August 3, 2023 • 29 mins
We delve deep into the complex realm of probate real estate sales with the experienced realtor, Bobbie Goodrich. Bobbie generously shares her vast knowledge on effectively navigating the delicate terrain of probate real estate, transforming what may seem like a daunting venture into a treasure trove of opportunities. From deciphering the legal intricacies to adopting a compassionate approach, she unveils the essential elements for establishing genuine connections with heirs while successfully generating leads within this specialized market.
Whether you are a seasoned real estate expert aiming to expand your business or simply intrigued by the intricate world of probate sales, this episode guarantees to provide invaluable insights that will revolutionize your perspective. Tune in as Bobbie Goodrich reveals the inner workings of probate real estate lead generation, offering a masterclass on how to harness its full potential."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Live from the hottest real estate market in America, Tampa Bay, Florida.
This is the real estate leads podcast with the CEO
and founder of the system. Your host, Lisa Carter. Greetings
and Salutations. I'm Lisa Carter, the host of the real
estate leads podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you generate
(00:25):
leads today.
Our lead generating tip for the day is around probate sales.
Our guest, Bobby Goodrich from the live free or die state.
New Hampshire is joining us. I met you last week,
uh or earlier this week. Um And I, I popped
into Rochester, New Hampshire and you were in the office
(00:47):
with a bunch of other agents and um, you immediately
told me you're retiring. So we're gonna talk about that later. But,
um
how long have you been a real estate agent? Because
you look too young to be retiring? Ma'am.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Very funny. Uh How long have I been in? It
was 35 years this January, 30
Speaker 1 (01:08):
five years. Did you start in the State of New
Hampshire or elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, here
Speaker 1 (01:14):
you're not. You're not a, a Massachusetts transplantt into New Hampshire. No,
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm not. No, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania.
But I've been in New Hampshire
for, 00, 40 some years, 45 years, at least. Oh, wow.
So you've sold in New Hampshire and also in Maine,
because we're a border,
Speaker 1 (01:34):
a border community, border community. So you were smart enough
to say, look, I'm close enough to, to do, to, to,
to go over the border. Um And so curiosity, uh
New Hampshire remained. Is there reciprocity? But between those two
states or did you have to
do the day thing over again?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
No. Well, we had to learn Maine law if you
were licensed in, in New Hampshire or probably any other state.
In order to get licensed in Maine, you had to, uh,
take the main law part of the course and they,
there were a few attorneys that taught that and then
you had to take a test and then you were licensed.
(02:15):
So it wasn't, it wasn't that difficult. I don't know,
it could have changed, but I gave up my main
license last year because I knew I was gonna be retiring. Now,
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Bob, I've been to Maine and there are no laws
in Maine. I can, I, I can tell you that
right now. Lots of cows and lots of trees. But laws,
I don't know. Anyway, just
Speaker 2 (02:35):
state commission is, is uh
more on the ball than New Hampshire is. I'll have
to say,
Speaker 1 (02:41):
oh, live free or die. There's no laws there either.
So you pick two states that you can just ramble
free and sell houses and, and trailers and mobile homes. Fantastic.
That's wonderful. Well, I'm glad that you can, uh, carve
out some time in your busy schedule. Um, to, to, to,
to be on with us today to talk about,
(03:02):
um, a conversation that actually started a couple, uh, earlier
this week, which was probate. I've been talking about probate
to agents for the last few months because I stumbled
on the unique concept that no matter what, um, is
going on in this crazy market, the feds with interest
rates and all of that crazy stuff that we can't control. Um,
the one thing that we are all sure of is
(03:24):
death and taxes. Um, so I leaned in a little
bit on probate and you and I had a great conversation,
um, you've done probate sales?
Yes. And what does that look like? How, how did
you get, you know, uh, uh, you know, no one
left on their death bed that you should sell their
house because that would be kind of cool if, if,
(03:46):
if that happened. But I'm sure that wasn't the way you, um,
leaned in on that property or got that lead. So, how,
how did you end up getting leads on probate cases?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, I think in the beginning truthfully we had, we
had up time at the desk back in the day,
you know, there was no internet or anything like that
and we actually had an MLS book with loose leaf
pages in it and you used to have to go
to the board office every Friday and pick up a
(04:17):
packet of the new listings so that you would in
fact know what had happened in the last week.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh, my gosh. This is like Barney Rubble real estate.
This is the Flintstones Holy moly
Speaker 2 (04:29):
machines.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you were supposed to sell a house without any
search online capabilities.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
There was nothing that you would get a book. This
is off the track, but you would get
um was it was it quarterly? I think it might
have been quarterly. There was a, a book that was published,
you know, it was, it was bound and you would
go to the board office and you would pick that
(04:58):
up and that's how you found out
um all the listing compilations that you, you have listing sheets.
So then you, somebody put what it sold for and
that was down into this book and that's how you
knew what the comps were.
My goodness. Of course, that information was available at the
registry or, but you couldn't get it online. There was
(05:20):
no
Speaker 1 (05:20):
online. So you had to physically get up and try
to get there before anybody else grab that book. Um
And now you're talking New Hampshire Maine. So you probably
drove an hour.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, no, I think we could, the board office we
would get it from, you know, probably in Stanford, but
it wasn't too far for us to drive. But anyway,
it was done and there was nothing that happened in
a hurry because it
Speaker 1 (05:47):
couldn't, it must have taken like months to sell a house.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Um, yeah, a lot of times it did. And, uh,
you would, if you saw a sign go up, you'd
quick call that office and say I saw your sign
on such. And so street, tell me about it and
how much is it? So you could sometimes scoop the book,
you know, by seeing signs go up. That's how you
(06:11):
did it. So
Speaker 1 (06:12):
you had to actually read. This is amazing. Like back
in the day when people read, uh, and there were
no animation or video to listen to.
