DJ Olojo - Helping Homeowners Successfully Navigate Foreclosure
Feb 15, 2024Episode 210
Mike Swenson / DJ Olojo
DJ Olojo is a real estate investor, Realtor, podcast host of "The Foreclosure Fix" and Managing Director of ASO Custom Homes, LLC. His mission is to help 1 Million homeowners successfully navigate foreclosure. With more than 15 years of real estate experience, including purchasing foreclosure properties on the courthouse steps, he is the go-to expert on residential foreclosure. He also is the author of the book, "The Foreclosure Fix: 12 Proven Steps To Beat The Bank, Escape Foreclosure, and Turn Your Property Into A Profitable Asset."
DJ Olojo is a real estate investor, Realtor, podcast host of "The Foreclosure Fix" and Managing Director of ASO Custom Homes, LLC. His mission is to help 1 Million homeowners successfully navigate foreclosure. With more than 15 years of real estate experience, including purchasing foreclosure properties on the courthouse steps, he is the go-to expert on residential foreclosure. He also is the author of the book, "The Foreclosure Fix: 12 Proven Steps To Beat The Bank, Escape Foreclosure, and Turn Your Property Into A Profitable Asset."
I have had the experience to talk to thousands of homeowners who find themselves facing foreclosure and, as I told you, when I started in real estate, I started buying houses on the foreclosures for courthouse steps, and we still do that to today, right. And so I have seen what happens when people take action, do the things they need to do and are able to avoid foreclosure. And I've also seen what happens when people roll over, play dead and act like this is not happening.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Real Freedom Show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Real Freedom Real Estate Leverage Freedom talking about how we can build time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, mike Swenson, and if you're interested in getting started on your real estate investing journey, go check out our website, freedomthroughrealestatecom. It's got some articles, great resources and, obviously, links to our podcast to help you get over the hump, get off the sideline and get into building your financial freedom through real estate.
Speaker 2:
So today we are going to be talking about foreclosure. There's a topic that we haven't talked a ton about, but we've got DJ Alojo here and he is the expert on foreclosures and other things, and so his goal is to help one million homeowners successfully navigate foreclosure. You're the host of the Foreclosure Fix podcast, also an investor, and you just had a book come out called the Foreclosure Fix, and so we will talk about why you wrote that book, some of the key concepts of the book and how you can help people avoid foreclosure. So thank you so much, dj for coming on the show.
Speaker 1:
Man, thank you so much for having me, Mike.
Speaker 2:
Share a little bit about your background and we'll go from there.
Speaker 1:
So I am from Detroit originally and at the time we were recording this podcast. My Lions have just lost and so I'm a little heartbroken right now, but I don't want to put it be a Debbie Downer on your podcast, but I just have to throw it out there for all the sports fans out there.
Speaker 2:
Hey, all the other teams have lost prior to that, so you just be excited.
Speaker 1:
You made it that far right, hey, mine's a little bit more fresh, but I get it. I get it, I believe you. So, born and raised in Detroit, went to undergrad in Tennessee and my first job out of college I was a consultant and I moved from Tennessee to. I grew up in Michigan, moved to Tennessee and then I moved to Atlanta. And while in Atlanta, me and some of my buddies, this was around circa 06 timeframe and so me and some of my buddies were like, oh man, you know, we should, we should consider investing in real estate. And when I say around 06, it was, it was actually later than that. It was around 08, not 06. Sorry.
Speaker 1:
And me and my buddies said, hey, let's, let's consider investing in real estate. And so we all were kind of broke somewhere, somewhere in their first jobs out of college, like me, and the other ones were in grad school, and we found a property and we're like, cool, we're going to do this. And by that time I had moved away and other people had moved away, and one of the people was five of us and when the people was going to get the mortgage in their name and he was working at the time and he could get the mortgage and we all were going to ship in and split it all five ways. And when the guys they asked us that's dumb. He was like why would you get a mortgage for five guys Like they can get their own mortgages right? And so, needless to say, that was my first attempt at real estate, but it didn't pan out.
