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Less than 5% of American homes are accessible for the disabled, elderly


The United States is home to a large population of both elderly and disabled people, but only 5% of housing across the country is equipped with features that make them accessible to such individuals.

This was one of the takeaways this week from “Laying the Foundation: Housing Accessibility and Affordability for Older Adults and People with Disabilities,” a hearing held by the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.

Over 60 million people — roughly 26% of the total U.S. population — have a disability. An additional 20% of the total population is at or over the age of 65, a figure that is increasingly trending upward and which will challenge the U.S. economy in the years ahead.

However, homes with accessibility features for older and disabled people only make up less than 5% of the nation’s housing supply, as reported by CNBC.

Despite a climate of intense political polarization, committee members on both sides of the aisle appeared to recognize the inadequacy of that fact in addressing the housing needs of American citizens, and vowed to work together in an effort to find legislative solutions.

While the opening statements from the committee chairman and ranking member, respectively, were rife with political finger-pointing over the issue, the actual content of the conversation between committee members and panelists indicated amenability between Democrats and Republicans to address these challenges legislatively.

“Sometimes we’re at odds in terms of what we should do, but there’s always practical legislation in the middle, and I’d hope that we can have those conversations that get us there,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Indiana), ranking member of the committee according to CNBC.

One piece of legislation discussed was the Visitable Inclusive Tax Credit for Accessible Living (VITAL) Act, introduced by committee chairman Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pennsylvania) earlier this year.

It which would increase “the low-income housing tax credit to serve the housing needs of older people and people with disabilities,” the bill’s summary says. “Specifically, the bill increases state allocations of the credit and credit amounts for projects for assisting households with disabled individuals.”

Domonique Howell, a witness for the hearing and a disability housing advocate from Philadelphia, described her own challenges living as a disabled person and the difficulty she and her family have faced in finding an accessible place to live. When the elevator breaks in her current apartment complex, for instance, she and others have to stay in their homes until a repair is made which can sometimes take “weeks,” she said.

“[Pennsylvania and other states should] develop affordable accessible housing to match the needs of residents,” she said during the proceeding.



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How the Basel Endgame could impact the mortgage market 


Rumors this week that regulators would increase residential mortgage capital requirements for larger depositary banks, far exceeding international standards under the Basel III rules, have raised alarms for industry executives, analysts and trade groups. 

The consensus is that the change would primarily affect the shrinking jumbo market (loans greater than $726,200) and hurt regional banks, sources said. The first impact would be through higher rates, but a shift of origination volume from depository banks to independent mortgage banks is not to be dismissed, experts added. 

Overall, banks help inject money into the mortgage system by providing warehouse lines of credit to independent mortgage banks (IMBs) and trading mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and mortgage servicing rights (MSR). Facing higher capital requirements, these institutions would reduce their interest in accumulating these assets – or even sell them, pressuring prices, observers told HousingWire. 

To understand the context, U.S. agencies decided to review banks’ capital framework in response to the financial crisis, consistent with the standards issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2010 (Basel III). U.S. regulators increased the overall quality and quantity of banks’ capital and improved leverage ratios for the largest banks. 

In 2017, the Basel Committee issued a second set of revisions to Basel III, called the Basel Endgame, to address the calculation of risk-weighted assets and limit banks’ internal models to estimate risk. U.S. regulators have been working on these rules for years but have prioritized them since the recent bank failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. 

Initially, regulators signaled that big Wall Street banks might face a 15% to 20% average increase in overall capital requirements. The current rule for mortgages was expected to remain unchanged: first-lien whole loans prudently underwritten and performing to their original terms receive a 50% risk weight, while other loans receive a 100% risk weight. 

However, this week, Bloomberg reported that under the latest draft proposal, 40% to 90% risk weights would be assigned for large banks issuing residential mortgages, depending on the loan-to-value ratio. That’s 20 basis points higher than the international standard. Residential mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) wouldn’t be affected. 

More pain for the jumbo market 

“Our initial thought is that the impact would not be huge, just because the GSEs are the main source of mortgages and banks are not holding loans that have high loan-to-value that are conforming – they probably get they done through the FHA or the GSEs to be securitized,” Bose George, managing director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW), said. 

According to George, the rule would impact only the jumbo market, a very high credit quality market. So, even there, George’s team assumes only a few loans would fall into this category of high LTV, ultimately having higher capital requirements. 

“We are assuming that the impact in the jumbo space is probably going to be slightly higher mortgage rates, as opposed to volume significantly shifting to the nonbanks,” George said in an interview with HousingWire. “Right now, there’s a gap between where banks offer rates on jumbo and where the securitization market needs to be. So, if we have rates go up by 5 or 10 basis points, it’s not going to move that away from the banks on the jumbo side.”

However, the regulatory proposal comes amid a shrinking jumbo market. The product has been a bank offering since the financial crisis due to these institutions’ need for deposits, but it suffered from recent bank failures. At HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center, data from Optimal Blue shows 30-year fixed rates for jumbos at 6.99% on Wednesday, compared to 6.74% for conforming loans.  

Inside Mortgage Finance (IMF) estimates lenders originated $37 billion in jumbo loans from January to March 2023, down from $58 billion in the previous quarter and $133 billion in the same period last year. First Republic Bank, rescued by JPMorgan Chase in May, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan were the top three jumbo producers in the period. 

Same market, different players 

Following the financial crisis of 2008, depositary lenders retreated from the residential mortgage markets due to higher capital costs and reduced profitability. Consequently, independent mortgage banks, which have less stringent regulatory requirements, now have nearly two-thirds of the mortgage pie.  

“We would expect banks affected by these proposals to lobby for a more even playing field vs. nonbank lenders,” Mario Ichaso, senior residential mortgage backed-securities strategist at Wells Fargo, said in a trading desk commentary on Tuesday night. “We would not be surprised to see changes to these proposals down the road, but participants should continue to monitor these developments for any spillover effects to the MBS market.” 

Big bank executives have started to publicly criticize the proposal to increase capital requirements on their mortgage loans. 

“I think there’s been a desire to finish up Basel III,” Brian Moynihan, chair and CEO of Bank of America, said in an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday. “They’ve [regulators] got to think through the downside of some of these rules, and that they could push stuff outside the industry to nonbanks (…) and the resilience of those institutions, is interesting to watch through cycles.”

Moynihan estimates that a 10% increase in BofA’s capital levels would prevent the bank from making about $150 billion of loans at the margin. 

JPMorgan Chase Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said, “All else [being] equal, higher capital requirements definitely are going to increase the cost of credit, which is bad for the economy.” And, in the mortgage space, JPMorgan might pull back even further if new rules are applied. 

“When you increase the capital requirements, it makes it even harder. So, that just becomes one of the areas where you’re in that tension between remixing versus pricing power that we talked about a second ago. And it might, in fact, mean that we do less credit available for homeowners and more regulatory risk as the activity moves outside the perimeter,” Barnum told analysts last week. 

On July 10, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr said the proposal’s more accurate risk measures would be equivalent to requiring the largest banks to hold “an additional $2 of capital for every $100 of risk-weighted assets.”

“For the banks that would need to build capital to meet the requirements, assuming that they continue to earn money at the same rate as in recent years, we estimate that banks would be able to build the requisite capital through retained earnings in less than two years, even while maintaining their dividends,” Barr said. 

Barr also signaled that capital requirements would affect banks with assets over $100 billion. It was undoubtedly influenced by the recent experience with institutions with assets between $100 billion and $200 billion collapsing. Several sources said it’s unusual for regulators to adopt risk weightings by bank sizes when the risk weighting traditionally applies to the asset. 

“I think that’s where the regional banks will likely be the hardest hit. And theoretically, it will drive some consolidation, which I think is odd given that they [regulators] have made bank mergers more difficult,” Pete Mills, senior vice president of residential policy at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), said. 

Mills added: “There are a lot of conflicting regulatory pressures in the market. Regulators are worried about the growth of the IMBs market share, but they’re doing things that would appear to exacerbate it. IMBs are a very robust business model if there’s warehouse credit available. And we’ve got several public companies now. One of the strengths of our housing finance system is the diversity of business models – banks, nonbanks, REITs as holders of mortgage assets, credit unions, and community banks. Maintaining that balance is important.” 

Taylor Stork, Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) president and Chief Operating Officer at Developer’s Mortgage Company, said that the new capital requirements proposed for the large banks, combined with the heightened interest rate risk of portfolio lending as rates have skyrocketed, would only likely to heighten the trend towards IMB mortgage dominance.

“Mortgage lending by Wall Street banks has plummeted since the 2008 housing crisis, as independent mortgage banks now originate two-thirds of all loans and decisively outperform banks in loans to minorities and other underserved borrowers,” Stork said in a statement. 

The secondary market is not immune 

If the new rule changes the mortgage origination dynamics due to higher capital requirements for these assets, it will be reflected in the secondary market. 

“The impact may be more profound at the regional bank level, which tends to have higher exposures to the whole loan residential market relative to those institutions with more than $700 billion in assets. This could result in more securitization activity from regional banks into the private label market as they look to shed some of their residential exposures,” Ichaso said. 

Mills particularly worries about the impacts on the MSR market and warehouse lending. 

“Banks could stop accumulating MSRs and sell servicing. And, if they sell servicing to improve their capital ratios, who will buy the servicing if other banks are facing the same punitive capital standards?” Mills said. “Banks are a critical source of liquidity for the market by providing warehouse lines to IMBs. We’re again concerned that a large increase in capital of 15% to 20% would discourage banks from participating in the warehouse lending business.”

A recent BTIG report from analysts Eric Hagen and Jake Katsikas also stated that the Basel III Endgame would incentivize banks to shred their MSR portfolios. 

“Broadly speaking, we expect banks could continue shedding MSRs if new capital requirements end up more restrictive than the 250% risk weight already in place through Basel. 

According to the BTIG report, the top three banks in agency servicing – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and U.S. Bank – control upwards of $1.5 trillion in unpaid principal balance. 

“Beneath them, but still in the top 50, are dozens of community banks and thrifts with less than $10 billion of servicing, which we see as a potentially ripe source of supply for nonbank lenders and servicers to encroach on over time. It goes in-hand with long-duration MSRs also looking more challenging from an asset-liability management standpoint for franchises with shorter-term or more sensitive deposits, which could induce incremental selling activity.” 

Is the Basel Endgame coming soon?

The Federal Reserve, Federal Depository Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which together regulate banks, are expected to unveil the Basel Endgame proposed changes on July 27, Bloomberg reported. 

Mills speculated that bank failures and rescues amplified the regulators’ desire to implement the Basel Endgame “more quickly than they would have otherwise.”

“It appears they’re going directly to a notice of proposed rulemaking. So, they’re skipping the advance notice process. Our other concern is, typically, when you have a significant change in capital regulations, they will do what’s called a quantitative impact study, a QIS. At least we haven’t heard anything to suggest that they are going to do that this time around,” he said. 

Overall, industry experts said higher capital requirements for mortgages wouldn’t be the remedy for problems like the recent bank failures. 

“The problems that the industry had with mortgages, in fact, a few months ago, had nothing to do with credit risk. It had to do with the interest-rate risk or that the assets on banks’ balance sheets had long-duration mortgages,” George said. “The new changes would address a problem or issue that came up much earlier when Basel III was being sort of implemented. From that standpoint, it seems like it’s solving a problem that isn’t currently a problem.” 

Michael Bright, CEO of Structured Finance Association, said, “I would like to know what problem would be solved because the market is pretty regulated right now. LTVs are still quite low. Home prices are quite high. The delinquencies are very low. The underwriting process has gone through a sea change over the last 10 years.”

Bright added: “Silicon Valley did fail, but it was very unique in a lot of ways, and to recapitalize the entire system focusing on non-agency mortgages just because of that, to me, seems like an overreaction.” 



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Rithm Capital buys $1.4B in consumer loans from Goldman Sachs


Rithm Capital, the Michael Nierenberg-headed real estate investment trust, appears to be getting into direct lending. The REIT bought $1.4 billion worth of unsecured personal loans from Goldman Sachs‘ Marcus business unit, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Rithm bought the loans at a discount, Nierenberg told the outlet. The portfolio of loans Rithm purchased were to borrowers with an average FICO score of 735 and Nierenberg said he’s assuming losses between 8% and 10%.

