How to Navigate Being An Agent/Investor with Natalie Kachtanova

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. It's Thursday at 4:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. That means it's time for the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. We are the podcast that brings real estate investors from all walks of life together. I'm one of your hosts. I'm the new guy, Alex Barnett.

And my name is Joe Holmes and I am the experience guy.

Yeah, your experience has been coming in handy this whole last week.

Yes, it has. It has. I mean, I leave for a week and the world falls apart.

Yes. You know, it was scary. It was scary. But then he came back and now we're on track. So maybe we can talk a little bit about that today. But okay, um, we do have a guest in studio. We're super happy about it. Um, we have Natalie Katchanova here. She's gonna talk about out-of-state investing as well as what it's like being a Southern California realtor. Um, we're gonna bring her in in just one second, but first let's talk about, uh, the meetup that we have coming up April 22nd, Hangar 24.

That's all I know about it.

Perfect.

You were setting up the speakers, so I don't know anything about it other than April 24th.

April 22nd.

Oh, 22nd. Hangar 24.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, so the, the guest that we're bringing in is actually, it's a group. Um, they're from Sub 2 Mentorship. That's how I know them. But their whole focus is on creative finance. So pretty much all their deals are creative finance and they do a lot of wholesaling.

Okay.

They take some acquisitions, uh, they keep some acquisitions for themselves, but they, they get really into the weeds with it. And I think it'd be kind of a, a cool discussion and talk about how they've helped out some sellers in some sticky situations and how they've, um, I guess turned like a really weird situation with sellers into a profitable one. So could be, could be good for everybody.

So that's good.

Yeah.

And then, uh, this last month we had Burton from PropStream, and that was a huge success. I had a lot of people said they really enjoyed it and, and they're looking forward to, you know, pulling some of those lists and Reaching out to people.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And don't forget my, uh, my link that'll get you $2 off.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I, I have a, I have a URL for it, but I, I forget what it is.

But we'll just—

okay, we'll put it in the description.

We'll find out.

We'll put it in the description so you can get some, some money off of that. But let's go ahead and bring it over to our guest, Natalie Katchanova. How you doing? Thank you so much for joining us.

Hi, hi everybody. Um, so I need to share my experience investing with Florida.

Why don't you like introduce yourself? Obviously there's an accent there, and I don't know if I've ever asked you, but where's that from? And when you came to this country, I'm assuming you weren't born here, so you came here from your country of origin. And when you got started in real estate?

I was born in Russia and we came to America like 27 years ago. I don't know why everybody keeps saying I have an accent, but—

I can't even tell.

Yeah, I'm in real estate for 10 years. I started with big company like Coldwell Banker, HomeSmart, but they charge so much, so I turned over to Joe and I like it a lot because there's many youngsters that give me power, energy, and new ideas. So about my investment, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I sold my house, divorced 3 years ago, and cash was burning in my pocket. So I was trying to buy here somewhere in California 3 years ago, and market was crazy, still crazy. My friend had investment in Florida, so I just wrote an offer. Never seen the property on Zillow, like on the pictures. I wrote an offer, they accepted my offer. I flew to Florida and location was terrible, so I canceled that offer and I have like 5 days to find another property. Yeah, I found it. It used to be Airbnb also, so they sell me— sold me the house with the furniture, with client list of the client, with Cleaning lady and how do you call it? The guy who is fixing all the stuff. So like in one pocket. So and I'm still doing this Airbnb like for like almost three years. Market in Florida totally different than here. There's a lot of inventory and prices like for three hundred, three fifty you can buy three bedroom, two bathroom house, single family home and rent it out almost like one percent rule working there. So for three thousand you can rent it out. Uh, what else should I say? Yeah, and I'm, uh, oh, because like 6, last 6 months the market was slow, so I, I passed the, uh, realtor exam for Florida, and I passed the mortgage loan originator for Florida and for California. So I want to do like double dip for both states. Um, yeah, if somebody is looking to, to buy in Florida, you're welcome. I'll show you. You can stay at my house in Florida. I'll around. Yeah, it's some good areas, some bad areas. Some have like public utilities, public water, some have septics. So it's different. Yeah, I learned a lot about the Florida market, like Sarasota particularly.

I'm looking for a property in Florida.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Nice.

We can stay at your furnished Airbnb there, huh?

Please. Yeah. Yeah. I give you a discount. Yeah.

Oh, a discount.

All right. So you said it's in Sarasota?

Sarasota. Yeah, I was thinking between Sarasota and Miami. I was a little bit scared about Miami because it's huge HOA fees.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was. Sarasota, no HOA.

