Templar Real Estate Radio Show Transcripts 5-29-2021

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The following program was paid for by Templar Real Estate. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of the staff and management of WMTR.  As always, it is advisable to consult a professional before making a major decision.

It’s time now for the Templar Real Estate Talk Show. Here’s your host for the program, Joseph J. Zoppi.

Joseph J. Zoppi:
Hello. Welcome to the Templar Real Estate Talk Show. My name is Joseph J. Zoppi, a real estate investor, consumer advocate, author and managing partner of Templar Real Estate Enterprises. You could reach us at templarcashforhouses.com. That’s T-E-M-P-L-A-Rcashforhouses.com, that’s one word or you could call us at 973-240-8593. Again, that’s 973-240-8593 and we could answer any questions you may have or you could email us from our website, again, for any questions you may have or if you want something discussed on the show.

For first-time listeners, my company is a real estate investment firm. We buy houses for cash, we purchase apartment buildings, we do joint ventures with other real estate investors, we loan money for rehabs and provide transactional and gap funding as well. We work with individuals that want to invest with us in single-family houses up to apartment buildings. We do not speculate and we’re very protective of our money and our investor’s money. I’m not a real estate agent and we’re not a brokerage but I have individuals on staff that are agents that will sell your house through the traditional Multiple Listing Service. The show’s going to go over everything there is about real estate, those things that impact real estate. We’ll talk about our rehabs, some of our investments, what went well, what did not go well and how we learned from them. We’ll talk about the economy and interest rates, we’ll discuss trends in the real estate market. 

Real estate is one of your biggest investments so it’s important to know as much as possible about it. I’ll provide you with my opinion. It’s only my opinion. I ask everyone to do lots of research, make sure that you research everything, anything to do with money, especially, I can’t preach that enough in terms of doing lots of research, looking at different opinions, pro and con for something, that’s very important that you get a balanced view of what it is no matter if… even if you have a preconceived notion, challenge yourself to look at the other side and I think that’s extremely important. I’m going to do a shout out to some of my favorite listeners. So, of course we have Livingston’s famous crossing guard, Paulette and Timmy from Cedar Grove, also Barbara and Don, they’re newlyweds and I want to do a shout out to them. My partner had visited them this week, so I want to do a new shout out to them as well. Also, I’d like to thank some of my private investors. One of them is Nick Z and his wife as well and we’re starting to have… because everything’s opening up, we’re going to start to have more presentations in the office which is great and we’ll still continue with zoom if anybody wants that but we’re going to have additional learning shops, workshops on investing in real estate more on the passive side than the active side. 

Again, there’s a lot of different YouTube videos out there if you want to really do rehabs things like that. Mine’s going to be more so in terms of investing your money with individuals, whoever they may be, not necessarily us and trying as best as possible to ensure that it’s a good investment. So, we’ll be talking about that in future broadcasts on that subject. Again, if you want to sell your house fast for cash, please give us a call. There’s a lot of different situations and we’re always open to discussions and see what we could do to provide a solution for you in the event you do really to sell fast and you rather just sell for cash and just leave your house as is and I think that’s very, very important. I had an appointment this week and the house was in really nice shape and I said… I told them, I said “All you need is a little bit of paint probably on the front and maybe inside.” And it was going to cost them maybe 5, $6,000 and I said, “We could list it and see what price we get on it.” And I had a pretty good idea of what the price would be, about rock solid, it would be about 430 and that was in this one town, in Bergen County and it was 430 consistently and sometimes a little bit more but the basic closing price is about 430 and she was adamant about it. She goes, “Joe, I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even want to call up a painter.” I said, “Well, I got guys that could do it.” She said “Nope. I don’t even want to do that. I just want to sell.” 

