Welcome back to another episode of Value Nation, special guest episode. We're just going to
dive right into it. Here we go.
Now, seeing that this is my first guest that I've actually brought on the show. We previously
had Mike Moron who works with us, but Charlie set that up and Charlie brought on another
guest. Charlie set up some guests at trade shows. I need to pull them out and wait. So
I finally did it and there's a lot of info on this guest online. His Wikipedia page is
unbelievable. I mean, this man was born in Botswana. He speaks seven different languages.
Fun fact, he actually learns English from cereal boxes while in Botswana. If you watch the film
close, you will see him on the field tripping Missouri defenders to help Auburn win the
2013 SEC championship game. Really kind of took my heart away on that one. Tiger Woods
famous stinger. Actually, he taught him how to hit that shot. Jack Nicklaus once called
him on a Friday to fly to Augusta for a private golf match and he stated he had closings to
handle and couldn't make it. True man of the people, international man of mystery, the
inventor of the French 75, Mr. Brian McKellar. Welcome, sir. Welcome.
Thank you, Mike. Appreciate that.
Man, there is a lot on you out there. That Wikipedia page is popping. I got to ask, like,
is that like 50% true or was all of that spot on?
It was like forecasting future rents. I mean, you know, it could be true. It's kind of a
blend of truth and fiction and what could have been maybe. Yeah. I know, you know, you
will find me on the Internet. Some good, some bad. Previous life was a vagabond golfer,
high level amateur golfer, college golfer at Auburn. Ten years on the professional tours
all around the world. South America ending up in a mortgage cubicle in Troy, Michigan
selling FHA Streamline refinances.
That's the dream right there. All comes full circle, baby. It all comes back around. It
always comes back to you've got to get a real job eventually.
Yeah. Yeah. You did like having to make 10 foot putts, you know, to be able to eat dinner
the next night, did you?
Yeah. Well, you know, a large group of us, we travel around the country and we would
put our entry fees on our credit card. Enough money by the time the credit card payment
was due in order to pay our payments or the dream would come to an end. So you want to
talk about pressure. Try paying your bills by making putts on the mini tours.
I'd be out. I'd be I'd be on the street.
I still get nervous over a birdie putt in Men's League. I mean, you grow up pretty quick.
You play some good, some bad and some pretty darn ugly golf courses for sure. And yeah,
that was that was that was actually the bank I went to work for that was only supposed
to work there for three months and then had back out on the road. But they were actually
one of my sponsors. And that's kind of how it all came full circle. And when I got in
the cubicles started, I think my second month, I closed 16 refinances and I was like, wow,
this is a heck of a lot easier than making putts. Of course, the world had ended. Race
were way lower than they were for the previous few years. And this was 2000. This was 2009,
like, say, March. Oh, so right. Yeah. Right after everything happened. I paid days to
find refinances with no appraisals, no credit check. It's beautiful. Everybody who everybody
wants that day to come back. Those were the the cold call. They were the easiest cold
calls you could ever make. I closed 200 transactions as an originator my first year. It's pretty
good. Yeah. You just you just hit the ground running like that was and that's been what
you've been what you've been doing since golf. Right. But I was so I was told I was told
that here's these people's numbers. Everybody gets a five and a half percent. OK. This was
we were calling through the portfolio of service loans for brokers that have gone out of business
because it was 2009. So I call these people up. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, this is Brian
McKellar with XYZ Bank. I'm about to send you this. And I figured I said after a few
calls, everybody was saying yes. I said, well, I'm not even going to ask them if they want
to do it. I'm just going to say I'm going to send over this loan package. All I need
you to do is sign it and return it with your copy of your driver's license and a bank statement.
And I'm going to save you two hundred and fourteen dollars a month. And you'll probably
skip a month's payment because, you know, we're going to refinance it. How does that
sound? And not one person said, I don't like that. I was like, so it came to Friday. Everybody
in the office went home and here I was, professional golfer, you know, that was used to scrub,
scrap and for everything I got. And I said, hey, are we allowed to work on the weekends?
