TV Personality and CEO Mauricio Umansky: The Dealmaker's Secrets to Motivation and Growth

Gene Marks (00:00)

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Paychex THRIVE Podcast. My name is Gene Marks. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a great guest that I've already talked to, and I want to share with you a little bit as a preview what we're going to be talking about. Mauricio Umanksy is a real estate agent, businessman, and television personality. Perhaps you've seen him on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, but also, he is starring as the co-founder and chief executive officer of The Agency. He is also the author of The Dealmaker: How to Succeed in Business & Life Through Dedication, Determination, & Disruption. Mauricio and I had a conversation about real estate, specifically real estate sales. This guy has built a company with 150 employees, 3,000 agents around the world in many, many different offices. He knows the real estate market. My interest in was talking to him about how he hires people and how he motivates people and what makes a good salesperson. So, if you're looking to get the most out of your salespeople and also learn a little bit about the real estate biz and where the economy is going related to real estate, Mauricio provides some great insights. So, without further ado, let's get to the conversation.

Announcer (01:07)

Welcome to THRIVE, a Paychex Business Podcast. Your blueprint for navigating everything from people to policies to profits. And now your host, Gene Marks.

Gene Marks (01:19)

So, first of all, Mauricio, thank you so much for joining me. I'm really, really pleased to have this conversation with you.

Mauricio Umansky (01:24)

I'm so excited to be here. And let's have some fun and let's see if we can deliver something where people get excited about, learn a little.

Gene Marks (01:30)

Okay, let's not go overboard here. It's just a conversation about real estate, but we'll do our best. Okay, so tell us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you get into the business? And tell us about, you know, your firm.

Mauricio Umansky (01:41)

Yeah, well, I got into the business approximately 20 in 1996, whatever that is now, almost. Almost 30 years ago now, time flies, but I was in the clothing industry before, and I actually started a clothing company. I sold the clothing company, and then I was hired by one of the largest clothing companies in Los Angeles to kind of mimic and, you know, copy the clothing company that I started. But they were, it was a struggle. It was in the late 90s, and I don't know, in the early 90s, and I don't know if you remember, there was a huge recession back then, and ultimately they closed my division. I got fired right before Christmas, super stressed, and you know how to find the next thing to do. My brother-in-law was in the real estate brokerage. I was always good in sales. That's what I really loved is sales. You know, the fact that I was in the clothing industry gave me an opportunity to start, you know, a brand, understand fashion and that was great. Right. So, I loved architecture, I loved design, always one of my favorite things to do. And I loved sales. So, I went to go work for my brother-in-law and at Hilton & Hyland 29 years ago and I started selling real estate. And I'm happy to say that, you know, the first year I did that, I made $181,000. And I made a promise to myself after that year that I would never earn less the following year than the previous year. And I've kept that promise for 29 years and it's been good. 2007, I earned the distinction of being the number one real estate agent of Los Angeles and number three in the country. That year I sold $650 million, $650 plus million dollars of real estate by myself without any teams or anything like that. And yeah, so that's kind of... And then, you know, taking it to The Agency, Gene, you know, that's when I reached that level, I decided that I want that all that what I did to get there were, were techniques that were teachable, repeatable, they were not unique to me. And so, I thought, I was thinking to myself, well, you know, I could chase number one, or I could use everything that I've learned, teach it, repeat it, create a company and grow it. And so that's, that's what we did. In 2011, I started The Agency. Took me four years, you know, from the end of 2007, it was really a three-year mark. And, and then we started the agency in 2011.

Gene Marks (04:11)

Right. So how big is the company now? Like how many employees?

Mauricio Umansky (04:15)

Yeah, the company today has approximately 150 employees and 3,000 agents around the world.

Gene Marks (04:23)

Unbelievable. So, you started this on your own and you built it to that level. So, I have a lot of questions about that. First of all, you've been doing this for a long time. Is it, is being a good salesman something that you learn or is it something that you're born with? Like what do you look for when you're trying to hire people to sell for you?

