381 | Are Investors Making The Affordable Housing Crisis Worse?

The American dream of homeownership isn't just about a white picket fence.  It's about a path to wealth for the middle class.  As housing prices seem to outpace wage growth, however, that path seems to be inaccessible for many while investors profit.

But some investors aren't part of the problem.  They are part of the solution.

That's why we're diving into how real estate investors can help solve the housing affordability crisis in this week's show!

Join Gregg Cohen, co-founder of JWB Real Estate Capital, and Tara Klein, head of operations at JWB, to tackle this nuanced subject by discussing:

- why the investment activity going into rental properties has gotten a bad rap
- how investors can decide between investments that help solve vs add to the housing affordability crisis
- what JWB is doing to become leaders in the solution

No matter where you live, this show will teach you how to find allies to help your community. 

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Transcript

Tara: 0:00

today we're going to be talking about whether investors are making the affordable housing crisis. worse or better So get buckled up for an awesome show Welcome everybody to the Tuesday edition of the Not Your Average Investor Show. I'm your host, Greg Cohen, and to my right We have a dear friend of mine a super special guest We have over a 10 year veteran of JWB and over those years She has done incredible things for our organization and today We're going to talk about the management of operations, which is what Tara does, as a part of managing operations. Well, if you don't know what managing operations is at JWB, we're an organization that buys hundreds of properties a year, builds 400 homes a year, raises millions of dollars in order to do that, sells hundreds of homes a year, manages 6, 000 rental properties. And operations is the backbone of all of that. In addition to that, Tara is also the mother of the flywheel here as we all know here on the Not Your Average Investor show. Super, super excited to have you, Tara. Welcome to the show.

Gregg Cohen: 2:28

I'm so

Tara: 2:29

excited to be here. Well, we are all excited, and we're excited to have you all here, too. Of course, Pablo's not here today, but this is going to be an awesome opportunity for you all, of course, to get to know Tara better, and for us to dive into a topic that is super important to all of us in our country right now, which is the affordable housing crisis. And I got something else to kind of kick off here, and Tara, why don't you help me out a little bit? Something else that's Oh yeah! Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh buh! We got some breaking news. Why don't we talk about some of the things that are super important right now in JWB's halls that we kind of talked about in our team meeting today.

Gregg Cohen: 3:03

Yeah, um, we have our golf tournament coming up. We have 54 days until the golf tournament happens. And a way that you guys can get involved as part of the community is our 50 50 raffle. So we are selling 50 50 raffle tickets. They're selling until March 29th. So make sure you grab yours today. And 50 percent of that raffle will go to support JWB Cares and the home that we're giving away. I think they announced it just last week that we are giving away a home this year to a JWB resident, which is mind blowing, super awesome. What a way to give back to our And. 50 percent of that will go to whoever wins. So make sure you get your tickets today. Right now, I just got a notification right before here that the pot is up to 3000, but our goal is 15, 000. So help us get there. And you guys have been such a big part of it already. So thank you to all who have bought tickets so far. You

Tara: 3:59

know, last time we came to our community last year and asked. for their support and they just showed up by the hundreds of people that donated into the thousands of dollars and so a very special ask of us is to help donate and to be a part of the raffle here. And we're also making it super special for everybody who donates through the show. We have these awesome looking, yeah, you want to grab one of those? All right, sweet. We've got these awesome summit sweatshirts, which are like. Which

