Real estate brokerage
POPULARITY
Categories
Books to improve your finances. The first one is about what it means to be wealthy. Daniel Crosby, psychologist and behavioral finance expert, will be here to talk about his book The Soul of Wealth. Then, a new financial literacy book for kids. Author Cinders McLeod takes us through the latest book in the MONEYBUNNY series called How Do YOU Spend? And, twenty lessons from retirement thought leaders. Christine Benz tells us about her book How to Retire. Plus, we speak with Daryl Fairweather, Chief Economist at Redfin, about her new book called Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work. To find out more about the guests check out: Daniel Crosby: X | LinkedIn Daryl Fairweather:Linktree Cinders McLeod:Instagram | X Moneybunny:Instagram | X | Facebook Christine Benz:morningstar.com | X | LinkedIn Bruce Sellery is a personal finance expert and best-selling author. As the founder of Moolala and the CEO of Credit Canada, Bruce is on a mission to help you get a better handle on your money so you can live the life you want. High energy & low B.S., this is Moolala: Money Made Simple. Find Bruce Sellery at Moolala.ca | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
It makes sense that economic principles could be a useful guide in deciding what career to pursue, but what if they're also the key to deciding whether to ask for a promotion, who to marry, or what house to buy? Daryl Fairweather is the chief economist at Redfin and the author of the book, Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work. Through the lens of behavioral economics and game theory, the book provides readers with practical strategies for navigating some of life's biggest decisions. Daryl and Greg discuss how economic principles can be applied to real-life decisions, from careers to family planning, and insights into the housing market's complexities including bidding wars, changes to how buyers' agents are paid, and where the market might be headed. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Can exposure to economics change the way people interact?04:31 Economics provides a really useful framework for making decisions. We have utility theory, right? So you just go with the decision that has the higher expected utility. And I do not think many people think about decisions that way. They get caught up in things like sunk cost fallacies or status quo bias. So having that understanding of both economics and the behavioral part—incorporating the psychology into it—I think allows me, and I think a lot of other, hopefully more people who read the book, to feel more confident in the decisions. I think a lot of people know what the right decision is, but they do not really have the confidence to make it because they are not really thinking through it in terms of what will maximize my utility.Don't hate the player, hate the game52:06 Just because the economy is unfair, and it is unfair for a whole host of reasons—it is not all, like, nefarious reasons. Sometimes games have these inherent flaws in them…[52:28] But if you see that you can navigate around it, you do not have to hate yourself for trying to make it in this economy. You can just see the economy for what it is, and its flaws, and still try to excel at it.The housing market needs big interventions29:17: I think we definitely need some, some big interventions in the housing market. We've seen a lot of policy changes in California, which if California alone fixed its housing problems, it would probably fix housing problems for the entire country…[29:40] But California's problems I think are deeper than just zoning. They have Prop 13, which gives a much lower property tax rate to existing homeowners…[29:59] So, I think there's a lot that we could do to make housing better than what it is right now because it is pretty dire.How PhDs undervalue themselves18:41 I think where a lot of PhDs make a mistake is they do not really understand how valuable they are, and they get stuck in the first job that they went to straight out of grad school, not realizing how many other opportunities there are where they could earn just as much money, or maybe even more money, and have even broader opportunities. But they just kind of, like, stay put because they do not see that broader world around them. They are very good at taking PhD students and turning them into professionals, but then they get the benefit that most of those people hang on for a very long time and do not really go and look at what their other opportunities are, because I think if they did, they would see that they would be very valued outside of just consulting.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Steven LevittJohn ListThe Art of WarHal VarianGary BeckerThe Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years by Emily OsterGuest Profile:Author Profile on RedfinProfessional Profiles on LinkedIn, XGuest Work:Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work
A leading New York real estate CEO, Bess Friedman, tackles the city's complex market, including the controversial "Fair Act" and the shifting landscape of private listings. Discover how legislative decisions, affordability concerns, and changing consumer behavior are reshaping one of the world's most unique property markets. Get an inside perspective on industry challenges and the path forward. Links mentioned in the show: Link to Pentagram https://www.pentagram.com/ Link to episode with Anthony Lamachia https://youtu.be/q0lAXBWN4I4 Connect with Bess on LinkedIn. Learn more about Brown Harris Stevens on - Instagram - Facebook - X - TikTok - YouTube - LinkedIn - Spotify - BHS Blog and online at bhsusa.com. You asked for it. We delivered. Check out our new merch! https://merch.realestateinsidersunfiltered.com/ Follow Real Estate Insiders Unfiltered Podcast on Instagram - YouTube - Facebook - TikTok. Visit us online at realestateinsidersunfiltered.com. Link to Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/RealEstateInsidersUnfiltered Link to Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/realestateinsiderspod/ Link to YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@RealEstateInsidersUnfiltered Link to TikTok Page: https://www.tiktok.com/@realestateinsiderspod Link to website: https://realestateinsidersunfiltered.com This podcast is produced by Two Brothers Creative. https://twobrotherscreative.com/contact/
Sign up for the book club! https://bit.ly/RASCall Are Buyers Back?! & eXp Fires Back at Compass | Mortgage Rates Drop, Inventory Slips, & Listing Drama Explodes
Register here for the live online event to learn about ‘Unlocking BRRRR Deals in Little Rock on Thursday, July 17th at 8PM Eastern. Keith discusses the competitive nature of short-term rentals (STRs) and the need for hosts to offer luxury amenities to attract guests. Long time investing pro, Alex, joins us to cover the BRRRR strategy in Little Rock, Arkansas, an investor-advantaged market, emphasizing its low property taxes and stable cash flow. They explain the BRRRR process, including: buying, renovating, renting, refinancing, and repeating. The strategy allows investors to scale their portfolios with minimal initial capital, offering a 0% management fee in year one and 4% in year two. Resources: Register here for the live online event to learn about ‘Unlocking BRRRR Deals in Little Rock on Thursday, July 17th at 8PM Eastern. Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/561 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, anymore when you own short term rentals like Airbnbs and vrbos, you are in an all out arms race competing to provide amenities like never before. Then what happens when you take the popular burr real estate strategy and overlay it with one of the most investor advantaged markets in all of America. It's a lucrative opportunity. You'll see how and why today on get rich education. Keith Weinhold 0:32 Mid south home buyers, I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider, their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows, an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, and now over 5000 houses renovated their zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis. Get to know mid south enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid southhomebuyers.com Speaker 1 1:58 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 2:14 Welcome to GRE from North Conway, New Hampshire to North port, Florida and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is get rich education, happy July, the second half of the year. And my favorite month of the year is your Airbnb fancy enough, because anymore STRS short term rentals have gotten so competitive that hosts treat their properties like white lotus level hotels. Now, STRS were never passive, but they become even less so it is active income. Once upon a time, Airbnb hosts could just sort of drop a few colorful throw pillows on their fold out couch and make a killing. But no more those days are so far gone. The STR game has changed drastically. I mean, you used to be able to list a basic home with generic furniture that you got at Costco, minimal amenities, no Wi Fi, and still get it booked, but today, it will sit empty unless you offer more than just a place to sleep. You have to build an experience for Airbnb guests. Now, increasingly, hosts are doing things like adding outdoor kitchens, arcade machines, putting greens, even basketball. And now, though these upgrades do cost a lot up front, they can pay off. These amenity types can double your nightly rate, but they come with more responsibility and more to maintain. I mean, more guests are expecting a flawless experience. The trend is that Airbnbs are becoming full scale hospitality operations, and if you don't treat it like one, you're going to fall behind. So simply having a nice house that just no longer cuts it, running a short term rental today is nothing like it was even two or three years ago. You used to be able to stand out with a decent bed and colorful throw prolos, but now guests are basically comparing your place to boutique hotels. Hosts are deeply investing in design, forward furniture, layered lighting and featuring spaces that some market as what they call moments like cozy reading corners in these luxurious bathroom setups, adding things like welcome guides and even complete brand identities with a proper. Name and even a logo and a story to give the place some personality, even writing up a history for your property, even if it's not that historic. Now, these sorts of tactics, they actually do, seem to work. Guests will give you more bookings, better reviews, and guests even share the space on social media like it's somewhat of a lifestyle destination now sometimes STR hosts, they team with these other platforms to add welcome champagne in ice buckets on site, sommeliers, private chefs, daily, housekeeping on demand. 24/7 textable concierges, heated plunge pools and other amenities through you partnering with some of these platforms and these upgrades don't come cheap. The publication called the playbook, they featured an STR in Sag Harbor, New York, where the property owner invested $85,000 into overhauling the landscaping and adding a James Turrell Inspired LED light installation. But overall, these improvements boost rental revenue by an average of 40% over what the property was collecting previously. All right, so this is a case study now, though, this STR trend of offering deep hospitality and luxury amenities has turned into more of a job and less about passive income. You know, really, this is free market capitalism, because this is competition to see who can provide the best service at the lowest price, but that's what it is. So this is making real estate less of a good and more of a service. Short term rentals soaring supply, day rate compression and AI driven pricing tools. That means that the just this all nice house with good photos thing that no longer cuts it. It is an amenities arms race now, and of course, this is a national trend. It doesn't mean that it's happening absolutely everywhere. In some places, hosts are able to charm guests simply with something like a freshly baked loaf of banana bread, but the consensus is whether they spend a little or a lot, Airbnb hosts unanimously say that they've got to work harder in order to keep guests happy. It's become more of a business and less of a side hustle than it used to be. You've got more hosts leaning into higher upfront investments because they know guests will pay for a sort of turnkey, Instagrammable experience. And this really is a classic early adopter issue, just like a lot of things, Airbnb launched in 2007 by the way, so this sort of first wave of Airbnb hosts back around 2012 to 2015 they were riding a blue ocean back then. There was virtually no competition. There weren't any standards, and there were plenty of bookings, and that made a lot of hosts pretty fat and happy. But that's not where we are now, really. The bottom line is that in many markets, short term rentals have transitioned from partial passivity to all out hospitality. That's the Airbnb arms race. The average Airbnb nightly rate for North America. Do you care to venture a guess at the average nightly rate? It is approximately $216 per night, and that right there is up 26% from 2020 so it is not up as much as house prices over that five year period from 2020 really, the Airbnb rate is up about as much as the long term rental rate. Keith Weinhold 8:58 While we're talking numbers a quarter recently ended. Let's hit on our asset class rundown. What's happened to home prices in the past year? Well, when you aggregate all these sources, Zillow, Freddie, Mac case, Shiller, FHFA, in totality, home prices are up 2% single family rents are up 3% apartment rates are down 1% due to their oversupply. The 30 year mortgage rate was 6.9% a year ago, and it's 6.8 now. CPI inflation is 2.4% expressed in year to date terms. Now the SP5 100 is up 5% in the first half of this year, ending near 6200 the dollar is down. That means that it takes more of them to buy gold, which is over $3,300 an ounce, gold is up 27% just from the start of this year, and the oil price is still depressed in the 60s. Per dollar for a barrel, Bitcoin still strong, ending the quarter at 106kthat's your asset class rundown, which we do about quarterly. Keith Weinhold 9:57 Hey, I really enjoyed meetingside. Of you on this year's terrific real estate guys Investor Summit at sea was concluded about a week ago. It was two days on land in Miami, followed by a week of conferences and fun aboard a Caribbean cruise ship. I really got to meet you and get to know you, because we had nine days together, and as one of the faculty members, I hosted a table at dinner every night, and each night the attendees rotated around to my table, so I got to meet a lot of you and really get to know you, and you got to know me. Yeah, it was as interesting for me to meet you in person, perhaps, as it was for you to meet me, because I like to hear what you're doing in real estate, investing, in everything else. I gave a main stage presentation that was almost an hour of all me, all GRE and also served on five different panel discussions. Oh, it's such a unique event. Get this, I was kind of dressed up to give my main stage presentation, which so many of you, by the way, told me afterwards, that that was your favorite presentation of them all, all week long, because each faculty member made a main stage presentation. But what I want to tell you is, just a few hours after I presented, on the cruise ship, I was shirtless in the water throwing a football around at the beach in St Thomas Virgin Islands. What an event. Fantastic to meet a number of you in person. So far today, I hope what I've shared with you has been informative. Next. It's something informative and really actionable that you can make lucrative that's next. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. Keith Weinhold 11:45 The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Caeli Ridge personally, while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. Russell Gray 12:16 You know what's crazy your bank is getting rich off of you, the average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back, no weird lock ups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866. Russell Gray 13:30 Hi. This is Russell Gray, co host of real estate guys radio show, and you're listening to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. You Keith, Keith Weinhold 13:38 welcome back to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're talking to a guest not only about an investor advantaged market, but when you overlay a certain strategy with it, this can be highly lucrative for investor returns, and we're with a long time investing pro Alex, welcome onto the show. Alex Craig 14:04 Hi Keith, thank you. Keith Weinhold 14:05 Well talking about top US cashflowing market, let's get right to it. Tell us about yours. Alex Craig 14:11 Little Rock, Arkansas. It's a market that we've been in since 2012. I personally invest there. I've got about 75 doors of multi family, single family. And the reason why it works is just cash flow. Over the years, we've had investors from around the country that have owned portfolios where maybe they're somewhere in Phoenix or Dallas, where they're kind of speculating. This is not a speculation market, and that's why it works for myself. It's consistent. It's very linear, and linear is a word that we use a lot to describe. And if you're going to be a cash flow investor, and that's why I'm in it, it's you want a linear market. You don't want ups or downs, and then you want to make sure it's a growing market too. And Little Rock checks all the boxes of what you would want in a stable cash flow environment market. Keith Weinhold 14:57 And I think a lot of our investor listeners are. Already pretty keen on that. You get a high ratio of rent income to purchase price. You have laws that heavily favor landlords over tenants. But Alex, in today's environment, people are more conscious about rising operating expenses and higher mortgage expenses, and that's really one advantage that Arkansas can give right now, is with those low property taxes Alex Craig 15:20 Keith,it's so interesting you mentioned that because I did have a conversation with a client of ours that had a property in another market that he had mentioned how his property taxes had gone up and gone up substantially, which that's to expect. I mean, after COVID, there was a lot of markets saw a huge boost, especially with markets that saw hedge funds come in. Hedge Funds, I believe, ruined a lot of markets, raised the prices. And another reason I like Little Rock, it flies under the radar. You think is Little Rock is a small market, but it's really not. It's, I mean, the population of the city is 250,000 but the metro area, which is a 50 mile radius around Little Rock, is much bigger. And the entire, not only the entire market, metro area, feeds off little rock, really, the entire state does too. But that being said, because it's floating under the radar, the property tax have remained low. They've taken a little bit of bump over the years, because the values steadily go up, but they started low anyway. So with operating costs of insurance, insurance has gone up for a lot of for my own properties in other markets, it's going up, and it's going up in Little Rock too. I mean, it's just the name of insurance, but property taxes have remained low. They've always been low, and that's really a big help as to why this market works for us. Keith Weinhold 16:30 Talking about flying under the radar, you're talking about, therefore evading a lot of that hedge fund money. Tell us more about the market and some of those anchors and drivers. Alex Craig 16:40 It's a blue collar town. You've got logistics. Is a market, or is a segment of the industry that has really come on strong over the last few years, Amazon has really put a footprint in the market. Healthcare is a huge, huge market, like I mentioned earlier, not only does the region feed off the direct to the entire state, it's the hub of healthcare for the entire state of Arkansas, of course, it's government. Government provides a lot of jobs. The good thing about government jobs is they're maybe not on a national level anymore, but on a local, state level, they're very it's hard to get let go from a government job, unless now, not on a federal level, but it's very steady, so a lot of steady blue collar jobs, and that's what you want for a strong resident base, especially in the type of properties and 1000 to $1,200 price range, you want those blue collar study growing jobs. Keith Weinhold 17:31 Yes, you do have those there. It's funny. I'm smiling a bit because I used to be a state government employee, and there's just no way that they ever would have fired me. I was so protective I had to quit in order for them to have to replace me at that job. I'm wondering about the new supply that's come on, Alex, because a number of markets have added supply. I know, for example, that Redfin reports that little rock median home price appreciation is up 7.3% year over year, and with the dynamics going on in the market recently, that typically tells us that there hasn't been that much new supply added. Is that what's going on there? Alex Craig 18:11 No, there hasn't been a lot of new supply. I just think with little rock and every other market, the mortgage rates have gone up. Home ownership is down during COVID. It was really hard to get an investment property. For what we did, sending out our list every week. It was basically send out our properties, people hitting send and not even knowing what they were reserving. Rates were just low, right? Everybody's jumping in. It was hard to get inventory. So now what we have is, you know, higher rates that scares some people off. It pushes some people out on the market, but it also creates opportunity. I feel like this is the easiest time I've been investing in real estate since 2007 that was the foreclosure crisis, Great Recession, and it was a lot of foreclosures on the market, and that's how I built a big chunk of my portfolio. But now it's just a matter of there's not as many people in it. So for us, there's just more acquisitions for us