Mario Gonzalez: U. S. Navy to Real Estate with a Committment to Serve Others

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Tracy Hayes: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to the real estate excellence podcast. Today's guest is playing a pivotal role in leading Northeast Florida's real estate agents. During this time of change, this Naval Academy grad and retired Naval aviator, I am confident has dealt with more challenging endeavors. He is the 2024 president elected Northeast Florida association realtors, owner broker, CEO of Navy to Navy homes.

Tracy Hayes: Let's welcome Mario Gonzalez to the show. Tracy, so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you coming down. I know, I can't remember you had something come up the last time I invited you and, and we got delayed and I circled back. I said I've gotta, I think the, the post of,~ uh, uh, ~NIFA had put out last week reminded me, I said, I gotta, gotta get, get him on the show here.

Tracy Hayes: We've gotta hear what's going on down there. Well, here we are and this time of turmoil, the summer of turmoil and real estate agents. But,~ um,~ I always like to kick off the show with the easiest question. 

Mario Gonzalez: Where are you from originally from a small suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. You could probably hear with my southern accent, but that's where I'm from.

Mario Gonzalez: A little town called Chamblee born and raised there. But I left, I [00:01:00] enlisted in the Navy when I was 17. And then,~ uh,~ it was basically like an East coast sailor up and down the East coast for about 24 years. ~Uh, ~so decided to,~ uh,~ You know, hang the spurs down here in Florida, really awesome. 

Tracy Hayes: ~So, um, ~all right, so leave us at you enlisted and, but then,~ uh,~ you reach a level and then they felt you were qualified and took you to the Naval Academy.

Mario Gonzalez: A little bit. I wasn't quite qualified. Here's how I amplify that. So I enlisted at 17. I had seen, you know, Top Gun, like all of us, right. Age. I was like, oh man, I want to fly. And I remember seeing, you know, going to like an air show as a kid and that's what I wanted to do. ~So. ~It's an extremely long story, but I'll just kind of squash it here for purposes.

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~my path to college was So I enlisted in the Navy,~ um,~ followed a bunch of path applied every single year to every college ascension program that I could and was turned down like year one, year two, year three, a lot of amplifying, you know, context in there. But finally the third year they said, okay, this kid kind of won't quit.

Mario Gonzalez: the Naval Academy Preparatory School, which I'd never even [00:02:00] heard of in Rhode Island and went up there and graduated from that, went to the Naval Academy. I think I was the dumbest kid in the Naval Academy. I hung on with my, you know, with everything I had for about four years and then,~ uh,~ and then graduated there and went on to flight school and ended up flying, you know, what we call the Seahawks, what most people call the, you know, the Blackhawks.

Mario Gonzalez: I did that for a better part of 24 years. Well, 

Tracy Hayes: we're, we're in the same,~ uh,~ generation there. The, the,~ um,~ You know, a little bit of a post war Vietnam era, the whole 2 0 and go, 

Mario Gonzalez: you know, 

Tracy Hayes: yeah, I know what you're talking about. Someone 

Mario Gonzalez: told me, you know, what do you call the last guy, the last graduate in medical school?

Mario Gonzalez: Doctor. Doctor. Exactly. Exactly. 

Tracy Hayes: Oh, that's great. Twenty four years though. So now,~ uh,~ all that active or it was, it was 

Mario Gonzalez: now the first part was school. ~Um, ~but once I started flying in kind of the mid nineties,~ uh,~ it, it was, You know, pedal to the metal,~ um,~ a lot of world conflicts from there, you know, go for one to Kosovo.

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~you know from basically the I came in august [00:03:00] 16th of 89 And retired about 10 years ago. ~So, uh, ~you know, we've seen a lot of turmoil Yeah, you know our class we graduated in 96 in our class. Basically, you know, we we went straight into you know Straight into conflict. 

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~well, you've been around the world then.

Tracy Hayes: What was your,~ um,~ in some sort of piece, favorite port of call? Oh my goodness. 

Mario Gonzalez: I can tell you my favorite piece of pizza that I've ever had. Dubrovnik, Croatia of all places, right? It's crazy. ~Um, ~really almost everywhere through the Through Europe, I met some incredible people and then another kind of half of my career was down in South America doing kind of drug ops there.

Mario Gonzalez: And I'll tell you, that was probably some of the most,~ uh,~ interesting, challenging because you're kind of alone and unafraid. You don't have a whole battle group or things where you're, you know, you're down there chasing drug subs and that. So it was, it was kind of cool. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. ~Um, ~why real estate? When, when, when do you make that transition or, I mean, cause you went Navy to Navy, if I saw your LinkedIn correctly in 2010, but you were in real estate obviously before that.

Tracy Hayes: Absolutely. In one way, shape or form since about 

Mario Gonzalez: the late nineties. Okay. [00:04:00] So when I bought my first home,~ um, Um, ~in Jackson, Florida, actually the best advice was ever given to me was when I was a young sailor and someone said, Hey kid, buy a home as soon as you can. And that really didn't compute to me. I mean, in the, in the military gives you a housing allowance and everything.

Mario Gonzalez: So I was married and had a stepchild and when we bought our first home and then when I moved to Maryland, I'm going to give you a little bit of the story here because this is kind of important context. The military moves you. When the military is ready to move you you really don't have an option and say you put out a wish list where you Want to go the timing of that goes to the military.

Mario Gonzalez: So I knew where I was going we had just had our second child and She got very sick. I mean, I mean, very sick. And you know, you're as a parent, you know, once you get the first kid, like everything is a problem, you get the second kid. Anyway. So she got very sick and she had to be taken into, I don't always say it wrong, Nemours or Nemours or whatever.

Mario Gonzalez: She had a bloodborne illness and we came inches to losing her. And during that [00:05:00] process, that's when the Navy said, okay, we're ready for you to go. You have 10 days to go to Maryland from Florida, Maryland. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I, I couldn't sell my home. We bought it with a VA loan. I had no equity.

Mario Gonzalez: I decided to rent it. I went with a large company that remained nameless and I was just a number to them. It was a disaster and it caused me some serious economic turmoil. Let's just leave it at that. So when I was in Maryland, I then had to figure out how do I do this on my own? And this was before the internet was in our palms, you know, we didn't have cell phones, that type of thing.

Mario Gonzalez: I just, that kind of put a piece to me like, Hey, I could probably do this better. You know, I could learn to do this better. And then everywhere the Navy moved me, I remember that guy saying, Hey, buy a home. And everywhere the Navy moved me, I bought a home. Sometimes I sold it, sometimes I rented it. And then I did my first flip.

Mario Gonzalez: So this is what we call flipping, right? Before there was 23 homes on HGTV. I know a huge story. Um,~ Um, Um, ~when I came back into,~ um,~ down here to Jacksonville, my friends made fun of me. They call me the slumlord because I had a handful of rentals. I was always working on something in the back of my truck.

Mario Gonzalez: There was a [00:06:00] toilet and a toolbox, but I was still full time Navy, full time dad, full time soccer coach, full time working at church, you name it. And then the market crashed. Right. So now we're 2, 007 right. And this is where the unique thing happened. People knew that I have a real estate license. They knew that I was doing this kind of for me and a couple of folks and the military folks again, they had to move.

Mario Gonzalez: So they were a hundred thousand dollars upside down overnight on their home. And they couldn't not pay their mortgage. They had security clearances. The Navy was moving them. They couldn't sell their home. And they came to me, they were just dropping off their keys. Sometimes with tears in their eyes. And they're like, Mario, just to help me just to help me find somebody, find somebody.

Mario Gonzalez: ~So, um, ~honestly, my broker at the time,~ um,~ he looked at me and said his exact words. He said, I want you to pray about opening a property management division for our company. I was like, what? ~Um, ~I know nothing about that. I,~ uh, so. ~Truncate the story again, there started off with four of us within a year.

Mario Gonzalez: There was one of me left because other folks all dollar signs and I was, I was called to help. And that's exactly what my broker said. He said, you're as honest as the day is long. You're as hardworking as they come. [00:07:00] You would never take advantage of anybody. He said, you're the right guy to do this. So we started off really, this business has been built out of necessity to help primarily military members.

Mario Gonzalez: And they were forced to move. They were forced absentee landlords. And we wanted to help them. So we started off in the property management era, and then we just wanted to give back. And that's really what. has continued to just bleed it. So it came out of necessity and a really long story, but it's really also in that passion to serve and help other people.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. I mean, it resonates with me because,~ um,~ I know, you know, Bobby Brennan, she started her real estate career very much in the same,~ um,~ kind of situation down in Miami. 

Mario Gonzalez: Yeah. Yeah. Bobby and I are great friends. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. ~Um, ~wow. All right. ~So, ~you know, I, we, and I talked about a pre show. You were doing obviously real estate and more or less from a part time standpoint, because you're, you're,~ uh,~ active duty,~ uh,~ which is tough to do.

