He Bet Everything on Real Estate — And It Worked

Tracy Hayes  0:04  
Hey, welcome back to The Real Estate excellence podcast. If you're someone who's passionate about raising the bar in real estate, whether you're a buyer, seller, investor or agent, you're in for the right place. Today's guest is someone who understands that good enough just doesn't cut it in this business with a reputation built on relentless work ethic and results that speak volumes, he's mastered the art of guiding clients through complex deals with confidence and clarity, from logistics to real estate, his background is packed with proven performance and business savvy moves that fuel growth and trust. He's not just selling homes. He's building lasting partnerships in one of Florida's most competitive markets. Join me. Welcome to Show. Michael Drew kazemba, sir, I got that last name right there, sir. All right. There we go. Drew, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you on and again. Another, another young agent out at the Jacksonville Beaches, I imagine is where you hang. Yeah, that's for those parts. Really, really doing well. And it's, it's so exciting, as I'm sure you've been told, you know, when you're you're my age, and look back when I was growing up, most of your agents were, you know a spouse of you know someone, you know their spouse or partner, maybe was successful, or just someone who'd been in the business, they were older, and it's, it's so great to see the opportunities in real estate for young people like yourself, yeah. And that's, you know, part of the reason why I'm here today and doing that, because of the opportunities that it has, yeah, yeah. So I want to, I want to lead up so everyone, the audience gets a little bit to know you and how you actually got into real estate. Into real estate in the the I just call it the taste or the smell of it, right?

Tracy Hayes  1:49  
But tell us 1819, years old, what's drew doing? What do you what are you at that time? What were you thinking about for a career? And then you obviously where you went to, and your steps right up to to your first brokerage.

Drew Kazemba  2:03  
Yeah, so 18 or 19, I was still in college at Ole Miss back in Mississippi.

Tracy Hayes  2:09  
You and Eli Manning, fan, oh, big family.

Drew Kazemba  2:15  
I was at Ole Miss, and then I met my now fiance, and she graduated in 2020, so I left Mississippi, because she moved to Tampa, and I got down here to to

Drew Kazemba  2:27  
Jacksonville was the closest I could get to her. So didn't start off in real estate, but I in college. I thought I was going to do engineering, and I got a job in medical sales here in Jacksonville, and just did not enjoy it at all. I was also in a sales kind of environment, but I was on a w2 so I was working, working, working, and not getting to reap the rewards of how hard I was putting my work in. So the craziest thing about me getting into real estate is I got my appendix removed to get two weeks time paid off in order to take my test and do the whole course, and I'm not kidding,

Tracy Hayes  3:05  
so you were studying for the test, and then else in your appendix or no, so give us that one. That's a good one. I had run out of PTO. It was around fall of 2021,

Drew Kazemba  3:19  
and I'd been hating this job, just not liking it. And the I found out you could get your appendix removed and it was not really that bad, or it wasn't too bad, and you didn't have to have it. And I also learned that through my health benefits at work, I got three weeks time paid off. So I started telling my boss and going to the doctor. I went to the doctor about four times time my stomach was hurting right there. I told him all the symptoms. All the symptoms. Finally, we got this one Friday night, and they're like, Okay, this is like, the fourth time you've been here. We've done a CT. We don't really see much, but we're gonna go ahead and take it out of the precaution. And you can ask my fiance, I'm in the bed at the hospital, and I cheer, and I call my mom, like, Hey, I'm getting my appendix taken out. And I was pumped, because I knew what I was about to do. So I got it taken out. Literally, the next day, I played Halo all day and just beat it. Next day, I woke up, bought the course, and then treated like a nine to five. I got done with it in like six days. And then after that, I was interviewing brokerage brokerages, and I was

Tracy Hayes  4:16  
off to the races. Wow, that is sacrifice, right? Yeah, so you so just so you were, you really didn't have the symptoms. No, this is, this is a total plan. This is Wow,

Drew Kazemba  4:31  
back against the wall situation. I don't want to do this job anymore. I don't have money to take the leap, so I can't just take three weeks not getting paid. So how to do what I had to do, and that was part of it. Everyone thinks I'm crazy.

Tracy Hayes  4:43  
Yeah, I list you that on craziness. To me, I'm I do not like taking meds. And you know, like, it's the doctor said, right now, oh, you got high cholesterol. Well, tell me. They're telling me high cholesterol. Me. You live longer now, they've, they've changed their tune, right? That's, yeah, I refuse to do anything like that. But let alone cut into you. Is I'm like, dude, unless God tells me I have to cut, you know, I'm not loud and just cut into me for game. But you Hey, man, that's crazy. Yeah, how

Drew Kazemba  5:17  
to do it? I mean, I got that itch because my friend Sam kind of got me into it back in 2020 when these hedge funds were buying houses like crazy. My friend Sam was really tapped in, and he was wholesaling portfolios. I'm sure you've heard of wholesaling. Yeah, he was doing it on a large scale, and they had hedge funds backing them up. So he called me one day, and he was telling me about it. I need to learn it. So I'm getting home from my medical sales job, and you know, I'm sitting there and I'm learning how to do this process, and then I would go home and skip Tracy about I didn't know how to do it, like with the websites. Now, I was back individually, like white pages, getting people at one at a time, taking me five hours to make a list of 50 people to call. Right when I was driving to hospitals. The next day, I was calling all these investors, like asking them if they would sell their properties to us, and then we get finally got one that bit in Arizona, and I'm about to just lose it. I'm in the gym parking lot, and she signs a contract. I call Sam, I call my fiance, and it was like, my salary in one deal. And I was like, okay, that's the edge. And once that happened, I was like, Okay, I gotta get into this. I'm leaving what I'm doing. I hate it, right? This is exciting. My one of my good friends is doing it. I'm going to do it here. And so that's what happened. Then the hedge funds quit buying after like 2021 so took the pivot, and that's where I became an agent, right?

Tracy Hayes  6:32  
So, interesting, wow, that's, that's, that's a, that's just a really great I give you credit, because I think a lot of it does. It's not a generational thing. A lot of young people at any whether it was me, when I was in your at the in this young 20 age period that we're talking about here, you know, a lot of them were just like, would have folded up and like, hey, I'll just, I don't like my job. I'll go home and live with mom and dad until I find something better or something that would be the default, right, that would if they could do that. And yeah, you go out and sacrifice your appendix, let alone, obviously, like you said, you got your your friends doing it. You're you're combing through phone numbers of Books Wherever you guys were, getting the information to come because, yeah, you're making in that, in that business, you know, I mean, how many, what's a, what's a good ratio? One out of 50 actually answer the phone or willing to work with you. And that

Drew Kazemba  7:31  
wholesaling, it was, wholesaling is a different animal. And I don't, I didn't, I don't do wholesaling that was like, purely time of 2020, like hedge funds buying when they can get money for free, essentially, yeah. And without Sam, that never happened for I would never had that opportunity. So, you know, I would call about 50 people a day just because I'm driving in the van, going to the hospital, hospital, yeah. And maybe 15 of them pick up, yeah, then another 10 of them tell me to kick rocks, because I would tell them, if we could give you a market value offer for your home, would you work with us? You're not going to give me a market value offer on 15 homes? Well, you're crazy. And I'm like, Okay. And then we would put it in a Excel sheet, we'd send it off to the hedge fund. They'd send it to us, and then we'd work our numbers, and then we'd give them that. And it was kind of crazy how it was happening, but that's what happened. Yeah, that one deal I got ended up following through so I never got paid doing that right at the itch. That's what was important. But I know people that I know did fantastic

Tracy Hayes  8:36  
with Yeah, well, there's, there's that business I had on here recently. What? Tiffany high, and she has a company in Ohio. She started with fixing and flipping, and then now she says she's primarily really and she suggests for anyone who wants to get in the business to actually get in the business wholesaling first. Then if you want to work up the fix and flips, because she's now big enough, and has a process in team of people now. I think she said she got 6070, employees right now, and these people, a good group of them, the people who are doing or creating the deals, are the ones sitting there on the phone making those dials. And not anyone, not everyone can do that or has the discipline to do that, because you do, having worked in a call center in the beginning of my mortgage career, you go a period of time and no one wants to, you know, they're telling you to kick rocks, so you haven't actually got to really put your spiel on and get into the deal and so forth. All sudden you get a deal, and your your attitude sucks, and so you don't get it, yeah, you know that type of thing. You know, man, that that's quite a kickoff story. So, all right, so you decide that real estate is where you want to go. What you you have your appendix removed and go get your license. All right? What? What choices are, because a lot of I hope that there's a lot of new agents out there, or agents that are listening right now, who are maybe at a brokerage, who are just not where they want to be, maybe thinking about getting out of the business, when really there's maybe partnered up with the wrong people. How do you choose your first brokerage?

