Ferris Eways Real Estate Agent of Eways Team

Speaker 1: 0:31

I've been on TV for numerous things. I was a personal trainer. One time I got on a news network and talked about fitness and stuff like that the years of real estate. This was way before real estate. I've been on TV For coaching. I used to be a football coach, so I've been on TV.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Where did you coach?

Speaker 1: 0:55

Oh, so I have a pretty extensive resume with coaching. So I coached, I was an intern with the Washington Redskins for three years 03, and then 0506. So you know, I was there for three years and then I went. So I did strength conditioning there for three years, one year under coach superior and then two years under coach Gibbs and then went to Michigan State University and got my graduate degree there as well as I coached football in a role called a graduate assistant. And I did that for three, three seasons with coach D'Antoni over there. So that was a great experience as I got my grad degree.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Then my wife and I you know, my wife was still living here because I'm from the Northern Virginia area, we're from Centerville and we're still living here and she's like, you know, we started looking for jobs and you know we had a job opportunity in North Dakota and she's like, nope, and job opportunity in middle of nowhere, michigan. And I was like why don't we try the high school thing? So then I coached high school for a while and did that, you know, in Sterling and in Fairfax County, places like that. So, and then, you know, I transitioned over into the real estate world.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Did you find a lot of similarities when you transitioned from coaching football to because you've got a team?

Speaker 1: 2:19

Yeah, yeah, we do. Well, yeah, I mean. So I think business and athletics go hand in hand together in a lot of different ways. You know, in business you want to be competitive, but you also, just like on the sports field, not only do you have to be competitive, you have to train and you have to constantly try to get better. It's the same thing in business, so you have to work through issues. There's problem solving. That's involved there as well as in business, so I think the two coincide together. I think a lot of realtors are very competitive that's why it's such a competitive business and but it's always about trying to get better and trying to work as a team and see how we can problem solve, because every property is unique and every deal is different, Just like every play is different, right, Like you know.

Speaker 2: 3:10

So unless you're like me. I just started coaching my eight year old son's team and I run the same play again and again because I don't know too many.

Speaker 1: 3:19

What team do you? What do you coach?

Speaker 2: 3:21

It's. He's eight years old, but it's the NFL flag, okay.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Are you a coach too? So I'm a coach over in the AIM High League. That's a Fairfash County League.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Yeah, I've heard about that one, because Schrader is he.

Speaker 1: 3:35

I think I don't know who Schrader, okay, his daughter Okay because there's a girls only division in that league. But if you need any tips, I mean we have a pretty good, we have a little jack, our little jack wires were based out of Aldi and they're eight. Yeah, they're eight, they're second. So the leagues go second, third, k first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and then it goes six, only, seventh, only eighth only. So it's a great league. So if you ever wanted to talk, we can always chat about it.

Speaker 2: 4:09

I was going to say yeah, I'm having so much fun. Here's the thing before I started coaching them, I knew literally nothing about football, and I just started coaching this season.

Speaker 1: 4:17

So okay, Okay. Time out. No offense, no offense. Where are all the dads who know football?

Speaker 2: 4:25

They were even with me signing up, they still were like two coaches short, oh wow. So the reason why I did it is because my son is really really good. Obviously we're parents of that, but my son really is really really good.

Speaker 1: 4:39

All right, then we need to bring him to my sorry, no offense. Okay, can I recruit your son? He's really good. Okay, we'll take him.

Speaker 2: 4:46

Okay, he is and the coach. They have this rule we have to play every kid so much time and we would lose games because he wasn't every time he was in touchdown. Touchdown, like this last game, four or five touchdowns, right Game before that, four touchdowns. I'm like, just just play him. If you want to win, just play him. So that's why I signed up, not because I knew a thing about football, because I was like I know I'll learn as a business owner. Yeah, I'm good at being put under pressure and then figuring it out. And so so far we lost our first one because he was in Dallas, texas, watching the the football game. Okay, but then we won our second and third and I'm like we're going to win every like.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Very good, very good. I like to hear that.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Anyways, that was just a little offside there. So football sorry, we were talking about the connections.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Yeah, yeah, we're just talking about the connections between you know that previous career and what I do now. We we have a team of great agents.

Speaker 2: 5:44

You're more excited about football than real estate. Huh.

Speaker 1: 5:47

No, no, no, no, not at all, not at all, not well, you know, because I kind of miss it. You know, you know how it is, it's.

Speaker 2: 5:58

And cuz we're talking about your son and, yeah, I love.

