That Time We Talked To a Deaf Realtor

This is episode number 98 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could be part of this homeowner's expedition—

expedition today.

We're expeditionaries.

Okay, so we're now vehicles.

That's right.

We're into the vehicles at this point.

You have to put them in the garage, which is part of the home. It all goes together. Have you ever bought a house that the garage came separately?

Well—

I don't mean that it was not part of the house, but that you bought the house and they're like, oh, by the way, it's going to be a little bit more for that garage that's sitting right there next to the—

No, I have not done that.

So, point Craig.

Well, I didn't know we were keeping score, but—

Oh, you should see the notches on this side of the table.

Oh man, how you doing, dude?

I am doing really well. I have learned a valuable lesson in shop safety.

Shop safety?

Shop safety.

So, so did something happen?

Oh yes.

Well, what happened?

So I was cutting a piece of wood, several pieces of wood, and I neglected to wear my safety glasses.

OK. Which, oh, by the way, most people neglect to wear their safety glasses.

Let this just be a cautionary tale to everyone. So, I neglected my safety goggles, and I didn't feel anything at first, but the next day, my right eyeball was just in an immense amount of pain. It was painful to blink. I literally felt like I was in the Jesus parable about getting the plank out of your own eye before you go after the, you know, whatever in somebody else's?

Yeah.

I felt like I felt the plank.

Not just the speck, you felt the full plank.

No speck, there was a plank in my eye, but I couldn't get it out. So I went to the doctor, and I was like, this was like, you know, almost 48 hours later after I'd neglected the safety glassware. And so I went into the eye doctor, and I was like, I feel there is something in my eyeball.

Right.

I can't see it, I can't get it out, my eye's red. She's tested my vision, my vision's gone down by 10 points. She's like, I don't know what's going on. She literally had to flip my eyelid inside out and then go inside and scoop some stuff out. There wasn't anything in there, but there was just eye gunk or whatever.

You're disgusting. That's what it is.

It'd been a while since I'd had a tune-up, all right? She had to get in there and clean everything out, and then I had to put antibiotics in my eye. Almost a week later, it moved over to my left eye.

Oh!

So, it jumped the nose?

Yeah.

Wow!

Which is impressive, if you've seen my nose.

Yeah.

There's no doubt about that. I don't think the camera does it justice.

I don't ever turn to the right or the left. It's always straight on. People, get you some good safety goggles. Don't let the specs turn into the planks. It was unpleasant.

Well, it sounds unpleasant.

And everyone I walked by thought I was winking at them.

Oh my gosh!

You got Winky Craig walking around everywhere.

Aggressively winking at them.

Is that Quasimodo, or is he actually winking at me?

He doesn't think I saw him winking at me.

Wow!

Well, it was a blast. It was a bad couple of days.

Well, it sounds like it was a bad couple of days. You have the worst experiences with things swelling up on your face.

On my face, yeah. Whatever it is, it's gonna attack the moneymaker.

Yeah.

For sure.

Definitely. Yeah, wow.

Cover your face, people.

Man, that, I don't know. So were you woodworking? I mean, what were you doing? Were you working outside? What was happening?

I think I was actually cutting the ceiling for this room.

Oh.

Like the beadboard.

I was cutting the beam. This room would be the nemesis. It would be. It absolutely would be.

It has been. So, but, but yeah, man, we've, uh, we've got some, we've got some cool stuff coming up. We, uh, we're gonna be doing some, some standalone content just for the YouTube, uh, channel. In fact, I've got, I've got this, uh, lovely, um, what do you call this? Brad nailer.

Yeah.

Is that in the, is that in the shot?

It, it is now. Yep.

So we actually just did a review of, of this bad boy. Um, cool new, uh, Ryobi tool, uh, that we actually used in this room. Um, we did a nice review on that. We're going to do some, some, uh, cross-platform battery competitions. Um, we're going to be doing some little, little, little tidbits for you over on the YouTube channel. So if you want to see those extra bits, you're gonna have to go to the YouTube channel and subscribe and hit the bell to make sure you don't miss any of that kind of stuff. Because Kevin's making sure that all that premieres so that you guys get those notifications to know when they're coming up. Also, if you just want to watch the video of the show rather than

just experience the audio, Which, you know, let's, let's just be honest, has been impeccable.

Well, yeah, I mean, there, there is this to work with.

This—

yeah, this whole face thing. It's really— if you just want to see what my mouse— my mustache has been doing recently, which I don't even know what it's been doing. My wife will tell you what it's been doing, and she doesn't like it very much.

But, um, she's just glad you guys don't live near the railroad tracks. That's the—

she said, she said, one of these days you're gonna have to shave that thing off and people are gonna think you're a child. I was like, oh, so it makes me look that much older. Maybe I'll keep it.

That's the only thing that's been holding them back, honestly.

Yeah, exactly.

But, but to that, to your, to your point, we have definitely been upping our YouTube game. And if you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, which you should, there's a link directly below in the show notes. You click on that and it will immediately ask you if you want to subscribe to our channel. It's super easy. Go ahead and get that done. Yeah.

And, you know, follow us, whatever platform you want to jump on. Yeah, Kevin's still on some goofy one. I don't know what it is anymore. What are you— what are you listening to?

Pocket Casts. Pocket Casts. I still use it, man. They're great. So they're absolutely great. If you need a good app, use Pocket Casts.

Yeah, or if you just want to be a lemming like Kevin.

Whatever works for you, you know, whatever works.

You need your flock. Yeah, flock of Pocket Casters.

I honestly, I really don't care what you use as long as you Subscribe, subscribe to the show.

Can you subscribe on Pocket Cast?

Um, yeah.

Is that how that works?

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's just a platform. It's just an app that you can import apps into. Just, I mean, uh, import podcasts into. So, all right, it's just like using Apple Podcasts, only you're using Pocket Cast. It just has, has some different features that you can, that you can do. Like you can, you can change the intro time and you can, you can speed it up, slow it down. There's all kinds of things you can do.

So pretty much like every other Podcast app.

Yeah, only this one's different. So, um, yeah.

All right, we'll find that difference one of these days.

Yeah.

All right, so, but we have a really cool episode for you guys, uh, tonight. We, we have brought my friend Michelle into the studio, and we, we've been, uh, I'm trying to remember how long ago it was that we met. It was almost like 6 months ago that we met, and, uh, we've been talking about doing this episode for a while, and her, her friend Tanya finally bullied her into it.

Yes.

And got her in here.

Thanks, Tanya.

And so we're going to be talking all things real estate with a little twist, which I think you guys will find really interesting. And just be in general, I mean, like right now, COVID pandemic, worldwide catastrophe, Kanye's running for president, y'all. I mean, it's just, it's just weird out there.

Things are literally off the rails right now.

Crazy.

And, and The number of people that— and we're not making a political statement here— just the number of people that I have seen that are going, I'm voting for Kanye.

Yeah.

Without hearing a single word out of the man's mouth other than the album that he dropped recently.

Yeah. Which is pretty fantastic, by the way.

It absolutely is. So I'm going to give him that. But the number of people supporting the guy just out of the blocks, like he's— he might be a frontrunner right now.

You never know.

Day one, Elon Musk. You have Elon Musk on your team.

Right.

You know, yeah, I don't know what Elon sees, but it's crazy. So anyway, it's nuts out there. And around here, I don't know how it is in your town, but the real estate market's going nuts.

It is.

So we're gonna be talking about all that. So I mean, let's just, let's just go ahead and Michelle, let's, let's just pull this bandaid off. Yeah, there's something special about you. And what is that?

Well, I'm deaf.

You're deaf?

I'm deaf. I'm a deaf realtor. In fact, I think I'm the only deaf realtor in Houston.

Yeah.

The only.

I've never met another one.

Yeah, I haven't either. So there's another one in Austin. He's really awesome and he's kind of like a mentor for me. I mean, when I first broke out, I connected with him. His name's Tom Anderson. He's pretty cool.

Shout out to Tom.

Yeah, shout out to Tom. This better be captioned so Tom knows I gave him a shout out. So anyway, yeah, I'm the only one here in Houston that I know of. And if there's another one, I'd love to meet them.

Yeah, and I want to circle back around to that, but I imagine there's people listening to this going, OK, she just said that she's deaf. How is it that we're communicating? Because Kevin and I can't sign.

No.

No.

I saw the sign once, but then Ace of Base—

anyway, sorry.

