139. Real Estate and the Root Chakra: Selling with Energy and Empathy

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic, the show where practical mind power and mystical wisdom collide with humor and wild curiosity. Yeah,

we're not here to play it safe. I'm Cinthia Varkevisser, your resident spiritual shit disturber. I stir things up with mystic power and bold action.

And I'm Michelle Walters, coach and Hypnotherapist. I bring strategy and transformative hypnosis to help you turn subconscious blocks into unstoppable momentum.

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Let's go hey, hey, hey, welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic. I am Cinthia Varkevisser, your programs mystic, and I'm here with my Pallyi Walley extraordinaire, hypnotist and marketing specialist, Michelle Walters, and we're here with one of my best friends, and I'll just say the naughty amigo. I'll call you my naughty Michelle, so sorry with my naughty amigo. Ms Laura Wucher, Laura Wucher is one of the most successful agents, real estate agents in the East Bay and specializing in Pleasant Hill and Martinez, and she's going to talk to us not just about real estate, the money and what the market's doing. We're talking about first chakra things, because real estate talks about so many different areas in the Root Chakra, right? And Laura's going to talk about how she works with her clients who are very, very driven by their money, security, survival. Welcome, Laura.

Hello. How you doing? Cinthia, Michelle, good,

good, good. So I love working with you, because I know how you deal with your clients. You have a special touch. Whenever I get to speak with your clients through house clearings, there's a lot of affection and respect when they when they talk about you, right? So can you tell us a little bit about how you work with them and how you can get down with their you know, in real estate, we call them objections, but really their fears, their base concerns.

So when I go on a listing appointment and I'm meeting someone for the first time, you really don't know who you're going to be meeting. So they I listen. I really try to to learn about them and how to serve them at the highest level, right? It's not about me, it's about them. And I do initially try to get into what those fears are, why they're moving, try to understand if one person wants to move, the other person doesn't. So that does happen as well, and then create or mold myself and my presentation and how we work together based on them, so that they're comfortable working with me. I'm not going to be the fit for everybody. So there's, you know, certain people and like, I don't take all the listings, because if I don't feel like we're going to fit together, or if they're going to be abusive to me, I don't want to work with them. So, you know, I do have boundaries there too, but it is. It's a journey. It's not, it's and I'm there as their guide, and I do, as I said, make my structure, what how I work with them based on their needs. So, yeah, I'm a therapist, basically.

That's true. That's true.

How did you get into this kind of work? Laura, what? What inspired you to become a realtor?

al estate market went down in: 2008

Laura was a rising star when I met her. I think you're in your second. Year, and I think you got the Rookie of the Year award or something like that. And the thing that I loved about Laura is we would go into I would go into the office, and she'd be talking to someone, and then she'd say, Okay, I just went to this listing appointment. I want you to go. You're going to buy a chocolate covered strawberry knock on their door and you can present them with a chocolate covered strawberry as a thank you for this meeting. And I thought, holy crap, that's a whole lot of effort. Yeah, look where you are. Well,

now I'm planting little succulents, and it says, Help. Thank you for helping me grow. So that's my new thing. So I like gardening, so it's fun, and they you can leave them in the sun. They're not going to get all moldy and soft and

stuff. So, yeah, which is what happened? Which is what happened with the chocolate? Exactly.

Those were not that, that I couldn't do that because it wasn't working. Yeah,

yeah, it gets hot out here in the sun, strawberries and the chocolate,

exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah,

you've been listening to Mind Power Meets Mystic with me. Michelle Walters and my co host, Cinthia Varkevisser, we want to tell you about a special gig the two of us have going on. It's called mind power meets mystic, the project, and it starts off on a zoom call with Cinthia. Cinthia tell everybody what they can expect. So

for the first half of our session, you will be with me, and Michelle will be very quietly in the background preparing to do her work. What we will do is that we will talk about the one thing that you either want to amp up or that you want to release, and through the intuitive work, I help you get boil it down to its essence, and then give you an RX of three practical things to do to set you on your way. And then Michelle magically appears. What is it that you do that Michelle, I have been

