5 Powerful Strategies for Realtor Growth & Client Engagement Today

John Harcar (00:01.71)
Okay. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host John Harcar and I’m here today with David Landsman and what we’re going to talk about besides his journey in business and a real estate, we’re going to talk about dual licensing. maybe something that some of you realtors or agents out there might not know about, but something that might be great and lucrative to take advantage of. remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. I mean, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business.

And we do that by providing the tools and resources to grow the business they wanted to have, which helps them live the life they’ve always dreamed of. So David, welcome to our show.

David Landsman (00:40.024)
Thanks so much, John. It’s a pleasure being here. I’m excited about what you’re doing in the real estate community and the world. I love that the podcast starts to do two to five times their business. And one of the things about our dual-licensee program, we can get into that in a little bit, but we’re about 10 times for the profit on a closed transaction, which is great for reorders and anybody in the investment world as well too. So they kind of coincide and they work very well together.

John Harcar (01:04.016)
I love it.

I love it. I love it. And yeah, I’m looking forward to talking about that. But before we kind of dive into the weeds about all that, give our audience a little bit of some information about you, kind of your background in real estate and business and what brought you to today.

David Landsman (01:18.496)
Absolutely. So I’ve been in real estate in the real estate industry for about 25 years. I was a realtor

I ran one of the largest teams in the country when Zillow was purchasing homes at the Zillow Cash Offer Program. I had the largest team in Atlanta for that. I’ve opened up several real estate brokerages, sold franchises for a very large franchise, international franchise in the real estate world. And then I got about five years ago transitioned over into mortgage world because it was an opportunity for realtors to become dual licensed. And I thought it was an amazing opportunity. And it was a brokerage owner.

John Harcar (01:32.342)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

David Landsman (01:55.392)
one of the things you sign these MSAs or JVs or you have these ancillary businesses where they’re funneling money from outside of the actual real estate transaction into the brokerage to be successful, buy leads, things like that, keep the lights on. now I saw an opportunity, I’m like, well, the realtor is the one that actually puts all the work on their back and if it’s not for the realtor, nothing in the world in real estate happens, right? The home inspector doesn’t have business, the closing attorney doesn’t, the mortgage lender. And so why shouldn’t the real estate agent get compensated on that side?

John Harcar (02:19.12)
Right.

David Landsman (02:25.386)
So, came up with this program for dual licensing in real estate agents and now they get compensated on the mortgage side as well as the real estate side.

John Harcar (02:33.272)
Awesome, awesome. If you’ve watched any of my podcasts, I like to go backwards. Before real estate, what were you doing?

David Landsman (02:38.53)
For sure.

I actually was in medical sales.

John Harcar (02:45.168)
Medical sales.

David Landsman (02:46.05)
My dad was always in sales his entire life, so I kind of saw what he did. he kind of had a cool philosophy that he’s like, it doesn’t really matter what product you’re selling. You just have to figure out where the buyers are and figure out how to get the products in their hand. And that’s basically it. I think realtors do a great job of that. think that people that flip homes do a great job of that. Even lenders on some level, now that I’m working hand in hand with them, they do that as well. So it’s product that the consumer

John Harcar (03:03.772)
100%.

David Landsman (03:15.984)
and he just figured out how to stick them together.

John Harcar (03:19.004)
So where did real estate come in? Did you have any real estate influences in your life? Anybody that was an agent or a house flipper or a landlord, anything like that?

David Landsman (03:27.786)
I didn’t, you know, I don’t know if this is a humbling story or not, but it’s the truth. I lost everything.

so you know 25 years ago and I said what industry can I get into start my own business where my inventory cost is the lowest and I took whatever it was $400 and went and got my real estate license and literally the minute I was licensed I was given seven billion dollars worth of inventory for free and I could go out there and sell it and I again I was out of money I lost everything bought a stack of business cards put a suit on went to the food court at the

I’m handed out business cards to people and I had a couple clients after the first week and it’s over from there.

