How to Buy Real Estate; (Loans, Programs, & Tips) with @Mgthemortgageguy

Real estate is and will probably always be one of the greatest investment tools out there, especially because of the tax benefits that come with it. You have to understand the tax play behind buying that much real estate as well. These people are rich and wealthy, and they're trying to hedge their taxes and minimize it too.

So what's the best plan? Real estate, brick and mortar, because of things like depreciation and cost segregation. There are a lot of different things that you can do to offset your wins. If you have huge capital gains, you can put that in 1031 exchanges and buy real estate, so you can defer your taxes down the road.

Real estate gives you all these plays that the wealthy use at scale to continue to grow their wealth. Whereas with us and our community, we like to listen to everybody else, but instead of following the money, my graduates from my school being Forbes backdrop, backdrop, a mic drop, backdrop.

[Applause]

All right, guys, welcome back! We got a stranger to the program. It's a stranger, somebody that you might not have ever seen before—five eight seven zero zero—but it's all good. Yeah, it's a mortgage guy, the mortgage guy, Matthew Garland, CEO of the Garland Group, star of Ransom Gyms, international speaker. You gotta add that to the resume, of course. Damn sure I'd be having gyms out of my bio now. It's a national speaker, that's true. Okay, and that's a fact, real estate expert.

So obviously, you guys are familiar with that. If you're familiar with Ernie Alicia, he's been on a variety of different times—Market Mondays and Best Fest, you name it. He's always around providing great insight when it comes to real estate. We did two episodes so far, and whenever there's time, you feel like, "All right, it's time to revisit this real estate conversation."

So like this, at the beginning of the year 2023, was a great time to have the third trilogy—three P. There's so much stuff that we haven't talked about before, and there's so much stuff that has changed. A lot of people are nervous about the economic environment that we're in—interest rates and recession, different things of that nature.

And on a personal level during this time, we've had a relationship of you helping us with our properties. Absolutely! So that's even something that we're going to add to this conversation too. I love it! Yeah, I love it.

So, you know, it's back to the blueprint, man, of education—heavy gyms. Try to provide as much value as possible and help some people out, man. So first and foremost, thanks for coming. Appreciate it! Love, fellas. It's a three P. I appreciate the opportunity as always. It's always good to be back with my guys. Let's make it happen. Let's do it!

So all right, all right, let's not even waste any time. Let's get into this. First time I wore a suit on the shop, on the show. This is the first time you had a red sweatshirt on in episode 12—the Gold episode. And your second appearance, you had, I think you might have had a flannel joint. Yeah, and we had just moved downstairs to kind of shoot, so that was cool too.

Yeah, so okay, three different flavors, three different episodes. I like the way this is going. Let's talk about something that we've never spoken about before, which is VA loans.

Copy, for veterans. There's a lot of veterans that watch us. We actually have an Infinity group in EYO University for veterans—whether it's Navy, Army, you name it, Marines, Air Force, the whole situation, right? A lot of people have served the country, and there are benefits with that.

But even some alumni—Aristotle is a veteran. Yeah, we got a few other veterans. But a lot of times, they're not educated on what they actually have.

Yeah, definitely. What's up with this VA loan situation?

First of all, thank you guys for your service. We appreciate your sacrifice and everything you do for us and our country to keep us safe here in America. So I don't want that to—my father was a veteran also, so it's near and dear to my heart. If you've been in my studio or seen me on my content, I have his flag. When he passed away, they gave me the flag, so I have that kind of like right next to me when I shoot all my content.

So first of all, shout out to all the veterans. But a VA loan is probably one of the best loans that's available out there in the marketplace. It's an underutilized product. I don't think a lot of people speak about VA loans, and that's why I'm happy that we're having this conversation.

So let's first start off with the credit score requirements. Most lenders will have a minimum credit score of a 580 to qualify for a VA loan. It's a hundred percent financing, no PMI. PMI is private mortgage insurance. So typically, when you put down less than 20 percent on a property, you have to pay the PMI, which is insurance that's insuring the bank, not you, the borrower, in case you default on the mortgage. That loan is insured, and the bank can basically get their money back from an insurance company, right?

So VA loans have no PMI. It does have a funding fee when you do a VA loan, which can be on average around two percent, just depending on your status. If you are a 100 percent disabled veteran, then you don't pay a funding fee. But typically, most VA loans that we're doing come with around a two percent funding fee, which gets financed into the loan.

Now, with the VA loan, you can purchase a primary residence. It's not for investment properties. I just want to be clear on that. It's for primary residences. You can buy condos if the condo is VA approved. You could buy one-family, two-family, three-family, four-family properties. They have to be owner-occupied.

The requirement for VA to live in the property is for one year, just like an FHA. So you have to live in that property for one year. But the main thing—there are a couple of things I want to discuss with a VA that are very important.

Number one is your Certificate of Eligibility, your COE. To determine how much of a loan you can get from a VA, you have to provide the lender, or the lender can pull what's called the COE—your Certificate of Eligibility—and it will tell you exactly how much entitlement you have from the VA to determine what's the maximum, the possible maximum loan amount that you can get financed for using a VA loan.

Now, unlike VA loans, they don't have a minimum or maximum loan amount requirement. So if you go to an FHA loan or a conventional mortgage, you have a maximum loan amount. So let's just keep it in New York, so it's simple.

What a one-family right now—because this is considered a high-cost area—you can get an FHA or a conventional mortgage for a million dollars on a single-family property. A four-family property, you can go up to like two million, a little bit under 2.1 million, somewhere around there. So the loan limits increased in 2023, which is great because home prices have been appreciating.

But with a VA loan, there's technically no minimum or maximum loan amount. For the VA, it's all on how much eligibility you have and obviously how much you can qualify for with your debt-to-income ratio and your residual income, which I'm going to go into in a bit.

So that's another great thing about a VA loan. You can buy a single-family home for 1.5 million dollars and get 100 percent financing on it with a low interest rate and no PMI. But let's say you do that, and you do a loan for 1.5. Is there a mansion tax that comes along with that, like a mansion tax?

Right, so in New York, if you purchase a property over a million dollars, you have a mansion tax, which you guys happily have to pay, right? Right, mansion tax.

Anybody from New York, that's common, right? A million-dollar house in New York is kind of like the normal. It's like an everyday house. New York is very expensive, but yes, you have to pay a mansion tax. In other states, it varies; you may not have to pay. But I would say check with your realtor or your local lender, whoever you're working with, to see if you have to pay any type of mansion tax.

Is there like a percentage that the standard mansion tax is?

In New York, it's one percent.

Okay, one percent. So a million-dollar sales price, you're going to pay ten thousand dollars in closing costs on top of all the other fees that come with buying a property. So if you're buying over a million dollars, it can definitely get more expensive, especially in a state like New York.

So that's why you can't be house-rich and cash-poor. You have to have money when you go into that ballpark, right? But with a VA loan, again, you can go up to a million and a half. You can go 1.7 million. I've done loans myself for 1.3, 1.4 when the loan amounts were a lot less for conventional and FHA.

