958: Why NOT to Wait for a Buyer’s Market with Rebecca Rains

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the question is this, how do most agents find the secrets to succeed in today’s competitive real estate market, especially when the top agents are keeping those secrets to themselves? That’s the question and this podcast will give you the answer. Hi, I’m Aaron Amuchastegui and welcome to Real Estate Rockstars

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Real Estate Rockstars This is Aaron Amuchastegui coming back for another episode today I get to interview Rebecca Rains she works with the Berkshire Hathaway homeservices out in Arizona, all sorts of things we’re going to talk about she’s done doing a ton of transactions. So really succeeding in real estate has some extra has some other like fun activities that she’s going to bring value and wait to get to hear what the free gift free cheat sheet she is that she’s gonna have us be putting in our vault at Hiban Digital. Rebecca, thanks for coming on.

Rebecca Rains 

Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So where do you live right now? where do you practice real estate?

Rebecca Rains 

Chandler Arizona we’re a suburb just outside of the Phoenix metro area.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, so the Phoenix right now is this is that is this the time of year where it’s usually strongest? You know, they think from like November to now.

Rebecca Rains 

Well, so we are typically – everything’s been untypical this last year – but typically, right about now through March. April is when we get a ton a ton of winter visitors in our area. Our weather right now. I think yesterday was mid 70s, short weather flip flop weather, golfing, great golfing, weather. So we do get a huge influx of people most years it’s because of the Phoenix waste management open and fair Jackson and of course spring training, which is just going to be a little bit subdued this year. Thanks to COVID

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, the it is beautiful out there. I spent Thanksgiving out in out in Scottsdale and we definitely went went golfing when we were out there and it’s nice and the end here we did a little family reunion out in Chandler too. So definitely know the area. Yeah, I know. I know your area. I know the previous time. I lived there many many years ago for about a year. And I only stayed there for a year and I was working at UPS and I was stocking the UPS trucks. And our shift was from like 10 at night to four in the morning because it was so hot out during the summer that we couldn’t have as be loading the trucks during the day or we would have died. And the second or third time the second or third day it was abnormally hot for a guy that was from Southern Oregon. It was like 110 three days in a row and I find that I’m just driving I’m driving back to Oregon. I can’t I can’t do it anymore.

Rebecca Rains 

It’s a dry heat so it’s not as bad but yeah,

Aaron Amuchastegui 

now that I live in Austin, Texas the 110 in Arizona is nothing compared to 110 and oh gosh humidity.

Rebecca Rains 

I do love Austin though I have a couple of really near dear people to my heart living over there. I’ve gotten to be there a couple times this last year it it’s gorgeous over there but definitely a lot different climate when it’s 110 where you are Forget about it.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, but it has everything has been abnormal. So what has real estate been like over the past year for you? What was it like in March and April and right after the whirlwind, weird and then what’s it been like since

Rebecca Rains 

March was a little scary when the quarantine first hit. We had a lot of people in escrow freaking out canceling. I had sellers having heart attacks like we could not we never went in anything like that we had no idea what to expect. And a wonderful analyst I follow here in the Phoenix area is Tina Tamboer. The Cromford report and I quote her often on my podcast, she had said he guys quit worrying. This is like a temporary kink in the hose. As soon as things let up, I promise you things will get better. And so April and May were the two months out of the entire year where maybe I could help a VA buyer buy a house for good price not have to be escalating and losing out because they were a government loan and they couldn’t waive their appraisal. But by June, the hose bib came unkinked. And we had record record numbers. We blew records from 2005 through 2007. We never thought we’d come close to hitting again. And I saw a great meme the other day. And I from what I hear it sounds like it’s across the country. But the meme was Remember last spring when we were all looking for toilet paper. Yeah, that’s pretty much what it’s like to try to find a house right now.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it is absolutely what it’s like trying to find a house right now. What kind of how many months of inventory do you have? Do you have a month of inventory out there?