John Harcar (04:14.148)
Wow, okay, so you went to hand out business cards in the mall in a suit

David Landsman (04:18.86)
I did. So this, have a bachelor of science in mathematics and I kind of did the math on return on your investment, right? We always heard about ROI.

John Harcar (04:26.051)
Yeah, right.

David Landsman (04:26.702)
And I said, you know, you can go buy a stack of business cards for nine bucks and it gives you 500 of them. And I said to myself, if I give out 100 business cards every single week, even if I suck at doing this, I’ll at least at 1 % of the time, I’ll be okay. And I’ll four new clients a month and you if close 48, 50 homes a year, you’re doing something in the world of real estate. And I had a very good first year and every year after that, but it was all, and I still to this day, I’m a big business card guy. I know it’s old fashioned, but I try to hand out a hundred every single week.

John Harcar (04:53.588)
huh.

John Harcar (04:57.02)
Did you get kicked out of the mall for handing out any kids get in trouble for that at all?

David Landsman (04:59.36)
I didn’t, but you know what the funny thing is that because I was dressing, I was, I was dressed in a suit. So after a while people started thinking I worked at the mall. So they had asked me like, Hey, where’s the Cinnabon? Where’s this? And so I was kind of, I would give them directions throughout the mall. Cause I was in there every single day, but I’d also hand them a business card. it worked.

John Harcar (05:16.294)
Yeah, that’s awesome. is awesome. that’s getting out there and grinding and putting the time into building your craft. What other, outside of that, I don’t know if that was a struggle, but what other struggles did you have or did you come across when you started in real estate? mean, like what things didn’t you know or what things did you wish you knew?

David Landsman (05:22.573)
Yeah.

David Landsman (05:38.798)
I think that’s really the big that was my biggest

drawback to anything. biggest struggle in the world of real estate was like, where do you get your clients from? Where do you get your leads from? You know, there’s so many people that you’re getting, you know, I think one of the things that’s a little bit bad about the real estate industry, especially for realtors, is that they’re almost like easy targets, right? You see, you go online and you see all these things like, hey, we’re going to provide you with free leads or we’re going to provide you with this. And then all of a sudden you get on these calls with these guys and it’s like, oh, it’s $1,500 to be a part of our program. And then it’s a 35 % referral fee. And then there’s like all these,

John Harcar (06:05.041)
Mm-hmm.

David Landsman (06:13.744)
It’s like they’re easy targets, but I think business it ebbs and flows, right? So, you know, there’s a realtor that’s selling three four or five homes a month and then all of sudden they drop off to doing one when now they tend to scramble a little bit like oh Let me get on one of these calls. Let me try to you know See if I can buy some leads or do that and you know even when I was doing coaching for real estate I always would refer back to the day when I was hungry and I went stood in the ball and you know I’d never I’m kind of like if you are until that you’re to the point where you’re hungry enough to

John Harcar (06:36.976)
Mm-hmm.

David Landsman (06:43.664)
of staying in the food court of a mall and hand out business cards to say, hey, I can help you buy or sell a home. It’s kind of, it’s hard for me to listen to that. Just hustle, pick up the phone. mean, most of, yeah, I remember one day, it was Saturday morning, I was at the gym working out and it was like nine and 30, my phone rang, I picked it up and said, hey, good morning, this is David Lansman.

John Harcar (06:55.546)
Yeah, yeah, do something.

David Landsman (07:06.27)
And the lady said, my God, is this a real person? I said, yeah. And she said, let me just tell you something. And this is, never forget that. She said, everybody in your industry sucks. She said, I’ve been calling around all, trying to get a real estate agent to pick up the phone. You’re the first one. And I said, well, what can I help you with? And she said, I want you to my house. I said, well, I’m actually at the gym right now working out. I said, well, take me about 30 minutes, get home, take a shower. I said, I’ll be there before noon. And that was one of, you know, that was, I think that you just have to hustle, you know? Answer the phone.