So that's a huge benefit for that veteran who can qualify for that large of a house, right? And that's nationwide, so it's not determined by the region where you live. If you live in Kentucky and you're a veteran, you can get approved for a million-dollar loan with the VA if you have the eligibility to do so, right?

So that's number one, right? But the most important thing I want to touch on when it comes to a VA loan is the debt-to-income ratio—your DTI, right? But with VA, you have what's called residual income.

That residual income calculates basically how much money you have left over after all your expenses. Can the veteran truly afford this house? And they take in your household thoughts, right?

So let's just say, for example, you have a family of four, right? The VA, if you're living in the Northeast, they want to see after your withholdings come out. So they're looking at your gross income, and then they're going to minus out your withholdings, like your FICA, your Social Security, all the taxes you pay in your W-2 wages.

Then they're going to take the mortgage payment, minus that out of it. Then they're going to take your utilities on the home, right? And if you don't know what the utilities are, lenders will use a calculation. It's usually the square footage of the home times 0.14.

So if it's a 2,000-square-foot home, times 0.14, that comes into like 280 dollars. That will guesstimate what your utilities are. We're looking at childcare, we're looking at student loans, car loans—everything goes into this calculation.

And then at the end of the day, after all of that is spent, do you have at least a thousand dollars a month left over? And if you do, you qualify. And if you don't, you don't qualify.

So for example, I've seen deals where you might get an AUS approval, which is the automated underwriting system that all lenders use, that says, "Okay, your DTI is X; it works." But then you might not meet the residual income qualifications, and that can decline your loan.

So it's very important that veterans understand it, and any real estate professional, any loan officer who's working with VA clients, they understand the residual income calculation because that right there can make or break a deal.

So what I try to advise any veteran or anybody who's looking to buy a house is you not only just want to get pre-approved, you want to make sure that the lender that you're working with has the ability to submit your loan into underwriting while you're in that pre-approval status.

So that way, an underwriter can review your loan and get you what's called the pre-underwriting commitment or a loan commitment while you're still in that home-buying stage. Because now you know it's been reviewed by an underwriter; you know your commitment letter is legit.

It's not just some loan officer sending you a letter and saying, "Hey, you're pre-approved for XYZ; go out and house shop." And then when you get a house and then you get in a contract, you do all these inspections, pay for appraisal, and then you go to underwriting, you get declined because they didn't do the calculations properly from the very beginning.

It happens all the time. So that residual income is extremely important when it comes to VA loans for all veterans out there and for all professionals who are originating these loans.

That's a lengthy process.

Yeah, it's a lot of information, a lot of tape, a lot of paperwork that has to be filed. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but VA loans, and one of the reasons that people use it, and it's a great loan product, is that there's no down payment, correct?

It's 100 percent financing for a VA loan. Now, typically with a VA loan, if you are buying a house and you're the veteran, you can get up to 100 percent financing.

And another thing also, you can use the VA loan more than once. So it's not like FHA, where you have to refinance out of the FHA to use the FHA loan again.

With a VA loan, if you have enough eligibility on your COE, you can buy another property. It just has to be your primary residence. Now, on that second property that you purchase, you're probably going to have to put some sort of down payment because you used a lot of your entitlement already to buy your first home.

But necessarily, you don't have to refinance out of that initial property that you purchased to use your VA loan again. So it gives you the ability. I've seen people that have three or four VA loans all still active because they didn't burn up their eligibility by going out and buying a million-dollar, a million-and-a-half-dollar house the first go-around.

They probably bought a two- or three-hundred-thousand-dollar house, started slow, and worked their way up, and they still had enough eligibility to use their VA over and over and over.

So the VA loan gives you a certain amount of money, correct? Depending on where you live or just depending on your status of how you got discharged, depending on how long you worked, exactly how long you were in the military.

Exactly. So it's like you might have a million dollars. It's not that it's like—and I'm not even going to try to get into that. Go get the Home Buyers Blueprint; it's part of EYL University, volume one. We've kind of broken down the resource. You know, it's a great resource. It kind of breaks down the calculations and everything like that.

But essentially, yes, the Certificate of Eligibility will tell a lender if this is your first time using it, if you have used it multiple times, how much of your eligibility is available. And then there's a whole calculation that we have to do on our end to determine exactly how much of a loan we can get you approved for.

So it's a process on our end. If you have one, then you obviously get the additional properties. Are they looked at as investment properties? Because I know you said you can't use them as rentals.

So all of them, all four of them are primary. So when you buy the first one, you can rent it out after you meet your one-year requirement. Okay, and you can go buy a new primary residence and now turn that first property into a rental property.

Okay, so essentially, you're house hacking, but you're just doing it the non-traditional way.

Yeah, and yes, and you're using the VA loan again. Even if you have to put down a down payment—five percent, ten percent—you have no PMI, you're going to have a low interest rate, right?

So it's still a huge benefit for someone who's looking to use as much of the VA as possible because, look, they earned the benefits. Why not use it? Use it as many times as you can.

So some people might start off with a starter home—200, 250 thousand, whatever it is—and if they understand how to run the play, they'll continue to use their VA, move out of one, live in it for a year, move out another one, and keep going and keep going.

So if you do it the right way, you can buy a couple of properties using your VA loan and have all those VA loans still open, not having to refinance out of them.

All right, well, that's good to know. A lot of information when it comes to the VA loan situation.

So let's talk about—I'm going to cut you off.

I said that in your voice too. Don't mean to cut you off.

Well done, right? Well done.

So unless we—since I've said house hacking, I want to talk about multi-families real quick because this is very important.

Before that, don't mean to cut me off. I mean, I want to interrupt your wisdom, but that one other disadvantage, right? So those are some of the advantages. And I know people have said, like, does every lender offer VA loans? Are there things that veterans should look out for?

Good question. So not all lenders and loan officers are built the same. Just because someone offers a loan product doesn't mean they know how to close that loan product. It doesn't mean they're well-versed in that loan product.

So for the majority, yes, all lenders will offer a VA loan. And I want people to understand this, right? There's a lot of lenders out there that will have the name of their company sound military-ish. That doesn't mean the VA is endorsing them.

So a lot of people will go to these lenders because it sounds like it's military, and it's a military mortgage company or something like that that is VA endorsed, and it's not. The VA doesn't endorse one particular lender over another. That's just a marketing tactic.

And you have to be careful, especially your veterans, because a lot of times these companies are offering you higher fees and higher rates than someone like myself or a mortgage broker or mortgage banker.

So you got to be—they may not have military slang in their company name, but that doesn't mean they can't get you a better deal. So I want people to understand when you're shopping for who's going to do your VA loan, don't just go with the company or the mortgage company just because they have some sort of military affiliation in their name because it's all a marketing tactic, right?

