Why Some South Florida Homes Sell and Others Sit

[0:13] Hello, everyone. Uncle Marv here with another episode of the Let's Talk Lauderdale podcast. This is the show where we talk about the people, places, businesses, and stories shaping our community. From what's happening in downtown to the latest local news, community issues, all that stuff worth checking out, you'll learn about that here. But today we have a guest and we have a guest in studio. I have with me Teresa Schwarz. And Teresa, first of all, thank you for coming in. Thank you for inviting me. What an honor. All right. So you are a broker. Yes. Owner of Lyfe Realty Group. So a lot of people probably want to hear what you have to say. I would hope so. I've got a lot to share. All right. So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about which is South Florida story and journey and everything. But let's first start with basically... What brought you to South Florida? Because that's always an interesting place to start. My parents.

[1:19] I was born in Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and same hospital as my mom. My mom is Cuban. My dad is Swiss. They met in Connecticut of all places. And when I was born, they said, you know, we're not going to shovel snow. We don't want to be here. They moved to South Florida. My first home at nine months old was right up the street in Oakland Park.

[1:43] So really close. I lived there until I was about 10. And I've lived here all my life, with the exception of three years. We moved to Virginia with my kids, and that's a whole different story. But I'm native South Floridian. I love it here. Not going anywhere. Very nice. And interesting that you would come to Oakland Park because that's not a normal destination place. It's not. When I moved down to South Florida. So I grew up, my dad was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot. Yeah. Although I grew up in Central Florida. Okay. And I started off in Pompano. Okay. Yeah. But I always said Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. Fort Lauderdale. Yeah. I think their first home was in Fort Lauderdale, but that was very short-lived. And the childhood home that I remember was in Oakland Park. Yeah. Okay. So it was very nice. All right. And then I went to school at Nova for 10 years. Yeah. So did that whole Nova track. 10 years? Well, yeah, my kindergarten through 10th grade, I guess 11 years. 11 years yeah not not college that's what i thought the elementary middle high school that was a great great school, and then my family my parents separated so we moved to Miami lakes to be close with family and i graduated from Hialeah Miami lakes high school so hml grad yeah, and then i went on to um.

[3:02] Miami Dade college got my associate's degree got a second degree and associate in science and then went on to FIU. So I've stayed here for all of my education and raising my girls and my family here and,

[3:16] It's a beautiful place to live. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Well, we'll get to that a little bit later, because the first thing that stuck out to me right there, science is, doesn't translate to realtor. My first career, very, very observant. My first career was, I'm a licensed optician. So I started working in opticals. A friend was an optician. And I thought it was a really great career. Got my license in that. Worked at Four Eyes Optical for 19 years.

[3:49] Was their regional director from Puerto Rico to Georgia, South Florida, Virginia. That's a part of the three years in Virginia. And it was a great career. Simultaneous to that, though, I also had my real estate license. So did the four eyes optical track, experienced that, loved helping people buy and make glasses and contacts and hiring doctors and training staff and all the traveling. But then my career switched and it was a blessing in disguise. My kids needed me. I shouldn't have been traveling so much, I gave up a lot of time with them. And I'm glad to have that back now in this second career. Okay. Very nice. Just a sidebar question about the optical industry. Was that affected a lot by those little pop-up kiosks in the malls and the $99, you know, spectacles and the owl that's on all those commercials now? Yep. Yep. I won't say who they are, but yes. Yeah, that was tough. So when I graduated with my optical degree in 97, none of those existed. And then you had the 1-800 contacts, you know, taking over that segment, or like you said, the kiosks picking up all of the sunglass business, non-prescription. So it was tough.

[5:13] I'm a natural born salesperson, so I have good relationships with people. I create a dynamic where they want to work with me and trust me. And I've had my client following, whether it was in that industry or this industry. So I was always the top producer. And I'm not just saying that it's true. And that's why I was promoted to regional manager.

[5:36] But it was tough competing with those and giving customers a reason why to understand why those outlets may not be the best outlet for them and understanding how we could give them value, with different promotions we had and keeping everything in-house so their optometrist could make sure that the products they were getting were exactly the products he was prescribing for them. So, yeah. It's one of those industries where commoditization, you know, really is taking over. I'm in the tech field, so we're having a little bit of that as well.

[6:10] And of course, AI. I was going to ask you, how is, I mean, I know this is, but how is AI impacting your industry? Because it's been phenomenal for mine. So there are, in short, it's going to wreak havoc for a few years. In fact, I just forwarded an email to my peer group that I got last night from a client who decided on their own to try to figure out how to take a PTO spreadsheet, and turn it into an app that all their employees could submit their own requests and follow their own requests. So they asked ChatGPT and created this whole build platform for their M365 portal. And they sent it to me saying, hey, this is what ChatGPT says we can do. Can you make this happen?

[6:57] Turns out it's a full-blown development app. Wow. That's going to probably be about 100 hours worth of work. And I'm like, did you even try looking at some of the platforms that already do this? Yeah. Yeah. They're there. It's a PTO form. Just pay the software fee and you're good to go. Yeah. Between two and four bucks. Why are you going to pay me 100 hours? 100 hours but it's because people are looking at ways to save costs and they're seeing everything is a subscription as a service in the like i don't want to pay ten dollars an employee just to do this right because everything is an add-on and that's what's happening in our industry, now in the housing industry it's incredible different story for me it's been incredible um I m.

[7:40] I don't, I can say I don't know how it happened, but I think I do. So a year ago before this really exploded, because for me, AI really didn't necessarily take off in my world until maybe January of this year. I mean, that's when I started using it for my daily activities. But I hired a marketing team last September. I told them, I see this AI thing coming. I want going to get ahead of it what are we going to do and they rebuilt my entire website, um i don't know all the special things they do but these things called backlinks and all this fun stuff they do I m totally not an it person um.

