Podcasts about Better Business Bureau

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about fake robo calls offering deals for TV, phone, and internet providers, the most popular summer scams, and a fake AT&T notification. He also shares details about a scam phone call that could surprise pet owners, as well as people who say they […]

No, it's not you. Windows Hello doesn't work in the dark anymore. For reasons. Say "Hello" to the Windows Hello controversy of the month! Windows AI agent in Settings and Recall export experience in Dev/Beta channels - plus the old clock is back, baby July Patch Tuesday preview: App defaults (EEA only), Share images with visual preview, and some fixes for Windows 11 (The first one is coming to Windows 10 too - tied to the DMA news from last week.) Commentary: What Apple gets right in macOS 26 (and otherwise) Surface One year with Surface Laptop 7 Microsoft issues its first firmware updates for Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 in several months, sort of Microsoft 365 BBB complains about how Microsoft promotes Microsoft 365; Microsoft disagrees but will change the way it communicates about these features AI OpenAI, Microsoft, and... the nuclear option?? The Open AI Files provides an insider view of the company and finds it lacking Copilot Vision is GA in the United States - It's also free to try on mobile The Browser Company starts explaining Dia, finally Xbox and Games Microsoft announces (extends?) partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware - a one minute video with plenty to parse Next-gen hardware Multi-year partnership with AMD on Xbox consoles and gaming handhelds Compatibility with existing game libraries Working closely with the Windows team, ensure Windows is the number one games platform Microsoft shares Xbox Ally details with devs, a hint at the coming Windows-based Xbox platform requirements? More Game Pass titles for June, including an old favorite Minecraft gets three great updates Steam will run natively on Apple Silicon soon. Unlike all the games. Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Don't give in App pick of the week: Camtasia online RunAs Radio this week: SQL Server 2025 with Bob Ward Brown liquor pick of the week: The Macallan 18 Sherry Oak Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

No, it's not you. Windows Hello doesn't work in the dark anymore. For reasons. Say "Hello" to the Windows Hello controversy of the month! Windows AI agent in Settings and Recall export experience in Dev/Beta channels - plus the old clock is back, baby July Patch Tuesday preview: App defaults (EEA only), Share images with visual preview, and some fixes for Windows 11 (The first one is coming to Windows 10 too - tied to the DMA news from last week.) Commentary: What Apple gets right in macOS 26 (and otherwise) Surface One year with Surface Laptop 7 Microsoft issues its first firmware updates for Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 in several months, sort of Microsoft 365 BBB complains about how Microsoft promotes Microsoft 365; Microsoft disagrees but will change the way it communicates about these features AI OpenAI, Microsoft, and... the nuclear option?? The Open AI Files provides an insider view of the company and finds it lacking Copilot Vision is GA in the United States - It's also free to try on mobile The Browser Company starts explaining Dia, finally Xbox and Games Microsoft announces (extends?) partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware - a one minute video with plenty to parse Next-gen hardware Multi-year partnership with AMD on Xbox consoles and gaming handhelds Compatibility with existing game libraries Working closely with the Windows team, ensure Windows is the number one games platform Microsoft shares Xbox Ally details with devs, a hint at the coming Windows-based Xbox platform requirements? More Game Pass titles for June, including an old favorite Minecraft gets three great updates Steam will run natively on Apple Silicon soon. Unlike all the games. Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Don't give in App pick of the week: Camtasia online RunAs Radio this week: SQL Server 2025 with Bob Ward Brown liquor pick of the week: The Macallan 18 Sherry Oak Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

No, it's not you. Windows Hello doesn't work in the dark anymore. For reasons. Say "Hello" to the Windows Hello controversy of the month! Windows AI agent in Settings and Recall export experience in Dev/Beta channels - plus the old clock is back, baby July Patch Tuesday preview: App defaults (EEA only), Share images with visual preview, and some fixes for Windows 11 (The first one is coming to Windows 10 too - tied to the DMA news from last week.) Commentary: What Apple gets right in macOS 26 (and otherwise) Surface One year with Surface Laptop 7 Microsoft issues its first firmware updates for Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 in several months, sort of Microsoft 365 BBB complains about how Microsoft promotes Microsoft 365; Microsoft disagrees but will change the way it communicates about these features AI OpenAI, Microsoft, and... the nuclear option?? The Open AI Files provides an insider view of the company and finds it lacking Copilot Vision is GA in the United States - It's also free to try on mobile The Browser Company starts explaining Dia, finally Xbox and Games Microsoft announces (extends?) partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware - a one minute video with plenty to parse Next-gen hardware Multi-year partnership with AMD on Xbox consoles and gaming handhelds Compatibility with existing game libraries Working closely with the Windows team, ensure Windows is the number one games platform Microsoft shares Xbox Ally details with devs, a hint at the coming Windows-based Xbox platform requirements? More Game Pass titles for June, including an old favorite Minecraft gets three great updates Steam will run natively on Apple Silicon soon. Unlike all the games. Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Don't give in App pick of the week: Camtasia online RunAs Radio this week: SQL Server 2025 with Bob Ward Brown liquor pick of the week: The Macallan 18 Sherry Oak Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

No, it's not you. Windows Hello doesn't work in the dark anymore. For reasons. Say "Hello" to the Windows Hello controversy of the month! Windows AI agent in Settings and Recall export experience in Dev/Beta channels - plus the old clock is back, baby July Patch Tuesday preview: App defaults (EEA only), Share images with visual preview, and some fixes for Windows 11 (The first one is coming to Windows 10 too - tied to the DMA news from last week.) Commentary: What Apple gets right in macOS 26 (and otherwise) Surface One year with Surface Laptop 7 Microsoft issues its first firmware updates for Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 in several months, sort of Microsoft 365 BBB complains about how Microsoft promotes Microsoft 365; Microsoft disagrees but will change the way it communicates about these features AI OpenAI, Microsoft, and... the nuclear option?? The Open AI Files provides an insider view of the company and finds it lacking Copilot Vision is GA in the United States - It's also free to try on mobile The Browser Company starts explaining Dia, finally Xbox and Games Microsoft announces (extends?) partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware - a one minute video with plenty to parse Next-gen hardware Multi-year partnership with AMD on Xbox consoles and gaming handhelds Compatibility with existing game libraries Working closely with the Windows team, ensure Windows is the number one games platform Microsoft shares Xbox Ally details with devs, a hint at the coming Windows-based Xbox platform requirements? More Game Pass titles for June, including an old favorite Minecraft gets three great updates Steam will run natively on Apple Silicon soon. Unlike all the games. Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Don't give in App pick of the week: Camtasia online RunAs Radio this week: SQL Server 2025 with Bob Ward Brown liquor pick of the week: The Macallan 18 Sherry Oak Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

No, it's not you. Windows Hello doesn't work in the dark anymore. For reasons. Say "Hello" to the Windows Hello controversy of the month! Windows AI agent in Settings and Recall export experience in Dev/Beta channels - plus the old clock is back, baby July Patch Tuesday preview: App defaults (EEA only), Share images with visual preview, and some fixes for Windows 11 (The first one is coming to Windows 10 too - tied to the DMA news from last week.) Commentary: What Apple gets right in macOS 26 (and otherwise) Surface One year with Surface Laptop 7 Microsoft issues its first firmware updates for Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 in several months, sort of Microsoft 365 BBB complains about how Microsoft promotes Microsoft 365; Microsoft disagrees but will change the way it communicates about these features AI OpenAI, Microsoft, and... the nuclear option?? The Open AI Files provides an insider view of the company and finds it lacking Copilot Vision is GA in the United States - It's also free to try on mobile The Browser Company starts explaining Dia, finally Xbox and Games Microsoft announces (extends?) partnership with AMD on future Xbox hardware - a one minute video with plenty to parse Next-gen hardware Multi-year partnership with AMD on Xbox consoles and gaming handhelds Compatibility with existing game libraries Working closely with the Windows team, ensure Windows is the number one games platform Microsoft shares Xbox Ally details with devs, a hint at the coming Windows-based Xbox platform requirements? More Game Pass titles for June, including an old favorite Minecraft gets three great updates Steam will run natively on Apple Silicon soon. Unlike all the games. Tips and Picks Tip of the week: Don't give in App pick of the week: Camtasia online RunAs Radio this week: SQL Server 2025 with Bob Ward Brown liquor pick of the week: The Macallan 18 Sherry Oak Cask Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsor: uscloud.com

TikTok troublemakers are creeping in the algorithm. Watch out for fake stories of desperate needs for phony pet shelters. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau reports.

Before you attempt to check into your next hotel, make sure everything checks out. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's "Tip-Off to the Rip-Off" on WBBM has some tips.

Have you come across a message when you're shopping online saying that your order could be delayed thanks to tariffs. Be aware, it could be a scam! We got the details from Kristen Johnson of the Better Business Bureau serving Connecticut. For more information: https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker Image Credit: Getty Images

Before you attempt to check into your next hotel, make sure everything checks out. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's "Tip-Off to the Rip-Off" on WBBM has some tips.

Before you attempt to check into your next hotel, make sure everything checks out. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's "Tip-Off to the Rip-Off" on WBBM has some tips.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about why you should be cautious of any last-minute Father’s Day purchases, gym membership scams, and how an Evanston woman lost thousand to a Kevin Costner impersonator. He also shares details about social media videos asking for money and deceptive passport and visa […]

Bryan Barrett talks to James Price of the Better Business Bureau, who shares tips on finding a reliable and trustworthy general contractor.