Rebecca Rains 

No. Look, for the first time ever we dropped below a month of inventory. We’re actually at point six months of inventory which in a normal season like a normal season for us. We should see at least I don’t know two to three months of inventory. They say an average where it’s equal supply and demand between buyers and sellers would be four to five months. We haven’t seen Four to five months since probably the downturn but it made no I take it back since like 2014 to 16 we had a little bit of a more of a buyer’s thing but today we are like the city of Chandler alone. We are number two in the state of Arizona behind Avondale for demand. Every listing currently has a comfort index in Chandler and Avondale of 700 to 800 which basically means equal supply and demand 100 and that’s eight buyers for every one house that’s hitting the market.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

How much in Avondale is there? So 20 years ago now that I lived in Avondale and there was nothing in Avondale.

Rebecca Rains 

Now there was farmland. That’s now all brand new homes. That’s where all the builders have gone the last few years to build. And that’s become the central hub for new construction.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Man, I make myself sound really old. I remember when my parents used to tell me stories about that. And it just happened. It just happened to me. Oh, yeah. Before I before I knew it, now all of a sudden, I my kids are gonna make fun of me when they go back and listen to that one.

Rebecca Rains 

I say stuff like that all the time. I got licensed originally in 93. And I’ve been doing it full time ever since. So I look back and go, I don’t feel like I’m that old. But I am. So I’m right there with you.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So the last year so then it got crazy people started, you know, battling again for stuff. How big is your team? how much volume did you do last year? And what’s the average sales price out there?

Rebecca Rains 

So our average sales price right now is about 450. A couple years ago, we were you know, easily in the lower three hundreds our I would say on average, the prices went up about 19% this time last year to today. And our team currently consists my husband and I are partners. I like I said, I’ve been doing this 28 years now. I’ve kind of ebb and flow as the market has changed. We have a team and it’s a convoluted answer, I apologize. Because I have some agents that work for me on my builder account, I do work directly for a builder as their sales manager, my husband and I work with our own sphere of influence and handle transactions ourselves with the help of our assistants. And then we have independent agents that are working in our office under our team umbrella. So when I say that we have 19 licenses under my license, three of which are full time admin assistants to my house, myself, my husband, we have probably I don’t know six or seven that are truly independent agents. And the rest of them either work on our builder account, or they work with us on our Zillow account because we also do a lot of internet sales through Zillow. So you got an answer your final question. We did 250 deals last year. So we had 101 million in production

Aaron Amuchastegui 

is a 250 deals right around that 450 101 million in production. And you’re getting them from all sorts of different places. So people are more buyer agents, more listing agents are you half and half because of how many resources you’re using?

Rebecca Rains 

Well, myself and my husband are primarily listing agents, we do help buyers who are you know, our sellers at the same time. But because of the number of years, I will tell you the number one thing every agent, I think fails app for the most part out there is they don’t stay in front of their past clients and their sphere. And I’ve done I think a really good job of doing that. By you know, speaking a lot on my podcast and having a really good database that I follow up with on a regular basis, we do contest, we do client appreciation parties, because at the end of the day, somebody that we might meet with Zillow could still introduce us to family and friends or be a future client down the road if we take good care of them, and really work our sphere of influence.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

It’s a great point, like you can be a buyer’s agent for a while and if you just keep in contact with all of your clients, and eventually you’re going to be a seller’s agent eventually gonna be on the listing side.

Rebecca Rains 

Yeah, like I talked about feeling old Aaron, you know, these days I am selling houses to my clients’ kids, because I sold and bought homes with them so many times over the years now they’re making sure their kids come to me. So yeah, that helps make me feel really old. But it just shows the power of staying in touch. And you know, beings being that source for like when we have clients that need help with contractors, remodeling, updating, I’m always the first call for a lot of them because they want to know who the AC company I use, who the flooring guy is that I use. And that just gives you no reason to keep in touch and keep the communication going. It’s to me probably the number one thing that has done that I’ve done personally, to stay ahead of whatever market we’re in, because it’s all about, in my opinion, building good relationships and keeping those relationships thriving.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So one of the questions I’ve been asking everybody is, you know, first one is what advice you give people to survive this next year 2021?

