KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Real Estate Market Cycles, Stricter Due Diligence, and AI Listing Fraud

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Summary:In this episode, host James Brown and a panel of commercial and residential experts navigate fluctuating real estate cycles, shifting demographics, and tighter lending conditions . Real estate agents and investors will discover why rigorous due diligence—including background checks on syndication partners and verifying public record data—is critical to preventing investment fraud . The panel also addresses evolving tenant protection laws , the rising occurrence of social media rental scams , and the ethical disclosure concerns surrounding AI-doctored or virtually staged property photos .

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That's United States Real Estateinvestor.com slash advertising. Get ready to increase your brand awareness and your bottom line. Attract clients with content. Network. Hey, welcome to this month in real estate investing where we help you separate the noise from the news. Excuse me, geez. I'm your host James Brown.

In this episode, we will be breaking down a variety of real estate investing news items, including Dave Ramsey says real estate is not passive income, New York Titan Sparks, tax the rich firestorm, and AI home listing photos raise concerns. Don't forget, if you're watching on YouTube, you can share your thoughts and questions during the show. And if you are an investor looking to connect with an investor-focused agent in your market, or you are an investor-focused agent, you can apply to join our network at United States real estateinvestor.com slash agents. Okay, let's start the show. All right. Our guests today are Paul Anderson back for maybe the fourth, fifth time,

Caleb David and Natalie Levkovitz, Sirwitz. You'll have to correct me. In that order, Paul, why don't you introduce yourself and share your background, what types of investing you focus on? Absolutely. Well, thank you, James. Good to be back as always. You and Antonio are doing an amazing job. So my name's Paul Anderson. I am the founder of vertical funding capital, which is my commercial real estate lending brokerage. But my background in real estate goes back to my childhood when I started working for my dad in a century 21 brokerage about eight years old. So I've sold on the residential commercial side. I've done development.

I've done construction, done about everything you can do in residential, a lot of commercial asset management, asset disposition. And currently I've got some short-term rentals. I'm doing a little bit of land banking, and then I've got some commercial holdings that I'm hanging on to because they're cash flowing exceptionally well. And right now, cash flow is king. Fantastic.

Caleb. Well, thanks for having me, James. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on the show. And my name is Caleb, David, with David Commercial Real Estate, got about almost 15 years of experience in this industry. My background is actually, the nonprofit sector. So I've done a lot of work in community development, social justice.

So a lot of that lens, I take a lot of that lens into my investments as well as investing in my community and I've been a landlord myself, you know, but my main focus is brokerage here in Colorado on the front range all the way from Pueblo up to north of Denver and work alongside investors, developers, small businesses, and like to see the gammonie. of how each one of these sectors and each one of these groups of people affect the market and each other. Very good. Natalie. Thanks, James. It's a pleasure to be here with you, gentlemen. I'm Natalie Lefkowitz. I am the co-founder and CEO of Equally Crafted Management. We are a relocation management firm, and we come into

developments and projects during resindication. So we're really preserving existing housing stock. My background, I worked for an affordable housing developer for 10 years. I was the chief of staff, got a really great bird's eye view of how the world of development works and realized there's a huge gap in what we do, which is ensuring that we preserve the housing stock we have and keeping heads in beds. So really excited to be here. Fantastic. What market are you in, Natalie? We are currently in 14 different states, everywhere from California to New York, Colorado,

Minnesota, Boise, Florida, North Carolina, you name it. I mean, hope I'm probably there and just looking to continue to grow. But we work with developers across the entire country. Gotcha. Okay. Cool. All right. Thanks for being here, guys. Let's dive into the news from Islander News. Miami real estate market update March 2026. Sales rise for 7th straight month. Just a little, some stats here. So they climbed in Miami 10.6% for single family, and then condos rose 2.9%. And luxury properties increased 27% for ones above 5 million, which if you look at like Denver, we're about 1% above 5%. for a single family and condos are like negative five.

So that's just a little contrast there. Yeah. I wonder how much of that is the New York effect when you hear so many people are migrating from New York to Florida and more specifically Miami because 27% bump on luxury. Wow. Yeah, it did say international buyers were like the major

force of that, about half of the new construction. Wow. the new construction was international investors. But yeah, I mean, the New York effect is huge, right? It's gotta be a big part of that pie. Yeah, what is it, the billionaire, the billionaire compounding billionaire effect, a billionaires flocking to Florida from not just New York,

but other states. Yeah, definitely. That was my thought as well as that, you know, the wealthy are getting more wealthy and they can afford to pay higher and beat out other folks and pay cash. So I think that definitely does also have somewhat of a negative effect in the market down the line. I agree.

I'm actually born and raised in Miami. First 30 years of my life got to spend in Miami. I lived in South Miami. The wealth gap in Miami is insane because when you look at Miami, you look at, there's a lot of individuals that come from South America or Cuba, Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico that quite literally are under, you know, AMI in all aspects. And now my parents live in Surfside, which is right next door to Bell Harbor. And buildings there are selling out, but they're never occupied. So every time I go visit, I can give an example of a building in Surfside,

beautiful brand new construction. I believe it's $5 million for an apartment. And when I go there, maybe one or two apartments are occupied at a time. So they're purchasing these. properties but they're not actually residing in them. Which I think is really the interesting part is it's just somewhere to put your money essentially a holding. Yeah, it may be similar to like China. They've got these ghost cities, right? People have bought these properties, but there's no one there.

