#103: Underwriting Loans, Interest Rates, and Debt to Income Ratio

Welcome to The Accelerated Investor Podcast with Josh Cantwell, if you love entrepreneurship and investing in real estate then you are in the right place. Josh is the CEO of Freeland Ventures Real Estate Private Equity and has personally invested in well over 500 properties all across the country. He’s also made hundreds of private lender loans and owns over 1,000 units of apartments. Josh is an expert at raising private money for deals and he prides himself on never having had a boss in his entire adult life. Josh and his team also mentor investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world. He doesn’t dream about doing deals, he actually does them and so do his listeners and students. Now sit back, listen, learn, and accelerate your business, your life, and your investing with The Accelerated Investor Podcast.

Josh: So, hey, welcome back to Accelerated Investor. I’m so excited to share with you again. So excited to be part of your journey. Provide value and opportunity and deals in joint venture opportunities to all of my listeners and students around the globe. I’m so excited to be back with you again. Today, we’re talking with Christian Olin. He’s the vise president of direct lending for a company called On Q Financial. They’re a retail lender, a direct lender. Did over $50 million dollars in lending volume and their very first year. And we’re going to talk today with

Christian: about investors, about investor markets.

Josh: We’re going to talk about investor financing for your rental portfolios and building your portfolio. We’re also going to talk a little bit today about underwriting. I’m curious to hear his take on what’s going on today with underwriting. Everybody thinks like, okay, we’re at the top of an economic cycle, maybe at the top of the housing boom. We’re at the top of this, you know, this ten twelve year economic expansion. And I’m a firm believer that the end financing businesses getting financing, real estate, investors getting financing, you know, and buyers getting financing that money in the system is what allows the rest of the whole economy to grow, expand or contract. So a welcome

Christian: Olin to the podcast. Thanks for us for jumping on with me.

Christian: Thanks so much for having me. Really, really appreciate you guys taking the time, inviting me on and looking forward to the knowledge that we can share with your listeners. If you’re going to be great.

Josh: Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s great because you’re a listener of the podcast, your team is a listener to the podcast. We submitted the inquiry. We connected through the podcast. I want to tell all of our listeners that we do have listeners that we connect with through this podcast that become guests just like Christian. So if you have an interest in the podcast, you like it and you have an amazing story to share your entrepreneurial journey or a strategy that you’d like to talk to us about. Let us know. Let us know. And we’d love to have you on. So, Christian:, what do you just give us again, the 30 second one minute kind of overview of you, your company, and a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey?

Christian: Yes, sure. So a little bit about On Q were a retail lender got about nine hundred employees. Ninety-one retail locations. My direct lending division does about call it 50 million a month On Q as a whole, we’ll do about $5 billion in loan volume this year. So, you know, we’re a bank we’ve been in business since 2005. We weathered that first real estate storm. You know, the financial crisis, as some people like to call it, I call it a buying opportunity. But, you know, six of one, half dozen of another, right.

Christian: And, you know, and we’ve got a couple of things that, you know, our tagline is mortgages simplified. We really do try and simplify the mortgage process for homeowners, investors, multi-unit properties, things like that. My career started on Wall Street. I was an equities trader with Morgan Stanley and other private investment bank called Sands Brothers, kind of. And that was in New York, found my way back to Arizona, where I grew up and started investing some of that money that I was able to walk away with sort of investing in commercial properties and then kind of found my way over to On Q, was excited about the growth.

Christian: And I kind of head up new divisions here. Obviously my latest projects is the direct lending division. The entrepreneurial journey is always a bumpy one, right? It’s not it’s not the journey for everyone. But guys like you and I love it. We love those bumps. We love those. We view them as challenges right now. Yeah, that’s what we live and breathe to overcome, right. Without that without those our days to be boring, I believe. So that’s kind of the 30, 60 second version.

