Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Joey Abdullah, Market Leader with Movement Mortgage

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

Joey Abdullah is a proud graduate of the US Naval Academy and Johns Hopkins University with degrees in both Economics and Finance. He loves playing golf and skiing in his hometown of Denver, CO with his wife and two kiddos. Life is good!What he truly values:➡ RELATIONSHIPS MATTER➡ TRUST IS EARNED➡ ACCOUNTABILITY IS EVERYTHING➡ BUILDING/GROWTH IS MANDATORYLearn more:https://linktr.ee/joeyabdullah and https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeyabdullah/Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/elite-real-estate-leaders-podcastSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-joey-abdullah-market-leader-with-movement-mortgage

Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders Podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group, bringing you interviews with the best real estate and mortgage professionals, empowering you to understand the current trends in the housing market so that you make the American dream your reality. Enjoy today's episode. Welcome to the Elite Real Estate Leaders podcast. Today we have with us Joey Abdullah, who's a market leader with movement mortgage. Joey, welcome to the program. Hey, great to be here.

Thanks, Mike. Hey, excited to talk with you. Give us a little bit of your story and background and how did you get into the real estate industry here? Yeah, sure. So here in Denver, Colorado was originally from Los Angeles, where I was born and raised. Ended up joining the Navy right out of high school, 17 years old, headed out to boot camp and, you know, join the Navy to Navy see the world. So deployed a few times overseas. was in for quite a while, about 15 years total.

And like a lot of folks in our industry, real estate lending, just kind of had an attraction of sorts to this world. So, you know, have a background in finance and economics. So a lot more leaning on the lending side. So that's where I found myself working for about the last 11, 12 years. Yeah, you know, mortgages typically, is something where it used to be back in the day. You could be a plumber today and a mortgage lender tomorrow.

So they've changed that a whole lot with licensing and requirements and continuing ed. So was that with your background of finance, was that kind of what attracted you there, not only relationship building, but also just kind of like helping people clear up some of the confusion surrounding buying home, refinancing home? Oh, sure. So you asked the question. So I kind of kept it as brief as I have ever done right there when I just gave you that. Obviously, a lot more went into it than that, especially with leaving the service.

But, yeah, I've always had a knack for finance. Had kind of envisioned myself working in high finance, either New York, San Francisco, but come to realize that I'm much more of a handshake. Let's kind of have a street-level conversation with, you know, potential clients. And so kind of gravitated towards that, but still, the financial advisory side, but realize that what I really wanted to do was give advice. I don't really want to sell products like life insurance or, you know, whatever those folks end up doing for a career. As I unpacked that, I saw more that I wanted to give advice,

which I know that there's a market for that, but then I realized that there's a lack, typically as an industry on the lending and real estate side of being able to provide that advice. And so won't mention names, but one of our first houses that my wife and I bought had a pretty terrible time getting alone. Just a really rough process. And I know it now, but the scenario could not have been easier for this individual. But back then, you know, we delayed closing a couple times, super stressful. And I had just wished that I had been more educated on this process, you know, during the process. And so, you know, that's kind of how this came to be that I gravitated towards, you know, what if I'm going to be in this, you know, financial

world, so to speak, this is a better use of my, my excitement, my talent, you know, to give advice on this side. Yeah, especially when it comes first person, when you go, this could have been so much better or, man, I didn't know which end was up. And so now, you know, you kind of are then that doctor who has better bedside manner after they become the patient. You know, now you know how to teach and educate and be empathetic. and make sure that your borrowers are understanding every step of the process.

Totally. Yep. Hidding down the head. Awesome. So what are the types of scenarios and buyers that you're working with? It's not like mortgage lenders only work with buyers or only work with, you know, people wanting to fix up their home. So I'm sure it's a good mix, but do you find a sweet spot where you're serving a specific type of borrower, you know, like first-time homebuyers, that kind of thing? Sure. So, you know, I, I've always heard the, you know, the term of the riches are in the niches and you should niche down. And I think sometimes it's hard to do that because you feel like you're going to give up some business. But an extremely natural niche for me is veterans, you know, with VA loans. So I find that the sweet spot is really a veteran buying their first house. Again, I got into this because our first house was a little tumultuous. And so that's probably my best sweet spot. That's the bullseye on the target that I'm aiming for on that side. You know, one opportunity that I was able to do was, I forgot where I had heard this or read this,

but I had taken a couple hours one day and went on a whiteboard. And the opposite of that question, I tried to whiteboard out, who do I not want to work with? Or maybe not want to work with, but if I lose the deal, like they end up working with somebody else, I'm not going to go chase that business, right? I will chase the veterans, you know, I don't care if it's an army person. I was in the Navy, aside from some sibling rivalry, we're best friends. Yep, right, right. Yeah.

