RE: Real Estate Podcast

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (00:00)
Happy New Year! Hey, this is the first episode that we're recording after the new year, so we thought we'd get together and say Happy New Year and talk to you about how we both ended our 2025.

Welcome to another episode of the RE Real Estate Podcast. I'm your host Clint Galliano and with me is co-host Ben Harang We're sitting over here. We had a legislative update luncheon through Louisiana Realtors today. We learned some interesting information and some stuff that may be coming up on the legislative docket, but you know, that remains to be seen how that turns out. How you doing today, Ben?

Ben Harang (00:57)
I'm doing terrific today. They tell me we have a little weather coming in this weekend and things are gonna cool off. We're in the beginning of January right now and I think we're gonna get to 80 degrees today and we're gonna have a high on Sunday I think at a mid 50s so it should be a 25 degree.

difference in the highs between today and Sunday. So we definitely getting a little, a little chill.

How you doing today, Clint?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (01:25)
I'm doing wonderful, How about you?

Ben Harang (01:29)
doing terrific. So what we're talking about today?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (01:35)
All right, so we figured since this is our first episode that we're recording after the new year, that we'll go ahead and kind of just do a quick recap of how we each finished out the year as far as our real estate business and things that we have going on in our lives that were kind of decided at the end of last year. ⁓ So I'll let you kick it off.

Ben Harang (01:56)
Mm-hmm.

Um, uh, I finished a year about where I usually am somewhere between four and $5 million in sales production. Um, keeps me busy as I want. I help, uh, 20 or so people find houses to live in. Um, and I just keep on doing what I do.

On a personal level, I decided to run for the Thibodaux City Council. My city councilman unfortunately passed away last year. And there's a special election on May 16th with qualifying in the middle of February. So we'll see what happens there. It'll be interesting. It's the third time I run for political office. I'm 0 for 2.

And I'm 0 for 3, I'm OK. If I'm 1 and 2, I'm OK. So would you see what happens? So you have some things going on professionally that you stepped up to do. So why you tell us about it?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (03:10)
Yeah, that was interesting. So for the last few years, I've been involved in the Bayou Board of Realtors, serving the board and membership committee and such. And this year I was nominated to be president-elect for 2026. And that has come to pass. ⁓ So of the Bayou Board of Realtors.

Ben Harang (03:28)
of the Bayou Board of Realtors.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (03:31)
And what I've also found out is that along with that, because I'm president-elect, I'm also serving on the Louisiana Realtors Board. So it's kind of a dual position, if you will.

Ben Harang (03:45)
Imagine they don't tell you the whole truth when they ask you to do something.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (03:49)
They tell me to say, you could be real busy. It's like, are you sure you want to do it?

Ben Harang (03:54)
Yes you will be. Yes you will be.

That's good. I'm glad somebody good is gonna be in there.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (04:00)
It's a, I'm excited about it. Kind of the way it works is that you kind of get a, I guess you get the equivalent in sports is a red shirt year. So serve as president elect and get to go through leadership training and learn about the inner workings and observe the operations. And it kind of gives me a year to put together a plan for how.

I'm going to want to operate my presidency. So I'm looking forward to that.

Ben Harang (04:29)
That's cool. That's cool. So I'm gonna ask you a question that you don't know the answer to right now. The installation banquet for 2026 happened in Morgan City Louisiana in December of 25. Where's the installation banquet for 2027 gonna be held in December of 26.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (04:49)
Well, it's not guaranteed to be in December, but it likely will be. It's probably going to be a little closer to the Houma-Thibodaux area.

Ben Harang (04:58)
that's politically correct.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (05:00)
Hey,

because it hasn't been decided on yet. We'll put together a committee. We haven't had our first meeting yet, but we're working on putting all that together. Yeah. So I just wanted to make the statement that I fully support your candidacy for city council. I'm not in your district, so I can't vote for you. So, but I think you'll do a good job.

