Buddy West | Death And Taxes… And Sub Sandwiches

What happens when someone passes away and leaves real estate to a loved one? Certainly you need a team of people to help you navigate what could be the trickiest thing you’ve ever had to endure. Some people go to a real estate agent to sell the house, but I can tell you that most real estate agents, and in fact many attorneys, don’t know what to do in a situation like this. How would it make you feel if you knew someone that had been through it a time or two, or maybe even someone who was certified to help?

I’m excited to introduce you to Buddy West. Buddy is the author of the book Targeting The Over 55 Market and has co authored the designation SRES – Seniors Real Estate Specialist, which makes him the perfect person to introduce the topic of Probate as it pertains to real estate. In this conversation he walks us through what some of the problems could be if you don’t have someone on your team that is well versed in probate law, and how it can help you tremendously if you do.

We also identify trends in age demographics as it pertains to Baby Boomers and breaks it down to a simple number. Every 15 seconds a Baby Boomer passes away and most of the families go straight to an auctioneer to liquidate the asset. But what if there was a better way to preserve that wealth? What if you could have an advocate with a fiduciary relationship to help you through that time, rather than just someone trying to get to a bottom dollar?

This is what you get with Buddy West, no half in or half out. He’s all in. Here to serve and help you specialize because he says the days of general practitioners are over and it’s time to sharpen the saw.

Let’s do that together, right now!

To register for this October 3rd class in Branson:

probate.gowrencon.com

Link to Special Guest:

https://www.certifiedprobatespecialist.org

For Video versions of podcast:

https://youtube.com/@worleyrealestatenetwork

Connect with Jeramie and our business

https://www.linkedin.com/company/worleyrealestatenetwork

Copy of Jeramie’s Book, Workbook or Audiobook

https://worleyconsulting.textretailer.com/qc/tlkA3RcG9W

Link to our website

https://worleyrealestatenetwork.com

For a free trial to the best investment grade Short Term Rental Data tool for locating the best deals out there and to help Investors and Agents achieve mastery in their real estate business:

https://vrolio.typeform.com/cocktailndreams

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Buddy West | Death And Taxes… And Sub Sandwiches

Importance of Probate Expertise in Real Estate

What happens when someone passes away and leaves a real estate to a loved one? Certainly, you need a team of people to help you navigate what could possibly be the trickiest and most emotional thing you’ve ever had to endure. Some people would go to a real estate agent to sell the house, but I can tell you that most real estate agents, and in fact, many attorneys don’t even know what to do in a situation like this. How would it make you feel if you knew what the person that you were talking to had been through at a time or two, or maybe how about somebody who was certified to help?

I’m excited to introduce you to Buddy West. He’s the author of the book, Targeting the Over 55 Market and has co-authored to designation SRES, which stands for Senior Real Estate Specialist, which makes him the perfect person to introduce the topic of probate as it pertains to real estate. In this conversation, he walks us through what some of the problems could be if you don’t have somebody on your team who is well-versed in probate law and how it can help you tremendously if you do.

We also identify trends in age demographics as it pertains to Baby Boomers and we break it down into a simple number. Every fifteen seconds, a Baby Boomer passes away, and most of the families go straight to an auctioneer to liquidate the asset. What if there was a better way to preserve that wealth? What if you could have an advocate with a fiduciary responsibility to you and help you through that time rather than just somebody who’s trying to get to a bottom dollar?

We’re bringing Buddy in to train our real estate agents at the Worley Real Estate Network, and we wanted to take some time to share his expertise with you. Buddy has one of the best attitudes of any entrepreneur that I’ve ever met. In addition to that, you’re going to love his relentless approach to his day-to-day business life. In this episode, he shares many of those stories on how he got some early traction as a new real estate agent and his philosophies that kept him in business and at the top of his game.

He’s been a broker for many years and has helped thousands of clients buy and sell homes. He’s also created other certification courses to help realtors understand how to best help military families. This is what you get with Buddy West. There’s no half-in or half-out. It’s all in to serve you and help you specialize because he said, “The days of general practitioners are over. Now, it’s time to sharpen the saw.” Let’s do that together. Here’s Buddy West.

I’m glad to have you on, Buddy, because we’ve already had a lot of great responses from some of the marketing that’s gone out. Some of the videos that you’ve sent us from past real estate agents who have taken your probate class are pretty phenomenal. They seemed they enjoy it. Can you give me and our audience a little bit of background on you? Let’s talk a little bit about your career. How did you get started? Where did your passion for real estate begin?

Buddy West’s Career Path and Approach to Real Estate

By the way, Jeramie, thank you for having me. This is quite an honor. You do a phenomenal job. Here’s where I started. My anniversary is coming up. I started on Halloween Day in 1984. I went in dressed like a realtor and I like the costume, except that I have ever since. I decided that I didn’t want to take the path the regular realtors. I’ve been an entrepreneur. When I was younger, in my second year in college, I opened up a sub shop, Daffy Deli for the Empty Belly delivered to you in a dune buggy. All you had to do was yelly. That was our little slogan. I got all the fraternity and all that stuff involved. That was cool.

Feeding college kids is a good business.

As a matter of fact, at the end of the night if you had like twenty rolls leftover, you just made subs and went to the dormers and gained $0.50 off and you never had an extra roll, then I got into a restaurant and a bar. That is involved with the Stone Balloon, which is a nationally famous rock club. I did a chimney sweep company. That was Holy Smokes Chimney Sweeps then I did some control, solar window tinting business. I didn’t want to work for anybody. I’m a bad employee.

You’re psychologically unemployable. That’s what I say.

I am, seriously. I would never work if I had a boss.

Did you do all these things before becoming a real estate agent?

I became a real estate agent, and I had a boss. I decided I wanted to do it differently. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it unlike anybody else. I don’t want to be that guy, “It’s a famous market, a seller’s market, or a buyer’s market.” I didn’t care what it was. In my mind, buyers want to buy houses and sellers want to sell house houses. Our company was the largest independent company in Delaware. I went to every branch. I met the gatekeeper, a person who was at the front door. I introduced them.