to go out and get. There's still distressed homes on the market where individuals don't want to hire a realtor, they just want all cash offers. They're ready to get rid of them, and that's where we step in. And without as much competition like I said, we kind of fly under the radar. I feel it creates more just supply inventory for us and for me as an investor, but also for our clients too Keith Weinhold 19:23 with that in mind, and again, a lot of our audience is already on board, knowing that little rock in Arkansas is a good cash flow market with stable, long term fundamentals, but in order to make it more profitable, you've overlaid it with a certain strategy there in Little Rock. Tell us about that. Alex Craig 19:45 So the BRRRR strategy, yes, it's able to work now because there's not as many buyers in the market. So basically, the way the burrs strategy works is we acquire a property. I'm just going to use very round, simple numbers for simple math makes it easier on me Keith Weinhold 19:58 and we're talking the BRRRR. Strategy that's buy, renovate, rent, refinance, and repeat. Those are the five investor steps. Alex Craig 20:07 correct. And so that's what we do, is we buy. Let's just say the B. Let's take the B, for example, we buy a home, and we buy it for 60,000 where I'm just talking like if I own the home, and then I put $20,000 into the deal. So now I'm all into it for 80,000 and you have to remember, there's some in between, cost of closing costs. I'm just talking just very general strategy. You buy it for 60, you put 20 into it, and all of a sudden you're in it for 80, and the value comes back at 100 so you're in it for 80% of the after repair value. Most Fannie Mae lenders will do 75% so if you purchase a house outright, you put 20% down, but if you are doing a refinance, you're able they'll do it at 75% so instead of buying a home and putting it down payment upfront, you're using equity in the deal. And that's what the burst strategy is, buy renovate. So we buy it, we renovate it, we refinance it, we rent it out, and then you repeat it. So it allows for investors to scale their portfolios quicker and stretch their money a little bit further. So if you've got, I've got $50,000 and I want to invest in real estate, if you purchase a home, you're bound by the down payment. Once you put that down payment, it's, I wouldn't call it sunk cost, but that money's gone for reinvesting. The burr model allows you to stretch that money a little bit further. Now, like I said, I gave pretty basic numbers to the deal, but that's what you're going for. Some equity in the deal, and that's what we're able to provide for ourselves and for our clients. Keith Weinhold 21:38 So let's review that numbers on a little rock burp, making a $60,000 purchase with a pre renovated property. Then the investor puts another 20k into it for the renovation. So now they're all in for 80k and they get a 100k appraisal on that property, and then they can borrow, say, 75% of that there, that is the refi portion, the fourth letter of the BRRRR acronym. So therefore they've got 80k into it, and they got 75k back, meaning they would only have 5k into it, but maybe another 5k for closing costs, and now they only have 10k in to a 100k property. That's the appeal. That's what we're talking about here with the BRRRR Alex Craig 22:22 strategy. I mean, you're exactly right. And as I mentioned, I use some really basic numbers, because when you're using, you know, 100,060 and 20 makes them very basic. It's pretty hard to find out a deal worth 100,000 these days, even when we started in the industry, 100,000 was a pretty cheap after pair value. Probably the mean value of the homes that we're dealing in is probably about 140 to 140 to 160 but same principle, based on those same logic that what we just talked about, I wouldn't say, you know, five or 10k out of pocket, but if you're talking about purchasing a deal with 25% down versus doing a bur you're probably going to be in it at 15% Out of pocket costs 10 to 15% as opposed to putting a down payment of 25% but the big thing is, you're getting money back, and you're not putting as much so just it's great for scale. I don't know if you'll talk about DSCR lending very much on your show, but that's something that a lot of our clients, and that does 80% so we have a lot of clients going that route now too. Keith Weinhold 23:21 Okay, so you could do 80% with debt service coverage ratio loans, but to drop back in our example, to help be clear, the investor has 80k of their own skin in the game into the property, 60k for the purchase, 20k for the renovation, even though they only have 80k in it appraises for 100k that ARV, that after repair value. Why is the after repair value 100k when you only have 80k into it? Why is it more? Alex Craig 23:49 that's based off comparable sales? So when you're in it at 80, and you're going to refinance it through a lender, they're going to send an appraiser out, and appraiser is going to pull comparable sales within that neighborhood. So just because you're in an 80 the appraiser is going to go pull three comps, very similar to that home. So if we're selling a three bedroom one bath, they're going to pull three comps at a three bedroom one bath, relatively the same size look, if it's got a carport, they're going to try to find three houses with the carport. So in theory, that's what they're doing. They're pulling comparable sales and developing new value based on recent sales. Keith Weinhold 24:23 So it's that you have this knowledge to buy in neighborhoods and buy in certain sub markets, where, when you know that capital is added and renovations are made and a rehab period that they do tend to appraise for that value based on the comparables that are already there. Alex Craig 24:40 Yeah. I mean, if we were to take the same house at 60,000 and didn't do any work, he would then say, well, you've got some comparables here versus 100 but you could never sell this home for 100 these are the things you have to do, and that's what we do during the first R the renovate of the acronym is to renovate the home to the condition that the. Appraisers feel that are comparable for the neighborhood, and that's a real important part, is comparable to the neighborhood. We could go in and put in a Jacuzzi tub and grain of countertops. We actually, we do put a lot of grain in, because we get it so cheap. But you could go in and fix it up to the nines, but it's not going to appraise for any more than the others, because the appraiser would say, we over improved it. So we improve it to what we know, what the kind of the standard for the neighborhood? Because you could over improve these things for sure and not get that return on that investment. Keith Weinhold 25:28 That is a great answer. There is a specific improvement target that you know that needs to be hit. Tell us more about this burr process, because to an out of area investor, it can sound pretty intimidating if they had to manage contractors remotely themselves, Alex Craig 25:43 there definitely is a need to have a team on the ground that you trust, that you feel comfortable with, and that's what we've done. I've been doing it in multiple markets for myself since 2007 and we built into a business model in 2010 like I said, expanded Little Rock in 2012 and we've been doing this for 15 years now for other investors. So we've got that name and that reputation of taking care of our investors, that's the important part. And we do see a lot of investors get burned, because you can find a realtor to go to help you find deals, but usually the realtor relationship is thesis to end. It's okay, I found you a deal, but then there's so many other things afterwards, and the renovations, where I see so many people get burned, and you know, we manage approximately 1200 homes between two markets, and that's where I see when property owners come to us, they've been burned the most. It's like they've paid somebody $50,000 they didn't finish the job, they didn't do what they say they're going to do. So the renovation that we're the team on the ground, we've got a in House Project Manager, we've got a network of subcontractors. We tend to act as the contractor, subbing things out. We've got in house property management. We've got all the tools, but it's really between both. In the markets in which I operate. I've got about 30 employees within property management, renovations, acquisitions, so the team on the ground is and then the back in the property management part is the long, ongoing accountability. So if something doesn't work out, that's the way we said it. If we say it's going to rent for 1200 and we rent it out for 900 Well, we really got a big egg on our face. You do a few of those, and that's how you don't stay in business anymore. And there's, and I like to say, about every five years the market corrects itself into getting the wrong players out of the business. COVID was super easy, easy to find deals, easy to sell deals. But once the market changed and it became a little more competitive and rates rose, that's the people that have been around for the long time, been in it for the long haul, that stick around. They've got the established business model and their reputation. So every five years, a good correction in the market eliminates those bad players. Keith Weinhold 27:47 So you have this vetted, proven in play system that investors can get into besides just identifying the property, it comes with that system, those contractors or that investor just has one point of contact with you there for updates on the renovation. Alex Craig 28:03 Yeah. I mean, I feel like we know these neighborhoods. I like I feel we know these neighborhoods like the back of our hand. We've been investing in them for a decade plus, and we know the areas you want to be in, the areas you don't want to be in. And we have a lot of investors will call us either they already own the property or they're a current client, and they'll say, Hey, I could get this deal for 30,000 and it's worth 100 and I'm like, Well, that sounds too good to be true, especially if it's on the open market. If it was that good of a deal, it's already gone. We just know the market, where to be. We know what to pay. We could, pretty much just through our experience, identify a house we know probably within about five to 10% before we even dive into comparable sales of what it's worth. We could walk through a house within probably about three to five minutes and peg the renovation costs probably within about 10% now we still order an inspection, and that's where we uncover the things that we can't see, that maybe there's a bunch of rotted out joist or a foundation problem that we didn't see. So, but there's things aside we could walk through and we pretty much know, okay, it needs a roof that's 7000 it needs an air conditioner that's six flooring, two. So that's the expertise that we bring and like. So then the management part of it, on the back end, that kind of ties it all together with accountability. Keith Weinhold 29:22 And I know that your typical project renovation cost tends to be about 25k just for simplicity, we use 20k in that example, and your completion times are shorter than others that have inexperienced crews. So tell us about that typical renovation time. Alex. Alex Craig 29:39 every day we're accomplishing 500 so 25,000 divided by 500 comes to 50 days, 50 days. So we'll knock that out in about 50 days. And we just have a large network of subcontractors that we've been working with for years. If you weren't in the business, I think that'd be really hard to accomplish, and there's just a lot that. Goes into it. I mean, the renovating the homes, it's the once, it's the worst, it's the hardest thing that we do. For sure, it's definitely the most scheduling, but it's where, if you don't know what you're doing, a great deal turns into, how do I get out of this? Keith Weinhold 30:15 Right, absolutely. Now, in our example, we used where an investor puts 60k into it for the purchase to start with, because I see the burst strategy is a good strategy. If someone doesn't have a lot of capital, like they would for maybe a new build property, can one even finance that initial purchase amount? Alex Craig 30:35 Yeah, so private lending. So that's the part that makes if you've only got 50 grand to facilitate this entire process, and you want to try to repeat it as many times as you can. 50,000 would not be enough just to pay cash. So yes, we have private lending. We set that up. Sometimes we lend it ourselves. Sometimes we outsource it to some of our strategic partners, but we'll lend the money to buy and renovate the home. A typical what that loan would look like it's about 3.3 points of loan origination. So if you've got an $80,000 loan, that's $2,400 most lenders do require for you to bring that up front, and now you're in it for an $80,000 loan at 12% which, five years ago, that sounded crazy to borrow at 12% but with for private lending, that's not bad at all, especially you want to get in and out of it quickly. So if we're renovating the home, and you know, 50 days, if you're already pre approved with your lender, and they have all your documents by the time we finish renovating the home, the appraisals lined up, and you could be in and out of these private loans in about 90 days. That love that depends on the lending side, that you're giving the lender what they need. But ideally you want to be in these things about 90 to 120 days. So $80,000 loan at 12% that $800 a month. So if you're in it for 90 days, 800 times 320, 700 plus the loan origination fee. But that's how you do it. That's the you're just borrowing money to finance the acquisition, the rehab and the refinance Keith Weinhold 32:03 that is an option for you if you don't have the cash here to come in with these burr strategy properties. Alex, tell us more about it. Really, what I would like to know is, when an investor gets their appraisal, their after repair value, how many want to sell it for a profit, and how many want to hold it with a tenant for long term income Alex Craig 32:26 so far, zero. Want to sell it for a profit. If you're all in it for add and then you're selling for 100 once you sell it, there are other fees involved. You got to hire a realtor. Right now is a great time to hold it's a slow real estate market. I don't think Little Rock from an aspect, is where home ownership is down. I think that's a nationwide thing. So I think if you're going into this, you certainly want to look at it from perspective. This is a buy and hold. I don't think this is the best market to get into to buy something. Flip it with a in the example, we use a $20,000 margin with buyer concessions, realtor commissions. That's a lot of work involved. And let's just say it did work out. You sold it for 100 but you had to pay 2% closing in an agent fee, and you got some holding cost. Let's just say you netted 8000 that might be good for a six month return, but I feel like there's a lot of risk. I feel like our job as what we do for our clients, is to minimize risk. So someone came and said, Hey, I want to flip it. I would say, Well, I don't think it's the best market for it right now. I think you want to get into this buy and hold. Keith Weinhold 33:29 Yes, Alex has been doing this for a long time, and he's a specific expert right there in that local market. Buy and hold is a strategy that most likely makes sense. And he also strongly recommends pay cash if possible, instead of using that 12% short term private lending option, like he mentioned before, because that can cut out about four to 5k worth of transactional cost. And then if you do buy and hold what Alex and his company offer there in Little Rock is essentially a cash flow boost, 0% management fee in year one and only 4% in year two. So that gives you some extra cash flow runway as well. And Alex, before I ask you if you have any last thoughts, I want to announce to you the audience, that we have a live event virtually next week, on July 17, at 8pm eastern for Little Rock BRRRRproperties that Alex is CO hosting with our investment coach, Naresh, where you can find these bird deals in this cash flowing market. In Little Rock you'll see actual bird deals recently completed with full breakdowns of their purchase prices, sort of these case studies, where you can see some real numbers and what the rehab budgets are and what the actual timelines were, and what the refi outcomes were like, and explore BRRRR ready properties that are currently available to own, if you so choose, on this upcoming live event that you can attend from the comfort of your own home. Learn the full process, from acquisition to renovation to property management to the financing of them, and again, everything is all handled by local experts, so that you don't have to live with the nightmare of remotely managing contractors, which I couldn't imagine doing. So whether you're a first time investor or you're scaling your portfolio, this is your chance to get boots on the ground, insight and a proven road map to burr success and really one of the most accessible markets in the country. Again, Alex here is CO hosting the event along with GRE investment coach, Naresh Vissa. It is a free, live virtual event again next week, Thursday, July 17, at 8pm Eastern. Sign up is open now at gre webinars.com it ought to be great. Alex, teaming with local experts like you has been of real benefit to our audience. Do you have any last thoughts about either Little Rock or burrs or the events that you're going to co host with our audience next week? Alex Craig 35:57 So here's my last thought, as you were, you know, kind of concluding and I was reviewing what we had talked about. And one of the questions we get sometimes it's a fair question. It's like, well, if this is such a great deal, why don't you keep all the deals? So we hear that from time to time, and the simple answer is, we do. We do keep a lot of deals, and we're buying more real estate now, like I said, I feel like it's the easiest time to get into real estate. So we do, we do keep a lot. We're building a very large portfolio right now, but the house flipping to investors is just another business model that we have. And Property Management too. And we love property management, and we love building investor relationships. We've had a lot of investors we've had been with us since day one that we've developed really tight relationships with. So yes, we do keep a lot of the properties, and we sell properties too, and we and helps us build our management company, which you don't hear too many people say this, but we actually love property management. That's a hard thing to love, but we actually like it. Keith Weinhold 36:54 That is more weird than Tom wheelwright loving taxes, perhaps, but Right. But I want to deal with somebody that really loves what they're doing, especially when they're protecting our asset and probably more importantly, when it comes to property management, protecting our time. So that's right, Alex, well, our viewers and listeners are really looking forward to it next week, again, that live event Thursday, July 17, at 8pm Eastern is something that you can sign up for now at grewebinars.com. Alex, we're looking forward to it next week. Alex Craig 37:27 Bye, Keith, thank you. Keith Weinhold 37:34 Oh yeah. Terrific overview on why the burr strategy can be so profitable. And our event next week. Now, when you rent your primary residence, which you would typically do in a high cost area, and then you own rental property elsewhere, typically a low cost area, do you know what that's called? Yeah, there is a name for that. Last week we spoke to two listener guests in California that are doing just that. That is called rentvesting. And yes, Little Rock is surely a popular low cost market for rentvesting. I have been on the ground myself in Little Rock with Alex's associate to do an on the ground tour of properties. There you want to tap into a system where you've got the guiding hand of both experience and belief. That's what you're doing here. As like he said, Alex personally owns 75 doors there. That is belief, and he's been doing this for out of area investors for 15 years. That's the experience part real proof of concept at next week's event, you'll be introduced to this same system where you can lean on their team for acquisition, renovation and management. Little Rock has an MSA population of about 770,000 but I think more importantly today, savvy investors are conscientious of keeping their expenses down, and for good reason, since they've been up all over the place. Now, the purchase price is 140 to 160k for these BRRRR optimized single family rentals. Remember that we used 100k just for ease of an example there, usually when you buy income property, you're really in at close to 25% of the purchase price when you add up the down payment and closing costs, but this way, you're in for just about half of that at 10 to 15% another low expense is that property tax, statewide, Arkansas Property Tax is just 610 of 1% so that's half the national average. And then your management expense is definitely going to be low for the first two years, because it is 0% in year one and 4% in year two. And these are properties that you can actually be pretty proud of. You'll learn more about this. Scope of work with a renovation on the webinar, often granite countertops in the kitchen is a live, remote event. So this means that you can have any of your questions answered in real time. Should you have them? As you can imagine, demand is high for these properties, and this is a chance to get connected directly with the team that makes it happen. We might never get Alex on an event like this again, and is co hosted with our GRE investment coach, Naresh. It's next week. It's free, Thursday, July 17, at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. Sign up now, or your future self might not be able to forgive yourself. You can do that now at grewebinars.com Until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 40:56 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 41:19 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now just text. GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, gre to 66866 Keith Weinhold 42:35 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.
