Latest / The Ground Game / Housing’s New Normal: Part 1

Transcript

Housing’s New Normal: Part 1 · The Ground Game

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I I am ready for them to go back to school.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Me too.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's so nice when they're home and it's so nice when they go to school.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're ready for it, Sauce.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Ground Game for mortgage professionals built for the fight.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hosted by Brian Lovell and Mark Mylam.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, welcome to another episode of the Ground Game Podcast with Mr.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Mylam.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I am Brian Lovell.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are super excited you're joining us today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: The first part of this conversation is why has housing been stuck for the last four years?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: The second part of this conversation is going to be as a loan originator and an operator, what should you be doing in this market based on where we've been in the last four years to keep your business growing and running your business like a business?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mark, I'm just going to give you like a couple of stats throw out to you, and we'll have a little bit of a conversation around that.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: But pending home sales index for June was at 72 and a half, which was down five and a half percent from May, down a little bit more from a year ago.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the big one it was the second lowest June since tracking began in 2001.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess my question after all of those stats is is this the new normal?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or is this the floor?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see us at?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think for now, until something fundamentally changes, this is the new normal.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you say this is the second lowest June ever in the history of this index.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the first lowest June was last year.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we've had subsequent years now of the first and second lowest readings ever in the history of the pending home sales index.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And really, when you think about pending home sales, we're just talking about the fact that this is a 30 to 60 day leading indicator of existing home sales or new home sales, right?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh pending home sales for everybody who's under contract.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: We know there's some fallout in there.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: But if if you've got uh you know the lowest reading or the second lowest reading of all time on this index, well, guess what's going to happen with existing home sales come 30, 60 days from now?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be back down at that Mendoza line of 4 million annualized, which is a recessionary level for housing.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: So unfortunately, I think the reality of it is it is the new normal.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Waiting for a snapback or a change or something to fundamentally improve, I don't see it happening without some significant intervention.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And there's good news and bad news in there.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but ultimately to answer your question directly, yeah, I think unfortunately this is the new normal.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we have to decide as originators, as business owners, as leaders, you know, how do we tackle that normal?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, we'll circle back around to that in in terms of like what is the practical on the ground.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's use the ground game, so to speak.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll talk about a little bit from a loan officer and a then an operator's um perspective.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I think some of the challenges that we're also seeing in the market right now, you just mentioned like this is an index of pending home sales.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're also seeing an increasing number of those pending home sales falling out at a greater clip than we've seen for a while.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, one of the when I look at like what are some of the frustrations that those in our business might be experiencing right now, we've been in this recessionary period for at least our business for a period of four years.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it also seems like every couple of months, something else comes around that's a little bit more of a kick in the T.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And right now, this is what we're seeing is you know, deals kind of falling out for various reasons, mainly home inspections.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you yeah, it's a good point.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no great uh national metric about fallout.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So if you go trying to find some sort of, hey, here's a this index or this data series that is historical that can tell you, well, how does Fallout now compare to Fallout before?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: There really isn't one.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's not nothing that we can sink our teeth into.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: But we can't, I can't tell you just experience, you know, from my experience, I'm an originator.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you oversee, you know, a ton of originators.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's definitely up.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: It is uh, and I hear it from brokers, uh, real estate brokers all the time.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: I sat with one the other day, it was like, we're 42% fallout, which is crazy.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Another one said they're 25% fallout, which is still elevated.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and so what's causing that?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people genuinely still, and this is true, whether it's an automobile or a relationship or a home, when you're making a commitment to something or someone, you largely do it based upon how you feel.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: What how your emotion, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, no one ever said, I made a list of pros and cons and that's why I asked her to marry me.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's how you So you either have euphoria with this new purchase or maybe you have some buyer's remorse.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh although inventory's coming back into balance, it still feels like you've landed on Normandy Beach, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: When you when you get that home, when you get that home into a binding agreement, there is that sense of euphoria.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: You're probably going out to dinner that night, you're raising a toast, here we go.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of the reality sinks in.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: You get the inspection report, which is designed to tell you, you know, regardless what you do, every everything that's wrong.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: You go back and you're reviewing the monthly payment and the property taxes, and if you have HOA dues, the HOA dues and the homeowner's insurance quotes are starting to come in.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And all of that euphoria starts to subside, and the feelings that really drove your decision to begin with are like the tide going out.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you're inside of due diligence, and the terminations are higher because those feelings change.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen it's not common to see someone who terminates a transaction because we really found something that is an absolute deal breaker.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost just a change of sentiment, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a change of feeling.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard to combat that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: The one thing I think we can do as originators getting to call to action stuff is to get with our referral partners and say, hey, you know, you do a certain number of transactions as a real estate agent.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: We see a very large aggregate of transactions, maybe a greater pool, a greater context.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Let us tell you what we see.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: So let's have these conversations early with clients.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna experience a sinking feeling after you go under contract.