From Personal Trials to Professional Triumphs at Multifamily Live with Ryan Lipsey & Haylie Collier

Enlightened investors, I have some exciting news for those looking to dive into the world of passive real estate investing. Many have asked how I got my start in commercial real estate investing. Well, it all began with an event close to my heart. Multifamily Live is back, and this time it's online. This event holds a special place for me because it's where I got my start in commercial real estate investing. Imagine a virtual gathering where you can gain invaluable insights into how cash-flow-ready apartment buildings are the key to your passive income journey. Take the mystery out of passive real estate investing and step into the active side of the equation to gain a comprehensive understanding so you can invest passively with confidence. Whether you're a newbie or a seasoned investor, Multifamily Live is designed to cover everything from acquisition to asset management. You can be confident that you'll leave this event with a comprehensive understanding of commercial investing. Mark your calendars for May 9th to May 11th. Trust me, this is an event you won't want to miss. Ready to enhance those passive streams of income? Get your ticket now, and together, let's take the next step to enhance our financial well-being, to live abundantly and flourish in all areas of life. I'll see you in Multifamily Live. Hello, enlightened investors, and welcome back to Real Estate Investing Abundance.

I'm your host, Dr. Allen. And I really appreciate you being with us again today. And I know you're really going to enjoy our show. We're on a topic near and dear to anyone who is investing in real estate in any way, shape, or form, because we're always going to have to deal with title and settlement. And we have with us 2 experts in this area today. Both Ryan Lipsy and his partner Haley Collier, and Ryan and Lindsay serve their clients at the highest level with their settlement services and title insurance needs. The company's core competence is asset is assisting their clients in elevating their marketing game with outreach campaigns, communications, and data that leads to top. of mind awareness within their relationship databases and target market segments, whether it's a relationship farm, whether it's a geographic farm, an ideological farm, lead-driven farm, or business-to-business farm, or even micro farming around ourselves.

Yeah.

So Ryan and Haley, take us into the show and share with us a key memory that helped you to be who you are today.

Wow.

Well, thank you, Alan. It is an honor to be aboard, and I'm stoked to be here with Haley.

Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Yeah, reading through the bio, I was like, wow, I guess we do do all those things. So I distinctly remember riding on my skateboard when I was about 11 years old in Spring Valley, California, where I grew up, and I was doing like these ollies off the curb. And I had one that the skateboard went out from underneath me and my feet went about shoulder height. And the first thing to hit was my head on the curb right on the corner.

Wow.

And it was a gnarly concussion. And I was rushed to the hospital and just freaked out. It took me about a week to recover, to be able to eat. I had a sensitivity to light. And it showed me a lot about mortality and about how precious life really is. And I think it kind of sobered me up or brought me into the reality of how we live on the edge so frequently in life without even realizing it. So I learned at a young age about mortality, and, uh, let's just say I've been a little bit more grateful each day since then and a little bit more cautious when on a skateboard, which I still ride today.

I was gonna say, he must have bumped his head. That's why he got into real estate. Yeah, I must have hit some grizzly roots.

Yeah.

That's a good call.

Well, did you, did you learn to wear a helmet, or you do still go without helmets?

This was the '80s, man. And they were still like no seatbelts, smoking cigarettes during pregnancy, all the good stuff. But, but no, I think Haley nailed it on the head. It must have knocked loose a little crazy and creativity. Okay. That got me into this industry. But I'm just grateful for every day that comes through. I try to live it in the present tense and to the fullest.

Well, I was just visiting with an investor whose father was a roofer. And he was telling me about a picture of when he was about 1 year old and his dad had him on the roof in a crib.

Wow, that's next level. Yeah.

Yeah, that was many years ago.

I don't think that would fly these days.

That's not compliant. That's not OSHA compliant.

Well, Hailey, what about you?

