910: YouTube Lead Gen for Real Estate Agents with Malcolm Lawson

Aaron Amuchastegui: Real Estate Rockstars, this is Aaron Amuchastegui, coming back through again for another interview on the Real Estate Rockstars today. Today, I get to interview Malcolm Lawson from Maryland. Malcolm is another guy that has a lot of focus on YouTube. He generates a ton of buyer leads through that. We’re going to dive into that today, figure out some of the tips, and tactics that he’s using in real estate to succeed. He’s been a long-time listener of the show, too. I’m hoping to ask them a little bit about that. Malcolm, thanks for joining today.

Malcolm: Yes, thanks so much for having me on. I’m really excited to talk to you today.

Aaron: The city you’re out there out in Maryland, you said south of Baltimore?

Malcolm: Yes, Annapolis, Maryland. Down about 30, 40 minutes south of Baltimore City, the state’s capital.

Aaron: What’s the average price of a house out there?

Malcolm: 350,000 is our average price point around here.

Aaron: Right now, we’re in the middle of COVID quarantine. Some states are opening, some states aren’t. What is Maryland doing with all that?

Malcolm: Luckily, real estate was deemed in a central service. I was still able to keep going, keep getting out of the house, going and showing appointments, and everything. We still have a lot of restrictions. I think just this Friday, they’re starting phase one of releasing a lot of these restrictions. Activities like golfing and boating, they’re going to start allowing people to do that stuff pretty soon.

Aaron: Cool. Getting a little bit back to normal. Last night, we went and celebrated my birthday. My wife and my kids, we all went to a restaurant downtown Austin. Texas has opened maybe two weeks ago. They were going to open things up. Not every restaurant decided to open yet, most of the movie theaters haven’t, but the restaurant experience was cool. Other than the waiters wearing masks, it was a normal restaurant experience. The table is a little bit further apart, but it was– but man, it felt good to get a little bit back to normal.

I’m sure as they get to open up phase one– I think I was telling you before we got on for the family around the house, it’s much different for them because they have things they want to be able to do. Not being able to go anywhere. Just getting that taste of dinner and normalcy last night, I could see the relief over my wife and my kids. Oh, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’re going to get to start living life again.

Aaron: We’re going to dig into how you got into real estate and some of those– Before people jump in, what volume are you doing right now? How many deals did you do last year? How many deals you open new this year?

Malcolm: Last year was my second year as a full-time real estate agent. I did 30 transactions. I think it’s $10.5 million in volume.

Aaron: That’s awesome. Are you a part of a team? Do you have assistance? Is it just you?

Malcolm: It’s really just me and then my sister-in-law has an agent as well. She acts as my MITC, so it was just me and her.

Aaron: Cool. Second year, 30 transactions, $10 million in sales, that’s a great way to get going. Is it mostly buyers, mostly sellers?

Malcolm: It’s mostly buyers, honestly. I’m probably like 75% buyers, 25% sellers. I like sellers. I like that the marketing aspect of it and making video tours of the properties and everything. Honestly, a lot of sense, I get a lot of my stuff from YouTube. A lot of those leads are just buyer leads.

Aaron: That makes a lot of sense because if people are going on YouTube, they’re researching, they’re trying to figure out where they’re going to go and the buyers tend to be the researchers, right?

Malcolm: Yes, absolutely. They do much more research into the different areas. When they’re doing that research, that’s my opportunity to capture them and get in front of them. I haven’t really figured out a whole lot of search terms that sellers look for other than general search terms, like how to sell my house. Nobody looks up like how to sell my house in Annapolis. It’s always just in the more general stuff of how to sell my house, how to get my house ready to sell, that kind of stuff.

Aaron: I think it’s really common for organic inbound marketing to be buyer customers and to get listing agents or selling customers. There’s a lot more outbound work that has to be done of reaching out to people and saying like, “Hey, you’re probably likely to sell in the next 90 days. Do you want me to give you some info?” It’s like by the time people are ready, I think people will just target listing opportunities more to– By the time somebody looks at selling your house, they’ve already received 10 postcards and had 10 phone calls of let us sell your house.