So, oh, excellent. Yeah, and, and that's kind of cool that you just, you know, you, you, you went sight unseen on the first property. Then that's good that you at least went out there and you were like, okay, this place is scary, and then pivoted to an actual business. So you essentially bought a business and you've been running it. How, how it's Like for the last three years?

Yeah, almost three years.

Oh my gosh, that's great!

I'm thinking to build like a pool and ADU there because the backyard is huge.

Okay.

Wow. And is there a lot of competition in Sarasota itself?

I'm itching right now to buy something else, but my my lender said no no no wait. It's going to be a lot of inventory, so you can go anytime. Like yeah, no rush.

Okay. Yeah, that's good.

That's what I hear in Florida that the market is going down. Is that correct? A lot of homes for sale. Really? Okay. And I hear mostly, mostly it's like condominiums, um, that are for sale. And then, uh, what about, um, insurance? Do you have issues with insurance?

You need to watch if it's in the flood zone or not.

Okay.

Yeah. Uh, my house, the tree fell down on my roof, so, um, it's— but they didn't charge too much. They didn't increase insurance too much. It was like good. But you have to watch if it's a flood zone or not.

Yeah. And the tree fell down because the hurricane. Hurricane.

Uh-huh.

Oh yeah. Wow. So we deal with earthquakes here in California and you deal with hurricanes over there.

Yeah.

Wow. Okay.

How long did that— what, I guess, uh, stop the Airbnb? How long did that take until you got back up and running with a tree on the roof?

Maybe 6 months.

Okay.

Yeah. I lock one room, the one that was a hole. So I told them instead of 3-bedroom, now it's 2-bedroom.

There you go. Okay.

That's cool. And, and so, um, how was it? Stepping into the short-term rental, you know, game without, I guess, owning any before that, was it hard or you had a property manager, everything was already set up?

Neighbor. Yeah, very good neighbor. He's watching whoever is showing up. What do you— what are you doing here? Okay.

Yeah.

And if he— they don't mention my name, like, okay, get out of here. And he has a huge dog.

There you go. That's, that's the type of neighbor to have.

That's a really good neighbor.

Yeah.

How'd you make that connection?

Oh, I don't know. Just being sweet probably just came out. Oh, that's my new neighbors. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's very sweet.

She is very sweet. I can tell. Okay. I love that. Do you mind like sharing some of the numbers? I guess like kind of what you get on a monthly basis and I'm assuming it's seasonal or how does that work as far as the Florida market?

Right now on Airbnb, I charge $185 per night. Yeah, but I'm paying for everything like utilities, internet, all the stuff. Cleaning.

Right.

Okay. And maintenance.

Is it, is it cash flowing at least a little bit right now?

A little bit.

Yeah.

Okay. I got interest rate was terrible, like 7% 3 years ago because.

Right.

Yeah. It's not primary residence, it's investment. Sure. But still, it's some positive.

Oh, that's good.

I'm learning a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if it's at least breaking even then and you're learning how to run that, that seems like a win for sure. And then if rates come down, then, you know, you know you're going to cash flow after that.

Yeah, I can refinance. Now I'm thinking maybe for long term, so it's less, less, you know, stress, less whatever. Just rent it out for a year or 2 and that's it.

Right. Okay, excellent. And are you going to stay in the Sarasota area or have you looked at any other markets?

I'm looking at Miami very closely, but Miami, the price go up so, so especially like into high rises with ocean view. Yeah, price go very, very high.

Yeah, that seems like one of those, you know, markets kind of like LA or New York or something. Do you think Miami?

Why, why Florida?

I don't know, because my friend has experience and he shared and I never been there.

So, okay, okay.

Yeah.

So when, when you came to this country, you said 20-some-odd years ago, where did you first live?

Uh, in Canada. Okay.

This country is not Canada.

Yeah, Michigan and New York. Okay.

Wow. How was Michigan?

That's the only company that were able to do the green card for us.

Oh, I see. Okay. But how was it living in Michigan?

Oh, terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And New York?

Uh, not any better. 6 months. We couldn't handle more than 6 months.

Yeah. And then, so what brought you out to California?

That's my ex-dream to live in California. Oh yeah. But I'm still looking for my dream where to live. So maybe it's Florida. I don't know. I'm still looking.

Okay. Got it.

Nice. And so what got you into real estate in the first place?

I was raising my kids until they grown a little bit. I had choice to do the childcare stuff or real estate. So I chose this one.

Nice.

Pretty happy with that. Yeah, because I need like free, free time to drive kids to school and activities, all this stuff.

Yeah.

Okay, so being a real estate agent gave you that free time that you need?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, that's, that's a good choice.

Yeah.

