the open house, and we started the conversation. They were interested. I ended up getting them to buy that property, and I had both sides, and from that point on, we stayed connected. We, I helped them with some other things, you know. We know you have a list of vendors, you know, you know people who fix things, your AC guy, your plumber, you start having a connected network of people, vendors and clients and friends who do this and do that, and you bring all of that together. So we stayed together, and when it was time for their mom to buy a property, they called me, and of course they are amazing people, and let me tell you, they came to me again. They were not even looking to buy a house. They were like, no, when you are just searching just because you like to search, and there are many people out there who love to be looking at houses. And they came to me, and they were like, we are looking for a land, we want to buy land. We just want to buy land, and I had contacted this other family who had a large property with a house, and I said, "Hey, let me in. The house was not even on the market yet. They were just interviewing me to sell their house, but they were very stressed out, because they had tried to sell the house for several months, didn't get it done, and they, they just didn't want to even show the house anymore. I said, let me talk to this client, because I think this would be a great fit. So we ended up connecting, they bought that house, this same couple that had bought the mobile home bought this other house, and both families became super friends. I mean, it was incredible. They ate at each other's houses. We had our closing dinner together at a Chinese. it was Asian and Asian restaurant, and it is just.. it just goes to show how it is important to really, to really care for your, your people.

 

Tracy Hayes  28:14 

You sounds like you bring up.. I always tell people this. One of the John Maxwell talks about influence and credibility and leadership, and so forth. One of the greatest ways to influence people is introducing them to other people, and it sounds like that's what you did. You actually, you not, you facilitated the sale of the house, but you actually put these two families together, which most people would never do. You actually introduced them to each other, which made your relationship with each one of them that much stronger.

 

Debora McCarty  28:45 

Absolutely, and I understood what was happening, because when you are talking to your client, you have to listen, you have to listen about what they need, what they want. Sometimes we miss a lot of what they are saying, because we want to rush that conversation. You want to get to the point, you want to get to the transaction, but you have to stop. You have to listen. And they told me, Deborah, we don't want to show the house anymore. We have three dogs, one of them is blind, and every time we had to take all three dogs with

 

Tracy Hayes  29:24 

us,

 

Debora McCarty  29:24 

yeah, and get out of the house, and we were tired, and I said, okay, so the solution for this problem is not to put your house on the market again, I have to go find a buyer for you, so you don't have to sound like

 

Tracy Hayes  29:40 

I missed the beginning of the story or misunderstood the mystery, this was a house of a good amount of acreage, because your buyer wanted a lot of land, you actually put a house on because it had a lot of land, exactly, so

 

Debora McCarty  29:52 

it just worked out in that way that I had the buyer and this particular seller had some very special. People needs and requests, and I was able to help them achieve their goal, and it was an amazing story. I always,

 

Tracy Hayes  30:08 

it is, that is a great story, especially if you know whether you're in the business right now, maybe you're a little stagnant, and wondering why this is a common thing, is building these relationships, everyone has a different way of doing that, you know, but providing great service, introducing people to other people, giving them the.. I think they're.. you're.. it sounds like you're probably one of those people too. You're always looking to find something to wow them about, do something that they would not expect other people in a real estate agent to do whatever that may be to give them that wow factor. So, if there's one thing that they're talking about at this weekend's barbecues, man, I had this real estate agent, you wouldn't believe what she did for me, and you want them to be bragging about you, and that's how that's how you, that's how you build relationships, that's how they want to refer you is because they like bragging about you because you gave them such great service and built a relationship with them. Yes, yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  31:07 

yes. And I have another story. If you, yeah, go. I just got a referral from a potential client. I had been talking to the client for over a year, but his mom decided that she didn't want to sell, she wanted to stay in her house. She's bedridden, and I told him, "Look, don't worry about this. I totally understand she is comfortable in her home, and I understand that you all want to do this, but ultimately your mom is the decider, and she would like to stay put, and I helped him with his insurance. I helped him with, you know, giving some vendors, and through the course of the year we kept communicating, and he the other day called me and said, "Deborah, I gave your contact to a friend of mine, and they're thinking about selling their house, and so here's the here it is. I said, "Okay, I called them, I talked to them over over the phone, and in the beginning, let me tell you, I think they were interviewing other realtors, and they confirmed that with me yesterday that they were interviewing other realtors, but I got there after my trip to Atlanta, because I just came back from a super World Cup game, and I got there from Atlanta. It took me a little long, because when I got there, they were speaking in Spanish, and I speak Spanish, but three hours of speaking Spanish was long, three hours. I got it, I got it done. But they signed the contract with me because they felt that I could be that one person to help them. They also have very special needs, they have several requests, and and I'm there to help them, and that's what makes.. well,

 

Tracy Hayes  32:59 

and then having the confidence, you know, again, it goes back to the education. I want to just finish this segment of it, and we'll get into our questions. But have you, have you sought out other agents? You know, there's a formal education part of going to Nefa, or going to a lunch and learn, maybe a lenders or title companies putting on, but just peering up or having coffee or having lunch, or just regularly interacting with another successful real estate agent to be kind of talking through some of these situations, because every deal is different, it

 

Debora McCarty  33:35 

is

 

Tracy Hayes  33:36 

because there's different humans involved, there's a different address involved, you know, financial parts of it are all everybody's different, and so everyone, every deal is different, and you run upon some of these squirrelly things, and you're like trying to put the puzzle pieces together. So, having it go to other experienced agents to talk to and try to put it together, maybe they've experienced something similar, and how they got through it. Has have you had any of those people in the years you've been doing it now?

