The Secret to Selling Houses in a Down Market with Rick and Brittany Turley

[00:00:00] Especially if you're a gunner, you're used to just putting out a fire and go, oh, I gotta go to an appointment. I gotta do this. No, it's the hardest part for people. Yeah, it is. People like to be reactive and that is not an easy thing to get out of. No, it doesn't. I still fight it.

Suneet Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Reside Platform podcast. I am your host today, Suneet Agarwal, and it's gonna be a fun one, so get comfy. I am sitting with Rick. Turley and his daughter, Brittany Turley from the Turley team. The Turley team in Las Vegas. What's going on guys?

Brittany Hey Sine. Hi, NIC. Thank you for having us.

Suneet Yes, good. I'm excited to sit down and talk about. Building a business like with your kid, Rick, building a business with your dad, Brittany.

Brittany Yeah.

Suneet Right. And like,[00:01:00] and um, how that journey is and all that fun stuff. We'll talk about the market and what's working and what's not,

Rick All good. All good.

Rick my part of the journey was, you know, luckily, like Brittany started with me back in my re max days, what, 10 years plus ago? Yeah. Yeah. 10 years plus ago. And so she was kind of like my admin and kind of kept me in line anyway, so she's kind of been with me through the whole journey.

Suneet So

Rick when did

Suneet you start helping your dad out?

Brittany I started helping him in 2014. 2014. Yep. As a tc.

Suneet So were you, done with school and all that stuff by that point?

Brittany Yep. Well, I was still in school when I started helping him. And I quit. I quit going to school. in the middle of helping him. I found out I was pregnant and I was having a baby, so, oh. It's a

Suneet live pivot. You're all

Brittany okay? [00:02:00] Yep. It made it easy to jump into real estate when you know you need to make money for your, babies.

Suneet Yeah, exactly. and then so what'd you start out by?

Brittany I started out really just being his administrator, his assistant, setting up his showings for him, making sure he was ready and prepared to go and meet people. At that point in time, I didn't have a license. I was really just pushing paper,

Suneet Okay. And how long did he help your dad do that?

Brittany I was licensed in 2017, so three years. Three years before I actually officially jumped into getting my license and selling real estate.

Suneet And so what's it like working with your dad in that capacity back then?

Brittany His. Oh, geez. yeah, in that timeframe we

Suneet told the internet like our, not before the internet, but before a lot of shit online. Right?

Brittany Absolutely. I mean, we were scanning in, that was still back when we were facts and short sales over when I first started, so Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Rick It was

Brittany crazy. That gives you a little perspective of what it, what it was like. It was a crazy time for sure. [00:03:00] And working with Vegas.

Rick Vegas was in the toilet, man.

Brittany Oh yeah.

Rick 50 to make a dollar right.

Brittany it was nuts and honestly learning to work with. My father in a capacity that was more business orientated rather than family orientated, took some experience. I definitely left a few times crying like, oh my God, dad, you're so mean. I was a kid, you know, to be honest with you. Was that last.

Suneet I was Rick the one that went home crying last week saying, Brittany, you're so mean.

Brittany That might be now. That's,

Rick but it was, the rules reversed. The rules have reverse. Yeah, definitely. Like now you need to do this.

Brittany Right.

Suneet So, okay, so before we make this an origin story, let's just get into some real shit right now. So Rick, You went through the last market cycle, right?

Rick Oh yeah. It was fun.

Suneet Oh yeah. So, I actually was in, I owned, I [00:04:00] ran a mortgage shop and I left mortgage and let my real estate license go in 2007. Oh. and I got into another industry, but that's for another episode. were you slinging houses in 2008?

Rick We at the time actually, I was still developing, my brother was slinging them and I was developing 'em down in Southern California. And that's right about the time Wells Fargo came to us and told us that, yeah, yeah, those ones are stopping. yada yada yada.

Suneet where did you go full time selling houses?

Rick it's. Or 2009 somewhere. Right in that area.

Suneet Not much later. Yeah.

