State law requires real estate agents to give the consumer a meaningful explanation of agency when the conversation turns substantive. But what is a "meaningful explanation"? Is your agency explanation something that is understandable and does it rise to the standard of being meaningful? If it does not contain these 7 key words then chances are it probably does not. In this podcast learn what you need to include in your explanation of agency for it to be meaningful and legal.
Also in the episode I will give you a Cliff Notes version of what is going on with the #FreeBritney movement and another episode of Gary's Good News Only!
Enjoy
Gary
Gary serves on the South Carolina Real Estate Commission as a Commissioner. The opinions expressed herein are his opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the SC Real Estate Commission. This podcast is not to be considered legal advice. Please consult an attorney in your jurisdiction for applicable legal advice germane to your issue.
State law requires real estate agents to give the consumer a meaningful explanation of agency when the conversation turns substantive. But what is a "meaningful explanation"? Is your agency explanation something that is understandable and does it rise to the standard of being meaningful? If it does not contain these 7 key words then chances are it probably does not. In this podcast learn what you need to include in your explanation of agency for it to be meaningful and legal.
Also in the episode I will give you a Cliff Notes version of what is going on with the #FreeBritney movement and another episode of Gary's Good News Only!
Enjoy
Gary
Gary serves on the South Carolina Real Estate Commission as a Commissioner. The opinions expressed herein are his opinions and are not necessarily the opinions of the SC Real Estate Commission. This podcast is not to be considered legal advice. Please consult an attorney in your jurisdiction for applicable legal advice germane to your issue.
Dirt with Gary Becker in South Carolina's only podcast dedicated to the real estate agents correct. Hey, Greetings, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of deshon dirt I am your often irreverent and opinionated, but rarely wrong host, Gary Pickering coming from Blair Cato in beautiful downtown Columbia, South Carolina. So today's topic is the only topic that has been on anybody's mind for the last 12 months. Now, I'm not talking about COVID. I'm talking about free Brit. Say. Of course, we're talking about Britney Spears. Actually, there's only going to be a small part of our show today. But you always are supposed to lead off with your juiciest stuff right. Now, before we get into all that is Brittany, let's talk about this week's episode, section 4057 360 of the South County code of laws discusses when and what you must do and explaining agency to your consumers. Now we're going to delve into this statue over the next couple of weeks. And we're going to learn what you need to say and when you need to say it when it comes to agency. Then in my quick take today, I'm going to give you the cliff note version on all that is Brittany. And I know some of you really don't care about Brittany, quite frankly, I don't either, but at least as someone is going to ask you about it or mentions it to you or you see a stupid post on Facebook about it, you'll know what they're talking about. And finally, we'll end up as always with Gary's Good News oming. So let's go ahead and get started today. As I have mentioned before, I've represented well over 50 real estate agents before the real estate commission for grievances. Now that I'm on the real estate commission, I'm unable to represent agents. But I've been able to take all that experience. I've learned from that to help you with this topic. When a grievance is filed. And an investigation begins. One of the documents that the investigator can ask for and often does ask for is that proof of agency, even if you are aggrieved upon a matter completely unrelated to agency, if in that investigation, they determine that you did not follow the agency rules and regulations in the law as it pertains to agency, that whole matter can turn on that issue and now be an issue of agency. And in fact, I have represented a client who was grieved for an unrelated matter involving an air conditioner unit, which he ultimately was proved that he did not do anything incorrectly or improper when it came to that air conditioner unit. But at the end of the day, he wound up getting in trouble because when the investigator began the case, they asked for the agency documents. And it was established that he did not gain agency nor explain agency at the appropriate time. And therefore he wound up getting a grievance section 4057 360. The code requires multiple tasks of a real estate agent that must be completed by you before you can provide Client Services. And remember the client services, we're really concerned about our advising, advocating and counseling. And so we're going to discuss these services over the next few shows of dish and dark. Now some of these other we're going to talk about include what is first practical opportunity, what does it mean to have substantive or substantive contract? If you're from Spartanburg like myself, disclosure of broker relationships, when do you do that? How do you do it? What are your duties in the contract to denote receipt relationship of agency? Is there a presumption of agency and if so, what is it? And how do