-This is a transcript from Go Gaddis Radio to listen to the episode click here-> https://on.soundcloud.com/LqFr4
Welcome back to Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio, right here on AM nine 20. The answer. I appreciate with you sticking up stick. I appreciate you sticking with us through the break this segment. We're gonna talk all about real estate investors, how you deal with real estate investors from the real estate agent's perspective and real estate investing in general.
Don't forget that if you want to connect with us, it is so easy. Just go to go get us radio.com. That's go. G A D D I S radio.com. You can ask questions that we answer on air or off air. You can make comments if you want to, good or bad. You can push back or challenge any of the things that we say. You can share your ideas with us.
You can request your neighborhood be featured in our neighborhood spotlight. And you can also subscribe to our podcast. We're available on every major podcasting platform. Without further ado, I want to introduce a very, very special guest, Vicki Hogan, who is a realtor and a team member on the Modern Traditions Realty Group team at Remax Center.
So Vicki, you and I are teammates. That's right. And I appreciate you being here. If you don't mind, I'd love to ask you just a few questions as we get started. And these are for people who are listening who may be thinking, I might like to get into real estate myself. How long have you been in the business?
Well, I've started with new construction. Okay. And I sold new construction for about 20 years, and then I joined. I joined Remax Center in 2008. Okay. So I've been at with Remax Center in the same office that you're in since 2008. Wow. And of course, 2008 was a really good time to get into general real estate because the market crashed.
It was a terrible time. So you've been in real estate for 35 years. Mm-hmm. Which is amazing cuz just a few days ago you told me you were 39, so that is I know. Amazing. Congratulations. So 20 years in new construction, gosh, you could probably write a book about your new construction stuff if you had to as a real estate agent, give a buyer and a buyer's agent some advice when it comes to buying a new construction home.
Based on your experience in the past, what would the advice be? I would say, Let the onsite agent lead you around and gather as much information from that onsite agent. They're the experts of, of the community Yeah. Of their product. Yep. Um, they're not all, you know. Great. Yeah. But for the most part they, you know, they're gonna answer honestly.
Um, and that would be my advice. Yeah, I love that. And did you ever have any agents who came in with buyers and they just had to show that they were worth something and they made the entire process more difficult? And what is so interesting, I'm gonna use the word manipulate, and that's a very strong word, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but if you're a subdivision agent and I come in and I start trying to bully you and push you around, that's not how I'm gonna get you to do what my.
You know, need you to do. If I am cooperative and friendly and open and honest about what we need to do, there's a lot better chances that you will dig in there and try to help us out. We've got a situation now with a new construction buyer and they are, um, that there, there's some discrepancies in the amount of allowance that the builder could give.
And, you know, because we have such a good relationship with the builders agent, the buyer is gonna wind up getting. Dime that the buyer was entitled to, and this subdivision agent is figuring out how to do it herself. So anyway, 35 years in the business. What are the biggest changes you've seen in real estate in the time you've been in it?
I know when I first started, we were still using fax machines to send offers around, but you had to drive 'em over and get 'em signed at one point, right. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's, yeah, it's from the technology to the market shifts. I've been through a lot of market shifts. It seemed like the markets used to shift only about once every five or six years, you know, in one way or another.
Yeah. Yeah. It's now they like turn around, you know, in six months. So it's just like always being on top of, of your market, your area, what's going on so that you can get prepared. Yeah. And if you, and this is, I don't want you to talk negatively about your fellow real estate practitioners, but if you had to guess out of, uh, of 10 real estate agents, how many of 'em are really truly up to date on market statistics?
What do you think that number would be? Um, a a a couple, two, three. Yeah, two three. That's kinda what I'm thinking, and it sounds terrible because I love all of my fellow real estate agents, but, but in many cases the barrier of entry is so low that like anybody can get into it and it doesn't mean they actually have the desire to bring a good service to the table.
So my question for you next is, you could certainly be a real estate agent on your own. You choose to be on our team. Why is it that you decided to join a. Being with my new construction background, I always had collaboration with other agents and managers, and I really missed that. So joining the team, I was able to be a part of something, collaborate with my co, my teammates.
Um, and just toss things around when we, when I need to and o and the office support honestly, is just to have the office support too sometimes in real estate, just to have somebody help you with the paperwork. That's the big, that's the biggest deal in the world. You get so many deals flowing through the system and you can't keep up with anything.
And we need somebody to help us with those detail. Yeah. And you want your paperwork to be good. Yeah. And so, yeah. So by getting some help with the paperwork and, and the, um, Um, duties helps a lot. Yeah. That's so good. It allows me to be more productive, I feel like. Absolutely. Now you know a lot about the investor world and you work more specifically, uh, with investors who are disposing of properties with real estate investors, national real estate investors who are actually.
Selling properties that they own in the metro Atlanta market. And I just have a question for you about real estate investing in general. Um, if I were a consumer, an uneducated or an unaware consumer, I would assume there's no investment, those properties. There's no properties out there today that I could buy, that I could turn into good investment properties and make money.
Would that be true or would I be mistaken? I'd say you're, there's not a lot, but there are some. Yeah. Um, I also, I um, also deal with investors Whenever I get, um, investment houses to sell, I have, I have investors I reach out to that think it might, you know, if I think it's gonna be a good buy scenario for them.