Rick Yeah. It was, setting it up. Tammy over at Wells Fargo was teaching me, you know, Hey, Vegas is gonna be the epicenter. You and your brother should split up. You go there, da da, da. You know, our office was. Two desks butted together, right? So I knew everything that was going on with real estate. He knew everything that was going on [00:05:00] with the development side. And I said, you know what? The f the, I can handle the short sales. She kind of walked me through what it would take to do res and short sales and stuff, and then. My wife was lucky enough to get a job out here, so that took a little while to convince mom and you know, we're moving and the kids and all that stuff.

Suneet In Vegas.

Rick Yeah.

Suneet Yes. Awesome. So what did you see back then that's like similar to anything that we've seen the last three years?

Rick No, it's been different. you know, this is obviously a downturn. that's why I was kind of moving a little slow in 2025. 'cause obviously that wasn't a great year. 2024 wasn't a great year. but it's been a different type. It's not, the short sales is not the s it's more of a less demand. Less, less, less, less. Right. And so my thinking has been. it's getting right to the time to grow, in my opinion, for [00:06:00] Vegas. yeah, that's why I'm pushing all the other things right now. You know, the statewide MLS, getting people located everywhere so that we can service clients. as you know, I quit Zillow probably right about the right time. 2023. Yeah. 2022. 2023. So,

Brittany mm-hmm.

Rick I cut those expenses out, just relied on SOI Google really hammering and making my agents become real agents rather than. Drivers, right?

Suneet Sure. Door openers. So Brittany, what do you have to say right now?

Brittany Mm-hmm.

Suneet To be what it takes to be a successful realtor?

Brittany I would say right now what it really takes to be a successful realtor is, work, you know, working your leads. You know, to be honest with you, I think that's the biggest downfall that most realtors have.

Suneet Well, what does working a lead mean? What does it mean? Yeah. Should I text it one time?

Brittany Oh gosh, no. Yeah, I mean, if you're not reaching at least 21 [00:07:00] times out to a person, you really haven't even probably breaking the boundary with them for them to want to communicate with you. So, reaching out, following up and providing them with information that they are probably looking for online. A lot of our clients are relocators, so I really focus in on the different areas that we have throughout the state and what those communities Are like in the lifestyle so that they really feel like I'm giving them something that they wanna actually answer my phone call for.

Suneet Oh good. What's an example?

Brittany well I'll give you an example here in Henderson, where our office is, our main office is located, we do a bunch of parades out here in front of our office. So that's, I give them Got you written in

Suneet a parade. Oh,

Brittany you

Rick picture of that, that downtown. Just that.

Brittany I like to send them videos of the things that we're doing out in the community, what, you know, restaurants everybody loves pickleball here, where the pickleball courts are, where you can go golfing. A lot of people love golf in Vegas. Everybody thinks of golfing in Vegas. So I give them all of [00:08:00] the golf courses and, if they're looking for luxury, those, you know, higher end guard gated communities and what amenities those have and what What your neighbors are gonna be like. Who and maybe who your neighbors are. Right. We've got Mike Tyson recently moved into Rick's neighborhood, so that's pretty cool.

Rick Really?

Brittany Yeah,

Rick yeah. Yeah. He just bought a home in Seven Hills. I was like, yeah, get some celebrity in here. I like that.

Suneet is his house sick?

Brittany I don't know. I haven't seen it. he gave me the good news. I can't imagine Mike Tyson gets a crappy house though, right? No, it's, I mean, it's gotta be badass. It's

Rick sick. it's definitely sick.

Suneet damn

Rick dude,

Suneet you just froze me in the middle of a podcast. You got Tyson

Brittany just happened this week. He just told me yesterday. I think so. It's new news.

Rick The high end market here is like crazy, you know, the billionaire tax from you guys, you know, with Gavin running his mouth.

Brittany We love California. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Rick Thank you. New York, the same [00:09:00] way. We're getting a lot of New Yorkers again. so we're seeing that bounce back. and they're building some sick, sick houses here. next time you're in town, I'll, I'll run you around to see 'em. It's like 12,000 square foot all desert, contemporary, you know, gyms inside of 'em, basketball courts. You know what? Yeah. It's, it's the hook. That's awesome.

