More On Realtor Commissions

More On Realtor Commissions 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Michael Blaze. Welcometo Your Home three sixty, the show
where we talk about everything that hasto do with your home. It's brought
to you by pool Works, theLow Country's exclusive dealer of the Little Pool
line of pools. What is alittle pool, Well, it's a plunge
pool. It's very strong. It'sa five glass pool that's meant to be
used above ground, but you canuse it in ground or partially in ground,

(00:23):
or however you want. Really,Keith Bodor, vice president of pool
Works, is in the studio withme and we're going to check in with
him in just a few minutes andhave that discussion and let you know exactly
what a little pool is. Ialso want to give a quick shout out
to our other sponsor, Mosquito Joe. It's that time of year. Have
a mosquito problem, call Mosquito Joe. Now. For the last few weeks,

(00:47):
you've been hearing me talk about thisNational Association of Realtors settlement. They
were facing several lawsuits saying that theywere fixing commissions. That wasn't here in
Charleston, this was elsewhere in thecountry. But they decided to settle that
lawsuit for four hundred and something oddmillion dollars and in effect do away with

(01:10):
the offer of compensation for buyers agentson listings. It's called cooperative compensation,
where the seller agrees to pay thelisting agent x amount of dollars, the
listing agent agrees to pay a buyer'sagent x amount of dollars out of that
commission if they bring a buyer tothe table. So you might be saying,

(01:30):
oh, well, that's why he'supset because they took away that compensation.
And you greedy realtors. You know, all you do is show a
house and then walk away with apile of money. And I can do
that on Zillo, I can dothat on truly, I can do that
on real estate dot com. Youmay be able to find a house on

(01:53):
there, But to me, that'sthat's only the beginning of the services of
a buyer's agent and really not themost important one anyway, because yes,
a lot of people find the housesthey like on these various websites, so
it's less important for a buyer's agenttwo find you that property. Sometimes it

(02:15):
works that way because honestly, sometimespeople don't know what they want or they
think they want one thing when reallythey want something else, and you can
say, oh, that sounds likea typical you know, realtor salesman.
I've had it happen so many timeswhere I'm like, what's the deal breaker
here and what you're looking for?And they'll list one or several deal breakers
and then guess what the ultimate propertythey end up buying included all of those

(02:37):
deal breakers. So anyway, yes, a realtor, a buyer's agent can
help you sort through the properties thatare for sale. But their most important
service, the most important service thatthey provide, I think, is you
know, navigating the contract, negotiatingthat contract and taking that deal to fruition

(02:58):
and getting it through to the closingchain. It's a whole lot harder than
it sounds. So there's all kindsof landmines in the contract. Most people
don't understand, you know, howthat can affect them. So first of
all, being able to fill outthe contract effectively and have the foresight to
see where some problems might occur,and then taking steps to make sure that

(03:19):
those problems don't occur. Sometimes theproblems still occur, and then you have
to negotiate through them. So thisis to me where the importance of a
buyer's agent lies. So we'll setthat aside for a minute and continue to
talk about compensation. So Joe,the realtor says, has a client,
and the client selling the house.Joe charges a commission, puts on the

(03:44):
MLS. Hey, I'm going tocooperate and share this compensation with buyers agents.
So that's how it's been historically withbuyers agents. Why do we have
buyer's agents in the first place.We didn't always have buyer's agents in this
industry. It used to be alisting agent listed the home, and then
you, the buyer, went andtalked to the listing agent, and the
listing agent's like, sure, it'sa great house. I think it would

(04:06):
be wonderful for you. So itwas decided there was too much of a
conflict of interest there and that itwas unfair because the listing agent has a
fiduciary duty to their client, theseller, and when you're just a customer,
as a buyer, there's no fiduciaryduty by anybody to you, and

(04:29):
you're dealing with somebody that's you maythink is helping you, but their fiduciary
duty is to the other party inthe transaction. So they came up with
buyer agency and so now each side. The seller has the listing agent representing
them their fiduciary duties to the seller, and you have the buyer's agent their
fiduciary duty is to the buyer.And then you have this shared compensation,

