This episode tells the story that could be your story. Host David Sidoni puts the spotlight on the story of Chris and Jacqueline, from Denver, Colorado who, just like everyone coming on this podcast, were looking for guidance to help them figure out how to buy their first home. There is so much in their journey to learn and be inspired from. This is the podcast’s first success story and David is excited to share with you what Chris and Jacqueline learned to finally become landlords themselves. Read on this inspiring story because you just might be next!
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Denver First Time Home Buyers Use The Podcast To CLOSE On Their First Home – Their Story
The First Closed Transaction, Home BOUGHT, From The Podcast
I am excited about this episode. It’s got to be the one that I’m the most thrilled about so far. Here we try to help educate and teach people how to buy a home. If you’re brand new, hit subscribe right now to make sure you don’t miss any of these free updates and info stuff that’s going to help you. This is the only show on the internet that is geared to help you, the first-time home buyer. There are a couple of others out there but let’s face it, they’re not that good. The first-time buyers have been ignored by the entire rest of the real estate industry. I’ve decided to try to help you out. This podcast exists so that you can be the hero of your own story, as our heroes now, Chris and Jacqueline. This is why I get up in the morning. I am so stoked. If you’re new, you probably heard me say the word stoked.
Let me explain. I’m a realtor who grew up here in Southern California. I’m working with eXp Realty. I and my team had been helping people buy and sell houses since 2006. I ended up working with a lot of first-time buyers. They ended up being my favorite people in the world. Early in 2019, I got disgusted, grossed out with the way first-time buyers are being treated or mistreated and completely ignored by the real estate industry. I decided to start this podcast to help you. It’s helping you help yourself. Not only to walk you through the actual steps of buying the home when you get there, double-checking and making sure that everything goes right and that you close on the house but to also give you the ultimate guide, to help you get started years ahead of time. We worked the plan for you, give you the guide one, two, three years out and well-before you’re ever thinking about writing an offer on a home.
I’ve been starting to say this and I like it, whether you’re 30 days or 30 months out, this podcast is here to help you. We have our first success story that has gone to completion. They got their keys. Everybody out there reading you’re in different places in your story. I get that. Maybe you’re starting out. Maybe you’re close to the finish line like Chris and Jacqueline. You need to get some of those nitty-gritty details and you want to make sure everything is on track. I thought that it would be inspirational and exciting for you to hear of these two fantastic blog readers who got to their happy ever after. Chris and Jacqueline, at some point they were like you. They were renters in Denver out there in Colorado, sick of the high rent. That’s what they said.
They told me that they were sick of the ridiculous Denver rents. Like everyone out there, they were confused about the entire process of buying a house. They weren’t getting any good answers anywhere because as I’ve mentioned before, the real estate industry sucks. The whole thing is built on servicing sellers. You go out and you get your real estate license, they’re going to ram it down your throat and all they’re going to teach you is how to work with and get sellers because they assume that that home is a giant magnet. It’s going to suck all you buyers in and that’s a keyword there because it’s going to suck you in. They think that you’re suckers that are going to come and buy all the homes that they have for sale.
That’s how you become a real estate big shot. It’s million-dollar listing, not a million-dollar buyer. They think it’s a big waste of time and energy talking to you or to helping people who don’t get them paid instantly. They ignore the renters or they even worse pass you off to their trainee agents. That drives me crazy. They ignore the people who want to get the plan clarified. Chris and Jacqueline wanted a little guidance, real help from a real pro. Someone who could get them all the information that they needed to plan and execute that to the conclusion. It sucks but as it turned out, this was hard to find in real estate. In fact, a realtor who’s a pro and who will help you before you’re ready to buy is often as magical, mysterious and as rare as a unicorn. Here on the How to Buy a Home podcast, we call them unicorn realtors.
Chris and Jacqueline are determined people. They got pretty far along before they ended up getting and finding us here on the podcast and figuring out how to get a unicorn. They did a lot of the planning on their own before they had a unicorn guide. As they were looking to get to the finish line, they hit search on Spotify and they found my wacky show. After listening to it for a little bit, Jacqueline got plenty of tips and she was ready to start home shopping. I was the only person helping her and I was doing it in her ear holes because I’m here in Southern California and I love Denver, but it’s not a quick drive. After learning so much listening to the podcast, she thought, “I’m going to reach out to him.”
She sent me a DM on Instagram. We started chatting and soon I got her hooked up with an awesome realtor in Denver, a magic unicorn realtor. The word is spreading. Unicorn nation is growing and now you get to hear their story. This will be an inspiration for you out there. This is their journey from lost and confused to becoming homeowners. What about you? Where are you in your story? Are you lost? Do you need a guy to help you make your dreams become a reality? Maybe a unicorn agent in your area who gives a damn about first-time buyers and has the experience to get the job done. Have you been reading for a little bit like Jacqueline but not contacted me yet? Do it. You can do this. Be like Chris and Jacqueline and maybe your story can sound like this one. Here comes the story.