Drew Kazemba  10:18  
So I was like, I want to be in the area that I want to work, and maybe those people can help me locally, learn this side of the business, because it's a different animal. I'm not just, I can't just find 15 people who own these properties and call them like, there's a there's skill to it. And I didn't know, I didn't know where to start as an agent. So I found a couple people on Instagram that I liked, and then I found top producing brokerages on Google. And so I think you had one of the ladies in here, though, Ponte Vedra, black haired lady. I interviewed with her down in Ponte Vedra, Matt Roberts, I'm with now at Sunday homes. Interviewed with him two years ago, and I interviewed with Keller Williams, Coldwell, banker. And I don't what really got me where I was was I talked to Matt, who was somebody that I really looked up to. I found him on Instagram. He was a younger guy. He was building houses out at the beach, and he was crushing real estate. He took the time to meet with me, but he also told me the truth, and which is one thing that I love about him, even if it benefits him to have you, he's going to tell you what you need to hear. And he told me, I cannot put the time in to teach you how to do this. So he told me to go to DJ Lindsay. They were on my list, but I had heard so many things here and there about you know how it goes, and I'm sure everybody knows kind of what they hear about them. But I got there and I actually loved it. I loved the environment. I loved that they kind of not in. They do enforce, like a nine to 11 call time, but it's for your own good. And I think with my prior experience of calling already, didn't get out of my own will, willingness to then you give me 100 200 leads that people say didn't work out before, and then I get on the phone with them and I call them, it was like amazing. I could I make as much money as I want to. I can sit here and call and call and call, and so I would think DJ and Lindsay is honestly a great place to start, or any kind of broker just going to have anything like they offer where you get leads and you have somebody that is always there to help you with questions. Contracts, etc, etc. Because once you learn how to talk to leads, and once you learn how the transactions work, you can kind of figure out, or this is what my path was, because nothing that it was organic at DJ Lindsay, that's all bought leads, once I kind of figured out the people that I liked working with and how the transaction went. Then I kind of figured out, okay, how do I want to grow this organically? And so that that would be my take is going somewhere like that?

Tracy Hayes  12:48  
Yeah, I totally, I totally agree. There's a the at bats means so much. You know, having in 2005 you probably don't know my story. I actually you know my audience does is anyone who's listening, who listens to a lot of shows. I talk about it often. I started Quicken Loans. They were hiring 120 loan officers a month in outside of greater Detroit, and putting you through a 30 day class. You didn't need the licenses like you need today. So it does take a little bit longer. So they've changed what they have, the process by which they do, and then they've, they've changed their model. Back then, it was a refi shop. You know, refi were 90% of their business. But the at the actual at bats of talking to people, and, of course, on the loan side, looking at credit reports. What deals actually, you know, you're seeing more deals you're sitting around because you're in a call center around people who are getting deals done. What was the, you know, the issues, the thorns on that deal, and how did you get through them? And so you start to learn all these you're getting almost 10 times the effect than the typical retail loan officers as I'm doing today. If you're to me, if you're a real estate agent that actually wants a loan officer who is savvy and putting deals together, you're not hiring a 25 year old retail loan officer in a position like I am now, because they probably haven't written 1020 loans if they've been doing it for a year or two, they you know, and again, unless they even be fed leads, you know, they're being fed leads, and they're actually calling out most of the time. But if they're out there just waiting for the real estate agents, it's only you know, if you get a few a month, you're great, right? So the at bats just means so much. I'm totally supportive, supportive DJ Lindsay and their business model, I think it's what they do. And like a young person like you said, who was willing to go and say, Okay, I'm going to put my nose to the grindstone, because I know I smell what it can make. And you put the time in, in the in the fruit, yeah, I

Drew Kazemba  14:55  
got the labor, or the fruits of my labor, yeah, it's again, I owe everything to starting there. Um, because again, in this experience, I'm sure you'll agree with me, you can have an agent who's done it for 30 years, but if you do one transaction a year, you're not going to know as much as somebody who's getting the app ads. They're doing deals every day. They're talking to clients. You talk to 50 people a day, and you do a deal a week, you're going to have so much more experience, even if you've only been in it for a year, yeah, by the end of that year, you're shaped into an agent who has seen a lot

Tracy Hayes  15:23  
of, well, the whole volume of that office, too, because a lot of you are in there, and you're a lot of you are working deals, and I'm sure there's a lot of water cooler talk, you know, hey, I got this deal. This is going sideways with, you know, you know, hopefully whoever's in the office helps, you know, put the deals together as you would expect, as now, as obviously you're at someday, you know the other people in the office, or the importance of collaborating with other top real estate agents say, Hey, man, I got this deal. This is going wrong. It's gone sideways. How would you handle it? You start, you start creating. But you're 100% right. You're there. You're hearing everything around you, your deal, plus the deals that are happening around you, your learning curve is shortened.

Drew Kazemba  16:07  
Yeah, exactly. And so that's, that's, I can't give him enough praise. I love that model. I love my time there. And it was just time to kind of get after that. But here we are now,

Tracy Hayes  16:16  
well, so taking it from the DJ and Lindsay, you know, they create a structured environment, I guess, if you would call it that. And you know, having had several other people on and you know why they did it, and what they saw in the structure, now that you're you're out there again with a boutique brokerage, what structure did you take from them that you still structure into your daily routines now.

Drew Kazemba  16:42  
So when enough kind of had an off year to do some medical issues, but when I'm when I'm cranking full time because you

Tracy Hayes  16:49  
had that appendix taken out, that's

Drew Kazemba  16:53  
outside of that, when I'm crushing I am and even my broker now pulled me aside because I'm trying to get back on it. Now that I'm getting a little bit better. I'm time blocking like a mad man. So kind of like we were talking about Chad GBT earlier, I use it like my journal, like my best friend. I vent to it. Everything goes into it. So I put all of my tasks in there, and I sound like, how long it takes me to do a task, for example, like this podcast is on my thing for today, and it's uploaded right into my Google Calendar. I have everything time blocked, but I take that structure, and every morning I start off and I call expireds or for sale by owners, and that's where I one thing that I carried, like that call mentality of that's how I get business. That is one thing that I carried with me. And then right after that, I go right in to make sure that my CRM is completely clean every single day, everyone's got a task, everyone's got a follow up. And I take intentional notes. I know exactly what's going on with each lead. Even if I talk to them four months ago, I know exactly where to pick up again today. And so that is one thing that they drilled into us, was your mornings are for calls. Right after that, you do your to do's, and then after that, you go and show houses and you sell them, right? That's how I still work.

Tracy Hayes  18:06  
Well, the importance of, like you said, taking notes on everything. Because when you are making so many phone calls, and if you are having, you know, maybe some feeler conversations with people before they actually make a decision, you want to have something to remind you of what the last conversation was about, because if you're talking to all these different people, you're like, Is that the same John? That's the other John. What street do they live on? You know, I mean, your mind, you can confuse yourself, but by again, taking those notes chat GBT can help you do that every every day, you can have it create a spreadsheet, and we'll give you an update link. Make sure you take that link and save it, because if you don't save it, and then you try to go back to it a couple days later, it's not there. Yeah. So what are some did since run that? I think, because I think this is a topic where, as a young person, you're absorbing this, right? The the whole technology thing, but I've had some other I've had a couple older Sharon, I think Sharon alters, and there's a couple other more senior agents, probably twice your age, that are actually grasping it. But there is this huge group in the middle, I think, from, you know, 40 to 60 on average, that aren't quite getting their arms around the whole AI thing and how it can change what you do no matter what you're doing. But in the real estate business,

Drew Kazemba  19:36  
oh, it's, it's so powerful. So, I mean, just for example, I'm not very technologically savvy, but with Chad GBT, I can do anything I want. For example, I get a lead come into my website. I don't have to lift a finger. I have it zap Zapier. I just call it zapped right where it goes into my follow up boss, and then it creates it to do so that way I know that someone came in. I can call them. I get notified on that immediately. I've made drip campaigns. Where I can have a lead turn off, or, like, I don't have to personally reach out to them. I have the AI doing it that, and then, just like, learning about things in the business I don't know about, and it teaching me so that I can teach my clients. Because, for example, I have a high income earner that I work with, and he's trying to figure out, like, tax breaks, so he's not a real estate professional, but I learned about cost

Tracy Hayes  20:23  
next door. Here is a real estate tax or tax attorneys, because,

Drew Kazemba  20:28  
yeah, and he's not a real estate professional, but he's interested in buying property, and I'm trying to figure out, like, what is our best move here? And so I give it details about my client, I give it details about what he's looking for, and I give him why his goal, and we're learning about like, call segregation. Well, if you're not a real estate professional, you can also qualify for your income to your active income to qualify for that with that Airbnb. So if he does it as an Airbnb and not a long term rental, there's some tax breaks there. And again, don't. Fact,

Tracy Hayes  20:57  
yeah, no, no, tax advice is being given out right now, just go search it yourself. Yeah,