(04:54):
cooperative compensation. The listing agent putsright on the MLS listing and the public
can't see this, but agents cansee it. Hey, here's what I'm
going to get compensated for bringing myclient to this property. Well, these
lawyers are like, well, that'sunfair, and why should the seller have
to pay for the buyer services?And if we do this, if we

(05:18):
do away with this, it'll makeyou know, the real estate's been going
through the roof. So actually tryto blame the real estate agents for the
price of housing. Oh, it'sgoing to make the you know, price
houses go down if they don't haveto do this anymore. No, it's
not. What it's going to dois hurt the seller. It's going to
hurt the buyer, it's going tohurt the industry, and it's going to

(05:42):
hurt multiple industries. Think about themortgage industry. Think about everybody else that's
tied into the real estate industry,and mark my words, this is going
to cause less transactions to clothes.I just mentioned that all of the things
that a buyer's agent does. Theirmain job is not to find you a
house. There's plenty of houses outthere online. Their main job is to

(06:05):
navigate the transaction, and navigate thepersonalities involved, and navigate the legalities involved,
and bring that deal to fruition andto closing. What they're saying now
is it's no longer allowed to putthat compensation on the listing, So you

(06:25):
will have to go as a realtoror as a real estate agent and do
a compensation agreement before you show eachhouse. And maybe the seller will pay
that compensation, maybe they won't.Then you'll have to charge the buyer for
your services. And most of thesebuyers, I mean, houses are really
expensive now and they're going to optout of hiring a buyer's agent for one

(06:49):
reason or another. Maybe they can'tafford to, Maybe they're struggling to come
up with the down payment that theyhave to put down in the closing costs
that it's going to take to makeit a to make it work work for
them. Maybe they just don't believe, you know, in the value of
a buyer's agent. Any which way, this is a huge shift in the

(07:09):
real estate business. And I've beenasking around what do you think of this?
And you know, I haven't heardanybody disagree with me yet. It's
going to hurt the industry. It'sgoing to hurt the buyer ultimately, it's
going to hurt the seller. Ultimately, it's going to hurt the chances of
having a successful transaction. And soI just that's what upsets me. And

(07:30):
if you look into the National Associationof Realtors, you know, there's some
not too cool stuff that's been goingon the last few years. And I
have to be careful here because theyhave all these rules and even in the
Golden you know the Golden rules,where you have to follow all of their

(07:53):
rules in order to belong to thatassociation. And if you want access to
the MLS, which has a muchmore robust data set than you can find
elsewhere, that's the whole reason Ibelong is to get my access to the
MLS and that data. Otherwise Idon't need them. Otherwise I don't need
the local Association. I don't needthe state Association, I don't need the

(08:15):
National Association. But in order tojoin the MLS, they make you belong
to all of them. And thenat the end of the day, and
under the umbrella of of course,they're looking out for us as agents and
they're looking out for the consumer.And the golden rule is, you know,
as agents, we need to protectthe consumer. And then they go
along and do this which is totallythe opposite of protecting the consumer. And

(08:39):
this is my opinion. So youknow, I don't know how all of
this is going to play out,but this is not good for the real
estate industry, for the mortgage industry, for buyers, for sellers, for
real estate agents at the end ofthe day, So be aware this change
is supposed to take effect in July, that that's coming to change the way

(09:01):
real estate's transacted and it's going tochange your chances of having a successful deal.
So just be aware of that thatthere's even more questions than you might
have had up to this point whenyou're hiring a realtor and what that process
is going to be like, whetheryou're selling a house or buying a house.

(09:22):
So way to go lawyers. Wayto go National Association of Realtors.
That's really the way that you shouldlook out for the consumer. And I
try not to get political on thisshow, but way to go Biden administration
too, because the President himself wasup there. Oh, this will make
pro You know, real estate tcheaper, our house is more affordable. That's

(09:43):
a sham lie. And find anybodyelse under the sun to blame other than
your own policies for why housing isso expensive. But it's not because of
real estate agents. Hopefully you foundthat explanation informative. The latest numbers are
out here locally, and let's takea quick look at that before we talk
to Heath Bodorf for Charleston County.We're looking at March. This is year

(10:09):
over year March twenty twenty three comparedto March twenty twenty four. Charleston County
single family detached homes median sales priceup four point three percent year over year.
You know what the median sales priceis now in Charleston County for a
single family detached house six hundred andforty five hundred dollars. Townhouses in condos

(10:31):
median sales price up twelve point eightpercent to four hundred and twenty eight thousand,
five hundred dollars. Berkeley County Marchover March, single family detached homes
median sales price up two point sevenpercent. Median sales price in Berkeley County
for a single family detached house isnow three hundred and ninety thousand, two

(10:52):
hundred and forty one dollars. Fortownhouses in condos in Berkeley County, median
sales price is actually down two tenthsof a percent to three hundred and nine
thousand, five hundred dollars. DorchesterCounty March over March. Single family detached
homes median sales price up four pointfive percent year over year. Median sales

(11:13):
price in Dorchester County now three hundredand eighty six thousand, six hundred and
twenty five dollars. Townhouse and condosup median sales price year over year eleven
point one percent to three hundred thousandfor the median sales price for a townhouse
or condo in Dorchester County. Soyou can see prices are still going up

(11:37):
and a lot of experts are sayingif the interest rate comes down into the
five percent range, you can expectprices to go up because there's pent up
demand, and once that interest ratedrops, a whole bunch more buyers are
going to be in the market andthe prices are going to continue to go
up. Hearing it a while back, I continue to hear it, Oh,

(12:01):
the real estate market's going to crash. Well, I mean tell that
to the real estate market, becausethe prices are still going up and they're
expected to continue to do so.There was even people talking about I'm going
to cash out and I'm going towait till prices go down and then I'm
going to get back in and I'mgoing to sit on my pile of money.
And I told them at the time, bad idea, and you know

(12:22):
what, still a bad idea.And same thing. If you're waiting to
make a purchase, don't wait.The longer you wait, the further away
you're going to get as the pricesgo up, and you probably can't save
fast enough to not only get ahead, but keep up, so you end
up behind. It's time for today'sspecial guest in the studio with me is

(12:46):
Heath bod Orf. He's vice presidentof Pool Works. They're the low Country's
exclusive dealer of the little pool lineof pools here in the low country.
Welcome heath. Let's start by explainingwhat a little pool is. A little
pool's a plunge pool, right,it is a plunch pool, but it's
a free standing plunch pool. Soit's a fiberglass pool shell and then surrounded

(13:07):
with a exoskeleton of GRP, whichis glass reinforced polymer. Some people call
the glass reinforced plastic. It doesn'trust, it doesn't rot, it doesn't
get termite damage. It's pretty toughstuff. And just to set this up,
so the fiberglass comes from Australia,right, that's correct, and then
you manufacture it put it together herein Ridgeville, right here in South Carolina.

(13:31):
That is correct. It is shippedin containers nested together. The pool
shells are it's a standard fiberglass poolbuilt for originally built for end ground,
been modified a little bit so thatit can accept our exoskeleton. And once
they're brought in, they come innested together in a container. And then

(13:52):
here in Ridgeville they take the poolshells and then convert that over and add
the GRP exoskeleton to make it afree standing fiberglass pool. Now the exoskeleton
is an important component, if notthe most important component of the pool.
That's what gives it its strength,right Heath, Yeah, So the exoskeleton
is what allows this pool to befree standing. So it's a patented process

(14:16):
of how it's applied to the pool. And then once that pool is built
the exoskeleton, you can fill itfull of water. Net it allows that
pools so that it can withstand thoseforces of the you know, the water
pushing outwards on that pool. Somost fiberglass pools, if you were to
take a standard fiberglass pool and sitthat on the ground and fill it full

(14:37):
water, the whole sides would justliterally buckle. They would they would push
out to an extent. And thenif you know, take somebody and have
to do a cannon ball in it, that force, that pressure that would
be a for exerted on that poolwall would literally bust the walls. So
is what the little pool is.It's engineered and designed to a point that
it can withstand that. I thinkthey're testing. One of their testing is

(14:58):
they take a fifty five and drumraise it thirteen feet in the ear and
then free to fallow drop it intoa water filled pool and it's able to
withstand that. So that's part oftheir testing procedures. They have a lot
of patented trademarks on the actual processthat I can't share, but it's you
know, it's it's pretty strong.It's it's durable to last most people in
entire lifetime. Wow. And it'sstrong enough too. Where this is what

(15:22):
impressed me is you can attach adeck to it without any supports for the
deck right and strong enough to supportnot only the water and people jumping in
it, but you can also ifyou want to put it next to a
deck, you can attach the deckbase right to it. Right. Yeah.
So a lot of times, likeif you were to take a standard
above ground pool or you know theold the round you know type of above

(15:43):
ground pools, and you wanted adeck round it, you would have to
put support columns right up next tothe pool. Well, with this pool,
you know, first of all,it's not you know, it's not
a tin can pool, but itis an actual fiberglass pool, and you
can attach what we call a whalingboard around the of it and then set
your floor joists right on it,so you don't need those support structures right
up next to the pool. Thepool is the support structure, so it's

(16:07):
kind of like cannilever in your deckoff that so you could go out eight
ten, twelve feet before you actuallyhave to put your first post. Now,
of course, a lot of that'sin your designs and everything, but
yeah, the pool is strong enoughto withhold with stand the entire deck load,
all on all four sides at onceand still you know, be strong
enough to hold that water. Yeah, that's awesome. And you know,
and we had discussed this before aboutyou know, we're in the low country,

(16:30):
so groundwater level is pretty high here. Sometimes you know, I joke,
it's like a you know, rightat the ground level, at the
ground water. And so some peoplewith these fiberglass pools, if you don't
keep them full, they can popright out of the ground. And not
only that, but with flooding issuesand everything else, sometimes an in ground

(16:52):
pool is just not practical. Sothe little pool that you manufacturer is perfect
for a situation like that. Andnot only is it's strong, it's pretty
too. Right. Without being overjell or zealous on this, I mean,
it's it's a swimming pool that isgorgeous. It's the colors are beautiful.
The warranty on it's astronomical. It'sthey've never had a reported case of

(17:15):
osmosis in their pool shells, andso you know, they offer a twenty
five year warranty on that. Andyou know, typically in the fiberglass industry,
you see, you know, hada bad name you know, from
the eighties in that where people wereusing the wrong kind of resins and stuff.
So you've seen a lot of osmosison stuff on pool shells and never

(17:36):
has Compass, our manufacturer of ourpoolshell they have never had a recorded case
of osmosis. So that's that's that'sa big statement right there. And just
the pool itself is gorgeous. They'venailed the colors. It's kind of a
three D look to it. It'sa pretty pool and it's just like any
other fibreglass pool. You can dowhat you want with it. You know,
you can put jets in it andput different lights in it. You
can do all kinds of things init. Now. They're also light weight,

(17:59):
so they're perfec picked for tight spacesor spaces that are hard to get
you know, any kind of heavyequipment into that you would normally use to
dig an in ground pool and ina lot of cases you can be swimming
the same day it's delivered. Right, So explain the installation process. Yeah,
So typically the pools are designed tosit on a on a some type

(18:22):
of flat surface, whether that isconcrete or pavers. There's engineered drawings for
each of those. It tells youhow thick the concrete needs to be and
how big the pavers need to be. In stuff, But so whether you
sink it in the ground partially fullyor fully above ground, or raise it
up on a steel platform for likesay and Ile Palms type project where they
wanted their pool up level with thefirst story of the home, then you

(18:47):
know there's there's that type of design. It's built into the pool. It's
able to do all that and whenyou when you take all the benefits of
having this type of pool, itreally fits different installation in scenario. So
one one might be you know,one the pool is super light, it's
it's the biggest pool I think israted around thirty three hundred pounds. When

(19:08):
you compare that to say a shippingcontainer pool or a prefab concrete pool,
you know those things weigh twenty thousandtwenty six thousand pounds depending on what size
you're getting fifteen thousand pounds and youtake you might have to crane something over
home or something. Well, forevery pound you've got to move a foot,
that costs money. So if it'sa lot cheaper to take a three

(19:32):
thousand and thirty three hundred pound pool, lift it over a home, sit
it in somebody's backyard than it isa twenty five thousand pounds pool, So
huge cost difference. There are hugecost savings in the actual shipping of the
pool. You know, less weightto ship down the road, down the
highway, but you know that's oneway to install it. You can install

(19:53):
it with a crane. The coolthing about the little pool is in some
scenarios it's actually easy enough to actuallyput casters under it and wheel it into
somebody's backyard. It's that light aslong as you have some way to lift
it off the truck, whether that'swith a telehandler type a piece of equipment.
Very few people will probably familiar withthat term, but a brand name

(20:15):
would be a lull. It's afork truck that's kind of all terrained with
an extendable boom and then so thatthat can even lift it in most of
the times that it'll fit between people'shomes and that's the very cost effective way
of getting it in a backyard ifyou have to lift it over a fence
or something like that. So thesite work getting into a little bit of
the site work part of it.The site work is you know, it

(20:37):
can be as minimal as putting somepapers on the ground, you know,
ripping up some sawed a little bit, not really digging into the ground and
putting a paper base down and puttingthe papers in, stamping them in place,
and then putting the pool on topof that. Or it can be
a little more intensive. You know, let's do a concrete pad because maybe
we need to bring it up toan existing deck level. Then at that
point you might want to bring itup you know, save foot you know,
then okay, so you want tobring your concrete pad up level so

(21:02):
that the top of that pool isgoing to be even with the existing deck
that's already there, so that,you know, the site work is minimal.
When you consider pools, a tipof wind ground pool, you know,
there's a lot of dirt to moveand a lot of dirt to haul
out of somebody's backyard and this onehere. You know, it depended on
the situation, and it's not madefor every situation. You know, that's

(21:22):
something that you know, it's gotto be taken into account when you're when
you're thinking about a little pool orany plunch pool, you know, is
it going to fit the family ofsix? Right? You were telling me
off the air, You're like,you know, I just don't want this
to be a sales piece for thelittle pool. I want to be informative
and let people know what they areand let people know that it might not

(21:44):
be right for everyone. That's correct. So you know, if you look
at you know, trends in thepool industry, you know, years ago,
everybody wanted that free form pool thatwas big, and you know,
it had an eight foot nine footdeep end. And you know, since
most people have gotten away from becauseof mainly insurance reasons, have gotten away
from putting diving boards in pools.Today, you know, your average homeowner,

(22:10):
they're not going to use that spaceout there that's seven eight foot deep
unless they purposely got that pool toswim laps. Nobody wants to go out
there and tread water. So theneed to have that big deep pool in
it today is is really not thereunless it's just mindset from well that's what
my parents had or that's what mygrandparents had. But nobody puts diving boards.

(22:32):
They might put a slide here andthere, but really that's a thing
of the past. And so whenyou think about pools today and how the
industry has evolved, you know,you see people a lot more companies offering
these plunge pools. Well let's let'sexplain what a plunge pool is. So
a plunge pool is a smaller pool. It's designed for, you know,

(22:53):
coming home from work and relaxing.It's designed for entertaining a few guests,
having some you know, a glassof wine or a cocktail or even a
beer after work whatever, getting inthere, chill, let your stress take
you, you know that just washthat stress away from you, just cooling
down after mowing the lawn on aSaturday or something. And that's what a
plunch pool is, you know,It's it's a pool to just sit in,

(23:15):
relax, enjoy company of others,enjoy, you know, just taking
that stress away from the day ofwork. And that's what you know,
I think, you know, that'swhat a plunch pool does. It's I
think when they originally started out,people were calling them party pools. You
know, it's it's not even reallya party pool. It's it's a something
for you to enjoy almost on apersonal level where you know, your typical

(23:38):
big, you know pool. Youknow, you got a family of six,
it's a plunch pool going to workfor that person? No, it's
not. And uh, some people, you know, they got it.
They want that big pool. Theywant to be able to swim laps in
it. And not that punch poolscan't offer some forms of exercise. You
know, there's there's stuff that thatare made to to you know, you

(23:59):
can and actually swim with and stuff. But and those options are available even
on the little pool. But youknow, is it going to be the
right pool for a family that hasmaybe three or four kids and those kids
are going to grow up for thenext ten years in that home before they
go off to college, and they'regoing to have friends over and they're going
to want to play you know,volleyball, basketball, stuff like that.
Is it the right pool for that? No, it's not. And so

(24:21):
really educating the consumer about what worksbest for them. I think that's more
important than actually selling the pool.I think, you know, if the
industry. I had a customer andit's a very well known person in the
area. He just bought a littlepool from us, and one of his
comments was he said, your industryis broken, and that it took me
a step back. But you knowwhat's funny, I knew that the industry

(24:45):
has broken. The pool professionals don'thave a good name. I think currently
in the state of South Carolina,there are three or four lawsuits against pool
companies. That's bad press. That'swhy is that what's going on in the
industry. So I think that's theseall questions people need to talk to their
their pool company about and you know, educate themselves. What what makes a

(25:06):
good pool company a good pool company? Sure? And you know, and
what makes a pool a good pool? And what makes the installation process a
good installation process one that's not goingto cause you headaches down the road.
That's correct, That's correct. Youknow, it's all about, you know,
making the right choice. And youknow, if I got to walk
away from a job, even thoughI might want that sale, if I

(25:29):
got to walk away from it becauseit doesn't fit that customer or doesn't fit
that situation. Maybe they even believethat it fits them. But if it
doesn't, and if i've you know, you got to look at you know,
consumers, not a pool professional.They haven't installed fifty or one thousand
or a hundred or whatever that numberis for each each different pool builder out
there. If if if you gotto walk away from it, you know

(25:52):
you got to because that's it's moreabout that consumer's happiness. You definitely don't
want a consumer that you sold apool to a just for the pool sale
and then next year of them realizethat, hey, this wasn't really the
greatest purchase for us. You know, pool is a big investment. It's
not a necessity. It is adesire, it's an it's a it's a
want, and you know, youwant that person to make the right choice.

(26:18):
And that's that's what we're about.That's what pool Works is about.
That's why we, you know,have the reputation we do have. You
know, we're not afraid to walkaway from it if it's not the right
fit for that customer. Well,for those that are interested in learning more
about the little pool line of pools, what should they do one, they
could call us that. That's probablythe best way. It's eight four three

(26:40):
six nine five eight three five five. The other way is just go to
our website and you know, wehave some contact of stuff. We don't
spam people, really, we don'tyou. If you fill out that form
on our website, it stays inhouse. We don't sell it. We
don't do anything like that. Wejust contact you and if you're interested,
we're not going to hound you orif you know, if you just want
general some knowledge, you know,we're here to help educate people. That's

(27:03):
that's the important part. In thewebsites mypoolworks dot com, mypoolworks dot com.
Go ahead and give the phone numberone more time. It's eight four
three six nine five eight three fivey five. Well, you're celebrating a
birthday and you're having a spring promotion, and right now for our listeners,
you're offering them two thousand dollars offtheir order, right that is correct.
So pool Works has been in businesssixteen years as of March, and we're

(27:26):
extending that promotion into the end ofApril. So yeah, take get your
pool ordered and we'll help you andyou can take two thousand dollars off the
cost of that pool, or youcan add it to some you know,
something else that you want, maybeyou want a heater or something like that.
Definitely, and you said you caneven you even have the equipment.
It escapes me what it's called.But you can even there's all kinds of

(27:47):
add ons and you can even swimlaps, right, that's correct. So
we offer a super swim system.It's actually what the University of Florida uses
to train their swimmers. So that'sthat's a part of a package. And
it's very affordable. It's nothing likeputting a you know, like a pool
pool or something like that in yourback eye. It's this is very easy,

(28:08):
very affordable, and it's it's great. It provides resistance training and it's
that's what really builds exercise. Well, that's excellent. Go to mypoolworks dot
com or the phone number one moretime eight four three six and nine five
eight three five five. Heath Bodorf, vice president of pool Works, the
Low Country's exclusive dealer of the LittlePool line of pools. Thanks for your

(28:29):
time and thanks for the explanation today. Thank you, Michael, appreciate it.
That's it for your home three sixtymake sure you tune in every Saturday,
and if you want to catch thepodcast, you can download that for
free on your iHeartRadio app. Youcan also find it online at ninety four
to three WSC dot com. Justlook under podcasts