Gregg Cohen: 4:29

I'll be super jealous of because I don't have one yet. You don't have

Tara: 4:31

one yet? Oh my goodness. See, you can get something that Tara doesn't even have yet. We have we had nine of those. For anybody who buys a hundred dollars worth of raffle tickets. We had nine and eight of you all have donated so far. So there is one. Lucky person, the first person who just lets us know in the chat that they're committed to donating and buying a hundred dollars of raffle. Oh my goodness. We're going through that camera. I don't even know how. All right, fantastic. Well, there you go. Welcome. Welcome all of you. so for anybody that donates and buys a hundred dollars worth of raffle tickets, you'll get that last remaining Sweatshirt, and then the other thing is my daughter Bella has been making bracelets. Tara has a special bracelet that is coming to her as well. And for anybody that donates 100, my daughter Bella is gonna make you a special Don't Be Average bracelet as well. So let's keep those donations coming in and thank you all for your support and Really can't wait to share more and more experiences and what it looks like to change somebody's life as we give that home away coming up in a couple of months here. So thank you all. Tara, we have this special tradition that we do here. You might be aware of it. I know it. What's it called? It's the roll call, baby. The roll call, baby. All right, let's start it off. We've got our amigo, Mr. Buenas tardes desde Duval. We have the patron Santorios. Oh, Michael. Michael Santorios. This is very good. So Tara is an avid watcher of the show. And I'm like, Tara, before I'm like, do you know all the nicknames? She's like, I want to give it a shot. So we're going to see how good she

Gregg Cohen: 6:07

is. I apologize if I forget any.

Tara: 6:10

Well, if you know a few of them, we're going to start right there. How about the MVP? Do you know the MVP? Oh, that's Mr. Lee Bishop. Mr. Lee Bishop. We have Christopher Lee from Fernandina, who's becoming more and more of a regular. Super appreciate you, Christopher. We've got Matthew Edwards checking in. We've got big poppa. You know who big poppa is? Pops. How are you, man? All right. Let me see what we've got here. As I move down the list here, we have, Oh, our regulars, Gary and Rosalyn Riley from Marietta, California. We regard you. We have Regé Fonsé, who is from the Inland Empire there. And funny thing, that is absolutely not how you pronounce Regé's last name, but Pablo just fell in love with it. So, Regé, I hope you're cool with it. We've got Kevin O'Brien. Kevin doesn't know if he's from Rhode Island or from Boston. Was here at the Summit. And, uh, him and his lovely wife. Actually lives in Rhode Island. We've got the mama bear, Cody Adams, checking in there. We've got Stephen Chmielewski checking in as well. He really is from Rhode Island, so welcome, Stephen. We've got John Moran saying good afternoon. Good afternoon to you, my friend. Ooh, we have the patriarch and the matriarch and the first family of the Not Your Average Investor show. Ken and Carolyn Maleen, we salute you. We have, let's see here. Oh, we have the shaman. Do you know who the shaman is? Nadeem Shah. Nadeem Shah. The ride along partner, right? Well, he also rode along as well. The ride along partner. Barrage. Yeah, that's right. You're doing so great with all these nicknames. Way to go. We've got Laura Colby saying hello from Washington State. We have The Maven from Denver, Colorado. Current client starts with an L. Last name Wilson. Leslie! Leslie Wilson! Check it in. Very good, very good. Let's see here. Oh man, you guys are just showering us with love in this chat. We appreciate all of you. And if you're listening on the podcast right now and you want to get in on all this love, just jump right into the actual Zoom meeting here. You can register at nyais. com. And with that Tara, we're going to jump right into the content today because this topic I think really is important to a lot of folks. And I think that You know, we can really, I, what I think is share a, a not your average perspective here. many of us are aware of the affordable housing crisis. And so I put a couple of stats here together just to kind of highlight what a big crisis we are facing here. And so, now, well, let me see here as I kind of share the screen a little bit. So right now, let's talk about this affordable housing crisis and what do we really mean? Well, over the past 40 years, home prices are up over 500%. And when I saw this graph, I was like, wow, look at how much they've gone up just in recent years. It wasn't always this way that home prices went up this much or this fast. But then I'm like, well, 40 years is a long time. Is 500 percent normal or not normal? I don't know. But what I dug into and found out is that We really need to pay attention to what percentage of rent or mortgage payments are of somebody's income are going towards their housing. And that has gone up at a staggering percentage. So now, average renters put more than 30 percent of their income towards housing here. And you can see. The rate at which that has increased over the short term here, really since 2019 is where you see this incredible spike. 30 percent is really important because if you start to look at how people maybe fall behind in payments of anything, credit cards, housing. Once you start to account for more than 30 percent of your income going towards your housing, the rest of life gets a whole lot more difficult to pay for. And so now we're over 30 percent and it's something that's really the backbone of why this affordable housing crisis is making so many headlines out there. But speaking of headlines, Taryn, I'd love to get your real world. But the headlines say that investors are a big part of the problem. I just happened to pull this one from the other day, from CNBC, that Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands of single family homes since the Great Recession. And this is their impact on rental prices and tariffs. You sit in this unique seat at JWB. You are sort of at the intersection of a lot of, call it stakeholders here. On the operations side, you're responsible for setting rents for our 6, 000 rental properties that we manage. On the side of selling our properties to homeowners, to, to owner occupants, you're responsible for setting prices there and you get feedback. From everybody along the way. You also are here as a part of JWB, which we are an investment firm. We're not Wall Street, but we're an investment firm. And I just think you're at a unique, you're in a unique seat here. So what do you think of when you read these headlines? You hear it in the media, but you see what goes on on a daily basis. What? What are you seeing? I think