That was— OK, sorry. Would y'all talk for a minute, please?

Yeah, we'll do that. I don't want to know what signs you guys know. You'll be throwing gang signs and the little things you learned in the play yard.

I'm pretty much limited to road rage. That's the— Oh God.

Yeah.

I know those signs, by the way. Okay, so I am deaf, and you're— I know a lot of people, even my deaf friends, are going to be like, how is she deaf? And okay, let me just I'll just preface this and say, in the deaf world, a lot of my friends say she's hard of hearing. It's really hard for me to like— I identify as being deaf, but a lot of my deaf friends will be like, she's hard of hearing. Because, you know, the reason I do so well is because I have cochlear implants.

Okay.

And I got those when— about 11 years ago I got one, and about 6 years ago I got the other one. Might be off on the other one. I only wear that one about once a year. If I go to a concert, Okay. But go see George Strait. If I see Garth, I'll break out the second one.

All right.

Yes. I'll break them out, but a lot of times I just wear one because that's enough.

So, so 11 years ago is when you could start actually hearing things?

Well, no, let's—

Okay, because that's why you're saying your deaf friends say that you're hard of hearing. Okay.

Okay. Well, I'll, I'll say that, um, You're gonna have to edit this part, right?

What's going on? It's just hot in here.

Oh, it's hot?

Yeah, turn that air conditioner down.

Go ahead, go ahead, Michelle.

Sorry.

I don't know if you guys are in here.

I'm over here sweating and I'm like, there's a little button that'll turn the air conditioner down, so let's go ahead and use that thing.

I got it, I got it. Go ahead, Michelle. Sorry.

Okay, okay, I'll say this. I'll say this. I lost my hearing when I was about 3 years old, and so it's been progressive over the years. And then I was always so concerned I was gonna go deaf because I mostly grew up around hearing people. I grew up in Tennessee. It was a lot different back then. And my parents finally sent me to deaf camp in the summers. I was such a dork, but they would send me to deaf camp, and then I would get in all the sports, win all these ribbons, meet all these boys. I mean, you know, it was pretty cool. So at some point I decided that I was gonna major in deaf ed, later special ed, and When I got in college, my

audiologist said, you're deaf. And I'm like, I know. And so, I mean, I just embraced it. I took— I learned a lot of sign language at camps, and I had deaf neighbors I learned from. And then I took classes in college. And at some point, I decided to enter deaf pageants and was Miss Deaf Tennessee at one point. And there's a whole bunch of stories there, but that was, that was a fun time. So that's, that's what I did. I just got really involved with the deaf community in Tennessee. I moved to Texas and taught deaf ed here for a long time.

Okay.

So, and but at some point I was very oral because my mom was an English teacher. She always had me in speech therapy, always had me reading. Reading was my strong suit. And with a lot of deaf people, it's the opposite. They're more talented with, you know, like science and math. Me, those were, those were weak parts for me, but reading, literature, language, I absorbed it. So, so I had an advantage there, but as I got older, I couldn't hear anything hardly, and I was just lip reading all the time. I was frustrated if I wasn't at work with an interpreter. I was just like, I was lost a lot. I just got so frustrated, and I finally went ahead and got the cochlear implant About 11 years ago.

And did that just change everything for you?

That was a game changer. I had a son, so I would put him to bed and I would listen on the door and my mind would start making up sounds. And, uh, and he would be quiet, but I think I was hearing something. I'd open the door and he'd jump up and that was the end of nap time. I was so mad. Or the door would be shut and he'd be crying and I wouldn't know it. So I mean, it was just like he was starting to speak And I was like, I can't miss this. So I went ahead and got it when he was about 2 years old, around the time he was really starting to pick up language. I was like, I've got to do it for him.

Yeah.

And so I did.

Okay, that's awesome. And a friend of mine recently was— I was talking to her about this interview and she was telling me there's some people in the deaf community that sort of look down a little bit on cochlears.

Yes. Yeah, that, that's pretty true.

Have you experienced that?

When I was in the Miss Deaf America pageant, I did not make the top 10, thank you God, because the onstage interview question was like, if a doctor could tell you he could heal you, meaning cochlear implants, how would you feel about that? Of course, you couldn't see everybody else's answers, and I was still catching up on all the politics. I would have gone, oh, that's pretty cool. The right answer was like, I'm fine just the way I am.

Right.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, Honestly, a lot of times I take my cochlear implants out. If I'm at home, I take them out. I like the peace and quiet. If I play softball with my deaf friends, I take them out a lot of times. You know, I put them in when I need them. I go back and forth. My son's having a tantrum, take them off.

That's literally what you call selective hearing.

Yes. He would have a fit in the back seat. He's grown up now. He's 13. But he'd be in the back seat and he'd be mad at me and I would take it off and I would hold it up in his face going, I'm not listening to you. He'd be done. It's my mom superpower.

Oh yeah, that's awesome. Definitely.

I could have used that a few times with the 3 monsters that I've got.

Oh dude, if I just had a volume control on mine, let alone tuning them out completely, just a volume control would have helped. So yeah.

And so you were a teacher for a while?

Yes, I taught deaf ed for about 10 years, special ed for about 2.

And what, like, I have no idea what that even entails. Are you teaching like regular classes to kids who are deaf or are you doing just like special kinds of education for deaf children?

I would be mainstreamed in the classrooms working with them on those classes, or I would do resource classes in the deaf ed classroom. I mean, I did a lot of everything, a lot of everything. And it was a lot of paperwork. I think that was the hardest part is that I wanted to help. Spend more time with kids, but you, you get so busy with all the paperwork. But yes, I did all kinds of stuff, all subjects. I went from elementary to high school. Wow.

Well, I think that's one of the— got to be one of the most difficult things is whenever you're the only specialist, uh, they tend to probably lean very heavily on your expertise in that, and then you wind up being the one who gets Especially when there's a lot of turnover in the field.

Yeah. But some of my best friends to this day, they are from my Deaf Ed days and they're out there. I know they're probably going to listen eventually, but they know who they are. But yeah.

Was that, was that in Tennessee or was that here in Texas?

When I lived in Tennessee, I taught in Georgia right over the line because I lived in Chattanooga.

So, okay.

And that was 2 years there and I only had 2 students. I didn't know how good I had it. And then I moved here and then it was a totally different world in Deaf Ed. And to this day, To this day, I'm still friends with a lot of those kids. They're grown up. They have kids. There's one I go to happy hours with sometimes. I mean, you know, I see them out.

I think here in Houston, there's actually just a private school exclusively for deaf children.

Yes. And in Austin, Texas School for the Deaf.

Is it in Austin?

Yes. And oh man, they're very proud of it.

Yeah.

He graduated from TSD. There's a lot of pride there.

Yeah.

I went to a playoff game in The Woodlands when they were playing football team. TSD was up here playing a private school in The Woodlands. They did good. It was like the second round of playoffs.

Oh, wow.

Lots of deaf people there. Lots of my friends there. It was a lot of fun.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I think it's— I think for, for those of us who are not in the deaf community, I think it's hard for us to fully understand how pervasive deafness winds up being because I don't know. I don't know what the reason is, but it's almost like we're just unaware because of one reason or the other. But depending on, on kind of what field you wind up being in and the circles that you wind up running in, I think it's hard to kind of understand some of that.

Yeah, I mean, there's so many barriers out there if you're deaf. There's a lot of barriers. I mean, to be understood, to, you know, just be a productive member of society, there's a lot of barriers out there.

Yeah, and it's— and I think that the barriers winds up being one of the things that is not just a barrier for the deaf community, but it's also a barrier for those of us who are hearing, right? Because we don't know how to communicate and we rely on those of you who are deaf to read our lips. And, and I think the problem with that is some of us are a lot easier to read than others. And, and if you got tons of facial hair, that probably makes it even worse.

My former father-in-law I mean, I still consider him— I mean, he's awesome. He, um, I made him cut his mustache down for the wedding. I mean, he has like bigger than yours. Yeah, he's so awesome.

He's got the walrus.

He was the pastor, and I'm like, you've got to cut that down. And I had an interpreter there too, so that helped. Got to go.

Yeah, and so I, I think that makes it even more amazing that you do what you do, which we haven't even really mentioned yet because you've switched from, from education. So talk to us about what you're doing now.

