Owning The Coast
Owning The Coast is your weekly deep dive into the people, places, and possibilities that make Santa Cruz one of the most inspiring places to live. Hosted by real estate pro Brandi Jones, mortgage and market expert Ryan Buckholdt, and insurance specialist Jerry Seagraves, the show blends their unique expertise with candid conversations and dynamic guests. Each week, you’ll hear stories that go beyond property lines — from navigating the local housing market to discovering hidden trails, tasting the best bites in town, and meeting the entrepreneurs, artists, and community leaders shaping the coast. Whether you’re a long-time local, a newcomer, or dreaming about making Santa Cruz home, Owning The Coast offers the insights, inspiration, and insider knowledge you need to thrive in life and living by the sea.
Owning The Coast
Zillow vs. Santa Cruz Reality
Let’s talk about the gap between a glossy listing page and the ground you’ll actually live on. We sit down with Brandi Jones (Keller Williams Thrive) and unpack why Santa Cruz defies one-size-fits-all valuations, how Zillow turns your curiosity into a commodity, and what it really takes to make a smart, confident offer in a market where no two homes feel the same. Brandi traces her path from elite athletics to top-producing agent and explains how the shift from pure hustle to purposeful systems changed her results—and her clients’ outcomes.
If you’ve ever relied on a Zestimate to anchor your expectations, you’ll hear why preserved land, microclimates, flood and fire zones, and highly individual housing stock push national algorithms off course. We break down Zillow’s pay-to-play lead model, the so‑called “Zillow tax” on commissions, and why that matters for local economies, contractors, and your overall experience. You’ll also get a candid look at post‑COVID buying habits, the rise of 2D decision-making, and the practical steps to bring your search back into 3D—standing in the light of a living room, walking a block, asking the questions the photos never answer.
Along the way, we offer a clear framework for interviewing your real estate team—agent, lender, and insurance pro—so you can balance emotion with judgment and protect your downside without losing momentum. This is a thoughtful, no‑fluff guide to navigating Santa Cruz real estate with open eyes: use tech for scope, trust local for truth, and make the kind of decision you’ll be proud of five years from now.
Enjoy the conversation? Follow the show, share it with a friend who’s house hunting on the coast, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Your support keeps these local, real‑world conversations going.
Welcome to the On the Coast Podcast.
SPEAKER_04:Hey everybody, this is Ryan Buffkolt coming at you on the OTC podcast. Uh I'm hijacking the airwaves this time, and uh we're taking charge. Jerry and I are gonna grill Brandy Jones.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03:We got it. We we don't need you. Stay out of this. Okay. We're doing pretty good.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm Brandy Jones with Keller Williams Strive. I'm here to cross these two.
SPEAKER_03:And Jerry Seagraves with Seagraves Insurance.
SPEAKER_04:Perfect.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So this week we're gonna grill Brandy Jones on real estate in Santa Cruz, what it's like, kind of things you're seeing, and then the behemoth in the room, Zillow.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, that's a good one. You know, when you said grill, I was thinking grilling brandy. Why does that sound like that could be food? Now that's disgusting when you think about it, but I was like, maybe brandy glazed salmon. Okay, you know where my brain is at.
SPEAKER_01:That's your other podcast.
SPEAKER_00:That's my other podcast. Eat what you want. Well, thank you, Ryan, for that question. Thank you for letting me address the big behemoth. But we started with sort of like, let's see. I have opinions about Santa Cruz. I have a lot of opinions about Santa Cruz real estate. And one of the things that I think everyone can get from this is that it is highly lucrative, highly emotional, and really the it's a professionals game. And I think what I'd like anyone that's gonna listen to this is this is about education. It's not about swaying you. Take what my opinion is, what Ryan's opinion is, what Jerry's opinion is, and put the formula together for yourself. Whether you're buying in Tennessee or Santa Clara, you know, I focus on Santa Cruz County. And I started that 21 years ago.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, nice. So you've been continuing to be a top producer the whole time.
SPEAKER_00:I would say ebbs and flows. You know, I would say that 21 years is a long time and it feels like yesterday.
SPEAKER_03:I want to back up. What brought you here 21 years ago?
SPEAKER_00:Technically it was Prince 1999.
SPEAKER_03:Like the artist formerly known as.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no. I got a full okay. Well, let's start with when I was a baby at five years old. I'm just kidding. I would say the first 25 years of my life were really tough. And so I lived a very full life. And kind of towards the end of that, I got a full ride to play water polo at Berkeley, an opportunity to go to Australia to potentially play in the Olympics for water polo.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And I think at that point in time, I realized, what am I doing this all for? To do what? To play water polo in a s play a women's sport to get an education, to have my teeth knocked out, to have my second jaw surgery. I'm not a dude, which is totally fine. It water polo isn't gonna take me to the NBA. So I drove down the coast, literally. I fell in love with 41st Avenue, then Rio Del Mar, and I said, you know, what I want to be is an attorney. I want to be an international attorney. And I drove up to UCSC, and that's where I went.
