Military Families, Builder Secrets & the NE Florida Market in 2026 | Marissa Scott

Tracy Hayes  0:05 

Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. Today's guest is proof that the Path to Real Estate excellence is rarely a straight line. She was born in the Philippines, came to the United States 27 years ago, and built one of the most respected careers in Northeast Florida real estate one relationship at a time. She earned Rookie of the Year for the Florida region. Helped relocate hundreds of military families during

Tracy Hayes  0:30 

Base Realignment, closure, closure. There we go, which we talked about in episode 68 if I recall in our original episode, I remember talking about that,

Tracy Hayes  0:41 

and has since trained and mentored hundreds of agents as a brand ambassador with United States United real estate gallery.

Tracy Hayes  0:50 

She's a wife, mom and worship leader and top producer in nearly 19 years in the in the market, and she has last on the show nearly four and a half years ago. It's time to catch up. Let's welcome Marissa Scott to the show, hi,

Marissa Scott  1:19 

I'm the same way. I actually have my eyeglasses in my purse. So don't feel bad. So much has happened in the last four years. Yes, you know I was looking at, there was some posts the other day, just really, since the rates went up in May, which was basically about a year after you were on the show in May of 23 No, actually, I'm sorry, it was 22 it was 22 when the rate was May of 22 when the rates went up shortly, probably two or three months after I had you on last and we have seen, obviously, a lot of agents fall out of the business.

Marissa Scott  5:00 

Details, like most of these sellers that are offering that they bought it in the peak of the market, and then their their mortgage, and between the mortgage and then the price of the homes, there's a big gap. And if you're VA, you're used to going into loan without having to bring any money, but if you're going to do assumption, yeah, the rate is is enticing, because slow. But let's face it, how many people, especially military, have 100,000 sitting in their bank account to fill the gap? So, as you know, until we get, for me, I think until we get the salaries to come down on the price away from the I call it the pre covid pricing, until we get them down to that, you know, normal pricing for homes, which I know a lot of them, they can't do that because when they bought and then their their mortgage is higher, they'll have to either do a short sale to even so it I almost feel like we're going to have to go through that again. The short sales. I started seeing it again. Do you feel the Northeast Florida market that we, you know, we, as I mentioned, first started, we kind of a, we have a positive bubble, from the standpoint we are one of the last great areas that's not overwhelmed, like Miami or Orlando or Tampa, that it's, it's, you know, where we are getting plenty of buyers coming in. Are they coming in like they were in 2120 No, because the rates aren't 3% but has that slowed down? But there's still that demand. I personally think if, if we were at five and a half percent on a 30 year fix right now, it would be screaming like it was covid. No. So the difference when we had that peak on the in the market was in the people are able to relocate and work from home, yes, and that's not allowed anymore. A lot of them have to report back, and they have to go back to where they came from. So that was like that slowed it down. Yes, that slowed down. And a lot of people that I've seen selling their homes are one of those people that came here during that time where, oh, I want to be living in the beach. I can afford the house on the beach because the rates are so low. And they bought this house, you know, close to the water or something. And then there you were working from home for like, one to two years, and then market change, and then they have to go back to to work, you know. And at that point they have to sell their homes, you know. So that's what I've been seeing with all of these sellers, too. So Well, I was talking just yesterday at a luncheon. We, you know, during that time, we also had a lot of internal moves going on, where it was like, move to nakati, or move out of nakati, whatever it was, you hey, I want to live near my friends. Or you know, where people were, like, staying in their house one or two years and then leaving where you don't have that, for those people who have that, pre 2000 you know, spring of 22 interest rates, they're not so quick to move. Yeah, because they are, because the payments so low. Yeah, and affordability is still a problem. You know, just because we spiked those pricing, even though we're still doing better compared to, like, South Florida, Miami and all that, I just feel like our pricing here is still a little bit higher and and people coming, or even the ones are upsizing, you know, if they are paying, if they have This mortgage rate for like, 3% 4%

Tracy Hayes  1:07 

butchering that. I don't know if my glasses are blurry today or what. I definitely gotta go see my optometrist because that that maybe you have to go to 22 font.

Tracy Hayes  1:53 

You know, we're I think there's also agents, as we were just talking about page, and some others, where others actually, have actually gotten stronger

Marrissa Scott  2:00 

in their

Tracy Hayes  2:00 

business. So real interesting topics. I think we're, we're sitting on a, I think, a positive bubble,

Marrissa Scott  2:07 

yeah,

Tracy Hayes  2:08 

here, because I think we're in such a unique area here in Northeast Florida,

Speaker 1  2:12 

correct,

Tracy Hayes  2:13 

yeah,

Marrissa Scott  2:13 

correct. I agree. I think the market is trying to fix itself. We had, I

Tracy Hayes  2:19 

like that. Trying to fix itself,

Marrissa Scott  2:20 

yeah, you know. And people are, like many others, they don't do well with the change, you know. They get into this comfort level where the market was so good for them, and then there's a change, and they're like, they they're freaking out. They don't know what to do about it, yeah, you know. And we were homeowners, first home owners, like, 17 years ago, where rates are much higher. I remember when we first bought our first house and the rates were so high, yeah, and we were happy then, you know, and so. And I just remember, I think when the rates went down, we eventually had to refinance and stuff like that. And that's one thing that most buyers don't realize that this rates, they can change, you know, and but the location the house, you know, it won't so, you know. So they they just have to learn that the rates is temporary. Let's just put it

Tracy Hayes  3:16 

date the rate, marry the house. Freeze. Got a lot of flack, but it's actually very true. Yeah, yeah, you it will move in right now, as I put out there, as I'm sure you do in the post or when you're talking to people, because the rates are higher in a lot of people are standing on the sidelines. It's still slightly a buyer's market. You're able to negotiate a little bit on the price, yeah, maybe get some closing costs covered. The builders are giving away.

Marrissa Scott  3:43 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  3:43 

the kitchen sinks,

Marrissa Scott  3:44 

yeah, everything.

Tracy Hayes  3:47 

So you buy in now, and yeah, maybe you make a payment for a year or two. I think people don't realize, okay, yeah, my payments maybe 100 or $200 higher. You have rates go down a percent. It'll drop it, you know, depending how big your loan is, it

Marrissa Scott  4:00 

can be a

Tracy Hayes  4:00 

few 100 bucks, and you got it right back. So can you survive $200 for the next 24 months?

Marrissa Scott  4:06 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  4:06 

you know that's, that's kind of what I've been I've been telling people really don't. Hopefully you're not. We're not in these rates. Well, I don't think they could be. They're not gonna be 3%

Marrissa Scott  4:18 

now. I don't think we're ever going back to that? I think I'm seeing builders offering like in the mid fours, I think even lower than that, I don't think we're going back to and, you know, it's, it's, it's so enticing to because you see all these sellers that are offering the buy

Tracy Hayes  4:39 

down.

Marrissa Scott  4:39 

No, not, just a buy down, but absorbing the

Tracy Hayes  4:44 

cost

Marrissa Scott  4:45 

the loan. What is the term

Tracy Hayes  4:48 

assumption, assumption, and if you're doing a lot of VA,

Marrissa Scott  4:52 

yeah, but you know it, and I've dealt with so much of that lately, it's enticing at first, but then when you look at all the.

Marrissa Scott  8:22 

you know, they want to upsize or upgrade, and they can't, because the rates are still higher and the price of homes are still higher. We need

Speaker 1  8:30 

to give

Tracy Hayes  8:30 

benefit. They have is a the last few years, you or if they've been in the house three or four years, they might have a little bit of equity.

Marrissa Scott  8:37 

True,

Tracy Hayes  8:37 

that they might put down a bound payment. But as you know, we're, I'm working with a lot of people where we're working up payments, and when you it starts with a three in front of it, and, you know, you're telling people, Hey, your principal interest, tax insurance, can be $3,600 a month. Yeah. You know, that sets a lot of people back to digest

Marrissa Scott  8:54 

that. This is why. And you know, new construction are booming, because they have the ability to either buy your rate down or offer like, you know, like the arm adjustable rate mortgage, or the two way buy down and all that stuff. So that's why, for people, local people that are trying to upgrade or up size and all that, they go towards new construction. And that's why you see all this new constructions everywhere. Let's

Tracy Hayes  9:21 

jump in, because this is a topic I always like to get out, because I think it's very important. If you're not listening to every one of my episodes, you this is very important. But if you're listening to every episode, you've heard me say this before. You deal a lot with the military relocation, the importance of really having that discussion with that especially an active duty person who may get moved in a year two or three and buying in a new construction area where there might be building going on for the next five plus years.

Marrissa Scott  9:48 

Yeah. I mean, I have people where they were trying to sell their homes in the new construction community, and they just can't compete with the builders, you know, because of all the incentives that they're offering. I mean, how can you compete with that? The only way you can compete with that is if you really price your home. I mean, not aggressively. I think you can't even be conservative about it. You just have to be aggressive about the pricing and just, you know, and just be prepared, you know, as long as they know what they're you're competing against with, I don't think that's going to be an issue. So,

Tracy Hayes  10:20 

yeah, there's stuff. I think every, every real estate agent is doing any sort of business or any amount of listings, has one of those properties right now. It's in a neighborhood where there's new construction going on and, you know, some there are people who are bringing some money to the table.

Marrissa Scott  10:37 

Yeah,

Speaker 1  10:37 

yeah.

Marrissa Scott  10:38 

That's part of correcting the market.

Speaker 1  10:41 

Yeah,

Marrissa Scott  10:41 

you know, we have to give it time to correct the market.

Tracy Hayes  10:44 

Do you think we're you think the area is five or 10% little too high. It could soften that much. What kind of We're just a couple percent. What do you

Marrissa Scott  10:54 

I think we have to go below 10% I think

Speaker 1  10:59 

do

Marrissa Scott  10:59 

you? But do you remember the before covid? Yeah, where $175,000 home is something that you can pay in Oak leave, you can't buy that anymore, right? I mean, what happened to those? I mean, I have, like, sellers that I've sold homes like 1015, years ago, where they bought the house for 200 and now it's like, worth 600

Tracy Hayes  11:20 

Yeah?

Marrissa Scott  11:21 

Like, can we just, I don't think we're gonna go back to that price point, but I think we need to be somewhere.

Tracy Hayes  11:27 

The demand factor plays in the interest rates is the kind of like the throttle, but the demand, that's why I keep saying we're in a fortunate area that there is, you know, people are moving in. We're moving into Florida, and it's, it's considered affordable to these North Easterners or even Midwesterners. And in California, this is very affordable. And in we just have that demand that to soften back down. I mean, we would have to go on a drought of real estate for a while.

