Real Lives of Real Estate w/ Brendan Da Silva
Welcome to the Real Lives of Real Estate, a brand new real estate podcast unlike any other. Your host is the #1 Realtor in Newark, NJ, Brendan Da Silva, and every week he interviews real estate professionals about how working in the industry has affected their lives and stories.
Real Lives of Real Estate w/ Brendan Da Silva
Avelino Figuiera's Journey: Navigating Success and Setbacks in the Mortgage Arena
Ever wondered how a kid from Newark climbed the ladder to become a titan in the mortgage industry? That's exactly the tale Avelino from True Value Title spins for us, as he charts his ascent from the familial home straight to the upper echelons of real estate. His journey isn't just a testament to savvy business moves and relationship-building – it's a rollicking ride through cultural influences and family traditions that shape the way we view success.
Imagine balancing a burgeoning real estate career while living under your mother's roof – that's the cultural tightrope Avelino walked, guided by deep-rooted Iberian values. Our heart-to-heart covers more than just real estate triumphs; it delves into the personal sacrifices and family dynamics that accompany a life interwoven with high-stakes ventures. Avelino opens up about the bold moves he made, from buying out his partners to reshaping his work-life balance under the weight of an ultimatum from his wife.
This episode is a master class on resilience and wit in the face of industry upheavals. Avalino shares how he navigated the intoxicating influx of wealth and the sobering reality of the mortgage crash. But it's not all rollercoaster tales of fortunes won and lost; we wrap up on the importance of fostering a joyful closing experience in real estate deals. Avalino's commitment to treating clients like family and injecting humor into even the most stressful transactions serves as a valuable lesson to anyone in the service industry. Tune in for an episode that's as enlightening as it is entertaining, packed with wisdom only a seasoned pro like Avalino could offer.
To get more insight on episodes and to apply to be on the show, visit www.BrendanDaSilva.com!
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In all capacities, all metrics. You were like a king.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we were doing very well and there was a point where we were making an impact because other bigger companies were like who are these guys and what can we do to take them out?
Speaker 1:Brother, you were doing 100 loans a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had people that offered me money to buy me out. They wanted to merge. You know, we had a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1:Get ready for Real Lives of Real Estate, where the world of real estate meets the essence of your life. Buckle up as we unravel stories, homes and the heartbeat behind it all. Let's dive into another episode. I hope you share and are encouraged. All right, I'm here with the one and only Avalino. Hello. True value. Title I've known you. Now. For how long have I known you? Five years, four years, five years.
Speaker 1:Four and five years Because I knew Carlos, and then I met you like a year or two later. I didn't even know you. Carlos is our lender with Keypoint Mortgage. Amazing man. I didn't even know you were at all affiliated with Carlos until like several years, maybe a year or two later.
Speaker 1:After the fact yeah, you're like, oh, I'm actually related to Carlos. I said what, yes, my brother. I said, oh my God, and I saw it as the last name. I was like, oh, it all makes sense. With that being said, really happy to have you on. You have a very interesting story, similar to your brother right, where I'll let you share for yourself, but that you have not only the title side experience right Over the past. How long have you now been entitled? About five years, about five years being entitled, but before that, before that, you were in mortgage right. You ran, I believe, was one of the largest mortgage companies private mortgage companies Up until 2008,.
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in like all of East Coast, right, so pretty insane. With that being said, our favorite question of the podcast not where did you grow up, which is Newark, right, you grew up in. Newark. But what did you grow up in? Did you grow up in a single family house, an apartment?
Speaker 2:Grew up in a two family house.
Speaker 1:Two family okay.
Speaker 2:In Newark? No In Newark, yeah in Newark, on Madison Street.
Speaker 1:On Madison Street, oh, close to my house. Yeah, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Yeah, a block, well half a block in from Ferry Street.
Speaker 1:And did you know it was a two family? Like, how old were you when you were in the house?
Speaker 2:Well, we moved there. That was the first house my parents bought, because we were immigrants here and, yeah, we knew it was a two family, I mean did you know like?
Speaker 1:oh, my parents are landlords and the tenant downstairs is paying.
Speaker 2:Never thought of it that way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's what I always ask, like what did you come? What did you realize? Like, oh, my parents are getting, like monthly payments.
Speaker 2:I guess when they started renovating it, when the first tenants left after several years, and then I heard you know the conversation of, hey, we have to spend XYZ money because then we can get extra money. And I remember asking my dad a lot of questions about that.
Speaker 1:What kind of questions so?
Speaker 2:what do you mean? If you're spending money, you're going to get money, and you know those type of questions. I can't remember the exact ones at this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:But I think that was at that point that I realized that they were getting money, you know from, you know the tenant and it was a tenant landlord relationship.
Speaker 1:How much?
Speaker 2:have been maybe 12, 13?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so you were really young. Yeah, 12, 13. But that was the first time that I clicked like correct, I can, you know, spending a little bit money, make some money and via landlord life, correct. Yeah, a lot of my clients, funny enough, like they have such an. I don't blame them, but they have such like a negative connotation of what it means to be a landlord, because maybe their parents were landlord and they had a tenant who didn't pay rent, right, did you guys ever, did you ever see your parents get a tenant that didn't pay rent, dispute it like?
Speaker 2:No, because my parents always treated the tenants like family sort of. Oh, wow so it was really never like. Our backyard was always open. When my dad was barbecuing, tenant was always there. You know they would go in. Hey, come outside. You know, have a beer, have a steak. So it was never really that landlord tenant relationship, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Plus, you know, obviously we live there as well, so my parents never really treated their I mean some of their tenants still speak to them today. They have phone numbers from each other.
Speaker 1:Haven't they sold.
Speaker 2:They sold a long time ago and they stay in touch, they stay in touch. You know it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty interesting actually.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I mean again, we didn't really. I never saw that experience Now, when I was a landlord, I can give you some horror stories.
Speaker 1:Well, I would love to hear all about it. This is the million dollar question because I found out recently you got Carlos into real estate lending side, right, correct, good. And then you got Carlos in the lending side. What exact like? How old were you? How did you first get into loans?
Speaker 2:So I got into loans I was still in college and I did a really dumb thing. I worked at a hotel at the time.
Speaker 1:You worked at a hotel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worked at a hotel and I decided to take a month vacation to Portugal. Now, anyone who's from Portugal, spain, will understand that and no one else will understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But if you're from Portugal, spain, you understand five weeks to spend in Portugal and Spain are very that's a very common thing.
