5: How to Become a Home Owner

Welcome to the Purpose Driven Real Estate podcast. This is where passion meets purpose in an ever changing real estate market. I'm your host, Steve Valentine, former real estate agent turned real estate entrepreneur, speaker and guide to all things real estate. And this is my co host, paige tons, former D1 college athlete turned real estate adultrepreneur. Whether you work in the industry or you are a consumer of real estate, with each episode we intend to raise the bar in our industry and show you the purpose behind every piece of real estate in your life. What's up? What's up, everybody? We are back. It's Steve Valentine with my co host, Division 1 softball player, page Johns. What's up, Paige?

What's up?

How's it going today?

Super awesome.

The same day as the last one, huh?

Yeah.

All right, so, hey, we're just kind of going through some different stuff and really trying to provide the ultimate value for just about anybody and everybody. And one of the really cool things is Paige came to me as a trade from another real estate company, and she's been amazing. She came in as an internship. She was one of those blessings that I just said yes and figure it out later. As Grant Cardone says, say yes to everything. And what was interesting is Paige started for me back in November of 2016.

Mm.

Yep. And we had one phone conversation. She went to Mexico and then came back and went to work. So here we are.

I'll come work for you, but I'm going to Mexico first.

I cannot tell you how amazing this young female entrepreneur is. So here we are about seven, eight months into her employment, and we start talking about potentially buying a house. And then we fast forward to a couple other things that have gone on in our life, and we're gonna dick in those right now. I just said dick in. Oh, well, we don't need to cut that out. Well, well, well. I should have stuck to the script, right? Okay, so you worked in another real estate office for nearly a year before you came to work with me. Why didn't you have the ambition or the knowledge to buy your first home when you're working in that real estate company?

Because I didn't have a guide to walk me through that process.

Okay.

So, I mean, again, I also.

You were surrounded by, like, 30 of them.

Well, none of them were reaching out to me, telling me that I should buy a house.

Okay.

So I think the. The other thing, too, is I. I thought that I didn't have enough employment history. I didn't think I had enough cash on hand. And so I didn't. I didn't feel like it was attainable yet.

Did you ever Google anything to see what it would take to buy a house or talk to anybody around you to see? Or was it just. It just was a. I think it.

Just kind of put it on the back burner for later down the road.

So just a mental block.

Yeah.

Just like, I'm not ready for it.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, makes sense. When did you realize buying a home was actually obtainable?

I finally realized when I switched offices and I was listening to everything that you were doing and teaching and showing your clients, especially on the wealth building side of things. So I was just soaking up all the information I possibly could. And I knew. Well, even when I was, when I had first started, I knew I wanted to build some sort of rental portfolio and do the real estate investment thing. I just didn't know how to do it or how I was going to do it yet. So when I started working with Valentine Group, I started seeing some more opportunities and open doors where I was like, okay, well, I can. I think I can do this, but I don't know. And I need someone to help me. So I, I know I had. The more we talked about the investors and helping our own clients, you had mentioned at some point, well, when are we starting yours? And this is how I did it at one point. You should do it how I did it because it worked for me. So let's just duplicate this, right?

Yeah. I think one of those pieces is we tend to have maybe a little bit of a negative impact from what happened in the market, I think, in your generation.

And I think that's everybody's question, right? What if it crashes?

Right.

I don't know. It was like in high school.

So would you say that when you thought it was attainable, it's because you watched me mentor other people and guide them through the process?

Yes, definitely. So I saw you helping other people and I was like, what the heck? Why am I not doing it?

Why am I not being like, when's.

My house coming up?

So youo know, you kind of move forward to the piece of we guided you through it and you got to buy one of the off market properties and go through the renovation process. Tell me about that. What was your experience with that process? And probably more so because not everybody's gonna get to go through the renovation process. But I mean more so the process of the loan, the purchase, and what you got to do.

So once we figured out that that was my goal and I was going to buy a house that year, didn't really know when it was going to be that year because we were looking at the off market opportunities which was a strategic plan rather than an emotional plan.

Sure. Now let's expound on that a little bit. Why do you say that it was strategic versus emotional Strategic because.

