EP #14: Navigating the Real Estate Market: Insights from Josh Barker

In this conversation, Chris Hall and Josh Barker discuss the current state of the real estate market, focusing on the impact of interest rates, buyer trends, and market dynamics. Josh shares insights from his 25 years of experience in the Redding real estate market, emphasizing the importance of understanding local market sensitivity to interest rates. They explore the effects of the pandemic on buyer behavior, current inventory levels, and the potential future of the market as interest rates fluctuate. Additionally, they touch on the significance of coaching in business and maintaining a healthy mindset for success.

To listen to more episodes, hop over to https://reddingfinancialadvisors.com/podcast/

To find out more about Josh Barker, visit http://www.reddinghomes.com/blog/

Transcription:

Chris Hall (00:01.872)
Hi, this is Chris Hall. Welcome to Healthy Wealth, where we talk about health and wealth and how they interact with each other and how we can be better at both. Today, I’m very excited to have a guest speaker with me. You, if you’re local to the Reading area, definitely know who I’m about to introduce. Josh Barker is definitely one of the titans of real estate here in Reading, California. And we’re going to have a great conversation talking about what’s going on with the market when it comes to real estate and interest rates and all the different things. So, Josh, thank you so much for being here.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Josh Barker (00:34.498)
Yeah, well first, Chris, thank you so much for inviting me on the show. I appreciate that. And to answer your question, I’m a Josh Barker real estate broker. been here in the local market for little over 25 years now selling real estate. We run a small, what I call a boutique brokerage here in the Reading Market. we’ve essentially run like a real company instead of as an independent agent brokerage. So we all kind of work together to service the marketplace.

Chris Hall (01:02.352)
Nice, okay. And then so you have been doing it for 25 years. And so obviously the topic conversation these days for everybody is interest rates. So tell us a little bit about what you think is going on, what’s been going on, and what you think is gonna be happening here pretty soon.

Josh Barker (01:21.208)
Sure. Well interest rates are an interesting thing because it has a big impact on affordability. know Shasta County tends to be more rate sensitive than other markets throughout the country. The primary reason for that is most of the reading market is a primary home ownership market. It’s not a secondary home market. So like for example if you’re down in the Bay Area or Southern California

or in the beach in Florida, a lot of those are second homes, and not necessarily as rate sensitive. Here, financing is about 80 % of all purchases, which means that interest rates have a huge impact on what a buyer is able to do. And currently, rates are averaging just below 7 % or so, right in that range.

Chris Hall (02:10.736)
And when you say that we’re not saving our market, I think people thought that people would sell their homes in the Bay Area and Southern California and then move here. Is that not happening as much as it used to? Are those same people that used to move here moving out of state? Or what do you think about that?

Josh Barker (02:25.59)
We’ve continued over the years to have a modest flow of buyers coming in from the Bay Area, Sacramento region, LA County, Orange County, San Diego County retiring up into our area. It’s not significant, it’s just a moderate number. During the pandemic,

there was an increase, an influx. And some of those people came up here at a higher frequency than they had ever before. And now we’re back to what we were prior to in terms of the inflow from people from out of the area. It’s back to what it was prior to the pandemic. So it’s not, and depending on price point, for your listeners or people watching this, that a lot of it has to do with price point. So as the price goes up,

the amount of out of market buyer participation also goes up.

Chris Hall (03:17.38)
Right, right, because they’re not as afraid of us as maybe someone who’s local.

Josh Barker (03:22.99)
Sure, yeah, they might be selling 1,000 square foot bungalow in the Bay Area for a million and a half. And they’re going to buy a 3,500 square foot home here for a mil.

Chris Hall (03:27.312)
Thank you.

Chris Hall (03:33.392)
I like to refer to those as equity refugees.

Josh Barker (03:37.388)
That’s right. That’s what they are. Yeah. And they like to refer to themselves that way too. But when you think about, I was going say, when you think about rates, one other thing that these folks might want to realize is that for every 1 % that the rate goes up or down, it has an impact on the purchasing power by up to 10%.

Chris Hall (03:39.44)
So, oh yeah, thanks. I had noticed that, go ahead, sorry.

Josh Barker (03:59.214)
And so for example, if rates are at 7 % right now and a person can afford a payment or a purchase price of 400,000, if that rate drops down from 7 to 6%, that same buyer with the same payment is now qualified at 440,000. And so that’s the real impact of interest rates in the market.

Chris Hall (04:20.452)
Now, so I feel like, you know, like pre-COVID, kind of go back to the higher end stuff, pre-COVID, you know, I would see like one, maybe two houses a month over the $600,000 range, but it seemed like it was climbing up. It was more and more. And then during COVID, like those houses like disappeared from, I don’t know about listings, but they definitely disappeared from sales. And now it seems like those houses are back up and kind of running again where, do you see that as well? Do you see the higher end stuff still moving?

Josh Barker (04:49.998)
think the higher end actually moved a little better during the pandemic, believe it or not. And now it’s been moderating back down again. We’re about 50 % in terms of the volume of home selling in the upper end. And for those listening, upper end would be just about anything over 800,000 is where you start to see the sales numbers drop off a cliff essentially. And it starts to get real thin air at that point. 1Z, 2Z per price segment kind of thing.