Everywhere I went, I bought two big Hershey bars. One with almonds and one without. I introduced myself, “I’m a new agent with the company, but I have a question for you before I ask you a question.” They would say, “What’s that?” I said, “With or without almonds?” He’s looking at you like, “With,” and I give him the hand and I said, “Here.” I’ve used that even in the probate class. It’s called the Law of Reciprocity. If you do something for somebody, they feel compelled to do something for you.

When you do something for someone, they often feel compelled to reciprocate. Share on X

I said, “If I don’t know this marketing or even if I have a question, would you help me out?” They said, “Who’s your top realtor in any office? Is that person here? I want to introduce myself. I’m going to see if I can follow him around a little bit.” I did it every office, eight offices then I went to every branch. We had a mortgage company, a title company, a commercial, and a relocation. We had all that, so I went to each one of those branches and met somebody and asked the same questions.

I said to the commercial person, “If I find somebody that once commercial property, can I refer them to you?” They refer business to me, so that’s the way I started. I got to know people, and then I said, “How am I going to make a mark in the real estate industry?” I got on my local board and got on a committee. I got on a state board and then on a national board. I got a multi-list in my first year nationally. I had to pay my way, but I got to meet national people and state people and they got to know me. They knew if I said I was going to do something and going to show up. I showed up. That forged a different career path for me. I don’t know if you remember John Tassillo. He was our chief Economist. Do you remember that guy?

Yes.

I always called him knucklehead. He and I met, and I was in the midst of writing a book called Targeting the Over 55 Client because I couldn’t find my mother her own house. I thought I was like the best realtor in the galaxy. Obviously, I wasn’t. I wasn’t even close but I couldn’t find her home. I was frustrated, so I researched it and put the book out with John Tassillo. I asked him if he could put the economic stuff in it. He and I became friends. It turned into the SRES class. I wrote the SRES class, a senior real estate specialist with a gentleman in California. He passed from cancer, so I sold.

Let me just jump in and say for people who are reading this that maybe don’t know what this class means or how significant that is. Real estate agents have the ability to get designation and you might have seen a real estate agent with letters behind their name. Those are real estate agents who have taken time out of their business to sharpen the saw to go ahead and specialize in whatever it is. Maybe it’s working with second-home buyers like in resort markets. Maybe it’s just become a buyer’s agent specialist.

I got a GRI designation, which means graduate realtor institute which is a variety of different classes based on new construction, investments, and just overall marketing. It helped me. The reason why I took that class is because the stats came out. They were published. It was agents that had a GRI designation made 30% more than agents that didn’t have one and that was enough for me. I can tell that you’re very education-based because here’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed in the first minutes of our episode.

You started your real estate business. Instead of going for the customer, you went for your colleague’s. You went right to your colleague’s first, both times. Not just to the people in your office but also in searching for the education that you need in order to succeed as a real estate agent. Talk to me about that. Why was it important to you to go after your colleagues first?

I wanted people to refer business to me. The only way they’re going to refer business to me is if they get to know and trust me. Even my manager said, “I can’t believe it. You just got another referral from California. How are you doing that?” I said, “I don’t know. I’m just meeting people in California and they trust me.” Somebody said, “Do you know anybody who wants to buy?” They said, “We’re moving to Delaware.” I’m licensed in three states, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania because they are next to each other.

I got referrals from those people and I’ll send referrals back. I build it. I went from my GRI to a CRS. CRS is a Certified Residential Specialist and looks at the circle. For the course that I’ve just written and teaching on probate, I licensed it to the CRS people but I’m the only one who gets to teach it. They market it and they’d get a royalty on it, but they’re booking me. That got me into a position where when I walked out of my house, I would say, “Is it a buyer’s market? Is it a seller’s market? Which hat do I have to wear?” I decided that I didn’t want to play that game because it stopped me from expanding my business.

I decided I’d create my own market. That’s where I did the SRES. The next after that, I end up in the military and only probably 2% understand how to work with military clients. There are a lot of nuances in understanding all the verbiage and building trust. If you haven’t served, how do you get a military person? I wrote the military residential specialist class, which I still own and it’s active. That created a military.

One of my markets, I’m known. Believe me, I’m not an expert in seniors and the military, but everybody in the market and half the people around the country think I’m the number one expert there. If they want to think that, that’s a reality and a perception, but it’s a reality. The military always comes to me. My friend, G. Dobson, and I spent many years researching probate. It’s the most lucrative thing I have ever been involved apparently.

It’s not because of me. It’s because of the subject matter. It’s the number one class in America for real estate mortgages. I’m getting drawn into title companies because essentially, it’s the largest market, and less than 1/10 and 1% of the realtors understand it. Auctioneers were getting most of the business. They charge 40% to 60%. They’re getting a boatload of money for it and we can help them save these people tens of thousands of dollars.

I want to jump into the probate and I want to take a deep dive into that. Before I do, I want to just explore you a little bit more. One of the things that you said or one of the things I have noticed based on your conversation is that you got involved in the politics of the real estate boards. You put yourself on committees and things like that.

How did that help your business right out of the gate? I know a lot of real estate agents including me in the beginning. I served on the board of directors for a few years in my local board. It was the most eye-opening experience and I realized how powerful those boards can be. To a real estate agent who doesn’t have a really strong desire to get on those boards, help us understand why it’s so important to your business.

Importance of Real Estate Board Involvement

It’s important to your business for two reasons. You can elevate your business by meeting all these people. They get to know you, your work ethic, your honesty, and your ethics. More importantly, I would tell them, “This is your industry. If you’re on the inside, you can help shape it. If you’re in the outside, all you’re doing is complaining about it.” For instance, some a few weeks, they came out with all the new rules about buyers and the department.

If you're inside the real estate boards, you can help shape them. If you're on the outside, all you're doing is complaining about them. Share on X

The new NAR rules that started August 17th regarding commissions and buyer’s agents and that thing, yes.

Which you don’t like to say it’s BS, but it’s pretty much BS. I did a probate course and I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Gaylord Texan. I was down there eating breakfast and the agents were complaining, “Oh my God, this is going to be horrible. Look we have to do.” The Texas Association said, “Buddy, you’re just here doing a class. What would you say to these people?” I wasn’t even supposed to say anything. I said, “I don’t want to take up any time. I’ll just do it in one sentence. Instead of complaining about the storm, learn the dance in the rain. That’s all I had to say.”

