Be The Bank S4 Ep5 - Flashing the Pan
On episode 5 of season 4, Justin Bogard interviews Joe Varnadore.
Key Takeaways:
Resources and links discussed
About the Host
Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!
Connect with the Host:
Be The Bank S4 Ep5 - Flashing the Pan
On episode 5 of season 4, Justin Bogard interviews Joe Varnadore.
Key Takeaways:
Resources and links discussed
About the Host
Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!
Connect with the Host:
Interested in real estate. How about wealth? Well, they go hand in hand and here you'll learn all about, about it. Welcome to be the bank, a podcast where we discuss and debate the topics centered around real estate. Investing your host, Justin Bogard shares insights into investing in real estate to create real wealth and path of income for you and your family. He'll share stories of real estate investments done, right? Walk you through the process of owning a real estate note, and most importantly, educate you so you can be the bank. This is be the bank brought to you by bright path notes. Now here's your host, Justin Bogard. All right. Welcome to episode number five of the, be the bank podcast. And today we're gonna be discussing with my good friend, Mr. Joe Varnadore about foreclosures and how things are changing and evolving with foreclosures and also a little bit about zombie houses. So stay tuned. And that's what we're gonna be bringing to you today on episode number five, which is brought to you by bright path notes, Joe Varnadore. How are you doing buddy?
Joe Varnadore:Justin Bogard. I am doing very well, man. It is, uh, I'm excited to be on I'll here with you today on be the bank.
Justin Bogard:That's right? Yeah. You were on the, uh, one of an older iteration that I had called two wealth show, and now it's called be the bank. So you are, you know, a two time guest, which I was excited about. So those of you that don't know Joe or don't know my history with Joe is Joe has been one of my mentors since I've gotten into the note business. And Joe is the reason why I, I got into the note business as well.
Joe Varnadore:That is amazing. Yes, Justin or I, I remember it was back in, we met in, at, uh, in Indianapolis in June of 2016.
Justin Bogard:It was. Yeah. And I Dont know if you remember this part about it, Joe, but you were having an issue with your spreadsheet on and as doing the one, the one day class that you did. Right. And I kind of volunteered myself to go up there and be like, Hey, I know a little bit Excel. I can probably figure this out and I get up there and man, you, you, uh, you embarrassed the pants outta me because I had egg on my face, cuz I couldn't figure out what, what to do to fix your little problem there. So anyways, that was, well,
Joe Varnadore:Sometimes you do just can't fix it. Right.
Justin Bogard:So anyways, so Joe, I know a little bit about you, but the listener here doesn't know a lot about you yet. Right. And one of the things that I think is cool is that you live in Okochobee Florida right now, which you had taught me. That means big water. Is that
Joe Varnadore:Right? Well, yes. So, uh, we're about a hundred miles south of Orlando and we're right in the middle of the state and uh, lake. Okochobee Justin is the second largest freshwater lake fully contained in the us fully contained, not, you know, some of the great lakes are bigger, but they go up into Canada. So yes, that's what it means. It's a Seminole Indian word. So when I grew up here and then gosh, about 15 years ago, I moved back here to kind of raise the family. So yeah, yeah. Been in the note business a long time as well.
Justin Bogard:Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that little journey with your business. We don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but I know you start off and, and you ran into, um, the guy who's also one of my mentors as well. And, and your friend and part of a note school as well, is, is Eddie speed?
Joe Varnadore:Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I started out, gosh, I was 19 years old back many years ago, just 19 78, 79. And I was flipping head houses or Flipp my first house and then in 78 or 79 and then did, you know, wholesaling and fixing flips and some landlording and so on. And uh, and so ends up, uh, doing that until 1990. And I found the note business and uh, met Eddie. And as a matter of fact, I had my family, my father and I had, uh, gosh, over a hundred single family rentals that I've moved into notes, uh, back about seven, eight years ago. So we've got a, you know, portfolio of that. That's a family trust and then we've got other, you know, I've got other stuff that I, you know, continue to do. And then Eddie and I kind of do some things in note school as well. So yeah, it's, it's, it's been a good time. It's a lot of fun.
Justin Bogard:So I, I remember this cuz you and I actually did a radio show, uh, a few years. I wanna say it was probably four or five years ago. Yeah. And on that radio show you had brought up about the first time that you had flipped. The house was in 1978 and one of our, our mutual friends, Brett Snodgras was on the radio show too. And he pointed out and he was like, Hey, wait a minute. Justin was born in 1970. It sounds like you, you flipped a house when Justin was born. So we were kind of dating, dating ourselves, right?
