Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

From Socks To Sales: Building A Real Estate Routine That Works with Tim Garrity

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 345

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On this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend and industry peer, Tim Garrity—a Philly real estate leader known for relentless consistency, content-driven marketing, and building a business that serves both his clients and his life. We dig into the habits that actually move the needle (hello, 5 AM start times and “eat the frog”), why consistency beats intensity, how to win in a tough market, and the mindset shift every agent needs to make before Q1.

Key Takeaways

  • Consistency is the advantage. 15 years of a monthly email—missed maybe two. The pros don’t stop just because results are delayed.
  • Do the hard thing first. “Eat the frog” mornings: knock out the highest-impact work before lunch or it probably won’t happen.
  • Content compounds. Newsletters, podcasts, YouTube, blogs—value out = opportunities in. Tim runs mornings like a content studio.
  • Efficiency creates freedom. Home gym, home office, tight routines—minutes saved become hours invested in family and focused work.
  • Tough market? Double down. Talk to more people. Follow up more. Use downtime to analyze, cut waste, and plan your next moves.
  • Mindset > everything. It’s personal development in disguise. Who do you need to become to have what you want?
  • Integrity never goes out of style. Do the right thing when nobody’s watching—clients feel it, results reflect it.
  • End-of-year push matters. While others coast from Halloween to holidays, add gas. Fill the pipeline and jump-start Q1.

Memorable Quotes

  • Maria: “It takes what it takes.”
  • Tim: “Use your downtime to your advantage.”

Episode Highlights

  • Daily rhythm: 5 AM start, home workout, school drop-off, content blocks 8AM–noon
  • Why 20 real conversations a day still wins—and how long it actually takes
  • “Tiny hinges swing big doors”: coffee, commute, and micro-saves that add up
  • How to plan now if next year is slower: cut dead spend, play to your strengths, get accountability
  • Content as a magnet: show up with real value, not noise—then let the flywheel spin
  • Market reality check: prices high, costs high, buyers stretched—be the adult in the room with data and strategy
  • Year-end directive: blinders on—content, calls, texts, emails—stack the deck for Q4 closings and a strong Q1

Guest — Contact & Links

Tim Garrity — Founder, The Tim Garrity Team (Licensed in PA & NJ); Associate Broker at Real.


 Areas served: Philadelphia & Suburbs, Southern NJ Shore & Suburbs.

  • Licenses: PA Associate Broker; NJ Broker Salesperson.


Consistency isn’t sexy—it’s decisive. Do the work, day in and day out. If you’re serious about finishing the year strong, now’s the time to tighten your routine, increase your conversations, and make your follow-up unmissable. Be the Solution—to your clients, your team, and your future self.

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Maria Quattrone:

This is going to be a fantastic episode of the Be the Solution podcast with Tim Garrity. Tim and I have known each other in the Philadelphia real estate market for gosh, I guess it's like probably 15 years or so.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

We've been in the industry 15 years, and I'm 22 years in. So yeah, it's been some time. And life changes and things happen. So I'm excited to talk with you this morning, Tim. So welcome to the show.

Tim Garrity:

Thanks for having me, Maria. Appreciate it.

Maria Quattrone:

Absolutely. We were just talking in the with behind the scenes in the green room. I was talking about, we were talking about consistency and the lack of, quite frankly, in this industry. And I know that's something that I do well and you do very well as well. And if people would just follow the follow the process, right?

Tim Garrity:

Exactly.

Maria Quattrone:

Be consistent, do the work day in, day out. And you know, it could be days, it could be weeks, and could have nothing happen.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah. Could be years.

Maria Quattrone:

You know, it could be three weeks and you're calling every day and you're making your 20 conversations a day, which is what I think. If you don't have a massive book of business, and I mean massive book of business, you got to do 20 conversations a day. I even aim for 20 conversations a day. And it takes me a while because a lot of conversations, like I did 10 conversations on Monday, and it took me what two hours and 20 minutes of talk time in between the, you know, that doesn't include dialing. But on average, it takes three and a half hours to four hours to make 20 real conversations. Day in, day out.

