Buying a NEW Construction Home in DFW? Watch This FIRST!

What's up party people? We're getting into it today. How does new construction, how does new home construction impact our local DFW real estate market? How are new home builders impacting current buyers, current sellers, future buyers and sellers, your tax valuation and tax bill? All of those things are in fact affected, impacted, driven by new construction, at least in part So we're going to dive into it today and I am not alone in studio as is always the case from the back row screaming and yelling full price triple C here she is Courtney is screaming and yelling she's right she's got a microphone right in front of her today so she didn't have to scream from the back Oh boy I didn't like it I preferred it you like in the distance from the back yeah there it is I feel better now Not only am I here and is Courtney here, but we have the one and the only and the brilliant and the beautiful and the amazing Mari Arstein in the studio. Welcome, Mari. All right. Oh, sorry, Mari. Try that again. Hi, thanks. We just had a whole pregame lesson about the microphone and the table, and I didn't turn it on. Oh, yeah. It's kind of touchy, but hey, I'm glad we're on. Thanks for having me. It's on me. Welcome to the show, Mari. Welcome back. We hope to have Mari on more and more lately because people like it when you're on the show, Mari. So welcome back. Also, when it comes to new construction, among other team members, I would say you're dealing with this as much as anybody and talking to builders and being out and about with developers and builders and big developers and small builders and all the things in between. So we do want to talk about why does anybody care? Why do our friends, our neighbors, maybe folks who are considering making a move to DFW, why do they care? about this conversation. Why does new construction have anything to do with them? So let's just get a few scenarios out and then we'll dive into this. Number one, obviously, if you want to buy a new construction home, this conversation matters because we'll talk about who's building what and where and how many and what's happening with values. If you are buying and you don't want new construction, that's the crowd I'm most concerned might miss it. Let's say you're saying, no, I actually want to live in one of the older areas. I want to live in an area where there isn't any new construction or based on my budget, I think I would prefer to buy an existing home. That's great. We do a lot of that. We do more of that than direct new construction buying. new construction still matters to you. The price, the amount, the quality, the distance to new homes is going to have a real effect on you buying a not new home. And so stay with us. This is mostly for you. And then of course, sellers, if you're selling a home or you're thinking about selling a home before the end of this year or early next year or in the spring and summer next year, As much as anyone else, this is for you and you have to understand what you're up against when other buyers, when the buyers of your property, the potential buyers of your property have new homes to consider also, how are they considering it? How is that affecting whether they will even look at your house, whether they will offer on your house, how much they will offer on your house, how much old house stuff they're willing to put up with? And maybe the most vulnerable group of all is the buyer of or the seller of a home that is one or two or three years old. We're going to get into all of that as we make our way through the show. If you have any questions. about how we can directly help you. All you got to do is just go to the website, toddtramontiteam.com. You can personally request Mari if you're on the Fort Worth side of things and you're up against, I want to buy a new home or I want to buy not new, but I need to understand the layout of the market. And then of course, she or anyone on our team, depending on where you are and what you're doing, can lead and guide and advocate for you with their full-time world-class expertise. Okay. Quite an intro there, Mari. Here we go. We got a lot to cover. How do new builds impact pre-owned homes? Just the big obvious question. Let's say you have a buyer and they're looking in West Fort Worth, right? And they're saying, I don't think we're really interested in new homes. You're going to say to them, hold on. Let's at least pay attention to new homes because what? Because it affects supply. In the simplest form, more homes. Same amount of buyers. You got more supply, but same amount of demand. Okay. Why do I care about that? I understand what you're saying. More house, more homes on the market is, is a data point, but I don't want one of those. So I don't really care. Okay. You probably have a new build community near a pre-owned one also though. So something to take into account when it's being appraised or when it's being priced properly, when you're trying to determine what you're going to pay for it, you got to know what's out there. And what's in that area. Okay, so general awareness. Yes. But does it really have anything to do with the price I'm probably going to pay for the pre-owned