5 Steps to Get ANY Home Offer Accepted (WITHOUT Being the Highest Bidder)

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 826. Coming at you from Las Vegas.

Lindsey:
You have to call the listing agent and find out specifically what is the seller looking for? What is most important to the seller? We can’t make assumptions that we know that it’s highest price and best terms. There might be more to it. Do they need to rent-back? Do they want smooth financing? Do they want a longer escrow? Is there certain things that they’re looking for in an offer that we’ll only find out if I make that phone call? Build a rapport with the agents, flatter them a little bit, get them to tell me all the information about their listing, so that I can take that back to my buyer and say, “Okay, here’s the scoop.”

David:
What’s going on, everyone? It’s David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, the biggest, the best, the baddest real estate podcast on the planet. Every week, we are bringing you stories, how-tos and the answers that you need in order to make smart real estate decisions now in this current market. So, we’re really glad to have you.
In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to get your offer accepted and get deal terms to work in one of the most challenging markets we’ve ever seen. I have brought in Lindsey Iskierka and Christian Bachelder, two of my partners in the real estate game, to explain what we do to help put clients under contract in an incredibly competitive market. And more importantly, how you can do the same. The game has changed. The old advice of write 100 offers and hope that something sticks is not working in a market where every seller is getting what feels like 100 offers. So, if you want to win in today’s environment, you have to be strategic and intentional. In today’s show, we are going to tell you exactly how you can do the same.
If you’ve been frustrated because your offers are not being accepted or things are going wrong, or things are changing in the middle of the process that you were not prepared for, today’s show will help you a ton in eliminating some of those obstacles and hurdles, and getting rid of the snags. And even if you’re not in acquisition mode right now, this information is timeless. And when you do decide that the time is right for you to buy, this is a blueprint for how your team should be communicating on your behalf and with each other. I think your mind is going to be blown by some of the practical information that we share to give you an advantage over your competition in this wealth-building journey.
Before we bring in Lindsey and Christian, today’s quick tip is if you’ve read my book, Long-Distance Real Estate Investing, you understand the concept of the core four. This is your agent, your lender, your contractor, and your property manager. My belief is that you need those four people all working with you to help you achieve your goals. And if you have them, you can invest anywhere. Well, BiggerPockets can help you put together this team of investors. You can use the forums to find other people that are vendors, like agents, loan officers, contractors or property managers, giving advice to different BP members, and decide who sounds the smartest and the one you like the most. You can also use the agent or the lender finder to find my team as well as other agents in different places that you can vet to decide if they would be a good addition to your core four, that would help you scale your portfolio. After listening to today’s show, you will know exactly what to ask them and what the process should look like to find out if you got a stud or a dud.
All right. Without any further ado, let’s bring in Lindsey and Christian. Christian and Lindsey, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I kind of got to bring my family with me to the show today. We’re going to get into why this is such an important podcast briefly, because the market has shifted a lot. And if you’re listening to this and you’re wondering why you’re having such a hard time finding deals and putting them into contract, after today’s show, you will not be wondering. But Christian, let’s start with you. Can you explain who you are, what you do, and how we work together?

Christian:
Yeah. I am the man, the myth, the legend, David Greene’s business partner in The One Brokerage, which is our lending branch of the David Greene world. We started the company back in 2021, I wanted to say, been going strong ever since. And yeah, I’m the money guy, the finance guy, right? So, doing everything that we can to make these deals work, communicating effectively with agents, making sure borrowers have the right advice moving forward. And ultimately, trying to close deals.

David:
Thank you. And Lindsey, how do we know each other?

Lindsey:
Hey David. So, I am Lindsey Iskierka, and I am your partner for the Southern California real estate team. So, I head up the real estate sales team here in SoCal, helping investors buy and sell real estate. And I think we started the team, I want to say in April, 2021 or so, and been going strong. Even just in 2023, so far we’ve closed 68 deals, just under 50 million in volume. So, it’s been an interesting, tricky market to navigate, but we’ve done a good job in helping clients get to their goal. And we partner with The One Brokerage on our deals and it all goes smoothly.

David:
Truer words have never been spoken. This is honestly the toughest market I’ve seen in my entire career. I’ve mentioned this before. There is no clear answer out of it and there’s no indication it’s going to change anytime soon. So, you either adapt or you lose. And so, today’s show is all about different ways that the three of us have brainstormed… What’s the word that Rob always says when people come together and they… Workshop. We’ve workshopped different solutions here for what can be done, and we’re going to be sharing that with the audience today. Basically, the problem is that the supply and demand equilibrium is way off. It is a seller’s market. It’s been a seller’s market for a long time, and it’s just becoming more and more of a seller’s market every month it seems like. Sellers are having more leverage even as rates are going up.
I mean, Christian, what was it you were saying to me the other day? How much does somebody have to make to be able to afford a $500,000 house right now with where rates are?

Christian:
I mean, it’s getting there. I mean, especially with other debts and liabilities people have. I mean, you’re getting to start to need multiple hundreds of thousands a year in income to be able to afford a $500,000 house, and we’re talking 200,000, 300,000 with down payment requirements and everything like that. So, we’re a little bit out of whack right now in the balance of sellers and buyers and everything, for sure.

David:
Yeah, Lindsey and I, we were just at Mega Camp in Austin, a Keller Williams event for real estate agents. And Jay Papasan, who we’ve had on the show before, was mentioning that if you take on $50,000 of debt on a vehicle, that could rob you of $200,000 of debt that you’d be able to afford for your house. As rates are starting to slowly climb into these higher tiers, taking on additional debt is becoming more expensive. I mean, it was always foolish to buy a more expensive car than you need and to run up your credit card debt, but the consequences of said foolishness were less when rates were 3%. Now, we’re getting into the 8s sometimes, you’re really feeling poor choices.
So, in this very tough market, every decision that we make is that much more important, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. What can your team do, your agent and your lender that are working for you, to help put people into contract easier? Because there’s a lot of buyers that want this inventory. The sellers still have the power and the consequences are higher if you make a bad decision because rates are so high. Lindsey, before we get into some specifics, can you just share what it was like when we were selling houses in 2021 compared to what it’s like now?