listening in but not participating in the first half of the call. I have an excellent idea of what Cinthia means when she says something, and I have an excellent idea of quickly getting to what my client is all about and his or her individual strengths. I turn all of this into a 20 to 30 minute hypnosis session on the second half of the call, which when we're done, I strip off and send you as an mp three that you can listen to over and over again. You also will have Cynthia's three point recommendations and the recording of the Zoom call. It is a fantastic one hour offering a great gift for yourself or for someone you don't know what to get such insights, and we've gotten such great reviews. So if you're interested, send me or Cinthia an email. You'll find our contact information in the show notes, and we'll tell you how to get started.

But it's an interesting career, because every single every day is different. Every person is different, and there are a lot of emotions throughout the transaction, not even in the very beginning. And for me, I sold my house, and I going through that, it gave me a new more compassion for what people are going through, like when my daughter's room was all staged and I was doing a walk through with the stager, I just broke down and started crying, and it's like, Wow, where did that come from? But you know, there's all the memories that you create at home. So I now when people are talking and coaching people, and they're getting ready to move, I let them know that that emotion is a part of it, and it's okay to have that, and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and there's a lot of emotion that goes along with moving. Yeah, that's true.

Well, I love that you actually started in real estate as a first chakra solution, right? Because it had to do with money. Money is one of those things about feeling safe, secure, survival. Another favorite stories is, as you're out farming, still a new agent, your son, uh, had to fly her. And what Laura would say is, if you want to go to that private school, you got to help me make the money. So it's a it's a great thing, but it also reinforces, you know how to stay safe, you know to get what you want, so you don't tap into that root chakra challenge. But

it is an interesting career still, because it's a sales job at the end of the year, right? So if people are, if you're not selling, you're not making money. So there, it's not like a paycheck is coming in, either. And so a lot of it in real estate, you have to keep open mentally and manifest what you want, because, like, I can get in my own way. Oh, the market's bad. I'm not. I don't have any listings. And then it just perpetuates itself.

Yeah, it's kind of like, it's a, it's a first chakra job serving, yes, chakra need. It's kind of like the ultimate of the whole thing. It's a double chakra. It's like. Double one chakra, and it's, it's, it's really, I mean, they say about realtors, you guys are realtors or or have been, but me know, but it's, it's feast or famine,

right? Yes, yeah, it's, but I would rather feast so I will manifest feasting more than the famine. Yes,

they say that you could, you if you choose to be a realtor, you could be perpetually unemployed. So, yeah,

right, they had, I think they did the stats. And I forget what percentage of Realtors last year only sold one to two homes, and you can't survive off of that. No, no, absolutely.

Have you run into these challenges with your clients, where all of a sudden, because I had, I have a couple of clients, but that was on the buy side, that they wanted something, and then they realized they couldn't afford it. And then the whole thing that they go through, or I had this, this, this is the one that put me out of real estate. I put real estate on pause, is that they really thought their house was worth a certain amount of money. And when I showed them all the all the proof that it wasn't, you know, there was disbelief. There were, you know, all these things that happened and and I know that you are do really well with that. So why don't you thought that? Like, what do your clients go through, and how do you solve that for them?