So that's number one when it comes to people offering VA loans. But again, not all lenders are built the same. Not everybody understands VA loans. These are easy loans if you understand what you're doing, but they can become very difficult if you don't.

And again, the residual income is one of the big things that I see people mess up on because they never heard of it before, and they don't know how to calculate it.

But for multi-families on house hacking, if you're a first-time homebuyer and you're buying a multi-family property and you're looking to use the rental income to qualify, unfortunately, the VA doesn't allow that.

In order to use rental income to help you qualify for a multi-family using a VA loan, you have to document that you have at least 12 months of experience in property management or owning a multi-family property.

So if you don't work in a property management field, if you don't have a multi-family currently, and it's not filed on your taxes and we can see that you've owned it for a year and you're collecting rent, then unfortunately, you will not be able to use the rental income to qualify you.

Now, if you do have that experience, then the VA will require at least six months of reserves of your mortgage payments. So if your mortgage payment is a thousand dollars a month, we're going to require at least six thousand dollars in your bank account post-close and after you pay your closing costs left over.

So I want people to understand using a VA loan to house hack by multi-families—if you're dependent on the rental income to qualify, you can be up for a rude awakening. You will have to qualify using your own income to purchase that multi-family.

All right, so let's get another topic in—construction loans. This is something that, you know, me and Troy are going through right now with buying a home. A lot of times, people don't even realize that there are different loans that you have to take, even when you get into the mortgage system.

All mortgages aren't the same, correct?

So it's like a construction loan when you're actually building a house from the ground up, correct?

The financing is different.

Very different, and it's a lot more strenuous. Well, I'll let you talk about it, but a lot of—I don't think people would know that unless they've actually done it before.

So building a house, you know, it can have some advantages, but you have to know what you're getting yourself into before you decide if it's going to be a good decision or not.

Absolutely. So what's the deal with the construction loan situation, man?

Construction loans—and once again, construction for—not construction like you're going to build an apartment building. Like, this is if you buy a plot of land, correct? And you just want to build your house as opposed to building a house, buying a house that's already built, correct?

So, you know, typically, like you said, you buy—you get a piece of land, and now you need funding for it. So there are two ways you can go about it. If you're the consumer, if you're the homebuyer, you can buy the land or cash, which I would recommend.

Whether it's cash or you use a credit card, whatever means you find to buy that piece of land, because I feel like this is the easiest way to do a construction loan. And then now you go to the bank to get a construction permanent loan.

Now, that construction permanent loan is basically treated like a refinance now because since you already own the property, so there's no rush to get your plans and your permits and things of that nature.

Because what most construction loans—when you're talking primary residences, which this conversation is about—the bank is only going to give you a construction time of 9 to 12 months.

So we all know permits can take six months. So if you do a one-time close construction loan, which is you're buying the land and trying to get the construction loan simultaneously, and you're using the bank for the financing of the land as well, that's when I see problems arise.

Because you're not technically the owner of that property, so you can't go out and submit architectural plans to the town that you're buying the property in until after you close. Because you technically don't own the property unless the seller of the property is willing to submit the plans on your behalf, which in most cases, they're not going to do that.

Right? So it's much easier for you to acquire the land on your own, then use the bank for the construction loan to build your home. And the reason being, again, is because architectural plans can take, depending on the scope of your work, that can take two to four months, depending on how busy your architect is and how efficient they are.

And when you get plans, you're going to go back and forth to adjust things of that nature. So if you're doing a one-time close construction, that means you're in contract and you have a time clock already to close with the seller, right?

They don't want to sit there and wait four or five months for you to get your plans together before you close. So again, that can cause a delay, and it can cause some strain between you and the seller.

Now, if you got an architect who's on it, they can get you plans in 30 days, cool, you can do the one-time close. But again, another con of that is after closing, now you have to submit those plans to the town to get approval.

And depending on the county, it's hit or miss, right?

And then just hit or miss for plans. I mean, New York is kind of like—I don't want to say anything negative because, you know, but it kind of gets to the best of interest.

Yeah, it gets kind of crazy, and it could be a lengthy process. So now if you're in a time clock to build and the lenders only give you 9 to 12 months, and some lenders will give you an extension of an extra two to three months on top of that, you've done wasted half of your time just waiting on the plans to get approved by the town.

So my recommendation for construction loans and anyone who's looking to build their first home or their dream home is to acquire the land first. Acquire the land first, have a dope architect who understands the urgency of what you're looking to do, get your plans and everything drawn up because you already have the home now or the land.

So you don't have to rush. And now once you have your plan submitted, then apply for your construction loan because now it's more like a refinance. There's no time clock; there's no sellers. You can take four months to close; it doesn't matter.

And once your plans get approved, then close on your construction loan, then boom, you can start your construction pretty much immediately.

Yeah, so let's talk about the other way when you have a lender that will do both—give you construction and the construction loan for building it and then actually having the house built itself, right?

So there's two pieces. You're paying for both. I think the misconception—this is something we kind of learned through the process—like you get that time frame to build, and then, you know, you do that with your building. They'll say it's between six to 12 months we can get this house built, correct?

Right, but you're at the mercy of the town, correct?

Because—and the builder and the engineers, correct? And the architects, correct?

What's your paying for a house that you may not even live in, right? Because sometimes the building process may take 16 months.

Absolutely. And so like for a year, you might be paying interest, but after that 12 months, now you're going to be paying that full loan.

So yeah, talk about that and the importance of having residual income in situations like this.

Yeah, so when you get a construction loan, first, it's an interest during the construction period. It's interest-only payments. So like you say, you're going to be paying a mortgage payment. You have to pay your property taxes. You have to pay your homeowners insurance and builders insurance. You're going to need builders insurance as well to protect yourself on that end.

But yeah, you're going to have a payment. So if it drags out, you know, and the lender says, "Okay, now it's time to convert from the construction to permanent," now you're going to be paying a mortgage payment that's going to be higher because now it's principal and interest that's going to be included into your mortgage payment.

And so your first 12, 16 months is all going to be interest-only. And that's why it's very important if you're going to take the leap of faith and build your own home, especially if you're going to act as your project manager, you're hiring your GC, you're hiring your builder, you're hiring all these folks, and you're not buying directly from a builder, right?

You're hiring everybody. You have to make sure you know what you're doing, and you're hiring the right folks because folks will sit here and over-promise and under-deliver you and kill your entire timeline, which ultimately is going to cost you more money as the homeowner.

So it's very important that you make sure you vet out your team because your team has to understand the urgency of you getting it done, the timeline, and they have to understand how they get paid as well.

Because there's a process of how they get paid. So when you close on a construction loan, the lender is only going to give you 10 percent or a max of 50,000 within 10 days, 14 days after closing.

And typically, that money is used to cover, you know, demolition, permits, plans, you know, things of that nature—your soft costs, right? But the lender—I mean, the builder will have to be able to front that job.

So let's just say that the build is going to cost a million dollars, fellas, to build, and they only release fifty thousand dollars. But the first phase of the project is going to cost you a quarter million dollars.