home that I do care about? It can. Okay, why? Because if your competition is a new build, so you've got different years, but builders are offering incentives. Builders are offering... um Mortgage rate buy-down, builders are offering so many things to get more people interested in their new build homes. So if you're doing a pre-owned, not same community, maybe next door community, you're still going to need to compete. Well, seller's going to need to compete with that. you. But as a buyer, I'm still trying to figure out why I care. Okay, so you're saying I need to be aware of like, are there a lot of houses on the market or are there not very many houses on the market? Yeah. Right or wrong. If there's a lot more houses on the market as a buyer, I'm, I'm probably, I have a little bit of an advantage. The person that's going to sell the house that I want to buy from, they have to deal with all these other homes that these builders are building. So it's important for me to know that because I might be able to be a little more aggressive with my offer, or I might be able to say to them, Hey, if I don't buy this one, they're building brand new ones right up the street. Definitely. Okay. So that does matter to me then, as it might affect How I deal with the seller of the home and the price I'm willing to pay. Yes. And then you said incentives and you said rate buy downs real quick, like one sentence. What does that actually mean? That means the builder has worked with a lender to. Offer lower interest rates than what is market. Basically that builder is going to pay some money to cover the cost of the loan. So I can have a lower interest rate for maybe one or two or maybe three years. Correct. Maybe forever, but usually one or two or three years. Okay. So if I'm a buyer. And I was thinking, I don't want new construction. I mean, maybe I should at least reevaluate that because there may be some real incentives that are worth it for me. If not, I need to at least know, okay, that might be negotiating leverage for me to tell the seller of the house that I want to buy. And we'll up the street, the brand new houses have five and a half percent rates on them. Would you be willing to spend some money to help me get that rate on your house? That's at least negotiating strategy is what I'm hearing you say. Yep, that's correct. What other kind of incentives are these builders offering that maybe I should talk to my non-builder seller about and see if I can get away with? They might do appliance packages or add-ons like blinds or gutters or things like that. Okay, so I'm probably not going to get an existing homeowner to do all that, but I might be able to get them to repair one of those things that's a little older, or maybe they would throw some money at, like, I can go clean something up or improve something later. Yeah, throw in a fridge, washer, dryer, something like that. Okay, so I'm starting to see that it does matter. Okay, so if I'm a buyer of an existing home, builders of new homes, Matter to me. They're going to affect my overall purchase process. You want to know what's going on, what they're being, what they're offering. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'll just speak to the seller side really quickly because you already brought it up. But if you are selling an existing home and you are not paying attention to new construction around you, you might still get away with selling your home and you might do just fine. But chances are very good that you are being harmed by not knowing you're being, you're going, your outcome will be less than it could have been. By not paying attention to the new construction, even remotely near you, right? I mean, think about this. The buyer of your house, the potential buyer of your house is thinking, okay, do I want to pay Bob $500,000 for this four-bed, two-bath house with slightly outdated granite and weird old light fixtures and, you know, a four-minute drive to the elementary school? Or do I want to go up the road and pay? Bob Smith Home Builders, $550,000 for kind of the same house, but brand new, brand new granite in style. And brand new light fixtures and a nine minute drive to the elementary school. Well, just to insert myself, that is what I'm sitting over here kind of stressed about is like, if you want a new build, it seems like you need to be in a headspace to stay in it for quite some time. How can you compete? Okay, now I love that point. Um, we will get to this more later, but let me pay off. Let me answer. I know I'm trying to like sit in the pocket with your points, but I'm over here having a visceral emotional response. Let's do it. Let's address it now. And then we'll deep dive it later. But that's the point is it affects everything. What you're not saying that is true is this new home construction affects the whole market. Yeah. And you're asking about sort of the sell side of it, which is where I was going. But what I was presenting is the buyer's perspective. As a seller, I need to pay attention to what buyers are dealing with out there. If that buyer is like, okay, that's $50,000 more. It's only five minutes longer and I get everything new and nice and fresh and in style. And if I'm going to finance