Swapping First-Time Homebuyer Journeys (Realtor vs Lender)

Swapping first-time homebuyer journeys with San Antonio Realtors Matt Reyna and Zach Enriquez—what we believed going in, what surprised us, what almost derailed the process, and what we’d do differently today.

Most people think buying your first home is a math decision. In real life it’s emotional, messy, and full of bad advice from friends, family, and social media. In this episode we break down the real first-time buyer experience from three angles (Realtor + Realtor + Mortgage Lender), including what matters most: credit, income, mindset, equity, and how to stop letting other people’s opinions talk you out of building wealth.

In this episode you’ll learn:
- The biggest first-time homebuyer myths (and what’s actually true)
- How credit and planning impact your options (even with zero down programs)
- Why “keeping up with the Joneses” keeps people renting
- How equity can become a long-term wealth tool (not just a house)
- What Realtors and lenders wish buyers understood before shopping

Guests:
Matt Reyna — San Antonio Realtor
Zach Enriquez — San Antonio Realtor

Powered by LoanBot — Smarter Mortgage Matching (App Store + Google Play)

👇 Want to see what you qualify for (and a plan to get there)?
Contact me directly.

CHANNEL DISCLOSURE:
Mark Jones, Senior Loan Officer | NMLS #513437
iThink Mortgage powered by Premier Mortgage Resources | NMLS # 1169
Equal Housing Lender
All content on this channel is for educational purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to lend. Loan terms and availability are subject to credit approval, underwriting guidelines, and market conditions. Opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my company.

No compensation is given or received for referrals, endorsements, or podcast appearances, in compliance with RESPA. Guests speak on their own behalf. Mortgage examples used in videos are hypothetical and may not reflect current rates or borrower eligibility. LoanBot is an educational tool only and does not provide loan approvals.

For personalized mortgage advice, please contact me directly.

Chapters: 
4:00 - Matt’s Background: South Side SA, sales origins, early hustle
9:30 - Zach’s Background: Sales path, Gold’s Gym era, learning the craft
15:30 - Friendship + Sales Careers: Gym → Cars → Commission mindset
23:00 - How They Got Into Real Estate (new homes + who opened the door)
29:30 - New Homes vs Realtor Transition (why make the switch)
36:00 - Topic Starts: Swapping 1st-Time Homebuyer Journeys
36:45 - Zach’s First-Time Homebuyer Journey (spontaneous decision + lessons)
41:30 - Matt’s First-Time Homebuyer Journey (goal → plan → credit → build)
48:30 - Mark’s First-Time Homebuyer Journey (2010 USDA + credit boost strategy)
58:30 - Bad Advice & Social Media Noise (family, TikTok, “experts”)
1:05:30 - Generational Mindset + Equity = Wealth Tool (not just “a house”)
1:12:30 - Keeping Up with the Joneses (rent + car payment trap)
1:18:30 - Final Takeaways: What each person wishes they did sooner
1:22:30 - Wrap Up + Subscribe Milestone + Closing Message

Transcript

Daily Gains And Mindset Reset

SPEAKER_00 0:00

At the end of every day, look at yourself in the mirror and ask, did I get better today? Monday, get better. Tuesday, get better. Wednesday, get better. If you do that for five years, ten years, fifteen years, how much better will you be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the real question. And it all comes down to taking small steps. You don't have to accomplish everything in one day or even one week. Just focus on getting a little better every single day.

Why First Homes Aren’t Just Math

Mark Jones 0:38

And welcome back to another episode of Real Estate AF, where the AF stands for and finance. And I'm your host, Mark Jones, and we are powered by LoneBot, Smarter Mortgage Matching, now available on the App Store and Google Play. And today we kind of take a pause, take a step back, and look at our past so that we can hopefully predict the future and what we're doing. And when many people think buying your first home, you think it's a math equation. You think it's a math decision. Do the numbers work? Does this work? When in fact it's realistically a very messy, a very emotional, and a process that you probably get the most bad advice from every single person that you come in contact with because every situation is different. So that being said, I brought along two folks that we're actually going to be swapping our first-time homebuyer journeys and kind of give you all a roadmap of what worked, what didn't work, what things we could do differently. And I'm sure we'll be talking about plenty more than that. But without further ado, let me introduce my guest today. We've got Matt Raina. What's going on?

SPEAKER_05 1:53

What's up, brother? How are you good, good, good?

Mark Jones 1:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Yeah, bless man.

Meet Matt And Zach

Mark Jones 1:57

Amen to that. And then we've got Zach Enriquez. Newly Enriquez. Yeah, that's a fun story. Maybe we'll put it in the outtakes. But we got the whole thing. So, guys, as we kick this thing off, definitely your first time on my show. I would like you each to have an opportunity to tell us who you are. We're now up to JC, if you can throw that on the screen real quick. Matter of fact, the previous episode, we didn't get to do this. We were just under 40,000, but we have surpassed 40,000 subscribers and we're knocking on the door of 41,000. So thank you guys for continuing to like, subscribe, share. They told me that you can't make mortgage sexy, and I said, How about that? So said, Hold my beer. I don't drink beer these days, but uh I do I do partake in other verb herbal things. So hold this. But yeah, guys, who wants to start? Who wants to start?

SPEAKER_06 2:55

Well, I mean, I guess I'm from the south side of San Antonio. Grew up in the Palo Alto area. I tell people all the time that, you know, my family's still over there, my friends, my mom is still over there, as a matter of fact. And I guess growing up, man, we I didn't even think about owning a home, you know, like when I was entering adulthood, I guess. Well, let's go back.

Mark Jones 3:16

Let's go back. Uh-uh. You're not getting authentic. So you grew up here in San Antonio. You're now a realtor, right? Tell us more about that journey. Give give me a good little description of what led you into. We can just like tear that open for 30 hours. Let's sum it up. Let's sum it up to two key points. What a key milestones, I should say. What industry were you in before real estate?

SPEAKER_06 3:43

I sold cars. Okay, very good. So I've been in sales all my life. Okay. So I started sales at Radio Shack. Okay. Very good. Boom. I don't know if a lot of the viewers know what radio is. Many people don't. They're not around anymore. Exactly. So the one on Shopper City Monds, I was on what on Military and Pleasanton. Okay. Okay, so there. Before that, though, I was I was working at Bill Miller's. Me too. That was my first job.

Mark Jones 4:06

So I think that was all of our first gigs, right? My first real job. Wait a minute. When did you work there?

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Dude, I've every job that he's gonna mention besides Radio Shack, we've done together.

Mark Jones 4:14

So okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

I I worked there when we were 17 or 16 years. Same here that yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:19

Which one did you work at? A Bartlite? I worked at Days of Olive in 1605. South San? Yeah. Okay, cool. I worked there too. Yeah. Okay, so terrible one. Yeah. So the story, uh so to kind of get in context, the story of Matt and Zach, we've been best friends since sixth grade. That's awesome. We went to Kaysen Middle School together, went to South San.

Mark Jones 4:37

Okay.

South Side Roots And Early Jobs

SPEAKER_06 4:38

During high school, though, he started playing football. I started playing basketball. So we kind of like, you know, drifted apart a little bit, but then after, you know, it kind of became tight again. Well, figuring out life, we've always shared notes with each other. Okay. Right. So I'm like, hey man, I hear that so-and-so is hiring, and he's like, Well, cool. Do you think you can get me in? Yeah. And we've done that to this day. I'm like, hey, man, Mark's gonna have me on the podcast. You want to get so we've done that this whole time. You know, we're 37 now. So we've been best buds since, you know, oh, almost 21 years. Something like that. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's funny because I tell my people too, man, like, my circle is tight. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, you can check the resume, it goes all the way back to middle school, elementary.

Mark Jones 5:23

Well, I'll tell you one thing that's very tough to find, and this is just from my perspective, is people in your life that have been around for a long time have basically seen your journey, maybe even been a part of your journey that continue to applaud your successes and pick you up on your failures. And you don't make it this far in a friendship without that. I was gonna say and kick you on your ass, you know, when you're down to, man. So, Zach, tell us about you, man. Where are you from? Where what what got you into real estate? What tell tell me all the things?

SPEAKER_04 5:57

Man, it it was sales. I've always wanted to do something that could open up, you know, the the the life that I wanted. Okay, and you know, I couldn't see that out of a nine to five. Yeah, so I jumped into sales really early. I'm from the South Side too with Mav, like like he just said, we I went to school with him, graduated in 07, and immediately jumped into HEB after Bill Miller James. Yeah. And they gave a discount to the gym. Okay. You can go over there. So I walked over there and I was like, hey, go to the gym, you know, I want to take up my discount. The sales manager at the time was like, you know, he got off to me. So he was like, Hey, man, you ever think about switching careers? I think you'd actually be good here. That's awesome. And I was like, Yeah, I was like, okay, yeah, I'll apply. And I apply and they hired me, and that was like the start of sales for me. And then Matt ended up working.

SPEAKER_06 6:43

So I'm working at Radio Shack at Shopper City Mall. Okay. I do so well, they moved me up to the show. They moved me up at South Park Mall. Okay. So you can't tell me nothing at that point. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, I made it.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

Yeah, this is it. But but in contrast, I'm on the other side already in the gym. I'm wearing slacks, I'm like fit, I'm making good money. I'm showing up with like Versace. I'm like, dude, I'm telling you, bro.