“They’re pretty healthy borrowers who were just consolidating debt,” said Nierenberg. “It’s an opportunistic acquisition; we don’t see pools like this come across very often.”

Nierenberg told Bloomberg that Rithm is also looking to move into the direct lending space as banks face tightening regulations from Basel III.

“If the regional banks continue to pull back, it could be an opportunity,” he said.

Rithm, the REIT that operates mortgage lenders and servicers NewRez, Caliber and several other businesses, said in May that it was considering spinning off the mortgage division to aid its flagging stock, which company executives described as “extremely undervalued.”

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has had to eat hundreds of millions of dollars on its consumer unit Marcus. A week ago the bank sold $1 billion of personal loans to alternative investment firm Varde Partners. Goldman also sold a $1 billion tranche in the first quarter, the investment bank disclosed in regulatory filings.

If it does get into direct consumer lending, Rithm will find some familiar faces in the independent mortgage bank world. Guaranteed Rate last year announced that it would be offering unsecured personal loans to qualifying customers at competitive rates.



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Buying Houses with $100 Down and Creative Finance Secrets Most Don’t Know


Creative finance is a home-buying hack that most people don’t know about. If you know what it is and how to use it, you can pick up properties for only a hundred dollars, build your rental portfolio faster than ever, and reach financial freedom in mere years. And in 2023, when the housing market is still hot, and home prices have barely cooled off, creative finance could be the solution to no cash flow and overpriced deals. But before you creatively finance your next rental property, you’ll need to know which strategy to use and when to use it.

Jenn and Joe Delle Fave used creative finance to move from snowy Upstate New York to sunny Florida after escaping soul-crushing work. Jenn, a former teacher, loved her career, and the time she spent with her kids. But Joe was stuck at the car dealership, working late into the night, sacrificing family time to make more money. He knew he needed a way out but didn’t want to give up the financial security of a W2. Everything changed when he had the “light bulb” moment to try creative finance.

Now, Jenn and Joe have run a full-time investing business, picking up pristine properties using strategies like seller financing, subject to, or wrap mortgages. They’ve acquired properties for very little down in some of the most competitive neighborhoods in the country, growing wealth WITH the time freedom they desired. Jenn and Joe give invaluable advice on which strategies work for which seller, the easiest way to get leads sent to you, and how you build wealth with real estate faster.

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast. Show 794.

Joe:
We were living in New York. I was dating her for two weeks and I said, “Hey, I’m going to go visit my grandparents in Florida. Do you want to come? I’ll pay for the whole trip.” And she is like, “You’re crazy. I’ve met you for two weeks. But sure.” So I take her to Florida and our dream wants to eventually move there, but we thought when you’re 60 and 70, when we were tired, we could finally move there. And so we knew we wanted to build an income to support that. So once we kind of stumbled upon this way of how to buy these gorgeous houses and beautiful neighborhoods with a hundred bucks down, that was like, wow.

David:
What’s going on everyone? This is David Green, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, here today on location in Maui, Hawaii. For once, I’m the one traveling, and Rob is not, he’s staying at home. He’s been traveling a whole lot before this. So Rob, how does it feel to be in the comfort of your cockpit in the studio ready to launch another fire episode?

Rob:
Listen, it feels great, but I would rather be in Hawaii. Let’s be very honest.

David:
And I’m getting to hang out with all your friends, by the way. Tony’s hanging around.

Rob:
Tony’s there?

David:
Yep. Lot of short-term rental.

Rob:
You said he looks like he’s been lifting, which is scary for me because Tony and I are actually in a fitness competition for the next two months.

David:
You got into a fitness competition with Tony Robinson.

Rob:
Well, listen, it’s not based on who is the most muscular or anything like that. I’m obviously going to lose that. I actually think it’s based on the winner is whoever loses the most body fat percentage by the end of the three months, and we’ve been doing it for about a month.

David:
Okay, you got an advantage there because Tony walked in with like 11% probably.

Rob:
Yes.

David:
And you’re more.

Rob:
Well, first of all, ouch. But second of all, totally agree. And I’ve been a very diligent boy, okay? I’ve been waking up early. I talk about it a little bit later in this episode, but I’ve been really slicing and dicing my morning routine, trying to wake up, trying to hit the gym, and then trying to walk 10,000 steps a day and then start seven LLCs before the workday actually starts.

David:
I love it. I love seeing this part of Rob. I’ve often said, you and Brandon Turner though you look very different, have the same personality. And Brandon’s like this too. He just doesn’t work out at all, and then he gets a B in his bonnet that he wants to go do something and he trains for six weeks and he does a triathlon. You’re like that. You have a ferocious work ethic that when it gets activated, you just decide you’re going to go run five miles when you haven’t been running at all. It’s very impressive. It’s just that consistency is hard.

Rob:
My wife is training for a half marathon right now in October and she’s like, I’ve ran two half marathons without training for them. And she’s like, “Are you going to do this with me? Let’s sign up.” And I was like, “I’ll decide the week before.”

David:
Okay.

Rob:
Isn’t not a joke. So I might run a half marathon in October. We’ll see.

David:
It sounds like something that you would do. Well, in today’s show, we’re not going to be talking just about fitness, but we do have a financially fit couple that is going to blow your mind. Today, Rob and I interviewed Jen and Joe Delle Fave who have a fantastic story, a fantastic relationship, a fantastic business, and a fantastic approach to real estate investing. This couple has figured out how to get off market deals and use creative financing or other methods that we talk about on this show to do things that will frankly blow your mind. You’re going to fall in love with them and this episode. I don’t want to take too long talking about it because the episode’s a little bit longer, there was just too much good stuff that we really wanted to get out of it. What were some of your favorite parts, Rob?

Rob:
This is a power couple. They’re very nice, good people and it’s, I think creative finance and subject to. That’s obviously all the rage right now, because it’s a really great way to take on real estate in this current economy and market. And it’s nice to hear their approach and hear more people doing it out there. And they’ve just really make it seem so achievable. If you stick around until the very end, you’re going to hear how they source leads from Facebook and the amount of leads that they get and the amount of leads that they’re actually closing is pretty mind-blowing. And it made me feel like, “Hey, I think I could do that too.” Which is really what we want everyone to-

David:
I saw the wheels turning in your head when they said that and I’m like, “Oh, Rob’s texting his team. ‘Hey guys, this is what we’re doing right now.’”

Rob:
Facebook. Drop the, it’s cleaner.

David:
Before we get into the interview with them, today’s quick tip. There was so much good information in this episode that we are going to be releasing a bonus deal deep dive, along with the episode so that you can get even more information. Jen and Joe break down an actual deal they’re working through and explain how they got paid to purchase the property. So today’s quick tip is go listen to the bonus material as soon as the show is done. Rob, anything you want to say?

Rob:
Yeah. Quick tip number two, go watch the Social Network. So you understand my Facebook joke that I made. Because I feel like that one was just like, whoop.

David:
Fell very flat. Yeah.

Rob:
It fell flat. But if you saw the movie, you’ll get it. The good old Justin Timberlake will help bring that one home for you.

David:
Let’s get to Jen and Joe. Jen and Joe Delle Fave. Welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

Jenn:
Awesome.

Joe:
Awesome. Thanks for having us.

David:
Yeah. All right. So first things first. Where are you living? It looks like you’re in a modern day designed barn that Joanna Gaines had a hand in. Is this a Magnolia special or is this just siding in your in a house?

Jenn:
We are actually in our office, which is south of Tampa. We are in Florida right now.

Joe:
This is where we live. So we have our office here. Sometimes we work from the office, sometimes we work from home.

David:
Okay.

Joe:
Weather’s nice this time of the year.

David:
You’re in Florida, I’m in Hawaii right now, Rob’s in Houston. Between the three of us, there’s enough humidity to give a baby bath. Who do you think is sweating the most right now?

Jenn:
It’s pretty humid here. I don’t know.

Rob:
I don’t know. Houston’s pretty bad. It’s rare that Houston loses that battle, I will say.

Joe:
Well, come on down to South Florida.

David:
Yeah, that’s true. When you go to Scottsdale, when Rob and I are there, it’s so nice when it’s hot but not humid. A dry heat is just so much more tolerable than when it’s really humid outside. Yet the country doesn’t seem to matter. People are moving to Tampa in record numbers. Houston is growing as well. You don’t really have to convince anybody to go to Hawaii. So maybe there’s something to investing in humid friendly states. So we know you live in Tampa. Do you invest there as well?

Joe:
We do, yeah. We love this area and this is kind of why we came for a vacation. We were already buying in this area, so it just made sense to get out of the cold and be closer to some of the places where we are buying.

David:
Okay. So where did you come from?

Jenn:
We are originally from Rochester, New York, upstate. Really cold, very, very gray. And so when we started working together full-time and just being all stuck in a house, it was short-lived. I really knew that if we could get to a warmer climate, we’d be able to enjoy so much more.

David:
So what’s it feel like to be a trendsetter, to be a couple that moved from New York to Florida? I’ve never thought of anyone doing this. What did it feel like to just be on the front lines of innovative movement?

Jenn:
It took a lot of guts to really put ourselves out there. No, really, I mean if you go to any chat, everyone says Florida’s full. But while there is a lot of traffic, if you love this weather and the beaches and there’s so many perks to it, don’t be shy, don’t be afraid to do it. I always think you’re not a tree you can pick up and move anywhere. We brought our two kids, they’re as happy as could be. So if it’s in your heart, do it. You could always move back.

David:
That’s a great point. I mean, we’re going to get into your investing career here, but I am interested because I know a lot of the listeners are here and they don’t love where they live, but they can tolerate it. Because if you hate something, you’ll figure out a way to get out of it. If you’re incredibly uncomfortable or in pain, you’ll make change. And if you have a vision of what you really want, you might actually go make that happen too.
But 90% of the world gets stuck in the middle where we are comfortable enough to live with it, but not comfortable enough to be super thrilled with where we are. Rob, I know you and your wife have moved everywhere. You’re like, “I want to invest in the Smokey Mountains, I’m moving to the Smoky Mountains, I’m eating dinner at the restaurants, I’m smelling the air. I’m going to see the whole thing.” And that’s going to help your investing career. Maybe we’ll like ask you before we come back to Jen and Joe. Do you think that was wise to bounce around from city to city as you were learning how to invest? Is that something you’d recommend?

Rob:
I would not bounce around from city to city for the purpose of learning how to invest in said city. There’s a lot that I learned moving to the city because I thought I had to live there. Because I was building that tiny house village out there and I was like, “Oh, if I move out there, I can be there in the action and get all my permits and this and that.” And what I learned after a year of living there was I really didn’t need to be there at all. I could have just flown in maybe two or three times and skipped the giant cross country move. But nonetheless, I’m happy to have done it. I encourage anyone to move. If you’ve ever thought about it, it will change your life for the better I think, because it always just gives you more perspective about how much to love where you’re going to finally end up, I think.

David:
So live where you want and invest where you want.

Rob:
Yeah, totally.

David:
You’ve been investing for years. When did you go all in as full-time investors that kind of afforded you this ability to move around?

Jenn:
So that happened in March of 2020 when obviously the world shut down and we all were safe at home there for a little bit. And we had honestly just signed up for some social media marketing in February, some course that we enrolled in. And the whole goal was to bring Joe home. At that point, I was a stay-at-home mom and we we’re doing the part-time thing and I really wanted him home. We just never saw each other. And so when March hit and he had to stay home from the dealership, we looked at each other and I was like, “This is our chance. I know we’re in a global pandemic and this is kind of scary and it’s probably a terrible time to start this, but we’re going, all in a hundred percent.” And luckily, through the internet we were able to grow our real estate and it was crazy and intense and totally awesome.

David:
At the time you did it, did you feel like this is an obvious move we need to make, we need to go all in, or were there some fears about if this was wise?