You know, for me, you know, I really was digging deep after this question you had asked. And I think there was a pivotal point for me in my childhood when I witnessed my parents both go through 2008. We had multiple properties. We had— my dad was an ironworker in construction. My mom was a loan officer in lending. And so both of those kind of tanked really bad. And we were very fortunate to keep our house. And I remember specifically being a kid and thinking like, man, I don't want to invest like that. Like, that doesn't seem very smart as a child thinking those things. And started really getting into real estate more with my mom. She was dragging me in because, you know, they couldn't pay for childcare at that point. They couldn't do much. So they had— she had to drag me around to all of her meetings, all of her office things, everything she was doing. And I really was at a very young age always interested in real estate. She was taking me to all the open houses, all the properties. And so at a very young age, it was pretty instilled in me that real estate was going to be in my blood somehow. And that going through 2008 and going through all of that, I think really put a different perspective in my mind of how investing should be and how owning a property should be. And you never want to spread yourself too thin because you don't know what's going to happen. But, you know, big risks, big rewards. Same vice versa. So, you know, that was a very pivotal point for me in a childhood mind, having that memory of, you know, barely being able to keep our property and our main, our primary house and having to let go of all of our investment properties that we had. I was like, okay, I'm gonna do something about this in my future. Like, I am not going to invest this way. So it was definitely an eye-opener for me at a young age.

Well, that's a good time to experience that. I wasn't that fortunate. I didn't experience that until actually 2008, and that was a wake-up call for me. I lost, uh, lost a whole lot, had to start all over actually. So, uh, yeah, devastating times. But you got it out of the way when you were a young lady.

You know, it gave me a really good perspective because I think You know, all of us in real estate, you were in at that time. And we went from owning multiple properties in beautiful places in Breckenridge, Colorado, and in Mammoth and all these places, and we had to let go of them all. And I saw my parents, what they were going through and how much of a struggle it went from, you know, here's $20 for lunch. And then it went to like, sorry, we can't give you any lunch money. Like, we, you know, tight budget, tight times. And You know, it really put a different perspective in my mind at a young— as a young kid.

Yeah. Uh, I learned, I learned a lot about leverage and, uh, it can be beneficial, but it can kill you as well. So, well, Ryan and Lindsey, your service is, uh, primarily, uh, title and settlement, but you extend yourselves way beyond that to assist your title and settlement clients. That's amazing. So tell us how that happens and, and how that works.

Ah, well, thank you, Alan. And yeah, Haley and I work with agents to really unlock the potential in data, in their relationships, and in people that are in a high likelihood category of moving and transitioning out of housing or have a housing change. And with strategic partnerships that where they can funnel through or use a relationship as a conduit to an audience of people that are in such a position to have to move. As it pertains to investing, you know, we are as much data miners as we are title insurers because we work with the wholesaler, the assignor of, you know, contracts, the fix-and-flip model investor, all the way to the buy-and-hold, to multifamily, to syndications, to hotels and motels. And a lot of times they have to unearth somebody in that's off market in a condition that is causing them to need to move out of that real estate holding, and therefore they can, you know, acquire that property with some arbitrage in the future or with some kind of a leveraged position or under market. And so doing that is a whole science in and of itself, but it brings intrinsic value to the professional other than We would give really good title and escrow service, right? I mean, that's kind of the bar where we start, and we use our creativity, whatever was knocked loose from the skateboard incident, to help them retrieve and outreach towards the data that's going to put them in the highest likelihood to win and acquire more winning investments.

Hmm.

But in general, we get out of ourselves and we are customer-centric in our approach. And if we can solve problems, or help our customers achieve dreams or achieve metrics and goals that are about them, then we get to come along for the ride. You know, if we help enough real estate professionals get to where they're going, like Zig Ziglar said, right, then we're gonna get where we're going. And I mean, in a nutshell, I think that's what we strive to do. We show up and help others win at a high level, and we get to win along with them, wouldn't you say?

Oh, absolutely. I think one of our favorite parts about it, it— one of the most fulfilling parts of our job is when We're helping the brand new investor or the brand new wholesaler, and we help them with our data, and we are able to provide that to them. And they call us back and they're like, we got a deal. Like, we're in contract off of something that you sent, off the ideas you gave us. That's where we get a lot of fulfillment for. So on the investment side, the wholesale side, and assignment side, we help extrapolate kind of the data of what would be like the highest likely people of really needing to sell. To get a quick exit. So what does that mean? Like the tax liens, divorces, probates, bankruptcies, notice of defaults, notice of trustee sales— not the funnest side of real estate.