Instead of being super picky or you know, the more and more I learned about the investments and what makes a good rental, I was willing to sacrifice like comfort and you know, living in the houses that some of these other people were buying right away and the like the new builds and stuff like that because those aren't exactly like in our strategy for rental portfolios.

So in other words, you know, part of what we did was go through the strategy of the first home you're going to buy is really going to be a rental property. You know, maybe in a year, maybe in two, when you're ready for it. Where a lot of other people maybe your age that could buy a house were buying maybe a 200 or $250,000 home and moving into those but not really having the plan of future but more of right.

I finally kind of figured out that instead of having this mindset where I needed to buy like my dream home right as soon as I could and who knows when that could have been because I probably couldn't afford it at the point. But instead of having that dream home and being like one like narrow minded where you, you know, you can, you only get one house to buy in this in 15, 30, 40 years, whatever. But being like, okay, I'm going to be flexible and buy something that I can hold on to long term. And then when you know I am ready for that dream home or you know, my long term place, I can do that later down the road but sacrifice now. Right.

And that's a great game plan. You know, one of the things that is I tell the story to quite a bit of people and something that we discussed was no matter what, you have this house and you're not going to use it like a credit card and you're not going to sell it no matter what the market does. Whether it gains 30 or $40,000 in equity, doesn't make any difference. The point is for long term. And so when look at the impact that it has on somebody like you 25 was when you bought it. If you hold it for 30 years, depending on if you pay it off early or not. But you really think about at 55 you have at least one mid-100s home, even if it never Appreciates. It's one of the great things that needs to be understood in this whole process is that we're not buying based on appreciation. Appreciation is gambling. We hope it appreciates and you get lucky. But remember what happened in 2006. It appreciated way up and then it got knocked way down. Unless you were timing it perfectly, you missed it.

Right.

The point is for long term, so in the time you're in your 50s, you have a bunch of mailbox money and you have a bunch of assets that are free and clear and leaving those things alone. And yes, we know there's cost of maintaining and all that and we'll get into that down the road, but that was just one of those journeys that we talked about. Because I wished my house that I bought in 99, even through the spike and everything else, I wished I would have kept it because right now it would be 21 years paid off and I'd only have nine years left on the mortgage and I missed it. Now we've built a bigger portfolio since then, but it's definitely something that I want to make sure people understand that that's the process definitely. And that's why we're doing it for show. What did you feel when you finally bought and closed on it? What was that feeling of accomplishment and what did you feel the benefit of owning that home was going to be?

Well, because it was one of my main goals that year, I was super excited. I'm kind of a checklist person.

This chick is goal driven, checklist happy.

I got to cross organize as I'll get out my goal of buying a home that year and that was like the ultimate, the ultimate goal. And I feel like I'm a pretty independent person and being able to have full independence then from my family, that was graciously let me stay at home for a while to get a head start. Just having that independence and knowing that I was in control of my life is like very satisfying for me as a person.

Awesome.

What was your second question again?

What did you feel a benefit was?

And oh, I mean the benefit is that instead of going and renting something and paying somebody else paying into somebody else's mortgage, I am now paying my own mortgage. For now paying my own mortgage. It is my asset. I get to keep it long term and eventually someone else is going to pay off that asset for me and I will have, like you were saying, 25, 30 years down the road, a fully paid off home. Right. So.

Yep.

All right.

Another question that I think I've heard quite a Bit of between different people is so the millennials, your generation in their 20s. So you would have been in your teens when the market crashed. Right. So being in your teens when the market crashed, I think has a lot of millennials scared, worried, nervous about potential homeownership. So why do you think that that is that there's a negative connotation around millennials owning?

I think. Well, first of all, I was fortunate enough that my parents didn't suffer through that because they just, they had bought in way before and just kept their home. So nothing really changed for me personally. But when I hear it come up a lot now that I'm in the industry and in the real estate world, I think it's because they don't have an expert guide and the knowledge and education to feel comfortable about that decision and feel good about what they're buying. And I mean, what are they buying is the main thing I know. I've done a lot of market research recently to try and figure out why millennials and 20somethings aren't buying homes or are facing fears or challenges to buy homes. And a lot of it has to do with just simply not understanding the process. Because, like, some of the stuff I've been doing, the whole adulting thing, like we get out of college or we.

