A Case Study on Helping a Homeowner Avoid Foreclosure | Ep 14

James: Welcome to the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing. And our mission is to equip people to invest wisely, not only in properties, but also in the residents so that together we can build wealth and improve housing. I'm James and this is my wife, Jessi.

Hi. How's it going? Still here. Still here. Still ticking. That's good. I got a property that I want to talk about and some good news. We I guess it would technically be put in an offer and got it accepted. We have a property under contract. Yeah, sweet. Yeah. We didn't really celebrate it. We gotta, we'll figure that out maybe after we close in like.

Yeah, so this is a it's a single family home and the owner is in pre foreclosure and he's in just financial trouble and he owes the bank 40, 000 because he had two loans and the second loan they just called the entire thing right up front. And so he owes quite a bit of money, doesn't have the money to do it because he was obviously having trouble making his

Jessi: Is that typical, like, okay, A, is it typical to have multiple loans from banks?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And maybe be like, if you miss payments on one, well, it depends if they're on

James: the first or second position and the second position, yeah, they're just going to get after it because their second position, first position, they might be a little bit slower because they don't actually want the house back.

But if you're in the second position and you have a slow play it. Oh,

Jessi: you won't get any of your money. Exactly. So you might as

James: well just go hard. Yeah. So he was in trouble and unfortunately waited until there weren't a lot of there wasn't a lot of time left. And so we're going to buy the property from him.

And it's a three bedroom, one bath. And it's downtown Albany area. Which is kind of cool. And needs a brand new roof. The roof is shot. But otherwise we'll see. I think it's got pretty good bones, as far as I can tell. You need some work on it though. There's like, they have their dogs just living in a house and just kind of like go to the bathroom in it.

And yeah, it feels like it. But yeah, but it's kind of, it's been an interesting experience talking with him because he's clearly in a very tough spot and it's, yeah, it's just a tough situation that he's in. And I struggle because I want to just be able to fix everything for him and I can't. And so I'm kind of like, well, I can help in this one area.

And then it's also kind of weird because. He still has bad habits and tendencies. I mean, helping him with this doesn't necessarily help him get out of the, you know, doesn't help improve any life skills, I guess is what I'm saying. So in some ways it feels like the help is incomplete. But, you know, it's one of those where You're

Jessi: doing what you can't do.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: With the skill set you do have.

James: Yeah. It's been also really interesting just watching In the few conversations we've had his mindset shift. Like for example, the very first conversation we had, he was like, I want to live here. I want to like, I want you guys to help me out and then I'll figure out a way to pay you back essentially.

But I want to live here, fix it up and get the money and like, You know, from the doing of fixes and eventually get out of here. And I want my kids to continue going to the school. Like he was very like adamant. I don't want to move. Yeah. And we tried to come up with plans to help him do that. Ultimately just none of them seemed to work because the rent that he would have to pay to make the numbers work was just, it was more than he could afford at the end of the day.

So we ultimately presented him with a plan that said, Hey, we'll buy the house from you. You'll actually, instead of going for through closure, we're going to save your credit. And you actually walk away with some cash at the end, like 25 grand to go off and start a new. And, and you could tell that was a tough pill to swallow.

Cause like, ah, I don't want to move. And part of what we said was like, Hey, how about this? Let's, let's also give you 90 days to move just to give you time and we'll help you find that new place because you're going to have some money and we're like, and we think there are some options. I'm doing it with a partner, his name is Lawrence, super cool dude.

And he actually did some research today. He found a mobile home. It's a little bit smaller than what he wants. It's only a two bedroom instead of something like three. He's like, I want a four bedroom. Like, dude, you're all right. I get it. And, but anyways, this place was 40, 000 and like, all right, like that's something that he could afford and he'd still have lot rent, which was like 900 bucks, but it starts to get into the realm of like, you can afford this.

Yeah. And so which I think just kind of helps get a loan

Jessi: to buy a mobile home.

James: Yeah, you can. It's more like a vehicle loan though, depending on the age. But he would have a size enough. Yeah. So it's just kind of an interesting like route, but so, so he had this, like, you could tell he had like, okay, here's what I want to do.