Lindsey:
Oh, my goodness. Well, in 2021, the consumers understood the market that we were in. Headlines were saying, “Hey, multiple offers, you got to waive contingencies, offer way over list price.” And homes were so affordable at that time that buyers felt a lot more comfortable writing whatever it takes to get an offer accepted. Now, a lot of agents in that market put their clients at very high risk by waiving inspection contingencies. That’s something we never really did. I never had to waive an inspection contingency to get a client’s offer accepted. So, I think agents just felt like they had nothing else to do, and they didn’t know how else to help their client, where we’re able to protect the client throughout.
The difference is right now in 2023, as we’re recording this, the market’s not behaving like we would anticipate it should, with affordability being much worse. And so as a consumer, if they’re reaching out to us and they want to buy a primary and stop renting or they want to buy a short-term rental or a house hack, they would anticipate that they have better negotiation power, that they have better leverage. But then, I have to be the one to tell them, “Hey, there’s already 11 offers, 27 offers, 14 offers. Here’s what we’re going to have to do.” So, the market’s not behaving in the way that the consumer would expect. So, a realtor and a lender both need to know exactly what’s going on, be immersed in the market, and know the psychology of both buyers and sellers right now, so they can put their client in the best position to get their offer accepted, without putting them at additional risk.

David:
All right, so Lindsey, that was the market before. It’s obviously more challenging now. Do you have a story of an offer gone wrong in a market like the one we’re in now?

Lindsey:
Yes, there’s many. However, I think pertinent into this episode, I want to talk about a time when lender and agent weren’t really communicating, and therefore, the client lost out on the deal. So, a client came to me, referral from a past client, they were already pre-approved. And the lender just didn’t find it beneficial to talk to me, didn’t really see the benefit in strategizing ahead of time before showing the client houses and writing offers. So, I get the client in the contract. And about five days into escrow, the lender calls me and says, “Oh, we can’t actually do this loan.” I said, “Well, why not? We’re way below the pre-approval price.” And he said, “Well, that pre-approval was sent contingent upon the client pays off their car.”
And I said, “Was the client aware of that?” And he said, “Yeah, they should have been.” Client had no idea. And had I been able to have a direct phone number to that lender, had they found it beneficial to talk to me and I can ask questions about the client’s preapproval, I could have dug that out of them, and prevented the client from wasting money on inspections and appraisals and wasting everyone’s time. So, that was a situation that unfortunately the client lost out, and they didn’t end up buying the home after that.

David:
And we’ve seen stories like that and more over the several years that we’ve all been working together. And in today’s episode with the help of Lindsey and Christian, we are going to get into what you as the investor can do at every stage of the buying process to put yourself in a better position, starting with the pre-approval, like Lindsey said. We’re going to explain what could have happened differently there that would’ve avoided that catastrophe. You’ll also learn what not to do as this ace team debunk some common misconceptions along the way.
All right, so let’s start. We’re going to talk about the five steps for getting an offer accepted in today’s very tough market with your lender and your agent on the same team. Christian, let’s start with the pre-approval process. What would you recommend that investors ask their agent and their lender to do together when they’re working on the pre-approval phase?

Christian:
Pre-approval number one, absolutely… Communication is going to be my cheat code answer of every step of the way because if mistakes are made, like Lindsey’s with the car example that she used, communication can fix almost any issue in a negotiation standpoint, whether that’s with the borrower, the realtor, and the loan officer, with each other. So, that’s number one. But other things that I’d recommend, number two, make sure you’re getting a pre-approval, not a prequalification. This is not general knowledge. The differences between those two things. A pre-approval actually underwrites you. Underwrite is just verifying a couple of things. A pre-qualification is you walking into the bank, they ask you how much you make, they ask you what your debts are and they tell you what you can qualify for. There’s not enough information in what you shared with them there for them to tell you that with any amount of confidence, right?
We need to pull bank statements, and pay stubs, and tax returns, and the real estate that you already own, and insurance policies. I can go on for 1,000 years on what I actually need to request from you to make sure that we dot all our Is and cross our Ts. Pre-approving is that process. Pre-qualifying is not. Pre-approving also requires a credit check, whether it be a hard pull or a soft pull. If you went to your lender and they didn’t look at your credit, you did not get pre-approved, your realtor’s not going to have a strong desire to work with you when you’ve been pre-qualified. And obviously, sharing the findings with the realtor, bringing this full circle, and making sure they know not only the purchase price. That’s not the most important thing on a pre-approval. I know that’s what everybody thinks it is.
It’s the terms. It’s how strong are we with the loan? How flexible are we if the appraisal comes back low? How flexible are we with the asset type? Can this person that qualified for a single family go buy a duplex, right? Can they buy a short-term rental? Those are all things that may not be in words on the pre-approval, but need to be in a conversation that the lender has with the realtor before they start going and Lindsey spends all this time going and finding the perfect beautiful house for our client, where it turns out, “Oh, I meant they’re approved for a single family, not a condo. My bad.” We don’t want to end up in that situation, and that’s where the communication makes all the difference.

David:
So, what about a couple examples of this? Can you explain some stories of where realtors don’t understand that a pre-approval on a single family is not the same as a duplex or a condo can be different than a house? Just explain what some of the things that the loan officer has to underwrite for that are different among those asset classes that agents might not know, or maybe the people getting pre-approved might not understand. To them, $400,000 is $400,000, why does it matter what I’m spending it on?

Christian:
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I’ll give a standard example of the different in asset types. Let’s say a single family to a triplex, let’s say. There’s different loan limits. Let’s say I did Lindsey’s car lender example. If I just gave the pre-approval to the buyer, I stepped away, never called the agent, never cared. If she got a pre-approval for, let’s call it a million dollar triplex, that’s not a million dollar single family. There’s these things called loan limits that if you’re getting conventional loans, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds, but there’s only a certain amount of financing that we can go up to for a single family, for a duplex, for a triplex and for a quadplex. They’re all different. So, what Lindsey could do if she wasn’t communicating well is take that triplex pre-approval that’s at a million, and go right on a single family property where I would only be able to get her 700,000.
Unless the borrower has 300,000, it’s not happening, right? I mean it’s crazy. And that’s actually my example as well. I kid you not, we have had people do this and it’s happened multiple times where realtor won’t pick up his phone, won’t let us know when we’re writing offers. I can tell you guys, any realtors listening to this, if you can take one thing away from this episode, the strongest thing that you can do is when you go write an offer, call your lender. When you write an offer, call your lender and say, “I’m writing on an $800,000 duplex in this county. What do you think? I know what your preapproval says, but is there anything we need to look out for?” Maybe there’s an HOA, maybe there’s tax assessment. In SoCal, we have these things called Mello-Roos, which is extra payments that you have on your taxes.
Let me know about those things. And not only am I going to give the realtor the answer on that phone call, I’m also going to ask for the listing agent’s contact. Now I’m going to go call the listing agent that’s listing that property and say, “This borrower is a rockstar. We’re going to slam dunk this loan. Lindsey’s a rockstar. I’ve never had a deal fall out of escrow with her for anything in our control, right?” Obviously, if a house under-appraises or something… But we’ve already got an insurance policy selected and quoted. There’s not another choice here. When you guys were talking in the intro here about navigating difficult markets, that’s how we do it. That’s the answer.

