The REAPS program at Coppin State University, Investing in Underserved Communities, and Missing Middle Housing with Hope Mims

In this episode, Maryland REALTORS® CEO, Chuck Kasky and CEO and Principal Broker of Mims Realty Group, Hope L. Mims, discuss creating real estate career opportunities for college students, the process of generational wealth, pre and post licensing requirements for new agents, and using education as a vehicle to drive change in Maryland to address missing middle housing.

Hope L. Mims opened the doors of her boutique Real Estate company in February 2018.  A lifelong Baltimore resident, she is passionate about giving back to her community as she provides scholarships and mentoring to Baltimore youth as well as helping families in need.  Hope is a member and President Elect of the National Association of REALTORS® – Greater Baltimore. She earned her Bachelors Degree in Business Management from Coppin State University and an MBA from University of Phoenix. She is also an Alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program and currently serves as the Chairperson for the Alumni Advisory Board for Coppin State University’s Center for Strategic Entrepreneurship. She is also currently enrolled in the Maryland REALTORS® Leadership Academy. 

Hope gives an inside look at the the Real Estate Acquisitions Program for students (REAPS) offered at Coppin State University to create pathways for students into real estate careers and to provide opportunities to tackle any student debt before graduation. The program specializes in the recruitment of passionate, diverse, and driven students from the Baltimore community and develops their business and financial acumen so they are equipped to thrive in their first year as a licensee. In addition to training for the students, upon passing their PSI exam, all of their first year fees, which can also pose as a significant financial challenge for most new REALTORS®, are paid for by the program.

To learn more about the Real Estate Acquisition Program for students (REAPS) email Hope Mims at hope@mimsrealtygroup.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Maryland Realtors has many goals for 2023. Not just resolutions, but plans for real action. One through line for us is our commitment to increasing the level of diversity in the real estate profession, even as we explore solutions to the chronic undersupply of attainable, missing middle housing. At the same time, we cannot, will not and have not shied away from acknowledging our troubled past. The real estate industry has a painful history of redlining, segregation, and racial covenants. These barriers aren't discussed as often as they should be, and unfortunately some of them are still happening, like bias in appraisals. One of the topics we'll be exploring today is the real estate acquisition program for students or reaps, which supports students attending Coppin State University with an interest in a career in real estate. The inaugural class consists of 11 students who are currently taking the 60 hour Maryland real estate salesperson pre-licensing class. The program seeks to educate and elevate individuals who have been generationally affected by redlining, segregation, and racial covenants. As I mentioned before, allowing these students who will be licensed real estate salespeople to utilize the skills they learned to help our neighborhoods from disadvantaged commu our neighbors from disadvantaged communities in and around Baltimore acquire real estate. This in turn, will serve as a basis from which improvements to the community will flow. Hello, I'm Chuck Caskey, Maryland Realtors, c e o. You are listening to Get Real Estate, the Maryland Realtors Podcast. Joining me for this episode is realtor Hope Mims, c e o and principal broker of Mims Realty Group. Hope opened her boutique real estate company in February of 2018. Before that, she spent 20 years in corporate America working for a Fortune 10 company. While there, she was intrigued by real estate and all it had to offer for a time. She was a dual career agent. Like many of our members hope earned her bachelor's degree in business management from Cochran State University and an MBA from University of Phoenix. He's also an alumni of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program and currently serves as the chairperson for the Alumni Advisory Board for Kapin State University's Center for Strategic Entrepreneurship. She's also currently enrolled in the Maryland Realtors Leadership Academy. Hope, welcome to the program. Thank you. So let's start with, uh, with the reaps program. Uh, hopefully our listeners are also readers of our magazine and in a recent issue you were profiled. And so give us an update. I believe that was a couple of issues ago, if I'm not mistaken, since that issue came out. That was the August, September 22 Marilyn Realtors Magazine. Can you give us an update on the members of that class are proceeding and where you think we'll be going from there?

Speaker 2: 3:23

Certainly. So we started off with 11. Again, these were individuals that are current Coppin State University students. When the program started, it was during the summer months. So the goal was because they were having a break during the summer months, it would be easy for them to put all of their time and energy into taking the pre-licensing class. To date. We have seven individuals that have passed the course and they are in the process of studying for the PSI exam. These individuals are currently back in session for the upcoming spring semester now. So I'm hoping that they're going to be able to finalize the PSI exam over the next couple of

Speaker 1: 4:07

Weeks. That's terrific. So none then. None of'em have actually taken the test yet?

