Top 5 Tools of the Modern Real Estate Agent

And so Lane went to the grocery store and bought like a 12 pack of beer. And me and Bridget, his marketing person and Lane sat in the 8Z office, which had been empty for months and drank beer and hung out. And it was an awesome way to get to know one of our favorite vendors and really somebody who's been very central to our agents being able to offer an innovative platform for all the different types of real estate transaction options that are out there right now. And that's what I wanted to have Lane on here to talk about with you was all these different things are appearing as options for sellers and now buyers.

Things like Modern Bridge, things like iBuyers and instant cash offers, listing concierge, homeownership accelerators. And so we wanted to talk about all those things and I wanted you to get it from the horse's mouth because he has really been at the forefront of putting together a platform where all of this stays together. But more importantly, all of it is driven by the agent. The agent stays in the center of the transaction from beginning to end. So on that note, I'm happy to introduce my friend Lane Hornig to you, the audience of Top 5. All right, Lane, thanks for being here today on Top 5. We're excited to have you and hear a little bit more about Zabby, but more importantly, hear about the tools that a modern agent needs to have in their toolbox to be successful. So thank you again for taking time. I know you're a busy guy. We appreciate you taking time out of the schedule to be here with us.

Chance, psyched to be here. Thrilled to be here talking about, you know, agents being more effective because that's really what it's about. So I'm excited to get into it. Absolutely. All right, so let's start talking a little bit about you and how Zabby kind of evolved. You were, or not were, you are a broker in Boulder, Colorado. Correct. And you just had an idea. Well, you know, I, like you said, I have a brokerage, independent brokerage, you know, similar to yourself. But we're here in Colorado and, you know, the iBuyers sort of came into our market here along the front range in Colorado, started making offers on homes. And, you know, in a, in a former life, I was a Marine Corps pilot and in aviation, you know, in the military, you say friend or foe, you're always, you know, trying to figure out if somebody is a friend or foe when you meet them in the sky.

And, you know, the iBuyers came into the market, so the question was friend or foe? And, and I decided friend, you know, they're offering a service and, you know, our, our agents could bring that to their clients. So we started getting an instant offer, you know, not necessarily taking every one of them, but just going out and getting them on behalf for our clients. And that evolved into, let's create a sort of, for lack of a better term, an aggregator. Yeah, we, we put it all in one place, right? So what's happened since that time, you know, is all these other new solutions have come along. Power buyers offering cash offers and buy before you sell bridges. And, you know, homeownership accelerators like Divi helping people kind of get over that down payment hurdle.

So we took all that, you know, agents got enough to keep track of, right? They got a million things to keep track of. They're just trying to keep deals under contract and get them to the closing table. So we put it all in one place, made it easy. And then, of course, started working with, you know, tech forward, progressive brokerages, you know, like CB&A and, you know, creating the modern brokerage, really. Yeah. Awesome. So we have five elements of this, which just, you know, perfectly kind of happens to tie into the, to the name of the show through no planning whatsoever. So let's take a couple of minutes on each one of these and just walk through and, you know, I think, I think we'd be hard pressed. Well, actually I say that and it just happened to me.

I was going to say, we'd be hard pressed to find agents who don't know what power buyers and iBuyers and all that are. But I was actually in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a couple of weeks ago for a ninja selling installation. And we started talking about that element of the business. The instructor is from California. So she's super familiar with it. I obviously am very familiar with it here in Houston, but in that smaller market, they really didn't know. So we kind of had to talk to them about all these different things. And they're like, oh, wow, had no idea. And so I say that we'd be hard pressed to find somebody who doesn't know, but maybe we need to do a little more education on what each one of these is before we just kind of talk about how to use it. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I mean, let's start with what I think is probably the most relevant tool right now. Solution number one would be cash offers, because, you know, and I think we even though a lot of agents are aware of, you know, programs, it's we need to move beyond awareness. Right. And I see this in my own brokerage. I'm aware of it, but I'm not quite using it yet. And so I think, you know, today, at least let's try to move a few folks a little further along to actually using it. And so. So walk us through the cash offer piece. Yeah. So cash offer. And again, I'm going to speak about the solution. There's different providers of the solution. Right. Homeward, NOC, you know, Ribbon, various solution providers out there.

