Podcasts about Better Business Bureau

March 2nd through the 8th marks Severe Weather Preparedness Week in Illinois. It's the perfect time to get ready for the season ahead. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the details.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to share details about a U.S. Postal inspection service warning and an increase in fake Publishers Clearing House winnings. He also discusses fake calls and emails about Cook County taxes and why research is important before attending home shows and expos.

Heather Clary from the Better Business Bureau in Lexington keeps Jack and his listeners apprised of the latest scam to be watchful for and avoid. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you know if you've found a Joe Amodei—or a predatory film distributor?That's the question Christian Taylor explores in this episode of Documentary First: The Deep Dive, after her conversation with Joe Amodei—filmmaker, 40-year industry veteran, and owner of Virgil Films Entertainment (Supersize Me, Restrepo, Forks Over Knives). What struck her wasn't just what Joe said about Cat Fest 2026—it was the warmth and trust in their conversation. In her experience, that kind of rapport between filmmaker and distributor is genuinely rare.So she did some digging. What she found was both infuriating and clarifying: there's no Better Business Bureau for film distribution. No government agency protecting filmmakers. No licensing board. The system that exists is word of mouth, peer networks, and a few dedicated nonprofits trying to shine a light in the darkness.What You'll Learn: - The 5 essential steps for vetting a film distributor before signing - Red flags that should make you walk away from any distribution deal - Why The Film Collaborative's Distributor ReportCard is the closest thing to “Yelp for distributors” - What filmmakers really say about predatory distributors (anonymous quotes) - Christian's own distribution horror story—and how she got her film backThe Framework for Finding the Good Guys: 1. Talk to other filmmakers (not the distributor's references) 2. Check The Film Collaborative's Distributor ReportCard 3. Watch for red flags (15-year contracts, Netflix promises, no expense caps) 4. Get an entertainment attorney who specializes in distribution 5. Know the system is broken—community is the safety netPlus: A powerful story from Minnesota about pizza shops and doughnut shops becoming the safety net when no infrastructure exists—and what it teaches us about looking out for each other.Featured Guest: Joe Amodei—Owner of Virgil Films Entertainment, with 40+ years in distribution. His company has distributed Supersize Me, Restrepo, and Forks Over Knives. According to The Film Collaborative, Virgil Films is “one of the more positively reviewed distributors.”Resources Mentioned: - The Film Collaborative Distributor ReportCard: The Film Collaborative - IMDb Pro for contacting filmmakers directly - Alex Ferrari / Indie Film Hustle: Indie Film Hustle® - Thrive & Survive in the Film Industry (podcasts, courses, and filmmaker protection resources) - Entertainment attorney Anne Easton: My Lawyer Friend PodcastAbout The Deep Dive: This companion podcast airs on alternate weeks from the main Documentary First podcast. Every other week, Christian takes one powerful idea from a recent conversation and explores it more deeply—examining what it means, why it matters, and what to do about it.Hear the full interview: Listen to Episode 271 of Documentary First for Christian's complete conversation with Joe Amodei about theatrical distribution, VOD strategies, and why Cat Fest might be the future of cinema.If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave a review!

Before you pack your sunscreen, make sure you're not getting burned by a scam. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the details.

Before you pack your sunscreen, make sure you're not getting burned by a scam. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the details.

Before you pack your sunscreen, make sure you're not getting burned by a scam. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the details.

Washington Democrats fought for college athletes just so they could tax them. Bill Gates responds to the recent Epstein controversy surrounding him. // Border Czar Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of about 700 federal agents from Minnesota in exchange for a major concession from local leaders. Senator Patty Murray is trying to stay relevant by bashing DHS agents. // Be wary of scammers this tax season, warns the Better Business Bureau.