Drew Kazemba  21:03  
but stuff like that. And so we'll go have a conversation, but talk to your CPA about this. Like, have you, did you know about this? And of course, he didn't know about it. But, like, I also would not have known about that, had I not done the chat GPT and try to find all this stuff out, because I don't have anyone else in my office doing that, and I didn't have anybody in my office at DJ Lindsay doing that. I don't know other agents who are kind of dealing with that, unless, really, you see it more on the commercial side. And I've not been in that business where you're talking about, like, depreciation over multiple units and stuff like, right? So

Tracy Hayes  21:32  
right, right? I think one, well, I was talking to my mother, who's 80, and I was explaining to her chat GBT, and she's used it a little bit. But I think, you know, as we were talking pre show, you have got to, well, some professionals say, get it to note you. You have to start using it, talking to it, explaining it to your business. It's the only way you're truly going to get really good answers. If you're just going on there and asking blah in asking for immediate response. It's compiling information throughout the internet and then coming back to you, like it like I think someone explained to it, it doesn't know what two plus two is. What it's doing is going out through the internet and basically, by consensus, coming back and telling you it's four. Yeah. Okay, so if you're not giving it all the background, all the color, or you I had a stone pass here recently, did not know what I came in the office, and also get this sharp pain in my back, I'm like, What in the world's going on? I start talking to chat TBT about everything and how I'm feeling. And it basically said that that was one of the options, and then a few hours later, it was hurting really bad. And it's like, if this came on all of a sudden and it's really hurting you that bad, you need to go to the ER. And I ended up, I got a doctor's appointment anyway, but that's it, because I gave it all the information, I told it everything, so it had full context of why I was asking the question,

Drew Kazemba  23:00  
yeah, yeah. I mean, I did what? Again, I got the medical stuff too, so we'll get off of that, but I did the same thing, and it's helped my doctors try to figure out where to navigate next. So just outside of real estate, the power that it has is absolutely insane. Outside of just time, blocking your day, making your schedule for you, telling you how to stay on track, helping you with real estate, like people who aren't using it, are definitely kind of losing out in their business. I agree with that 1,000%

Tracy Hayes  23:25  
well, just like, if you get chat GBT, you should never have writer's block. And I think it's the same thing is that, you know, if you're a real estate agent or loan officer or whatever, like, Hey, what should I be doing? What are some things I could be doing if I want to do this? How what would be the best way to do it, I think for a lot of people, I know for me, I would, God, I wish I had this when I was in school. I mean, the things you can do, I mean, but the writing and just writing a professional email. You know, I've told the story before. I needed an underwriting exception on a loan, and so I went in the chat GPT, and I told it everything I could possibly tell it about the situation. And I said, I need you to write an email to talk to an underwriter to convince them, based on these compensating factors, that we should allow this to happen, or whatever, prove it Yes. And everyone who saw it's like, oh my God, that's such an awesome email. Yeah, it's because I told it everything it needed, and it structured it into a professional and you can go in there and tell it you want to be a Harvard, Harvard law professor, or you want to, hey, write me an email like, I'm Ryan, sir hand, you know, whatever. Yeah, yeah.

Drew Kazemba  24:33  
I do it for my seller reports. So, I mean, I still do, like, my full in depth CPA, or our CMA, and I find everything myself, and then I feed everything into chat GBT, and it makes us this great report, right? And my sellers love that.

Tracy Hayes  24:46  
Yep, I need, I needed to influence them or encourage them, or whatever. However you want to, you want to put in there so you reach a point at DJ and Lindsay, you're doing, I assume you were doing well, there this. Is a but What? What? What came to your conclusion that you know it's Hey, it's time for me, because you put almost about, if I saw about two years there, yeah, two years, yeah. What made you want to break off and go to Sunday?

Drew Kazemba  25:14  
Well, I started to message, if we can talk about that, I don't know. I started to want to grow organically and grow my own business, and I kind of hit a block there where I wasn't learning anything else. And I get very OCD, ADHD, and I've always got to do this and that, and I do get shiny object syndrome a lot. But I also I continue to want to learn. And like, be more than just an agent. Like, I don't want to just open the door, write the contract and boom, I'm done for you. Like, I want to learn more. And so it was really hard with the schedule that they had. And like, you are, if you are good at your job, and you do what you're supposed to do, you are going to be pumping, and your your 60 hours a week are all dedicated to the DJ wins. So it's hard to kind of break away and do your own thing. But what started was Matt, who I interviewed with him two years ago, told me he didn't have the time for me. He came into our office and he had just bought this double lot in Jack's beach, and he was about to build these two homes on it. I'm like, Man, that was one thing that I loved about Matt. I'm gonna go talk to him and be like, Hey, I saw you. Just bought those. Can we set up a meeting, and I want to learn what you did, like, how did you evaluate this deal? How did you learn to do what you're doing? And so I'm at that time where I saw him, I was kind of getting anxious to learn something more. We have a meeting, and he sees what I've done, and he kind of just tells me it's perfect timing for him, where he kind of needs a right hand man and kind of hit the races after that. Yeah, so he brought me on and learning development, learning the construction side of things, which is like, again, I'm happy because I've got somebody who told me the truth is a great guy all around and then he's also helping me become who I want to be, outside of just the agent, so like the developer, the construction, all of that, and learning that, and it's kind of how I got to someday, and why I left DJ. It was just, it wasn't a bad thing. It was just, I wanted to grow more.

Tracy Hayes  27:12  
Yeah, you want to expand your horizons. No, I and I think it makes you, you know, having many of the top real estate agents on in the area, it makes you a better real estate agent. You're got a full and you, you make me think of holly Griggs, who's now with will form with Ingle Volkers, which is now Christie's. Holly is the same way. In other words, she's got her hands in in helping developers develop design. You know, she's flipping homes herself, helping others buy flips. I mean, she's she's doing and she has such so much life experience. And then now her real estate, you know, she's really seeing it from 30,000 feet. Because if you're just focused on that residential, which is fine if you're really good at residential and you're making the life you want to let all the power to you. You're at really just a ground level to all the other different things like you're talking about, like buy a buy land, hire a contractor, build, build this duplex on there, or whatever. I think, I think to me right now, and you probably agree with the true affordable housing shortage we have buying properties in, or situations where you can put the accessory dwelling unit on, or a duplex and that sort of thing, multiple family living, I guess, especially out at the beach, because there's not any, really any more land out there. Yeah, you know, these things are all out there, and you won't see it unless you're getting the experience that

Drew Kazemba  28:45  
you're getting, yeah, and, I mean, just my, you made my eyes light up because you're talking my language. And just to come to think of it, my experience in these other fields, and like doing the flips, and I run numbers for my investors on those, I run numbers for the builders that we're working with, and Matt's taught me all of that, but I've taken all of that into the consumer as well. So I right now, and I do this with all of them, my young families that are buying houses right now. It's very weird market, and I'm thinking, everybody in here can agree, and prices are really high, and it's hard for somebody in their 20s and 30s to buy a home right now, yeah. So you know, you may not get that shiny house that you want forever. But my thing with a lot of people right now is thinking outside of just being an agent and closing a deal, I want you to buy a house where you have equity and you know the area around you is going to grow so that when you do want to move in two or five years, you help through this market of no matter how weird it is, and you do have equity where you can go and put a down payment on that next place that you like better, right? So that's like, a big thing for me, and I don't think that I would have that eye or mentality had I not worked with a lot of investors, had I not been in that scene and

Tracy Hayes  29:52  
Well, I think the thing there is confidence, because you've you've experienced yourself. Anyone can talk. Talk about that, but they can't talk about it with a conviction to their their clients that you're talking about the you know, these first time home buyers in obviously, I got Bloomberg on every morning. It was on when you came in. And really, most of people's wealth through life, majority of your average citizens is in their real estate. They've lived in the same house, paid it off. Now they're sitting on this house worth whatever. I imagine you're getting the same type of deals that a lot of agents in town, north of 50% are cash from these people coming from outside the area, because, again, they've lived in their house for so long, or you're you've been in there, you know, 10 years or whatever, and the equity grew, and now they got this huge block of equity money to come down and plop it down and pay cash for a house, and that's where, you know, the true wealth is made. So you're getting this experience, so you're able to pour into them with confidence, because, like, you're seeing it, you you're working and talking with other people who are doing it,

Drew Kazemba  31:02  
yeah, and most of my clients are 20 to 40s, and also, you're talking about stocks and the economy and everything. And I was, there's this realtor out in Delaware that I watch who does a bunch of stuff, and he was talking the other day about how we're in like, a K shaped economy, and if we're really going to look out for our clients right now, that wealth gap is getting bigger between upper class and middle class and lower class. So what can we still do? And it's getting homes with equity, because that is where most Americans get their wealth. It's from real estate, right? It's how it's been for generations, and that dream isn't gone yet. It's just definitely way harder right now, yeah, and so again, that equity for somebody right now is really what I'm pushing. And I don't know why I keep going back to that, but