Mauricio Umansky (04:42)

Well, I think there's certain traits that you're born with that you kind of, that are hard to teach. But I think there's a lot of things that are teachable and repeatable, and you can learn them, right? But, you know, having the drive, having the, to succeed and to count on your spite on your own. You know, you're in essence, an entrepreneur when you're a salesperson, you earn money on commissions. You don't earn a paycheck, right? So, you're only as good as your last sale, you're only as good as your next sale, your pipeline, all of that stuff. And a lot of people just can't stomach, you know, particularly when you're getting started, you know, not earning money for months before you know, you make your next commission check. And they don't realize how hard that is. And it's just very difficult to stomach. So that takes a special character trait. But there's a lot of things that are teachable. Business organizations, administration, marketing, you know, ops, you know, how to get things done, lead generation. There's a lot of things that are definitely teachable that you have to learn and that you can't just, you know, earn, you know, know them innately. But you got to be born with something, you know, that's a competitive edge, some sort of charisma and some sort of self, not awareness, but self-confidence that allows you to know that you're going to be able to make the next sale, that you're going to be able to rely on yourself to earn a living.

Gene Marks (06:05)

So, you know, I actually, I'd like to stay on this topic of salespeople only because, I mean, Mauricio, so many of my clients struggle with this, and I know a lot of people watching and listening this, they run businesses, they struggle with salespeople. I mean, you're different. Like, you were hungry, you're probably greedy. You know, you went after money, you were entrepreneurial.

Mauricio Umansky (06:24)

You know, I got to stop you on that. Zero greed. I actually think that greed is a character trait that makes a good salesman. But I believe that there are good character traits and negative character traits.

Gene Marks (06:37)

Okay.

Mauricio Umansky (06:37)

Greed is what I consider a negative character trait. It does make you a good salesman, but that's what I consider to be a negative trait versus a good trait.

Gene Marks (06:45)

I guess it's like a balance. of greed, though, right? I mean, there's, you know, clearly you want somebody who's going to be hungry and wants to make money and always wants to do something more. But then again, you've got, you know, when somebody's selling a customer something just for the money or just for the commission, it's got to be right for the customer. So, there is that balance, right?

Mauricio Umansky (07:03)

Well, there's a great balance on that. And, and it also depends on what you're selling.

Gene Marks (07:07)

Yeah.

Mauricio Umansky (07:08)

What widgets you're selling. What, you know, from our perspective in real estate and the way The Agency is, we're selling hospitality, service, we're selling super high, I mean, we're ultra-high end. We're the largest sales, average sales price in the country.

Gene Marks (07:23)

Right.

Mauricio Umansky (07:24)

And so, we're selling, you know, luxury high end. And hospitality is critical. And so, you know, it's not about living off of one sale because those one sales turn into referrals. Everybody knows each other, particularly at a certain high level. That world starts becoming smaller and smaller and you want to protect your reputation. So, it's not about just pounding through a sale and having that greed of getting through it, but rather, you know, giving such incredible hospitality, incredible service, incredible knowledge, the drive to succeed, the drive to, to know how to push a deal forward with elegance. Right? That's the difference between luxury and, and not. Because luxury is not a price point. Luxury is a service.

Gene Marks (08:07)

Right. What do you do with the salesperson, Mauricio, that just, I mean, you said to be in this conversation, you never wanted to sell less than you did the year before. You always wanted to grow, grow, grow. Right. So, there's a demographic of salespeople that, I don't know, they get to a certain level, they're fat and happy. They're, you know, they're at a certain, then they're just, they coast. Yeah. What do you do about those kinds of people?

Mauricio Umansky (08:30)

We try to educate them. We try to motivate them, we try to get them... But there is, that's going to be, you know, there's a, there's a group, but by the way, that's what separates, you know, that's what that separates, you know, the top from the bottom. That's why there's an opportunity to have top and that's why there's bottom. And quite honestly, it doesn't take a lot to be at the top because most people are not very motivated. Most people... I cannot tell you how many people at my company make a nice sale and I see them, and I won't see them for two weeks and they'll come back tan and I'll be like, where'd you go? They're like, Cabo. I'm like, well, what happened to your next sale? Like, how'd you, you know what, you know, you're living... So, it's a drive, it's a plateau. But that is definitely what separates that top 2%. And that's why the top 2, the top 5% does 80% of the business and that's why the rest of them do 20% of the business.

