Episode 353 - Short Cuts with Joe Rand, Author and National Speaker - July 2019

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This is another Shortcuts episode where I visit a guest from a previous episode, catch up on what they're doing all with 3 or 4 questions very quick and get their take on some of today's hot topics.

everybody.

Welcome to episode 353 of the real estate sessions podcast.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in.

Thank you so much for telling our friend.

As you heard in the intro, at This is another shortcuts episode where I'm interviewing somebody from the past.

This is somebody who who has logged more hours on this podcast than anyone other than me.

That should if you're a listener, you know what I'm talking about already.

This is gonna be Joe Rand.

Joe is doing some really cool stuff.

I can't wait to ask him the 4 questions, see where he's at in his life.

Let's get this thing started.

Joe Rand, it feels like it's been, I don't know, 2 months since we talked last.

It feels like 5 minutes ago, Bill.

It feels like as soon as I talk to you, it's like we fall back into the same rhythm.

Yeah.

I know we're doing a straight podcast.

We're gonna answer some real questions.

about real issues.

Right.

But I just can't help but harken back to the summer 2 years ago when we did those dumb Randy and raving episodes with me answering listener questions, spontaneously, no no prep at all, and having a lot of fun with it.

And, like, for some reason now, this is not the way I normally talk, Bill.

This is only the way I talk to you.

on the podcast.

I have a normal voice, but I'm falling into my rambling and raving vocal pattern where I repeat your name, Bill, every 30 seconds.

and just keep going.

But I'm excited to be back.

First of all, my last three episodes have been real estate rewind sessions.

This is what I do when I'm vacationing.

I I've just gotta take a break, and I ran 3 of the randing and rravings.

So that was pretty fun.

I saw that.

I was very I was I was honored that those made the rewind.

They were good enough for the rewinds.

I'm sure they confused the heck out of people who didn't hear them the first time.

Like, what exactly is this?

And I'm answering questions about the horse sized ducks, and I'm answering questions about stealing melons or mangoes from supermarkets and whatnot.

Giving people my own specific taste of morality, which is very skewed to against the sort of the traditional conceptions of morality.

So that's I'm very honored by that.

I'm really it's very nice of you to rerun those.

and, hopefully, you'll get a chance to listen to them because they are kinda fun.

Yeah.

There is a subset.

I've got them categorized on the podcast where they and on over, do a search for ranting and raving.

You pull up all 20 episodes.

We did too many of those.

Oh my god.

20.

Wow.

Hey.

Do you know if it was March of 2019 for your very first appearance on the the real estate sessions?

Now you're kinda like, I don't know, who who was on the tonight show the most?

Oh, yeah.

I'm, like, Don Rickel's.

Don Rickel,

probably that's the best that's the one of the best analogies that Don Rickel's when he would come on, like, as a fill in when somebody would back out.

I have no idea who backed out on you, Bill.

Oh, it's like 20 minutes before we called, and you're like, Hey, Joe.

Can you do a fill in?

Like, I wasn't able to get, you know, Robert Rifkin backed out on me, so I need somebody at the last minute.

just come in and and just dabble on for a few minutes.

But, yeah, I remember and you know what I remember very distinctly about my first appearance, and it was my first experience.

It was the first time we met.

We had not met or or anything.

It was our literally, the first experience we ever had engaging with each other was on your podcast

4

years ago.

And the reason you asked me on was because a woman by the name of Melanie Cache Canadian realtor had mentioned my book, like, in an episode.

Yep.

And then you said, I have to I have to bring this guy on because she was very, very complimentary.

And I still remember it's one of the nicest things, you know, her her little dialogue about reading the book and how it affected her was really one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me.

It's not a I gotta be honest.

The list of nice things people have said about me relatively short.

It's not a it's not a it's not a high bar.

It's not a very heavy competition.

but it is one of the nicest things anyway that were said with Melanie shared on the podcast.

