[ 00:00:12,770 ]To my left is my co-host, Bob Payton. BobPayton. com. Across the table from us today is Tony Rippett with Integrity Real Estate. Hey, guys. Welcome. Glad you’re here. Good to be here. So tell us about Integrity Real Estate.

 

[ 00:00:26,390 ] Yeah well, uh, started it in let’s see 2002 and it’s been, I’ve had a couple people on over the years, but it’s been largely me until just recently. I’ve decided to expand a little bit, so we’ll probably talk about that as we go on. A little bit, but uh uh largely residential, some commercial. Um, no tenant representation, and we also expanded about a year and a half ago. We cover— i always covered central Indiana, but now I cover most of Indiana. So, somebody needs to buy or sell uh real estate in Indiana, I can help them. Awesome. How’d you come about getting into the real estate universe? Uh, it’s interesting. I was actually traveling around the country singing gospel music, really. Uh, yeah. I spent about 14 years doing that. That’s me. It was a fun, it was a fun way to spend your adolescence. Were you early?

 

[ 00:01:22,890 ] Do you play guitar and sing at the same time?

 

[ 00:01:24,610 ] Yeah.

 

[ 00:01:26,630 ] Yes. Till just kind of recently. I may be retiring from guitar after these years, but yeah. Um, and so writing music and, uh, recording radio and various things, uh, that was our life for a lot of years. And then, as that was phasing out, we were looking to do something different and wound up as a, an assistant to a realtor. Because I could go out and sing all weekend, come back and work for him during the week. And we had such phenomenal success that… Uh, everything’s from that was 1994. And my only income since then has been from real estate. So I just kind of just took, right.

 

[ 00:02:14,720 ] So has it always been since that time integrity? Or no.

 

[ 00:02:18,720 ] So I was with a couple of the big companies here for the first few years. Then I purchased part of one of the big franchises. And did that briefly. So the first eight years, I was on some bigger teams with some bigger companies, and then I started my own company in 2002.

 

[ 00:02:42,010 ] Okay.

 

[ 00:02:42,510 ] So what was the trigger point for you that decided to leave the big nest, I’ll call it, and go out on your own?

 

[ 00:02:49,030 ] Really realizing that the money that you spend to those franchise fees and all the investment and all that overhead.

 

[ 00:03:02,870 ] and all of those layers of compliance and things was not me. I i found when i got out on my own now i don’t care about i joke that i’m going to put on one of my garage doors listing agent of the month and on the other sales agent of the month and pull into whichever door yeah Like all those, all those things, winning the corner office. Yeah. And all that just kind of was never my thing. So. I can be over here. I can serve my clients better. I think do a better job marketing for them and representing them and not have any of that corporate feel or oversight and just making happy clients. I think both of us understand that concept. Absolutely. We’ll share that sometime.

 

[ 00:03:50,730 ] So did you grow up in Indiana?

 

[ 00:03:53,180 ] Yeah, after age eight, we moved to Indiana and spent most of my life here. Since then, though, for 10 of those 14 years that we were traveling. When I started when I was 14, we didn’t even own a home. Wow, we uh yeah very much so. Um, so those years we were just traveling, but largely Indiana has been my home since the 70s. Okay, so where do you where do you call home? Uh, Brownsburg.

 

[ 00:04:26,860 ] I’m a Zionsville, and he’s up north.

 

[ 00:04:31,400 ] Is it Cicero or Noblesville? Noblesville.

 

[ 00:04:35,740 ] Cool. So is your business kind of centered around the west side, or you said it’s expanding? Talk to us about. You know, the expansion— why the that you felt like that change or was that because clients were demanding it of you or is it because you felt like you needed to broaden your universe?

 

[ 00:04:55,400 ] Uh, yes. So I always looked at it more as if I would go wherever the client needed me to.

 

[ 00:05:06,680 ] And, you know, I’ve got clients who commute an hour a day back and forth, you know, one way to work. And so, if I drive an hour, an hour and a half, like before I walked in the door here, I wrote an offer in Nashville, Indiana.

 

[ 00:05:21,600 ] Nice.

