Kaizen Blueprint

Aldosius Chandra (00:00)
Hi guys, welcome back to the show. Today we're having a conversation with Alex Taperne, a mortgage lender and relationship builder for over 25 years. Buying a house can be tough and there are barriers that might prevent you from buying, whether you're a college student or someone potentially wants to invest in real estate. Expect to learn more about working in a mortgage business, the importance of relationship, how he wakes up at 4 30 a to run to improve his decision making skills and much more.

Alex is a good friend of mine and he inspired me to do this podcast and I can do it with anyone else other than him. This is our first episode. Sit down, relax or pay attention wherever you are and hopefully you enjoy the show. Hi guys. My name is Aldo and in this podcast, we're interviewing Alex Tabernet, 25 years in a business, in a mortgage lending business, relationship builder.

super -endurance athlete, wake up at 5 a in the morning and runs five miles, maybe more every day. But here we're going to talk about a lot about mortgages. We're going to talk about his life. We're going to talk about, you know, just general questions about the mortgage business. So let's start off with what do you think is going on with the interest rates? You know, the current, the recent CPI, we're recording this in May 18th of 2024, recent CPI. So.

show some slowdown. What do you think will happen in the mortgage rates in a short term? You know, the CPI is a really big report, right? I mean, we get this. It's like the Super Bowl of reports that we get every month or every other month. So when it came out this week, we actually thought it was going to come in a little hotter, which would have drove interest rates up. Right. But we got some good news that the CPI report cooled a little bit, like you said. And we saw rates go from like 7 percent.

hovering around 7 % to closer to 6 .5%. So we almost saw like a half a point drop in one shot, which was big. Is that gonna continue? I don't know. I would love to say, yeah. This market's so unpredictable. We follow the rates every day. They do change every day. Sometimes the rates change a couple times a day. So you really have to...

follow what's going on with the jobs reports are another big report that we follow. Retail sales is another big report that we follow really to dictate what's going to happen with the rates. I do think as we head into the summer, they're talking about two rate cuts this year, right? The first one probably, I think personally, this is just my personal opinion. I think personally, September would be the first cut that we actually see from the Fed.

And I think we may see a follow up with a second cut in November. Why do you say that? I say that because it was originally six cuts that we were looking at when we got into January of the year. They were saying we're going to have six rate cuts. One started in March, one in May, one in June, one in September. And quickly that was off the board. Right. It was like there the reports that kept coming out was inflation is hot, inflation is hot and it kept the rates high. OK, this specific report that came out.

really is starting to say that things are cooling. And I think that's going to be the theme going as we continue. And that the Fed specifically came out and said, no, we're not going to hike. And that those two rate cuts are definitely back on the board. They're not telling them when, but the election is getting closer. Right. And as we get closer to the actual election, you're going to see we got to cut these rates. Right. We got to look good.

So I think that first one, they'll sneak in in September. And then I think they'll sneak one in right at election time in November. And that'll dictate or give a good reason of who's going to get elected. You know, so with those expected or anticipated rate drops, how has banks specifically with residential, obviously, because you're in residential real estate or mortgage business, how are they preparing for that? Do you do you?

project to be a lower rate? You know, I don't think the rates are going to drop dramatically. Two rate cuts doesn't mean that you see rates going from, you know, six and a half to five and a half. You need more. I do think that those two rate cuts will help the overall feeling in the market. It'll brighten things up a little bit. There'll be some optimistic people that will say things may be better in 2025.

I do feel from my opinion that you'll see rates hopefully end off the year in the low sixes, which would be nice. You know, maybe a six and a quarter or maybe even a 6%. That I can see if we do get two cuts, but I think that'll be the most of it. If they continue next year, 2025, we could have a really good year. You know, and that's what I'm banking on is that we have a really good year in 2025. I'm actually praying, you know, because we haven't had a really good year.

since 2021 or 2022. It's been two years of, as you know. So I want to shift gear here and ask you, why did you decide to go into mortgage business? You've been here for a while. I've been here a long while. You've gone through so many different cycles. Too many. So I started in 98. My mother works for a title company. So I've watched her.

even as a little kid, work long hours with this title company in real estate. You know, I always said I wasn't going to be in real estate, that I don't want to do that and work like that. Right. Here I am. Right. So, so she wasn't really the one that pushed me to do it. I had curiosity about the business at that point and what kind of money could be made and, you know, seeing people close on homes and things like that. So I had a few people shout out to Brian Allen. Brian Allen had come to me in 1998 and said, I think that you

might be good in this business with people. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a hustler business. You seem like you come from that background. You know, so this might be something that you want to look into. So I did go on an interview. I was 22 years old. So I was, I was a kid. I was scared, but you know, right. But I did it. And, you know, it was just like the rates were 9 % then. Wow. Nine and a half. Nine percent.

9 % people were begging me to get eight and a half and 8 % like you know that they were they were I was like God if I got somebody 8 % you know so so it was a different market then a different feeling in the world none of the chaos that we have nowadays and I just took it from there and I liked it and got a little bit better each year I stuck with it and through bad markets or good markets if you stick with things you'll get success right there were a few years I wanted to quit.

Of course, I mean, in 25 years, you want to walk and say this is not for me anymore. But I, I still stuck with it. I said, you know, this is something that I'm good at. I had a lot of people that I met like you, good, good relationships. And that's what this business is about. So that carried me through and just helped me keep going. Got it. So and why Philadelphia? You know, I haven't lived here all my life.

I was born in Philly. I moved to New Jersey when I was probably four or five years old, maybe even younger. I grew up my whole life in Jersey and went to school there. 20 years ago, I met my wife, she already had lived in Philly. Okay, so she didn't want to leave Philly, right? So, so we made a we made but you know, the neighborhood that I live in was up and coming. It was a

a newer neighborhood. They were just building at that time, new construction. So it, which neighborhood was this? the reserve, the reserve. Right. So, so they were building that was dirt then. Right. So, and it intrigued me that new construction in Philly, like this was 2003 and that was like our 2004 like, wow, they don't build anything. Like this is before the boom. Like everybody sees all this new construction now in Philly, which goes on over the last few years. And that's great. But it was.