Tracy Hayes  31:43  
Well, I, you know, just important to me, one of the products that we have here, and we have, obviously, in this market, not typically at the beach, but it's is the like the manufactured home market, and I truly believe the really affordable housing is for some of these investors to go back, I know the bigger pockets. He's a big manufactured home guy, and to go to some of these rural areas, especially with all the money being poured into the United States right now. There's new auto plants going up. We've got to build power plants. They're not building them in the middle populated areas. They're going out and finding cheap land to build these plants, or power plants or whatever. And people have to work there and to go out and find these, find this inexpensive land. Who knows? Put 20 manufactured homes on it. Yeah. You know this is you could build true wealth very inexpensively there, and obviously provide a home that's affordable. I think a lot of I'm sure you talk to a lot of different investors in a lot of young people, they all want to buy this dream investment home instead of the home that you know, you can go find this big, fancy property on the beach, but if you got a mortgage, it to the hilt, and you're only going to make, if you make anything 500 to $1,000 a month off of it, you've got a lot of lot of a lot of stuff hanging out there, a lot of debt and a lot of risk, where, if you went over here in, you know, bought a lot of Land and put four manufactured homes on it, and still made the $1,000 a month. You have a lot less, yeah, but a lot less opportunity for an upswing, yeah, you know. But that property now, it sits there, and you got renters in there, and all of a sudden, three years later, now, what's it worth when you've got a basically a business, which is what an investment property is, a business now that's pouring that income. Someone's willing to pay more for it because you've already built it?

Drew Kazemba  33:45  
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw something on Instagram the other day about these guys. I think in Atlanta there was a town of 1500 people, so it's really small town. They built a 40 unit apartment complex that was $4 million and it's just a testament, kind of like you were saying there. You got to build those homes, those homes, those people who work, and all that kind of stuff. It's crazy, because if you look at that on paper, everybody's probably like, that's not going

Tracy Hayes  34:07  
to work. 1500 people, 40 units, $4 million yeah. Be like, Okay, how many percentage of those 1500 don't have a place to

Drew Kazemba  34:13  
live right now? Nothing town. Well, they did it, and they filled all the apartments. And it's kind of like, if you build it right, they will come and think, kind of like you were saying people need housing right now, and

Tracy Hayes  34:26  
going off of that, they probably, and they probably built a quality unit that, because no one else was investing in that area. In other words, developers and so forth. They're like, wow, this apartment complex is new. I'm renting this old house over here. I'd rather live in a newer Yeah,

Drew Kazemba  34:39  
and that's, that's where my mom was going. You're out in one of those rural communities that nobody really thinks about developing, and you develop in it, and it works out. I'm not saying that it happens all the time, but I saw that, and it was really

Tracy Hayes  34:50  
neat. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's, let's dive into some of our trending questions here, that I've got here. These are questions that, according to. To chat GPT that these are questions that are being asked for throughout the internet and get your opinion on them, because that's really what it's asking for. The first one, I think, is you're gonna should have a positive answer. I hope so. Is it a good time to buy a house in Jacksonville?

Drew Kazemba  35:19  
Yeah. Well, historically, November through February are the best time to buy a house as a buyer, not to sell for sellers, it's a little bit harder to buy a house. Yes. And also, again, what I'm saying is, I'm sure you can agree to during covid, we had the anomaly where houses were appreciating 10 20%

Tracy Hayes  35:36  
year over year, huge demand. He drove price up. Yeah, drove

Drew Kazemba  35:39  
price up. And, I mean, I saw some of the houses that were 300,000 out of the beach turn into 600,000 so it's insane. It's a great time. Don't let the media scare you. We are in a correction right now. I don't think we're in a crash right now. And, I mean, I would love your argument, yeah, we're in a much needed correction. And so I think it's a great time to buy a house right now, especially if you're trying to, you know, not come out of pocket a lot. You want your closing costs covered. You want to buy a rate. Buy down, get your rate a little bit lower from the seller. I think now is a fantastic time if you can

Tracy Hayes  36:11  
find a house. I totally agree couple points, one right now, the value of the agents, and I'm sure you would agree with this. You really, when you're out there pricing a home right now, you really got to look at like, what's what's happened in maybe the last 3060, days versus the last six months? Because things are changing. It is a buyer's market. In one thing that's always mind boggled me about real estate is the equity, like you said, they were buying even some of these new construction homes, whatever, three, 350, 400,000 now they could sell them for six, 700,000 some, even more. Over nakati, they're wanting over a million dollars for some homes where I can reach out and touch somebody. Personally, I'm not buying that home. Yeah, I you know, Naka T does not mean that much to me, but others, it does so good for them, but they're they're basically sitting on, even if they didn't put any money down, they're sitting on 323, 100 or more in equity, exactly, unforeseen gain. Great if you made a stock investment, maybe you bought a lot of Facebook when an initial public offering and you all sudden it's worth what it is. Now you're like, wow, I made all this money, and you know, it's unforeseen gain, but now all of a sudden, some of those people are having to move for whatever reason. It could be unfortunate divorce, maybe there's a death and whatever the downside or corporate America has moved them, so now they want to sell that home. So they're sitting on this equity that happened to them. They did not. It's not like they built it into their life plan. It just happened. So they're willing. So, you know, depending on how desperate is the situation, to cut pretty good deals.

Drew Kazemba  37:56  
Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing it firsthand, and like my last few deals have been phenomenal for my buyers. I mean, I won't tell you how phenomenal, because I don't want to make some sellers, but we've had some phenomenal deals come through. So again, I think now is a fantastic time to buy, and the best time to buy is when you can afford it.

Tracy Hayes  38:14  
Yep, and I have, we have had deals, numerous deals. Jeremy and I are working on one in North Carolina. Had one here Logan, where the appraisals came in nearly $100,000 higher than, actually what they sold it for.

Drew Kazemba  38:26  
Yeah, okay, I had one like that. And then freaking closing costs covered right by that. Yeah, all the knots.

Tracy Hayes  38:32  
You just got to ask on a lot of those, lot of situations, if you're looking to buy a condo right now, and I think in Florida in general, but definitely Northeast Florida, because that's our territory. Now's

Drew Kazemba  38:43  
the deal time now is the deal time for the condos? Yes, you can get some

Tracy Hayes  38:47  
great deals on condos, even though, yeah, they have. But you know what? If you're into that, I don't want to have to bother mowing the lawn. I don't want to take care of the outside of the house. You don't want any of that stuff. I want, you know, all this stuff that you can find some great deals

Drew Kazemba  38:59  
on some condos, the condo thing, I will say, do your due diligence. But you you

Tracy Hayes  39:04  
have to find a great you have to find a good agent who's going to do their due diligence. And then when it comes to the lending side, we obviously do our due diligence. We pull financials and all that stuff too. Now that's because we don't want to risk on the LEND if we're lending you money. But yes, you do need a great real estate agent that knows how to dig into the condos, find out what's going on and make sure they're not getting themselves in lawsuits and other

Drew Kazemba  39:27  
stuff like that? Because that's been a nightmare the last few years. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  39:35  
Maybe do you the question is, how much of a down payment? I don't know why this is a common question that can, I think it's probably always in a top 10 questions, needing a down payment. Are you are in the customers? Are you working with some first time home buyers right now that are looking for assistance? And,

Drew Kazemba  39:52  
yeah, I mean, I actually had one. Just reach back out to me. She's actually using NACA, if you are familiar with NACA. So there. Going to cover her down payment closing cost. Then I've got a VA guy who, I guess not down payment assistance, because he's VA, but definitely needs that closing cost assistance.

Tracy Hayes  40:10  
It's right now for VA buyer, you're moving in with no money out of your pocket. Yeah, and you should cover you. The seller should be paying your closing costs. You got 100% financing. If you're a veteran right now, that's renting, and obviously you don't have other other issues. You should be buying a home

Drew Kazemba  40:24  
on top of that, huh? One of my other first time home buyers, one had a kind of a crazy situation so that she didn't really need help with her down payment. I mean, what exactly is the question?

