Alright. Good morning. Welcome to another Real Estate First Friday. My name is Matthew Hodge, executive vice president here at LBT Realty, joined by my co executive vice president, Louis Fuhrman. We're co VP. We're like cobros. Good. Co VPs. Good morning. Morning. Happy to be with you guys this morning. If you're joining for the very first time, each week, we are bringing on special guests. We're talking about things that elevate your business. Lewis and I sit in the unique vantage point of not only seeing what's happening at the market level from a brokerage competing, with other brokerages, but we have so much opportunity to speak with team leaders and solo agents and people who are specializing specific niches. And so we like to try to catalog that information as much as possible and then talk about it here on Real Estate First Fridays in kind of a macro level so that it gives you the opportunity to understand what elements you can pick and implement inside your business that makes sense for you. So, before I bring Tony Martinez on, which is our special guest from today who's from Extreme Realty in South Florida, I'll tell you a little bit about him. He, had a boutique brokerage of about two hundred agents, has the CDPE certification and teaches a lot of agents that process, which is around foreclosures and, you know, short sales and things like that. And and that's kind of near and dear to to my heart because that's really where Lewis and I started in the business. Yeah. For those who don't know, Lewis is also a real estate attorney, and our first professional overlap, was that I was out, selling houses, selling the assets, and Lewis was negotiating bad debt with the with the judges. So basically, meaning, like, he was going in for short sales. Hey. I need to sell my house. I owe more on it than what I can sell it for. Okay. What are we gonna do with that balance? Lewis would be the person who would stand inside the courtroom for you and negotiate that on behalf of the sellers, and then I would actually facilitate this the real estate transaction. So that was our first professional overlapping, and we got really good at it. We were doing twenty to thirty transactions a month. And, again, that was at that time that made sense for us to do. It's not as prevalent right now, but we believe some of that could be coming back. And so I'll turn over you. Yeah. No. For sure. I mean, it it was definitely a very crazy world. It's funny because, when we first started doing real estate first Friday when we would tell this story, I would say, oh, that was about ten years ago or a decade ago. Yeah. I'm gonna have to start adding over a decade ago because it's like time is warping so quickly that we start missing. I was I was about to say it was a decade ago. So it's I can't believe it's been over that. But, yeah, I mean, it's that's one of the things interesting with our industry is that there's always dynamics that are gonna be happening. There's always gonna be certain circumstances inside of our industry that could arise that will lead to a certain type of niche, you know, existing. And as realtors, you know, one of the things that, you know, is important for us to be prominent in is this, you know, being able to pivot and being able to pivot when circumstances arise and when certain situations occur to be able to adapt and adapt quickly. Right? Because the quicker we are able to adapt, the quicker we are able to position ourselves for that advantage that could possibly exist. And sometimes being able to adapt is recognizing the dynamic. You know, sometimes there is a dynamic in front of us that we may not see or may not understand that it's happening or the customer may not understand that it's happening in their lives. But if we are the proper consultant, we're able to see kinda beyond that corner and and kinda see beyond that situation and start positioning it accordingly. That's right. Okay. So we're gonna go ahead and situation and start positioning it accordingly. That's right. Okay. So we're gonna go ahead and bring in Tony Martinez. And, again, you know, if you think about the cycles of real estate, which is that, you know, there was a period of time where the short sales became a large part of the market. I know here locally, it made up about forty five percent of all transactions were short sales. And so, it doesn't mean that they've gone away completely. It's not the largest part of the of the market anymore, but they still exist. And so Tony's gonna talk to us about finding that within your market, because those still happen. You know? It again, it's not flooding our MLSs all day every day, but they're still out there. So if we could bring up, Tony, we'll bring him in here and give him an opportunity to walk us through. Hey, Tony. Good morning. How are you? Good morning. Good morning, guys. Welcome. Welcome. We are so excited to be with you this morning. Excited to hear kind of your thoughts. So I know we're gonna jump right we'll probably end around eleven thirty five, so I'll let you jump right in, introduce yourself, and and, you know, advance the slides as you as you need. So let's let us know. Alright. Sounds good. Listen. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's truly an honor to be here. And, I wanna give a shout out to my team and, my beautiful wife, Gabby, that, who is my boss. I answered to her completely. So if anybody else can relate, you know, as you mentioned, for eleven years, we had our own independent brokerage, Extreme International Realty in South Florida. Last year, we made the best business decision we could ever make, and that was to merge with LPT Realty. We brought about a hundred and fifty agents over, so we have kind of a different dynamic as far as our team. It's about a hundred and fifty strong. And, you know what? It has been a journey. It's been amazing, and we are excited about all the growth that, LPT is experiencing and being a part of it. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we are we are definitely looking to your expertise. Again, just another example of someone who has, you know, a unique vantage point because he's ran a large brokerage. He has a large team now and now has the opportunity to pour back into all of us and help us understand kind of some of the things that he has learned across, you know, over the last decade or so. So with that being said, Tony, we'll turn it over to you to to to jump in. Alright. Sounds good. I don't see the slide. There they are. Okay. Listen. One of the first things I wanna do is I'm very excited that LPT Realty, management, starting with RP appreciate the fact that this is an area of opportunity, an area that agents do need to address, and has formally endorsed the certified distressed property expert designation. That is a designation I used to work for back in two thousand and eight, nine, ten, eleven. It became the prevalent, short sale and pre foreclosure training class in the country. I'm sure there are a few folks on this call right now that are what we call OGs. They're part of the old guard or original gangster. I mean, you pick, that were CDPs back in the day, but we made a huge difference in helping people avoid foreclosure. One of the things that I want to definitely get across from the very beginning is that we are not in the REO business. The REO business, real estate owned, that's when people lose their home and the bank takes it back, and then agents line up in hopes of trying to get that business from them. No. We're trying to save people from foreclosure. We're trying to avoid the negative consequences. So what I wanna do today is give you as quickly as I can, some tidbits, and I go into a lot more specificity during the classes that I'm now teaching. We're doing a series of Zoom classes where I'm for an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, I'm really diving deep into the opportunities to make sure that all of us understand what it is and what it's not. So if we can go ahead and advance the slide, that would be awesome. We're in about you know what we are? We are preforeclosures. You know, I stopped using the term short sales to define my course because there is more equity in the market right now. That wasn't the case back in the day. But now, unfortunately, so many people that are losing their homes actually have equity, which is insane. Why aren't they enlisting with someone that can help them exit with dignity and walk away with as much cash as possible? And that's because, you know what, they're scared. They don't know the rules. They don't know the laws, and we don't have agents that are being assertive and aggressive enough. You know who is? The scam artists. They're the ones that are out there knocking on people's doors and getting them to sign over their leases, their, their deeds. So So let's talk about foreclosure, what it is and what it's not. Because if this is an area that you want to, excel in, you gotta know a little bit about these things. So if you can advance the slide, that would be great. And just kinda go this is what I try to teach. Okay? Foreclosure is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. Consumers don't know that. That's why they bug out. That's why they leave the property. That's why you have these things called zombie foreclosures, but we need to reach them before the actual sale date. Now short sales are done the same all over the country, but what is different, what is state specific is the foreclosure process. So homework assignment number one, find out what type of situation you have in your state. Is your state judicial, nonjudicial, or both? Judicial meaning it has to go through the courts. Nonjudicial, faster, more streamlined. Example, Florida, one hundred percent judicial. Now is mortgage default the only way somebody can be foreclosed on? No. They can lose their home through the association, and that's an issue. We gotta try to keep these folks current on their association payments because those guys are aggressive in taking properties away and also on property taxes. So it is a process that takes a while. Next slide, please. Now there's a law in place that says, hey, servicers. You can't even initiate foreclosure activity against these folks until they are a hundred and twenty days delinquent. That wasn't the case back in the day. So there is protection. There is time. Unfortunately, a lot of these people reach out to us when they have three days left before the sale date. Every state has a different name for the way they serve someone, the process. Florida is the less pendants. California might be a notice of default. It could be a complaint. Become familiar with how it's done in your state. You can take the listing up until the date that they lose the property. This is a common misunderstanding. You know what I love about preforeclosures? You're not lining up trying to get handouts from the bank. You can sit across the table from individual homeowners that have the right to list the property with whomever they want. We need to get that property listed on the market, under contract, negotiated, and closed before they lose the home. And there are strategies for delaying the sale date. I can help you with that. Find out if your state offers redemption like Minnesota and Michigan. They lose the home more quickly, but they could have up to a year to stay in the home afterward. That could be critical information. Next slide, please. Now what if they're underwater? See, that's what these gentlemen were talking about. That was very prevalent back in the day. A lot of folks think there aren't a whole lot of people underwater right now. That's not the case. Think about some of the folks that bought FHA two years ago. Top of the market, they only put three and a half percent down. They've missed several payments. You see where I'm going with this? More and