you handle agency when dealing with contacts through electronic means, but today, what we're going to start with is what is a meaningful explanation of agency and how to develop a better meaningful explanation of agency when you're talking to your consumers. Because under the law, you are required to provide a meaningful explanation of agency to your consumer, when the conversation turns substantive regarding one's financial needs, or one's abilities to buy or one's desires or whatever they're looking for, and the purchase of real estate or sell of real estate. So when that conversation turns substantive, which we'll deal out delve in more later, you must provide a meaningful explanation of agency. So what is a meaningful explanation of agencies? First, I believe that most agents struggle with a meaningful explanation of agency. And I believe the reason they do so is because they truly have no plan in mind, when it comes to explaining agency, once they meet the consumer. And they know they have to go through agency, they funnel through it, they do the best they can, but they have never really sat down and planned it or outlined how they're going to explain agency to a consumer. I think a lot of them have just never thought it through, never thought it out. Others have but they've never really taken the time to decide if what they're saying is in fact, a meaningful explanation. Now we all practice listing agreements, in the trade of trying to get people to sign listing agreements, all the time agents go to webinars, they go to seminars, I travel all over the country to learn how to get more people to sign listing agreements and how to get them signed and how what language you're supposed to use and what your sales pitches. But rarely, rarely does a real estate agent spend equal time on trying to figure out how to get buyers to sign and quite frankly, I think using agency and explaining agency is a very meaningful tool in getting more buyers and sellers to sign up with you. And a lot of agents struggle with that and say it's where I lose most of my clients. I have them ready to sign I sit down I started talking to about agency and they decide they just don't want to commit to me. And the next thing I know of Walston, to another agent. So today, when I give you the seven key words, they're going to help you explain agency and help you have a very meaningful explanation of agency. These words are perfect words, not only for following the law, but they're also perfect word for marketing, because it's going to separate you from everybody else. And it's going to show you what again and your client What a great agent you are. And I have taught this, these terms all over, say to South Carolina for 10 or 15 years now, and I've yet to have a real estate agent come back to me and say, that did not work for me. In fact, some of the biggest agents in our market have always credited me saying that these seven words are in fact how I do my explanation of agency. And I rarely, if ever, don't get a client to sign. So I believe that if you'll trust me and use these seven words, in your explanation of agency, I believe you will be very successful history has shown that, and I'll have to give credit to these words in a few minutes to the actual person who actually came up with this formula. What it talks about when we talk about a meaningful explanation of agency, what are we talking about what is meaningful? Well, first of all, a meaningful explanation of agency must be correct. So you need to make sure that you truly understand agency before you explain agency, and if you don't understand agency, I don't know how you can explain it. So make sure that you go back and review the information when you became an agent as to what agency was and how it worked. If you are renewing your license this year, then you should have taken the class of the mandatory continuing education class that included a section on agency and so you should be able to understand agency if you do not get with a seasoned veteran agent and ask them to help you understand it get with your broker in charge, or you can always call our call me and we'll be happy to sit down and go over agency with you. So the first point of meaningful explanation of agency is it must be correct. Secondly, it must be easy to understand. If you use jargon, and acronyms and things of that nature, your client might not understand. We tend to forget in our industry that not everybody knows what a frog is or what a closing is or what a fizbo is, because those are terms that we use all the time that the consumer may not know. So you have to make sure that your explore explanation is easy to understand and is correct. What I would recommend you do is sit down with pen in hand and a piece of paper and write down whatever it is your explanation of agency is make it thorough cover every single base. After you write it down, read it make sure it does truly present a correct interpretation of what agency is and is easy to understand. And then you need to memorize it, and then practice it on a friend. After you explain it to your friend, ask your friend Do you truly understand what I'm saying? If you don't understand why they don't understand what you're saying, then you desperately need to start over and try to come up with a different explanation of agency. Remember, if your family and friends have no clue what you're talking about, when you explain agency, it's likely that your consumer has the same