Tracy Hayes  40:37  
The question, the question was, how much of a down payment do I need, and how can I improve my credit before buying? I guess we can. That's two part question. Yeah, great, great answer. That's exactly. What if you're in the testing the waters and not sure if you can buy or not, yes, you need to talk to your lender. We've got all sorts of different ways, whether it's coaching you on credit, you know, because we do have some instantaneous things since, yeah, if we pay off this card over here, whatever your credit score will get to this. But we actually have the plug plan at home lending a little bit here. We actually have a program that will give you 100% FHA, so if you're not a veteran, it's, it is a small second mortgage. We'll give you anywhere from three and a half to up to 5% in down payment assistance to cover that down payment you need, which is three and a half percent as a minimum on an FHA loan. And the great thing about it is, as long as you're approved on the FHA loan, you're good. Where the state you got to have a 640 credit score, your debt ratio has to be a little bit lower. Here, if you got a 600 credit score, and we run you through and we get you approved on an FHA loan, we can give you the down payment assistance behind it with our program here in house. So

Drew Kazemba  41:45  
I'm glad you just said that, because I have a lady that that would work perfect for, yeah. And we were wondering, I was wondering what I was going

Tracy Hayes  41:52  
to do with her, yeah, because you do run in the debt ratio issue. Well, 640 that's first challenge, right? And then the second one is FHA will almost go to 56.9% is what will allow on a maximum overall back end debt ratio, where, if you're using Florida housing and doing a FHA loan, you're capped at 50. So sometimes that 7% difference in gap is the difference of getting approved. And it's a it's a great program. It's all in house. So we're not the like, go to somebody else and and get it done. And, yeah, we definitely talk about it,

Drew Kazemba  42:23  
getting a call for me after this. All right, very good, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  42:27  
But as far as improving a credit Yeah, call your lender. We, we have some tools. We're not I'm not so big at doing this 20 years now. Not so big on some of the I can't trust these credit repair companies, just simply because they're a lot of them are just subscriptions, and they want to collect your money, and the longer they can keep you on it, the more money they collect. And that sort of thing. There's, there's sometimes the LEND, sometimes our experience as an experienced lender can tell you now, someone who just started working in the mortgage business probably doesn't know enough to actually have experience of what you can do with your credit but the credit reporting companies we use to pull the credit reports have resources where we can go say, How can I get this credit score? And it'll tell us, pay off this, do this, get this removed. You know, type of things just electronically for free for

Drew Kazemba  43:21  
you, I'm going to plug in to listen to him. There, I had a client who insisted. I told him not to do this, but we he was going through with the credit repair. Guy insisted on putting a down payment on this house. Ended up he didn't get his credit repaired, and we were out of our financial contingency, because he also chose his own lender outside of listening to me, and he lost his binder because that guy did not pull through on what he promised.

Tracy Hayes  43:44  
So listen, there's so many variables when it comes to credit. I would you know until, yeah, if you're that marginal, yeah, don't put money on anything. Yeah. Yeah. 100% good advice there. What should I know when buying an investment property in Northeast Florida?

Drew Kazemba  44:01  
What did you know? Well, it depends on your goal. Depends on your goal, but you should know your net operating expenses and your net operating income, or estimated income, before buying anything, because you can buy a property, was it going to cash flow? That's kind of up to your numbers and what the property needs. So you need to know how much it costs to run that property, how much you need to put into the property, and you need to know what you're expected to make out

Tracy Hayes  44:22  
of it, right? How do you when you break that down? Because right now, obviously, we're interest rates are at some obviously love people hoping they go I think that we might see some five stuff. I don't think you're going to see four anymore. So if you're sitting around waiting for that, you can be sitting around for a long time, in my opinion. So right now, if I'm looking at an investment property, and I'm not really, I don't need to make money from it. I might, maybe you're, maybe you have a big corporate job, and you're making good money, you just want to invest in real estate and really bank on, hey, I'm going to rent this out for the next five or 10 years, or whatever. It's going to pay down the mortgage the. The equity based on historical thing is going to slowly grow there. How do you help that person break down that this is a good property to buy now that most people don't want to take a loss, an actual physical loss, it may take loss on their tax returns, because we allow but an actual dollar for dollar, monthly, bring in, monthly, go out, and obviously you're building in expenses for repairs or Yeah,

Drew Kazemba  45:23  
and I'm sure every other agent on the planet can agree with me right now that finding a cash flowing property for the right price right now is extremely hard. And that's, you know, again, back to the wholesalers. That's like their forte and what they do full time. So, but also, someone not in real estate doesn't know how to get paired up with somebody like that, so I use a lot of wholesalers for anything like that to try to find those properties, just because I don't have the time to find those opportunities most of the time, those are people that need to sell quick. For whatever reason, it's very hard to find a cash flowing property on the MLS. It's not that it's impossible, but it is hard, especially in today's world with 6% interest rates and on a DSCR loan, you're saying what? Up to seven now, seven and a half somewhere around Yeah, yeah. So it gets really hard. The one lady that I'm seeing that I work with that is crushing it with buying those properties is she's picked out her neighborhood. I won't tell you which one, but there's a neighborhood out at the beach that she's picked out, and she knows the values of these homes like the back of her hand. And we go in, and nine times out of 10 we're in this market, able to negotiate a killer deal from that seller, because they've been on the market for 100 plus days. She comes in, her and her husband are very handy, and then they go on Airbnb, and they do a killing but for your regular person, I think right now, you just need to find a place with equity and breaking even on a property right now, I think is good if you if you're doing well enough to buy a property, and you don't need the extra cash, but you want to buy an asset again, I go and me and Matt talk about this all the time, because I get investors. It's a lot of my business. It's really hard to cash flow in a long term rental right now, because you're just not gonna get the payment. Honestly, renting is cheaper than than buying on that for certain ones, right? So we're, I would say, an equity play. And if you're planning only to hold it for three to five years, buy it with equity. You win and investing when you buy the house, when you go to sell it, you win when you buy it. So you buy in a good area, you buy something that's undervalued. Maybe you have to put a little bit of love into it, and you do it, and then you just hold it personally. For me, I'm looking for one right now, and it's extremely hard, and I'm trying to come with it myself emotionally, that I might only break even on a house, yeah, and if I have good equity, if I have, say, 50,000 $60,000 for the equity, it's okay to kick off. Yeah, to kick off. And then if it's gonna, if I plan on it appreciating over the next two years, if it appreciates three to 6% like historically it should, then I'll be okay. And that's kind of what I'm looking for myself, something where I can maybe make 100 bucks, but break even is okay with me right now? Yeah, yeah.

Tracy Hayes  48:04  
I know you agree with this. Watch out for I know for a period of time there were, there was a lot of people going into new construction, brand new subdivisions, getting in there, in the first couple of homes, because you're there's builders trying to get it started. And slowly the price starts to increase as demand for that neighborhood, but right now, with everything's slowing down because of whatever the rates or whatever. If you were on a three to five year hold and they're still building in there, you're butts in the wind.

Drew Kazemba  48:33  
Yeah, I've seen it, and, Heck, I've worked with, I think, about seven investors this year who have all lost money. They have not had the right guidance. They've had people tell them that this property was going to do x and it didn't, and we've sold all of those properties for a loss. So I might not be telling you the most exciting news, and I might not. I'm not going to Well,

Tracy Hayes  48:56  
that's the importance of working with someone like you. You're you're you're in it, you're living it. You're looking for yourself. You're working with people who are doing similar stuff. You're you've got a real grip on investment in the Jax Beach area. Yeah.

Drew Kazemba  49:10  
So I would say be do your homework. Make sure who you work with, if you are trying to do anything like that, knows what they're what they're dealing with, and what they're talking with, because it's a hard market to to win in right now. Well,

Tracy Hayes  49:22  
this leads us into the next question, which is Bridget I was just leading to, how does working with an agent who also knows investor deals help me as a homeowner?

Drew Kazemba  49:32  
Well, it helps you get my knowledge and understand how to avoid costly mistakes. You're never going to cry about a deal you didn't get, but you're definitely going to cry about a deal that you lost money on. So that's my best advice. I again, if it's a flip, if it's monthly hold, if it's a build, I have calculators that can calculate everything that you're going to do with that property. And. They'll show us exactly where it's going to go. For example, you want to buy a flip Okay, let's look at what they're asking, and then we're going to run it backwards. We're going to go, Okay, how much do you need to put into it? Okay, are you borrowing hard money? Okay, what's the cost of your money? How long do you think this project is going to take? Okay, when you go to sell it, you're going to have to pay agents. Here's what that cost. So I factor in all of that. And on paper, you might not know some of these things or take them into consideration, and you're like, oh, I can make $20,000 here, but when I run it and I run what it's going to actually sell for and how the situation is going to fall you're negative 13 grand. So big swing there. So that's where having somebody like me is helpful. And I've seen it, I've seen it, I've seen it, and I just have to preach that to the choir, like, yeah, if you're not doing this every day, don't expect to be able to make money on your first deal or something like that. Like, you need help.

Tracy Hayes  50:51  
What would be so if I'm looking, I want to buy an investment property, maybe, maybe I'm already an experienced investor, but it's not here in Jack's Beach, for example. But so I'm looking for that real estate agent who are going to what, what would be some questions that someone would in interviewing a real estate agent to find out, see if they they truly are going to know what they need to know.