Speaker 2:Everybody does it. So I decided that was probably my last year I can do that before I actually started working and everything else and whatever career I was going to go into. So I took a month off. When I left that day, my manager at the time said I hope you understand, you don't have a job when you come back. And he started laughing. I thought it was a joke. So I took off for five weeks, came back from Portugal, went to start my you know, to get my shifts, and they said well, you're not on the shifts. We fired you and I said for what goes? Because you were. You abandoned your job for five weeks and I'm like I told you where I was going. But anyway, long story short, I got fired and back then we didn't have the internet so we had, you know, we had the Star Ledger, Okay, Cause I lived in Newark. So I went on the Star Ledger and the one ads and I started circling places that we're hiring, went for a couple of interviews. This gray gal, Laura White, hired me to do telemarketing.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know what telemarketing was. The telemarketing seems to be like the entry for so many people.
Speaker 2:I think it's great training. I don't think if you're a salesperson you should not sell anything until you do some time behind the phone and do some cold calling Cause that will a we'll let you know whether you're actually a salesperson or not. Cause the rejection is amazing. People find very creative ways to tell you to go F off, which is fantastic. But you need that, as you know you know sales is 90% failure. That's that 10% that you know success makes up for the 90% failure.
Speaker 1:And then you're like, wow, exactly, and you forget about the 90%.
Speaker 2:And at the time I couldn't believe they were paying me to be on the phone just to talk to people. Why is that? Because I couldn't believe they were paying me that much money just to to take apps over. You know.
Speaker 1:What were you doing over there?
Speaker 2:I was taking a mortgage application.
Speaker 1:Oh, so she was a lender. Oh, yeah, yeah they were. They were a mortgage company called Parkway Mortgage.
Speaker 2:They were huge back in the day, and they were telemarketing.
Speaker 1:And we were telemarketing, you know it was a manual dial like that.
Speaker 2:And there were call sheets from the courthouse of people had taken mortgages. They just have these guys run, run into the courthouse and let's say, yeah, like some of these old companies like AFCO, Ford Financial places like that, they were like your B and C lenders. Those are the people who were telemarketing, because those are people we can have the most opportunity to try to refinance into lower rates and so forth.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you were calling for a refi for refis. Yeah, yeah, it was a whole different animal. Wow, yeah, and what were rates back?
Speaker 2:then Good customer rates. We're probably getting 14s and 13s.
Speaker 1:So I laugh when I hear somebody say oh, my God, rates are 7%.
Speaker 2:Really, 7% is still pretty damn good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, compared to 14. Compared to 14. Right, yeah, that's real.
Speaker 2:That's hard to imagine, but sadly, yeah, that's okay, yeah, we've been spoiled for a long time, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know that's so painful for me, but unfortunately you're right With that. Said, honestly, how do you go from like telemarketing for refinances to a one point you know from the rumors having that you have like 80 or 70 or 100 ILOs, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Well, so again long story short started. Telemarketing excelled. I was doing the three hours I worked, from 530 to 830. Those three hours I was working, I was taking more apps than the full time guys were doing and they were there all day.
Speaker 1:What were you doing during the rest of your? I was in school. Oh, wow, okay, college.
Speaker 2:College. Yeah, wow, so you were really committed to doing both. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know again. My parents were immigrants. They weren't paying for college. So I had to pay my own way and, like I said, the hotel was good because I was. I was making tips, so it was easy money. But then I figured out that, you know, telemarketing was a lot easier. Yeah, and I wasn't killing myself until you know midnight I was making the same amount of money in three hours that I was working in the hotel.
Speaker 1:Wow, they would pay you commission per sale.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they would pay so for every application that turned turned into a closing. I think they were paying us like a hundred bucks or something, but I was taking like 10 a day in those three hours.
Speaker 1:So you were like one is going to close, Two is going to close.
Speaker 2:I was no more than anybody else. Wow, and then again it just kind of became progression. They started giving me, you know, promotions. And then they offered me a full-time job in Wayne for a guy called Rich Sales.
Speaker 1:And this is who you brought with this, how you brought your brother.
Speaker 2:And then when I went there, then I started setting up my own team and then I quit school, which probably was a dumb thing, but I quit school because I was making more money at work and I was like, wait a minute, I actually like this and. I'm into it and I want this to be my career.
Speaker 1:What kind of you know? Okay, more on the personal side. During that time you're making a switch or quitting school, what did your parents say to you you know Portuguese immigrant parents. When you said damn good school, my father thought I was selling drugs. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Why? Because I was making so much money. He kept telling. He kept telling my mother whatever he's doing is illegal.
Speaker 1:Wow, it's impossible.
Speaker 2:He's making this kind of money, blah, blah, blah and so forth, until he then figured out no, this is a real thing.
Speaker 1:Well, how did he come to accept it?
Speaker 2:When he saw my second I guess, no, maybe it was the third year I was in the business I followed my tax returns and I left them on the kitchen table. And again, this is a Portuguese thing we had two kitchens we had the nice kitchen that nobody used and we had the basement kitchen that we used all the time. And I left my tax returns on the table and you know, he came home, he looked at them and he called me and he goes is this for real? I'm like yeah, this is for real. And at that point he Didn't say another word to me about Quinn school or anything like that. I think, give me our time ever again. It's kind of a beautiful story. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:And now, if I may ask, like a lot of people would say hey, you're making this money. Why are you living at home? Why is it a Portuguese thing? Was it just a you thing?
Speaker 2:Well, it's two things. First, I was very young, right, and define young to some people, I was.
Speaker 1:I Was in college 19, 20 18, so pragmatically you were still so that reason.
Speaker 2:I really didn't see a need to move out, and then I was pocketing most of my money. You know, my mom still did my laundry. You know, you know what I mean. So there wasn't really a pressing need For me to have to leave the house, and it's also a cultural thing too. Yeah most the Portuguese, spanish and Italian boys. They wind up staying at home until you know, until they get married, or we're longer than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, yeah, literally until they get married, I stayed, I say, at my mom's house, my mother's house, until I literally I moved out for like three Obviously. I went to college, I dorm, then when I got graduate I stayed with my mom's house and till for like I moved out for three months. I suddenly someone's place I don't know if you somebody's sub is, this really nice guys place anyways. But then I moved right back home and I say they took a marriage and I was saying way, I was pocketing the money my mom did make me pay rent, though she wasn't playing.
Speaker 2:Oh she was, I'd pay, no right. Yeah, she wasn't playing. She was like no, you're paying. I was there, I didn't pay any right. But again, it's just a cultural thing, I think again there was no pressing need for me to move.
Speaker 1:You're young and now, your friends, right, you're 19, 20 years old. You have this great opportunity Thanks to real estate, right? You, your parents, by the two families. You kind of see, okay, I can make money off of money. Your friends, I can't imagine we're in the same position, right?
Speaker 2:and all my friends were in college. So what are they saying to you? They were thinking I was nuts.
Speaker 1:They were thinking you were crazy.