Ben Harang (05:04)
Mm-hmm.

Cool. Cool.

Well, I appreciate that.

I people it's a council district. It's a third of the city of Thibodaux which has about 15,000 people. So there's about 5,000 residents in the district. And if I go into a room with a hundred people, I jokingly say there's somewhere between three and five people in that room that live in the district. And then how many of those three to five would actually vote for me remains to be seen.

will it is it's funny to to go out in public in it's so small that is almost comical for people to say you know people people in almost a vote for you would people in Plaquemines say if i vote for you could award people in Vacherie say if i if i could vote for you would people in Lafourche Parish say if i if i could vote for you i would and i and all that's great but there needs to be some votes within that

council district B seat so we'll find out the middle of january a middle of february when qualification qualifying ends on february thirteenth who actually is going to be in the race and then we'll go from there

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (06:31)
Yeah, so if nobody qualifies to run against you, then you win by default, correct?

Ben Harang (06:38)
I get, I get anointed, I guess. and then I, I take office sometime towards the end of February, probably if there's an election, it would be whoever would win the election would take office sometime near the end of May. And if there happens to be a runoff, if there are more than two people in the race and there's a runoff, that election is June 30th. So whoever would win that one would take office sometime, probably the middle of July.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (07:06)
Okay, so it's a range of times on when things may kick off.

Ben Harang (07:06)
So it's, ⁓ yes it is from the

end of February to the middle of July. So that's almost a five month swing if there's a runoff. So we'll just see how it plays out. All of that's out of my control.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (07:21)
So it, yeah.

so that it almost may benefit you whether somebody else qualifies or not to go start meeting all your neighbors.

Ben Harang (07:33)
Right, right. And I will. I know most of them. You know, it's, I have a plan going forward and we'll see what happens. So it'll be interesting.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (07:35)
Yep, expect nothing less.

That's awesome.

Yep. Cool. Well, so my production for the year is the most I've ever done in my five plus years of real estate. I helped 20 families either buy or sell because some few were listings.

Ben Harang (07:53)
Congratulations.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (08:04)
My sales production was just under $4 million in production,

⁓ Would have, was supposed to have...

One more listing closed and two more buyers closed in December, but the tea leaves didn't have it working out like that but we've actually closed one of those buyers, got another one set to close on Monday and I'm waiting on an update for the listing to find out when we're gonna close on that. So those are all closing this month.

Ben Harang (08:37)
tell them the story about your

buyer from that is in Kenya and you closed and the picture you posted on social media on him on FaceTime or whatever ⁓ you were using.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (08:51)
All right, yeah, so well,

that's the one that we closed Wednesday. Yeah, so yesterday. So this is a client I've been working with since August. He is stationed at Camp Simba in Kenya. So this is a field outpost, basically the, for lack of a better term, middle of nowhere.

And he got his ducks in a row and got pre-approved to purchase a home. He's from Thibodaux lives in Thibodaux area and wanted to buy his own home. So we started looking at homes. We ran through a few. He saw one he really liked. And I had looked at that home with another client and it needed a lot

and it also required all kinds of insurance and stuff. And I went and did a video walkthrough, recorded a video doing the tour as if I was giving a tour of the home, which I was, and then uploaded that to YouTube so that he could look at that video tour in 4K. That's one of the services I provide because I work with a lot of veterans that are not in the state.

Ben Harang (09:52)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (10:05)
that are not in town where they can come and tour homes. So after he looked at it and then looked at the numbers, he said, yeah, this isn't gonna work. So we looked at some more, kind of filtered through a few, and we found another home that he liked and made an offer and got into negotiations, but the sellers were...

set on getting one price and they weren't willing to budge, you know, not even a couple of thousand dollars more. They were set on what they wanted to get. And he knew that it wouldn't work out with his finances. So we let that deal die and started looking at some more. And then we ran across this latest home and it ticked all the boxes for it was fairly new construction. A few years old.

