Building a Referral-Driven Real Estate Business in a Small Town

Wow, you're going to love today's. If you live out in a small town and

more country, more rural, I've got an agent on today, Sarah, who has some great insights of how

she, you know, first year, 26 deals in her first year. Now, the average price point was $160,000,

so she was busy working her little tail off for sure. First year in the business,

and you'll be intrigued to hear how she does it, her mindset, and how you could benefit from that.

So, stay tuned. Welcome to Real Estate Riches, where Kathy Burns empowers realtors to

achieve the success they've always dreamed of. Starting her career at 55, Kathy built a thriving

business that offers the freedom of time and financial independence, and now she's sharing

her journey to help others do the same. Whether new to the industry or looking to level up,

this channel is your hub for proven strategies, inspiring stories, and the tools you need to grow

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Everybody's Kathy Burns. Welcome to Real Estate Riches. I'm here today with Sarah Kubis,

and I'm excited to introduce her. So, hey, Sarah, how are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you. Great. So, we talked a little before this, and I'd love for you to

tell the audience here, you know, a little background about you. You're newer in the industry,

about three years. So, give us a little history on how you even got into it.

Okay, so I was a math teacher for nine years. I spent most of that time teaching high school math,

and it was not what I was expected, what I was expecting when I went into it.

Let's just put it like that. And I feel now that I've gotten into this, that I was being

that Heavenly Father was pushing me out of it and into something else. And so now I'm where I need

to be. Real Estate was nothing that I had ever considered doing until I was looking for a job and

needed to get out of the classroom. And so, I took a great leap of faith to change careers

at 40 years old. And so, I've been telling Real Estate for three years. I replaced by

teaching income the first year and have been selling real estate full-time ever since then.

I love that you replace your income. That's pretty outstanding, because you know,

a lot of first-time agents, and you said you're in a lower price point area,

a lot of first-time agents, they're lucky if they do six deals in a year, and you said you did

26 your very first year. That's kind of a rock star right there. What would you say your success was,

did it have anything to do with your relationship with the parents of those kids?

No, not the parents of any kids. Most of those clients either came from

floor calls from my office. People calling into Century 21 that just needed to do something

or from my church. And so, since I was a member of this church from when I was 20 years old,

I have a long track record and a good reputation with the people there. And so,

when I told my friends in church that I was getting out of the classroom and I was going to be

selling real estate, I started getting refurled from them before I ever sold anything.

Wow, that's amazing. So, yes, but one of my first clients came from my bishop, gave her my

phone number and said you should call this lady because she's awesome. And so, I took care of

that lady. And so, she's one of my good friends now because she moved in from out of state.

And when we were at her final walkthrough at her house,

somebody drove up and wanted to see this house, I was sitting in front of.

And so, she met this couple and told them how great I was.

Oh, wow. And so, then I had Nupa to work with.

That's awesome. And, you know, honestly, every few weeks, there's a new couple that show up at

church and everyone just, oh, go see Sister Cubus over there. Go find her and she'll help you out

when you need a place to live. That's great. Well, that says a lot about your character because

for everyone to believe in you before you even had the experience, they just must have known that

you're the kind of woman that's going to figure it out and take care of them because of who you

are as a person in your heart and the give back. I take that as high praise. My best friend

told me years ago, so you are so smart, but you will never be slick. When it's really true,

I'm not, I'm not really a salesperson even. I just show people what they tell me they need.

Yeah. Well, a lot of people think that real estate is a sales job in a sense it is, but it's a

people relationship job. I mean, you have to be listening to your clients, seeing what it is that

they want, paying attention to their finance, looking at the big picture, looking at the house

to see if it meets, you know, are you putting them in a money pit or are we going to be able to

find a quality house for them? Because, you know, I always tell my clients, you buy this house based

on you selling it tomorrow. I said, let me be the eyes and we'll still get inspections,

but let me be the eyes why you fall in love because you're coming from a motion. I'm coming to

protect. You know what I mean? And it sounds like you do something similar to that.

Right, I definitely want to serve my customer. Whatever they are looking for is the thing they need,

and not, you know, not the high-spot, the best commission for me, but the best result for them in the

long run. That's great. Yeah. So with all these new changes in now, are you finding yourself

needing to reduce your commission further? So we have a few agencies in the area that

have basically decided they're not paying a buyer's agent more than 2%.