So now what? What does that 200,000 come from?

Right, that 200,000 has to come from the builder. They have to be in position to start that job, complete phase one, then the lender will send out an inspector to inspect, you know, phase one to make sure all T's are crossed and I's are dotted.

And then the inspector will go back to the bank and say, "Okay, you can release the draw of 200,000," and then now the builder gets paid that 200,000, and then they move on to phase two, and it goes on like that until the job is complete.

So it's very important that you understand your builder understands how they get paid and they are liquid because a lot of builders out here are not liquid as well.

So you can't pick the builder just because they might have given you the cheapest price.

So how do you notice that they are liquid or not?

The lenders will vet the builders as well. There are a lot of lenders out there that use third-party companies. I'm not going to mention their name because they don't endorse us, right?

And they will have to see the liquidity of the builder—the bank statements, do you have Amex's, whatever it is—to make sure that they are liquid to be able to do this job.

Because the lenders, again, they're putting out a million dollars on construction. They want this house built. They don't want to own the property, especially if it's something that's not built right.

So it's in their best interest as a lender to make sure that the builder can get this job done and they have the experience to get it done as well. Because a lot of people talk the talk, but they can't walk the walk.

So that's why, again, like a 203K, I like to call a 203K the training wheels for investors.

So a construction loan, when you're going through like the conventional way for a homeowner, is kind of like training wheels if you want to get into development as well because you have the lender by your side and the inspectors by your side that work for you and the lender to protect you against the builders.

Because, you know, we all say contractors are—you know what I'm saying.

But the bank is always going to make sure that they protect the investment at the same time.

So what happens if it's not going right? Like what, as a customer, what recourse do you have if the contractor isn't doing what he's supposed to be doing? It's not moving at the timeline that's supposed to be moved there.

Like what can you do?

You can fire them, but then now you start from square one again, right? Now you have to find a new builder. Now they have to give you their course. Now that's new paperwork that has to get submitted to the bank, right?

So it's a whole process that if you're doing this post-closing, right? You're doing it post-closing, and you're already in your project. It's like anything. If you do a bathroom over in your house and you don't like the contractor and you fire them, now the new contractor is going to come in and say, "Well, their work is not good."

So now I've got to tear all their work down and restart it over again. So now the cost will be more than what you anticipated.

So you have to weigh out what's the opportunity cost really of me firing my contractor right now or my builder at the phase that I'm in right now because I'm already started, and it can wind up costing you more money.

Now, if they're just negligent and they're just disrespectful and they're just not really there, then obviously you're going to have no choice but you got to handle your business because you are a CEO. This is real estate, right?

So you have to fire them. But I understand there's going to be now a whole new vetting process that down the lender is going to have to do. And then ultimately, if they're going to charge more than what the scope of work is already approved, you're not getting any more money.

So where's that extra money—if they're going to charge you an extra 50, 100K, where's that extra money coming from?

It's coming from you because you decided to fire them. So it's best while you're in the underwriting process, if you're going to make any changes with your contractor or your builder, it's best to do it while you're in the process.

Because if they come with the highest scope of work, then you can protect yourself easier and reapply—or not reapply, but you can ask for a request to see if you can get more of an approval to compensate for that extra money.

So you just have to make sure, again, vetting out your people to make sure that they are who they say they are.

If I'm looking to build a new property and I'm trying to find land, I know you can vet everybody on that side, but is there any way to—or is there a database that you can vet the town engineer or the county engineer or the building department?

Is there any way to do that? Because a lot of times—and we've seen it personally—they're the ones that are holding up the whole thing, right?

Like I might not move to that town or I might not try to develop there if I know there's going to be that type of delay.

If they have a history of that?

So typically, when you're applying for permits and stuff like that, you would want to hire an expediter, right?

And the expediter is someone who works within the town or has a relationship with them, and they're able to push the paperwork through in a timely manner.

But ultimately, again, it's relationships, right? Like if you hire a great architect and they have good relationships within the town because they're doing a lot of business and they're doing a lot of jobs, then they might not need to hire an expediter because they know Mary Sue over here in this department, and their sons go to soccer together, right?

So they can have that type of conversation and kind of try to get things pushed through. But that's hit or miss as well.

So no, is there a way to vet? Really, not. It's kind of the luck of the draw, and you have to put your plans in as complete as possible because sometimes they'll come back and they want corrections to your plans, and then you got to go back and forth as well.

So it's unfortunately one of those situations. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. The town is always going to come back with something. They're always going to want some sort of correction, and there's always going to be some back and forth.

And that's why your architect and builder is probably one of the most important roles because they have to be quick on their feet. Some architects are just slow as hell to change something.

So minor to us, it might take them 30 days. That's setting your timeline back, right?

So again, I think not—and that in the building department, you need to vet the architect to make sure that what's their turnaround for changes, what's their relationships with the town that you're building in, how many jobs have they submitted in the last 60, 90, 12 months, right?

These are questions when you're interviewing an architect. Just don't go off the referral like, "Oh, he's a great architect," and this, that, and the third. Nah, chill. Ask the questions, right?

This is your house. This is your business. You own the property. You're responsible for the mortgage payment—nobody else. So you have to make sure whoever you're hiring, you have to make sure they can get that job done and they have a sense of urgency too, right?

And because a lot of these folks, they just don't have it.

So let's talk about build-to-rent financing.

Build-to-rent financing, yes, investors. Build-to-rent financing is something that's happening nationwide from a mom-and-pop level and also from the institutional level, right?

So build-to-rent financing, you can buy them in your—you can get these. Basically, it's the same thing as a construction loan. You find a plot of land or an older property, and you want to build a multi-family building—five units, ten units, what have you.

In most cases, you want to have some sort of experience with investing, number one. So most lenders, if you're a first-time investor, they probably won't lend to you on build-to-rent financing because you just don't have the experience of being a landlord.

So that's number one. So this is really not like a first-time homebuyer type of product. It's for the real estate investor. Everything is in your LLC; it's not in your personal name, just like when you're buying a turnkey property.

But essentially, it's the same like a construction loan. You're getting a loan from the bank to build the multi-family that ultimately you're not flipping the multi-family; you're going to rent it out. It's a new construction multi-family, and you can do this product nationwide.

So it's a great product. Right now, interest rates are going to be a little bit high on a higher level just because of the market that we're in. So you have to make sure the numbers still work.

But traditionally, for this type of financing, you can expect to need to be able to put down at least a 30 percent down payment—25 to 30 percent down payment—plus your closing costs to get this done.

But again, it's the same thing. You need architects, you need to get your plans, you got to submit for permits, you need a construction crew. Your construction crew has to have experience with building multi-families.

So it's not like you have a wake-up and say, "I'm going to do build-to-rent," right? You have to have a team in place that can actually get the job done. Because now when you get to building a 10-unit, a 15-unit, a five-unit, whatever it is, it's a lot more work that has to be done from a design standpoint to make sure everything's cold, and they're now submitting that to the town.

