0 (1s): Okay, everybody. Welcome back to Radio Entrepreneurs and you know, during these times of change, we're busier than ever on Radio Entrepreneurs we've aired more interviews and had more interviews because people are working. Entrepreneurs are finding ways to stay in business, keep people employed, and bring value to their clients, maybe in different ways than they ever did before. But this is a grassroots nation and this is a grassroots effort to keep everything going. And that's, and we want to relay those messages and tactics to the marketplace. 0 (31s): With that in mind, I'm glad that I have one of my favorite cohost joining me this morning without a tie. Wow. Times are changing. John, Dustin from Jay, ed insurance. Hi John. Jeff, great to be here again. I think this will be a great interview to help the Entrepreneurs. Right. And John, just let me ask you, how far from you right now is the closest bar bell? Uh, it's in my basement. I have a complete gym in my basement racks. Bands, weights, right. 0 (1m 1s): So you know where a lot of people own guns. If you break into John, Dustin, tell us we know he's gonna. He's just going to beat you up. So I need Jay to do that. Our next guest, someone I know you're quite fond of, you talk, you've talked to us about him and Jay Donahue president of Donahue real estate. Welcome. Jay 1 (1m 20s): Oh, thank you Jeff for having me. 0 (1m 22s): No, thank you. Jay uh, since John speaks so highly of you, why don't you tell us about yourself and Donahue real estate? 1 (1m 30s): Well, uh, like appreciate all, all John's kind words. Uh, you know, John A. Long time we went to high school together and I've always kept in touch and uh, reconnected. I don't know John well over 20 years ago when a small network group that we put together with a few other guys cause we were a lot younger. I don't know if I had to hear that either, but certainly we were a lot younger and uh, you know, I started Donahue real estate, um, you know, in the, in the shadow of, uh, nine 11, uh, and December of 2001 excuse me, where, uh, I was working for another real estate company and we were doing pretty well. 1 (2m 17s): And when nine, 11, uh, you know, the economy and the real estate market changed overnight. And, uh, my, uh, my boss at the time decided he no longer wanted to be in the real estate business. And that left me kind of in the weeds and unemployed and unemployable. Rarely when I think about it. And so I did it. Uh, the only thing I needed to do was to start my own business. 1 (2m 47s): So we started, uh, 2001 to December of 2001 I've been in business now 19 years. And, um, we are, uh, you know, we have three offices, uh, in datum Canton and Walpole, 45 agents where a top 100 company in the state. Um, we, we do, uh, quite a, quite a lot of business for a small, so, you know, for a small firm and, uh, we hope to continue doing that in these trying times. 1 (3m 22s): But, uh, you know, that's, that's basically, uh, you know, my little history, 0 (3m 27s): well, I'm sorry, maybe this is a softball, commercial real estate or 1 (3m 35s): 99% residential residential. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm a secondary areas. Uh, Dedham, uh, Canton, Walpole, Norwood. And then we do a lot of business and neighborhoods, the Boston neighborhoods that border us high park West Roxbury was and do. Um, so that's primarily where we're focused. 0 (4m 1s): Well, you know, before John comes in and dominates the interview, I have another question. And, uh, you know, I was on the phone last night with a friend of mine in Toronto and he told me that, uh, they have, uh, over this last period of time they've initiated the building of another 150 houses in Toronto. So, you know, some, and I said, well, clearly you're, you guys are still busy. Uh, you know, we like to refer to these times as sort of AC, uh, BC before, you know, before Covidien, after Covin, uh, the new term. 0 (4m 32s): Uh, have things changed for you? AC BC? 1 (4m 36s): Um, yeah, I mean, well, you know, the, the obvious one is that we've had to change the way, uh, we are listening and showing homes and we are, we have continued to do that. Um, we, so I guess, you know, when the governor came out, uh, it was about March 24th, I think, and he said, you know, we're going to shut it down here til April 7th. We, uh, we took the tack that we would follow that lead. 1 (5m 9s): And what we did was we said, you know, we're not going to take on any new listings in that two week period. We're not going to go out with any new buyer clients. And, you know, what we told our agents was that, you know, your, your safety, your health is the most important thing, you know, and knowing that, um, and knowing the agents and, and people in general, everyone has different risk tolerances. So I knew, uh, you know, some people would take that to the nth degree and others are going to be like, Hey, I need to work. 1 (5m 44s): And I, you know, and I have clients that want to sell houses and buy houses, but for that two week period, we pretty much stayed static. So with that said, we had about 30 closings in the, on the boards that we had to close. And so, uh, you know, we had closed the offices, I hunker down here, we centralized all the information and then we get on the phone with all the vendors that service, you know, these transactions and, you know, any anywhere from home inspectors to home movers, you know, and to figure out who was still going to be working and who wasn't. 1 (6m 23s): You know, and, and you know, some people, you know, made the decision that they weren't going to go out and do work, you know, home. And some home inspector said, no, I'm not. I'm not taking on any home inspections in some home over said, no, we're not doing that. But we were able to find, you know, people that were doing that, people that we had worked with in the past. And, and so we, we, uh, we had a whole whole list of people that we could turn to, to help us through this, these transactions. And we were able to close all, uh, all our match transactions. 1 (6m 58s): And, uh, I think we're on track to close all of our April transaction, only have one fall out. Naples. Uh, I was surprised. I, you know, my goal was to get 80% of them done and it looks like we'll have, you know, 97% move down. So, um, and then after April 7th, we had another, uh, you know, meeting with the managers and, and, you know, developed a strategy with some protocols that would allow us to go out and show homes because w we did have clients call on us saying, we have to sell our home. 1 (7m 33s): You know, you know, one person was, you know, moving to Virginia, another person had bought a home and, you know, had to sell this home to, to get to the next one. So, you know, we had to service those clients. And, um, you know, with the help of, uh, the real estate, different real estate organizations and the CDC, we put together protocols, um, which most real estate companies have. Uh, you know, our, you know, everyone's wearing gloves of mass showings, et cetera. They're very structured. 1 (8m 3s): There's no open houses. They, you know, we'd have, you know, 30 people to put through a house just doesn't happen. Right. So, um, and so we've, uh, we've put the 33 homes under agreement in the last 30 days. So 2 (8m 19s): Jay Jeff, similar to you, Jay is already are always run on the premise of having less people but real high quality people. So, and then they have a lot of integrity. So that's probably allowed you to do this transformation smoothly because if you add hundreds of agents that didn't know what they were doing, this would be chaos. 1 (8m 38s): Yeah, no, we, you know, our, our average agent transaction is like five times higher than the national average. So, 2 (8m 47s): so Jeff, you always preach that as well to get less people, but higher quality people. 1 (8m 52s): Well, again, less people, higher quality people and people 0 (8m 56s): who have to be managed are not my favorite employees because then that takes the leaders out of leading and client contact and puts them into management and watching over people like cops. So I'm a bigger fan of getting people who know how to get things done and giving them technology to release them to do a better job. It's a flatter beaner and more productive organization. It's not a complicated formula. And it starts with, you know, sometimes, you know, bad hiring practices, bad interviewing skills, you hire the right people. 0 (9m 27s): It makes a difference. 2 (9m 28s): I think you said one time you like problem solvers, not problem creators. So is that 0 (9m 33s): right? Right. Hey God, we turned Chris's Mike off. 1 (9m 39s): Yeah. You have to give people permission to make mistakes too. And uh, you know, we're not, we're not in a life threatening business. So you know, the mistakes that people make generally can be solved pretty quickly and then once they get in the mode of, you know, cause most people know the answers, they're just not willing to make the decision to go forward. So what, be given permission to make that decision. And then, you know, if something goes wrong and you help them solve the problem, but you allow them to solve the problem, um, the next time it comes around at generally it's no longer a problem cause they know what to do. 0 (10m 20s): Well, I liked the, uh, last year I ran a, a trip to Israel of Entrepreneurs. And, uh, through all our entrepreneurial meetings, we liked what we heard from all those entrepreneurs. And most of them are out of the IDF, the Israeli defense force. So they have a, it seems like a motto that they sort of work their businesses under, which is success is our only option. And I think right now success is our only option. So 2 (10m 44s): Jay what do you see as a transformation opportunity? Do you see any opportunities for, you know, residential homeowners and best as like Jeff Mogul's real estate moguls? 1 (10m 56s): Well, I haven't seen any, uh, question I'm getting from some people. I haven't seen any downtick in pricing. You know, pricing is pretty much stabilized. Uh, the pricing had stabilized, you know, there was, uh, there was very little, uh, increase in price from 2018 to 2019. Um, the communities we serve, you know, we saw 1% increases, 2% increases. 1 (11m 27s): I think Canton might've had the highest increase. A median sale price was up 3%. Average sale price was up five, most were, most were like in the one and 2% range. So the prices had had stabilized, uh, between 18 and 19. Um, and then in the first three months of this year, we saw a real uptick in pricing. You know, I think prices were up about 10% in the first three months. And a lot of that was due to, I think as we got, you know, sort of closer to this covert thing, you know, there was, people were out, you know, just overbidding houses. 1 (12m 7s): They just wanted to get into a house or this, this happened, like on demand. Yeah. And, and so we probably saw an uptick in pricing around 10% all the numbers on. And so I don't have an exact number for you, but it was pretty dramatic. Um, and now, now we're seeing, uh, that is stabilized. There's certainly, you know, there, the demand is still there. There's certainly people out looking at houses. It's just not as frothy as it was 45 days ago. Um, so instead of getting eight offers, maybe we only have two or three, one. 1 (12m 42s): And they're sticking around that asking prices. They're not going above that, but they're not. No one's coming in and offering, you know, $50,000 less than the asking price. Just not happening. And I don't think the sellers would, would be going along with that either. So it looks to me like prices stabilize. I haven't seen any deals out there yet. They come as possible. 0 (13m 4s): Jay uh, you know, great talking to you. Uh, if somebody wanted to get ahold of you or Donahue real estate, how would they do that? 1 (13m 11s): Yeah, well, you know, there's a couple of options of course, on our website, www Donahue R E. Dot com. I can reach me by email@infowithdonahue.com or you can always pick up the phone and call me at (781) 251-0080 0 (13m 33s): John, Dustin, if someone wants to reach you, how would they reach you? Five week five four three one Oh six seven or John. Dot. dustin@jedinsurance.com. Well, here were three people who were businesses that were still going through this economy. Nice talking to you. Uh, gentlemen. And we look forward to speaking to you again in the future. Jay Greg meeting you. Thank you everybody. This is Radio Entrepreneurs.