This might be an out for me, but I still get to stay here and like, and he wanted to still have all the benefits of this, of being able to fix up the house and take advantage of, you know Yeah. And then the realization of like, that's just not going to happen. That's not a choice. And just kind of, you could see the frustration there.

And he was also like, he would say things like, I just, I don't have a choice. This is what I have to do. And it like, which feels, but then ultimately it was like, you know what? Yeah, he was like, let's just do it. Let's just go for it. And then, so we met with him and we're like, let's sit on it for 24 hours.

Like, just really like, Think it through, talk it through. Let's make sure this is what you want to do. Cause he doesn't really have much of a choice. And and so today you could tell he had. Like he'd come to terms with it and was even like, you know what? I think this will be good. I'm going to start fresh.

It's like starting all over. It's like, I'm even thinking about, I'm going to get a different job, like some getting underpaid and I think I can do like, yeah, I don't know. You could see there was, there's just more energy and excitement. Like, okay, this is going to be good for us. And all along the way I recognize what I'm like, dude, this is gonna be hard.

Like this isn't like what we're talking about isn't easy and we totally get it. This is better than the foreclosure, but like this still isn't easy, but it'll be good in the end. So. We signed a contract, we close in a couple of weeks, and there's some details behind like all the purchase price stuff, but fundamentally the plan is to raise about 130, 000 for us to do this deal.

That includes doing the purchase and we're going to take over the existing loan. And pay for the rehab and and then all the holding costs over to it. And whoever with that loan from they'll earn 8 percent on the money. And the plan is for us to do it for in about nine months. So there'll be there for three.

And then we take another three to fix it up three to cells ish. It's kind of the thought process. And so that essentially means if you. annualize that return. If it generally does take nine months, it'll be like a 12 percent return annually. Yeah. If we could figure out a way to do it in six months, it would be like a 16 percent return, which would be great.

And so yeah, so that's kind of the plan. So one of the things I did, that's the property. It's exciting is I made, you can hear it here. One page sheet that kind of explains the, the investment and the details behind it. I asked you to review

Jessi: it

James: and I didn't actually get any of your feedback, so I figured we do it now.

Yeah.

Jessi: It took a cursory look at it and I had a question initially and I was like,

James: and you have to like verbally describe what it is that you're looking at since I can't see

Jessi: it. Yes. Okay. Okay. So this one changer essentially kind of presents. the deal. And so it has things like the purchase price, the hold period, all the things that you just talked about, the costs involved in buying the property and fixing it up and, and the timeline of kind of how that would look.

It gives a little bit of a backstory. Yeah, not nearly as much as you just shared, but it kind of gives you the broad strokes and then kind of gives you a very basic project plan and then some, I guess I already talked about that, but it has a timeline of like key dates of what you can expect. My question initially is like, I'm guessing that this is made for an investor so that they could see like the super big overview,

James: like the

Jessi: 10, 000 foot, 20, 000 foot, I don't know what the term is, a bird's eye view.

Cause that's like, initially I'm like, it does not seem like there's enough information on here for me to give you money.

James: Okay. What interesting, like what else would you want, like what's missing or what's I

Jessi: don't, I don't know exactly like I, I guess I want like a, a case scenario of like, I mean, you put on here like a 50, 000 loan.

Like if I gave you 50, 000 of my money would return me 4, 000. But I'm kind of like, Okay, how did, like, how does that all work out? Like, I feel like some of these expenses that you listed out are real expensive, and like, how is that gonna land underneath, like, this rehab cost of 58, 000? Like, that doesn't seem like enough.

So I just, I have all these questions of like, I want some more specifics here. Yeah. Like, yes, this is, okay, that sounds fine. Okay. Like, to get 4, 000 in. Whatever it is, nine months. Nine months. And we're good. For me doing nothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm, okay, I'm not doing nothing. No, you're doing nothing.

I'm giving my money to

James: you. Okay, for not costing you any time. Yeah.

Jessi: It's not costing me any time. Like, I get that, and that sounds like, cool. But I'm also like, how do you, like, how are you gonna stay within this budget, and how do you like, Maybe you can put some estimates here that kind of tells me like, Ooh, all right.