[8:19] And through all of what they've built and all the presence everywhere I m getting so many buyers calling me directly for my listings so I m not working than necessarily with another agent. I'm involved in the whole transaction for both parties, which is amazing. It's more fun for me that way. And, but then the AI piece of it is I'm ranking high when people search on, you know, ChatGPT or Clot or whatever platform. And I mean, it all depends on, you know, I guess what we're doing, what blogs we have, what posts we've made. I mean, I know there's all this, you know, methodology to it, but it's all working. And I'm glad that we got a jumpstart on that last year. Very nice. Very nice. Let me ask you about the other side of where AI fits into your business. And of course, we've gone backwards into our discussion, but that's how I am. Forgive me. Sorry. Perfect.

[9:13] I saw AI being used by sellers themselves who would take their own pictures and go to platforms and create their own 360-degree videos, and they would try to do it without an agent. And then, of course, buyers would go and try to bypass the agent asking The seller, yeah, directly. Directly and then going in and saying, you know, they'll do their own AI search as to what do I need to do and how do I do the contracts and stuff. How has that affected your business? I don't see an impact for me at all. This year has been a record year. So our last record year was in COVID and we'll talk a little bit about that. But this has been a record year for me, which is actually the opposite of what's happening in the industry. We're going to close the year, I want to say, 32% up in volume than we did compared to last year. And each year has been a growth year.

[10:10] What I see for buyers is that they're going on and they self-represent. So they'll call me and say, I'd like to see the listing. I'm not represented by an agent, which is totally new to me. That never happened prior to this year. And then they'll submit their offer to me and I'll draft the contract, but I'm not representing them. And then they'll just have an attorney represent them throughout the rest of the transaction. So what did that do for them? It helped them save money and it helped them get the property. Why did it help them save money? Because most realtors, when they represent the buyer and there's no other broker, in that example, there's a commission reduction. So it saves the seller money, which then puts more money back in the buyer's pocket because if the seller can net more, then it costs less to the buyer. So those are very smart, savvy buyers that have contacted me this year. On the seller side, so I don't see those that are listing. They're listing on their own. I wouldn't meet those or know of them. But when I look on the MLS and when my clients look on the MLS, if that seller posted their photos through like a flat fee kind of website, I have one in my community. She's been on there for 18 months. She can't sell. She's not moving it. The photos, she messaged me the other day, a neighbor. She said, what can I do? I said, well, in photo one, you've got white lights. In photo three, you've got yellow lights.

[11:38] The whole schematic of it is off. And you want to create an experience when people are looking at your photos or your 3D online. Let me help you. I don't need to work with you. It's okay. I'll give you. She's my neighbor. I'll give you the contacts and you can work with them directly to improve that online visibility. So I just think the sellers don't understand they're hurting themselves because they don't have that experience. Or they're not watching enough HGTV and learning, how to stage properly and stuff like that. That's another topic. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in her case, it was the photo quality and the angles or the lack thereof.

[12:15] Staging, so when Well, before you go to staging, I want to because it just popped into my head. I told you I jumped. I remember I read a story, and I don't remember if it was earlier this year or last year, where there were reports and or complaints that people were using AI-generated images or enhancements, and people would show up, and the place looked nothing like the AI pictures. So I'll speak to that, but I do want to say, so my photographer, his photos, people say, oh my God, my house has never looked so good. It's so funny um he's not ai editing them he's just a great photographer but speaking to that, when i have a vacant home um I ll have the photographer take all the photos and then i will go to ai and ask them to edit the photos in because i don't want to spend the money and it works just as good, but then i write ai enhanced you know and so i have the photo with no furniture And then the next photo says AI enhanced. So you can visualize what that would look like with the furniture. Okay, so it adds all of the dimensional furniture and the spacing. Exactly. The proper colors, I assume. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's other things we are doing. So...

[13:29] In addition to the photos, now most people are doing the 3D tours, which you mentioned. So we have a service that comes out and does the 3D tour. But if your house is in disarray, we can have them unfurnish, de-furnish your home. So I would feel like when the buyer gets there, if it's a little different, you know, and I can explain that. But it really depends on what's going to get that home sold. What do I need to do? I don't want to be misleading.

[13:59] But there is a de-furnishing option. So if we showed up that day and it's not looking perfect, maybe that's the option I'd use. Yeah.

[14:07] So a lot of what I see with staging sometimes, and this is just me watching HGTV. I don't even watch HGTV at all. Well, you shouldn't. I should, but I don't. I don't. I don't have time. No, you should not. Because you would probably scream at the TV with some of this stuff. But a lot of times it's just getting some of the crap out of the way where, you know, homeowners have lived there for years and they love the charm of it. And a buyer comes in and it's like, ooh, what is that? And it's like, that's charm. And then, no, that's 30 years of something I don't want. It's really delicate. So I recently listed and closed a townhouse in Pembroke Pines. He had been there for 30 years.

[14:49] And unfortunately, his wife had just passed away and there was a lot going on in his life. And so when I met with him, I said, let's walk your home. And I do this with every listing. Let's walk your home and let's talk about the things that you want to start packing up now to get ready for your move. I mean, you'll have to move it anyways. And so when buyers come in, it's less personal. It's less furnished to you and more staged for them to envision their items there. Thank you. And it took him two weeks, and he did a fabulous job, and it looked perfect. He took down all the personal photos. He, you know, hid all the doggy bowls, and his dogs were his children. He hid everything for me. He took all the magnets off the fridge. He did everything the way I described. And we got multiple offers within a few days. He was so thrilled. We closed less than 30 days later. And I said to him, very nice, ma'am. I said, can I do a quick video testimonial of your experience? And he led in with, well, when she met with me, she was quite bossy and she told me to put everything away. And I did. And she got me a great price. And that's all. That's my job. At the end of the day, I'm here to help. That's nice.

[16:00] I want to go back because you mentioned earlier that you're kind of the opposite, of what's happening in the industry right now with your results.