Rebecca Rains 

People like Agents? Or are we talking buyers and sellers?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

You choose. So it’s mostly toward agents but we give all sorts of life advice too. So if you’re gonna if you’re gonna have one pitch for how to succeed in 2021, what would you say?

Rebecca Rains 

I would honestly say I just got off of a zoom call this morning with a half a dozen, or more than a half a dozen of my agents. And I was sharing with them the story of some clients that I you know, yesterday, they took their ball and went home. And I joke and I say that it’s not funny because they’re really upset, they had lost out on a couple of bidding wars, one of them against 44 other people, they made an offer on a house listed at 369 here in Phoenix, and it was grossly under priced. The agent purposely wanted to get a feeding frenzy going and they did. So at the end of the weekend, they ended up with 45 offers ours being one of them. And we did a lot of tricks that would normally win. But sadly, it went for 420 to 500. That is for a first time homebuyer and couple 53,000 that they just couldn’t make that jump. So what I shared with my agents this morning is that besides that story, I said, Well, what are you doing? A to keep yourselves optimistic because you need to be the cheerleader to keep your clients in the game. They you know, it’s very frustrating. And, you know, it’s not for everybody, but you have to remind them why, you know, why are they looking to buy a home today? What do they need, because we all need housing. And you know, a lot of them shared with me their response, what I kept hearing from a lot of them say was, well, we’re telling our clients not to get too emotionally attached to any one house. Because there’s a lot of offers that are being made on a lot of houses. But there’s still a lot of houses hitting our market every day, it’s just you have to be Johnny on the spot and get in there right away. So I was kind of checking their temperature to make sure that they’re, I’m a firm believer in that we create our realities, by the way, we you know, the way we think the way we we perceive our situations. And so as long as my agents are staying positive, and they can then turn around and be the cheerleader for when maybe our buyers or sellers are feeling a little dismayed. Today’s market, let’s not joke, every seller, for the most part can sell their house for more than they ever dreamed. And they’re not too sad. But those sellers, a lot of times are also buyers, because in order to sell, they have to go find something. And so, you know, they’re also in the same boat, as a lot of buyers are going through today. And they get it and they get frustrated, they get upset, and a lot of them just want to take their ball and go home, you can’t let them do that. Because personally, in my belief, after 20 years of watching this business, change all every year all the time, is that we don’t know what’s on the horizon. But we’ve been so low with interest rates for so long, there’s really only one place that they can go. And everything I’m reading to the demand is not going to slow down for us here in Arizona, I know Texas is another state that has huge demand as well. So when we’re so short on housing, for the amount of people moving here, it there’s only one place for it to go. So let’s hurry up and help our clients. You know, get stay in the game, don’t get disgruntled. And you’ll get them a house if you just dig your heels in and, and persevere.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Right? Imagine prices going up and interest rates going up. Right? So you’re telling them they’re worried about prices going up? Or I can’t afford this, you know, you really won’t be able to afford it six months from now.

Rebecca Rains 

Yeah, yeah. basically had to say that to them a client that just the other day like, I know, I know. It’s tough right now. But you know, what you’re looking at today is still better than what you’re going to be looking at tomorrow. If you put this off because you’re frustrated today.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, it reminds me the bidding wars a 2005, 2007, where people would buy especially new homes, they’d buy the new home in the first phase. And then by the time the last phase was out prices had been raising, and then people are start selling their new homes, they wouldn’t even move into them,

