EP 01 — Podcast Introduction

[00:00:00]
Kent Thaler: Hey, I'm Ryan. Hi. And I'm Kent. And together we're the Real Estate Navigation Team and we wanna welcome you to the very first episode of the "Real Estate: It's Not That Complicated" podcast.
Ryan Cook: So, question number one, why are we doing this, Kent? And who the hell are we?
Kent Thaler: Um, well, we're doing this because you being the real estate expert and me being the lay person. Have over the years had many conversations where I say to you, Hey, Ryan, I don't understand this. Explain it to me with regards to real estate. And you roll your eyes and then you're very polite.
I never do that 
Ryan Cook: to you. I never roll my eyes at you. 
Kent Thaler: And then you very politely and in depth using small words that I will understand. 
Ryan Cook: That's right. 
Kent Thaler: [00:01:00] Explain real estate too. I draw pictures too to me. Yeah. You have drawn pictures with little circles and arrows on them. Mm-hmm. Explain these, what seemed like complicated concepts in a way that makes them uncomplicated.
And I think that together we realized that there's a lack of a resource in the marketplace for people who are trying to understand the most important purchase that they're gonna make, at least in their life to that date, in an educated and, well-informed way. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. And it's, it was interesting. I mean, this was really your idea to start with, and Sure.
Blame me. I, well, it's not a matter of blame, so, you know, over the years, so for me, you know, I'm in year 17 as a broker. Yep. For me, like, I, I, I didn't, you'll ask some, some real estate agents, why you get into the business and they get all starry-eyed and, you know, oh, I always [00:02:00] dreamed about houses and blah.
There was never a dream of mine. Right. For me, I was an engineer for 15 years. I was an officer in the Coast Guard before that. And, my first, first, thank you for your service. I loved every minute, and if they hadn't kicked me out for medical reasons, I'd probably still be in. However, my first two real estate transactions, were absolutely horrendous.
You know, my very first home purchase was in 1999. At the time I was working for a startup company in San Jose, California. This is before Zillow, before all the online stuff. This is still the time of the real estate book. When offices had to go to the local multiple listing service office and pick up a print copy of the book.
And you got one, maybe two copies per office, and they were like gold. And other than that, the only way you found out about a property is when you're leaving the grocery store and you pick up the real estate book, the magazine that was in the rack as you were leaving the grocery store, or you picked up the newspaper [00:03:00] and looked in the classifieds.
Right. And when my wife and I were looking for our first house out there, that's what we did. And we'd have a physical map that we'd lay out on the table and we'd go through all the listings in the newspaper and we'd plot 'em out the open houses we were gonna go to that weekend because that's how it was.
There was no buyer agency at the time. There were a lack, a serious lack of disclosures that are commonplace now. And the experience itself was awful to the point where we were leaving a neighborhood we were interested in and saw a sign and said that wasn't on the list. And we went back to the classifieds in the paper, which was sitting in the backseat and it wasn't in there and not knowing anything.
I walked up to the front door and knocked on the door. 'cause I didn't know what I didn't know. And the door wasn't latched. And when I knocked on it, the door opened. And so after I checked to make sure no one was [00:04:00] there, we decided to walk through the house. And when we were done, we were like, I like this one.
Like, what do we gotta do? And again, we didn't know. We didn't know. My parents hadn't bought a house since the late seventies. My wife's parents can, can we just go back to one thing 
Kent Thaler: for a second? 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. 
Kent Thaler: You know that today you would've been caught in a ring camera and arrested, right? 
Ryan Cook: Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent.
Okay. Just checking a hundred percent. But my wife's parents hadn't bought a house since the late sixties. My older sisters, I had two older sisters, they hadn't purchased homes. My wife, the truth in 
Kent Thaler: advertising, Ryan still has two older sisters. 
Ryan Cook: They do that never changes. And, my wife's brother had bought a house, but none of our friends, none of our other siblings, none of our parents, like, we didn't have, there were no resources.
You couldn't go on online and look. And so we reached out to, my brother-in-law and he says, oh, my, my buddy Tom is an agent. He'll give you a call. And I had my giant cell phone, I clipped on my hip. Tom [00:05:00] gave us a call, asked where we were, and you can look it up, 1182 Doralee Way in San Jose, California.
And he said, he'll, he'd be there in 15 minutes. When he showed up, he got out of the car, literally slapped a contract on the front of his car and said, I recommend full price, no contingencies close in 30 days. Sign here, sign here. Now you may be listening and say, were you guys idiots? And that is what, 20, you know it's 26 years later.
You have a lot more access to information that we didn't have access to, access to at the time you, so we signed and he said, I'm gonna submit this. 15 minutes after that. Congratulations. You got the house. We had all sorts of problems with the house. 'cause there was no home inspection. There were the, there's a difference between natural gas fittings and propane fittings.
They had the wrong fittings on everything in the house. We had a burst pipe a couple of months into [00:06:00] purchasing the house because there was no pressure regulator installed in the water main, which was required by code in San Jose because they water all the public gardens. And at night when the watering isn't happening, the water pressure skyrockets and it burst at some point in the night while we were away and came home to a flooded house, when we were investigating, hired a plumber to come over, investigate why it was taking so long for water to boil.
It would take like a half an hour for water to boil. He says, oh, you got the checked and everything. And went into the crawl space below and told us, oh, you got all the wrong fittings on everything. We can change that. And oh, by the way, there's a whole bunch of termite damage under here, and we had to have our house tented so we can laugh about it now.
And I laugh about it now, but it got even worse because when we went to sell the house. I show up one day from work and there is a, my wife is sitting at the dining room table with, another woman and it's, an agent from, a company [00:07:00] and we're getting ready to list the house 'cause we wanted to move back to New England.
We'd had our first two kids out there and, that there was really no presentation. There was no nothing. But when we finally went to close, which it expired the first time, and we didn't know it expired, and we only found out that our listing expired because we started getting flooded by phone calls from everybody who basically was saying, your agent sucks.
I can sell your house. We just, we brought the same person in, dropped the price and got it sold, you know, under contract and like two weeks later. But when we went to close, they don't have closing attorneys out there. They have title companies and the title company said, Hey, you need to call and get a final payoff for your house.
And they said, all right, what do I have to do? This said. Pull up your coupon book of all your stubs with your 360 stubs for all your payments, right? And on the back of that, it's gonna be a phone number call that give them your account number and they're gonna want your social security number. And when I called and they gave me a number that was more than I had borrowed, [00:08:00] I was like, I don't understand.
I didn't borrow that much. How come I owe more? And they're like, well, you have a NegAm loan. I'm like, what's a NegAm loan? Oh, it's a negative amortization loan. What's that? Oh, that's our budget loan. I don't understand. I've been paying the amount on the coupon. We've never missed a payment. Oh, flip it over.
There's a different number on there. That's the actual full payment. You have been making full payments and you've been accruing penalties and late fees. I was like, what? There were no disclosures. So when I say that our first purchase and then sale was horrendous and it wasn't any better when we came, we moved back to Massachusetts.
So. That's how I decided when I got burned out from engineering, that I was gonna go into real estate. It wasn't, you know, so you had a cars and clothes. 
Kent Thaler: So, so, so, lemme see if I get this right. You had an absolutely horrendous experience in real estate. A hundred percent. And you said, oh, this is what I want to do.