And then you had me on, and then we had fun, and then we decided to do the branding in ravings, and then it you know, we're now buddies.

We see each other at conferences and have meals together and things like that.

It's great.

still need to share a tea time.

We'll work that out, and it'll be up in your it'll be up your way.

That'll be the best part about it.

Great.

Look.

So, yeah, the the way that the shortcuts work, I call this the real estate shortcuts.

It's me revisiting someone that I had interviewed for that first time a while ago.

So We're gonna go for I want you to kind of forget about randing and raving for a little bit.

Yeah.

And -- Sure.

-- and there's simple four questions.

First question, since we last talked, Right?

Which is March of 2019.

So there's that 4 year time span.

Yeah.

What is the most exciting thing to happen to you?

Wow.

Professionally or personally or both?

You you you get Yeah.

The The person I can't talk about because, you know, it's a it's a, you know, it's a little it's a little penthouse for me, bill.

Oh, yeah.

Why don't

we let's not first go.

Can't touch me with that one?

That's I never thought this would happen to me type big bill.

Yeah.

That's the most exciting thing.

But the most ex I would listen.

I don't think I could could answer that question from a professional perspective and not talk about the fact that back in fall of

2020,

the real estate company that I've worked at for 25 years and my mother founded back in the early eighties that we took on equity partner in Howard Hanna, and I sold some of my interest in the company, which freed me up from the day to day.

I don't work day to day with the company anymore the way I did back in 2019.

I now do a lot more speaking at events and paid keynotes, and I do consulting for MLS's, and I do their strategic planning meetings and things like that.

I do a lot of that.

It's also freed me of time that I'm now the I'm gonna be the next mayor of NIOSH, New York.

I'm right now the deputy mayor And I'm I'm up for I'm I'm running for mayor.

No one is running against me.

So I'm unopposed for mayor.

Would it possible I think about

-- Is it possible to lose still?

I'm just curious.

Yes.

It is absolutely I'm absolutely confident.

People all keep they're all calling me there, and I'm like, listen.

I give myself out a 70% chance of winning since I'm running unopposed.

Like, there could easily be a writing campaign that could take me out, Bill.

So I don't take anything for granted.

But you know what?

It it you know, doing the deal with the Hannes, who've been wonderful people.

They've been great to us.

They've been great to work with.

They've been great for the company.

I really think the world of them, and it's really freed me up to do some things that I've always wanted to do.

I've always wanted to kind of get back to the community and through public service, which I'm doing now.

It's giving me opportunity to do a lot more traveling to speak and things like that.

So that's probably the most exciting thing.

I mean, you know, when you when you when you sell part of a company that you've been building for 25 years, that's definitely one of the most exciting things that happens over 3 or 4 year period without question.

I'll tell you.

That's awesome.

Number 2, it now we all know anyone who knows you knows that you are a freak for Fantasy Football.

I mean -- Oh.

-- on a level that is I mean, like, king of freak.

It's it's -- This For those

for those who don't

know this part at all, I'll quickly share this that he Joe creates every Sunday, a spreadsheet that has 8 different leagues he's in, and it's got all his rosters.

And who he's playing against for 8 different 8 different team or leagues he's in, and then he He he has a deal with his wife and children that -- Yeah.

-- this is my alone time from 1 to 9 or basically whatever that is.

No.

it's only 1 to 5.

It sounds like 12:45 to, like,

4:30.

Oh, okay.

Good.

But I

watched the begin I I kinda lead into the games at 1 o'clock, and then I I have to be able to watch the end of the games and allow them bleed into 4 o'clock hours.

So He's

got multiple screens set up.

He's got a every every he pays for every streaming service out there to find anything.

He's he's like a lifetime red zone platinum member.

I mean, I mean --

That's right, guys.

It's expensive at it.

It's got expensive, obviously.

But but I you told me something in in this year.

Where you said, you actually watched an entire Yankees game.

Oh, well, alright.

Let's let yes.

I did.

I did.

