July 29, 2025 • 20 mins
When it comes to navigating real estate decisions, particularly for older adults or those managing inherited properties, professional guidance isn't just helpful—it's essential. This enlightening conversation between Jane Dearwester of McIntyre Elder Law and Jason Brodsky of Owners Only Real Estate reveals why DIY approaches to property valuation and sales often lead to significant financial and emotional costs.
The Western North Carolina real estate landscape has undergone a dramatic shift, transitioning from a seller's market to a buyer's market in just one year. Jason expertly breaks down the factors driving this change, including the phenomenon of "rate hostages"—homeowners with exceptionally low mortgage rates who feel trapped in properties that no longer suit their needs. For seniors considering downsizing or families managing estates, understanding these market dynamics is crucial to making informed decisions.
Perhaps most valuable is the discussion of North Carolina's unique real estate contract system, which heavily favors buyers and can leave unprepared sellers vulnerable. Through a compelling case study, Jason demonstrates how professional pricing strategy resulted in a quick sale at $68,000 above asking price with favorable terms for the seller. This practical example highlights why emotional attachment to property must be balanced with objective market analysis—something that professionals bring to the table. Whether you're planning for long-term care transitions or managing inherited property, this episode offers invaluable insights on protecting your most significant assets with expert guidance.
Subscribe to our podcast for more conversations about protecting your assets and planning for life's transitions. Have questions about real estate and elder law? Contact McIntyre Elder Law today to schedule a consultation with our experienced team.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jane Dearwester (00:00):
Hi there, I'm Jane Dearwester with McIntyre
Elder Law and I am so pleasedand excited to introduce y'all
to my friend and realtorextraordinaire, Jason Brodsky,
from Owners Only Real Estate,who's joining us for our Elder
Law report today.
Hi, Jason.
Jason Brodsky (00:18):
Hi Jane, good morning and thank you for having
me.
I'm very excited.
Jane Dearwester (00:20):
Yes, our pleasure.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Jason and I know each other andhave worked together on lots of
real estate transactions, andreally the focus of our talk
here today is about how hiringprofessionals to protect and
preserve and sell your realproperty is so important in
(00:43):
regard to the elder law sphere,but really, all around right,
hire a professional to do aprofessional job.
I always say and yeah, jason,you mentioned something at the
beginning about the number ofreal estate agents we have in
Western North Carolina and youjust said something that just
(01:06):
hits so on point about, yeah,we've got a lot of people to
choose from, but you really wantto choose a quality person.
So can you say a little bitmore about that, because I think
that's so important for ourlisteners to hear.
Jason Brodsky (01:21):
Absolutely, thank you.
So what we're referring to isthe fact that there in Western
North Carolina, the Ashevillearea, there are literally
thousands of agents in thegreater Western North Carolina.
The greater Asheville areaencompasses Hendersonville,
waynesville, I would say just anhour radius around this area,
and real estate is very popularhere.
There's a lot of people who'vegotten into it because the bar
(01:42):
of entry is not entirely thathigh, and that's a good and a
bad thing.
And you as a consumer, youdon't know if that person whose
card you picked up, if they havethe integrity that matches
yours, the experience that youexpect.
And so one of the sayings we'vecome up with from observation
is there's no shortage at all ofreal estate agents, but there's
(02:04):
a shortage of real estateprofessionals, and it is
critical that when you aretalking to somebody and getting
advice on maybe the largestasset in your life and how to
transact it, that you get thebest advice you possibly can.
Or the financial, emotional,time repercussions can be quite
(02:24):
significant or the financialemotional time repercussions can
be quite significant,Absolutely.
Jane Dearwester (02:26):
Thank you for that, and I know people have
been asking me, and the firsttopic we're going to talk about
here with regard to real estate,specifically here in Western
North Carolina and I think thisprobably goes across the state
is the shift in the market.
This is something, even thoughwe're elder law attorneys I
(02:47):
think our listeners know mybackground is in real estate and
I also have my real estatelicense, but there's definitely
a shift going on in the market.
So I was hoping, Jason, youcould talk about, from your
experience right now in WesternNorth Carolina, what kind of
shift are you seeing and whatelements are playing into that
shift.