Ryan Cook: Uh, yeah. 'cause I'd never want any, anybody to experience what I experienced. [00:09:00] That's why, 
Kent Thaler: which is, which 
Ryan Cook: is very admirable. And mind you, it's not like my wife and I were dummies both college graduates. Oh. At an engineering degree. You know how engineers are, we know everything. Right? We make no mistakes. I, every engineer I know says that.
That's right. But, but you know, at that point I was like, you know, there's a lot of things that are wrong. I continued to get advice prior to becoming licensed as a real estate agent. And the worst advice I ever got, which we'll actually talk about today, was you don't need an agent. You just need a napkin and a pen.
So I, I'll share that story later when we get there. But that's how I got into real estate. And then Kent, what exactly, like you are a lay person, you have nothing to do with real estate. I Why should people live? I, not only do I have 
Kent Thaler: nothing to do with real estate, I have bought two houses. I bought a condo and a house.
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: And that's it. Other than signing some leases to rent places, going back to college. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. 
Kent Thaler: My experience is that for the last 30 years I've been doing marketing. I've done a lot of import and export. And it's a lot of it's been consumer goods. And what I bring to the table is a natural curiosity because it drives me nuts when I see bad [00:10:00] customer service.
More importantly, when something is more complicated than it needs to be. Because inevitably, if something is more complicated than it needs to be, it is only that way. For one of two reasons. One, it's a sacred cow that nobody wants to slay. 
Ryan Cook: And I know how much you love sacred cows. 
Kent Thaler: I love sacred cows.
As a matter of fact, I, once read a book called Slaying the Sacred Cow, which one of their piece of advice was holding a, monthly sacred cow burning barbecue, which I always thought was such a great idea. The other reason, that I hate it is oftentimes things are made complicated because there's profit to be made by making it complicated.
Meaning if somebody holds themselves out as an expert and nobody, it, it, it becomes very difficult to question them and why they're doing what they're doing. And I've never really fit well into that paradigm. I. Look at those [00:11:00] situations and immediately start trying to think of ways that I would improve the situation.
And I'll ask a lot of questions and I'll say, well, why can't you do it this way? Why can't you do it this way? Why does it have to be done that way? And, in our conversations over the last, what, 20 years? 25 years? 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. 
Kent Thaler: I've probably asked that to you. I don't know. A zillion times. I mean, maybe more.
And I feel that, if you have somebody who's asking those questions of experts looking at sacred cows and wondering if they have to be so sacred, if we can't make things more efficient. And in making things more efficient, if we can make them less complicated. And what I've learned in working on this podcast with you is, uh, and what I hope to learn going forward with it, uh, is the idea that we can make real estate a lot less complicated because it's not that complicated.
It's just big. 
Ryan Cook: And there are, so many different specialties within there. Yep. That it's very [00:12:00] easy to make it complicated. But I will tell you, the internet obviously has started to change that. And then, AI has started to change that too. But I mean, you can't necessarily trust what you're getting from AI either because it's pulling internet resources and those resources could be bad, as well.
And there's a lot more to it than, and again, not trying to make it complicated, but depending on the type of property, depending on where you're located, it could be local zoning laws, it could be local bylaws, it could all sorts of stuff that. When you know, why do you work with an agent?
Well, especially if someone, you're looking at a specific area. Someone who really understands the area because they should, understand all that stuff. That's why I got my builder's license. I've built houses. I've renovated houses. One, I had worked for a builder, as a young man during the summers and I decided I wanted to get my license.
I went and did that. I built houses, renovated houses, we've purchased homes and flipped homes. I got my insurance producer's license for property and casualty 'cause I [00:13:00] didn't understand insurance and I get questions from my clients all the time and I wanted, yes, it does 
Kent Thaler: sound like Ryan is way overqualified.
Way 
Ryan Cook: overqualified. And I'm also the chair of my local zoning board. And, I've become really. Adept at understanding local towns, bylaws and zoning bylaws. And, and you know, what it means, what you, what you can do with the property, what you can't do with the property. You know, if you wanna do something that's not allowed, how do you go about it?
Is it likely to get approved? So for me, it's always been about acquiring additional information because I go, always go back to my initial purchase. I didn't know what I was doing. I trusted someone I felt I was taken advantage of, and I never want anybody to feel that way. So for me, it's always been a constant, how can I learn more and how can I better prepare my clients?
Kent Thaler: When I approached you with the idea of doing this, you were a little skeptical at first, but I think that as we've kind of started outlining the episodes [00:14:00] and started talking about, the ones that we're gonna do, it's kind of gotten to be a little exciting in that yeah, we can, we can see how we're going to bring.
Your expertise and my, skepticism, for lack of a better term, uh, towards the real estate process. The way that I presented it to you is that in every real estate transaction, there's actually three parties. There's the buyer, there's the seller, and then there's the professional.
And I don't think, well, we haven't found a resource that appeals to and attempts to explain what all three sides are doing in a, in the transactions. And that's kind of what our goal is in making the process uncomplicated or less complicated. And there's a difference between a complication and complicated.
Right. Do problems come up? Sure. That's a complication 
Ryan Cook: All the time. All the time. 
Kent Thaler: That's a complication. The process you use to [00:15:00] solve that process, that problem is what we're really. After. Right. And if we can figure out ways of helping people make that process less complicated, then we've done a great service.
And I think that buying a home becomes a little less stressful. That doesn't mean it'll ever be stress free, right? 'cause it will always be stressful. But if we can make, if we can take it from a 10 down to an eight, we've achieved a huge, you know, a goal. Or, we've given people a little more peace of mind, 
Ryan Cook: right?
I mean, buying and selling a home continually, tops list of most stressful events in your life. 
Kent Thaler: Yep. Life surpassed only by, you know, buying a boat. 
Ryan Cook: Buying a boat. You know, there's no, never a reason to buy a boat. Just have a friend who owns a boat. 
Kent Thaler: You know, the old adage, the two happiest days of a boat owner's life, [00:16:00] the day he bought it and the day he sold it.
Ryan Cook: Yeah. I have friends with boats. 
Kent Thaler: I, my, my brother-in-law's member of the Freedom Vote Club, and, I think that he's on the right path. That's all I'll say. Got it. But all joking aside, unless you're extraordinarily wealthy, you don't make a purchase bigger than your home. In the course of your life.
Even if you buy a business, it's probably not, you're probably not taking as much money out of your personal account to, to, to purchase that business as you are when you buy a home. 
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: And, you know, for the 
Ryan Cook: average person, I mean, obviously the average person, 
Kent Thaler: yes. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. There, there are, you know, businesses, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions.
But those are so rare. 
Kent Thaler: And in those cases, they're being financed by the business. Sure. Meaning you're not taking the money out of your personal account and you're not personally paying it on a note over 30 years or 15 years or whatever, you know, your mortgage is, you know, it's a [00:17:00] different world.
The thing about real estate that's so fascinating is we all have to live somewhere. We all know somebody who has bought, sold, or rented a home. Right. And we all know people who can tell us stories similar to the one that you had in California. Right. And that, you know, we recognized these problems.
And we don't necessarily know where the resource is to get information on how to solve it. Um, we don't pretend to know. I certainly don't know anything and I don't know 
Ryan Cook: everything. For me, it's a constant quest to, to learn more. 