Josh: Sure. Yeah, I appreciate that. So you guys track markets. Obviously, you’re lending in a lot of markets, lending across the country, 5 billion in loan volumes. You’re looking at what markets are up, what markets are down, where there’s population movement, where there’s people moving into areas like Arizona and Texas, people moving out of areas like New York, Illinois and California. Talk to me right now about you guys are lending all over the place you’re working with. A lot of investors were building portfolios. What are some markets that you’re seeing where there’s a lot of movement, a lot of activity, a lot of competition? What are some of the hottest markets right now that you guys like to lend on that your clients are having a lot of success in.

Christian: Sure. Arizona, as you know, Arizona is super hot. We’re headquartered out of here. So we know this market extremely well. We probably have the largest footprint here. You’ve got forty five thousand square feet of our corporate headquarters. So we really we’re anchored out of here. Outside of Arizona, Nevada, is hot. Texas is hot. Texas is one of those few markets that never had the huge upswing but never had the low down swing either.

Christian: You know, a lot of that has to do with some of their regulations on refinancing and cash out and whatnot. But it’s a super, super hot market right now. Washington, Washington is insane. It’s blowing up. They’re bussing people in. And basically they’re shipping 50 buyers in the home. And the real estate brokers are standing out front taking the offers. So mean those are probably the hottest markets we’re seeing right now. Me, from a personal point of view, you know, I like to be a little more speculative. If you’re going into the into the super hot market, you’re off. You know, sometimes you’re buying at a higher cost basis, obviously.

Josh: Sure. Yeah. As long as the properties. When I talk about recession, when I talk about, you know, economic, you know, again, top of a cycle, potentially. When the thing crashes, the good thing is four out of the last five recessions that we’ve had, the housing values actually went up. The only one that it didn’t was in 2007, 2008, 2009. And so housing often is one of the factors actually carries our economy through a recession, not necessarily as super negatively impacted by it.

Josh: Right now, there’s not enough inventory, right? Not enough inventory. There’s a lot of buyers looking to buy. There’s obviously a lot of a massive hedge funds that have bought tens of thousands of properties, taking them off the market, turning them into rentals. And so for your investor clients who are buying, do you see any type of acquisition strategies or do you hear from them? Some of them maybe how are they creating a competitive advantage to buy properties or are they simply buying them, you know, at retail price or maybe a small discount and just cash flowing them and watching the appreciation happen?

Christian: You know, I mean, I think it’s a little of both. When we kind of work with our investors, you know, and obviously being licensed on the lending side, I have to be careful with what I advise them. But some of the strategies that I’ve used in the past and the others, you know, that kind of preach to my friends, so to speak, is, one pick an area, right.

Christian: Learn that area. You know, I can use Arizona, for example, if you know Arcadia, you know Arcadia, right. If you’re an outside investor coming in to buy in Arcadia, you don’t really fully know, you know, what you’re getting, what the right location is. I mean, a couple streets difference in a neighborhood like Arcadia can change the cost of a home a couple hundred thousand dollars, literally. So what’s some of the strategies that I advise are really you know, first of all, it’s got to be your passion, right? So learn that neighborhood or learn a couple neighborhoods and then start knocking on doors, drop mail on those neighborhoods.

Christian: You’re right. Something you’ve said is there’s a lot of there’s a lot of huge hedge funds, private equity companies out there bringing in and purchasing 500 hundred, twenty five hundred homes in a specific price point. You don’t want to compete with these guys, right? They’re not your competition. So how do you take yourself out of that? You know, they’ll bid up the price of the home. And it doesn’t matter if they pay ten or fifteen thousand over, ask for it, right. But you can never change your cost basis on that home.

Christian: A lot of people think you make money when you sell the home. You’re actually making money when you buy the home, right. Your that your cost basis, that’s what affects your net operating income, your cashflow or your cap rate, so to speak. Everything, right? So I recommend that people start knocking on doors. They drop mail themselves, you know, a family mailer a small investor mailer, hey, looking to purchase a home in your neighborhood? You know, I’m not a huge company. I’m a single buyer. You know, a picture their family works really well on it if they have kids with their dog. You know, somebody looking to sell their home is a lot more likely to call that than a Black Rock Capital dropping, you know mailer on them.