Jason Brodsky (03:04):
Certainly so.
When you hear the news and theysay you know we're in a buyer's
market or we're in a seller'smarket, let me put some out
there, some food for thought.
There's no such thing as a badmarket, right?
There's a market that favorsbuyers and favors sellers, and
it just depends do you need abuyer or seller?
So how economists determine thestate of the market is it a
buyer's or seller's is bylooking at what we would call
(03:26):
the absorption rate.
And the absorption rate meansif no more properties come on
the market at the current paceof sales, what would it take in
time to get to zero, to depletethe inventory?
Anything below six months ofinventory is a buyer's market
and anything above tends to be a.
Excuse me, I got that backwards.
Anything below six months isgenerally a seller's market,
(03:46):
above as a buyer's market.
Well, a year ago at this time,we were at about 3.7 months of
inventory.
This month, this time last year, we are this time right now
this year, we are at 6.2.
So we're solidly into a buyer'smarket and we're in a buyer's
market for, I think, a lot ofreasons.
(04:06):
Number one is just the influxof inventory, be it properties
that are being sold becausepeople don't want to manage,
let's say, an Airbnb, sincethere has been a hit in tourism
or new construction that we seeeverywhere that we drive around.
So wherever that inventory iscoming from, it is definitely
coming.
(04:27):
The other reason we're seeingsome stagnancy in the market or
stagnation in the market, is wesee a lot of what we would call
rate hostages.
You refinanced your home duringCOVID.
You've got a 2.3% rate.
You're not refinancing to a6.8% rate, to the point where
you might live in this propertythat no longer works for you at
(04:48):
all, but you don't really haveanother option.
So rates still being perceivedhigh, the amount of inventory
coming on the market and theserate hostages who would be
buyers if they could sell theirproperty all of that has
configured to a market that'sseeing some, maybe some,
stagflation right now.
(05:08):
It's unique.
Jane Dearwester (05:11):
It is.
It is Thank you for that andkind of boiling that down into
really a pretty quick rundown.
You know, I tend to agree andthat's kind of what I'm what I'm
hearing in my, my realms andchat rooms and and those talking
about the real estate market.
Here to estate planning, theway that elder law attorneys,
(05:37):
estate planning attorneys likemyself and our attorneys here at
McIntyre Elder Law work withreal estate professionals.
Often we have people who aretransitioning into long-term
care or maybe have just lostsomebody in their family and are
left with a property or two.
They're trying to, through thegrief, get their bearings to
determine number one what isthis property worth.
(05:57):
And so, as we know, this is aDIY world, or some people like
to think it's a DIY world.
So people just go to Google,they go to Zillow.
They feel like, with thoseresources, that they know what
the property is worth and theycan do this themselves.
However, I disagree.
I'm curious what you think,jason, of having professionals
(06:21):
involved to help peopleunderstand what their property
is worth.
So we as attorneys will reachout to real estate professionals
to provide broker price opinionor the shortcut acronym is B,
or a CMA, which is a comparativemarket analysis.
These are different than anappraisal.
(06:42):
An appraiser is anotherprofessional that is a higher
level of investigation, scrutinyon the value of a property.
But as real estate agents wecan do comparison and pull some
comparative recent sales to helpinform clients, friends, about
(07:07):
what the valuations are.
So can you speak to yourprocess, or maybe some examples
that you've seen in helpingpeople determine, even as a
listing agent, to determine whatthe value, the true value of
the property is, not maybe whatthey think in their head or what
they want it to be, but whatthe actual value, what the
(07:28):
market bears as the value ofthat property.
Jason Brodsky (07:31):
Certainly so.
That's a really good topic tospeak on because it all starts
with basic free market mechanicsof supply and demand Right, and
I think one of the hardestthings for sellers to get their
mind around is that the realestate market moves as fast as
the stock market, meaning if youbought, you know, a company
(07:54):
listed on NASDAQ for a hundreddollars today and tomorrow it's
worth one 10, that's clear.
You can say I can sell this forone 10.
Or it goes down to 70 and youwant to sell it.
It's clear it's going to go to70.
You can.
We don't have a problem gettingour mind around that.
It's pretty intrinsic, it seems.