They said, man, you're a hundred percent commission, brother. You can do whatever you want to. So
this is before everybody had a cell phone. So I show up on Saturday in my shorts and
t-shirt and I would just call everybody at home while they were watching, you know, football
or hockey or basketball. I would just work the phones all day. And I said, look, I'm
going to work Saturday and Sunday. And every Tuesday when FedEx ran on Monday, I'd get
about 15 loan packages back into the office. And everybody looked at me like I was absolutely
crazy because they were all still trying to do purchases and I was just riding the refinance
wave. That's how I got into the business. That's the move. Like my background, like
my family, we've my father and my brother are LOs. My father's been in the business
for like 40 plus years. Right. So it seemed the good, the bad. He was a part, his company
probably was a part of that whole crash, American home mortgage back in the day. They were a
big problem. But, but yeah, I've seen it. And what he's, he would be out there recruiting
guys. And to your point, like a lot of them, they were coming from maybe just purchase
heavy shops and didn't really, you know, the refis, he said it was, it was like a foreign
language to some of them. And it was crazy because it's just money on the table. And
it's just, and to your point, like the something closes, like I'm just going to, Hey, I'm going
to send you this stuff and I'm going to save you a couple hundred bucks. Like it's a no
brainer. It was an absolute no brainer. Obviously that product doesn't, doesn't really exist
anymore. But I'm at the time you would have been silly to not, to not participate. And
you know, in some cases we probably delayed the inevitable for those people. And a lot
of them probably shouldn't have got a new loan. But, you know, if you, if you've got
to, if you're, if you're, if you're a lender and you have a giant servicing portfolio and
you're not calling through and trying to retain your clients, when rates go down, somebody
else is going to do it. And, and that was our, that was our theory. And I think it's
still true to this day. Now rates have continued to come down since then until what, you know,
when the spigot shut off in about June of this year. But since then we're about 97%
purchase. So now we actually know what we're doing. Hey, there you go. And I had to order
a plate on every darn deal almost. Yeah. But that's the model, right? I mean, the model
is you get the purchases first, you do a good job doing it. And so then you have those people
in your contacts list for when rates do happen to go down, then you call them like, Hey,
let's do this. And it's an ongoing cycle. Then they use you, they buy another place
since they had cycle that continues to go on and on.
Look, if you're a loan originator, if you're, if you're a loan production office and you
are not considering a purchase that runs through your office as a customer for life, then you're
doing it wrong. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We want to, we've already, we already know you.
You know, like, and trust us already. And we want to do your loan. I would say, you
know, if you have a first time home buyer, starting a family, buying a home from you,
I would say they're probably going to use you five to six times throughout their life.
If they keep coming back, they're going to need probably five or six mortgages. They're
probably going to buy two or three houses and they're going to refinance when rates
go down. And that's our goal. Our goal is to be a, your letter for life. And sometimes
it's just informing them or having a conversation on the phone of, Hey, it's a great time to
do this or Hey, it's not a great time to do this. You know, it's the client doesn't always
know what they need. They need somebody they can trust. And that's, that's the goal. That's,
that's the rewarding part of what we do for a living.
Yeah. And you guys, you guys deal with, um, you're in one of those areas of the country
because so say like loan officers that work in Kansas city where I am, we don't have to
deal with too many short term rental type situations, but you guys down there do. And
so you guys have had to learn as that that's been a new trend coming out. You've had to
learn how to handle how income is coming from short term rentals and how you can get loans
approved using short term rental income and so forth. So if you like, let us know a little
bit that learning curve and how things are going with the situation.
So VRBO Airbnb reality television and social media created this monster of everybody needs
to buy a second home or an investment property and get rich. And, um, and so we're in one
of those markets Gulf shores, orange beach, Perdido Key, Alabama, uh, Perdido Key, Florida.
Uh, those are all in our, in our area, in our, in our sphere of influence down here.
And we are in a destination where a, we're probably a tier two or three as far as cost.
You get over to 30 a over to, you know, uh, 30 a areas, uh, Santa Rosa beach area, three,
two, three, four, five million dollar properties on the beach. Come over here to Baldwin County,
you know, you can still pick something up four or five, six, $800,000 that will cash
flow on short-term rentals. And so everybody's doing it, you know, regular people bought
second homes at the beach and they would use them three or four weeks a year and rent them
out the other time. And, you know, I have friends that, um, have a two or three veteran
condo on the beach that generates between 60 and a hundred thousand dollars a year of,
uh, gross rental income and short-term and Airbnb and the ease of which those systems
work have really increased the profitability and then a dollar you can charge per night.