more people are underwater on their properties. So what does that mean? Well, that means you need to know how to do a short sale. So I teach you soup to nuts everything you need to know. Is a short sale for everybody? Uh-uh. They must qualify. Next slide, please. There are three areas. First of all, something bad must be happening. I always teach agents. Ask them. What happened? What's going on? Because they have to document that there is a legitimate reason why they cannot make their payments and need assistance from the bank to exit with dignity. Next slide, please. The second thing that they have to show is that they have more month at the end of the money. They cannot ask the bank to lose a ton of money if they have more enough money coming in. So the seller has to cooperate. They have to provide full documentation. Next slide, please. Last and not least, the ideal candidate is insolvent, which means they are broke. Just a fancy word for broke. Well, does that mean they can't have any money in their IRA or if it oh, no. No. Of course. They can have IRAs. They can have four zero one k's, and the banks can't touch it. That is protected money. But you know what? If you're sitting on a hundred k in your savings account, that could be an issue for a bank being willing to lose seventy five thousand. So these are all the things that you need to know to prepare sellers to find out if they're truly a qualified candidate for a short sale. Next slide, please. Now I thought I'd throw you some tips, some things that you can use right now, this very moment to go out there and build your funnel. So if you go next slide, that'd be awesome. Now do this real quick. Right? Take a sheet of paper and draw three columns. Come on. You can do it. Three columns, a, b, and c. Under a, put seventy. Under b, put twenty. And under c, put ten. You got it? Eight seventy, b twenty, c ten. If you're gonna spend one hour a week or thirty hours a week working on preforeclosures, then you need to split your time up accordingly. Seventy percent of your time needs to be spent focusing on individuals, homeowners that already have a sale date. You're working backwards, folks. You know why? If you reach out to someone and it's very early in the process, they're not gonna wanna let go of the house. They like that free rent. So focus on individuals that have no choice but to take some kind of action because they might be days or weeks away from a sale date. Seventy percent. Twenty percent are for people that are already officially in foreclosure but don't have a sale date yet. Okay. That can change overnight, but their situation isn't as dire. Now ten percent of folks you don't even know exist because it's not public record. They're having them started foreclosure activity again. So but they're behind on their payments. How do you reach out to them? Social media. You gotta get really aggressive out there and letting people know. And write this down. These are the most powerful words you can use in your marketing. Ready? Foreclosure is not the only option. Where do you find the names of people in foreclosure? It's public record. Look it up in the courts, or just go ahead and subscribe to one of these places like Landvoice or Vulcan or RedX, and you can get the data. It's all about reaching out to them. We need to knock on their doors. We need to call them, verify that they're not on a do not call list. We need to mail to them. We need to put on foreclosure, prevention seminars. All of these things have to be done to get the message out. Next, please. Okay. Expired listings. Imagine, expired listings that were short sales. Oh my god. That can be at a powerful combination. They don't have the luxury of saying, we'll wait it out. No. Why did it expire? Did the hire with the wrong agent? Did they hire the wrong agent? Did, the deal not go through because of pricing? So do a search in your MLS. If there were expired and was a short sale, do two things, verify that they haven't relisted and verify that they haven't lost the property yet. Then go out there and reach out to them and say, paso? Why is it expired? You know that the property is still in foreclosure. Maybe I can help you. Next, please. I'm a huge fan. One more slide, please. Of the one to many approach to marketing. So you know what? Why not do foreclosure prevention webinars? Yeah. This is a way of reaching out to the entire state. Show them how they can potentially stay in their home, and if they can't stay in their home, show them how they can exit with dignity. Write those three words down, exit with dignity. Now if you never done one of these, I'll show you how. I teach CDPs how to do it. I've recorded me doing an actual one. I shared a recording with my CDPEs. I share my PowerPoint with the CDPEs, so there's no excuse. You can get it done. Next, please. Alright. And if you wanna find out more, just go ahead and tune in to these Zooms that I'm doing that are scheduled throughout, April and May where I'm basically going into a lot more specificity. I'm slowing down considerably, and I'm sharing all this information in the hopes that you make the decision to engage in this arena. And if you do, get the right training by becoming a CDPE. How'd I do, guys? Did I get through that content quick enough? Oh, yeah, man. You did, you did great. We, David's bringing us back here in a second. He's letting the QR code save just for a minute. Yeah. We we thank you so much for information. I get it. There's a lot to go through. You're giving us some high level overviews of how to think about it, how to identify who could potentially need the help. And if you are interested in adding this to your portfolio of of, I would say, skills, I think this is a fantastic thing for you to do. I thankfully had Lewis to guide me through the process, and so I came across the opportunity of needing to help someone and had the the good fortune of knowing Lewis who was on the inside