#4 - Real Estate with Agent Jay Ettinger

Show host Barry Rosenzweig welcomes Jay Ettinger, a real estate industry leader from Edina Realty. They discuss the current market, first-time home-buyers, and getting started in the real estate industry. 

Barry Rosenzweig has been an attorney for over 25 years and is nationally known as a visionary in his profession.   Barry Rosenzweig can be reached at (952) 920-1001 in Minnesota and (480) 227-2203 in Arizona. He can also be reach by email at barry@barrylaw.com or online at www.barrylaw.com.

Jay Ettinger can be reached via email at JayEttinger@edinarealty.com and via phone/text at 612-990-7777. Jay is a licensed real estate agent in the state of Minnesota with the brokerage Edina Realty.

Transcript

00:01

Hi, Barry Rosenzweig here. I'm in the studio with Jay Ettinger. He's a real estate agent with the Edina Realty and I’ve known Jay for many, many years, and we're going to talk real estate today.

00:14 

Welcome to the Barry law legal podcast. Barry Rosenzweig has been an attorney for over 25 years and is nationally known as a visionary in his profession. In each episode, attorney Barry Rosenzweig, interviews lawyers, real estate agents, lenders, and other professionals that bring popular legal related topics into focus for his listeners. So, get ready or an educational and exciting episode. Now here's your host, Barry Rosenzweig.

00:44 

Barry Rosenzweig: Welcome to today's show. I'm sitting here with Jay Ettinger here today and he's a real estate agent and Jay and I have known each other for many, many years. I don't know how long it's been Jay. 

00:54

Jay Ettinger: I would guess 15.

00:56

Barry Rosenzweig: Yeah, probably about that.

00:56

Jay Ettinger: 15, 16 years, probably in that ballpark. 

00:59

Barry Rosenzweig: And I want to hear from you a little bit about your background. How you got into real estate a little bit where you're at with it. Just tell me a little about yourself.

01:09

Jay Ettinger: Sure. So, I am a graduate of St. Paul Academy, which is just right down the street from where we're sitting right now. And to be honest, I left high school kind of at a loss with what to do with my life. Went to the university of Minnesota for a short while, went to university St. Cloud, actually St. Cloud state prior to Minnesota, and then came out of college, really kind of, to be honest, kind of lost and went back to St. Paul Academy and coached high school basketball and baseball there, and then worked in a family business for about seven years with my mom, my mom, probably my favorite person in the world, but very different personalities. And every family dinner, every family outing became all about business instead about, instead of family. And there really weren't great boundaries that we had kind of laid down. So, I decided to that I wanted to go out and do something on my own. I was about 30 years old at that point to heard the cliche over and over and over again. That's not what you know, it's who you know, and I had my St. Paul friends that I grew up with. I had you know people from synagogue growing up Jewish in St. Paul, that I grew up with that I knew and joined a fraternity at the university of Minnesota and then my bartending friends. And so I had a really kind of wide range of social circles and decided to get into real estate, knowing that taking the, kind of taking that old cliche into mine that it's who you know, and not what you know, and it's paid off well for me over the years.

02:27

Barry Rosenzweig: So, when you first got into real estate sales, I will call it. I don't know if you call it sales exactly. Consulting.

02:35

Jay Ettinger: Consulting, marketing. 

02:36

Barry Rosenzweig: Yeah. Okay. Tell me a little bit about how you become a real estate agent and then maybe a little bit about the designation of realtor versus real estate agent. I think a lot of people kind of want to know how that works.

02:48

Jay Ettinger: For me, you know you know, being new to the business for me, it was all about culture. And when I got out of real estate school and, you know, I interviewed with four different brokers, well, I should say two different and four different offices. Basically went where I just felt, it just felt like the right culture where, you know, I’ll just say it was Edina Realty that hired me and where I'm still at or still hanging my hat is Idina talked about the customer experience. And I was young and I was certainly dumb, but I knew, I knew well enough that if you take care of people things all work out in the end and they didn't talk about numbers. They didn't talk about commission dollars. It was really all about the culture and the culture of helping people. And so that's where I decided to hang my hat. And at the time I went to the Highland office, because that was home, I was living on grand Avenue and it was nearby, and it seemed like the right fit. About a year later, I moved over to 50th and France where I still am on 19 years later. And I had just a great, you know, for me, it was the, the leadership. I had a manager, John Smith, who's now the national board of realtors’ president, who was one of my dearest friends and a mentor to me. And you know, moving over to 50th and France, probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my career in my adult life professionally.