SPEAKER_04:Wow, that's pretty cool. Didn't know that uh you were a water polo player. I knew your volleyball background, but not water polo.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so water polo.
SPEAKER_03:Volleyball is basically uh water polo on the ground. It's so true.
SPEAKER_00:I I have to say, and in anybody that knows me, they know that I've had quite the health journey. And I was just talking to Ryan before this saying I'm very fortunate to be playing volleyball and playing better than when I was playing in my 30s. Wow. So it's I I have a lot of gratitude for where I'm at. And one of my passions is sharing some of the lessons, potentially through whatever I do the podcast, or without being overbearing by this is what I learned, like grandma, you know, like what grandma tells you. So yeah, it's water polo and transition to an intense sport, beach volleyball.
SPEAKER_04:Which correlates right there with real estate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It is not for the faint of heart. I would say, Jerry, you got the easy part of the real estate pie.
SPEAKER_03:Man, I don't know. Sometimes I wonder. I daydream about selling a commercial building and taking that big commission.
SPEAKER_00:But you know, I think I'm gonna use uh Michael Jordan because that's my era, but we could say Kobe. I refuse to say LeBron. But let's just say you take highly talented people that we all grew up with loving as basketball players. You get to see the glory, but you don't get to see the sweat.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think, you know, I'm just teasing you that you have the easy part of the pie. But what I love about honestly, Jerry and Ryan, is that I believe in you because of the way that you transfer your belief in what you do. And if I could be just a percentage of what you guys are, I think I would be successful.
SPEAKER_03:Man. Well, you know what? I think hard work is hard work no matter what industry that you're in, right? And it it says a lot about who you are, that you can rise above all those challenges. And, you know, basically you're a competitor. That's how I look at it, right? And I think all of us here are that way. A lot of people listening are the same way. And volleyball and excelling at volleyball is no different than business. It could be selling insurance or real estate, you're gonna exceed.
SPEAKER_00:I think what's interesting about sports versus a business is that a sport is an immediate risk reward. Whereas a business isn't immediate. And I'll tell you how I fell in love with real estate again.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no. No.
SPEAKER_00:No, it is not immediate. So for example, in my business at my age now, I realize thoughts, your thoughts, can turn into a manifestation of something either you want or you don't want.
SPEAKER_03:You said that right at the right time for me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, what you got going on?
SPEAKER_03:No, I'm just saying, like you can get in your head as a business owner, like am I doing the right things? Am I am I going through the motions and not doing anything that is actually purposeful? Am I just wasting a lot of time and energy doing stuff that doesn't really matter?
SPEAKER_00:You know, that this is I am learning this right now, so this is at the tip of my tongue. M-R-E-A, the millionaire real estate agent, Gary Keller wrote it, but it's a business book. And I will tell you, I absolutely identify with what they call entrepreneurial and purposeful. So another way to say it, Santa Cruz version, is that anybody that endeavors on anything, so we can go back to our Kobe sort of analogy that was going down the road of he was very talented. He had a lot of passion for the sport. That is what this book calls entrepreneurial. So think about people that we've known that started a business. They're just so in it, so in it. I mean, literally, they can sell Amway. Like remember that? And then they're like rookie of the year. And then all of a sudden you don't hear from them three years later. That's the second piece, purposeful. And that's the piece I honestly missed for many, many years of my career because I loved the entrepreneurial spirit, the freedom of being creative. It wasn't about the money, it was about the peace and that state, that flow state you can find in your business. You know, Stephen Cotler wrote the book on flow, and it's like he studied all the you know, Red Bull ex-athletes, was it?
SPEAKER_03:X Yeah, X games.