It would make sense that your organic stuff is buyers. People that are really good at getting those seller leads are doing a lot of outbound. How long have you been listening to Real Estate Rockstars radio?

Malcolm: Since I got my license. I got my license in 2016. I was still in the air force. I got out of the air force late 2017. I think right around then, that’s when I discovered the podcast. I got a tremendous amount of value out of it, especially when I first started. I actually had to stop listening to it for a while, because every time I listened to it, I would like go down some other path that I want to explore. I kept this going all over the place as there are so much value that I was getting out of this podcast.

Aaron: You are not alone in that. There has been several people that have said every podcast, they learned something and a new tactic and a new trick. Sometimes they have to get to a point where, “Hey, I need to wait a little bit. I got these 15– I need to focus. I need to focus on my niche.” Like right now, you’re focused on YouTube. Can you think back to any episodes that were your favorite or any of those tips or tactics that you still do today?

Malcolm: I don’t know, especially like the ones talking about Facebook. I go pretty deep into Facebook as last year and I learned a lot. I know Pat had probably had a lot of people on talking about Facebook marketing. I did that a lot of that last year. Actually, I got tired of Facebook marketing though. I got tired of just the low conversion rate. I was getting maybe a 3% conversion rate when I was lucky. That’s 1 out of 33 leads. That’s a lot. That’s why I started shifting more towards YouTube where my conversion rates are so much higher, with my YouTube videos than they were ever with my Facebook stuff.

Aaron: I think one of the things that you were talking to Curtis about to before we got you on the show was about the difference in the types of videos that you make for Facebook compared to the types of videos you make to YouTube. Do you have the listeners just a cliff notes of, “Hey, if you’re going to do a video for YouTube or Facebook, here’s the difference between them. You can’t record a video and put it on both”?

Malcolm: 100%. Gary Vaynerchuk often talks about creating native content. What he means by that is a video that’s optimized for Instagram is very different than a video optimized for Facebook and very different than Snapchat and very different than YouTube and how you structure those videos and optimize them for that platform. They’re all very, very different. There’s not much crossover with the video that does well on Facebook and on YouTube as well. There’s a little bit of a crossover. There’s a couple of topics that do well on both, but for the most part, it really is different type of content.

If you think about a Facebook video and how you see that, you first see it in your feed with no sound or whatsoever, 85% of all Facebook videos are played without any sound on it. Your first challenge for the Facebook video is to do something to get their attention to get them to unmute the video. That’s your first challenge with Facebook is that those first few seconds need to be very visually stimulating to get their attention. On YouTube, people just interact with the content differently. What they’re first presented with is your title and your thumbnail.

You need to have a really good title and a really good thumbnail that compels them to want to click and watch your videos. That’s really where a lot of people screw up is they don’t put enough emphasis and time into their titles and their thumbnails. After they watch that– there’s a lot of clickbait on YouTube, so people are very skeptical. I like to reinforce what we’re going to talk about in the video in the first few seconds of the video.

Then try to come up with some sort of hook at the very start of the video to really get their attention and hype up the value that they’re going to get out of watching the video. That’s really what a hook is at the beginning of the video. Yes, the topics that you cover that do well on Facebook are usually pretty different than the ones that do well on YouTube as well. In the example I give is, if I ever wanted to learn, should I file an LLC or S corporation? I’m not going to go to Facebook to find that type of video.

Even if I saw that type of video in my newsfeed, I’m not going to click on it. I would go to YouTube for that type of content. Really that informational content does really well on YouTube, it really doesn’t do very well on Facebook, in my opinion.

Aaron: Yes, that’s a really good point. The Facebook people are scrolling, they’re looking through somebody’s videos on there. It’s kind of in your face, it’s popped up. The video starts as soon as it hits your feed, and then you’ve got to unclick it to even hear it. Facebook, the goal is make it visually appealing, convincing people to stop the scroll and unmute. Those are two things you’re trying to accomplish, which is the image on Facebook and even though Facebook, the words underneath that are important, not as important as what they see because it’s a visual thing and probably on Instagram as well.