And so that can get a little tricky to try to get clients who are ready to make up the difference.

And I do take on clients that are not able to make up the difference at all. And so...

That's real. That's just real. Yeah. And so I've put more time into advertising my own

offices listings because then my split is better in that way. And I get lots of leads on buyers

by advertising my colleagues listings. Yeah, I love that. We do that at my group here in

a Charlotte area. Are the agents all the same company putting in their listings in there for

other agents to share? And that's awesome. And then just focusing even more on trying to get listings

myself. Yeah, list the last. I learned that my first firm I was with was a cobalt banker, and

they always said list the last list the last. And really, from a time perspective, I prefer the

listings anyway. Yeah. And how is the where are you at in the country? I'm in Poplar Bluff,

Missouri, which is about 120 miles south of St. Louis. It's not... I mean, Poplar Bluff is the

county seat of a 40,000 population county. Wow. It's not close to any airport or metropolitan

area. It's pretty far from anywhere, but you can get to St. Louis in a couple hours.

So what's making people move into the area if it's a is it they it's their land? Is it farms?

There's land and there's farms and there's hunting ground with Mark Twain National Forest. And

you know, the median home prices being really low is also very enticing to people coming from out

of state. Yeah. So back to that first client who told the other people how great I was,

they also called their friend also moving from out of state and said, hey, you should work with

this lady. And so they were selling a home in another state for $420,000. They bought in Missouri

for $275,000. And it was an upgrade. Wow. With land. Wow. That's great. Did you do an

outdoor referral for them on that house? That was a client referral. That was just a friend who

told me to show them. Oh, gosh. Oh, you mean out. No, there I didn't do a referral on their

home. They already had it listed. Yeah. I know. I'm always trying to see all the spots that I

could enhance my bottom line. Well, that sounds wonderful. You clearly have a great reputation in

your town. It's a smaller town. But because of the price point, you told me the average price was

160 was that? Yes. So I don't know where I live. I couldn't find something for 160. I'd have to

I don't even know probably drive five hours away to find that. And yet there's a lot of people

that that's the max that they can afford. And I get absolutely. So and you're more out in the

country area, would you say? Yes. That makes sense. And they probably have, what's that loan

that you get 100% fine in? It's a rural kind of loan. Can you do that? USDA. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, there's not a house that. Yeah. So the house has to qualify, but the location qualifies

every, every location within seven counties. Wow. So that's a real selling point as well.

Yeah. That's what they need. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's even a grant in one of the towns.

They will pay a so many you qualify, right? And there's all of these things, including you have

to be a below a certain income, but have a higher credit rating. If you qualify, you can get a 25%

down payment for the price of the house. So you're buying a $200,000 house. They'll give you $50,000.

Oh my gosh. But you have to buy in this specific lip code in Donovan, Missouri.

I think that would be worth considering it. I'm sure there's a whole time on it too, right?

Or no? It takes about 60 days to close. And if you mean how long you have to stay in the house,

you have to stay there five years. That's what I was thinking. So what? Yeah. In five years,

it probably appreciates, right? Right. So again, you know what? If you don't stay five years,

you only stay three years. They'll pro-rate it. So you don't have to pay it all back. Just

that percentage. And if you, you know, someone passes away or you have to transfer for your job

or you divorce, there's forgivable ways that you can get out of that and not have to pay it back.

Man, that's outstanding. Wow. I love to hear that. I know you had a message that you wanted to talk

about how you measure success. Want to share some of that with us? Sure. So I had already

started working at this company at Century 21 American Realty before I saw this sign that they

have in their bathroom. But their bathroom would have absolutely convinced me if I hadn't seen it before.

It says customer care. Take a step beyond service. Care for customers with the heart as well as the head.

Hmm. And I just fit so well with, with everything I do, right? Like I want to help my customers

have a place to live. Yeah. I didn't go into teaching for the money. And I didn't go into real estate

except that I needed to make some money for my family, right? Yeah. So I'm trying to help other

families as I make my own living. Yeah. It's wonderful. It's a great mission. I love all that.