Christian: Get in front of that person just six months before they’re looking to sell. Make sure you’re the first person they’re going to call. They don’t list the house buying an off market home. I mean, you can obviously meet in the middle in the very beginning, you know, because they don’t have the real estate fees, so to speak.

Josh: Right. Right. Exactly. I love it. Yeah. We tell our students and our listeners all the time, look, if the market’s competitive, you’ve got to expand your market, which means go out to further away markets, expand your market, not just in your direct backyard. You might have to go an hour, two hours away from your backyard, expand market or expand your marketing. And with so many people doing direct mail, so many people doing letters, I mean, we’ve just interviewed a number of other guests for the podcast. One of them was Steve Morris, who just interviewed as one of our biggest borrowers and one of our biggest joint venture partners.

Josh: And he’s like, look, I don’t spend any money anymore on just direct mailers or yellow letters, postcards. We’ve got to be different, right. So if I do do a mail campaign, we do a super niche mail campaign. It’s got to be totally different. You know, and he had talked about how he’s going to differentiate or die. The one thing you mention which is congruent with what we teach, which is can group with some of our other podcast is sort of that, I guess, more gorilla on the ground marketing of door-knocking, letters, door hangers, you know, driving for dollars again, expand your marketing because so many people want to automate the technology of marketing, which is great. But when everybody automates it, then all the marketing looks identical.

Josh: So how do you differentiate yourself? Sometimes it’s just it’s the physical work of going to a house, walking to a house, doing a door knocker or doing a driving for dollars to find a deal. If you’re going to buy that property, then finance it, which is Christian’s expertise is finding long term financing for your portfolios, is you buy that asset one time, you hold on and it pays you for the rest of your life. So you do the work one time and it pays you forever, which is fantastic.

Josh: So, Christian, I’m interested to hear more about your thoughts on what’s going on today with underwriting with the market in its place where it is. A lot of people are, you know, they’re concerned. They think, you know, are we at the top of the market? Is there going to be a housing, you know bust? Is there going to be, is the balloon going to pop? What’s going on? And I firmly believe it has a lot to do with the backend financing. The end buyer or the refinance lending, the looser it gets, the faster everything it moves its way through the food chain. The more they constrict the final buyer who’s getting the financing, the more things back up in the food chain. Things slow down. What’s your kind of opinion? What are your thoughts on underwriting today, debt to income ratios and how loose is it? Are we in subprime territory where we have with underwriting?

Christian: You know, I have a lot of people ask me, it’s always the first thing that they ask me is, you know, are we going to have another bubble? Are we going to have another bust? Are the banks going to collapse, right. You know, and I don’t think anybody has a crystal ball on that, so to speak. But I think there’s a couple of points I’ll jump in on right in just a minute. But one of the main points that you can look at is a lot of the homes last time were bought on stated income or NINA products. No income, no assets, right. You had people that financially weren’t able to really buy five homes, but they were able to in that last real estate run that we had, right.

Christian: So you don’t have those products, right? Will we see them come back to the market? We may. But I mean, hopefully we would see them come back with more substantial down payments and whatnot. So I think that when we look at are we at the tops of the markets? I mean, in my neighborhood, yeah, homes are selling for, you know, above what they were, though, you know, in 2008, right. But without those products, I think it provides us some stability. Underwriting guidelines that they have obviously loosened up. I mean, if you were trying to borrow money in 2009, 2010, I mean, they were extremely, you know, constrained it, right. I mean, it felt like you had a you know, you know, your hands were tied, basically, and you had to go out and look for hard money and other things, which actually still turned out to be a great investment, right.

Christian: But under the underwriting guidelines they have, they they’ve loosened up a little bit, so much so that I mean, I know a lot of mortgage companies have a lot of friends in the business. You know, underwriting turn times have increased, right. So I think for the next 12 months, obviously, at least to the election, we’re going to see a solid market. And something that I always advise, is whether you’re buying a personal home, your first investor or home buying something in the neighborhood that you’re comfortable with and that you want to hold on to kind of like you said, for at least 10 years, right.