Gregg Cohen: 11:13

it's interesting because the media wants to portray that, like the big institutional buyers are the ones out there gobbling it all up. When it comes down to it. I'm seeing, I mean just on our. owner occupant sales alone that out of 114 properties that we closed on last year sold to owner occupants only three of them were from big time investors. So, I think that says a lot especially here in Jacksonville with such a big market and area. So,

Tara: 11:40

I just want to make sure I got that stat right. So, out of how many homes we sold only three?

Gregg Cohen: 11:44

114 homes that we closed

Tara: 11:46

on. Okay, that's really an important nugget. So, you're getting information like on the ground from an investment firm here in Jacksonville. And Jacksonville has made a lot of headlines as being kind of like this mecca for institutions and all of this. But for a company that is leading the way in selling properties under the 300, 000 threshold, only three of those were actually sold to an investment firm. Well, that's pretty good stuff. So, all right. So, when you read these headlines, do you feel like it's accurate or what, what do you see for your daily basis? I think it's

Gregg Cohen: 12:18

a way to place blame. I know my millennial group is going to hate that. But it's a way that we can point a finger at something that we can't currently afford. You hear a lot of, you know, I'm in TikTok and Facebook and all those kind of things. And you hear people complaining that, Why they're not able to afford things and, you know, in general, prices go, are going up but to be able to point at one person specifically, it feels a little

Tara: 12:44

better. Yeah. And I think we, we all look for somebody to blame here. And I think the, the key here is that There are investors that are making affordability more challenging. There, there are a section of investors that are doing that. But there's also a section of investors that are actually helping with the affordable housing crisis. And today, because you all are investors and you're interested in either, you're already an investor or you're thinking about it, I want you to know how you're a part of the solution. Because that's what Tara sees here sitting with InsideJWB. We happen to be a part of the solution here. Here's a stat. that many people don't know. When we talk about Wall Street and institutions buying up all these single family homes, the data just doesn't support it. Of all the single family homes, rental homes in the country. There are 14 million single family rental homes in the country. These big institutions own less than 5 percent of all single family rental property. So while they have purchased more over the last few years than they did 10 years ago, and the rate at which they bought those assets was higher, The overall impact there is still incredibly small. Right. And so there's really not an opportunity for investors to come in on a large scale and start to set rents. Because the only way you do that, if you act like a monopoly, you have to have much higher than 5 percent of the units under your control. And it's just, it's just not reality. So I think that's a, that's an important part of it. All right. So Tara, let's talk a little bit about. If you're going to be a part of the solution as an investor, what are some of the things, how do we fix affordable housing? What, big picture, what are some of the things that we need to do as a society in order to solve

Gregg Cohen: 14:37

the problem? Supply. Supply is the biggest thing. I mean, basic supply and demand, right? And so being able to supply more affordable housing is absolutely necessary. So every time you buy an investment property whether it's here in Jacksonville or somewhere else, you're supplying another property available for those who are in demand of the