 

Debora McCarty  34:04 

So I have been very, very lucky that I only had issues with my transactions in this May. Until then, all of my transactions had been pretty, pretty not easy, but I was able, predictable, I could handle them without having to go to another realtor for advice. I, of course, have the support of my broker, but this past May I had a couple of transactions that just didn't go the way they were supposed to have gone, and I really did need some support from my office, and they were there for me. So I really appreciate being able to go to my close-knit realtors in my office and get that support.

 

Tracy Hayes  34:57 

Yeah, I mean it goes back to what I originally said, Joe. Choosing the right brokerage, you've got to have, whether it's the broker themselves or other leaders that may be in that office, maybe their top other top agents that are doing things, but you've got to have those people need to be on a quick dial, and they've got to be able to share with you as you would share with them in an open, you know, trust factor, they're not going well, you know. She's my competitor. The top agents, if you're listening right now, the top agents do not see other real estate agents as competitors. I think really the only time you guys really could say you're competing is when you are going in on, say, a listing appointment. You might have them interviewing two or three other agents, but have you found that a lot of times because you're authentic, your knowledge, what you've been doing, not only from a number standpoint, but going to the classes a couple of times, and so forth, allows you to go in there, and if you talk with that confidence, it really will knock out two thirds of the other agents, because most of them aren't doing deals, and let alone they're not doing the level of education that you've done.

 

Debora McCarty  36:02 

Yeah, I agree. And this is exactly what happens. You, you get the education, and you become confident in all the work that you do, and you know that you can help. You know you can help, because you have the knowledge, and having knowledge is absolutely the most important, you have the knowledge, and you, it does help to have a little bit of personality.

 

Tracy Hayes  36:28 

Well, the desire to want to help other people. Yes, yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  36:31 

yes. And people want to be with other people who they, they connect, and I am a very, in my natural, I am a very happy person, I am a positive person, so that is what I bring to the table when I'm talking to my clients. I'm always heavy and smiling, and this is very important. You really need to to engage your client in a way that they feel appreciated and they want to work with you.

 

Tracy Hayes  37:02 

You may, this picture came into my mind when you're saying that it's almost like inviting your friend to come over and put this puzzle together, because every real estate transaction is a puzzle at different levels of difficulty. Some are real easy, some are not, and you, but you, you're putting that puzzle together, and when you form that relationship with the client across you that you've been preaching about, you together, you're putting that puzzle together, and that's really what you really need to enjoy, is being with a friend, a trusted other, in accomplishing something, and that's putting the puzzle together of timelines, how we're going to sell this house, buy that house, all the types of things that go on when under a real estate transaction.

 

Debora McCarty  37:45 

Yes,

 

Tracy Hayes  37:46 

yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  37:46 

absolutely. I like

 

Tracy Hayes  37:48 

that. Let's dive in here a little bit about the Jacksonville, you know, we'll say Northeast Florida real estate market, really for 2026 When you look at the numbers, what do you think sellers in Northeast Florida are misreading about the market right now?

 

Debora McCarty  38:06 

So, here's I go through this with a lot of my sellers, and sometimes they miss the point. I believe what they are looking at, they think that prices are going down, and I like to look at this as prices adjusting, because what happened in 2020 and beginning of 2021 during Covid years, all the prices went up too fast, and that was not sustainable. So now we are going through a downward adjustment that is taking a few years to go back to normal, and that's the one conversation I have with my sellers, is that well, yes, I know that on paper it looks like prices are going down, but they are just adjusting because they went up too fast, 30 to 40% in the matter of two years, it is just not sustainable. And now they are adjusting to what the levels they were, how they were supposed to have been if nothing had happened.

 

Tracy Hayes  39:15 

Right? Right. Seen a very lot of stagnant, you know, but I think no one would disagree. It's a buyer's market, so getting them to pay closing costs, or whatever, you know, small negotiation as far as price. But we still have a demand here in Northeast Florida.

 

Debora McCarty  39:32 

We do, and buyers are buying every day. We have closings every day, so if the house is priced correctly, you will sell it now. It is taking a little longer these days. I understand the interest rates have been - they have not been where we were hoping they were going to be, but they are not bad. They are absolutely not bad. Six and a half percent a. It's a lot better than paying that rent, exactly. It's a lot paying your

 

Tracy Hayes  40:04 

now. You might be more strategic and might not get the house that you would have gotten in 2020 You might have to go with a smaller home, or you know, those type of things. Yeah, but

 

Debora McCarty  40:13 

it is still a great rate. You can still buy houses at that rate without any problems, and go from there, and you're building your wealth. Buying a house is building your wealth. So, when you're renting, it is money that's going down the drain, not working for you. So,

 

Tracy Hayes  40:32 

tell me, tell me about a deal that you've had in the last few months. We all, we all have these ones where years from now we're at a barbecue or cocktail party, and you're, you're, you're talking shop, talking real estate, and you'll be like, man, you won't believe this one customer I had. What is something? What is something that's happened in the last few months that kind of had that, that one unique customer issue? How'd you solve it? But you know what was it?