Speaker 1: 6:01

You know I love Mike, Both of my. I have two boys. Both will play. They're they're into sports a lot and Whenever I talk about them or associated with anything with them, like I'm like the proud dad, you know I love.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I'll say this I love coaching football and football with my son more than anything else. Like more than my job, more than spending time with anybody like there's just something that is so exciting about coaching and being on that football field with fun right, it's so much fun. I look forward to it.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Yeah, it's thrilling. But In real estate, like right now, you know, but when you know, the best part about real estate is when I call my clients and I'm like, hey, you know, the perfect home, we got the home. And you hear on the other line like this cheer and then this sigh of relief and because you know, the past three, four years in real estate has been so tough to get clients the home that they want and they miss out, they miss out, they miss out. But as a realtor it always and this is my philosophy with anything that always it's gonna work out. Let's just keep on working, keep on trying, and it always does. It always ends up working out.

Speaker 1: 7:06

The better home is Around the corner. And then when they call me like, hey, guys, guess what? Like you got the house and they're just like ecstatic is the best part of my job and that feels every time that happens. That feels like a win. You can ask my wife like you know, sometimes I have her on speaker cuz she's like I want to hear, you know, I want to hear that you know, cuz she knows that's, that's the special call and I love that.

Speaker 1: 7:31

I absolutely love that part of my job.

Speaker 2: 7:33

So how did you navigate from coach to? Because we didn't hit that spot right there.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Okay coach and then becoming a right, right, so that's a great question. Um, so my mother Was a realtor in northern Virginia. You know, for 30 place, she, if you ask her today, she's still a realtor. She's, she's retired but she's, you know, for 35, 45, 40 years she was a realtor, very a top realtor, I mean she's. She's worked with them all and you, anywhere from Century 21 to long and fostered a Jobin realty to prudential back when Prudential was a real estate company to end, envy homes before Envy homes was a big builder. They were Envy realty. She worked for them as well. I mean so, and I remember going with her to properties as a kid and, and you know, feeling like I was involved, and then going through these beautiful houses and you know I fell in love with it at a young age.

Speaker 1: 8:25

Um, so that was, that was probably the first part, and she's been telling me for years you know, even if you're going to be a coach, have your real estate license. We always think you should, everyone should have their real estate license, just in case, because Everyone's in. If you own a home, you're you're involved in real estate. You know, if you rent the home, you're involved. Everyone in America is involved in real estate, unless unless you're homeless. But everyone should have a license or should know about it, because it's a great way for a to get wealthy and and, b, when you do these transactions, to know that you're not getting screwed out of money, you know, because there are a lot of ways where people can. So she's been saying that for years and years and years.

Speaker 1: 9:07

My wife and I at the time I was coaching football, we were over at Parkview High School in sterling and, uh, we were, I was teaching PE and and my wife was a social worker there and, um, just like anybody, we had a family. And she's like, ferris, I want to, um, stay home with the kids. And I'm like, you know, we're on teacher salaries, right, um, and she's like, yeah, she's like, well, my mom did it and and you know, I want to do it and and I'm like, okay, then we need to come up with the plan. And, and my mother and my dad, they've been saying for years get your license, you'll be great at it, you'll be great at it. And I'm like, okay, so I end up getting my license. And you know the goal the first year was to get a little bit of her salary back and try to maintain the bills and Uh and everything and thank goodness, in the first year I basically doubled my wife's salary in the first year of doing real estate and covered your and yeah, I will.

Speaker 2: 10:06

You were still working, I was still.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I was still. I was, I was um Teaching. I was head coach at the high school. I was doing real estate part time and I taught and coached for about six years that I taught. So I taught coach and did real estate for about six years. I taught coach Sorry, I taught and did real estate for about nine years. So I had to, I had to cut back from coaching because I'd be on the practice field on my phone we would just be blowing up with missed calls and and, uh, you know different clients and different people and I just I couldn't do that to my clients, um, so I stopped that and then eventually the business got really big where I could separate from teaching and just focus on just real estate. And then, you know, we started a team and kind of went from there and that's kind of how, how, uh it it happened for us, um, and I didn't realize how much I was going to love real estate until, like, I got into it.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Um, like I was telling you before, every deal is different, every property is unique. There's a challenge behind every single door. Then there's competition. Everyone knows a realtor in this area. So kind of separating yourself from the group and making sure that you have impeccable service is kind of like the goal, and I love that challenge as well. It's like you're not gonna win every deal right, but you have to keep on working, keep on going through. I love the challenge of it.

Speaker 2: 11:37

So how do you do that? How do you set yourself apart when everybody and their mom and aunt has their real estate agent or the real estate license?