Marrissa Scott  12:01 

You have to remember, a lot of those people relocating are probably not even 50% of the transactions that we're having in Northeast Florida. It's probably be with 20, 30% of those people that are moving here are relocation. But what you have to factor in the people that I told you that, you know, one upsize. You want to move to a bigger home and all that stuff. So that's why a lot of the higher price homes are selling, because you have all those people that you said, from California, from up north, who is trying to to move to Northeast Florida, and they think our pricing here is still affordable, yeah, compared to their where they're coming from, right? But if you think about just us Floridians, or even from the people here in Jacksonville. If you're thinking about upsizing, you're going to have to think of twice about it, because it's just not as affordable yet.

Tracy Hayes  12:50 

Well, what are you seeing? You know, even in your transactions, but even even you know, the people that you mentor, from what I'm seeing when I'm looking up, you know, agents, obviously, I'm always trolling and seeing, you know, should I have this agent on or they? Did they have the production? What have they done the last few years? Yeah, I'm noticing, you know, because I'll see their transaction list. There's a lot of cash deals on there. So,

Marrissa Scott  13:13 

yeah, yeah, these

Speaker 1  13:14 

are

Tracy Hayes  13:15 

drives price up too, because people have the ability to pay cash,

Marrissa Scott  13:18 

I mean, but it's still not dominating the market. The cash buyers are still not dominating the market. They're there. They're just not dominating the market. I think Northeast Florida is military. You know, we have a lot of and that's one thing about Northeast Florida, is we have a steady group of people coming in and out. But what I've been noticing a lot of the militaries that are coming here because of what's going on with the market compared to, like, the past 15 years I've been dealing with them. They they're, then they're not afraid to commit to buying and staying. But now, because of affordability, because of the interest rate, a lot of them are looking at either going into the base housing or renting.

Tracy Hayes  13:59 

I have heard that. I have heard, they're, you know, they're, they are leaning where just a few years ago, they were like, hey, no, let's go buy a house. Because,

Marrissa Scott  14:07 

yeah, because, like, for, you know, as military, a

Tracy Hayes  14:09 

little bit more,

Marrissa Scott  14:10 

yeah,

Tracy Hayes  14:10 

but not a lot,

Marrissa Scott  14:11 

as

Marrissa Scott  14:11 

far as you know, like we, as ex Navy wife, you know, when we go to one place, you know, the military housing is always available for us, right? And but it's so the incentive is, you know, you're getting housing allowance, why not use your bah to pay for your mortgage, even though we know we're only going to be there for two years. But now the fact people, most families, are thinking, well, we're only going to be there for two years. Why are we going to buy if the houses are so expensive and the rate is still pretty high, so I'm seeing a lot more people looking at rentals right now.

Tracy Hayes  14:46 

I want to jump in, give a little some nuggets to our agents that are listening. Okay, all right, you're you know, four more years in the business is the last time we sat down. Is it because you. If I recall you do trainings at United real estate gallery, I want to say Buffini, but it's not Buffini.

Marrissa Scott  15:08 

Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  15:09 

It is. Okay, all right. Then I was then my memory was coming Good, okay. What are you seeing? Obviously, you know the market change, where interest rates went up. What are the different domains? Are you seeing from some of the the newer or maybe some of the agents who are are not, you know, they're not page or or Jocelyn, they're they're just, they're trying to learn the business and get going. Whether they're very new, or maybe they've been in the business two or three years, they're still sticking with it. What are you seeing is some of the change in their their needs, their demands, versus what it was, you know, prior, yeah, we talked last

Marrissa Scott  15:49 

so since I got licensed, there's a lot of changes. And I think one of the biggest change that me personally struggled with was when we had that lawsuit, and then we had

Tracy Hayes  16:02 

our,

Marrissa Scott  16:02 

yeah, the NAR lawsuit, and then they are now having to control everything that we do, and and, and I know, for for a veteran, you call it veteran agent. You know, we

Tracy Hayes  16:14 

get your agent.

Marrissa Scott  16:16 

We get set in our ways. You know, we have been doing this. You know, we have a process how we do deal with people and how we do our business for the past 15 years, and boom in in few days, you know, they change it to where it's for me, the changes are more transactional, and it's it's harder for me because, you know, I always think, and the only reason why I survive this business this long is because I'm always it's all about relationship. For me, a lot of our new agents, and there's some few agents there that remind reminds me of myself when I first got my license. I wish when, when I'm getting lazier I wake up in the morning. I always just remind myself, Marisa, just be like that. Agent, when you first got your license, you treat it like this is the first day of getting your license. You know a lot of them, their expectations are higher. The new agents, they they think, because they watch all these shows, they see this, you know, this stuff on on social media, about how everything is so great. And so they come in and their expectations are like, Oh, I'll get, you know, I'll leave my full time job, get into real estate, and then I'll make money right away,

Speaker 1  17:22 

right,

Marrissa Scott  17:22 

you know? And and their struggle right now is really making that first transaction,

Tracy Hayes  17:27 

yeah,

Marrissa Scott  17:28 

it's, I mean, veteran agents are struggling too, you know. But I see new agents that are doing okay, I wouldn't say doing well, because I I only say that if you've been in this business for, like I said, after five years, and you're still in this business, then you're you're doing good, you know. But if you're new, I think that's the demand that I've been seeing, is agents are just really wanting, like an instant. Is

Tracy Hayes  17:52 

it because they're not plugging into the systems that are there? Mean that there's a lot of you know, experienced agents like yourselves to follow, or, you know, apprentice under, if you want to be mentored by, and they're not plugging in to, you know, the things that you learned?

Marrissa Scott  18:11 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  18:11 

you know, you can reflect back and go, you know, if I started over again, I'd do it this way, that they're not plugging into that system. That is,

Marrissa Scott  18:18 

they're not

Tracy Hayes  18:19 

being put out there every day.

Marrissa Scott  18:21 

Why? Why would they? Because everything you can Google, everything you can chat, GPT, so most agents, I don't want to say brand new agents, they're becoming more dependent on that stuff, and they're not realizing, or they're forgetting that this business is about relation, and you can't just rely on all the technology to keep that relationship you know you have. So they depend on training online any questions they need to ask. Instead of getting training on at their office, they'll just

Tracy Hayes  18:53 

shut home,

Marrissa Scott  18:54 

sit at home, Google it, or chat GPT, or they're going through something about the transaction, or something like, instead of just going out there and do more transactions and and learn from each transaction, they're sitting there just chat, GPT or googling what they need to do. You know it. But

Tracy Hayes  19:10 

are they then? Are they actually, because it's not that their information that they're getting is not any good, yeah, because it's only you know, the AI is models are already pulling from the buffinis and all these other people are putting information in so they're getting that information. Are they executing on it?

Marrissa Scott  19:26 

That's that's the thing. So they, there are some agents that will, that will attend all the trainings, but then they don't apply it to you have to go out there and do business to apply all these things that you've learned from training, because the best lesson you've learned, the best information that you'll get, is when you go out there and start doing these transactions.

Tracy Hayes  19:47 

All right, so here's, I'm gonna pull this tip out of you for them. And not that it's this is not rocket science. If you don't have a deal, they should be hanging around someone who is and my. Maybe helping them, maybe listening to their phone calls, maybe going out on on the call. Maybe there's an inspection that day. They should go out and hang around and listen.

Marrissa Scott  20:09 

Yeah, the ones who are really wanting this, the one who are in on fire in this business, are doing those. But there's a lot who left their full time job because thinking it's an easy job. So they go to their first train, like I have to sit here and do all this training, like I thought I was just going to make my first closing.

Tracy Hayes  20:30 

You said something earlier when I when I first asked the question about, you know, they see the watching the TV and so forth. But what it made me think of this, this question, how important is? I know you're very deep in your faith, but to remain positive. The markets change, and you've got to see, you know, we were talking pre show about, you know, how He guides us down different paths at different times, and how important it is to stay positive and but oftentimes that staying positive, going out and hanging out with other people who are being positive and talking about, hey, this is how we got to get better. This is how we're going to get better. This is how you know what we did yesterday that was a success, you know, in hearing and feeling and seeing others around surrounding yourself with those people.

Marrissa Scott  21:20 

So I always say that it has to do a lot with personality. So you can't just say, Oh, you one person can do this, and then we'll adapt to it and do well, and then you have another person, you know? So I'm the type of person I like seeing enough stuff to to get me going to put fire on me, right? But there's some people where they look at stuff and like, Oh, I'm such a loser. Why am I not having this, you know? And sometimes I get to that point to it just really depends on my mood and stuff like that. So you know what I always like to do when things are slowing down, when things are different or challenging for me, is I go back to basic going back to basic meaning, what I did on my first year? This is before chat GPT. Is before all the all the access to the internet and all that stuff. What did I do on my first year that kept me in this business this long? And that's what I do, hanging out with people. I don't know if you've seen me hang out and do networking with fellow agents, not so much. I get to the point in my career, in my life, where I know the right people that will send me positive vibes, people that I look up to, real successful people. And there's a lot of, I would say, fake successful people out there, and I can't and to be honest, I can't be just looking at one person who's been doing this for one year and did really good, and say, I'm gonna follow that person. I say, it's nice to learn what they're doing, but I don't think I would just hang out with that person. I want to see that person make it five years or so before I really think, you know, before I really consider them successful. I'm sorry.

Tracy Hayes  23:01 

Well, I mean, we are. It is a month. What did you do last month? You know, which you had?

Marrissa Scott  23:08 

I was surprised, and really I meant it when I what I posted in there, you know, I get to the point in my career where it's not about numbers, it's not about rankings, it's not about all these other things. And really when I got when I learned that I did so well last month and then, but then I got that phone call from a previous client of mine 16 years ago, who I guess I inspired because of, you know how I brought my kids to showings, and now she calls herself on Instagram closings and car seats. And she said it was because I inspired. I used to show properties with her, with my kids, kids, you know, so

Tracy Hayes  23:50 

closings and car seats, yeah, good though, yeah.

Marrissa Scott  23:52 

So it's just, it just changed my perspective. It's not, you know, I was just really, you know, those, those moments, meant so much more to me now than the numbers. But then I'm not neglecting those, you know, those, those accomplishments?

Tracy Hayes  24:10 

Well, we all are. And as we mature, we all are. We all get, I

Marrissa Scott  24:15 

like the word mature,

Tracy Hayes  24:16 

yeah, we all get that little momentum from something different as time goes on. Like you said, you know, whether it's, you know, your kids and and you know, going through that period of time, and then you know. And like you said, you've narrowed down the group that you want to hang with, where a new agent you've got to find that that, you know, some people like to use the word tribe, which is very good. You got to find that group. And your group might change over time, which often, like we always talk about, you might change your brokerage. You might you might be someone you know, if your brokerage isn't moving, that you're going to reach a level there we're like, you know what? I now need to go to a brokerage where I'm surrounded by all people who are doing numbers and and, you know that's the atmosphere you want to be. In, and you gotta, you gotta look and find that, and constantly evolving,

Marrissa Scott  25:03 

yeah, and I used to, I used to do that. I used to go to all of the events just with, you know, Jack's real producers, you know, to Nina, not only feel good, but just to, you know, because you're with all these successful agents, but you know, to also learn from them, talk to them, you know, if there's anything that I can really get up. But the problem is, a lot of these people, they spend more time doing that than really focusing more on this business.