Keith Weinhold plays a “financial superhero”, defending investors against the "greedy landlord" myth. A Zillow survey reveals the secret sauce of rental success: budget, location, and bedroom count - with pets stealing the show as the ultimate tenant dealbreaker. He exposes the dollar's sneaky inflation plot, showing how savvy investors can turn borrowing into a wealth-building adventure. Imagine homes that cost half their gold price from 100 years ago - mind-blowing!  Real estate investing isn't just a strategy - it's an epic journey of wealth creation!  Resources: GREmarketplace.com/OklahomaCity GREmarketplace.com/Tulsa Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/episode/557 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Are Real Estate Investors greedy by nature? Learn why? In a sense, today's homes are actually half price compared to 100 years ago. Then results from a huge tenant survey that reveals the amenities that you must give renters or else they will leave how media headlines can trick you and more today on get rich education.   Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider. Their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter, remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   Corey Coates  1:56   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:12   Welcome to GRE from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education. 100 years ago, you could buy the average home with eight kilos of gold. Today, it only costs you four more on that later. But first, as a real estate investor, has a critic or a tenant ever insinuated some form of these two questions to you, either, is it ethical for you to own multiple homes, or even, are you greedy? Now, I doubt that you're going to be asked that question directly, but sometimes you can feel that that's the vibe that someone else is on. Well, there sure are greedy people in the world. You could be rich and greedy, or you could be poor and greedy. Even the definition of greed is an excessive and selfish desire for more wealth than one needs, often driven by a destructive motive. All right, that's the definition like you're willing to destroy other people in the pursuit of wealth that is rather different than acquiring wealth, which is usually done only when you first fulfill the needs of others. All right? Well, say that your critic makes $60,000 per year. Oh, well, then that means that they're in the top 1% of global income earners. I mean, sheesh, then they're like the Jeff Bezos of the developing world. So to help even things out, should your critic have to send half of their salary to Senegal or Mauritania or Burkina Faso if the critic's home has more than one bathroom in it, or they even own one car. Well, then they're fabulously wealthy by world standards. Then do they have to give it away to avoid being greedy? What if they ever worked overtime for extra money? Like is that evidence of certain greed? All that stuff is ridiculous, preposterous amounts don't create greed Spirit does. There is no implicit Machiavellian intent. If you have more wealth than average, where would you even draw the line? Like, once you hit seven rental properties? Oh, that's just fine, but eight of them is too many, or once you live in a home that costs 50% more than an area's median, then is that when it becomes greed? I mean, this doesn't make sense. Higher housing prices these past five years has to do with the lack of housing supply and with the. Abundance of dollar printing. It's those two things. The culprits aren't rental property owners. The culprits are burdensome development regulations and the Federal Reserve printing all the dollars, not your local landlord. Responsible landlords provide and maintain sound housing, and they do that for complete strangers, they're taking a lot of faith. Oh, so then could the tenant actually be the greedy one, if they both resent and expect that treatment from a stranger for free? I mean, real estate investors, hey, we take on risk, DEBT, TAXES, maintenance, insurance, market volatility, and we have the responsibility of building and maintaining a good credit score in most cases. I mean, you're the one that's truly invested in the property, not a tenant that can choose to move out in 30 or 60 days. Landlords are a bit like umpires. They're rarely appreciated, and they only get noticed when they do something wrong. I know I mentioned to you before that when I buy a property pretty soon, I casually mention to my tenant that, you know, each month, I just have to make them aware. Each month I make a big mortgage payment and I have to pay for property tax and insurance on this place. I mean, it's amazing to see how far that little mention goes with both timely rent collection and that they don't resent you as a landlord over time. See, tenants often don't know this because they've never owned property themselves, and actually, as you know, since I use property managers now, I don't make this mention to tenants anymore. See, to tenants often it can feel like they're just sort of renting air, and the rent payments they make to you are very visible to them. What's invisible to them are all of your expenses. You're the one as the investor that's contributing to communities. You are the good steward of a neighborhood's housing stock, and you provide homes for people who either can't or don't want to buy the myth of the evil landlord. It really just ignores realities. I mean, mom and pop investors own 72% of single family rental homes, and the typical landlord owns fewer than three units. Many don't have 401 Ks. I mean, rental properties are their retirement plan. So most landlords, real estate investors, they're not cigar chomping tycoons twirling mustaches atop piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck. They're regular people. So perspectives like this that can really help you ward off both critics and unaware tenants. And you know what odds are, if they had the opportunity, they would often do the same thing at a time when pensions are rare and inflation runs rampant. Who could blame anyone for seeking assets that grow in value and generate income. Here's what you need to know. Everyone plays the financial game in the context of their own economy. You Your critic and your tenant, your awareness and your mindset from listening to the show is merely more broad than others. If everyone understood that being wealthy is actually a choice like you do, we would all be better off. So the bottom line here is that real estate investors are not villains. They're just people trying to build a financial life raft in a financial ocean that is full of icebergs. Rich people aren't necessarily greedy, just like poor people aren't necessarily lazy. Greed exists in somebody's spirit, not in the amount of your net worth or whatever your income level is,.    All right., Well, heading into the summer here, there are more tenant moves than any other season. Rental demand has stayed fairly strong, not super strong, just fairly strong, with rents only up about 2% annually. When you amalgamate single family rentals and apartments, the share of rentals with a concession is dropping because the rental market is fairly strong, and when renters find a place, a lot of them are staying put, like it's the last lifeboat off the Titanic. Of course, these are all phenomena on a national level, and each local area is different. I mean that right, there is something that I could say on nearly every episode with low affordability, the home ownership rate is down and renter numbers are up. Now. I told you a while ago that it would go down that home ownership rate, and in the latest quarter ended, that home ownership rate has dropped from 65.7 down to 65.1 Percent. And that might not sound like much, but homeownership down six tenths of 1% in just a quarter. That means that there are at least about 500,000 new renters in America. More renters means more rental demand, more occupancy, and it's crucial for you to know what those renters want so that you can best serve them again. You're not greedy. You're trying to serve them as well as you can now, Zillow has an arm. It's called the Zillow group population science. It's something I hadn't even heard of until recently. What Zillow did with this group is they surveyed 36,000 US renters of both single family rentals and apartments to find out what trends are and what renters want. And I read their entire lengthy report. I think it was 40 pages, so that you don't have to and what I did is I pulled out the most salient pieces to help you attract and retain tenants, and the top three criteria that renters really consider essential when deciding whether or not to rent your property are the first thing, and 95% said this is that it's got To be within their budget, second, at 85% preferred location. Hmm, does that mean near tacos and coffee shops? And then the third most important thing renters consider essential at 84% is the preferred bedroom count. After that, the Floor Plan and the layout that fits their preferences was most important. After that, it's the preferred number of bathrooms. So note that the preferred number of bedrooms, then, is more important in making the rental decision than the preferred number of bathrooms, although they both matter. And then after that, in order of decreasing importance, is broadband internet, allowing pets and having common amenities like a gym, a business center, a rooftop and a lounge and those things, those common amenities, they were substantially more important for apartment renters than for single family home renters, as you would imagine. And here's key, a separate survey question was asked, What is the main reason that you passed on a particular property and decided not to rent it. Number one easily was that the property prohibited pets. The second biggest choice had to do with pets as well. It was that the property restricted the pet breed or size. The reasons that renters passed on a particular property are so centered around pets. What do pets rule this housing market? Now, that's kind of how it seems. Now, another thing that this survey revealed is like, gosh, it also seems like the age for doing almost anything in America is up. The median renter is age 42 did you have any idea there? 42 probably older than you thought. And the older people are, generally, the quieter they are, and the less they move. The most common application fee paid is $50 that's what the survey found. Hey, maybe that's one thing that hasn't been slapped with tariffs. It's an online world. The typical renter surveyed reported taking only one in person tour. Everything else is swiping, scrolling or going deep on Google Street View. Basically what tenants do is they check out everything online, and then once they've chosen the place that they want to rent, they often make that decision right there online, and then basically that one in person visit is just them showing up to confirm that there aren't any red flags at that place, that they mostly know that they won. And this is good for you if you're self managing and you're showing the places yourselves. I mean, there are just fewer tire kickers than there were back in the day. I mean, hey, talk to your parents. 25 years ago, rental ads were like four lines in a newspaper, no photos at all, so tenants then they had to show up in person to see what a rental place even looked like. Let's look at the percent of renter households in America by household income, less than $50,000 57% of renters were in that range, 50 to 100k 29% and 100k or more, 15% as far as how much security deposit you need to give, 75% of renters said their first month's rent was required to Secure the rental, and only 25% said that they also had to fork over last month's rent to secure it. In a really strong rental market, you can more often ask for that both first and last month's rent to get in. 40% reported getting their entire security deposit back at the end of the rental. Hmm, I guess the. Others pay for that mysterious carpet stain. Most pay additional fees on the rental, 58% and that's things like water, sewer, garbage, recycling or other utilities. And it even includes payment processing. There some landlords charge for that. And again, what I'm talking about here is single family rentals and apartments combined. All right, so more single family renters are going to pay for separate utilities on top of the rent. Of course, about half of American renters have renter's insurance. At 48% I suppose the others are living dangerously. A typical renter uses four websites or apps in their search and as I'm continuing on here with the results from this Zillow Rental survey of 36,000 renters, it also showed that the top three reasons that current renters say that they decide to stay long term are and this is big. I mean, this is about your retention rate. 72% stay long term because they say rental costs are a good deal, that's why they stay next most important is quiet neighbors. Yes, no drum kits or free range toddlers will help in apartments. One noisy neighbor can upset a lot of tenants, but a noisy neighbor that might not be a problem at all when people are dispersed in a single family rental and then the third most important thing in long term retention is 68% of renters stay in a unit because they can't afford to move elsewhere. Two thirds of tenants said their landlord or property manager notified them of a rent increase in the past two years, 37% of renters said they would be very or extremely likely to buy a home if mortgage rates fell. All right, that's about three in eight renters say that as far as the length of leases in America, 64% signed on for a one year lease, and 24% said their lease is longer than a year. So really, to summarize what you've learned here from that survey is that you need to know your audience, 42 year olds with pets and a strong preference for quiet neighbors. Keep your pricing competitive. Embrace tech. People want to apply and pay and do things online, and your tenants will stick around longer. You can either give a man a fish and feed him for a day, or teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.    Here at GRE, we do both get riched occasion.com. Is where you learn through this very show and our videos over there, and our blog articles and more. The name gre marketplace.com is where you take action and see the markets and providers that make the best income properties nationwide. GRE marketplace is also where you get access to our totally free investment coaching strategy sessions with a real human being that has both an MBA and investing experience. And that's something we added three or four years ago that really helps you be profitable as an investor, get paid five ways so that you can have more income and wealth and perhaps even retire early. We help you find the right exact property addresses. That's what we help you do compared to 100 years ago, homes are half price today. This is fascinating. I'll get into that shortly. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education.    The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Caeli Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy?    Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds, just say. They're doing nothing. Check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to66866   Speaker 1  20:17   what's up? Everyone? This is HGTV. Tarek al Musa. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  20:35   Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the headlines say homes are so expensive that you'd think millennials would be forced to live in IKEA showrooms. Now, a year or two ago, here on the show, I think I mentioned to you that at that time, it took eight kilos of gold to buy the average home, about 100 years ago, and at that time, only six. Well today, it took eight kilos of gold to buy an average home in 1920 but it's only four kilos now, in terms of gold, homes are half the price today, and I sent you that pretty shocking image showing this in our newsletter a month or two ago. So what in the monetary twilight zone has happened in the past 100 years? Well, a lot of things. The 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve inflated away your dollar's purchasing power over time. This was basically like giving your teen a credit card with no limit and hoping for the best, then removing the dollar's last link to gold redeemability in 1971 that freed the rains for unlimited dollar creation. And Robert Kiyosaki was here to discuss exactly that on the show with us on episode 358 go back and listen to episode 358 if you haven't heard it and you want to. Before long, dollars got so flimsy that dive bars started stapling them to the wall as decor, and it seems like the next stop for the dollar is kindling for your backyard fire pit. Now, there is, however, an affordability problem today that keeps renters staying as renters. But part of the calculus here is that homes only seem expensive because their values are usually compared to dollars. But that's faulty, because dollars are a moving measuring stick. This is like saying that an hour has 60 minutes in it this year and next year, it'll only have 55 minutes in it. That doesn't work. I mean, she should a few years, everyone would run a marathon in under an hour at that rate. Okay, so changing the measuring stick defeats the very purpose of a measuring stick. Here's what's even more amazing than that fact about the gold, despite that, homes only cost half as much today as they did in 1920 in terms of gold, you also get more home today. Today's homes have smaller lot sizes, smaller yards, but otherwise they have amenities that people couldn't have even dreamed of in 1920 I mean, this is really interesting. Let's compare a typical 1920 new home to a 2025 new home. We've gone from 1048 square feet up to 2411 so the size has more than doubled. Back then there was no Garage. Today you've got a heated garage. Back then you had one bathroom or even an outhouse in 1920 Oh, today you have two or three or even more indoor bathrooms in just the average new build home back in 1920 you had a wood burning stove that you had to keep loading, and you're like splitting and stacking firewood and storing that somewhere. Today, you have central heating. Just push a button. Back more than 100 years ago, you had no AC. Today, AC is completely standard. You had no insulation a lot of times in 1920 homes today you've got smart insulation. You used to have a very basic kitchen. Today you've got a center island and granite and quartz countertops. You had an ice box back in 1920 and a nice refrigerator or two. Today, back then, you had no dishwasher or garbage disposal. Today, you have both. Back in 1920 you had to use a washboard in a ringer to wash and dry your clothing. Can you imagine that today you have a washing machine? You had an outdoor clothesline back then today you have a dryer back in. 1920 you had these claw foot bathtubs, and often no shower. Today you have both bathtubs and showers, and several of them. Back then you had nothing where today you have a dedicated laundry room, and a lot of times a home office, and sometimes even a gym. I mean, so all those changes right there over the last 105 years. This really puts the exclamation point on the fact that homes are cheaper today. In terms of the value that you get, today's homes might be a third or a quarter of the price that they were a century ago. You can't point to mortgage rates either. They're still below their long run average of 7.7% per Freddie Mac the thing you've got to point to, the big problem here, the elephant in the room, is that salaries have not kept up with inflation, and that is the real crux of the problem in hurting homes affordability. Look, and this could be a real epiphany for you here that affordability fact is even more reason to move today's depreciating dollars into real assets and move that with emphasis and with urgency, dollar savers are just such massive losers. All right, so then, what is the opposite of saving dollars? Some people think it's spending dollars. No, the opposite of saving is not spending. It's borrowing dollars. That's how you go negative on that. The opposite of spending is not saving, it is borrowing. That is how you go negative and short the falling dollar. This really it's all just a fresh approach on what people need to consider doing. Borrow dollars, own income property, let tenants pay your debt, let inflation also shrink your debt like a cheap shirt that spends too much time in a clothing dryer, and just watch inflation pump up your asset price at the same time. Now you are just winning all over the place. You are racking up more wins than Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open. That's why I am resolute about saying what no one else out there says real estate done right is not an inflation hedge. A hedge is a defensive investing strategy where you break even. I mean, no one plays a game hoping for an outcome of a tie, spending money as an inflation hedge. That's why I refer to borrowing for income property as inflation profiting. That's the reason why. And see, other people's money pays down your debt, both the tenant and the inflation are whittling that away for you. Oh, and hey, for my fellow math weirdos, in 1920 a new home cost $6,300 and there are 35 ounces in a kilo of gold, and you can figure out the rest from there to see that homes cost half as much in gold. Now the bottom line here is that the real estate market is not broken. The dollar is and that dollar measuring stick is so miserably distorted and perverted that some people can't even see what's going on anymore. I've got another interesting way of helping you see this.    Let's look at something more recent than 1920 let's go back 30 years. Do you have any idea what the median us home price was then? Any guess 30 years ago, that's kind of charming. It was a modest $130,000 All right, with an 80% loan and zero principal pay down your mortgage balance would be a featherweight 104k today, that is a clear way of seeing how inflation debases your debt. And of course, the tenant would have paid it off for you by now as well. But I mean a loan balance of $104,000 without any principal pay down, sheesh, that's less than some people's American Express card limit. Really think about that by removing the principal pay down component, you can really see with transparency and lucidity the effect of inflation whittling down a loan balance to 104k and that is just 25% of today's median home price of $416,900 that is a stark example of inflation profiting, how your debt got relentlessly debased by the Fed. And of course, rental properties tend to be less expensive than this median number that I'm talking about. So the typical rental property is. In this scenario, you might just have a loan balance of 75k today, here, 30 years later, and the property would be worth, say, 300k inflation makes your loan balances feel like a featherweight over time. All right, now let's go somewhat further back in time again, 1950s Florida.    Last month, in our newsletter, I sent you those fascinating old newspaper clippings from a real estate sales ad from 1955 in the Miami area and a two bedroom, single family home, one bath, screened porch and a carport. Its price was $7,450 for the entire Miami area home. And the ad also showed that your monthly payment is $48 and then, okay, so that was a two bedroom, single family home this Miami area, three bed, one bath home with a screen porch, $7,900 so only an extra 450 bucks for an extra bedroom, that is the purchase price of the entire asset. And the monthly payments on this three bedroom are 50 bucks a month, a little more than the 48 bucks a month that it was for the two bedroom. And here's the thing, the monthly payment amount, as shown in this old newspaper advertisement, $48 and $50 that was principal, interest, taxes and insurance all together, a jaw dropping sub 8k for a Miami area home, not just Florida, but pricier Miami. I mean, can you imagine a Florida couple's home buying conversation in the mid 1950s there at Florida, honey, you're crazy if you think we're going to pay an extra $2 per month for a third bedroom. I mean, this is just astonishing. And yeah, my apologies for leaving you flabbergasted so many times in one episode. Gosh. Now to be sure, wages were lower back then, but back then, only one parent had to work. They still managed to buy homes, raise a family, and even pay for a milkman who actually delivered the milk. And now, you know, if we fast forward to the future, future generations, they're going to marvel at today's incredibly low median home price of 400 to 450k Yes, therefore you will be the one doing the flabbergasting, and you'll leave people From 2070 feeling abjectly flabbergasted when the median home price is $4 million then, I mean, it realistically could be, it could be more than that. It's the same way that today we're astonished at 1960s McDonald's menus where a burger was 15 cents. Yes, 15 cents is seriously how much McDonald's hamburger cost in the 60s. And of course, this is when restaurants also serve real meat and french fries cooked in tallow rather than seed oils, and shakes had real cream in them. That's all evidence of simultaneous skimpflation. But getting back to the monetary inflation, you know, as recently as 2011 we can even feel dazed and amazed about how the median home price, then was just $211,100 Yes, as recently as 2011 you're surely dazed and stupefied here, one thing I know, though, is that this did not leave you slack jawed, because Between you and I, we know there's only one slack job between us, and we know full well that that's not you. The bottom line, the bottom line here is that zooming out over time reveals a clear, uncomfortable truth. Savers get roasted, borrowers get rich. This is just a new way of looking at it.    And if you're a newer listener and you don't get our newsletter yet, it is free, full of value, and I write every word myself. There are more AI generated newsletters out there. That is not what this is. This is me to you, and to get the newsletter right now. Text. GRE to66866, 66866, we don't send you a bunch of texts that would be intrusive. It's an email newsletter. You can get it by texting GRE to 66866   Now, earlier this year, I talked with you about how home sales have crashed. When people read a media headline like that, home sales crash. You know, some people think that home prices are falling, but that's not. What that means is, you know, it means that the quantity of sales has fallen a lower transaction volume. With that in mind, to help you out in the future, when you're reading. For real estate and economic headlines, I jotted down a few fictitious headlines here, but yet they're the same type that you've seen before, and you'll see these again in the future, and they can be misleading. So let's straighten this out. Okay, here's the first fictitious yet realistic sounding headline, what people often think it means and what it really means. Developer uses tax loophole to deliver 200 unit apartment complex All right. Now, some people read that and they think that the developer is doing something nefarious or underhanded. No. Sometimes reporters use this word loopholes to describe legally created incentives to get much needed housing built. Reporters are often doing yeoman's work on behalf of NIMBYs. If this thing is producing more housing, then we need more loopholes, which are really incentives just like it. Here's another misleading headline. Now, almost all of the 50 states have a lower level of housing inventory than they did pre pandemic, but this headline says, Tennessee housing supply 4% more than pre pandemic levels. All right, some might see that headline and think, Oh, I guess that housing is a little oversupplied. Now, no, not necessarily, because most states had a scarce supply of inventory even before the pandemic hit back in 2020 the next headline is existing home sales fell off a cliff. All right, Did you note that this only includes existing homes, meaning resale homes, because, again, the headline is existing home sales fell off a cliff. So this doesn't include new builds. And there's nothing inherently falsified about some of these headlines. They just get misinterpreted. Softwood lumber prices hit all time record high. Okay, well, with persistent inflation, this might not be reason for alarm. Is it even an inflation adjusted high or not? Here's a headline, California leads the nation in out migration. All right, some people see this and assume that the California population is dropping. Well, maybe, maybe not. Again, the headline was, California leads the nation in out migration? Well, raw numbers aren't per capita. Cali is the largest state by population at almost 40 million. And also, if their in migration exceeds this out migration, well then they had positive net migration. And all of this doesn't even count births or deaths. You'd have to factor that in as well. The next headline is foreclosures Spike 50% year over year. Ooh, that sounds bad. And although this is a fake headline, just like the other ones that I'm telling you about, a phenomenon like this did recently occur, actually, but it's still at a really low level. It just rose from an extremely low level, two tenths of 1% up to three tenths of 1% that's a 50% gain. Here's a headline. You might see mortgage rates have dropped 2% this year. Maybe you'll see that in the future. Most people read something like this, and they assume that real estate values will resultantly soar. Well, maybe, maybe not. It sounds like homes are more affordable, and they would be, but the Fed might be cutting rates because the economy needs the help. It could mean we're in a recession. So if wages are down, even if mortgage rates are down, it might not actually be less affordable. The next fictitious headline is Philadelphia new build home prices surge 8% Oh, you're thinking that's got to be good, right? Well, I don't know what if new build Philly homes are constructed with 10% more square footage this year, but the price is only up 8% so they're actually selling at a lower cost per square foot. And this is also why existing home price change is more meaningful. The next fictitious headline is unemployment claims jump 30% in a week. All right? Well, this usually doesn't mean that there are mass layoffs and some economic Armageddon. If initial jobless claims rise from 200 up to 260k that's a 30% jump, but it's still low relative to recession levels, which are typically 400k plus and the last fictitious headline, Warren Buffett, b, u, F, F, E, T, invests $10 billion in apartment REITs. Oh, well, Buffett was spelled with only 1t Buffett should be spelled with a double T. Have you ever noticed that it is the most frequently misspelled name in financial media that's all for the headlines, so having the wherewithal about these sorts of things can help you better interpret what's happening in Real Estate's Future and the economy's future.    One of the most inexpensive national markets, I'll say, outside the Midwest, where you can own income property, where the numbers really make sense. An investor advantage place is in the state of Oklahoma. Some of these Oklahoma properties that we've begun dealing with here, they're pretty small. Like check out this single family rental I want to tell you about that's just 864 square feet. You know, more tenants desire this type of housing. Family sizes are smaller today, yet they want separation in the privacy of a single family home. And this one is brand new build, two beds, two baths, and the price is, get this $155,000 for new build. Yes, you heard that, right, and the projected rent is really strong. $1,250 I mean, this sort of cottage sized new build home is the type of product that can make the best rental, because if it were double the size, you might only get 50 or 60% more in rent. Now there's no garage on this new build 155k property, and you get all the finishes that you would expect from new construction. The second Oklahoma property to tell you about is this Tulsa duplex. This one really stands out. And Tulsa has over a million people in the metro. It was built just several months ago, $2,900 rent on a purchase price of about 360k and these ones, they've consistently appraised in the 375 to 380k range. So you could very well get some built in equity here with this duplex, where the numbers work pretty well as it is, each side of this new duplex has over 1300 square feet, three beds, two baths on each side, free management the first year, $3,000 cash to you post closing, all the nice finishes you'd expect with new build in this Tulsa duplex. So these two properties I've discussed here are really investor advantaged all new build. And that 155k single family rental was in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. And then the Tulsa duplex in the mid to high three hundreds. The next one is the last one. I'll mention. It's not as good of a deal, but it does look nicer because it's a brick faced new build single family rental for 320k in Lawton, Oklahoma. Lawton is more southwestern Oklahoma, with $2,400 rent, and it's 1800 square feet in this new build and just a little positive cash flow. The property tax rate is 1.1% property insurance is just 1250, a two car garage, all the types of finishes that you would expect with new build. So a property like this is if you're looking for a better quality tenant. Oklahoma City has had more happening than usual. You might have heard that the tallest building in the United States is planned to be built in Oklahoma City, yes, taller than anything in New York or Chicago. The Oklahoma City Thunder NBA team has been performing well. You know, those things are merely interesting and have almost nothing to do with the investor advantage. Rental properties, again, all three that I mentioned, there are new build. Not only are we in this persistent national housing shortage, but these entry level homes that make the best rentals, they're the ones that are in even shorter supply. That's a fact I probably don't mention to you often enough. The home ownership rate is down because of strained affordability, so you may very well have a long term tenant in these properties, and then you layer on the fact that they're new build, and it really looks promising for tenants wanting to stay for the long term. Check out the market and the provider. Learn more at either gre marketplace.com/oklahomcity or slash Tulsa. Yes, new build Oklahoma properties, if you're not sure about the exact address, that's going to provide you with the highest returns, our free investment coaching can help you with that as well borrow dollars with long term fixed interest rate debt that both tenants and inflation just relentlessly pay down for you while your expected price appreciation. Can leverage dollars at the same time. Start at gre marketplace.com/oklahoma, city or slash Tulsa until next week. I'm Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 2  44:52   Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional. Additional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  45:16   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, Oh, geez. Today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre 266, 866, while it's on your mind. Take a moment to do it right now. Text, gre 266, 866,   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to discuss different types of scams people are targeted for and some local scams, including a nun that was scammed out of four hundred thousand dollars. He also explains what tariff scams could look like, such as texts about fake package deliveries.