Rebecca Rains 

I actually worked for a builder as a sales manager here in town when that happened, what we thought, right, it was like really late 2006 into 2007. What was interesting during that era, is not only the people not move in, you know, we were trying to sniff out those speculative buyers. We all of a sudden start getting a bunch of cancellations on homes. And that’s kind of like where we saw the beginning of the end during that era. But yeah, I mean, they they would get under contract during the build time and make 50 to 60 grand in equity half the time before they even signed their loan docs.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I was a builder, too as a builder in Southern California. And that was when we we started to add things into the contract that said, you know, they weren’t even allowed to resell in the neighborhood. Or they weren’t allowed. Yeah, we had first right of refusal, you know, to buy it from them essentially, before someone else did. There are also different clauses that we put in there or not being able to sell until the community was fully sold out or something like that.

Rebecca Rains 

Oh gosh. And then all of a sudden when the cancellations hit and people started backing out of contracts, then we had to start enforcing ethical Other clauses in our contract like specific performance, I don’t know if you got to that point if you were building when things were crashing, but that was not fun times either. And I think that a lot of people still have PTSD from that era, whether it was the agents or the clients. So what I think that’s another thing that I’ve heard so much of is a lot of people even last year, when COVID very first hit was they were expecting this big bubble, this big crash, and that there’s been no bubble or no crash. I mean, we’ve been hearing about a bubble and a crash for years now. And in fact, all it’s happened is the prices continue to go up as interest rates have come down. But again, rates are so low, I don’t know, I feel like we’ve hit the floor. What do you think?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I have always thought of real estate as an up and down. And I’ve always thought it was an up and down because we were building new homes in 2005. And then we were buying foreclosures on the courthouse steps in 2009. And so we were seeing the cycle and we were betting on was it was this neighborhood safe to go back into yet because now months of inventory, went under three, you know, with all the government intervention, now it’s more, and I you know, in last year I was going there has to be a correction, there has to be correction. And it feels more almost like the stock market to me where you go, like, we’ll have these ebbs and flows. But I do believe that 20 years from now, the stock market will be worth more, I believe, 25 years from now the stock market is so it’s beginning to see it more as like, almost like this linear asset of going like yes, we will have ups and downs. But I don’t see a 2007 2008 I don’t see what could make that 2007 2008. But I didn’t see COVID coming either,

Rebecca Rains 

And there’s always going to be that unexpectedness that we can’t predict, right. We don’t have crystal balls. But we do have a lot of experience behind all of us that have been doing this for a really long time. And so I agree, I mean, there’s always going to be the ebb and flows, but you only lose if you sell low and you bought high. And I think trying to time the market is near to impossible. So when people say that they want to wait till it’s like I actually just did a podcast on this the other day, why not to wait until it’s a buyers market. Because guess what, when it’s a buyers market, that means whatever you buy today could very well go down in value tomorrow. That’s why it’s a buyers market. Because there’s more houses out there than there are buyers today we have way less houses than we have, you know, way less houses for all the buyers that we do have in here in Arizona. I believe this stats were 3.2 million people lived in in the metropolitan area during 2000. Today we’re at 5 million back then 20 years ago. And because of the builders got burned so badly, the builders had been over building right before the last crash. And then they stopped building as you know, for a very long time and they’ve started back up in the last five, six years. But they have not been building nearly at the pace nor can they because they don’t have the land. That’s where Avondale blew up. Because you know, there’s only certain areas in our valley that allows for that much building. Avondale and Queen Creek are two of the main ones. But we’re having lumber shortages, we’re having contractor shortages. And as a result, we don’t have nearly the homes that we need for the amount of people that are now living here. And like there’s no vacancy signs everywhere you go like the apartments are full. I’m sure the same thing in California, we had a lot of condo conversions, because all the apartment buildings were empty. Today, they’re full and they keep building more and more of them because we don’t have enough roofs. For all the heads. They’re now living in Arizona.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Aaron Amuchastegui 

It was so wild in 2006 or 2007. We had a bunch of lots in contract. But it was right as the market was just starting to crash and right as you’re starting to see some of those cancellations and it was really infecting and impacting our northern California stuff. We ended up canceling and then for so many years after that you go like Arizona is so overbuilt and now like everywhere, it’s corrected itself. So I can’t wait to hear about like your podcast and kind of the big thing you’ve been working on. And before we jump into that, tell us about your free gift that you sent over, I think I think you called your agent cheat sheet, right?

