Real Investor Radio Podcast

Craig Fuhr (00:12)
Hey, welcome back everyone to Real Investor Radio. I'm Craig Fuhr and I'm joined today not by Jack BeVier, but by a very special guest who will introduce wholly in a bit, but Brian Lebowitz of Dominion Properties. Sir, welcome to the podcast.

Brian Leibowitz (00:28)
Why,

thank you, Craig. I am the better looking version that you have on here.

Craig Fuhr (00:32)
I was gonna say

the hair is just kicking on both of us today. it, forget that love the lovely locks of Jack Bavir. We've, we've got it all. And our craniums are huge. So we're just as smart. So we miss Jack. Jack is on a junket, I believe in New York right now. And he will be back shortly. But dude, we we are talking to gab, our producer prior to the show today. And I can't believe that we're actually 82 episodes in.

Brian Leibowitz (00:39)
Overrated. Overrated.

Craig Fuhr (00:56)
of this podcast that is solely geared towards advanced investors we've had on. Brian, we've had on some of the most amazing guests over the last 80 plus episodes. And frankly, I'm surprised that like, you know, some of these people would come on. mean, we've talked to guys that do 1000s of transactions, or have done 1000s of transactions, who build, you know, hundreds of houses a year against nationals, guys that do B2R, multifamily.

You know, and just I'm so proud of the content that we put forth. We were out, Brian, at the National Association of Home Builders in Vegas about a week and a half ago, two weeks ago. It's a huge show. So it takes up the. It takes up like four convention halls. We talked about it on a previous episode, but I was so I was blown away. You know, we're sitting in our booth and this guy comes up and he's like, man, I know that voice from anywhere.

Brian Leibowitz (01:39)
It's enormous. Yeah, I've seen it.

Craig Fuhr (01:55)
Yeah, I was like, Holy cow, that's and he was like, you know, it's must it's must see TV for me. Like I have to listen. It's the only podcast I listen to and I really enjoy it.

Brian Leibowitz (01:53)
that poor soul.

Well, I mean, I've listened

to all of them and I share your, you know, your comments, like the, the lineup that you guys have had over the last, you know, a couple of years now at this point, has been just impressive. And I, I kind of tell everybody in town that's, you know, on a more than the average investor, like, Hey, you should really be listening to Jack and Craig. Like it's just the level of which you guys go into and the guests that you have on is just a, it's just so much different than everything else that's out.

Craig Fuhr (02:31)
I think there's a lot of people, man, and we'll get into this in a bit, but I think there's a lot of people that probably listen to the show. They're sort of on the bubble of like scaling to the next level. I think most investors aspire to that. And what I hope people find helpful is just sort of listening to pretty average guys. You know, we've talked to some Ivy leaguers here on the podcast, guys that were sort of groomed to.

Brian Leibowitz (02:32)
Thank

Craig Fuhr (02:57)
do what they're doing today. But a lot of by and large, most of the people that we've spoken to started off with a single house, you know, and have just figured it out time on task, as Brenton has said on the last podcast, you know, time on task, time on task, and just becoming better operators. So, man, I just want to cover a couple of things. And then you and I will jump in the five year Treasury note, which is something that we look at on almost constant basis here at Dominion as we write

a lot of DSCR loans for investors in all 50 states. DSCR is a 30 year fixed loan. And so those loans are all indexed off of the five year treasury. And that, my friend, has been coming down over the last three months, kind of went up pretty high, and then has been slowly subsiding. Today we're at 4.09%, which means, frankly,

that DSCR rates are for 70 and 75 % cash out right now are probably hovering somewhere in the low 7 % for folks with decent credit. And I think that's been a welcomed relief as the phone appears to be ringing off the hook here at Dominion Financial with investors looking to refi or purchase turnkey rentals. But here's a question that I get constantly.

Hey, Craig, you know, I know where it is today, but where do you think it's going to be in the next six to 12 months? And if I had a crystal ball, I guess it would be just as good as yours. But I did a little research before the show today on what some of the experts in the industry, bond buyers are saying. And so the Financial Forecast Center expects the five year Treasury will decrease from four point one percent.

in March, which it's very close to right now to about 2.77 by October 25. Now that would be something indeed. I don't know if I'm quite as bullish.

Brian Leibowitz (04:54)
I was going to say that

seems like a very, very meaningful drop.

Craig Fuhr (04:59)
Yeah, mean, you know,

I think the deluge of investors looking to refi at that point would be, you know, maybe like what it was a few years ago. World Government bonds projects that the yield will be approximately 3.814 by the end of June. So a little bit more bearish. And frankly, if it got to that, I think we'd all be happy anytime it's in the threes, I think you're going to get, you know, better money, better returns, trading economics, forecasts,

that the five-year note yield will be around 4.3 at the end of the current quarter and 4.05 in the next 12 months. So not much of a change from its current level. In conjunction with all of that, the Fed had a recent meeting, decided not to change rates on the overnight. But I will say, historically, took a look back in July of 23,

the Fed rate was somewhere between five and a quarter to 5.5%. In September of the following year in 24, it was at 4.755. And since that time, it's come down 100 bips. What's the upside of that? Well, frankly, what we saw, Brian, was Fed comes out with a rate cut, and actually the five-year Treasury and the 10-year and the 30-year actually went up.

So all of these folks that were waiting last year for Powell to make a move, which didn't happen until the third quarter, they were waiting, waiting, waiting on the sidelines, all while rates were the best we had seen in a couple of years in the low sixes. And they're thinking, well, the Fed's going to come out, lower the overnight rate, and we will see a commensurate slide in the five and 10 year.

Brian Leibowitz (06:32)
That's right.

Craig Fuhr (06:46)
that didn't happen. In fact, it was inverse. so rates went up on the five year almost immediately as well as DSCR, which again is indexed by that. And so if you're waiting for the Fed to do their thing, I would tell you that, you know, as Jack says, you should take your wins as they come. And right now I feel like, you know, better investors can get a decent return on, you know, the difference between their cash flow and the 30 year I'm sorry.

and a 30 year fixed DSCR loan. So, you know, we're here for business. If you guys need any information, you can reach out to me Craig at the Dominion group.com. Glad to help. So that's the five year treasury. I honestly, Brian, I don't I think I'm probably somewhere in the yeah, we'll see it maybe come down into the into the high threes over the next over the next six to 12 months.

But there's a lot of glass being broken in DC right now as they're trying to reconfig the government, which I think is a long needed thing. the tariffs are going to start kicking in on April 2nd. We don't know what that's exactly going to do to the economy. I'm hopeful that it will bring back some manufacturing, which we'll talk about in a bit. But let's set that aside for now and get into you.

Brian Leibowitz (08:01)
Great.

Craig Fuhr (08:01)
Yeah, man. So Brian Liebowitz is the director of acquisition and sales and quite frankly, disposition as well here at Dominion Financial, but you've had a long and illustrious career working almost solely with investors and investor properties. So why don't you give us your background, Brian, sort of like where you came from, how long you've been in the industry, and then we'll just kick off the conversation.

Brian Leibowitz (08:13)
you

Sure, thanks for the invite, Craig and Jack. I you're not here, but appreciate it. That is a balanced day, you probably are. All right, so my career actually got started at Virginia Tech, Go Hokies. And I met a very unique individual there named Jonathan Spanetto. I was an environmental science major, took a little extra time to graduate.

Craig Fuhr (08:30)
Jack did not invite you. said, do not have that guy on.

Brian Leibowitz (08:49)
And I ended up graduating in a very awkward time in the market. graduated in December of 08 and I couldn't find anything, you know, really, really genuinely could not find a job, you know, to save my life. no one was hiring, you know, entry level people because, know, people who had 20 years experience were losing their careers, you know, so, you know, they were picking up talent, you know, at entry level jobs and stacking their, you know, stacking their employee coffers, you know, with,

Craig Fuhr (08:55)
yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (09:17)
you know, people who really knew what they were doing, not lowly me. And a good buddy of mine, Jonathan, basically reached out to me and said, hey, look, my dad runs a brokerage called Champion Homes Realty, and I need a runner. We've got all these foreclosures from Fannie Mae that we barely know what to do with because we're just inundated. So I need a runner.

And I'll pay you 15 bucks an hour, all your gas. And when you do get an interview, take the day. So it was super easy. And I just went, man, that's great. I appreciate it. It was super helpful. And I'm always grateful for that moment in my life because of what happened. I was a runner for four months. Four months. Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (09:59)
So when you say runner, were you going

out to look at vacant homes or folks who were going in the foreclosure with potential listings there?

Brian Leibowitz (10:05)
Most, yeah,

so these were foreclosed homes for Fannie Mae. Some of them were occupied, but like 80, 90 % were vacant. So it wasn't everything occupied where you're really, really struggling to get the information that the bank is asking you to get, or Jonathan's asking you to get in that respect. But Jonathan was levered what Fannie Mae was trying to do back then, which was they didn't know

Craig Fuhr (10:14)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (10:35)
how many foreclosures they were really gonna get. And they just needed people to operate and figure out how to dispo all of these foreclosures. So Fannie levered the good brokers, the good real estate agents and allowed them to run. And that's where Jonathan came in. He had a Virginia team and a Maryland team. And I was located in Northern Virginia at the time, but I commuted all over Northern Virginia and Maryland for this role.

And four months later, I still didn't have a job and he is beating down my door saying, dude, go get your license. It's $250, right? Like it was, and that's how it started. Like I said, man, I really want to use my degree. I just spent all this time.

And damn it, Craig, I went and got my license and never looked back. And frankly, the story is fairly comical. I just don't, I don't see how anybody else was able to do it this way. Jonathan, the first day that I was licensed, literally the first day he gave me five listings. Okay? And I didn't know what I was doing. Are you kidding me? Like, there's no way. know, for those who are licensed and listening, like you guys know the original.