that, even at today's rate, that's like 20 something bucks a month. I might rather drive five more minutes and I'd like to have newer and nicer and in style. And I don't have to really do anything. The whole do anything costs you more than you think. Someone's like, I don't even know how much it costs. I have to figure out how much it costs. Then I have to find someone to do it. Then I have to go through all the nightmares that seemingly everyone goes through with a contractor. And I don't really want to do all that. So $50,000 more is only $27 a month. It's only five more minutes. Maybe I'd rather just do all that. Now, there are those of us that are like, I would rather the older house with the charm and the character and the mature trees and all. Sure, that's great. But we still need to pay attention. So to your point, Courtney, the seller has to factor all that in. And if the seller is oblivious and they're like, but my house is $50,000 less. Why is no one buying it? Listen to what we just said. What is in it for them? What is that buyer thinking? Yes, you should be freaking out if five minutes from you, the same or better house doesn't cost that much more. What would you do if you were a buyer? Now, there is a crowd of people that would say, I don't want the new house. I don't want to deal with the builder. I don't want the HOA. I don't want all my neighbor's houses to look the same. I don't want to live in a construction site. We'll get into all that stuff here in a minute. There are people that are just never going to do that. But how many? How many buyers total are out there right now? How many of them want newer, simpler, more and more, more people than ever value new and clean and I don't have to touch it and I don't want to maintain it. I want the next 10 plus years of no problems whatsoever. So you better be paying attention and or you better have a real estate professional that truly understands the difference. Now, both of you sort of alluded to something that I have said for 15 or 20 years. And I'm not saying I'm smart. This seems really obvious to me, but I don't hear anybody else talk about it. And that's the fact that if you do buy a new home, a new construction home, you are now in a very tedious, vulnerable situation for a little while. And I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just trying to tell you, you need to pay attention up front. If you buy a brand new house tomorrow, it is no longer a brand new house. Why? Because you lived in it. You took the label away. The next owner is not the first owner. The next owner is not the first person to eat in the kitchen or sit on the toilet. Right? Like all these things. Right? I mean, it's funny. I always talk about that. And people are like, oh, I never really thought about that. You're like, yeah, people are thinking about that. They're like, well, this isn't new. You know, there's other people's stuff. There's other people's scrapes on the wall or whatever. These things really do matter. Now, it's not that you can't overcome them, but if you don't pay attention to them, then you cannot strategically overcome them or deal with them or factor them in or negotiate the best deal. So if you bought a brand new house and you're in like a massive new development. One of the ones in McKinney or Frisco or Nevada or Wiley or something like that, where they just keep building. You're in section one, there's going to be 32 sections. You know, for four more years, the same builder is going to be building the same kind of houses down the block and then around the corner and then the next block over and then in the back of the neighborhood and then the next neighborhood over. At some point, you have to understand you're no longer new house is potentially losing value for a little bit, kind of like a new car. It's not new anymore. And then you're competing with one block over the same exact house, the same price, depending on the market, maybe slightly lower price, maybe the same house, but with more incentives, like you said, Mari. That's a kind of scattershot because you have the emotion, the visceral response. Yeah, I mean, that was helpful. There's more to dig into, but this is why everyone who's buying or selling needs to at least be paying attention to new construction. Now, Mari, you said inventory. You talked about incentives. We talked about competition. What else are you talking to buyers about when they're buying new construction or just to kind of pay attention? In the grand scheme, the whole big picture of new construction. What else do you want them to be aware of or pay attention to to make wise choices? I think they, well, we kind of just touched on it and we're going to dive deeper. It's okay, get it again. Is you got to ask yourself, how long are you going to be in that house? Whether it's pre-owned or new. Because like you just said, with new builds, they might have 32 phases that they're going in. And if you're buying in phase one, yeah, you get maybe a lower base value or base price. But you're going to have competition if you decide to sell anytime between then and when they're done with phase 32. Whereas pre-owned... That neighborhood's established. So, okay. So if you're looking at