Drew Kazemba  51:14  
Ask them if they've done it themselves. Is a big one. Do you have any, I would say, ask them if they've done it themselves. Do they have any experience in that? Because you can watch YouTube videos and it teaches you, but I'm sure if you've ever done one yourself, you can agree, the process is a lot different. Whenever you go through it, there's a lot of if ands and buts that happen, right? So you uncover a lot during that process. On top of that, do they have the right partners with them? For example, how much does it cost for their money, if they're borrowing money, where are they getting it for money, where are they getting it from? How are they doing it? Are they working on draws? How do they pay their draws? Like these kind of questions, like the structure of the deal, and how you're going to get there, not just the house. And then say, the house needs work. Does that out of town investor have a portfolio of contractors that you can trust that do good work. That's another thing we run into all the time. And I'm sure every agent here that is watching this can agree. We walk in so many houses where they did a flip, and maybe the investor was out of town, but that flip is horrendous, and then they wonder why. It sits in the market for 200 days, but trims halfway falling off the wall, and the pain is three different colors, right? And it's because you hired somebody you didn't now, so making sure that you have trusted partners, making sure that you have great lenders, making sure you have a smart agent, somebody who's going to tell you the truth, not the fluff. Those are some questions that

Tracy Hayes  52:34  
someone listening to what you just poured out, right? There would be like, Oh my God. I with all that, all the things I need, I don't even want to get involved, but it's because you're willing to take on all of that is why you were able to get the best deals. Yeah, right to be to hire the right to hire the right agent who's going to help you find to surround yourself with the key people, the contractors and all that stuff. That's where you save money, get the best dollar for the sale, because jobs done all these, all these different things that, all the things that you just mentioned, that's what. So if you're going, Wow, that's too much, well, that's why you're paying retail price. And you're not going to, you're not going to get the best deal, because you're not surrounding yourself by these experts who are guiding you and making sure things are done efficiently, or all the different words you want to throw in there. You mentioned Airbnb. Is it oversaturated in Northeast Florida?

Drew Kazemba  53:30  
It? I would say so it's it's not as powerful as it once was. I see rates kind of going down a little bit on the on a day to day, but it's still strong. I mean, that's how my client that I love and adore, that I've met her, that's how she lives her life. It's off of Airbnb, so it's still strong. You just got to know what you're doing more experienced

Tracy Hayes  53:50  
you are now, what are some of the thorns with Airbnb? And I'm asking this question from the standpoint, because everyone's like, Oh, yeah, just go buy this house in Airbnb. But you have to realize, if you're short term renting, that means, you know, there is obviously, versus the long term rental, right? The renters in there for a year. You're not typically going in and painting six months after the guy's in there, but, and you're not cleaning every week or weekend. These people want to buy a place and, like, rent it out for two and three days at a time, like a hotel room, well, you got to go in there and clean it for the next person. So there's a lot of logistics involved in this type of type of thing. How do you build that into the ROI situation? When you're looking at that and going, Okay, you want to rent this out for long weekends. All right, so now we're gonna have a cleaning staff that's going to cost you this much. So now you got to is, are we going to, are we going to get that rent now that you got to bump it up to cover all these logistical

Drew Kazemba  54:42  
things. So just to be very clear with one thing, if I have somebody that is doing Airbnb or wants to do Airbnb, I do not run numbers on that kind of stuff, just because, if I'm wrong and you made your bet on something that I do not personally have an Airbnb. I've never had an Airbnb. I do not want to be held responsible for Drew you said this. Yes, that didn't happen, but I can tell you some of the challenges that you should look out for that I've heard from one of my clients. So she bought this townhouse at the beach. Okay? She's owned it since March, and it was near Fifth Ave and so not the greatest area for people who don't know, but it's definitely safe and it's okay. People who are moving or coming to stay in this Airbnb, they don't know the area. They only see what's around it, and they might not like it, and so you get bad reviews on your Airbnb. So you got to make sure that you know your area you're buying in, and you know, what are these people going to say about it? That's one thing that negative reviews on your Airbnb based off of location and where it is and people's preferences. Yeah, huge effect on your huge effect. Then also, you're talking about cleaning. She's on this property for six months now or so, and these Airbnb people are not very careful. This was a brand new construction home, and it does not look like it's brand new construction anymore. It's still great, and it held up well, but it's got a lot of love and wear and tear in it. So you know, maintenance, you're going to definitely have to stay on top of maintenance. Have a good handyman and then a cleaning crew. I went in after a clean one or before a clean one day. And let me tell you, people are not always like you and I. They're aspects of what's clean and what isn't it's not their regular house. They're out of there. So make sure you have a good cleaner so that when that property when that property is turned over, that client is happy. Because no one would, I know, I would be upset walking into something that was like, Yeah, half buddy.

Tracy Hayes  56:30  
Well, especially if you're, I mean, if you're like, my wife, I mean, we have, we have a handful of rental units. And then she's a real estate agent too, so she's helping people find renters for their their places and the La Tierra condos and King and bear. We, you know, they allow short term rentals. Yeah, we primarily want people there at a month, at a time or longer. I mean, we don't, we don't, we don't do the weekends anymore, anything like that. We could, but we it's too much hassle. So we're getting the snowbirds come down. They rent it for three or four months, or they're waiting for their house to be completely rebuild. They sold their house three or four, so they're doing that type of thing. But still, she goes in after the cleaners, and she still spends another hour cleaning it, because that's her, just her, her personal standards, right? And, you know, maybe your personal standards aren't as high as that. You're like, oh, whatever, the cleaner was in there. But again, somebody goes in there and the cleaner didn't clean it, like you would clean it, and now they're writing a bad

Drew Kazemba  57:28  
review. Yep, yeah. So that that's one thing you gotta always make sure the guests are happy. And then another thing that I see that my clients do with Airbnb is, if you are thinking about getting into them, is amenities out the wazoo. You buy the fun house, and, like, with the pool, she wants to have a pool at every Airbnb that she buys, and that's the only one she buys. Then she has, like, pool tables. She has foosball tables. She decorates it all with neon lights and makes it fun, and it's like a hangout spot. So that's another that would be the last tip.

Tracy Hayes  57:55  
Well, that, yeah, that I've heard that too, that you want to make it unique, and that's why you see some of these, like crazy stuff, like these dome homes or whatever out west, or whatever people want to be. They want it different. That's why they're choosing airb. They can go get a hotel room right there, or just go rent a basic beach house. Anybody could do that. But when you're the Fun House, yeah, I mean, and then there's some really, if you go on and search online, there are some really crazy fun houses that out in Texas or whatever, where they have all they're just, it's like a maze of games and whatever. Yeah, I

Drew Kazemba  58:27  
go stay with my sister. She lives out in Alabama, and there's this Airbnb like five miles from our house, or maybe two or three miles, but it's in the middle of a horse pasture, and it's just like a converted shed that looks like a little 1900s bungalow. And that's where we go and say it's like 200 bucks and nine night, and my sister's right on the road, and we go and hang out there with our dogs and my fiance, right? Yeah, very unique. Yeah.

Tracy Hayes  58:49  
Alright, we're going to go over to the seller side. How do I price my home correctly in today's market?

Drew Kazemba  58:55  
Hmm, pricing your home correctly in today's market is very important. I would say, what I do to help you get there is, I am, right now in this market, taking the last three months of data rather than the last six. What I do is I'm going to look at the last three months. I'm going to look neighborhood specific first, like just your subdivision three months, what's going out. I'm going to break down each house, and I do this into chat GPT, so I'll find that neighborhood. I'll go in the last three months, I'll go active, pending under contract, and it's sold. And I'll go in and I'll describe what I'm seeing each house in the chat GPT, like, okay, 123, banana street looks like it had new fours. It sold for this. It was updated. It sat on market for this long. They did a price reduction of this. Like I give it every single day, yeah, not only am I learning it, but I'm putting it in here for it to learn as well, too. Then I expand a little bit, and I'll go out to six months and see the trend. What is the trend over the last six months? What are we seeing there? What's the difference now versus then? What are we kind of seeing? And then I'll take the area as a whole to kind of compare. To the whole area to see if it's just this neighborhood specific thing, or is it the whole area. What's kind of going on there? I get a big picture. I get a micro picture, and so then I compare it to your home and your finishes and how your home looks. And that's how I run my numbers. I'm very detailed. It probably takes me an hour or two hours to run numbers on a

Tracy Hayes  1:00:17  
house. So have you from your success side there? Because not everyone's turning around because there, I mean, there are some good homes that are if they're priced right in the right neighborhood. You know, all the other things that people were looking for, they may go in a weekend, yep, where others are sitting. What have you seen your success with this? Yeah, mindset that you

Drew Kazemba  1:00:38  
are using the time. And I work with a lot of expireds too, so I see it where they don't love what I'm telling them. But again, I stick to my guns. I don't have to have that put logic

Tracy Hayes  1:00:48  
out in front of them. You're putting this report. Yep, here's all the information. Yeah, I don't have to have