This is also on YouTube search, David Sidoni. The interview is there. You can watch it and listen to it or watch it and that would be weird because there are no captions. See the video at DavidSidoni.com but for those of you who don’t have the ability to stop right now and look on YouTube, here’s the story via audio and listen close because there’s a super cool twist in this story. Wait until you hear it. Here it is. Our first completed unicorn realtor hookup, Chris and Jacqueline getting the keys.
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How are you, the new homeowners?
We are good.
Why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourselves?
I’m Jacqueline.
I’m Chris.
[bctt tweet=”No matter where you are in your real estate journey, you’re not alone trying to figure this out.” username=””]
We are from Denver and we just bought our first house.
Everything is great except you are hot because of the air conditioner, right?
Yeah.
All the piping is done. It is just that they didn’t put anything on the slab yet so we just got to pay for that. It won’t be too expensive but other than that, it’s good.
Tell me a little about your history? When did you start thinking about this whole process of buying a house?
Chris started thinking about it a while ago and he is always like, “I got to save money.” He talked about how he can’t stand paying rent and that he can’t wait to buy his own place.
The rent in Denver is ridiculous so as a result I thought, “I have to get it mortgaged and then rent out the rooms.” That’s exactly what we did.
You actually thought that was feasible?
Yeah. There are a lot of young people in the Metro area and they don’t want to pay for a split up an apartment or something on their own. They are paying anywhere from $1,300 to $2,000 a month.
We know one who lives in the Downtown Denver area and I think he has a one-bedroom apartment and his rent is $2,100 per month.
I’m used to that stuff in Southern California but I’m not expecting to hear it all over the rest of the country. Tell me a little bit about your process then. Chris you were thinking about it, totally not digging your rent a while ago and then what brought you to the next steps?
I started doing a cost analysis and I found that it’s totally doable and feasible especially if you can get at least one other person to share the house with you. What I originally wanted to do is I want to do duplex and then rent out the other half and pretty much rent that out for the cost of the mortgage so I’m pretty much paying for maintenance and utilities. The duplex around here, you might as well just buy two single units and then you’d have this more privacy and the cost was about equal. A duplex was anywhere from $500,000 for a place in a not really great area to $800,000 if you wanted a nice place. At that rate, you could just two single homes and rent those out.
What has been your solution to that? What’s been your house hack? You’ve got roommates, right?
Yes. We have three roommates. We are thinking to add one more but then adding roommates changed the insurance so it actually wouldn’t make that much money if you add that fourth roommate. Hopefully, within a few years, I’ll get another unit and keep doing this.
Just so we clarify, you have to qualify to buy the whole house on your own?
Yeah.
That is 25% to 30% of your monthly and now, you cut that down to 10% or 15% because you are taking big fat rent. You just went from, “I hate my rent to I’m taking rent.”
We became the landlord.
I just finished a whole episode on financials and that’s the new hip term is house hacking. You are super cool and hip. Tell us a little more about you. It sounds like you are on your way and starts figuring things out. Tell us about when you found my crazy little show.
Chris has always been encouraging me to read financial blogs and he was serious about buying a house. I was like, “Maybe I should get a little bit more serious about it too.” I went into Spotify and just typed in “buying a house” and your show popped-up. It literally is How to Buy a Home. I said, “That’s exactly what we need.” I started reading it and I was like, “This man seems like he actually wants people to buy a home and want them to know what they’re doing.” I didn’t even tell him about you at first. I messaged you on Instagram and you replied right away. I was like, “Chris, check this guy out. He is going to hook us up with an awesome realtor in Denver.” I was worried about that and Chris was telling me that he was going to meet with someone and that he wasn’t sure if they knew what they were doing. I was super nervous about making sure we have someone to actually help us do it.
This has been a new mission for me. It’s been many years of doing this in real estate but I have been working with teams and groups of people for over a decade and I happen to know this great person in Denver and it was fate. I was like, “Here it is. It’s my first unicorn hookup.” The goal is to find those unicorn real estate agents who actually give a dime about you and know what they are doing. This is exciting. We’ve got about 25 people across the country working on people right now but you are the first close transaction. I am super glad that you did find me and part of the reason why I started this podcast is because you are right. You should be able to go and find it but no one else is doing it. I’m glad that you found me. Help us out, we’ve got a lot of other readers out there. I’ll put you on the spot. What’s the biggest surprise good or bad or a thing that you worked, ready for or expecting throughout the process?
The process itself went smoothly.