And and let's let me just let me give a little background to you.

Sure.

Because, frankly, you're description of my fantasy football addiction

--

Uh-huh.

--

is is only slightly less embarrassing than my Penthouse form letter that I was gonna tell you about in the first question.

So, like, the fact that you've given people all this information about me that this is, you know, this is a weakness.

This is it's not quite gambling, and I don't really gamble.

Yeah.

I, you know, I put a cup I you know, I probably over the course of the season, we'll spend 500, 600 bucks on entry fees for leagues.

And that pretty much sat every week.

I I I play a lot of with friends.

I've you know, we had a league once me and you with some industry people.

We gave the money to to charity.

Yep.

And So it's mostly just fun.

It gives me a reason to watch the games and whatnot.

I have a good time with it.

And like I said, my wife is very forgiving.

as you would have to think.

She's very forgiving and very patient woman of the patience of a saint.

And so she gives me this, like, little block of time I generally will watch the evening games, and I'll watch, like, the afternoon.

I'll watch that about Sunday afternoon.

I gotta be locked in because there's, like, 8 or 9 games going on, though.

Sure.

So, like, it gotta be you know, I can watch the Monday night game and just have it on

--

Yeah.

--

while I'm cooking dinner and stuff.

But, like, the Sunday, 1 o'clock, I gotta be I gotta be focused.

I have to send out my my, you know, my my met mental, you know, control over chance events that I had.

Right.

You

know, I find the luckiest spot on the couch.

You really believe you can make a difference.

I love that, Adi.

That's awesome.

How I make some difference?

Listen, I I will use the same pen.

If I have a good week writing on my little grid, and I have a good week I save that pen.

I use it next week.

I don't I don't bring out some new pen.

You gotta have a tried and true pen.

Alright.

So the point is I love football.

But I will tell you, Bill, I got my start with the Fantasy Sports with baseball.

Mhmm.

20 something years ago, and I played baseball first.

And for, like, 4, 5 years, it was only baseball.

Then it was baseball and football.

But I love baseball.

I am a baseball fan and through.

I've been a baseball fan.

My whole life, except about 4 or 5 years ago, I lost interest in the financing game because it became complicated.

There's just too many games going on, too many different people are making changes.

I mean, the thing about football is it's you know, basically, you set your line up.

You're done.

Yeah.

Baseball, there was, like, line of changes every day.

You're in a baseball league.

We know that goes by the original rotisserie rules that go back, like, 40 years for the original 19 8 -- 19 8.

-- you just -- 19 8.

-- you gotta spray.

Yeah.

You who want each other.

Yes.

We do.

And you gotta, like you have to you make daily changes.

It's very complicated.

that's not a hobby anymore.

That's like a job, and I didn't like having a job, another job doing Fantasy baseball.

So stop doing Fantasy baseball, and that led to me kinda losing my day to day interest in baseball.

But I perked up, Bill.

We talked a lot in Randy Raving about, like, my lack of interest in baseball.

That has changed this last year or so.

I've got a little more into it.

I took my son to a game.

He's 12.

For the first time, we saw a game back in April.

and we went to Yankee Stadium, and we watched the whole game.

And he he we got good seats on the first base line and Anthony Rizzo tossing at the end of the warm ups, tossing the ball to this to the kids in the stands.

My son got one of those balls, He will never forget it's one of his great experiences.

Wow.

And and I think the kid that he beat up to get the ball, I it's gonna be fine.

I think that's gonna be okay.

Good luck.

I mean -- No.

--

when they were reeling him out, he looked like he was gonna give his thumbs up.

Your son has good legal counsel.

He'll be fine.

You gotta learn.

Don't get between my kid in the baseball.

And I'm actually going again in August, I just got some tickets in at an auction at a charity thing to see the yanks versus You ready for this?

The race.

Tampa Bay double race.

I'm flying up.

I'm flying up, Nick.

Yeah.

I can think of it.

If you flop you flop I'll take it.