Speaker 2:Yes, very much. So can you give an example? I, I was specifically remembered this. I ran into one of my friends on Ferry Street I'm not gonna name drop, but his parents are very affluent and you know he was going to a really nice college and everything else and he asked me hey, so what are you doing, you know? And I'm like, oh, I'm not doing real estate. Blah, blah, blah, and he goes wow, I really thought you're gonna do a little bit more than that. And that took me back a little bit. I'm like okay. I'm like okay, I see, he goes. You know, don't worry about it. Maybe, you know, next year you can go get back to college. And I'm like, no, that's, I'm not going back to come, like this is this is it.
Speaker 2:This is it for me, like I'm not, you know, I don't have a plan B, it's plan a, I'm, you know, I'm gonna make it, and so that was kind of where I was at. And then, obviously, as you know and as you know, in real estate, very quickly you can make money.
Speaker 1:You know very quickly can make it and you can lose it. Yes, you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I happen, I happen to be the right places, right times. I had good relationships. I had some relationships with some banks which don't exist anymore, like my. The way I was getting foreclosures back then to do flips is I had in person at the bank that would call me and say hey, I have three people going to foreclosure. Do you want to look at these properties?
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, those so those are relationships on this. So real life first. Your dad is doubting you until he sees a tax return. Seems like the proof is in the pudding. Yep, your mom, she sounds like she's just supporting you. She's just happy.
Speaker 2:She was very devastated. It was probably the hardest thing for me to tell her that I quit school. One of the hardest things in my life to tell her because she was very adamant for me to go to college because I would have been the first person.
Speaker 1:Whoa in my family to be in college. Whoa, please go into more detail.
Speaker 2:Oh well, just it. She was very disappointed, very, very disappointed that I didn't finish.
Speaker 1:You think she was gonna be this disappointed.
Speaker 2:Yes, I knew, I knew she was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I knew she was how old you were, you in college?
Speaker 2:I was a Jew. No, I was a sophomore. I was the end of my sophomore year.
Speaker 1:So you were halfway through those, halfway through, and you said mom, I'm out, yep, and she probably beg you, just stay two more years and she, you know, she, even offered to pay when, at that point, they, you know, like I know they couldn't, you know.
Speaker 2:Wow and I said no, it's not about that, this is what I found. What I want to do this is I'm gonna go all in and go.
Speaker 1:We'll give you the strength you have. No one in the industry that you.
Speaker 2:Wow, I didn't know any better.
Speaker 1:So a really real estate. It almost it divided your household at one point.
Speaker 2:At one point it did and then it reunited every. You know as well because, like I said, it's it's when you're not doing well no one, no one's on the bandwagon that you're doing well. And then when you're doing well, all of a sudden you have a whole bunch of new. You know Favorite people because you're doing well. You know, and that's in life, there's always going to be ups and downs and the people who stick with you when you're downs are the people that should be with you when you're ups because, it's very easy to get friends when you're, you know, doing great.
Speaker 1:Which goes to say so your friends are still in college. Carlos, we did have him on the podcast. He says something I was very interested. I'm like I wonder how Carlos got in. I knew you guys were together. It's cool to see that you brought your brother on. What was that like? Basically took him out of college to you.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately I kind of did. He. He was only supposed to come part-time, okay, and he did very well and he got to a point. Actually I'm probably responsible for about seven people not finishing college, if I got to say the truth, and they're all very successful today all of them.
Speaker 2:I still talk to them. My brother had a group of friends that then, of course, when I hired him they came over to because I was just trying to hire people to get on the phones and do stuff like that. They were all stayed in the mortgage business. As I expanded, they became my managers, they ran branches. So again we built something and then, of course, as everything you know, as people grow, as people how does that affect your mind?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna be honest, because you're bringing people up, you I'm sure you had people who you know betrayed your heart checks that are your 20 something years old. You're very young. How do you like, how did that level of success at young age impact you in terms of, like, relationships with friends? Like how will you able to tell this person's a real friend? This person just wants, like how did you say grounded?
Speaker 2:My friends pretty much stayed constant. I didn't really bring in too many new friends. And Again, I make real, I build relationships. I think relationships are something that are very important, so people that I know that I want around me, I'd make an effort Hence why I'm here even in doing this podcast. If I didn't think highly of you, I wouldn't be here Very my heart very, very plain, simple, very plain.
Speaker 2:Very plain, simple. So those are the people I want around my life, but it took me a few years to figure that out, you know.
Speaker 1:I think one thing that real estate has taught me and impacting my life drastically is actually conflict resolution With my friends and with my partners, because really, relationships are so people like, oh, I don't want to conflict, we're friends. I actually, in the opposite, I think, okay, so we are friends. Right, we, I do care about you. Like, I believe me, you work together. We're literally back to back. Right, I've let her pull a miracle off with title.
Speaker 1:Brandon, your clients gonna cancel the deal. I just got the title. What's going on with this cancellation? Right, have we got to work on this together? Right, the title. The attorney dropped the bar. You know, I'm about right, right, in those moments for me, I want to go nuke, and I have nuked him, just everyone. Ah. But reality is for me to really value friendships. What that looks like in action is me say okay, avellino, what could I have done better? Okay, jim, what could Jim's our attorney, what could we do? But I've already know, do you hear what Jim is saying? But Bob, bob, bob, bob, jim, do you understand? I believe I've been asking this for three god-dang weeks. But Bob, bob, bob, and then Jim's and then George's comes in. Now, no one right. So, having the ability to have like very direct conflict was like Oriented resolution conversations massive value. But who the heck teaches you that at 23, 24, 25 years old you have 10 friends dropping out college?
Speaker 2:again, I was very lucky Rich sales, which was my manager when, when I first started and we became friends, we were he would come to my house. I went to his house. I went to his kids things and his son's grandkids things, I went to well until he died a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh, you were close.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was very close with him, wow, and I had a good mentor. He was a very good mentor to me and I realized that just watching him and watching the way he resolved things. He always kind of put people in their place, without putting them in their place if that makes any sense, and he always did it with a very gentle hand, whereas when he was upset everybody was like this is cold, right, cause he never gets upset. So I kind of took a little bit of him.
Speaker 1:You're like that you never get pissed.
Speaker 2:But when you get pissed.
Speaker 1:I avoid your calls. Oh my God, no, hide, hide, hide.
Speaker 2:It takes me for me to get to that point. It takes, it's a long road to get there, but then when, I hit it. It's like okay, either we have to do something about it or not.
Speaker 1:You know what.