Then YouTube makes a lot of sense. Before someone clicks on yours, they see the thumbnail, so they see– somebody says how to sell real estate is the 10 videos, there’s the thumbnail, here’s the title, here’s who it is, so they’re going to choose based on that. Within the first few seconds, you’re saying reiterate what your video is, because if it says how to sell real estate and they click on it, and you’re telling them about something different than how to sell real estate, they’re going to go, “Oh, he was lying. Let’s find a different one.”

People are skeptical, but I haven’t heard that it makes a lot of sense. I’m a skeptical YouTube viewer. There is so much clickbait on different stuff you’re trying to figure out. “Hey, was this image on the thumbnail actually part of it?”

Malcolm: Yes, the first 30 seconds of a YouTube video is really important. If you kind of screw that up, people are not going to watch your video. You really need to nail that first 30 seconds or so of a YouTube video to get them to actually watch the entire video.

Aaron: How did you get into real estate?

Malcolm: My mom’s a real estate agent. I think that kind of got me into it. I was in the air force for 11 years and I got a medical discharge. I didn’t really want to have like, “I needed a white-collar job.” Pretty much, my mom’s a real estate agent. We have a lot of military bases here in Maryland as well. That’s like a perfect niche for me since I have that background. It just kind of seemed like a good fit for me.

Aaron: Yes, it does sound right. You’re in air force for 11 years and now you’ve transitioned into real estate. Are air force clients your specialty or was that your specialty before YouTube started delivering you all these leads?

Malcolm: Yes, I still do. Man, probably like 70% of my business is service members relocating to this area. We have a lot of big bases around here. We have Andrews Air Force Base, we have the Pentagon in DC, a few bases in DC, we have Fort Meade, we had the Naval Academy. There’s a really strong military community here. I actually attract a lot of those service members with my YouTube videos. That’s kind of lucky that I was actually stationed at two of the big bases nearby. I think that also gives me a lot more credibility with that community.

Aaron: Do you have videos in particular that military people would be searching or their terms for that you’re using the military relocation or something like that or is it just those areas or military?

Malcolm: If you’re on YouTube right now and YouTube’s the second largest search engine in the world, you just type in Andrews Air Force Base, and my videos ranks number one for that search term. I think a lot of people are finding me from that. There’s a couple of search terms that my videos ranked on the first page of Google for them as well. A lot of the cities around those bases if they Google those cities, they Google moving to Waldorf, moving to Annapolis. Again, my videos are on the first page of Google for those search terms.

Aaron: Someone goes to Google and they type in Andrews Air Force Base, you’re one of those. Is it coming up in actual the Google feeds or is it when they click videos and go over to videos?

Malcolm: I have a lot of videos on the first page of Google, the military ones. If you type in moving to Maryland or living in Maryland or moving to Annapolis, Maryland, or living in Annapolis, Maryland, any of those, I’ve got multiple videos that show up on the first page of Google. That’s kind of something that they’re really doing more of is that they have a carousel with all the top videos and they rank that on the first page of Google. It works out for them because they actually get paid twice when they do that.

They get paid in Google AdSense, advertising on Google. Then they get paid again if somebody actually goes to YouTube and watches another ad over there.

Aaron: Absolutely. I googled moving to Maryland. Midway doing that, the pages, it automatically does the videos. There you are, there’s pictures of you going Before Moving to Maryland, Pros and Cons. You’ve got two of the three videos on the first page of Google for somebody moving to Maryland. Well, then that makes a lot of sense. You’ve got that on there. Somebody does that search, they hit you, they find you on YouTube. What does that conversation like when they call you, they email you? At the end of your videos, are you giving a hook of saying, “Hey, reach out to me this way”?

Malcolm: Yes, I usually have a call to action. Usually, my call to action is pretty casual. I’m not really aggressive with it. I say, “Hey, if you’re thinking about moving to Maryland or moving to Annapolis, moving to Waldorf, I’d love to have a conversation with you, here’s all my contact information.” I’ve tried a lot of different call to actions at the end of my YouTube videos. I really find that the simplest and the best one is just to give them your contact information, try to live things like, “Hey, go get your seller’s guide and your free home valuation,” all these other things.