Tracy Hayes: And you make a, I think that people have different opinions on, on that. I think in your case and talking to some of the veterans that I've,~ uh,~ had on, I can picture in my [00:08:00] head, you know, making that transition. ~Uh, ~they felt was easy because of the network. ~Uh, ~they felt they, you know, it, it actually put them in a different mindset to do the networking, obviously people got to know you, you were, you know, you were the go to guy, you became the real estate,~ uh,~ resource.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~for our,~ uh,~ Mayport and Naval Air Station and sort of all the above locally here, at least,~ um,~ and they found that really helped their career actually get off from a standpoint of actually,~ uh,~ doing business. You took it on more as, hey, they need help and I can provide it. But. Obviously if it was probably costing you money or costing you your marriage, you probably would've dropped it

Tracy Hayes: You know? So having that network must have obviously helped you kind of launch your career and lead you to going out on your own with Navy to Navy, I would imagine. 

Mario Gonzalez: Absolutely. ~So, um, ~we'll fast forward to about 2009 ish, so it's at the end of, you know, kind of the crisis and foreclosures I'll, I'll. Give throw a name out here.

Mario Gonzalez: So I didn't have time to do the sales piece. I could, you know, being still active duty and all these foreclosures were coming. I knew [00:09:00] nothing about short sales. My broker was educating me as much as I could, but I didn't have the time, energy and effort. So I kind of reached out to this young lady, you know, CC Underwood.

Mario Gonzalez: And I said, CC, I, you know, I need some help here. And we formed a,~ uh,~ you know, a friendship back then. ~Um, ~it was just based on trust. I really didn't know her that well. We came to know each other pretty well and I knew I could send someone over to her. She would absolutely take care of that. that person and you know, without any, any shenanigans and likewise, she trusted me,~ uh,~ in that piece.

Mario Gonzalez: ~So, ~So you became a 

Tracy Hayes: basic 

Mario Gonzalez: referral agent for a lot of these. I did while I was in. And then when it got to the point where,~ um,~ I could start building a team and really go from shared shore duty to sea duty and then see duty. I really didn't have the time. Once we got back to shore duty and I was in the final throws of my career, I really started kind of building,~ um,~ kind of the network of individuals, like minded folks that were here to help other people rather than just kind of looking at a transactional type thing,~ um,~ that really wanted to help people.

Tracy Hayes: Let me ask you,~ uh,~ The active duty members that we have here and anywhere,~ uh,~ just,~ uh,~ [00:10:00] any in general, because I would imagine, you know, one of the things I've, I've noticed,~ um,~ I did not serve, but I did take naval ROTC for four years at the Citadel. Yeah. ~Um, uh, ~the, the Citadel, I think,~ uh,~ I think it was like out of our 400 in our class, like 60 of them went active duty, not all Navy, obviously they go all different branches, but the, the The marketing towards our,~ uh,~ active duty and veterans.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~Obviously, I think there's,~ uh,~ it's important to be as, as someone like yourself, just the way you're coming across being authentic, being sincere, like trust, you know, a big part of it,~ um,~ because that's a big part of when you're active duty is, is the trust factor,~ uh, uh, ~in there. And I see a lot of agents want to market it to it, but obviously some are more successful than others, far more successful than others.

Tracy Hayes: What, why do you, what do you think? 

Mario Gonzalez: I think you already defined it. You know, ~um, ~we all know that people are gonna do business with, they know, like in trust, right? ~Um, ~one of the biggest referral networks out there are. The military communities, right? When a [00:11:00] military is moving from Spain, Japan, Guam to an area that they don't know, they start asking other people, where do I want to live?

Mario Gonzalez: What do I want to do? Where do I want to put my kids? How, what is base housing? Like, what is, where do we shop? What they already naturally ask that. And they have forever. So the people that are willing to give and help those people with really nothing You know, to, they're not looking for that transactional, you know, relationship.

Mario Gonzalez: Oh yeah, I did this, so let me sell your house. 

Tracy Hayes: Do you feel It's almost like calling, even though they don't know you, somebody might have said, Hey, you need to call Mario in Jacksonville. 'cause that's where you guys are going and, and because they know you served, they know that you guys have treaded over to same turf, served on the same ship, whatever it is, there is a bond there that they start talking to you as if you were longtime high school friends.

Mario Gonzalez: Exactly. Exactly. There's just a, you know, whether it be from the military would be from flying, whether it be from the enlisted background would be from the Naval Academy background, you find that commonality. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, 

Mario Gonzalez: you really do. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. [00:12:00] And it gives you that trust. But back to the question, some are just not as good at it as they just are not actually, they,~ um,~ You know, I think,~ um,~ you know, people attract like minded people, you're at, you're active duty members and veterans are looking for these people to trust, but they are, they realize that some of these people are just, they're just in it for the transactional money of it.

Tracy Hayes: And rather than the actual passion that you're talking about more, this the serve and the money will come. Absolutely. 

Mario Gonzalez: And I will tell you this, that,~ um,~ I have seen plenty of,~ um,~ folks stumble in this arena, but I've also seen. Military spouses, military spouses already kind of intrinsically,~ um,~ possess this, this supporting mentality, right?

Mario Gonzalez: Okay. But this Bobby is an example. Exactly. But also this great kind of entrepreneurial spirit, right? Okay. So one member goes out, the spouse has to come back, whether it be male or female, they have to now be. Everything. They've got to be mom, dad, coach, cook, cleaner. They [00:13:00] have, they can kind of get into this role and do whatever it takes to do that.

Mario Gonzalez: And I'm seeing those military spouses actually in this, but you know, they flourish in this, but because they have also this empathy and this care and this passion to truly connect with people and say, you know, I'm here for you. Let's not, don't worry about, don't worry about commission, but don't worry about the commission.

Mario Gonzalez: Let's. What can I do to help? Right. And I think that passion is really what ignites that spark and lends, you know, lends itself to this endless referral business. Right, right. 

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~your first brokerage, this is, and you can lead in and kind of tell people about Navy to Navy,~ um,~ I think it's very important for a lot of the agents talking to some people get lucky and they just fall into the right one And some people have been with Watson for 20 years, for example They just love it.

Tracy Hayes: They're gutter. But yet we see other agents that are bouncing around You know They're trying to I I I think,~ uh,~ Caitlin from DJ and [00:14:00] Lindsay said, they're trying to find somebody who's who they're just going to get up under and I don't know, maybe catch the wind with them and run, but I imagine over the years, you've been asked a lot of time.

Tracy Hayes: Should I get into real estate? Sure. You know, people,~ uh,~ you know, is this something you guys should do? what do you say to that? 

Mario Gonzalez: I kind of want to know what their why is. Why are you getting into real estate? And I used to be, I still am a Florida realtor's instructor and I used to go around and I'd talk kind of benefits of small and large brokerages and cons and small and large.

Mario Gonzalez: And what I tell them isn't all the same. It really depends on what I hear, what they want. You know, ~um, ~our little small brokerage isn't going to be right for everyone. Big behemoth brokerages aren't going to be right for everyone online. Brokerages aren't going to be right for everyone, but to hear kind of what they want and need.

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~that's where I can kind of best answer that question, if it makes sense. Yeah. I mean, ~um, ~

Tracy Hayes: well, I think most of them kind of, ~uh, ~well, the ones I think that bounce around a little bit actually don't know what they need yet. 

Mario Gonzalez: Absolutely. If I could just kind of give you an [00:15:00] example of, of,~ uh,~ Of something we, we had,~ um,~ she's in our company right now.

Mario Gonzalez: She came from very large,~ uh,~ brokerage,~ um,~ you know, kind of a hundred percent type thing. So we had known her for a long time and there was times in her organization that you know, she wanted to travel. She wanted to still do this and there wasn't people there to help her. So it was interesting. People on my team would help her like, look, we'll, we'll do this.

Mario Gonzalez: We're not, and we weren't asking for a commission and we weren't trying to recruit her. She's a friend, you know, ~um, ~one of the things that really, really, really That I love about this business is people will reach out to me and I'm not trying to recruit them. I get calls from agents and other broker associates from other companies all the time, just asking, what do you think about this?

Mario Gonzalez: What would you do? How would you approach this? You know, I love those questions. And likewise, you know, those agents that are out there kind of. searching for something, what are you searching for? And I'll help you match that. But there's no, you know, there's, there's no one touch, but there's no brokerage.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, there's not a symbol that's going to go in front of your name tag. That's going to make you successful. 

Tracy Hayes: I don't, I don't know any agent that does their [00:16:00] business exactly the way someone else does just simply because every house is different. Every customer is different. Every loan is different.

Tracy Hayes: Every, every single transaction. So you can't really, and every obviously every personality is different. You can't Duplicate what someone else is doing you can maybe run beside them a little bit. Sure. Yeah, sure there but But I would mention over the years, you know, you've since 2010 you've had Navy Navy You've had agents come in at you know, a different level some was taken off.

Tracy Hayes: What are you doing as a leader in And I imagine this is probably,~ uh,~ morphed as different people, different markets, you know, what are you, what are you doing as a leader there to try to,~ uh, um, ~you know, add value to that? 

Mario Gonzalez: Sure. That's a, that's a tough question to put into a small thing. I'm going to give you kind of, that's one of 

Tracy Hayes: the biggest questions of the show.

Tracy Hayes: So take your time. 

Mario Gonzalez: I'll give you two things. A long time ago, I heard from, it, it might've been, you know, one of the Patty Ketchams of the world that said you train [00:17:00] someone,~ um,~ so they can leave and you treat them. So they won't. right? But even those that you do are still going to come to a point where it might be right for their family and for their, you know, for them to go on and branch out.