Otherwise, the bass is going to get shaken and a lot of realtors are going to fall out just like in every industry. No matter what entrepreneur you are in whatever industry. Things change. If you’re not willing to change, you have to look at Ted Turner’s desk. He had a sign on it, which I copied. I put it on my side in my brokerage. I have a little brokerage. It says, “Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.” That’s the way I lived my life. I’ll help you and I’ll nurture you, but if you’re going to get that Debbie Downer. You’re not going to be with me.

That’s awesome. I love that and I think that’s why we’re becoming fast friends is because I did the same thing in 2008. I got my license in 2006 in December, so I had eighteen months of a great market before all of a sudden everything crashed. I just learned how to do all the paperwork and how to do everything and the market crashed. I had one kid on the ground and one on the way. I had lost my part-time job. My wife had lost her part-time job. I got up and kept going to work every day.

My wife looked at me and said, “Why don’t you go get a job?” I said, “I refuse to believe that the sky is falling. There’s an ocean of money out there. Real estate is a need that people have. There are babies being born every day. People passed away. Every day people get divorced. There’s a real need for a strong real estate professional in every market and I’m going to be that professional in this market.”

I’m in a second home destination. Nobody was buying first homes and here I was trying to sell second homes. This was before Airbnb existed and I figured out the short-term rental business model. I started teaching anybody that would learn and that’s another reason why I like you, Buddy. It’s because I can tell you’re a giver. When you figure something out, you don’t keep it to yourself and make as much money as you can. You created a course and you shared it with as many realtors as you possibly could. Help me understand your mindset there. What inside you caused you to share knowledge like that?

There are two things I want to bring. I don’t know if you ever heard of Star Power, Howard Brinton. Howard was my mentor. I ended up running his business for two years out in Boise. Two weeks in Boulder and two weeks in Delaware. I’m not bragging but what I’m saying. I did it because he taught us, “When a lesson needs to be learned, a teacher will appear.” I had a radio program on CBS Radio called Real Estate Ralk and my local area which got me business because everybody knew my voice. If they heard me at the supermarket, they say, “I heard your show.”

I wrote a column for Gannett called The Right Direction in real estate. Now, I couldn’t say all the stuff about me being a realtor because this was editorial and that would have made advertorial. When I made the deal with the paper and said, “I’ll do a column every week for free but I’m going to buy an ad next to it for a discounted price that goes right next to it.” The name of the column was the Right Direction which happened to be the name of my team and I ended in every column. I said, “Should you get a home inspection?” For instance, and I said, “Yes, you should because that’s the right direction.” Every column, I wrote had the right direction. The ad next to it said, “The right direction is Betsy and Buddy West.” Do you see how I tied it together?

Yes, you’re good at that. I can tell. Where do you get your neck for the verbiage on marketing?

My friend says it’s a drug flashback from the ‘60s. That’s not true, but he said, “I don’t know how your brain works.” I think I got a lot from Howard Brinton and a good friend of mine Bill Stevenson, who’s a pretty famous guy, as a matter of fact. He was married to Jill Biden for the first six years and they broke up. He always thought out of the box. He had a nine club. Remember when the Skylab was going to fall on the Earth? He had a Skylab party and in his party, it had 900 people.

Some soap opera loop and somebody got married on a soap opera. He threw a reception with a cake. He was brilliant. I always think outside of the box. I don’t want to do what people are doing. I was the first one in my area to have a moving truck and it said on the side buyers, “Sell a house for me. Use this truck to move for free.” I gave it an advertisement on the side and I sold them on the bottom. It paid for the truck twice over. I donated that money to the Special Olympics, which was just a cause I was involved in.

I left it for other events once they parked it everywhere. That got your business. Think of how you can do zero-based marketing and how you can get people to recognize you for the things that you do. I’m a director of specialists. It’s not like I just put my name on it. I show up at the events. The key to success in real estate or any business around came from my old boss, Jack Giles. I said, “I want to be successful in real estate. What do I need to do?” He told me two things. He said, “You have to focus on this. There’s an ass for every seat. Don’t try to pick out what somebody likes. You’re not buying it. You go with theirs. Get up, dress up, and show up. That’s it.”

How do you deal with a campaign that you launched that doesn’t get the results that you want? Have you had that happen?

Many times. I back up my plan and then I figure out what went wrong. I don’t if this is fortunately or not fortunately, but my oldest son is in the marketing business. He’s the president of ICS Corporation, which does junk mail. All that crap that you want to throw away, but they only take clients to do a million pieces a day and he’s got 40 clients. Now, if I have something that’s going to go out like for probate. He said, “Send it up to me and we’ll test it.” They test it on zip codes to realtors. He came back and they said, “These are the words that you need to change on that,” and we’ll send it out a second time and see it so I don’t have to do it anymore.

Find great people. Ronald Reagan, that’s what he did. He found great people to work around him. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he had the sharpest tools working. I get him to do that. My other son is in finance in New York and he hooked me up at the advertising firm that did that stupid commercial with the pig hanging out the window going, “We.” I got to speak to him and what he told me. He said, “Everything you do, you’re going to wonder about this and this thing. There’s a problem, a solution, and a celebration.” Every ad you see, every TV ad, every radio, brunette problem. I always give the example of bad breath. That’s the problem. The solution is mouthwash. The celebration was a kiss.

Find great people. That’s what Ronald Reagan did. He found great people to work with him. He may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he had the sharpest tools working for him. Share on X

How about, let’s take it to real estate? In real estate, what’s the problem? The problem is I got to buy a house. What’s the solution? That happens to be me. What’s the celebration? They’re just walking away from the closing. Anything you do and you put in those three simple words and you believe in it. You’ll get through but the other thing is believe in yourself.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s happened to me like triple bypass surgery. I was supposed to take a year off two months later. I’m on a plane. I’m speaking somewhere. I listen to my body and not to my doctor much. That’s what he tells me, anyway. I don’t listen to him. The point is, I don’t brag about it, “I had triple bypass surgery.” The reason I had that is because I put myself in a position to have to have that. It’s not what happens to you. It’s what you do after it happens to you and never make a big deal. If you’re in front of a crowd or with a client or something, they might be going through something much worse.