Speaker 1:
But, fast forward, a few years later I came back to Atlanta and one of my buddies who was in that same group was actually buying houses at the courthouse steps and he invited me to go to a foreclosure auction and so I went out there and it was just a very interesting site because, again, this is around maybe 09, maybe 2010 timeframe. At this time, and the foreclosure crisis had happened, right, and people were still not bullish on real estate again, and everybody had their perspective on if it was good, if it was bad or whatever else may be the case. But he was bullish and he was buying houses, and so I went out there to see what was going on and it was like nothing I ever experienced. You know, I saw families out there who were begging investors not to buy their houses. I saw investors buying numerous houses and I saw attorneys, just you know, selling properties for as cheap as $1,000.
Speaker 1:
And my mind was like wow, what is going on here, like this is a whole different world and fast forward. I started, you know, participating in that on a very small level and did that for about five years, part-time, just, you know, taking whatever a little additional money I had and trying to go partner with folks to go buy a house, and fast forward went full-time about 10 years ago and since then have become a realtor, a builder, have invested in distressed mortgage notes and have done hundreds of properties, and so that's kind of the story that I am now and today we run a business that does Fix and Flip, that has rentals, that also invest in mortgage notes and we do a lot of handholding and helping folks who find themselves in tough situations that involve housing.
Speaker 2:
Maybe we'll just touch on the Fix and Flips and some of the holdings that you have before we get into the foreclosures. But when you're looking at Fix and Flips, what are kind of some of your buy box criteria, or maybe even like neighborhoods, because I think so many people that want to get started want to start with Fix and Flips and they just get stuck. So my goal is how can I help remove barriers for people? How can I give people education? So for you, what are you looking for in some of those properties and how you're analyzing them and deciding to move forward with them?
Speaker 1:
Well, it really depends because that's a hard question, because I can do everything from build new to, you know, a paint and carpet, rental, grade, renovation I look at houses on what the profit will be. What is my return on investment, my return on time, my return on effort, right, but if I had to give a newbie listener or somebody who's newer some ideal criteria to use when I look at houses that are under $250,000, I try to get anywhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 15% return on investment. If I look at houses above $200,000, that drops down lower to 10%. So if I am buying a house and it's worth $250,000, I'm looking to make, you know, a 10 to 15% return on what the purchase price is. So that means I'm looking to try to make $25,000 on that house. Or, you know, $30,000. If your house is worth $500,000, I'm looking to make $50,000. Now I'll say I'm looking to make because I can go into it looking to make $50,000 and end up making negative $50,000. I mean, you know, making significantly less. But that's the numbers that we play out to when we're looking at properties. We also target more affordable properties just because of the way we grew up in the business.
Speaker 1:
As I told you I started when things were really bad, and so in my mind, when I look at real estate, I always think about what happens when things get really bad, and so I tend to try to look at properties that are under $400,000 or under $500,000 with actor repair value and I tend to skew towards even under $300,000.
Speaker 1:
And keep in mind I live in Georgia so the price point of houses is still relatively affordable, so I know this won't work in like a California, but by being under that $350,000 price point as an ARV, what happens is that if, worst case scenario, my rehab loan doesn't work out and I'm holding this property because it in sale, I can still turn that into a rental and either cash flow or only have to bring a little bit to the table every month and I can weather out a storm. Versus if that is a half a million dollar property or a million dollar property, that's a much harder storm that you're gonna be in, and so that's just been my approach where I feel comfortable being able to scale to do 12 to 24 properties a year, because I know that worst case scenario which has happened I may have to take one or two back as a rental property and just rent it, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 2:
I tell people the property kind of speaks to you in terms of what strategy you can deploy on it. Right, it kind of depends on the purchase price, depends on the repairs, depends on the ARV and some cases it might make just sense to fix it up and hold it. Some cases it does make sense to do a flip. But sometimes the numbers help speak to you, to help you decide what might be the best strategy or if it's worth passing on.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and in today's environment with interest rates, that speaks to me too right. If you can get a good interest rate, it's more likely that you can make it in a rental, versus if you get a higher interest rate. You probably gonna definitely have to flip it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, for sure. Now let's just touch on notes for a second. How did you get into the note investing space and why do you like it?