Joe Varnadore:Yes. You know, it's the OG thing, Justin, the old guy thing. Right. And uh, and yeah, I know Brad and uh, I know you and he are very tight and uh, but yeah, that's, it's hard to think about that, Justin, but just understand from the OG that it goes by very, very quickly.
Justin Bogard:I'm starting to realize that as I'm looking back through my little, my little career, that little lens that I got so awesome. So I know that you also have a hobby that you don't talk about a lot, but I, I think it's a pretty cool hobby and you are a pilot.
Joe Varnadore:Yes. Yes I am. I, you know, Justin and I, by the time I was 32 years old, I had made enough money to think that I could, uh, get into a career in aviation. Okay. Because literally that you do start at the bottom. And so I invested, I don't know, I already, I'd been a private pilot that I invested about$60,000 in getting my, you know, rest of my licenses, a commercial license and a type rating and all of that. And um, so, you know, I did that commercially flew for com air, which was Delta's commuter airline back in the early nineties. And um, I realized that my passion was not what I didn't wanna make a career out of it. Right. Okay. And somebody asked me, it's funny, you bring that up because somebody asked me about three months ago, we were talking about this and they said, do you regret doing that? And, and spending, you know, that money and that time. And I said, absolutely, cuz at this point in my life, I can never look back and say, I did not chase that dream. Cause the biggest thing is you don't wanna look back and go, man, I wish I would've done that. And you always have to wonder, so I am happy, happy that I did that.
Justin Bogard:No regrets,
Joe Varnadore:No regrets.
Justin Bogard:Can I live with no regrets? I like that. So do you still fly today for fun? You
Joe Varnadore:Know, I do my sister and I have a carbon Cub, which is a, uh, just a two place, uh, uh, airplane and um, made out of carbon fiber. And it's the old Piper Cub, but it ain't old Piper Cub. It's a, it's a pretty slick airplane. It's uh, yeah, you can take it off in about 300 feet and almost go straight up. So yeah. Wow. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. We just, just got it. About a month ago we had a, we had a 1949 Piper Cub that, well, if you were along the roads, the cars were going faster than you were.
Justin Bogard:That was amazing. It's stays up in the air going
Joe Varnadore:Back beach. Right. That's it. Yep.
Justin Bogard:So you haven't flown like by the triangle or anything since you're in Florida, right? I don't have, I don't have this, this worry that you're gonna go in back in time or forward in time. Right. Hitting the triangle.
Joe Varnadore:You know what I think it would be pretty cool. I don't, I go to go either way, um, back or forward, but we skirt it. We fly over to The Bahamas occasionally. Yeah. And uh, you skirt it, right. You're on the south side of it. So, but yeah, that's, that's a big thing. Right. And there is something to it.
Justin Bogard:Yeah. There, there's no doubt there is something weird going on there. What, whatever you believe, whatever conspiracy that you were thinking about. So, but we're not here to talk about that. So you are a, a pilot aspiring to be a note investor or were you always a note investor and then you were aspiring to be a pilot, I guess, you
Joe Varnadore:Know, it was, uh, you know, how you kind of, I not lay in bed at night when I was a kid dreaming about being a note investor or a real estate investor, you know, I laid in bed at night dreaming about being a pilot. Right. Yeah. And, um, but you know, my dad encouraged me, you know, at a very, you know, when I was 17, 18 years old to do real estate and that's what I did. And um, you know, it enabled me to do things in flying that I would not have been able to do if I'd have had a, you know, whatever job that I had. But you know, my plan was, you know, a pilot works, you know, you fly about, uh, about 80 hours a month so I can, wow. My real estate note stuff and still be a pilot.
Justin Bogard:But so you could actually fly to some of these properties that you have loans on if they were far enough.
Joe Varnadore:But I can tell you Justin, that you can buy a lot of first class tickets for what it costs to buy your own, fly your own airplane.
Justin Bogard:I bet. Yeah. I bet fuel is a whole nother cost that I have. I can't even fathom how much it costs.