Rebecca Rains 

Yes, I did. So last year, it probably last, I would say late spring, early summer, when we started seeing every listing was having multiple offers. I host a monthly mastermind in my office with agents from all over the valley from all different companies. They’re just cool, cool people I’ve gotten to be friends with over the years. And we get together once a month. And we came together and basically said what is working? What are you seeing on your listings, what is helping you get your what what offers are winning for your sellers. And so we came up with a list of basically 10 things to do to make sure you win every bidding war, you enter. And quite frankly, if you followed everything on that list, up until probably the last few weeks, I worked like a charm to get a house for every person and I and I say the last few weeks because two years ago today we had 19,000 active listings here in Arizona today we’re less than 5000. We are literally at a quarter of the number of homes that we had available just two years ago with more demand than we had in 2000

Aaron Amuchastegui 

So tell me about the first two things on that list.

Rebecca Rains 

Show the number one thing on that list is literally no joke. And and it works more times than not. And the minute our agents call to schedule an appointment, we have an app called showing time, I think everybody thought hit the headlines yesterday because the low bot showing time, but we use it with our MLS here. If you can get the agent on the phone, get the agent on the phone or shoot them a text message. Like I say from the minute that you’re scheduling an appointment, you check in with them and see how they’re gonna handle multiple offers. And you basically schmooze the crap out of them. And what has happened is I can usually get more information out of those agents if my clients choose to make an offer on their house as a result, so we can make better offers with that amount of information because of the agents being bombarded by gazillion agents. But most of them are just doing it on email, or texting or what have you. You’re just trying to set yourself apart and build that rapport in that relationship with the other agents. So when things get maybe a little, you know, close for them on their side trying to figure out offers, they’re gonna say, but you know, I really liked Rebecca, because she was really cool. And I can tell she’ll be good to work with. So I tell my agents, from the minute you call, you are selling yourself on why that other agent will want to work with you over somebody else.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I like that, too. It’s just the opening question of how will you handle multiple offers, like cats out of the bag, there’s going to be multiple offers on anything that isn’t, you know, priced? You know, 50% too high. So how will you handle multiple offers that gets them started, and maybe they haven’t even thought about that yet. But you can probably tell by their answer to how you’re going to be how you’re gonna start structuring your offer. Well, we’re gonna take our top five and then do this or whatever, who knows.

Rebecca Rains 

Just this morning, I was on the phone with an agent who told me she hates escalation clauses, she only wants highest and best. agent yesterday loves escalation clauses. So you know finding out what’s important to the seller, if you whatever information you can garnish only help you make a better offer. And that other agent on the other side is not going to give you any information if you’re not asking for it. And really I do pride myself on trying to be as cool as possible to work with and as easy as possible work with because I know the listing agent is picking offers. If somebody comes across kind of rough and and tough to work with. That’s the one I’m telling my client like, I don’t know, that guy was kind of a jerk. Yeah, it seems pretty good. But this one looks really good. I mean, it just human nature you’re going to be even though it’s not our choice, as you know, of what offer to go with our clients always are going to be asking, Well, which one would you go with and why? And so we have to be able to tell them and I know that so that’s why when I’m working with somebody else, I’m trying to become their new best friend from the minute I call.