Tim Garrity:

Every day, gotta hustle. Yeah, I mean, consistency for me, a lot of what I look at, Maria, for consistency is really I'm like a foundational, like fundamental kind of guy. Um, I like numbers. I was in the mortgage business for a little less than a decade, but I don't like numbers. It's not a passion of mine, like people are a passion of mine. And I think um I was at, you know, like our realtor associations, they'll do like annual meetings and stuff like that. Um, I went to an annual meeting a few years ago. I can't remember the guest speaker's name, and he was telling a story about John Wooden, who was the UCLA basketball coach, and he said one of his big things was that when his players would come in, he would say, Take your shoes off. They would take their shoes off, and their socks would be like all over the place, like bunched up and whatever. And he was like, No, no, no, no. I'm gonna show you how to put your socks on. Once I teach you how to put your socks on, you're gonna put them on like this every day, and you won't get blisters and you'll reduce injury just by how you wear your socks. And that's that's kind of that always stuck with me because that's that's how I am. I'm very much into I don't go 10 steps ahead. I I stick with the foundational things. I mean, you and I are even on this podcast because I send a monthly email newsletter and we reconnect it over that. And I have been doing my monthly email newsletter for 15 years, and I've maybe missed a month or two uh because no one's perfect, but that is that is the definition of consistency for me. I just don't stop, and and I find a lot of value in it, and I get better at it, so that's why I do it.

Maria Quattrone:

15 years of the newsletter, that's remarkable. Yeah, great work.

Tim Garrity:

Thank you.

Maria Quattrone:

Great work. What is your daily, what does your day look like? Is it the same every day and your what you do? Or you know, I think the right now we're sitting in October of 2025, and right now it is it's tough. Yeah, real estate is brutal. I would say kind of like a little bit in a different way though, like 15 years ago.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got in in 2010, so I got in after the 2008 meltdown.

Maria Quattrone:

In 2010, we were still in full swing of a recession.

Tim Garrity:

It was awful. Like I got in and there was just no business. But but that's a good thing. Like, all right, so let's talk about let's talk about two things. Let's talk about what I do in a day, and then let's talk about being in the tough market we're in. So, consistency again for my daily routine. I'm up at five every day. Uh, I take my time in the morning, you know. I wake up, I brush my teeth like everyone. I go downstairs. I have a home gym, so I'm a very efficient person. I work out of the house, it saves me 30 to 60 minutes every day of driving and walking and nonsense just to get to the first piece of equipment. So I work out out of the house, I make my coffee at home because Kevin O'Leary said his cup of coffee only costs less than 20 cents, and you're gonna pay 10 or 20 times that at Starbucks.

Maria Quattrone:

Um, you know, yeah, I got a I'll get a black eye iced iced yesterday. It was seven dollars, and not at Starbucks, at the coffee shop Ultima.

Tim Garrity:

Don't get me wrong. I love getting coffee out, but no 95% of what I drink is at home.

Maria Quattrone:

It was seven dollars and eighty-nine cents. The the can of Colombian coffee that I we get, my husband buys at Trader Joe's for me, I think is fifteen dollars and it's massive. It's like this big.

Tim Garrity:

I'll last you a month.

Maria Quattrone:

It lasts probably three weeks-ish, maybe maybe longer, depending. But that's it you know, I'm gonna go back for a second. It's the little tiny things, tiny hinges from the big doors. Back to the coffee.