SPEAKER_06 7:04

No, no, no, no. No, the way it happened was I'm with the kids, by the way. So we're 19 years old, you know. So Versace was like crazy. He uh he he he's walking in the mall, you know, studded out like that, and he's handing out free passes. And and I'm like, I hadn't seen him in a while. And I'm like, what's up, man? And he's just like, hey man, seven-day pass, you want to come work out? He's all jacked, girls are all around the road. And I'm like, You're working at the gym. And he's just all like, yeah. And I think I'm slick, right? I'm like, well, I get commission over here, you know, for selling batteries and stuff. And he goes, I get commission too. And I'm like, for what? And he's like selling memberships. And I'm like, I didn't even think that that was a thing. Yeah, exactly. That was it. And it's always been like kind of like that. We've always kind of connected the dots like that. And I'm like, that's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, and he's like, Man, if you if you know, if you want, maybe we can get you on. That's when we started working together at Gold's.

Mark Jones 7:59

So it always it hasn't always been a Matt, get me on here. It sometimes isn't always back and forth.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

You know, he gets in somewhere first, or I get in somewhere first. Somehow or another, we pull the other one with us. That's awesome. Like everywhere that we've gotten into, but man, I can't say enough about how great that time was at Gold's Gym. Dude, that was like the best. Which golds was it? Military and okay, got it, got it. It was like the best period of my life. That was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

That's where y'all pick up your dates, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Dude, I mean no, that was before like leggings.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I was just gonna say, were leggings popular then? No.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Look, we had gold's gym fitted dry fits that we had to wear with slacks, and then we were like fit everywhere we went, it was like we were getting free food, free this, free that.

Mark Jones 8:48

Mike Patino. Yes, like yeah, I met him back in the day when he was selling there.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

Yeah, I think it was Gold's at Bandera. Okay, very good.

Gym Hustle, Sales Craft, And Promotion

Mark Jones 8:57

Yeah, okay. And then I saw him jump into real estate. I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:00

Yeah, I see a lot of the a lot of the guys that were at the gym, Sesadio, like there, there's a bunch of guys are now in real estate. I think everyone just found our way to real. Well, the the the gym business kind of like died too. They changed a lot of the commission structure.

Mark Jones 9:12

The commission concept, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

So, like, I think they just it went away.

Mark Jones 9:16

Well, in addition, you guys have continued to level anything in sales. Number one, you have to it is something that can be taught. Some people, it is more innate, but number one, you have to believe in whatever you're selling, or else you really can't sell it. Yeah, as you start sharpening your craft and honing in on the actual skills that you have, mirroring somebody, that kind of stuff. You realize, okay, I can probably sell anything, but what else is out there that I can believe in?

SPEAKER_06 9:45

I think we hit the ceiling at at Gold's, and one of my buddies came in, Elliot. A car guy, okay, and he wanted a membership. And then he just started asking me. He was like, you know, how much money are you making here? And this and that. Same thing, man. Like the way that you said Gino told you. And he and he was like, if you're making that here, you can absolutely make minimum that selling cars. Yep, you know what I'm saying. At that time, I think he said it was like four grand or five grand, something like that. And I was like, minimum, like sell three cars, you're golden. Yeah, and uh, you know, like 21, 22, and I was like, say less, man. So started selling cars. I think remember I tried to get you an interview at Southway, and then for some reason they said no or something like that. And then that's when you went to Nissan.

Mark Jones 10:29

They looked him up and they were like, Martinez, no, no, no, no. He doesn't exist, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:36

So we're Enriquez. Oh, yeah. We got him. So that's it's it's funny, man, because we we went like that again. I mean, we've always been tight, but it's like we're surveying the field and we're like, well, this is what they're doing over here, and right, well, this is what they're paying over here. And y'all's commission structures like this. So we're just always like analyzing what's going on.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

Honestly, it was time and it was meant to be because get this. I got fired from Gold's gym. Okay. Literally, what a month or two after just winning the number one salesman. Oh, yeah. The nation. Wow. Like a national phone call. We're sitting there, yeah, just won the number one. Like a month later, they fire me. No, it ain't funny.

Mark Jones 11:11

It was very weird. The job before my big boy, my first big boy job working at Chase Bank. I was at the bank inside of Walmart. We were talking about it before. I got fired from that job. I was there for seven years, thought that this is this is it, man. I I didn't come from the hood or anything like that, but we weren't well off. Dad was prior military, etc. So I went to school with a lot of people that had money. Sure. So getting to see that, me personally, I'm going, okay, that I made, I'm working at a bank, y'all. Yeah. So I did get fired from that job for being late too many times, even though I was the highest grossing account opening or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But fast forward, God, I would never take that back. Ever. A funniest story.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

I mean, I won't go all into it, but like, I was never even late. I didn't miss a day. I was a late one. I was never late. I'd show up early. You know, I'd even work my days off. I literally had no, they they came in and they said, You didn't color your appointment log correctly. Yeah, we gotta let you go. Oh, yeah. I was like, There was the book.

SPEAKER_06 12:16

What?

Mark Jones 12:16

Sounds sounds political to me. Yeah, oh yeah, what up?

SPEAKER_04 12:20

Well, I mean, yeah, I was suspect to certain someone that we worked with. I was like, no, this don't seem right. You're just guilty of looking too damn good up in the gym. Yeah, you know, I think that my higher up cut me out. But hey, like it was meant to be. We went into cars, cars was a whole nother animal. We did very well there.

SPEAKER_06 12:40

Secret, secretly, it was me that was writing them out this whole time.

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Sabotage him though. He's actually what I suspect. That's epic. It's funny, it's funny enough because he's like, wait a minute. Right. No, it's funny enough because that person that I suspected ended up being the one that turned back around, got Matt into new homes, and then Matt got me into new homes. And now that's what got us into real estate. So I mean, the story's all connected all the way back.

Mark Jones 13:06

Okay, so so now, since that has connected, tell us who got into real estate first, you or you? Me into new homes. What what led you to jumping into real estate?

SPEAKER_06 13:19

How was it? Well, I was I was selling cars. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. I was selling cars and our buddy, yeah. I I uh ended up connecting with John. John Hope. You know John Hope? I do, yeah. So John Hope used to be our boss at Goads at Military and Delsamora, right? And I don't know how we John Hope was with KB Holmes.

Mark Jones 13:37

Who is he?

SPEAKER_06 13:37

Armadillo. Armadillo, that's right. Yep. Okay. So yeah, it was when he was with Armadillo, right? And he was telling me about this position of at that time too, it was damn 2014.

Mark Jones 13:48

So me and Hector Argometto were doing a lot of turndowns for them. Really? Right around that time. What year was it?

SPEAKER_06 13:53

2015. Yeah. That's when I started. Yeah. Now John was there 13, 14, right? He was there before, and he was telling me about it, right? And I'm at this time, real estate wasn't a thing that it wasn't the thing that it is now. Right. You know what I'm saying? So it wasn't on your bingo card. Not at all, man. Because, and this is how you know green I was. I told him, Well, hey, man, maybe I'll get my real estate license one day, and maybe, you know, you can help me get in. And he was like, You don't need no real estate license. And I was like, What? What? He goes, just like the way that you're selling cars for Ford, you sell them for Armadillo. And I'm like, duh. I was like, oh, that's what those people are doing in the model homes. You know what I'm saying? They're selling the houses. I'm like, okay, cool. And I'm like, get me on, bro. And he's just like, man, you know, I'll try this and that. So it was it was that, you know. And oh, I was working at the gym with Drew Fuentes. Okay, okay. He ended up working for Armadillo as well. Yep. So during that time, I had two people vouching for me. And the reason why they didn't want to hire me was because I was a car guy. I was selling cars at the time, and they were like, Really? They were like, nah, no car guys. They think that we're snakey, man. They think that's a lot of people.

Mark Jones 15:02

No, that perception is still true to this day. That is true. But but but the concept of let's say I've got a mortgage lender that previous car dog, I'm like, come on, sure. You know what it takes to face-to-face hand combat type concept.

SPEAKER_06 15:19

Yeah. It's not necessarily well, it's it's a it's partial that they think that we're snaky or whatever, because well, I'm a real estate guy now, right? But for the long for the longest time, I used to say I'm a car guy, you know. Now I've exceeded more time in real estate than anything else. But you know, I'd learned a whole lot from selling cars. Same here, dude. It was like things that I that I apply to this day, including the right way to do a walk around on a car. Bro, I could do one right now. Do you get what I'm saying?

Mark Jones 15:45

Like that same concept applies to a mortgage loan. It applies to a model home, a pre-owned home. Dude, if you do it half-assed, chances are you just lost that.

Getting Fired, Politics, And Resilience

SPEAKER_06 15:55

So I remember I used to think that I was slick, man. I would go up to the desk and I'd be like, hey man, can I get numbers on this Mustang? And he's like, Did they drive it? And I'm like, no, but he's like, that's right, go. That's right. And I was like, go, show it. Make it tangible, make it real, bro. And and you don't know how many times, like certain sales counselors, like for certain companies, I won't say, I'm like, hey, man, we want to take a look at this house, this and that. Cool, man. It's unlocked. This I'm like, I need you there. That's right. I need you there. I need you to show the feature action benefits. I need to, I need you to show everything about it, talk about the warranty. Get him involved, bro. You know what I'm saying? Dude, if you don't earn your paycheck, dog.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

I don't know how that became a thing. Because when we were at Armadillo Homes, I mean, we had to be there. Oh, no. Do you know how it became a thing?

Mark Jones 16:38

The same It's like, hey guys, I left you a key. Sorry. The the the same reason it became a thing for everybody and their mother to jump in real estate in 2020, 2021, 2022. And now they're finding out real fast that oh shit, it it wasn't a thing that I could do without working hard, without actually putting in the work type concept.

SPEAKER_06 17:00

You know, type concept.

Mark Jones 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:02

It's true. Yeah. Well, well, what what I was saying also, too, is I don't think it was so much that it was that I was a car guy per se, that I was a gym guy that made that that put pushed it over because they they like people from the gym industry.

