Why Can’t We Afford Homes?

Video: How to Beat High Rents with Savvy Real Estate Investing

Are skyrocketing real estate prices keeping you from your dream home?

Join Lincoln from BullAcademy.org on YouTube, along with real estate experts Markado Tozay and Pekens Antoine, as they dive into the dynamics of today’s challenging real estate market.

Whether you’re grappling with high rents or the daunting task of buying your first home, this discussion sheds light on why prices are high and what you can do about it.

🔑 In this video, Mark and Pekens, seasoned professionals in residential and commercial real estate, share their insights on the current market trends, the impact of economic shifts, and strategies to overcome investment barriers. From the intricacies of navigating first-time home-buying to making savvy investment choices, they cover the essentials of entering and thriving in the real estate market.

🌆 No matter if you’re in New York, Philadelphia, or anywhere across the country, the challenges are similar, and the strategies discussed here will empower you to think differently about how you can achieve your property goals. Discover tips on dealing with bidding wars, understanding mortgage components like private mortgage insurance (PMI), and leveraging financial tools to your advantage.

💼 Whether you’re looking to buy, sell, or invest, this conversation is packed with actionable advice. Stay tuned as Lincoln, Mark, and Pekens also tackle the effects of economic phenomena like the Great Recession and COVID-19 on property buying behaviors and the overarching real estate landscape.

📊 Don’t miss out on this deep dive into making informed real estate decisions that could lead to your future home or a successful investment. Be sure to engage with our experts through the contact details provided in the description below and get personalized advice tailored to your real estate needs.

👉 Watch, learn, and take control of your real estate journey today with BullAcademy.org!

Key Topics Covered in Our Real Estate Discussion

In our comprehensive video discussion, we delve into several critical aspects of the current real estate market. Here are the key topics we covered:

• Rising Real Estate Prices: Understand the factors driving up the cost of housing across various cities, from Philadelphia to New York City, and how these changes affect both buyers and renters.
• Challenges for First-Time Homebuyers: Explore the unique challenges facing first-time buyers, including competitive markets, high entry costs, and strategies for navigating these hurdles.
• Impact of Economic Events: Discuss how major events like the Great Recession and COVID-19 have reshaped the real estate landscape, influencing buyer behavior and investment strategies.
• Investment Opportunities and Strategies: Gain insights into different types of real estate investments and how to identify opportunities even in a high-priced market.
• Understanding Mortgages and Financing: Break down the components of mortgages, the implications of private mortgage insurance (PMI), and how to manage financing to secure a favorable outcome.
• The Role of Real Estate Agents: Learn about the critical role agents play in the buying and selling process, and how they can help navigate complex market dynamics.
• Advice for Real Estate Investors: Receive expert advice on real estate investment, including managing properties, understanding market cycles, and leveraging financial tools to enhance investment returns.
• Navigating Market Changes: Discuss strategies to cope with fluctuating interest rates and market conditions to make informed buying, selling, and investing decisions.

This discussion is designed to arm you with the knowledge to make informed decisions whether you are buying your first home, looking to invest in real estate, or seeking ways to optimize your current real estate holdings. Check out the full video for a deeper exploration of these topics and tailored advice from our real estate experts.

Video Transcript

Hey there, Lincoln here from boaacademy. org. Today I have my cousin here and my friend, Pekens Antoine, and we’re going to be talking about why real estate prices are so high, why it costs you thousands of dollars just to rent a one bedroom, and why no one can buy a house these days. No matter which city you’re in, Philadelphia, New York City, New Jersey, anywhere you go, prices are just everyone’s priced out unless you can bring cash.

You’re not, you’re not getting that house. Right. So I have my cousin here, Mark. Mark, I thought it was Jose. And he’s a real estate agent in Philadelphia, greater Philadelphia area, including New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania. Right. And I have my friend Pekens Antoine also in real estate, commercial real estate.

Is that right? Yep. Commercial real estate as an agent,

um, a residential investor, um, primarily I’m an executive coach. Um, but real estate is always going to be something that I do.

Yeah. So, we’re going to be talking again about real estate, why it’s so high in prices, and what you can do to get invested and maybe even buy your own house, even if you’re not trying to invest.

Just get into the market, have a house that you can build equity in and hopefully have as a retirement, right? And we have two experts here. Who have been doing real estate investing for a long time and also helping other people like yourself get into real estate By being your agent you’re buying by an agent or your selling agent in both residential and in commercial real estate So I have the opportunity to have them here today and you as well will be much better off after watching this video So stay with us and you’re going to learn a whole lot today.

It’s gonna be a good great discussion I would love to have you to introduce yourself real quick before we dive in

Sure. So my name is Pekens Antoine. I am an executive coach at Altra Motive. I’m also a commercial real estate agent and a real estate investor. Um, and I’m excited to, um, to talk about this.

I have experience as a landlord. Um, and, uh, so I think I can bring a little bit of value to this. I’m excited to learn from you guys as well. Definitely.

Mark. My name is Mark Jose. I’m a realtor. Bye. I focus on residential, commercial, multifamily, nationwide, uh, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware. I have experience working with investors, first time homebuyers.

So my experience can definitely, you know, offer a bunch of, you know, things that I want to do as far as working from both aspects of investments and homebuyers too. So I’m happy to be here.

No, it’s my honor to have you both here. So again, thanks for being here. And I’m sure my audience is going to be very happy to have you here as well.

So the first thing we’re gonna get into is, let’s just talk about the Great Recession, right? And what happened after that with the private equity and just the industry buying up the single family houses. So, what have you guys seen in that area and why are they doing that? And of course, how does that hurt the average home buyer?

From what I’ve experienced specifically in this area, in the eastern side of things, um, I’ve experienced, uh, investors from New York coming down Pennsylvania, taking advantage of the price, buying up the properties, and then remodeling and renovating properties, turning ’em into multifamily, and then raising rents, making it comp, you know, more competitive for a first time home buyer or for, you know, a home buyer to purchase a property.

And also making it competitive within the rental aspect of things. It’s tough as a buyer because coming into the market, you know, as a first, specifically as a first time home buyer, I focus most on first time home buyers because a mass majority of my clients are first time buyers and they have this preconception of, uh, things that they either heard from their family or from their own research.

And there’s a huge gap most of the time where we have to start from expectation to reality. There’s usually a huge gap between that. And with the investors buying up all the locations and properties, um, It’s also putting pressure on them because now prices are going higher than they expected. Yeah.

Especially from

New York, right? Cause New York prices are insane. A lot of work home, but now people are coming from New York, like you said, and just driving up.

And you can imagine if you’re, if you’re buying from New York and you have the income with the New York property purchase price, coming to Pennsylvania is a huge discount.