That's how much that's about how much it would cost. So you want a little bit

James: more of a project plan? Like, yeah, I'd like,

Jessi: I'd like more of a rehab plan. Okay.

James: That's fair.

Jessi: And the other, the other piece to me, which is like in the conversation that we just had, it's not

James: convincing anyone to let's do it. Go ahead.

The other piece, go ahead.

Jessi: Well, I think it could submit someone. This is, this is,

James: by the way, what I have to deal with. This is what you have to deal

Jessi: with? I'm sorry.

James: It's awesome. This is great. You're making, you're making me better. It's how I look at

Jessi: everything, and I'm like,

James: This

Jessi: is fine. It could be better.

James: Normally, like, this is so awesome. Because normally, like, when I've done a syndication, like, preparing for that, I'll have this, and then there's a link that's like, dude, if you want a lot more information, Right, there's a

Jessi: ton

James: more stuff. And on that webpage, I've got, like, here's the, like, All the, which

Jessi: in my mind, I'm like, finally, yes, that is what I actually want.

This is just like, interesting. Oh, we had a little face to face and here's your, here's my business card. Oh, interesting. You know what I mean? Which I'm like, then make it smaller. Even like, if that's all it is.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: Put the, put the bottom line on it and be like, Here's the details, like, go read this and get all the ins and outs of everything.

James: So we had joked, like, we didn't joke, we were talking about that idea, like, okay, so for example, so it's myself and Lawrence, and we just have our names and photos, and that's it. And something that Lawrence mentioned, he was like, man, it'd be nice to have, like, a back side. Yeah, some credibility. That's our back side.

Portfolio or like tells us who we are. Yeah. Credibility piece. And I'm like, that's a great idea. Which I was also like the people we were talking to, cause it's not very much that we're raising. I'm like, it's pretty close knit group. Like I know who we are, but he was like, yeah, but not everyone knows you and not everyone knows me.

And it's like, okay, that's fair. But then I was like, we also did a so for this after repair value of two 90, like we did a competitive market analysis. Like that's something that we could include in this packet,

Jessi: which is like, that would be,

James: and then a rehab plan sounds like would be another

Jessi: rehab plan thing, which is talking in general.

James: Like what's the, yeah, I mean, it's okay. This is good to know because in some ways, so we talked about, we talked about this with syndications where it's like, okay, who are the people who are involved, not necessarily care about the property manager for this, but we care about the construction plan. We care about the projections.

Like you care about all the stuff, even though it's a shorter timeframe, even though it's a smaller amount, it's still all matters. Interesting. Okay. That's good.

Jessi: The other thing, I have one more thing. And then I have a, another big picture perspective of this document.

James: This is so awesome.

Jessi: So one is like the deal story, like I just, having a 10 minute conversation with you paints this picture of who this person is and, and your heart behind doing the deal.

And it's like, yes, it's a deal. Yes, it is a good deal because you can raise the funds. You can flip this house essentially. And, and you've heard this guy's story and it's like, he was in a spot where. The alternative is like foreclosure, bankruptcy, his family's displaced, like, who knows what happens after that.

And it's like, yeah, you were saying you're not necessarily solving some of these maybe ongoing issues that he might have. But you are putting his family in a much better spot. And it's like, that's just super hard to build in a paragraph of text. It's super hard to communicate here. And so I'm like, I don't know.

I don't, I, I felt like you were trying to build that or tell, like, show me that heart a little bit. But I was like,

James: that's okay.

Jessi: Yeah. It didn't quite build it enough or, or in a way that is compelling. Cause, cause there's another piece to it that I was like, that you could, you could see it from two perspectives of, of thinking like, okay, A, you have such a good, compassionate heart.

You're helping a guy who's in foreclosure and, you know, you're, you're helping them to be in a better spot. Or B, you're like, Hey, there's a sweet deal. This guy can't make payments and we're going to swoop in and like take advantage, which is like, I know that's not your heart and that's not what this sounded like, but it It could be interpreted that way, and so I'm, I'm like, if you can build that heart, that like, from the conversation we just had, where you're like, hey, I had several conversations with this guy, and, you know, I met with his family, and, And like, this is where it was at.

And we, we really did try and work the numbers and it wasn't just a split decision. And I don't know how to communicate that, which I think,

James: well, okay. I have an idea. Like, okay, so I made this, would this be better? So I do like create webpages essentially that has this information and I could. Part of it could be record a video of me just doing what we just did.

Hey, watch this video. It's going to be four or five minutes and kind of communicate a little bit more of that, which could potentially, instead of having it, yeah, honestly,

Jessi: that's, and that's that's like, if I step back from this particular piece of paper and I'm like, what's the point of doing this and thinking about your investors, it's like, are you going to like physically print this thing out?

Is it going to be a PDF that you send to them? Cause I'm like, if it's digital, And that's what you're giving to them? Honestly, it should, it should not be this.

James: It

Jessi: should be like, whatever your email or communication thing is, a text, an email, whatever. And that should link to the better story, like your website, whatever.

And it's like, yeah, maybe you have a couple sentences that's like, the, the super broad strokes. Hey, we got a deal. Here's the opportunity. You know, here's the bottom line. You give us this, here's your return. Click here, read more. You know, that way they're like, ooh, cool. An opportunity. But then, if they wanna like, and you can present it on your website in a way that's like, Yeah, here's the broad strokes.

If this, that's as far as you want to go, cool, great.

James: Yeah.

Jessi: If you want to go deeper, like and really see our heart. Okay. And really hear what's going on. And I can show

James: the underwriting model. Sure. And all that stuff.

Jessi: Yeah. You can do the project plan.

James: Okay.

Jessi: You know, that way people, people can kind of digest it at their own pace, at their own speed.

And if,

James: I

Jessi: would imagine that there will be some people who are like, Yep. Sounds good. Here's my money, you know, or, but there will be people like me who are like, I'm going to read every line in this thing.

James: Well, that's good. I, what I'm hearing you say is I need to treat it the same thing as a large syndication because, because even though the total amount.

Like in this case, the total amount is, is like, it's literally less than a 10th than what I was raising previously. It's tiny relative to it, even though for me, it seems tinier for the individual, right? That's still a chunk of change. Yeah. In some ways it presents even more risk. Cause you're like, cause that's the other thing I didn't include in this.

I just didn't know where it was like, what are the risks relative to this? Which you already pointed one out. Like how does that 58, 000 like, and that's stuff that I know this is great to see that Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a

Jessi: good. That's a good point is like if you think about this for your syndication You were asking people to lend in that range of fifty to a hundred thousand.

Yeah, you know Ideally, it's the same range, you know, so it's like as an individual like you were saying that's

James: fair now There's I mean there's a key difference and maybe it's somehow even describing that like so with the syndication you were buying equity into it

Jessi: Right,

James: so you were kind of tied to the performance of the property, right?

There was Some good upside, but also potential downside. This alone is alone. Yeah. So it's different. Yeah. And, and one of those were, even if this thing goes sideways, I'm still on the hook for the loan, which I don't know how you feel about that, but like, that's like, so that's still there. So in theory, there's less risk, but at the end of the day, it's still there.

And so, okay, no, that's great. I know what I'm doing tomorrow,

Jessi: which is like, I, yeah, I mean, you know, I You already have kind of a template of a, of a webpage. Oh yeah, totally.

James: And I don't think it needs to be nearly as exhaustive as the other one was. Like, I don't need to do a market analysis necessarily outside of the, the CMA that was already done.

Like I went really deep into like, here's Astoria, here's what it's like, here's the population trends. Here's all these numbers make sense. Like that's not important, but what I'm hearing you, What I'm hearing you say is I need to give myself more space to tell that story of what's going on in my heart behind it.

I also need to flush out the rehab plan to prove to you why this number, which part of it's like, dude, the budget is what it is. Like that's the determining factor, not necessarily all these repairs got to get done, but I understand what you're saying. I got to show the repair plan and even build a little bit more like of the team who those people in charge.