former fellow broadcaster, now repping the Better Business Bureau on Fridays with Jack. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Register here to attend the live virtual event "Why Central Florida is the Year's Most Compelling Housing Market" on Thursday, February 19th at 8pm Eastern. Keith explores how a shift in mindset can change the way you build wealth, why so many new landlords are entering the market, and what recent economic trends could mean for future rents.  You'll also hear how one Florida investor is navigating a changing housing landscape, and learn about a timely opportunity in one of the country's fastest‑growing real estate markets—all without needing to be a hands-on landlord. Resources: Register for the event at GREwebinars.com Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/593 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.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach 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— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the risk of delayed gratification is denied gratification. There's a new wave of landlords. Wages are rising faster than both inflation and home prices. Learn what that's going to mean for rents. Hear the voices of five different Federal Reserve chairs, then GRE announces our biggest event of the year, and you're invited today on get rich education.   Corey Coates  0:32   Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Keith Weinhold  1:16   mid south home buyers, with over two decades is the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your return on investment as their North Star. It's no wonder smart investors line up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone headquartered in Memphis, with their globally attractive cash flows, mid south has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and 4000 houses renovated, there is zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate with an industry leading three and a half year average renter term. Every home they offer you will have brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter in an astounding price range, 100 to 150k GET TO KNOW mid south enjoy cash flow from day one at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid southhomebuyers.com   Corey Coates  2:19   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  2:35   Welcome to GRE from the Adriatic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and across 188 nations worldwide, I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education. Sometimes we all need a mindset reset, and this can include me. Sometimes. James clear, the author of atomic habits, says there are four types of wealth, financial wealth, which is money, social wealth, which is status, time, wealth which is freedom, and physical wealth, which is health. Be wary of jobs that seduce you with one and two but rob you of three and four. That is to say, be careful with jobs that seduce you with financial and social wealth but rob you of time and physical wealth that is definitely going to happen to you during your life, especially early in your working career. But many people, even most people, they don't do much about this. They just go on and on, selling their soul to their employer for decades. Sometimes paychecks aren't compensation. They're a bribe from an employer to give up your dreams early in your career, delayed gratification actually makes some sense, because you need capital formation, you need down payments, you need dry powder. That is totally fair and the time in your life for delayed gratification. But there's a point that most people miss, the point where delayed gratification quietly mutates into denied gratification. This is huge. Most people miss this inflection point. When is this point in your life? That's when I'll do it later becomes, well, I guess I never did it at all. They look up at what they've got at age 65 and realize that they have a respectable title. They still wear Dockers pants. They have a 401, K that they must start paying tax on, and knees that creak louder than. The front door. Compound Interest hardly outpaces taxes and inflation. That's just going to keep you in one spot, you know, and you're never going to get that time back. There is no do over there. So you need to get to the point where you can be more frugal with your time than your money. Younger people have a harder time adopting this mindset, and that's a little natural, because they have more time and less money. Sooner than later, you must desperately get financially free so that you can simply be your self workaholics, optimize income instead of assets, and you can't let that happen, because labor does not compound and capital does compound, your quality of life will exceed your cost of living when your life is funded by what you own, not by what you do that takes a different mindset. You can either be a conformer or you can build wealth when you invest in real estate that pays five ways. It's like what you're doing is buying future Tuesdays, where you never have to work again and then later, add on future Wednesdays, where you never have to work again because you got the compound leverage instead of the impotent compound interest. I mean, just consider your two and a half million dollar portfolio that is passively doing the same work as someone who sells 40 to 50 hours a week of their life away for 100k in yearly salary. All right, maybe you're thinking, Oh, that all sounds thought provoking, but if you're not engaged on that, it can sound airy and philosophical and even risky. It's sort of like, yeah, you're cueing the acoustic guitar music and slow motion images of someone pensively gazing at a sunset.   Keith Weinhold  7:12   All right, what is the concrete plan? It's not all about mindset. It only starts with mindset. You got to make that actionable. Well, we constantly provide concrete plans for you here on this show, and I've got another concrete plan for you toward the end of the show today. This harkens back to what I discussed with you seven weeks ago, seven episodes ago on the show. That's when I discussed the world's first billionaire, John D Rockefeller and his enduring quote from about 100 years ago, he who works all day has no time to make money. Yeah, that's the quote a little review. What you learned seven episodes ago is that Rockefeller meant, if you spend your life doing tasks, you're never going to rise high enough to own things that pay you for life. The bottom line here is that earning a living is a distinctly different activity than building wealth. That's what we're talking about here.    Keith Weinhold  8:14   Well, there is a new wave of landlords entering the market, and they are reshaping what owning rentals looks like. One survey by rental platform avail of nearly 2000 users. It's really influential. It found that 53% of landlords became landlords in the last five years. So you have a lot of new landlords with the most 17% of landlords entering the market in just the last year, most purchased a property specifically to rent it out, and 1/3 sort of backed into this business by renting out their former residence. Of course, some people want to rent out their former residence today, if they got locked into that sexy owner occupied three and 4% financing from 2022 and earlier, the survey went on to tell us with some really good takeaways here, 72% of landlords manage between one and four units, and this avail survey. I mean, it's just another one that shows that the majority of landlords operate small portfolios, classic mom and pop investors. That one's not too surprising. The top three reasons that landlords gave for entering the rental market, they're pretty interesting. The number one reason for getting into this at 41% of respondents is building long term wealth. Next 33% for generating passive income, and the third most popular one, it's a distant third, it is preparing for retirement at 13% so building long term wealth is the number one reason for getting into this, and that is the right reason. Them when it comes to ownership structure, 64% said that they own the property individually, whether that's through a single member LLC or in their own name, doing it, yeah, individually, rather than with a family member or a business partner. So really, the summary of this terrific, recent avail landlord survey is that if you're just getting started, you're not alone. A lot of people are most own properties solely in their own name, and the number one reason for doing it is to build long term wealth. Now there's another pervasive set of economic trends out there in the broader economy, but it's really a benefit for real estate investors, and that is the fact that wage growth has now outpaced consumer price growth for three years. Yeah, another way to say that is that wage growth has outpaced inflation for fully three years. Yeah, most people just aren't feeling it yet. So you might be taken somewhat aback by that, and why aren't people feeling that wage growth is faster than inflation, the pandemic inflation spike that was so huge, it was like getting hit with a freight train, and then someone tells you, good news, the train has stopped. Yeah, that's nice. You are still lying on the tracks, rubbing your ribs. That's because we're all still absorbing spiked prices for everything from a lumber two by four to a York Peppermint Patty, year over year, wages are up 3.8% and consumer inflation is 3% All right, so wages above inflation, that means things are getting a little more affordable, but both wages and inflation have grown faster than home prices, which have only grown about one and a half percent, and this is all per the BLS in the FHFA, so wage growth Being more than double home price growth. Well, that trend really makes properties more affordable, but historically, they're still not that affordable. Everybody knows that home prices soared until about 2023 that was the turning point, and now wages are in their catch up phase. All right, but what really matters to real estate investors is, when will this wage growth translate to rent growth, historically, big rent growth that lags big home price growth by about two to four years. So you have the big home price growth, big rent growth hits two to four years later, historically. Now, if that holds true, we should finally see substantial rent growth this year or next year. Rent growth has still been pretty soft in the one to four unit space, and even there are rent decreases in the overbuilt apartment space. Future income growth promises to make homes more affordable. Affordability has already improved, with mortgage rates hovering near three year lows. There's one problem, though, that most people overlook, and that is this wage growth has been skewed toward the higher income deciles, renters, especially workforce renters, they don't feel it until later. So this 3.8% wage growth, it's heavier for higher income people, and it's lighter for lower income people. I swear, when there are enriching economic trends, it always hits the higher income people first, and it doesn't trickle down until later. So if you as an investor, are positioned before the rent wave hits, you are surfing, and if you wait to feel it, you're swimming behind the boat. Higher wages should translate to higher rents in the next one to two years. And as far as some other forces, as we all know, the man occupying the oval office in the White House, the President, he wants lower rates. The current Fed Chair isn't so willing to do that. The next one, the one he appointed, Kevin Warsh, who arrives in May. He seems more receptive to lower rates, but it's gonna take a while. It all moves so slow. We have had 16 fed chairs before worsh over 112 years. And look how much of an econ nerd Are you? Are you as bad as me? These voices are in chronological order, and I can name each speaker.   Corey Coates  14:47   You're going to have to live with the fact that forecasts have a range of uncertainty, irrational exuberance.   Corey Coates  14:54   In my opening remarks, I'd like to briefly first review today's policy decision, but   Corey Coates  14:58   first I'll review recent. Economic developments in the Outlook, and we are well positioned to wait to see how the economy evolves.   Keith Weinhold  15:06   If you can name each of those speakers, I would love to give you a free property from gremarketplace.com but I can't quite swing that in order. Those voices are Paul Volcker. He served from 1979 to 87 he was known for crushing double digit inflation by jacking rates to near 20% it was painful medicine, but it worked the next one. Alan Greenspan sir, from 1987 to 2006 that was a long reign, almost 20 years. He oversaw the 90s economic boom, the.com bubble and the early housing bubble. Years so far, Greenspan is the only Fed chair that I have met in person. Then Ben Bernanke, he was the Fed chair from 2006 to 2014 he took the helm right before the 2008 financial crisis. He rolled out QE and emergency lending on an historic scale. In fact, he was nicknamed helicopter Ben because it's like he would print so much money that he just dropped it out of huge sacks, dollar bills in huge sacks, dropping them from an airplane, metaphorically, not literally. Then Janet Yellen, 2014 to 2018 she kind of continued this post crisis normalization, and she was the first woman to chair the Fed and then, of course, Jerome Powell serving from 2018 to 2026 he navigated the covid stimulus, ultra low rates. And then after that, the fastest rate hiking cycle in decades to fight inflation back in 2022 being the Fed chair is the most important job in this economy, and over the decades, there's been more of a movement of the fed into the public eye. You just hear about them more in the media than you used to. But like I touched on last week, it just still doesn't mean as much to real estate investors as a lot of people think, people sometimes look for someone else to come save them, but it's more about you and the choices that you make that's what means more housing supply and demand means more real estate investors have profited during every one of those Fed Chair reigns, which go back almost 50 years from Volcker to today, I think everybody knows that fed chairs don't control property prices, and they don't even control long term interest rates. What's a little paradoxical is that Trump has been vocal about how he wants more affordable home prices, yet at the same time he wants existing homeowners to have their home prices go up, those two things seem to be in tension. They're in conflict with each other. The only way you can possibly get both are through lower mortgage rates. But is he going to see later today you as a GRE follower, you don't have to wait for lower rates income, property still feels less affordable than it did five years ago, because it is that's real but here's the key distinction in what makes real estate investors different from owner occupied homeowners. Affordability isn't about the price of the property, it's about whether the property pays for itself and grows your net worth while inflation does the heavy lifting. Higher prices don't kill investors. Inaction during inflation does you're not buying a say, $350,000 property. You're controlling it with $70,000 while your tenant and inflation do the rest. We do not rely on hope or appreciation. We start with income tax benefits and debt pay down and then leverage appreciation typically happens as well. GRE only succeeds when investors close on properties that perform long term. One bad referral costs us years of trust, so we don't do that. The best question for you really isn't whether property is affordable. The question is whether owning an investment property is better than inflation compounding against you. That's the investor lens today.    Keith Weinhold  19:24   coming up next week on the show here, we're going to discuss apartments. It's been a truly be leaguered sector, where their prices have fallen 2030, and 40% in many markets. We've discussed apartments here on the show a lot before, like with Grant Cardone on episode 264, with Ken McElroy, countless times with me monologuing about apartments. And next week, we're going to talk to a multifamily educator who is known as the apartment King. Later on, a future show, we've got the return of the financial. Firebrand, and lately, the financial comedian Garrett Gunderson, a powerful speaker. That's definitely going to be interesting. As for today, you'll hear a first person account from a Florida resident about why he's moved to Florida and why he invests there. You've heard of this guy before. That's next. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Episode 593, of get rich education.    Keith Weinhold  20:26   Flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721, exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE. That's f, l, O, C, K, homes.com/G. R, E,    Keith Weinhold  21:02   you know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program. When you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products. They've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989, yep, text their freedom coach directly again. 1-937-795-8989,   Keith Weinhold  22:13   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 prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com   Zack Lemaster  22:47   this is rental retirement Zach Lee Masters. Listen to get rich education with Keith bleinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  23:02   I'd like to welcome in our own in house. GRE investment coach, we haven't had you on the show since November. Welcome in Naresh.   Naresh Vissa  23:11   Kwith, It's a pleasure to be back on the show. Thanks for having me on.   Keith Weinhold  23:16   We're just playing it all casual and comfortable here in house. You were just finishing up, what ice cream or a container of something right before we got started   Naresh Vissa  23:25   here, all done with the ice cream and ready to record the podcast.   Keith Weinhold  23:29   Yeah, all right, keeping cool for our chat. Well, you know you do live in Florida, so you must have your own perspective on the Florida market. You live in the Tampa area, and the reason that that's a germane topic is that's something we've been talking about here lately as really an opportunity, and that is because most of Florida has seen some temporary property price attrition, but yet more population growth is projected. So that's why we feel like that's temporary. But why don't you tell us about what you see on the ground there?   Naresh Vissa  24:07   Keith, I've lived in Florida for 11 and a half years now. That's Tampa, Florida. I like Florida a lot. I moved here December 2014 for similar reasons that many people are moving here today. So I moved to Florida in December 2014 because of no state income tax, because of, at the time, lower cost of living. Florida was one of the states I got hit the hardest during the 2008 financial crisis, or nothing called in a real estate crisis, Florida, Arizona, those few others got hit really, really hard. So Florida at that time was still rebounding from 2008 so I moved for the affordability, the no income tax, of course, the weather better. Weather. And then most places in the Northeast I've lived so weather is a big deal when it comes to real estate and geography as well. These are all different reasons to move to Florida, and these are the reasons why I moved to Florida. I was also single in my 20s, so I was much younger at the time. I was single in my mid 20s, and Florida is very good for that too. For 20 something Gen Z folks today, Florida is definitely a place that they should consider. I moved down here and I fell in love with it. From day one. I got a place living right on the water, a beach. Got beaches everywhere. Florida's tour. And I say all this because these are all enticing features of Florida, for renters, for tenants, for snowbirds. I had never even heard of what a snowbird was until I moved down to Florida, where you have people who literally live here for seven months of the year, and then they live in their home state for five months of the year. So that's generally what it is, seven months in Florida, five months in their home state, which can be the people I know personally are from New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio. The list goes on and on. Basically anywhere that's north of Florida could be considered a snowbird area. So that's another reason why Florida is a very hot market. Now, obviously, during the pandemic, in end of 2020, people started moving to Florida in droves. Part of it was politically, because you didn't have the restrictions that other states had during that crazy time that we lived through. And another part of it was work from home. So similar to me, in 2014 when I became full time work from home, I wanted to move somewhere for all those different reasons that I gave you the total package, and Florida fit that there was maybe one other state that fit the bill, based on everything that I told you, probably one other state. That's it. So Florida fit the bill, and that's why I think Florida is always going to be despite the hurricane prep, Florida is always going to be a destination that people will seriously look at whether you're older, retirement age or younger. Like I said in my mid 20s, single guy Florida is always going to be that destination for all the reasons that I laid out. So with that being said, what does that mean for real estate? What that means for real estate is that there's going to be a constant supply of people coming into Florida, and when there's a constant supply of people coming into Florida, then you can expect real estate prices to at least not decline. We passed, you know, all sorts of bills, including Dodd Frank post 2008 to prevent people from taking out mortgages that they couldn't afford. So now that that's out of the way, when you have a constant supply of people who are able to afford homes, who are able to afford rents, well, that's going to be a constant supply. So that's good for investors, that's good for appreciation. It's good for cash flow. And that's why I'm a huge fan, not just of the state of Florida, but also investing in Florida. And I own real estate in Florida, and you can say that I lucked out, but I bought a property in 2019 and it nearly doubled in value, yeah, when I say doubled in value in a matter of I want to say, like, two years, two and a half years, it nearly doubled in value. So with that being said, Florida, this was a rare cyclical trend when we just saw this huge upswing, rare cyclical trend. But I don't anticipate cycles like this, where you're going to have booms and busts. Moving forward, we haven't seen a bus since 2008 like I said, the the law has been taken care of in that sense, the regulation. I love the state. I've lived in six major cities, but maybe five different states, and Florida is hands down my favorite. That's why I've lived here for what did I say? 11 and a half or 12 and a half years? I don't even remember anymore. It's actually 11 and a half. My roots are here. I now consider myself a Florida person, even more so than the state of Texas, where, which is where I spent 18 years. I have no doubt that I'll surpass 18 or 19 years in Florida, and that this is it, right here. And a major reason is because this is just such a great state. It's free, it's real estate friendly. This is for people who are looking at buying primary residences, not for investment properties. But the governor has put on the ballot this coming election cycle to remove, to abolish the property tax in the state of Florida. So if you own, if you live full time, not a snowbird, not investors, but if you live in Florida permanently, then no more property tax if the vote passes. So that's another huge plus for owning property if you're a permanent resident in Florida,   Keith Weinhold  29:57   yeah, even if the property tax is abolished. Which seems unlikely, you could just tell what the tenor and the temperature of the tax climate and the investing climate is like in Florida, if they're even spearheading such a proposal, and they're a national leader in something like property tax abolition, like they are and Naresh about eight years after you moved there, which would be, what about 2020? 2022, somewhere in there, we had that strong pandemic migration push into Florida. What's happened is that that flow has slowed down. There's still positive net in migration in there in Florida. But the builders, they got ahead of this, and the pandemic migration wave waned, and they had a temporarily overbuilt condition, and they still do now, which is one reason why we've seen prices fall somewhat in most Florida zip codes, and this spells part of the opportunity. So you do have all these new build properties, some of which are vacant, but you have a good chance they're going to get absorbed pretty soon. And there are some obvious advantages to owning new build.   Naresh Vissa  31:11   Well, Keith, there is brand new construction in Florida, like you said. The work started in 2021 and there are homes that have not been sold. I don't want to say, since they were finished building in 2021 they recently finished building in 2025 and these homes could be a variety of reasons. It could be economic related. It could be hurricane related. In Tampa, the Central Florida, we had two horrible hurricanes back to back within a 15 day period, two really bad hurricanes towards the end of 2024 September and October 2024 and people lost their homes. Renters lost their homes. Other people just were freaked out and scared and said, You know what? I don't want to deal with. I've got PTSD from these hurricanes. I'm moving up to Alabama or Georgia or Orlando, you know, somewhere in Central Florida, that's a way. But even that area, you know, the hurricane still made it through to those areas too. People just picked up and said, You know what I'm done with Florida. It's a great state, but I don't want to deal with these hurricanes. And so regardless, whatever the reason, this is a pie, and these are all slices of the pie, I don't know what's been more of a contributing factor than which one has been more than the others. But with that being said, there are tons of properties in Florida, pretty much the entire state of Florida, where, especially new construction properties, are below at the time when they were being built, they're below what they anticipated being listed as. And So Keith, we're having a special webinar this Thursday, talking about these properties because they are discounted properties. They are properties that are selling at tremendous discounts, like I said to when Ground was broken years ago. So join that webinar. Gre, webinars.com gre webinars.com. Again, brand new construction. Many of these properties already have tenants in place. Not all of them, but many of them do already have tenants in place. There are all sorts of incentives that the builder is offering. And there are many builders in that, not just this one that's going to be on the webinar, but in Florida, there are many builders who are offering discounts, rate, buy downs, other incentives, because the home values have fallen somewhat a bit. Why have the home values falling? Because the demand has fallen as well. So again, the next question people might have is, well, if the demand is falling, if home home values are falling, why would I buy the trend is downward. And the answer is, whether it's a stock or any other security, you don't necessarily want to have the FOMO to buy at an all time high, just because everyone else is buying it. And I actually have family members who bought real estate at the peak of 2022 there was FOMO and there was, hey, you know, I need to get a flip, and they're down. They bought peak 2022, and they're down today. Because, look, you can pick any housing market in the country, especially a prime state like Florida. Look at any 30 year period, and you will see that home values are up double digits, even if you look at 2009 when the housing market crashed and we reached something like 10 year bottom in housing, if you look at the 30 year period, well, if someone who bought a house in Florida in, say, 1979 was still way up on their property in 2009 30 years later, we're not buying Bitcoin here where it can go up 30% in one day or go down 30% in one day. We're talking real estate, and real estate has been proven. It's been tested. It's been proven throughout time, not even a 30 year period. I think if you take any 20 year period, you're going to see the same trend of double digit gains, double digit growth. On real estate appreciation. So I'd say, if you're skeptical about Florida, you see these home values, all these discounts, that's the first thing I hear from followers. They say, why are they offering so many discounts? I'm a little concerned about all these discounts and incentives, and I don't know if that's a good thing. Well, I say, Well, I mean, you can buy full price in another state, if you'd like, you know, in California or so you could, you're more than free to buy full price. But we're talking Florida here. We're not talking about West Virginia or Rhode Island, or, you know, Nebraska. We're talking Florida. This is still the land of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, this is the land of the best beaches in the country. I mean, they there's just no arguing or debating these facts. Florida all the reasons that I stated earlier, is going to continue to be a hot, hot market. So I highly recommend people, if you want to get in on these discounted deals, G R E, webinars.com G R E, webinars.com register for our upcoming online and live special event this Thursday evening at 8pm Eastern Time, 8pm Eastern Time, gre webinars.com you won't want to miss this free, online and live special event.   Keith Weinhold  36:25   When a pound of oranges is on sale or a pound of zucchini is on sale, consumers are often attracted to that sale. Should probably be the same way with you considering adding to your real estate portfolio, and it's funny, when oranges of zucchinis are on sale, no one tries to find fault with it and think that they're rotten inside or something like that. But somehow with real estate or an investment that tends to get scrutiny from people, but these are real discounts that you're getting over buying, say, two years ago, and we're talking about a motivated seller here. And as you know, Naresh, we had the builder on the show last week, the one that's going to be co hosting the webinar with you on Thursday, and he talked to us about buying down mortgage rates to between 3.75% and 4.25% and we're here at a time where the owner occupied rate is six to six and a quarter the investor rate is seven, so you're getting about a three percentage point buy down. That's really the attraction. And Naresh, before I ask you, if you have any last thoughts, yes, again, it is our live event that you can attend from the comfort of your own home, Thursday the 19th, at 8pm eastern in just a few days, here with Naresh and the builder who you heard on last week's show, co hosting a live webinar for Central Florida so inland new build income property. It's free. You're invited, and the benefit of you attending live is that you can have any of your questions answered in real time. You're going to learn more about the Central Florida market and more about the home building process, and you are going to be able to see available new bill property, real addresses, with some of these pretty grand incentives that we've talked about again. GRE webinars.com, any last thoughts? Naresh   Naresh Vissa  38:17   I get a lot of questions about is right now the time to buy? Should I buy later? What's going to happen with real estate? And I know the number one question, or the number one caution our followers are going to have, is, is right now the time is March or April, the time. And I say, look, with real estate, I already gave you the figure that you take any 20 year time period, any 30 year time period, and that's our time horizon here at GRE again, we're not trying to buy bitcoin here and flip it, you know, two days later, we're looking to buy and hold for, I don't want to say forever, but I know my time horizon in general is the full 30 year term, at least for my properties, and some people you know, want 10 or 15 years. That's fine too, but that's the time horizon. It is not one year, two years. We're not flipping new construction properties here in Central Florida. We are looking to buy and hold over the long haul, get some very good, high quality tenants in there, in these new construction properties, so that you, the GRE follower and the investor, can collect your monthly cash flow as well as over that 20 year period, or that 30 year period take part in appreciation as well. We've also talked extensively, Keith in previous episodes about interest rate cuts that the Federal Reserve is going to be doing, and just know this, there's a reason why the builder is offering these incentives where you can get the rates so low, your mortgage rate can be so low, and it's going to take at least a year, even if the Fed goes to zero. I mean, it's going to take mortgage rates a very long time. And to reach that point of getting such low interest rates that you just laid out, so that even makes it more enticing, like, Hey, I basically have a head start on the Federal Reserve because I follow the Fed pretty closely. We don't need to get into those details, but it's looking heavily like they are going to be start cutting again later this year, this summer. So it's looking like they're going to do that, but again, now you can have a head start, because when the Fed starts doing that, and when the mortgage rates fall, then everybody's going to jump in. And what's going to happen to the home values once everybody jumps in, well, they're going to go up. You want to jump in when everybody is not jumping in, and when you can get an amazing deal on these interest rates thanks to the builder buying down your interest rate. So this is a GRE special you can't get these deals. I challenge our followers to go on the internet and try to find better incentives or deals. And what you're going to see on this webinar, on this online, live special event. So gre webinars.com you can join me as well as our special guest. He heads up the builder. His name is Jim. He's going to be on with me. And please join us at grewebinars.com sign up for this free and live online special event.   Keith Weinhold  41:20   These are some great points. There's a lot of anticipation for Thursday, Naresh. We'll see you then.   Naresh Vissa  41:25   Thanks, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  41:32   Oh yeah, a first person account on Florida life and opportunity from our own Naresh nationally, the build to rent model that has been a real success, building single family rentals with the intent that they are rentals. From day one, over 321,000 homes have been built specifically as rentals this way since 2012, and more than three quarters of those in just the last five years. So the build to rent trend is picking up steam. About 1/3 of Americans rent their home, and although the word rental for some people that still conjures up visions of high rises packed with apartments, but a growing number of today's rentals are these freestanding, single family homes and duplexes like we're talking about today, nestled in suburban communities with top notch schools, and that's why a growing number of mom and pop investors have hopped on the build to rent bandwagon. They take less maintenance. It attracts quality tenants who stay longer, and the rentals have changed, but so had the renters. 20 years ago, it felt like tenants had to rent, like they had no choice. Today, you've got more and more tenants that choose to rent. Many of them make 100k to 125k or more. Today, rentals are cheaper than owning for those people, and they're less of a headache. A lot of them don't want to fix things, and you as the owner, don't want to either. That's why new build is attractive. Then, you know, I just sent that great map to our newsletter subscribers about which states saw the most population gain from 2020 to today, the South had more population growth than every other US region combined, which is jaw dropping and within the South, the state with the most population growth since 2020 is Florida, with An 8.9% population gain in that span, narrowly beating out Texas and South Carolina. By the way, even if it weren't for the attractive builder interest rate near 4% these Sunshine State deals could still make sense. New build single family rentals from the 270s new build duplexes, 395 to 420k low insurance rates, positive cash flow, a builder warranty. And it's really even better than that. These properties are centered on Ocala, Florida, which received national recognition as the fastest growing city for this second year in a row. That's according to a U haul report, and Florida is the epitome of investor friendly. Florida is the first state to enact a law allowing law enforcement to immediately remove squatters. It distinguishes them from legal tenants. You might come to the webinar event, perhaps thinking about 80k or 500k that you want to allocate toward property or maybe nothing and you just want to learn at the event you will evaluate realistic opportunities learn how property management is handled, and understand how today's inventory fits into your disciplined, long term strategy that all takes place on. On Thursday the 19th at 8pm Eastern. It's our biggest event of the year, and it is called Why Central Florida is the year's most compelling housing market. One last time for Thursday, it is gre webinars.com, until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Unknown Speaker  45:20   You 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  45:52   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building get richeducation.com  