You you wanna be my second ticket.

I'll take you the game on our it's it's in August.

I'll let you know the date.

I'll let you know the date.

But, yeah, I'm more than

-- I have a busy August, but I am going

to -- -- ticket

I'm going to DC to see the nationals.

My son, I'd admin in the national stadium.

Be awesome if it was the day after that, but we'll talk.

Well, we'll talk.

You just can't wear that that hat you wear.

He's and you can't see him right now, audience.

It won't.

He's wearing his Tampa Bay hat.

You wear that hattegaiki Stadium.

I can't I can't I can't protect your bill.

I can't I can't vouch for your safety.

I will never no matter what who how hard I read for a team.

I'll never where my team's gear into another stadium.

I only because I grew up in San Diego where everybody came to the Padres game where It's

respectful, Bill.

It's disrespectful.

Disrespectful.

Yeah.

It's also there's there's a whole story behind them.

We'll we'll save that for another

I love baseball, and I will tell you this, Bill.

What did I say 2 years ago about baseball that they had to do?

That and I got

taught to watch it.

Feed it up, and then sped it up, Bill.

a base -- --

set it up.

It's the games are not coming in at 2 a half hours, which is a very reasonable period of time that commit to a baseball game.

Yep.

And I can't believe they never did it.

I can't believe that now they've done it, it's been I I mean, I I never thought it'd be as successful with little pitch count thing they're doing to shorten that game.

But it really is.

Like, it may from, like, 40, 40 minutes or so, they cut out of the average game, and that's a lot of time of staring at a guy just sort of adjusting himself on the mound.

Yeah.

It's it's the it's the best thing ever.

I'm glad the shift is gone.

I don't care about the size of the base.

That's kinda weird.

And I love seeing the stolen base come back into the game.

It's a big deal now with

the -- It really is.

I think -- You know what?

I -- Good.

--

I thought I would hate it, but I like the extra inning rule where they start a player on second base.

I know you're purists.

You're not gonna like that.

you know what, Bill?

Hey.

You know what, Yolanda?

Truth.

I was talking to my brother about the other day when you agreed.

They should start every inning with a player.

It's 10 days.

What is this?

People.

I mean -- Let's get some action.

Let's get some action going.

Yeah.

Put that pressure and picture under pressure right from the get go.

Happy hitting.

with every score.

It's gonna

be it's gonna be double digit scores every kid.

You're gonna lose you know what happens there?

You're gonna lose your you're gonna you're gonna get back the time.

games gonna take a little longer.

They'll take a little longer.

There'll be a lot more scoring.

No one ever no one who leaves a 12 10 game and says, ah, boy, that again, there's just so much scoring.

I got so boring to see them Constantly scoring runs.

Now nobody says that.

Nobody they don't.

Alright.

Question -- That's question 2.

That's question to the question number 3.

What's next for the Rams?

We've talked a lot about your family.

What's next?

It depends on the

rant.

You know?

My brother Greg is now I'm not sure what his title is.

He's, like, super senior VP, regional something, for works in anywhere.

My brother Greg, who works with the company with me for a long time.

Let's start a company sold it.

and then, you know, got tempted back into the business.

And the Hannas were gracious enough to allow him to take this role on with anywhere, and he's killing me.

He's running their affiliates, and he's running or their lead gen business.

I just saw him because I was speaking in Charlotte.

He lives near Charlotte.

We had lunched together, and he was telling me all about these.

he's loving, and he's gonna he he really loves working in any way.

He's having a great time.

So that's him.

My mom is retired.

My brothers, Dan and Matt, work in the real estate company, Howard Hanna Rand Realty.

And I they're doing a really great job, and I think they've got a great should ban us.

So what's going on with them going forward is they continue to run that company.

They still have a lot of ownership more than me in the company now.

So They have every interest in trying to build that up.

You know, they sold a little bit.

