Chris Stafford: Secrets of Highly Successful Listing

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Hey, Damon Burton and Kyle Detroit with learningfromothers.com and today Christopher Stafford, a successful listing agent, one of the top producing real estate brokers in the Bay area. And he’s on a mission to expose you to the secrets of highly successful listing agents so that you can learn from them and live the listing agent dream and cut your learning curve dramatically.

I like it, you know, Christopher, you’re our first real estate guest. So welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much for having me out. Yeah, Tommy, correct? Yes, Chris. Yes. You did say that offline. So Chris, I will screw that up. Don’t worry. A couple more times. Call me anything you want. It’s just, don’t call me late for dinner.

Yeah. So, Chris, um, you know, you advise companies about business practices and, you know, start a plans and give us the crash car site. Give us your elevator pitch. Well, yeah, what I’m doing right now is I am a real estate coach for lifting agents. Uh, I still am a listing broker and by way of training, I, um, started off at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

So I’m a CPA as well. I did that for 11 years. Until I decided that, um, I needed to find my passion because I hated that job. And I just, I was so miserable. I felt like I was going home crying on the inside every single night. So, and I’m not that quick on the uptake to, so it took me 11 years to PricewaterhouseCoopers to figure out what my passion is.

So, uh, and that was real thing. And I just absolutely fell in love with real estate. And my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. So was there a breaking point that made you move or was it just the newfound passion that made you jump. You know, I just was so miserable. And one of the things that, you know, I had a moment of clarity in my life.

And I think that one of the things that’s really difficult for all of us as entrepreneurs or not is to just really take a conscious, look at your life and figure out what it is that you want to do, because we’re all going a hundred million miles an hour with, you know, children and partners and this and that and family.

And so it’s really hard to just sort of step back and say, Hey, what is it that you want to do? But I was so miserable doing that because I’m more of a goofy, sort of a. A gregarious kind of guy. I love being in front of people and talking to new people and all that kind of stuff. And just sitting in a dark office somewhere, reviewing papers and advising corporations on their business plans was just something that was awful to me.

Yeah. So what’s your, so what, where you’re still actively doing real estate and then, um, I wanna, I wanna hear more about what you’re doing in the coaching role and how long you’ve been in that, but before you dive into the details, kind of what’s your balance, you know, 50 50 between those two or where are you at?

Yeah, I would say probably right now, um, I’m probably more, uh, doing real estate in terms of like my income. I’m probably more like 60, 40 more real estate is 60%, 40% is coaching, but I love coaching because, you know, I love what you guys are doing here, you know, with this podcast. And you guys probably understand, you know, that feeling of when you, when you can help somebody else out.

Um, you know, when I call up a realtor or listing broker and I give them some information that can help them increase their sales, you know, I can live off that for days. You know, it’s just such a high that I get, you know, so I absolutely love it. Coaching. I think he eventually, probably in the next few years, it’ll be a hundred percent coaching and I’ll get rid of the real estate because I plan on moving from San Francisco to Panama city Panama.

Oh, Massey, get him out of the country. Yeah. Are you going to go, are you going to go all the way and go ex-pat. Yep. Yeah. You know, I’ve probably absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I figured, you know, I’m 59 years old and I’ve got about another 30 years of my life. I want to do something fun. I want to, you know, move to a new culture, a new language and a, we love Panama and the place that the prices are so inexpensive and the people are so friendly and it’s still really close to the stage.

And then you can be in Miami in two hours. So, you know, it’s a fun place. I first got awesome medical down there too. There there’s STEM cell research is. Pretty much top-notch to the entire world. It’s funny that you say that you’re the first person to even acknowledge that. Yeah, they’ve got a pretty good healthcare system down there.

One of the main hospitals, uh, and post Pacifica is affiliated with John Hopkins university. All of our, all the doctors down there, all trained in either Europe, Canada, the United States. So yeah, it’s pretty cool. You know, I’ve, I’ve, uh, kind of like you guys were just touching on, I’ve heard, uh, Panama being one of those.

Um, there’s a word for it. Uh, uh, hot. What is it? Medical tourism clarity in another country. And it’s like cheaper instead of getting a hip replacement in the U S you. Fly to Spain or wherever, get it done for a fifth of the price lived there for six months and still come back home with $5,000 cheaper in your pot.

But yeah, there’s a lot of medical tourism down there. Uh, but just everything is just so inexpensive down there. It’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty crazy. So you were originally from Detroit and now you’re in San Francisco. What was that? A career move or how’d you end up switching those locations? Well, it’s an interesting story because I was in, uh, Detroit.

I absolutely hated Detroit, you know, in deference, all the people that live in Detroit watching your show, I’ve just couldn’t handle the cold winters. And it took me like 22 years to figure that one out. And I was really lucky cause I was working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Detroit. And they ended up transferring me after a lot of lobbying on my part.