SPEAKER_08 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 17:17

You know, people from the gym industry, according to them, can paint that picture of you know, eventually what what you could look like, what your home could look like, what your family could be like in the next couple of years or whatnot. It's it's it's more of emotion. Exactly, like an emotional buy. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Because in in the gym, I I would say, I said, you know, we would sell hundreds of dollars at one time or thousands even to give you this little piece of plastic. So I mean, that was a that was a pretty like tough sale.

SPEAKER_06 17:46

Selling the dream, selling the dream, in other words, you know, and I think that helped me out. And also John and and Drew vouching for me, and they kept on telling my eventual boss, man, you need to give this kid a shot. You need to give him a shot. You need to give him a shot. I don't know if you saw my video the other day. Me, me and Zach were selling cars. Oh, we're back together now. We're at Hyundai, dude. It's like 40 degrees outside. We're waiting for an up, dude. Because we probably had sold something within like I don't know how long. Remember, we used to we used to always say, Man, I feel like I'm never gonna sell a car again. You know, it happened. It's like we it's been 24 hours, bro. Seriously, yeah, seriously, right?

Mark Jones 18:24

When you're standing, it's a drought.

SPEAKER_06 18:27

But we already burned through our commission, so it's like of course you need another one right now. Yeah, so dude, we get into a car on the lot and we're just like, you know, just bundled up, you know. And I tell him, because you know, both of us have it, have like this this interview writing on our future, right? I'm like, I don't think they're gonna call me back, dude.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

I'm so invested too, because again, if Matt makes it in, I'm pretty sure to get it. I gotta put it in. Yeah, so I'm just like, dang man, I'm I'm praying for you, dude.

SPEAKER_06 18:53

Like, I really want you to get that. I said, dude, I've had two interviews and they're not calling me back. I'm like, I don't know what's I'm like, call them, Matt. No, well, I was like, dude, I said, You think I should call them? Yeah, like that's a no-no, you know what I'm saying? Obviously, like you don't want to be bugged, you don't want to look desperate, seriously, right? But you were we were freezing in a used car in the front of Hyundai. That's epic. So I start calling him, dude. And he don't answer, you know. My my boss is kind of a dick, and he he he he didn't answer, and I was like, you know, I'm gonna call him. You know what? Fine. Now it's personal. No, no, I'm just not like I'm gonna call him every week until this motherfucker hired me, dude.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

And I did that, and finally he, I guess somebody how long how long would you say that's just keeping how long would you say that went on?

SPEAKER_06 19:43

Weeks, man. Okay, maybe maybe a month. So persistence.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Oh, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_06 19:46

Yeah, and at that point, too. I dude, this this guy, man, he always tells me what I want to hear, right? And he's like, hey man, like, what's the worst that can happen? I mean, we're already here, you know what I'm saying? We're gonna be in the same spot. I'm like, you're right, bro, you know. So I'm trying to not be here.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Yes, no, but but when you're saying about like calling and bugging him, I'm like, we're already here right now. You might as well just do something, yeah. So calling him up.

Breaking Into New Home Sales

Mark Jones 20:10

And my when I made the shift from the auto industry to and I tell the story plenty of times, but I went and took all the real estate tests, uh classes. Oh, cool. And it was like, this isn't for me. So I switched over to mortgage before taking the test. But the the shit, I don't even know where I was going with that. Let me ask you something on that. Sure. Thank you for saving me, by the way.

SPEAKER_06 20:35

Do you do you uh do you think that you know I've always known you to be a little bit more of an analytical mind? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? But at the same time, you know, you're very personable as well. So I'll tell you, do you feel that the numbers just I am not big reveal?

Mark Jones 20:51

I used to be a very extroverted person as time progressed in my career, in my personal life, uh family life, everything. I've become way more introverted, extroverted when needed. Sure. But what pushed me to that side was the fact that at 18 I opened a credit repair company with a friend, jumped into the bank inside of Walmarts, have been selling credit repair and checking accounts and savings accounts and seeing business owners, normal people have bank accounts for years. I'm talking seven years. Kind of pulled the curtain back of going, wait a minute. My mom did real estate, she did well, then switched over to lending. Me, I've got friends in real estate, but not a ton. But I do know how to deal with finance, I do know how to deal with credit, and I do know how to deal with people. So that was just kind of overall, and and they said there's no limit. And I went, sign me up.

SPEAKER_06 21:51

Yeah, I always call that kind of like the natural progression, you know what I'm saying? It kind of funneled you that way, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so which so they finally ended up. Up hiring me at Armadillo, and that's where I can that's where I start getting the concept of me owning my own home. Go figure, right? Not even up to that point, right? But but in this way. There was a guy that worked with us, his name was Ryan Jeter, and he was working at Romuda. You know Romuta Ranch? He was working out of that subdivision and he built his house in that subdivision. Okay. And just like those aha moments, I was like, wait a minute, you can do that?

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Do you remember that price point at Remuda Ranch? I thought it was insane for those huge houses to be like 340. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:35

I was like, I think so. That's a lot of money. That's crazy. Yeah. I think Ryan had built himself like a pretty massive one-story two. And I was like, insane, Mark.

SPEAKER_04 22:43

I mean, like the biggest, most loaded home, everything 333, 343. What year was this?

SPEAKER_06 22:51

2015. Okay. So then at that point, that's when I started my journey of okay, man. I gotta get my credit in order. I gotta get my credit. Okay, so before we get into that, so that's where I was segmenting that.

Mark Jones 23:03

Well, shortly, Zach, do you guys your stories kind of intertwine? He jumped on an armadillo. After that, did you also jump armadillo?

SPEAKER_04 23:11

That was a cold year for me in the car business. Okay, okay. Because Matt left me. Yeah, yeah. You my boy, uh see every morning, all day long. You know, I gotta do this bell to bell by myself. Yeah, basically, he's doing the balloons, all crying. It was terrible. It really wasn't sad time. I remember feeling like sad in that time. I was like, man, hopefully he'll give me a call suit. Yep. Get me in.

SPEAKER_06 23:33

But yeah, what was it, like a year maybe before? I was just like, it's a matter of time, bro. I got you. You know, it's gonna happen, but it was about a year. I held it down there.

Mark Jones 23:41

And did you follow in the same journey or path to where you went new home sales first, then converted over to realtor? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

Okay, yeah, okay. No license thing. So we were like, yeah, I'm a salesman. I mean, I've sold everything. Yeah, yeah, give me in there. Look at me. I'll sell your house. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_06 23:59

Funny, the funny thing is, I finally got him on, and you know, there was a lot of moving around, a lot of shifting around. We ended up selling in the same model home. We were we were partners. I messed up when we did that.

Mark Jones 24:11

Man, if only they had TikTok back there, dude. Oh, we had Snapchat, bro. Oh, indeed, Mark.

SPEAKER_04 24:18

You have no idea. Look, look, there was this one time we we had uh Was it like Dumb and Dumber, or was it like Shaq Toby? I was gonna say prank wars one time.

SPEAKER_06 24:29

I was like, they put us two clown shoes in the same model home.

The Pitch, Persistence, And The Callback

SPEAKER_04 24:33

I was like, dude, this is not gonna end with that prank wars section got out of hand to where like literally cops were called. Oh Lord Jesus.

Mark Jones 24:42

Makes perfect sense why you transitioned to real estate.

SPEAKER_06 24:45

So and then we started kind of like having a little pact. I'm like, okay, dude, no, not in front of customers, bro. Like, no, he put a diaper on my on my on the hood of my car while I was showing houses. So I was like taking a uh taking a as you walk by.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Yes, dude, and melted chocolate in there.

SPEAKER_06 25:05

As you walk by, yeah, I'm divorced at damn X. This this dude, man, he's like like not the best with computers or technology or whatever. All I did was copy all or get uh you know how you uh you grab all the files and put them in the trash. That's all that's all I reset my computer. That's it, man. It was like, and he was like, dude, let me get on the thing, man. I'm like, sorry, man. I don't I can't help you. But uh oh man, that sounds like but you know what? We ended up uh winning customer satisfaction.

SPEAKER_04 25:37

Yeah, it was still like best community.

SPEAKER_06 25:40

It's one two weeks.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

We talked about like awards and everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:43

I think I think we're just because we were always having a good time in there, right? Like yeah, the vibe was real good.

SPEAKER_04 25:48

You know, we were we were always you know jacking around, but like you walked in and you it was you were having fun, you were having a good time, you know.

Mark Jones 25:55

So as you guys made that transition from sales counseling, we'll call it, to real estate. What was the deciding factor? Was it just the concept of go for it, Chuck?

SPEAKER_06 26:07

Oh well, for me personally, sorry, Zach. I uh bro, whenever realtors would come in, I was like, it was one of those moments again, too. I'm like, you're making three percent on this deal, you know. I'm making 175. I was like, Matt, I'm doing the work.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

Matt has always been the smarter portion of our friendship in that way. I'm so short-sighted a lot of times. I never even thought of that. Yeah, you know, I was just like the brains in the beauty, yeah. The brains in the bron over here, yeah. I never even thought of that. You know, that I was just like, that's just a realtor. Yeah, he brings me my clients. I didn't think of his wallet or nothing like that opportunity for me.

SPEAKER_06 26:46

So, yes, that he started that idea. I was like, dude, and it was one of those things, like I could do that. Yeah, you know, why why not? You know, I could do that, and he made the jump first.

Mark Jones 26:56

And fast forward to today when you proved yourself right that you can do that, right?

SPEAKER_04 27:02

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Why not? It was the same thing, really, just a little less chains on you. Because instead of just selling you a house, if you don't like this house, who cares? Yeah, smart, you know. So it it made a whole bunch of sense. My girlfriend was the realtor, Kelly, and she would bring me clients, and then she was just like, Why don't we just do real estate together? One two combo, right?