Christian: Everybody’s always worried. What if we have another crash? What if we have another crash? Well, guess what? If you bought the property right and you’ve got a renter in there and you can cover that note every month, that’s irrelevant it always comes back, right. You’ve got a tangible assets whereas opposed to the stock market, right. So I think we’re going to see underwriting guidelines probably loosened up even a little bit more in the next twelve months, especially from a retail standpoint. You know, we’re always you know, we’re always weary on the cash outs. You know, it’s a little tighter there. You want to really know what the people are using the cash outs for. But it’s it, man I mean, you’re right. It’s definitely a seller’s market.   

Josh: No doubt. And the things that are different, obviously, 10, 12 years later, since 2008, you know, I look at the stated income, the Nina loans, no income, no asset, no down payment, no job. You know, those loans don’t exist, those loans don’t exist.

Christian: Thank God.

Josh: Those loans don’t exist anymore so that it’s removed from the market. So a big portion of the previous bubble was built off of that. Second thing is that they were able to package those loans up into mortgage backed securities. And those were triple A rated by standards and Poor’s, you know, triple-A rated by the rating agencies. The rating agencies have essentially learned their lesson, right. And now they’re more proactively rating things and looking at the portfolios. So you just don’t see because, look, if you’re a mortgage lender, whether it’s On Q, whether it’s Quick In, whether it’s, you know, Bank of America, they eventually sell those securities to Fannie and Freddie. Those Fannie and Freddie securities become mortgage backed securities. And they have to be rated to turn them into some sort of bond product that can be sold to the end market, which is coming right back to institutional and retail investors.

Josh: Who are investing those portfolios without the rating, without the standard and poor rating or the Moody’s rating or the Fitch rating. Without the rating, you can’t sell the product in the end market. So I think those two things give me a lot more confidence that this market is not fake, whereas in 2007, 2008, it’s like, whoa man, it’s pretty vague right now and I think we’ve learned our lesson there. So tell me a little bit more about debt to income ratios. Recently the CFPB came out with some new legislation of potentially removing debt to income ratios or potentially increasing debt to income ratios was really pushed hard by Bank of America and Quicken Loans. What’s going on with debt to income ratios?

Christian: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, again, in the next year, I mean, obviously, you know, being license only a full state if you know, probably a handful of states, 13 states have to kind of be careful with what numbers I’m preaching to. But absolutely. You know with the CFPB and everybody’s pushing for higher debt to income ratios. And that was primarily on the gobby back products, right. And that’s great, right.

Christian: Really we want to get, you know, those first time homebuyers, the FHA, the Fannie Freddie backed, you know, loans, so to speak. You know, we want to increase on those. Typically, you know, you’re looking at forty three forty nine percent depending on the product anywhere in there. And that obviously provides, you know, more liquidity in the market, more buying fever, which I think everybody has right now. I think that I think you’ll see, again you’re going to see it steam about the same as it is today over the next 12 months, right. I think anytime you’re in, you know, around an election, everybody’s a little cautious.

Josh: Sure. I agree with that.

Christian: Of course. But I really think we’re I think we’ve got another fort to eight months probably left of, you know, high appreciation. And then I don’t think we’re going to see the dip we saw. I think a lot of these things like that increased by the CFPB. You know,   are going to really and people leaving higher markets, like you said, New York, California, they don’t want to pay those taxes anymore. You know, well, we’re fortunate enough in Arizona we have an influx of buyers, you know, huge commerce going on here. So I think you’re going to see it, you know, probably a little bit of relief there. And, you know, they want to make homeowners, the people, they’re not afraid of the values dropping at this time. But in the same respect, you don’t want people to end up underwater, right. Because that’s when they’ll walk away from the house, right. So I think they are going to be cautious of that.

Christian: Got it. Christian:, how about for investors? Obviously as a retail lender, you can still work with investors, were building portfolios, make, you know, a certain number of loans. Help me understand what is some advice and some guidance that you give to retail investors who are buying and building rental portfolios, using the buy rehab, rent and then refi, right. Refinancing maybe out of private money or refinancing out of cash that they used to buy the property and acquire it.