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to discuss an increase in romance scams around Valentine’s Day and fake calls claiming to be from the IRS. He also shares information about lottery scams in Michigan and emails claiming to be from Microsoft.

We spoke with Kristen Johnson from the Better Business Bureau serving Connecticut to look at the most common and costly scams in Connecticut for 2025. What can we do to avoid these frauds moving forward?For more information: https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/32893-bbb-connecticut-most-common-costly-scams-of-2025-in-connecticut

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Register here to attend the live virtual event "Why Central Florida is the Year's Most Compelling Housing Market" on Thursday, February 19th at 8pm Eastern. Keith looks at how a changing Federal Reserve leadership might shape the interest rate environment, then zooms in on what's really happening with homebuilders versus remodelers across the country.  You'll hear about a lesser-known strategy some investors are using to step back from day-to-day landlording while keeping their income, and then we head to Central Florida to explore why one fast-growing market is quietly becoming a hotspot for new-build rental properties.  Along the way, a longtime Florida builder joins the show to explain how they're creating affordable, investment-friendly homes and what kinds of rents and tenant demand they're seeing on the ground—plus a way you can learn more live if this opportunity fits your own portfolio plans. Resources: Register for the event at GREwebinars.com Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/592 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.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach 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— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the naming of a new Federal Reserve Chair. Then are homebuilders in trouble today? There are a dwindling number of them, and their profits are down. I'll talk to a homebuilder. Listen to what amenities tenants want today, and it's interesting. We'll learn how low of a mortgage rate builders will give you. Now there's an opportunity here today on get rich education.   Corey Coates  0:30   Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast or visit get rich education.com   Keith Weinhold  1:14   mid south home buyers with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your return on investment as their North Star. It's no wonder smart investors line up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone headquartered in Memphis, with their globally attractive cash flows, mid south has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and 4000 houses renovated, there is zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate with an industry leading three and a half year average renter term. Every home they offer you will have brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter in an astounding price range, 100 to 150k GET TO KNOW mid south enjoy cash flow from day one at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid southhomebuyers.com   Speaker 1  2:17   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  2:33   Welcome to GRE from countersport Pennsylvania to Davenport Iowa and across 488 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to get rich education now more than ever, where you learn about personal finance and real estate investing matters. There's more AI generated content out there. This show is all flesh and blood me. There's also more clickbait content out there that says something like the housing market is about to have a price crash. No, it's not. They're just there to get short term attention. So your information source really matters today. New incoming Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, was recently named. He will replace the outgoing Jerome Powell on May 15. I want to tell you more about that in a moment. But first, just imagine if this scenario were to occur, say that we get a Fed chair that has to deal with really high inflation. And so what this Fed chair does is that he successfully brings inflation down, and he does that without triggering a recession that's called a soft landing. Well, you know what? That's exactly what Jerome Powell did the past three years. Yeah, that's what he's accomplished, and he doesn't get credit for it. He only gets a lot of criticism. Now this doesn't mean that I love Powell. I don't even know that the Fed should exist at all, but Powell got a lot of criticism for calling 2022, wave of inflation transitory, and being too late to respond to it. So he gets some credit here as his term of more than eight years winds down. Let's listen in to some of Jay Powell's recent comments about succession,    Speaker 2  4:23   you've obviously experienced a lot during your time as Fed chair, served under multiple presidents. I'm wondering what advice you have for whoever your successor might be.   Speaker 3  4:34   Honestly, I'd say a couple of things. One is, you know, stay out of elected politics. Don't get pulled into elected politics don't do it. And that's another thing. Another is that you know, our window into democratic accountability is Congress, and it's not a passive burden for us to go. To Congress and talk to people. It's an affirmative, regular obligation. If you want democratic legitimacy, you earn it by your interactions with the our elected overseers. And so it's something you need to work hard at, and I have worked hard at it so and the last thing is, you know, it's easy to it's easy to criticize government institutions so many ways. I will tell whoever it is you're about to meet the most qualified group of people you not only have ever worked with, you will ever work with and when you meet fed staff. And not everybody's perfect, but, but there isn't a better cadre of professionals more dedicated to the public well being than work at the Fed.    Keith Weinhold  5:43   Yeah. So to Powell's point, the next Fed chair, worsh, does champion fed independence, much like Powell has. That is a good thing that keeps America from turning into a banana republic that maintains a strong dollar. Warsh was actually a Fed Governor back during the 2008 global financial crisis, so he's got that experience when he comes in as Fed Chair in three months, he's widely expected to lower interest rates more than Powell did, much like the president wants. Kevin Warsh looks a lot like Michael Scott from the office. He has got to be less bumbling than him, though, overall, the effect on real estate and mortgage rates by shifting from PAL to worsh, I mean, that should be pretty mild. Maybe you'll see rates go a little lower than if pal had stayed and speaking of rates, wait till you see how low the mortgage rate is that our homebuilder guest is offering today. What's really happening with homebuilders now? How much trouble are they in? Homebuilders have largely been maligned. Overall. There are fewer homebuilders today in America than there were 20 years ago, and there are more remodelers than there were 20 years ago, fewer home builders, more remodelers, and that's for a few different reasons. Over the past couple decades, we just have substantially higher labor and material costs, stricter building and energy codes, higher interest rates, and that disproportionately hurts long duration construction projects. We've got zoning constraints and land constraints that make ground up development slow and uncertain and risky. So while the number of Home Builders in America is down, the number of remodelers are up, because America's housing stock is getting older. Its median age is over 40 years, and that creates constant demand for upgrades. Capital prefers faster, lower risk cycles. That's what remodels offer, and homeowners with locked in low mortgage rates choose to stay in place. And what does that make them do? That makes them renovate and remodel, not move. So this is why, compared to 20 years ago, you have fewer home builders and more remodelers. Today, that's per the NAHB and the Census Bureau and all these forces, they've resulted in a lower profit margin for homebuilders. Yes, homebuilder margin compression for a lot of the bigger builders, including DR Horton, just as you might guess in this cycle, their profits were greatest in 2022 and they have fallen since then. Higher mortgage rates came in, and builders had to lose profits by offering more incentives to entice buyers. You're going to learn more about that today and how it really spells quite an opportunity for you and I. When the final change in national home prices was tallied for the end of last year, they had risen in 16,500 zip codes. All right, that's 63% of America's zip codes, and prices were lower from a year earlier in the other 37% home price gains were concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, and the story there continues to be too many buyers and not enough homes. In fact, over 85% of zip codes saw price growth in Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Indiana, slow, steady, stubborn, kind of like winter refusing to leave. Losses were predominant in the Sun Belt. Prices caught their breath there. There was price attrition in Florida, with 96% of zip codes, so nearly all of Florida, then California, 78% of zip codes had a price loss. Texas, 75% of them and Arizona, 73% the biggest pocket of opportunity appears to be in Florida. Florida property is on sale. And because real estate is local. A lot of times we talk here nationally, but to get to that local level, sometimes you have to dig in to a local market to really find out what's going on. We're going to do that today. Now, central Miami, Orlando and Tampa, they're not generally the spot for obtaining cash flow from long term rentals. I've identified an opportunity. We'll get into that with this Florida homebuilder shortly. It's kind of funny. You'll run into people that say they want opportunity, but what they really want is certainty. How it plays out, though, is that once the certainty arrives, the opportunity is gone, and that's how to think about Florida and maybe Texas and some of these other markets today that have had price attrition.    Keith Weinhold  10:48   Now, three weeks ago, here on the show, I discussed the 721 exchange for the first time. So I won't get into all those details again when it comes time for you to sell your investment property, the 721 can be the best way for you to cash out. Perhaps you've been investing in real estate for a while and you have turned get rich education into got rich education. How the 721 exchange works is they basically say you have a case where you're a rental property owner and you realize that you don't want the hassles of landlording anymore. Oftentimes, this can mean you're older and real estate investing already took you where you wanted it to take you in life's journey, but you still like the financial benefit that ownership gives you. What you can do is exchange your properties into a partnership and receive shares in that partnership. Now that's different than a 1031, exchange. That's where you trade up some of your property that you directly own for what's usually more and larger property that you directly own. Well, instead, here's the big deal with exchanging your properties into a 721, partnership. The rules stipulate that this is not a taxable event, and therefore you don't have to pay any capital gains tax or depreciation recapture. Now that you're an owner in the partnership, you still get some of the benefits of owning the property, like appreciation and cash flow and such, yet no management or landlording at all like you would have with a 1031 and with a 721 you get all these benefits across a greater number of properties and markets diversification because you're a fractional owner in the other properties that are in the partnership, not only your own, and when you eventually pass away, your shares are stepped up in basis and can be distributed equally to heirs and C It's surely easier for you to divide shares among, say, your three children, than it is to divide your 18 rental houses among three children Who are going to have different goals and varying degrees of financial savvy. So the 721, exchange is a great estate planning tool too. You will have this partnership that makes an offer to buy your property. You're exchanging them for partnership shares. There's a firm that does this called flock homes, and they have a certain Buy Box to be clear with the 721, exchange, you can basically trade your rentals for shares in a diversified, professionally managed Real Estate Fund. This means that you keep your hard earned equity defer capital gains and other taxes, and you still get access to steady income and long term appreciation without the hassle of landlord duties, and you can visit flockhomes.com/gre, and get a free valuation. Get an offer for your property, see if it fits their buy box and see how much they'll pay you. There's often no need to pay to fix up or stage the property for sale or pay agent commissions for a certain investor type. This really can be a rather life changing experience for you to liquidate some or all of your property have zero tax obligation and still enjoy income and appreciation. So again, what you can do is stop by flock homes.com/gre, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/g, R, E, let's discuss the home building climate today.   Keith Weinhold  14:38   I'd like to bring in a premium Florida homebuilder guest to the show, Jim, because there has been more homebuilding in Florida such that some areas of the state have excess supply. And when you add that onto the fact that the hot pandemic migration to Florida has slowed such that home prices have made a rare dip in the state, that is why it. A timely topic. Jim, you're on GRE Welcome to the show. Keith, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and we did the IRL thing in Colorado there a few weeks ago. That was great hanging out in person. You provide entry level new build homes, mostly in Central Florida. And these are properties that are conducive to real estate pays five ways. These are properties that investors chiefly buy as rentals. So just bigger picture, tell us about that overall experience over, say, the last five years, as the pandemic wound down,    Jim Sheils  15:35   yeah, as the pandemic wound down, obviously Florida had a lot of attention. Some of it, rightly so, some of it, I think a little more inflated and commercial attention getting thrown at it. And you know, the type of deals that you and I have always stayed away from were very popular in Florida. You know, we're talking really nice houses. Keith, beautiful, nice HOAs people got in in 2021 let's say, with those very low interest rates on a six or $700,000 home, but now they're realizing that it's not going up $100,000 a year as they thought. And when they try to sell it, well, people trying to buy in $700,000 home, they're not getting that low interest rate. And if these people try to hold it and rent it, well, it doesn't cash flow, so it breaks one of those rules. It's not putting money in people's pockets, taking it out. And so we're seeing there was a large distribution of those types of houses around Florida. And then there were some builders like us that really focused on what was the most needed, and that was workforce housing. Now workforce housing, though, Keith, as you know, a lot of the builders don't want to build it. Why? Let's be straight. It's because the margins are lower right. But as you know, with me and my partner Chris, it was always let's make less margin and do more volume. That was always our model, and that was the area of the market where we felt we could build it right, we could get it financed right, and we could manage it right to hit the five things. And so we're seeing today, post pandemic, there are still key markets where the population growth is still the highest, coming into Florida, the prices are still the lowest, and there is a shortage of this type of workforce housing.   Keith Weinhold  17:11   Yes, you've identified a geography within Florida that have some of these characteristics like you're talking about. Tell us more about that region.   Jim Sheils  17:20   Yeah, we call it the Ocala region, so Central Florida, just west of Orlando. Right now, for example, u haul does their U haul top markets rankings every year? So where are the most U haul trucks going to now, you don't want to be on their side where they're coming from, Keith, because that's obviously the opposite. But for the second year in a row, the greater Ocala area has been the number 1u haul destination place in the country. So there's still a ton of population growth going there. Central Florida, I'm not going to say it sat out the growth during the pandemic that a lot of areas of Florida did, but it was starting at such a low basis with such a small amount of attention that today, even when people say, oh gosh, like I just said, house is 600 700 800,000 we're building new construction single family homes for under 300,000 the 270s a lot of the time. And we're building duplexes sometimes for under 400,000 and a lot of our you know, investors coming from the west coast. Say, are these fully built? Are they? But again, Central Florida has had a great affordability. Remain intact. It has a large population going in. There is a ton of job resource just blowing up in the area. And as you know, these are the things we look for. So we bought a lot of lots there. I'm gonna give credit to my partner, Chris. He saw calla more than I did, and we bought a lot of lots there in 2020 so before all the rises. So we got into the land basis, right? So that means we can build them at a great price. Our land basis is low, and that obviously passes along to our clients. And again, Central Florida is a perfect match for our goal. Because, you know, our goal is workforce housing, that cash flows on day one. But also nothing wrong with fixer uppers. I own a lot. I used to do a lot, but the new construction seems to have a little bit more of a less involvement, which it seems like a lot of our clients want.   Keith Weinhold  19:15   That was really prescient, as it turned out, for your business partner, Chris there to gobble up a lot of that land in 2020 before prices went soaring. And this is one reason why you can do things like offer a duplex for less than 400k That's a new build, which has some people saying like, does that thing include a roof even? But it surely does. These are very good quality livable properties. And the reason I have you here, Jim is because you are rare. There are fewer builders today than there were in decades past, and also those that build to your point earlier. They only want to build higher end properties, not the more affordable ones that you offer. We'll get more details on your price points and what properties. Products you offer later. But yeah, we have more remodelers today and fewer builders. And though it's a few years old, I found it interesting that census statistics show us that between 2007 and 2022 there are 73% more remodelers and 21% fewer builders today.    Jim Sheils  20:22   Interesting. You know, Keith, I didn't know that, and that makes me scratch my head on like when you and I were in Colorado, we were talking about future needs, even with growth that occurred during the pandemic going all the way back to oh eight when a real shortage started to start, we are still at an estimated three to 5 million homes short in the US. It really perplexes me that the amount of builders like us will be going down and not actually entering the market.   Keith Weinhold  20:47   Now, among those that are building, though, much of that is concentrated in the South, as I think we know, there's a recent resi club compilation show that 59% of current single family home building is in the south, and 41% is everywhere else. And how do you define the South? That's basically Maryland down to Florida, all the way out to Texas and Oklahoma. So you are pretty rare in some ways. However, where you're building regionally, that's not a rarity there, but yeah, having more remodelers today and fewer home builders, that's probably the result of a lot of things. You know, for one thing, just land and construction costs becoming that much more expensive over the past five years.   Jim Sheils  21:05    Yeah, we've been lucky, too, as you know, Keith, you've been with us for a decade now. But yeah, and we transitioned a piece of our company where Sumitomo forestry, large Japanese group stepped in and acquired a piece of our property. That was a very exciting thing for all of us together, because we had done well, and, you know, started small and built up to a decent sized builder for Northeast Florida and then the rest of Florida. But now, with Sumitomo coming in again, they build 17,000 homes worldwide every year, between all of their builders. Now being a part of them, we get to use their national material accounts, so they get pricing just as good, if not better, than national home builders, and they let us do our thing, stick to our build to rent, working with investor clients. We're not retail buyer guys, really. We like working with our investors, but just getting those great discounts on materials, again, we're always looking to pass on savings to our clients. Of course, we got to make margins as well, but if we're getting in with deals like that, getting into the land right, and knowing the pinpointed areas to get into, we can get the best deal for everyone. And that's been a major part having such a big, successful partner like Sumitomo keep us healthy, viable and able to do things we could have not even dreamed of five years ago.   Keith Weinhold  22:47   Yes, that gives you more capital and more options. Another unusual aberration in the market that really centers on a lot of what you do is that this fact that and this was mentioned on the show last year for the first time in my life, existing homes cost more than new build homes. Existing homes at about 420k nationally, and new build homes about 392k part of the divergence there is probably builder price cuts. So tell us more about that.    Jim Sheils  23:14   I think the issue Heath is builders built for largest spreads, and people bought very emotionally. I think you're to give you a compliment a very unemotional real estate buyer. You're not looking at, oh, this is a very nice, you know, extra his and hers porcelain sink. And we're looking at fundamental numbers a good, solid property. And I think what's caused a lot of that is people did the opposite. Builders were looking for the largest margin they could get, which was on those types of properties. And then buyers were looking very emotionally, and they were told, Hey, this is going to go up 50 to $100,000 a year. So just sit there and hold on, sure you'll lose $1,500 a month, but don't worry about it. You'll make up for that every year. And obviously we're not seeing that's true. They could have really used your class about the five ways to get paid in real estate. And I think that that's what's doing it. And this is what builders do. I mean, everyone's in a business, and a lot of builders just focus on the largest margin. Now that's eating them up now, because those types of properties are not in demand. To build them on spec would be very dangerous, but you can see that that worked for a short term. We're very glad we went to the low margin workforce housing model, because I see that falling out of favor almost never even in Oh 809, Keith, when I was in the remodel game, a lot of the properties that were new construction coming out that time they were affordable, still did very well.   Keith Weinhold  24:42   We're talking with a premium Florida homebuilder today, because they offer affordable properties that make sense for investors. But what about the demand? Where is that going to come from? Where is that going to be? And that's what's happening with the renter segment. We'll talk more about that when we. Come back. You're listening to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold,   Keith Weinhold  25:03   flock homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem, property or your whole portfolio through a 721, exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now Mom and Pop landlords can 721, the residential real estate request your initial valuation, see if your properties qualify@flockhomes.com slash GRE, that's F, l, O, C, K, homes.com/gre.    