WELCOME LISTENERS

Paul Neal: [00:00:00] Welcome listeners today to the Entrepreneurial Agent podcast. Today’s one of my my, my honor and privilege to introduce a top realtor here in the coastal Virginia area. Queen Ellis. She’s been one of coastal Virginia’s top agents since the inception of a career 20 years ago. Her accolades are numerous, but to name a few.

She’s been recognized by many organizations and has earned the top 100 Award Woman of Achievement Award from ACH I magazine, Quadruple Gold Award award winner from Keller Williams and many, many other awards, including top real estate producer number one Diamond Award winner. And just, just a litany.

I I can’t read ’em all. There’s so many here. So, Queen, welcome to show. You’re obviously super successful what you do. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you for having. Yeah, you bet. So I like just to kinda kind of open up and find out a little about you. You’ve been in the, this, this career for 20 years, so what did, did you come right outta school and jump into real estate?

Or, or cuz you look like you, you’re, you know, that’s [00:01:00] probably, that’s about how old you are. 

Queen Ellis: No, I’m a senior citizen. . don’t get it twisted. I’m not that young. If I was doing it 20 years and I started. 30, I’ll be 10. But I have been in real estate my whole life because my parents, I guess, introduced me indirectly through their own efforts in real estate.

So as far as I’m concerned, I was born into real estate. Right. Yeah. 

Paul Neal: Were they, were they real estate investors or, I mean, in what frame were they, Did they introduce you? No, 

Queen Ellis: my parents are immigrants and they decided they were gonna purchase a home. My grandmother lived at 5 92 Crescent Street. I lived at 6 28 Crescent Street.

My parents, and we lived in the basement. So I call myself a business baby and my parents rented out the two floors above and economically that worked out great cuz they didn’t have to pay any mortgage. They understood economics at that moment. Or maybe they did, Maybe they got lucky, but it worked 

Paul Neal: out.

well, yeah. Whether they did or they did and they sure did a good, That was a good move, right? Mm-hmm. . 

Queen Ellis: So I saw renters all the. You know, in and 

Paul Neal: out. So you learn. So you [00:02:00] learned the just kinda li in, in living color. The, the, the experience of, of being a part of an investment real estate project, basically.

Right? Because this house was a, the first of maybe one. Maybe it’s the only one they had, but at least you learned how the whole, the whole system worked, right? 

Queen Ellis: Yeah. See, the thing is, We usually do it wrong. You know, we buy the one house and we end up paying for it. Mm-hmm. , Well, my parents bought the house and somebody else paid for it, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.

And that’s not what we do normally we don’t do that. We don’t buy our multifamilies, we don’t, you know, rent out the basements and the addicts or whatever. And that’s what you should do in order to create wealth for yourself. Let someone else pay it. 

Paul Neal: Right? So why should you pay your own mortgage? What an interesting thought.

Queen Ellis: I mean, it’s just the way it is. It’s no different than, you know, there’s a CEO of every company and somebody works and pays for that, right? You buy rental property so other people can help you build wealth, right? Same thing, same concept. [00:03:00] 

Paul Neal: Right. So your experience growing up in real estate, just in that, I mean, did you come right outta school and dive right into the real estate investing or did you have some other career path that sort of gets you there?

Queen Ellis: I actually went to college and I even graduated with a master’s degree from Harvard University. And I kind of knew I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial, but I didn’t exactly know how. Mm-hmm. . So I decided that I was gonna buy property and live off my rental properties, and then somehow the agent that I had was not, To me, it seemed like the agent didn’t know as much, but here’s how I got the agent.

My grandmother said, Go talk to Mr. So-and-so. That’s my agent, that’s my grandmother. And she’s old, right? Mm-hmm. , so, I did what my grandmother told me to do, and that agent was not versed in a lot of things. So I decided I was gonna go to real estate school and take a class so I could learn how to invest better because this agent didn’t even have investments.

So if you’re gonna choose someone to represent you, you might [00:04:00] wanna check and see if they mirror your goals and your value. 