You know, originally back in the day in the nineties, we'd have snowbirds come down in
the winter and they'd rent your place out for $1,500 a month because short-term rentals
were kind of harder to find. You had to call an agency and they'd call you back and the
internet didn't really facilitate that deal. Well, now you go and Google, you know, uh,
vacation rentals in Gulf shores, Alabama, there's a thousand people renting out waterfront
Gulf front condos anywhere from $150 a night to $3,000 a night. And so, um, that drives
tourists. Tourists tend to turn into second homeowners because they want to live the dream.
They want a vacation there and rent it out. And it drives, um, it drives their surrounding
markets as well. A lot of people moved to the beach and realized, I don't want to live
with the beach. I want to live in Daphne or Faro which is our more residential area. And
so the whole market is really, we're, we're driven by tourism and we're a destination
that you can drive to, uh, and get here in about eight hours from the majority of the
Eastern United States. So during the pandemic, it was insane. The amount of people that I
have, I bet man is like the lake of the Ozarks, like the lake of the Ozarks here in Missouri
reported their highest volume of visitors, new purchases, rentals during, during COVID
during the pandemic, like the lake of the Ozarks exploded. It was like COVID didn't
exist at the lake. Like that's what everybody joked about.
Well, and you know, everybody said, well, if you're outside, it's not a big deal. So
everybody's like, well, well, you're telling me I can go ride around in my boat and sit
on the beach and drink light beer and it's COVID compliant. Let's go do it. I'm going
to send three or four emails a day and I'm still actually technically working for the
time being from my office in Nashville or wherever you're, you know, supposed to be
working. So it just created this whole, uh, new mindset of living where you want to be
or vacationing and working all at the same time. And, um, we, we just had an incredible
boom and I, I don't see it ever going away.
No, no, it's here to stay. I mean, as long as we've touched on it on a couple of our
previous podcasts at, uh, you know, some States in cities, counties, whoever's in charge are
trying to put different laws in place where you have to be a resident to do the short
term rentals and things like that. Like certain States are starting to push those kinds of
things out, but I don't, it's, it's not going anywhere overall the business now.
Oh yeah. I mean, you know, the smartphone with the addition of an Airbnb or a VRBL app
has made it so that you can sit there, you know, waiting in line at Starbucks and go
find a vacation rental anywhere in the world. So that's the way people vacation and pick
where they want to go. Sometimes they don't really even put a whole lot of thought into
it. They're like, ah, yeah, 1500 bucks for, you know, four nights, let's do it booked.
And then they just kind of figured it out later.
And then you see the surprise $400 cleaning fees.
Yeah. And then they have this list of demands, walk our dog, you know, scrub the toilets.
Like, what are you talking about?
To your point about, you know, them trying to pull back the reins and restrict. We've
had some of our more residential areas that have said, look, we want to limit rentals
in this area to 30 days at a minimum, but they tend to be in more residential areas
where people are occupying the homes as primary residences. And I get that. Like the home
that I go to a home to every night, that's very residential in nature. I don't want spring
break short term rentals right next door, you know, party until three o'clock in the
morning. Now, if I'm in a beachfront, Gulf front condo, I think you can kind of expect
that more. And that's kind of what comes with the territory. Yeah, it has to make sense.
Like, no, we're not going to put, you know, a short term party house in the middle of
residential neighborhood. So the HOA is and the cities have created guidelines just to
kind of curb the craziness. And it, it has affected the values. It doesn't hurt values
when no short term rentals are allowed, especially if it's a vacation type property.
That makes sense. And plus, I mean, if you think about it, like if you're trying to be
an economical traveler, and you don't want to spend the money for the beachfront, you
could maybe be okay taking something a mile away from the beach and driving to the beach
every day, and that's going to be cheaper, but then there's going to be restrictions
on those because it's going to be more residential type area. So then it kind of takes that option
away from people too.
So sometimes you get like a mile from the beach and you're in the county. We've always
seen this like unzoned county areas tend to not have the restrictions. But that is a trend
for sure. Lending on condominiums at the beach has gotten more difficult and expensive. So
we are seeing a lot of people more willing, maybe, maybe COVID caused this too. They didn't
want to be around with so many people. Like, do you really want to ride an elevator to
the 28th floor with a hundred other people to go back and forth every day? Or do you
want to be at your little two bedroom, single family house with a pool in the backyard and
then maybe drive a golf cart to the public beach access a mile down the road? We're seeing
a lot more of those non beachfront single family homes that are serving as rentals.