Speaker 1:
So I got into an own investment space in a real backwards way. We were looking at a property at the foreclosure sale and it was a second position mortgage, so meaning that there's a first position mortgage that was actually performing and a second position mortgage that was foreclosing. So they weren't paying the second mortgage on there and we went to go try to buy it at the courthouse steps but unfortunately they wanted way too much to make the deal work. So for ease of numbers, just say the property was worth $300,000 and the first mortgage was $200,000 and the second mortgage maybe had a value of $100,000. But at the courthouse steps they were asking for like $80,000 of that $100,000 value and that just didn't work for that property just because it still needed repairs. You had agent costs and things like that.
Speaker 1:
But my business partner at the time reached out to the owner of that mortgage after the foreclosure sale and said hey, we can offer you $80,000, but would you take like $30,000? A number that made sense and I thought it was like a waste of time because I was like maybe you're going to be calling a bank of America or something like that. It's not worth the time and it was actually just like a small little fund and he was able to talk to somebody. They agreed to take the offer we made them and we bought that, and so that started a process of like hey, not only do smaller entities own notes, I can potentially own a note. And that was a journey that took numerous years to begin to pull back layers of the onion and find people who were talking about that, that that little known area in the real estate investing side. But it's been quite fruitful and it's been very interesting and it's been the catalyst for a lot of what I talk about now when I talk about foreclosure.
Speaker 1:
And, more importantly than that, it's just. It's just a fun area of real estate to be in. Like everybody wants to be the bank, you know what I mean. So it's cool to to play around in that space and there's just tons of smart people there. And one of the reasons I think is so great If you are a real estate investor is because, as we all know, real estate is not a passive thing. I know you can make passive income, but if you have a short term rental or long term rental or any type of property at all, you know that there's maintenance involved, there's property management involved, and although it's passive enough, it's not passive. When I look at notes, I think notes are truly the most passive part of the real estate spectrum you can get on, and so that's why I like notes.
Speaker 2:
What you're doing is you're adding a lot of different tools into your tool belt to be able to help people.
Speaker 2:
Help people and help yourself make money and build kind of your business and what you want to do with it. Because you know, as somebody who used to work in residential real estate, it was kind of like, well, I can help people buy and sell their personal home, and that was kind of it, right. Well, then I started to work with investors. Well, then now there's another piece of the puzzle, there's another tool in the tool belt, and then you start to talk about creative financing and different ways to help people in different strategies. Right, we talk about fix and flips and burrs and and buy and holds and short term rentals and midterm rentals. Like, right, there's so many things you can do in real estate, and so you're just adding more tools into your tool chest of how you can help different people and how you can create win, win situations out of different stuff. Because, yeah, there's, there's a lot you can do real estate and you're just finding a way to help a lot of different people.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, man, and I think that's what it's about. I think, at the core of everything I do and the other great investors like yourself out there that I see is that we want to help people. We just happen to have a lot of knowledge about real estate and we transact by helping people solve complicated and challenging real estate problems.
Speaker 2:
So let's shift gears, then, and talk about foreclosures, because this is at least your bread and butter, in the sense of writing a book about it and having the foreclosure fix podcast. So what is it about foreclosure for you that makes you want to rally folks and help folks and ultimately help one million homeowners successfully navigate foreclosure?
Speaker 1:
It's one of those things that you can see something before it happens, right, like when I say you can see something before it happens, I think like if you think about the best athletes in the world and you think about maybe LeBron James or Michael Jordan, before they were taking a game winning shot, and you asked about the shot, they saw the shot going in the basket before they actually took the shot. Right, they already knew they were going to make it because they had done this shot a thousand times before, or maybe even 100,000 times before, and so that's the same way I feel about foreclosure. I have had the experience to talk to thousands of homeowners who find themselves facing foreclosure and, as I told you, when I started in real estate, I started buying houses on the foreclosures for courthouse steps, and we still do that to today, right. And so I have seen what happens when people take action, do the things they need to do and are able to avoid foreclosure, and I've also seen what happens when people roll over, play dead and act like this is not happening, and so my mission and my passion just comes from. People have so many options today that they didn't have before With the way the real estate market has improved and equity has increased over the last few years.