And they all have, you know, slight differences in their programs. But essentially, the way it works is, you know, you have a client who wants to go out and buy a house and, you know, they they want to be as competitive as possible. And as much as we keep reading about the slowdown, the slowdown, the slowdown, you know, I talk to brokerages all over the country and they're still seeing, you know, multiple offers and competitive scenarios. So, you know, I think it's a good idea to get. So the way it works is, you know, client is getting pre-approved for a mortgage, but they they go beyond a pre-approval and they actually get pre-funded so they can go out and deploy that capital that the solution provider is providing and make a true cash offer.

Yeah, for sure. And so I think that the the beauty of these types of programs is how we how we put ourselves in a more competitive situation based on the offer we're bringing to the table. So instead of coming in and having to give a bunch of different concessions and things like that, because you're financed. Yeah. Coming in and you're cash. So you're right up at the front of the line, if not the front of the line. Right. But what we have noticed here anyways, as we've kind of implemented this and gone through some training with some of the different providers is there's a lot of things that we don't necessarily think about a lot. When it comes to how we could position our clients in a better light with a cash offer than just and maybe even yourself with a cash offer.

You know, if you are not pre-approved to make a cash offer yourself, you should be because what if you came across an amazing investment opportunity and you wanted to go get it, go get it. You know, I was telling you when we were kind of warming things up, I have a client that, you know, longtime client, he is in the process of coming out of a divorce. He wants to buy a home. He's a high net worth individual. And he, you know, because of the divorce, isn't in the best cash position. And he has VA benefits. In our market right now, getting a VA loan accepted when you're one of 20 offers is tough. We can use this cash offer piece, let him go buy the house that he wants cash, and then he can come back in and buy it from that provider using his VA benefit with zero out of pocket.

Yeah, that's the subtleties, right? Once you get in the deal, just like every deal, real estate, you know, that's why agents make the big bucks is because every deal is different, right? So you got to put your thinking cap on. You got to be creative. I think it's a really good habit to get all your buyers pre-approved for a cash offer. Like you said, you don't have to use it. But if you find yourself in a situation that's, you know, and it's the dream house and it's competitive, put your best foot forward. You know, write the cleanest offer you can and increase your chances of winning. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, because you do this more than I do probably. But the best practice that I have seen from this is regardless of provider, this is not a conversation you have when you're writing the offer.

No, no, it's too late. You've already had this. You've already gotten them pre-approved. You're going out and looking with a cash offer potentially in hand, right? Yeah, and, you know, because there's real money, right? We're not talking about monopoly money here. You want to start that process early because you want to make sure they get completely approved and you're ready to go. It's, you know, it's just a higher level of magnitude than the old mortgage pre-approval. You don't want to be doing that as you're writing the offer. And clearly, you don't want to be doing, you know, a cash offer right there at that moment. You want to have that. And that's why the habit is just the moment you get a buyer, you say to them, hey, I got this great new program, you know, through my brokerage. You know, we've got an advantage program.

I'd like to show you the different options. So when it comes game time, we're ready to use whatever tool we need to. Exactly. Yeah, it's in the buyer consult. That's when we're doing that. Exactly. For sure. Great. And, you know, of course, you know, on our platform, it's easy. You just, you get them all right there, right out of the gate. You know, you don't have to go hunt and peck and find different, you know, places. You just, you know, one thing. Yeah, and you get to learn about them because, like you said, there are subtleties to the way that each one of them does the business. Correct. There's differences here and there. Yeah, and every client in different markets. You know, there might be a better fit for one program than the other and that sort of thing. Right. Absolutely. Awesome. All right. So cash offer, obviously super important in a market where we're tight on inventory, getting into competitive situations.

The next one up, though, and I think, you know, if we look at how this has been traditionally done is a bridge loan. Or a bridge product, right? And I hear people refer to the cash offer as bridge sometimes. And I'm like, eh, not really, though. Yeah, it's the modern bridge. The modern bridge is you truly, you know, you have a home to sell. And so you're not just making a, you know, a pure cash offer without the consideration of the home to sell, right? So it brings a little bit more complexity in because, you know, to get that pre-funding for the cash offer, you have to have a pretty good idea what the existing home is ultimately going to sell for.

Because that's what allows them, the client, to get their mortgage and repurchase the home they're going to. So a few more moving parts, but essentially it's, you know, a cash offer with a home to sell. And, you know, we call that the modern bridge. It is not a bridge loan. Again, you know, the solution providers are putting capital on the line, buying houses. So it's not a loan, you know, in that sense to buy the house. And, you know, I think it's a great tool in an environment where a lot of sellers are sitting on a ton of equity, but they're afraid. They're afraid to do anything. Right. It's the, I want to find something to buy before I sell because I don't want to be in between a home here or there, whatever that looks like, right?

And what we see a lot of is, you know, even as we move, you know, if we move into a more of a, you know, a buyer's market, we see a lot of people actually using the bridge products for the convenience. They love just decoupling the transactions, taking the stress out of trying to time their simultaneous move. And it's worth it to them, you know? Yeah. It's that convenience piece. I mean, they're willing to pay for it. Yeah. And they don't, they don't have a problem with it. You know, it's worth it. Absolutely. One thing I see, Chance, too often is agents sort of assume what their clients are going to think, right? The agent assumes, wow, they're going to think that's too expensive instead of just ask them, you know?

Right. And, you know, again, it only makes you look better as an agent if you bring new options to the table, even if they go, yeah, I don't think that works for me. That doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't make you look bad. It makes you look good. Absolutely. No. And I will tell you firsthand what we have experienced in our brokerage since adopting this platform. And, you know, we came up with creative names for stuff that is our branding. But when we, especially when we go into a listing appointment and we have this menu of options for them. Yeah. More often than not, they're not going to use one of them. No. But the fact that we're having that conversation is such an enormous differentiator. Yeah. The fact that we put it into the pre-listing packet and dropped it off early and they're like, I've just been curious if I ask you questions about this stuff really exists.

Right. Yeah. We're like, yes. Yes, it does. There are options available to you. And they don't pick any of them. But the fact that we're having that conversation is just such a huge differentiator between us and the rest of the marketplace. Yeah. That it's, you know, it makes it, I don't want to say a no-brainer, but it makes it a whole lot easier to win a listing appointment. Sure. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's your ultimate goal anyway. Right. Take it one step at a time. It's sort of like, you know, if a waiter shows up at your table and he's only got one dish as opposed to, hey, we've got a few specials. Let me tell you about them. Right. You may not choose the special, but you like hearing about them. Sure. And you think of that waiter. Yeah. And the restaurant.

And the waiter. Yeah. But it really has, like, I can, we can quantitatively point to we've won more business because of our ability to provide options to us. Yeah. I love hearing that. Yeah. So it's awesome. All right. Back on, back on topic here. So we've got the cash offer. We've got the modern fridge. Yeah. Number three, instant sale. Yeah. That's where it all started. Right. That's where it started. And of course, you know, we had that little, that little company called Zillow, got into the business and then got out. And so some people have thought, like, well, you know, instant sale or iBuyers are, you know, they're the thing of the past. They're yesterday. Meanwhile, they open door and offer bad, just humming along and keep doing more and more, you know, transactions.