Mario Gonzalez: And I am absolutely fine with that. We've had people that have gone out and done great things. Still friends with today. That's awesome. The mentality that I apply to it is I'm as a helicopter pilot and a helicopter pilot. There's two sets of controls. And when I was a junior pilot, my senior pilot, he or she would train me to do everything as good as they knew it.

Mario Gonzalez: And then some, likewise, I would do the same when I was a senior to the junior, because you never know coming back on the, we flew on what they call single ship, single spot ships. Small frigates destroyers, you're landing at the darkest of night. Where's the weather? 

Tracy Hayes: Little spots So 

Mario Gonzalez: there may be days when i'm coming back and i'm tired fatigued worn out, you know battle tread and whatever right and junior over here He or she has got a they may be better on their game than than me And I want to train them to do everything as [00:18:00] good or better than me so that we can live right?

Mario Gonzalez: and apply that same thing to to real estate, you know when ~um ~You mentioned Bailey earlier, you know, I, to train her early on was fantastic. And most people don't know that they were related because. She doesn't bear my last name. Mm. ~So, ~and I think that's a, a huge testament to what she has done in this, because I haven't spoon fed her.

Mario Gonzalez: Likewise, we have a young lady in Pensacola. She started the office, the, the month that Covid hit in 2020. She had never done a real estate sales transaction. So I had to explain to her through the tyranny of distance, right? Mm-Hmm. , here's how you do it. Here's what you do, blah, blah, blah. And now she's one of the top agents in Pensacola in four years, you know, ~so.~

Mario Gonzalez: The training is out there, but I tell everybody, look, we're going to treat you as a family. I say like a team teamwork, right? But that somehow sometimes has a negative connotation. But so what do we do to add value? One is it kind of goes right back to that to that person. What do they want on a real estate?

Mario Gonzalez: I tell them this. If I don't know what your long term goals are, 100% fail in helping you achieve those [00:19:00] goals because I don't know what they are. But if you'll tell me your goals, you want to sell 10 homes a year, 20 homes a year, you want to have 10 investment properties, you know, by the time you want to learn property management, whatever it is, I will do whatever I can within my resources and the network of people that I have to surround you.

Mario Gonzalez: To help you achieve your goals, and that's my That's my God's honest truth to anybody that I meet this in the company And that also kind of takes me beyond the walls of Navy to Navy and the people that I meet I want to help them. I want to be able to know what can I do to help and serve them even if not in my brokerage 

Tracy Hayes: When you came up the name Navy to Navy, did you feel you might have been?

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~yes, 

Mario Gonzalez: let me tell you how that happened. Okay. Remember I told you that we were helping on those people as they were going, they were going, they were going. ~So, ~and I really couldn't promote myself. There was another company and we've mentioned a couple, there was another company that was happening at the same time.

Mario Gonzalez: They were two spouses or outside the Navy and they could, they could promote themselves. I couldn't because I was still active duty in here. [00:20:00] Right. I was like undercover brother, you know, doing things here. Yeah. ~Um, ~and one day,~ um,~ This kid walks in my office, I say, kid, you know, ~um, ~who's a senior enlisted guy, but he was younger than me.

Mario Gonzalez: And he came in and he said, Hey, sir, you're, you're the guy with all the rental properties, right? And I looked around, I said, what? He said, you're the guy with our own properties. He said, they told me I'm coming from Norfolk, Virginia. And they said, Hey, just go down here to this office. There's a guy here that's helping all these people.

Mario Gonzalez: We're all moving out. He's got a ton of these homes you can move right in. And that's what it was like this Navy person went to Navy, Navy to Navy. Boom. So to answer your question directly, do we get Do we get calls all the time? Like, Hey, do you work with people other than the Navy? Yeah, we do. 

Tracy Hayes: It's like the Navy federal credit union, right?

Tracy Hayes: It's like, that kind of has the same. Exactly. Exactly. 

Mario Gonzalez: But I've also seen people that have really found their niche or niches. I learned to say it from Georgia. Like they,~ uh,~ they find their niche and they stick with that. And, and truly that's, that's our passion. And it's not just to help military peoples while that's the paramount, it's to treat everybody just like we would them.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, we were doing virtual [00:21:00] showings with people before COVID because we had people come from Guam, Japan, you know, San Diego, wherever. And oftentimes we have to show them virtually the home that they were moving into because they weren't, you know, and they're moving here without a spouse, that type of thing.

Mario Gonzalez: So we wanted to just raise the bar and both real estate services and property management. for everyone. And that has really, really, really,~ um,~ helped us. Has 

Tracy Hayes: it come around in the marketing from the standpoint of,~ uh,~ obviously with all the social media and all its algorithms and everything else. Yet there is people that are moving in theory that may not have Know somebody that knows somebody here in Jacksonville, but because you have Navy to Navy, it, they're finding you.

Mario Gonzalez: Absolutely. ~So, uh, ~I'm a big statistics guy. I won't get into too much of it, but,~ uh,~ so you know, there's like the most traditional marketing doesn't work for us, you know, like a normal Google play per click type thing, or, you know, normal Facebook ad just nor that doesn't work for us because people will say, oh, they only work with military personnel.

Mario Gonzalez: But. Working this referral [00:22:00] network work pouring into the people that That are important to us, you know, and I'll talk rentals and property management for a second. A lot of real estate agents turn their nose up at that. That's a lot of my people, you know, and what I mean by that is those are people that can't afford or are not going to buy the home for Jacksonville.

Mario Gonzalez: Every real estate sales agent has heard, Hey, I don't want to buy right off the bat because I don't know the area. We're looking at the largest landmass city in, you know, the Continental United States. So we'll take care of those renters and they become Again, our customers and they buy from us and they refer to us and they're, you know, it's this massive thing.

Mario Gonzalez: So to your point,~ um,~ I look every day at our, not every day, every month at our Google analytics. And I remember when it tipped about four years ago, when. The number of people that are coming to our website wasn't because they were, you know, they came from an outside lead source. They were putting in the search terms, Navy to Navy home.

Mario Gonzalez: And when that tipped over 50%, I was like, wow, Lord, what just happened? It just happened. Yeah. And now it's still almost 70 percent of the customers that come to us are putting our [00:23:00] name in Google,~ um,~ to come directly. Wow. That's awesome. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. ~Um, ~we've, you've Because you, a good bit of your business, a good core, I guess, cornerstone, if you want to call it is,~ um,~ the property management part of it, do you find,~ uh,~ your agents or agents in general that have expanded their horizons into other things other than just the standard single family, you know, home that,~ uh,~ They become more diverse.

Tracy Hayes: They open their circles. If they are looking, you know, whether it's commercial or whether, like I said, renting those homes or,~ uh,~ flipping those homes, but the agent, as they grow through their progression, because I think a lot of agents don't look beyond 60, 90 days at any one time. None of them are really going, Hey, what do you, what do you see yourself in five years in real estate?

Tracy Hayes: They, I don't know why that is. I don't, I think it's. From the old days in the stereotypical when, when we were younger, the real estate agents were older, or I had ed acres on here. He was like 20 years old when he entered the real estate business. He's our age. [00:24:00] And I'm like, dude, he goes, yeah, I was the youngest guy in the clay County board at the time at 20 years old with his license.

Tracy Hayes: And it's evolved, but they don't, they don't look long term and that really starting to learn how does property management work or getting, or flipping their own property. or learning how flips are, are owning their own real estate. Sure. That really helps the growth of an agent over time. 

Mario Gonzalez: This, so it kind of goes back into their goals.

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~you know, how does it, how does the property management piece work into that? I'm going to work it in with this answer. ~Um, ~it has been awesome to see one of the first things it was ever told to me when I was young and you real estate, they said, Hey, if one of the downfalls of Career real estate agents.

Mario Gonzalez: And I don't know how accurate this piece of information was, but it has really been ingrained in me. They said most career agents you can look at,~ um,~ that retire, they retire with a very nice house. They retire with very nice cars and they retire with about 5, 000 in the bank. And I was like, Whoa, why not?

Mario Gonzalez: Another piece of information that has hit me is, Hey, there's the most number of millionaires. In America have been made out of real estate, [00:25:00] owning real estate. So I tell people, practice your trade, you know, you're helping people buy and sell homes, learn the piece about Reynolds, learn the piece about investing, learn.

Mario Gonzalez: So you can be,~ um,~ the folks that are in our brokerage, I want them to be a one stop source, talk to them about real estate, talk to them about generational wealth, right? You know, the buzz term right now. ~Um, ~and we have agents right now that are learning, wow, all these people that bought in 20 and 21, that have these two and a half and 3 percent interest rates, they shouldn't sell.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, they're probably never going to borrow money cheaper than that. So hold on to that. And it becomes positive cashflow over time, especially these military people that are doing this, the government's helping them out with a small, you know, housing allowance. And now wait a second, I just turned into an investor.

Mario Gonzalez: I've got a property back here and now I can still afford to do another one. And then it's just process repeat, right? That's one of the, one of the sticks to any investment piece is once you do it the first time you can then. it. So the process of the property management really coming into that is agents not being afraid of it.