SPEAKER_06 27:21

I'll tell you a story about that too. Oh shit. I knew Kelly out of a mutual friend, and I knew Kelly before Zach, right? And I was like, Hey, Kelly, just like bring your clients over, this and that. And she maybe brought me one or two, this and that. And then gradually she just started bringing them to how she saw the bronze. I was like, I thought we were, and then that was that just yeah, that happened and that was it, man. Yeah, yeah, it was history from then. I was just like, I mean, oh, wait, can you blame her?

SPEAKER_04 27:51

No, no, no, probably kind of would have done the same thing, right? And it's funny because Matt mentioned earlier that our boss was kind of a dick. I it started to line up to to where one point I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna quit today. This guy just kind of pissed me off.

SPEAKER_06 28:07

Not to mention, like Kelly, speaking of a good person by your side, she was putting the battery in your back, right? Like you like, you need to come and do what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

He was doing very well from the jump.

SPEAKER_06 28:17

She's always doing a hard work here.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

I mean, so it was literally like the shoes were already there for me. She just said, come and step into it, let's do it. Yeah, and guess, and guess what team she was on? Oh, I have no idea. Oh, uh Scott Malouv. Oh, she was on Scott's team. Okay, then oh bro, Becca had like three agents at the time. Really? Brand new Scott Malouv. That's when I joined. There was, I think there was a total of six of us or something like that. It was very, very small. We had a little office. Wow. We had a little office, probably like this, and it was only a couple of us. Yeah.

New Homes To Realtor Math

Mark Jones 28:46

Oh man, funny funny story about Scott. My brother grew up with a guy named Josh Kearns, shout out, who is his cousin. One day I'm top producer, top of the world. It was what 2014, something like that. He Josh walks Scott into my office and says, I want you to meet my cousin. He just got into real estate. He used to be a club promoter, blah, blah, blah, blah. Kind of blew him off. Really? Straight up. And fast forward, I'm like, dude, you remember when you walked into my office that day with Josh? He's like, Yeah, man, that did you went, I know.

SPEAKER_06 29:18

I remember I was like, I know this guy. I was like, I would know this guy from somewhere. Remember, I was talking about that. I worked at South Park? Yeah. He would be passing passing out. And I was like, that's who that is. You know what I'm saying?

Mark Jones 29:31

And then JC, how are we doing on time? Take off the first, like, say, 10 minutes or so.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

10 minutes we're at 36 minutes.

Mark Jones 29:39

Okay, we got about 15, 20 minutes, and it's time to get into our topic of the day. We're gonna share our first-time home buyer journeys. Some may be sooner than others. I don't know what you guys' situation is, but I'll go last. And I want you to share the the intricate details of the motivation behind it. Where were you at in life? What did it take to accomplish that goal? Because not everybody can just go, yep, want to buy a house. Yep, I qualify. Yep, okay, got the money, and just goes off without a hitch. That's just my first time buyer journey wasn't like that. And many others that I finance and help guide aren't like that either. But I want folks to truly see the perspective of what you went through, what I went through, what you went through to accomplish that goal. So who wants to start?

SPEAKER_04 30:35

I think mine's a little less sexy than yours. I think Matt's is really, really nice. Mine almost kind of happened that way where it was just like, oh, let's buy a house. But it took I had to pay for a lot of mistakes from like my younger years. Okay. Seems to be a trend with first-time homebuyers. Right. Yep. And the thing is, I I guess I had leveled out everything and didn't really even again, very short-sighted a lot of times. I don't think about these things like that. And I really wish I was better about that. I really wish I had was like a little bit better like you. But yeah, just one day I'm selling my client's house, you know, and they're kind of in a rush. They want to get this thing sold, and you know, we hadn't had any luck with theirs. House ended up looking really nice. And I was like, huh, why don't I buy a house? I think I'm pretty good. And and and that's kind of like what year, what year was this? Three years ago now.

SPEAKER_06 31:29

So we're in 2022. Well, you you had been a homeowner before that, though, right? Through your I mean through your marriage. That counts that counts, bro. Right?

Mark Jones 31:36

Mark, does that were you on the loan?

SPEAKER_06 31:38

No. Then no.

SPEAKER_04 31:40

I paid it. Okay. I paid it.

Mark Jones 31:43

But I'm with you. I'm I'm like, I don't count. It is it is to be honest. It is different going through that process. Yes. That that process is the thing that hopefully, by way of this discussion, people see that they are not the only ones. Definitely.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

You know, truly. Go for it. Yeah, that was crazy. That was very adult feeling feeling. You know, I felt like I had grown up when I was over there.

Mark Jones 32:06

So let me ask you, I'm gonna I'm gonna dig a little bit because I want to pull this shit out. When you went to apply the first time, did you know that you needed to go get a loan first?

SPEAKER_04 32:15

I mean, what yeah, I was in real estate, you know, and real estate was just rocking and rolling. I had no problems, and um, you know, I I just applied and they were like, Yeah, you're good.

Mark Jones 32:25

So you realtor, self-employed, 1099. That means you were claiming enough on your tax return to actually qualify for a home and paying the taxes that you owed. Yeah, right, yeah, which is a huge, huge feat in itself.

SPEAKER_06 32:39

So you are a delivery.

SPEAKER_04 32:42

Honestly, I like it. That thought just hit my mind.

SPEAKER_06 32:47

What are what are write-offs?

SPEAKER_04 32:48

Right. I made a hundred, I claim a hundred. In order for me to operate every day, I need a lot of help. Like, I need to have a lot of conversations with a lot of different people. Yeah.

Hitting Record Milestones And Community

Mark Jones 32:57

So, Zach, was there any credit challenges that you had to face that at that time? You just you had it together and that's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

At that time when it happened, no, but before that, I mean, there was a lot of little things I had to get done, like like even just getting my license back, my driver's license, like all kinds of things I had to go take care of. And I just still didn't think of buying a house. You know, I was like, no, everything's going good. Right. You know, and it just like snapped one day. They were having trouble selling it. I'm just like, hmm, why don't I buy it? And you know, that's how that's what I'm saying. My story is a lot less sexy than Matt's because Matt Matt saw what he wanted and went for it. Okay, and it and I saw all the work it took, all the planning, getting, you know, his ducks in a row, all that. Yeah, that just did not happen with me.

Why Jump To Real Estate Agency

SPEAKER_06 33:44

Yeah, okay. Yeah, jump jumping off the uh like the pain for your mistakes, you know, I think that's where a lot of people start out. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. I forgot what my credit was at. And at the same time, too, you know, selling cars, then going into uh general real estate. I I kind of you know how you do when he says you you saw what you wanted. I was touring the houses that we had at Armadillo and we had single-story floor plans and two-story floor plans, whatever. And I walked into this this floor plan, which I I have now, and when I saw it, that was that that's what it was for me. I kind of like a wow factor in a house. And this one has eight 18-foot ceilings, you know. Did both of you guys buy brand new? No, I bought three. Yeah. So when I saw that one, I was like, oh man, this this is it, you know. Now, of course, it was a little bit out of the budget. So I was like, man, working backwards, I need to make X amount of money. I need my credit to be this, you know. So I kind of um worked backwards and it was a a two-year. Oh, also too, I wanted to build within the same community that I was working in. Okay. And I mean, just you know, as God, you know, has planned, you we are starting a brand new phase. Nice lots, you know what I'm saying? Green belt lots, every size lots, oversized lots, 42-foot driveways, things like that. And man, it's just kind of like like divine intervention sometimes, you know? And and and and it was working out that way. And I had to, like I said, make the money to sustain that, and then also get my credit where it needs to be. And it kind of all aligned up. It's it's funny when you have that goal in mind, and that's what I want people to kind of understand that you know you you have that goal of whatever it is, you you work backwards, connect the dots, and that'll meet you halfway on it. I truly, truly believe that.

Mark Jones 35:35

So at that time when you applied, I want to get a little granular, so to speak. Did you have the credit to qualify? Did you get advised on the credit side of things? Well, in addition, what type of loan did you use? That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_06 35:51

Give me give me some. Okay, so check this out. And only you would probably know something like this. You know what I wanted at that time? An 8515. A 85 what?

Mark Jones 36:00

A 80 80 1010 or 8085 15, or and they didn't have them.

SPEAKER_06 36:06

Well, I don't think I qualified for that. No, they didn't have them. No, I think and for people that don't know what those are, explain that.

Mark Jones 36:12

It's essentially something that has been eliminated from the options that we can provide, folks, because it caused a massive crisis called the crash of 2008, you guys. It's more so a stated income type situation, parlayed with the fact that you're using a first and a second lien, and the second lien is your down payment. Today, these are more so down payment assistance type loans that only max you out at, let's say, 5% in some cases, down payment assistance, but used as a second lien.

SPEAKER_06 36:42

Gotcha. So similar to that. Well, the reason why I wanted to do it that way, and correct me if I'm wrong, but basically it eliminates the PMI, correct? Same concept, yes. Yeah, it sure does.

Mark Jones 36:53

It's stimulates that you're putting down 20% when you're really not.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

Exactly. So you're putting down 10, uh five?

Mark Jones 37:00

There's many.

SPEAKER_06 37:00

I think it was 85, 5, 15.

Mark Jones 37:02

No, you're talking about 80, 15, 5.

SPEAKER_06 37:04

That's what I'm talking about. Okay. Okay, cool.

Mark Jones 37:06

Yes, I advised many customers to do this at that time, not necessarily the first time around, because a lot of folks don't have the 5% to do that.

SPEAKER_07 37:14

Correct.

Mark Jones 37:14

In addition, their first home historically isn't going to be significant enough on their payment for the justification of adding an extra layer of risk of having a second lien. But second time buyer, third time buyers, hey, when MI came out, it was like you want to know how to get rid of it. We put a second lien on there. And you put your 5%.