 

Debora McCarty  40:59 

Well, I told you that I had a very interesting month of May, and I had this one seller who wanted to, of course, sell her house, and she had done almost every update that she could ever do, so the house was ready to be sold, and we actually went under contract within a few weeks, and unfortunately, during the inspection, it was found that the house had polybutylene piping. Oh my

 

Tracy Hayes  41:33 

goodness, so it's an older home.

 

Debora McCarty  41:35 

It's an older home. Everything had been done, everything had been done, but the seller didn't know, the seller just didn't know that there was poly butylene plumbing, and we told the seller, look, if you don't replace this plumbing, the buyer cannot get insurance, and so that was the problem because the seller could not handle breaking the walls and replacing it, was just too much. They

 

Tracy Hayes  42:07 

have some strategic ways of doing them, you know. These, the plumbers are unique, but yeah, there's gonna be a little bit of tear out. There

 

Debora McCarty  42:14 

will be some tear up, but the seller unfortunately could not handle it, and it was so bad that the seller wouldn't return my calls. I sent it. I had both sides once again, and the buyers were really stressed out because they wanted that problem to be resolved before closing.

 

Tracy Hayes  42:37 

The

 

Debora McCarty  42:37 

seller said she would replace the plumbing, but she didn't want to do it. She wanted to give a credit. Buyers didn't want it. They were not. I could not get.. Oh, you should have

 

Tracy Hayes  42:49 

called me on that. I could have mediated that situation. There's.. and I, because I've dealt with this from the lending sides, you know, similar situation, there are some insurance companies that you know they're going to charge a higher rate to begin with, but as soon as you have the piping replaced, then you know they go back in and appraiser go back and say, "yep, it's been, you know, they just want someone to go back in and say, yup, it's completed, and then they either reduce or you go get another, a new policy, and get refunded back to previous policy if it was, you know, unique situation. So, and there are a lot of contractors that will take pay after, you know, at closing. So,

 

Debora McCarty  43:33 

unfortunately, was none of those, none of those. Yeah, none of those. It was really the fact that the seller could not handle it emotionally, and she was still living

 

Tracy Hayes  43:43 

in the house,

 

Debora McCarty  43:44 

she was, and so she wouldn't return my calls, and she wouldn't sign the request, she wouldn't sign, and then finally the buyer said, if she's not gonna sign, we're gonna walk away, and they did, yeah, and I even had to contact, I talked to my broker. We even had to call the police to do a wellness check on the seller, and finally I knocked on the neighbor's door, because I was so worried about her, and that triggered her to contact me to contact me via text. She was, of course, complaining that I had knocked on her neighbor's door. I was worried about her, was a true concern about her health, because

 

Tracy Hayes  44:25 

she ghosted you. She just told me,

 

Debora McCarty  44:27 

and I told her we have transactional deadlines, contractual deadlines, we have to respect these deadlines, and she said I'm not gonna sign. I said, please sign the consolation in my listing agreement. I just said I just cannot do this anymore. So, unfortunately, sometimes it comes down to

 

Tracy Hayes  44:48 

in you, we'd like to think there's some sort of common sense or some normality of like, okay, well, you know, if it's not this buyer, it's gonna be the next buyer, they're all gonna find out, so I need to. Exist, we would all think that's reasonable, but obviously she must have given her excuse of reason not to move, for whatever that might be. I mean,

 

Debora McCarty  45:07 

I could not help her, and sometimes you feel like you failed, sometimes that's, you know, because you want to help so much, and sometimes it doesn't work out. So

 

Tracy Hayes  45:19 

our governor is pushing. Unfortunately, he's going to be out here at the beginning of the year, but he's been pushing for property tax relief. Do you have any clients asking about this right now? And what should Jacksonville buyers and sellers actually understand before we go to the ballot box in November?

 

Debora McCarty  45:39 

Yeah, and I was reading about this this week, actually, because I needed to educate myself a little bit, and apparently the what the sentence is asking is, or is proposing, is a homestead discount, or a bigger homestead amount, so it's, it would be phasing out 150,000 and then to 250,000 it would be a discount on your homestead, hopefully to eliminate completely at some point. And I talk about this to my sellers and buyers mostly, but when I'm talking about this, most sellers don't know about portability, and I was like, look, I know now you still can do it. We know property taxes have not been eliminated yet. Yeah, you still have those savings that you can take to your next home in Florida.

 

Tracy Hayes  46:31 

We were talking pre-show a little bit about AI, and I had a situation where I had a lady who lived in a paid-off house out towards Atlantic Beach. I don't know, her husband passed away, but they had been almost 20 years, have been out there, and they, she was in a sense downsizing, you know, what they're, what they were buying the new home was, you know, about 400,000 they were selling for six over there, they needed a little bit of a loan to carry them until they sold that house, and that's where I got involved, but you can, you go on, you, I, you, I think I'm sure I use Chat GBT for this, but I went in, I went into Gemini, and I said, What's the equation for portability in Florida for homestead to a new homestead, and it tells you, and you take, cut and paste that, and you put that. I put that in the chat GBT, and I start talking. I say, okay, I've got, I've got the, she's selling her house for six, she's buying the new house for four. Here is the current property tax, and with AI, you could just take a screenshot or snippet of what's on online and put in here, and then calculate back what you know the portability is, and I think we're going to find a lot of these people who are probably sub 300 $400,000 homes are going to have little to no taxes.