Craig Fuhr (11:21)
Yeah you did.

Brian Leibowitz (11:46)
time you got licensed like that, that knowledge is so minute compared to what you're actually doing as an agent. It's just crazy. But it escalated very quickly from there because I was handling the five, no problem. He gave me some guidance. He gave me some training. I was mentoring under our Maryland broker who was helping. And my parents had been renting and flipping homes for a while. had, my dad was a master plumber. So I knew real estate.

Right? Like I knew that, but I didn't know how to be an asset manager. Okay.

Craig Fuhr (12:16)
So the five

listings that you got, were they distressed assets or were they just typically? Okay.

Brian Leibowitz (12:19)
Yeah, these were Fannie Mae foreclosures. Fannie

Mae foreclosures and Jonathan had built a system behind the scenes to allow real estate agents to be a real estate agent. And then all the paperwork and all the reimbursements and all the renovations and stuff gets handled by a team behind the scenes.

Craig Fuhr (12:38)
So you find

these houses that are basically Fanny listings, correct?

Brian Leibowitz (12:43)
Well, they give

it to you. They're assigned, you know, assigned, they're listed, they're literally a listing agreement with Fannie

Craig Fuhr (12:49)
I got it. And then your job at that point was then, I would think in many cases, you know, these houses weren't always left in like pristine condition. How many, how many of the five were, if you can recall, were listings where you were going out to find an investor buyer rather than a retail?

Brian Leibowitz (13:07)
so remember Fannie, even back then they had a requirement where the first 10 days of it being marketed, had to go to a homeowner. But for those in the business, we all know like basically 90 % of those houses never belonged to go to a homeowner. They were all investor houses.

Craig Fuhr (13:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And in fact,

you know, we're talking 2008 here where if you turn on the news on any given night, they would tell you how no one was buying houses. But during the Obama era, they did come up with quite a few incentives for new home buyers. But what we found back then, Brian, and I'm sure you can attest to this was retail buyers did not want a house that required sweat equity. They wanted to walk in with their toothbrush in their clothes and go, Hey, I've got my new home here. And that's quite frankly, how I

you know, cut my teeth in like from 2004 to 2012 was finding distress, REO properties, going in and making them the Taj Mahal, and then selling them basically for what grandmoms house next door would would sell for and we and even during the time where no one was buying houses, we were still selling houses in less than 30 days all of my houses back then. So yeah, keep going.

Brian Leibowitz (14:12)
That's right.

yeah, so those first five, that was the first week. The second week he gave me 10 more. And the third week he gave me another 10. And literally in the first month I had 20, 30 houses and I went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I'm barely hanging on, right?

Craig Fuhr (14:22)
you

you

Brian Leibowitz (14:35)
You know, cause as a, as an REO agent, you're doing BPOs, you're doing bi-weekly inspections, you're, you know, you're ordering all the repairs that are needed. You're maintaining it, making sure that your electric's on, you know, all the stuff, right? And I'll skip a couple of steps here, man, but within the first four months, I had over a hundred listings and I never looked back ever. I never thought about it, about a, you know, a

Craig Fuhr (14:42)
Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (14:58)
what I would call a regular job, my college degree job again. And I was addicted, I was hooked. And the thing that hooked me was something similar to what Brenton was talking about in your last podcast was just your effort directly impacts your income, period. The harder you work, the more money or the more success or the more wins you're gonna get. And I was hooked, man. And it's been in me ever since.

Craig Fuhr (15:23)
So how long did you stay in that position with that brokerage?

Brian Leibowitz (15:26)
two years,

two years. Fannie restructured and they wanted more, because they were in the government limelight a little bit more in the eyes of Congress, they started aligning more with, they wanted more equality, they wanted more spread across multiple agents. So they started cutting and they started, the volume started dropping, et cetera. I, at that point, had already, two years in I had sold

250 houses, like it was, you know, with another hundred behind, you know, like that were waiting in the wings. So this volume play was, quickly dwindling, you know, even in the, even in 08, 09, 2010, because Fanny was really trying to restructure and wanted it more, more fair, more even, which you got to understand at that point, like a lot of agents just wanted in.

Craig Fuhr (16:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, there was.

Brian Leibowitz (16:18)
because

they thought it was glory, right? Like they thought it was amazing.

Craig Fuhr (16:21)
That was an era

where you found quite an explosion in REO agents.

Brian Leibowitz (16:26)
Correct.

Yep. And none of them really knew, you know, I shouldn't say none of them, but most of them really didn't know what to expect. You know, when you really get into the nitty gritty, you're carrying bills for 45 to 60 days. And if you've got a hundred listings, that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Craig Fuhr (16:42)
Yeah, because the agent was not only responsible for the listing, but weren't they sort of responsible for like the lawn and like making sure that the place didn't get broken into and yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (16:48)
Yes. You know, the utility bills, the repairs, all of it

came out of the agent's, know, account. And then you had to be reimbursed. Fannie never put out the money themselves. And that was a, when you really get into the, where you're going to make money in the REO world, you had to be doing just massive volume to be able to lever, you know, your, you know, your talent. So that's where Jonathan really came into it.

And I ended up linking up with Leo Pereja and, know, Jonathan and him were close. And for those that don't know, Leo was KW's number one agent in the world for a long time. And now he ended up switching over to eXp recently, and now he's their CEO. And these guys, these were the kings of, of REO at the time. Like it was just that world of 08, 09, 2010.

is just night and day difference to what we're seeing today. And the real benefit to me was the experience gained in a very short period of time and understanding what investors were looking for, understanding the numbers, understanding the math, right? Like that's not something that's easily learned.

Right? Like for me, it was beat into my brain, you know, over 250 transactions. But, you know, quickly after that, once the volume started, you know, started dying off, I switched over to another volume broker who had more than Fanny. And Gina Gargew is, one of the queens of Baltimore and she still is to this day. And I respect them. You know, I respect everything I do too. And I respect her for everything that she's been able to do.

Craig Fuhr (18:29)
Legend.

Brian Leibowitz (18:34)
for effectively a 30 year career. And she started from nothing as well. And she turned her business into, God, I think today she's probably got 15 banks. Yeah. she's had to, and she knows this, she's had to expand how many banks she has, because the volume's different. Exactly. But when I got there as her director of operations, after the Fannie Mae stuff, she had, think,

Craig Fuhr (18:43)
Really?

Yeah, the transaction volume is obviously much lower.

Brian Leibowitz (18:59)
you know, know, assets on a list, you know, with two or three banks, four banks type thing. Yeah. 2010, 2012, I can't remember the specifics, but somewhere around there. And, you know, the, I was there for years and we did just crazy volumes where you're selling, you know, five, 600 houses a year. Like it's because the, then, you know, these other banks didn't have the same requirements or, or hoops that I would say.

Craig Fuhr (19:04)
So this is like 2010ish, then you go to join her brokerage.

Brian Leibowitz (19:28)
that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did, the quasi-government requirements. These other asset management companies would just say, hey, you know what you're doing? Here's 10, or hey, here's 50, whatever it was. And Gina was like, no, no, keep them coming, because she handled her stuff. She handled the business well.

Craig Fuhr (19:44)
See you.

So you go to Gina's shop and was that solely focused in like the Baltimore metro area?

Brian Leibowitz (19:51)
Yeah, Gina's most of most of those transactions were because they're based off a location, your assignments. So she's right in downtown. She's in Fentanyl, you know, and people who are listening, that's, know, everybody knows that's a really great spot. But it means that you get the stuff in the city and the city is not as, as desirable as some of the other stuff in the county. So she never said no. And I, and that was one of the things I respected her for. Like there was, there was money to be made and there were, there were,

There were connections to link up with investors and understand who was buying what. And when you start talking about that, Vaughn, you make a lot of friends real quick. And for me,

Craig Fuhr (20:30)
You really do. It's, you know,

it's a big industry, but it was very close in Baltimore and you instantly know the players from the knot and the better operators from the knot.

Brian Leibowitz (20:33)
It is.

Well, it's called small to more for a reason, right? Like we all know each other, literally all of us. it's the play, know, Brenton was talking about that there's, you know, a couple thousand people who are doing transactions. He's dead on. Like it's, it's a joke that there's a hundred of us. We all know each other.

Craig Fuhr (20:43)
Yeah.

So I was, Brian sent me an email this morning. What year was that by the way? didn't even check. So yeah, 2011, I was really, you know, at that time, I was flipping a ton of houses and in different, in several different states, including Maryland, doing really well with the flips. But my rentals were just bringing me down like the slow Titanic. And what we found was back then was,

Brian Leibowitz (21:00)
2011.

Craig Fuhr (21:23)
You could buy rentals in Baltimore and sort of transitional neighborhoods like most industrial post-industrial cities for pennies on the dollar, put a significant amount of rehab in them. But man, after the downturn, it was really difficult to attract of quality tenants if you could attract them at all. And I'm in neighborhoods where it's predominantly subsidized tenants. And what we found back then was there was just better assets and better neighborhoods because there was so much stock.

that guys couldn't, you know, they over rehabbed it or whatever. the tenant, the voucher tenant has this, you know, golden ticket and they didn't want to live in park heights. They didn't want to live in bombed out areas where there's a triple murder out in front of one of my apartment buildings. Like, and so it was a great time to be a flipper, not a good time to be a landlord if you weren't solely focused on being a better operator, which frankly, that's what Fred and Jack were, became so good at back then.

Brian Leibowitz (22:03)
Correct.