Jenn:
I don’t really think I had any fears. I was more upset and scared that he was offered a bigger promotion at the car dealership because it was going to be a little more money, but way more time away from us. And I was like, “This is the opposite direction of what I was looking to do here. I really wanted to work with you.” And I had visions of us being together doing this, and that was not it. So when COVID hit, I saw nothing but good. I was super excited. I was like, “All right, the family’s here.” I was a teacher, so I had a leg up with virtual school and helping the kids out with that. And it was total chaos, trying to take care of everything, but we did it.

David:
Now, you two have really become creative finance experts over the years. What creative finance strategies are you using to be able to have the success you are?

Joe:
So every deal, I guess is a little bit different. We love helping sellers out who want to sell their house, who really don’t want or even consider a lowball cash offer. And so the one benefit that we have is that folks love that we could buy their house and pay full price for it. And we can make those terms work for them and they’re excited that they’re getting top dollar. And so we use a lot of strategies. We buy what’s called, and it’s a technical term, it’s called a wrap mortgage. Some people think there’s sub two is another version. There’s a lease purchase where you could just lease the house with the ability to purchase it later on.
So there’s a lot of different ways that you can control and buy real estate. And that was the key to us breaking away, is because we learned years and years and years prior that we can buy all of the real estate we want without having to go to the bank anymore, without having to use very little to sometimes no cash. And even if you’ve got bad credit, it doesn’t make a difference. And we both had good credit, but even if you’ve got bad credit, it makes no difference. You could buy all of the real estate you want once you understand just the way to communicate and ask sellers who are in a situation you could help.

Rob:
Yeah. So we know subject to, that’s basically assuming someone’s loan. Obviously, there’s some clarification that could be pushed into there further. But I think a lot of the people listening today, if you don’t know much about subject to, we just did an interview with Pace Morby, I think it just came out this month. Go check that out. It sort of breaks down that entire concept. But something that he actually, this is at very timely because he was like, maybe I’ll come on and do an episode about wraps. We did not talk about wraps. I just heard you mention that. Can you just quickly explain the concept of a wrap and how that’s, I guess in the same world as subject to?

Joe:
Yeah, so there’s really just a couple small differences. And the reason why, and I guess who likes vanilla ice cream? Who likes chocolate ice cream? So they’re very similar, but they’re different. So the difference is when you buy a property subject to, the loan stays in the seller’s name. So you’re technically not assuming it, still stays in place, but you’re giving you the deed to the property. So they sell you the house, the deed goes to you, but the loan stays in their name. And the reason why I like a wrap a little bit more is because the same thing happens where they deed you the property, but what a wrap does, it puts a new mortgage, which is not money, it’s just a promissory note, it’s a few pages. And what that does now, it makes a new loan between you and the seller. So long story short, it creates a note.
And with having that wrap mortgage in place, now if the buyer doesn’t pay, if I don’t pay them, they could foreclose on me and take the property back, which makes it really handy for… It protects the seller really. That’s why I like wrap so much. And then it happens from time to time, they’ll call us and say, “Joe, I have this mortgage in my name and I want to buy a new house. And the folks out at the mortgage company say, because I have this debt in my name, it’s making it hard for me to get my new loan.”
So the neat thing about it’s when we do it on a wrap, we just say, “Show them your closing docs and the new note that we made.” You give that to them and that’s going to help alleviate your DTI situation. So it makes it easier for get to get a loan. Because we’ve had some years later say, “I need to get a mortgage and this loan’s in my name.” I’m like, “No problem. We’ll get you through it.” And we do. So there’s really just the small differences, it’s just more technical stuff.

Rob:
Okay. And tell me a little bit about… Because I’ve also heard of wraps in the concept of you’re also wrapping a new mortgage or new interest rate in that as well. Is that a different kind of sector of wraps? Because I know that sometimes whenever you’re doing a subject to loan, you get that interest rate that’s on their loan on a wrap. Those terms can change a little bit as well, right?

Joe:
Well, you can buy it or sell on a wrap. So what you’re hearing in that situation, somebody buys it subject to. So say maybe the rate was 3% and then I’m going to sell that house to somebody else and I could charge them another point or two. And then that payment goes up and I make the difference. That’s not a strategy that we implement and we could get into that a little bit. That’s why we love our rent to own. It has I think, far more benefits than just selling to a property on a wrap. So you can buy on a wrap, you could also sell on wraps. However, when we do it, our rent to own strategy I think is the best in the game.

David:
All right. So let’s get a little bit of clarity here. When you’re talking about a wrap, you are taking over the existing mortgage, first off, correct? Regular. What we understand is subject to, then you are getting a second loan from the owner of the property who’s now become the seller. And that loan is going to be in second position to the first one. So you make a payment to them and then are they making the payment to the original loan or are you making both of those?

Joe:
It’s the same payment as what they currently have. So say for an example, I buy on a wrap and their payment is a thousand dollars a month for rough numbers, the new note will be for the same thing. And we just pay that directly to their bank. I don’t pay it to the seller hoping that they’re going to turn around… And that just gets one more level of something that happens. So we just pay, if it’s through Wells Fargo, we just send it directly to Wells Fargo.

David:
Okay. So you make one payment to the bank for the first mortgage, then you make a second payment to the seller for the second mortgage?

Joe:
No, because it’s the same pay.

Rob:
Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Joe:
You got it, Rob. Yeah, if there’s any overage, but generally when I’m buying, it’s what we call a mirror wrap. So it does the exact same payment, the exact same interest rate. So if your payment is a thousand dollars per month, that’s exactly what I’m paying. We don’t pay anything over that to the seller typically.

David:
So then I get, I’m a little confused. Then where does this second position note to the seller come in if you’re not making a payment to them? The wrap part?

Joe:
That’s a new note that you’re going to create. So that’s what they call the mirror wrap. So for an example, we’re doing one right now in Tennessee. The folks owe $303,000 on their house. Their interest rate is 3%. The payment is, I don’t know, like $1,600 a month. So what we’re doing is they’re selling to us for what they owe. It’s a house build in 2017. So I could take it over subject to because I’m buying it for what they owe and they’ll just deed me the property. But the difference is if they want to get a mortgage later on, that could cause some issues. So I buy it for 303 for their $1600 payment and then that creates just a new note around that existing one. And so it pays the same exact payments. There’s no extra payments going to the seller at all. So it’s just a promissory note.

Rob:
Yeah, that’s I was just going to say, so it basically just wraps it up a little bit different, in a different, I guess wrapper, if you will, so that whenever they go to the mortgage company, the mortgage company isn’t necessarily getting stopped up on the DTI and everything like that because the way they’ve written it up just helps with the underwriting?

Joe:
Yes. So now I can see that Joe and Jen, our company is making that payment and we have that recorded. So they’re going to show that our company’s now making that payment. So when you have to go to a new lender, they’re going to be able to show that to them, that there’s a new note in place showing that we’re making that payment.

Rob:
Okay. And then further question, your honor, if you’re making that payment and then that helps with your underwriting with the DTI and everything, are you able to completely knock out that DTI, or are you only able to use like 75% of that payment towards your DTI? Or is it case by case?

Joe:
Yeah, most of the times it depends on the lender. Everyone’s going to be a little different. Small credit unions might look at it different, but generally it’s 75% after a year. So here’s the situation that what I love to look at when I’m talking to a seller. If they say, “Joe, I’m going to buy a house in a few more years.” Then I could just buy it on a wrap. Because I know 12 months from now they’re going to be able to wash out at least 75% of that DTI. But sometimes folks say, “I need to get a new house right now and I need to get this off my name.” So the benefit of why we love having a lease option is that lease, that new lease, will wipe out their DTI immediately.

David:
Okay, so I think I understand a little bit better where you’re getting at. You’re not getting the mortgage off of their credit report, you’re not getting it out of their name. It’s still going to show up if they want to go buy a house that they have a $1,600 a month payment associated with the property, but they no longer own that property, you own it, it’s been deeded to you. However, you are creating another note that you owe them that mortgage balance for whatever the equivalent was, $1,600 that they could say, listen, we get $1,600 in income, but we have $1,600 expensive. Theoretically it washes out and I see that most banks will let them use 75% of that income to qualify for their next mortgage. So this is a way to help a seller feel better about deeding their property to you, but not having the loan paid off, because the fear would be, “Well, it’s going to be harder for me to go get another house because I still have this debt that I owe on the house that I don’t owe.” Is that correct?

Joe:
You set it spot on.

Rob:
Boom. Perfect man. I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s what I thought too.” You said it so much better.

David:
It’s like an accounting move, right? You’re like, okay, on one end of your ledger you have this weight, so we have to add a counterweight over here. But you’re not actually moving money around, you’re just creating these notes?

Joe:
You are a hundred percent. It’s just a handful of pieces of paper. It’s all it is. There’s no money, there’s none of that.

David:
Okay. And this would differ from traditional subject to, because in traditional subject to they don’t have any source of income that they can come back and tell a lender, “Well, we don’t actually make that $1,600 a month payment.” The lender for the next house would say, “Well, you’re obligated to make it. I don’t know where that money’s coming from. If somebody else is making the payment, uncle Sam’s not seeing that. So as far as I’m concerned, I have to add this $1,600 payment to your debt.” It makes it harder for them to go buy their next property or buy their next car, whatever they want to use a line of credit for.

Joe:
And there are some ways around it just, it’s a little bit more challenging. And that’s why the note is just the easiest, cleanest way to do it. And it’s super easy to do it that way.

David:
But that note’s not recorded against the property. That’s what you were saying earlier. It’s just a promissory note that they can show?

Joe:
Yeah, we do have it recorded as a mortgage against the property. And they do it, they show it to the underwriters and what help with them purchasing a new house.

David:
Okay. So you did what entrepreneurs do, you solved a problem. I want to buy your house subject to, this is a thing that stops it. Let’s solve that problem. Now you’re out there wrapping, the real estate wrappers. Have you guys thought about calling yourselves that?

Joe:
There we go. We trademark it right now.

Rob:
You know what’s very funny, actually, when Pace said that he was, he’s like, “I’ll come back and do an episode about wraps.” All of the comments they didn’t understand, I guess they thought he meant like R-A-P-S, raps and he was talking about obviously W-R-A-P-S. And so they’re all like, “Yeah, come back and do the rap. Yeah, write the rap Pace. We’d love to see you rap.” And I was like, “Different rap.”

Joe:
Yeah, I mean, he is talented enough. He might do both.

Rob:
He could. But David has bars too though.

Joe:
Oh, we got to do that.

David:
I actually started off my mic test with literal rapping and Rob was not very kind about it. So yeah, you say that in front of people, but when we’re alone, he’s very abusive actually with his language.

Rob:
But on camera, I build you up because you’re my bud, but off camera, we’re mortal enemies.

David:
All right. So you’ve got this business that you guys have been expanding. Can we explain the roles of the business? We’ll start with you, Jenn. What is it that you’re doing in this business, that partnership?

Jenn:
Yeah, absolutely. So as we’ve grown, we have team members like Joe mentioned. And so I’ve kind of evolved into the integrator COO, just making sure operations are… Everything’s flowing, from the leads coming in to eventually the people that will buy the deals or our rent to own buyers or our dispositions. And I just kind of oversee all of that. Definitely, I love marketing, I love being the face of our company, so really making sure that our branding is on point and just making sure all parties are on the same page and everybody’s staying super organized, especially as we’re going to go virtual the month of July, we’re going to travel. So I want to make sure that everybody is on the same page with everything. But Joe is definitely the deal maker. He loves talking to sellers.

David:
So Joe, you’re the people person?

Joe:
Well, we’re both people people, but I just love, I don’t know, I’m one of the guys who I love what I do. I love real estate. If I wasn’t here doing this, I’d be still talking about it and doing it. I’m like that I’m built different maybe. So I love looking at deals, I like looking at houses, pretty ones. I like looking at ones that are all need to make pretty, again. Helping people figure out what’s going on in their life and if we could help them and point them in the right direction if we can’t buy it, is important.