And the idea is you sell a little bit, and then you earn it back as you make the company bigger and more profitable, and then you you just keep making you know, you keep keep keep churning it, and they're doing a great job.

My my brother Matt is a brilliant manager.

My brother Dan runs the affiliates, and he does a great job.

He's a incredible recruiter and and very brash and dynamic young man.

He's not younger than me.

He's eighteen years younger than me, so I'm an old man.

He's, like, in his thirties.

And and he's he's doing they they're both killing it.

So they're doing great.

I think that we'll continue to run Howard Hanarand Realty for extended future.

It's a good business, and we have good partners in the Hamas.

And I think they'll just keep going on on.

And as for me, I will keep I'll do what I'm doing.

I'm gonna keep doing working with consulting and strategic planning for MLS's and associations and speaking to agents.

And I think I'm gonna try to formalize, get my get myself out there a little bit more doing some specific types of training.

I've I've done some training recently virtually that's gone really well, and I'm sort of thinking about trying to find ways to do more cool training for groups of agents because I could do it relatively, you know, affordably for the agent, then still with scale you know, be have it be successful for me to keep my, you know, keep my my kids in in Yankee t shirts and stuff.

Awesome.

Final question.

Right?

We're gonna take it really back to the real estate space now.

So -- Okay.

-- what has your attention in the world of real estate right now?

What is something you're really paying attention to?

I'm paying a lot of attention now to the lawsuits and the commission lawsuits.

I think they've they've they've become a bigger factor in our consciousness over the last year or 2.

I mean, they're getting more serious.

The that the the plaintiffs were the class action was certified, and then the appeal was denied to uncertify it.

And so it's it's looking like a very serious thing.

And, you know, if you I will say this.

If you read our friend, Rob Han, and I love Rob to death, if you read him, you will you will jump off a cliff because he is very very pessimistic about what could happen to the industry.

I I'm not that pessimistic.

I sort of feel like You know, he keeps making us he keeps when I talk to him, he says things like, well, this is what happens to the tobacco industry.

I'm like, yeah, the tobacco industry had a product that killed people and they lied about it.

Like, that's not what we're we did as real estate brokers.

Real estate brokers, we we basically said, hey.

Let's had this thing where we all exchange our information, and we make offers of compensation to each other, and that incentivizes us all to work together and creates this open fluid market, which is good for consumers.

And this is yeah.

This is how NAR tells us to do it.

This is the way we've always done This is no one's ever complained, and now all of a sudden, they're like, well, we're gonna we want

$8,000,000,000,000

of damages from you for doing this.

And it it just strikes me because I just can't see that playing out that way.

It just seems unfathomable to me that they would drive an entire entire industry that employs millions of people very productively in society and a market a real estate market that runs very effectively, very fluidly, and and houses sell for for market prices, and all these things work very well Yeah.

That they're gonna throw all that out and and give a lot of money to lawyers.

Because this is one of those lawsuits.

I mean, Bill, let's be honest.

is one of those lawsuits where at the end of the day, everybody that sold the house in the last 30 years is gonna get a postcard that says, hey.

if you go online and fill up this form, you can get $14 -- Right.

--

in in damages, and the lawyers get, like, 1,000,000,000 of dollars.

But, like, every individual, Houma.

You've had though you ever get those postcards?

Oh, yes.

Yes.

Did you ever buy this blender?

You can

fill up this postcard.

You can get $8 back in your blender.

It's like, I mean, we really wanna take the time to follow-up.

I don't I don't need

$8

that bad.

Right.

The so, like, I think it's all I I I just can't believe that's gonna happen that way, but I does have my attention.

And the way I've been approaching it, I've been I have a talk I've done for some organizations.

is I think what no matter what, agents need to articulate their value to buyers better.

We don't do it very well.

Part of it is the fact that buyer agency is still relatively new.

It's, like, thirty or forty years old.

When seller agency was thirty or forty years old, we did have a particularly good seller value proposition.

We still took open listings.

