Building a National Probate Division, with Peter Hernandez of Douglas Elliman

0:02 So, as an individual broker, I've been building my business for 6 years now, but I there are companies who are looking to build probate divisions as ways to consolidate and coordinate activities, maintain good brand integrity, and then the leverage success of top agents across the business. We've done some of that work at the company I'm with at eXp Realty. I'm really excited to hear about the plans that Douglas Elliman, one of the largest companies in the country, have, and I'm really lucky to have Peter Hernandez, who's one of the executives of the company who's leading that thank you so much for joining us You're welcome, Phil. You know, I think this podcast actually originated from me recognizing you in the space of probate and reaching out to just kind of letting you know that we launched a division. It's actually called Estate, Trust, and Probate Division at Douglas Elliman. It was something that Rochelle Rossen and Kelly De Lot in our Beverly Hills office began in the western region exclusively. They've specialized in, you know, probate forever. And truly are experts in the field. And they actually came to Bill Begert and I about I don't know, a few months ago and said, "Let's take this national." So, we pitched the idea to the national company. Everybody got really excited about it, and Lisa Rennis out of Massachusetts and joined me and Bill to launch it with Dave Worth out of California, too.

1:32 And so, now it is up and running and the Estates, Trust, and Probate Division is going. And we just think it's a huge opportunity and a very important niche in our industry. And even though, you know, Bill, you know, you have attorneys and, you know, all kinds of fiduciaries representing the clientele, they don't want to work with novices. They want to work with agents that have had some experience in this field because they don't want to have to train these agents and teach them the nuances, you know, of court proceedings and different requirements that are that are that are always present in these kind of deals. So, we thought it'd be a really great division. And what we found out, Bill, was that there was no firm of our size that actually have one. No, I don't think there is. Yeah.

2:21 I've got that right. I think I would know. I've poked around, and I'm pretty sure there's not. Now, that said, at a com- with larger companies, whether in real estate or mortgage, it seems like two different competing strategies. One strategy is kind of name a division and make it kind of like a place to center information and marketing materials and maybe some collaboration, but it's really more kind of voluntary or there's a fee, but you get certain stuff. And then there's another one where it's more of a limiting gatekeeping factor where the company's saying, "These are our experts. This is part of our branding is to verify that." And I know you've gone the second route, so talk a little bit about number one, first the decision to kind of, you know, create some limits to people to participate. And then talk about how that supports your company and the brand and the value you're trying to bring to the marketplace. Well, I think if we were going to take this division and present it to the world as a true Estate, Trust, and Probate Division, we needed to back it with really qualified agents. And that we couldn't just make it open to the entire population of the company because I think there would be misrepresentation in terms of experience and ability. So, the idea was that we would make it a very clear requirements to join the division. And if you don't qualify, we decided that we would actually lay out the path for agents for the things they would need to do so they could reapply, but that we would show them the way to become experts at this division so that then they could they could join the division.

4:05 We were We were just recently on a podcast talking about this, and we were talking to one of our attorneys in New York, and there was some real misunderstanding in some of the markets that, "Well, why do we need, you know, agents to be experts in this division when a lot of the business you know, handled by attorneys?" And it was really just that these attorneys don't want to work with novices. They don't want to work with people that don't understand, you know, the nuances of working in these in these very special in this very specialized niche. So, she made it really clear that she was super excited about it because now she would have the opportunity to recommend her clients to agents that she knew for a fact could represent them well in this in this division. And we saw this as a huge edge for us in the industry because now we could, as a large luxury firm, probably the largest luxury boutique in the country, could now say that we've launched this division with qualified experienced agents, recognizing, you know, we call this silver tsunami of baby boomers that are going through these transitions of life and seeing what a huge piece of business was out there that we could maybe try to capture. You know, it's funny you say the attorneys want to work with experts because I think there's two targets that I think of in my business. One is the attorneys who are experts in these matters, who appreciate expertise, and I love working with them. But I also find 90% of attorneys who work with probate, not trust, a little different, you know, end of the spectrum, right?