Rob:
So tell me the, I think that creative finance, sub to, all this stuff is always so mind meltingly confusing on the surface at the beginning. Because you’re like, wait, you just assume the property and sellers do this and it really doesn’t make sense. I have this conversation every single time with investors that want to get into creative finance. But then it’s so simple once you explain it, right? We just worked through that and it’s like, “Oh, yes. Makes a lot of sense.” And you all are very knowledgeable on this. So when you got into creative finance, how much did you know about it? How did you even get into the world of negotiating sub tos and wraps? Was this something that came naturally from you or did you kind of figure it out as you went?

Joe:
So my poor wife.

Jenn:
It was not easy for me at first. And numbers weren’t my thing, is what I used to say.

Joe:
And it gets to be a little overwhelming when you’re getting overload with a lot of information. Because before that, we were buying houses with cash, rehabbing them, renting them. We didn’t even know what Burr was right? Then we’d refinance and repeat.

David:
Well, you knew what it was because you lived in freezing Rochester, New York, you were-

Joe:
Yeah.

Jenn:
Right.

David:
But not the real estate Burr.

Joe:
Yeah, we were doing it not knowing you had a name until a few years ago. She’s like, “Did you know what we were doing? It was called Burr.” I’m like, “What?”

Jenn:
Yeah.

Joe:
But this was maybe more than a few years ago. But yeah, because we do that in 2008 and nine, but we had a handful of houses and when we wanted to retire, I knew having a handful of properties probably wasn’t going to give us the lifestyle that we wanted. We came to Florida after dating for one month. And we both have this grander idea of we’re going to move to Florida when we retire. We’d love to do it now, but there’s no way we could do it now. Looking back on it, how funny is that? But in 2016, I stumbled upon just different strategies that I started really diving into, and this is kind of what fell on my lap, was how to buy real estate without using the banks. And when I kind of wrapped my head around there, the first thing Jenn and I did is we went on and we hired some help. We got a coach that walked us through how to do some of these things, and then once a few of these light bulbs that were missing went off, it was like, just “Stand back.”

Rob:
Right. Because it’s so simple once it all kind of clicks. I do want a little bit of clarity on what you just said though. Did you say you guys were living in New York and you dated for a month and then you all moved to Florida?

Joe:
No.

Rob:
Okay. All right.

Joe:
We were living in New York. I was dating her for two weeks and I said, “Hey, I’m going to go visit my grandparents in Florida. Do you want to come? I’ll pay for the whole trip.” And she is like, “You’re crazy. I met you for two weeks. But sure.” So I take her to Florida and our dream was to eventually move there, but we thought when you’re 60 and 70, when we retire, we could finally move there. And so we knew we wanted to build an income to support that. And I knew having a handful of properties probably wasn’t going to get that done. So that’s why we need to look to how to grow our portfolio a little quicker without having to put 20% down or and get bank approvals every time and have to go through that. It was a little bit trickier, so once we kind of stumbled upon this way of how to buy these gorgeous houses and beautiful neighborhoods with a hundred bucks down, that’s what was like, wow.

David:
I got to ask Jenn, did you fall for that? The New Yorker, “I have grandparents in Florida.” There’s not that all over the place. Who’s then asking you, “Yeah, I want to go have you meet grandma and grandpa, they’re going to cook us pancakes, we’re going to sit in the kitchen table with the roosters in the kitchen and look at the wallpaper.” Did you know how charming he was being in that moment? And that it was like, that’s almost a wedding Crashers move.

Jenn:
Yeah, I was definitely like, “All right.” I hadn’t even met his parents yet, but I don’t know. There was something, he talked so much about his grandparents and they’re from Italy, and so yes, there was tons of food and I do believe there were roosters in the kitchen.

David:
It’s amazing what I can figure out without hearing anything. I was playing that game with Brandon yesterday in Hawaii. People would come up to take pictures with us after his event and I was like, “Let’s try to see how much we can tell about a human being just in the first five seconds of meeting them.” And it was ridiculous how accurate I was with a lot of the stuff where you’re saying.

Jenn:
That was my morning. How did you know?

David:
I love that. In your guys’ relationship, you like working together. That was another thing that you mentioned, is that you actually, you fight more when you’re apart. Can you tell me about that dynamic of the partnership and maybe your marriage and how you two were able to get this thing to where you fight more when you’re apart, not less?

Jenn:
I wouldn’t even say it’s fight, it’s just more I wasn’t happy. So we got this office, we have in-person employees, which was totally new for us. We had everything virtual prior. And so he started coming to the office every day and we homeschool our two kids. So I once in a while would come in or bring the kids with me, but an eight year old son sitting here spinning in a chair for eight hours is just not happening. But we do involve them, we can get into that a little bit.
But I’m at home and he was at the office and I was like, “What are we doing?” This is kind of going backwards. And I was in it because I understand the office feeling maybe making him more productive. I wasn’t quite sure, I don’t know. But we’ve been working from home now the last few weeks. We’re doing even more deals and I feel like the energy and everybody is just super pumped up. And then I am a control freak, so I have my eyes and hands on everything again. So that’s super helpful. But yeah, I love working with him. He’s my best friend. And we do enjoy all the time together. We could probably use more date nights, but-

Joe:
But we laugh all day long. Because it’s either some of these things that we come across, they’re hilarious and some of these are like, “Oh, what the…

Jenn:
Yeah.

Joe:
So you got to have fun.

Rob:
I think you can do it. Listen, my wife and I have a system, a process that I’ve brought to the table. And I said, “Look, it’s really hard…” The thing I hear parents complain all the time about are date nights and not getting out. And so we just told ourselves, let’s find a babysitter that we like and trust and every Friday or Saturday or sometimes both, we’re going to hire said, whenever she’s available, if she’s available, she texts us and we go out one to two times a week. And that is just like a non-negotiable for us. And it was kind of jarring at first because it’s hard to leave kids at home and everything like that.
But now that is sort of our way to really disconnect because I could totally understand where you’re coming from. You work 24/7, my wife isn’t nearly as involved, but for both of you, if you’re working 24/7, it’s like it’s really hard to ever break away. So we’ve had to put those boundaries in our life just so we can feel normal and human again and see each other and talk about things that aren’t. So that’s my task for you all, go out there, hire a babysitter every single week. I’m going to text you next week and I’m going to saying, did you go out?

Joe:
Actually, we hired a babysitter and I stole her.

Jenn:
Yeah. We hired her.

Joe:
We hired her for the business to come work for us. We found our manager on care.com. And I talked to Jenn and she was like, “She just graduated college. She wants a job in sales, she sounds fantastic.” We meet her, she babysits the kids, the kids loved her. I come back, we offer her an interview, she comes in, we hire her. Day one. I’m like, “All right, pull up Zillow.” And she’s like, what’s that? And I’m like, “Oh boy, we got a little bit of training to do.” And-

Jenn:
She’s come a long way though.

Joe:
…five months later she is absolutely amazing now.

Rob:
Okay, so you took the right steps. You might have taken a few side steps hiring her for the… That’s actually the opposite of what I’ve recommended of breaking business.

Joe:
I know. But now we’re out a babysitter.

David:
Yeah.

Jenn:
We’ll go find a new one.

Rob:
Find a new one.

Jenn:
Thank you.

Rob:
[inaudible 00:30:46] about this. So, all right, so you gave us an idea of your life a little bit, your jobs, but can you paint a picture of really what your life was like before real estate, before you had mastered the art of creative finance and sub to and all that good stuff?

Joe:
So I’m working at a car dealership, Jenn’s a teacher. When we very first met, she had her own home. I did too. And within a few months, I’m taking her to look at some like junk house. She’s like completely doesn’t understand why are we looking at more houses when we already have two. But we got into that. But our dream was to, once we had kids, Jenn was going to walk away from her job. And prior to that we’d hardly ever got to see each other.

Jenn:
I would wake up at 4:30, hit the road by 6:30, maybe earlier if it was a blizzard. I had a 45 minute to an hour commute there. And he sometimes didn’t get home until 10 o’clock at night. And then he had Fridays off. And obviously, being a teacher, I worked Monday through Friday, so we saw each other maybe Sundays. And on Sundays it was trying to fit in family and everything else. So it was hard because you meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and I’m like, “But there’s no time just to see this person.”
So we really started evaluating and everybody thought I was crazy. I went to college, got my master’s degree. I loved teaching, loved English, all of it. And then to step… That was a hard choice too, to deal with what people were going to think of me, even my family kind of question, “You spent all this money on college, what are you doing? You’re throwing your life away.” But I just knew that that was not the case and that there was something greater. And so my advice for people is just don’t focus on what other people think is right for you and always truly do what your calling is and follow that.

Rob:
Yeah. So you’re starting to feel it, right? You’re like, “Wow, I’m not even getting to see the person that I love most.” So what was that tipping point for?

Joe:
I think it was my wife’s birthday. I remember I’m sitting there at my job, I had to work all day. And she came up tomorrow I work and she’s like, “Can we at least go get lunch?” And I was going to take my one hour lunch break and one of the managers comes out and says, “Hey, I know what your wife’s birthday, I know you’re going to go to lunch, but can you just not? And can you just come and work with this customer instead for that hour?” And I just remember being in my head, thinking to myself, “Yes, I’m making the money, but this is not fulfilling me. This is not me. I am 30 something years old. I am, I think financially I’m doing okay. I’ve got a beautiful wife, I’m happy.” But I wasn’t getting my dreams fulfilled. And I just felt like didn’t matter how much money I made at my job, I felt like it was just taking me not where I wanted to go.
And so it was that day and I still remember from my head, I was like, “Okay, I got to get out of this car business. I got to do something different.” They call it the golden coffin and they call it that for a reason. And they just pay you enough, just enough not to quit. They pay you enough not to leave and then whatever that number is, they’ll pay you just a crack over that. And so to me, that was the thing. And so I was like, “You know what? We’re going to figure something out to where we could work together, we could do this full-time. We didn’t think it was going to be as quick as it did, but glad it happened that way. Wouldn’t changed it for the world.

Rob:
We call that in advertising, we call it the golden handcuffs. And it’s like, yeah, it’s pretty good. And I’m not mad to be handcuffed right now, but I wouldn’t mind being in a better place. And it’s pretty tough. It’s pretty tough when you’re doing all right and making that change, but that’s a big sacrifice, kind of what you just talked about. Were there any other things that you sacrificed along the way?

Joe:
Our kids. For me, I missed everything. Days of school, picking them up, going to events, different things. I mean, I had to work weekends, even date nights were hard because you plan on leaving at 5:00. So I’d make reservations for 6:30 and then somebody walks in at five o’clock and they want to be there till 6:30. So I don’t get out of work till late. Reservations are no longer. And we’d missed dinner nights even when we did have a date. And then when we started having kids, that was also the final, “I’m missing way too much of this stuff of our kids growing up.” And I got to work with a lot of really amazing people at my car dealership, the owners who are all really wealthy and successful. And the one thing they all had in common was they always said that, “Yeah, money’s great, made a lot of money, but I missed my kids growing up.”
And that wasn’t one thing I was willing to negotiate. That was not going to be something I was going to miss doing. And so the fact that we could homeschool our kids and they help work in our real estate business, and we travel all over and they come with us even at real estate events, they come with us. I mean, they were at one just a couple of weeks ago and they love meeting these people. And so at eight and 10 years old, man, they’re doing awesome already for their age. So that’s what we want, that’s what you’re trying to be a parent to be.

Rob:
Totally. Jenn, what about you? What did the sacrifice look like on your end? Because it sounds like you are helping run the business, but then you’re also managing the kids, not managing, but I don’t know, maybe a little bit. Sounds like they’re crushing it now too, but what was that like?

Jenn:
Yeah, I think it’s a chosen sacrifice. I knew when I looked into homeschooling that if I was going to run a business or multiple businesses, and also homeschool my kids, then I will have to have less time for myself. And that’s something I’m willing to give up right now. There’s tons of socialization and things I can do with the kids that’s so fun. And I enjoy that and it fills my soul. But at the same time, I don’t have a ton of friends, I don’t watch Netflix all the time. I’m not out partying. I try to read books for fun and cook and do my little hobbies, but there’s always a give and take for sure.
And what Joe says, something sounds so stupid maybe. But I remember every Monday it was garbage night. And I remember every Monday I had take out the garbage and recycling and it’d be like negative 20 in the middle of winter. And everybody else’s husband, it seemed, would bring out the garbage. And here I am dragging out because he’s still at work and it’s dark out. And I was like, “Why? Why can’t we just be together? He could help me with the garbage.” So I kind of giggle now because he does help me. And you can’t leave Florida garbage out, let me tell you that. You got to make sure that goes out. But you really look at those small moments in your life and you have to be grateful for how far you’ve come and know that there is a price that you pay and just keep your eye on the prize and know why you’re doing it.

