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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Art Thompson, founder of Common Sense Real Estate 101. Art discusses his innovative approach to real estate, focusing on reducing commission costs for sellers while maximizing equity retention. He shares insights on the current market challenges in Phoenix, strategies for differentiating himself from other agents, and the importance of consumer education. Art emphasizes the need for real estate professionals to adapt and innovate in a saturated market, aiming for significant growth in his business.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Art Thompson (00:00)
With real estate, if you have 40,000 real estate agents, you have 40,000 real estate agents that are all doing the same thing. They’re going to the PTA meeting, they’re going to the golf course, they’re going to the rotary club, the chamber meeting, whatever, where there’s, you know, all their competitions there. I mean, they’re doing nothing to set theirself apart. ⁓ So what I learned working for this one company is that you have to have a program. You have to have a program that sets you apart becauseHonestly, I could probably do five or 10 deals a year, spend no money on marketing, spend no money on anything really, just try to live off of friends and families and people you bump into. But that’s a very, very boring life. You want to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, keep growing, keep growing until you hand it off to somebody. Because in real estate, you want the deals to continually come in.
You
don’t want to be wondering where your next deal is going to come from. So I understand that nobody cares about Art Thompson. Zero people care about me. And when I go to a total stranger’s home, I present them with a program. They know that this program was designed for them. It was designed for the consumer to put more money in their pocket.
Michelle Kesil (02:57)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today, I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Art Thompson, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space, working as an agent. So, yeah, excited to have you here on the show today, Art. I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approachingunderstanding this real estate business and your unique lens on the structure that you have with your clients. So let’s dive in.
Art Thompson (03:35)
Yeah, well thanks for having me.Michelle Kesil (03:38)
Awesome. So first off, for those who are not familiar with you and your world, can you give the short version of what your main focus is?Art Thompson (03:49)
So I founded a program about a year ago called Common Sense Real Estate 101 that really, in my opinion, takes real estate in a direction that it should be going, where we spend more on marketing, less on cost, so that the consumer, the person who has the home, who is selling the home, who has equity in the home, is actually keeping more of that equity in their pocket. While the buyer who is buying the home, especially with homeprices now at an all time high, interest rates at an all time high. They need all the opportunity they can to actually purchase the home. So being ⁓ eliminating a portion or a large percentage of the real estate commission allows the home seller again to keep more equity in their pocket while the buyer is able to ⁓ maybe better afford the home because the price is a little less. And we can use that excess equity
closing costs, whatever you want to say, to reduce the interest rate, reduce the closing costs, just bring more buyers to our listing. ⁓ And that’s really kind of my focal point for the last year, which is really set us apart from the traditional real estate agent.
Michelle Kesil (05:56)
Yeah, absolutely. Can you expand on how this process works with your customers?Art Thompson (06:03)
Yeah, so you know, we’ve got a few lead bases that we have out there and a lot of times it’s the cash for homes, the people who let us in their house thinking that we’re going to give them market value for their home or overpay for their home, which obviously we’re not. So I kind of look at that as kind of a scam. And when I go into ⁓ the seller’s home who’s looking for that, you know, pie in the sky number for their house, I’ll let them know.like, okay, your house isn’t in distress, you’re not in financial distress, or you don’t look like you’re in financial distress. So why are we not putting your house on the market so that we can make sure we get the highest market value for your home? And then when I…
pivot and I counter that with and show my commission structure, it all just kind of falls into place. There, absolutely. Let’s move forward. Let’s get it on the market. You’ve guaranteed a really small commission ⁓ with everything that you’re doing. So that’s the turning point or the process that we’re going. Now at the same time, I do have investors. I’ve got 25, 50 investors on the side who if the home is in distress or they’re going through
or
divorce, they got a job change, they need to sell immediately. I mean, I do have investors there prepared, but unlike typical wholesalers or investors that are in there to only buy their home from them, I’m being straight shooter with them. I’m telling them the pros and cons of both of it. And that the reality of it is if they’re not in distress, they really don’t need to give away 25, 40 % of their equity to someone.