Josh: What kind of things are you helping them do to get them set up, to get their financing, to make sure that they’re structured properly, to get their financing, they have enough liquidity to get their financing? Are there certain things that you want them to have in advance so that they know when they buy the property that they can successfully refi? They don’t get declined for their long term loans?

Christian: Yeah. So a couple of things that I’ll kind of coverage some of the issues we see in the marketplace first. Is when you’re buying that first investment home, third, investment home, 9th investment home, whatever it is. If you’re using hard money or you’re not using, you know, a retail lender, which a lot of people aren’t on that first home, right. They need a program without, you know, without some guidelines. They need a little bit more flexible program, right.

Josh: Properties need repairs. They need money for rehab. Exactly.

Christian: Yes, exactly. So you want to make sure that you borrow the correct amount of money, right first. We have a lot of people that come to us and their three quarters of the way through the remodel, the rehab. And we can’t loan on that property. We won’t get an appraisal on that property. We won’t be able to cash them out of that. At that point, they’re at a point they’ve got another they’ve got to go out and find another hard money lender to cure that first loan. And, you know, obviously, you know, finish that rehab. And when you’re paying, you know, 10, 12 percent, depending on what market you’re in, probably fifteen, 18 percent on the money, you’re held up for a few months, you’re eating up your profit.

Christian: So make sure you borrow right the first time. You’ve got a good contract, you’ve got a good estimate on those. And other things that we do is we really walk them through the process. Right. So we really view the property. We look at comps with them in the area. We say, okay, what’s this property going to be worth at the end? At the end are you’re going to want to pull cash out of this property. Are we going be rolling out cash out into another property. What are your long term goals with this?   

Christian: Rates are so phenomenal right now. If you’re an investor, you ought to look at that 15 year rate, right. Just think, is this something that you want to buy and hold. Let’s try and get you into a 15 year. You that home’s going to be paid for in 15 years and it’s full cash flow. Everything coming out minus repairs obviously will be cash flow. You want to make sure that, you know, you’ve got that the adequate amount of reserves, right, on an investor property. Depending on the program, you know, it can range. But I would say holding a year’s worth of reserves, mortgage reserves is a good safety net, right.

Christian: So we kind of got to look at the picture, look at what the goals are. If it’s a fix and flip property. We look at a totally different, right. We actually had people coming to us now quite interesting enough that they have bought properties for hotels and they assembled three residential properties are just doing a deal in Portland. I want to say they assembled three residential properties, got a commercial loan on it the first time. Well, now they came and all those properties are still rented. The property is taking much longer for them to get permits. Everybody’s backed up issuing permits, right. They’re going to be a hotel, a multi-family is on those.

Christian: So they came to us. They said, hey, we want you guys to refi these for us on residential properties. That makes way more sense with rates being at where they’re at. So there’s a lot of unique things that we’re able to do. I mean, I think in the past, somebody never thought, hey, we’d move from a commercial to a residential loan. So you got to look at all your kind of resources, right. And see what makes sense for the property.

Josh: Yeah, I agree. I love your comment about the 15 year mortgage. I talk to my audience and our students often about that. Because it’s really I call it the every man’s the every man’s way to millions, right. Because if you bought a property today and let’s say you bought it and you’re all into it for 70, 75 percent of its value, and you’re able to put a tenant in there and refinance it using long term financing and using a 15 year note. Fifteen years from now, that property’s completely paid off.

Josh: Well, let’s say you bought property today and then 15 years from now that one’s paid off and then you buy a property next year, just one. Well, 16 years from now, that property’s paid off. And then in the third year, another one. And then in the 17th year, that property is paid off. And then as you get into buying one property each year for the next fifteen years in a row, all on 15 year amortization schedules. Fifteen years from now, that first one is paid off, debt free and cash flowing with tons of equity, tons of profit, no mortgage and some appreciation, you know. Then in year 16 you got another one. So if you wanted to at that time, you could refi and pull cash out and live on the cash and it’s tax free.