Joe Varnadore:Yep. Uh, it, it's not a inexpensive hobby that's for
Justin Bogard:Sure. But that's cool. You wanna have a handful of people that I know that is a pilot and does that stuff, you know, on the side for fun. So that's a very cool hobby
Joe Varnadore:For sure.
Justin Bogard:Awesome. Well, Joe, I wanna get into some discussion in some debate today and an article that popped up on DS news, which I know is a platform or excuse me, a website that you and I both visit frequently just to get some information to see what's going on. Yeah. I thought an interesting article that popped up about foreclosures and excuse me, it was talking about how we have had very few foreclosures throughout the, the start of the pandemic and through the pandemic up till now. And so after the holidays, after December, something kind of switched a little bit and it looks like according to this article that they said they went from about 4,100 foreclosure starts to 32,900 starts of foreclosure in the month of January. And this data comes from black Knight financial data for those of you that don't know. And so what I kind of have in, in my thoughts and predictions about non-performing loans and all these forbearances that happened during the, the pandemic and stuff, it, it looked kind of bad at first. And I always saw the data kind of showing the national delinquency average kept going down every month down every month. The forbearances didn't look as bad because even though they were, let's just call it 9 million forbearances that went through, right. They kept, uh, correcting themselves because of early payoffs because they were selling their house or refinancing because their real estate appreciation saved those people from really getting into a bad situation, needless to stay. There's still loans that can come through and, and be foreclosed on. So my, my long-winded story here comes to a conclusion to say, I don't see a tsunami of non-performing loans coming down the pipeline. I definitely see an up to tick in them. I don't know what that really looks like. Whether it's gonna be a slow drip all the way through the next couple of years, or if it's gonna be, you know, kind of somebody turns on the water faucet for a couple months and lets a bunch of'em through and then it's just gonna, it's gonna end up kind of trickling out. So I don't, I don't really know which way it's going, but this article is really cool. And I know you kind of skimed through it a little bit, uh, to show that, Hey, something is happening right now. So Joe, what are your thoughts on that?
Joe Varnadore:So, yeah, so I, you know, have a lot of, you know, in the industry, you know, from hedge fund managers and guys that are buying and in bulk a hundred million dollars a month and stuff like that. So here's kind of what that looks like when the, when the pandemic started there was about, oh about 800,000 legacy loans. Now I'm talking about loans that were passed due yep. Before the pandemic. Okay. Um, that were just kind of carryovers from the great right from oh 8 0 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. So those loans were in place and then we have the pandemic that starts and you're right. There was about 9 million people that were in a forbearance plan. And then they were either 12 or 18 months in the length and then they could be extended as the process went through. And so interestingly enough, Justin, and we're talking about just forbearance plans right now. Not stuff that's delinquent outside of that. Right outside of a forbearance plan. Um, so within there was about a dropdown to about 2 million loans that were still like in August of 2021. And then it was like about 700,000 dropped out of that because they, they came out of their plan, their plan expired. Right. So there was right at 700,000 that dropped out. There's still about a, I don't know, a million more still in a forbearance plan, but the ones that dropped out Justin 60% of those of 600 plus thousand, almost 700,000 have not been able to make their payments since they dropped, since their plan expired. Okay. So we have those now. Not all of those are gonna end up being, uh, you know, being a foreclosure, cuz there'll be some, you know, they have, but they have to qualify for a mod, right? Yeah. Or they may get it thrown onto the back. So there's some challenges there. And then you add onto that. There's about, I don't know, closest, we can figure about a million and a half delinquencies, right. That are serious delinquent more than 120 days. Okay. So Justin, again, not all of those are going to, to end up there, but um, you know, there, and it's not, as you said, it's not gonna be a ti wave for a tsunami or it's gonna be that general trickle and, and the experts say, and I was talking to Darren blist, I'm gonna drop a name here. Oh right. You know, that, uh, that, uh, runs, uh, is the chief analytic for, uh, uh, auction.com. Yeah. And you know, we're, we're gonna see these things flow through. And it was funny cuz when you and I were talking, there was an article in the NDS news yesterday and it says vacant homes slowly decline as foreclosures, uh, rise. But apparently there was, uh, it says 1.4 million residential properties throughout the us are vacant. They were zombie homes. Okay. And so now those are starting to sell. And the interesting part of that is because there is such a shortage of properties that people are buying those now the ones and these were rough looking properties. You remember those from the last thing, right. Boarded up and all that. But people are buying them yeah. To either redo them or, or tear them down and build houses on those lots. So there's, there's a lot going on.