Uh, they transferred me to the San Diego and that was really, I had a pretty good career there. Um, you know, I didn’t like the work that much, but they kept me really busy with travel, which is one of my passions. And so I w I lived and was based out of Diego byte, spent a couple of years of a national office in New York city.

I worked in, um, San Diego, as I mentioned, Dallas, and do a lot of work in Chicago and all over the country. So. Um, yeah, it was a great experience. Um, but then finally, San Diego, after living in New York was just too provincial for me. And I decided that I wanted to live in a larger urban center. I’m more of a big city guy, urban guy.

And that’s why I moved to San Francisco. Gotcha. Yeah. I don’t blame you. You know, we’re here in Utah and I love Utah. I just wish it didn’t have winters like a winter and a few times I hear a gift cold there. Yeah. Yeah. We’re down where we’re at freezing point nights already. So, so, you know, you’re, you’re two and a half decades of experience in real estate.

Um, for those listening that are either in real estate and want to get further, or maybe they’re considering jumping into that world, uh, what, what kind of real estate one-on-one advice could you give them? Well to be a realtor is, you know, people I think have this sort of notion that you can just actually.

You know, hanging out at the water cooler and eat donuts and talk to other agents and all the businesses just going to come to you. And it’s not, I mean, the biggest thing that I will tell agents that are, that are aspiring to be a real estate agent, is that you really do have to hustle. You have to prospect, you have to look for deals.

You have to look for sellers. And I think that real estate is probably it’s one of the hardest high paying jobs in the world. I’m probably one of the lowest paying easiest jobs in the world, because it’s all depends on what kind of energy you put into it. So you really have to be a salesperson. You have to like marketing and have to be able to sell yourself and sell your firm to get listings.

And, um, so if you, if you’re, if you don’t have that mentality to just sort of be on the hustle every single morning, trying to find new business, then real estate is really not for you. So without giving away. Yeah. I mean, obviously all your secrets, like what? So I approached you and I need coaching. What’s what do you, how do you start?

What do you do? Is there a five step program? Yeah. Well, I think that, uh, the first thing that somebody, he comes to me and they’re talking to me about my program, I think that the first thing that people have to do is they have to have the hotspot. If you will, to, to Africa, they have to actually go and ask for business.

And the first place, and the easiest place to ask for business is the people that, you know, And what I call your sphere of influence your SOI. So every sales person, I don’t care if you’re in real estate or not. Every salesperson has to look for business. If they’re going to be a success in it. And to start off with your SOI or your sphere of influence, is it really.

I think it’s sort of an easy thing to ask your family and your friends who do you know, that might be selling real estate and you know what guys it’s, it’s so weird because that is the hardest thing for most realtors to do. Most realtors don’t want to talk to their family and their friends about it.

You know, they’re there they’re okay. Knocking on doors or making expired cold calls or, you know, doing Facebook ads and doing all these other crazy ways to get business. But they won’t ask the people that know, know them and love them. Dale Carnegie once said something like alarm, I may screw this up, but it’s something along the lines and all the family and the friends that, you know, probably 90% of them are willing to give you a referral.

And only 11% of salespeople are actually asking for the referral. So it’s just, there’s a number of steps that I can take you through, um, that I don’t want to get into right now. But the first step is talk to the people that you know, and ask them for business. You know, it’s I heard a quote yesterday that I think makes it applicable to this, and it was something along the lines of everyone wants to buy, but nobody wants to be sold.

And I think it’s true. Like, you know, you get that at a retail high when you buy stuff on your own discretion, but then you feel guilty, you know, in the real estate world, like you’re saying, you probably feel a little bit guilty being the one to try and sell somebody. Right. Well, I think, you know what, that’s a really good point because I think that one of the things that I teach people is the greatest currency right now, you know, before it used to be, if you ever watched these internet marketers and you watch these crazy people selling stuff, they would just take pictures of themselves in front of, you know, try to jets and fancy cars holding wads of cash and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, it’s so douchey, quite frankly, and now really. I think that the, the best currency today is really authenticity. And this was one of the things I talk about over and over again, to really address that because people, well, they have BS that are off the charts and they know when you’re being douchey, when you’re being sleazy, when you’re lying, when you’re not being yourself.

And that’s one of the biggest tips that I give, um, Listing agents when they go into meet sellers, because like you said, they don’t want to, they want to feel like they’re in a relaxed environment before they make a decision. So if you can go into a meeting with a seller and just be authentic and you know, you started goofy.

If you have a sense of humor, you know, crack some jokes, but really listen, that’s the key. Listen to them. What they’re saying, listen to what their dreams are, listen to what their goals are, listen to what their fears are. Because one of the things I always love telling realtors is, you know, you can go in there to a listing presentation and any sales person can go into any sales presentation, and you can about how great you are, how beautiful your car is, your suit and you’re number one and blah, blah, blah.