Chris Hall (05:14.746)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hall (05:19.937)
And I know like the average home sale in this town is what?

Josh Barker (05:24.046)
About $400,000 is what we’re seeing right now for the average sales price, maybe $407,000 at the moment.

Chris Hall (05:25.946)
Okay, yeah.

Chris Hall (05:30.384)
And then I know that like it seems that we have more listings than we have in quite some years years now. Would you agree with that?

Josh Barker (05:38.702)
Yeah, that’s a part of the story right now. So if you look at the pandemic, you probably had 375, 385 properties pending in July in closing. This year, we’re probably going to be 215 to 230. Yeah, so it’s dropped almost 50 % in sales volume. Our inventories have also climbed. So we had a low in the 500s.

Chris Hall (05:57.295)
Okay.

Josh Barker (06:06.73)
And right now we’re sitting at about 930 properties for sale, single family. So we have sales volumes dropping. You have inventory climbing. And the next question will be what happens with pricing.

Chris Hall (06:20.346)
Right? Well, and so that is a good question. know, you know, with interest rates for my business, you know, interest rates are really high right now, which means that, you know, there’s pretty decent yields in the bond market. There’s usually some of these stocks that have been around for a long time will raise their dividends so they can try to compete with bonds or some of even.

So from my standpoint, the interest rates being up is after you took that initial blow in 2022 when the interest rates were just jacked up right away, everybody who had bonds was suffering for sure. But now it seems like they’re doing pretty well, the yields are better, et cetera. We’re looking for a rate decrease for the idea that the bond prices will go back up. You guys are looking for it for a different reason.

What do you think is going to happen if they do turn around and drop rates a half a percent or 1 %? Will that be effective in the market?

Josh Barker (07:19.278)
I think it will. I think it’ll have a positive impact on pricing primarily. But there’s a line that would get crossed where it would stop. for example, if rates right now are around 7%, if rates were to drop to 6.5%, that’s a half a point. Buyers purchasing power increases by 5 % will have a positive impact on selling homes in the market. The volume will likely respond to that and increase a little bit.

If rates were to drop a full point and a half to two points and get us down to a 5%, I think you would start to see our inventory growing even faster because those who are sitting on an interest rate at 3%, 3.5 % would probably be more willing to relinquish it for a rate of 5 % than what they were, because right now, jump from 3 % to 7%, that’s a double the cost, right? But I think that if rates come down even around that 5 % range, it’ll actually increase the

Chris Hall (08:08.474)
Right.

Josh Barker (08:15.82)
the demand in the market, but it’ll increase the inventory. So it’s funny because the Fed, I don’t understand how they’re looking at this because I think if rates went down, I think you’d actually see the real estate prices go down also. Yeah, because the…

Chris Hall (08:27.374)
Right. And now would that you think that would be that’s that’s losing to be a temporary thing like in other words they go down a little bit in the beginning because there’d be competition for purchase but then after a while those lower rates will increase the housing costs.

Josh Barker (08:43.566)
Yeah, it’ll definitely find it’s a new equilibrium around 5 % So if rates come down to 5 % the inventory will climb as a result of that because more people want to sell their homes and Participate so they can move on to another home because there’s a lot of people locked in a home right now That just they can’t afford the 7 % rate so they’re staying in their home So they’re not providing a piece of inventory to the market and they’re not buying a piece of inventory when those rates

Chris Hall (09:05.872)
That’s a really good point.

Josh Barker (09:07.214)
Yeah, when the rates come down to five, that person will relinquish their home. They’ll go buy another one, and now you’re seeing your inventory increasing, giving buyers more options. Prices will moderate as a result. Well, I think it could soften prices slightly, but not by too much. Buy enough, though, that you’ll start to feel a plateauing effect in the market, which is good. I mean, that’s kind of what you want. mean, real estate really should be appreciating around 3%, 4 % of your max.

Otherwise, you risk pricing your own kids out of the market.

Chris Hall (09:38.136)
Right? That’s true. Do you feel like there was still feeling any sort of lingering effects from the car fire? you know, disappearance of a thousand homes in this town, like overnight?

Josh Barker (09:39.469)
Yeah.

Josh Barker (09:50.872)
Well, that’s a question. mean, less than half of those homes have been rebuilt. There’s some different reasons for that. But I did an interview with the record searchlight about two months ago about this exact topic, like how many homes were rebuilt. And it was about half. And I think that the

When the fire first happened, yeah, there was an immediate response. The rental market tightened up quickly. Those who had the means were purchasing homes almost immediately. The rest of them kind of had to wait until after they had their financing figured out after getting paid out from their insurance companies. There was a lagging effect to it. But at this point, the ones that are not rebuilt are either in a really decimated fire areas where everything is just scorched earth.

Or the topography is not really affordable anymore to build at the method that they used back then. So like the back, you know, the west side of town, they got a lot of slopes. So there was a lot of daylight basements and retaining walls and things like that that all raised the cost of construction. some of these places just not financially feasible to rebuild them now.

Chris Hall (10:53.156)
Right? Just like even the engineering to draw it up is probably like an extra 30 grand nowadays.