Rocket Mortgage, Redfin, and Mr Cooper Have This In Common... ...They are all on the same team now Rocket Mortgage has now completed these acquisition for Redfin and Mr Cooper is up next and they have beaten Zillow and others to punch in my opinion for many years it has been anticipated that zillow would be the 1st to do what what Rocket has now accomplished and they now have a seamless end to end platform where consumers can get a loan prequalifcation done online search homes online and hire a real estate agent all at the same time and they are now offering incentives to borrowers that will be very attractive with offerings that are tethered to using a Refin Agent to purchase a home the hidden gem is the Mr Cooper loan servicing platform as it will give Rocket a peek at the current loan portfolio for opportunities to get more refinance business which bolsters each company this will be a bigger deal than it appears on the surface to the industry its going to put a lot of pressure on Zillow to put out a competing product there have been whispers that companies such as Amazon and Google were also looking at this model the past few years Rocket definitely has a huge head start on the others and with an aggressive plan in place they may quickly increase the gap between their platform and any others contemplating an entry into this space the longer that others delay their own launch the less likely that it will be for them them to compete let alone catch up and pass up Rocket Things just got very interesting Listen in and hear what this will mean to the consumer
The Industry Relations Podcast is now available on your favorite podcast player! Overview In this episode of Industry Relations, Rob and Greg unpack the lawsuit Compass filed against Zillow over its ZLAS (Zillow Listing Agreement Standard) policy. They debate the strength of Compass's legal claims, the language cited in the complaint, and what the alleged behind-the-scenes meetings reveal about Zillow's influence in the real estate industry. Rob argues that Zillow is exercising monopoly power—even if it's not illegal—while Greg pushes back on whether that power is absolute or harmful. Key Takeaways Compass Lawsuit Against Zillow – Compass has sued Zillow over ZLAS, and Rob and Greg break down what the complaint says, especially around alleged comments from Zillow executives. Redfin's Role in the Lawsuit – The lawsuit describes a phone call between Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman and Compass's Robert Reffkin, which raises questions about Redfin's alignment or neutrality. Allegations from the Zillow Meeting – The complaint claims Zillow executives said they would “not allow” Compass to have listings that aren't on Zillow. Rob questions how MLSs will interpret that language. Zillow's Relationship to MLSs – Rob and Greg debate whether Zillow is stepping into a policy-making role that could create long-term tension with MLSs. Monopoly vs. Illegal Monopoly – Rob insists Zillow is a monopoly in terms of influence, while Greg questions whether that matters if they haven't broken any laws. Private Listing Networks as Leverage – Rob suggests that large brokerages should consider creating private listing networks to provoke offers or concessions from Zillow. MLS and NAR Dynamics – The conversation revisits the lack of MLS policy leadership from NAR and whether groups like CMLS can step up in its place. Consumer Perception of Real Estate – Greg ends by cautioning that all this infighting could be harmful to public trust, as evidenced by critical reader comments in mainstream news outlets. Connect with Rob and Greg Rob's Website Greg's Website Watch us on YouTube Our Sponsors: Cotality Notorious VIP The Giant Steps Job Board Production and Editing Services by Sunbound Studios
In this episode of the Real Estate Education Podcast, we dig into the hidden power of the MLS (Multiple Listing Service)—and why skipping it might be the most expensive mistake a seller can make. James shares a revealing case study comparing two similar homes in Colorado, each using a very different sales strategy. The results highlight what truly moves a property—and what doesn't. We also analyze Redfin's latest report on the decline of second home purchases. Are high mortgage rates and soft rental markets killing the dream of vacation homes? Or is something else happening beneath the surface? Contact Us: erin@erinspradlin.com | james@jamescarlsonre.com Plus, we explore the pros and cons of flat-fee real estate listings, when they work, and when full-service agents still matter. Topics covered: FSBO (For Sale by Owner) vs. MLS listings The truth behind second home market trends Flat-fee real estate models and seller cost strategies Why visibility still matters in real estate Tune in for data-backed insights, candid discussion, and real-world examples that challenge common assumptions. Subscribe and leave a review if you find it useful.
Redfin townhome sales report spotlights Utah market -- Kem C. Gardner fastest growing cities report
Finding a house that matches your budget and style doesn't have to be a struggle. All you need is the right AI tool that can open the door to your dream abode. And that's precisely what Redfin is offering with their AI-driven real estate solutions. In this episode of the AI in Action podcast, Ariel Dos Santos, SVP of Product and Design at Redfin, shares how they're using AI to transform the house-hunting process. Redfin is tapping into vast amounts of data to understand buyers' preferences and provide tailored recommendations, making it easier for people to make their next big move. Tune in for a detailed insight into Redfin's AI vision—and how it's going to make the home search process smarter, smoother and a lot more fun.
Today we have on Karrie Myers, aka SelfKarrie, a deeply intuitive and talented astrologer Giana happened to meet at a tea house in Marin.We dive into a mind-bending conversation about the current cosmic climate, and Karrie breaks down the incoming 7-year Uranus in Gemini transit (starting July 7!)—what it means for how we learn, communicate, and move through the world.She explains why this next chapter may feel more fluid than past transits—Uranus and Gemini are both air signs—but also why it's about to radically disrupt how we speak, travel, and even think. From telepathy to AI to neurodivergence as expanded awareness, Karrie opens up a portal into what's next.We also touch on war in the Age of Aquarius: less about weapons, more about who controls the information. Cyber-activism, hacking, and the internet as our collective consciousness? Yep, we go there.Plus, Karrie gives Giana and Bradshaw a joint business partner reading, and things get real. She shares why their playful, purpose-driven partnership is exactly what this moment calls for—and how staying childlike, creative, and bold with their voices is key to expansion. There's talk of shadow work and podcasting as soul work.Come for the astrology, stay for the insight into how current transits may be shaping our communication, creativity, and collective direction.
Links & ResourcesFollow us on social media for updates: Instagram | YouTubeCheck out our recommended tool: Prop StreamThank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, follow, and review our podcast. Don't forget to share it with friends who might find it valuable. Stay connected for more insights in our next episode!
People sometimes cheat on their partner. Not everyone – but some do. This episode begins with some insight into one big reason that causes infidelity in a marriage or relationship. https://www.thoughtco.com/why-people-cheat-on-their-partners-3026688 We are surrounded by information on every topic you can imagine. The problem is that if you want to learn how to do something, you could spend an eternity learning and never get to the doing – because there is always more to learn. The solution to this is to learn less according to Pat Flynn. He is a leading serial entrepreneurs, online marketer and podcaster who has mastered the art of "lean learning" – to learn just enough. Pat joins me to explain how it works. Pat is author of the book Lean Learning: How to Achieve More by Learning Less (https://amzn.to/4jTHGol) and host of the podcast Smart Passive Income (https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/spi/). The world of economics may sound a bit academic but your whole life and the decisions you make are all about economics. And once you understand that, you can learn how things like game theory, uncertainty, overthinking and other economic principles can help you navigate life. Here to explain how to do that is Daryl Fairweather. She is chief economist at Redfin, where she analyzes US housing markets and consumer behavior as well as a member of the academic advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a former senior economist at Amazon. Daryl is author of the book, Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work (https://amzn.to/3ZyDbs0). Some people prefer to go barefoot – particularly in the summer. But there is a belief that it is illegal to go barefoot in certain public places or even to drive a car barefoot. Is it? Listen and discover the legal truth about going barefoot. http://www.thebarefootalliance.org/lawsregulations/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! MINT MOBILE: Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at https://MintMobile.com/something ! FACTOR: Factor meals arrive fresh and ready to eat, perfect for your summer lifestyle! Get 50% off at https://FactorMeals.com/something50off ROCKET MONEY: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster! Go to https://RocketMoney.com/SOMETHING QUINCE: Stick to the staples that last, with elevated essentials from Quince! Go to https://Quince.com/sysk for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns! INDEED: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING right now! DELL: Introducing the new Dell AI PC . It's not just an AI computer, it's a computer built for AI to help do your busywork for you! Get a new Dell AI PC at https://Dell.com/ai-pc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Compass has filed a lawsuit against Zillow, claiming the platform's listing policies unfairly restrict competition—especially around “Coming Soon” and off-market listings. In this episode, Kathy Fettke unpacks what the lawsuit means for real estate investors who rely on early deal access, private listings, and digital platforms like Zillow, Redfin, and eXp. If you're sourcing deals online, this legal battle could directly impact your strategy moving forward. JOIN RealWealth® FOR FREE https://realwealth.com/join-step-1 FOLLOW OUR PODCASTS Real Wealth Show: Real Estate Investing Podcast https://link.chtbl.com/RWS
In this week's Money Moves, Matty A and Mr. Breedwell are back together to break down the biggest market, geopolitical, and real estate headlines shaping the second half of 2025. From Trump's tariff war to Powell's rate pause, the guys unpack what's driving inflation, whether we'll get the cuts the market is begging for, and why risk tolerance is changing in a desensitized, crypto-gambling, TikTok-trading generation.They also touch on record-breaking housing inventory gaps, AI unicorn mania, Tesla vs. Waymo, and what the Iran-Israel ceasefire really means for oil and global volatility.This is a tactical, no-fluff conversation for investors who want to understand what's next—and profit from it.Timestamps:0:00 – Matty's back from Mexico and birthday shenanigans1:00 – CPI drops below 3%, so why are rates still high?3:15 – Powell's inflation warning and Fed rate cut hesitation5:00 – Breedwell leans toward cuts: “We need to re-stimulate lending”7:00 – US economy strength and market liquidity8:30 – Why Gen Z treats the stock market like DraftKings10:45 – Volatility isn't scary anymore—retail is here to play12:00 – Buy the dip: how to profit from war-driven market dips14:00 – Investing should be boring: Breedwell's boring but brilliant strategy16:00 – Powell's trigger-shyness and election-year avoidance18:30 – Trump's public feud with Powell and economic optics20:00 – Tariffs, borders, and bombs: a geopolitical chaos recap22:00 – Operation Midnight Hammer: Iran nuclear strike details24:00 – Media hypocrisy on military action under different presidents26:30 – Israel vs. Iran: ceasefire claims, risks, and trust issues29:00 – Strait of Hormuz shut down? What it really means for oil32:00 – Tesla vs. Waymo: Is there even a self-driving war?34:00 – AI bubble brewing? Unicorns, smoke, and future corpses36:30 – Google's Waymo problem and Apple's smart retreat38:00 – Crypto chaos: pump, dump, and ETF-driven dreams39:00 – Redfin report: record housing supply and demand gap41:00 – 75% of buyers sitting on the sidelines42:00 – DeSantis wants to kill property taxes in Florida42:45 – Bull or BS: Lightning Round (Rate Cuts, Bitcoin, CRE, and more)What You'll Learn:Why the Fed is hesitating despite sub-3% CPI numbersWhat Powell's inflation forecast actually signalsHow retail traders have shifted the market dynamic post-COVIDThe real risk (and opportunity) behind the Iran ceasefireWhy Breedwell is quietly loading up on U.S. equitiesThe ugly truth behind AI unicorn valuations and investor FOMOHow Tesla is crushing Waymo in the autonomous vehicle raceWhy the housing market is stuck in a standoff and what could spark a breakoutNotable Quotes:“It's easy to be successful in investing—people just make it hard.” – Mr. Breedwell “Retail investors aren't chickens anymore. They're not waiting to be slaughtered—they're squeezing the market.” – Mr. Breedwell “These are the windows where generational wealth gets made.” – Matty A “Waymo is five times the cost for a worse product. Tesla already won.” – Mr. BreedwellCalls-to-Action:Want a free portfolio x-ray? Text XRAY to 844.447.1555Want the best alternative investment deals? Text DEALS to 844.447.1555Follow Matty A for daily market insights: @officialmattyaFinal Thoughts:The market may be uncertain, but the opportunity is massive. If you're sitting on the sidelines waiting for the perfect signal, you're already late. Now's the time to get informed, stay sharp, and take action like the pros do.If you got value from today's show, leave us a review, subscribe, and share it with a friend who's trying to make smarter money moves.Episode Sponsored By:Discover Financial Millionaire Mindcast Shop: Buy the Rich Life Planner and Get the Wealth-Building Bundle for FREE! Visit: https://shop.millionairemindcast.com/CRE MASTERMIND: Visit myfirst50k.com and submit your application to join!FREE CRE Crash Course: Text “FREE” to 844-447-1555
Many home sellers are still sitting on strong equity, but that's not the case everywhere. A new Redfin analysis reveals nearly 6% of homes listed in May were at risk of selling at a loss—up from 4.4% last year. The risk climbs sharply for condos and homes bought after the pandemic, especially in markets like San Francisco and Austin. Nationwide, nearly one in three condos purchased post-2022 could sell below their original price. While losses remain rare compared to the aftermath of the Great Recession, today's buyers are gaining more leverage as sellers face pressure to adjust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In today's episode of Uncontested Investing, we dig into one of the most powerful tools at your disposal as a real estate investor: data. It's not just about crunching numbers, it's about making smarter, faster, more strategic decisions in a market where the margin for error is razor-thin. We break down how investors can use both free and paid data tools to spot trends, find deals, set optimal rental rates, and avoid costly mistakes. From migration patterns to ZIP-code-based labor rates, they share real-world ways to let data guide your portfolio growth. If you're still relying on your gut, this episode is your wake-up call. Key Talking Points of the Episode 00:00 Introduction 01:16 What patterns tell us (vacancy, rent shifts, migration) 02:34 How market influences can change your buy box and strategies 04:03 Property-type trends and market adaptability 05:35 Free tools: Zillow, Redfin, Rentometer, Census.gov, HUD 07:20 Paid tools: CoStar, PropStream, Roofstock, AirDNA, Dwelling 09:22 Local tools: Agents, REIAs, county offices 11:02 How data can help you identify emerging markets 12:01 Avoiding emotional buying with consistent criteria 13:03 The cost of ignoring data: overpaying for properties 15:06 Analysis paralysis: when too much data kills the deal 17:00 Why you need to use data alerts as an investor 18:14 Weekly rent comps and rent optimization 19:31 Balancing rental increases with tenant retention 20:23 Manual tracking: using spreadsheets for micro-market analysis Quotables “Use the data to take emotion out of it. You'll never get a wrong answer when math is leading the way.” “Census.gov will smack you in the face with the truth. It's not customizable—it's real.” “One bad deal early can drive a new investor right out of the game. Data helps you avoid that.” Links RCN Capital https://www.rcncapital.com/podcast https://www.instagram.com/rcn_capital/ info@rcncapital.com REI INK https://rei-ink.com/
Down payments are shrinking — and that's a big deal for homebuyers in 2025.