You know, you just want to make you vomit. But the truth is EV and nobody’s going to remember that stuff when you leave. A seller. Isn’t going to remember how great you are, how many houses you sold in the neighborhoods. They’re going to remember how you made them feel. And that is really the big takeaway for me that if you can go into a seller and make them so comfortable and so confident, then they’re going to walk away thinking, you know, that’s a great guy.

I really liked that guy. They’re probably going to select you as a realtor. You know, I had, uh, I had a, an issue it’s just with our newest SEO client. And that was exactly that, uh, went in and met the owner and her assistant. And she, at the end of the deal, you know, she says, she goes, you know why, you know why I want to engage you guys because I like you.

And she just went into the whole thing about the BS meter and this and that. And she’s like, if we close this deal, Do do I lose touch with you and then pass it on to somebody else? Or are you still engaged? Because I like you and it’s true. Like I have a common saying we have, um, at SCO national is, you know, the best way of selling is, is to not sell and, and build a relationship.

I agree. Yeah. I mean, it’s all about establishing rapport. I mean, there’s so many books and so many websites about establishing rapport, but that’s one of the things that you have to do. You can’t just be slimy and go in there and force feed them. Yeah. So, um, I, I didn’t know. There’s something that Kyle had brought up.

Um, somebody, if somebody that he knows was talking about being a realtor and selling versus buying, and I didn’t realize that some realtors will take a position of, you know, One or the other and, uh, you know, in your experience and Kyle, you can chime in, um, I can’t remember which one, the one guy that, you know, he only listed, like he only saw them didn’t buy or there was a lifting agent I was been told, I guess, apparently.

So when you start in real estate, basically you need to be a seller agent or a, of the buyers. That’s where you got to do the most legwork because you’re taking buyers to different houses. But I guess the pinnacle of real estate is to become a listing agent. Like Chris said, Um, because basically the people come to you that as far as the buyers, so all you have to do is lock down the sellers.

Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s much easier. I think, to be a listing agent to work just with, because you know, one point is, is you’re always part of the deal. You know, if you’re with a buyer and they make an offer on a property and they don’t get it, that buyer can just go away. And you’ve spent all that time and energy and quite frankly, a lot of time, you know, we are with buyers, you’re just sort of a glorified tour guide, just driving around the city, looking at properties and stuff.

But with a seller, you know, you’re locked into a contract. You’re always part of the deal because there’s, if that buyer falls through another, buyer’s going to come in and buy the house from you. Plus it’s a lot easier with time management. Uh, you can have a lot more listing and work with a lot more sellers because you don’t have to be running by all the time, which takes up a lot of time.

Yeah. And you know, it’s funny as the house that I last purchased, um, I worked with a realtor. I grew up with a son, so it was real, uh, really the, you know, engagement cause I knew him, but he, he, uh, he was talking about how he didn’t list as much as anymore. He didn’t help buyers as much anymore. Kind of doing a, you know, flipping and whatnot.

And I said, well, how come you’re kind of getting out of it a little bit? And he says, well, you know, kind of like you said, you’re a tour guide and everyone wants to, you got to go work, what everybody else is not working. And so that means you’re touring on. Evenings and nights, and I laugh. And then as I’m laughing, I realized that it was like six 30 on a Tuesday night.

I love it. Exactly, exactly. You have a lot more control of sellers and especially with regard to your time, I think that’s, that’s also something that any sales person that’s watching this a really good salesperson would know is that you can establish, um, how can I say, just couch, the health time management issue with your clients right up front.

You can set the tenor of all of your meetings with your sellers and buyers for that matter. If you can just tell them upfront that you’re not going to be available on certain nights, you’re not going to be available to sell the property on Sunday. You’re not going to that you will take time off, you know, and you know what the cool thing is is whether it’s a seller or buyer, they are I’ll respect that.

Nobody, nobody will fire you because you’re not going to show them property on a Sunday. So set up your parameters up front in terms of when you’re going to work and when you’re not going to work, because I truly believe that as you guys probably no, you can work real estate, any sales job, you can work real estate, you know, 24 seven, if you want it.

It’s funny because we’ve got these, um, I know one real estate agent down in Beverly Hills and she, she has it in their ads and everything. I mean, she, at the time when the pages were hot, She used to have like three cell phones, two pagers. I mean, she used to pride herself on being available 24 seven. It’s just like, you know, woman get a life.

You know, the whole thing that I love doing real estate so that I have some time off. I mean, the great thing about being an entrepreneur as you guys know is that if you want to take time off, you just take the time off. You don’t have to ask anybody, but being available 24 seven I think is just stupid.