 

Debora McCarty  47:56 

That's true. Yeah, that's true. Now, interesting thing, St. John's counties, when you go to the property tax website, you actually get to see how much portability the resident has on the tax bill, so if you don't want to, if you've been in your house 1520

 

Tracy Hayes  48:11 

years, because, because we're capped at how much your taxes can go up a year, and they do a calculation based on, you know, what the value of the new home is going to be versus the value you're currently at, and like I said, if you're, you've been, and it's, it is really designed, it's kind of like the reverse mortgage, it is kind of designed for the for the retirees, not that they're the only ones to do it, but it's designed that they, you know, they've been in their home 20 or 30 years now, they're going to get downsized to a smaller unit, and to carry on that the tax situation based on the limits it can go in rebing in 20 years, anyway, there's a calculation for it, and it would, it's going, it was going to be a huge savings for this lady, because the property she was buying, it was an investment property prior to that, so you're seeing the worst case tax situation when you pull up the taxes, but I'm like, okay, you're going to, this is what they're going to do, because they're going to use it off of that, but next year you're going to get a nice refund check, because the other, if you do your portability before march 1, that you're supposed to do there yet, but portability is a, an important topic, something every agent should know how to do, or pull up, you pull up examples for you, and show you it is a great deal. You know, I've been in there only a year or two, not really that big, but if you've been there 1015, 20 years, you could say, yeah, you could save some money. What do you? So there are talking about it. There's now these out of staters that are hearing this. Who are some of the types of buyers or sellers that you've been talking to? Where are they from?

 

Debora McCarty  49:46 

They are coming from up north, northeast New York, Massachusetts. Those are the two states that I have buyers coming from that I've been working with, and they. They're in their market, it's hot, so it's a seller's market, so they are, they have been able to sell their houses pretty quickly, and they love coming here because they can afford more houses here, so it's that's what I've been hearing from them.

 

Tracy Hayes  50:16 

I don't know this next question, if it picked it up from something you said, and so it's talking about, yes, you can get a tax sticker shock, especially if you're buying new construction, you can get a sticker shock. A good lender and good real estate agents need to explain, hey, you're buying the house this year, your taxes are probably only going to be a few 100 bucks, because on January 1 the house wasn't finished yet, or you know, the other person's lived in it, but now you're, you're moving into it, but you need to be prepared, because you could have an adjustment on your taxes going into 27 in november 27 you're going to get that bill, and you could be in shock by what it, what it could adjust to.

 

Debora McCarty  50:57 

Yeah, I mean, like I said, well, first of all, we're of course we still need to vote on this. Yeah, I'm thinking that it will, and the legislators have

 

Tracy Hayes  51:06 

got to work it out of how it's actually going to be implemented

 

Debora McCarty  51:09 

exactly, and it will be. It will be sticker shock, but you know what, I think it is for the better. And we are a strong state, we have been really, I think, well managed by by the government, and I, I think that people are gonna want to come here more.

 

Tracy Hayes  51:29 

Yeah, there's no why. I love the fact that he put an area, you know, you'd have, you have to be, you know, homestead for at least five years before you could do

 

Debora McCarty  51:36 

so. They're not all run down there, yeah, they are gonna have to come here and establish residence.

 

Tracy Hayes  51:42 

Yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  51:42 

gotta be a floor.

 

Tracy Hayes  51:43 

Now that's obviously something they want to put in it, whether they are will or not. Maybe they argue it out. Who knows? But now's the time. You're thinking about now's the time, because if you are homesteaded when it goes into effect, you're gonna could roll right into this versus buying after it actually goes into effect from that standpoint. I was going to add another question in there. Oh, Jacksonville versus St. Johns County.

 

Debora McCarty  52:16 

Okay,

 

Tracy Hayes  52:17 

when a buyer is weighing in whether to buy in St. Johns County or in Jacksonville slash Duval County. What questions do you ask to figure out which fits their lifestyle? We sell lifestyles, real estate agents, but St. Johns County is different than Duval County,

 

Debora McCarty  52:37 

right? Well, as a realtor, I'm not supposed to be, you know, telling them where they should go. I have to ask many questions, and truly, well, your

 

Tracy Hayes  52:50 

job is to make recommendations.

 

Debora McCarty  52:51 

Exactly, I ask many questions to see what exactly is the most important for them. Are they coming here for the schools, are they coming here to be close to the beach? Are they coming here because they are going to be working at the NAS? Are they, or Mayport? You know all of the reasoning why they are coming here. You have to know what's happening, so you can help them figure out which area would be best for them to move into, yeah, and a lot of time it takes time, so I send them some links. I send links for the best schools in the whole area, crime, you know, the crime website where they can check crime histories and all that, and I let them choose because I'm here to guide them once they choose, and they tell me, Deborah, we want to stay in Jacksonville, or Deborah, we want to stay in St. John's or Clay County. I am gung ho, let's go. I'm gonna help you find the best house in that county.

 

Tracy Hayes  53:55 

Are you still finding a challenge out there when working with some of these, they want to sell, but they've got a really low rate, three 4% mortgage right now, and they're going, okay, well, we really want to move out to knock a D by our friends or vice versa type of, are you still seeing them looking at that calculation, and if you are, how do you help them overcome that to make that step that they want to do, maybe they need to do, but understand, like, hey, yeah, those are rates from, you know, several years ago, they're just not likely coming back anytime soon.