Tim Garrity:

Like think about think about how much money you save, how much time you save, how many calories you save by literally just controlling your cup of coffee every day. So I have my coffee, I have a breakfast every day. I wake up with my daughter five days a week. She's seven years old. I drive her to school five days a week. I'm not doing it today because we're on a podcast at 7:30 in the morning, which I love. So I had to skip today, which is perfectly fine. I have to skip, skip it here and there, but 99% of the time, I take my daughter to school five days a week. It's five minutes down the road. Then when I come home, it's usually around like eight o'clock. I go right up to my home office, and the first thing I do is I clear out all of my emails and my text messages from the day before. So I go through rather than get in all the nonsense that's already come across my plate, you know, since I went to bed last night, I go to the day before, I comb through all my emails, I comb through all my text messages, and I make sure that if I miss something, that I respond first thing today. So I'm getting back to everyone typically within 24 hours or less. And then once I get through all that, I already have a full day because, like you, we were talking about you you have conversations every day. That's that's part of your routine. It takes you a couple hours every day. That's what you do to drive your business. I'm a content marketer. The email newsletter is content, my podcast is content. You know, I'm slowly building out my own YouTube channel. That's content. I have a blog on my website, I have social media on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. All of that is content. So I traditionally focus my entire morning from eight until about lunchtime on content, and that's all different things. So there's uh on my podcast, my buddy Sean, he's the book reader. I'm not, I'm more of like a visual uh learner. And he one podcast episode, he's like, Eat the frog. I'm like, okay, never heard that, but tell me what it is.

Maria Quattrone:

Brian Tracy.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah. Again, I don't read these things. So he's like, eat the frog. I said, What what is what does that mean to you? And he said, Do the hardest thing or things of your day in the morning, like get them done before lunch. Because if you do the easy things or you're doom scrolling, or you're just DMing about, you know, uh the dinner you had last night with one of your best friends, there's nothing wrong with that, but you're gonna look up at the clock, it's gonna be 11, 11:30, and you haven't got anything done yet. Then you're like, okay, lunchtime. And then you eat something for lunch, and guess what? You're not getting a ton of important things done at 12:30, 1 o'clock if that's the way your day went. If you start your day with intention, with exercise, with health in mind, you know, for me, family is the most important thing. So I take care, make sure my family's good before I get started. Then I'm ready to rock. I got nothing standing in my way, and then I just plow through my work.

Maria Quattrone:

Were you in the military?

Tim Garrity:

I was not.

Maria Quattrone:

Um you have a lot of uh like military habits.

Tim Garrity:

No, I don't have that. I think it's my uh like it it's a resemblance of yeah, on my mom's side, again, uh my grandfather was in the military. He was a pretty organized guy. My mom's organized. I've always just been organized, and consistency, I feel like, also plays into like self-discipline because if you can be consistent, then you can pull yourself away from the temptations of getting away from your workday and stick to what you have to do until it's done. And then once it's done, if you're done at two o'clock in the afternoon, you can kind of mess around and do whatever you want. Oh, you know, I gotta get some laundry done, or I gotta go pick something up, or I gotta grab some groceries, or maybe I'm cooking tonight and I do cook. Maybe I'm cooking tonight. All right, I'll get started on dinner, you know. So things like that. Like, I just look at it as the consistency is what nine out of ten people struggle with. And organization, I feel like, is a little bit more of I feel like like an inherited like gift, like it's in my genes, even though you can learn to be organized, you can also learn to be consistent. So I think it goes back to the John Wooden example. It's about the socks. Like, don't come out on the court and start stretching if your feet are gonna get all banged up in the first half hour. Take your shoes off. Let's make sure you look good, and then I'll show you how to tie them, and then your feet won't get messed up. You're gonna have a great practice just by checking your socks. So that's that is a very good analogy of just how I look at my life. It's like focus on the what is the front line, what is most important, what's gonna prevent other issues, and do that. And once you do that, you're gonna knock out a lot of the other crap.