03:58

Barry Rosenzweig: I know sometimes people hear the word real estate agent and realtor. Realtor is a certain designation as a versus just a real estate agent or does everybody kind of a realtor?

04:11

Jay Ettinger: I think it is a little gray there. I think most people, there are certain people that take that very seriously, that realtor designation, I think this new generation of younger agents I don't think that rings true as much as it used to. I think the younger agents, the millennials are fine with the designation of real estate agent. That's all I can tell you from my personal experience. I don't really, I can't say I’ve experienced hearing a major difference between the two.

04:41

Barry Rosenzweig: Do you get any kind of a salary or payment where you work against it and get paid through the commissions later? I mean, how does it...

04:49

Jay Ettinger: So, I think most people and I can't, once again, everyone's got a different experience. For me no, there was no, I was on my own. I mean, it was nine months before I sold my first house, and I was spending money and writing checks and I certainly wasn't receiving them. But once you have your first sale, you know, hopefully things, your confidence goes up, your experience level certainly goes up and things just seem to snowball for people after that first kind of get over that first hump. But no, there was no salary.

05:20

Barry Rosenzweig: You get office space though, or do you get some kind of marketing help or what part of it initially, what is the broker doing?

05:27

Jay Ettinger: You generally pay for that.

05:28

Barry Rosenzweig: You pay for yourself?

05:29

Jay Ettinger: You generally, you know, right now I don't take an office space. [05:33 inaudible] of my house. The office is there for me to use, my assistant is there probably three to four times a week, but if I were to take an office space, then my arrangement with Edina Realty really would be different. Where I would be paying a higher fee to them. And that could work out in a number of different ways, whether it comes out of commission dollars or it's a set fee. But I haven't taken an, I haven't had an office personally, I think in about eight years, I’ve just officed out of the house just to avoid that fee. And I'm just more comfortably cause here's the thing. Real estate office is great. It's a great source of information. People are sharing information. And that's the one thing I love about the company I'm with is people play really well in the sandbox together. We share information. If I know someone in the office is looking for a certain property in a certain part of town, and I hear about it, I share that information immediately. And what goes around comes around. But at the same time, when you go to the office, it can tend to be a little bit of a social place. And I don't get as much done.

06:29

Barry Rosenzweig: And you don't make money sitting in the office. You have to be out showing how... Meeting with people and helping them with things.

06:35

Jay Ettinger: Exactly. And listen, those agents that seem to be in the office a lot [06:39 inaudible]. 

06:40

Barry Rosenzweig: I understand. As you said, you have a network of people you've developed over the years, which is I'm sure very helpful and they trust you and they like you and so did you reach out to those people initially and how do you generate some of your clients? 

06:57  

Jay Ettinger: That's a great question. And so, for, you know, listen, I got in the business in 1999. I still had an AOL email address and was, you know, I can remember the dial up sound connecting to AOL every day. The technology has changed the industry. It's amazing what technology has done for this industry.  When I got in the business and I can only imagine what was, how things were done before I got in the business. But when I got in the business, if you know, there is new software that, you know, at the time was cutting edge, but I used to have to fax listings to my clients, you couldn't send email attachments. Email was prevalent, email existed, but it wasn't as easy as sending a PDF now as it is back then. It was just, it was impossible to do. And the technology wasn't integrated with the MLS, where you could email from the MLS, there was a lot of copy pasting going on. There was a lot of like I said, I'm literally using the fax machine. So, getting my name out there, like I said, technology has changed things. I literally was, I’ve always been very involved in philanthropic activities and the easiest way for me to promote myself and do it really subtly was to basically just have a signature on an email. When I email people about a charity event that was involved in it at the bottom, it would say in Jay Ettinger Edina Realty. And I can't tell you how much business I got off that simple signature, but that's literally kind of what propelled my career I think is just being involved in the community and reminding people in a subtle way of what I was doing.