Paul Neal: Right. For sure. And so you went on, you got your you took a, took a class on that and that, that led you in this path. That’s now 20 year 

Queen Ellis: career. Well, what happened is I took the class just for the investment piece of it.

Mm-hmm. . And when I was done someone said, You know, you would be really good at real estate. And I’m thinking, well, I just got my real estate license. It was just the weirdest thing. So I was out one day and I ran into a young man who he just found out he was my first client. Cause he didn’t know.

Because just because you’re new in real estate doesn’t mean I’m new in business. Right, right. . So I ran into him and he said he wanted to buy a house. And this is the year of 2000. I think two market was terrible. You couldn’t buy anything because there were multiple offers and everybody was friends. In the real estate business, I just got my license, so I didn’t know anybody.

So offers were just not getting accepted, right? So what I decided to do is I’m not gonna fail at anything I do. I told that young man, I can [00:05:00] help you. And I ran out there and I knocked on doors and I said, Look, my client wants to buy a home. Are you selling these? Another door. Nope. Another door. They said, Well, I’m in the military and I’m gonna get deployed here in the next couple of months.

I said, Perfect. We’ll buy it. We’ll give you 10,000 the price. We’ll guarantee this. We’ll guarantee that you stay here in your house and when you’re ready to leave, we got it. We’re good. That was my first sale and I did it again and again, and I held hands with my next time and ran and knocked doors.

Excuse me. You selling? No, you selling. You selling? Well, I’m in the military. You know, I might be getting, you know, orders. Okay, . 

Paul Neal: So who needs an MLS 

Queen Ellis: system? I couldn’t, Well first of all, the MLS system here was antiquated. We were doing Doss. Yeah. So you had to wait on a book. You had to run around town and do a lot of stuff.

It was ridiculous. Doss. So I didn’t, I didn’t, Yeah, it was Doss. It was a blue light. You had to go two BD uhhuh, two DB for bedroom va. B [00:06:00] C H was Virginia Beach. It was really weird. It was all the coding. You had to know how to code in order to use mls. As a matter of fact, in three, when the MLS did come on board, we lost about half of our Asians

They didn’t wanna use Thes system as it was. 

Paul Neal: Wow, you’re taking me back to my engineering days. I, I, I grew up in Dawson, machine code and things like that, so I’m dating myself a little too, but Me 

Queen Ellis: too. I had display, right?

Paul Neal: Yeah. The Lisa, I remember I, my first computer was the the Atari 800, and that was my predecessor to the, the the IBM that they made me get when I went off to 

Queen Ellis: college. Yeah, big from the, when we had. It’s the sound of aol.

Paul Neal: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Put your, put your phone in the modem. That’s right. Yes. Wow. Wow. Things sure have, have timeshare has flown. Things have changed. Yes. But, but that attitude, that attitude that got you started is, is probably the same attitude that’s propelled you to the [00:07:00] top, I would imagine, Right.

In terms. Key indicators or key activities? 

Queen Ellis: I, I just don’t believe in failure. I don’t know. You know, I hear a lot of people saying things like, fail forward, you gotta fail in order to know. One girl posted just recently, you know, you’re not a, a, a beast or goat until you have failed, lost everything and started over.

And I don’t know what that feels like. So I’m not the average person, right? I’m gonna consider myself in the 1% because there’s no way you can fail into. You just can’t. Right? So failure is not an option. Not for me, not for my family, not for what I come from. There was no such word as I can’t and I’m failing.

Those words were forbidden. They were like curse words and let’s like joining forces with the devil if you said that in our household. So if I decide I’m gonna do so. I’m gonna find a way to succeed or die while trying. Mm-hmm. . Wow. And most people can say that, they just throw up their hands and fail. You only fail when you don’t prepare, but you fail to prepare.

You gonna plan and [00:08:00] fail. That’s just it. 

Paul Neal: Wow. That’s a great philosophy. Yeah. I mean, I love the idea that you didn’t, you didn’t allow those words in your household. Fail. Quit. Yeah. It’s, it seems like we have a whole, we have a, a whole society, a generation of people today that wanna be a victim, right?

