From Command to Closing:  What 30 Years in the Army Taught Her About Real Estate. Traci Crawford Ep. 332

REE #332 Transcript

[00:00:00] Traci Crawford: There are no words to really say how important it is because, you know, real estate can be lonely, right?

Mm-hmm.

It’s nice to know that there’s someone that’s in your corner, that’s rooting for you, that you know 100% has your back.

Tracy Hayes: Hey, welcome back to the Real Estate Excellence Podcast. My guest today retired as Colonel in the United States Army after 30 years. Now she’s commanding the Jacksonville real estate market. She’s a global real estate advisor with ONE Sotheby’s [00:01:00] International Realty, a Certified Residential Specialist, graduate of, of the Realtor Institute, and a Military Relocation Professional who’s guided countless families through the PCS moves and major life transitions. Less.

[00:01:15] Tracy Hayes: Let’s welcome Traci Crawford to the show. Welcome. Thank you. Glad you came down.

[00:01:20] Traci Crawford: Me too.

[00:01:20] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. You on because I, I really—it’s so important, and for the listeners out there, and a lot of ’em are, are agents that are listening in too. Although someone may listen to all the stories, uh, and listen to every podcast and say, “Oh, you know what? A lot of these are correlating,” but you don’t understand. They actually correlate together because until you actually have listened to so many of them—because all of you are coming from different directions.

You spent 30 years. I don’t think I’ve had other veterans on, but no one has spent 30 years. I think Mario Gonzalez, he said he was with the Navy maybe 20. Maybe I’ve had a few of those in there. Thirty years. That’s remarkable. And thank you, [00:02:00] thank you for your service and your dedication.

But welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about—we, we talked pre-show. My question was, you know, what brought you to the Navy? And that was an ROTC—or the Army—and what brought you to that was an ROTC scholarship. Tell us there, and what were your aspirations? You know, was nursing actually your initial goal when you went into school? Tell us about it.

Mm-hmm.

[00:02:20] Traci Crawford: So, actually, it was. I think in high school I had different aspirations, but by the time I made my applications for college, nursing was what I wanted to do. And I am so happy that I did that, ’cause I truly enjoyed being a nurse.

And so I was in for a couple years and looking for a way to continue, and I received an application for an RTC scholarship. So I said to my dad, “What do you think?” Sure. Just give it a word.

[00:02:44] Tracy Hayes: What did your dad—

[00:02:45] Traci Crawford: I have my stepfather and my dad, so yes, I do have a Marine who is a Vietnam vet.

[00:02:50] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:02:50] Traci Crawford: A hundred percent disabled. So I did grow up with kind of a military background. Yeah. We didn’t have the pleasure of PCSing as much as I did once I was on active duty [00:03:00] myself, but I did get to live part of the military life through him. And so that was probably my initial exposure to the military.

[00:03:07] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I think, I think one of the misconceptions—my wife has this misconception—I did not serve. I did graduate from The Citadel, okay? And, uh, I took Naval ROTC. Most people think we’re like West Point. The Citadel’s not West Point. The Citadel is a state college of South Carolina.

At the time, everyone was required to take four years of ROTC, but only, I think, out of my class of 400-something, about 60 actually took commissions and went into the service.

But the misconception—you know, obviously what we see on the news and the guys that are truly on the front lines, and that’s what every mom fears, is their son or daughter, you know, being out there—is actually a very small percentage of those who actually serve. A lot of ’em are doing great ser—support roles like you were doing.

[00:03:49] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:03:50] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:03:50] Traci Crawford: Because logistics is certainly one of the biggest pieces. You know, they can’t do their job without logistics, and they can’t also charge that hill if they don’t know if there’s someone going to be there to take care of them [00:04:00] if they, when and if they get injured.

[00:04:01] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:04:02] Traci Crawford: And that was my role and responsibility as a nurse in the military, starting, you know, certainly from being in the trenches to leading a medical center and making sure that we were there to receive them when they were injured.

One of the things from the last few conflicts was that, you know, soldiers were surviving horrific injuries that, in the past, they would’ve died from.

[00:04:23] Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:04:23] Traci Crawford: Right. So then we were needing to be there to make sure that they can recover and reenter society, or even sometimes back into the military—

[00:04:31] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:04:31] Traci Crawford: —with these injuries. So, I mean, what an incredible honor to be able to take care of them and be a part of their recovery.

[00:04:39] Tracy Hayes: I think a lot of people would think, okay, nursing, the Army, or any of the service, your—your—that’s the role. But you—what you graduated of, and obviously must have continued education—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —to get into some of the other rooms that you were involved in—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —that you were talking about pre-show.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: What was—just for those who might be listening and, you know, have children, maybe, you know, this is a possible [00:05:00] route.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: But I imagine they continued to educate you, and you weren’t just a nurse in an operating room anymore.

[00:05:06] Traci Crawford: That is correct. Yeah. So I started in, obviously, with my bachelor’s, ’cause you have to have a degree to be an officer. So I started in with my bachelor’s degree, and I came in and cut my teeth and learned what, you know, nursing truly meant. ’Cause, you know, the book is one thing, but reality is—

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:05:20] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:05:21] Traci Crawford: So I learned that you actually—

[00:05:22] Tracy Hayes: Gotta see blood.

[00:05:24] Traci Crawford: —care for patients, you know, get them—

[00:05:27] Tracy Hayes: Home. People screaming—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: —in pain.

[00:05:29] Traci Crawford: Absolutely. Yes. But the military is really big on education, right?

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So if it’s what you want to do, you want to make it a career, it’s important to you, education is the route to go, which is why that’s a cornerstone of what I still do today. Education is everything. It helps you, you know, know what you need to do and make the best decisions.

So I did get my master’s degree. I’ve done military courses. I did do ER nursing. I’m a—I’m a junkie, adrenaline junkie. Probably why real estate also works for me every day. The—

[00:05:59] Tracy Hayes: Challenge. You [00:06:00] gotta have something to—something that gets the heart rate up.

Traci Crawford: Right. Exactly.

[00:06:04] Traci Crawford: Right. And you’re that duck paddling, right? Your legs are not, but on the surface you have to be cool and calm, ’cause your patients are looking for that.

Right?

Right.

[00:06:12] Traci Crawford: And so are your clients. Your clients don’t want a real estate who’s got her hair on fire. They want to know that, you know, you’re handling it. You’ve done this before.

Tracy Hayes: Correct.

Traci Crawford: You got their corner. So, you know, just educating and learning my craft and learning from other people helped me to be successful within the military and, you know, reach the rank that I did and the positions that I had within the military.

[00:06:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. Because I, I, I just—it’s the technology that’s out there today. Not to spend too much on this, but the things that they’re doing, they’re doing more to keep the soldier out of the dirt, carrying that rifle one-on-one, as much as they can.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Using the technology out there that’s there. But, like I said, I mean, I would say 80%, maybe [00:07:00] more, are actually noncombat roles. Am I—is that—would you—70%?

[00:07:03] Traci Crawford: Yeah, maybe about 70.

[00:07:04] Tracy Hayes: So, yeah. I mean, there—you, you—from the logistics, from the support, the technology.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: I mean, we’ve got guys in Las Vegas that are controlling drones on the other side of the earth.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: They would actually call it—consider that a combat role, and they’re not, you know—

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: They’re nowhere near—nowhere near those things.

So, was there times where you were like, “Yeah, maybe it’s time to get out”? Or are you like, “Man, I’m having a really great time. Let me just—” You know, and 30 years just went by like that.

[00:07:27] Traci Crawford: I truly enjoyed every many of—

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: —minute of it, and 30 years did go by. I mean, granted, there were challenges, but it’s the camaraderie, it’s the relationships, it’s the coaching, the teaching, the mentoring, you know, being able to give back to junior officers.

[00:07:41] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:41] Traci Crawford: Being in positions where I could influence junior officers and make things better for them, um, as they continued in the trenches, taking care of patients and, and growing and developing themselves.

[00:07:51] Tracy Hayes: Awesome.

[00:07:52] Traci Crawford: Every minute.

[00:07:53] Tracy Hayes: Awesome. Start—you, you actually should—I mean, 30—you, you should, you should write a book on that. I mean, I think—well, although we’re not [00:08:00] doing too bad recruiting right now, but we could always, you know, influence another smart individual to, uh, be involved.

All right. So when does real estate get on the radar for you?

[00:08:11] Traci Crawford: Well, throughout my military career, we’ve purchased—my husband and I have purchased about five homes. They were all new construction. I’ve always loved it.

But even before that, I was in high school and I thought I wanted to be an architect. But then I realized it wasn’t just about building the buildings. You had to build all the entered stuff too. It was—

[00:08:29] Tracy Hayes: Important.

[00:08:29] Traci Crawford: Right. But I didn’t really have an interest in that.

[00:08:32] Tracy Hayes: There actually has to be some functionality.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Imagine—

[00:08:36] Traci Crawford: That. Not just making it look pretty.

[00:08:38] Tracy Hayes: Right, right.

[00:08:39] Traci Crawford: But then, as we built homes—you have to say, “Oh, that’s the most stressful thing, is to build a home.” But it wasn’t stressful. It was fun. We both enjoyed it.

And so when I retired, there was an officer—you know, we do courses to figure out what you’re gonna do when you retire.

[00:08:52] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: Mentored and coached.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: So there was another good friend of mine who was about to retire, and she said, “Well, I’m thinking I’m gonna go into [00:09:00] interior design.”

And that was the first time I had thought about doing something outside of nursing or the medical field, ’cause I thought I was gonna go back and get my nurse practitioner—

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: —and continue to serve in that capacity. But in order to do that, I would’ve spent countless hours honing my craft, and I kind of wanted something that would give me time to be with the kiddos.

[00:09:21] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:09:21] Traci Crawford: Um, because they served right alongside of me, and I felt it was this time, ’cause I had a daughter who was starting high school and a son who was starting middle school. Um, so I just wanted to be there for them more.

[00:09:31] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:09:31] Traci Crawford: Now, I don’t know that real estate really was that, but maybe I had a few more hours. At least I felt like I could guard—

[00:09:38] Tracy Hayes: Right. Well, we were—I was talking with a guest the other day, and, and, you know, that’s the first, probably, if you were to rate five things of why people want to get into real estate, I think the term “free time” comes up.

Well, it’s not actually free time. It’s you get to have some control how to structure your time.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: But you always have that [00:10:00] client that wants to see that house when you want to be picking up your kids, and sometimes, like, “Hey, I can’t pick you up today. Dad’s gotta pick you up,” or whatever.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: And, you know, the ball games and all that other—that kind of stuff. It does give you the ability to structure your day around being available at those times, most of the time.

[00:10:17] Traci Crawford: Most of the time.

[00:10:17] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So free time is not the term. It’s just—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —more structured, structured time.

So you decided—you, Watson is where you end up going?

Traci Crawford: I did initially. I started with Watson, which has one of, you know, obviously, a lot of great agents here in Northeast Florida, and I’m sure Florida in general.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Uh, because Watson does provide the, the school.

[00:10:35] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:10:36] Tracy Hayes: I imagine that’s where you—

[00:10:37] Traci Crawford: I actually did not—

[00:10:38] Tracy Hayes: Go? You did not go to Watson. Oh, interesting. Okay.

[00:10:40] Traci Crawford: I did my Florida Real Estate Institute.

[00:10:42] Tracy Hayes: Oh.

[00:10:43] Traci Crawford: Okay. But then I interviewed brokerages, and a friend of mine that I did the course with, she had interviewed with Watson and really liked it. I said, “Oh, let me give it a shot.”

[00:10:52] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:52] Traci Crawford: So I interviewed with the broker where I started, and I loved it.

[00:10:56] Tracy Hayes: So one of the things we try to—we haven’t talked about it recently, but [00:11:00] you know, in past shows we talked about—is, you know, you interviewing them.

[00:11:04] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:11:04] Tracy Hayes: Okay. So you, you’re not 25 years old. You just spent 30 years in the Army as a colonel. You’re in a room, and those of you who are listening right now, when you’re around military brass, real—you, you’re around colonels, you’re around generals and so forth, there’s a different vibe in the room.

I always felt, at least the colonels especially that I—and still interact with today from The Citadel—when they walk in the room, there’s, there’s a presence about them, just because, you know, the roads, the dirt they’ve treaded over, the confidence they portray. I don’t think I could describe it any better.

You go into this interview with these brokers—

[00:11:40] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:11:40] Tracy Hayes: Who’s controlling the room? What was your mindset? Do you remember what was going on? Like, hey, were you trying to get something out of him, or was, you know, him, like a lot of brokers, was like, “Hey, you want to do real estate? Great. Okay. Yeah, you, you can walk and talk and you’re educated. You know, hey, come to Watson.”

What was that interaction like in your situation?

[00:11:58] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm. So in my [00:12:00] situation, I’m still a people person. I like to relate to people. So I was getting to know them, but I really was looking for who was gonna coach, teach, and mentor me—

[00:12:08] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:08] Traci Crawford: —in real estate, and who I felt had my best interest at heart. Um, and that’s what I was looking for as I interviewed the broker.