Mm-hmm.

But these are people going through huge, huge traumatic life changes that are going to dictate some kind of housing change. I think right now, just kind of in the environment we're in with this high interest rate, we know— I think it's kind of nationwide that there's an inventory problem. There's not a lot of houses available on the market because who's going to want to get out of their 2.5%, 3% interest rate to get into a 6%? Like, the days of selling because they're bored or over their house are kind of behind us for this time, for this season of real estate that we're in. And so we have been able to really help a lot of people get out of those dark times and move on to the next chapters of their life. And that to me is also something extremely fulfilling. They're going through some horrible, horrible times, you know, divorce.

Mm-hmm.

Not being able to pay your mortgage and having it go to auction. Like, those are times where it hits the ego, it hits you know you as a person, you feel like a failure. But then, as us and our data and helping the agents relieve that message and take that off their plate, and help those people move on to some of the next chapters of their life, really has been something that we strive to help our agents understand that and not just go after it because it's like. you know, the quick thing to do or the investment side of things, but really help them realize that you're helping people out of some of the darkest chapters of their lives.

So good.

That's true.

Well, I hadn't, I hadn't really thought about it until meeting you all and talking with you, but certainly those of you who work in title have developed a tremendous skill set in terms of data mining. I mean, you are, you are at the registrar's office probably on a daily basis. I mean, probably doing it mostly electronically these days, but—

Thankfully, we don't have to go down there to the courthouse anymore. Thankfully, we don't have to do that.

We used to. I was there almost every day, Alan.

Yeah, I would, I would expect that you would. And, and you're not just doing cursory looks at one particular property in just one closing. You have to go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep into into that title through, through I don't know how many generations of that, but you, you're accustomed to that. So I can see how you could have developed a skill set that could be extraordinarily beneficial to, to real estate investors, because as a real estate investor, I can tell you that is not something I want to spend my time in doing. Although I treasure data, but I don't want to be the one to have to go out there and mine for it.

Yeah, I don't blame you. It's not glamorous, that's for sure. But the deal is made in the data for sure.

Well, and it's nice when you have title people or people that you can lean on to be able just to provide you with that information. And that's one of our value adds is like, well, we provide you with that. You don't have to go You know, buy the PropStream or PropertyRadar or these, you know, accounts that can cost you thousands of dollars a year.

Yes.

We take that off the plate and we help our investors because we want to empower the entrepreneur in real estate as much as we can by taking as much off their plate as possible, by providing them with good data and providing them with outreach tactics that actually we have seen get into contract. They're not just like, oh, here's your data. All right, go have fun. Let us know when we can open an order. We're like, hey, here's the data and here are things that we have seen work to get this. Like, one of our big suggestions is— and coaches will say different across the board, there's a lot of different ideas with this— but, you know, when someone's in a divorce, you don't want to call them and be like, hey, I see you're going through a divorce, like, I can sell your house. Yeah, you know, sorry, you guys had a pool boy, no pool. You know, they're aware of their distress. Yeah, notice of default, they're aware they haven't been able to pay their mortgage, they know that they're not able to pay it. So we've seen different scripts and different tactics to kind of soften that of being the resource of saying, hey, I am canvassing this area for sellers directly. And I'm working with some institutional cash buyers that are always looking to pick up properties in your area. My brokerage I work with also has like 40 buyers that are pre-qualified, ready to go for your home, because everyone has buyers right now. I mean, it's across the board, buyer demand is way up. And so if you've had any thoughts of selling, I'd love to talk to you about exiting your property with a quick close cash offer, if that's something you'd be entertaining.