Maria Quattrone:

So good, and so true. Getting the things the most if you don't get the important things done first in the morning, chances of them happening are slimmed and on your cut because some fire over here, another fire over there. Next thing you know, it's dinner time. One of the things I talk about to him, like especially now, is it takes what it takes. It takes what it takes. That doesn't mean there was somewhere along the line where people said work was nine to five. But if you don't get the work done from nine to five because you didn't really work, it takes what it takes. You could put five people in the same room with the same phone, with the same people to call them, it won't make it won't make the calls the other person will. In this case, I'm using that analogy. Same amount of time, same amount of opportunity. And it's you know, for some reason, a difficult thing for people to do. And I'm not sure if it's lack of discipline or lack of focus or lack of really wanting something. Because if you really want something, you'll find a way.

Tim Garrity:

Do you know Josh? Do you know Josh Bucter, Wolf of Broadstreet?

Maria Quattrone:

Excuse me.

Tim Garrity:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Apple edit the section, please. Josh, yes, I do.

Tim Garrity:

Josh Bucter, Wolf of Broadstreet. He was on our podcast, Bricks and Risk, with me and Sean Mooney. And there's two things he said that I absolutely love. The first one was your vibe attracts your tribe. So be yourself, be authentic, you know, share your passions with people. I'm a content guy. I share what I like, I share the music I like. I like 90s grudge grunge music. I like hip hop, you know, I like uh I like electronic music from the early 2000s, I like nirvana, I like heavy metal, like I share that with people because that's what I like, and that's that's who I am. But the second thing I said relates to what you just um talked about is there's beauty in the struggle, and there is, because it's not about getting to the top of the mountain. You get to the top of mountain, you're like, okay, now what? Yes, there's nowhere, there's nowhere more to go. I'm here. Guess I gotta go back down. Like the struggle is the climb, and there's beauty in that because in the struggle, in the climb, in the grind, you know, it takes what it takes, like you said, you learn, you make mistakes, and then you learn from them, and then you have successes and you learn from those. So your failures and your successes have to happen every day if you want to grow as a person, professionally and personally. So being open to making mistakes, finding beauty in the struggle, it just that line really hit home with me. And I'm like, it's just that's how I look at it. There's some people be like, what? That doesn't make any sense. No problem. You know, we don't see eye to eye. But maybe you get your seven dollar coffee every day, and I'm making it for 20 cents. Again, that's and that's fine. We can agree to disagree. But when he said those two things, especially with a year and a half ago, we were talking about I ran an independent brokerage for about 10 years, and I pivoted from that because the partnership ended. And when I pivoted, I pivoted into a very small real estate team with basically myself and my brother Ryan Garretti. And as I'm like doing my content marketing, I'm like, oh, I have to like rebrand myself. I was like the broker of record and the COO, if you want to call it, at Copper Hill Real Estate. But I never stopped practicing. I've been practicing for 15 years. Now I'm the leader of the Tim Garretty team. Well, well, what is that? And what are you doing? And who do you help? And like we were talking, what what kind of deals do you do? And so I've been spending the last year and a half just just building that brand and doing the podcast, doing bricks and risk. I've just talked to so many amazing human beings. You could probably agree with this. You just get so many great little like affirmations and nuggets, and you're just like, oh, that's so good. Like, I'm totally like that. Or you know what? Thank you for sharing that because that is the complete opposite of me. Like, I'm not like that. That's not the way I see it, and that's fine. Like, we can always agree to disagree. And I think like beauty in the struggle is just such a great line because it does, it takes what it takes. Like sometimes I get up at five and I'm still, you know, writing a contract or dot knives and crossing T's at 9:30, 10 o'clock at night. But guess what? I still drove my daughter to school, I still ate three meals in a day. I sat down to dinner with my family. You know, I was able to help around the home because I work out of the home. So I just have such an efficient business that my travel time here or there to the gym, to work, to this, to that, and the other thing, I save hours in a day by just literally working out of my house.

Maria Quattrone:

I love that. And I do believe it's the joy of the journey. And there is no mountaintop because when you get there, you think you've arrived. But there is no such thing.

Tim Garrity:

Agreed.