I'm actually in the process of trying to build two of them right now. I got to deal on some
land that is very close to the public access, maybe about a mile from the Gulf. And I was
going to build two, three bedroom houses with a pool in the backyard of each. So large parties
could all stay in the same place. You know, and I come up with a couple golf carts and
they're good to go, man. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not granted. I got my quote to bill and I
was like, Oh, yeah, it's a whole time out. So you remember, remember, went down. Have
you, have you looked into the, uh, those, those kid houses that are like two or three
bedrooms? I did like, I'm like, uh, like a modular home. Yeah. I find them on Amazon
even like they're 50 grand. Yeah. No, no, not, not those that small. I don't know if
they'd allow me to build those there, but I looked at like modular homes, but man, they,
they were no cheaper. They were, they were still like, uh, I think the bare minimum was
$195 a square foot. And then it was like a $50,000 delivery charge. So it was probably
as expensive as building a stick built house. Okay. I just, I just, I was getting ready
to break ground and say last July and I just kind of paused it and said, I want, I kind
of want to see what happens with this market. You know, interest rates have gone up, uh,
cost of buildings at all time high. I just wanted to see where it's selling out. I'm
not at any kind of hurry, uh, to make a bad decision. So I just said, you know, give me
six months to think about it. And I'm kind of glad I did. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
All right. Change, change the topic here. So, so tell us about what you got going on
now. So we know that you started off for XYZ sling and refis. So like, what exactly are
you doing right now? We haven't touched on where, like what, what the office is. I run
a branch for bank of England mortgage. We are a mortgage lender based in England, Arkansas,
which is not overseas bank of England. We are, you know, the bank of England is like
the federal reserve. That's not even really a bank. So we're the bank of England mortgage
from England, Arkansas, uh, established in 1898, originally an agriculture rice farmer
bank, a very small humble beginnings. I think we're about a $350 million bank, which is
very small comparatively. I believe we have over a hundred loan production offices around
the country. And the last year, I believe we lent about $5 billion in residential mortgages.
So, um, that's kind of our setup. We are a, we're a super lender that operates in, in
a conjunction with a small FDIC regulated bank. And, um, people come here to stay. Um,
we pride ourselves in keeping our staff for long periods of time. We are a kind of place
where I can pick up the phone and I can talk to the people making the decisions. We still
have a loan committee, which is kind of cool. It's old fashioned. Uh, we, we, we discuss
loans. We don't just deny loans or approve loans. We can actually get on the telephone
and work things out and come up with solutions. Um, which I came from a very large lender
before this. And, you know, you would send an email to some inbox and wait three weeks
for a response. And the response was usually, I'm sorry, we've already given all the exceptions
for the month. I'm like, well, crap, I didn't, I didn't get any, what does that do? So,
you know, moved here because I needed to have some personal touch. I needed to be able to,
uh, create and make some decisions locally. I need to be able to stick my neck out for,
uh, borrowers and clients that I, you know, that, um, that I believed in. And, and, um,
and that's the luxury of working for a smaller company. Uh, I currently have six loan officers,
three local production, uh, support staff. I use our corporate underwriters, which I
know all of them. Uh, I talk to them almost every day. If they can't figure something
out, they pick up the phone and they call me on my cell. That's awesome. That is something
that you will not get at a lot of lenders. Um, like I was saying earlier, I think we
did 96% purchase last year. So we're all purchase production. Um, I pride myself on educating
the clients and, um, I route my, I'm really passionate about bringing loan officers in
from different industries and teaching them the business and teaching them to be the best.
That's what's really fun for me. I don't bring on loan officers that are retreads or burned
out at a different lender. I like to bring people from the ground up, grow them organically.