Speaker 2: 4:11

Not yet.

Speaker 1: 4:12

<laugh>. Okay. So<laugh>, we know that the pass rate for the PSI test, first time test takers is right about 50%. Yeah. How you feeling about that? You gonna, you gonna overachieve from that? You think?

Speaker 2: 4:27

<laugh>, that's the goal. The goal is to overachieve

Speaker 1: 4:30

<laugh>. Yeah. And where might they land as far as affiliation with brokerages more broadly? What do, what else is involved? Obviously you get a salesperson's license. That's just the beginning. Right. So what other arrangements or conversations are we having with these young people in terms of what a real estate career actually looks like, especially when you're in college. This is, it's a lot to juggle. So what kind of conversations are you having around those issues

Speaker 2: 4:57

With regard to that? You know, once they become licensed, we, we do have an opportunity for them to affiliate with my company, Mims Realty Group, at which time I will handle all of their training and making sure that they get up to speed very quickly in terms of what to expect in a career in real estate, how to get started, how to brand themselves effectively so that they come out of the gate with knowledge that most realtors don't have until they're two, three years in the game. So the goal is to make sure that within those first 12 months of them becoming a licensed realtor, that they're getting all of the tools that they typically don't get for years in so that they can start a career off with a bank.

Speaker 1: 5:35

I wondered whether they were going to affiliate with your company, but I didn't wanna suggest that. Could it paint you into a corner? Because there are obviously other opportunities out there, but Yeah, that's, that's really a great service and, and whether they stay with you long term or not. Cause we know this is a, a field where it's more likely than not that that salespeople, as you know, very well known, uh, and all our listeners do, agents can change brokerages several times throughout their careers. Speaking of post-licensing training, let's talk a little bit about that. Since you mentioned training, especially post-licensing training, one of the things that we have heard consistently is salespeople obtain their licenses and, and both the pre-license education doesn't even really teach you how to get a transaction to settlement. So a lot of that falls on brokers post-licensing. And maybe we can look at both post and pre-licensing. We are specifically looking at post licensing education to have extra education for people in their first two years of their licensing cycle. So what, what is your thinking on that and whether it's pre-licensing or post-licensing, what do people need the most new licensees? Where do they need training the most so that they can actually engage in, in a transaction?

Speaker 2: 6:57

That's a loaded question. Chuck.<laugh><laugh>.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I'm good at that.

Speaker 2: 7:01

<laugh>. I mean, I think that there are several things that, that need to, to transpire. I believe that it's important to, to teach in pre-licensing and post-licensing effective communication. There are so many agents that don't effectively communicate. Oftentimes you'll work with someone on the other side of the deal and they're like, they never answer the phone. So just what does effective communication look like? The other thing that I would certainly suggest, whether it's pre or post-licensing, is that building relationships in the real estate industry is huge. Some deals happen simply because of the relationships that you have, the connections that you make. So making sure that they are effectively communicating, building relationships. And then thirdly, knowing the contracts. Knowing contracts is huge. So as you go through pre-licensing, you're definitely learning all of the vocabulary, the ways in which you can introduce a particular topic into a scenario. But there are so many agents that I'm on the other side of a deal with or my agents are on the other side of a deal with and we get contracts and agents don't even know how to write a contract effectively. And so I think that effectively writing contracts is huge because your clients, whether you're representing a buyer or a seller, they are heavily relying on you as an agent to know the contracts, to protect them, to help them understand what they're doing. And there's so many agents that, that can't even explain the contract. So I think that those three things, effective communication, being able to build relationships as well as knowing the contracts are things that need to be implemented very, very quickly, whether it's pre or post-licensing, those things are mandatory and have

Speaker 1: 8:43

To have, yeah, I can't argue with you. Soft skills and hard skills in a way. Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Yeah. The hope is for these young people, new licensees to be able to actually, actually start earning income pretty quickly. Right. I mean, you talk in the article about the student loan debt burden and what an impediment that is. And, and, and man, I'll tell you what it sounds, uh, really intriguing to be able to keep, can you go to school but make some money to help with that student loan debt. I mean, that's as a more immediate before and then we'll talk about generational wealth and the barriers, et cetera, et cetera. So, so is that really, that's as part of the plan, correct? Correct. What kind of platform would, would you be able to provide to actually get them, I guess you would teach them marketing and business development as well, has to be part of the training, correct?