Josh: Or you could just live off the cash flow that it’s generating. And you built your balance sheet. So there’s really no excuse. You know, Christian:, you deal with a lot of investors and people come up with all different kind of excuses. I want to buy a rental property. I want to build a portfolio. I need more retirement income. I need more cash flow. Well, I’ve never seen a better time than now to buy a property and rent it out and then refinance it long term. Now’s the perfect opportunity to build that retirement nest egg. So I’m sure you work with a lot of investors trying to accomplish that.   

Christian: Yeah. And one of the other things I’d like to add that’s so great about the 15 year loan and I know most investors, they don’t start looking at amortization schedules and everything. But the one thing to remember is when you buy a home, let’s say, on a 30 year low, right. You actually look at the amortization schedule, right. Your from day one you’re paying far more interest that you are on principal. So you made an interesting comment a moment ago, right. Where you said, you know, you have much more equity in the home. So let’s take that 30 year mortgage right from day one let’s say the mortgage is a $1,000 dollars, right? Probably $850.00 Is going to interest. And, you know, the other $150.00 is going to equity.

Christian: It’s a complete flip flop if you look at a 15 year amortization schedule, that same thousand dollar loan probably. And again, I’m just ballpark numbers, I don’t have a calculator, probably $500.00 or $600.00. But maybe even $700.00, is going to principal right off the bat. And the other part is going to the interest. So essentially the way and I always like to say this, you know, a 30 year mortgage, you’re kind of renting your home from the bank. Yeah, you’re going to have the upside of the appreciation. 15 year mortgage, you’ve got a renter in that home. That renter is literally building your equity for you. What’s better than that?

Josh: That’s fantastic.

Christian: and I know you guys work with technology a lot and, you know, helping people understand markets, evaluate markets, use technology to their advantage for lead generation, understanding markets, understanding residential investing. How are you successfully seeing your clients use technology to give a competitive advantage? Because we know it is very competitive out there right now.

Christian: Yeah, they’re using it numerous ways. One of the coolest ways that I’ve seen, you know, if you Google real estate purchase software, real estate software, right. There’s a bunch of companies that have come to market that have it’s basically software that will run an algorithm around the address that you’re looking for around the neighborhood that you’re looking for and really guide you in that purchase. Now, most of these software companies were multi-family purchase software companies before, right. But they’ve come to market with software and buyer programs that are meant for the smaller investor.

Christian: One unit, three units, five home investor, right. And I had a young guy that absolutely killed that picked up one hundred thousand dollars in equity in a neighborhood in Phoenix that I would not have touched. And he said he’s like, man, I owe it all to this software. So I don’t have one that I can obviously recommend. But that technology and those algorithms are the tools that the big banks have, private equity have, multi-family investors like yourself probably used before, right. That are now available to the smaller investor.

Christian: Take advantage of it for 40, 60, 80, 100 dollars a month, whatever they’re charging for. That’s probably the biggest untapped tool that I’ve seen out there right. You know, now for the home shopper. You know, you’ve got to be using some sort of CRM, right. Building your database. If you’re an investor out there looking to purchase residential homes or two plexus four plexus, start to use, obviously. And I think everybody’s almost using it CRM at this point.

Christian: But use those drip campaigns, use text messaging through it, right. Not only do you have a record of everything, but drip on all the people that you’ve spoken to regarding if you’re out there, door-knocking, enter them in the CRM when you leave, hey is it okay if I drop you a text message every once a month just to remind you, I’m here right? After a six, eight, 12 month period. You’ve stayed in front of that person through those automated drips, right. If you’re just running a list next to your desk or a CRM without using that automation, you’re kind of shorting yourself, right?

Christian: You’re starting to see properties trickle in and you may even find yourself in a wholesale position. Somebody may reach out to you. And, you know, you may or may not be the right time, but it may be able to agree to a price and do it through your investor podcast. You’ll remember to say, Hey, guys, I’ve got a home for sale and put p for $10,000, $20,000 grand. I mean, really make that automation work for you.