And so now tell me about, uh, your clientele. Do you, do you like dealing with maybe The Russian people, or do you deal with everybody?

I deal with everybody right now. A lot of Persian people, for some reason, I attract a lot. Yeah. And I even started to learn Persian. Dorud barshoma, for example. They, yeah, they look at me like they don't trust. As soon as I say dorud barshoma, they're my friends.

Wow.

What does that mean?

It's like, hi, how are you? Very, very old Persian language. Younger Don't know that.

Oh, I just know hola.

Yeah, that's not pretty.

It's not very Spanish.

But we are in California. Florida is not much different. There's lots of Cubans there, Puerto Ricans.

You can get by with Spanish speakers.

Yeah.

You've never learned Spanish?

I was trying to. Yeah, I can learn. No problem. I like to learn. Yeah.

Okay.

I pass a lot of tests like mortgage loan originator, insurance, all this stuff. I let like to learn and get new knowledge. Yeah.

That's good. You should be a lifelong learner.

Yeah, absolutely.

Everybody should.

Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. Never stop learning.

Keep your brain sharp. Now, you mentioned, um, the insurance in Florida, and we're kind of having a similar situation out here where insurance companies were just leaving, right? Or is that sort of the same thing happening in Florida or what was going on?

Because they're just watching if your windows, um, some kind of protected from the whatever, um, so many miles per hour wind. That's the big point for them. And how old is the roof? That's what they're watching, looking for. And if it's in the flood zone or not.

Okay.

Oh really? Okay, so you can still get insurance there, no problem.

Okay.

Yeah. Is it, is it Because I do some wholesaling out there. Is it if the roof is older than 10 years you have to get it replaced, or what?

No. Okay, you don't have to. No.

Okay, gotcha. And in order to list it on the market, does the roof have to be a certain age or anything like that?

Uh, you can tell it, and it's very huge difference between California and Florida, that in Florida you have no contingency period. As soon as you sign contract, you're done. If you cash, you never change your mind. Only if you have a good lender Who's your friend who can say, okay, he's not approved if you change your mind? It's very, very, yeah, dangerous. Like, don't be cash buyer.

And do they give you all the disclosures to begin with?

Uh, yeah.

Okay. So it's because I know in Northern California that's the way they do it. They put all the disclosures and everything online, do it everything up front, so that at least you can look at that to see if you even want the place or not.

Yeah.

So it sounds like Florida's pretty similar. Okay. But once you put your money in escrow, it sounds like that's it. Either do the deal or lose the money, right? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

And how much, how much do they usually want you to put down for the initial deposit?

Like $5,000, $10,000. Not much.

Okay. Yeah. Not much here. Listen to that. Not much. That's a lot of money for some people. Okay. She's got money burning in her pockets.

That's a good problem to have.

Yes.

Yeah, you got people saying like, oh, hold on a second, wait a second, wait till the prices come down. But you know, one thing I love is—

It's just like, man, over 40 years, that's all I've heard is wait till the prices come down. And then, you know, they never do. And I have people call me back and, Joe, I should have listened to you. I should have invested 3 or 4 years ago and look where we're at now. I go, I told you. I mean, what are you going to do? You know, it's honestly, it's like, honestly, like right now, I think interest rates will hopefully get down to 6%. But the minute they do, it's going to go crazy. Prices are going to go right back up again because everybody's going to go out there and, you know, start bidding on properties, maybe even in Florida. I don't know.

I think so.

Yeah. In California, I have a lot of clients who's waiting for 3, 4 years. I don't know what they're waiting for.

Yeah. There's no reason to be waiting. You know, 'cause yeah, you can wait. The interest rate's down at 6%, but now the price of the home has gone up, you know, 7 or 8%.

Right.

So what good did that do?

Yeah.

No, exactly. And, and that's what I love is like you had the money, you had the cash, you're like, I'm gonna do this. And so you just basically put in an offer sight unseen, but you know, you realized, okay, maybe this isn't the best one, but that didn't deter you. And you bought another place and you're like, I'll figure it out. So what do you say to people that are just, they're just scared? They're like buying something out of state just freaks people out.

It depends on the state, probably. Uh, I'm thinking like I would buy where I don't mind to live myself. Probably I wouldn't buy it in Detroit because I live there. I don't want to live there anymore. But Florida, I came there and I like it. So if something happened, at least I have place to live. So just if you have money, just buy real estate. You, you couldn't do wrong with real estate. Sooner or later it'll appreciate.

Nice.

Yeah.

Don't be scared and learn on the way.

Sooner or later.