As you make your summer travel plans, the Better Business Bureau is alerting passenger waiting at airports about a new scam.

Most college graduation ceremonies have wrapped up and graduates are embarking on new journeys, which may include searching for a job. Scammers don't require a cap and gown – they have degrees in deception and are ready to exploit inexperience. However, there are ways to avoid them, and the Better Business Bureau's “Tip-Off to the Rip-Off” on WBBM is here to help.

Most college graduation ceremonies have wrapped up and graduates are embarking on new journeys, which may include searching for a job. Scammers don't require a cap and gown – they have degrees in deception and are ready to exploit inexperience. However, there are ways to avoid them, and the Better Business Bureau's “Tip-Off to the Rip-Off” on WBBM is here to help.

Most college graduation ceremonies have wrapped up and graduates are embarking on new journeys, which may include searching for a job. Scammers don't require a cap and gown – they have degrees in deception and are ready to exploit inexperience. However, there are ways to avoid them, and the Better Business Bureau's “Tip-Off to the Rip-Off” on WBBM is here to help.

Community Connection Monday, June 2nd, 2025. Join Tina Cosby as we have "Open Lines", speaking with the Owner of The Block Bistro And Grill Terry Anthony, Featured Artist and Hostess of “On The Mic @ The Block Bistro and Grill Evelyn Rai & CEO of Child Advocates Phyllis Armstrong speaking with the community about all of today’s pressing topics with our esteemed listeners! Also joining us for today's show: Educational Liaisons for Child Advocates Julie Bakehorn & Leah Ward as well as Communication Specialist of Better Business Bureau, Indianapolis Nicole Amsler!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Author and financial expert, Chris Whelan, joins Keith as they explore the intricacies of the housing market's potential future. Chris drops an intriguing prediction of a possible 20% price correction. They dive deep into the complex world of real estate, examining the pandemic's significant impact on mortgages and economic trends. The conversation reveals the behind-the-scenes challenges of the housing market, from government interventions to the nuanced effects of interest rates and forbearance programs. They unpack the struggles in commercial real estate, particularly highlighting the unique challenges in markets like New York's rent-controlled properties. Chris's new book "Inflated: Money, Debt, and the American Dream" promises an insightful journey through America's economic transformation, tracing how the nation evolved from an agrarian society to a global economic powerhouse. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/556 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, what's the state of the housing market for the next five years, and could what's happening in the foreclosure market affect it? I see relative housing market price stability. My guest sees cracks. This could be somewhat of a debate today, then two great new cash flow and real estate markets in the same state that we're helping your portfolio with on get rich education, mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider. Their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated. There's zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter, remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis, get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com.   Corey Coates  1:56   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  2:12   Welcome to GRE from Edison, New Jersey to Edinburgh, Scotland, where I am today, and across 188 nations worldwide, I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are back for another wealth building week on get rich education. Today's guest came to me recommended. It came from a guest that we've had on the show here before, Jim Rickards and his daughter Ally Rickards. His name is Christopher Whelan. He has a distinguished background. Comes from a prominent family, and he's the author of a new book that just published a few weeks ago. His father, Richard Whelan, was the biographer of Joe Kennedy, and was advisor to presidents and Fed chairman and today's guest, his son there, Chris. He has done a lot of work in DC. He lives just north of New York City today. So I guess coming recommended from Jim Rickards and learning a few things about today's guest helped me want to host him on the show. So though I'm just meeting him for the first time right here on the show, as it turns out, I learned that he has mentioned on other channels that real estate prices could correct down 20% and fall back to 2020 levels. I absolutely don't see how that's possible in any way. I'm going to bring that up with him, so we'll see. This could turn into somewhat of a debate. Like I said last week, I believe that significantly falling housing prices. That's about as likely as grocery store prices falling back to 2020 levels. Yes, I am in Edinburgh, Scotland today. It's my first time here. My mom, dad and also my brother's entire family came over from the US to meet up. It's been great. We're taking in all the best sites, Edinburgh Castle, other castles, the Scottish Highlands, Loch Ness, though I don't believe in any Loch Ness monster at all. I mean, come on, what a hoax. And we're seeing some other sites, though it didn't really interest the others, which I could understand. I visited the home where Adam Smith once resided, and I might put my video about that on our get rich education YouTube channel, so you could check that out over there. Of course, Adam Smith is considered the father of modern day economics for his work on supply versus demand and the GDP concept, the invisible hand, concept, much of that work conveyed in his magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 as for the present day, let's meet this week's guest, including me, meeting him for the first time.     I'd like to welcome in a first time guest. He's the author of a widely acclaimed new book. It's named inflated money, debt and the American dream. It just released, and the book couldn't be more timely with the multitude of challenges related to inflation, many involving the housing market in his earlier books, he's been known, frankly, for just telling his readers the truth. He's worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in politics and as an investment banker for more than 30 years. Today, he runs Whalen Global Advisors. You've seen him on CNBC in the Wall Street Journal, and now you're hearing him on GRE Welcome to the show. Chris Whalen.   Chris Whalen  5:43   Thank you, Keith, appreciate your invitation.    Keith Weinhold  5:45   Whalen is spelled W, H, A, l, e, n, if you're listening in the audio only, Hey, Chris, we're in a really interesting time in the economic cycle. We all know the Fed has a dual mandate, high employment and stable prices. What's interesting to me is, late last year, they cut rates by a full 1% and this is despite inflation being above target. Makes me wonder if they care more about high employment and they're rather willing to let inflation float higher. What are your thoughts?    Chris Whalen  6:18   I think historically, that's been the case. You know, the dual mandate Humphrey Hawkins, that drives the Fed's actions today was a largely socialist compromise between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Democrats wanted to guarantee everybody a job after World War Two, the legislation was really about soldiers and people who had served their country in many, you know, places around the world, for a long time, and then you would have the depression. So you had a whole generation or more of people that were looking for help when they came home. And that's what this was. But today, you know, there's another mandate, which is called keeping the treasury bond market open. We saw it was during COVID in 2020 President Trump got up, declared that people didn't have to pay their rent or their mortgages, and then didn't do anything. There was no follow up. At the time, folks in mortgage industry kind of looked at each other funny for about 60 days and said, What's going to happen? Because they have to advance principal, interest, taxes and insurance to protect the house. The first rule in mortgage finances protect the asset. But it all worked because the Fed dropped interest rates to zero and we had a boom. We refinanced two thirds of every mortgage in the United States, and that cash flow allowed the finance forbearance for millions of Americans. Now the unfortunate part, of course, was home prices went up double digits for six years. So why we had no affordability today? So, you know, it helped, but it certainly didn't help in some ways,   Keith Weinhold  7:48   mortgage loan forbearance back in the COVID era about five years ago, where you could basically just skip your mortgage payment and then they increase the overall duration of your loan period.   Chris Whalen  8:00   That's right. So you know, your government market, your conforming market, were falling. They also had various schemes, state forbearance for non agency loans. Nobody thought at all about the multifamily sector and the developers that didn't get paid for two years. And we're feeling the impact of that. Of course, today, that's probably the biggest pain point in US economy today is commercial real estate and multi family real estate, and neither one of them involves a consumer. So it gets no attention at all. You read about it in the specialty press, but that's about it.    Keith Weinhold  8:34   And by talking about multi family not affecting the consumer, you're just talking about who's on the owner side there?   Chris Whalen  8:40   precisely if all of the consumers have problems, you'd hear about it, and you do, especially in some of the blue states. I live in New York, so we have some of the more aggressive rent stabilization, rent control laws in the country. And they go back to World War Two. They go back almost a century,   Keith Weinhold  8:58   right? It's those people in the one to four unit space in residential real estate investing that really got the help there.    Chris Whalen  9:06   Well, at least, you know, the world didn't end. Imagine if all of those people had gone to foreclosure. The industry wouldn't have done that. Of course, they would have thrown up their hands and cried for help. But the point is, they made it work. But the cost of making it work that zero interest rate regime that the Fed put in place is still being felt today. If you look at banks which typically have prime large mortgages on their books, the loss given default is zero. Home prices are so high that if somebody actually goes to foreclosure, they sell the house, they pay off the loan easily, and there's usually a large residual left, which would go to the homeowner. So today, you know, if somebody gets in trouble, we do a short sale, we do a deed in lieu, and off they go. And that's why the stats don't show you the pain that many American families are feeling today, because about 60% of all payoffs of one to four family mortgages are people who. Are exiting the market, they're not going to buy another house. So what that means is that the cost of home ownership, or whatever other factors are involved, has made them make the decision not to go to another home mortgage.    Keith Weinhold  10:13   Yes, we have this historically low affordability that's beginning to be reflected in the home ownership rate. It's trended down from about 66 to 65% recently, we continue to be in this environment here, Chris in the one to four unit space, where those existing homeowners are in really good shape. They have record high equity levels of over 300k A lot of them have their home paid off. About 40% of American homeowners own their home free and clear, and of the remainder, those borrowers, 82% still have a mortgage rate of under 5% and of course, that principal and interest payment stays fixed. So even if there's economic hardship, it's pretty easy for people to make their payments and stay in their homes.   Chris Whalen  11:02   Well, it certainly is for most of the marketplace. If you look at the bottom 20% the FHA market, also the VA market, there's a little more stress there. There's still an awful lot of people who are in various types of forbearance in that market. That's going to end in October. So the Trump administration is pushing most of the rules back to pre COVID approaches for delinquency, for example, what we call the waterfall. And what that basically means is that if an FHA borrower gets in trouble, they'll have one shot at a modification where they lower the loan cost and stick part of the loan out the back to be paid off when the house is sold. If that doesn't take, if they don't re perform, then they're going to go to a foreclosure. We just ended another program for veterans. You know, they had three weeks notice, so now you're going to see a lot of veterans going to foreclosure. Unfortunately.   Keith Weinhold  11:56   yes, this administration is basically making sure that people are responsible or resume their payments. We've seen that student loan repayments needing to resume as well. Most foreclosure rate types are still pretty low, but yes, FHA foreclosure rates are higher than those for conventional loans.    Chris Whalen  12:15   Yeah, the interesting thing is, the veterans delinquency rate is half of the FHA rate, and even though people in uniform don't make a lot of money, they pay their bills. Yeah, it's quite striking.   Keith Weinhold  12:25   Why don't you talk to us more about areas where you see distress in the housing market before we talk about more inflation? Chris, the   Chris Whalen  12:34   key areas of housing stress at the moment are commercial real estate that has become underutilized. COVID drove a lot of this, but also the fact that industries could change their work practices. It could have people work from home. Look at housing. We sent everybody home in 2020 while we increased headcount by a third to address a surge in lending volume. It was insane. I gotta tell you, we were hiring people that we didn't see for months that changed the business model assumptions for a lot of industries. A lot of them moved out of blue states and went down to Florida and Texas. In the mortgage industry particularly, and so we have a lot of older real estate particularly, that is suffering. It has dropped in terms of appraised values. You also have higher interest rates and higher cap rates, that is to say the assumption of returns on the part of investors. So that hurdle has made a lot of these properties impaired, essentially. And then the other subclass is older multifamily properties. Think about those beautiful old apartments in the middle block up on the east side or the west side of Manhattan. They're not big enough to be viable, and so they have become this kind of subprime asset class, much in the way if you recall the signature bank failure, they typically bank these sorts of real estate properties, and now there's nobody that wants them. I think you're going to see some very specific pain coming out of HUD, and also Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because they bank some of these smaller properties that really aren't bankable by commercial banks. That's what it comes down to. If you're going to read about this and hear about it a lot in the commercial market over next several years. And again, you know, the losses on bank owned multifamily properties today are averaging 100% so that means that there are a lot that have more expenses than simply losing the full loan amount. And you know, if you want to have a bank loan, they're not taking these properties. They don't want them, right? So the bank, REO rate, if you look at the data from the FDIC, is zero. And what that tells you is that they can't sell the properties they don't want them, because if they take ownership, the city's not going to let them abandon the property. They'll have to keep it and maintain it. It's a tough situation. This is. Has evolved over the last 20 years or so, because consumer incomes have been kind of stagnant in real terms. But the cost of operating a property in New York City is not going down. It's going up quite a lot, and the legislation we've seen from Albany doesn't allow owners to recapture expenses, doesn't allow them to renovate apartments. So if I have a rent stabilized apartment, I'll use a real example, in a beautiful building on Central Park South right, to renovate a unit that's been occupied for 20 years, new kitchen, new bathroom, sir, everything services. That's $150,000 so if I'm the owner and I can't recapture that cost. What do I do? I lock the door, I gut the apartment, and I lock the door, and I hope that the laws will change in the future, because I can't rent it, my insurance underwriter will not allow me to rent out an apartment that's not brought up to code. That's New York law, but the folks in Albany don't care about that. We have some really unreasonable people in positions of authority, unfortunately, in some of these states, and you talk to them about these issues, and they don't care. They just pander to consumers, regardless of whether or not it makes sense or not. And that's just the way it is.   Keith Weinhold  16:15   Those evil landlords, quote, unquote, most right evil. They're just mom and pop investors that are trying to beat inflation with real assets, and they have real expenses. Rent Stabilization basically just being a genteel term for rent control, which gives no one an incentive to improve a property for sure   Chris Whalen  16:35   and it reduces the availability of housing ultimately, because nobody builds. You see that in New York right now the home market is pretty tight, up to the conforming limit for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so you figure a million, 1,000,002 here in New York. But above that, it's quieted down quite a lot. There's compression in some of the higher end homes. And you know, if you go down south, you see a different problem, which is over building. They didn't want to build here, so they went down to the Carolinas and Texas and Florida. There's a huge amount of both multi family condo type developments and single family homes too. But above that average price level way above half a million dollars.   Keith Weinhold  17:15   Sure, it's made this dynamic where things have been flip flopped in the Northeast and Midwest, where the populations aren't growing very fast, those markets have been appreciating more than those in the high growth southeast, all coming back to supply. They're not bringing on enough new supply in the Northeast and Midwest, Chris has just laid out a few reasons for that, due to this high regulation. And then in the southeast, a high growth area, even though that's where people are moving, we're not getting much appreciation there, because you're able to build and that supply is able to keep up with demand. Well, Chris and I are going to talk more about the housing market and about inflation. When we come back, you're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Chris Whelan, the author of a great new book. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold.   the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com.    You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866.   Kathy Fettke  19:45   this is the real wealth network's Kathy Fettke, and you are listening to the always valuable get rich education with Keith Weinhold.    Keith Weinhold  20:00   You welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with the author of a great new book, Chris Whelan, it's called inflated money, debt and the American dream. Chris, I see the residential housing market and their price points as being resilient. I'm kind of looking around and seeing if you have any places where you think that there are any cracks in that? I've heard you talk elsewhere about a housing price correction. Were you talking in the one to four unit space? And how do you think that could happen?   