08:22

Barry Rosenzweig: As you build up clients over the years, it starts to become a higher percentage of referrals.

08:28
 
Jay Ettinger: Absolutely. Absolutely. And listen, you know, if you do a good job for people and you leave a mark on their lives, cause you're pretty, listen when you're dealing with buyers and sellers, you become part of their family. You literally with them and talking to them multiple times a day. You know, I always make the joke that, you know, if I sell 50 properties a year, I feel like I got dumped 50 times a year as well. Because you're with someone all the time and all of a sudden, it's just over. And the keeping in touch part is the part can be real challenging, cause you want to keep in touch with them A, for future referrals, but B just because you've established that relationship and it's a relationship business. And, you know, I always take relations. I'd take relationships over any amount of business just because I enjoy people and you become a pretty intimate part of their lives.

09:11
 
Barry Rosenzweig: And you've spent a lot of time with them. You learn about them; you learn about their families. And as they say, it's the biggest purchase in your lifetime for most people.

09:20
 
Jay Ettinger: And I'm very sensitive. And to that, and very sensitive to that transaction is much bigger than a commission will ever be to any agent. How it affects their lives and their family's lives has been much more impactful than a commission will ever be for a real estate agent. So it is, it's a huge process. It's very time consuming. It can be very, very emotional as I'm sure, you know and to be in the middle of that and kind of helping people wade their way through the waters is a big responsibility and something that most agents I think take pretty seriously.

09:53
 
Barry Rosenzweig: And I'm sure it's really a positive experience for the most part. I mean, some of the transactional things can get a little bit emotional, but it's really a positive experience because you're getting somebody into some, a home that they're going to spend a lot of time on potentially grow their family in. And sometimes they're in there for their lifetime. 

10:12

Jay Ettinger: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I will tell you, I'm blessed that after 20 years of being in this business, I can pick and choose a little bit if I want to work with someone or not. I've had a couple instances where I’ve met with people and I just didn't get a good feeling from them. And it wouldn't matter to me if it's a small little condo somewhere in town, or if it's a million-dollar mansion, it doesn't matter to me. If you're not going to enjoy that experience and they're not going to enjoy you. At this point in my career, I just, it's not something I want to take on.

10:39

Barry Rosenzweig: And as an attorney, I run into the same thing with clients. So, there are many clients I won't even that hire me because I have to have that same exact relationship with them. Same as you. And I understand that.

10:52
 
Jay Ettinger: Because it's so emotional. Because it's so emotional, I would not want to be in the middle of something with someone that I don't think I'm going to see eye to eye with. And usually those things, you know, might be around disclosure items. I've had clients, you know, in the past, not want to disclose certain things. And I won't be a part of that. You know, it's part of the process is doing things by the book and having people who want to do things the right way.

11:15

Barry Rosenzweig: Well, ethics are important part of it. And that's how you build your reputation.  Tell me about the MLS, the multiple listing service. I think that's a kind of a mystery to a lot of people. It's not something they really focus on when they work with real estate agents. Explain a little bit how that works and how the working with different agents, just sort of the summary of how that might work. 

11:34

Jay Ettinger: Yeah. MLS is still the most powerful tool that drives our industry as far as marketing properties. But things have changed quite a bit. You've got the websites like Zillow and Trulia, and they basically cover all the inventory That's on the MLS. They've got new features that include coming soon or make me move and actually the MLS is now got a coming soon feature itself. But the rules with that are you can advertise a property prior to it going on the MLS and prior to it accumulating market time, but you're not allowed to show it. While on Zillow people privately and agents are posting their listings prior to going on the market. MLS is still the most powerful tool in the industry. It's the best way to open the flood Gates and expose your, your listing, your properties to the most, to the highest, the largest audience. The other websites certainly create a lot of activity. I have clients emailing me all day about stuff from these other, these other private websites.

12:35

Barry Rosenzweig: They are on the MLS or some are not?

