Don't Turn Away from Buying a Property

May 14, 2021

Welcome Back to Powerful Homes Housing Literacy with Matt Guarino- the Mindset and Tactics to empower your dreams through Real Estate. Buying a home in the United States is not happening at the rates it used to for many reasons including student debt, marrying later, reproducing much later, credit scores are lower, rents are too high to allow for savings. In fact, only 64% of Americans currently own their own home which ranks 41st out of the 195 countries in the world…but is the #1 economy with $20 trillion in GDP annually. WHY? In a world that has more stress and uncertainty, the idea of putting off that one decision may lead to more stress and uncertainty. Today, we are going to review the idea that owning a home helps achieve Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs including: physical, safety, belonging/love, esteem and self-fulfillment. In this episode, we are going to bust the MYTHS around the excuses not to buy a home today using the acronym: DON’T TURN. As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to reach out Matt Guarino at 303-885-1644

Episode Links:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/masl...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/homeo...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1...
https://amzn.to/2QkceHX : The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
https://amzn.to/3ofPu8G : The Gift of Fear
https://amzn.to/3eNCMuD : Daring Greatly

Episode Transcript:

Welcome to the Housing Literacy Podcast with host Matt Guarino, founder of Powerful Homes. Matt's mission is to empower dreams through home ownership. We're here to help. We're going to do this together and now Matt Guarino.

Hi, my name is Matt Guarino, and I'm the founder of Powerful Homes. And our vision is to empower dreams through real estate. Our mission is to help 10,000 buyers in the next 10 years purchase their very first home or their very first investment property. We also help sellers sell their property to empower their dreams as well. And how do we do that? How do we help people do that? We've created a concept called Housing Literacy and what that is basically the mindset and the tactics; a growth mindset combined with some values-based tactics that we hope are going to be a paradigm shifting disrupter to the industry. Basically putting the power to understand real estate at a deeper level, at a more basic level that you can use the real estate to empower your biggest dreams, to create the resources, the security, the safety to empower your biggest dreams.

So a couple of ground rules, if this is your first time here, welcome. If you're back, thank you for coming back. We're excited to have you. Just some ground rules, this is a judgment free zone that I'm not trying to recruit anybody or sell anything to anybody. We're basically doing this to pay it forward. Something I've paid dearly to learn the last 25 years. There wasn't a book or podcast when I was going through the ups and downs of learning all this. But we're just putting it out there and hopefully it's some value to you. It's not an end all be all. There's lots of other ways to create resources and security for your life, stocks, bonds, owning companies, starting companies. But real estate I think is one of the greatest things to do. It's changed my life completely.

So take or leave what works for you but know that there's other ways to do it. So we're excited that you're here. Welcome to this talk and today it's a very exciting topic for me. It's basically that don't turn away from buying a property, right? And we kind of debunk the eight myths or eight excuses or eight ideas of what people use to talk themselves out of it. And the reason we're talking about that is the United States is the number one economy in the world. It's got over $20 million of GDP, the annual goods and services sold every year, $20 trillion. And there's about 200 countries, I think it's exactly 195 countries in the world. Yet we rank 41st in home ownership; always kind of hovering around 60 to 64, 65%. So think about that. Why is that like that? Our systems favor homeownership more than any country, truly that we have a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, these two institutions that are set up to create home ownership opportunities for everyone, and they stack the deck, they give you amazing low rates and great terms.

It's really, really set up for people to own their own homes. So why are people, young people not doing it more than ever? I think there's lots of reasons. I think huge student debt, people are marrying later, reproducing or having kids later, rents are too high in certain areas that people can't even save money while they're renting. You know, another big one is that from the baby boomers, then the genX and now it's called millennials credit scores are generally a hundred points lower, for all of those reasons we just talked about. So what we're going to talk about today is, you know, don't talk yourself out of it, right? Just because there are some things that are happening that you could talk yourself out of it. I'm here to tell you that, you know, buying your first home as early as possible and as for as long as possible, I don't think anybody who's done that would say that would be a bad idea.

But here's one of the things I would like to do is you think about, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We've all seen that triangle. There's five different things, there is a couple of physical. There were a couple of psychological. And then the last one is self-actualization, when we talk about Powerful Homes, I wrote a book and have an online course. The whole concept of Powerful Homes is that people have the power within to do anything. And we believe that at Powerful Homes, that regardless of your age, your race, your education level any of the things that, of the ways society may stop you from doing it, everyone should have the right and the opportunity to buy their first home. It's an opportunity and a lot of people are choosing not to; a third of our country is just not doing it.