Overcoming Adversity and Finding Your Niche

It’s true. What else do you do to overcome adversity when you’re met with big challenges like that?

I have faith that the man upstairs is going to look out for me. A lot of people said that I’m a cat. I’m an ugly cat, they tell me. I’m a cat and I’ve got nine lives. They said, “You four left.” When I was doing a class on people, I said, “Here’s what you have to understand and go on probate.” Probate’s not for everybody. I like it when somebody comes up and says, “Thank you for the class. It was a wonderful class, but you taught me that I don’t want to do probate.” I feel good about that because they’re not going to get in the trash with their clients. It’s hard for a lot of instructors or trainers or something to hear, “You taught me I don’t want to do probate, but it’s a beautiful thing.” Pick your lane. If you go for it, you stay in your lane. You’re not working. I could retire now, but I have a good time with people.

Specialization and Market Trends

It seems like life is not about all the things you say yes to but the things you also say no to and do something well for a while and become an expert at it. This is why I was attracted to your class and wanted to bring you to our local area, to our local agents just because I found that niche specialization in the short-term rental business was the one thing that launched my career.

I’ve always been able to recognize trends and patterns. When I was growing up nobody talked about Millennials because they didn’t exist yet but everybody’s talking about the Baby Boomers and how you understood demographics. I used to follow a guy named Harry Dent. You might have heard about him. Harry didn’t always nail it. He didn’t always nail his predictions, but he helped keep Harley-Davidson in business because he knew that all these Baby Boomers were about to have a midlife crisis.

There’s a lot of motorcycles getting ready to be bought here. He could help advise grocery stores down to how many potato chips people would eat because these Baby Boomers were having a bunch of teenagers at the time. People don’t talk about the Baby Boomers anymore. They talk about the Millennials, but the Baby Boomers are still a huge driver of the economy.

If you go to the US population website, you can see two big bubbles. You can see the Baby Boomer bubble and the Millennial bubble, which is a little bit bigger. It’s time for us to pay attention to the Baby Boomers a little bit because we’re talking about a massive transfer of wealth. Was it you who called it the silver tsunami?

Understanding Probate and Real Estate Opportunities

Here’s a deal with Baby Boomer. I’m glad you brought that up. Baby Boomers, I always point out in the class. I have them stand up, “These are the Baby Boomers.” I said to Baby Boomers, “Ladies and gentlemen, don’t buy the green bananas. Every 15.9 seconds a Boomer dies.” It’s a shame. I’m a Boomer. I can say the same thing. I buy the ripe bananas.

The second part of that is, you’re talking about the transfer of wealth. If you want to be good at real estate insurance and mortgages or something. How about studying what’s going on? You’re brilliant with coming up with the trends because basically when you think of a $90 trillion is going to change hands in the next several years. In real estate, there’s $1.6 trillion in probate. In three years ago, $3.5 trillion and people say, “What does that mean?” That means 50 million houses are coming on the market.

If you want to excel in real estate, insurance, mortgages, or any similar field, you need to study what's happening. Share on X

Look at all the people plumbers and electricians. All these people are going to have work because a lot of the houses are older and need to be redone. Get in a position so that you’re the one they call now. When G. Dobson said, “Let’s do a course on probate.” It’s going to be hot. I said, “Probate, what is that? Is that like an expensive fish or expensive bait for fishing or something? What do I care about probate until you heard those numbers?” He told me this, he said, “Here’s the deal, less than 1/10 and 1% of the realtor is even understanding how to use it and auctioneers are getting all the business at 40% to 50% of the asset.”

I jumped on board and our goal was to get 500 people to go through probate in 2023. We got 1,870. Our goal in 2024 was to get 2,500 and we’ve got 4,000. It’s still early adapters. In Texas, the third largest state for realtors, this is the first class that was done in Texas. The people said that we need to have 3 or 4 or 5 more because there are so many realtors and I said that’s fine. Anybody in your area who wants to understand how to get into this market, you’ll be the only one. The early adapters win on a first come first serve.

They do. Let’s get into the probate a little bit. You’re with G. Dobson. You’re looking into this probate. Tell me some of the major a-has that you had as you began to learn this probate. How can realtors take advantage or take market share from auctioneers?

It’s relatively simple. We break the course down into five segments and probate is pretty boring. I’ll be quite honest. I have to try to make it fun and exciting. We spent a lot of time trying to do that and we do it in sections. I compared it to building a house. In my area, in Delaware, we have basements. When my wife and I built a house, I said, “Come on to the door and foundation.” She said, “You go ahead.” I said, “This is the most important part of the house, the foundation.” They put boots on. My wife’s about halfway through and she says, “I’m going back. I trust you’ll get it right. Bring me back when you’re putting the kitchen in.” I said okay.

The boring part is the first part of the class. It’s about an hour because I want them to understand what is probate. I asked him the questions and they don’t even know what probate is. They’ll say, “It’s getting a will done.” It wasn’t that, then trust. What’s a trust? I have everybody stand up, “Who has a will?” You find each other people have wills and they don’t have wills. I said, “You need to get a will and you’ll know why.” By lunchtime, everybody is saying, “Where do we go to get a will?” Also, the trust.

We built that and said, “Who’s involved in probate?” That’s what throws them off because when I get out to your area, I want to go to the court. I’m going to see who the court administrator is. When I go to class, I can ask them if they’re open for that but I find out on the phone. What quarter is it in? They don’t know. They’re going to know now. Who’s involved? The court administrator and the judge. Anything that has to be probate is done in a court.

The court determines everything. The court determines if the personal representative or executor can be that person because the judge is going to say, “You’re incompetent. I can’t let you be it. Let’s find somebody else.” We go through that whole process, so let them know. They’re the only ones then I give them ten questions during the class. The questions are designed and I stole this from David Knox. He’s a national speaker.