Josh: No doubt. No doubt. We’re big believer in software. I found that our software program years and years ago, it’s called Accelerated Industrial Office. AI Office. And it does all the things you’re talking about. Build Web sites, text messaging, automated voicemails, automated direct mail, you know, professional packets, CRM solution, drip campaigns. It’s great to hear you say that. And for those people that are interested in that, check out AcceleratedInvestorOffice.com. We’ll put it in the show notes as well.

Josh: So, Christian:, as we round third and head for home, a lot of our audience is entrepreneurs. They’re real estate entrepreneurs, obviously, but they’re entrepreneurs of all kinds. We’ve got guys who own e-commerce businesses, their in sales, and they invest in real estate on the side. So as you build your business of lending and gone through your entrepreneurial journey, what are some just tips, similar, some strategies to kind of keep it all together, some hacks, if you will, that just have allowed you to become successful in your own right as a lender and as an entrepreneur, whether it’s, you know, different ways that you manage your schedule, time management. We’re all struggling with so many different obligations and requirements of our time. What are some things that you’ve done to continue to kind of keep sane and be successful at the same time?

Christian: Yeah, I think one of the most important things is, is anytime being an entrepreneur and especially in entrepreneur and real estate is you’ve got to keep your emotions in check. And this is the thing something I don’t hear many other people talk about. You’re out there seeing an open house and there’s, you know, seven other people going through it at the time. And you can very easily get caught up in your emotions.

Christian: Oh, my God. This is going to be the best AirBNB ever property ever. I’m going to be netting, you know, 10K a month off this property and you get caught up in that. Next thing you know, you’re in a bidding war. You’re emotional about the property. And then on the flip side, right. You walk up to a house, doesn’t have much curb appeal. You think, oh, this place is junk right. Now take a step back, look at the numbers, look at your cost basis. Don’t get emotional about the property, right? What I would say is to is apply that to entrepreneurialism in general, right. It’s going to be bumpy. You know, don’t let the emotions take you up and take you down.

Christian: As far as strategies that I use. Every night I take a moment before I go to bed. One, I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night, wonder what my day is going to look like. I plan my day out. Now, obviously, you know, we can’t plan for everything that’s going to happen in our day, but I lay it out whether that means up at 4:30 to the gym at 5:00, you know, morning meetings. I lay it out. I also lay out my to do list what I need to get accomplished. Prioritize that the next day. Make sure that as I’m working through my day, that those things are top of mind, right.

Christian: And I’m wrapping up my day. I’m assessing how I’ve done productivity wise. Productivity is escalated like never before. I mean, you know, through with cell phones, to emails, through self emails on our cell phones, technology. We’re never really away from the workplace anymore, right. So you also got to find a piece of time. For me, that’s the gym in the morning. I’m not a gym rat, not a big buff guy. But that’s forty five minutes to an hour where I’m not with my cell phone my cell phones in my locker. I’ve cleared my head. And I’m able to do that because I’ve already set my day up the night before. I you know, I’m basically coming to battle with the right weapons at that point.

Josh: That’s right. I love it. I love it. It’s important, Christian:, because I’ve been preaching to our audience for years. That Sunday nights, for me is the most important day or time. Just one hour, two hours on Sunday nights. Because when I post and prioritize on Sunday night, I go through all my priorities and kind of just do a big brain dump of all the things that I want to get done, both in my personal life, my professional life, my family relationships, financing, you know, working with my family, just different things. I usually when I get all that down, get it all on paper, then put it into my calendar. I know what my priorities are. I schedule things out Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday the following week. I usually sleep really good on Sunday nights.

Josh: Some people dread getting up on Monday morning for me. Like I’m excited to get up and get to the gym or excited to get to volleyball practice on Monday nights. I can start my day early. Cut out early so I can go coach my kids, which I love to do with our club volleyball program. But it all starts with Sunday night. That all starts with posting and prioritizing. So love to hear you say remove the emotion from real estate, remove the emotion from your entrepreneurial journey. Then understand you can have really high highs, really low lows. You got to chop off the highs, chop off the low lows and stay in the middle, especially if you’re a leader, especially your CEO or your leading other people. You have a sales team because the more emotional you are, the more of a racket can be for all them because it filters all the way down to everybody else.