Justin Bogard:Absolutely. So Joe, thanks for, for reading into more, more than what I asked for, because like I think you gave great relevance to what we're both trying to say so back. Um, and I wasn't in the note investing business around this time when the real estate market crashed in the oh 8 0 9 era. Right. And it took a couple years, then all these loans kind of fed through the pipeline. So a stat that stuck with me and if I'm in accurate, Joe, I want, I want you to correct me. A stat that stuck with me is that during that foreclosure tsunami time period, there was an average of 250,000, uh, loans that were being foreclosed on monthly.
Joe Varnadore:There was somewhere Justin, in that time period, there was somewhere between six and 7 million Americans had lost their homes. Yes.
Justin Bogard:So
Joe Varnadore:Big number,
Justin Bogard:That number, that time period compared to what we are now. Yes. The number jumped from 4,100 to 30, 2000. That is a significant jump. A sevenfold I believe is what the, the article kind of led to and the DS news that we're referring to, but that's not a lot spread that out over an entire country. And that's not that many foreclosures that are starting right. The process, uh, um, you know, we have 50 some states, so it's, it's, it's, it's a larger number, but it's not, it's not gonna, uh, the flippers, aren't gonna race to the, uh, well, in our, in our state, it's gonna be the Sheriff's sale race to the county courthouse steps and going, okay, I've got 200 properties to choose from here. I'm gonna find one and be able to come home.
Joe Varnadore:Let me give you the, a counterpoint to that. Right. Cause you said we could banter back and forth here.
Justin Bogard:Right. We, I encourage it.
Joe Varnadore:Here's the thing, Justin. And, and so Darren, you know, auction.com, they keep the analytics on all this auction stuff. Here's the thing. Real estate has never been more than it is today.
Justin Bogard:True
Joe Varnadore:Ever right. Article yesterday, 70% of the houses that were sold in January were, uh, there was multiple offers, right? So real estate has never been more on fire. So even at auctions, people are paying up, people are paying over or over, you know, over property, over, you know, what it's worth still at auction. Here's the thing that when you learn this space, Justin we're buying those or we're getting those before we can buy them directly from a hedge fund. So a hedge from like premium, right. Which is a$25 billion hedge fund just bought a bunch of, you know, I don't know how many thousands of loans non or nonperforming loans from, you know, from wall street or from banks and, and GSCs government sponsored enterprises. They'll buy those. They'll keep what they want and they'll sell the rest to, to folks like us. Yeah. So we're buying those at somewhere between 30 and 60% of value. And unlike back, you know, in the day in the great recession, 95% of those houses were underwater. Because if you remember back, there were way too many houses. Yep. Today inventory, is it an all time low? So we've got, if you know, that know folks like Justin, you know, that, you know, you can pick up some amazing deals out there, um, in, in the, in the, in the marketplace.
Justin Bogard:So you, you brought up a good, a good discussion point. So just kind of, kind of stepping off to the side a little bit. So I had, uh, Jamie Bateman on, uh, my last episode and Jamie and I actually talked about how you would foreclose or go through the foreclosure process, um, before COVID and now after COVID. And so what you brought up was the fact that housing is such a big shortage, which has also caused an appreciation acceleration and on all real estate across the board. So a mortgage now won't be underwater. It would be very odd to see a mortgage underwater today versus what it would be before COVID. And so before COVID obviously in, in further back towards 2008, 2009, you would see of mortgages that have a lot higher balance than what the property's worth today. Now you're seeing the opposite where you see a mortgage balance, but you see the property value that's significantly higher and, and keeps on going. So it's, it's interesting. And I bring that up because Jamie and I were talking back and forth about how do you vet and how do you, uh, do due diligence on an asset before COVID versus after COVID. And we were brought in the legal balance factor that you and I have have talked about offline. Right. And so you brought up a point about specifically, you said of value. You didn't say of balance, you said of value. So when people look at of value, it's different, you're buy you're, you're getting a Phantom equity is what I call it right. In into the house, as soon as you buy it. So yes, you are getting 30 to 60% off value of the house, but that doesn't mean it's 30, 60% off the unpaid balance or legal balance
Joe Varnadore:Property. Very, very you're exactly right. And so yeah, the profile of a house when you bought it, if you bought a non-performing loan back, you know, in the great, you know, after the great recession and oh 7 0 8, whatever it was. Yep. You know, the, the, you, the house, uh, had an unpaid balance of 150, the house was worth 110. Yeah. And we could buy that for, you know, 30,000 bucks. Yep. Right. And there was a lot of room to work it out and forgive balances and all that, but it almost, you almost always had to foreclose right today, that profile is the house is worth two 50. Um, the legal collectible balance, the balance that you can collect, which is, is the unpaid balance. Plus any of the, the fees that, you know, the lender that had it, you know, spent on that during the period that it was non-performing heck the loans that were just sold by, you know, Fannie and Freddy, they had an average delinquency of 29 months, which predates COVID right. So they're still working on getting rid of those loans. But anyway, so it's worth two 50. Um, legal collectible balance is a hundred and hundred and 50, and you can buy it for, you know, 120 and it's gonna be, you know, it's never gonna go to the, for foreclosure sale because honest, or if it does, you're gonna get paid immediately. You don't have to foreclose. It's already in the process and it's almost ready to go.