So I'm a realtor now and I work with a lot of deaf people. I work with— I mean, I have like certain niches that I've come up with so far, but it's either I work with a lot of my friends in the deaf community and there's my mom's groups and I'm really active in those and I get a lot of business from those. So those are the 2 groups that I do A lot of work. They keep me busy.

Wow.

Well, I think that was when, when you and I met the first time. I think that was one of the first questions I asked you once I realized that you were deaf is like, oh my gosh, like, what, what is it that deaf people are looking for when they go to find a home? Like, it seems like there would be certain things that they would want and need to have in a home and/or add on to that home.

They want a very deaf-friendly home.

Yeah.

Which means— What does that even mean? 'Cause that, you say that to me and I'm thinking, okay, like I understand like ADA type of things when it comes to like wheelchairs and, you know, mobility issues and things like that. But when it comes to deaf, like the only thing that I can think of is I know that there are certain hotels and even like college dorms and stuff like that that have instead of a doorbell that chimes, it flashes lights. That's the only thing that I can think of. So what types of things make a house deaf-friendly?

Very open concept. That's the most popular thing with my deaf clients because a lot of my deaf friends like to throw parties. I mean, I have some fun deaf friends and we like to be able to see each other. You want to be able to wave from the kitchen over to the living room and need lots of lights for that. Open space, lights, windows, and open rooms. Walls are like barriers. Walls are barriers because you can't see around those. And you don't want to be in the kitchen, it's all lonely, you're not listening to anybody. You want to be able to see everybody and be involved in everything.

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Hmm, I really want to know how many deaf parties get noise complaints.

Actually, people seem to think that deaf people are very quiet, and we're so loud.

Well, I think there's a reason for that, isn't there?

Yes, and we feel vibrations. And oh my gosh, I have this one friend and he has this gigantic boombox, and every time my deaf friends are throwing a party, they're like calling him, and he tells me, I know why they're telling me come over, they want my boombox. And he comes over with that thing and it is jamming, and the pulse is going, and it's a lot of fun. Everybody's out there dancing, and oh yeah, we're loud people.

That's awesome.

That is so awesome. That makes me really happy, actually.

I really want to, like, be a fly on the wall when the cop shows up to tell them to turn it down.

Right.

Right. We probably won't hear them at the door. Nobody's answering the door.

You go tell them.

I'm actually the admin for a Facebook group called ASL Cheers.

Okay.

American Sign Language Cheers. And what we do is, like, once a— well, we haven't been able to do it in a while, but once a month we meet We meet up like at a bar. Sometimes we make it family-friendly, but usually we go out. We'll go to Whiskey River, we'll go to a sports bar. I mean, we go to District 249. And I'm one of those people, I like to be around a lot of people. I like to invite people to groups and stuff like that. So I've been working to grow that group since I got involved with it. And we have big parties. We have people show up once a month. It's so much fun.

That's awesome.

If anybody wants to join, they are totally welcome. ASL Cheers.

There you go. Cool.

If you want to learn sign language, want to be around deaf people, you're going to be overwhelmed with all the deaf people running around at the bar.

Okay. So you can show up regardless of whether or not you can hear?

Of course.

I would love—

yeah. We get a lot of students from Lone Star College that are in the interpreting program that come.

Okay. Yeah, that's a big deal over there, isn't it?

Oh yeah. They have a great program. So if anybody's interested in interpreting, Lone Star College is great.

Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, I was acquainted with a student one, one time, uh, not too long back, um, had a pretty good, uh, friendship with her. And she, in high school, there's— I learned a lot. Like, there's different levels of ASL as well, like, as far as your, um, fluency goes, like, how fluent you are. And, uh, I don't remember how many levels there are, but she was like one away from, from like the most fluent. And she was like a junior, senior in high school. and just doing amazing things. And the really bizarre thing about it that most people probably don't fully understand why she would do it is because she didn't know anybody just personally in her family that was deaf or had hearing issues. She

just felt this urge, this calling to really be an interpreter and to support that community for some reason. I don't really know why. Just to be an advocate.

Yeah, absolutely.

And she's, she's just an amazing young lady. And, and so anyway, to, to hear that there, that there are people out there that are interested in helping the community that don't really have any specific tie to the community, I think is pretty amazing.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

So many great students at Lone Star College. We try to get them to come out all the time. And actually last year we went to Bar Louise in Katy because one of the students was a waitress there and that poor girl Oh man, we threw it at her. Her name's Sarah. I'm so sorry, Sarah. Astros playoff games, and we had so many of us there, and she was just like, oh my gosh. But it was a lot of fun.

That sounds like fun for sure.

So to circle back around, I mean, like open concept in the home.

Open concept.

What else are we, are we looking for?

Basically what everybody else is looking for. I mean, it just depends on each person, but I mean, the main things we're looking for is like open concept, lots of light, lots of windows. You want to be able to see Yeah.

Is the big windows, lots of windows, is that just to be able to—

Yeah, just to bring in light in so you can see.

Yeah. But are different kinds of light different for deaf people?

Yeah. I mean, you know, you get some windows and there's just too much shade over there and there's not enough light. I mean, the more bright windows, the better. And the more lights, the lights, the pot lights you have up there, but friendly lights. I mean, some of them will just glare in your face, but a lot of those warm lights up there and lots of windows, I mean, that's what we like.

Well, I would imagine I imagine just because, I mean, like, with sound being gone and vision kind of being your focus, you would— I mean, like, I would imagine fluorescent lights almost might be like an annoyance.

I hate fluorescent lights.

That's what I was guessing.

I hate them. Yeah, I think so too. I like warm lights, but I want them bright. This is awesome.

I mean, like, what about LEDs? I mean, those have come a long way now.

Are those—

Well, I don't know preference from my friends. They haven't really told me anything, but if you ask me, I mean, I'm just like— I actually have a deaf friend. Like, those lights are really, really good. And we actually had this conversation about a week ago, so it's funny you're asking me that. And I'm like, that light is too bright in my house. Well, we actually had this debate about a week ago.

Well, and now, I mean, LEDs have come so far. I mean, to begin with, they were just so expensive and they were problematic in some ways. But now, I mean, they've got different color tints to them. So you can get the warm white, the soft white, or the, you know—

The bright ones.

Yeah.

The daytime ones.

Yeah. And so, you know, depending on what kind of like, We have some, some of the daylight ones in our bathroom just because, you know, be able to see while you're getting ready. But in the rest of the house, it's, you know, it's more the warm for us just because, you know, it's a more, more pleasant feel for sure.

As long as they're bright enough, that's what's important.

Yeah, and that's the other thing is like the lumen count on those things make a big difference on how bright they are. And you can still have a color that's appealing, but it have to be brighter than other things for sure.

Exactly.

One of the types of lighting that's real popular right now is the amber Edison bulbs. They're really popular.

There's a ton of them in my house right now.

We can go over there and check them out.

We could. One thing that I hear complaints about, though, is that a lot of them are 40 watts. They're just a very low-powered bulb. Mostly because if you're buying an amber bulb, you're I'm wanting a kind of a softer, lower, intimate type of thing, but I can see that being a problem. Yeah, they're definitely not a reading light. No.

Yeah, they're more like ambiance kind of an infrared look.

Yeah, that would be too— yeah, yeah, that would be too much like a bar light. Yeah, you want to be able to see in your house, right? Absolutely. When you're at the bar, not so much. Yeah, but at your house, you know, you want to be able to see pretty good.

Bar's low and smoky.

Okay, so here's another question. Okay, so One of the things that Craig and I are big into, like, like technology and how technology improves or just changes some things that you can do with your house and in your house and those sorts of things. Are there any technology types of things that are available that help inside the home for people that are deaf?

Oh, sure. Yeah, there are flashing fire alarms. And there are flashing doorbells and there are videophones where people, I mean, there are companies now, Sorenson, Purple, there's just different companies and they will send—

And now these are like, are these, can they bring them up on the TV or is it like its own separate little device?

Oh man, there's so many options. There's TV, there's, iPads. There's on your phone, there's on your laptop. Right now, I have one that's really outdated, and my friends over at Purple are supposed to be sending me an iPad as soon as I finish filling out the rest of the information. My phone—

There you go.

This is my lender, Ted Talbot. I'm going to hang up on him. I'm sorry, Ted. I think I'm going to mute my phone. I'm so sorry, Ted.

He deserved it.

That's right.

He should have known we were recording right now.

I tried to ask him a few questions a while ago, and he didn't answer. I guess he's calling me back now.