[00:12:16] Tracy Hayes: So you had that mindset. Now, obviously, you and I know a lot of new agents aren’t going in with that mindset. So, you’re listening today, you need to call Traci and go over what that mindset should be going into that interview.

There’s plenty of real estate brokerages to work for. It’s not a challenge to get someone to allow you to hang your license there.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: The question is, who’s there to mentor you and, and help you with your business?

[00:12:40] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[00:12:40] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So what were some of the—what were some of the things that Watson said, or, or maybe you saw, that obviously, like, “Hey, this is where I want to start my—”

[00:12:49] Traci Crawford: Career. He was really my broker, and he’s gonna kill me, but he was a—he’s the old curmudgeon, but I loved him.

Tracy Hayes: Right. Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: He was just—he was personable, ’cause I said people is [00:13:00] important to me.

[00:13:00] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:13:00] Traci Crawford: Having someone I felt I could relate to. Also, meeting with a broker, ’cause a couple of the other places, I didn’t meet with a broker. I met with someone else. But I met with him, and he was the broker, and we clicked, and I understood.

He actually made me take a personality test. I’m like, “You want me to take a personality—you want to see if you want me? Really?” But—

[00:13:18] Tracy Hayes: It was a trend of the time. I know, right? And—

[00:13:21] Traci Crawford: I did it.

[00:13:22] Tracy Hayes: There was that time where all companies were taking these personality tests. I didn’t really know how they were, you know, telling him one thing or another, but they were making decisions off them.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:13:30] Traci Crawford: But he was great, and, you know, as I’ve moved to, um, a couple of the brokerages, he and I are still friends.

[00:13:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:13:35] Traci Crawford: You know, I talked to him just the other day, and that’s just the relationship that we had.

[00:13:39] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Um, getting started, what—so, uh, how long had you been in Jacksonville at the time?

[00:13:46] Traci Crawford: I retired in October of 2018, um, and I was licensed by the time I retired.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So I got in—I got to Jacksonville in August, actually, ’cause I retired earlier and I had leave.

[00:13:57] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:58] Traci Crawford: I took the real estate course and got my [00:14:00] license and started in October of ’18.

[00:14:02] Tracy Hayes: So you’d only been here a few months.

[00:14:03] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:14:05] Tracy Hayes: How do you get started? I mean, you, you don’t know a lot of people, I would imagine, in Jacksonville, maybe some family members and so forth. How do you get your business going?

[00:14:12] Traci Crawford: So, one, my husband was a native of Jacksonville, so I have been here several times. But before I got here, I started doing my research on Jacksonville so I could understand the lay of the land.

[00:14:24] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:24] Traci Crawford: So I did my own research just to get to know the area, and then I got out and started seeing people. I also made sure that people knew that I was prior military, military retired, and that was kind of the niche that I went after.

[00:14:37] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:14:37] Traci Crawford: And a lot of my—a lot of my military clients, they found me.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: I just made sure I had my information out there, and they found me. I found a website that focused on military referrals. I did the MRP, even though I could have taught the MRP, I still did the MRP.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: It’s just to say I had it.

[00:14:53] Tracy Hayes: Well, speak—speak a little bit to that, ’cause I, I, I think you would agree, and obviously you spent, you know, you saw it over, over [00:15:00] 30 years, what they were doing for service members being discharged a couple decades ago.

[00:15:07] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Tracy Hayes: You know, a lot of ’em, you know, as we know, a lot of our veterans have no clue about their benefits.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: And so forth.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: Are they doing better today?

[00:15:17] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:15:17] Tracy Hayes: Uh, with them and, and spending the time in their last few months?

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: You know, letting—

[00:15:21] Traci Crawford: They’re absolutely doing better, as long as military members take advantage of it, because they don’t throw it down—they don’t force it down your throat.

[00:15:28] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:15:28] Traci Crawford: You have to say, “Hey, I want to go take this course.” It’s called TAPS. “I want to go take this course.” And actually, certifications that they can do pre-retirement and post-retirement that prepare them for going into civilian life. So yes, they’re doing a much better job.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: Now, of course, there’s still gonna be gaps in learning, but they’re still doing a much better—

[00:15:48] Tracy Hayes: Job. I know that it was something I saw—I don’t know when, it was last year—that there’s some there, and it’s probably out there already. There was actually, you know, using AI and creating that, that [00:16:00] bot that knows everything so that the service member could just ask, with simple language, you know, a natural question like you and I would ask—could ask AI—and it figures out what we do, but it specialized just in their benefits.

Traci Crawford: Nice.

Tracy Hayes: I do know that I saw someone was—was—because there’s so many. Well, real estate is one of the biggest ones where we do, you know, especially after the collapse in ’08 and ’09, when the VA loan and FHA loan became more prominent. It went from about 3% to now it’s 40% to 50% of the loans are FHA or VA.

And so nobody really knew all the itsy-cassies and, and how it worked. But now, obviously, we’re catering. There’s a—a huge—I call it catering to our service members, our veterans, because of their benefits. And oftentimes the private sector knows more about their benefits than they do, and they’re trying to educate ’em and say, “Hey, you need to take advantage of it so I can help you out, or better help you out, anyway.” [00:17:00]

Yeah, and I, you know, so I, I think that that’s slowly coming together, but it’s not smooth yet.

[00:17:04] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:17:05] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. But I think you’re right. They have to—to understand what their benefits are, they gotta, they gotta go take the class.

[00:17:11] Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:17:11] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:17:12] Traci Crawford: And—

[00:17:12] Tracy Hayes: Move forward, if not do even more research beyond that to fully understand what’s out there, ’cause they’re not gonna come chase ’em down, type of thing.

All right, so first year—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —in real estate, you’re using these programs that we just talked about.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Where did the number—how did the numbers start coming in for you? Did you have—so—

[00:17:30] Traci Crawford: My first year, I had 11 closed transactions.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So that was pretty good.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: And I was Rising Star. Pamela was Rookie of the Year, and I was Rising Star.

Tracy Hayes: Oh, okay.

Traci Crawford: That’s how I met Pamela, my business partner.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: We were both at Watson together. We joined within a month of each other—

[00:17:45] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:17:45] Traci Crawford: —to Watson. And she did do the school at Watson, but we met at the office in Nocatee.

[00:17:50] Tracy Hayes: Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:17:51] Traci Crawford: So my first year was pretty good. And, of course, you’re like, “I don’t know about this thing,” because I went from a trusted profession to one where I had to earn people’s [00:18:00] trust.

Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:18:01] Tracy Hayes: Right. You just come in, you say you’re the nurse and they trust you, or your rank’s on your shoulder, type of thing.

Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:18:06] Traci Crawford: Absolutely. When you go, “I’m here to sell houses,” okay, sure you are.

[00:18:09] Tracy Hayes: Right. Yeah. You’re here to—

[00:18:10] Traci Crawford: Take my money.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: But honestly, I can say is, you know, once I got to know people and people got to know me, then the trust was built and earned.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: And then over years, I’m able to replicate that in people’s—

[00:18:25] Tracy Hayes: I, I know one of the—one of the formal questions I had, and I’m, I’m gonna bring it out and ask, ’cause we’re kind of on this topic, okay, is, you know, your transition from, you know, wearing rank—or obviously, you know, the nurse title. The title gives you some level of respect. People immediately put, “Well, they must have gone through school,” or, “She’s a colonel, so, you know, she’s got time in and rose to that rank.”

Where now you’re a real estate agent. Well, you know, so is the person down the street, also graduated in the same class. Doesn’t mean you’re—there’s no experience behind that.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Other than [00:19:00] that, how many hours is it? Sixty hours, whatever many hours—whatever hours the course is. That’s the only thing you guys have of, of commonality.

But what you brought from your experience in the service and bringing into real estate—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things—and maybe you didn’t even realize it at the time—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: —but that you brought in that really gave you an advantage, in your eyes?

[00:19:22] Traci Crawford: Yeah. Um, one, caring about people. I honestly believe that that’s integral to real estate, because people want to be seen and heard.

And then with that leadership understanding, looking at problems, addressing problems, being—education is really the most important thing—is explaining to them what the real estate transaction is about. What are they doing? Is this the right thing? Are they able to make the best decisions for their family and knowing that this is the right transaction? ’Cause this is one of the biggest transactions they’re ever gonna make.

[00:19:55] Tracy Hayes: Because you’re in the service, you’re constantly, you know, some next course.

[00:19:59] Traci Crawford: [00:20:00] Yes.

[00:20:00] Tracy Hayes: Next whatever it is that—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —you need to be—you need to be taking or going to. And you start, you know, and obviously the first, I imagine sometimes a lot of services are—aren’t going to another course. But after a while, you start to realize these things start to build on each other.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And that’s what I’m—I’m kind of—the analogy I’m using is, you realize after all the years and all the trainings how they built on each other—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —what it made you—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —you know, in the end. And now you’re in real estate going, “Well, I need to continue doing the education. I don’t know fully—they’re talking about something I totally don’t know about yet, but I don’t know where I’m gonna stick this, but I gotta keep building—”

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: “—and building. And it’s the next course that’s gonna explain the last course,” as we know a lot of times. And, and when you’re reading questions, right, you read the question and realize the answer’s in the next paragraph.

Traci Crawford: I know, right?

Tracy Hayes: That’s—the next training gives you the answers to the last one.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: But that gave you the confidence and the desire to understand why you were taking these courses.

[00:20:54] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:20:55] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: Mentored and coached.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: So there was another good friend of mine who was about to retire, and she said, “Well, I’m thinking I’m gonna go into [00:09:00] interior design.”

And that was the first time I had thought about doing something outside of nursing or the medical field, ’cause I thought I was gonna go back and get my nurse practitioner—

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: —and continue to serve in that capacity. But in order to do that, I would’ve spent countless hours honing my craft, and I kind of wanted something that would give me time to be with the kiddos.

[00:09:21] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:09:21] Traci Crawford: Um, because they served right alongside of me, and I felt it was this time, ’cause I had a daughter who was starting high school and a son who was starting middle school. Um, so I just wanted to be there for them more.

[00:09:31] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:09:31] Traci Crawford: Now, I don’t know that real estate really was that, but maybe I had a few more hours. At least I felt like I could guard—

[00:09:38] Tracy Hayes: Right. Well, we were—I was talking with a guest the other day, and, and, you know, that’s the first, probably, if you were to rate five things of why people want to get into real estate, I think the term “free time” comes up.

Well, it’s not actually free time. It’s you get to have some control how to structure your time.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: But you always have that [00:10:00] client that wants to see that house when you want to be picking up your kids, and sometimes, like, “Hey, I can’t pick you up today. Dad’s gotta pick you up,” or whatever.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: And, you know, the ball games and all that other—that kind of stuff. It does give you the ability to structure your day around being available at those times, most of the time.

[00:10:17] Traci Crawford: Most of the time.

[00:10:17] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So free time is not the term. It’s just—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —more structured, structured time.

So you decided—you, Watson is where you end up going?

Traci Crawford: I did initially. I started with Watson, which has one of, you know, obviously, a lot of great agents here in Northeast Florida, and I’m sure Florida in general.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Uh, because Watson does provide the, the school.

[00:10:35] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:10:36] Tracy Hayes: I imagine that’s where you—

[00:10:37] Traci Crawford: I actually did not—

[00:10:38] Tracy Hayes: Go? You did not go to Watson. Oh, interesting. Okay.

[00:10:40] Traci Crawford: I did my Florida Real Estate Institute.

[00:10:42] Tracy Hayes: Oh.

[00:10:43] Traci Crawford: Okay. But then I interviewed brokerages, and a friend of mine that I did the course with, she had interviewed with Watson and really liked it. I said, “Oh, let me give it a shot.”

[00:10:52] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:52] Traci Crawford: So I interviewed with the broker where I started, and I loved it.

[00:10:56] Tracy Hayes: So one of the things we try to—we haven’t talked about it recently, but [00:11:00] you know, in past shows we talked about—is, you know, you interviewing them.

[00:11:04] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:11:04] Tracy Hayes: Okay. So you, you’re not 25 years old. You just spent 30 years in the Army as a colonel. You’re in a room, and those of you who are listening right now, when you’re around military brass, real—you, you’re around colonels, you’re around generals and so forth, there’s a different vibe in the room.

I always felt, at least the colonels especially that I—and still interact with today from The Citadel—when they walk in the room, there’s, there’s a presence about them, just because, you know, the roads, the dirt they’ve treaded over, the confidence they portray. I don’t think I could describe it any better.

You go into this interview with these brokers—

[00:11:40] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:11:40] Tracy Hayes: Who’s controlling the room? What was your mindset? Do you remember what was going on? Like, hey, were you trying to get something out of him, or was, you know, him, like a lot of brokers, was like, “Hey, you want to do real estate? Great. Okay. Yeah, you, you can walk and talk and you’re educated. You know, hey, come to Watson.”

What was that interaction like in your situation?