Tracy Hayes  25:27 

Can you can there's no doubt. There's no doubt about it. You're going through the motions, basically,

Marrissa Scott  25:33 

yeah. And

Tracy Hayes  25:33 

you're like, Well, I'm working there because I'm, you know, going here or going for coffee, going for lunch. Yeah.

Marrissa Scott  25:38 

I mean, I can even feel my calendar. I mean, my calendar is so filled, like we were talking about this yesterday and and I still have, like, people or agents that wanted to meet me for coffee or something like, and I still haven't had a chance to. And then on top of that, I have my friends and my family. So it's, it's all, it's all about balance.

Speaker 1  25:55 

All right,

Tracy Hayes  25:55 

let's dig into some real business questions here. All right, I think you

Marrissa Scott  26:00 

got the wrong person for that.

Tracy Hayes  26:02 

Jacksonville was just ranked number four most buyer friendly housing market in the country by Zillow for 2026 beating out Miami, Tampa in Pittsburgh. I don't know how what makes on that list you've been working the market for nearly 19 years. Does that ranking match what you're seeing on the ground?

Marrissa Scott  26:29 

Yeah, just because what we would talk about earlier compared to those other cities, we're still much more affordable. And I always tell this, a lot of my people that relocate to Northeast Florida, you know, land wise, we're the biggest city, you know, and and, but we, you won't feel that, you know. And there's still a lot, there's still a lot of space in your in our city, so you don't feel like so crowded. Even our rush hour traffic is nothing compared to Los Angeles or Miami,

Tracy Hayes  27:00 

yeah,

Marrissa Scott  27:00 

you know. And so, and I think if people are looking at, you know, moving, relocating to Northeast Florida, you know, with the proximity to the ocean for us in the land, land size, you know, we're one of the biggest, I think they see us very attractive, and we don't smell like sugar. What is it paper mill anymore? And, and, you know, it's funny, because my husband was sharing with me when he was looking at history of Jacksonville. If we didn't have those paper mills, we would be as big as Miami, or, if not bigger. But for some reason, those papers

Tracy Hayes  27:35 

did our growth really?

Marrissa Scott  27:36 

Yeah, he did. That's what he was saying. Those paper most like people that are wanting to come here. As soon as they lay in at the airport, they're like, What

Tracy Hayes  27:46 

is this? Obviously going to school in Charleston. I always remember the smell from the paper mills from

Marrissa Scott  27:52 

here,

Tracy Hayes  27:53 

from over there, Charleston, South Carolina, the paper mills there too.

Marrissa Scott  27:57 

Okay, I thought it's

Tracy Hayes  27:59 

the wind blows in the wrong direction or whatever it costs. I

Marrissa Scott  28:02 

didn't know you're from South Carolina?

Tracy Hayes  28:04 

No, no, I just went to school. Okay? I actually grew up in Massachusetts. But interesting, okay, the Yeah, the paper mills and the wind was blowing in the end. You know where I went to school. And I'm old, but I'm not that old. We didn't have air conditioning, so you had the window open all the time, the fan blowing. So it wasn't like you could close the window and keep that smell of the paper mill out. Yeah,

Marrissa Scott  28:30 

I was just gonna add back to, you know, those top the number for the rankings, because if you think about it, who wants to go to Orlando when it's such a tourist destination? Who wants to go to go

Tracy Hayes  28:42 

there, when you want to spend the week

Marrissa Scott  28:44 

exactly like what we do now with our kids, or who wants to go to Tampa, West Palm Beach or all that stuff. It's still as big. Here we have the the historical part of Northeast Florida, where you have St Augustine, you have a million the beautiful Amelia Island, you know, so those, just even those two cities, they're so attractive to a lot of these people, really? Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  29:06 

there's definitely no doubt the Fernandina Beach, Amelia in St Augustine, north and south of us, where we're out here in Jacksonville right now, are little treasures. And could be just a little weekend, little getaway, if you wanted to,

Marrissa Scott  29:19 

you're gonna laugh at this, because I have a perfect definition for St Augustine. My husband always left when I say it, I said, St Augustine firm is like our Jacksonville, Paris.

Speaker 1  29:30 

Oh,

Marrissa Scott  29:33 

is our own version of Paris without the towers.

Tracy Hayes  29:36 

We have the Flagler building there. All right? One. Important topic right now, obviously out there is pricing. Jacksonville market quietly tightened in March. Inventory shrank 17 and a half percent year over year while the rest of the country was gaining supply. A. Competitive pricing from the start, still tell you my eyes are set the clearest path to avoiding prolonged listings and talking with everybody on like when you're going in and sitting down on a listing appointment right now, knowing you know what you know, how does your conversation go across? I want someone's watching this right now that might be considering you to how is that conversation?

Marrissa Scott  30:29 

They might not hire me after this. You know, a lot of things happens before I meet with them in person, you know. So this is when I do all my research before I meet with them with the person. Because the goal when I meet them in person is just to finalize the listing appointment. Basically, you know, I want to have all my numbers ready and all that stuff. I am probably the most realistic listing agent out there. I want to be, I want to be careful or sensitive to their situation. Because number one, that's,

Tracy Hayes  30:59 

you don't

Speaker 1  30:59 

want to

Marrissa Scott  31:00 

exactly.

Tracy Hayes  31:00 

You gotta ask the background correct, but

Marrissa Scott  31:04 

I have to be the person that will tell them the truth, because there's a lot of agents there that will tell them something different than what I'm going to tell them, and it may sound very promising to them, you know, I don't, for me. I don't want to get the listing just so that I can put my name on it and not sell because it at the end of the day. It hurts the relationship, and it hurts me. Stressful. Yeah, it's stressful. It makes me sad when I don't sell a property. Yeah, because, you know, we put money into it, we mark, we advertise, we market the property, we spend a lot of time with the property when it doesn't sell.

Tracy Hayes  31:38 

I don't think people realize this is one thing that you know, after the North settlement, I always thought the show was important to get across to people, what agents go through, yeah, and when, every day that that happened, now they're happy to have got the listing. Everyone's happy to get a listing, but if they don't do it right, and it sits on the market every week, every day, they've got to update that seller, like, okay, yeah, you know. Or we're not. No one's coming to see the house this Saturday. Or, Hey, I'm gonna do, you know, it's, it's stressful. You don't want to have too many of those conversations. Yeah, you know, hopefully people are coming in and looking at the house, and maybe, if they're not, they're not making offers. Okay, it's okay. Hey, we're getting a lot of but no one's making an offer. Let's take a look at that, but you have something to work with. But when it's crickets,

Marrissa Scott  32:29 

yeah, and

Tracy Hayes  32:29 

no one's coming by, yeah,

Marrissa Scott  32:30 

and, you know, and, and to be honest with you, I have lost sellers just because it gets to a point where they they just want their opinion about the property, you know, and they're not willing to listen on what I was telling them about what we should do pricing wise, because they're still stuck on that. I call it the covid pricing, yeah, you know. And I just need to let them realize we're not there anymore. And and it's I always tell them, the first three weeks of putting the property on the market is the most important one. Because I feel like, if I don't sell this property on that first three weeks, it's the property is going to sit, yeah, or not even sell, you know. And so the pricing is still what's driving, you know. And when I go to my listing appointment, you know, of course, I ask how much you owe? That's the first question I asked, How much do you owe on your mortgage? Because I want to see, I want to match it with the valuation of the property. How much difference are we talking about here? Do they have ability to to walk away from this deal, especially, you know, if they just bought the property during covid time, you know. So I need to see what's their ability to just walk away from from the transaction without making that huge profit on it, because we're not there anymore.

Tracy Hayes  33:46 

Do you this might be a sales skill that someone tries. You know, because in sales, you always you try different things. You're when you ask certain questions during the conversation, just to kind of obviously lead them to where you want to go, but asking their expectation before you actually show them what you feel. Have you tried both? Have you? Because I imagine some of these people who think their house is worth a lot more, that's really what we're talking about here. Yeah, people who want that extra $20,000 well, sometimes you just price it $20,000 over what it's really worth. You don't get any showings, yeah,

Marrissa Scott  34:26 

so I would do that with them. If they're really pushy that, you know, you get those, you know, clients that just think they just know everything. And you'll be like, Why are you hiring me?

Speaker 1  34:39 

You

Marrissa Scott  34:39 

know? But I will set my, you know, I'll give them the reality of the market, set the expectations, and try to get their thoughts on it. What do you think about this? And, you know, I try to maintain a weekly, you know, like, update with my with my sellers, so that they know what's going on with the market. And I learned this from Buffini, actually, from training. It's better. For you to spend two to three minutes calling your seller weekly and give them an update, then be silent for weeks, and then you're having to make that difficult phone call, and it will last like probably 30 minutes or something.

Speaker 1  35:16 

So

Tracy Hayes  35:16 

it's so true in our business, because our transactions are not a few hours, they're weeks or months,

Marrissa Scott  35:23 

yeah.

Tracy Hayes  35:23 

And if you're not calling them, they just assume you might have forgot about them.

Marrissa Scott  35:28 

Yeah. And you're having to come up with more, you know, things to say, versus Hey, this is an update. Five minutes. You're done, they feel comfortable. They've heard from you. That's it, you know, so

Tracy Hayes  35:41 

or in some of some of you are, you know, if you're listening to this right now, this is that was obviously solid advice. Put a little market report. Use, use some AI, create a nice email, and then just Hey, say, Hey, I emailed you something. Take a look at it. And that way, maybe you're little nervous on the phone. You don't want to disappoint them. You don't want to, you know, because they may have some questions that are just going to bring out your emotions in it, because you're frustrated. It hasn't sold, you know, get it down. Put it down on an email. That's that's a play. They can look at it at their convenience, but that, but don't just send it. Make sure you're either making a call or texting them, saying, Hey, I sent you an email. Take a look at it, let me know what

Speaker 1  36:26 

she's

Marrissa Scott  36:26 

saying. Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  36:27 

yeah,

Marrissa Scott  36:27 

yeah. I'm definitely

Tracy Hayes  36:28 

yeah. You cannot. You cannot ignore them, because it's only going to create, I'm gonna just say, just create angst. It just creates attention.

Speaker 1  36:37 

It

Marrissa Scott  36:37 

affects the relationship. Yeah, really. So I mean, how would you feel if you didn't hear from your wife for one week?

Tracy Hayes  36:44 

Yeah, you'll

Marrissa Scott  36:45 

be mad. I mean, if I don't hear from my husband for two hours, I'll be mad.

Tracy Hayes  36:48 

He's gotta text you from the plane.

Marrissa Scott  36:54 

You've done it before,

Tracy Hayes  36:56 

I'm sure. All right, the best real estate lessons don't come from spreadsheets. They come from the field. What's a situation from the past several months, maybe this past year, where a client, a deal, a challenge that stuck with you?