I just think that it's easy for certain technology companies to come in and say, oh, check out this latest and greatest thing! But a lot of those things don't necessarily translate to, to the deaf community. So I would think that, that there are probably some companies out there that would really want to hone in and specialize in, in some of these things. Because, you know, for example, we were in here before we started and Craig needed the horses fed, so he just like told Alexa—

He needed what?

He needed the horses fed.

Oh, you told Alexa to feed the horses?

Well, he kind of— yeah, he told Alexa Alexa. Really, he told his daughter through Alexa, which is in another building in his house. We're in the barn right now. He was able to do that. I would think that there would hopefully eventually be some technology out there that would basically say, you're in a different room. Hey, I'm trying to get your attention to come in here. I can't really go in there right now. I need you to come in here. Yeah, because that's why—

Turn off the lights, Alexa. It's not working.

Yeah. But I mean, you know, because I can imagine that's why open concept is really, really helpful. Because if you don't see me, you can't hear me, you know?

Right. And I mean, this technology is great because I mean, I talk to a lot of my clients all the time on video relay services that I have. So it's amazing. Last fall there was a MATA Expo. That's what it's called, MATA Expo. And it was a big deaf expo and there were so many companies there, deaf All kinds of— sorry about that. All kinds of services and things like that there. And I was out there, you know, hopping up and getting to know a lot of people. It was pretty cool. But yeah, they have a lot of deaf services out there.

What's MATTA for? What is that?

I don't know.

You don't know what it stands for?

I don't know.

But is it like a technology conference?

Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, I thought you wanted to know the acronym, what it stood for. I actually don't know.

Kevin can look that up.

Sure, I can do a lot of things.

But yeah, there was a lot of technology services there. Phone services, house services, all kinds of things like that there. And me handing out candy.

Was that here in Houston?

It was in Pasadena.

Pasadena, okay.

Pasadena.

That's pretty much Houston.

Yeah, pretty cool. Handed out a lot of candy, tried to get people to let me be their vulture. You want some candy? It was a lot of fun.

Luring children.

That's how it went with me too. It was pretty cool. We had 2 interpreters from interpreting students from Lone Star College. Come out there and interpret for him all day long.

Cool. That's great.

He's done a lot of my clients and he's learned how to use relay services too.

Huh.

So like, okay, so if you're a hearing person and you want to call a deaf person, you can call their phone number and an interpreter is going to answer, is going to call that deaf person and they're going to be on the screen signing for them.

Wow.

It's pretty cool.

That is.

Before I got my cochlear implant, I was totally dependent on it. If I wanted to order a pizza, I called my interpreter and I was like, I need a pizza, you know? But I could speak for myself. I would do the voice carryover option. Which means I would talk to whoever I was talking to, but I would have to see the interpreter to know what the other person was saying.

Yeah. So, so as far as that goes, like, I would assume video calling is, is something you rely pretty heavily on sometimes as well. Does that, does that work well for you?

Yes. And I'm on the go all the time. I'm working all the time these days. It's just busy, busy, busy out there. And I have Facebook Messenger. I actually use that more than anything. It's up there. I'm calling my friends like all the time. I'm calling my clients. all the time if they're deaf, you know. I mean, actually, I call my hearing friends and I make them look at me and talk to me sometimes. I just like to look at people.

Yeah, well, I would imagine, I mean, just text messaging in general really transformed things for the deaf community.

It does. I mean, it was a game changer. We used to have those little T-Mobile— what are those things called that you popped out?

Like the Razr phones or the Sidekicks? Okay, yeah, the keyboard.

Yeah, yeah. I had a deaf friend, we were walking in Memorial Park and she had just gotten hers and I didn't have one. And I'm like kind of jealous, like, what is that thing there? We walked 3 miles and she was on the phone, or no, on her Sidekick the whole time texting. I'm like, this is not fun.

But she was talking to people.

She was talking to everybody but me. She was just going the whole way.

Yeah, no, I can see how that's challenging. And one of the things One of the things that I, that I love about what you do in helping those in the deaf community find a home is you talked about barriers. I can imagine that it's so difficult for someone with a, with a hearing deficiency to find a realtor that, A, understands the situation. I mean, they, they, they, they get it, you know?

Right.

And then on top of that, being able to communicate back and forth. I mean, there's email, there's texting and those sorts of things. But, you know, one of the things that I think is so important about a realtor is having a really good relationship with that person. And the best way to do that is to communicate through voice. Now, your cochlear implants help tremendously, obviously.

They do. It gives me an advantage.

Sure. But I would think that there's so much more to that relationship whenever there's a hearing impaired person who is saying, I've got someone here who is fully understanding where I'm coming from.

With me, I mean, I've got my Facebook Messenger. I can call all the time. I've got that thing going. I call my clients all the time. They get sick of me. And I mean, anytime we go anywhere, I can explain anything, you know, helps a lot with the language. Yes.

Yeah.

And I would also imagine, and this is something that just occurred to me, that you might have an advantage when you have a deaf client in the negotiations because you guys can talk to one another.

Yeah. Well, we're not all in the same room, Craig.

Well, no, I mean, like, but like, if you guys are like at a showing, right, they can ask you questions via sign language that anybody else in the room is probably not going to understand what's going on. You know, like they can, they can be very honest and you can respond very honestly. Not that you wouldn't otherwise.

What's the situation here?

So, you're in the house at a showing and the seller is there, which is not normally going on. I get that. Or an inspector or something like that. But they're able to— or you guys are at closing.

We can talk on the side.

You can talk on the side.

We wanted to, yes. Deaf people do that all the time.

I would imagine. They can, you know, say whatever they want to say because they know no one else in the room is understanding what you two are talking about.

That's true.

So I've like, actually, when I bought this place, the people that owned it were here when we came to look at it.

Were they?

Oh yeah. Well, it's because, well, when we, when we bought it, it wasn't even on the market.

Oh.

So it was, it was one, it was a situation where, yeah, it was that we, we had found out that they were going to be selling it. And so we just, we just walked on the property and like, hey, hey, we're here. That's right.

That for those of you who aren't watching video, that was That was Craig's knocking sound.

Yeah.

That was him knocking on someone's door. It's also the same thing he does whenever he's like, hey, come here.

That's how I call my horses.

How does that go again, Craig? I need to—

Yeah, that's the one. That's the one. Yeah.

Okay.

That's also my, if you don't listen to me, horse, I'm about to spur you, so go.

They know what that means.

So they know, they know, yeah.

All right, sorry to derail again.

He was right out that window and he just took off that way.

Way out in left field. That's right.

Riding your horse. I don't spur the horses, people. It was a joke. I'm kind to them, most of the time.

One of them is old enough that I might really damage.

He doesn't know what's going on anyway.

That's right. Oh, man. Here's a question. I think that it is so difficult for some of us to fully understand. What is one of the things that you— why would a client, other than just sheer understanding, what are some things that you offer as a deaf person to someone who is also deaf looking for a home? Why? What is something that you would say, I have a definite advantage as a realtor for you?

Right. I mean, just knowing ASL. I mean, it's just like if you only spoke Spanish and you had a Spanish A Spanish-speaking realtor, I mean, there's your advantage right there. I mean, I just make sure that everything goes easy peasy. I bring my teacher days with me, you know. I like to break things down and explain things really well to people, and that's, that's what you get with me. I mean, I was a special ed teacher as well as a deaf ed teacher. I know how to break things down. If someone doesn't understand something, I'm going to go over it again and again until they get it. I have a lot of patience. Most of the time. Don't ask my 13-year-old, but most of the time.

And just so I know, American Sign Language, ASL, that's what that is?

ASL.

Okay. And that is the most common worldwide sign language, correct? ASL?

In America, it is the number one sign language.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

And I mean, there's like British Sign Language, there's French, there's all kinds of sign languages. There's many. It's just like, there's actually many sign languages here in America. But the primary one that the deaf community uses is ASL.

Okay.

Very visual language.

So are like, are the other ones in the United States, are they just sort of like almost like dialects or are they just—

They're almost like visual English.

Okay.

And I mean, yes, it's like word for word.

Okay.

The, this, that. I mean, you don't actually picture it. It's just like A sign for each word, and they might even add the word ending to it, like running, -ing. I mean, we don't really do this -ing thing, you know.

Okay.

So, but ASL is very visual. It's got its own semantics and everything, its own grammar. Yes, it's very visual. I mean, if you sit down and watch deaf people sign, I mean, there's something like amazing going on.