12:37 

Jay Ettinger: Both. Some are. Some of the listings are. I would say more often than not they are on the market. They're different, but you know, if they go into the, make me move feature, they go into the coming soon, they might find stuff.

12:47

Barry Rosenzweig: Okay. Which are not on the MLS yet. 

12:49
 
Jay Ettinger: Which are not on the MLS yet. Correct. 

12:51
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Are those privately listed or posted or are they...

12:57

Jay Ettinger: So what I’ll tell you is one of the things I do with most sellers, if they're living in a desirable area, is I may suggest that they do a pre-list on their property. 

13:07

Barry Rosenzweig: I know you do a lot of those. 

13:08

Jay Ettinger: Yep. And I'm sure you've seen that on my Facebook page. That's probably the thing I use my Facebook page the most these days for it is just to market prelists. The advantage to pre-list is, there are some disadvantages because you're not getting maximum exposure that you would on the MLS, but you can market a property without accumulating market time. You can, you're marketing a property that people have a, you know, there's that human nature where people want to know about something that no one else knows about.  Demand. So, if they come and look at the property and they feel like no one else knows about it, there's an emotional attachment potentially to that property, especially if they like it.

13:50

Barry Rosenzweig: Getting maybe a better deal or getting what they want before somebody else comes on. 

13:53

Jay Ettinger: Exactly and preventing us as an agent to bring it to market and opening the flood Gates. The positives of pre-listing to me, are you getting free feedback before you go to the market before you accumulate that market time, you're getting hopefully constructive feedback.

14:07

Barry Rosenzweig: Does it help testing price as well?

14:11

Jay Ettinger: Yeah, absolutely. And listen, I’ll tell people generally, if we're going to pre-list, we're going to go on at a higher price than we would actually go to the market with.

14:18

Barry Rosenzweig: To test and see what your maximum you potentially can get. 

14:20

Jay Ettinger: Exactly. Because if you, you know, here's the old [14:23 inaudible], I remember [14:24 inaudible] pulling me in his office and we were talking about pre-listing and MLS listing years and years and years ago was, let's say you had a van Gogh painting an auction hall, and you only allowed two people in. And yet there's 100 people outside the auction hall that wanted to get in and bid on it. Where are you going to get your best price? And that was his logic about you put it on the MLS and you open the flood Gates. I agree with that completely, but you're also risking the fact that if it, no one wants it, the market time accumulates and immediately your clients could be damaged by that. So, to kind of put it out there, test it at a little bit of a higher price. Buyers are generally a little bit more understanding the house isn't on the market. So, it might not be in perfect shape. Actually getting people in for showings that are a little more flexible and understanding about that you know, they're not going to necessarily see it when they want to see it, because once the house is on the market, buyers have expectations.

15:13

Barry Rosenzweig: How much do you get involved in giving advice about upgrading properties internally, externally, you know, cosmetic, or maybe much more so than that and how they can maximize not only the time it takes to sell, but justifying the price they could get for doing those items.

15:31

Jay Ettinger: You know, I do that quite a bit, but I also rely on a couple of people. I have a stager, who's got an interior design background. I feel a lot more comfortable having her answer those questions and paying her a fee myself to go in and not only tell my clients how to stage their house, you know, and then with staging, I'm not talking about bringing in furniture, how to kind of use and lose what they have in the house already.

15:55

Barry Rosenzweig: You know, I understand that there's an empty house because people moved already. Obviously, there's no furniture doesn't give you that comfort level. 

16:02

Jay Ettinger: That's easy conversation to have with people. The house isn't empty, and you want them to stage it, that's a little more awkward, difficult an uncomfortable conversation.

16:11
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Yeah. And then is it a combination between what they have, what they want to go put in storage and maybe bringing other things.