I always say, “If you steal one thing from somebody, it’s plagiarism. If you steal more than one, it’s research.” David Knox had this thing in the CRS class saying, “You need to have ten questions that if the seller is going to ask or get other agents involved. The seller will ask those agents and they won’t have the answers so it leads it back to you.” I do that in the class. By the time it’s question eight, the other agent is sitting there. They got a headache. They’re rolling on the floor. They’re crying. They have no idea what this is going on because they don’t know probate.

We get into how you find the personal representative. How do you establish your relationship? Lawyers have CLEs. That’s their continuing end. I took the lawyer’s probate and CLE. I left there and I’m thinking to myself, “Are you kidding me?” Everything was based on law. Nothing was based on relationships.

We spent a good deal of time talking about creating relationships. Once you create the relationship, then you get involved and you’re guiding them. You’re navigating them through the whole process which can be complicated but then I have to break it down. I do the course nationally, but we’ll have an attorney come locally if we can find one that wants to speak. If not, I do research about what’s going on in your local area. If you have a probate attorney, I’ll jump right on you and we’ll have a discussion about it.

Creating Value and Building Relationships in Probate

We’re going to invite one to come to the class. You said the court administrator was another person you’d like to be there.

Not to be there but I’m going to have them go to the court. Every attorney is a probate attorney which is correct. If they’re slow, they’ll take one anything but that doesn’t mean they’re the attorney you want. You were talking about Harley Davidson and how the niche was and how they find these people. One of the biggest dollar amounts because Harley Davidson and Baby Boomers was orthopedic surgeons. There were such raw broken ankles and all with that with which we’re saying. What do you have to do here?

You have to assemble a probate team. I have a probate division then I have a probate services division which has all my little people under it. All that is like I created it. I have it. We have a different form they pulled down for that and it leads you to the fact that you’re the expert. If anybody else wants to come up again, they have to answer the questions and they can’t.

It makes a ton of sense because we would have people that would come into our area. They would try to treat us like any other regular real estate agent when they would try to find an investment property. Speaking of boring, I’ve been teaching real estate investing for the past two decades. We’re talking about cap rates, cash-on-cash return, math, and percentages. Nobody is excited about any of that until you can teach them how to help an investor who’s about to say no to an investment property and understand that they’re going to be in double-digit returns.

If you can teach them the tax benefits of owning real estate, why the wealthy have tax shelters, and how so many of us don’t participate in real estate investing. Education is the barrier of entry to most new things that can ultimately change our lives in the biggest possible way. For me and the people that have followed me, it’s been real estate investing. It’s not easy to keep those things super exciting, but we do our best. I could see a kindred spirit in you. In the few phone calls we’ve had, I know you’re going to be dynamic on stage. I already know you’re going to be great. I can’t wait.

On the investment end of it, I took two. I had no desire to be a CCIM.

Certified commercial investment member.

What I did was I took two of the classes. I took them one comparing investment properties and on taxation. I was the only agent in my office who understood. They came to me because the one form that I wanted to understand that I talked about in probate is the financial management rate of return. You can compare investment properties. You can put it in front of their face and say, “Here’s this.” Now, how does that work in probate? These people don’t know what to help they’re doing. A personal representative has never done so. It’s just like they feel obligated to do with the mom’s house or dad’s house.

There’s probably all this emotion involved, too. They’re not maybe even thinking straight.

They don’t even have it. They don’t have a chance to mourn. I call him Grabasorous. They come in and just want to grab whatever they can and leave. The personal representative is holding the bag, but I say to the agents, “Why don’t you talk to the personal representative? Sit down and say, ‘I know you wanted to dispose of the house but let me tell you what’s going on.’”

I have a little place in Naples, Florida. If I put that on the market, I get x amount of dollars but if I waited months, I would probably make another $30,000. If you could talk PR into keeping it for two years, they could tell their siblings, “This is how much money we’re getting. How would you like to have a 25% to 30% return on the dollar?” Now, the agent is rising to the top. He’s like, “This is the person I want to use because they’re giving me options.”

That’s how you create raving fans. I have always said to myself I would sell more real estate if I would just keep my mouth shut but I can’t because I have to educate. It’s okay for me to lose the sale because I’m still going to need to eat two years from now. I don’t think a lot of real estate agents get that. The good ones do. The good ones know that it’s based on service and servant leadership. That’s how you create raving fans. I’m glad to hear that as well.

What we do, I can’t wait to have my team completely trained in probate because I know that we’re going to be in situations here very soon. We’ve already been. I’ve got one agent that’s had a lot of deaths in her family. She’s the one that we go to for questions but as you said, there’s so much going on and you’ve got to have that power team. If you can be the person that is an emotional rock for those people, the person that’s just helping them check the boxes and get the things done that they need to get done and giving them great advice like a true fiduciary. That’s the thing that the auctioneers are not doing because they don’t have that fiduciary relationship as we do in real estate.

I like the way you’re thinking. I did this. After the two certifications that I wrote, I noticed it that they got the certification by the end of it. I get the pin or I get this or that. I’ve got the book and I’m an SRES. They put it in their car, but they do nothing with it. The same thing happened with no SRES or still happening. With this one, I said, “I’m not going to let this happen.”

I have a friend out in California. He’s amazing with computers and marketing and all. I got with my guy up in New York on Madison Avenue who my son hooked me up with. I paid him to give me some ideas. He charged me. It would be $100,000 to do something like that, but he did it for $5,000 because Bradon likes tennis and they go to ball games and all. Whatever. I put together a program and that program cost me so far 8500 hours to create. I said, “I want to offer it to people to take probate but I don’t want to be too expensive.” I’ll get the 8,500 hours back slowly so I have an announcement kit that’s $149, but I said I’m just going to charge it $99.

Effective Marketing and Training for Probate Real Estate

The reason is because when they take the class, I’m afraid they’re just going to put the book on the thing. It does everything. It puts it on other social media. It has press releases. It has postcards. It has everything. All done. All you have to do is put your name on it. I said, “There, you pay $99 and you’re done.” We created another program that will give you a monthly and they’re putting together the monthly things on it.