Speaker 2:I mean, and we have to get this done or whatever done, and sometimes you just have to be like that because people aren't listening. No, not at all or people are not paying attention, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and then it's yeah, I think you're entirely right. You were very the mentors that we have shaped us so much, 100%, it's crazy. I would say your brother, right, carlos, he is a mentor to me and there are so many times I'm like, but big heads. And now, the more it's funny to go, the more I grow in the business and even though like just an experience, not like in, like some big headed way, right, but just like the longer I'm in, the more I realize the things that Carlos says to me, said to me three, four years ago, or true, or actually happening, and that's a really hard thing to hear because, like Carlos would tell me, brandon, this is not what you should do, you should do this, I'm like, no, I just want to learn by experience.
Speaker 1:That was my big thing as real estate professionals, as you know, first time home buyers you can have that kind of pride, that ego of like no, I want to do it for myself. It's actually beautiful, it's like a courage, right. But when someone has literally done this 5,000 times, you're pretty probably should listen to them, right. So that's something that I really have learned, because now when I tell Carlos, I'm like, he's like I would tell you, but you're not gonna listen to my advice. Say, Carlos, I don't have the luxury to learn by experience anymore.
Speaker 2:Just give me the lesson. It costs too much money to learn by experience. Yeah, it costs a lot.
Speaker 1:It costs a lot of money, a lot of time. So, okay, fast forward. Now you have that, you're growing the branch. How did East Coast that was what it was called Beast Coast.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:East Coast. So I always thought it was Beast Coast. No, no in the East Coast.
Speaker 2:I was a beast, but it was it's East Coast. Yeah, it was East.
Speaker 1:Coast. Okay, how did that come about?
Speaker 2:So East Coast funny enough, I left Parkway and I left Rich Sales because Brian Moran at the time he was the person, he was the founder and the person was running Parkway Mortgage at the time where I was working at they promised me New York and I didn't get New York. Son came out of college, son got to New York. I stayed in New Jersey. So that really ticked me off, and probably more than it should have. But for some reason my feathers got ruffled for some reason from that and same woman, laura White, calls me out of the blue that week and says what are you up to? Cause I stayed in contact with her and her boyfriend and Vinny great guy too, he was in construction. He's a guy you got to get on your podcast if you could.
Speaker 2:He's got stories like you have no idea. He looks like a Harley Davidson guy big beard tattoos and stuff right and he's done.
Speaker 2:I used to always be fascinated. I used to just ask him questions cause he seemed like he did everything at some point in his life. He was a great guy, but anyway. So Laura White calls me that week, says what are you doing? I'm like well, and I kind of blew my stack a little bit cause I got it. Can you believe these people? They did this, this and that she goes listen, I'm at this place East Coast. They want to break into BC paper. Bc paper was like not bad credit people, but people would- Make it as simple as possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back then we didn't have all the FICO scores and stuff. So BC would be people that had a couple of credit things late on their mortgage, maybe late bankruptcy or foreclosure, some delinquencies, so they weren't great-.
Speaker 1:Barbers.
Speaker 2:Great credit bars. They weren't the fanny or Freddie Mac type bars. So back then we had two divisions. You had a Fannie Mae division and then you had the B&C. They didn't have a B&C so I came into start time and from there I then bought out the father and then I brought out it was a father-son combination there. I bought out the father a few years later and then a few years later after that the son. He was an attorney but he wasn't doing much. He just used to review our contracts, leases and stuff and he knew that he was like let me sell now before he just winds up taking everything anyway and bought the other 50% of them, and that was it.
Speaker 1:When do you buy out the company?
Speaker 2:2002 is when I bought out both son and father so I started. 2002 is when I started just on my own and that was scary.
Speaker 1:Why was that scary?
Speaker 2:Because all of a sudden I realized I didn't have anybody else there with me. It was just me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how? What was the size of the company?
Speaker 2:The company at the time, carl's, already had his own branch. We were probably about 25 people 25, including full-time people Agents. I mean sorry, loan officers, loan officers, processors, high-writers 25, 30.
Speaker 1:Are you married at this time?
Speaker 2:I was married.
Speaker 1:How does that kind of ambition, that kind of income increase those kind of capital expenditures? How does your wife handle?
Speaker 2:that. Well, we got to a point where she wasn't handling it, because I also did retail at that time. Oh my God, we had a couple of stores and malls and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So we did most. So you were doing retail, had 30-person company with mortgage and anything else.
Speaker 2:And we had apartments and houses.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're doing landlord life and flips. Oh yeah, Okay, how the heck does a? How does your spouse support? When do you have time? Seven days a week.
Speaker 2:Well, that was the problem. She, literally, she literally said to me either you figure out what you want to do one of these things and get rid of everything else, and just do one, because we can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1:Oh, your wife basically gave you the ultimatum. She said either you got to straighten up or you're going to be by yourself in this way, like you. This is I'm not living this life with you.
Speaker 2:This way, we didn't have kids. We didn't have kids, which helped.
Speaker 1:It helped a lot, but still, when did you see your wife?
Speaker 2:We again. I worked every single day, every single day. I used to leave the mortgage company and go to Willowbrook and close out the store in Willowbrook and then leave there at 10 o'clock, 10, 15, 9, 30, 9, 45, whatever time that was, and then I'd go home.
Speaker 1:So when did you literally I'm not sure it'd be funny when did you actually spend time with your wife?
Speaker 2:After 10 o'clock at night and certain times during the weekend.
Speaker 1:So okay, wow. So basically your wife had you four days a month. Pretty much Okay. Did you guys go on lavish vacations during this time?
Speaker 2:We did. When we went to vacations, we spent a lot of money. I did everything first class, you know flights, hotels.
Speaker 1:Do you still go first class or you over the first class?
Speaker 2:I don't, because now I have three kids. Okay, and yeah, I'm not putting them in first class. They can do that when they work.
Speaker 1:You should put yourself in first class and put the three kids in the back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm planning on doing that. Actually, they're old enough now where I don't need to be with them. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:That's really funny, actually. Okay, that's really funny, so see here's the difference.
Speaker 2:When you have one child. They're different vacations. When you have two children, vacations change when you have three. Your cars change your vacations change pretty much. Everything changes once you have a three which nobody tells you that when you say everything changes. Give an example the car you drive. You need a seven seater, you need a minivan, you need a minivan in the minute minivan or a very big SUV.
Speaker 1:What basically you need a list, at least you need the you need the extra you need the extra, no matter what, no matter what.
Speaker 2:There's no there's no funny two car seats where you put in the other one the metal. No, oh, you can't fell if you can't put to, you're right. Biggest, like a Range Rover or something you can't. Two car seats.
Speaker 1:If they event a car that can fit three car seats, it would be a big hack.
Speaker 2:I had a Hummer. I can put three cars.
Speaker 1:Oh no, if you can't fit three in the Hummer, you cannot fit three car seats. Wow, that's a Hummer so back to the real estate world, do? Your wife ends up saying pick one or pick none. So what? You end up shutting everything out. You sell it.
Speaker 2:I want the picking real estate Loan more, just more ages, okay, and you sold off the rental properties. We did everything. We look with it at every day.