So you’re offering way above asking price as opposed to the, uh, because of the residents that is just trying to get to that price. So that’s mostly the biggest challenge that I have to deal with as far as like, you know, competition wise when I’m, you know, looking for my clients and we’re putting in offers and constantly just getting outbid, outbid, outbid by these big time investors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s tough because the investors, they need a place to put their money. And if that seems like a good asset for them, they’re going to get it. And unfortunately, like, this, Everything that we see in real estate has happened. Like, it’s a cycle. There’s a, there’s a process of, there’s not enough inventory and then there’s, there’s too much inventory.

And like, for me, I like to encourage as much people to just look for opportunities as much as possible and make it a habit to look for opportunities because you’re going to see that discouraging reality where it’s just hard, you know, like it’s just tough. It’s tough to find something good that’s affordable.

And then when you’re competing with big time REITs and investors who want to, so a REIT is a real estate investment trust. That’s what it stands for. And it’s basically a group of investors that come together to, um, instead of managing their being their own landlords, they put it into a group of people to go ahead and, Invest in, um, uh, real estate properties.

Yeah. You can do that through syndication pretty much, or you can, they have on the stock market where you can invest in it as well. Like you were stuck, right? Like a business. So yeah, those are different options for a reach, right? Yeah, so when you’re competing

against that very sophisticated investors We’re living in a place where everyone has to be optimistic in this space.

So um, it’s it’s essential to get with someone like mark or myself to to be able to like get some kind of guidance because When something comes up, you got to be able to either move quick and educate yourself on it because if you want to be in a position where you can control your future in terms of real estate because it’s tough out there to be a renter, then you got to look for those opportunities.

Yeah. And yeah, I’m laughing because I just came from New York and rent in New York is insane, right? You’re paying thousands for a box and you can’t even buy a house out there cause you’re paying a million for a box, right? Um, so I come to Philly and it’s much better in Philly, but it’s still very expensive for the average person.

I mean, I make a tech salary, right? Most people don’t have that kind of high salary. So even half the price of New York is still very high for most people. So yeah, going against these REITs, these, uh, private equity funds, who are buying up all these single family houses, and of course they, when they buy that, they raise the price of the mortgage, which means that the people who already have houses, the investors who already have the houses, the landlords, Can now say, Hey, I know you can’t get a house.

So I’m going to raise your rent, right? So now rents go up and not everyone’s struggling. And now you can’t even save for a down payment because your rent’s too high. So this is a vicious cycle, right? And

now COVID messed it up even more. So on one end, you have, um, people. built up their money supply, right?

Because they’re like, I can’t go out to the club. I’m not vacationing because you got to wear a mask everywhere. And I’m not trying to do that. So they saving up their coins. And now they’re deciding, you know what, let me use this money to go and buy a house. Good. That’s a good thing. So there’s a bunch of people that went and bought, bought houses, but the competition is rising because you’re stacking up your money, I’m stacking up my money.

So we’re going to go to, we’re going to go to war. Exactly. There’s been so much bidding wars during COVID, right? A lot. And so a house that would probably cost 200, 000 typically. It’s now selling for a hundred thousand over asking as is don’t do nothing to it. I’ll take it. Don’t even look at the inspector con.

I don’t have time

for inspection. That was a big deal. Yeah. With inspection. Um, just to, you know, talk about what he just said. Another fact that took place during the COVID is that, uh, banks was given pre approval more than they would averagely give the average buyer because they themselves have to stay in business.

So say for example, if an average buyer before COVID would get 250 pre approved, they would give them 350.

Now

these guys don’t know what to do with that kind of pre approval. So just to make it more competitive, now they’re buying property that they probably can’t even make the payments on. Yeah. So that’s another issue that we’re heading towards in the long run.

We’re going to see a lot of declining in mortgage and a lot of more foreclosure properties because of that. Because obviously their income doesn’t change because of the scenario, the situation with COVID. Things have to stay in business. So therefore they’re getting up more people. Yeah. And that’s what made even, you know, added towards the bidding more even worse than, you know, than

it’s

supposed

to be.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And they also offered, I know my. My lender better. com, which is my preferred lender. Cause it’s super easy to use. They were giving out offers to let you use their cash so that you don’t, cause people don’t have their own cash and cash buyers usually win. So they were like, Oh, if you don’t have cash, you can use our cash.

Right. And so now it’s making it even harder for everyone out there. They’re now there’s more cash in the market and bidding was becoming even harder for people who cannot get that cash. Right. So, yeah. And what you’re saying on the future of the decline, all these, It’s on your activities with no inspections and buying higher mortgages and you can afford people like you said, won’t be able to afford that mortgage.

And when they found out that their foundation is in ruling, they’re going to be out 10, 000, 20, 000, 3000, and most people cannot afford that. Most of this country only have 400 in emergency fund for emergency, right? So if you come up with a foundation issue, now you’re, you don’t have the money to fix Is that it?

So you’re over-leveraged. You’re over-leveraged, and now that house might crumble from underneath you and then you’ll be underwater right on your mortgage and that’s when hospital to be forced out their houses. In the similar vein, we’re seeing that people who bought new developments before the house was built, they’re now seeing their property tax assessments.

Go through the roof. Right? Right. So can you guys talk about that too? In that same vein of people now having struggles with their mortgage and of course taxes. Yeah, that’s,

that’s the, that’s the other like part that um, when you watch things on social media and you get a short clip, they say just get a house.

You get a mortgage. It’s way better than renting because your mortgage stays the same and then it doesn’t yeah Like there’s still the potential for it to rise because of taxes and then and then there’s also insurance like insurance is crazy right now because If the cost of labor and goods during COVID skyrocketed So now the insurance companies, they have to still be able to provide like a replacement value for your house.

And now they weren’t expecting your replacement value, your replacement cost, to be a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand more because now you gotta pay so much for labor. It’s so much for lumber and all this stuff. And it’s so like, we talked about how it’s tough for renters, but it’s hard for investors too.

I’m ready to leave the property and it’s expensive. So it’s like, when you look at the business side of it, me, I like to look at I’m very empathetic. So I need to keep a buffer between myself and my tenants because that’s when you start making wrong business decisions. You start feeling bad, but then I gotta feel bad for me.

Exactly.

Because I’m in a pickle. Like I can’t give you free or reduced rates when I gotta pay so much to change the roof. Exactly. To do some paving to renovate the kitchen and do all this and I can’t do it. And be a bad businessman at the same time. So, yeah, with taxes going up, um, depending on the jurisdiction that you’re in, and then you also have insurance rates pretty much across the board going, um, uh, going up.

It’s, it’s crucial to really be able to buy right. Mm hmm. You can’t always get a perfect deal and I think that also paralyzes investors because they want to get the perfect numbers But like it’s more important to just do it and know that you’re taking a risk Yeah, you’re taking a risk as a writer.