Yeah. Well, you know, when we talked to find, you had mentioned that your goal is to motivate listing agents who want to 10 X, but what you said after that, I said, while having a life at the same time, and I can totally appreciate that from the entrepreneurial world. Um, and, and I think you’ve already hit on the major points is, is setting parameters and, you know, separating work and personal life.

You just, you need to be successful involved to be successful in the other. Right. And, and the thing too is, is, you know, it’s just your old BS in your own head. That’s stopping you from doing, you know, because I’ve never had a client say challenged me that, Oh, you take Saturdays off or you’re not going to work past 7:00 PM.

I mean, I’ve never had a client say, you know, I want you to work harder. I want you to work more hours. You know, they respect that time. Yeah. Um, so as, as you CA in addition to coaching, uh, you had mentioned author and speaker, um, is the book related to this industry too? Well, the book is more of a general personal development book.

I, um, it’s basically the seven steps that I’ve established, um, from some experiences I had, I had, uh, You know, I was in, how can I say this? I wasn’t sure. Very healthy individual. When I first went into real estate and I was burning the candle at both ends and I was drinking a lot. And then, you know, they always say, don’t be, don’t worry about the future because all that.

Crap that you think is going to happen to you in the future. It never happens to you. But what does happen is those random phone calls you get on a Tuesday at four o’clock and that’s what happened to me. I got a random phone call Tuesday at 4:00 PM that told me that my partner of 15 years had brain cancer.

And I’m talking about just being shaken to the core. And so I basically just went on a drunken binge for a year. I spent every single night in the hospital. I mean, between the kidney dialysis and all the operations and the brain surgery and everything else. Good news. Um, we’re totally remission free and have been for seven years, which is super cool.

But I spent a year in the hospital. Trash in my myself and thank God business partner that kept my business sort of alive. But out of that, I just got to the point and I realized, you know what, I can’t go on. I can’t keep doing this. And that’s when I just sort of had this epiphany and ended up writing this book.

And it’s all about just how you can live your best life essentially is what the book is all about. And that’s when I decided to that as much as I love real estate. After I wrote the book that I also wanted to use the principles in the book to help other real estate agents, you know, not only 10 X or business, but you know, like you said, no, have a life at the same time, because as you guys know, you know, all this stuff can be taken away from you in a second.

And so we all have to be really conscious of that. Yeah. And is your, your, uh, speaking engagements, is that, uh, related to that? Yes. The speaking engagements are pretty much related to the book. I tend to spend more time though, working with realtors. So I have traveled, I’ve been trying to cut down on my travel, but I have in the past, traveled all over the country, primarily to realtors and to realtor associations.

So I take the principles of the book. And turn that into, you know, how you can equate that or how you can put that into your listing business to get more listings and have a great life at the same time. I like that. Um, so you’ve been in, we’ve covered the, try it in San Francisco and you mentioned San Diego.

And then I see here, New York as well. So, uh, is, is where he is, where you’re. Out of all of those, um, you know, what, what are the pros and cons of each of those from a career perspective and any personal highlights from those locations? Well, I think that, um, that’s a good question. Nobody’s ever asked me that before, you know, there was the old joke, you know, move to move to New York, but leave before it makes you hard and then move to San Francisco and leave before it makes you soft.

Yeah. That’s one of the things that I love my time in New York, because. I only, I knew I was only gonna spend two years there and I was working in the national office. And again, as I told you before, I’m, I’m a big city guy. I’m an urban guy. So I just loved that everything that New York had to offer. But, um, it was a bit crazy for me, uh, because of the winters.

I didn’t like the cold and it was just a little bit too frenetic. For me. And that’s when I moved back to San Diego in San Francisco, I’ve been here like 25 years. I absolutely San Francisco, but like with anything, uh, I think that the city is changing. And we’re having a lot of problems here in the city.

Um, you know, with homelessness, uh, you know, needles on the street, things are getting dirty congestion, all that kind of stuff. So one of the that’s one of the reasons why I thought that it would be a really great idea to have another experience out of the country, cause I’ve never lived outside of the country before.

Hey, so as someone who lives there, I kind of checked samples. San Francisco off my places to travel lists. When I heard that the, uh, department of health released a, uh, a poop app, essentially upload pictures of feces on the street. So is it. I’m assuming it’s a problem. I mean, is it, is it relevant that you’re dodging bombs as your wife?

Yeah. It’s not only a problem for a human feces, but it’s also a problem with dogs, but people are just not picking up the waste. But yeah, no, it’s, it’s a big issue in San Francisco because one of the things, I dunno how to say this, but we’re sort of, a lot of people call San Francisco, the left coast branch of the Kremlin to very liberal attitudes.