They're never going to be 80% of the market, but that's not the, you know, no one ever thought they were going to be. They're a solution for a segment of the market. And that varies between five. In some markets, it's 30% of the market in some neighborhoods, you know. So they have a solution that works for somebody who needs speed, convenience, surety, just wants to, you know, move on, literally. Yeah, literally. And, you know, there are, like, I would say here in Houston, and granted, you know, every market is very different. But here in Houston, given the way that the market has gone at least the last couple of years, we've seen less of that, except for in a very small box.

But there are unique outliers where this makes a whole, whole lot of sense. And being able to be the one who drives it, because I think that, and, you know, again, to brag on the Zavi platform, for us, everybody has heard of Open Door, for sure, because they advertise on everything, right? Most people have probably gotten something from OfferPad in the mail, or at least have a working knowledge. But they don't know that there are a hell of a lot more iBuyers working in the market. They just don't put an ad on everything. Right. Right? There are a lot of institutional buyers out there. And one of the great things about the Zavi platform is it'll go and it'll grab those offers.

Yeah. And, you know, the institutional buyers, again, like the power buyers, they're not all created equal, right? Right. So, you know, some of them, they like homes that need a little work, right? They, you know, and so if you have a client who doesn't really have the capital or the money or the time to, you know, prep their home for the market, do what needs to get done, you know, someone like HomeVestors or HomeGo, they like doing repairs, right? And they can do them cheaper than your client can. And, you know, so they'll make a solid offer. And, you know, I know a number of CB&A agents have sold homes, not just to the big retail iBuyers, Offer Pat and Open Door, but also, you know, the other partners, like you said, that we bring to the platform.

And by the way, agent stays at the center, right? Agent gets paid a commission just like they would if they're listing, you know, it on the open market. So, yeah, I mean, I can tell you a personal story on this one is my across the street neighbor. We ended up using an iBuyer to buy their home. Not anything that you would traditionally think that they would, A, buy because it's a slightly higher priced home. And this was when they were first coming to the market. You know, they like to splash a lot of money around when they first came to the market. It's worked out for us from a timing standpoint. I don't think it would fall in their buy window now, but they came in and this was a very, very specific family situation. They had a problem that needed to be solved.

And this allowed them, with some negotiation from the builder that they bought from, because they, in essence, were buying two homes over here from the builder. And so, the builder was able to work with us a little bit more, and we got this sold, those two bought, and their problem was solved. And it happened just like that because that solution was right for them, when normally it wouldn't have been. If they were just moving, we would never have done that. But they were willing to forego a little bit of the profit in order to make this situation right. Yeah, as we, you know, we've both been practicing real estate a long time. It's not always the highest offer that wins, right? There's situations where terms are more important than price.

Absolutely. And timing is more important than price. Like you said, speed, certainty, convenience. I mean, those are kind of the three things that really play into that iBuyer model. Yeah. And, you know, I'll leave this, you know, this number three one with, why not use the Zabby platform just to get the offers before you go on a listing appointment? Because what we say is, you know, the modern agent not only walks in with a CMA, they walk in with offers. That's just a starting point. Like, that's pretty impressive when you walk into a listing appointment and you're like, well, you know, I've got a few offers already that we could at least have kind of on the back burner. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it was once upon a time, you know, we were training our agents, like before you go into a house for a listing appointment, take a video out front.

Like when you drop the pre-listing packet or you, right before you walk in the door and when somebody says, how are you going to be marketing my house? You can say, well, I already am. Yeah. That was the impressive part. Now I can say, if you want, I've already sold your house. Yeah, right. Forget about marketing it. Like, I've got it sold if you want. If you want to go that direction. Yeah. And it sets up a nice baseline, right? Right out of the gate. Yeah. And again, if you're going into a competitive situation, from a listing appointment standpoint, where they're going to be interviewing other agents, like, are the other agents bringing buyers? Right. Probably not. Right. Probably not. Walking in the door with offers? Probably not. Yeah, exactly. So, there. All right. Homeownership accelerators. Yeah.