You’re taking a risk as an investor. Yeah But just do it and try your best to educate yourself to buy right at the beginning because it’s harder to fix it later on Yeah,

insurance is Insane right now. In some places you can’t even get insurance, right? Like in Florida, you know, right? With the, with all the climate change, right?

It gets worse with commercial property. Yeah, I’m, I’m sure of it, especially in NYC, right? With remote working now, right? So, uh, Mark, you want to touch on insurance?

Yeah. Um, another issue that we have with, uh, you know, you have, as a buyer, you do have options with different mortgages, different loans. Um, Specifically with FHA loans.

That’s the most common loan for a first time homebuyer. Uh, you have PMI with private mortgage insurance. Those insurances usually, those are the one that are unexpected because if you did a conventional, you don’t have to do a PMI, you don’t have

PMI,

right? So that also contributed to the expense of owning a house because the PMI could be very, well, during COVID, it went up very high, right?

As of now, you know, it’s slowly declining, but that was not a contribution towards the, uh, you know, higher mortgage payments because you have your, you know, PM money, you have your regular insurance, property insurance, and then you have your taxes that, you know, that changes that increase every year or every so often depending on your location.

So definitely with that being, you know, something that most of my clients, I have to coach them into preparations because these are things that are not mostly talked about, you

know.

Uh, most of the time they don’t even know what the mortgage is made of. So what do

you do about PMI then? How do you, how do you avoid PMI?

Cause I know you can, if you pay a higher, uh, down payment, let’s talk about that. If you

pay a higher down payment, you can leverage your PMI. If you buy the interest rate down, you can leverage your PMI. Or if you went with a conventional loan, you don’t have to deal with PMI. But then again, there you go. I was going to say that.

Perfect. But most, most first time buyers, I’m focused on first time buyers because yeah, I’m good. I’ll say 70 to 80 percent of the buyers in the market are first time homebuyers, right? Another way to avoid PMI is to get conventional loan, but most first time homebuyers find issues getting qualified for conventional loan because of the card down payment.

That’s one, but the credit, um, you know, and you know, with that being an issue, most first time homebuyers need assistance in closing. So with uh, conventional, you can very much get a three percent. Down payment conventional, but that’s very, very slim. You have to have a very decent score. Right. In order to get 3 percent conventional, but on average, a first time home buyer with the average score and the average income, you’re looking at least 5 percent as opposed to FHA 5.

So there’s a huge difference there. Right. So they have to go with the FHA and now they have to deal with the DMI. You pay the insurance, property taxes, and the mortgage. So you

either pay more on the front end or the back end. But you pay it.

I personally prefer to pay on the back end because again, money today is worth more than money tomorrow.

Right? So, cause if you have it today you can invest it. Absolutely. Right? To get your returns on investment. So that offsets the cost of in the future. Right? So I’m always, I’m always about lowering my process today. Within reason, of course. Yeah, when you’re saying about PMI, definitely I, I also, I do have PMI cause I did put down low, uh, uh, down payment, uh, using, I had conventional, but I kept it a low down payment and yeah, the, uh, insurance as well and property taxes.

My, my mortgage company hit me up last year and it was like, Oh, we’re increasing your mortgage payments by like a hundred or so. I was like, why is that? I have no clue about. I thought it was going to stay the same forever, but no, my, my, uh, insurance rate went up a little bit. Um, and, uh, yeah, escrow, right?

So yeah, there’s always, you gotta make sure when you’re investing or buying your house just to live in that you’re, you’re aware of all the different ways that you’re being charged and how you can be charged more in the future. Can you guys talk about the different types of, Prices and fees that you have to pay to one by the house.

And then two, when you go on to just maintain it over time, what kind of fees can come up, right? So let’s start with Mark.

So by the house, there’s, you know, fees that come along with your initial down payment on the loan itself. Uh, your closing costs is your closing cause is made up of your down payment.

It’s included in the closing costs, but, uh, you have, you have, uh, uh, Transfer tax fees. You have to pay for title fees. You do home inspections. You have to pay inspection fees. Those are non refundable. You have appraisal fees that you have to pay for as well. After, you know, purchasing the property, you have maintenance.

You know, every property needs maintenance, uh, depending on the property you buy and the condition you buy. You never know what might come up, you know, so I always tell my clients, you know, I advise you to always get at least one year warranty. It’s very affordable. Home warranty nowadays can go for 600 one year and that covers your entire interior.

If you want exterior, I mean, depending on the company you go with, but most, you know, warranty company, six, 700 for one year coverage. So I advise that because, you know, unexpected thing happens and by the only, I would definitely say. To keep cars low, you definitely have to get a little handy as well. You know, being a homeowner, you, you have to know how to do little things.

Mm. You can’t call up the plumber for every single thing. You can’t call the electrician for every single thing ’cause it’s not gonna be affordable. Mm-Hmm. . It’s just

not. Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. Um, so I’m, I’m gonna speak from the, like, investor side. Mm-Hmm. because. Um, I think it really depends on what you want to do with the property and what you want it to do for you.

If you buy a property and you just want to live in it and enjoy it, I think that definitely, you have to consider the emotional, um, the emotional value within this. Um, so that’s okay. Like it’s okay to love a house because you like how the light comes in the window. There’s nothing wrong with that. But also know that you will have a home.

It’s not a matter of if, but you will have maintenance requirements that, um, that, that will be needed down the line. So always have money set aside for that more than you expect. So that, that’s what I recommend for just getting your own single family house. But as an investor, things change a little bit because as an investor, I look for yield.

I look to see like, okay, if I buy this property and this is the rent that we get, and this is the, the loan requirements that we have, this is the mortgage and all that stuff. How much am I going to make so that I can actually call myself a good businessman? You know? Yeah. So, I, I, As Mark said, you do have to become a little, like, you do have to be, be handy.

So, I’ve had to watch the contractor basically, basically use my property as a, uh, a playground to kind of see if he could figure it out. Because we went with the cheapest option. One time I walked in, he’s like demoing the kitchen. He’s trying to figure out something with the, with the electrical. And I see him, I see him just looking at it for like 10 good minutes.

And I’m thinking to myself, if he knew what he was doing. He would have started touching stuff on it. And pieces in his head. So I remember what the YouTube videos say. But for me, you know, like. I didn’t own any tools. I had the default, like, hammer, one plier, I had the two screwdrivers. That’s it. By the time that contractor left with our money and we had to figure out, okay, can’t spend money to, to get like the real contract

So the only other option is I had to go to YouTube University. Mm-Hmm. . I did graduate and I just started just, I bought every tool, I got every tool now. Mm-Hmm, . But I’d rather spend the money on the tools and like most. Some investors will tell you that’s not the way to go, but I’m a small time landlord.