[16:10] A lot of people are complaining that prices are too high. A lot of people are complaining about property taxes. We've got Amendment 3 on the ballot and a lot of factors where the market looks like it's kind of slowed down and all of that, but yet you're thriving.

[16:29] So we'll talk a little bit about the numbers. I brought them because it's just too much for my brain to absorb. But in September, the inventory for single family homes was down to 4.2 months, which is a very healthy place. Last year, that was 22% higher in available inventory. So what does that mean? There's fewer sellers on the market. So there's fewer options for buyers, but it's not like all the sellers are listing and they're just sitting there stagnant. They are moving. I'm seeing movement. Where I'm not seeing movement and where the numbers are indicating there's trouble is in the condo sector. So, and that's because with the surfside collapse, now the insurance regulations have changed, the reserves, you know, they have to have proper reserves. All of that will come to a head in January where they have to have sufficient reserves. And it's adding to the overall costs. It's either special assessments or higher maintenance fees. So condo prices are dropping and sitting on the market. But single-family homes are selling, not like they did in COVID, but they are moving. And so what do I attribute my current, my theme, my success, 2026?

[17:42] We've sold.

[17:45] Represented sellers, buyers, landlords, and renters. So there's 117 transactions that we've closed for this year.

[17:53] Every title company i work with which i own a title company but they all say to me what are you doing this is not the norm you know we're closing another deal, when i primarily represent sellers that would be 70 of my business i would say buyers are a 15 of my business and landlords are the rest.

[18:12] The difference that I see that I do is I'm spending money to market the property. I don't just have photos and put them online and just leave them there on 150 free websites. I pay to boost my listings to premier placement. Okay. I have special relationships with like homes.com, for example, or realtor.com or Zillow, where my paid advertisement boosts me so I get more eyes on it and I get over 1,000 views per day on my listings. My listings go under contract within a week or two and my last seven listings have gone under contract in less than five days multiple offers and many above asking, now there's other things that in this market we've been doing we're offering seller financing if there's equity in that home, can the seller offer seller financing at five percent interest which is better than today's interest rates to help attract buyers. That's a good way to get people in. There's also mortgage assumption. Many of our loans can be assumed by the next buyer. So advertising, checking, okay, seller can, let's call your bank, let's call regions and see if the buyer can assume your loan at 3% interest rate. It's much better than today's interest rate at 6% or 7%. So I'm doing things that the average person isn't doing to move my listings.

[19:34] And then on the buy side, I'm using those same strategies. I'm talking to the sellers with those agents. Can we assume the mortgage? Is it a lower interest rate? Is there seller financing? Or if we can't get that, what seller credits can we get on the opposite side? So it's just understanding what market you're in, what's working, and how to leverage everything to move the products. If I'm the listing agent, or to help my buyers get the best deal on the buy side. All right. Sounds like you've got a lot of options. Yes. And I'm going to assume that it took a lot of time to get to the place where you can have all those options. I know that South Florida... It seems as though we've got a lot of attorneys and a lot of real estate agents. A lot don't do so well. You, on the other hand, it's not just you. You've got a thriving business. And I saw somewhere you've got 15, 16, 17 realtors under your flag there. I think it's 18 now. It fluctuates depending on who's moving where and doing what. I've got someone in Panama now, and she's a realtor here. And we're working together through that. But yes, we've got 17-ish agents and they're all over the state of Florida.

[20:52] I've just built these relationships. I've had some people with me since day one when I started full-time in this in 2017. Prior to that, I was part-time.

[21:01] Doing both careers at the same time and then moved into this full time. And I've had people straight out of Gold Coast Real Estate School call me and say, I'd like to hang my license with you. And I teach them. I hold their hand. I have a wonderful assistant, Vanessa. She's a licensed realtor. She helps me and she teaches them all the software and the processes. My husband's a realtor as well, and he'll guide them as well through inspection and appraisal. So I don't want to have 100 agents. I've never wanted to be that. I want to have 20 great agents really representing the state of Florida. And so I have agents in Orlando, Lake Placid. I called one in Lake Placid on Friday. I said, I have a client who closed her home yesterday with me in Pembroke Pines, and she wants to buy in Palm Bay. Can you do that? She said, it's two hours away, but I'm going to call her and I'll be there today. And they got under contract the next day. Those are the type of realtors that I hire, the ones that are really eager to help people and make it happen. So I was going to ask you, you know, when you started the part-time biz, what was it that made you decide to make the jump to full-time? But I'm going to skip that question and go to what was it that made you decide to start the brokerage and to bring on other agents? So I was under, I was with Berkshire Hathaway. That wasn't a great fit for me. Just too corporate.

[22:28] And I just decided, after two years, you can take your broker license exam. And I said, this is the perfect opportunity for me to do this. It falls in line with what I want to do. I don't want corporate dictating to me, and I just want to run things the way I want to do it. So I started. Within a month or two, I had two or three agents, and we just kind of built from there. Okay.

[22:49] Yeah, it's just been something really special. I never imagined this business growing to this level. And I mean, I'm, I'll tell you, I'm 53. And I think about how many more years I may have left, because this is high volume, you know, when you're selling 160 homes a year, it's a lot of contracts, a lot of conversations, a lot of emails. And I just, you know, maybe I've got 10, 15 years left. And I'm thinking, who do I what do I do with this business? Do I sell it? Do I give it to my kids? And the kids are kind of like, Mom, we see how hard you work. We're not into that. But you know what? At their age, neither would I. This wouldn't be attractive. So we'll see what happens. It is a lot of work, a lot of running around and a lot of starting and stopping. Yes. Tons. Every single day. Yeah. So let's transition to the personal side because that's what we do a lot here on the show and talk about why people love South Florida.