Rebecca Rains 

I was saying item number two is basically the same thing, but for the lender to do the same. Because I know when I’m a listing agent, certain banks I’ve heard good things about certain banks have had great experiences with certain banks. I don’t want to touch but if I have a loan officer who’s calling me or email Me vouching for their client, I’m probably going to get a little bit more warm fuzzy. So when my my clients asked me which offer to go with, and say, Well, hey, Rebecca was pretty cool. And her lender, Joe, he was awesome. Like, he already called and told me how great the people were and blah, blah, blah. So that’s item number two is I basically, and I don’t want to say, require that my clients use one of my preferred lenders, but I explained to them during a buyer consult that if you choose to use Chase Bank, or Wells Fargo, or some like a credit union, probably Navy Federal Credit Union, when we’re doing multiple offer bidding war situations, and I need an updated pre qual fits at night around the weekends, I might not get them to respond until it’s too late. And so that’s a challenge if you don’t have a relationship with your lender, who is willing in the middle of Superbowl to send you a pre qual because you need to get an offer in that night.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

Yeah, I like that. So it reaches out that agent, you know, being able to smooth that agent, talk to him, have the lender do the same so they get to, you know, remember you and think about you. So tell me about grateful heart what you did. How did you get there? I mean, I think that’s part of your podcasts and everything else now too, right?

Rebecca Rains 

Is my podcast flow right there

Aaron Amuchastegui 

right behind you. Everybody sees it

Rebecca Rains 

Yeah. So I on November 11, of 2019. I went on the radio for the first time live, and I loved it. It was super fun and talking about everything having to do with real estate. But grateful heart The reason why I started it. And this is where I have to kind of start a little bit talking a little bit about my history. In real estate. I originally was licensed in 93. I was 19 years old. And I went and worked for my dad, he had tried to get me to come work for him at the age of 18. I’m like, I don’t want to work for you. And then I was going to college and working for an attorney at minimum wage tired of getting yelled at by the attorney, you know, he’s you know, bark girl coffee, you know, stuff like that he was not very fun to work for. So I think my dad had really good timing one day when he called me. And he’s like, Hey, are you just gonna come work for me?