But when you talk to somebodyabout their real property, their
real estate, and they watched,you know they built the home
(08:17):
with their teenagers and theywatched their grandkids walk
across the floor and take thefirst steps right there, there's
a lot of sentimentality.
Maybe it was built on oldfamily land, which is common in
Western North Carolina Verycommon.
My perspective is price persquare foot.
Does this offer the amenitiesthat the other similar
properties offer and is it agood value for me?
(08:40):
So when we talk aboutcomparables, I think it's
important to note that, unlessyou're in a, you know,
manufactured home, community ora condominium, there's not an
exact replica for your property.
But what there is is theproperty that is either on the
market as our competition, thatis under contract, that gives us
some good information, or thathas sold, that is similar to
(09:00):
your property enough that yourproperty would have attracted
those buyers.
So we want to look at thecurrent inventory, our
competition, what's undercontract as an indicator of what
yours might be worth, but, mostimportantly, what has closed,
because that's where the rubbermeets the road, that's where the
buyer and seller came to ameeting of the minds on value.
(09:22):
Value, of course, is differentthan price.
So when we look at thisinformation, what we do to
inform our clients is help themunderstand North Carolina's
really unique real estatecontract, and I call it
double-edged.
We do not have contingencies inthis state.
That word effectively does notexist in the North Carolina real
(09:44):
estate contract, absent customdrafting and forms.
But the boilerplate terminologyin North Carolina allows for
the buyer and seller to agree ona fee known as a due diligence
fee.
Some of you might consider itto be an option fee in some
states or commercial contracts,but what that money does.
It is given to the seller uponthe formation of contract and it
(10:08):
buys the buyer the unilateralright to walk away from the deal
.
And it is critical tounderstand the import of that,
because the average seller whodoes not know or think this
through or get the advocacy onthe front end, I would say that
we advocate for our clients wellin advance of them even hiring
us by explaining this before wesign an agreement.
(10:31):
It's so critical that they knowwho they are getting into
business with on the consumerside, on the buyer side, because
a buyer can tie up a seller'sproperty for weeks.
Jane Dearwester (10:44):
Now and don't I know it.
Cause I do it for a living.
I do that in litigation for aliving.
Jason Brodsky (10:50):
And so how this ties into the market moving as
quick as the stock market rightIs.
If you have a buyer, go undercontract for a property and
they're not a solid buyer, orthey make all of these demands
of you and you, as the seller,say I don't want to do this, I
don't think this is fair, thisisn't what we negotiated.
I don't want to, I want to kickyou out of the deal, buyer, and
(11:12):
go find another buyer.
Guess what?
As a seller, you cannot do that.
So it's critical to understandthat in this state where you
have a contract, where the buyerhas all the leverage on the
outset, at owners-only realestate, one of our first orders
of business is to help ourclients one become objective to
(11:32):
get away from, to separate theemotional component from.
Look, little Johnny took a step,first step.
Sir, it's beautiful.
I know this is yourgrandfather's land and we
respect that and we're going tocommunicate that to the buyer.
And we need to help youunderstand the true value, where
we should position this in themarketplace so that, ultimately,
we can have you engage withmultiple buyers simultaneously
(11:54):
and be able to allow you tochoose the best of several
competing offers, so that we canI don't like to use the word
guarantee so much when realestate or when there's humans
involved but we can come prettydarn close to guaranteeing
you're going to close on time,you're going to have a smooth
transaction and, moreimportantly, you're not going to
find yourself with your backagainst the wall making
(12:15):
concessions that you never hadto make.
Jane Dearwester (12:17):
I really like, jason, that you're going back to
talk about the contract and Ijust want to point out I bought
a house in 2022.
And even though I'm an attorney, I used to be a closing
attorney I have decades ofexperience as a real estate
attorney and I have my realestate license.
Decades of experience as a realestate attorney and I have my
(12:38):
real estate license.
I still hired an agent to aprofessional to represent me,
because you want to have thatlevel of separation and my
agents looking at it throughanother lens, and I just feel
like we need to have.
I think we do have enoughcontent to maybe create a series
on real estate and I'm curiouswhat our listeners might think.
(13:01):
And again, there are so manyaspects to working with real
estate and legal professionalswhen you're dealing with real
property.