Exactly. Gotta figure it out. Yeah, that's great. And then now you have a, you know, cash flowing asset. Um, so describe, I mean, how, how much of a difference is it being an agent here versus being an agent there?

I just got my license for it. I've never been an agent, but at least I know what to do. It's such fun. Just drive on the street, in each block you have 1 or 2 abandoned houses, like totally. And you can find people who live there. And I want to go there and farm. It's going to be much easier than here. You knock at the door in California and they, no, we're not selling. No, we're not selling. But in Florida, it's— I don't know, it's so many homes that could be easy, like for sale, or they don't know they're gonna sell, but if you show them the money, they will sell it.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

I see. And, and I know that Governor DeSantis just passed a law, the legislator, he signed it, um, about squatters because he saw what, uh, is happening in New York and here in California as well. So he just passed a new squatters law that basically gives the police the right to go in and remove squatters. Um, have you ever dealt with anything like that? Like your Airbnb? Like, have you ever—

Don't say that.

Yeah. Have you ever had somebody that said, uh, yeah, I'm not moving? No.

No. Okay.

Yeah. We'll find some wood here. So some wood right here you can knock on. Have you ever dealt with any of that stuff? I, I mean, I have. Um, we've, we've dealt with that. We've dealt with evictions and stuff like that. It's not a, It's not an easy thing to do, but I was just curious if over your career you've, you've done any of that.

You've dealt with— For myself, no. My friends who's a realtor and broker, they, they did. And I know the best guy who can evict people.

Okay.

His name is Steve, right? Everybody knows him.

Yes.

So he can evict them. But myself, no, I never deal with that.

Okay. Hopefully you'll never have to. Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's usually like that.

But Alex likes doing it. He, he—

Oh, I love squatters.

He loves squatters.

I just love 'em. They're the best.

He likes to film it, you know? Yeah.

It's usually like vacant houses, like you said, which, you know, Florida has quite a few, I guess. Mm-hmm. So then they find those and then once they're in, um, then that's the trouble. But what's crazy is now, um, people are like putting up blogs or putting up videos on how to actually get around the squatter rights. Yeah. And how to, uh, evoke squatters' rights.

Yeah.

And so they'll go in, they'll find a house that is vacant even for a little bit. change the locks, put the utilities in their name, and, and do all that kind of stuff. So, um, you know, depending on what state, but luckily DeSantis saw the problem with that. But, um, like Illinois, Chicago area, it's like they have like a 9-month eviction process whether you live there or not. Um, New York's pretty bad.

New York's like 10 years.

Yeah. When someone—

crazy.

Yeah. And I saw a video, I think it's, it's gone viral recently, where a lady was Trying to get the squatter out, and then the cops came and arrested her.

Arrested her?

Yeah. Wow.

Which is nuts. But yeah, people are kind of taking the problem back into their own hands, which is nice. So there's there's been these groups that are popping up that can help you get rid of the squatters. They basically like move in and then squatter the squatter.

Squatter the squatter.

Yes.

So they'll move in and they're like, "We're gonna film everything." I saw that the other day. Yes.

Yeah, we're here. We've given you 24-hour notice. We were sent here by the owner. And so we're here to give you a 24-hour notice for inspection tomorrow. And then they show up the next day and, okay, we're here. You have to let us in. And I saw one where they literally kicked the back door in, you know, and then all the squatters that were in there basically started to leave.

Yeah.

And so once they left, they started moving all their stuff out. Yeah, onto the street.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, because the cops show up and they're like, well, this is a civil matter, right?

Right, they're not gonna do anything, which is, you know, kudos to DeSantis that he sees all this stuff happening and government should step in in that situation, you know, instead of letting private individuals, uh, do it. And somebody, somebody's gonna get hurt.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So kudos to him.

Yeah, and it seems like You know, he's kind of on, because it's a red state, it's like he's kind of more for the, I guess, property owner than the other person.

I don't know.

Who knows? Yeah.

But, uh, so talk about your experience being a Southern California agent. What, what is that like?

Um, I don't know. It's, I don't have experience like to compare with some, something else. That's where I started from Coldwell Banker and, uh, Yeah, I ended up with Joe, and I'm still learning every day. I try to learn every day something new. Yeah, and I love it. I love what I do.

Yeah, you have a deal going on right now, correct?

Yeah, I'm closing escrow in Irvine. Yeah.

Okay, and how did you end up with that deal? What— talk us through how you met the client, and you know, what's the process and all that about?

Yeah, just hold open house for somebody. Totally different agent who has no time to hold open house, his own open house. So I hold it for one weekend and this guy came looking for— he's downsizing, sold his house, big house, and looking for something smaller. That's how— so I show him a few homes and wrote an offer and here you are.