[00:11:58] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm. So in my [00:12:00] situation, I’m still a people person. I like to relate to people. So I was getting to know them, but I really was looking for who was gonna coach, teach, and mentor me—

[00:12:08] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:08] Traci Crawford: —in real estate, and who I felt had my best interest at heart. Um, and that’s what I was looking for as I interviewed the broker.

[00:12:16] Tracy Hayes: So you had that mindset. Now, obviously, you and I know a lot of new agents aren’t going in with that mindset. So, you’re listening today, you need to call Traci and go over what that mindset should be going into that interview.

There’s plenty of real estate brokerages to work for. It’s not a challenge to get someone to allow you to hang your license there.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: The question is, who’s there to mentor you and, and help you with your business?

[00:12:40] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[00:12:40] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So what were some of the—what were some of the things that Watson said, or, or maybe you saw, that obviously, like, “Hey, this is where I want to start my—”

[00:12:49] Traci Crawford: Career. He was really my broker, and he’s gonna kill me, but he was a—he’s the old curmudgeon, but I loved him.

Tracy Hayes: Right. Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: He was just—he was personable, ’cause I said people is [00:13:00] important to me.

[00:13:00] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:13:00] Traci Crawford: Having someone I felt I could relate to. Also, meeting with a broker, ’cause a couple of the other places, I didn’t meet with a broker. I met with someone else. But I met with him, and he was the broker, and we clicked, and I understood.

He actually made me take a personality test. I’m like, “You want me to take a personality—you want to see if you want me? Really?” But—

[00:13:18] Tracy Hayes: It was a trend of the time. I know, right? And—

[00:13:21] Traci Crawford: I did it.

[00:13:22] Tracy Hayes: There was that time where all companies were taking these personality tests. I didn’t really know how they were, you know, telling him one thing or another, but they were making decisions off them.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:13:30] Traci Crawford: But he was great, and, you know, as I’ve moved to, um, a couple of the brokerages, he and I are still friends.

[00:13:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:13:35] Traci Crawford: You know, I talked to him just the other day, and that’s just the relationship that we had.

[00:13:39] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Um, getting started, what—so, uh, how long had you been in Jacksonville at the time?

[00:13:46] Traci Crawford: I retired in October of 2018, um, and I was licensed by the time I retired.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So I got in—I got to Jacksonville in August, actually, ’cause I retired earlier and I had leave.

[00:13:57] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:58] Traci Crawford: I took the real estate course and got my [00:14:00] license and started in October of ’18.

[00:14:02] Tracy Hayes: So you’d only been here a few months.

[00:14:03] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:14:05] Tracy Hayes: How do you get started? I mean, you, you don’t know a lot of people, I would imagine, in Jacksonville, maybe some family members and so forth. How do you get your business going?

[00:14:12] Traci Crawford: So, one, my husband was a native of Jacksonville, so I have been here several times. But before I got here, I started doing my research on Jacksonville so I could understand the lay of the land.

[00:14:24] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:24] Traci Crawford: So I did my own research just to get to know the area, and then I got out and started seeing people. I also made sure that people knew that I was prior military, military retired, and that was kind of the niche that I went after.

[00:14:37] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:14:37] Traci Crawford: And a lot of my—a lot of my military clients, they found me.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: I just made sure I had my information out there, and they found me. I found a website that focused on military referrals. I did the MRP, even though I could have taught the MRP, I still did the MRP.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: It’s just to say I had it.

[00:14:53] Tracy Hayes: Well, speak—speak a little bit to that, ’cause I, I, I think you would agree, and obviously you spent, you know, you saw it over, over [00:15:00] 30 years, what they were doing for service members being discharged a couple decades ago.

[00:15:07] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:08] Tracy Hayes: You know, a lot of ’em, you know, as we know, a lot of our veterans have no clue about their benefits.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: And so forth.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: Are they doing better today?

[00:15:17] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:15:17] Tracy Hayes: Uh, with them and, and spending the time in their last few months?

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: You know, letting—

[00:15:21] Traci Crawford: They’re absolutely doing better, as long as military members take advantage of it, because they don’t throw it down—they don’t force it down your throat.

[00:15:28] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:15:28] Traci Crawford: You have to say, “Hey, I want to go take this course.” It’s called TAPS. “I want to go take this course.” And actually, certifications that they can do pre-retirement and post-retirement that prepare them for going into civilian life. So yes, they’re doing a much better job.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: Now, of course, there’s still gonna be gaps in learning, but they’re still doing a much better—

[00:15:48] Tracy Hayes: Job. I know that it was something I saw—I don’t know when, it was last year—that there’s some there, and it’s probably out there already. There was actually, you know, using AI and creating that, that [00:16:00] bot that knows everything so that the service member could just ask, with simple language, you know, a natural question like you and I would ask—could ask AI—and it figures out what we do, but it specialized just in their benefits.

Traci Crawford: Nice.

Tracy Hayes: I do know that I saw someone was—was—because there’s so many. Well, real estate is one of the biggest ones where we do, you know, especially after the collapse in ’08 and ’09, when the VA loan and FHA loan became more prominent. It went from about 3% to now it’s 40% to 50% of the loans are FHA or VA.

And so nobody really knew all the itsy-cassies and, and how it worked. But now, obviously, we’re catering. There’s a—a huge—I call it catering to our service members, our veterans, because of their benefits. And oftentimes the private sector knows more about their benefits than they do, and they’re trying to educate ’em and say, “Hey, you need to take advantage of it so I can help you out, or better help you out, anyway.” [00:17:00]

Yeah, and I, you know, so I, I think that that’s slowly coming together, but it’s not smooth yet.

[00:17:04] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:17:05] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. But I think you’re right. They have to—to understand what their benefits are, they gotta, they gotta go take the class.

[00:17:11] Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:17:11] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:17:12] Traci Crawford: And—

[00:17:12] Tracy Hayes: Move forward, if not do even more research beyond that to fully understand what’s out there, ’cause they’re not gonna come chase ’em down, type of thing.

All right, so first year—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —in real estate, you’re using these programs that we just talked about.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Where did the number—how did the numbers start coming in for you? Did you have—so—

[00:17:30] Traci Crawford: My first year, I had 11 closed transactions.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So that was pretty good.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: And I was Rising Star. Pamela was Rookie of the Year, and I was Rising Star.

Tracy Hayes: Oh, okay.

Traci Crawford: That’s how I met Pamela, my business partner.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: We were both at Watson together. We joined within a month of each other—

[00:17:45] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:17:45] Traci Crawford: —to Watson. And she did do the school at Watson, but we met at the office in Nocatee.

[00:17:50] Tracy Hayes: Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:17:51] Traci Crawford: So my first year was pretty good. And, of course, you’re like, “I don’t know about this thing,” because I went from a trusted profession to one where I had to earn people’s [00:18:00] trust.

Tracy Hayes: Right?

[00:18:01] Tracy Hayes: Right. You just come in, you say you’re the nurse and they trust you, or your rank’s on your shoulder, type of thing.

Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:18:06] Traci Crawford: Absolutely. When you go, “I’m here to sell houses,” okay, sure you are.

[00:18:09] Tracy Hayes: Right. Yeah. You’re here to—

[00:18:10] Traci Crawford: Take my money.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: But honestly, I can say is, you know, once I got to know people and people got to know me, then the trust was built and earned.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: And then over years, I’m able to replicate that in people’s—

[00:18:25] Tracy Hayes: I, I know one of the—one of the formal questions I had, and I’m, I’m gonna bring it out and ask, ’cause we’re kind of on this topic, okay, is, you know, your transition from, you know, wearing rank—or obviously, you know, the nurse title. The title gives you some level of respect. People immediately put, “Well, they must have gone through school,” or, “She’s a colonel, so, you know, she’s got time in and rose to that rank.”

Where now you’re a real estate agent. Well, you know, so is the person down the street, also graduated in the same class. Doesn’t mean you’re—there’s no experience behind that.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Other than [00:19:00] that, how many hours is it? Sixty hours, whatever many hours—whatever hours the course is. That’s the only thing you guys have of, of commonality.

But what you brought from your experience in the service and bringing into real estate—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things—and maybe you didn’t even realize it at the time—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: —but that you brought in that really gave you an advantage, in your eyes?

[00:19:22] Traci Crawford: Yeah. Um, one, caring about people. I honestly believe that that’s integral to real estate, because people want to be seen and heard.

And then with that leadership understanding, looking at problems, addressing problems, being—education is really the most important thing—is explaining to them what the real estate transaction is about. What are they doing? Is this the right thing? Are they able to make the best decisions for their family and knowing that this is the right transaction? ’Cause this is one of the biggest transactions they’re ever gonna make.

[00:19:55] Tracy Hayes: Because you’re in the service, you’re constantly, you know, some next course.

[00:19:59] Traci Crawford: [00:20:00] Yes.

[00:20:00] Tracy Hayes: Next whatever it is that—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —you need to be—you need to be taking or going to. And you start, you know, and obviously the first, I imagine sometimes a lot of services are—aren’t going to another course. But after a while, you start to realize these things start to build on each other.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And that’s what I’m—I’m kind of—the analogy I’m using is, you realize after all the years and all the trainings how they built on each other—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —what it made you—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —you know, in the end. And now you’re in real estate going, “Well, I need to continue doing the education. I don’t know fully—they’re talking about something I totally don’t know about yet, but I don’t know where I’m gonna stick this, but I gotta keep building—”

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: “—and building. And it’s the next course that’s gonna explain the last course,” as we know a lot of times. And, and when you’re reading questions, right, you read the question and realize the answer’s in the next paragraph.

Traci Crawford: I know, right?

Tracy Hayes: That’s—the next training gives you the answers to the last one.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: But that gave you the confidence and the desire to understand why you were taking these courses.

[00:20:54] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:20:55] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:20:55] Traci Crawford: And also, you know, I’m a systems person, right? In order to build systems, if you [00:21:00] wanna go somewhere fast, you need to have a process that you can repeat and do it again.

And education is the best way to get there. So, you know, we had to do our post, uh, licensure education, but then there’s the graduate me—the graduate education—

[00:21:14] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:21:14] Traci Crawford: —course that we took, and any other course, whether it’s, you know, buying or selling. And then I did get my broker’s license. Within two years, I went ahead and got my broker’s license because, again, I wanted to understand more of what real estate was about so I could better start my clients.

[00:21:30] Tracy Hayes: Well, and it’s—I think many people get into it, and residential real estate is really just a tip of a huge thing out, you know, of what’s out there and all the things that you can do. It is endless.

But sometimes you gotta go back and take some of these courses a second time—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —from a different instructor to get different points, ’cause there is a lot of information there and the, the importance of it.

So, going from the Army into real estate, when you’re working—well, let’s talk to possibly some service, active service members might [00:22:00] be right now going, “Hey, what am I gonna do when I get out?” And, and why real estate is an option.

You obviously marketed towards service members or veterans in general because of your commonality. Now, whether they were Marines or, or Navy, that had nothing—it’s, you both served.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things that I think the average person doesn’t understand, that there’s that bond that the service members have?

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Even though one may have served on a ship in Vietnam and, well, you know, you served in Bosnia, that doesn’t matter. You, you served. Or, well, unfortunately, we probably—we don’t have too many World War II veterans left. But, you know, the, the different conflicts. But there’s this bond and, and trust that’s automatically built between two people who may have served at completely different times.

[00:22:47] Traci Crawford: Yep. That’s what I loved in general about being in the military. You could be stationed anywhere. Either already knew someone, or because you were serving together, there was an instant bond.

[00:22:56] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:57] Traci Crawford: Um, and I felt that true to be in the military. That’s why, [00:23:00] you know, military members would seek out real estate advisors that had a military background, because they knew they could relate to them. And because we’ve been there, we’ve done that.

[00:23:08] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:23:08] Traci Crawford: We understand the challenges and the stress that goes with, you know, a permanent change of station. You know, in a couple years, “Oh, I gotta pack up and start this all over again. I don’t know the—I don’t know schools. I don’t know, you know, commute times. I don’t know good neighborhoods. I don’t know—and, and I don’t know anyone to trust.”

[00:23:26] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:23:26] Traci Crawford: I can’t even remember the zip code of that. Look up in the air when I moved and say, “What’s the zip code?”

[00:23:32] Tracy Hayes: You get that five digits memorized? Oh, now I gotta move.

[00:23:36] Traci Crawford: Exactly. And someone who’s been there understands that, and that takes at least one thing off their plate. They don’t have to explain what they’re going through. They know that person on the other side understands what they’ve gone through and can help them through that and take some of the stress away.

[00:23:50] Tracy Hayes: I think you’ll agree with this, but you know what I try—I try to explain—I was explaining to my wife the other day, we were talking about, is you [00:24:00] had—you learned right from the get-go in the initial officer training or boot camp, whatever, you know, that you have to—you don’t question. You don’t even know the person next to you, had their head shaved. You don’t even recognize them anymore.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And that—but you’re trained to trust them.