David:
So, Lindsey, in your perspective, had you had this conversation with the loan officer before doing all the work of finding the house, negotiating the deal, the client spending money on the inspections and the appraisal, you spending money on gas and time looking into this, you would’ve realized you’re actually not pre-approved to buy a house. If it’s contingent on paying off your car, we need to make sure that there’s enough money in the bank for the down payment, the repairs, the upgrades, the closing costs, and the car note, correct?

Lindsey:
Yeah. So, going back to Christian’s cheat code answer, communication, right? Had that lender been willing to get on the phone with me and talk through this pre-approval… And I’ll add too, it is the agent’s responsibility to ensure that that lender did do a thorough job pre-approving the client.

David:
Oh, that’s good.

Lindsey:
And if they haven’t, they may not know what questions to ask and they need to know, “How deep did you go with the pre-approval? Did you verify assets? Did you verify income and employment? Are there any red flags I need to be aware of? And on top of that, what terms can I put in the offer to make this buyer the strongest buyer possible without putting them at additional risk? Can I shorten the loan contingency period? No? Okay. Can you let me know why? So, I can tell the agent I would love to do this, but I’m not going to, and here’s why.” In very specific situations with lender’s blessing for certain borrowers, we can waive loan contingency and that may result in the client actually saving money on the house because they appear to be more like a cash buyer because we can remove that financing contingency.
But a realtor cannot and should not do that without the blessing in a full conversation with a lender, ensuring that we’re working together on the same team. “If I get them into contract, can you close?” So, the realtor has to take responsibility for that as well and not just think that they need to stay in their lane. That’s not my job. Ultimately, we’re all on the same team trying to serve the client and if deal falls through, no one gets paid. So, let’s work together.

David:
Okay, so I’m looking to buy a house. I heard about Christian and his team got me pre-approved. I heard about Lindsey and I felt really good. You gave me a buyer presentation, you explained the process, and I just got an email that says, “Congratulations, you’re pre-approved. $600,000.” What’s the next thing I do? Should I get my loan officer and my agent on a group call? Should we be in a group email? What do you guys recommend that people do to get everybody on the same page, so that we know where the boundaries are, what’s okay, what’s not okay, what the plan is?

Christian:
Yeah, I mean I think both of those options are good, a group call and a group text. But more importantly, I want to correct one thing because just being pre-approved for 600,000 is not all the information we need from the pre-approval, right? So, that phone call is intended to get that information… I just want everybody to think… If there’s realtors listening to this or people who have bought houses, everything that Lindsey just said there, what asset type, what loan product do we have flexibility in the down payment? When’s the last time you had that conversation on the first day of preapproval with a lender?
So, David, to answer your question, this should be phone call immediately. And the questions that Lindsey just ran through are needing to be what’s asked, right? I mean, “It’s okay 600,000, but for what? Could we change loan products and get that higher? What if we find something for 650? Do you have wiggle room built into your pre-approvals, right? Can we buy down the interest rate if we get some seller credit?” That way, I’m now giving the realtor ammunition to go write this offer in a way that’s competitive, in a way that is going to lead to a win at the end of the day for the borrower. If we know we got to buy this interest rate down, we got to go get credit, or we got to go save some money on an insurance, or we know we can’t take on an HOA, so condos are out of the question.
All these things go into it and that conversation is the only way that information gets passed because I can’t put all this on a pre-approval page. Your pre-approval page has the county, the loan amount, and really, that’s it. It’s not really worth the paper it’s written on. That’s all the information’s there. It doesn’t say if it’s a single family. It doesn’t say if you can’t do an HOA. So, it’s got to be in that conversation. It’s the only way to properly share this information and move forward as a team throughout the negotiating process.

David:
Which is especially important when it’s an incredibly competitive market. When we were in a market, like 2010, where it was just throw spaghetti at the wall, write low offers, see what sticks, you didn’t need to have these conversations because sellers would do whatever it took to sell their house. It’s not like that anymore. It is now incredibly difficult to get your offer accepted. So, let’s sum up some of the things that we think should be talked about in that initial conversation, then we’ll move on to writing the offer.
We’ve mentioned that it should be a single family or a multifamily. What type of asset class? Is it a condo? And if it is, how does that change what the pre-approval amount is? Different asset classes have different lending requirements as well as different expenses that will affect the debt-to-income ratio of the client, and therefore, how much they can borrow. What is the down payment going to be? Are we talking about an FHA loan, a VA loan? Is this a second home? Although those have different criteria that are not wildly different but enough, especially if it’s really close and you want to go another 10 grand higher to get the deal, can you actually do that or would you have to bring the extra cash to close?
And the sustainability rule with the FHA loan. If you’re using an FHA loan specifically to buy multifamily properties, it often sounds, in theory, better than it is in practice. You have to make sure that the property you’re buying can sustain itself, which means that the rents have to be a certain portion of the income. Definitely something an agent wants to know before they go hunting down a triplex for their client to house hack because the lender never explained, “Hey, yeah, they’re using an FHA loan. Make sure that things look this way before you move on.”
Now, let’s get into what I think is maybe the most crucial part, which is writing the offer. So, we are pre-approved, we are ready to rock and roll. Everyone’s on the same page. We find a property that we like and we want to make an offer on, but a bunch of other buyers want that property as well. Not an uncommon scenario in real estate in today’s day and age. Lindsey, let’s start with you. What can our listeners do to make sure that their offer is the one that the seller chooses on a property that’s going to make them massive wealth in the next 30 years?

Lindsey:
Yeah. So, a really important piece of the puzzle that a lot of realtors don’t think about is that you have to call the listing agent. You need to call a listing agent and find out specifically what is a seller looking for? What is most important to the seller? We can’t make assumptions as agents or buyers that we know that it’s highest price and best terms. There might be more to it. Do they need a rent-back? Do they want smooth financing? Do they want a longer escrow? Is there certain things that they’re looking for in an offer that we’ll only find out if I make that phone call? Build a rapport with the agents, flatter them a little bit, get them to tell me all the information about their listing, so that I can take out back to my buyer and say, “Okay, here’s the scoop.”
You can’t just be the kind of realtor that calls them an hour before the offer deadline saying, “What do you got?” And think that the agent’s going to be divulging information to you. You got to build a rapport along the way. So, prior to even showing the house, I call the agent and I say, “Hey, my client is so excited about this house. Let me tell you a little bit about them, this and this,” and talk the buyer up. “We’re also pre-approved with my preferred lender, The One Brokerage. We’ve done dozens of deals together. They have never not closed a deal that they pre-approved a client on. We’re really going to make this smooth as possible for your sellers.”
So, that’s a really important piece of the puzzle that a lot of agents miss. And so, then when we’re writing the offer, it’s really important too that I look at the comparable sales, what our homes are on here selling for. We’re seeing more and more that listing agents are listing houses low, and it should sell for $100,000 over list price. The agent’s not some miracle worker. Market value is 100 grand more and I need to know that and prepare my client for it. And if it’s out of budget, we tell them that right away. If it is within budget still, I tell them, “This is going to generate a lot of activity. We need to come in strong,” and then we get the offer written.