Speaker 2: 9:39

Absolutely. I mean, I think that those things are essential to a realtor. Success marketing is a huge deal. Yeah. In the real estate industry, you know, they always say, don't be a secret agent<laugh>, which is so important because if you don't tell people that you sell real estate, they don't know. And so oftentimes we get upset as realtors that someone that we know used another realtor, well, they didn't even know that you were a realtor because you didn't tell them they, they look at your social media, they can't see that you're a realtor. You're not doing any email marketing, you're not doing any of that. So all of that is super important when it comes to developing a marketing plan for your business. Because the fact of the matter is every realtor is an independent contractor and they're running their own business. So if you run it like a business, it will perform like a business. And that's, I think, the skill that, um, a lot of realtors lack.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Yeah. I can't disagree. Turning a little bit to the selection process. You, you talk about, and I, and I know one of your main goals is to allow these young people newly minted real estate salespeople to utilize their skills to help consumers, neighbors from disadvantaged communities. Obviously it centered in Baltimore, but really specifically limited to, to Baltimore. Is, is that a part of your recruitment process? Or in other words, they are choosing to do this because they've already committed to that or, you know, what's your process for that?

Speaker 2: 11:08

So interestingly enough, when these individuals at copin, the students applaud, they all had to write an essay, okay. And the essay that they had to write, they specifically had to talk about why they had an interest in participating in this program. And probably 90% of the students all expressed that they grew up in lower income communities. They grew up in the communities in which Coppin State University where it sits, or the surrounding area or maybe another area in, in Maryland that's very similar to Baltimore. So I use that as a criteria in terms of saying, Hey, this definitely needs to be included because these individuals recognize, you know, driving down West North Avenue, they recognize and they see what these communities look like. Now they have a great opportunity because they see it every day. It's not something that they just see on television. They see it, they live it, they experience it, and their families live in these communities. So they have a vested interest in improving what the trajectory of these communities look like because they lived it, they breathe it, and they have decided to seek their education from Coppin State University, which is in the heart of that community.

Speaker 1: 12:22

What else do we need to do? I mean, let's focus a little bit, just stepping back from a, a somewhat higher level and putting some of the historical perspective. A lot of us know the history<laugh>, we've, we've spent time dealing with it. I, I do have to give kudos to, you know, the National Association of Realtors who has fully embraced the need to address these historical disadvantages that we as an industry put in front of them. And, and along with the federal government and state governments and lenders and appraisers, we were all implicit in this. Right? I mean, and, and I think it's getting easier to come to terms with that. I am at least heartened by the degree to which we are accepting all of our roles in this past discrimination and lack of opportunity and had a profound impact, as you know, and not easy to recover from. This is a generational thing, right? Yeah. What else do we need within the real estate ecosystem? What else do we need from your perspective to actually make a difference? Cuz I'm between you and me,<laugh> and, and, and our listeners. I'm getting frustrated, uh, about just talking about this. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what we can do for land use and other things to actually increase the supply of housing, which we all know and and agree is a big part of the problem. What else do you see? Bigger picture? You're, you're a big thinker and an entrepreneur and so what else do we need from, from that, you know, 30,000 foot level to actually make a difference?

Speaker 2: 14:05

I think that education is a huge part of the direction where we can really see change. I think that if, as the realtor community here in Maryland, if we took this issue that we have by the horns and we made a concerted effort to make sure that individuals in these communities, they get the education that they need to understand where home ownership rates are and how we can improve them. And that's honestly through education. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, educating these individuals is huge. And the reason being is because sometimes in lower income communities, you did things because that's how other individuals in your family did things, right? And so as you begin to get that education, you improve the way that you think, you improve, the way that you save money, you improve these things. So I believe that if the realtor community could come together to make sure that these communities can get the education that they need to see that home ownership is possible, that it is doable and programs are put into place to make sure that these individuals are able to stay in their homes. That is what's going to change the African-American, the minority home ownership rate because we see that it's necessary and we have a responsibility as realtors because we are connected to these communities to help the communities that are adverse. And so if we can do that collectively as a realtor community, we're, we're really gonna be on the up and up in terms of changing these numbers.