Mario Gonzalez: Agents [00:26:00] learning about it and then saying, wait a second, I can own him. I can own a property. Right. And then you start learning some of the tax advantages and this and that. Well, 

Tracy Hayes: it's nice to have some of that,~ um,~ passive income, especially when there's downtimes because they will come to have that coming in.

Tracy Hayes: And obviously the longterm. I've, I've seen in 19 years, I've been in the business. I mean, literally agents call and go, Oh, I got a client that wants to buy an investment property. And like, what do I do? And they, they need not, they need to grasp it. They need to understand that just, just as you're saying that there's some inventory, well, it's growing now, but how many, how many years did we go?

Tracy Hayes: We're inventory was minimal and you got people coming in and they have to come and they have to, Put a roof over there. So we got to find him a rental. Maybe it's a short term rental Matt, we don't know, but you need to be,~ uh,~ you know, have that in your portfolio or know who to call when you have those situations to, to, to deal with them.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~I, I just, you know, the top agents,~ uh,~ the really top agents that I've been talking to [00:27:00] all are, are being involved in, in flips or even some of these young agents that I've been in two or three years, they're, they're into their first flip or they've already bought their first investment property. And they're, you know, learning that early on.

Tracy Hayes: Expanding their horizons, basically. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's what I 

Mario Gonzalez: mean, really practicing your trade and learning it and understanding it, surrounding yourself. I mean, you know, this surrounding yourself with people that can help you achieve your goals and understand that. ~So, um, ~again, when our agents come in and they say, well, maybe I'd like to have.

Mario Gonzalez: a rental property one day when they buy that first rental property, that first flip, I'll tell you, it's a, that's what keeps me going, you know, almost every day helping the people. It's not just the customers. It's also the agents as well. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, I just, I think the, the ones that haven't done it are discounting the power behind it of the confidence that you could say you've done it.

Tracy Hayes: You know, as I mentioned, Ed, Ed was like, yeah, I was still living at home at 20 years old and people were like, why should I buy a house for view? And he's like, cause I know what I'm talking about. I still live at home, but I know I'm only 20 years old, but I've, I've done, I've educated [00:28:00] myself on the market.

Tracy Hayes: I know what's going on. Right. ~So, ~you know, to be able to, these people coming in and,~ uh,~ you know, you know, this is a unique area. I mean, we're blessed,~ uh,~ because people want to move to Florida and we're kind of the last corner. Well, although I think the over towards the panhandle still has areas to go over there, but, but as far as a financial center and money, and obviously the Navy being here, you know, there's a lot of things to do, but they're coming in from all directions.

Tracy Hayes: You got investors, you got people who need the rent,~ uh,~ you know, ~uh, ~in all the above coming in from every direction. ~So, um, ~what do you, besides,~ um,~ we'll get into the buyers,~ uh,~ agreement here in a little bit and then what's going on. But. What are you seeing right now as far? You know, was the markets, you know, changed?

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~you know, I think it's been 24 months since rates started to climb. It was spring of 22 when we saw the rates start to go up. What are some of the challenges that you're seeing,~ um,~ that you're helping your agents with right now? ~Um, uh, ~just with the market conditions, listing staying longer, what are some of the new challenges?

Mario Gonzalez: Sure. I'm sure that everyone's [00:29:00] kind of talked about the same thing, so it's nothing really new. And we see, you know, the sales inventory, it's, I want to know how 

Tracy Hayes: you're overcoming them. That's, that's really the question. This is the part I got to go.~ Um, ~the tips and the tricks. 

Mario Gonzalez: The first part is,~ um,~ is to kind of mitigate the fear, right?

Mario Gonzalez: Anytime there's change in the industry, whatever it is, there's, there's going to be a level of feeling fear and uncertainty. So To mitigate that,~ um,~ just to say you and I've been doing business for a long time. You've had plenty of guests on here that have ridden, you know, kind of the ups and downs of the real estate market.

Mario Gonzalez: So to tell them, look,~ um,~ there's ways to do this. So the networking piece is huge. The referral piece is huge. ~Um, ~and having those customers that are sticking with you, right. ~Um, ~they didn't hire, they didn't hire you because you just have some shiny object. They hired you because they trust that you can get the job done.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, they weren't, they weren't hiring the surface service. They were hiring the person. So if you can. that they are hiring and they trust, then that, you know, the rest is kind of, I don't helps things out. Likewise, also being able to talk both things like, okay, if you can't [00:30:00] sell, then rent, you know, our phones are ringing right now from agents around Jacksonville.

Mario Gonzalez: They're like, Hey, I've got a, I've got a seller that's, they need some income. They've got to move and we're not, we're not able to sell them. Okay. So we provide that alternative, you know, bring us the home. We'll give it back to you when the seller's there and when ready to go. So to be able to offer more tools than just a, okay, I put it on multiple lists and.

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~you know, it's out there on Zillow, you know, that's doing nothing. So to teach the agents that there's more than one path here,~ um,~ you know, we have a term of short term rentals too. So if they have to, you know, sell a home before they can buy a home, okay, fine. Then we'll, we'll do the little card game and, you know, the cup game and we'll put them into a short term rental oftentimes next to free of charge, just so that we can make the calendar work.

Mario Gonzalez: Right. Makes sense. So to educate the agents on.~ Um, ~options that they have, not just, okay, they've got to sell for this price. ~Um, ~then there, you know, the also VA assumability, which a lot of people aren't talking about, right? That's a, that's huge because there are some people that have just decided, okay, I [00:31:00] need to sell my home.

Mario Gonzalez: That's got a two and a half percent interest rate, but they're not advertising it as a VA. Assumable, right? They don't understand it. You know, it's a, it's an unknown. So to educate those folks. 

Tracy Hayes: So what are you, what have you done? Because this is an area I think needs to be done and hopefully,~ uh, Uh, ~a friend of mine's down the hallway.

Tracy Hayes: I want to introduce you to after the show,~ um,~ because he's, he's doing something,~ uh,~ with that, because one of the challenges with assumability is the servicers really aren't. Staffed up for it at the moment. I agree But they weren't staffed up for it for short sales back in eight nine ten eleven twelve exactly So hopefully they're gonna come around and make that process a little more efficient Is you know the hope of it?

Tracy Hayes: You know, can you get on the on the front end of it? And then obviously the challenge of those who don't understand. The great thing is the interest rate's low. The challenge is most of these people have a lot of equity in their home. So now, obviously, if you've got someone who's a veteran and has the cash, maybe they sold a home with a lot of equity [00:32:00] and they can make up that gap between what is currently owed and And the value super, or maybe someone did just buy last year and they probably don't have any equity at all.

Tracy Hayes: Well, last year, I don't know the rates probably wouldn't want to work there, but you know, ~uh, ~certain situations there, but educating when that term comes up, like you said, well, they go out on the listing. They know it, they know there's a VA loan on it, getting that information. And like you said, there's a lot of agents that are not advertising that assumability part.

Mario Gonzalez: Exactly. We know we've had buyers come to us saying, Hey, this is what I'm looking for. And to find them oftentimes a little bit of a needle in the haystack, but this, and this will probably lead us to more of a, you know, the follow on conversations we're going to have here, but educating the seller so much.

Mario Gonzalez: I believe is one. At that listing appointment to properly educate your seller of what are the current market conditions? What does the pricing points look like? How can we best, you know, ~um, ~position your home to sell in this current market? What are the expectations for you as an agent? What are [00:33:00] commissions?

Mario Gonzalez: You know, we can have, it's not just a one piece discussion. It is fully educating that seller to best. Help accomplish their goals, right? If it's to sell the home, it's to rent a home. It's to keep it on the market for so long and then do whatever. But so much is one of that listing appointment and setting that.

Mario Gonzalez: ~So, ~you know, that they got a VA assumable and a lot of them don't know how it works, you know, Hey, am I giving them a VA eligibility? Am I not? You have to be able to talk that whole piece to, well, it depends on the buyer and what they look like, but absolutely. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Well, I know from a, from the lending, the lenders have not come around.

Tracy Hayes: I'm hearing there are some,~ uh,~ Off the market lenders, if you want to call it that alternative, not, not an alternative in a bad way, but these guys are willing to do that second mortgage. ~Uh, ~you know, but it's not going to do it to a hundred percent. You know, they'll, I've, I've heard some that may go as far as,~ um, uh, ~85 is pretty standard.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~but I think, you know, one of the things, like you said, when they, they captured how to do the short sales, the other side is going to be, Hey, we've got a really good buyer here. They got 10 percent down right get that get that interest rate [00:34:00] because I I think the common sense is They're not going to negotiate on the actual price if they're they're getting that two and a half three percent interest rate Maybe maybe not.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, I mean they're more after that. They that's the jewel is because that's huge amount of savings 

Mario Gonzalez: exactly But I will say this tracy we have had military folks. I can give you so many during the years that have said Okay And I know you know, this isn't like a fair housing piece, right? So they know that that's a military person It's a job thing right and they know and they will You Be more amenable and to helping getting that sale across the finish line.

Mario Gonzalez: Yeah. Plenty of times where they have taken,~ um,~ you know, some dollars off the price tag to help that out, but you mentioned like. You know, the different products that are out there. And I say this to all my new agents is you have to build your network. I call it the Avenger network. Everyone knows Marvel.