Kent Thaler: But the purpose of the podcast over time is going to be to bring in people, to ask them questions and to build a body of work that will give people a foundation to be more informed when they're going to buy or sell [00:18:00] or, enhance the value of a property.
Because those are the only three things that you can act actively do. I guess you could actively decrease the value of a property. I don't know why you'd wanna do that. 
Ryan Cook: You certainly, but people do it all the time, but people do it all the time. If you have a mortgage, funny, funny fact, you could actually invalidate your mortgage and they could call the note due.
Yep. So what are we gonna get into? We've told everybody a little bit about ourselves. What is it we're gonna get today? I think we had talked about, you know, shooting down some myths. 
Kent Thaler: So before we get into that, the whole purpose of the podcast over the next however many episodes we're lucky enough to do is to address issues that are out there.
We're going to be constantly addressing myths and attempting to, either, prove them or disprove them. In most cases, it's going to be disprove them. Today we thought we'd come up, we, we, we'd discuss the [00:19:00] three, in our opinion, most talked about myths in real estate, and they'll lead into. Our next couple of episodes and the reason why we chose the people that we chose to be our guests.
Ryan Cook: Okay. So 
Kent Thaler: the first, the first myth that I think we really need to start with is the idea. Excuse me, I have my notes in front of me. I'll just wait for the market to crash and then I'll buy my house because, you know, I'm an expert in everything and timing the market is something I can do with my eyes closed.
Ryan Cook: Right? And that, I mean, that's not even just the housing market. People think they could do it with stocks and try to time the market. You try and time the market, you get killed. 
Kent Thaler: Unless your name is Warren Buffet. 
Ryan Cook: Listen, I always think we communicate best with stories. So I will share a story with you, that is right along the same lines.
So, as I noted earlier, I had two older sisters, and one of my sisters, had asked me to help her purchase a home. This was back in 2017. So we'd started [00:20:00] looking. She had great down payment. She'd been saving for a long time. Fantastic buyer. Her boyfriend said, prices are too high, the market's gonna crash.
Don't buy. Now, that was in 2017. We had looked at a house that was around $350,000 in Somerset, Massachusetts. It was a great house. And my sister chose to listen to her boyfriend as opposed to listen to her brother, who did this full time. And that's a choice, right? I I still love her. Not mad about it.
Kent Thaler: Her choice. You say that with, you say that so matter of factly, it's a choice. 
Ryan Cook: So 2017, find this house. $350,000. Takes her boyfriend. Long-term, long-term boyfriend's advice and says, I'm gonna wait for the market to crash that the prices are over inflated right now. Now. At the time of this recording, we're in 2025.
That [00:21:00] same house has since sold for well over $700,000. And the market since 2017 is up nearly a hundred percent. So what she did is she lost out on potential equity of she was gonna pay cash. She lost out in potential equity of about $350,000. 'cause she decided to wait because she was gonna time the market and wait for it to crash.
Kent Thaler: So it brings up, I mean, I'm sorry that happened to your sister. I think it's funny that she ignored your advice. 'cause you know, I would never ignore your advice. 
Ryan Cook: You do all the time, but that's okay. 
Kent Thaler: Yeah. But what's more fascinating about that is we all know somebody who can point to that exact circumstance.
We all know somebody who said, well, you know, I had the chance to be partners with so and so, and I didn't feel comfortable to be in the sneaker business. And so I didn't, and now that company just sold for $7 billion. We know somebody who said, you know, I, was looking at this house and I didn't buy it.
And [00:22:00] instead I bought this smaller one and the one I could have bought at, you know, at x amount or even better. 
Ryan Cook: It, it's land. Yeah. And I, this Oh, yeah. Land. I had this conversation with one of my cousins two weeks ago, and he was saying, yo, my dad used to tell us all the time, all this land available in town and never bought any of the land.
And now that land, I mean, if they would, if he would've just bought the land at the time Yep. It would, we worked millions. But, you know, just never pulled the trigger on it. 
Kent Thaler: Amazing to me how shortsighted we all are because the numbers are so big when it comes to real estate, right?
Again, you're tying up capital. What people don't understand about real estate is that it's, there's a finite amount of it God's not making anymore, 
Ryan Cook: except in Hawaii 
Kent Thaler: or in, off of Hong Kong and Au Island. Oh. Where Disney decided to fill in the bay and make it and put a theme park in an airport. But other than that, we're not making any more land.
[00:23:00] And we sit there and we save our money right at say in a bank at, we're excited to get 5% and had we invested that money in land with the idea that we weren't gonna need it right over long term. Right. The return is far greater than 5% over 20, 30, 40 years. 
Ryan Cook: But, here's the larger point about that is that we're hearing the same, it amuses me how folks never learned their lesson here in 2025.
We're here and we've been hearing that same argument for a while now. I'm gonna wait for the market to crash. I'm gonna wait for interest rates to come down. I'm going to wait. And in the meantime, even though prices are elevated in the market right now, we've still seen year over year. Granted 2019, 2020 2021, we saw a historic growth, [00:24:00] 20%, 15% crazy growth on a year over year basis.
But we're still seeing, you know, historically, we would see the markets. Prices, the market prices on homes rise somewhere between two and 4% on an annual basis. Historically, were there years that it didn't, or slightly negative of course, but on an average basis, generally rose somewhere between two and 4%.
We're still seeing the market increasing, at least in, in our neck of the woods, in, in New England, 7%, 8% per year. And, and it's the only way that changes. People will say, well, it's gonna crash, it's gonna be just like 2007. No, it's not the difference. Great. The difference between the two markets was in 2007, interest rates were somewhere between six and 7%, which they are now.
Right. And there was a glut of inventory, but prices were still going up. We don't have a glut of [00:25:00] inventory. 
Kent Thaler: So can we talk a little bit about, the CIR circumstances now end in 2007. My argument would be that the 2007, um, that, that the, that the correction that happened in 2007, if you look at it historically, you're only talking about at most 10%.
Right. And by 2009, it was wiped out. So, so you, you're, you, you're not talking about you, you have to be in a 50 year event horizon, you've gotta be precise to pick the one time that there was a market correction that was noticeable. And even in that market correction of 10%, it wasn't across the board.
Right. So, did they have a 10% decrease in Newport, Rhode Island? Probably not. Certainly not on the water. Was there one in Woonsocket, Rhode Island? Probably. I mean, nobody wants to live there now. Why would that have been any different? And so you, [00:26:00] you what what ends up happening is, is that we, we get these ideas in our head because we read about them in mass media instead of understanding that real estate is all local and supply and demand, you know, the supply and demand in Las Vegas is very different than the supply and demand in Portland, Maine.
And yet USA today, who everybody is reading, or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Right. The national newspapers, or if they're reading online, national news, purveyors like, you know, CNN or Fox or whatever, they're giving you a snapshot. And they're giving you a general trend. They're not talking specifically about the market that you are in.
Ryan Cook: Yeah, and I actually write about this a lot when I put out my newsletter to my clients and share information with the agents in my office is, my favorite thing to do is pick a national article and tear it apart using our numbers out of our local multiple listing service to show again, real estate's [00:27:00] local, you know, they're giving a national perspective on everything that's going on.
I mean, right now we're seeing prices decline in Texas and we're seeing prices decline in Florida. We are not seeing prices decline in the greater Boston area or in the greater Providence area. So real estate's local understanding that is gonna be key, but it's also, you had mentioned about the event horizon.