And um, you know, what ends up happening is every lender in town is trying to recruit
my loan officers, but that's fine. We create loyalty and, um, um, I like the energy. So
those guys are also really hungry, right? I mean that gender, that younger generation,
typically, like you say, you don't want the guys that are all burned out and, uh, you
know, you know, I, what I find is that, um, you know, you take a guy that's maybe making
40 or $50,000, uh, in some jobs he's not passionate about. And if you, if you sense that he maybe
is coachable, uh, and is willing to put in the time, you can show him that look in this
industry, the sky's the limit and you have what it takes to do better than what you're
doing currently. And those are the fun situations where you can take a young professional and
teach them a skill they'll have for the rest of their life and that they can do better
for themselves and their family. And that's, that's awesome. And you need that energy in
this business. This business will wear you out. You, you, you need that young energy
and it brings everybody else around them up a notch as well. Um, my kind of one of my
pride and joy loan officers that I hired two years ago, he was spraying bugs for a termite
company. Um, he applied to be a processor and I said, ah, I'm going to talk to this
guy. I don't really need a processor, but let me go, go talk to him. He said, I want
to be a processor. I said, you're going to be a loan officer. I said, you're going to
come up to me, be a loan officer. He was hustling. He was working two jobs, trying to make ends
meet. And, uh, last year he closed 94 loans in a second year. So, you know, that's awesome.
I mean, if I can do that 20 more times in my career, I think that's, that's a success.
Yeah, absolutely. That's impressive. That's really impressive. Like, and I can mention
my brother just, he just became an LO last year. And after, after fighting back, I guess
my father about getting into the business. Um, and he's, yeah, he's, he's figured it
out though. Like his, his bread and butter has been, um, like two or three Ks fixed,
you know, fix and flip stuff. Cause that's what he, what the world he came from. And
so I'm trying to help educate him that way. Listen, go with what you know, like you can
market this up. You can talk to these people and you can help them. You have those kinds
of contacts. Um, and you know, he ended up at a, uh, at a predominantly, um, refi shop,
or I'm sorry, a purchase shop in Ohio. So he's working through it, but he's, you're
right. They make a hand over fist money better than it was before. And it's just a better
quality of life. Well, and you know, um, it's a skillset and it's rewarding because you're
helping families and you know, you, you run into a family and I have a quick story. I
helped somebody close a condo that was denied by a couple other lenders. And actually the
seller that I didn't even know came out to me at church a couple of years later and said,
I want to know that you, you changed our lives. Like we, we really need to sell this and get
our money out because we had to relocate to be with a, a relative that was sick and dying.
And so if they weren't able to get somebody to be able to finance their condo, they weren't
going to be able to move on with their life. And I didn't even realize that they recognized
that I was the lender on the transaction, but we came up with solutions. We got the
deal closed and she never forgot that. And like, I see this lady, you know, a couple
times a year and she still brings it up every time. And I mean, you know, way better than
the money is the recognition. And uh, that's what it's all about right there. But I helped
somebody, you know, knowing that you truly helped out people in a situation where they
needed it. And I didn't even know the situation was going on. Now, you know, it's probably
one of the top 10 stories I've had in, I don't know, thousands of loans we've closed. What
about top 10 appraisal stories? Oh, I don't know. Wasn't that you that sent me the one
on the pilings that was like already underwater. And you're like, you think we can get the
praise on this? So God calls us up since it's a picture of Zillow. Hey, I want to buy this
house. Okay. So million dollars in dolphin Island. So we're looking at it and I'm like,
that's cool. The interior pictures and like typically the exterior picture is the first
one you look at. Right? The last picture on Zillow is like picture 45. I'm like, wait
a second. This house is in the Gulf of Mexico, not on the Gulf of Mexico. It is in the Gulf
of Mexico. And I don't know, you know, if you look at a map, dolphin Island is the barrier
Island on the mobile side of the Bay. And you know, you go over bridge to get there.
It's an Island. Well, every time a hurricane comes, you know, the shape of the beach changes.
I don't know if you guys know this, but beaches, beaches move around. Okay. Oh yeah. And that's
bad news for people living on the beach. Cause sometimes the beach under your house goes
away. Well, that's what happened here on the west end of dolphin Island. The beach is absolutely
gone. And so a lot of people just simply lost their house and it was, you know, imagine
trying to, you know, give a value on a property that is no longer there and is in the Gulf
of Mexico. I believe the Corps of engineer owns it at that point. I don't even know.