But I can realize what I was going to say, I can't realize what I'm not a fan of working with. And, you know, I won't go down and list every single type of those folks. But I identify my niche back, you know, I keep gravitating back towards the VA. So sorry. Yeah, not that you're going to, you're not going to turn. down helping it, you know, like if you helped a young military couple by the first home and they said, hey, my whatever friend or neighbor wants to, and you're not going to say, I will not help you unless you are, but it just tends, like you said, gravitate toward that. And it made me think

of a question. I may have heard this before, but what have you seen in the industry? There tends to be sometimes people who are in or recently out of the military that don't even know the full benefits of the VA mortgage loan program. So yes. I mean, I don't know how how to how to yell it at the top of a mountain louder that more people need to take advantage of this program. Yeah. You know,

we, we're not like, you know, but I feel like you probably would talk to, you know, a bunch of people and have a handful that go, I had no clue. And,

and I guess let's just kind of dive into that. And what are some of those? those big benefits that you, when you are working with a military family, couple, individual, help with them buy or refinance, what are some of the high-level benefits of the VA loan program? Sure. So I'd say one of the most unknown benefits of the program, especially for folks that, you know, the real estate side that don't work with too many veteran buyers or on the lending side that don't do too many VA loans, the guidelines are extremely vague and very, very, very open-ended with how to interpret them, which a lot of folks end up getting a little nervous

with because they end up thinking this is a tougher loan to put together when it's the opposite, right? Very flexible for the scenarios. It's built. If you think about the VA and active duty folks, it's built for the adaptability. If somebody stationed in San Diego and then three months later, they get a set of transfer orders to go to Hawaii, they can't say, oh, well, I was supposed to be in this house for 12 months and you know now I I did the loan wrong but it's a very very flexible in those terms and you know it's not built to be an empire builder you know I always say that it's a great way to get into your first couple homes and then be able to build a real estate you know portfolio it's not built for it but it's a great great start for a ton of folks

if they are educated sooner than later yeah that makes a lot of sense you seem like you have So much knowledge. My question is, can you share some insights on just the current state of the real estate market right now? And, you know, what's the impact on your industry and real estate industry in general? Sure. So not sure when somebody will be listening to this, if they're listening to it in the latter half of 2023, then rates are really high right now. I know that a lot of people are going to say that it's all relative. But, you know, there's expensive houses and high rates, right? that's never really happened before. We've had really high rates, double digits, but houses were much, much less expensive. So it's a tough market, right? Somebody buying their first house. I talk to a ton of folks, you know, pretty often.

And, you know, I see some of the payments that they come up on the screen. And, you know, I catch myself cringing a little bit, right? So the state of the market is most people in our industry have very similar feelings, right? But, you know, we've adapted as an industry. I think that, you know, there's opportunities for temporary. getting lower interest rates on your mortgage product that you choose. There's ways to shift around some of the costs that the sellers can help pay for some of those lower payments, the lower rates for a temporary standpoint until we see some more

stabilization with the economy with inflation. I mean, that's what's sensibly not causing it, but they trend along the same lines. When inflation sky rockets, it's what's happening on the mortgage side. as well. And so yeah, I mean, the state of the industry, it's tough out there. There's not enough homes on the market. A lot of people are locked in to their current mortgage. They feel that they're trapped. Like, well, I want to go downsize or buy a bigger house, but how can I give up this two or three percent that's in front of my rate and go trade that seven? So, you know, it's kind of a timing thing. It's going to be stressful, I think, for the coming up winter here. It does

23 into 24, but if somebody does want to buy owls, I hear a lot of my colleagues saying it, but 10 years from now, do you wish you would have bought it? You know, more than likely, yes. And so if there's a way to do it, then we'll work with a professional that they can help, you know, at least ease the burden of getting to a place or changing your home as well, if you're buying or selling or, you know, downsize and upsizing. I mean, life happens. And so I think just being able to to adapt and pivot. So are you completely agree. So are you seeing mostly people who need, who are having those life changes that are needing to make those changes right now?

Or just that there's not enough inventory? You know, I feel like there's waves, almost like a wave pool at a water park. It depends on which wave you're in. I think there's a leading wave, we'll call it, that's super excited about. buy their first house, if we stay on the buyer side, very excited, very, you know, ready to go. Then they start seeing some of the numbers. The rates keep going up. There's not enough houses.