John Harcar (07:34.478)
Why is that? Why don’t realtors answer their phones? I’ve had it happen to me a lot. I’ll have a client that’s got a property maybe in another area I’m not familiar with, so I’ll call realtors to try to get an idea of what the markets do, but none of them answer their phones.

David Landsman (07:38.262)
I hope.

David Landsman (07:45.837)
Good.

It’s crazy to me. And then those are the ones that go to the office and start complaining about like, can’t get a client, I have no business. And they go over to the top producer and say, hey, how are you doing this? Well, I would just sit next to the top producer and for two hours he lead generated in the morning. He cold called, he called his sphere of influence, called his past clients. And so it’s crazy to me. think it’s…

John Harcar (07:54.537)
I have no leads.

John Harcar (08:03.452)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

David Landsman (08:11.308)
I think real estate industry is hard. think that anybody that’s a successful real estate agent is doing great things. But on some level, I think that real estate can be an easy industry as well. know, if you do the simple things, pick up the phone, know, answer your text messages, answer emails, you know, put a business card in everybody’s hand. mean, literally, you’re not one of our business cards every single week. I don’t care what industry it is, you will be successful in what you’re doing. You will.

John Harcar (08:22.598)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (08:31.462)
Yeah.

John Harcar (08:36.79)
You’ll get people calling you. long did it take you to get your first deal?

David Landsman (08:41.678)
I’m the first month I had I had I was working with about three clients my first month just from the business cards and then I of course If it’s not broke don’t fix it, right? So I just kept I still again people make fun of me all the time like Let me see your digital business card and I hate I’ll pull out a pocket full of business cards and I give them to everybody

John Harcar (08:53.436)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (09:03.194)
Yeah, I-

David Landsman (09:03.246)
I went to a seminar one time, this was the craziest thing, I went to a seminar, was from a psychiatrist, and they said that you should always hand out three business cards. And they said because the first thing that people want to do when you give them a business card is throw it in the trash. So there goes one. And the second thing, when they drown to two, if people have two items, like if I had two cheeseburgers, John, and I’m like, hey, and I walked in the office, I’d want to give you one, right? You have two of them, so I’ll share with you. So now you’re technically giving two business cards to two people, and you’re killing two birds with one stone. So I don’t give away three, I always do one.

John Harcar (09:23.429)
Right.

John Harcar (09:32.742)
Now I was gonna say, you really give away three cards?

David Landsman (09:33.152)
I don’t do that. I’ll tell you what this is my secret to doing business cards. So I’ll write numbers on the back of all the business cards and

Like if I’m just at, let’s say, the gas station, I’ll talk to somebody, say, hey, will you do me a favor and help me achieve a goal that I try to accomplish every single week? Would you, I’d be honored if you’d be number 33 and I’d hand him that business card, like, oh yeah, of course. You know, cause everybody, if you can help me achieve a goal and a dream of mine just by taking a business card, what human being on the face of the earth is not gonna do that?

John Harcar (10:04.24)
Yeah, well, and people by nature want to help people, right? You know, it’s that lost puppy syndrome, you know, it’s helped the lost puppy find his home.

David Landsman (10:10.766)
And they don’t have do anything. All they have do take it out of your hand and then they flip it over and they say, oh, you’re in real estate. Yeah, if I could ever help you buy or sell a home, just remember me. And that’s all. And it really works. And again, it can work in any industry, of course.

John Harcar (10:13.275)
Yeah.

John Harcar (10:19.014)
That’s awesome. That’s that’s great. I love it. So you you were in real estate for how long before you got into mortgage?

David Landsman (10:27.522)
For 20 years now, I’ve in real, and mortgaged for the last five years. And I still carry my lessons, yep.

John Harcar (10:31.014)
Do you still carry a license?

Do you still do any deals? do you find buyers or sellers?