 

[ 00:05:23,890 ] These are good clients. This will be like my 15th transaction for these people. You know, I don’t want to refer them out somewhere. I want to take good care of them and keep a good relationship going. So, the longer I’ve done this, the more I realize I want to take on good clients that I can do a good job for. And wherever they want to be, it makes sense. So, what makes a good client for you?

 

[ 00:05:48,420 ] Someone who appreciates what is involved in all the fiduciary elements of representing them, care, obedience, disclosure, loyalty, accountability, confidentiality, and trust. Someone who recognizes that they appreciate the quality representation. I’m going to look out for their best interest, try to net them the most, stress them the least. The person who just sees this as a transactional commodity and is short-sighted is not my best client. They’re just looking for the bottom dollar kind of thing. And yes, we’re going to try to get them the… best equity position possibly that we can, whether they’re buying or selling. But in that, think about their long-term best interests and not just be short-sighted.

 

[ 00:06:39,410 ] Right. So is there, it sounds like this person’s used you for multiple transactions. Do they consider themselves a real estate investor?

 

[ 00:06:47,310 ] Uh well, this house they’re they’re they’ve lived in all but two or three of those 15 transactions, but uh, they were flipping them as they went, kind of not necessarily intentionally, early on. And then they became kind of investors and now they’re kind of not being investors. So it’s been fun to watch their lives.

 

[ 00:07:09,280 ] Yeah, but I love the fact that you’re taking into account what we would call lifetime value, right? Versus just transaction and you’re done, and move on and find another client and find another client. In some ways, you don’t have to do that as much, right? Which is fantastic, right? You want to be around for the long term. And obviously, I would suspect they have family, they have friends, etc.

 

[ 00:07:29,830 ] Yeah, perfect world you’re looking for. Their family and friends and their next transaction. And if you think that way, then you can help them decide, hey, maybe it’s better that you rent, or maybe it’s better that you stay put and fix up the house or things that are not in my short-term best interest, but are in their long-term best interest. And it always comes back to you when you think that way.

 

[ 00:07:54,190 ] Love it.

 

[ 00:07:54,690 ] Love it.

 

[ 00:07:55,230 ] Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, there’s a little bit of change happening in the real estate.

 

[ 00:08:04,300 ] felt some of that, but from your end, what do you see happening? What do you see the effect being? Uh, the challenges it creates, maybe the opportunities.

 

[ 00:08:11,320 ] Yeah, so one thing I will tell you—is that Indiana just passed a law, kicked in in July, that you have to have a buyer agency commission agreement in writing. Before providing any substantive services to a buyer, okay, well, I have done that very thing with every single client I’ve worked for for the past 21 years. Nice and I was, you know, I think fairly rare in my industry for doing that. It was kind of novel. People didn’t appreciate why that was necessary. But over the 21 years I did that, I determined that it was in the best interest of the buyer to understand upfront how our relationship worked. And it helped me go back to your question about who’s a good client, you know, determine if we were on the same page, if I was going to be able to make satisfied clients out of them. And then we’re on the same page and we know how it goes.

 

[ 00:09:11,950 ] We lay that on the table up front. And so this is perhaps a smoother transition for me than a lot of my competitors that are freaked out that have never used that kind of agreement because I came to conclude that it was in the buyer’s best interest to understand that. Then the other major thing that’s national is the a lot of class action lawsuits and a big settlement by the national association of realtors made it that you can no longer disclose a buyer agency commission through an MLS system. Correct. And I could talk all day on that, but probably in so doing, I’d say something that somebody legally would have an issue with because it is a legal.

 

[ 00:10:03,180 ] Quagmire right now nobody knows how it’s like a wild wild west, a little bit again. Yeah, yeah.

 

[ 00:10:09,540 ] So, um, I mean, as a seller or a buyer, yeah, from a seller or buyer perspective, just kind of tell us in general terms how it’s going to impact them.