In this episode, we're joined by Daryl Fairweather, Chief Economist at Redfin and author of Hate the Game, to explore the most dramatic shift in the U.S. housing market in over a decade. With sellers now outnumbering buyers by more than 500,000 for the first time since 2013, Daryl breaks down what's really happening beneath the surface—and why so many homeowners and policymakers are reluctant to face it.We dive into the behavioral and structural forces shaping the market today, from price stickiness and record cancellations to zoning reform and climate-driven migration. Whether you're a homeowner, investor, or policy wonk, this conversation offers a comprehensive look at what's next for real estate in America.Topics discussed include:The shift to a buyer's market and why it mattersThe gap between seller expectations and buyer realityRegional pain points: Florida, Texas, and beyondWhy insurance costs and HOAs are distorting marketsBuyer psychology, affordability, and rent vs. own dynamicsTariffs, uncertainty, and interest rate volatilityThe policy fixes Daryl believes we need—fastClimate risk, migration, and Redfin's flood data experimentWhy your home shouldn't be your investment strategyLessons from game theory and behavioral economicsGuest Links:Daryl Fairweather's book Hate the Game is available now on Amazon and Audible.Follow Daryl on X, LinkedIn, and Substack @FairweatherPhD
We have some mortgage updates for you this week. We answer some confusing questions like, what's a "2:1 Buy Down" ? Courtney learns real estate is always a favorite segment!Todd RIPS APART a big article that Redfin put out with the title "The U.S. Housing Market Has Nearly 500,000 More Sellers Than Buyers—the Most on Record. That Will Likely Cause Home Prices to Fall"This week we highlight MCKINNEY TEXAS and what is happening there now and WHY you should consider it!Our 2025 Edition of the Summer Fun Guide is out now! Grab your FREE copy at dallashomerealty.comCall or TEXT us with your questions for the show -214-310-0008!Check your HOME BUYER READINESS in less than 90 seconds! Take this quiz! https://homebuyerreadiness.scoreapp.com/p/home-buyer-readiness-scorecard-2
A woman is seven months pregnant on a transatlantic voyage in 1720, giving birth in the belly of a rat-infested ship — when suddenly, pirates attack. But instead of plundering, one pirate hears the newborn's cry and makes a deal: name the baby Mary, after his mother, and he'll spare the ship. That child would grow up to be Ocean Born Mary — a woman whose legend sparked centuries of ghost stories, folklore, and New England intrigue. Two hundred years later, colonial enthusiasts purchased a haunted home allegedly linked to Ocean Born Mary and created a paranormal tourist destination. We trace the line between fact and folklore: from Mary's miraculous birth to tales of haunted hallways, sword-wielding spirits, and a mysterious green silk dress. Possible treasure, paranormal hoaxes, a 1930s ghost tour hustle, and a visit from Ed and Lorraine Warren. Whether you're here for pirate drama, haunted house vibes, or historical folklore, this episode delivers a story that's as entertaining as it is creepy.
For Juneteenth we had a special interview. Tez got to speak with Redfin Chief economist and author, Dr Daryl Fairweather about her new book "Hate The Game" which is all about game theory in economics and how she got to where she is. It's a wide ranging interview, funny yes, but also informative and truly compelling. Go pick up your copy of Dr Fairweather's book and tune in!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/chipchat--2780807/support.
This spring, just 28% of U.S. homes sold above asking price, according to Redfin. That's the lowest spring rate since 2020. The trend toward selling at or below asking price is good news for buyers. In this episode, why buyer competition — in some places — has thinned out. Plus: Federal cuts threaten childcare centers for government workers, Oklahoma teens learn about gambling risks in the classroom and we explain the difference between leading and trailing economic indicators.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.
This spring, just 28% of U.S. homes sold above asking price, according to Redfin. That's the lowest spring rate since 2020. The trend toward selling at or below asking price is good news for buyers. In this episode, why buyer competition — in some places — has thinned out. Plus: Federal cuts threaten childcare centers for government workers, Oklahoma teens learn about gambling risks in the classroom and we explain the difference between leading and trailing economic indicators.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.
Unlock the secrets of running property comps with me in this week's REI Weekly lesson! Through a detailed screen share on my Youtube channel, I'll show you step-by-step how to use Redfin and other tools to assess property values, even if you don't have MLS access. Whether you're a seasoned investor or a newbie, uncover insights to enhance your investment tactics. Contact me! greg@velocityhousebuyers.com Instagram @grego_37
Welcome to Loan Officer Freedom, the #1 podcast in the country for loan officers, hosted by Carl White. In this episode, your host Carl White teams up with Owen Lee to unpack the quiet earthquake shaking up the mortgage industry—massive moves by Rocket Mortgage that most LOs have already stopped talking about. They reveal how Rocket's acquisition of Redfin and Mr. Cooper could reshape borrower behavior forever, giving them first dibs on millions of consumers before the rest of us even know they're looking. Carl and Owen use a powerful bear-and-salmon analogy to show how referral-based LOs risk losing deals unless they evolve fast—and how smart use of predictive tech can help you stay ahead. This isn't a doom-and-gloom episode—it's a call to action packed with clarity, urgency, and opportunity for those willing to pivot now.
Sam Gray specializing in new developments and high-end properties, Sam combines strategic insight, a competitive drive, and a client-first approach in every transaction. His work is rooted in a genuine commitment to serving and uplifting others; he views real estate as a platform to guide clients through significant life decisions with care, confidence, and clarity. Recognized for his exceptional service, creative sales strategies, and modern marketing methods, Sam consistently delivers outstanding results and long-term value for his clients. His dedication and expertise have earned him industry-wide recognition, including honors as a Rising Star in Nashville Real Producers Magazine, as well as features in Redfin, the Nashville Post, and New York Weekly. After attending Belmont University, Sam now resides in Oak Hill, Nashville. Family and Faith are his foundations. That is where Sam learned his personal warmth, serving others and unwavering focus on results.
Kathryn and Michael attended the HousingWire Gathering Conference, where they engaged with top industry leaders, discussed strategic shifts, and explored the implications of AI and recent mergers like Rocket acquiring Mr. Cooper and Redfin. They noted a sense of calm and confidence among attendees about the future of the mortgage and real estate industries, emphasizing that AI will play a significant role in transforming delivery systems. The event provided valuable networking opportunities and insights, with leaders expressing optimism about competition and innovation in the housing sector. Kathryn and Michael plan to share these insights in future podcast episodes and explore potential guest appearances from conference attendees. Building Bigger Lives Podcast- https://www.instagram.com/buildingbiggerlives Contact Coach Michael Regan- www.facebook.com/CoachMichaelRegan www.instagram.com/coachmichaelregan/ www.linkedin.com/in/mregan/ Contact Kathryn Pedersen- http://www.instagram.com/steamboatmortgage
Redfin's headlines about a collapsing housing market are grabbing attention, but the full story is more nuanced. Jeb and Josh break down what the data really shows and explain why it doesn't signal a crash in most markets. They walk through local trends, pricing behavior, and smart strategies for today's buyers. Watch to understand how to navigate a confusing market with confidence..Start your stress-free loan journey todayJoin Rate Watch – we'll watch rates for youEmail: info@theeducatedhomebuyer.comConnect with Us
Pending home sales have hit their lowest level for this time of year since 2015, as high mortgage rates and rising prices continue to sideline buyers. Meanwhile, sellers are cutting deals: Just 28.5% of homes sold above asking, and the median sale price is nearly $29,000 below the median list price. But with the economy suddenly showing signs of strength, will the summer market prove to be better? Read the Redfin report here: https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-fewer-homes-selling-above-asking-price/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Nick Halaris, a purpose-driven real estate entrepreneur, to explore the evolving landscape of entrepreneurship—and why it's more important than ever to lead with both ambition and impact.
Links & ResourcesFollow us on social media for updates: Instagram | YouTubeCheck out our recommended tool: Prop StreamThank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, follow, and review our podcast. Don't forget to share it with friends who might find it valuable. Stay connected for more insights in our next episode!
In this episode of Tacos & Tech, Neal welcomes a longtime friend, Andy Taylor, Co-Founder and CEO of RetroRate. to talk about building a company around an idea few people even know exists: assumable loans. They dig deep into Andy's journey from building software at Electronic Arts and Apple to leading product at Redfin, launching mortgage startup Approved, and now tackling a hidden opportunity in real estate finance: assumable loans. Andy shares his personal founder journey, lessons learned across big tech and startups, and why he's committed to building in San Diego. Key Topics: A walk through Andy's product career—from EA to Apple to Redfin Why assumable loans are the key to unlocking a stuck real estate market The origin story behind RetroRate and solving a problem most people don't know exists The impact of locked-in low rates on buyer power and seller mobility Lessons learned building, scaling, and selling a mortgage startup (Approved) Navigating startup life post-acquisition and deciding to build again The evolving San Diego startup landscape and why it's a great place to build Real talk on balancing work, life, and entrepreneurship with family in tow Leveraging AI and design thinking in modern proptech Links & Resources: RetroRate Connect with Andy: LinkedIn: Andy Taylor Connect with Neal: LinkedIn: Neal Bloom Twitter: @NealBloom
Redfin's latest forecast suggests home prices will see a 1% decline by year-end, a significant shift after years of growth. On The Market host Dave Meyer is joined by Chen Zhao, Redfin's Head of Economics Research, to discuss the key factors behind this projection, including a changing ratio of buyers to sellers in the market. Later in the show, Dave and Chen break down regional trends across the Sunbelt, Midwest and Northeast, talk about rent forecasts heading into 2026 and touch on the impact of current mortgage rates and trade policies on the real estate market. Links from the Show Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Join BiggerPockets for FREE Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Find Investor-Friendly Lenders Property Manager Finder Dave's BiggerPockets Profile Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-328 Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Links & ResourcesFollow us on social media for updates: Instagram | YouTubeCheck out our recommended tool: Prop StreamThank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, follow, and review our podcast. Don't forget to share it with friends who might find it valuable. Stay connected for more insights in our next episode!
Millennials may be the largest generation in America, but their homeownership rate is lagging far behind earlier generations—and Gen Z is starting even slower. In today's episode, we explore why affordability challenges are redefining the American Dream and reshaping the future of homeownership. Plus, we break down new Redfin data showing a sharp drop in home listings and buyer activity, signaling a cooling market heading into summer. Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Channel for the best real estate investing education online! Become a member of the BiggerPockets community of real estate investors - https://www.biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fresh off a vacation, Hal is joined by JT, Albert, and Bobbi to break down May's real estate numbers, comparing them to last year and the pre-COVID market of 2019. With inventory up 40% (that's 132 more homes!) but still historically low, and sales down 7% from last year, the team debates whether the market is shifting toward buyers or holding steady as a seller's market. They tackle hot topics like price reductions (affecting 25-33% of listings), the psychology of pricing, and why well-priced, turnkey homes are still flying off the market with multiple offers. The crew also addresses misconceptions from recent news, like Redfin's questionable claim of 500,000 more buyers than sellers, and shares insights on mortgage application trends signaling potential market activity. Packed with behind-the-scenes banter, practical advice, and a touch of humor (including JT's “one F-bomb away from retirement” quip), this episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating the SLO real estate scene. Tune in for expert tips on pricing, market expectations, and why working with a pro matters in today's complex market. Subscribe, like, and share for more weekly insights! Contact Hal and the team at 805-781-3750 or text your questions to 805-244-1170! Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, or YouTube. CA DRE# 01111911
In this episode of Industry Relations, Rob and Greg run a thought experiment: What if we're entering a true buyer's market? They walk through ten major industry topics—from antitrust litigation to portals, AI, and MLS relevance—and analyze how each might shift if buyers suddenly gained the upper hand. Along the way, they debate policy, technology, and market psychology, drawing connections between historical trends and current market signals. Watch us on YouTube! Links The U.S. Housing Market Has Nearly 500,000 More Sellers Than Buyers—the Most on Record. That Will Likely Cause Home Prices to Fall Key Takeaways Antitrust & Legal Landscape – Discussion of how a buyer's market might (or might not) affect current and future antitrust lawsuits in real estate. Government Regulation – Exploration of potential political reactions, including pressure on corporate landlords, affordability policy, or even renewed interest in rent control. Tech-Enabled Brokerages – Examination of whether brokerages like Redfin, Compass, and eXp gain or lose advantage when the market shifts toward buyers. iBuyers & Institutional Activity – Rob and Greg assess whether a buyer's market helps or hurts companies like Opendoor and investor-focused strategies. Portals & Exclusive Inventory – Deep dive into how platforms like Zillow and Homes.com may adapt, and whether exclusive listings could gain ground. AI & Automation – Consideration of how AI could enable cheaper, more scalable buyer representation services—and who might benefit. Consumer Trust – Debate over whether a buyer's market could rebuild trust in the industry or simply reduce agent count, leaving higher-quality professionals. DIY Real Estate – Why self-service homebuying remains unlikely to surge, even with market power shifting toward buyers. Industry Consolidation – Prediction that competitive pressure could drive further brokerage and vendor consolidation. MLS & Association Relevance – Analysis of whether MLSs become more or less important in a buyer's market, especially in the context of exclusives and policy enforcement. Connect with Rob and Greg Rob's Website https://notoriousrob.substack.com/ Greg's Website https://www.vendoralley.com/about-2/ Our Sponsors: Cotality https://www.cotality.com/ Notorious VIP https://notoriousrob.substack.com The Giant Steps Job Board https://vendoralley.jobboard.io/ Production and Editing Services by Sunbound Studios
Are discount brokerages undercutting your listings? Learn how to win with confidence—not compromise.Ed shares strategies to effectively compete against discounters like Redfin, defending commission rates and delivering full-service value. He highlights objection handling, marketing with MLS data, and real-world examples of turning skeptical sellers into clients. Plus, door-knocking and expired listing tactics to dominate underserved markets.