So you got slightly higher interest rates, correct?

You're going to put more of a down payment, correct?

But on the flip side, new builds always attract premium customers.

Absolutely. And so you'll probably get high rental costs from the renters. And new construction, new builds always require, for the long term, at least for the immediate future, fewer maintenance costs when the people are in there.

Absolutely. Are there any other hidden advantages that are inside of this loan?

Well, I can tell you about some cons before I go into some advantages, right? So let's look at when you're doing anything build-to-rent. Remember, this is an investment, but it's going to take time for you to recoup your investment, right?

Because you got to think about this—depending on where you're building that, and to just get the plans approved, that could be six months, eight months alone, right? Then you have to build the property.

Building the property can take a year, maybe a little bit longer. So you got to figure your first two years, you have no income coming into this property. And then now you have to go out here and rent the property.

And depending on the market at that time, you might be attracting—two years ago, hey, the rents are here, I'm going to make X, right? Or construction costs is this. But if construction costs go up while you're filing your permits, that can blow up your numbers too.

Let's say rental income goes down or rental income goes down in your neighborhood; that can blow up your numbers as well. So there's cons with doing any type of build-to-rent type of financing.

So I want all of our folks who are watching this to really understand you can't have these lofty numbers because a lot of times people will come and say, "Oh, I'm going to charge this. I know the market is this, but I'm going to go to here."

No, you can't depend on that, right? Because you got to always plan for the very worst-case scenario.

Now, on the flip side, you're forcing appreciation. That's really the truest way to build wealth with real estate is now you're forcing appreciation.

Right now, we're still in an appreciated market. Although home prices and values have come down, they haven't gone negative, right?

So you're forcing the appreciation. If you're able to get good costs with materials, you can probably find yourself to have a lot of equity in that multi-family that you're building.

And then now you'll be able to refinance out of that loan, get into—and possibly take some cash out now so you can go and do another project.

So build-to-rent financing is a great product, but it's strictly for experienced investors—not for freshmen.

Not for freshmen, not for freshmen, not for freshmen.

You really have to have a team, and I would advise anyone who's looking to do any type of build-to-rent financing, any type of deal like that, get some partners who know what they're doing.

Because it's a lot to try to develop property, and if you're a rookie, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. And it's almost sometimes better to either pay for some sort of consultant or mentor because that will save you a lot of time, time mistakes, and money.

So I would highly advise anyone who's looking to do this for the first time to get some real people in that circle that can really help them and guide them.

So that way you learn—you’re paying for it, but you're earning while you're learning, so to speak.

So what about people—you made a video, I think about this—when putting a house in your name as opposed to putting the house not in your name so people can't find out where you live, different things of that nature?

Yeah, what's the deal with that?

So when you're buying a property, and if you're using a non-QM loan—a non-QM loan is a non-qualified mortgage that basically means that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA won't purchase that loan in the secondary market, right?

This is a portfolio loan, which more non-traditional lenders will use for non-traditional buyers.

Now, if you're buying a primary residence, there are several lenders out there that will allow you to buy that primary residence in your LLC name, right?

We are living in the post-pandemic era where a lot of people made a lot of money over the past two years, and folks are buying, you know, their mini-mansions and their mansions right now.

And if you don't want the world to be able to find you, the best way is to put it in an LLC so that way they can't Google your name and find you because it's an LLC.

So now the mortgage is in the LLC name, the deed of the property is in the LLC name, you own the LLC, the LLC owns the property.

So it's the same way as if you're buying investment properties and putting them in an LLC. But this just so happens to be your primary residence.

So there are several lenders out there that will allow you to do this. But again, interest rates-wise, right now, non-QM loans are going to be in that seven to nine percent range, just depending on the lender and the deal that you're doing.

But it can get done. I've done several loans like that over the past 24 months where I'm working with celebrities or influencers, and we're using these products to kind of shield their identity.

And then also, when you set up the LLC—and this could be a brand new LLC too, by the way. It doesn't need established business credit. You can have a minimum of a 640 credit score.

Obviously, the lower the credit score, the higher the interest rate. But the key to this is when you open up the LLC, you know where it says you open an LLC, it says registered agent.

You don't put your name there as the registered agent because if someone looks and in some way, somehow finds that LLC and your other name is the registered agent, then obviously they're going to know you own it.

So you got to have another registered agent's name there so that way you'll show that as well. But yeah, that's a play right now that we're using on a daily basis.

So what's the highest interest?

It's a higher interest rate. It's going to—if you have a lower credit score. But if you have 700-plus credit scores, because you're still personal guaranteeing the loan, I want to make that clear too.

Although it's going in the LLC's name, you as the owner are personally guaranteeing it. So if you try to skip town and not pay the bank, okay, they're going to just put it on your personal credit, and then they're going to come after you.

So yes, the higher the credit score, the lower the interest rate. And in today's market, that lower rate will represent probably somewhere in the sevens, the higher nine, ten percent, especially if you're in the low 600 credit score.

So there are ways—and I saw you post this as well—other ways to lower the interest rate. Obviously, we've seen them going up over the past 12 months, and it's come down slightly over the past month or so.

Are there ways that we can use or strategies we can use to lower our interest rates when it comes to financing for our primary residences or, well, let's say primary and maybe, I guess, investment properties?

So yeah, if we're talking the traditional route, right? Conventional FHA, you could do what's called a 2-1 buy down.

Right now, a 2-1 buy down is—it used to be popular during the wild cowboy days. It was totally underwritten differently, but now I like the way the program is.

So basically, essentially, as is a 2-1 buy down, you need a sales concession to fund this buy down. The borrower cannot use their own money to do the 2-1 buy down.

So how it works is a lender—let's just say you're doing the FHA loan. Let's just say today's rate is five and a half percent on our 30-year fix, for example.

The first year, your interest rate will be 3.5 percent. The second year, the rate will be 4.5 percent. And year three to maturity date will be the note rate of five and a half percent.

So the lender will determine how much money are you saving between three and a half percent and five and a half percent and four and a half percent and five and a half percent.

So let's just say over those two years, you're saving a combination of ten thousand dollars, right? You need to get a seller's concession of ten thousand dollars to fund that 2-1 buy down.

And that essentially will give you the opportunity to have a lower rate for the first couple of years, kind of like a teaser rate, so to speak.

But it's a 30-year fixed program, and the idea behind this is—and this is why lenders started bringing this program back when rates jumped up—is because, you know what? Lenders are still going to lend. We're going to be creative; we're going to figure this out, right?

It's totally legal, so we're going to bring back products that make sense for all parties involved. This is a way to make home ownership affordable over the first couple of years while we ride the wave of this current cycle.

And when rates tick down, there's going to be a refinance boom in the next 12 to 18 months, maybe sooner.

Right? Now, another way is to buy down points. Buying down points—now you can fund this with a sales concession, or you can use your cash out of your bank account to buy down points as part of your closing costs as well.