We're like, sir, this house, this house is in the Gulf of Mexico. I don't think we can
do this. And he's like, but I, but I love it. He's like, but look at the view. I was
like, it's great. There was a kayak next to the front stairs. You had to kayak from the
stairs to the beach, to your car. That's how you got in and out of this property. And it
was sitting up 10 feet. Anyway, we couldn't get title insurance on it. We couldn't get
an appraiser to take the order. I didn't want to do it. I didn't, I was like, I don't even
want to waste time on this. Cause the underwriter is going to be like, I, you know, what if
this house is gone next month? I mean, it very easily could be. So we, we financed them
a different property, but actually somebody ended up buying that house with cash. No,
you say it was worth, it was selling for a million dollars, a million bucks, which at
the time was probably, had it been on the beach and not in the Gulf, it was worth about
a, it probably would have been about a million five, but it was a good deal. So people were
like, Oh, look at this. Yeah. What if the beach comes back? Another storm moves the
beach back over there and then it's good to go. You know, I mean, if you're a gambler,
I guess you buy those lots that are out in the Gulf and a way that the beach to come
back, I guess, I don't know. It's a futures, it's a futures bet, you know, it's a future
land speculation that the Gulf of Mexico is going to get smaller. Um, that was a good
one. Um, we had a manufactured home, modular home slash trailer that had been converted
into a single family home, which I'd never heard of. So said the story from the listing
agent, the appraiser actually was not our appraiser. You guys didn't give them to us,
but this was a deal that died somewhere else, came to life over at our doorstep. And, um,
yeah, yeah, this is a, this is a manufactured home that's been converted into a single
family home. I said, well, golly, I just didn't know that was possible. I was like,
so they did stick, they did stick bill renovations and additions around the manufacturer. I don't
know what they did, but they like, it looked like a house. It had a, they like, I think
they ripped the top off a trailer and then like did an attic, you know, with the two
by fours with trusses and stuff and blew some walls out. I mean, it was the fanciest trailer
of the year. It wouldn't probably roll down the street. I'll give you this, but I think,
you know, it walks like a dog talks like a dog. It's probably a duck. Like it has some
I beams underneath it. And I was like, they're like, well, we can't find the HUD sticker.
I was like, that's because you took it off. It's gone. It's long gone. So that died, but
that was an interesting appraisal appraiser situation. We talked to the County and they
said, we need you to come out and reassess this as single family, not a manufactured
home. They said, okay, we'll come out and look. And the guy calls me up and says, nah,
once it's a manufacturing home, he's always a manufacturing home. So can't change it.
I don't know. Lots of good appraisal stories, but those are two that come to mind. Y'all
do a good job. Y'all do a good job as an intermediary. A lot of people don't know what
AMC does. And tell the people, tell the people we've been trying to say it for months now
on this. Here's your short clip ready? This is what you're going to like. This is why
you use an AMC as a lender. I don't want to have to deal with the back and forth of
opinion between the homeowner and the realtors about what is or what is not on a property
or what comps should have been used or not. You guys could be a buffer for us. And of
course we can always say, well, the AMC said this. And it makes us look good. We don't
want to get super involved in the process. Now, I want the correct comps. I want the
correct value, whether it comes in higher, lower, or at the purchase price. And I want
the correct value. And a lot of people don't understand that. If you're accepting an off
runner property that's way out of the market, then everybody needs to know kind of before
the appraisal even comes back that it's probably not going to appraise for what you wrote that
contract for. Just because you wrote a contract 100 grand over the list price doesn't mean
that the appraiser is going to say it's worth 100 grand over the list price.
Amen. Amen. Amen. But you've been around long enough that you realize that you know how
to have those kinds of conversations ahead of time with your clients, right? You could
imagine the conversations we've had to have with borrowers or other LOs that weren't as
experienced in the last two years?
Look, this might be an unpopular opinion, but if I'm buying a house, let's say I'm buying
a house for 300,000 and the appraiser comes back for 280, I'm ecstatic. I'm ecstatic.
I'm going to say look, this thing only appraised for 280. Why am I going to pay 300? Prove
to me the appraiser is wrong. Prove it. Show me the facts. And they're going to say, well,
there's 12 other people that want to buy it for 300. Well, that may be. And our market
is a little out of whack. But it still gives me some negotiating power. You know, it gives
me some negotiating power as a buyer. And not too often do the buyers really realize
that. You know, they just want it to go smooth. They just don't have the experience. They
haven't bought or sold enough property to realize that that's just another step in the
process. It's not the end of the world. Typically, 90% of deals will be worked out when an appraisal
comes back short in some way, shape, or form. It's still going to close.