Yep. Unless you're planning on purchasing a home and selling it in the next year or two, you really shouldn't be so worried. I mean, if you got an area where. The industry in the area. Let, let's pick the Rust Belt, portions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, et cetera. That really got, trashed. When the, what was the, what was that bill?
That Bill Clinton had pushed nafta. Yep. Yeah. When nafta, and listen, my father was in manufacturing and in Fall River, Massachusetts, and that factory went away. And when they signed nafta, you know, looking at those areas that had been [00:28:00] prosperous and now all those jobs are going away, obviously you have to pay attention to that stuff.
'cause again, that's gonna be local. However, over the long term, real estate continues to go up and you have to, it's a matter of not just interest rates, it's a matter of affordability in the area. It's a matter of inventory. It's driven more by inventory than anything else. And obviously we don't have ton of, a ton of free land close to Boston.
You start moving further west. Towards Worcester and Springfield and the Berkshires in Massachusetts, obviously there's more land available and people are moving out that way. But there also have to be jobs available. Same thing in parts of Rhode Island or, you know, any other state in the nation, right?
There are gonna be areas around metropolitan areas where land is scarce, and as you start to move out to the suburbs and further out, land is more plentiful. Prices are, totally different than being in a large metropolitan area. So you really gotta look at where you're buying and, the circumstances around that.
But the reality is your event horizon typically is you're not looking unless you're an investor. And investor has a [00:29:00] different goal. An investor has a goal of returning a profit. When you're purchasing a home for yourself, the goal isn't to turn a profit, it's to have a place to live. And the benefit is you're gaining equity that you're gonna, you know, maybe use for a purchase later on, on the line.
Kent Thaler: I wanna, um. Reword that slightly. The benefit is a forced savings account. A lot of people don't think of it that way, but what owning a piece of property really is, is a forced long-term savings account. Because that equity that you're building is money that you're paying to yourself in your mortgage.
Mm-hmm. Right? You're not paying somebody else's mortgage. Meaning when you rent a piece of pro, when you rent something from someone, you're paying their mortgage. You're allowing them to build equity because again, it's only a finite amount of land. Right. And instead of them having to come up with the money to pay for that piece of land, you are.
And so that money is gone never to be retrieved by you. However, every payment you make on your mortgage comes back to you in the end, in inequity. [00:30:00] So it's a savings account. And even with the interest rate that you're paying. In my particular case, in the house that I'm sitting in right now, I'm paying 2.9%.
Right. Um, I'm making more money because the rise in equity of the house from the day that I bought it versus the day that I will eventually sell it, that will be far greater than the amount of interest that I'm gonna pay for. Right. And it'll be far greater than the amount of interest I would've earned if I had left that money in the bank earning money.
Ryan Cook: Right. And that mortgage pay and that mortgage payment is right now is, is less than what you would pay to rent someplace significantly and not build equity 
Kent Thaler: significantly less. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. 
Kent Thaler: You know, and Ryan's been to my house. I have a nice house. I mean, it's not a great house. I mean, it's not, you know, it's, it's not 12,000 square feet with two indoor pools.
Right. 
Ryan Cook: It, it's not a mansion, it's a comfortable raised ranch. Yep. That you guys have taken care of over time and you've upgraded, you've [00:31:00] refinished your kitchen and, and your bathrooms and stuff like that. Stuff that, uh. That you're going to do to your house over the course of time, but you're also gonna receive a return on that over time as well.
Yep. 
Kent Thaler: He left out my hammock in the backyard. But yeah, I mean, all of those things are, that's negotiable. It is not, 
Ryan Cook: um, 
Kent Thaler: I don't understand why anybody would buy the house without the camera. That's just me. But all joking aside, I don't think that people quite understand what they're buying when they buy a house.
Right. You eloquently put it, another time you said to me, you're not buying a house. You're buying the land and you're deciding to put an improvement on that land that you're going to live in. And I thought that that was a very eloquent and elegant way of explaining what it is you're actually buying.
Ryan Cook: I am making a note just on something you had mentioned. Sorry. 
Kent Thaler: Yep. And so I thought that that was both eloquent and elegant in that, it explains what you're doing in a way that very few people think of, right? Nobody thinks that they're [00:32:00] buying land and that the house is an improvement on the land, and therefore it gives the land more value.
But that's exactly what you're doing, right? It's not a whole lot different than buying land and putting up a, I don't know, an a, a nightclub or a department store or whatever, right? 
Ryan Cook: Except that your home there are more potential people interested in purchasing at a later date than any of those other correct example.
Correct? 
Kent Thaler: Correct. 
Ryan Cook: Because in the end, everybody needs a place to live. You're either going to rent or you're going to own. And which side of the ledger would you prefer to be on? 
Kent Thaler: Um, I prefer to own, right? I've tried renting and, there were too many rules. 
Ryan Cook: And it does not mean that owning doesn't have its own challenges.
Correct. However, you have to have a long-term scope. You have to have long-term vision. You can't be worrying about, well, what's the market gonna do in the next six months, next year and a half, next three years? If you're setting down some sort of roots and owning a property, as a primary home, [00:33:00] you gotta be thinking longer term and that's when working with an agent who understands the area, they're gonna help you.
If you don't know area, if you're new to the area, if you already know an area, you know, finding someone that is gonna help you, fill in all the stuff that you don't know, you know, you don't know what you don't know. As I found out early, in my real estate, purchasing with my first home out there in California.
And then moving on to the second thing we wanted to cover today, the myth of I'll save money by not having a buyer's agent. What do you think of that advice, Ken? 
Kent Thaler: I think it's just silly. And the reason why I think it's silly is because the seller's agent, the listing agent is not working for you.
They're working for the seller. So the idea that you don't have somebody representing your interest and who understands everything you're supposed to look for, means that you are gonna miss a ton of things that [00:34:00] the seller is not necessarily going to be out there promoting. Think of it, think of it from a marketing perspective, right?
If I'm trying to sell a product, let's say that I'm trying to sell this, right? I'm not gonna tell you any of the negatives that come with that. Like you have to plug it in, like you need a really long cord or that, it can break if you drop it from a high distance. I'm not gonna emphasize those points.
If you go in and you don't ask those questions, right, and you use it in a way that may come into those complications, you're gonna feel that you didn't get your money's worth and that it was not rep, and that the property, or in that case, the product was not represented correctly. Right?
When in reality, you could have brought an expert with you who would've asked those questions. And in the case of buying real estate, the expert protects your [00:35:00] interests on both the negotiation side. And the inspection side. 
Ryan Cook: Uh, and should be, I means that and should be. Yeah. That is, that is the agent's job, right?
That's the buyer's 
Kent Thaler: agent's job. 
Ryan Cook: The buyer's agent's job. Yeah. You know, the, and here's another thing that a lot of buyers don't understand. They'll think that, well, they can get themselves a better deal. A lot of this unfortunately, or, or not necessarily unfortunately, just a, it's a fact of the matter. Some of it's cultural.
I, there are plenty of cultures, especially that I've dealt with around here that will come in and they want to negotiate their own deal. It's a cultural thing. They're used to negotiating, like they go to the market and prices are a suggestion. Everything is, is up for negotiation. Right. Everything.