And what was the last. There's oh and talk about risk factors and that which again is partly the rehab partly some other stuff, right? What does happen if the market just suddenly takes and crashes now what? Those are good Things to know. All right, that's super helpful Honestly I appreciate that kind of feedback.

Jessi: Yeah, there's that's

James: awesome Cool. All right. Let's, let's go superficial. I did not use the

Jessi: sandwich model at all.

James: Oh, I, I, so I sent Jesse a text message and I said, Hey, I made a flyer. Critical feedback. Welcome is how I learned it. Because I know like most people, I sent it looks great. Like, cool, man. Not helpful.

Yeah. But I know like you will, you'll be brutally honest about it. And, and in some ways this is relatively new doing things like this. So I'm still learning. And I struggle with. What they talk about sometimes is the curse of too much knowledge. I know all about the deal. And, and so I'm like, okay, what?

It's hard for me to pick and choose like what to share and so like that's helpful for someone who, you know, some but not a lot. Did you even read the disclaimer? Does that scare you away? Yeah, I read it

Jessi: and I honestly looked at it like, yeah, you have to put that on there.

James: Okay.

Jessi: I don't know. I didn't really worry about it that much.

It I

James: thought about like, so normally this would be like on a website.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: And so you wouldn't even include it in the flyer because you have a link that would then have it.

Jessi: Yeah.

James: Do it. And so, but I was like, well, this is, it was kind of intended to be standalone. So I was like, Oh, I should add it there.

Cause I almost had a thought of like our two photos are, are the pictures of us are covering up the photo. I was like, that'd be perfect. Put it in this corner.

Jessi: Which I didn't, I, yeah. Like I don't, I don't get the concept of a flyer.

James: It's just, it's an easy one page thing that's like tangible that someone can quickly look at and, and ideally say like, yeah, I want to know more.

And in which case it's like, Hey, it's going to fall. I feel like for that,

Jessi: for that thing that you just described, it's way less information.

James: Oh really? Yeah. Like what? Okay. For that thing

Jessi: that you just described, it's a postcard size, maybe even smaller,

James: like it,

Jessi: it just has,

James: yeah. What would it have on there?

Jessi: Like I've got boxes,

James: right? I go purchase price, hold period, stabilization cost. Yes, it would

Jessi: almost be like your name, contact information, the website where I can get more information on one side, kind of like a business card. And then on the other side, I would have some of these boxes.

James: Okay.

Jessi: That's it.

James: An investor like almost saying like, Hey, we're looking to raise this much over this amount of time and you'll earn this. Like really like there's three key pieces of, or maybe like, and here's what the asset is or the terms maybe.

Jessi: Yup.

James: Okay.

Jessi: Yeah. It's a single family home. It's for this price. Here's what we're at.

Here's what we're raising. It's

James: important to know.

Jessi: Yeah. It's a really pared down version because then it's like, I look at that and go, huh, Intriguing. Intriguing. You know, I don't, I'm not making a judgment call already. I'm not forming opinions because you're giving me this information. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You know, it gets me in already that I'm like, okay, and then you have a better opportunity. You have more space and a better visual to present the information to me so that I can get my questions answered. All right. Because this isn't enough space, really. Correct. Yeah.

James: To tell, like, to do all this stuff that we're just talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, it could be a packet. I mean, it could be multiple pages, but at that point you're like, dude, just make a website. A

Jessi: digital world. I felt like Barbie girl just then. We live in a digital world. Like that's how people consume information. So I, I honestly, I feel like the card or, or postcard or whatever is, is a throwaway almost, you know, if you're, if you have it in person and you're meeting with people in person, like, sure, it's a good thing to have something.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessi: But I, like, I remember when I was working with well,

James: at the

Jessi: church a little bit too. We, we kind of talked about it having, and, and with the real estate agent that I worked with as well, we kind of talked about this idea of like the, the person doesn't really care about the thing, like, cause you're never going to get all the information on the little card or handout or thing that you're handing out.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessi: The point is like, it has this physical connection between two people, which is important. And it directs them to a space where they can get questions answered. So that there's not this pressure, like, in the moment to be like, Okay, I gotta, like, gotta read it. Like, should I read this right now?