And they’re like, they want everyone to do it for them. And you know, 

Queen Ellis: wow, it didn’t go right. It’s because y’all didn’t support me if it didn’t go right. It’s what about the fact that you didn’t prepare, right? What about you didn’t market right? What, what about if you didn’t target the right audience? What about you have to take that responsibility so it’s only failure when you.

Plan. Right. And you get down and don’t get back up. Mm-hmm. , because you have to plan. I mean, people don’t plan for their future and then they cry if something happens and they can’t make it. People don’t plan for a rainy day and then they spend all their money on things they don’t need, like liabilities and the assets, and then cry about it when something happens.

People don’t get life insurance and then they have to get go fund me for their funerals. people don’t plan for a lot of things, [00:09:00] right. If you don’t plan, then you may. Right. So if you fail a plan, you plan to 

Paul Neal: fail. I was gonna say, yeah, that I, I’ve heard that before and it’s a cliche, but it’s a truism, right?

That’s so many cliches 

Queen Ellis: are true’s. Totally, totally true. I don’t know any true statement other than, you know, believe it and achieve it. You believe it. , you can achieve it. You just have to do things to manifest that and mm-hmm. put in work, you know, So there’s nothing you can’t do. 

Paul Neal: Well that’s, that was the other thing I was gonna say.

There’s a lot, there’s a lot of sort of mantra out there today of if you believe it, you can achieve it. But there is that ingredient that goes with that. Right. You’ve gotta put the work in, you’ve gotta have discipline. I mean, so many people to skip over that part and sit in scar at, you know, at 11:00 AM with their latte and you know, they’re waiting for their ship to come in.

Right? But they’ve never sent that ship out. 

Queen Ellis: Yeah, there’s a lot of things that happen, but you know, it’s, it’s about manifest. You have to put in your mindset, Okay, this is what I wanna do. I’m gonna write it down, I’m gonna see how I can get to it. Mm-hmm. , and you have to have a path there so you can put it on a target.

But if you don’t do something and get your [00:10:00] bone arrow together and then learn how to focus the bone arrow and pull the trigger, you can stay here with the target and the bow and arrow all day and never hit that bullseye. So it’s, I. To, like you said, do the steps that it takes to, like, some people ask me, What do you do?

What do you do? Get outta bed. . That’s it. I had a friend formula. 

Paul Neal: Yeah, I, I had a friend. That’s funny that you say that Queen, that that he was real successful and he used to, when I was young, he told me I was started in business and he said that success. About a, if you just get out of bed, you’re about 80% of the way there.

And if, you know, if you just show up and if you work, you’re about another 10% there, and he is like, the last 10% might be a bit of a dog fight, but at least you’ve cut out, you know, 80, 90% of the competition because you’re just in the arena, right? 

Queen Ellis: Yeah. This is mindset. A lot of it’s mindset. So, you know, I’m on a weight loss journey, right?

I don’t know who doesn’t like nuts? [00:11:00] Nuts and chips and cookies. I think we all kind of like it. I don’t know. I just do. I can eat cake all day. I don’t want nothing else. Just cake. That’s it. I could wake up, have cake for breakfast, and I can have cake lunch, and have cake for dinner, but unfortunately at my age I can’t do it.

Right? Mm-hmm. , So I’m on the weight loss journey and the whole mindset shift is no sugar, no. No processed foods, nothing but meat or fish or protein and vegetable. That’s it. And somebody said, Well, isn’t that pretty boring? And I’m like, I got a choice. I need to make sure I’m on this weight loss journey. So I don’t worry about what it’s like.

I gotta shift my mind to say, this is what they’re telling me I need. And after I got on that journey, you know, I’ve never craved. Hmm, So your body doesn’t crave it cuz you’re not [00:12:00] feeding it. So you have to change your mindset, right? If not you’s gonna be fat, you gotta 

Paul Neal: choose. And so you fee, it’s the same, the same idea applies across other things, right?

What you feed, what you focus on, you get more of. If you focus on the fear, the failure, you’re gonna be drawn to it versus 

Queen Ellis: what Focus on what you focus on expands so positive, begets positive, hard work gets results. Good thinking and positive thinking gets positive energies. So you have to think about that.