David Landsman (10:37.774)
I do very, very little deals. I’ll tell you why, because of this dual licensing program. I have my real estate license and my mortgage license just as kind of to relate to real estate agents. Now, of course, I do send a lot of referrals out to realtors. I just sent a referral down to Florida. My parents are now retiring and they’re moving down to Florida. So I sent it down to one of our realtor partners there. So I do mainly referrals, mortgage is the way that I, and I actually don’t even process that many loans either because it’s

program with the dual licensing is kind of my passion. Again, think that again, everything I believe in my heart starts with the real estate agent out there, lead generating, handing business cards out, things like that. And I just said, why should they not get paid on it? And, and also one of the things too, is that I had one real estate agent who was actually a buddy of mine when I presented the program. And what we do is we get a real estate or a realtor their mortgage loan originator license that allows us to legally compensate that realtor.

John Harcar (11:11.729)
Nice.

David Landsman (11:37.6)
or from the mortgage side of the transaction. We cover all the cost of that. We’re under a federal umbrella with the bank so they don’t have to take the 20 hour mortgage class which most…

other banks and mother lending institutions require you to do. You don’t have to the state exam, which has a 44 % fail rate, which is, and also realtors just don’t have a lot of time. So we can fully license them in one day and they’re off and running. But the greatest thing about it is, you know, there’s realtors out there talking to their clients about mortgage all day long and they’re not licensed, right? So they may not be giving out the correct information and RESPA and this former CFPB really didn’t like that. And so this is a

John Harcar (11:53.02)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (12:10.405)
Right, yeah.

David Landsman (12:19.352)
way of giving the realtor way more education. They can provide a better client experience for their clients. They can help them on every aspect of the transaction. And greatest thing ever is they can almost double their commission just by adding the mortgage to the transaction. And to be honest, if you talk to the consumers that work with our dual-license real estate agents, they had a better experience because they only had to deal with one person. Yeah.

John Harcar (12:43.548)
one person right why did you start doing this did you just see that need maybe or is it something you experienced that you’re like hey i think i this should be something i need to teach everybody

David Landsman (12:54.226)
I did, even when I was a real estate agent. mean, and I guarantee you every realtor that’s watching this podcast right now, every single one of them, a buyer has come to them, whether it was via a lead offline, whether Facebook, past client, and said, hey, John, thanks so much. I can’t wait to go out there and find my home. You can get me my loan too, right? And realtor’s like, literally, they have five minutes to do an elevator pitch with a lead where you trust me enough for the biggest purchase of your life. And then the next thing out of my mouth is, let me send you

over to the stranger over there, give him your date of birth, your phone number, your social security number, right? And it’s such a disconnect that it’s, I don’t think it’s healthy for the consumer. I think the consumer would rather say, hey listen, you can get me a loan? Great, yes. And the realtor says, I just text message you over my application link, fill that out, and we’ll take it from there.

John Harcar (13:27.408)
Right.

John Harcar (13:42.478)
Yeah, if they don’t have to deal with multiple people, mean, anytime you can cut that chain down and just be the one that can provide it, it makes it so much easier for the other person on the other end.

David Landsman (13:52.558)
especially in a huge transaction like that, you know what I mean?

John Harcar (13:55.738)
Yeah, yeah. So what are you seeing as far as any trends in either the lending or the real estate market going on right now?

David Landsman (14:03.246)
I mean, the biggest thing that everybody’s talking about is interest rates. I do think that they’re on the downward trajectory. That’s causing a little bit of kind of stalemate in the market. The people that have, I just talked to some the other day, they had a 2.9 interest rate. They’re like, we can’t justify selling our home at 2.9. And then what, going by at 7%. And so I think once you see those rates come down a little bit, and I think we’ll be in the five.

John Harcar (14:23.26)
Uh-uh.

John Harcar (14:27.493)
Yeah.