So we're going to talk about at the end, how the thing we're all seeking is to be physically safe, psychologically safe, and then to self-actualize. Buying a home as early as possible, as long as possible can help you do that. I don't think there's a better way on the planet. There are other ways, but I think it's a fantastic way. So with other talks that I've given here we always have kind of a governing principle and this one is from David White. He's a poet, one of my favorite authors. And he said that in one of his poems, he said that 10 years ago, I turned my head for a moment and it became my life. I'll say it one more time,10 years ago, I turned my head for a moment and it became my life. So that's kind of an overarching thought here.

So if we put something off, we always think, oh, I'll just pick it up next year. Right? Having kids getting married, starting that college degree. Stopping a job, we just put things off, stopping a job that we don't like and restarting in something we do like. So it doesn't always work that way. So often we'll put something off and 10 years flip by. I'm in my early fifties and I'm here to tell you it is like that. So this concept that if you don't put it off, because it may go longer than you think, there's never a better day than today to start. So think about that as we go through. So here we're going to go through the eight things and it's an acronym, which is don't turn D O N T T U R N those eight things that are myths and excuses that people use and we're going to kind of debunk them. The mindset, the tactics, we can kind of unpack them and here we go.

So the first one is the down payment. People, so often I hear, I can't buy a home. I don't have the down payment. And then I'll ask the follow up question, how much do you think you need for a down payment? So often people will say 20%. I have no idea where that came from. No idea or somebody might say 10%, no idea where that came from. So the idea here is that people don't really know what I would strongly invite you to do if you're listening to this, regardless, if you think you are ready or you're not ready, just check in with somebody.

If at the end of this, I'll give you my cell phone. You can go on powerfulhomes.org. You can send us an email. We can send you people that can run your credit run, or not run your credit. Just to look at your credit, take your information with no obligation and tell you how much down payment you need to buy a home? Tell you how much home you could buy. They even tell you the terms, your monthly payment. Most people just don't know, and they assume from what they've heard from others, that it's 10 or 20%, and they assume that'd be more than renting. And they also might assume, well, you throw in insurance and taxes and I'll be way underwater, I can't afford it. Let's just debunk that right now. That's a myth that's untrue. I don't know your specifics, but I would strongly invite you to figure out what you can afford.

Another reason people kind of avoid that I believe, is that just like I said earlier, credit scores are much lower. I think the average millennial has a 652 credit, which is not perfect, but it's not horrible either. I believe that some people get embarrassed by that, or they think that other people have perfect credit. Nobody has perfect credit. I have not had perfect credit my whole life. Nobody I know has had perfect credit. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about that. We're much bigger than the worst thing that's ever happened to us. And we're certainly bigger than our current circumstances. So nobody's going to judge anybody. A lender would just want to say, Hey, you've got 650 credit. Here are three things you can do to get it over seven. Here are the terms and rates that'll be available if you get it over 700 credit score.

So the first D in the don't turn away, don't turn, is a down payment. The second is, "O" so overthink it. So many people think it's too risky. I'm not old enough or I'm too old or the what ifs, what if something goes wrong? It's just not the right time for me. I'm going to rent for a little while longer, or they're just unsure of how the whole thing works or what to do first. Again, I'm here to tell you that buying a home is just like anything else, just like owning a car, just like anything you've done. It can be learned. There's probably 20 or so things that we teach a Powerful Homes, skills that you will own, you will understand and own the skills so that this whole making it so big that you, it overwhelms you and you start over thinking it. You can take that one step at a time. So down payment is the first one, overthinking is the second "O".

Now the "N" is no belief. Some people they will always just think it's too good to be true. It's too good to be true. You know, the tax savings that you get by making a payment of interest in real estate taxes, versus just throwing it away on rent, which you get no deduction for. They just don't really believe it. And one of the things, reasons for that, if they haven't seen it, if you're the first person to go to college in your family, you're the first person to buy a home in your family. You may not have seen it and people don't trust it. It's kind of your tribe doesn't really do that. Maybe it's like that for you. And you don't really even have words for it. You just say, I don't believe that and you really haven't unpacked why?

So I'm here to tell you that we've had some people that are first in their family ever to buy homes, and I have a guy that's buying his third home in less than a year, so he's actually buying a duplex. So once you get that belief it changes everything but it takes a moment. So that's what we teach at Powerful Homes, the mindset and the belief system, and then the tactics to go one step at a time.

So the next letter is too busy and let's just say, too stressed. Too busy and I'm too stressed. We all feel it. We all just went through this incredibly difficult year plus, call it year plus. But I'm the type of person that likes to always be moving. I think some people just are always busy and I include myself in that and actually is a way to cover up maybe I don't know, something they don't want to address. I'm guilty of this at times. So when people saying they're too busy, you know, we're never too busy to do the most important thing, right? I believe that buying a home first, when you think you can't may change everything. We'll talk about it again with the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how he does that. Stressed? Sure. We're all stressed, but I believe that if we slow down, get the information, have the right mindset, execute some values-based tactics, buying real estate is a very achievable thing for everyone.