Maria Quattrone:

What you want it you achieved, like, and it's easy to say, okay, I want to make X, and then when you get X, that's the mountaintop, but it's really not. You just never you never stop growing. And every day we have a huddle at 8 30 on the phone, a conference call. And yesterday I said this business is about personal development. It's about who do you need to become to have what you want? Because it's within us, and that's why the podcast is called Be the Solution. It's within us. There's no outside that's gonna change in here. And who do what do you need to let go of? And what do you need to stop doing or start doing? And a lot of it comes from you know, things way back that weren't dealt with, and working through that, understanding, you know, realizing that we are all connected in some way. We are people think that we're not in world energy. So the energy that we're going to put out there into the world, you know, we don't always get the same energy back. Some sometimes we do, and we always don't. But you get to decide what you're gonna portray to everybody else with your energy.

Tim Garrity:

I love that.

Maria Quattrone:

And so it's about you know the day. What it's today, because this is what we got. You know, this year, Tim, I have had not people extremely close to me, but acquaintances, um friends from a distance. I seen a lot of people that are around my age die. I mean just two weeks ago, somebody else died. She's 57. I didn't even know she was 57. I thought she was a little bit older than that. But all these people in their mid-50s, 50 to it getting like 55 was the average. I'm 55. I'm like it's it's kind of freaks you out a bit. You know, I love your story that you're you you pivoted, you're building your own brand, you're living your life, you're so efficient. You know, and and every time, you know, you said I have somebody on the show, I always get like, I'm like, hmm, maybe I should work for I don't work from home. I go I walk to my office.

Tim Garrity:

Yes, just as good.

Maria Quattrone:

Seven minutes away, but yeah, on foot. But like I would be more efficient if I just worked from home. You know, maybe this house, a new house. Then I'm like, oh, I could get a gym. Yeah, I could get a gym too. I could we could just pack it all up and get that, you know, sell everything.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, isn't it funny? Like in our industry, like you meet people and they're like, Where's your office at? And I'm like, You're looking at it. This is this is this is the home office next to my foyer in my house.

Maria Quattrone:

Oh, when you walk in the front door, you go.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, it's like one of the it's like a 30-year-old, yeah, 30-year-old, like newish construction home, let's call it in the Philly area. And you walk in, it's like center stairs, living room, and home office to the right. And people are like, Well, where do you have closings? I'm like, there's two offices, and one one's 25 minutes away, and that's the far one. But I do that because I do a lot of business in Philly, so it's convenient for my clients, and one's 10 minutes away if I need it, and I don't need it. Like, I'm I'm more the type of guy that because I focus more on content, and like you said, putting energy out into the world, good vibes, valuable stuff, you know, telling people where to go out and get their fall vibes at, you know, just saying, here's a good restaurant, like go check it out, or like, did you know that like curb appeal adds like 10 to 15 percent of value to the home that you already live in? So just freaking paint it and put some landscaping in, like things like that. I do that stuff because I just want to help people, and I feel like when I help people, this is my own experience, it comes back to you tenfold. If you are genuine on actually providing value to people's lives, it just comes back your way. I have put so much energy out there, like you said, and it's never come back. Or people have taken it, they'll take it and they'll run away with it. They're like, thanks for that freebie, Tim. See you later. No problem. It doesn't make me want to stop giving back to people in my life. I mean, my email list for my monthly email is like over 3,000 people, like you said. I got a pretty good captive audience that if I stand in front of them every month and I provide them with value, the numbers work out that certain people in your network are going to either buy, sell, rent, or invest in real estate, that people will just reach out and say, Tim, I have this, or Tim, I have that. Can you help me? And the answer is always yes. So I go where the business takes me. If it's in Bucks County, I go there. If it's in southern Chester County, I go there. If it's in South Philly, I go there. If it's across the bridge in, you know, Siclerville, I go there. So that's that's why I'm licensed in PA in Jersey. That's why I put content out into the world. And it just, I think one of the greatest feelings that I learned from like being in corporate America to now being in real estate is like the most valuable thing to me in my life with like where I am in real estate and pivoting to a team and all that is just like freedom and flexibility. Like my wife works, she's got a fantastic job. So I'm very fortunate to have that. But it doesn't mean I don't have to bust my ass every day to make sure we can live in a home like this, we can save for retirement, we can send our daughter to a good school, we can go on vacation once, maybe twice a year. I mean, I have family all over the country from her family, so we fly to different places in the country multiple times a year. Like you can't do all that unless you work hard. And my choice of of hard is I'm gonna put content into the world. It's a strength of mine, and it'll just come back tenfold.

