Good afternoon. I am super excited that you guys have joined me today and we are together again from last week I've got Brooke Bryant with me here And she is the realtor of us duo and I'm on the cleaning side of things and together We're here to answer lots of questions for you and I know today is super big deal for us because we have a lot of house cleaners that are joining us today from my side of the world where they are looking for opportunities to Upsell services to their clients. We're getting ready to sell their homes as house cleaners We do a lot of move-in move-out cleans And so this is a great opportunity where you can learn some stuff today from Brooke That is going to save us lots of headache and heartache from us trying to second guess all that stuff So with that welcome Brooke Bryant tell us a little bit about who you are and where you are and how it is that you Made it to this show So great to be here. I'm nice to see you I'm happy to be back for my second week Brooke Bryant. I'm a realtor in Charlotte, North Carolina I've been in real estate for about 11 years now and Love to work with buyers love to work with sellers residential real estate Maintenance repairs that you can be done on a budget to get your house ready to sell Well, thank you so much I've got lots of questions and I don't even know where to begin but I did I did understand That you've put together a really special checklist for us today And so I wanted for us to be able to go through some of those items on the checklist because I know lots of people Are getting ready to sell their homes and they're kind of like where do I start? What do I work on first? What is the process? Do I get the realtor to come to the house first and all that stuff? So let me ask and we'll just start from the very beginning and we will assume that We're just going to go from the very beginning So if this is something that you guys already know forgive me and if this is something that You're you're learning this for the first time jump in and ask your questions in the sidebar We're going to answer as many of them as we can First question for you though, brook if I was a homeowner and I was getting ready to sell my home At what point of the the phase do I do the home repairs? Is that before I call the realtor is it after I call the realtor like at what point do I get the realtor involved? Well, if you're thinking about listing your home for sell Then there are things in your home that you know probably need to be addressed So go ahead and address that It gives your home looking at Then when you Do things that So it's easy to overlook things that they know with some experience they know what Home inspectors are looking for what these are trying to report and And then they can guide you in making those repairs and then Stop for just a second. I've got a really bad echo on your microphone. Yeah, me too I wonder if you take the microphone off or unplug it if that will make a difference So can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you just fine You can't hear me. Um unplug the microphone Can you hear me now? You can't hear me now. You can't hear me now, but I can't hear you Okay, so we have we have to have something be different um, so plug the microphone back in Technical difficulties. I love when this happens. I'm usually not the person that knows how to solve the technical difficulties But we're going to figure this out. This is a really important conversation and super worth us figuring this out Okay, can you hear me now?  Can you unmute? Well, you guys get to see what it's like when we have technical difficulties This is uh, this is embarrassing But this is real business right in real life stuff like this happens and as as embarrassing as it is Um, you're you're still muted brook. Is there there you go You're unmuted now Okay, I can I can I can hear you down at the bottom of the screen where it says settings Um, click on settings and then change your microphone I know it's so embarrassing, right? But this is real life when we stumble into our customers and like weird things happen We have to just kind of like oh no, this is the way that we planned it. Although we did not plan this part Okay, I'm not sure which microphone to change it to I can hear you now. I can hear you now That's perfect. Okay. We're good Yes, yes, okay So back to me your question and I want to thank you guys for hanging in with us as embarrassing as that was This is real life and so in real life lots of weird stuff happens And uh at our company we always say we're like the little weevil people Do you remember those little egg-shaped people I'm dating myself But we say they weevil people wobble, but they don't fall down We're the same kind of thing and in your business It's going to happen as well And if you are selling your home you can expect to be weeviling and wobbling As you go through the process because all kinds of weird stuff happens all the time So don't be flustered if something like this happens to you just like hey, it's real life So i'm going to over again. We'll do like this the clapboard like we're starting over Brooke tell us What what at what process do you get the the uh realtor involved in the process of you selling your home So when you're thinking of selling your home Go ahead and make the repairs that you know that you see on a day basis and you know that need to be made But then there are going to be things that you may just get used to you You may not know this when the realtor Comes to your home or when you're interviewing realtors, they may Point out some things that need to be repaired that you have overlooked You weren't aware of things that they know that the home inspector is going to catch on their inspection And then some people even do a pre-inspection report. They'll have this typically the buyer Gets the inspection done, but sometimes sellers will do a pre-inspection and an inspector come out Tell all the repairs they need to be They need to be dressed and then they'll make those repairs So that when they do put the home in the market they look we've had it pre-inspected. We've made all the repairs So that was in great shape So if I weren't going to sell my home and you said make a pre-inspection checklist What do I put on that list that checklist if I don't I've never done this before like if I don't sell my house every day I don't know what to put on that list. So what kind of stuff do I I've got a I've got a checklist that I provide for my clients Um, and it's got things that are very common for home inspectors to reflect to find on their report and so What what do I do? I wait then for the realtor to come and to give me something like that or to ask for one in advance or In advance. Um, yeah, well, you can ask your realtor Um for if you if you're working with a realtor you can ask your realtor for For a checklist to help guide you with the repairs that you want to make You can google The common repairs that need to be made made before selling your home and then um, also just things that you know and we all have them things that I really have needed to do the cough around the bathroom. I should go ahead and do that or I really need to Fix that broken pane of glass on the window those sorts of things that you know to be done But Your realtor can get you a checklist and then you can find checklist on your own as well Okay, awesome I know that you've put together some slides here for us And I think one of those things on the list that you had mentioned earlier was um changing all the air filters Before like for example before you start working with the realtor just to set yourself up in the best situation That when they walk through for the first time there are not glaring things at them That they're going to put on a list just a couple of things that you can do as you go Can you share a little bit of information with us about that? And what is the process for for making something like this happen? Do you do this before or after the realtor? Yeah, um Also, I'm getting a lot of feedback The echo from yours. I don't know if you can hear that Okay, but I'm getting I'm getting echo more technical difficulties. Whoo. How about this? Can you hear me now? I can hear you now But yes, you can yes still some echo, but I'll Okay, I can't hear you now How about now? Yeah, I'm getting again technical difficulties. Yeah, getting uh All right. Can you hear me now? I can hear you And I don't think I've got any echo. Can you hear me now? I can I can hear you. Okay. You're coming through my computer now So I can take these off. Okay. Is it echoing? It is echoing it is Oh, no Yeah, um, is it is it variable or is it crazy? I'm gonna try and power for it. Okay so so on my list of On my list of things that I have on the checklist One of the things I see all the time are air filters just just dirty air filters and They're so easy to change But when I see those I think well wonder if they have not been taking good care of their hvac system Because if that's not addressed so they probably haven't had the hvac Maintenance done on it in the spring and the fall. It just looks like Because that's a pretty easy one to change. So it just it puts you automatically first thing in the mindset of okay, I'm going to take a very close look at this house Um, thanks for explaining that. Um, I know that there are little things that we can do around the house And as house cleaners we often find ourselves in a situation Where when we get called in for a move in move out clean We find ourselves making a checklist of our own and this might not be something that the homeowners did But it's something that we're saying hey, wait a second before the new people move in We've got to replace and it's a whole series of things like the air filters Another thing that's on our list Is it's not going to be things that we're going to be able to fix But things that we have to clean over like the nail pops for example because we know that the um The repairmen are going to come in and they're probably going to leave some kind of dust Like after they do the sanding and stuff. We might have to come back and clean over again So if we know that they're coming and there are nail pops or there there's blue tape We know that we can either leave a drop cloth or we can just leave a note saying hey You know clean up this area when you're done so that we don't have to come back in and clean the whole entire house There are little tiny things like that right On your checklist, uh, what are some of the things that you recommend that um That people put on the list before they even call you or there are some to-dos like the air filters Or the nail pops that they can do before they even they even get as far as you Some really easy things to address And are real noticeable things Something as simple as go through and make sure that you've changed all of the light bulbs in the house And don't forget even like the light bulb in the oven or um the light bulb over the stove or up in the attic Check your ceiling fans If there is a wobble in the ceiling fan that's going to show up on the inspection report So have that um have that addressed Tightening um Just your switch plate covers those things will show up a lot of times And an inspector is going to check every door in the house So check your door knobs and the strike plate covers make sure that they're tightened They're not loose. They're not wobbly that your doors aren't sticking Those are easy things to fix If you have broken grout in your bathroom Or a broken tile Try and fix those Things that you can do yourself that you don't have to get a professional in in place to do You know the The when you open your door, there's a little stopper that protects the you know, so that your door doesn't hit the wall Make sure those are in place and if Open your door and it has damaged your wall then replace that and make that repair as well um any leaks In your sinks Those are those are easy ones to fix so just all the little things That you can do as a homeowner yourself that you don't need to hire a professional to come in and do So what is the fair amount like if I was going to sell my house?  