Right. Yeah. Similar to what we were talking about Las Vegas before the show. You have these massive communities going in, but they're not selling closing. There's no absorption, but the construction is continuing at a very robust. pays so yeah well let's go to the next article from money wise via Yahoo Finance Dave Ramsey sitting on 850 million in real estate and says anyone who calls a passive income is lying duh anybody that's in real estate knows that right no shocker he does admit though he's like you know

know there's there's different ways of doing it where it's less passive or you know awesome right yeah and I just find it a little bit hypocritical honestly you know and I know people who have worked for him in the past and it you know it's not a good work culture it's it's more of a do-what-I-say not what I do atmosphere and culture so you know and I think too I mean you get headlines because you say things that are clickbait you know it's it's the shock factor and it's like you know anybody that is a real estate investor of any type understands that there's expense that goes into it's not like you just plug and play that you've got to have the proper management and you know i think one way to avoid for it to have better

income i think it's semi-passive right um and having the right management you know and i come from a a commercial background. So, you know, he talks about rising expenses and things like that. But it makes me wonder, how much does he really know about commercial real estate? Because that's why you have triple net leases for your tenants where that gets passed through. So again, I think it's just him trying to sound like an expert when, you know, I think he's just trying to get some attention. Yeah, he's good at that. I always wonder what he's positioning for next because he's very smart.

But to your point, Caleb, it can be as passive or as active as you want it. to be you know but his people are used to live in on beans rice and rum and what's a little extra work right so yeah he uh well in the article was talking about uh reets crowdfunding uh joint ventures short-term rentals um that are more more hands off and something that came up just recently i got invited to a group here in colorado we're basically putting together a fund where there'll be 100 members. It'll be just focused on investor focused agents, residential agents like myself, where it gives us the opportunity to build a portfolio for ourselves. So we got 100 agents, an army of agents going out with some tools that we've built to go find

properties that will be in our own fund, you know. There's a lot of, especially newer agents that haven't accumulated a bunch of wealth and properties. It gives them this kind of fractional ownership opportunity where, I mean, as Caleb knows, living here in Colorado, our median prices are around 600,000. So if you got to put down 20, 25%, a lot of money to save up and put into one property for maybe negative cash flow in this this market for a while so this gives gives some opportunities to what I think there are you know there are a lot of people that can't jump right in

and do that right but there are so many other opportunities and funds out there and I think the biggest thing is is people need to be aware of who they're investing with understand their track record ask questions look for red flags you know if questions are being avoided You know, and I think it's important, you know, to have a small team around you, even if you don't have a lot of money, you know, have a CPA, have a tax expert, have an attorney, you know, that you can hire for when you need things to be reviewed because, you know, even if it's just $10,000 you're investing, you know, that could be all the savings you have. And I think you've got to have also understand who their broker is. What is their experience? Because, I mean, you've got you've got to start with the end in mind. What is your end goal? work your way back. And we have tools nowadays, you know, for better or for worse, research that you can do on AI about these investment groups and their history.

Look at Google reviews. Ask for referral, not referrals, but references and testimonials. Because I think you can very quickly and easily. I mean, I think especially for a brand new investor that wants to invest in real estate that doesn't know a whole lot, they just kind of, they're probably a little bit scared. And so they're just like, here, let me just throw my money at something and you know just believe whatever you're told and I think that's it's important to do due diligence I agree with you Caleb and we're seeing a lot more of that in our market because like you guys our housing prices are so overinflated so people can't you can't do single family investment right now and make it pencil so we've seen more syndications and more collaborative type things but I agree

with you do your due diligence bet the people and you know real estate has risk it's kind of like they say when you go to Vegas if you can't afford to lose it don't put it on the table so you have to be willing to risk the money but the best thing you can do is do your due diligence and I have a friend he built a chat bot that now goes and searches legal databases all throughout the United States so what he's doing his due diligence on somebody he's getting a ton of information before ever deeply engaging with them. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think some of, you know, you know, from a brokerage standpoint, you know, I've started to do my due diligence on the building owners themselves. Sure. Because you run into a situation and you find out later on, oh, this, this owner is a slum lord. Oh, this owner has been sued. You know, and there's certain things that, I mean, that is public record that I think we should really be paying attention to.

I mean, even simply going to the assessor site, you know, if there's a particular property or LLC, you can research the LLC on the Secretary of State's website. There's, you know, and do that research that and just start peeling back the layers, you know, don't think of investment as a silver bullet, but think of it more as an expedition. Great way to look at it. That advice is going to apply to some of these other articles. We're going to go over. Natalie, did you have anything to say on that one? I completely agree with what Caleb was saying is look at it holistically and think about what your end goal is. So if you're going residential, what are the tenant laws?

Who's going to manage your property? Because if you don't have somebody managing your property, your operations costs are going to go through the roof and you're not going to be able to sustain. So I think, as Caleb said, you need to know what are your end goals and what do you ultimately want? And is this the right network or is this the right area to purchase or acquire and acquire and acquisition for what your end goal is or maybe you need to look in a different network or in a different area to make it happen so yeah i it's i i think that too a lot of people want to go to these flashy cities right like the new yorks the miami's the la but what people need to start paying attention to is migration patterns and i'm sure natalie you you know about this more than i do

but with costs going up 27 percent for luxury properties well yeah you've got the trickle-down effect where other prices start going up and you're starting to see people migrate outside the major cities into secondary markets. And the negative thing about that is now these major cities are losing some workforce, right? So there's a lot of play, and I think it's important to understand and watch for those market trends. To that, most Californians or a lot of them are migrating to Texas. So now Texas is having a housing problem. So what they're doing, which I think is really interesting, is they're taking market rate

properties that are existing and they're converting them into affordable housing properties because they already have these existing properties and they're having an affordable housing crisis because so many individuals are coming from California where the taxes are through the roof. So it's not even necessarily a real estate, but they need to migrate. So yeah, I think looking into different areas and networks is really the move because eventually people are not going to be able to sustain living in these larger cities. Yeah. Let's go to the next article from Wavy,

News, Norfolk. I guess that's how you say that, right? Locals. Mother falls for apparent social media-based real estate scam. It was a rental listing on Marketplace, Facebook Marketplace. She was trying to get a rent-owned home. That's the world I live in. A lot of people are attracted to that, unfortunately can get scammed.