Josh Barker (10:57.829)
Exactly. And then you got the cost of actually building it versus just taking your insurance money, going buying another home, and then eventually making the decision if you’re going to sell the lot or what have you, which is what we’re seeing.

Chris Hall (11:07.184)
Right. Right. So what got you into real estate? You’ve been in for a long time. You’re a local guy,

Josh Barker (11:15.214)
Yeah, yeah, I’m a local guy. My dad was a broker. My grandfather was a broker. I swore I’d never be one. But my wife and I moved back up here in 1999. I started working with Mike Medley, Medley Realty here in Reading. His dad, Bob, was my first broker.

You know, I was in college at the time. My wife was in college and I needed to pay the bills. So I started selling real estate with my buddy. And within a year, it just really took off. didn’t really think. It turns out that when you’re raised with a parent who’s doing nothing but listening to sales tapes and the vehicle while you’re driving around town all day long, I guess it gets in here even though you didn’t know it. So, yeah.

Chris Hall (11:57.496)
That’s awesome. I love that. So actually I listen to a lot of stuff.

Josh Barker (12:07.65)
Yeah, yeah, my kids are both my older daughters are in the business with. That’s my 26-year-old, my 22-year-old. And they’re sales people. They’re selling me constantly.

Chris Hall (12:08.432)
He’s in the garden with me a lot.

Chris Hall (12:18.894)
Yeah. Yeah. So you have two kids?

Josh Barker (12:23.31)
I have four, yeah, so 26 year old in the business, 22 year old in the business, and then I’ve got a nine year old and I have a four year old. My wife and I adopted two more when they were babies. So we’re gonna be going for a long time.

Chris Hall (12:36.304)
Awesome.

Now did you have a relationship to those kids before you adopted them or just decided you wanted to adopt kids and went for it?

Josh Barker (12:44.822)
No, good question. Yeah, no, they are technically my second cousins. So my first cousin and I, we grew up together and we were in the Marines together. Not together, but different times, but in the Marines. And he just didn’t adjust as well when he got out. So my wife and I saw that and we wanted the kids to be, we wanted to be with the family, not being adopted out or something.

Chris Hall (12:50.096)
Okay.

Chris Hall (13:11.312)
Awesome. That’s awesome. Good job. What do you of foresee coming up here? know, like I know that every day we hear a little bit about Powell’s not really like wanting to bend at all. And of course Trump’s talking about replacing him, you know, to get what he wants out of the deal. I know you had mentioned earlier, you don’t know what metrics he’s looking at. Like, what do you feel like? I mean, you don’t have a crystal ball. No one’s going to hold your feet to the fire, but like, how do you feel this is going to play out for the next six months?

Josh Barker (13:13.997)
Thanks.

Josh Barker (13:36.524)
It’s entirely up to Jerome Powell what he wants to do. Trump’s not going to fire him. If he’d even fired him, it wouldn’t work. Because if you fired him, they’re just going to file an injunction, and they’re going to put it in court. And by the time you get there to court, his time is up anyway. I think it’s up in May next year. yeah, so I don’t think it’s going to, I don’t think that it will be anybody’s decision but Powell’s.

Chris Hall (13:50.98)
Okay

Josh Barker (13:57.398)
It wouldn’t be a good thing for the market, in my opinion. don’t think people want it. It’s already fairly political. think everybody recognizes that Powell is probably playing a little bit on that side. to what degree, I don’t know, because the Fed, there’s 12 different people. I think it’s 12 people that all have a vote on what rates do going up or going down. I mean, we don’t have just one person making that decision. Jerome Powell is one vote of 12.

So yeah, so if you replace him, you still have to lobby the other 11 to make a decision one way or the other. And I think they’re right now the consensus, the majority I should say, in the Federal Reserve that sit on that board feel that they should take a very patient approach. And it hasn’t proven to be a bad thing. I have not actually all that disappointed in what they’ve done so far.

Chris Hall (14:23.236)
Okay.

Josh Barker (14:50.254)
I do think that it’s probably time though at this point. Inflation is down. I don’t believe that tariffs are inflationary. think they’re a tax. So if you treat them as a tax, if your taxes go up, you don’t raise rates as a result of taxes going up because it actually sucks up the money supply. It doesn’t increase it. So I don’t understand the tariff piece, why that’s inflationary. know that the products might cost a little bit more, but it’s not based on the demand side of an equation.

Chris Hall (15:18.704)
Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Barker (15:19.174)
It’s based on the fact that the taxes are higher. You have to pay the tax when you buy it instead of the tax later, right? So I don’t understand that piece too much, but we’ll let the smarter people figure that out. I’m trusting with our company. We’re planning that we have a rate environment similar to what it is now until the fourth quarter. And then we start to think interest rates will start moderating down a little bit. We’ll probably have a…

decent response to that in the market. And then next year, if things continue to show well, think rates will start really sliding down.

Chris Hall (15:50.513)
What do you feel like a local person who has been sitting on the sidelines right now to buy or sell? Like the people you just talked about, if we’re roughly six months away, four to six months away from some sort of rate change that’s going to be beneficial to both buyers and sellers, what can people do to prepare right now for that? there’s not 1,000 people in it all at once. Maybe they can be at the top and ready to go.