Um, well, this was when you were in a, a
linear world where there was no video or audio and
you couldn't, you couldn't listen to a podcast like this
on your way and learn anything. That's insane. Thank God.
Those days are over.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, we, we made it through and we're here,
Speaker 1 (06:36):
you made it through and you, you have
Speaker 2 (06:38):
to change with the market or, you know, or you
might as well, you know, crawl in bed and stay there.
You know, if you're not willing to change because things
always change.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Has the market been this crazy? So, you know, you're
talking about the Flintstone Realty, uh, days and now we're
here and
everyone's in an uproar because it things change so quickly.
So we're now in a culture where things, you know,
days seem like decades seem like uh uh weeks and
months and months seem like days, things move so fast
(07:12):
right now. Um Do you remember a time where it
felt like this, you know, in previous years where people
were confused and kind of trying to understand? Should I stay?
Should I go? Um
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Not really, I don't, I don't remember this kind of
appreciation by leaps and bounds that's going on now because
of the lack of inventory. The other markets that I've
been in, I think it has been the opposite problem
because for one thing, um trying to think what year
(07:47):
it was probably in the eighties that
the, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was downsized from something like
13,000 employees to maybe it went down to 5000 or
something like that. And the uh air Force base was decommissioned.
(08:10):
And so there were a lot of um military owned
homes that went on the market. So there was a
glut of inventory
and of course, there were a lot of foreclosures also, right?
It was kind of the opposite problem. So previous
Speaker 1 (08:27):
years, the hiccups in the market have created an abundance
of listings, never a void of listings. So it's, it's
like a, we're like in reverse uh upside down world
um in stranger things. Wow, that is crazy.
That is crazy. So, but even the, you know, it's
feast or famine and, and one extreme doesn't negate another. So,
(08:50):
in a world where an upside down world where there
was just too much of abundance. Um Did you got you?
So sales were not a problem or were they a problem?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
They were a problem because what happened, the military people
got buyouts and also if there were corporate downsizings going on,
they got buyouts either from the military or from a
corporate
employer. So they were given their money, somebody did a,
(09:24):
you know, a market analysis and in some cases, they
got more than market value because these appraisals were behind
the curve and properties were selling for less and say
somebody's house at the time, might have been worth 150,000.
They give them a buy out for 165 and they go, yes,
(09:46):
you know, and they take the money and run. So
there was more inventory, the people that did not have
these kind of buyouts
that had to sell, they had to sell their property
at less than they wanted to. And if they couldn't,
they get foreclosed on now, you have more bank owned properties.
(10:09):
You know, it was a, it was a vicious cycle
and it was down, down down. So if you had,
if you had a buyer, it was wonderful.
You had your pick of the litter. That's right. But
if you had a seller, you were trying to figure
out ways to make this house sell,
you know, and it, of course, at that time, there
(10:32):
was an internet, but there was none of the kind
of marketing that we have now. Not
Speaker 1 (10:38):
at all. Right. So buyers back then didn't just log
log on and say, oh, I'll be my own real
estate agent for a little bit. Let me search and
so there was
Speaker 2 (10:46):
nothing of that. No Zillow and all that stuff and,
and uh
it just didn't
Speaker 1 (10:51):
exist. So did I have to go to? So that
was that back in the, the days when you open
up and there was newspaper of what the listings were in,
in your town? No.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Oh, well, the, the newspapers were a big part of
our advertising. Um That was the main way that you
did it and, you know, you spon maybe your company
sponsored a little league team and they had a, a
banner on the fence, you know, that kind of thing.
There wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot of other things
(11:22):
to do other than print advertising
and the print advertising was very expensive. Yes, it still
Speaker 1 (11:31):
is. It still is when it compared to online advertising.
So we've had AAA population tech, thank God. Technology stepped in.
We've had a population explosion and um now we're looked
at the other side of the upside down world and
stranger things, which is um a stifling low inventory level.
(11:53):
Um That's, that's bringing us in,
uh you know, that's one of the opportunities that I
keep preaching about um is we can't, you know, unless
we're a builder, there are some, look, there's some brokers
and some agents out there that I talk to, they're
building their own inventory in their markets. They're buying some
land and they're building on their land, their new construction,
(12:15):
they're part partnering up with builders and other home and improve,
improve guys to convert
the next wave. What I'm hearing is we're gonna see
conversions of CRE commercial real estate into um housing. So
I'm really excited about that, but one of the, the,
the silos here um getting back to death and taxes
is that unfortunately, um people will continue to perish and,
(12:38):
and pass away um due hopefully to natural causes. Um,
but when they are um
passing away and we're losing um part of our population,
they're um leaving this world without a will and, and
a legal directive uh on what will happen with their money,
their debts and in the case where you have done
(13:01):
your property sales, your probate sales, they're leaving without any
directive on what to do with their properties,
Speaker 2 (13:07):
right?
And I've had occasions where people would come in the
office and here again, this goes back away when there
was war time or up duty and you'd have somebody
walk in and they'd say my father passed away two
weeks ago and I'm inheriting the house and I, I want,
(13:30):
I want to put it on the market.
And if you didn't, if you yet, and they, and
I might say, well, who is the attorney? Well, we
don't have one
and people
in the beginning here again, you know, knowledge is a
good thing and you learn by fire sometimes. And if
(13:53):
you are the unfortunate agent that has that person approach
you even maybe if somebody, you know, calls up and
says my father died and I need to sell the house.