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's very common.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit like postpartum for a mother who's had a baby.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're you're gonna feel this.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Anticipate it, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's a normal part of this process.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And let's talk through it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: There are, if there are real problems with the home, if there are real problems with the financing, we'll terminate and we'll protect you.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: But don't let the tide of emotion carry you away and and you lose a good home.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I have had many clients come back to me after terminating saying, I should have never terminated on that first home.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: That was the one I got a little caught up in my head, and now we're out here looking.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: I can't find one as good.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to this kind of to me comes in a in some layers.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so in June, um, interest rates were around the six and a half mark, which is the highest we've seen since August of last year.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that speaks to the home affordability piece where if you've been shopping for a home, especially during the summer, the longer you're waiting, really the more expensive this thing is getting.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that speaks to like what you were saying.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's this euphoria at the beginning, but maybe here's the deal like we fell in love with that house, but the payment was a little bit outside of where we really wanted it to be because we were in an increasing rate environment.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And now a couple of weeks later, seven days later, 10 days later, you get this home inspection, and maybe it's not what you expected.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we, I think, you know, I've been looking for like what is a solution that we can help give to this for our referral partners.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, one of those is I think we get a pretty general idea as we talk to the borrowers that we're working with and the agents that represent them.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: We start to learn what are the common things that these deals are falling out.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we communicate that back?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think where it starts is our real real estate partners need to be setting the expectation of what people are really going to find in the home inspection.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's not this like overwhelming uh-oh.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Did we get a bad deal here?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think there are buckets of this that hit people at different places.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're also in the middle of this incredible technological revolution that's happening.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: You may have heard of it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's called AI.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you need me to spell it for you, let me know.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the, you know, what is that going to take my job?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: How much downsizing is going to happen at my work because of this AI revolution if I'm in finance or if I'm in, you know, marketing or if I'm a design person, is that going to impact me negatively?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: So all the, you know, that that could creep in.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously, you know, the the assessments are just now dropping here in Metro Atlanta.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're pulling up an assessment, all of a sudden the home is 20% assessed 20% higher than it was last year.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, now you can anticipate a higher tax bill.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: That could change the calculus for you.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're in the middle of due diligence, you're all of a sudden now you're getting your calculator back out and going, well, wait a second, you know, how does this feel?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is where the, you know, as much as mortgage or even real estate agents have been reduced to a number on a screen by this, you know, we're just going to compare based upon how expensive any something is or inexpensive it is.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is where we can really come in and re-in-engage this role of advisor.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: Let me sit with you and give you context on what I see in this marketplace.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have been doing this for decades.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: This period of time that's been going on now for the past four or five years is unlike the periods before it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what I see in dealing with clients just like you and what happens after you get a binding agreement.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't mean that it always happens, but more than likely you're going to experience one of these emotions, concern.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Did I overpay?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, can we really afford it?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Let's sit, you know, let's make sure that we tackle these in a very thoughtful way and aren't just reactionary.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because what I've also seen to give you one step further in context is a lot of people who wound up regretting terminating their contract.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to see you in that position.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think these are the talking points we can have.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it puts us further, it cements us into the role of advisor versus, well, I'm just here to show you the home and unlock the door and you make the decision for yourself.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think, well, you know, obviously one of the things we've got to look at is if they do terminate the contract, there's a delay on them finding the next home.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows what's happening in the market in the meantime, either by prices increasing on homes or rates changing or whatever that is.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And now the dollars that you thought you saved because you terminated that contract are now washed away by something else going on in the market.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm glad you just brought that up about home prices.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the the thing with home prices, you know, they're they're still rising.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not at a hefty clip.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's, I think, about a percent per year now, but it's still going north.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: And a whole lot of people are sitting around going, How is this happening?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: How with interest rates where they are, supply coming back online, we're we're over five months now of supply nationally, a balanced market is six months.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: How have we not seen home prices come down?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: We we have seen it with new homes, but how have we not seen it with existing homes?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is where I'll throw a little tangent topic here at you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is where legislators get it wrong, and a lot of people's fundamental belief in supply and demand, they get it wrong.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: They they think that we're gonna solve affordability on the supply side, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna have more supply on the market and we'll see homes become more affordable, prices come down because there's more of them.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't work in existing home sales because the people selling these homes are not a business.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: This is we're sitting in my personal asset.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if I don't get the price for it that I want, I'm not selling it.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, correct.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why on the way down, unless there's some fundamental issue like there was in 2008, 2009, where the mortgages themselves were bad.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, which, you know, we're now the mortgages now are the best mortgages we've ever written.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're talking about an asset that doesn't respond to supply like other assets do.