Josh Barker (16:16.557)
Well, you just said it though, Chris. I mean, that’s it. mean, if you wait until everything’s a frenzy again, well, then you can write an offer on three properties and not buy any of them if everybody’s trying to buy them. So right now, you don’t have that same activity. You don’t have that same frenzy, if you will. There are some competing offers, but not very many. And right now, you don’t have the pressure of you have to hurry up when you find something.

And so if that’s something that you prioritize, is being able to take your time, be more methodical in those things, then now’s not a bad time. And it will be probably less expensive, though, next year in terms of rates to do it. But some people now would say that, well, if you do it now, you could refinance later. But there are some costs to that. You pay fees every time you refinance. It’s not free. No.

Chris Hall (17:02.954)
That’s not free, that’s for sure.

Josh Barker (17:07.15)
But so I, you know, I’ve always kind of told people it’s usually the right time with your primary residence anyway, it’s the right time when you say it is. Because normally you’re just trading a position in the market, right? So if I’m selling my home now, then I’m gonna go buy another home now. If the market goes up, I’m gonna receive the benefit of inflation in my home I’m in now or the.

Chris Hall (17:16.1)
Right.

Josh Barker (17:28.374)
And if the market was to go down, well, if I sold my home now and I bought another home now, whether I stay in this one, the market goes down, or go in the other one, the market goes down, either one, the market’s going down. So with your primary, you’re taking a position in the market. And like the stock market, you wouldn’t recommend that people buy and sell stocks in the same portfolio all day, every day. That would not probably be a good strategy.

Chris Hall (17:37.871)
Right.

Chris Hall (17:50.224)
We recommend against it.

Josh Barker (17:51.502)
Well, real estate is kind of the same thing, right? It’s like, you just, when you take a position in your primary residence anyway, you know, you’re going to hold that position. Mark will go up and down a little bit, but you’re okay either way.

Chris Hall (18:05.872)
I think that makes a lot of sense when you talk about like, people are thinking that maybe they’re going to miss something or they’re going to like, you know what mean? Or like maybe they want to wait long enough to because they’re afraid that they’re going to get into early. But really honestly, you’re just like you’re saying, you’re just trading positions, right? Unless you literally don’t have a house at all right now, if you’re selling to buy whatever gain or loss on this house is going to be gain or loss on that house.

Josh Barker (18:34.616)
Exactly. there’s actually some argument for it. You’d rather buy an asset, actually, when the rates are higher. Because Warren Buffett, I think, said it really well, where he said that interest rates serve as gravity to value of an asset. So as the interest rate goes up, it pulls the value of an asset down. And then the reverse happens when rates come down. So when the rates go down, it pulls the value of the asset up.

And so right now our interest rates are a little higher, they’re elevated, that you could argue that that might mean that, at least in the short term, that as rates go down, it’s going to have an increase in value with an asset.

Chris Hall (19:10.256)
Yeah, that’s exactly how we see it in the bond market as well. When the interest rates are high and the bond market’s stifled, but then as time goes along, the rates sort of catch up and the interest and dividends that you see kind of goes up. But then when the rates start to go down, the price of those bonds go up. I have several clients now that we have 6.5 % bonds in their portfolio. And that’s a pretty crazy number for a

what we can really consider a glorified savings account or what I like to call war chest. That money is kind of sitting there ready for us when the market does go down, we can put that money into the market. But yeah, mean, six and a half percent on your war chest is pretty great.

Josh Barker (19:44.408)
Sure.

Josh Barker (19:49.464)
That’s right.

Josh Barker (19:53.566)
it’s good. I mean, it’s hard to get that anywhere else. So good for you. Sure they’re happy with you, Chris.

Chris Hall (19:56.369)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope so. So, um, with regards to, know, like your, your, your business itself, tell me a little bit about what it, what it came to, to become like you were a, uh, you know, real estate agent and now you’re a broker and now you’re running the most successful brokers in town. Like kind of like walk me through your life as a business.

owner instead of just as an agent. Tell me a little bit more about how that progressed for you.

Josh Barker (20:27.086)
Sure. Yeah, well, was a good question. I mean, it was just a slow progression. So starting off as an agent working for Medley Realty, like I said, and finding some success in it. And then what I learned was is that I couldn’t be available for the customer at the moment the customer wanted me when it was just me. So I hired my first administrative person to support me in my efforts almost on day one as soon as I figured out how that worked.

And so then all of a sudden, you know, I’m out there servicing the customer in the field, but if a customer’s calling into the office, they’re talking to somebody that works for me, they’re getting serviced right away, they’re not having to wait for anything. And it freed up my time to be able to go out and serve more people. And so, you know, over the course of, you know, four or five years, I figured out, you know, how to grow from, you know, one administrative person to three or four administrative people, move from just myself and sales to myself and a few other people to support me in our production.

Again, with the focus of just making sure our customers are being serviced well. And so today we’ll do close to 700 transactions here in a local market, serve about 700 families. I’m still actively involved in several hundred of those personally.

and then rest of those are serviced by our sales team in our office. But it’s all overseen by me, right? So I still have a large administrative staff now. I think we have about eight or nine people that work for us on the administrative side. They’re all licensed agents, but they stay focused on administrative related activities. And my sales team stays focused on servicing of the customer out in the field activities. And it helps us to be able to do things a little better.