And we talk a little bit about social media. You're on Facebook, but you have a lot of people,

5,000 people you've got connections with on Facebook. That's great. And you said you're only doing

a little bit with AI. And I think I mentioned that I'm going to encourage you to do more only because

you'll be able to help your clients. And a lot of agents don't know what they don't know about AI

because they're just dipping their toe in. And maybe because of your location, it isn't as important

right now. But if you were the leader in your area, you could empower them that I do this once

a month free webinar on teaching agents how to do it. I don't charge. I want my fellow realtors

to be able to compete and do a quality job for their agents because there's a lot of people that

are going to be doing this AI in every aspect of their business. I do, but I do it because I love

it. It empowers me. And and I know that I can help my clients better. I'll give you an example.

I had a neighborhood where a past client of mine, I sold them the house and they're ready to sell.

They've been there four years in 2021 in this area. There was such a frenzy on buying houses.

They paid 75,000 over list on that house to get it. Now it's a higher price point and but they've

only had it four years. And they also put another 120 into the house. So now we're almost at 2,000

or 200,000 right? That right. Did I add up? Anyway, around 200,000 that they've got into it.

Yeah, sure. So anyway, I'm thinking shoot. And you add in the commission. And I'm only

charging two and a half and we're given two and a half on the other side. So there's another five

percent. And the house is being listed at a million, a little over a million. And I'm thinking,

oh boy, is she going to just take a beating here or whatever? Well, I didn't know the area as well

because it's down in Charlotte. I'm up about a 30 minute drive away. It's not my normal territory.

So I went on a specific AI tool that does deep research. And I asked it to give me all the

background on the area. I wanted to know all the ins and outs of what made it special. This particular

street was supposedly a coveted street. Go on, but they're all older homes and they're like versus

Charlotte is new all up around the lake. Whereas down in Charlotte, it's older homes. 1949, it's

59, 69, right? And this is a coveted walkable area to a place where everybody wants to be if you

like to be in the city. I don't. But they did. Well, anyway, I didn't know the area that well. It

really educated me on the area. It also educated me on price points to expect what I could expect

for the square footage price as an average, which was a start. Then I went over to my MLS. I printed

out all the listings that had closed in that neighborhood and were active in under contract.

Every single one I did it as one PDF as a printout was able to upload that into chat GPT.

And I've already trained it to know my style and different things. And I said, I want you to give me

a quick CMA on the space on these homes. Here's the address of the house that I've got. I uploaded

all the repairs that they had done. I gave them the previous MLS sheet so they could see it. I

uploaded the repair disclosure that they were doing for now. I said, so now you can see the benchmark

on the house. Here's what the repair the disclosure is. Here's all the repairs. Here's all the homes.

Now give me another analysis on it. It did it on a spreadsheet for me. Broke it all down. And I

said, okay, that's great. But now I need to narrow it down to actual homes that are within the range

of that size house and in that size lot. So we narrowed it down to nine. So now it did it.

And I looked at it and I said, you didn't take into account concessions because that's a piece of

it. So take the concessions off. And I told it, it's an exceptional appraiser, specializing in

the Charlotte area, specifically in that particular area. And I wanted you to do the plus and

minuses just like an appraiser does, right? For bathrooms and garages or whatever. So now, now I

got a great picture of what this is. And we just, I just did it back and forth, back and forth.

And I knew that the numbers were right because I could see how it justified it. So when I went to

my clients to present to them, because they had a number in mind and it was higher. And I said,

we can do your number and it'll sit on the market. We can do this number and I feel strongly

that we'll get multiple offers. So, and it validated it for me. And she was blown away by that.

Now, did that save me time? It didn't necessarily save me time. It actually was probably about

the same amount of time I normally do on comping home. But it validated everything. So I knew that I

could justify it to an appraiser. I could justify it to that agent on the other side. I could

justify it absolutely to my clients. And we had a plan of action of how we were going to go based

on their goals, which was to get a higher dollar and kind of force a multiple offer situation by

making it lower. And I was blown away and I've shared this with a bunch of realtors. And now they

see how they, because a lot of them don't know how to comp a house. And you get into probably where

you're at. It's apples and oranges. First, you got to figure out your land and you got to figure out

the value of that. You've got complicated ways to do it. But you can have support to back it up,

which is great, which makes you another whole level higher than someone else that might be working

your competing against. It doesn't sound like you have too much competition there.

Oh, there's agents that do a lot of business here.

So, well, that says your market ebbs and flows, which is good.

Does that make sense to you, what I was just talking about?

Yeah, that sounds really fascinating. It is. It's very, especially a math person like yourself,

if you want to, you know, all the different variables for me to see it on a spreadsheet,

because it said to me, do you want me to put this on an Excel spreadsheet so that you can present it?