Drew Kazemba  1:00:52  
that sign in the yard if you don't want to work with me. So I'm not going to put it up at a number that I'm going to spend $1,000 on marketing and then just lose it, right? It's not me just being arrogant or anything like that. It's me knowing what's better, and you've already not sold. Why are we going to try something like that again? So I see success with it. I mean, every property that I've worked worked with that has expired with another agent. I've ended up selling. 100% success rate on that. So

Tracy Hayes  1:01:16  
coming in, pricing it right, and then leading into this question here, what upgrades will bring the return when selling here on the First Coast, or say, Jacksonville Beach, your

Drew Kazemba  1:01:27  
kitchen and bathrooms, that's what sells the house. I would agree, your kitchen and bathrooms right now in this market, specifically, almost everybody wants it turn key. So if you maintain, I think when I started, you could maintain a house that had some outdated features, and if, as long as it was maintained very well, people could look past it. But prices were a little bit different then too. So now you're talking about a house that's, you know, $50,000 more, $100,000 more than what it was. Well, now you get the same buyers that are looking at that house that maybe didn't buy. Then they're like, well, if I'm going to pay this much for this house, it should be updated. It at least needs to have some type of countertops, maybe not high end of the line, like, let's just say, average price you're in a $350,000 home. People don't want old carpet in it. They want to at least have some new LVP. Maybe they don't want a prefab tub there. They can have a prefab tub in one but then the master shower needs to be like tile or something like that. And that's going to help you sell a lot quicker than just having the bathrooms from the 1980s or the formica countertops and the cabinets from the 70s or the 80s when they were built. You can do any of those upgrades.

Tracy Hayes  1:02:30  
Have you had any? And I'm throwing one at you, and you may or may not have had this recently, but something maybe in the last last six months, or whatever, where you've gone in on a listing appointment, they're using you, where he's like, Hey, let's change the cabinet facings, or just something fairly reasonably can be done within a couple of days. You know, you can hire out to a simple contract, something simple, if you had, what are some of the fixes that you that you've done? Yeah,

Drew Kazemba  1:02:57  
so I mean, and these new contracts are fantastic with that. So I don't know if anybody's using the Residential Purchase and Sale versus the as is, but that if you can do all of those kind of upgrades. So I had a lady and the north side, and she had bought a new construction home about 2017 she had three kids in it, and so the house, mechanically was super sound and fine. Everything was working. Electrical, windows, roof, AC, all that was fine, but it was battered cosmetically. So really, we didn't even change the carpet. We had somebody come in steam the carpets. We had somebody hired a cleaning company to come and do a deep clean on the house. I told her to get out of the house for the weekend. I did a deep clean on it, and then I hired one of my painters to come in and paint it. This house, it sat on the market before, I think we we maybe dropped by like five or 10 grand from what it was at previously, sat on the market before, looked like whenever it was first listed, came in, took a little bit of time to take care of it the next time. And we sold just from doing those little things. And I think it cost, altogether, maybe around $3,000 to get everything done right. And then you make the money. Rather than negotiating $20,000 off your sale price, you spend $3,000 and you make it back. Yeah, positive, 17 grand of what you probably would

Tracy Hayes  1:04:10  
have been. Well, I think we often, you know, when we're telling these type of stories, we don't know the situation. Always with the seller. They tell us why they're selling. But then, you know, and then there's, there's a time like, Why didn't that, you know, however long that you said it was on the market, Hayes or something, why didn't the first agent, like, go in there and go, Okay, what's your urgency to sell? Well, I need to sell within the next month or two. Okay, go, Well, great. Well, this is what we need to do. And we need to. We need some fresh paint. We need a deep clean. Let's really scrub the carpets. Or, you know, find some negotiating thing where, you know, I think all real estate agents can all tell a story where they've sold a house that did have the bathrooms just finished in the last few months, but then the new buyer comes in and does it again. You know, yeah. Happens, yeah, but it moved the house initially, where as we know, sometimes buyers don't have this vision of going to, oh, hey, I don't care where the bathrooms are old, I'm going to replace them anyway. Just sell it to me cheaper, right?

Drew Kazemba  1:05:16  
I don't know. I also offer my clients as well, like my client before, could not afford to do that, and her other agent didn't offer any help. I offer to help with that, and just get compensated on the back end. So I do that for my clients as a part of my structure, right? I did multiple options whenever I'm listing what you can do, and I got this from quintavius Burdette. I don't know if you know him, no, but he was the top REMAX agent in Mississippi. He went to Ole Miss, played football there, and so he got into real estate about the same time as Maine. Yeah, I think he sold like, 100 homes his first year in real estate ever. So it took a lot from him, but he does that for his clients. He'll, he'll offer it. He'll give you a cash offer in your house for as is. And then he'll also, you know, give you a regular listing option. Then he'll give you a listing option where, hey, I come in. I do these when. Do these renovations to help you sell quicker, and we can split the profits. And so that's kind of what, yeah, took on as well, too.

Tracy Hayes  1:06:08  
Yeah, no, that's, that's savvy. I think Compass has something similar with their agents. I think CC Underwood was trying that does something similar to but to have, yeah, that lady didn't have $3,000 out of her pocket, but you were able to roll it onto the back end for end because she had the equity. You know, brilliant. Should I sell my house before buying a new one or the other way around? That's an interesting question

Drew Kazemba  1:06:33  
that depends. There's what I've become privy to recently, is a lot of bridge loan options for that situation, where you can go ahead and buy that next one and then get yours empty and sell it. Now, obviously you don't want to hold two houses at once. Not many people do, so you got to make sure you price yours correctly and get it ready to sell right now. Be a hard time to buy two houses at once. It's not impossible if you price correctly, but it's kind of up to you and what you want as a seller, you you, I feel like you have the driver's seat in the transaction. You want to go ahead and sell your house and buy the next one. Go ahead and do it. Or if you are the seller and somebody offers in your home, you could be like, Hey, give me a month. I got to find a house to close. And most nine times out 10 with the buyers that I've seen, that buyers, and be like, Okay, I can give you a month. And maybe it takes a negotiation. Like, okay, well, our rent is $5,000 so you cut it $5,000 or give us $5,000 and we'll do that so

Tracy Hayes  1:07:27  
well, I'm going to for my audience, who may know this, maybe most of you don't, as you give me how it turns out closer you're listening to this program. But we here at Planet home lending, not that I put that actually chat. GPT put that question in there, but here's your answer. We have a program called purchase edge. And basically, if you had a situation where, I'll give you the example, I had a local agent. Had buyers here in town. They were but they needed this. They could not get approved. With the other home down in Wellington, which is downloaded towards West Palm. They relocating here because of jobs, so income was there and everything. We were good there, but they needed that off their debt ratio to buy here. And because that house hadn't sold yet, they're like, Oh, well, maybe we'll just rent for a year, and then when that house sells, we'll get back on the marketing here with the purchase Edge program. We actually make the cash offer. Okay? We put a cash offer seven days before their house here closes. So seven days before we sign a contract, we're gonna give it is 75 cents on the dollar, but we're gonna give you 120 days to sell that now, so you can see, so if it's your listing, you still have another four months to sell that for them. Yeah, before we buy, we really don't want the home. We're doing it to get the loan on the purchase, but we will give you four more months to sell it so we take it out of their debt ratio, because we're one of the, we're one of the major, a major servicer as well. So we're servicing that mortgage. So you can actually take the contingency out of it. If you think, yeah, hey, I can. If you give me another 120 days, I can get, I can get this stuff that person actually would end up happening is a week before they were closing here, they got a cash offer, and we were so it actually worked out, but they would never have gone under contract. Yeah, because their house down there hadn't gone under, had had some offers, but the contracts fell through, whatever. So, yeah, the purchase Edge program will take that contingency. If you think you could turn around which you met Tom as you came in here, he had one in Nashville. Long story short, we did do a bridge loan. Had a lot of equity in it, but they actually were able to pull some money out. And the people had lived in there for a long time. Yeah, older moving down here, cleared all their stuff out, painted new flooring, blah, blah, blah, boom. The house sold, obviously, for what they could have, what what the agent felt it was worth, if it was in the proper condition, yeah, otherwise, he was selling a house that was cluttered, it was old. Need some work done. He was able. He was happy, because he now could sell a house that was he could get top dollar for and sold faster, right? In 45 so they literally, they literally moved down here, moved in a new home, and they sold that home within 45 days of the closing here. And it all worked out. So those programs are out there. All right. Agent growth to these last three questions here, how can a new agent build a full time real estate business and close 1000 plus transactions in just a few years, 1000s, 100 plus 100. I added a zero there, 100 plus transactions. How'd you do it? How did you do it? That's the question.