Most brokerage is ran where you have, let’s say, 50 agents in an office doing 50 things, 50 different ways. And that’s fine. And they’re all trying to figure it out for themselves. But in our office, we don’t do that. We all work together as a team. have one business plan. We have a vision, a mission, plan. We work the plan. Everybody stays in their lane. And I have 14 agents doing that. much different.

Josh Barker (22:37.166)
much different. I was an interested buyer of Park One about to come in. So we have a system and an operation and it’s a little foreign to real estate businesses because most realtors are just an independent contractor trying to figure it out. And I would say that I’m a business person. I know how to run a company and I also sell real estate.

Chris Hall (22:42.384)
Nice.

Josh Barker (23:06.094)
Oh yeah, Michael Gerber. Oh yeah, Michael Gerber wrote that book. He’s a great book.

Chris Hall (23:11.312)
Yeah, if you guys haven’t read it, it’s good. Basically just talks about how you can be really good as a technician, but that doesn’t make you a good boss, doesn’t make you a good leader. You really have to like, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you got to put on a lot of different hats and most of those hats don’t include being the technician anymore. Yeah. So you know what I mean? There’s like, you’re still out in the field doing things, but for the most part, if you’re an auto mechanic and you try to open up your own shop, you spend more time with an admin than you do turning wrenches. So great book.

Josh Barker (23:26.958)
That’s true.

Josh Barker (23:39.82)
Yep. Yeah, no, I mean, why’d you brought that up? Because I read that book very early on, probably in 2002, 2003, I think is when I read it. And then I read the E-Meth Revisited, of course. Rockefeller Habits was another great book that really talked about how to scale. But Michael Gerber’s probably got the prize for that one.

And a lot of what we did and how we figured it out was because of some of those insights of, a minute, I can’t be good at all things, which I’m not anyway. But it’s better to find better people in those areas that you’re not as good in and have them do a better job.

Chris Hall (24:18.224)
Right. Oh, I love that too. One of the things I learned early on in my career as a financial advisor was I really think of paperwork. And so, you know, most of the things that I do, I’m not talking about if it’s investment strategy or if it’s like making changes.

Chris Hall (24:44.208)
Those things can only be healed by killing things that are not killed by-

and I have people who do things like that, kind of like, know, pulling back on their weights. So, I noticed that in your industry, real estate, and what we did to set out this, to set out lot of coaching programs and things like that. You’ve got to be able to coach yourself as well, isn’t it?

Josh Barker (25:08.258)
Yeah, I’ve had a consultant. I I’ve worked with a couple of different people over the years. I was a coach for a real estate company called Mike Ferry for many years. And I did all of their team building workshop stuff. So that was my job with the company. And it was a national company, so working with people from every state in the country.

And I think by having the influence, that’s one of my little secrets, I think, to how we’ve done well is that I’ve spent a lot of time in the air, flying to different locations, figuring out what business operations are running well, why are they running well, how do you serve a customer at the highest level, why is that working, how do we duplicate that.

I’m on the ground in these different companies, starting off in their P &L department and then working through all the departments in their company, helping them dissect that. And it’s really had a huge impact on our success here, because I’ve just tried to take the very best that I’ve learned and then bring those back to Reading and implement them in our office here.

Chris Hall (26:16.237)
love that. You know, I find it funny because people say like those who cannot do, know, they’ll teach or whatever. But I actually have found in my life that if I can teach something, it’s because I’ve gotten really good at it. And then also, like as you’re teaching it, I feel like as you’re teaching it, you’re getting even better at it. Because now you really have to slow it down and think about the process.

Josh Barker (26:36.235)
yeah.

Chris Hall (26:42.031)
is because you’re seeing the process. Yeah, all over the place, and you’re seeing how people do it right, and you’re seeing people how do it wrong. So I think that’s very valuable.

Josh Barker (26:49.474)
Yep. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and when I’m on the ground in these locations, I might be sharing some insights after I’ve had a chance to really get my bearings around what they’re doing. But I’m also picking up things, too, that they’re doing really well. So it’s a great exchange in ideas. I call it a mastermind in some ways.

Chris Hall (27:11.021)
yeah. What do you think, like this is more out to, cause this podcast has a reach for business owners as well as just listeners. What do you feel like business owners are missing right now? Like one or two things that they could do that would really help them like turn their business into like a real legitimate business. What do you think is good for people to start out with if they’re not doing it?

Josh Barker (27:35.758)
It kind of depends on what their situation is at the moment, right? So I mean, if you’re on this trajectory of growth and doing extremely well and that’s where your focus is right now, I would say bring in the best talent as fast as you can because really you need to leverage is going to be the key to getting to the next step. But for some people I talk to right now with the economy where it’s at, I tell them that their number one thing they need to do is to get in there with their team.

get in the dirt with them and grind a little bit. I mentioned earlier I still sell a lot of homes in my market and the reason why I do that is because then my agents have an example that they can then follow.