Yeah. I mean, and, and your trips around the world and your marketing, career and dealing with import and expert. You, you've been all over the far east. Are prices set out there when you go to market? 
Kent Thaler: So my favorite story to tell about that is there is, a bridge that connects. The new territories of Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, goes over the river.
I forget the name of the river. I wanna say it's the Yellow River, but it's not. Um, [00:36:00] and anyways, that bridge, it's called the Loo Crossing. And when you get over the bridge and you come through customs, right to the right of the customs is a 11 story mall, right? Anybody who's been to this mall certainly understands what I'm about to say.
And you walk into the mall and there's 11 floors of, stalls. They're not shops, but they're not booths, they're stalls and they, everything, they have, every product you can possibly imagine and everything is negotiable. Even though it's in communist China, it is one of the last true bastions of capitalism left in the world, this particular mall.
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: Because I've never seen two people get the same price for the same item. It just, it's, and it's wild negotiating in there. Right. That's very different than when I walk into, Copley Plaza, where nothing's negotiable. 
Ryan Cook: Nothing is negotiable. You know, the price 
Kent Thaler: is the, the price is the price of it.
You know, I was at Shaw's this [00:37:00] morning buying groceries, nothing was negotiable. Even if I found a piece of bruised fruit, I couldn't go up to the manager and say, Hey, it's listed for a dollar. I'll give you 50 cents for it. He would've taken it and he would've said, no, no, no.
I'll throw it out. Thank you. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. It's so, but the reason I brought that up is that folks will come in and they think they can negotiate a better deal for themselves. One, they, the, the, the listing agent that they're dealing with represents the seller. And has a fiduciary responsibility to represent the seller's best interest, and that is to get them the highest price with the best terms.
So one you're already at, you're already behind the eight ball because the agent you think you're negotiating with isn't negotiating with you. They're negotiating on behalf of their client. The second part is, you know, it's my, one of my favorite misnomers is that buyer thinks they can negotiate the agent's compensation.
That agent's compensation is contractual between the agent and the client, which is the seller. The buyer is [00:38:00] not a party to that contract and has no say, there is no room for negotiation in there. It is contractually bound between, the listing agent and the seller. 
Kent Thaler: So we've all seen a television show where the buyer says, you know.
I need you to come down $20,000. So if your agent is willing to take, 10,000 less, and you take 10,000 less, that's where it comes from. Right? He, what you're saying is he's negotiating that fee for the seller's agent. And, a good agent will say, no thank you.
We'll find somebody else to buy the property. 
Ryan Cook: Right. I mean, the agent has a lot of sway over the seller. And not to say that they're pulling the strings, that's certainly not the case, but they need to go and then present that offer required by law. But part of that is the seller is really looking for input.
I mean, you as the agent, our fiduciary, and one of the things I tell my clients this all the time, there are more to contractual terms than just [00:39:00] price. There are a lot of terms involved there. And one of the things that folks don't understand is this party going to be difficult to work with?
And that is certainly a part of the equation. So it's not just a matter of them trying to negotiate terms, that's also telling the seller that these folks may, they may wanna negotiate everything. And it could be difficult, and I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be, I'm not saying it will be, but sometimes perception matters.
Kent Thaler: You know, it's interesting that you word it that way because from my perspective, one of the things that I would look at is this concept that the seller's agent is financially responsible for making sure, or, for this sale being done honorably, for lack of a better term. Meaning if I move into the house and I find out that something [00:40:00] wasn't disclosed 
Ryan Cook: mm-hmm.
Kent Thaler: And I go back to Sue, not only am I suing the original owner, I'm also selling the, I'm suing the sales agent, 
Ryan Cook: The sales agent and the brokerage Correct. And 
Kent Thaler: correct. And so you have a respon, a fiduciary responsibility to your brokerage. Mm-hmm. And to your client, right? To make sure that everything is on the up and up.
So if the buyer is coming in and he's trying to negotiate your fee, he's not taking into account the risk that you are taking as being a party to this sale. And, you know, too often people don't understand what the role of each of the people in the closing is, or each of the people in the transaction, what they have to do from, they, they don't, you know, you'll hear people say, well, we, we waived the inspection.
Okay. I, I know that if I were gonna, I know that if I were going to sell a house I'd want the inspection waived, right? Mm-hmm. But if I were gonna buy a house, [00:41:00] because my good friend Ryan Cook would kill me if I ever said, we're gonna waive the inspection. Doesn't matter how hot the market is, we're not going to waive their inspection.
But having an inspection doesn't necessarily mean that I'm expecting the seller to fix everything. It just means that it's all gonna be disclosed. It means that I then can make a better informed decision about this monumental transaction that I'm about to make. 
Ryan Cook: So you bring up an interesting point, disclosure.
There are certainly obligations for disclosure, but they vary by state. So when I'm operating in Rhode Island, for example, Rhode Island, it is a, it is required by law that the seller provide a seller's disclosure statement. And there is a Rhode Island Association of Realtors. MLS form that is seller's disclosure.
Massachusetts does not have that same law. Massachusetts is a buyer beware state. The seller has an obligation to disclose items that could negatively impact [00:42:00] a potential buyer's decision to move forward with a property. But they don't have the same requirements of disclosure that Rhode Island has,
and it, you gotta investigate whatever state you're in. That may be the case. Your disclosure laws may be different, but it's also, I've heard many times the bylaw will say, look, well, I'll just have, we're Attorney States, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We close with attorneys. A lot of other states, don't they, they close with title companies, but, and here the attorneys are the title representatives, at least in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
And they'll say, well, I'll just hire my own attorney. Great. Is that attorney go on our showings with you? Is that attorney walking through the house with you? Is that attorney gonna No. And quite frankly, my experience as attorneys are terrible negotiators outside of the ones doing, defense litigation in court, or negotiating contracts for professional athletes.
But beyond that, my experience is the attorneys are terrible negotiators and you really don't want them involved. 
Kent Thaler: So, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna correct that for a second. Okay. I don't know whether they're good or bad negotiators. Right. What I will say is [00:43:00] that they're not focused on doing real estate negotiation as a primary, focus of their business.
And therefore, how they do it and how a real estate professional would do it, who does it every day, is very different. And oftentimes we make the mistake of thinking, well, because somebody is good at X, they're gonna be good at y, right? How many professional athletes do you know who opened A restaurant that failed?
A lot. Is that Roger Clemens chicken, franchise still still down the street? I forgot about that one. You know, I mean, I'm just, I I'm just pointing these things out. Right? But you know, it, I've been in, in Ozzie Smith's bar in St. Louis. But how many of 'em do it? How many, how many people do you know who were really successful in one business and they open up a second business and they struggle.
Ryan Cook: Right? I mean, I know a lot. I mean, success doesn't necessarily translate from one to the other. 
Kent Thaler: I'm not saying that, that the one thing that does translate in, in often [00:44:00] is organization. Right. But that doesn't mean that, that you understand the market. It just means that, you know, how to color code folders and, we, we often.
In what makes the real estate transaction so complicated or what people do to make it complicated is they don't take a step back and get the right help. Right. So we're talking about whether or not you should hire a buyer's agent. I emphatically believe in buyer's agents. I believed in 'EM before the NAR, national Association of Realtor settlement in Missouri.