misunderstanding. Now I'm going to give you an outline of how the explanation of agency should be done. I am not going to give you the word for word as to an explanation agency because agency needs to be done in your own words. It needs to be how you speak. And if I was to sit down and write out a paragraph or two on agency and said here it is. And you memorize that as soon as your clients asked you what did you mean by or how does this work? You're not going to be able to understand it because it's not in your words. You need to write this agency explanation in your words, and how you speak so that you can answer all of those questions. The seven words I'm going to give you are phenomenal words and explaining agency. And I'm going to give 100% of the credit to the of these words to RUTH MARCUS RUTH MARCUS was a trainer at the former real estate agency Russell and Jeff coat, which was here in Columbia, South Carolina. It has since been bought out by Coldwell Banker. And when RUTH MARCUS was an educator, she was one of the best, absolutely one of the best. And I sat through many of her classes as a lawyer trying to understand more about real estate many, many years ago. And these are the seven words that RUTH MARCUS says you must always use when you explain agency. So I'm gonna give you the seven words and then I'm going to talk about each of those words. So the first word is law, la w law, the second one is disclosed. Next we have choice, we have representation. Fifth is relationship six is writing and seven is protection. So let me give those words to you again, wall disclose choice, representation, relationship, writing, and protection. All right, let me talk about each one of these words law. I am going to open up any explanation I have of agency with my consumer by talking about wall and so it's an easy transition to go from small talk into what you have to cover. Because once they start talking about what they want to buy, why they want to buy it how much they can afford to pay. All you're going to do is interrupt and say to what john before you tell me what kind of house you're looking for, for your family. I am required by law. Now why we say that? Because real estate agents are as trusted as lawyers and used car salesman, which isn't very trusted at all. And so because the consumer doesn't trust you, the most important thing in sales, as you've always learned or should have learned is trust, until you can establish trust with your consumer, you're going to have a very hard time getting your client signed. And so what you need to do is establish trust what establishes trust more than telling the consumer at the very beginning, before they say anything to you that I'm required by law to do so. Once you do that, you have set this bar very high for yourself. And you have separated yourself from all the other agents who have not done this. So an agent that has taught how to do this years ago, told me the first time she did this speech, that she was competing with three or four other agents. And when she finished that first statement, I'm required by wall to the consumer stopped her and said, you're required by law. She goes, Yeah, she goes with the other agents. And she goes, yes, yes, well, none of them went over this. So she got the client. So it's a very important word, very powerful word, not saying a word we have is disclosed. Why is that an important word, people love to be disclosed information. They don't want to be told anything. People don't like to be told what to do. But they love to have things disclosed to them. So the second word is disclosed, I am required by law to disclose to you, agency. Very powerful. People like to hear my mate what's being disclosed, it's almost like it's a secret, like you've got important information, you are sharing that information. Third word choice, people love to have choices. That's why when you go into firehouse subs, they have a coke machine in there that will give you 6184 different varieties of coke cola. If you go to Europe, you don't get these kind of choices. When I go when I went to Europe, you had Coke, Coke, light and Sprite. And that's about it, maybe fantasy. But here in the United States, everybody wants 60 million choices of breakfast cereals, and Coca Cola is a new name. So choice is important to human beings. Typically Americans, I am required by law to disclose to you agency at the end of my presentation, you will have the choice, you put the power in the consumers hands, all you're giving them a choice, but you're giving them the power to make the choice. Now representation and relationship kind of go together. Everybody wants to have somebody representing them. That's why all these athletes and celebrity have people holding their phones, they add agents, they got people, everybody wants to have people. Secondly, relationships, everybody wants to be in a relationship. That's why we have Christian mingle and and all these other different types of dating apps, that you swipe left and swipe or I don't even know what they're called. But anyway, we have all those because people want to be relationship. So I am required by law to disclose to you agency. At the end of my presentation, you will have the choice as to the level of representation, and what type of relationship you and I are going to enter into. Sounds pretty good so far, right? Lastly, you're going to finish up with the word writing, we are going to put whatever you decide whatever you choose into writing. And