Maria Quattrone:

Content's king. Content is king. I've done I have like over two thousand videos on YouTube.

Tim Garrity:

Wow, do you two thousand?

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah, I think there's over two thousand.

Tim Garrity:

That's fantastic.

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah. So now I just hired a company to kind of dial it all in for me because I do have tons of content. It just needs to be dialed in properly. And I'm not that that's not me. I'm like, you know, I'm the actress. I like I'm not the one, like, I'm not, I'm not the behind the scenes kind of person.

Tim Garrity:

You're not the director.

Maria Quattrone:

I'm not the director. I'm the talent. And then that's it. I'm like, okay.

Tim Garrity:

Next, what's the next what's the next film we're doing, huh?

Maria Quattrone:

Yeah, what's the next film we're doing? It's funny though, because that's what I I actually wanted to be an actress when I was little. Nice. But my my con my videos aren't acting. This is me. I mean I'm just like a straight shooter. It is what it is. Sometimes, you know, people get mad. They don't like hearing the truth, but I don't like being a liar, so and I don't like that more than telling you the truth. No integrity. Integrity is something that's huge. Do the right thing when nobody's looking. And that's something you know nobody can ever take from you. They take everything else. Your money, your time, your energy. They can't take your integrity away.

Tim Garrity:

100%.

Maria Quattrone:

I think that's something really, really important in the world today.

Tim Garrity:

Agreed.

Maria Quattrone:

So you're we know you're organized. You're a content king. What what what's what what would feedback would you give somebody today in the market that we're in? Because it's tough.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah. No, I would agree. Um, this does kind of remind me of when I got into the business like 2010, where it's like no one wants to do anything. Like, you know, like you said, you're having conversations every day. You're making 10 or 20 calls or Zooms or you're finding a ways to connect with 10 to 20 people a day, and you're asking them, how's life? You know, how's your family? You know, how's your home? How are your investments? You know, you're asking these questions, I'm assuming. And um, this market's similar where it's like, you know, stock market's at an all-time high, the price of real estate's at an all-time high, the cost of you know, going to the grocery store or you know, just putting gas in your car or utilities or clothing or whatever. They're all going out to eat, like all this, all this stuff insane expense. $7 for for a coffee drink is like is nuts. So that's where we're at. So what, in my opinion, it's gonna have to go back the other way. It can't stay the stock markets. The Dow is not gonna go up to $100,000. Like, uh Bitcoin is not gonna go up to $500. It's just it's not gonna happen. So, what's gonna happen? It's usually there's either like a slow uh bend back to reality, or there's a break back to reality. Something has to break in order for things. This is what happened in 2008. The mortgage market was effed, like too many bad loans, too many not qualified homeowners, and too many adjustable rate mortgages until all the rates started adjusting, all the values went down, no one could sell their real estate, everyone started doing short sales and foreclosures. That was a break. So the market broke, and that's how it broke.

Maria Quattrone:

So the market broke then, right? But there were telltale signs at the end of 06 and sorry. It in 07. It started at the end of 06. The people at N7 would not listen. They would not listen. I would tell them you please, please adjust it now. You will make more, I mean, less money later. If you can sell it. Some did, and guess what? They thanked me, and others did not do it.

Tim Garrity:

And lost it all.

Maria Quattrone:

I tried to warn people. See, you know, the media doesn't, the news, the bullshit news, I call them, they don't report on what's happening in real time. The government doesn't report what's happening in real time. The only people in this industry that know what's happening in real time is us, the brokers.