Chris Whalen  20:31   I didn't come up with that idea. I did a biography of my good friend Stan middleman, who's the founder of freedom mortgage. It's a real rags to riches story of a successful entrepreneur, a great guy, by the way, is a beloved man in the mortgage industry. And so what he believes is that cycles are about a decade in terms of human behavior. And he says misery on the eights, which is kind of a cute way of saying it. And what Stan is basically saying is you eventually see so much price appreciation that affordability goes to zero. You run out of buyers, is another way to put it. And then once the Fed gooses it, he thinks we see an interest rate decline this year next year, perhaps you get rates to run a little bit. You get volumes to jump the way they did last summer. You remember, in the third quarter, we had great volumes in the mortgage industry, carried everybody through to the end of the year, and then after that, he says, we get a price correction, maybe back down to 2020 21 levels. So we're talking about a 20% price correction, and we're talking about the loans that have been made in the last few years being underwater. That's something we haven't talked about in a long time. We haven't talked about that since 2008 so I think that Americans inevitably have to see some kind of a correction. What the Fed did was wrong, what they did was excessive. I write about that in the end of my book, but unfortunately, the result is home prices that have galloped along, and eventually you got to reset it. Part of its supply coming online. Part of it is simply, like, I say, you run out of buyers, and when it's simply that purchase buyer who is either all cash or happens to have the deposit, and that's all you have. And there's no flexibility for people that want to get into the market. You know, that's tough. I could recall Paul Volcker years ago, we were talking about that in the book too. He ratcheted down home prices. He raised interest rates so much that home prices went down, and a lot of builders went out of business who had had a lot of snls go out of business, and, you know, the previous decade. So that was a tough time. We didn't even start to do that this time around, because they were afraid to the Fed is worried about keeping the Treasury market open, so they are afraid of deflation, which unfortunately means you don't get those opportunities to get into the market. I remember my parents, when I was very young, they would buy busted homes in Washington, DC. It was a great way to make a lot of money, and in five years, the House would double. That's the kind of market Washington was   Keith Weinhold  23:05   in my opinion, I don't see how there could be any substantial residential home price correction. Historically that happens when there's a wide swath of homeowners that get into financial trouble, like I was talking about earlier, the homeowner is in great financial shape today. In fact, since World War Two, we've only seen home prices drop substantially during one period. That was that period around 2008 and that's when we had conditions that are opposite of what they are today. We had loans underwritten with liar loans. We had an over supply of homes, like I was saying earlier, inflation can't touch one's principal and interest payment. We're still under supplied with homes. Most experts don't think we'll get that into balance for at least five years. I really don't see how home prices could fall substantially. I also don't see how they could rise substantially, like, say, 10% due to that low affordability, but I expect continued stability in prices?    Chris Whalen  24:02   Well, we'll see. I'm not as sanguine about that, because a lot of people feel house rich on paper, but when the bottom of the stack is really hurting as it is now, FHA delinquency rates really are in probably the mid teens. You don't see that yet in the middle with the 727, 40 FICO type borrowers. But I think over time you could, and if, again, it depends on the economy and some other factors, but I'll tell you right now, you're already seeing a correction in the hyad the bottom half, no. And there's a supply problem here, which I agree with you on. It's going to keep those home price is pretty firm. And even where I am in New York, for God's sake, Keith, there's no construction here. So we just had a house across the street from me go from million one. I live in Sleepy, hollow New York, and you know, this is typically around the conforming limit for prices for most of these homes, and it went for 150 $1,000 over the ask, it was crazy. Went in two weeks now, during COVID, we saw this sort of behavior, and we thought, Well, okay, you had zero interest rates. I got a 3% mortgage, by the way, awesome. But here we have a situation when markets cooled down a lot, and yet the lack of availability is really the driver. So in that sense, I agree with you, but I do think the high end could correct rather substantially.   Keith Weinhold  25:24    And of course, in multi family apartments, that's different. That's where values in a lot of markets have been depressed by more than 30% they were subject to those interest rates being jacked up, and we're still going to see balloon loans mature and people default on those in apartments. The pain is not over with air, but at some point that's going to bottom out, and that'll be a buyer opportunity in apartments.   Chris Whalen  25:47    Well, the thing is, new stuff is going fine. It's what happens is when the new gets built, the older assets down the road get discounted. That's really what's going on. People love new as you know, these kids love a new house, as opposed to an older house.   Keith Weinhold  26:02   Yes, that'll help reset the prices in the new market when you can compare those to what existing values are. Well, Chris, talk to us more about your new book and what the overall thesis of the book is in these critical times.    Chris Whalen  26:16   Inflated is meant to help people understand how our country went from agrarian, sleepy, isolationist America in the 1900s to being the dominant economy in the world and the provider of global money. We talk about how we got here. We talk about Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt and many other characters. Obviously, we had to talk about Andrew Jackson, who is now embodied in our president, Donald Trump. We try and frame how this is all going to evolve in the future. And my thesis is basically the global currency role is something you get during or after a war. We took the baton from Great Britain after the First World War, and then by the end of World War Two, everybody in the world was broke, except for us. It was last man standing. And so rebuilt the world. We let everybody take advantage of us, and now President, who's saying, Nope, we got to change this. I think if it wasn't Trump, it would be somebody else. To be honest with you, Americans are tired of high inflation. They're tired of some of the other costs that come along with being the global reserve currency, so we try and frame all of this in an understandable way. And I particularly talk about housing during COVID and how that all really, I think, changed things for many Americans. Home ownership has been one of the basic ways we create wealth in this country, and the fact that we didn't have an opportunity for people to get in cheap with a fixer upper or a house that was foreclosed. You know, I think it's unfortunate, but the system just can't tolerate it. We've gone in 2008 and then in 2020 through two very significant crises when the government bond market stopped working. So we talk about that as well.   Keith Weinhold  28:03   I don't predict interest rates. I think it is really difficult to do you mentioned earlier about the prospect for lower interest rates coming. Everyone wants to know about coming. What's your outlook for the future of interest rates and inflation for just say the next five years? Chris,    Chris Whalen  28:19   I think interest rates will drop. That is to say what the Fed controls, which is short term interest rates. In the next year or so, we'll have a little bit of a boom as a result. But I think the concern about the federal deficit and US debt, the volatility caused by President Trump's trade strategy, and just general I think a sense of uncertainty among investors is going to keep long term interest rates higher than we saw during COVID And really the whole period since 2008 the Fed bought a lot of duration and took it out of the market, so they kept rates low. They're not going to do that as much in the future. I don't think they'll buy mortgage securities again, they are very chastened by that experience. So if they don't buy mortgage backed securities, and if the banks don't become more aggressive buyers, and I don't think they will, then you know, the marginal demand that would drive mortgage rates down is just not going to be there. Banks have been holding fewer and fewer mortgages and mortgage backed securities on their books for 35 years. If you look at the growth in the industry, the dollar amount of one to four family mortgages hasn't changed very much. So when you look at it that way, it's like, you know what's wrong? Two things. They want to only make mortgages to affluent households. They want to avoid headline risk and litigation and fines and all of that. And I think also, too some of the Basel capital rules for banks discourage them from holding mortgages and mortgage servicing rights, which is an area I work in quite a lot.   Keith Weinhold  29:55   It seems to me, like increasingly, the powers. It be the United States government just won't let the homeowner fail. They want to do so much to promote home ownership over the long term, we see relative ease with getting a mortgage. We've seen lower down payment requirements during other times, including COVID. We see the government jump in with things like mortgage loan forbearance and an eviction moratorium for renters. They just don't want to let people lose their homes. It just seems like there's more propensity to give homeowners a greater safety net than ever. Well,   Chris Whalen  30:29   we've turned it into an entitlement. Yeah, and Trump is changing that at the federal level. The states, the blue states, are going to continue to play that game at the state level, and they can even have state moratoria. But what's going to happen, and I think sooner rather than later, is you may see the federal agencies start to tier the states in terms of servicing fees, simply to reflect the cost. It takes over 1400 days to do a foreclosure in New York. Gosh, that is a big problem. You can lose the lien in New York now, it takes so long. So I think that, you know, from an investor perspective, from a developer perspective, it's not an attractive venue. That's just the reality. Then you even California is as progressive and as activists as it is, you can still get a foreclosure done very quickly using the trustees. It's just a totally different situation. If there are complications, you can get into a judicial foreclosure, which will take longer. But still, California works. New York is deliberately dysfunctional. We have people in the state legislature who are in foreclosure themselves, and they keep passing these laws. So, you know, I think at the federal level, you're going to see it roll back to pre COVID, but I will say that forbearance, both with respect to the agency and conventional market and private loans, is kind of the rule. Now we work with the borrower much more than we would in the past. It's it is really night and day.   Keith Weinhold  32:00   Chris, your new book has gotten a lot of acclaim. Let us know anything else that we should know about this book, and then if we can get it in all the usual places   Chris Whalen  32:10   you can buy it at Barnes and Noble Amazon. I have a page on my website, RC, waylon.com, with all the relevant links. But the online is the best way to get it. Most of the sales are on Kindle anyway, but well over 90% are online, so we don't have to worry about physical books. I think we'll be doing some book signings in the New York area. So we'll definitely let you know about that.   Keith Weinhold  32:33   One last thought is that the rate of inflation means more to a real estate investor than it does to a layperson, maybe five times as much or more, because when we borrow for an income property, our asset floats up with inflation. That part's really just a hedge on inflation. Our debt gets debased by inflation, which is really a mechanism for profiting from inflation over time. And then, thirdly, our cash flow tends to go up even faster than the rate of inflation, since our principal and interest stays fixed, so real estate investors can often be the beneficiary of inflation. It's sort of strange to go root for a force like inflation that can impoverish so many people. But what are your thoughts with respect to real estate investors and inflation?   Chris Whalen  33:19   Well, you know, it's funny when Jerome Powell at the Fed says that they have a 2% inflation target, my response is, well, we better have at least 2% inflation if we're going to make commercial real estate work. Commercial real estate went up for 75 years after World War Two. I can remember when I was in the rating business at Crowell bond ratings going to see some of the banks here in New York, their multifamily books had only seen the equity underneath the asset go up and up and up. In other words, the land ended up being 90% of the value, you know, 1520, years after the purchase and the improvements were almost worthless simply because the land appreciated so much. Now that has changed since COVID. A lot of commercial real estate, particularly has gotten under a bit of a cloud. You've seen falling prices. However, in parts of the country that are growing where you have a positive political environment, positive economic environment, you're still seeing fantastic growth in both commercial and multifamily markets. So I think being very careful and patient in doing your homework in terms of picking venues is more important now than ever before. You know, I'll give you an example. Down in Florida, we're building new malls every day. The mall down the road that's 15 years old. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's 15 years old. And so the price discounts that you're seeing for existing assets are rather striking. Same thing down in the Carolinas, down in, you know, Atlanta, and going down to the Texas growth spectacle, I'm always astounded by what's going on in Texas. They built so much in that whole area around South Lake, out by the airport. It, they're going to basically subsume used it. So, you know, in those markets, you have great opportunities, but you also have over building. And so we're going to see some cycles where they're going to be deals out there for projects that maybe were a little too ambitious have to get restructured, and astute investors can come in and do very well on that   Keith Weinhold  35:20   like we often say around here, in real estate investing, the market is typically even more important than the property itself. The name of Chris's new book, again, is inflated money, debt and the American dream. It has an awful lot of intersections with real estate investors and how they can play inflation. Uh, Chris has been a terrific conversation about the real estate market and larger market forces. It's been great having you here on the show.   Chris Whalen  35:47   Thank you, Keith. Let's do it again.   Keith Weinhold  35:49   Yeah, some good insights from Chris, a smart guy. And gosh, what a really sad state for rent stabilized apartments in New York City, where landlords of some of those properties, they would have to spend sometimes hundreds of 1000s of dollars in order to bring them up to code, but then they couldn't charge enough rent to offset those expenses due to government intervention and price fixing, so landlords just lock up the property vacant. And this sort of harkens back to when we were talking about some of this last year, when we had documentary film maker jen siderova on the show with her film called shopification, and it was about how rent control slowly makes neighborhoods fall into disrepair. All right, Chris and I had some difference of opinion there on the prospects for a home price correction. I think I made most of my points. He did, though, talk about running out of home buyers. If I have him back, maybe I'll pick up right there. More buyers are baked into the demographics, like I think I shared with you one time the US had its highest ever birth rate years between 1990 and 2010 more than 4 million births per year for a lot of those years. Just to review this with you, you might remember that 2007 was the US is peak birth year. Add 38 years to that for the average first time homebuyer age, and that housing demand won't even peak until 2045 and it will continue to stay high for a few years after that. So that's where the demand is just going to keep coming from, just piling on. And when I say that loan conditions have eased for American homeowners, like I did there during the interview, of course, what I'm talking about is the long term. I mean, lending conditions got more rigid after 2008 and with the adoption of Dodd Frank. What I'm talking about is, before the Great Depression, it was most common to have to make 50% to 60% down payments on property, and you had to repay the entire note in five to 10 years. I mean, can you imagine how that would hurt affordability today and then later, by 1950, 15, year loans were the common one. I mean, even that would impair affordability today. Today, 30 year loans are the common one, and you can put as little as 3% down on a primary residence. A lot of people don't know that either. It does not take 20% on a primary residence. So that's what I mean about the relative ease of credit flow today. Now, Chris has knowledge about other parts of the real estate market that I don't for his work inside DC and in other places like the foreclosure market. We talked about some of that right after the interview. For example, He was letting acronyms like NPL roll off his tongue, and I had to ask him what that meant. That's a non performing loan. Check out Chris's new book. Again, it's called inflated money debt in the American dream. And again, his website is RCwhalen.com and Chris also has a great sense of history, which we didn't get into, longtime real estate guys radio show co host Russell gray and I will discuss monetary history here on the show soon. Like I said, I'm coming to you from Edinburgh, Scotland this week, even if you don't see great sites, you know, it's interesting just walking the historic streets here, if you're an American that's visited here before, you surely know what I mean. And I told you that I'd let you know, the current real estate transaction I'm involved in is paying $650 a night for the hotel here in Edinburgh. Yes, that's a lot. I've actually paid less for fancier places in Dubai, but this hotel here is on the Royal Mile. Of course, I could have found less expensive accommodations elsewhere.    Speaking of less expensive, here's an announcement. And we have new investment property providers at GRE marketplace, two of them, the markets are both in Oklahoma, and they are Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma as a state, is known for landlord friendly eviction processes and legal systems, kind of the opposite of New York. So this makes your property management more predictable. Now, when we look at this city, OKC has the lowest priced new single family rentals. I can think of it under 160k Yes, that really puts the exclamation point on inexpensive and favorable rent to price ratios often exceeding 1% which is obviously attractive for cash flow, meaning a 150k single family rental could yield over $1,500 in rent. There's high rental demand in certain sub markets. We have scouted out those exact places for you in the OKC metro, like Edmond Moore spelled M, O, O, R, E, and Midwest City, all supporting consistent rent income, though it was once really oil dependent, OKC has diversified economically, reducing your risk tied to commodity cycles and ok sees local economy that's supported by industries including aerospace, energy, health care and logistics. Then there's Tulsa. Tulsa has the highest cash flowing new build duplexes, perhaps anywhere in the US that I know about. On the single family rental side, a lot of Tulsa investors can find properties under 150k with monthly rents again exceeding 1% of the purchase price, clearly ideal. So yes, both Oklahoma City and Tulsa are now on GRE marketplace. You can either visit the pages and see them there, or one of our qualified, experienced GRE investment coaches. Meet with them. They can help guide you to the very best deals and show you the specific property addresses available right at this time for whatever best meets your needs. If you're looking to either start or expand to another market and you seek cash flow, you really need to consider Oklahoma. Yes, it is free to have a strategy session with an investment coach, whether that's for Oklahoma or other investor advantage regions. I often like to leave you with something actionable. You can start at GREinvestment coach.com start book a meeting for a free strategy session remotely. That's at GREinvestment coach.com, until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Dolf Deroos  42:51   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Advice, opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  43:14   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you'll also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre to 66866. While it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, gre to 66866.   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.