David:
Perfect. So, you’re saying don’t just shotgun email an offer to the sellers and text and say, “Hey, emailed you an offer,” without even making an effort to build rapport, speaking with the listing agent, right?

Lindsey:
Right. So, many agents will send a PDF and say, “See attached. Confirm receipts.” So, we have a real detailed offer template that I use on every offer. It outlines at a glance, which realtors love, what are we offering? So, you don’t have to open up a 26-page document and figure it out what we’re offering. “Here’s what it is. Here’s the terms. Here’s what your seller is going to love.” And then, I highlight, “I got my preferred lender copied here on this email. They’re going to be reaching out to you,” and just making sure they know we’re a cohesive team and it makes the offer stand out and agents really appreciate it.

David:
Yeah, we have a certain list of phrases that are red flags in our world, like, “See attached. Confirm receipt.” Not a good sign.

Christian:
See attached is for sure, 100%.

Lindsey:
Drives me crazy. It drives me crazy.

David:
I would say a listing agent who just says, “Highest and best, highest and best, highest and best,” like a little parrot on the shoulder of a pirate-

Lindsey:
Fire that agent.

David:
… is a great sign you picked the wrong listing agent. Exactly. That they’re supposed to actually be negotiating manually, not automatically. They’re supposed to be making an intentional effort to find the best buyer and get the best price. And because there’s so many bad agents, having a good agent and lender on your team actually gives you an advantage. I mean, it’s not uncommon for us to tell the other agent, “Hey, this is why our offer is best,” and they were too naive to understand it on their own. So, what you’re getting at here, Lindsey, is these are the things you do to make your buyer stand out as the one that really, really, really wants that house.
They’re in the position of leverage. They have all the buyers that want their house. Now, after it goes into contract, that changes and we’ll talk about that. The buyer gets some leverage in most cases, depending on how an offer was written after it’s in contract. But before it goes in contract, the seller’s got all the power, and so you got to play their game. Christian, what are some things that you would recommend that lenders do or loan officers to work with the buyer’s agent, communicating with the listing agent so that the borrower/buyer that we are representing has the best chance of having their offer selected?

Christian:
Yeah, it’s funny. The biggest one that I think of right off the bat is we call it customizing your pre-approval. But in all reality, a lot of lenders across the country are hurting their partner realtor’s negotiation power, and they don’t even know it. And what I mean by that is let’s say I give Lindsey a $600,000 pre-approval. Let’s say during the search, the borrower and Lindsey determine they can find something for 500,000. Cool, perfect. It’s below your pre-approval letter. Realtor feels we’re good, borrower feels we’re good. I know I’m going to qualify because we’re $100,000 below what my pre-approval says. They find the house, they love it. They don’t call me, they write an offer. They write an offer for 500,000, but they submit the $600,000 pre-approval.
Without even knowing it, that’s hurting their negotiation because subconsciously the sellers now know you can go higher. They know you’re pre-approved for more. So, they’re going to take that $600,000 pre-approval and say, “Hey, listing agent, you think we can get 520 out of them? We already know they’re qualified. They can make up the difference because they had a down payment for a $600,000 house, so why don’t we try to get a little bit more out of them?” Versus if they came to me, I can match every single offer to exactly what you’re writing. And even more than that, I call the listing agent. I say, “Hey, I’m just letting you know, we got a little bit of wiggle room. I don’t want you feeling like we’re absolutely borrowing to their absolute cap, but I want you to know that I wrote this pre-approval specifically for your property. I work with this realtor all the time. She’s one of the best that I know in the business. This borrower, I’ve done multiple deals for. They’re very qualified. I can tell you, I’m guaranteeing we’re going to close this loan. This is the terms that we’re going to get ready to rock when you are.”
And just that, I mean I want all the listing agents listening to this to hear when’s the last time you had a phone call same day as the offer from the realtor, from the listing agent, clarifying the structure of the deal? This does happen, it’s just rare. And over a large period of time, these are the offers getting accepted, guys. We know this because we’re doing it. It’s not like we’re putting nobody in a contract. We know the tricks. That would be my guidance on the actual contract offer.

David:
Well, it works because the seller is sitting there saying not only, “How do I get the highest offer?” But, “How do I know who’s going to close?” And Lindsey, I’m curious to get your thoughts on when you’re a listing agent and a buyer’s agent is telling you, “Hey, what do we need to do to put it under contract?” It probably feels a lot like when you’re a single gal and every guy is out there saying, “I’m the guy for you.” They’re going to put their best foot forward in the beginning, but you don’t know what you’re actually going to get once you commit to that person. Are they going to back out? Do they have the resources to back up the claims that they’re making?
How often do we see buyers will say whatever it takes, they’ll go in contract. Then they drop out of contract now that that listing just lost all of its steam that it had, it’s hard to get multiple offers a second time. What are some ways that you use the loan officer as a team to get the listing agent to feel comfortable that our buyer and their borrower is the one that’s going to close?

Lindsey:
Really good question. Of course, I’m thinking of all the ways when we have listings, how we prevent all the things that you just said, right? We try to lock the buyer in as much as possible, and not give them any outs, really, as much as we can. But on the buy side, when we’re leveraging the loan officer and the realtor as a team, have to make sure that the listing agent knows that we have a daily phone call. Sometimes I’ll say, “I’m on the phone every single day with The One Brokerage going over all of our deals to ensure clear and concise communication, that you always know what’s going on. Even if I don’t have an update on the loan, you’re going to get an update every single day because that’s just how we work.”
And making sure that the lender also knows that, “Hey, this listing agent is really going to value communication. They’re going to want to make sure we hit our deadlines. Can you please be on top of it? Let me know what you need from me.” On top of that too, if the lender is having a hard time getting the loan pushed through because the borrower is dragging their feet and getting certain things, I want the lender to tell me, so I can put a little fire under the feet of the borrower saying, “Hey, we can’t help you until you get that stuff back to the lender.” So, that’s how we can really leverage our partnership to move it forward.