That is the way that I, that I have to go because I’m not managing too many different properties. If I had a lot of scale and that’s, that’s you, then that’s different because you get a management company and they take care of all of that. But for the spreads that I wanted. It made more sense for me to put in some sweat equity into it and to become at least somewhat knowledgeable with basic plumbing electrical and like, um, carpentry Um, and when I’m watching all the, all the prices just rising and rising, just like what Mark said, you can’t call the plumber for every little thing.

And then you start seeing your spreads just going negative. I really don’t want to be a bad businessman. So I decided, you know what, I’m going to learn a little bit more about it. As I started doing more of it, Then I would, I am now able to delegate better and it’s more affordable because I know what I’m talking about.

So when the plumber comes and says, okay, we got to do all this. No, no, no, no, no. We’re not doing a full rough. I just need to change the P track. I’ve done it. I can do it. I just need you to do this. So that does help. So you do get dividends from that when you learn how to do that thing yourself, looking at it from an investor, investor perspective.

If you are purchasing a property that is a C property, meaning it’s not A class, it’s C, and you know it’s C, and the neighborhood is C, and you’re putting A plus touches into it. Yeah. You’re making a bad decision. Yeah. In most cases, right? In most cases. Yes. In most cases, unless you know of certain redevelopments that’s happened that’s going to help, like, level it out.

Yeah. So you may be making a bad decision in terms of like the expectation that you have for the short term. Um, so I would look at what the property is doing for you, what you want it to do, what the spreads are. Yeah. And then that will help guide the decisions.

Yeah, I, I, I fully agree with that. Only thing I would say is I’m more of a convenience type of guy as, as a lender myself.

I. I only like to do the small things that are like super basic, high level, like changing the, the, uh, outlet cap or, or, or changing the hardware on the sink or whatever. It’s something simple. But when it comes to most things, I’m like, I don’t want to touch it. Because I just, I just want to pay someone to do it, do it right.

You’re our ideal tenant. Yeah. You’re right. Someone that’s

not willing to pay. Someone that’s willing to pay. Yeah. And someone that is willing to have high expectations. But you pay for the high expectations.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so the way I do do it is that knowing myself as a person who doesn’t want to be too hands on is when I go and try to invest in property.

I keep that in mind and include that in my, my estimates, right? So I’m very conservative with what my maintenance costs are going to be. So I know that if that, if that toilet breaks, I’m not touched. I might, I might be out 200. So I’m going to keep that in mind and say, Oh, I got to save more of my, my income every month to make sure that if anything goes wrong, I can pay for it and make sure it gets done right.

So that, that’s something that is a trade off, right? You can save more and have, do some of it yourself. Okay. Or you can just keep that in mind that you’re not going to do that and just save more, right? Um, in your, in your income. So there’s, there’s different ways to do it. You don’t have to be a plumber.

Just, just want to clear it out. But yeah, what people are saying. Just be mindful. Yeah. What people are saying is, yeah, be mindful that you have those costs. You have electricity costs. Yeah, electricity costs. Um, plumbing, flooring, and all these, all these things in common. Come up, right? So, yeah, thank you guys for touching all of that.

Uh, all the, all the costs from both the buyer’s side, um, and then the, the landlord side, which it goes into the cost being so high in the market when you go to buy a house, right? When you’re thinking about buying a house, everyone tells you, oh, you have your down payment. But what I forget is that your document is only half of the closing cost.

You still have 6 percent in closing, right? Absolutely. All right. So can we, can you just talk about that more? Just how do you plan for buying a house that you know, you saved up 10, 000, but you still have all these other fees, right? Like what, what do you, how do you go about that?

Great question. Well, um, as for me, I have a strategy that I usually go by for my clients.

We have buyer consultations for this specific reason. Because at my buyer consultation, my goal is for you to prevent to me what do you currently stand, right? Mm-Hmm. . And then once we have this con consultation, I know what I need to do to get you to where you need to be. And it’s not always honest.

They’re not always honest. I’ll be honest. They’re not always honest. Sometimes we have to be, you know, we have the investigates as agents, sometimes we have to play so many different hats as agents. I’m sure you can. Mm-Hmm. attest to this too. Yeah. So you tell me what you have, where you’re currently at, what’s your goals and then what we need to be.

Right. So we focus on cash that you have at hand. Right. We don’t focus on future. Not so much because if it’s not recorded, cause I have a lot of clients that do hard cash and those, those are not recorded when you’re getting a mortgage. You cannot use that towards your closing goals because it’s not recorded.

It has to be either something that has to be in the bin within 90 days. Yeah. Those are cash you can only use to closing. 90 days minimum, right? So the strategy that I’ve came up with, uh, most agents know about the strategy. Uh, I try to get assistance from the seller’s side, right? It’s called sales concessions.

So basically how I play about it is it depends on two aspects. We look for properties that either been in the market for over a little time, maybe, right? Maybe minimum 25 days going into 30. In this market, that’s a long time. But what are you doing? Because then the chances of getting a set of some concessions is higher because they’re For a while exactly and they’re making that mortgage payment regardless So now they’re more in terms of coming to reality to giving us help so we can all get the gold done Right now that amount all depends on the location and how much my client needs to close the gap Now that’s one way or what i’ve been using a lot.

Um PHFA is a great resource if you’re buying pennsylvania So phfa gives you cranks towards Your closing costs for specific reasons like that when you’re short cash. They don’t forgive you up to 10, 000. I’ve used it multiple times. Yes, um, that’s in Pennsylvania. Now, if you’re buying out of state, we look for other options.

We also have lenders that will give you credit towards your closing costs. So those are things that I use

for my clients. Yeah. To be successful. Yeah, that’s definitely very helpful. I never heard of. What Mark is saying is very true. If you don’t have enough for closing, there are Definitely ways to get around that and get some help.

As long as you have your down payment, you can start somewhere. You don’t always have to get the best house to start, right? You don’t have to get your forever home in the beginning. You can start with a starter home and maybe it costs you half of your down payment and then you can use the rest of it to get a closing on your closing for that property, right?

Or get, like Mark said, get seller’s help or other programs. So thank you Mark for all those tips and of course, We have these two experts here. They know what they’re talking about. They know a lot more than I do. So if you are in the market to buy a house to live in or to invest, we have people here, agents, who can help you with that.

You can contact these two, Mark and Pekens, and they can help you in both as a first time home buyer or just someone who wants to buy a house to live in or commercial real estate or just investing in properties, right? Duplex, single family, triplex. So if you’re in the market, Mark, I would

love for you to tell them where they can find you.

Absolutely. If you’re in the market to buy residential investments or, you know, just chat, get some questions answered. You can reach me via email. Uh, you can reach me at M T O C A Y at Diallo, that’s D I A dot O O realestate. com. That’s my email. Just shoot me an email and, uh, channel.

Yeah.

And beacons.

So you can find me on Instagram, just Pekens, P E K E N S.