Yeah, it's a solution-based offering that gets them out of their quagmire of issues and focused on a solution, and they take you up on it with follow-up. And, um, you know, abundance is in the name of the program, and when you When you approach it with that level of abundance and help as many folks as you can, people remember and it comes back to you, right? Karma is always watching, whatever you want to call it. And we believe that if we help enough folks like in that situation, and if we help our retail agents with that approach of abundance, then we have enough strength in our relationships to where there's always a deal turning up here and there with a realtor, like a realtor, and they don't know what to do with a probate or NOD or a divorce. And they— but they know they got to sell it quick. Well, then we can plug them into cash buyers that we work with in our network. and put deals together just like that. So I really enjoy the abundance aspect of the program too, because that's where we strive to come from and try to live our lives in accordance with that.

Enlightened Investors, if you haven't done so already, be sure and click that like button and also click that share so others can take advantage of the content. And finally, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single one of our upcoming episodes. We are talking with Ryan and Haley, and they are with Tiger Tidal Talk. Best way to find them is go to Facebook and go to Ryan Lipsy Team, uh, Facebook forward slash Ryan Lipsy Team, and you can get in touch with Ryan and Haley.

And those numbers on there too are our personal contact numbers. We believe that the best ability is availability. We are always ready to answer questions. So if you always— that number on that Facebook page is Ryan's direct cell phone. My number, I'm sure somewhere on there. We're working on building up the website back, so that will be back. But Facebook is probably— Facebook, Instagram, just our names, best way to get ahold of us. And that is us. You're not getting some AI robot in there or chatbot in there. It's us.

So you all are based in California, but if I understand you correctly, you work nationwide. Is that correct?

We do. We have a national order desk through Fidelity National Financial, who is our parent company, and we're restricted in many states to refinance and residential. And, but most states we can cover commercial purchase and residential purchase as well as refinance of any property type. There's just some quirky states like New York and some counties within those states that are like a black hole for title. They're still operating by paper, by microfiche. Some of us will remember what a microfiche is, right? It's not a rewarmed-up fish. It's actually a microfiche was a device to read.

Well, and I think, Pac, too, we have tons of ways that we're able to help nationwide. Some of the attorney states are a little harder for us to get access to because they don't necessarily want the big title companies coming in and taking over because that's their bread and butter. So it's a little harder to get in those attorney states, but for most data across the board, we're able to help.

Yeah, I know it varies considerably. I mean, not just legally across the country and from county to county, but But access to data varies considerably. I mean, here in western North Carolina, we have been online, and our register of deeds and our tax office and so on and so forth have been online, and all of that's public information. And so, I don't know, we've been like that for at least 20 years. And I was doing some work in Arkansas And I was blown away. That's public information, but you cannot get to it online in Arkansas.

You have to—

They want you to go down to the building and pull the information that way?

You have to go through a paywall, or you, uh, you can, uh— the one thing about it, that this particular county I was working in, the, the clerks that work there are extraordinarily cordial. And they'll get you whatever you want and need. But who's got that time these days?

I mean, Texas is similar. Texas charges for a property profile, which is a very base fundamental document that title provides. Well, we charge for a preliminary title report, which is more of an escalated type of a report in Texas just to get the property profile info. I mean, we struggle because we have investors that cross between Austin and San Diego or the Bay Area with Dallas-Fort Worth. And are picking up assets in both regions, and they're like, why is it so hard in Texas? And we're like, I don't know, man, but you can carry a gun and you get more land for your dollars. So not a bad place to hang your hat, as they say.

The investments make a little more sense sometimes in Texas than in California, especially when you're trying to rent out properties. It's not the most, uh, landlord-friendly state.

Yeah, the dollars and cents in most cases. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what I hear. California can be challenging, but I have— I've worked with investors who are doing very well there. But you, you have to know what you're doing in California to make it work, that is for sure.

Yeah, the spread is a little different with the numbers here. Not as much margin for error.

Yeah, for sure. Well, give me, uh, an example. We've been talking here, it's really kind of abstractly, so Can you just give us an example from a case that you have worked with and just walk us through a case?