That's what's going on now. Back then, none of that was going on. Right. That was this was like the first real development that they really started building in South Philly, you know, near the stadiums in the city. And it intrigued me. It had a 10 year tax abatement. I didn't even know what a tax abatement was. And 10 years, no taxes. Right. Drew me. Drew a lot of people from Jersey into the city then. Yeah, because they didn't have to pay any taxes. It was new construction. And and then I just took it from there. So what do you think struck that?

new construction development, what made that developer or what do you think made that developer to come into Philly? Hey, this is still a big, you know, there wasn't any boom like you mentioned. No, there was no boom. I think that they were looking down the road. So you have to have a, a futuristic view in real estate, right? You always have to be looking down the road of what's going to be happening in the next few years. And whoever this developer was actually, I don't remember off the top of my name, the name of the developer, but he had a vision of,

South Philly building right from the bottom up and let's bring they wanted to build FDR Park a long time ago. They wanted to build down to the Navy Yard. They wanted to build up the city. You know, Veterans Stadium was just knocked down a few years before that. So, you know, so they were really like Lincoln Financial was built, you know, Wells Fargo Center became even better. You know, Citizens Bank Park, they built up. So they were really trying to draw people into the city. And I think these guys were smart.

because they got in at a time where no one was building there. And that was a prime spot. So I think that they saw that there was definitely development coming and they got in before. Got it. You know, yeah. So mortgage business, 25 years. And you mentioned that you were young back then. I was. You were young back then. Don't remind me. Now I want to be young now.

Now you have Anthony Lombardi on your team. It seems like you guys have a really great connection and relationship. More like a mentor and mentee. What do you think and advice for someone who's looking into mortgage industry, being a lender and is young, ambitious? What would you recommend for them to do? Any advice for someone who just wanted to start out? It's a tough business. It is a tough business, right?

You know, listen, I had a team when we were on Broad and Lombard, we had an office with Green Tree and I had a team there of younger guys with me who I, you know, helped mentor also. Now they're off to greener pastures and some of them are doing really good. And you know who you are. I had always wanted to help younger loan officers succeed because I came from really nothing. Like I didn't...

go to some famous school and get a big college degree. And I came just from a hustling background where my mother hustled, my father hustled, and I wasn't scared of hard work. So I wanted to give that back to these guys on the team that I had before the pandemic. And then once we rolled into the pandemic, things broke up a little bit. People started working from home, and people went their separate ways. Anthony is what the future of the mortgage business will be.

It won't be me. I can't do this another 50 years. I'm done. You sure? I don't know. I say that and then here I am 25 years later and then I'm still saying let's do more. So it's tough to say, but that's the future. And I didn't really press him to say, you need to become a loan officer. I don't do that to anyone. I think if you are interested in the business and you want to do it,

You know, he's very good at social media. He has a marketing degree. You know, he went to school for marketing and got his degree in that. That's a huge plus. Like if you're listening to this and you are a young person and you're going to school right now for marketing or whatever, and you want to see the sales aspect of things, going to be a loan officer or being a realtor and having that background is huge. You know, because nowadays, as you know, social media and marketing plays a huge part in real estate and being successful.

you know, with Mark mortgages and selling houses. So he has that one step up. So if you have that type of background, I think that's a big plus. I think if you have a background where you like people, you know, people have to like you. Right? I mean, you know, you could be the most polished person in the world, run 100 ,000 miles a week, you know, eat nothing and look great and then wear the best clothes in the world. But if people don't like you, they're not going to work with you. Period. You know, you have to have that type of

personality with people. And I think if you have that personality and you want to start out and you have a natural knack to want to work with people and see and feel success of somebody buying a house and refinancing whatever they're doing, then then this business could be for you. If you're if you're a person who's negative, and you are not, you know, into that, then maybe you don't want to look into the mortgage business. Mortgage business is all about connections and relationships. And I think Anthony, being so young and being with me now.

I can't wait for him to take over more of the business. Right. I feel like, you know, I feel like a father to him sometimes because I feel and because he's he's going to take over. He could take over the business and and really shoot it up with all the younger loan officers and younger realtors that are coming in. And he's learning, you know, he's getting one step up right now. Yeah. You know, so marketing and sales for the mortgage lending business. You got to you got to have.

Marketing, if you have is a huge plus. Right. Right. If you have that background, that's big. Right. Sales is you can't teach sales. OK. All these gurus that teach sales and, you know, learn from my learn from my product. And they're online. They're selling. You know, I'll teach you how to be the best salesman in the world. You really don't teach sales. Sales is either in you or it's not in you either. It's all about people liking you, like I said, and it.

building relationships with people. It's not about I'm going to sell you a house or I'm going to sell you a mortgage. Like nobody wants to hear that. People would rather you talk to them as a normal person, you know, and I think if you have that, the sales will come. Right. You know, if you have that marketing background, the sales will come. Is there a specific method that you would recommend people to do to obviously in a sales business, you have so many leads and you talk to so many people. Is there any way that.

Is there any way that you can organize that or? You know, the leads are tough to organize. I've pulled out my hair sometimes because we get sometimes we're really busy, right? I get a lot of leads at one time and you know, I deal with a lot of realtors. My business is basically a hundred percent purchase. So, you know, I get refinances when people come to me because I've their past clients, maybe.

where they were personally referred to me, I don't really market for refinances. So my business is just a purchase business. It's been that way for 25 years. I'll never change that. I was born and raised with serving realtors, even through my mother who worked for a title company and worked with realtors her whole life too. So that's what it is. You know, you have to prioritize your leads, you have to have a system on following up with people, right? If you're not organized and believe me guys,

I was not organized for a number of years. Sometimes I'm still not organized. And that's why I have people like Anthony were younger guys that I had with me to help organize me. because you need that to succeed, because you're right. You could lose a lot of your business or a lot of your leads were given to you if you're not properly following up. Got it. So relationship with the agents, big time that's following up to my next question. What does a mortgage lender do in a.

real estate transaction. Where do they come in? How do they help? And you mentioned relationship with the realtors or the agents. You got to have that. Right. Right. Where do you stepped in? How do you stepped in? You know, you got it. Here's the deal. You know, you can't. I see a lot of these loan officers that go to realtors and they'll say, you know, I want to work with you and, you know, they just, you know, they're they're looking just to get their business and you can't approach it like that. Right. It is it. We're partners. OK.

All the realtor that I talk to that I've dealt with for years, we're like friends. You know, it's we're partners. We're both in it to win it. Right. So we're both in it to succeed and to see the end game of getting the person into the house that they want to buy. You know, so a loan officer is crucial in making sure they make the realtor look good, because the realtor is the one that brings us the client. Right. So.

know, you might be a realtor, you'll call me and say, I have I have a client that's looking at a house this weekend. I need you to pre approve them, make sure that they're a solid client so that if I'm out running around shopping them, I want to make sure that they're qualified. Okay. So the loan officer's job is to make sure that that person is ready to go, that they're fully qualified that they've been checked out, they've been through underwriting. And that they're you know, that the realtors not wasting their time. That's where the partnership comes in. Got it. You know,

The partnership comes on the realtor side because they're bringing you the client. Right. So, you know, so they're they're handing you something that you didn't have. And your job is to make sure that you bring that person to the end, you know, and that everyone meets a closing and everyone's happy as you remember. And you're with a good realtor. You're a good title company and everybody walks out of there a winner. Got it. Yeah. Tell me the difference. And Green Tree is local bank. Right.