Number four, I would say is, and the, you know, homeownership accelerators are sort of where the power buyers were a year or two ago. And the power buyers are new. Yeah, they're the new, new, yeah. And they're getting traction, though, because, you know, one of the biggest problems we have to solve as practitioners is helping people get the down payment, right? Helping people get in a position where they can be a homeowner. And, you know, what folks like Divi and Halo do is they get the client in that home and help them start, you know, saving for that down payment so they can eventually purchase the home. And, you know, as Realtors, this is, I mean, this is such a win, right?

You're helping somebody out. You're making them a homeowner, you know, a year, three, five years earlier in life, which is going to change the trajectory of their life completely for the better. You know, we know that, right? Right. And, by the way, you're creating a client, too, right? So, it's kind of a win. And not a renter anymore. Yeah. A buyer. They're a buyer. They're a homeowner, yeah, who's eventually going to start. They're going to sell or, you know, going to buy, going to sell, going to do all those things homeowners do, going to talk to their friends, tell, you know, tell, you know, what a great, what a great thing you brought to the table. Yep. And I think that, I think there are a couple of things in this, in this homeownership accelerator that are super appealing to an agent who gets it.

The first one, I think, is rent to own has always kind of had like a dirty name to it, right? Right. So, you know, homeownership accelerator sounds a hell of a lot fancier. But, at the end of the day, it kind of is like a rent to own program, except that, as opposed to a tool for, you know, lack of a better term, once upon a time, sort of predatory landlords. Yeah. This is, we're assigning you somebody who's going to help you save this money, that's going to get you in the position that you can buy. And the turn time on that, on average, is not very long. Right. You guys, Divi and Halo aren't buying homes and holding them for 10 years while somebody gets together what they need. Get them in a position to buy and actually be the homeowner relatively quickly, which I think is great.

The second part of this, and you just, you said it, is if you can take somebody from my only option is renting to now I'm a homeowner, and they start to grasp the depth of that, man, if they're not telling everybody they know about you. Yeah. We've missed the boat somewhere. That's the best for us in the world. Yeah, it changed their life, right? I mean, yeah, it changed their life. Exactly. And, you know, I think a great use case on this one is, if you're an agent and you've got a database of a bunch of boomers or older, you know, homeowners, go to them and ask them about their kids. Say, are you interested in getting your kids into homeownership? I think I can help them accelerate that, move a little faster.

Awesome. And I'm a parent. My goal for all my kids is to help them become homeowners because then I know they're going to be building equity and they're not going to need a lifeline from me down the road. Exactly. Yeah. Perfect. So, yeah, if you're watching this or listening to this and you've never heard of homeownership accelerators, it's a pretty – I mean, granted, again, it's relatively new, but it's a pretty cool tool that you can use. Definitely something you want to add to your toolbox there. All right. Last but not least, number five is the concierge service. Yeah, listing concierge, you know what I mean? Most, like you said earlier, most clients are still going to go, you know, the tried and true open market route.

They're going to list their home, you know, with a CB&A Realtor and put it on the open market. But, of course, you want to have it in a 10 out of 10 showing condition. And sometimes it's hard to get a client there. They won't do what you know needs to get done. And then listing concierge can sort of eliminate that friction and get them in a position to do the improvements, you know, cosmetic and the touches to make their home 10 out of 10 showing. So, it flies off the shelf when it goes, you know, to the open market. Yep. So, listing concierge is going to come in, do updates, fix things up, whatever that looks like. We'll sell the home, listing concierge collects at close. Pays at close, yeah.