Yeah. And that's

actually where I was going with that, that, that during that period where I was at, at Gina's, met Jack and Fred and they were buying, you know, they were buying, you know, very specific properties at that point. They were, they were picking up, you know, stuff from me, stuff from, you know, some of the other REO agents. And, you know, I got, uh, you know, I met Will, which was, know, who used to be at Dominion. You know, I got to meet, you know, all these people from Dominion. was like, wow, what the heck is going on here?

Craig Fuhr (22:22)
I'm sure you did.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (22:44)
because they

operated, you know, even at that point, they were operating at a level that was different than the other, you know, the other people of Baltimore, because Jack has this very famous quote. I don't know if he's ever told you, Craig, but he says that Baltimore looks very cheap on paper, but in general, it tends to chew people up and spit them out because they underestimate the turnover. The turnover is where you get crushed. And there's nothing,

inherently wrong with Baltimore. But people underestimate because it's not the same market as our surrounding areas or even, you know, anything across the country. I'm sure that there's, there are others where turnovers are very high and very, very expensive, but the housing stock due to the age, you have to factor it in. And if you don't, you are going to get chewed up and you are going to get spit out and you're going to lose a lot because you didn't plan ahead.

Craig Fuhr (23:40)
Yeah, I think we've discussed that many times on the podcast. And one of the things that I don't think has come up is that, you know, Baltimore is the same as Philly is the same as, you know, Trenton, New Jersey is the same as Detroit, you know, I could go I'm about to go through a list on the next episode. but what what we what is not often said is that there's so many sub markets within that.

Brian Leibowitz (23:52)
Detroit.

Craig Fuhr (24:04)
small city, you know, essentially. And I think what Jack and Fred became very good at with Dominion Properties was identifying the better areas. And sometimes those areas are delineated by one block. There's a famous map that Jack has. I don't know if he still has it on as well. It's the Baltimore topological map by neighborhood. It's brilliant. And what is striking about it is that you've got the entire city

Brian Leibowitz (24:16)
correct.

We still have it. It is.

Craig Fuhr (24:30)
I wish I had a link for it to suggest maybe if you got

Brian Leibowitz (24:33)
It's

for everybody listening. It's Baltimore City code map. I use it every single day, literally every day. Okay. And it's delineation of a lot of different statistics and factors across every single block. You know, you can divide it up into neighborhoods. That's fine. But it goes block by block, sale by sale, you know, income by income, you know, it literally shows where

Craig Fuhr (24:38)
There you go. So.

Yes.

Brian Leibowitz (24:58)
where there could be potential problems in a city or on a block or in neighborhood. It's very important to understand.

Craig Fuhr (25:03)
Yeah, so it like, I think it's fair to say

that most investors, like Dominion aren't necessarily playing in the A markets, because your return there is going you're going to the price of the asset is going to be way too high to create a return.

Brian Leibowitz (25:16)
Yeah, the

blue chip neighborhoods tend to be on the upper end of where DSCR even comes close to covering. Your bread and butter tends to be that those middle markets, the emerging, still stable, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, but the emerging markets where you've got solid home ownership and good people who have a reasonable career, kids, they just want a safe place to live.

Those places are very, very strong and you make, you you're able to make your DSCR numbers work pretty, you know, pretty comfortably there.

Craig Fuhr (25:50)
Yeah, you know, it's funny, we talked to a couple of local portfolio guys here in Baltimore who are operating more in like the D C and D markets. And, and, the, and the, the theory of the case there is, that if we can be, if we can put out a bulletproof asset, basically one that like, you know, you can go in and bang it up pretty good, but still it's going to work.

and provide a really nice asset for those customers, they become less of a headache. And really, that's Jack's theory that like, you start to get into the C and Ds markets, and again, block by block in Baltimore and a lot of cities, you start to get tenants, the headaches out of the tenants outweigh the cash flow that you're making on an asset. And to your point of turnover, you the turnover in those becomes, you know,

pretty undesirable at that point.

Brian Leibowitz (26:41)
Yeah,

I recently just did a blog post on both my website and DFS's website about the Dominion standard. For those listening, Dominion literally has a standard list of products that we put in every single rental. And it benefits both us and our tenants because now there is a standard that they expect, that we expect, that the market expects across every single

that we own. And frankly, people stay longer because we do choose, you know, granite countertops and we are choosing good LVP flooring. We're not putting in junk. We're not putting in something that's going to last one tenancy. We're going to get something like two or three tenancies out of them. And that means that if somebody does stay our average, I think we're over seven years now, that by the time, you know, by the time they are reaching that fifth, sixth year with us, things still look okay.

And it's just not as, there's a lot of landlords who don't think that through and they have products that are in full need of replacement within five years.

Craig Fuhr (27:45)
I agree. And we've highlighted that on the podcast several times that the average tenancy at Dominion is about seven years, which is, you know, has over seven hasn't always been that way. But I think it's been that way over the last few years. And and that's just better operations that are tightening your operations, really knowing your client and then just picking better assets.

Brian Leibowitz (27:54)
think it's over set. I think we are. Yeah. Yeah.

Choosing the right asset

matters as well. And that's one of the things that I did want to talk with you about today, that the people who are looking at DSCR loans and looking at building a portfolio, you really got to know your market. For us, I love the fact that we have CodeMap available because it allows me to be the expert. I already know Baltimore better than most. We can easily say that due to my transaction volume. But when you really get into the block by block stuff,

Craig Fuhr (28:27)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (28:35)
You need a tool, right? Like you need something there to assist your knowledge base. And there are other cities that have, you know, what's called housing market typology, HMT. You know, there's other cities out there that have this data and, you know, as an investor, if you're not using that, you're losing. Like just be ready.

Craig Fuhr (28:52)
Yeah, you really are.

It's a brilliant tool. One that I when I used to speak nationwide, I would always highlight that tool and tell people if you can find this in your city, it's that beneficial. It's that great of a resource.

Brian Leibowitz (29:05)
Yeah, it's

most of the time the cities have it in what they what they refer to as their GIS maps. So, you know, housing market typology is what I think they're all called. They might they might have something, you know, different, but they're it's basically a group of statistics and they're grading each individual area based off of what those statistics represent. know, sales price, know, vacants, you know, all sorts of stuff gets thrown in.

Craig Fuhr (29:23)
All right, so.

So we skipped ahead a little bit from working in Gina's shop to talking about dominion. So what year did you come to Dominion Properties?

Brian Leibowitz (29:29)
We did. Yeah.

So

I've been with Dominion now for coming up on seven years. was August of 2018. I was part of a startup just before I came to Dominion called Remind. I was employee number three. Jonathan Spinello and Leo Pereja were the creators. And there's been all sorts of news about them. I've been gone from there for a long time. that experience was interesting. how data affects our day to day.

was never anything that I ever thought about. But then you started combining my transaction volume with my knowledge base with the data. And then it just, was a new world, just a new world. And that's where me, Jack, Fred, and the team, when I came here at 18, they weren't using a whole lot, but now we are using a lot of data behind the scenes. And I recommend everybody should be, even if it's just a property stream.

account, you should be levering as much as possible of AI and data that you possibly can.

Craig Fuhr (30:32)
So you share with me before the show, you've done over 2500 transactions, over 700 just in the time that you've been with Dominion. What's that like, man? mean, so it's not just, know, Dominion is now not just buying REO properties, right? We do a tremendous amount of marketing, which you're a part of. So what's it been like? And then we'll get into the specifics of how you acquire.

What's it been like to be a part of, you know, 700 plus transactions in such a short period of time?

Brian Leibowitz (31:03)
Dude,

I love it. You know, it's one of those things where, you know, the win is what I'm chasing. You know, I love the housing, right? Like the houses themselves, because I am a realtor. You know, I do understand, know, hey, there is a personal connection to a lot of these, you know, lot of these homes for people. And I get that. And I'm part of that, right? Like I get that part. But I gotta say, I love the win. I love the chase. I love, you know, what Brenton was talking about, right?

really digging in and really finding the houses and, you know, and walking houses and seeing where we can add value and feeling like we've got a leg up on somebody, you on our competitors because we're going to do something better than they are because we're a better operator. That's way we feel, right?

Craig Fuhr (31:46)
Well,

let's talk about that. First, I want to talk about sort of the, the ways in which we acquire the auction, you know, postcard direct mail. do a lot of TV commercials as well. By the way, Brian's only 32 years old, but look how old he looks from all the, all the transaction he's done. So, I had no idea. had no idea. So, so

Brian Leibowitz (31:56)
Yeah. Yep.

Yes, yeah, 32. Add 10 to that. Jack and I are the same age. How about that? It's just funny.

Craig Fuhr (32:13)
Yeah, let's talk quickly about the types of marketing that we do that you really feel is paying off. And then I want to get into the pretty stiff competition that not only we see here in Maryland, but frankly, across the country. So and how you feel you have a competitive advantage. So what are the marketing channels that we use currently to get the phone ringing with potential sellers?

Brian Leibowitz (32:35)
Sure,

so we've got like traditional marketing where we're doing, you know, direct mail. That's a very big portion. You know, we send out a lot of mail for very specific reasons though. And the thing that I've always wanted to delineate for most investors is you have to understand you can't do, you know, you just can't do blanket marketing. It's a waste of time. You really have to target, you know, the people who you feel are your best, you know, person to work with, you know.

Craig Fuhr (33:02)
So are we talking letters or postcards or both there? Okay.

Brian Leibowitz (33:05)
Mixed both, yep,

mixed both. find that, as we've done testing over the years, that it works better in some areas, one thing works better than others in certain areas or for the specific message. And there's times where for certain lists, because there is a touch point process where you do have to reach out to people a certain amount of times before they actually contact us, you are doing a mix. You're doing a handwritten letter, you're doing a postcard, you're doing a professional letter, you're doing all sorts of stuff.