So you didn't, you didn't sell him the home you were doing the open house?

No.

Okay, but you ended up acquiring a buyer because of the open house, which is awesome. That's It's a good way to do it.

That's, yeah, very easy to, to acquire new, new people. Yeah, yeah, new clients.

Yeah, good. And I think that's the thing about real estate agents, you know, you have to be out there doing something, you know. If you're not out there, you know, front-facing, uh, doing open houses, cold calling— I know you do door knocking as well. Yeah, yeah, it's I don't recommend, but that's because I'm old and I don't like seeing women knocking on doors. And I've, and I think I've told you, don't go in. You make an appointment and maybe come back with somebody else with you. Okay. Yeah.

I'm thinking of your safety. I just knocked.

Okay, good, good. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I know, I know you've told me all these things that you're door knocking and all that stuff. And, and that's awesome. You have to, when you're a real estate agent, you have to go out and do these things because you're not doing these things. You're, Literally just sitting at home doing nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I've seen you at the Ocar events.

All events. Yeah.

Yeah. Learning, having the free food.

That's why Joe's there. That's why you see Joe there.

I saw you at the last one. The one we just had. Was it Monday?

On Monday, right?

Yeah, Monday. I saw you. Didn't you see me?

I saw you. You were sitting with the guy like next Oh, I looked at you. You did? Okay.

Head nod.

I looked at you. I saw you. Yeah, I thought you saw me and, you know, you were gonna come over, but you didn't because you probably have better friends than me. Yeah, see? Yeah, you sat with your better friends.

Yeah, cool.

Did you like the lunch?

Um, yeah.

It's a box lunch. Come on. Like when I first started, we literally used to go to a, like a golf course, you know, restaurant and have a sit-down served meal. And now we're—

Those days are gone.

Box lunches. Like what's next?

Just a bag of chips.

They're gonna throw some McDonald's at us or something?

Oh, that would be expensive. No, no, throw a bag of chips from Costco.

Oh, there you go. Bag of chips. It's like we were there for a long time. We were there for what, two hours?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got Hutchinson and after that still.

Did you get some good information from?

Yeah.

I think I did too as well. That's just amazing. And so what do you think about the NAR decision and what's going to happen with that? What what what? Get your crystal ball out and tell us what you think is going to happen. In the future.

Okay, many real estate agents are gonna quit, which is very good for us.

I like that.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's just true.

Yeah, whoever is working like a part-time or as a hobby, they're not gonna stuck in here. So that, that's very good. So, and we need to work on our bio, like tell us about why, why the clients want to choose us, and they will understand that if they want to work here, you're going to work for them. That's that's very good. We're gonna end it up anywhere there, like but in Florida you cannot double double end. But here probably should be the same rule.

They won't let you double end over there. No, really? Wow. Yeah, I I I think what's going to happen is very similar to what you just said, and I think at the beginning you're going to have buyers' agents just go directly to the listing agents and go from there. Now is the listing agent going to get two commissions out of that deal? Or the seller's going to say, yeah, I'm paying you one. Why would I pay you more? Well, I'm doing double the work. Well, now you're kind of really doing, you know, the work for both of us. So we'll see. I think that's going to be the progression. And then if the market changes, or I mean, we're in a seller's market now. If it changes to a buyer's market, then I think buyer's agents will be okay because the sellers are going to have to say, I'm going to pay you a commission. It may not be advertised on the MLS, but if, you know, if you want to sell your house, you're going to have to offer something to a buyer's agent. So I think, I think, you know, it's disruptive, but we'll go through that process and end up better agents and people at the end of the day.

Yeah. And I saw, I think Jerry Norton put out a video today where he was talking about he would use the double dip to get on-market wholesale deals and flips. So he would have the, you know, that listing agent represent himself. And then, um, so he was just basically saying like he would offer an extra fee to the agent so they could still kind of double dip.

Well, we kind of do that.

Mm-hmm.

Already, you know, um, you know, commissions are the lifeblood of any real estate agent.

Yeah.

And if I had a listing and you came to me and said, uh, you know, would you represent me? Um, I'd say absolutely, I'd represent you.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so, um, would that give you a better chance of getting a deal? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Probably. Mm-hmm.

And you sweeten the deal with a little—

Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think you, like I said, I think you'll see a lot more of that. Um, you know, coming to fruition after— they say July, but who knows what's going on.

Yeah, it's probably gonna get pushed out.

Yeah, who knows.

But yeah, I think you're right. Like, it's gonna, it's gonna cause people to, you know, not want to do it, which means more opportunities for the people that stick around. Yeah.

Do we have some guests? Lauren?

Some guests? Comments?