Speaker 1:Did you lose money with that or did you know?
Speaker 2:hindsight, I lost money because I should have. We should have kept everything. Me and my brother should have kept everything. I had a management company in the end you know what I mean, because at the end, we missed out on 20 years of.
Speaker 1:Appreciation. Oh my god, sad that's a big.
Speaker 2:So I mean, we made money, but we could have made more money way more money right Okay now they always tell me and these are people who are much, much smarter than me this is your own. You always lose money when you sell property. No matter how much money you think, you'll always lose money.
Speaker 1:That's the worst part. I have a two family right now in Karni. I'm about a cash out refi. It's a very, very, very I can't live in me cash refi. I'm only gonna make like 700 bucks a month In cash flow and I'm like if I sell it, I can have all this hundreds of thousands of dollars. So like yes, but I keep hearing this noise in the back of my head. It's like never sell, never sell, never sell, never sell. Because listen.
Speaker 2:if it's carrying itself, it's paying for itself, literally.
Speaker 2:eventually, it's an annuity eventually, eventually, and you're a young guy, um so you have plenty of time to make that annuity and think of it this way no matter what, you're still going to get the depreciation. Even yeah, even if it, you're gonna have times right during your lifetime when real estate is going to go up and down, is just it. Just it's never going to always go up, it just doesn't happen, but the tendency is to go up, right. So if Give you an example, my parents first house that they bought, um, I'm Madison on Madison street.
Speaker 2:I think he paid 52 thousand dollars for, oh my god, two family.
Speaker 1:At it because me and my brother were in the attic to had a.
Speaker 2:You know, they, they made a bathroom up there, full bathroom. We had two bedrooms. So we were up there two bedrooms on the second second unit, living room, kitchen, bathroom, small office and then the the other part was the same and then we had the basement. Okay, so they bought it for 52 thousand dollars. They sold it. I don't want to lie. I think they sold it for five and change Okay you know which, at the time was like the height of the market at that time and which you know.
Speaker 2:Think about it 52 to 500 change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 10 extra money, essentially right, okay, so you know what I mean. Yeah, no, I 100% know what you mean.
Speaker 2:So it's you can't look at it that you've gotten that's 700 bucks. Yeah you're looking at it that you're getting the mortgage whatever you want to completely pay for. And eventually you will have an annuity Eventually, or your son will have it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that that has been a big thing, because legacy right the legacy, and it's tough for me because I'm like there's a saying that, um, this guy, alex from ohji, says. He says if you leave your children everything and they're like a bad kid, they'll spoil it and waste it. Right, bad kid or just irresponsible, whatever that means? Right, they'll spoil and waste it, but if they're a good kid, they won't actually need your inheritance because they can go and make their own. Right, if they're finding the good is like relative right, confident or whatever you want to say but at the same time, if you do give your child something, they'll be able to multiply their much. That's what the hope is right right now. Let me ask you a question. Going all into real estate Must have been, like you know, one point, like, oh, I, now I'm going to give all my focus, which I think that is. That was a great decision, clearly.
Speaker 1:Yeah that was you know now you, you have these companies, 25, 30 people, you're all locked in, just lending east coast mortgage. What does it look like? What was like the peak, and now east coast mortgage no longer exists right the peak.
Speaker 2:We we went to like 102 employees, 104 employees. I had, uh, underwriters from, you know, big banks at my office underwriting loans. I used to have people come in and buy loans and we were a banker, I wasn't a broker. Oh, I was funding my own loans.
Speaker 1:You were banked that rec lending. Yeah, we were direct lending.
Speaker 2:Like I had my own underwriting guidelines. I had everything serious so. I had a. I had a phone at Deutsche Bank's bond desk. I worked very hard to get that that was a huge moment. Unfortunately, that only lasted about a year. I got it like 2007 and then 2008. Everything implored actually 2007 at the end of 2007 things started imploring.
Speaker 1:What would you say for you know, how did that level of growth and what our pockets now about like, how to make all the money yeah, our pockets is more like pragmatically how does it impact your personal life? So, that level of growth? How did it impact you as a person in your personal life?
Speaker 2:Well, I think in my personal life it allowed me to create a living situation for my kids that I didn't grow up in. So on the financial aspect of it, it was fantastic. Then everything came to an end very quickly.
Speaker 1:How do you manage that level of income? Because you weren't used to making that amount of money, right? So your money, your income, I'm imagining like goes up so much there further, right? How do you kind of brace yourself? How do you not like? How does your head not implode? How do you not think you're just like you know, jesus, walking on water for lack of my hair?
Speaker 2:take. I think my family and my friends kept me very well grounded. I mean, it wasn't no one looked at me like I walked in the in a room and nobody looked at me like oh, he's got a lot of money. And they looked at me and they're like, hey, douchebag, come over here you know what I mean. It was. I mean, my family was very we're.
Speaker 2:We're 11 boys and you know one of them, joey, and stuff. Of course, right, we, we don't treat each other as like oh my god, you're like the but that's your family right. But that's what keeps you grounded. Ah, that's what keeps you grounded. If you know, because your family doesn't even if you start thinking you're prima donna, your family, you know, at least my family knocks you right down and say hey, relax, buddy. You know, I change your diapers relax.
Speaker 1:My family's the same way, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's again having good people around you. No is the key to everything.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree with you more, but I do gotta act, like the income that you guys were making wasn't like okay, I'm making 100 grand. Now I'm making 500 grand, right.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's stupid money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was insane money, so that's let's be honest, how the hell do you, you know, brace yourself without losing yourself in that kind of income, man, it wasn't really that, peer, like staying grounded to your family, because a lot of people lose themselves. They get the because I'm sure you guys bought like very nice things, right. But how do you not just say I am my wealth because you experienced the flip?
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you, I was so busy that I wasn't thinking about, you know, the money. I mean the money aspect was great because I mean I literally walked into a couple car dealerships and just bought cars Right, which I've never done in my life literally, like, literally. Just I want, you know, I want cash. Yeah, like it was stupid.
Speaker 1:Like I said it was stupid, yeah, I remember the story your brother once sharing funny stories like we got a good permission, but basically one time he brought you to a Porsche. You're, you called him and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna go look at this Porsche. You want to just come with me just to check it out and by the end of it, your brother convinced you to buy the poor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was. You know what. I love that car and I should have never, I should have never got rid of that car, the only car I can actually say I loved what was the car. It was just a Porsche C4.
Speaker 1:Porsche C4.
Speaker 2:You know, wasn't the turbo or anything, because I think I'd probably kill myself in it. Yeah, you probably would but it was, it was nice.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, this is the funny when you read something. I brought him to the Porsche dealership and I hear you invited me to a Porsche dealership from the one person you never want to bite to a dealership.