The houses they want or that are available aren't what they want. And so that wave kind of hits first and it dissipates, right? And now the second wave is like, all right, well, they know what they're getting themselves into. And then, you know, third, fourth, fifth waves behind them. So we're seeing different waves. I think that it depends on somebody's stamina for like what the industry in the market's doing. It's kind of odd, but I feel the last few weeks I've been seeing a lot more on the folks that want to sell their house. Like, all right, you know what?

It is what it is. We're going to trade this rate, you know, for the next place. And that has become more important. Sure. I think that'll start coming in. You know, the rates, the rates are what the rates are. And like Tia just mentioned, you know, if you have a life event or a trigger or a need to do something, you got to do it. And then you just make the best decision for what the rates are right now. Maybe you can get some concessions and buy the rate down, all those little things that you can teach people on. But I think that it is all relative. And I think that that's what a lot of people hopefully now are seeing. It's like, okay, you know, we were we were in whatever rate environment for this long. Well, in six months from now or two years from now or however many months, rates are going to fluctuate. They always do. We know that. You said something that brought me to a strategy thought. You said something about building an empire. You know, well, the VA loan is great for the first house or two, but it's not really meant for building your empire. Not mentioning or getting into the weeds of the types of programs, but what does it look like for someone if you were helping them build that empire, maybe, you know, a checker, you know, jump over from one house to the next to the next, what does that look like?

like. Sure. So an easy scenario might be just to give a fictitious example of somebody and home prices are expensive, right? So I never want to just say things. I'm like, oh, well, that would be nice if it occurred here in Colorado. But there's always scenarios that these can exist. But a great scenario would be, you know, obviously you got to have the education, you

know, understand how this would work. But somebody that's active duty would be perfect. So once they have their first stable duty station, you know, a lot of times you go boot camp and then some of your training courses and classes and curriculums make you go to a few different bases. But once you kind of have your first permanent duty station, if you could possibly purchase a multiplex, so you lived in one of the units and had, you know, one, two, or three other units that you could rent out, this is the best scenario, right? And we've been able to help some folks in this scenario. And this is just the coolest scenario because now they were

able to purchase four doors with their first house, you know, to build this fictitious real estate empire. Does the VA loan allow for the zero down on a fourplex as an example? It sure does. It does. That's huge. It is, it is. Especially, you know, obviously there's the, like you said, not to get in the weeds,

how you qualify for that. But huge opportunity if somebody's able to do that. Then let's say they got stationed, you know, to another location. If enough equity got built up into that property and we've seen this happen time and time again, or then we can flip that loan out of a VA and into a more traditional conventional loan, and then now they can have their VA loan freed up to do this again. Right. And another good scenario would be by another multiplex at the next duty station.

And now you're able to acquire kind of a few different doors, and then as you bounce around some duty stations, you know, continue to evolve and build. and eventually, you know, eventually, you know, the ability to use the VA to do that scenario doesn't exist anymore. There's some parameters that they kind of block the ability to do that forever, but, you know, it's huge opportunity for... But at whatever point, then you've kind of got the bug of owning doors and having equity buildup and tax write-offs and cash flow from the renters and all of that. then you just get with a qualified mortgage loan professional like yourself and go, okay, you said I can't do this anymore because I've done it this many times. So now how can I accomplish the same thing? Oh, well, here's the loan. And here's. So the point is, it's the concept. You know, if you have a duplex or a triplex or a fourplex that you've, you know, kind of acquired here, here and here, all of a sudden now as you're moving around the country, now you've got massive amount of cash flow, tax deductibility, talk to your tax accountant.

equity build up. And, you know, maybe you even hire a local property management company just to go fix the toilet when it, when it leaks so that you don't have that headache. But I think that's something that a lot of people don't think about. You need a place to live. But what if you can have that place to live and it becomes that investment? That's a long term, you know, rich, dad, poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki concept right there. Totally. And then I might flip this over to you two. I got a couple of questions for you guys. where do you think you guys get to kind of watch from the sidelines, which is cool about the industry and what's happening and get to have the opportunity to talk to a lot of professionals on our side. But where do you see the future of our industry and the future could be a month from now?

I mean, a year from now, I have my take on where I think it's going and a couple things that I'll bring up. But where do you guys see this all going? You know, for me, I think what we just talked about is massive. And secondly, I've done a lot of, you know, research from talking to people on the short term rental concept where you're buying the property and you're not just going to rent it out to this couple for, you know, one, two, three, four years. You're doing the short term rental like the, you know, bed and breakfast, not the bed and breakfast, but, you know, like, like, anyway, short term rentals. And from what I hear, it is extremely lucrative. that way. So I think that's what I'm hearing. Because obviously you've got to go buy a house, and sell a house. And that's the traditional things. But if you wanted to get into investments, there's some creative ways to get into it without having to have massive amounts of money down. Tia, what are you hearing? I agree. I think short-term rental is obviously a hot topic right now. I was just kind of reading the Scotsman guide today talking about how new build sales are down quite a bit.