Keith Weinhold  25:39   You know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text now it's 1-937-795-8989, yep, text their freedom coach directly. Again, 1-937-795-8989,   Keith Weinhold  26:51   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 prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally, while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com   Ken McElroy  27:26   this is Rich Dad advisor, Ken McElroy. Listen to get rich education with Keith whitehold, and don't twitch your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  27:40   Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're talking with Jim a premium Florida homebuilder here at such an interesting time in the cycle, since supply is up in some parts of Florida, Jim and his team has strategically chosen a place that is still fueling a lot of net in migration in Central Florida, and that's where the rental demand needs to come from as well. Now nationally, we've seen the homeownership rate fall over about the past year, from near 66% to near 65% that does not sound like much, but a 1% shift means there are 1.3 million new renters in just the past year. So with that in mind, and the fact that this low affordability for home buying means that people need to rent or stay renters longer, provides some of the Sustainable demand. So tell us more about the rental demand in Central Florida.   Jim Sheils  28:39   Yeah, you know, when we first went out there about a decade ago, Keith, I think it was 82 or 83% of all properties out there were owner occupied, which means it was a very lopsided amount of existing rental property available. And this is before the curve of population growth really took off. But when Chris and I went out there and we were assessing that small percentage of rental property that was out there. Gosh, it was old and kind of beat up. There was not a lot like the new construction that was available. So when we brought in new construction, we saw just the competition. Was hard to compete with us. You know, when it was an older, not so nice taking care of we came in and we saw a jump from, you know, doing older houses ourselves, you know, a person would stay about 13 months. But for the new construction in Central Florida, we've seen a jump to about three years. So that's really positive. People get into a new construction property they don't want to leave, whether that's half of a duplex or a single family. The duplexes are interesting because we're able to build those on infill lots and existing single family home neighborhoods, so a person who doesn't want to live in an apartment can live there, have their own yard, and they couldn't afford the whole single family, but to have half of a single family basically what a duplex is. It makes a big difference, and the people are in great demand of rental in Central Florida there because of exactly why. I said, Keith, the job. Course, continues to grow in Central Florida, extremely strong. The business incentives to come into the area by the local municipality is very, very good. So here's something interesting, Keith, the average salary in Ocala is about 72,000 and the average home price is about 298,000 that is a very healthy affordability one. Yeah, very, very good. And so that job source continues to pay very well. And we've talked about just the logistics centers and the Equestrian Center. That's the largest in the world. Now the villages are just 25 miles south. So Ocala becomes a bedroom community, and that is the second largest retirement community and growing in the US. So there's a lot of job source that allows people to live there at a good affordability. And so that combination of affordability with this extending job source has been really, really good for the Ocala region.   Keith Weinhold  30:59   It's been said that the only place you get money is from other people, and we're talking about your renters in this case. So oftentimes these renters, they had their sense of privacy there, like, for example, do the duplexes even have fenced backyards for each individual side,   Jim Sheils  31:17   depending on where they are? We will. Other times it hasn't been a requirement. We've done lots of surveys to see is it worth the price point to put in full fencing in certain areas. It can be in a lot of areas. Keith, they're just so excited with the price point not having to move into an apartment building that it hasn't even been warranted or necessary.   Keith Weinhold  31:38   Yeah. So we're talking about livability characteristics here, because oftentimes new build rental property results in a higher tenant stay that longer duration, because they're the first person that have ever lived there, and it's also difficult for them to go out and improve their living situation unless they become a home buyer, and that's difficult to do today. Tell us more about the incentives and the property types and so on, because there really are some pretty exciting ones.    Jim Sheils  32:09   One of the best things about Central Florida, Keith, combined with new construction, is insurance costs. Now you and I have laughed about the blanketed statement where you said, oh my goodness, you cannot get insurance in Florida. You can't get property insurance in Florida, or it's doubled, tripled, gone up 7x that is a true statement on certain properties. If you're buying older properties from the 1950s that are within a half mile of the beach on low lying ground, but new construction properties far away from the beach, that is a totally different things. So again, being in Central Florida, where we are, a lot of people think, oh, to insure a single family home there, that's going to be several $100 a month, when actually, you know, and you've seen a lot of our performer quotes, our insurance companies are getting a single family home done for about $65 a month on average, full coverage. And that's the advantage of new construction. Insurance companies are all about risk. They analyze risk. When you're on a new construction property built on higher ground away from the beach, they like that, and they do that a duplex. You're looking at about $100 a month. So incentive wise, we've really searched to team up with great insurance companies that get the best rates full coverage. And again, we surprise people when they say, Oh man, I thought there would be a whole nother zero at that monthly cost. And these are actual quotes, as you know, with working with a lot of GRE people. So that's one great thing, another great thing, Keith, that happened when we joined forces with Sumitomo. And again, Sumitomo 320, years old, one of the biggest powerhouses out of Asia, Warren Buffett, is very heavily invested in another one of the conglomerates, not the housing one we do, but he's very involved in one of their other companies. And when they came aboard, you know, we have no bank debt for a builder, which is rare. And since we have such a healthy balance sheet, we're actually able to work deals with mortgage companies where we'll do what's called builder forward commitments, Keith, and that means we will pre buy mortgages for our clients, for the homes we're building, and we will pass that savings along. So right now, you know, if an investment property in a duplex might be an average of 7% for anyone who walks in off the street to a bank. Right now, our most popular rate program for our investors, for single family or duplexes, is 3.75 Gosh. So as you know, for your five ways, if we want to get cash flow, there's a big difference. Yeah, we're getting affordable housing. But if the rate is over 7% compared to 375 that could eat up the cash flow with us being able to have this power to buy large tranches of money and pass it along and lock our people in again, an average right now at 3.75 is our most popular program, and that's long term money, then we're able to get that cash flow right off the bat. And you and I know how important that is   Keith Weinhold  34:50    for this super attractive 3.75% long term mortgage rate on single family homes and duplexes. How? Much does the buyer have to come out of pocket at the closing table to buy that down themselves? And how much do you the builder participate in that buy down?   Jim Sheils  35:07   You know, it depends Keith at different times, because there is a little bit of a fluctuation. Sometimes it can be as low as zero points or just one origination point to bring it in. It does vary. And also, if people say, hey, I really don't want to bring in any points. Well, that's fine. You know, if you don't want to walk in zero to 2% points for that, you can also just raise your rate up to four and a quarter and probably walk in nothing. So there's different things that we can do, but the goal of it is to have us have the brunt of it. And what I can tell you is, if the average person walked into a bank, and a bank wouldn't do this anyway. It's only for, again, builders with a certain size, but if you went into a bank right now and said, I'd like to buy my rate down to 3.75 the average Keith that this would cost a person off the street going into a bank would be 12 to 15% banks wouldn't even do it for an individual. But that's about the estimates when you look at it. So again, volume has privileged. The fact we're able to buy it down. It does cost us a good amount of money, but we're all able to save since we're kind of working together to buy these larger tranches. And again, the need of any investment for buying down the rate from the clients is very minimal.   Keith Weinhold  36:18   Tell us more about the property types, new build single family homes, new build duplexes.   Jim Sheils  36:23   You know, single family and duplexes are our main focus in 2026 for Central Florida, we've done the research. They're very high in demand. They rent quickly, and they rent long term to produce cash flow. Our average single family home under 300,000 we're aiming to after expense, make about $300 cash flow. Our duplexes should be about twice that amount, about just under $600 a month, or just over in cash flow. And then again, the prices are ranging from about 395, to 420, for a duplex. Again, these are in workforce areas where we're doing great, scattered lots. Scattered lot means there's already existing homes around. We like to go to an area where there's good a fundamental balance of homeowners and renters. So there's retail buyers that have bought their first home, and we will place our rentals in between them, whether it's a single family or a duplex.   Keith Weinhold  37:13   We sure don't need to do a complete audio pro forma here, but those cash flow amounts something near $300 for a single family home, and about double that for a duplex. Is that using, you know, a bought down rate to about 4% and some of these other inputs you're talking about, like low insurance costs and a certain property tax rate, can you tell us about that?    Jim Sheils  37:35   Yeah, property tax rate is property tax rate. We can get pretty dang close on property taxes, you know, based on millage and get that down. But when we do our performers, we absolutely go off of, you know, our average rate to be the 375, to four and a quarter. And then when GRE clients look at our performer, and they look at the insurance cost, that's an actual quote from one of our insurance companies that has insured hundreds and hundreds of these properties. Not a guess, yeah, so they know what they're doing. So yeah, those would be the assumptions made in there, and that's what we're basically getting on a week in, week out basis.    Keith Weinhold  38:09   That is really attractive as we're talking about new build. I imagine there is some sort of builder warranty as well.    Jim Sheils  38:16   There's a state mandated 210 warranty. 210 warranty is something we could talk probably a whole episode on Keith. But for what's good for people to know, basically what that means, you get two years coverage on the small stuff and 10 years coverage on the big structural stuff. And so that's why I like new construction. You know what? I used to personally just buy my own fixer up Return key properties from other people. I could get a one year warranty, and that's the best that really can be done. Now with new construction, we've gone from, you know, with our fixer upper homes, able to do a one year warranty, which is good at something. But now with new construction, we can do a 210 warranty, big difference, and also really helps the safety score of issues if they came up.    Keith Weinhold  38:59   We were talking about new build property, and we tend to project relatively low maintenance and repair costs for an obvious reason, maybe your long term vacancy rate could very well be lower as well, due to my earlier point about a tenant wanting to stay there for a long time, because it's hard for them to improve their living situation unless they went out and bought their own place. And you have the low insurance rates, and you have the low mortgage rates, all contributing to positive cash flow on a new build property. And we think about that tenant and what gets the tenant excited? We start to think about some of those amenities. So tell us about what amenities are offered, including inside, in the kitchen and so on.   Jim Sheils  39:38   Jim, yeah, great question, Keith. We've really gotten a great recipe for success for that. You know, we've been doing this a little over a decade now, and so you're always tweaking your build model. What do people like? What do they not like? What's good for durability? Let's look at maintenance and repairs. Let's look at turn costs. So our goal is always the dual focus. That's what looks good. And what lasts really well, yeah, because you want durability. When you have tenants, you want it to look good, so you sell it down the road, 510, years to a first time homebuyer, it looks great. You can sell it. But durability wise, you don't want a lot of extra expenses or maintenance and repairs. So we go durability. So what we found a couple of things. I always joke about this. I do not like the word carpet, Keith, that is a terrible swear word in real estate investing, I can tell you right now, if I could go back and this is not, you know, owning hundreds of rentals, if I could not have done carpet and just reversed it to like vinyl plank flooring, like we do now, or even tile, which was more, I probably would have been able to buy three or four of our duplexes cash with the amount of money, and that is not an exaggeration. So we do not do carpet. First of all, it seems like trends are changing. It's not in favor right now. So we do vinyl plank flooring, which looks really nice, almost like wood floors, super durable, though, for a young family that's going to be tenant occupied in your property and running around on it. That's great. Kitchen wise, again, we don't sell retail really. We like to work with investors, but down the road, our investor might want to sell to a retail buyer. So we know, you know, from our old fix and flip days of the FHA buyers, the kitchen's got a pop. So we always do, you know, we don't do the white appliances, which you know would save you quite a bit of money, and save us quite a bit of money. We do stainless steel appliances. We do all new cabinetry, you know, kind of the latest, nicer cabinetry, a little bit of an upgrade. And then, you know, butcher block countertops, those are going to wear in about a year or two. Keith, it feels really good to spend that smaller amount, you know. But we, we like to do the more durable, nice looking countertops, you know, that are, you know, just so much more esthetically pleasing and actually durable as well. Same thing in the bathrooms. A lot of new builders will do shower kit, which not a problem if you're saving money on a rehab, you know, but we would rather do tile, bring in the extra subcontractors to give tile, and then in the master we do the dual sinks, which this might sound like little stuff, Keith, but these are the micro movements that help get a tenant in quicker, stay longer and more rent. So we're always trying to do these extra things in the granite countertops, both in the kitchens and in the bathrooms. Those cost more upfront, but we see for long term of tenant we see, for the amount of rent we get, and for resale ability, because a lot of people don't think about that. You know what? In seven years you want to sell one of these properties? Well, it's a seven year old roof, it's seven year old plumbing, you're still in a great spot for an FHA buyer. And that esthetically pleasing flooring, bathrooms, kitchens. That allows an easier sale for them, because we want to look all the way around, not just a rental. I like to hold long term, but if you want to sell in five to 10 years, that's a very valid strategy.    Keith Weinhold  42:48   I like carpet in my own home, but not rentals. But what you're sharing with us, Jim, this is absolute gold that's been brought to you through experience. This over improvement versus under improvement line in rentals, and it really has a lot of balance between durability and price. These are the sort of things that really matter, but you are selling predominantly to individual investors, a lot of mom and pop investors. Why don't you make more sales to the retail, owner occupied market, or to institutional investors, even though that might be cracked down upon now. But why don't you sell to those parties?   Jim Sheils  43:26   Yeah, you know Keith, I did a lot of fix and flip to FHA buyers, and I'm an investor. I really like working with investors. So when this all really went back to is 2009 I had a lot of investors. I was in Northeast Florida. The deal flow was incredible. And I just had a lot of investors, you know, through my different networks and Masterminds, like, where you and I have met, and said, Hey, you're getting great deals in Northeast Florida. Could you help put some together for me? And so I had done quite a few fix and flips to retail buyers, and it just kind of hot on me, you know, way back then, like, Wow. I like working with investors. I like building portfolios. I also like the fact that when I'm normally building a portfolio for an investor, well, they hang out with other investors, and they're not looking to buy one property over the next five years. They're looking to buy five to eight properties over the next five years. great point. And so we just saw it as you gotta like who you work with, right? And nothing against first time homebuyers. But when I was rehabbing houses and selling them, golly, that was a lot of work. And then could be persnickety. Yeah, very persnickety. And so when Chris and I teamed up about 10 years ago, we had both gone through the same kind of aha, like going, Yeah, it seems great, but you could sell for more to a retail buyer. But again, like I go back to even the type of property we build, we'd rather do a volume with investors. Be a builder, buy investors for investors, and work that way. And I think it suits me. I think I would have probably hung up my shoes a long time ago if I was. Working with the amount of properties we've done with retail buyers compared to investors, honestly, and so I think it was just kind of, it was a preference, really, that made sense   Keith Weinhold  45:09   to your point. Investors buy multiple properties, and that way there are fewer parties to deal with. And investors tend to be less emotional than those more persnickety, owner occupied buyers. Well, Jim, you make it easy for investors. Besides all these incentives, you also offer an in house management solution for these investors, often that tend to be out of state. Well, Jim, before I ask you, if you have any closing thoughts, would you the listener like to ask Jim any question directly? Well, you can, because I have a great event to tell you about next Thursday, the 19th, at 8pm eastern Jim here and GRE investment coach, Naresh will co host a live webinar for Central Florida new build income property. In fact, Jim, I think you know Naresh longer than I have, as it turns out, but this event is free, and you the listener are invited. We've had between 250 and 550 registrants for our past webinars. Not all of them attend live. So the benefit of you attending live is that you can have any of your questions answered by either Naresh or Jim in real time, and besides learning about the Central Florida market and more about home building, you are going to see available new build income property, real addresses with some of these rather grand incentives that we've talked about here, you might end up with a long term rate of about 4% again, it is Thursday, the 19th at 8pm Eastern. Sign up is open now at grewebinars.com that's grewebinars.com Any final thoughts here, Jim, for this great event coming up next week?   Jim Sheils  46:52   I think we're going to dig a little deeper. Obviously, this is a conversation that was great, but moves pretty quickly when we talk next week, we're going to be able to dig into more of the fundamentals, some of the stats, and just get underneath the hood of why Central Florida is making so much sense, and just some of the rising stars that we're seeing there that we're very excited to be a part of.   Keith Weinhold  47:13   You've helped our listeners for close to 10 years now. It's been an informative chat as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show.    Jim Sheils  47:21   Thanks for having me, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  47:27   Yeah, like our guest touched on Ocala, Florida now has national recognition as the fastest growing city in America, and that's for the second year in a row. According to a new U haul report, Florida is, of course, a rather landlord friendly state. In fact, Florida is the first state to enact a law that allows law enforcement to immediately remove squatters, distinguishing them from legal tenants. Now here's what's interesting and why I've identified this opportunity if Florida prices dipped because people were leaving now, that could be a red flag, because population loss is like gravity. Once it starts falling, it is hard to escape. But that's not what's happening. Instead, what we're seeing is a temporary overbuild hangover. Builders got ambitious. We're in a brief period where supply outran demand and prices softened. That's not decay. That's a sale rack. Any vacant homes are not stranded. They're being absorbed by Florida's still growing population, which has now increased every single decade since its first census count, back in the year 1830 back in 1830 there were about 35,000 residents in the whole state. Isn't that amazing today? North of 24 million, that is 700x population growth in almost 200 years, and it's still growing. That kind of trend doesn't reverse because a few builders over ordered inventory here at GRE this made us target and find in opportunity. This isn't an accident. Central Florida is this year's most compelling. Housing market in that region, Central Florida, is growing faster than the rest of the state at large, and it really sits in the sweet spot of this temporary imbalance. One long established builder overbuilt and now they're motivated. They know what investors want. So, for example, they don't build swimming pools with their homes. They also offer property tours, and over 90% of their tour attendees buy property. They're willing to offer terrific incentives at our upcoming GRE live webinar, like we touched on new build single family rentals, 270k and up duplexes, three. 95 to 420, long term mortgage rates as low as 3.75% you get low insurance rates since they're inland and new build positive cash flow and a builder warranty at the event. You're going to learn all about the growth drivers in Central Florida, why so many renters are moving there and see available properties. This benefits anyone looking for a clear, practical view of current real estate conditions. Joining live does matter, since you can have those questions answered in real time, not after the opportunity has moved on, you are invited for next Thursday, the 19th, at 8p m Eastern. This one is worth circling, not because it's flashy, because it's timed right. Sign up is open now @grewebinars.com that's gre webinars.com. Until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 5  51:00   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  51:29   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com  

