Join us for an enlightening conversation with DJ Olojo, founder of The Foreclosure Fix, who generously shares his journey and insights into this often misunderstood realm. Sparking his interest was a deeply moving experience at a foreclosure auction in 2010, which led him to an unwavering commitment to helping distressed homeowners.
Our chat with DJ unveils an important aspect of dealing with delinquent loans - communication. We dig deep into a real-life scenario where a borrower and loan buyer sidestepped foreclosure through effective dialogue and a revised payment plan. The repercussions of miscommunication aren't to be underestimated, especially in the current climate with a surge in foreclosure filings.
Resources and links discussed:
- Videocast on our YouTube Channel
- ANB Funds Website - https://anbfunds.com
- The Foreclosure Fix
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:
Facebook - bethebank
Twitter - bethebank1
Instagram - bethebankpodcast
American Note Buyers - https://anbfunds.com/
Monthly Broadcast - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzc944w1xydt5aLDrrEPHJhdJeDkBjjD4
Join us for an enlightening conversation with DJ Olojo, founder of The Foreclosure Fix, who generously shares his journey and insights into this often misunderstood realm. Sparking his interest was a deeply moving experience at a foreclosure auction in 2010, which led him to an unwavering commitment to helping distressed homeowners.
Our chat with DJ unveils an important aspect of dealing with delinquent loans - communication. We dig deep into a real-life scenario where a borrower and loan buyer sidestepped foreclosure through effective dialogue and a revised payment plan. The repercussions of miscommunication aren't to be underestimated, especially in the current climate with a surge in foreclosure filings.
Resources and links discussed:
- Videocast on our YouTube Channel
- ANB Funds Website - https://anbfunds.com
- The Foreclosure Fix
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:
Facebook - bethebank
Twitter - bethebank1
Instagram - bethebankpodcast
American Note Buyers - https://anbfunds.com/
Monthly Broadcast - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzc944w1xydt5aLDrrEPHJhdJeDkBjjD4
Interested in real estate. How about wealth? Well, they go hand in hand, and here you'll learn all 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 passive 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 American Notebuyers. Now here's your host, justin Bogard.
Justin Bogard:Hey everybody, this is Justin Bogard, with American Notebuyers, and you are listening to the Be the Bank podcast, season number five. This is going to be episode number 25. We get one more episode till the end of the season. Today I have a guest. His name is DJ Alojo and his company is the foreclosure fix, and guess what? He deals with foreclosures and he does non-performing loans and many other different real estate assets that he does in his portfolio, and we're going to be interviewing him today. So we're going to bring up a conversation that pertains around the note business and I think you guys are going to like this. So stay tuned, dj.
DJ Olojo:How's it going? How's it going Pretty good, my friend. How are you? I'm doing phenomenal man Better than I deserve, so thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
Justin Bogard:You're very welcome. The first thing I have to point out is that your name is DJ. So when I first kind of knew you kind of online is how I kind of knew you in the note space and I thought you're really a DJ. His name is DJ, but he's in the note business. I was like this is kind of cool, he plays. He plays music too.
DJ Olojo:No man. You know, my government name is Ayadeji because my parents are Nigerian and I'm Nigerian and so as I have gotten older, my name has gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. So like in grade school I was Ayadeji and in high school I was Deji, in college I was DJ. So it just kind of stuck with me.
Justin Bogard:I like it. You know, when you're born and raised in America, it seems like you want the shortest name or a nickname that you possibly can, because we just don't speak that much. You know, we want to get as few words out as we can.
DJ Olojo:Oh man, it was the hardest thing for me to understand, like when one of my buddies, like everybody, was calling him Bill right, and I didn't know his name was William until, like many, many years later I was like dude, your name is Bill. Like, why are people calling you William now? Like, so?
Justin Bogard:I know I never understood the Richard Dick correlation. Dude, I don't get it at all.
DJ Olojo:It's amazing.
Justin Bogard:So you know my business partner, richard Thornton. He's usually on the podcast and so that's what I asked him one time. I'm like, okay, I got to ask you why, why, what? Where did the name Dick and Richard kind of kind of be interchangeable with some of his name, that's Richard, just never, never made sense to me and he couldn't figure it out either. He's like you know what I don't know.