I think it was like 6%. But still up. 5% year over year. So while I see a lot of things coming down, you know, the state of the economy we were in, there was just heavy buying. So I would expect that we would be down at this point. You know, I would expect those numbers to be down and I don't think that's scary. But I do think that from a, I'm going to go from a tech standpoint and say that it's a lot of, and this is my space that I live in. So it's kind of why I'm probably promoting it. But content marketing. I see that most of the millennials are really aging into buying homes right now and that even our younger generations are getting a little bit more savvy with investing.

So I don't necessarily know what they're going to invest in, but I do feel like all of their information they're going to consume online. And that's kind of where everyone's going to need to live. And no matter what trend it is, they need someone like, Joey to go, look, here's the deal. Let me tell you this. Let me teach you this and customize solutions to present for their consideration, not push them into something and confuse the daylights out of them like you, you know, experienced and buying your first home, Joey.

I mean, that's, to me, I think that's like the huge, you know, flag and lying in the sand where it's like, this won't happen again under my watch. I'm going to. And then no matter what the trend is and whatever the hot, this and that, you're just teaching and helping. and then when you treat people like humans, not like another number, word gets around, and then they come to you and go,

hey, you help my friend, what can I do here? I think that's huge. So trends come and go. Totally. Correct. What's your take, Joey? Well, I mean, you guys both spot on. I mean, we're all, again, circling around the same senses of what the industry is doing.

I mean, within the industry, you know, so not for how we help, you know, folks that are, you know, using our services. But I think within our industry, what not enough people are talking about or not enough people are talking about appropriately, the future is in automations and leveraging data. You know, data is the new gold. And a lot of us, you know, we'll read an article about AI. I'll play with chat, GBT. But the issue is, and I think this is deeper, you know, probably more than this podcast can unpack here, but most people are really terrible delegators.

And so that's why chat CPT, for example, you know, is giving you really bad answers. You're interacting with it incorrectly. Yep. And I think that will become a more powerful tool for somebody to leverage the automations and the data. Our attention span in real estate mortgage insurance, I mean, unfortunately, it's about two to four weeks, right? If I go up to a real estate agent and say, I'd like to go buy a house and

2007, they can't pay attention to that. Right. And so I think the ability to leverage data, understand trends of like you were mentioning, you know, the age of, for some of home buyers, I mean, we're hitting that pinnacle of a lot of people are coming into that age group that they're ready, right? And just being able to keep up with that and watch the trends, understand data, understand how to use data. I always joke if I had a list of, you know, 10,000 sellers, for example,

and I gave that to a typical, you know, real estate company, what do they do with it? They would say, oh, well, I'll call them all, I'll email them all. But that's not really what you should be doing with that. You should be warming up the audiences, you know, educating them, having some automations in place. You know, so you can have a steady stream of business versus chasing a deal at a time. So technology and chat GPT and whatever else is going to come down the pike, right, is wonderful, but you got to know how to use it. And you got to have that human touch that, that way to integrate that data into what the, you know,

in our example here, the real estate buyers and sellers are needing. So there's never going to come a time where it's just, you know, you know, real estate botville, where you just go in and boom, I got my house. Nope, you need to have the humans that develop that relationship that use the technology that then bring you some great solutions. So I think that's the huge takeaway here. So trends are going to come and go. Rates are going to go up down and all around.

But you need someone with that human touch that cares about you and will help explain the process. So, Joey, that's exactly what we highlighted here today. I'll leave you guys with this one nugget, I guess, that I like to give to a lot of folks. You're exactly right. That, you know, whatever now do you want to use, people like to round third base. I have to get 90% of the way there. I can make up a statistic like a lot of people do, but a lot of folks do like to do their own research. They want to go and look at houses on Zillow, run mortgage calculations.

They do a lot of it themselves. We're here with the red pen to check their work. That's what they need and they want. And if we can present ourselves there when they're ready, then it's a gold mine. Love it. Joey, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you. I love your approach. love the way that you care for your people and keep your finger on the pulse of the industry

and trends. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Yeah. Thanks, guys. Thank you for listening to the Elite Real Estate Leaders podcast, brought to you by Trailstone Insurance Group. To learn more about the topics mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.org.org.com.