Gene Marks (09:17)

Right. Do you fire people if they're not performing or if they're not hitting quotas?

Mauricio Umansky (09:21)

All the time because people cost you money no matter what, even though they're independent contractors, they cost you space, they cost you money, they cost resources, even when they're not doing anything. They want research, they want analysis, they want services, they want to do something, and they're still not making any money. So, we're servicing agents all the time. And if they're not making money, we let them go all the time.

Gene Marks (09:42)

Fair enough. What about, what about like bad actors as well? I mean, how about, you know, you know, again, people struggle where you say you've got somebody that's a performer, the guy's a producer, but I don't know, guy's a jerk. Or does he get along with people or the other people in the office hate him. But the guy produces. You've had to have come across those kinds of situations. What do you do?

Mauricio Umansky (10:01)

All the time. And you know the reality is on that, that it's all about the culture of the business that you're building, right? Then you've got to stick to your culture. There's some businesses that they're good with, that they're good with the jerk, with the asshole. I can tell you that our rule number one, and it's on everybody's independent contractor agreement is no assholes, and it's on there like we have it, we post it, we actually talk about it. We don't say, you know, we don't pretend not to say that. And we've come across many situations where we've had top real estate agents, top salespeople that have that make us a lot of money, where they were bad actors, and we've had to let them go in order to protect that. And I could tell you that when you dare to be bad, okay? When you dare to be bad, you actually end up with excellence, okay? And what happens is that, I mean, I can tell you we let go, I remember one particular situation, we let go of a salesperson, they were crushing it for us. We needed their money. It was early in our world, and we let them go. We just said, you know, we're either... This is the moment of truth we're either going to live by our rule number one or we're not going to live by our rule number one.

Gene Marks (11:09)

Right. Their behavior was that bad.

Mauricio Umansky (11:11)

And we did and we let them go. And sure enough, right after we let them go, the phone started to ring with other salespeople, with other real estate agents saying, I really love everything you guys are doing. I was not at your company because of that person that you had. And now that you've let them go, I'd like to come to your company. And we actually ended up 10xing our revenue, our commissions from the person that we let go. So, you got to stick to your guns.

Gene Marks (11:38)

Your business also is, I mean, it's ruthlessly competitive. And if I'm working for you and I'm selling for you, and again, I know you've hit this situation a lot, you know, at some point I'm going to be like, why am I selling for this guy? I could be going out and doing this stuff on my own. How do you, how do you handle those situations? Are you, are you a big non-compete person? Do you let people just fly and do their thing? Like, what's your attitude to their salespeople that just, they just move on because they want to, you know, they think they can do better?

Mauricio Umansky (12:04)

Well, we're in a very highly competitive market, so it's not only about doing something for themselves, but it's all the recruiting that's happening amongst the different brokerages that are recruiting people. The grass is always greener on the other side. And you know, at the end of the day, we do not... We're very different than a lot of the other brokerage firms where they hold contracts with their salespeople, where they have clawbacks, all kinds of different things in order to create, try to create retention. We actually let them fly, but we retain them through incredible hospitality, through incredible service, through an incredible culture. The people that work for a company really feel like some of their, some of their best friends are at the company. They've built incredible relationships and that's kind of what starts retaining it. We actually have a really high retention rate and so, you know, really happy about that. It's worked out very well for us, but it takes a lot of work. That's not something that happens easily. It's a lot easier just to write a contract with clawbacks and put money there and keep the client, you know, keep the agent through retention, through money. But we, we do it differently. We do, we retain through, through just incredible service throughout.