I get a few people do, it never really works. Most of my leads has come in from just emailing me or registering on the website or giving me a call. A lot of times, they’ll reach out to me. They almost always mentioned YouTube. They almost always say, “Hey, man, we saw you on YouTube or we just watched a bunch of your YouTube videos, or we saw your YouTube video about this.” The great thing is like it’s already building that relationship and building that rapport that they’re watching me and I’m providing value to them just on autopilot.

By the time they reach out to me, they feel like they already know me already. It makes it so much easier to convert these leads.

Aaron: I was interviewing a couple of guys from Portland, Oregon that were really big into YouTube too, just a couple of weeks ago. That’s what they said too and people were calling. It was like they already knew him. The people felt like they knew them already. On the call, they were talking to them as if they were already friends and because they hit seen those videos and so incoming video leads. Sounds like a really cool way to get to bring people in.

Malcolm: Yes, I’m telling you, man, it’s the funniest lead generation that there is, in my opinion.

Aaron: What are your goals over the next year for your real estate business?

Malcolm: This year, my goal is actually to do the same number of transactions and probably about the same volume, but I want to net more money. I’m not doing Facebook ads where I’m spending all this money on them. I had a couple of these referral sites that would send me leads and I’d pay them a 35% referral fee. I got rid of all that stuff. Really, YouTube is my only source of lead gen this year. I got eight on our contract right now, so it’s working out. Really, YouTube and then my database. I get a lot of agent referrals as well. The agents find my YouTube videos and they send me referrals from those as well.

Aaron: What’s the best length for a video if people are trying to hit all the YouTube algorithms and people are going to like them?

Malcolm: Ideally, I would shoot for about 10 minutes. I think that’s a really good length. Some of my highest converting videos are much longer or they’re about 10 minutes or so, but here’s the thing, you don’t want to take– If you only have two minutes of real content, real value, you don’t want to stretch that out to 10 minutes because what’s going to happen is you’re not providing much value. People are going to back out and leave the video and the video is not going to perform as well.

If you can do a longer video, I’d say, go for it. If you only have six minutes or five minutes of real value that you can provide, I would just keep it to that shorter video. You don’t want to have this, a lot of fluff in there.

Aaron: Jam pack your videos with info because, on YouTube, as soon as somebody clicks off, your rankings go down a little bit. If someone’s watching most of your video, your rankings go up.

Malcolm: That’s it. You nailed it. One of the most important metrics that YouTube looks at when analyzing a video and determining or analyze the performance of a video is how long people watch that video for. That’s just one of the best ways to tell if it’s a good video. That’s why I was saying nailing the beginning of the video is so important. If people watch your video and they only watch 30 seconds of it, YouTube is going to be like, “Wow, this is not a very good video. We’re not going to show this to anybody else.”

If they’re watching on average, like 8 minutes of a 10-minute video, that is a fantastic signal to YouTube. They’re going to say, “Wow, these people really enjoy this content. We’re going to push it out and show it to more people.” That’s why you really want to focus on providing as much value as you can in these videos.

Aaron: What’s your most successful video, like the highest number of downloads or most views?

Malcolm: I got a couple of YouTube channels. My biggest YouTube channel is about 85,000 subscribers, several million views. I think my biggest video on there was actually about two months ago. I did one about a DIY face mask and that I got about 900,000 views on that in just about two months or so. On my real estate channel, I have one that is 10 Hacks to Pay Your Mortgage Off Early, that one has a little over a hundred thousand views on it, but here’s the interesting thing is that if you’re– with those videos, my goal was just to get views because I get paid more views I get on them.

If your goal is lead generation, my single video that has generated me the most close transactions and the highest amount of GCI from one video is my video, What to Know Before PCS’ing the Andrews Air Force Base. That’s the video that ranks number one for Andrews Air Force Base on Google or on YouTube. I’ve probably closed in like seven or eight transactions in the last 12 months just from that one video. I probably made $50,000 in GCI just from that one video.