And one point is equivalent to one percent of the loan amount. So if you're buying, let's just say it's a 500,000 loan, one point is five thousand dollars, and that will bring your rate down, depending on the lender, a quarter of a point to three-eighths of a point.

So if it started off at five and a half, you brought a point, it would go to 5.125 or five and a quarter on a 30-year fix. And each point you buy will knock down a quarter to three-eighths of a point.

So that's also another way that you can bring down your interest rate. But ultimately, the way to lock in the lowest rates possible is to have the highest possible credit score that you can have, especially in today's market where, you know, even if you have a 700 credit score, you might not still get the lowest rate.

Whereas a year ago, that still would give you a great rate at 700, 720. Now you really have to be in that—if you're going conventional, you really have to be 740, 760 and higher right now to really get that whatever that national rate that people see online with no points.

You really have to be in that higher upper echelon of credit when you're talking conventional. Now FHA, you can have a 680, 700 credit score and still get a great rate with those scores.

So in that first scenario, going from that example—3.5 to 5.5—after it gets, let's say after that third year, is it capped at the 5.5?

Correct, it's capped, right? So it's not an adjustable rate.

Correct, it's not an adjustable rate. It's a 30-year fixed mortgage.

But speaking of adjustable rates, that's another way. But adjustable rates, you got to really look at the math and see does it make sense for me to take this adjustable rate because a five-year—so adjustable rates are typically fixed for five years, seven years, or ten years.

And then after that, it adjusts for the life of the loan. Depending on where the market is, the rate can go up and go down.

So folks who had adjustable rates prior to the pandemic, they won because their rates—if there was an adjustment phase, their rates dropped down. So they didn't really necessarily have to refinance and pay closing costs and things like that because the market was in their favor.

Now, on the flip side, huh?

Same difference.

So I advise all my clients and people who I was speaking to who had adjustables, you might as well get out of it because the 10, 15, 20, and 30 is the cheapest it's ever been.

So it doesn't make sense to play the rest.

But in this market, adjustable rates make sense for someone who is not looking—and they know they're not going to stay in the home for the long term. This is not a 30-year play for them; this is a five-year play.

So if you know I'm going to be in this house for five years and I'm just using this as my starter home, I wouldn't recommend getting a five-year.

I would probably say do a seven or ten because life happens, and you never know. And if you see an opportunity to refinance over the next couple of years and you still own that house, take advantage of the refinance opportunity as well.

So adjustable rate mortgages can work if it makes sense. But in most cases, from what I'm seeing, sometimes it just doesn't make sense.

Now let's talk about hedge funds buying single-family homes. What's the deal with that?

Big business! Look, I know there's a lot of chat on the internet about the housing market, and a lot of folks will tell you, "Don't buy a house right now. Don't do this right now."

I tend to follow the money. What is the money doing? The money is the institutional investors, and what they're doing right now, they're buying houses in the forms of billions and billions and billions of dollars.

So for me, the light bulb goes over my head and says, "Hmm, what do they know that we don't know?" These people are smart as hell; they're not stupid. And if they're buying homes, then why are we sitting on the sidelines?

Well, not us, but why are some of our audience sitting on the sidelines and waiting for a quote-unquote crash or anything like that to happen to get themselves in the game?

If you look at the institutional money out there, they're buying all of Georgia right now for the most part. You got Jeff Bezos and his back companies that are buying real estate. JP Morgan Chase has partnered with another hedge fund; they're buying billion dollars worth of real estate, right?

All of these companies, all these institutional investors are putting their money into the safe haven of real estate for a reason. And the purpose is because real estate is going nowhere, right?

Crypto was up to 60-plus thousand dollars; now what is it at? Stocks were up where, and where is that? If the housing market does crash, I can still go touch my house. The tenant still has to pay me. I'm still going to get the same cash flow because with inflation rising—even though it's coming down a little bit—people still have to pay the rent.

And if you buy right, there's always going to be cash flow coming in no matter what the market is doing.

So real estate will probably always be one of the greatest investment tools out there, especially because of the tax benefits that come with it. And you have to understand the tax play behind buying that much real estate as well.

So these people are rich and wealthy, and they're trying to hedge their taxes and minimize it too. So what's the best plan? Real estate, brick and mortar, because of things like depreciation, cost segregation.

There are a lot of different things that you can do to offset your wins. If you have huge capital gains, you can put that in 1031 exchanges and buy real estate, so you can defer your taxes down the road.

Real estate gives you all these plays that the wealthy use at scale to continue to grow their wealth. Whereas with us and our community, we like to listen to everybody else, but instead of following the money, the institutional investors are going to continue to buy real estate.

And also, playing devil's advocate, why is that too? Besides everything I mentioned, it's to keep the middle class middle class, right? To make America tenants, period.

Like the middle-class areas, they don't want you to own homes. They don't want you to be wealthy. They don't want you to be rich. They don't want you to build your wealth.

So they're buying all these properties, in my opinion, to keep the middle class at the middle class.

But like a lot of investors, like Julian Gordon, it's like it doesn't make sense to invest in multi—in single-family; invest in multi-family homes.

So this has contrary to that because this is billion-dollar entities. They're not buying—well, they're buying multiple, but they're buying single-family homes.

Yeah, because single families—so, you know, shout out to Julian first and foremost in the multi-family movement. But I understand his logic is if it's a single family, it's one income coming in. And if they don't pay, then somebody has to pay that debt.

Whereas it's a multi-family, you have multiple rents coming in. So if one person doesn't pay, you have four units; you still got three rents coming in that can cover, right?

So I understand that logic, but the reality of it is people live in single-family rentals longer than multi-families. The multi-family apartments are smaller than somebody who wants to live in the house.

So if you have children, you don't want to live in the hood where most multi-families are at.

And now New York is different, right? Because you can go to Brooklyn and be in Park Slope, and it's a 5 million dollar multi-family there, right?

So New York is just a different piece in itself, so I can't compare New York to the rest of the country. But if we've all traveled around the country and when you see multi-families, you don't see them in the suburbs.

You don't see them in the good school districts. You don't see them in where there's good stores and amenities and things of that nature in an area.

So most folks who have children, especially young children that want school districts, they want to live in a single-family home. They want a backyard and bar mitzvahs. They probably just can't afford to buy right now, but they still want to live good, right?

So America's institutional investors understand that this is why they're doing more build-to-rent properties, where they will build these communities for single families.

Traditionally, they would sell those and flip them. Now, with rent at an all-time high still, a one-bedroom apartment is on average nationally two thousand dollars. A one-bedroom apartment in New York right now averages six thousand dollars, right?

Looking at what's happening in New York, the empty office spaces are now being converted to what? Apartments, yeah, right?

So investors, especially institutional investors, are always going to find a way to make money. So it's no right or wrong way, whether a single family or multi-family.

To me, there's no debate, right? If you are—there are some areas where it might be better to buy a single family and rentals. I know a lot of investors that swear up and down about single-family rentals that won't touch a multi-family and vice versa.