SPEAKER_00:X games. I was like, I know it's X, X games. And he says they're they're just so accelerated and so proficient at getting in that flow state. And if you guys saw the movie F1, you know at the end when Brad Pitt's like, that was the flow state. I think we're secretly all searching for that. And I, when I ran out of juice to let my entrepreneurial like creativity, you know, go, you hit a ceiling and you can't break it through unless you have purpose, which is systems and the boring stuff. And to me, I find that our industries have so many shiny things to look at when your purpose side, when your systems are out of whack, or you're you you want to go back to this really creative fun side to be like, oh, I should do this or I should do that, or that advertising would work because one way or another, you're either trying to emotionally spark your business again, or you're trying to logically add more money, or sometimes it's both. And I I honestly just learned that this year. I kept wondering wondering like, what is it gonna take to break the ceiling again? And people are like, what ceiling? You make good money, you're a top producer. Well, that's all relative. I mean, I could work hard work all day, almost said something else, and then come home and be exhausted. For me, it would show up as health issues, feel like I'm a failure because I couldn't be there on point for people, and then I'm stuck in my brain, right? And then you see the income decline or your whatever you want is measurable. The only two things you can really measure in life are finances and fitness. So when I'm saying I'm on the court and I'm having an emotional meltdown, let's say in my head, the score reflects it immediately.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I know through coaching my son that there's a lot that correlates to that emotional stability, right? Like results absolutely drive based off of how you feel about yourself.
SPEAKER_00:It's so I think it's really difficult, especially people now. Think about where we were. All of us, in my opinion, are Gen X. When we were kids, what were we doing? We were outside. And then we didn't have a device in front of us. Like you were probably on a bike, you were probably, you know, throwing rocks at some girl. I was beating up the guy that was throwing up rocks. You know what I mean? So it's like, you know, we got to experience life in what I'd call a 3D world. Like you pick up a cup. We are all after COVID. Screen world, 2D. And we're, I think every single person And reacting to it too.
SPEAKER_03:That's the thing.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We live in two different worlds. We live in a 2D universe, the meta universe, and we live in the real world. And I think that's when we've come back to Zillow, that's gonna be the main theme of this. Do you want to live in this idealistic Zillow world or do you want to live in reality?
SPEAKER_03:So be because I'm like a total consumer in this group, right, between all of us, explain to me as a realtor the challenge that Zillow's brought to your table. I maybe I'm jumping the gun here, but like I I know Zillow is a behemoth for you, but I don't know why. And I think maybe the people listening might be on the same page as me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm gonna say it and it's gonna incite a lot of people. Zillow is like Trump becoming the mayor of your town. So love him or hate him, he's here. He's here, and he's dictating something that's very unique and special about your town.
SPEAKER_03:Aaron Ross Powell And he's so powerful that you can't stop it.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. So back in the day when we all started, technology, I think the biggest thing people need to realize is again, 2D versus 3D, technology versus real life. What Zillow did bring to the table was a massive marketing platform.
SPEAKER_02:For sure.
SPEAKER_00:It is a platform that can and does reach almost every real estate person in the United States. That was on it's the mafia of real estate marketing and advertising. And people loved it. But again, the analogy is you take this national marketing website, and then they have tools like zesttimates. Those algorithms are built on an entire nation, not a small county like Santa Cruz County, not a big county like Santa Clara County.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think that that's like purposeful? Because I I mean they have the data to to to do a zesttimate based off of a county, right?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell, oh they have the data. That's the algorithms. So here's an example of our county. I mean, everybody here has a home in Santa Cruz County. If not, they have they've lived in a home in Santa Cruz County. And if you're listening, I hope you soon own a home in Santa Cruz County. It's truly magical. But I'll tell you what's some of the things that you do not see about this county. 17 to 25% of it is nature preserved. It's a beach, it's a redwood forest, it's a hill, it's a farm, it's something that you are not going to see a 12-story building on. In addition, you're next to the ocean. You have two highly rated institutions, UCSC and Cabrio. You have one of the largest economic factors of history coming from farming and then fishing and then education and then the Silicon Valley. What you don't have is you do not have track homes. There's about four or five developments where every fifth home could mimic, but they're not exactly the same. Some took upgrades, some didn't. Now, as California is pressing on us to have more housing, you're starting to see more consistent homes that look the same. But what this county absolutely reflects, reflects, is individuality. There's nothing greater than to express yourself in this county than the way that you managed your home. Sometimes it says, yeah, I've got about$60,000 worth of dry rot, but I was surfing every single day for the last 30 years. So that's where the zestimate they tell you it's about 10% to 20% off. But if you look around here, it can be up to 40% off. Sometimes it can be 2% off. The reality is, and I I advocate this, and I will give you an example I just went through last weekend. You really need to spend the time to interview a local agent wherever you're buying. And it's really hard to figure out if they are knowledgeable, if they care, just by advertising. So when I say spend the time, ask some questions. Don't sign something right away if you don't want to. Get to know them. Obviously, you get to know them if you want to, with their YouTube channel or whatever. But a face-to-face, phone call to phone call in person, like that has gone away. So many people that I meet from that know my name, they just want to have a phone call. Getting them in person is literally I have to drag them to an open house.