[00:24:18] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[00:24:18] Tracy Hayes: And they’re trained to trust you because you are wearing the same uniform.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And until you break that trust by doing something other, there’s just an open trust.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: When some of these PCS orders coming from somebody moving, you know, young person, maybe they’re active duty, they pour into you at—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —you know, as that real estate agent, and obviously you’re returning the trust and that company.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: That I have a great responsibility because I’m showing them videos of what their house—they’re not even seeing the house. They’re gonna be here in a few weeks.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: And here’s the house. You wanna make an offer on it? And it’s like they’re showing up.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: I imagine you’ve had some—the first time they saw the house was the day of [00:25:00] closing.

[00:25:00] Traci Crawford: A lot.

[00:25:00] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:25:01] Traci Crawford: A lot.

[00:25:01] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:25:02] Traci Crawford: And that’s one of the things, you know, that I, I take very seriously, is the trust that they put in me, especially those that are purchasing sight unseen. I’m doing videos for them. I’m talking with them. I’m telling ’em what I can see, feel, smell, touch.

[00:25:17] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:17] Traci Crawford: I always tell ’em, “I give it the sniff too. Make sure.” And I also tell my clients, it’s like, “Hey, I wanna be invited to dinner.” That doesn’t mean that you have to invite me, but I wanna know that an invitation would be given.

And the way I know that is that you don’t later say, “How come Traci didn’t tell me about this?”

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: “And Traci did tell me about this, and why did Traci let us move here?” No, I’m not gonna let that happen.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: I’m gonna tell them everything that I know that’s material so that they can make the best—

[00:25:44] Tracy Hayes: Now you have to draw a fine line between, obviously, what you’re allowed to say openly. You know, “Hey, this is a very terrible neigh—” You know, the, the crime rates are high. Whatever. There’s certain things you can say as a real estate agent that, you know, you would like to tell them, but can’t.

[00:25:59] Traci Crawford: So [00:26:00] what I do for our military family members is I don’t make the decision and say, “This is a safe neighborhood.”

[00:26:04] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:05] Traci Crawford: I say, “Here are the tools for you to look at the neighborhood and figure out whether this is a neighborhood for you. Here’s a video of what I see in the neighborhood.”

So therefore, I’m not making decisions. I’m just giving them information that they can make their own decisions.

[00:26:19] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:26:19] Traci Crawford: And that—’cause you’re correct.

[00:26:20] Tracy Hayes: And, and putting it back on them.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: “This is what you told me you wanted. This is what I’m—and here’s—do you see, this is the yard that you wanted. This is the correct—you know, you’re this far from the school,” or whatever.

Traci Crawford: Exactly.

Tracy Hayes: “And here’s the school ratings. You can look it up on this website.”

[00:26:34] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:26:34] Tracy Hayes: That type of—

[00:26:35] Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:26:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:26:35] Traci Crawford: Yes, I definitely—

[00:26:36] Tracy Hayes: Do. Yeah. Because I imagine, I mean, you have to—a little different when they’re right there with you.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: They’re—you know, you don’t have to say much at all, but when you are doing the video, you have to be—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —pretty straightforward.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Uh, that, uh, you know, you know, and, and doing the right—what is, what is the guideline that I’m actually talking about? You don’t wanna be steering them.

Traci Crawford: Steering them.

Tracy Hayes: But they’re—whatever the regulation, you know, there’s certain things that real estate agents can say and can’t say, but they can definitely lead you [00:27:00] to the sources for them to source it themselves.

[00:27:02] Traci Crawford: Right.

[00:27:02] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:27:02] Traci Crawford: And it’s in video, so you can see I’m pointing out everything, and then you decide whether or not that—

[00:27:06] Tracy Hayes: Works—

[00:27:06] Traci Crawford: —for you.

[00:27:07] Tracy Hayes: Which, it’s all—you know, all that stuff is on the internet. And like I said, you just pay—they could find it whether you gave ’em the link or not, if they just, you know, dug deep enough.

[00:27:13] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:27:14] Tracy Hayes: Right there. All right. So you and Pam eventually become a team.

[00:27:19] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:27:20] Tracy Hayes: When does that happen?

[00:27:21] Traci Crawford: It happens—it’s so funny. So we, we both decided to move to Engel & Völkers, just because we felt we had outgrown Watson.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: And we were looking for something to take us to the next level. At least that was our thought process.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm. Right.

Traci Crawford: So we went there, though, as individuals. But before that, we did everything together, or did a lot of things together. We still had our independent careers, but we still did a lot, and we supported each other. And people saw that, and they saw us together.

So when we finally decided, probably the end of 2020, to become a team, and we told everyone, they were like, “We thought you were already a team.” So it was news to everyone but us, I guess—or not news, rather, to everyone [00:28:00] but us.

Tracy Hayes: Right, right.

Traci Crawford: So it was 2020, and we haven’t looked back. And we just—we support each other. We call each other. We both got our broker’s license, you know, within months of each other. And so she and I are first person to call. If we can’t figure it out, then we reach out to the broker just to say, “Hey, what do you think about this?”

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: But generally, between our two collective heads, we come up with—

[00:28:20] Tracy Hayes: What are—what are some of the things that you guys—because you, you, you are, at least from the surface, you know, and obviously knowing what I know and—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —you know, you are still working as individuals?

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: But just overlapping when you need each other’s help? Or is there a—a share? Like, you know, you’re not doing just listings and she’s doing just, you know, buyers, right?

[00:28:42] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:28:43] Tracy Hayes: You, you both are doing—

[00:28:44] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:28:44] Tracy Hayes: —like you were solo agents.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:46] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[00:28:46] Tracy Hayes: It’s just relying on each other.

[00:28:48] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:28:48] Tracy Hayes: To, you know, cover when someone wants to go away for a weekend or whatever.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: The phone call. How important has that been to your business?

[00:28:55] Traci Crawford: It—

[00:28:55] Tracy Hayes: Has been to have that confidant.

[00:28:57] Traci Crawford: There are no words to really say how important it is because, you [00:29:00] know, real estate can be lonely, right?

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: It’s nice to know that there’s someone that’s in your corner, that’s rooting for you, that you know 100% has your back.

[00:29:09] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:29:09] Traci Crawford: And that’s what Pamela and I have done for each other. With our clients, we have to be confident, calm, composed. With each other, we can have our hair on fire.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: Right? And we can say, “Ah, such and such happened. What do we do about it?” Because we all have those moments.

[00:29:24] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Traci Crawford: We’re all human, but our clients don’t need to see that. So we give each other that space to do that, and then we pull it together, and we get out there, and we support our clients, and we walk them through the biggest transaction ever.

But that’s what we do for each other, and that’s what we have done. And we—it’s just been fabulous. Absolutely fabulous.

[00:29:43] Tracy Hayes: Have you had a client where you felt maybe you were butting heads a little bit and turned it to her, or vice versa?

[00:29:50] Traci Crawford: No, because what we do is she and I see each other’s blind spots. So I may have my hair on fire about something. I can talk to her about it, and she’ll go, “Okay, I think you should do this, this, or this.” [00:30:00]

Or let’s say, you know, I, I could be a little bit more assertive about something and say, “No, this is how I see it, and this is what you need to do.” And we do that for each other, because she’ll have a blind spot—

[00:30:09] Tracy Hayes: Sort of role-play a—

[00:30:10] Traci Crawford: Little bit.

Tracy Hayes: Correct. Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: She’ll have a blind spot about something. I’m like, “No, Pamela, I think you should do this, this, and this.” Then she’ll think about it. She’s like, “Okay, I got it.”

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: And then we internalize it and figure out how we need to present it, but we each give each other that support and strength to go, “Yep, you got it.”

[00:30:25] Tracy Hayes: How do you express to your, your clients that, “Hey,” you know, someone obviously you’re working with, but do you let ’em know up front, say, “Hey, if you get a call from Pamela, she’s my teammate.”

[00:30:35] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:36] Tracy Hayes: “Treat as if it’s me calling you.”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Do you kind of prep your clients so—don’t, so don’t—

[00:30:39] Traci Crawford: We have to support each other. Well, I put—I take it like this: it’s a case-by-case basis when we do that.

[00:30:44] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:44] Traci Crawford: I have an admin team that I use, and they’re more on my front lines, and I will tell my clients about them. With Pamela and I, it may be like, for instance, she was on vacation last week, and she had two clients that were—a client that was closing.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: So she asked me to be there, help them, you know, get into the house. [00:31:00] And so at that point, then she introduces me to say, “Hey, here’s my business partner.”

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: “She’s gonna take care of you.” And then we’re seamless in that regard. We get in there, and we develop—I developed a relationship with them. Or she’ll do it with my clients too. We’ve done that, and that part is seamless for us.

[00:31:15] Tracy Hayes: And this is just simply a give-and-take relationship.

Traci Crawford: It is.

Tracy Hayes: You, you know, there’s gonna be times when you need her, and she knows there’s times—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —she’s gonna need you.

[00:31:25] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:25] Tracy Hayes: You guys aren’t splitting commissions or anything like that?

[00:31:28] Traci Crawford: No.

[00:31:29] Tracy Hayes: This is—so you guys have, like, the ideal situation I think a lot of agents should be doing, one, to work through, ’cause, like I said, some different blind spots, different strengths.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: You know, just like your spouse, you—a lot of times, you know, I know my wife is more detail-oriented. I’m the 30,000-foot visionary, as I explained to you earlier.

And then, you know, to—to have that reliability where, unfortunately, I think there’s too many of, like, “Well, I did that for you. You gonna compensate me for it?” Well, no, I’m just gonna get you the next time around.

You know, [00:32:00] I always—you know, I think my parents kind of taught me this, is we’re—we’re out to lunch. “Oh, let me get lunch this time. You get it next time?”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: “Okay, yeah.” And, you know, my next time might be next week. It might be three months from now, but it’s next time. And you don’t have this thing like, “Oh, I paid for lunch. Oh, my God.” You guys have that—

[00:32:17] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:32:17] Tracy Hayes: —give-and-take where knowing what comes around goes around.

[00:32:20] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:32:21] Tracy Hayes: And I, I—the unfortunate thing is more people should have that.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: I think that, you know, it’s—what’s that saying? “If you love somebody, let ’em go.” Obviously, they don’t come back, hunt ’em down, but—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —you have to let them—give ’em an opportunity to come back. And that’s where your trust and relationship then explodes at 10Xs, because, “Oh, she remembered that I bought lunch three months ago, and she’s gonna get lunch today.”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Whether it would cost more or not, that’s not relevant.

[00:32:46] Traci Crawford: No.

[00:32:46] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:32:46] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:32:47] Tracy Hayes: It’s a very precious relationship—

[00:32:49] Traci Crawford: It’s—

[00:32:49] Tracy Hayes: —there, to have someone that’s not direct family. But even there’s direct family members, you know, would you have—

Traci Crawford: I know, right?

Tracy Hayes: So—

[00:32:56] Traci Crawford: We won’t talk about—

[00:32:57] Tracy Hayes: That. Yeah, we won’t. We, we all [00:33:00] have those. I am gonna get to my structured questions here. You don’t—

[00:33:03] Traci Crawford: Have to if you don’t want to.

[00:33:04] Tracy Hayes: Well, no, because I, I really—you, you’ll find it in the content we provide, but it’ll actually provide great reels. So I’m gonna ask the question. I want you to answer the question actually looking into the reel.

Okay.

Into the camera, because some of these will cut as great reels.

Okay.

And some of ’em may actually be stuff that you’ll actually get posted on your website.

Okay.

Of you answer—you know, you put the question over here in print, and then someone actually videos—watch you answer it.

Okay.

Which is the—you know, I think is the greatest way to resonate, especially—especially people, as you know, I imagine with your military clients that aren’t here, or any client that’s not here, you try to get ’em on a Zoom, or—

Traci Crawford: I do.

Tracy Hayes: —call, so they can see your face-to-face, see your facial reactions, and, and all that things, and start building a relationship.

What was the moment you knew real estate is what came next after 30 years in uniform?

[00:33:51] Traci Crawford: Up until the day I was starting my transition leave and education—not really leave, but the education—

[00:33:57] Tracy Hayes: Hmm.

[00:33:58] Traci Crawford: I really was thinking that I was [00:34:00] going to be a nurse practitioner, ’cause I love nursing. I love taking care of people. I love that service—

[00:34:04] Tracy Hayes: And just thought it was a natural progression—

Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

Tracy Hayes: —from what you’ve been doing and all your experience and training and all that.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:34:10] Traci Crawford: Correct. And then when I got the opportunity to think outside of the box, and I had a friend of mine who said, “I really think you should do real estate,” I was like, “No, I, I’m good being a nurse practitioner.”

But then I sat back and I thought about it, and I said, “I do love real estate, and it is still a service that people need, and it’s an opportunity to give back to my clients, to military family members, and to the community, because the community at large could use that service.”

And I have loved it every time I’ve been involved in mil—real estate transactions. And so when I did it, I was like, “I think this is really what I wanna do.” And it took me a little while for it to really sink in, ’cause, like I said, I went from a trusted profession to one where I had to earn the trust.