DJ Olojo:I think, I think I think somebody got mad one day and just said you're a dick.
Justin Bogard:You know, just stuck Right, like yeah you're Richard, or nowadays you hear the word Karen a lot, that all the names were Karen. So now, yeah, now it's Karen's associated with a bad name. But no, I know why it helps to have your name DJ, because if you, if you ask me to spell your government name, I would. I would fumble probably 99 times out of 99.
DJ Olojo:So you and many other people, man you know. So it's a beautiful name, but DJ definitely works and it saves me from a lot of conversation.
Justin Bogard:I like it. I like it. Your name your name is very brief, I like it. So, dj, I want you to kind of set the table for the audience here. The listening audience here and, by the way, those of you that are listening to our podcast here, whatever podcast channel that you're listening on. We also record this on. The American Notepad is a YouTube channel, so we encourage you to go to the American Notepad YouTube channel. You can watch the video stream of this and check out DJ's cool setup behind him. He's got a cute little office back there. So, dj set the table. Man, how did you get in the note space? How did you get into real estate? Kind of kind of set us back when you got into this stuff.
DJ Olojo:Yeah, man. So let's go back about 15 years ago or so.
DJ Olojo:I like this. And at that time I was a few years maybe removed from grad school and I got invited to go to a foreclosure auction at the courthouse steps in Atlanta, georgia. And so one of my buddies was in the process of learning how to buy properties on the courthouse steps and he invited me to come down, and so I went down there to the courthouse steps and was just kind of amazed that, you know, all these houses were going To the foreclosure auction, right and so, and this was during the, you know, the crash, and so 2008, right, yeah, yeah, so I was. I was more about 2000. This is about 2010.
DJ Olojo:Okay, my first investments were maybe just investing capital in somebody else's deal, but then when I went to foreclosure steps, it was more like 2010 time frame, and so, long story short, I Was there and I was just kind of taking it all in, but I saw a couple Out there and it was an African-American couple and the husband was pacing up and down the steps and the wife was, you know, going back and forth with the baby and a stroller and they were just basically begging investors Not to buy their house. Oh, okay, and at the time I was just kind of you know, but photo I was like I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why these people are begging people not to buy their house.
DJ Olojo:Yeah, and there has to be a better way, and so, fast forward, I became a real estate investor. I started buying properties on the courthouse steps and it took me maybe the last decade or so in Working with homeowners and buying houses where homeowners have faced foreclosure, to really understand the kind of the dynamics and idiosyncrasies that go into the thought process of those homeowners who don't do anything. And so now, being on the note buying side, which I've probably been doing for the last five years I even have a better understanding because I had I buy non performing notes and so I'm reaching out to homeowners saying, hey, I want to get to an agreement, I want to do a modification, I want to do something, and you hear crickets, you know I mean. And so it was that process that just kind of really gave me a passion for the foreclosure side and has really led me down the road of Real estate investing, particular with distress assets, those that are in foreclosure or in some stage of distress.
Justin Bogard:It's a good feeling when you get to help out a family. It really is. I I didn't realize how, how need of a feeling it was and what little I do as a lender, you know, to help somebody out. I have a lot of power to them to be able to change something, but to me it doesn't seem like a big deal. You know, we can just change, modify their payment by a couple hundred bucks, or or knock some of their Principal balance off to help them out, to get them caught up, or defer some of their payments and and so their loan can get caught back up. I mean, those little things are are not that big of a deal for for the P&L or the balance sheet for us, but man it, it makes a big difference in somebody's life that is just hanging on because they had a life event happen to them. I think it's this really cool thing when you can help somebody out like that.
DJ Olojo:I I agree, and I think that what you're saying is a reminder of the human spirit as well. Like you know, we look at the news and we just hear so much bad stuff going on. But we're in those situations and you're able to do good right it. It allows people to remember that there is good out here and that the world is not all bad.
Justin Bogard:So yeah, and the time that we're in now, interest rates are spiked all the way to 8% and now they're coming back down a little bit. As we're recording this today, which we are recording, is at the end of November, just so the audience knows. Inventory is very low right now. It's lowest that. What's the last time I heard information, maybe in at least the last 30 to 39 years? I want to say maybe I'm getting my data confused. I apologize for anyone that knows the correct answer and I gave it to you, ron, but I think it's about 30 or 40 years. We haven't seen inventory is low before. So it's just a really unique storm and affordability is such a challenge for people. Dj, I think I read somewhere where it was. It takes 40.6% of the median gross household income to afford the median priced home in the United States.