So, we’re trying to work out some numbers right now on it but yeah, sometimes you just want to sell, they already had a house in Manahawkin. Gentleman’s retired from the federal government, something in law enforcement, he didn’t say exactly what but so yeah, so he’s like, I just want out too and we’re happy down south at the shore and we just want to sell this and get it off our plate. So, each person’s different and each circumstance is different and I’ve heard a lot of different circumstance, always hearing new ones but a lot of them are basically the same and their needs are different, everybody’s needs are different and that’s how we look at things based on the needs of individuals. Another thing is, is that you had heard in the past, I’ve been working with this one woman, Angie and trying to get her an apartment in Caldwell and we’re still working with it. We’re still trying to figure something out with her lease and next time, in a few weeks or whenever things change, I will be updating you on that. So, hopefully it’ll be soon but I’m not quite sure and I really want to get her and her son into a different location and a safer school and a great school for him and for him to really blossom instead of being stuck at home which is just a torture, we all know that as well during this COVID experience. 

So, we’ll keep our fingers crossed on this and continue to hope that we could resolve this ASAP as opposed to a long, drawn-out affair which I’m hoping that won’t be the case. Today’s Friday, I’m doing the broadcast, Memorial day is coming up so I also… I want to put something out to all the veterans and those people that have died for this country and you really can’t say enough about the individuals that went into war and went into battle, whether it was a formal war or just some type of action like with special forces or whatever the case may be but they gave up their life to help and protect people and free them. So, that’s really, really just such an honor that we have so many heroes that do this and throughout the years and it’s just… I can’t say enough about the individuals that died for this country and the same goes for law enforcement and walking out, having a family, walking out the door and who knows if they’ll ever come back and it’s a big sacrifice for the family as well and my father was a cop in Newark for 26 years and we’re lucky nothing like that ever happened to him but he had passed away at a young age like 52 but again, when you go out there and you’re protecting people and you just never know. So, I’d like to do just a shout out to all the veterans as well as those people that’ve just died for this country. So, yeah, thanks everyone.

Next thing is, like I said, this is Friday where I’m doing the broadcast and today’s the first day where I don’t need to wear a mask on going to different places. So, it was kind of weird this morning. So, usually I go to mass almost every morning and so I usually go to 8 o’clock, 8:30 mass and it was kind of weird like everybody’s walking in and they’re looking around and it’s almost like, can I do this? And we were told we could but it was just… there was a lot of apprehension and it was very weird to say the least where like you have the mask in hand and some people are not sure and some people were wearing the mask just because they feel more comfortable in which is great and but it was just very weird and then, I went to one place, a coffee shop and you still had to wear a mask. So… and that was fine too but today, when I go to the gym, I already was told I don’t have to wear a mask. I’m very, very happy about that, especially in the gym, because it’s just… it’s very difficult sometimes when you’re running or just working out and the weights and you really need to get some additional air in your system and you really can’t. So, I’m very psyched about that and increase in normalcy as best as could be but I really think that this has been so traumatic to so many people that it’s really going to take a long time. There’s so much apprehension out there and it’s just… I don’t know, it’s just… it’s really affected a lot of people and I think that’s a shame. It really is.

Not only monetarily but just psychologically. One of the other things I want to talk about is we have a building, it’s a four-unit small building that I’ve talked about before that we have under contract and we push really hard to sell it as high as possible and right now because it’s under contract, we had to get the appraisal, the inspection, so on and so forth and we push very high on what we wanted for it and we came down a little bit but we’re still probably considerably higher than it’s really worth but someone was interested in buying it at that price. So, we had the inspection and it wasn’t any major things, some things that came up and we’re not surprised at some of them but the agent was asking for our response on that and I pushed back saying, well, we got to first see what the appraisal is because that’s really going to dictate what we’re going to give in on and if the appraisal comes up shorter, well, then I’m not going to give as much in terms of concessions and that’s where the negotiation and those techniques that you really need to look at, whether it’s any type of agent or anyone negotiating a deal for you is those things that you have to look out for. It’s just not, well, let’s look at this first and that was the inspection so let’s give in on certain things, concessions and then let’s look at the appraisal. That’s never that way. You should never do it that way and that’s some of the things that Templar brings to our clients; is really how to negotiate, where to negotiate when to maybe not say anything for a week which we do, sometimes, we just go dark.