[23:44] I'm going to start though. You worked with your husband? Love working with my husband. So again, I was a licensed optician. He was a nurse. And during- You both left those careers. We both left those. That was a very demanding job for him. It was exhausting. And in COVID, well, actually, this is a month before COVID, I said to him, I'm getting so busy. I need to hire a full-time realtor. Either you join me and take your licensing exam or I'm going to hire someone. And it was a big decision. You know, we were kind of like starting out. That's a big expense at that time. And he said, sure, I'll sign up. I'll do it. And he did. He took the exam. He passed the course. And he gave his notice at his job, which had health insurance benefits and 401k. Gosh, everything. A steady paycheck. Two weeks later, COVID hits and we're sitting in our backyard crying.

[24:37] Literally both at that point unemployed because who's buying a house? No health insurance. I mean, goosebumps, the scariest time of my life. But, you know, through scary events, you know, some wonderful things happen. And once we all got past that COVID thing, it was the best year ever. And how he supports me is he does the opposite of me. He goes to every inspection, so represents our client there through the whole entire inspection and every appraisal. And so he knows the appraisers. He knows the inspectors. And it helps us to avert having situations occurring. And there's no way I would be able to cover everything I do plus those two activities. So he's very helpful. And I love that he we do two separate things and it works

[25:20] beautifully. Nice, nice. Now, what do you do outside of work to, one, prevent work from bleeding into the dinner conversation and two, just to enjoy life? Yeah, a lot of wine. No, just kidding. Maybe that's true. True. So I am on 99.9% of my time. I try to turn it off, but it's really hard. But the things that we do enjoy, my husband is a huge sports fan. So we split the season ticket with a really great friend for the Miami Heat. And we've got great seats, and that's a great way to disconnect. They're not doing too good the past few games, but I know they're going to pick it up.

[25:58] They did pretty good last night. I was very encouraged. We are Miami Hurricanes season ticket holders, we love the hurricane. So we go to every game and it's a family time to just spend and bond. I go to a lot of concert events. I love doing that as well. And I love working out and exercising, biking. Again, I don't have a lot of, let me turn my phone off. So I'll be at the heat game and responding to a quick text message, but it is what it is. And I love the life we have. So I'm not going to stop and turn my clients off when I'm, you know, they're at the game. Yeah.

[26:34] So if somebody is not in South Florida, they're thinking about coming, they're looking out, they come across you as a realtor and say, hey, we're thinking of moving to South Florida. What can you tell us? Is it really as good as it sounds? It's amazing. Great restaurants, oceanfront, you know, you can enjoy the beach, great neighborhoods, great schools.

[26:59] I work a lot in like the Westin Pembroke Pines area, really great schools. And I've had a lot of people call me from Germany, from Texas, from California, and they're relocating. And what I try to do is sit with them, meet with them, talk to them about what they're looking for, and then tell them all about where they're working and what's around there. And, you know, what restaurants can they enjoy? What sports activities? What groups should they belong to? So it's individual for each person. But South Florida is amazing. The weather is incredible. The people are so diverse. you cross over to Miami you have to speak Spanish Tiene que hablar Espa ol So it's just Yes Cafecito Cubano, At least you need to know those two words But no, South Florida is amazing I travel, we travel a lot I enjoy doing that too.

[27:51] I've really never found anywhere that I enjoy as much as South Florida It's just all the time something fun to do Alright, question to end on What is the most memorable transaction that you have done? Mm-hmm.

[28:07] So, there's so many, and it's really hard to choose one. But one sticks out, which is someone who relocated from Texas during COVID. And we met.

[28:21] I wanted to introduce her to South Florida, so we went to Pembroke Gardens, had dinner at Brio. And we just sat and talked about her career, where she needed to be, her family, her son. And at that time, Texas was tough because everybody was leaving. So it was tough for them to sell and pull that equity out. But it happened. And 52 home showings later during COVID, which you'd make above asking offers and get rejected. We finally got them under contract in Parkland. And they're still there. And I'm going to see her in a month or two at my daughter's nursing graduation because she is a nurse and she helped my daughter get into the memorial system. So really, really great relationships I've built with people. But that one stands out because I've never had a record 52 showings. That was wild in six months, but it was fun. And they're in the house that they love. It's perfect. So it was worth it. Yeah, that's what's important. I don't remember how many showings I went to, but it wasn't 52. It was not 52. Generally, the showings are 8 to 12, maybe 15 maximum. Well, that was probably about the number. But I was also very picky as to where I wanted to look and the houses that I wanted to look at.

[29:35] We only made, so 2013 was the year. And for some reason. Interest rates were high then. They were high. I think we got in just. As it began to start switching. Yeah. But then prices dropped. So I think you probably made, because there was a huge housing crisis 2007 to 10. Yeah, but it was weird because the first house we looked at, we actually... The person wanted a lot. We did the appraisal because we're like, look, we're not taking your word as. Yeah. Especially when we found out that, he had done his own repairs and stuff. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So the appraisal came in way below what he wanted. So that didn't work through. And the second house, which actually turned out to be the one we got.

[30:21] It was the third actual, you know, full tour.

[30:25] We ended up doing a split. So you did three? Well, we did a couple of where we looked and stuff, but we didn't actually do a tour. Yeah, but if you're really picky, then you're not wasting time just driving around. Yeah, there were a lot of listings and our realtor maybe looked for us, but we did not go. But the third house we actually walked into was the house. Good. And we ended up splitting between the appraisal and the asking price. If you, it's happening still in this market, crazy market, but it's, I'm still seeing people are splitting appraisal and I don't think there's a need to do that necessarily, unless that's absolutely the home for you, but it's a different market today, 2026 than it was in 2013. Yeah. It is. And I'm sure you've made a lot of equity. So you're probably sitting really, really pretty. You don't make it until you take it out. I know, right? But it's sitting there. It looks all pretty on paper. Yeah.