In this episode of the Top of Mind podcast, Mike Simonsen sits down with Dr. Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist for Redfin, to discuss the life and economic lessons in her new book, Hate the Game, and also dive into the latest data in the US housing market with Redfin's unique point of view. About Daryl Fairweather Dr. Daryl Fairweather is the chief economist at Redfin and the author of the new book Hate the Game. At Redfin, she analyzes US housing markets and consumer behavior. She is a member of the advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and was a former senior economist at Amazon. She is a regular contributor to Forbes, and she has been featured in 60 Minutes, Today, The New York Times, and Bloomberg, among other outlets. She has a degree from MIT and a PhD from the University of Chicago. Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn: What Beyoncé teaches us about game theory. What young buyers should know about buying a home Why the 2025 housing market theme is “disappointment” Why she thinks rents will start growing more expensive in 2026. Which homeowners and housing markets are facing the most distress now What Redfin's “Buyer Demand Index” tells us about home sales for the rest of the summer Which signals to watch for a coming downturn What to know about millennial home buyers What happens to the housing market after 2030 Related to this episode: Hate the Game Book Daryl Fairweather, PhD| LinkedIn Daryl Fairweather | X Redfin Mike Simonsen | LinkedIn Altos Featuring Mike Simonsen, President of Altos A true data geek, Mike founded Altos in 2006 to bring data and insight on the U.S. housing market to those who need it most. The company now serves the largest Wall Street investment firms, banks, and tens of thousands of real estate professionals around the country. Mike's insights on the market have been featured in Forbes, New York Times, Bloomberg, Dallas Morning News, Seattle PI, and many other national media outlets. Follow us on Twitter for more data analysis and insights: Altos on Twitter Mike on Twitter About Altos Each week, Altos tracks every home for sale in the country - all the pricing, and all the changes in pricing - and synthesizes those analytics to make them available before becoming visible through traditional channels. Schedule a demo to see Altos in action. You can also get a copy of our free eBook: How To Use Market Data to Build Your Real Estate Business. The Top of Mind podcast features top real estate industry insiders and experts to unpack the most important housing, real estate, mortgage data and trends that are shaping the housing market. Hosted by Altos founder Mike Simonsen and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A record $698 billion worth of homes is listed for sale in the U.S.—but nearly half of that value is tied up in listings that have been sitting for 60 days or longer. In today's episode, we break down Redfin's latest analysis showing how a wave of stale inventory, softening demand, and seller urgency could push prices down by the end of the year. Plus, we explore why real estate investors are still buying—but avoiding condos, especially in Florida. Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Channel for the best real estate investing education online! Become a member of the BiggerPockets community of real estate investors - https://www.biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
On today's episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami about jobs week, mortgage rates and recent housing headlines. Related to this episode: Mortgage rates unfazed by crazy economic headlines | HousingWire HousingWire | YouTube More info about HousingWire Enjoy the episode! The HousingWire Daily podcast brings the full picture of the most compelling stories in the housing market reported across HousingWire. Each morning, listen to editor in chief Sarah Wheeler talk to leading industry voices and get a deeper look behind the scenes of the top mortgage and real estate stories. Hosted and produced by the HousingWire Content Studio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Links & ResourcesFollow us on social media for updates: Instagram | YouTubeCheck out our recommended tool: Prop StreamThank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, follow, and review our podcast. Don't forget to share it with friends who might find it valuable. Stay connected for more insights in our next episode!
Home prices are finally starting to shift—and not in the direction most sellers were hoping for. In this episode, we break down Redfin's latest housing market forecast for the second half of 2025, including why the national median sale price is expected to drop 1% by year's end and what's keeping mortgage rates stuck near 7%. We'll explain how rising inventory, fewer buyers, and sticky inflation are reshaping the market—and what it means for both investors and homebuyers. Read the report here: https://www.redfin.com/news/home-price-forecast-decline-2025/ Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Channel for the best real estate investing education online! Become a member of the BiggerPockets community of real estate investors - https://www.biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Andrew, Ben, and Tom discuss Trump's delay of the 50% tariff on the EU, Japanese bond issuance, and Redfin's home data. For information on how to join the Zoom calls live each morning at 8:30 EST, visit:https://www.narwhal.com/blog/daily-market-briefingsPlease see disclosures:https://www.narwhal.com/disclosure
Discover powerful strategies to maximize your rental property returns and minimize costly vacancies. Learn how top investors are transforming their approach to property management, from tenant retention techniques to smart staffing solutions. Key Insights: Master the art of keeping great tenants and reducing turnover Understand when to scale your property management approach Explore innovative investment opportunities beyond traditional real estate Market Trends Spotlight: Rental demand is on the rise Emerging investment options offer unique wealth-building potential Strategic diversification is key to long-term financial success Explore alternative investment opportunities like sustainable teak forestry - a generational wealth strategy that offers: Low entry point Long-term growth potential International diversification Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, these insights will help you make more informed, profitable real estate decisions. Resources: Learn more about the teak tree investment opportunity at Gremarketplace.com/teak Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/555 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, learn how to reduce a giant operational expense that you'll have over time your tenant vacancy and turnover, including how many units you must own before you hire your own on site property manager as your employee. Whatever happened to agent commissions in light of last year's NAR settlement, then a timely update on teak tree investing today on Get Rich Education. Mid South home buyers. I mean, they're total pros, with over two decades as the nation's highest rated turnkey provider. Their empathetic property managers use your ROI as their North Star. So it's no wonder that smart investors just keep lining up to get their completely renovated income properties like it's the newest iPhone. They're headquartered in Memphis and have globally attractive cash flows and A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and now over 5000 houses renovated their zero markup on maintenance. Let that sink in, and they average a 98.9% occupancy rate, while their average renter stays more than three and a half years. Every home they offer has brand new components, a bumper to bumper, one year warranty, new 30 year roofs. And wait for it, a high quality renter. Remember that part and in an astounding price range, 100 to 180k I've personally toured their office and their properties in person in Memphis. Get to know Mid South. Enjoy cash flow from day one. Start yourself right now at mid southhomebuyers.com that's mid south homebuyers.com You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Welcome to GRE from Manchester, New Hampshire to Manchester, England and across 188 nations worldwide, I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are back inside one of America's longest running and most listened to shows on real estate investing. This is get rich education. What's all that stuff really mean? I'm just another slack jawed and snaggletooth podcaster, a shaved mammal with a microphone. I'm joining you from here in London, England this week for the first time ever on the show. More on that later. Let's talk about reducing the biggest operational expense that you're ever going to have as a real estate investor, at least the one that you can exert a good measure of control over. That is reducing your tenant vacancy and turnover, that constant menace. Now, I suppose you might say that property tax is your biggest ongoing ops expense, but you've got less control over your property tax rate. So yeah, we're talking about increasing your net income by lowering your VIMTUM operating expenses. Vacancy is the V in that acronym. This is big because this can make or break your ability to have your property create positive cash flow and getting tenant turnover right both increases your income and reduces your expenses. It is springtime currently, and it's soon going to be summer, so it is the right time to talk about this. It's when there is more tenant turnover. The goal here is for you to really move the dial in increase the likelihood that your tenant is going to renew their lease. Now, sure if your tenant gets a new job out of town, they're going to move out. But if they're moving because of too many maintenance issues, well then that's something that you could have fixed. The average tenancy duration in the US over time is two to three years. And of course, that's going to be longer in single family rentals and shorter in apartments. And how long your tenant stays is driven by three factors, the price of your unit, the quality of your maintenance and the quality of your management. Let's say that your tenant moves out. To be conservative, that your vacancy period is two months between tenants. Okay, that's the turnover and the time to lease. It two months is a somewhat longish vacancy period. But come on, it happens sometimes, especially if you're going to make upgrades between tenancies and you're busy with other things in your life, if you have a move out every year at that rate, well, that is too often. That would amount. To a vacancy percentage of 14% you might think it's 17% but it isn't, because it's a 12 month vacancy plus two vacant months, all right, but if instead that tenant moves out every two years, that's just 8% vacancy, and every three years that's just 5% vacancy. Of course, if you keep your vacancy period to only one month rather than two, you can have all those numbers. You can really see how you are increasing your income by retaining the tenant. The most vital thing for you to keep in mind is that fast quality maintenance and good communication are by far the best forms of customer service that a property manager can provide, so prompt, quality maintenance. That's a retention strategy. Being a proactive helps. One strategy you can engage in is to reach out to the tenants two months before their lease is set to renew, and that's the time to give them the new lease price and ask them if they intend to stay. If they say, No, they're not, ask them why. And occasionally, you can sway them if there's been a misunderstanding in your relationship, for example, a lingering maintenance issue that hasn't been addressed, and perhaps they didn't bother to contact you about that, if nothing else, I think I mentioned this to you one time before offering a small reward, like a gift card helps. I mean, creating this sense of reciprocation is really one of the best retention tactics out there, even if the items being reciprocated aren't anywhere near equal value, like the value of a 12 month lease versus you giving them, say, a $50 gift card now, say you've tried those strategies, and none of that works, and your tenant does decide to leave, perhaps 45 days from now, but you know that you've got time in your life to turn over the unit now, and You know that you're going to be really busy with other things in 45 days. One thing that you can do then is shift your strategy to pay the tenant. Say you can pay them as little as 10 or 20 bucks a day to leave early. This way they'll vacate during a period where you've got the time to devote to the vacancy and the turnover and the showings to prospective new tenants, and that way, it's not going to linger vacant as long now, a technique like this is a little similar to an eviction, where if a tenant has violated their lease or becomes non paying, without you having to go through the length of Your court driven formal eviction process, you can pay them a lump sum to leave early. Hopefully that's not your situation, but that can come up. And I think you've heard of it before. This is known as the Cash for Keys strategy. That means to get a tenant that's made some violation against their lease, and you want to have them vacate the unit sooner. This means that you get the keys in your hand and the right to enter when you pay them to leave, rather than having to go through the not so fun eviction process and see a tenant wants to avoid a formal eviction as well, because that goes on their record, and then it can make it tough for that tenant to get rental housing elsewhere. But I dislike the Cash for Keys strategy in order to hold off from a formal eviction, because what that does is that rewards a person that violated a lease, although we know that that might also shorten your economic vacancy period, and it could actually be economically beneficial to you, Cash for Keys. It's just not ethical, though. I know it might be tempting for you, the landlord, the cash for key strategy. It rewards societally immoral behavior. Now, of course, you might be using a professional property manager that does all of this stuff for you, like I do today, but still, these are often the best practices for your manager. And I started out self managing, just like a lot of real estate investors do in the beginning, and that's where I learned strategies and techniques like this for reducing your tenant vacancy and turnover. Now, here's a really interesting question that you may not have had to ask yourself yet, but you may down the road, if you've grown your portfolio to a certain size and you're serious about reducing your vacancy and turnover expense, it might be time to ask yourself one big question, and that is for your management and maintenance. Should you use contractors, or should you start to hire your own employees? Now, if you have a small portfolio, it won't be enough work for you to keep an employee busy, so you should go with contract. Contractors. On the other hand, if you have an apartment complex with on site property management, I would definitely recommend having a make ready crew on site, because it's just so easy for them to get to and from a job site. Now, you should still maintain relationships with contractors as a backup, of course, and you should also have specialists like plumbers, electricians and HVAC people ready to call now, most investors are small and they use off site management, but if you grow big enough someday, or maybe it's two day, the important point about employees is that you really need to stay on them, because every extra hour costs you. You don't want anyone out there who's thinking that speed isn't essential, because they're like, ah, you know, I get paid by the hour. Contractors, on the other hand, they quote you or your manager a job up front. So while an extra day hurts because it's one more day you can't lease the unit, it hurts less than it does if you have your own employees. One problem with contractors is they often can't start right away, and this tends to be more true if you're self managing. See if you use a professional manager. They might have their own in house people so you can leverage their employees without having to manage employees yourself, even if your manager brings in an off site contractor, like an electrician or a plumber. Well, that contractor probably gets a lot of business from your property manager, and they have some sense of loyalty to your property manager, therefore, they're incentivized to show up on time faster than if you're trying to self manage, say, your small portfolio of five properties, and you or your tenant are the ones that call the electrician or the plumber. Well, those contractors are going to be less likely to prioritize you and your infrequent requests, and this is just another reason that I like to employ professional management and not self manage. Now, virtually no new real estate investor is going to hire their own employees, and most are never going to at all. All right, but how do you know? How would you know when it's time to hire your own property manager or your own contractor, and have them on your own payroll and you are their boss, if you've got under 20 to 30 units, all right, typically third party property management or self management with contractors, that's going to make more sense, because having a full time, dedicated employee, it's just not financially justifiable. Below 20 or 30 units, you're not going to be able to keep that employee busy. And I'm generally talking about if you have one apartment building here, or a bunch of single family rentals, only if they're in small, close proximity to each other. What about if you grow up to 30 to 60 units? All right now you're in a gray area. If the property is something that's pretty management intensive, like high turnover, or you own an older building, or you generate a lot of work orders, or you're in a challenging area. Well, at 30 to 60 units, you might justify a part time on site person. So how that could practically work in this 30 to 60 unit gray area, what you can do is have a resident manager that gets free rent, plus perhaps a small stipend from you. Okay, so that's a strategy that you can play in this gray area zone. That way they can be responsive to tenant requests, and you can keep your vacancy and turnover costs down. All right, how about when you're going even bigger and you reach 60 to 100 units. Now you're in the range where a full time on site manager or a maintenance person, starts to make financial and operational sense, because here it's 60 to 100 units. Your staffing model, it might be that you have one full time manager, they do the leasing, the tenant relations, in the admin stuff, and you'll also have a second person, a full time maintenance tech if they're needed, all right? And the final tier here, if you reach more than 100 units, oh, okay, now it is standard for you to have a full on site team. You could be in the hundreds of units. So we're talking about a property manager, a leasing agent, a maintenance lead, a groundskeeper and sometimes also a part time assistant manager. So that's it. That's the hierarchy of how, based on your portfolio size and where they're located, how you can serve tenants well and reduce your vacancy and turnover expense. Yes. All right now, what are some things that can shift those thresholds, those unit counts? Well, high rent or luxury buildings, they often need on site staff at a smaller unit count, very low rent or section eight properties, they may need more intensive oversight, buildings that have amenities, like some of these newer apartment buildings that have a pool and a gym, okay, that can trigger some more staffing needs. And if you own multiple properties that are nearby to each other, well, then you can share employees across those properties. And you've got to look at local labor costs in places like New York City, northeastern New Jersey, parts of New England, Miami or LA, those high cost places. Then breaking even on staffing. That probably takes a bigger property than those numbers that I talked about. But here, we tend to invest in those investor advantage areas, the inland northeast, the South, in the southeast, in the Midwest. Now, if you've got, say, even 50 smaller properties, but they're scattered all over the place, in multiple states, well then of course, you're not going to hire employees. A good general metric to leave you with here is that one on site employee for every 50 to 80 units that you own in the same area, that is common, that is a common industry practice in market rate multifamily apartments right now, these are pretty timeless strategies I've been talking about with you here. As for what's happening in The market lately, I continue to slowly get more optimistic about the long beleaguered apartment market. A few weeks ago, I talked about how there's finally been greater apartment rent increases, although those rent increases are still historically low. What recently we learned that apartments are seeing a longer duration of tenancy and today, per real page, every single one of the 50 largest apartment markets has posted month over month occupancy gains, and then that's somewhat commensurate with what we're seeing on the one to four unit side, because the home ownership rate has fallen. It just fell from 65.7% down to 65.1 quarter over quarter. Now that doesn't sound like much, but that's actually a substantial drop in the home ownership rate in just one quarter. And fewer homeowners means more renters. So this basically means that the percent of Americans, renting has gone up because you just take the flip side of those numbers. So the rentership rate has essentially risen from 34.3 up to 34.9 in just one quarter. Something that completely makes sense, because we all know that home ownership affordability, especially for that first time, home buyer is lower, more