DJ Olojo:Yeah, yeah, and I think in that same article or similar article I think, the National Association of Realty's was mentioning that the average homeowner now I think you know, has to have a six-figure income right in order to buy a home across the United States. And so when you look at that, there are tons of headwinds that are facing first-time homebuyers. I I have the opportunity and in the work I do, to work with a lot of folks who are either first-time homebuyer so the education side of that or affordable housing and those two things are just kind of huge buzzwords in our industry right now Because people are trying to figure out how to make how to make it work. You even see, you know, I think Fannie Mae just came out with that whole 5% Conventional loan where you can buy multi-family property if you're gonna owner occupy it. So you have people working from all different places to be able to try to bring about solutions. But it's just a really, really tough time for for for homeowners right now.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, we, we picked up a loan I think it was a year, a year and a half ago and we bought this distressed loan from a private seller, somebody that carried back a note in mortgage, and I think it was in Wisconsin. I'm not sure, maybe it was Michigan. I think I have a lot of notes in Michigan that.
DJ Olojo:Really, you really like Michigan? Hey, it's a great state. My hometown is Detroit, so you know okay yeah, and the lion's just one recently. Hey, man don't jinx this man you know, I just did this. This is our first good season a long time. So you know, we got it. We got to keep going with it.
Justin Bogard:I hope they go far. I mean, I like to see the teams that don't do well very often end up doing well. So I appreciate it. But okay, so I I got this loan and I bought from private individual. It was a delinquent loan. They probably hadn't been paying for probably six, seven, eight months or so, so they're getting kind of far behind. Taxes are delinquent. You know, a few thousand bucks, not not a huge thing. They got some delinquent condo association fees and stuff. So we buy the note, we make the taxes right, we board it with a professional licensed servicer. We tell the servicer you know what we did with the tax and stuff. So they add it to like their corporate advance account so they can pay it back. We set up a loan modification for the borrower. We talked with the borrower. They were very grateful for, you know, not losing their home because they have a kid, and we were able to set up a situation to where they could start paying that back and within a year they could get 100% caught up, right. So they did that and they did exactly what they said they were going to do and they followed it to the T and they made it great.
Justin Bogard:Come to find out there was some miscommunication or an issue to where the condo fees were still not getting paid. And so, lo and behold, the condo association starts to foreclose on the house. So the borrower contacts me and says you know, hey, here's the situation here. I wasn't aware of this and there's some history and back and forth on why I see that it was a possibility. How no one knew that they weren't being paid is for the sake of this podcast, I won't get into all the specifics of it, but regardless, no one's 100% to blame, but all of us are kind of a to blame. And so he's like look, I can't pay this fee. This fee was over $10,000. Wow, induce delinquencies, interests, whatever else, late fees they charge. It was over $10,000. So I think it's about two or three years behind.
Justin Bogard:And so he's like what can I do? I can't get a loan to get this. You know I don't want to lose my house and I was like let's talk about you know your income situation. You know you've been a great payer, obviously for the last year. You've gotten everything caught up. I don't see the reason to believe that you would jeopardize your situation by paying all this money, getting 100% caught up and then not pay the condo association fee.
Justin Bogard:So it's obviously this was a misunderstanding somehow. So I was like, okay, here's what we can do. We can remodify your loan, we can throw that money back into the loan, and then we can re-amateurize this, set you up with a different payment, you know, escrow everything for you so we don't make this mistake again, and move forward. He's like, absolutely, that's, that'd be great. And so we come up with a new modification, a new interest rate, a new payment plan. You know we made sure that he could afford to do it, and so now that's what we're moving forward with. So it's just kind of amazing how it's a great deal for us, because obviously we bought this non-formal loan at a discount and so adding that money to it, you know, and changing the interest rate, we're actually making a little bit more money on it.