Speaker 2:Me and him are terrible. Don't ever tell us to go with you. Look at a car. You're gonna come with the car, or with with like a car. You didn't even think you were gonna come. Yeah, you guys are really bad yeah but, like I said, that aspect that it was great, but again we were so busy I literally had my schedule full from the time I walked in to the time I left, and again, I love what I do, so it wasn't work for me like I was excited to get in and I was recruiting people, so I was excited to find out, you know at that point You're not doing any loan, to that point, you're just getting talent, getting, talent getting talent at that point, believe it or not.
Speaker 2:I had a daily meeting with two of my underwriters and we sat down and we I said I don't want about, I don't want to know about anything that's going smoothly, I just want to know about every problem that we have. Every file that's a problem, or every file? That we're missing something on or you know, talk to me about the problems. I don't want to know about everything else that's going on.
Speaker 2:It's going good, I don't want to know about it. So that's kind of where we were, because again you got to get to a certain point where you just can't do everything yourself. You have to trust the people you put into place. You have to trust your guy. You put him into place for a reason and then you got to let them.
Speaker 1:You know you got to let them run with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't micro management. If you micro management, they're never going to be self-sufficient and do what they're supposed to do for your business.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know, yeah, I'm learning there right now, but you really you have to make them accountable, though they have to be accountable.
Speaker 1:Very clearly so and what I like to do now that I've learned is like tie people to a number, so like every person has a number. For example, like our transaction coordinator, like so if you're buying a house, thus you're selling a house on average. We want that to be around the 55 day mark, right? So within 55 days that house should be sold closed. She's done, that's average. So she knows if it's at 70, she's not doing good job.
Speaker 2:What's going on?
Speaker 1:right, she's at 45. Wow, our clients can be super happy. We're so grateful to be opportunity to work with you because we want to be able to offer streamlined service. Right, right? Same thing for attorney review our attorneys. We have them on a five calendar day. Keep a Number. So if we're in a turn of view, a week, something went wrong, that's seven days. If we're there four days, hey, great job. And these are the kind of metrics that you have to have in order to like, because it only people countable can be very subjective, as I've learned, like, hey, are you doing a job? Yeah, I'm doing a great job. Oh, but if you can really prove to them, here's why you're missing the mark, because this is where you're supposed to. You're supposed to get 55 days and you're at 62 days. There's a difference, right, and that's the case. Okay, but question for you now what did your wife think? What did your kids think? Were your kids aware? You think of the money, like all this fast life that you guys were living.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think they were at the time. They're probably aware of it now because since I've been divorced and you know we've downsized the house. Yeah, but at the time was just normal to live in. You know, six thousand square foot house with a pool and yeah, I don't have like six cars in the driveway.
Speaker 1:It was a big deal. Don't all the kids do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and I. What happens is when you get to a certain level when you live, everybody's pretty much like that. So, it becomes your kids. You raise your kids differently, no matter what, because you just are the environment that the rent is just different.
Speaker 1:Now walk me through the crash. Okay, what did that look like for your company? What did I look like for you? How did like personally, are you are having nervous break? I think I know I wanted to.
Speaker 2:I just didn't know what even to do. At one point I got. I got a call on a thought. I was going home. It must have been about eight o'clock at night. No, no, I left early that day. It was like five o'clock five thirty. I was driving home. I got a call From one of my investors. I said listen, the 25 loans you just sent us, we're not buying any of them. We stopped lending today. You have to take them back. We're shipping them back to you and at that time I think that was like 14 million.
Speaker 1:I mean the loan amounts weren't as high as they are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there, I think it was like 14 million or 15 million of my warehouse lines that now I couldn't recycle. So, I turned on. Maybe you turn. Turned back around, worked all weekend. By Monday I had a home for all of those loans, took haircuts and some of them haircuts is when you lose money on the you know, If you do a loan for a hundred thousand, you take a 10% haircut You're giving the bank.
Speaker 2:Now you know, instead of them giving you a hundred grand, you're not only getting 90, so you just took a $10,000 ahead. I already had to pay commissions.
Speaker 1:So it's really a bigger hit than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean again, I don't remember the exact, exact.
Speaker 1:But I had commissions, several hundred thousand dollars money that we thought we're gonna earn that.
Speaker 2:We didn't earn. I Took some, some, some heavy losses on some loans just to get rid of them because I didn't want them. No, I was like shit, if they're stop, if beer sterns just stop lending, okay, where's the next shoe? And then all of a sudden, it was like mortgage implode. Websites showed up. This one went out of business.
Speaker 1:This one out of business there were websites dedicated to just dedicated to come mortgage companies going out of business.
Speaker 2:That was called mortgage implode and you can see which was a new company.
Speaker 1:That.
Speaker 2:Was insane.
Speaker 1:It was insane and what are you thinking? Are you having like in? So I had a police, the ambulance, if you can hear it, yeah, it's coming to get me.
Speaker 2:So I had a bright idea. I went into a, into wholesale wholesale.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:I brought a whole team on from Indie Mac Bank and went to wholesale. I started buying from other brokers.
Speaker 1:I Don't think that was a good idea.
Speaker 2:That was a great idea Was it got me coming through another couple years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I double down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I doubled down. I went into wholesale.
Speaker 1:Okay, pause. No, this is a crazy story I've ever heard. You're telling me your company definitely shrinks in size. I'm calling. What was that? Are you ever you?
Speaker 2:know the first. I took it on the chin for the first year. I didn't let anybody go, Because a lot of people that were with me and you're gonna realize this there's gonna be certain people that gonna stay with you.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I went to weddings, I went to baptisms, I went to funerals and it was very hard for me to let those people go. Wow, so I took it on chin for a full year, didn't let anybody go. It wasn't till the second year that I started letting you know. Staff go because I just they weren't doing anything all day long. There's just nothing to do yeah because we went from probably doing a hundred something loans a week oh my god too, you know to maybe 10, 15, 20, you guys were down like 85%.
Speaker 2:Always tell me it was bad, yeah, but then again the wholesale stuff Was very low margins, but at that at least kept the lights on. You know, you know cover the overhead and covered some of the overhead.
Speaker 1:So now you get into wholesale. When you were getting to wholesale, what was your company size?
Speaker 2:That's when we were at the. We were on max. We're like a hundred and change.
Speaker 1:Oh, because it was like we just need to a lot of volume within margin correct.
Speaker 2:Well, I kept all my people. Oh, I just didn't, you know, I just didn't let people go.
Speaker 1:How did you go from that point? You're fighting wholesale. What was the point that you said? Hey, personally it's just I want to talk more about real sick, as I love real safe, but this really should be like behind the scenes. Look, what is that doing to your, like your family life, like your mental health.
Speaker 2:Are you? Are you? Are you sleeping during this time?