Speaker 1: 15:41

What actions do you think, specifically, you talk about vacant properties, a seemingly intractable issue in Baltimore, and I don't pretend to understand it, but that's obviously a one, one piece. And then talk a little bit about institutional investors. What are, what are some of the opportunities and some of the potential barriers to us actually increasing the available housing for underserved communities?

Speaker 2: 16:15

That's also loaded. Question Chuck<laugh>. I know, I, I'm good at

Speaker 1: 16:18

That.<laugh>.

Speaker 2: 16:20

So this is what I believe. There is such a huge number of vacant properties Yes. Yeah. In, um, in and around Baltimore city. And it's so much blight. When you drive down streets, there are blocks and blocks that are completely vacant. There are a huge number of investors, be it outside of Baltimore or even local in the Baltimore community. I believe in my recommendation, I'm totally a fan of this, I believe that Baltimore City should allow these investor groups to redevelop these communities and allow these properties to be purchased by individuals in these communities. Because that's where we're going to see a difference. We've gotta invest in these communities, invest in the individuals that are doing the work. They're improving these properties. They are changing these communities one property at a time. And there's so many properties, I believe that allowing these investors to get these properties that are just sitting vacant for years and years, allow them to get them pennies on the dollar so that they can change these communities. Because when you have strong communities, you have stronger schools. When you have stronger schools, you have better educated students. When you have better educated students, you have individuals that are willing to invest in the economy in those communities. So it doesn't just start at a high level. We've gotta take one step at a time. We've gotta step with, start with housing, because if you fix housing, all of the other things will start to line up.

Speaker 1: 17:52

Yeah. What is your take in your area where you mostly work? Do you see a lot of investors coming in and converting them to rentals? Cuz we see that on occasion and, and there've been even talk about legislative proposals for the, uh, out-of-state firms. One of which, the big one from Philadelphia, I forgot its name, uh, just declared bankruptcy, which was constrained. I mean, dozens and dozens of properties that company was buying and developing. And yeah. So the, the block works better. And actually going back one, I feel like when I'm in either East Baltimore or West Baltimore, yeah, one, one whole block is, is vacant. But I think what even saddens me even more sometimes is to see the one or two properties in the row that in which people are still living and trying to make a home and trying to raise a family and wanna stay where maybe that's where they grew up and yet surrounded by the blight. To me, that's, that's almost harder to see, frankly, but that's just an aside. I don't know. But the bigger picture, what is, what about the investors who wanna come in and then those are converted to rentals. Uh, you know, we're for property rights here, you know, so it's hard for us to advocate for restricting someone, whether it's a business or, or an individual's ability to do what they wish with their private property. But do, do you see that as another unmet need or as an impediment to increasing the home ownership rate?

Speaker 2: 19:21

So I think that it operates in twofold. During the pandemic at the height of the pandemic investors, we saw investors just like regular home buyers that were looking to own or occupy those properties coming in. And honestly, they were squeezing out buyers with financing because they were purchasing these properties in cash. That's right. Because they had the, they had cash. Sure. So they were purchasing the properties in cash and they were turning them into rentals. They had no plans on, um, occupying the property. These were rental properties. Now, the fact of the matter is, home ownership is an, is necessary, but housing is necessary as well because there's so many individuals they've gotta have a place to live. But what we saw was on average there were 30% increases in rental rates Yeah. During that pandemic period. Yeah. So with that 30% increase, these investors were taking advantage of an opportunity to be able to purchase a property and get increased rates in, in terms of rent. So home ownership properties being available for individuals to live in. It's not all the same, but people that are renting need somewhere to live too. So as realtors, we're looking out for the good of property and property investment and you know, we work with individuals that are looking to rent property as well. Yeah. So we, we don't segregate ourselves and say, we only will work with you if you're looking to buy ourself. Yes. So having individuals, we may be able to find them a renter and building those relationships. But on the other side, it does hurt with owner-occupied properties because there are individuals that got squeezed out because they couldn't purchase that property in cash, which then further increased property sales prices because now that same 20 people that were looking at that house that didn't get it, now those same 20 people are now added with five more that are looking at the next. So the competition just became completely