Justin Bogard:But you know, the point of it is. You know the person is being able to be where they want to be and be able to stay in a home with their kid that they want to stay in, so the kid can grow up exactly where they want them to grow up in, and so those little things like that are just kind of cool to do. So, even if we didn't end up making money on it, if we just, you know, made the same money about a profit margin, we still would have done it anyways. It was just an opportunity to where both of us could get a win. And you know, the point of the story is people don't have a place to go to get this money, they don't have a place to go pull another mortgage out or refine. And what's? What are they going to do? Refinance at a higher rate than what they are now, because they were already at like a 6% mortgage, which back then was kind of high, but they would have refied it over 8%. You know, they could have gone to the bank.
DJ Olojo:So um, no, you make some really great points there, because I think there's a few things that I think about when I hear stories like that, especially because you know I talked about in the beginning the folks who don't communicate. Is that how important the communication was between you and the bar? Because they were able to communicate, explain the situation to you, they were able to get the best possible resolution to their situation. They didn't have maybe all the points or credit checks and everything else associated with trying to get a new loan. They got a loan at an interest rate that they could afford. Now they have escrow, so they don't have to worry about the problem again. They get to stay in the same house that they love, and so I just think that that's the biggest thing that I wish people who find themselves in challenging situations would think about whether you're on the residential side or the commercial side is just the communication is so key Right now as we look at like where the foreclosure market is going, and if you look at Adam Data, they're saying foreclosure filings are increasing.
DJ Olojo:When I look at specifically in my state of Georgia, you know we are seeing an uptick in the number of houses that are being advertised foreclosure and going to the courthouse steps and they're saying that there's going to be a lot more delinquency in the coming months and years, both on the residential side but then also on the commercial side. And I think that commercial, you know, people don't talk about it as much because you have the like, the non-recourse loans, and everybody thinks that all the commercial players are big, big players. But I think that that communication piece and just being upfront and trying to help your lender find a solution is the best thing people can do when they find themselves facing challenging problems is try to treat the person on the other end the way you want to be treated, and that is the big differentiator, I think, between those folks who can rebound successfully and those folks who find themselves licking their wounds after foreclosure accidents.
Justin Bogard:I mean that scenario that I brought up. I had nothing to lose in a lender. There are some states that are super lean, states where a condo or homeowner association could trump my position, but this one, this state, couldn't, didn't allow it. You know, I had nothing to lose. If anything, I would have made more money if I would have let it get foreclosed on, because they would have sold the property. It had plenty of equity in there to pay my judgment off completely, plus the judgment of the condo. But that's just not the right thing to do. So that's just another feather in our cap that we want to make sure that we do right by the borrower, because ultimately, if a performing loan is a profitable loan is what we always say, that meaning you know, as long as the person is paying, it's a profitable loan. If they're not paying and they're skip paying, it can become a problem. It can really hurt your P&Ls.
DJ Olojo:Now you make a lot. You make, you make some great points, because we just modified alone in our portfolio where the borrower had not paid in maybe 12 months or so, and you know we're talking about. You know a UPB around $60,000 or so, and typically we like to see a down payment from a borrower in the neighborhood of at least, you know, 10%. That's what we like to see. We prefer more, but we like to see 10%. But this borrower had some medical issues that caused them to get behind. They were just getting back on their feet and things like that.
DJ Olojo:And what we did is we took a down payment of $1,500. And we also took the down payment and then we let them start their first initial payment in January of 2024. Right, so typically, you know we have rules in place, but we're still getting a good yield. I still got double digit yield on the transaction. And then also we are setting that borrower up for success because they get to go through the holidays, you know, have a little bit of extra cash to do what they need to do and you know auto debit starts January, and so you know that's the things you can do in this business by being able to one buy at a discount, but by also kind of helping people understand that you have options when you communicate and when you are looking to be a solution and not just be a pain in the butt.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, you hit on it earlier. You talked about the golden rule. You know true to others, how you want to be treated and I think that just works. It works so much better in your favor if you're the borrower, when you're just transparent and honest and communicate, say hey, here's my problem, I missed this payment, I can't make the next payment, but this is what I plan to do in the future. You know, can you accept that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, somebody that communicates well and they do what they said they're going to do, I don't have any issue.