SPEAKER_03:It's the same in my industry very much. Like I used to see people all day long, and now I see one person maybe a week in person. It's all over the phone.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, uh a lot of the things that I say are very science-based. And one of the the the thing that sticks out for me is that we only retain up to 7% of what we read, 38% of what we hear, and up to 99% of what we experience. So people are shopping for million-dollar homes or six hundred thousand dollar homes based on seven percent of what their brain has retained.
SPEAKER_03:What they see on photos, on the images.
SPEAKER_04:And they don't know what they don't know. So when you actually sit down and have the conversation eye to eye to understand the concerns, then you can really understand how to help them. But when it's just a simple phone call or email and they think they know the right questions to ask, it doesn't always work.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I I see that real time being a guy who's just quoting homes that people are looking at all day. It used to be that they would make an offer, offer accepted, and that's the home I quoted. Now I'm quoting seven, eight homes for the same customer.
SPEAKER_00:A few of those are my clients. I'm so sorry, Jay.
SPEAKER_03:No, I mean like it's it's the normal thing now. Like, and it's not necessarily that they're getting outbid. It's they go out and they finally see the house after negotiating with Ryan over their you know availability to lend, and now they they they figured out the house and the neighborhood that they want, and then they go to it and it's like it smells funny. Right? Or they don't have that experience, that 99% isn't being taken away over those photos.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So how does Zilla work? So like when I go online and I search 123 Main Street, that's for sale, and then all of a sudden it says, check out this home. What happens when I click that little box that says check out this home?
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's remember Zillow's in the business to be in business. You are a commodity. Does it cost you anything?
SPEAKER_04:Nope.
SPEAKER_00:So when you look up your address, do you look up your address?
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah, everybody does. Just to see.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just to see. And so when you look at it, you paid nothing, right?
SPEAKER_04:Correct.
SPEAKER_00:And it gives you a number, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And how do you feel about that when you look at that number?
SPEAKER_04:Right now is too low.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. You have an emotion.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:All right, every capitalist out there knows that people buy emotionally and justify logically. So what Zillow figured out is they're gonna make the realtors pay for your eyeballs. So the fact that they track every single thing that you do and that they have all the information from the county, they have all the information from the MLSs, they have built a massive, brilliant algorithm of what you're gonna do next, and then they source it out. So when you click on what your zest estimate is, and now you're a little upset about it, on there you're gonna see contact somebody for a realtor. That realtor paid money to be on that spot. So out of his pocket, he paid or she paid for that. Now, let's say you're more traditional and you're like, well, I want to buy something before I move. So then you're gonna go look at what's active in the market. And then you're gonna be very interested in the property, and the person you're gonna see on there is not the listing agent unless they paid to have their face there. So what Zillow did to make money is they knew what you were doing, and they got in front of you every single emotional step of the way, and they sold it to a realtor to get in front of your emotions, and they assumed your emotions will override your logic of how that person can actually help you.
SPEAKER_04:So, does it go by their criteria or their credentials of how many homes they've sold or what their background is or been doing real estate for 26 years or the best fit for me?
SPEAKER_00:Not at all.
SPEAKER_01:I think Zillow is just a data aggregator and they sell advertising.
SPEAKER_00:That's exactly another way to say it. But what people don't realize is that you are the commodity, and the realtor out there is paying for your next move. And there is no qualification other than a paycheck to be placed on your next move.
SPEAKER_03:You could be their first customer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So where the consumer should know is that when I just said 99% of like what you retain is through your experience, that's real life through the experience. It is so easy to think that realtors have an easy job. And they might in Phoenix, Arizona. But in this county, you have topography, weather, construction, you have flood zones, you have fire zones, you have lenders that can perform, you have lenders that can't. Yes, I know you can. Okay, you have insurance gurus that have been around forever that you know can perform or can't perform. And I and I'm not joking when I say somehow, someway the consumer thinks, oh, I found somebody online. And yet again, they have never filled out a questionnaire to see if that cons that person can help them. So here's where Zillow gets even more fun. They don't ask you what your needs are, they advertise for you, advertise to you. A realtor fills in that space by paying them literal money. There's no qualification other than having your license. And now Zillow is requiring if you want to pay for the spot, there's a percentage of your business that you're getting from us that has to go to our lenders. Now I've just heard of two class action lawsuits that are getting started against Zillow because didn't we just go through this with NAR regarding how commissions were described to consumers? So there's a lack of transparency that has gone to the national level in real estate to protect the consumer. And right now, Zillow is a free-for-all. But what the consumer should know, in my opinion, is that you are paying to look. And I think you should look. I think you should see what Zillow has. They do a great job. If you go on Zillow, you get a reminder from them every single day on what your house might be worth. Every single day.
SPEAKER_03:You don't sign up for anything.
SPEAKER_00:Even if you don't sign up, if you liked something two years ago, you'll get a zestim on it every month. You get a your zip code, you get, you know, what are the open houses? Like they're like your new AI best friend when it comes to real estate. And yet there is zero connection to who they're advertising. And so what happens is they have people pay for these spots, and I'm not saying that the agents are bad. I just don't know their qualifications when I'm a Zillow consumer. And so then this person paid for it. They have an agenda to get you to Zillow people, they have an agenda to get you into that home, and they may know nothing about that home. And what's so interesting to stay on top of your game in this county is you really do need to see every home if you can. Now that's a little impossible, but to see homes that are on the market, because as I said, every single home is an individual. So when that person, I go on Zillow, I'm looking at this one house, I think I like it, I click on this person, this person doesn't know if it flooded. They don't know anything other than what the disclosures say. If the real listing agent answers the phone, and the travesty is the business used to be built on people who listed properties. That was their job to sell the property, and any business that came to them was supposed to go to them. But now Zillow has taken that away.
SPEAKER_03:So so this is a dumb question. But is this a chicken and egg situation? Like, in other words, like we're moving into a new era where everything is shopping cart driven, right? Turnkey. Like you go to buy a car now, you go to Carvana, and it's delivered to your house, right? You know nothing about the history of that vehicle other than what the car fax is telling you. Insurance, that what you're describing right now happened to me 10 years ago in the insurance business. I'd have people mostly Silicon Valley Tech types who were like, I only do business online. And, you know, I'm I'm very much interested in their individual needs. Like, what do you have to lose? You know, and I'm quoting stuff at a different level than maybe Geico is quoting. Is this a chicken egg thing? Like, were the consumers demanding a streamlined sales process, or is this a data-driven change in our marketplace that's happening by companies like Zillow, Google, et cetera?
SPEAKER_00:Do you have an answer for that? Because I have an answer, Ryan.
SPEAKER_03:Go for it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So I'm gonna say we were probably on the same timeline. We're just now talking about Zillow because I think the veil is lifting.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So this has been the case with Zillow for a while. And I think because of the NAR lawsuit that was 2024, people aren't consumers becoming aware of it. They're becoming more aware. And in fact, I know recently a consumer of Zillow clicked on something, they were forced aggressively. I don't know that you can actually force somebody to use a lender that wouldn't even call them back.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So what is happening is there is a place, which is the chicken or the egg. I think post-COVID, some the dinosaur was the egg. We have this new egg of like, we are so we got used to doing business a certain kind of way. And I think that's where the real shift has happened. We're trying to claim some of our humanity back. We're trying to get back to some basics. And then the real estate industry can say nationally is in a recession.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's not you could talk to top-selling realtors or just people that are good realtors around the United States and they'll say the last two years have been the weirdest we have ever seen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. As in the lending. I mean, how have you pivoted just in a quick sort of way of the last two years?
SPEAKER_04:The last two years, it's you know, everybody wanted to just buy whatever there was. It was just such a frantic move just to be able to get into a property. Now it seems like it's pulled back. The fluff of COVID has kind of gone away, uh, which is a great thing. Now we're seeing people that are going to get back into properties who weren't able to at that time. They don't have to be paying enormous over-asking price. And it's good people who are looking for good homes, single-family residence purchases there for themselves to live in.
SPEAKER_00:I would say what Zillow brought to 2025 is the fact that for Santa Cruz County is the velocity slowed down. And so people started doing what you're saying. They're shopping. Like you just bought a truck. How'd you find that truck, Ryan?
SPEAKER_04:I'm a little different. Everybody knows that I'll buy any car, so they called me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I was like, so you're not on like a good one for your ride.
SPEAKER_04:I'll buy it. Yeah, okay, I'll buy it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that goes back to the old way of doing business.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. Yeah. That's where my one I'm curious: are the top producers, the ones who've been in the business 20, 25 years, are they the ones advertising on Zeller or who is the one where those leads go into?
SPEAKER_00:That's an excellent question. I will say in the last two weeks, we've had a turn of events. We've had traditionally three companies that maintained one, two, and three. And in the last two weeks, we had two teams take those spots. Now that may be short-lived. So that is I mean, well, now we're going to get into the nuts and bolts of things. And I sort of touched on it. To keep maintaining your business as a realtor, as a business, we obviously need to have good customer service. We care about the client first. But to maintain that business, you need to own listings. So you need to be a listing dominant person to have a long-term legacy in real estate. So what you're seeing are these two teams that near the top, one of them was only 92%. Well, it was only 6% listings and 96, 94% buyers, and that is Zillow leads. Now, you can look at that in a snapshot of a day or a week or two weeks. I don't know whether it will end up in the end of 2025, but this is the first time we've seen it consistently in the last few years. Again, listing dominant companies have been the number one. So, yes, is Zillow a disruptor? Now, if you look at listing dominant companies and their ROI versus Zillow companies and their ROI, I can tell you you can talk to these economists that are looking at this. This is short-lived. You cannot build a lasting business just on buyers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And give away. So when an agent signs up for a Zillow, they get a market share. Now, there's different ways in which they can pay for it. You can be a preferred agent and you can pay ahead of time, but no matter what, you will be paying 40 to 45% of the commission you earn to Zillow for giving you the lead. Now imagine these teams, they aren't brokerages, they're teams that are understand that volume is more important than value. So then they get their newer agents to literally remember Floor Call. I don't not say it's bad. Floor call was back in the day when you sat at the office and somebody called because they saw a sign and you were the realtor to be like, hey, that's our listing in this office and I can show it to you at two o'clock. Well, that's what Zillow took over, but now they're taking 40 to 45% of the total commission.
SPEAKER_04:So in Santa Cruz million-dollar purchase, 3% is usually$30,000. So now they're taking almost half of it per transaction that this buyer's agent gives up to hand over to Zillow.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell And I want to say why this is very important to me as a homegrown person, although I did show up 1999 prints to go to UCSE. When we maintain a professional business in this county, we feed this county. We hire the contractors in this county. We send our kids to school buying clothes from this county. I get it. We veered away a lot of us shop at Amazon. But somehow, some way, if you can make your money in this county, you are feeding this county and you're feeding the people in it. In fact, when I was the short sales specialist, that's was my heyday was 2008 to 2013. I saw that the way real estate was run is that if your client was going through a short sale, there's not a chance in hell you'd refer to me because that was back in the day where it was really was wolf on Wall Street. You did not share, you did not collaborate, you did none of that. And I said, Hey, you keep your client, I'll be at this company, you can be at that company, we'll have an attorney draft up a labor, a division of labor agreement, I'll run the entire short sale and you can have all the glory. But I'm gonna get paid half. So I sat behind the scenes and ran 50 escros at a time in and around the state of California, mostly in this county. And my passion was to give people a state of peace, the consumer, because I had the answers working with so many attorneys that this is not the end of the world, you do not need to commit suicide. And this most likely was not your fault. Yes, it is your responsibility to handle it, but you know, the crash is bigger than you. And second of all, it kept our realtors with food, it kept our families with a place to rent. I mean, it really kept our county not from crashing as hard as other counties crashed.
SPEAKER_04:Got it. So my head's stuck in the numbers. I'm still going through listening, doing all the numbers in my head. So, like I'd said,$30,000 commission,$14,000. 14 grand going to Zillow in Washington, the state of Washington. When I'm looking for something, I always ask, hey, you know, ask my friends, hey, can you refer me to a good roofer? Can you refer me to a blah, blah, blah? When you get referred here in Santa Cruz, it doesn't go through Zillow. That just kept$14,000 in our community.
SPEAKER_00:$100%. And let me just tell you, let me give you a grasp of transactions. There are currently 599 homes on the market, and I believe we've already sold 600 this year. So just say, I don't know how many Zillow leads were on that. I mean, that's it's adding up.
SPEAKER_01:It is. That's huge. It's complicated because if you think about it, the your point, Ryan, is that if you pinch commissions like that and a lot of it's going out of state, and what is staying here is with these local reelers, we know if they're using it. But then it gets down to that disposable income conversation. You know, as far as you're you're multiplying the amount of sales you're doing through this service, through this algorithm. But when you look at your pocketbook. Look at the end of the month as far as the ability to spend in your community. Yeah, you're you're pushing those numbers and you've got active leads. But I think it's bad for business. And the other thing I was and the other podcast talked about it too at some point. You know, they're facing a class action suit, Zillow. They kind of had some shady stuff going with that cash for your home thing back in 21, 22. They shut that down, and I think they said they've created a new partnership, which is to me weird with Open Door for the same thing. And they've pivoted to more of these agent listings. And I think they want to go to virtual showings, all these different things they're doing. But it seems like where since we're doing this on Zillow right now, it seems where Zill has kind of had their footprint over the last six, eight years, bad trends in the market have followed. And then they sort of seem to escape from one, which was the flip craze of past COVID. They seem to kind of immerse themselves, cashed a lot of checks, and then gotten out of it. And then they seem to be in the same one. And I know the class action suits over this exact conversation, which is, you know, unfair commission structures and valuations.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thank God. I mean, it's really gonna burst some people's bubbles. And I we we are resilient human beings.
SPEAKER_01:They burst their stock yesterday. I knew that. Zillow. It was not a good day for Zillow yesterday. This timely conversation, right? I know.
SPEAKER_00:I'm really glad we're here. It's you know, you there's so many wars to fight in people's like, you know, what's fair, what's not fair. It's confusing and people shut down, right? And so this is a big one. I'm glad it's back to the forefront because to be able to buy a home in Santa Cruz County is incredible. And to have the proper professional is your right. And Zillow doesn't let you know about that.
SPEAKER_04:And it's not like the buyers getting any sort of discount or saving their family money by going through Zillow in order to do this. It's simply a website. They're just clicking on a button. That's that's what Zillow has to do.
SPEAKER_03:That's how it's advertised, right? Like I anybody can log on.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. This is like clicky, like high school, literally. Pun intended. Click on it. They've got you as a consumer because they know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01:It's predatory.
SPEAKER_00:It's absolutely predictive.
SPEAKER_01:It's predatory. And the thing where I think they're having a problem right now is there's a resistance overall. People are getting hip to the algorithm game. They're not super stoked to be part of an algorithm that my phone knows me better than I do, my computer knows what's moving next. And if on top of that, a real estate, you're kind of being moved that way. But when it's all said and done, if they know that you know and they're kind of manipulating, and it goes to what Jerry said also, it's really tapping into one of the outsides of the last 15, 20 years is people are more comfortable, if possible, not talking to a human. And so, yes, it's an efficient platform. If you don't ever want to talk to a human, you want to try to get a house, but there's an emotional biggest we've talked about this on this podcast, the biggest thing you'll ever do in your life. It's the biggest transaction of your life. And you may as well have a cup of coffee, right? And you may as well meet some people that are involved in it. I get Carvana, I get the other ones because that's different transactions, same algorithms. This is different though.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna say it goes back to the chicken or the egg. Who is the one that's initiating the contact and who is the one that's initiating meeting? I mean, even realtors are that bad in the sense of like, oh, we can do this on the phone, too, because they don't want the rejection of the meeting.
SPEAKER_03:Does the new Zillow not give the listing agent information? Is that what I'm understanding? It sounds like they're hiding that and directing you to a new highest bidder, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell Well, let's give Zillow some credit. The listing agent's name is present.
SPEAKER_04:But no links to anything. But watch out for the credit. Isn't that by law?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh, that's by law. Yeah. So that's you can't give him credit. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay. So I'm not getting it. We're following the law. In that really itty bitty four-point font, you'll see the listing agent, Brandy Jones.
SPEAKER_01:It's very similar to Google AdSense. Have you ever used that? Have you used Google AdSense? Yeah. Same thing. Your budget, your budget, you're getting all these calls, and then you're like, hey, I'm the you look in there, and it'll tell you right there, you're just out of budget for who's getting the calls now. Right. There's a little slider in there. It's like, we can do that, but you're not going to get calls. Spend$85 a day and you'll get some calls. And then you do that, and then you have for a month and you're like, nah, it's 87 now. It's not 88 anymore. You know, then that's the game I think that Zillow's in is and that's the predatory part, is where you keep spending into it and they keep raising that bar and raking commissions.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I also want to say when I say they're following you, they are following you. Every click you make, every move you make. I'm not going to sing that song, but I'm already seeing it in my eyes.
SPEAKER_04:I'll be wrong.
SPEAKER_00:So when I say you're emotionally let's just talk about numbers again. People who can afford to live in Santa Cruz County tend to shop online from 11 to 2 in the morning. And every single click, if you do not think they're not looking at anything that they can, every the the seconds in between your click, what you looked at, how you looked at it, how do you get emails when you didn't even sign up from them? Like you, your your data is breached by you being on there.
SPEAKER_03:Right. You almost have to choose whether you want to do business online or not. And and that's the juxtaposition that we're in as consumers. You know, like myself, I'm kind of out of this Zillow conversation because I am merely a consumer in this case, and I'm trying to understand the challenges that you guys as realtors are dealing with. But it does seem like a rigged game. Like when I look at it, it's like, yeah, I mean, if you want to pay to be on that page and play, you can. That's and then they're managing, making money off of Jerry Seagraves, who's going in and looking for a three-bedroom house in Soquel, and they're taking all the data along with it because of their buddies at all these tech companies that you're accessing that platform with. But I think this is touching in on a larger issue that we don't really know the answer to because we don't hold the keys to the power.