I was surprised with how different the homes look. When you are looking online versus when you go in and see them.
Could you please say that one more time for someone out there who thinks that the internet is going to help them buy their next home?
I was surprised when you show the house and it looks completely different from the pictures. You look at a house and have this certain expectation and I would show up and it would be completely opposite and it could go both ways. With this house, I wasn’t too sure from the pictures but then when we lived here, looking around you actually see the potential it has.
Did you notice that some pictures you were like, “They should have taken five more minutes and done better pictures because this is a beautiful house?”
Because of age too, it dissuaded a lot of people because as soon as you see it, you don’t think of what it could be especially now it’s instant gratification. They want the brand-new house with all the granite and everything and it’s the bones that count.
I tell people all the time that if you watch HGTV, do yourself a favor. Set your TV or watch the first fifteen minutes. Don’t watch the end where they fixed it up. Get used to seeing it when it’s cracking. The thing is a little paint, a little carpet and some molding if you want to, new baseboards and new floors, it’s not that much. Anything else in that transaction that you found was interesting? I’m really glad to hear that it went smoothly. We’re building a unicorn nation out there. Let other people know about.
Depending on your location, a lot of times there are stuff on the property. For us, we had Mineral Rights that we had to go over. That came up in the middle of closing and I was a little worried because the sellers are not in the state. When they sold, it’s pretty much their realtor. She comes in and she seems flustered and then she leaves. It’s me and my realtor and we are just sitting there and then this Mineral Rights thing comes through and we’re like, “Okay.” I’m okay with Mineral Rights because it’s pretty much standard thing, probably also in California. It was likely underground so I wasn’t too worried about it.
There are so many things that might pop up that might be confusing to people. I’m sure there are a bunch of other people out there right now thinking, “What is Mineral rights?” Don’t worry about it. Get your financing together first. Get a great team together and let them make sure that they explain it to you.
One thing that I realized that helped me narrow down options, don’t start going over your budget. Make sure you budget it out. If you are qualified for this, make sure it’s something you are comfortable paying for. If you don’t feel comfortable paying for that, then it may not be a good investment because you end up sacrificing a lot out of your life. Don’t say, “It’s only this much more because when you take the appreciation and everything, it may not be worth it.” You have to do a lot of analysis before you make the dive.
You were looking at the monthly numbers versus the purchase price, yes?
Yeah.
That is very important. I want everyone to hear it. When Christopher was talking about what your budget is and don’t go a little bit above this, he didn’t mean purchase price, he meant the monthly because that’s what everything breaks down to. I can’t tell you how excited I am. I know you have been moving and we have been waiting to get this for a little while. This is super exciting. Jacqueline, thank you for pressing play and finding me on Spotify. That’s awesome.
I’m happy I did it.
It’s funny because the team that you worked with in Denver is probably one of my first good friends in real estate back in 2007. We met in San Diego and stayed in touch because you never know when someone is going to need someone good somewhere in the country. Thank you, guys, so much. Enjoy your home. Any words of wisdom for people out there who might be two months or two years away from buying their first house?
Make the plunge. Don’t get caught up in all the standard hype of the countertops and everything. Find something that you can build on and something you’ll truly love over time and make it your own.
I’m probably going to be checking back with you guys in six months to a year because I want to have you guys do the follow up on how to house hack.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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They went from hating their rent and paying a landlord to owning a home and becoming the landlords. Seriously, I don’t have the proper words to explain how much that interview filled me up. I’ve mentioned it before. I’ve been doing real estate a long time now since 2006. I got utterly appalled, repulsed and grossed out by the way the industry was treating my favorite clients, the first-time buyers out there. I almost quit. I needed to do something else to make me happy. It didn’t matter how much money I was making, I was not enjoying the industry that I was a part of. I felt creepy and disgusting.
Instead what I did was I decided to focus on my first-time buyers here in Southern California. I started a podcast. It’s a helpful tool. Something they could listen to when we weren’t working directly together. It was for my people here in Southern California. It’s a way to help them on their journey. As I’ve mentioned to you before, I’ve got 81 first-time buyers and every single one of them has said to me after the whole buying a home has done, “I wish we talked to you earlier because we could have saved a year or two or three in rent.” All of them realize that. I realized, “What can I do to get the word out sooner?” How about instead of quitting, I start a podcast and all my first-time buyers can tell their other renter friends, “Listen to this weirdo while you’re working out or cleaning your apartment, walking the dog or getting to work.”
Little did I realize that this teaching tool that I made for my clients here in Southern California was going to turn into a global resource. I didn’t realize that the internet goes everywhere. I’ve got listeners all over the world and that is cool. If you are not in the United States, what’s up to you all? I got my boy in London. I’m still trying to find an agent in London. They’re a little weirded out by me calling saying, “It’s David from Southern California. I need a unicorn.” Moving on now, thanks to my years of networking with real estate pros here in the United States and Canada, I see that my original little mission to help educate my first-time buyers here. It’s turned into a much larger goal and that’s you.