David:
What about when the listing agent doesn’t want to tell you how many offers are on the table or what the high price is, because agents don’t trust each other? There’s this weird ego game that gets played between agents a lot of the time. But the loan officer sort of appears like a neutral third party who can step in and get information. Is that a tactic that you’ve ever used to find out where the buyer really needs to be?

Lindsey:
It is, yeah. So, first off, and I’ll just say like, “Hey, you have a great listing. I’m sure you have offers over this price point,” almost like flatter them. “Are we even in the ballpark if I offer this price? Is there a number that your seller is looking for that we can match or exceed? And on top of that, what kind of terms do we need to write?” And if they won’t really tell me a whole lot, because like you said, agents don’t really trust each other or agents have a very blank stare towards other realtors, but if the lender calls, “Where does our borrower need to be to get this into contract? We have some wiggle room to play with. They’re solid. I have it ready to submit into underwriting.”
And sometimes the agent will tell the lender, because most lenders don’t even call the listing agent to begin with, so they’re already caught off guard. So then if the lender asks, “Where does my borrower need to be in order to get this under contract? And let’s help each other here,” the listing agent is caught off guard and they may be more likely to divulge more information to the lender versus another agent.

David:
And especially in a market where it’s incredibly difficult to get your offer accepted. These little extra efforts can be the difference between being the second or third out of 10 and the first out of 10, because like Ricky Bobby said, in the world of real estate, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” You definitely want to be first.
Okay, so now we have met over the pre-approval. We have gotten the loan officer and the agent working together in tandem to get the offer accepted. We’ve got success. You were the best offer out of all 10. You’ve got the house and contract. Now, we are in the middle of the escrow process. So, now that the offer is accepted because you’re smart and use your team together, how can investors use their lenders to improve the terms of the deal?
Christian, I’ll ask you about this first because you and I have done this together, actually, when I was buying houses using out-of-state agents. You would even contact the listing agent and talk for me because our agent was not as good as we were, right? And we’d come up with a plan where you’d go get information from the other agent that our agent wasn’t able to get, and then we’d go back and tell our agent what should be done. And it was kind of like a puppet, but that’s what was needed to be done because the agent that we were using either didn’t know how or didn’t have the rapport to get the same information. So, what are some ways that lenders can get involved once there is an escrow to get better interest rates for their clients, closing costs covered, even information out of the listing agent that a Lindsey could use to negotiate better terms for the clients?

Christian:
First and foremost, my cheat code answer, communication. Daily updates, right? Daily updates to the buyer’s agent, the listing agent. That just builds good rapport. Maybe then when the time comes for us to ask for some credit for repairs, “Oh man, these guys have been so communicative throughout the process. They’ve been keeping us up to date well. Okay, well, hey, seller, this is a really good offer. These guys are going to close. They need $5,000 credited for repairs.” You’re more likely to get it done when their experience with you has been beneficial up until that point. So, you kind of build up some brownie points. It’s the equivalent of coming home with flowers to your girlfriend every day, and then you come home late one day, you had to stay at work, and she’s like, “Well, he brought me flowers six out of the seven days of the week. I’m going to be nice to him the day he comes home late.”
Same thing. You’re just building up those brownie points and you’re trying to get enough credit so that when you need to use it, you can convert those brownie points into seller credit. But in terms of what I’m specifically asking for, questions that I like to ask are, “Are you worried about the property appraising?” So, that means the seller’s starting to get a feel of where the house might be worth. You can kind of gauge that even pre-contract acceptance to maybe seeing where the offers are at. “Oh yeah, we’ve gotten a couple really high offers.” I can then go back to Lindsey and say, “Hey, they’re over-asking on this.”
Specifically, in contract though, let’s just stay on the trend of the appraiser. If the appraisal comes back high, sometimes it allows us, we’ve used this strategy before, we can up our offer by 5,000 or 10,000 because we know it’s supported by the appraisal, but get 5,000 or 10,000 back. It’s the same net out of pocket to the seller. It’s technically both because the buyer’s not paying any more closing costs. It’s getting credited, but they’re getting lower interest rate. So, that’s where I’m able to come, as the lender, explain, once again as a neutral third party. And explain, “Hey, there’s a way as the seller where your situation doesn’t change, but we can help benefit my buyer just a little bit here. Get them a little bit lower interest rate. It’s going to lead to this deal working just a little bit more smoothly. We won’t have to be up against the cap of our qualifying. Let’s get this done together. Here’s the number that we need. Are you guys willing to do that? I’ve already supported it by the appraisal.”
And we have a lot of success with that, and it saves the borrower 20,000, $30,000 in interest over the course of the loan. That’s the big one that I can think of.

David:
So, let’s talk about the rate stack. For people that don’t understand how interest rates work, a common newbie mistake is to go to a bunch of lenders and say, “What’s your rate? What’s your rate? What’s your rate?” Which just sets them up to be taken advantage of. Christian, if you could explain what the rate stack is and how it works briefly. And then Lindsey, I’ll let you explain how you can negotiate to get credits for the client that can be applied towards getting a better interest rate.

Christian:
Yeah, 100%. Just quick explanation of the rate stack. Everybody just do this in your head with me. If you got every rate from a 5% to a 9% and it’s separated in quarter points, so 5, 5.25, 5.5. And in your mind, just build a table of that going all the way down, like an Excel spreadsheet. On the right-hand side lined up with those rates, so 5% has a cost, let’s say that’s 0, right? So 5%, 0, 5.25 would be a lower cost. So, that would actually give you… When you hear of lender credits, that’s what it is. And what you can do is you can choose to slide up or down on this, what we call rate stack, by either spending more money at closing and getting a lower interest rate.
So, that’s, in our example, if you bought from 5 to 4.5, maybe that may cost $5,000, but your monthly payment’s going to be, I don’t know, $300 cheaper, whatever it is. We’re throwing out random numbers. Or you could take a higher interest rate, and this is something that a lot of loan officers don’t explain that could benefit people in short timeframes of owning property, you take a higher interest rate, but you get a credit and wipe out your closing costs. So, when somebody asks, “What’s your rate?” It depends, right?

David:
But what happens is lenders quote them the lowest rate on the rate stack. Don’t tell them that that rate that they quoted comes with a $35,000 rate buydown cost, and they don’t find that out until they get to the closing table. They don’t have 35 grand, so now their rate goes higher than what somebody else might’ve quoted. This is very common in the mortgage industry, which is why we’re talking about it. But when you understand the way that the inner workings of lending works, you can use them to your advantage. So, Lindsey, that’s a thing that you can explain to a client because you understand both lending and being an agent.
Your husband is a loan officer on The One Brokerage, so you have to hear this nerd talk all day long all the time. Where if the client’s really short on cash, they can get a lender credit and get a higher rate and keeps more money in their pocket that they can use to improve the property, or if they’re going to hold it for a long time, you can go use an inspection report to negotiate credits for the buyer, which can be applied to the interest rate. Again, do you know how to do that if you’re not talking to the loan officer to even know how much it would cost to buy the rate down to each point?