Gene Marks (13:17)

Okay, I got to keep asking about salespeople because you know so much about this, and it's just such a big issue. You know, finding good people, right? Like, I... A quick story. I have a client of mine, guy sells windows and doors outside of Philadelphia, where I live. He says he, like, whenever he goes out to eat, whenever he's at a store, he's always like, guys got his eyes open, you know, like, he's like, listen, I can teach anybody in the world to sell windows and doors, I can't teach people to have a great attitude or have energy or show up on time or whatever. You know that server at the restaurant that like remembers the whole order and is like, super with you. I mean, that's how that guy recruits. And he says it's like it's never failed him or rarely fails him. What do you do to find good salespeople for your company? Where do you look? What do you do?

Mauricio Umansky (14:01)

Yeah, it's hard, you know, like you said, it's a competitive business. So, it's more about finding. Most of the agents that come at our company are already established and, you know, we already know them and we've already, you know, vetted them, we've done business with them. So, it's kind of easy to know that, you know, when you're in your own micro market, the sales managers, the people, the everybody, you know, they know the people. The hard one is when you're taking risks on the, on the new guys, on rookies that are coming in, and that's where you really have to, you know, we look at personality tests, we look at ethics, we look at what they've done in the past, where they went to school, you know what, you know, what their sphere of influence is. It's critical in real estate, you know, your sphere of influence, that you actually have access to people because that's where you're going to be able to make some sales. You have a good reputation, you know, that kind of stuff. But we look at a personality test. I mean, one typical personality test that I always just look at and ask the question of, you know, I say, hey, you're on your date, you're with a girl. You're, you know, you've just finished a movie, you're heading to the restaurant. It's 9:55, the restaurant closes at 10. You walk up to the hostess stand and you say, hey, can we get a table? And she's like, kitchen closes at 10. Sorry. What do you do? Right. That's a great question, right? I Look for the salesperson that says, well, I got five minutes to order. Sit me down. I'll get my order in. Right. Like, that's, that's the guy I want. Not the guy that says, oh, I'll get on my phone and see if I can figure out, you know, if there's another place that's open till 11 or whatever. Like, that's not the salesperson I want. I want the one who's going to eat in.

Gene Marks (15:36)

I like that. That's a, that is a great question. You know, demographics, like, you know, you talk about hiring rookie salespeople. So, for starters, I guess you do hire rookies. You do hire people that are, you know, inexperienced. But you, you tend to skew more towards experienced people, I guess. Right? Is that just, is that that's where the money is?

Mauricio Umansky (15:56)

I mean, that's the reality. You know, you've already got, like I said, you know, 5% of people doing 80% of the business.

Gene Marks (16:01)

Yeah. They probably bring in a book of work. Right?

Mauricio Umansky (16:03)

Yeah. But growing somebody, that's where you have great retention.

Gene Marks (16:07)

Yeah.

Mauricio Umansky (16:08)

You know, helping somebody become one of those people. I mean, we've got plenty at the agency that have become one of those top 5%. Right. And they started as rookies. We have a lot of rookies that never made it past the first year. You know, we have, you know, some people that, you know, do one deal a year and pop in every once in a while, and you have a little bit of everything. Right? But, but yeah, usually that one deal a year is big enough to keep up at the company.

Gene Marks (16:34)

Okay, fair enough. You know I was recently talking on this podcast with a, like, a workplace guy who, like, specializes in, like, you know, generations. You know, they do a lot of research, and he does speaking on it. So, there's like five generations in the, you know, in the workplace. You know, there's the, you know, there's the Gen Zs, and then there's the millennials, and there's some people break out the millennials between older and younger millennials, because there's like a big skew, you know, between the two of them. You know, there's Gen Xers like me, there's, you know, boomers. So, they're all, like, in one place, you know, and your kids, you have three daughters. Like, what, like, what age range are they? Are they Gen Z range?

Mauricio Umansky (17:10)

I have four daughters.

Gene Marks (17:11)

Four.

Mauricio Umansky (17:12)

My oldest works with me. She just came and picked up a key to go do a showing and to go, you know, crush it. She's amazing. She's 34 years old, I think maybe? Then I have three other girls. Alexia, she's 28. She also works with me. And then I have Sophia, who tried it for a year, didn't like it. She's now doing other stuff. And then we have my youngest daughter, who is a junior in high school. So, we're looking at colleges right now. And see, so I got them all, man. You got them all 17 to 30. I know all the generations and, uh, all of that stuff.