And if you don't know that you can't just go
ahead and sell it. Say you go ahead and you
lift this house
and in today's market, you might have it under agreement
(14:15):
in a week and the person goes and gets their
mortgage and when they're, you know, three quarters of the
way down the road, there's a title search that's done
and
you might be getting a call, you know, a week
before closing saying, you know, I got a question here.
(14:37):
I said
there, the person that signed this contract isn't the owner
of the house. Where is? Yeah, where is, you know,
uh Stanley Jones, he's the owner of the house.
And if you, the agent weren't smart enough to pull
the deed, that's right. And to figure out that the
(14:59):
owner of the house is the one that signs the
listing contract, not the son of the deceased,
Speaker 1 (15:06):
but this goes back to doing your homework, right? Because
that all of that information is public. The moment that
probate case is filed, this is all public domain information,
Speaker 2 (15:17):
right? But it starts with the deed. That's number one.
You should never list the house if you don't have
the deed ever, ever,
you know? And that's
Speaker 1 (15:27):
crazy. It's, it's, but what a cowboy, this, this person
just said, ok, I, I own, I know this person
they died. I'm just gonna list the house and they're
not on the deed. They don't have any ownership to
the home.
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I had a very experienced agent, very well known agent
that I had a go around with when I had
the buyer and she had a, somebody signing the purchase
and sales that wasn't the person on the deed. And
she keeps telling me it's all right. It's all right.
And I'm,
(16:01):
you know, it wasn't all right. And my buyer had
put money down for a septic inspection and a water
tank only to find out the house had never been
probated and the correct person was not signing the house,
couldn't even be sold
Speaker 1 (16:19):
yet. How did this random individual even get
any? I mean,
Speaker 2 (16:23):
well, it was a relative and the relative, you know,
was one of his sons and he was handling it
and blah, blah, blah, you know, I mean, I could
go on but, you know, I was not happy and
I went to the broker and I said, look, my
buyer is out this money
and he better get his money back because your agent
didn't do her job.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Ok. People, if we, if we got, we have people, right. We, unfortunately,
you know, people are, are dying every day. If you
have someone in your family, if you have a, uh, uh,
someone in the family who comes to you do your homework,
this is all public information when a case
this is filed. Ok. First of all, a case must
be filed. Random individuals, random relatives can't come in and
(17:05):
start claiming and working with you. No, no, no, no halt, stop.
Let's turn off the lights. You're not around. If someone
tries to do that
Speaker 2 (17:14):
30 days from the person's desk
that somebody should be filing the probate
Speaker 1 (17:21):
and every court is different. There's like 18, there's a
uniform probate code, but only 18 states are part of
this uniform uh probate code. The rest of them are
just doing their own thing. So understand, understand what state
you're in.
So in New Hampshire, you have to, you have to,
you should at least wait to uh 30 days or
do I? Or is that an absolute requirement? It has
(17:42):
to
Speaker 2 (17:42):
be done within 30 days. It's supposed to be filed.
You the, the person who say you're the daughter or
the son and your parent has died and
that, that, you know, there's a will and you have
a copy of it and you know, hopefully it's valid,
but they'll tell you when you go to the, when
(18:02):
you show up in the probate office, whether it's a
valid will or not, but you bring that and you
go to the district court in your county and
appear at the counter and say, you know, my father
passed away and here's his will and I'm the named
executor because it will say that in the will. And
(18:26):
here's unless they did went on a napkin somewhere and,
you know, it could be done if it's been, you know,
if it's been notarized, but it, you know, if an
attorney prepared it, it will have who the executor is
and then you'll, they'll assign you a docket number
and then they'll give you a list and a lot
of this information for agents that have never dealt with this.
(18:50):
You should learn about it and go to the, the, um,
the web to and you can Google, um, probate in
the State of New Hampshire or maths or whatever state
you're in probate process. And then when they give you
a whole list of things, the top ones on the
(19:10):
list are the law firm of Jones.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (19:14):
there's all sponsor that. Listen, 75% of the 75% of
the cost of a probate case go to attorneys. So
they have lots of money to do those ads and
that's why they constantly are coming up, um,
uh, uh, uh, on a, on a search. But Bobby's right. So,
scroll down and you'll see, uh, the information that you
(19:37):
need beyond all the attorney, ads, attorney
Speaker 2 (19:40):
on the government
Speaker 1 (19:41):
side, on the government side, they're breaking in the dough.
There's court fees and filing fees, executive fees, but 75%
goes to the attorney.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Right. So they, then you scroll down and then you
get what the process is for filing and there will
be a checklist and it might be, uh, 10 things
on the checklist before the, the, um, probate is completed. And,
you know, the,
(20:09):
and it, in New Hampshire it's between the least amount
of time it will take would be six months to
complete the process and it could be a year and
a half or more if it's a very complicated one.
Um, but it will be six months and, you know,
we'll say what the things are and one of the
things is if the person who died owned property, that's right.
(20:33):
That will have the first step is, it's part of
the inventory, the person who is the executor has to
determine the inventory about the assets of the person that
died
and one of the assets would be the house and
then the attorney that's handling this. Sometimes they would call
(20:54):
me and their attorneys don't get it that realtors aren't
doing an appraisal, but they call it that they'll say I,
I need you to do an appraisal of the property. And,
you know, it's not an appraisal that they want because
they're gonna pay a lot more for it.