Lindsey:
There’s two opportunities, really, to get the buyer some closing costs credits to potentially use towards buying down their interest rate. The first one is when you first write the offer. If you’re first going to write the offer, not a lot of competition on the property, which we could see into quarter three and quarter four of 2023, we could see some seasonality in some of the demand and multiple, multiple offer situations start to ease up a bit. This might be a thing again. We did this all the time in quarter one and quarter two of 2023, is we got the two-one buydown or the rate buydown paid for by the seller upfront in the offer, but you’re mindful of the seller’s net profit because that’s what they care about the most. So, if it’s going to cost, easy math, $20,000 to buy the interest rate down to a point where the client is comfortable with that and the deal really makes sense for them, could we add in $15,000 to the purchase price?
Because then, the seller is only taking a $5,000 cut, and that might not be a bad offer. They might actually consider that. And you may see this more often where sellers are going to advertise that they will pay towards a rate buydown, but you have to be mindful of the net profit. So, upfront, when we’re writing the offer, we’ll do that. We’ll say, “Okay, $20,000 seller credit towards a rate buydown towards closing costs.” So, that’s when you first write the offer. Then, once we’re in contract, the inspection really is the most powerful tool that we have as leverage to get closing cost credits for clients. If there are certain situations where we find out there’s a foundation issue, right? Foundation is a big, oh no, kind of like the word of doom a lot of times in these deals, but we can use that to our advantage if it’s really not that big of a deal, honestly, if the foundation repair isn’t that massive, but it’s going to freak out a bunch of other buyers should this buyer walk away from the deal.
I’ll use that to my advantage and say, “Hey, Mr. Listing Agent, you are now obligated to disclose this to future buyers if my buyer walks out of the deal, which they very well could. We’re going to need $20,000 to make this repair.” And usually, we’ll have invoices or estimates to prove that and have more leverage in negotiating costs. And we can take things like that… I mean, foundation is an extreme example, but I’m just using it to make a point here. You can use things found in inspections that the seller will now be obligated to disclose to future buyers. If my buyer walks out of the deal and I’ll tell him, “That buyer could ask you for a higher closing cost credit or even a price reduction, why don’t we just do this, sign off on a $20,000 credit to my client, we’ll remove all contingencies, we’ll close next week?”
So, not trying to corner the seller, but really utilizing the fact that, “Now you’re aware of this, Mr. Seller, these issues in the inspection report, my client’s okay with it, but we do need some funds to make these repairs.” And we can allocate that towards closing costs, and usually the client can then decide, “Okay, do I want to use it to bite on the interest rate, make the monthly payment more comfortable, but then also keep some of the funds to make the repairs that we’re talking about?” But it’s all about the agent knowing how to utilize and leverage what’s found in inspection reports and throughout the transaction to negotiate better terms for the client. And clear communication throughout. And again, the certainty that, “If you agree to this, Mr. Seller, we’re going to move contingencies. We’ll close in seven days. Let’s not start this all over again. Let’s just get this closed.”
So, there’s two opportunities, really, that you can leverage getting the most amount of closing cost credits for a buyer to use to probably buy down their interest rate. That’s really what the biggest issue is for clients right now.

David:
Okay, great stuff. So, to recap, talk to your loan officer about what the whole rate stack looks like, and make sure they even understand what that is. And then, have a conversation with your agent about what potential possibilities you have to get the seller to give credits to buy down the rate. Ask about the two-one buy down because it’s basically free money. And have a conversation if contingencies need to be extended so that the loan officer can call the listing agent, and put them at ease if they’re worried that the loan is falling through, because oftentimes, agents lie. But if the lender calls and says, “No, no, no, it’s fine. We’re just waiting on underwriting for these things. I’m expecting it to be resolved within the next five to six days.” You can get that contingency extended much more likely than if the agent is just sort of sending a form to have signed and not explaining what’s going on, or the listing agent doesn’t trust the buyer’s agent.
Okay. Moving on to the fourth stage, which is going to be funding the deal. Is there a role the agent can play here that people might not know about? Lindsey, what is your experience when the deal’s in escrow, you are moving to the finish line, we are waiting on the lender to get clear to close? What can you as an agent do to ensure that that process goes smoothly?

Lindsey:
One of the biggest hiccups as we’re getting near the finish line of a deal is possession of the property. We have to be crystal clear as to when the buyer expects to get keys to the house and when the seller needs to be out of the house. This should be negotiated upfront. If there’s some situations where the seller needs more time as we’re getting closer to funding, you want to make sure two things. One is that the seller is actually preparing to move out. The worst thing is when you’re doing your final walkthrough, which you’re entitled to here in California, within five days of closing, you should be doing a final walkthrough, making sure the house was in the same condition as it was when you wrote the offer. That’s the point of it.
If you notice the seller hasn’t even started packing yet, or there’s an occupant there that’s supposed to be moving out or things like that, that’s a hiccup that needs to be addressed. And we need to communicate that to the lender to make sure they don’t fund the deal without these negotiations and without these hiccups being resolved. That’s one of the biggest hangups as we’re getting close to the finish line. So, the agent needs to be proactive in negotiating possession, not assuming everyone’s going to do what they’re supposed to, or that the listing agent understands that the buyer is entitled to possession day of closing. So, start to work out those details.

David:
We say that often don’t assume best case scenario, that is what amateurs do. They assume everything will go great, and when something goes wrong, they’re shocked. Assume worst-case scenario, plan for everything that could go wrong, and then if it all goes smoothly, you’re pleasantly surprised. But that’s what I look for in the professionals I want to work with. They’re constantly saying, “What are we going to do if something goes wrong?”
Christian, what about when you have a funding hiccup and you’re trying to work on getting clear to close or some condition an underwriter has, you resolve it with the borrower, but nobody tells the real estate agent? Have you seen situations like that, where nobody updates the agent what was done, that there’s actually another three to four days that need to be added onto the timeline, but they don’t get the right paperwork filled out and the borrower’s actually at risk of losing their deposit? What’s your recommendation for how loan officers can keep agents in the loop in those situations?

Christian:
I mean, I hate to just sound like a broken record over and over, but it’s-

David:
Communication.

Christian:
… communicate.