They don’t want to do anything with the homeless. Uh, and so there, you know, instead of just kicking them out or forcing them to go into shelters, cause we have tons of shelters here, they pretty much just the police let them be, be on the streets. And so, you know, you do have to watch yourself, you have to watch yourself in certain areas.

Um, even driving through certain areas. There’s just huge tent cities that are just pretty crazy. So it’s really destroying, I think the tenor of this city and a lot of tourists, obviously one of the. Number one industry for San Francisco is tourism. Tourists are getting really sick of it. So it sort of sucks.

No, it’s, it’s kind of interesting. I had a friend that just went to Rome last week and as you’re watching her social media updates, it’s so interesting to see, you know, at face value, like you talked about tourism and everything’s beautiful in San Francisco and then Rome, you just think of it just being this marvelous historical location and it’s in pristine, uh, you know, whatever conditions.

But then when I’m seeing her feed on Rome, it’s like, Homeless people everywhere. Everywhere is tagged with graffiti. There’s garbage, everywhere, and nobody takes care of anything. And it’s just so interesting to hear the in-person views from those locations. Yeah. Yeah, no, that is, you know, I don’t know what a Giuliani did.

He was the mayor of New York city. And as crazy as that cat is right now at the time back in the eighties and nineties Giuliani heats up. Took names. And he just put into really strict laws. And if somebody just even so much, as you know, urinated on the side of the side of the building, they’d arrest him and how he got rid of all the homeless, because in the 1980s, New York was really a cesspool and it was pretty dangerous.

And the course of like five to seven years, I believe he just totally cleaned up that city. And now Manhattan today. You know, I go there frequently for business and it’s beautiful. And you don’t really run into all the problems that you run in here. But again, I say they’re so liberal here. I don’t think they would be as hardcore with homeless people here.

It’s interesting to me too, cause yeah, I mean on San Francisco, you’ve got Silicon Valley right there. Real estate prices are insane that you don’t see any effect on that in the future. Do you have real estate prices with the. No. Yeah. Not with, not with that necessarily, because there’s so much, you know, thank God, you know, knock on wood, the good thing here that the local economy, like you mentioned, it’s pretty strong.

So we have, you know, with Silicon Valley, just, you know, an hour South of us, and a lot of that is sort of floating up to us. Uh, so we have a lot of high tech companies. I think commercial space here in San Francisco, uh, least is at an all time high. Uh, we have a large, a lot of large companies like Oracle, Google, Salesforce just built the highest skyscraper in Detroit.

Detroit and San Francisco. And in addition to that high rise, they’ve also, they’re leasing so much space around. So the local economy is really strong and because of that, a lot of people have a lot of cash. So what we’re seeing here in San Francisco anyway, and hopefully it’ll continue are a lot of cash buyers.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So, and, and they’re not, and they’re not really, I don’t know. They’re really not too concerned, I guess, about some of the social issues, but a lot of these are like sort of newbie, young kids, you know, that are working at Google and, you know, making $150,000 a year. And you know, maybe more than they live here for awhile, you know, like I have, they’re going to figure out really fast.

You know, there’s some downsides to living in San Francisco right now. It is 150,000, uh, relative to San Francisco. I would think that’s not a lot, like 150 is a lot, but I don’t get San Francisco. Like, is that like, is that like. Uh, you know, like middle-class San Francisco, definitely the middle class, definitely middle class.

I don’t, I don’t know if you saw it, but there was an article in the New York times that was about, about a month or two ago. But they’ve said that if somebody makes six figures, if you’re making a hundred to $120,000, it’s difficult to get by in San Francisco because you’re going to be your rent alone is crazy.

I’ve noticed prices and food stores and restaurants have really gone up. Um, the, I mean, just the cost of living here in San Francisco is pretty crazy. If you want to rent, I was just talking to some people here. If you want to rent like a decent one bedroom apartment here, minimum, I mean just nothing glamorous.

You’re going to pay probably $3,500. If you want something nice. You’re going to pay four to 5,000 for a one bedroom. Wow. That is unreal in the real estate world. Um, Because I I’m assuming rent has a large port rental units has a large portfolio in San Francisco. The real estate agents get into rentals too, to actually do well.

I’ll tell you, maybe I’m answering your question or maybe not. I do rentals to buy. As investments, but not the work rentals because essentially then you’re a property manager and most realtors won’t go into property, the management, because it’s such a legal nightmare and you’re eating, won’t cover you doing property management, but.

If you’re asking about rental to buy, I certainly, we, I have rentals all across the country, quite frankly, but I wouldn’t buy a rental in San Francisco. And the reason is not only is it super expensive, it’s hard to cashflow, but also because San Francisco has rent control. So if you have a crazy ass tenant that does stupid stuff, and I have had some experiences with this, it’s very difficult to get them kicked out.