renters. Is good for rental property owners. It's bringing more rental demand, more occupancy and more future pressure on rising rents. Now I want to follow up with you on a story from last year that made a lot of waves in the larger real estate world, but not so much for real estate investors. You surely remember this. That is the NAR settlement that a lot of people thought would result in lower real estate agent fees. Lowered commissions were coming. That's what everybody thought last year. Stories about that were all over the place that realtor fees are about to shrink. What's happened since then? Well, not much realtor fees, they still haven't fallen in any significant way, although the settlement was more than a year ago and this went into effect nine months ago. So to back up for a moment, in case you missed it, what happened is that a group of sellers accused the NAR, the National Association of Realtors, of inflating home costs by letting buyer side and seller side agents communicate about commission rates on the MLS home database, which only agents can see. And a jury agreed, so the NAR settled the lawsuit for over $400 million in damages, and it barred agents from sharing commission rates on those MLS databases. So that was a huge change that was expected to extinguish the globally high five to 6% realtor fee in the United States, because global averages are between one and 3% so as a result, the US real estate industry, they were bracing themselves for up to a 30% drop in the commissions that Americans pay annually in fees. But the new rules. Things have been nothing other than a big nothing burger. It only took a matter of weeks, really, for most agents to realize, you know, what did the agents do? They just simply moved their conversations off the NAR website and over to phone, text and email. That's it. Yes, that's all they did. So since that time, the average commission for buyers agents has barely budged. It ticked down less than 110 of 1% so for example, it ticked down less than 500 bucks on a 500k home that's per Redfin. So agents still expect sellers to pay five to 6% now I'm not against agents. Not only can an agent guide you through the process, what they can do is get you a higher sale price than they could have otherwise, because they really know how to market and advertise your property and reach a greater pool of buyers, but their commission rates have hardly budged. And of course, here at GRE marketplace, we typically use a direct model where agent compensation isn't priced into your properties anyway. To review what you've learned so far today, being proactive can help reduce your tenant vacancy and turnover expense and increase your income. Prompt, quality maintenance, that is a retention strategy in itself, as can having one on site employee for every 50 to 80 apartment units. And one year later, changes at the NIR really haven't reduced aging commissions appreciably. I'm coming to you from London, England today, taking in all the top sites, Buckingham Palace and watching the changing of the guard over there, Big Ben a Thames river cruise and the London Bridge, which is actually called Tower Bridge. The real estate transaction that I'm currently involved in here is paying $550 a night to stay here at a nice hotel in the center of the city. It's right near the Thames, kind of a steep rate, and I sure didn't have to stay right in the city center, where everything is more pricey. But that's the experience that I want to have. Next week, I'll bring you the show from Edinburgh, Scotland, where I'll be paying even more for a well located hotel right on the Royal Mile, and I'll tell you how much more then I am here to boost their economies, I suppose more next, including a really timely update. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Episode 555, of get rich education. The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your pre qual and even chat with President Chaley Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866. Tom Wheelwright 24:21 this is Rich Dad advisor, Tom wheelwright. Listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 24:37 Welcome back to Episode 555, of get rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, with an episode number like 555, you would expect me to go deep with you on real estate pays five ways, but we did that five weeks ago on episode 550 with your audio masterclass right here on the show today, we're talking about something with less upside. Than say that or the inflation triple crown, and instead on reducing your downside, vacancy and turnover expense, next week here on the show, I expect to sit down with a guest that's a highly regarded financier and author of a fairly hot new finance book, Christopher Whelan, and next week's show could get really interesting, because I've heard Chris say something about how real estate prices could fall back to 2020 levels. In my opinion, that is so many levels of unlikely that happening is about as likely as your grocery bills falling back to 2020 levels. So we'll see it could turn into a debate next week with Christopher Whelan and I. He is a sharp, well informed guy that also used to work at the New York Fed. That's next week down the road, longtime and former co host of the real estate guys radio show, Russell gray will join us again here, and we'll see what he's been up to in his post real estate guys, radio life that's coming up in a few weeks. Lots of great future content here, monologs, yes, those slack jawed monologs For me, repeat guests and new guests joining in as well. Back to this week now, there's an intriguing and potentially lucrative investment that we've discussed on the show here before, and I do have a timely and crucial update about it. A little while back, I sat down with the teak operations principle when we were in New Orleans together. These are yes, those Panama teak tree plantations that so many of you have already invested in. Yes. So as it is here. I am an American in London today talking about teak trees in Panama and I interviewed our upcoming guest here when we were in New Orleans together, the teak investment has a long time horizon, because trees have to grow. There's also a low cost of entry and no loans available. This is a real estate investment. You can own the land with the title to it and the trees that grow on top of them. Historically, teak returns have been five and a half percent, which doesn't sound like much, but see it grows in board foot volume at the same time that the unit price grows. And if inflation runs high over the next 25 years, your return might be higher. But the reason that we're discussing this now is because the principal, Mike Cobb here meeting with me, he is going to mention a price, and this is key two weeks from today, on June 9, the price for the teak parcels increases substantially. I'll tell you about that shortly. So for GRE followers, you can get locked into the lower price for just two more weeks. Here's my chat from a little while back with the teak tree investment principle, and then I'll return to bring you more. Hey, did you know that you can own a quarter acre parcel of a producing teak plantation, you own the title to the land, and you get the growth in the trees. On top of that, this is something that you can do as an investor. And teak trees are a valuable hardwood that you own, typically in Central America. So there's a very low cost of entry to this investment, and that's what attracts a lot of people to it. And I am with Mike Cobb, the CEO. He's also the author of the new book how to buy your home overseas and get it right the first time. But Mike, a lot of people are interested in the teak investment because it is so approachable. Tell us about it. Give us a general overview. Mike Cobb 28:42 absolutely, you know, thanks for having me on. It's always nice to be with you. We're, we're having some fun here in New Orleans, which is terrific, you know, yeah, the teak plantation is something that I envisioned back in 1998 so what's that like 26 years ago? Right? And in 1999 we planted our very first 100 Acre teak plantation. Because what we thought about at the time, which has now proven true 25 years later, is that, you know, I was either going to need the money in 25 years and be really glad I did this, or I wasn't going to need the money in 25 years and I was going to be really glad I did this. You know what? I don't really need the money now, but I'm really glad I did this. And 25 years comes. And I think that's been really the challenge for a lot of people looking at teak. They're just like, ah, 25 years. It's too long, but 25 years comes. 25 years will come, and you can either have planted the trees and be ready to take this huge windfall of return, or you won't be getting a windfall return. So I think that's the challenge, the mental challenge, I think maybe an average investor has, but I know you work with superior investors because they're paying attention to what you're writing, they're watching your podcast, they're reading your newsletter. You have far superior investors than I would say, the average investor. So I think this is a great thing for folks to check out. Keith Weinhold 30:00 All right, so you're talking about the investment timeline, from the time a tea tree seed is planted until the harvest time that can feel like quite a while. You have been doing this over 25 years, and that is key when you as an investor go offshore or go overseas to have trust in a stable company that's been around for a long time. That's why, really, you're one of the few people that I work with who are outside of the United States real estate like the teak trees. Mike Cobb 30:25 Thank you. Yeah, we've been around for 31 years. I've been working in the region. 31 our development company is 28 years old. Our plantation is now 26 years old. 25 with the trees, but we bought the land 26 years ago. But the bottom line, you're right and and the other thing that we should care about. And you brought this up earlier, when we're kind of chatting, is country, what country are you planting trees in that you got to wait 25 years for them to mature and harvest? By the way, the Panama. By the way, Panama, and of all the countries in the region where I feel the most comfortable as an investor, Panama's yet, because Panama's got the canal. And I know people say, oh, yeah, that's right. It's a vital strategic US interest. It's a vital world interest. The Chinese care about it as much as we do. The Europeans care about it. Anybody who wants commerce to happen cares about that canal being open. And so you've got this country, Panama, that has the canal stable, economically stable, politically stable. And when starting to talk about 2550 7500, year time frames, because you own the land, you get the harvest in 25 years, you replant, and then your children get the next harvest, and your grandchildren get the next harvest. It is truly generational wealth. Stewardship Keith Weinhold 31:41 Panama is a little bit like investing overseas with training wheels on their well developed, first Central American nation. They even use the United States dollars. They do is that familiar? Absolutely well. But as the investors thinking about investing in teak plantations, just tell us about the properties of teak wood, of all wood types. Why teak? Tell us about the value there. Mike Cobb 32:00 Yeah, teak has been grown in plantations, starting with the British back about 400 years ago. And so you've got centuries of plantation growing of teak as a crop, right? And so you've got this incredible longevity of information and things like that. And I know some of the stats off the top of my head, since 1972 the average price of teak lumber has has risen about five and a half percent a year over a 52 year period. Talk about track record, centuries of growing as a crop, right? 52 years as a lumber commodity. Look, people been using it to make ships. Its hardness is its most valuable characteristic is an extremely hard wood. It's resistant to rot fungus, so it's used in outdoor furniture, for example, right? Some of the stuff on the Titanic they pulled up from the bottom of the ocean, you know, chairs made a teak, right? Teak. But ship builders fine furniture, outdoor furniture and and they're cutting teak down. This is so important, they are cutting teak down eight to 10 times faster than anybody in the world is replanting it. So just imagine what that does to supply and demand and prices based on just basic economics, right? Keith Weinhold 33:13 Yeah, that is some scarcity. That is a really good point. Tell us about what you're surely interested in. What do the investor returns look like. Mike Cobb 33:21 Yeah. So you know, to own one of these quarter acre parcels, by the way, you said it before you own the land, you get title to the land you own the trees. $6,880 that's your that's your entry. Gosh. So for less than $7,000 you own a quarter acre of teeth trees that in 25 years projected returns. We all projections right about $94,000 a little over $94,000 so 7000 turns into $90,000 over 25 years, harvest, plant the trees again, and in 25 years, your kids or your grandkids will get the next harvest, and so on and so on. It is a powerful generational wealth stewardship. In fact, right now we have what we call give the gift of teak because look, you know, you got kids, you got grandkids. What are you gonna get them? Right? I mean, they got everything they want, presumably, right? You buy them a teak parcel, right? Buy that kid, buy that grandkid, a teak parcel. What a cool idea. Oh my gosh, in 25 years, you might be gone, right, but they're gonna get this big windfall, and they're gonna thank grandma or grandpa, right for for thinking of them 25 years into the future? Keith Weinhold 34:27 Yeah? Oh, I love that. And you're so proud about what you do. You regularly offer investor tour so that they come and see the teak. But maybe you know, for you, the investor, you're wondering, okay, if you're used to investing in us real estate, you might be making two leaps here. You'd be going from residential real estate to agricultural, and you'd also be investing in a nation outside your home country. And when it comes to those sort of questions, I think any savvy investor asks, okay, what are the risks involved with this investment? Can you tell us about that? Mike Cobb 34:59 Yeah, sure. Look, you've got political risk, country risk, political risk, which, I think again, of all the countries in the region, Panama, dollar, economy, canal, safe, stable. So the political risk is minimal. It's there. It's real. You know, fire risk is an issue, right? Trees burn. The good thing about teak is that after about year three, they're up. And you keep them trimmed, trim all the low branches off. So fire risk really drops incredibly low after about year three or four. But ultimately, it's about professional management. We have a company called Heyo Forrestal that we hired 25 years ago, 26 years ago, actually, to help us find the land, do the analysis of the land, make sure it was good for teak. And when you hire professionals, you get professional results. I mean, we stayed with this company for 26 years now, and the guy that we met early on, a little forestry engineer, is now General Manager and partner in the business. So we've watched that business grow up alongside ours at the same time. Those relationships, you know, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers have a song you can't make old friends. So here we are with Jacobo and some of the Luis that we've worked with for, you know, 26 years, and the relationships matter, especially in that part of the world, but professionalism and professional management is the key, and you have that alongside the relationships. Both are important. Keith Weinhold 36:20 yes. So we're talking about how the property manager is such an important part of your team, and you think about your single family homes or your apartment buildings. And Mike here is talking about the importance of professional management, because teak trees need a little management and pruning, and sometimes there are thinnings which can give you some income so that you don't have to wait 25 years. Correct another way in which you might not have to wait 25 years for the full harvest cycle is at times you can buy trees that are, say, already seven years old, so you can only be waiting 18 years, or that are teens, so you might only be waiting 10 years, or some things about that, those are some of the options. But Mike, before I ask you if you have any last word, if you want to learn more about this, get some information, learn more about it, and learn how to connect with Mike's team. He is one of our GRE marketplace providers, and he's the owner of that company. You can do that at gre marketplace.com/teak, any last thing someone should know about teak before they consider investing? Mike? Mike Cobb 37:16 Yeah, well, two things you mentioned the tour. So we do run discovery tours. We have one coming up in January, end of January, two days, we go out to the plantation, the teenage teat plantation, by the way, oak, which is eight or nine more years to harvest. Then we're going to the sawmill, because all of our logs go through a sawmill to convert to lumber, which enhances the return to the investor. Keith Weinhold 37:36 Do the teens sleep until noon? Or can we visit them Mike Cobb 37:38 and then they're on their phones all day If we're gonna go visit them. We'll wake them up and, like, get on their phones. But here's, here's the last parting word. I think it's scary for a lot of people. It is scary. You're going overseas, you're outside of, you know, residential you're going into a new industry. You're going to a new country. The reason this works for so many people, over 1000 now, have done this, is it's such a small bite, $7,000 and if that's maybe one or 2% of your portfolio, what I hate to say, put it on the table and roll the dice, but you'll be happy you did. I'm happy I did. It's a small bite, but that international diversification is so important. And then you put it in something that's absolutely not correlated to the market. It's not correlated to us real estate. I mean, in 2008 to 2012 when real estate was dying in the US, our trees just kept growing. So non correlated, non US, right? And non residential. I think that's the reason you want to take a little tiny piece of your portfolio and put it overseas in something like teak. Keith Weinhold 38:42 We know over the long term that it has grown in value 5.5% a year, but at the same time, it grows in volume, in the amount of board fees you're getting a crease, an increase in both unit value and volume. It's really growing a couple ways. At the same time, you've had over 1000 different individual investors invest in the teak now, several dozen, maybe even more than 100 of those have been you the get rich education follower. So again, thanks for joining me, Mike. If you want to learn more, start at gre marketplace.com/teak. I'm Keith Weinhold. I'll see you next time. Yeah, good information from Mike there again for GRE followers, that 6880 price deadline is Monday, June 9, and then it goes to 8680, that is a 26% price increase, and this is because land and planting costs have skyrocketed. And you know, I have long wondered about when they were going to change that same lower price that they've had for a lot of years. The provider recently added a sawmill to convert logs to lumber, and that enhances investment returns. So when you inquire for more info, you can ask about that, and that could very well put them above the 94k per part. Possible projected payout. Teak, hardwood, it just has some amazing physical properties. It's not your run of the mill. Backyard. Maple, it is a real asset. Think of it as a forest that fights back against Fiat and the provider reputation and continuity are almost impeccable. They've even had the same forestry manager, yeah, sort of like a property manager for trees, because trees take things like prunings and thinnings, the same manager for all 26 years of the teak operation. In the future, I might join one of their teak investor tours in Panama, and if I do, I'll be sure to let you know so that we can meet up that might even be a GRE exclusive tour. What you really need to know now is that, again, the lower price is good until Monday, June 9, to get started or simply learn more, visit gre marketplace.com/teak, that's t, e, a, k, until next week, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Unknown Speaker 41:10 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC exclusively. Keith Weinhold 41:34 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got pay walls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter. You also get my one hour fast real estate video. Of course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text gre 266, 866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text, GRE to 66866. The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com