Gene Marks (17:48)

So. okay, so first question I have on that is, you know, not uncommon, You're running a business, you're bringing in your kids into the business. I have clients that do that all the time. What have you learned by doing that? What advice would you have for people that want to bring their kids into the business? Because it's a different dynamic.

Mauricio Umansky (18:06)

Yeah, don't give them a silver spoon. Don't make it easy for them. You know, let them work, let them earn, train them. You know, to me, it's what they have is access to an opportunity. Not it's not about feeding them and making it easy. Because also if you do that, you create a culture in your business that is, you know, nepotistic. That's not good. And then the others start looking. And sometimes, you know, your kids actually end up having it harder because, you know, you want to protect that culture. You want to make sure that all the other salespeople are not saying, hey, this kid's successful, because they're, you know, they're the boss's son, the boss's daughter. And so, you know, people, we as parents, end up going the other way. I don't think you need to do that either. I think you need to find the right balance. Life's all about balance. Find that right balance that allows you to make the right judgment call. That makes them driven, that makes them so that they're working for their business. But, you know, don't make life impossible for them. They're lucky to be your daughter, your son and, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. That's, you know, sales is all about who you know. And so, if you happen to know the boss, you know the boss. Like it's that simple.

Gene Marks (19:21)

Yeah, I agree. And also, you know, when you're trying to hire people, I mean, it's. It's such a crapshoot to bring people in from Indeed. Or somebody that you just don't know. Here, obviously, you know your kids, so theoretically, they're coming in with your full knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully, you know, you're smart enough to be able to handle that. You know, you mentioned one of your daughters, like, it didn't work out, which again, is completely common a lot of my clients. So you, what do you do? What kind of expectations do you set for your kids? I mean, are you, are you man enough to step up and say, like, this isn't working out, we have to split ways, but, you know, we're still gonna have a good relationship?

Mauricio Umansky (19:52)

My situation, she was the one that didn't want to keep going. She didn't work out for her.

Gene Marks (19:56)

That's better.

Mauricio Umansky (19:56)

She didn't like it. So that was my situation. And she was man enough to step up and say, I don't love this. I've never tried to get my kids to work for The Agency. I've never told them that that's where they should be at. I've actually probably pushed them to think about other options and other avenues and always told them that the door was open at The Agency. But that was not anything that I ever said, you know, you should do or that I expected. And I want them to be happy. I want them to find their right path in life. And at the end of the day, we all work so hard. We spend most of our time working and, you know, a third of our time, hopefully sleeping. If you're getting your eight hours a day, you know, a third of your life at work, and then the other third of your time is split between, you know, gazillion things. Your boyfriend, your husband, your wife, your working out time, your solo time, your all of it, right? Your friends. And so, the most, and most of us usually work more than eight hours a day, so most of our time is spent at work. And I just want them to find the right path and be happy.

Gene Marks (21:02)

Okay, that's great. Couple of questions on the employee side and salespeople side. And I do want to pivot a little bit, but I mentioned earlier about the different generations, so talk to me about that as well. Like how, what are your thoughts on, you've got people that are working for you that are probably in 50s and 60s, right? And people that are in their mid-20s. How do you, how do you handle that? How do you approach those different demographics? Is it a different approach or the same?

Mauricio Umansky (21:30)