Rebecca Rains 

I was like, what do I need to do? So I went and got my real estate license and went worked for dad for the first few years. I’m the youngest of six. And he had most of my siblings working for him at the time in one fashion or another. I learned a ton. But you know, working with family can be tough. Shortly thereafter, graduation, I left him and went worked for builders direct for many, many years. So I have a very strong builder background. Needless to say, over the years, though, you know, I can’t speak for everybody. But I know a lot of people who are in the real estate market, or I’m sorry, I should say real estate business were brought in by a family member, good friend, because we all we all are about relationships in general. So fast forward to 2016. My dad, I would always send him my Hispanic clients on the west side of town. I was born in Mexico City, but it’s not my first language. So whenever I had a Hispanic client come to me, I would always like send them to dad and dad would take care of them. But we didn’t work together anymore. But in 2016, right before my daughter left for college to Hawaii, my dad had, we didn’t know what was wrong with them. We thought it was a stroke, we weren’t sure. And literally he did real estate doing transactions up until the day he died in from basically, I want to say September through October, we thought he had had a stroke. I was with them at the hospital pretty much the entire time. And it turned out to be something called CJ D. And if you’ve never heard of cjd, it’s super rare. Most people hadn’t I hadn’t up until that point, one in 2 million get it. And it’s basically like mad cow disease. So my dad went from with where we thought he had a stroke, he went to not being able to speak not being able to walk. And basically on Halloween of 2016 I was with him when he took his last breath. That was a tough day. And you know, it’s until you’ve gone through it. You don’t. It’s hard to tell somebody that is going through if you haven’t been what it’s like to lose a parent, but we all I mean, you know, it’s a fact of life. But what happened to my husband and I right after. So my dad died on Halloween. The very next day, my husband’s uncle that he was named after passed away unexpectedly alone. That was tough. And then the following day, my step mom’s mom passed as well. So we had three people pass in three days completely unrelated, followed by within the two month following my my daughter Willow who lived with my dad had passed and then one of our agents passed from cancer. So in the period of two months, I had gone to five funerals, planned four of them did the eulogies and did all you know cleaned out households, and it was a tsunami of grief that I went through. And during that time period, I really you know, had to start kind of questioning what life was all about and what was it doing with my life. And you know, I shouldn’t be that something. So grief filled happens to figure this out I am certain other people don’t need to go through all that in order to create a grateful heart. But literally, I turned my grief into gratitude. And I created the most beautiful life for myself with my husband. Since that time period, you know, we had basically realized that there was a lot of things we wanted in our lives that we weren’t doing out of fear. And now I’m not afraid of things anymore, like I used to be, we now own a cabin up north for the last few years that I, you know, we always said we didn’t have the time we didn’t have the money, we didn’t have this, we didn’t have that. And after that, we just said, you know what we need to go after what we need to go after to make our lives better and be happier in our own lives. And we did. And then I got baptized in the ocean in Hawaii. That is a whole nother story. And I don’t think we have time to share about that. But that is actually in the closing of my podcast, I show the video of doing that. And right after that I learned how to serve like, there’s like basically nothing holding me back anymore. And it was really like, I found love in my heart. And I just wanted everybody else around me, I guess maybe I just finally realized, you know, tomorrow is not promised. And when you live your life every day realizing the gift of just being here what it is, it is so much easier to have compassion in your heart and kindness for others. And maybe a little bit more patience when people are making you crazy. Because we all have bad days. But when you’re there to truly help other people just do better in their lives. And just believe in themselves. I started like listening to a lot of people like Bernie brown and Dr. Joe dispenza. And getting into really interesting topics like Dolores Cannon with past life regressions, and just really trying to kind of figure it out whatever it is, for each of us is different. But I started praying every night. And I started meditating on a regular basis and exploring all these other things to make me elevate my own, I guess, what’s the best way to describe it as just having, you know, I learned how to have a grateful heart. And now I’m trying to share that with others. And the act of doing so is only elevated myself. And quite honestly, my business last year was record business. I never thought I’d hit those numbers that we hit with my husband and our team and our agents. And I know it’s because I’m always giving back. And I’m always putting our clients first, because I know the rest will follow. And just doing that and living your life in that manner of abundance and being willing to share like, everything on that cheat sheet. It was really funny when Curtis asked me about it, I’m like, I don’t know if I want to. But you know what I’m good with sharing, because I know there’s abundance in this world. So there’s eight more great tips that I’m going to give your agents of things to do that will help set them apart from other agents to win, you know, competitive bidding wars. And it’s just a matter of just truly giving back. So when I started grateful heart, I just kept having like this itch of I need to do something I need to do something I need to give back I need to share more information. So my show isn’t just about your real estate stats and how the markets going. But it’s meant to be very motivational. And to encourage people to explore different topics that maybe they want to explore on their own. So I’ve had holistic doctors on I’ve had nidre Yoga instructors on I have had psychic people on I’ve had appraisers on I’ve had attorneys on I’ve like I really tried to mix it up because I try to give people back all the things that I find interesting in my own life. Because it’s not all about numbers by any means. And people are people and I think when you treat people well, they always remember how you made them feel maybe not everything that you said but they do remember how you made them feel so trying your best to make people feel special. When you come across and you know, just giving a compliment and our smile can get you so far.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

What a great story Rebecca like with all of it, it’s funny as you’re talking with there’s there’s so many similarities that create change. I remember I remember when my dad passed away like six years ago and and he was working till the day he died and he wasn’t and he wasn’t supposed to pass away. And when that happened my wife and I were like oh my gosh, what have we been missing out on? Tomorrow is not promised. We pulled our kids out of school that became so much of our life. one of our books is the five hour school week. And it’s the brand of how we decided to like get up and go and like take our kids around the world and try to live every moment like it’s, it’s our last and then being able to kind of share that for you to share the you know the message in that energy with people every week. And it really is cool to be like no, sometimes you’re talking about real real estate but you’re also just really talking about life. You’re trying to help people you’re trying to provide value. And I’m sure that value did rub off and and now it’s helped your business and help lives out there. And like what a cool way? And what a fun thing to be doing right?