David:
I knew it.

Christian:
Yeah, I know over and over. But I mean literally something for something as simple as, “Hey, we’re clear to close. Hey, just letting you know we’ve cleared underwriting. I just want to let you guys know I’m going to reach out to the borrower. I’m going to be scheduling the notary. Lindsey, when is time of possession? Is there a seller rent-back in place? Is there a tenant that’s going to be vacating? Even though we’re ready to close early here, is the day that you want to keep closing on for peace of mind of the seller or whatever situation’s going on?” Because I can structure that. I can make sure our funding day is going to take place on the right day.
Where do they want to sign? It’s a question that not a lot of people ask. They just assume the seller’s going to figure it out, right? Like, “Hey, is there a place that your borrower would want to sign? Do you want to be there with them? Do you want attend closing with them? Do you have a showing assistant that wants to attend closing with them just to be there to answer questions? Do you care about that? I can structure all of those things. Let me know. I can send you where the date and time is of signing.” So I mean, there’s a million things that can come up, of course. I am not going to be able to hit every example, but communication is just the trump card that allows you to knock out anything that happens, just a phone call.

Lindsey:
Agents need to be aware that they’re not sitting on the sidelines during this time. Just because it’s between the escrow and title company and the lender, the agent needs to be proactive in making sure people are moving this thing forward. If we’re behind in closing, put a little fire under escrow and title to make these resolutions and keep communication open with the lender. Our job is to make sure people are moving things forward. We can’t take a backseat and say, “Well, not my problem. That’s not my job.” No, it is your job to make sure people are moving things forward. So, the agent really needs to make sure they’re taking a proactive role in facilitating the funding, recording, closing, possession. Can’t just assume it’s lender and title escrow’s job to get that done. The client is looking to you, the agent, really, to hold their hand through this process. So, we can’t be passive in that process.

Christian:
Yeah, I mean, even something as simple as like you’re on the funding date and the borrower’s going to go to Ashley Home Furniture and get a furniture credit card, or they’re going to go get a new… Whatever you’re furnishing your house with. They’re going to go open up a really large line of credit. In the event the lender hasn’t fully underwritten yet and they haven’t announced clear to close, that could mess you up. Our lender that we’re getting your mortgage with could see your new line of credit and could ask, “Hey, what are you doing? What’d you buy?” And if you just went and bought 20 grand to furniture, that could kill your loan. So, if I was making sure to get ahead of that and the agent was knowledgeable and letting them know, “Hey, close first, then furniture, because if the furniture presents the house, where are you going to put it?”

David:
But no one tells the clients about this. They don’t realize that they weren’t supposed to go buy a new car to put in their new garage or open a line of credit at a furnishing store.

Lindsey:
I was just going to say.

David:
Yeah, Lindsey’s seen this before.

Lindsey:
Don’t buy a Tesla for your new garage.

Christian:
We’ve literally had it happen. Oh, my gosh.

Lindsey:
Yes, we have.

David:
Yep. Or even a HELOC on an existing home that you didn’t have before is a new line of credit that affects your DTI.

Lindsey:
That’s something going back to even the pre-approval stage, right? Hey, if the buyer gets excited and goes and opens a line of credit with Living Spaces or Target and makes a big order, it’s going to kill the deal. So, we need to know how close the borrower is to potentially losing the deal. So, we can know that upfront and remind them throughout the transaction, “Don’t get excited. I know you want to buy the furniture, but just wait until closing to open any line of credits or have any hard inquiries on your report.”

David:
Now we know communication is important, yet it frequently doesn’t happen. So, Christian, can you just give a brief explanation of the system that we’ve created so that loan officers, processors, real estate agents, pretty much everybody working on the transaction can be in the same location, communicating with each other easily and quickly?

Christian:
So, internally speaking, we have apps that allow us to never have to make phone calls internally. That means the loan officer never has to wait for an email or a phone call back from their processor, right? They’re in voice channels all day. It’s actually up on my side monitor here as we record this podcast. In terms of our real estate team communicating with our loan officer team, if you guys are in California, you work with the David Greene team as your realtor, and The One Brokerage is your lender. We have a daily meeting every day of the month. 10:30, whatever it is, Lindsey, whatever the time is, at 10:30 every morning we are on a 15 to 30 minute call breaking down every contract that we have in escrow. Breaking down updates, where they are in underwriting, where they are in closing, where they’re on funding. All these five steps that we just went through, we talk about that without having to make a phone call every day.
On top of that, we’ve built a process of seven touchpoints throughout the process of escrow, where the loan officer is required to make a phone call to the realtor. This is even if you’re not on the DGT team. This is what we do with every single realtor that we work with. I can go through those seven real quick. Intro call, first point of contact, pre-approval call, in contract, underwriting conditions, appraisal back, funding and recording. Seven times where it is mandatory. No situation where we don’t make those calls when each of those seven milestones passes in the loan process. That’s mainly because that’s when the negotiation possibilities are there. For instance, when the appraisal comes back, that’s when the updates that, “Hey, you went and bought the wrong type of house,” happens. That’s in the event of a duplex instead of a multifamily that we talked about earlier. So, those have to be had, but that’s the systems we have as The One Brokerage.

David:
And remember, if your loan officer and your agent are not communicating this way, the onus is on you, as the buyer, to put everyone together and then just make better choices on the next deal with who you have representing you.
All right, moving into closing. People might not normally think about this last phase, the fifth one, but what about after closing? Lindsey, is there anything investors can lean on their agents and their lenders for help with once they’ve closed?

Lindsey:
Yeah, so once we’re closed, I mean our communication is not done with the client, right? It’s still continuing. I want to make sure if things gone smoothly with them moving in, if they’re doing renovations and value adds, I’m here to help them with references and vendors and resources. I love to see progress of the renovation. And also consult with the client, “Where are you going to get the best return? If you update this versus update this, where should your money be spent if you are going to improve the property?” So working with them through that, keeping them up to speed about what their property is worth after closing is really important as well.
In Southern California we have great appreciation, and so it really helps the client to feel at ease with what they bought the property at if they find out six months later that they’ve got 80 grand in equity, which is not uncommon here. So, there’s that. And then, also just making sure that they’re connecting with the lender if it makes sense for them to refinance. “Have you saved enough money? Now we can get you that short-term rental. How do you want to scale your portfolio? Who can I introduce you to?” They’re part of our family once we close and communication doesn’t end there.

David:
Christian, what about you? Post-closing what are some things that the loan officers should be communicating with the client about?