Um, because you’ve got rent control. What’s what’s the objective with that with rent control to make landlord’s lives miserable. Um, the objective is really what’s rent control is that if somebody is living in an apartment and they’re paying a thousand dollars a month, or let’s just say $3,000 a month for a one bedroom apartment, uh, the rent control law says that you can only raise their rent right now in San Francisco.

I think it’s less than 2% a year. So you can’t bring your rents up to fair market value. As long as that one person, it stays in that apartment. So you have people that have lived in apartments, you know, for example, that have lived in apartments for like 20, 30, 40 years. And you know, maybe the fair market value of the rent is $3,000 a month, but they’re paying 300.

Okay. They’re never going to leave. And a rent control allows them to do that. So I was under the impression, right. Control kind of happened in the eighties, seventies, eighties, with all the slum Lord, you know, New York high-rises and they came in and tried to gentrify the neighborhood. So is, is, um, is it, is it kind of like a antiquated.

Law now, or do you think it still helps? That’s a slippery slope there? Um, I don’t think that it helps. It really just depends on what standpoint you’re coming from as a landlord and as an order investor. Uh, I think it’s a bad thing because if you’re only making $300 a month on a 3000 Sarah market value unit, you’re not going to put any money into the venue.

Yeah. So you’re not going to fix up the building. You’re not going to do anything that the living situation, but from a tenant standpoint, they’re thinking, Hey, I’m going to get really cheap rent and I’m going to pay $300 a month. Sorry. It’s it’s not an antiquated thing because right now, Santa Monica has, and I believe we’ve on the ballot for the vote coming up in November.

They’re not only trying to make it statewide instead of cause right now control is only governed by individual municipalities cities. They’re trying to make it statewide, cover the whole state of California. Number one, and number two to some areas are also trying to do vacancy control. So under the current, and probably more information that you guys weren’t, but under the current situation, rent control, somebody pays $300 a month and they move out.

You can use my previous example, bumped the rent up to $3,000 a month. You can bump it up for a new tenant up to fair market value under vacancy control. You wouldn’t be able to do that. You would have to keep the rent even right Lieutenant, come in, keep the right $300, which is to me. Yeah, that’s crazy.

Huh? Well, and so you use your slumlord example. I mean, that’s why a lot of times these, they call them slum Wars is because they’re not making any money. They can’t sell the building because as an investor, why would you buy a building with a tenant that’s only paying $300 a month and they’re not going to put any money into it.

So the buildings are just going down Hill. So it’s such a philosophical discussion. I don’t even know, you know, is there, is there, um, In housing and housing insurance issues, or people just burn their building down, you would think you would absolutely. Then probably insurance control too, where you only get the rent value.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, no, I don’t. It’s just the crazy thing. And that’s, that’s a big issue here in San Francisco. So fortunately again, coming back to our economy, we have a strong economy. That’s allowing a lot of owner occupiers to purchase buildings. So a lot of investors are running away from San Francisco, but the people that actually want to live in their properties and that’s one loophole in the law right now, currently is if you bought a condo or a single family house, that’s rented, you can kick the tenant out.

If you promise to move in and live there a year, minimum kind of thing. But yeah, I would say you probably want to wait a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, are, as you kind of keep a pulse on markets, are there any hot markets that are up and coming, uh, in the country or however, and you know, California country, and I’ll tell you right now, um, I also property, believe it or not Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

And that’s a really strong, uh, economy, another strong economy of Oklahoma city. Um, all the places that, you know, I’ve done research on across the country. They’re not the glamorous city, but they’re the cities that have really good local economy. They have good a headquarters, a lot of headquarters.

They’re like, uh, Oklahoma city for instance, is the center of, um, oil and gas, especially natural gas. So a lot of large natural gas headquarters companies there. Uh, I think. Dell computers is there and they’re opening up another facility or something. So what I do is just look at the local economy because, you know, we, we can’t just make generalizations across the country about what’s happening in the United States and the real estate market.

You really have to look at each specific real estate market and see what the local economy is and how that’s doing. That makes sense. Um, so kind of back to where you’re at now in your career. With, uh, or at least the trajectory you’re going with with coaching. So your coaching programs called the top producer collective and, you know, I’m actually getting into some SEL coaching.

And so I find it interesting to find, to hear stories about people, where they talk about, you know, you mentioned accountability programs and mastermind groups. Um, those are fascinating to me and it’s, I I’m being continually exposed to, um, Done for you services like a coach’s couch. Like it’s just amazing to me, to the layers of coaches, of coaches with coaches and you know, where you can kind of interject yourself into programs.

So, uh, for those that aren’t familiar, kind of explain to our listeners what accountability programs are and mastermind groups are. Sure. So one of the things I think it’s really important, if you want to get better in doing whatever it is, you want to get better in whether you want a better relationship.