So I have one right now, and it's a beautiful home. And so we pulled comps before we came on the market. That was a couple months, because it took time to get it ready and everything, and the market was different. And then by the time I put it on the market. The stock market was all crazy, and we had Easter and stuff like that, and we weren't even having any showings. It was listed almost at 2 million. I have an appraiser friend and a real estate coach, and the real estate coach coached me a bit on, you know, giving him the information on on price and absorption. And then the appraiser actually wrote out everything. So he made I paid him 100 bucks. He made my job easy, so I presented them with the information, kind of like softly hinting, hinting, giving them the feedback from open houses. It doesn't have a yard for that price, they can buy in Danville or in San Ramon or in Lafayette or Rinda. And, you know, just giving them the information and letting them process it. The husband is a little bit hot headed, and so I didn't it was like, I didn't want to offend also, and then just having a conversation with them, and I didn't have a conversation all about real estate and prices and stuff like that. We talked about the kids, we talked about life where they moved to so it was a long conversation, but part of it, maybe, like five minutes was about the price, and then I gave them my recommended price, and they said, We need to think about this. And so they got called them back. They weren't ready. And then finally they wanted to talk to me, and they were ready to drop the price. And so now that we've dropped it, it was a huge price drop. It was 300,000 but we didn't have the right price for our market, you know, in the house, I mean, it's a different market right now. So it's also, I think keeping communicating because they're not here. And I think people are afraid. Why isn't my house selling? They take it personally, like it's an affront on them that their house isn't selling. So just being calm, letting them know that they hired me for my expertise. You know, I got this, I got them and making my recommendations, and if it was something I could have fixed in the house, that's, that's what I would have done. But that wasn't the case. So I think there, I still need to get an offer, but people are looking at the house now, so, you know, that's a positive for me. That's

first step, yeah. Well, the reason I love well, you, you employ me, which is, you know, that's not the only reason why I love you, but that you trust me every time is helpful thing. And what I tell everyone when, when I talk about you as a realtor, is that you use house clearings as a resource, right? How for for the listing agent, or the listing as the last thing, and I've known you to bury saints and right all the things within, what the what the clients want. And I'm the last person and last resort, which I

think I have one now, she wants you to go in and clear it before we even go on the market. Oh, I'm so down.

I'm having for for a house clearing and well, the other thing is that when you are the second realtor, meaning that they fired their first listing, then I'm one of the first people on there, because you're doing something different. And it's almost like you're clean slate, not just for the house. But, you know, with everything, yeah, and the reason I like that is because they're already in fear, like, what's wrong with our house? What's wrong? Just like what you said, yeah, right. So I love the way that you presented, but you also do other things to help alleviate I mean, come on, this is like the biggest thing that they own, big purchase. So, right? Biggest transaction in their you know, in their lives, yeah,

and just calming, like slowing down a bit, depending on the client, right? You have younger people that just send them a text message. They got it. You got people that don't even do DocuSign and go and meet with them and explain everything and really hold their hands. So it is really curating, adapting myself to their needs, but understanding like I do this every day and they don't. So it's hard. It's like they don't even know where to start a lot of times. Yeah, so just breaking it down, and walking them through it, and letting the I don't know, letting them know that things are going to come up, probably too um, it's hard. The hardest clients, though, are the ones that are all about the money I need to get X amount, and I've gotten stronger within myself to say, you know, I'm going to market your house, I'm going to show your house. It's going to look as best as possible and get in front of a lot of buyers. But what I can't control, and you can't either, is the market, the competition and interest rates. So all of those are out of our control, and if those factors don't line up and with the market, you might not get this price that you that you want. And yeah, that's just having that hard conversation with them, right?

Yeah,

Michelle and I do this great thing. We do a great tag team, right? So, because I come from the intuition, and Michelle's very intuitive, intuitive, and she comes from intellect. So she's, you know, like quite a powerhouse, right? Having the intellect and the intuition and the thing that I love about you. So there's two of us, and we work on one person. There's one of you, and you have clients in right? Uh, multiple. So how do you work with couples? Right? Because they think a lot of times, couples think that they're in sync, and they're not. They're

not in sync. Yeah, right. That's very, very true,

dealing with two different kinds of fears and desires and some things that are illogical, right? How do you do that?

Well, I mean, there's always a decision maker, right? So, you know, connect with that person. I see if they both want to be on everything, and sometimes they're like, no, just talk to, you know, the the wife or the husband or so I find out, find that out first. And it's a lot, it's, it is intuition, how to, how to deal with, you know, the couples. If it's a divorce situation, or it's trustees, I'm Switzerland, I'm going to text both of them. It's going to be the same message to everybody, and they're all included. So it really is dependent on the person, although, in this case, with the husband and the wife, and he wanted the higher price, and she's more flexible. I did talk more to her, because I thought talking to her, she's going to be able to convince him, versus if I'm talking with him, we might end up in conflict. So that was how I handled that, and think it worked out well, right?