So, it’s a lot of reading the individual, reading the other party in terms of what we could do, how we do it, the approach with it, so on and so forth and based on that, we’re maximizing what we could get for our clients because of that approach. Like I said, sometimes we’ll just go dark and not respond to anything for at least a week, maybe even longer and then that gets people very anxious on what’s going on, so and so forth. Then they start saying, well, maybe, within their minds, maybe we should give in less or we could give out more, whatever the case may be and that’s all part of it and that’s the game of negotiation and that’s probably one of the biggest things. You could list the house and the houses right now are selling for themselves. It’s not the agent. It’s definitely not the agent right now. You put it on and you have a number of offers. It’s not because all of a sudden you have all these great agents, it’s the market and you have to remember that and they are selling themselves, the house, right now. So, it’s the next step. Once it’s under contract how you’re negotiating and what you’re going to give in on, what you’re not going to give in on, how you’re going to evaluate the offers, which offers are good, which offers are not good and then play off those offers. So, that’s something to think about. So, I’m going to close out the session. I’ll be back shortly. Thank you very much. Again, you could give us a call any time at 973-240-8593 or templarcashforhouses.com. Thanks. Bye. 

Joseph J. Zoppi:
Hello, welcome back to the Templar Real Estate Talk Show. My name is Joseph J. Zoppi, managing partner of Templar Real Estate Enterprises. You could reach us at 973-240-8593. Again, that’s 973-240-8593 or templarcashforhouses.com. That’s T-E-M-P-L-A-Rcashforhouses.com, that’s one word. So, on my last segment, I was talking a little bit about negotiation and one of the other things that I wanted to say within negotiation and negotiation process and looking at offers and those things is that I think one of the things also that we do that’s unique is any offer or anything that’s presented to the client or received from a buyer or whatever we’re engaged in, whether it’s an investment, so on and so forth is that we get together as a group within the organization and we review everything and no matter how old you are and how experienced you are or how seasoned you are, so on and so forth, you miss things and this reduces that possibility. It also brings in a lot of different ideas that someone else might not have been thinking about and it just opens things up to… I feel and I’ve seen it and it’s really not feeling, it’s really a fact in terms of better offers, better approach to negotiating and when we purchase investments as well, we are more profitable, I think, as a result of that and that’s something that most organizations do not do and I would probably say more than most and that’s extremely important. 

I think that’s one of the things that distinguishes us. When we buy something, we sell something, a lot of times it’s just the agent going out there selling or making recommendations themselves. Even if they talk to the broker, that’s still, again, we take it one step further and it’s a group of individuals or staff that get together and we talk and we go over things and we have a broad base of experience as a result of that and I think we really approach things a lot differently. Case in point, a lot of people in whatever industry it is are very siloed and they stay in that one industry. So, when they learn something, they learn it about whatever, we’ll talk about real estate, they take on real estate, they focus on real estate, so on and so forth and that’s good but the way I look at things and the way we look at things is a little different and we look at things from a broad-based knowledge. Now, for myself and this is just myself. I spend approximately, per year, $70,000 on different means of education and it’s probably even higher than 70, it’s probably close to 90 and I blogged two different masterminds which I’ve talked about before. One’s based solely on purchasing houses and rehabbing them and it’s some of the top investors in the country. 

It’s like 150 of them and then we get together and we talk on a quarterly basis at minimum and then I have one that’s just for multi-family and those experiences and we share different things that are going on in the industry and where we see things changing, opening up or closing up, so on, so forth and then I have another one that is really one of my favorites. Even though real estate one is great and everything, the other one is it’s called Vestige and it’s a group of individuals and they have to have, I think, the minimums of 5 to $7 million in revenue, minimum and most of them are more and we get together and we have a diverse group of individuals that are in everything from financial technology to couture type of dresses and fashion, cleaning companies that are very large cleaning companies, companies that do outbound nursing, construction companies that are doing like $30 million in sales and it’s just wide group of individuals. 