You know, modeling is an easy way to teach and to coach. I mean, if I want people to just do what I do, and it’s not just with servicing a buyer or seller. could be with how I talk to our staff, how I communicate with my colleagues, how I solve a problem. You you raise your bar as high as you can, and then other people then will actually emulate you before you know it. Your sales team and your operation and your company is shooting in the right direction. It’s a lot easier to pull a chain than it is to push one.

And I think a lot of people, you know, they want to get somebody else to do the work. I’m like, no, that’s not my approach. I’d rather get out in the front and say, just follow me. Let’s go.

Chris Hall (28:50.861)
Right. Right. Well, I think that, you know, when you’re a business owner, you have a vision, you know, it’s really easy to kind of write a vision on a board, you know, and say like, Hey, this is our mission statement. This is our vision. But then when they see you actually working the vision, working the mission statement, then I think that really, I think people do want to follow somebody that’s leading by example. So I think that’s Okay.

Josh Barker (29:11.244)
I think you’re right. And I think that so it depends on where that person to your question where they’re at. But the biggest bottlenecks choke points, whatever you want to call them that we have in our company is always trying to find better people. mean, not that our people aren’t great, but if you want to grow, you got to bring in more great people into your organization. And that’s the key. Everybody’s looking for the same thing. Good, good people.

Chris Hall (29:28.975)
Right? Right.

Chris Hall (29:34.915)
Right? I do, find that’s really, you know, in my industry, you know, I’ve seen some financial advisors who are operating without even an administrative assistant of any type. And I just think like, my gosh, like you are literally stepping over dollars to save pennies. You know, that’s they’re worth their weight.

Josh Barker (29:50.466)
Well, yeah. totally. mean, like I said, I’m my first year in the real estate business. immediately, within a couple of months, I figured out, wait a minute. I’m not going to be able to stay in income producing activities if I keep on doing these administrative related tasks. So let’s solve that problem immediately and bring somebody in that can do that side of the business. I’ll stay in the income producing side. They’re in the income servicing side or the client servicing side. And now you have a chance to scale with that.

Chris Hall (30:17.273)
Right,

Josh Barker (30:18.164)
But yeah, people need to bring in assistance right away. You’re not good at everything.

Chris Hall (30:22.191)
Right? Or if you can hire a professional or a paraprofessional, even just part-time to kind of like help you get through those things that, you know, get you stuck. So like when I was…

Josh Barker (30:33.23)
That’s right. Yeah, and you can do an evaluation. mean, business owners, it’s hard because you don’t always know what you make per hour. But I think going through that exercise is important. Figure out, what did I make in the last 12 months? Net taxable income to me. Break that down to an hourly wage. And anything, anything that’s 30 % that you can hire for 30 % less than that, that’s a no-brainer. Somebody else is doing it.

Chris Hall (30:57.45)
Right. I’ve heard that before. People will say, hey, I listen to podcasts and audio books and they’ll say, hey, at the end of the day, I’m making $1,000 an hour or $500 an hour. it’s like, but yet you’re still stuck doing a task that you could pay somebody 20, 30 bucks an hour on. So it’s a good point. How old were you when you first started getting into coaching? Where I mean, you actually went out and got a coach.

Josh Barker (31:23.654)
I’m really lucky. So when I went to start working for that Mike Medley I told you about, on day one, they handed me sales tapes and they said, if you’re going to stay with our company, because I was just a young kid out of the Marines, they’re like, if you’re going to be with our company, you’re going to learn this stuff on day one. I immediately started burning out these tapes. And for the younger kids here, tapes are the things you used to put into a machine and you’d press play.

Chris Hall (31:43.471)
Hahaha!

Josh Barker (31:45.518)
But I spent all my time listening to these tapes. And within a year and a half, I had my business going enough where I had enough money to afford hiring my first coach. And so a year and a half in the business, I already hired a coach. And I’ve never not had a coach since. Yeah.

Chris Hall (32:04.227)
That’s awesome. think that’s huge. think it’s such a testament to your success, you know, is to always have somebody from the outside looking in rooting for you, mentoring you. think it’s a great idea. And I’m sure your coaches have changed through years. probably, you know, I’m sure that your coach now is probably pretty high level.

Josh Barker (32:11.374)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Barker (32:16.051)
yeah, yeah. mean, I still have…

Yeah, I mean, one of my close friends now, I he’s 80 years old. That’s to give you an idea of what my number one mentor in real estate business is, 80. He just turned 80. And so obviously, and I worked for him for many years. for me, I work with other people too periodically. But those relationships are typically, hey, here’s my problem I’d like to work on. I’d like to work with you for six months to help me solve it. You know what I mean? So I’m getting really granular and intentional with some of the people I work with too.

Chris Hall (32:47.151)
I think that’s another really cool aspect of coaching is like, think some people think if they get a coach, they need to just like stick with that same person forever. And maybe they do. Um, it just depends again, like where they’re at, but like, um, in in a non business world, let me just kind of, so like my son is a football player and we’ve been working really hard on his 40 yard dash because it’s, it’s a little bit, you know, a little bit more to be working with the same guy for like six months. And I love this guy and he’s a great coach.