 

Debora McCarty  54:31 

It is all about motivation, because if you, if a seller comes to you, and of course they are still stuck in that two and a half percent. Oh, I'm not going to find anything for that rate. It's all about their motivation. Why do you want to move? Why do you want to sell? Because if the reason why you want to sell is more important than the two and a half percent, then that's what you need to show them. That's what you need. To, to help them understand that that rate is, it's part of the best,

 

Tracy Hayes  55:07 

and ultimately we don't know what their, how big their motivation is behind it. You and I might be saying, you know, we're at 3% we're not in a rush to go, you know, change houses just to change houses, like you were seeing in the latter 2018 1920 and so forth. Rates are so low, people were like, 'Hey, let's go, let's go live over there. And there were people moving every couple of years. Everyone has that story of that customer who's, you know, changed houses numerous times of the rate. Yeah, because, or sat in their house because of the rain, yeah. And, but, but knowing what the reason, maybe there's a divorce, maybe, maybe there's a financial thing, maybe they want to live close to their parents, or vice versa, you know, the parents, when the kids, they want to go to this particular school, but they don't want to have them traveling, you know, 3040 minutes on I 95 they want, they need to move within five minutes of the school, that they,

 

Debora McCarty  56:00 

the motivation that I was talking about. You know what it is exactly that motivates you to sell the house, and so in the end that break may not be the only factor in your decision making to sell. It will be other things, and I know that many people who bought in 2020 2021 they bought something that they really didn't like that much, but they bought such a high demand on the market. What was available, that's what was available. I have a lot of sellers come to me, Deborah, I bought that house, but it wasn't what I wanted, but I, that was all that was available, right? And they want to sell, but they are still stuck on the right,

 

Tracy Hayes  56:41 

but now you have to, and I'm sure one of the arguments you give them. Well, now you have a couple $100,000 in equity to use for a down payment on the home that you do want.

 

Debora McCarty  56:50 

Yes, exactly, exactly. So it's all about getting together with a great lender

 

Tracy Hayes  56:56 

and making sure that you have a good plan. Yeah, downsizing into a 55 plus community.

 

Debora McCarty  57:03 

Yes,

 

Tracy Hayes  57:03 

what do downsizers consistently underestimate about the transition into a 55 plus community?

 

Debora McCarty  57:10 

Oh, that's a good question. You know, one thing that they may not realize is that, of course, they are getting a smaller house, and a lot of people have a lot of stuff in there, especially if they've been in there

 

Tracy Hayes  57:25 

a long time, it's piled up,

 

Debora McCarty  57:27 

been there a long time, they have a ton of stuff that they need to get rid of, so that's a big, a big change being used to all of that stuff, and now you have to really get rid of it, so that it will fit your new house,

 

Tracy Hayes  57:40 

have you had to jump in and help some, maybe some retirees with overcoming that procrastination and getting rid of stuff, and yeah, yes, yes.

 

Debora McCarty  57:51 

As a matter of fact, this particular listing that I just got yesterday, I told them, look, I'm happy to come here, I'm gonna help you guys and make sure that you know how this house needs to look like in order to get your the best buyer for this house and I have another friend who is it's a client but became a friend his mom bought a house and he is getting ready to move her from South Florida over here and he told me Deborah the problem is that we need to pack, and my mom doesn't want anybody in the house to pack, because she writes her stuff, very poor, her health is not good, and so she doesn't want to have strangers said, "Don't worry, I'll help you. So, yeah, sometimes we do have to help.

 

Tracy Hayes  58:40 

Well, that's part of that wow factor I mentioned earlier. Sometimes you'd say, you know what? Okay, hey, I'll come over for a couple hours, let's get her started, let's get going and get the momentum going.

 

Debora McCarty  58:50 

That I told you that I helped buy a condo of sister family, whole family that I helped. I helped her pressure wash her driveway, and she was so happy, because she had never done it, and she learned how to do it, and she was so appreciative. This is the kind of thing, you know, not everybody does

 

Tracy Hayes  59:12 

well. It's that little wow factor, because the bottom line is, you, you have to be willing to invest that, that hopefully that's going to be a referral, whether it's next month, next year, three years from now. They go, "Hey, you were a great agent, and I have somebody I want to refer you. That opportunity came up for them to not put the two of you together and have that influence. They're happy to give it to you, because they know you're going to try to wow factor, and they feel good because their person looks at them, go, "Hey, thank you for referring me to Deborah, because she's, she's doing such a great job weaponizing in, and I think we could probably put this to, you know, a kind of a dual edge question, whether it's a buyer's offers or the way lit. Um, listers are structuring their deals, but what are some of the, some of the things you're doing today when you're making an offer on a home with your client that maybe you weren't doing two or three years ago.

 

Debora McCarty  1:00:13 

Let me think about this,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:00:17 

and I think we probably could draw the line post the NAR settlement, which, what was that, 2024 was it that the August of 24 that went in effect? You know that that was a practice that they want everyone doing. Yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  1:00:30 

right. Well, I know that with the changes we had, where compensation was not being disclosed anymore, we now have to negotiate. Everything is negotiated, so I rarely contact the agent to ask what is the compensation the seller is paying. It is all with the offer, and that's the conversation I have with the buyer. Look, I do my best to get my compensation from that seller, but when we put in that offer, we need to work out this offer in a way that that is part of the negotiation,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:01:06 

equitable for both sides. They have a bottom line, you have a top line, you know. Hey, how can we meet in the middle? And that's the job of the of the two real estates.