Yes, we are. Tell me the difference between working with a local bank versus the big banks. Okay, so, you know, this is this is my you know, my expertise here. This is what I pitch all day every day because it's the truth. Okay. You don't want to work. Okay, I'm not going to say that far because there I have friends that work at big banks and I do have friends that work at big lenders and they're good people too. So I'm not going to put them down.

I do feel that we have one leg up with working like a company with GreenTree. GreenTree is local. Everything is in -house. If you need to make a move and speak to the owner of the company, we have the power to do that. We're not this big conglomerate of 5 ,000 loan officers or 2 ,000 loan officers in one company, and you have to go through six levels of management in order to get an answer. We can move fast if we need to move fast. And in this market,

you don't have a local lender who's moving fast at all times and can get answers quickly. You have a problem. You will deal with a bank who you're just another number, right? Because they got people coming through left and right. Wells Fargo, Bank of America. I don't want to name all the big guys, right? I just did. Sorry. You know, but big banks that they're good banks, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you're just another number, right?

We're a green tree, we're smaller, there's more personalized. We specialize in just mortgages. We don't specialize in checking accounts and savings accounts and lines of credit and stuff like this. We just specialize in mortgages. So that's why we are better when it comes to being local. Number two, to offer that real quick, a realtor wants to deal with a local lender, okay? They wanna be able to talk to a person like me who's in the city here.

who knows the neighborhoods, right? Knows the ins and outs of a good appraiser, right? A good home inspector can give you good referrals because we're local, you know, and we'll be at the closing, right? If you have a lender that's in Arizona or Texas, they're not coming to the closing. So speed and resources. Resources. Big time resources. And just knowing that you're going to meet me, you know, I'm going to be at the closing. I'm going to make sure everything goes smooth.

you know, I'm going to, if you need me in on a, on a night or a weekend, I'm not a nine to five bank. You know, the loan officers or weekends. Yeah. You got to work with social media. He always work weekends. He's posted that every Friday or Thursday. Yeah. Every Friday we put it up and we make sure that you work weekends, you know, because a realtor is shopping their clients on the weekend, right? They don't shop them Monday to Friday, eight to four or nine to five. You know, this is a, this is a business of.

We're busy on Saturday and Sunday because everybody's going to open houses on the weekend. You got to be available. And I think that's what separates a green tree being a local company versus a big box company who they are in nine to five. Got it. You know, so tell me more about work. I know you work with a lot of realtors, right? I do. What's the difference with lending and mortgages between working with a realtor and working with a direct seller? Do you recommend it? Is it easier?

What do you think? You know, it's a good question. You know why? Because that's what's coming down the road now, right? So you've done your homework. I can see which I like. You know, so listen, from my perspective, you need a realtor. OK. And I'm not just saying that because that's what I work with. I'm saying that because you need someone professional who can handle. There's a lot that goes on, as you know, with getting a deal to the table. Right. OK. If you're dealing with the seller directly.

or you're dealing with, you know, somebody who doesn't really know the business, you're going to see a lot of things that they don't know, and it could turn into a big mess. Okay, so you don't want to do that. You know, you want to deal with a realtor, an experienced realtor, maybe who knows the neighborhood who knows how to negotiate, right? You know, we'll make sure you get the best deal has a good name, maybe in a good reputation.

And it just has the experience to get you to closing. You know, you need that, you know, versus going, you might save a couple bucks going to the seller, but it might be the worst bomb you've ever gone through stress wise. And it's not worth it. Do you recommend to do even if your experience in the real estate world, you still go to a realtor? If I would like, listen, I, people ask me all the time, you know, you're going to buy a house on your own, Alex, you're going to go to another realtor and use it up. Of course.

I'm not going to do it on my own. I know the problems that they go through. And I don't wish to go through that, right? I'll pay them a little extra money that they want, whatever their fee is, let them handle it. That's their expertise. That's their, that's their job. Right? You do your job, they do their job. You can't be an expert in someone else's field, even though you think you read Google, right? And you, and everybody's on AI now, my next favorite.

ChatGPT and they plug in stuff and they say, yeah, now I'm an expert. No, you're not an expert unless you do this every day and you deal with people every day and you're on the front line. Then you're an expert. And I'd rather deal with that type of person who's really in it versus going on ChatGPT and they're telling me what to do. We've been seeing a lot of the real estate trends, especially online about buying a house, rundown.

fix it up, build that sweat equity and refinance and make money that way. A lot of those houses, we use hard money lenders mainly because of the speed, but the interest rates are very high, short -term loans. But if I'm an investor and I want to do that with a conventional, a traditional lending, which is what you do, either FHA or conventional with a low down payment, but I have a lot of equity and that house,

is kind of livable, but I'm planning to rehab it so I could have a higher rent if it's a multifamily or that I'll refinance it with a higher ARV, which is after repair value. Is that something that you can do? You know, it's got to be livable, right? I mean, when I get this question a lot, because we got a lot of investors that would rather get a regular mortgage with us versus going with the hard money loan because it rates like 15 % or whatever it is. And you're paying a lot of points to get that that loan.

The problem is it's not even Green Tree and it's not even any mortgage company. We want to do the deal, right? Because we get paid to do it, to get the deal closed for you. It's just once the appraiser goes out there, the appraiser is going to comment on the state of the property, right? Whether it's livable, it's not livable, it's gutted, it's not gutted. You know, I always say the utilities have to be on, right? You got to have electric on, you have to have running water. It's got to be somewhat livable. Now, cosmetics, we don't care about.

Right. It doesn't have to be painted and, you know, the nice furniture and all this stuff could be completely, no furniture. You know, we don't care about that. Right. We care more about it just being a livable property. If it's livable and we have the utilities on, then all the other stuff goes out the window, the cosmetics and all that, we can close the deal. But if you go in and there's no utilities on and it's completely gutted and no working kitchen, no working bathroom, you know, we got a problem. Got it. You know, so.