Oh yeah.

It is amazing. It's very visual.

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I have sat in multiple situations where there was a signer interpreting for, for a group of people, and every once in a while I try to just kind of look over. I know there's a little bit of a delay, right? Trying to, trying to figure out, okay, I heard what was said. I'm trying to watch what was— nope, I got nothing.

You know, sometimes I get lost if I go to church and I sit there. A lot of times I sit over Where the deaf people are and where the interpreter is. I mean, that's where I feel at home.

Sure.

But with my cochlear implants and, you know, churches are— the sound systems have gotten amazing over the years, right? So I'm like hearing the pastor here, and then we're like, you know, 10 seconds behind here, and I have to turn the sound off.

That makes sense.

To focus on the interpreter in church. Yeah.

Wow.

Which, that, that's actually probably where most people have engaged with, with sign language, is if they go to church. 'Cause most churches are pretty good about having, you know, someone there to interpret if they need to have somebody there.

Right.

I know that's where I first encountered it as a kid, realizing what was going on, you know, like, hey, Mom, what's— why is that other person up there? Right.

There's a fully deaf church in Houston.

Really?

Haven Deaf Baptist Church. It's part of Houston First Baptist.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yes, I mean, everybody pretty much is deaf there. I mean, there's a lot of hearing kids, CODAs, children of deaf adults. There's a lot of those there. And the pastor, he is, man, he's pretty cool. He's hearing, but his signing is flawless. I think he comes from a deaf family.

Wow. That's amazing.

I'd never heard that term before, CODA.

I hadn't either.

CODA. Soda.

What's siblings?

Spouse.

Spouse.

But you know, sibling would work too. I need to go double-check that.

Could be both. Interesting. Interesting. You obviously don't just take care of Deaf clients. You've got your moms' group that you're pulling a lot of clients from. There's a lot of weirdness going on in the real estate market right now. What are some of the things that you're seeing that people need to be paying attention to?

Actually, I see a lot of COVID paperwork you have to fill out before you go in a house to reassure people that you don't have COVID, and your clients have to sign it, too. And a lot of times when you walk in houses, they will have hand sanitizer there and they might have shoe covers there. And if people live there, they're going to have all kinds of things set out for you to make sure that you don't leave anything behind. Yeah.

Yes.

That's neat.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Virtual home tours now, you know, open houses. My thing, I love to do open houses. If I have a listing, I want that thing sold like that.

Right.

Yeah. So I get out there and I start marketing it on Facebook and my son comes with me and he's opening the door, passing out food. I mean, we're getting that house sold as soon as we can, but now they're encouraging a lot of virtual open houses online. So that's different.

And we did an episode a while back where we were talking about some virtual stuff that they're doing now. That's, that's, I mean, like where they're kind of like doing a virtual map where you can sort of just walk through the house on your computer screen and kind of, you know, you can even look up, look down. Like a 360 thing. Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty cool, but it's not the same as actually being there.

Yeah, I've got to put eyeballs on it. I need to put my nose on it. Up against the wall, right? Yeah, there could be some weird cat smells in that house and I need to know.

Oh, yes.

Yes! That is one of them. Yes, yes. You have to go see something. I mean, there are some amazing photographers out there.

No doubt.

And that room stretches out a mile long and my clients are walking. doesn't look like it does in the picture. It doesn't smell like you think it's going to smell, either. You've got to go see it in person. There's nothing like it.

You cannot put a smell in a picture. I've tried, and it does not work. Some people, I guess the old scratch and sniff. If you scratch and sniff your computer screen, that'll be the newest thing. Apple's got something to work on there.

I've heard that there are some companies working on it.

Smell-o-vision. No, that doesn't make sense, does it?

A lot of it is, oddly enough, coming from Disney. Disney, because they have some of those rides where they pump smells into the room. There's some people out there doing some multimedia stuff that they're talking about how to incorporate smells into their programming.

Oh, gosh! We're going to start having to input essential oils into our computers so that it can blast a smell at us.

Here's some cinnamon, Kevin.

And I'll tell you this, man, like the, the LED lights, I think, I think that's actually a disadvantage to a lot of real estate agents because one of the tricks I heard is if you're using like incandescent bulbs is to put like a little drop of vanilla on those, on those bulbs so that when people turn the lights on, when they come in the house, it smells like cookies.

Ah, I've got to try that next open house. That is connivery to the next level.

It is less messy than actually making the cookies.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, hey, there's— there is so much.

Hmm.

These are incandescent bulbs in here, Craig.

Like, no, these are— these are— these are LEDs.

Oh, they are?

Yeah. Even we can switch that out. Yeah, we can't— we can switch them out, but like, I just want some cookies now. I got the heat lamp for the— for the wintertime with— for the dogs outside. So hey, we can— we can put a couple drops of vanilla on that.

I'm fine with that.

It'll smell way better than the dogs.

That is true.

You used to have those little rings you put on the light bulbs with smells, and oh yeah, it smells. I don't know what happened to those.

Well, I don't either.

I guess LED didn't market to real estate agents. That was their problem.

Yeah, I need to check on that one.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I don't have any houses coming up where there's major pet smells or anything like that, so I'm not going to use that right away.

There you go.

I'm just kidding, people. Just kidding.

Well, I do know that we've, we've recently had a real estate agent on, maybe, maybe 6 or 7 episodes ago, something like that. And yeah, talking about the COVID stuff is, it's bizarre.

It's different now than it was when we did that interview.

Absolutely. I mean, things are changing so rapidly that I would think for you trying to keep up with all of these things and different clients want different things and, and, you know, different, different homes, sellers specifically are probably saying, no, I I do want this or I don't want that. And so it's almost like every single home probably is doing things differently.

Yes, when you walk in, it's different. If it's an empty house, I don't see so much. But if you're walking in where someone lives, you can tell they're taking precautions. I mean, people want to get their house sold, but at the same time, they don't want to get sick.

So yeah, no, I get it. I think it's a, it's a weird line to have to The whole thing is weird.

The whole world is weird right now. I miss the world.

You miss the world?

I miss the world. But you know what? The crazy thing is nothing has slowed down for me since COVID If anything, it's fired up. I mean, I'm just so busy. It's nonstop right now.

Wow.

Well, and I'm just taking a shot in the dark here, but I'm guessing houses that are empty might actually move faster because it seems like people would feel more more safe walking into an empty home than they would one that's occupied. They'd be more interested in going and looking at one that doesn't have somebody currently living in it right now. Just the psychology of that, of, there could be someone living in this house that could infect me, or, there's people coming into my house that could potentially infect me. I would imagine there's some of that going on. That's where my brain would go.

I'm not totally seeing that. If they love the house, and someone lives there, they just want them to move out so they can get it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the market's crazy right now. I mean, there's so many people getting refinanced, which I know you know. Yep. And interest rates are super low.

And what are you seeing on those right now?

I mean, I have 3% and lower even if you have really good credit, 2.75%. I have seen that. Call Ted Talbot. No, that's all I can say. Call Ted Talbot. You can get 2.75% with amazing credit.

And now the one where you saw 2.75%, was that a 30-year note? Or was it, was it 30-year note?

Wow. Yeah, that's impressive.

Great credit. Yes, that was last week.

That's incredible.

When he bought that, he said that he saw it possibly going lower, but don't quote me on that. Well, I'm live on air, so I guess you are going to quote me on that.

So, well, just, just so you gave the caveat that like, yeah, exactly, 3% and around 3%. Everybody gets, everybody gets different. I mean, there's so many Yeah, that's stellar, stellar, stellar.

And then I'm seeing 3% hovering around there, maybe a little bit more for really good credit too.

So yeah, I mean, I mean, we, we just refinanced to a 15-year note and we got just below 3%.

That's awesome.

Yeah, no, it was fantastic. And that was why we did it.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's definitely a buyer's market, uh, in, in the interest rates. However, the problem is that the, the prices of the houses They're not coming down. They're not coming down. They're staying up there. And to me, that's maybe one of the most shocking things is that everybody's— just around here, the taxes came out. Real estate taxes came out. And people are just like, oh my goodness, my house is so expensive and I'm going to fight this. And it's like, good luck. because they're, they're looking at the numbers, and the numbers are showing that your house is worth that much. I'm sorry that you don't want your house to be worth more. I don't really know what the problem is here other than you don't want to

pay the taxes.

Obviously, there is a, there is a suit going on right now, and I don't know where, where the status of it is, right, over that because of the amount that they went up.