They all come out of… for the most part, I’m the only one out of a Jersey. So, it’s an invite only and they invited me and almost everybody else is really out of New York city and I think one other individual is out of North New York up near Vermont area and we get together and we share different ideas and when we have a problem, we share that problem and then we analyze the problem and then make recommendations accordingly and it’s a very unique and really cool process that is very disciplined in the way that you ask the question, the way you respond and it really makes it so you’re not going off on tangents and the chairperson regulates that very carefully to make sure certain questions are asked in a certain way and suggestions aren’t given beforehand. So, it really pushes the envelope in terms of really peeling back the onion and getting to the root of what the real issue is and a solution accordingly because you might have an issue, you’d go, well, I have an issue with… we have one person saying I want to increase sales by 20% but I’m having a problem hiring individuals and we kept asking the questions, then you go back and ask the question again, is that the correct question to be asking? And this time it was, yes. I want to increase sales by 20% but the underlying issue for this person was bringing on individuals and this person does sewer systems. So, a lot of it for government, town government and he’s having a problem bringing on people and he’s paying really good money. 

He’s paying $65 an hour. So, that’s like $130,000 a year and he can’t find anyone and we went around this process to explore and we had individuals, I was saying let’s target individuals in Western Pennsylvania and South Dakota, North Dakota, where some of the fracking has decreased and you can’t do as much fracking for new contracts and you’re going to have individuals that are out of work because it’s a dirty job, it’s a very manual job and a lot of people don’t want to do manual work anymore and dirty work and he liked that idea. We had another individual which… really bright guy and he looked at all the different unemployment in the area and said, why don’t you target this county because unemployment is higher and you might be able to get someone and we had someone saying use Facebook ads to target that county and the certain demographics based on that because it’s for young people. So, the demographics has to be young individuals, probably more so towards males because you have to pick up a minimum of 70 pounds at least but I guess, also, women could obviously join and stuff. It’s just that it’s extremely physically challenging. 

So, as a result of that, a lot of things come out of it and I think the organization, Vestige, and what it does and how it works and what I get out of it to help Templar is just unbelievable. Right now, I have on Saturday, a call with one of those individuals, she has a nursing company that sends out outbound nursing and she wants to grow her business to like 150 million but what she’s going to request is private equity, private equities, firms that will give you money but they’re going to take a portion of the business. So, she sent an email to me and said, “Joe, can we talk? Because I’m concerned about that.” And we’re going to hammer that out tomorrow, on Saturday. We’re going to have a zoom call on that and she liked some of the things that I’d been doing so we might even do some joint ventures. So, it’s a very good way of networking also in terms of expanding oneself and which is ultimately helping Templar out and I’m very lucky to be with these individuals. So, I’m very happy about that. 

The other thing I want to close out on is that some of the deals we do vary in nature a lot. I had an individual come to me, he has four parcels of properties and that he wants to sell and he’s just tired of being a landlord. He’s just beaten down and as a result of that, we’re going to help him out but he’s gone through so much and it’s just… I see a lot of pain in him and we’re happy be that we could help him out and he just says, “I just want to sell these things as fast as possible Joe.” I said, “Yeah, we could do that.” So, we’re working on a deal right now to buy those four parcels which has five properties on it. One is a house that’s been burned down. So, we’ll see. Well, I’ll take that one too and we’re going to have to build a new house on it. So, we usually don’t build houses but if that’s what it is, that’s what it is. So, I’m going to have to close out because my time is up but I want to thank you very much for everything. Have a great Memorial Day and weekend as well. Again, you could reach us 973-240-8593 or templarcashforhouses.com. You need anything, please call us anytime. Thank you very much. God bless and take care everyone. Bye.

The preceding program was paid for by Templar Real Estate. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the staff and management of WMTR. As always, it is advisable to consult a professional before making a major decision. 

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Listen to Us on the Templar Real Estate Show on WMTR 1250AM on Saturday at 10:00 AM