There's a lot of damage to clean up after Nashville's recent deadly ice storm. Before you hire ANYONE to help you recover from the winter storm and ice damage, know that scammers are here NOW, knocking on doors, claiming they can help, repair, even file your insurance claims for you. Robyn Householder, President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky lists the top scams, and tells you how to NOT get taken advantage of. Robyn lists "Red Flags" to look out for when someone offers you a deal, including a company vehicle that's NOT marked with company logo, or someone urging you to make a decision NOW. Don't do it! Hear more in this interview, and make the BBB one of your first calls if you have any questions about a business, or if you think you've been scammed. More info at bbb.org or www.bbb.org/scamtracker See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heather Clary of the Better Business Bureau updates jack and his listeners on phone scams with individuals posing as police. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Washington Democrats fought for college athletes just so they could tax them. Bill Gates responds to the recent Epstein controversy surrounding him. // Border Czar Tom Homan announced the withdrawal of about 700 federal agents from Minnesota in exchange for a major concession from local leaders. Senator Patty Murray is trying to stay relevant by bashing DHS agents. // Be wary of scammers this tax season, warns the Better Business Bureau.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about tips from the BBB to look into before joining a gym and an increase in LinkedIn job scams. He also shares details about unexpected phone calls that claim your money is at risk and fake invoices that claim to be from the […]