I think we've only scratchedthe surface of those.
Some other topics that Jason andI discussed before we got on
the meeting here were issuessurrounding listing and selling
(13:24):
a property where there areseveral heirs, other services
when we're dealing with theaging community, people
transitioning long-term care,that they may need to either
renovate or upfit their propertyto work with a transition to
mobility, or Jason was evensharing with me.
He had client that kind of hadsome life transitions that
(13:49):
happened where he could onlylive in the basement of his
property he just wasn't mobileenough to walk around and so we
see all kinds of situationswhere, again, professionals like
Jason and I can come in, reallyprovide incredible value to
clients and help and support.
(14:09):
People at times can be movingthrough all kinds of emotions,
can be moving through grief orworry, frustration, and having
compassionate, intelligentprofessionals surrounding you
and your family.
I just can't highlight enoughhow important I think it is and,
like I said, jason, I think wecould go on and on about this
(14:32):
topic, but I want to give you anopportunity, just some final
thoughts before we wrap up today, and then again maybe we'll
make a couple more of these tofill in the blanks on some of
the other issues that we've beendiscussing.
Jason Brodsky (14:45):
I would love that .
Yeah, well, I think you know.
What I'd like to end with, Ithink, is because it's something
I speak about every day.
I'm so fascinated by markets,right, and what we've done at
Owners Only.
So a quick example of how wework is if we I'll just give you
a real world one.
So we just sold a property theother day for a woman who was
not you know.
(15:06):
She was in her, she's in her40s, but she had lost her
husband and wanted to go back toMiami.
She's in her 40s, but she hadlost her husband and wanted to
go back to Miami.
And we priced her.
We valued her property ataround $730,000, $750,000.
But we priced it with the datathat we have.
We don't pull these numbers outof thin air.
(15:26):
We did enough market researchto understand that were we to
price it just below $700,000, wewould accomplish a few things.
We would get her out on thetime frame she wanted, we would
get her absolute top dollar andwe would able to be adhering to
the as is sale.
So she didn't have to makerepairs and the properties were
very good shape.
We listed it for 697.
We had it under contract for765 cash in under a week.
Jane Dearwester (15:51):
Oh, bravo, love it.
Jason Brodsky (15:53):
Because she also needed to still move and get
some things done.
We helped her negotiate.
It was very easy because of theway that we set this up in the
first place with competingbuyers.
We got the buyer to agree togive her three weeks of seller
possession after close and itwas wonderful.
It removed all the stress forher.
(16:14):
It made it easy for her tosolidify her housing details in
Florida.
But point is, we were able toget her top dollar quickly.
But why I wanted to bring thatup is every day I'm up against
other agents and they'll I'll gointo a meeting after they did
and I'll tell them, the seller,what I think, and they'll say
(16:35):
well, you know, that agent toldme we could get this price and
here's what I would say toanybody.
They've got a better crystalball than I do, because we don't
know what somebody will close aproperty at.
Nobody does.
What we've created a scienceout of is helping quantify where
(16:55):
we need to hit the market at,because price and value are two
different things.
Right, so we want.
Our intention is to positionyour property in the marketplace
at the right price so that youget all of the value.
The inverse of this, which wedon't do is when a property goes
on the market at a price thatis not reflecting the value, and
(17:18):
ultimately what happens?
There is a major loss of equitybecause as the buyers watch it,
drop, drop, drop, drop, drop,drop, drop.
Eventually they will know theprice, but I can promise you it
is less than the value had thatproperty been priced correctly
in the first place.
More than happy to explain thisin detail on an individual
(17:39):
basis to any clients or anybodythat would just like to see what
their property is, what weproject it to be worth, what we
would price it at in order tohelp you maximize the equity
that you have.
Jane Dearwester (17:49):
Yes, Thank you so much.
Jason Brodsky, Owners Only RealEstate.
He is one of my go-to realestate people and a friend, and
I so much appreciate you takingtime to be here today.
We're going to link all of thecontact information for Jason in
this talk so that everybody cancheck in with him.
(18:11):
Check out his website if you'recurious and, again, let us know
.
If we need to do part two,three, four, we'd be happy to do
so.