Are you going to make the money back out of it when you go to sell your house? Of course, depending on the size of the home and the type of finishes in the home um And the age of the home, um, I would say It would be reasonable to expect to spend 500 to a thousand on those repairs To to get the home ready and that would include some exterior repairs too if you needed to replace any guttery or Downspouts if you need to have your hvac system have some maintenance done on that Um Most of the interior repairs are going to be fairly inexpensive unless you need to do something a little bit bigger like replacing A garage door opener or replacing a microwave um replacing some ceiling fans that sort of thing, but Don't be shocked 500 to a thousand dollars And so 500 to a thousand dollars Is that before I get the realtor involved? And if the realtor comes and looks at the repairs that I've done and let's say that I've already spent a thousand dollars And then they give me another list or this list that you mentioned Could I then be expected to spend more money on top of that or is that like do I just say oh, hey I already spent my thousand dollars Tough luck. That's as far as we go. Like am I allowed to do that? so repairs are all negotiable so I come into a home that's been very well maintained and um, I make some very small suggestions for repairs Um, you know, that's not going to cost a lot of money. Maybe just um, you know fixing Fixing replacing a light fixture that's not working something like that But then there are homes that have a lot of age on them Maybe the folks that lived there for 30 40 plus years They're used to everything. They haven't made any repairs. It's going to be different scenarios. So that newer well-maintained home They make some repairs a buyer comes in they see a few things on the inspection list Then the seller is very likely to make those repairs an older home It may be a situation where the seller is saying i'm going to sell this home as is I'm not going to make any of the repairs, but that's going to be reflected in the price So it's really situational Some folks don't have the money upfront to make those repairs So they're going to have that reflected in the price and price it accordingly and the realtor will help you with that They'll tell you what homes Similar homes in your area have been selling for and if yours is above average you can ask More than that if it needs a lot of repairs Then you're probably going to Price it With that in mind if you're not willing to make any of those repairs or able to make any of those repairs That's really situational. Yeah. Wow. Um, I want to stop for a second Thank you for explaining that and hello to everybody that's joined us. I'm super excited that you guys are here Uh gen xx says hello I was mistaken about my siding my sliding shower door problem the rubber for the bottom Track is gone in one area and the rubber on the guide clip in the middle partly degraded too Um, I would love for you brook to give us some examples If you have some of what that is I'll share with you real quick while you're while you're thinking of your examples In the house cleaning industry what we see when that little rubber slip is gone or it's broken What happens is as the as the shower door opens one of the things that we've seen is that water Slides down that little tiny track that gets really icky And as it slides down if like the shower door hits a wall It will hit like the baseboard or it will run down and it ruins the baseboard in that area And it becomes all discolored and oftentimes swollen I don't know if you guys know this or not But in a lot of the newer homes and this is probably in the last like 10 or 15 years A lot of the baseboards are not actual wood It's like a compressed wood almost like a pressed cardboard and so when it gets wet it gets discolored But it also warps And so it's it's beyond just painting it and like trying to make it look nice But that rubber stopper thing there's a little roll of tape and you can get it At most stores like home people or lows and it literally just slides right in but there's a trick There are different sizes like different thicknesses And so I know that one of the services that we've offered is an upsell package in a lot of the customers homes that we've gone to as house cleaners We have replaced that bottom strip But you have to I usually carry three or four different sizes with me Because it slides inside and if you get the wrong one It will not go in no matter what and there it's very inexpensive It's like a dollar and a half or something for that whole little uh tape and it just unrolls It's kind of like a little I don't know just a little rubber thing that slides And it's very easy to replace and then you just clip it off at the length of the shower door But that's a really really easy inexpensive fix that will prevent the baseboards or If the water leaks and it leaks onto the tile floor It can like eat the grout apart and then it just weakens the grout And then pieces of the grout will like fall apart and then when you go to vacuum it up I hate when this happens. We vacuum up pieces of the grout Then we got to replace the grout. So you can prevent it with just the tape that slides in there Brooke, have you seen some of those and what do you recommend when somebody does that? Is it Do you recommend an easy fix or is that something you got to call a professional to come to come do at the the state of closing So home inspector is going to spend a lot of time in bathrooms and kitchens So they're going to find a lot of those issues and rightfully so because water can be very damaging to To a home water that's not routed properly. So Spend time in your bathroom making sure that it's called properly making sure that you know If you've got a shower door that opens There's a little lip on there that keeps the water inside the shower So it doesn't leak out and and do that damage to your grout so that you don't have to to repair that And any gaskets or seals That you can replace on your own a lot of those like angel said they're easily accessible at your local home Improvement store. Most of them are so easy to fix and you can find pros like angel On youtube it will teach you take step by step how to do some of these repairs that you can do on your own Get an inspection report They can be kind of scary. I mean they can you know be 50 or more pages and And this is one here and the inspector Will say on there Can you can you pull that up so I can see it? I'm curious how that you said 47 pages or something. Yeah, so oh my goodness Yeah Well, that's that's That's an official document. It is an official document and inspectors are certified they're professionals and They also want to they want to give The potential buyer very good information about the home.  I see denise. I see um Denise, hello. How are you doing? Good to see you. I see alan here today. Hi alan. Melanie is here. Hi you guys This is so cool. Uh, lori is here. Hi lori great, uh don bricker cleaning here from sullick city, utah Awesome. I was born and raised in utah. So My heart is close to Um, and I'm not I'm happy that I'm not there at this time of year because it's cold Um, but hello sveta. This is great to see you. Uh, mariam is here We've got lots of great folks here you guys. I'm super excited I did have a question here from virginia that I wanted to answer while we're in the process of talking about getting a licensed Home inspector to come out and take a look at the house Virginia says when making an offer on a house, is it possible or okay to ask the seller to pay for a thorough professional cleaning? Yes, it is And as a house cleaner what we want to know is we want to know and this is this is what got me into the This whole entire conversation in the first places I have to confess I made a youtube channel YouTube show and I said that my least favorite Jobs that we get in cleaning are the move-in move-out cleans working with realtors And boy did I get my hands smacked on that one Because the problem that we have as house cleaners is Is it the realtor that's paying for it? Is it the seller that's paying for it? Is it the buyer that's paying for it? And a lot of times it's confusing Because all three of those parties think that they're in control And so instead of the house cleaner having one boss and one set of directives They have three and so the realtor says hey, this is what I expect This would be really nice and the house cleaner's like yeah, yeah, okay And the homeowner is like and no no no This is what i'm paying for if it's the the seller and then the buyer is like no no no I'm moving in this is what I want And so my recommendation is yes, you can please yes hire a professional house cleaning service Request one at the very beginning and then all three of you The buyer the seller and the realtor and we're going to lean on the realtor for this Make sure that you're all in agreement exactly what you want, right? Because if there if there are expectations that somebody's just miraculously amazing Guessing in their head that this is what's going to happen, but it's not communicated to the house cleaner I promise you it's not going to happen and then everybody's going to be disappointed and they're going to be like i'm not paying for this I'm not kidding. It's it's the biggest state of confusion So a couple of things from the house cleaner's viewpoint and then brook i'll let you share with us from the realtor's Place, but from a house cleaners perspective. Here's the thing If i'm coming into clean your house, I want to honor all of you I want the person that's leaving the home to leave with their head held high and I want them to leave like Yes, this was an awesome house that you sold to this other family I want the contract from the new buyer Okay, i'm going to do a worksheet But i'm going to leave my worksheet at the home when I leave and i'm hoping that the new people walk in and they're like Whoa, this looks amazing. I've got to hire this house cleaner, right? So I want to honor them as well I also know that the realtor works in this neighborhood and so if my business is in this neighborhood I want that realtor calling me back going wow you did such an amazing job. I have another house for you, right? So I want to honor all three of those groups of people And so what's really important for me is and and I can't do my job If you give me busted information if you give me faulty facts If you tell me that oh, yeah, we have air filters that are in the in the bathroom closet Can you go ahead and replace those and I go? Yes, I can and then I get there and they're not there Don't don't give me faulty information because then I'm left scrambling going wait a second I don't even have you know the right stuff that I need here I'm going to have to stop and go to the store to buy it if I have to go buy air filters and they're $30 a pop I'm going to have to charge and charge it to you And so then the price is not going to be the same and it's going to make me look like a fool There's a lot of weird stuff like that if I get to the house for some reason and this happens a lot The water and the electricity will be turned off I can't vacuum if I don't have electricity if I put suds on something I can't wipe it off if I don't have any water, right? So please don't turn off the water and don't turn off the electricity Just like I know I know you're moving and you've probably already relocated to a new place But the realtor wants to walk in and turn on all the lights and I promise you this if I'm doing the job I want all the lights on as well. I do not want to clean your house in seven o'clock at night dusk And hope I didn't miss anything, right? I'm not I'm good, but boy. I'm not that good Okay, so I want to make sure that all of the expectations are set and that they are realistic I can't tell you how many times we've gone into clean a house and what looks like it's going to be You know the realtor will say oh, it'll only take you like three hours to clean it It takes like 16 hours to clean it Okay, so let's set really realistic expectations And that's not going to be cheap the move and move out cleans are kind of expensive So yeah, Virginia if you can request the seller to pay for it Yeah And for the seller if you can get the buyer to pay for it Yeah And realtor if you want to pay it and give it as a gift. Yeah, but just Just as a house cleaner just let us know who's right in the check And who's the final say in whatever happens because usually this this happens like 100 of the time The seller wants something