Justin Bogard:Yeah. It's it's to totally different dynamic. It's, it's almost a complete opposite scenario, what it was back in the great recession. So I know when I, I talked to folks like you and Eddie and stuff, like you had never seen a real estate market, like it was in oh eight and one during the recession. Right. And you have also never seen a market like it is today as far as investing thing. So it's so interesting about the note business. And this is what I love about it is that every day is a new day.
Joe Varnadore:Every day is a new day.
Justin Bogard:There's, NE's never a same thing going on. There's no two notes that are I due due diligence the same way.
Joe Varnadore:And you know, that due diligence factor, you know, if you were talking about a minute ago, Justin, it was, you know, it really depends on who you buy them from, but you're gonna get a pretty significant or who the service or who the default servicer is on those. Right. The banks are, you know, Fannie Fred, Jenny Mae, you know, which is HUD and VA and, and FHA and all that. They're, they're not working through those loans. They have default servicing companies and, um, we can go in and we can, we can get what that master report looks like. Right. So we can see everything that's being done or has been done on that loan. And, uh, it's a pretty cool way to do to due due diligence. I mean, you, you gotta, you know, understand what that looks like, but, uh, you know, when you're talking to guys like Justin and, you know, and so on, you know, you, you you've been there, you've done that. You know how to do that due diligence.
Justin Bogard:So I wanna step back for a minute, cuz we brought up something that I, I wanna discuss a little bit. And then we talked about basically the lost, lost mint process for some of these bigger or banks or these bigger funds that get these non-performing loans. So back in this oh 8 0 9 era, when those loans started just to pile up, let's say 2010, 2012 timeframes, really when we started seeing them release to people like us, that can play with those 50 to a hundred million dollar funds. So a lot of those guys, they knew that the loans were here, they're gonna go through foreclosure and there wasn't a lot of lost MI help that could be provided to the borrower because more than likely it was just gonna be a long shot to, to have them be able to afford, to be able to repay this, even given them breaks by payments or, you know, putting payments on the backend, deferring'em and stuff today, it's a little bit different. So my question to you, Joe, and what I'd like to talk about quickly is do you see a lot of these funds and do you think a lot of these banks have learned their lessons on what, on what happened in the great recession versus today as far as lost myths? So I guess what I'm trying to say as quickly is I don't see, even though we have a sliver of loans, the 1.9 million that are non-current and that a lot of them could go foreclosure. I think a chunk of them will go through foreclosure, but I think a vast majority of them will end up going through some lost myth because of all this appreciation. Do you see the same thing or what does your take on it?
Joe Varnadore:No, I, I, a hundred percent see the, the same thing, guys. We're not calling the, market's not gonna crash the banks. Aren't gonna crash. Yeah. Wall street, you know, this time because of the mortgage market isn't, you know, for sure. Um, but, um, yeah, so there's, it's a whole different thing and they're, you know, their qualification standards were different. And again, these, these are equitable loans, meaning there's somewhere between 25 to 50% in equity between what's owed and what you know, and, and what the, the house is worth. So, you know, you're wondering, well, how does somebody live in a house for three years and not make a payment? Um, and the bank doesn't do anything about it. But remember the whole court system was shut down for almost two years. Right. That just opened back up in January. So that's why you're seeing those spikes in foreclosure at this point. Yeah. Some will get, some will go through lost meant, and they'll get a modification or they'll get it thrown onto the back end of the loan and all of those things. And some will just be, the sellers will just sell them and they'll get their equity and they'll move on with their lives. Uh, so yeah, it's, it's an entirely different audience there today. And uh, but there's not gonna be the bank failures that there was back, you know, because there was way too, you know, Deutsche bank had made, you know, way too many yeah. Plays.