And if it's still livable, how can we build that sweat equity using a traditional or, you know, I mean, you, you could do that. you know, you, you're going to buy it as an investment property, probably. Right. So, you know, you do maybe 20 % down. if it's a multi unit, you need 25 % down on an investment. I've had a lot of people doing that recently. a lot of good investors doing 25 % down, getting a rate of seven and a quarter, which is an awesome rate on an investment property.

know, so and then they're building that equity, right, because they already put 25 % down plus, they're going to renovate it, like you said, make it even look nicer. And then they're either going to rent it out, or they'll wind up selling it down the road, a lot of them rent it out because the rents are so high. So they're going to make money no matter what, it'll cover the mortgage payment 10 times, and they continue to build the equity. And then whenever they want to sell, they can sell. Can they refinance? They can refinance after six months after six months, right. So it's a six month waiting period.

to take cash out and refinance. Got it. Tell me more about the streamline. I know we've done a deal in the past and that was something that I learned. Streamline refinance. Streamline refinance. Streamlines, I used to love streamlines, right? Streamlines were our go -to in the pandemic 2020, 2021. That's what we did is streamlines, right? So it was, you know, FHA to FHA loan, a VA loan to a VA loan, no appraisal. The beauty of a streamline is literally there's no appraisal.

There's no income verification. We don't look at your pay stubs. You don't look at your W -2s. You know, you got to have a decent credit score. Usually it's over $620 that they want. And you can have no late payments in the last 12 months. So as long as you have a clean history of mortgages for the last 12 months, and you have a $620 credit score higher, we were just streamlining you. Like literally, we would put it in on the first of the month and would close by the 15th of the month. I mean, it would just fly through because there's no verification of anything. And no fees. There's no fees, right.

You're the only fees that you would pay would be the title company to refresh your title work or whatever it was that they had to redo. So it would be minimal. Got it. Yeah. How has down payment affect interest rates? Like if I'm putting three or five or 10, does that have a down payment? It plays. It does play a factor. You know, credit plays a factor too in that. So credit and down payment is all we care about. You know, we'll run your credit first.

see where you are with credit after we do that, then you're right. If you're coming to us saying I'm only gonna do 3 % down, you may get a higher interest rate depending on what your credit square is or just because of the program itself versus if you're coming to me saying you're gonna do 10 or 20 % down, we may edge things and give you a little bit lower, right? So it does play a factor in it. Once you reach a certain amount, like let's say you do 30 or 40 % down, you're gonna get the same rate.

some people say, why am I going to do 30 % down or 40 % down if you're giving me the same rate as 10 % down? I might as well just keep my money. Right. Let's build it and put it in stocks or put it in a high yield investment, high yield CD and make money that way. And then I'll put the minimal down and then I can always pay it off when I want to pay it off or pay extra per month to pay down the principal quicker. But I'm making money faster in another way. So it's definitely a

I see more people putting less down now more than ever than putting more down. Why is that? I just think that people are getting smarter. You know, they're realizing that they don't need to put 20 % down. You know, that's not a must. I get people coming to me every week saying, I thought you have to put 20 % down automatically. That's the only way you can get a loan. That's not true. You could do 3 % down, you could do 5 % down. I mean, 3 % down is geared towards first time buyers. But

You could do 5 % down as a follow up, a second buyer, 10 % down, you don't need 20 % down. Keep your money. Got it. Put it into a high yield CD, you know, with a five or 6 % return on it, you know, or something like that or, you know, into the S &P, into the market and put your money there and see if you have if you can make money quicker than putting all your money into an investment of a house where you really didn't need to because the rates are pretty much low anyway. Got it.

You know, with the rise of people learning about house hack, tell us more about if I have a unit, an extra unit that is receiving an income. How is that? He gets so excited. He's happy about this. He likes this house hacking stuff. I know he does. All right. So go ahead. All right. I'm an investor or potentially an investor. And I see this duplex, this nice duplex or triplex and I see in the possible of income, but.

I'm not making that much for my W -2. Tell us more about how to qualify. That's the classic house hack. You could come to us with, let's say you only make 40 or 50 ,000, which granted, it's good money. I'm not going to put anybody down here. What you make is what you make, but it may not be enough to qualify for a $300 ,000 multi -unit home. You need to make good money nowadays in order to buy a single family home or three or 400 ,000 because the interest rates are in the sixes.

right? So you need to make 80 or 90 ,000 a year right now in order to qualify. So the good thing with house hacking is you buy a multi unit, right? And we use the rental income on the other unit to help you qualify. Yep. So, you know, so you could be making 30 or 40 ,000 a year and then you buy a multi unit with minimal down, right? Three and a half percent down FHA. You live in one of the units, the other two units, one unit or two units or three units, even whatever it may be. We use

a certain, a certain portion of the rental income for the other units coming in towards your income. And now you qualify for a $300 ,000 home because we're using the rental income from the other units. It's huge. Right? What about for single families? If I want to have roommates, if it's a three bed, one bath or two bath, they're not going to take that into consideration because you have no history of doing that. It's a single family home. And how do we know that your roommates are going to stay?

Right versus a multi unit. You're not going to want these other units just to sit really, you're going to want to run them out because it's helping to pay your mortgage payment. Even if you have a lease agreement signed for the potential roommates in a single family home. Yeah. You know, there's okay, so there's something that's called border income. It's almost looked at as like there's someone living in your house as a border living renting a room out in your house. There are occasions where the guidelines would allow that with a certain amount of money down.

and assign lease, like you said, the guidelines are not easy on that. I haven't done too many people using border income is what they call it, right? Which is, you know, now that's, you know, now his wheels are really in churning, right? Forget about the house hack and his border income now. So I probably gave that wrong information to the wrong guy here, but that's good. Yeah. So like I said, that's not easy though. So, you know, if that's something that's,

I, you may need still some type of history of it. If you don't have a history of it, I'd really have to look at the changing guidelines on that to see if we fit it. And if you do, then we look into it. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Well, it seems like you have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, and I am someone who's looking to get a house. Yes. I'm calling you. Hey, Alex, I'm looking to buy a house. I have a realtor. What do I need to get pre -approved? Okay. What do you say? Yeah. So we get a lot of that every day, right? so.

First of all, I want you to have your ducks in a row, right? And I post this on social media a lot. You know, this is what you should gather upfront in order to be ready for a pre -approval, right? You should have your W -2s in order for the last two years. You should have your bank statements in order for the last two or three months. You should have your pay stubs in order for the last month, okay? Make sure your driver's license is not expired. That's a big one. You know, everybody lets their driver's license expire nowadays.