Mario Gonzalez: You have to build that Avenger network of the lenders of the inspectors of the title companies that are really going to,~ um,~ work well with a variety of options, you know, to help get these people across the finish. Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, [00:35:00] I, I say that occasionally this comes up, but I see it on, I see it on Facebook,~ um,~ an agent ask, Hey, do you.

Tracy Hayes: You need to have a Rolodex of all the I don't write down to a painter to the plumber to all these people ready to ready to go. I mean, especially Would you say now more than? I've noticed from the loan standpoint,~ um,~ and then talking to other mortgage people every loan now seems to have some extra pieces to it But it seems like every sale of the house, you know, the buyers and and sellers they have their their own little.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~You Nuances right now and then it's it's really challenging the real estate agents how to you'll play that little chess game to get it to the 

Mario Gonzalez: other side sure and that's where kind of the You know the working together and the teamwork from both sides of the the equation really is there to do that So 

Tracy Hayes: how important you think?

Tracy Hayes: You you've you've In the kind of, you know, ~um, ~segue into your, you know, you getting involved with the board and being involved,~ uh,~ representing everyone, you know, at NIFAR, more [00:36:00] or less,~ uh,~ all the agents and, and, and being a face point, but the collaboration part. You've obviously met a ton of people, obviously being involved at NIFAR.

Tracy Hayes: You meet, you're meeting agents, you know, throughout the area that you wouldn't normally meet in your day to day business,~ uh,~ unless they were on the other side of a transaction, but sometimes you never even really see them, but how important do you think it's, it's, it been for your business and in your brokerage to have, Got outside and have met other people have met people like CC Underwood and other people that you can call, you know You know, maybe it's over in Ponte Vedra and you live You know on the north side and you got a listing over there because your friend just wants to sell the house How do you how important is to collaborate and really have those?

Tracy Hayes: I don't know if you call them allies. Yeah in the business 

Mario Gonzalez: I don't even know that I can quantify it in words. Yeah. I can give you a little bit of a story. So when I first started into this, the first place I ever plugged into NIFAR as I was starting the brokerage here locally, so I'm okay, I'm going to start Navy to Navy [00:37:00] homes.

Mario Gonzalez: How do you be a broker? What do you do this? I didn't even know all the education. I didn't know what I didn't know. And I started plugging into as many classes I could. There was times I would sit and be a monitor because I couldn't even register for everything. So I'd look, I'll monitor anything. And I started.

Mario Gonzalez: Seeing the movers and shakers that were out there in the industry and gleaning from them like wow And then I found myself kind of in the education piece and I remember sitting with one of the top KW brokers in the area And she was an open book. She would give me and help me anything I wanted. She would invite me to, you know, trainings, invite me to other kind of elite things that she had.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, come on, look, we're not trying to recruit you. Just, you know, absolutely. You're more than welcome. It's open to anybody. That has happened over and over and over again in my career. I remember meeting a property manager from Pensacola. I sat one day at a small event and he had flown his plane over, right?

Mario Gonzalez: I'm like, well, he'd flown his own personal plan. I was like, Holy smokes. And this guy, and I met him very quickly and he said, look, I don't have the time right now, but. [00:38:00] Let's connect and we connected in zoom before there was a zoom and we're talking 10 years ago You know we connected and he he was an open book.

Mario Gonzalez: He showed me absolutely everything. I was like wow This this collaboration is crazy And I have found people like that in and around the association both on the MLS side And the board side where people are just willing to help and we don't always see that You know, especially when you you run into someone It's maybe a little gritty to work with on the other side.

Mario Gonzalez: It's a little difficult. It almost makes some agents a little jaded, or I should say guarded and what they will really work towards that cooperation. And 

Tracy Hayes: yeah, 

Mario Gonzalez: and when you see that the majority of people are truly willing to help whether, you know, luxury agents, I'm not a luxury agent, but to sit there and glean from a luxury agent, Hey, here's how I built my business.

Mario Gonzalez: Here's this, like, wow, that's awesome. You know, 

Tracy Hayes: they tell me it's not the price point, luxury, I disagree. Yeah, I disagree with that one. I think it's the funniest thing they say. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. ~Um, ~but you're right, [00:39:00] there are some situations where, yeah, you have this agent on the other side, and it's like, alright, hey, we're trying to get, we have a seller and we have a buyer.

Tracy Hayes: Let's get to the, let's get to the goal line. Right. And they wanna, they, I don't know, they get a little personal. They get a little, I don't know, their own personal emotions get involved or something. ~Uh, ~and, and not me, but,~ uh, Um, ~all the top agents, the listeners out there right now. I mean, all the top agents.

Tracy Hayes: are collaborators and they will go and have coffee. Whether you're in their brokerage or not, they don't draw lines. And I think, I think today, especially obviously, you know, some of the things that landmark puts on, but all, whether it's a mortgage lender or title company, they're,~ um,~ they're putting on the, on these, on these classes, there's more opportunities to run into these other agents and, you know, You know, start collaborating or at least just, you know, shake hands and or, you know, type of thing and converse and meet each other.

Tracy Hayes: Then there probably was in the past. 

Mario Gonzalez: Yeah, 100 percent percent. And like you say, you learn and you meet from other people. You know, one of the my wife still tells a story. We were, we were out to dinner one night. ~Um, ~and this is many years ago [00:40:00] and,~ um,~ this young lady walked up to me at the dinner table and she was there with her significant other at the time.

Mario Gonzalez: And she walked up, she said, Maura, you don't know me. ~Um, ~my name is Sarah Rocco. And she said, I'm watching everything that you've done. She's like, you have an incredible team. I love what you're doing. ~Um, ~you know, I had a chance to sit in one of your classes one time and I was like, holy smokes, you know, and that was the beginning of a perfect relationship.

Mario Gonzalez: Fantastic friendship. And again, the, the two of us were, you know, to talk and to collaborate, as you say, there was never any angst. And I remember working with people on her team. And I'm like, look, this is gonna be a pleasure. It may be a new person on the team is gonna be a pleasure because I know who's behind it, you 

Tracy Hayes: know, well, and again, we're segue in because I want to just, you know, educate everyone on, you know, what the board's doing.

Tracy Hayes: And obviously, as president elect, I'm gonna be,~ um, uh, ~You have to rate, you have to, the level or I should say with the NAR lawsuit, the collateral damage has been at least a perception that it's devalued the real estate agent, or there's been, you know, maybe it's just clickbait online, but the [00:41:00] real estate agents aren't really needed.

Tracy Hayes: You guys are making too much money or whatever. And so obviously the pushback has to be where we have agents need to show their value, that they explain what you're doing and, and, and all this stuff. But. By the collaboration in In not being more so hey the competitor I can't talk to them or I'm not gonna go to their training even though you know I can or a training they're putting on that's open to anyone because they're with X brokerage Your position at the at the board and I imagine the board's attitude is are we're trying to raise all boats We know everybody's not unfortunately, it's just life and anything you do.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, not everyone can be a helicopter pilot It just you know, they just don't have the skill level or maybe their eyes are screwed up. Whatever it is, right? You know that's required but the same thing in real estate is You could share everything you're doing. I mean, ~uh, ~you know, I think there's guys making a ton of money sharing what little bit they did.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~I've done like Grant Cardone and stuff. I have all these people paying for his trainings and so [00:42:00] forth. ~Um, ~you could, he could share everything he did right down to the detail. The reality is there's going to be, if any, a small percentage that actually can duplicate what he's doing. True and I think that's in the real estate now.

Tracy Hayes: They may be successful by doing what you're doing ~uh ~Similarly, I forget that word out, but they're never actually going to be able to do it You 

Mario Gonzalez: know, everybody does their business a little bit differently, you know, ~um, ~my approach to this kind of, as we're going into the, the NIFAR piece is,~ uh,~ and this kind of goes with the military.

Mario Gonzalez: I've always seen, you know, most people see leadership as like a pyramid, you know, and the leaders on the top and I do the exact opposite, right? I put myself at the bottom and it's my job to give the tools and the tools the experiences and share as much as I can so that the people, the agents that are working for me can do their job to the customers, you know, and ultimately, you know, that's some 

Tracy Hayes: fall out.

Tracy Hayes: True. It just happens. Absolutely. You know, absolutely.~ Um, ~but you're, you're raising that, raising that level and the quality [00:43:00] that people know,~ uh,~ whether they're coming into northeast florida that You know, ~uh, ~these agents are top notch. That that's really what you want. And then when it becomes to, I mean, I think you would agree when it comes to the buyer in this case, doing the buyer's agreement or still in the listing agent and say, Hey, and this is going to be the commission that, or, you know, wherever you're presenting that,~ uh,~ they don't question it because of the level of of quality that that is just now spread it with every agent.

Tracy Hayes: It's the bad apples that obviously, you know, draw that down and people start questioning, right? Right. I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah. Less than the amount of bad apples in the Bucket, basically. And that's your job. Well, I would, I would assume is one of the, one of the,~ um, uh, ~jobs at Northeast Florida association.