Get out of school, I still haven't adulted. It's not my vocabulary.

Well, we'll teach you some lessons too. Or not.

Good luck.

But some of the stuff I've been really reflecting on is coming out of school and not understanding how to buy a home. Like anyone with their parents who bought when they were younger, you didn't see them go through the process. I mean, that's the only people we really learned from for a while. So I had no idea how to buy a home. So how are the other 20 somethings and millennials supposed to know?

Isn't it, Isn't it interesting coming out as a college grad now? I didn't graduate college, you did. But either one of us. My parents were in the business. I had no idea how to file my taxes. No idea, like the home buying process. So it's interesting to see where you come out of college or not go to college. You still don't have the life skills.

No one's teaching it.

For some reason, no one's teaching it. So it kind of leads me to the next thing, which is, what is so amazing is Paige has taken her journey and actually turned it into a course that is not again, it's a guiding, not selling, and so Paige created this course out of her.

And it's free.

And it's free, right? Don't worry, we're not selling you anything. It's a free course. And what she did was she took her experiences and she took the things that she didn't have knowledge in when she thought about buying a house, and she put it into this amazing course. So tell them about it, Paige.

So my free course is called how to become a Homeowner. You know, my, my vision is to help and guide more 20 somethings, millennials, young adults, whatever you want to call it.

Even some of us old people even.

Well, it's funny because I've gotten some people that are like, what about us 40 somethings? I'm like, you're included too. I welcome.

I know I'm finally included in the 40 somethings this year.

Aw, just kidding. It's so exciting.

Whatever.

So much to look forward to. No, but so this course, I felt the urge and the need to figure out how to teach people what you taught me in that process of buying a home and just getting over those fears and those challenges. So I was like, how can I share this and provide value to more people, millennials, 20 somethings, and give it to them and help them get through this process and do some hand holding through it? So that was the whole vision behind the course, is I wanted to show people what I did because it really isn't that difficult.

Right. But it's also, you were able to, you know, guide people through a process without it turning into a sales process.

Right.

You know, this is one of those pieces that, you know, you've already talked to some other real estate professionals, which we both are, about them wanting to use your course to guide some of their college kids, college people. And that's really what it's there for. It's about, you know, taking your experience and having the maximum impact on people in order to help them guide through the process. And, you know, that's, that's been a, you know, it's been a problem in our industry forever is just the, the willingness to share and understand what, what that is.

And it's like teaming up.

It is kind of teaming up, collaborating, and it's something that you're, you're helping guide and go through. And that's one of the great things about this course. Where can they find the course at? Paige?

You can find, Everyone can find the course@pagetanz.com how do you spell tons, Paige? Not like a page in a book. P, A, I G E T O N as in nickel and Z as in zebra. That's what I say every time. So there. You can also follow me on Instagram. I'm the same handle, Paige, tons of. And it is the link in my.

Bio if you want to follow the old guy. It's Steved Valentine on Instagram, Facebook and that website. Great detail.

Also, the course isn't like something crazy long that's going to take you months to finish. I wanted to be able to provide quick tips and value so that you could utilize those things right away. And there's some tools and resources. And spoiler alert, there's a cool little option to have a budget sheet for from our friend Chris Peach, also known as Money Peach. So there's some cool resources in there as well.

Yeah. If you want a good finance podcast, listen to moneypeach.com or moneypeach podcast that Chris puts on. And this is really one of those courses too that was meant to again, find your purpose in real estate and what does it look like for you, your family, your friends and, you know, please share it with people. It's not one of those courses where it's local to Phoenix. It's something that anybody can look at or take and kind of walk through the process. And as always, if you're looking for real estate referral in another state, you can hit us up at either one of our handles. Or if you're looking for somebody here to guide you through the process, that's obviously what we do as real estate. And the Valentine group will certainly take care of you. There's. And Paige, thanks for doing such a great job on the course and actually guiding our audience today. So high five on you.

It's my little baby right now.

It is your little baby right now. Thanks for joining today, guys. We know that there is purpose behind every piece of real estate, no matter what you own, whether it's an office building or a house or you rent an apartment, whatever it is, there's purpose behind everything in real estate. Have a good one. Peace out.