You know, it's like some of them are like two or three years expired. They didn't even know. Like you do have to renew your license every year, right? Or every other year, whatever it is. But you got to know it's more than three years. Right. So there's something is wrong there where I'm getting a lot of expired licenses. So make sure your license is up to date. Make sure everything is up to date. Then you would call me and say, you know, Alex, I want to get pre approved. I have my documents in order. I would take your information or run credit.

right? So we make sure that your credit approved. Then I would collect all your documents, have everything reviewed by an underwriter to make sure that it's solid. And then do calculations to see how high I can approve you up to right to do like a max range. So we know anything under that you're approved for. And then come back to you, let you know what your max price range is, submit you the approval letter, send it to your realtor. So the realtor has it, the realtor will probably check in with me to make sure I do did my due diligence right checked.

their paperwork, make sure they're good. Everybody's on the same team then. Me and the realtor partner up, we're making sure that you're happy, you got your pre -approval letter, so that if you find something in the market that day and you want to make an offer, we're ready to go. How long does that process take? If I have all my documents sent it to you, how long until you could get that pre -approval letter? Within 24 hours, we're fast. Too fast. Yeah, they're fast. You're right, sometimes too fast, but we like to be that way. Some lenders take a week. There's no reason for a week.

Three days is even excessive. The market's moving too fast to wait three days and a week you're committing suicide by waiting, right? You see a house right now, there's 20 bids going in on that house possibly. Or there's 80 people at the open house that day. That's how crazy it gets. You got no time to wait for a pre -approval for a week. You gotta be ready to go right away, right? So I say, let's get your ducks in. Like if you know you're gonna be buying a house in the next two months,

let's start getting an order now. Let's get your paperwork in. Let's get the credit ran. Let's get you through underwriting. Let's get you completely ready to go so that when you do find something, you're not scrambling. See these people though, they'll call me at eight o 'clock at night, right scrambling. How's I found a house? Okay, have you ever been pre approved? No. Okay. When do you need to? Well, the offers are due tonight by 10 o 'clock and it's eight o 'clock and they've never been.

This is the kind of stuff that's going on in the market right now. And this is the kind of stuff that you'll lose that house, right? Because we could do a pre -approval in two hours, right? I will jump through hoop for you. Two hours. And review it as quick as we possibly can and get it done. I just am not a fan of that. I think that you should take your time a little bit more, be prepared and don't run with your head off.

because then you can't find your W -2, you can't find your pay stub. It's 9 .30 at night now. They'd kept deadlines for 10 p You don't know how much money you have in the bank. You forgot what your last four digits of your search security number is. You don't even know your own search security number. You got to look up the, I mean, things are crazy, right? So this could have all been taken care of ahead of time if you did it the right way and got yourself an order a few months before so that when you did come up to that deadline that night and you saw the open house.

We're ready to go. Got it. You mentioned a lot about pay stubs and W2. What about people who have businesses or 1099? Self -employed. Yeah. Self -employed is a big one. So it depends on, we need two years of tax returns, right? So it's two years automatically. We look at your tax returns to verify how much money you've showed on your bottom line. Okay. Not what you made. So this is a big misconception is I made a million dollars as a business owner last year Alex, I'm putting 20 % down.

You shouldn't even need to see my tax returns because I own, you know, Wawa and I make a million dollars a year there. So I'm good to go. Just give me my letter. Right. OK, fine. We're not going to do that. Right. We still need to see your tax returns. They send over their tax returns and yeah, they made a gross of a million a year, but they only showed one hundred thousand. They wrote off nine hundred thousand dollars worth of expenses and we can only use the hundred thousand. Right. Then you don't qualify.

for that house that you want because you only showed 100. Got it. OK, so self -employed and 1099 is big. You want to get all the documents up front. Make sure your taxes have been filed for the last couple of years. A lot of these people give us 20, 23 tax returns that were just filed, but they never filed 20, 22 or 20, 21. We don't care if you file 20, 23 just to look good so that you're buying a house. We care what you did last year. Yes. You know, in the year before, we look at your past. And if you haven't filed anything in the last few years,

It's time to go file. Right. Then you come to us and you say, here's my tax returns. They both been filed. Here's what I'm showing on the bottom line. Please have them reviewed and we're ready to go. Now, if either during the transaction or during like the house finding process or even before that, if I wanted to know just personally for me, without calling you nonstop asking how much I qualify for, how would I do that either online? Is there a calculator or anything? So I don't have to bother you.

You know, I get that question. You're not bothering me. I mean, my job is to do that. I'd rather do that. To get bothered? I do. Right. I get bothered all day and night then, I guess. Right. I get bothered from the minute I wake up to the minute I sleep. I mean, I've been bothered for 25 years, basically. But guess what? That's your job. That's what you're supposed to do. You are paid to do that. If I wanted to just send you to a calculator and do it on your own, that's a disaster.

because usually most people don't use the calculator properly. They don't know how to use it. So they calculate their own payments. And then they come back to us and say, okay, I'm ready to make an offer in a house. And I say, great. I said, did you get your numbers? Yeah, I read that my numbers were good to go. I want to make the offer. Okay, I put the offer. But the offer is accepted. They come back to me and say, okay, the payment is 1500, right? Because I did it on the calculator before. You never put homeowners insurance in the payment.

You never calculated your property taxes correctly. You didn't put in the PMI or an escrow or the ask. Like nothing is right here. Your payments, 1900 a month, not 1500. What? Then they're screaming. Right. And then it's my fault because the realtor will call me and say, your job was to give them the numbers before they put the offering. Why let them go on an online calculator? What? And we're and you're getting paid for what? Yeah.

You just made me look bad because they don't want to make an offer on this house anymore. The offer was accepted. They want to pull out. Right. Because the payments $400 higher a month. So I always say do the work on your own. That's what we get paid for. It takes me two minutes to run numbers. I could do going out to dinner at the dinner table or where I'm at. I could do it. You know, I could go back to my career after a run and run the payment. I could be in the gym and run it and whatever. Right. I mean, just.

takes two minutes to run a payment. At least I know it came from me and it's accurate so that if they made the offer, we're going to be good. Got it. Yeah. So, and for the younger generation that might not have a lot of financial history. Most of them don't. Yeah. Right. What do you recommend for someone who's ambitious, who's, I want to build wealth now. I'm in the age between 18 or 25. I want to build wealth. I want to do it through a little state.

Yeah, the problem is there's not a lot of them, unfortunately. There was more of them when I started back in the early 2000s and late 90s. There was a lot of them before, you know, and when Facebook got big and all that. And, you know, you had a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of investors, and, you know, the market was good then. I think now this day and age, the people from 18 to 25 don't have that. They're

A lot of them think that homeownership is out of reach. They feel that they can't even be approved to buy a house. They don't even want to try. They feel that the rates are too high or that they need to make a hundred thousand a year in order to buy a house nowadays because that's what the media is telling them. You know, they're discouraged. They don't have the drive. You got to listen. You got to do something that everybody's not doing right.

If you're 20 years old or 21 years old and you're making half these money, you got good credit and you got a little money in the bank. Why not buy a house? That house is going to appreciate, right? The value will always go up. Right. Even though you might have a couple of years where they dip down a little bit, it always shoots right back up the next year. Right. So why not take the shot and do it? And I think this day and age and where we're at, the media kind of talks these people out of.