 

[ 00:10:19,780 ] Yeah, I don’t think any of us exactly know yet. Really, the only question is what it does, if anything, to commissions, because, you know, they’re… Realtors are going to represent buyers and sellers. And does this drive up or down commissions? That remains to be seen. I think there will be a lot of consolidation in the industry. I can imagine. There you know, there’s so much of that anyway— mergers and acquisitions, and various things you know. The mortgage industry was crushed by all of that years ago. The title industry has been heavily lobbied and litigated and everything. Finally, it comes to us. So I think there will be disruption in business models and in consolidation amongst real estate firms. So I’m happily over here, just kind of.

 

[ 00:11:16,550 ] Not getting into that fray too much. We’ll see.

 

[ 00:11:20,470 ] Who knows? I literally saw a story this morning. I think it was Wall Street Journal. Just about title companies. Same thing. They’re starting to do the antitrust look-in.

 

[ 00:11:32,110 ] I’ll call it the… Potential feedback loops of financial flow from a real estate transaction, putting it to their preferred title company or whatever. Right, so even that’s being kind of scrutinized. You know, who knows who knows what will happen?

 

[ 00:11:49,370 ] But now, this comment is not directed at that media company, but in general, I am shocked at what disinformation is out there being spread by large, supposedly reputable organizations about this. It’s like, um, salatial. You know, they want to get clicks and yeah. So much of what the public is reading really uh is skewed, and that’s good, good to know.

 

[ 00:12:25,450 ] Yeah, it’s unfortunate. So, maybe if I’m a buyer.

 

[ 00:12:31,030 ] So obviously, that agreement affects me as a buyer, if I decide I want to buy something.

 

[ 00:12:38,690 ] So does that now become what I would call a fairly open negotiation?

 

[ 00:12:45,650 ] Between me and you, just pick that as an example. Whereas before, it was a little bit of a normal fee, et cetera, that was expected, et cetera. There was still a discussion, but is it now kind of more of a discussion?

 

[ 00:12:59,510 ] For me, so far, it’s about the same discussion that it always was. And the thing that you said was before, there was this normal fee. Well, no, there was never— you never could violate the Sherman Antitrust Act by price fixing and having a normal fee. It always is whatever that listing broker negotiated and then they would offer that had they just made that public knowledge to everybody. I think it would have solved a massive percentage of these confusions. So yeah, now it’s maybe a little more on the table, but it was always on the table with me and my clientele anyway. It all depends on what’s in the contract in the end, right? Yeah.

 

[ 00:13:43,450 ] Sure. Fair enough. So what do you see, you know, the market conditions clearly have changed between 2020 and 2024. What do you see changing in the future? I know that, you know, the Fed is… You know, kind of hinted at, maybe there there might be a rate cut in December, and whether that’s true or not, it’s yet to be seen. But what do you see, what do you think?

 

[ 00:14:04,290 ] Uh, I learned about 2008 that I have no idea you know, prior to that, I would have thought I knew something. And You and a lot of other people.

 

[ 00:14:15,790 ] Exactly. Circle of ignorance, right?

 

[ 00:14:17,710 ] Yes. So I don’t know that a Fed rate cut necessarily will translate into interest rate cuts, you know. And for instance, the first six months of this year were my most profitable first six months of any of my 30 years doing this. Fantastic. And you wouldn’t think, with interest rates at that time, you know, seven and eight percent. Right. So it’s always weird to try to figure out what economic factors, what global factors, what political factors are driving people’s decisions.

 

[ 00:14:59,850 ] Um so so, maybe what you’re saying is the reality is. I mean, we can all get caught up in the news and those kind of things. Right, but in the end, if I need to move, I need to be exactly right. So that drives certain things to happen, whether I like the interest rate or not.

 

[ 00:15:15,670 ] Yes. People are going to keep changing jobs, having babies, getting married, getting divorced, moving in with family, retiring, whatever. And those are reasons you buy and sell or not getting along with the neighbor. So that’s going to happen. Can appreciate that. Maybe the biggest thing that is.

 

[ 00:15:34,859 ] Still seems to be under the radar in my mind— somewhat is the effect that the real estate investment trusts are having on everything. They buy everything, put tenants in them, and that takes it off the table as opportunities for owner-occupants. And so that’s what is driving the scarcity, the lack of inventory, and the prices.

 

[ 00:16:03,260 ] Fear that that trend is going to just continue until it gobbles up the American dream. Are you referencing companies like BlackRock?