Yeah.

Um, and it, it, I think it was just sort of a perfect storm situation where the new taxes came out and then COVID hit, and everyone was like, Really? You're going to do this to us in the middle of a pandemic? They did it long before that. It just happened to hit at that time. There's a big lawsuit right now working its way through the courts. I don't know the status of it. I'll have to look it up and report back. But I know it's happening.

Interesting.

I believe it.

It's amazing to me. It's this weird deal of, oh, I can get the best deal ever as far as coming up with a great interest rate, but I'm going to to pay a good chunk more for a home. It's kind of this weird catch-22. It's like you, you can't ever find low home rate, you know, low interest rate and low home prices. You're not gonna find both of those.

But you know what, I'm seeing that people are getting these low interest rates. And then when they find out what their monthly mortgage is, even if the house is still staying stable, they're not— a lot of people are like, the house is going to drop down with COVID No, no, no, no, we're super busy right now. And what they're seeing is that their monthly mortgage price is going to be, you know, really low compared to what it would've been a year or 2 years ago. When I bought my house, I mean, I was a sucker and I had a higher interest rate then. It was a lot higher then than it is now. So, and I'm seeing my clients paying not a whole lot

more than I'm paying for a lot more of a house now.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's fascinating. So you say, It's a buyer's market. But I think sellers have the advantage right now too.

Interesting.

Because there's a lot of competition for certain homes in a certain price range, you know, $200,000 and below, you're gonna see they're going quick.

Yeah. So yeah, and I would think that, that is interesting, because it's like you mentioned the perfect storm. It, it probably is kind of amazing because the buyers are going lowest interest rate we've ever seen. And the sellers are going, I can sell my house more than I've ever been able And it's, and it's keeping the market alive through COVID.

I mean, I'm so grateful for it. It's keeping me busy. Yes, it's keeping me busy.

Are there, are there things that you're seeing from buyers that they're looking for in homes because of COVID or because of the situation that maybe they weren't focusing on as much before?

No, no, not particularly. They're all just trying to get the best interest rate out there.

And they just want the house they want for the price they want.

Yeah, they're trying to hustle and be the first ones to get that dream house they see. But because interest rates are low, there's so many people out there buying right now that they're competing with all of them. And as soon as something goes up, you got to grab it.

Yeah, I've just had a lot of, I've had a lot of people tell me, like, with especially people with kids that have told me, I really wish I had, you know, property like what you have, you know, right.

You're right.

So that, so that when, you know, like schools are shut down, like, I don't feel like I've been thinking even about parents with children in apartment complexes and things like that, that have just been stuck—

In that one place.

In that one place. And not be able to— because if you go outside, you have 300 neighbors that are also there trying to get outside and get some vitamin D.

And you have that small space.

Yeah.

You mentioned that. OK, you do mention that. And I see so many people now that want pools that didn't want pools before because who knows how long COVID is going to last. So a lot of people want entertainment at their home. I am seeing more of that. That is the one thing I do see.

Yeah, well, I think we're about to experience some uniqueness from our homes. I mean, there's all this up in the air about what's gonna happen in the fall with school. Like, are they going back? Are they not going back? Are they gonna have like a modified version or what? And I, you know, I don't know if people are paying attention, but there's a lot of teachers that are saying like, we're not going back. There's a lot of them that are going back and are adamant about it. For whatever reason, they feel good about it. They care about the kids a whole lot, or for whatever. They have their reasons. The other ones that want to stay

home, they have their reasons, too. Both probably have really good reasons. But we may end up with a teacher shortage. Yeah, I believe it. Where kids can't go back, and a certain amount can't go to school. Then, we're going to be in another homeschool situation. That's going to make home, in your house, a totally different environment. All of a sudden, people are going to need another bedroom in order to do school in, or a yard to do PE, or whatever. I don't see it getting less weird from this moment on.

I think it's going to take a while.

I think so, too.

It's going to be sticking around for a while. I don't even know. The fall's coming, and I have to make this decision. I feel sorry for the teachers. that don't have a choice here. They have to go back and they're being told you have to teach online classes and your classes that are here. And you've got a chance of taking this home to your kids.

Yeah, yeah. I've got a friend who lives in North Carolina and they've made the decision in the state that they're gonna do virtual.

Oh, across the board?

Across the board.

Wow.

But before I make that 100%, at least for the schools, I'm gonna say at least the schools she's in, they're doing 100% virtual. I think it is a state, but—

Yeah, states do different, school districts different than others. I'm like, Texas is weird.

Yeah, they are. But, um, so, so this friend specifically, the school she teaches in, they're doing, uh, virtual, but she is a teacher and she is being required to teach from her classroom. So she's got to be at the school teaching from her classroom virtual, and they're, and they're basically doing a deal where You are, you have these virtual classrooms and you're still going to school full-time. You're kind of switching classrooms virtually, right? But the teachers are in their classroom. The problem is she's got 2 kids at home and they are required to learn from home. And her husband works.

Has to go to work.

Has to go to work. And so she just recently had to resign because she said, I can't do both. I cannot.

Yeah.

I can't have my kids home by themselves while I teach from school. And I think what's gonna wind up happening, and I don't know how this is gonna work, but I think that school districts are gonna have to pull back somehow and say, we're gonna have to give you some options because otherwise there is gonna be a shortage of teachers.

Yeah.

I'll tell you this, virtual teachers right now that are on these virtual online schools, they're the ones sitting back going, Man, I'm glad I'm doing this. They've already been, they've already been preparing this. So it's like the whole introverts unite type of thing right now. These virtual teachers are going, we got this, you know. So it's, it's crazy world now that we're living in.

One of my best friends has a homeschooling business, Shining Stars Homeschooling, if you guys want to check it out on Facebook. And she is slammed. So she used to teach stuff with me. Okay, one of my girls from back in the And she started her own homeschooling business. I used to teach for her after I stopped teaching. So I did some jobs with her homeschooling and tutoring, and she's so busy now. She's slammed. She's never been busier. She's just like, I can't believe what a big year I'm gonna have next year.

Oh man, I can't imagine.

Yes.

I've had a lot of parents just tell me they're just, they're just gonna say, nope, not going.

Yeah, right.

So yeah, I mean, just right off the bat, they're like— and like the biggest complaint I'm hearing is like, I'm not making my kids wear a mask Yeah. They won't do it.

I agree with that.

So—

I don't think it's that healthy to wear one all day, but you know, a lot of parents don't have choices. They got to go to work.

Yeah, right.

I'm an admin in a mom's group and we have these conversations all the time.

I'm glad you brought— I was just fixing to ask you about that. I would imagine this is something that's circulating around in that quite a bit.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes. Moms, moms talk. Moms got to vent. Moms get together. Yes. I'm an admin along with my friends Sarah and Alejandra and Tanya, who you know. And we, we put this group together during COVID We just decided— we, we've been really, really good friends. And Sarah's my rodent and pest girl, Alejandra does my hair, and here's Tanya, she cleans my houses, and I'm the realtor girl. And we just all got together and we talked all the time, and we said, let's start a group. So we started a group and it's called Life as a Mother.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, we kind of keep it G-rated there. It's a fun group. I mean, we keep it clean. We really do keep it clean. And we— it's just women supporting each other. And yeah, we talk about all these issues all the time. Moms are worried because, you know, they got to go to work and you've got little kids. Um, I don't know what I would do with my— if my 13-year-old were younger and I had to go to work.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm a single mom.

Yeah.

So what would I do?

So I mean, I feel for these Absolutely.

In these Facebook groups, particularly these mom groups, a lot of people don't realize that women make most of the purchase decisions for the home. There is so much commerce happening in these moms groups on Facebook. It blows me away. I'm in a few referral groups. 8 times out of 10, the referrals are coming from groups I can't be a part of. I am not allowed. That's because that's where they're going to find find the things that they need in order to take care of their home. And I imagine that's where you're picking up a lot of business as well, is from some of these mom groups that—

Yes.

You know, they're looking for somebody to trust. They're looking for somebody to look out for their interests. And you know who they're gonna ask? They're gonna ask other moms. Who have you used?

Yes. And then when you start working with some moms and other moms can tell other moms, I worked with her, she was great, or I worked with her and no, no, no, no. But no, they don't say that about me. I hope they don't say that about me. But no, no. Yeah. We all support each other. We support each other's businesses in there. We have certain days that we promote each other, but most of the time we just talk about what's going on in the world and we get to know each other. Yeah.