Dr. Shatrela Washington-Hubbard currently serves as the Swinton A. Griffith III dean and program director of human resource management programs for the College of Business & Communication at Brenau University. As dean of the College of Business & Communication, Washington-Hubbard is focusing on building strategic alliances to grow the college, differentiate the program offerings, and create programs […] The post Shatrela Washington-Hubbard, Ph.D. Brenau University And Kimber Armstrong With Better Business Bureau appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

We explore what to means to be a successful business guided by ethics as we talk to the winners of this year's Better Business Bureau's Torch Awards in NH. Today's Guests are Becca Friend, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Serving NH; and two winners of the Torch Awards for Ethics: Crystal-Lee Thompson, owner of Thompson Insurance Agency, and Bruce Randall, founder of the Randall School of Karate. For more information about the Better Business Bureau in NH, click here. For more information about Thompson Insurance Agency, click here. For more information about the Randall School of Karate, click here. Sponsored by the Business of the Year Awards.

In Focus: 06/1/25: Mechele Mills - Tyler Chapter of Better Business Bureau

If you're company is a small or medium sized business, don't get comfortable about fraud – you're being targeted too.  Troy Baker is back to talk fraud and how the fraud prevention resources at the Better Business Bureau can help you protect your payments from fraudsters.Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out the Vendor Process Training Center for 116+ hours of weekly live and on-demand training for the Vendor team. Links mentioned in the podcast + other helpful resources:   Better Business Bureau Links:  Main Webpage:  https://www.bbb.org Scam Tracker:  https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker Scam News/Tips:  https://www.bbb.org/all/scamtips Sign-Up for Scam Alerts: https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/1900156/1902645/ Michigan Better Business Bureau:  https://www.bbb.org/miprograms Validate Charities:  https://www.give.org Customized Vendor Validations Session: https://debrarrichardson.com/vendor-validation-sessionVendor Process Training Center - https://training.debrarrichardson.comCustomized Fraud Training:  https://training.debrarrichardson.com/customized-fraud-training Free Live and On-Demand Webinars: https://training.debrarrichardson.com/webinarsVendor Master File Clean-Up:  https://www.debrarrichardson.com/cleanupYouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqeoffeQu3pSXMV8fUIGNiw More Podcasts/Blogs/Webinars www.debrarrichardson.comMore ideas?  Email me at debra@debrarrichardson.com Music Credit:  www.purple-planet.com

Bryan Barrett talks with James Price of the Better Business Bureau, who shares tips and advice on planning the perfect getaway or vacation.