But I’ve noticed that like his start off the line is not as good as it, I think it should be six months later. And so, know, and my son’s like, well, maybe I’m just not athletic. And I’m like, I just don’t think that’s it, you know? And I really do truly believe. So I took him down over the weekend to talk to a coach down there who is basically, he’s a football coach, but he also was a track guy. So all he did was work on this kid for basically like two and a half hours. We did a little break in between, but Justin was smart.

Josh Barker (33:39.47)
Sure.

Chris Hall (33:46.672)
and you can see immediate improvement. I actually watched my kid go, like, because he said something differently. And it’s not that he said a different thing. He said the same thing my kid’s been hearing for six months, but he said it differently. And I think that’s huge in coaching too. For me, I always like to go, hey, listen, I think I’m stuck in this spot. Like, I don’t know where to go. So like, maybe go like to ask your friends, hey, Josh, who are you?

Josh Barker (34:01.208)
Sure.

Chris Hall (34:14.211)
you know, who’s your guy, you know, because like I’ve noticed that, you know, a lot of people who coach real estate will also coach financial advisors. They’ll also coach plumbers. You know, they will, they don’t care about that. It’s really about, and it really, does translate to, you know, like being able to be, so I guess that would be sort of my take home message to people listening is if you’re in a business and you’re doing, you know, pretty well, but you feel like you’re stuck, that’s, that’s time to get a coach, you know? So would you agree with that?

Josh Barker (34:36.686)
trip.

I 100 % agree with that. You wouldn’t just read one book for your entire life. You’re going to pick up other books, you’re going to get different insights. The truth is there’s probably nothing new under the sun. Everything’s been just reinvented in a new, interesting way, but it’s still the same old stuff. But how you hear it is different. I’ve got friends of mine that around the country that I’ll call them up and I’ll say, I need a favor from you. My team is stuck on this particular thing because I coach my sales team every morning for 15 minutes.

Five days a week. Yeah. So I’m with them at 8.30 to 8.45 every day. But every once in a while, I notice that we’re stuck on a topic that I just can’t get over the hill on with them. And I’ll bring in somebody else and say, here’s what I’m working on. This is what I need you to do. This is what I need you to coach on.

and have them hear it from somebody else. And I try not to coach them on what to say or how to say it, because they need to hear it differently. I’m not able to get it to them in the way that they need it, right? But I want to see them grow. So that’s how we sometimes kind of game the system a little bit.

Chris Hall (35:26.308)
Right?

Chris Hall (35:43.257)
Yep, I like that. What’s the last great book that you read for business?

Josh Barker (35:49.431)
That’s a good question. I read so many books. right. Here, me give you an answer to that. I’m going to make sure I quote the author correctly for you.

Josh Barker (35:59.394)
Buy back your time and the author on that one.

Chris Hall (36:01.679)
I’ve never heard of that.

Josh Barker (36:04.706)
Yeah, it’s a good one too. It’s Dan Martell.

Chris Hall (36:08.591)
I’ve heard that name though. I’ve heard that name Dan Martell. So just the synopsis of it, is it? I mean, Buy Back Your Time is a great title. What does that mean?

Josh Barker (36:10.252)
Yeah. Yeah. that’s

Josh Barker (36:17.698)
Well, it actually talks a lot about leverage. It talks about how important it is to actually have an assistant, to have multiple people in your organization that are doing things better than you can do them. One of the interesting ones, it’s kind of a Bay Area kind of tech term, but the definition of done. mean, one of the things that even our agents struggle with is how to delegate properly.

I use the word set proper expectations. So when I talk to a person in my team that I’m collaborating with, I don’t just give them a task. I will give them a task. I’ll explain to them what I expect and what that definition of done looks like. It’ll be complete when these things have taken place. And if you don’t do that with people and you’re not clear on what your expectations are and they fall short, you start blaming the person you’re collaborating with.

And that’s not a good thing to do. It’s probably in your communication that caused the problem. So I think it’s a pretty good book for just talking about how important it is to bring the right people in.

Chris Hall (37:10.765)
Right, right. Okay.

Chris Hall (37:22.095)
Well, I appreciate that and I do appreciate your time. I want to basically give you a chance to if there’s anything we didn’t talk about that you’d like to talk about, I’d be happy to discuss it with you. Is there anything going on that you want to talk about in the local market?

Josh Barker (37:34.294)
No, I I wouldn’t get, I wouldn’t buy into the hype one way or the other. This real estate market today, just generally speaking, that’s what I would consider to be more of a normal market. You know, I’ve seen markets that were going straight up and boy, those are no fun to work in. I’ve seen them going straight down. Those are no fun to work in either. Right now, we’re really sitting in what I would consider to be a more moderate market right now.

the buyer or the seller has an equal or superimposing position over the other. it’s motivation is a big thing for both the buyer and for the seller. But it’s a good market. I’m not concerned about, if anybody’s worried about the market too, I would just say that.

We don’t have anything right now related to the market that is going to cause us to go into a major crash. know, people are sitting on fixed mortgages right now. Home values are not outpaced based on what rents are and what mortgages are. And really, we have a tailwind that’s likely approaching us with interest rates coming down. you know, if anything, I just want to encourage people.