pre-owned home. Um, you know, that's already been gone through that, but if you're right near a new community, you're still as a seller dealing with that competition. Yeah. And I can just tell you, we never saw this in a more extreme situation than in 2007, eight and nine, right? When leading up to that, there had been this huge boom of new construction here in DFW. These were some of the most rapid growth times for areas like McKinney, Frisco, Southwest Fort Worth. East, Northeast Dallas County, where big master plan communities or at least big neighborhoods, big developer neighborhoods were building 300 houses here, 1200 houses there, 800 houses here. And people were buying them with pretty attractive, reasonable mortgage rates at relatively low cost. And then a year or two or three later, we had sort of an economic so-called crisis, meltdown problem, whatever. And so people had bought. And basically had no equity and had the cost of selling built in or potentially to look at. And they got stuck and they got foreclosed on and they had to short sale. They had to bring money to closing to get out of their house. I'm not saying that didn't affect established neighborhoods, but it certainly affected the new construction areas a lot more where you would have seven houses on the same street, all foreclosed on. Because they were all in that same cycle of ownership, in the cycle of the same house is brand new, cost less, because that builder is trying to get rid of it as fast as possible. And he's selling a 2010 house less than he sold a 2008 house brand new. Don't worry about the incentives. They'll give you golf clubs and they'll leave the car in the garage. That can happen in extreme markets, and we're not necessarily in an extreme market right now, but aspects of that are happening in every market. And it could be very different in South Fort Worth and North Fort Worth and East Dallas and Carrollton. Those little pockets based on inventory, how much new construction, how close is the new construction. And when we say new construction, we are generally talking about a builders or multiple builders building dozens or hundreds or thousands of homes. This doesn't quite apply the same way if there's one empty lot in your neighborhood or a teardown that still matters, but not the same way that these developments move the market. So. Texas is building a lot of new homes. Some would say we're still not building enough. Those are the people that think we want tons and tons and tons of new houses to really bring pricing down on houses. But trust me, the builders don't want that. Builders don't want to build so many houses that they get paid less for their product. They want to build the appropriate amount of houses to get a great return on their investment in the land, in the development, in their staff, in their marketing, and all those things. But when you hear people complaining, and I'm not upset with them. I'm just saying, when you hear people say, we have to get the cost of housing down, what they want is a lot more inventory. That would put pressure on pricing, more supply, slightly less demand, prices come down. That's what they want. Nobody really wants the economy that that creates, but they would love that to happen just for their house. I want my job secure. I want wages going up, but I want home prices going down. Just for the buy of their house. The buyer wants that. They don't want that on the one they're selling, and they don't want that two years later if they decide to sell. But the point we're making is this matters everywhere, pretty much for everyone. You can be blind and ignorant of this, but it will not go well for you. So Texas is building a lot of houses. Thank The states that are building the most houses per capita will not surprise you. Do you want to tell folks what those are? Sure, sure. Okay, so at 8.8 houses per 1,000 residents, we got Idaho. By the way, that's a lot of houses. When you think about it. Per 1,000 residents is not even total households. you. That's a lot of new construction. I mean, this freaks me out. Why is Idaho booming? Because so many people are moving to- The Midwest. Open areas. You could make an argument for that's a political move, that's a tax-based move. Idaho's a friendly, attractive state for folks that want a little more privacy, a little more self-sufficiency, lower tax burden. There's some land, like in Texas. I was going to ask, I mean, are they doing it like we're doing it? The Boise area is growing. Sorry, they would want me to say Boise area is exploding. I hear it's the sleeper. Uh, it's not anymore. They've been saying that for 20 years, it's less and less hidden and less and less asleep, but it's growing like crazy. And it's not just Boise, South Carolina is building a ton of houses. North Carolina is building a ton of houses. Raise your hand. If you're surprised, nobody raised their hand, Florida, no one raised their hand, Florida, Utah, Texas. Like the list is pretty obvious. There are these States with lower tax burdens. With generally more welcoming, come on down. We'd love to have you. We got room for you. We don't want to tax your face off. That's where the builders are building because that's where the buyers