Discover powerful strategies to maximize your rental property returns and minimize costly vacancies. Learn how top investors are transforming their approach to property management, from tenant retention techniques to smart staffing solutions. Key Insights: Master the art of keeping great tenants and reducing turnover Understand when to scale your property management approach Explore innovative investment opportunities beyond traditional real estate Market Trends Spotlight: Rental demand is on the rise Emerging investment options offer unique wealth-building potential Strategic diversification is key to long-term financial success Explore alternative investment opportunities like sustainable teak forestry - a generational wealth strategy that offers: Low entry point Long-term growth potential International diversification Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, these insights will help you make more informed, profitable real estate decisions. Resources: Learn more about the teak tree investment opportunity at Gremarketplace.com/teak Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/555 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai    Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, learn how to reduce a giant operational expense that you'll have over time your tenant vacancy and turnover, including how many units you must own before you hire your own on site property manager as your employee. Whatever happened to agent commissions in light of last year's NAR settlement, then a timely update on teak tree investing today on Get Rich Education.   Mid South home buyers. I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider. Their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated their zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis. Get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Welcome to GRE from Manchester, New Hampshire to Manchester, England and across 188 nations worldwide, I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are back inside one of America's longest running and most listened to shows on real estate investing. This is get rich education. What's all that stuff really mean? I'm just another slack jawed and snaggletooth podcaster, a shaved mammal with a microphone. I'm joining you from here in London, England this week for the first time ever on the show. More on that later. Let's talk about reducing the biggest operational expense that you're ever going to have as a real estate investor, at least the one that you can exert a good measure of control over. That is reducing your tenant vacancy and turnover, that constant menace. Now, I suppose you might say that property tax is your biggest ongoing ops expense, but you've got less control over your property tax rate. So yeah, we're talking about increasing your net income by lowering your VIMTUM operating expenses. Vacancy is the V in that acronym. This is big because this can make or break your ability to have your property create positive cash flow and getting tenant turnover right both increases your income and reduces your expenses. It is springtime currently, and it's soon going to be summer, so it is the right time to talk about this. It's when there is more tenant turnover. The goal here is for you to really move the dial in increase the likelihood that your tenant is going to renew their lease. Now, sure if your tenant gets a new job out of town, they're going to move out. But if they're moving because of too many maintenance issues, well then that's something that you could have fixed. The average tenancy duration in the US over time is two to three years. And of course, that's going to be longer in single family rentals and shorter in apartments. And how long your tenant stays is driven by three factors, the price of your unit, the quality of your maintenance and the quality of your management. Let's say that your tenant moves out. To be conservative, that your vacancy period is two months between tenants. Okay, that's the turnover and the time to lease. It two months is a somewhat longish vacancy period. But come on, it happens sometimes, especially if you're going to make upgrades between tenancies and you're busy with other things in your life, if you have a move out every year at that rate, well, that is too often. That would amount. To a vacancy percentage of 14% you might think it's 17% but it isn't, because it's a 12 month vacancy plus two vacant months, all right, but if instead that tenant moves out every two years, that's just 8% vacancy, and every three years that's just 5% vacancy. Of course, if you keep your vacancy period to only one month rather than two, you can have all those numbers. You can really see how you are increasing your income by retaining the tenant. The most vital thing for you to keep in mind is that fast quality maintenance and good communication are by far the best forms of customer service that a property manager can provide, so prompt, quality maintenance. That's a retention strategy. Being a proactive helps. One strategy you can engage in is to reach out to the tenants two months before their lease is set to renew, and that's the time to give them the new lease price and ask them if they intend to stay. If they say, No, they're not, ask them why. And occasionally, you can sway them if there's been a misunderstanding in your relationship, for example, a lingering maintenance issue that hasn't been addressed, and perhaps they didn't bother to contact you about that, if nothing else, I think I mentioned this to you one time before offering a small reward, like a gift card helps. I mean, creating this sense of reciprocation is really one of the best retention tactics out there, even if the items being reciprocated aren't anywhere near equal value, like the value of a 12 month lease versus you giving them, say, a $50 gift card now, say you've tried those strategies, and none of that works, and your tenant does decide to leave, perhaps 45 days from now, but you know that you've got time in your life to turn over the unit now, and You know that you're going to be really busy with other things in 45 days. One thing that you can do then is shift your strategy to pay the tenant. Say you can pay them as little as 10 or 20 bucks a day to leave early. This way they'll vacate during a period where you've got the time to devote to the vacancy and the turnover and the showings to prospective new tenants, and that way, it's not going to linger vacant as long now, a technique like this is a little similar to an eviction, where if a tenant has violated their lease or becomes non paying, without you having to go through the length of Your court driven formal eviction process, you can pay them a lump sum to leave early. Hopefully that's not your situation, but that can come up. And I think you've heard of it before. This is known as the Cash for Keys strategy. That means to get a tenant that's made some violation against their lease, and you want to have them vacate the unit sooner. This means that you get the keys in your hand and the right to enter when you pay them to leave, rather than having to go through the not so fun eviction process and see a tenant wants to avoid a formal eviction as well, because that goes on their record, and then it can make it tough for that tenant to get rental housing elsewhere. But I dislike the Cash for Keys strategy in order to hold off from a formal eviction, because what that does is that rewards a person that violated a lease, although we know that that might also shorten your economic vacancy period, and it could actually be economically beneficial to you, Cash for Keys. It's just not ethical, though. I know it might be tempting for you, the landlord, the cash for key strategy. It rewards societally immoral behavior. Now, of course, you might be using a professional property manager that does all of this stuff for you, like I do today, but still, these are often the best practices for your manager. And I started out self managing, just like a lot of real estate investors do in the beginning, and that's where I learned strategies and techniques like this for reducing your tenant vacancy and turnover. Now, here's a really interesting question that you may not have had to ask yourself yet, but you may down the road, if you've grown your portfolio to a certain size and you're serious about reducing your vacancy and turnover expense, it might be time to ask yourself one big question, and that is for your management and maintenance. Should you use contractors, or should you start to hire your own employees? Now, if you have a small portfolio, it won't be enough work for you to keep an employee busy, so you should go with contract. Contractors. On the other hand, if you have an apartment complex with on site property management, I would definitely recommend having a make ready crew on site, because it's just so easy for them to get to and from a job site. Now, you should still maintain relationships with contractors as a backup, of course, and you should also have specialists like plumbers, electricians and HVAC people ready to call now, most investors are small and they use off site management, but if you grow big enough someday, or maybe it's two day, the important point about employees is that you really need to stay on them, because every extra hour costs you. You don't want anyone out there who's thinking that speed isn't essential, because they're like, ah, you know, I get paid by the hour. Contractors, on the other hand, they quote you or your manager a job up front. So while an extra day hurts because it's one more day you can't lease the unit, it hurts less than it does if you have your own employees. One problem with contractors is they often can't start right away, and this tends to be more true if you're self managing. See if you use a professional manager. They might have their own in house people so you can leverage their employees without having to manage employees yourself, even if your manager brings in an off site contractor, like an electrician or a plumber. Well, that contractor probably gets a lot of business from your property manager, and they have some sense of loyalty to your property manager, therefore, they're incentivized to show up on time faster than if you're trying to self manage, say, your small portfolio of five properties, and you or your tenant are the ones that call the electrician or the plumber. Well, those contractors are going to be less likely to prioritize you and your infrequent requests, and this is just another reason that I like to employ professional management and not self manage. Now, virtually no new real estate investor is going to hire their own employees, and most are never going to at all. All right, but how do you know? How would you know when it's time to hire your own property manager or your own contractor, and have them on your own payroll and you are their boss, if you've got under 20 to 30 units, all right, typically third party property management or self management with contractors, that's going to make more sense, because having a full time, dedicated employee, it's just not financially justifiable. Below 20 or 30 units, you're not going to be able to keep that employee busy. And I'm generally talking about if you have one apartment building here, or a bunch of single family rentals, only if they're in small, close proximity to each other. What about if you grow up to 30 to 60 units? All right now you're in a gray area. If the property is something that's pretty management intensive, like high turnover, or you own an older building, or you generate a lot of work orders, or you're in a challenging area. Well, at 30 to 60 units, you might justify a part time on site person. So how that could practically work in this 30 to 60 unit gray area, what you can do is have a resident manager that gets free rent, plus perhaps a small stipend from you. Okay, so that's a strategy that you can play in this gray area zone. That way they can be responsive to tenant requests, and you can keep your vacancy and turnover costs down. All right, how about when you're going even bigger and you reach 60 to 100 units. Now you're in the range where a full time on site manager or a maintenance person, starts to make financial and operational sense, because here it's 60 to 100 units. Your staffing model, it might be that you have one full time manager, they do the leasing, the tenant relations, in the admin stuff, and you'll also have a second person, a full time maintenance tech if they're needed, all right? And the final tier here, if you reach more than 100 units, oh, okay, now it is standard for you to have a full on site team. You could be in the hundreds of units. So we're talking about a property manager, a leasing agent, a maintenance lead, a groundskeeper and sometimes also a part time assistant manager. So that's it. That's the hierarchy of how, based on your portfolio size and where they're located, how you can serve tenants well and reduce your vacancy and turnover expense. Yes. All right now, what are some things that can shift those thresholds, those unit counts? Well, high rent or luxury buildings, they often need on site staff at a smaller unit count, very low rent or section eight properties, they may need more intensive oversight, buildings that have amenities, like some of these newer apartment buildings that have a pool and a gym, okay, that can trigger some more staffing needs. And if you own multiple properties that are nearby to each other, well, then you can share employees across those properties. And you've got to look at local labor costs in places like New York City, northeastern New Jersey, parts of New England, Miami or LA, those high cost places. Then breaking even on staffing. That probably takes a bigger property than those numbers that I talked about. But here, we tend to invest in those investor advantage areas, the inland northeast, the South, in the southeast, in the Midwest. Now, if you've got, say, even 50 smaller properties, but they're scattered all over the place, in multiple states, well then of course, you're not going to hire employees. A good general metric to leave you with here is that one on site employee for every 50 to 80 units that you own in the same area, that is common, that is a common industry practice in market rate multifamily apartments right now, these are pretty timeless strategies I've been talking about with you here.    As for what's happening in The market lately, I continue to slowly get more optimistic about the long beleaguered apartment market. A few weeks ago, I talked about how there's finally been greater apartment rent increases, although those rent increases are still historically low. What recently we learned that apartments are seeing a longer duration of tenancy and today, per real page, every single one of the 50 largest apartment markets has posted month over month occupancy gains, and then that's somewhat commensurate with what we're seeing on the one to four unit side, because the home ownership rate has fallen. It just fell from 65.7% down to 65.1 quarter over quarter. Now that doesn't sound like much, but that's actually a substantial drop in the home ownership rate in just one quarter. And fewer homeowners means more renters. So this basically means that the percent of Americans, renting has gone up because you just take the flip side of those numbers. So the rentership rate has essentially risen from 34.3 up to 34.9 in just one quarter. Something that completely makes sense, because we all know that home ownership affordability, especially for that first time, home buyer is lower, more renters. Is good for rental property owners. It's bringing more rental demand, more occupancy and more future pressure on rising rents. Now I want to follow up with you on a story from last year that made a lot of waves in the larger real estate world, but not so much for real estate investors. You surely remember this. That is the NAR settlement that a lot of people thought would result in lower real estate agent fees. Lowered commissions were coming. That's what everybody thought last year. Stories about that were all over the place that realtor fees are about to shrink. What's happened since then? Well, not much realtor fees, they still haven't fallen in any significant way, although the settlement was more than a year ago and this went into effect nine months ago. So to back up for a moment, in case you missed it, what happened is that a group of sellers accused the NAR, the National Association of Realtors, of inflating home costs by letting buyer side and seller side agents communicate about commission rates on the MLS home database, which only agents can see. And a jury agreed, so the NAR settled the lawsuit for over $400 million in damages, and it barred agents from sharing commission rates on those MLS databases. So that was a huge change that was expected to extinguish the globally high five to 6% realtor fee in the United States, because global averages are between one and 3% so as a result, the US real estate industry, they were bracing themselves for up to a 30% drop in the commissions that Americans pay annually in fees. But the new rules. Things have been nothing other than a big nothing burger. It only took a matter of weeks, really, for most agents to realize, you know, what did the agents do? They just simply moved their conversations off the NAR website and over to phone, text and email. That's it. Yes, that's all they did. So since that time, the average commission for buyers agents has barely budged. It ticked down less than 110 of 1% so for example, it ticked down less than 500 bucks on a 500k home that's per Redfin. So agents still expect sellers to pay five to 6% now I'm not against agents. Not only can an agent guide you through the process, what they can do is get you a higher sale price than they could have otherwise, because they really know how to market and advertise your property and reach a greater pool of buyers, but their commission rates have hardly budged. And of course, here at GRE marketplace, we typically use a direct model where agent compensation isn't priced into your properties anyway.    To review what you've learned so far today, being proactive can help reduce your tenant vacancy and turnover expense and increase your income. Prompt, quality maintenance, that is a retention strategy in itself, as can having one on site employee for every 50 to 80 apartment units. And one year later, changes at the NIR really haven't reduced aging commissions appreciably. I'm coming to you from London, England today, taking in all the top sites, Buckingham Palace and watching the changing of the guard over there, Big Ben a Thames river cruise and the London Bridge, which is actually called Tower Bridge. The real estate transaction that I'm currently involved in here is paying $550 a night to stay here at a nice hotel in the center of the city. It's right near the Thames, kind of a steep rate, and I sure didn't have to stay right in the city center, where everything is more pricey. But that's the experience that I want to have. Next week, I'll bring you the show from Edinburgh, Scotland, where I'll be paying even more for a well located hotel right on the Royal Mile, and I'll tell you how much more then I am here to boost their economies, I suppose more next, including a really timely update. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Episode 555, of get rich education.    The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com.    You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866.   Tom Wheelwright  24:21   this is Rich Dad advisor, Tom wheelwright. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  24:37   Welcome back to Episode 555, of get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, with an episode number like 555, you would expect me to go deep with you on real estate pays five ways, but we did that five weeks ago on episode 550 with your audio masterclass right here on the show today, we're talking about something with less upside. Than say that or the inflation triple crown, and instead on reducing your downside, vacancy and turnover expense, next week here on the show, I expect to sit down with a guest that's a highly regarded financier and author of a fairly hot new finance book, Christopher Whelan, and next week's show could get really interesting, because I've heard Chris say something about how real estate prices could fall back to 2020 levels. In my opinion, that is so many levels of unlikely that happening is about as likely as your grocery bills falling back to 2020 levels. So we'll see it could turn into a debate next week with Christopher Whelan and I. He is a sharp, well informed guy that also used to work at the New York Fed. That's next week down the road, longtime and former co host of the real estate guys radio show, Russell gray will join us again here, and we'll see what he's been up to in his post real estate guys, radio life that's coming up in a few weeks. Lots of great future content here, monologs, yes, those slack jawed monologs For me, repeat guests and new guests joining in as well. Back to this week now, there's an intriguing and potentially lucrative investment that we've discussed on the show here before, and I do have a timely and crucial update about it. A little while back, I sat down with the teak operations principle when we were in New Orleans together. These are yes, those Panama teak tree plantations that so many of you have already invested in. Yes. So as it is here. I am an American in London today talking about teak trees in Panama and I interviewed our upcoming guest here when we were in New Orleans together, the teak investment has a long time horizon, because trees have to grow. There's also a low cost of entry and no loans available. This is a real estate investment. You can own the land with the title to it and the trees that grow on top of them. Historically, teak returns have been five and a half percent, which doesn't sound like much, but see it grows in board foot volume at the same time that the unit price grows. And if inflation runs high over the next 25 years, your return might be higher. But the reason that we're discussing this now is because the principal, Mike Cobb here meeting with me, he is going to mention a price, and this is key two weeks from today, on June 9, the price for the teak parcels increases substantially. I'll tell you about that shortly. So for GRE followers, you can get locked into the lower price for just two more weeks. Here's my chat from a little while back with the teak tree investment principle, and then I'll return to bring you more.    Hey, did you know that you can own a quarter acre parcel of a producing teak plantation, you own the title to the land, and you get the growth in the trees. On top of that, this is something that you can do as an investor. And teak trees are a valuable hardwood that you own, typically in Central America. So there's a very low cost of entry to this investment, and that's what attracts a lot of people to it. And I am with Mike Cobb, the CEO. He's also the author of the new book how to buy your home overseas and get it right the first time. But Mike, a lot of people are interested in the teak investment because it is so approachable. Tell us about it. Give us a general overview.   Mike Cobb  28:42   absolutely, you know, thanks for having me on. It's always nice to be with you. We're, we're having some fun here in New Orleans, which is terrific, you know, yeah, the teak plantation is something that I envisioned back in 1998 so what's that like 26 years ago? Right? And in 1999 we planted our very first 100 Acre teak plantation. Because what we thought about at the time, which has now proven true 25 years later, is that, you know, I was either going to need the money in 25 years and be really glad I did this, or I wasn't going to need the money in 25 years and I was going to be really glad I did this. You know what? I don't really need the money now, but I'm really glad I did this. And 25 years comes. And I think that's been really the challenge for a lot of people looking at teak. They're just like, ah, 25 years. It's too long, but 25 years comes. 25 years will come, and you can either have planted the trees and be ready to take this huge windfall of return, or you won't be getting a windfall return. So I think that's the challenge, the mental challenge, I think maybe an average investor has, but I know you work with superior investors because they're paying attention to what you're writing, they're watching your podcast, they're reading your newsletter. You have far superior investors than I would say, the average investor. So I think this is a great thing for folks to check out.   Keith Weinhold  30:00   All right, so you're talking about the investment timeline, from the time a tea tree seed is planted until the harvest time that can feel like quite a while. You have been doing this over 25 years, and that is key when you as an investor go offshore or go overseas to have trust in a stable company that's been around for a long time. That's why, really, you're one of the few people that I work with who are outside of the United States real estate like the teak trees.   Mike Cobb  30:25   Thank you. Yeah, we've been around for 31 years. I've been working in the region. 31 our development company is 28 years old. Our plantation is now 26 years old. 25 with the trees, but we bought the land 26 years ago. But the bottom line, you're right and and the other thing that we should care about. And you brought this up earlier, when we're kind of chatting, is country, what country are you planting trees in that you got to wait 25 years for them to mature and harvest? By the way, the Panama. By the way, Panama, and of all the countries in the region where I feel the most comfortable as an investor, Panama's yet, because Panama's got the canal. And I know people say, oh, yeah, that's right. It's a vital strategic US interest. It's a vital world interest. The Chinese care about it as much as we do. The Europeans care about it. Anybody who wants commerce to happen cares about that canal being open. And so you've got this country, Panama, that has the canal stable, economically stable, politically stable. And when starting to talk about 2550 7500, year time frames, because you own the land, you get the harvest in 25 years, you replant, and then your children get the next harvest, and your grandchildren get the next harvest. It is truly generational wealth. Stewardship   Keith Weinhold  31:41   Panama is a little bit like investing overseas with training wheels on their well developed, first Central American nation. They even use the United States dollars. They do is that familiar? Absolutely well. But as the investors thinking about investing in teak plantations, just tell us about the properties of teak wood, of all wood types. Why teak? Tell us about the value there.    Mike Cobb  32:00   Yeah, teak has been grown in plantations, starting with the British back about 400 years ago. And so you've got centuries of plantation growing of teak as a crop, right? And so you've got this incredible longevity of information and things like that. And I know some of the stats off the top of my head, since 1972 the average price of teak lumber has has risen about five and a half percent a year over a 52 year period. Talk about track record, centuries of growing as a crop, right? 52 years as a lumber commodity. Look, people been using it to make ships. Its hardness is its most valuable characteristic is an extremely hard wood. It's resistant to rot fungus, so it's used in outdoor furniture, for example, right? Some of the stuff on the Titanic they pulled up from the bottom of the ocean, you know, chairs made a teak, right? Teak. But ship builders fine furniture, outdoor furniture and and they're cutting teak down. This is so important, they are cutting teak down eight to 10 times faster than anybody in the world is replanting it. So just imagine what that does to supply and demand and prices based on just basic economics, right?   Keith Weinhold  33:13   Yeah, that is some scarcity. That is a really good point. Tell us about what you're surely interested in. What do the investor returns look like.   Mike Cobb  33:21   Yeah. So you know, to own one of these quarter acre parcels, by the way, you said it before you own the land, you get title to the land you own the trees. $6,880 that's your that's your entry. Gosh. So for less than $7,000 you own a quarter acre of teeth trees that in 25 years projected returns. We all projections right about $94,000 a little over $94,000 so 7000 turns into $90,000 over 25 years, harvest, plant the trees again, and in 25 years, your kids or your grandkids will get the next harvest, and so on and so on. It is a powerful generational wealth stewardship. In fact, right now we have what we call give the gift of teak because look, you know, you got kids, you got grandkids. What are you gonna get them? Right? I mean, they got everything they want, presumably, right? You buy them a teak parcel, right? Buy that kid, buy that grandkid, a teak parcel. What a cool idea. Oh my gosh, in 25 years, you might be gone, right, but they're gonna get this big windfall, and they're gonna thank grandma or grandpa, right for for thinking of them 25 years into the future?   Keith Weinhold  34:27   Yeah? Oh, I love that. And you're so proud about what you do. You regularly offer investor tour so that they come and see the teak. But maybe you know, for you, the investor, you're wondering, okay, if you're used to investing in us real estate, you might be making two leaps here. You'd be going from residential real estate to agricultural, and you'd also be investing in a nation outside your home country. And when it comes to those sort of questions, I think any savvy investor asks, okay, what are the risks involved with this investment? Can you tell us about that?   Mike Cobb  34:59   Yeah, sure. Look, you've got political risk, country risk, political risk, which, I think again, of all the countries in the region, Panama, dollar, economy, canal, safe, stable. So the political risk is minimal. It's there. It's real. You know, fire risk is an issue, right? Trees burn. The good thing about teak is that after about year three, they're up. And you keep them trimmed, trim all the low branches off. So fire risk really drops incredibly low after about year three or four. But ultimately, it's about professional management. We have a company called Heyo Forrestal that we hired 25 years ago, 26 years ago, actually, to help us find the land, do the analysis of the land, make sure it was good for teak. And when you hire professionals, you get professional results. I mean, we stayed with this company for 26 years now, and the guy that we met early on, a little forestry engineer, is now General Manager and partner in the business. So we've watched that business grow up alongside ours at the same time. Those relationships, you know, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers have a song you can't make old friends. So here we are with Jacobo and some of the Luis that we've worked with for, you know, 26 years, and the relationships matter, especially in that part of the world, but professionalism and professional management is the key, and you have that alongside the relationships. Both are important.   Keith Weinhold  36:20   yes. So we're talking about how the property manager is such an important part of your team, and you think about your single family homes or your apartment buildings. And Mike here is talking about the importance of professional management, because teak trees need a little management and pruning, and sometimes there are thinnings which can give you some income so that you don't have to wait 25 years. Correct another way in which you might not have to wait 25 years for the full harvest cycle is at times you can buy trees that are, say, already seven years old, so you can only be waiting 18 years, or that are teens, so you might only be waiting 10 years, or some things about that, those are some of the options. But Mike, before I ask you if you have any last word, if you want to learn more about this, get some information, learn more about it, and learn how to connect with Mike's team. He is one of our GRE marketplace providers, and he's the owner of that company. You can do that at gre marketplace.com/teak, any last thing someone should know about teak before they consider investing? Mike?    Mike Cobb  37:16   Yeah, well, two things you mentioned the tour. So we do run discovery tours. We have one coming up in January, end of January, two days, we go out to the plantation, the teenage teat plantation, by the way, oak, which is eight or nine more years to harvest. Then we're going to the sawmill, because all of our logs go through a sawmill to convert to lumber, which enhances the return to the investor.    Keith Weinhold  37:36   Do the teens sleep until noon? Or can we visit them   Mike Cobb  37:38   and then they're on their phones all day If we're gonna go visit them. We'll wake them up and, like, get on their phones. But here's, here's the last parting word. I think it's scary for a lot of people. It is scary. You're going overseas, you're outside of, you know, residential you're going into a new industry. You're going to a new country. The reason this works for so many people, over 1000 now, have done this, is it's such a small bite, $7,000 and if that's maybe one or 2% of your portfolio, what I hate to say, put it on the table and roll the dice, but you'll be happy you did. I'm happy I did. It's a small bite, but that international diversification is so important. And then you put it in something that's absolutely not correlated to the market. It's not correlated to us real estate. I mean, in 2008 to 2012 when real estate was dying in the US, our trees just kept growing. So non correlated, non US, right? And non residential. I think that's the reason you want to take a little tiny piece of your portfolio and put it overseas in something like teak.    Keith Weinhold  38:42   We know over the long term that it has grown in value 5.5% a year, but at the same time, it grows in volume, in the amount of board fees you're getting a crease, an increase in both unit value and volume. It's really growing a couple ways. At the same time, you've had over 1000 different individual investors invest in the teak now, several dozen, maybe even more than 100 of those have been you the get rich education follower. So again, thanks for joining me, Mike. If you want to learn more, start at gre marketplace.com/teak. I'm Keith Weinhold. I'll see you next time.    Yeah, good information from Mike there again for GRE followers, that 6880 price deadline is Monday, June 9, and then it goes to 8680, that is a 26% price increase, and this is because land and planting costs have skyrocketed. And you know, I have long wondered about when they were going to change that same lower price that they've had for a lot of years. The provider recently added a sawmill to convert logs to lumber, and that enhances investment returns. So when you inquire for more info, you can ask about that, and that could very well put them above the 94k per part. Possible projected payout. Teak, hardwood, it just has some amazing physical properties. It's not your run of the mill. Backyard. Maple, it is a real asset. Think of it as a forest that fights back against Fiat and the provider reputation and continuity are almost impeccable. They've even had the same forestry manager, yeah, sort of like a property manager for trees, because trees take things like prunings and thinnings, the same manager for all 26 years of the teak operation. In the future, I might join one of their teak investor tours in Panama, and if I do, I'll be sure to let you know so that we can meet up that might even be a GRE exclusive tour. What you really need to know now is that, again, the lower price is good until Monday, June 9, to get started or simply learn more, visit gre marketplace.com/teak, that's t, e, a, k, until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Unknown Speaker  41:10   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  41:34   You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter. You also get my one hour fast real estate video. Of course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre 266, 866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, GRE to 66866.   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com  