So that part was a little scary, I’m gonna admit. [00:35:00]

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: But I got there. I stuck out. There were other military real estate agents that, you know, I would talk to, and it was like, “Yep, just lean into that community, and you’ll be fine.”

[00:35:09] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:35:10] Traci Crawford: And that’s what I did.

[00:35:11] Tracy Hayes: I don’t know if imposter syndrome is the correct term.

[00:35:15] Traci Crawford: Yes, I think it is.

[00:35:15] Tracy Hayes: But I’ve had some great agents on. I think of Carrie Carpenter once. She was very good at her project management, working for a corporation. She’s very high energy. She took that right into real estate, and how she was—you know, her detail-oriented and her confidence because of her past experience just bled into her clients.

[00:35:41] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:35:41] Tracy Hayes: And I would—you know, thinking, and most people don’t think about it. You, you know, ’cause we’re talking about it, you’re thinking about it now. Your experience, your confidence, the things that people—the things you did, and people you saw, met, and, and experienced. Real estate was just another tool.

And you—it was you and your [00:36:00] personal ability, with new knowledge, to project that confidence. And that—I think one of the other things too, which I think a lot of young people should join the service, even if it’s just for initial enlistment, is the confidence that you get. “I did that. I put 30 years in. I’ve done that obstacle course. I ran those miles.” Whatever it is.

You know, I think a lot of people don’t have enough of those experiences to build that they can go do something else because they just accomplished the last one.

[00:36:28] Traci Crawford: And I think, you know, just to add to that, I believe that intuitively that’s what’s led to my success within real estate, is the skill sets that I instinctively fell into and leaned into, that I had done in the military that made me so successful for 30 years.

I just naturally brought those into real estate without even realizing that I—

[00:36:50] Tracy Hayes: Was doing—

[00:36:50] Traci Crawford: It.

[00:36:50] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah. E-exactly.

You got buyers that are looking at Nocatee.

[00:36:54] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:36:55] Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things that get wrong about Nocatee? What are the [00:37:00] things that they, they don’t know about Nocatee before they move there?

[00:37:04] Traci Crawford: Interesting question. I think they may get the impression that it’s just one type of culture in Nocatee, but Nocatee, in my opinion, is a melting pot.

Even within my small—’cause I live in Nocatee as well—even within my small neighborhood, we have so many different cultures and personalities. And I say personalities ’cause we all know each other, but jobs—

[00:37:30] Tracy Hayes: Well, everyone has different personalities, so that’s true.

[00:37:35] Traci Crawford: But I love our personalities in our neighborhood. But different cultures, different backgrounds, different walks of lives, and it’s just a great place to be, and not to be around just one type of individual, but just to kind of get to know other people from different areas.

[00:37:53] Tracy Hayes: So, well, the question was, what do they get wrong about Nocatee before actually moving there?

[00:37:58] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:59] Tracy Hayes: So [00:38:00] do they—they have this assumption there’s a certain type of demographic that’s there?

Traci Crawford: I believe so.

Tracy Hayes: You think they have that?

Traci Crawford: I believe—

[00:38:08] Traci Crawford: That, yeah.

[00:38:09] Tracy Hayes: I mean, obviously, the price point’s not—you know, it’s not a first-time homebuyer community—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —in any way, shape, or form. But you, like you said, you do have people moving from all over the country, ’cause it is popular. It’s been rated in high—you know, number one place to move to in Florida, you know, top few anyway.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: And, uh, obviously the ton of amenities, which goes back to something we were talking about earlier before the show, was lifestyle.

[00:38:30] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:38:30] Tracy Hayes: One hundred percent. How—you know, I imagine you do have a lot of clients that say, “Hey, I, I wanna move to—” No, you’re like, “Okay,” and you start showing ’em Nocatee.

When you start listening to some of these, you know, these people moving from outside the area who don’t know Jacksonville—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —and they—how do you start bringing out their life? What kind of questions are you asking them to bring out the lifestyle that they have in their mind?

Because I don’t know anyone that moves to Florida—I mean, there might be a small percentage that don’t—they have some sort of vision or some [00:39:00] sort of expectation.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: How do you bring that out of them, or what the lifestyle they see themselves having in Florida?

[00:39:05] Traci Crawford: So, a lot of my clients that are moving from non-local, so relocating, are military, so their view of Jacksonville is very different. They’re looking for proximity to where they’re gonna work—

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: —whether it’s NAS or Mayport, and they’re about 40 miles apart. They’re looking—

[00:39:24] Tracy Hayes: And Nocatee’s not one of those areas that I would, like, immediately put on the map as a commuting place from.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: That’s—

[00:39:30] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:39:30] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:39:30] Traci Crawford: Although, I mean, it is sort of centrally—lo-lo—when I say centrally between the two—

[00:39:36] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:39:36] Traci Crawford: You can go about 25 minutes this way, maybe about 35, 40 minutes the other way. Kings Bay is at least an hour.

[00:39:42] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:43] Traci Crawford: But Kings Bay is in the mix too, because I have a lot of clients that are stationed at Kings Bay as well.

[00:39:47] Tracy Hayes: And they don’t mind making that—

[00:39:49] Traci Crawford: They won’t—

[00:39:50] Tracy Hayes: —move down. I guess if they figure they’re deployed on the sub or something, it doesn’t matter. Commute’s not irrelevant, right?

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:55] Traci Crawford: But they’re looking for schools. They’re looking for neighborhoods where there are other military [00:40:00] families. Obviously, they’re looking for walkable neighborhoods. That is a common thing that I get for people. They want neighborhoods—

Tracy Hayes: That’s a lifestyle. Trails.

Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

[00:40:06] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:07] Traci Crawford: Yes. Proximity to the beach is always a factor, but they would like to know that, “Hey, I can get to a beach.” Well, you can pretty much live anywhere in Jacksonville and get to the beach—

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: —in a, you know, relative amount of time.

Schools, proximity to the base, drive time. They always ask about commutes. And I say, you know, having been stationed in or living in Northern Virginia—and I relate to some of them that have moved from California, heck, even San Antonio, Texas, where I’ve been stationed—the traffic is way worse. I said, “Jacksonville doesn’t really have—”

[00:40:37] Tracy Hayes: You do have to—basically, it’s 30 minutes to anything you wanna do.

[00:40:40] Traci Crawford: Pretty much. Pretty much.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: And you don’t have traffic. You may have periods of slowdown.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:40:45] Tracy Hayes: But we do have grocery stores on every street corner, practically.

Traci Crawford: We do.

[00:40:49] Traci Crawford: The Publix. But, you know, this traffic slows down unless there’s an accident. I mean, it, it just adds maybe 10 minutes to commute at that, at worst. [00:41:00]

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. What’s a deal or a client moment from the, you know, past few months that’s still sitting with you? A challenge, a deal that’s gone sideways that maybe you probably told a story, if you were at a Fourth of July gathering this weekend, you know, talking real estate and say, “You know, I had this client, you know, a couple weeks ago.” What kind of situations do you have?

[00:41:19] Traci Crawford: I’ve been pretty fortunate. Many of the deals have gone relatively smoothly. If anything, especially, again, a lot of ’em are military, so they already have the income assets, but there may be some things that they didn’t realize that were in their credit report that come up at the last minute, and we have to work through those.

I think probably some of the bigger challenges are remotely looking and feeling comfortable with that.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: Right? And being okay once they get here.

I do have a feel-good story that I could say—

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: —wasn’t really a problem, but it was a young lady—a family, rather—who was stationed overseas. They had attempted to [00:42:00] buy before and weren’t able to buy for whatever reason. They got, you know, within days of the closing table, and it fell apart.

And so when they came to me, they were extremely nervous about the process, and I walked them through it. We initially had an outside lender, but they ended up using the builder’s lender because they got incentives.

The first time they saw the house was day of closing. And at the closing table, tears just flowed when she signed the last papers. And she said, “I just never thought that I’d be able to buy a home.”

[00:42:32] Tracy Hayes: Oh.

[00:42:32] Traci Crawford: And I—and she just cried and cried.

[00:42:34] Tracy Hayes: Right. First home.

[00:42:36] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:42:36] Tracy Hayes: Didn’t even see it till basically closing. Didn’t—wow.

[00:42:39] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:42:39] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:42:40] Traci Crawford: We still stay in touch. I stay in touch with all of my clients.

[00:42:43] Tracy Hayes: You mentioned a—a little bit, you know, obviously as a lender—

[00:42:47] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:42:48] Tracy Hayes: You know, the importance, whether you think you’ve got your credit cleared up—you said some, you know, getting through some credit issues and those things come up.

Also, I think the positive side to that some people don’t understand too, [00:43:00] sometimes your score is just a couple points below getting optimal pricing.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And it could be just, “Hey, you know what? You need to pay that credit card down this much, get me an updated statement, we’ll get you rescored. You’ll bump those 10, 15 points,” or whatever it may be, and you’re going to save yourself $20 a month. Whatever, you know, whatever, whatever little inches you—but if you don’t give us time—

[00:43:21] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:43:22] Tracy Hayes: The lender’s not gonna offer those perks.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Because they’re gonna be like, “They wanna close in 21 days. I’m not gonna do a rescore because that just is gonna clog the engine.”

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: You know, and so if you are knowing you’re gonna look to get out there, get your credit pulled, get the preapproval done, so, you know, the eyes are on all the, all the important things. It just makes things a lot easier and a lot smoother on, on the—I always—the sense of urgency on the front end. Like, “Hey, I’m gonna buy a house. All right, let me get preapproved.”

That sense of urgency saves weeks, if not multiple days, on the back end because someone’s trying to solve a problem ’cause you didn’t [00:44:00] take the time up front to get it taken care of.

[00:44:01] Traci Crawford: And you’ll be happy to hear that when I meet with my clients, that’s the second thing that I tell them.

[00:44:07] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:44:07] Traci Crawford: It’s like, “Get in touch with the lender.” And when you talk to that lender, you know, I, I offer them, you know, people that I work with, but I say, “Tell them the good, the bad, the ugly,” because that’s how they can help you. The more that they know, the sooner they know—

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: —the better they can help you get to—

[00:44:21] Tracy Hayes: The—we’re trying to get you approved for a loan.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: So we know everything. We then know, you know, what turns to take, so we make that job smooth. Because, as you know, we both do services. A lot of people don’t know what we’re doing on the back end, and, you know, could we totally tell them? Yeah. But it’ll go in one ear and out the other, and a lot of times we just do things, you know.

But, like I said, yeah, exactly. We know all things up front. Don’t think that, “Hey, well, I make a lot of money, uh, you know, here, you know, here’s my last pay stub. Just approve me for a loan.” It does not work that way.

And it’s not—we’d love to be able to do that, but there are people on the back end who actually invest that money.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: As if you were investing [00:45:00] your money to let someone borrow to buy a home, you’d want a little more detail too, to give you a little more confidence.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: Now, we do have those minimal documentation loans, like bank statement loans and stuff, but you pay a higher interest rate because you are not truly documenting. Can—you know, we’re just guesstimating. Of course, you need money down. That’s the other insurance policy.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: “Oh, they got some blood in the game. Okay, we can do that loan, and, uh, looks like you make enough money.”

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: But you, you’re gonna pay a higher interest rate.

[00:45:25] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:45:26] Tracy Hayes: Because of the investors. They’re looking for that return. It’s all based on risk.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Speak of VA.

[00:45:31] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:45:31] Tracy Hayes: We still have the challenge today, and have since the beginning of time, even as—as much as we’ve been using the VA loan here for the last almost 20 years. You know, the VA loan’s been a lot longer than that, but really it’s been a—a real big part of the lending process, percentage of the lending process, in the last really 16, 17 years.

But the myths, when you’re out there talking to a seller who may not be a veteran, or maybe a veteran doesn’t know, or buyers, what are [00:46:00] some of the hang-ups that you’re actually hearing from other real estate agents that still are—hear old wives’ tales and really haven’t spent the time educating themselves on a VA loan, or, you know, or customer?

[00:46:11] Traci Crawford: So maybe I can take credit for this. Maybe I can’t. I haven’t had any of those conversations because as I communicate with listing agents when I present offers—

[00:46:21] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:46:22] Traci Crawford: Um, I’m upfront. I’m honest with them. I tell them what’s going on. I tell them as much information that I can about the buyer, how comfortable I am. I have my lender connect with them, and I believe that that gives them enough confidence that they’re good with the fact that they’re a VA loan.

[00:46:38] Tracy Hayes: Well, you bring up something that, if you were training some new agents right now, something that you do naturally. And what—and if I heard you correctly—you’ve got a client who wants to make an offer on a home, you’re making that call to that listing agent.

[00:46:54] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:46:54] Tracy Hayes: And you’re having a conversation.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Tell us some of the things that you talk about in that conversation, so when you do [00:47:00] send over the offer, they have that confidence, and your, your client obviously is someone who’s gonna be highlighted.