And you have to know your market. You have to. Otherwise you're just going to blow money. All of the above. Next channel is our TV commercial. We've been on the local TV stations for a couple of years now. And there's ebbs and flows with the TV. It's part of it. The example I like to use is during the election, we couldn't compete with the ad spend.

Craig Fuhr (33:39)
So all of the above on on direct mail, give us the next channel.

Brian Leibowitz (33:59)
So you get kicked, and your usual 30 to 50 spots a month goes down to 10 for the same amount of money, or five for the same amount of money, and you go, no. And you have to understand that there is ebbs and flows, and the TV is not just for the lead sources. It's also building credibility.

Right? Yeah, the brand recognition is a very big piece. And as a company, you know, like, you know, the size of Dominion, you have to be willing to understand that you have to really dig in and say, Hey, this is a long term play. We're going to spend the money, but the dividend that it will that it will pay off is in tenfold, you know, over time.

Craig Fuhr (34:20)
brand recognition.

Let me ask you this, because you and I had lunch just after I came aboard about a year or so ago. And I, it was actually about a year and a half ago. And I think at the time you had started doing commercials. and, and, but the jury was still out on cost per lead cost per deal and the effectiveness of it. You appeared to be, you know, pretty bullish on it. how long did it take?

for Jack, Fred and you to really decide that like, nah, this is something we got to stick with. is something that's for real. No matter the cost, well, not no matter the cost, given the cost, this is something that we really want to stick with. How long did that take? Because I think at the time you and I spoke, like, you know, the jury was still out.

Brian Leibowitz (35:24)
Yeah. So one thing I will say is the cost per lead or per, you know, contract, whichever one you want to use, the TV is the most expensive, just is. However, two, okay. Sometimes three, depending, depending on the lead source, right? The benefit though, is that they are by far the most, the most closed.

Craig Fuhr (35:33)
Mm-hmm.

by a factor of okay.

Really?

Brian Leibowitz (35:49)
transaction,

most closed lead. And it's because you have technically, because it's me on the commercial, right? So when I show up, they already know what I look like. They've already met me, right? They already know what I sound like. They know that we're a reputable company because we're on television.

Craig Fuhr (36:04)
I have to believe that some of them can't even believe that you're the guy showing up and not just some actor in a commercial.

Brian Leibowitz (36:08)
Yeah, and

it's an ongoing joke because most of the time when you show up to those appointments, get someone, you meet a couple, right? A married couple or a husband and wife or a son and a mother, whatever. One of them will smack the other one on the shoulder and say, see, I told you it was gonna be the guy from TV. And those appointments go so well because again, they already know you. They don't know you, but they do know you.

Craig Fuhr (36:17)
Mm.

Hahaha

Brian Leibowitz (36:38)
different than the bandit signs, where they're just calling a phone number and anybody named Joe Schmoe could show up. So that's where I was going, right? Jack said from the beginning, and I'll never forget it, Jack said, we're gonna do this for a year at least, from the very beginning. The man is able to look into a crystal ball better than anybody I know. And here we are effectively two years in and there's ebbs and flows and he's, no, no, no.

Craig Fuhr (36:43)
How soon did like again, sitting on the fence? Yeah, how soon did you realize that?

very good at it.

Brian Leibowitz (37:05)
There's brand recognition involved. We're still getting leads. You know, we're not getting as many because of all sorts of factors, but bottom line, like, you know, he was in it for the long haul. He knew, he knew.

Craig Fuhr (37:16)
It's a big, know, spoken to many investors who do it, and a lot who started doing it, but just couldn't take the the the bite. It's it's

Brian Leibowitz (37:23)
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of money.

Like it's six figures a year to stay on front and center full year. It's hard. That's a big number. And I don't recommend it to everybody, right? Like it's not a thing that, yeah, just be on TV. Nah, that's not how it works. We tried radio and didn't get the same traction that we get with other sources. Namely, radio is way more expensive than I thought it was gonna be.

Craig Fuhr (37:30)
Yeah.

What about radio?

It's

insane. I agree.

Brian Leibowitz (37:51)
Woo.

So we, I think we gave that three, four months, five months, something like that, and just almost got no traction. So we ended up.

Craig Fuhr (37:58)
love getting

into the weeds where you like am station FM station.

Brian Leibowitz (38:02)
We

did both. did one on each, two, know, kind of the two, you know, yeah, legacy stations that have real, you know, real listenership and bottom line, like it just, we didn't get anywhere. So you, as, as investors, like, you know, cause we are investors ourselves, we have to keep track of that. Like I have weekly meetings with, know, with the marketing team to understand like, where's the money going and Hey, guess what? Like we gave it a shot. It didn't go anywhere. Plug that money into another, you know, working lead source and

Craig Fuhr (38:06)
legacy stations here in town.

Brian Leibowitz (38:32)
we get a lever on the stuff that is working. So that's where it was. We wanted to try it out. There are some other competitors on there. if they're getting traction, bless them. That's great. But we just didn't get anything.

Craig Fuhr (38:45)
One last thing on this channel, tell me about how, have you honed the message on the commercials or is it largely the same since you've started? Yeah, so we're on TV and I'm assuming that you haven't used the same exact commercial for two years. You've probably cut a few. Do you find that some of them are more effective than others? And if so,

Brian Leibowitz (39:09)
That's actually a really great question, Craig. What we did after the election, we switched back to our original commercial because the newest commercial that we did had kind of slowed down at the end of, know, 24. And it was likely due to a number of factors, but we still wanted to throw our original one out there because it got such an impact when we first did it a few years ago. And to be honest, it's the same result.

And I think that it's more linked to the to the market, the current state of the market than it is the message on the television, because the messages are similar. It's, you know, it's me saying, Hey, you know, we'll, you know, we'll work around your timeframe, you know, you know, cash off or we don't lowball anybody, which we don't. And that's a common misconception in this world. So I want to try to break down that barrier. And we've, you know, we do that in both commercials. But.

It just didn't matter. It just didn't matter. It's slower now than it was, I'm sorry, it's as slow now as it was in 24. I'm, from legacy data, it's gonna pick up in the next couple months. So just stay the course. Stay the course. You've been building your brand for the last six months. Let it happen. This is part of it.

Craig Fuhr (40:23)
So

I, you know, it's funny, I've always I'm of this mindset that nobody watches commercials anymore. But with the baseball season coming, go Orioles. I find that, you know, I'm sitting in front of the TV watching the game. And so I'm watching the commercials. And so I see competitors of Dominions who are also out there doing commercials. But given your knowledge of the market, how many competitors do we have in sort of in TV and radio? Do you know?

Brian Leibowitz (40:31)
Yeah.

So actually, yeah on the television itself, there are four real competitors in our market And I respect all of them, you know They are these are all like really genuinely good operators and I have no issue with any of them I always make the joke that there's times where we're walking, you know, one person's walking into appointment I'm walking out, you know, we see each other we know each other like the the again small to more we really do You know, there's there's really good operators in our area

Craig Fuhr (40:51)
like significant.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they're all yeah, they're all decent operators.

You

Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (41:20)
and the ones that have been operating that well for that long, like you're gonna cross paths.

Craig Fuhr (41:24)
My sense is

that if they're still on TV, they're probably getting similar results. that your experience?

Brian Leibowitz (41:30)
yeah,

no, and I have, you know, I try to have quarterly calls with some of these guys, you know, just to make sure that, you know, we're not the only ones and, know, we've all kind of agreed to, you know, let the barrier be down and just talk real and everybody is struggling, you know, in general, inventory is down. it just is. So, and that's a, that's a factor of the market, not, not because of our marketing, you know, that's the market speaking, you know, that's the...

Craig Fuhr (41:47)
Yeah.

Let's get

into the next channel like pay-per-click SEO.

Brian Leibowitz (41:57)
Which is, yeah, which is

auctions. Yep. You know, we are,

for those that don't know, we are heavy buyers down at the, the courthouse steps, you know, the foreclosure auctions. We, we really know, and I really know that that channel really well, and you really have to dig in to understand the math because there's time involved in the every day that goes by, costs you money because you're accruing interest on those, you know, on those sales. So.

You know, with those transactions, it's heavy when it comes to the math. It takes me hours every week to underwrite the, you know, this week was 14 down at the city and another, I think four or five in the county. And you have auctions, auctions at the courthouse steps. And, you know, there's other weeks where it's 50, you know, and in those cases, it's multiple days of me working late nights, you know, up early.

Craig Fuhr (42:40)
auctions.

Brian Leibowitz (42:53)
whatever it takes to make sure that we've got a number for the people who are representing us at these sales.

Craig Fuhr (42:58)
Yeah, when I was here in 2015, Jack's sole job when he would walk in in the morning, he would close the door and just basically look at properties that were coming up for auction. based on the pictures, and he became very good at it, he could kind of put a number on it. But what I think most people who want to get into purchasing at the auction steps, what they don't realize is you'll show up with 10 properties that you want to bid on.

and maybe eight of them that day got redeemed or somehow didn't make it to the steps. And so you spend a lot of time on on houses that you think you're going to bid on that don't ever really actually happen. They might come up later, obviously. But talk about that.

Brian Leibowitz (43:36)
Yeah,

so it's the reason why I don't do any of that underwriting until the night before. Because on that list of 50, by the time you get to, our auctions happen on usually Thursdays, so by the time you get to Wednesday afternoon, there could be 20 of them that canceled. And that's a real number, right? Like you could be down to 30, literally two thirds of your list.

Craig Fuhr (43:55)
Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (44:02)
you know, just over a couple of days. So if you had done your underwriting on Monday, you wasted hours of your time. And I'm, I've got to keep, you know, my efficiency, you know, up to, you know, just, you know, highest and best use. Right. So that means, guess what? I, you know, last night I worked from, you know, about 9 PM to about 1 AM. And that's why you got that email from me, you know, at, you know, at 1 AM because I find that I'm able to crank out work.