Speaker 1:
People are in a phenomenal position to maximize their financial position but also stay in their homes, and I just think that every time I talk to somebody who loses their house, I ask them questions about what happened, and they're always like I just didn't think it was real, or oh, I just got too busy with life, or oh, I thought they were going to give me another chance, and so I got tired of hearing that story.
Speaker 1:
The other thing is I've had this conversation that I lay out in the book so many times with homeowners and, as my time becomes more and more valuable and I have less and less time to talk with people day to day, I wanted to have a document or resource where I can point people to, and that's where the podcast came up, and then the book came after that, and so for me, it's that I just got tired of people letting the bank do what the bank wanted to do, and I wanted people to take their action into their own hands and help dictate their own future, because if the bank takes your house, it's not because they wanted your house, it's because you let them do it and I think that is so important for folks to take ownership and to dictate the way in which they want to move forward. Even if the situation is difficult, it's being able to move forward on your own terms in the way you want, given the situation at hand.
Speaker 2:
So real quick. For folks that maybe might be unfamiliar with the foreclosure process, can you kind of just break it down real quick of kind of what what happens from I'm making my payments to I'm in foreclosure?
Speaker 1:
Well, the first thing I'll say is that it's different for every state, right, and so this is just a high level, generic kind of process, matt. But basically, you're making your payments and, for some reason, you stop making your payments. So after the first time maybe 30 days you stop making your payments. Your servicer that's the company that collects your payments every month will maybe reach out or add late fees to your bill, and it may not even reach out after 30 days, but after 60 days somebody may be reaching out, but when it gets to about 90 days, right, they're going to start reaching out much more aggressively and saying hey, what's going on? And if you don't communicate and you don't respond, a couple of things can happen.
Speaker 1:
The lender can just sit and be quiet and they go, just keep collecting late fees and charging interest, and this can go on for many, many months or many, even years sometimes, right, and they don't have to do anything.
Speaker 1:
Or they can get really aggressive and which is the next step and they'll send you what is called a demand letter, which basically says hey, you haven't lived up to your end of the bargain in this mortgage or agreement contract that we have. It's mortgage or deed of trust that we have. And now I am demanding that you pay me what you owe me, and then you have two options there. Either you pay them back what is owed, which is a reinstatement, or they'll move forward with the foreclosure process. And then the foreclosure process is different in every state, but that could be a judicial process which goes through the court system, or it can be a nonjudicial process which doesn't go through the court system, and it's more just about advertising that this house may be for sale. So in some states your house can go from you not making your payment, you not making your payment and that 90-day mark hitting, to being on the foreclosure steps, and basically eight weeks, while some places it may be a couple years. And so that's the foreclosure process in a nutshell.
Speaker 2:
And let's remind people, the bank never says thank you when you make your payment consistently, right. It's when I don't make my payment for 30 days that they then have a problem. But you know you can make your payment for five years and then never say thank you. Why is that?
Speaker 1:
Well, I think you have to also understand this is a business contract right, so the bank gave you the money when you initially purchased the property and you didn't say thank you to the bank when they gave you the money right, Maybe you wrote a thank you card to them.
Speaker 2:
Hey, big national bank, thank you so much for this mortgage.
Speaker 1:
I really appreciate it Well you know, you said thank you to your lender and gave them some commission, you gave Thank you to your realtor, you know, maybe even gave them a gift, right, but the bank didn't say get a thank you. And so at the end of the day, everybody has to realize this is not personal, this is business, and the bank is looking at you as dollar signs. And the bank doesn't want your house, they want your money, like plain and simple. And I use this. I use this often because a lot of people don't know about it.