[00:47:05] Traci Crawford: Right. So one of the main things, I let them know that they’re already preapproved. I tell them a little bit about the family. I tell them, um, that I work very well with the lender, so I’m confident in the lender’s preapproval, and that my clients are truly excited to, to buy this home.

[00:47:21] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Now, I think one of the misconceptions here is, just because they’re a VA buyer, they’re—doesn’t mean they’re not putting money down.

[00:47:29] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:47:30] Tracy Hayes: That’s some of ’em, you know, obviously, the expense of home, they do wanna put some money down ’cause they want their payment to be a little bit lower.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: That’s some of the misconceptions, that is just to say, “Well, I got a VA buyer,” their immediate assumptions, whether they’re going 100%. “Ooh, that might be risky.”

And, you know, for the listeners out there, agents out there, if a lender has a choice of what kind of loan they want to do, okay, we would love to do the VA loan. We wish everyone had the VA loan. It’s the most forgiving. Obviously, you load to—no, you could get somebody in a home with [00:48:00] little to no money out of their pocket if you negotiate it correctly, with costs being covered and, and so forth.

If they’ve got some boo-boos on their credit and so forth, so much more forgiving than any—FHA is good, but it’s not the VA loan. That’s the best bet.

[00:48:14] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:48:15] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:48:15] Traci Crawford: One hundred percent.

[00:48:16] Tracy Hayes: Just because they have a current VA loan—

[00:48:19] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:48:19] Tracy Hayes: Does not mean they can’t go get—now, that has to be a primary residence. This is where I think a lot of it—I get this kind of thing: “Well, they want to use their VA benefit.” Well, you told me they were buying this property as an Airbnb. That doesn’t work.

[00:48:31] Traci Crawford: Yep. It—

[00:48:31] Tracy Hayes: Has to be their new primary residence. It cannot, you know, be a second home. It can’t be any sort of investment property. It has to be their new primary residence.

And they’re gonna sign documents that they’re—they’re gonna be moving into this.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And they’ll be changing their addresses over and all that other jazz.

So, when a military family has to buy sight unseen, what’s the actual process you run to make sure they don’t regret it? We’ve talked a little bit about it.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: But what are some of the things—you’ve had enough practice at this, you’ve done enough—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: What are some kind of [00:49:00] staple things that you do to hopefully get that person crying with joy at the table, you know, when they’re sight unseen?

[00:49:08] Traci Crawford: So certainly, you know, that initial conversation with talking with them, getting to know who they are as an individual, and allowing them to feel that I’ve got their best interest at heart.

I do tell ’em again about my invitation for dinner, which is predicated on me giving them all the information that they need, because I have heard horror stories of families—and not just military families—that have said, you know, “Hey, you know, our agent didn’t tell us about this. We got to this house. It was horrible. I don’t want it.”

I would like to sleep at night.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: And I couldn’t sleep at night if that was one of my families that had that feeling.

So, what I do for them is I do videos. I not only do a video of the home, I do a video of the neighborhood so they can see what it’s like to drive up to the house. I know you can do Google Earth, but I just feel like you can see a little bit better.

[00:49:54] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. It’s not the same as turning down the street.

[00:49:56] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:49:56] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:49:57] Traci Crawford: And then I walk through the house, and, you know, you can only see, but [00:50:00] I tell ’em what I smell, how it feels to me, things that I point out, things that they should know about that house, and whether or not they’re comfortable with it.

And then we get a home inspection. A home inspection is the last piece, ’cause I don’t know what’s behind the walls in that house. But we make sure every family gets a home inspection, and it tells ’em the good, the bad, the ugly.

I have relationships with several inspectors, not just one, but several, and they all do an excellent job of pointing out what they should be concerned about or not concerned about, because it’s not just about what’s wrong with the house, but it’s about what’s right with the house and how you can take care of it as well too.

[00:50:34] Tracy Hayes: W—would you say, for someone who’s, you know, new to this, maybe they’re coming out of the service themselves and they’re gonna market to active duty—and it’s not all military that’s coming sight unseen. Some of ’em are corporate moves or whatever.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: There’s, you know, uh—or they’re only down for a brief period of time, which you and I know, there’s some people like, “Hey, we’re down for three days. We need to find a house.”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: They go and they don’t really actually slow down and see everything. [00:51:00] The importance of you to portray that you are looking after some of those little things that give them the confidence that you, you are working on their behalf and doing the best you can.

Don’t assume some of the littlest things that, that you may—like, you know, you said, “How do you feel?”

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: You know, “Well, I just wanna let you—you know, the sun is setting over here. This is what your afternoon’s gonna look like.”

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: “The sun’s gonna be beating in the back. It can be hot.”

[00:51:26] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:26] Tracy Hayes: Uh, if you’re someone who likes to cook outside and, and so forth, maybe you don’t want a western-facing—or not a western, but eastern-facing home with the, you know, backyard in the west. Maybe you don’t want that.

You know, and when you reach out and give them that little—I call it the wow factor—because you’re telling ’em something the average agent wouldn’t think is important. And they, they hear these things, and they’re like, “Man, she’s telling me about, you know, what’s behind the door type of stuff. I can trust her, ’cause she’s, she’s telling me what to, you know, be prepared for.”

How important it is [00:52:00] just to, when you’re presenting that, to find those—

[00:52:02] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:52:03] Tracy Hayes: —things to talk about.

[00:52:04] Traci Crawford: Very. It’s very important.

[00:52:05] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:52:05] Traci Crawford: I have a family now. They’re not military, but they’re doing the same thing, and they’re very nervous about buying sight unseen. They’re a referral from their brother, who was a past client of mine.

And they’re like, “The last time we bought, it was just a terrible experience.” So they said, you know, “I want you to tell us, you know, the size of the rooms, and will we fit comfortably here, and what does the neighborhood look like?” And all of that, right?

So, you know, I did the video, ’cause I said, “I want you to see it for yourself.” But then you’re talking about having their family live with them. I said, “Okay, these rooms are smaller. I don’t know if that’s gonna work for you guys, but there are two of them. Maybe you can give them their own suite, and here’s your room. This is what—”

So I gave them the things, you know, not just a video is going to be able to tell them. You know, it’s like, “The kitchen, it’s cute, but it’s quaint.”

[00:52:47] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:52:47] Traci Crawford: It’s—

[00:52:48] Tracy Hayes: Small. Yeah. You spend most of your time here, this might not be your spot.

Traci Crawford: Exactly.

[00:52:52] Traci Crawford: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was beautifully updated, but it, it was a small kitchen.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:52:57] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:52:57] Traci Crawford: So, I mean, those are the things. Like you said, once they [00:53:00] hear those little details, like, “Okay, she really isn’t just trying to get a sale. She’s wanting to make sure that this fits for us.”

[00:53:07] Tracy Hayes: Giving them the confidence that you told ’em what’s behind the next door, so when they open it, they’re not surprised.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: And that way they won’t be disappointed.

[00:53:13] Traci Crawford: And I could still get my invitation to dinner.

[00:53:15] Tracy Hayes: And so, “Invitation to Dinner.” We should title the episode “Invitation to Dinner.”

Traci Crawford: Absolutely.

Tracy Hayes: Um, going over to Ponte Vedra and talking about sellers.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: What’s the conversation you’re having with Ponte Vedra Beach sellers right now that most of them didn’t expect to need? It doesn’t have to be Ponte Vedra Beach, or the beach. You could talk Nocatee, but sellers are—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:53:42] Traci Crawford: It’s not the same market that we had a few years ago.

[00:53:44] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:45] Traci Crawford: Homes are taking longer to sell. However, if they’re priced right and staged and marketed, they will sell.

[00:53:55] Tracy Hayes: Going into their home—

[00:53:56] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:57] Tracy Hayes: You know, obviously, you just mentioned staging.

[00:53:59] Traci Crawford: Yes. [00:54:00]

[00:54:00] Tracy Hayes: But sometimes you have to have some of these kind of frank conversations with ’em.

[00:54:03] Traci Crawford: Oh, yes.

[00:54:05] Tracy Hayes: What’s some of the tips that you—or, you know, if you were mentoring an agent—

[00:54:09] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:09] Tracy Hayes: —and a young agent, and, you know, they don’t have 30 years of being in the Army, could be a little more politely direct—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —that sometimes they have to say some things that, that you think may hurt them.

[00:54:21] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:54:21] Tracy Hayes: Now, they probably, if they have any common sense, they know what they’re gonna be told.

[00:54:26] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:54:27] Tracy Hayes: Shouldn’t shock them.

[00:54:28] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:54:28] Tracy Hayes: But that you have to have that conversation. It’s like, “Dude, you gotta get some of your crap out of here.”

[00:54:33] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:54:33] Tracy Hayes: Yes. You know? How, how do you approach that?

[00:54:35] Traci Crawford: So, first of all, you know, I build relationships. So I’ve already started building a relationship with them where they’re more comfortable, you know, talking to me.

But another thing is, you don’t have to make them feel bad about it. So I just say, “Hey,” I remind them, “This is no longer your house. This is somebody else’s house. So we need to clear off all the counters. We need to depersonalize it. We need to keep it clean and simple.”

That’s how I [00:55:00] take the emotion out of it. And I also tell them, “I know you have to live, so don’t worry about the closets or the garage. You can put stuff in there, but we want them to be able to see the space.”

[00:55:08] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[00:55:09] Traci Crawford: And you got one shot to present the house to a buyer, to get that first impression.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: You got one.

[00:55:15] Tracy Hayes: Well, maybe, maybe one and a half, ’cause maybe the photos come out really good. It actually gets ’em to come over.

[00:55:20] Traci Crawford: True.

[00:55:20] Tracy Hayes: You may not get beyond the photos.

[00:55:22] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:55:22] Tracy Hayes: On there. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, the statistics are there to back up the whole theory under any market.

I’d never seen where a market said, “Oh, you don’t have—” Well, I guess there were times during COVID where people were running up at the—it was terrible. That’s such an anomaly, where you really didn’t have to, you know, do much. People were fighting over homes, ’cause it’s supply and demand, I guess you wanna, you know, call.

But the statistics are there that if you stage the house—and it’s not necessarily, when we say staging, to necessarily bring in new furniture.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: And maybe just decluttering your—to make it—’cause you are comparing against new construction in a lot of places.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: You know?

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: And they’ve got the best furniture, and [00:56:00] everything’s, you know, somebody professional came in and, you know, colored it and all that other jazz.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Uh, you’re competing against that.

[00:56:05] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:56:06] Tracy Hayes: And the importance of having that frank conversation as an agent.

[00:56:10] Traci Crawford: And often—let me just add that—you know, sellers do want to present their house in the best light. So sometimes you can’t—not sometimes—you can’t see your own stuff. So it takes an outside person to come in and say, “Hey, we might need to move this,” because you’ve gone blind to it because it’s your home.

[00:56:27] Tracy Hayes: Yes.

[00:56:27] Traci Crawford: So that’s our job as a real estate advisor, is just to point those things out to them. And as long as they trust you and know that, you know, we’ve got the same goal, is to help them sell the—

[00:56:37] Tracy Hayes: I, I like the phrase, the statement you made earlier: “It’s not your home anymore.”

[00:56:40] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:56:41] Tracy Hayes: When they decide to sell it, they have to then position it as, “This is someone else’s home.” And just because you like some color in a bedroom—

[00:56:50] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[00:56:50] Tracy Hayes: There are people, literally, that will walk into a house—everything could be perfect—and that room be colored just the wrong color—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —and say, “I’m not buying this house.”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Over [00:57:00] painting a room.

[00:57:00] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[00:57:01] Tracy Hayes: Which could be changed overnight.

[00:57:02] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[00:57:02] Tracy Hayes: They make decisions like that.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: It’s just the way they’re—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Walk us through a deal where explaining something most agents skip over—and this, I want to kind of twist this question a little bit.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: A top agent, you’ve got experience and confidence. There’s certain things that you bring up at certain times during the process.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: So the question is, walk us through a deal where explaining something most agents skip over—whether it’s insurance cost, a rate buy-down, a fee nobody mentioned—changed what your client decided to do. ’Cause it, it happens—

[00:57:38] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:39] Tracy Hayes: —all the time.

[00:57:39] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:40] Tracy Hayes: Tell us a situation that you may have had that, and how you overcame it.

[00:57:43] Traci Crawford: So I had a military buyer who was looking to keep, like, all their costs down.

[00:57:48] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:48] Traci Crawford: And they had money to put down, and they weren’t sure how they wanted to do it. And they also wanted to keep their monthly payment at a certain amount, and they were a VA buyer.

So what a lot of people don’t realize is, [00:58:00] one, the second time you use your VA loan, the VA fee—funding fee, funding fee—is higher.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: But what many people don’t realize is, if you put a certain percent down, you can bring that funding fee down.

[00:58:12] Tracy Hayes: Yep.

[00:58:12] Traci Crawford: Hence, then bring down your monthly payment, which was ultimately what this individual wanted to do.

So I was able to walk her through that, and she had the money to put down, so she could decrease that funding fee and then overall decrease her monthly payment.