we're going to do that for your protection. While those two words, well, because you're required by law to put it in writing, first of all, and you can't get paid unless you have agency in writing. But in writing tells a consumer I've done this by law, but I'm doing this because I'm required by law, they're also going to put it in writing. And I'm going to back up what I'm telling you today with a written document, put my mouth to bend to paper to back up my mouth. And that's what people like to hear in protection now. So let's talk about protection. Is it really for their protection, or is it your for your protection, and technically, I can say it's for both. Because the code in South Carolina for real estate agents is written for the protection of the consumer, it is proper for you to say this is for your protection. It's also for your protection as an agency because hopefully, it'll end any issues of procuring cause, which it may or may not, you don't need to listen to my podcasts on that. But what it will do is it will put in writing your expectations, their expectations, and it will create the client relationship you must have in order to provide those client relationships. So those are the seven words I am required by law to disclose to you agency at the end of my presentation, you will have the choice. And in that choice, you will get to decide the level of representation and the type of relationship we're going to have. Now once you make that choice, we are going to put that in writing. And it's going to be there for your protection. Now at that point, I am going to quickly shift over to the differences between customers and clients in South Carolina and South Carolina. If you want to be my customer, I can provide you information I must deal with you fairly and give you good faith dealings. But that's basically it I can give you readily available information. So quite frankly, Mr. Consumer, I don't know why you would want to be my customer because you can really do that on the internet all by yourself, you would not need my assistance. So quite frankly, if you want me to be my customer, I would just recommend you do it on your own. But because you obviously sought me out and you probably have already looked at the Internet and realize how difficult it is and why the most consumers believe and real estate agents and the value of real estate agents. Let me talk about my service to you as a client Well, first of all, we have certain duties to you called old car duties. It is called obedience, loyalty, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting and reasonable care. Are those duties important to you, Mr. Consumer. In fact, I would bet that the confidentiality is one of the most important duties we have to you. Because I mean, we already know the Russians have all South Carolinians tax returns, I must keep all of your information confidential, anything I learned from you today, I must keep confidential. Even if you fire me, or we buy a house together, or with the end, it just ends naturally, you have the right and to expect me to keep all that information confidential. And I will. Same thing with accounting, I'm gonna give you every single number, where it comes from, and why, if you want to look at all these duties, in addition to that, we have loyalty, and you also have reasonable care, now, I'm not gonna give you reasonable care, I will give you extraordinary care. And lastly, after I go over old car duties, I like to then talk about the three duties that truly separate a client from a customer. And that is the ability to advocate advise, and counsel because that's truly what makes you an agent is your ability to advise the client to advocate for them and give them counsel, you cannot do any of those for a customer. And that is what really separates you from anybody is it's your ability to give them good advice to to help advocate to get this deal done. And so at that point, I'm also explaining that I have these additional duties that I'm allowed to do for you as a client, but I cannot do for you as a customer. So if you need help on pricing, you need help on how much to make an offer, how much earnest money, anything that you would need advice for in real estate, I wouldn't be able to help. And so if I'm not gonna be able to give you advice, you might as well just go ahead and do it yourself. Because you're not looking for somebody to help you really, you're just wanting somebody to open a door. And I'm not just here to open up doors, I am here to use my knowledge, my expertise, my experience, to give you the best advice to give you the best counsel to give you the best advocacy to help you get into this house. And I think really, those are the three things that you that separate customers and clients, which should make somebody want to have you represent them in a client relationship versus a customer relationship, because truly, there is nothing you can really do for a customer. If you can't advocate for him, you can't advise them and you can't counsel. And those are the three most important parts of being a real estate agent. So why would you want to be my customer and not be my client? At this point, I think is evidently clear that your consumer is going to want to sign up with you as a client and not as a customer. Now, as I've said before, we have talked this idea through with multiple agents. And they have all tried it and says it is very successful. So I would like you to try this and see