We still took exclusive agency listings, you know, back in the sixties seventies, 30 or 40 years after they'd mentioned a seller agency.

So know, it's still we don't we don't have it really well thought out as to what our value is.

And we gotta do a better job of that.

We gotta articulate the value.

And I think The the analogy I'll use, I'm not gonna go too deep into it.

But agents don't like showing how hard it is to their clients.

They don't like showing their work.

They don't like making it seem hard because they don't want their clients to get scared.

Like, they're worried the client is, like, if they think if they realize how expensive it our hardest to buy a house, they're not gonna never gonna buy anything.

Right.

So the agent does all this work, like, a duck across the gliding through the water, and it looks like it's effortless, and then the duck is paddling furiously underneath.

the agent does a lot of work that the client never sees.

Right.

And we can't do that anymore.

We gotta show all that work.

You know?

I'm working with a not with a a startup that's creating an app that will track all your activities.

And so, you know, at the end of a deal, you can, like, almost create, like, a billing statement of, like, here's all the hours I spent and all the money I spent working for you, the gas I used, you know, the this, the time I spent traveling to showings, you know, things like that.

And it's a really cool app.

It it it's it's it's getting beta tested right now by a bunch of teams on the West Coast.

that, like, it does the kind of thing where, like, if you walk into a house that's for sale, it knows you're in a house for sale, and it'd give you a little pop up and say, hey.

You're at 123 Ridgeway.

It's listed for sale.

Why are you here?

And you'll have a couple choices.

You know, click here for I'm showing.

Click here for I'm previewing.

Click here for minutes.

Whatever.

Yeah.

Click in.

Okay.

Which client are you working with?

and you need to pull a drop down of your client.

So you don't have to, like, manually enter anything.

It kinda prompts you, but it is attracts what you do.

That ever know.

That ever note note I made for an agent once that wanted to track everything.

It was a a to do list of all the stuff they had to do.

And he would check it off and put the date next to it when he did it, and he shared that note to his client.

This is 15 years ago.

Yeah.

And that's and and nobody does that, but it's a great practice.

I mean, when when I was a lawyer, I would have to track my time every 6 minutes of the day.

I had to track and bill it to a particular client.

So every hour, I had to it was broken up into 10 little increment, 10, 6 minute increments every hour.

Not most times that I work a whole hour for a client, but, like, sometimes you'd have to, like, oh, I get a phone call in the middle.

You guys mark the time and stuff like that.

That I don't think any agent needs to do that, but I think the agents need to say, you know, I spent 4 hours, you know, looking online for a house for you.

I should track that time and tell you that.

It's been 4 hours.

Yeah.

You know?

We don't do that well enough.

And I think the point is that if worse comes to worse and seller paid buyer agency goes away, well, then we now at least have built up the skills and practices to start saying to buyers, well, the seller's not paying me anymore, so you need to pay me, and here's why you're gonna pay me because all the value I bring to you But even if that doesn't happen and we still this current system continues on, it's still great practice to be able to save your your buyers and also your sellers.

Here are all the things I did for you.

Let me explain what the value I bring to your transaction is because that's how, you know, we we should do a better job of that.

We should it creates it makes clients happier.

We want clients to be happy.

Joe, once again, another spectacular episode.

I really wanna tell you about the thing I never thought would happen.

No.

No.

No.

No.

But I yeah.

Just

yeah.

Maybe Rister after dark.

Am I right?

--

after dark.

Like, late night late night shenanigans.

The quiet

storm with Bill Riser.

It's always a pleasure, Bill.

Thank you for having me on.

It's I'm honored to be with you.

You let me know about that race game because I'm

sure -- Yeah.

That's Yeah.

We'll we'll chat.

That'll be great.

Joe, once again, always a pleasure.

Really an honor talking to you.

You I I know you make fun of what people think about you,

but you're one of the most well respected

dudes in the business and I love having you on the show.

So thanks for doing this again.

It's my pleasure, my friend.

You be well.