Randy Hutchinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Better Business Bureau of the Mid-South walk us through recent scam alerts, common warning signs, how are local scammers using new technologies, scammers pretending to be government agencies, and the role BBB plays in reporting and stopping scams in our community. The BBB serves consumers and businesses across West Tennessee, North Mississippi and East Arkansas by promoting marketplace trust and educating the public about scams and fraud.

Send us a textHiring a contractor shouldn't feel like a risky gamble—especially when you're spending association funds and hoping for a great result for your repair or renovation project. On this week's episode of Take It To The Board, host Donna DiMaggio Berger talks to Cinthya Lavin, VP of Communications and Community Engagement at the Better Business Bureau, to uncover practical and attainable ways Condominium, Cooperative and HOA boards can hire smarter, avoid scams, and build a reliable vendor bench without slowing projects to a crawl.  Cinthya breaks down how BBB's e-quote tool helps boards get three accredited bids—often within a day—so you can meet competitive bidding requirements and keep momentum on key repairs and capital projects.  Donna and Cinthya dig into what “accredited” really means, how BBB verifies licenses and insurance, and how the ratings algorithm weighs responsiveness, scale, complaint patterns, and government actions. You'll learn why a vendor's willingness to answer complaints often predicts how they'll handle issues on your job, and why communication should be a top selection criterion alongside price and scope.  They also explore the evolving threat landscape. BBB's Scam Tracker offers a community-wide alert system for fraud attempts, and Cinthya shares simple safeguards for boards. This episode also includes a comparison of BBB with platforms like Yelp; discusses AI's role in business education and reviews, and highlights programs such as the Torch Awards which celebrate companies with strong character, culture, customer care, and community impact.  If you want to make faster, safer hiring decisions and elevate trust in your community, this conversation delivers the playbook.Conversation Highlights:  Why a 100+-year-old organization is still relevant in today's fast-moving business landscapeHow the BBB evaluates businesses and what really separates an A+ rating from a lower gradeHow boards and managers can use the BBB to vet contractors and comply with competitive bidding requirementsHow to identify complaint trends and spot vendors with recurring unresolved issues.Listed vs. accredited: The key differences between businesses that appear on the BBB and those that earn accreditation.Warning signs on a BBB profile, from licensing issues to unresolved disputes and suspicious business details.How the BBB can help confirm insurance, licensing, and other critical qualifications.What the BBB is seeing in post-storm reconstruction—and the rise of scams and fraudulent contractors.One simple step boards can take today to reduce vendor risk and protect their communitiesRelated Links:Podcast: Why Every Contract Needs to Be Reviewed with Becker's James Robert CavesResource: Consumer Resources from The Better Business BureauArticle: Am I Protected? Contractual Quandaries for All Associations

If you fall for a fake online romance, Cupid might hit you in the heart and your bank account. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has thr details.

If you fall for a fake online romance, Cupid might hit you in the heart and your bank account. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has thr details.

If you fall for a fake online romance, Cupid might hit you in the heart and your bank account. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has thr details.

A strong defense is your best bet when it comes to Big Game betting scams. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has tips.

A strong defense is your best bet when it comes to Big Game betting scams. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has tips.

A strong defense is your best bet when it comes to Big Game betting scams. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has tips.