5:33 Trust is typically higher end and more financials and bigger houses, more luxury element kind of listings. I work with the you know, probate, which is more I don't think Douglas Elliman lists things. I don't have to put it, you know, just $500,000 houses in South LA. But 90% of probates are done by attorneys who've never done one or have done one. And so, they need somebody's expertise to fill in their gap, right? They're It's not that they're experts and know they need experts. It's that they have no idea what they're doing and appreciate somebody being there almost co-counsel to say, "I can't advise you on the law, and I can't advise you on litigation, but I know the real estate piece, and here are the things we need to do, and here are the things we don't need to do." And so, I kind of fill in that role. So, it's interesting that you that you deal with that. I would imagine in your niche where you guys are, you know, really the players or among the players, on the higher end, that it's really about the networking and the relationships and coordination amongst the players, right? The accountants and the wealth managers, all that. They're all kind of speaking to each other, I think, ahead of time, and so you're trying to fit into that group, I would imagine, to be at the table with them. Right. We want to sit at the table of all the major banks and all of the, you know, major institutions that kind of these kind of deals are run through. And then we also want a group of agents around the country that these agents can network with and refer to each other. So, not only cuz you as I know that being in real estate is a very lonely business.

7:02 It's a lone wolf business. And so, like, if you have a probate opportunity, let's say, in New York, Bill, who are you going to refer to? Well, this division now gives you that source, that gold standard of agents that you could say to a client, "I trust this agent. I know they're really good. They're in this division here at Douglas Elliman. I can refer you this agent with complete trust, and you don't have to worry about a thing." And so, you when you have a team that's backed with mastery, backed with proven track record and things like that, then you know, you know, you can do that. And so, think of it this way. When we when we when we when we like get an application. And interesting, you're not going to believe this, Bill, but people think that if a property's held in a trust, we're talking about the same thing. They have no idea that most properties are being held in trust right now for tax advantage, but have nothing to do with the Estate, Trust, Probate kind of situ- you know, requirements and deal making that's involved in that. So, there's a lot of like confusion around that. But when you actually go into this into this world, we require A, you know, have you gotten accreditation from your local board? Have you taken classes on this? Have you studied what it means to be this type of an agent? Number one. Two, have you done a minimum of five deals in this field? Minimum. Number three, are you a CPA? Are you a lawyer? Do you have any other educational backgrounds we can consider for your application into this thing.

8:32 So, it happens A, it has to go through their branch manager. If the branch manager approves it, they'll forward an application to the agent. Then the agent has to fill out the application. Then it comes to me, Lisa, Rochelle, Kelly, and Christina, and then we take it from there and look at look through it. If we have questions, we literally call the agent. We dig into the five deals, make sure they're truly the kind of deals that would be acceptable to us in terms of experience. And then after that, we, you know, we approve them or deny them. If we deny them, like I say, then we show them a path to get there. Like, here, if you do these following four things, you can reapply and we'll accept you into the division. So, it's kind of a we want to encourage agents to get good at it, but we want them to realize, too, you have to be good at it. You've got to do certain things to get good at it. Right. So, what's surprised me was the overwhelming number of applications we've gotten. Unbelievable. Like we really hit a nerve Yeah. Within the company that, "Wow, this is really like something people want to be part of." But we're maybe accepting 10% of all the applications. So, you highlighted two points there when you say that. One is that this is an area that real estate agents realize is a important area to participate in. I think most people say it's growing by percentages.