I don’t do any of that stuff. Out of the $99, I make $30. I don’t care. I got someone doing it for me and their helping me probate. On the other one, we’re doing 148. It gets you both of them and one month’s worth of the add-on, but then you get $99 a month. If you want to go forward and get it, get it. If you don’t, don’t. I don’t care. I’m not looking for people to get involved in probate. I’m looking for people who are committed to probate, know where to find them, and know how to service them. I give marketing ideas. You have to have marketing ideas, but you don’t want to walk out the things and say, “That was a good class. I liked it.” I want people to have a probate in the next 30 to 60 days because people are dying that quickly.

Buddy, can you walk us through a scenario? Give me a scenario where I’m a real estate agent and somebody comes to me and says, “My parents just passed away. I’ve got this house.” Walk us through that a little bit so that we can get the word out to real estate agents or anybody who’s reading who will inherit a home someday. Whether they’re a real estate agent or not. They’re going to read this and going to say, “These are the questions I need to ask my real estate agent to make sure that they’re good.” Walk us through a scenario where one person who’s not prepared goes in this direction and one person who is prepared goes in a better direction.

Thank you. I break realtors up into two categories, ordinary and extraordinary If you’re talking about ordinary realtors who are not trained in it, I agree with what you said, niches are riches. This bit about being a general practitioner of real estate is going away very quickly. You want to work with somebody who understands. If that occurred and you weren’t trained not as necessarily a certified probate specialist, but you aren’t trained in it. I had people that said, “I’ve done 75 probates in the last like five years.” I said, “That’s great.” She said, “No, it’s not great because when I do one, I’ll finally do them right.”

She sent me a testimony. It wasn’t me. It’s the information that she didn’t know that she didn’t know. It’s like if you’re in tech and my worst thing is technology. I’m calling somebody because I have a problem with my computer but I don’t know what question to ask. It’s frustrating. That’s what happens. They come in as if they’re going to sell the house.

As a realtor, we’re programmed. If a seller wants to sell, sell the house. The buyer wants to buy and sell the house. It doesn’t work that way in probate. You don’t get the sell the house until the judge tells you to sell the house. You have the preliminary information, the inventory, and all this stuff, and set it up. The scenario with the person who’s not trained is, “They’ll put the house on the market.”

Before the judge says yes.

Before they have a letter’s testamentary or letters of administration, they’re violating Article 11 of our code of ethics, which says if you’re not competent in the field you’re practicing. You’re obligated to refer it out. They think they’re doing the right thing, but they can get fined. The judge will find them big time. It’s an ethical violation.

That happened in 2008 a lot, Buddy, with the short sales and things like that. There’s nothing short about a short sale. People were putting these properties on the market trying to get offers so that they could go talk to the bank then but that wasn’t the way. There were so many deals that just fell apart and the emotion that happened in those deals. That’s when the wheels fall off the wagon when the emotional centrifugal force starts going. Can you imagine a scenario where a loved one has just passed away? You’re trying to liquidate a house and you have an untrained real estate agent. Can you imagine the problems that that would cause for that family?

They’re astronomical. You’re talking about the short sales. They came out with CDPE, my friend Tony Martinez. I took the course and I said to myself, “I don’t want to do short sales.” I hired a person to work at my little company and said, “I need you to do short sales. I’ll send you to this place so I could refer him all that I personally,” so I didn’t have to do which people should do. If you don’t understand it, don’t do it.

In probate, if you’re certified and you understand this probate process, then you try to meet with the personal representative and you ask, “Do you have your letters administration?” This is complicated to get through. I’ll help you navigate through the process but what are the challenges you faced so far they’re going to say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, or my siblings are fighting me.” I said, “Sit down. Let’s put it all down. Let’s see what we can have. Do you have an attorney following through?” “No, because the attorney seems to not know anything about probate.” I said, “We can take care of all that.”

All I’m doing is listening. I’m being a consultant at that particular point and I’m not trying to get the listing. I’m trying to get her to understand but I have little trifolds and stuff that I’ve created that said how to save tens of thousands of dollars during a probate process. If they give it to an auctioneer, they give it to the wrong person. You’re going to lose that money if you get stuff on that done. You’re the pro way ahead of anybody else. Basically, I’m fortunate because I wrote the course. Anytime something comes up in the marketplace probate, I’ll go out on the first one and I’ll say, “Here’s stuff.” “Did you go to school for this?” I said, “No, I wrote the course, though.” That gives you a leg up, anyway.

What else does a real estate agent do that is certified in probate that somebody wouldn’t do during the course of this? What does a win look like for a family and a real estate agent who has gone through your course?

Adding Value and Building Relationships Through Probate Specialization

Number one, it helps them save money. They’re going to get more profit. If you’ve ever been around a family where somebody’s died. Everybody wants the most and they fight and scrap over everything and they always call the attorney. Now, the attorney is getting paid a flat fee to work personal representative. That’s the way it works. The siblings jump in and that’s a separate fee, so I get in. The certified specialist is going to get in, he’s going to say, “Let’s get them on the phone.”

They get them on the phone. I say, “I understand you think that she’s doing something wrong or whatever. Here’s what we need to do. You’re calling the attorney and every time you call the attorney, you’re eating up your own equity. That doesn’t make sense.” Now, they listen because they’re thinking, “Eating up my equity.” “What are you talking about?”

“The lawyer doesn’t work for you. The lawyer works for the personal representative and they get a percentage of the estate. If you start calling, it’s going to eat up. It’s going to erode what you’re going to get in the bottom line. If you have an issue, let me be.” The Ombudsman between the two. If you have an issue, give it to me. I’ll work it out with them then we’ll get it to the attorney and you save your equity because I don’t think that’s anybody cheating. All of a sudden, I become a person of value to the whole family.

Now, you’re going to get business from them, just regular business.

The Impact of Specialization on Business Growth

Let’s write a stone in the pond. When you throw the stone in the pond, it ripples out. If I helped you with your mother’s estate get through, there’s a damn good chance that you’re going to refer me to a lot of people.