Anyway, she sent her rent and deposit payments through it says unofficial methods. I don't know what that was. Very specific. Yeah. Anyway. Well, I think this is an education, a public education thing. The reason why I started my podcast is to educate people in commercial real estate so they know what to look for.

And I think we're, that generation is very trusting. And I've had family members get scammed simply because they didn't take the time to ask a few questions. And I think there's got to be some regulation for these social media platforms. You know, for there to be rules, at least in the state of Colorado, if you're posting something on Craigslist or on Facebook Marketplace, there are standards and certain things that have to be listed on there. And I think people need to be paying attention to, again, just use AI, use Google to talk, to research, you know, these, these, these. places that you're sending your finances to you know look again look at reviews and I think it's so easy because there everyone's under a lot of pressure right now the economy sucks prices are up they're trying to find a savings wherever

they can and people are being reactive not proactive and I think it's a scary thing but I think that every state and every social media platform should hold every listing that is up there to a very high standard to that the bare minimum meet the states. You know, what is a real estate agent required to do on their listing? Well, it should be the exact same on social media platforms. And it should not be able to be published

without those checks of balances. Yeah, boy, that's a big job. Yeah. I know, so there's a big Facebook group here in Colorado, rent to own. And I was in conversation with the admin of that about taking it over. And I wanted to utilize that in my business.

And he ended up getting kicked out. I got throttled. Like I can't post in there. And it's just a flood of rent-to-own, rental-type posts. And they, the majority, I don't know, 90% of them are obviously not right. Like, you know, an apartment here is $1,600. And they'd be like, you know, $700 or something. It's like, that's not real.

That's a red flag. But it's just a stream of them. And I was going to go and clean them up, but I can't. But it's just going and going. And Facebook's not doing anything. So I'm sure there's people getting scammed left and right in there. Well, and I think to Caleb's point, everybody is struggling right now. The economy is performing poorly.

it's difficult. They're looking to save wherever they can, and I think they're not making the best decisions because they feel desperate, and they go in, you know, I mean, when I was reading through that article last night, I'm thinking cash app and Bitcoin, for me, I know that's not how I'm conducting business, but this is what I do every day, but for your average person who, that's probably how they do some stuff, they don't know the difference, and then they're out. And, you know, to, you know, Caleb's point, these social media platforms need to be flagging, this stuff, you know, at least putting, at least, you know, several sites can have a pop-up warning before conducting business. Please do your due diligence. Help better protect the consumer.

And put disclaimers on these posts, right? Make a forced disclaimer so the public knows that they're putting the information out there, but there's got to be, you've got to do additional. It's like buyer beware, right? And, you know, I don't know if this is something that has been coming up for on my listings, is I'll get an email from. So I'm saying, I want to buy this building. You know, let's schedule a Zoom call. Let's schedule a thing. I'm like, no, let me answer your questions for you.

This is a scam. So people who are listening, if someone is not going to talk to you on the phone, meet you at the property, you know, and show up and be transparent, then don't get on a Zoom call with someone. You know, there's some danger there. So it's a pattern. So now even scammers are coming to commercial listings. trying to find a way to scam you.

And I just let people know, I'm sorry. You know what? There's been a lot of scams recently around this. So I'm happy to answer your phone call or meet you at the property, you know, but be aware of people who are trying to get you on a call without giving you basic information to begin with. It might just not be the right time to own a home. And that sometimes is of its truth, too.

If you're not in the economical state to purchase a home where you're going to Facebook marketplace versus going to a realtor that's going to lead you in the right direction. And it just might not be the right time because owning a home is a big expense. Aside from paying your mortgage and the taxes, when something goes wrong, it's now your responsibility. So I think taking a step back and assessing and seeing this might just not be the right time and not making an irrational decision where you're sending a stranger and unbeknownst amount of money through. what who knows what platform, you know, versus saying if I'm not in the position where I can go to a bank or I can go to a realtor, I can go to a lender, an investor, then I probably shouldn't be purchasing this home. I agree. Great point.

Yeah. I've been working a bunch of short sales and pre-foreclosures here in Colorado. It is bumping up, seeing a lot more coming because of people that got put in positions where they shouldn't have. So, well, hey, guys, let's take a break. to learn about one of our partners. If you are serious about real estate and tired of guessing, you need to know about real expert talks.

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Go to Real Expert Talks and turn knowledge into momentum. Realexperttalks.com. All right. From Realtor.com, real estate investment gurus are sentenced to prison for $17 million Ponzi scheme. So to Oregon investors, Robert Christophe. Justinson and Anthony Maddock. They're promising high returns through Midwest investments, pressuring victims to use helox and retirement funds to invest. I guess they were concealing a bunch of stuff and routing money to personal gains. And then so Christensen received 63 months in prison and Maddoch received 33 months.

that's not nothing anyway not compared to the life stay ruined yeah yeah yeah I I think just it's it's like being a dead horse right but it is it's the do your due diligence yeah you know do your research on the investment group the people you know it's just if you dig it if there's not much you have to dig up you know not much time that it takes to find out if you need to be looking into this more. You know, we've got tools at our disposal and, you know, it's just heartbreaking, you know. And I think it's just this privileged mindset of, you know, I can get away with this, you know. And money does a lot of bad to a lot of people.

Well, unfortunately, when they get sentences like that, there's a likelihood they could probably repeat it again in the future. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's good time. They'll be out and, you know, it's like it never happened and we'll resume life as normal. And that's kind of what money buys you, right? Good lawyers and a less of ascendance.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And it's, again, if you're being pressured, you know, to get a he lock, you know, why is that? Ask that, like, why are they so pressurizing? Like, are they not in a place where they have enough investors that are willing to give money and not take it out against their own, their biggest asset? Sure.

Well, back to the due diligence. Talk to their account, talk to their attorney, talk to their professionals to represent them. You start asking probative questions like that and if they get weird, that's the answer you need right there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know like, I bought some apartment building. You know, we've raised capital and every partnered with different operators.