Marrissa Scott  37:14 

I have one very recent it was actually a listing I have on at the beach, at Jacksonville Beach, you know, it's a we talk about friends and acquaintance and colleagues. And if you ask me the question, I would probably a few years ago, I'll probably say friends. I have a colleague that or acquaintance where I took the listing, and, you know, very strong personality, I think we have, we share the same personality, you know, like and

Tracy Hayes  37:46 

like kinds of Tracy,

Marrissa Scott  37:48 

yeah, you know, but at that point, because she's still a client, and she takes care of my face, I have to be sensitive. I have to be careful on on things that I'm going to say, I ended up losing the listing. It kind of still, you know, still lingering, you know, because in my mind, I should have not lost that listing. I should have been able to sell that only if we came to an agreement on what

Tracy Hayes  38:19 

she was not taking your full advice on the professionalism, what you do to sell it in the period of time that she thought was reasonable, and therefore she got upset because it didn't, but it's because you went with her advice, what she wanted,

Speaker 1  38:32 

what she

Marrissa Scott  38:32 

does. I mean,

Speaker 1  38:33 

we Yeah,

Marrissa Scott  38:34 

yeah. So not getting into the full detail. Basically, yes,

Tracy Hayes  38:37 

yeah. I that's probably one of the most in any sales when you are working with, yeah, friends, families, colleagues, close, close, say that site. You don't, you don't want to upset them. You know you're, you guys are. You're in a circle and and it can, it can be touchy. And in, I think, to those listening out there, if you're the person who is, in this case, receiving the service, you know you, if I, if you were listing my property that you you need to let if you're hiring that person because they're professional and you know them and you trust them, let them do their job.

Marrissa Scott  39:17 

Yeah, just

Tracy Hayes  39:18 

step away

Marrissa Scott  39:18 

and you know, and sometimes we can't really blame that person too, because, you know, this particular person, I think she's dealt with different agents in the past that kind of disappointed her, you know, and so that's one thing I would say, that I'm a little bit different. Or what stands out compared to other agents is that I treat even though people says, Oh, this is all business, no string attached. Don't be person when you pour your heart and your soul and your everything in a transaction, that's just not a business for me. That's that's very personal. And so that's why I think this, that's one of the reason, even though we're close acquaintance. It becomes part of me, that that deal becomes part of who I am, and so that's why it hurts when we don't get the job done,

Tracy Hayes  40:12 

because we both are. We both have great faith in knowing that he's guy. I use the knowledge or the phrase a lot of times in the woods, that tree falls and there's no one there to hear it doesn't make any noise. And when you start thinking that, well, you know, I chose Marissa, but if this other agent did it, I would have got another 10 or $20,000 or whatever. If you are going to live like that, you're going to live a very stressful, very just let it go. If you're going to choose somebody,

Marrissa Scott  40:46 

yeah,

Tracy Hayes  40:47 

choose them and then give them, if they're close to you, give them the full faith that what they deliver is to make your life just that more peaceful. And you appreciated doing business with someone you know, like and trust, and maybe you go to church together, whatever it is, and it's that you're helping feed their family and back and forth, because you obviously, she does your skin care and you know, so there was a trade back and forth a little bit there. I just feel people get a little too worked up and like, what could have been if, you know, I like her, but is she really going to get she's been doing this. We had seven, it was a 1719, years. 19 years. She knows what she's doing. She's trying to get top dollar for you. She wants to be able to say, I got top dollar for your home. You know, we all want that success story. And I just think a lot of people, there's a good group of people, that just don't have faith in others that they're going to do the best for them, which I just simply asked them to Why did you choose that person if you don't think they're going to do the best

Marrissa Scott  41:53 

for There you go. And I think faith is one thing, but I think trust has a lot to do with it. And sometimes it's not that they don't trust you, it's just they just have a problem trusting people, and it's so hard to kind of, and that's probably one of the most difficult clients, not because they're difficult in some ways, but they're just so difficult because you can't break that, you know when they're having trust issues, Regardless of what I do,

Tracy Hayes  42:18 

yeah, no, you're 100%

Marrissa Scott  42:22 

Yeah, this business is only gonna is only good if they have trust in you. And sometimes people just have a pro in a big a hard time trusting someone, not necessarily just you. And so that's just how I look at things, you know. So, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  42:39 

yeah, no. Well, one of the things we talked about earlier, you know, we change who we hang out with. And the one thing I've learned in in maturity is, you know, my wife's a little bit younger, so sometimes I have to look, I said it's like, it'll work out. Just, just let it take its course.

Marrissa Scott  42:54 

Yes,

Tracy Hayes  42:55 

let your kid's gonna fall. He's gonna skin his knee. It's gonna happen. Yeah, it happens. So don't just say, Okay, no problem.

Marrissa Scott  43:03 

Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  43:03 

And I think as a older dad than if I had my kids, mature dad, mature Dad, thank you that if I had my kids 20 years earlier or 15 years earlier, I would treat things differently. But because I'm that much older, I realize, and you know, I know, you know when I'm when I'm sitting here talking, my son's driving now in, you know, I'm just waiting for that night he comes home and says, Dad, I scratched the side of the truck or something, right? You know, hopefully it's just that, but it's gonna come, and you have to say, all right, man, we'll take care of it. What happened? Okay? Next time you know, you know, that's life, that's maturity, where others you know you got to you'll start building a trust and realize you know what. I've done this so many times, and this has been the result. So okay, hey, do it and just

Marrissa Scott  43:52 

do it again.

Tracy Hayes  43:52 

I didn't have control the other results.

Marrissa Scott  43:55 

Yes, I mean, that's what we have to do. So

Tracy Hayes  43:58 

let's jump over to our military families

Speaker 1  44:00 

here

Tracy Hayes  44:00 

at NAS Jax and in Mayport there. And I don't know if this number is correct. You can correct me if I'm wrong. But in 2026 an e5, with dependents, receives $2,181 per month, B, A, H, under the Jacksonville military housing area, you helped relocate hundreds of military families during the Base Realignment, which was that was really early in your career, right?

Marrissa Scott  44:31 

That was

Tracy Hayes  44:32 

and have been doing it ever since, when a service member calls and says, I have your orders, obviously, to come to Jacksonville in 30 days to figure it out. What are the the first three things that you're going to talk to them about?

Marrissa Scott  44:49 

Well, so by the time we got the phone call, most of most of them are referrals. So I already have some information about about them, like their ranking, so that I. Know how much bah they're getting and all that stuff. The second thing I asked them is, how big is the family, you know, because money and then the size of home, you have to kind of match that, right? And so, so I asked that, that question, and area, if they're familiar with the area, a lot of them, they're not, you know, but they're they talk to a lot of their buddies at work, you know, a lot of them move close to the base just because that that 17 gets turns into a speed 500 at five o'clock. So they, you know, so I asked them, and then I asked if the wife is working, because then you'll know if they find something they have ability to go higher if they want to, because the wife is working, and they she contributes to the bills or something. So those are the questions I asked them.

Tracy Hayes  45:48 

What are some of the things that obviously have changed over here? You know, we're talking, you know, 19 years, what are Has anything changed from the standpoint of what they're more concerned about today than maybe they were, say, 1015, years ago.

Marrissa Scott  46:04 

Oh, the pricing of homes and reset, you know, if they can sell it, because a lot of them, they don't get to stay here. I mean, the maximum I think they can go is to to four years, and then the either they have to go somewhere or retire,

Tracy Hayes  46:22 

right?

Marrissa Scott  46:22 

So,

Tracy Hayes  46:23 

so do you possibly guide them to say, hey, you know, yeah, there, there is some real incentives on the new but if we move, you know, maybe 10 minutes further, yeah, go through that. Are you finding somebody, if we looked at it like to say, the last three or four years, are you doing more existing homes and new with some of these?

Marrissa Scott  46:43 

It's balanced. It really just depends on on their needs. You know, a lot of luckily, we're NES Jackson. I do a lot of NES Jacksonville, by the way, because me and my husband's background and all that stuff. But the one great thing about the location of NES jacks. It's where oak leave, Eagle Harbor, Fleming Island is. And the pricing over there is somewhat falls under where they need to be as far as their housing allowance goes. So if they really want to deal, if they're like, Oh, we've heard the traffic there is really but then I always tell them, we can cross the Buckman bridge. You know, you'll get, you know, you'll somehow avoid those traffic on 17. But the prices of homes are a little bit more expensive, right? You know, unless you want to go to nakari. I mean, I have one person that I moved from, I think he was stationed in Blount Island. Yeah, the Marine, yeah, the Marine over there, and I got them to buy a house in oak leaf, and he was driving that. And I think I remember how I sold that, because they fell in love with that. At the end of the day, these people falls in love with the house. Location for them doesn't really matter, as long as they fall but I remember how I sold that, because wife is so in love with the House and the husband, like I'm driving 45 minutes each way to work. And I said, Well, that's actually a great thing, because that means you have 45 minutes to simmer down from work, and then you come home and you all refresh, and your wife will be so happy to see

Tracy Hayes  48:13 

well, it's, I mean, yeah, soon as you can get on 295 because obviously 295 will drop you off right there at blunt Island.

Marrissa Scott  48:20 

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's all highway now, so, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  48:24 

yeah. Obviously, big thing in, in this has changed too, since just going back to where I was four years ago, when you were on, you know, insurance, you know, we used to wait, you know, it wasn't really a big deal. Oh, a week or two forwards. We're trying to wind down alone. Hey, we got to get that insurance quote.

Marrissa Scott  48:44 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  48:45 

now we're getting it up front. So Jacksonville homeowners insurance cost most buyers between 2800 to $4,000 per year. And anyone listening that there is depending on the house condition, the roof, obviously, it's new and so forth. I am getting quotes lower than this, but some, some are might be in a flood zone. Maybe you have to have flood insurance or whatever. So 28 to $4,000 per year in 2026 homes built after 2015 average about $1,900 per year. Homes built before 2000 are up in the 3000s for insurance on a yearly basis, when you're working with a buyer relocating from out of state, at what point in the process do you bring up insurance cost, and how does that conversation change? What they possibly can be looking at? Well,

Marrissa Scott  49:38 

it comes, actually, it happens on the first conversation, because we're talking about where do you want to stay, as far as your monthly mortgage payment,

Speaker 1  49:45 

you

Marrissa Scott  49:45 

know, and then we're factoring the rates if they go with resale instead of new construction, and then they don't pay mortgage insurance because they're VA but then we talk about homeowners insurance, and that's a big factor now, especially if they're. Working at homes near NES, Jacksonville, that are older, you know. So they it comes very early on in the conversation, because that's like, what 300 $400 per month more on I mean, it's ridiculous, how expensive. And I think that's one of the reasons a lot of my military people that are looking they ended up going new construction, because new construction lower cost for homeowners insurance, you know. And then what I normally tell them, if you know, if the first insurance premium when you buy the first size is always lower, and it's the second year when it keeps going higher and higher. And what I always just tell them, and I still do this until this day, every year, all the people I close with the year prior, I check on them and say, Hey, I'm pretty sure you're getting insurance quotes from your insurance guy, and you're probably, like, having a heart attack, because it's so much. I said, just tell that guy to re shop, you know, because a lot of people don't know that they should be doing it annually. Yes, yeah. A lot of homeowners don't, didn't know that they can do that, yeah? So,

Tracy Hayes  51:01 

yeah, yeah. No, that is, that is true. I actually remember, I think I actually had a customer one time. He did it, like every six months. But, yeah, they should be doing it annually. You know, as their as their policy, because they've already paid for the year type of thing. But as you start to get, you know, you typically get that notice that, hey, it's time to renew your escrow. Is paying for it, so the money's already there for you, but you should be, yeah, reaching out, yeah, in it the really good agents, insurance agents that you and I want to work with, they should be doing that already, yeah, to making sure that the policy is competitive.