Uh, McIntyre Elder Law.
As y'all know, I'm based in ourHendersonville office.
We also have offices in Shelbyand Charlotte, and so please, uh
, check in with us when you needto evaluate protection of your
(18:33):
real estate and what you want tohappen to your real estate
after you're gone.
There are easy ways to avoidprobate and that's what we're
here to do.
We love working withprofessionals like Jason to
really give you this overallprofessional experience on all
sides.
So thanks again, Jason, forbeing here today.
Jason Brodsky (18:52):
Thank you so much , Jane.
I enjoyed it and I look forwardto our next one.
Jane Dearwester (18:56):
Absolutely.
Thanks everybody for listening,take care.
Jason Brodsky (18:58):
Bye-bye.
Hi there, I'm Jane Dearwester with McIntyre
Elder Law and I am so pleasedand excited to introduce y'all
to my friend and realtorextraordinaire, Jason Brodsky,
from Owners Only Real Estate,who's joining us for our Elder
Law report today.
Hi, Jason.
Jason Brodsky (00:18):
Hi Jane, good morning and thank you for having
me.
I'm very excited.
Jane Dearwester (00:20):
Yes, our pleasure.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
Jason and I know each other andhave worked together on lots of
real estate transactions, andreally the focus of our talk
here today is about how hiringprofessionals to protect and
preserve and sell your realproperty is so important in
(00:43):
regard to the elder law sphere,but really, all around right,
hire a professional to do aprofessional job.
I always say and yeah, jason,you mentioned something at the
beginning about the number ofreal estate agents we have in
Western North Carolina and youjust said something that just
(01:06):
hits so on point about, yeah,we've got a lot of people to
choose from, but you really wantto choose a quality person.
So can you say a little bitmore about that, because I think
that's so important for ourlisteners to hear.
Jason Brodsky (01:21):
Absolutely, thank you.
So what we're referring to isthe fact that there in Western
North Carolina, the Ashevillearea, there are literally
thousands of agents in thegreater Western North Carolina.
The greater Asheville areaencompasses Hendersonville,
waynesville, I would say just anhour radius around this area,
and real estate is very popularhere.
There's a lot of people who'vegotten into it because the bar
(01:42):
of entry is not entirely thathigh, and that's a good and a
bad thing.
And you as a consumer, youdon't know if that person whose
card you picked up, if they havethe integrity that matches
yours, the experience that youexpect.
And so one of the sayings we'vecome up with from observation
is there's no shortage at all ofreal estate agents, but there's
(02:04):
a shortage of real estateprofessionals, and it is
critical that when you aretalking to somebody and getting
advice on maybe the largestasset in your life and how to
transact it, that you get thebest advice you possibly can.
Or the financial, emotional,time repercussions can be quite
(02:24):
significant or the financialemotional time repercussions can
be quite significant,Absolutely.
Jane Dearwester (02:26):
Thank you for that, and I know people have
been asking me, and the firsttopic we're going to talk about
here with regard to real estate,specifically here in Western
North Carolina and I think thisprobably goes across the state
is the shift in the market.
This is something, even thoughwe're elder law attorneys I
(02:47):
think our listeners know mybackground is in real estate and
I also have my real estatelicense, but there's definitely
a shift going on in the market.
So I was hoping, Jason, youcould talk about, from your
experience right now in WesternNorth Carolina, what kind of
shift are you seeing and whatelements are playing into that
shift.
Jason Brodsky (03:04):
Certainly so.
When you hear the news and theysay you know we're in a buyer's
market or we're in a seller'smarket, let me put some out
there, some food for thought.
There's no such thing as a badmarket, right?
There's a market that favorsbuyers and favors sellers, and
it just depends do you need abuyer or seller?
So how economists determine thestate of the market is it a
buyer's or seller's is bylooking at what we would call
(03:26):
the absorption rate.
And the absorption rate meansif no more properties come on
the market at the current paceof sales, what would it take in
time to get to zero, to depletethe inventory?
Anything below six months ofinventory is a buyer's market
and anything above tends to be a.
Excuse me, I got that backwards.
Anything below six months isgenerally a seller's market,
(03:46):
above as a buyer's market.