Justin Bogard:So Fannie and Freddy, uh, and Jenny, the, the government sponsored entities that we talked about, they release some of their bad debt so that the wall street, the big wall street firms like Goldman Sachs and other people can, can start buying loans for them. So, uh, do you have any information as of today that I haven't heard from before about, um, them selling off large pools of loans?
Joe Varnadore:Well, it, it's gonna be understand that it is when banks lower price band loans, right? Justin, uh, banks loans that are a hundred and$150,000 less in Val or less in current value as is value the banks. They don't wanna foreclose on those loans. Right. They, they would prefer to just sell those loans at a, you know, at 50 cents on the dollar versus doing, because it banks aren't in the house, they don't want a house they're in the money business. Right. They're not in the house business and understand that, you know, they write those balances down and then they get to, you know, so they don't really lose the money. Right, right. So it's not, I don't ever feel sorry for a bank, if you wanna ban for that back and forth, you can, but I don't, if you do Justin, that's fine. But, um, so they're selling those loans and that gives investors like, you know, Justin and my, and you guys out there that are interested, that gives us an opportunity.
Justin Bogard:Absolutely.
Joe Varnadore:So, yep. That's where we are and that, and that's, and so again, I think in the, you know, people like, you know, revolve and, and, and bill by mail guys, they're saying, guys, this is gonna be a two to three year thing. So it's not a flash in the
Justin Bogard:Flashing,
Joe Varnadore:The pan that we can work through. So
Justin Bogard:I like that, that, that's a good, uh, that may be the name of our, our show today, our episode today.
Joe Varnadore:Yeah. Flashing the pan,
Justin Bogard:Flashing the pan. I like that. Yeah. So, Joe, um, so the audience knows, uh, you, you work at note school as an who's. The founder is Eddie speed. Right. And that's, that's the company that I went through. So if anyone's wanting to reach out and like get more information and trying to be a note investor, obviously note school is the platform that I would, um, promote. And I would, you know, thank
Joe Varnadore:You.
Justin Bogard:Let, let you plug, plug that as well. I don't know if there's a way that people can direct themselves to get in front of you or in front of note school, but I wanna give you a chance to plug that real quick.
Joe Varnadore:Yeah. Certainly just go to, uh, note, school.com or send an email saying, Hey, I want more information on note school, go to info. Info@noteschool.com just say, Hey, I saw Joe, or I saw Justin and Joe on a podcast and love more information. No pressure, just go and check it out. And guys, I know, you know, Justin has, he's been a multi award winning, uh, um, uh, note, school investors and, and done many, many, many deals. So, you know, Justin, you have done an amazing job. If there was a, your child for note school, you would certainly, uh, be on that, on the short list for that. So guys, you know, Justin knows his I'm so proud of him, you know, he, he knows, he knows the business and he's got a lot of folks out there that invest with him, you know, on a weekly, daily, weekly basis. So I'm just, that's your, that's your, uh, there, Justin, but it comes from the heart.
Justin Bogard:Thank you, Joe. I appreciate, it's very, very kind of you, and, and you've always been a friend to me and, and not just a mentor, but a good friend to me as well. And I appreciate absolutely all the stuff and knowledge that I've, I've learned from you over the years and stuff. And thanks for plugging note school, cause I'm definitely an ambassador for them and want people to encourage people to go. They want some serious training in this business. This is, this is the place to go. And I fully, fully commit to, you know, saying that. Yeah. Thank you. So, Joe, um, switching things up a little bit, kind of getting ready to close out on today's episode. So I wanna know, so you educate, this is what's cool. And this is what I love about note school. Is that not only do you teach it, do you talk the talk, but you walk the walk as well? Absolutely. So as right now, I, I know you, you have a lot of time that you spend, you know, educating and preparing and doing a lot of, uh, video casting like we're doing today and, and podcasting. Um, but are you, have you been in the market lately to get any opportunities to jump into some non-performing or some performing loans or have you personally been able to find, find a few deals here and there just like, huh, this is, this is pretty neat. This is a little bit different than it was before. COVID
Joe Varnadore:Well, now that you say that, so, you know, I have some connections in the business I've been around a while. So, uh, I have a couple of hedge fund managers that I tell if you've got anything in south, uh, central south Florida, let me know, especially in the non-performing, uh, place. And I just bought five non-performing loans from, uh, from one of my industry, from a hedge fund guy. And he sends them to me and I, he gives me first shot at some of'em. So I just bought five and, uh, we're in the process of working them out. So yeah, doing it every day, you know, we've got a portfolio of performing loans. And so, yeah, the cool thing about the note business though, Justin is, is you don't have it's it's E easier I'm plugging be in the bank here. Right, right. It's much easier be in the bank than it is being the landlord or anything else in the business because you do the work once and you get paid for a long time.