Marrissa Scott  51:40 

Yeah. Or you set an set an alarm on your phone the year before the year expires. You know, contact your buyer ABC and ask them to contact their insurance person. So

Tracy Hayes  51:53 

well, just another good reason for any agent too. That's, you know, when the person's coming up on their one year anniversary. Are we doing that? Reach out to say, hey, just make sure, you know, make sure you call your agent

Speaker 1  52:05 

if

Marrissa Scott  52:06 

you want to have a reason to

Tracy Hayes  52:07 

contact. Yeah, no reason to contact. Alright, so we have been talking a little bit about new construction resell builders offering, you know, obviously buy downs. I think a lot of people don't understand. How are the builders getting these rates that much lower. It's not always a buy down. What they're basically doing to really gumpify it, simplify it, make your money. Well, well, yeah, part of it's built into the price, because what they're doing is they're committing to a block of money. That's why a lot of times they're putting on pressure on it. Hey, this house has to close by the end of the month, because they've committed a block of money to an investor,

Marrissa Scott  52:42 

and

Tracy Hayes  52:42 

they've got to put the loans in that, in that package, and so they need that deal to close, and that's why they're, they're because they're free, committing that money. They're getting, you know, that little advantage, you know, for you. And then obviously, if they're doing a two, one buy down the cost of that? Well, that's obviously rolled into the cost of your home. It's not they're running on thin margins because of the rates and so forth, but they're still making this is how, yeah, this is how they're they're moving their product. So to go back to my builders are offering two one mortgage rate buy downs in closing costs, incentives, even incentives for real estate agents to bring their customers by meaning resale sellers aren't just competing with the neighbor's house anymore. What are the real trade offs between new construction and resale in Jacksonville right now? And what do buyers consistently misunderstand about builder incentives.

Marrissa Scott  53:43 

Well, I think I just did a video about this. This week. I'm part of the United Realty Ambassadors program, so I post once a week, like a video, you know, about real estate and stuff like that. I think one of the things that buyers are not realizing they can't just walk in first at a model without their agent in the because a lot of these builders, they won't let you bring your agent back if they're not there on your first visit, you know. And so I get so I always tell my people, don't go to the model home without me if you want to go, let me know, and I'll meet you there. Some of the things that they they're, you know, site agents are good. If you have a relationship with them, they'll tell they'll tell you and your buyers upfront what they're going to get or what they can offer. But one thing that buyers doesn't know is that there's so much negotiation that can happen if you have a real what

Tracy Hayes  54:37 

to negotiate

Marrissa Scott  54:38 

exactly you know. So most builders, you know, they will say, if you use our preferred lender, we'll get you this rate, and you also pay your closing costs. But they're not saying prepaids. They're not saying we'll get you refrigerator. We'll get they're not saying all these other things. And so that's when a realtor comes in there, and then that's when the realtor negotiates. Those things on your behalf. So those are some of the things that I think buyers doesn't know when it comes to builders. Well, it actually

Tracy Hayes  55:07 

brings up, I mean, that spins off on two things. I said the buyers, you have to understand, you want to find an agent who is in the know, familiar with these, what these in every builder is a little different, what they offer, what's included, what they can negotiate on, and what they can't. Because obviously, I think, you know, talking to someone recently, there's a, you know, you may say, hey, I want to negotiate on this. And the site agent may say, Well, that's actually non negotiable. We can't really move, we can't move off that price. Yeah, but there is something that is negotiable. They're not going to suggest it,

Marrissa Scott  55:43 

though, correct. That's correct. The other thing that you know, they've also experienced in the past, you know, builders, lenders, they don't have a lot of flexibility with their the financing, like, as far as, you know, debt to income ratio and all that stuff. They're all for me, I always call they're so they stick with the

Tracy Hayes  56:02 

book. Yeah, certain clients, you hit a wall. You can't, like, budge

Marrissa Scott  56:06 

and, you know, and when the buyer is so set with that house, because it's brand new and all this and that, they're like, so devastated when they can't move forward because the lender for the builder denied their loan, what they didn't know is that you can still, they can still proceed with that property. You bring in another lender and builder will honor what they said they would pay, as long as they get a dentile letter, or as long as their preferred lender cannot compete with what the other lender is giving you.

Tracy Hayes  56:38 

Well, it just goes back. I haven't mentioned it recently, but on different shows, having worked for multiple different lenders, all of them have caps. There's literally some that cap the VA loan at 50% on the debt ratio, where others are like, well, when we run it through the automated underwriting and it approves it, it's approved. Yeah, we roll it because it's because it's calculating all the other factors in there, and that might be in the mid 60% Yeah. So there's, there's all these different things. So yes, sometimes the you know, the Yeah, if you say no, there, but there's just possibilities. You want to get a second opinion 100% what I want to get across is, for your tip, with your experience working with the builders to newer agents, the importance of maybe they are busy to go out and talk to some of these site agents. I imagine so many site agents, when there's no customers around, will strategize with you, because they want you to bring they want the relationship too. They want you to bring them business.

Marrissa Scott  57:38 

I mean, I often, you know, refer to like, if you're if you're selling food for business, how would you sell the food if you don't know what you're selling? You know, it kind of goes with like, real estate. How do you know what the builders are offering if you don't know what they're offering? And the only way you know, like, like, that's so important about, you know, I know they started doing caravan for new agents. That's a one good outlet for them to be more familiar about what's going on with the new construction, because they, oftentimes, they host it at the model home, you know. So that's one great way to learn about the products. But, you know, one of the things that I don't have any problem doing is, you know, letting that site agent send me a weekly special, because they would, you know, like, that's when I know, especially when they're offering those incentives for realtors, is like they're paying 5% I need to sell this house before, right? You know, then I you start looking at your your

Tracy Hayes  58:40 

especially when you got that, sometimes you got a difficult deal. And I remember working with the builder, that was one thing I you know, the builder doesn't often, always show all their inventory. And you've, you're talking to an agent, you're trying to find a particular price point home to get around this payment so that they could, you know, get approved. And you're like, hey, well, what is the what does that builder have available? We know they're going to cover closing costs, so that helps us out. Maybe because they they're tight on their down payment, or whatever it may be, there's you need to know these puzzle pieces. So when you do, are presented with the challenge, you know, Oh, holy, you know what? I think that one over there might actually work. Let me take you over there see if

Marrissa Scott  59:19 

you Yeah. And for new agents, if you don't have time because you're too busy networking or attending free model free lunch, then reach out to these new communities. Get a copy of their spec sheets. The spec sheets shows everything that they have available for the next few months, what they're willing to close, what person coming

Tracy Hayes  59:41 

available

Marrissa Scott  59:41 

Exactly. So, you know, having that, but of course, it also helps a lot if you go visit the model home, yeah, you know, so that you can see what product you're trying to sell. Well,

Tracy Hayes  59:50 

it goes out to building that relationship. The site agent wants to build the relationship with you, but they're stuck in, stuck there. So they they their only way they're going to know to reach out to you is. If you come by and see them, introduce yourself, get to know and say, hey, send me your spec sheet every week or whatever, how often you update it, or whatever. Tell me what's going on. So I know. So if I get a customer, I can, I can bring to you every site agent in town, if they're worth anything here, is going to be sending

Speaker 1  1:00:15 

you

Marrissa Scott  1:00:15 

and you know, and if they're thinking about as a brand new agent, they're thinking about growing their network. Yeah, it's great to grow your network with fellow realtors, just for future transactions with them. But how often do you really do transaction with them, right? But if you really want to grow your network, grow it with site agents. Go bring them coffee, you know, say, Hey, I'm, you know, with

Tracy Hayes  1:00:36 

I'm coming by, I'm coming by. You want a cup of coffee? I'm going to stop on

Speaker 1  1:00:39 

my

Marrissa Scott  1:00:40 

way. Guess what? When that site agent, you know, you earn their trust, if they get a customer coming to their model home and they're like, Oh, we still have a home to sell, guess what happens?

Tracy Hayes  1:00:52 

Yeah, call Marissa because she'll get it

Marrissa Scott  1:00:54 

sold for you might not be able, yeah, you may not be able to represent those buyers because they've already been to the model home. But if you have that relationship, and that happens a lot of times, to me, it's

Tracy Hayes  1:01:05 

happening a lot right now, because I'm, you know, the creative lending that we're doing, and in in in the bridge loan, I just did one recently where someone was buying a new construction home. It wasn't one of the big track builders was more of a private builder, but the spec home was ready. They wanted it. They didn't want to wait to the they didn't want to have they didn't want to do this whole shelf. They wanted to move into the new home and then go and prep their current home and sell. So we did a little bit of a bridge and and, and made it happen. That's happening a lot, actually,

Marrissa Scott  1:01:37 

yeah. So that's probably one of the best advice

Tracy Hayes  1:01:41 

No, that's solid. That's solid advice. Jacksonville is officially a million person city, NAR designated in 2026 hot spot, projecting 14% sales growth and a 4% price appreciation, where the median home price is 304, for all Duval County movie, that's roughly half of Miami. When someone calls you from out of state, they've done their Google research. They think they know Jacksonville, what? What's one thing they almost always have wrong.

Marrissa Scott  1:02:21 

I wrong. You know, they think that they can slice the price of homes so much when they come here, they think that they cannot. I have

Tracy Hayes  1:02:32 

no ball.

Marrissa Scott  1:02:33 

Yes, I have like a customer from Boston. I've showed them numerous homes.

Tracy Hayes  1:02:39 

He just thinks he's smarter.

Marrissa Scott  1:02:41 

Well, he doesn't

Tracy Hayes  1:02:41 

realize everyone is

Marrissa Scott  1:02:45 

they think that they can take $100,000 off a listing price every properties that we put it on for, it's either 100 or $150,000 like, what are we doing here? We're not like that here. Yeah, you know. So

Tracy Hayes  1:03:00 

there's, there's one, he decided to go with another lender, and I think it's because he he realized I knew this listing agent, but he called me and get pre approved, and he was making this offer on a $320,000 type townhouse in silver leaf. So it was one of the lowest prices in St John's County.