Did yes. So it gave me a link for an Excel spreadsheet that I was able to just open up an Excel,

print that out for my clients. And it said, do you want justification on these numbers where we can

help the seller understand it? I said, yes, I do. It gave me that. And it said, would you like some

ideas for marketing on social media that is SEO and platform qualified? I said, I want all of it.

So it gave me, and it also did a description for in the MLS.

That's amazing. I'll tell you, my AI use is very minimal compared to everything you just

described, but what I have done is I take an MLS listing, I feed it into AI, and I say,

make me a Facebook marketplace ad that's engaging for this MLS listing. And it does it,

and it puts in little little pictures like it'll have a tiny little house next to address.

So I'll have a phone next to my phone number and all these things. And then I'll read through it,

and I'll say, oh, you forgot to say this, and it'll put that in for me. And then I'll put that on

Facebook marketplace. And then I've had great responses, including one person that said, oh,

well, I'm not really interested in this house. You made it sound amazing. I want you to list

my grandma's house when we get ready to sell it. Oh, wow. So I love that. And you know what,

I have never used Facebook marketplace. Do you use it all? Well, I do. I do use it all the time.

I never think of it for a house. I think for my son does it for all kinds of stuff that he sells

and buys. And it never done on me to put a house on there. That makes sense.

That's what definitely where my buyers come from. It is. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So there are a few

agents in my office that also use Facebook marketplace. But the ones that don't, whenever they get

a listing, I automatically make an ad for them too. And so I get those buyers. And you know,

it just depends on the house. Sometimes I'll get a hundred hits on it within a day and sometimes

it'll get five. But you know, if it's a price point that people can afford or it's that land or

it's just really appealing, I'll get lots and lots of traction. So where does this

Facebook marketplace go only to your local area? So you have to be in the right Facebook group

to be able to get it out to those people. And typically it's going to be in your local area.

If you try to post it too far away, you'll get contacts from people saying, where is this? And

you'll tell them where it is. And they'll say, I'm not driving that far. What are you talking about?

So you have to put it where it belongs. You know, you probably have to advertise it in the right

county because if somebody is trying to relocate, they're searching in that county. They're not

searching all over the country for your house. At least not where I live. That makes sense.

So for me, I'm in Charlotte area, the Northerners search our area. So I try and reach out to them

only because, and I do that through Facebook ads. No, yeah, Facebook ads. And but not marketplace.

So I do the ad and where you can pick your target market. And I asked ChatGPT, I just learned this

to ask, like, give me a description who the perfect buyer is for this house. I'll put in all the

information and I'll say, where do you think they live? And it'll give me ideas so that I can do

some of my ads that way. That's what I mean. How interesting it is. It helps you get creative.

And I'm thinking with you, I see you being creative already. And I can see you utilizing it more than

you have and getting even better results. I love this tip that you just gave me about the marketplace.

So I'm sure our listeners are going to benefit from that as well. Well, that's great. Any other words

of advice you want to share? Sure. So I'll tell you the best advice that I've heard.

Because when you are in any business, you're going to have to budget your time and figure out what's

the most important thing to do. And so years ago, I heard this woman explaining that she makes her

to do lists. And then she prays. And then she puts the items in order that she's going to do them

because there may be something on that list that is way more important than you realize,

you know, maybe this person that, yes, you said you'd get back to them eventually. Maybe they

need to talk to you today because if not, they're going to go with somebody else. And then maybe

there's somebody else on that list that you have as top priority, but their loans are going to

fall through and they're not even going to be buying anything. Right. So write down your list because

you know everything that's got to be done. But then let the Holy Ghost tell you what to do first.

And then you'll know that you're doing the Lord's work. Yeah, I love that. I love that how you

incorporating your faith in every part of your life. Yeah, I'm in the same way. Believe it completely.

Well, thanks so much for being on here, Sarah. You've been wonderful. I appreciate everything

all your insight and we'll have all her information on here everybody so that you'll be able to

reach out to her and come check out the rest of the videos here on the podcast. There's some great

information from other talented agents just like Sarah. So check it out. See you in the next one.

So thanks for joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches. Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've

got a nugget or two. I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below. Share it with

everybody. Make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you

would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's get you a business strategy call.

I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't master mine together and see if we can empower

each other. That would be great. So until next time, sign in off. Hope to see you on the next one.