Rob:
Yeah. Do you have any tips for parents that are busy and working and trying to get into real estate? Are there any non-negotiables for you?

Jenn:
Absolutely. I think the biggest one that actually works, or so we’re told because we do it too, is finding the cracks of your day. I call them mom cracks, but I know not everybody is a mom. But every day everybody has little bits of time. So I think we often overwhelm ourselves with, “I have to spend three hours on this task of calling sellers or analyzing properties.” You don’t have three hours, let’s be honest. Or maybe you do, but by then you’re scrolling. But what is the 10 minutes or the 20 minutes or your lunch break or listening to something on the way to your job, just really utilizing your time better. Throwing that book out, atomic habits, I think you talked about habit stacking. I love that concept.
Just using your time wisely and really being aware of it. So if you’re struggling with I don’t have time, then for three days in a row, write down the time you wake up to the time you go to bed every hour, what you did, and don’t change anything and see where your time is going. And then you’ll really quickly realize you have a lot more time than you probably thought. It’s just going to places that doesn’t need to be going.

Rob:
It’s a great tip. That is a great… Time audit. Rob Dordick talked about this and he tracks literally every single aspect of his routine, how long he spends eating, how long he spends showering, how many breaths he takes a day. No, I’m just kidding. Actually, I don’t know. Maybe he does. Yeah, maybe he does track it to that degree, but it really does kind of shed light and by the end he’s like, “Oh, maybe you’ll start tracking.” And I was like, “Yeah, I think I’m too scared to find out the answer on where I’m spending my time.” But I totally agree. I think usually you probably have to start with what time you’re waking up. And recently, I just feel like I’m always frustrated at 5:00 or 6:00 PM when I close my computer because I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything and I’m not a morning person.
And so recently I’ve been waking up at 5:30 or 6:00 and it’s difficult and I don’t like it and I don’t understand how people do it. But I do feel like that was the big change for me. And it’s because I was looking, I did exactly what you said. I was looking at my habits and my time and things weren’t just working. They weren’t working just starting at nine o’clock every day. So yeah. So great tip for everyone at home. I wanted to kind of ask, because you say that you now coach new investors, and you’ve mentioned how important it is to these investors to figure out which creative finance strategy that they should be using. Before we get into all that, can you just walk us through what the different strategies are?

Joe:
Yeah. So if they have a free and clear property and they don’t owe anything on it, we’re buying one right now right outside of Boston on a free and clear property. That’s just straight seller financing. Those are really easy to negotiate because you’re really just going to figure out the price, the monthly payment, the term length, and any down payment. But sometimes these folks have a mortgage in place and so there you could buy it a few different ways. You could buy it with what we talked about earlier, a wrap mortgage or subject to. Or sometimes folks really don’t want that sale completed yet because they’re a little bit worried. So we also could buy it on a lease purchase, which is a really easy way to do it too. There’s been times where I’ve talked to a seller and I ask them, “Well, what happens if you don’t sell the house?”
They say, well, I’m probably just going to lease it. That’s when I go into, “well, why don’t you just lease it to me with the option to buy it? And then what I’ll do is I’ll re rent it to somebody else and I’ll manage everything.” And you’d be surprised how many folks are really open to that option. So that’s just another way to get into it. And then sometimes I’ll say, “Would you rather me just buy it now rather than leasing it?” And the way I could buy it is with the seller financing, then I turn it down in there more. So those are really the big four. There’s probably a lot more to do. You could get into technical stuff like hoteling, which we do.

Jenn:
Sub tail. Yeah,

Joe:
Sub tail-

Jenn:
And you’re going down a rabbit hole.

Rob:
I love the strategy and it seems like so many of these strategies can and do work, especially for your current portfolio. How did you two land on which creative strategies to focus on?

Joe:
So I want to control the property, I want to own it. So when I’m looking at a lease purchase, I don’t own the property. So that’s kind of almost at the bottom of the totem pole. Every one I’m looking for, I’m talking to sellers. If a seller has a property, it’s free and clear. It’s always just going to be straight seller financing. If they owe a mortgage on the property that’s going to be, we’re buy it on a wrap. So those are the real two strategies that we focus on. But once again, you might have a seller who’s a little hesitant and giving you their deed while the loan stays in their name. And so that’s why we offer them a lease purchase. So really what we do is we don’t have one way we talk to sellers and we find out how can we help them.
So I’ll give you an example. The one we had in Boston, she has a condo there, she wants 300,000 for it. And it’s probably worth more than that. It was built in 07′. So in Boston that’s new because it’s such an old city. And all the people who she reached out to before us were all offering her cash numbers at 200,000. She says, I will really need 300,000 for the property. I bought it for 250 in 07′. It went down when the market crashed and it finally got back up, and I want to sell it now for 300,000. I’ve got tenants in there, they’re moving out in June. She does not want to put it in the market. So we bought it for 300,000. We’re putting down $5,000 because it’s free and clear, and our mortgage to her is at one and half percent interest.
So is she happy? Yes, we’re paying her a hundred thousand dollars more than all the other cash investors. And I’m paying her a small amount of interest on top of that too. So when she looks over the term length, we’re paying her way, way more than anybody else would afford that deal. And on that deal, we’re going to cashflow really nicely because once you add in the tax HOA and all that, there’s a really nice spread.

Rob:
[inaudible 00:43:07]. Yeah.

Joe:
No. And it leaves us a really nice spread because our rate is only one and a half percent.

Rob:
Yeah, I mean, if you think about your interest that you’re going to pay, I mean, let’s just say that you were able to get a 5% interest rate right now, you can’t. But let’s say that you could, the interest that you would pay on that same loan would be hundreds of thousands of dollars more than what you’re going to pay on 1.97. So in that case, look, yeah, maybe you are quote unquote “Overpaying.” Maybe it sounds like it was still a pretty decent deal, but it’s totally worth it if you plan on holding this thing for 30 years.

Joe:
Well, and that’s kind of the point. I think that ARV, I’m just going to paint it, it’s all it needs, but it’s probably worth, I would think, 325 to 335 range. So I think I still got a really nice deal on it and at 1.5% with only five grand down, and now I own a cash flowing asset. That’s what we love. And it’s not a house built in the 17 hundreds or 18 hundreds. It’s a condo built in 07′. So it’s in pretty nice shape still.

Rob:
That’s really cool. And Jenn, how big is your portfolio? How many deals have you done in the creatives finance space total?

Joe:
We’ve done close to a hundred deals total. But I think current portfolio we have, I think it’s 27 or 28 right now. We have a handful we’re selling, we have a handful we’re buying, we have about a dozen deals in process right now.

Rob:
Wow. Okay. So you’ve done a hundred deals doing this other, I guess 70 or so that you don’t currently own, were those just flips or assignments? What happened to those other deals kind of within your portfolio?

Joe:
So sometimes we flip them, sometimes we do what our favorite is our rent to own method. So we help actually, which is really cool, is we help turn renters into owners. And so over time, some of these folks, and we have one right now, it’s a great case study. One, they’re buying out their house currently and they’re going to close, I think it’s June 4th, I forgot to tell you.

Rob:
Oh, okay.

Joe:
Or June 3rd. An so-

Rob:
Yeah, he forgot to tell you right here on the podcast, he’ll let you know front of hundreds of thousands of people.

Joe:
Well, I just talked to the attorney this morning.

Jenn:
I knew it was in process. I didn’t know what the date would be.

Joe:
Yeah, so we got the date now, which is great news. So these folks moved in the house in 2017. They gave us 32,000 to move in. They’ve been paying rent for the last six years and I think we made, it’s close to 400 and some change on that. Sometimes the rent’s gone up a little bit because of taxes gone up, but that’s about what we average. And then once they buy it out, because they are now, we’re going to get a check for close to six figures. And so we lose a door and everybody’s like, “Oh, you lost a door.”

Jenn:
And keep the…

Joe:
Well, guess what, the way that we buy real estate, I could fund five more of those genie deals, those condo deals. Or six more, seven more of those deals. And then how do I turn one property into six or seven more? That’s the way to do it. So we could put that money into a 1031 exchange and buy four or five more doors that all average that three, four, $500 a month in cashflow. And then because of our strategy, we’ll actually get mountains of money when they move in too. So the way we figure it out is we’re getting paid to buy these houses right in the beginning.

David:
You’ve done a great job explaining what you do when the opportunity comes your way. How are you finding these deals, especially in a market like now, where it’s incredibly difficult to find motivated sellers? It’s really hard to find anything that’s halfway decent that’s not getting multiple offers.

Joe:
So I’m glad you brought that up. That’s a really good question. We have, and I’m going to share this with everybody, our secret sauce with you guys. So this is what’s currently working today in our business and a lot of folks that we work with across the country. And we’ve been able to land deals even last summer in Marco Island. Where it’s a small, super ultra ritzy island off of Naples, Florida, it’s like the sixth most affluent place in the country. And we’re finding deals even there.
So what we do is we go into social media. We love Facebook, we joined Facebook groups. So if I’m in Houston, I’m going to go to Facebook, I’m going to go to my search bar, I’m going to type in Houston. Then it gives you these options to pick for people, conversations or groups. I’ll pick groups and then I’ll join every one of them in Houston. I’ll join every one of them, the mom groups, the garage sale groups, every one of them. And then what we do is I make a post in these groups, and this is the post that works really, really well. We just write, and it sounds simple, “Does anyone have a house to sell That’s not market ready? My wife and I are looking to buy one in the next two to three weeks.”

Rob:
Pause. Say that again.

Jenn:
Get your pens ready.

Joe:
Get your pens ready. “Does anyone have a house for sale that’s not market ready? My wife and I are looking to buy one in the next two to three weeks.” Or “I’m looking to buy one in the next two to three weeks.” And then what I do, here’s the next trick to this. When you type that in there, you could go to a spot where you could click the cool backgrounds and there’s the smiley face one, there’s the hearts. I just use the simple blue one. It stands out when you’re scrolling through Facebook. People see it in these garage sale groups. So here’s what’s going to happen now. You hit send. You only want to put it in about five, six groups a day. If you put it into 50, Facebook will lock your account out for a little while and be like, “Oh, you’re spamming.”
So don’t do that. So put it in five a day, six a day. Some of these groups, you’ll get nothing. There’s been a few groups where I’ve gotten two to 300 comments. Now, not all of them are nice comments. Some will be like, “Oh, you’re just trying to buy houses.” I’m like, “Yes, I am.”

Rob:
You got me.

Joe:
Yeah. But a lot of people, but a lot of people are going to say, “I have a property I’m looking to sell.” And the DM start going absolutely maddening. And if I put that post out today in Tampa, Florida, which is one of the hottest markets around the country, I’ll have 25 leads by the end of the day. Incoming warm leads of people who are reaching out to me saying, “I have a property that’s not in the market.” Although some slip through the cracks and say it’s listed with a realtor, most are off market and say, “I have a property. I think about listing in the next few weeks.” And then we start asking questions.

Rob:
Okay, so I got questions. I have questions, now it’s my turn.

Joe:
Let’s go.

Rob:
So if you’re talking about 25 leads a day, are you calling those 25 leads a day or are you hiring virtual assistants, or are you training interns to get through the preliminary questions? Do you make them fill out forums? What’s the process here?

Joe:
So great question. So what we like to do is we ideally want to get into conversations, but only get on conversations with people who are motivated to sell and want to sell. So I think what stops so many new investors is they hate talking to people. They’re scared to pick up the phone. And it’s scary sometimes and I understand. So the way that I like to do it is when we…Those folks message us. So the first thing I message is, “Hi, thanks so much for reaching out. Can you please tell me a little bit about the property?” And they’ll tell you “It’s a three four, I’ve owned it for this.” They give you the story. I ask them, even, why are they going to sell it? How soon do they want to sell it? So I’ve got some information about the property.
We even get into, do you owe anything to contractors? How much do you need for the property? How much do you owe on it? And they tell us about 90 something percent of the time. We find out even what they owe on it, what their payment is. And then if they have motivation and they’re nice, we want to get on that phone call.