You want to be a better at your tennis game. If you want to be a better listing agent, or you want to learn SEO, you know, much better. It’s I think it’s critically important. Like they always say to me, well, learn to play tennis, play with somebody that’s better than you. I think it’s critically important, uh, to have a mastermind group, which is essentially a group of likeminded individuals, all getting together and exchanging ideas and exchange, uh, It’s a great way, which I still am belong to mastermind.

It’s a great way to motivate yourself and sense yourself, learn new things and, uh, make great friends. And I belong told me after my group that every three months I actually fly to New York and I pay a lot of money. And, but it’s worth it to take the, make the effort, because for instance, My last trip to New York was last, uh, last month.

And one woman said something that she’s doing in her business and it took her 45 seconds to explain this. And it was the biggest aha for me, totally changed. My whole business. Totally changed my whole coaching program. Uh, so yeah, having these being surrounded by people that are better is just so important for any business endeavor.

That’s a mastermind group and being held accountable, you know, like you guys are, we’re all entrepreneurs here. And I think it’s really important that we are accountable to other people because we’re certainly working on an Island by ourselves. We’re not really reporting to anybody. We are maps and we don’t have a boss that says, you gotta do this.

You gotta do that. You gotta do this. And so I’ve been in the business for 27. I still have an accountability partner that I have to report every single Friday. I tell him at the beginning of the week, what my goals are. And then it’s Friday. I have to give them a report and they have to hit my goals. And so I’ve been doing this for 27 years and I can tell you, I I’ve always had a coach and I’ve always had an accountability partner and I’ve always been part of a mastermind group.

And that’s why I designed the top producer collective, which is really a mastermind group, a coaching program and accountability program, all in one. Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, um, everybody that everybody I talked to you that’s in the, in a group, a mastermind or accountability program. I never got anything bad.

They always say it’s at, uh, is, is a positive impact. And the cool thing is too, is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money to be one. You know, I tell realtors this all the time, I’m paying. A shit ton of money right now to be in this mastermind group. But these people are operating at such a high level, much higher than I could ever hope to be.

You know, one guy in our group is, are you ready for this one guy in our group is doing online marketing and he’s making like 1.2 to $1.5 million a month. That’s a month. I mean, and this guy has pearls of wisdom. That is just crazy, but you don’t have to spend money to be part of a mastermind or accountability group.

I tell realtors all the time, find somebody else find another real estate agent in another marketplace. So you can exchange information freely. And just get them on the phone and say, Hey, let’s let you meet once a month. Let’s meet twice a month and let’s just get on the phone and exchange ideas and talk about, Hey, what’s going on in your market?

How are you finding listings? And you know, that type of thing. And so you can do this for free. Anybody can start a mastermind group with anybody. Um, and so you don’t have to pay a lot of money to do it. And once one thing is a common, um, comment about other entrepreneurs helping other entrepreneurs is that it seems like the more successful you get more often than not those people feel an obligation to help others.

It’s like it’s their form of giving back. So I think a lot of people that are listening, my point is don’t be intimidated to go ask a super successful guy for advice because he would probably in a selfish way. He would enjoy it and it would make him feel better to help you out. Absolutely. And that’s one of the reasons, and that’s funny that you say that because that’s what my book, natural abundance is all about.

It. It’s sort of like making yourself so strong in your life, whatever, and being so successful in however you define success, you know, whether it’s financial or relationships or health or whatever, but making yourself so strong that it’s like a big circle to me that you turn around and give back because like you guys are doing with this podcast, what I’m doing with my coaching program, if there’s just, like I said earlier, not.

There isn’t a greater high than helping other people succeed and we love doing it. So you, um, you had mentioned your coaching program, your book, and, uh, one more thing before we started to kind of close out, you had made a offline I’m reading here that. You became a $2.5 million average sales price listing agent.

Uh, that sounds, that sounds like pretty nice accomplishment. Like let’s, uh, get, give us some, put it into perspective. Um, you know, what other people, an average listing agent is closing at? Um, you really shouldn’t believe everything you read, you know? No, absolutely. So my average sale price, that’s about two and a half million right now.

A lot of that is quite frankly, a function of the prices in San Francisco, where they ever sales price in San Francisco is about a million dollars for a single family home. Uh, so yeah, no, unfortunately, because I’ve been in the business for a while and I’ve sort of targeted, uh, the higher end market, if you will.

But there are people that are making a lot more money than I am in other marketplaces with smaller price homes, and they’re just selling more volume. So the good thing for me is, you know, I can have a, I can do a pretty, have a pretty comfortable life in that selling as many homes, uh, you know, you know, for me to sell 40 or 50 homes a year, you know, that’s a great year for me.