Not every operator is built the same. But when I've kind of landed on is solid. They're the largest owner of multifamily in the Phoenix market where they're from bigger than Black Rock, as an example. They're vertically integrated. They've got all sorts of, you know, great things that are working. One of the things that's part of the process is doing background checks on everybody that's involved. And the last one we did, somebody got flagged and cost us money to get them out of the partnership.

But at least, you know, we're all good like, oh, okay, there's that that person came out in that due diligence, you know. It worked. It worked. Yes. It was worth the time and money to do that. Yeah, go ahead, Kaylee. And I think potential investors need to be also looking at the background of the agent that the investor is working with. Go to the Dora website, put in their name.

You can look and see within seconds, you know, if there's been any files, you know, suits against them. Have they ever had their license suspended? You know, that's one other place that you can look to try and figure out if the deal is right for you. Yeah, and I'm sure AI could help. Yeah. Like if you were like, wait, Dora, you didn't even know what that was. Yeah, I'd be like, oops, I found where at least it can point you in the right direction and you'll find that info, right? Yeah.

Well, and we can all do more to share those resources and put it out there with all the channels we have to better help the consumer. Yeah. Like this channel. Yes. Yes. Right. All right, cool. Let's go to the next article.

from the Guardian. New York real estate Titan likens the phrase tax the rich to racial slurs. Steve Roth, CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, compared the phrase tax the rich to hateful racial slurs during his company's quarter of the earnings call. And it was also criticizing New York City Mayor Zoran Mandani over proposed tax on second homes valued above $5 million. dramatic much I mean come on I mean this is absolutely ridiculous I mean I think we've got to start looking because I think we look at cities like Miami and New York as the playground the rich and the famous right but what about the people that live there you know and and if the leadership is doing doing something to make the lives of everyone better I remember when I first got my my first you know, bumped in the higher tax bracket. Instead of whining about it, I'm like, how grateful can I be that I'm in this position that, you know, it's a position of privilege, you know? So I don't know.

I am just coming from a social justice nonprofit background. I just find it ironic when the billionaires start, you know, acting like the victims, you know, it's just, it's absolutely preposterous to me. Well, but to even your earlier comment, Caleb, it's more clickbait, more headlines, and it'll probably generate business for him because now I'll campaign against this, I'll position this side of the argument, and I'll get my views up. I mean, everybody's out trying to figure out how to make themselves look bigger. Yeah.

You know, yeah. But I do think there is a balance there because then all of a sudden you have these things and a good portion of the wealth, which helps support the tax base, they all go to Florida. Yeah. So in that the, I think the impact for the average citizen there depends on services and needs help. When you lose that much tax revenue, I think it also has a very adverse effect as well. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's, it's, it's, there's, it's not a black and white answer, right? And I think we're, we're so polarized as a nation right now that this, these are the things that that are dividing us even more. And it's like, all right, let's, again, let's do our own research. Let's find, you know, and this is hard work, right, finding that balance between affordable housing and, you know, responsible commercial development. Like, there's got to be communication and overlap, you know, to where it's not serving one side or the other. I noticed in here it was talking about Mom Donnie publicly highlighting a $238 million penthouse owned by Ken Griffin. that sounds like all building but

it seems like we've talked about I think Ken Griffin owns a bunch of real estate in Miami as well so maybe he owns I need it immediately like immediately well and he's doing a billion dollar development in New York right now as well so that was the one where I went

and shot the campaign commercial right outside of his penthouse again great clickbait and it gets his base riled up it's going to generate boats probably get people out to vote who may not. So anger, fear, frustration, those are great motivators. True, true. Yeah.

Let's hop to the next one from Fox 13, Tampa Bay. AI generated home listings, raised concerns about misleading real estate photos. That's a thing. It's amazing what AI could do. right yeah but Facebook listing right right that's exactly how similar to the Facebook listing I mean it's easy for them now to kind of make an imagination of what they wanted to look like and sell it to the consumer because I mean I'm raising a teenager I personally think that we're not teaching people how to use the internet

these days so they're just typing and they're believing and they don't know how to do the research to kind of weed out what's real what's not real and And everybody knows that consumers are falling into this. So why not? They're monopolizing off of it because they're able to. So they just use the platforms and build out a dream for people and they eat it and they buy it. And it's really easy for them.

It's a no-brainer. I mean, you see these AI videos on social media and you can't defer whether it's real or not. I mean, people see AI videos of themselves and they don't know if they're real or not. So how do we expect the consumer to see pictures and then know whether that's a real photo or not? And James, you might know this better than I because the real estate commission is a little bit more strict on residential. But, you know, in my understanding is that in the state of Colorado, you cannot, they're very, very picky.

Like your boards of real estate, you know, are very picky. Like if something even looks too perfect or like it might be AI, they flag it. and almost regulated to the point where it's frustrating to agents from my experience that I've talked with other residential agents. But, you know, I mean, I don't believe that AI photos should be allowed. Yeah. Well, what they're doing is like making it so that you have to put some kind of a stamp on there saying, hey, this is AI generated and or in some MLSs, you have to have both the original and the doctored one up. you know the gray area and it's amazing a professional photographer with some good lighting or maybe not as good lighting white angle i can make a property look really good then you show up you're

like ah so there's always been that right but now with AI yeah i mean you could put in a whole new lawn and that kind of stuff so like virtual staging does that too though yeah exactly it's It's the same thing. You take a room and you start putting all this furniture and shower curtain and it just looks completely different. You walk in and you don't think that it's the same exact thing. So virtual staging was like pre-AI of our industry. Yeah.

Yeah. And then it affects the stagers, right? It affects their businesses. Right. Exactly. Yeah. True. I am a believer in staging.

And there's data to show that it really does help when you walk in. and you see a place with furniture, actual furniture. And then you're not getting that bait and switch feeling either. Because it's better not to even virtually stage, I think, if you're not going to have furniture. And I think, too, like, if an agent is taking the shortcut with AI photos and virtual staging, like, what does that say about the agent? You know, we're going to take shortcuts. And that's not someone you want representing you, in my opinion.

Yeah. Well, today with your iPhone, you can do so much because I'd listen to the agents complain. You know, our average package went from about $350 to $900 for a three-bedroom, two-bath, single family home to have it professionally photographed. So I understand part of their pain point, but you've got to go walk that property and there's enough out there. But I agree with you. I think AI skews everything and it needs to be fully disclosed. And again, that goes back to kind of a buyer beware and a due diligence thing. So if I'm their agent, I'm going to go take real pictures of the home before they ever do anything and show them, hey, this is, here's what it's going to look like when you get here. Yeah.

So, agreed. Well, let's take a break and hear from our next partner. Are you looking to elevate your business through exceptional content? Universe Media Publishing is your gateway to success. We understand that in the world of business, content is king. But not just any content. Your business deserves content that captivates, convinces. and converts your audience into clients.

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Be heard. and make an impact. Connect with us at Universe Media Publishing and let's turn your vision into reality. Visit Universemediapublishing.com today. Your story, our expertise. Together will create magic. Okie dope from AP News. Ex-Brooklyn judge accused of swindling real estate investors out of millions of dollars. Judge Edward Harold King and another guy, I call him Sam, tough name to pronounce. amounts. So this judge was using his position to convince investors to place $6.5 million into an escrow account tied to a fake commercial property that was in New Jersey. So apparently immediately, even though they said this money was going into an escrow account, a bunch of money got transferred into this other guy's account right away. And then. used it for whatever. And then says authority said only 1.5 million was later returned, leaving millions missing.

So, yeah. And the judge had to resign for misconduct. Yeah. It sounded like he was already on his way out or something because he was under investigation before, right? And then this kind of came up. It's kind of sad because you normally, if you would think of a judge, you would think of somebody who's outstanding, trustworthy, and understands the rule of the law, but that's probably the perfect person to manipulate this too.

Well, and I think people now are like, what is rule of law? You know, how much trust do we have in the people in leadership? And the judges are politicians across the board, you know? and I guess to me I feel like if something like this is happening there they're in someone is in that position of authority there should be additional oversight to make sure you know additional checks and balances you know because I mean it's it's it's violation of a person in a position of trust right like you're violating the trust of the general public not to not to mention the individuals who are taking advantage of Yeah, this one would be a good one to follow up and coming as this, as this works its way through the system and see what the ultimate outcome would be. Yeah. So, but I do, I see that point, Caleb. It's like there should almost be almost like an enhanced sentencing if you, you know, a person who's an elected official abuses abuses the public's trust.

Yeah. But most likely he'll get a lighter sentence because he was in the system. Yep. So it's a broken system. A lot of flaws in it. Yeah. But that's what allows us to do this show. We need people like them.

Yeah. Yeah, it seems like there's no like third party organization that's going to be handling that money is just kind of you put your trust in that general partner or whoever's running that. Yeah. If there's not a title company in. involved, you know, that is regulated, you know, it's like, oh. Yeah. And I think, too, you know, if you're going to be investing in some in a property or with a group, I think people don't realize that there's operating statements then, and like how things

are going to be broken down, how things are going to be handled. It sounds really boring. But if you're going to be putting money in, I would ask for the investor for their operating statements. So you can understand the fine print. And again, going back to AI, it's not. not the end all, but copy and paste that stuff in there and ask some questions, you know, and see if there's any red flags.

But again, you know, it's, again, it's the due diligence piece. Yeah. And you know to verify their financials that they provide you. And I mean, it's your money. You have to decide how much you want to protect it and how hard you want to protect it. Yep. And if they're just taking your money and they're not giving you a contract design that spells out the details, that's a problem.

That's a, yeah, that's a non-charitable donation. Yeah. Right. You said in a much nicer way than I was going to, what I was going to say, ask for a receipt. Yep. Make money somewhere. Where are your receipts, right? You need that documentation.

I want to know where my money is. I want to know what's happening with it. Where is it located? Ask for receipts. So that's what it comes down. Get those quarterly updates, right? Make sure that there is reporting and accountability more than, more than once a year. Well, and sometimes you see these scams because we've had them here over the years.

They're very sophisticated. They have parties everywhere from title and escrow and attorneys and appraisers. I mean, we had one two decades ago, and they had everything totally encompassed everybody on the same page, pulling the same direction, and it was a massive Ponzi scheme. And it had also probably gone on for almost 20 plus years, and they built a reputation. So they were, you know, there's like everything, until the money finally. stopped in 2007 they were fine because they could keep accessing capital and they could keep the chairs moving but then the music stopped the money stopped and they got found out but then as

they went through it everybody was involved in it i mean so they put together these very sophisticated well-oiled machines that come in and think how could you not have your stuff together because everything looks great so they're not operating out of the back of their trunk or in basement. They've got a storefront. They're sophisticated. In some case, they're a judge. People are like, wow, you're a judge. I can trust you. Yeah. Maybe they'll make an example

out of him. Well, instead of giving him some leniency, yeah, like you said, it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out. Yeah. All right, let's go to our next one from AP News. Former Seattle area real estate broker sentence to prison for fraud on investors and the IRS. You don't tangle with the IRS.

That's the one that'll get you. Tamara King, another king, also known as Tamara Wallen, was sentenced to 55 months in prison after being convicted of 14 federal felonies tied to $2.4 million in fraud. Well, and I think a piece of the puzzle here that we don't often think about is, yes, you don't want to mess with the IRS, but they're also severely understaffed. Yeah. You know, I think people who are taking advantage of the system knowing that there's a

small chance that they would be caught just because there's not the manpower for everyone that is suspicious to be investigated. I was saying in here. Calmer to that, I would say there are just people who are bad-minded people. They're wired that way, and regardless of what's going on, they're going to try it anyway. But there, yeah, there's an advantage to doing it when they're so overwhelmed and their staff's depleted. But I think those people are going to do it regardless. Yeah.