Justin Bogard:You know, definitely bending the rules, even if it takes a while for us to start getting paid, it makes total sense. So I like what you did. You know why? Forbearing a couple payments, or a payment or two until after the holidays? Because this is really a bad time for people with lower incomes. Because you know, primarily they want to make sure that they have enough money to give their children presents, and I don't blame them. If I was in their shoes, that's exactly what would be. A forefront of my mind is like how can I get my children something for Christmas?
DJ Olojo:Yeah, that's what you want. You know, one of the big things that we're seeing now and it is something that I'm seeing more of than I have seen, I guess, in my career is I'm seeing a lot of folks who are on fixed income starting to face, you know, significant headwinds and challenges when it comes to paying their mortgages. And we're dealing with a bar right now who is trying to figure out a way to pay $130,000, you know, second mortgage and he's like I can afford $300 a month. It's like, you know, no matter what amortization calculator you put that in, it does not work. So and so it's one of those situations where they just don't fix income. And so, you know, we're looking at all different type of things, from, like, government assistance programs to reverse mortgages to all these different things, and it is it's a very challenging time for homeowners across the country.
Justin Bogard:Is there? What programs do you hear of right now that are that are the best ones for borrowers to get into, whether they're federal or state and I know you live in Georgia. I'm not sure if that's that's probably not. That's the only place that you invest in. But what are you hearing for the programs? Which one?
DJ Olojo:So so that's hard right. So it's really county by county, state by state. So if I look at Georgia, I know that they're like you know, the cap county still had some funds, I think cop counties still had some funds, but they're using third party organizations to help kind of get those funds out and so like, for example, the Urban League of Atlanta was able to help some folks with with getting funds and things like that. And then, if I look on a more national level, it's pretty much state by state, again, county by county, and what we do is we're working with a homeowner who's facing foreclosure. We actually just try to Google and do some research for them to say hey, these are some things we see you may want to check here. Now we don't go do the legwork of trying to apply for them and things like that, but we definitely say hey, you may want to check here.
DJ Olojo:And we, you know, we tell people go consult folks like legal aid, you know what I mean All the free resources, especially like in places like New York. You know, when you try to file your foreclosure documents there, you know there's a page of like you know 40 different resources. And we tell people like hey, part of the onus is on you to be able to try to work this out. We're willing to do whatever we can to help you, but we try to put the onus back on them. But we do try to share information with sources we know may have some money and and that's been really helpful because we've seen some sources provide, you know, tens of thousands of dollars yeah, just as the homeowners and you just like, wow, it's a win-win for everybody in that scenario.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, it's amazing how many of those programs that are out there that you don't really hear of because they're not hit mainstream. But you're right, you do have to look them up and Google them and you'd be surprised of how many. We had a lady in Cincinnati that had. There was a city level one, there was a county level one, there's a state level one and there was a federal one that she could have applied for. I think she could have applied for multiple of them and she didn't apply and for I think it was Save the Dream was one of them that she applied for. But yeah, she was able to. She said she would. She would qualify for a couple of different programs. So I'm not sure which ones will fund, if any of them will like co-fund together, like a different amounts, or. But yeah, basically they're going to be able to get caught up on their loan and pay forward a couple of months as well.
DJ Olojo:So no, that's awesome, and a lot of these programs. Just so for your listeners to know, they are for owner occupants typically most of the time, so we don't typically see them for investment properties and things like that. But they're for owner occupants, so it has to be your primary residence.
Justin Bogard:Right, good point on that. What is the? What is the biggest amount of financial help that you've seen the government help out and then an individual, whether it was in your portfolio or someone that you didn't know, Just out of curiosity?
DJ Olojo:Yeah, you know, I think that the biggest amount that I've personally seen was to the tune of maybe Like 15k or something like that. So I've heard of people saying significantly more like on other podcasts and things like that, but I think the biggest amount I've seen was around 15,000 For one source, one source.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, that's pretty good. I've seen a couple close to that before. I've heard of somebody getting more than that. I think in the 30 to 35k. I think in Indiana when they had the hardest hits fund program the first time it went through I think the most somebody could get it got was 29 high, 29 thousands the mortgage. Once that money runs out, it runs out. But then they keep saying that, but yet more fun, more programs keep showing up and happening. So it's almost like it never ends. We're just kind of good for borrowers in these dire situations.