Like the Julian Gordons of the world, they won't touch a single family; they want multi-family. So I think it's really about picking your poison and doing what works for you—not kind of following suit with everyone else—and understanding your numbers and what your ROI needs to be and then kind of moving on from there.

Do you think that's where—because I'm seeing a lot of commercial real estate being vacant. Do you think that is the way we're headed with this? Those commercial real estate spaces will now become rental properties inside?

Oh, it would be like a big conversion.

Oh, absolutely! I mean, when we were at lunch with Don Peebles, we were having that conversation too, where conversions—there's billions of dollars just in New York City right now that's being flooded into the market in these office retail spaces that are now—because look, look what happened during the pandemic.

Companies—people got to work from home. Why do I need to pay a hundred thousand dollars a month for that space?

So what are the landlords? And those are rentals, right? They're leasing; they're not owning these skyscrapers in these buildings.

So they'd rather pay the penalties to get out, then they can deduct it anyway off their taxes. So it's a whole play.

So it really doesn't—if they're a profitable company and they got a lot of money, it's not going to hurt them to get out of their lease.

But from the landlord perspective, it's going to hurt me now because I may—maybe I got the penalties and all this upfront money, but now I still got a vacant property.

So why not convert it? Because there's a housing crisis. I think America needs about 7 million homes right now to kind of balance out the housing market.

So why not, where you have all these cities and people now want the amenities that want downtown living? They want the New York City flair, so to speak, in smaller towns and things of that nature.

So why not create loss? Why not create one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms in the downtown area? Because now that's going to come in with more rent.

So you'll find people that will live in these as an apartment versus businesses that probably can't afford to rent them.

So it's a play that's going on, and it's billions of dollars that are being dumped into converting office spaces into apartments.

But how do you get licensed to become a realtor or loan officer?

Good question! And I don't think we ever spoke about that.

So to get a real estate license, I think it's cheap. It's a couple hundred dollars, right? A couple hundred dollar investment. You need to take a 75-hour course.

But you have to be over 18 years old, pass a background check, pass the class. Once you pass the class, then you have to submit for your license for the state that you're in.

And then once you get approved, you have to get sponsored by a real estate brokerage. And then once you get sponsored, they issue your license, and then ta-da, I'm a realtor!

So you really can become a real estate agent in 30 days, 45 days, depending on where you're located. And it's only going to cost you a couple hundred dollars to do so.

It's not an expensive investment. Now, on the flip side, just because you're a licensed real estate agent doesn't mean you're going to make any money.

The average real estate agent probably does one deal a year, if that, right? So twenty percent of the people in real estate that have a real estate license are doing eighty percent of the business.

I mean, it's like any sales professional. I'm pretty sure I'm going to use financial planners; the numbers were pretty much the same even on the loan officer side. It's the same thing.

So just because you got a license, it doesn't give you a license to print money. You have to go out there, and you have to network, and you have to really roll up your sleeves to get some business because it's not easy at all.

I think in New York alone, there's over 30,000 active real estate licenses. Thirty thousand people are not closing deals. It's not happening.

So, but it is—I believe that if you're looking to get into real estate and if you don't have the capital to get into real estate, go get a license. It's not going to hurt you because everybody knows somebody who needs to rent an apartment or do something like that.

There are so many different streams of income when you become a licensed realtor. You can rent apartments, you can sell homes, you can represent sellers, you can represent buyers, you can represent investors, developers, you can property manage, right?

You can do BPOs—broker price opinions—which is basically appraisals, right, on behalf of the banks. You can do short sale negotiations. You can wholesale because in some states now they're requiring you to have a real estate license to even wholesale properties, right?

So there are many different avenues of making money when you have your real estate license. You just got to figure out what's going to be your play and kind of stick to it.

Now also, to get your MLO license, to become a licensed loan officer, I believe you got to take like a 25-hour class and test. And then when you pass that, you got to take a federal exam.

You pass the federal exam, again, it's a couple hundred dollars for a couple hundred dollar investment to get licensed. Once you pass, then you have to get sponsored by a mortgage company.

But the same rules apply. It doesn't mean you're going to make money. But both careers could be six-figure careers, seven-figure careers if you really hit a lick and you really get good referral sources and you're out there putting in your work.

And just a full source of way to get information—most importantly, right information and resources.

Right now, you have a real estate license. Now you got access to MLS—the multiple listing service. Now you see all the homes that are being listed. You see who's listing the homes. You get access to the public records.

You get to learn how to navigate on the systems. You get to learn how to look for comparable sales, right?

So it's a lot of knowledge that comes with this. And if you get with the right brokerage, the right real estate brokerage will always offer training.

They'll always have mortgage professionals in their offices, like me, training you on loan products. They'll have title companies in your office. You'll learn so much.

So it's a great way to get started if you want to be a real estate investor is to start off by getting your license, earning some money. Now you're taking commissions, and now you start buying properties because now you start learning all the players, especially the local players in your area.

And now you can build a referral—I know people who got their real estate license and don't sell the house at all. They just a referral network. They refer to agents all over the country, and they'll just get all the leads, and they'll make 33 percent of that transaction, right?

So that's also another play too, right? So there's a lot that you can do with your real estate license.

Fees, Angie, I'm looking at you, man. And I remember, you know, it was March of 2019 when you sat down in the dining room.

And what I've seen, obviously very close up, is the growth, obviously, you in the real estate world, obviously in the social media world as well.

And I've listened to you over and over, and every time I hear you, I feel like you're being more—you're more educated than the last time, right?

So it feels like you're staying on top of the game. But I wonder now, as you look at it from where you stand, what's a missing link inside of real estate that nobody has tried to solve or nobody has found a solution for just yet?

What's missing?

I think representation matters in the real estate world. There's not too many black real estate mortgage brokerage owners and banks—mortgage banks out there.

Now, when you're in cities like Atlanta or Houston, where it's predominantly black, yes, you'll see more black real estate brokerages, more black mortgage brokerages or mortgage banks.

But when you're in like the Northeast, East Coast, I mean, how many black mortgage company owners do you guys know? I don't. I know—and I'm in this business for 20 years, and I probably say I know two or three black people that own a mortgage bank or mortgage brokerage.

So for me, what's missing in my career—I've been doing this now 20 years—is ownership. Most people think I own a mortgage company, but I don't. I just represent my team, and I represent my last name.

So for me, my goals have shifted, especially because of the past couple of years of what we've all been through together as a unit with EYL University.

We're doing events and traveling, and now becoming an international speaker, I'm going to definitely use that all the time now, Rashad. Thank you!

As you should! As you should!

First, he said I was the authority in real estate, and I'm like, "What? Also true!"

Now I believe him, and I'm living that, but that's another story, y'all.

But ownership for me is what matters. So now I'm in the process of getting my mortgage broker license to open up my own mortgage company, which I would—and turn that into a mortgage bank.