Well, I mean, in the case of title discovery, I'll let Haley tell her famous story when she was on the title desk. So I'm lucky I have an in-field title officer working with me in the sales side now. But just last night, I had one of my agents who does about $90 to $120 million per year in retail listings, present me with an opportunity of a triplex in National City that's completely dilapidated. It's been a hoarder situation, and he— and this owner just wants to get rid of it. So he wanted to make it available to as many cash buyers to meet at one time, see the property, and get the highest offer for his seller and send them on their way to another chapter in their life. And that is through the power of networking, through the power of abundantly taking care of your relationships. Opportunities come out of left field like that all the time, you know? And so we're able to plug in what is a very thirsty group of investors because their money doesn't make them money if it's not deployed. So these guys are chomping at the bit to get their money out into assets, to fix them up and sell them for a profit, which is the game. And, you know, that would be a case study where just today we probably have 5 groups walking the property that was texted to me last night. And hopefully they arrive at an offer over the weekend and get that thing in escrow by Monday. You know, so it's the power of relationships, the power of networking and responsiveness. He texted me about 8 o'clock last night. I have 4 kids, so I wasn't exactly hovering over my phone, but he's a VIP customer. So that's a sense of how a deal appears and is manifested out of thin air, as they say. But on the title side of things, we have to dig deep and make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed, right?

Well, it's definitely fun sometimes working with the investor side of things. Because, you know, when they're LLCs or things like that, there tend to be some liens on there. You know, we see tax liens, we see mechanics liens. We've had, you know, some investors get in a fight with their contractor, and they're like, we're not paying this right now, and then slap the mechanics lien on there. And then we have to be the ones to be like, okay, we got to unravel this we can't sell the property with the mechanics lien on here. That is our job to make sure that the incoming buyers are protected of any sins of the sellers, sins of the investor, anything like that. So yeah, working on the title desk, I was running a transaction and there was a 1989 child support lien on there. And I don't know if it's a little different in North Carolina, but here in California, child support liens do not go away. The kid could be 30, It could be 45. If they have a lien for child support on them, it will always show up. And so little tidbit, guys, make sure you always pay your money, always pay your liens, everything, because it will come up if you're trying to do a real estate transaction. So I was, I was granted with the opportunity of getting the phone call from the gentleman who screamed at me saying, how is this lien even coming up? I don't even have children. He filled out a statement of information claiming he had no children, no previous marriages, nothing like that. Sure enough, on the lien, his Social Security number matched up, his driver's license number matched up, and his birthday matched up. So I had to tell him, you know, I'm so sorry, sir, if this is an error, you have to handle this with the child services department because this is showing up under your name. It matches everything that we see on your social or in your statement of information. So that conversation ended. And when the file goes to close— oh, and just side note too, he was selling his condo to buy a new home with his new wife. Um, and so the file—

Sweep some stuff under the rug.

The file went to close, and we got a zero demand from the child support department. So he did pay his lien, but they never recorded a release of lien against that lien. So it still showed up. So we had to click, we got the release of lien from the county, we got the zero demand, and we were able to close the deal. Never got an apology from the guy, but that was okay. But you know, so those things do come up. And we have to on our end, really uncover all the squiggly things on the bottom of the rock and be like, okay, take this one off, move this here, get this cleared up so we can transfer the incoming title To that buyer free and clear of any other judgments.

Yeah. So I guess you could say, or it's fair to say, title could be your best friend in some cases and your worst enemy in others, depending on what lens you're looking through at the moment.

And it's funny because right now we're hearing all these things about, you know, they want to get rid of title insurance on refis. We tried the title letters, though. There were so— I mean, you can look this up on how many claims title insurance companies had to pay out. Because that was not sufficient enough. If somebody refinancing their property, they could still encumber other liens, they could have got private liens on there, they could have other judgments that come up. So as a lender, why would you lend another $400,000 to this person when they have all these other liens on there that didn't come up because there was no title insurance? I mean, to me, if we're trying to save housing costs and stuff like that, That's like one of the main things we should keep to be able to prep to protect any other costs that could occur later in the future. I mean, it's a one-time fee paid through escrow. So I don't understand how a little title insurance policy that can keep you asleep at night and know that nobody can come and take your property from you and stuff like that is really important. And when I saw that come up, that they're trying to get rid of title insurance for refis, I laughed. I was like, wow. They can Google it and see how many insurance claims had to get paid out during the time of COVID when we were doing title commitment letters. It's crazy, the numbers.