It’s to help first-time buyers everywhere. I have said it before, I’ll say it again. We’re starting a revolution. As we grow all you buyers out there, your friends and their friends, they’re going to start demanding unicorn realtor. We’re going to change the way real estate works from the inside out. No matter where you are on your journey, reach out right now to DavidSidoni.com. Let me know what guidance you need. It could be one simple question or you could need your own unicorn. It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey. I’ve got Faith. My girl who was doing dishes and listening to this in her parents’ house said, “I’m 24 and I don’t want to rent.” We’re on a journey with Faith. I love saying that. It’s so metaphorical. No matter where you are, you’re not alone trying to figure this out.
You don’t need to trudge through the internet trying to figure out, which information is correct. I understand that can be rough. Here it all is for you from someone who genuinely cares about you. I started this to help my own little group, but realize that a lot of people out there need this Unicorn Realtor Nation is here for you. It is founded by me that pissed off realtor who was sick and tired of seeing you get screwed. Use this, learn, grow, get confident and you’ll be able to do this so much sooner than you think. You can stop throwing away money like my clients did, who reached their end goal. They probably are mad at me that I waited to start this podcast. You can do better than they did. Help spread the word too, get this out to your friends. Rate and review the podcast.
I know it sounds silly, but a little blurb, a little review on wherever you get your podcasts. It helps me so much reach more people. It also helps me speak in sentences that are grammatically correct because I’ll read yours and realize that I’m talking like an idiot. Every little thing helps share this. You can inspire some other renters out there. My only goal is to help you reach your goals. If you’ve got a little altruistic part of you, a little charitable part of you realize there are other people that are feeling lost in this adulting world and perhaps they could benefit from hearing this too. Share this. Together we can change better for everybody. I know most of you are friends. Some of you, I don’t know, maybe not so much but most of you probably do.
Share this message of hope. Subscribe, rate the podcast, review it, share it, do that, and I can keep doing this crazy little podcast and not quit my job so my wife doesn’t freak out and my kids can have food with their meals. We’re going to keep educating and get you the right information. I know this has been so inspiring. I appreciate you so much. I almost quit, but you know what? Every DM that I get, every email that I get from you inspires me. Go to my website, scroll down to the bottom. You can send me an email with your specific questions. Also, if you’ve got ideas for podcasts on what went to the Facebook page, that’s the How to Buy a Home Facebook page. Go on there and asked to be a part of that page.
For someone who wants to know about foreclosures and short sales, we’re going to do that in a future podcast, but you can leave me a message, you can email me directly and I will help you answer those questions because this fills me up and every Chris and Jacqueline that comes along makes me want to get up and do this every day. Join the How to Buy a Home Facebook page. Check out David Sidoni on YouTube and Instagram. Follow, subscribe but most importantly for you, get a plan. I know that a lot of you are just passively reading this blog. That’s cool. That’s great but you can take the next step and the sooner you take it, the more money you’ll save.
Go to my website, send me a message and you can get your local unicorn real estate pro to help you on your happy path. Trust me, there’s no other chump out there willing to “waste” his time on your first-time buyers that are well early and in your planning phases. No, there’s no other chump doing that. Maybe I should get a website, www.Chump.com or while I’m at it, I should probably get www.UnicornRealtors.com for the list that is growing exponentially right now. For the realtors out there who think you first-time buyers are worth it, you’re worth it. You knew you’re worth it. I haven’t bought those domains yet. For now, you’ve got to contact me at DavidSidoni.com. Let me know where you’re at. Let’s get you down the path and remember, you can do this.
Important Links:
- eXp Realty
- David Sidoni – YouTube Channel
- How to Buy a Home – Facebook Page
- Instagram – David Sidoni
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This podcast was started for YOU, to demystify things for first time home buyers, and help crush the confusion. After helping first timers for over 13 years, I knew there wasn’t t a lot of clear, tangible, useable information out there on the internet, so I started this podcast. Help me spread the word to other people just like you, dying for answers. Tell your friends, family, and perhaps that random neighbor you REALLY want to move out about How to Buy a Home! A really easy way is to hit the share button and text it to your friends. Go for it, help someone out. And if you’re not already a regular listener, subscribe and get constant updates on the market. If you are a regular and learned something, help me help others – give the show a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or write a review on Spotify. Let’s change the way the real estate industry treats you first time buyers, one buyer at a time, starting with you – and make sure your favorite people don’t get screwed by going into this HUGE step blind and confused. Viva la Unicorn Revolution!
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