Chris Hall (38:34.959)
Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned, you had mentioned, you know, with the insurance coming down and one of the things that kind of ticked in my brain was, you know, I see like right now it seems like the market is feeling this, right? So people…

Chris Hall (38:54.255)
I’m like, okay, well great that you have a 3 % interest rate, but if you have an 8.5 % HELOC, you’re gonna, it’s only a matter time before you’re like, okay, wait a minute, maybe I should merge this down to a one solid 5.5 or something like that. So I do feel like that’s probably gonna happen. It’s gonna be like a tidal wave, not in a bad way, but in a good way. I think people are gonna give up their 3 % interest rate to get rid of their 8.5 % HELOC. And I mean,

Josh Barker (39:12.472)
degree.

Josh Barker (39:18.658)
Yes, I agree.

Chris Hall (39:20.963)
I think I’m being generous with eight and a half percent. think they’re higher than that. I don’t know.

Josh Barker (39:23.722)
They are higher than the ones that we’re seeing right now that are out there like 10, 11%. I’m like, oh my goodness. It is banana.

Chris Hall (39:28.431)
Yeah, that’s bananas. So, by me it’s still better than a 28 % credit card.

Josh Barker (39:33.238)
No kidding, no kidding. Well, we’re seeing people consolidate that too right now. Some of the advice the mortgage companies are giving is to consolidate the credit cards and even a mortgage or a car payment to get their overall monthly obligation down.

Chris Hall (39:47.152)
One more question for you. we’re healthy wealth and the reason I say that is because I don’t feel like you can truly be wealthy unless you also have some degree of health to go with it. You know there’s an old saying that basically says like you can imagine that you want a million things but when you’re unhealthy all you want to do is be healthy. That’s the one thing you want. So what do you do to keep both physically and mentally healthy in your life?

Josh Barker (39:56.44)
Mm-hmm.

Josh Barker (40:03.63)
Yep.

Josh Barker (40:09.518)
That’s a question. So for me, it starts with your mindset first. So I don’t allow any negative media in my life. I don’t watch the news. I don’t get in social media. My daughter manages my Facebook. So sorry for those who thought I did. I’m not involved in any of those activities. I just don’t think it’s productive.

Chris Hall (40:26.031)
Thank

Josh Barker (40:30.464)
So I’m not participating in things like that. And if you think about it, mean, most of that is designed, the algorithms are designed towards negativity. News sells negative stories, not positive ones. And it’s the same thing with social media. So that’s the first thing. I really put a lot of time into being grateful for the attitude of gratitude, right? So I spend time thinking about the things I’m grateful for. I read scripture in the morning. That’s my home base for me personally. And I exercise every morning.

in the gym by 5.15. And I work out until about 6.45. And I’ve got a nice gym at home, so I don’t have to go anywhere. And I have a trainer that shows up, so I have to go because he’s already there waiting for me. Beats me up for an hour and 15 minutes or so. And I’ve had that very regimented approach to my life for really since I won in the Marines. I’ve just never stopped.

Chris Hall (41:09.775)
Yeah.

Chris Hall (41:23.919)
That’s awesome.

Josh Barker (41:25.12)
A good day really starts the day before, so I get great sleep, I don’t drink a lot, I stay away from anything else, I don’t participate.

Chris Hall (41:33.999)
That’s great. Uh, this is like the little side note on that. Like, you know, we go, we talked about coaching, but it’s like, once again, it’s like having a trainer come over, like he’s not telling you anything that you don’t already know. Like, he’s not like, Hey, know, if you do this way, your biceps will get bigger. Like, you know, all this stuff, it’s just been having somebody there to like motivate you and keep you from sticking and going like, you know what? I’m just going to hang out today. I don’t need to work out. Like he’s there to make you do the work that you know, you need to do. So I think that’s cool. Yeah.

Josh Barker (41:41.614)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

Josh Barker (42:00.472)
It’s an accountability partner, right? Yeah, I mean, I never flake. mean, the guy would probably come and throw cold water on me if I did,

Chris Hall (42:07.471)
Awesome, Well, thank you so much for your time. It was really great talking to you. I’d love to do this every once in a while and just kind of give updates on the market from you. I know that you’re very active with these kinds of things. I know that you do a weekly market update or a monthly market update.

Josh Barker (42:14.094)
You too.

Josh Barker (42:24.844)
Yeah, we do two things. We do a monthly market update, which is about five minutes long, and then we do a podcast that’s a bit more broad stroke and covers all kinds of stuff. yeah, a couple of times a month we send something out.

Chris Hall (42:37.743)
Alright, for those listening, I’ll make sure that I link to both of those so that you guys can access them very easy from this podcast. So, thank you so much for your time. Anything else you want to say before we get to take off?

Josh Barker (42:43.758)
Yeah, that’s great.

Josh Barker (42:49.312)
No, thank you so much, Chris, though, for everything you do, too. We appreciate you. And this is kind of information that you’re committed to sharing with the groups out there. It’s just awesome. So thanks.

Chris Hall (42:58.969)
Thank you. Appreciate you, Josh. Thank you so much for being on the show and thank you all for listening and we will look forward to talking to you again soon. Have a great day.