and the buyer wants something and there's usually a huge gap in between The seller wants to give as little as possible and the buyer wants as much as they can get for the same money And then the realtor wants to do right by whoever they're representing So please please please make sure that you guys are all on the same page And then I won't have to give you these long rants Well from the realtor's perspective Hopefully your realtors the mindset that they want it to be a win-win situation for everybody involved And angela you said that you've got Three parties involved the seller the buyer and the realtor. Well, you probably have two realtors the seller's realtor and the buyer's realtor So you've got a lot of moving parts in there. So yeah, everybody does need to be on the same page As far as the utilities go my checklist the first thing on there says, please make sure all utilities are on water electricity gas And when the realtor calls to schedule the home inspection the inspector should say Are all utilities on is there an alarm system and what is the code? Because that happens a lot to the inspector will go and i'm sure angela probably you've gone out there and you don't have the That the alarm code access So yeah, try and think of all of those things to make it as smooth as possible and yeah, if That's something that you need to be aware of if if the buyer asks for the home to be professionally clean And the seller agrees to do it make sure you know what that looks like does that include If the refrigerator state or you're going to move the refrigerator and clean behind it Are you going to clean the oven? Are you going to replace all of the vents? Make sure that everybody knows what's included in this clean So that expectations are met and that the price um, isn't going to change Based on what the scope of the job is because you just don't you don't want any surprises if you can avoid them but it is common to ask for the home to be professionally professionally cleaned and Very often it is the realtor provides that as a gift Or the seller will will pay for it But but there are times when the buyer does just choose to pay for it when nobody else is going to And then very often to If the professional clean is not done It's asked to be the home is asked to be what's called going to sweat when the seller leaves But it is so nice if you can provide a professional clean So that you're moving into a nice fresh clean space And because moving so daunting you don't want to be Cleaning out those cabinets before you put your things in there So it is a wonderful thing to ask for and a wonderful thing to give Um, and thanks for bringing that up. I know that as house cleaners We've offered what's called upsell and special packages and it's part of our extended cleaning program Where we have an ongoing client base who need small home repairs As they just live in their homes And so because we're in the homes every single week or every other week Oftentimes we're the first to see things that are either starting to fall apart or like the toilet is running And in the background of our cleaning and we're like, ah, the flapper needs to be replaced And we've put together small packages that are they're not full maintenance packages that you'd use for move out clean But they keep a lot of things in repair And so for example, one of the things that we do with a small Upgrade package and it's kind of like just a maintenance package is we do replace those flap those little flappers that go over the The what do you call it the drain in the toilet that lets the water in and out of the toilet tank We replace those because they're not expensive But lots of people don't want to get their hands dirty or they don't know how to replace them or they don't want to call a whole I say a whole plumber.  But the house cleaner is insured and they're in your house And there are a lot of little tiny things they can do like replace the air filters and replace the batteries And your carbon monoxide and your smoke detectors those kinds of things are really important Um along with the um and this is this is an odds and ends project It's not a full maintenance and you don't need to be a journeyman handyman to do it But a lot of times like the window Areas will start separating like because of the moisture in the air and the The temperatures will get you know expand and contract the windows And so then there's like little ugly little You know Breaks and it's not broken I mean you just put a little bit of cocking in there and take a wet paper towel and kind of like seam it together And it looks nice again But there are little things like that that we can do with a cocking gun And we can do to replace the air filters Fix the back of the flap of the toilet and some of those minor things that just make sure that the The house is not I mean it looks as nice as it can without doing some heavy duty repairs And that's that's a service that you know a house cleaner can do while they're already at your house They can spend an extra hour one day and I recommend this if you have a house cleaner that you know like and trust Ask them if they do any special projects on the side because there are a lot of house cleaners That are like totally I mean one of the things that we do when we clean we clean with an electric drill That has drilled that brushes and so these are people that are qualified to use little power tools and stuff like that If there are small repairs they can do in your home, you know It saves you from hiring a multiplicity of different people for each individual different task There are people that do certain things though that as a house cleaner I recommend you let them do what they do for example window washing on a move and move out clean We don't even wash windows and here's the reason why although You walk into a house and the windows are sparkling clean. It makes the house all around look way way cleaner Most house cleaners are not actually licensed for window washing They're not licensed to be on two-story ladders or they don't have the great big trucks with the the truck mount They don't have the water and the the pressure washers and all that stuff And so we recommend even as house cleaners the house cleaners don't do carpet cleaning and window washing Because those are actually much bigger jobs And although it's tempting and I just gave you this big spiel about the upsell projects But while it's tempting to go to the grocery store and rent a little rugby doctor and try to clean your carpets You can drop so much water in those carpets That while the carpets might look clean You're actually leaving a lot of water damage in those Carpet pattings and then you can create mold without even knowing it And then the new homeowners move in and a couple weeks later They start to smell the mold and it becomes mildewy and it's not it's it's not Now you're I mean You've moved on from it. It's not your your ability to fix it We'll let the professionals come in and do that for the carpet Let them come in and do it because they have moisture readers they can read how wet the carpets are They've got those great big industrial fans. They've got water extractors. They've got those great big hoses They've got vans that I mean they're they're totally trained to do that So for for a house cleaner know what your limits are What you can do and then know when you have to recommend Somebody from your bni network or something that you know, you're tossing business their way But know what you don't do as well But that's a great resource if if you are selling your house and you do have a professional house cleaner who's coming in Let them know. Hey, we're gonna be putting the house on the market in the next month or two As you're cleaning the house look for these things and if you If you can make any of those repairs, let me know we'll work out a price for that It makes such a big difference to have fresh clean Caulking in your kitchen and that's something that's going to come up on an inspection report So that's one less thing that will will be on that report Get the toilets fixed if they can do fresh beat of caulk around the toilet almost every single inspection report I see the toilet is loose and wobbly So if you can tighten that down put a fresh beat of caulk around it and Make sure that doesn't show up on your inspection report. It's going to look clean It's going to eliminate that issue And then and your and your house cleaner somebody that you know and trust is there and then that's also one less Appointment that you have to make and okay Oh, we have to be here at 2 o'clock today because the plumber's going to come and do this Sort of the handy man's going to come and do this if it can all be done at one time That's more convenient for you. So that's a that's a great service to be able to to resource That's going to make your house look so good to have all of those the fresh caulking done And and and those are things that people are going to notice You know when You walk into your house that may look fantastic But somebody's going over with a fine tooth fine to come We're going to see those things that you don't necessarily see on a daily basis that your house Cleaning service might be able to point out to you And i'm i'm really glad that you brought up Little things that you do with a fine tooth comb little little things that you check I know that this slide fix loose doors It this is one of those things I we call it house blind Like if I live in a house and the door only turns a certain way like in the house I live in right now I have one door and the doorknob turns the opposite way from all the other doorknobs in the house and I know To turn it the other way just because I've lived in the house long enough And it's one of those things I just need to unhook the door and flip it upside down or something and fix it But if somebody were to walk in it's like you're locked in the room Right if you turn the knob the way that it turns in all the other knobs in the house You'd be going like oh my goodness I'm locked in here and you'd be like banging on the door like let me out And it's in one of the bathrooms But the reality is it's just the whoever put the door knob and they put it in upside down And so it turns the wrong way So there are little things like that that totally can be fixed because you know the house right And it seems like a non-issue to you But let's say somebody moved into your house and it's a little kid go into that bathroom in the middle of the night And they can't figure out a turn up That's going to be kind of scary for that kid. So if it's something that you know Could be fixed go ahead and take care of that One of the things that we ask when we go through uh Excuse me a homeowner's home for the first time when we're doing a walkthrough with them because We're going to be the next set of eyes on the property regularly And so as we come into the house, it's really easy to like oh, I know my way around here.  Is there anything in the house?  I have several of those I'm like, well, great. Let me write it Write this down as I go because I don't I don't want to replace it Right. I don't want to have to unnecessarily replace stuff in the customer's house And if it's in my care custody and control, I have to if it breaks on my watch And so I want to know what all of those things are and then we make a list So that we are a hundred percent clear when we go that like, oh, yes This doorknob and we're just talking about doorknobs This doorknob is like not fully hooked together and like when you go to open it if you pull it too fast It's going to like pull it out of the little thing And then the doorknob is going to go flying across the room And you're going to have to stop and spend a couple minutes trying to put it back together And it's just missing a bolt or something I mean little things like that.  