Just like Brenton was talking about on your last podcast, it's uninterrupted. I'm able to just plow through, looking at all these photos, because you buy in sight unseen for those who are listening. Yeah, and it is. You are taking real risk, and you have to know your market. You just did it.

Craig Fuhr (44:43)
It's ballsy. It's very ballsy.

There's a

there's a great video still me on YouTube, I think I was buying houses at the at auction for like turnkey investors in Indianapolis. And so Indianapolis Sheriff sales, they have this crazy thing where they come in, there's a whiteboard with all of the all of the properties that are going to go you get there like 10am. They've got all the properties on this whiteboard and they give you like five hours to go out and look at them. And there's a

Brian Leibowitz (44:57)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Craig Fuhr (45:13)
crazy video where we were trying to buy a mansion like we're like the Pacers live and guys like that. And I kick we can't get in. So it was this mansion that the starting price was like 350 grand house had to be like a $2 million house. And so had to get in. So I kicked the door. It was all snowy outside. He was like hardwood floors. And dude, I just go down. I mean, assholes and elbows everywhere.

Brian Leibowitz (45:24)
Sure. Yes.

Craig Fuhr (45:37)
So if you can find Craig Fuhr in a mansion in Indianapolis, it's still out there. But the craziness of that was is that you literally, you know, there's probably 60 properties. was a hundred guys in the room and there was three serious buyers. These guys are going to buy everything. But because of that, because you knew that they were that good and had such strong operations at the auctions, you had to go out and really look at these things and you really had to do the math on them. We didn't wind up buying that mansion, by the way, but

Brian Leibowitz (45:37)
boy.

Craig Fuhr (46:06)
But yeah, man, so I remember talking to Jack on an episode several months ago where he was pretty frustrated at the auctions, not really finding a lot. What's your take these days on the competition that you see at the steps and Dominion's ability to put together a bid that makes sense, that wins?

Brian Leibowitz (46:25)
So, overall, it's just hard. It's just hard. what happens, I know, it's hard. What happens every year around the holidays is auctions slow down. They always slow down. And sometimes I feel like people forget that. But I've been doing this for so long that I know that in November and December, like, there's just not gonna be that many auctions.

Craig Fuhr (46:31)
It's all hard.

Brian Leibowitz (46:47)
And then come January, February, you get inundated where you do have 60 a week, 70 a week, you whatever it is. And, you know, there's lots of reasons behind the scenes. We don't need to go into that today. My point is, that, that, that people get worried at the beginning of the year. I'm sorry. At the end of the year, like, Oh God, what's going to happen this year have the same thing happened. However, it didn't slam us in January. Like it normally does. Don't like it normally does. had one week.

where it was 50 or 60. And then it's just kind of been, you know, 30, 40, like what we would normally see. And I went, uh-oh. And that's what Jack's talking about. Like there's just less volume, there's less inventory.

Craig Fuhr (47:28)
What's a competition like?

Brian Leibowitz (47:30)
Last year when rates were, know, when the, you know, the five year was, you know, in the threes, there'd be 40, 50 people out there, you know? Most, most didn't know what they were doing. The joke is, that you still got the 15, 20 guys and gals who know the math better than everybody. And we're sitting in the back, right? Like it's the noobs that, that are upfront, you know, who want to listen to the auctioneer, you know, go through their cadence and

Craig Fuhr (47:39)
Who knew what they were doing? Like, there's a lot of guys that come to the auction that have no clue what they're doing.

Brian Leibowitz (48:00)
You know, they're, they're excited to buy, right? And that's fine. Right. But I think that most people who are there underestimate what the true cost of buying one of those foreclosures really is. I mentioned it earlier. You know, the, interest is where you really get killed. in the city, it's taking somewhere in the six months to a year to ratify. And that whole time you're accruing interest and some of these interest rates are 12, 15%. You know, because it's a foreclosure interest rate. So.

Craig Fuhr (48:11)
So true.

Brian Leibowitz (48:30)
on a $200,000 house, you've got an extra, you know, 10, 15, $20,000 that you didn't know you were gonna spend.

Craig Fuhr (48:36)
Dude, never,

that's crazy. I never thought of that. It's such a great point. We live in the People's Republic of Maryland where it appears that people who haven't paid their bills have more rights than the guys who are buying the houses. It's fine.

Brian Leibowitz (48:51)
We're a redemption

state. That's really what it is. And it has to go through the court system for the foreclosure to be finalized, to ratify, right? And prior to COVID, the ratifications were taking two, three months, and you didn't really have to factor in too much. So it wasn't as big of a deal. Or during COVID, God, during COVID was bananas. I mean, there were stuff, mean, it was over a year to ratify.

Craig Fuhr (48:59)
Mm.

Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (49:17)
you know, we're smarter than the average bear, the smarter operator. So we knew, were like, wait a minute, that's just gonna cost us way more money. So we slowed down, we factored in, my math got different, right? Like my equation of how much money we're gonna need to spend in closing costs changed significantly. And so we were sitting in the background letting people buy. And sometimes that's the wind down there. don't, you know, like...

Craig Fuhr (49:43)
yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (49:44)
You know, talked about winning earlier, right? Like it's not always buying the house. Sometimes it's letting somebody else buy the house and lose. That's what win. Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (49:50)
I've said many times that a

lot of winners at the auctions are actually the losers.

Brian Leibowitz (49:55)
Correct. look, I'm never going to disparage someone. Like, their money is just as green as ours. And if they can make the numbers work, great. Like, good for them. I want people to win. There's enough food on the table for all of us to eat. That's Correct.

Craig Fuhr (50:06)
Yeah, but let's yeah, but let's let's keep it real. Like, look, you know,

look, maybe maybe our margins, we want a better margin on an asset that we purchase at at the auction than like, you know, some mom and pop guy that does five or 10 a year. But I think by and large, we know the numbers on the purchase, the carry and the rehab way better than most. So some guys outbidding you by 50 grand on a $200,000 house, he was the loser at the auction.

Brian Leibowitz (50:35)
Correct,

that I agree with and it's the extreme that you're talking about and I agree with you. Like the people who are outbidding me by five or 10 grand, hey, great, no problem. But there's times where I look at my numbers and I go, what? And it's just because somebody wasn't thinking it through. They didn't read the ad. The other one, so that the listeners know that there are trustees who don't wipe out water bills. And if you don't read the ad,

Craig Fuhr (51:00)
That is correct.

Brian Leibowitz (51:02)
Like you won't know that hey, you're gonna be you know, you're gonna be responsible for the outstanding water bill and in Baltimore Baltimore has some of the highest water bills per you know per house in the US so you need to understand like I've seen hundred thousand dollar water bills and Like it's because somebody you know the pipe burst and it ran for a month, you know, like like

Craig Fuhr (51:25)
Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (51:27)
There's nothing you can do about that, but if you didn't read the ad to understand that you're gonna be on the hook for that, you just lost your deposit, because you're not closing on that house. You're just gonna walk from your deposit and you lost 10 grand, 20 grand, whatever you put up for your EMD. And again, you have to look at the math, you have to understand what these houses are. Also the biggest, I would say the biggest...

Challenge for a new investor is understanding that you are responsible to get possession of these houses So that means that you're buying them sight unseen. It could be occupied could be occupied legally or illegally could be a squatter But either way in the state of Maryland, you got to go to court You can't just kick them out. Like there's no whether they're you know, it's not necessarily squatters rice But you do have to go to court and file, know, very specific, you know court proceedings and it costs you money time and money

Right? Like there's a piece there that people aren't thinking about.

Craig Fuhr (52:21)
Let's talk about the getting properties off off the MRIs like listed properties. So at the very beginning of our conversation, that was an easy time it was shooting fish in a barrel, I can make 50 offers on on a Friday and by Monday, I had three deals that I could go and flip. I know that it became extremely competitive almost, you know, to a to a point where you just it was just a waste of time.

Brian Leibowitz (52:25)
Sure, yeah, the bright, yeah, bright MLS, yeah.

Yeah, it was.

Craig Fuhr (52:44)
What's your take these days? I'm talking to borrowers every day across the country that are actually finding some decent deals on the on the MLS right now. And yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (52:52)
We are too.

that was, that's my last channel, by the way, is just the straight MLS. because there's, shouldn't say last channel. There's, know, between the MLS and wholesalers, you know, that's, you know, you're, finding stuff, but it's not the volume, right? That, you know, that the other channels provide. they kind of get blended together in my, in my head that I'm getting one or two here and there, a quarter type thing. But we have been finding stuff on the MLS and Jack and I have joked, you know, we said for years, there's no deals on the MLS.

That doesn't exist. But I assure people who are listening today, there are deals. You're just not seeing them. And the tool that we use is Privy. Just they are what a fantastic, affordable, easy way to review what's on the MLS. We literally get an email once in the morning. And if somebody lists something in the afternoon that also fits, know, we get another email in the afternoon and you know, me and my sales guy, like we...

We are literally able to underwrite that in minutes and we have an offer to them within minutes of it being listed.

Craig Fuhr (53:53)
Shout out to Real Investor Radio. had Scott Fall who started Privy on the podcast several months ago. So I'd highly recommend folks to go out and listen to it. We make nothing off of anybody who subscribes, never do.

Brian Leibowitz (53:57)
That's right.

Yep.

No, yeah, that's not

anything there. I just love the product. And frankly, if you're an investor in whatever area, it doesn't matter. It links up to your MLS. So you don't need anything, right? Like you just need a privy account, and that's it. And then you set the parameters of whatever you're looking for. That's the beauty.