Home-purchase cancellations are on the rise, with 14.3% of U.S. pending home sales falling through in April—the highest rate for any April since 2017, aside from the pandemic shock in 2020. In this episode, we explore why so many deals are collapsing, from economic uncertainty and high mortgage rates to an oversupplied housing market that gives buyers more options—and more reasons to walk away. We also spotlight the metros with the highest fallout rates, including several in Florida and Texas, and explain how savvy investors can turn these failed deals into opportunities. Read the Redfin report here: https://www.redfin.com/news/home-purchase-cancellations-april-2025/ Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Channel for the best real estate investing education online! Become a member of the BiggerPockets community of real estate investors - https://www.biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, we break down the latest data from Redfin's Home Price Index, which shows U.S. home prices slipped 0.1% in April—the first monthly decline since September 2022. Host Matt Myre unpacks what's behind this shift, from cautious buyers and recession fears to rising inventory and stalled sales. While annual price growth is still up 4.1%, it's the slowest increase in nearly a year. We also explore which metro areas saw the biggest drops—and the surprising markets where prices are still rising. Tune in for a sharp look at what this softening means heading into peak season. Read the Redfin report here: https://www.redfin.com/news/home-price-index-april-2025/ Subscribe to the BiggerPockets Channel for the best real estate investing education online! Become a member of the BiggerPockets community of real estate investors - https://www.biggerpockets.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Keith discusses the mortgage landscape, emphasizing the benefits of cash-out refinances with Ridge Lending Group President, Caeli Ridge. They unpack the Trump administration's plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could impact the mortgage market. Investors are discovering powerful strategies to leverage property equity and optimize their financial portfolios. By understanding innovative borrowing techniques, savvy real estate investors can access tax-efficient capital and create sustainable wealth-building opportunities. Consider working with a lender that specializes in investor-focused loan products and provides comprehensive education on the options available. Resources: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/554 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're talking about the mortgage loan landscape in this era. Is title insurance a rip off today? Is it worth it for you to pay discount points at the closing table to get a lower interest rate? Learn about how a cash out refinance. Is your ability to borrow tax free, much like a billionaire does, and what are the dramatic changes that the current administration could take to alter the mortgage environment for years, all today on get rich education. Speaker 1 0:34 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, who 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 Corey Coates 1:20 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 1:36 Welcome to GRE from Liverpool, England to Livermore, California and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are listening to get rich education, the voice of real estate. Since 2014 it's been estimated that there are about 800 billionaires in USA, and hey, you might be one of them, but there's a pretty good chance that you aren't well. When it comes to lending and mortgages, you can actually take a page out of a billionaires playbook and do something very much like what they do whenever you perform a cash out refinance if you've got dead equity in a property, and you can borrow against your own home to a greater extent than you can against your rental properties, even either one of those is a tax free event, you've now got tax free cash, and you can use that money on anything from investing it in the stock market To using your proceeds for a down payment on more real estate or buying a boat or going to Disneyland, and you didn't have to relinquish your asset at all. You continue to hold on to the asset. Now, the mechanics are somewhat different, sure, but when you do a cash out refinance like this, it's a bit like billionaires borrowing against their stock. Instead, you're borrowing against the value of your real estate. In fact, listening to this short clip, it's Trevor Noah talking about how billionaires do exactly this, and you'll notice that the crowd laughs because it actually sounds funny that you can really do this, Speaker 2 3:22 the shares that they hold in a company, because it is an unrealized gain, right? So they go like, yeah, you're worth 300 billion, but we can't tax you on those stocks because you haven't sold the shares, so you don't, like, have the money. And I understand the argument. They go like, No, you don't have it. It's just what it's worth, because it will also crash, and then you have nothing, so we can't tax you on it. Then I'm like, Okay, I understand that. Then Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter, all right? He offers to buy it. And then he says in his offer, he goes, I'm putting up my Tesla stock as collateral. Then I'm like, so you do have it? Then he's like, no, no, no, no, I don't have it. I don't have it. I'm just gonna say so then they accept the offer. He now buys Twitter. Now that they've accepted his offer, he now goes to private equity and banks and like other rich people and whatever. He goes like, can you guys borrow me the money to buy Twitter? And then he's like, I'm I want to buy Twitter because I don't want to sell any of my Tesla shares, so I want to use your money to buy Twitter. And then it's like, but then they're like, What are we loaning it against? And he's like, Well, my Tesla shares. Then I'm going, like, Wait, so, so you, you can, you can buy a thing based on what you have, yes, but when we want to tax you, you can say, I don't have it. Do you hear what I'm saying here? Keith Weinhold 4:46 Yeah, you can borrow against your real estate if you have substantial equity in it. We'll talk about just how much now billionaires borrow against their stock holdings using financial products like portfolio lines of credit or. For securities based loans. These are the names for how they do it, essentially taking out loans and using their stock as collateral. And this allows them to access cash without selling their assets and without incurring capital gains taxes, much like you can so you can say that you don't want to sell your property in you don't have to go through some capital raising round either, like a billionaire might have to when they're borrowing against their stock. You can just have a more standard mortgage application for your cash out refinance, and you don't even have to have a huge portfolio. I mean, even if you just own one 500k property with 50% equity in it, you can do this so it's available to most any credit worthy person, again, tax free. But of course, this doesn't mean that you always should take this windfall, because it often creates a higher monthly payment. You've got to be the one that makes that decision in controlling your cash flows, that is key. I'll talk about that some more with today's terrific guests. Also the Trump administration's desire to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac we're going to talk about that and what that would do to the mortgage landscape. I am in the USA today, next week, I'll be bringing you the show from London, England for the first time, the following week, from Edinburgh, Scotland. Yes, the mobile GRE Studio will be in effect. I typically set it up myself, and I usually don't need the help of the hotel staff for an appropriate Sound Studio either. And then shortly after that, I will be in Anchorage, Alaska, where I'm competing in these fantastic mountain running races. And then by next month, that's where I hope to meet up with you in person for nine days of learning and fun, as I'll be in Miami as part of the faculty for the terrific real estate guys invest or summon at sea, where we're all going to disembark from Miami and go to St Thomas, St Martin and the Bahamas, and then after that great event, it is a long flight from Miami back to Anchorage again. And that's got to be one of the longer domestic flights, not just in the nation, but in the world, Miami to Anchorage, and then shortly after that, I will be in the Great Northeast early this summer, New York and Pennsylvania, including for my high school reunion. So I'll really be putting the miles on these next couple months. One interesting thing that I've noticed for next week's show, where I'll be joining you from London, is how much I'm paying per night at both my hotel in England and then later my hotel in Scotland. That's obviously a short term real estate transaction. These are some of the more expensive places in the world, really. So next week and then the week after, I just think you'll find it interesting. I'll tell you how much I'm spending per night in both London and then Edinburgh. And they're both prime locations, where the hotels are the center of London and then right on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. That is in future weeks as for today, let's talk about the mortgage landscape with this week's familiar and terrific guest. I'd like to welcome in one of the more recurrent guests in our history, so she needs little introduction. She's the longtime president of the mortgage company that's created more financial freedom for real estate investors than any lender in the nation because they specialize in income property loans. It's where I get my own loans for my own rental properties. Ridge lending group. Hey, welcome back to GRE Caeli ridge. Caeli Ridge 8:57 Thank you, Keith. You know I love being here with you and your listeners. I appreciate you having me. Keith Weinhold 9:01 You've helped us for so long. For example, who can forget way back in episode 56 Yeah, that's a deep scroll back when Chaley broke down each line of a good faith estimate for us, that's basically a closing statement sheet. She told us exactly what we pay for at the closing table, line by line like origination fee, recording costs and title insurance so helpful. It's just the sort of transparency that you get over there. Buyers pay for title insurance at the closing table. It is title insurance a rip off. A few years ago, a lot of people speculated that title insurance would fade away because the property's ownership could be transparent and accessible to everybody on the blockchain, but we don't really see that happening. So tell us about title insurance, and really, are we getting value in what we pay for there at the closing table? Caeli Ridge 9:54 Well, I think the first thing I would say is that it really isn't going to be an option as far as I. Know, as long as the individual is going to source institutional funding leverage use of other people's money, they're going to require the lender, aka Ridge lending, or whoever you're working with, they're going to require that title insurance that ensures their first lien position. Doing that title search, first and foremost, is going to make it clear that there isn't some cloud on title, that there isn't some mechanic lien that had been sitting out there for however many years it may have just been around. And those types of things never go away. So for a lending perspective, it's going to be real important that that title insurance is paid for and in place to protect their interests, things like judgments, tax liens, like I said, a mechanic's lien, those will automatically take a first lien position in front of a mortgage. So obviously we're not going to risk that and find ourselves in second lien position in the event of default and somebody else is getting paid before we are. So not really an option. Is it a rip off? I don't know enough about how often it's paid out, and not to speak to that, but I will tell you that it isn't a choice. Keith Weinhold 11:07 Title Insurance, like Shaylee was talking about. It protects against fraud related to the property's ownership, someone else claiming rights to the property, and this title search that an insurer does it also, yeah, it looks for those liens and encumbrances, including unpaid taxes, maybe unpaid HOA dues, but yeah, mortgage lenders typically require title insurance, and if you the borrower, you might think that's annoying. Well, it does make sense, because the bank needs to protect their collateral. If a bank ever has to foreclose, they need to have access to you, the borrower, to be able to do that without any liens or ownership claims from somebody else. Caeli, how often do title insurance companies mess up or have to pay out a claim? Does that ever happen? Caeli Ridge 11:50 I mean, if I have been involved in a circumstances where that was the case, it's been so many years ago, they're pretty fastidious. I don't know that I could recall a circumstance where something had happened and the title insurance was liable. They go through the paces, man, they've got to make sure that, and they're doing deep dives and searches across nationwide to make sure that there isn't any unnecessary issue that's been placed on title Not that I'm aware of. No. Keith Weinhold 11:50 Are there any of those other items that we tend to see on a good faith estimate that have had any interesting trends or changes to them in the past few years? Caeli Ridge 12:27 Yeah, I've got a good one, and this is actually timely credit reports. So over the last couple of years, something has been happening with credit reports where, you know, maybe three, four years ago, a credit report, let's say a joint credit report, a husband and wife went and applied that credit report might cost 25 bucks. Well, now it's in excess of 100 plus. Some of what we're going to be talking about today, it kind of gets into the wish list of Jim neighbors, who is the president of the mortgage brokers Association. He's been talking to the administration about some of his wishes, and credit report fees is actually one of the things that they're wanting to attack and bringing those costs down for the consumer. So when we look at a standard Closing Disclosure today, credit report costs have increased significantly. I don't have the percentages, but by a large margin over the last couple of years, Keith Weinhold 13:21 typically not one of your bigger costs, but a little noteworthy. There one thing that people might opt and choose to have on their good faith estimates, so that borrower therefore would actually pay more out of pocket with today's higher mortgage rates. And I'm sure not to say high, because historically, they are not high. Do we see more people opting to pay discount points at the closing table to get a lower rate and talk to us about the trade offs there Caeli Ridge 13:46 right now, first and foremost, that there isn't a lot of option for investment property transactions, whether it be a purchase or refinance. There's not going to be that option where the consumer gets to choose to say, Okay, I want to pay points for a lower rate or not pay points for a higher rate the not paying points is the key here. There isn't going to be a zero point option for investment property transactions. And this gets a little bit convoluted, and then I'll circle back and answer the question of, when does it make sense to pay the points, more points versus less points? We have been in a higher rate environment that I think a lot of people have become accustomed to as a result secondary markets, where mortgage backed securities are bought and sold, they keep very close tabs on the trends and where they think things are headed. Well, something called YSP, that stands for yield, spread, premium, under normal market circumstances, a consumer can say, okay, Caeli, I don't want to pay any points. Okay, I'll take this higher interest rate, and I don't want to pay any points, because that higher interest rate is going to have YSP, yield, spread, premium to pay compensation to a lender, and you know, the other third parties that may be involved in that mortgage backed security. But. Sold and traded, etc, okay? They have that choice under normal market circumstances. Not the case right now, because when this loan sells the servicing rights, whoever is going to pick up the servicing rights, so when Mr. Jones goes to make his mortgage payment, he's going to cut a check to Mr. Cooper. That's a big one, right? Or Rocket Mortgage, or Wells Fargo, whoever the servicer is, the servicing rights are purchased at a cost. They have to pay for the servicing rights, and let's say that's 1% of this bundle of mortgage backed securities that they're purchasing. Well, they know the math is, is that that servicer is going to take about 36 months before that upfront cost is now in the black or profitable. This all will land together. Everybody, I promise you stick with me, so knowing that we've got about a 36 month window before a servicer that picked up the rights to service this mortgage is going to be profitable in a higher rate environment, as interest rates start coming down, what happens to the mortgage that they paid for the rights to service 12 months ago, 18 months ago, that thing is probably going to refinance right prior to the 36 month anniversary of profitability. So that YSP seesaw there is not going to be available for especially a non owner occupied transaction. So said another way, zero point rates are not going to be valid on a non owner occupied transaction in a higher rate environment when secondary markets understand that the loans that are secured today will very likely be refinanced prior to profitability on the servicing side of that mortgage backed security that is a risk to the lender, yes. So we know that right now you're not going to find a zero point option. Now that may be kind of a blanket statement. If you were getting a 30% loan to value owner occupied mortgage with 800 credit scores, you know that's going to be a different animal. And of course, you're going to have the option to not pay points. The risk for that is nothing. Okay, y SP is going to be available for you, the consumer, to be able to choose points at a lower rate, no points higher rate. When does it make sense to pay additional points? Let's say to reduce an interest rate, the break even math. And you know, I'm always talking about the math, the break even math is actually the formula is very simple. All you need to do is figure out the cost of the points. Dollar amount of the points, let's say it's $1,000 and that's what it's going to cost you to, say, get an eighth or a quarter or whatever the denomination is, in the interest rate reduction. But you aren't worried about the interest rate necessarily. You're looking at the monthly payment difference. So it's going to cost you $1,000 in extra points, but it's only going to save you $30 a month in payment when you divide those two numbers, what's that going to take you 33 months? 30 well, okay, and does that make sense? Am I going to refinance in 33 months? If the answer is no, then sure pay the extra 1000 bucks. But that's the math, the cost versus the monthly payment difference divide that that gives you the number of months it takes to recapture cost versus cash flow or savings, and then you be the determining factor on when that makes sense. Keith Weinhold 18:10 It's pretty simple math. Of course, you can also factor in some inflation over time, and if you would invest that $1,000 in a different vehicle, what pace would that grow at as well? So we've been talking about the pros and cons of buying down your mortgage rate with discount points before we get into the administration changes. Cheley talk about that math in is it worth it to refinance or not? It's a difficult decision for some people to refinance today with higher mortgage rates than we had just a few years ago, and at the same time, we've got a lot of dead equity that's locked up. Caeli Ridge 18:40 I would start first by saying, Are we looking to harvest equity? Are we pulling cash out, or are we simply doing a rate and term refinance where we're replacing one loan with another loan, if it's for rate and term, if we're simply replacing the loan that we have today with a new loan, that math is going to be pretty simple. Why would you replace 6% interest rate with a 7% interest rate? If all other things were equal, you wouldn't unless there was a balloon feature, or maybe an adjustable rate mortgage or something of that nature involved there that you have to make the refinance. So taking that aside, focusing on a cash out refinance, and when does it make sense? So there's a little extra layered math here. The cash that you're harvesting, the equity that you're harvesting, first of all, borrowed funds are non taxable. What are we going to do with that pile of cash? Are we going to redeploy it for investing more often than not talking to investors? The answer is yes. What is that return going to look like? So you've got to factor that in as well, and then we'll get to the tax benefit in a moment. But generally speaking, I like to as long as the cash flow is still there, okay, you've got to have someone else covering that payment. Normally, there's exceptions to every rule. I don't normally advise going negative on a cash out refi. There are exceptions. Okay, please hear me. But otherwise, as long as the existing rents are covering and that thing is still being paid for by somebody else, then what you want to do is look at that monthly payment. Difference again, versus what you're getting out of it. And then you divide those two numbers pretty simply, and it'll take you how long. And then you've got a layer in the cash flow that you're going to get from the new acquisitions, and whether that be real estate or some other type of investment, whatever the return is, you're going to be using that to offset. And then finally, I would say, make sure that you're doing adding in the tax benefit. These are rental properties guys, right? So closing costs can be deducted now that may end up hurting debt to income ratio down the road. So don't forget, Ridge lending is going to be looking at your draft tax returns. Very, very important to ensure that we're setting you up for success and optimizing things like debt to income ratio on an annual basis. Keith Weinhold 20:40 Now, some investors, or even primary residence owners might look at their first and only mortgage on a property, see that it's 4% and really not want to touch that. What is the environment and the appetite like today for having a refinance in the form of a second mortgage? That way you can keep your first mortgage in place and, say, 4% get a second mortgage at 7% or more. How does that look for both owner occupied and non owner occupied properties today? Caeli Ridge 21:07 you're going to be looking at prime, plus, in many cases, if you don't want to mess with a first lien, a second lien mortgage is typically going to be tied to an index called prime. Those of you that are familiar with this have probably heard of that. Indicee. There's lots of them. The fed fund rate, by the way, is an index. There's lots of them. The Treasury is also another index. Prime is sitting, I think, at seven and a half percent. So you're probably going to be looking at rate wise, depending on occupancy and credit score and all of those llpas that we always talk about, loan level, price adjustment. You know, it could be prime plus zero, it could be prime plus four. So interest rates could range between, say, seven and a half, on average, up to 11 even 12% depending on those other variables. More often than not, those are going to be interest only. So make sure that you're doing that simple math there. And I would prefer if I'm giving advice the second liens, the he loan, which is closed ended, very much like your first mortgage, it's just in second lien position. It's amortized over a certain period of time, closed ended. Not as big a fan of that. If you can find the second liens, especially for non owner occupied, I would encourage it to be that open ended HELOC type. Keith Weinhold 22:15 What are we looking at for combined loan to value ratios with second mortgages Caeli Ridge 22:19 on an owner occupied I think you'd be happy to get 90. I think I've heard that in some cases, they can go up to 95% in my opinion, that would go as high as they'll let you go right on a non owner occupied, I think you'd be real lucky to find 80, and probably closer to 70. Keith Weinhold 22:34 That really helps a lot with our planning. Well, the administration that came in this year has made some changes that can create some upheaval, some things to pay attention to in the mortgage market. We're going to talk about that when we come back. You're listening to get rich education. Our guest is Ridge lending Group President, Caeli Ridge I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. The same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group NMLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President Chaeli Ridge personally while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lendinggroup.com. That's Ridge lendinggroup.com. You know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back. No weird lockups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing. Check it out. Text family to 66866, to learn about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund again. Text family to 66866 Hal Elrod 24:38 this is Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning and listen to get rich education with Keith Weinhold, and don't put your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 24:55 Welcome back to get rich education. We're talking about mortgages again, because this is one. Where leverage comes from. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, we're sitting down with the president of ridge lending group, Caeli Ridge, and I know that she has some knowledge and some updates on new administration leadership and some potential changes for the market there. What can you tell us? Caeli Caeli Ridge 25:16 I'm pretty excited about this one, and I'm watching very diligently to see how it unfolds. So the new director of the FHFA Federal Housing Finance Agency, all is Bill Pulte. This is the grandson of Pulte Homes. Okay, smart guy. I'm excited to see what he's going to come in and do. Well. He had recently, I think in the last couple of weeks, he put out in the news wires asking for feedback from the powers that be, related to Fannie and Freddie, what improvements they would like to see. So first up was Jim neighbors. He is the president of the mortgage brokers Association. He had a few very specific wish list items, if you will. And the first one on his list was the elimination of LLP, as for non owner occupied and second home. So let me just kind of paint a picture here, because there's some backstory I think is important. So an LLPA, for those of you that have never heard that term before, stands for a loan level price adjustment. And a loan level price adjustment is a positive number or a negative number that associates with the individual loan characteristics. So things like loan to value or loan size, occupancy is a big ll PA, the difference between an owner occupied where you live and one that you're going to use as a rental property, that's a big one. Credit score, property type, is it a single family? Is it a two to four? Is this a purchase? Is it a refi? Anyway, all of those different characteristics are ll pas. Well, if we take a step back in time, gosh, about three years ago now, Mark Calabria, at the time, was the director of the FHFA, and he had imposed increases, specific increases. This was middle of 22 I want to say specific increases to the LL pas for non owner occupied property. So if anybody kind of remembers that time, we started to really see points and interest rates take that jump sometime in 2022 more than just the traditional interest rate market and the fluctuations. This was very material to investment property and second home, but we'll focus on the investment property. So Mr. Jim neighbors came in and said, first and foremost, I'd like to see those removed, and I want to read something to the listeners here, because I thought it was very interesting. This is something I've been kind of preaching from the the rooftops, if you will, for many, many years. Yeah, we've got neighbors sticking up for investors here. He really is. And I Yeah, well, yes, he is. And more often than not, they're focused on the owner occupied so I'm just going to kind of read. I've got my cheat sheet here. I want to make sure I get it all right for everybody. So removal of the loan level price adjustments on investment properties and second homes, he noted that these risk based fees charged by Fannie and Freddie discourage responsible buyers from purchasing second homes and investment properties, with that insignificant increase to cost. And here's the important part, originally introduced to account for additional credit risk, many of the pandemic era llpa increases were not based on updated risk metric. In fact, data has shown that loans secured by investment properties often have strong credit profiles and lower than expected default rates. I mean, anybody that has been around long enough to see what we've come from, like, 08,09, and when we had the calamity of right, the barrier for entry for us to get any conventional financing as investors has been harsh. I mean, I make that stupid joke of vials of blend DNA samples. But aside from it being an icebreaker, it kind of feels true. We really get the short end of the stick. And I feel like as investors especially, post 08,09, our credit profiles, our qualifications, the bar is so high for us, the default risk there has largely been removed. We've got so much skin in the game. With 20 25% down, credit score is much higher, debt to income ratios more scrutinized, etc, etc. So I think that this is, if it passes muster. I think this is going to be a real big win for the non owner occupied side of agency, Fannie, Mae, Freddie, Mac lending. Keith Weinhold 29:13 The conventional wisdom is, is that if you the borrower, get into financial trouble, you're more likely to walk away from your rental properties than you are your own home and neighbors, sort of like a good neighbor here sticking up for us and stating that, hey, us, the investors, we're actually highly credit worthy people. Caeli Ridge 29:29 Yeah, absolutely. So fingers crossed. Everybody say your prayers to the llpa and mortgage investor rates gods. Keith Weinhold 29:37 we'll be attentive to that. What other sorts of changes do we have with the administration? For example, I know that Trump and some others in the administration have talked about privatizing the GSEs, those government sponsored enterprises, Fannie, Mae, Freddie Mac and what kind of disruption that would create for the industry. Is it really any credence to that? Caeli Ridge 29:58 They've been talking about it for. For quite a while. I mean, as long as Trump has been kind of on the scene, that's been maybe a wish list for him. I don't see that happening over the next years. That is an absolute behemoth to unpack and make a reality. Speaking of Mark Calabria, he was really hot and heavy on the trails of doing that. So what this is, you guys so fatty Freddy, are in conservatorship that happened back post 08,09, and privatizing them and making them where it is not funded, or conservatorship within the United States government. Now it still has those guarantees against default. It's a very complicated, complex, nuanced dynamic of mortgage backed securities, but if we were to privatize them at some point now, am I saying that that's a bad thing? No, not necessarily, but I think it has to be very carefully executed, and because there are so many moving parts, I do not think that just one term of presidency is going to make that happen. If we do it, it's going to be years down the road from now. Is my crystal ball. I don't think we're going to see that anytime soon. Keith Weinhold 30:58 That's interesting to know. Are there any other industry changes that are important, especially for investors, whether that has to do with the change in administration or anything else? Caeli Ridge 31:08 Well, specific to that wish list from Mr. Neighbors, one of the other things that he had asked, and there were quite a few, for owner occupied changes as well, he wants to reduce the seasoning for cash out refinances of investment properties, which would be huge good. Yeah, right now it's 12 months on a cash out refinance given very specific acquisition details. Okay, I won't go down that rabbit hole, but currently, if you haven't met exactly these certain benchmarks, you may have to wait 12 months to pull cash out of a property from the day that you acquire it, he's asking that that be pulled back to about six months, which would be nice Keith Weinhold 31:46 reducing the seasoning period from 12 months to six months, meaning that an investor a borrower, would only need to own that property for that shorter duration of time prior to performing a refinance. Caeli Ridge 31:58 Cash out refinance, no seasoning required on a rate and term. This is specific for cash out. But again, for cash out, but exactly right Keith Weinhold 32:04 now, one trend that I think about sometimes, especially when I think back to 2008 2009 days since I was an investor through that time, is, are there any signs in the reduction of the appetite or the propensity to lend, to make loans. So how freely is credit flowing? Caeli Ridge 32:25 I think pretty freely. I'm not seeing that they're tightening the purse strings. That's not the lens that I'm looking at it from, and I try to keep that brush stroke broad. There have been, I think that on the post, close side, there's been a little extra from Fannie Freddie, and I think that has to do with profitability markers. But overall, I'm not seeing that products are disappearing necessarily, or that guidelines are really becoming even more cumbersome. If anything, I would say it's maybe the reverse of that, and I do believe that probably is part and parcel to this administration and the real estate background that comes with it. Keith Weinhold 32:59 One other thing I pay attention to, but it just really hasn't been much of a story lately. Are delinquencies in foreclosures. It seems like they've ticked up a little bit, but they're still both really historically low and basically a delinquency being defined as when a borrower makes one late payment, and foreclosures being the more severe thing, typically a 120 days late or more. Any trends there? I'm not Caeli Ridge 33:24 seeing any now. And in fact, I would tell you that, because we focus so much on investor needs, first payment default is I can count on less than one hand, if I had to, how many times I've seen that happen with our clients over 25 years. So nothing noteworthy there for me. Keith Weinhold 33:40 Yes. I mean, today's borrowers are just flush with equity. Nationally, there's a loan to value ratio of 47% which is healthy, in a sense. On average, borrowers have a 53% equity position. Of course, the next thing, I think, is like, I don't really know if that's a smart strategy. They're not really getting that much leverage out there. But I think a lot of people just have the old mentality of get it paid off. Caeli Ridge 34:06 And I think that depending on where you are in your journey, I mean, if you're in phase three, right, where you're just really looking at these investments, these nest eggs to carry you into your retirement and or for legacy reasons, fine, but otherwise, I may argue the point in that I don't care that you have a 3% interest rate on an investment property, or whatever it may be, if it's sitting there idle and as long as it can cash flow, the true chances of those individuals of keeping that mortgage that they got in 2020, 2021, etc, at those ridiculously low interest rates and stroking 360 payments later to pay it to zero is a fraction of a percent right now, whether they're on the sidelines for something else, I don't know, but that debt, equity, I think, is hurting them more than a 3% interest rate is helping them. Keith Weinhold 34:52 And a lot of times, the mindset of someone is, if they don't need to build wealth anymore, and they're older and they already built wealth, they don't care if they're loaned to value. Was down to zero, and they have it paid off, whereas someone that's in the wealth building phase probably wants to get more leverage. Yeah, Chaley at risk lending group, there you see so many applications come in, and especially since you're an investor centric lender, I like to ask you what trends you're seeing. What are people buying? What are people doing? Are they refinancing? Are they paying loans off? Are they trying to take out more credit? Are there any overall trends with investors that you see in there Caeli Ridge 35:29 right now? I think the all in one is a clear winner there. The all in one, that first lien, HELOC, that you and I talked about, we broke my little corner of the internet with that one, that one is a front runner for sure, on the refinance side, specifically, we are seeing quite a bit more on the refi side of things, that equity is kind of just sitting there. So even though, if the on one isn't a good fit for them, I'm seeing investors that are willing to tap into that equity instead of just sitting around and waiting for them to potentially lose some equity if the housing market does start to take some decline. And then I would say, on the purchase transaction side, something that's kind of piqued my interest is the pad split. I'm looking at that more often where, for those that are not familiar, you can probably speak more to this, Keith, they're buying single family resident properties, even two to four unit properties, and a per bedroom basis, turning those into rental properties. And they're looking to be quite profitable. So I've got my eyes on that too. Keith Weinhold 36:23 before we ask how we can learn more about you and what you do in there at Ridge Kayle. Is there any last thing that you'd like to share? Maybe a question I did not think about asking you, but should have. Caeli Ridge 36:35 I would like to share with your listeners that if they are not working with a lender that focuses on their education and has that diversity of loan product that we have, that they're probably in the wrong support group. You need to be working with a lender that has a nationwide footprint and that has diversity of loan product to cover whatever methodology of real estate investing that you're looking for, and really puts a fine touch on the education of your qualifications and your goals as they relate to underwriters guidelines Keith Weinhold 37:10 what we're talking about, and I know this through my own experience in dealing with Ridge, since I use them for my own loans myself, is sometimes Ridge might inform You that, hey, you can go and do this and make this deal now, but that's going to mess up this bigger thing 12 months down the road, whereas if you talk with an everyday sort of owner occupant mortgage company, oh, they're just not going to talk like that, because owner occupants, they might only buy every seven years, or something like that. And investors are different, and you need to have that foresight and look ahead. Caeli, this has been great, a really informative conversation about the pulse of the market. Tell us what products that you offer in there. Caeli Ridge 37:50 Our menu is very, very diverse. I would say what. It's probably easier to describe what we don't offer. We do not have bear lot loans or land loans. We're not offering those right now. We do not have second lien HELOCs currently. We suspended that two years ago. But otherwise, guys, we're going to have everything that you're going to need. So just very quickly, I'll rattle off Fannie Freddie, okay, those golden tickets that we talk about, we've got DSCR loans, bank statement loans, asset depletion loans, ground up construction, short term bridge loans for fix and flip or fix and hold. We have our All In One that's my favorite first lien. HELOC, we have commercial loan products for commercial property and residential on a cross collateralization basis. So very, very robust in the loan product space. Keith Weinhold 38:33 Caeli Ridge, it's been valuable as always. And then Ridge lending group.com, or your phone number Caeli Ridge 38:39 855-747-4343, 855-74-RIDGE, , and then to reach us an email, if that's your better mechanism to contact us info@ridgelendinggroup.com Keith Weinhold 38:50 that's been valuable as always. Thanks so much for coming back onto the show. Caeli Ridge 38:53 Appreciate it. Keith, Keith Weinhold 39:00 Yeah, terrific information from Chaley. As always, if you're enamored of borrowing tax free, like a billionaire, against your real estate, they sure can help you out with that and determine whether that's right. It doesn't mean that you always should, but if you have investment ideas for debt equity, and you're attentive to cash flows, run the numbers with them and see if it's worthwhile. As far as new purchases, we all know that soured affordability has made it especially tough for first time homebuyers, and there's more data out there that shows that tenant durations are historically long, longer than they usually are. Tenants are staying in places longer because they have to. Investor purchases have stayed strong, though investors have been buying about the same proportion of single family homes and making them rentals that they have historically and Redfin tells us that. The value of properties that investors have purchased is up more than 6% year over year, so investors are still buying and that makes sense. We're in this era where there's more uncertainty than usual, there's higher stock volatility than usual, and more people are sort of asking themselves, where would I get a better return than on income property, and where would my return be more stable today than in income property as well? If you work with Ridge lending group for a time, you're probably going to understand why I personally use them for my own loans. You'll notice that they really understand what investors need. Thanks to Caeli Ridge today and thank you for being here too. But as always, you weren't here for me. You were here for you until next week. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Speaker 3 40:56 Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively. Keith Weinhold 41:20 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access, and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers. It's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long, my letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called the Don't quit your Daydream letter. It wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text. GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text GRE to 66866 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, get rich education.com.
This is how to find investment properties that make real money in 2025. No “off-market” deals, no mailing letters, no cold calling—we'll walk you through how to find profitable, on-market rental properties that anyone can spot in any market across the country. Plus, how to separate “upside” potential from money pits that aren't worth the price. Dave has been buying rentals for 15 years, and he's showing you his exact method. If you're used to browsing listing sites like Zillow, Realtor, or Redfin, prepare to get your mind blown. We just released a brand new tool, BiggerDeals (100% free, by the way), that allows you to quickly search on-market properties and instantly get their cash flow, cash-on-cash return, cap rate, and rent-to-value ratios. This trims down your search time for properties by a massive margin. Now that you've used BiggerDeals to find your next potential rental, Dave will show you how to run the numbers in-depth to ensure you're buying a deal, not a dud. If the numbers work, and it fits your buy box, it's time to make an offer! The deal-finding and analysis can all be done in minutes, which means you're WAY closer to your first (or next) rental property than you thought! In This Episode We Cover How to find profitable rental properties in any market in just minutes with BiggerDeals Why you DON'T need to find “off-market deals” to invest in real estate The “funnel” approach to finding rentals and how to trim down your search time by 90%+ Using the rental property calculator to easily run your numbers How to estimate variable expenses on your next investment property The one thing you should always do before you offer on a property And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1121 Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices