The Business of Homes Podcast

023 Transcript

00:00:26:20 - 00:00:52:08
Michael Conrad
Welcome back to the Business of Homes podcast. I'm your host, Michael Conrad. Thank you guys again for being here. I'm so fortunate that I get to bring really great stories of the business side of real estate to you. Today, I have the very first realtor that I ever knew in middle Tennessee. Anna All tick. She is an old friend of mine and we're actually neighbors, believe it or not.

00:00:52:12 - 00:01:02:22
Michael Conrad
As fate would have it. And she was one of the very first people that I learned a little bit about real estate from. And so I'm really thankful that you're able to be here today. Thank you, Anna.

00:01:03:00 - 00:01:05:05
Anna Altic
Thank you, Michael. I'm excited to be here, too.

00:01:05:08 - 00:01:34:18
Michael Conrad
I feel like you hold this outsized sort of guru place in my mind because you've been practicing real estate for a number of years and have occupied a wide variety of positions, gathering all this amazing experience. But the thing I think I probably associate you most with is just the amazing way that you connect into the overall fabric of our city and our neighborhood.

00:01:34:20 - 00:02:01:14
Michael Conrad
I feel like you are a paragon of someone who knows all the inner workings from the highest sort of governmental oriented view, all the way down to like where the best restaurants and the best places to go are. And so where did this come from, this sort of impetus to become so connected into this city fabric? Because it may be natural for you as a real estate agent, but you probably in start there.

00:02:01:16 - 00:02:14:02
Anna Altic
No, that's actually a really good question. I would say as you were kind of bringing up that discussion, that when I moved to East Nashville, which was 2002, I mean, it was a while ago.

00:02:14:05 - 00:02:15:08
Michael Conrad
Wild West.

00:02:15:10 - 00:02:50:22
Anna Altic
Yes. That was when the high speed chases were still happening at the Shelby Golf course. The you know, what I learned becoming a member of the international community was what it is to build what it is to have neighbors and to have grassroots efforts kind of really parlay into growth and improvement. And so moving into East Nashville and it just being normal to kind of know your neighbors and to look out for each other and to be parts of groups that would go and clean out alleys and we'd go clean the playground.

00:02:50:22 - 00:03:12:17
Anna Altic
So our kids didn't, you know, have to touch needles like we were kind of back in the heyday, really. It was the Wild West over here, you know. But what that really taught me was that when people kind of get together and they gather and they put good ideas into place and they follow that with good actions, that you end up with the kind of neighborhood that we have today, you know.

00:03:12:19 - 00:03:13:17
Michael Conrad
Own social fabric.

00:03:13:18 - 00:03:50:09
Anna Altic
Correct. And so I think that was really sort of what got me started. And then very much in real estate, because very shortly after moving into East Nashville, I just fell in love with the process of buying a house. And so for me, it was also, gosh, within real estate you can as a business model and a business plan, you can be a socially conscience real estate agent that really does is focus as much on making the community better as you do on making a living, and that those both things can coexist.

00:03:50:11 - 00:04:23:01
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's a really interesting level up than I think the conversation usually is. Real estate has a very communal feel because you have to work the personal sphere of yours and that's everybody's different. But what are we thinking about when we're placing a buyer in said neighborhood in Franklin? Or if we're hearing them say, Oh, I want to live in a condo in the Gulch, are we thinking about Franklin as a neighborhood, as a place, or is it really just a zip code?

00:04:23:06 - 00:04:30:11
Michael Conrad
What are we thinking about and doing for that fabric of the community, and how are we involving ourselves there in those places?

00:04:30:12 - 00:04:51:15
Anna Altic
For sure. For sure. I think that's, you know, and kind of introducing them into that community as well as a part of your sales process of of, you know, here's your city councilperson, here's your your elected officials, your school board person and just sort of encouraging them to also become an engaged member of their community.

00:04:51:17 - 00:05:09:20
Michael Conrad
Does this create certain limitations by where you are investing your time? If you're someone who lives in East Nashville, does it mean that you can't really be super successful at selling Franklin because you don't know that areas well, you don't live there?

00:05:09:22 - 00:05:31:03
Anna Altic
No, not at all. I mean, to be very honest, my current office is out of Green hills, so no. Yeah. And there's no real limitation. I think it is for me about being a realtor is really understanding the different communities, understanding the needs of the people that are in those communities now to be totally fair, I don't I sell in Franklin.

00:05:31:03 - 00:05:40:04
Anna Altic
I can't say that that's a big piece of the advocacy work that I do because I'm a little bit more focused on, say, affordable housing. And and I like to use the word attainable housing and.

00:05:40:04 - 00:05:40:20
Michael Conrad
Attainable.

00:05:40:23 - 00:06:01:17
Anna Altic
Attainable housing. And so, you know, really I'm kind of looking at it from the lens of of how are we sort of building communities and thinking in terms of building communities where really access and that's what I talk about, attainable housing, the access is there for any person that wants to live there.

00:06:01:19 - 00:06:22:07
Michael Conrad
So it strikes me, is there a piece of real estate that I'm not fully aware of that is almost conservation in the way that we want to say mine, the minerals out of the ground in a responsible way for our ecosystem. Do we also want to sell houses in a responsible way where we have the chance to sell houses again in the future?

00:06:22:07 - 00:06:40:22
Michael Conrad
Because we are helping build strong networks in communities where helping revitalize areas that have gone to pot or, you know, we're making sure that attainable housing is present across the spectrum. Like is that the idea? Is there a conservation component to being a realtor?

00:06:41:00 - 00:07:03:15
Anna Altic
I think it's more of a preservation component. So and I use that word because I think of what I when I look at preserving a quality of life. And that can look very different for many people and it can also look very different for the phase of life that you're in if you're a first time buyer or if you're younger and you don't have a family or if you're you're an empty nest or like that phase of life and not preserving that quality of life.