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're selling socks, yeah, the more socks that are out there, the lower the price, the lower the price.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Existing home sales don't work like that.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot supply side your way into affordability with existing home sales because it's a personal asset.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: And unless you have to sell, because there's just no other alternative, you're not gonna sell if it drops below a certain amount.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why prices are so so sticky on the way down.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Back to your point about the people who are terminating contracts, are you gonna be better off?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not, because prices are likely, albeit slowly, prices are likely going to continue to rise and you may find yourself in a worse affordability position six months, a year from now than you were.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because you waited, yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's where we, you know, a lot of times have those conversations about what is the real cost of waiting.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think to you, you know, the point you were making earlier is that I don't know that we always make these decisions based on economic ones.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're emotional ones.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Feelings, right?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's our it's our feelings.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I made a lot of feeling decisions in my day.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: And usually they end with me buying a car that's a little too expensive.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can appreciate that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I can appreciate that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: So where where are we seeing first-time homebuyers in the market right now?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the the last, and you probably have some better data, but the the last thing I looked at, there are less first-time homebuyers in the market right now than there's ever been.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing it?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the NAR data, which I think is really pessimistic.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's a survey, and like a lot of surveys, it's really dependent upon its response rate.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: The response rate isn't good on that survey.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so you wind up with a really crazy high number.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like 40 years old is your first-time home buyer age.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Your subsequent home buyer average age is 60 years old.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a little inflated.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: We pulled Humda data.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: We pulled, uh, obviously, we have we have a lot of data in-house, and we can see A as their first-time homebuyers because of the declaration.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's a declaration.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: B their dates of birth, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so we can see, all right, so how old are these these folks?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a much lower number in terms of age, you know, it's getting into your early 30s, early to mid 30s versus uh, you know, 40.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Still, though, as a percentage of home buyers, yeah, I think there are a lot of them who are staying on the sidelines, A, because it doesn't feel good, and B, because in some markets, they can rent cheaper than they can buy.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: They can buy.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly here in Atlanta, uh, I'll just speak locally if it's a condo.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: They, you know, with the HOA dues factored in, they can typically wind up renting that condo uh if they can, uh if those condos are available for rent, cheaper than they can buy them.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, we don't see it as much in single family, but we see that in the condo world.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the the average, you know, we we started this conversation about hey, are we are we in just this low spot right now, or is this kind of the new normal?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk about like the different segments of folks that this would uh affect.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one is the the consumer, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who to them, they don't follow the markets like we do or like our real estate agent partners do.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do they feel this too, or is it just us?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: The real estate agents?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: The the consumer, though.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the consumer.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't know.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think what the consumer feels is everybody who bought between 2010 and 2021 has such an advantage over me.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, okay.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not wrong.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, they're not.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: They they do have an advantage over you.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's a a really interesting study.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: It came out in 2024 from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and it was uh a study on the lock-in effect.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And they went so far as to put a number on it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: So what they said was take uh whatever rate you are currently locked in on on your home, and then compare that against today's market rate.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And for every 1% differential, you are 18% less likely to move, 18% less likely to sell your home.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're locked in at three and a half and market rates are six and a half, eighteen times three, what is that?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's compounds to almost 60%.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're getting close to 60%, 57%, something like that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're, you know, you're really starting to get into this area of, you know, I'm just not going to move if my interest rate is that low.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where a lot of people buying today, they just feel they don't necessarily have the context that we have.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: They don't do this for a living, but it just doesn't feel particularly great.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I think we see first-time homebuyers staying on the sidelines.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there are real affordability levers that we can move as an industry and as a country to change that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: We just have to want to do it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And by we, I'm looking at you, FHFA.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at you, HUD.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the the other side of that coin is loan originators and and the real estate agents that are working with these buyers.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you think real estate agents view this differently than the loan originator does?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or are they kind of the same?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are they in the same boat?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think they feel it generally the same.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the agents that I talk with on a regular basis feel it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: They feel something is up and are frustrated by it.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, now they're professionals.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the vast majority of them, just like the vast majority of us, they're out there, they're gonna do what it takes to win.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: They're gonna do what it takes to advocate for their client.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: They got to make a living in this industry such that it is today.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: But I think they do feel that sense of um something's off and needs to be remedied.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that there's an imbalance here that needs to be corrected.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's been allowed to persist for too long, uh, as a lot of um angst over how that's gonna happen.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think they feel it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think the the really good ones and uh vast majority of them that we work with are really seasoned, intelligent agents who feel it.