Speaker 1:I never brought work home brother, you're telling me the whole financial market come literally imploded. And you're telling me on, bring that home the honest to goodness truth.
Speaker 2:My marriage probably was over because I didn't bring any of that home.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:because it just I didn't bring it home. I left it at the office. Yeah, I got that negatively, I got sued by the FDIC, which was, you know, fdic is a you know the US government. Yeah, for $34 million at the time. You want to talk about sleepless nights?
Speaker 1:So how do you not bring $35 million lost?
Speaker 2:in. Nothing changed. My wife drove, drove the same range Rover Did your wife know this was happening. She knew something was happening because all of a sudden money, money, money was coming in. All of a sudden I was writing checks.
Speaker 1:So yeah, she knew something was well, you mean money was coming in.
Speaker 2:I was right used to be money coming in like crazy and then at that point, was just me writing, was money just coming out of my account? Oh I was just covering everything. I wasn't really making any money.
Speaker 1:Okay, but okay, I'm sorry. What does your wife say when you have a $34 million lawsuit?
Speaker 2:I don't think I told her until I almost had everything resolved on it.
Speaker 1:And you think that led to a negative.
Speaker 2:Because I should have probably included her and everything was going on why is? That, because then I took everything like. It was like a little bit resentment on my part, probably resentment towards you just because Guess it just made, because you're taking everything on thinking you're, you know you're the tough guy. You know you need to take everything on and you don't you know, but at that time I thought I did if you could, let's say obviously you're very happy.
Speaker 1:You know you have a wonderful girlfriend, Chris. I love Chris. Chris, if you're listening, I like you a lot. Right, Thank you for being me. You know you have a good relationship with your kids all the night. But if you could go back in time to that. You know I've only know doing everything on his own. What kind of advice would you give a young Avellino who's going through a hardship taking everything on his own? What would you say to him?
Speaker 2:You know that, um no, when to fold that song like by Kenny with it, kenny.
Speaker 1:Kenny, can you?
Speaker 2:I don't know anyway, you know no one to hold on no one to fold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should have folded.
Speaker 2:But I should have done. The day that I got the phone call saying we're not buying any more loans, I should have taken the money that I'm asked and I should have taken a pause, called everybody in a conference room, said, hey, we're closing today. Hmm and I should have literally folded right there in that why's? That because I could jump back in a year later and made more money and we hired everybody who was very hired people that were still available, which I'm sure was going to be people were still gonna be available.
Speaker 1:That's what I should have done. What kind of impact do you think that would have had on your marriage?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I can't.
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't know on your mental health.
Speaker 2:You would have had a year to bring the health I would have had a year. I would have been on your on vacation. It would have been great.
Speaker 1:It would. Oh my gosh, yeah, wow, yeah. And you're saying that's the advice, as like, but why didn't you fold? You're smart guy, you're wise, why didn't you fold?
Speaker 2:because, again, I went through some of these cycles. It was nothing like that.
Speaker 1:I Went through cycles you misjudged how big of a beach how big of a cycle that was going to be.
Speaker 2:I thought it was gonna be a six-month cycle, a year cycle, maybe two years. Yeah it was Seven years, six years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can weather the storm but sometimes, yeah, yeah, not the hurricane forever, not like okay, wow, so then you survive. Now fast forward. You did walk away from East Coast, right, officially. What led to that conclusion? Like you know not even what led to that's, I really don't.
Speaker 2:I just, I was just tired of, I was just tired of that business your time. It was a business I loved and it just I wasn't into it anymore, I wasn't happy to get up in the morning, Go do it anymore. And that's when I said alright, you know we did, you know we went and we did the title company.
Speaker 1:So whoa really? I remember years ago Carlos told me about my brother's loans, but he doesn't hear in there.
Speaker 2:I just didn't want to do it anymore. I was just burnt out on it.
Speaker 1:And you really like in all capacities, all metrics, you were like a king.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, we were doing very well. I mean let's put it this way we were definitely there was a point where we were making an impact because other bigger companies were like who are these guys and what can we do to take them out?
Speaker 1:Brother, you were doing 100 loans a week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had people. We had people that offered me money to buy a meow. They wanted to merge they. You know, we had a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1:So you just got so beat up and, honestly, you did have like a very eventful experience, and even then you basically go all the way till 2018, 17, still doing loans here and there, figuring out. You're basically Well, what I did is.
Speaker 2:I just downsized and I became just a broker and then.
Speaker 2:I took five of the guys that were with me and I said here's what we're going to do you guys are going to. You know we're not going to have an office. We're going to have an office for you guys to meet customers, if you want. I don't want you in the office and work from home. So I was ahead of my time for code and I said we're, I'm going to process all your files. I'm going to hire two people to process your files and that's how we're going to do business from now on.
Speaker 1:I was very lucrative for time, but I was just I was just bored, tired, burnt out.
Speaker 2:I wasn't, you know, I just wasn't excited to come in anymore.
Speaker 1:So now you're in what I would consider is probably one of the most underappreciated, most stressful positions in real estate title. We've got to ask the million dollar question why.
Speaker 2:Um, because I know it. I know it backwards and forwards. I was reviewing title for my company years and years ago. Um, I know how to handle problems. Well, you, we already talked to today about one of them. That's a new one for me, by the way.
Speaker 1:I would say shout out to you, avalino. Shout out to value title for multiple reasons, but one of them if you have a mission impossible file I'm talking it is it really shouldn't close. You just know it, like this is, should not close. You got to call Avalino because somehow this man is a miracle worker. When I say miracle, I mean 9 30 PM on a Thursday night, meeting you at the office before he goes on vacation Friday morning for a closing that you scheduled Thursday at 2 PM. No exaggeration, you love solving problems. You kind of get like high off of it, I'm not even kidding. You get like a little fix, I like it, I like it. It's like the same thing. When you went to your meeting, right, you said tell me all the problems, tell me all the problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell me the problems, give me the problems and you know, don't tell me the good stuff.
Speaker 1:Give me the. What would you say that most? And as we come to a closure now, I appreciate you taking me through the world. When, which is how real estate kind of guided and impacted your life so much, what kind of person should get into the title business?
Speaker 2:You have to be precise, you have to be detail oriented. Um, as when I mean detail oriented, you have to be able to go through every deed. Read the deeds what date did this deed go through here to here? And you have to be precise with it, because when you're dealing with a lot in blocks and you're dealing with the smallest difference the smallest difference makes a big, huge problem. Yeah, huge and then you have to be detail oriented.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Obsessively, obsessively. And then you have to be able to and this is something that just comes with experience, you can't teach it. You just have to be able to know what to do in certain circumstances and who to call Okay, and that's. That's one of the things. Like you're saying, like I'm a miracle worker, I'm not a miracle worker.