Marrissa Scott  1:03:21 

That's a good price

Tracy Hayes  1:03:22 

for whatever reason. It is actually a short sale, and he offered $50,000 below what they were listing at. Now I don't I'm gonna actually make that. I'm gonna send that text message off that agent did that bank except because they were going through all the motions. But I'm like, the bank still hasn't signed off on that. I don't see a bank in St John's County taking $1 less than what it's valued at.

Marrissa Scott  1:03:46 

You think, yeah, that's, that's, that's probably one of the the challenges with a lot of these out of state. And, you know, average price, because we're, if we're talking about higher price buyers,

Tracy Hayes  1:04:00 

one thing when you're at 1.5 and yeah for 1.4 Correct? That's

Marrissa Scott  1:04:03 

a little different. Yeah, yeah. Jacksonville people understands that, you know. So they understand our market more,

Tracy Hayes  1:04:13 

not on my list here. But speaking of, you know, people moving from out of state, though, to Florida for you know, they've only vacationed here. They've gone to Disney, whatever. What is if one of those stories that you probably tell a cocktail parties, or one of the just the crazy, obviously, people always have crazy questions about alligators or whatever. Can you think of a question right now? Like one of the things they moving to Florida? What is, like, a question you just kind of giggle,

Speaker 1  1:04:42 

yeah,

Marrissa Scott  1:04:42 

it's like, there's is, do we have to worry about alligators on the lake behind us? Like, and I always say, if there's water, there's alligator. Like, the same question I asked my husband when we go to the beach, honey, is there sharks there? Yeah, that. Their home

Tracy Hayes  1:05:01 

with social media. Now, it really does make you think like, oh my god, there's, there's like a shark just sitting under the water all the time. You hear all, you know, I pull up the statistics, because we go, we take the kids out in the St John's River tubing. And, yes, if you go up into the creeks, are there alligators in there? But, yeah, but it's very hard to even find them when you kind of sneak up in there trying to hope to see them, yeah, but they're not swimming in the middle of the river, at least not in this section where we're at now you go way up where it goes, all the way towards, you know, Sanford and so forth. Yeah, you could go and there's a lot of alligators. I really think they should. Alligator meat needs to be cheaper. I don't know. Make more purses out of the skin or whatever on or whatever

Marrissa Scott  1:05:48 

they do bags.

Tracy Hayes  1:05:49 

If you actually look up the statistics on alligator attacks or even shark

Marrissa Scott  1:05:55 

attacks, it's like, no,

Tracy Hayes  1:05:57 

yeah, it's not

Marrissa Scott  1:05:57 

well. So I don't know if you know this. I'm very terrified of snakes.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:01 

Oh, I hate snakes.

Marrissa Scott  1:06:02 

Like, I will have nightmares because of snakes, right? And, and, and I got better just because I My husband told me, you know that they're more afraid of you than you're afraid of them,

Tracy Hayes  1:06:16 

yeah?

Marrissa Scott  1:06:17 

Like, so now, if I'm going out there, I'm just making noise, like, because it's the same with I mean, if you're gonna jump in a pond with alligators, yeah, you're gonna be eaten, but they're not there to attack you, you know,

Tracy Hayes  1:06:30 

yeah, you pretty much got to step on their head to get them. There's plenty of turtles. There's plenty of things for them to

Speaker 1  1:06:36 

eat

Tracy Hayes  1:06:37 

that's smaller than them and not going to put up as quite as big as we may should. Sign. Should sellers wait or list right now? Jacksonville sales three to 3.9 months of inventory down sharply from January 26 we're at 6.1 months of buyers return. What's the actual answer to, should I wait or sell now in Jacksonville,

Marrissa Scott  1:07:05 

Nina, this is depends on, of course, their situation, you know. So it's there's just really no one simple answer for that, if a buyer, if a seller has to relocate, of course, you have to sell your house or rent it out. You know, it also depends on location, because you might have a house in the middle of Nassau County, and you're not getting a lot of people moving in there. So it really, just really depends on where they add so I just don't have a basic like, one answer, it's really depends on their situation, depends on where they at, depends on the outcome that they're expecting, yeah, you know, if they're thinking, well, if I sell now, will they still make 100,000 in this house? I'm like, probably not, you know? So

Tracy Hayes  1:07:48 

it's comp it

Marrissa Scott  1:07:49 

out, yeah. So, yeah. So, so that you and you asked me this question my first year of real estate, what do you think my answer will be, yes. Every day is a good, great day to sell your house,

Tracy Hayes  1:08:00 

but you to the agents that are listening. That's why it's so important to and I'm sure you would agree with me, is find out why. What's their why? Why are they? Why do they want to sell their house right now? Do they need to sell it in 30 days? Because whatever do they get? A divorce, a job transfer? What is it? Why they want to sell? Why I want to Yeah, I want to move the nakati. Okay, all right. Well, great. Okay, for you to move to nakati. Do you need $100,000 down payment? $150,000 down payment, you know what?

Marrissa Scott  1:08:33 

What

Marrissa Scott  1:08:33 

is so many factors there, you know? And

Marrissa Scott  1:08:36 

check

Tracy Hayes  1:08:36 

that out.

Marrissa Scott  1:08:37 

Yeah, you have to really connect and ask the most uncomfortable questions, because it's going to help you give them the best answers.

Tracy Hayes  1:08:44 

Yeah.

Marrissa Scott  1:08:44 

So

Tracy Hayes  1:08:44 

yeah. You got to find out the why. In St John's County, median price recently came in at 542,000 the lowest affordability index in the entire region. You sell across all five counties when buyer says, I want to be in St Johns County, what do you explore with them before you start showing homes

Marrissa Scott  1:09:07 

lifestyle first, what is, you know? What lifestyle Are you trying to obtain? What

Tracy Hayes  1:09:14 

is it about St John's

Speaker 1  1:09:15 

Yeah,

Marrissa Scott  1:09:15 

you know? Why are you wanting to move to St John's County? If they say, school, great choice. You know, they heard about a lot of them, like the most recent one, are couple from Michigan, where they heard about st, what's the name John's, what is the name river town? So they heard about the lifestyle that Rivertown has to offer. You know? So I always ask about the lifestyle, what they've heard about St John's, and I want to see if that kind of matches what they're they're looking for before anything else.

Tracy Hayes  1:09:48 

Yeah, again, going back, finding out why asking the question. You're not being you're not being nosy, but what you're doing is you're prepping for your presentation.

Marrissa Scott  1:09:57 

You have to be nosy, because this is a big. Decision of their life. You don't know any details on why they're moving and all the other details you're not really helping them.

Tracy Hayes  1:10:07 

Because I think we lose, or this is not just real estate sales. Could be any sales, sometimes we lose the fact that we need to know what their goal is. Why are they moving? Because they want to do this, and they want to have a such, such down payment because they want to move and, you know, downsize upsides, or whatever it might be. And if we're not asking, we never find out what their true goal is, which is our job is to help them get to their goal.

Marrissa Scott  1:10:30 

But it's, it's also coming down to you sounding more transactional than anything. You know, if you ask all these questions, if you're trying to be nosy and get every detail about this move, it becomes more relational. It becomes more personal. Like I have clients that say, you know, I know, I never had a realtor ask me that question before, but I actually appreciate that you're asking about all these things. You know,

Tracy Hayes  1:10:52 

yes, well, it shows you care, because you want when they realize you're trying to get them to where they want to be, then you're on their team, right? Yeah, they that's part of the trust build for sure. Jacksonville's investor activity, Jacksonville's median single family asking rent is roughly $1,890 in early 2026 down from the pandemic eras that drew a wave out of as for out of state buyers, projecting rents in the market couldn't sustain. What does a smart real estate investor look like in Jacksonville? In 2026 what are they buying? Where and what mistakes are you watching others make?

Marrissa Scott  1:11:38 

Okay, so let's be clear. We're talking about legit investors, right? We get all those. I need to flip. I need to find a property to flip. I get like, 100 texts or calls about those.

Tracy Hayes  1:11:49 

The Airbnb ones are the ones that I'm like, Are you sure you want to do

Marrissa Scott  1:11:53 

that? Yeah, you know. You know, I have a an Airbnb in Amelia Island. I've

Tracy Hayes  1:11:59 

seen your when you and your husband go on,

Marrissa Scott  1:12:01 

yeah, you know. So I have a little bit of knowledge when it comes to short term rentals, you know, because I look at different areas investors wise, for rentals, either, I ask them, What is, what is your margin? What are you expecting? You know, because you can't be an investor have a rental property and and not make money, because that's not investing, right? So it's like, what, what is your goal? What are you looking for? So if they're saying, Well, if I buy this house, this particular house, can I get $2,000 a month on it? And, you know, and I'll be like, Well, if the area is only the average rental in the area is only 1500 then you can't rent it out for 2000

Speaker 1  1:12:43 

right?

Marrissa Scott  1:12:43 

So you have to guide them. I said, you know you need, we need to find an area to where there's a huge demand for rentals. And places like NES, Jacksonville, NES Mayport, you have all this military that are wanting to rent. Those are the great ones, you know, to have for tenants. So those are just some of the conversations I asked. I want to make sure that they're they understand what investors really means, because investing meaning you're putting money into a property expecting to make money.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:12 

Well, just touch on your real investors. Real investors. Don't look at the $700,000

Marrissa Scott  1:13:20 

no

Tracy Hayes  1:13:20 

beachfront property to be their first investment,

Marrissa Scott  1:13:25 

no short term.

Tracy Hayes  1:13:27 

It might be something they graduate up to, but usually they have a little bit of experience,

Marrissa Scott  1:13:32 

yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:13:32 

in it. And I think also right now, from, you know, from a lending side, and looking at where interest rates are in that sort of situation, good investors right now realize it's a buyer's market. So they might be able to save whatever on a purchase price. You get something to close and cut. It's a buyer's market rate's a little higher, but if they feel that next 24 months that hey, the rates are going to we're going to reach, we're going to drop in their interest rate, I can go buy that home right now. I may not make any money. Maybe I'm breaking even, or maybe losing $100 a month on the property, but I know I'm getting I'm saving 20, $50,000 on the purchase price, because when the rates drop, property value is going to go up. And I'm getting in now in the market. So there's a lot of different strategies that they're having, but I the when you say, when you gestured, there was non professional investors, they always want, they always want to be this dream home. Oh, like, I got this dream home up in the mountains. I'm rum Airbnb. You got, you want to be experienced in that? Well,

Marrissa Scott  1:14:36 

they get, they get a little money, and they, they're, they're like, I'm going to buy my first investment property. I'm going to call Marissa, and I'll ask her to find me, you know the best you know property out there, and they'll see this like, really good price, let's say, 150,000 on the west side. You know, I want to buy this property because I have saved some money. I'll buy this property. Then we, they don't know. Okay, we need to find that condition. Is the money you save. You have extra to get the house fixed,

Tracy Hayes  1:15:04 

yeah. So the money pit, yeah.