Aaron: That’s awesome. You can get tons of volume with some of this stuff and that’s by taking a topic that’s really broad nationwide. The masks hitting 900,000 views. Part of me, that’s crazy. Part of me, that’s exactly what people have been searching and trying to see. Some of your videos, you take a topic that’s nationwide, it’s going to get you just a ton of views, but your other one, your most successful is very niched down. Someone’s actually searching what to know before PCS’ing. That hits and that’s where it goes there. Do you have a lot of videos that are so dialed in and niched like that now?

Aaron: Yes, originally, that’s what I was doing a lot of. I’ll tell you the single videos that generate the most amount of leads is like a relocation guide style of video. Everything that somebody would need to know if they’re relocating to an area. Depending on how big the area is the video may not get a lot of views, but the viewers who watch a video, like my video, 10 Things to Know Before Moving to Maryland, people who watch that video, they’re most likely moving and going to buy a house. You’re really targeting like a very specific viewer of that who’s much further along in the buying process.

Those are going to be the ones that really generate a lot more leads. You said, if I do a more generic video, if you go on YouTube and you type in selling a home, my video ranks number one for that. I really don’t think I get that many leads from that video because I’m getting a views from all across the country. What’re the chances that any one of those viewers just so happens to be in my one little area. If I make a video about moving to Annapolis, Maryland, there’s a really good chance. Those people who are watching that video are going to be moving there and looking to buy a home then.

Aaron: That makes a lot of sense. Let’s shift gears a little bit. It’s pretty clear how you’re getting your leads, how you’re bringing in your business and doing your business, but what are some of those things that once you get the lead and you start helping them find a house in and you become their agent, what are some of those things that you wish someone would have told you in your first couple of months of real estate that you’ve learned that you specializing now?

Malcolm: Oh, that’s a good question. I definitely don’t show people who are not pre-approved anymore. I did a lot of that when I was first starting off. Some people were not pre-approved. That will increase your lead conversion, but it’s so exhausting. There’s so much more time that you have to invest in that. Now that I’ve got more leads and I can handle, I can be much more selective. Since these people I’ve already got that relationship and then authority dealt with them, I can say, “Hey, look, we’re not looking at any properties until you get that pre-approval letter.”

That’s definitely one thing that’s really helped out and a big shift in my business from my first year to what I’m doing right now.

Aaron: That makes sense. You’re being a little bit pickier. You’re saying, “Hey, you’ve got–” Most of the people are looking for leads. You have plenty of leads. Now you’re trying to be selective with your time. How many hours a week are you working?

Malcolm: I still working a lot. It was a good question. Last year, I was working like 60 hours a week. I was working seven days a week. This year, I really am taking my foot off the gas pedal a little bit. The great thing about YouTube stuff is that– that video that ranks on the first page of Google for Moving to Maryland, I made that video three years ago and that video was still generating me leads. I’m at the point now where I just passively just have all these leads coming in. I don’t have to work as hard.

I’d say I actually probably am working a lot less hours this year than I did last year. I’m just focusing on all their things, making other YouTube videos for other channels of like content that I’m more passionate about.

Aaron: As you’re going out there and you’re doing it, do you feel like those leads that somebody calls and they say, “Hey, we saw you on YouTube.” You’re like, “Hey, are you pre-approved yet?” They say, no. Do you feel like you’re losing that lead? Do you feel like there’s a value there that shouldn’t you be handing that lead off to somebody else? Should you be adding somebody on–? Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something with that or are you really happy with the way that you’ve balanced it?

Malcolm: The truth is like everybody knocks people for showing buyers’ properties when they’re not pre-approved, but the truth is that will increase your lead conversion. You can’t really argue with that. If you build that relationship with them and get face-to-face with them as soon as possible, it will increase your lead conversion, but it also consumes a lot of your time. I’m at a place now where I can be a little bit more selective. My go-to move is somebody to call me up, I’ll have to try to have as good of a conversation with them as I can.