And hopefully within the next five years, take that mortgage bank public and have a couple billion-dollar valuation.

So for me, what's missing in my career right now is the representation of ownership. Because it's great to sit out here and do content. It's great to sit out here and teach people and do loans for people.

But how do I bring up the next—who's next, right? Who's the 20-year-old MG, the mortgage guy, who might watch this, and they might want to get into the business, but they want to work for someone that looks like them, that talks like them, that understands where they come from, right?

That's what I want to do. So it's easy for me now to hire people and have them a part of my team, right? But now I got to really do this for my last name.

How do I really leave the legacy of everything that I work hard for? And that's really what ownership, bro.

So yeah, so Garland Mortgage Group—hopefully I can get that name approved with the licensing and the feds and everything like that—coming soon.

But that's my next step is ownership and becoming one of the biggest black-owned mortgage companies in the world.

You have it, ladies and gentlemen! One last time before we buy USDA loans, let's talk about that briefly.

USDA loans—those are rural loans, right?

And believe it or not, there's a lot of rural areas in America, right? But it's, again, it's a hundred percent financed, and I believe the minimum credit score is 624.

Rural areas and urban areas, yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity to use these loans, and it's something that I don't speak about a lot at all because I don't do too many of these loans.

But it's a good program. You can buy 10, 15-acre homes that are sitting on these types of land where you can do that with a conventional mortgage. You can get great low interest rates.

There are some of the programs that have income restrictions on it, so you kind of have to check and see if there are income restrictions for the areas that you're looking to buy in.

But ultimately, it's a great loan for someone who's looking to own a lot of land, and you can get 100 percent financing with low interest rates.

Yeah, so it's a great program. But I'm not going to sit here and hold you up. I don't fund too many of these loans.

I can, you know, do a whole class on this at a later note, but for this purpose, I would just say Google is your best friend and kind of really look into it more.

Google's your friend, bro!

Google's your best friend, bro!

You have it! So how can people contact you for mortgages or buy a book? And then talk about the Real Estate Blueprint as well.

So applywithmg.com if you want to do a loan with me and my team. We're licensed in 21 states, pretty much from New York to Florida, Cali, Texas, Illinois, Rhode Island, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Chicago, Illinois.

I mean, I like Chicago. Shout out to Rashawn Scott. So we do a lot of deals over there.

So applywithmg.com. You can also go to my Instagram page, mgthemortgageguy. The link is in the bio, so set up a consultation with the team. We would love to help you guys achieve your real estate goals, especially if you're learning from me.

We'd love to help you. The book, House Economics and Real Estate Investors Manifesto—both are number one best-selling books on Amazon.

Two terms, two times. The third time's the charm, dog! Got another book coming out soon. Soon come in the book!

So I'm glad you brought that up, Rashad, because the bookstore is like my baby right now because I have a lot of information in my head, and I want to be able to provide people.

I want to be the number one source for real estate education in the world. So people like to read, although I'm not a reader per se. I know other people out there love to read books; they love to hold the book in their hand and just read it, right?

So for me, it wasn't enough just to put out courses and do webinars and do content. It was like, "How do I reach more people?" And that's where the bookstore and putting out books came into play.

So for me, I don't want to—you know, most people, they put out books a book every two years. I'm like, "Forget that! I could put out a book out five times a year if I really wanted to because the information is always changing."

And I can always do House Economics second edition, third edition, fourth edition, and so forth, right, as time goes on.

So the bookstore, you know, go to mgbookstore.com, and you can pick up some books. And then the Home Buyers Blueprint, volume one and volume two—volume three is coming soon.

It's part of exclusively part of EYL University. EYL University is the number one online financial literacy platform in the world, powered by Recession Proof.

We have, what, 27 chapters in there? We have the Home Buyers Blueprint, volume one, volume two. I mean, we have a whole calendar, man, and it seems like there's something going on every single day.

We have the book club with Troy and Greg. Shout out to Greg! We have financial planning calls with Rashad. You have break calls with me once a month as well.

And you have so many different things that are EYL University. So I would highly recommend you guys be a part of EYL University. They become our owner and take your financial literacy and your business and your education to the next level.

So yeah, go to eyluniversity.com if you want to get the Home Buyers Blueprint, volume one, volume two, and potentially volume three coming soon, and everything else that we have to offer in EYL University.

And what else? You asked me what else?

I think you just took my part, Matt!

27 chapters! What else? Come on, Troy!

I think you ran down everything, bro!

Yeah, chapter meetings, there will obviously be some events.

So yeah, it's new and improved.

Yeah, like I said, the biggest just got bigger.

So we really—yeah, it just got bigger.

Yeah, the biggest just got bigger! You know, you guys are on a world tour.

The biggest just got bigger, and it's only going to get bigger, God willing.

And I'm just happy to be a part of the ride. I mean, I remember the first episode.

First episode, I was nervous as hell. I called them after the episode and said, "Yo, can we just—can you not—can we not put that out? Can I put that out? I thought it was trash."

And they said, "Nah, you're good." I said, "Nah, bro, it's trash! Like, can we not put it out?" I was nervous as hell, and that thing took off.

And I'm happy that you guys didn't listen to me because it changed the trajectory of all of our lives.

And I'm very thankful for you two brothers for allowing me to always come back on the show and being a part of the network and having businesses together and just the friendship and the camaraderie and the brotherhood and the conversations that we have as individuals and as a group is very important to me.

So I want to thank you guys for everything that you—this guy called me like a month ago and says, "Yo, you're not hitting the mark," or something. And I'm like, "Damn, right?"

So these are the kind of conversations, and this is real. Your circle is important. Those are the type of conversations you need—people who are going to be honest with you.

That's in your circle, just not going to give you yes-man answers and stuff like that. Even when you're not asking them for their opinion, they'll still call you and give you their honest opinion without trying to get at you in a negative way.

Because you never know how people receive information too at the same time.

So I always appreciate when both of you guys call me on something and say, "Yo, MG, XYZ," or XYZ, like you did.

And you know what I'm saying? I'm appreciative of that, and I'm thankful for that.

So I always got to give you guys your flowers when I have the opportunity to, especially in a public setting like on your leisure podcast or on your leisure show—the biggest show in the world!

Love is love!

Appreciate it, brother!

EYLuniversity.com, Troy, shout out to EYL University, a shout out to everybody on Patreon, shout out to all of our earners that are out there that are just repping the brand.

I told you we started this thing out when we just said, "Yo, just one person a day," and that's grown into millions and millions of people.

So just a testament to hard work, a testament to networking and creating real relationships and real brotherhood.

And I hope when you hear Matt speak and all those kind words that he just said, that's just supposed to show you, like, you never know who's going to come into your life at what time.

But make the opportunity worthwhile, and I'm glad that we did that with you, my brother.

And there's a number of people that we've done that with. You know, we try to keep good relationships with everybody because you never know when you're going to need somebody or when somebody's going to need you.

So shout out to everybody out there that's been supporting