[00:58:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. Again, your experience, the knowledge of it.

[00:58:31] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:32] Tracy Hayes: She’s worried about the funding fee. What is it about the funding—“Oh, it’s too much.” It was probably 5% down, you know, and then the 10%, it’s even less, actually, I think. Whatever the recent model is, at 5% or 10% down, it’s the same as the person who bought it for the first time.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: You know?

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Because you, you put a little bit more—because I think people—FHA and VA are a little different. Where FHA is guaranteeing the entire loan, they’re backing the entire loan. VA is really, as lenders see it, [00:59:00] it’s only 25%.

So the lender—in simple, you know, observation—it’s as if you’re putting 25% down. That’s why you don’t have mortgage insurance.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: It’s because the VA is guaranteeing that first 25%. So if you default, they know the VA is going to, you know, make up a good portion of what they may lose—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —uh, should they have to resell that house for a loss.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Right. And then that’s where most people—so by you putting a little bit of money in, lowers the risk.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Lowers the funding fee.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: Yep. And obviously, if you are receiving any sort of disability, you don’t have the funding fee at any time.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: When a military family PCSing to NAS Jax or Mayport asks you where to live, what’s the first question you ask them back?

[00:59:41] Traci Crawford: What’s important to you? Are schools important? Said no one ever, right? You wanna be closer to the military families? Commute time—what commute times are you comfortable with? That really is huge.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: Right? Because if you want 25 minutes, that really limits your locations where you can live.

[00:59:58] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[00:59:58] Traci Crawford: But if you’re okay with 30 to [01:00:00] 40 minutes, okay. If you’re okay with an hour, that opens it up even bigger.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: So those are really the main things, is, you know, are schools important to you? And if they have kids, of course they are. What’s your commute time—

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: —that you’re most comfortable with? And what amenities are you looking for in that area? Do you want an HOA? I have to explain CDD to people, whether they’re military or non—nonmilitary.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: They’re like, “What the heck is that? Why do I want it?”

[01:00:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah. Well, as you know, we’re both from New York. Up there, the county handled everything. County and state handles everything.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: That’s not so true here in Florida. They let you choose.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: You wanna pay a little bit more ’cause you want that big splash pad, you go for it.

[01:00:41] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[01:00:41] Tracy Hayes: But the guy over there is not gonna pay for it.

[01:00:43] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[01:00:44] Tracy Hayes: What do you think, to, to kind of—’cause commute time has brought up a little bit—obviously with the new Shands Bridge—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —under construction, and that whole—it’s gonna link into 95—how that’s really gonna open up for a lot of these people who are looking at NAS and [01:01:00] be able to live deeper into St. Johns County—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —and be able to still commute there in, in that time period.

[01:01:04] Traci Crawford: I know. That’s pretty exciting.

[01:01:06] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:01:06] Traci Crawford: ’Cause I already do have a lot of families that live in the Green Cove Springs area. I have some that live, you know, probably upper-middle of St. Johns County and not be too far away. But now, like you said, they can be a little bit lower, shoot across the Shands Bridge—

[01:01:20] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:01:20] Traci Crawford: —go right up 17, and boom, they’re there.

[01:01:22] Tracy Hayes: Right. And, and it may be—knock to getting on 95 and actually going south and then getting on there, you know.

Traci Crawford: Exactly.

Tracy Hayes: Type of thing.

Traci Crawford: Exactly.

Tracy Hayes: Right. Yeah.

[01:01:28] Traci Crawford: Because it will just be, what, 210?

[01:01:31] Tracy Hayes: Oh, you kind of still—maybe 210. You’d go down, you’d pass World Golf—well, actually, it’s before World Golf Village. Golf—which is between 210 and World Golf Village.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:01:38] Traci Crawford: Yep.

[01:01:38] Tracy Hayes: In today’s market, where inventory is higher and deals take longer, how does the experience of a corporate relocation buyer actually diverge from a military family on a fixed PCS timeline? And where do they end up in the same place?

Traci Crawford: Interesting.

Tracy Hayes: How do you handle—I, I guess, obviously, a lot—the military is off the—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: You, you need to be [01:02:00] there in six weeks.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: So they’re on this—the corporate, a lot of times, will say, “Oh, well, we’re gonna pay for you for three months in a condo,” or whatever—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —um, while you look for a home. They’re a little more flexible.

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: Because I—I—how does the military ever pay for temporary housing at any—

[01:02:16] Traci Crawford: They do, up to about 14 days.

[01:02:18] Tracy Hayes: Okay. They give you a couple weeks to find—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:02:21] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[01:02:21] Tracy Hayes: And you’re on your own. So, very small window—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —to look there. How do you—how—what’s your process with both? How do you handle one from the other?

[01:02:28] Traci Crawford: So, just like you said, the corporate have a little bit more time, ’cause I have—I actually do have a corporate buyer that’s coming up from Orlando, and he accepted the job quicker than he thought.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: So they’re gonna put him in a rental, but then he has a home to sell in Orlando, and then he’ll—he’s gonna buy here. So when he gets here in a couple weeks, we’re gonna just start looking and scoping out the area.

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: And once he’s ready, I’ll help him with the house in Orlando.

But military families, a lot of times, they’ll reach out to me six months or so—six, eight months, almost a year sometimes—before they have to move. So that gives me a little bit more lead time with them.

[01:02:59] Tracy Hayes: Don’t necessarily [01:03:00] know when it’s going to be, but know it’s coming.

[01:03:01] Traci Crawford: Correct. Correct. Because they may not have hard orders, which means they’re going to move for sure—

[01:03:06] Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:06] Traci Crawford: —but they’re trying to get their ducks in a row, learn about schools, learn about the area, so that when they are ready to make the move, that they have all the information they need to start doing it, because they have a shorter window.

[01:03:20] Tracy Hayes: That—that’s actually an interesting question that nonmilitary, you know, agents who are listening, who weren’t in the service—how often does it go from them having months in advance, knowing that, “Hey, you’re going to get orders soon. Don’t know quite when, but you’re gonna be going to Jacksonville probably within the next year,” something like that, they may say, versus those who actually get the orders and are like, “Uh-oh, my God, we gotta be in Jacksonville in six weeks.”

[01:03:45] Traci Crawford: That happens more than you think, unfortunately. Even worse, I’ve had one in the middle of a transaction, and their orders changed.

[01:03:53] Tracy Hayes: Again.

[01:03:53] Traci Crawford: Yes. And it was overseas.

[01:03:57] Tracy Hayes: Wow.

[01:03:57] Traci Crawford: So they totally had to back out of the [01:04:00] transaction, which they had the ability to do and not lose everything. But it’s still—I mean, such a heartbreaking moment for them.

[01:04:06] Tracy Hayes: If they’re gonna lose their earnest money, does the Department of Defense cover that? What—what?

[01:04:12] Traci Crawford: No, but they’re—because of the financing piece, they’re able to not lose their earnest, ’cause, I mean, they’re no longer—

[01:04:17] Tracy Hayes: Someone can keep their earnest deposit ’cause of—if they get orders?

[01:04:21] Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: Interesting.

Traci Crawford: They’re no longer financially qualified to move here because they’re not—I mean, to get the loan because they’re not moving here. That’s part of the requirements, that they have to move here in order to close on a loan.

But yes, we do get short-notice PCS orders, and they have six weeks. Six weeks is a lot of time for me. Let’s get you qualified.

[01:04:40] Tracy Hayes: Well, the great thing right now is there, there is plenty of inventory, but not always the ideal home that they want either. Sometimes they have—

[01:04:47] Traci Crawford: To—it’s never gonna be the ideal home. And that’s what we gotta talk to ’em about too, right?

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: It’s gotta be, you know, an 80% solution, if you will.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: It’s gotta get most of the boxes checked. It’s not gonna check all of the boxes.

[01:04:58] Tracy Hayes: You mentioned when you moved, [01:05:00] you bought new construction?

[01:05:01] Traci Crawford: I did, yes.

[01:05:02] Tracy Hayes: What are some of the things—this question comes ’cause I think it’s so important that every agent has this conversation, ’cause all of you have had, if you have any amount of listings, you have that house in a neighborhood where they’re still building houses.

[01:05:20] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:05:21] Tracy Hayes: And now someone’s had to move out.

[01:05:21] Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: And now you’re trying to sell it, and you’re competing against the builder.

[01:05:20] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:05:21] Tracy Hayes: How do you have that conversation with someone, you know, who might, might be coming in, who might get orders again in two years to go somewhere else—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —and they’re supposed to be building that neighborhood for the next four or five years?

[01:05:33] Traci Crawford: So part of that conversation is understanding whether it’s new construction in there or not. It may always be a good time to buy, but it’s not always a good time to sell.

[01:05:41] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:05:42] Traci Crawford: So I’m talking to ’em about—

[01:05:43] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, that—that, I like that. “It’s always a good time to buy, but not always a good time to sell.”

[01:05:46] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[01:05:47] Tracy Hayes: I like that.

[01:05:47] Traci Crawford: Right. So I’m talking to ’em about, what are your alternatives if you aren’t able to sell? Are you okay with renting it? You know, and I’m having this conversation as we’re going through the process, versus getting them into the house and then go, “Oh, by the [01:06:00] way, what’d you think about that?” I want them to know.

[01:06:01] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Don’t get orders in the next two years, ’cause they’re still gonna be building here, and you might—

Traci Crawford: Right.

[01:06:06] Traci Crawford: And, and I just had a family right now that did. They thought they were gonna be here for three years. They got orders one year into their new-construction house. They got orders to go overseas, and so they’re gonna rent the house, and they’re—they’re in the process of getting it rented right now.

[01:06:21] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:06:21] Traci Crawford: So it’s real in our world, and it happens. I mean, not just military. It’s helping to a lot of things, but—

[01:06:26] Tracy Hayes: To be doing the right thing as the agent is, you have to have that conversation. They may be totally in love with that brand-new house, but you have to tell them, if they get orders, they could—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —there, ’cause there are people writing checks to get out of some of these houses right now because the builder’s incentives are so, uh, large in the market.

[01:06:43] Traci Crawford: Sometimes, though, those builder’s incentives are the only way they can get into the—

[01:06:45] Tracy Hayes: House. True. There is no doubt about that.

[01:06:47] Traci Crawford: Right?

[01:06:48] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. There are—you know, obviously, makes it just ideal to not try, but find a neighborhood that’s almost finished.

Traci Crawford: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:57] Traci Crawford: Right.

[01:06:57] Tracy Hayes: We’ll work on that.

Traci Crawford: Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: In a [01:07:00] market where deals are falling apart more often—inspection disputes, appraisal gaps, insurance complications—what does your brand promise actually look like with a transaction that hits these kinds of pressures? I’ll reword that.

[01:07:16] Traci Crawford: Yes, please.

[01:07:16] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. My twin, Alex. And I don’t know—you take this from the buyer or seller standpoint.

Traci Crawford: Okay.

Tracy Hayes: Because our deals, from a lending side—

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: —they’re more deals with more pieces right now, for sure.

[01:07:31] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:07:32] Tracy Hayes: Now, do we still get that person who shows up as a VA loan, perfect credit, you know, income’s there?

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: You know, the hot knife through butter does come, but there are more of the, the squirrely stuff going on.

But also, you know, insurance is coming up, and then I’m imagining some of these people who aren’t totally sold on the house, which we know during COVID there were people buying houses they weren’t—they may not even have been 80% into it—but then another house came available while they were in process [01:08:00] and jumped ship.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: So the inspection disputes come up, and, and solving them. What are some of the things that you try to do to tamper—like, tamper some of those fires down before they really even get ignited?

[01:08:12] Traci Crawford: So I truly feel blessed in the population that I serve, right? Because not just the military, but even other clients that have found me through other resources that are relocating to the area—’cause I get a lot of them as well—they have a need to move, right?

And so we try to have conversations upfront. Not “we try”—I have conversations upfront with them. I try to educate them on what they’re looking for, what they can find, what’s the good, the bad, the ugly of a real estate transaction.

I think talking about those things upfront, before you get into the conversation—and realistically, we talk about inspections. “Hey, Florida is an as-is state. The seller does not have to fix anything if they choose not to. However, if it’s life safety, if [01:09:00] it’s really impacting your ability to live in the home, then yes, most sellers will fix that, because no one’s gonna buy the house if they don’t.”

[01:09:07] Tracy Hayes: Right.

[01:09:07] Traci Crawford: So I try to head some of those problems off at the pass upfront, to talk about what we could see on the other end. Now, I do that with my sellers too.

[01:09:16] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:09:17] Traci Crawford: It’s like I say, “Get an inspection before, so you can hit some of these things on the house that you know a buyer may ask about.” So if you can figure out—if you can strategically look ahead—

[01:09:27] Tracy Hayes: I’m a pre-listing inspection person.

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: I think that’s the smartest thing to do.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:09:30] Traci Crawford: Yes, because then you can take care of it, and you don’t have to have the scrutiny of somebody else saying, “Do it this way, not that way.”