Then the next one is too scared. You know, so many people have seen their parents go through hard times. I mean, 2008, 2009, and they don't want to do it. They think that debt is a four letter word and that's a bad word, right? We believe at Powerful Homes, there's a thing called covered debt. Good debt is collateralized with an asset that is growing in value. This is a housing literacy concept. Financing a jet ski, that's not great debt probably for those of you, sorry, if you have a jet ski debt out there. But they're assets that appreciate in value, there are things that don't and you have taken on debt that also gives you special privileges, like deducting on your taxes. That's really good debt.

Another one is the "U" in don't turn is uncertainty. We all are kind of coming out of this fog of, of 2020. You know, thinking about being too scared and uncertainty, you know, having uncertainty it's paralyzing, right? It can really just kind of lock you up and prevent you from taking a first step. I think all of the things we're talking about, you know, people want to love their lives. If you think I want to be in love with my family and my people, my spouse, my career, my job, that's kind of a basic thing. I think the opposite of love isn't hate it's fear, right? So fear can really play a lot of tricks in your mind. It can kind of talk you out of things. It can talk you into some bad habits. But I think getting rid of that too scared and the uncertain paralyzing uncertainty is something that learning what it's all about can really help you do?

The last couple of the next one is "R", so renting is more safe and convenient. I've heard people, so many people say that. Look, you know, I don't know, I'm just in this phase where I'm just going to rent for a while. I think it's safer. It's easier. I want to challenge that and say, I don't know that it's safer. How many people do each of us know that their landlord said they're selling the apartment building in the last year or they're selling, they have to sell the house that they're in. So many people I know, and I don't think that's going to stop. So I don't know if renting is safer. And it's more convenient that you don't have to, you know, if the toilet backs up, I don't know if that's true either right. Being the owner and having the resources to fix it and fix it in a timely fashion, sometimes people don't have stuff that's working in their apartment. So just debunking that myth, that it's safer and more convenient. I don't believe that to be true at all.

And finally, the don't turn, the "N", the last "N" is never forever. That's kind of a play on words, but how many people do we know that have this fear of commitment? They put off big decisions. I get putting off things like getting married possibly, or, you know, taking that job until you get the next one ready to go or having kids all that makes sense to me. Putting off the commitment to own a home, that you don't want to commit to something that seems to be forever because that's a 30 year fixed mortgage, that's a myth too. Just because it's a 30 year fixed mortgage, it doesn't mean you can't refinance it. It doesn't mean you can't sell the property. It doesn't mean you can't move out of that property and buy a new property.

So this notion that it's permanent and it's a huge commitment that people don't want to put themselves through is just false. So I would say, you know, this overarching theme of 10 years ago, I turned my head for a moment and it became my life. I would just ask you and to invite you to think about buying your first investment property as early as possible and as long as possible. Because later, so often doesn't come or it'll come 10 years later and you are in such a different situation. You might have kids, you might have three kids, you might be living in a different state and in different career, different job, putting something out into the future, as important as buying a home, taking control of your life, buying an asset that grows every year and appreciates, historically four to 6% a year in our country, if not more in certain areas of the country gives you the special deductions that can save you on your taxes. And I know that's may not sound that exciting, but it's huge. You do that over a long period of time. It makes a massive difference.

So back to the Maslow's Hierarchy. So thinking about the physical needs and our safety needs as they're physical. Thinking about belonging and finding love in your life and increasing our self-esteem, that's a psychological. Which all leads us on the path to self-fulfillment. I think we're all just looking for that. More security, physically, more security and grounding and psychologically so that we can live our biggest lives. I think that every one of these things, buying a home gives you the confidence to solve things. It gives you the confidence to commit to something. It gives you the connection to your neighbors, which brings that sense of belonging and safety. All of that creates more and more and more resources every year of your life to give you the opportunity to do things in different seasons of your life that will give you that self-actualization, and that fulfillment that you've lived, the life that you set out to live. There's nothing greater than that and that's what Powerful Homes is all about.

So glad you're here, and like I always do, my cell phone number is (303) 885-1644 text me any questions you might have about this. Would love to get your feedback, subscribe to our channels, if you find this of value to you and you know, tell people about it and forward these onto people. And one last thing I'll say is that for the rest of this month, and next month, we're going to be offering our course, it's our Powerful Homes course, which teaches housing, literacy, the mindset and tactics for free. So if you text me, I will send you a code and we'd love to have you take this course. I'd love to have you debunk these myths, you know, leap in order to look and make your biggest life happen through the housing literacy, Powerful Homes program. See you next time.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the housing literacy podcast. Don't forget to like comment and hit that subscribe button and stay connected with Matt Guarino by visiting www.powerfulhomes.org.