Speaker 1:No, you are. I just I just make the phone. No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I make the phone calls. No, no, no, you're, you're, you're, you are. You are talking to, you know, the God Almighty, or you're maybe talking to a witch doctor. I don't know, I'm not talking to the God Almighty, not the witch doctor, but no, you are. Like it has been miraculous.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, it's just about customer service, like the the example you just gave. It was absolutely what we did. We did a 930 closing or 10 o'clock closing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 10 o'clock yeah.
Speaker 2:The night before I was going away on vacation.
Speaker 1:It was crazy.
Speaker 2:But how to get done, and I figured out a way to get it done.
Speaker 1:And the deal was going to die if we didn't close that day Right.
Speaker 2:And, and that's the thing. I know, you see, and that's what helps me with the mortgage side and the real estate side is I know how important a closing date is for a file. It really where a lot of people in the title business don't understand that because they get paid no matter what, so they don't understand that.
Speaker 1:I never like to speak ill of anybody so I won't name drop, but you're one of your predecessors who was a true value before you came in and revolutionized. It was so unfathomably difficult to work with. Now, once I remember call, literally saying to the gentleman is saying listen, I had a secretary. After the secretary you get to him say listen. With all due respect, I have worked five months on this file. I before that. That was a wonderful family. I have been looking for houses with these people for four months. I said that is nine months, babies are born in nine months and I have burned this closing. I try to be funny with him. He did not like that and I said for the love of God, almighty, change your schedule. He's like I already have three closing tomorrow for closings. I don't have time for another one. I said please make the time. He's like I have closings. He like raises voice and they hung up and I had to call Carlos pulling the favor. I said this is insane.
Speaker 2:That is the typical title company mentality.
Speaker 1:It was crazy.
Speaker 2:And that's why I went to title, because I think I can do a better job. We're still building it but, we're going to build it the right way. We're going to build it the right foundation and there's no reason and listen, for anyone who's new to real estate, who's maybe just forming a team, the most important thing is your team.
Speaker 2:You need a good mortgage person, you need a good realtor, you need a good title company and you need a good couple of attorneys. If you have that combination, you're going to be successful. But when one of those people in that link and you know that very well is not strong or is not doing what they're supposed to be doing, that deal becomes complicated, or those deals become complicated and you don't need complications. I don't want to get you involved in anything until I need to get you involved.
Speaker 1:I am only involved as a last case scenario.
Speaker 1:When I need to get you involved, that's when I get you involved and, as a realtor, that's what I look for from my title company, my attorney and my lender everyone. I only want to get involved. If things are I can't, because my job really should be controlling the customer, supporting the customer, empowering the customer and looking for new clients to really help them turn a house to home. That's what I love to do, that's what I get to do, that's my privilege, and I get to train people how to do it. That's my job. If I am involved in the daily minutiae of the little details.
Speaker 2:I will lose my mind. You're going to well. Not only that, but you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing which is getting? More, you know more, more sales.
Speaker 1:And that really was my like, not like I've been building back up now, but like for a year or so after, like I just was burned my mind I had like my volume was going down, a contrast to where it was, because I realized I was doing so much.
Speaker 1:And you know, I really have this like renewed, like desire to just go after business, go after new clients, build relationships with my previous clients who've been like so helpful, like I have a client hopefully you're listening, but you know, ezra on, this guy is amazing human being, this guy is phenomenal. Build a client with him. I helped him get two of the property, I helped him get one of the property and we're buying his second property, primary in Forest Hill, forest Hills in Newark Beautiful, actually, I don't know if it's Forest Hill or Forest Hills in Newark, but whenever I say one, they correct me on the other. So okay now last question for you Realtors the number one thing is your team. I would even agree with a buyer your body, if you're a buyer your team of who's your lender, who's your attorney, who's your inspector number one thing because you're not that smart, I hate to say it.
Speaker 1:Like you may have a lot of information, like you can Google everything, great, but this industry is so murky on how to navigate the waters or blood ridden. You gotta have experience behind you.
Speaker 2:You have to have a good team. If you don't have a good team, it's pointless.
Speaker 1:You can't read a book about it and figure it out.
Speaker 2:No, Imagine everything went perfect and then, the day of closing, you have a crappy closure at your closing.
Speaker 1:Brother, tell me one time when everything went perfect.
Speaker 2:But just okay. So let's just say it doesn't go perfect. But now you're at the closing table and you have a closer who has a shitty attitude or who doesn't want to be there, or I mean your agents have been in my closings. Okay, I try to make it light. I try to make it.
Speaker 1:You've been in my closings.
Speaker 2:Yes, I try to treat everyone like family, Like if they were my brother, sister closing on their house. They're closing on their house. I'm excited for them because they're close.
Speaker 1:That is true, you do that. I'm excited for them. You have the good jokes. You had them with the one-liners.
Speaker 2:But it should be a pleasant thing, and even if up to that point it wasn't pleasant, there was issues. There was a long road to get to that point. At least at the closing they should be somewhat happy and excited about closing on their home.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of the customers that leave our office are happy, are excited, even the ones that come in, and they have an attitude right off the bat. But then it's like, okay, hey, I know this has been a rough road. I see the file number, I know that this has been here for four months, but let's get past this and by the time they leave my office they're very happy and that's the difference that we bring in, that a lot of other title companies don't. And the other thing, like even today, I'm going to leave here, I'm going to do a closing at 5.30.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Because it was the only time she can do the closing.
Speaker 1:And that was that.
Speaker 2:So let's make it 5.30.
Speaker 1:I had literally title companies tell me hey, we closed at four o'clock.
Speaker 2:I don't understand.
Speaker 1:It's the most, and the worst part is they're busy. I don't understand that to me gets me upset, Cause I'm like you don't deserve to be busy.
Speaker 2:I had a realtor that I've never done business before. I'm not going to say who she is, she's pretty big and she called me and she goes. Is there a possibility that we can do this closing of blah blah, blah? And I'm like, well, I can't do that, but how about I do 6.30. And she goes, well, tonight. I'm like, yeah, and she goes, you'll do that. I'm like, yeah, this is what we do. I said, yeah, you would even come to you, even come to my office for a closing.
Speaker 1:You went to a coffee shop for closing. I've done closings at Newark airport. No, you haven't.
Speaker 2:While while a person was putting in their bags because that was the only time they can close. There's no way that's a true story, I swear, okay. So, avalino, thank you for coming up. Podcast for love of God.
Speaker 1:Make sure you use this man for title for all his good beard oils that he uses and, if you really do look, if you're looking to buy a house. Make sure you have the right team title lender, realtor, et cetera. Make sure you're working with someone who can meet you at the airport. On God's sake, start using true value title. Yes, god, use true value for the love of the Lord. Adios. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