SPEAKER_06 37:35

Now you've got two payments, but well, the well, the way that I figured is if I could save up three and a half percent, I could save up five. Good point. You know what I'm saying? Good point. So and then at the same time, God, I wish everybody had that mindset.

Mark Jones 37:47

If I can get three and a half, I can, yeah.

Commissions, Constraints, And Freedom

SPEAKER_06 37:49

Yeah, right. So that's what that's what I was going for. I remember, and I was like, ooh, you so I kind of like obviously I got a little bit of assistance because Armadillo, I'm in it all day. And I'm like, what do they do? What is that? You know, so I was figuring, oh man, that's what I'm gonna do. Well, I mean, I get it, didn't get my credit to where it needed to be to end up doing that. Funny thing is, you know, Damon Green? Yeah. Okay, so Damon was working with us at Armadillo at the time. And I'm like, hey man, I need you to fix my credit, you know, this and that. So that was a process in itself. And I remember we were doing fantasy football.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Okay.

Loan Structures And Credit Fixing

SPEAKER_06 38:20

It was the first time and only time I've ever done fantasy. I've never done it because I just don't pay attention. Me too. And he's like, hey man, he's like, he goes, I want some somebody on my team, right? I go, You can have my whole fucking team. Just fix my credit. Wow. I was like, I'll give you Tom Brady, I'll give you whoever I got. And then he was like, nah, because if I take too many people from your team, they're gonna be too obvious. Wow. So anyway, so yeah, we did that little hustle. I was in that one, right? I was in so that year too. Oh man, I suck. I just I didn't even keep up with it. But yeah, so ended up doing that, saved up my down payment, and yeah, from a lot of help from everybody there, kind of got that too. I remember too, Jesse Segovia. Yeah, he was I was picking out my lot and I wanted this cul-de-sac lot. And I was like, me, you know, just dumb. I was like, Cold-de-sac lots, just there's nothing better than that. Well, the lot that he was like, bro, you want one of these right here. Yeah, it's like, you know, 180-foot lot, and and it's got a 42-foot driveway. It's on the main road, which sucks, but I backed up to a green belt, which they're not gonna build on. And I got like a walking trail, I guess, like 80-foot backyard, and he's like, You want one of these, man? And I'm like, Yeah, you know, so ended up building my house there, and pretty much the rest is history. That's that's how I I got it. So I ended up building the house where I was working at, okay, which was which was uh Stone Creek. Yeah. A new phase was being built, and I told my boss at the time, I said, Leave me here. I I thought I fulfilled my my thing. You know, I was like, I'm a company man, I work here, I I live here, I work here, leave me by myself, man. You know, I thought I kind of proved it, but he was like, nah, like as a matter of fact, he was like, It's gonna be you and Jesse in the new phase. I'm like, dude, you know, Jesse and I were one of the top salespeople, and I was like, bro, there's not enough for us to eat here. And during that time, he was already rocking and rolling with the Maloof group. So I was like, man, dude, if if it's if if now's the time to jump, that's you know, yeah, you know, if it if any time is, it's now and might as well. That's that's what happened. Yeah. So okay, so I'm interested to hear yours.

Mark Jones 40:30

It's the time, and I'm gonna be very transparent with this because I'm coming at it from a perspective of the transparency is intended to give people hope because I bought my first home in 2010, brought receipts, you guys. I've got what we call or what we called back in the day, a HUD settlement statement. Anybody out there remember that? Comment in the comment section. I've got the breakdown of everything the finances, the credit report, the contract, the whole nine. And this one is uh how do I say it? It should be inspirational to many because I I didn't have a college degree. I was working at the bank from Walmart, got fired from there, jumped over to Chase Bank, and I started, I got licensed to do investments. When I really wasn't doing investments, I was just referring them to our financial advisor getting credit for it. So here I go from making$32,000 a year at the bank inside of Walmart to potentially$60,000 a year. Big boy pants, what does that put me at? 24, 23, 24? And at the time I had probably a 580 credit score. At the time, I was also helping people fix their credit prior to that. So I knew what it took, but I didn't know what it took to actually buy a home. I was renting over off of I-10 and Camp Bullis. I don't remember what the heck the Vista Ridge. And I had the apartment that overlooked the pool with the pool table in our living room. I mean, it was just my my roommate was a club promoter, Bombay, sports and bar, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that one. Yep. And I was working at the bank, Chase. I was at that time, what else? Goodness, running poker games. I was going up to New York, selling purses, coming back with all kinds of stuff. I was hustling. I was hustling like nobody's business. But at that time, I had already spent two years paying rent. And I had just gotten into a new relationship with my wife, and we were getting pretty serious pretty quickly. And I told her, I am as soon as this lease is done, I'm not going to get another lease. And I'd love to buy a house. I don't know if I can do it on my own, but if you want to jump on it with me, you can. If not, I'm still doing it. If you move in with me the whole nine yards, and what if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_06 43:01

Uh, what about the living situation? Like in particular, was like, fuck this, I want a house.

Mark Jones 43:05

It had nothing to do with the living situation.

SPEAKER_06 43:07

Nothing like that?

Building Where You Sell

Mark Jones 43:07

Nope. At all. It was not an emotional thing for me. So I can relate because I've experienced many and I know that it's emotional, but for me, I was done paying rent. Got it. I knew and and I had somewhat of a mentor, Ernie Guerrero. He used to teach at Sabor, broker of Alamo Real Estate Brokerage, my uncle. He would just constantly preach, this is how you get rich. Sure. This is how you get rich. You can invent something or you can work your life away. But while you're doing that, you better be putting it in real estate. And it was just a constant. So having seen my mom go through mortgage and real estate, my parents owned their home. Not outright, but they'd own their home and had just built their own home on an 80 20 loan prior to, I was, I was, like I said, I was done. I did the math and Went, uh, okay, yeah, let me see what it takes. So, shout out to Tracy Radigan. She was my realtor and she's also a lender uh uh to the to this day. Set me up with a lady named Julie Cohen. Julie Cohen was like the USDA queen. So when I went to her, credit wasn't there. And I told her, hey, I can do whatever it takes to get that score up. I just need you to tell me what to do. Sure as shit. She drew it up. The simulators that we use today, they had back then in 2010. This is what you need to do. Fantastic. Boom. Sure enough, two weeks later, my score is above 640. I'm ready to rock and roll. W-2s, great. Pay stubs, yes, ma'am. No debt payment. No debts. Oh, I had debt. Hell yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. But coming up through those years, I had run up quite a bit of credit card debt doing the whole club promoting thing with John Vale. Okay. Um, it was just like, yeah, free drinks until the free drinks are out. And I'm like, here's my fucking card. Damn. Woo! Type concept. But at the same time, I was making money, and I probably made the most money out of all my friends off the books, in addition to I had a W-2 paying job at that time. Okay. So it was at that time that it was like, okay, so down payment. How much do you have saved up? And it was like, not much. I've got about five, seven grand or so. And at that time, I had to use a chunk of it to pay off the credit cards. Oh wow. And I sure as shit didn't want to ask my new girlfriend that I'm asking to move into with me or to apply with me. Do you got any money? Like, fuck that. So I asked Julie, is there any loans without any down payment assistance? And in 2010, I don't know if you guys remember, that's back when Barack Obama released that tax credit that you get, I don't know,$8,000 or something like that for buying a home. That's right. But it didn't happen until after the fact. So Julie sat me down and said, Hey, we've got this USDA loan, but for the USDA loan, you can only look in this area. And like, okay, Tracy, show me some houses in and around that area. Wow. And at that time, I was a bit shy on the income. Kristen, my wife, was working part-time at a physical therapy office. So I said, Hey, you jump on the loan, we can qualify for that house. Boom. She jumped on. She talked to her parents. Parents were like, Well, I mean, you guys are already like pretty serious. It's this and next step is probably getting married. She's like, Well, maybe, who knows? Well, fast forward, we did. But as we jumped into that situation, it was like, okay, I'm either going to do what it takes to fix that credit, number one, so I can look good to buy the home, but number two, so I can make sure that this new relationship continues to flourish because I want good things in my life. This is, I'm at a spot in my life where I never thought I'd be. I got a good job, I got my own bills, and I started paying my own bills at 18. There was no, hey dad, can I get nope?

SPEAKER_06 47:10

I think it's like the same for all the people.

Mark’s First Home: USDA Playbook

Mark Jones 47:12

There's one time I asked my dad for money and he went to the back bedroom, came back with a hundred bucks. And I was like, thank you. It doesn't help, but thank you. Um, anywho, so JC, if you can share, let me see if I can. Yeah. Let's see if I can stretch this bad boy across. I'm gonna be real transparent, y'all. So, right there, back when she was a foster, Mark A. Jones Jr., I was living at Camp Bullis right there, and we bought 8426 Stone Chase 78254. And what was the date? 254.254 is what uh Bandera issue? No, no, no. That's uh that's Calibra 1604 outside the loop. Uh 429.10, and we bought it for 140,500 settlement charges, yada yada, yada. And we got 5,000 from the sellers plus the title policy. And I had to look at that. I got back 900 bucks. Yes, get you some at the time. They only made 17 grand. I wonder what the payment was. Let's see here. See if I can find what the payment was for you guys, real quick. Boop, boop, boop. Max. Monthly payment. 1040. Now thousand forty. No money down. Now, as I throw this off, I'm gonna put this up because I want to show people what time does for things.

SPEAKER_06 48:43

That looked at I was hoping you were gonna go there.