Paul Neal: What holds people back? Why? Why don’t people do that? Why don’t they focus on winning and, and doing the right things? 

Queen Ellis: My, my degree is definitely not in psychology, but I do know that I could never tell you the mindset of other people cause I. The same way. People can’t focus on the fact that I don’t believe in failure.

They think that is a foreign idea. Like when I say things like that, Well, everybody’s not, and everybody’s this and everybody’s [00:13:00] not like you. I can’t put myself in the mindset of why people don’t just like I coach people, right? So when I’m coaching agents and they’re saying, Well, can’t do this because of that right there, you’ve already failed.

You’re gonna have to just get off my phone, call me back. When you get the word can’t out because you already failed. We can’t talk about that. If you telling me I can’t, Well, I can’t, I can’t go on the internet and, and post on Facebook. I’m not good at that. Or I’m not used to being on camera. I’m not. Okay.

Well, and you, thank you for paying me for you to stay fat. , . 

Paul Neal: Are you that blunt with him? Queen? Do you tell it to him? Just like. 

Queen Ellis: Yes. And that’s what my coach told me when I was working out . So you wanna pay me to complain? Yeah. Ok. Well pay me to say fat. That’s what you’re doing. I’ll take your money. I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for nothing. Yes, I appreciate it. Yeah. Yes I do. I tell them that. I said I actually put one on Facebook one time and I said, Should I fire my [00:14:00] client, my coaching client who just told me she can’t do something, I just advise her and it. Yes, I and I told the next day she was on Facebook doing what I asked her.

So if you are gonna pay someone to help and advise you, you’re not gonna take the advice and you’re paying them to stay fat. You don’t wanna do that. Well, 

Paul Neal: that’s kind of moronic, right? I mean, you know, you’re paying somebody to get you to do the things that you’re not willing to do on your own, so that there’s why, why pay him, Right?

Right. 

Queen Ellis: Yes. Why you’re wasting your. You’re not wasting my time. I’m getting paid , so I’ll do for the money, but it’s not worth it for me because my satisfaction comes in other people’s success, so it gets frustrat. and I tell ’em before we begin anyway, that I’m a boot camp type coach. I’m not your soft kind.

I wanna hear about your problems. You gotta get rid of your problems at the door. You need to come in here with low cortisol, cortisol, a high mindset, a mind shift, and a good attitude and everything else. You can tell it to your mother and a psychiatrist. But for me, , I’m [00:15:00] only here for the results. 

Paul Neal: No safe spaces, huh?

In your coaching class. 

Queen Ellis: They just have to understand and everybody’s not for everybody. I’m not interested in your problems. Your problems are. Why you calling me? That’s right. . You know my son went to Co Fork Union. Yeah. And the lady said when we called up there to ask questions about something, she said, Listen, we’ve been doing this for 200 years.

We never needed your help. And the reason why you’re here is cause you need our help. Yeah. So I’m not sure why you calling. Have a nice day. Click them . 

Paul Neal: And it’s true. 

Queen Ellis: Its, they need our help. That’s why get, get them what they needed. Yeah. And I’m up here trying to, you know, find out how I can insert myself, you know, cause they can’t have phones and things like that.

You know, you start feeling sorry for your poor little baby, you know, you can’t communicate. It’s like, we don’t need your. We never needed your help. We don’t need your help, and you’re paying us to make sure we don’t need your help. So have a nice day, mom. 

Paul Neal: Yeah. Yeah. That’s an awesome [00:16:00] perspective. And you know, sometimes we need a, we need an adjustment, right?

To make sure we’re thinking straight. I think, you know, there’s way too much safe coddling going on right now. Way too much that everybody a trophy. Everybody gets a trope. . Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well that’s exci, that’s cool. Well, so, but, but only one is number one. Right? So no 

Queen Ellis: one can remember number two, unless Steve Harvey made that mistake.

And other than that, nobody remembered second place. 

Paul Neal: No, no. You’re the first loser, right? If you’re second place, , that’s 

Queen Ellis: all. They’re, if they remember you, somebody. 