on day one is just walking in. that’s, you know, it’s really paid dividends over the last year of really kind of putting myself on the side of the consumer, letting them know that I’m their advocate and not really there to just steal their equity, which they think that’s what we’re there for anyway when we’re trying to do a cash offer. And, you know, that’s not really what we’re doing, but the house is in distress. You know, one, we can’t
sell it, nobody can get a loan on it, the people don’t have the money to remodel it who are currently living there. So in those circumstances we do need to sell to an investor who can actually rehab the home, but nine times out of ten I can switch them to putting it on the market, reduce commission, is going to put more money in your pocket.
Michelle Kesil (08:42)
Amazing. And what markets are you operating in?Art Thompson (08:47)
So I’m in the Phoenix Scottsdale market. Maricopa County in general is where Phoenix and Scottsdale are located. Have about 7 million people total. So I mean, right now we have about 24,000 homes, residential homes on the market. They’re building apartments like crazy here. ⁓ there’s ⁓ the new build side of the here has about 10 months of inventory. So whenever we meet with someone that’s bought in the last 10two
years particularly, especially when they’re building new builds all the way around it. I mean, these people are upside down. They’re definitely in distress. They’re going to face a short sale, foreclosure, possibly bankruptcy, or just weighted out, which could be years and years because the homeowners or the home builders are slashing their prices. They’re lowering the interest rate. They’re doing everything they can possibly to get their inventory sold, which they’re so
many home buyers at bought from these new home builders in these areas, especially in the northwest part of Phoenix, the southwest part of Phoenix, southeast. So it’s on the about an hour outskirts from downtown Phoenix is where all this is going on. So that’s where the affordable housing is, but the homeowners to resell their home there, they just have no chance.
Michelle Kesil (10:10)
Yeah, that makes sense. So what has been like your key to keeping the business running smoothly?Art Thompson (10:52)
With real estate, if you have 40,000 real estate agents, you have 40,000 real estate agents that are all doing the same thing. They’re going to the PTA meeting, they’re going to the golf course, they’re going to the rotary club, the chamber meeting, whatever, where there’s, you know, all their competitions there. I mean, they’re doing nothing to set theirself apart. ⁓ So what I learned working for this one company is that you have to have a program. You have to have a program that sets you apart becauseHonestly, I could probably do five or 10 deals a year, spend no money on marketing, spend no money on anything really, just try to live off of friends and families and people you bump into. But that’s a very, very boring life. You want to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, keep growing, keep growing until you hand it off to somebody. Because in real estate, you want the deals to continually come in.
You
don’t want to be wondering where your next deal is going to come from. So I understand that nobody cares about Art Thompson. Zero people care about me. And when I go to a total stranger’s home, I present them with a program. They know that this program was designed for them. It was designed for the consumer to put more money in their pocket.
They can interview 10 other agents, 100 other agents. I’m probably
one the only agents who actually asked for the consumer to interview me while they interview other agents in the same location. I will definitely show up when other agents are there because they will not show up because they’re only going to tell you about how great they are, what they’ve done, how they’re going to, you know, hopefully sell your house. But I just do everything completely different. just
I show them the program. The program is something that every single consumer is going to agree with from A to Z. I’ve covered every possible objection that they can come up with. ⁓ If they don’t want to follow my plan on doing the home sale, then we’ll follow your plan. You do it. Do it for sale by owner. We’ll do everything you want to. I’ll spend the money on marketing. We’ll keep the commission to change. I’ll never call you. I’ll never talk to you. I’ll never give you any advice.
on what your price could be. Now, when we do that listing presentation for that, that’s going to be a 12 to 24 month listing presentation or a commitment, you know, because they are eventually going to call me and want my advice when nobody’s showing up for the house. They aren’t getting any offers. So with mine, we try to do a six month commitment. And if they’re able to at least give me two months of that to do what I want to at the home, to bring them offers, if we don’t,
achieve
what they want, even though it’s a six month commitment. If we don’t achieve what they want in a two month period and they want out of it, I’ll let them out of it without any questions asked.