People asked us like, “Why don’t you guys just specialize in short-term rentals?” I said I didn’t want to because that prevents me from being able to help the family that I’ve helped grow their portfolio. When they have their daughter who wants to buy their first home, it would be an honor for me or my team to be able to represent them and you.

That’s how we build a business and form relationships. That’s how we get multiplication in our business. It’s by specializing. Everybody needs to buy and sell homes. These life events simply give us another opportunity to prove how powerful we can be if we study and show up as an as a real advocates.

It’s much like you own a company like my doctor, Dr. Kings, a general practitioner. I go to him for everything, but then he forms me out to an expert or something that I have to have done expertly. You’ll form it out to somebody’s going to do this. Somebody who specializes in first-time home buyers. That way, you can say that I’m a full-service realtor. Only because I’m a probate specialist at a military specialist, I do that. I do other stuff but I’m known and these are the markets that I chose so that I could control my destiny in this.

That allowed me to get into the speaking business many years ago then I started building credibility around the country as a speaker. Before I left, I said, “Let me ask you one question before I leave. Can you think of any reason you wouldn’t refer your clients to me if they were buying or selling in Delaware, Maryland or Pennsylvania?” I shot up, which is hard for realtors to do. When I do, I shut up.

I said, “Here’s the question I have for you. Why?” I shut up and they say, “It’s because you took the time to move me forward.” I think that people understand. I get a bio. I write everything. I think you got it. You got all the stuff before you hired me. It was realtor of the year. All that crap and all these designations. All this and that. It doesn’t mean anything. I got to the point in my career where I said, “I already did that. Now, I want to spend my career giving back.”

When you show up and take the time to help people move forward, they understand. Share on X

When I showed up , they had the bio. “Here’s your bio. This one I’m going to read.” It’s like five pages or something like that. I said, “I make a change or two?” I’m looking them right in the eyes and ripping it up. She said, “What are you doing?” I said, “I have a bio.” I reach in my suit pocket and I hand her a little index card. It said, “From Wilmington, Delaware, please welcome Buddy West. He still sells real estate.” That means a lot more than all of the crap that I’ve done in the past. What it means is I’m just like those people sitting in the season.

If they want to know anything about me, they can ask or they can find out on their own. I don’t want to sit in front of the class and brag, “Isn’t he doing this? He’s the best realtor in the galaxy. He’s done all this.” No, because the people don’t care about that. They care about, what am I going to walk through that back door. Once, the first time, I’m going to get a probate class or how can I elevate my personal business? If more speakers did that, they would have a bigger following.

I don’t tell people what to do. I tell people what I’m doing and what friends like me are doing like Howard Brinton, the star power. If you were a star power star, you had to sign a paper saying you’d give away everything to anybody who asked for it. He worked out of abundance. Not scarcity. If I built some marketing program, I get it and I give it to somebody else. That’s the way you make the industry better. Not just yourself, but you’re bringing other people along. My main focus, I’ve got a team of two people on my personal team, but then I have eight other agents. I won’t go over ten. I don’t want to run an adult daycare. One of them has to do $5 million a year. They got a year and a half to get up to that speed. $5 million, you got to go away.

You have a standard for them.

Big standard.

That’s great. How do you tell the people that don’t meet the standard? That they have to move on. How do you have that conversation with them?

Maintaining High Standards and Goal Setting

I said, “You’ve had plenty of time. You probably need to go to another company that’s going to tolerate your lack of motivation.” I’m honest with people, but during the first period, I show them how to do $5 million or $10 million. I show him what it takes to do this. When I walked into my office on Halloween, I knew the difference between a sale. I knew fundamentally, but I knew that if you did so much real estate in a year, you won a trip to Acapulco.

When my manager came and said, “What is your goal?” I said, “I want to go to Acapulco.” He laughed at me and said, “This is your first year in a business. Come on.” I said, “What’s it take to go to Acapulco?” This is back in the ‘80s and he said, “It takes like a million or million four.” I said, “Okay. Put me down for a million five.”

This is when houses were selling for like $9,000 or $10,000 in Missouri. What were they selling for in Delaware back there?

$35,000 to $45,000.

Getting a million when you’re selling. When your unit price is $35,000. That’s saying something.

He said, “I’m going to put you down.” I said $2 million. He said, “I’m going to put you down for a million.” Right away, he burst my bubble. I never burst a bubble. I went out and I said to the top agent in our office, this guy Jack, “How many listings do you have to sell to win the trip?” He said, “It’s your first year, you ought to focus on buyers. You’re going to get more buyers and listing.” I said, “How many?” He told me that I went, “I did open house every day of the week.”

If you put an open house on, as long as the place had a phone in it because it was before we had that. I would do it because I could sit there and do calls and everything. I did other people’s open houses. I would put a sign in. If they came on a Wednesday afternoon, they were serious about a house, so I did that. I worked. You name it. I ended up doing $2 million by July. I did 46 houses in my first year and I hung around the water cooler and did 24 in the second year.

My boss bought me and he said, “Stay away from the water cooler. You’re smarter than that.” I’m listening to the negativity. From that point forward, I just said, “I set my goal and reached my goal. You’ve got to go reach your goal.” If they don’t have a goal and don’t want to get their goal. They don’t need to be with me because they’re going to bring me down because I feel like a failure.

A few years ago, we had an inventory issue. All of a sudden, there was a problem. This was just after COVID like maybe 2021. There was an issue with people not wanting to put their homes on the market. There was no inventory. All these top-producing real estate agents were walking around my office, people who I had trained moaning, whining, and complaining that there was no inventory.

I was like, “This has got to change.” What I did is I went to the next sales meeting and I said, “I don’t want to hear a single person walking around saying there’s no inventory out there. You folks can find the inventory. What we’re going to do is we’re going to dig deep. Only because it’s not listed doesn’t mean it’s not for sale.”

I said, “We’re going to create an award called the Dig Deep Award and I’m going to give it away at the first sales meeting in January to the agent who is digging deep to find the listings.” I gave it away and I said to that agent, “Now what you have to do is pay attention to the team. I need you to give this award to the agent who you think is digging deep.” We did $256 million that year. More than we have ever done was with just about 48 agents. More than we’d ever done simply by changing the mindset of the team not allowing them to think one way and encouraging them to think the other way. It made a huge difference in our business. It was a record year for us.