It's kind of easy for me. You know, it's really not a different approach. I think it's a very similar approach. I mean, keep in mind that we're just Trying to motivate, you know, in mindset, the agents and salespeople and everybody has a little bit of a different motivation, a little bit of a different mindset. But at the end of the day, we all need to do the same thing, right? Whether, whatever that same thing is for you. What, you know, whatever gets you motivated, whatever gets you to make that call. To not have fear. You know, one of the great characteristic traits of a salesperson is when I was talking about self-confidence, is not having fear of rejection. You know, pick up the phone and call. Most people can't. So when you have youth, generally speaking, that's their biggest issue is that fear of rejection. And a lot of the youth doesn't call, they pick up the phone, they text. And so much can be lost in translation of the text. So, you know, we try to teach them to pick up the phone and call. I mean, look, I'll see you in 10 minutes. You can text that, right? I'm running five minutes late, no problem. Right? But when you want to negotiate, you want to have a conversation that's not done by text, that's done by phone, you know, by phone call. And if it was done by text, then we'd have a, you know, we would all lose our, our jobs because the AI robots will start winning. So, it can't, it cannot be done. And so, you know, we need to get them past the rejection of fear. The fear of rejection. The older people, I think it's getting them, the biggest challenge is getting them to learn new things. Right? To keep up with the youth. As an example, again, I just said I use AI to be better. Don't be afraid of the computer, don't be afraid of new tools. It's not the same old way anymore. There's no way you're going to be able to compete with some of these youths if you're not embracing some of the technology that's out there and you want to keep doing it the way that you used to do it. You just won't survive. You just will not be able to compete.

Gene Marks (23:21)

Tell me a little bit more about the technology as well. I mean, obviously it's a very, very much of a changing landscape, but that, you know, I was going to ask you like, what's changed the most in your business in the, you know, 20 plus years that you've been doing this? Almost 30 years now. And you know, you talk about some old school things, which is 100% true. You know, like I close more deals when I'm face to face with people. It's just a fact. There is, you can't not change that human element. And for God's sake, in the kind of business that you're in, I mean that just goes even, you know, a hundred times. But technology is changing, you know, the way, the way your business is run. I'm kind of curious like what you're using now and you're thinking, I'm sure, about the future. Like where do you think you're going to be leaning more into? What kind of technology do you think is going to have a big impact on your company over the next few years?

Mauricio Umansky (24:08)

I think there's a lot of changes happening. My particular industry is going through changes now. It was kind of late adopting technology. We went through the whole prop tech world not too long ago. There's been some successes, some failures, but we were late in adopting technology. So, there's still a lot of changes. There's going to be a lot of changes in the MLS right now. There's a bunch of stuff happening, you know, with private listings and all of that stuff. Tremendous changes. As everybody is pretty aware, there was a huge lawsuit against NAR regarding commissions and you know, antitrust. So, our industry is really being looked at by the government right now. And I think that, you know, the biggest changes that are going to be happening in my industry are going to be happening now. Not, not necessarily happened over the last 20 years, but there have, we're in the middle of them right now.

Gene Marks (25:01)

What do you use yourself, out of curiosity, do you have like a CRM system that you rely on or are you just, you know, pencil and paper? Like what, how do you keep yourself productive? How do you know, you know, when you get up tomorrow morning, you're gonna have follow ups and things to do. You've got your calendar, you've got your, you know, whatever. How do you, how do you keep all that organized?

Mauricio Umansky (25:17)

We have an incredible CRM system that keeps everything going and keeps everything organized. I happen to use, I'm a very visual guy.

Gene Marks (25:25)

Yeah.

Mauricio Umansky (25:25)

So, I happen to use a program called Asana. Asana is, you know, tiles and everything. So, I, it's, you know, my screen is huge. Okay. And I have it open and I've got 36 tiles open and rows going down.

Gene Marks (25:41)

Is that your pipeline that you manage?

Mauricio Umansky (25:42)

Pipeline, to-dos, listings, marketing, calls, projects. I have an hour and a half every single day of what I call MU time, me time. Mauricio Umansky, for all those who don't know my last name, MU time. And that is set up to work on, on future projects, thinking entrepreneurial, like, what do I want to do to improve? And that's an hour and a half of my day, every single day.

Gene Marks (26:12)

Wow. Final question. You've been great, great insights. Looking ahead, we're, we're having this conversation right now. It's the very beginning of May 2025. Looking ahead, the real estate industry, and again, it's, I can't generalize because the luxury market is such a different animal from like the rest of real estate. But even so, you're a follower and you're, you know, you're very well versed in the industry itself. Talk to me a little bit about the industry itself in California, which is where you are. How is it now? And also, you know, how do you expect it to be? What are you looking forward to? Is this a good time to get into real estate?