Jenn:
Two keywords there.

Joe:
If they’re not motivated and they’re mean, guess where they go, I don’t want to waste my time and I don’t want to get aggravated talking to somebody who’s going to not be motivated and who’s not happy. So really what’s helped now is when you’re talking to motivated sellers who’s reached out to you and you finally do get on the phone with them, those conversations are a lot better, your closing ratios are a lot higher. You’re not going to make every deal, I wish I was that good. Nobody is.
But you try to figure out a way to solve their problem. And we can make an offer on every property. Because I could offer a cash offer on somebody who maybe has a older fixer upper house, maybe they have something like that. But what about the turnkey houses in the beautiful neighborhoods and they want top dollar for them? Those are all the ones I used to throw away. Now, I just think back of how much money I threw directly into the garbage. Because the properties that I like to buy in Jenn’s the same way is the turnkey houses. That really, really nice house. And if you look at a lot of the ones we’ve done, we don’t really buy… I can’t say we don’t, because we still do, but we really focus on the pretty houses. They really, really nice ones that are turnkey, ready to go.

Rob:
I do want to hear that deal. But you mentioned that sometimes, you put in some work to make sure that it’s move in ready.

Joe:
Yeah. So one of the questions that we love to ask every time is, does the house need any work before a family with young children can move into it? Because here’s what happens. I’m talking to Bob, Sam, whatever their name is, and I say, “Does the house need any work?” What do they do? They look over their shoulder and they say, “No, it looks good to me.” It does all the time, right? Because they live there. But when you say, “Does the house need any work before a family with young children can move into it?” They’re like, “Well, there’s no handrail going down the stairs. And the stairs you could fall in and there’s a leak.” And they’ll start divulging a lot more information because it’s different when you have little kids moving in there.

Rob:
And then they feel like they have to tell you, legally, they’re like, “Oh, okay. Maybe I should mention that the there’s exposed wiring hanging from the ceiling above the sink.” Yeah. Got it.

Joe:
Yeah. So we love to ask that question. That’s one of the most important ones to know. And with our questioning, if I were to ask you right in the very beginning, how much do you on your mortgage, you would never tell me that. You’d never tell me. My chance of me getting that answer go down significantly. But if we’ve gotten the pattern, we call patterning, where I ask you a question, something easy, “Can you tell me about the property?” Another easy question. “Why do you want to sell it? Another one? How soon?” But as we start asking about the contractors, and do you owe any amounts to contractors? Does the house need to work before a family with their owned kids can move in? Then we start getting into how much do you owe the mortgage? What do you need for the property? What’s your monthly payment?
And they just, they’ll tell you because now you’ve built that pattern and the rhythm of asking the questions. Now guys, you got to remember, this is all done through messaging. We’re not even on a phone call at this point. Because here’s the other thing too, when you are chatting with somebody on Facebook, sometimes, and I’m going to be very-

Jenn:
Blunt.

Joe:
Careful how I word this to the audience, but many times when they see that ad, they might be at their job, they might be most time on a break, a lot of times in the bathroom. So what we’ve developed was a company policy, and I’m going to be very… I know Jenn’s already shaking your head, but what happens is there’s called speed to lead. If somebody sends you an inquiry about selling their house, when do they want to sell it?

Rob:
At this moment? Yeah.

Joe:
Right. They just said, yeah, I want to sell my house. They are used to instant gratification. So our company policy is that when somebody reaches out to us, we have to get back to them before they wipe, okay? Before they get off that toilet, if that’s the case. So under 60 seconds is the key, because once we could get that conversation engaged in 60 seconds, and less we get the information, we’re able to now schedule that call if they’re not available right then and there.. Versus somebody who reaches out to us and they say, I want to sell my house, and I got back to them six hours later or the next day.

Rob:
They’ve already forgotten and they don’t even care at that point probably, right?

Joe:
Different level of motivation.

Rob:
Okay, So BTW, that’s what we call it in the industry Before The Wipe.

David:
So important though.

Jenn:
[inaudible 00:54:45]

David:
This is what I constantly bang my head against the brick wall with my realtors on my team. They do not understand that we’re not talking, well, I got back to them within 24 hours. That you do not understand the psychology of a brain when they see a house they want to see or they want to talk to an agent and they send a message. If it’s not within 15 to 30 seconds, their brain starts thinking, what else could I do? If it’s not within a couple of minutes, they start thinking, who else could I ask? They’ve already asked another realtor, and then we are like, “Oh, let me get back to them seven hours later because it works on my schedule.” And the person doesn’t say, “You’re too late. I already moved on.” They just, “Okay, yeah, we’ll talk later.” But whoever the realtor is that connected first is already off and running with the ball.
I really think the key is understanding you’re in a competition. Somebody else wants to buy that house. Somebody else wants to get that client, somebody else wants to land that deal. And when you’re too busy, whatever you’re doing, expecting that the other person sort of needs to work around your schedule, you lose them. And it’s really just understanding that our default mode as human beings is to be narcissists. We really want someone to work around what we are doing. I’m busy with the kids, I’m in this other meeting. I’m trying to eat lunch right now. Can I eat a sandwich without getting bothered? No, not if you want to make a hundred thousand dollars. That’s a hundred thousand dollars bite you just took because you didn’t want to call back that lead. And that really is the attitude you have to have when you’re in this competitive environment. You guys agree?

Jenn:
Yeah.

Joe:
100%. I’ve spent so much time and effort into research and integrating and making sure. And you are spot on. I mean, you give somebody 12 hours and if your closing ratios say 20%, it cuts in half after 12 hours, and it’s another half after another 12 hours. So if you got back to them in 24 hours and you normally could close 20%, your chance of closing are 10%, like it goes down significantly, so on and so forth. So speed to lead is extremely important to make sure that you’re able to… It’s that instant gratification, and they want answers now. I want to be able to at least get the questions answered and schedule that appointment to get on the phone if they’re not available right away. But we want to get on those calls as fast as possible.

Jenn:
Especially with incoming,

Joe:
Yes, especially with incoming. Warm leads or hot leads.

David:
I think you two are the perfect example of people that obviously enjoy real estate and enjoy people. And so you get to play in this playground that you like every single day. You get to talk to people, find opportunities for deals, use all of the different techniques that we teach about on podcasts like this to figure out the best disposition for the property, maximize efficiency at every single level based on the unique traits of the person. It kind of just reminds me of a coach who’s coaching a sports team and loves that sport and they’re like, “Okay, they’re throwing this defense at us. We could try this. We could try that. We’ll go to this person.”
When you love the sport, it doesn’t feel like work. And I’m frequently telling people, this is an incredibly hard market to try to buy enough real estate that you just live off the cashflow and never work again. It’s not working for almost anyone. But what you’re doing can work for people. The more knowledge you gain, the more money you’re going to be making in your business. It’s an awesome way, I think, to live life, especially that you two get to work together. You’re in love, you get to work a business together, you don’t have to be a part. It’s a really good success story of an American work ethic in general. And I love, love, love hearing this. Any last words before we let you guys get out of here much?

Joe:
Thank you, so much.

Jenn:
I’m just super grateful to be able to share our story. And it is true, and it does take hard work, and you got to put your time in, but anything is possible.

Joe:
Yeah. And I think we also love helping other folks who maybe they don’t understand where to get started. And sometimes we find folks who they say, “I have a deal, or I think I might have a seller who’s in a situation, but I don’t know enough about it. Can you help us?” And that’s how we got engaged actually with the one in Connecticut they were doing. Was somebody who listened to our podcast. And his wife does all the time, and they said, “Well, actually, we’re in a situation right now where we know somebody who wants to sell her house. She’s been on the house for over a year, but I don’t know anything about the deal.” So they got ahold of us and we were able to put it together for everybody. So we also love helping people. If you have that potential deal, reach out to us. I’d love to help you, and maybe we could help that seller out or at least point her in the right direction, or him in the right direction, and a lot of times make a deal and that’s awesome.

David:
Awesome. So if people want to know more about you guys, where can they find you?

Jenn:
Yeah, definitely social media. Like we said, we love Facebook. Jennifer Delle Fave and Joseph Delle Fave. We’re on Instagram with our names. We have a YouTube channel. It’s growing slowly, but it’s out there.

Rob:
What is it?

Jenn:
Creative Finance Playbook.

Joe:
We share a lot right on there too. Is it all right if I share a cell phone number?

Rob:
If you want. This is a very, be careful what you wish for scenario. So tread lightly, my friend. Give us the digits.

Joe:
All right, so if you have something that you want us to take a look at or we just need to talk my cell phone number. This is not a recording, this is actually my cell phone number. It’s 585, because it’s an upstate New York number. That’s where I’m from, 207-2240. That’s my cell phone. So you could call or text usually please text first or call, whatever’s fine. I answer my phone unless I’m in a meeting or talking with a seller. But if you have a deal that we want to look at, you need some help, reach out, we’d love to help.

Rob:
Well, my thoughts are with your cell phone. And thank you for that. David, what about you, man? What’s your phone number? Yeah,

David:
That’s really good, Buddy. You can DM me. How about that? On social media at David Green 24, please do reach out. We love talking to all of you. And on YouTube, I’m @David Green 24. How about you, Rob?

Rob:
You can find me over at Robuilt on Instagram. If you want to see my goofier side, on Robuilt on YouTube. I guess, they’re both equally goofy, but I do real estate advice on there. I do, I talk about stuff there. Go follow me. Go check it out. And then also, don’t forget if this episode was the episode that you’re like, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to go to a Facebook group, I’m going to post that I’m looking for a house.” And it’s actually going to cause you to take action, while you’re taking action, head on over to the Apple Podcast platform and leave us a five star review so that we get served up to many other people who need to take the same action so that they can achieve financial freedom through real estate.

David:
Well, thank you too very much for being here. This was an awesome show. We really appreciate both the knowledge you shared and the insight into your life, because I think that that is just as important as kind of showing a playbook, if you will, for how to have a good marriage and a good partnership. So it was great getting to meet you guys. This is David Green for Rob. Live where you want and invest where you want. Have a solo. Signing out.

 

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DataDigest: The staying power of the new New South


Six Southern states — North and South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee — now add more to the national GDP than the Northeast, according to a Bloomberg analysis of recently published Internal Revenue Service data. 

The transition happened during the pandemic. Millions of transplants brought about $100 billion in new income to the Southeast in 2020 and 2021 alone, while the Northeast lost roughly $60 billion. 

Friends, this is the new New South. And it’s home to 10 of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. 

Fastest-Growing-Large-Cities-2022

The growth is real. The question is this: how sustainable is it? And at what point would the new New South resemble the places people are migrating from? Let’s dive in.

Economists at First American did a cool thing recently. They grouped pandemic-era home price growth into four categories for metros: Boom-Bust, Boom-No Bust, No Boom-Bust, and No Boom-No Bust. Take a look.

See that? Home prices and demand rocketed across the New South, and only Austin, Texas, has seen prices drop anywhere close to 10% from the peak (which still means a 55% increase from February 2020). These markets are going to remain hot for the foreseeable future. 

CoreLogic data supports this perspective, even if a few markets in Florida are expected to cool down. Miami again posted the highest year-over-year home price increase of the country’s 20 tracked metro areas in May, at 11.8%. Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, saw the next-highest gains, both at 4.4%.

Tax return data shows just how much has changed from a wealth perspective since the pandemic.

  • In Miami, the net flow of adjusted gross income for tax filers moving from other states reached $17 billion in 2021, up from $9.6 billion in 2020 and $7.8 billion in 2018, according to Bloomberg. 
  • In Dallas, it reached $5.6 billion in 2021, up from $4.5 billion in 2020 and $3.8 billion in 2019. 
  • Charleston, South Carolina recorded $4.6 billion in 2021, up from $3.8 billion in 2020 and $3.1 billion in 2019. 
  • Jacksonville hit $2.1 billion in 2021, up from $1.6 billion in 2020 and $1.5 billion in 2019.
  • By contrast, New York, Chicago, LA and DC cumulatively lost $107 billion alone in 2021.