16:18

Jay Ettinger: Usually less is more, but I will tell you, you don't want an empty house. Cause there's, there's a number of reasons you don't want an empty house. Number one, empty house, screams that you have a desperate seller, right? That's probably living somewhere else and paying rent or mortgage somewhere else. So, buyers immediately think they have an upper hand. And they kind of go to this mindset that we've got a desperate seller, which is not necessarily the case. Number two, when I walk into a house and it's empty, your eyes are going to be drawn to every flaw, every imperfection that's that exists, whether it be, you know, on the walls, the floors, whatever. When a house is furnished, your eyes aren't drawn to those imperfections. And then the other thing is, you know, a lot of people would think an empty room feels bigger than a furnished room and that's just not true. Generally, a furnished room is going to feel larger than an empty room 

17:04

Barry Rosenzweig: Because What's in there. You can picture it.

17:07

Jay Ettinger: The volume of exactly. And so those are three reasons why, and listen, getting back to the awkward conversation, yes. Sometimes you have to tell your clients that their taste is not necessarily what's in right now. And that's a very tough conversation. Another reason why you should bring my stager in to have those conversations with them so I don't have to, because I'm the one that's going to be in it with them, for the long haul.

17:30

Barry Rosenzweig: As far as the staging goes, who typically pays for that. And approximately I know it's all over the board, but like what can somebody expect to pay for something like that?

17:41

Jay Ettinger: I just had a 5,000 square foot plus house staged, but it was really only staged on the main level. And the reason, my clients are on a tight budget they'd just bought another big house and we're moving into it. And this house was going to be, it was going to be vacant and they didn't want to spend the money upfront on the stage. Now, one of the things I always offer my clients is I'm always willing to pay for any work they want to have done on their house. If they sign a listing contract with me that says that they're going to pay me back and reimburse me at closing, then I’ll make those payments upfront to lighten their load.

18:14

Barry Rosenzweig: And that's not common, is it? 

18:17

Jay Ettinger: It's not common, but I think there's a number of established agents that will, you know, it's making my job easier. If they allow me to do this, if they trust me to do this work. And you know, and I usually have them sign a contract saying if for some reason the house doesn't sell that they're still going to reimburse me. But it's, I'm trying to make my life easier and make their life easier. They've already got a lot of out of pocket expenses having a second house. And in most cases, I'm just trying to lighten their load. But I will tell you, the staging process is generally paid for by the seller. In this case, we just staged the first floor because first impressions are everything, right? Once they get upstairs to the bedrooms, you can kind of imagine when a bed is going to look like a double bed, King size bed, a queen size bed, whatever, and kids furniture or whatever. You're staging. That's the easy part for a buyer to visualize a living room, family room, some of those things are not as easy.

19:07

Barry Rosenzweig: We spend most of [19:08 inaudible] wants me to walk in and go wow.

19:10

Jay Ettinger: And listen, people they say in the first seven seconds, someone walks into a house they've already made their decision whether excited to go up to the second floor and see the bedrooms, or they're thinking about the next house on their tour. So, the first impressions go a long way. So that's where it's best to spend your money is on the main floor in that first impression area.

19:26
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Give me a range on prices. I mean, if somebody, it's an empty house and just, let's just say even a basic average price for a basic staging for an average sized house.

19:36

Jay Ettinger: So, the stager I use who I think is the most reasonable on a house that's probably 3000 square feet to do most of the house, You're going to be about $3,500 to $4,000. But what they do is that number is good for 90 days. And then they charge 10% every month after that. So, if it's $4,000 for this house to do the whole house after 90 days, it's 400 bucks a month, pretty reasonable where others will charge quite a bit more. 

20:04

Barry Rosenzweig: And they do all the work. 

20:05

Jay Ettinger: They do. They come in; they have a designer.

20:07
Barry Rosenzweig: Set it up, everything. 

20:08
Jay Ettinger: Exactly. They have it. They usually have someone come out and take pictures first. They have a designer come out and then show up with a moving truck and unload their furniture and basically give the house a whole makeover.

20:20
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Let me just ask you about photos and videos of the home. How often is that done anymore?