What’s most important to you in your home, why are you moving, try to ask a lot of those deep questions. I just set them up on a weekly property search. I connect them with my lender. I’m actually really bad at following up with people. I’m terrible at it, but I’m still that works that having one good conversation, set them up on a property search, connect them with the lender, wait until they get pre-approved, and then I’ll take over again.

Aaron: It’s like real estate on autopilot. If somebody is out in Maryland, if they’re out in Annapolis, they’re having a tough time getting leads, should they contact you and see if you can hand off the leads of the people that aren’t qualified that you get that turned down?

Malcolm: No, now they probably shouldn’t. I got to other agents that I can do. I can hand those off them. I’m also referring out a lot more business this year personally. I am trying to my– your first year or your first two years, you got a pretty big bubble of the area that you cover, but I’m getting a lot more dialed in and referring out a lot more business these days.

Aaron: That’s awesome. That is a lot of what we’ve heard from the other the guys that were really focused on YouTube too, that so much it became into now, they have so many leads coming in that it’s about referring it out. It’s about sharing those leads or selling those leads is the wrong word, but it’s being able to get people lined up with the people that can serve them. Maybe on that big nationwide video that you’ve got where do you get people trying to figure out how to buy a home all over the place. Maybe it’ll turn into that someday.

Is there other than YouTube, are there any apps or systems that you’re using in your day-to-day real estate world that you’re really excited about?

Malcolm: Keller Williams. I’m with Keller Williams and they’re investing a billion dollars into technology. They’ve got this KW command, which is our CRM pretty much. I’m actually really, really happy with it. I’m really digging it. It’s got a lot of really cool features. You have been doing a lot with that. I’m also doing a lot with Facebook groups. I’ve got several Facebook groups that I’m trying to cultivate and try to use for lead generation as well. I’ve closed several transactions last year as well from just organically generating leads from these Facebook groups. That’s about it.

Aaron: Just the social aspect. What are you doing in those Facebook social media groups? What are you doing?

Malcolm: One sales funnel that I really like to use is that if, let’s say, I make a video about Annapolis. At the end of the video, instead of having a call to action of, “Hey, call me, here’s all my contact information.” I have a call to action to go join my Facebook group for that specific city. It’s a great way. Facebook groups are harder to grow, especially hard to start from the scratch. This is a great way just to get– I have a constant flow of people joining my Facebook group.

When they join, I can then build that relationship in that group and get a one-on-one conversation with them. I’ve closed several transactions from doing that exact business model there. What’s funny is like somebody would join and I’ll send them a message and they’ll be like, “Oh my God, we’ve watched all of your videos. We’re so excited to talk to you.” In my mind, I’m thinking like, “Wow, why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you reach out to me if you watched all my videos?”

For some people who’re just taking that first step is still just too intimidating. That’s what I really like about getting people in a Facebook group is that I can take that first step in a reach out to them and start having that conversation with them and building that relationship with them even deeper on Facebook.

Aaron: That’s a point that all agents should be listening to out there, especially new agents that are afraid to pick up the phone and dial people. It’s like people, “I don’t want to cold call in that,” but there are a handful of people out there that need help that they want help, but they are afraid to do the first outreach. They need somebody to– Even the people that knew they wanted to hire you, they were afraid to call you. They were waiting for you to call them as you build up that group.

When you’re doing things inside that group, are you doing daily posts, weekly posts or you’re just reaching out to people individually when they join?

Malcolm: I reach out to them when they join. Just touch base, say hi. My sister-in-law, I actually pay her to make a post in there every single day. Every day, she’s sharing something about that local city or whatever area that group is. I have a several groups like that. She’s making posts in there, to have some content in there. I always try to make, as often as I can, is some kind of engagement posts, some post is asking a question that I know that post is going to get a lot of questions. There are a lot of answers.

For example, question I asked recently in one of my groups was what’s the first local attraction or what’s the first local thing you’re going to do when this quarantine is lifted. I got tons of questions or answers. “We’re going to go to this bar and go to this restaurant and go golfing here and go to the beach here.” I like doing a lot of those engagement posts, just broad questions that it just gets a lot of people really engaged with the group and keeps the group top of mind for them.