Adapting to Market Changes and Innovations

That’s perfect. That’s a beautiful story. What you did was you put a fire on their butt. It’s always a choice. I walk on it, it’s a choice. Do I want to lay around and do nothing or do I want to do something? Believe me, when I relax, I scuba dive. When I relax, I go to some place where nobody can talk to me. If they try, they drown.

Incomunicado. I used to have a sailboat and it was great. It set this high off the water and I couldn’t bring a cell phone. We satisfy ourselves with good intentions, don’t we?

The road to the house is filled with good intentions. You have to act on those intentions. All I say is this, don’t make ginormous goals that there’s no way you’ll reach. John, if you ever read his book on leadership, he was a coach at UCLA when he won twelve national championships. He said, “I can coach pretty much anything except for height.” That made so much sense to me. If you know somebody who is not meant for real estate, I think you’ve done them a favor by telling them, “You’re not meant for real estate. Let’s see where else we can go with that.” I think it’s Good to Great. Have you read the book Good to Great?

If someone isn’t meant for real estate, you need to tell them and help them find the right seat on the bus. Share on X

Yes, a great one.

Get them on the right seat on the bus. This person can’t be a realtor. Maybe they could be on a team as an assistant or something like that. They’re happy doing background work. That works. In Probate, I suggest having somebody who’s going to work probate with you, an assistant, or an administrative person so that they can get all the forms. I have a working wife. She’s been with me for many years. She was a young gal when she started with me. She’s now a partner because I figured if I made her a partner in Buddy West seminars, I wouldn’t ever have to worry about losers. She’ll do anything she can to make me successful because nobody has an ugly baby. This is partly her baby now.

That’s right, and she probably helped you launch and scale that in ways that you hadn’t thought of. She probably deserves to be honored for her work and for helping it be successful. I love that about you, Buddy. That’s fantastic.

His daughter works for me. She’s going in or junior year at James Madison University as a Physician Statistic and I said, “Here’s what I’ll do. Every time one of these things sells, I told you I make not too much money on those goofy things, but I’ll give you $10.” She puts out all the marketing flyers. She sends certificates.

We had 120 then I had a bunch from the Florida Association. We sent them to her and she put them up on the website and sent it out. This is an interesting concept like Mill Res. I have a referral network. If you take probate, and I’m creating the database. It’s not quite done yet. Everybody took probates going to be on the database. If you’re sitting where you’re sitting and you know somebody that has a friend that has somebody in California that’s going to go in through probate. You can send that referral there.

You can get the agent that’s a probate specialist there. I take nothing. You work out that deal. I don’t need it. Also, with the probate class, when you take the class, it’s yours forever. You don’t pay an annual fee. I’m tired of everybody having a hand in my pocket and I added something else, too. What I’ve added is if you take and you’re certified in probate. In a couple of years, you get one free. You can sit on a second one.

My goal is to make you better and your agent’s goal when they get the certification is to help others get better because otherwise, you have to do both sides all the time. Everybody is like, “Don’t do another class in our area.” Why? Come from abundance. There’s going to be $50 million houses in probate in Christmas.

Before we go, is there anything that I haven’t asked before we end our conversation?

There’s a lot of stuff, and again, thank you for having me here. The most important thing is you have to love what you do. Get notes and letters. I’ve gotten probably twenty of them on the phone from my class. You changed my career path. That means more to me. I have already done all the junk with all the bunch of houses and so on. I loved it. I’ve always been successful but it’s never been more hard felt than I have now.

If you love doing real estate, which many of us do. I’m still doing it because I’m solving problems. It makes you happy. If you don’t love doing it, find something you love because you only get one shot at this life. That’s it. I think it’s important. If you’re going to get into real estate, education is the best thing you can do. Get all that. Soak it in like a sponge because if you do, you’re ahead of about 90% of the people who have real estate licenses.

No doubt about that. The thing I like about you the most, Buddy, is that you true gentleman and a scholar. I mean that because when you say something to somebody, you’re just a salesman but if you hand them something. If you hand the materials like books, classes, and certification courses. You truly are a scholar. We’re so fortunate to be able to have met you and to have brought you to the Branson area.

We’re going to be putting this out to everybody. All are in three states. We’re talking to people in Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas. We’re going to try to bring as many people as we can. You know how people are. They don’t always know what this is or why this is but we’re relentless. We’re putting out messaging every day because we want to try to get as many people in the room with you, Sir. We’re going to be fortunate to be there with you and looking forward to meeting you in person in October.

I’ll leave you with this. If somebody takes to class and they think they have gotten anything that’s going to take them to the next level. I’ll pay their tuition.

How about that?

It’s a pleasure being with you.

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A big thank you for reading the end of our episode. I know your time is valuable. I hope you got a few takeaways that are going to help you get a greater return on that time. I know you will. If you did enjoy it, I’d sure appreciate a share or a comment. Feel free to subscribe for instant access to new episodes and offers.

There’s also a ton of free content and ways to learn more and engage more at WorleyRealEstateNetwork.com. Until then, we’ll continue to bring you recipes for success and real stories for real people who like you are living out your divine purpose. God loves you no matter what happens. Don’t give up.

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About Buddy West

I am a Real Estate Broker with 31 years experience having helped thousands of clients purchase and sell homes. I have used real estate to launch additional projects that help agents improve their business while providing superior services to their clients. As an author of the book, “Targeting the Over 55 Market” along with John Tuccillo and Betsy West, many Realtors learned how to better serve our senior population.

I co authored the designation SRES or Seniors Real Estate Specialist and helped grow it to over 25,000 members. Currently, I am dedicating my real estate career to helping better serve our Military Service members, Veterans and their families. By developing the certification / designation MilRES or Military Residential Specialist, Realtors can learn how to better serve those who have served us and protected our freedom.

With agents in 40 states as of the end of 2013, we are confident to have representation in 50 states by mid 2015 helping our military and referring business throughout the United States. You too can serve. I am a real estate coach for Tim and Julie Harris. Get in touch.

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