Michael Young on repetitious boredom and the lead source that never changes

Ren Jones00:04

It’s that time. Welcome to Roadmap. How to take three listings a week until you’re ready for more. Each week we interview a great agent who is consistently taking two, three, four listings a week. We have an exciting guest today. We encourage you to take notes, apply as much of the knowledge as quickly as you can, and then use the copycat principle. Let me introduce my co-host from San Diego, Carley Hathaway. That’s CarleyHathaway.com. Hi, Carley. How’s the real estate business?

Carley Hathaway00:40

Hi, Ren. Hi, everybody. The real estate business is awesome. I’m doing great. Love being a listing agent here in sunny San Diego.

Ren Jones00:49

I know you’re firing on all cylinders and it’s…

Carley Hathaway00:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Ren Jones00:51

Nice closings you got coming up.

Carley Hathaway00:52

Yeah.

Ren Jones00:54

Before I introduce our guest today, I want to remind everybody that we are also simulcasting the show in the private Lead Gen group on Facebook. They have 52,000 members, so we have a large audience there today as well. We’ll be pausing for a commercial message during the show as a thank you to the Lead Gen folks. Let’s welcome our guest today from the Bay Area. Beautiful place, Northern California. Mr. Michael Young.

Michael Young01:20

Good afternoon. How are you?

Carley Hathaway01:22

Hi Michael. Thanks for joining us today.

Michael Young01:25

It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Ren Jones01:27

Glad you’re here. And I know you sell-

Michael Young01:29

Glad to be here.

Ren Jones01:30

… a lot of real estate.

Michael Young01:32

Well, we try.

Ren Jones01:34

You’ve been doing that for a good while. That is great. What’s the goal for sales this year?

Michael Young01:40

150 transactions closed.

Carley Hathaway01:44

Nice.

Ren Jones01:45

And Carley, that’s in the Bay area dollars.

Carley Hathaway01:47

Like those dollars.

Ren Jones01:49

Yeah, I know. It’s like you multiply by four.

Carley Hathaway01:52

Yeah. Yeah. And so you’re ramping up. Are you still calling these expireds and FSBOs daily? Is it still part of your morning routine?

Michael Young01:59

Four hours a day.

Ren Jones02:00

Four hours a day. Expireds, for sale by owners, and you’re even NODs as well, right?

Michael Young02:10

Well, yeah, so I also, half my business are actually with probates, estates, trusts. And then about a year ago I started taking on pre-foreclosures as well.

Ren Jones02:21

Great. Good, because one day, and the rest of the country will really be expanding in that, but it’s showing its ugly head again, where people are getting behind-

Michael Young02:31

You’d be surprised.

Ren Jones02:31

… on their mortgage.

Michael Young02:32

Yeah, it’s still there.

Ren Jones02:33

Especially in your market, there’s bound to be. You have some of the highest prices in the country. What’s your average selling price?

Michael Young02:41

Well, because I work different markets, it varies. It can be anywhere from a hundred thousand to two million, so it just depends. Because half my deals are probates, estates and trusts, they’re really all over the map. So wherever somebody dies is where I’m going to broker that property locally.

Ren Jones02:57

Are you finding a lot of, because we have a number of people that work probate, are you finding much competition in the area of probate other than, or are the only people competing with you are people that are trying to buy it directly and flip it?

Michael Young03:12

Well, I was one of the few people that actually pioneered it back in the mid-nineties, and back then there was very little competition. The last 10 years, 15 years, especially the last five to 10 years, a lot of brokers have figured out that it’s a tremendous opportunity because it never changes.

Carley Hathaway03:32

People always die.

Ren Jones03:33

Oh yeah.

Michael Young03:34

People always die. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a terrorist act, doesn’t matter whether we’re in expansion. Doesn’t matter whether we’re in recession, 30 to 50% of all people that die at the time. And 30 to 50% of the time the heirs don’t want the property and need to sell it. So my job is to introduce myself to them and sell their property.

Carley Hathaway03:56

Yeah. Well good for you, obviously it’s working for you. Let me ask you this. For people that have only been making these phone calls for a few months or even a year, how do you stay on for four hours? How did you build your stamina? Because I’m sure the first week of calling, you weren’t calling for four hours a day. Just a wild guess.

Michael Young04:16

No, actually I was doing, when I was younger, I was doing even more. I was probably calling all day ’cause I had nothing better to do.

Carley Hathaway04:21

Okay, so you’re a machine.

Michael Young04:25

Well, I think what it is, is that you’re either motivated to- when I got in the business, I got in the business to be really wealthy. I’ll tell you guys it’s very unsexy.

Ren Jones04:37

It is.

Michael Young04:38

It’s also very simple. It’s just not easy. So it’s not a sexy thing, you know? You earn as much as you can, at the end of the year you pay off all your personal expenses, you pay your taxes, and whatever’s left over, you shove into deals or you store that money until you have enough to buy into deals. And that’s all I’ve been doing for three decades.

Carley Hathaway05:04

But it’s working, obviously.

Ren Jones05:06

Now, Carley shadowed Hal Swayze a few months back.

Carley Hathaway05:09

Yeah.

Ren Jones05:10

Carley, was it really exciting and jumping around or what was that like?

Carley Hathaway05:13

No, he is so regimented. Even down to the 10-minute break he takes and the same exact snack he eats every time. He’s the only one making the phone calls

Michael Young05:26

All these guys…

Ren Jones05:26

But his banker loves him.

Carley Hathaway05:29

Oh yeah.

Michael Young05:29

All these guys. See, again, Hal’s and my mastermind group, along with Ed, along with Neil, along with Josh, all these guys I came up with. We all came up around the same time. We all were in the business together, all this stuff. And all of us share one thing, and that is, we understand that if you really look at what we’re doing, and here at my standup desk, pardon my attire today, I actually am going to work out after this. I didn’t get a chance to do that this morning. But we just do our job every day, and we’ve been doing it for many, many, many years now. And it’s really not that complicated. It’s very, very, very simple. It’s just not easy because it can become boring.

06:18But see, everything, any person that’s done anything great has times when it’s very boring. Michael Jordan, the basketball player, shot basket after basket after basket after basket. Kobe Bryant, whoever you admire that is doing anything, they’re doing, it’s called repetitious boredom. Mike Ferry talked about that a long time ago. And it’s your ability to stay excited, stay focused through that repetitious boredom that’s going to make or break you. If you can’t deal with repetitious boredom, you’re never going to be wealthy. Never.

Ren Jones06:58

Right.

Michael Young07:01

Never. And you go across any industry. Tech, I mean, think about these tech guys. They’re sitting- or gals, they’re sitting in front of their computer for 20, 30, 40 hours at a time. “Oh, but they’re billionaires.” But you didn’t see all the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours and all the coke cans and the pizza boxes around them before they became whoever they became.

Carley Hathaway07:23

Yeah.

Michael Young07:23

So it’s their ability to stay focused, to shut out the noise, and just focus.

Ren Jones07:30

It’s a powerful thing. And you’ve been doing it. And one of the gifts in this business, and I assume it’s true for you too, is you, not only are you making the money, you actually have the time to enjoy it.

Michael Young07:44

Not really.

Carley Hathaway07:48

I love the honest.

Michael Young07:49

I’m very blessed. I have a beautiful, beautiful daughter who I spend as much time as with as I can. I go to all the games, all the parents, all that stuff. But I don’t have a lot of other outside hobbies.

Ren Jones08:00

Well, I mean, when you think about it, if you’re raising a daughter, you have the time to enjoy it. If you were hauling buyers around every weekend, you would miss opportunities with your daughter.

Michael Young08:13

Yeah, that’s the thing. I do control my time that way, and I do-

Ren Jones08:15

That’s what I mean. If you were at, if you were working the buyer’s side of the business, your daughter would suffer.

Michael Young08:22

Right.

Ren Jones08:22

And one of the things we try to get people involved with here is get on the listing side of the business.

Michael Young08:28

Yes.

Ren Jones08:29

Because you can spend time with your family. You don’t want years later, on the family albums, just pictures of you with your phone to your ear.

Michael Young08:36

But Ren, can I tell you, another dirty secret is that if you know how to list property properly, then you can double end 30% of your deals and never even meet the buyer.

Ren Jones08:46

Love it. I love that. We should all go shadow you and figure that one out.

Carley Hathaway08:52

I know, I think I might have to shadow you.

Michael Young08:54

Anytime.

Carley Hathaway08:57

Where in NorCal is your office?

Michael Young08:58

You’re, you’re going to be very disappointed. It’s a very boring, easy business.

Ren Jones09:02

A helicopter ride. That’s how he gets to his listings quickly.

Carley Hathaway09:05

Yeah.

Michael Young09:05

There’s nothing complicated about it.

Carley Hathaway09:08

Where’s your office in NorCal?

Michael Young09:10

Well, I’m in an area called Marin County, which is-

Ren Jones09:13

Oh, you’re at Marin?

Michael Young09:14

Yeah.

Ren Jones09:15

Okay. Like San Rafael and up that way, or…

Michael Young09:18

I live actually on a place called Mount Tam, which is what I’m looking at right now.

Ren Jones09:21

Oh, I know Mount Tam. Yeah, beautiful.

Michael Young09:23

Yeah.

Ren Jones09:24

Wow. So you need that helicopter, you know. Or a fast-

Michael Young09:28

I need the helicopter. I do.

Carley Hathaway09:29

Yeah.

Ren Jones09:29

Or a fast boat.

Michael Young09:29

Yeah.

Carley Hathaway09:31

Okay. I’m going to come shadow you just for a morning and just see how intense you are. If you have Hal Swayze beat, that’s the see, I’m going to see it.

Michael Young09:37

Oh, I love Hal to death. He’s a, again, very dear friend. I love him.

Carley Hathaway09:41

Okay, good, good.

Ren Jones09:43

So this has been a real treat. I think there’s a lot for people to think about, the direction they’re going. If they’re thinking about building a big team, working with a lot of buyers, they could be busy or they could do it like… strengthen their mindset. Keep all the money, have time to spend with your family, your daughter, and whatever is exciting. Maybe going out and buying a building,

Michael Young10:13

Whatever works.

Ren Jones10:14

I know. I appreciate this so much Michael, and this is a real good help for our audience and a lot of people that were probably like you way back when you were starting, trying to figure out, do I want to do this or do I want to do this? What is the best road? And the worst thing is finding out the hard way.

Michael Young10:34

I think that the simpler they can keep it, the better.

Ren Jones10:39

Good.

Carley Hathaway10:39

Agreed. Well, Michael, thank you so, so much. I think everyone watching is going to have some amazing takeaways. I know I’m going to re-watch it a few times, so thank you. Thank you so much.

Michael Young10:49

Thanks for having me. It’s been a real great. It’s been a lot of fun. Thank you.

Ren Jones10:53

Thanks again, and thanks to everybody in our audience on Facebook with the Lead Gen Facebook group. If you’re interested in them, go to facebook.com/groups/gotobjections. Want to thank Aaron Wittenstein who airs this. He has a program called trajectorynow.com. See everybody next week, when we have somebody else who’s taking several listings a week. I’ll see you, everybody. See you then.

10:53