Comments?

We've got one. You know who it is. It's our resident regular, Liz. And she says, hi. Hi.

Hi, Liz.

Nice. Um, we do have some videos that I'm gonna play. Not of you, but, um, I want to get your— I want to get your reaction.

Yeah, we took the videos in secret the other day. Wait, Natalie, I don't want to stress you out.

No, I, I think I remember Natalie, weren't you putting in our agent, uh, WhatsApp that you knew an agent or had a client that like was up to no good at some open houses and they were caught on a Ring camera? Was that you?

No.

No.

Okay.

I thought that was someone else.

I don't even remember that one.

It was like when we first made the chat and I was getting a kick out of it, but I thought that'd be a good No, no, I don't remember that one.

Okay, sorry. What do you have to show us?

We got Grant Cardone up first. Here we go.

Buying a house, worst investment you'll ever make in your entire life. Let's say you paid $1 million for a house. Average house here is $576,000. $576,000 is what you paid. Now you need 12% for broker fees. Let's say you keep the house 10 years, you need 10% in maintenance fees. It's 1% a year maintenance fees. It's about 2% in property taxes every year. That's 20%. 2 times 10 is 20%. And it's probably 7% to the bank. So that's 70%.

Total those up, it's 112%.

A $576,000 home will have to be sold for $1.2 million in 10 years. You're not going to sell it for that to break even. Dead money. And you had to put $100 grand down to do this. They're serving a master. They'll borrow money from the Bank of America. And then if they can get some more money, they'll have a little retirement account that funds Wall Street. This is a big game, bro. Rather than buying one house, rent where you live and take that $100 grand and go buy a piece of real estate where other people live. I just don't need to own a home on the way up. I need to own assets that pay me on the way up. And once I have enough cash flow from the assets, then if I want to go buy a house or a watch or a car, I buy it out of the passive income. Buying a house worse.

He took a little while to get there, but what do you think about that?

Oh, should I tell about it? I don't know if it's relative or not right now. Very good program for it called debt equity, like people who own. Paid-off houses, like, like they want downside, but they don't want to sell the house. The lender will provide like up to 85% of this equity and to buy them other home so they can rent this out, the current house rented out and to buy some smaller. I'm not sure about this one. I'm too stressed out. So, Joe, help me. No.

Well, I think the idea was what he's making the click title is like buying a house is the worst investment you can make. Your primary residence. So I think he's saying rent, rent where you live, and then go buy other pieces of real estate like your property out in Florida. And then once you have enough cash flow, then buy your primary residence.

It could be because I'm renting right now in California. I cannot afford to buy here. Even if I buy, it's— the mortgage is going to be like $8,000. I, I couldn't do it at this— no, no big reason for me. Yeah. For right now, could be when market if market change a little bit, maybe I can afford to buy in California or yeah.

Does he buy?

What are your thoughts?

Does he buy multifamily?

Oh yeah, he's in a bunch of schemes.

Yeah, I would I would say I think he's talking more about multifamily instead of single family.

No, I think he's talking about single family too. He's basically saying it's the rich dad.

You buy a primary residence because you have a family that needs to live someplace. Okay. And if you have a family that needs to live someplace, and why just not buy a primary residence that you could deduct the interest payment on, you can deduct your property taxes on. So there's a lot of benefits.

Sure.

He, I don't think he went over any of those benefits whatsoever.

Well, it doesn't make for a good clickbait.

Yeah. So I disagree with his premise.

Oh, shots fired.

He's, he's You know, like million, million millionaire, and that's fine. You know, I, I just— if you have a family, you have to, you have to live someplace.

Yeah.

Uh, why are you paying somebody else's mortgage off? Okay.

Very good point.

I mean, I've got, uh, several properties that my tenants over the years have paid the mortgage off.

Well, that's what he's saying. You know, he's saying go buy those first, and then with that cash flow, you can Yeah, but you know, you've heard the expression happy wife, happy life. True.

Yeah, so my wife's not gonna be happy living at my investments. Yeah, no way.

Yeah, she's not living in Lake Elsinore.

Yeah, you know where the investments are. She's not gonna be happy there. So that's why I disagree. It's like, okay, you know, owning your own house is, you know, the American dream anyway. So yeah, um, there's no— there's nothing wrong with that.

Okay, there you go, Grant. Shove it. What do we got next?

Um, next up, why I'm investing in Florida real estate right now.

Hey, so can you tell me 3 things you love about Florida?

