What happens when home prices stay high, insurance gets harder to secure, and agents still have to keep moving forward?

Patrick Merrill sits down with Jodie Francisco, a California REALTOR® with 25 years of experience, to discuss Los Angeles pricing, wildfire risk, the California FAIR Plan, Difference in Conditions (DIC) coverage, earthquake insurance, ULA transfer taxes, rent regulations, and the mindset agents need when the market slows.

🎤 Host & Guest

Host: Patrick Merrill

Host of the LIFTED Podcast and a top-producing REALTOR® serving the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Patrick is a RealTrends Verified Top Agent with ABR and GRI designations.

Guest: Jodie Francisco

Jodie Francisco, “Your Eye on Real Estate,” is a REALTOR® with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties in Sherman Oaks. With 25 years of experience, she serves buyers and sellers across the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles and holds SRES, eCertified®, and RBC® Cross-Border Certified credentials.

🔑 What You’ll Learn

• Stay productive when the market slows.

• Understand California insurance challenges, including the FAIR Plan, DIC coverage, and earthquake insurance.

• Set realistic expectations for Los Angeles affordability and million-dollar starter homes.

• Learn how Zone Zero, ULA taxes, and rent regulations can affect homeowners and investors.

❓ Key Questions Answered

Q: What is Zone Zero in California wildfire protection?

A: A five-foot area around a home kept clear of vegetation and combustible materials.

Q: Why might homeowners need the California FAIR Plan?

A: It can provide fire coverage when traditional insurers will not.

Q: What is a Difference in Conditions (DIC) policy?

A: A DIC policy can help fill coverage gaps left by the California FAIR Plan.

Q: How does the ULA tax affect Los Angeles real estate?

A: It adds costs to higher-value transactions and can affect luxury and new-construction deals.

⏱️ Chapters

(00:00) - Intro

(00:21) - Meet Jodie Francisco

(01:16) - First-Time Buyer Advice

(02:00) - Staying Focused in a Slow Market

(03:12) - Wildfire Risk in Los Angeles

(05:04) - California Home Insurance

(07:27) - California FAIR Plan

(11:36) - Required vs. Optional Coverage

(13:40) - Who Is Buying in Sherman Oaks?

(14:57) - California Lifestyle & Highway 1

(17:13) - Comparing Entry-Level Prices: MS vs LA

(19:42) - Post-COVID Migration

(20:53) - New Construction & ULA Tax

(22:22) - Rent Control & Landlord Rules

(25:27) - Connect With Jodie Francisco

📇 Connect with Jodie Francisco

🌎 Website: www.jodiefrancisco.com

📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JodieFranciscoRealtor/

📘 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodiefrancisco/

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeye18/

🎙 Connect with Patrick Merrill

🌎 Website: https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrill

🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-Merrill

📘 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

LIFTED is about growing as a professional, a leader, and a human. Subscribe, follow, and leave a rating so more agents can find the show.

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate – iconsofrealestate.com

#LiftedPodcast #PatrickMerrill #CaliforniaRealEstate #RealEstateLeadership #AgentMindset #RealEstatePodcast

When Jeff Goodman heard those words in his 40s, he faced a choice: stay in a dying industry or pivot. He chose real estate. But instead of becoming just another agent, Jeff built something rare, a personal brand that celebrates the city he sells.

🎧 Hosted by:

Patrick Merrill (Gulf Coast Real Estate, LIFTED Podcast)

🎤 Guest:

Jeff Goodman — NYC Real Estate Agent, Podcast Host, Walking Tour Creator, and "The Quintessential New Yorker." After 19 years mastering the real estate game, Jeff built his brand around celebrating the city he sells, not just transacting properties. Former media executive turned real estate visionary, he proves that personal brand beats transaction volume every time.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✔️ How to pivot careers when ageism hits, and a step-by-step framework for mid-career transitions.

✔️Why New York's co-op ownership is completely different from condos.

✔️The "business judgment rule" in NYC real estate and why even celebrities can get rejected from co-ops.

✔️ How to build a brand beyond transactions using content, walking tours, and podcasts.