Um, if you have an investment property that you’re getting tired of, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d be willing to take a look at it. If you’re looking to purchase your own and you want some guidance, um, uh, with commercial real estate, I’d be happy to talk to you. I do, um, live mastermind sessions on my Instagram channel and be happy to connect with you.

That’s great. Yeah, so we’ll have to contact information. Of course both of these guys download in the description and I would love for you guys to reach out to them. They know a lot and they can be very helpful even if you’re just starting out in your process and you’re not buying the house for another year or two, even five years.

You want to get that help today to understand where you have to get to, right? Because saving for a down payment, That’s hard. Lots and lots of money. It’s the biggest purchase you’ll make in your lifetime if you only do it once. Most people only have two houses, right, if they’re lucky. So this is a, this is something that you have to have a lot of help with to make sure you do it right and minimize your risk, minimize the chances of things going wrong and minimize your cost when things do go wrong.

So have an expert in your corner, like Mark, like Petens. That would be of, it’s priceless, right? My agent saved me lots of headaches. And of course, I wish they would have told me more such as my insurance going up, my insurance costs going up in the future and taxes and all that. And I’m sure if I have been working with my cousin Mark and my friend Pekens, they would have told me all this stuff.

So again, it’s invaluable to have these guys in your corner. So definitely reach out to them. Even if you’re not in the same state, they can, they can connect you with someone they know somewhere else. And of course they, they work in multiple states. So yeah, we talked to them now back to the topic of affordability.

And we have, we have more to speak on the buyer side, the first time home buyer, someone who’s buying a house to live in, but I would love to hear from beacons about someone who is investing in the house. What if I don’t have all the money I need to close, right? I only have a mortgage. I only have a down payment.

I don’t even realize that I have another 6 percent more to pay for closing and then also for inspections and all these other things, right? What do I do? What should I do to get ready for this?

Got it. Okay. So, um, my, my, this is going to feel a little blunt, but it’s out of love. Like if you don’t have the money for, um, a property, um, You’re going to have to make some money.

So, but, but, but the thing is, the thing is though, the fact that you have this problem, the problem where you need to get more money, you need to be able to afford it. That’s not the worst thing. That’s actually a good thing, because when you have the problem and you have the energy and bandwidth and the people around you, To help you now, you can come up with a solution because if you don’t have the problem and you crumble with the fear of, you know, this, there’s too much things happening.

I don’t want to do it anymore. Like you need that to happen. So you could pull all your resources together so you can figure it out, come up with a solution. So here, here’s how that could look like. One option is you have a, you have some time available after you’re nine to five, you can look for a side hustle to try to get some more funds into that bank account so that you can look at it more so as even if a property comes up on the market right now is going to inspire me, but I know I’m not ready.

It could be a year long challenge. Which which is good because at least you know, you’re going to make the steps towards that we’re not always ready Just like that. Yeah tomorrow to buy the house of your dreams And that’s I think the harsh reality that a lot of people Really need to understand just be okay with because it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.

You should give up It means you need to start today start now as opposed to i’m gonna start, you know Maybe next month. No start looking for a side hustle now. Yeah, you might be like if you got an available two hours in your day That could turn into a lot of money for next year when you buy that property.

That’s netflix Exactly. Exactly. So that will at least start the process in your mind to shape your lifestyle and your reality towards that goal. Because when you don’t have that problem, you do nothing. And now you may be overpaying on Netflix and you don’t realize it. But when you start saying I need to afford this property, that’s when you start cutting off things that you know need to be cut off and you start putting more attention towards it.

So that’s one option. And another option is Seller financing. And with this, it is a little bit more, um, I wouldn’t say difficult, but it’s not mainstream. It’s not so much mainstream. That’s not something that your agent typically is going to say, Hey, this is an option. Um, it’s more so the way that that works is if a property owner has equity in their property, they own it outright.

That’s when it’s much easier. They own the property outright now they can become the bank and you go to them and you say I’m going to avoid the Interest rates that the banks are talking about and you can even you can either pay them interest rate But you’re also paying them the value that they want.

So I’d be willing to pay for Pretty much anything. If you give me a million years to pay it off, we’re not talking about a million years actually, but that’s the concept. If you have a longer time to pay off that higher price, then, then it makes more sense. Then you can focus on how you can leverage that.

So you can, um, you can make the money that you need. And with seller financing, you also have the ability to negotiate terms that make sense for you. So maybe you can’t put a, um, A big down payment. All right, so you do zero down, no down payment. Maybe you do 5, 000 that like whatever you can afford, but you have a higher interest rate.

And that’s how you’re going to be able to achieve it. And it looks differently. You got to get creative, but first you need the problem. You need to really sit with the idea that I can’t afford. And if you really can’t, then now figure out what exists out there. Cause you’re not, I promise you, you’re not just going to go read a book on seller finance and just for fun.

You need the problem. You need the problem. Inspiration.

To add on to what Pekin said, those are some good gems by the way. Um, I recently, you know, discovered seller finance and discussing with him. That’s the crazy thing. And I’ve been in real estate for quite some time now. Most Asians doesn’t know about that.

So that’s great. Um, but just to add on to that as investor, um, What I realized the average, not all, but the average investor, that’s the average individual that’s ready to invest into real estate already own a home. So you can actually take out equity from your current property and use that towards your down payment, right?

That’s another option too. You might, yes, your mortgage is going to change. You’re going to have to refinance, but yet you’re adding to your portfolio. You have to look at it from the investment standpoint of things, right? That’s one option. In addition to that option, We also have partners that are willing to give our money loan.

This is not common. Our money loan could be very challenging sometimes. I mean, the interest could be higher, but it will help you get to that property. It will help you close that gap to buy that property because when you’re buying as an investor, your mentality has to change completely. You’re not thinking, Emotionally, the numbers have to make sense if they can give you the money and you can find a way to implement that interest payment back with the hard money within that property you’re buying, everything can get leveraged out easily.

So that’s another option just to just to add on. Okay, here’s

a here’s a concept that, um. That isn’t the most, the most common. But for me, my mentality is I don’t actually want to pay my mortgage by myself. Now I look at it like you pay all that yourself. So here’s what I mean. When, when I was talking to my wife, I always wanted an investment property first before getting a single family.

And there’s different ways that you can do it. But like we decided to house hack. And what that means is you. Live in the house, but it’s like you’re renting because you share walls or maybe it’s top and bottom. Um, whereas you have a tenant paying the mortgage for, for you, or even if they don’t pay all of it, maybe you’re now paying 500, but where are you going to rent for 500?

Yeah. So it’s even better than if you were just a regular tenant. So I recommend that. I know it’s going to align with somebody, but it’s not for everyone. Um, So for me, like if you have a spouse, you’re living with someone, make sure to have them aligned because it’s a lifestyle, like it’s a different lifestyle, knowing that your tenant knows where you live and there’s like no buffer, like it can, it can be, it can be challenging.