Well, a year ago at this time,we were at about 3.7 months of
inventory.
This month, this time last year, we are this time right now
this year, we are at 6.2.
So we're solidly into a buyer'smarket and we're in a buyer's
market for, I think, a lot ofreasons.
(04:06):
Number one is just the influxof inventory, be it properties
that are being sold becausepeople don't want to manage,
let's say, an Airbnb, sincethere has been a hit in tourism
or new construction that we seeeverywhere that we drive around.
So wherever that inventory iscoming from, it is definitely
coming.
(04:27):
The other reason we're seeingsome stagnancy in the market or
stagnation in the market, is wesee a lot of what we would call
rate hostages.
You refinanced your home duringCOVID.
You've got a 2.3% rate.
You're not refinancing to a6.8% rate, to the point where
you might live in this propertythat no longer works for you at
(04:48):
all, but you don't really haveanother option.
So rates still being perceivedhigh, the amount of inventory
coming on the market and theserate hostages who would be
buyers if they could sell theirproperty all of that has
configured to a market that'sseeing some, maybe some,
stagflation right now.
(05:08):
It's unique.
Jane Dearwester (05:11):
It is.
It is Thank you for that andkind of boiling that down into
really a pretty quick rundown.
You know, I tend to agree andthat's kind of what I'm what I'm
hearing in my, my realms andchat rooms and and those talking
about the real estate market.
Here to estate planning, theway that elder law attorneys,
(05:37):
estate planning attorneys likemyself and our attorneys here at
McIntyre Elder Law work withreal estate professionals.
Often we have people who aretransitioning into long-term
care or maybe have just lostsomebody in their family and are
left with a property or two.
They're trying to, through thegrief, get their bearings to
determine number one what isthis property worth.
(05:57):
And so, as we know, this is aDIY world, or some people like
to think it's a DIY world.
So people just go to Google,they go to Zillow.
They feel like, with thoseresources, that they know what
the property is worth and theycan do this themselves.
However, I disagree.
I'm curious what you think,jason, of having professionals
(06:21):
involved to help peopleunderstand what their property
is worth.
So we as attorneys will reachout to real estate professionals
to provide broker price opinionor the shortcut acronym is B,
or a CMA, which is a comparativemarket analysis.
These are different than anappraisal.
(06:42):
An appraiser is anotherprofessional that is a higher
level of investigation, scrutinyon the value of a property.
But as real estate agents wecan do comparison and pull some
comparative recent sales to helpinform clients, friends, about
(07:07):
what the valuations are.
So can you speak to yourprocess, or maybe some examples
that you've seen in helpingpeople determine, even as a
listing agent, to determine whatthe value, the true value of
the property is, not maybe whatthey think in their head or what
they want it to be, but whatthe actual value, what the
(07:28):
market bears as the value ofthat property.
Jason Brodsky (07:31):
Certainly so.
That's a really good topic tospeak on because it all starts
with basic free market mechanicsof supply and demand Right, and
I think one of the hardestthings for sellers to get their
mind around is that the realestate market moves as fast as
the stock market, meaning if youbought, you know, a company
(07:54):
listed on NASDAQ for a hundreddollars today and tomorrow it's
worth one 10, that's clear.
You can say I can sell this forone 10.
Or it goes down to 70 and youwant to sell it.
It's clear it's going to go to70.
You can.
We don't have a problem gettingour mind around that.
It's pretty intrinsic, it seems.
But when you talk to somebodyabout their real property, their
real estate, and they watched,you know they built the home
(08:17):
with their teenagers and theywatched their grandkids walk
across the floor and take thefirst steps right there, there's
a lot of sentimentality.
Maybe it was built on oldfamily land, which is common in
Western North Carolina Verycommon.
My perspective is price persquare foot.
Does this offer the amenitiesthat the other similar
properties offer and is it agood value for me?
(08:40):
So when we talk aboutcomparables, I think it's
important to note that, unlessyou're in a, you know,
manufactured home, community ora condominium, there's not an
exact replica for your property.
But what there is is theproperty that is either on the
market as our competition, thatis under contract, that gives us
some good information, or thathas sold, that is similar to
(09:00):
your property enough that yourproperty would have attracted
those buyers.