Tracy Hayes: Realtors of Florida. Realtors is to obviously raise the level of quality of the ethics and the standards of a real estate agent. 

Mario Gonzalez: That's a very good way of putting it. Absolutely. So we're doing our best to put out the, you know, the education to put out that level of professionalism to, to give those,~ um, uh, ~to give folks the [00:44:00] tools to, to actually, Raise that level of professionalism.

Mario Gonzalez: And you've, you've said this a couple of times, you know, ~um, ~and I'm, I'm going to, you know, you said a rising tide lifts all boats. And I love that, you know, and I've always said that. So absolutely. We want to give everybody the tools and the, you know, the opportunity to do well. And we believe that the cream will rise to the top, right?

Mario Gonzalez: The natural attrition, we don't always have to come down on the, you know, the ethics and the Freck violations or anything there that is definitely a part of it. ~Um, ~but. You know, the reason I serve in this point isn't to, to hold those folks accountable. It's really to give those folks that the vast majority of the tools and the opportunities to do well, and it really, really, really master this profession.

Tracy Hayes: Let's,~ um,~ let's tell us a little about,~ uh,~ well, we were talking about the MLS. You guys have been for years now, I've been working on improving that. What,~ um,~ what was gonna give us,~ uh,~ what was going on before? And then what are agents seeing now with the ability, as you starting,~ uh,~ if I, you know, to bring in the St.

Tracy Hayes: Augustine's of Flagler's and everything, what, what's, what's the end game? [00:45:00] And is that an ongoing process? Sure. Sure. ~Um, ~

Mario Gonzalez: okay. I'll go back a little while ago. So prior to 2020, we had a strong MLS, but it was kind of northeast Florida and everybody that was surrounding us was, you know, they were just surrounding us around their own island as technology evolves and consumers get more and more information in their hand.

Mario Gonzalez: If we're to maintain professionalism, we have to be professionals in our industry. We have to have at least that same or more information where we do read this Ruby's this level of obsolescence, right? Like, Hey, like I'm expecting this person to me. So back in 2020,~ um,~ I was the president of the MLS when COVID hit.

Mario Gonzalez: That was fantastic. So we had to learn very quickly. How do we, how do real estate agents continue to do business in this? All of our team had to. Go work from the winds, right? Okay, so we have to work remote. We have to keep the system up. We have to keep the data in there. How are we going to work virtual showings?

Mario Gonzalez: We have to have, you know, documents that allow, you know, release liability for all this. We had to adapt to the situation very quickly. And most agents, they were like, Oh yeah, I can still [00:46:00] go on and check up. They had no idea what was going on behind the scenes. At the same time, the CEO, were 

Tracy Hayes: you getting some help from the national level or Florida realtors or everyone was kind of like, Survival 

Mario Gonzalez: of the fittest right now.

Mario Gonzalez: It wasn't survival of the fittest. There was some help. And I think part of this whole, it kind of, I hate to use the word synergy, but the synergy and this network and this collaboration is everybody wanted to help, Hey, this is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it. Okay. Let's do what they're doing.

Mario Gonzalez: This, you know, how do we, how do we glean from others and not have to reinvent the wheel as much as possible at the same time, you know, doing CPR so we could stay alive at the same time planning for the future. Because at that exact time, that was the year that the MLS was retiring. So we had to go on a nationwide search to find a new CEO.

Mario Gonzalez: And we wanted, we knew we wanted a visionary, someone who could not just say, Hey, let's, you know, let's put another plug in here. But we wanted someone who could really look to where we are and move us forward. 

Tracy Hayes: And so let me, I want to just put that like a knee far, [00:47:00] Is looking for this time needed to replace the, the CEO is moving on.

Tracy Hayes: This is, it was the MLS actually. ~So, ~

Mario Gonzalez: right. 

Tracy Hayes: ~So, ~oh, okay. 

Mario Gonzalez: National on the MLS side. No, on a locally. I'll go back. Okay. Okay. Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: I just want to put that in context of those who may not actually understand these workings that are going behind the scenes. Cause I don't actually, 

Mario Gonzalez: most people don't know, don't understand the difference between MLS.

Mario Gonzalez: Okay. So NIFAR is our association. MLS is essentially our data. Company, if you will. So our MLS is called real MLS. of it. NIFAR is Northeast Association of, you know, right. So we got that. ~Um, ~MLS piece in this. We had to replace the CEO of the MLS and. That's when the nationwide search went out. We found this young lady called her name is Nicole Jensen.

Mario Gonzalez: She was a mover and shaker everywhere. She went,~ um,~ we brought her down here and she has been moving and shaking since she's got here. ~Um, ~a lot of people have 

Tracy Hayes: her on the show. You think she would do it? Absolutely. Yeah, I think it would give it a little education because I don't think like you're giving a little education now, a little actually.

Tracy Hayes: You know, put that another [00:48:00] piece in a realtor's tool belt that they understand what's going on in the back. She speaks 

Mario Gonzalez: a language that is not this language. She can speak data, data, integrity,~ um,~ sharing, you know, she'll use words and companies that are all behind the scenes here that most agents have no idea are out there.

Mario Gonzalez: Right. ~Um, ~you know, there are big NLS is a little bit further south of us or main nameless that are continuing to grow and she has continued to grow us. Right. Right. So the data share that, that we, that every real estate agent has probably, you know, Gone through this, a Jacksonville agent that wasn't part of St.

Mario Gonzalez: Augustine has probably gone down and shown a St. Augustine house or tried to show a St. Augustine house. And they're trying to, Hey, I can't get in the MLA. I can't get in the lockbox. I can't do this. They're trying to call the listing or had to 

Tracy Hayes: join both associations to do that. Yeah, 

Mario Gonzalez: exactly. ~So. ~And the customer would have more information in the palm of their hand than this professional agent would.

Mario Gonzalez: So just recently we now have joined the status share. So you've got,~ um,~ you know, here in Northeast Florida, you've got St. Augustine, you've got space coach, you've got Daytona and it's continuing to grow. So now agents have, you know, [00:49:00] 40, 000 listings in there. I don't know the exact number, but it is a significant increase and you have access to those lock boxes and you have access to that information and it is fantastic to be able to do that.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, beyond just our Northeast Florida here. And one login. And one log in and you've probably seen right. So now our dashboard, so real MLS has redone the entire dashboard. You look on there, we have less than a 30%. ~Um, ~and I say we real MLS and I'm, I'm, I'm not speaking, I'm going back to 2020. At 2020, we had less than a 30 percent adaption rate of all of our tools on the MLS data board.

Mario Gonzalez: And. Now we have this huge dashboard. We have even more tools and I don't know the exact numbers there, but we're trying to train other agents to, Hey, use these tools that we put at your, you know, at your fingertip. Like forewarn was one that we brought before Florida realtors brought it. You know, we, we brought that to our local association here and say, Hey, here's a tool that you're, you know, your dues are paying for.

Mario Gonzalez: And it got such kind of tremendous [00:50:00] usage. ~Um, ~with huge, 

Tracy Hayes: everyone should be using for Warren on everyone. Absolutely. And now 

Mario Gonzalez: Florida realtors is like, man, they were looking at other smaller associations that had done it. They looked at us and we're like, okay, not that we were, you know, the catalyst, but now it's provided everybody in Florida realtors.

Tracy Hayes: Right, right. ~Um, ~so take us from 2020 to where we are now. you know, what was an agent? Obviously being able to look into what's going on. If that if you just had an agent, that was nothing right. They would agents would join both associations so they could put their listing in both as well. So we've gone now to where if it's in this, that is actually right.

Tracy Hayes: I know you guys been working on that for a while because I'm in touch with the ST Augustine people as well. ~Um, ~working on getting that,~ uh,~ I guess those that those technologies to talk to talk to each other. ~Um, ~you're now able to branch out, see more listings and so forth. What else? What else are we working on as far?

Tracy Hayes: You know, because technology is changing all the time. I imagine A. I. Is a word that's thrown around [00:51:00] in the boardrooms. 

Mario Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah. ~So, ~you know, keeping up with technology is like it's like two racing. You know, jet planes, technology is going and then what are our tools doing as well? So the MLS is doing a great job in that.

Mario Gonzalez: What I will tell you what we're doing on the association side. So now I'm switching over to 

Tracy Hayes: NIFAR 

Mario Gonzalez: is what we have seen. ~Um, ~and I'm speaking me, Mario, what I've seen and just hearing from my agents is,~ uh,~ you know, folks that have come into business in the last few years. There's probably,~ um,~ to a degree, a lower level of baseline understanding.

Mario Gonzalez: Yeah. Of the tools that we have, of the way that processes work of documents, of where things are housed, whether, you know, you talk about the, you know, Hey, we just switched back to Florida realtor forms, you know, and people say, Oh my gosh, I got to learn the Florida realtor forms. I'm like, well, you've always been, you're in Florida realtors, you know, you've always been responsible for them, whether you really knew them or not.

Mario Gonzalez: So now we want to train you on them. Right. But,~ um, so. ~Where we have seen that we have, we've seen just kind of, ~um, um, ~a lack of, and I don't want to say education, probably a desire for the education has gone down just a little [00:52:00] bit. We're starting to see that come back. We're bringing back live orientation here at the beginning of the year.