Right. And we'll talk at length about the NAR settlement, in future podcasts. But you know, buyer's agents have a value and intrinsically they have a value, but more importantly, to differentiate themselves from listing agents they need to perform services for the buyer that the buyer can't do on their own or wouldn't expect to, or [00:45:00] wouldn't even ask to.
Ryan Cook: The old you don't know what you don't know. 
Kent Thaler: Right. And it might be as simple as the buyer's agent having a device that allows them to know where the property line is between two houses. 
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: It might be them knowing that the setback for a garage, it needs to be 15 feet and you're looking at the house and you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna build a garage.
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: And they're able to tell you, yeah, no, you're not, it's not gonna work. 
Ryan Cook: Or, well, a good agent, I mean, listen, there are, there isn't standardized training across the industry. It's very easy to get a license, so I wanna make sure it's really clear. And it's not to put anybody down. Different agents with different skills, different levels of interest in forming themselves.
Some agents are just salespeople. They wanna get people in and get 'em out and get contracts, and there's a place for that. Then there are agents who are real tacticians, [00:46:00] who are experts on different things or have enough knowledge and enough connections to get you in touch with the experts to help fill in the blanks, or know the right questions to ask or run into enough situations and have enough experience on how to deal with challenges.
'cause the challenges come up. And one of the biggest challenges when an agent, a buyer is unrepresented, is they don't really understand what the contract is. I mean, I love it when a buyer or a seller says they don't wanna hire an attorney, at least in my area, could be different in other, another, uh, states in the country when they, oh, I don't wanna pay the money for an attorney.
I can look over the contract or, when I see agents saying the same thing, I mean, we can't practice law unless you have a law license. It's foolish, you know, Pennywise and pound foolish. I see it a lot. But it is my job and I represent the seller, and I see a buyer doing that, and they're unrepresented.
I do not have an obligation [00:47:00] to tell them, you're being Pennywise and pound foolish. They're like, okay, you don't wanna get an attorney? No problem. Move it forward and I'm gonna make sure my client is taken care of. 
Kent Thaler: Again, they treat spending $600,000 the same way that they treat spending $20,000 on,
a new car. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah, I was gonna say a car. Go and find a new car for $20,000. Okay, 
Kent Thaler: fine. Yeah. A used car, right? They treat buying a $600,000 piece of real estate the same way that they treat, you know, spending 150, 
Ryan Cook: $3,000 vacation. 
Kent Thaler: Well, I was gonna say $150 on a new phone. When they walk in and they have to sign a contract.
Yeah. Right. With two year, with two years of, of guaranteed, you know, monthly service. Mm. Right. And, and you know, who, who's ever sat there and read a user agreement? I only know one person. I only know one person. And actually we're gonna do a podcast with him, someday soon. Right. But other than that, I [00:48:00] don't know anybody who's ever sat down and read a service agreement.
Well, it's one thing to do that when I've got $150 on the line and a $30 monthly payment, it's quite another thing when I'm gonna put up, I don't know, it, it, $70,000 is a down payment, and then I'm gonna pay $2,000 a month for 30 years to own a piece of property. I wanna be represented by somebody who's an expert who, or, let me put it a different way.
The uncomplicated way of doing it is I wanna be represented by somebody who I can sue. 
Ryan Cook: That is an interesting way of putting it. 
Kent Thaler: Me meaning if there's a problem down the line 
Ryan Cook: that you can point a finger at someone. 
Kent Thaler: I wanna be able to hold an it's no different. No, you bring up a really interesting point.
Hold on, hold on one second. It's no different than the reason why I hire a plumber to come in and do plumbing in my house. Right. I am the grands, I, excuse me, my uncle, I is a licensed plumber. One of my cousins is a licensed plumber. I, [00:49:00] they, they, I am perfectly capable of doing basic plumbing in my house.
I will not do it because if there is a leak and I have to go to an insurance company and we have to have a discussion over who installed it, I want there to be a plumber's license number on file so that I can sue that person for incorrectly installing that toilet or that sink. 
Ryan Cook: And my point, I was gonna say, as you bring up an interesting point is that there's always risk.
There's never a time with a zero risk. Correct. And you always have a choice. You can share that risk with someone. You can basically self-insure and take all that risk on yourself. Why would you take all the risk on yourself? You wanna bring in other parties who are going to decrease your risk and actually take some of the liability off of your plate.
Kent Thaler: But Ryan, it'll save me money. I don't need to pay an attorney who's just gonna sign some papers. Well, the fact [00:50:00] of the matter is, instead of saying Pennywise empower foolish, it's, we're back to the event horizon. Right? If all I've ever done previously is sign my name on a lease and do a month to month lease, or one year lease, right.
Um, then. My understanding of what could possibly happen in 20 years is nonexistent.
And so I need to be able to have some, at least me, I need to have some se uh, security assuredness. Right? That there's somebody else who's at least thought about the 30 year question and who can guarantee my inv or, or who is willing to warranty, not guarantee, but warranty my investment.
And that's what having a buyer's agent does, and that's what having a proper closing attorney does. Right. At the, at the, at, you know, in the transaction. It, it warranties and gives me peace of mind that the decision I've [00:51:00] made, I didn't make in a vacuum. 
Ryan Cook: And 
Kent Thaler: That risk is now, as you said, being shared by others.
Ryan Cook: Sure. Now, when it comes down to this, we said there's a lot of terms involved, more than just price. But when it comes down to price, again, the third myth that we wanted to tackle in this initial episode was, but Zillow said, my house is worth. So whether it be that seller who's saying that, or a buyer who says, well, I looked it up on Zillow, and Zillow says it's worth, 
Kent Thaler: well, no, no.
So, so here's the answer. Okay. When Zillow writes you a check for that house, they were right. That's how much it was worth. 
Ryan Cook: Hey, I'll even go further and say, do you remember when Zillow was in the business of trying to buy property? They had Zillow offers. 
Kent Thaler: Oh, I get it. Zillow offers, 
Ryan Cook: it's a pun. No, but they, they really did.
Were you aware? 
Kent Thaler: I was not. Okay. I did not know that, that, but that could be more because one, I'm not in the real estate business. And two, if I remember correctly, that [00:52:00] was more out west. That wasn't back east. 
Ryan Cook: No, they never made it out this way. Correct. There was a lot, lot happened in the Phoenix area, uh, et cetera, but they started getting into the home buying business.
The fact that you haven't heard of it is because that business folded, uh, I wonder why, uh, because they were using their own algorithms to figure out what the prices were and what they could turn around and sell it for, and they got crushed. 
Kent Thaler: Yeah. When we take humans out of the equation, it's very difficult to account for emotion.
And I don't mean emotion, meaning, oh my God, I can't believe that you're gonna sell my house for this. I mean the emotion of, oh my God, did you look at that view? You know how much I would pay for that view? Do you know how much I would pay to be, not in a flight path or how much I would pay to be in the flight path
or this close to the airport or Right. It's the emotion of what's [00:53:00] unique to me. Right? But what might be common to you, and that's what those algorithms can't take into account. And so what happens is, is they, they look at things as straight numbers. It's, it's kind of like, in baseball, right?
Well, a .320 is better than a, than a .290 hitter. So do you know the difference between a .320 hitter and a .290 hitter? 
Ryan Cook: I bet we're gonna 
Kent Thaler: find out over the course. So over the course of a thousand at bats. It's 30 hits. The average hitter, right? The average player has 500 of bats in a year.