Yeah. Something they could, you know, there's a little bit of meat on the bone for them to, you know, get in there and do whatever we rehab and, you know, rent it or sell it. So the answer is for somebody who's willing to get out and be aggressive and look, there are steel deals out there, you're probably not gonna sit there and just let it fall in your lap.
Would that be safe to say? Yeah, I would say that, and it's amazing how many, um, calls I get for people who wanna know if, if we have off market properties and, you know, they're even recorded calls where they, you know, they, a recording gets you on the phone and then they ask you if you have properties to sell.
And so there's a lot of people out there that are, you know, that are. Rounding around looking for good deals. Yep. And what's interesting is if you are thinking of becoming a real estate investor, you know what you're looking for is a property that is owned by someone who is in some sort of level of distress.
Because the reality is there's a lot of. Forget the institutional owners. There's a lot of just individual mom and pop, just everyday people like me and you, and they decide one day, I don't want to own this house. And you know, we think, well, they would probably only sell it for market value, but that's not necessarily the case.
In some cases they just want their money and wanna be gone and it's the closing date that's convenient or being able to leave all the crap or whatever. So Vicky, if somebody wanted. You just to have a conversation with you about what, what it may look like to, uh, you know, be a real estate investor or to get on at least the list of, of people that you might notify.
When you have investor properties coming on the market, as they come on the market, how would they reach you? Um, my cell, my is my direct line that's seven 70. 8 2 6, 6 4, 5 5. Perfect. And if you don't remember that, just go to go gadi radio, click on uh, contact us and say, Hey, hook me up with that investor lady and we will get you immediately to Vicki Hogan.
And she would do a great job taking care of you in addition to selling investment properties or, or in many cases the properties you sell probably aren't investment properties when they get bought, cuz somebody probably buys it and lives in it would be my guess. But in addition to selling properties for institutional investors, Are also a real estate investor yourself, if I remember correctly.
Is that true? I am. Yes, I am. And how have you found your experience as a real estate investor? And I'm saying on a scale of one to 10, 10 being it's perfect. Never a problem, no worries. No nothing, you know, uh, one being, oh my gosh, I wish I'd never seen my first investment house. Where are you in terms of, of your kind of rating of being a a a a land?
I'd say I'm about a seven. Okay. Okay. And I No, go please. I initially had seven properties and now I'm down to four. Okay. And so in my tenants I've had long-term tenants, which is nice, and um, but I've learned a lot. I bet you have. What would you say would be the negative that makes it a seven instead of a 10?
And is that just dealing with the tenants and handling the problems that come up? And that's just kind of the nature of the beast, but I would assume you are managing them yourself. Yes. So you were taking care of that? Yes. Um, and the biggest problem with people not taking care of your property like they should.
Yep. And or not paying on time, you know, like they should. Um, I had an experience, I don't know, five years ago that. It was a sad story. Tried to work with 'em and they just lived in filth and by the time I got the property back, it was a rat infested. I mean, it was so, and, and I hate to say it, but sometimes when they, what the, sometimes the more stories you get told, the, uh, the more you.
Probably need a new tenant and anybody who's listening who's ever been in any level of financial distress, I'm not talking about you. There are certainly people who are honestly in a bad spot, but oh yeah. If the story gets too long, it's probably because it's not true. We've got about two minutes left in the segment, and I know that occasionally you sell homes that are significantly damaged.
In fact, I saw one not too long ago that. Burned, b u r I mean, it was burned really, really badly. And, and so, um, h how does that work when you're selling like a, a property that's been burned or totally damaged? Interestingly enough, the investors go crazy over the, our burned houses and our flooded houses.
Because most of what I'm selling are previous rentals. Yeah. Where, you know, they, um, sometimes tenants will be mad. Yeah. But they, and they'll turn the water on upstairs. Oh no. And flood the house whenever they lock the door and leave. And nobody knows about it for, you know, a couple days or weeks or, you know, whatever.
I didn't even think about that. How disgusting for those And, and I, I don't know. Do you think maybe a tenant ever set fire to a home? I mean, I don't think so. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. When I look at the photos, it looks like it comes from like a, the kitchen, maybe a kitchen fire or the garage. Yep. Um, you know, something like that.
Got it. Good. Well, they shouldn't be. I think that they should, I remember during the 2008 to 2012 people getting evicted would get mad and poor sri down the drains of the toilets. It was some bad stuff. We probably shouldn't talk about these things. We might be giving some tenants some ideas. I think we gotta be careful.
Uh, so it's so interest. When a property is damaged, uh, or it seems like it might not be desirable to people. It sounds to me like everybody's coming out of the woodwork and trying to get those. It's amazing. Wow. I mean, it's really mind boggling, um, how they just gravitate. They're looking for those types of properties.
Absolutely. Vicki, will you come back and visit with us again sometime soon? Anytime. We're gonna take a quick break when we come back. Our 10 31 exchange is a good idea when selling investment properties. And what are some steps you need to take when buying in an unfamiliar neighborhood? And we'll finish up with how can you make sure that you have good neighbors?
Stick with us. We'll be back.