DJ Olojo:It is. I know a lot of people are saying those covet dollars are driving up, drying up, but you know some of the programs I mentioned in Georgia. He was like, yeah, we still have money left over and we're trying to get it out the door.
Justin Bogard:Yeah. So if you're a lender out there and you got a note that is Kind of sub performing and non performing, definitely check that out. Look up to see what sort of assistance your borrower can help, especially if they communicate well, I mean, go go the extra mile, help them out. If, if there's somebody that you know you have the choice as a lender, right, you have that collateral. That's why it's good to be the lender, because that's what you fall back on if you need to to foreclose. But you know, by all means, if you can try to help out that person to stay in the house, it's. It's better for everybody if they don't have to move out. That's just. That's just the key there.
DJ Olojo:Well, yeah, to that point too, if you're in the situation where you're the lender and you have a borrower who is not cooperative, you know my best advice to you is to move down the path of legal. I've seen, I've seen some people Call me so fast after they get a demand letter from an attorney. You know, uh, where you know you reach out with your normal letter, your tea letter and your respa letter and stuff like that, yeah, and you try to. You know, call them and that you get no responses. But once they get that attorney letter or they get served by the sheriff.
Justin Bogard:You know you're singing a different tune.
DJ Olojo:I by say your phone starts to blow up real quick, so do not be, afraid. Yeah, exactly, do not be afraid to move down that path. Um and and, be prepared. You know, when you buy notes, be prepared to buy assets that you don't mind owning. Uh, that's been the biggest Takeaway I have over my known investing career Is that, as you look at notes, be comfortable owning that asset, because you have to understand that that may be your final Recourse if you need to go that distance.
Justin Bogard:That's a great, great advice there, because you're exactly right. If you're in the non performing space and you're buying an asset To make sure you're comfortable owning, that's, that's fantastic advice. Um, so, these funds, these are great programs for you guys Out there. Look up federal level, state level, county level and even city level. Um, I don't know about township, but definitely depending on how big the area is, you know, uh, are you close to Atlanta? Is that, is that where you're at?
DJ Olojo:Yeah, yeah, I'm. I live in a suburb of Atlanta, yeah.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, so I'm sure they have. That's a big city, so I'm sure they have probably you know many numerous programs for the city. Uh, so that's really cool. Um, so, on your portfolio right now, are you mainly buying the non performing loans right now?
DJ Olojo:Yeah, so my strategy is because I'm in a growth mode and so my strategy is to buy non performing loans and get in the Reperform and then, depending on where, the, what position the loans are in, whether they're first or second, depending on the loan to value, depending on numerous factors, we hold on to some and keep them, and then some we may, you know, sell as reperformers, or we may sell partials on, or things like that.
Justin Bogard:That's awesome. We're the opposite. Right now we're we're buying, mainly performing, but we do see some non performing out there. When we have the opportunity we'll we'll bid on the asset, but we're mainly buying performing for the cash flow. But the not performing that we have bought that been presented to us, they've been all pretty much reperforming, except for one that we had to foreclose on Uh in in the fund portfolio, which, which is pretty neat.
DJ Olojo:So I would say the reason I like the non-performing side right now and I totally understand because, like when you're dealing with the fund, you need to make sure you got that capital working and moving.
DJ Olojo:But one of the things about the non-performing side in the last couple of years that was cool is that a lot of them had a lot more equity than they did before and so like your downside was protected a little bit more. Now, in today's market, it may be a little harder because I think that, you know, bpo is maybe subject to change given the higher interest rates, but for the most part, I think you had that coverage and protection. So, as the market changes, that's definitely something that we're watching and trying to make sure that we pivot the way we need to. So that's great advice about the performing side.
Justin Bogard:Yeah you're right, the way that we do diligence before COVID and after COVID are two different things, like when we bought non-performing loans. You know, seven, eight years ago you were buying them because they were underwater and so the value of the home was, you know, let's say, 150,000. I'm sorry, the value of the home was 100,000 and the mortgage is 150,000. So you're buying. Now it's the complete opposite. You know, the home was worth 150 and the mortgage is 100 and they're already in foreclosure. So there's just tons of, like you said, there's tons of protection there. So it is.