if this doesn't give you a more meaningful explanation of agency. And let me know if it does not help you get more buyers signed, I believe it will, if you're able to show a buyer the value and signing agency with you, while being a customer of yours is not worth the time and the effort, while being a client of yours provides them all kinds of protections that I believe you will wind up with more clients and less customers. So the challenge today for you is to go home and sit down write down your agency disclosure. Use the seven key words provided by RUTH MARCUS, practice it on a family member or friend and see if they truly understand ask them two questions. Do you understand what I'm talking about? And secondly, would it make you less likely or more likely to want to go ahead and be in a client relationship with me? I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the answer. And that is our section on agency today. We will continue this discussion. Thinking the most muscle free Britain. Yep, that's right. Free Britain. Truly, I don't care. I don't like celebrities. I've never understood why people get so excited about seeing them. They're just normal people. In fact, Muslim is just pretty screwed up. Case in point. Look at look at her look at Britain, she's pretty screwed up person. Don't be rude. But what's all this noise about what's going on with this movement called free Britain? Well, in a nutshell, since 2008, her career finances have been in the control of her legal guardian, and an illegal illegal arrangement what's called or known as a conservatorship. And that's because of alleged mental health crisis that she went through. And I think we all witnessed that when she took her umbrella to the side of a car and shaved her head. She has some issues, no doubt about it. Well, her conservatorship has covered not only her as a person basically directing what she can and can't do in life, but also her state and her financial affairs, which are valued. I've heard as high as 60 million. I've also heard of highs 100 million. So we're talking lots of money here. So a few years ago, I actually helped arrange one of these types of conservatorships for a man who had AIDS and I also have met massive drug issues and mental health issues. And so his sister came for and was asking to be his guardian to help him deal with his medical benefits as well as any financial benefits he might receive from the government. And there's really no money involved. But we get got it done and she was able to help care for him. That's essentially what this conservatorships done in Brittany's case is a little bit different cuz you're talking about $100 million. And her estranged father has taken control of her sizable estate, which he did until 2019 when he stepped down as her personal conservator, because of health reasons, but apparently he was healthy enough to still manage her finances. That's what was most important, not her health, but her funny, man. So Brittany has now alleged that she feels this conservatorship has become very abusive pressive and controlling and is being used as a tool against her, according to the report from 2016 may have too much control over her life. And this was the court investigators own report that they wrote in November 2020. Britney Spears asked to have her dad removed. The judge declined to remove her dad but named financial firm the Bessemer trust as co conservators of her estate, so now he and this trust are co executives and state guy imagine how much more difficult that makes sense. But a month later, the judge extended Mr. Speers conservatorship until September 2021. So that should be coming up for I guess renewal here at some point or indeed, in a much anticipated hearing that was held in Los Angeles, Brittany asked the judge to end the court conservatorship so she could get married because she wanted to have more children. Allegedly, she's saying she wants to have a baby girl now. And she wanted to have her conservatorship ended without ever being evaluated mental. Her address lasted for about 20 minutes, it was extremely emotional. And she basically condemned the arrangement says that her parents or her conservative rather, were forcing her to actually use birth control to prevent her from getting pregnant. She says a conservatorship is doing a whole lot more harm to her than good, and that she deserved to have her life back judge said her lawyer can file a petition and he would decide at the end, whether he would end the petition or in the conservatorship or not now experts in this matter and I have not won our split as to whether or not they think the judge will grant it. Some people think that Brittany harder on argument about how emotional she was and how unhappy she seemed others demanded compassion. And it showed a person who really wanted to get on with their lives, it was being controlled. I personally don't care. No one the media nor I have all the facts of this case. So we don't know what all are in those medical reports. But if the basis for refusing to give her control of her career life is because she suffers from periods of depression, which the what the media reports then 40% of Americans would need membership for their homes. I'm just saying that is the drama that is Britain. There now, you know, you probably know more now than you wanted to. And I want to get to the good news network.org has reported the charitable giving the United States Rose 5.1% last year to a record high of $471 billion in 2020. As your shows Americans always take care of each other while people continue to try to put down our country. Another example. That's not who we are the country from the post in Koreatown. in Charleston, they say soaring home prices and a surge in real estate sales began in 2020. That actually create an unusual rise in property tax income for the South Carolina towns and cities. They say that's because many houses are taxed at far less than they're worth until the ownership changes and how the law says is a sale can trigger a reassessment. So once that happens, the property is now taxed as fair value, which means a large jump in the tax bill of income because other than that you're only allowed each time they go in and do a tax event reevaluation can only go probably 15%. So this would allow for those tremendous increases. Now according to Scott's lightened, he said and he is the director of advocacy and communications municipal associations of South Carolina cities are going to see an increase in their property tax revenues simply as a function of prices being reset self price. Well, hallelujah, maybe they won't work raise our property taxes this year. They've all been threatening to do according to the and report representatives are now re introducing the remote online notarization legislation as a month ago, US senators Kramer and Warner introduced what's called the secure notarisation act. Now representative Dean and Armstrong and 31 other members of the House of Representatives have introduced this bipartisan secure Act, which would allow for the immediate nationwide use of remote online notary technology which would be included in closings. We'll do a podcast on this soon. And Cynthia Blair in our office has been at the forefront in South Carolina trying to get remote online, notaries past so I will bring her on and let her explain how this could change real estate closings forever. And for the better now inform ro LSR de I hope I pronounced your name right gives us three reasons why we are not in a bubble for real estate number one, no credit boom very little according to him is happening. That is happening today. He said banks have actually had to have much more stringent stringent lending standards, especially since after 2007 2008. And according to him we have the lowest ratio of real estate loans, the total loans for Commercial Banks since the 1980s. He also said the decline in real estate lending suggested the driver of today's bull market in residential property is not due to speculation. Rather it is the consequence of demand supply imbalance that was years in the making. Which brings us to number two huge shortage of homes. He states that builders were hit really hard from the 2008 crisis and into the a lot of time for them to get back on their feet and resumed normal operations. We know that a lot of builders simply didn't make it through 2008 and as a result of new supply of new units have fallen well behind the mounting neighborhood demand arising simply from the growth and number of new households. Also, reason three homes are now more affordable than ever. I know that doesn't seem right. But he said homes are at their most affordable and more than a generation mortgage payments for the median us home have not been this low as a percentage of household income since at least 1984. When the series for household income began, and probably for several decades before that he says mortgage rates or home prices would have to actually double for the percentage to climb from less than one quarter of household income as it is today to about a third which is where it was a decade before the pandemic those are three reasons he does not believe that this is going to be a Bob norda i think i think he's right. And now on the Coronavirus Coronavirus. So as of 6am on June 27, we now have 153 million Americans fully vaccinated. That is 46.1% of the country's population. According to CDC data. In South Carolina, we've had almost 2 million people fully vaccinated, which is right at 32% of our population. So now let's look at the seven day moving average of daily new cases 11,343 that is a decrease of 4.4% compared to the previous week, and that from the peak is down 95.5%. You understand that means 95.5% less cases and we've had which means we're down to 4.5% of the cases remain the seven day average of positivity take cases. And now 1.7% 98.3% of the time when people test a test negative almost 100% now number of hospitalizations is also down 7.9% from last week, deaths are down to 287. So we are still well below the 300. Now what about in South Carolina and South Carolina the seven day average of new cases 96 cases are as well under the 200 per day, which has been that way since June 3 and our seven day average on desk to those of Carolina under double digit since May 12. So that's scary. And that ends our show for today. I hope everybody enjoyed the seven words of agency and look forward to you coming back next week. If you like our show and ask you to please like us, subscribe to us and share us but most importantly, please reach out to any real estate agent friends you have that are not getting this podcast. And please pass that message along. We are averaging about 2000 downloads every month and about 500 every episode. We like to continue to grow that and your help in spreading the word audition dirt would be greatly appreciated. hope everybody has a wonderful weekend and we'll see you really soon.