Or like, what am I doing? You know? And it's just like, there's some information on here. It's super basic. You know, I want to have a follow up conversation. And it's almost like, this is just your in to say, Take this, take a look, when can I call you? You know? And so it's like a more relationship building than information based.

James: Yeah, yeah. Okay. I like that. Okay. No, that's good. That's super helpful to have, to have your thoughts and opinions on that. Yeah. I will. That's something I'll probably wake up early and and get after it and make that just so we have it. Cause I have all the information

Jessi: and so what I

James: actually do insider tip is, so I've got my own domain for low.

com, but I've got it hooked up to the Google workspace and part of that are Google sites. So I can fire up a Google site. Make this thing. It's all drag and drop. It's really simple. And then I can then link it to a URL and so like Yeah, so I can link it to a specific URL. So you visit that URL and it's as if it's a website That's just now made.

That's cool. And like and it's I mean, it's, it's trying to drop. So it's super fast, super easy, and you can be doing multiple pages so far. I've just stuck with the one page, but, and it automatically is responsive. So it looks good on desktop looks good on mobile. It's super nice. And So that's how I make it.

So that's literally, I could probably have that made by, I don't know if I'll have it done by the time everyone wakes up, but I'll have it done where my meetings, one of my morning meetings got canceled. So it'd be done by lunch for sure. There you go. And yeah, I think that'll just be good to have. And I think you're right.

And it'll give us space to do all the things that we are, that we're trying to accomplish with that. Cool, man. I appreciate that feedback. This was not at all where I thought this was going to go, but that was great. I really do appreciate the live feedback and and this is my you are a part of my secret weapon in terms of like making sure the quality, both in terms of the investment and the communication and everything stays high.

Cause you have, you have high standards.

Jessi: This is why you, you put up with my, my attitude of, you Nothing's good enough.

James: Nothing's good enough.

Jessi: This could be better.

James: Because it makes it better. I gotta

Jessi: find that right balance. In this case, it was super helpful. Yeah,

James: right.

Jessi: House cleaning, not so helpful. Yeah,

James: yeah.

No, no, that's that's good. I do appreciate that. That's great. It's kind of like one of those, the hot chair, that's what I felt like, or hot seat. That's No, which is perfect. And I, and I fully admit like I'm still learning how to do all this and how to communicate it. And so, and it's funny, like I said, I did it the other way for the syndication because it was a much bigger investment and the feedback, I mean at that very, at that high level, it's like, Nope, same level effort.

Even for something like this, it doesn't matter. That's important to communicate that and build it all out. And and it's good. And I was getting fooled into thinking for myself, it's a much smaller amount. So you don't need to do as much. And the answer is like, no, it's still a big amount for anybody.

And so that's important.

Jessi: You know, you may do more deals at this size. You may do a bigger deal. So if you create the infrastructure and like train yourself

James: to do it

Jessi: on the small ones too, like, well, I could see

James: if we head down this path and continue to do more flips you know, you get to a point where you get someone where like, after they've done it a couple of times, like, dude, I need the flyer.

Just tell me how much, because they get the system and there's that, and you have all of that, you have that tidal wave of credibility essentially. So they go, yep. I get a man, just give me the high levels and the good, but I'll have that. So I got to build the credibility and it's just great practice to keep up to have it.

If anything, it's just a good tale to tape of, Hey, here's what we did and here's the thoughts. Cool. Awesome. Thank you for that. There you go. I appreciate it. And hopefully you also enjoyed that me

Jessi: critiquing my husband. We're going to call this, and Jesse goes

James: off. That was great. It was awesome. If you want

Jessi: critical feedback, apparently give me a call.

James: No, it's, it's awesome. I was, I was talking with Lawrence and I said, one of my, I think one of my favorite things Pastime hobbies is critiquing resumes because there's a content piece and a formatting piece. And I just, I love the two of them together, which is what's so funny about me getting critiqued for that.

Cause it's essentially resume. It's all great. So again, hopefully you appreciated that at least found it entertaining, if not insightful, which would be awesome. And so we'd appreciate it wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. If you'd leave us a quick rating and again, thank you for listening and have a great day.