Suneet Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So, Vegas is so interesting in real estate, right? Well, Vegas is so interesting for every reason, but for the real estate side because. it's like boom and bust. Just like the strip sometimes, right? Like Oh yeah. You get a joke about that. And I know like even you Rick, you were trying to sell one of my uncle's places and it was like super hard because it was busting with those condos. 'cause everybody fucking bought one. Everyone in California bought one at least.

Rick Yeah.

Suneet All my uncles did for sure.

Rick Yeah. Right. No, it's true. If the condo market is woo it, it's crazy. There's a lot of stuff in the news every day about HOAs going broke, [00:10:00] people getting assessed money, HOA fees going up. And so it's put a huge damper on that whole part of the market.

Brittany Well, not to mention AI taking over everybody's job on the strips. Right. So there's a lot of fear there. Oh, I mean, it's,

Suneet what's AI doing on this trip?

Brittany I was watching something that was basically saying about 75% of the hospitality workers from the Strip are not gonna have their job by 2035.

Rick Yeah. We used to have a lot of call centers for the strip.

Brittany Mm-hmm. Totally.

Rick And those are gone.

Brittany Yeah.

Rick Yeah. So those are in

Suneet the Philippines?

Rick Yeah.

Brittany Yeah. Well,

Rick they're

Brittany everywhere. Ai, yeah, ai. Mostly

Rick they're using AI and the Philippines. so that. Portion went probably two or three years ago. It started out with the Philippines, they were kind of winding it down 'cause they wanted to still have some American, but it looks like they're going to the AI on that. when you go into the casinos there's not as many dealers as there used to be. There's, you know, little robots standing there and [00:11:00] screens and, you know, things like that. So I, it's, it's changing. Yeah.

Suneet Maybe

Rick I get lucky here.

Brittany Yeah, hopefully, hopefully the slots will hit more in the tables.

Rick but you know, there's a lot of other industry coming into Vegas and, you know, think California again. what we're seeing in the commercial industrial thing, like ha is building a huge place. It's like, the beginning phase is 800,000 square foot and he's moving from Ventura. Over here to do all this manufacturing, you know, here. Right? So the strip is becoming less and less a portion of the market, which is kind of good, but it's also kind of, that the strip workers used to be our starting price point buyers. And that's It's killing them. Yeah, it's killing, it's killing that market right now.

Suneet So in a market like that, besides what you said for following up and working the leads, what's another trick? How [00:12:00] do you sell houses in a market like that?

Brittany Your clients? I mean, for me it's, it's your clients and, and continuing to reach out to them, making those connections with them. Family members,

Suneet It's all in the follow up.

Brittany It is.

Rick It is a follow. It's one of the things as I'm expanding out into the other areas. it's the hardest thing to teach is that you know, hey, that first five times that they didn't answer doesn't mean you give up. You know, you gotta keep on, keep on, keep on it. Delay

Suneet gratification. And I remember right it is. Right. And even my mom used to tell me that stuff when I was a little kid. Anyways, so Rick, you know, expanding and the way you did, it's super smart and I think we need to talk about it. So you saw an opportunity inside the surrounding markets and you know, I don't know if you guys were on my webinar I did this week. I

Suneet was,

Brittany I was on

Suneet it. Oh, you were so right. I was. We talk about the levers of growth. [00:13:00] Growing isn't always selling more in our market, Growing is about making more frigging money.

Brittany Right.

Suneet Without worrying about the ego. Right. And you did geographic expansion. Very smart, Rick. So why don't you share with the listeners and viewers how you geographically expanded?

Rick what I saw was as. Minerals are going up in price. It's, you know, gold's through the roof, copper's through the roof, silver's through the roof. The central northeast area or basically it's almost the whole state other than Reno and, and Las Vegas. Those are all old mining communities and

Suneet yeah, like old.

Rick Yeah. Old mining, you know, back from the 18 hundreds, 1930s I think was the last time a lot of 'em were really super active. And what I saw was, and it was a senator from Utah wanted to buy a mine from me that flicked the switch.

Suneet Oh, no way.