want to buy. Builders are agnostic to your politics and to all of your income sources and where you are. They're going to buy land and build houses where people want to live. And then the question comes in, what are they building? Now, that's not the topic for today, but they're building different homes in different areas based on what is in demand. But those numbers tell you where people want new houses. You rarely ever, ever, ever see builders with just a ton of inventory on the ground where they totally miscalculated that. We did see some of that in 8, 9, and 10. But. As quickly as they could, they corrected it. And that had to do with an absolute collapse of the financial system, not a lack of desire from homebuyers or availability from sellers. So all that to say. We've mentioned the phases of a neighborhood. I want to double down on that, Mari. So let's say you've got a buyer and they're like, hey, Mari, I want you to help me find a house in Walsh Ranch. Giant master plan community that it looks like could keep building until the end of time. Yeah. Right. And so they're like, hey, I want to buy a very reasonable, one of the lower priced homes in Walsh Ranch, right over here. What are you advising them about? The long-term timetable of these phases in development. Yeah. So we touched on it a little bit, but if a neighborhood like Walsh has so many phases still up and coming and you're buying... In one of the earlier phases, well, then you've got competition. If you ever decide to sell within the next two years, um, or, or really many years after that. Um, now I think again, we mentioned it, but it may be that you're buying at a lower price point because we've talked about how it can up and down in a new community, depending on market conditions, depending on demand, depending on a lot of different things. Um, so you may be like, oh, you're, you're buying, you're buying at today's price, but Now, you don't know what's going to happen in that community. So what are you going to tell me if I'm like, all right, Mari, I think that's the one for us. We want to buy here. Do you think this is a good choice? If you're going to stay in it a long time. That's what we're looking for. Yes. Okay. So tell me why you would say that just quickly, and then we'll go through some specifics. If you're going to stay in a long time, great. What's a long time, Mari? Well, okay. Home buyers used to move every like five, seven years. Now it's like 11 to 12. Yep. So 11 to 12 years. Yeah. So 11 to 12 years would be nice. Um, but, but I would tell people like that threshold for when are you probably coming up for air and you're safe again, you're out of the new car feel you're out of that. Like, Oh, it's not new anymore. Depends on the amount of building that's going to continue to be done immediately around you with similar inventory. If it's 32 sections and you're section 30 and they're knocking out whole sections every six months, well, you got about a year. And as long as you're here more than a year, you're not up against the exact same house in the exact same neighborhood at the same or slightly higher or slightly lower price. Once that's built out, now we're not comparing apples to apples anymore. It's apples to oranges. It's this house compared to the existing home over there or this house compared to a new home, but not with the same amenities. But as long as there's going to be a lot more of the same type thing, that's going to define the timetable. So section one, I hope you're going to be here for quite a long time or you don't mind covering the cost of moving a little bit. Yeah. Section 31. Don't even really worry. Section 22. It could be a couple, two, three, four years. It just depends. Now, there's not a lot of areas with 32 sections, but Walsh Ranch is an example I threw out because it's a tremendous amount of land with a very long development plan. Now, there are different neighborhoods within Walsh. We're not beating up Walsh. We actually really, really like it. This is the same thing for huge chunks of McKinney. Craig Ranch is a great example of that. Things like that where it seemed like, man, they've been building over there for 12 years, 15 years. It's not like you couldn't move for 11 or 12 years. It's like past that point, you're kind of untouchable. But until then, we need to be real clear. How different is that neighborhood from this one? Well, it's not really different. Okay, then we need to pay attention to that one too. How much longer are they going to be building over there? How comparable? That's how we would determine the timeline. That's not a simple answer like, oh, as long as you'll be there two years, you'll be fine. And that's the most common answer from people, two years. It's like less than two years, you maybe really shouldn't buy new construction anywhere. And that's probably because of tax. It's for tax. It's for cost of selling. It's for the fact that it's very rare that you're like the last house in a neighborhood. So for a couple of years, grass is still growing. Trees are still like taking root. Baby trees. Yeah, like literally you're like, there's signs that everything is brand new. A couple of years, that starts to mature a little bit. So