I'll say, and she's been a bunch of money on luxury purchases, including a customized Tesla, jewelry, personal expenses, and unpaid tax debts. Yeah. Oh, boy. Sometimes when you're in control of somebody's money, It's just people can't control themselves, right? It's just there. You know, it just makes you about the movie dumb and dumber, you know, where it's just like,

there you go, there you go, you know, we don't bought, you know, Ferrari. And, you know, it's just like, and I think it's just a, it's a caricature, right, of what happens in real life. It's like once you go from, you know, trying to start a worm store, you know, and then all of a sudden, yeah, you have access to all this money. like it does weird things to the psyche well and how many times you see a non-profit that comes up has a result it's a reactive nonprofit based on something that's occurred and then a year or two later they had to that nonprofit has luxury properties all over and they're living this lavish

lifestyle and you're like where the hell's the money going and where was the oversight and that's a whole other podcast I think that's a mini-serie nonprofit sector and in churches and the misuse of funds, yeah. That's a mini series of a counseling session. This remind me, like, being involved in syndications, like I have, there's a lot of moving parts and different operators and finding, you know, as an investor, a passive investor, you've got to find an operator that knows what they're doing.

So, especially in recent, I don't know, let's call it in my world, say the last five years, lots of gurus teaching how to do syndications and just people popping up trying to put these things together and with no track record. Yeah. You know, and so as an example, like I'm doing a raise with with my partners, the ones I mentioned before, that do have a long track record. I know they've done multiple properties over multiple years and dealt with increases in interest rates which have pinched a bunch of these newbie investors that got in got a low interest rate and then they've got a refinance in five to seven years typically

on commercial right and then the interest rates double and then the deals toast so like we're looking at one particular property in the Phoenix Metro that we're going to get a huge discount on it from one of these operators that just didn't know what they were doing. So maybe look at that track record. Yeah. Well, no, I think we're definitely seeing in the market a lot of commercial owners panicking. You know, they have been for the last two years. You know, so we're seeing an increase in property exchanges because a lot of people are instead of going to refinance because now all of a sudden their investment doesn't.

pencil, they're now in the red, you know, they're now selling their properties, getting out of those and reinvesting elsewhere. So I would definitely say for me and my experience since December of last year, that's when people have started disposing a property. Yeah. Everyone wants to make the deal work so bad that sometimes even when it might pencil, but there's no contingency, nothing can go wrong, we're still going to go get the deal. And they go for it knowing something always goes wrong. You know where you're gonna be in a few years from now where like I said, I was a chief of staff

and a development firm. You have these young developers that get a few years of experience. They have a really big ego. They wanna leave the firm, I can acquire a property. I know what I'm doing. A few years later, you see them and they're consulting for other folks because they can't sustain, right?

Realistically, they can't. And that's what I see it happening all the time. And it's sad to say, I mean, they're great consultants, But you need to do, we keep saying the word of the day is due diligence, but like James said, work with a group that you know is vetted, knows what they're doing, knows, you know, how to operate and how to execute and can deal with refinancing and making the deal work again. Yeah, and making sure those people have gone through market cycles, right? Like, you know, we typically see market cycles about every 14 years or so, right? So, you know, not that I'm saying don't work with a newer, you know, investment group, but have they considered historical market cycles, you know? And, you know, we kind of just are coming through on that 14-year cycle from 2008, you know,

or just a few years ago did. So, you know, understanding that, again, the market trends and how much experience do they have because, you know, like you said, the younger generation, they're all, all they see if they got in the market and things were amazing, you know they've not been through a down cycle so i i don't trust anybody a broker or anybody else that has not been through the hard hard times yeah if you can perform in an adverse market to me that's the true test you know to your point everybody who got into the business in 18 and 19 and crushed it from 18 to 19 to 21 that was not a normal market um and then all of a

sudden we didn't hit the brakes we hit a wall and now all of a sudden they're concerned their consultants, their coaches, they're doing anything but the business that they can't do during the top times. And so I agree. I think there's that track record and being a little battle tested from dealing with adverse markets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was in a group for a while where we would have different operators, syndicators, general partners, come in and pitch their latest deals. and we wouldn't even talk to them. We wouldn't let them even come in unless they'd gone through at least three deals full cycle, where it was either sold or refinanced

without having to sell off or do a major capital call or something like that. Right. Like, yeah. Like, in matter how smart they are until you've been in the trenches and gone full cycle. Yeah, and it's hard right now in lending because banks, nobody wants to be.

Nobody wants multifamily. You know, we can't finance it. Office space. I get a lot of referrals from banks because, you know, they were in that COVID money like Caleb was saying. So that five-year window is up. Now we're coming up on the seven-year maturities and the banks don't want it back on their books. And then it doesn't pencil. Yeah.

And so it's going to create some great opportunities, but it's going to create a lot of heartburn for owners and owner operators over the next several months. I mean, it's 100% true. I mean, I'm dealing with that right now. The amount of creative funding I'm having to try to find for clients right now is, I mean, never have I seen it be this difficult before in almost 15 years. And, you know, and we're seeing a lot more seller financing. Like, I mean, I'm, I'm on my second seller finance deal right now, you know, because the sellers are, you know, these owners are at, they're in their early 70s, mid 70s, and they're just like,

you know, they've moved to Arizona or they moved somewhere else. And they're tired of being a property manager. So, you know, we're not, like this is a class A office asset that is selling way below market. But the buyers who are very well qualified, they're also new, but they don't have, you know, two years worth of tax returns yet. So, so our only solution to create a win-win there,

you know, after the deal died like three times is seller financing, you know, with the proper legal documentation. But, yeah, I mean, I would just, I would second that, that it's getting harder and harder to find traditional lending, even on projects that are, you know. Great projects. Great projects. Yeah.