[31:14] Yeah. All right. Well, Teresa, thank you very much for taking this time to share a little bit here. Thank you. For those of you listening, all of her information will be in the show notes, Lyfe Realty Group website, lyferealty.com. And life was spelled with a Y. L-Y-F-E. Yeah. Why the Y? I just wanted it to be different. I want it to stand out. Yeah. And then one more thing, I don't know when this is airing, but we are voted for South Florida Favorites with Sun Sentinel. And the voting is from yesterday, October 26th to November 13th. So if you'd like to vote, votesouthflorida.com slash Teresa Schwarz. Well, then we'll have to get this out really quick then.

[31:52] Thank you so much. Yeah. Also will be a link to her LinkedIn page, Facebook, and the Instagram. I love Instagram. So we'll have to get on there and list all my properties. You're not doing any of those little, dances are you i don't do dances but i do videos from the car so i give you i give you first dibs on what's available before it even hits the market all right thank you for having, me all right folks that is going to do it for this episode of let's talk Lauderdale again uh check out uh Teresa's website and get some information about buying or selling down here in this lovely market uh people love to be here you can tell that by the traffic so, we will be back with more soon, folks. And until next time, send me your information, stories you want to hear, people you want to talk to or listen to. And whatever you do, let's keep talking Lauderdale.

alia Miami lakes high school so hml grad yeah, and then i went on to um.

[3:02] Miami Dade college got my associate's degree got a second degree and associate in science and then went on to FIU. So I've stayed here for all of my education and raising my girls and my family here and,

[3:16] It's a beautiful place to live. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Well, we'll get to that a little bit later, because the first thing that stuck out to me right there, science is, doesn't translate to realtor. My first career, very, very observant. My first career was, I'm a licensed optician. So I started working in opticals. A friend was an optician. And I thought it was a really great career. Got my license in that. Worked at Four Eyes Optical for 19 years.

[3:49] Was their regional director from Puerto Rico to Georgia, South Florida, Virginia. That's a part of the three years in Virginia. And it was a great career. Simultaneous to that, though, I also had my real estate license. So did the four eyes optical track, experienced that, loved helping people buy and make glasses and contacts and hiring doctors and training staff and all the traveling. But then my career switched and it was a blessing in disguise. My kids needed me. I shouldn't have been traveling so much, I gave up a lot of time with them. And I'm glad to have that back now in this second career. Okay. Very nice. Just a sidebar question about the optical industry. Was that affected a lot by those little pop-up kiosks in the malls and the $99, you know, spectacles and the owl that's on all those commercials now? Yep. Yep. I won't say who they are, but yes. Yeah, that was tough. So when I graduated with my optical degree in 97, none of those existed. And then you had the 1-800 contacts, you know, taking over that segment, or like you said, the kiosks picking up all of the sunglass business, non-prescription. So it was tough.

[5:13] I'm a natural born salesperson, so I have good relationships with people. I create a dynamic where they want to work with me and trust me. And I've had my client following, whether it was in that industry or this industry. So I was always the top producer. And I'm not just saying that it's true. And that's why I was promoted to regional manager.

[5:36] But it was tough competing with those and giving customers a reason why to understand why those outlets may not be the best outlet for them and understanding how we could give them value, with different promotions we had and keeping everything in-house so their optometrist could make sure that the products they were getting were exactly the products he was prescribing for them. So, yeah. It's one of those industries where commoditization, you know, really is taking over. I'm in the tech field, so we're having a little bit of that as well.

[6:10] And of course, AI. I was going to ask you, how is, I mean, I know this is, but how is AI impacting your industry? Because it's been phenomenal for mine. So there are, in short, it's going to wreck havoc for a few years. In fact, I just forwarded an email to my peer group that I got last night from a client who decided on their own to try to figure out how to take a PTO spreadsheet, and turn it into an app that all their employees could submit their own requests and follow their own requests. So they asked ChatGPT and created this whole build platform for their M365 portal. And they sent it to me saying, hey, this is what ChatGPT says we can do. Can you make this happen?

[6:57] Turns out it's a full-blown development app. Wow. That's going to probably be about 100 hours worth of work. And I'm like, did you even try looking at some of the platforms that already do this? Yeah. Yeah. They're there. It's a PTO form. Just pay the software fee and you're good to go. Yeah. Between two and four bucks. Why are you going to pay me 100 hours? 100 hours but it's because people are looking at ways to save costs and they're seeing everything is a subscription as a service in the like i don't want to pay ten dollars an employee just to do this right because everything is an add-on and that's what's happening in our industry, now in the housing industry it's incredible different story for me it's been incredible um I m.

[7:40] I don't, I can say I don't know how it happened, but I think I do. So a year ago before this really exploded, because for me, AI really didn't necessarily take off in my world until maybe January of this year. I mean, that's when I started using it for my daily activities. But I hired a marketing team last September. I told them, I see this AI thing coming. I want going to get ahead of it what are we going to do and they rebuilt my entire website, um i don't know all the special things they do but these things called backlinks and all this fun stuff they do I m totally not an it person um.

[8:19] And through all of what they've built and all the presence everywhere I m getting so many buyers calling me directly for my listings so I m not working than necessarily with another agent. I'm involved in the whole transaction for both parties, which is amazing. It's more fun for me that way. And, but then the AI piece of it is I'm ranking high when people search on, you know, ChatGPT or Clot or whatever platform. And I mean, it all depends on, you know, I guess what we're doing, what blogs we have, what posts we've made. I mean, I know there's all this, you know, methodology to it, but it's all working. And I'm glad that we got a jumpstart on that last year. Very nice. Very nice. Let me ask you about the other side of where AI fits into your business. And of course, we've gone backwards into our discussion, but that's how I am. Forgive me. Sorry. Perfect.

[9:13] I saw AI being used by sellers themselves who would take their own pictures and go to platforms and create their own 360-degree videos, and they would try to do it without an agent. And then, of course, buyers would go and try to bypass the agent asking The seller, yeah, directly. Directly and then going in and saying, you know, they'll do their own AI search as to what do I need to do and how do I do the contracts and stuff. How has that affected your business? I don't see an impact for me at all. This year has been a record year. So our last record year was in COVID and we'll talk a little bit about that. But this has been a record year for me, which is actually the opposite of what's happening in the industry. We're going to close the year, I want to say, 32% up in volume than we did compared to last year. And each year has been a growth year.