3 things I love about Florida, especially because we're new to the state, is number one, the migration that's coming into Florida. It's the number one migrating state in all of America. Uh, number two, the weather. We're over 300 days of sun in a year, which is fantastic coming from Canada. This is huge for us 'cause we, we wouldn't get any sun there. And number 3 is the business opportunities with all the immigration or the migrants coming into the town that it's, it's in the, the booming stages. So I definitely want to be here in the, the starting phase of this.

Hey, Stephanie, do you have any others you could add to that list?

Sarasota, it's like 5th on the beach. Siesta Key Beach is the number 1 beach in, in the whole United States. The sand is so white. It's not yellow, not brown, just white. I never seen that white sand before. Yeah. Beach is amazing, especially for kids. It's not huge wave, not dangerous at all. You can stay in the water for hours. So warm. So, so quiet.

How do you know that? You've done that personally?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Nice.

You went swimming while she was there? Yeah.

Yeah.

I went, I visited my sister. She's in St. Augustine. And it was like, I don't know, 80, you know, outside. And then you go, you're like, okay, I'm gonna go cool off like over here. And you get in, it's like 80-degree water. I'm like, wait a minute, am I sweating in the ocean right now?

I think it was a lot hotter than 80 degrees. Yeah, it was August.

Yeah, it was. But it was— it's, it's nice.

Very beautiful.

It's very nice.

Very nice.

Uh, what do we got?

Okay, let's see. We got one more. When realtors should fire their clients.

This is when real estate agents should fire their clients. I recently had one of those challenging clients, and this is what I did. I took a listing here in San Elijo Hills, and everything seemed to be good at first. I brought dozens of interested buyers to this client that were ready to close the deal, but the seller started changing their terms. They started changing their mind about everything. They continued to waste my time even though I had already done the work. Most agents would continue fighting and butting heads with the client, but this just makes them more angry and costs you more time. So I politely told the client that this was not working out and that they should find a new agent. The next time you have a crazy client, remember that you are always in control. Share this with a realtor who's had a challenging client. This is when—

No one's had a challenging client here.

Have you had challenging clients?

Uh, yeah, sometimes when somebody, uh, contact me and they said, oh, you know what, I, I work with 1 to 5 realtors, they're so bad, so bad. That's a red flag for me. That means I'm the next bad one. Yeah, yeah, that's what usually happened. Yeah. And also a friend of my realtor said, we just talk and said, oh, such a client, it's terrible, she's just wasting time for so long. What's her name? Such, such name. Oh, I know her. So she just contact all realtors. I think we should have like a website where the bad bad clients are, so everybody can check. Yeah, blackballed. Yeah.

Bad clients and a bad realtor website as well. Yeah.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, we should.

Yeah.

I mean, they can rate us like on Google Business and Zillow and stuff.

Yeah.

We should be able to rate them back.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's kind of like, uh, the rideshare thing.

Yeah, 5 stars.

Yeah, but you can rate, you can rate the passenger back too, right?

Yeah, threw up in the back of the car. Yeah, that's a 1 star.

Yeah, was passed out the entire time.

Stunk.

Yeah, only, only gave me a dollar.

Oh man, you know, it's hard out there.

Yeah, I agree. We should I get that, but yeah, I don't foresee that happening.

Yeah, and it stinks because, you know, like if you're an agent and you're coming up and you're like, oh my gosh, this is my first client, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but you don't realize you're about to go through like 6 months of hell with this person, you know. So I think it takes the maturity.

Yes, experienced agent to know when it's time to, you know, let them loose and go bother somebody else.

Yeah, to go on escrow, it's like a Like a little marriage, right? You meet a person, you know everything about him, about the family. Then you go to escrow and you know, like, whatever he demanding, whatever he's happy, not happy. And then you close escrow, like, okay, we divorced. But after that, yeah, after that, you know, like, you— if you're gonna deal with this client or not, right? Right. It's like, yeah, yeah.

You mean you don't follow up with your clients and give them gifts and keep track of them?

Yeah, I say happy birthdays.

Or do you divorce all of them?

But if you divorce, you don't have to be enemies, right? You can be good friends.

Most divorces are. No.

No?

Yeah, you could stay friends.

How many divorces you got?

Yeah, I don't have anything. I talk to a lot of women that are just angry at their exes.

No, you don't have to be.

I know you don't have to be, but that just seems to, to be the pattern, the way it works out.

I think that's just the one meetup you go to. It's like filled with divorced women for real estate meeting.

Yeah, I should start one because there's a lot of them out there, and for some reason they seem to continue to call me.

I don't know why.

Oh yeah, you know, lay it all out.