And if so I, I would charge them sometimes. I, I,
(21:16):
you know, actually later when I did more of them
I did charge for it. Well,
Speaker 1 (21:21):
and I mean, I was that you would charge for,
for it. It's like a broker
Speaker 2 (21:25):
the beginning. I didn't, but I, I do, you know, for,
you know, for the last, probably at least 10 years
I would charge. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1 (21:33):
gonna say, isn't it like a BPO?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Well, I never called it that I would call it
an opinion of value. You know, that's what I would
call it. And I would do it in letter format
because I don't think they want you to crank something
off of the enter of your MLS and hand them
so many pages. I don't, you know, of, of what
(21:57):
we would get for ac ma
would do it in letter format and I would have small,
you know, I usually would have three or four sold
comparables and a couple of under agreements if I could
find something that was similar. And then in paragraph form,
I would compare the subject property to,
(22:20):
to the comparables. Incomparable one has a two car garage,
subject property doesn't have a garage. You know, I'd list
a couple of the pluses of the, of the subject
property and a couple of the negatives as well. You know,
property shows deferred maintenance on the outside
(22:41):
it's, um, the, the major systems are, are not up
to date. It has fuses and it has, you know,
a 35 year old furnace as well
Speaker 1 (22:52):
and you get really in depth. So, was that the, the,
the attorney requesting this or the courts?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That's just the way I did it. And then I would,
at the bottom, I'd say something like in my opinion,
the current market value of blank, you know, Blankety Blank
Main Street is X, you know, and it would be
like three pages and I would send, if I had
contact first with the executor, I would send it to
(23:20):
the executor and I would cc it to the attorney,
you know, because it's really, you know, and so that's
kind of what I, I would do and I had,
you know, sometimes, and one thing I wanted to point
out that it's really important that
you be on, um, very good terms with the paralegal
(23:43):
for the attorney for a state work. If it's a,
you know, if it's a bigger firm or a three
or four person firm, usually they have one designated paralegal
that does all the probate stuff. So you, you know,
you get to know that person and
work with them because you're not talking to the attorney
(24:04):
most of the time you're talking to his estate, um,
and probate paralegal. So, you know, they're the one you're
giving your documents to and updating. But then if I
would get the property listed and I got it under
a contract, then I would send it to the paralegal
and the attorney and, you know, that kind of thing.
(24:25):
Sometimes in the beginning they want it when it's an offer.
But
the one that I dealt with most, you know, he
didn't have to have that, he trusted my judgment that
if it got under, you know, that the contract was
gonna be written. right? Number one, you know, that I
do have to write a contract and uh you know,
didn't put stuff in there that was, that was omitted or,
(24:48):
you know, I didn't omit things or whatever. And I
named the proper, proper parties as who's signing and all
that kind of thing.
So we're,
Speaker 1 (24:58):
we're here with uh Bobby, Bobby Goodrich um from uh
century 21 in Maine. Um She uh uh in New Hampshire,
she's also a licensed Maine uh uh real estate uh professional. Look,
we did the numbers. Uh you and I talked about
the numbers on New Hampshire to 12,000 probate cases in 2022.
(25:20):
It's a, that's a large percentage um
of the state as uh you're talking about a state
with a 1.2 million people. It's a very small state
and 12,000 probate cases. So when you understand uh the
the in your state, what the opportunity is overall, you
start to drill that down. Um You can even drill
that down by county. I, I, it's, it's significant, it's
(25:43):
significant as a matter of fact in the State of
New Hampshire. Uh, I think it was unfortunately the town
of Brentwood, which is very close to, to where I live,
uh, had the most cases in the state. It's an
older demographic, a little bit more rural, but Brentwood was, uh,
had the most cases out of the, the, those, uh,
12,000 cases in 2022. You wanna look at the opportunity,
(26:03):
you know, uh Bobby's given us a great uh bird's
eye view of how you, you know, navigate. And I think,
you know, my takeaway from that is understanding the court system,
understanding the laws in your state, even if you are
in Maine ha ha ha
um gives you the value, gives you the, the competitive
edge over another broker, uh broker or agent um in
(26:25):
your office in your region. Um, you know, it's a
very competitive market. Um It always has been even back
in the day when you have books um to go through.
And so these are the kind of things that you
have to invest your time in to become an expert, right? And,
and so no one's gonna be, become necessarily an expert
on probate, but the more you surround yourself,
(26:47):
the attorneys, the paralegals, um Someone at the, the, the
court system knowledge is king. You gotta know what you're
talking about. Otherwise you're gonna uh have a situation that
Bobby just, it was horrifying to hear that a family
member would just walk up to an agent. Agent would say. Ok, great.
I got a listing and put it on. Look, we're
all desperate for list listings. But my goodness. Um, you know, the, the, the,
(27:10):
the guy at the grocery store that used to bag
Mrs Jones, uh, groceries
now is coming to you wanting to sell Mrs Jones House. Uh, wow,
be careful. Um Not everybody who, who comes to you with,
with an idea of a listing. Um, in this case
even has any remote ownership of the property. Crazy, crazy.
(27:30):
Uh But I thank you so much, Bobby for sharing
with us. Um How you got into probate? Um I'm
sorry to see that you're retiring. We need more of
the more seasoned agents talking about
the things um that, that they've gone through dropping gems.
You provided a lot of gems in this conversation about
(27:50):
what you can go through at probate. Not everything is
rosy and then there's some outliers um of people who,
you know, don't own the property trying to sell the property.
So it's a great space to be in. It's not
that competitive. Everything is public that you need to be
able to go out and approach these families and these heirs.
Look when
someone dies, you don't always, uh you know, get a,
(28:13):
a nice big mansion. Sometimes you just get the debt
of your relative, um or your loved one and you
wanna make sure that creditors are paid um with the
with the sale of that property, great agents who are
knowledgeable like Bobby uh uh Good Ridge will get out
in front of it and make it happen for those
uh those families who are unfortunately grieving the loss. Last
(28:34):
thing they need to be is on the phone trying
to figure out what the court will and will not allow,
allow them to do so, the more that you know
up front, the more that you're uh prepared to help
them navigate, uh those listings will start to flow into you.