Speaker 1: 11:46

Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, you gotta separate the people that just do it, just to do it, and the professionals. Right, I'm a true professional. Every single deal, every single house, whether it's a I don't know, a $100,000 condo, little flat to a $2 million home, I treat it like it's my own property, because for my client, it's everything to them, it's their biggest purchase. So I think what separates it is the impeccable customer service. People think, oh, realtors, it's about wheeling and dealing in numbers and this, and that no, no, no, no, it's about people. It's about the relationships you have with people, it's about taking care of your clients. And I think what separates the really top realtors like myself and a lot of the other ones in this area are the fact that we take care of our clients to the best of our ability. We're honest, we're truthful and we provide a great service that not everyone does, and that's what separates the special agents from just everybody else.

Speaker 2: 12:45

Can you give me a story of what service means to you? And the reason I ask is because, obviously, I didn't give you any of these questions, because we just have conversations and see what happens.

Speaker 1: 12:55

No, no, no, no, no. This is great.

Speaker 2: 12:57

So you didn't think through any of it, but or I didn't give you the opportunity to think through any of it. But people always say that we have great service, we're the best of the best. Do you have a specific story, either that you've heard somebody else that hasn't had that great service that other people have dealt with, or, on the other side, that you guys went above and beyond?

Speaker 1: 13:18

Yeah, I mean there's been times when people have tried I mean shoot. I'll tell you a recent story. There was a home in Ashburn. A guy comes for me for the interview and I kind of told him how it was. I said, hey, this is the pricing of your home, this is what we do, this is how we market, this is how we're gonna eat your house in front of everybody. We have a great marketing strategy Like. Our marketing team is phenomenal. We get the houses in front of everyone and loud in, loud and Fairfax, prince William. We market all over to every single agent so we don't get the deal.

Speaker 1: 13:53

He puts the house on the market with somebody else. I don't know what the other agent promised him or whatever. He calls me two weeks later and he's like Ferris, I've had a terrible experience. He goes. Can you help, of course. So we go in there. I said let's meet again. I said look the error in my suggestion.

Speaker 1: 14:09

So we talked about prepping a home, decluttering, staging a property, getting it ready to go. What are the features that we need to fix? Can we get contractors in here to fix some stuff? So we help declutter, we help stage the property. We got our contractors in there to help paint patch, fix some things, do some minor touch-ups here and there, change out the carpets, things like that, because carpets are super important. And we went in there and we sold the house within the first weekend above asking price.

Speaker 1: 14:41

It's again it's the professional realtor, rather than the guy, that's just gonna say, hey, we can sell your home for 200,000 more than what it's worth. Or hey, we can sell your home basically for free. We charge what we charge and we charge a really good rate, but we're all so honest with our pricing. The number one mistake that a lot of realtors make is that they, you know, because every seller thinks their house is the greatest thing since sliced bread, right. So they're gonna say, hey, my house is worth 1.5 million. Well, we do our market analysis on our market snapshot and we look at the market and we do our comps and everything like that, and we look at it like, well, really, your house is really at one three. Well, this person sold for this.

Speaker 1: 15:25

I said, well, here's the reason why. You know they got that number for this property and we know a lot of the backend stories. We know the neighbors already before you know what has happened with their property before we even walk in the door. So a lot of times we'll just say, yeah, we'll sell for 1.5, and then they get in there and they don't do anything. They just slap it on the MLS and nothing happens to the property. You know, whereas we, our services, we get the home ready to go, we price it right, we create demand for the property and then we get people in the door that you know probably wouldn't have gone in because our pictures are better, our staging is better, the house is ready to go, it's all prepped, the landscaping looks beautiful, it's, you know. Basically, we try to make a dump into a turnkey property and we do that a lot of the time, and that's what separates us from everybody else.

Speaker 2: 16:19

I think there was a time period, though, where you could literally just slap a sign on and say or sell in. Those suckers were.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Yeah, yeah, but still, you'll still lose that. Even back then, you'd still lose thousands and thousands of dollars for your clients because they weren't because they weren't properly.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yeah, what are the markets? Yeah, like it was in in 2001. Sorry, 2021, 2022, 2020, you know a little bit of not really 2023, but 2020, 2021, 2022. Awesome years, right, every realtor was a rockstar out there. We sold Alice in a day, but did you get top dollar for your client? Did you? Did you get? You know, some of our deals were $150,000 over asking price, you know. You know, $80,000 over asking we got. Not only did we sell it quickly, we sold it with a top dollar. And that's the difference. Yes, could everyone sell it? Yeah, everyone can sell it, but were they getting 10,? You know, at that time, were they getting 10 offers? No, they're only getting three or four offers. So there's the difference, adding those extra clients that are willing to go the extra step and say, hey, look, this house is ready to go, we want it. And then we get our clients top dollar and everyone's happy. I mean everyone is happy, you know, after they use us, I mean we're five star rating all across the board.