Drew Kazemba  1:10:30  
So I did it by leaning on others for support. And you know, you take your pride out of it, go and do it again, pair up with somebody who's going to support your growth, and that's what I did. So get with somebody where they give you the opportunities, and you just work your butt off to get there, and you learn the process. And then after that, what I did when I left was I sharpened my edge by learning different avenues of real estate, by whether it be investors developing or building to where now I go out and I get my own clients, and I get them from open houses, I call expireds, and then I do a lot of my past clients. I'm always reaching out to them and talking to them, asking about their friends, family, anything like that, and staying top of mind, sending them monthly gifts. So that's a big thing for me, is you've got to let everyone in the world know that you're a realtor. Don't be afraid to post the content. Don't be afraid to let them know. Don't be afraid to send letters. Don't be afraid to do anything. If you're going to do anything at all in this business, you've got to be exuberant and all about real estate and let everybody know your realtor.

Tracy Hayes  1:11:29  
You mentioned this gentleman, Matt, right? Is that Matt in the collaboration where you've reached out to some of these people? Have you ever had someone who obviously you felt you saw what Matt was doing? He was successful. You want to learn about it. When you asked him, Have you ever had really someone like just totally blow you off and say, Hey, Drew I'm not going to tell you my secrets. Yeah, multiple times. You have multiple times. But how many have actually said hey, yeah, when you invite say, let's get a cup of coffee or lunch,

Drew Kazemba  1:11:58  
maybe two or three. Two or three out of maybe like 30.

Tracy Hayes  1:12:01  
Oh, I thought it'd be the other way around. That's why I was asking the question. Oh, interesting. So you felt more people were trying to be protective of what they were doing, versus willing to share what they were doing.

Drew Kazemba  1:12:12  
Yeah, maybe not protective, but spending their time better elsewhere. And I can understand that. As a business owner, you know, you come in, you get a guy who's 20 years old, and he's like, Hey, show me what you're doing. And then in this business, I've seen it firsthand as well, too. There's a lot of people who aren't going to stick around very long, and you don't know if that person is one of them,

Tracy Hayes  1:12:31  
yeah, there's, I mean, no doubt, if you talk to some of the best agents, where they have been like, agents have asked them out for coffee and Hey, what should I do? And they tell them what to do, and they just don't do it, yeah? So then they're like, I don't have Yeah. So ask me six times, and then maybe I'll break down, right? But you say, You, you, you maintain your persistence, right? What does it take to deliver the best possible results for buyers and sellers and investors in a competitive market?

Drew Kazemba  1:12:59  
I think everything that I've kind of talked about it, yes, learning more than just, you know, opening the door and knowing the contract, but also knowing the contract in and out. Because, again, I've seen it this year, where I've been able to use that purchase and sale agreement over the as is for some of my sellers, and have these buyers in a situation where their agent didn't know and my seller's happy, because we don't have to do these repairs that were unnecessary. So you know, having that edge of your contract knowledge, having the edge of being honest and not just wanting to sell, looking out for your clients best interest, I think, is super important, and then just learning more about real estate, like what goes into the house. If you can go into a house before a buyer even puts an offer on it, and they have to spend $500 on an inspection, you inspection. If you can point something out that you already know, maybe you can go ahead and get it written in the contract, or if it's a deal breaker, then you just saved your client $500 an inspection that they would have spent, and maybe they canceled them because it was something that didn't happen, right? So I don't know. I'm always very proactive in all of my

Tracy Hayes  1:13:57  
deals. Do you do you order pre listing? Expect inspections for some of your sellers.

Drew Kazemba  1:14:04  
Sometimes it depends on how they are with them, but for the most part now, for the most part now, I'll do a genuine walk through myself and kind of inspect everything. And if I see anything, or if there's enough out there to make me say I think we should do this, then we'll do

Tracy Hayes  1:14:18  
it. Well, obviously, with roofs, water heaters, those insurance things out that the insurance companies are all after every agent that should be. I mean, that's something they can find out themselves, yeah, or, you know, the insurance companies find out. If you call your insurance agents, they can quickly find out when was the last time there was a permit for that roof or the water heater or whatever they can find out quickly for you, too, I think it's not done enough. I think it's the difference between the the the top one or 2% of the agents in the area who are obviously great listing agents and so forth, because they're doing that due diligence, they're solving those problems like, Okay, we're going to have a roof problem. You know, you can't just not say anything, because they're going to have an. Inspection, they're gonna tell you it's 15 years old, and the insurance companies are gonna be narrow, and then they're gonna be back at you, saying, hey, the roof needs to be replaced, so we need to tackle this up front. What? How do we need to strategically, you know, handle the situation. And the water heater, in my opinion, is the

Drew Kazemba  1:15:14  
craziest thing. Well, I have a story about that, okay, but yeah, just setting expectations with your clients, like your sellers. You go into a house, and I ask all my sellers, do I have the permission with you to be completely honest? And I am, this is going to come up, this is going to come up, this is going to come up, this is going to come up. And so when it comes up, they're not like, what the heck? What happened to all this? They expected it. And my clients are a lot calmer throughout that process. Like I don't think I've had but one cancelation on a listing all year, and that's or two now, because buyer went out and bought another house with a different agent, the buyer's agent didn't even know what was going on, but about the water heaters, we had a flip out in Atlantic Beach. Had this water heater, and there they've been in there for 30 years working completely fine. Insurance agent came said, we got out

Tracy Hayes  1:16:01  
you're there. They've been rolling their dice for 15 years.

Drew Kazemba  1:16:04  
We got to get a new water heater out there. We buy a new water heater. We let it sit over the weekend. It starts leaking over the first weekend. It's like, okay, this thing was literally working. Now, I had to go buy this new one. And it's it already breaks in the heat of the garage in freaking two days.

Tracy Hayes  1:16:20  
Oh, my god, yeah. Well, luckily, it was in the garage. Yeah, yeah. If you have garage water heater, those are ideal, yeah. I just remember mine years ago, coming home in the water just is pouring out the garage, under the under the door. How do you leverage a background outside of real estate logistics business to excel in the modern real as a modern real estate advisor?

Drew Kazemba  1:16:52  
So outside of real estate, what do I do your pre real

Tracy Hayes  1:16:55  
estate business, which wasn't long so obviously it didn't know how old you were, but

Drew Kazemba  1:17:02  
I'll tell you one thing that I took from that again, was I was working freaking. Had to be there at least 8am if not 6am most days. And then I'm driving from Savannah to Daytona, and I'm working my butt off, and I'm getting home at like, 1am 2am every day, and that's not fun, but I'm working hard, and I'm working hard, and I have no choice but to work hard. And I think that that is something that I took with me, because I was already used to working hard, and then in a business where you tell me, I work hard, I make what I want to make, and I do the deals that I want to do, and it's all up to me. I'm just going to continue to work hard. It's what I know, it's what I do. And I feel like that's a big background, and then coming around from, like, another sales position, just learning from those guys how to talk and, like, totally different world, because it's medical. You're dealing with doctors, you're dealing with surgeons, and you're in the hospital or etc, etc. It's different situations. But you learn how these people handle sales situations. We see them today as agents. So I think some of that is what I took, but really it's just like the grit of showing up every day and continuing to do it day out and day in and day out, because this is like a 90 day business. I put effort in today. I'm not going to see the result of it for 90 days, and just staying on track with that.

Tracy Hayes  1:18:19  
This has been a great show. I mean it the time has gone by. I don't think you realize how much time has gone by. We're almost to an hour and 20 minutes, but it's been jam packed full of good stories and great conversation and a lot of I think, you know, as a young agent or someone thinking about getting in the business, this is a great show, but you know what you've done in just a few years of being in the business, and the knowledge that you've gone after this is not stuff that you know. DJ and Lindsay may have forced some of the stuff upon you that you didn't know, but you've also that, hey, I need to expand. And I think I compliment you on the fact that you've gone out there, and it's so important. I think everyone will tell you of speaking, speaking to agents 1020, years older than you, that they understand that confidence is a big part of this business, and the confidence comes from you having the knowledge and realizing, yeah, you're dealing with a homeowner who doesn't know who needs your knowledge to make good decisions, and when you're willing to pour that knowledge into them, it makes this dealing with the client so easy, because they just, they just eat it up and you're telling them the truth. In the end, they feel like they've made a proper decision, the choice of their own. Yeah, yeah. Anything you like that?

Drew Kazemba  1:19:39  
No, I just want to thank you. This has been a really cool experience for me. I've never said

Tracy Hayes  1:19:44  
it's really, really well. It'll, it'll be out there in the podcast World Next Week. It'll, it'll, it's already streaming. So it's actually streamed on YouTube and Facebook. So I'll share it over to yours. It's out there is, you know, for anyone to see in any time. In search, and we'll put all the SEO and tag all your contact information. So hopefully you know anyone looking to get to know more about you, whether it's a future client or maybe, who knows, and maybe in the future, you want to build a team, whatever, and they want to know what's your background. We've got it right here, and we got it recorded. I appreciate you coming on

Drew Kazemba  1:20:17  
now. Thank you for having me. Thanks. All right. Thank you.