[10:10] What I see for buyers is that they're going on and they self-represent. So they'll call me and say, I'd like to see the listing. I'm not represented by an agent, which is totally new to me. That never happened prior to this year. And then they'll submit their offer to me and I'll draft the contract, but I'm not representing them. And then they'll just have an attorney represent them throughout the rest of the transaction. So what did that do for them? It helped them save money and it helped them get the property. Why did it help them save money? Because most realtors, when they represent the buyer and there's no other broker, in that example, there's a commission reduction. So it saves the seller money, which then puts more money back in the buyer's pocket because if the seller can net more, then it costs less to the buyer. So those are very smart, savvy buyers that have contacted me this year. On the seller side, so I don't see those that are listing. They're listing on their own. I wouldn't meet those or know of them. But when I look on the MLS and when my clients look on the MLS, if that seller posted their photos through like a flat fee kind of website, I have one in my community. She's been on there for 18 months. She can't sell. She's not moving it. The photos, she messaged me the other day, a neighbor. She said, what can I do? I said, well, in photo one, you've got white lights. In photo three, you've got yellow lights.

[11:38] The whole schematic of it is off. And you want to create an experience when people are looking at your photos or your 3D online. Let me help you. I don't need to work with you. It's okay. I'll give you. She's my neighbor. I'll give you the contacts and you can work with them directly to improve that online visibility. So I just think the sellers don't understand they're hurting themselves because they don't have that experience. Or they're not watching enough HGTV and learning, how to stage properly and stuff like that. That's another topic. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in her case, it was the photo quality and the angles or the lack thereof.

[12:15] Staging, so when Well, before you go to staging, I want to because it just popped into my head. I told you I jumped. I remember I read a story, and I don't remember if it was earlier this year or last year, where there were reports and or complaints that people were using AI-generated images or enhancements, and people would show up, and the place looked nothing like the AI pictures. So I'll speak to that, but I do want to say, so my photographer, his photos, people say, oh my God, my house has never looked so good. It's so funny um he's not ai editing them he's just a great photographer but speaking to that, when i have a vacant home um I ll have the photographer take all the photos and then i will go to ai and ask them to edit the photos in because i don't want to spend the money and it works just as good, but then i write ai enhanced you know and so i have the photo with no furniture And then the next photo says AI enhanced. So you can visualize what that would look like with the furniture. Okay, so it adds all of the dimensional furniture and the spacing. Exactly. The proper colors, I assume. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's other things we are doing. So...

[13:29] In addition to the photos, now most people are doing the 3D tours, which you mentioned. So we have a service that comes out and does the 3D tour. But if your house is in disarray, we can have them unfurnish, de-furnish your home. So I would feel like when the buyer gets there, if it's a little different, you know, and I can explain that. But it really depends on what's going to get that home sold. What do I need to do? I don't want to be misleading.

[13:59] But there is a de-furnishing option. So if we showed up that day and it's not looking perfect, maybe that's the option I'd use. Yeah.

[14:07] So a lot of what I see with staging sometimes, and this is just me watching HGTV. I don't even watch HGTV at all. Well, you shouldn't. I should, but I don't. I don't. I don't have time. No, you should not. Because you would probably scream at the TV with some of this stuff. But a lot of times it's just getting some of the crap out of the way where, you know, homeowners have lived there for years and they love the charm of it. And a buyer comes in and it's like, ooh, what is that? And it's like, that's charm. And then, no, that's 30 years of something I don't want. It's really delicate. So I recently listed and closed a townhouse in Pembroke Pines. He had been there for 30 years.

[14:49] And unfortunately, his wife had just passed away and there was a lot going on in his life. And so when I met with him, I said, let's walk your home. And I do this with every listing. Let's walk your home and let's talk about the things that you want to start packing up now to get ready for your move. I mean, you'll have to move it anyways. And so when buyers come in, it's less personal. It's less furnished to you and more staged for them to envision their items there. Thank you. And it took him two weeks, and he did a fabulous job, and it looked perfect. He took down all the personal photos. He, you know, hid all the doggy bowls, and his dogs were his children. He hid everything for me. He took all the magnets off the fridge. He did everything the way I described. And we got multiple offers within a few days. He was so thrilled. We closed less than 30 days later. And I said to him, very nice, ma'am. I said, can I do a quick video testimonial of your experience? And he led in with, well, when she met with me, she was quite bossy and she told me to put everything away. And I did. And she got me a great price. And that's all. That's my job. At the end of the day, I'm here to help. That's nice.

[16:00] I want to go back because you mentioned earlier that you're kind of the opposite, of what's happening in the industry right now with your results.

[16:10] A lot of people are complaining that prices are too high. A lot of people are complaining about property taxes. We've got Amendment 3 on the ballot and a lot of factors where the market looks like it's kind of slowed down and all of that, but yet you're thriving.

[16:29] So we'll talk a little bit about the numbers. I brought them because it's just too much for my brain to absorb. But in September, the inventory for single family homes was down to 4.2 months, which is a very healthy place. Last year, that was 22% higher in available inventory. So what does that mean? There's fewer sellers on the market. So there's fewer options for buyers, but it's not like all the sellers are listing and they're just sitting there stagnant. They are moving. I'm seeing movement. Where I'm not seeing movement and where the numbers are indicating there's trouble is in the condo sector. So, and that's because with the surfside collapse, now the insurance regulations have changed, the reserves, you know, they have to have proper reserves. All of that will come to a head in January where they have to have sufficient reserves. And it's adding to the overall costs. It's either special assessments or higher maintenance fees. So condo prices are dropping and sitting on the market. But single-family homes are selling, not like they did in COVID, but they are moving. And so what do I attribute my current, my theme, my success, 2026?