Speaker 2: 17:35

So that's awesome. That's awesome. How do you? How do you so? Right now, the market is not smooth sailing. Right now, it's not just slap a right. There's nothing to sell. Somebody wants to leave their house right now, right, because of the interest rates and all that fun stuff. What are you guys doing differently right now? Looking into the future? Well, we don't know when this isn't. We don't know if it's like six months, one year, three years, five years, right? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1: 18:01

It's a very tough time. It's a very tough time. So here's the issue right now, even though interest rates are high, inventory is still very low. What we're seeing now are the three D's. We're seeing death, divorce and downsizing, that's all. We're not seeing the person that's moving from a mid level townhouse to their forever home. We're not seeing that anymore, because they can't leave that mid level townhouse at a two and a half percent interest rate to come and now get a seven, seven and a half interest rate in a bigger home. It's not smart, it's not affordable. So, you're right, it's a, it's a. It's a. It's a very slow year.

Speaker 1: 18:36

What are we doing? Well, we're putting the numbers out there in front of people on on what they should do, and what we've been talking about right now is we've been working with a lot of investors, the people with cash, the people with money, who are what we say are they're marrying the price, dating the rate right. So right now they're buying and we're, you know, we have lenders that create unique ways to keep their payment lower, whether it's a, whether it's a five, one arm or whether it's a two one buy down. And these are things I can explain later, but we try to create ways to keep their payment low for the first few years and then, one interest rates drop, they can refinance. But here's the thing if you're waiting and people are waiting for the interest rate to drop, what do you think's gonna happen to pricing? It's gonna shoot up like you've never seen before. If interest rates get down to as low as even 5.5% which is, if you ask anyone, that's a high rate two years ago. That's crazy. But if it gets down to 5.5% or anything like that, you're gonna see prices surge like you've never seen in the Northern Virginia, washington DC area because there's a huge demand and there's a lot of people sitting in that house. And then they're gonna get impatient, like a lot of humans do. We're just impatient in nature and they're gonna want that bigger house, they're gonna want that next step and you're gonna start seeing prices skyrocket.

Speaker 1: 19:59

So what I'm telling people is hey, buy now. I know the interest rate's high, but buy the home. The way the price is now will create creative ways. So your payments a little bit lower. Is it gonna be at a 2.5% interest? No, it's not. But you buy it at the lower price and then, once interest rates drop, you can either resell or refinance and then, just like the sales will go up, the rental market's gonna go up as well. So it's just gonna be. The demand is very high right now still, even with the high rates, because of the little inventory. So that's kind of what we're seeing.

Speaker 2: 20:35

So you go to people's houses and say, okay, who died, who's divorced or what's the last one?

Speaker 1: 20:40

Debt, divorce or downsize. Right, You're seeing a lot of the baby boomers. They're downsizing, they're like all right time to sell and we've seen a lot of our deals have been that, luckily. Since I'm a local, born and raised in the Northern Virginia area, I do have a great sphere of people and I've helped sell a lot of my friends' parents' homes and they've downsized, moved out to Myrtle Beach or downsized, moved to a 55 and order community and that's kind of what we've seen. A lot we have seen some death listings where it was inherited by the siblings and the houses and probate. We've taken care of those. And then we've seen some divorce where people have to sell and they split up and went their separate ways one reason or the other, and that's kind of what we're seeing.

Speaker 1: 21:38

So you wanna stay in front of your clients. We stay in front of them through social media. We do the old school way of hey just giving them a call. Hey guys, we're in the neighborhood, how are you today? How's the family? Hey, saw your posts on social media and hope you guys are doing well. And oh, shoot, ferris, I've been meaning to call you. My cousin wants to sell a property or my nephew's ready to start looking, and that's kind of how the old school.

Speaker 2: 22:05

It's brilliant marketing. It's so simple, it's so easy, it's underrated, but it's brilliant marketing because it's relationship-based. You're checking up on them and you're showing that you care and that you didn't forget about them and they weren't a transaction. You'll be surprised maybe you won't be at how many people real estate agents specifically but just, it's a high ticket purchase, right? The people that have that offer high ticket offers. They just don't do that. They just don't check up on people.