Paul Neal: I used to run marathons and I would laugh cuz I’m kind of a lumbering guy. And that was one of those things that it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna do it.

I’m, I hated to run, but I, I got to it and did it. And I used to laugh because there was, there was like, The, the, the two or three guys in the front that were just crazy fast. And then the rest of us were just a bunch of losers there to make them look good, you know? And I felt like , you know, they’re already gone and we’re still like lumbering along with, you know, 10 miles to go and 

Queen Ellis: see.

I wouldn’t be in track if I couldn’t be the [00:17:00] number one seed. I couldn’t win. If I can’t win, I’m not playing. I don’t, I don’t play to lose. Yeah. So I gotta play to win and I play at a high level. So if I’m gonna play, I’m, I’m, I’m playing to win. It’s funny cuz I don’t like to even. I don’t care about being in competition with people.

Like, I don’t, I don’t wanna go. If they say, Well, you know, put your name in the hat and we’ll, you know, decide whatever, whatever. So there’s a pro, there’s a company here called AIE Magazine. Mm-hmm. . And I’m always nominated for something rights. I don’t put my name in the hat ever. Cause I always feel like I’m a loops.

I just, that’s why I won’t do it if I thought I had it. I just, I never do and literally every time my name’s been in hat, I won. And I’m just like shocked cuz I just don’t believe in competing. So I’m competing with all the entrepreneurs in Hampton Roads and became Entrepreneur of the Year and I’m thinking, There’s gotta be some better entrepreneurs.

But you know, it just, it’s weird that this is a community thing and I’ve got ICON Award at in Chesapeake and I’m like, there’s gotta be somebody that’s a [00:18:00] better I. But I never do that because to me, my success and my achievements come from my own personal goals. So, mm-hmm. , my friends may wanna yacht, I may want an airplane, right?

Mm-hmm. , we don’t have the same goals, right? I set my goals and when I meet those goals, that’s my. Not measured amongst other people, cuz we all have different goals. Some people may be required and they only wanna do two transactions. They’re happy. Some people are just in the game and they’re like, Yeah, I gotta make all this money.

I gotta buy me a Maserati and a new Tesla. They might wanna do seven transactions, right? Mm-hmm. , it just depends. I, I don’t measure myself based on other people, but I’ve always been. So it doesn’t matter. I’ve always gotten in, you know, to something. I applied for The Apprentice, the Donald Trump show back in the day.

Yeah. And I got, you know, chosen to be on the show. I declined. Yeah. But you know, if I’m gonna apply to something or try something or do something, when I applied to Harvard and I got in and I never applied anywhere else, somebody’s like, You’re so risky, why [00:19:00] would you apply, you know, just to one school?

Cause if it doesn’t work out, and I. It’s gonna work out. It’s gonna work out. , I’ve already, I’ve already manifested it in my mind. Yeah. And I do what I needed to do, and I have all the credentials. It’s not like I’m a Z student. Right. And got all Fs and Zs and went up there and waved the flag and hoped for the best.

No. And I knew that if they didn’t choose me, they would be at. Right. 

Paul Neal: Right. Yeah. I know. It’s a great way, It’s a great way to live. And you, so you’ve defined success to you what that means to you, and that in your definition of success might be, it’s obviously not everybody’s definition of success, right?

Exactly. Exactly. Not everyone’s compelled for that particular drive. And you can still not believe in failure, but maybe not be driven by the same end goal that you are. That’s correct. In your life and, and that’s okay. But the key is you’ve gotta know what it is for you. 

Queen Ellis: Right. We’re different. We’re all different.

We can’t compare ourselves because no two people are alike. You’re unique all by yourself. Mm-hmm. Period. [00:20:00] Absolutely. There’s nobody like you. We don’t have the same hair follicles, we don’t have the same lips or any, Nothing’s the same. And even if we have similar things, they’re still not a exact, Even as twins, you’re not even identical.

I have identical twins. They are not exact. Yeah, but they’re identical. Right, Right. So one may have a patch here, one may have a little, you know, look different there. That’s why you can tell ’em this part. They’re not exact, right? So there’s no two people alike. So you shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone.

And that means even if you looked exactly like your mindset’s not the same, right? Nothing is the same. You just can’t compare. So you have to choose what you want in life and then you have to work towards that. And once you achieve that, that’s your success based, based on your. Goals, your values and your understanding of goals.

Paul Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I can’t improve that at all. That’s, that’s awesome. Talk to me a little bit now about, kind of shifting gears. The market has shifted a little bit in real estate. I know the last couple [00:21:00] years are crazy, but you’ve seen a lot cuz you got started so long ago. So, you know, you’ve seen ups and downs and all that.

What do you see happening with your, sort of looking back and then looking forward with your experience? What do you, what do you think is gonna happen in the. 

Queen Ellis: I can predict, I don’t have a, you know, a crystal ball, so I can’t prognosticate anything. But what I can say is the difference between previous markets and now is the lack of inventory.

So if you look at 2006, seven, and eight, when things were going downward, and we knew that was coming, Whole bunch of building going on. Yeah. Every time I walk into a new site or new home builder’s office, they don’t have land. They don’t have lots, They don’t have materials. If they do have land in lots, yeah, prices are just crazy.

It’s taken longer to bill where it used to be four or five months. Now it’s six to nine months or even more. And on top of all of that, the rates are at 7.1%. So now we have to get the mortgage industry back onto the fancy funky financing. They used to do [00:22:00] investors to unload on those arms because arms used to be the thing.

Yeah. So if you couldn’t do 7%, you can get a 4% arm, you know, fictitious rate for five years locked. They won’t do it anymore because. Their arms are so close to the regular rates, it’s not worth it to pay that money. We need to get back to something like that. Or we’re gonna have a little bit of an issue.

And it’s not gonna be for a crash, it’s gonna be for the building community because people can still buy resale. They may not like what they’re buying, but they can still afford to buy. Mm-hmm. . But the re the market, like especially new construction, cuz you don’t know what the rate is. So now you got people unsure.

Uneasy about. And then you got those who do know the rate and they’re like, I don’t wanna pay 7% for a 500,000 house, who can now only afford a 400,000. And they don’t want it because they expected 2000 square feet and now that 500,000, 

Paul Neal: No. Right. So 

Queen Ellis: they [00:23:00] caned up to $670,000. And I have a person right now qualified to 700,000, but that payment is more like $5,000.

Yeah. Yeah. And they wanna be the three thousands. I’m like, yeah. It would’ve if you were 3% , but now they’re taking their 700,000 going down to like five 80, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, and even that’s still like $4,000 on a two on Zap. 

Paul Neal: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Well, you know, We’re not gonna see 3% rates again, most likely ever.

I mean, since I’ve done this in 98 and you’ve done it since early 2000, that was such an anomaly. Right? And we can trace it back a lot further than that. I think we’ll settle back around five. I’m thinking middle next year. They always 

Queen Ellis: say, they always say what you say. Okay. So they say gonna see 3% again.

But yeah, in 2000 and right before the crash, four and five, we had 0%. We have nemo. Well, yeah, we, No, well, that’s true. 

Paul Neal: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. It [00:24:00] was very of financing 

Queen Ellis: industry. You forgot they had that. Yeah. And then it creeped up. Okay. It kept creep creeping up and creeping up and creeping up. And then we had the crash.

Right. And then we all had, I know I have four and 5% in 2008. Mm. and then I refinanced everything last year at two point threes to 2.8. Mm-hmm. in all of my loans. Right. So we were hearing that, Oh, we’re never gonna see 2004, five and six again, right? Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. But then we went back down to. Two point I saw as low as 2.1.

In 2020. Yeah, 

Paul Neal: we were down 1 

Queen Ellis: 99. I saw 1 99. But you had to catch that on a certain day. Nobody I knew. Got it. But it was down, right? Yeah. So there was actually 1.79 if you were willing to pay a little money. So we had em low, but then we got up to about. We got up higher and then went back down again.

Mm-hmm. , as soon as Covid and everything happened, went back down again. [00:25:00] Yeah. So I don’t think, it won’t go back down, but I think a healthy market should be between four and 7%. Yeah. That’s my opinion. That’s a healthy market. 

Paul Neal: Yeah. Because I mean, obviously when, when rates are so low, we’re throwing gasoline on the fire of appreciation.

Right. And how can, how long can you sustain? 15 to 20% appreciation Year to year. To year. I mean, you just can’t sustain it. But it. 

Queen Ellis: Well, especially for my rentals. . 

Paul Neal: Well, yeah, that’s good. That’s right. If you have a, you have a nice investment portfolio of rentals, which goes back to your original comments when we were talking about wealth and real estate.

Yeah. Because over the long term, you know, real estate’s gonna stay in pace or ahead of inflation, and so you, that’s, that’s probably the best asset class out there to, to beat inflation. Plus you’ve got other people paying the loans, you’ve got depreciation. There’s all the benefits that are associated with.

So I’m, I’m tracking you a a 

Queen Ellis: hundred. Yeah. We went up, I went up about 30 to 40% in real estate in mm-hmm. year or two. So rents went from say, 900 to 1500 mm. 1600 to 2000. [00:26:00] Yeah. These are crazy numbers. 

Paul Neal: Well, that’s one of the things they don’t talk about as much in terms of, you know, affordability on, on purchases of new homes.

Well, rent’s gone up too, so it’s not exactly cheap to 

Queen Ellis: rent. It’s not, and not only there’s not, It’s cheap, but not cheap to rent. There are no rentals. There’s a shortage of rentals and it’s so bad that they used to put, if you didn’t have a 700 credit score, don’t even waste your time applying. Cause there were so many applications.

Right. And so you know, I catered to the military so I try to put it on military sites to help military families cuz we’re a military family. So I’m real partial to that. Not that I wouldn’t choose anyone else, but I’m saying I try to help as many people cuz a lot of them didn’t have homes and they were transf.

So they’re like buying things and renting things site unseen. Yeah. And if they’re willing to do that, I’m willing to help ’em. You know what I mean? Yeah. You got a family and you’re coming to Virginia. Yeah. And the military youth says You only got this many days to deploy and get here and do this, and now you can’t find a place because it’s crazy.

But the [00:27:00] BHS are so good. Mm-hmm. that they can afford it. The Bahs are great. Yeah. When they give them basic allowance for housing, so. 

Paul Neal: Right, right. Yeah. Interesting times. I hope you’re right. I have no crystal ball either. I think we’re, we’re in a, in more of a balance market. It’s gonna be interesting to see how that plays out and hopefully it’s, it’s gonna be great going forward.

But to your point, early on, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. You got the rain, you got the sun, you got the soil, you got the seed, and, and regardless, you gotta do something with it. 

Queen Ellis: But the bad news is, is not only that prices of homes have gone up and rentals are high. I went to the grocery store the other day.

I’m on a new thing. I know this is crazy for me, but. I have to watch what I spend. Right. Which has never been the situation. I’ve never looked. If I wanna buy something that’s good as store, I pick up the groceries, I gotta eat it. Right? I can’t be figuring out why the apples cost. What? And the bag of apples was almost seven.

I was like, How much is this Apples? I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. Yeah. And then I buy salmon a lot cause I’m a pescatarian, sort of. [00:28:00] Mm-hmm. . So I went to go get, You know, Sam’s Club version of Salmon. And I was like, $27. What happened to 15? I mean, it, it just shocked me because I never really cared.

Mm-hmm. , But I care now and I’m like, maybe we need to get a stipend and not the . Maybe we don’t, we don’t need the the, the college relief fund , you know, from the loans we need. We need a monthly stipend. Cause this is really bad for families. And I never looked at it that way, but I’m like, wow, I gotta.

And control what I’m spending. Yeah, 

Paul Neal: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people are, are, are, are, you know, realizing that now and making adjustments and of course that’ll ease demand a little bit, which helps bring prices down and, and so forth. So 

Queen Ellis: prices down, don’t say those curse words. Prices down. Not of homes.

Paul Neal: Not of homes. Of Of the fish. of the fish. of the fish. Yeah. No. Well, you 

Queen Ellis: know, did you hear about the. They said Alaska, they had like a shortage of 

Paul Neal: fish. . Did I ? There’s there’s always a [00:29:00] shortage of something. Yeah, that’s 

Queen Ellis: right. Fishing. I never heard of anything so bizarre. But yeah. Yeah. So there’s a lot of things going on.

I’m not even sure what’s going on with the market and, and the solar system and everything else, but we have to figure things out and I don’t think prices are necessarily gonna go down. They might adjust a bit, but even the guy in California, Said the Cal California can’t produce tomatoes. Yeah. So if we don’t have local tomatoes, the price is going up cause it’s gonna be mm-hmm.

Yep. America’s importing now. It’s really weird and a lot of stuff come from China, which it shouldn’t be expensive cuz it’s supposed to be cheaper. It’s just a lot of confusion in pricing and, and what has happened from Covid and what happened with the markets and how we owe to these other countries because we borrowed to get.

Goods or we, Yes. It’s, it’s weird. I don’t know. It’s just a weird shift in my opinion. Even materials come from chi. I mean, the housing one builder took so long to build. I told him I, I could have drove to China by now and got that 

Paul Neal: material [00:30:00] took, so Yeah. 

Queen Ellis: To a house. Yeah. Yeah. Changing materials saying they didn’t have it.

You know, trying to think. It was just too much. And now builders got smart and started ordering up front. Mm-hmm. And those same builders are gonna have to come down on the price. I’m looking at Phoenix and Florida and some of the higher end markets that went up so high. They’re coming down. Yeah. Lots of them coming down.

Yeah. They went up too high. And there’s the demand of influx of people moving in are lower. Mm-hmm. because of the interest. . 

Paul Neal: Yeah. Yeah. No doubt it, it always happens. Those cyclical markets like that, are they, they go up and go down, so, mm-hmm. . Wow. Interesting times. Interesting times, Queen. Well, this has been great.

I think we’re pretty much wrapping up, running outta time. Tell us how we can get in contact with you if we wanna work with the number one realtor in coastal Virginia who will not fail. 

Queen Ellis: That’s correct. I don’t believe in failure. If my clients come to me, we’re gonna get it done. I’m at 5 7 8 0 [00:31:00] 9 5 5.

It’s very easy to remember until they change our area code to 9 48 , but 7 5 7 8 0 9 25 25. My URL is Dream Girls Real Estate at gmail, I mean@um.com. And that’s my email. Dream girls real estate gmail.com. And I’m on Facebook at Dream Girls Real Estate. I’m on Google as Dream Girls Real Estate. Yes, my name is Queen Claudine Ellis, and you can find me on Queen or Claudine on any of those sites if you typed it in.

I’m on Zillow, I’m on all platforms, but I’m on Twitter. Everything is under Dream Girls. I keep it consistent. So if you ever type Dream Girls in, I believe you’ll find me. Now, if you type Dream Girls in, in a different state like California, you’re gonna get some dancers. So

So we wanna make sure it’s Dream Girls Real. There you 

Paul Neal: go. There you go. There, go there. Yes. Yes. Awesome. Well, we’ll make sure that’s all in the show notes so it’ll be in there and people can pick it up and dreams 

Queen Ellis: come true. Ok. That’s what it’s all about. Making dreams come. Cool. 

Paul Neal: That’s, I like that. [00:32:00] That’s awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, that’s what you do. So, Wonderful. Well, I’ve enjoyed my time with you. Thanks for, Thanks for sharing today and hopefully we’ll catch up again. 

Queen Ellis: Yes. I wish everyone happy selling and happy buying. There’s never a good or bad time to buy or sell. I don’t want anyone to think that. Oh my God.

It’s a bad time. Oh my God. It’s a good time. It’s a right time at any time you’re ready. It’s a great time to buy or sell. 

Paul Neal: Well said. All right. Have a wonderful day. 

Queen Ellis: Thank you. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.