Speaker 1: 21:17

Crazy. And, and that's a great segue to the next point because as we know with the release of the 2022 reassessment tranche, which is the one third of the properties in Maryland that were reassessed in 22, the new assessments take effect July 1st, 2023. We, we saw a, an over 20% appreciation from three years ago. And I, I like to think of that as a double-edged sword because we talk about wealth accumulation and of course if you, if you are a current homeowner, yeah. You see your, your property tax bill is gonna go up. On the other hand, your property's worth more<laugh>. So maybe it's a good news, bad news situation, ultimately long-term, good news, even though immediately maybe you don't wanna pay more in property taxes, but your property's worth more. So you, you're, you are worth more. And so hopefully that at least lessens that. The bad news piece of it. It comes down to supply though, doesn't it? So, I mean, the point is that 20%, uh, you know, over three years, 20% appreciation, as you said, so many buyers were losing out and with a lack of available housing, they're, they're gonna continue to get squeezed out, whether it's by other buyers, whether it's cash investors or even just fact that they're unable to find a place leaving interest rates aside for a moment, we have some thoughts on how we need increased supply. What are your thoughts on how we, how we increase the, the availability of housing, which obviously affects the affordability?

Speaker 2: 22:56

I go back to specifically in Baltimore City, I think I go back to trying to identify a way that investors can renovate these properties that are just sitting, right? Right now, I've seen properties in Baltimore City with a tax rate or a tax assessment rate for Baltimore City at$150, at$300. So it is a decline for the city. So if they are able to transition this property over to an investor to be able to renovate it, to get a home buyer into that property, the city increases because now the property taxes are in increased on that property. And they'll be able to realize some of that, increase that 30% so that if city is losing money by having these properties just sit, there's so many property, there's a, that are owned by Baltimore City, allowing the investors to come in and renovate these properties specifically for home ownership. And so maybe that could be something that the city puts in place if you are going to purchase these properties, once you purchase it, once you renovate it within a certain period of time of renovation, it has to be sold to someone that is going to own or occupy it. That's how we increase the amount of homes that are for sale. And that's how we increase the amount of homeowners that we have in place. There has, it has to be written, it has to be, these are the properties that we have if you wanna purchase them, these are, these are the ones that are available once you purchase them, there's a timeframe that you had to get them available for sale. And it has to be owner-occupied to whomever you're gonna sell it to. That's how we, and

Speaker 1: 24:32

It's frustrating. I mean, we, they've tried several programs, right? They tried the dollar home program that had some actual tangible results. I've seen the results of some of those renovations back, gosh, one more than 20 years now. But still, they, they were, there was some success in that program and then it, it terminated. I know there've been proposals to bring it back VAs to value. What doesn't it seem to get the kind of traction that we hope. Do you have any insight into that? That we, that we, we anticipated some of those programs bringing forth?

Speaker 2: 25:04

Again, I think that it comes down to education. Yeah. I think that a lot of people listen to a lot of people as opposed to listening to professionals in our industry mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so, you know, as professionals, we're able to educate potential home buyers on all of the different programs that are available to them. But it has to start with education. It has to start with teaching individuals the value of money, how to save it, and how to improve themselves through real estate. Real estate builds wealth for your family. Real estate, when you own a home, you're able to pull out of the equity in that home to send your kids to college. This is the education that individuals in, in these communities need. They need to see that this is possible. But again, it starts with education. And I, I believe that as long as we make a concerted effort to making sure that we put programs in place to make sure that individuals are thoroughly knowledgeable and that these individuals are listening to professionals to get their advice before they make move, that's what's going to help to change this.

Speaker 1: 26:12

We've advocated for mandatory financial literacy classes at high school level even. And the State Department of Education doesn't seem interested in hearing our thoughts on what the curriculum should be. And it's unfortunate, but we don't have a statewide financial literacy required curriculum in our public high schools even. And, and I think that's a shame. Um, I think I agree with you a hundred percent. When I taught my kids, you know, I had to teach them with a several, a couple hundred dollars worth of pennies. So the magic of compound interest, for example, you know, there's a great kids book about grains of rice and how quickly it becomes a million grains of rice if you just double it every, whatever. And, and so my kids, you know, I made sure that they took advantage of savings plans and 401k matches and things like that. But a lot of young people are left out of that. And, and you're right. You know, we're a hundred percent right without, without that level of appreciation of the value and, and the, uh, in the financial literacy, they're, they're always gonna be a step behind.