 

Debora McCarty  1:01:14 

And it is, it is a conversation you have to have every time.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:01:18 

Yeah, yeah, it's a buyer's market, or you find yourself, you know, talking more today than, say, three years ago, but hey, you know what, it's a buyer's market. Let's see if they'll pay your closing costs. We

 

Debora McCarty  1:01:31 

ask for closing costs, we ask for credit, we ask for things that we believe could help, you know, get that house. Yeah, and they get to sell the house, so it is

 

Tracy Hayes  1:01:43 

a lot. I think it's a better return on investment to get 3% of the purchase price than to ask for 3% off the purchase price, you know. You, the, I think people lose track of the power of cash, and you should be conserving your cash and investing it now. If you want to put a little extra to your mortgage, because your investment accounts are doing really well, all the power to you. You know that that works too. But you know, obviously, strategy keeping having the seller pay the closing costs, and you keeping that money or putting a greater down payment down.

 

Debora McCarty  1:02:21 

Imagine if you're working with first time buyers, a lot of times they don't have extra cash. Yeah, they need that help, they need that help with paying their closing costs, so they can get into the house,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:02:33 

and then flipping it over to the sellers, strategizing with them of, hey, we need to offer at this price, because we're likely to ask if someone's going to ask for some percentage of cost coverage or credits that you're talking about, so when you're out there talking to them about listing the home, structuring it in a way that it's not only a price that's going to get people to come see it, you're not overpriced, where people are like, well, a house is asking way too much, you know, type of, and sitting down and strategizing, how important. What are some of the things you talk about with a, with a seller to help strategize what we're actually going to list the house for?

 

Debora McCarty  1:03:09 

I have that conversation, of course. We talk about comparables, we talk about what's sold in the neighborhood, we talk about how we, who is active in, in the area, active

 

Tracy Hayes  1:03:21 

current listing, so important,

 

Debora McCarty  1:03:23 

exactly, currently listing houses around that house, because they are your competitors, so you cannot be helping them sell their house, you have to sell your house, right? So it is, we do have that this conversation, and it is very important to know what's going on, and a lot of times I even take my sellers to go see the competitor's house. Why not? We need to go see how does your house compare to that house, so you understand why you cannot ask more, you know? Or you can ask more. It says it's a, it's something, it's all part of that presentation that you want to make sure that they go in fully aware of what's going on, and being negotiating that offer when it comes in is part of the process, and I always tell them, look, it's okay for us to give a little bit of credit if that's what's going to make this deal work. You are still getting what you wanted, so let's get this done.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:04:21 

Have you had any lately? You know, you haven't been doing real estate enough. If you hadn't had that client that wants that extra 2020-530, $1,000 more than what you're recommending.

 

Debora McCarty  1:04:34 

Yeah,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:04:34 

tell us what you're doing. And then, if they totally insist, no, I want it listed for that price. How, how do you handle it? Obviously, because you, you having this discussion, you don't want them to be defensive or get mad at you because you disagree on how much the house should be listed for. So, how do you prep that client? What's your mindset on not getting defensive about your what you think it is, because you may be. Wrong,

 

Debora McCarty  1:05:00 

right?

 

Tracy Hayes  1:05:01 

That happens, but what's that conversation like with the seller? As far as, like, okay, this is what we're going to list the house for, and if they're not on the same page, how do you, how do you work with them?

 

Debora McCarty  1:05:12 

Well, that again, that conversation is around looking at the comparables, looking what's active, and making sure that we position ourselves the best way we can, but if they still insist in pricing it higher, I say, well, let's have an agreement. Then we try it for two weeks, we try it for two weeks, and if we don't get an offer, or if we don't get a lot of showing requests, then you know that you have to lower the price, and a lot of times they agree on that. They will agree to at least try for two weeks. Yeah, we know that those first two weeks are prime weeks, but if they insist, I am okay, because I have seen houses being sold $100,000 more than I thought the house was worth, so I knew it happens. There is a buyer for every house out there, and there is a buyer who is looking for your house, your house with the features that your house has, and that buyer may be willing to pay more. So I totally get it that maybe you want more because you know you have unique features that not every other house will have, so it is a conversation we need to have, and look for that bio.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:06:32 

You said you enjoy open houses. I do. You, you really.. What are some of the unique things that you do for every open house, let's, let's, you know, let's say we're gonna have an open house on Saturday. What are you doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday to get ready for that open house? So, you have a number of people show up, because I think it's kind of obvious that agents, when they go on the listing appointment, are like, yes, and I'm going to do two open houses in the first month, whatever you're going to tell them, kind of what your plan is, and that way they can measure it from you, but obviously you're just putting the signing yard and ghosting them and not being around, you know, open houses, your opportunity to be around, even though they should be down the street having lunch somewhere, you know, the point

 

Debora McCarty  1:07:17 

that you're working,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:07:18 

yes, that you're working to sell their house, right. Yes, yeah.