But I do think that if you’re up for that challenge, it’s worth it because if you have an issue with affordability and you, this is an option to be able to reduce or eliminate your mortgage payment. If you have a triplex, for example, you can have one unit as a short term Airbnb. That could potentially pay your mortgage.

And then you have another unit that is a regular long term. We have to have diversification pays your mortgage. You live rent free. So the strategy that I’m, that I’m implementing is when we get our single family property, we have our investment properties stabilized enough and cash flowing enough so that it pays for the single family.

So that way we don’t worry about the affordability. We worry about how much. Each asset performs so that it can allow us to maintain the lifestyle of not having to pay for

the mortgage. Exactly, and that’s exactly what I did in New York. My first property also wanted to be an investment property and it was a duplex.

Lived in the first unit as I renovated the second unit. And once I finished the first unit on the first floor, I put a tenant in there and she pays 57 percent of my mortgage when I lived in the decrepit second unit upstairs and renovated it as I lived in it. And I was paying the rest of my mortgage while my tenant, very good tenant, she pays me even before the first, right?

And she’s never has any problems, quiet. And I never hear from her, besides what she pays me, right? And, so I lived in the second unit, fixed it up for a year, it took some time. You have to, when you’re doing these things, remember to be conservative. It takes time and it’s usually going to be over budget right when it comes to renovations So I took my time renovated the second unit, which is two two floors, right?

That’s a duplex. That’s three floors fix that up. And then once i’m done with that. I got a tenant in there Who pays the entire mortgage? So now I have a gross profit of 57 And that covers I could I could I could that house is it’s pretty much just equity now, right? Appreciation and equity building up every single year And now I can live, I could live in a place that if I wanted to, I could live rent free.

Right. I want to keep my own rent so I could save. Right. But yeah, if you, if you want to be creative and consider all your options, right. All of these options that Mark and Pekens are giving you won’t work for you, but you can take the ones that do the ones that you’re interested in. More hit up Mark, hit up Peekins and say, Hey, what are my options here?

What can I do and figure out what makes sense for you? Because what makes sense for Lincoln or what makes sense with Peekins or Mark won’t make sense for you out there. So you have to figure out specifically personalize it to yourself. And that’s what these agents are for. And as an investor, you want to always consider all your options just so you want to understand.

If one thing doesn’t work, or if one thing goes wrong, that you have backups, and backups of backups, right? Plans A’s, B’s, C’s, all the way to Z. Options are great as an investor. I, I, I just listened to these guys and they’re just filling gems where I’m like, damn, all these different options as an investor.

Like we can said, you want to start today. The best time to start was yesterday. Second best is now, right? So if you, if you don’t, exactly. If you don’t, if you don’t realize that there is a problem, you’ll just be sitting on your couch after work every day, watching, watching Netflix and chilling. But once you realize that, hey, I’m poor, right, I’m poor, I myself am poor, I consider myself poor, right, and I’ve been even more poor, right?

We’re all immigrants here, right? No one was

born here.

Yeah, none of us were born here. So, I’m poor, I have to stop just sitting here every night for four hours watching Netflix. I need to go learn a new skill, right, and increase my income. Or I need to go, if I don’t want to go spend some time learning how to code or learning how to be an electrician or a plumber, I need to figure out something else, right?

I need to go do Uber or something, right? To get my income up. And now I can go ahead and start saving, paying into my closing costs, and paying into my costs for appraisals, insurance, and all that stuff. So that when a year comes up or two years come up, I’m not in the same spot on the same couch sitting here watching Netflix and chilling again, and I’m still poor.

So, You have to start somewhere. I know things are insanely pricey and I want to get into our last topic of why it’s so pricey, but just understand that you have options and there is always a way. Even if it’s not today, you can get there in time. It’s better to eventually get there than that time. Let’s say going to college, right?

People are like, oh, this one takes so long, four years, six years, but four years, it’s going to come no matter what. So you want to be better off in that four years than you are today, right? So at least do it and be better off. So start saving, start learning, start reaching out to agents and learning all the different options.

So that when you, when that, when that four years comes up and you have all that cash, you know what you can do with it and you can leverage that a lot better. So, Thank you guys for all these gems. But our last topic, I want to talk about interest rates being low in 2020, 2021, and of course, starting to go up in 2022, 2023, and what the effects were when they, when they went down to below zero, and then what happened as interest rates kept going up and up and then up to like 7%.

The federal, this is the federal funds rate, right? Not the interest that you pay. This is the base, the one the banks pay, right? And so the banks are paying 7%. What’s the, what’s the average person paying? He’s all right. So I want to talk into first low interest rate. I know for myself, when I bought my house, I got in when it was super low at 3%, less than 3 percent because the federal funds rate was at near zero.

So that means that I could get more for my money, right? So I want you guys to talk about what that means for that, the market at that time. There’s a lot, a lot more willingness to go and buy a house, right? And maybe even a bigger house, right? So Mark, can we start with you? Absolutely.

So that alone within itself created a problem too.

When rates was lower, it absolutely created more competition in the market because now everyone can afford to buy that property that they wanted. Some, you know, some individuals literally will wait around until a rate goes to a specific number. before they act

and

while they’re waiting, you’re saving. So when rates went down, you know, a lot of activity took place.

And then to make matter worse, low inventory, low risk, low, low interest rate. You can, you can imagine the competition there.

So why was the inventory low?

Well, inventory was low because developers and builders Couldn’t develop new properties because of cost of material, cost of lumber, things went skyrocket because of things was just not, you know, making sense at the time.

In addition to that, uh, we also have equity partnerships and, you know, group of investments, like rich, like, uh, Pekin’s mentioned earlier purchasing these, uh, single family homes and then making them apartment complexes, a limited in property also on the market. In addition to, um, Making a rental, you know, more, more expensive or competitive as well.

So those two aspects was one of the two main things that contributed to inventory being short during the time of 2020.

Okay. And then of course, that, like you were saying, it makes it harder for the market because now it’s very competitive because of low interest rates. So if I’m a average investor, home buyer, and I have low interest rates, the people who are in private equity also have low interest rates, right?

Yes. So that’s even making it even worse because now they have more room to, you know, to either broaden their inventory or their purchases, their habits, their appetites. And as you can assume, those are deep pockets. They can be aggressive. Exactly. Compared to an average guy trying to buy a home for his family or even the average guy trying to get into an investment.

So those two avenues just, you know, made things. Yeah.

A lot of those bidding wars, everyone has cash on hand. So yeah, definitely. Uh, because you want to touch on this.

Sure. Yeah. I’m gonna, again, a little bit, um, unorthodox, like, um, well, it depends on the, it depends on the group, but for me, I don’t, I don’t focus too much on the interest rate.