✔️ The hidden similarities between New Orleans and New York (culture, architecture, community)

✔️ Why integrating your passion into your business creates deeper client relationships

✔️ Real estate licensing differences between states, what you don't think about until you move

✔️ How "Rediscovering New York" podcast & walking tours became a competitive advantage

📇 Connect with Jeff Goodman:

🌎 Website → https://jeffgoodman.nyc/

📘 Linkedin → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-goodman-99ab961/

📷 Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jeffgoodmannyc/?hl=en

🎙 FOLLOW JOSH LAVIK & THE BETTER AGENT PODCAST:

🌎Website → https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrill

🎥Youtube → https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-Merrill

📘Apple Podcast → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045

🎧Spotify →: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

Lifted is about growing as a professional, a leader, and a human. If this one moved something for you, subscribe on YouTube, and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so more agents find it.

I am Patrick Merrill, and I hope you have been lifted. If not, let me know. We'll figure out a way. There's always a way.

🔖 DON’T FORGET TO LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, AND COMMENT BELOW!

⭐ Produced by Icons of Real Estate – iconsofrealestate.com

Her parents passed away. She does not live in that town anymore, she does not want to come back, and she does not know a single realtor there. Kayla Hill gets that call constantly.

Patrick Merrill hosts Lifted and sells Mississippi Gulf Coast real estate, a RealTrends Verified Top Agent holding the ABR and GRI designations. He turns 60 this year and says on this episode that he cannot get rid of anything, which is why he wanted to talk to someone who moves families through this for a living.

Kayla Hill runs Golden Bridges, Inc. in Quincy, Illinois. Senior move management is the technical term, and she admits nobody knows what it means when she says it. In practice it covers downsizing before in-home care, moving into assisted living, closing out an estate, and helping people stay in the house they already have. She is direct about what she does not do, and she says the most valuable thing she owns is a list of people she trusts: the thrift store that picks up furniture, the auction people, the estate attorney, the financial group that works only with seniors. Patrick brings the Gulf Coast side, including reverse mortgages clients regret at 60, rotary club estate sales, and knowing when to send someone to a lawyer instead of guessing.

Hosted by: Patrick Merrill

Guest: Kayla Hill

Kayla Hill is co-owner of Golden Bridges, Inc., a senior move management company in Quincy, Illinois serving the tri-state region where Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois meet. She and her fiancé acquired the thirteen-year-old business from its retiring founders in April 2026. Golden Bridges holds NASMM A+ accreditation, the highest tier of the national accrediting system Kayla explains on this episode.

What You'll Learn:

• Start a client on downsizing with the zipper sandwich bag Kayla leaves after every consultation, because everybody has at least one junk drawer

• Vet a senior move manager anywhere in the country through the National Association of Senior Move Managers, and read the accreditation tiers before you refer a client to anyone

• Take the reverse mortgage question the way Patrick does, straight to a lawyer, instead of talking past your license

• Win the out-of-state adult child who inherited a house, knows nobody in town, and wants it handled without a return trip

• Let a third party say the spoon came from Walmart, so the family can spend the weekend grieving instead of arguing over a drawer

• Keep a client in their own home by clearing space for a hospital bed or making the place safe enough for grandkids to visit

• Build the referral bench that carries the work: estate attorneys, auctioneers, thrift stores that haul furniture, junk removal, and pet placement

Connect with Kayla Hill and Golden Bridges:

Website: https://goldenbridges4you.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GoldenBridges4You

Connect with Patrick Merrill:

Website: https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrill

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-Merrill

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

Lifted is about growing as a professional, a leader, and a human. If this one moved something for you, subscribe on YouTube, and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so more agents find it.

I am Patrick Merrill, and I hope you have been lifted. If not, let me know. We'll figure out a way. There's always a way.

Hashtags: #LiftedPodcast #PatrickMerrill #MississippiRealEstate #GulfCoastRealEstate #RealEstateLeadership #AgentMindset #RealTrendsTopAgent #LegacyBuilding #RealEstatePodcast #RealEstateCoaching

Fewer turns. Fewer turn costs. Less vacancy loss. Judy Bellack says the residents delivering all three are the ones a lot of buildings turn away.

Patrick Merrill sells real estate on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and hosts Lifted, a RealTrends Verified Top Agent holding the ABR and GRI designations. On this episode he sits down with Judy Bellack, who spent her first twelve years at Apartment Guide, spent a year with the outfit that ran private housing for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, where a house in the right ring of metro Atlanta pulled $18,000 over six days, and came back to move the industry from those little apartment books into digital at Apartment Finder and RentPath.

Judy now runs her own consultancy advising early-stage property technology companies, and for five years she has advised the Pet Inclusive Housing Initiative at the Michelson Found Animals Foundation. Her argument is not sentimental. Pet owners renew, they cost less to turn, and they build the kind of community inside a property that keeps people from leaving. Patrick pushes her on the parts owners actually resist: the insurance objection, the weight caps, the HUD shift on emotional support animals, and the online letter mills selling their way around all of it for seventy-five dollars.