David Landsman (14:33.34)
pretty soon. think that’s gonna open up the whole market. I mean, look at all the things that have been going on with the news, with tariffs and things like that. I think it’s gonna be a win, think, for the country and I think that we don’t. It changes everything. It changes by the minute.

John Harcar (14:34.47)
You think? Hmm.

and be

John Harcar (14:47.004)
Yeah, we don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day with Trump in office. It does. It does. So what do you I mean, you’ve been through a lot, right? It seems like you’ve been I mean, you went through the 2008 crash. You’ve been through the market volatility last couple of years. Like, what are you attributing? But you’re pivoting and you keep going. So what do you attribute your keys to success? Like what has been for you a couple of the things that have kept you on track, kept you, you know, growing?

David Landsman (14:57.155)
Yeah.

David Landsman (15:17.71)
I really feel like you have to be, you kind of have to be naive to the market, right? If you pay too much attention to it. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it, but you kind of have to be…

Don’t pay attention to the outside chat, right? Turn the news off. If you’re, if you sold 50 homes, if you average, you know, 50 homes a year, you should always get 50 homes a year, right? And so just figure it out a way. it’s market comes down a little bit, look at outside avenues, right? There’s, there’s a ton of real estate, to be honest with you, that have come into our program that wanted to just earn a little bit of extra revenue because they, you know, sold 30 homes last year now they’re selling 20 and they need to still increase their commission. The NAR lawsuit that came about a year and a half ago, that,

John Harcar (15:32.57)
Right.

John Harcar (15:57.242)
Right. Yeah.

David Landsman (15:59.542)
destroyed a lot of realtors even just mindset that my god now I’m not going to make commission when I go into the industry and I’m like well join my mortgage partner program at least you’re going to guarantee to half percent on all your deals on the buy side of things but I think that as long as you look at these outside programs as long as you’re constantly staying abreast of what’s new and the technology in the market you know don’t grasp the straws don’t get on these things where it’s like too good to be true type of scenario you know there’s things that always work and hey if you need to

you can steal the business card idea and build your business up. But yeah, I always just said, if I sold 50 houses one year, it doesn’t matter. There’s 50 people that are gonna be buying and selling a home this year too.

John Harcar (16:42.128)
Yep, got it. What advice would you give anybody that might be looking to jump into the game now?

David Landsman (16:50.28)
that’s a good one.

Learn as much as you possibly can and always keep the client’s interest at heart. Whenever I was doing a couple teaching seminar for real estate agents, it doesn’t happen quite as much because people don’t carry cash anymore, but I would tell them to pull a dollar or whatever they had in the purse out of their pocket and smell it, you know, and it’s dirty. Nobody even want to put up their face. And I think when you’re working with the public and you’re working with consumers and customers, they can smell money on you, right? So if your focus is

only I need to get to this commission check. I need to get this thing closed. You’re always going to fail. Commission breadth. mean you’re just going to fail in the industry. Clients are going to see that on you. They’re not going to want to work with you. not going to refer their family and friends to you. Just think about the client and you will always win. Keep their interest, the best interest in mind. Have that fiduciary duty to your clients and I think that you just can’t fail no matter what industry it is.

John Harcar (17:28.934)
Mission Breath.

John Harcar (17:50.448)
Yeah, no, I agree 100%. If you work for the client, you’re always going to see more success. So where do you envision your business? Where do you see this growing to? mean, where are you guys offering this dual licensing? Tell us a little bit about all that.

David Landsman (17:56.867)
yeah.

David Landsman (18:05.134)
So the minute a realtor comes into our program and they get licensed with us, they walk out of that first day and they can originate loans in all 50 states. So we are across the entire country. My goal for this program within probably the next 12 months is to have almost 10,000 realtors at a part of our program. We are the number one dual licensing bank in the country. We have a huge infrastructure. We have training, we have support. We do a 15 minute, 20 minute

Zoom call every month for them so they can kind of learn about the new programs that are out there, the loan programs, whether there’s technological advances in what we’re doing as far as processing. We keep them up to date. We give them ideas, tips and tricks on how to incorporate it into their buyer presentation and just how to again serve the client to give them the best experience they’ve ever had in a real estate transaction.