 

[ 00:16:11,680 ] Okay, so let’s talk about that. What’s happening?

 

[ 00:16:16,099 ] Like I say, they buy entire new neighborhoods before ground is broken to put tenants in them.

 

[ 00:16:24,680 ] And so they just lease that long. Long-term lease or long-term rental? Yes. Okay. We see those.

 

[ 00:16:31,780 ] I mean, I drove by my first one of those in Greenfield on the east side and kind of noticed the signage was different, right? It’s not— hey, come look at our home. It’s for lease.

 

[ 00:16:43,090 ] And I’m like, yeah, a whole neighborhood. Is it lease to own or just rental? It is leasing. Yeah. And it’s an entire neighborhood. And then I started, we see them in Boone County now. We see them all kinds of places.

 

[ 00:16:54,080 ] And so it is really going to continue to change what is the American dream. We’re having a whole generation of younger folks priced out of the best way to build wealth. The most wealth has been built in America by owning their personal residence, you know, and that is becoming harder and harder to achieve for them to get in the game in the first place. So more and more parents and grandparents are going to have to step in to help get those kids started because it’s an uphill battle. I just left an appointment two hours ago with some folks. He said, and he told me the number he’s making. He’s like, ‘He’s making a.’ Good income and he’s like, but we’re just trying to put food on the table. Correct, you know.

 

[ 00:17:41,970 ] So yeah, I’ve got the two live examples with my kids right now. Right, I’ve got one set in the basement because they did sell their previous house and really kind of had nowhere to get to in the short term. And I’ve got one younger, right? Both have jobs, both work, right? There’s no sloughing going on. But there is no way within an hour’s drive that they can find a place that they could pay for it.

 

[ 00:18:06,830 ] just right now that’s available that’s available correct and it’s it’s really frustrating yes the other segment is probably i don’t know about you but me empty nester right per se low interest rate mortgage nowhere to go right what do you see happening in that regard is there any hope right is there anything in the next five years that we can look forward to or is it just the way it is like i say i don’t know because you know there’s uh plenty of opportunities for war and other things globally that affect things that i can’t anticipate but shy of big issues like that every everybody says to me well i’m going to wait till prices come down until available it goes up i don’t think it’s ever going to happen unless as i say unless there’s some significant stock put to the real estate investment trust because they just gobble up the inventory Yeah, and it makes sense for them financially. And as they do it, it’s a self-repeating problem, you know, that is rent inflation and home prices.

 

[ 00:19:13,580 ] So I really keep telling people, and I could wind up watching this five years from now and think, how did I not see that? But I just think you need to get in the game by any means you can, because then you can. pay down that mortgage and hopefully see that appreciation and build that wealth. Because so often I’m able to help people who did that. You know, they bought a house five years ago. I talked with people two days ago. They bought a house seven years ago for me and it’s worth twice what we paid.

 

[ 00:19:48,580 ] That is not at all uncommon. Sometimes that’s five years ago that that’s the case. So there’s a lot of equity there for them. So if this continues that way, the person who gets in the game now, while they think it’s too expensive, I can’t afford it. They might look like heroes if we’re right and it just continues. But who knows? And I’ve got a stake in hoping that it all goes well, obviously.

 

[ 00:20:13,710 ] Right. And hopefully we don’t go in the opposite direction with deflation. Right. Stagflation and all that. So going back to the real estate investment trust, you see that as a big risk as far as opportunity, or do you see that as a risk as inventory? What is the big challenge there? And is there any legislation on the table to right that ship?

 

[ 00:20:35,500 ] When I’ve talked, I tried to talk to legislators about that.

 

[ 00:20:40,210 ] That’s not going to happen. I don’t think anybody’s going to do like everybody’s concerned— maybe about big pharma, big tech, big government, AI, whatever. Nobody’s concerned about big real estate, you know, but. Big real estate has a big impact. So it’s not only availability and price, but it’s control. You know, when they’ve got control of a neighborhood, they have the voting block to accomplish what they want to that homeowners association.

 

[ 00:21:07,480 ] etc. You know, so it’s taxes, it’s property rights. There’s a lot, you know, personal property. Uh, real estate is a big part of the freedom that is America.