You've got enough experience to know that you've had all of those things happen So experience is your friend to use experience in these situations and and and have somebody come in and and Look at your house with those fresh eyes and tell you okay I know you live here. I know it's a great house. You love it. But have you noticed, you know, your doorknobs are goofy You know something like that Because we did we get used to the the little quarks in our home so Yeah, things these little quarks that are key to us They're they're going to pop up on an inspection report or yeah, they're going to be an issue down the road for somebody else And and i'm glad you brought that up because I would rather know about it And I would rather fix it on my watch instead of having the the realtor or the insurance inspector or the home inspector Then require that I must get somebody that's a licensed contractor to come out because that's going to be way more expensive than me Pulling out a a nut and a bolt and the screw and tightening it up myself you know it comes up on inspection reports is You know your electrical panel that's in your garage or so very very often those electrical panels are Are held in by screws and if those screws have a point on the end of them It could be the inspector considers it a hazard because it could damage the wiring so they Have on the inspection report have a licensed electrical contractor replace those screws Do you really need to have An electrician come out and replace four screws?  No, not really just replace those screws. So Anything like that that you can get done yourself and you don't have to pay Um a professional and I'm all four professionals and they deserve the money that they make But there are things that That homeowners can do themselves There are some things that you do need to get kind of electrician to come into or a plumber come in and do So do the things you can do and then, you know, if you save whatever money you need to If you do need to get those professionals to come in I was speaking of professionals and not to go off on a rabbit trail But we did a move and move out clean for a couple and the couple decided when they moved They were going to leave this great big It was like one of these old fashioned Freezers that like you had to defrost and everything and then I was happy that they were moving But then I was like, ah, they're leaving the defrosting, you know the freezer We have to defrost because we still have to defrost it But they left it for the new homeowner. I guess they were getting a new modern one or something So they told they told the realtor and the realtor added that into the the specs of the house like oh It has this great big. I don't know 32 cubic feet freezer or whatever that's in the garage and whatever So these people are like, oh, that's so awesome Well, when they were cleaning out the garage and they were moving out they unplugged that freezer And so the freezer is in the garage right where it always was but it was unplugged So the new people show up thinking. Oh, we've got this great big freezer and they opened it up with the light didn't come on So they're like, it's not cold in here. So they adjusted the knob in there It didn't get cold and so during the time that they were doing the walkthrough at the house and they were checking it out I didn't get cold. So they hired an electrician on the the the sellers The sellers dime to come out and fix the electrical wiring in the garage because something was broken The homeowner's like it wasn't broken like everything is working fine, right? The electrician comes out and literally I could you not plugs in the freezer and it starts warring again and the lights come on And it's it's all ready to go and it was as simple as They could have just left a little post-it note inside the freezer that just said hey We unplugged this to conserve electricity You know what I mean? Right? It was just a communication error And the seller had to pay for and a licensed electrician to come out and plug the freezer in the garage back in On the opposite side of that. I had a seller who had a freezer in the garage had to have some work done in the garage and The handyman who came in to do the work unplugged the freezer to move it to do the work behind that And did not plug the freezer back in so all of the Food inside a freezer was ruined And Yeah, the handyman's like no, I'm pretty sure I plugged it back in. I didn't have So yeah, I paid for that one. So you just never know the the things that are going to pop up so So in in lieu of that there are a lot of companies now that are getting way better at documenting their work We had a refrigerator or freezer replaced not too long ago in our own garage And when the guy came out It was one of these where he hauled the old one away and brought the new one But he plugged the new one in and then he took a picture like behind the The um where the plug was plugged into the wall to show that it was plugged in He opened the door took like a picture of the inside He took a picture underneath like it was on the proper risers and whatever it was supposed to be on And then he took a picture of it with the door closed the door opened the side view that like there were no scratches Dense dings whatever it had to be he must have taken like 10 pictures And I was like, whoa, that was really thorough and I just kind of watched him work and he's like hey I apologize, but we have to do this just to cover all of our own bases. I was like, no, no I'm glad you're doing it. I'm just learning from you as I'm watching you You know cover all your bases and document it so that there are no surprises And so that nobody later because this is from from the the contractor standpoint This prevents a homeowner just trying to get a new freezer or something going Uh, it was all dented and broken or it didn't work or it wasn't, you know, whatever They verified that it worked before they left and they made sure that everything was A okay before they left. So I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, that's really smart to do And especially the real estate transaction where you've got people and you've got Um repairs being made inspections being done Um appraisers that you've got so many people in your home that aren't ordinarily there. So Yeah cross your cross your T's and dot your I's to make sure that You know, somebody's not attributing some Some broken appliance in the home to you when somebody else did it Uh, which reminds me um, and I want to answer this question from gen X X Because she's talking about electrical. She he's talking about electrical wiring I brought uh when I bought my place, which was only six years old had to hire an electrician to rewire the switches That didn't go to what they should Um, and I want to talk about appliances as well But this is one of those things where you assume That the person that does the wiring knows where everything's supposed to go and that it matches up on the breaker box And sometimes it does not And I think this is really an important thing that we bring up Because I think it's important before and you can do this as a homeowner Even before you have the home inspector come out Try all the breakers and make sure that you know what rooms those go to and make sure those are labeled properly If for some reason somebody rewired something or they rerouted wiring and it doesn't if it says jacuzzi and Lo and behold there is no jacuzzi And it's been rewired the bonus room or something you need to know that So that the new homeowner doesn't come in and buy a jacuzzi and then go to hook it up and your bonus room lights go on And like no no jets come out. You know what I mean? You need to know what that is. So I I love that Well, and that's become an issue You know, we're the we're the age of you know, hg tv and do do it yourself projects and and homeowners doing all of these cool things But you know may may do the electrical wiring themselves or if you bought a house that was a flip and You know, you're not sure who did the electrical wiring of it. So that's the that's The importance of having a home inspector to come out and make sure that And there's got to be lots of little things on the report you want to try and eliminate those and and hopefully The end result will be that that home inspection report is pointing out any true deficits in the home that That the safety the structure The soundness of the home that those things can can be addressed if that's an issue You know, we as homeowners can get take care of some of these little things Um gen xx says omg. I thought you were going to say that the ancient freezer died and the seller had to buy them a new one Um, this is interesting and this brings up a question that I hadn't thought of but let me ask you brook as a realtor Um What happens when somebody adds something to their their sale piece? Which is like their ad or whatever that says hey My house has this deep freezer in my garage And then for some reason if it really did die and then the person comes in expecting that there's going to be a freezer There and there isn't one do you just go whoopsy or are you obligated to buy them one because it was in the ad and you said You said that it was there typically on the Contract it'll ask for any property that conveys with the home Um, that's not part of the home And you'll put in there that and it'll say in there that this freezer transfers with no value um, and that's part of If you're getting a loan for the house um Lenders are really really have to make you be very careful about that because that freezer is not part of the appraisal of the home So it can't be attributed any value. So typically it's just a good faith measure. If the freezer stops working It's just considered. Oh, well, it was a freebie anyway. We're not going to make you buy us a new freezer We'll say there's um here in charlotte, north carolina. We have um a real estate instructor who's kind of famous for the story he tells About a home that had a koi pond of you know, the koi the big goldfish pond This the buyers Went to do the walk through the day The closing before they went to the attorneys to make sure everything looked how it was supposed to look And one of the koi in the pond was dead And they said oh They're supposed to be three live koi in this pond and that one's dead so their realtor talked to the other realtor And they said well, sorry that died It's just natural causes and the the new buyers said we're not going to go through with the sale of the house So that realtor are they expensive or something the realtor paid. I think it was over a thousand dollars for a new koi for that pond so In order to close the deal on the house Yeah, yeah, they were adamant that they wanted this this koi and the realtor wanted to keep it, you know keep it The deal moving forward and close that day. So she went and got a new koi for the pond so Is that just on a on a per per basis thing where if somebody asks something situation Yeah, it's to every every transaction is different um And they're just so many moving parts to this sale of a home and Luckily in north carolina all of our closings are done Through a real estate so they can help light us through some of those those strange situations But you know at the end of the day if there's something in your realtor's control That's going to make this a smoother transaction for you and keep it moving forward they're going to work to do that for you and And most realtors that I interact with have cross deals with We work together to try and make sure that all parties are Leave the situation feeling like it was a win for them. So yeah, you just never know what's going to pop up so at what point do Does Do you as a realtor get together with the other realtor and you have to like come together and say my client is being unreasonable What do we have to do to make this deal happen? At what point do you both jump in and you say let's split the difference and buy the koi for the pond Because my my seller is not willing to do it and the buyer is not going to buy the house without it At what point do you get involved or do you try not to do anything like that because it's just not Yeah, I you work with the with the other realtor throughout the process to try and keep it on track because it's a very emotional thing You know a seller think Six of their house differently than the buyer does because the buyer hasn't created any of those memories there yet. They haven't He painted that mural on the wall or planted those rose bushes out there. The seller's got a Very emotional attachment to the house unless it was an investment property So it means something different to To the to the seller and so some feelings get involved and feelings can get hurt and get contentious so the realtors are a little more objective and we want to To get in