[17:42] We've sold.

[17:45] Represented sellers, buyers, landlords, and renters. So there's 117 transactions that we've closed for this year.

[17:53] Every title company i work with which i own a title company but they all say to me what are you doing this is not the norm you know we're closing another deal, when i primarily represent sellers that would be 70 of my business i would say buyers are a 15 of my business and landlords are the rest.

[18:12] The difference that I see that I do is I'm spending money to market the property. I don't just have photos and put them online and just leave them there on 150 free websites. I pay to boost my listings to premier placement. Okay. I have special relationships with like homes.com, for example, or realtor.com or Zillow, where my paid advertisement boosts me so I get more eyes on it and I get over 1,000 views per day on my listings. My listings go under contract within a week or two and my last seven listings have gone under contract in less than five days multiple offers and many above asking, now there's other things that in this market we've been doing we're offering seller financing if there's equity in that home, can the seller offer seller financing at five percent interest which is better than today's interest rates to help attract buyers. That's a good way to get people in. There's also mortgage assumption. Many of our loans can be assumed by the next buyer. So advertising, checking, okay, seller can, let's call your bank, let's call regions and see if the buyer can assume your loan at 3% interest rate. It's much better than today's interest rate at 6% or 7%. So I'm doing things that the average person isn't doing to move my listings.

[19:34] And then on the buy side, I'm using those same strategies. I'm talking to the sellers with those agents. Can we assume the mortgage? Is it a lower interest rate? Is there seller financing? Or if we can't get that, what seller credits can we get on the opposite side? So it's just understanding what market you're in, what's working, and how to leverage everything to move the products. If I'm the listing agent, or to help my buyers get the best deal on the buy side. All right. Sounds like you've got a lot of options. Yes. And I'm going to assume that it took a lot of time to get to the place where you can have all those options. I know that South Florida... It seems as though we've got a lot of attorneys and a lot of real estate agents. A lot don't do so well. You, on the other hand, it's not just you. You've got a thriving business. And I saw somewhere you've got 15, 16, 17 realtors under your flag there. I think it's 18 now. It fluctuates depending on who's moving where and doing what. I've got someone in Panama now, and she's a realtor here. And we're working together through that. But yes, we've got 17-ish agents and they're all over the state of Florida.

[20:52] I've just built these relationships. I've had some people with me since day one when I started full-time in this in 2017. Prior to that, I was part-time.

[21:01] Doing both careers at the same time and then moved into this full time. And I've had people straight out of Gold Coast Real Estate School call me and say, I'd like to hang my license with you. And I teach them. I hold their hand. I have a wonderful assistant, Vanessa. She's a licensed realtor. She helps me and she teaches them all the software and the processes. My husband's a realtor as well, and he'll guide them as well through inspection and appraisal. So I don't want to have 100 agents. I've never wanted to be that. I want to have 20 great agents really representing the state of Florida. And so I have agents in Orlando, Lake Placid. I called one in Lake Placid on Friday. I said, I have a client who closed her home yesterday with me in Pembroke Pines, and she wants to buy in Palm Bay. Can you do that? She said, it's two hours away, but I'm going to call her and I'll be there today. And they got under contract the next day. Those are the type of realtors that I hire, the ones that are really eager to help people and make it happen. So I was going to ask you, you know, when you started the part-time biz, what was it that made you decide to make the jump to full-time? But I'm going to skip that question and go to what was it that made you decide to start the brokerage and to bring on other agents? So I was under, I was with Berkshire Hathaway. That wasn't a great fit for me. Just too corporate.

[22:28] And I just decided, after two years, you can take your broker license exam. And I said, this is the perfect opportunity for me to do this. It falls in line with what I want to do. I don't want corporate dictating to me, and I just want to run things the way I want to do it. So I started. Within a month or two, I had two or three agents, and we just kind of built from there. Okay.

[22:49] Yeah, it's just been something really special. I never imagined this business growing to this level. And I mean, I'm, I'll tell you, I'm 53. And I think about how many more years I may have left, because this is high volume, you know, when you're selling 160 homes a year, it's a lot of contracts, a lot of conversations, a lot of emails. And I just, you know, maybe I've got 10, 15 years left. And I'm thinking, who do I what do I do with this business? Do I sell it? Do I give it to my kids? And the kids are kind of like, Mom, we see how hard you work. We're not into that. But you know what? At their age, neither would I. This wouldn't be attractive. So we'll see what happens. It is a lot of work, a lot of running around and a lot of starting and stopping. Yes. Tons. Every single day. Yeah. So let's transition to the personal side because that's what we do a lot here on the show and talk about why people love South Florida.

[23:44] I'm going to start though. You worked with your husband? Love working with my husband. So again, I was a licensed optician. He was a nurse. And during- You both left those careers. We both left those. That was a very demanding job for him. It was exhausting. And in COVID, well, actually, this is a month before COVID, I said to him, I'm getting so busy. I need to hire a full-time realtor. Either you join me and take your licensing exam or I'm going to hire someone. And it was a big decision. You know, we were kind of like starting out. That's a big expense at that time. And he said, sure, I'll sign up. I'll do it. And he did. He took the exam. He passed the course. And he gave his notice at his job, which had health insurance benefits and 401k. Gosh, everything. A steady paycheck. Two weeks later, COVID hits and we're sitting in our backyard crying.

[24:37] Literally both at that point unemployed because who's buying a house? No health insurance. I mean, goosebumps, the scariest time of my life. But, you know, through scary events, you know, some wonderful things happen. And once we all got past that COVID thing, it was the best year ever. And how he supports me is he does the opposite of me. He goes to every inspection, so represents our client there through the whole entire inspection and every appraisal. And so he knows the appraisers. He knows the inspectors. And it helps us to avert having situations occurring. And there's no way I would be able to cover everything I do plus those two activities. So he's very helpful. And I love that he we do two separate things and it works

[25:20] beautifully. Nice, nice. Now, what do you do outside of work to, one, prevent work from bleeding into the dinner conversation and two, just to enjoy life? Yeah, a lot of wine. No, just kidding. Maybe that's true. True. So I am on 99.9% of my time. I try to turn it off, but it's really hard. But the things that we do enjoy, my husband is a huge sports fan. So we split the season ticket with a really great friend for the Miami Heat. And we've got great seats, and that's a great way to disconnect. They're not doing too good the past few games, but I know they're going to pick it up.