Um, but there are guys out there that are sewing, you know, we’ll look at like Las Vegas or Phoenix, or, you know, some places middle America. I don’t know what the prices are in Utah, but there are some people like in those areas that price of maybe $200,000. Well, if they’re selling 500, you know, and believe it or not, some of these, some of these people are jokes, animals, and they’re really kicking out some major productions.

So it really just sort of depends on what your price point is, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I had asked if you had any advice to listeners or maybe to give your younger self, and you said don’t sweat the small stuff you want to elaborate on that any well, yeah. I just think that. You know, if I could talk to my younger self, especially when I went into real estate and I was just.

Always wrapped with a lot of guilt, not guilt. I shouldn’t say doubts. I think the doubt is the greatest killer of dreams. And especially when you’re not as comfortable with as confident with yourself, especially when you’re earlier, you just, you have all these discussions with yourself and all this internal BS that’s going through your head that keeps you from doing a lot of really cool things.

And like I said before, all the stuff that you’re worried about, that that could potentially go wrong in the future. None of that stuff happens in the future. You know, it’s the stuff that blind sign issue that you got to watch out for. And so I think that, you know, if people would just try to deal with their doubts and try to deal with their fears and take in the greatest way, I have a great way to do that.

Um, you just, you, you all top it so much in your life. Sooner. And one of the greatest things that I love doing is there’s there’s approach called Kaizen, which is basically, you know, the road of a thousand miles starts with the first step. And I always am telling people just to take baby steps. You know, if you want to do something, if you want to accomplish something, if you want to start a project, if you want to start knocking on doors to get business as a realtor, take small little steps every single day.

Because when you take small steps, you sort of circumvent the amygdala, the fear of flight. Response and you become more confident, you become more motivated and you want to do more of it. So don’t just bite off a huge Chuck of something. Just take it in small baby steps, but get rid of the fear and the doubt for God’s sakes.

Yeah. Just start. You gotta start. Um, well, cool, Chris, uh, as, as we kind of wrap up the formal talk and get into the informal last few comments. So you are your living room dancer. Okay, this is this formal dancing or are you just, are you just winging it? Well, that’s funny that you asked me that, um, no, my mother at a very early age taught me how to swing nap.

So, you know, from the 1950s, all the swing music and the swing dancing. So I frequently entertain clients and have friends over for dinner and we joke start after dinner. We’ll start dancing after I put some really loud music on. So much. I love, I love the girls. The girls love me. Oh yeah. So I love a good book and I see that you love reading trashy mystery novel.

So please like. Well, I feel so bad because I feel like I should, I shouldn’t be saying this as a coach. I’ve never said this out loud in public, but you know, nonfiction books, all these wonderful books by Tony Robbins and how to manage your money and how to manage your health and all that kind of stuff.

I hate those books and I can’t. I just, they’re so boring. I’d have a really hard time, but I’m a prolific reader and I love reading biographies, number one, but I also love reading these like really crazy like murder mysteries and international spy thrillers, and, you know, the things that you can read like in a couple of days.

And I always feel sort of, well, I don’t do guilt pretty much, but I was sort of feel guilty that I’m not spending more time, you know, reading Shakespeare and all the other yeah. That’s funny, David and I had a lunch date yesterday with a fellow employee and she introduced me to a new genre that I wasn’t familiar with as a historical fiction.

So I’m going to head to the library and figure that out. Cause I love history. Yeah. I love that. I absolutely love that historical fiction of the movement. Cause I’m the same way. I love history of welfare. Uh, in that same discussion I asked, um, I told, I told the employee, it said, Hey, yeah, that’s new, new to me too.

So can you explain? And I like Kyle’s explanation. He goes, no Damon. It’s not Abraham Lincoln, zombie killer.

I love that. That’s great. Yeah. Well, Chris, uh, Chris Stafford, everybody your time. Why don’t you give us the name of your book and coaching programs again, and any website or phone number or contact information you wanna throw out there? Sure. If anybody wants any more information or once they have any questions for me, I’d be more than happy.

I answer my own phone and my email, all that information can be found on my website, which is Epiclistingagent.com. That’s Epiclistingagent.com. And if you’re listening to this and you go to my website, hit me up and I will send you a free copy of my book free. Very cool. Well, Chris Stafford, um, we always surprise our guests at the end with a random question.

And so we have a random question, Jen. Now, this one is come up with our guests before and I’ve avoided it, but I think I’m going to throw it at you because you sound financially successful and you’re an attractive gentleman. And so that combination together, your question is, would you rather be poor?

Wow. Okay. Would I rather be poor? I don’t. Well, poor, ugly. I don’t want to go with yeah. Pass on this one. No, I’d rather, I’d rather I’ll take the money. I’ll take the money. Alright. Hey, let me see it. I like the candidates. There we go. All Chris Stafford. Thank you very much. Pleasure to meet you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It’s been an honor.