Speaker 2: 27:18

Absolutely. And, and Chuck, to your point, I mean, I believe that financial literacy is necessary, but I believe it needs to start before high school. Ok. I believe that if we get these individuals in middle school Yeah. And even start teaching them when they're in, you know, elementary school. Yeah. We teach them early. It needs to be a constant education. So by the time they get to high school, they already have a savings account, they've gotten their first job and they know that they need to save a certain amount of money that I can spend this much, but I've gotta save this amount of money right here. We've gotta start producing and creating the mindset of saving money, understanding that money is your friend if you treat it right. That education has to start very, very early on in high school. They've started to create some habits, but I think that it should start a whole lot earlier than

Speaker 1: 28:07

That. That's fair. Yeah. One last thing, and then I wanted to give you, I want you to give us an update on the program, what you see for the next class, hopefully coming in. But before that, I'm struggling with harmonizing what we've talked about two different things, right? We've talked about how to accumulate wealth, generational wealth, including real estate, which if you are current owner of real estate, commercial or residential, but specifically residential, you experienced over the last three years, a 20 some percent increase in value in, in that asset. Oh, just over the last three years. Right. There's a big downside to that, right.<laugh>. So, you know, not only good news, the the bad news isn't just that your property taxes are gonna go up by some amount depending on what jurisdiction you're in and, and what the homestead credit is. Baltimore, I think it's 3%. The other piece of bad news is that those of us who are fortunate enough to become homeowners, see our wealth increasing, our net worth increasing. And yet every percent on the mortgage rate and every percent increase in value puts more and more housing out of reach. So, so we're advocating for making more housing available mm-hmm.<affirmative>, right? We do that. If we're successful in that and we bring the market back into balance, which is the amount of properties for sale versus the amount of buyers they have, and that, that that market is more imbalance, we're not gonna see 10 and 12% increases annually because we're not gonna have that imbalance between the supply and demand. How do we harmonize those two messages that real estate is, and I think, I know, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Like how do we harmonize the fact that real estate is one of the best ways to accumulate? Well, on the one hand, and on the other hand, we need more housing, which if we increase the supply to meet the demand by necessity, by the, well, unless you're proven wrong, the, the laws of supply and demand would dictate that prices will, if not go down, at least price increases will moderate. So how would we harmonize that in, in terms of our messaging to consumers about what we, when we're pursuing these paths concurrently, and how are they not inconsistent?

Speaker 2: 30:37

So I think that supply and demand, the laws of supply and demand dictate that it's a necessary evil in economics. Right. And so because it's a necessary evil and economics, I don't know that I've ever seen a balanced market. It's usually one end of the spectrum to the other. Real estate is cyclical. So where we have a fabulous, you know, 10 to 12 year timeframe, the market is gonna correct itself and it'll start to correct itself as we're in a correction phase right now. Yeah. It'll start to correct itself. And then over a 3, 4, 5 year period, then we're gonna start to see an increase again. So being in a position to have a completely balanced market, I think that's gonna be really difficult to do. We definitely want, as homeowners, in terms of building wealth, we definitely wanna make sure that the investments that we've made are increasing that, you know, we're able to see a, a better ROI on our investment. But on the other side of that, to your point, I don't wanna pay more if I don't have to. Right. Um,

Speaker 1: 31:46

<laugh>, if I can find a property for that I can afford, I mean Right. Is that, that's, you work with buyers, you just said it 20 buyers plus the new five, and how many people have just gotten discouraged and stopped and, and just left the market

Speaker 2: 31:58

And said, I'll just rent. Yeah. I'll, I'll wait and I'll just rent. So there were a number of individuals that, as realtors, that we lost as clients because they were just frustrated. Right. With the market. Good news is that the market is starting to change and those same buyers are now in a position where they can buy, yes. Home sale prices are declining, they're not as high as they used to be. Right. And so if we could as realtors reengage those individuals to bring them back into the fold of preparing for home ownership, you know, then we'd be able to kind of see a balance there. Um, but we've gotta go back and, and reengage those individuals that walked away at the height of the market because they got smoothed out.