Craig Fuhr (54:24)
It's

by the way, for folks that are listening, Brian, it's privy was actually started for realtors to sort of, you know, find listings or find folks that wanted to list their houses and somehow I believe was in Colorado and somehow got the Colorado MLS to allow them to have an API to have an API that was linked.

Brian Leibowitz (54:31)
was.

Shout out to RE Colorado. Yeah.

Craig Fuhr (54:48)
to privy and that is that frankly is unheard of they're the most closed systems ever. And due to their success, they've been able to basically replicate that with other MLS is around the country. And so what you're getting is real time listing data. Not only that, but there's a plethora of other things that you get from it, like, you know, you can find out who bought that house and what LLC outbid you and that you know, if you're a wholesaler, you can find all the great buyers

Brian Leibowitz (55:04)
Yes.

Craig Fuhr (55:16)
in your area and then market directly to them and find out what they're looking for. And so can't speak highly enough about it. I personally have not had a chance to play with it. But I

Brian Leibowitz (55:25)
I'll give you my account. can, know, can clear it out. I

go log in like it's fine. Like, you know, this is what I was talking about earlier about data. Like I think most people, it's not that they're complacent. It's that they're either scared to change what they're doing, or, Hey, that's going to be a waste of money. I mean, frankly, you know, privy is like a thousand dollars a year or something like that. It's just, you know, and we've already in the first quarter, we've already gotten to. So by all means, let's keep going.

Craig Fuhr (55:45)
It is fairly cheap.

By the way,

most MLS is for realtors. You're gonna pay well over $1,000 a year for the MLS access.

Brian Leibowitz (55:58)
yeah. Yeah.

You know, the MLSs that I used to work with when I was at Remind were, you know, they cost the realtors hundreds if not thousands, you know. I mean, Bright is hundreds of dollars a year. Just is what it is. So if you can have access, you know, not as a realtor and you don't have full access to the MLS, but you have what you are looking for specifically, right? Like you set the parameters, you say, hey, I'm looking for...

Craig Fuhr (56:20)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (56:23)
for items that are 60 cents on the dollar or 70 cents on the dollar, whatever it is. And it just tells you, it literally just sends you an email, which is, know, going to the days of, you know, I remember when they had Scott, when you had Scott on there, Craig, I remember when we would, you know, do the end around, like we would search for fixer upper or, you know, you know, mold, yeah, you would look for keyword.

Craig Fuhr (56:43)
yeah. Mold. Investor special.

Brian Leibowitz (56:49)
Yeah, you would look for keywords and you're just like, there's gotta be a better way. Well, here we are, you know, 15 years later and there is a better way, you know, and I use it, we use it every day.

Craig Fuhr (56:55)
Yeah, I used to, I used to teach,

I used to teach my students that were all across the US on like get access to the MLS. And here are the top 30 terms that you want to do a remark search on. And the problem with that was is that yeah, you would get hits. But if you didn't understand what the values were in that neighborhood, then it was not now it's a second search. Now I found that you know, 1212 maple

And now I've got to do a second search one like is that asking price really even close to where I'm at? Like given the fact that I'm probably going to put 50 grand into it. So I think privy does a lot of that work for you.

Brian Leibowitz (57:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the nice thing is that they're literally pulling comps. That's how it sends you an email. You're saying, hey, I want to look at things that are 60 cents on the dollar, whatever you set the parameter to be. And it's literally looking within an area and finding a comp that sold for whatever that delta is. And then it says, hey, this fits your criteria, look at it. And there's times where, hey, it pulled a waterfront property.

You know, it doesn't, you know, it's not intuitive to that point yet, which, I do think that that's coming. My point is, is that you, it's very minimal that you can know immediately. Like, hey, that's something we need to look at further. Or, hey, nah, that one doesn't work. And you know within seconds. So.

Craig Fuhr (58:13)
So

I know we only have you for an hour and we're in an hour and two minutes, but I'm going to keep you anyway because I know you're not that busy. One thing with regards to what you're seeing on the MLS, talk to several guys over the past, I would say month, who are starting to see an uptick in short sales. Want to get your thoughts on that. And second, dude, you and I have talked about this.

Brian Leibowitz (58:17)
I'm good. Yeah, keep rolling man, we're good.

Craig Fuhr (58:38)
actually had a little campaign going for a bit, but like all of these hedge fund landlords, essentially, who went out and bought 1000s of houses, I think there might be, I think we might be living in a time where they're starting to peel off some of these assets, because I'm seeing guys that are actually buying assets from, you know, invitation homes or American homes for rent, whatever it is.

Are you seeing that at all? So short sales and you know, buying from the larger hedge fund owners.

Brian Leibowitz (59:07)
Yeah, the, I mean, two really good points, right? Like for those that are listening, like Invitation Homes and all their competitors bought thousands of houses, just thousands and thousands of houses for the last, effectively last 10 years type thing. And some of those, they are starting to peel them off. I see the transactions, but I would caution people. I think it's market by market that they are...

Craig Fuhr (59:18)
hundreds of thousands.

Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (59:34)
they're picking and choosing which ones to dispo and which ones to keep because some of them are winners and many of them are losers, right? Like it's just, you know, they're just being strategic about what they're selling, what they're not. And I don't know if the volume is quite there yet to be able to make a statement in which I would endorse people doing a lot of marketing to them. You know, if you want to test it out, feel free, but I don't know if...

Craig Fuhr (59:37)
Absolutely.

Brian Leibowitz (59:59)
if it's at the stage where these hedge funds are like, hey, we got a ditch or we got a bail. That's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing them being strategic, selling off, you know, 10. Yeah, selling off five, selling, hey, that turnover ended up being way more than we thought, get rid of it. That type of thing. You know, like, hey, we don't want to carry that anymore. So I think that that's where those transactions are coming from. The short sale stuff is an interesting item.

Craig Fuhr (1:00:09)
the dogs.

Brian Leibowitz (1:00:25)
We've got basically two or three real estate agents in our, you know, in the Baltimore region who handle, you know, like 70, 80 % of these things. And they are busy. They are just very busy. And frankly, these are really good operators who understand the short sale process better than effectively everyone else. And they're my go-tos, right? Like these are the people who we understand like, no, no, no, like they know they're going to get that across the finish line.

Actually, one of the privy deals that we got was from a short sale agent and privy caught it. Privy caught it. It understood that, this thing was listed as a discount and it was a dog. It needed a big reno and that means that it's not in everybody's buy box. But Dominion, luckily, we've got the capital to be able to do larger renovations like that.

Craig Fuhr (1:01:15)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (1:01:21)
This is a modern home that needed 150 grand. It's a lot of money for a 2010 build, or think it was, was, or 2010.

Craig Fuhr (1:01:24)
everything.

Shout

out to Rebecca Wachinsky. you were listening, love to have you as a guest on the podcast soon. Knew Rebecca back in the day when she was just sort of cutting her teeth on short sales and now she's become quite, yeah, her maiden name is not Rivera. So yeah, she's become quite a beast at, is it still a paperwork nightmare? Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:01:42)
You talk about Becca Rivera? Yeah. Yes. No, I know it's not.

Yes,

yep, it is. And you have to know that, right? Like, and that's why there's like three agents who are really, or three short sale agents who are really good at it. It's very delineated. Every bank has their own method of, you know, what needs to be submitted, the order it needs to be done, blah, blah, blah. So if you don't know that, you're not gonna be good at doing short sales, right? But Becca is just fantastic. She's actually the one that we bought that from. So.

Craig Fuhr (1:02:05)
Mm-hmm.

I

know.

Brian Leibowitz (1:02:22)
You know, and

she's just a rock star and her team is amazing. you know, I only have good things to say just because they're so good. You know, I'm jealous of them because of how good they are, that type of thing.

Craig Fuhr (1:02:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I have to say

for folks that are listening around the country, if you're not locked in to the person who is the short sale wizard in your area, you should be because I do think that the transaction for short volume is up. It's definitely a game you need to learn to play before you play it. But in any sort of even sideways downturn in the economy,

Brian Leibowitz (1:02:40)
That's right.

Craig Fuhr (1:02:57)
I think you're going to see a lot of people in short sale situations where they're basically over leveraged on the, on, you know, what they can get for the house that they had to fire sale the thing. And to know that person in your area who knows how to navigate the laws and the paperwork nightmare that comes with having to submit short sale offers, I think would be highly beneficial at this point.

Brian Leibowitz (1:03:16)
Yeah,

I agree. You really have to understand that most major metropolitan markets, there's going to be under 10 people who do the volume. So understand who they are and follow them and do the research and make sure that you're on their list too.

Craig Fuhr (1:03:27)
Yeah.

Last thing for you, Brian Liebowitz, that I've always wondered, and I've never had a chance to see you do it. It's sitting across the table with, you know, a seller who is in distress. I think it is a very delicate art. I think there's certain people that just naturally shine at it, versus those who probably don't. But give us, give us like what you've learned in

sitting across the table with like, let's say, you know, mom just died. We've got a house that's in probate, you know, you're going to be buying this thing. And you probably have 50 other competitors who have sent them letters, postcards, calls, all of those things. And now you're sitting across the table with them. What have you learned? Is it is it a set sort of presentation?

Tell us about what it's like to increase your conversion rate as you sit across the table from a distress seller.

Brian Leibowitz (1:04:28)
Sure, so the first piece, this is really two things that are not negotiable. They really are, and the first one's empathy and the second one is reputation. You genuinely have to empathize with what that person is going on in their life. You just have to get it. If you don't, you're not gonna get it. You're just not gonna get that deal. It's not gonna happen.

Craig Fuhr (1:04:49)
I agree.