Mario Gonzalez: We're one of the last associations to do that. So we're going to have that initial touch with agents. Hey, here's, you know, here's the beginning of the year. Becoming a successful agent. We want to be able to give that product that then goes to the brokers and they're, you know, a ready kind of full up round, as we would say in the military to be used in those companies and then can be further trained through the association and the brokerages.

Mario Gonzalez: Right. 

Tracy Hayes: I mean, cause you guys have a beautiful building down there and I think COVID kind of threw a wrench in the engine, so to speak, and. ~Uh, ~you know, to hear you say that though, Hey, we're trying to, you know, we're having a live,~ uh,~ thing now it's 2024 because that has been scuttlebutt around town is that the, the board almost would rather keep leaving the lock boxes outside the door.

Tracy Hayes: You know, that,~ uh,~ not to, not that, that was your goal personally. ~Uh, ~I think the goal of,~ uh,~ I remember when I,~ uh,~ cause I'm, you know, Certified to teach introduction in real estate finance. I think it's the name of the [00:53:00] course ~Um, ~they were like, hey, you know You only do your course at the board because the boards want people to come in And I think there was a little bit of a time there where you know Again talking to other agents and seeing what I was saying that the you know, nifar had this beautiful shiny new office You know, I don't know.

Tracy Hayes: How old is it now? It's nice The the rooms are nice and that they You know weren't so friendly that lack of better words, you know, ~uh, ~in, in getting back post COVID and get people back in the building. Sure. And that's, and that's,~ um,~ 

Mario Gonzalez: you 

Tracy Hayes: know, that's kind of an on the spot question or statement, 

Mario Gonzalez: you know, it's kind of back to managing expectations, right?

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~I've always said from a, from a real estate broker standpoint or anything from a leadership standpoint, I can't fix it if I don't know it's broken, right? So I love that honest feedback there, but that's exactly what we've been doing. We're, and you know, kind of with any big ship, you know, you turn a big ship, it doesn't turn really fast.

Mario Gonzalez: Right? Yeah. So NIFAR is a, it is a major board. ~Um, ~but I will tell you that we are listening. Okay. I can definitely say that on behalf of the board that we are listening. We're listening [00:54:00] to,~ um,~ folks and it's not just like what someone throws in here. I mean, you know, on the, MLS chat or whatever. We're listening to what do you want?

Mario Gonzalez: What do you need again? Back to that inverse pyramid, what tools and things can we give you? And we've heard, Hey, the education, we've heard the normalization of forms. We have heard these types of things. ~So, ~okay, we now have back to the forms. We're all in the same forms. Florida real service is changing their forms.

Mario Gonzalez: We have, you know, full access to the legal hotline to answer those questions. Like how do I do that? And honestly, some of these larger brokerages that have a hard time kind of training the lowest of the agents. That is a huge, huge asset to them to have that, you know, the hotline now can answer all the questions.

Mario Gonzalez: Likewise for the small brokerages, it's the same thing. ~Um, ~even though that small broker is there and we have a small team, they may not be fully educated on everything. So now they have, you know, we're all kind of on the same sheet of music, if that makes sense. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. ~Um, ~speaking to,~ um,~ several, I've had several of the people from,~ uh,~ Gia Arvin was the most recent one, the president of Florida REALTOR,~ um, uh, ~Sydney Hayden, she's running, a lot of them have been involved at NAR,~ uh,~ [00:55:00] George Guerrero on the current board, and, and some others that I've, have had on the show, and they've,~ uh,~ the, kind of the, I don't know if they said, they said it directly, but you get, the boards or Florida REALTOR offers a lot of membership benefits.

Tracy Hayes: Certainly. For Warren being one of them. What are some of the things right now do you think that,~ uh,~ benefits right now that are underutilized that agents maybe either aren't aware that you're even offering that as a benefit as the association of, Hey, you can take advantage of this, but they're not as many as you would like are taking advantage of.

Tracy Hayes: Is there anything out there that you're the first thing I would 

Mario Gonzalez: tell people to go right to that, go right to the MLS dashboard and hit that and take a look at that. And if you don't know what some of those things are, then absolutely going to take a look at that. We are in the process now of,~ uh,~ not in the process, which already out there,~ um,~ of Increasing the transparency across the board for all transactions, right?

Mario Gonzalez: There are online, you know, the sky slope offers just came out so you can have all your offers in there. So no agent ever says, [00:56:00] well, you know, you didn't get my, I was in a multiple offer situation, you never got my offer, or did you present this? Or, you know, no, it's transparent. There it is. Here's where it came in.

Mario Gonzalez: Here's the changes that have made whatever. So most agents don't know anything about that right now, but that's a transparency thing. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, okay. Throw that one. But ~so. ~Walk us through that, what they, what, what that, what that looks like to,~ uh,~ just a standard transaction that they actually see what's going on.

Mario Gonzalez: ~So, ~I'll kind of give a compare and contrast a little bit. ~Um, ~prior to You know, having any sort of online ability to, to upload offers. ~Um, ~you didn't know if you're a listing agent, I'm a buyer's agent. I transmit my, you know, I email you an offer and I hope that it's received crickets. You know, they should be calling and saying, not all of them do exactly.

Mario Gonzalez: I should call. I should text us a letter and say, Hey, here I am. This is offers coming through, but you're waiting on that. Okay. I've got it. ~Um, ~when did you get it? Did you get it after the cutoff? Did you look at it before? So what sky slope offers has done is it basically it's a dashboard. So when you upload an offer, just like now, you [00:57:00] probably see more and more agents, they put offer instructions in the document, like, Hey, please follow these instructions, which.

Mario Gonzalez: Most of the time they're not,~ um,~ but SkyScope offers, offers, it provides a way that it is now transparent. You put an offer in there, it comes up to the dashboard. I can see it as the buyer, okay, it's been presented, it's been, you know, so they're not actually 

Tracy Hayes: emailing it, it's actually just coming through their portal 

Mario Gonzalez: much 

Tracy Hayes: like we do here with our loans.

Tracy Hayes: Absolutely. 

Mario Gonzalez: Absolutely. ~So, um, ~a bunch of tools that are kind of working towards that kind of transparency piece here. ~Um, ~you know, I just had a, I just had a conversation the other day with a broker that had no idea that form simplicity had like an E sign capability. You know, he's like, what do you mean?

Mario Gonzalez: I'm like, yes, you know, you can. And he's like, well, how come I see some of these agents, you know, some of these brokerages that have their logo on there. I'm like, That's form simplicity. You know, you, you can build out your own forms package in there. There's no reason for you to download them. Then do you have the, you know, do you have the latest and greatest?

Mario Gonzalez: If you pull it right from form simplicity or you build your, and I'm talking Florida realtors. Now you can build your package out there. Then you keep the latest and greatest forms up and they're branded [00:58:00] to you to degree. So just a lot of tools that are out there. Again, we'll take us all day long and go through.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, no, no, no doubt. I mean, that was the one thing we were talking about for realtor. I mean, they were. Tell me about all these,~ uh,~ different things. I forgot the one program where you can actually pull up and it actually will create,~ uh,~ social media,~ uh,~ things on what's going on in the market. Like sure.

Tracy Hayes: RPR has an 

Mario Gonzalez: AI and a social media function down at the back end of that. And most people don't know about it. Yeah. Or 

Tracy Hayes: utilize aren't digging in. There's, there's, well, it's like a lot of things in our lives are these CRMs to do to 10, 000 different things just to learn how to do one thing with this is a miracle.

Mario Gonzalez: Do a 

Tracy Hayes: quick flow 

Mario Gonzalez: plan or floor plan of any home with your, with your phone. You pick up your phone, you walk around the home and it generates a floor plan even with measurements like hello. Yeah, any agent can do this. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, yeah. ~Uh, ~tremendous amount.~ So, um, ~your president elect,~ um,~ You know, you've been on there a while.

Tracy Hayes: If you,~ uh,~ I mean, I put vision down here, but what I I think everyone is in, you've [00:59:00] been on the board long. You see all the challenges. Is there anything out there you're like, man, I would really like to convince my other board members to, to dig into this over here that maybe, I don't know, maybe he's being done in Utah.

Tracy Hayes: I don't know, you know, cause I imagine you guys go to different conferences. You hear people are doing different things. Is there anything out there in the real estate world that, that really is like a game breaker you'd love to bring to Northeast Florida? 

Mario Gonzalez: You know, ~um, ~good question. I don't know that there's a shiny new object that I'm, that I'm.

Mario Gonzalez: Staring at right now. ~Um, ~but the collaboration piece, right? If I could convince more agents to be as collaborative as you and I have just talked about, that would be a big one. And obviously right now, a lot of things are staring us in the face is the dog closest to the sled, right? All the changes with the forms, all the changes with, you know, okay, the new buyer brokerage, how do we implement this?

Mario Gonzalez: So those are really things that are kind of taking our attention right now to best educate the folks that are here with the tools that we have. To do the things that, you know, that are necessary,~ um,~ moving forward. So not really a shiny object, but people are going to, you [01:00:00] already touched on it. People are going to have to understand how do you build your value?