that being said. It's an unanswerable question until we know where you want to buy, what your budget is, what's the neighborhood, how much more land they have available, how many builders are over there, what's the rate, literally mortgage rate and rate at which they're building, pace at which they're building. All of those things matter. Lots of factors. As well as the amenities, parks and pools and parking and who has the fireworks display, who does the Christmas lights. All those little things matter because they make your area more or less unique, more or less valuable. And there's... Just a ton of factors we could get into, but we're trying to give you the principles to pay attention to whether you're a buyer or seller. Before we wrap it up though, Mari, you work with a lot of buyers that are having to decide, should I buy new? Should I not buy new? What else do you want people to know? Anything relevant to this overall topic? Ooh. Okay, there's a few, but I guess when you're considering new build versus pre-owned, new Obviously, we talked about the phase. Some other things that go into the phases is, okay, how long is there going to be construction going around you? Are you going to be having a lot of noise in that community, a lot of construction trucks coming and going? And now you're talking less about need to resell later and just the value of living there. Are you going to enjoy trucks on the street every day and hammers on roofs? Are you fine with the lot next to you just being dirt for a while until that sells, until they build there? Are you fine with being the first person on your street and not having neighbors for a little bit? But in a later phase, okay, now we've got some amenities in there. The pool's finished. The playground's done. Thank And, you know, prices vary with the different phases, too. And a builder might be trying to close out that phase. So that's another thing to consider when it's later phases. you, Absolutely worth considering. So when you see home builders in challenging markets, everyone. they get very creative very fast. Now, they'll delay it as long as they can. But once they know they've got to move, they'll move. This is where you've heard all the stories of them giving away free vacations and golf clubs and bottles of champagne. All sorts of incentives just to come see houses and to reserve a lot, all these kind of things. Builders are typically... Not always, but typically pretty large companies. When you hear the name of a big national builder, these are giant, often publicly held companies that are trying to meet stock price valuation. They are going to move that inventory no matter what. You don't want to be in a situation where you just bought and now they're offering crazy incentives, but you can't predict the future. So the best defense you have is time. And that's what Mari was saying about depending on... How developed the neighborhood is, where you are, how close you are to future neighborhoods, or how far you are, that will determine whether new construction is wise or not. If you said, look, we know we transferred here for a job. The best case scenario is we're going to be here for three or four years. We are often going to caution you against any new construction anywhere. Now, there are some times that building a new house might be a great investment for you in the short term. More often than not, though, for the reasons we have shared, We're going to point you towards existing resale real estate in a situation like that. Most of us don't know our future, but if you do know, if you know, I'm here for a job, we only need this house until the kids graduate, you know, that kind of thing. Those are points of discernment that would be really wise. Not what do I like? What do I want? What do I want to deal with? But. What other factors could impact my family, my finances, or my enjoyment of my home? What else do folks need to know, Mari, before we wrap it up? Let's see. What have we not talked about yet? I know they need to know not to go talk to that builder without you. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Please don't. Please take me with you. You need a rep. Now, that sounds like a very selfish realtor thing to say. So let's just talk quickly about... Why are you saying that and how is that truly in the best interest of the buyer? Yeah. So if you've heard any of our new build. Talks before you've probably heard this, but oftentimes builders will only let you be represented by an agent. If you bring your agent with you, your first visit, otherwise they say, Oh, too bad. So sad. You can't be represented. Yeah. But what if I said, I don't really care. I don't care if I have an agent at all. Yeah. That, that, um, that builder rep can prop, we'll get you to the closing table, but you have to keep in mind that they rep, they work for the builder. And so it's their job to look out for the builder and keep the builder's best interest in mind. Yeah, but we're going to use all the realtor documents and all that stuff that protects me though, right? Not necessarily. So builder reps do not have to have their licenses. And so they're not held to the same ethics and standards as an agent is as far as taking care of