Mark Jones 48:46

Oh, yes. Yeah, let's type in 8426 Stone Chase. And there it is. Valued at 236 there. We bought it. Yep, for April of 2010. And let me show you guys what this house looked like. Boom, there it is. Planted those trees, planted that tree when it was just nothing. Cannot believe it. Now, fast forward, laid down these floors by hand. There used to be a wall right here that one day Kristen came home and I had knocked it down. I was like, I'm doing this. So many stories in that, but the best one that I can give you is this house led to a mini empire that she and I started building. Awesome. It became one of our first investment properties, rental properties. There's the new floors. Boop, boop, boop. But yeah, that when it was time, we lived in this house for three years, made plenty of memories. It was so manageable, everything else, and ended up three years later refinancing this to a 15-year note, in addition to purchasing the next one. Rented this one out for I think it was like$1,200. So essentially, that payment for the 15-year, because the rate when I first jumped in was five and a half, five and a half, ended up being a almost the same exact payment for a 15-year. Sure. So not only were we making equity when the mortgage payment was made, but we made a deal that we would each throw an additional 200 bucks at the mortgage, regardless of us living there. So paid it off quicker. That then became a spark to go, let's buy another one. Let's buy another one. While we were also every three years buying another one and moving and retaining the one that we moved from. We ended up selling them all in 2019 and started flipping properties. But yeah, that kind of kicked off that awakening of holy shit, anybody can actually do this. I need a credit score, I need work history, and I need someone to advise me. Sure. Um, because I think the the biggest uh, and you can kill that if it's up there still, the biggest downfall that first-time home buyers have. And JC, you can shed some light on this after I'm done, but we just experienced it with one of your clients. Soon as you mention you're buying a home, all of a sudden, everybody and their mother wants to give you advice. Yeah, they know everybody's the expert on buying a home. Now's a good time. No, now's not a good time, and then the rates are too high. But TikTok said this. It's absolutely JC, if you could shed some light on this last situation that I want to say they probably talked themselves out of buying.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Oh, yeah. They came in super excited. You know, they they have their big dreams, you know, but you know, realistically, hey, based on what you can afford now, the home over here that you want, think long-term in the future. Right now, start establishing your wealth and equity. And one that he said a one one thing is they were going to be the first people in the first people in the both their families to ever own.

Mark Jones 52:11

Correct.

Zero Down, Equity, And Time

SPEAKER_01 52:12

That was their goal. So in a when I talked to him off call, whatever, and I said, you know, it's an exciting time getting them excited. Look, what you're doing right now for your future children, you're changing generational mindset. Yes. And for example, me, my parents, I do nothing but owning. If you're gonna rent, short, get your stuff together. But the goal is never to rent home. And whereas the mentality they came from, their parents are always ready. That was just what you did. But and I said, Look, your future kids right now, you're establishing mental wealth to them because now they're gonna pass that generational knowledge and wealth on. But as they were buying, as they I mean, we had our conversation, they were saying, Well, she started asking all this question, these questions were like, let me guess, you're getting these questions from multiple family members, uh, social media. I was like, Yes. Well, my dad says this. Well, when they bought their house, or not not your my uncle, because the parents didn't buy my uncle said this. Well, my cousin said that my cousin said he should go to a new bill because I have a new bill, not pre-old, but then but I saw on TikTok that they were yeah, it's like get off social media, quit go find an expert. You know, we hope you would continue to utilize us because what you're seeing online is fluff. You're seeing fluff, a lot of that stuff they're posting is actually illegal. See, it's PB can come talk about it. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're seeing the fluff, the lifestyle, and a lot of the information that you're seeing online is coming from California, New York. We're a different animal.

SPEAKER_07 53:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

I you're gonna see and well uh they kept going there, so we kind of set some realistic, you know, expectations. Uh talking to their realtor, then say it's like you were telling them the same thing, they want to hear a different answer. Correct. Yeah, so it but I say you can't uh wiggle your way out in when it comes to buying home real estate. Yeah, it's this way, no way. Yeah, and so yeah, and they unfortunately it's put a little delay in things, whereas uh if they just put the phone down and listen to their lenders, the realtor, uh they can get into home pretty quick.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

Yeah, unfortunately, too. Excuse me, sometimes they're just not supporters, and there's you know, sure, feeding you a little bit of yeah, then don't want you to move up in the well.

Mark Jones 54:22

One thing that you mentioned, JC, that I want to specifically hone in on is the concept of the generational mindset. And it you are correct, my kids will not rent for very long. Why? Because I'm gonna make damn sure that they know what it takes to buy a home and how important it is to start owning real estate, and I ain't gonna give them shit. They're gonna earn it.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Yeah, there's and like I said, there's nothing wrong with it, but if it's a temporary move, because even if it's a short time, maybe a one to three years, you then you start thinking, which money did I get in away?

SPEAKER_06 54:58

Well, I'm I'm glad that you you were mentioning the journey too, because I rented for 10 years, man. Wow, yeah. So I was I was out on my own very, very early. Yeah, so I had my apartment. It's funny because you were mentioning the apartment. I wanted the one that was next to the pool and all that stuff. Oh, yeah. And we'd have poker games just like you. You know what I'm saying? And man, it it started becoming tough. Then I rented my own home, okay, you know, and that's what kind of started changing my mind. But mostly it was like, man, dude, I could have gotten rid of a third of a mortgage already. Right. And what I started realizing too, I don't, I I try well, you know, I don't know what your self-talk is like, but my self-talk is kind of kind of gets pretty bad. But I didn't give myself too much black because there was only like one other time in my life that I even qualified to buy a house, which is when we were back at gold's and I thought about it real quick. I was like, maybe I could buy like a 3-1, right? Or something like that. And I'm like, uh, but those houses, you know, they don't look all that great. It's like I didn't realize the concept of, you know, equity in the house and being able to do something with it later on, you know, as far as flipping it to a better situation or uh, you know, obviously putting that equity into your next purchase. I wish I would have done that.

Leveraging Up: Refis And Rentals

Mark Jones 56:12

And there's there's one thing that I I I feel that is strongly unsaid, but definitely something that too many go through, which is giving an F about what other people think. Definitely. So when it comes to actually seeing what you qualify for, income-wise, credit-wise, down payment-wise, it doesn't live up to the expectations of what they've had in their renting life. So they decide to continue to rent so that they can live this facade of this is what I've got and this is what I can do. When in fact, the real display of mindset, wealth, where you're going in life, all of those things is the ability to start building that wealth, the ability to start leveraging that wealth. And I think people get caught up in the idea of, and and it's sad because I see so many credit reports there, you're renting, and then you've got a$1,200 car payment.

SPEAKER_06 57:13

I knew you were gonna say that.

Mark Jones 57:14

Yeah, what the hell? What for me? I just remember back in the day, I I've always financed my cars, I've owned many cash, but my daily driver that is always whatever you guys have seen, the the blue thing out there, stuff like that, has always been financed at a certain point in time in my life. From the time I started financing a car till God, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago. I didn't want a payment over 300 bucks. I didn't give a shit what it was, but my payment's not going over 300 bucks. So you I want to buy a Mercedes, great. That one's 600. You got a 2015 model? Yeah, great. That's 300. Bring it on type concept. That was just me. I thought I was cool enough to not have to have that in order to for my friends to think I was cool. I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 58:06

So I think that that helped. You know what's funny? You are, and everybody is, but they just don't want to, you know what I'm saying? They want to keep up with the Joneses and they want to. I think everybody works so hard they want to be for people to see the fruits of their labor. You know, I'm um picking up on the the concept a lot of delayed gratification. Yeah, you know, especially when it comes to investing your health, the way you look, things like that. The scale don't move when you want it to, you know what I'm saying? But but at the same time, too, you have to keep on keep on going at it, man. I don't know if you saw the the video that I did not too far, not too long ago, and I was saying everybody wants the Kevin McAllister house. You know, they want that, they want that, you know, okay, just straight to it as opposed to that first one that you got. Exactly. And that's the one that catapulted to, you know, in a sense, to where you are now.

Mark Jones 58:57

And that that's that I tell this story. So if you ever send me a borrower that is a first-time borrower, chances are I'm gonna share this story with them because when I meet with someone for the first time that they similar to both of your scenarios, to where number one, they didn't even know that buying a house was next in their journey. They didn't know that they qualified. And if they did qualify, they didn't know how much. I share the journey of how I built my mini empire and how I went from a hundred and forty thousand dollar home, zeroed down, got money back at closing, converted that to the first rental, fast forward. We now live in a two million dollar house. How did you do that? We leverage the equity constantly, over and over and over and over. And people go, really? Like, no, no, yes, look the shit up right now. We pay tons of taxes on it, but it is what it is, and that is our nest egg, so to speak, when the time comes for us to unload and we get we're good. But it took that journey, that sacrifice of going, okay, I live in the baddest apartment right now in the best part of town, sure, overlooking one of the best pools where the parties go down, except but I got a pool table. I had it made. I'm telling you, we had the badass big screen over the fireplace that was double-sided. It was sick. But I gave that up to start building that equity because I knew that my dad was the first. I need to continue this moving forward. Even my grandparents type concept, they all bought. I didn't know my grandparents to rent shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:40

Let me ask you this. So, did you feel the pressure of living up to no?