Um, so yeah, it sucks, but I’m either going to talk about how much it sucks or I’m going to figure out a property that makes sense for the interest rate and still have a spread because There are some investors like the big reads and stuff where they need a place to put their money. That’s not going to change whether the interest rates are really high or not.

They just need you to figure out how they can still make money, even if it’s a little bit. You know, it might not be like a time where you can get a massive, uh, massive return. But if you need something so that your money isn’t being lost to inflation, then it’s better to have high interest rate, but a great property that is at least breaks even.

And then you have the appreciation then for you to do nothing. You know, so for me, like, if I could find a good self storage facility, like, and you tell me, like, interest rates are really high, I’m not, I’m not gonna look at that so much. If I can figure out a way for it to perform so well that, that becomes, uh, irrelevant, that becomes irrelevant.

Just the same way with the cap rate for that. Like it’s irrelevant what the seller says the cap rate is because I, if I can force it Equity into it by adding other streams of income, uh, increasing the rent prices for it. Then I create my own cap rate.

Exactly.

So that’s how that, like, that’s what I want to, um, express, create your own situation by looking at a workable asset for you.

So if you are great with, Carpentry and you know how to like flip houses and stuff, but now you want to do it for yourself And you do you want to do a long term hold? Maybe it makes a lot of sense for you to you’ll take the hit on the interest rate, but you know that because you’re sticking with it long term, you might be able to refinance out of it or you’re using it as a vehicle to use a home equity line of credit so that that becomes your bank so you can have lower interest rate to get to pull that money out out of at a later time.

Like there’s so many ways, but at least get the problem. Start with the problem. The house is the property is going to be a headache, but get that headache so that you can change and control your future and figure out a way to combat the interest rates. Don’t cower, take a head on and figure out you will see properties that it would make absolutely no sense.

That’s right.

And don’t, don’t buy it.

Don’t

buy it. Don’t buy it. It’s that simple. Yeah. And since we’re on the topic of high interest rates, I want to now talk about where we are, where interest rates are just so high. People can’t afford what they used to be able to afford in 2020 or 2021. I bought my house 600, 000 because interest was super low.

I could afford those payments every month, right? I mean, often it’s 3, 400. Now, if I want to buy the same house for 600, it might cost me 5, 000. Where am I going to get 600 to cover that increase in my monthly cost? Because interest rates have now more than doubled, right? So, just tell me about, how do I deal with that?

And just interested in being high and because it’s just touching that real quick that you can refinance in the future. So even if interest rates are high now, you’re not stuck, right? There are options. So if you stop talking about some of the options I have today to do all these high interest rates and if I want to buy a house or deal with my rent, like what, how, how do I, how do I deal with this?

Just getting into a rental property. And if I want to buy in the future, what do I do is since my rent is so high, right? Just, so let’s just talk about

For me, I don’t like to generalize too much, but for me, getting a property was the best decision, one of the best decisions that we made. Because when I think about when I used to rent, and having no control, like you don’t have control over everything anyway, regardless.

But! Like, I, I feel more control with being a property owner because you know that rent will increase. It’s not that your landlord is not going to call you and say, you know what, I’m going to give you a cut. I’m going to give you a break. It’s going to go down next year. I’ve never heard. If that happened to you, comment below.

Let me know. At least you counted. And you went down, right? Right? Because I’ve never heard of that. Never. But, um, on, um, I, I, I hope, I hope I’m staying on track. You asked about interest rates. Interest rates being high.

I do

all that. Yeah. What do you do about that? It’s not that much. Honestly, it’s not that much, but I, I do want to have like a certain understanding of how everything is connected and like have some, like I have a lot of empathy for my tenants.

And I also expect that back in a way where I know that it’s not because I just want to become rich. I’m not going to get rich off the properties that I have, but I know that because interest rates are higher, I need to increase. So that’s, that’s not going to be something that can, that can stop them because interest rates are higher.

That’s because of another factor. We’re all connected because we don’t live on an island in some bubble. We’re all connected and it can be a situation where it sucks a lot of times and it’s just a matter of like looking to see like How can you make it suck a little bit less if you can’t change interest rates?

Try to change something else about either the property or your financial situation

That’s a great, that’s great intake. I will also say if you’re on the edge for buying because of the high interest currently, I would just advise, this is based on perspective because if you’ve saved up, you know, over the last couple of years and you’re preparing now to buy, and the only thing that’s holding you back is because of the high interest rate, look at it from a different point of view.

One, there’s benefits there because now that eliminates competition, right? There’s not as much people trying to buy because they’re thinking the same way. We can’t control interest rates. It’s out of our control. And two, if you buy and you know, you buy it now and you get a good price because of low competition, you get in, you get a pretty decent price.

You can budget yourself and even leverage because of the interest, right? Cause we get a higher, you get a lower price with a higher interest and kind of leverage as same thing as working in the market with low interest and high price, right? It’s all leveraging. So it’s all perspective. And also keep in mind, uh, you can always refinance refinances, always available.

You buy a house six months minimum, you can refinance. Let’s say you get a house today and the interest is 7. 5%, right? Six months down the line, interest drop. You go back and refinance. Only thing you lose is you’re starting all over, but you only lost a couple of months. Obviously you have to leverage that based on, you know, where your mortgage was before and where your mortgage is going to be now, as opposed to the length of the time of refinancing.

So those are things that you have to take into place and you have to know this is what you want. And then lastly, to cover that, Right now in the current market, more buyers are coming to agents like me and Pekin’s and complaining that their rent is equivalent to mortgage. And that’s very common nowadays.

I tell my clients all the time, the only difference from a buyer and a renter is that you haven’t saved up for the closing costs. That’s the only gap. So it’s definitely, you have to look at it from a perspective of what works for you long term, not right now. Yeah. So that would be my take on that.

Well, the other thing I was saying is if interest rates are high.

This is probably high across the board and there may be opportunities to with that understanding in mind knowing that interest rates are high like there might be opportunities to save money by shuffling money around like there’s so much money that’s made just by moving money from one institution or one account to another because maybe you have a high balance on it.

I know I’m talking about credit cards and like other sources of credit but mortgage is a big like That is his big debt. That’s the biggest investment most people make. Exactly. Now, I don’t want to talk too much on this particular topic because I’m not an expert at it. Um, I would advise looking further into it.

But I know some, some investors, what they’ll do is if they have a property and they have equity in there, they can, they can, they use like a, um, Their home equity line of credit to then transfer the mortgage that they’re paying on that property into the home equity line of credit, and then pay off that principal a little bit faster and pay the interest rate for the HELOC as opposed to the interest rate that you’re paying for the, Um, for the mortgage and then you can pay off your, um, uh, your loan a little bit faster.