9:58 And then second that maybe with maybe with one exception of your program that I've heard of in the probate space. I don't know of a similar program in the divorce space, but there's so many programs that there's no criteria other than you took a class. And then we're going to put you on the referral list. And the problem with that is you know, you don't learn from one class you took 3 years ago. I mean you learn, but you don't learn enough for me to take my relationship with my best fiduciary or accountant or attorney and hand it to and say go ahead and represent me on this property. Put my reputation at risk. What do I care? And yet so many agents are almost offended. Hey, I took this class you know 2 years ago. I can't claim I have this ticket if I took it. I'm a probate expert and I think that's a mistake and I think you guys are adding a gate to this is appropriate. So let's talk a little bit about for an agent the 9% who don't qualify but want to, what are some of the steps on the pathway that somebody who doesn't qualify can qualify to be in a program like this? Well, A get out there. Like we would never stop an agent from doing an estate trust or probate deal. Like if they have a client that wants to use them, that's fine. But what we're doing is allowing our division agents to market themselves that way with Douglas Elliman, you know, curate beautiful marketing materials and things like that to give them an edge because we think that the this gives the agents the ability to tap into and create a marketing campaign where they can go to attorneys and go to you know trustees or trustors and make sure that they're getting their materials and stuff like that in front of as many people as they can that's in that space that representing those kind of clients so that they can get referred business.

11:48 And we think there's a huge opportunity in that. Especially with you know, the Douglas Elliman branded materials and like that. So that's the one thing. And then like we said before, just then the ability also to refer around the country. And it's really funny like we had one agent that said that they wanted to like secure Bank of America as their exclusive client. And we had to laugh because we go, wait a minute. There's probably 6,000 different people that work within Bank of America that are referring trust business. And hey, you can't have all of Bank of America. You can have your contacts, you know, whatever. You have to earn them just like every other client. So yeah, exactly. But so there's a lot of there's a lot of interesting like things that are coming out of this, but all in all it's going to be I think a huge benefit for our agents to present themselves as masters in the business, to present themselves as uniquely qualified for that kind of business and then also to be able to you know, put together marketing plans and programs to go after it, which I think is really cool. You know, I know that one time you're producing agent. Now I know you're licensed, but I don't think you currently produce. My research tells me and you know, if I'm wrong, please tell me that only California has probate specific forms and trust specific forms both on the listing and on the purchase agreement.

13:07 We have a purchase agreement addendum, we have a listing agreement addendum, and then we have an advisory attached to both of them. To my knowledge, no other state has anything at all. And I when I meet brokers, now you're in California so you have a whole different attitude. And I know your company has like brokers in different states. So this isn't your job and I don't mean to make it look like it should be. But you know, I imagine if I called the Douglas Elliman designated broker of New York or Florida and said, hey, what do we do in a probate or trust? They don't have a form as such. They have some verbage they want in the contract. And to me that seems like the opportunity for a company like yours to accumulate this expertise and translate even I'm actually I'm at EXP, we're a fairly large company. I don't think we deal enough with the high end to make that viable enough at a company level. It just strikes me as crazy. How could you not have a disclosure form in New York City? I know it's related to this like in California. Has that come up at all the forms and come up in your compliance?

14:06 Oh no, definitely. Every state handles probate the same and differently at the same time. You know what I mean? Like there's some similarities like we discussed just recently with that New York attorney, but there's also a lot of differences. And so we need we literally I don't have the sheet in front of me and I couldn't like probably review it all in this short podcast anyways, but we went through all the states that we work in. And we studied and created something that shows all the different nuances that are required by each state within we work. And it was there were some differences. And even to the point of like some states you can you know, get accreditation from your boards and some like stuff like that. In some states you can't. But all of the states do have a probate process. California's always going to be the most I think diligent, the most we're very form heavy in California. You know, New York they basically put deals together and hand them over to attorneys. Where we have escrows and we stay very involved in the whole closing process. But the being an expert in each market requires like slightly different expertise. Yeah. But surprisingly similar, too.

15:25 You know what I mean? As I look through the whole thing. I think that would become a competitive advantage for your agents is that you guys have done that so they're not reinventing the wheel. You're using the power of the of the company brand. They've done five or six of these before me. So I could either call the broker or some sort of a library of forms that would be available. But it just strikes me as crazy that you would sell property with a probate in New York or Florida. And literally the state broker would say, no, we don't have any I'm thinking, how could you do that? We have like this two-page little teeny print you know, detailed thing just to list a property. It's just interesting how different it is. So one of the do you see any specific business development activities unique to your division? Obviously marketing material, but that's just really amplifying who you are and what you're doing. You got to do something or be somebody to amplify. It seems to me that the last piece at least in my market here in Southern California is the Realtors® not encouraging customers to get estate planning done. And not getting involved in that spot. And I really push all agents find two or three different price points of services and offer your clients you we know because we sold them the house, we know how they vested it. If they're a listing prospect, we know how it's vested. We pulled a prelim, we pulled a deed. Talk about you know, how do you see your division getting involved in that or at all? Getting involved in the estate planning process or encouraging customers to get plans or review plans or update plans at key milestones. I think I don't know if the company will get involved in that, but I would recommend agents talk to their clients about that. In other words, I would I would think that agents would recommend estate planning, recommend you know, clients you know, have properties put in trust, recommend even like certain people to manage their properties. Like and as you know, there's private banks, there's big banks, there's lawyers, there's all

17:29 Kinds of things. So I'm assuming Bill, you have a stable of people that you can recommend in these situations and who you like to use and who would be good for these different families and stuff like that to help create the states and plans. So it's not unlike getting a physical inspection or anything else or getting a loan, you have these people on your team we call it. Like you build a team of these experts around you so that when you have the opportunity to steer a client in a direction, you will. Maybe you give them three names. I think we always recommend them three names. Like here's three great probate attorneys you can work with or here's three great financial institutions you can work with where they have great trust departments. You know what I mean? And so you would you would you would have these in your background. You give your client three things so that you know, they get to choose and see who they're comfortable to work with. And then you run it that way. So yeah, I think you're right. I mean I think it's a huge marketing opportunity. And then you know, you market to those institutions and hey you know, I'm an expert in trust and probate. You know what I mean? And then you create relationships that way. It's a great way to farm. It's a great way to build your professional sphere. You know, we what do we do? We market to farms. We market to lawyers, we market to accountants, we market to banks and institutions. We market to I think we should market to every to our dentist, to our dry cleaners, to everywhere we go is you know, I always thought there should be a quid pro quo. Hey, I'm bringing my dry cleaning here every day. What you know, got any clients for me? You know, and why not? All right? I fired my dentist about 15 years ago when he listed And he kept asking me you know, it wasn't just that he listed somebody else. He kept asking me questions for years about the value and this and that.

19:03 And then when he was listing I said I'm surprised you didn't call me to compete for the listing. What happened? He said, well, this guy's my friend. I said you know, for years you've been calling me about your house. How do you think I paid for your dental services? Between me and my wife, how do you think we I paid for that selling houses? If you'll give me a chance to compete Right. So maybe that's a little hardcore. I'll just admit that.

19:21 I don't think it is, Bill. And you know, like I used to like I used to like go to like for example I had this one accountant and I would I would just go I'd go, Bobby. I'd go, Bobby. Do you like do you like referrals? If I know anybody that wants to use your tax service, you want me to refer them to you? Yeah. Oh yeah, Peter. Great. Fantastic. I'm happy to do that. Now, the other way around, if you hear of anybody that wants to buy or sell real estate, will you refer them to me? You just make the deal on the spot. Right. I agree. Now I think there has to be that. And it also should be as well as saying people looking for business and it's how we pay our bills. So let's as much as I love to talk about probate and I know there's something that you're that's growing quickly and I love to stay in touch with what you're doing and watch it as it develops. I'd like to not miss the opportunity to have you here to kind of talk about general real estate as well. I mean, you've been