Wow, it's a bad time to buy a house and it's a bad market and don't do it. And that's wrong. It feels like they would rather have you rent than buy. And so if you have the, if you can invest and you have the money to invest in your young sharp shooter and even can house hack, you don't make that much money, right? Do it. I mean, that's it. I tell a lot of people all the time, especially people who are my age that.

Real estate investing is much better than stocks. Yeah, you might get a couple hundred dollars or a couple thousand dollars. In real estate, you're building wealth. And even if the money or the value tanks, you still have that mortgage, that 30 year mortgage to hedge whatever it is that's going on economically. In stocks, if you borrow money, you get a margin call. It's bad. Yeah.

Yeah. More. And it's a different story. And the real estate game, it's, it's a long -term, it's a marathon, as we always say. Right. And you have to think that way. And that's the problem is, is that I think this generation doesn't think that way. They make a little bit of extra money and they're out blowing it on something stupid. You know, they buy a nice car. You buy a nice car. If you've been in the business for 25 years, okay. Then you can go buy a nice car. All right. You don't buy a nice car because you had one good year and you're 23 years old.

You save that money and you buy a house with that. So it appreciates and you make value off of it. And then when you're successful down the road, you buy a nice car. Got it. And what about those, I guess, the percent, a small percentage of people who are ambitious and wants to make money through real estate, they may be in college or maybe getting out of college. What do you recommend them to do if they want to buy a house now in this market? I mean, listen, college we can use as your employment history.

A lot of people don't know that is that, well, I don't have it to your work history because I just graduated college, right? That's not true. We're going to look at your history being that you graduated college. Like the last four years of my life, I've been in a full -time student in college going to be an accountant. And now I just get hired as a bank as a full -time accountant. We're going to use your income as the full -time accountant and your employment history will be the college, right? That's a deal, right? So why wouldn't you?

You come out of college, you spend a hundred thousand or 200 ,000 hours to go to college. You get a nice job at a big bank in center city. They give you a 75 ,000, 80 ,000 dollar salary as an accountant going into a big bank. Why not buy a house then? Right. You're making good money. You can be approved because you have a history of going to college. You know, you can invest. Yeah. but not, not enough for doing it. So what is the employment for, for college? Do you mean like the tuition that, that.

Kids pay to go to college. Is that part of the employment history? No, no, just showing that they went to college. Got it. That is their employment history. Really? That's it. I just you show me your transcripts. You show me your diploma. That's your history. Got it. That's it. I want to shift gear here. We talked a lot about businesses or just mortgage industry in general. I just want to shift gear and to health. In the podcast, we try to talk about health, wealth and relationship. So I know that you run a lot.

Talk to me about, talk to me about you and Anthony's tradition of doing a broach read run. Anthony made a joke. you know, while when we finished the broach rerun this year that, you know, in order to be in the tabernacle group and hang with me, you have to be able to run 10 miles.

And that's why I had no longer have the old team because none of them could run 10 miles. Right. That's not true. All right. You don't have to run 10 miles to be, to work with me or be on my team or whatever you want to do. All right. I don't care if you run one mile, that's up to you. He, me and him have run together. This is his, six one. Right. So he's been running since 2017. He started when he was 17, I think, or 16 in the broad street. And now he's now he's 23. so, so he's done a lot.

to, he'd come a long way to do what he's doing. So, you know, you gotta do that, man. You gotta have that outlet. And that's my outlet is, you know, that physical run that I do, whether it be every day or every other day, you know, you gotta do something. And he does it too, and he likes it. You know, it's not like he's dreading, like it's nice when you run together and...

when you train together and, you know, I think it helps your overall feeling when you go to work, you know, so, so I, I try and, you know, I'm talking to a, to a marathon runner here. So, you know, you know, so he could probably tell you more about this subject than I could, right. As he sits here, but, but it's, it's good to, it's good to do that. And it clears my mind and makes me feel good. Why running though?

You know, I go to the gym too. But I get more of an of a boost or more of a high from running. I feel better. Okay, you know, I take a shower and I'm ready to roll versus going to the gym. You work you work weights, you come home, you feel good, you still have that high but it's not it's not it's different. I'm sure you know, you know, you just it made like I get to 12 o 'clock then or one o 'clock like no problem.

Like I just fly through my morning. Wow. Like I just feel great. And then you're right. I hit a brick wall, you know, at two or three o 'clock in the afternoon. I'm like, I'm like dead that morning. Yeah. It's like, it's like, you know, I hate myself then afternoon slump, but at least it shoots me to get to where I got to go. And then, and then I try to do something to pick me up later on in the day. So we've, we met at the gym at the time it was, we were, we were religiously going at five AM.

Yep. Almost every morning. He comes, he would come earlier like four or 50 or something. Just a little crazy, a little crazy. And he, and you're still doing that now. I'm still doing that now. I am doing more running than anything. Okay. I'll go to the gym maybe two or three days a week max. you know, I just, my days have gotten more hectic. I'm running kids around more now. my daughter's in volleyball. She just got out of volleyball club, you know, travel clubs.

traveling to Maryland and, you know, King of Prussia and then Delaware and, you know, Atlantic city. And so there's a lot more things that are going on during the week to, you know, I'm, I'm picking one up or driving here or doing this or going to closings late in the day. And then I'm not, then I'm catching up at night and I'm tired in the morning. So a run's easy, right? You could just get out of your house and boom. That's that an hour. Like I don't have to drive to the gym and then warm up. And then you wind up talking.

people in the gym and then they, they want to BS and then they, then they want it. Yeah. Right. And so you're there, you really get a good half hour workout when all said and done. And then you go home and you're like, I could have ran for an hour straight and got a better workout and felt better. Why didn't I, why am I doing that? Yeah. So that's my feeling. Got it. You know, now with all these obligations, you mentioned about your daughters, the volleyball, you mentioned about, going to closings.

Doing podcasts like this. Tell us more about how are you productivity wise in your time? How are you dedicating that with work and with life when with family? It's tough. You say you work weekends. I know some people like their weekends to be free just to be with their family. A lot do. Yeah. You're a little bit different. Can you tell us more about that? You know, most do. So it's listen, I'm used to it.

Right. So it's not like it's an overnight thing where you just get up and say, okay, let me do 10 ,000 things today and work out and drive kids around and, you know, go to different events and then go to closing and then do this or that. And it's a lot. So, I've gotten into a routine, right? So my routine is, you know, work out in the morning and then, you know, straight to emails and returning people's messages by seven 30 or eight o 'clock in the morning, you know, meeting with my processor once a day to go over all the loans that are in process.

you know, and then either shooting to a closing or possibly, you know, meeting a realtor out for lunch, you know, to, to further network there, possibly meeting with Anthony and going to a meeting, to meet another realtor somewhere else at a coffee shop, wherever it may be. Like the schedule is different every day. you balance it, right? I mean, you get used to it. I listen, I like what I do. Okay. So I don't like if I do it on the weekend, I'm excited. Like I want to, I want to do the pre -approval. I like what I do.