Mario Gonzalez: You know, what are you, what are you telling folks? Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~through this whole. Transition. I imagine, you know, like anything, there's things that didn't work,~ uh,~ things that didn't weren't as people didn't think were as great or whatever. You know, the board came with a Hey, let's go in this direction.

Tracy Hayes: Imagine you danced around a little bit. But what do you think we've learned? And to those who are listening right now who maybe Slightly leaning towards the negative thing of this change. What, what, what can you say that, you know, the boards behind you were here and like you said, to reach out and contact you, there's something you think we're missing to let you know.

Tracy Hayes: So hopefully you guys can, can grasp 

Mario Gonzalez: onto it and get it out to others. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. ~Um, ~you know, someone told me a long time ago that the greatest presidential Rating. And I'm not just talking about the knee farm and it's been about 60%, right? And I also learned a long time ago that, Hey, you make any decision and there's going to be 25 percent of the people that don't like it, 

Tracy Hayes: right?

Mario Gonzalez: So we understand that in [01:01:00] leadership. So we have to listen to the masses as much as we can. It's not an overall democracy. We're, we're meant to, to. You know make the decisions with the information we have ~Um ~with the vision that is coming forward for the best of for the association and the members that you know that it entails ~Um, ~and for the most part, you know, the board has done that With an incredible level for a long time, but we are listening and that's that's the point I mean people have to tell us, you know, what do you want?

Mario Gonzalez: ~Um, ~and we'll we'll definitely take that in into consideration 

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~I want to finish up with this from those ~Uh ~You know, I, I think everyone, well, I'm going to go back to Patty Ketchum. You mentioned her name the other day. She told me one of her biggest regrets was that she, and this is,~ uh,~ her words did not cast a shadow in the doorway of her local board out there in Tallahassee for years.

Tracy Hayes: And she regrets that because of the many relationships she missed out on. Of course, I think she's doubled down on it. Yeah. ~Uh, ~type of thing to. What is the board doing? Or, [01:02:00] you know, maybe your attitude as being, you know, being the president like being going to be present in 25 to bring more people, get them more to feel welcome to come,~ uh,~ and get involved,~ uh,~ whatever it is to reach out and getting involved in the board is important for the real estate industry.

Tracy Hayes: Overall, 

Mario Gonzalez: 100%. So I'm going to get that in kind of two points. One is, you know, we have all these committees, councils, task force that a lot of people don't even know that involved, you know, there. In here around me for maybe someone who's involved in education, learns the education task force. Okay. I can get plugged in there and I can be influential into what classes actually come next year to, you know, and what instructors come and what designations come.

Mario Gonzalez: Okay. Yeah, that's it. Or maybe I'm, you know, part of the Southwest council and I, and I'm, I'm. Making an incredible network of people in and around there. ~Um, ~you know, the lenders and the, and the other agents, they learn that kind of, you know, the excitement they have there. So absolutely. So we're encouraging people to plug into those.

Mario Gonzalez: Councils, committees, task [01:03:00] forces that are out there that follow your passion, right? I'm not going to take someone who is,~ uh,~ you know, that, that wants to be, you know, kind of working that professional standards and hold everybody accountable and that type of thing. They're probably not the right fit for like the historic district.

Mario Gonzalez: Wait, why, you know, why are you making this change over here? Like, no, no, no, we want to keep things in historic this way. But likewise, the historic district. District, you know, some of those folks that are in that,~ uh,~ are awesome. You know, they have a passion to,~ um,~ to continuing on the traditions and continuing on the, the keepsakes and the history that's in our, you know, cause we have an awesome city.

Mario Gonzalez: We really do. And those people are there kind of keeping that. So if you align with your passion and plug in where you are, even at the lowest level, you can have an impact. Now, the second part of this, what I would say is every year, NIFAR Offers up leadership Academy and they'll put about 20 people that'll pick from a variety of different brokerages.

Mario Gonzalez: You're all interviewed and they want to see, you know, Hey, kind of, where are you going and why are you, you know, why are you serving? Why do you want to serve? And they, that is a year long journey where they [01:04:00] are taking people to learn. You go sit at a Freck meeting and you get to see the cheese being made there.

Mario Gonzalez: And you know, like agents like, okay, I do not want to end up here. And then you get to go down to guard and you get to see how our lawmakers are. making things that not just affect, you know, home ownership and everything, but you realize, wow, you know, as Florida realtors, we have one, we're the largest trade association in Florida and we can impact these folks to the betterment of home ownership.

Mario Gonzalez: You know, no, you're not going to, you're not going to take away homestead exemption. You're not going to do this. You're going to reduce the taxes for companies coming here, you know, You can have an impact and now you have a voice, which is awesome in the advocacy part. ~So, ~and then they also kind of go into a person in this leadership academy also goes into personality profiles.

Mario Gonzalez: How do you do the best with what you have and how do you surround people that, you know, that are the yin to your yang, you know, they really kind of coordinate. So there's a lot learning in that leadership academy to say, wow, here's everything that the organization has. Here's the, you know, the things that are out in front of us, not just the shiny objects, but everything that can do.

Mario Gonzalez: And then [01:05:00] you can find where your passion is to plug in and really kind of affect change moving forward. Does that make sense? 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, no, 100%. I, I, you know, I've said it numerous times. ~Um, ~people don't realize, you know, we use expanding your horizons was one of the phrases I used earlier. How much a real estate agent who is in the know.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~is a pillar in their, their community, and the more pillars we can put up, the better, you know, Florida housing is going to be, you know, are we, you know, you know, are we getting all the different things? I mean, we can list go on forever because all of them have to do with people living in homes. or renting homes or, you know, what's going on with, you know, ~uh, ~zoning and all these, it just explodes across the board.

Tracy Hayes: Everything starts with that real estate agent being in the know because they have an influential piece in the puzzle. 

Mario Gonzalez: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you learn who those people are, you [01:06:00] know, you've got a historic question, you're crossing calling that person. ~Um, ~you know, I remember for years I would hear that something was coming out, you know, ~Um, ~I say from like, you know, Tallahassee, that was gonna change the way that we did, you know, real estate or property management, and I knew who I could call on the board that was deep in that, you know?

Mario Gonzalez: Mm-Hmm. not just setting the board, but I mean, in nefa, you know, the Mike Hodges of the world. I could call Mike and say, Mike, you know, I heard this. And he'd say, oh yeah, Senate Bill 2 0 1 5 7. I just went like, holy cow. How do you know that? You know? Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: I have noticed,~ uh,~ doing the podcast and going to different events.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~you know, some of these people, their relationships run deep. And, you know, I'll tell you, I'll just talk with Kim Knapp because I, you know, sat down and talked to her a couple of times,~ uh,~ not only had her on the show last year, but, but outside of the show and, you know, you know, she starts rattling off these names or she's like, oh, no, no, you need to call so and so and she shoots off an email and they immediately respond because it's her and that connections that she has made throughout the state and probably nationally.

Tracy Hayes: Cause [01:07:00] you know, she's involved at that level. ~Um, ~is, is amazing that network. 

Mario Gonzalez: It 

Tracy Hayes: is. And 

Mario Gonzalez: next year coming into the, coming into the board, we've got, we've got a, quite the powerhouse lineup of,~ uh,~ of leaders that are looking here right at this kind of. integral part of our association, our time in real estate to say, okay, we're taking this and we're going to continue moving into the future.

Mario Gonzalez: And we're going to do it in a collaborative manner, you know, together, you know, in service to others, here we go. And ~uh, ~I mean, it's a fantastic lineup that we have next year. 

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~anything like that? 

Mario Gonzalez: No, my friend, I appreciate you inviting me out here. I hope we 

Tracy Hayes: educated some people. I always like to make sure, I always wanted to have at least enough information that they know enough about you to say, Hey, you know what?

Tracy Hayes: I heard Mario talking about that. Let me call him. 

Mario Gonzalez: And 

Tracy Hayes: if 

Mario Gonzalez: there's ever any questions, folks can reach out to me. I mean, always. I'm an open book. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, ~um, ~I'd like to put it out there. Obviously, becoming president, if there's any, you know, big announcement or whatever I was, you know, or something that's going to change that you think everybody needs to notice, you know, reach out to me and say, Hey, I'd like to come on for 30 minutes.

Tracy Hayes: I want to talk about this because this is an initiative [01:08:00] that we're doing. We'd say we need to do whatever it is so we can spread the word. To as many as possible. Yeah, absolutely. I don't 

Mario Gonzalez: know when this one is going live. ~Um, ~but,~ uh,~ 

Tracy Hayes: it seems safe there Monday. 

Mario Gonzalez: Well, it's perfect timing. So at the beginning of,~ uh,~ August here, the first week of August next week, you will have,~ um,~ we're going to open up the applications.

Mario Gonzalez: Need for, we'll open up the applications for the task force, for the committees, for the,~ um,~ councils, for leadership Academy for next year, for 2025. So a lot of these folks that have, you know, scratching their head. Why are they doing this? Why are they doing that? Okay. Put your name in the hat. Come in, get involved, get involved.

Mario Gonzalez: Exactly. Just like Patty Ketchum. Hey, don't, you know, come through. Yeah. Get involved. I heard someone say a long time ago, you're either a, you don't have a seat at the table. You're part of the meal. Appreciate you. You got him a friend. Thank you.