 

[ 00:21:20,660 ] You know, so if you don’t own it, you don’t know exactly, right? Um.

 

[ 00:21:26,320 ] Yeah. Well, fair enough. What do you like doing in total diversion? What do you like doing in your spare time? Yeah.

 

[ 00:21:32,840 ] Lately, it’s been tennis. Oh, nice.

 

[ 00:21:36,510 ] When I was younger, I played thousands of hours of tennis and now I’m kind of getting back into it. Pickleball? I hate pickleball.

 

[ 00:21:46,520 ] It’s good. It’s two entirely different sports. Absolutely. I’m excited. The neighborhood next to mine is putting in pickleball courts. I’m hoping it pulls the pickleballers over to those new courts off my face. There you go. There you go. That’s awesome.

 

[ 00:22:02,940 ] A lot of volleyball over the years. We talked about golf now and then. I’ll get you sucked in.

 

[ 00:22:08,520 ] We’ll go out to West Chase.

 

[ 00:22:09,760 ] I lift weights.

 

[ 00:22:13,160 ] West Chase is right near me. Tell us about your family.

 

[ 00:22:18,280 ] Wife and three kids.

 

[ 00:22:21,080 ] My 21-year-old joined my real estate company a year ago.

 

[ 00:22:25,240 ] That was your expansion?

 

[ 00:22:26,620 ] Yes. Well, then I got another agent joined me. And then last night I had a… I’ve had multiple meetings with this lady and I think she’ll come on here in the next couple months. Awesome. Excited about that opportunity there. So we’re a three realtor company now and hopefully four in the next few weeks, months.

 

[ 00:22:50,040 ] My 18-year-old son graduated our home school here recently. And then we’ve got a nine-year-old daughter as well. And she is showing a lot of promise on the tennis court. Like a little prodigy. I really think, man, it’s like. You know, right now, I mean, she’s nine. Okay. And so I might hit her forty balls before she hits a really pretty one, but then she’ll hit a backhand that looks like. Any of the guys I play with, I’m like, ‘Yeah, you know it just looks so perfect sometimes. So I think man, if she can get consistently like that, she could have a future in tennis. It’s surprising that’s awesome. Yeah, if she loves it so, what your 18-year-old son might be doing in the future? We are really not sure. I think he doesn’t know. He’s really good at volleyball, really good at basketball, but what are you going to do with that? He’s thought about nursing. Right now, he works for the Plainfield Rec Center.

 

[ 00:23:50,860 ] Okay. And, like, he runs a volleyball camp or something there. Sure. Classes, you know, and stuff.

 

[ 00:23:59,580 ] He’s still trying to figure that out.

 

[ 00:24:01,120 ] That’s okay. I can tell you from personal experience, it’s never what they think anyway. Exactly. So let him explore. Yeah. For sure.

 

[ 00:24:08,500 ] Yeah. So it’ll, it’ll, it’ll find, he’ll figure it out. Yes. How do people find you?

 

[ 00:24:15,199 ] Well, you want specific addresses of things. I mean, I want all the things. Representation. Yeah.

 

[ 00:24:22,060 ] What’s the best way to find you?

 

[ 00:24:23,360 ] Is it your website? What’s that address? Yeah. Website is realintegrity . com. It’s Integrity Real Estate. So the website is realintegrity . com. And then YouTube at Real Integrity. I put a lot of effort into that here in the last year or so. So I love it when somebody lands on that channel because they get to know me pretty fast and decide if they sure would like to work with me or not. And then we’re on LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and the various, then we have some other websites and stuff. So I think, if you, if you could spell Riffett, if you could type Tony Riffett, you’d find plenty of places.

 

[ 00:25:00,440 ] Integrity real estate might be harder because.

 

[ 00:25:03,330 ] When I started the company 22 years ago, there was no other company in the state of Indiana, no other real estate company with the word integrity in it. Today, there’s a bunch. But you’ll know when you get to mine because you’ll see me. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. We enjoyed it, man.

 

[ 00:25:24,710 ] Tony Reffitt, realintegrity . com. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you.