Send us a textToday is the epic conclusion of our Fifty Shades of Grey miniseries fondly titled "Fifty Shades of May" series, and boyyy are we excited. Come on this first time journey with us as we do the ultimate book and movie ranking / showdown of the entire trilogy! We give our overall star and spice ratings of the Fifty Shades of Grey book trilogy by E. L. James, the movie trilogy, and even include our thoughts on the Fifty Shades parody book: Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. What did we love? (Veiny arms and grey sweatpants.

Did you know you can find lots of fraud prevention resources from the Better Business Bureau?  In this episode, Troy Baker from the Michigan Better Business Bureau talks about fraud, using the BBB for validations and what we both think is the best thing to do that will keep your company protected from fraud.   Keep listening. Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help implementing authentication techniques, internal controls, and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments, regulatory fines or bad vendor data. Check out the Vendor Process Training Center for 116+ hours of weekly live and on-demand training for the Vendor team. Links mentioned in the podcast + other helpful resources:   Better Business Bureau Links:  Main Webpage:  https://www.bbb.org Scam Tracker:  https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker Scam News/Tips:  https://www.bbb.org/all/scamtips Sign-Up for Scam Alerts: https://signup.e2ma.net/signup/1900156/1902645/ Michigan Better Business Bureau:  https://www.bbb.org/miprograms Validate Charities:  https://www.give.org Customized Vendor Validations Session: https://debrarrichardson.com/vendor-validation-sessionVendor Process Training Center - https://training.debrarrichardson.comCustomized Fraud Training:  https://training.debrarrichardson.com/customized-fraud-training Free Live and On-Demand Webinars: https://training.debrarrichardson.com/webinarsVendor Master File Clean-Up:  https://www.debrarrichardson.com/cleanupYouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqeoffeQu3pSXMV8fUIGNiw More Podcasts/Blogs/Webinars www.debrarrichardson.comMore ideas?  Email me at debra@debrarrichardson.com Music Credit:  www.purple-planet.com

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins WGN’s Bob Sirott to discuss scams that are being targeted toward veterans around Memorial Day. Steve shares some tips for college graduates on what to look out for as they enter the workforce. Steve also talks about fake going out of business sales that scammers are […]

On Thursday morning, in the park’s green belt that runs through campus, a moose gave birth to its calf. Plus, lots of people take advantage of the summer months for moving, but according to the Better Business Bureau, it’s for that reason people should especially be on the lookout for scams.