Yeah. And that's the thing. What you're talking about with us is like, so usually I get notified
like if there's an issue with the transaction, in your example, say it came in at 280 on
a purchase price 300. You'll shoot me an email and be like, hey, can you take a look at this
one? Like first place I'm going is immediately page one of the appraisal where it shows what
it was listed for, when it was listed, and then now what's done a contract for. And it's
like, this thing was originally listed at 260. And then the purchase price on it is
300. So it's 40 over listed. Like, of course, probably the appraisal is not going to come
in at 300. So then obviously you go look at the comps and see if everything makes sense
and search for other comps. But it's like, that's immediately where you go. And you could
put a story together where it's like, yeah, this thing probably didn't stand a chance.
It didn't stand a chance. And you don't know whether the buyer thinks it's going to appraise
or not. And that's the beauty of the AMC and appraiser to give you an opinion of value.
That's why lenders don't give you an opinion of value. Now we do get some automated results
that say we accept the value of this transaction. And in some of those cases, it's kind of weird.
We're like, hey, congratulations, Mr. Johnson. We approved your loan. We got your purchase
contract. Oh, and by the way, DU said that you don't need an appraisal because they accepted
the value of 300 for the sales price. And a lot of times they get pissed. They're like,
wait a second. You're telling me I don't get an appraisal? I'm like, I mean, you're like,
this is great. But we don't get one. So much stress in that situation. You can't win. Yeah,
you can't win. And I get it. They want to know. Maybe they were hoping it under appraised
so they could go back and renegotiate. Speaking of those, though, so the waivers, like, how,
what are you seeing lately the past few months with waivers? Have waivers gone down? You're
getting less. Obviously, we're doing less transactions probably than we were when they
were really humming a year ago. But as far as the amount of waivers on loans, what percentage
has it raised, has it gone down? I think it's not so much the amount of waivers on loans.
It's where the loans are. You go into a very, very standardized neighborhood where say everything
is a three bedroom, two baths with 200 homes. And there's been 25 sales in the last month
in there. And they all are right in line. The system recognizes that address and is
able to determine, hey, every home in here is 1928 square feet. They all sell for 306.
The purchase price of 308 is probably smack in line. We're going to go ahead and accept
this. Now, a lot of times it's on the loans where there's more money down. So not very
often are we getting an appraised waiver on a 3% down conventional or a 5% down conventional.
But really, if you're doing 20% down on a $300,000 house in a neighborhood that's very
homogenous, is the word that comes to mind, that's the highest percentage of waivers we're
seeing. Now, you go out in the country and you got one house is a $2 million horse farm.
The next property is a 1960s brick ranch. The next home is a double wide. The system
has a hard time recognizing value and placing value on the structure and what's around it
and the comparable sales. So that's what I've seen. And I would say it's about the same.
I know a lot of appraisers have called us and they're worried about losing their job
because the appraisal process is going to get fully automated. But I just don't see
it happening. I mean, you can't take the human element out of it completely. You just can't.
I mean, two equal homes in the same neighborhood, one has got completely redone bathrooms,
the other one has completely 30-year-old bathrooms. I mean, there's a difference in value there
and no automated system can recognize that.
Correct.
Because, you know, so that's what I see. And again, that's just our market. But, you know,
that's what I know is our market.
All right. Rapid. I came up with a new name for these, the rapid rush requests.
Okay.
Right. I mean, we get our rapid rush requests all the time. So I'm going to hit you with
our quickies here. Apple or Apple iPhone or you an Android guy? Blue or green text message?
I used to be the problem. I used to be Android. And then I realized I was the problem.
So you made the switch. So Charlie is still the odd guy out. Let's go. I didn't start
keeping score on this. He's an Android guy. Norm.
You are the problem. You are the problem. Yeah.
Yeah. You are the problem. All right. So who is the best tiger mascot in sports?
I mean, the Auburn Tigers. Hello.
Like, aren't you guys a war eagle? Like what?
Oh, I mean, well.
This is so confusing to me. Like we're the Auburn Tigers, but our mascot's an eagle.
Like kind of our chant is war eagle. War eagle. Hey. So would you go to the foot that we get
the game, start the game? The eagle flies around the stadium on the inside and it comes
down and circles the entire stadium. They're like, whoa. And then it does at the very end
of center field and like land. Like the whole thing goes war eagle. Hey, like that's really
cool. The story is it's a long story, but for the quick questions, it's probably not.