Mauricio Umansky (26:49)

California, Florida, New York, Portugal, Spain, it's a global thing. They're all the same right now. You know, we have 140 offices around the world. So not only am I in California, but I'm everywhere. I would say there's very few spots that are different than California, but real estate industry has been in a housing recession for coming up on three, in one month, it'll be three years. In July, it'll be three years. And we've been in a housing recession due to high interest rates, due to low inventory, low inventory because of high interest rates. Nobody wants to sell, nobody's bringing everything on the market. Everybody's holding on to their old stuff and it's just been, it's been really difficult. Funny enough, usually when you're in a recession this long and when you look at 2007, when you look at, you know, the early 90s, you know, any of these, any of these recessions, most of the time what ends up happening is the inventory starts growing because people are hurting and prices start dropping because people are hurting. And as that happens, new buyers get into the market. We're in situations where that's not happening. We've been in a three-year recession, yet there's still low inventory. It's starting to finally grow, by the way, and there is still high interest rates and pricing didn't really drop until very recently. I would say in the last quarter, we finally started to see some price drops. And so, I predict, you know, a year from now, a year and a half from now, we're finally going to come out of this housing recession. I think it’s a great time if you want to get into real estate because you need to build your platform in order to grow. So, you have a year to build it and you're gonna, and I think we're, you know, within a year we're going to be in a boom in real estate. There's been too many people sitting on the sidelines, not enough sales. Eventually everybody needs to make a move.

Gene Marks (28:47)

There is a huge pent-up demand, don't you agree? And you know what you need is you need a slippage in mortgage rates. I know a lot of people say that gee, you know, if I'm sitting on a 3% mortgage or whatever from back in the day, you know, mortgage rates really have to come down a lot before I'm going to make a move. But I don't know about that. People get restless. People want to sell. I mean, you look at your daughters, people want to get into like the market. They want to get their first home, they want to whatever.

Mauricio Umansky (29:09)

And by the way, it also becomes the new norm, okay? They just have to get used to that. It's a mentality issue. It's like, okay, I've been paying… people don't even remember it's 3% anymore, I can tell you that.

Gene Marks (29:19)

Right.

Mauricio Umansky (29:20)

That conversation's finally starting to go away. For the last two and a half years, that conversation did not go away. But that's finally trying to go away. But think about this. The affordability is not only about your 3% interest rate, it has to do with your interest rate plus the amount of money you're paying for the house. So, if the price drops on the house by 15% and you know, that's not a huge drop, the big drops have been 30%. That's in every big recession it's been 30, 35%. Okay? But even if the housing prices has dropped by 15% and mortgage rates drop by 15, 20%, everything becomes way more affordable. That pent up demand and the whole thing, all of a sudden you spark the whole business going again.

Gene Marks (30:07)

And you know, it's funny because household wealth is still at historical highs, you know, despite the fluctuations in the market. And who knows, tariffs might point, you know, push up prices where people are just not buying as much and saving a little bit more. And that's more money that could go to their homes as well. I just, I think you guys are very, you're very well positioned, you built a great company, you've got the infrastructure there, you've got your team there. And I don't know, man. I think like in the next year or two, I mean, your rates come down a little bit and you could be really sitting on some really, some really booming times. And I hope you are. I really am.

Mauricio Umansky (30:37)

Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it.

Gene Marks (30:39)

Mauricio, thank you for joining me. It was a great conversation. I learned a lot. I appreciate it. I had, you know, a bunch more questions to ask you, but we're just out of time, so, but I do appreciate you spending the time with us.

Mauricio Umansky (30:50)

Thank you so much, Gene. I really appreciate it.

Gene Marks (30:52)

Do you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on THRIVE? Please let us know. Visit payx.me/ThriveTopics and send us your ideas or matters of interest. Also, if your business is looking to simplify your HR, payroll, benefits or insurance services, see how Paychex can help. Visit the resource hub at paychex.com/worx. That's W-O-R-X. Paychex can help manage those complexities while you focus on all the ways you want your business to thrive. I'm your host, Gene Marks, and thanks for joining us. Till next time, take care.

Announcer (31:26)

This podcast is property of Paychex Incorporated 2025. All rights reserved.