Josh: And then the second thing about posting and prioritizing is huge. Because I don’t know how people can possibly get up, Christian:, I don’t know about you, but I know how I can get up and you started with your day and have no clue what I’m about to do. LikeI’ve got to know the night before or the Sunday before what’s going on and what’s important. When I show up without a plan it can take me hours to really get in my groove. Like I could be all of a sudden it’s 11:00 o’clock and I’m like, what the hell have I been doing all morning? Versus when I post and prioritize the night before or the Sunday prior. And I’ve got everything laid out like I’m ready to roll. Drop my kids off at school 7:30 in the morning. I’m at the office and I’m rockin.

Josh: Versus the opposite, when I’m not prioritized up and I haven’t posted all my goals or posted all my to dos. I can be a mess until like after lunch and I’m still not sure. Then I get pissed off at myself because my whole day went to shit. You know how it is, man. The only difference is the posting and prioritizing and removing the emotions. So great, great advice there. I appreciate that a lot.

Josh: So Christian, as we kind of rant wrap up here. I know there’s going to be some of our listeners that want to do business with you, that want to reach out to you, whether it’s on social media, whether it’s borrowing from you guys at On Q Financial, reaching out to you to join venture on deals or get funding for their properties in their portfolio. What’s a great place for them to connect with you?

Christian: You know, I mean, LinkedIn. It’s J.

Christian: Olin. Obviously, Christian Olin Christian.Olin OLIN at On Q ON Q Financial.com is my email, my direct number is (480) 320-3095 that rings any and all devices I have. So any of those three methods, I mean please don’t hesitate to reach out even if it’s just with some simple questions.

Josh: Fantastic. Christian, thanks so much for joining us today on Accelerated Investor.

Christian: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

You’ve been listening to Josh Cantwell and the Accelerated Investor Podcast. Leave a comment on our iTunes channel and let us know what you want to learn next, or who you’d like Josh to interview. While you’re there, give us some five star rating and make sure to subscribe so you can be the first to hear new episodes. Follow Josh Cantwell and his companies, the Strategic Real Estate Coach and Freeland Ventures on all social media platforms now and stay up to date on new training and investment opportunities to start your journey toward the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. Apply for coaching at JoshCantwellCoaching.com 

When you’re in the trenches, chasing down leads, making offers, and putting together deals, it can be easy to forget about the bigger market forces. I talk with Christian Olin from OnQ Financial about his big picture view of the housing market. As a retail lender, Christian has some insights in how underwriting is impacting loans, what the interest rates mean for investors, and how the debt to income ratio is impacting loans.

Specializing in an area and really digging deep and getting to know that area can make a big difference in your real estate approach. A couple of streets over can change the price of a home by a few hundred thousand dollars. Christian suggests that you start knocking on doors and send mailers with pictures of your family to humanize yourself in front of the sellers. The key is to differentiate yourself from the huge hedge funds that are buying up tens of thousands of houses.

The question on everyone’s mind is: Are we at the top of the market? Christian shares his opinion on how loose the market is, and if we’re in subprime territory at all. Last time, in a lot of home sales, people bought homes with no income and no assets. Underwriting guidelines have loosened up some, and underwriting term times have been increased. But through the next election, everything looks solid.

I have a lot more confidence that this market is a lot less fake than 2006, and I talk about why that is. If you’ve bought the property right and you’ve got a cash-flowing tenant in there, it doesn’t matter if the market crashes. You’ve got an asset and it will definitely recover, so keep your eye on the future.

What’s Inside:

  • Why you’re actually making money when you buy a home, not when you sell it.
  • Why you should borrow the right amount the first time.
  • The historically low interest rates should cause more investors to look into the 15 year loan right now.
  • What the “Every Man’s Way to Millions” is.
  • Christian’s advice to BRRRR investors.

Mentioned in this episode​

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