Justin Bogard:That's right. That's awesome. So good, good luck with those five non-performing loans. And I'd hope to hear little bit about them, maybe some case studies after you start working on it
Joe Varnadore:For the next. Absolutely. I be posted they're they're they're nice properties. They're these are all in the, uh, Fort Lauderdale, uh, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale area. So these are, these are some nice properties.
Justin Bogard:Oh, nice. Yep. Cool. All right, Joe. So, uh, any final thoughts or any, uh, books that you've read lately or any sort of cast that you've listened to that are just, you know, either fun or they're just, you know, a part of you growing as a business person?
Joe Varnadore:You know, I would like to promote note school, TV. We, uh, go live with note school TV every Wednesday at 1105 central time. Check us out, go to the note, school, TV channel. And, uh, you can see some of the back episodes. I just got through recording one, uh, uh, a little while ago before we started this. So yeah. Check that out. It's gonna give you a lot of insight. Justin has been a guest on there as well, a couple of times, and, uh, we'll have him back this year. And,
Justin Bogard:And so just you, you, you it's, it's not a, you know, a salesy thing. It's just, so here's, what's going on in the industry. And here's, here's some folks that are doing this every day. So, uh, but yeah. Check out note, school, TV. We would love to have you as a viewer. Yeah. And I, I get a lot of my information and my data from basically what you are able to, to harvest and mind out there as well. So it's nice to get that information on a monthly basis. I think you really dive deeper into what's going on and stuff. So yeah, at the last Wednesday of every month we do our industry update and it's, it's about 40 minutes of deep dive into what's going on in the industry. And, and, and by the way, Justin, that monthly update is the highest buy factor of 10, um, than any other of the shows there, because people look for that monthly update as to what's going on in the industry. Yeah. The, or the, the possible fear. Right, right. What's perceived. Yeah. There's, there's fear of investing. And then there's the fear of missing out on investing, right? The, those they call it FOMO, fear of missing out fear of missing out. Joe, thank you again so much for being on the podcast episode, number five today of the B the bank podcast brought to you by bright path notes. And so I look forward to hanging out with you pretty soon and also jumping on the note school, TV show here in the future as well. So if you guys didn't know already, if you go to the bright path notes, YouTube channel, you can watch the video version of this podcast as well. You can check out Joe and his setup and his, uh, his little ducks in the background. Maybe Joe's a duck hunter too. I don't know. You guys have a fan boat carved hand painted ducks that you did decoy. No, I didn't do them. They're you know, they're decoys when you duck hunt, right. I've got a couple of Labrador retrievers and we duck hunt a little bit too, but not so much anymore. We should dove than that at the beginning. That that's way more interesting to what we normally talking about. Right? You, you got a fan boat too. I, I, I meant to ask you about the fan boat. You'll have to come down. We'll bring the camper down to Disney. We'll stay at Fort wilderness. We'll go up there with ours and we'll have some fun. Hey, I'm, I'm all for the, the, the plans in the making right now. I, I can, can sense that right before school starts. All right, brother. There you go. Right. Take care, Joe. Thank you very much. This is episode number five, brought to you by bright path notes and we will see you next time on the be the bank podcast. Thanks guys. Thanks for listening to be the bank. We hope you learn something from today's show. If you enjoy this episode, please rate and review us. Plus check out our bright path notes channel on YouTube and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at be the bank and on Instagram at be the bank podcast. Be the bank is sponsored by bright path notes. Thanks again for listening.