Brian Leibowitz (1:04:51)
The real crux of this is the stress levels of which is, you know, that's going on with, you know, with that particular person. So daughter, son, you know, a child who's lost a parent, you know, I lost my dad, you know, God today, actually, oddly enough today is his death anniversary. And it's just, you know, when you think about what happened in your life, how did you feel at the time? And I'm able to go back to that moment quickly.

It's a thing for me and I'm able to empathize with those people. It's second nature to me. There are people who just can't do that. They're very business oriented. very like, I get this house. I gotta make the numbers work, blah, blah. But there is a real connection that is made when you are able to empathize.

Craig Fuhr (1:05:40)
and genuine authenticity.

Brian Leibowitz (1:05:41)
Correct.

The authenticity is what matters. And that's where I was going with that. Being able to connect with them and understand what they are going through. Because it's not always probate, right? It can be, they're behind on their bills, or they lost their job, or whatever. And you have to understand what is going on in their life. And if you don't, they are just going to hate you.

They are just gonna kick you out and it's gonna be a terrible appointment. And you wasted all that money and all that effort for nothing. And then the other piece is the reputation. Like I have, know, beyond Dominion, like I've done 2,500 transactions. I know how the home sale process works. understanding what their other options are and telling them like, hey, look, I'm gonna put my reputation on the line.

dominion's reputation on the line to say like, no, no, no, I'm gonna make this as easy as I possibly can because you are going through what we just connected about.

Craig Fuhr (1:06:42)
Can I stop you right there? You know, in speaking with investors all over the country for the last 15 years of my life and really knowing a lot of really sharp guys, there was always this, there was always this debate. Do you show up as like a mom and pop guy dressed in your sweater and, and, know, a shirt and, and, and be that guy, or do you show up as the big company? And frankly, I don't know how you get away from that working for Dominion.

Brian Leibowitz (1:06:51)
Great.

Craig Fuhr (1:07:09)
So it's always going to be sort of that thing. What's your take on that, man? Because that's been a long held debate with guys who sit across the tables from sellers.

Brian Leibowitz (1:07:16)
There's,

I would say, Eileen, if you had asked me 15 years ago, 10 years ago, I would have said the mom and pop. There has been a genuine shift to reliability because of an unstable real estate market and having the ability to walk in and be the big guy, but still empathize, still be able to connect, right? Like, and under, and have them understand that, you know, we are still local, you know, and I joke like, Hey, you can come knock on our door. You want to come talk to me? Like,

Craig Fuhr (1:07:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:07:45)
Come knock on our door. We're on Coward Street in downtown Baltimore. That's a thing. that's, that's, you know, or them seeing me on television, right? Like that's a thing that, that many other competitors can't replicate, right? Cause they're operating out of a PO box and no offense to that, but it's a different message, right? Like it's a different thing. And if you were going to, if you were going to go in there and, and effectively tell them like, look, I know how much pain you're in right now. I know how much stress you're in.

Craig Fuhr (1:07:52)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Leibowitz (1:08:15)
I'm gonna help you and here's how I'm gonna be able to do it and here's my proof behind it. You can't necessarily be the mom and pop. There are some who are able to do that and I give them a lot of credit. But now it has shifted because of it's not during COVID where houses were selling in under a week. There's pain now, there's pain to put a house on the market. It's gotta be in really good condition. You have to do the renovations. It's gotta be...

well presented. So that means you're going through lots of showings and lots of photos and you're engaging a real estate agent and all those fees and all that stress of people coming through your house and doing all this stuff. Like I'm able to say, hey, you're not going do any of that. And I'm going to pay you effectively the same money that you would have paid. I'm going take all the stress off.

Craig Fuhr (1:08:59)
Sure. Well, I think that's a similar.

I don't think that's dissimilar to what others would say. But my, but my question, the better question is, what is a, what is a better conversion rate on an appointment? Like, is it, is it one out of two? Is it, you know, what is it like, what, what, what would make you happy if you went on 10 appointments in terms of conversion?

Brian Leibowitz (1:09:05)
Correct.

The national average is somewhere in that 10 % range. Yeah. Well, but that's, so that's, but that's the average, right? Like I think that that to be successful in this business and really, really be able to maximize your ROI on, on your, your spend for marketing and how long it takes and how much money it takes to get to that person. need to be closing 20, 25.

Craig Fuhr (1:09:30)
really? I would have thought it would be a little bit higher than that. That's I know mine was higher. So yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:09:52)
It's what you need to And frankly, we went on 300 appointments last year, 300 appointments and we got over 100 deals. So we're above the average, but it's because I'm cut from a different cloth and so is my sales guy, right? We started off as real estate agents and we know the pain that is involved with selling a house.

Craig Fuhr (1:09:52)
Is that where?

Yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:10:17)
So we're able to really connect with people and it's a thing.

Craig Fuhr (1:10:21)
How have you,

and I promise I'll let you go, over the last couple years, let's say four years, how have you honed that presentation? Is it really just still sort of like, yeah, I've done this a million times, or are you constantly sort of honing it to make it better? Like, man, I probably should have said this, or I should have done that. Like, give some advice to guys that are out there sitting across the table from sellers.

Brian Leibowitz (1:10:24)
you.

Yeah, so

my piece of advice is to understand, because every municipality is going to be different with the fees that are associated or the area that you're in. There's a timeframe that is involved with selling a house in a traditional manner, and it's not 30 days. It doesn't matter. Every place in the country, it is 60, 90, 100 days, sometimes more if you got to do repairs.

Craig Fuhr (1:10:54)
Mm.

Brian Leibowitz (1:11:11)
So if some of these houses, which most of them are distressed and there's work that's needed, et cetera, okay, like there is a timeframe that you have to understand. So the thing that I have changed over my pitch has been really hone in on the amount of money that someone is gonna have to spend to get it on the market in a traditional manner. Money and medical, right? Like there's, yeah, there's paying real estate agents,

Craig Fuhr (1:11:31)
money and management of contractors, which they've probably never done.

Brian Leibowitz (1:11:37)
doing the repairs, the closing costs, because here in Maryland they're split, understanding those numbers off the top of your head and really being able to speak eloquently and not being like, oh, hey, I need to check with my manager and do this. Like, no, no, no, no. We found that leaving the offer at that moment, okay, you've walked the house, you've taken your photos, it's taken you 30 minutes, you've had a 10 minute conversation with them about the pain.

right, of what it would take to get it on the market versus our method. And then just leaving them with an offer. There is no, hey, I'm make a call or hey, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, I gotta go back out to the car like, no, no, no. Like you're there, professional, ready to leave an offer. And you're ready, right? Like you're ready for class. you've done your homework and you're ready for that test. And frankly, the positive feedback that you get from people,

Craig Fuhr (1:12:14)
We walk out to the car.

Brian Leibowitz (1:12:35)
is way worth it.

Craig Fuhr (1:12:36)
when

you leave an offer, is it a contract or is it just like a, yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:12:39)
yeah, nope,

they get to, and we give people time to review, we are not pushy. There's a real pain point in people's lives where a lot of cash home buyers are pushing, right? Like they are, hey, you signed today, sign today, we can get this done, or hey, sign tomorrow, we can get this done, or they're calling them the day after, blah, blah, blah. We find that most people don't want that.

Sure, there's people who are in a rush, right? Like that's a separate thing, but most people wanna sit down, read the contract. They're not gonna read it all, but they're gonna skim through it. They're gonna talk with their family, they're gonna talk with their attorney, they're gonna do things because today most sellers are far more educated than they ever have been. They have more access to data than they ever have been. So let them, let them, trust in the process and know that you are gonna operate better.

than your competitor and prove it.

Craig Fuhr (1:13:32)
What's your hit rate?

What's your hit rate on like signing the contract on the first visit? Is it long? It's crazy.

Brian Leibowitz (1:13:37)
it's abysmal. No one signs on the first day anymore. That's not a thing.

yeah, when I, know, years ago, you know, that was, that was, that was the thing like, hey, sign today, right? Like sign today, we'll get this gone. Now people, people are far more cautious, especially in a, in a, a market in which we are right. Like it's, there's delays all over the place and people hear horror stories about, you know, wholesalers not closing and they get worried like

we're able to come in and just be like, no, no, no, we're closing. You're gonna have your money in 30 days or 60 days or whatever they tell us, right? You hey, you need it done in three weeks, we'll get it done in three weeks. You'll have your money in your account that same day, you that type of thing. there's a confidence aspect with when you link all of it together, everything that you and I have talked about today, Craig, like commercials, the mail, just the presence of Dominion in the local market.

you know, Facebook, you know, ads, cause I'm the one that's all over our Facebook stuff and I'm doing funny stuff and you know, in serious stuff, like all of it comes together at that very moment that you connected with them and now you get to say, hey, here's what I'm gonna promise you we're gonna do. And that is the secret sauce, right? Like it's not that secret. You just have to deliver. You have to, you know, make good on what you're telling these people. And I think so many people in our industry.

don't follow through and that's where it gets real, almost heartbreaking for some.

Craig Fuhr (1:15:00)
God, we

didn't even get a chance to talk about that the amount of follow through on per lead is so staggering these days, you know, like guys were talking about that 10 years ago, how just can't make one call. And that's frankly, the way everyone operated, like I'm gonna I'm gonna send out a piece of mail if I never hear back or if I do hear back and they don't transact, like whatever, I'm just moving on. And I think that follow up, which by the way, I know we need to end here. But yeah.

Brian Leibowitz (1:15:03)
Yeah.

Okay, I got another

10 minutes easy. So yeah.

Craig Fuhr (1:15:26)
All right, well then let's quickly talk

about the amount of follow up amount of touches that a typical lead gets and how and how Dominion tracks those touches like programmatically.