Christian:
Yeah, absolutely. I like to call it something kind of silly. I call it a save the date, but I call it a save the rate. So, on a buyer, I’ll usually put a rate in their file. The buyers don’t see it, but we do it in our CRM, where we’ll put a rate where it makes sense for them to refinance. Whether that’s saving 500 bucks a month, 1,000 a month, whatever the metric is that we’re analyzing based on their purchase, we’ll set a save the rate. And what we do is that we have a log of months and months and months, and years of clients that we’ve done loans for that we have saved the rates for.
We track the market, just because of what we do, when the market unavoidably hits whatever that rate is again, we’ll reach out and say, “Hey, we’ve already done the math for you. We can shave off 500 bucks in your mortgage. Would that help you cash a little bit more on this house hack? Would that help you be a little more successful in this short-term rental? Would it just help you save money on your primary?” Whatever they bought, obviously. But that’s a big one, just helping the borrowers stay up to date with the state of the industry without them having to be on mortgagenewsdaily.com tracking rates, because nobody does that. Like you said, David, it’s nerd stuff, right? Nobody does that in their day-to-day life.
And then, second of all, if they’re working on a BRRRR, a loan is two steps of the BRRRR process. It’s the buy and the refi, right? So, we need to follow up and make sure, “Hey, how did your renovation go? When are we good to order an appraisal on the new property that you’ve renovated? And ultimately, when do you want to get this refinance open?” Because typically, BRRRRs are done with hard money upfront. So, let’s get you out of that. So, just follow up. Once again, communication. But making sure that they have the services and education that they need even after they close is equally as important to before they close.

David:
Because it’s all about building a portfolio, not closing a deal.

Christian:
Correct.

David:
That’s the idea here, right? So, if you’re in this for the long haul, you want your agent to be reaching out and saying, “Hey, your house is worth X. What’s the cashflow like on that? What headaches are you having? Do you think you might want to redeploy that capital into something that could perform better for you, or might see more appreciation?” We talk a lot about the different ways people make money in real estate on our team. I’m working on a book about that right now. And two of the big ways are buying equity and forcing equity. Could you sell this property that may be tapped out and buy into a market that could be growing in the future at a really good price, and then add value to it somehow?
And as far as your loan officer, you should be staying in touch with them. Rates could be dropping, new programs could be coming out. I can’t tell you how many clients we’ve had that assumed they could not buy a house because they didn’t have 20% or 25% to put down, that assumed that their debt-to-income ratio wouldn’t work for buying a house. And then we found DSCR products that were 30-year fixed-rate terms where they could go buy real estate. They just didn’t know it because they had talked to the wrong lender. So, I think it’s very important you stay in touch with your lender and your agent, communicate your goals for the portfolio you want to build and make them work to figure out how to help you. That’s the most healthy relationship between the professionals that should be helping you build your portfolio and yourself. Works much better than when you go tell them, “Hey, this is what I think I need,” when you don’t know as much about the industry as they do, because they work in it every single day, at least they should be.
All right. Thank you guys for sharing such good information. As you’ve seen, you got to be better and better and work harder and harder to make deals work in this environment. But I think the wins are even bigger for the clients when you do. Getting a property closed, rented, in your portfolio and being paid off over time is more important than ever because it’s getting harder and harder to buy real estate, and that’s the dirty truth that nobody wants to talk about. Lindsey, are there any last thoughts that you want to share before we let you get out of here?

Lindsey:
Yeah, I think if I can give advice to listeners out there, make sure the agent that you choose understands what you’re trying to accomplish. I think that’s a big piece of the puzzle here. When they come to us and David Greene Team SoCal, I have house hacked, I have long-term rentals, I have short-term rentals. You get to benefit from the mistakes that I’ve made as an investor. And I look at this like a fellow investor, not just a realtor. So, you need to make sure whoever is helping you, that they get what you’re trying to accomplish and that they have your best interests at heart. They’re not chasing transactions and make sure that you feel like they really can guide you through this process, I think that’s a huge determinant of your success here.

David:
Wonderful. And for people that want to reach out to you specifically to see what you could do to help them, guide them through their process, wherever they may be, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

Lindsey:
Yeah. So, they can reach me on Instagram. I’m @LindseyIskierkaRealtor, or they can email me at socal@davidgreene, with an E, 24.com.

David:
Perfect. And if you can’t find Lindsey’s Instagram because of her last name, DM me and I’ll get you connected. And you said the email was [email protected]?

Lindsey:
That’s correct.

David:
Beautiful. Christian, what about you? Any wrap up thoughts that you want to share for advice that our listeners can benefit from when they’re trying to scale their portfolio?

Christian:
Yeah, in the same way that Lindsey shared she’s experienced the hiccups that come from being an investor, right? You can learn from her experience as a house hacker, as a short-term renter, as a long-term rental investor. We do David Greene’s loans. And if I have not learned something from lending to you, I don’t know what to tell everybody. If I can close a loan for David Greene, nobody is a challenge.

David:
That’s funny. I’m the diva of loans. I hate how high maintenance I am. But Christian has frequently said, “If it wasn’t you, I would never take this on. I would never do this for anybody else.”

Christian:
100%.

David:
Yeah. But thank you for that. And something, Christian, that you say that I think should be shared quite often is that you want a lender who’s helping you achieve your goals, not just a one stop, “Hey, what’s your rate? What can you do?” You want someone who’s like, “Hey, I’ve got all of these products and all of these strategies and all of these resources that can help. You having a hard time finding cashflow? We have 160 other clients that have found properties that cashflow in different areas. I can put you in touch with somebody over there. Are you stuck getting something put in contract? We can help overcome that.” You definitely want to find people on your team that care about your goals, that only make money when you win. And if they can help you win, they can make a life for themselves.
So, thank you two both for being here. Appreciate you coming on and sharing things, especially in this really tough market. Oh, Christian, where can people find out more about you?

Christian:
First and foremost, on BiggerPockets Mortgage Mondays on the YouTube channel. Every Monday we got a little 15-minute episode where David and I talk nerd. So, go check that out if you like the mortgage segment of this. Otherwise, on social media, I’m @The_One_Broker, underscores in between. Or you can find us at theonebrokerage.com, which is our website where you could get in touch with us as well.

David:
Thanks both. Really glad we had you here. And if you like this type of content, a couple other BiggerPockets episodes for you to go check out. Look up BiggerPockets Podcast episode 805 for agents from two cash-flowing markets, or podcast 817 for two agents who really came through for their investor clients. We at BiggerPockets are here to help you grow in knowledge, build your portfolio and do it the right way. So, we really appreciate your views and your downloads. Thanks so much. If you don’t mind, give us a comment on YouTube, tell us what you thought about the show. And leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. This is David Greene for Lindsey and Christian, I’ll see you on the next one.