Yeah.

They're powerful platforms. I mean, really, for whatever interest you have. I mean, like, if you want to like LARP from Knight Rider or something, I don't know. I mean, like, you can find a group that does that probably in your area, and there'll be a thriving group on Facebook for it. But like these moms groups, these local groups in particular, I mean, there's so many. Just for like, uh, there's, uh, one of my customers, uh, he kept, he kept sending me new customers and they were all on his street. And I was like, wow, what's going on, man? He goes, dude, we have our own Facebook group for the street.

Oh wow.

I was like, you've got to be kidding me. He says, no, dude, it's awesome. That's how we communicate with one another. We refer business for each other. We, you know, we see somebody out in somebody else's house, we take a picture and post it on the group. So like, hey, what, you know, is this supposed to be here? And all this kind of stuff. It's like they just— and I think there's like maybe 20 houses on that street. And that's, that's how they, that's how they take care of one another.

Wow.

So I mean, like, they're powerful, powerful tools. So it's good that you guys, I mean, obviously started one to, you know.

Oh, it's been, it's been great. I mean, it's just grown. We're like, at the last I checked, we were like at 1,200 members.

That's awesome.

Just since maybe April, March, I'm not sure exactly when, but right when COVID was, we were staying home, we started this group. And it was just a great place to go and go talk to people. You get out of it what you put into it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I'll be up at night sometimes talking to people at 2 AM in the morning. If I'm awake and somebody needs to talk, I'm there.

Nice. That's where business happens.

Yes.

I mean, sometimes it's at 2 in the morning.

I had like 3 nurses as clients last year. So what time of the night do you think I was talking to people?

Oh my gosh.

I would wake up 3 o'clock in the morning, go to the bathroom. I'd be like, okay, she's on a break now. It's time to talk. She's found some That's right.

Is that how a lot of your clients are doing it now? They're just sending you links to pieces that they found online, or what tools are they using?

Oh, they come to me and they tell me what they want, then I find—

then you go find it for them.

I set them up, I set up searches for them. And, and I mean, I like to get in there, and sometimes with some clients they have a lot of different wishes. We might want this, we might not want this, we might want this part of town or that part of town. So I'll send multiple search to keep it really neat and organized. So if they decide they don't want something, we'll delete a search. But when they're first starting out, I'll give them everything they want. They start looking at it and then I'll tweak it if they need me to.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Cool.

Yep.

What else you got, Kev?

Oh, I mean, you've, you've done a really good job of kind of— I mean, we've kind of been all over the board as far as the deaf community goes, like understanding a little bit about the things that we don't understand to real estate and how that's impacted. I think there's a lot that we've really touched on. Is there anything that, as you were thinking about coming on the show today, that you thought, I'd really like to, you know, make sure that we talk about this? Is there anything we've missed that you want to talk about?

Can we pause now?

It's okay if you don't have anything. I'm just curious.

I'll send this to someone and then we'll come in. But this is the edit part. You're gonna cut me on a snippet on this one. Whoa!

It's okay.

Okay.

It's okay if you don't. I mean, if we've, if we've covered everything—

No, I do. I have tons. I had tons of thoughts. You know what? I've been so busy. I mean, just like constantly busy. I've been running since early this morning. So it's like, I thought today was gonna be my homework day. So start, make notes for what we can go over for the show.

And yeah.

Okay. All right. We taking a break now?

We are currently, yes.

But we can—

You're gonna put this—

We can come back. I'll ask the question again and then you can—

I think my My brain just stopped for a minute there.

That's okay.

Is there anything I wanted to talk about?

I think we should keep all of this.

Yeah. You're going to keep all of this, aren't you? Man, I'm feeling so relaxed right now. Do we have a drink or anything?

No. That's the after show. Yeah.

Yeah.

After party. After show.

Okay.

So I'll ask you again. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to yet?

You know, we've talked about a lot of things. I did want to tell You know what I love about you? That Bible verse is, if there is a splinter in your neighbor's eye— no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, back up. I used to use this on my brother. Okay, let me back up.

Not to help him, but—

I got it. I wanted to tell you this at the beginning of the show. The Bible verse is, don't complain about the splinter in your neighbor's eye when there's a log in your own.

That's right, yep.

I used to use that on my brother. It was my favorite Bible verse. I can't believe you were talking about it tonight.

It's, it's a very timely verse.

I used to use that against him all the time. It didn't really work. My brother is a youth minister, by the way. He went to Liberty University. Yes.

Did he ever get the log out?

Yeah, he's a really good guy. He's perfect. He's amazing. Yes, I'm the wild child in the family.

That's good.

Yeah, but because those logs hurt.

Yes.

Yes, they do.

But basically, you asked me if there's anything I wanted to talk about. So, I mean, you know, I'm pretty much an open book. I have a Facebook page and it's Michelle Sells Houston. I'm at 1,199 members. So if someone could like it and get me to 1,200, that would be great.

Kevin, jump on that right now.

I'll get on it right now. Absolutely. That's easy.

I post crazy stuff on it all the time. Fun stuff. I'm not one of those. I'm not hawking wares on there. It's not like— what's that channel called where they're always selling stuff?

The Home Show Network? Isn't that the one? The Home Show Network?

What is it? It's the one where—

The Q, the something.

The only thing I remember about it is the famous episode where the guy fell off the ladder he was trying to sell. It was like one of those. And he's laying there on the floor and the crew doesn't know what to do with him.

Yeah.

Could you cut to something?

That's me when you guys ask me a question I'm not studying for. Cut, cut. I know you're gonna put it up later. It's gonna be Tonya in her swing.

Yeah, we forgot to tell you, we actually can't edit any of this, so—

You better be editing a couple of things, Kevin.

To be clear, we didn't show any video of Tonya in a swing. We just put up a video of Tonya talking about a swing.

Yeah, you're welcome, Tonya.

We, yeah.

No, she is amazing. She's amazing. J&W Janitorial. They come clean my house. I get busy as a realtor. I'm single mom. She comes out there. I mean, she sends her crews. They are all the sweetest people. All the reviews out there are true. They're amazing.

Yeah.

Pretty much ever since that episode, she's been cleaning my house and it's been—

Spotless.

Yep. My, my, my wife has enjoyed me much more as a person since then.

So, uh, anything she can do. So miracle worker. Yeah, Tanya is more wonderful than most people realize then.

Yeah, she's like the biggest cheerleader, biggest champion. She's the one that made me come here today, y'all. I was talking to her right before I came here. I mean, Conroe, yay! I was just like, oh my goodness, I can't believe you're making me do this. But it's been fun.

I'm glad she did.

No, I'm thrilled that she did because like I said earlier, you have a uniqueness about you that, um, that you're willing to share and that you're, you're helping people in, in amazing ways. And so, um, man, just really, people need to know about that. They need to know about that. And I'm, I'm just thankful that you, that you did come and spend the time with us today.

It's been wonderful.

You know what, I will tell you this, okay? Um, here's the thing with me being a realtor, you know, I was always trying to figure out how do I cater to people in the hearing world where they don't see my deafness as a weakness?

Mm-hmm.

And how do I make the deaf community realize I'm one of them and I'm not trying to, you know, put on a show or anything? I'm here for you too. And there was always this big separation. And Tonya has been in my ear saying, people need to know the real you. So I guess this is the first time I've married those 2 parts of me as a real person.

Yeah.

You know, or maybe even as a person, because I'm just trying to show people I can— whoops— I can service this side and I can service this side. But I mean, it's like, I don't know that I'm trying to hide my deafness. I mean, if I take my cochlear implants off, I don't hear anything. I am deaf as a doorknob. I tell my deaf friends, I take these off and you hear things that I don't hear, I promise you. But then I put them on, I have some pretty decent hearing, and I'm talking on the cell phone now when I used to use an interpreter in order to talk So I'm able to help the hearing community.

But if there's something I have a problem understanding, I'm getting to the point where I can say, okay, you want to text me that address? That might help me, you know? Just send me that address, make sure I don't misspell it.

Sure.

But yeah, that's probably the biggest thing about me is that this is who I am. I'm deaf. I have cochlear implants. Yes, I talk on the phone. Yes, I talk. But if I take them off, I'm deaf. I sign. I'm part of the deaf community. I play softball with the— I have my friends that I hang out with all the time. We're playing all the time, deaf softball. And I mean, when we go play tournaments, just this past weekend, I mean, most of my team is deaf. And if we're not all deaf, it's because someone backed out. We had to put a hearing person in there that day.