Yeah. It doesn't feel like to me like, I got to make the doughnuts. Right. I got it. I got to do this. Right. It's not like that. It's like, I have my laptop. I'm ready to roll. You want to make an offer in a house. Let's, let's do it. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's my job. I want to shift gears here and talk about the relationship aspect. I know in a mortgage industry, you mentioned earlier that it's all about relationship. It's all about, you know, people liking you. When you first started, how did you start getting clients?

Well, you know, it's a lot of hustle, right? So, you know, you have to make a list of who you want to work with, right? You have to have a plan. You can't just get up in the morning and say, well, I'm going to make friends today with everybody because a lot of people are not going to like you just because they don't like you. So you make a plan, right? You who do you want to meet with? Right? Who do you want to work with? Yeah. You know, you make a list and then you reach out to those people, right? You say, listen, I love what you see, what you do, right? You're obviously very successful.

And I would love to see if we could possibly possibly be a fit to work together. Right. So, you know, you got to you got to complement their business because you want to work with them. So you're looking to work with people that are more successful than you. Interesting. Right. You and it's about really showing some value with them. Like you can't just call them and say, hey, listen, my job today is to call 25 people and you have to be one of them because I'm supposed to do that. Because that's what they told me my job is to call 25 people a day. That's not how the business works.

You gotta research who you wanna work with and why you wanna work with them. Research what they do. And if it's that type of business that you like what they do, then you talk to them and say, listen, I admire that you're the number one social media realtor in the city. I admire what you do. I see that you're a club, a president's club winner. How did you become that? And what could it take for us to possibly work together? For younger guys, it might seem intimidating.

It is intimidating because we're like, we're young. We might have all the energy and ambitious, but what are values that we can provide? That's something a lot of younger guys are scared of, intimidated. The value you can provide is how young you are. Number one, that you have the drive. Right. You know, a lot of older loan officers and realtor's that get very set in their ways. Yeah. And you know what I mean? And they don't want to do much, right? They just want the business to run itself after a while. They get tired where they get burned out or whatever it is.

A younger loan officer should be hungrier. Like when I came out when I was 23, 24 in those first few years, I was gunning. I was just out to work with as many people as I could work with. So I just didn't stop. If you said, no, you don't want to work with me, I moved on. It wasn't like, the problem is everybody gets their feelings hurt nowadays so easily. That's right. It's like, if the guy said he doesn't want to work with me, it destroyed me for a week and I couldn't work anymore because he doesn't want to work with.

Come on, man. Get over it. Right? So the guy doesn't want to work with you. Move on. Listen, Anthony, I have him hitting, not hitting, reaching out to so many different people of different realtors and different lines of work to work with. And if they shoot him down, we move on. You got to have thick skin. Right? And I think a lot of the, if you have the thick skin as a young person and you can just say, I don't care if I hit 15 people today and all of them said no.

tomorrow I'm going to hit 15 more and if they all say no, then I'm going to hit 15 more after that. And guess what? You'll get to the yeses. Eventually they'll come. Yeah. It's like dating. You go through that girl and she says, no, you're the next one. She's like, what are you going to cry because she said no? There's a million others. Alex Tavern, a mortgage lender and relationship guru. Let's start another podcast. So you mentioned that you were hustling. Is there any difference between what you did then and what you're doing now?

In terms of building clientels, obviously one majority of the time when people come to you and they want to buy houses, it's one and done unless they're investors. If they're just a typical, you know, house buyers, home buyers, it's one and maybe they get the next one a few years down, but you get all new clients every day. Constantly. Exactly. So how is there difference between what you're doing back then now fast forward 25 years when you were more experienced? You know,

I still have the fire. I never lost that. I even started my own podcast, right? So, because I still have the fire that, you know, I know I wanted to, I know I can still do this really good. Right. So, and I've learned a lot over 25 years of doing this. I've had a lot of deals, you know, shot down in flames, right? I've had a lot of problems too. You think everything was rosy for 20, I mean, come, come through my career. I've seen a lot. So, you know, it's,

I like working hard. So I think that the only thing that I see different now is that I'm a little more calculated on who I'm going to reach out to to work with. I used to just hit every Tom, Dick and Harry. I mean, I would just I would just hit everybody. Right. I would just I would go to the yellow pages and just, this real estate office looks good. Let's just hit every single guy in the real estate office. What's a yellow page from the young?

I mean, we, we, it was, it was the yellow pages, right? It was a book, right? It was the names and I'm done with that. I'm not going to go that far. Do I have Anthony doing that more reaching out to each individual agent where they're going to? Yes, because he's got to learn that because it's going to help him down the road. Learn how to, how to cold call the people. I'm a little more calculated on doing that. you know, I'm looking for more people that are established now, like myself so that I can.

we can see eye to eye and do things that would help us both. But still have the fire. Tell us about the podcasting while you start podcasting. You know, I like it. And I'm bringing a lot of good people on. A lot of city realtors. I brought some Jersey realtors on too, which I'm going to have more coming on from Jersey because the Philly people are starting to take over the airwaves here. And the Jersey realtors are starting to yell at me saying, you don't like us? So I got to start switching that up a little bit. I've really...

heavily because I live here, right? And I'm building here. I'm constantly building in the city. So I've had a lot of the Realtors on over here. It's nice to hear their stories, you know, and it's nice to see what they do. And all of them are younger than me, which is, you know, which is right. There are all these young guys and young girls and they come on here and they're they're sharp shooters and they're they're go getters and they're hunters and they're, you know, they're hustlers and they're

and they got that fire and they've only been in the business a few years. And that to me is fun seeing that. Yeah. You know, then, and, that I liked the podcast because I, I can get out there that information to the younger generation who are starting in it. And it makes me, it makes me feel young too. Right. It makes me feel like you are young. It makes me feel like I'm starting out in the business too. Like I get that fire with them. I go home. I'm like, I had this guy on, he was killing it. Yep. He's saying all this stuff.

this is what I got to start doing. So like this is like I write down notes to myself and like this is what they're doing. And then and then I try to take a piece of that. And I think the podcast has gotten a lot more popular to I got people reaching out to me asking to be on now. You know, I have people reaching out to me on social media saying, Hey, man, how you doing? Nice to talk to you. I haven't talked to you in a while. By the way, I've seen your podcast. It's great. And that's me. Sign me up as a payoff. Right. I mean, where you go and you'll be there. Right. You just.