Tim Garrity:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Because we're boots on the ground. It's like I said, do you really know what happens in the war in Afghanistan or wherever? I'm just using that. Really what they're doing? When they were there. Day to day. Do you know what is going on? No, nobody knows. They only show you the highlight reel. It's the same thing. Real estate.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, no, I agree with all that. I have I have no idea where this is gonna go. What I will say is it's probably gonna be a little bit more of a bend just because there's a lot of fundamental wealth right now in like people with equity in their homes. Like if you look at equity stats across the country, like how much equity there is, it's really from the baby boomer generation that they just paid off their mortgages and they're sitting on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of equity. And they're just like, I don't need to sell, I don't need to leave, so I'm fine. So I think if things break, I think there's a lot to fall back on because prices could drop 10, 20, 30 percent, and and a lot of people would still be fine, they would just be cashing out on their investment or investments now and moving on with their next stage in life now versus five years, 10 years, never. So um, it's probably gonna be more something like that just because there's a lot of wealth in the economy right now. I don't think there's a whole lot of risky loans. The one thing I think that could throw off real estate without anyone seeing it coming, is is the job market. Like, here's a great example. We're in Philly. Did you read the news that Iron Hill Brewery like filed for bankruptcy? Did you see that?

Maria Quattrone:

Oh, yeah. They closed every location.

Tim Garrity:

This place has been around for like 30, 40 years, however long it was. Like, great place. There's one in Chestnut Hill, like less than 10 minutes away from me. All of a sudden, they're just like, Yeah, we're in like mounds of debt, and we're not making enough money to pay back our creditors. We're done. So I think there's probably gonna be some of that coming down the road. Like you said, I think if right now it's people are just like, no, everything's cool, like unemployment's all-time low, you know, home prices are steady, people have equity.

Maria Quattrone:

Well, think about this. Do you know? I don't know very many companies that are hiring. We're not hiring for employees, you know, for commissioned salespeople, that's a different story. I I I'm looking at how do you cut expenses? How do you bring more salespeople on? Yeah, there's more credit card debt than ever. Do you know FICO scores dropped to 2009?

Tim Garrity:

I did not know that.

Maria Quattrone:

So even people that have money, and I'm not saying wealthy, I'm not talking about the very, very wealthy people. I'm talking about people, regular people that even do have money are strapped because a lot of people live above at their means or above their means.

Tim Garrity:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Right? The whole theory of keeping up with the Joneses. Oh, we gotta have a Range Rover, gotta live in a $1.5 million house. You know, they make three four hundred thousand dollars. Three, four hundred thousand dollars now is nothing.

unknown:

Right.

Maria Quattrone:

Not for that lifestyle, not for that lifestyle. Think about it, we went to dinner, three of us. My husband and I, and our friend of ours that was in town last week. The bill was four hundred and thirty dollars. I had two wines. I think my husband had two drinks, and our friend didn't have any. That's outrageous for a Wednesday night dinner.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

I mean that's outrageous. $120 or whatever it is, $30 a person for dinner. I didn't even have a full dinner. I had two appetizers and new dessert.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, it's just the cost of the thing.

Maria Quattrone:

I mean, things are really expensive and expensive, yeah. And here's the thing like the sellers might have money because it's in their house, right? But the buyers don't have any. And if the buyers don't have money, and they're the people buying the house, and the move up buyer isn't there because they won't sell the house.

Tim Garrity:

Right.

Maria Quattrone:

It's it's a lot of people doing nothing right now.

Tim Garrity:

Agreed.

Maria Quattrone:

But there's always going to be somebody, so that's the whole thing. The whole thing is talk to more people and it takes what it takes. Talk to a client, an old client I haven't done business with in years because he was doing commercial real estate and decided he wanted to get back into building duplexes. Nobody's building. Do you know that there I pulled a Philadelphia County land list yesterday? Guess how many parcels are on the market? Any idea?