What’s pushing people to move to these areas? It’s simple – affordability and jobs.  

“It’s just much cheaper to live here,” said Jon Overfelt, co-owner of American Security Mortgage Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We hear it all the time – somebody who leaves New Jersey or New York is like, ‘I couldn’t keep up with the taxes.’ I’m like, why did you stay in New York? Or why do you stay in New Jersey with those high taxes? They say because either the schooling  – the school systems are good – or it’s family driven. If one of those two changes, they end up here quickly.” 

In the Northeast, few homebuilders even attempt to build new single-family homes.

Between regulatory and zoning challenges, NIMBYism and financing costs, the product just doesn’t pencil out. Multifamily is also in short supply, which makes land far more expensive, and keeps costs up. Homebuilders don’t have that problem in the New South.

According to Altos Research, there were just 25,653 single-family homes available for sale in New York and New Jersey as of July 14. Texas alone had 73,223 single-family homes for sale. Florida had 48,474 and Georgia had 18,552. North Carolina had nearly 17,000 single-family homes for sale while Tennessee had 14,650 and South Carolina had 10,539.

The lack of density — sprawl, if you will —  is a big factor. Americans have a preference anyway toward car culture and homebuilders have plenty of unbuilt land they bought for pennies on the dollar, and demand is strong in the South.

“If you’re in Charlotte or in Raleigh, if you drive 12 miles out, it gets rural fast,” Overfelt said. “I’m on the lake so the homes are all $2 million and up. But drive three miles down the street and  you can buy a brand new D.R. Horton home for $360,000 – 2,000 square feet. That’s where I see a lot of older people from up north. They’ve sold their house for $700,000, $800,000, $900,000 and they buy a house that’s a little bit bigger. Keep the money and they’re just on the outskirts of town anyway.”

Retirees and empty-nesters aren’t the only ones relocating. Corporations are flocking to the South, and they’re taking good-paying jobs with them, according to Census Bureau data. 

“We now have more employees in Texas than New York state. It shouldn’t have been that way,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon remarked earlier this year.

Financial firms, hospitals, biotech companies and car companies have all brought jobs from other areas of the country, Census data shows. Apple is even building a $552 million campus in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. 

Tax incentives have helped lure corporations. Business solutions firm Dun & Bradstreet received a $100 million package of cash and tax incentives to move from New Jersey to Jacksonville. The average employee has an annual salary of $77,000, 25% above the national level and far above most local employers. Many roles pay roughly 15% below the average at the former New Jersey headquarters, and the company is not even halfway to its goal of 500 workers, Bloomberg reported. 

People will put up with high taxes in exchange for great cities with top quality services made possible by public investment. But people won’t put up with deteriorating public services and extreme housing unaffordability. Between 2009 and 2019, New York City grew by 907,600 jobs, or 24.3%, attracting 629,057 new residents. But the city only constructed 206,000 housing units. It’s no surprise people fled in 2020 – the Northeast needs to govern better and commit to making housing more affordable or it will continue to lose to the New South.

With more than 2 million people having relocated to New South in the last few years, it’s bound to change the culture. Will it eventually change the housing market and way of life? 

“That’s where things get weird and economics work out long term,” Overfelt said. “When they come down here it’s everything they were trying to escape from New York or New Jersey. They always end up saying, ‘Well this is how we did it there.’ Yeah, you had it there, but you were paying for more there.” 

My parents are a perfect example. In August 2021 they relocated from Northern New Jersey to Clayton, North Carolina, 15 miles south of Raleigh. They bought their new house in a subdivision all-cash and my stepfather got a part-time job at a golf course down the road. They’ve never been happier, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re saving $15,000 a year in property taxes. But you know what they don’t like? All the new construction in every direction. 

“We didn’t have that in New Jersey,” my mother said. Indeed, mom. Indeed.

In our weekly DataDigest newsletter, HW Media Managing Editor James Kleimann breaks down the biggest stories in housing through a data lens. Sign up here! Have a subject in mind? Email him at james@hwmedia.com.





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The world of real estate M&A has changed for buyers


Having recently attended the RealTrends Gathering of Eagles and DealMakers conference in Austin, I can honestly say it’s some of the best money I have ever spent on a conference in 20+ years.

Within three hours at DealMakers, I already learned enough information to more than justify the time and money invested. The world of real estate brokerage mergers and acquisitions has been turned on its head in the past 12 months. Buyers and sellers alike must learn to navigate these uncharted waters.

Here are three valuable lessons I learned from Steve Murray about the new model of deal structuring.

1.   Lower multiples

Most of us still remember hearing the stories about the large companies gobbling up brokerages at six times EBITDA, or even more. It’s safe to say that those stories will fade into real estate lore and could even be considered mythical in a few years.

Buyers aren’t willing to value companies at that level in this market, nor should they. I said several months ago that sellers have unfortunately missed the top of the market and that moving forward, buyers will be presenting offers with a far less fanciful multiple. In fact, several panelists weren’t quoting over a three multiple. Now, every deal has its own quirks but overall, the high multiples are gone.

2.   Less cash up front

Every seller would love a duffle bag of cash dropped on their desk. While it’s fun to dream, the reality is that buyers are not looking to expend operating capital for major purchases. What many want to buy is positive cash flow or market share. One panelist at DealMakers said that they don’t offer more than 8% cash down on an M&A deal. That’s a far cry from the 50-75% that some buyers are said to have given in the past. Purchasing companies are much more risk-averse than one or two years ago. Cash up front isn’t a gamble they are largely willing to make.

3.   Longer earn outs

Sellers looking for a quick escape plan are not going to like this. While not every buyer will want the seller to stick around that long, the deal structures are being slanted toward extended earn outs with stop-loss measures built in to protect both parties from a plunge. A two-year earn out is not going to be very attractive to many buyers unless the seller is taking a major haircut on the overall valuation of the brokerage. Four to five years or even more could become a trend as buyers look to spread their risk out over longer periods.

While we are certainly at an inflection point in the M&A space, it’s not a “forget everything you know” situation. At the end of the day, sellers want to sell, and buyers want to buy. Conversations are being had and deals are being made.

It’s important the sellers understand that things have changed, and they may not get everything they had hoped for. Buyers should also remember that this is someone’s company that they built.

For some, it’s like a child. Have some empathy when dealing with a seller and try to think how you would feel on the other side of the table. If the deal is a win-win, both sides come away better off.

Stephen Meadows is COO of Coldwell Banker Premier in Virginia, a firm that was named a 2023 RealTrends GameChangers for its growth in transaction side percentage over the past five years.



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Angelo Mozilo, the ‘face of the financial crisis,’ dies at 84


Angelo Robert Mozilo, the founder of Countrywide Financial, died from natural causes this weekend, his family announced. He was 84 years old. 

Mozilo was a pioneer of the mortgage industry, though a deeply controversial figure. 

“Independent of how people outside of the industry may perceive this man, insiders know what an incredible force he was,” his son Eric Mozilo wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Over his span of 50 years, he dedicated his life to delivering the American dream of homeownership to millions. He absolutely insisted on ensuring that minorities were represented, first and foremost. No company, not even up until today, has even come close to the size and dominance of Countrywide. Most of today’s mortgage industry leadership, whether it be an employee, an executive, or even a business affiliate, have had a connection or roots with Angelo and Countrywide. Lastly, he was the best Dad a son could ever ask for.”

Originally from New York City and the son of a Bronx butcher, the brash and charismatic Mozilo founded Countrywide in 1969 with his former mentor David Loeb after receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University. For most of its history, Countrywide was known for originating low-risk loans. Mozilo was president of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) in 1991-1992.

He gained full control of the company in 2000, after Loeb’s retirement, and put it in growth mode, becoming the largest mortgage provider in America by 2004, surpassing Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual. In 2006, Countrywide made roughly $10 billion in new loans each work week. The company said its five-year total return at the end of 2006 was 340%, close to 10 times higher than that of the S&P 500.

Mozilo avoided working with subprime loans until the late 1990s, when after noticing that his firm was losing business to competitors, Countywide embraced the type of subprime mortgage lending that eventually led to the housing crisis in 2008. And they did it at a massive scale.

Though he publicly defended the company’s lending practices and said he was championing minority homeownership, Mozilo knew about the poor underwriting standards, according to documents disclosed during government settlements.

“On Sunday I met a mortgage broker from a town near Troy, Michigan who told me that he does all of his business with Countrywide. First I was pleased with the news until he told me why. He said that the area he serves is severely economically depressed and the only way he can qualify his borrowers is the via the pay option ARM,” he wrote to a colleague at Countrywide in 2005. “I have heard this story many times over from mortgage brokers who utilize the pay option for very marginal borrowers for the sole purpose of creating volumes and commissions. We simply cannot and will not allow our company to be victimized by this pervasive behavior and since we can’t control the behavior of others it is essential that we control our own actions.”

When home prices started to fall in 2006 and investors abandoned the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market in 2007, Countywide began running out of money. With Countrywide needing short-term funding and investigations into its mortgage lending business already swirling, Mozilo sold his company to Bank of America for $4 billion. The bank would ultimately lose about $50 billion on the investment.  

Mozilo was charged with insider trading and securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2009, tied to stock sales. According to the New York Times, Mozilo sold $406 million since Countrywide was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984, $129 million realized in the 12 months ending August 2007. 

Mozilo settled with the SEC in October 2010 for $67.5 million in fines and accepted a lifetime ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company.  

Mozilo became the “face of the financial crisis,” the New Yorker reported.   

Mozilo and his wife Phyllis were the founders of The Mozilo Family Foundation, providing scholarships for youth. Phyllis died in 2017. In 2019, Mozilo stepped down from the board’s chairmanship and was engaged in consulting initiatives.  

Rob Chrisman first reported the news of his death on Monday.

In 2019, speaking at a hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, Mozilo said he didn’t care that he was still held responsible for the financial crisis.

“A lot of years went by, my wife passed away, I turned 80 years old, and now I don’t care,” Mozilo said, according to a New York Post report. “There’s other things more important in life. Somehow, for some unknown reason, I got blamed for it.”  



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10 ways to use virtual reality technology in your real estate business


The real estate sector is constantly evolving, and one technology has emerged as a true game changer: virtual reality (VR). With its captivating and immersive experiences, VR has captured the attention of industry stakeholders, unlocking vast untapped potential. 

While VR has transformed various industries, it is in real estate where its impact truly shines. VR homes have revolutionized the way properties are showcased, offering unparalleled interactive virtual tours. This transformative technology has opened up a new world of possibilities, empowering agents and captivating potential buyers like never before. 

Continue reading to delve into the exciting realm of VR in real estate, exploring its benefits, advantages and the promising future it holds for the industry. The following list of ten ways to use VR in real estate could forever change the way you do business.

Take your customers on virtual tours

Virtual property tours are essential in real estate marketing, and these tours leverage VR technology’s power. These immersive experiences enable prospective buyers to explore properties in three dimensions from the comfort of their homes. 

According to Matterport, 360 interactive virtual tour integration in real estate listings increases the likelihood of homebuyers reaching out to agents by a significant 95%. Moreover, properties featuring 3D tours spend less time on the market — typically around one-third less time — and agents can secure higher selling prices.  

Real estate agents can utilize VR to create interactive and engaging platforms that allow buyers to navigate properties virtually, gaining a comprehensive understanding of their layout, design and spatial qualities. Many QR Code makers simplify the sharing process by providing quick access to VR tours through scanned codes. This powerful combination expands the reach of real estate listings to a global audience, attracting international buyers and investors. 

Virtual reality tours in real estate are typically categorized into guided tours and interactive tours, each providing unique advantages and complexities.

Guided tours

Guided tours typically consist of pre-recorded videos captured using a panoramic camera. These videos provide a 360-degree view of the property, allowing viewers to experience the space through a VR headset. 

While guided tours offer a relatively straightforward approach without sophisticated rendering or programming, they still provide an immersive experience by allowing users to explore the property virtually.