Um Unfortunately, for me to say 50% of the United
States dies without a will. Hey, Bobby, thank you so much.
(28:55):
Um You took my call, you, you followed up and
I just love you. So, um, thank you so much
for dropping your gems and we appreciate you. Thank you
Speaker 2 (29:04):
very much. All right, bye bye.
Live from the hottest real estate market in America, Tampa Bay, Florida.
This is the real estate leads podcast with the CEO
and founder of the system. Your host, Lisa Carter. Greetings
and Salutations. I'm Lisa Carter, the host of the real
estate leads podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you generate
(00:25):
leads today.
Our lead generating tip for the day is around probate sales.
Our guest, Bobby Goodrich from the live free or die state.
New Hampshire is joining us. I met you last week,
uh or earlier this week. Um And I, I popped
into Rochester, New Hampshire and you were in the office
(00:47):
with a bunch of other agents and um, you immediately
told me you're retiring. So we're gonna talk about that later. But,
um
how long have you been a real estate agent? Because
you look too young to be retiring? Ma'am.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Very funny. Uh How long have I been in? It
was 35 years this January, 30
Speaker 1 (01:08):
five years. Did you start in the State of New
Hampshire or elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
No, here
Speaker 1 (01:14):
you're not. You're not a, a Massachusetts transplantt into New Hampshire. No,
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I'm not. No, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania.
But I've been in New Hampshire
for, 00, 40 some years, 45 years, at least. Oh, wow.
So you've sold in New Hampshire and also in Maine,
because we're a border,
Speaker 1 (01:34):
a border community, border community. So you were smart enough
to say, look, I'm close enough to, to do, to, to,
to go over the border. Um And so curiosity, uh
New Hampshire remained. Is there reciprocity? But between those two
states or did you have to
do the day thing over again?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
No. Well, we had to learn Maine law if you
were licensed in, in New Hampshire or probably any other state.
In order to get licensed in Maine, you had to, uh,
take the main law part of the course and they,
there were a few attorneys that taught that and then
you had to take a test and then you were licensed.
(02:15):
So it wasn't, it wasn't that difficult. I don't know,
it could have changed, but I gave up my main
license last year because I knew I was gonna be retiring. Now,
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Bob, I've been to Maine and there are no laws
in Maine. I can, I, I can tell you that
right now. Lots of cows and lots of trees. But laws,
I don't know. Anyway, just
Speaker 2 (02:35):
state commission is, is uh
more on the ball than New Hampshire is. I'll have
to say,
Speaker 1 (02:41):
oh, live free or die. There's no laws there either.
So you pick two states that you can just ramble
free and sell houses and, and trailers and mobile homes. Fantastic.
That's wonderful. Well, I'm glad that you can, uh, carve
out some time in your busy schedule. Um, to, to, to,
to be on with us today to talk about,
(03:02):
um, a conversation that actually started a couple, uh, earlier
this week, which was probate. I've been talking about probate
to agents for the last few months because I stumbled
on the unique concept that no matter what, um, is
going on in this crazy market, the feds with interest
rates and all of that crazy stuff that we can't control. Um,
the one thing that we are all sure of is
(03:24):
death and taxes. Um, so I leaned in a little
bit on probate and you and I had a great conversation,
um, you've done probate sales?
Yes. And what does that look like? How, how did
you get, you know, uh, uh, you know, no one
left on their death bed that you should sell their
house because that would be kind of cool if, if,
(03:46):
if that happened. But I'm sure that wasn't the way you, um,
leaned in on that property or got that lead. So, how,
how did you end up getting leads on probate cases?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, I think in the beginning truthfully we had, we
had up time at the desk back in the day,
you know, there was no internet or anything like that
and we actually had an MLS book with loose leaf
pages in it and you used to have to go
to the board office every Friday and pick up a
(04:17):
packet of the new listings so that you would in
fact know what had happened in the last week.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh, my gosh. This is like Barney Rubble real estate.
This is the Flintstones Holy moly
Speaker 2 (04:29):
machines.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you were supposed to sell a house without any
search online capabilities.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
There was nothing that you would get a book. This
is off the track, but you would get
um was it was it quarterly? I think it might
have been quarterly. There was a, a book that was published,
you know, it was, it was bound and you would
go to the board office and you would pick that
(04:58):
up and that's how you found out
um all the listing compilations that you, you have listing sheets.
So then you, somebody put what it sold for and
that was down into this book and that's how you
knew what the comps were.
My goodness. Of course, that information was available at the
registry or, but you couldn't get it online. There was
(05:20):
no
Speaker 1 (05:20):
online. So you had to physically get up and try
to get there before anybody else grab that book. Um
And now you're talking New Hampshire Maine. So you probably
drove an hour.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Well, no, I think we could, the board office we
would get it from, you know, probably in Stanford, but
it wasn't too far for us to drive. But anyway,
it was done and there was nothing that happened in
a hurry because it
Speaker 1 (05:47):
couldn't, it must have taken like months to sell a house.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Um, yeah, a lot of times it did. And, uh,
you would, if you saw a sign go up, you'd
quick call that office and say I saw your sign
on such. And so street, tell me about it and
how much is it? So you could sometimes scoop the book,
you know, by seeing signs go up. That's how you
(06:11):
did it. So
Speaker 1 (06:12):
you had to actually read. This is amazing. Like back
in the day when people read, uh, and there were
no animation or video to listen to.
Um, well, this was when you were in a, a
linear world where there was no video or audio and
you couldn't, you couldn't listen to a podcast like this
on your way and learn anything. That's insane. Thank God.