Speaker 1:
But if you ever looked at an amortization table and you look at how much interest you are paying on the front part of your loan, it is obscene. And most people only keep their mortgages for about seven years, and so if you keep your mortgage for seven years, you have paid back a tremendous amount of interest and very little principle. And so the bank understands this math and that is the math in which they use to make a billion trillion dollar industry right. And so I think it's just so important that people realize it's a business transaction and for the bank it's all about the money. And that may sound callous, that may sound crass, but at the end of the day. That's what it is and you have to understand that when you go, try to play the game of chicken with them.
Speaker 2:
So what are some things that you teach people of? You know, hey, things are starting to get kind of tight around here. Maybe I can't pay all of my bills, whether it's for my mortgage, whether it's for utilities, whether it's car. Like, how do you help people? Start to go through that process to kind of decide what are we going to do? Because, like to your point, you said you know if they take your house it's because you let them right. There's a choice throughout this process. So kind of walk through those early stages of how you can help people and help them strategize what they can do.
Speaker 1:
Well, the first thing is there's needs to be an awareness, right? You can't look at bills mounting and just live in a panacea and say, oh, I'm going to get a big bag of money tomorrow and it's going to take care of everything, or the government's going to step in. If you're waiting on a government, you're waiting. You're going to be waiting a long time, right? And so I think the first thing is the realization of like things are getting out of control in my financial future, and so, realizing that you didn't have to say what things can I do to regain control? And if it's about foreclosure, there are things that you need to kind of consider.
Speaker 1:
One is is this something that is going to be a long term issue, or is this just a short term issue, like so, for example, I was sick, now that I now I'm well again, right? Or, in some cases, I got a divorce but now I'm back on my feet. Or I lost my job and now I have a new job, and so is it just a short term blip, right? Or is this something that's going to be systemic, where I just can't afford this place I'm living in, or is just too expensive, you know, with all the cash outlays that I had every month and so understanding that.
Speaker 1:
And then the next thing is communicating that to your servicer and saying, hey, this is what's going on in my life.
Speaker 1:
Is there something I can do to get some relief? And that could be a payment that is deferred, where they say don't pay your payment for the next couple months, we'll defer that and put it on the back end of your loan. So maybe you get some relief. If you're sick, to be able to get well again, or if you got a new job, for your new checks to start coming in. Or it may be a situation where they modify your loan and say, yes, when you apply for this loan, you were able to afford X amount, but due to this, we're going to modify your loan and maybe change your amortization from a 30 year amortization to a 40 year amortization. Or we're going to maybe make it so you have a balloon payment after 15 years to back your loan. There's so many different creative strategies, but it all involves communication, and so you have to communicate with your servicer to let them know what's going on and see what options they have available.
Speaker 2:
What does that look like? Because I think people listening to this are probably like what? Like the bank is going to be willing to work with me at that point?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it looks like this it looks like you getting on the phone, calling that 1-800 number on your loan statements and saying, hey, I need to speak with the representative and, depending on your situation, depending on the servicer, they may escalate your situation to the loss mitigation department or the workout department or whatever else. But it's saying, hey, I'm having financial trouble and I need some relief. What options do you have available? And they'll let you know what their programs are. And that's the process. That's where it starts, and I think that's where it starts, because that's not where it finishes. After that, you need to also be communicating with other folks around you who you know, like and trust. That can help bring insight. So if you are an adult and you're elderly, you have kids and your kids are of age, you need to communicate with them and say, hey, this is what I'm going through. If you got the loan from a lender, you may wanna reach back out to them and say, hey, I'm having some financial troubles or what other loan products do you have? And I understand, no one wants anybody in their business, like no one wants anybody to think that they don't have everything together. But when you are facing foreclosure, you need to let down your pride and your ego and go get help. And the thing is is that if you don't get help, trust me, everybody knows about foreclosure because foreclosure is public, so you know this is not anything that's gonna be you know off the record once it gets to that stage and they file suit, and so it's just very, very important that you go and you ask professionals for help, and in our book called For Closure Fix, we outline 12 strategies that you can take in order to kind of deal with foreclosure, and a lot of those strategies involve getting help from competent people around you, and we have a community at the foreclosure fix where we have podcasts and resources and things like that to help people along the way. But you can also feel free to ask us a question. Hud has numerous counselors that are free that you can reach out to a HUD counselor in your area.