Yeah, you have another set of clients that I know. They absolutely loved you and they welcomed me in, and he was ready to move, and she said, This is my house, right, right? And, and it went up for sale. I mean, even though she found a house that she liked, it was still she, she still, you know, air quotes, my house. So, how did you, how did you handle that? That

was interesting. Yeah, so when, um, they were talking about moving, and she was like, I, you know, I could tell she wasn't ready at all. I'm like, I'm not going to push you guys. That's not who I am, who I am. And so they would go and look at houses just on their own. They weren't even really, you know, I wouldn't be shown a house. They just go out on the weekend. And then she eventually found a place that she she liked, and it was just out of the blue, because I thought we were never going to list this house. I thought it just going to do, you know, paint it, get it ready, and we're just whatever kind of thing. And so when she found it, then, you know, we got it ready for the market. And. And it's a nice house, and it didn't sell. It should have sold, but it didn't sell. And that was interesting. So they were, you know, I could start to feel their angst. They were getting nervous that the house wasn't selling, and, you know, little freaking out. And it was, it was going to be the holidays. I think I brought you in and you did your clearing. And so I was talking to him, because I really want to take it off the market for Christmas and then put it back on the beginning of the year, because it's, you know, people weren't showing over the holidays. And you told me that the buyer wasn't ready yet. The buyer was going to be out in January. And so then the first open house had in January. The buyer said they've been waiting for the house. They weren't ready to buy earlier, and it's just like, like, freaky, freaky, freaky stuff. But it worked, I mean, and so they listened to me, and that's the thing, not everybody listens, so that that's the hardest thing with with clients, is when they're hiring me for my expertise. I'm giving it, and they're not listening to me, and it's a bit frustrating, but I have to let that go, because that's there. That's where they're coming from. And so we have one right now, and everything he's asking what he should do to fix up the house, we give him advice, like Nancy was there today, my assistant, and she said, we need to put bark out. Said, I don't embark right here, because this is where the lawn mower goes. And she's like, No, we put bark out. So we take pictures. It looks good, you know, going back and forth. And finally, Nancy, I told her this. I said, you know, we're your advisor, where your trusted advisors, this is what we do. You hire us for expertise, but you're the ultimate decision maker, and so that's what we're doing now, and his house might not show as well as it could, and that's his choice, and it might affect his bottom line. Maybe it won't, but I just can't keep my emotions attached to that. I need to let it go. It's

interesting, as you guys are talking about this, because you're deep in this world, and I'm, I'm not really world, but it just brings up for me how, how complicated of a transaction buying and selling a house is, I mean, my story was, I bought a house I was renting, so it didn't have the same kind of, I mean, there was negotiations, but right, we have the same kind of drama. Like I knew what I was buying. I knew, in a way that no buyer ever gets to know. You know, we're moving

though I feel like there's, there's a sense of loss. You know, you're even and there's so many different reasons. You know, did the parents have to go in a home because they have Alzheimer's? Did you know, is it a trustee sale? Did they have another baby and they're buying something bigger that's usually happy, but you have so many different emotions, and then you have all the memories that you created in the home over the years. And then it's hard to move the logistics of packing up everything, figure out what you're going to keep and get rid of. It's it's multi layered. So that's what I mean when I take a step back and when my clients start freaking out, it's like, that's okay to freak out. I got you that, you know, you have a safe haven here, but, yeah, it's very it's very complicated, and it's like, up and down, right? And then there's always the unexpected. But I tell them, I'm going to solve their problems. Going to work on solving the problems before it becomes a problem. So I like, if I can solve it, they will never even know that there was a problem that could have existed. Yeah, so it's fun.

It is.

Yeah, every day, but a lot of days are fun.