20:27
 
Jay Ettinger: It is the most important part of our job and it's the easiest part of our job and it's still, I just was about to list a condo and doing my research, unit in the same building came on the market. And obviously the agent had used his iPhone or some kind of a camera digital camera to take these photos and they were far from professional. And then I set up an appointment to go look at that unit. And it was embarrassing for me. And I was pretty, I was pretty candid with that agent and my feedback to him. But he wasn't doing his clients any favors and he wasn't professionally marking the property. And I usually don't overstep my bounds that way, but he really was. He not only was he hurting his client though, he was also hurting my client because my client's going to be listing in the building and they're not going to get the price that his clients are going to get the price to help justify my client's price. So, he's hurting all of us. And that's the, there's no excuse for an agent not to use professional photos in every single property they list. There's just no excuse for it.

21:26
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Now, where do those photos go? I mean, it probably, I'm assuming they go on your website, but where else do they go?

21:31

Jay Ettinger: They go on the MLS.  We have to upload them to the MLS, you know, and depending on like, I’ve got a photo shoot tomorrow on an 850 square foot condominium, there's going to be probably 20 to 25 photos of that unit. If it's a 5,000, 6,000 square foot house, there could be a hundred photos. 

 21:48

Barry Rosenzweig: What type of social media do you use and do sellers and buyers use and how effective is it nowadays?

21:57

Jay Ettinger: It's a big part of our business. You know, it's, it's something I’ve always, you know, you asked me earlier about how I got my name out there and I said, you know, the subtle signature,  you know, I'm just not comfortable blasting people all the time about what I do. And there's, there's a lot of agents that do that in good for them. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's just not something that's in my comfort zone. So, I always like to do things a little more subtly. On my Facebook page. I usually post prelists or buyer needs, things like that to show, to remind people.

22:29

Barry Rosenzweig: Get the word out to friends. 

22:30

Jay Ettinger: Exactly. I use my personal page for pre-list because I’ve got a tremendous amount of follower, honestly, more followers on my personal page than my professional page. Cause I haven't spent a lot of time on my professional page just because of the comfort level for me personally. Other agents use their professional pages, you know, multiple times a day. I think it's fantastic. And it's done, I think it's really helped boost all their businesses, their business I should say.

22:57

Barry Rosenzweig: Tell me about pricing. What's your method of figuring out maximum pricing, but at the same time, be able to get the property sold in the correct manner.

23:07
 
Jay Ettinger: And that's challenging because we all know that sellers usually think their house is worth a million dollars, whether it's worth $200,000 or $800,000 or a million dollars. That the first thing you do is you pull comps, you pull comparable sales in the area, that's the easiest and best model. 

23:24

Barry Rosenzweig: That's your competition.

23:25

Jay Ettinger: Your competition. And what's sold, pulling comparable sales is definitely the best model and the oldest model because that's what an appraiser's going to use. And so, you've got to have comparable sales to back up the price. You give them and to get them realistic about what their house is worth. 

23:41

Barry Rosenzweig: What happens when you have a stubborn seller that says I'm not going to sell for less than this.

 23:47

Jay Ettinger: What I tell them is we can do it your way, but I'm going to remind you daily, weekly, that this is your way. If it doesn't sell that, you're not doing things my way. And as long as you're open to me saying, I told you, so we'll be fine. But at the end of the day, if I know that they're not going to drop their price at all, and they're not flexible, it's at some point, if they're told over and over and over again, that the property isn't worth what they think it is and, and listen, market value market value is what someone's willing to pay for a property. So, if someone's not willing, if you know, you're, you built your house for $2 million, but someone's not willing to pay a million dollars for it. Guess what? It's not even worth a million dollars because market Margaret bellies, when someone's willing to pay for it on the second half of that, it's what an appraiser's willing to appraise it for. But I’ve had sellers that have said, no, I won't come off this no matter what. And I’ve just said that I'm going to pass.

 24:33

Barry Rosenzweig: What's the status of working with first time buyers right now? 

24:37
 
Jay Ettinger: They're my favorite. I love working with first time home buyers and most agents my age, or been in the business 20 years, aren't going to feel the same because the financial reward at the end of the day is not going to be as large. And because it's a first time for them, everything you do is exciting. So, I love that at the same time, you know, I’ve got a a full-time licensed assistant who works with a lot of my buyers. So, she takes on most of that load. I always get involved with she when she shows houses, whether she shows them two houses or 20 or 30 or 40 houses, if they write an offer, I always will go to the inspection or always go to the house, the house of the property before they write the offer, just to get my stamp of approval, just because she's not as experienced. I mean, she's fantastic, but she's just not as experienced as far as construction quality, you know, deferred maintenance items that might come up and she's learning and she's learning fast, but I love that part of the process.