So we want to look at thecurrent inventory, our
competition, what's undercontract as an indicator of what
yours might be worth, but, mostimportantly, what has closed,
because that's where the rubbermeets the road, that's where the
buyer and seller came to ameeting of the minds on value.
(09:22):
Value, of course, is differentthan price.
So when we look at thisinformation, what we do to
inform our clients is help themunderstand North Carolina's
really unique real estatecontract, and I call it
double-edged.
We do not have contingencies inthis state.
That word effectively does notexist in the North Carolina real
(09:44):
estate contract, absent customdrafting and forms.
But the boilerplate terminologyin North Carolina allows for
the buyer and seller to agree ona fee known as a due diligence
fee.
Some of you might consider itto be an option fee in some
states or commercial contracts,but what that money does.
It is given to the seller uponthe formation of contract and it
(10:08):
buys the buyer the unilateralright to walk away from the deal
.
And it is critical tounderstand the import of that,
because the average seller whodoes not know or think this
through or get the advocacy onthe front end, I would say that
we advocate for our clients wellin advance of them even hiring
us by explaining this before wesign an agreement.
(10:31):
It's so critical that they knowwho they are getting into
business with on the consumerside, on the buyer side, because
a buyer can tie up a seller'sproperty for weeks.
Jane Dearwester (10:44):
Now and don't I know it.
Cause I do it for a living.
I do that in litigation for aliving.
Jason Brodsky (10:50):
And so how this ties into the market moving as
quick as the stock market rightIs.
If you have a buyer, go undercontract for a property and
they're not a solid buyer, orthey make all of these demands
of you and you, as the seller,say I don't want to do this, I
don't think this is fair, thisisn't what we negotiated.
I don't want to, I want to kickyou out of the deal, buyer, and
(11:12):
go find another buyer.
Guess what?
As a seller, you cannot do that.
So it's critical to understandthat in this state where you
have a contract, where the buyerhas all the leverage on the
outset, at owners-only realestate, one of our first orders
of business is to help ourclients one become objective to
(11:32):
get away from, to separate theemotional component from.
Look, little Johnny took a step,first step.
Sir, it's beautiful.
I know this is yourgrandfather's land and we
respect that and we're going tocommunicate that to the buyer.
And we need to help youunderstand the true value, where
we should position this in themarketplace so that, ultimately,
we can have you engage withmultiple buyers simultaneously
(11:54):
and be able to allow you tochoose the best of several
competing offers, so that we canI don't like to use the word
guarantee so much when realestate or when there's humans
involved but we can come prettydarn close to guaranteeing
you're going to close on time,you're going to have a smooth
transaction and, moreimportantly, you're not going to
find yourself with your backagainst the wall making
(12:15):
concessions that you never hadto make.
Jane Dearwester (12:17):
I really like, jason, that you're going back to
talk about the contract and Ijust want to point out I bought
a house in 2022.
And even though I'm an attorney, I used to be a closing
attorney I have decades ofexperience as a real estate
attorney and I have my realestate license.
Decades of experience as a realestate attorney and I have my
(12:38):
real estate license.
I still hired an agent to aprofessional to represent me,
because you want to have thatlevel of separation and my
agents looking at it throughanother lens, and I just feel
like we need to have.
I think we do have enoughcontent to maybe create a series
on real estate and I'm curiouswhat our listeners might think.
(13:01):
And again, there are so manyaspects to working with real
estate and legal professionalswhen you're dealing with real
property.
I think we've only scratchedthe surface of those.
Some other topics that Jason andI discussed before we got on
the meeting here were issuessurrounding listing and selling
(13:24):
a property where there areseveral heirs, other services
when we're dealing with theaging community, people
transitioning long-term care,that they may need to either
renovate or upfit their propertyto work with a transition to
mobility, or Jason was evensharing with me.
He had client that kind of hadsome life transitions that
(13:49):
happened where he could onlylive in the basement of his
property he just wasn't mobileenough to walk around and so we
see all kinds of situationswhere, again, professionals like
Jason and I can come in, reallyprovide incredible value to
clients and help and support.
(14:09):
People at times can be movingthrough all kinds of emotions,
can be moving through grief orworry, frustration, and having
compassionate, intelligentprofessionals surrounding you
and your family.
I just can't highlight enoughhow important I think it is and,
like I said, jason, I think wecould go on and on about this
(14:32):
topic, but I want to give you anopportunity, just some final
thoughts before we wrap up today, and then again maybe we'll
make a couple more of these tofill in the blanks on some of
the other issues that we've beendiscussing.
Jason Brodsky (14:45):
I would love that .
Yeah, well, I think you know.
What I'd like to end with, Ithink, is because it's something
I speak about every day.
I'm so fascinated by markets,right, and what we've done at
Owners Only.
So a quick example of how wework is if we I'll just give you
a real world one.
So we just sold a property theother day for a woman who was
not you know.
(15:06):
She was in her, she's in her40s, but she had lost her
husband and wanted to go back toMiami.
She's in her 40s, but she hadlost her husband and wanted to
go back to Miami.
And we priced her.
We valued her property ataround $730,000, $750,000.
But we priced it with the datathat we have.
We don't pull these numbers outof thin air.
(15:26):
We did enough market researchto understand that were we to
price it just below $700,000, wewould accomplish a few things.
We would get her out on thetime frame she wanted, we would
get her absolute top dollar andwe would able to be adhering to
the as is sale.
So she didn't have to makerepairs and the properties were
very good shape.
We listed it for 697.
We had it under contract for765 cash in under a week.
Jane Dearwester (15:51):
Oh, bravo, love it.
Jason Brodsky (15:53):
Because she also needed to still move and get
some things done.
We helped her negotiate.
It was very easy because of theway that we set this up in the
first place with competingbuyers.
We got the buyer to agree togive her three weeks of seller
possession after close and itwas wonderful.
It removed all the stress forher.
(16:14):
It made it easy for her tosolidify her housing details in
Florida.
But point is, we were able toget her top dollar quickly.
But why I wanted to bring thatup is every day I'm up against
other agents and they'll I'll gointo a meeting after they did
and I'll tell them, the seller,what I think, and they'll say
(16:35):
well, you know, that agent toldme we could get this price and
here's what I would say toanybody.
They've got a better crystalball than I do, because we don't
know what somebody will close aproperty at.
Nobody does.
What we've created a scienceout of is helping quantify where
(16:55):
we need to hit the market at,because price and value are two
different things.
Right, so we want.
Our intention is to positionyour property in the marketplace
at the right price so that youget all of the value.
The inverse of this, which wedon't do is when a property goes
on the market at a price thatis not reflecting the value, and
(17:18):
ultimately what happens?
There is a major loss of equitybecause as the buyers watch it,
drop, drop, drop, drop, drop,drop, drop.
Eventually they will know theprice, but I can promise you it
is less than the value had thatproperty been priced correctly
in the first place.
More than happy to explain thisin detail on an individual
(17:39):
basis to any clients or anybodythat would just like to see what
their property is, what weproject it to be worth, what we
would price it at in order tohelp you maximize the equity
that you have.
Jane Dearwester (17:49):
Yes, Thank you so much.
Jason Brodsky, Owners Only RealEstate.
He is one of my go-to realestate people and a friend, and
I so much appreciate you takingtime to be here today.
We're going to link all of thecontact information for Jason in
this talk so that everybody cancheck in with him.
(18:11):
Check out his website if you'recurious and, again, let us know
.
If we need to do part two,three, four, we'd be happy to do
so.
Uh, McIntyre Elder Law.
As y'all know, I'm based in ourHendersonville office.
We also have offices in Shelbyand Charlotte, and so please, uh
, check in with us when you needto evaluate protection of your
(18:33):
real estate and what you want tohappen to your real estate
after you're gone.
There are easy ways to avoidprobate and that's what we're
here to do.
We love working withprofessionals like Jason to
really give you this overallprofessional experience on all
sides.
So thanks again, Jason, forbeing here today.
Jason Brodsky (18:52):
Thank you so much , Jane.
I enjoyed it and I look forwardto our next one.
Jane Dearwester (18:56):
Absolutely.
Thanks everybody for listening,take care.
Jason Brodsky (18:58):
Bye-bye.
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