Just a good listener, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, um, I mean, I, I Talked to one, it was one, who was it? I think it was a lender. And he was saying basically, we were trying to do this subject-to deal and we ended up pulling out of it because we found out that it was this couple, they were getting divorced, they wanted to sell the property subject-to. And then we find out that the wife had already gone through 5 agents, like you said, because she wasn't qualified for a house, but she was making these people take her around to— Like 8 open houses over the weekend and she couldn't even, you know, put in an offer. And so finally they get fed up and we're like, you know what, we're done. We're done with this. But I don't think people realize how much of a waste of time that is.

Yeah. 2 years ago, and, and understand I've been doing this for over 40 years. I had a, a client called and said she wanted to list her house. I said, okay, you want me to meet you at your house? Yeah, come over to my house at, you know, such a time. So I went over there and knocked on the door. And, uh, looked inside and she said, well, are you hungry? Do you want to go eat? I go, no, I already ate, but, you know, thank you. She insisted that I take her out. So I took her out and I'm thinking, well, you know, normally when you invite somebody, you pay, right? Oh no, I paid for dinner. She ordered 2 dinners. And she took one home with her. And then I went back and she lets me inside the house and she's in the process of rehabbing the house. And so I start walking in and I'm walking in the kitchen. She goes, oh, be careful. Don't step there. Don't step there. They just put that tile in like a week ago. I'm like, why are you inviting me here to look at this stuff?

Yeah.

And like, I was like feeling way uncomfortable and I said, okay, you know what, lady, have a nice day. If you, when you're ready, when this thing's done, call me back. I'm still waiting by the phone for her to call me back.

Do you look it up every once in a while to see if she saw it?

No, I don't do any of that stuff. I just let it go. Gosh, if I looked up everything that people have done, it's like, that's all I do. You know, I just let things go.

That's a savage move though. Move, invite you over, trap you, and then get 2 dinners.

That's the first time that's ever happened. You know, I meet people for lunch, they usually buy. Coffee, they usually buy. You know, but this was just such a weird thing.

She spent all the money on the rehab and she's like, that's what she does every night to get dinner.

Maybe she's inviting other agents to take her out to dinner or something.

She's probably on the dating apps too, getting dinner that way.

Well, I don't—

one now and one tomorrow.

I want to be nice, but I don't think she's on the dating apps, if you know what I mean.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think so.

Okay. Wow, fun times. Um, what do you— so Natalie, what, what can you— what do you need in your business right now? Do you need more leads? Do you need more clients? Let people know how they can reach out to you and how you can help them.

Yeah, I need to be more organized. I need to contact previous clients because this is very good source of the referral. And yeah, just concentrate on the business because the huge wave of work is coming. Yep. As soon as interest rates will go down, we're going to have a lot of buyers running around and they need good realtors.

Yeah.

Now these are the clients you have not divorced yet. That you're going to reach out to, right? Or you're going to reach out to them too?

I will reach everybody.

Okay, got it.

Love that.

And how can people get a hold of you? By email, or what's the best way?

I'm gonna advertise on Facebook, and I'm a member of the— I signed up with Power Agents. They very good, have very good program.

Okay.

Like, yeah, on Facebook, on all social medias.

Nice.

Yeah.

And how can our listeners look you up?

Yeah, you can contact me on my phone number.

Yeah, go ahead.

949-351-1457 or email californiarealtornatalie@gmail.com.

Perfect.

That'll be put on all the dating apps here pretty soon.

There you go.

Okay, I don't mind.

Yes, she doesn't mind.

Amazing.

Very cool. All right, well, thank you so much for You know, coming in and chatting with us. We had to talk you into it for a second there.

Yeah.

Thank you guys for inviting me.

Yeah.

We do have a couple more comments.

Oh, we do?

Madeline. Okay. She was talking about the rent versus buy controversy. And she says, we've always used the rent versus buy calculator and it hasn't made sense for us since we've moved a few times. So I guess if you're moving a lot, you don't get that appreciation.

Correct. Yeah.

Um, and then she also on the rating system said, uh, Uber driver smoking weed in the car.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you get one star. Yeah, you get picked up in San Clemente, that's like probably 50/50 chance it's gonna happen.

Really?

No, I'm just kidding. I don't know, I try to pick some spot, maybe Huntington.

I just picture, what is it, the Dazed and Confused, Matthew McConaughey jumping out of the van.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're like, I'll get the next one.

Yeah.

Oh wow, that's good stuff.

Thank you, Madeline.

Yep, thanks for chiming in. And, uh, yeah, you guys, please share this far and wide. Share this with your friends, any new or experienced investor. And, um, you know, if you guys have somebody that you think would make a good guest, then reach out to us and we'll get you that link. And then, um, we'll see you at the meetup and we'll see you next week. Thank you guys so much.

See you later.

If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.