20:06 Sure. One of the leaders, executives of the largest companies here at least in my market in Southern California for as long as I know and you've coached, you know, I hundreds if not thousands of agents amongst the best in the business. So, you really have your pulse on what's going on. No different than the trust and probate part. Talk about this market we're in today. What do you see as different amongst those who are succeeding today and responding to the change of market versus those that maybe did well 5 years ago but are struggling to do. What are the key characteristics or activities of those who are who are maybe embracing the market we're in and growing from it versus those who are struggling? Well, I don't know that anything has happened that unique or different. I mean, obviously technology's a play. You know, we there's a lot of things we can talk about with respect to all of the competitiveness of the marketplace. But, I think what happens is when the market's really strong and I've seen this over the last, you know, some 50 some odd years in the business, you know, the business comes to us and it's coming at us quickly and fast and we're making sales and we're running around and we're doing great and life's good, but we're not prospecting anymore. We're just we're just order takers pretty much. Right. And then what happens is when the business gets tough and slows down, all of a sudden now we have to go back to those things that helped us build our careers in the first place, which is all of the prospecting, you know, the cold calls, the door knocking, the mailers and all that stuff. And the problem is I see for most agents is they feel like they've graduated from that and they don't have to do it anymore and they lost their humility.

21:31 And now the idea that they got to go back to this again is very difficult. So, I think to remain relevant and to remain and to remain really strong here, you know, forever in the business is no matter how well you're doing, you can't take your foot off your marketing. You can't take your foot off your prospecting. You have to keep all that going so that you never cuz there's always going to be like ebbs and flows in this business. We've seen it over and over and over again for year after year after year. And so, we can do well in both markets, but you don't want to start over in a sense just because the market has turned down. And I think that's what happens to a lot of agents. With that being said, you know, we also have to stay relevant. You know, we have to understand what's going on in the world economically. We have to understand what's going on in our country economically. We have to understand what's going on locally, you know, with terms of supply and demand and you know, what's going on in the marketplace. We also have to know like legislative changes like the ULA law and now the new one, I can't remember the name where, you know, if you're near a metro, you can build an apartment building in a single-family residential area. So, there's and rent control. So, there's all this legislation too we have to stay on top of in addition to interest rates, economic changes, maybe supply and demand stuff like that. So, I think we have to approach our expertise and knowledge base and skill levels and even in a listing living room, when we're talking to a client about the value of their house, we have to start them at the top and then work down so they get to see the whole picture.

23:01 I'll never forget Bill, we were selling this really cool estate in Malibu and it was a really beautiful house and it was just sitting on this really unique rock cropping and it was below Milliken's house and Flea's house and it was just like one of the coolest locations you've ever seen, but it was a very small house, but it was a very expensive home. It even had a washbasin that was made out of a fossil that was a million years old. So, it was like so, it was really exceptional piece of property, but limited square footage. So, we were on the market at a price that it wasn't selling at. I think we're on like around 40 million or something like that and we couldn't sell it. They wouldn't reduce. Very powerful people. They wouldn't reduce the price. And so, what we did is we called in our, you know, Element International and we got somebody that was from, you know, the other side of the globe to talk with them. And what they said was, you know, you have an amazing piece of property, but honestly, I can get a better deal in Monaco. I can buy a better deal on the Amalfi Coast. There's even a better deal right in New York and there's a better deal right down in La Jolla because people that buy these properties aren't limited to Malibu. Right. And that turned and that just like flipped because we were talking globally. That was just an example of a global conversation which helped us get the right price and then the property sold. So, I think that's really an important piece to being really good in the living room now is to is to have a better explanation of markets, conditions and economies and things like that.

24:33 You know, I'm glad you said you've been in business for decades. I know you've been in it for a while cuz I have been for a while and I remember you were a leader when I came in. So, I don't I don't know what that means. I'm old. So, do the math. But, you know, when I started, it seemed like you got a certain amount of business every year that you progressed and then at some point like you say, people made livings just off business that came to them. And I believe with technology and Google Ads and Facebook Ads and all the marketing and Netflix series about real estate that a lot of that business that we used to get kind of semi-automatically, you know, not the good friend referral, but the friend of the friend referral, we've have lose some of that business now. And we have to make it up by doing business development of some sort and it doesn't have to be the same thing we did when we were young. Doesn't have to be the same cold calling or the same door knocking. I use podcasting as a way to help me, you know, fill my business development needs. So, talk a bit about you work with some of the top agents in the country. They go through this transition. They maybe you've been coaching for a while. They finally face reality. They're going to make a move. What are some of the prospecting or business development techniques that work now that you're encouraging agents to do? Obviously, the niche of trust is a great one, but it requires some activities. What are some of the things that you're coaching or encouraging agents to do to build their business? Well, you nailed it on the head. You know, referrals are still in any market the number one source of business, unquestionably. And that's probably the one area that we spend the least time on or maybe we're even the most afraid to ask our friends and old clients for business. It's there's a there's a little bit of a hesitation there or maybe a fear. We don't want to look like sales people sometimes.

26:12 And so, I think if I was talking to somebody, I would take a look at it and I'd say, you know, you can always tell a person's business by the looking at their database. How organized is it? How many people do they have in it? How are they reaching out to that database? How are they contacting these people? What is their like you say, their prospecting flow within that database? Are they emailing them? Are they calling them? Are they dropping by during the holidays with nice gifts, you know, and that. So, that's number one. Like the dentist that didn't give us our the listing when they should have or, you know, didn't do the deal with us. Like maybe he thought we didn't even need it. Right. You know, maybe you know what I mean? Maybe it's our fault. You know what I mean? We can blame him, but I guess it's my fault. No, but I'm just saying like maybe there's like he's probably he's probably working on lots of Realtors®' teeth. So, we have to think about it like how are we interacting with our sphere? So, that's the so and then you look at your sphere like what does it consist of? Well, it consists of past clients. It consists of every place we eat, every vendor that we use. I mean, I would even prospect escrow officers. I'd prospect loan officers. I mean, the ones you think would never give you business cuz they're trying to stay neutral. Trust me, they're making referrals. Of course.

27:24 Your family members have to ask them who's the best Realtor® because who else? If your friend is a top loan officer or top escrow officer, who you going to ask for a referral but that person, of course? Correct. And so, then just, you know, everybody you interact with, you know, you just keep adding Every time you get a business card, every time you get a name and number, you just keep putting it in and you organize it in your database and then you figure out ways to organize that and drip on it. So, that is going to always be the number one bucket, I think. People that you know or know of or done business with, family members. Like I say, oh, well, I'm not mailing to my mother-in-law in Maryland. I go, why not? Well, she's not in California. Well, you don't think she knows anybody in California? She might not hear somebody in California or, you know what I mean? It's like It's like we put these like rules and limitations and assumptions and I think the one thing I've learned about sales is you can't assume anything. You know what I mean? And like we always say, you might only have one person come into your open house, but that might be the one. You know, I'll share a cute story on that subject that I'm sure you relive this with other agents you've coached. I had a I have that email I send every week with a video on it to my sphere at the time. I sent out to about 6,000 people. And in my database email program, I had another 6,000 by coincidence, almost the same number, of emails that I wasn't sending it to. So, I only sent it to the portion tagged sphere, 6,000, and I wasn't sending to the other part. I thought, well, how do I have people's emails and they're not my sphere of influence? Who would that be? Like I it probably was somebody I met and forgot to put in my sphere. So, I sent the same email, same time. I did AB test. One to the sphere, one to the non-sphere.

28:56 They had the exact same open rate. They had the same click ratio. I realized these are people I met. Like everybody met someone and open it, some don't. Just, you know, let them sort themselves out and don't worry about it too much. Well, I think you've marketed yourself really well, Bill. And we have a saying that if you market to everyone, you market to no one and you haven't been afraid to just, you know, be yourself, be authentic and if you're upsetting certain people, it, you know, you don't care because you realize they're just not your clients, they're not your whatever. So I think that's very smart on your part. And like we always say, if you market to everyone, you're marketing to no one. You know, you just become a sea of spam. You're just, you know, unrelatable. So, that I think that's really good and also like by doing your podcast, by doing that e-blast that you do every week with your newsletter and everything. I mean, I find it one of the more interesting ones and you actually tackle real subjects and real and maybe even some controversial things, you know, that people are afraid to talk about, afraid to take a stance on, you know what I mean? And I and I and I think it's I think you're doing a great job and that's what made me reach out to you and call you and maybe have this podcast originally because I thought about this guy's kind of cool. Well, thanks. Yeah.

30:04 On that subject, I'm not afraid to talk about because like you say, I market everybody who I've ever met. I don't market people who I haven't met. And if you don't like me and unsubscribe, that's fine. I'm never you know, I'm not going to market to you. So, you know, good luck. I wish you well. But you know, one of the controversial topics a lot of Realtors® are involved in and I wonder how much customers are really involved or tracking this is the whole Compass. I call them hidden listing trick. They're They call them private exclusives where they're the battle is that you have this I guess the largest now company by volume in the country getting larger through acquisition that wants to take listings and make their own private MLS, whereas industry is what we've been built on. I think cooperation. I mean, you know, I don't work for your company. I you know, it's you know, full disclosure. Never really thought about it, but who knows? Things change and you and such. But we've always worked together as an industry. We I work with your agents all the time. I either look at their listings or they sell my listings and the business is built on cooperation. Now we have a company that's looking to I think completely re-change that dynamic. So, I'm just curious. You must have agents that come to you and question, should I do the same thing? Does Douglas Elliman allow me to do the same thing? And then where do you see this happen Where do you see this going forward?

31:20 Well, okay. So, let's just talk about history for a minute. And then we can get into the specifics of whether you should sell as a private listing or go on the market, all right? Cuz there's there may there's there definitely are reasons to do both. When I first started in the business, it was all maybe four to 10 20 agent shops. That's that was the size. There weren't the big independents. There weren't the big nationals. There was nothing like that. And so, the only way you could find out what your cooperating brokers' listings were, what they might have available for sale was you had to call them up and find out. The MLS wasn't even like really in operation yet. Wow. So, when the MLS came along, all of a sudden now you know, we have this like way of being aware of every single listing. So, we created transparency. We created the whole concept of collaboration. That's where the code of ethics came from. Like how do you deal with clients? How do you deal with cooperating brokers? How do you deal with people in a fair and equitable way? And so, then all of this organization and structure was developed to create a transparency. So, every single buyer could know about every single listing so that every single agent could know about every single listing so that A the seller's property would have the highest and best exposure to get the highest and best price. And B, everyone would have access to buy it and it wouldn't be limited to little private groups or to you know, somebody just wanting to hold it within themselves so they could you know, double end the commission, you know, what do you mean?

32:57 Both sides of the commission. So, the whole thing was developed around like transparency and collaboration. Yes. You know, so in a way the whole conversation with Zillow and that kind of put all that on steroids. And I think the big complaint about Zillow is they're taking our information, selling it back to us. And that's a whole another conversation we can have. And you know, but hey, they figured out a way to do that. They're great marketers and such like that, you know what I mean? So, what Compass is suggesting in their listing presentation is you should always go private first, you know, and then go on the market if it doesn't sell because I think they're using the argument you don't want to create days on market or whatever. But the problem with that is and I think it was just I just saw recently like a commercial from somebody. You're going to wonder if you got top dollar. Right. Because you didn't Even as big as Compass is, they're not they're Even if they were 50% of the market, which they're not, that's still 50% of the market that's not aware of the property. Right. And I can tell you that so many times I've had listings that didn't sell and I've been marketing it, marketing it, marketing it. And then the farmer from the wealthy farmer from Bakersfield represented by a very small little broker finds out about it because it's in the MLS, because it's being marketed publicly and they buy it and they give the seller the price they want where everybody else locally and close to knit wasn't interested. I think that's important. Yes. I agree.

34:26 Very important. Now, if somebody wants to sell privately for reasons different than getting top dollar because they'll never know if they did get top dollar or not, right? Then that's understandable. Maybe you don't want your neighbors to know. Maybe you're a celebrity. Maybe you're whatever. Security, privacy, those are reasonable reasons to Correct. So, there's there are reasons to do private, but I don't think it's a mass marketing plan program for typical buyers and sellers. It's not. And I think, you know, I mean, I'm not here to tell Douglas Elliman how to market, but I'm here to tell agents that maybe hear my battle cry, we need to stand for ourselves and I think most importantly point to the North Star of what's best for our clients. And if what's best for a client is for most of the time it to be public. And if what's best for the Compass agent is to hide the listing to try to double end it, then I think we need to step and say that. They want to go on the offensive, then we need to stand up for ourselves, otherwise we're going to be pigeonholed as you know, you know, late with technology or out of this out of this stride of the market. And that's not the case at all. This That the double ending deals has been around as long as I've been in the business. You've been longer. That was always a strategy for some agents, right? They always want to double end every deal they did. And I find, you tell me, I find those people never lasted. They had a They had a great run. And then they just created enough negativity in the marketplace where they just couldn't survive the market. That never has been a successful strategy in my experience.

35:56 Correct. It's very interesting. And think back to when I think it was like during the COVID days when the market was so fast and hot, you couldn't even keep the As soon as you put a sign up, the property was gone. Right. That's a good example where we should have, you know, probably let the thing sit out there a little bit for two or three weeks to see if we had really exhausted the market before accepting that quick offer, you know what I mean? And that's not to say the first offer is not the best offer. That's not a That statement didn't come out of a fabrication. That's often very true. And that is an experience we've all had as Realtors® that first offer was the best offer. And sometimes when the client doesn't accept it, we can't get anything close to it again. That happens, too. But it's but it's I think that's where they have to rely on the agent's expertise and they have to rely on like going back to the whole conversation about the economies or where we are and what's going on and questions like that to determine, you know, what the best strategy is in terms of like you know, it's like it's like you know, the three pricing strategies. You've heard this a million times. There's, you know, aspirational pricing, market value pricing, and then there's event pricing. You know, event pricing is creating that auction environment. Market pricing, you're trying to price as close to market value as you can estimate. And then aspirational, you're putting it up here cuz maybe it's a very unique property. Like there's only one in the world, something like that. So, all of these conversations This is why Realtors® are so important in this whole conversation. Yes. And Realtors® with real expertise. I mean, like the thing that I've always wondered is like why is every Realtor® able to charge the same amount?

37:23 Right. If I could get to work with Bill Gross versus someone just straight out of real estate school, why are they charging the same amount? It doesn't make sense. I agree. Well, I think often times those out of real school are buyers' agents and they pay referral fees or on teams. They end up getting a little bit less of the pie, but Look, Peter, I'm just mindful of time here. I want to be respectful. I'm so fortunate to have had you. You were just a wealth of knowledge. I'm sure we went for hours. I know I have a whole list of questions I didn't get to this time. Hopefully we'll get you back again and maybe update on the launch of the continued growth of the Douglas Elliman Trust Division nationwide. For those who want more information or want to reach out to Peter directly, we'll post contact info on the screen and there's his web page as well to get more information from him. Again, I mean to cut up again. I did promise to get you off this. So, I want to be respectful. Peter, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your role in the industry as an industry leader. And thanks for reaching out to me and good luck with your Douglas Elliman Trust Division. We'll stay in touch on that. Thank you very much, Bill. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. And thank you everybody for watching today. This was Probate Weekly. We get together every week and talk about usually with probate attorneys or vendors. In this case, really one of the leaders of real estate building out a trust and seeing it trust department so you can see kind of what their thinking is, what they're working towards. If I can help any way, please reach out at Bill Gross Probate in social media. As always, make today your best day ever. Thanks so much.