John Harcar (18:59.32)
Is this an online community? Is this something where you meet in person? Or I mean, what does that look like?

David Landsman (19:03.726)
No, all the licensing is online. We do it through a Zoom call. We have them meet with our IT team to make sure all the technology is downloaded on their computer or onto their phone. We have some really great technology pieces to not only keep the client up to date throughout the entire process, but to keep the realtor. And they really can control a lot of the transaction. One of the biggest pet peeves I think that realtors have along the transaction is they never really know when the appraisal was ordered, right? The listing agents are always like,

John Harcar (19:32.538)
Mmm, yeah.

David Landsman (19:33.632)
hey, did we get the appraisal back? That’s a huge kind of stunt roadblock throughout the transaction. And now realtors know the second it’s ordered. Actually, they initiate ordering the appraisal with the click of a button on their phone. And so it’s really cool that they can give that information right up to the second to their clients, to the listing agent. Again, it’s just a way better transaction for their clients. Yep.

John Harcar (19:58.268)
That’s so awesome. there’s anybody on here listening, any realtors or anybody that maybe wants to reach out and talk to you little bit more about that, or maybe, know, as, well, before I talk about, where’s your lending? Where do you lend? Do you lend in all 50 states? Do you have any states that you, okay, cool, perfect.

David Landsman (20:05.998)
Absolutely.

David Landsman (20:11.97)
We’re in all 50 states. We originate in all 50 states. We are about, we’re the, I think we’re in the top 20 for retail mortgage volume. So we can handle as much business as you can throw at us. We have every loan program under the sun. So your fix and flip loans, your renovation loans. We have a portfolio bridge product. That’s amazing. Where, know, to buy before you sell, you know, a lot of, a lot of people before they sell their home, put on the market, they found their dream home. They want to move in, but they can’t buy it until they, you know, sell their turn home with our portfolio.

John Harcar (20:32.604)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (20:39.068)
till they sell it right, yeah.

David Landsman (20:41.904)
they can go buy that new home, move in and sell their home vacant, clear, staged, whatever it is. So realtors love that program, but all your FHA, your first time buyer programs. yeah, yeah, everything. If you’ve seen it out there in the industry, we have it, construction loans, commercial, you name it, we have it.

John Harcar (20:49.413)
Awesome.

DSCR

John Harcar (21:00.504)
Awesome. If folks want to get in touch with you and talk about your loans, talk about the dual licensing, licensing of their realtors. mean, how do they get, how do they get in touch with you?

David Landsman (21:08.61)
Well, they can go to my website. It’s feddev.com. They can join. do a daily zoom call at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. So they can jump on that zoom call, find out all the information. This is an absolutely free program too. So I want the realtors to know that this is nothing. I’m not going to get through the presentation and hit you with, it’s $500 to join or 15. It’s an absolutely free. We pay for all the licensing. We actually just partnered with one of the largest lead generation companies in the country.

and we now provide buyer and seller leads to the realtors as well. Those are free leads as well, there’s no referral fees or anything like that. this is a completely free program. I like to say it’s a rising tide raises all boats, better their business does, the better ours does as well. But yeah, they can absolutely find me with feddeb.com or Beast of Real Estate and you’ll find me all over the internet.

John Harcar (22:04.94)
Awesome. Well, David, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing all this information, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Any realtors out there? I mean, it’s a free program. There’s more money that can bring coming your way. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. But reach out to David. And David, thank you again for coming on. And I hope you guys all enjoyed the show. And we’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.

David Landsman (22:19.191)
It is.

David Landsman (22:26.882)
John, it was an honor. Thank you, Greg. See you.