TikTok Advice Vs Real Guidance

Mark Jones 1:00:46

At that time, nope, not at all. When it was time for me to buy, my parents weren't even involved in that. Okay, they were motivated, they they motivated us to. I mean, if you can qualify, yeah, sure. Because when you fast forward to the second house that we bought, it was a relocation company. We were looking, it was time, the three-year mark, and we didn't know at the time that it was only two years that you needed to be there to avoid those taxes. So we stayed three. I found a house, it was listed for 400,000. And we were like, Well, that seems like it's low for that price. And then all of a sudden, one day we saw it drop to 350. And we're like, 50,000. So I called Austin Pantuso and said, I need you to go take me to see this house. I think that something's going on with this. We've been watching it, and sure as shit, we lobbed them a 300 offer and they took it, and we were like, What the heck? So as I go through that process, I had just switched from Chase Bank to being a mortgage. Oh, no, no, no. I had just switched from being in the car business. Yeah, 2012. No, no, no, no, no, 2012. When did I buy 2010? Boop, boop, boop. What was I? Oh, I had just switched from Chase Bank to the car business. So it was you went from 60,000 W2, this much commission to 100% commission. Now you're making more, but unfortunately, we can't count it because you haven't been there two years. Exactly. So it was like, oh my God, Dad, I've got an opportunity to buy a house with literally a hundred thousand dollars in equity in it, but I need a co-signer. And he said, Son, if you can't do it on your own, you can't do it. Wow. And I went, What the like, dude, I will break you off half of this if we if this works out. He said, Well, if you can't do it, then you can't do it. Wow. So I went to RBFCU and said, Look, here's my situation. I just switched from this industry to that industry. I'm obviously making more money. I've got the down payment. What does it take? RBFCU said, We do portfolio loans. Okay. We look at your situation, but you've got to put 20% down. And I went, okay,$300. Whoa, 60 grand? Okay, that's my life savings. I've put every penny into this account for years. And all of a sudden, I've got to make a decision to part with that to make this happen. Fuck it, let's do it. Whoa. 60 grand, bam, let's go. So we bought that house, lived in it for three years, fast forward. That one was one of the ones that we didn't convert to a rental. Why? Because we had so much equity in it. And sure enough, we I think we netted about$200 and something thousand dollars after living in it for three years.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:37

I was gonna say, did did that 60 grand that you're gonna cough over, like did softening the blow, understanding that you had you were gonna have 200 grand equity in the home.

Mark Jones 1:03:45

1000%. That's the reason why I was doing it. Because at that time in my life, I was already making$100 plus thousand dollars, but every month I was fucking broke. Like, what is happening? So I've got to start putting some money into this stuff besides the savings account that I'm you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:02

And man, I think this is where, you know, Tony Robbins says these calculated risks in your life are are you know what pay dividends. You know, obviously not just this risk of who knows what's gonna happen, but something to where you're a little bit safe, but at the same time, you're pushing yourself to, you know, get outside your comfort zone and do something.

Generational Mindset And First Owners

Mark Jones 1:04:22

Not too many people I know would have taken their savings and risked it on a house that they weren't even. I wasn't even flipping it, I just knew that that was a good deal. And that it was an unheard of deal.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:32

But you know what you did? You bet on yourself.

Mark Jones 1:04:34

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:35

You bet on yourself and your wife. And you know, I think that fortune favors the bold, man. You know what I'm saying? You have to you have to make those risks and like those calculated risks of, of course, but at the same time of driving you forward. Yes. Because if you didn't do all that, I mean, you could still be living in an apartment with the pool. I mean facts of life, man.

Mark Jones 1:04:54

That's so true. That is so true. But at the Andy are.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:58

Yeah, but I was gonna say, but at the same time, though, you know, when you live that life, you know, you want something more and more and more. And I don't think there's anything bad with that if you're obviously trying to extract the potential that you have. Because when you start kind of hitting those levels in life, you definitely start feeling that sense of, man, what else can I do? Yep. What else can I do? What else can I do? You know, I didn't think, you know, I would be in the position that I'm in now with a lot of things, right? You know, but one of the things that always rings in my mind is that next thing. What what else? Well, in addition to that. That's actually a one second. I'm sorry. No, one of the things that I was gonna ask you is kind of going off on a tangent, but what is it do you that you think about people that they're not inquisitive about where like uh I don't think it's an a a lack of inquisition.

Mark Jones 1:05:47

I don't think that. I think it is a pride thing, number one, because they don't want to know the truth and they're self-diagnosing to their own truth versus what it actually is. Is two, they think somebody's gonna judge them versus give them the advice that it takes to get this accomplished. A mortgage lender because most of us we're not paying cash for our houses, right? So you're gonna come in contact with a mortgage lender. And the the the difference between moving forward, seeing the advantages, that not being just the first house that you buy is the complexity and how much time that mortgage lender spends with you up front. The more that mortgage lender asks questions and listens to be able to formulate the advice that they're about to give you that paints the picture of the future. Like, hey, you realize that this is possible and it actually takes this to get to this. You're not gonna one day wake up and make a million dollars. Sorry, right? I don't care how long you work, there's taxes, there's expenses, all of the things. But you damn sure can sit back and continue to make your mortgage payment, and that turns into 200 at some point in time. You make them even more, it turns into 200, three faster. Uh then once you go into the idea of wait a minute, that equity, I can pull that out to go and do something else with and still keep this property.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:18

That's the part that that's actually the part that I'm talking about. I I feel that a lot of people think that we we just keep on preaching, hey man, you need to be a homeowner. Right. That's it, that's it, it's over. Sure. But I love talking about the next step. Yeah. Why I want you to become a homeowner is not necessarily just because obviously having something is better than renting something just right off the right off the bat. But at the same time, when you tap into that equity for your home equity loan, HELOC, whatever it may be, or to start your own business. Absolutely. That's what I want you to realize. Yes, that the first way to financial independence is owning your home. For a lot, for a lot of us.

Renting Myths, Car Payments, And Tradeoffs

Mark Jones 1:07:55

But in many cases, you as the professional, us as the professional, isn't able to give that advice because we don't listen. Shut the hell up and listen to your customer. They're telling you what they're trying to accomplish and what matters, what makes them tick, etc. So I don't want to go over. So we will finish this with final thoughts. Tell me one thing that you learned from your experience of buying your first home that maybe would help somebody in their journey as they decide to kick it off. Zach, you start.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

Oh, I was gonna say I need some time on that one. I don't I don't have to write to me. I don't know. I'd I'd say owning a home, what what I kick myself in the butt with still to this day is that I thought that was a thing you do later in life. Yeah. As an an older guy. Okay. It wasn't even on my mind. That's right. I help out countless I I won't I won't call them kids, but you know, they're they you know, they'll be 21, 22, and I'm I'm helping them get these really nice houses, and I'm just like, what the hell was wrong with me? All those years wasted. Yeah. So I mean, if if I can give any advice, it's look into it. Talk to a lender. That's right. You know, just see where you're at. Yeah, it might be just exactly what you're paying right now. Instead of throwing that money away, you're actually gonna have a home.

Mark Jones 1:09:21

Yeah, and I'll add to that, maybe it's a situation to where you hit a realization that you're paying way too much for what you have, and you probably should kind of get back into your lane and pay what you're supposed to be paying. That gets you to the next phase of your life, the next chapter in your journey, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

I would even bet that most times that is the situation.

Mark Jones 1:09:40

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:42

How about you, Matt? Man, I just what I always think to myself is I wish I would have done this sooner. Yeah. You know, I would I I always uh say that to myself. Like I said, I rented for 10 years. Right. So man, I think about the equity. Oh, I did a video on that too. I I I kind of calculated what I would have put over to my my eventual home. My payment would have ended up being like$1200 for the house that I'm in now. And it's like, man, that's the price of apartments nowadays, single single bedroom apartments. So I think the sooner you do it, the better. You know, obviously look into it the way that Zach said, inquire. And at the same time, I think you're a lot closer than what you think. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:22

Many times it's just it's not, I don't know if there's like a mentality that it's cheaper to rent. It's not.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:29

And I don't, I don't really know.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:31

Especially like programs that you're talking about. USDA still absolutely still exists, still one of the best programs, other than VA.

Mark Jones 1:10:37

You are correct.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:38

Yeah, definitely. VA, uh USDA, kind of piggybacking off of what you're saying. I sold a home to man, one of my clients, and I was just in awe of this kid, man, because 19 years old, he's in the military, brand new baby. He's got himself a Hemi, like brand new family, bought himself a$260,000 home. And I'm like, you're like standing there in his shadow. I'm like, bro, you're gonna be my age, you know, in in you know, 18 years, and you you can't be halfway gone. Not only that, not only that, but he's gonna retire. Yes. When you're my age right now, bro, I was saying him, dude. You are I salute to you, brother.

Mark Jones 1:11:19

You know, like and I think that is not done enough. Sure. Give the people their applause. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:28

So I it was a referral from his from his his mother to me, and I told her, man, you you have to be so proud of this kid. And and I'm just in awe of him. And he's got a such a good head on his shoulders, real respectful kid. Sure, you know, and um, I mean, the kids nowadays, man, most of them, I'm just like, I don't know what what the they're they're all about, you know. So, man, to see him, it made me feel great, and it was a breath of fresh air. And I was like, man, dude, this this this kid's on his way. That's right.

Start Small, Delay Gratification

Mark Jones 1:11:55

You know, yeah. Well, gentlemen, I want to thank you for joining me today on this discussion. We unveiled quite a bit and and we got uh pretty what is it called, honest in this. Definitely, and I'm hoping that it it can help someone, it's not gonna change somebody's mind or anything like that, but it is hopefully going to help the mindset and perspective of stepping into our sure shoes and experiencing and also knowing that that shit didn't come easy for us either, right? You know, well, maybe for Zach.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:28

No, man, and before we wrap it up, dude, I just wanted to thank you. Yes, reaching out to me, man. And there's it's not like I said, it's not often that somebody excels and looks back and reaches down and says, Hey man, I put it out there that I wanted to start my podcast, and you were like, dude, let me help you. And I really, really appreciate it, man. Thank you very much.

Mark Jones 1:12:45

No, absolutely, and I meant that. That wasn't intended to be some kind of had you not ever said that, I'm still gonna help you, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

Yeah, and because you helped out Matt, you know, the way we work, he that's right. That's right.