there and and keep the deal moving forward and try and make sure everybody feels like they've been made whole and and that it's and that they're happy at the end of the transaction Oh, but very much we work together Anita cracks me up. She says and what will the odds be in the next few months after the new owners move in That the local raccoons will have a fish dinner resulting in less than three That's hilarious. Yeah, oh, yeah, that's that's just probably somebody sushi. Yeah That's horrible. But so funny. Oh, I don't mean to laugh at that. I'm sorry Oh, you guys this is so awesome that you've joined us and that you're We want it we want to answer the questions that you guys have I've got lots of questions that I could keep going with questions But jump in and ask any questions that you might have One question that I had for brook while you guys are writing your questions is um, I was curious brook at what point of the realtor process of you jumping in with A buyer or a seller for example where you say this customer has become too Difficult to work with and I know that in the house cleaning we have like certain limits where we're like, whoa, okay Now I'm dealing with like Crazy making at what point do you say, you know, it's not worth the trouble for me as a realtor to try to jump Through all these hoops. This is not going to be a good deal for us and you turn and walk away So I've had that happen Um And it kind of depends on where you are in that, you know, if you're in a transaction had that happen with sellers I had their home listed. We went under contract and there were some Some things that weren't disclosed to me that Contract didn't close So when that when when those potential buyers terminated the contract then I recused myself and and said, you know, I think you need to find another realtor If you are You know, if you're working for a larger firm Then and and you're working with a client and there are just some some conflicts there and you can ask them. Hey that I think that there's probably another realtor in our firm that could better represent you. Would you mind if we reassigned you? So there are so there are ways to handle that But I think It's very rare that there's somebody I just absolutely can't work with you just have to try and put yourself in there You know in their in their mindset It's an emotional process. So if you can try and have some empathy and understanding Then that'll get you a long way. But there are some that are just not good Um, I know there's shady stuff. So you've got to protect yourself too. Um Well, there are ways out. Thanks for explaining that. Um, I know that um, there are some Homeowners probably like every homeowner that thinks their home is probably like more valuable than it really is And so I know that when when We come in as cleaners Of course, they're like expecting they're going to get all the money for the house And they want to pay like no more money because They're their success of selling the house is is really dependent on whatever it is They're hoping to walk away with it and every penny that they have to pay the house cleaners like less money in their pocket But what what is the process of setting a realistic expectation for like? Hey Your home was really meaningful to you because you've got all these memories wrapped up in it But it's not so much You know compared to comps and stuff that are on the market right now you There's a gap. Well, luckily, um, there's Really good data that's out there and you know, just like everything else technology the data is getting better and better and better where we can really, um Hone in on houses just like yours same square footage Same features same size Garage similar a lot within a half a mile. This is what they're selling for so The market speaks for itself um There are situations where you've got Uh a unique property that's not in a neighborhood that's on 10 acres that you know, it's it's a little more difficult to find comfortable sales to help you pinpoint the price on that so so those can be those can be tricky But all you can really do is give them the data that you have The experience that you have and if you're adamant about putting it on the market the market's going to tell them You know if it sits there with no showings Or you get some showings and you get feedback that says the home is really nice But it's priced way too high for what it is Then you can use those resources to help educate your seller that I know that this is this has been your dream home You love it and it's got this value to you, but it doesn't have that value in the current market So if you're really serious about selling then we're going to need to make some adjustments Wow Fantastic information. Thank you so much. I know you have a checklist for our viewers and our listeners today Where can they go to find that? Where can they go to find more information about you? So I believe that's going to be at info at realtrussuccesshub.com forward slash checklists And is is this the best place to get in touch with you as well? um, yeah, um, you can um shoot me an email brook at um And yeah, there's the checklist. It's also got My info on the checklist and hopefully that will help guide you if you're thinking about putting your home on the market That'll be so Some good pointers for things that you could do yourself that you don't have to get a professional in and will help Eliminate some of those items from the inspection report. So prospective buyers Are going to be in a better mindset they're going to they're going to come in and think wow this house is really well maintained That's the top of my list Well, thank you so much for your Thank you so much for your time and attention today. I apologize everybody for all these great questions I apologize for all of the weird technical stuff. Um, I am really delighted I know I look like a buffoon, but I am so excited that I figured out finally how to like show up on live stream My first live stream ever was like six months ago And I was on this very platform. We're using stream yard And somebody invited me on as a guest on their show and I got kind of behind the scenes of it all I was like what what we can actually talk to people in real time and I got so excited And so I've just been kind of like trying to figure it out ever since So thank you guys so much for joining us today And I will leave links in the notes below like on whatever platform you joined on how to get in touch with brook And then also how to get that checklist that that we saw there at the end Just in case you are selling your home that you go through that checklist prior to the hiring Any independent contractors or even the cleaning company and before you get in touch with the realtor to get the process going That way you can do as much as you possibly can hopefully save a little bit of money in the process All right, that's it for today, and I will see you guys next time. Thank you again brook. Thanks everybody. Thank you


So, if you ever want to play with some completely random, now it's not ever really, really random. There's a little algorithm that your computer uses depending on what millisecond it is at the moment and other forms. But if you just want to draw some completely random variables, I'm going to make this computer variable called random underscore variables and np.random.random. So, numpy has a sub-module called random and it has a bunch of distributions and from that I want a completely random one. As I said, it's never ever really random, but it's a random and I want 2,000 of those and let's plot them. Plot.figure, plt.figure, fixize, let's make it a bit smaller, let's make it 8x6, that's okay. plt.what type of plot I want? I want a histogram. I want random variables to be plotted and I want 50 bins, plot.show, semicolon, there we go. And now you can see there's no distribution to this, it's just completely normal. And also it would say a value in that little bunch, I got 43 or 42 of those and I've got so many of those and so many of those. So that's just completely random variables and the random variables come between 0 and 1, so in decimals from 0 to 1. So you can play with some data there if you wanted to. Now back to the Z and the T distributions.  You have two groups of patients, group A and group B, group 1 and group 2, your control group, your experimental group. And you take a certain variable, again say for instance a white sub count, you do the mean of the one group, the mean of the other group. You subtract one from the other, that's the difference in your means. And now you want to know what's that difference significant? What was the probability of finding this value and more or this value and less? That's the question you have and you understand now that your difference that you found was just one of countless others. Now you've got to tell the computer, draw that beautiful graph for me and put my value somewhere and tell me what the area under the curve for that is. Well the computer can really draw two types of curves, well there's more, but let's stick to Z distribution and T distribution. With a Z distribution, you tell the computer what the mean and standard deviation is of the larger population if you know it or if you can confidently estimate it. Now that's very rare in healthcare research, usually we don't know what outside in the population of 7 billion, 6 billion people. We don't know what the real, in the population what the real parameter is for a variable. We just don't know, we have to take a wild guess at it. If you do know, you can use the Z distribution and I promised you I'll never show you equations, but just to take all your fancy but there's the equation for it. You can see the computer is going to use that, so it's going to use standard deviation, it's going to use mean for the population, not for your sample and it's going to do that. What I've asked for here is, this is just writing out the code for that and I'll show you what it looks like, there we go. No need to worry about the code there, but there is a Z distribution of knowing what the population, all human beings, their standard deviation and mean is for a certain variable. Much more common for us to have a T distribution, we know nothing about the population standard deviation in this case. So very clever people had to construct a different mathematical equation, once again to take all your fancy, there it is, the gamma function there, it is horrendous. Can you imagine that is what is used with the little bit of information you have, all you have is your sample values and it's mean and it's standard deviation and it's difference between the means, it's all you have. Statisticians remember when this was done, there were no computers, this was done by hand, someone sat down and thought this out. Now, T test, there's a rich history to the T test, wonderful little history of beer brewing, we won't get into that now. But look at this wonderful, fantastic mathematical equation to draw that little curve and that curve will look differently every time you take a new sample set when it really gets generated. Through the central limit theorem, it generates a nice little plot and it tells you where yours will fall. Don't worry about it here, this is, I'm saying again stats.t, not norm this time, but t, the random variable give me, now this works much differently, it requires this thing called degrees of freedom. Not to worry about that at all, there we go, we plot it and there we go, t distribution, again normally distributed and it will allow you to do your analysis. So it uses this very complicated, if you know the populations variables and if you don't know the populations variables, those are the two distributions that get drawn and the data, from only the data that you have and especially the t distribution and it then tells you, tells you where your value falls and what the probability was of finding a value as extreme as yours and that is really the beauty of statistics, that with very little data you can infer something about a population if you don't all falls to that equation that draws a curve for you and from that curve, by the central limit theorem it is guaranteed to be symmetrically distributed, bell shaped and from that your value will fall somewhere, you calculate the area under the curve and you have a p-value, absolutely fantastic.