Hosted by: Patrick Merrill

Guest: Judy Bellack

Judy Bellack is the Founder and Principal of Judith Lawrence Associates, an advisory firm serving the multifamily housing sector. With over two decades of industry experience, she helps property technology companies and suppliers accelerate growth and refine go-to-market strategies. Judy also advocates for pet-friendly rentals as an advisor to the Pet-Inclusive Housing Initiative.

What You'll Learn:

• Price the retention upside of pet owners in the terms an owner reacts to: fewer turns, fewer turn costs, less vacancy loss

• Answer the insurance objection by asking the provider for the actuarial data behind the restriction, which Judy says often does not exist

• Separate pet friendly from pet inclusive, where inclusive means no breed caps, no weight caps, and no unreasonable pet rent

• Handle an emotional support animal request without triggering fair housing exposure, since the HUD enforcement shift left the underlying law untouched

• Understand why weight limits fail on their own logic, because the bigger the dog, the more of a couch potato it usually is

• Screen the individual animal instead of the breed, which is what actually keeps a bite history off the property

• Pull the case studies, data, and how-tos Judy points owners to at petsandhousing.org

Connect with Judy Bellack:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judybellack/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JLAdvisorWebsite: http://jladvise.com/

Connect with Patrick Merrill:Website: https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrillYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-MerrillApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

Lifted is about growing as a professional, a leader, and a human. If this one moved something for you, subscribe on YouTube, and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so more agents find it.

I am Patrick Merrill, and I hope you have been lifted. If not, let me know. We'll figure out a way. There's always a way.

Hashtags: #LiftedPodcast #PatrickMerrill #MississippiRealEstate #GulfCoastRealEstate #RealEstateLeadership #AgentMindset #RealTrendsTopAgent #LegacyBuilding #RealEstatePodcast #RealEstateCoaching

Her boss fired her over a company she hadn't started yet. Twenty-two years later, she runs one backing twenty-five brokerages in eight states.

Patrick Merrill has sold Mississippi Gulf Coast real estate for sixteen years, a RealTrends Verified Top Agent holding the ABR and GRI designations. On this episode of Lifted he sits down with Megan Ware Marsh, twenty-two years into the mortgage industry, who was fired from the company where she was top producer after her boss assumed she was quietly starting her own business. Two coworkers walked out behind her, and a lawsuit followed.

That's what pushed her to open her first mortgage brokerage. She's since opened three of her own and now runs a franchise model backing roughly twenty-five brokerages across eight states, aimed at the loan officers and brokers she calls boots on the ground, the ones stuck on what she calls the hamster wheel of selling nonstop just to get paid.

Hosted by: Patrick Merrill

Guest: Megan Marsh

Megan Marsh is the Founder and CEO of Co/LAB Lending and its franchise division. A mortgage and real estate veteran with over 18 years of experience, she helps loan officers and industry professionals launch their own independent mortgage businesses. Through a proven franchise model, done-for-you back-office support, and education, she empowers entrepreneurs to be in business for themselves, but never by themselves.

What You'll Learn:

• Hear how getting fired over a business she hadn't started yet led to opening her own, with two coworkers walking out behind her

• Borrow the one to ten scale her team uses to size up a bad day, where someone dying is a ten and a nasty email is a two

• See how hiring three people in ninety days while pregnant with her third child turned into a 30 to 40 percent growth year

• Compare Gulf Coast numbers to her own market, from average home prices to why she's never paid an annual car tag

• Learn what boots on the ground support looks like inside a twenty-five brokerage franchise

• Get her take on builder buydowns, and why she'd rather work with agents than compete against them

• Hear why investors and self-employed borrowers, the ones with complicated tax returns, were her favorite clients

Connect with Megan Marsh:

Website: https://colablendingfranchise.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneymentormeg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megan.w.marsh/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moneymentormeg/

Connect with Patrick Merrill:

Website: https://cbsmithhomesalabama.com/agents/patrick-merrill

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LIFTED-Patrick-Merrill

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lifted/id1882611045

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/30tXkqPjyDfrcfPOoxd0kE

Hashtags: #LiftedPodcast #PatrickMerrill #MississippiRealEstate #GulfCoastRealEstate #RealEstateLeadership #AgentMindset #RealTrendsTopAgent #LegacyBuilding #RealEstatePodcast #RealEstateCoaching