Ben Harang (10:39)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (11:01)
three, no, it four bedrooms, two baths, and a nice subdivision and everything. And so we started working on it. And we set a late closing date because we knew it was gonna take a little while to get all the pieces in place. He immediately went and got a power of attorney set up so his mother could actually sign at the closing for him

put that in the mail, priority mail. priority mail, that's supposed to be fastest delivery.

Ben Harang (11:27)
Priority is the key word here.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (11:33)
We did not get the power of a term.

in time for the expected closing, which was like two months after we wrote the offer. ⁓ He was able to track the letter. He mailed it on November 7th and it showed up at the FPO at the base.

Ben Harang (11:46)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (12:00)
at like December 8th. So from the field camp he was at to get into the post office at the base, the local base in Djibouti, it took a month to get there. Okay. And that's just, there's no speeding it up. They have to give it to a third party to deliver the mail and everything. And it took them a month to get it from that outpost to the base.

Ben Harang (12:03)
a month.

Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (12:27)
Then once it got to the base in about a week or so, it showed up in the post office in Newark, New Jersey and was scanned in. And then it sat there until, I don't remember the exact date, but it was almost another month that it sat in Newark that nobody touched it. And then finally, after New Year's, it popped up in New York, New York.

Ben Harang (12:50)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (12:57)
that it was scanned again and on.

Monday it showed up in gray or Tuesday it showed up in gray and

Ben Harang (13:08)
and everything

was done done at that point you just had to wait for the power of attorney so you could go close

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (13:13)
correct and couldn't close any other way because the mortgage had to be notarized and to be notarized there needed to be a power of attorney and Louisiana doesn't recognize a remote notary signing.

Ben Harang (13:28)
And you said something about that legislative luncheon we went to and I decided not to about electronic closings. Louisiana has traditionally, electronic signatures have been legal since 2001, I think, with 2026, so 25 years. the Louisiana bar has successfully stopped.

electronic closings to where in some states that closing could have happened with him in Kenya and the rest of you in Houma-Thibodaux and closed it electronically. But we're not there yet in Louisiana. And I tend to like technology. I know it has problems, but I would like for that to be an option for situations like this. So anyway, that's about as political as I'm going to get.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (14:18)
So, but

that was pretty amazing though. And just an aside, it's like I said before, it's something I do for my clients that are out of town, out of state. I go do that to allow them, so I also work with clients that work offshore. And if they like a house, I'll go do a video tour of it so that they can look at it before they come in and maybe kind of screen through some houses before they actually.

Ben Harang (14:42)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (14:47)
get to decide on a house. This is probably the fourth or fifth closing that I've done where, well this is the first one where the buyer has closed and never seen the house, but it's the fourth or fifth one where they've got it under contract and they didn't see the house until closing.

Ben Harang (15:08)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (15:09)
I've had one where he literally drove into the state the day of closing. Signed the paperwork and then went home. Yep.

Ben Harang (15:17)
and then went see the house.

That's wild. That's wild. So I like the story. It's indicative of what we'll do to try to help our clients get where they want to be. if have any questions, like we always say, have any questions, just want to talk real estate with somebody without any pressure or commitment, get in touch with one of us.

You can go to rerealestatepodcast.com. Our contact info is there. Give us a call, text, email, whatever you want to do. We'll talk on the phone, get a cup of coffee, have some lunch, do whatever you want to do and address your concerns or talk about the process or see where you are in the process and see where it goes.

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (16:01)
And if you liked our commentary today, if you liked the story, if you liked hearing about how we did for the year, like, share, subscribe, invite all your friends to download the episode, watch it on YouTube, and you can do all of that from rerealestatepodcast.com.

Ben Harang (16:20)
Would that be rerealestatepodcast.com?

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (16:24)
That's the one.

Ben Harang (16:27)
All right. looks like we, here we are. Have a good one. Thanks for joining

Clint C. Galliano, REALTOR® (16:28)
We got another one in the can.

Alright.