Those days are over.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, we, we made it through and we're here,
Speaker 1 (06:36):
you made it through and you, you have
Speaker 2 (06:38):
to change with the market or, you know, or you
might as well, you know, crawl in bed and stay there.
You know, if you're not willing to change because things
always change.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Has the market been this crazy? So, you know, you're
talking about the Flintstone Realty, uh, days and now we're
here and
everyone's in an uproar because it things change so quickly.
So we're now in a culture where things, you know,
days seem like decades seem like uh uh weeks and
months and months seem like days, things move so fast
(07:12):
right now. Um Do you remember a time where it
felt like this, you know, in previous years where people
were confused and kind of trying to understand? Should I stay?
Should I go? Um
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Not really, I don't, I don't remember this kind of
appreciation by leaps and bounds that's going on now because
of the lack of inventory. The other markets that I've
been in, I think it has been the opposite problem
because for one thing, um trying to think what year
(07:47):
it was probably in the eighties that
the, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was downsized from something like
13,000 employees to maybe it went down to 5000 or
something like that. And the uh air Force base was decommissioned.
(08:10):
And so there were a lot of um military owned
homes that went on the market. So there was a
glut of inventory
and of course, there were a lot of foreclosures also, right?
It was kind of the opposite problem. So previous
Speaker 1 (08:27):
years, the hiccups in the market have created an abundance
of listings, never a void of listings. So it's, it's
like a, we're like in reverse uh upside down world
um in stranger things. Wow, that is crazy.
That is crazy. So, but even the, you know, it's
feast or famine and, and one extreme doesn't negate another. So,
(08:50):
in a world where an upside down world where there
was just too much of abundance. Um Did you got you?
So sales were not a problem or were they a problem?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
They were a problem because what happened, the military people
got buyouts and also if there were corporate downsizings going on,
they got buyouts either from the military or from a
corporate
employer. So they were given their money, somebody did a,
(09:24):
you know, a market analysis and in some cases, they
got more than market value because these appraisals were behind
the curve and properties were selling for less and say
somebody's house at the time, might have been worth 150,000.
They give them a buy out for 165 and they go, yes,
(09:46):
you know, and they take the money and run. So
there was more inventory, the people that did not have
these kind of buyouts
that had to sell, they had to sell their property
at less than they wanted to. And if they couldn't,
they get foreclosed on now, you have more bank owned properties.
(10:09):
You know, it was a, it was a vicious cycle
and it was down, down down. So if you had,
if you had a buyer, it was wonderful.
You had your pick of the litter. That's right. But
if you had a seller, you were trying to figure
out ways to make this house sell,
you know, and it, of course, at that time, there
(10:32):
was an internet, but there was none of the kind
of marketing that we have now. Not
Speaker 1 (10:38):
at all. Right. So buyers back then didn't just log
log on and say, oh, I'll be my own real
estate agent for a little bit. Let me search and
so there was
Speaker 2 (10:46):
nothing of that. No Zillow and all that stuff and,
and uh
it just didn't
Speaker 1 (10:51):
exist. So did I have to go to? So that
was that back in the, the days when you open
up and there was newspaper of what the listings were in,
in your town? No.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Oh, well, the, the newspapers were a big part of
our advertising. Um That was the main way that you
did it and, you know, you spon maybe your company
sponsored a little league team and they had a, a
banner on the fence, you know, that kind of thing.
There wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot of other things
(11:22):
to do other than print advertising
and the print advertising was very expensive. Yes, it still
Speaker 1 (11:31):
is. It still is when it compared to online advertising.
So we've had AAA population tech, thank God. Technology stepped in.
We've had a population explosion and um now we're looked
at the other side of the upside down world and
stranger things, which is um a stifling low inventory level.
(11:53):
Um That's, that's bringing us in,
uh you know, that's one of the opportunities that I
keep preaching about um is we can't, you know, unless
we're a builder, there are some, look, there's some brokers
and some agents out there that I talk to, they're
building their own inventory in their markets. They're buying some
land and they're building on their land, their new construction,
(12:15):
they're part partnering up with builders and other home and improve,
improve guys to convert
the next wave. What I'm hearing is we're gonna see
conversions of CRE commercial real estate into um housing. So
I'm really excited about that, but one of the, the,
the silos here um getting back to death and taxes
is that unfortunately, um people will continue to perish and,
(12:38):
and pass away um due hopefully to natural causes. Um,
but when they are um
passing away and we're losing um part of our population,
they're um leaving this world without a will and, and
a legal directive uh on what will happen with their money,
their debts and in the case where you have done
(13:01):
your property sales, your probate sales, they're leaving without any
directive on what to do with their properties,
Speaker 2 (13:07):
right?
And I've had occasions where people would come in the
office and here again, this goes back away when there
was war time or up duty and you'd have somebody
walk in and they'd say my father passed away two
weeks ago and I'm inheriting the house and I, I want,
(13:30):
I want to put it on the market.
And if you didn't, if you yet, and they, and
I might say, well, who is the attorney? Well, we
don't have one
and people
in the beginning here again, you know, knowledge is a
good thing and you learn by fire sometimes. And if
(13:53):
you are the unfortunate agent that has that person approach
you even maybe if somebody, you know, calls up and
says my father died and I need to sell the house.
And if you don't know that you can't just go
ahead and sell it. Say you go ahead and you
lift this house
and in today's market, you might have it under agreement
(14:15):
in a week and the person goes and gets their
mortgage and when they're, you know, three quarters of the
way down the road, there's a title search that's done
and
you might be getting a call, you know, a week
before closing saying, you know, I got a question here.
(14:37):
I said
there, the person that signed this contract isn't the owner
of the house. Where is? Yeah, where is, you know,
uh Stanley Jones, he's the owner of the house.