In this industry, you have to be different because everybody else is exactly the same. They’re all doing social media, showing you what they sold, what they’ve listed, just everything about it. So you’ve one, you’ve got to get in the door. Getting in the door is not easy, but once you’re in the door, can you close 100 % of the time where I close 100 % of the time I’m in the door if it’s a serious person who wants to sell their home?
If I leave without the listing presentation or without the listing agreement, they’re meeting with other agents, they call me back. Whereas before when I was just trying to sell them on me, they would never call back because someone else would beat you on the commission, they would beat you on this or that. And because they’re front and center in front of them at the kitchen table, they just go ahead and sign. But for me, it’s been a complete game changer and we’re going to just keep going up. So when the market does turn
it’s gonna be lights out for our competition. And you do have to be cordial to other realtors. mean, they are in your business.
I mean, they do have buyers agents who bring you buyers. I mean, obviously you have to be cordial, but.
You know, if I’m not making money and closing real estate deals, nobody’s bringing Art Thompson a check to help him out. They’re just not. And I don’t expect them to. So this is a competition. I always compare it to, you know, hey, if I make it the greatest cheeseburger on the planet and I’m charging $5.
I’m going to beat out all the other great cheeseburgers that are selling 10 or selling it for $10. And that’s what I offer the consumers that other realtors don’t. I offer them that great marketing, the great strategy to get offers on their home at half the price, if not less.
So there’s just no way they can say no. I mean, you just took the objections completely away from them.
Michelle Kesil (16:53)
Yeah, that sounds like a very unique and powerful strategy. I definitely think that can be something that a lot of agents could implement and yeah, have something unique under their name.Art Thompson (17:09)
Yeah, now I do have a non-disclosure agreement that if anybody wants to learn more about it, there’s no cost to it. But, you know, we would have to, you know, do some type of referral agreement on that. But to give you every step all the way, kind of the mindset of how I see the future of real estate, all these type of scenarios is something that you can implement on your own, but you can’t take my idea.that I give to you and promote it, market it, ⁓ or do anything like that. But on an individual listing presentation, absolutely you can use it. No calls, no referral fee, or anything like that. But if you want to go to the level I am, ⁓ absolutely 100 % would have to sit on a non-disclosure agreement where you would not ⁓ be marketing ⁓ the program that I put forth to you.
Michelle Kesil (18:07)
Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense to have that coverage. So what are you most focused on solving or scaling next?Art Thompson (18:19)
Well, it’s you know, anytime you’re in sales, it’s just leads. mean, again, if we’re I mean this.It sounds like pie in the sky, but if we’re closing everybody we talk to, I just need more. So in this market, it’s very saturated. There’s a lot of advertising going on. There’s a lot of people where consumers turn their heads and they go this direction when they should be going another direction. So getting in front of the consumer on a consistent basis is the biggest thing that I stay awake all night, every night trying to figure out.
you
Michelle Kesil (18:59)
And what are you, like what are some of the strategies for you right now in doing that?Art Thompson (19:06)
Yeah, so I mean, I’ve tried Google, I’ve tried Facebook, Instagram ads all on my own with little success.So I kind of have started ⁓ advertising, not advertising, but investing in companies that already do it, that already have virtual assistants, appointment setters, and things like that. So I have found a couple that are working out pretty well, but I mean, just look, look, look for, you know, I’ll write a check to anybody at any time if they tell me they can do something, but they have a short period of time to produce or I’m gone. And I do have a couple places that are
producing at a level that is keeping it going but you know to try and find that perfect scenario where we get the word out so people call us because unfortunately consumers
I mean, they want to be lied to. They want to be kind of a massage. They want to be kind of like the truth kind of gray, just like the cash for homeowners. Hey, we’re going to give you market value for your home. You can live in your home for six months after we buy it. No closing calls, no commission. No, no, no, no. And we all know that’s a lie.