Meeting the people are really meeting the people, for me is, you got to see them, they I've said you and I would I, when I would go to listing appointments, or even as a buyer, I'd say, we're going to be besties for the next few months, and I'm gonna know a lot about you and and that's the other nice thing, is that you get to see people in a very short people Time, very short amount of time, become very vulnerable, and you see their squishy parts. That's not, that's not part of the rated X thing. Michelle, just so you know, they're squishy parts, but and so you do see people at their most vulnerable on so many levels? Yes, I think that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I had a client who had a nervous tic and and it was so stressful. That by the time it was over, you know, there was substantial hair loss,

yeah, so, yeah. And you also, like, even when I sold the house, you know, then there were the kids too. You don't even think those parents are dealing with their kids and moving away from their friends and all of that. So there's, there's complexities that I'm not even really a part of, that are going on at home, too.

Yeah, real estate's fascinating, and there is a lot of psychology and therapy and tears, tears, sometimes they were mine, but definitely not with the clients, right?

You know, at night you want to pour a big glass of wine because you're going, Okay, I'm done, like, can't do this anymore. Yeah,

yeah, for me, it was chocolate and ice cream, and I did not lose weight as a realtor,

yeah, yeah. There were days I wanted to quit. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. Oh, my God. But then I wake up the next day and I go, you know, what else is there? I really do like what I do. And a lot of people can't say that. So, and as I'm getting more experience, I think I'm learning how to handle things better and not just be reactive to things. So that's been good, too. But yeah, there's it is a fear, scared, interesting journey, you know? I mean, and I tell people to just trust in the universe, especially when they don't have the house that they're moving to yet, and they're getting ready to sell, oh yeah, they're so afraid. And I say, don't worry, it's the right house is going to come at the right time. And it always, always does, which is really crazy, but it I've never had someone be homeless. So

No, right, no as a matter of fact. So there's a part of the contract where, you know, at the end of the transaction, the seller could actually stay and become the renter for a certain amount of days. And so it's called a rent back and and so a lot of times the sellers say, I want to, I want a 60 day rent back or whatever, and even with the rent back as a as a safety net, I don't believe we ever had a problem with the transaction, you know, going beyond for them To decide features, because it's really incredible,

right, right? I had one that they did find their house during COVID. They found the house they wanted to buy, and then their own house fell out of escrow twice. No, once, I think it was only once and so but what happened is, I was talking to a lender about this, because they couldn't get the loan, and then they she talked to another realtor who had a buyer for it, so the same day, they're back in contract, and they got to keep the security deposit.

Yeah, yeah, at a similar story like that, too. It's amazing how the universe works through so it is a pretty spiritual business when you just kind of sit back and and let things unfold,

right, right? And it depends on the person, because I'm not super transactional, but I'm sure there's very transactional realtors out there,

you know, but that's there are people for them. Yeah, there are people for them, you know, someone for everyone, especially real estate. So hey, you got three listings this week, which is kind of amazing. And bravo to you, because you are the because you don't have a huge team, right? No,

right now I have two, two buyers, agents, and, you know, basically my assistant, but it isn't, I mean, I've been manifesting this for a bit, and then everything just came at once. So it was, you know, yeah, it just all, all came together, which is good, really. It's a late, a late spring for me this year, but I'd had three this last week, putting two on this coming week. So, and then I have another one we're getting ready. That's

great. Do you want to we're going to be on live? Do you want to talk about it, the listings at all?

Really, I'm good. I mean, you know, I have the the beautiful with the price drop, that's Concord on which drive that's beautiful. Yeah, it is. It's gorgeous. And then the others, yeah, we'll just see. I do feel like the buyers are out there, and we will be getting in some offers on two of them this week. The other one I feel like is overpriced. So once again, I'll have that conversation and see what they want to do. Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Well. Well, I will make sure that we put your website in the show notes. Okay, this way to get a hold of you is that Laura wisher.com yep, that's perfect. Perfect. All right, thank you so much.

Yeah, yeah, thanks. Okay, I'll see you soon. Girl, okay, bye, bye, bye.

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