Marrissa Scott  1:15:05 

And then the second thing you know, I have to watch the the average rental price in the area. But you also have to be realistic, the lower the price for a rental that you get, the quality of tenants you get,

Tracy Hayes  1:15:19 

there's a happy medium,

Marrissa Scott  1:15:21 

yeah. So you have to expect saving extra money, because every time you have a turnover, every year, you expect that you're going to have to fix the property, repaint the property, so those things versus you buy newer home, and you put your price where you know your rental price on the average, and you get a good quality tenant in there that will renew your lease, that's actually

Tracy Hayes  1:15:45 

there, and pay your mortgage down, and gaining you equity. And in a new construction neighborhood, you know, after 10 years or so, you should have some decent equity on average. I mean, obviously different times you or less. But yeah, you've got to think through the game one on a monthly basis. Am I going to lose money? Can I afford to lose money, or am I going to just have enough to survive and make the repairs? Yeah. Can I get someone in there long term? Maybe they're here for two or three years, you know, because of their orders, and they're just going to rent for three years. That's a beautiful client,

Marrissa Scott  1:16:18 

correct?

Speaker 1  1:16:18 

Yeah.

Marrissa Scott  1:16:19 

I do also have to share. You know, a lot of our newer agents, they they have to really be well informed when it comes to short term rentals. Because I have one client that actually have used a different agent and bought a town home thinking he can do a VR Airbnb on it. And they, they closed the house that there was a special

Tracy Hayes  1:16:43 

St Augustine Beach, Jack's beach, you could pull that off.

Marrissa Scott  1:16:46 

Yeah, so and then, so they, they were able. Then he closed on the house. Are you

Tracy Hayes  1:16:51 

thinking also, because of the, because of the guidelines, the HOA and so forth?

Marrissa Scott  1:16:55 

Well, the community HOA doesn't, you know, you have to make sure you read the covenants and restrictions, that they're allowing, you know, short term rentals. And he learned the hard way, because he fully furnished the property ready for short term rental. And then HOA found out about it,

Tracy Hayes  1:17:11 

yep.

Marrissa Scott  1:17:11 

And shut them. Shut them down. So

Tracy Hayes  1:17:14 

in I guarantee you, as you and I know there's agents out there that are hearing their request or do not know this, you're not the first person to bring it on. We probably don't talk about it enough, though, if you we do have, because of the beaches and so forth, people, it's St Augustine beach. There's only, like, I think it's like, 100 like, permits. They give out, yeah, you know, it's not just, yeah, I can, I can do this in an HOA. They may require a six or yearly lease, six month or yearly lease, whatever it is or or some places are month by month. You've got to know what the covenants does allow short term rentals. And then I think, I think one of the biggest thing is, I don't think people realize, because my wife and I have several condos in we can short term rental if we want to. But really, we've learned we like to people come in in like, a minimums a month,

Speaker 1  1:18:05 

they're gonna stay

Tracy Hayes  1:18:05 

here for three months during the wintertime, or why their house is being built, or whatever, because the logistics of cleaning and the cost of all that to keep it maintained is, is, yeah,

Marrissa Scott  1:18:15 

I agree.

Tracy Hayes  1:18:16 

Yeah. Can be if you all clean it myself. Are you

Marrissa Scott  1:18:19 

when

Tracy Hayes  1:18:20 

they move when they move out on Saturday and you got another one, another person moving in on Saturday afternoon. Are you going to rush over make sure you've got it clean for the next person? Yeah, kids ball game or something comes up, right? Negotiations, nearly 59% of Jacksonville's homes had price reductions recently. Buyers have more options and more leverage, especially on homes that have been sitting walk me through your negotiation philosophy. What are you looking for in the listing, before you even write an offer, and how do you structure the deal? When to to structure the deal to win without insulting the seller.

Marrissa Scott  1:19:03 

Yeah. So the first thing I really look to, you know, after I asked my my buyers, most of the time, buyers will say, even if you told them, this is probably where we need to start, they're probably no, no, we're going to start at this number. Like, okay, so the first thing I do is actually look at the history of the property, how long it's been the market, when was the last price reduction? Because if that was just happened, that just happened yesterday, there's no way this seller is willing to take another $40,000 reduction on it, right? So I need to look at the history of the listing. The third thing I do is I make phone call to the listing agent. I want to see the motivation. Tip right there? Yes, I want to see the motivation. What is the reason why the sellers are moving? Are they completely out of the house? Have they purchased a home? That's important, because if they've already purchased a home and they have mortgage on this, it means they're paying mortgage, I think, yeah, knowing, knowing too when they purchase. It, what's the mortgage balance on it? I think are the most, the couple most important things for me, because that's going to give me idea how negotiable seller is going to be,

Tracy Hayes  1:20:10 

yeah, and be able to to properly prep your buyer,

Marrissa Scott  1:20:17 

yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:20:17 

on what a proper offer would be, is having all those pieces. And when you and I think, I think you would agree, the more pieces you have of what you just discussed will narrow that offer

Marrissa Scott  1:20:29 

down. It keeps them informed. Yeah, you know that, you know, there's, there's always a strategy, Tracy on offers,

Tracy Hayes  1:20:38 

I just say strategic

Marrissa Scott  1:20:39 

on offers and, you know, and, and if you have all those pieces together, like you said, it's easy to kind of sway these people, unless they're just really hard headed, like my people from Boston, they just,

Tracy Hayes  1:20:53 

I mean, sometimes they do want to just, it's, I had one recently, actually, was on an Airbnb purchase where, where they did offer lower, what's about 10% but they ended up coming back in they got about, I think maybe three or 4% off of where the person recently had just dropped the price to. So they had a little bit more room, and they squeezed it out of them, but it, but you're right. Are you making it? Are you? Yeah, if they accepted your low ball off, you're 10% lower than what they're asking for. Of course, you'd you're ready to accept

Speaker 1  1:21:30 

it because you

Tracy Hayes  1:21:30 

feel you really got a deal. But realistically, where do you think it's going to sell? And I think proper, properly preparing your buyers to saying, Okay, we'll offer that.

Marrissa Scott  1:21:39 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:21:40 

let's Well, I'm gonna make sure they counter, because I talked to the others. Hey, you know, if they say no, well then give me a counter. I was imagine you were gonna ask, let them throw are they gonna come down? They might get that couple extra Hayes that that really is what they're looking

Marrissa Scott  1:21:54 

for. A couple of things too, that I also, I almost forgot to include their valuation of the property, because we can offer anything we want. If the property I, you know, I will look really, really stupid if I agree with the low, you know, with that offer, and then the property doesn't appraise. And, you know, my and everybody's ready to move forward, and then here comes the appraisal, and it didn't appraise. So I have to be very careful on making sure that this property is going to appraise for the for what they're paying for

Tracy Hayes  1:22:28 

the agents out there that might be listening right now. Do you feel, because we know, you know, 70 some percent just didn't even write a deal, so that you know we're not talking about them, but the people that are doing deals are still some people that are, you know, they're doing a handful of deals a year, but are they? Are all the buyers agents doing the due diligence of running the comps themselves? Are they just accepting the purchase price, assuming the selling agent has already done that, and they're like, well, they must be offering in it, going, are they really doing, you know, so like you're going in and you're finding all the pieces to the puzzle to say, Yes, this is a reasonable offer. I just don't believe every agent does that.

Marrissa Scott  1:23:12 

I don't think so either, especially, you know, as a new agent, you have to learn, and you learn by making mistakes, and that's how I've come up to all this point in my career, because I have made mistakes during my first few years. Then now I know what to ask and what to do so that I can get this deal to closing, you know? And so, yeah, I think a lot of the agents, they just don't do their due diligence, but I think it's just because of time, you know. They don't know until because they you have to remember they only get what the training you got from getting your license is not something you're using in real estate. Yeah, the training you get from your brokerage is, is there, but it's, it's case by case. You don't really get to apply that. And you might have learned all those things from your brokerage training, but you're dealing with a completely different situation, and you're only going to learn until you've gone through it.

Tracy Hayes  1:24:08 

I'm going to throw a tip out there. I think you would agree with this. I because I would, I'm going to assume that a lot of agents aren't. There's an offer price, let's say it's $600,000 and your buyer is going like, hey, we'll offer a full price. We want that house, you know, whatever. Maybe they get some closing costs where maybe you and you go and you, if you doing your due diligence, while you're writing up that offer, and you notice, hey, that same model in that neighborhood is selling for that same or, you know, or for, you know, 5% less.

Marrissa Scott  1:24:42 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:24:42 

it's actually in better condition. It's been renovated. I'm looking at the pictures, or I went by and drove by that house, and I'm like, I know you like that house, but let's go back at them with a little bit lower offer, and say, hey, you've got a house right now for sale right now for 5% less. It's a sale. Model and it's on the golf course and you're not

Marrissa Scott  1:25:02 

and they, they can say, Oh no, we still want to do it anyways. Like,

Tracy Hayes  1:25:05 

that's fun,

Speaker 1  1:25:06 

yeah.

Marrissa Scott  1:25:06 

And they, and you're right, it's better for me to have that moment and say what I have to say at that moment, so that down the road, if something happens, they can't come back to me and say, Why did you not tell us

Tracy Hayes  1:25:18 

that part from that part, but the other part is true. You're going to bat for them. You're thinking of them

Marrissa Scott  1:25:26 

watching their best interest. So it's not like, I mean, for us, it's easy job. You want the house full price, write up the deal. Let's do it. If I know that, yeah, I think that's great, but I don't think the property will appraise.

Tracy Hayes  1:25:40 

Yeah, and I

Marrissa Scott  1:25:40 

don't want, I don't want us to

Speaker 1  1:25:42 

get,

Tracy Hayes  1:25:42 

let's poke at them a little bit, because I have a comp right here,

Marrissa Scott  1:25:45 

exactly

Tracy Hayes  1:25:46 

listing right here. Or this house just actually closed, you know, it may not. You may have known it just closed last week, and it's, you know, you're not getting, or it's under contract, or whatever there's, there's those things moving around. Because I think you would agree right now, you have to really look at what's actually listed, in particular, especially our planned urban development subdivisions,

Speaker 1  1:26:06 

and

Tracy Hayes  1:26:06 

what's listed and what's closed, really, in the last few months,

Marrissa Scott  1:26:09 

I go back three months. Yeah, three to four months. I don't even go back six months, because I feel like the market is changing so much

Tracy Hayes  1:26:17 

exactly,

Marrissa Scott  1:26:17 

so

Tracy Hayes  1:26:18 

Exactly, yeah, if you've got stuff that it's happened very recently. You've got to put a lot of weight in it. Last, last formal question.