Yeah. So, essentially, you know, they're going to, A, make sure that, obviously, whatever improvement they're doing can be picked up in value when you sell. But, at the end of the day, it's a way for your client to be able to put their home in the very best position in the marketplace without coming out of pocket a ton of money. Yeah. And, you know, if you do the right improvements, right, more than pays for itself. I mean, you know, we all know that, you know, a house with the right showing condition, you know, especially in these tight inventory markets. All the spreadsheets go out the window and everybody wants the house and they're bidding on it. And, you know, but it's got to be appealing when you walk in the door. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the things that we talk about here is when we get into a market that starts to balance, and granted, a lot of us haven't, a lot of people in the industry haven't seen that, because we've had so many new people come in the industry over the last couple of years.

But when we do start to balance is, you're going to see kind of a dividing line where there's people who want to keep trying to price their home too high, not pick their underwear up off the floor for showings, not make their beds, not do any of those things, right? And then you're going to have the other side who gets it, and is going to make their home look great, put it in the best pricing model possible, and you'll still see the multiple offers and all of that over here, where these people are just going to get frustrated. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you'll see that divide. Yeah. It's interesting. If you put all this together, right, think of if you're a modern agent who puts all this together, right? It's a lot, you know, but it's a lot, but it's also because of that, you look completely different than other agents.

I mean, if you know how to run all these programs and sort of the right spot and the right time and the right clients and, you know, which one works best for here or there, that is tough to beat. I mean, you're really going to be a different agent in the market. Absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the things that, if I'm adding a six point here, a bonus point, is these things can be mixed and matched. Yeah. If you've got a client who's lived in a home for 20 years, 25 years, and it needs updating to sell and, oh, by the way, they were just over with some friends this weekend in this active adult community, and they fell in love with this open house. Man, let's go make a cash offer or modern bridge on that open house home while we use our listing concierge to fix the older home up and put it in its best light so that they walk out of this deal with the home they want and a ton more money in their pocket than they thought they would.

Yeah. How cool is that? It takes skill to do that. It takes skill as a professional to put all that together. But, man, you're, you know, you're impacting their bottom line by tens of thousands of dollars. It's not insignificant. Right. Yeah. And, you know, the quality of life of being where they want to be. I mean, it's just there's so many ways to mix and match this stuff and put it together that I just think if you're not paying attention and if you're, God forbid, are, you know, still seeing these people as enemies, man, you're missing the boat. You're just missing the boat. Yep. Embrace the new world. Yeah, because the agent's at the center of it, but only the modern agent, right? Only the savviest and the smartest.

This is not, you know, for a hobbyist. No, there's nothing in any of these things that we've talked about today that exclude the agent from participating in a commission. Nothing. Right? Nothing. Everything we've talked about today, the agent is still getting paid. They're providing probably a better experience and better service to their clients. It's just taking the time to ask some questions, take the time ahead of time to get them understanding these programs and approved because there are some people who are going to be like, what the heck are you talking about? Yep. And just take the time with it. Couldn't agree more. I think we covered some ground, but it's been fun. Yeah, this was great. Thank you, Lane. Appreciate you, brother. Yeah, I appreciate you, Chance.

And I appreciate, you know, all the CB&A agents out there who are putting these tools to work, you know, and really becoming the modern agent. I'm impressed by your brokerage, by your people. You guys are out at the front. Well, I appreciate that, man. So if somebody isn't a CB&A agent and is listening to this and they wanted to get more information, they just go to zavvy.com? Yeah, I'd go to CB&A first, though. If I was in Houston or Austin, you know, I know where I'd be going to your site. Yeah, appreciate it. And I'll say the other thing. If you're wanting to learn more, one of the great things that Lane and his team do is they do a lot of webinars. And they teach how to use these programs in a way that really brings value to both the agent and the consumer.

So they do an amazing job with that. So I would tune into some of those webinars if you get a chance at zavvy.com, Z-A-V-V-I-E.com, just like on his hat. Lane, thank you. I mean, I know you're busy and I know that your time is valuable and I appreciate you just taking a little bit to talk with us today. This was tremendous. Thank you, if you are watching, for tuning in to another episode of Top 5. We'll see you next week. Top 5.