00:07:03:15 - 00:07:28:19
Anna Altic
And what that looks like can be very different. But if you don't have housing inventory to sort of seat all of those needs, then you're really missing. What you're doing is really impacting people's A quality of life, the ability to sort of attain generational wealth. But I also sort of look at it in terms of when we talk about preserving, you know, our city the fabric of our city.

00:07:28:19 - 00:07:48:19
Anna Altic
To me, it was it's great that we're in that city, but it was really there was a little something for everybody here. And I really hope that we find our way back and continue to sort of focus on that. And and the benefit of that is, first of all, we need to have inventory that the average first time homebuyer right.

00:07:48:21 - 00:07:49:10
Michael Conrad
Now can buy.

00:07:49:10 - 00:08:17:03
Anna Altic
Into. Right now when you're your median home price is 400,000. That's that means ten years ago, 12 years ago, the average first time home buyer was 28. And right now in our sister, 36. So that process is losing eight years, eight years of building equity, of building generational wealth because we're not creating inventory that really would allow people to kind of start on that homeownership journey.

00:08:17:07 - 00:08:35:02
Michael Conrad
That's a really intense when you put an actual number to it. Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was from California, where I didn't know a number, but I knew in my heart that no one bought a home before they were 45 or 50, that this was like culturally not a thing back in like the nineties, in the 2000.

00:08:35:04 - 00:09:07:17
Michael Conrad
And so when I came to Tennessee during the recession, I realized, oh, wait, people of all walks of life singles, married families, people who work for nonprofits, people who are executives, everyone can buy a house because there's a house for everyone, you know, at least there was at that point. And so it's a really interesting and sort of harrowing reality to say the average buyer is not getting in and those numbers are climbing and are looking more like our coastal and sort of urban brothers out there across America.

00:09:07:19 - 00:09:40:16
Michael Conrad
Yeah, that's intense. So revitalizing a neighborhood that seems really important and straightforward. But what happens when so many of those neighborhoods have been revitalized? I mean, you and I have both been in business enough that we've seen 12 South go from a really hard neighborhood to amazing East Nashville, go from a hard neighborhood to amazing and even traditional areas like Fordham, when a vista that have been more difficult longer are really becoming amazingly revitalized in recent history.

00:09:40:16 - 00:09:45:00
Michael Conrad
What do we do when we've revitalized all of our urban core?

00:09:45:02 - 00:10:05:08
Anna Altic
Well, and then the again, the trickier part of it is and I don't and it's not there's not one size fits all. And I don't look at builders and say builders are the issue. And I don't look at city government and say city government's the issue. I think it's a holistic approach and that has to happen. But win, win and, you know, we can we can talk about this because we were hit by the tornado.

00:10:05:08 - 00:10:29:21
Anna Altic
Right. And I was a little more impacted than you were. But yeah, but, you know, the homes that were next to me that were single family, ranch style homes that were 2 to $300000 houses, those lots were bought up after the tornado. And those are now five or six $900,000 houses. Right. And on the outside of that, that looks like a great thing.

00:10:29:21 - 00:10:55:02
Anna Altic
I mean, it's great for me and my property value. Right. And I get it. But, you know, that also raises the tax burden for people that have lived in that neighborhood for 40 or 50 years, because now their lot values have doubled. And so that can create some hardship. But you go past that and you're like, well, within our improving of these projects, what we've approved is not adding more approachable inventory to the market.

00:10:55:02 - 00:10:58:20
Anna Altic
We're actually approach, you know, adding more luxury inventory to the market.

00:10:58:20 - 00:11:20:22
Michael Conrad
And for the record, to anyone listening here, that this is not just some sort of fictitious poor person that can't afford these changes in the market. This is regular people like you and I, the teachers. Yeah. Like we can't sell our house because we can't rebuy in the same neighborhood, you know, because, you know, the prices have doubled, you know, kind of a thing.

00:11:20:22 - 00:11:32:01
Michael Conrad
And so the neighborhood demographics are changing. And, you know, it looks different. It feels different. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it doesn't feel as good.

00:11:32:03 - 00:11:58:02
Anna Altic
Yeah, I think so. And I think my my concern is that we're going to lecture luxury our way out of a healthy market. And, you know, we continue to have a very resilient real estate market. And Nashville specifically, I think actually in R because, you know, me and I like my numbers. Yeah. And ours actually had the top seven pent up buyer demand and buyer demand.

00:11:58:02 - 00:11:58:22
Michael Conrad
I saw those.

00:11:58:22 - 00:12:00:21
Anna Altic
And Nashville is on that list. Yeah.

00:12:00:22 - 00:12:21:10
Michael Conrad
And and for anyone who doesn't know what that means, that basically means that there's a lot of buyers sitting on the sidelines because the money is expensive to borrow and the inventory is poor. And so they're feeling like they're gonna have to really scrap for it. They just got burned a couple of years ago by a glowing red hot market where everything was going above list and crazy numbers.

00:12:21:10 - 00:12:36:02
Michael Conrad
And so there's a lot of people waiting for a more equilibrium based paradigm to sort of enter back into the situation so that they can jump into the market. And when they do, it's actually just going to cause all of that frenzy all over again. Yeah.

00:12:36:04 - 00:12:48:00
Anna Altic
And so for me, thinking about that, you think, all right, I come from the hospitality industry and that is the second largest, I believe, employer in Nashville.

00:12:48:01 - 00:12:48:11
Michael Conrad
Oh, yeah.

00:12:48:13 - 00:13:16:06
Anna Altic
I think behind Health care. And I think publishing is kind of up there as well. But but you realize those bartenders, those waitstaff, those housekeepers, all of that, they have to have a place to live. And in order for this economy that we're enjoying to really function and focus. And then you take a step back bastard and you'd say it used to be and it may still be, but a big chunk of our colleges were college town as well.

00:13:16:06 - 00:13:37:17
Anna Altic
We've got Vanderbilt and we've got all of that. A huge chunk of our of the kids that stayed here or that went to school here, stayed here because it was affordable. The ancillary costs like child care and taxes and all that stuff were really favorable. So for you to sort of get started, it was a great it was a great space or a city or market really, to kind of really get started.

00:13:37:17 - 00:13:50:20
Anna Altic
And so when I look at I've got a 24 year old son who's in Chattanooga and he's looking at coming back to Nashville with a college degree and saying it's too cost prohibitive. Oof!

00:13:50:22 - 00:14:07:13
Michael Conrad
Oh yeah. Because if you're sending your youthful, you know, next generation out into the world and they can't return or they don't want to stay because these costs, then there are sort of a brain drain, there's a cultural drain, there's, you know, a lot of negative sort of outflowing.

00:14:07:13 - 00:14:18:07
Anna Altic
Sure. So then you think about things like the AllianceBernstein and the, you know, these big corporations that we're attracting. And it's like, well, where's the talent pool going to come from if they can't afford to buy here?

00:14:18:11 - 00:14:18:18
Michael Conrad
Yeah.

00:14:18:21 - 00:14:42:03
Anna Altic
If that dollar isn't going to go as far as it used to. And so I think those are the conversations. I do feel like even this current administration, those are the conversations that are trying to be had. But if I had any kind of, as, you know, educational piece for real estate agents, but then also the public is when we talk about attainable housing, we're not talking about subsidized housing per se.

00:14:42:04 - 00:14:54:00
Anna Altic
We're talking about creating options in inventory that allow for buy in and allow for people to have a quality of life that are hardworking, normal, middle class Americans.

00:14:54:00 - 00:15:14:13
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I've heard stories about metropolitan areas providing favorable, almost like a land grant of sorts to developers to create affordable, attainable housing. But is that the subsidy that we want to try to avoid because it's a little too falsely propped up? Or is that a still a good idea?

00:15:14:15 - 00:15:30:09
Anna Altic
You know, so I think it's going to be a whole lot of things. So there really could be there's used to be the tiff, the tax incremental financing. So there were some tax benefits that you could get. There were certainly some land grants. I know right now, supposedly Metro is one has owns almost the most land.

00:15:30:11 - 00:15:31:06
Michael Conrad
Of funny.

00:15:31:06 - 00:15:54:00
Anna Altic
In the city. And so where is all that land and what's it being used for? You know and I don't I don't know that exact factually, but I do know they own a whole heck of a lot of parcels of land. And when you think of abandoned schools and you think of, you know, all of these things. But interesting, the you know, the the the broader question is, all right, well, where do we intersect policy with also incentives?

00:15:54:00 - 00:16:15:09
Anna Altic
And so some of that policy could be down zoning, right? It could be updating our zoning code so that when you're thinking in terms of density that you say, hey, in these certain spots, it's not going to disrupt a neighborhood and maybe we can invite a little bit more density. But if we're going to do that, we're going to give you this price on this land, then this is the product that you need to deliver to the market.

00:16:15:09 - 00:16:25:02
Anna Altic
This is the price point that it needs to be in, and this needs to be the consumer that we're targeting. And so those are, I think, some other are there conversations that need to start happening?

00:16:25:04 - 00:17:01:20
Michael Conrad
This is such an interesting thing. I want everyone who's listening to rewind and catch some of these again, because we're kind of deep in the rabbit hole here. And I would say that the average real estate agent isn't thinking a ton about policy changes that are going to affect their profession, but in their in the reality I think you said it best before we even got started that the realtor is one of the last great defenders and connectors of all of these parts and pieces of like city fabric and like social policy and governance that's happening at the political levels.

00:17:01:22 - 00:17:20:03
Michael Conrad
Combine that with regular folks buying regular homes and regular pieces of land in your city. And so it's not just enough for us to be selling and contracts, even though in these sort of up and down rollercoaster markets, that's all we can focus on because it feels like, oh man, I just got to get to my next listing, I got to get to my next buyer.

00:17:20:09 - 00:17:31:17
Michael Conrad
These are hard, but we have to be conscious about, you know, what are we doing to achieve those goals? And, you know, are we being responsible in our listings, you know, around price value, you know, and land value.

00:17:31:19 - 00:17:52:18
Anna Altic
All of that? Sure. And then also, I think beyond, you know, I'm not a big fan of the TV shows out in L.A. with the really catty, you know, characters, HGTV stuff. Well, all of that. But that all they all sort of sell this concept of what a realtor does. And I think it's really gotten us in trouble.

00:17:52:20 - 00:17:53:13
Michael Conrad
Who've.

00:17:53:15 - 00:18:06:02
Anna Altic
To be very honest, because it does just look like we drive fancy cars and drink champagne and and, you know, show mansions all day and take pictures of ourselves in a penthouse bathtub. Like that's what it that's what they perceive that we're doing.

00:18:06:02 - 00:18:06:19
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I'm not doing that.

00:18:06:19 - 00:18:27:22
Anna Altic
I know. But some of when you talk about like, for example, these lawsuits with National Association of Realtors and all of the stuff, it's because they have a perception of what we do that is not accurate. And, you know, I think the average real estate agent, the good ones, I mean, and there's some bad ones, but most of the ones I run into, you're good.

00:18:28:00 - 00:18:54:16
Anna Altic
You know, we're actually crawling in crawl spaces sometimes. And and we are engaging at community meetings and answering questions about a development where we're out again, advocate you know, we're advocating on our local association, we're advocating on the state level. But there's so much more that to me to to being a real estate agent, being a realtor, and to really kind of leave the housing market as good or better than we found it.

00:18:54:16 - 00:19:18:07
Michael Conrad
You know, man, what a call to arms that is. I really appreciate that. Please, if you are in real estate, be someone who goes to community meetings, be someone who reads the bills of what's being legislated in your area, be someone who knows how to answer those questions for your regular folks, friends and neighbors, just in the same way that we all call that friend who knows about computers or knows about construction.

00:19:18:09 - 00:19:39:04
Michael Conrad
To have them interpret these normal things in our life that we don't understand. There's so much about real estate and policy and city fabric and zoning that most of us heck, even I don't understand a lot of that stuff. And it's so helpful to have a qualified real estate professional, and I really mean that qualified real estate professional.

00:19:39:05 - 00:19:59:05
Michael Conrad
You've got to be more than just an instagrammer driving a nice car and a fancy bathtub or whatever you were saying. And so that is a great call to arms that the education you're looking for is not just enough to keep your license active, it's to round you out in your understanding of where you fit. In the grand scheme of things, you're right.

00:19:59:05 - 00:20:17:07
Michael Conrad
There is a larger social conversation going on about the value of a real estate agent and like, what do they do and what do they bring? And I feel like this is a big piece you can grab on to and say, if you understand this stuff, you can bring immense value to your community, whether that's your street, your friend group or your city.

00:20:17:09 - 00:20:52:18
Anna Altic
Yeah, well, and I can even sort of give you an example of having worked, you know, with Greater Nashville Realtors and on their board. And we've got we've got now what's called the government Affairs and Policy Gap Committee, and we just reworked that committee. But understand, some of the policy work that we've done is, is we actually interviewed every candidate for mayor, at least the top ten candidates, and we did over 40 interviews with potential city council members.

00:20:52:20 - 00:21:00:21
Anna Altic
We can say I can say right now four of our four city council members that may be five are actually practicing Realtors, practicing realtors.

00:21:00:21 - 00:21:02:16
Michael Conrad
I didn't know that.

00:21:02:18 - 00:21:23:11
Anna Altic
And they're not there just to be pro developer. They're they're pro housing. And, you know, we're not always on the same page with them. But, you know, you do get a seat at the table and a piece of the conversation. Right. And so this new or incarnation of this Gap committee is that we really do say take the zoning policy which came up last week.

00:21:23:11 - 00:21:42:02
Anna Altic
Now we put that on the back burner of saying, all right, well, we're going to take a committee and we're going to interview stakeholders. We're going to go to the community meetings, we're going to interview stakeholders like builders and construction mothers. We're going to talk with the national homebuilders, and we're going to also talk with those sponsoring members of that bill.

00:21:42:04 - 00:22:05:01
Anna Altic
And we're going to try to make recommendations that sort of are as much win wins as we can get out of it. But we're going to talk to that issue as a stakeholder, as a real estate agent that is boots on the ground and sees the impacts of some of these decisions that are made. Yeah. And so that, you know, it's just a it's a piece of the puzzle, but it's kind of an interesting part of the piece of the puzzle.

00:22:05:01 - 00:22:27:01
Anna Altic
And again, it's just yet another value that we can bring to the table because again, as real estate agent, you really are I mean, you are about as boots on the ground as you can get. You are talking, you're working with every price point, you're working all over the city. You're looking at all kinds of neighborhoods. And you're also working with many people of different socioeconomic circumstances.

00:22:27:03 - 00:22:46:18
Anna Altic
And you really do kind of get a very broad perspective and a very rounded perspective that can be of value. And so it's nice when you start to have these relationships with your city council members, for example, because then they do call you and they'll go, I'm thinking about this bill. What do you think and what are the ins and outs?

00:22:46:18 - 00:23:02:11
Anna Altic
What are the unintended consequences? And those sort of become really productive conversations that you then see turn into good policy.

00:23:02:13 - 00:23:26:01
Jake Hall
Hey, everyone, it's Jake, director for the Business of Homes Podcast. I hope you've been enjoying today's episode, starting with the importance of understanding your community, the preservation component of real estate, and what's needed to create obtainable housing. When we return, Michael and Anna dive into community involvement as a lead generation opportunity. Trends toward long term sellable homes and chickens.

00:23:26:07 - 00:23:42:06
Jake Hall
Trust me, it has to do with real estate. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @thebusinessofhomespod, where you can interact with us and see some great bite sized pieces from all of our episodes for your listeners out there. Did you know our entire podcast are filmed and are on our YouTube channel?

00:23:42:08 - 00:24:00:23
Jake Hall
Check it out next time you want to see our amazing guests tell their stories. And are you currently watching this episode in video format? Don't forget to follow us on your preferred audio streaming service to take us with you on the go. Lastly, do you have any feedback for when I suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com.

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:08:07
Jake Hall
Please enjoy the rest of today's episode with an outtake. Let's get back to it.

00:24:08:09 - 00:24:34:21
Michael Conrad
The conversation in Realtors with less experience than, say, three years is oftentimes directed to What do I need to do to be generating more leads or be more involved? Or like, How do I get people to notice me more and undeniably, one of the big ways that you do that is going deep in an individual community. We all are going to be people that are working all over the metro.

00:24:35:02 - 00:25:11:21
Michael Conrad
So we don't need to say the, Oh, I go anywhere. I do everything. Sure, sure, sure. Focus in. We've talked about on this podcast and other coaching events that like focusing in on a neighborhood or a piece of the larger metro is an incredibly beneficial way to grow your sphere and to grow your business. And there is no more quantifiable way to do that than to get to know those stakeholders, those other folks that are involved in those communities and that are going to be elected officials and other types of people that are having these conversations about, you know, this neighborhood or that neighborhood or whatever it is.

00:25:11:21 - 00:25:36:12
Michael Conrad
And this is particularly important, I think, within Davidson where you have a lot of strong old neighborhood identities. And if you're wanting to capture a niche or a neighborhood, this is how you do it. You know, maybe in a more outlying area, it's a ways and sort of sectioned off neighborhoods. But in the city fabric, it's defined by these sort of old community lines.

00:25:36:12 - 00:26:01:03
Michael Conrad
And so this is a really good golden nugget that people can hold on to and say, okay, this is what I can do if I don't know what I need to be doing, this is what I can do. I can go meet people because then you're going to meet, like you said, all walks of life and they're going to be able to look to you and say, That's someone who's interested in advocating for me instead of a way that it happens sometimes is that person looks like me and feels like me, so I'll do business with them.

00:26:01:05 - 00:26:10:04
Michael Conrad
We don't want to necessarily do business who just look like us. We but we know I can trust, right? And so that trust is going to come from that community involvement.

00:26:10:06 - 00:26:35:08
Anna Altic
Absolutely. I can you know, I can talk about some legion, unintentional Legion or intentional, if you want to say. Right. But one of the one of the first things that I helped do in East Nashville was help get a little community garden put into the Locklin elementary school. And I learned how to write a grant and I wrote a grant and got a little bit of money and we got the community support and worked with the school and got that put in.

00:26:35:08 - 00:27:00:07
Anna Altic
But I would say 3 to 4 transactions directly came from just that little bit of help that I did. But there there were people that it volunteered with me, that it ended up realizing I was a real estate agent and they later contacted me to sell and then, you know, I even at one point this where I always talk about community involvement was helping coach cross-country, but it was volunteer.

00:27:00:07 - 00:27:21:18
Anna Altic
And I'm not the best runner, but like I can coach five and six year olds and eight year olds, right? And coach them to get better and be better. So meeting at Shelby Park three times a week and working with these young kids and then that ended up being, you know, I can't think of a time where I haven't got tenfold in return, either in business or in just good outcomes for people.

00:27:21:23 - 00:27:22:19
Michael Conrad
Yeah.

00:27:22:21 - 00:27:43:01
Anna Altic
So, yes, I can't say enough about community involvement, but I would also challenge people to not think so much and even in terms of it could be a neighborhood and that would be a great a great thing. But it also could be, you know, advocacy for first time homebuyers. It could be advocacy for minority homebuyers, it could be transit.

00:27:43:07 - 00:28:04:05
Anna Altic
You know, that's a big hot button, a buzz word here. So if you're somebody that comes from a city or an area or you're just interested in transit, that's a big conversation. There are so many community meetings, there are so many opportunities for you to engage and then become the transit person. And, you know, talk about transit oriented development and that kind of thing.

00:28:04:05 - 00:28:16:05
Anna Altic
So you have it doesn't necessarily even have to be a geographic neighborhood. It can be a specific kind of advocacy arena that you could dive into as well.

00:28:16:07 - 00:28:59:22
Michael Conrad
Real estate training and schooling teaches you to be a non specifically skilled individual. And we continue to return in these different stories we're telling here on this podcast to practitioners like yourself, brokers like yourself who are encouraging people to go, become skilled, go become knowledgeable in these different areas. And I think this becomes sort of this underlying thread that the best real estate agents with the most sustainable business models and the best longevity over time are those that have taken up certain niches or skill sets and have made them their own.

00:28:59:22 - 00:29:21:19
Michael Conrad
Yes, sure, they are practicing realtors, but they are community organizers or they're specialists and these sorts of different ways. And that's that's a really great reminder because I think you're the best possible real estate agent when you're focused on something else and the work is just coming to you. It's very indirect and it's coming to you because of the work that you're focused on.

00:29:21:19 - 00:29:23:05
Michael Conrad
I like that. I like it a lot.

00:29:23:09 - 00:29:27:15
Anna Altic
Well, and the way that we met was green housing. Green building.

00:29:27:18 - 00:29:28:07
Michael Conrad
That's right.

00:29:28:07 - 00:29:48:16
Anna Altic
And that was something I got very excited about and still am very excited about. Green building. I think we were about ten years a little ahead on the mark early, early, but I know it's going to come back. I'm I'm ready for it and I'm here for it. I think smart I think smart home technology is is going to be the kind of predecessor to green homes.

00:29:48:16 - 00:30:10:04
Anna Altic
But they're actually saying older buyers are worried about sustainability. So empty nesters, that is kind of a newer trend of smart home since sustainability is something that they care about as well. I don't know if it's maybe a long term legacy in terms of how I leave the planet for my grandkids. I don't know. But they're thinking about that now.

00:30:10:06 - 00:30:33:17
Anna Altic
But again, there's there were opportunities. I worked with our multiple listing service and got all of this green features that are currently in our multiple listing service. I worked with them and got those added in. So gosh, did that make me more money? Maybe. But I'm pretty excited. I mean, it was neat when we became a toolbox for the National Association of Realtors as being one of the most green mls in the country.

00:30:33:17 - 00:30:39:15
Anna Altic
And that was like in the right, in the middle of the worst part of the market. That was 2009, 2010 that we were doing that.

00:30:39:17 - 00:31:05:06
Michael Conrad
It's so interesting. If we're not careful, we're going to sell ourselves into a corner, like paint yourself into a corner and we have to be conscious of those more sustainable oriented things, whether it's, you know, city fabric around transit or whether it's green features to ensure that we have homes that are attainable and sellable long term. I see a big trend towards tiny your homes.

00:31:05:06 - 00:31:32:02
Michael Conrad
There's a big, tiny home shipping container home sort of, you know, thing. That's a wave that's coming. There is more development on the sort of green features happening than ever before, but it takes an orientation beyond the dollar to do those things. It doesn't mean you can't make money. In fact, money can be made, but you have to have money be maybe second or third on the list.

00:31:32:02 - 00:31:57:07
Michael Conrad
And sometimes the other folks around us in the grander real estate thing, financiers, developers, builders, they're not always quick to leap to, let's put money lower on the list. And so I think that in a lot of ways that's a place of advocacy that realtors can participate in, too, of being the bridge between the public and the world of financing and development that we need.

00:31:57:09 - 00:32:23:06
Michael Conrad
We need those things so that there are more homes, we need more homes in which for people to buy. Yeah, and I don't know if that's going to drive prices down a lot, but at the very least, we have a had a long term supply problem. And so if we can get more of them, whether they're tinier or they're easier to build or something like that, but the cheap products and the fast production build isn't the way I think we've established that over the last 15, 20 years.

00:32:23:08 - 00:32:31:17
Michael Conrad
And so it's good to think about different types of advocacy to make sure that we're able to continue having a business in five or 15 years from now.

00:32:31:22 - 00:32:53:10
Anna Altic
Absolutely. I mean, and I think of an example of what you were talking about kind of in terms of sustainability and policy and also that kind of confluence of policy and and and I can't say it enough. So, for example, there are a ton of builders that are out there that are like, Gosh, if I could get this project approved, I would do it right.

00:32:53:14 - 00:33:20:09
Anna Altic
If I could get codes to approve this, yes, I would do it. And I think I think that sometimes where there is this, you know, who's having those conversations up, because that was one of the questions that that I had asked the current mayor, and I'm not on a first name basis with him and I don't want to sound like I'm super familiar or anything like that, but one of the questions that I said is, look, there are so many alternative building options out there.

00:33:20:09 - 00:33:46:08
Anna Altic
If it's prefab homes or if it's 3D printing or if it's, as you say, container homes or there's so many options that are out there. And when you've got building codes that are 70, 80 years old or or you've just got kind of, you know, your your basic infrastructure and your city and your the way that you run these departments are not open to these different forward leaning.

00:33:46:10 - 00:34:05:12
Anna Altic
Right. Or Yeah. Or there's not really a mechanism for them to be forward leaning because of the way our charter works are our city policy works. And that's when you start to have to have these great conversations of to me of like, okay, we need better, more, more inventory. How do we get more inventory here? Builders can make money, realtors can make money.

00:34:05:14 - 00:34:33:05
Anna Altic
People start to build that generational wealth. But what does that look like? Yeah, and I think sometimes that but and that's where I say, you know, subsidizing is just a piece of it, but it's just a tiny piece of it. It doesn't have to be about taxpayer money or anything like that. It really can just be smart policy and good planning and about getting then good community engagement where you're actually giving accurate information out to people because there's a lot of that misconception out there, too.

00:34:33:05 - 00:35:03:21
Anna Altic
You know that the not in my backyard right kind of misconception and and you understand it because the information out there that's being put out sometimes is just it's not even in I mean, they're not intentionally trying to mislead. It's just fear based. And when you really show the facts sometimes and I always tell this funny story. So yet another thing a little realtor did, but I probably about ten or 11 years ago, there was this big push to allow people to have chickens.

00:35:04:01 - 00:35:05:15
Anna Altic
Oh, I remember the chickens.

00:35:05:15 - 00:35:06:00
Michael Conrad
Do.

00:35:06:03 - 00:35:24:11
Anna Altic
The chicken, the big chicken argument. And so there was just all of this neighborhood code blasting. This is going to ruin values and particularly on the west side of town. And I understand they're used to a quality of life over there. And those are very established communities. But they're like, if somebody's going to have 40 chickens and it's going to ruin my property values and do all the stuff.

00:35:24:11 - 00:35:30:23
Anna Altic
And so I, I know it's the chickens are going to ruin Nashville. I mean, it was like that was intense. Oh, I.

00:35:30:23 - 00:35:33:09
Michael Conrad
Wrote an op ed in The Tennessean about well.

00:35:33:09 - 00:35:54:10
Anna Altic
So I wrote a blog, and I don't know if you remember this, but my basically, I just took the top five real estate markets and I took the top four that the top highest performing from Forbes and the lowest five four performing markets. And I said, All right, well, do they have chicken ordnances? So I pulled all of their permits and their codes and their their records.

00:35:54:10 - 00:36:18:23
Anna Altic
And, you know, at that time it was Chicago and the top, you know, all these different cities. And there in Indianapolis and all these places. And so I pulled the top five and it realized the only of the top five markets in the nation at that time, the only place that didn't have a chicken ordinance was Nashville. And I looked at the top five least performing markets in the country, and every single one of them didn't have a chicken ordinance.

00:36:18:23 - 00:36:36:19
Anna Altic
Every single one of them didn't have chickens. And so I wrote this The Tennessean picks it up, and then lo and behold, I get invited to city council to kind of just explain my findings. And ultimately, it was all right. The fear is that your property values are going to be impacted and that this is going to, you know, ruin this.

00:36:36:19 - 00:36:57:23
Anna Altic
Here are it. You can have chickens in Chicago. Amazing, by the way. You can actually at the time, you could have a rooster. I still don't know if you could have a rooster. You can have roosters here. But, you know, really just to come in and say, here's the real facts of it, I can get the fear about about this, that you might have diseases and smells and all this.

00:36:57:23 - 00:37:28:00
Anna Altic
But the reality is, is that this has been long established in other real estate markets and it didn't impact up everything. It's helped them. And so ultimately that passed. I can't say I was the, you know, the person that got that passed. But for me, it is about kind of coming to the table with that sort of level of of information and then allowing people to sort of at least make if they're a voting member or if they're, you know, a city leader or whatever, that they're at least coming at it from an informed perspective.

00:37:28:01 - 00:37:52:08
Michael Conrad
I think that's where a lot of people don't realize the brokenness of our current governance system, whether it's a local level or a national level, is that the parties who are legislating and making decisions are just, on the whole very uninformed and it it's a flow of information problem. We do live in an information age, but the bottleneck of information is it's just so terrible.

00:37:52:08 - 00:38:22:11
Michael Conrad
And so who is informing them? How are these people being informed and is it actually benefiting the right parties? And so, again, we'll go back to this idea that who better to advocate for houses, for cities, for fabrics of neighborhoods, for the people buying and selling these houses, Then a real estate professional whose skills lay very well in what do people want?

00:38:22:11 - 00:38:37:05
Michael Conrad
What do people need? Where do they want to live? Like, what are they wanting? I mean, this this feels such like a perfect fit that I'm sorry that more people aren't involved at this level because it feels like such an obvious place to be involved with so many benefits.

00:38:37:09 - 00:39:03:15
Anna Altic
Mm hmm. Yeah, I agree. And especially as a real estate agent, I really think advocacy should be a big piece of of, you know, who you try to become as you're as you're working is becoming, as I said, a community advocate and a neighborhood advocate. I again, could be a transit advocate. There's there's no limit. But I think aspiring to, as I've always said, leave the business a little better than you.

00:39:03:19 - 00:39:06:08
Anna Altic
You found it is is a good thing.

00:39:06:10 - 00:39:34:18
Michael Conrad
Yeah, I think it's just this continual charge that we're challenging people with here and that is go deep. Don't fear the technical. You know, we're real estate professionals aren't just salespeople, You know, there's so much more to it. Don't fear the deeper areas of real estate, whether it's commercial or governance or whatever it is like it's worth going down the rabbit trails to learn these things and own these things and understand these things.

00:39:34:20 - 00:39:57:07
Michael Conrad
You don't have to practice at the deepest level. You can still just be someone who has that library of information in the back of your mind and you access it every once in a while, or you work with someone else who knows more. But it's it's beneficial to all of us when we are sort of looking up a little bit more than the Dow and we look at so often in our business.

00:39:57:12 - 00:40:14:12
Anna Altic
Well, and at the core of what we do and the core of our value and I know you're going to probably hear a lot about realtors in this next year, again, because of this lesson. What is our value? What is our value? And and, you know, at the core of it, for me, the the conversation is that we are advocates.

00:40:14:14 - 00:40:37:01
Anna Altic
That's naturally what we do when we come into a transaction. That's not the sexy stuff they show on TV, but what we are doing when we're effective is getting people on the same page. And a lot of the time they're in a very an emotional space, you know, between a buyer and a seller. If it's a divorce circumstance, if it's, you know, family death, it's a life transition or whatever it is.

00:40:37:01 - 00:41:10:06
Anna Altic
But we do a tremendous job oftentimes of being able to get people onto the same page and in moving in a direction that they want to be moving in. Yeah, and that's a core piece of what we do. The other core piece that we do is we are disseminator of accurate information. You know, we do have a code of ethics about how we put things in the multiple listing service, how we input closings and social closings, and how we input our days on market and all of the stuff that appraisers use that would in fact the economy if we weren't being accurate.

00:41:10:12 - 00:41:18:15
Michael Conrad
MM Yeah. There's a general feeling amongst regular folk about how things are going, but I'm not sure exactly how accurate is all the time.

00:41:18:15 - 00:41:31:17
Anna Altic
Right. Yeah. And I think that the, the general value is so when people say your value, it's like, gosh, I care and I, you are hiring me to care more about your outcome than my own.

00:41:31:19 - 00:41:32:09
Michael Conrad
Yeah.

00:41:32:10 - 00:41:42:07
Anna Altic
That is that is a key piece of what that is not even in the code of ethics. That's the Tennessee law that says you will put the interests of your client above your own.

00:41:42:09 - 00:42:07:01
Michael Conrad
But I can't speak to nature. It's a pretty big spectrum for me to even take in, but I can definitely speak to the local level and the importance of the associations and the involvement they have in local governance. And so here's your friendly neighborhood plug to be more involved than just a dues paying member to your association. But know what they are advocating for.

00:42:07:01 - 00:42:28:17
Michael Conrad
You know, go to those meetings, ask your friends what they know. I mean, it it's going to affect your practice as you go. If you're relatively new in real estate, you're going to become more experienced and you're going to wish that you were more knowledgeable earlier. And so how are you how have you been involved in that sort of association and governance side of it?

00:42:28:17 - 00:42:30:04
Michael Conrad
And how can other people get more involved?

00:42:30:04 - 00:43:03:23
Anna Altic
Sure. So and a lot of people just don't understand how an association, association or these associations are structured. But essentially what we have is you've got a of people that that work at any of these. It could be interim middle Tennessee Association of Realtors, greater Nashville you know WCR way Ensign County so you've got a portion of paid staff that work there that are just really working to kind of do the mission and overall goals of the Dallas Local Association.

00:43:04:01 - 00:43:52:11
Anna Altic
Greater Nashville Realtors is got nearly 7000 members. They have not had a lot of slippage. They might be 66, 6700. But within that then they're basically governed by a board of directors that's elected and historically, a few hundred agents elect out of the six or 7000 members. So that really, you know, sort of engage in that vote. And so you've got a a board of, as I said, you've got a board of directors, and they're essentially meeting every month and they're kind of discussing all of the things that are the different committees that are doing so with under that board of directors, you've got these different committees, you've got R PAC, which is the fundraising

00:43:52:11 - 00:44:07:22
Anna Altic
for the the the arm of that. And by the way, when people talk about R PAC, I don't want to give money to our PAC because I don't want to give money to the stage. I don't like what the states bills are doing or I don't want to give money because I that money goes to some senator who was involved in January six.

00:44:07:22 - 00:44:32:10
Anna Altic
Like, I've heard it all and I get it interesting. But 80 to 90% of what you give to our PAC comes back into Nashville and that comes back into our association. Then really engaging on the local level with our city council members and making, you know, we do we don't tend to do endorsements, but we'll we'll go fund, you know, we'll give funds towards certain elections.

00:44:32:10 - 00:45:01:06
Anna Altic
And and so it goes through that process of us doing that due diligence. For example, if I when you're talking about 40, 50 interviews, that was over the course of probably 4 hours, 5 hours a day, five, six days like it was, you know, lengthy. So getting into these different committees and I got off on a tangent on our PAC, but they've got, you know, Habitat for Humanity and Greater Nashville Realtors funds and builds one Habitat house a year.

00:45:01:08 - 00:45:25:08
Anna Altic
They've got education so they've they've got some pencil schools that they partner with. But then kind of look at education policy and then you've got the gap, a government Affairs and policy committee. So there's all of these committees and you can volunteer to serve on these committees. And then those committees report to the board and they say, here's what our committee is working on and here's what we think the board should do.

00:45:25:10 - 00:45:48:13
Michael Conrad
Yeah, this this all this work is more than one person has to give and can feel very overwhelming when you're trying to run your business and from your sphere and do your business in practice. And so being fractionally involved at the association level is a way to not get overwhelmed by all the many things that you could and probably should be involved in.

00:45:48:18 - 00:46:03:19
Michael Conrad
You can sort of choose a little bit and in doing so we can collectively work towards these larger goals because I don't have to work on all of them by myself kind of thing. And so that's a good reminder that the association is not there just to take your dues and throw you a party a couple of times a year.

00:46:04:00 - 00:46:16:06
Michael Conrad
It's there to do some of the work that quite frankly, we just regular practitioners, we just don't have time for, you know? And so yeah, make sure you're involved and, you know, make sure the people around you are involved.

00:46:16:08 - 00:46:36:15
Anna Altic
What's beautiful about it, what's really cool about it, is and an unintended consequence for me in getting engaged. So eventually I ran for the board and it took a few tries but got the board and and then have again shared several of the committees. I want to clarify for committee work 3 to 5 hours a month at most.

00:46:36:17 - 00:47:04:14
Anna Altic
It's it's not a big time commitment at all and you learn a ton and you also really start to engage with your fellow realtors. And when you're in that multiple offer situation and you've got a rapport already, it really helps, you know, and you've worked together on projects and stuff, you know, it really helps. But beyond that, you know, within the, the, the process of, say, serving on the board, we did a strategic planning session.

00:47:04:14 - 00:47:28:12
Anna Altic
And so I kind of know how to write mission and vision statements now. And so I've had some other nonprofits approach me and say, this would be something you could really help us with, because now I've done it, you know, through my work at Greater National Realtors, I got media training because they they were looking for certain spokespeople to be able to go out and do media training, which is probably why I'm crazily calm here because of.

00:47:28:14 - 00:47:57:10
Anna Altic
So it's like anything else where have said, gosh, the more that I give, it's always surprising how much more you get back in return. And not just in in money for sure, or transactions, but industry knowledge for sure. But then also just skill sets or you kind of stumble into a passion. And so this last 3 to 4 years, that kind of local governance piece of it is just something that's really emerged for me is just something that wakes me up on a monday morning.

00:47:57:10 - 00:48:16:16
Anna Altic
And I really enjoy doing it and I think I'm good at it and I think that I'm good at getting again as a realtor. And in my broker role, you get really good at getting people on the same page and talking people off ledges and having, you know, leaning into some difficult conversations and being able to be very direct but respectful.

00:48:16:18 - 00:48:27:19
Anna Altic
And so I think in return, just by being engaged in your you your level of professionalism and the tools in your toolbox are going to exponentially expand.

00:48:27:20 - 00:48:58:20
Michael Conrad
Boom right there, because the experience you're getting out of transaction to transactional transaction, it ultimately it's not the multiplied effect that it appears to be. It's very linear because, yes, everything's always custom and so different in real estate, but there is, generally speaking, a way things always go. And so to deepen your skill set, to deepen your experience by expanding what it is that you're interested in working on, in skilled and knowledgeable of is going to have that multiplier effect.

00:48:58:22 - 00:49:29:11
Michael Conrad
So where you are five or ten or 20 years down the line, an experience, you're going to be beyond peers at that point who merely were just writing contracts the whole time. And that that's a good it's a note for us to sort of leaven and ring in people's ears that there is a non-linear way towards experience that is usually going to be it's opening your eyes, looking up from the grind a little bit, expanding your horizons and sort of going deep in some of these areas.

00:49:29:11 - 00:49:52:04
Michael Conrad
And this is a really important piece of it, this sort of connection to the overall fabric of both the realtor community and the community at large. And so this has been great. Man. Anna, thank you so much for dropping so many great truth bombs for us. And I hope that people will reach out to you and learn from you and what you have to offer and get involved at their association locally.

00:49:52:04 - 00:49:53:15
Michael Conrad
And thanks so much for being here.

00:49:53:16 - 00:49:57:11
Anna Altic
Of course, it was fun. I know it probably didn't look like I was having fun, but I'm having fun.

00:49:57:12 - 00:50:17:06
Michael Conrad
You're doing great, guys. Thank you so much for continuing with us on this journey at the Business Performance podcast. I hope that if you have some comments or questions, you'll hit us up, find some social media, or if you want to be on the podcast, let me know. We'll catch you next time.

00:50:17:08 - 00:50:35:10
Jake Hall
Hey everyone. Jake, again, director for the Business of Holmes podcast. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode. A huge thank you to Anna Altech for being a part of the podcast. Please let her know how much you enjoyed their story. Don't forget to subscribe on your preferred listening platform and make sure to follow us on Instagram @thebusinessofhomespod.

00:50:35:12 - 00:50:44:17
Jake Hall
Do you have any feedback or want to suggest someone for the show? Email us at thebusinessofhomespodcast@gmail.com. Thank you again for listening and we'll see you soon.