Rick Yeah. And it, it flicked the switch. I sold him [00:14:00] a silver wine down in Piot and he goes, you wanna focus on this? He goes, what? that

Brittany nobody knows that market.

Rick Yeah. No one knows that market, et cetera, et cetera. So I went out, I met the people that know how to do the titles and met the PE bankers that finance those kinds of things and all that. Kind of did some prep work before we actually did the expansion and then. it all kind of gelled in my head and I'm like, yeah, we gotta do this. 'cause that means people gotta come in and the average salary for a minor is about 128 grand a year.

Suneet Yeah. So pretty good.

Rick Yeah. It's, it's, they can

Brittany buy a nice house in those areas.

Rick Yeah. Those areas, that's like more than enough to buy whatever house they want. And so I saw that and I was like, okay, yeah, there's opportunity here. The biggest holdback right now is obviously people, they're used to very small amount of realtors in their areas, Uhhuh, one or two, and a lot of them, [00:15:00] and they're used to working their way, so it takes getting somebody that's willing to travel and go to a, a lot of different places that'll, you know, lock in. And I made trips up there and met all those realtors and made phone calls to 'em, you know, Hey, What we do is, you know, we're gonna help bring buyers to your area, blah, blah, blah.

Brittany Yeah. There was a lot of hesitation for them to even answer our phone calls to see their listings because they're used to being able to double end everything. Right, right. And controlling that marketplace. So there was a lot of hesitation upfront from all the realtors that we were interacting with because they didn't know us. They didn't know if they could trust us. And you know, unfortunately a in a smaller town. Zillow is a bad word. Right. anyways, Rick has done his magic and getting to know people and, making those connections. So that has been really. you know, astronomical to me Yeah. In making this work. You know, it's a work in progress. Like everything, [00:16:00] it's

Rick kind of, it's kind of a hole in Zillow system, you know, as there, you know, I was with Zillow for 10 years, you know, so I know them pretty well, right? Yeah. Not og like you either, but close to it. I think I started in 2012 with them or whatever, and so I know their system really, really well and their whole is. Those rural areas, right? Because they can't put a flex person in there. They can't really get people that wanna advertise. 'cause those people that are in those areas want to double end it and they want the people to call them. They don't want to have it advertised everywhere and all that stuff. So we were able to expand. them real fast to the agents is giving 'em a lot of leads by buying Zillow for, you know, 50 bucks a zip code and stuff. Yeah. and that's, you know, that's been really good Google. It took them a while to get up to speed on how to do it and you know, to get Sierra and all those guys over [00:17:00] there to do it. Right. But it's good now. Good dude. It's doing really good now.

Suneet So you expanded with leads? Cheap leads.

Rick Cheap leads.

Suneet And how did you get agents out there?

Rick I made a trip. Sun.

Suneet Yep.

Rick I, you know you got

Suneet in the car.

Rick I did, yeah. I got in the car. Drove.

Suneet Well, so you, but you went to the same brand that you work with right?

Brittany Well,

Rick no, they weren't. I treated Realty one agents over to become our brand.

Brittany Yeah.

Suneet Is what I did. Oh, so you, so you just went down there and started meeting agents?

Brittany Yep.

Rick Yeah.

Brittany I, they found two great girls up there who were running the realty one office.

Rick Right.

Brittany And, He was able to, they were with Keller Williams before, so that definitely was helpful in knowing what Keller Williams is like. But the, ownership up there dissolved. So it kind of worked out for us to kind of swoop them back into our, company.

Suneet Nice. All right. Well, Brittany, what advice do you have for people sitting out here listening to this [00:18:00] call who are in real estate? Mm-hmm. From every hat that you wear, what advice do you have?

Brittany I would say that there's two things. One is and you've told me this so many times, sun, but I'm time blocking. If you're not time blocking, time blocking,

Rick somebody listens to you.

Brittany If you're not time blocking, you're not gonna have enough time to do everything, quite frankly. So you really have to be cognizant of how much time you spend on each thing so that you're the most productive that you can be.

Suneet How many houses do you normally sell a year?

Brittany Uh, me personally, I'm more than 20 houses a year. yeah.