Tara: 14:59

property. That's a great point. I'll give some, some stats here behind it, but, you know, at the end of the day, It's just a demand and a supply problem. And we talk a lot, geez, over the last few years, the, the headlines have all been about this crash of real estate, which never happened. And on the show, we've talked over and over and over again, how we didn't see that happening and it didn't come to fruition. But what did crash a long time ago was supply of housing. And supply of housing being so low is what is leading and is the main cause of this housing affordability crisis. So the solution is more supply. And it's not just any more supply. I pulled some stats here that I wanted to share with you guys. It's specifically workforce housing that is the most in need of supply. So according to Freddie Mac, the country overall is short 3. 8 million housing units, but the problem is worse for the affordable housing segment. There are only 7 million units available for a renter population of 11 million. households that are in need of affordable housing. Those with either extremely low incomes or low incomes. So if you want to pick the best part to be a part of the solution of affordable housing, it is how do you increase supply in workforce and affordable housing? Which is one thing that as a JWB investor, that's what you do. That's part of the indirect benefits that you get when you buy, when you buy rental properties with JWB. Or with any other turnkey provider that is creating inventory, building new houses, in the workforce housing part of the spectrum here. Because what you're doing actually, in addition to creating a great investment for yourself, is you're investing in a company that is creating more housing units and workforce housing as well, but that company is also maybe creating units that might not be just for rent. They might also be creating units for sale. Do we do that here at JWB?

Gregg Cohen: 17:11

Absolutely. Some of you guys on the summit might have seen one of them.

Tara: 17:15

Can you, can you talk a little bit about that? So on the summit here when we were here just a few weeks ago, we went and we did a property tour and we were able to see two houses and they were right next door to each other and they were two brand new construction homes. One of them well, we were actually able to see many homes, one right next door to the other was. A turnkey investment property, which was sold to a client. The other one right next door was a retail property sold to a home and owner occupant. So can you talk about how that right there is an example of how when you invest with a turnkey company, a vertically integrated company, you're helping to be a part of the affordable housing

Gregg Cohen: 17:51

solution. Yeah. I mean, the more properties we sell, the more we're able to build and, you know, building 400 properties this year is one of our goals as a new construction company. That's 400 new doors to the market. Out of those four 400 new doors. We plan on selling 208 of them to our owner occupant side of the business. And most of those are under 300, 000, so that's another way that we're providing affordable housing.

Tara: 18:15

That's right. So, last year, we, I think there were, I might not have any stats right in front of me. 42%. 42%? Thank you. Yeah, so 42 percent of all the homes that were sold in Jacksonville under 300, 000 were sold by Tara's team. So one outfit here in Jacksonville created 42 percent of sales for those properties that are sold under 300, 000. But all of those new homes needed to be built. And those new homes weren't just built out of the, you know, a new line of credit for JWB. It was built because of all of your investments in our turnkey inventory. and all of your investments in private lending. So, I want you to feel really, really good that when you choose a certain way to invest, you're a part of the solution. You're not the big bad Wall Street that people like to blame for this entire housing affordability crisis. And I'm seeing some questions start to come in. We're going to make sure we get to those questions as well. And, uh, I see a ton of stuff going on in the chat too, and I always appreciate that. If there's anything that you'd like us to talk to Tara about and to address on the show, please make sure you put it in the question and answer section, because guys, too much going on, I can't pay attention to the chat and pull it out of there for you. So we'll make sure we get to those questions for sure. But I thought, Tara, this would be a great time to shed a light on something that is really something that you brought and developed from scratch here at JWB. It's something that we haven't had the opportunity to shed so much of a light on in the past, um, but it's the way that we help our clients not only just sell their turnkey investment properties when it's time for them to sell, but it's also something that we do to provide more housing inventory and sell homes to, homes to owner occupants. And what I'm foreshadowing here is, of course, JWB Realty. Yeah. So why don't you share a little bit about what JWB Realty is and maybe where it started, where it came from, and how it can help investors today. Yeah,

Gregg Cohen: 20:15

so, we've sold homes to owner occupants probably since 2016 ish and that's just kind of been a study when it makes the most sense for JWB as a company. But now that we're 18 years into this that's crazy to say, huh? Oh my gosh.

Tara: 20:29

I feel every one of those gray hairs.