And if you, the agent weren't smart enough to pull
the deed, that's right. And to figure out that the
(14:59):
owner of the house is the one that signs the
listing contract, not the son of the deceased,
Speaker 1 (15:06):
but this goes back to doing your homework, right? Because
that all of that information is public. The moment that
probate case is filed, this is all public domain information,
Speaker 2 (15:17):
right? But it starts with the deed. That's number one.
You should never list the house if you don't have
the deed ever, ever,
you know? And that's
Speaker 1 (15:27):
crazy. It's, it's, but what a cowboy, this, this person
just said, ok, I, I own, I know this person
they died. I'm just gonna list the house and they're
not on the deed. They don't have any ownership to
the home.
Crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
I had a very experienced agent, very well known agent
that I had a go around with when I had
the buyer and she had a, somebody signing the purchase
and sales that wasn't the person on the deed. And
she keeps telling me it's all right. It's all right.
And I'm,
(16:01):
you know, it wasn't all right. And my buyer had
put money down for a septic inspection and a water
tank only to find out the house had never been
probated and the correct person was not signing the house,
couldn't even be sold
Speaker 1 (16:19):
yet. How did this random individual even get
any? I mean,
Speaker 2 (16:23):
well, it was a relative and the relative, you know,
was one of his sons and he was handling it
and blah, blah, blah, you know, I mean, I could
go on but, you know, I was not happy and
I went to the broker and I said, look, my
buyer is out this money
and he better get his money back because your agent
didn't do her job.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Ok. People, if we, if we got, we have people, right. We, unfortunately,
you know, people are, are dying every day. If you
have someone in your family, if you have a, uh, uh,
someone in the family who comes to you do your homework,
this is all public information when a case
this is filed. Ok. First of all, a case must
be filed. Random individuals, random relatives can't come in and
(17:05):
start claiming and working with you. No, no, no, no halt, stop.
Let's turn off the lights. You're not around. If someone
tries to do that
Speaker 2 (17:14):
30 days from the person's desk
that somebody should be filing the probate
Speaker 1 (17:21):
and every court is different. There's like 18, there's a
uniform probate code, but only 18 states are part of
this uniform uh probate code. The rest of them are
just doing their own thing. So understand, understand what state
you're in.
So in New Hampshire, you have to, you have to,
you should at least wait to uh 30 days or
do I? Or is that an absolute requirement? It has
(17:42):
to
Speaker 2 (17:42):
be done within 30 days. It's supposed to be filed.
You the, the person who say you're the daughter or
the son and your parent has died and
that, that, you know, there's a will and you have
a copy of it and you know, hopefully it's valid,
but they'll tell you when you go to the, when
(18:02):
you show up in the probate office, whether it's a
valid will or not, but you bring that and you
go to the district court in your county and
appear at the counter and say, you know, my father
passed away and here's his will and I'm the named
executor because it will say that in the will. And
(18:26):
here's unless they did went on a napkin somewhere and,
you know, it could be done if it's been, you know,
if it's been notarized, but it, you know, if an
attorney prepared it, it will have who the executor is
and then you'll, they'll assign you a docket number
and then they'll give you a list and a lot
of this information for agents that have never dealt with this.
(18:50):
You should learn about it and go to the, the, um,
the web to and you can Google, um, probate in
the State of New Hampshire or maths or whatever state
you're in probate process. And then when they give you
a whole list of things, the top ones on the
(19:10):
list are the law firm of Jones.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (19:14):
there's all sponsor that. Listen, 75% of the 75% of
the cost of a probate case go to attorneys. So
they have lots of money to do those ads and
that's why they constantly are coming up, um,
uh, uh, uh, on a, on a search. But Bobby's right. So,
scroll down and you'll see, uh, the information that you
(19:37):
need beyond all the attorney, ads, attorney
Speaker 2 (19:40):
on the government
Speaker 1 (19:41):
side, on the government side, they're breaking in the dough.
There's court fees and filing fees, executive fees, but 75%
goes to the attorney.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Right. So they, then you scroll down and then you
get what the process is for filing and there will
be a checklist and it might be, uh, 10 things
on the checklist before the, the, um, probate is completed. And,
you know, the,
(20:09):
and it, in New Hampshire it's between the least amount
of time it will take would be six months to
complete the process and it could be a year and
a half or more if it's a very complicated one.
Um, but it will be six months and, you know,
we'll say what the things are and one of the
things is if the person who died owned property, that's right.
(20:33):
That will have the first step is, it's part of
the inventory, the person who is the executor has to
determine the inventory about the assets of the person that
died
and one of the assets would be the house and
then the attorney that's handling this. Sometimes they would call
(20:54):
me and their attorneys don't get it that realtors aren't
doing an appraisal, but they call it that they'll say I,
I need you to do an appraisal of the property. And,
you know, it's not an appraisal that they want because
they're gonna pay a lot more for it.
And if so I, I would charge them sometimes. I, I,
(21:16):
you know, actually later when I did more of them
I did charge for it. Well,
Speaker 1 (21:21):
and I mean, I was that you would charge for,
for it. It's like a broker
Speaker 2 (21:25):
the beginning. I didn't, but I, I do, you know, for,
you know, for the last, probably at least 10 years
I would charge. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1 (21:33):
gonna say, isn't it like a BPO?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Well, I never called it that I would call it
an opinion of value. You know, that's what I would
call it. And I would do it in letter format
because I don't think they want you to crank something
off of the enter of your MLS and hand them
so many pages. I don't, you know, of, of what
(21:57):
we would get for ac ma
would do it in letter format and I would have small,
you know, I usually would have three or four sold
comparables and a couple of under agreements if I could
find something that was similar. And then in paragraph form,
I would compare the subject property to,
(22:20):
to the comparables. Incomparable one has a two car garage,
subject property doesn't have a garage. You know, I'd list
a couple of the pluses of the, of the subject
property and a couple of the negatives as well. You know,
property shows deferred maintenance on the outside
(22:41):
it's, um, the, the major systems are, are not up
to date. It has fuses and it has, you know,
a 35 year old furnace as well
Speaker 1 (22:52):
and you get really in depth. So, was that the, the,
the attorney requesting this or the courts?