Keith challenges the usual "overpopulated vs. underpopulated" debate and shows why that's the wrong way to think about demographics—especially if you're a real estate investor. Listeners will hear about surprising global population comparisons that flip common assumptions.  Why raw population numbers don't actually explain housing shortages or rent strength. How household formation, aging, and migration really drive demand for rentals. Which kinds of markets tend to see persistent housing pressure—and why the US has a long‑term demographic edge. You'll come away seeing population headlines very differently, and with a clearer lens for spotting where future housing demand is most likely to show up. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/590 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.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  1-937-795-8989 to speak with a freedom coach 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— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Keith Weinhold  0:01   Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, is the world overpopulated or underpopulated? Also is the United States over or underpopulated? These are not just rhetorical questions, because I'm going to answer them both. Just one of Africa's 54 nations has more births than all of Europe and Russia combined. One US state has seen their population decline for decades. This is all central to housing demand today. On get rich education   Keith Weinhold  0:36   since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com   Speaker 1  1:21   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  1:31   Welcome to GRE from Norfolk Virginia to Norfolk, Nebraska and across 188 nations worldwide, you are inside. Get rich education. I am the GRE founder, Best Selling Author, longtime real estate investor. You can see my written work in Forbes and the USA Today, but I'm best known as the host of this incomprehensibly slack John operation that you're listening to right now. My name is Keith Weinhold. You probably know that already, one reason that we're talking about underpopulated versus overpopulated today is that also one of my degrees is in geography and demography, essentially, is human geography, and that's why this topic is in my wheelhouse. It's just a humble bachelor's degree, by the way, if a population is not staying stable or growing, then demand for housing just must atrophy away. That's what people think, but that is not true. That's oversimplified. In some cases. It might even be totally false. You're going to see why. Now, Earth's population is at an all time high of about 8.2 billion people, and it keeps growing, and it's going to continue to keep growing, but the rate of growth is slowing now. Where could all of the people on earth fit? This is just a bit of a ridiculous abstraction in a sense, but I think it helps you visualize things. Just take this scenario, if all the humans were packed together tightly, but in a somewhat realistic way, in a standing room only way, if every person on earth stood shoulder to shoulder, that would allow about 2.7 square feet per person, they would sort of be packed like a subway car. Well, they could fit in a square, about 27 kilometers on one side, about 17 miles on each side of that square. Now, what does that mean in real places that is smaller than New York City, about half the size of Los Angeles County and roughly the footprint of Lake Tahoe? So yes, every human alive today could physically fit inside one midsize us metro area. This alone tells you something important. The world's problem is certainly not a lack of space. Rather, it's where people live and not how many there are. So that was all of Earth's inhabitants. Now, where could all Americans fit us residents using the same shoulder to shoulder assumption, and the US population by mid year this year is supposed to be about 350,000,00349 that's a square about five and a half kilometers, or 3.4 miles on each side. And some real world comparisons there are. That's about half of Manhattan, smaller than San Francisco and roughly the size of Disney World, so every American could fit into a single small city footprint. And if you're beginning to form an early clue that we are not overpopulated globally, yes, that's the sense that you Should be getting.     Keith Weinhold  5:01   now, if you're in Bangladesh, it feels overpopulated there. They've got 175 million people, and that nation is only the size of Iowa. In area, Bangladesh is low lying and typhoon prone. They get a lot of flooding, which complicates their already bad sanitation problems and a dense population like that, and that creates waterborne diseases, and it's really more of an infrastructure problem in a place like Bangladesh than it is a population problem. Then Oppositely, you've got Australia as much land as the 48 contiguous states, yet just 27 million people in Australia, and only 1/400 as many people as Bangladesh in density. Now we talk about differential population. About 80% of Americans live in the eastern half of the US. But yet, the East is not overpopulated because we have sufficient infrastructure, and I've got some more mind blowing population stats for you later, both world and us. Now, as far as is the world overpopulated or underpopulated, which is our central question, depending on who you ask and where they live, you're going to hear completely different answers. Some people are convinced that the planet is bursting at the seams. Others warn that we're headed for a population collapse. But here's the problem, that question overpopulated or underpopulated, it's the wrong question. It's the wrong framing, especially if you're into real estate, because housing demand doesn't respond to total headcount or global averages or scary demographic headlines. Housing demand responds to where people live, how old they are, and how they form households. And once you understand this, a lot of things suddenly begin to make sense, like why housing shortages persist, why rents stay high, even when affordability feels stretched, why some states struggle while others boom, and why population headlines often mislead investors.   Keith Weinhold  7:20   So today I want to reframe how you think about population and connect it directly to housing demand, both globally and right here in the United States. And let's start with the US, because that's probably where you invest.    Keith Weinhold  7:33   Here's a simple fact that should confuse people, but usually doesn't, the United States has below replacement fertility. I'll talk about fertility rates a little later. They're similar to birth rates, meaning that Americans are not having enough children to replace the population naturally and without immigration, the US population would eventually shrink, and yet in the US, we have a housing shortage, rising rents, tight vacancy and a lot of metros and persistent demand for rental housing, which could all seem contradictory. Now, if population alone determine housing demand, well, then the US really shouldn't have any housing shortage at all, but it does so clearly, population alone is not the main driver, and really that contradiction is like your first clue that most demographic conversations are just missing the point. Aging does not reduce housing demand. The way that people think a misconception really is that an aging population automatically reduces housing demand. It does not, in fact, just the opposite. If a population is too young, well, that tends to kill housing demand, and that's because five year old kids and 10 year old kids do not form their own household. Instead, what an aging population often does is change the type of housing that's demanded, like seniors aging in place, some of them downsizing. Seniors living alone. Sometimes after a spouse passes away, others relocating closer to health care or to family. So aging can increase unit demand even if population growth slows. So already, we've broken two myths here. Slower population doesn't mean weaker housing demand, and aging doesn't mean fewer housing units are needed. Now let's explain why. Really, the core idea that unlocks everything is that people don't live inside, what are called Population units. They live in households. You are one person. That does not mean that your dwelling is then one population unit. That's not how that works. You are part of a household, whether that's a house a Household of one person or five or 11 people, housing demand is driven by the number of households, the type of households and where those households are forming, not by raw population totals. So the same population can have wildly different demand. Just think about how five people living together in one home, that's one housing unit, those same five people living separately, that is five housing units, same population, five times the housing demand. And this is why population statistics alone are almost useless for real estate investors, you need to know how people are living, not just how many there are. The biggest surge in housing demand happens when people leave their parents' homes or when they finish school or when they start working, or you got big surges in housing demand when people marry or when they separate or divorce. So in other words, adults create housing demand and children don't. And this is why a country with a youngish, working age population, oh, then they can have exploding housing demand. A country with high birth rates, but low household formation can have overcrowding without profitable housing growth. So it's not about babies, it's about independent adults, and what quietly boosts housing demand, then is housing fragmentation. Yeah, fragmentation. That's a trend that really doesn't get enough attention, and that is the trend, households are fragmenting, meaning more single adults later marriage, like I was talking about in a previous episode. Recently, higher divorce rates, more people living alone and older adults living independently, longer. Each one of those trends increases housing demand without adding any population whatsoever. When two people split up, they often need two housing units instead of one, and if you've got one adult living alone, that is full unit demand right there. So that's why housing demand can rise even when population growth slows or stalls for housing demand. What matters more than births is migration. And another key distinction is that, yes, births matter, but they're on somewhat of this 20 year delay and migration matters immediately, right now. So see, when a working age adult moves, they need housing right away. They typically rent first. They cluster near jobs, and they don't bring housing supply along with them. They've got to get it from someone else. Hopefully you in your rental unit.    Keith Weinhold  12:57   This is why migration is such a powerful force in rental markets, and you see me talk about migration on the show, and you see me send you migration maps in our newsletter. It's also why housing pressure shows up unevenly. It gets concentrated around opportunity. If you want to know the future, look at renters. Renters are the leading indicator, not homeowners and not birth rates. See renters create housing demand faster than homeowners, because renters form households earlier. They can do it quickly because they don't need down payments. Renters move more frequently and immigration overwhelmingly starts in rentals, fresh immigrants rarely become homeowners, so even when mortgage rates rise or home purchases slow or affordability headlines get scary, rental demand can stay strong. It's not a mystery, it's demographics. So births surely matter, but only over the long term. It's like how I've shared with you in a previous episode that the US had a lot of births between 1990 and 2010 those two decades, a surge of births more than 4 million every single one of those years during those two decades, with that peak birth year at 2007 but see a bunch of babies being born in 2007 Well, that didn't make housing demand surge, since infants don't buy homes. But if you add, say, 20 years to 2007 when those people start renting, oh, well, that rental demand peaks in 2027 or maybe a little after that, and since the first time, homebuyer age is now 40. If that stays constant, well, then native born homebuyer demand won't peak until 2047 so when it comes to housing demand, the important thing to remember is migration has an immediate effect and births have a delayed effect.    Keith Weinhold  15:02   and I'm going to talk more about other nations shortly, but the US has two major migration forces working simultaneously, domestic and international migration. I mean, Americans move a lot, although not as much as they used to, and people move for jobs, for taxes, for weather, for cost of living and for lifestyle. So this creates state level winners and losers, and Metro level housing pressure and rent growth in those destination markets and national population averages totally hide this. So that's domestic migration. And then on the international migration. The US has a long history, hundreds of years now on, just continually attracting working age adults from around the world. This matters immensely, because they arrive ready to work, and they form households quickly. They overwhelmingly rent first. They concentrate in metros, and this props up rental demand before it ever shows up in home prices. And this is why investors often feel the rent pressure first those rising rents.    Keith Weinhold  16:17   I've got more straight ahead, including Nigeria versus Europe, and what about the overpopulation straining the environment? If you like, episodes that explain why housing behaves the way it does, rather than just reacting to the headlines. You'll want to be on my free weekly newsletter. I break down demographics, housing, demand, inflation, investor trends and real estate strategy in plain English, often complemented with maps. You can join free at greletter.com that's gre letter.com   Keith Weinhold  16:53   mid south homebuyers with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your return on investment as their North Star. It's no wonder smart investors line up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone headquartered in Memphis, with their globally attractive cash flows, mid south has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and 4000 houses renovated. There is zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate with an industry leading three and a half year average renter term. Every home they offer you will have brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter in an astounding price range, 100 to 150k GET TO KNOW mid south enjoy cash flow from day one at mid southhomebuyers.com that's midsouthhomebuyers.com   Keith Weinhold  17:54   you know, most people think they're playing it safe with their liquid money, but they're actually losing savings accounts and bonds don't keep up when true inflation eats six or 7% of your wealth. Every single year, I invest my liquidity with FFI freedom family investments in their flagship program. Why fixed 10 to 12% returns have been predictable and paid quarterly. There's real world security backed by needs based real estate like affordable housing, Senior Living and health care. Ask about the freedom flagship program when you speak to a freedom coach there, and that's just one part of their family of products, they've got workshops, webinars and seminars designed to educate you before you invest. Start with as little as 25k and finally, get your money working as hard as you do. Get started at Freedom, family investments.com/gre, or send a text. Now it's 1-937-795-8989Yep. Text their freedom coach directly again. 1937795, 1-937-795-8989,   Keith Weinhold  19:05   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 prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com   Chris Martenson  19:37   this is peak prosperity. Is Chris Martinson. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  19:53   Welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, and this is episode 590 yes, we're in my Geography wheelhouse today, as I'm talking human geography and demographics with how it relates to housing, while answering our central question today is the world and the US overpopulated or underpopulated? And now that we understand some mechanics here, let's go global. Here's one of the most mind bending stats in all of demographics. Are you ready for this? When you hear this, it's going to have you hitting up chat, GPT, looking it up. It's going to be so astonishing. So jaw dropping. Every year, Nigeria has more births than all of Europe plus all of Russia combined. Would you talk about Willis?   Keith Weinhold  20:47   Yeah, yes, you heard that, right? Willis, that's what I'm talking about. Willis. The source of that data is, in fact, from the United Nations. Yes, Nigeria has seven and a half million births every year. Compare that to all of Europe plus Russia combined, they only have about 6.3 million births per year. So you're telling me that today, just one West African nation, and there are 54 nations in Africa. Just one West African nation produces more babies than the entire continent of Europe, with all of its nations plus all of Russia, the largest world nation by area. Yes, that is correct. One country in Africa produces more babies every year than France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, all of Europe, including all the Eastern European nations, and all of Russia combined. This is a demographic reality, and now you probably already know that less developed nations, like Nigeria have higher birth rates than wealthier, more developed ones like France or Switzerland. I mean, that's almost common knowledge, but something that people think about less is that poorer nations also have a larger household size, which sort of makes sense when you think about it. In fact, Nigeria has five persons per household. Spain has two and a half, and the US also has that same level two and a half. That one difference alone explains why population growth and housing demand are completely different stories now, the US had 3.3 people per household in 1950 and it's down to that two and a half today. That means that even if the population stayed the same, the housing demand would rise. And this is evidence of what I talked about before the break, that households are fragmenting within the US. You can probably guess which state has the largest household size due to their Mormon population. It's Utah at 3.1 the smallest is Maine at 2.3 they have an older population. In fact, Maine has America's oldest population. And as you can infer with what you've learned now, the fact that they have just 2.3 people per household means that if their populations were the same. Maine would need more housing units than Utah. By the way, if you're listening closely at times, I have referred to the United States as simply America. Yes, I am American. You are going to run into some people out there that don't like it. When US residents call themselves Americans, they say something like, Hey, you need a geography lesson. America runs from Nunavut all the way down to Argentina. Here's what to tell them. No, look, there are about 200 world nations. There is only one that has the word America in it, that is the United States of America that usually makes them lighten up. That is why I am an American, not a Peruvian or Bolivian, and there's no xenophobic connotation whatsoever. There are more productive things to think about moving on. Why births matter is because births today become future workers, renters, consumers and even migrants. But not evenly. Young populations move toward a few things. They're attracted to capital. They move towards stability. They're attracted to opportunity, and young populations move toward infrastructure. That's not ideology, that's the gravity and the US remains one of the strongest gravity wells on Earth, a big magnet, a big attractant. Now it's sort of interesting. I know a few a People that believe that the world is indeed overpopulated, they often tend to be environmental enthusiasts, and the environment is a concern, for sure, but how big of a concern is it? That's the debatable part. And you know, it's funny, I've run into the same people that think that the world is overpopulated, they seem to lament at school closures. You see more school closures because just there weren't as many children that were born after the global financial crisis. And these people that are afraid we have an overpopulation problem call school closures a sad phenomenon. They think it's sad. Well, if you want a shrinking population, then you're going to see a lot more than just schools close so many with environmental concerns, though. The thing is, is that they seem to discount the fact that humans innovate. More than 200 years ago, Thomas Malthus, he famously failed. He wrote a book, thinking that the global population would exceed what he called his carrying capacity, meaning that we wouldn't be able to feed everybody. He posited that, look, this is a problem. Populations grow exponentially, but food production only grows linearly. But he was wrong, because, due to agricultural innovation, we have got too many calories in most places. Few people thought this many humans could live in the United States, Sonoran and Mojave deserts, that's Phoenix in Las Vegas, respectively. But our ability to recycle and purify water allows millions of people to live there. So my point about running out of resources is that history shows us that humans are a resource ourselves, and we keep finding ways to innovate, or keep finding ways to actually not need that rare earth element or whatever it is now, if the earth warms too much from human related activity, can we cool it off again? And how much of a problem is this? I am not sure, and that goes beyond the scope of our show. But the broader point here is that history shows us that humans keep figuring things out, and that is somewhat of an answer to those questions. The world is not overpopulated, it is unevenly populated. Some regions are young, others are growing, others are capital constrained, and then other regions are aging, shrinking and capital rich. And that very imbalance right there is what fuels migration and fuels labor flows and fuels housing demand in destination countries and the US benefits from this imbalance. Unlike almost anywhere else in the world, it's a demographic magnet. Yes, you do have some smaller ones out there, like Dubai, for example.    Keith Weinhold  28:04   But why? Why do we keep attracting immigrants? Well, we've got strong labor markets, capital availability, property rights, economic mobility, and US has existing housing stock. Countries today don't just compete for capital, they're competing for people. In the US keeps attracting working age adults, and that is exactly the demographic that creates housing demand, and this is why long term housing demand in the US is more resilient than a lot of people think. In fact, the US population of about 350 million. This year, it's projected to peak at about 370 million, near 2080 and of course, the big factor that makes that pivot is that level of immigration. So that's why the population projections vary now. The last presidential administration allowed for a lot of immigrants. The current one few immigrants, and the next one, nobody knows. You've got a group called the falconist party that calls for increased legal immigration into the US. Yeah, they want to allow more migrants into the country, but yet they want to enforce illegal immigration. That sounds just like it's spelled, F, A, L, C, O, N, i, s, t, the falconist Party, but the us's magnetic effect to keep driving population growth through immigration is key, because you might already know that 2.1 is the magic number you need a fertility rate of at least 2.1 to maintain a population fertility rate that is the average number of children that a woman is expected to have over her lifetime. And be sure you don't confuse these numbers with the earlier numbers of people per. Per household, like I discussed earlier, although higher fertility rates are usually going to lead to more people per household, India's fertility rate is already down to 2.0 Yes, it is the most populated nation in the world, but since women, on average, only have two children, India is already below replacement fertility. The US and Australia are each at 1.6 Japan is just 1.2 China's is down to 1.0 South Korea's is at an incredibly low seven tenths of one, so 0.7 in South Korea, and then Nigeria's is still more than four. So among all those that I mentioned, only Nigeria is above the replacement rate of 2.1 and most of the nations above that rate are in Africa. Israel is a big outlier at 2.9 you've got others in the Middle East and South Asia that are above replacement rate as well. And when I say things like it's still up there, that whole still thing refers to the fact that there is this tendency worldwide for society to urbanize and have fewer children. For those fertility rates to keep falling. And that's why the future population growth is about which nations attract immigrants, and that is the US. Is huge advantage. Now there's a great way to look at where future births are going to come from. A way to do this is consider your chance of being born on each continent in the year 2100 This is interesting. In the year 2100 a person has a 48% chance of being born in Africa, 38% in South Asia, in the Middle East, 5% South America, 5% in Europe or Russia, 4% in North America, and less than 1% in Australia. Those are the chances of you being born on each of those continents in the year 2100 and that sourced by the UN.   Keith Weinhold  32:09   the world population is, as I said earlier, about 8.2 billion, and it's actually expected to peak around the same time that the US population is in the 2080s and that'll be near 10 point 3 billion. All right, so both the world and the US population should rise for another 50 to 60 years. Let's talk about population winners and losers inside the US. I mean, this is where population conversations really become useful for investors, because population doesn't matter nationally that much. It really matters locally, unevenly and sometimes it almost feels unfairly. So let me give you some perspective shifting stats. I think I shared with you when I discussed new New York City Mayor Zoran Manami here on the show a month or two ago, that the New York City Metro Area has over 20 million people, nearly double the combined population of Arizona and Nevada together, yes, just one metro area, the same as Two entire sparsely populated states. So when someone says people are leaving New York I mean that tells you almost nothing, unless you know where they're going. How many are still arriving in New York City to replace those leaving, and how many households are still forming inside that Metro? The household formation so scale matters, however, net, people are not leaving New York. New York City recently had more in migration than any other US Metro. Some states are practically empty. Alaska or take Wyoming. Wyoming has fewer than 600,000 people in the entire state. That's fewer people than a lot of single US cities. That's only about six people per square mile. In Wyoming, that's about the population of one midsize Metro suburb. Now, when someone says the US has plenty of land in a lot of cases, they're right. I mean, just look out the window when you fly over Wyoming or the Dakotas. But people don't really live where land is cheap. They actually don't want to. Most of the time. They live where jobs, incomes and their networks already exist. You know, the wealthy guy that retires to Wyoming and it has a 200 acre ranch is an outlier. There's a reason he can sprawl out and make it 200 acres. There's virtually nobody there. Let's understand too that population loss, that doesn't mean that demand is gone, but it does change the rules, especially when you think about a place like West Virginia. They have lost population in most decades since the 1950s and incredibly, their population is lower today than it was in 1930 we're talking about West Virginia statewide. They have an aging population. West Virginia has an outmigration of young adults. So this doesn't mean that no real estate works in West Virginia, but it means that appreciation stories are fragile. Income matters more than equity. Growth and demographics are a headwind, not a tailwind. That's a very different investment posture than where you usually want to be. It's important to understand that a handful of metros, just a handful, are absorbing massive national growth. And here's something that a lot of investors underestimate. About half of all US, population growth flows into fewer than 15 metro areas, and it's not just New York City, Houston, Miami, but smaller places like Jacksonville, Austin and Raleigh, and that really helps pump their real estate market. So that means demand concentrates, housing pressure intensifies, and rent growth becomes pretty sticky, unless you wildly overbuild for a short period of time like Austin did, and this is why some metros just feel perpetually tight over the long term, and others feel permanently sluggish. Population does not spread evenly. It piles up. In fact, Texas is a great case in point here. Understand that Texas is adding people faster than some entire nations do. Texas alone adds hundreds of 1000s of residents per year in strong cycles. Some years, they do add more people than entire small countries, more than several Midwest states combined. And of course, they don't spread evenly across Texas. They cluster in DFW, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, so pretty much the Texas triangle, and that clustering fact is everything for housing demand, yet at the same time, there are fully 75 Texas counties that are losing population, typically out in West Texas. Then there's Florida. Florida isn't just growing. It's replacing people. Florida's growth. It's not just net positive, it's replacement migration, and it's across all different types and ages. You've got retirees arriving, you've got young workers arriving, you've got young households forming, and you've got seniors aging in place. So this way, among a whole spectrum of ages, you've got demand for rentals, workforce housing, age specific, housing and multifamily all in Florida, and this is why Florida housing demand over the long term is not going to cool off the way that a few skeptics expect. Now, of course, some areas did temporarily overbuild in Florida in the years following the pandemic. Yes, that's led to some temporary Florida home price attrition, but that is going to be absorbed. California did not empty out. It reshuffled now. There were some recent years where California lost net population, but here's what that hides. Some metros lost residents. Others stayed flat. You had some income brackets that left California and others arrived. In fact, California has slight population growth today overall, so housing demand definitely did not vanish. It shifted within the state and then outward to nearby states, and that's how Arizona, Nevada and Texas benefited. But overall, California's population count, really, it's just pretty steady, not declining.   Keith Weinhold  39:05   population density. It's that density that predicts rent pressure better than growth rates. Do something really important for real estate investors. Dense metros absorb shocks better. They have less elastic housing supply, and they see faster rent rebounds. Sparse areas have cheaper land and easier supply expansion and weaker rent resilience. So that's why rents snap back faster in dense metros, and oversupply hurts more in spread out to regions. Density matters more than raw growth does. Shrinking states can still have tight housing I mean, some states lose population overall, but yet they still have housing shortages in certain metros, and you'll have tight rental markets near job centers, and you've got strong demand In limited sub markets, even if the state is shrinking. And I think you know this is why the slower growing Northeast and Midwest, they've had the highest home price appreciation in the past two years. There's not enough building there. If your population falls 1% but the available housing falls 2% well, you can totally get into a housing shortage situation, and that bids up real estate prices. And when people look at population charts on the state level, a lot of times, they still get misled. When you buy an investment property, you don't buy a state, you buy a specific market within it, so the United States is not full it is lopsided. The US is not overpopulated. It is heavily clustered. It's unevenly dense, and it's really driven by migration. And perhaps a better way to say it is that the US population is really opportunity concentrated housing demand follows jobs, networks, wages and migration flows. It sure does not follow empty land. And really the investor takeaway is, is that when you hear population stats, don't put too much weight on the question, is the population rising or falling? Although that's something you certainly want to know. Some better questions to ask are, where are households forming? Where are adults moving? Where is supply constrained? And where does income support, rent like those are, what four big questions there, because population alone does not create housing demand. It's households under constraint that do so. Our big arching overall question is the world overpopulated or underpopulated? The answer is neither. The world is unevenly populated. It's unevenly aged, and it's unevenly governed. And for real estate investors, the lesson is simple. You don't invest in population counts, you invest in household formation, age structure, migration and supply constraints. Really, that's a big learning summary for you, that's why housing demand can stay strong even when population growth slows. And once you understand that demographic headlines that seem scary aren't as scary, and they start to be more useful. Why I've wanted to do this overpopulated versus underpopulated episode for you for years. I've really thought about it for years. I really hope that you got something useful out of it. Let's be mindful of the context too. When it comes to the classic Adam Smith economics of supply demand, I've only discussed one side today, largely just the demand side and not the supply side so much that would involve a discussion about building and some more things that supply side. Now that I've helped you ask a better question about population and the future of housing demand, you might wonder where you can get better answers. Well, like I mentioned earlier, I provide a lot of that and help you make sense of it, both right here on this show and with my newsletter, geography is something that's more conducive and meaningful to you visually, that's often done with a map, and that's why my letter at greletter.com will help you more if you enjoy learning through maps, just like we've done every year since 2014 I've got 52 great episodes coming to you this year. If you haven't consider subscribing to the show until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.   Speaker 2  43:57   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 you   Keith Weinhold  44:25   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get richeducation.com