Gregg Cohen: 20:32

Now you're making me get them too. and now that we're 18 years into it, it's It's, you know, time for some of our investors to, you know, get out of the investment or make more liquid investment. And so to be able to really have that turnkey property for someone and help service throughout their investment being a part of the sale of the investment is something that we have opened up. And so, now when it makes sense we are there to help assist our clients sell their investment on the backend. And so. we have three agents now in house previously we kind of referred business out, but now we have three agents in house, Cassandra Conetzer, Mo Mala, and Daniel Danius who are selling homes for us here at JWB. They have been working with us. Since that 2016 back in the day when we started selling to owner occupants and they're just wonderful teammates of ours. And this gives the opportunity for us to really show our clients full service throughout the purchase, throughout the duration of your ownership, and when you go to liquidate your home.

Tara: 21:36

You know, it is. I want to make sure we get some face time for those beautiful people that are on JMEB. realty group here if I can figure out how to do all that good stuff.

Gregg Cohen: 21:44

And the great thing about Dan and Mo and Cassandra, you guys probably have met Cassandra. She was at the Summit. She goes by KJ often here in office. Together they have over 30 years of experience, have purchased and closed and sold over 2, 000 properties across the three of them. So lots of knowledge here in the local

Tara: 22:06

market. And it's I mean, I'm even blown away by the things that we're able to do if we just focus on maybe just even first time homebuyers as we're under the lens here of solving the affordable housing crisis. I mean, the things that Cassandra, Mo, Daniel, everybody, Tiffany, everybody can do on J. W. B. Realty Group to help with down payment assistance. And I got this message from KJ. She was telling me that up to 50, 000 of down payment assistance is what we're able to get for folks to be able to buy their homes.

Gregg Cohen: 22:38

Yeah. And that's dependent on each person. But usually up to 50, 000 and it's, you know, straight from city assistance from state assistance, from federal assistance. And it's a really awesome opportunity. We're actually hosting a class. On March 20th, a first time homebuyers class and have invited people here locally to come to our class so that we can teach them what is available for them to be able to purchase their first property.

GMT20240227-173229_Recording_1920x1080: 23:05

There

Tara: 23:05

you go. So all of these things, when you invest in JWB as a turnkey investor or a private lender, you're also a part of all these other things that are going to help the Jacksonville market. And if you're like me, you know, the opportunity to make money is is exciting. I like to be able to invest and be able to make money. But if I can attach that to a greater good that I am a part of, then I'm really excited. And this connection to this greater good hasn't always been made. But I want you to know that you are so, and then that stat there because of the down payment assistance, because of the knowledge and the experience of doing this for decades and decades and the first time home buyer classes, that's why we were 42 percent of all sales. In that, in the lowest price points within Jacksonville.

Gregg Cohen: 23:49

And I think that's just the start. I mean, we've, our focus has been opened even wider as affordability continues to be a hot button topic that I think 42 percent is where we are now, right? But I think hold us to that. That's not something that's going to change it. Something we want to be even more Part of a bigger part of to the solution

Tara: 24:09

100 percent 100 percent So, we also get to help with affordable housing through this wonderful golf tournament and this housing donation that we get to make every single year. Can you talk to people about how much it matters to you on the care side? Well, you're gonna

Gregg Cohen: 24:22

make me cry again. I cried this morning. JW cares and our initiative to gifting a home to a local resident is I can't imagine the change that we're Giving that person in their life. The last five years we were able to give to a veteran And now to one of our own residents and it's just life changing event life changing for that person individually, but for their family and generationally you imagine the amount of things that that changes for the future generations of that person who receives the home and it's just it's really awesome. Not only does that part get to be awesome, but also our team coming together to make this happen is such a special part of being a JWB teammate, being part of this community. It's my favorite part of the year. We work all year on it really hard and it's a great, great event.