negotiating and teaching me what to do. So I wish I would have known you then, because this would have been so great for me because it was, for a period of time, the largest part of our business. Like, we've focused solely on short sales. And then, again, as I started to wean off that we kinda had a a healthier, balance. But it's so important to understand this because you never know when the market is going to start picking this up. And if you wait until everyone recognizes a need, you're behind the eight ball. Right? So it's about understanding and having that, you know, information equipped upfront so that you can, you know, be prepared to to have that early thing. And one thing that you said also about being solvent, I apparently am not. My daughter rides horses, and so you said it's another word of being broke. Am I that's me? That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, as as we always recommend here, I mean, having a very diversified niche is is is very important. Right? And and we are in an industry that there's so many different categories of opportunities. You know, we talk about new construction, open house opportunities, and and so forth. This is just another one. Right? Like, why not be diverse? So that way, when you do have these opportunities arise, you're not foregoing any opportunity. Correct. Because you never know where that track will lead. You never know when you open up that door what's behind the next one, what's behind the next one, and what that can lead. And oftentimes, it could maybe lead to a passion that you discover. You know, you may do your first new construction deal or your preforeclosure deal, and you'll discover that you have a passion in this niche. Like, you love to communicate to your customers accordingly. But if you don't have the basic skill sets to be able to do it, it's gonna be very hard and challenging to overcome the dynamics that exist, you know, because, yes, this niche here, it is a relatively complex niche. There are a lot of moving pieces, especially in judicial states when you are dealing with court dates and, you know, motions and summary judgments and trials and sale dates and lawyers and you're negotiating short sales if they're underwater or you're trying to move the property. That's the there's this compounding effect, right, that happens. Like, once you start missing payments on your property, even though you have equity today, you can very quickly tip over and go to the realm of not having equity. Once the attorney fees kick in, the court fees kick in, the compounding interest starts kicking in, it's very easy to go from a, you know, you're in the long versus now you have to deal with the short sale dynamic. And being proficient in the area to be able to guide your customer through those conversations is very important. You know, I know one of the things that was, you know, big back in the day for individuals who were, like, right there with equity, agents didn't know how to consult their customers accordingly. And they're like, oh, yeah. You know, we can we can deal with this in three months because there's no pressing court dates currently in the horizon. Well, what happened three months later, it went from a long to a short sale. You know, the equity that was there was absolutely gone, and now it totally complicated the dynamic. Now you can't just go to the market and sell the property. You have to prove a hardship. You have to prove insolvency. You gotta submit these bank statements and and and and and tax returns and so forth and negotiate with the bank. Like, it totally complicated the dynamic, which it could have been stopped if three months prior, the realtor who was the person that the customer trusted, you know, gave the proper advice to not allow those three months to kinda move forward. So, again, having this knowledge is very important. It can definitely protect your customer. It can position them in a much better way, And then you are ultimately their expert. You know? You're gonna help guide them through a situation that you know, I love how how how Tony mentions, you know, exiting with dignity. Right? You know? That's a great way to say it. Yep. That is right. Okay, guys. Well, we're gonna cut it there. I wanna just, take a a kind of a final moment. I want to thank you, Tony, for for bringing this on. I hope that you guys found value in this. If you are interested in this, please attend his classes. They are fantastic. He's gonna arm you with everything that you need to know to really understand this area. And even if this is not something that you wanna go and and, you know, specialize into that degree, just think about how many opportunities you come by where you're like, well, hey. If I knew how to do this, I could get two or three opportunities a year. If I knew how to when someone is going through a divorce and I knew how to navigate that, like, that's another couple of deals I could do per year. If someone is, like, right on the edge of equity to your point and there might be, you know, like, if I knew these things, all these additional opportunities open up to me, what ends up limiting people is that they know how to do the basic sale. Hey, man. You don't owe any money, like, you know, you you owe enough on your house that you can cover it with the sale, and you got equity in the house, and there's no other circumstance, and I'm gonna sell your that's the basic sale. Right? But when you start adding some little complications to that, then it starts shrinking the pool of people who know how to do the transaction with expertise. And that is where you grow your business. You grow your business through expertise and knowledge. It's not just about letting people know, letting me letting them know that you're a realtor. It's about having expertise. Like, hey. Regardless of your scenario, I can help you because I'm an expert at real estate. And so we would encourage you to rethink about