Yeah. We, a lot of, because typically we'll look to bank first and then we'll go different sources, be it private life code, whatever it is. And the banks just don't want it. You know, now as a result of COVID, you know, eight, ten years ago, we could finance a class A office building. We didn't have to go out to the owner and any of their tenants and do a workplace survey of, hey, how many your people work hybrid?

How many work remote? They have the ability to work remote because they started seeing all the defaults during COVID. And now you're having to send this to an owner who's tenantized their building, and you've got a bunch of people not wanting to come back and tell them how they're set up. And banks are like, we need more surety than that. Or they're going to have to, you know, or they're going to have to open massive deposit accounts and all those things. So yeah, it's been a boon for the private side, but yeah, the banks, they've made it really difficult for even very well-qualified borrowers on great properties.

Again, it goes back to your market and the laws and ruled in regulation. So here in D.C. banks don't want to touch Washington, D.C. at all because the tenant laws are just so friendly and nobody pays rent here since COVID. It's like something happened during COVID and D.C. doesn't enforce it. The court system is terrible for landlords. I mean, I've seen a lot of my colleagues on the DC courts advocating and fighting that as developers, there will be no new developments in Washington, D.C. The banks do not want to come here. And it's a huge problem for us here in the district.

That is problematic. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that brings a great point, Natalie, is understanding if you're investing in a commercial property or even residential, what are the tenant laws and what are, you know, you need to understand the, risk, you know. And again, it goes back to there's got to be a balance between, you know, rights for both. But, but yeah, I think that that is a huge thing that people do overlook, Natalie, is, you know, what are those, you know, there's some exposure there.

Well, did you mention a couple of years ago on the podcast, you had some properties where you were dealing with squatters rights issues. Was that one of yours? One of mine? Yeah, I thought in Baltimore or something like that, you had had some issues with squatters' rights. And where I've heard it can be like 18 to 24 months to evict a squatter. Wow. Yeah, not us. But I mean, Colorado laws have gotten way more tenant friendly.

I just paid my attorney a bunch of money to update it to make sure my docs were updated. But yeah. I think to Natalie's point, local politics can affect your. investment a lot more than you know if you don't research it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as laws change, you know, reviewing the investors should be reviewing their leases to see what needs to be adjusted. Yeah. Whatever money you pay that attorney is going to be well worth it. Get ahead of it. 100%. They don't cost you money. They save you money in heartache. Exactly. And having the right management company does as well. Yeah. Because you need to have a property management

company that is active and collecting and or enforcing or evicting, you know, really following up with the steps because it accumulates rapidly. And I've seen rents. I've helped developers and landlords on projects where folks owe $64,000 in rent. I mean, like it's a completely normal thing and you can't get them out and it's hard to kick them out. We've had to almost at some point not bribe, but offer a financial incentive to just leave because it's, more economical for the landlord to pay them to please conveniently leave and will not even take you to court on your entire $64,000 in delinquencies. We just want our unit vacant so we can rent it's somebody that will pay rent. Yeah. And if they're that far behind, they can't afford an attorney, you know, so the landlord's going to end up paying for it.

You're right. Yeah. Stop the bleeding. We actually look for, one of the things we look for is the management of a property and under, under managed, poorly properties there's a lot of value at potential and those are things we look for in our acquisition strategy yep yeah that's that's huge yeah you know I've tried self-managing and our rent to own is usually not a big deal but regular renters and I'm in the co-living space too running by the room that's even more people to you know the affordable space to tend to stop you rents my house he's a property manager. Yeah.

I'm not dealing with her. I'm like that too you talk to, not dad. Yeah. And like Natalie, like talking about a good manager, any manager besides yourself, but a good manager is worth their weight in gold.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Just text that to Dave Ramsey, James. That'd be great. Yeah. I think I got a number in my phone. No.

And I think too nowadays, there's a lot of, I've had a few people on my podcast that are leveraging technology and property management that makes it a lot more efficient. You know, so there are tools out there that will help the property managers be more efficient and actually potentially lower costs. Yeah. And have an eviction attorney on speed dial, which is tough. I've been trying to find somebody in Denver that will actually answer the phone. or call back, they're busy. It also sounds like a very miserable job.

It's like being an insurance claim adjuster in my mind. I'm being a divorce attorney. Yeah. I know with our brokerage, with EXP, and we cannot wholesale, at least assignments, and we cannot manage other people's properties. And I get it now. There's a reason.

Yeah. Yeah, it's litigious. Just stay out of that. Let somebody else that is a professional that has experience and the systems to do it. Just have them do it. Help save you from yourself. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. And when you're doing your underwriting, put that 8, 10% or whatever in there. Yeah. Like don't, but in your performance? Even if you plan on self-managing, at least put that number in there. It's a better cash flow because, you know, you know. You may be like me and be like I'm done You'll spend more on that in cocktails and counseling than you will on property

Yeah, well let's go to our next article Attorney General Bonta secures major settlement with predatory real estate company mv Realty delivering relief to nearly 1,500 homeowners So a little background so this this real estate company had in their contract that when somebody went to go and sell down the road, they had to use their listing agent up to 40 years. They had them under contract. I've heard of these kinds of deals.

It always comes up. Somebody's going to get mad even though they're under contract. Yeah. That's one hell of the clawback period. Man, yeah. I get it as an agent. I mean, I think if I could relish that. I guess if you're going to ask, ask big, why not?

So, wow. Yeah. That's, yeah. I mean, that, I agree for that, but, you know, what's that? The 40 years is great for them, you know, it was great ask. Go bigger, go home. Yeah. Job security.

Yeah, exactly. Job security for their lives. Yeah. On the opposite means, it's terrible. I know that's pretty common with property management companies to have something in there, like first writer refusal to live. I've heard of that. I don't know if it's as heavy handed as 40 years or whatever, and how enforceable that really is.