So that’s, that’s, that’s one thing that I, um, that I know some people do. And then if, if you know, the interest rates are high with your mortgage, it’s probably how would your credit cards as well. And you might be paying way more than you should. And you like, I would advise just looking at your statements to see if I can consolidate.

Consolidate as much as you can towards the accounts that have the lowest interest rates, even if it’s a two, 2 percent difference. That’s something, you know, like do an audit on your accounts to like, just see where you can save money because it’s one thing to complain about, like something that is not going to change.

But it’s another thing to know that there are things that in your own house, in your own account. You can change by just shuffling some money around. It’s like magic.

And you can also put your money in a high yield savings account. Like SoFi or Dave and so many other options online. So let’s put it in Chase where you only get 0.

01%. You can get like 4%, 5%, whatever it is. So if interest is high, there is an opportunity there too to make money. That’s crazy, right? You’re just moving

the same money from one place to another.

Yep, exactly. And I want to touch on what Mark was saying about refinancing as an option. Not only can you refinance to get a lower interest rate just to save money, you can do it as a strategy to make money.

So there’s a strategy called BRRR, which is buy, rehab, rent out, and then refinance. And what you do is you buy the house, you make it better, you add some equity to it by fixing up the kitchen, the bathroom. so we have the new, new floors paint, right? Now you made the, the vibe of the house rise. And so now the bank will say, Oh, that house is worth more.

I can give you after you of course get a tenant, they rent it out. I can give you another loan that’s better than what’s interest rates go down. Right. So interest rates now are 30%. So if it goes on the 4%, now you have an opportunity to get a new loan at that 4 percent rate in the future And your, your cost goes down, but you also, because you increase the value of the house, if there is a difference in how much your mortgage was before and how much your house is worth now, say you bought the house for 500 and now it’s worth 700 because you made it so much better, or it’s just worth 550 now, right?

That difference, you get 80%, 75 percent of that. So you might get in cash 40, 000 because you were able to refinance your house after one year, two years, maybe three years interest rates have gone down. So there’s opportunities everywhere. Everything has options. You have options in everything. So if you can look at it like, uh, because we’re saying in a way that is, Hey, I can’t control interest rates, but I can control what I do in this environment when it’s low and it’s high and realize that I have options and you can make your own opportunities.

You can make your own wealth. So that’s really the moral of the story. We’ve talked about a whole lot tonight. And there are so many reasons to not get invested. There are so many reasons to be sad. There are so many reasons to just turn on Netflix and watch Love is Blind and just cry. Right? But, you’ll stay poor.

You will stay poor that way. And then you’ll never find love, even if it’s not blind. Right? So you want to get out, you want to get out there and realize that you have what it takes and all you have to do is find the problem first, realize it, and then figure out how to solve it. And that might take you six months.

It might take you a year. It might take you five years, but you’d be better off by starting now and starting to save, starting to learn about real estate investing. So I’m going to learn about how the federal reserve work, how interest rates work, how inflation works. So that you can understand the environment you’re in, no matter what’s going on, you know what you can do to get through it and be better off than everyone else.

Because most people just won’t ever get invested because they’re afraid. So, you have to do it scared. I was afraid when I did my first investment. I was taking a loan of half a million dollars. That’s crazy, right? And that house could burn down tomorrow. I was telling Mark, I’m scared every day. Yeah. I’m gonna run over.

Exactly. But I realized that I can either not take action and stay poor, or I can buy that house, take that risk, and have somebody else pay off that half a million dollars of loan. I don’t have to pay it. My tenants pay it. Right? Exactly. And if you’re just a, homebody who’s going to live in it, your, your future self will pay it, right?

Because you today are going to invest and you will have more money, your future self will have more money, more wealth in the future because of that. And so you’re buying yourself a better future, you’re buying yourself a retirement. Most people can’t retire because they never invest and they’re, and they’re hoping, their, their retirement plan is hope and prayers.

I don’t, I don’t, I don’t believe that’s going to get you where you want to be. Right. Because you’re not taking action. So I want to say thanks again to our two experts here. These, these guys are the wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate you both being here and taking your time to just share all these gems that I’ve run a whole lot.

And there’s always more to learn, right? And you guys are always learning new things. So if I am an investor, if I’m someone who wants to eventually buy my first house. I’m, I’m going to look for someone like you and say, Hey Mark, Hey Pekens, can you please help me? Right? I don’t know where you are, but I’m in New Hampshire.

I’m in California. I’m in the Midwest. I’m in Florida. What can I do to get on the path of buying a house, to go on the path of buying a duplex? Right? How do I start? I have this much today. What do I need to get to the closing? How Right. And how long would that take me? If that’s you and it should be you, because again, you don’t want to stay poor, you should reach out to these guys because they will help you get on the path to success and I can only have you to give me a quick close out of just a quick summary of yourself and.

Where they can find you. Let’s start with because this time,

sure. Going through this journey, I’ve been a entrepreneur with ADHD, just jumping on to different things. And I’m known with the focus on, um, including the real estate because it can get really overwhelming. I’ve become very passionate about helping other people find the clarity for their next steps.

And that includes not just real estate, but all things entrepreneurial, because we can do anything. You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Definitely not at the same time. So I do executive coaching. I help entrepreneurs gain the clarity that they need for their next steps I also i’m hands on with the investments with the real estate investments and Always invite other people to uh mastermind with me So connect and i’d be happy to uh to meet you talk to you.

And where can I find you? Uh, you can you instagram at p k e n s Okay,

this was a great chat as well. Great chat with you guys. Um I would say that everything always have to start somewhere, right? Um, if you’re sitting down thinking over calculating things and you know what to do and not to do, listening to this and that, I would say, what is best for you, right?

Where do you want to be? Where are you at now and where do you want to you see yourself in the next five years? And if this is something that’s going to motivate you to get going, you can definitely reach out to me. Uh, I would love to chat, even if you’re not ready to pull the trigger, but you just want to ask questions to, you know, Mark, where do I need to go?

What do I need to do to get to where I want to be? I’m always available. Uh, you can reach me, uh, social wise, you can meet me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is, uh, another, you know, that from that I utilize it a lot. I’m on Instagram, but I’m not on Instagram at the same time. I’m not utilizing Instagram as much, but LinkedIn, Nekado Tozay will be my LinkedIn. You can reach me at Nekado Tozay. Or you can shoot me a direct email at MTozay@Diallorealestate.com, and we can chat more.

Yeah. Right? And again, take advantage of that. If you have any questions, comment below. If you have anything you would like me to cover in the next video, what you, these guys can help us with.

Comment below your thoughts and yeah, if you disagree with anything we said, if you see a different way, if you have a different strategy, I want to hear the comments below. So thank you for being here and again, thank you Mark and Pekin for being here. We’ll do this again. I’m Lincoln with bowacademy. org.

Thank you and have a great day.