This week on Agent Vs Lender we talk to Daryn Edmonds owner of High Road Utah. He shares with us the secrets of his success for him and his team. Daryn shares what technology he uses to keep the advantage over his competition as well as his 'old school hustle' that keeps his clients coming back. If you want to know how you can use technology to increase your clientele or learn how to better serve your clients, then this is the episode for you!
This week on Agent Vs Lender we talk to Daryn Edmonds owner of High Road Utah. He shares with us the secrets of his success for him and his team. Daryn shares what technology he uses to keep the advantage over his competition as well as his 'old school hustle' that keeps his clients coming back. If you want to know how you can use technology to increase your clientele or learn how to better serve your clients, then this is the episode for you!
Thank you so much for joining us on another episode of agent versus lender. And I'm really excited to introduce Daryn Edmonds. He's a broker and team leader in Salt Lake City. You know, as I talked to him found out he was an investor, and then he became an agent. It seems like that's a natural progression if you're an investor and then become an agent. Shortly after that, he became his own broker and opened up his own business. So hey, Darren, thanks for coming on our show. We're glad to have you here.
Daryn Edmonds :Hey, Ron, thank you for having me on the show. It's terrific to be here. It's like, I'm in my home office, you're in your home office is a good place to get it done from.
Ron Pippin :Actually, I'm not in my home office. I do have a home office, but this is just an office downtown. So
Daryn Edmonds :Oh, sorry.
Ron Pippin :Yeah, that's okay. It's all cool. But you know, my office is actually three minutes from my house. So it's kind of like my home office. So um, Have you told me you're a ski bum? So tell us a little bit more about how you got to business.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, I guess it's kind of unfair for me to call myself a ski bum anymore because, you know, real estate's been really good to me the last few years, and I guess I'm not as much of a bum as they used to be. But I moved to Utah from upstate New York, just before the Olympics in 2002. And I wanted to be a pro skier and I tried really, really, really hard for about 11 years, and I just wasn't quite good enough. But I had a great time along the way. It was a blast. And I was lucky enough to buy a house in 2005 before the crash and the other in 2007, just during the crash, and kind of fill those up with ski bum buddies of mine. That was the start of my investing. I then kind of decided, hey, you know, I worked with a great agent. Maybe I could Just do things just the way she does. And I'll follow her into the business. And that seems like a good career. And it's been about 11 years now in the business and it's been a lot of changes.
Ron Pippin :Yeah, it seems like if you've been in the business for 11 years, you've seen some changes. There have been a lot, a lot. So you had a sounds like you had a mentor.
Daryn Edmonds :I kind of did you know, I've had a few really great mentors. My first mentor is now one of my biggest competitors. Not we're very friendly competition between her office in mine, my friend Tara Paris, with Paris real estate, she's great. We have kind of similar size teams. Similar in a lot of ways. We, we still use the same title company.
Ron Pippin :Awesome. There's still some I know you say she is tongue in cheek UCC, you say she's your competition, but I can tell and I was I could tell that it's just a friendly competition there. So that's really good. I've noticed that the people that are doing well, you know, even the people that are just not doing as well, I've noticed that in the realtor side, it just seems to be really pretty friendly. You guys all hang out and do a lot of events.
Daryn Edmonds :I think we're pretty fortunate in Utah. Anyway, I haven't sold real estate anywhere else. But you know, all the stuff you see on TV about all the slimy agents and agents mad at each other and a lot of that yelling and screaming, I have barely run into that and 11 years. Just people here tend to play by the rules. You know, there's a few people that are not playing within the rules and you kind of sniff them out and you try to avoid that and protect your clients from that kind of stuff. But for the most part, I've had very good experience with other agents here and I can tell you, the top five or six competitors that kind of play in the, in the places I play, like, I'm friends with all of them. That's kind of weird.
Ron Pippin :No, I think it's awesome. I think it's because you guys can you guys can, collaborate and find out what's working and what's not working. And if you don't want to reinvent the wheel all the time, you could go, and that guy's telling him what to do in it, and you guys can just talk it out and, and find out what you can and can't do what you should be doing what you shouldn't be doing.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, you definitely can learn a lot from from the other folks in the biz, and then you can share a lot too. And you know, we talked a little bit earlier about the more you give, the more you get. And I think that's the case if I share some of my secret sauce, and someone else shares some of their secret sauce and we mix them both together, and then everybody does better. And there's plenty of work out there for all of us, you know.
Ron Pippin :So let's get into some of your secret sauce since you brought it up. So we had talked about the way you do business you kind of have the old school mentality, but you also are embracing the tech. So tell me, what that looks like.
Daryn Edmonds :Okay, that's a great question. I mean, right in our office, we have a whiteboard that I wrote on a couple years ago. with bad handwriting that's still up that this this one quote that just says, 'new school tech old school hustle'. That's something we just kind of came up with on our own. I followed for a long time Coach Tom Ferry, who if you're a real estate agent, listen to this. Check out Tom Ferry stuff. I like it. It's very motivational. He's cool guy, and he's a lot about the new tech video. He's been talking about video for years video, video, video video. That's like the thing. So I try to do as much video as possible. Our team communicates we have a communication platform we use. I used to be all paper. I was paper and then like DocuSign kind of got going, and now we're all we use dotloop. It's a great program, manage our transactions and so we're pretty much paperless at this point, fantastic communication with our clients and our team. And then using video using Facebook ads, using Instagram ads, being on Instagram TV, like all these wild things that I when I first heard about him, I was like, man, I'm never gonna do that. We've slowly added those on. However, we didn't forget kind of where we came from. And that is, you got to hustle in this business. You can't be a salesperson that just plugs things into your computer and let the computer do everything you need to be able to get out, meet people, connect with people, listen to people and do a good job for people. So that's the hustle part. Like we answer our phones, we return phone calls. There's a lot of folks in the biz not really doing that right now. And it bothers me of course, but it also makes me smile because it'll be that much easier to win a client, if they're interviewing me, and they're interviewing that person, they're going to get me on the phone. They're going to like that. So that's the old school hustle, make the extra call and go the extra mile. I was over today, actually, a couple hours ago, I gave keys to a buyer client of mine. And instead of just handing the keys and walking away, like most people would do, I handed him the keys and taught them how to use their sprinkler system. Because why not? I know how, like, why not share that information? I got an extra half an hour. So that's one of the things and not you know, having some success is great, but don't think you're too big to help somebody learn your sprinkler system, or help them go bring their garbage cans that were down the street back to their house. Like, why why not be friends with every client and go the extra mile. So that's the blend. That's the blend that's been working for us.
Ron Pippin :That's cool. So I know that. seems like a little thing. You know, show them how they've used their sprinkler system or what days the garbage comes and oftentimes, those little things are what people remember. It's not like, oh, man, they were great at showing the house. It's like, you know what, this guy took some time at the end of the transaction, to show me how to use my sprinkler systems. That's what people remember. It's, it's it, you think it's a little thing, but it's not. It's a it's really a big thing.
Daryn Edmonds :And it's actually the thing I enjoy the most. Because I know that I know what it was like, I remember when I bought my first place. And I tell the story a lot. I'll give you the very abbreviated version. But I bought a house in 2005. I was clueless during the entire process. And I ended up getting a great house at a very fair price. So I have nothing to complain about. But I do remember that I was in the dark. My agent called me the day before closing and said, have a check for this much and come to this title company and I'll meet you there. And then as soon as we're done, I never heard from him again. And I thought, well I'm not going to do it that way. I'm going to keep my people informed. I'm going to communicate really well. I'm going to over communicate, they're going to know everything that's going on. And then I'm going to be around in the end. I almost always end up being good friends with all my clients, even if their folks we meet on the internet. We get a lot of folks that we meet through Zillow, other online sources, Google, we have a lot of great Google reviews. So people call and say, Hey, I saw you on Google. I can't believe you answer your phone. And I'm like, yeah.
Ron Pippin :You know, they see it used to see you on video, or they see you on the internet, or they see you wherever and they go, Oh, it's you. I thought I wouldn't got your office or, you know, cuz I get that too. It's just like, Oh, I'm talking. I'm talking to Ron? Yeah, what can I help you with?
Daryn Edmonds :You know, depending on the situation, and you may not get to talk to me every time all the way along. I have a great team. And if you're like, “Hey, I'm moving in from Texas and I need to see 45 houses next week.” I'm probably gonna have one of my buyer's agents get you out and show you 45 houses next week. But everybody on our team has been trained from the ground up. On our same program that I developed, so we all do things the same. So I definitely do answer the phone, but I can't promise you I'm gonna be, I might not be your guy. But I will be there in the background, always supporting and I can always take a call with questions from anybody that's working with any of our team.
Ron Pippin :Yeah, but when your team is, you know, just like my team on my team and your team are excellent. It's just like, you're going to get you're going to get through the process. And it's going to be a great experience. You know, and it's not like, I'm not going to ever talk to through the through the process, but you're going to get through it, and you're gonna love it because you know, everybody's trained the same way. That's right. Let's get into you had mentioned a blend of tech. So tell me about some of your tech, because I know that people want to know what's, what's some of the tech that you use and how you use it.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, so some of the tech that we've been using, especially successfully this year in 2020 with COVID and everything going on it changed the game a bit. And I feel like we're kind of swinging a little bit back more towards the way things were before. We just got to wear masks and wash our hands a lot while we're showing homes. And that shouldn't be touching my nose, but I can't help it. So, some of the stuff we did, we had already started rolling this out in the last two years, but we're all in on this now. So all of our listings, now we do a 3d matterport tour on all of them. And when I first heard of this years ago, I thought that's ridiculous. It's expensive. Who cares? We don't need to do that. We started doing it last year just before COVID and dabbling. And then as soon as COVID. I said, automatic. We're always doing a matterport tour now. So for anybody who hasn't seen him yet, they're super cool. When you're online. If you're looking on Utah real estate calm and you're looking at a listing, often there's a little tour button at the top. If there isn't that means that listing agent didn't think it was worth investing some extra money in their listing. Click the tour button and you get the matter for it's cool, it shows you this little dollhouse of the house. And then it drops you inside and you can walk around and look around. It's, it's not exactly virtual reality, but it's it's like semi virtual reality, you can see everything. And part of the reason we did that was because we weren't sure if people were going to be able to get out and look at homes, and we wanted them to be able to see everything inside our home, then it kind of morphed into, actually, I don't really want 50 random people to come through my client's house. If they don't like the house, I don't want them to come. So let's let them look at the house really well on the internet, not just a few photos really look around and if they decide it's not for them, good, don't come because, you know, the old school way was get as many people through the door as possible. And as part of my listing presentation for 10 years, get everyone through the door and now let's get the right people through the door.
Ron Pippin :You know what, but you are getting as many people as you can through that door, you're just doing it virtually instead of person.
Daryn Edmonds :That’s a good point, Ron, you’re right. There you go. We also have been focusing on doing drone videos, the last couple years, we've noticed,
Ron Pippin :I actually saw that I went to your site and I saw some of the drone videos. Those are cool.
Daryn Edmonds :They're really great. We've sampled around with a few different folks, I was doing drone. I was doing drone photos, probably two, three years before anybody else in Utah was really doing them. Because I had a buddy that had a drone. This is cool, let's do this. But what we found is that we did a drone video as a test and the amount of views it got was amazing, like people like drone videos, so we keep them short. people's attention span is short, but we found a crew that does a great job of building out the video. So it's entertaining. It's 60 seconds long. Sometimes we'll do a little video intro where one of myself or one of my teammates will intro the house for 10 or 15 seconds and then bam. Here's the video. Now this is just kind of this is a little bit of sizzle because it's great to put on face. Instagram TV, they're getting hundreds or thousands. If one of the girls is on the video usually gets thousands of views. I found that I'm not the most popular. I thought I was the coolest guy on the videos. But when I have one of the girls on the team, one of the ladies, way more people watch their videos, they want to hear what the ladies have to say. They don't care about what I have to say as much and I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's all about the team for us. So So those are two pieces that are integral now in our listing. Because we know that it gets more of the serious eyeballs on the home. And it also drives you know, drives the competition a little if you see a drone video of a house you really like you're gonna get down there quick. And you're not going to make us a crappy offer because you know, everybody else is looking at that video too. So you're gonna make a strong offer right off the bat because you want to get that home before someone else does,
Ron Pippin :right? Yeah, I thought those those are those are actually pretty impressive. I love That so
Daryn Edmonds :it's worth the money to me to spend, we spend extra money. It's again, it's a giving get you spend more, you get more, and folks are seeing our videos and they're calling and they're emailing and they're texting me saying, Hey, can you sell my house? Of course I can. This is what I do.
Ron Pippin :That's that's the cool thing about this is just not your you're driving more buyers, but you're also driving more sellers because they see the difference between your marketing and other agents marketing and they go oh, I want this. You know, if I'm gonna pay that same price. I want this.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, you don't pay any extra. I mean, I kind of you know we work for our commission is what we say it is. We don't change it. You don't pay any extra for the photos. If I pay $500 for photos and we don't sell your house. That's my problem. You know, I lose the $500 I'm willing to risk it. And it's worked out. We have not had a listing expire in the last 3 years and in fact, I'm glad this came up just quick promo for us and how well this works. Um, you know, we've had four listings in the last two years that had been listed with someone else. And then expired and I do not farm expired listings. I do not call expired listings I never have in my career. They found us. However they found us they called and said, “Hey, so someone couldn't sell our house last year or last month. We saw your stuff can you try.” And so four out of four. We sold for full price in two weeks or less. A house that someone else couldn't sell at the same price, a month earlier or a year earlier. Right now I have one in sugarhouse that was on the market for 90 days last summer and didn't sell I don't know how that's possible. We did the drone video we just did a matter port. We did an open house. I had two offers on the first day it was on the market and we were under contract at full price on the Third day we were on the market. And that was for $25,000 more than it had been listed for nine months ago. Same house.
Ron Pippin :So what do you attribute that to? Is that is that just because of your marketing? And can you pin it down to any specific or is it just like, packaging?
Daryn Edmonds :You know, I think it's the whole package. I think there's a combination. And I think the hustle is important too. Because
Ron Pippin :that that is part of the package. You know, you can't just go out, you know, you and I talked a little bit before, it's not like, oh, let me go get a website. Oh, that's going to drive all my traffic or, oh, let me go hire some, you know, let me go take some pictures, and Oh, that's good. It doesn't work that way. It's like the whole package, right?
Daryn Edmonds :It takes time. It takes time and I've been a slow growth type person. There's definitely people that have jumped in the business and gone huge and good for them. I'm really happy for them. There's a part of me that's competitive. It's like, oh, man, why didn't I do that? But I've been slow and steady and it's been good. kind of developed during the during COVID. I've had a lot of time in the home office to think about things. And so our new marketing or sorry, my new sales pitch to listing pitch is much shorter. Now, I still have a presentation, but I shorten it up three, the three P's, I call it so number one preparation. So I'll use that sugarhouse home as an example, the previous time it was listed, the person just snapped some photos three sign in the yard, put it on the MLS and saw what happened. I spent two weeks with the clients who are out of state by the way they live in Denver. So I had to interview I interviewed with them three times on zoom to get their business. We spent two weeks cleaning the house fixing the house. So I have a list of contractors that I've worked with for years where I can call them up and go Hey, can you get over and clean the windows? Hey, can you get over and clean the floors? Hey, can you get over and fix the doors that are broken? So we spent two weeks we got the house prepared first. That's the first p pricings. The second piece even in the hot market right now an overpriced listing is not going to do well, you might be able to sneak a little bit above and get lucky. But if you overpriced dramatically, you're just not going to see a lot of action and you're not going to get the home sold, even in the hot market. So pricing is important. And then the third p and this is where the drone and the matterport and everything come in. That's the presentation. You want to make sure you're everywhere. You've taken the time to make the home look good. You've taken the time to price it right to the best of your ability. Now you got to make sure everyone sees it and in the best light possible. So if you do those three things, you're going to have success. And even in even in a tough market. If you do those three things, I think you're gonna really stand out I got a buddy in Arkansas. He does things similar to us. Actually, his video productions are even way better than ours is ridiculous. He has a full time video guy on staff. When Arkansas was dead three years ago, he was selling 100 houses a year. So like
Ron Pippin :I'll tell you if If you're an agent, and you're either listening to this or watching on YouTube, you need to rewind this, just this part right here
Daryn Edmonds :Thank Ron!
Ron Pippin :because Derek just gave you the recipe to success. It just like he just gave it to you. So if you didn't listen, you've got to rewind this and listen to it again.
Daryn Edmonds :I don't mind giving it away. Cuz something you had mentioned earlier, I, you know, most people just aren't going to follow through and do it. You know, most people just won't. But if you do, you'll have great success as an agent, and I'd be happy to have you on my team if you're a hustler like that. Because most people sign the listing agreement and they just, you know, let's get it sold. I don't want anything to do with it. I've been to that house seven or eight times. You know, I was at that house six times before we even listed it. I fixed their sprinkler system for him because I didn't want the grass to die. Guys that it's 100 degrees. And they said have your guy do it next week. And I said I don't there's not time to wait till next week. Let me Go to Home Depot, I'll get it fixed. There's not a lot of listing brokers out there, they're going to take an hour out of their day to fix the sprinkler system. But I know in the end, it's worth it. Because if that grass is dead, that house isn't going to sell.
Ron Pippin :You know? That's so true because I sold a house once. And after it was under contract, I had to go out and fix the grass in the front yard. So we dug it up a little bit, fixed it and then you know, put everything back. And sure enough, the guy drove past the house like the next day and call the agent and said, What the heck man what happened to the grass? Just like I'm not gonna buy a house that they have problems. Oh man. We had to. Sorry, my wife just walked by. She's walked by my office. I waved at her at the window. So we so he calls the office. The agent said that What the heck? And so we just had explained like, it actually wasn't a problem. We thought it was a problem. But it was something else. It was like from a neighbor's house. We thought it was our sprinkling system really had to we had to dig it up to find out. But you're right, man, if you're not, if it's not presentable, it's going to, you know, people are going to notice that they're going to take notice on their offers probably aren't going to come in for at least as high.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, that's what I mean, our job is to sell a house for as much as possible. So all those things matter. relationships matter. You know, Tom Ferry always would say who you work with matters. And I take that to heart. And I want to be someone that can be proud of how I do things. So that someone that I'm working with one of my clients will say, “Hey, I work with this guy, and I was so happy at the end.” You know, I know I got the most money. I know I was informed the whole time. I want to tell my friends about this. And so referral business has been has been terrific for myself and for the whole team. It's really great to see so many now they're three, four years in the business. They're getting so much repeat business now. Because they did things right, there's no magic bullet. It's just like, do things right. And so one way that we do things, right always is when we meet a client, if we make a good connection, and they want to work with us, and we want to work with them, and I've told everybody on my team this, I decided this 10 years ago, right, then I go, this person is my friend. And that's it. This person is my friend, what would you do for your friend? Well, for my friend, I'd fix a sprinkler system, I'd go the extra mile, right? You know, because it's worth it in the end. Not for the business. But because it's your friend, and that's what you do for your friend. And that works out really well. And every once in a while your friend doesn't treat you the way you wish they did and it hurts really bad. But 95% of the time, 97% of the time, you know, people realize that you're you're sincere, you're doing your thing, and they're honest with you, and they're good. And everybody wins. It's great.
Ron Pippin :So, you had mentioned also some of the tech that you use is you're using social media How are you using social media?
Daryn Edmonds :Okay, well, for years are doing a lot of we're doing a lot of boosting our posts on Facebook to hyper targeted areas for for listings, especially, Facebook has changed a lot of its advertising algorithms and we can't do that anymore, which is too bad. We are still able to do some geographic ads, they're not as effective as it used to be. That's kind of a bummer. Instagram has been very cool. If you use Instagram TV to upload bigger videos like your like the drone video, for instance, we're getting hundreds of views on there. It's usually going to be people that you're kind of spider web connected with. Either a friend, a friend of a friend, but you know, every place you can get the word out is always Important for listing other places? Well, of course, if you look good on the MLS, that's the most important place. That's where all the agents are, are searching. That's where most of the serious buyers are searching. And if they're searching on other websites, you know, there's Zillow is Redfin's all these millions of other websites.
Ron Pippin :You know, what, if they're on the internet, you can't think that they're not going somewhere else. So somebody that says, “Oh, it's my lead, you know, and I have an exclusive lead because it came to my website, I got news for you.” It's not exclusively because they're going somewhere else. So if you are engaging them, and we have something different, like drone videos, and you know, your other videos that you have, if you have something that keeps them there, they're going to keep coming back.
Daryn Edmonds :I always looked at it that way, like, you don't get a chance to talk to many people that are out there searching around on the internet, so maybe they see in a little video they go, “Hey, I like the way that guy talks or he seems honest, or he seems like he knows what he's doing”, hey, that's a great opportunity for you to make an impression on somebody. So I, again, I'm gonna just, I'm not taking credit for any of this, like, I either learned this from Tom Ferry or somebody I met at a conference, you know, I just pieced together a bunch of great information from other people. And that's why I'm willing to share because a lot of folks, maybe they're just going to take one or two things from me, and that might help improve their life, or help improve the way they've worked for their clients and like that.
Ron Pippin :And they should only take one or two pieces. So I'm going to give you a quick analogy. Why you so if you're listening to this, and you're getting a lot of good information from Darren, don't try to do all of it. And, and my coach tells me that it's each each thing that you decide to implement is a bridge and you're trying to get from one side of the river to the other side of the river. So you're on one side and the money's on the other side. side. And you're as you are implementing something, you're building a bridge. And until you get that bridge completed, no money is going to flow back. So you have to complete it. And then once you get money flowing back to you on the other side, then you start building another bridge, the problem that most of us have, whether it's lenders, or whether it's agents, or almost any type of business, is they try to implement too many things. And they don't complete that, that bridge. And then they say, oh, it didn't work. Well, it's not that it didn't work. It's just that you didn't finish it. So that makes sense.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, and I know I've been guilty of that, and part of my career, you know, and I'm sure I'm still guilty of it. Now. There's a million things I'd like to do. And sometimes I start six of them. If you start six of them at the same time, you probably won't achieve any of them probably won't, where we've seen success and for myself, and for everyone else on team is trying to do one thing at a time maybe two not more than two, one or two.
Ron Pippin :Unless you have help, if you have a team that can help build those bridges, then then you can implement a few more, but I still would not implement very many. It's just like, you know, just a couple. Because you you've got to focus on those and make sure that you're bringing in money, man, otherwise, it's just a money pit.
Daryn Edmonds :It's true. And once once you've implemented one or two, and you've done for a while, they just become part of you, then it's not new, it's not hard, then that's automatic, then you start on one or two more, and I've messed this up so many times, but maybe you keep trying you go get it right. You know, there's there's a million ways to do things in the real estate business and but there's some things that are certainly more effective for yourself and for your clients than others. And so that's what I spend my nights awake thinking about how to do things like the best way possible. But you're wrong sometimes. You know, you think this is gonna work. It doesn't. So you have to be willing to adjust and be willing to say, Well, that didn't work. I'll try something else.
Ron Pippin :Sure. So, um, you had mentioned that went before, before we, you know, we started recording and before we went on the air, you had mentioned that you said it was really interesting that this is called Agent Vs Lender because it's not that we're trying to be against each other. And, that's what I tell people I know, it says Agent Vs Lender, but we're really not we're really a team, you know, and I've had agents that it seemed like, man, I have to tell them that we are a team, why are you fighting me on this? And I know that you've had that same experience with lenders. It's just like, Why? Why are you fighting me on this? It's just like, dude, let's just get this thing done. So tell me a little bit about communication. And you know, you've talked a little bit about how you communicate with your with clients. So why is that communication important between your lender and between lender title company agent you know everybody on the team
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah to have everybody talking together is so important. I certainly have had some of those negative experiences and then I've had a lot of great experiences and I don't know why there is an adversarial relationship. Sometimes it develops over time because during the weeks you're working together, you're always sending requests for information, you're not getting it you make phone calls, you don't get phone calls back to me at that point, then it does get adversarial because I'm calling the lender going, Hey, man, I love this client. I care about this client. And it really seems like you don't and I need you to also or we're not going to get to the finish line. Yeah, I usually don't say it that harshly but that's what I feel inside. Usually I say something like what do I need to do to help you, help me, and help the client because all I care about is getting to the finish line, you know? So I try not to I used to get more fired up when I was younger. Now I just tried to like, what can we do? The key thing with communication is there's a lot of moving parts in the background that maybe the clients don't see. I try to explain a bit about underwriting. I try to explain a bit about how the process is going to go, I let them know there's there's going to be a lot of paperwork you need to turn in and the quicker you get it to the loan officer, the quicker that it gets reviewed. The quicker that we find out if there's more conditions, the less headaches we have at the end when it matters. Yeah, I try to give that information we do that right at our first buyer console. We love to do a buyer console before we go out and look at houses so that buyers understand what's going on and whether they're a first time buyer or a 10th time buyer we try to do at least a quick console even with a 10th time buyer like it is how we do it and is how you can expect us to do it and We do spend a lot of time talking about, there's a number of things in the process that can go wrong. A lot of them have to do with your loan. So we want to make sure we're working with someone good. And we're in touch with them all the time. Right? If we, if a week or two goes by in the middle of a contract, and you're not talking to your lender, like, that's two weeks, we can't get back.
Ron Pippin :So, you know, what, and in two weeks in a contract, that's half the time normally, you know, it, could it unless you're on an expedited timeframe, or you'd normally I think normal contracts are probably 30 ish days. And we try to be.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, so lenders are like, yeah, we can do it quicker. And then and sometimes they can, and sometimes they can't. So I certainly I try not to over promise. And I like to work with others that don't try to over promise. Tell me you can do it in 30 days and then get it done in 26. That's cool. Tell me done in 17 days and then it's 26 is pretty good. But you set the wrong expectation for the client. Maybe we ended up writing a contract that was overly aggressive. And now we're in a tough spot asking for an extension. Yeah, you know, that's a thing. Here's the vs letter thing. Because I've had a number of lenders say, well, we'll just say,
Ron Pippin :Come on, bring it on,
Daryn Edmonds :just get it just get us another week. And I'm like, I can ask for another week. But our earnest money is already hard. If the seller doesn't want to give us another week, because they think we're jerking him around. They're going to take our $5,000 and they're going to sell it to one of the other 10 people that wants the home, and my clients gonna lose the house they want because you didn't do what you said you could do. That's the one time when I get kind of, but nine times out of 10. That doesn't happen.
Ron Pippin :I bet it's less than nine times out of 10. I don't think you have 10%. I'm making a generalization because
Daryn Edmonds :It’s usually somebody and here this is going to be a plug for great lenders like Ron. People that do communicate people that are on top of their files. There's never a problem there. It's usually when someone's using like Internet bank.com, where they don't really have a lender that cares about their file, they're getting passed around in office. And when I need to call to ask like, “Hey, what's going on?”I don't even know who to call.
Ron Pippin :You can't,
Daryn Edmonds :that ends up being like, tricky. And so I think the $5 you might save using internet bank.com is a is a bad value for a client because how many sleepless nights, you know how many how many sleepless nights are $5 worth, you know, or, or even if it's 100 or 500. Like, if you're not sleeping, you think you're gonna lose your dream house. Ah, that's not good. That's not good at all.
Ron Pippin :It's one of the biggest purchase you're gonna make in your life and you're going to leave it to the the dollar store people rent mortgages? You know, they are a little bit less sometimes, but I'm not going to name the name of the big giant out there that everybody knows. They're not always less, in fact, often they're a little bit more, but you have a lot more headache? So, using the dollar store that you're only using the dollar store service?
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, you get what you pay for. I mean, it's the same on the agent side. There's, definitely folks in town that do things for cheap. That's not the way I operate. And I tell people right at our writer buyer metting. You get what you pay for. And, you know, I give 110% effort for every client. And for that I do get paid 100% of my normal commission. I don't like to do discounts, I don't do them. And folks that do, good for them if that's their business model, but I don't think you're going to get the same level of service. And you're not going to get somebody that deeply cares about you, I don't think because they're just churning and burning, you know, you're just a number and to us, you’re a friend.
Ron Pippin :So tell me, if you had to just give us one piece of advice, whether it's a piece of tech that you could not live without, or a piece of advice that is just like, you know, this made a difference in my business. What would that be?
Daryn Edmonds :That's a good one Ron. For my business. Right now, I'd say,
Ron Pippin :I know I know. You did not expect that question.
Daryn Edmonds :That's a good one. It's a big one. So I don't want to screw it up. But I'm going to give a maybe a little bit of a weird answer maybe a two part answer. Number one on the tech organization is so important. And I gotta say that probably Google Drive is like my best friend right now.
Ron Pippin :I love Google Drive.
Daryn Edmonds :Man. Mine was malfunctioning for a couple weeks. And I was like, out of sorts. And I just figured it out last night. If the problem was totally me, I screwed something up, but I fixed it. Like, I feel so much better today, knowing my Google Drive works, because we share everything, you know, our whole team shares everything in there, we can all see each other's things. Our transaction coordinator is involved. She knows what's going on with everybody all the time. So Google Drive for me, and I think if you're a solo agent, or if you're thinking about starting a team, like I'm not the most tech guy in the world, but I can use Google Drive most of the time when I don't break it. Get a Google Drive or an iCloud account so that your stuff is out there and safe and off your computer because your computer might get stolen and you want all your files done. Because that happened to me last year someone stole my computer. And you know what? I didn't even care. I bought a new computer. And I was back up and running the next day like nothing ever happened. That was so cool. So Google Drive an organization. And then I'd say, the other piece of advice that's non tech, like the old school hustle piece, I think it's important to blend them is just over communicate all the time. And, you know, keep people informed, especially when there's bad news. Don't wait on that phone call, call them and say, hey, there's bad news. And it's better to say, hey, there's bad news. And I've already thought about six ways to try to fix this. There's six ways which ones do you want me to use, and people will love you forever because you told them what was going on and when other people wouldn't have so over communicate, and do that with every part of the transaction with your lender with your title. Can I call my title company all the time? I hope they love me. They might be annoyed by me. And talk to your lenders call call call emails. Great. But now and then a call just to check in. Hey, is everything cool? Everything's cool, great, man. I wasn't trying to mess with you. I just want to make sure everything was cool. Bam.
Ron Pippin :You know, I get people that call me and say I'm sorry to call you again, Ron. It's just like, Oh, really? That's what I'm here for. Call me.
Daryn Edmonds :Yeah, don't call and yell at me because I don't like that talk.
Ron Pippin :Exactly. Yep.
Daryn Edmonds :Organization gonna be key to everybody's success. That's one of the first bridges you need to build. And then once you get your organization dialed, you're ready to expand because if you expand before you're organized, you're gonna be a mess. You're gonna drop the ball, you're gonna get bad reviews. You don't want bad reviews,
Ron Pippin :Right. Daryn. This has been a pleasure, man, this is great. You've given me some things to think about. So,
Daryn Edmonds :Man, it's really fun talking talking with you, Ron. I hope that this is a podcast that people get value out of. And I hope I can go on to your show again sometime. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
Ron Pippin :Tell us how to get hold of you, Darren.
Daryn Edmonds :Oh, that's great. Thank you for giving me a plug time. So my company we didn't talk about our little company. I own an independent brokerage, myself and seven friends. It's called high road properties. So you can google high road properties. You can check out our website at high road utah.com you can email me I'm Darren da RYN, at high road utah.com. My phone number is 801-599-8823. And that is my cell number. I will answer or call you back. That's that's everything. I don't know. We're on everything.
Ron Pippin :Can text you too?
Daryn Edmonds :You can text me too. I like text. Text is good. We're on Instagram. My Instagram is adventures dash N dash Real Estate adventures in real estate, I love travel. I love climbing. I love biking. I love skiing and I love real estate. So that's, that's where we're at. We're also on Facebook highroad properties. You know, reach out, take a look at our website, our all whole team's on there, you can see who you like give them a call. And we'd love to take care of anybody that ever comes our way we we do a lot of work actually, for folks moving in and out of state. We're cool. We're our reviews speak highly of us and people find us online. And the next thing you know we work for a lot of folks moving in from California moving in from Texas moving out and out of state sellers kind of a specialty of mine because of this contractor relationship I have I can get your house fixed up. People trust me they'll go fix your house and you can pay him later because they know if you don't pay him I will.
Ron Pippin :That's actually pretty cool. Didn't you know it's probably not a lot of people that do that.
Daryn Edmonds :But people panic about like, how do I get my house ready. I'm like Give me 10 minutes, I'll go over and look at it. I'll make a plan. I'll call you back. It can be it can be that easy. So that's cool. I'm getting excited. Again, I can talk.
Ron Pippin :So, thanks for joining us for this episode of agent versus lender. You can get hold of myself or my team at 801-628-7667 call us or text us and we'll catch you on the next episode of agent versus lender.