It took me, you know, 20 some episodes now, you know, the first five episodes was I questioning, no one's looking at this. Like I had no views, right? I was, it was zero and, you know, and I had some really good people in the beginning of the podcast, but it just didn't now here I am 20 some episodes and it's just starting to roll. Like I want to do it. Unfortunately, my schedule sometimes doesn't let me do it as much as I want to do it, but, I'm going to stick to it.

And, and as you should, and you'll see the benefits if you stick to it. Like I'll be, I can't wait to get the show 50. Okay. Now show 50 is going to be great because I'm going to say, wow, 50 weeks of this, right? 50 people, 50 people, you know? So, and I think at that point you're going to have to be more seen, you know, and, and the views will keep going up and up and up. Yeah. That's what I really enjoy about podcasts. Honestly, it's more for, for me to understand the people and the learning.

their stories. Yeah. We're going to get to the end of the, of the show here. And we asked. What do you mean? This is, this is my life. What are you talking about? This could go on for two hours. Come on. Two hours. I remember when we were at the gym and this is kind of off topic here, we would, we would have conversations. I know he would have an hour. I would have an hour before, you know, we started our work. We ended up just working out for, you know, one set or two set because the rest of the time we were like, Hey, how are you doing? I was like, yeah.

How's that economics right now? It's just not, it's like awkward. I really got to start. I saw that he had the fire in him too. in the finance world, you know, you knew what you were talking about. That's hard to find. You know, you talk to the guys in the gym and they want to talk about the pre -workout that they're on. How many sets you're on right now? Why my arms aren't big or, you know, or how many miles am I running? Which is fine. I'll talk about running, but you know, it's like you, talked about.

Business too. It wasn't just about working out. It was about working out too, but then it was business too. And you're, you know, you knew what you were talking about and I that that that helps. Thanks. You know, have you ever worked out in the evenings? No. you haven't? Never. Why? I can't do it. I just, I have long days and, I don't have the motivation to start working out at six or so. I don't know how these guys do it. I mean, I give them credit. I guess that's their schedule and maybe they, they work early in the morning and they can't work out in the morning. I mean, that's.

if you work at the hospital or something like that, maybe we're in law enforcement or whatever it is. But I just I don't have the motivation to start working at our six or seven o 'clock at night. Yeah. You know, I'm usually really busy around that time. My phone's blowing up like everybody works all day. Right. And then in the mortgage business, you're like three o 'clock in the afternoon. You're like, today sucked. And my phone barely rang. Yeah. I got no emails. But like no one's doing anything. Yeah. And then four o 'clock hits. Everybody gets out of work. And here we go.

It's a hundred miles an hour from four o 'clock to eight o 'clock. I mean, I always said in the mortgage business, why don't we start at eight o 'clock in the morning? Let's start at 12 o 'clock in the afternoon because you're not getting busy until the afternoon to begin with. And then you're working through the night. Got it. You know, so what time do you sleep? If you wake up, I go to bed at 10 30, 10 30, 10 o 'clock and I'll get up about four 30, four 30. so I get six hours. daily daily, even on weekends.

On the weekend of 5 15, 5 30. Big difference. Yeah. It's a big difference. Right. A little bit of a, a little bit of a break there and then, and then get going. So we'll get onto the final section of the show now. obviously the, the name of the podcast is Kaizen blueprint. Kaizen means, continuous improvement in Japanese term and.

We asked the same questions. Obviously, this is just the first episode, but we're going to ask the same questions for all the guests coming forward. Name one or two system in your life that have helped you, whether in business or just life in general, that you can provide to the world continuously. If I could do this daily or if you're doing this daily, how does this help you and how can it benefit other people? You know, I think perseverance is,

my number one thing that I can possibly say that I've had, my perseverance. And a person like you or anyone, if you don't have perseverance, you're not gonna get anywhere. I mean, that's my number one hack that I think I would give to anyone that I know. Just you gotta do it every day, right? And you gotta do it good. And you gotta learn and...

you know, I just I never stopped and I'm not stopping. And I think if you have that perseverance in your personality, and the way you do things, you'll always be getting better, you know. And running is a big one, right? The perseverance to run is not easy. You know, you probably hate it some days, you know, you eat junk food, or you wind up drinking too much the night before something you go to a stupid party and you want to drinking beers or whatever. And then the next morning, you're cursing yourself out because you got to run.

You know, so I, but you had the perseverance still to do it. You don't lay in bed and say, you know what, I'm not going to do it today because I just drank too many beers last night. Now you get up and you do it anyway. No, is that something that you build? Is that something you're born with? I think that's something honestly that you're born with. Really? I think you can try to build it. and I think there's people that have been, successful in building perseverance, but that's not easy. You have to have some of that in you already. Got it.

I think that's it. I mean, I could try to teach that all I want, but I think some people just don't get it. Like you got to have that kind of in you born in you. Really? I just, that's my opinion on that. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about that. I mean, what do you think about that? I think there's a lot of different factors where growing up is a big one, right? Yeah. How, how you were raised with your parents or with friends or just the environment in general. If you're able to, even if you're coming out from like a low income.

family and you're trying to build wealth for your family and you're going through tough times and you actually made it. That's a perseverance that's been built. But I don't know if that's something we were born with as well. Right. Everyone's different. Yeah. Where can everybody find you, Alex? Where can they find me? They can find me working from eight, eight, no, seven in the morning until 10 o 'clock at night. Not, not, not, not. I'm not hard to find, you know, anywhere on social media on there to the Tabernay group. You know, we got our Tabernay group pages built. We've had them built for years.

You know, accessible on social media at all times. GreenTreeMortgage .com. If you want to go on the company website, all over Google too, we have our own Google business page that we have set up that we've done for years. If you need to see reviews or anything like that. Not hard to find at all. Okay. You know, I'm not, I'm not one to hide in this business and check out my podcast, right? So you can find me there. You know, have an A talks. Right. So that's a, that's another one that is pretty easy for me too.

Alex, thank you for being on my first episode. This guy was great. Look how cool he was. Relaxed, cool. He's doing a great job. I appreciate you having me on for the first person. I just got to start strong. That's it. I don't know how we're going to top this after this. I don't know. I think this will be the most views that you will have. And everywhere. But if anybody beats me, let me know. Okay. All right. And I'll come back on and I'll beat that. But good luck with the show. Thank you. I think you're going to do good.

you're going to change it up. It's not only going to be real estate with him, which is good. All I talk is real estate, but it's good that you're going to change it up. I think you're going to do a good job. Awesome. Thanks, Alex. You got it, man. Thank you.