 25:34

Barry Rosenzweig: What's the marketplace right now for properties at different price levels.

 25:41

Jay Ettinger: For the first timers, which are generally, you know, 200 to 300 and below It's tough, the competition is as fierce as it's ever been. There's definitely a supply and demand issue.

 25:52

Barry Rosenzweig: The younger first-time buyer, younger generation, let's say twenties in their twenties, maybe early thirties, even waiting longer to buy a because it's less affordable. And maybe cause they like more flexibility.

26:03
 
Jay Ettinger: One of the Things that we've seen is that there's a lot, you know, we see these huge apartment buildings going up everywhere and they've got tremendous amenities and they're beautiful. Some of them are mixed use buildings where they've got restaurants or retail on the main level. And why we're seeing that from my understanding is that, you know, when someone develops a building like that, a multi-family unit like that, whether it's a condo or an apartment that the warranties on those buildings are different. If you build something that's going to be owner occupied, it's a 10-year warranty. So, for structural issues or windows, things like that. So, the developers were getting sued a lot more frequently than people that are building apartments because it's a two-year warranty on the apartment. So, if you're building rentals, if you're the developer in two years, you're off the hook. If you're building condos, you got 10 years before you're off the hook. And obviously a lot more can go wrong in 10 years than in two years. Because there's all these really kind of glamorous rental options out there that are somewhat more affordable that's one of the reasons you're seeing younger people rent right now. I also think the younger generation is a little more conservative financially with their money. I think they've seen their parents go through some things, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And they've kind of learned from that. And they're pretty wise. I will tell you that the other thing is two words I hear as often as anything these days is downsize and simplify. So these big, massive houses people were building I think people have learned from what happened, you know, 10 years ago, 12 years ago is people are trying to simplify their lives and downsizing these kids are teaching us a lot.

 27:34

Barry Rosenzweig: Tell me a little bit about how somebody can get a hold of you and you know, kind of what you'd be willing to do for somebody. 

 27:39

Jay Ettinger: Sure. So, like I said, we love working with, we just love working with good people. My assistant is licensed now for about seven months or so but been with me for a year. Changed my life. Best thing that ever happened to me. And she loves working with people as much as I do. And she has the same values and ethics that I do fortunately. And we just, we just like working with good people and holding their hand through the process and making it as seamless as possible. We can be reached at; my email address is Jayettinger@edinarealty.com.  My cell phone number is (612) 990-7777. And I'm on that 24/7, whether you call or text, so we'll be happy to help you or answered anything else we love just giving people advice and just helping them answer questions. Sometimes I'd say half the calls I get aren't even from potential clients, just people asking me for their advice because they know someone I know, and someone told him I'd help him out. And so, I love doing that.

 28:34

Barry Rosenzweig: And I know that's how you operate personally. And I know you appreciate and sort of the people that call you appreciate it. 

 28:41

Jay Ettinger: The person I'm looking across table from is cut from the same cloth. So, I appreciate you just helped out a client of mine the other day. And I can't tell you much. I appreciate that. 

 28:47

Barry Rosenzweig: Oh, it's my pleasure to do that. Appreciate you coming here today. 

28:50
 
Jay Ettinger: Thanks for having me, Barry. I really appreciate it. 

28:51
 
Barry Rosenzweig: Thanks Jay. Thank you. Thanks for listening today. And if you enjoyed the episode, hit subscribe on whatever platform you're on.

This has been the Barry long legal podcast tune in again, as Barry interviews lawyers, real estate agents, lenders, and other professionals that bring popular legal related topics into focus for his listeners. Barry Rosenzweig can be reached at (952) 920-1001 in Minnesota and (480) 227-2203 in Arizona. He can also be reached by email at barry@barrylaw.com or online at www.barrylaw.com.