Chris Holman welcomes Troy Baker, VP of Strategic Partnerships and Market Expansion, Better Business Bureau® of Michigan, Southfield, MI. Talk briefly about the merging of the BBBs of Eastern and Western Michigan? What inspired the creation of the BBB Trades Scholarship, and how does it align with BBB's broader mission? Can you walk us through the eligibility criteria and application process for this year's scholarship? How does the scholarship benefit both young workers and the BBB Accredited Businesses that employ them? What impact have you seen from last year's scholarship awards, and can you share any success stories? Why is investing in skilled trades so critical to Michigan's economy and workforce development right now? Troy Baker, is the person who created this scholarship he stepped up for this interview since it's something he has worked on from inception. Invest in Your Future — BBB® Trades Scholarship Now Accepting Applications MICHIGAN (May 2025) - The Better Business Bureau® of Michigan's Educational Foundation is now accepting applications for the first round of the 2025 BBB Trades Scholarship. BBB wants to support young adults who choose to start a career in the trades. The scholarship seeks to help ease some of the costs associated with trades jobs, such as tools, protective clothing, etc. The scholarship also supports BBB Accredited Businesses, giving them another tool to help recruit, train and retain their workers of the future. In 2024, BBB was able to award 9 young adults with $7,800 worth of tools and gear. 2025 BBB Trades Scholarship Winners The scholarship is available to people 20 years old or younger. They must be working at, or have accepted employment with, a BBB Accredited Business in the trades for 12 months or less (hired after April 2024). Employees must be working for a business located within the Better Business Bureau of Michigan's 80 County Service Area. Eligible Trades: Construction Trades (including plumbing, electrical, roofing, concrete etc.) Welding Landscaping Painting Heating and Cooling Auto Repair Machinery/Tool & Die Pest Control Tree Removal *Other trades will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Submitting an application does not guarantee approval. Applications will be accepted from May 1 - June 9, 2025. More details on eligibility and how to apply are available at bbb.org/miawards. Hear from past winners on how this scholarship has helped them get ahead in their industries here. 2025 BBB Trades Scholarship Sponsors » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

When choosing a mortgage lender, it's important to carefully compare several key factors to ensure you get the best deal and the right fit for your financial situation. Here's who you might consider and how to evaluate them:1. Types of Lenders to ConsiderBanks: Traditional option; may offer relationship discounts if you have accounts there.Credit Unions: Often have lower rates and fees; membership may be required.Mortgage Brokers: Shop multiple lenders on your behalf but may charge a broker fee.Online Lenders: Often streamlined and convenient; compare their rates carefully.Non-bank lenders: Can be more flexible for unique financial situations.2. What to Look ForInterest Rates: Fixed or variable—get quotes from multiple sources to compare.Fees: Application, origination, underwriting, appraisal, and closing costs.Loan Types Offered: Conventional, FHA, VA, jumbo, etc., based on your eligibility.Customer Service: Look for responsive, transparent, and helpful communication.Reputation: Read reviews and check ratings from the Better Business Bureau or Trustpilot.Preapproval Process: A good lender should make this easy and informative.3. Best PracticeGet at least 3 quotes from different lenders.Ask for a Loan Estimate from each so you can compare total costs side-by-side.Consider long-term value, not just the lowest monthly payment—compare APRs.tune in and learn https://www.ddamortgage.com/blogdidier malagies nmls#212566dda mortgage nmls#324329 Support the show

Bryan Barrett talks with James Price of the Better Business Bureau about the importance of supporting local small businesses and researching any business before you buy from t

Vincent Reinhart, chief economist and macro strategist at BNY Investments, says that Monday's temporary halt to the tariff battle between the United States and China significantly reduces the potential for a recession, but it doesn't create the clarity that investors and business leaders are seeking. He believes the U.S. will continue to deliver solid results long-term, but warns that the road to those long-term gains is likely to be bumpy, and even notes that "for now, cash looks pretty attractive." Larry Tentarelli, editor at Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, says that the market's gains Monday continue a trend that has been building since the market bottomed after "Liberation Day." He says the recent moves have crossed trend lines and moved the Nasdaq out of bear-market territory and the recent gains have more room to run. Plus, Paula Fleming, chief spokesman for the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont, talks about avoiding summer scams around roofing, home construction and more.

   The annual BBB Torch Awards for Business Ethics is accepting nominations now through June 30th.  You can nominate your own business or 501 (c) (3) charity by using the online form. After nominees are vetted a "prize patrol" will visit each of the winners in September with their award. Here's a link for the nomination form BBB TORCH AWARDS 

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to bring awareness to Mother’s Day and small business scams. He also shares details about the BBB’s Scam Survival Toolkit and why phishing emails could be difficult to spot.

We kicked off the program with four news stories we thought you'd like to know more about!Emily Sweeney, Cold Case Reporter for the Boston Globe, discussed the unsolved 1973 killings of Maureen Moynihan and her young daughter, Jennifer.Paula Fleming, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer and Chief Spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island & Vermont, checked in about the upcoming Real ID deadline and potential scams.What is the possible link between heart disease and household plastics? Dr. Leonardo Trasande, Professor of Pediatrics and Professor, Department of Population Health, at New York University Grossman School of Medicine explained.Nicole Narea, Senior Politics Writer at Vox, discussed President Trump's tariff shock fading on Wall Street.Listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the NEW iHeart Radio app and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!

Visionary of The Year hopeful Nick Schultz is joined by Mike DiGiacomo of the Better Business Bureau at Kooper's North in Mays Chapel on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to give Nestor the business and fun of fundraising for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's biggest soiree of the year and the events leading up to the big night in June. The post Visionary hopeful Nick Schultz and Mike DiGiacomo of BBB give Nestor the business of LLS fundraising and big events in May first appeared on Baltimore Positive WNST.

New BlazeTV show starting soon! Canada has voted liberal … again. Power outage hits Europe … what caused it? "Escalation" is the new "Gravitas." White House details who officials have been arresting for being in the country illegally. PETA is mad at baseball. "60 Minutes" is big mad at the show's owners. Introducing "The Cartwheel Galaxy." A Michigan congressman wants to impeach Donald Trump. His presentation is memorable. A former NFL coach delivers one of the most awkward interviews of all time. $25 for what?? One senator's strange message to Russia's president. Strategic oil reserve getting refilled. Vice President Vance's warning for Russia and Ukraine. Tariff policy changes. Why Keith hates the Better Business Bureau. 00:00 Pat Gray UNLEASHED 00:42 Welcome to the Family Nicole Shanahan 03:30 Canada Website Down 15:48 Word of the Day - "Escalation" 23:49 White House Displays Mugshots 25:37 White House Reports a Mass Deportation Mission 28:01 Tom Homan on Border Security 30:19 Fat Five 42:24 Cartwheel Galaxy 49:43 Giants Win 55:35 Shri Thanedar Files for Impeachment Against President Trump 1:05:46 Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame 1:08:01 Awkward Moment in Bill Belichick & Jordon Hudson CBS Interview 1:14:15 Eagles Visits the White House 1:17:48 Kamala Harris Charging $25 to Watch her Speech 1:22:07 John Kennedy on Russia/Ukraine War 1:25:51 JD Vance Gives Update on Russia/Ukraine War 1:33:59 Keith's Wedding DJ Incident Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next month, everyone 18 and older will need a Real ID to board a domestic flight and access federal facilities. But if you are in a rush to get it done, don't get duped in the meantime. We spoke with Kristen Johnson of the Better Business Bureau serving Connecticut about what to know with getting Real ID and how to avoid scammers. Image Credit: Getty Images

The Better Business Bureau advises Apple to curb its deceptive Apple Intelligence marketing. What is "slopsquatting"? It doesn't sound very appealing, but it is to cyber criminals. And we've got another reason why phishing scammers love Google services. Show Notes: Urgent: macOS Sequoia 15.4.1, iOS 18.4.1 address 2 zero-day vulnerabilities Josh: Here's why you should stay on the very latest Apple OS Technical analysis of CVE-2025-31201 Apple drops ‘available now' from Apple Intelligence page AI-hallucinated code dependencies become new supply chain risk Cookie-Bite attack PoC uses Chrome extension to steal session tokens OpenAI tells judge it would buy Chrome from Google Phishers abuse Google OAuth to spoof Google in DKIM replay attack Whisky development ends on macOS to help Wine flourish Is 2025 the year of Mac gaming? Top 5 reasons to be a Mac gamer Instagram Launches 'Edits' App to Replace CapCut Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9 is the ultimate protection and utility suite for your Mac. Download a free trial now at intego.com, and use this link for a special discount when you're ready to buy.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about the increase in lawn, garden, and driveway scams, as well as what restaurant scalping is. He also shares details about Real ID scams and fake texts claiming to be from UPS.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre releases his party's costed platform.Cardinals from around the world arrive at the Vatican ahead of Pope Francis's funeral. Church masses take place around the globe to remember Pope Francis. Indigenous leaders hope next Pope continues reconciliation work. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to release his party's costed platform today. Liberal leader Mark Carney and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh both try to position themselves as the best leader to stand up to US president Donald Trump.Workers who were laid off by a former Better Business Bureau are now suing for severance.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre releases his party's costed platform. Cardinals from around the world arrive at the Vatican ahead of Pope Francis's funeral.  Church masses take place around the globe to remember Pope Francis.  Indigenous leaders hope next Pope continues reconciliation work.  Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to release his party's costed platform today. Liberal leader Mark Carney and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh both try to position themselves as the best leader to stand up to US president Donald Trump. Workers who were laid off by a former Better Business Bureau are now suing for severance.

   In this episode Kate Lybarger, the director and head of Payments Innovation at Discover Global Network, discusses why the financial services industry has not hacked financial wellness yet.  We cover what financial wellness means, the role of AI, and why it might make sense to separate advice from products.  This podcast was recorded on March 24th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it.   To keep up with the rapidly changing payments environment, register for the Innovative Payments Conference in Washington DC from April 29 through May 1.   You will learn about:  the future of banking as a service,  the unwinding of the Synapse bankruptcy with former FDIC chair Yelena McWilliams,  the future of regulation with the acting comptroller of the currency, Rodney Hood, and   a presentation on scams from the Better Business Bureau.  Listeners can get $25 off the price of registration when they use the code Podcast. Learn more and register at: Innovative Payments Conference.   

Tyler Kelley is the Co-founder and Chief Strategist of SLAM! Agency, a digital marketing firm dedicated to helping purpose-driven businesses create a lasting impact. He has led campaigns for national brands, spoken alongside industry leaders like Google and Facebook, and co-hosts Innovation City, a podcast recognized by Bloomberg for spotlighting urban innovators. An advocate for conscious business, Tyler actively mentors entrepreneurs, serves on local boards and contributes to the St. Louis business community through organizations like the Better Business Bureau and Entrepreneur's Organization. In this episode… Digital marketing is constantly shifting, making it challenging for businesses to make a meaningful impact. Economic downturns, shifting consumer behaviors, and the need to stand out in a crowded digital space create additional hurdles. How can businesses adapt and implement effective strategies that drive growth while staying true to their mission? Tyler Kelley, a digital marketing strategist and entrepreneur, shares his insights on overcoming these challenges by focusing on strategic digital marketing approaches. Tyler emphasizes the importance of adaptability, leveraging data to make informed marketing decisions, and understanding the evolving needs of consumers. He also discusses the struggle of stepping away from hands-on production while maintaining high-quality work and explains how purpose-driven businesses can thrive by staying agile and prioritizing long-term growth strategies. Tune in to this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast as John Corcoran interviews Tyler Kelley, Co-founder and Chief Strategist at SLAM! Agency, about leveraging digital marketing for purpose-driven brands. Tyler shares insights on overcoming economic downturns, ensuring quality while stepping back from production, and making data-driven marketing decisions. He also discusses the importance of mentorship, the future of digital marketing, and key mistakes businesses should avoid.

In the second hour, Lisa Schiller from The Better Business Bureau joins us to talk about the latest scams out there, including phony debt collection and how you can avoid them and warn others. And for today's Audio Sorbet, we pay tribute to Wink Martindale, who passed away at the age of 91 and we talk about our favorite game shows and how they haven't really gone anywhere, you just have to look around for them. We're closing out the show with another installment of This Shouldn't Be A Thing - Governor Gunslinger Edition As always, thank you for listening, texting and calling, we couldn't do this without you! Don't forget to download the free Civic Media app and take us wherever you are in the world! Matenaer On Air is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 10 am - noon across the state. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! You can also rate us on your podcast distribution center of choice, they go a long way! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook, X and YouTube to keep up with Jane and the show! Guest: Lisa Schiller

Scams are becoming more common and more expensive.Last year, more than 2.5 million Americans reported that they had been scammed. And that number has been increasing, along with the losses.   The amount of money lost to scammers in 2024 topped more than 12 billion dollars. That's up from about $2 billion in 2019, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Scammers have also gotten more sophisticated, increasingly impersonating government agencies and businesses to manipulate people out of their money. MPR News host Angela Davis revisits a conversation about the latest examples and trends in scams, how anyone could fall for them and how to protect yourself. Guests: Jacqueline Olson is the assistant commissioner of enforcement at the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Susan Adams Loyd is the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Serving Minnesota and North Dakota. Donna DiMenna was the target of a scam in 2023. She lives in the Twin Cities where she works as an organizational psychologist with expertise in executive development.   If you think you've been targeted by a scam, report it to your local law enforcement.Here are other resources for filing complaints and getting trusted advice on protecting yourself from scams: The Better Business Bureau is a nonprofit consumer organization that maintains a Scam Tracker database, which allows the public to report and look up scams in their geographic area. You can also call to report a suspected scam to the Better Business Bureau at 651-699-1111. The Minnesota Department of Commerce provides many consumer fraud resources and its service center addresses complaints about businesses regulated by the department, including banks, insurance and debt collectors. To file a complaint, call 651-539-1600. To report or get additional help with scams involving seniors, call the Commerce Senior Fraud Line at 952-237-7571.