[01:09:37] Tracy Hayes: Well, there—it could be the littlest thing.

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: And that’s their excuse out.

[01:09:41] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:09:41] Tracy Hayes: And you don’t know what that little thing is for them. That’s really, actually, something that’s gonna break the back of the loan—

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: —or, or the, the transaction.

[01:09:48] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[01:09:48] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:09:48] Traci Crawford: So yeah, so that’s what I try. And, and don’t get me wrong, there’s gonna be some things that you just didn’t—even as a lender, right?

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: You think you’ve talked to them till you’re blue in the face about everything you need to know, and then you get down [01:10:00] later, you’re like, “Really? You didn’t tell me about this?”

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: “How am I just finding—” So, I mean, every transaction, you try to educate them and pull out as much information as you can, but there are still gonna be some things that pop up. But I think I minimize it by at least talking to them upfront.

[01:10:14] Tracy Hayes: A lot of foreshadowing. “This is what could be going—” And, you know, yeah, there’s—but even houses that are a couple years old, there could be issues.

[01:10:21] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:10:22] Tracy Hayes: New construction.

[01:10:23] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:23] Tracy Hayes: Do you suggest they get an inspector?

[01:10:26] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:10:26] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:10:27] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:10:27] Tracy Hayes: Yeah, I think that’s so important.

[01:10:28] Traci Crawford: I do. So from the—from dirt to build—there’s those three opportunities: the pre-slab, the pre-drywall, and the pre-closing.

My favorite is the pre-drywall. If you’re not gonna do any of them, definitely the pre-drywall, so you can get in behind the walls and see.

Tracy Hayes: Mm-hmm.

Traci Crawford: Um, if it’s already closed up, you can do the pre-closing. I think you should, but 100%, you must get the 10-month inspection, because that’s your last opportunity to find anything that may be going wrong with the house, and you can have the builder fix it while you’ve still got your bumper-to-bumper warranty.

[01:10:57] Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Uh, 100%. Just because of the [01:11:00] stories I’ve heard of slab issues.

[01:11:01] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:11:02] Tracy Hayes: Not the actual issues of the slab, but what they put or did not put in the slab.

[01:11:06] Traci Crawford: Correct.

[01:11:06] Tracy Hayes: There was a home—my wife was on this transaction—and they literally did not put the drain pipe for the AC into the slab.

So when they finished the home, they realized they didn’t have it. So what they did is they ran it up to the—between the first and second floor, ran it out to the side of the house and down the side of the house, and put a pump to pump the water from the AC unit up and out through this process, instead of just having it, through gravity, go through the slab.

What if that pump fails?

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And you could have issues, uh, mold growing, let alone, you know, before you even notice it.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: I mean that—so, totally agree.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: You have to insist on inspecting. Personally, I don’t understand why the builders don’t do it, ’cause I think if they actually broke it down, and if they’re not analyzing the numbers of some of these things where they gotta go back into slab, cut it up—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —move things around because somebody didn’t do it right.

Traci Crawford: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Um, it’s gotta be some quality control.

Traci Crawford: Right.

[01:12:00] Tracy Hayes: So, what comes up consistently that surprises first-time homebuyers in Northeast Florida, and how do you make sure that they see it before they fall in love with the house?

Kind of similar to the last question a little bit, but working with first-time homebuyers who don’t always understand, you know, “Hey, their payment’s gonna be principal, interest, tax, insurance, CDD fee, PMI, whatever. All that’s going to be in there.”

How do you work to prep them for understanding the transaction they’re about to go in, let alone the house they’re about to buy and all the things they’re gonna do, but to understand what that is, so they, they aren’t getting knocked off their chair somewhere where someone assumed they knew and they didn’t, and so forth? What do you do to prep that first-time homebuyer?

[01:12:42] Traci Crawford: So again, that goes back to education—

[01:12:43] Tracy Hayes: Again.

[01:12:44] Traci Crawford: Taxes is probably the biggest thing, particularly with new construction. Understanding that when you buy the house, it’s pre-improved or unimproved land.

Tracy Hayes: Yep.

Traci Crawford: And then that year later, or whenever the tax assessor reassesses, it’s improved, and now you got a higher tax bill.

So [01:13:00] that, in the last couple years, has been one of the biggest things that I educate them on. It’s like, well, the—I watch the builders too, to make sure—the lenders, rather—to make sure—

[01:13:09] Tracy Hayes: They’re putting—

[01:13:09] Traci Crawford: A number in there—

Tracy Hayes: That’s—

Traci Crawford: —putting that number in there that reflects that improved property.

[01:13:13] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:13:13] Traci Crawford: Um, it still sometimes catches people, though, when the—’cause I’ve had a call and say, “Hey, my payment went up.”

Remember we talked about this. So I really try to educate them and talk to them about that.

I also talk to ’em about homestead exemption. That’s key to making sure that they do that, so that also minimizes their taxes from coming up.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:13:32] Tracy Hayes: How do you—are you positioning this possible legislation that DeSantis is talking about? Obviously trying to knock down the property taxes. You know, he would love to say eliminate ’em.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: But we’ll just say that they’re gonna come to some agreement that, you know, they could be reduced for primary homebuyers.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: Are you using that as in educating people that, “Hey, we may be getting legislation. Now’s the time to buy,” ’cause he’s also suggesting that if, after the legislation [01:14:00] is approved—

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: —then you buy a house, that you’re really gonna pay the regular rates for four or five years. It’s the people who own already that are gonna get the advantage from the start.

[01:14:08] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[01:14:09] Tracy Hayes: And that buying now might be actually smart.

[01:14:11] Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

[01:14:11] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:14:12] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:14:12] Tracy Hayes: Are you talking to homebuyers?

[01:14:14] Traci Crawford: I—I’m not really talking about that yet. I kind of wanna let it, you know, kind of play out.

[01:14:19] Tracy Hayes: I’ve been doing that. I make—

[01:14:19] Traci Crawford: Sure I’m on the right side of it before—

[01:14:22] Tracy Hayes: And I don’t feel—I, I feel confident that something’s going to happen.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: And especially some of these more or less expensive homes, like under $300,000—not, you know, even just a little—they won’t have much taxes at all.

And I think in some of these CDD communities, we may see ’em reduced basically the equivalent of the CDD fee. Not that the CDD fee’s eliminated, but the other taxes reduced enough that would, you know, make it—

Traci Crawford: We know the—

[01:14:45] Traci Crawford: CDD fee’s not going—

[01:14:46] Tracy Hayes: Anywhere.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah. That has to be there. But ex—you know, explaining to them, too, that this—the C—that’s a whole ’nother, whole ’nother thing.

We get—we get a—we already answered the last question, ’cause that was about your move to military. We asked that much earlier, so I’m gonna ask two more [01:15:00] questions.

[01:15:00] Traci Crawford: Okay.

[01:15:00] Tracy Hayes: When a client is downsizing in today’s more patient market, where their home might sit longer than they expected, how do you hold the emotional weight of that transition alongside the business pressure of getting it sold?

[01:15:16] Traci Crawford: So I try not to hold the weight of getting it sold from a business perspective. I think the weight that I carry is from the seller’s perspective, of them wanting to sell their house—

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: —and sooner. And that’s definitely a weight that I carry. I just—I can’t figure out how to get rid of that.

[01:15:35] Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

[01:15:35] Traci Crawford: But I talk with my sellers, and I’m open and honest, and we talk about the market, and we talk—and every situation is different. Every seller has the ability to wait or not wait, and so we just factor that in and try to come up with the most realistic timeline, even though it would really take a crystal ball.

Because, you know, I’m having them prep the house, you know?

Tracy Hayes: Yeah.

Traci Crawford: I’m making sure it looks good. [01:16:00] Marketing is huge. So marketing their property, giving them stats on how well it’s marketing so they know that it’s getting out there. It’s just a matter of that—

Tracy Hayes: Right.

Traci Crawford: —buyer wanting their house.

[01:16:12] Tracy Hayes: And when we—I think one thing I think people don’t put the full circle around. You know, when you say marketing, most people think, okay, you know, it’s out there. Technology—it’s out there. When you put it on the MLS—

[01:16:24] Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:16:24] Tracy Hayes: It’s out there. Agents are looking, “Hey, what are the new listings?” and so forth, and type of thing.

But how you’re strategically positioning it, like you said, the proper price. How fast do you want to downsize? Do you want to sell this in 30 days?

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: You know, ’cause that’s probably really your true value of what the market will bring, is put the 30-day price on it.

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: If you want $10,000 or $20,000 more, which most people think, “Oh, that’s—you can negotiate that off in the first offer.” Well, yeah, you—but most people just go, “No,” and don’t—and don’t show up, as I think every agent, you know, again, has any amount of [01:17:00] listings right now has that one where they insisted they want this higher price that was higher than what you came in and said they should list it at.

They’re listing it for $20,000, $30,000 higher, and it’s crickets.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. And understanding that that is actually part of the marketing plan, is the strategic, uh, placement of the price.

[01:17:19] Traci Crawford: Right.

[01:17:19] Tracy Hayes: Let alone, you know, the old-school way of searching for homes versus AI. AI today, you go in there and say, “I’m looking for, you know, two beds and three baths within 20 minutes of Nocatee.” It’s gonna show you every price point available.

Where the antiquated way was to go in there and say, “Oh, I’m only looking for these price points.”

Traci Crawford: Mm-hmm.

Tracy Hayes: And it might be listed at $730,000, but you put $700,000 as your top, so it doesn’t show you that property.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

[01:17:41] Traci Crawford: Yeah, yeah.

[01:17:42] Tracy Hayes: So, having the proper presentation—

Traci Crawford: Yes.

Tracy Hayes: —and the selling of how to list the house.

Is there anything we did not cover that we should have covered?

[01:17:51] Traci Crawford: One thing I like to say is, you know, about real estate, there’s so many moving pieces and parts that come to—that comes with it. But [01:18:00] people don’t remember the pieces and parts. They remember how you made them feel.

[01:18:04] Tracy Hayes: How you got ’em through the pieces and parts. Yeah, they are—they remember the—they remember they took some turns and so forth, but don’t remember how deep that cliff was or, you know, in reality.

They just, you know—it’s like the fishing story. Well, the cliff got bigger and bigger, and—but it was Traci who reached over and grabbed and pulled us up. That’s what they remember.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. I think—and that’s why I think our industry, people talk about AI and, and coming in. AI is definitely gonna have a factor in the marketing—how you, how you—’cause people, this information is out there, and they can find it all sorts of ways.

Insurance—people don’t realize what the insurance companies know. It’s their job to know. That’s why they’re leveraging technology. There’s actually home inspection companies being bought up right now by equity companies for the data of what’s in that home. How old is that water heater? How old’s that roof? So they know to start marketing that person when certain things reach certain ages in certain markets.

You know, [01:19:00] that data—people don’t realize that information is out there, and people are, you know, taking advantage of it in—in a good way. ’Cause why would you not—someone market—you want someone marketing to you, you know, when you know, “Hey, my hot water heater’s reaching its thing. Hey, here’s some hot water deals. We’re doing hot water deals. Get your hot water heater—”

Traci Crawford: Correct.

Tracy Hayes: “—now before it damages something.”

Traci Crawford: Right.

Tracy Hayes: I mean, that’s—I think that’s a positive thing. But that information is out there, and it’s—these companies are, are involved in it.

I think people have to realize, can’t sneak one of these by, but to go—you still need the human factor.

[01:19:30] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:19:30] Tracy Hayes: In there, ’cause it is human emotions that are, are making those decisions. And, you know, as much as you want AI to duplicate you, ultimately there are little things that, that only you have in here that it doesn’t know, that you haven’t told it.

And you walk into a house, and it’s like, “You know, I don’t like the distance from the toilet to the tub there.” It doesn’t know that.

[01:19:51] Traci Crawford: Nope.

[01:19:51] Tracy Hayes: But you—you, yeah. Or the old square—the carpet in the bathrooms.

Traci Crawford: Oh, right.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. [01:20:00] I guarantee there’s people up north—that’s a very common thing.

Traci Crawford: Yeah.

Tracy Hayes: Because that floor can—that floor can be cold. But if I was to build a house up in Maine or something today—

Traci Crawford: Uh-huh.

Tracy Hayes: I would definitely have, you know, the radiant heater.

Traci Crawford: The radiant heaters.

Tracy Hayes: Yes. Absolutely.

Last question.

[01:20:17] Traci Crawford: Yes.

[01:20:18] Tracy Hayes: Traci, why do you love real estate?

[01:20:20] Traci Crawford: I love real estate because it’s an opportunity to meet family members at, I really say, one of their most challenging periods in their life. And I truly believe that real estate is more than just selling a house. It’s a story for each family, and it’s creating new lifetime memories that will live on forever.

[01:20:45] Tracy Hayes: I appreciate you coming on today.

[01:20:46] Traci Crawford: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:20:47] Tracy Hayes: Thank you. Thank you.

[01:20:48] Traci Crawford: J.

[01:20:48] Tracy Hayes: All right. [01:21:00]