Interactive virtual tours

In contrast, interactive virtual tours offer a highly engaging and immersive experience for clients. These tours give clients the freedom to navigate and interact with the VR environment. They can choose their own path, move around and engage with specific elements through strategically placed hotspots.

This interactivity elevates the overall experience, providing potential buyers with a greater sense of control and involvement. However, developing interactive virtual tours requires advanced rendering techniques and programming expertise, making them more complex to create compared to guided tours.

Gain in-depth insights through VR market research

By utilizing VR technology, agents can conduct immersive surveys, gather feedback and analyze user behavior within virtual environments. This enables them to understand buyer preferences, identify trends and make data-driven decisions. 

VR market research provides agents with a realistic and interactive platform to test property designs, explore potential renovations and assess the impact of various factors on buyer perception. By leveraging VR, real estate agents can enhance their understanding of the market, optimize their strategies and ultimately improve their overall success in the industry.

Keller Williams, one of the largest real estate franchises globally, has incorporated VR technology into their marketing strategies. They use VR to view properties, and their location, perform competitive analysis and understand recent trends. 

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Remote client consultations

Virtual reality enables real estate agents to conduct remote client consultations. Instead of requiring clients to visit the office or travel to the property, agents can use VR to provide virtual meetings. Clients can view properties, discuss details and ask questions in real-time, even if they live far away. This technology eliminates geographic barriers, saving time and increasing convenience for both parties involved.

VR QR codes

QR codes linked to virtual reality experiences simplify the sharing of immersive property tours. Real estate agents can generate QR codes associated with specific properties and share them through various marketing channels, such as websites, social media or print materials. 

Interested buyers can scan these QR codes using their smartphones, instantly accessing the VR tours. VR QR codes make it easy for agents to provide engaging experiences to potential buyers, facilitating efficient property exploration and increasing exposure for their listings.

For example, Redfin, a real estate brokerage firm, adopts VR to offer virtual walkthroughs of properties with QR codes. Through immersive virtual tours, buyers can explore different rooms, get a sense of scale and visualize the property as if they were physically present.

Virtual home staging

According to Realtor.com, staging a 2,000-square-foot home typically costs between $2,000 and $2,400 per month. This significant expense poses a considerable operating cost for real estate agents who adopt traditional staging methods. While selling a home furnished with cozy furniture is generally more appealing than presenting a space, the financial burden associated with physical staging is undeniable.

Fortunately, VR provides a cost-effective alternative by allowing agents to stage listings for sale without incurring additional expenses. This virtual staging option offers numerous advantages, such as:

  • Eliminates the need for purchasing or renting physical furniture, thereby minimizing costs for agents. 
  • Enables agents to showcase various interior design styles to cater to the preferences of diverse potential buyers. 
  • Allows customization and enhances the overall presentation of the property, potentially increasing buyer interest and accelerating the sales process.

Compass, a technology-driven real estate firm, incorporates virtual staging as part of its offerings. They use advanced visualization techniques to create realistic digital furnishings and decor for their listings.

VR training of agents

Real estate firms are increasingly adopting VR to provide their agents with immersive and interactive learning experiences. With VR agents can explore properties virtually. They can navigate different rooms, examine details and get a realistic sense of the property’s layout and features. New agents can also practice their sales and negotiation skills. VR can simulate various sales scenarios, allowing agents to practice communication, negotiation and objection-handling skills. They can interact with virtual clients, respond to inquiries and practice effective sales techniques in a risk-free environment. VR will also allow agents to complete safety and compliance training. From safety hazards to compliance issues and fair housing practices, it can all be covered with VR technology rather than in-person trainings. VR can also give agents the chance to go beyond the property and tour neighborhoods, local amenities and landmarks. This way, they can familiarize themselves with the area and gain insights into local trends, without leaving the office.

Property development visualization

VR technology presents a valuable opportunity for real estate agents and property developers to harness its capabilities and create detailed, interactive visualizations of their projects even before the construction phase commences.

This approach holds numerous benefits for property developers, including:

  • Enables real estate agents to showcase their projects to potential buyers and investors.
  • Providing a realistic and immersive preview of what the development will look like once completed. 
  • Powerful tools in securing pre-sales and attracting investment
  • Establish trust among stakeholders. 
  • Enhances the marketing and sales process.
  • Provides a solid foundation for successful project execution.

Virtual meetings and collaboration

VR technology can facilitate virtual meetings and collaborative sessions. Agents can conduct virtual meetings with clients, architects, contractors and other stakeholders involved in the property buying or development process. 

Participants can join the virtual environment from different locations, reducing the need for physical meetings and travel. Virtual meetings and collaboration enhance communication, allowing for real-time discussions, visual presentations and shared decision-making. This efficient and interactive approach streamlines the overall process, saving time and increasing productivity for all parties involved.

Enables design visualization

Selling a property that is under construction poses a significant challenge compared to selling an existing property. Potential buyers often struggle to visualize and grasp the full potential of a property that only exists as plans and concepts. As a result, they may hesitate or be less inclined to make a purchase.

Fortunately, VR provides an affordable and effective solution for businesses in the real estate industry, especially developers and real estate agents selling properties that are still under construction. Virtual architectural visualizations allow prospective buyers to get a realistic picture of a property’s inside and exterior before purchasing it.

Furthermore, virtual architectural visualization addresses numerous challenges faced by designers, architects and business owners. Particularly in social distancing trends, 3D visualization has proven crucial in enabling businesses to operate without in-person interactions between entrepreneurs, architects and builders.

Immersive VR advertising

VR can create interactive advertisements that enable clients to virtually “step inside” properties. Through interactive VR advertisements that allow clients to virtually explore properties and showcase neighborhood amenities, you can captivate potential clients, increase their engagement and establish a strong brand presence. Embracing the innovative potential of VR advertising enables real estate agents to effectively stand out in the competitive real estate market and leave a lasting impression on their target audience.

For example, real estate agents use VR to showcase neighborhood amenities in a three-dimensional virtual environment. This enables potential clients to experience the surrounding area and get a sense of the community’s offerings, such as parks, schools, shopping centers and recreational facilities. 

The bottom line

VR is transforming the real estate industry, providing game-changing solutions to optimize operations, elevate client experiences and gain a competitive edge. To unlock the full potential of VR technology and drive long-term success in a dynamic market, implement these ten strategies. Embrace the future of real estate with VR and seize the opportunity to revolutionize your business.

Don’t wait — adapt and thrive in the evolving landscape of real estate. The power of VR awaits.



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Seller impersonation fraud threatens American homeownership


With real estate inventory at a near-record low, buyers seeking a place to call home are facing stiff competition as bidding wars continue to be commonplace. In such an environment, buyers may feel pressure to bypass steps in the transaction to make their bid more attractive to the seller, but they should be wary that taking shortcuts can expose them to fraud. 

Unfortunately, today’s competitive market has created the perfect environment for seller impersonation fraud — a type of fraud in which bad actors impersonate property owners and attempt to sell property they don’t own. It is critical that title professionals and our industry partners spread awareness about this type of fraud and educate buyers about the steps they should take to protect themselves.

The U.S. Secret Service reported a steep rise in seller impersonation in an advisory it issued this year. According to a recent survey, 73% of real estate firms reported an increase in seller impersonation attempts this year. However, with increased vigilance by real estate professionals and buyer education, these scams can be spotted. We can reverse this trend.

The best way to avoid being the victim of seller impersonation fraud is to understand the threat and how it can happen. Professionals and consumers should be aware of the type of properties and transactions that are the most vulnerable to this type of fraud.

How fraud works

Scammers search public records to identify real estate that is free of a mortgage or other liens. These often include vacant lots or rental properties. The identity of the landowner is also obtained through these public records searches.

Scammers pose as property owners and contact a real estate agent to list the property for sale. All communications are through email and other electronic means and not in person.

The listing price of the property is typically set below the current market value to generate immediate interest in the property.

When an offer comes in, the scammer quickly accepts it, with a preference for cash sales.

The title company or closing attorney transfers the closing proceeds to the scammer. The fraud is typically not discovered until the time of recording of transferring documents with the applicable county.

Hope for the future

Fortunately, there are precautions that title and settlement companies can take to help prevent this fraud. First, they should contact the seller directly at an independently discovered and validated phone number. Title professionals can also ask the real estate agent if they have personal or verified knowledge of the seller’s identity.

There are several ways title professionals can verify a seller’s identity. This can be achieved by sending the seller a link to go through identity verification using a third-party service provider, running the seller’s email and phone number through a verification program or asking conversational questions to ascertain the seller’s knowledge of property information not readily available in public records.

Title professionals can also compare the seller’s signature to previously recorded documents to ensure they are the same. They can also compare the sales price to the appraisal, historical sales price or tax appraisal value to ensure nothing seems out of the ordinary.

If remote online notarization is available for the transaction, it can be used to ensure there is multifactor authentication of the seller by a title company’s approved and vetted notary. 

Of course, the easiest way for buyers to protect themselves is by purchasing a homeowner’s policy of title insurance, which often has additional fraud protection. We also recommend that all current property owners sign up for free property monitoring services that are usually offered by their county recorder’s offices so they can be alerted of any suspected fraud before it is too late.  

If you or someone you know believes they may be a victim of seller impersonation fraud, we recommend filing a fraud report with local and state law enforcement and the FBI at IC3.gov. 

As an industry that prides itself on protecting homeowners and their greatest investments, we take these threats to prospective homebuyers and homeowners seriously. That is why we have taken steps to spread awareness about seller impersonation fraud and educate homebuyers about how they can protect themselves. We encourage our industry partners to continue sharing best practices and tips to prevent more of these scams from taking place. 

ALTA encourages all stakeholders involved in the transaction to become educated about this fraud.

Diane Tomb is CEO of the American Land Title Association, the national trade association representing the land title insurance and settlement services industry, which employs more than 120,000 people working in every county in the United States.



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ICE, Black Knight agree to sell Optimal Blue to Constellation Software to save the merger deal 


Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Black Knight agreed to sell Black Knight’s product and pricing engine unit Optimal Blue business to a subsidiary of Canada’s Constellation Software in an effort to save the merger deal.

The $700 million proposed transaction includes a payment by Constellation of $200 million in cash, with the remainder financed by a $500 million promissory note issued by Constellation to Black Knight, as a subsidiary of ICE, at the closing of the transaction, the two companies announced Monday.

ICE and Black Knight entered into a divestiture agreement in connection with efforts to secure regulatory clearance of ICE’s proposed acquisition of Black Knight, a $13.1 billion mega-deal announced in May 2022. 

ICE’s proposed acquisition of Black Knight remains under review by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Following the announcement of the deal, trade groups and lawmakers addressed antitrust concerns stemming from ICE becoming the largest mortgage services company in America.

The two companies have been finding ways to quell antitrust concerns. In March, ICE and Black Knight also agreed to sell Black Knight’s loan origination system Empower business – including its Exchange, LendingSpace and AIVA solutions – to a subsidiary of Constellation in March.

ICE and Black Knight also amended their deal terms to reduce the valuation of Black Knight to $11.8 billion, about 11% lower than the valuation when the agreement was announced last year. 

The divestiture transaction of Optimal Blue is subject to the closing of ICE’s acquisition of Black Knight, the closing of Constellation’s acquisition of Black Knight’s Empower business and other customary closing conditions.

Analysts at investment banking firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) had said a divestiture of Black Knight’s Optimal Blue would be a feasible path to guarantee the merger deal with ICE earlier this month. 

KBW pointed to Constellation being the “most natural suitor” as the buyer and the ideal window of timing to divest Optimal Blue would be in advance of the preliminary injunction hearing set to begin on July 24, KBW said in a note.

In April 2023, the FTC petitioned a California federal court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction (PI) that prevents ICE from going forward with the deal to buy Black Knight. The goal was to give the commission time to pursue in-house litigation against the merger.

The Federal District Court for the Northern District of California will rule on the preliminary injunction later this month. 

If the merger goes through, it would be the second recent major mortgage deal for ICE, and would follow the acquisition of Ellie Mae from Thomas Bravo for $11 billion in 2020.



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