Obviously, this was not enforceable because now they... They're going to court next month. Yeah, executives are barred from conducting licensed real estate business in California for five years and must pay $1.2 million in penalties. Yeah. It's a good slap on the wrist. I wonder how many years it had been going on. I wish it would have added that for some context of when did this start. Yeah.

I mean, obviously long enough to get a civil settlement, but... Yeah. this would be one I'd be interested in following as well because it's very very interesting I'd be interested to see what the principals who got barred from doing licensed activities start doing now kind of like well after the banking meltdown so you can't be in the mortgage business but you can go you can go to work for a bank because their FDIC charter allows you to work there but you can't work as a non-bank licensed originator or things of that nature that we used to see so

Interesting. Write a book, call it a tour, speaking to her. Yeah. All right, cool. It's time for a fun news item. From Gizmodo, majority of Americans support ban on surveillance pricing and electronic shelf labels. You think? So my question, electronic shelf labels.

electronic shelf labels that doesn't seem like it just I'm assuming that all that is it's just putting the price on there digitally instead of paper or is what is it I was kind of wondering to you it's it's kind of like if you've ever used Uber certain times of the day the rate goes up so it's like it's like flex pricing so now you've started to see that in the grocery store and in retail outlet so they have these digital price meters on there but the price can vary and fluctuate the day. That's insane. Oh, okay. That's right on some stuff. So Doritos at midnight on a Saturday are going to go up or right. Right. Just blow into this little meter here and we're going to find out

how much you'll pay. Yeah. Right. Interesting. Okay. That's that's a I mean, I mean, great for the retailer, right? I mean, props on you for figuring out you can take advantage of people, but, you know, is, is that ethical? I think not. Yeah. I mean, retailers are always trying to figure out the, you know, tweak that stuff. Real time pricing on Doritos. So. Yeah, that's interesting.

Well, I mean, it always goes back to supply and demand, right? Right. So if one, if a Doritos are double at midnight somewhere and the other places like, yeah, we're not doing that. The bars get out in half an hour and I got four bags of Doritos. I'm living the good life. It would be smart if the retailer advertised it as like a rollback. So like Walmart made their whole campaign as like we roll back prices and they had that big blue sign and you saw the number go down. So I think from an advertising perspective, it would be smarter for them to advertise it as we constantly lower our prices.

But in reality, COVID happens and masks go back up to $10 a mask. and you can't find them or COVID tests at $30 a test, and that's their opportunity for the inflation part. But I think if I was the retailer, I would want to advertise it as a rollback scenario or a savings. A bo-go, buy one, get one, right? Those are the things that bring people into stores.

Our two major grocers in Idaho do that all the time. It was $5 on Thursday. It's $12 on Saturday, but you get one free. Everybody's like, got it deal. We can't math. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah, it's amazing that consumers would push back on that.

Again, you think? Yeah, I think there just has to be that, you know, for sure, at least the transparency. Because I've even started seeing, you know, in stores where they don't have the price on there anymore. It's just a barcode, you know? And so, I mean, to me, that's just crazy. So people are blindly gathering, and then they get up to the, figure once you get up to the checkout you don't want to be embarrassed to be like oh i'm putting this back right i mean you're leveraging on people's shame but you in a gotcha moment yeah interesting

yeah what's next flex pricing on houses we got it's that way in miami it sounds like right now we're we're seeing that here we're getting a lot of offers over asking so we're and it's not even multiple It's people who have lost out and said, you know what, we're going to put our absolute best foot forward and we're not going to risk it. I mean, I'm seeing some offers 10, 12% over list. And I'm like, wow. Yeah. But it's also not local people because our incomes don't support that.

Right. Right. Crazy. Yeah. But. Well, that covers the news portion of the show. I'd like to thank our sponsors, United States Real Estate Investor Advertising, Real Expert Talks, and Universe Media Publishing. Of course, thanks to our guests, Paul Anderson, Caleb David and Natalie Lefkowitz. Why don't you guys let people know how they can connect with you, and we'll just start with Paul again.

Sure. I'm pretty easy. If you go to verticalfunding capital.com or seeing how I've been in Idaho forever, Boise Lender, you do anything Boise Lender. It'll take you to one of my socials. Love talking real estate investment. You know, if it sits on in and around dirt and there's money to be made in, we like to talk to people.

Fantastic. Caleb. So I can be found on the social. The best way to find me is on at Caleb David at Instagram. And I'm also on LinkedIn, just backslash Caleb David. You can go to our website, David Commercial. We do work, brokerage work. on all up and down the front range and love talking to people if you have questions you know we're not here just to do transactions and make money we want to

educate the public and I appreciate this opportunity to be on this podcast you can also follow me on commercial real estate unfiltered on anywhere you listen to podcasts great you can find me at equally crafted management.com you can schedule a time and book a time to meet with me personally as well as LinkedIn as we mentioned we're all across the United States. I love talking real estate. I'm really, really passionate about resindication. Development is so important, but preserving existing housing stock is equally important. We have buildings that have existed for 30, 40 years that preventive maintenance just doesn't do the job anymore. And the URA, the Uniform Relocation Act is a very real thing

that the ECM team knows how to navigate through and can work through your projects with you. So please reach out and we'd love to chat. Fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. Thanks guys. Again, I'm your host, James Brown. If you're an investor-focused agent, let's chat about ways to grow your business.

Just go to James Brown realestate.com slash connect. And don't forget if you're an investor looking to connect with an investor-focused agent in your market, go to United States real estate investor.com slash agents. Also, huge thanks to our founder and producer behind the scenes, Antonio Holman with United States Real Estate Investor. Follow and subscribe to this month in real estate investing at this month in real estate investing.com or your favorite podcast app. If you run across any interesting news events or have suggestions for expert guests, feel

free to share by emailing Antonio at United States real estate investor.com. And remember, when one door. closes another door opens to financial freedom see you next month