So now we're talking about 15 hits, right? There's 12, I'm sorry. There's, 16 weeks in the baseball season. Four months, right? It goes, from April till September, right? Playoffs start in September. So you have April, may, June, July, August, five months, right? So over the course of five months, there are 20 weeks.[00:54:00] 
So you're talking about 3/4 of a hit a week. Is the difference between a .320 hitter and a .290 hitter, or the difference between a .290 and a .260 hitter, right? And yet, you know, we, the algorithm says, well, your house should be worth $485,271. You sure it's not worth $273,000? It doesn't know because it doesn't, it, there's no way of quantifying what happens when I walk in and I see that there's a fishable stream behind my house, 
Ryan Cook: but it it, beyond that, I mean that, that the streams can be nebulous, but you get in and it doesn't know that you have, five and a quarter inch grade a clear maple floors versus carpet.
It doesn't know that it has a brand new kitchen, made from three quarter inch plywood boxes [00:55:00] with solid maple finishes versus, melamine, which is MDF wrapped in PVC. It doesn't understand those granite or quartz versus laminate counters. It doesn't understand a lot. It doesn't understand all the other finishing details in the house.
It doesn't understand the piece of land where you're saying this one has a fishable stream in the backyard. It just, it just sees a total acreage. So they're plugging that stuff into an algorithm and it's spitting out a value. And it's also basing it on houses within a radius, within a specific radius.
Well, you could have, there's always, you go to any municipality in the country and there's always a section of town that we'll say is upper crust, and there's a section of town that is not upper crust. Right. And you, if you don't know the area. It's just a house, right? It's a house to plug into an algorithm.
And I don't know why [00:56:00] that house sold for $230,000 and this one in this, you know, three blocks away sold for $650,000. 'cause they're pretty similar square footage wise. So they don't understand. It doesn't see that stuff, it doesn't understand that stuff. It doesn't understand the work you've done on the interior.
It doesn't understand the thing work you've done on the exterior. It doesn't understand the piece of land you're on. It doesn't understand which school district it's in. It doesn't understand all sorts of things. It's just an algorithm that crunches numbers. 
Kent Thaler: Yeah. And so what ends up happening is that it's a tool, right?
But it's no more than a tool. And the problem is everybody, everybody looks at, um, it as a be all to end. Well, not everybody. There are people who look at it as a be all to end all. Instead of as just another tool in the toolbox. No different than, a screwdriver does a different thing than a hammer, but they're both called tools.
Right? And [00:57:00] so, you know, what Zillow does is it gives you a reference. It doesn't give you a definitive. So if it says, well, we think that that house is worth $600,000, right? The fact is, is that your emotion as we've been discussing, is a better indicator of whether it's worth $650,000 or $550,000, right? It does give you a statistical reference so that you don't have to necessarily go and pull the last 30 comp sales in the neighborhood, right?
And there's a value to that, and I'm all for that. But what drives me crazy is when somebody says, you know, Zillow says, my house is worth this. Okay, let's Zillow write you a check. Otherwise, we'll find out how much your house is worth when it actually sells. 
Ryan Cook: Right. We've seen a trend recently, part of the National Association of Realtors settlement, that we're it changed a lot of the rules of the multiple listing services, the multiple listing services [00:58:00] part of your contract.
So we, as individual producers, you sign an agreement with the multiple listing service that most of the time, within 24 hours of signing a listing contract, it will be in the multiple listing service. So part of that has gone away and you're seeing more brokers trying to have exclusive listings that they don't put in the multiple listing service only on their website.
So getting access to good data and understanding what's going on in the market. And opening up a sale to as many people as possible is going to provide you as a seller the highest probability. It's not a hundred percent probability. It doesn't mean that having a private listing isn't going to get that best price and best terms, it's just not as likely to get the best price and best terms.
And it's same thing when it comes to the buyer. Just because you're looking at resources online doesn't mean that they're gonna be close. And again, I, I bring it all back. It's not always just about [00:59:00] price. There are all sorts of terms involved in real estate transaction. They're all negotiable. And when you don't do it for a living, and I'll give you a prime example.
I had my first couple of purchases, I had explained, you know, at the beginning of the show how bad they were. And I did receive advice, on my third home purchase, from a friend who said, you're a smart guy. You've purchased a couple of homes. You don't need an agent, you just need a napkin and a pen.
This was before you had really had Zillow and other tools out there to help. So I really put myself at a disadvantage, and really did not negotiate a good deal for myself. It doesn't mean it wasn't smart, doesn't mean that I didn't do research. It doesn't mean that I, I bought houses before, so it didn't mean I didn't understand the process.
But the problem is, is I didn't have someone who was an expert focus on that. My work at the time was focused on what I was working on, for the company I was working on, for the type of engineering I was doing. That's what my focus on [01:00:00] was on. It was not on being an expert at understanding the purchase of a home pricing negotiation, et cetera.
And quite frankly, I didn't do a good job. And it was because I was at a disadvantage. I was not in a position to negotiate for myself because it's not what I did for a living. It wasn't my focus. 
Kent Thaler: We're back to what's unique to me is common to you. Right? Right. And, and so, you know, I don't go to a mechanic to fix my car.
Who says, well, you know, I'm really good at fixing lawnmower engines. I could probably do this one. How much different is it? I don't know. You know, instead I go to a guy who's a SC certified, or in my case, who's Nissan certified. Right. And, you know, you, you do this because there's a certain comfort involved.
And you know, when people say real buying and selling real estate is complicated. [01:01:00] Right. I wanna emphatically state that if you have the right tools, just like any other job, if you have the right resources, it's not that complicated. Right. And what happens is, is that people have made it more complicated
they've done it, one to enrich themselves. Right. Well, have you taken a look at a real estate contract? It's very complicated. You need an a lawyer to understand it. You don't need a lawyer to understand it. You need a lawyer to sign to put it together, not to understand it, but to be liable in case you have to sue somebody.
Ryan Cook: Right. You you're bringing it back to that. 
Kent Thaler: Well, but that's what it is. You know, I had a friend who, um, uh, his father was, the vice president of, I forget the exact title. He was vice president of operations at a, small, liberal arts college. Right. But if you asked him what his title was, [01:02:00] he would say, my title is Vice President in Charge of Going to Jail.
When the school gets sued, I'm the one who's on the line because I signed all the contracts. Right? And, there's something to be said for that. There's something to be said for being able to hold somebody accountable, right? For the things that you don't necessarily know and that you have to trust in the system.
And so if I don't use that lawyer now, I have that risk am I capable of reading a contract and understanding it? I certainly am. I'm fairly well educated. I'll put my education up against almost anybody's, right? Am, am, am I logical? Do I understand things? Sure. Right? But do I do it every day?
Can I certify it? Can I tell you this is good for you? Nevermind what's good for me? No. But I can point to the person who you need. You know, I, in my regular business, people have asked me for years. When, [01:03:00] when I approach them, my bus, one of the things I do in my business is I match American companies with, overseas suppliers, right?
And somebody will say to me, well, you know, are you an expert in X industry? And I'll, and I say, I'm an expert in no industries, except one, I'm an expert in finding somebody who can build your product. And I'm an expert in negotiating with that person to get it to you for a fair price. And I'm an go expert at getting them to deliver that product at that fair price.