Brian Leibowitz (1:15:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so, you know, obviously they get, you know, mail if they're, you know, if they're on our mailing list. We don't know if they've seen a commercial, right? Like unless they call in off of the specific phone number from the commercial, we won't know if they saw the commercial, right? Every now and then I'll be at an appointment or my salesperson will be at an appointment. They'll say, hey, I saw you on TV. We'll make a kind of a mental note of that. There's no real way to track that part. However, after the appointment,

the amount of times that you are calling is way more than I think people understand because most people don't transact on that first meeting anymore. They don't sign the contract that day. It takes weeks, okay? Genuine weeks for them to make a decision because they are gonna shop you, which I'm fine with. I don't have any problem with that. They need to do their homework too and that's cool. But we're following up usually on day five.

Okay, give them some space, know, day five, day six, day four, whatever it is, couple days. And depending on what that conversation goes like, they'll get another touch in another four five days. And then another touch in two or three days and another, you know, another phone call. We actually just got one under contract in two weeks ago, three weeks ago that I went on an appointment in May of 24 and I have been calling them. Okay, I did that.

Craig Fuhr (1:16:53)
Holy cow.

Brian Leibowitz (1:16:55)
what I just talked about, you know, the first three, four touches, the first, you know, month and a half type thing. And then I started getting fast busy signals and I just kept calling, man. Just kept calling. I left multiple voicemails when it would go to voicemail and out of nowhere, I got a phone call from the daughter. Okay. The, the, the father's phone number had been disconnected and you know, they had gotten another piece of our mail and it reminded them and they sold us the house. Okay.

Craig Fuhr (1:17:23)
The

amount of effort that that takes, you know, is monumental. However, the payoff is significant. Significant.

Brian Leibowitz (1:17:30)
Correct. Really, I think that

it's actually the talent piece of our industry today. If you're not doing, yes, if you are not doing your follow-up, you are gonna fail. And it's so important today than it ever has been because people don't sign on that first day or heck, even the first week. We are fighting and scrapping and letting people know like,

Craig Fuhr (1:17:37)
It's just better operators, man.

Brian Leibowitz (1:17:59)
know, look, like we're still here. We're not going anywhere. I'm not changing my offer. hey, know, interest rates changed. No problem. I'm still here. You know, that type of thing. The other thing that...

Craig Fuhr (1:18:09)
Is it by the way,

mechanically, we're talking follow up via call, text, email, if you have it, we're talking to all channels for follow up, right?

Brian Leibowitz (1:18:16)
Yes, yeah,

we rarely have their email. It's mostly a phone call or a text message. We really try to get on the phone. And there's specific talking points that you wanna talk about. It's not always, you're not always leading in with, hey, have you made a decision? Like, no, no, no, we're, it's about that connection again, right? Like you made all this effort.

Craig Fuhr (1:18:33)
All

Brian Leibowitz (1:18:39)
for the last, you that, you you spent all this money to get into their, you at their kitchen table, make that effort and connect with them. And then the first phone call you're going to make is, Hey, did you decide if you're going to go with us? No, no, no, slow down, slow down. Okay. Talk, you know, Hey, how's it going? Have you guys met, have you guys found your next house yet? Have you talked to him? You engage with a mover, you know, how's your dog, you know, like whatever's going on in their life, you know, like that's, we find that, that that connection is so meaningful and so powerful.

Craig Fuhr (1:19:00)
situational.

Brian Leibowitz (1:19:08)
that we transact further, we transact more the further we get into our follow-ups because we are connecting with them way past the appointment. It doesn't matter. So, and there's times where they'll call me, you know, they're being proactive now. They're like, hey, I haven't found a place yet. Okay, but I wanted to see if you're still interested. Of course I'm still, thanks for giving me a call. You know, it's that type of relationship that you're building.

Craig Fuhr (1:19:16)
Huh?

Right.

Brian Leibowitz (1:19:36)
with that person because they know you're gonna follow through. So they wanna follow through. So keep going. Like why would you ever stop that? And even with you guys, at DFS, like you have to do a lot of follow up. It's part of the deal. And that's the talent today. That is the-

Craig Fuhr (1:19:51)
You know,

I've always said, Brian, and we can wrap it all up with Boa that this is a business that is essentially a three-legged stool. And it's marketing, which includes acquisition and disposition. It's capital. Where's your equity and where's your debt? And then finally, it is contractors, right? It's really having a great team.

But the problem that I think that so many investors, many of you are probably listening right now who want to get to that next stage is like, man, I'm wearing all the hats already. You know, I'm already staying up late at night, figuring out my marketing. I'm already, you know, I've already been on an appointment today and I've got to go take my kids to the softball game. And I, and to those folks that I, you know, who are listening, I would encourage you that like, this doesn't happen overnight. You know, this

Brian Liebowitz didn't become a complete stud at what he does overnight. And nor did Dominion have the capacity to hire someone of Brian's caliber back in the day. Jack and Fred were wearing all of the hats. I used to follow them around the empty houses in Baltimore and make offers. And so I would just encourage everyone that it's just a time on task thing as Brenton was saying on the last podcast. is where am I focusing my time?

to solve my to solve my issues today. And what I think you'll find is that the capital portion, if you become a better operator, experience and have some experience under your belt, whether it's landlord flipping houses, multifamily, I don't care what it is, but you get a significant amount of projects that are successful under your belt, the capital is going to find you, you're going to find your equity, your cash, and you're going to, you know, you'll call a company like Dominion to fund your debt that that

Brian Leibowitz (1:21:09)
highest investments.

Craig Fuhr (1:21:37)
problem I believe can be solved easily with experience. The contracting issue. If you're not out there meeting better contractors in your flipping houses, if you're not, if you don't have a funnel for hiring better contractors, I think you're really you're really shooting yourself in the foot because frankly, I believe that in my case, I was so lucky to be really good at finding great contractors that I worked with a guy for probably six years, one guy.

six unheard of in the industry. should have made them a partner and we'd probably still be flipping houses today. The thing that I think that most people fail to fail to get really good at Brian is marketing. It costs so much money to get the phone to ring. And what people I know people who get phones ringing and they never pick up the phone. They don't call back. They don't have a live operator, you know, after hours. And these are the easy that's the easy stuff, man. That's the table stakes that like if you're not getting good at that,

Brian Leibowitz (1:22:06)
It is.

Agreed.

hurts me. It hurts me sick.

Craig Fuhr (1:22:34)
You're never going to be a great follow up guy. You're never going to be a guy like Brian Liebowitz who can sit across the table from someone and close 30 % of your appointments. And so if you can figure out those other two legs of the stool and really get good at marketing, then I think you've got a really scalable business.

Brian Leibowitz (1:22:53)
Yeah, I agree. The table stakes have changed. They just have. Like you and Jack talk about it all the time. Jack is, you know, I think a little bit more vocal, you know, in the office here. Like we have, you have to be a rock star. You have to be. Now you can mold yourself to be, it doesn't need, you don't need to be born that way. Right? Like you can mold yourself into really honing in and doing the work, but it takes immense amount of effort. it's, mean, I remember, you know,

Brent was just talking about working 70 hour weeks. I still do. You know, I still do. And it's part of the deal. Like you're just never, it's never off. And until you understand that, you know, real estate is not as passive as people want it to be. Just isn't. So.

Craig Fuhr (1:23:25)
Yeah.

So one last

comment, 10 seconds. What are you really excited about over the next 12 months with Dominion Properties and sort of industry-wide? What excites you now?

Brian Leibowitz (1:23:39)
Mm-hmm.

So for us, I've been working on an expansion project that we're, you know, we're kind of move a little bit outside of the Baltimore, the greater Baltimore region. You know, with our, with my sales guy going on all the appointments, it's allowed me to focus a little bit further on, you know, other things that we can do. So we've got some, some cool stuff coming for us, which I think is great. We have the capacity, so let's do it type thing.

And then from industry wise, I really, really am hopeful that rates come down into the mid to high threes for the five year. I'm hoping the 10 year gets, you know, gets, gets some relief as well. Cause if we get even a quarter point, you know, half a point on the 10, I think the market explodes, that, that in true, in true American fashion, right? Like people are just waiting for a little bit of relief and

Craig Fuhr (1:24:36)
Yeah, I agree too.

Brian Leibowitz (1:24:44)
the things that we've been complaining about from an industry standard across the board for the last year and half, like all goes away. And I know that that's a silver bullet, right? Like there's going to be other challenges. I get that. give, God, I really hope for just American real estate that these home buyers get a little bit of relief staring down the barrel of a six and a half percent mortgage, seven percent mortgage. need a little bit. They need to get into the low sixes, the high fives, and that'll change what we do.

Craig Fuhr (1:24:52)
I agree.

I

Brian Leibowitz (1:25:13)
Right? Like everybody will get some relief.

Craig Fuhr (1:25:16)
Well, dude, it has been producer gab. I believe, frankly, this has been one of our best episodes yet. And so anytime you want to come back on the show, you big headed, absolute brainiac machine, you. Yeah, man, it has been such a pleasure. And I can't thank you enough for doing it at the last minute.

Brian Leibowitz (1:25:22)
Yeah!

I know. Very shiny today.

No, thanks for the invite,

Craig. I appreciate the time, dude. I'll happily come on anytime you want to riff, anytime you want to chat. Yeah, man.

Craig Fuhr (1:25:40)
love talking real estate with you,

by the way, cheesesteak soon and, we'll get up, we'll get up to our favorite place. Next. All right. All right, guys, that is real investor radio today with Craig fewer and Brian Lebowitz from the, from the demeanor group and dominion properties. You can find me on LinkedIn at Craig Fuhr F U H R, reach out if you need any help or want to talk real estate. We'll talk to you soon.

Brian Leibowitz (1:25:46)
You're twisting my arm. Yeah. Okay.

Thanks everybody.