Can you read this? What is a Marvel Squad welcome back to our channel? Okay, if you guys are new my name is Bill like You're not supposed to be here babe. You're supposed to stay out of the camera angle So when I film the intro it looks like you don't know what I'm doing All right guys so my girlfriend as you can see is not here at all What's going on today is I am doing picking up my girlfriend in an Uber under disguise I don't even know how this is gonna be Stay in the room Otherwise the fans are gonna know that we're faking the video anyways guys This is totally 100% legit a real talk before the video starts if you have not seen our last video We talk about our giveaway that we're giving out once we hit a hundred thousand subscribers And we are very close as you can tell literally we are almost there But go look at the other video if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about We are gonna get this prank going I'm gonna go on my uber app on my phone fight my way through all the other ubers and magically match up With her and this is gonna be great. She's not even gonna know what's going on and just an FYI because I'm sure everyone skipped the intro It's just a parody, but we'll get back to the intro now Yeah, so we were on the phone with Madeline Steven and they were like hey We did a parody of the uber prank and I'm like no way we want to do a parody of that too So here we are now their video is freaking hilarious go check out their channel if you have not seen it yet It's a parody of the uber prank We are also doing a parody today and I cannot wait to get this thing started make sure you subscribe to our channel Give it a big thumbs up before we get this video even close to start it Okay, so I'm gonna go pick up my girlfriend in my uber even though we haven't used uber in our lives I feel like she's gonna use an uber today. All right, so we're getting this video started right now I will see you in the uber just an FYI. We're not making fun of any youtubers in this video We're just having a great time doing a video that should never have been done in the first place Okay, let's go pick up Mariah in this uber All right guys, I'm about to pick up Mariah. I see she's literally 50 feet away. Oh my god. I'm closer than I think Where is she? Yeah, I hope she doesn't notice me because that would like ruin the whole video. I see her. I see her. Oh my god I'm pulling up right now Okay, she's walking up to the car. She's walking up to the car Hi, how are you today? I'm gonna sit the front the big camera in the front of the car It's just for safety reasons in case other cars hit me Okay I'll tell you like five five two four eight Five five two five two It's cute Yeah, is this your First uber have you over it before? Five stars you said I have a clean car.  He almost just killed us on the road right there I didn't I just hit the gas Yeah, sorry I got scared those birds Sorry, I won't do that again. Are you laughing at me?  Excuse me. Did you shower today? I clean my car for every for every uber Everyone gets equal rights in my car. Did you shower today? Yes That's kind of an insult. I'm just trying to get you I know you think it's okay. I saw your Man five-star ma'am. I just five-star you're insulting me. Tell me I was making sure because I got a whiff of some BL. I'm sure it's you buddy because you're just so beautiful You were literally just insulting. No Except I don't like your shoes.  Why are you not taking me to my destination? I'm taking the back roads home This is a no back road. You're going literally a circle five stars because I'm not gonna give you no five star We just can't get back to where I Just great ma'am, and I don't know why why I feel violated right now I feel I don't have any kids and I don't have a life, but I could have you what's your number or the world's digits You can explore the way You can explore where you're at. Hey, draw me off first. My boyfriend's waiting for me. Okay. Is he buff? Is he tall? Is he cool? No? Yes. Do you think I could beat him? If I beat him, what can we work out? Okay, let me get out of the car. Let me get out of the car and I'll walk home I really just walk home because I'm not gonna be in an unstable. We're driver. I shouldn't even do that in the front I should have sat in the back.  You can ask me ma'am. Do you tip all I'm just asking I don't tip to people who ask me millions of questions like your questions out my life But you don't even know me. It's okay Excuse you What? Don't put your hands on me. I was stretching. No you weren't. I was, I yarn. You're making me uncomfortable.   Can you please take me home? Seriously, I'm getting really bad excites What?  Can you please stop? Can you please stop? Please Just test it Just test it Well, stop. That's uncomfortable I stopped. I was just testing Stop acting like I'm your girlfriend.  Give me out It's okay I want to get out No, you're not leaving my car Stop touching me You're not leaving my car You're not leaving my car No No Just do yourself Now I gotta dump you I'm done with you babe I have a syndrome where I just I can't I can't do it sometimes Bill I just can't do it Bill, is that you? Huh? Is that you? No It's not me It's not him Who's Bill?   Yeah Oh my god That's hilarious I literally tried so hard to conceal Like my identity And it worked I guess Oh my god This prank worked out I cannot believe Hold on a second, hold on right here I cannot believe that Literally Mariah Did not know it was me And I know many of you Probably are like In the comments Oh my god this is so fake This is so fake Oh my god this is so fake But it's not You were 100% right It's not You were 100% right It was very very very very very very very very very This was fake guys All of this was fake I don't know if you can tell But we were acting that entire time I hope you loved this freakin' video I know many of you guys Wanted us to do this But honestly Me and Bill don't take ubers And obviously We don't fake our videos Like oh my god Oh my god Do you want to know What grinds my ears No It's getting hot I can't I can't No they're not gonna hear I hope you loved our parody Like I said Go check out Madeline Stevens Parody of this video I thought of it at the same time Like this funny is brick I don't know what else like We obviously would have known this was fake It would have been a fake video And I don't want to be fake to you guys If we did this Who takes ubers on a regular basis When you have a car What are the odds of getting Your boyfriend or girlfriend And an uber Whatever I'm not even gonna go into it But I hope you loved this parody Because I had a lot of fun I just didn't want to fake this video Because Literally there's no point In doing that When I'm just trying to be real with y'all So I hope you were funny I literally hope this made you laugh Because I had such a fun time Filming it And I'm dying in my car It's like a hundred and forty Three degrees It's getting steamy in there I want to pass out Please guys make sure to give this video A big thumbs up Big thumbs up Before we end this video We do gotta give our end of the video A post on vacation shout out You're pulling on my hair really bad They can see my armpit hair That's not good So today's post on vacation shout out Goes to Payton underscore Crespin So shout out to you Shout out to you Thank you for being part of our channel And we will see you guys In the next fake video But until Fake The next real video And make sure you go check out our video If you do not know our giveaway If you do know our giveaway Be sure and love On all the shows and videos Because we've already been seeing people We've already have a tally of people Waiting So we're just waiting to see Who pulls through Who just All around Just shows love We have what Eight ten people to pick from Like Seven people Seven total people I don't think you guys Can't be involved Because everybody can be involved Even if you live Even if you live in California Texas You can still win Minnesota Wherever We already We actually ordered the Apple Watch It just came in Your mom said it's so good It came in Already she ordered it Like two days ago I know We got the Apple Watch We're ready and waiting for our merch To come in That we're going to give out And We're going to have a great time We're going to have a great time So even if you can't win The 500 mile radius And Apple Watch Merch Exclusive merch Merch that no one else Is really going to get Until we Offer it later Like way later I don't know when I don't even know If we're going to do a mainstream Like that But anyways I hope you loved this video And we will see you guys In the next video But until then Peace


Let's have a look at how we might approach teaching the modal auxiliary verb can. Initially, we introduced the word can in the context of ability. Going back to our earlier examples, I can ride a bike, you can swim, you can speak English. And then, as we progress through the levels, we introduce further usages of the same word. Typically, for elementary level students, possibility would be the next usage that is introduced. For example, you can see a movie in a cinema, as it's possible to do it, it's not about ability. Then, as you progress, further usages will be introduced, such as permission and request. An example of permission might be, can I smoke in here? And a request, can you help me with that? The distinction between the permission and request usages is quite a grey area, but nevertheless, the two are slightly different. The final usage that will be introduced might be advice. You can go to see a doctor about that, is a very weak form of advice, suggesting that somebody does go to have something looked at, but it's completely their choice.