Aaron: Right now– I was going to ask you, what do you like, YouTube or Facebook better? It seems like you’re pretty equally invested in those strategies. They’re just different strategies.

Malcolm: I use them both a lot. I’m going to have to go with YouTube on that one though. I’m pretty passionate about YouTube.

Aaron: What about the other stuff that’s out there? You’ve got Instagram, you’ve got TikTok, or do you do anything in those?

Malcolm: No, I used to when I first got into the business. I think that was one of the mistakes I was making as providing myself too thin. I decided I would go deep rather than go really shallow in a lot of things, want to go really deep in one or two things. Facebook groups and YouTube videos are really the two things that I’m going all in on.

Aaron: When you got into real estate, where did you learn all of your stuff about how to be an agent?

Malcolm: This podcast, YouTube, my mom was an agent as well. I learned a lot of the fundamentals from her and actually Facebook groups as well. That was a big part of it, like LabCoat Agents, and the Bold Facebook group. You can literally talk to any expert in the country. You can talk to these top agents from around the country, around the world inside these Facebook groups and get an answer to any of your questions. It’s amazing how valuable of a resource, a lot of these real estate Facebook groups are.

Aaron: Bold is a KW thing that they’ve got. There’s that group, there’s LabCoat Agents, they do a lot of the stuff like we do. Real Estate Rockstars has a Facebook group where we have agents going in and communicating and things like that. I think a lot of those resources are underused. I think you said, most people maybe wouldn’t even go into Bold and say, “Hey, I’m going to go ask this guy this and try to get the answer.” Your proof of the idea that you can go ask those questions, you’re going to get those answers. It’s like you’re right next to the people lot of the time.

Malcolm: Yes, all the groups have a search feature as well. If you have a question about cold calling or whatever for sale by owners, you just go in there and just type FSBO in the search and pull up every conversation ever about for sale by owners in those groups. It’s amazing how much information and how much value you can get out of those. It’s more than you can even process.

Aaron: Do you try to help people build YouTube pages and stuff like that too or you focus mostly just on your own stuff?

Malcolm: I have a group as well, Real Estate YouTube Mastermind Facebook group. I’m helping people all the time in there. I’m providing education and training, answering a lot of people’s questions. I had an epiphany a while ago is that I can honestly say that I’m passionate about YouTube. I’m really passionate about making YouTube videos in that platform. I can literally talk about YouTube for hours. I actually really enjoy just helping other real estate agents creating YouTube channels and really optimizing their content for YouTube.

Aaron: What do you think is going to happen to the real estate market? You’re out in an area in Maryland, there’s government, there’s military, I’ve had a few guests from those areas that have talked about the last crashes that wasn’t really a crash out there. Do you think the market’s going to just stay steady? When you’re out there, do you think it’s going to go down a little bit? Do you think there’s an influx of buyers that are going to be flooding the market as soon as they’re allowed to go outside? What have you seen so far? What are your market predictions?

Malcolm: In my personal prediction is that the price is going to go up on homes. There’s a lot of people speculating stuff like, “Oh, all these people are going to be in foreclosures in a few months,” but all I can literally be fixed just by like a bill from the government. They have that their last stimulus bill allowed homeowners who filed forbearance for six months, so they don’t have to pay mortgage payments.

There’s already other bills being proposed right now to allow them to file for forbearance for 12 months and mandate that those payments get tacked onto the end of the loan and that they don’t have to pay insurance and taxes during that time. There’s all this speculation about the market crashing, it can all literally be solved with just a bill from Congress. I honestly don’t think it’s going to crash. I think they’re going to do whatever they can. If they have to throw trillions of dollars at keeping the real estate market from crashing, I think that they’re going to do that at the same time.

I think interest rates are going to keep going down. There’s already a lot of speculation that the fed may go into negative interest rate territory. I have no idea what’s going to happen to mortgage rates if the fed rate goes into negative interest rate. The mortgage rates may drop below 2%, it may drop into the ones. It’s entirely possible. If that happens, you’re going to see everybody refinancing and everybody just jumping into this real estate market trying to take advantage of it.