Speaker 2 (22:58):
That's just the way I did it. And then I would,
at the bottom, I'd say something like in my opinion,
the current market value of blank, you know, Blankety Blank
Main Street is X, you know, and it would be
like three pages and I would send, if I had
contact first with the executor, I would send it to
(23:20):
the executor and I would cc it to the attorney,
you know, because it's really, you know, and so that's
kind of what I, I would do and I had,
you know, sometimes, and one thing I wanted to point
out that it's really important that
you be on, um, very good terms with the paralegal
(23:43):
for the attorney for a state work. If it's a,
you know, if it's a bigger firm or a three
or four person firm, usually they have one designated paralegal
that does all the probate stuff. So you, you know,
you get to know that person and
work with them because you're not talking to the attorney
(24:04):
most of the time you're talking to his estate, um,
and probate paralegal. So, you know, they're the one you're
giving your documents to and updating. But then if I
would get the property listed and I got it under
a contract, then I would send it to the paralegal
and the attorney and, you know, that kind of thing.
(24:25):
Sometimes in the beginning they want it when it's an offer.
But
the one that I dealt with most, you know, he
didn't have to have that, he trusted my judgment that
if it got under, you know, that the contract was
gonna be written. right? Number one, you know, that I
do have to write a contract and uh you know,
didn't put stuff in there that was, that was omitted or,
(24:48):
you know, I didn't omit things or whatever. And I
named the proper, proper parties as who's signing and all
that kind of thing.
So we're,
Speaker 1 (24:58):
we're here with uh Bobby, Bobby Goodrich um from uh
century 21 in Maine. Um She uh uh in New Hampshire,
she's also a licensed Maine uh uh real estate uh professional. Look,
we did the numbers. Uh you and I talked about
the numbers on New Hampshire to 12,000 probate cases in 2022.
(25:20):
It's a, that's a large percentage um
of the state as uh you're talking about a state
with a 1.2 million people. It's a very small state
and 12,000 probate cases. So when you understand uh the
the in your state, what the opportunity is overall, you
start to drill that down. Um You can even drill
that down by county. I, I, it's, it's significant, it's
(25:43):
significant as a matter of fact in the State of
New Hampshire. Uh, I think it was unfortunately the town
of Brentwood, which is very close to, to where I live,
uh, had the most cases in the state. It's an
older demographic, a little bit more rural, but Brentwood was, uh,
had the most cases out of the, the, those, uh,
12,000 cases in 2022. You wanna look at the opportunity,
(26:03):
you know, uh Bobby's given us a great uh bird's
eye view of how you, you know, navigate. And I think,
you know, my takeaway from that is understanding the court system,
understanding the laws in your state, even if you are
in Maine ha ha ha
um gives you the value, gives you the, the competitive
edge over another broker, uh broker or agent um in
(26:25):
your office in your region. Um, you know, it's a
very competitive market. Um It always has been even back
in the day when you have books um to go through.
And so these are the kind of things that you
have to invest your time in to become an expert, right? And,
and so no one's gonna be, become necessarily an expert
on probate, but the more you surround yourself,
(26:47):
the attorneys, the paralegals, um Someone at the, the, the
court system knowledge is king. You gotta know what you're
talking about. Otherwise you're gonna uh have a situation that
Bobby just, it was horrifying to hear that a family
member would just walk up to an agent. Agent would say. Ok, great.
I got a listing and put it on. Look, we're
all desperate for list listings. But my goodness. Um, you know, the, the, the,
(27:10):
the guy at the grocery store that used to bag
Mrs Jones, uh, groceries
now is coming to you wanting to sell Mrs Jones House. Uh, wow,
be careful. Um Not everybody who, who comes to you with,
with an idea of a listing. Um, in this case
even has any remote ownership of the property. Crazy, crazy.
(27:30):
Uh But I thank you so much, Bobby for sharing
with us. Um How you got into probate? Um I'm
sorry to see that you're retiring. We need more of
the more seasoned agents talking about
the things um that, that they've gone through dropping gems.
You provided a lot of gems in this conversation about
(27:50):
what you can go through at probate. Not everything is
rosy and then there's some outliers um of people who,
you know, don't own the property trying to sell the property.
So it's a great space to be in. It's not
that competitive. Everything is public that you need to be
able to go out and approach these families and these heirs.
Look when
someone dies, you don't always, uh you know, get a,
(28:13):
a nice big mansion. Sometimes you just get the debt
of your relative, um or your loved one and you
wanna make sure that creditors are paid um with the
with the sale of that property, great agents who are
knowledgeable like Bobby uh uh Good Ridge will get out
in front of it and make it happen for those
uh those families who are unfortunately grieving the loss. Last
(28:34):
thing they need to be is on the phone trying
to figure out what the court will and will not allow,
allow them to do so, the more that you know
up front, the more that you're uh prepared to help
them navigate, uh those listings will start to flow into you.
Um Unfortunately, for me to say 50% of the United
States dies without a will. Hey, Bobby, thank you so much.
(28:55):
Um You took my call, you, you followed up and
I just love you. So, um, thank you so much
for dropping your gems and we appreciate you. Thank you
Speaker 2 (29:04):
very much. All right, bye bye.
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