And we can get it into the country. But if you ask me, you know, am I an expert in understanding how it was put together No the process that they're using, no. Right. Well, that's the same thing with real estate, right? As a lay person, as a consumer, right? I shouldn't be expected to understand how a deed works.
I. Heck, I'm not even sure I know what a deed is, and yes, I know we'll do an entire episode on it. Right? Uh, I as an, as a, as [01:04:00] a, uh, as a lay person, I don't know the difference between, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FHA and Ginnie Mae and VA loans, right? I don't know the difference between a jumbo mortgage, a balloon mortgage, a standard 30 year mortgage, right?
I don't know the difference between an encumbered property and an unencumbered property. I don't know these things, right? I don't know what a clear deed is versus a non-clear deed. I just know I want a clear deed, right? I don't know what an easement is. Well, I do know what an easement is, only because you've told me, but, I wouldn't know what one is unless I asked.
And who would I ask? I'd ask you. Mm-hmm. Right? And, and, and the important thing is. The real estate, it's not that complicated podcast. Our goal is to be able to give people the resources to be able to ask the right to answer the questions that they have and to show them that it's not that complicated if you break it down [01:05:00] into smaller pieces.
And focus on what we're gonna do or what you need to do. 
Ryan Cook: Right. And part of that is bring in, you know, the right members of your team. 
Kent Thaler: Yep. If you were sitting there and you were gonna buy backyard furniture, you don't need to hire a buyer's agent. But backyard furniture, maybe it cost me a thousand dollars.
Right. I know somebody who spent $20,000 on their backyard furniture, but I don't know anybody who spent $700,000 on their backyard furniture. I'm sure that person's out there. But I'll bet you this, I bet you that they didn't walk into a store and say, okay, I want $700,000 worth of backyard furniture.
I bet you that they went to a professional, a landscape architecture architect. A interior designer, right? And that person said, you know what? In this space, I imagine it's going to look like this, and we need this particular piece of furniture for it. Right? And [01:06:00] that's effectively what a buyer's agent or a listing agent, if you're looking to sell your house, does.
Ryan Cook: Yeah. Because when you're hiring that agent, you're actually hiring the team that they've built up, over the years they've been doing it for a while. They're going to have a team of professionals who they've worked with, more than once, uh, hopefully, uh, who is gonna make the process easy and who are experts in handling those things that you don't know, you don't know, but you need to have somebody know, to make sure that.
Everything moves smoothly in that, you know, you bring up a good point a couple times and there's someone that you can redirect stuff and go point it over there. That was that guy I hired that guy, or that gal was in charge of that. Um, and that was essentially, that was sort of a slap in the face when you said that, but that was a real clear reality is that that really is what we're doing.
We, we as agents, the attorneys involved, the title [01:07:00] companies involved. Even the mortgage insurance companies. The mortgage, mortgage, everyone's originator taking on, everyone's taking on liability. They have both federal regulations to follow, state regulations to follow. They could have, board regulations to follow for their license if they have to be a member of a certain organization.
You know, you are bringing in someone who's supposed to be an expert in helping you fill in those little details when you're making a very massive purchase. I mean, most folks obviously take the ultra wealthy out. They play by different rules, and have earned that, right? But for the average person, even someone making $200,000, $300,000, $500,000 a year, they're just buying a more expensive house.
But they got the same challenges to deal with. Absolutely. And they really need to bring in, someone who's going to help not just guide them through it, not just negotiate through it. But as I'm saying, it really hit home who's gonna take on that liability for you and be a party who's responsible if [01:08:00] something goes wrong.
Kent Thaler: You know, as we kind of wrap up this conversation and, say to people, this is where we're going with the podcast. Is it bringing in and showing, breaking the process up into smaller and smaller parts so that it's more, 
Ryan Cook: understandable, relatable? Yeah, 
Kent Thaler: I, I was gonna say, um, uh, the term I wanted, I understandable, is a good one, but, I can't think of the word all of a sudden.
Um, uh, relatable, no, relatable isn't the right word. It'll come to me probably in my sleep tonight. Um, uh, but the, their ability to achieve their end goal, becomes greater and easier when they have experts working on the parts that they don't necessarily understand. And that's really the purpose of the podcast.
Right. And so, you know, going forward, we hope to be able to answer a ton of questions. Um, if you ever wanna ask a question, feel free to, you know, post it. Uh, post it below, this conversation. Add the comments or with our email [01:09:00] address, you can do, either Kent or Ryan, at re nav team.com.
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: One or the other of us would be happy to answer your questions for you. 
Ryan Cook: Yeah. [email protected] will not work, but [email protected], or [email protected]. 
Kent Thaler: You can reach out, through, direct message and socials, um, will have more information about that as we launch and, and get those channels, uh, working going forward.
But they're gonna be, um, Ari Nav team is gonna, at Ari Nav team on all the major socials. It's what we're planning on doing. We already have those names, by the way, so it's more than a plan. Yeah. But, uh, you know, we, we look forward to going on this journey with you and we look forward to, you know, helping as many people as we possibly can and making this process fun because buying a house should be fun.
It shouldn't be torturous. Um, and, and I don't mean fun, like the same thing as going into a bouncy house, 
Ryan Cook: but exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. It shouldn't feel like torture. It shouldn't feel like you're getting raked over the coals. It shouldn't Correct. Feel like you're being taken for a ride, like all the whatever.
Pick your favorite cliché That's not what it should be. It should be exciting. It should be hopeful. [01:10:00] You should feel confident in what you're doing. You should feel confident in the people you've surrounded yourself with. And what we're trying to do is help fill in those gaps. 'cause I've been on plenty of those national forums and you read stuff and a lot of people commenting aren't licensed.
You get the bad advice or they're licensed someplace else. And the advice they're giving. Makes no sense for my location, right? And, and people think that all real estate is the same no matter where you are, and it's not. Some things are, part of the process is the same. Maybe the types of players involved, depending on the state you're in, but who you surround yourself with matters understand the process a little bit better.
So you can ask intelligent questions and not just rely blindly on things you're reading on a message board or what your, you know, uncle Joe who last bought a house 30 years ago is gonna tell you. That's what we want to be able to share with you and, [01:11:00] really help you be a better consumer, more knowledgeable, so that you can protect yourself and surround yourself with the right people.
Kent Thaler: Right. So to that end, we thank you very much for listening to the inaugural episode of, real estate. It's not that complicated, the podcast. And we look forward to coming back with our next episode. We have a pretty exciting guest lined up. Um, 
Ryan Cook: yep. My friend, my friend Cherie, who is a certified residential specialist.
Yep. Uh, with, uh, Keller Williams Realty. Uh, and I'm not with Keller Williams Realty, uh, I just like surrounding myself with good people. Uh, one will be interesting and we're gonna focus on, the responsibilities and jobs of a buyer's agent. 
Kent Thaler: What, what's interesting about Cherie and, what we hope to talk about is that, we're hoping early on to be able to give an overview of what the buying experience is like and how you can avoid making some, mistakes that are costly, that are avoidable.
Ryan Cook: Mm-hmm. 
Kent Thaler: And most [01:12:00] importantly, make the process less stressful, and less complicated. 
Ryan Cook: Less complicated, less complicated. 
Kent Thaler: That's the big thing. Anyways, thank you again for listening. Until next time, 
Ryan Cook: we'll see you soon.