Speaker 1: 22:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah it's. You know you have to have that personality that's willing to do that. You have to get over the fear of what they might think or what they might say. You just get over that. And your clients, when they're at their house, they do think of you every once in a while like, oh man, ferris, he helped us sell us out. We haven't heard from him in a while. You don't ever want to be that guy. You want to be that person. That's. Hey, ferris, just call us to see how we're doing, how's the house, how are the kids? The school's still good? You ask these simple questions and you'll be amazed at the response that you can get that football playing kid that has your group yeah you got a kid.

Speaker 1: 23:15

That's pretty good. Does he want to play on my football team? Come on, bring him over.

Speaker 2: 23:22

So you don't have a kid named Dax on your team.

Speaker 1: 23:25

Name who Dax no?

Speaker 2: 23:27

You must be on another one, no.

Speaker 1: 23:29

I don't have a Dax, we'll have to have him.

Speaker 2: 23:32

You aim highly so yeah they ended up fooling him out of the flag and put him onto the aim because yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Anyways, aim high has run really well. I know there's a lot of football, but aim high is an amazing league. It's highly competitive. There's a lot of no offense. A lot of teams from Latton are like, oh, we won the Super Bowl over there. They come over to us and it's very hard to win a game.

Speaker 2: 23:55

They're like ooh yeah yeah. It's flag, or is it?

Speaker 1: 23:57

It's flag. Okay, aim high does have tackle football also they offer. We haven't gotten to that yet, but I think next fall both of my boys will create that.

Speaker 2: 24:09

Are they going to? I'm kind of scared. Yeah, my guy's a little, he's a little, he's a little fast.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Tom did not get hit. Hey, don't get hit, just run away, that's right.

Speaker 2: 24:19

I said, you better run really really fast.

Speaker 1: 24:20

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:21

Okay, my last question is how are you? I know you said you're gonna be checking in with clients. You're just gonna be like taking care of them, nurturing. How do you see Northern Virginia? Obviously you don't have a Crystal ball. Crystal ball as far as you wouldn't be sitting here, you'd be taking over the world. But you don't have to snowball. But how do you see it playing out here in Northern Virginia?

Speaker 1: 24:49

Shoot by now, I'm telling you, by now. There are so many businesses that are coming into this area. I mean, everyone knows about the Amazon, but that's still. People are still relocating from Seattle and other places of the country to come work for Amazon. Microsoft has put their foot in the ground over here, google has put their foot in the ground, boeing wants to open up their headquarters over here. So with all these jobs, with all this money, you're gonna get an influx of people from out of the area coming into the area. Then home prices going up because people don't want that long commute You're gonna have to go back into the office again.

Speaker 1: 25:28

I think the old way, I think what was great, was when COVID first started people were working from home. Oh man, they were getting all these hours in. And then eventually people were like well, no one's really looking at me, so I can go mow my lawn real quick. Well, people aren't looking at me, I can go take a nap. And it went from very, very productive in the beginning of COVID to very non-productive. So I think a lot of CEOs are like, hey, get their butts back in the office. I wanna see them, I wanna make sure they're working on top of their game. I want that face-to-face interaction. That's gonna start happening again. So I think Northern Virginia, just like it's always been I mean historically this is like an area that's always thrived Because of the government, because of whether it's private or even public sector there's always been jobs in this area. I think once there are job losses in other parts of the country, they're gonna come to this area and you're gonna see a high demand for housing.

Speaker 2: 26:25

Land of opportunity here in Northern Virginia.

Speaker 1: 26:27

It is, it is, it is. So, hey, buy now because get your wealth through real estate, utilize the equity that that's gonna be available Because, like I said, once those interest rates do go back down which they're predicting end of 2024 is gonna start trickling back down again 2025. By the time it's 2026, 2027, which is not that far away you're gonna have $200, $300,000 worth of equity from an investment property that you just took a whim on right now.

Speaker 2: 27:00

So, yeah, it's gonna be great. That's what your crystal ball says, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:03

My crystal ball is hey, man, keep your real estate license for another four or five years, because there's been over 60,000 agents in this area that have left the business because they can't maintain. So the ones that are in it are gonna thrive like crazy. And you wanna be a part of a team with a mentor like myself. My mentor is great as well. They're doing really well, casey Sampson but you wanna be a part of a team that knows what they're doing and you wanna get on board with that when it does come. So, yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1: 27:36

Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 2: 27:37

I appreciate your time and you sharing so freely over your resources.

Speaker 1: 27:40

Of course, of course, anytime.