Speaker 1: 32:41

I think one of the things we also need to do is educate current homeowners, especially if you are, have only owned your home. I say only<laugh> for the last 10 years, let's say that you're just thinking, this is it forever. I can, I'm going to be a millionaire from, by virtue of my investment in this$350,000 house. And I think personally, if you look at the historical return on investment, I mean, you, you, you mentioned roi, that historical appreciation of a home, and now this is very difficult to do without taking into effect local variations and stuff and things, but between, you know, roughly 4% appreciation, which is not nothing. Now that's assuming that inflation is 3% and you know, you're, you're staying just ahead of inflation. In fact, there are some studies that I read recently that suggest that over the last 25 years or so, that housing hasn't really outpaced inflation. That the, in that the, the increased value of real estate hasn't really outpaced inflation by that much. So it, it gets very complicated, but I think that's part of the financial education we have to, we have to engage in, because I think this current generation of homeowners thinks they're gonna get 10, 12% appreciation in the value of their home every year, and they're gonna start planning their retirements based on it or whatever. Right. And I, I think that's dangerous. And so I think we need to use that as a precursor to build on our foundation of we have to increase the, the number of homes available so that we're calling the missing middle housing. We do better at providing that. And those are opportunities not just for new home buyers, but as you well know, people who are locked in, people who are empty nesters, they're in more house than they need. They're, they're the impediment to people moving up because they don't know where to go next. Right. They don't have as many options to downsize so people can't upsize if you will. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So are you, are you seeing that, is that a real thing in your experience?

Speaker 2: 34:52

It is. It is. I, I think that if, if as realtors we start to take a look at and communicate with those individuals that are looking to downsize to be able to make those properties available, to your point, those, that's what's going to allow us to see more. The other thing is the individuals that own properties that are interested in becoming investors, they're using the equity that's in the, in the property that they own or occupy and they're purchasing more property, that's going to be another vehicle for us to be able to see more inventory in the marketplace. Hmm. So, I mean, that's a way to look at it as

Speaker 1: 35:31

Well. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that is a good perspective. So let's wrap up. Tell us what the future holds for the reaps program. You have the 11 and they seem to be on their way. What's next?

Speaker 2: 35:42

What's next is we plan to get these individuals to pass the PSI exam, right? Once they pass the PSI exam through the program. We want to raise funds, be it through private donations to pay for the very first year of these individuals. So, you know, the real estate community, having them to be able to invest in, in programs like this and invest in students like this definitely gives them an edge. It gives us an edge as realtors. So being able to fund their very first year in real estate, which includes brighter mls, which includes, you know, access to a board which includes headshot, century key, all of those things. So that they're not focused on the financials of getting a career in real estate, at least starting one. They're able to focus on what happens in real estate. How do I learn this business so that by the time I get to year one I'm able to thrive. And so the goal with the program is once these individuals go through their first transaction, they're able to take a portion of their first sale to reinvest what was put out in terms of them going through this program, reinvested back into the program so that we can fund the next cohort. Some of the other ideas that I've had in terms of changes with the reaps program is that I wanna be able to open it up to other brokerages. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> where they can invest in this particular program and they can fund a cohort. So all of the students, if a brokerage funds a cohort, then everyone in that cohort that goes through the whole program, those individual would go to that brokerage. So being able to make it holistically where it's not just MIMS Realty Group that is taking a role, an active role in improving the situation from a college perspective. But other brokerages are also investing in these students

Speaker 1: 37:34

As well. I love that. Yeah. So I hope if anybody's interested that they'll be able to reach out to you. Your best way. What's the best email address for you is

Speaker 2: 37:43

The best email address for me is hope mims realty group.com. They can also follow me on all social platforms and DM me there hopes.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Great. Absolutely. Well, hope it's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much for taking some time for us today. Session

Speaker 2: 37:59

Was all mine,

Speaker 1: 38:00

<laugh>. And to our listeners, thank you for the privilege of your time. This has been Get Real Estate, the Maryland Realtors Podcast. I'm Chuck Caskey, Maryland Realtors CEO O thanks always to our esteemed producer, Joshua Woodson. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Like us, share us, give us five stars if we've earned them and give us feedback, most especially including guests you'd like us to invite or topics to explore. So, be kind, stay safe. Have a great 2023. And I'm always in a Charles Dickens mood this time of year. I, I read Christmas Carol out loud to my family every year, whether they're there or not. I just read it out loud. I just love it. And then I ended up reading somehow a Tale of two cities over the holidays. I don't know why, but Dickens famously said, the most important thing in life is to stop saying, I wish, and start saying, I will consider nothing impossible. Then treat possibilities as probabilities.