Mark Jones 1:12:57

Yeah, for sure. Well, ladies, gents out there, we truly appreciate you continuing to like and subscribe and follow and share and get something out of these discussions. As always, my goal and my commitment to you is to continue to bring experts that share transparently with what their journeys are, their experiences are, their opinions without a filter. And I hope that you guys continue to get some value out of this. Guys, thanks again. Uh, truly discussion. And for those of you out there, thanks for helping us get to 40,000. Next step, 50,000. But until then, we will catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

At the end of every day, look at yourself in the mirror and ask, Did I get better today? Monday, get better. Tuesday, get better. Wednesday, get better. If you do that for five years, ten years, fifteen years, how much better will you be? Are you getting better every single day? That's the real question. And it all comes down to taking small steps. You don't have to accomplish everything in one day or even one week. Just focus on getting a little better every single day.

Mark Jones 1:14:17

Get out of here. I'm not even joking. And and she was like, Are you here for the conference? I'm like, Absolutely, I'm mortgage lender, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just got my own branch, yada, yada. I was on the top of the world. She was there for the conference as well. She was the coach.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:28

Oh, wow.

Mark Jones 1:14:29

And she said, Have you ever considered coaching? And I went, No, no, I didn't. Why, why would I need a coach? You're like, I don't play coach. She sold me right then and there. It was like, okay, yeah, you're you're right. When you get back, give me a holler, yada yada, yada. And fast forward, she's still to this day.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:48

That's exactly what this dude's doing right now. Uh-huh. So with fitness.

Mark Jones 1:14:52

Because if if you look at any great person, they've got a coach. Oh, for sure. Any great person. Matter of fact, JC, go to the show already. You can kill them. I can I can I can edit this stuff out.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:05

We've been recording live and off the oh perfect.

Final Lessons For First Buyers

Mark Jones 1:15:09

The idea of every great person that you know, that I know, that you they have a coach. Sure. Matter of fact, as you get higher in your success, whatever you define success as, you tend to get coaches for specific things. You now have a nutritionalist, you now have a this, you now have a that, a business coach, a life coach, whatever the case. Because the investment in itself has given that return to be able to reinvest into the same concept in a different aspect of your life, I would imagine. Makes sense. I'm not at that point yet. You know what I mean? Yeah. I've got a coach that I she's a business coach, but I try and apply her everything to everything, just like you said. Got it. And it is it's true. Awesome. It's true. I mean, you've talked to Steve Collins, definitely. You've talked to Art Fernand. They're legit. For sure. They're legit. Uh yeah, you get out of those meetings as well, and you feel like JJ Greena. I mean, yeah, all of that is like, yes, they are repeating a lot of things, but everything that they're talking about is accurate as hell. And for many people, it's some of the first time that they've ever heard that, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:23

Sure. You know what I'm saying? I I kind of equate that to like like reading a book, you know. I can't fucking read, so or listening to an audio book. You know, I'm doing audiobooks a lot now, but I hear the same concepts. Ah, that don't count. That doesn't count, right? Uh, what's it called? It it uh it have the same concepts involved in them, but at the same time, just like uh I've read all of those books. Well, there you go. And and you would say that there's some of the same similar themes are in there.

Mark Jones 1:16:53

For the most part, yeah. Yeah, for the most part. That's why at a certain point, yes, you continue to read for staying sharp and learning new things, but it's all kind of the same concept rolled into different people's perspective.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:06

Sure.

Mark Jones 1:17:06

The other way that I've learned, a big way that I've learned is gotten into different rooms, people that are much better than me, much smarter than me. And it doesn't intimidate me in the slightest. I have no problem saying I don't know. You know what I mean? I have no problem saying that. Now the shit that I do know, I'm gonna tell you with conviction because it's what I believe.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:29

Definitely. So well, on you're on the other side of that sometimes because people are entering into your room and that's your wheelhouse.

Mark Jones 1:17:36

I have I am not I'm not like I'm doing today, I'm not naive to think that. Yeah, like I'm doing today. Correct. So therefore, that's why I'm sharing. You're asking, yeah. What I've found in this life thus far is if you if you seek it, like we were talking about, yeah, you'll find it. And what I mean by that is there is no successful entrepreneur, successful millionaire, hundred thousandaire, whatever that's unwilling to share their journey and how they got there. Because most people don't ask them that. They don't ask them behind the scenes. It's always, I see what the finished product looks like, and that's not how we fucking got there. You know what I mean? It is not how we got there at all. Yeah. Yeah. Anywho.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:26

I I walked in here and I was telling him that, you know, I put out that that reel of me saying that I'm gonna start the podcast or whatnot. Yes. Right. Yeah. And up until then, I would just tell you through my brother, you know, close friends or whatnot, but I never put it out there because I was like, just you're gonna be held accountable. Exactly. You're on a time frame.

Mark Jones 1:18:46

Now you got an accountability partner.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:48

Yeah, and that's exactly why I did it, you know. And um, I was like, man, you know what? I'm gonna go ahead and announce it or whatever. Well, Mark saw that and he was like, You're gonna come on my podcast. Yeah, like man, right. Yeah, it's like he's like the universe is conspiring for you to get it done as long as you're asking for it and going out there and getting it.

Gratitude, Coaching, And Paying It Forward

SPEAKER_04 1:19:08

And it's so Mark, Matt Matt hit me up and told me when you first reached out to him, and and he was like, What do you think? I was like, What do you mean? What do you think? And this sounds freaking amazing, dude. I was like, you need to go ahead and take that. Like, I don't really understand. I don't understand what you're asking me.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:23

Right. Well, you know what though, Mark? You know, speaking of being willing to help people out, do you notice that there are a lot of people that aren't willing to help people out? You know what I'm saying? Like, especially it's you uh you said a good one. You said what you asked, you know, but I didn't you you reached out to me. I can't tell you how many times somebody has reached out to me and said, Hey man, can I help you? Because that doesn't really exist, you know what I'm saying? Like somebody's not gonna just go out of their way and say, you know, hey man, I think you could do better or whatever. Yeah, I'm gonna help you out. They got their own shit going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:54

Well, it's kind of like uh like a rub your back, rub my back type thing. You know, they're gonna reach out to you, but in in like a mutual way.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:00

Yeah, just I'm just gonna help you. For sure, for sure.

Mark Jones 1:20:02

And it shouldn't be that way. Yeah, and what you'll find is whoever that person is that is unwilling ain't the real fucking deal. Right. Sorry, very true. Sorry, there's a lot of people, and it's very easy today to fake the funk. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah, you'll find really quickly that it is easy today in age to fake it. The idea of fake it till you make it, I I used that. I I'm not too proud to say I absolutely walked the walk before I was able to talk to talk. But I didn't lie, I never lied to people because I knew that I wanted to be in it for the long term. I was coming from I'm talking mortgage now. I was coming from the auto industry, making great money as a way too young. What year? I got into this business in 2012, so that had to have been uh 20 2011, beginning of 2012, and the end of 2010.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:09

So you're an old school car dog. You were like the the ones that the guys who taught us when we were selling cars.

Mark Jones 1:21:16

I I sold cars for two weeks and they promoted me to finance, man. Get out of here. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:22

Yeah.

Mark Jones 1:21:22

Where did you sell? At Toyota Bernie. Wow. Oh, okay. Wow, what a big thing. I went and applied at Mercedes-Benz. A buddy of mine, Jeff Alfars, said, Come apply over here. You're making 60 grand over there at the bank. Like, dude, yeah, come make some real money. Like, well, okay, let's go. Went and applied in my suit, bow tie, Mercedes Benz. They were like, Well, we're sorry, we're you don't have any experience. So I literally walked next door to Toyota Bernie. You're like, I'm already dressed.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:48

And Gino Damali was okay. So uh Papa, how much how much, how much, how much, uh, how much money you make right now, Papa? Uh, so how much, how much, how many bills do you have? Fuck, you need more bills, man. Bro, that's what they used to tell me. They used to tell me that same thing, man.

Mark Jones 1:22:06

They were like uh I went in there and started using Facebook and Craigslist to sell cars within the first week, and it was working.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:15

And I bet you were like the trailblazer doing that at that time. You know, you were like the same concept. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Jones 1:22:22

2012, I got in mortgage. I applied the same thing that I learned in the car business to mortgage. I was one of the first ones in 2012 to post the closing picture. You didn't even have the key at that time for sure, but nobody was doing it. You can go back on my social media all the way to 2012. After I got in, 60 days later, I had my first closing. It was like, let's take a picture, yeah. Let's put it on Facebook. You want to be friends on Facebook to my buyer? And we're still friends to this day. I think I still have mine.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:47

Where were we in 2012? I think I was at Southwest and you were at Nissan, right? Or something like that. Were you where were you at? Nissan, I think. Yeah, you probably sold cars too.

Mark Jones 1:22:57

Yeah. Oh, this is gonna be fun. Let's kick this off. This is gonna be fun. Hey, we didn't, I think he's been.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:02

I never did recording, but give me a clap so I can introduce. So um this is what what I want mine to be like. You know what I'm saying? That this is exactly what I'm saying.

Mark Jones 1:23:11

Go to my view and check to see if his hands are in in here because I don't want to change that. Oh, sorry. You're good. Just keep my keep my hands down. I don't know what to do with my hands. Yeah, if you just keep that arm down. That's cool. If you can remember to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:25

No, like I just like all this. Uh, what's happening? Is it because of the table? What? Why are we keeping our do we have to have no?

SPEAKER_07 1:23:34

It's just this view right now, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:35

This animal's getting in the shot. Oh, okay. I'm like, what's happening?

Mark Jones 1:23:40

Did I bring new high score? Okay, JC, give me a clap. Let's kick this thing off.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

All right. Real estate AF podcast. Looks like we're gonna do a little more than real estate. Yeah. In three, two, one.