Rebecca Rains 

All right, you know, my husband calls it my hobby, most of my hobbies do end up being really good at the end of the day. But, you know, he likes to tease me about it. Because there isn’t a direct correlation between doing a podcast and giving back, you can’t quantify how that might impact your business. But I will tell you that, you know, it’s a certain credibility that you receive amongst your clients and amongst your sphere, that you’re out there and you’re sharing your message. And it is incredibly powerful when you know, you were just talking. It made me think of this quote about, you know, magic, if every person you came across, you treated it like it was going to be the last time you’d see them. How different would that experience be? When you’re with that individual? Right? If you treat them like oh, my gosh, I might not see you again, is well, if if you treat every every opportunity, you have to experience an exchange with somebody else in that manner. If everybody did it, can you imagine how much nicer our world would be and how nicer we would be to each other?

Aaron Amuchastegui 

I had an experience of that just this past week. I haven’t always treated people right. And that was a message that I learned over time, when I got to start experiencing a little bit of death. I had some people pass away and realize the last time I talked to him, I wasn’t like this. Three days ago, I had a friend of mine, that I saw on Facebook, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I was like, oh my gosh. So then I go look at my phone. And I was so relieved to see that the very last text was when he was in town, and we invited him over for Easter dinner just a couple years ago. So I call him I get to talk to him for five or six minutes, and he’s not doing good. And I’m like, man, I can’t believe that. we had some great memories. Like, you know, and he still had plans, right. And he was, you know, he didn’t think that it was over. And he passed away the next day. So I called him with I called him within like 20 minutes of finding out get to talk to him for a minute. And he passed away the next day.

Rebecca Rains 

You took that opportunity and you didn’t waste the chance to say goodbye. You didn’t realize you were saying goodbye maybe necessarily that moment, but he did pass the next day. And now you have no regret.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

It’s so much different that you never know when goodbye is going to be. You never know the idea of saying this may be the last time you have that conversation. Or this may be the last time you can text someone back are the last time you can answer the phone if they call like you just never know. And what a happier life, we’re gonna be better people, if we get to focus on it, I think you’re doing some amazing things. Rebecca, it sounds like the best way for people we get, you know, so many people are gonna want to reach out to you, they’re gonna want to hear what you’re doing, they’re gonna want to ask you questions about your story, they’re gonna they’re gonna want to hear about your baptism in Hawaii, or watching a show. So it looks like it’s gratefulheart.tv

Rebecca Rains 

Our website is gratefulheart.tv. And then we have links for all the different platforms for whether it’s podcast, or if you’d rather watch us on YouTube, we do post on our Facebook channel and on Instagram. But you know, everybody’s a little bit different about how they like to receive their information if they have a commute they drive on or what have you. Obviously, I also am a real estate broker here in town. So we do have a link on my grateful heart to link you over to my personal business website. But all of our episodes are on there. We have a little bit over a year behind us now doing the show. And I’m always looking for new guests because I do the same thing that you’re doing right now as I love interviewing different people to bring new content and fresh content to my audience. It’s just truly about just giving back the best that you can and I promise you if you’re an agent and you’re watching me right now, go through the agent cheat sheet. Because my number 10 item is gold gold that works every time almost.

Aaron Amuchastegui 

How awesome. I hope agents are gonna see that. When you want to get ahold of anything that’s on our special gifts you go HibanDigital.com, you sign up to get free access to the toolbox, you’ve got all sorts of good stuff like that, and listeners go check out gratefulheart.tv I’m looking at this website. And you know, she’s interviewing doctors on here about self care, you know, personal trainers about fitness, you know, tax time, there’s like tax time discussions on there with other specialists like from a range of everything as I’m clicking through and just seeing you know, God-given success in both business and personal life.