[25:58] They did pretty good last night. I was very encouraged. We are Miami Hurricanes season ticket holders, we love the hurricane. So we go to every game and it's a family time to just spend and bond. I go to a lot of concert events. I love doing that as well. And I love working out and exercising, biking. Again, I don't have a lot of, let me turn my phone off. So I'll be at the heat game and responding to a quick text message, but it is what it is. And I love the life we have. So I'm not going to stop and turn my clients off when I'm, you know, they're at the game. Yeah.

[26:34] So if somebody is not in South Florida, they're thinking about coming, they're looking out, they come across you as a realtor and say, hey, we're thinking of moving to South Florida. What can you tell us? Is it really as good as it sounds? It's amazing. Great restaurants, oceanfront, you know, you can enjoy the beach, great neighborhoods, great schools.

[26:59] I work a lot in like the Westin Pembroke Pines area, really great schools. And I've had a lot of people call me from Germany, from Texas, from California, and they're relocating. And what I try to do is sit with them, meet with them, talk to them about what they're looking for, and then tell them all about where they're working and what's around there. And, you know, what restaurants can they enjoy? What sports activities? What groups should they belong to? So it's individual for each person. But South Florida is amazing. The weather is incredible. The people are so diverse. you cross over to Miami you have to speak Spanish Tiene que hablar Espa ol So it's just Yes Cafecito Cubano, At least you need to know those two words But no, South Florida is amazing I travel, we travel a lot I enjoy doing that too.

[27:51] I've really never found anywhere that I enjoy as much as South Florida It's just all the time something fun to do Alright, question to end on What is the most memorable transaction that you have done? Mm-hmm.

[28:07] So, there's so many, and it's really hard to choose one. But one sticks out, which is someone who relocated from Texas during COVID. And we met.

[28:21] I wanted to introduce her to South Florida, so we went to Pembroke Gardens, had dinner at Brio. And we just sat and talked about her career, where she needed to be, her family, her son. And at that time, Texas was tough because everybody was leaving. So it was tough for them to sell and pull that equity out. But it happened. And 52 home showings later during COVID, which you'd make above asking offers and get rejected. We finally got them under contract in Parkland. And they're still there. And I'm going to see her in a month or two at my daughter's nursing graduation because she is a nurse and she helped my daughter get into the memorial system. So really, really great relationships I've built with people. But that one stands out because I've never had a record 52 showings. That was wild in six months, but it was fun. And they're in the house that they love. It's perfect. So it was worth it. Yeah, that's what's important. I don't remember how many showings I went to, but it wasn't 52. It was not 52. Generally, the showings are 8 to 12, maybe 15 maximum. Well, that was probably about the number. But I was also very picky as to where I wanted to look and the houses that I wanted to look at.

[29:35] We only made, so 2013 was the year. And for some reason. Interest rates were high then. They were high. I think we got in just. As it began to start switching. Yeah. But then prices dropped. So I think you probably made, because there was a huge housing crisis 2007 to 10. Yeah, but it was weird because the first house we looked at, we actually... The person wanted a lot. We did the appraisal because we're like, look, we're not taking your word as. Yeah. Especially when we found out that, he had done his own repairs and stuff. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So the appraisal came in way below what he wanted. So that didn't work through. And the second house, which actually turned out to be the one we got.

[30:21] It was the third actual, you know, full tour.

[30:25] We ended up doing a split. So you did three? Well, we did a couple of where we looked and stuff, but we didn't actually do a tour. Yeah, but if you're really picky, then you're not wasting time just driving around. Yeah, there were a lot of listings and our realtor maybe looked for us, but we did not go. But the third house we actually walked into was the house. Good. And we ended up splitting between the appraisal and the asking price. If you, it's happening still in this market, crazy market, but it's, I'm still seeing people are splitting appraisal and I don't think there's a need to do that necessarily, unless that's absolutely the home for you, but it's a different market today, 2026 than it was in 2013. Yeah. It is. And I'm sure you've made a lot of equity. So you're probably sitting really, really pretty. You don't make it until you take it out. I know, right? But it's sitting there. It looks all pretty on paper. Yeah.

[31:14] Yeah. All right. Well, Teresa, thank you very much for taking this time to share a little bit here. Thank you. For those of you listening, all of her information will be in the show notes, Lyfe Realty Group website, lyferealty.com. And life was spelled with a Y. L-Y-F-E. Yeah. Why the Y? I just wanted it to be different. I want it to stand out. Yeah. And then one more thing, I don't know when this is airing, but we are voted for South Florida Favorites with Sun Sentinel. And the voting is from yesterday, October 26th to November 13th. So if you'd like to vote, votesouthflorida.com slash Teresa Schwarz. Well, then we'll have to get this out really quick then.

[31:52] Thank you so much. Yeah. Also will be a link to her LinkedIn page, Facebook, and the Instagram. I love Instagram. So we'll have to get on there and list all my properties. You're not doing any of those little, dances are you i don't do dances but i do videos from the car so i give you i give you first dibs on what's available before it even hits the market all right thank you for having, me all right folks that is going to do it for this episode of let's talk Lauderdale again uh check out uh Teresa s website and get some information about buying or selling down here in this lovely market uh people love to be here you can tell that by the traffic so, we will be back with more soon, folks. And until next time, send me your information, stories you want to hear, people you want to talk to or listen to. And whatever you do, let's keep talking Lauderdale.