I'm Jay Finell, and this, of course, is ThinkTech with Elgalian Yorca, who lives and works for Project Expedite Justice in Geneva, Switzerland. He joins us from Geneva. Welcome to the show, Elgalian. Thank you, Jay. Thank you for having me. So we're talking about trying to get the United Nations to deal with impunity. And I guess that question assumes there is a fair amount of impunity going on in the world, and I sure agree. And impunity leads to repetition, doesn't it? Can you talk about what impunity we're talking about here? So we are talking about how the Security Council, so one of the main organ of the United Nations, came to considering impunity as a threat to peace and security. As we know, the Security Council is mandated by the UN Charter to deal with threat to peace and security in the world. And it started from, let's say, a very strict and restrictive approach on what is threat to peace and security to a much broader one. And in 2006, it included impunity as a threat to peace and security. So that's one of the topics I wanted to discuss with you today. Yeah. Well, let me take my assumption to you, and that is impunity means impunity from investigation and prosecution of, I'm just putting it together with Project Expedite Justice, from investigation and prosecution of war crimes. And Lord knows, you can quote me on this, we have plenty of war crimes in this world today, and the number of war crimes per capita per country seems to be increasing. So is that what we're talking about impunity from investigation and prosecution of war crimes? Exactly. It's about violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. And as you said, I think it's an objective of the Council. But as we know today, the Council is very limited in its own capacities to be in a position to deal with international crisis. So the Council has raised a lot of expectations when including fighting impunity and justice into one of the reasons it would act and take decisions. But as we see the Council status now, it seems that we are probably far away from that objective. You must have a very frustrating job. We talk about this, but there's this strange relationship, which I would like you to tell us about, between the United Nations and the International Court. And what is happening with that? It doesn't sound like it's actually functioning. But my last information was that not a single prosecution had taken place with regard to what we all know happened in Bukha and other places in Ukraine. And that when the Israelis submitted a war crimes complaint with regard to October 7th, it wasn't even really accepted. So I don't know if the United Nations has either the process or I guess the facility to actually deal with war crimes that we in the world, all around the world, know have happened. What is wrong? I may start first by the word frustration that you used. You might not know that I'm a former police commanding officer and I'm actually an investigator. So when you talk about frustration, that's something that you learn very quickly to deal with when working with the police, because actually your job is to document, to arrest, to investigate. But your job is not, also you bring that people to justice, but your job is not to judge. So basically, you're part of it. You're part of this justice process. And frustration is about like the result, the outcome. It's about what's being done with all the evidence that you collected with all the interviews that you conducted during all very long investigative process. It can be very long. And I actually, I watched also the discussion that you had with Pascal Giorno, who is a former ICC official. And I know that you're asking the same question. So for my part, as an AVC getter part, I would say that frustration always exists because you're only part of the process. Well, this is a question I might hold until the end of our interview, but given your comments, maybe I'll ask it right now. What can be, what should be done? Do we need to have another United Nations? Do we need to have another World War, so another United Nations to come from the ashes and be more effective? It's a very sad assumption, but I've heard it many times. And I won't exclude it as a possibility, obviously, considering the status of the world today. But I would say from let's say my own experience, I've been working formally as a UN expert on sanctions for the UN Security Council for 12 years. So I've seen the Security Council from my, again, my own perspective during all those years. And I'm not sure that we can change it because actually the UN is what the community of member states is. And we won't change that.  You can, you can have this feeling. And I think it's normal, because when you look at what's happening today, you must have this feeling of, this is not right. But then you can dismantle the UN and try to start from ashes, something that may look better on paper. But at the end of the day, those members of that future organization will still be member states and those sovereign countries, those member states, you cannot change them. That's true. It's a reflection of the reality. What are we going to do about it? The problem is that, you know, when you have at least two members of the Security Council who are going to veto everything that doesn't suit their interests and doesn't allow them to do what they want to do, which could be very bad things, you lock it up. And so from a moral point of view, from the point of view of the UN charter, you're stuck because of that. And I don't know if the General Assembly has the power to change it. I've kind of doubt it, either legally or politically, it just can't do it. So the result is we have what we have. What do you, how do you say that in French? It is what it is. Sartre must, Sartre must have said something like that. Voila. On us, on us. And actually, in French, what you would say is you have what you deserve. And I think it comes by also to nature as human beings. And that's probably part of us, maybe, that is also reflected at the higher level because, well, just like humans being headed by other humans, we put them somehow in this position. So that's why UNESCO merits, as we say in French. Well, you know, what's interesting is that we, and including me, we think of the United Nations as impeded by the rule of the Security Council. So you know that Russia and China are not going to vote for anything that interferes with their aspirations. But there's another point, and I would like to ask you about it, is if you have this monumental failure of moral suasion, okay, at the Security Council, that affects the actions of the United States with regard to smaller countries, less influential countries, but countries that do have similar moral problems.  Am I right? Yeah, I think you're right. But again, the question is whether these countries with a more with a stronger maybe moral posture, what legitimacy they would have to kind of impose their own moral to the rest of the world? And that's the question that an issue we always had at the UN. For example, in my own situation, as a national from a Western country, I've been always asked about like, why is your perspective being sort of imposed on others through Security Council decisions and resolutions? And that's a good question. And when you look at what China is planning for the future to shape the international community, they want to shape a community with different communities, actually. So there won't be one international community sharing the same values and sharing the same kind of moral, but there will be several communities. And the only, let's say, maybe the only common that put all these communities together is the fact that we are living on the same planet. I want to turn to recent history and the fantastic action, not of the Security Council, but the General Assembly, on two resolutions. One resolution was to, see, I don't think it had ever gotten made. The resolution I'm thinking of was only hypothetical, to condemn Hamas for murdering 1,400 people and maiming how many others. That really, really brutal murderous, completely unacceptable human conduct. That was never condemned either by the Security Council, which wouldn't anyway, because Russia is involved, but also by the General Assembly. And the representative of Israel stood up there and said, it's wrong, you people, how come you can't do that? And now you want to go for peace, essentially stopping Israel from defending itself, because in his view, this is a long-term defense. We are defending ourselves by repetition of exactly the same thing. And when Hamas continues to fire rockets every day and continues to shoot at the Israelis and continues to hold the hostages as bait, and it's on people, the Palestinians as bait. Now you want peace. You want peace after you never condemned the original act. It's wrong with you people. And then Guterres gets up and he says, yeah, we need peace. We have to stop all this. But he never said anything about the massacre. What's wrong with this picture? I do not feel that Guterres is adequate here. I don't know about the rest of the General Assembly, but I don't think the General Assembly has done the right thing, or that it can be respected for the ability to do the right thing. And I'm really wondering whether in the course of the last month, the United Nations has lost more influence and credibility around the world, with right-thinking people who care about the future of humanity. Your thoughts? I think what you're saying also illustrates a failure from what's been kind of leading the international community since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that's us. And I think the illustration of this failure is the fact that nowadays, there is no this kind of block of countries standing by those values and role that you mentioned earlier. And I think that reflects the fact that we fail in leading by example. And today, I think that we are just kind of facing the consequences of the window of 30 years, let's say 20 to 30 years that we had to lead by example, the rest of the world and the international community as a whole. And today, we are just, I think in my opinion, just paying the consequences of that failure. What we call the global south. It includes a lot of democracies. It includes a lot of countries that you believe. And actually, when you visit these countries, you realize that they share the same values, but they are not following anymore, let's say, the Western countries in those battles. You know, I don't know why, but this conversation makes me think of Rwanda where there was a legitimate genocide. You know, genocide is a word that's really used inappropriately. And we talk about the Israelis and the Palestinians. It's not appropriate. It's a misuse of the term.  And what was remarkable about it is the United Nations had the blue helmets in Rwanda. But it didn't use the blue helmets. And there was only blue helmets. There was nothing beyond that. This would not have been the first and only time in Africa where that happened. There were other incidents where the United Nations and the blue helmets were there. But they didn't do anything. And they didn't use force at all. But given the fragmentation of the world today on so many levels, I wonder if, in a perfect world, the United Nations was capable of using force, that the blue helmets had blue rifles. And they could stop outrageous things. In the name of all nations, wouldn't that be the way it should have worked, might have worked in the future? Actually, in an ideal world, the United Nations would have its own blue helmets and do not rely on what we call TCC, which are conservative countries. And actually, in the UN Charter, the UN had its own force with maritime ground forces. They were all together in a command under the command of the military chief of staff of the UN. This is what we planned after the Second World War, because we were in a position to realize that we needed to have this, let's say peacekeeping force as neutral as possible and just being under the command of the international community through their representatives at the Security Council. But actually, just two years after 1947, this whole project plan fell apart because of already what we named afterwards the Cold War, the opposition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. But we had planned, we had planned of having a neutral peacekeeping force able to be deployed in cases of conflict around the world. That's too bad, because if it had been permitted to proceed, it could have put out a lot of fires all these years, not necessarily fires where the U.S. is directly involved, but other fires elsewhere, other countries, small countries with terrible things were going on. I'm thinking of the killing fields in Southeast Asia and so many other places. So here's the problem though. Right now, and you will have a better handle on this than me. Right now, there are a lot of hotspots. Right now, there are a lot of places where human rights are being violated in the most brutal way. It seems like it's the new thing and it is emerging. I don't have a handle on why. That's probably a geochemical answer to that, biochemical answer to that. But we seem to have violations of human rights hither and yon in little countries and big countries on every single continent. I don't know why that is. And so project expedite justice and lots of other NGOs, nonprofits around the world are doing what you're doing. You're investigating. You're talking to witnesses. You're documenting what's happening. The problem is you can document it. I mean, as lawyers like to document things in the hope that somewhere, sometimes, somehow, they will be able to present all that evidence to a sympathetic judge or jury and get a human response. But it's harder now to get a human response. I know the project expedite justice has gone, for example, to France, which has allowed some litigation there. And that's a good thing where banks and other multinationals have violated human rights or assisted others in violating human rights. And France will hear the case. That's great. But in large part, the evidence that you collect, you are only collecting it because you think somebody will ultimately listen. But the availability of somebody who will listen seems to be diminishing too. And United Nations is not one of those places. And maybe it's individual members of universal jurisdiction. Maybe it's some other place, which arguably has jurisdiction over the violator. When you collect evidence, Orynian, and you fill up your trial book, so to speak, with the witnesses and legal briefs and what have you, who in your mind are you doing it for? Very good question. And I think when you do it, when you document, when you collect all those evidences, actually, you don't know what will be the final, if there is the final user of this judicial process procedure. So you do it because as an investigator, you just, this is the way you contribute to, let's say, a greater good. Like, it's a kind of humanity philosophy.  So basically, you do it as you apply your methodology, because you know that if you don't, whatever you do will be useless. So that's, I would say that's just something, and again, that's going to be your contribution. And you have done your part of the job, and you do not, you don't have to be frustrated because you know that part of it will be probably useless, and will not end in any judicial proceeding. So I think that's, yeah, that's something, again, that has to do with frustration, as you mentioned earlier. But if I may just come back to your first comment on why we have all this crisis popping up in so many different places, I think that maybe one of the difference is in the past, we have some kind of major, let's say, powers that would fight each other, what we call again, the Cold War. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we started to, again, have this residual conflicts. And then we would have, let's say, kind of come in a shared view on what we should do. This is where the UN deployed the greatest number of peacekeepers, this is where the sanctioned regimes also were implemented. And actually, even in that context, we were not able to solve all this crisis, even without that global competition that was not there anymore. Actually, the example that you gave about the genocide in Rwanda is a very good example because there was no global competition in 1994 when it happened. So there was no political diplomatic reason why we would fail in that context. So again, are we designed to fail somehow, or is it something that cannot work in different contexts? So I think that's a good question, also, we should ask ourselves. Yeah. Again, what comes to mind here in this conversation is what happens if the United Nations is ineffective in dealing with conflict, in dealing with crimes. Then people take it in, people meaning countries, take it into their own hands because they could be really ticked off, or they could feel that unless we do something about this, it'll happen again. And we cannot afford to have it happen again. And I'm thinking of the Adolf Eichmann kidnapping. Was it in Argentina? I don't remember, for sure, when they brought him back and made him stand trial in Israel. That was not with the blessing of the United Nations or any other international organization. And after the murders in the Munich Olympics, the Israelis went out there and assassinated nearly every terrorist who had been involved in those. And again, the purpose was not so much vengeance as it was. We don't want this to happen again. Can't do this. We're giving you guardrails. We are not going to permit you to do this. And if you do this, this is what happens to you. Again, without any blessing by the United Nations or any other multinational organization. And you could say, I mean, this is really perverse, but you could say that Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine because he thinks he needs to take matters into his own hands and attack a neighbor. And then there's nobody he can go to to settle his score, to settle his beef. On the other hand, the flip side of that is China and the South China Sea. It went to the International Court, and the International Court ruled against China. China didn't even show up, even though China was a party to that agreement, the law of the sea. And at the end of the day, China has ignored the ruling of the International Court on jurisdiction in the South China Sea. So I think what you have, aren't the same thing, isn't it? We like you until you disagree with us and then we're going to do whatever we want, meaning that the United Nations and its accessory organizations don't really have the clout to make its own rulings happen or to have people all upon it to deal with this impunity problem, to deal with people who do not have acceptable values. So I say to myself, as we go forward here, you have these various instances, I haven't listed them all, with the United Nations because it's not doing anything, it's actually allowing other people to take matters into their own hands. This is not a good thing. You know, in theory, when you're part of a community, you follow the rules. So international law is based on consent. So those are the limits to the use of force, but actually those limits, the only way to have it respected, the only reason why states comply with those limits and with international law, it's because they are part of this community. So that's the thing with the UN. We believe that the UN should be the kind of the enforcement force or the kind of sheriff of the world to enforce international law, but actually that's not the way it should be. The way it should be is that all the member states of this community should be by the rules because they belong to that community. And this is where actually the UN rule is somewhat a bit, let's say, misunderstood in a way because we expect from the UN to do something that it cannot do because again, and we come back to how this discussion started. Again, the UN is what member states are and that's yeah, that's something we cannot change. So is it okay if I made a suggestion? Of course, that's for sure. No, but I'm making a suggestion for your reaction, of course. So in the first days and when anything happened in Gaza, Hamas would be right ready, immediately ready to make international statements about how their people had been abused and this and that and they succeeded. I mean, for example, in the case of the hospital or the parking lot in two weeks ago, they misstated it completely, but they immediately made their statement globally and everybody thought it was the fault of the Israelis when in fact it was Islamic Jihad that blew up the parking lot in the hospital and killed all those people. And so you say, hmm, first to the media is a real important thing and Hamas understands that and it understands about propaganda and getting to the media right away and setting it up so that people are sympathetic. And that has resulted in enormous and inappropriate, often inappropriate protests around the world everywhere. Sometimes those protests have been spontaneous, but I suggest to you other times they have not been spontaneous and that terrorist money has generated the protest because that works for the terrorists. But here, just this week, this week is fresh and the Israelis have started to stream on YouTube interviews of the families and friends of those who were massacred and they didn't do it before and it's a cultural thing. They don't like talking about the dead. They don't like showing you dead bodies and parts of bodies and that sort of thing and even now they're reluctant to do that. But at least now what's happening is the Israelis are giving you interviews with people who were wounded or who were in danger of being killed or whose friends and family and children were killed. So say, well, that's good because they're catching up maybe to the public relations campaign of Hamas, which has been showing you people in Gaza that have been wounded or whatever, hurt for weeks. And I say to myself, good, but they're late. Privacy is everything. Now, you have this trial book under your arm and it's full of witness interviews and probably a lot of video interviews and legal briefs and what have you, making the case, whatever this may happen, that there are war crimes going on, atrocities, violations of human rights. And you're keeping it under your arm. You're waiting for a moment. I'm not referring specifically to you or Project Expedite Justice. I'm talking about investigatory bodies, whatever NGOs or nonprofits might be involved. You have all this information, but you are reluctant to share it as the Israelis have been reluctant to share it with the world. Instead, you get this myopic view of Katera's who I don't think he understands. I don't think he's good at this. And what the problem is, not only can you not present it to a trier of fact, a judge or a jury, at least in the foreseeable future, but the world never hears about it because you're reluctant to put it out there. And I suggest to you that maybe what the United Nations should do and investigative organizations like Project Expedite Justice and others should do is put it out there and not worry about offending people's sensibilities. Just tell them the truth. Why don't you do that? Why doesn't the United Nations do that? Actually, what the example you're giving is a very good example. It's a very good illustration of, again, frustration. But that frustration is more related to time because justice takes time. And before justice is done, you have that investigation phase which also takes time. And actually, when you look at the time that people is now giving to what's happening, it's live. So basically, we have a live interest in events on what's happening. So that's why you get all this fake news propaganda spreading because actually, we do scroll on the smartphone looking for news and we won't take the time to read about facts, to read about what could be the truth. So that's a very good example. But even, let's say, if Project Expedite Justice had an Israel-Palestine program, even if you start documenting on the spot, meaning you have access, you have the capacity to conduct the interviews in good conditions, even if you could do that investigative work and you start documenting, you do this fact-finding exercise which is an investigation, very definition. So then you collect all these evidences and then you still need to bring that to a judge, to a justice court that will be the only one in the position to decide what could be the truth, again, from that justice perspective. So it takes time, it's a very long process and it's against today the need of having information immediately all the time on, you see how we can switch from one conflict to the other. It looks like these conflicts were happening in the past, it would take years and years before losing people's interest in that conflict. No, it seems that it can move very fast of switching attention from one conflict to the other. But that won't change the time that you need to bring people to court and to investigate and to establish a truth. That's too bad because in the case of Donald Trump versus Jack Smith, Smith never talks about his evidence. Donald Trump gives you his perverse view of the evidence and criticizes the institutions and he does that immediately. And so the impression on the judge, the jury, and the public is coming from Donald Trump, not from Jack Smith. And so times of the essence, I would suggest, even though it takes a while to investigate. Anyway, so we're about out of time already. We're about out of time already and I wonder if you have any closing comments you want to make about what we've been discussing. Actually, yes. Because if you don't mind, the initial topic, I want to discuss what about like how you can fight immunity with UN sanctions. And sanctions are a tool which is different from justice. Sanctions, it's a political decision which is taken about a security council within a regime that it creates and it's much more flexible and it's much more, let's say, responsive. So that's why it's a different way to approach fighting impunity compared to international justice or the international criminal court. But maybe that's going to be another discussion we could have in the near future. Yeah, I like to do that because I think sanctions is an art form and it's very easy to do sanctions that don't have an effect. So we have to refine and create nuanced sanctions that actually do have an effect where we can bring everybody together to join as one voice on the sanctions. That's another conversation. Well, thank you, well, Radhiana. I really appreciate the discussion. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Jay. Aloha, a tutela. A bientou.