 

Debora McCarty  1:07:22 

And that's the important aspect of open houses. I understand that the likelihood that a buyer will walk in and say, I want

 

Tracy Hayes  1:07:31 

it,

 

Debora McCarty  1:07:31 

it's.. it's..

 

Tracy Hayes  1:07:32 

it happens, but

 

Debora McCarty  1:07:33 

happens, but it's small. However, you were there showing to your seller that you are working for them, and you are putting in the time, you are talking to people, and you are, you are the, the one person who knows the most, aside from the sellers, about that house. You know everything about the house, and you are the seller. You are, you are the representative of the seller, you are there to sell that house to those potential buyers that are coming in to see the house, and I think that's the best way to show that you are working for the seller, and and I love it, I love it, I prepare it, I go tell

 

Tracy Hayes  1:08:18 

us, you tell us what you, what your week looks like, getting ready for Saturday, so

 

Debora McCarty  1:08:22 

I have my signs. My open house signs have my face, first of all, because I am big on branding, and your face is, you sell you, you are the agent, you sell yourself. So all my open house signs have my face, they contact me directly, right? Because I want those leads, whomever. And when they

 

Tracy Hayes  1:08:47 

walk in the house, they see you,

 

Debora McCarty  1:08:49 

they see me. Of course, I cannot be at every open house for every listing that I have. So I am, I am thankful that I have a very nice brokerage that have agents who are willing to come out and host open houses, and that's amazing. I love it. And so they will come whenever. If I cannot be there, I will have other agents in my office who will be there. So I'm always able to provide that service, and I do my best to have several open houses, because I also want to meet buyers, I want to talk to people, I want to sell the house, so very important. I will list, of course, on the MLS, I will post it on Facebook. You need to post, post a listing on Facebook. You can create an event for your open house on Facebook, and that is public, so you always get some friction, some engagement with people that want to see. And when I ask you more questions, I will.. I also have now.. I'm actually in the process. Of putting together an open house, prepare for the open house sign, where it's gonna say coming soon, coming soon, open house, because imagine this, you get this sign, you put it in front of the house on Monday, your open house is gonna be on Saturday, but that open house sign is on the property all week long, so this is a great way, first of all, to show the neighbors that you are doing your best to sell the house,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:10:32 

that's good tip.

 

Debora McCarty  1:10:32 

Okay, and you are telling you, of course, are telling everybody that the house is going to be open, come see it. I invite neighbors. I send mailers to the neighbors because I want the neighbors to come see the house. I want to talk to those neighbors because maybe they have family, they have friends who want to move in into the neighborhood, so I want them to come see the house. I always invite the neighbors, so it's great. And you can knock on doors, neighbors, you know, the neighbors' doors, it's absolutely fine, it's another way to engage, and, but I usually send mailers, yeah,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:11:09 

yeah, no, the, the neighbor thing, I think is not enough agents, well, not enough agents prepare ahead of time, obviously, you know, listings coming on, you're, you know, when you're having that open house, you know, to invite the neighbors, because 100% in this planned urban development area that we're in, so many of friends are telling their other friends to move into the same neighborhood, parents, you know, grandparents wanting to live closer to the kids, or vice versa, or you know, you need to let the neighbors know that this house is available. Then we say, "Oh my god, let me tell Sally, she's been wanting, and you know it's the perfect home for them. You just don't know,

 

Debora McCarty  1:11:49 

because not everybody is connected, not everybody is out there looking for houses, and in some, you need to plant the seed. You know, tell them, "Hey, do you have family friends who want to move in, right? Oh, I do. And you give them, you know, the worst case is

 

Tracy Hayes  1:12:06 

they're not interested in that particular home, but now you've actually been introduced them. Now you have them, and now you can put them in your CRM a little bit and start trickling on, because you know they're thinking about moving. It's just night might night be till next year. We just don't know, and and then when that deal comes, because you put the effort in to stay to follow up, basically. Yeah, tell us about a deal recently where your negotiation skills had to come in and kind of hold a deal together. What was it that, that set it off, you know, possibly to the point of, like, you, the deal is going to fall apart, and how did you, how did you pull it back?

 

Debora McCarty  1:12:44 

Well, interesting enough, it's my daughter's house. We, I could not keep the first deal together, unfortunately. The buyer walked on the day of closing, clear to close, and they decided to walk, it's fine. What can you do? They lost their binder, we everything was good to go, but we just got the house under contract again, and we were working with this buyer who just got a divorce, and he doesn't have any money, and he wants the house, and so we were able to negotiate a way for him to get into the house by giving some credit, you know. There are some little

 

Tracy Hayes  1:13:30 

to no money, yeah,

 

Debora McCarty  1:13:30 

yeah, there are some strategies that we can use, and as long as the house appraises, we are able to help the buyer and get him to buy this house, so I think I'm very happy that we agreed on how to get this done, and we are walking towards closing.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:13:49 

Yeah, for listeners out there, they're, yeah, it's great that they put a down payment on, they can buy more home because they're putting a down payment on to get the loan to a payment that they want, type of thing, but if you got other situations, especially in divorce situations, generally the other spouse who might be leaving the home, they want to get, they want to get into a home, so when the kids come over to see them, it's, it's still, it's their home, they don't want to break that, you know, versus, you know, renting, which, you know, could happen, but there's ways to, to, you know, put it together, obviously. VA loans are really easy to do with little to no money in their pockets, but there's down payment assistance programs or costs across the spectrum that can supply that money. That the down payment seller pays the closing cost, they're in there for little to no money, they might get money back at closing.