Marrissa Scott  1:26:25 

Oh my gosh, it's already last question. I thought we just got started

Tracy Hayes  1:26:29 

an hour and a half here building a 19 year career, and our data shows the industry has a significant share of active agents through 2024 and into this is 2024 and 2026 agents still thriving in 2026 were my I don't know if it's my glasses or my eyes are going that bad. I'm reading from my teleproject

Marrissa Scott  1:26:59 

Help the

Tracy Hayes  1:26:59 

agents still having in 2026 were forged to hard markets before you have 19 years from 2008 the recovery, the pandemic. Now this, what does it take to build a real estate career that survives every market cycle? And what do you know now that you wish someone had told you when you passed the exam.

Marrissa Scott  1:27:26 

Wow, that's a lot of questions

Tracy Hayes  1:27:27 

as a big overall,

Marrissa Scott  1:27:29 

you know, I

Tracy Hayes  1:27:31 

think the question in the book that you know I'm helping AI something you write the book, and one thing is, go back and ask them what they what based on what they know now, what would Marissa 2026 tell Marissa 2028

Marrissa Scott  1:27:45 

Okay, be I be more realistic. I think understanding and having the right expectation that this market being or this career, this business is so cyclical. I always say that to a lot of ages, I get a lot of agents saying it's been so slow for me and this and that I'm like, Hey, you have to remember you're looking at people that are doing well on social media, and that's why you're making all these comments, that you're so slow. But then if you actually look back, you don't know that they were looking at you at some point where you were doing so good, and they're under they're asking themselves, why am I so slow? I always think in that 19 year, almost 19 years, is so cyclical, you'll have a year that's so great. You'll have and it as much as we want this to be a steady business, even for lenders, we both know, in reality, it's not a steady business. You'll have months where it's so great. You have months that are so slow. One thing that I didn't do when when I first started, was I didn't prepare for the slow season. When I was newer. I thought it will just be like money closing after closings, and I was a one day millionaire and all that stuff. But, you know, towards later on, I realized, you know what I need to do, save for the slower months, so that I'm not sitting here, like looking at people and saying, Oh, my business sucks right now. Or

Tracy Hayes  1:29:16 

you can go on a vacation without going, Oh, my God, I'm not around for a week or two. And

Marrissa Scott  1:29:20 

somebody asked me, he's like, how are you even going on vacations? How are you even doing all these things? How are you able to do all this like you're working out and all these things in your life, like, you know, another thing is balance and having prioritizing everything. And I think we talk about this on our last podcast together. You know, prioritization is so important. It's just not in your business, but in your life, you know. And if you just put the right people in order, I think that's one great ingredient. And having a very success,

Tracy Hayes  1:29:52 

it gives you peace. It gives you a piece of, you know, you gotta build a foundation. It's like, you know, like family when you get home, you know. When you go inside your house, you know what's going you know for the most part, know what's going to happen, and that's why you're at peace at home,

Marrissa Scott  1:30:06 

yeah, you know. And it also helps you with your time, because if you don't have a list of priorities, you're all over the place, you're worn out, and you still don't have any money, you know. So I think having that prioritization with in your life is so important faith, I think if, if anyone doesn't have faith, it's

Tracy Hayes  1:30:29 

part of your foundation.

Marrissa Scott  1:30:30 

It's part of my foundation. I can't thank God enough on every blessings He has given me, you know, even giving me peace during times of uncertainties. You know, I think you can't get that anywhere else

Speaker 1  1:30:46 

so

Tracy Hayes  1:30:46 

well. It goes back to what we've said several times. It goes back to the maturity you realize, as much you know, life is challenging. I got that rocky thing out there saying, you know, it's gonna, you know, life is, my wife doesn't like it. She doesn't think it's the life. I forget how he says it. Life is hard. It's gonna knock you down. It's gonna get you to your knees, but you got to get up. And the realization is, we're throwing curve balls all the time.

Marrissa Scott  1:31:14 

Yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:31:14 

you know? How can you, you know, can you hit the curve? Do you know how to, you know, get around the curve. What you just got, that's what gets us up every day. Yeah, if there was no challenges, I don't know what we would be doing,

Marrissa Scott  1:31:28 

yeah. And if you fall my, you know, you get back up and go back from the beginning. There's no, you know, there's no problem going just going back to basics again, like I do that. I still have my binder, the old binder I have during my first year in real estate. This is before they have all the CRMs and all that stuff. Yeah, I go back to what I did, you know, during my first year. Once you have that when things are not doing well, you know, you did well when you did all those things on your first year. So go back to it. Yeah, everything is so great and nice, because everything is, you know, is on your fingertips, but there's nothing that will replace the things that you did during your first or two, second year that made you successful.

Tracy Hayes  1:32:11 

I want to because are you sue regularly, doing the Buffini trainings?

Marrissa Scott  1:32:15 

Yeah, we're doing it. I think what you're

Tracy Hayes  1:32:18 

starting on, yeah, we do it like every year, once a year. Okay, finish to just say some stuff about Buffini. Why you fought, why you you know you follow Him. Obviously, you're like a certified trainer, yeah, for him, what? You know someone who might be listening, maybe don't even know anything about the fee. But why did you choose Buffini? Because there are others out there. But what? What has Buffini done? And obviously you've bought into his program so much you wanted to train others on it.

Marrissa Scott  1:32:47 

Yeah. So one thing about Buffini programs or training, they don't sugar, sugar coat things. You know, unlike other trainers, I think I all I know the difference between a trainer and a motivational speaker. It's great both things, but I feel like Buffini, because he did this, you know, as a career. Before he became Brian Buffini, he was a struggling immigrant, you know. And I can relate to him. I think that's one of the reasons why I like him and he he did the business. He was a realtor, struggling all that stuff, and he applied all the things that he'd learned along the way, not from any training from somebody, but from his experience. And a lot of his trainings are real life training stuff that happens to a lot of realtors and a lot of a situation, right? So, you know other training programs, I mean, we have all these people that sells all this training, but they're not doing

Tracy Hayes  1:33:46 

they're not relatable. I think there's a lot of people out there see it all the time. They maybe they have that one year of success you're talking about now, they want to go and train people, yeah, like, okay, when

Marrissa Scott  1:33:58 

we're talking about a particular person, we're not going to name that person you know that sells,

Tracy Hayes  1:34:02 

I know several actually,

Speaker 1  1:34:04 

that

Marrissa Scott  1:34:04 

sells different training programs locally, but they're not doing business, right? How can you take their advice or their training if they're not doing business, they have to constantly,

Tracy Hayes  1:34:15 

right?

Marrissa Scott  1:34:16 

You know

Tracy Hayes  1:34:17 

is my boss is keeping your keep keeping your hand on the electric fence. And if you maybe you have a non producing broker. Well, are they staying into are they staying on top of things? You know, I know some, you know, I always mentioned Howard flash, and I think he stays on top

Marrissa Scott  1:34:33 

of things.

Tracy Hayes  1:34:34 

Yeah, your leaders over there at United sunny and and Ray stay on top of things. Always leading the way. But if you're going to be doing trainings, you've got to have some credibility of some years of doing it,

Marrissa Scott  1:34:48 

yeah, and I like doing trainings from people that are still actively like doing business, because their experience, what they're experiencing at the moment, is so fresh that that's actually something that I. Probably experience. So I want to learn from that. So I want to one of the best training I've ever went to, and I didn't go this year. I don't know if you've heard of boom town, you know it's like that, CRM lead generation, I would say the best training I've ever

Tracy Hayes  1:35:17 

brought in a keynote speaker, not

Marrissa Scott  1:35:20 

even a keynote, it's just regular real estate agents that are doing well for a long time. We're not talking about like you said, you did it one to two years, and then all of a sudden they're experts, and they can sell programs and no, not like that. So they're like, actively, still like selling real estate, and the stuff that they're doing to be different is what we need to learn. You know, I don't need to hear from someone that's, you know, that's not doing any business, because something work. They're

Speaker 1  1:35:50 

not saying it,

Tracy Hayes  1:35:50 

they're not staying in touch. They've gotten several, you know, because you can get totally behind the whole marketing of that training and all the things that you're actually

Marrissa Scott  1:35:57 

not

Tracy Hayes  1:35:58 

keeping it, updating it, make sure, or getting new stories. I mean, that's when the problem with with the book is, I started writing it, and then I like, I'd had another I'd had I've had another podcast. Like, for instance, I'll take this, this transcript, and I'm going to upload it in there, and I'm going to say, Okay, is there anything new out of this that we could add to Marissa or maybe update make her section better? Because, you know, things are the book for I could continue writing the book forever, right? But I'm almost there. I would say I'm 95% Well, the, I mean, the 95% more than 95% of getting it to the editor, that's next thing is having a line by line editor go through it and and then we will get it out. The

Marrissa Scott  1:36:37 

last thing I would say to stay 19 years, or almost 19 years, you stay connected, but in small dosage. When I say stay connected, when I say that, I meant about, you know, what's going on with the technology, you need to, you know, you can't be old fashioned and and just stay there. You know, it's we're integrating. We you need to be like following what everybody's doing. But in a in the level where you're not just consume doing that, I've seen people using their AI to do their videos of themselves. So it's very robotic, like, that's cool, but that's not you, you know. So it's

Tracy Hayes  1:37:15 

they're not paying really high dollar ones that could produce a AI video that someone can't tell the difference Exactly. It's still at a level, like, Okay, I could tell just by the tone in your voice. It's not, yeah,

Marrissa Scott  1:37:27 

yeah. So, you know, stay connected, you know, with the technology and all that stuff, be well informed about that, but in a small dosage, because it will take away that relational, you know, that I was mentioning earlier. So, yeah,

Tracy Hayes  1:37:41 

no, that. And I think the you lead into, which could be a whole nother podcast, is how there's so many flashy trinkets and things that you can do. You can get overwhelmed without actually doing the basics of, you know, the networking and being out there and actually telling people what you do on a daily basis, you can get overwhelmed and be sitting there trying to create videos, which, which. I will end this with a plug from Reed tomato. What will take from this episode and create some great blogs. Blogging is back in you can create. You can spend all this money on a videographer. I'm going to tell you, you will not get anywhere near the amount if you start blogging, because that blog is out there, and AI is looking for it, and it wants recent, current on the ground, the latest, greatest information, because that's what AI is supposed to do for you, and when, if you're that provider, you're the one who's going to be mentioned. So I appreciate you coming back on.

Marrissa Scott  1:38:39 

Thank you. It's like we're just having beer.

Tracy Hayes  1:38:42 

We will eventually get there. I've always wanted to get that. You suggested to put the girls together. Oh, yeah, four years ago, we still haven't done it, but we

Marrissa Scott  1:38:53 

still have the girls. We could put a room. I could put a room of girls together. Yeah, we may need to do it somewhere, where a pub or something.

Tracy Hayes  1:39:02 

Well, with my vision, if my vision comes together, I'll

Marrissa Scott  1:39:06 

pray I appreciate that. Yeah, thank

Tracy Hayes  1:39:10 

you. Bye.