What powerful lesson can other Brazilian learn from your experience?
How can you now take what you've learned through your experiences as an architect,
as seeing the real estate marketing and marketing and stuff like that,
and take that from that perspective to this is what we want to now change in the future?
Well, it's very simple. The real estate industry has been focused on the agent and on the property,
the physical asset. What I'm focusing on is the consumer. What's in it for you,
the buyer? What's in it for you, the seller? How can I help you change your life and find a place
that aligns with your life, as opposed to I have this three-bedroom, two-bath house in this location,
it's for sale. Do you want to see it? Yes or no? Because that's a listing agent. I am a buyer's
agent, which now I am persona non grata according to the NAR, because I represent buyers.
That's the thing. At the end of the day, you can't sell something if you don't have buyers.
Yes, exactly. You're making me think now. This is just me thinking.
If that's the case, I completely understand what you're saying. For example, I bought my house,
obviously, and the real estate agent was my agent as well. Now, I've seen in the past,
and I have bought houses in the past, where you have a buyer's agent, one that's actually going to
help you find a house, but then of course you have the seller's agent who is now going to sell you
the house. They split the profit course for the commission. They said 3% each, use the profit
as a typical way they do it. How do you push your way of doing things? Of course, for the
client or the buyer, if you will, they're going to like that because you're saying, look, how do
you pitch it to them to say, this is why you need me to work for you? Well, first of all, that,
how do you say, that sales pattern is in development because right now we have a challenge.
We have to get them to sign a buyer's broker agreement before they go see a house, but it's
kind of like a fiduciary responsibility. If I am managing your money, am I managing your money,
or am I managing the money that, do I represent you or do I represent the company that's selling
you the stock or the bond or anything? Right? Exactly. Is there a conflict of interest, so to
speak? Yeah. In other words, your interests are my interests. When you go to court, do you hire the
same attorney to be your representative as well as the other guy? No. Exactly. Right? Again,
conflict of interest. Conflict of interest. Right now, usually what we do is we represent buyers,
and that's what we've been doing for 20 years off and on. We got started representing investors
that were buying foreclosures back in the day. Then we morphed over to properties that were in
the market. Then when 2008 came around, we went back to foreclosures. We've also had to pivot,
but always, always thinking of you're the buyer and you're the investor. You're making the biggest
purchase you're ever going to make unless you're Jeff Bezos. But most people, the average human,
you, me, and the other guys, we're going to be looking at where are we going to park our lives
and how are we going to make it safe for our children to go to school, to go to school,
ride a bike, play in the yard, whatever. What's it going to be like for me when I grow up? Am I
going to fall in the bathroom? Those are the kind of things that you think about. What age,
what time of life are you in? I can do that. I can analyze that and I can say, okay, you guys,
you have little children. You have a five-year-old that's your youngest. Do you have another
one? Yes, it is.