Tim Garrity:

No idea.

Maria Quattrone:

Fifteen hundred and three. I went I got through two hundred and sixty-eight. And I sent him five out of that many that he can purchase. Two hundred and sixty-eight I went through. So you know, it takes what it takes. I would I I am preaching this to him. I said October till Christmas, hunker down, blinders on, give it all you got. Give it all you got every day. Content, calls, whatever you need to do, text, emails, as much as you can do because you will get some business to close for this year left, and you'll build 20 and Q1 and Q1's always our slowest quarter. So if you can get ahead of it, and I'm not saying saying like, oh, we never, you know, I'm saying it extra for this year because most people come Halloween, take like you know, they go on the slow boot, they people slow down, don't slow down this year. Put the time in, put more time in. Get ahead. Because when other everybody else is slowing down, you will be people that still want to do something, that we still want to transact. Be that one who they they call, they talk to because you're out there, you put yourself out there, you're following up, you're doing the work. The fortune's in the follow-up.

Tim Garrity:

Yeah, I would say one thing I learned from 2010 getting into the business to being right around now, because it it kind of feels a little similar with just the slowness, let's call it, is um use your downtime to your advantage. Because people, when they're slow, they just like, oh, well, that just gives me gives me more time to like clean my house, let's say. It's not to say like having a clean home is not a good thing. It's that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if you're in real estate, you work for yourself, you're 1099, you're a small business owner, I don't care which way anyone looks at it. So therefore, the only one that's going to be responsible for your success when it comes down to it is yourself. So when there's downtime, that's your opportunity to either, like you said, make more calls, create more content, andor what I preach every day is start planning now for next year. What if the end of the year keeps being slow? And what if next year is slower than this year? It's totally possible. If that's possible, you know, plan for the worst and expect the best. So keep a positive mindset, but use this time to be like, all right, why did I only do X amount of volume this year? Or why am I still paying for that lead source? Or why am I still spending my time on this? This is the time to sit down and analyze what you're already doing, and it gives you the opportunity to start brainstorming on what you can do for next year. And I meet so many people that I say these kinds of things. They're like, Well, how am I supposed to do that? I can't brainstorm on my on my own. I'm like, okay, what's your marketing budget? Yeah, or they'll say, I'll say, What's your marketing budget? Oh, you know, I'm spending $500 a month on this. Here's what you do you cut that and you go pay someone. I don't care who you pay, pay someone $500 a month, find someone who will pay that, who will charge that amount, and have them be your accountability coach. Have them be the one, you know, as a sounding board. I mean, chat GPT, yes, is fantastic, but some people just need a human, they need to talk to someone and say, here's my struggle. They need they need to be emotional with someone, they need to say what their problems are. This is why I keep cleaning my house and not doing my work. Because I just can't wrap my mind around it. Then go pay a coach, someone to lift your spirits up and help you get more accountable with your business toward the end of this year and into next year. And it'll be the best $500 a month you've ever spent because someone will tell you where your where your shortcomings are, but they'll also tell you what your strengths are, and they'll be the one to say, instead of doing this, do that. And if you can do that in 2026, you're probably gonna see results because you're naturally a content person, or you're you're naturally good on the phone, or you're naturally good in person, or you're naturally good in video or email or whatever, whatever your strengths are, someone will tell you how to use those strengths, but then that's where the consistency comes in. It's really still gonna be up to you to follow through with that and do well.

Maria Quattrone:

Back to the number one thing: being consistent, day in, day out, and if you need to switch things up, switch them up, switch them up now.

Tim Garrity:

Exactly.

Maria Quattrone:

It's great having you on the show today, Tim. You keep being the solution for you, your family, your clients. Love it, and I I I love the name of your podcast too.

Tim Garrity:

Thanks, Maria. I appreciate you having me on, appreciate you reaching out. This was great.

Maria Quattrone:

My pleasure.