But that’s all the advertisers. That’s all of them. And that’s what gets you in the door. So I do partner with those, but I’m trying to develop something that the consumer can grasp hold to so that they, you know, can trust that they’re getting the best deal. Because everybody wants to believe that their house is worth a million when it’s worth 700,000. I mean, it just, that’s just the truth of the matter. And unfortunately, it just takes time for a person to realize it’s not
worth
a million, it’s only worth 700. They don’t come to that realization on our first meeting. So we do have to kind of lent them price it wherever they want to. And then we kind of get down to the nuts and bolts of our program later down the process. But yeah, my biggest goal is just to try to convince consumers that what they’ve been doing, what they’ve been hearing is not the norm. It’s not the direction real estate is going.
Michelle Kesil (21:19)
Yeah, absolutely. And are you educating these consumers like through other platforms or is this just like in your conversations with your clients? How does that process look like?Art Thompson (21:34)
Yeah, the conversation with the clients. I mean, I have a database with about 15,000 people. I sent out a newsletter, so I’m always hitting them. The Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, ⁓ YouTube page, ⁓ all of the things that I put out are just to educate, educate, educate. So to try to get people to…reach out to you versus you reaching out to them. You’re going to be able to close a lot more deals if they’ve seen what you’ve done, understand what you’re kind of preaching to them, and they reach out to you and like, hey, I’m interested in knowing more. So if you can get them to say, I’m interested in knowing more, then I mean, you’re going to get the listing.
Michelle Kesil (22:20)
Yeah, absolutely. So what are like some of your biggest goals for, I don’t know, the upcoming year or the next few years?Art Thompson (22:34)
Well, I mean, I worked at a company that we were doing about 12 % of all the business in Phoenix at one time during the height of the market. So we had 300 agents doing 12 % of the business out of 40,000 agents. So every one of our agents were doing 15 or 20 deals where the average agent was doing one or two. So, and that’s even at the height of the market. Now the average agent is doing zero. So my goals are a little kind of inouter space. ⁓ I mean I really want to get to the five six seven hundred deals a month going so that we can really take over the market and I do think that that’s possible because I’ve seen it done with an inferior product ⁓ so it is possible but you know again this market is super slow there’s a ton of inventory on the market there’s very few closings going on
So, and this is a perfect time to educate so that when the of the worm does turn, the people are ready to jump on board and they already know what to expect from us.
Michelle Kesil (23:46)
Yeah, I love that. So important. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more from you, what is the best place for them to find you?Art Thompson (24:00)
Yeah, so you can go to Common Sense, S-E-N-S-E, realestate101.com, or the short is CSRE101.com. I also have an app which is called the Tommi App, T-O-M-M-I, which can be found on the ⁓ Apple Store, Google Play. It’s an app similar to Zillow, but it’s only specific to Arizona’s MLS. The great thing, if you’re in real estate and you guys are listening,know that Zillow doesn’t put all the homes on the on their app anymore. If you don’t meet certain guidelines, they remove that home on the app that I show my clients. Every home that’s available in the MLS in the Arizona area is on this app. Also, it has our partners for moving, cleaning, window washing, plumbing, electric. ⁓ Stop. Eliminates their need to
use Zillow and most people agree that the Zillow home price is on there people go in there to check their values those are exaggerated or they’re way behind so but they’re never accurate and ⁓ on the Tommy app even though we don’t give the home value on that ⁓ you can request a home value straight from us and on the Tommy app if you use that to buy we credit back to the buyer anything over 2 %
that we’re able to get the seller to pay. So if they sign an agreement with us, they’re gonna pay 3%. The seller agrees to pay 3%. We’re gonna give them back 1 % for their closing costs. So that’s just another way that we eliminate our competition because the seller or the consumer is gonna have to ask for that discount where I’m giving them that discount on day one without them having to ask for it. But yeah, absolutely, you can find me on Facebook, Art Thompson.
Instagram, Yahoo, or YouTube. And I’m happy to answer any questions. You can also email me at Art at CSRE101.com.
Michelle Kesil (26:14)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. So thank you again for being here.Art Thompson (26:22)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity.Michelle Kesil (26:24)
And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Art who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on our next episode.