So we're both, but we are the Tigers. All right. What is what is the gas station in
the South? You know, like the East coast has wall was they got like the quick, we got a
quick trips. Like what is like the go-to that you like, where you get your food, you get
your gas. We have Buc-E's, we have a gas station that people go to just to eat and see it because
it's that special Buc-E's. Buc-E's. Okay. I've never been to a Buc-E's. You ever been
to a Buc-E's, Charlie? No, never. It has over 200 gas pumps.
Is that like the one single... Wait, what? Is it like, is it the same as the one over
in Texas? What's the huge one over in Texas? It's kind of the same way. That's Buc-E's.
Okay. Okay. Now, like my, I have friends that go there on Friday night to eat and see it
and shop. Yeah. Cause like the store is humongous, tons of that's wild. You don't have to wait
30 minutes to get into the parking lot. No, I gotta, I gotta look this up. This is wild.
Like what are you buying there besides the iPhone charger? Like what shopping are you
doing? Barbecue, brisket, sandwich, they sell grills. They sell like souvenirs, coolers.
They have clothes? Clothes. They sell like it's a... You see signs like a hundred miles
away, like 88 miles to Buc-E's, 71 miles to Buc-E's. Like it's, it's world famous.
All right. So who is your, your dream golf foursome? What, what three are you playing
with? Alive or dead? It doesn't matter. Your dream golf foursome.
I would say Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino, myself and my dad.
Nice. Nice. What is the, what's your favorite chorus you've ever played anywhere in the
world? So my boy, you know, Dufter, he was playing up at Shinnecock Hills for the US
Cup. And so we went up the week before and we played a couple of guys on my team and
him and he, he rented a house up there. We went up and played. I would say we played
the national golf club up there, which is like top five in the world. That was really
cool because of the history and we actually got kicked out because we couldn't remember
the member that invited us there. So that was kind of interesting. I think that Dufter
wrote a blog about it or something because he couldn't remember his agent had, you had
to, it's very snooty. It's, you know, very exclusive. We got kicked out and then he couldn't
remember who invited us and we played and the whole day was comped. And then they had
him sign the major champions flag. We got kicked out. That place is amazing. But when
I was in college, I got an opportunity to play Augusta national. We had a member that
invited three of us to come over on a Sunday, about a month before the masters. And that
was really special. I think it was us in one other group. We had caddies, man, you know,
you just, the sad thing is, is you're, you know what it looks like on television. Then
you get out there like, man, my ball didn't go nearly as far as those guys, but it wasn't
as firm. So like 15, I blasted a drive, you know, the par five. And I had like two 55
left. And I'm like, come on, I'm 23 years old. I can do this party. I got, you aren't
clear the water. You aren't clear the water. So that was cool because you already knew
the course in your mind, you know, and you're out there playing it really special. Yeah.
Last one. What's your biggest pet peeve out there on the golf course? Biggest pet peeve
slow play. I mean, always people that just, you know, they take themselves too seriously.
They read golf digest on the way to the golf course. And then they're out there, you know,
going through the motions and then they hit a crappy top shot in the pond. Like, you know,
just just move along with the game. Like move along. No, no, no golf is worth slow golf.
And bad golf is tolerable as long as you play quick. Exactly. Exactly. If you're playing
bad golf, man, get up there, find your ball and hit it. And nobody really cares. Like
you don't have to tell us why you're playing bad. Like just move on to the next hole. I
like it. Bryant, man. Thank you. We've taken up way too much of your time. I appreciate
it. I appreciate it, man. I can't wait to see it. Thanks. Take care. All right, man.
I think that about does it for us today. Solid guest. How about that, Bryant? How about
Beback? You said he would bring the heat. He was good, man. I really liked hearing the
stories. All right. All you great listeners out there, go ahead and if you're not already,
like, subscribe to our YouTube channel, IG, TikTok, Facebook. Make sure you're telling
everybody about all the great stuff we're putting out. We'll tell a friend, you know,
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systems, tell the person about it. Like, you know, these guys aren't that bad to listen
to. Just give it a try. And we're getting better every week. Relative somewhat. Yeah.
Subjective or objective. Subjective. All right, dude. Thanks, everybody. Take care.