people. But all those contracts kind of protect me and all that. Yeah, builders have their own contracts written. So it's not the standardized... Uh, promulgated forms. It's, it's something that the builder has hired an attorney to draft. So there's a lot of little clauses, law paragraphs that. Even if they're not necessarily red flags or deal breakers, you should just be aware of that the builders will put in there. So our unbelievably staged role play that we just had here is to illustrate the point that we're not saying builders are bad. We're saying builders take care of themselves. Licensed real estate professionals also take care of their own clients. So it's not like it's completely foreign, but there is a standard that comes with a real estate license that holds agents to operate a certain way. There's also these promulgated, which just means like created by a giant team of attorneys, our contracts and documents and addenda and amendments and all these things that are written in many ways to protect the consumer so that everything's disclosed to them, everything's explained to them, that they have very clear understanding of timing and outcomes and potential remedies and things like that. A builder's contracts are written by the builder's attorneys to protect the builder. So you've heard of things like. I was one day late to close on my new construction home and it cost me 20 grand. They were five months late building the house and it cost them nothing. That gives you a pretty quick glimpse at how they're going to create their agreements to protect them and to lock you in. It doesn't make them bad. It just means you need someone looking out for you who knows that, who's seen that, who can understand that, who can protect you, who can tell you that the $22,000 kitchen upgrade is really worth about $4,200 and a contractor who could do a quick cabinet switch and granite and backsplash. But they're telling you, you got the kitchen package for $22,000. Again, that's just the difference in like wholesale price and high-end retail price. It's not right or wrong. It's just understanding the process. Having an agent with you when you buy from a builder. Like 999 out of a thousand times is going to help you save money, sleep better, and have a lot less burden before, during, and after you buy that house. It is really, really unwise to buy directly from a builder. They're going to tell you, if you don't have an agent, that'll save you that commission. If you don't have an agent, this can go faster. If you don't have an agent, we'll give you a couple of benefits. That's their job, to incentivize you to not be protected. That would be like you going to court. Let's say your home budget is $700,000. That would be like you going to court and arguing over $700,000. And they have a very high-paid defense attorney or whatever. And you are asking their attorney to handle the process for you. And there's $700,000. That's what it's like to go to the owner of the house, their paid representative, that's not held to the same ethical standard, that has written their agreements to protect them and trap you. I'm not saying that to be ugly, but that's what it's written to do. And then. Think that you're going to come out ahead, even if they said, we'll give you this discount, we'll give you this benefit, we'll give you this bonus. Of course they would say that. It's wildly in their best interest for you not to have a leader and a guide and an advocate who understands the process and the pricing and the timelines and the outs and the clauses and all those things. Maybe that's our final stamp. Obviously, if you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I think you should call Mari. You should call our team. You should trust our full-time, fully dedicated, world-class agents that we train and we equip and we resource and we support a lot like that high-end law firm and not go straight to a builder and not use a knucklehead agent that doesn't have an expertise or a system or a process or a track record. But all things considered, even if you do go use somebody else, use someone when you work with a builder, ideally us or someone who's full time, fully committed with the team, with the technology, with the background, with the guarantees, with the knowledge and the expertise to handle this really, really well for you. If we can help you with anything at all, just head over to ToddTremontiTeam.com. You can also go read a ton of reviews about Mari and our other team members. Just Google my name, Todd Tremonti, spell it the best way you can. You'll see 900 and something five-star reviews and you'll see a couple that aren't perfect too. And you can gauge for yourself whether those people are completely insane or whether those reviews are legit, but go check them out. Just Google Todd Tremonti, spell it however you can, or toddtremontiteam.com. We would be honored to serve you and earn your trust, whether you're buying, selling, existing home, new construction, investing, or whether you just want to enjoy the home you already have and we can help you in any way. Thanks for hanging out, Mari. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here, Courtney. It's always a pleasure, Todd.