Speaker 1:
You can always reach out to real estate agents.
Speaker 1:
They're always looking to help folks, you know, because they see if you're gonna sell, they wanna be right in line or they want to.
Speaker 1:
They're there to help you and they can tell you what the market value of your property is, and so it's so important that you use the resources that are out there, many of which are free, and I know some people are so nervous because, like I, don't have money to pay my bills, let alone pay a professional I guarantee you that all the professionals paying money to market on the radio and on billboards and in newspaper ads and things like that, they want you calling them right, and so, if you have an issue, most professionals out there will take five and 10 minutes to give you their advice and not charge you anything for it, because for us it's just like you know spitting off, you know your order at a restaurant. It's not a difficult thing. It's something you do all the time, all day, every day, but for you it's something new and scary, and so don't let that fear stop you from asking for help as a real estate agent.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we've encountered that, we've had clients with that, and so it's like we said. It's just if you've got problems, you know, if I'm sick I'm gonna go to the doctor, if I've got financial problems, I've got to find somebody to help. And if it involves my home talking with an agent or talking with somebody to get some advice, because, yeah, we've helped clients who have been in those shoes before navigate that process to, yeah, maybe, where you don't have to sell, and if an agent doesn't have to sell your house, if they're a good agent, they're okay, helping you first as a person. Right, we don't wanna have to sell your house. If it comes down to it, you're in financial pain like that. So that's where, yeah, reaching out and having those resources is awesome. Any other advice that you have for people, obviously, short of go get your book and read your book, but what other advice would you have for people that are kind of going through this process?
Speaker 1:
Well, I've coined a term called seasonally selfish, right, and that term being seasonally selfish is one of the things that I tell everybody facing foreclosure to do right. And being seasonally selfish means that you are going to take time for yourself to do what's most important for you. What I find in my work is that a lot of folks who are facing foreclosure are in situations where they are the ones used to helping everybody else. They're the ones who people call when they have a problem. They're the ones who everybody leans on. They're the ones who are giving out money to folks who have not paid it back and things like that.
Speaker 1:
And so being seasonally selfish is you taking time out and taking a step back to say I need to focus on my problem at hand.
Speaker 1:
And that problem for you may be the foreclosure situation, it may be a health situation, it may be something else, it may be the loss of a loved one that you're still grieving, but it's absolutely okay and acceptable to take a step back and spend time on you, and it doesn't have to be for the rest of your life, it doesn't have to be for many, many years. It could be for days, it could be for weeks, it could be for months, but you need to take the time that you need and you don't have to apologize for it. You don't have to give excuses. It's like you know I'm taking time for me and those people who love you will respect it, and those who don't love you and don't appreciate your time, they may not respect it, but it doesn't matter what they think right, and so being seasonally selfish is one of those things that I implore everyone who is facing foreclosure to do. It's taking time to deal with the most important things to you and not worrying about what everyone else thinks in that season.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. Yeah, that's fantastic advice for people Because, yeah, it's probably you're the type of person that likes to help others, but you need the help and so it's okay to receive help in those times of need. So awesome, dj. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your story, a little bit more about you and obviously kind of your specialty in the foreclosure base. So if people want to reach out to you, how can they do so?
Speaker 1:
Well, if you want to reach out to me, you can definitely check out our website at wwwtheforkloserfixcom, or you can check me out on all social media. Dj underscore, alojo, and if you ever need anything, feel free to send us an email at help at the foreclosurefixcom.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. Thank you so much, DJ, for coming on and sharing with our audience. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1:
I mean, thank you so much and y'all if y'all have not subscribed to the Real Freedom podcast, y'all need to do so right now. Leave this man a review, a five star review, and write a comment, because it is so hard to be a podcaster out here. So please, please, please, leave this man a review, write a comment and check out the podcast. He's doing great work and I'll see you guys next time.