that. Yeah. Could I add a little bit of tinted here? Yeah. Absolutely. If if time permits, one, I do have noticed that over the years, after doing this for so many years, you do have to have a heart to serve to enter this arena because it's it's emotional. People are losing everything, and it is a hard, hard process. So you have to be committed to helping them and being that voice of logic and reason where no one else is. And that's why I focus so much on dialogue, what to say, when to say it, and how to say it because it is a different listing presentation. I teach you my entire listing presentation from the minute they walk in. In fact, from the minute you get on the phone with them. Secondly, this is a big tip. Always get a lien search on any property you list right now because people forget that they have HELOCs. Mhmm. People are were on forbearance agreements when forbearance was a big thing. They forgot that they put a loan at the end of the at, you know, an additional loan for twenty five, thirty thousand dollars. That can happen. I've seen a lot of agents take what they think is a regular listing and find out very late in the process that they're underwater or that the people have significantly less equity than they thought that they did. People ask us, are you associated with NAR? Absolutely not. We are a private designation and proud. Is it only Florida? No. It's a national course. It's a national designation. And I wanna give a shout out to you guys because when I first bought the CDPE, door after door after door from executives and high and and franchises all over the country shut their door saying, I don't want you bringing any potential bad news to my people. In other words, I didn't fit the narrative. I love the fact that you guys have the courage, the wisdom, the vision to say, you know what? No. The sky is not falling. No. It's not the end of the world. But this is real for the people that are going through it, and we should serve. We should be there to serve them. So thank you for giving me this opportunity. And my reward back is to make sure not only that they get the best training, but they're also getting superb pricing because you guys beat me up on the price. So they're getting great deal on my class. Well, you know, we're we're all negotiators. Right? And so no. We we definitely appreciate it, and we appreciate you, putting ahead of the the the the information ahead of anything else. Like, hey, guys. Listen. I wanna make it so attractive that people can you know, it's a no brainer for them to to digest the information and then to want to to be a part of the course. And so we thank you for your generosity there as well too. Okay. So we're gonna go ahead and leave it today. I'm gonna give you a quick preview of what next week is gonna be like. We are gonna be back in studio on motivational Monday. Robert Palmer will be back inside of LPT headquarters. It is gonna be a session where you can attend live. So a link went out earlier this week, that gave you the, the ability to RSVP if you wanna attend in studio. I think we've got about a hundred and fifty seats available. I think we were almost at capacity already. So if that's something that you wanna do, please make sure that you reach out. Another email will go out this Sunday with the ability for you to attend live as well. Of course, as always, you can attend via Zoom. That will kick off our two week Ascend training spring marathon, and that is gonna be three to four classes a day where we are breaking down specific things. So on Monday, you'll hear the details of kind of the full week on motivational Monday, but then immediately after that, at a at sorry. At two at three o'clock and I believe four o'clock that day, we'll start in the content of those classes, and that's where we're gonna be breaking down the actual power pack. We've got guest speakers coming in like John Cheplak and Bill Pipes and Matt Miale, like, and all these things that will help you about mindset and things like that. So it's gonna be a great two weeks. It kicks off this Monday, so we're so excited for that. And one thing I wanna give you a quick preview. So you may not be familiar with, showing time showing time plus showcase, and that's basically the ability for your listing to show up differently online on Zillow platform where you see the ability to click on the pictures, and it shows a three d tour, and it has an elevated listing, and it has that boost. It goes to more people in the in the specialized emails. We have a contest on Friday I'm sorry, on, Monday at four PM that if you attend that class, you will actually receive, I believe, one or two of those tokens for free. And depending on where you are, that could be up to a thousand dollar value. So I know it's, like, for a million dollar plus price homes that's, like, a a thousand dollars for you to do that, if you like, in California. We will have that giveaway on Monday. So I wanna kinda tease some of the things that are coming, available. So that will be Monday at four PM. That's gonna be taught by them, and we're gonna be giving out those tokens for you to elevate your listings into the spring season. So It's gonna be a lot of fun, man. The studio looks amazing. They're doing the last minute touches. The Ascend Campus University is looking amazing. The two week marathon is gonna be a lot of fun. You know, it's gonna be exciting to see a lot of these nationally recognized coaches, you know, pouring back into the LPT community, and the content is gonna be amazing. So we're looking forward to these next two weeks. We're gonna have a lot of fun together. Yeah. Definitely. Alright. Hundred thousand dollars in cash and prizes over the next two weeks. And so make sure you get your unfair share advantage of that. Again, thank you so much, Tony, for your time today. We very much appreciate it. We will see you guys on Monday. Have a blessed and prosperous weekend. Take care.