 

Debora McCarty  1:14:38 

Yes,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:14:38 

yeah, yeah. There, let's see, let's go, let's go with this one here. Builder incentives, when a buyer tells you they are already visited a builder sales office on their own, what's the first thing you want to know about what happened there?

 

Debora McCarty  1:14:56 

Well, I have. Actually, have this conversation before they go to the builder, because you know when you, when you have a potential buyer, if you don't start that conversation right away, they will go, they will go to builders, they will go see new houses, and but I try my best to explain to them, look, this is what happens when you go without me. As long as, and I am thankful that the builders today, not the builders of 2020 builders today, they are more honorable. They will honor the, they love real

 

Tracy Hayes  1:15:40 

estate agents now

 

Debora McCarty  1:15:40 

they do 2020 they didn't want to see, would not even offer anything, or if your buyer walked in, they would not honor that compensation. But today they do love us, and I tell my buyers, please make sure that you have my card when you go in, just give my card, tell them you're with me, and I will go whenever I can, and you know, just introduce myself, but they know, because I prepared them for that. I am never caught, you know, not on guard,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:16:16 

off the top of your head, approximately over last year. What would you say your percentage of new construction versus resale?

 

Debora McCarty  1:16:25 

Let me see, just a

 

Tracy Hayes  1:16:28 

ballpark,

 

Debora McCarty  1:16:28 

a ballpark. I want to say about 30% about

 

Tracy Hayes  1:16:31 

30% and the importance. Somebody brought this up, and I always want to make this point on every show, someone might be listening, because obviously you and I know a lot of people, oh, we can just go to the builder like they're walking into Walmart or something, and you know the price of the shirt is the price of the shirt, that's not true, and then every builder is a little different on what they, they'll negotiate on, let alone what already comes with the price, because we know there's some builders like that's the way it is, you don't have any options, others you have all these options. Okay, what do I want to chandelier here or this or that? You could do all this stuff,

 

Debora McCarty  1:17:10 

but if you don't know and you don't have a guidance, you don't have a realtor with you, guess what,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:17:15 

right?

 

Debora McCarty  1:17:15 

You don't get it.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:17:16 

And then where, and then where they will negotiate, some will negotiate on that, but some, but won't on this, and vice versa. And you've got to have that agent who's regularly selling those that builder and knows what's going on and where their soft points are to get you the deal

 

Debora McCarty  1:17:33 

correct. That is true. And I tell this to my buyers exactly when I have that conversation before they go, I tell them about this, because it is important for them to understand. When they go by themselves without a realtor, they may not get everything. They will not, because the builder has the builder's interest, and nothing against builders. I love builders, they are great to work with, and, but they have the buyer's interest there,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:18:04 

that site agent isn't going to volunteer information now. If you ask them, they'll hopefully they're honest, and they'll tell you, but otherwise they're not gonna volunteer information. And if you don't have someone there that knows what to ask, you didn't ask it

 

Debora McCarty  1:18:16 

just because you didn't ask. Yeah, exactly.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:18:18 

Yeah, and I think there's no doubt that a an agent who's experienced like Deborah can get you in there and is going to save you 1015 $20,000 versus someone who might have walked in there by themselves, because I, the misconception that they're discounting it because they're not having to pay a real estate agent is not true, they hold that margin,

 

Debora McCarty  1:18:42 

they are not gonna give you a discount now. Maybe you could

 

Tracy Hayes  1:18:45 

ask them, maybe you can ask them, say, "Well, I don't have real estate agent, will you take so much off? Well, let me talk to my manager. Well, we can't take that off, but we'll give you a new coffee maker,

 

Debora McCarty  1:18:58 

because the builder has a duty to that community to keep those prices stable. The builder doesn't have any interest in selling a house for acts here. And then, because you want a discount, you don't have a realtor, and they're gonna sell x minus something. Yes, it's just not gonna happen. It is not in their best interest. They want to keep prices stabilized in that,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:19:22 

that's a very good point, very understanding that it's exactly what they're in. They're obviously there, they're trying to keep pushing, inching that price up. As older as that community gets, they're trying to inch it up a little bit, little bit, little bit. They do not want to go back because people are going to look at what the last sale was in there, and so forth. Final question.

 

Debora McCarty  1:19:42 

Okay,

 

Tracy Hayes  1:19:42 

why do you love real estate?

 

Speaker 1  1:19:44 

Oh my gosh.

 

Debora McCarty  1:19:47 

Well, I love helping people. This is why I love real estate. I love when people come to me. Deborah, thank you so much. We could not have done this without you. It just. Brings me joy, it makes me, it makes me happy. It is, it is a business that's very challenging, and it requires a work ethics that not everybody has. You know, I wake up at 5am I'm exercising at six, and I am in the office at seven, and I treat my, my, my job as, as a job because I want to work in my trade, and I give all my time to my trade, and I want to be that good. I still want to be so much better, and that's what drives me, that makes me happy, and that's why I love real estate.

 

Tracy Hayes  1:20:43 

The best agents do, they love the process, and it's really the payday is that referral or compliment, the review that they leave. So, Deborah, appreciate you coming on today.

 

Debora McCarty  1:20:57 

Thank you. Thank you. Great show. Bye.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai