Leigh York - Crazy Sh*t In Real Estate with Leigh Brown - Episode #128

Summary:


Early in Leigh York’s colorful career, an eventful sale involving
missed medication, a fire, and a rolled pickup taught her to keep
calm in the midst of craziness. She has learned that however she
reacts to a situation is exactly how her client will react, so it
is best to model level-headedness.


Leigh is also working to at the National Association level to set
industry standards for realtors and instructors that would keep
them active in the field while teaching in order to stay fresh.


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on your phone. Never miss a beat from Leigh by visiting The Leigh
Brown Experience. 


Time–Stamped Show Notes:


0:40 – Leigh York’s background

0:50 – The third–generation of her family in real estate,
Leigh started “before the turn of the century” exclusively in
farm and ranch. That morphed into development. Now, rather
than drive over 5 counties, she covers half of one very large
county in Fort Worth, TX.

1:40 – Leigh also loves to travel, teach, and speak to
other realtors. She also does consulting on culture for other
businesses. Got to do it all!





3:30 Leigh’s CSIRE story 

3:34 While she was doing predominantly farm & ranch,
Leigh sold a piece of property. She met with a sweet,
wonderful woman selling her little house on a large piece of
property––more or less the family farm.

4:40 – The seller explained that all of her kids wanted
the property and if she died they would just fight over it,
so she wanted to sell it.

5:00 – Leigh lists the property, gets it on the market,
and communicates frequently with the seller. The lady
mentions that her oldest son is upset, but he shouldn’t be a
bother.

5:30 – Within about ten days of closing, Leigh’s husband,
who happens to be the volunteer Fire Chief in the area, calls
to say there’s a fire on the property.

6:40 – When Leigh arrives she sees that the grass from
the front of the house all the way out to the road is
blackened. But she’s got good real estate karma.

7:20 – The son had decided that if he couldn’t have the
house, nobody could—and he was going to burn it down. He goes
behind the house, sets a fire about 10 feet away, and leaves.
The fire burns to within one foot of house, splits and burns
around the house, then meets at the front of the house and
burns all the way to the road. It never touched the house!

8:30 – Before Leigh can call the owner, her cousin, the
City Marshall, calls to let her know that the son is en route
to the hospital to be admitted to the psychiatric ward.

9:00 – The son apparently had mental health issues and
had not been taking his medications for a few days. He had
gone to a neighboring town, taken a pickup truck on a test
drive without a salesperson, driven to his mom’s house to set
it on fire, and on the drive back to the dealership rolled
the pickup!

9:40 – So now Leigh has to call the mom/seller and tell
her that not only was her place on fire, but that her son is
in the hospital and on his way to jail.

10:00 – While she’s on the phone with the seller, the rep
for the buyer is trying to call because of course the buyer
has family in the area and has heard about the fire.

10:30 – Leigh keeps calm. She did not
call the seller and say, “There’s been a huge fire and your
kid is in the hospital.” She said, “You know, we’ve had an
interesting day out here, and I want you to know that
everyone is safe. Let me catch you up on what happened.”

10:45 – The seller’s response was calm. She replied, “OK,
you go handle the buyers and I’ll take go care of the kid.”
So they continued the negotiations.

11:00 – The house was OK and the grass was going to grow
back, so they just replaced some fence posts. It didn’t even
delay closing––everything was fine!





11:15 – The importance of keeping calm 



11:35 – However you react to a situation is exactly how your
client is going to react, so keep calm and let your client
reflect that good behavior.

11:50 – This kind of calm behavior is what can set you apart
as a realtor. If you fly off the handle to protect your client,
it’s not going to help. So much of a realtor’s skill is reflected
in the way they convey information.

13:00 – Real estate instructors can help their students by
talking about the psychology of what they do. If Leigh is
teaching a class on contracts, she doesn’t just teach people how
to fill in the blanks. She also talks about who they’re
representing, what they’re going to talk about with the client,
and how that conversation might sound.

13:50 – They role play or talk it through so that they can
know how to stay calm when the other party doesn’t agree with
what goes in the blank on the contract.

How do we train buyers to select the right representative?

14:20 – We have to coach consumers to interview their
representative. Don’t just take whoever answers the phone.





15:00 – The need for best practices for instructors

15:45 – We need to pay more attention to who gets to be
an instructor. They need to be active in the market. If you
haven’t handled a transaction in 6 months, you don’t have as
much credibility as someone who is on the phone with a client
right before she comes to teach. The market changes day to
day.

16:30 – Leigh Brown is a volunteer leader in the
Residential Real Estate Council – a group of realtors who
want to focus more on education and who carry the CRS
designation. During her volunteer presidential year, they
implemented new standards for instructors, and it was met
with some pushback and angst.

17:00 – They had some instructors who had not sold
anything in 40 years! While the mechanics of selling may have
stayed mostly the same, the entire climate has changed,
consumer expectations are different, and the legal side has
moved dramatically as regards liability.

17:30 – Being active in selling makes Leigh York a better
instructor and speaker, and being an instructor and speaker
makes her a better seller in her market. Each aspect helps
the other.

18:00 – In Leigh York’s volunteer role in professional
standards in the National Association, she is working on the
idea that there needs to be standards for instructors and all
realtors. She started out as just once voice, but her voice
is growing. She believes they will get there––just not at
“Leigh speed.”

20:30 – It does seem like all of this begins with people
being nicer to each other. 





20:45 – Contact Leigh York at Leigh@LeighYork.com, or call
817-613-2420. She’s on Facebook and Instagram as well.



3 Key Points
Stay calm and let your client reflect that good behavior.
Consumers need to choose a realtor carefully—don’t just use the
person who picks up the phone. Real Estate instructors need to be
active in the business in order to be good teachers.

Credits



Audio Production by Chris Mottram


Show Notes provided by Katherine Burke