Suneet You personally? Mm-hmm. And

Brittany Yep.

Suneet Help run the team.

Brittany Yes. More than 20 houses a year.

Suneet And

Brittany on average, 25. A mom. Mm-hmm.

Suneet And our mom

Brittany and a mom. Team leader, office manager.

Suneet Yes.

Brittany All the

Suneet above. And your secret is time blocking?

Brittany Yeah, definitely. It doesn't always work perfectly. I'm gonna be honest.

Suneet We move

Brittany shoes around, but it gives me at least a guideline, you know? Okay, I really want to try to make my [00:19:00] appointments during this time. I wanna make my calls during this time. Oh, you were

Suneet listening.

Brittany I was, yeah. I've had to delete it a couple times and start over because I realized, you know, what I thought in my mind wasn't really what, my day really looked like. So I try to pay attention to both of those things.

Rick Yeah, that, that's the hardest part for agents. 'cause I. Especially if you're a gunner, you're used to just putting out a fire and go, oh, I gotta go to an appointment. I gotta do this. No,

Suneet it's the hardest part for people.

Brittany Yeah,

Rick it is.

Brittany People like to be reactive, and that is not an easy thing to get out of.

Rick No, it doesn't. I still fight it, but

Brittany I do too. I mean it's,

Rick yeah. At least I got it in front of me and I'm going, okay, I gotta get

Suneet the distractions too, which doesn't help.

Brittany Absolutely

Suneet okay, so what's your second piece of advice?

Brittany Follow up. if you're not following up with people, they're gonna forget you. So even if you've talked to them, you know, and they're telling you that they're gonna use you, and, you know, don't worry, I'm gonna call you when, when I'm ready. Like, that never [00:20:00] happens. People forget about you. So you really have to be top of mind all the time.

Suneet Good. Okay. How about for team leaders?

Rick For team leaders. I mean, you know, and this came from a long time experience and been through a lot of markets.

Suneet Wait, you're not gonna credit me with some shit.

Rick Some of this shit is you and, and, and really it's financial. It's like. it's easy to, to, yeah, I can do this and I'm gonna get this and it, you know, this shiny button over here is gonna make this happen and da, da da. you've always gotta watch where you're at and know where you're at so that you can. Make decisions. It's like I was getting a lot of, guff from, some of the leaders in kw. Why aren't you personally investing, you know, in this down market, right. And I'm like, because I am gonna invest in Elco and I'm gonna expand out my business further. And, that's the hardest part for [00:21:00] all of us. 'cause, you guys preach it, I was very lucky to go through this metrics program back 10 years ago when I was first creating the team, and they preached it really, really well too. And so it's kind of ingrained into my business now, and sometimes it holds me back. I realize that, but on the other end, if you're growing at the rate where you can afford to keep growing, you're going to win in the long run.

Suneet Yes. Growth is an investment in time and money. there's more than one way to grow than selling more houses in your markets.

Brittany Sometimes there's money elsewhere, right?

Suneet no, not sometimes. Often they gonna All

Rick the time baby.

Brittany Yeah.

Suneet Except, you know what works for you guys,

Rick might, might not

Suneet work

Rick all my somebody else. My, but that's okay.

Suneet all your who hates you

Rick all. All my vendors hate me. 'cause it's pay to play brother. You wanna be in here?

Suneet Yeah, bro. Yeah, we talk about that too, right? So good. Okay, so if somebody [00:22:00] if a realtor has a referral. And they're gonna send it to you in Vegas. Where do they send it to?

Rick Probably the best thing is administration at the Charlie team, and then either me or Brittany would get a hold of it like right away, or you know, you can call us, I mean, seven oh two six three seven zero six four oh. I'll pick it up.

Suneet Yo guys. I send the Charlie team my Vegas referral. You should too, right? that was super fun. I love the perspective. Brittany, I'm glad that you showed up. Yeah. Because me and Rick would've fucked off the whole time. For sure. So way to go, Rick, send them your referrals. I really hope you got something. All the listeners got something on this episode. we'll see everybody on the next episode of the ARD Platform podcast. Peace out.