Justin Bogard:It's a really interesting time right now. I haven't been through every cycle of real estate before. Obviously, I've only been in about, you know, seven, eight years now as a full-time real estate investor. But I have seen enough and I have I do have mentors and they've seen a lot of things happen. They would tell me, like this is the cycle that we're in right now. You know they haven't seen anything like this to where the appreciation is so high and the inventory is so short, the interest rates are so high. It's just really unique. But yeah, it's so interesting how this stuff is so cyclical. So watch out for the next thing and be ready to pivot, just like DJ said. So, dj, what's your, what's your podcast called?
DJ Olojo:Hey, my podcast is called the foreclosure fix, and so our goal is to help a million homeowners successfully navigate foreclosure.
Justin Bogard:And you need one more, one more homeowner.
DJ Olojo:Hey man, I wish we are. We probably need about 900,. You know 99,000. You know we you know, through my career, I've talked to tens of thousands of homeowners, probably just doing what we do as a real estate investor. But this is just the goal I have and I need everybody's help to do it. It's not just one person, one man go. I'm writing a book and the book is supposed to come out February 7th of 2024. Nice.
DJ Olojo:It's called the foreclosure fix. And so the goal is again to help homeowners navigate foreclosure. To have homeowners do what you talked about where they're communicative, where they're trying to find win-win solutions, where they are using all the resources at the time, and so they're trying to find all the resources at their disposal in order to save their homes, protect their equity and keep their families safe and the best financial position they can. And I think that people like you, people like me, have done good work for folks. But just trying to share that message, because what we find is that when people are facing foreclosure, they act like deer in headlights and they just clam up, they're afraid, they're scared, they're all these different emotions that are overtaken them and they can't get to the other side fast enough sometimes. And so really trying to provide them with the steps and the resources that help them but also, at the end of the day, help the entire community move forward in a positive way.
Justin Bogard:Yeah, and I think of the big bad bank. You know all the negative things that comes with the bank and that they're just going to take their life away from them, cool man. So how do we get a hold of you?
DJ Olojo:I'm on all yeah, I'm on all social medias as DJ underscore Lojo. Linkedin is probably the best place to find me, but then you can also check us out at the foreclosurefixcom. You can sign up for our newsletter. Pre orders for the book start soon, so you can definitely sign up.
Justin Bogard:I want to get that.
DJ Olojo:Hey man, you definitely get a copy.
Justin Bogard:I want to get a signed copy from me.
DJ Olojo:Hey man, hey, I'm happy, I'm happy to oblige. So if you buy the book and you want to sign copy, just let me know if I'm in your city. I got you.
Justin Bogard:Awesome, dj. Thanks so much for being on our podcast here. This is a cool conversation. We're definitely going to have to have you back so we can have some more combos. Thank you for all that you're doing for the borrowers. I wish that every lender is exactly like you and has that mentality, so I greatly appreciate that and all your efforts to get there, and I I know I was joking about about how many you need to get to the million, but I know it's. It's a long road ahead, but you got to start somewhere and you've been doing a good job and I've I've heard some of your stories and I'm sure you got a lot more and look forward to hearing a bunch more of them.
DJ Olojo:Hey, I appreciate you and I appreciate you being kind of consistent in your journey. Um, you know, my journey is new on the podcasting side and, as I look at you, you've been at this season five, episode 25 man, so you, you're you're a vet in the game from that perspective and so I I appreciate the information you share. I've listened to your podcast over the years and it's little nuggets that you know different folks share along their journey. That one, uh, helps you learn and grow faster, but then also reminds you that you got to start and if you start and you keep going, you can get to the outcome. So you know, right now I'm at, you know maybe 10,000. And so I need your help getting the other 990,000.
Justin Bogard:Right on, well, we'll do what we can to help out. Maybe we can combine us and a couple other investors are are, uh, non-performing help numbers and get that number closer to million Some day here. Absolutely Sorry. Thank you so much. You're welcome, dj. All right, have a good one. Everybody, don't forget to check out our YouTube channel, american Notebuyers YouTube channel, so you can see the stream of the podcast here. Be the bank, episode number 25 with DJ. Hello Joe. So stay tuned for the next episode. It'll be the last one of the season and then we'll start off fresh in 2024. See you, guys.
Narrator:Thanks for listening to be the bank. We hope you learned something from today's show. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us. Plus, check out our 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 American note buyers. Thanks again for listening.