Aaron: That is a really interesting, good perspective. If the fed gets negative interest rates, what will happen? I think the only other places in the world, I’ve heard about Japan having negative rates for where it was when people had money in banks, they would actually deduct. There was a negative interest rate on money held in banks because they wanted people to be spending their money. If you put a hundred thousand dollars in your bank account, the next year, they’d be $97,000 in there or something instead of the–

Really interesting times there as they’re throwing money at it. You’re right. I saw a video just this morning that– because I’m involved heavily in foreclosure investments. I see a lot of that in the Texas real estate market, especially when you provide all the foreclosure data out there. We know with the forbearance a month ago, the idea of forbearance that was in two months from now, the people are going to owe four months for the payments. Just this morning, the video came out and the guy was talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac going through and saying, “Hey, we are going to tack it onto the end of the loan.”

Before, it was up to the lender. The lender could choose to or not. Now, there’s still willing some of that. I don’t think there’ll be all the lenders across the board, but if you’re talking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA loans, that is a big chunk– That’s going to protect the people that are owner-occupied properties and they’re going to get the most help.

Malcolm: I will say, I think that there is a niche that is really going to be hurting. I actually made a video about that. It’s almost two months ago and that is the Airbnb owners. All the short-term rental owners, all of their bookings, all got canceled a few months ago for a few months out. If there is another wave and this stuff really like carries on, how long can they hold on to those Airbnbs without any tenants in them before they really start selling them. I feel like city tours, cities that have a lot of Airbnbs, you may start seeing a lot more of those coming on the market.

Another interesting thing I think about is with this negative interest rates. Like you said, if you have money in your savings account, you’re going to lose money. You’re not going to make any interest on that. You’re going to have to actually pay the bank to hold your money. I feel like a lot of people, are they going to be like, “Wow, well, I better invest this money into something like real estate.” Because with the fed printing all this money, it’s not coming from taxes or anything like that. They’re just literally just making it. It is going to impact inflation.

That’s how inflation happens. The real estate almost always outperforms inflation. If inflation is 2%, real estate usually appreciates and value 3%. Taking your money out of a savings account and investing it in real estate is going to be a really safe way to protect your money from inflation, in my opinion.

Aaron: You’re absolutely right. So many specialists have said that when inflation is heavy and high, that’s when you want to own real estate. The more expensive the real estate, the better, because that’s when inflation has a more dramatic effects on properties at that high end of the market. We will get to see and that could be the thing that really helps the real estate market perform. This forbearance stuff can postpone a lot of foreclosures. One of the things that we’ve said is even the people that are in default, there are more people with equity in their homes now than ever before.

People really need the money. They have this giant piggy bank of their house, they can sell their house, they could sell their house quick, and they can tap into that. I think the equity that is in real estate will help a lot of that performance stuff. Malcolm, that was a fun conversation today. Really interesting to get to chat with you. I took some notes of things I needed to do for my YouTube page and some edits and things like that. Just even some simple videos that real estate agents can make or anyone can make in their business.

The 10 things to know before X, the 10 things to know about moving here, the 10 things know about selling this, the 10 things know about buying this. We teach people how to buy foreclosures. We need that videos. It’s the 10 things to know before you buy a foreclosure. All those things are big hits that I think niching down in that focus is very cool. I also just love to hear how passionate you are about it.

It’s obviously that you were successful in real estate and that you have a lot of tips you can give to people in real estate, but the stuff that you really like sharing people about is YouTube. If people want to reach out to you and say, “Hey, Malcolm, give me some tips or check out my YouTube page and see what I should be doing different.” How could people find you?

Malcolm: Yes, absolutely, guys. Go join my Real Estate YouTube Mastermind Facebook group. I’m really, really active in there. I’m posting every day, I’m commenting on just about every post in there. If you guys have any questions about YouTube, just posted in there and you’re almost guaranteed to get a response from me.

Aaron: That sounds awesome. Everybody reach out to Malcolm. Malcolm, thanks for coming on, and maybe we’ll talk again soon.

Malcolm: Yes, sounds good. Thanks for having me on.