With many changes to the new tax code, scammers are expected to flood consumers with phony messages this tax season. Jordan Wright with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the scoop.

Heather Clary of the Better Business Bureau tells Jack and his listenrs to beware of utility companies offering refunds from "over payments to get banking info. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With many changes to the new tax code, scammers are expected to flood consumers with phony messages this tax season. Jordan Wright with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the scoop.

With many changes to the new tax code, scammers are expected to flood consumers with phony messages this tax season. Jordan Wright with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has the scoop.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about a fake email going around about the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) and why you aren’t required to confirm anything. He also shares details about scams associated with tax season and fake phone calls in the Western Springs area.

On this episode of Score Values, Tyler Buterbaugh sat down with Steve Bernas from the Better Business Bureau to discuss on what scams to look out for that could show up in the new year.

Tax season is officially here, and while you’re looking for your refund, scammers are looking for your data. In this episode, host Bryan Barrett sits down with James P

The BBB has identified the top reported scams to look out for in 2026 and discovered the volume of scam reports doubled over last year. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio reports.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about an expected increase in scams concerning fake Bears tickets and fake weight loss products sold online. He also shares details about a utility refund scam and what the top local scam to watch out for in the new year.

The Better Business Bureau is warning Bears fans about ticket scams ahead of Sunday's playoff game, with fake websites, social media ads, and fraudulent sellers targeting eager fans. Steve Bernas, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau in Chicago, joins Rob Hart on the WBBM Noon Business Hour with the details.

Heather Clary of the Better Business Bureau talks to Jack about scams involving home title and credit card debt scams. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Bob Sirott to talk about the selling of fake Bears tickets and how to make sure you’re purchasing valid tickets. He also shares details about post-holiday rewards scams and a Northbrook phone scam.

As the holiday season winds down, scammers are setting their sights on a new target: your holiday spending points. Jay Elliott with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio reports.

A scammer pretending to be associated with a well-known financial institution is inundating Connecticut residents with “too good to be true” loan offers. We spoke with Kristen Johnson of the Better Business Bureau serving Connecticut to get more information about the “J Morgan” underwriting scam.For more information: bbb.org/scamtracker

BBB accreditation can be confusing for local business owners. Some see it as a powerful trust signal, while others question whether it is worth the cost. In this episode, we break down what BBB accreditation actually means, the pros and cons of getting accredited, and when it makes sense for a local business to invest in it.If you want a clear, practical perspective to help you decide whether BBB accreditation fits your business and your customers, this episode will help you make that call with confidence.This episode is for educational purposes only and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Better Business Bureau.About Adam Duran, Digital Marketing Expert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Local SEO in 10⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is helmed by Local SEO expert Adam Duran, director of Magnified Media. With offices in San Francisco, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Los Angeles⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & Walnut Creek, California, Magnified Media is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠digital marketing agency⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ focused on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠local SEO for businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠marketing strategy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠national SEO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠website design⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠and qualified customer lead generation for companies of all sizes.Magnified Media helps companies take control of their marketing by:• getting their website seen at the top of Google rankings,• getting them more online reviews, and• creating media content that immediately engages with their audience.Adam enjoys volunteering with several community-based non-profits, hiking and BJJ.About Jamie Duran, host of Local SEO in 10Local business owner Jamie Duran is the owner of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Solar Harmonics⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Northern California⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠'s top-rated solar company, which invites its customers to “Own Their Energy” by purchasing a solar panel system for their home, business, or farm.  You can check out the website for the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ top solar energy equipment installer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Solar Harmonics, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Jamie also is the creator and panel expert of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Straight-Talk Solar Cast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, the world's first podcast focused on answering the questions faced by anyone considering going solar.Thanks for joining us this week! Want to subscribe to Local SEO in 10? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Have a question about Local SEO? Chances are we've covered it! Go to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast website and check out our search feature⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Heather Clary of the Better Business Bureau talks to Emily in for Jack, warning listeners about scams that perpetrate like employers hiring alleged work from home candidates and then leaving them high and dry without a paycheck, conceivably distributing stolen goods and damaging their resumes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New year, new deals—but watch out! Scammers love this season as much as you do. Jordan Wright with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has tips.

New year, new deals—but watch out! Scammers love this season as much as you do. Jordan Wright with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has tips.

President and CEO of the Better Business Bureau Steve Bernas joins Wendy Snyder (in for Bob Sirott) to share details about fake job texts and how you can avoid getting scammed from holiday gift exchanges and returns. He also talks about whether or not you should pick up spam calls and how you can research a business using […]

As you set your New Year's resolutions, make protecting yourself from scams your top priority. Kayla Palmore with the Better Business Bureau's Tip-Off to the Rip-Off® on WBBM Newsradio has more.

Dr. Marie Feagins announced the launch of her campaign to be county mayor. She joins us live on KWAM this morning. Also, Randy Hutchison from the Better Business Bureau drops by. Our call-in line is 901-260-5926.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.