Well, I mean, there's so many things that people do not think of. My dad passed away about 2 months ago, and he and my mother purchased this property. This was in Arkansas. That's why I've been dealing with Arkansas back in the 1980s. My mother passed away about 20 years ago, and then my dad remarried. Well, it's that my— that title is titled to my mother and my dad. He was married for almost 18 years before he passed away. His widow is still living, but she was never titled on that. In North Carolina— I don't know about other states, I don't know how it works in Arkansas— North Carolina, that's a problem.

Yeah.

Even though she was never on that title, she was his spouse for 19 years, and she has a claim to that property.

So sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry to hear that. But yeah, I mean, that definitely dictates probably a probate scenario because she's not on title where, you know, in California, a judge could see that and look at it and do a Hegstad Act saying, hey, you are entitled to this property even though it's not on title. You guys were married 18 years. You obviously have a vested interest in this property. But it does prolong the transaction a little bit when you have to deal with the court system, right? I think that's kind of across the board.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But those are things we have to uncover and we have to make sure that The title is free and clear and clean, that there's no clouds like that on there, and that, you know, that person is able to inherit that property. And when they need to sell it, it's all able to be sold without having to get courts involved and stuff like that.

Well, and Haley's story is pretty comical, but, you know, there's 2 places I recently learned this, that you can never outrun the past, and that's on your title report and Global Entry. Okay, I went to Global Entry, and let me tell you, they knew things from when I was like Really young. I had to confess my sins, man. They had it all right there in black and white right in front of them.

So, uh, you got me in the drunk tank? I was in college. Come on.

So anyway, yeah, we are stoked with what we do. We get to work with some of the best people in the business, and really no 2 days are the same, which is amazing because, you know, it's—

it makes for a really Well, it's been a wonderful and engaging conversation. Um, what last words would you like to leave our audience with?

Let's go ladies first.

Oh, thank you. Um, you know, just any questions, definitely give this podcast a like, a follow, and any questions that you guys have, any of the listeners have on title insurance or ways that we could maybe help the investors that are listening to get access to our data or ways we can help them, please do not hesitate to DM us on Facebook, call us, text us on the number that's there because you will get us and it is us. It's not our AI robot, not yet. So you still get us yet. Now we're figuring that out, but it's still us for now.

And I just want to thank you very much for the opportunity and let you know we're very grateful to come on. And yeah, to echo Haley's sentiment, we are in the service business and we serve our clients. Serve is the root word of service. So we serve our clients as best we can to enable them and empower them to go as far and as high as they want to. So that's all we got.

Enlightened Investors, we have been talking with Ryan and Haley and they are with Tiger Title Talk and you can find them on Facebook. And that's Facebook forward slash Ryan Lipsy Team. And Ryan is of course R-Y-A-N. Lipsy is L-Y-P-S-E. And so that is Facebook forward slash Ryan Lipsy Team. Thank you, Ryan and Haley, for being with us today. Enlightened Investors, it's been a pleasure having you with us again today, and I know you had Got a lot out of today's program, and you have a source now to go to for your title and settlement issues. Thank you so much for being with us. And like Haley said, please like, share, and subscribe, and go to your favorite podcast app and leave us a rating and a review. We would be greatly appreciated. Until next time, live abundantly in all areas of life. And we'll see you in the next episode.

Enlightened investors, wait, wait, don't go just yet. I just want to remind you about our recently launched webinar that you will not want to miss. If you're at all curious and would like to learn more about how real estate investing can diversify your investment portfolio, alleviate the anxiety associated with Wall Street swings, leverage your 401s and IRAs to substantially increase the return on your investment and do all of this with turnkey, hands-off, passive real estate investments, then you'll want to immediately go to stevetalker.com/webinar. In the webinar, we'll also address the common dubious investment schemes that you want to avoid. To access the webinar, go to stevetalker.com/webinar. I look forward to seeing you. And the web now.

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