Yeah, they're the token hearing person.

That's right. You are the token hearing person today.

They don't get the signs when they're on the bases for sure. Oh, I got that.

That's when we science you, and that's an awesome thing that hearing teams don't know what we're talking about. We do strategy out there that other people don't know. Now, that strategy fails a lot of times.

Well, because there's also this thing called execution. You have to execute.

We have great plans.

That's right.

We do.

Talk some mad trash, and they don't even know it.

They have no idea.

That's the biggest thing about me. I mean, I mean, I'm just multifaceted. Is that the right way to say that?

Absolutely.

I mispronounce a lot of words.

No, that was good.

Comes with the territory.

That was spot on.

Yeah, it was good. Well, I will tell you this, like, so, so once we, once we kind of start winding down the show, there's something that we cannot let you leave without doing. The Final Four!

The Final Four!

That's right. So we got the final 4 questions that we ask all of our clients. I say clients because I don't know why, because that's the wrong word. You talked about using the wrong word. That's the wrong word.

All our guests.

That's the one. Yep. Because we ain't charging you anything and you're not paying us anything.

Thank you for putting me on here free.

There you go.

Free advertising.

Well, this show would go away really quickly if we started charging people to come on the show. So anyway, So yes, final 4 questions we ask all of our guests. And so you do not get away without doing that. So we're going to start at the top. What is the must-have tool you will not leave your house without?

Okay, well, my phone especially. I know that comes up a lot because I have to talk to people constantly, but I have to have my processor, my cochlear implant processor. I'm not going to be able to talk to some of them.

Yeah.

Oh yes, and my keys. Half the time I've got my kid running around looking for my keys because I'm in our, you know, room looking for everything. She got my glasses, processor, keys, and go.

Yeah, no, I, I can imagine that if you don't, if you don't have that so much, I mean, that's gonna be one of the most unique things that we hear as far as a tool. That's got to be number one for you, I can imagine.

Helen Keller. You're very Where's the glasses? Where's the clearing sound?

Gotta have all the accessories.

I, I feel horrible about laughing about that right now, but it is—

You should be laughing. I'm trying to be funny.

It was, it was funny, so I'm gonna laugh.

I mean, I take my processor off and my glasses off and I am Helen Keller. I got this little bevel right here with my phone. I'm not listening to my kid.

I'm not watching So when you say processor, you're talking about the cochleas. Do you have to like recharge those at night?

Yes. Oh, and I— for my hearing clients out there, most of them know that every now and then we'll be in the middle of an inspection or something like, wait, my battery died, hang on a second, run and change them, and I'm right back there. There you go.

All right, so, so here's what I have to know, and like, this is— this just now occurred to me because I'm insensitive. How do you— I mean, like, if you're deaf, how do you set an alarm to get up in the morning?

Oh, you know the answer to this, don't you?

I know, I know I don't.

You really don't?

I really don't.

He's a lot dumber than people give him credit for.

That is absolutely true.

Okay, okay, Craig, I have that vibrating alarm clock.

Okay, is it like— do you wear like a wearable one, or—

No, it's under my mattress and shakes my bed. Really?

Like it shakes the whole bed?

They have those in motels. That's some—

that's a different tool, Kevin. Oh, okay. Sorry.

Different. Okay.

You've been to some shady hotels, man.

I just got that.

The same technology.

My clock has different levels of vibration. It can be steady or it can be intermittent or—

Okay, cool.

All right.

I didn't know.

Wow. That's something we need to ask our friend William about whenever we get him on the show for mattresses.

Yep.

Definitely.

And the clock— OK, so the clock, you can put this little bed shaker underneath the bed, underneath the mattress, and you can also plug in a lamp. So you can have a flashing light and shake the bed. Shaking the bed wakes me up. I'm just like, oh!

Totally.

It'll wake me up.

I don't need the light, too.

I would think that smartwatches could really help with that though.

Yeah, some of my friends use smartwatches and wake up with their vibrating alarms on them.

It wakes me up.

I have a deaf dog. I didn't tell you all about my deaf dog.

Really?

Yes, she's my second deaf dog. I don't ever want anything but a deaf dog. They're so much fun. In fact, when I see a hearing dog, I start signing to them and I'm like, oh wait, they can hear. She's got all kinds of signs. She's so cool.

Really?

But she'll get on my bed and that thing goes off and she just ignores it. She just keeps on sleeping.

What kind of dog is it?

A Catahoula.

Catahoula?

Yeah.

I love Catahoulas.

They're awesome.

Yeah, they're smart.

Oh, and stubborn. And yeah, they're shady too.

Most people don't understand that a stubborn dog is actually a sign of intelligence.

Oh, she's smart. She's smart. I love her. When I first got her, I saw her, y'all. She— I saw her. I saw her on Facebook in a rescue group and I said, I'll take her. And she was in Tennessee, like me, from Tennessee. So Pallets and Paws, 2 pallets, flew her all the way to Katy. And this whole group was following me to wait for her success story.

Oh, wow.

She was off the streets.

Oh, wow.

She ate the kitchen door.

Oh, gosh.

She ate my processor, a really expensive processor.

Oh my goodness.

She ate my glasses. She ate something like— I think she ate the toilet handle off. Oh my God. And I had to sleep with her for about a month separated from my cats so she didn't kill them. And finally she calmed down, and I've had her for several years now, and she's the best dog ever. I love her. My ex and I share custody of her. Yeah, like if I go out of town, he takes her with my son.

Nice.

Oh wow.

Yes.

That's awesome.

Yes.

Okay, well, we gotta go to the second question. Okay, so what's a job you've walked away from? Now, if, if you remember, we discussed this. It could be a career if you wanted to. We were, you know, original thought behind it was maybe there was something at your house you were working on, and you said, I gotta call in the big guns. So either way you want to take it, what's a job you walked away from?

Daffodil.

Okay.

Yes, I did. I did.

What, what was it that caused you to finally walk away from that?

I mean, my heart's still in it. I'm not against going back at some point, maybe. I have lifetime certification in deaf ed, so I fell under the grandfather clause. I was that last year when I got that certification. I've got lifetime certification.

I think any school would be hard-pressed to see that you're unqualified.

No doubt. No doubt.

I mean, I loved it, but at the time I got married, I wanted something different, and I started a home business with my ex-husband and we did remodeling. Then we got into hardwood floor business. And so my Houston handyman, if you want to give him a shout out, that's James Deloney. You can give that guy a call. I mean, he does great hardwood floors. It's his business now. It's not mine. And he's engaged to this great girl named Cherie and she has a florist business, but he's still doing that. But anyway, we got into that. We started that business and I started advertising for him and marketing for him. And I was watching a lot of HGTV. I had a baby at home and I thought you could just show 3 houses

and you could sell one. I watched House Hunters all the time. Y'all know that most of the time they've already bought the house. I found that out later. It's like finding out Santa's not real.

Yeah.

But anyway, so—

Wait, wait, wait, wait, what?

You didn't know that?

What?

Nobody told you?

Oh crap.

No, but I mean, I fell in love with that and I actually went to school at HCC and took real estate classes. You might be surprised to know I almost have a real estate degree, an associate degree. But I took a break for a while, and by the time I finally went into real estate after we separated, and I decided I've got to get into this now. It wasn't just gonna be about our family business anymore. I needed to do something on my own.

Yeah.

So I took the test and everything, and I'm like, okay, I need to get my hours transferred over from UT And Chattanooga. And, um, and so it all got screwed up. And then they required one more class for me to have that degree. So I really want to go get it, even though it means absolutely nothing but a 2-year degree in real estate. You know, nobody ever picks you out as a realtor because you got a 2-year degree in real estate, but I almost have one. I need one more class.

There you go. Get it done for sure. Awesome. All right.

Third question.

How do you wind down at the end of a long Is my son home or is my son not home?

Oh yeah, either one.

Which one winds you down more?

Yeah, well, actually I get more tired if my son is home. No, he's just a little hurricane. No, he's awesome. Um, we— okay, at the end of a long day, we eat dinner and clean up and everything, and then we just want to veg out on the sofa. But then we pick out a TV show that we watch. And sometimes they've been a little too grown up. Yeah, he picks them out. He picked out The Office, and I have never watched that. And I mean, it's been popular for years.