SPEAKER_00:I agree with you. When you go too far to the top, just like I'll circle back to the president, whether you love him or hate him, there's not a fucking thing you can do about it. Yeah. Literally. You think your vote counts. I'm just saying the electoral college picks it. So get out of the fantasy land. Understand what's reality. Okay. So now, Zillow, there's nothing you and I can do about it today. We can be behind a class action lawsuit. So, what can we do is be aware. And that's it. Knowledge is power.
SPEAKER_03:Educating consumers.
SPEAKER_00:Right. We buy emotionally. They say the proper balance for the most flow state is 51% emotional, 49% logical. So you're on a BMX bike, you're 400,000 meters up, and you're about to jump out of a plane for whatever X games version of that. You have to want it bad enough, but not so bad you'd risk your life. So you have to logically know what you're doing. It is the same thing when you're going to spend a million dollars. You gotta want to know what is the best thing for you. And this podcast is telling you, why don't you investigate? And here's a small example. I was doing an open house. These people come in with a lady I do not recognize as their realtor. Just letting her do her thing. You know, there's realtor like etiquette. You don't step on their toes, you don't make them look bad. You know, I just propped her up. She goes, I really need to get into this house and this house and this house. And I'm like, I'm a realtor, you're a realtor, you have the same access. And then they were asking me questions about the neighborhood, and then their her clients were talking more and more and more and more. And it shows up that she was a Zillow. So they called Zillow on the listing I was at that had an open house, thinking that was the listing agent. She came from Alameda to meet them at my open house and then proceeded to leave with these clients. They're like, We just met her an hour ago. You know, like this is we just wanted to see the house. We just wanted to know if it was open. She drove from Alameda to meet them. And on top of it, she said, Hey, can you put me on your list of new like listings and stuff so I could be more educated down there?
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And guess where these clients were? Two miles away from my open house. They it was like going to the satellite to the moon.
SPEAKER_04:So they lived in Santa Cruz, uh-huh. Clicked on it to go look at their house. An agent from Alameda.
SPEAKER_00:And she barely speaks English, by the way, which God bless you, I love all languages. Yes. I gotta just say, like, it was very broken English.
SPEAKER_03:I just think like if the tables were turned, right? Like you wouldn't take on a listing in Alameda or or go show a house in Alameda. Maybe you would. I don't know. Like for me, it's kind of like here's a local person I would call.
SPEAKER_00:No, I would not go to Alameda. Nothing about it. The only reason I might go out of the area is if it was a friend, they just want me to be there. But I would never trust myself to be the buyer's agent in another county I'm not familiar with.
SPEAKER_01:But you wouldn't show up looking for keys.
SPEAKER_03:For other houses.
SPEAKER_01:Be the one thing. And to tie it back into the athletic side of everything that you do, you know, the you versus competitors, Zillow, all of it, it kind of gets down to be better. You know, I think you look at it's competition on some level, and the reality is what happens when you're on the volleyball court, what happens when you're up against something in a business. Sometimes it's just reimagining your business and seeing what their strengths are and doing your, you know, offering a better product to your customers in a capacity Zillow can't offer. It's really a simple answer, you know, as far as, you know, yes, you're up against this behemoth, and but you know, it gives you a distinct advantage. I think it's the opposite, it gives you an advantage on a local level.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I think if I had any one thing to say to anybody, be authentic to who you are in this business, whether it is buying, selling, or being a realtor, and then educate yourself on the way to be better.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think it's you guys, the competition, even sitting on my phone looking at it, it's not highly rated. 1.5 on reviews, you know, it doesn't do well on like, you know, open kind of reviews in Google or Yelp. Zillow as an entity moves properties and sells advertising, but it has a reputation. Now it would be on a local or a national level, it's it's a monster, but it does not have a good reputation. And that's even from a customer and an agent standpoint.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But overall, it's a decent website for searching for something. But when it comes down to it, when you're ready to make that move, it's go find somebody with a great reputation, ask your friends, ask your family, interview, and find the person that's going to take care of your concerns the best.
SPEAKER_00:You know what? Our next podcast will be the five questions you should ask your realtor.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great one. I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we we are running out of time, but I think we should the five questions you should ask your lender, your realtor, and your insurance person.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Agreed.
SPEAKER_00:Cool.
SPEAKER_01:Contact info, guys.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Ryan. That was fun.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you for sharing all that with us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I'm Brandy Jones with Keller Williams Thrive. You can reach me at 831-588-5145.
SPEAKER_03:Jerry Seagraves with Seagraves Insurance, 831-239-9425.
SPEAKER_04:This is Ryan Buffolt and uh Cross Country Mortgage Santa Cruz. And uh myself, 831-818-2339.
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