Tara: 25:16

Tara is one of the hardest workers for this event too. Tara is the biggest cheerleader that we have when it comes to JWB Cares. Some of the things that you may not see is you know, whenever there is an opportunity to raise money, Tara's there. Whether that's giving her time or her talent, her incredible teacher skills about getting everybody rallied, which we see every Tuesday morning meeting. But, it's just, you know, the way that we're able to do so much of this good stuff is not by going to a rich uncle somewhere or a big institution that, you know, funds all this stuff. It comes from, it comes from you. It comes from the hundred people on our team and small. Small victories, daily victories is how we raise over 200, 000. And if you can think of the very best way that you can help solve the affordable housing crisis on a one to one level, if you have never been there the day that somebody gets a brand new home, Your life will be forever changed. If you have the opportunity to be there. And we at JWB get to be there every single year. Yeah, that's great. So it's, it is really, really incredible. And something that, again, I want you all to know that you're connected to that. When you invest and you invest with JWB, you're connected to that. If you're not an investor yet, and you donate and you're a part of the JWB raffle today, you're a part of that. And Connecting that opportunity to make money with doing a whole lot of good in this world is I think how we can move mountains out there so I wanted to go take it a little bit of a different direction here because here's what we know. We know that we've got this affordable housing problem out there. We know that housing needs to be affordable for our society to work that way that we want. We can't have a society of haves and have nots, right? We need to make sure that there is a place for the middle class. We need to make sure that there is a place for affordable options for people to live. And the government knows this too. And so what the government has done is really focused on creating incentives and yeah, incentives, subsidies for developers to go out there and create this affordable housing stock. And it is something that I think should be really celebrated, right? Anything that we can do to create more affordable housing en masse is going to help all of us. And, you know, but if you can do it without having to give all of these incentive dollars. Wow, that, I think, would be the win across the board for everybody because, you know, the general public doesn't like incentives to go to big, bad developers. And so, I wanted to kind of thread this needle here with you guys of showing you, just in Jacksonville, how this affordable housing works and the type of incentive dollars that are going towards it. Because we need affordable housing. Because the government knows we need it. And then, hit you with a little something that you might not have put the dots together on. So, let me show you this here. here's an article from the Jacksonville Business Journal. It was just last week, and it talks about how most of the time, These big developers are using government incentives and subsidies, and I want you to know that. I think that's a wonderful thing because it's going to solve the big problem. But here's an example. So this is a project that just was announced called the lost South Bank, and it consists of 100 apartment units. 80 of which will be reserved for renters making 60 percent of the area's annual median income, and all of the units will be rented to people making less than 120 percent of the area's median income. What you should take from that is that's affordable and that's workforce housing. All right, but then at the bottom it talks about how The company is seeking 20 million from the state and tax credit equity to develop the property, and it's also asking the downtown investment authority for 600, 000 to help it secure the tax credit it applies for. And I just want to say that. I think this is wonderful. Incentives are helping here. But I also wanted to connect the dots. Because JWB is the largest provider of affordable housing in Jacksonville that has never received any incentive dollars to do it. And if there is a way to get affordable housing and we don't have to create incentive dollars to do it, I think that's something we can all be a part of. So the way that we do this, of course, is by being able to build infill lots, like we are talking about, and being able to sell those lots either to investors like you. Or to be able to sell those lots to owner occupants like Terra and JWB Retail, excuse me, uh, JWB Realty Group, Get2Do. But that's huge, guys. Right? Not only are we able to provide 42 percent of all the homes that sold on the market last year. under 300, 000, but not a single amount of government subsidies or incentives was required to do that. It makes me feel pretty good.

Gregg Cohen: 30:07

How about you? Yeah, I think it's awesome. I think the big thing that, you know, the reason incentives are going that way is to solve the density problem, right? And we have creatively thought of a way to Work on density as well. And that's through the ability to build an infill lots rather than needing, you know, five acres to to build 300 units, right? We're able to build units throughout all of the neighborhoods. And I think the interesting part about that is we are continuing to raise the, the appreciation of homes in the neighborhoods that we work in by continuing to build in

Tara: 30:45

those neighborhoods. Bring up a good point. Why don't we shed a little more color on that? You know, sometimes when people are investing in rental properties with JWB, they say, number one, I don't know if I can sell that house later on. And then number two, how do I know that it's going to appreciate because people have this preconceived notion that If you're buying a rental property in a neighborhood where it's, there are a number of rental properties that it must not appreciate. Can you debunk some of those thoughts or some of those myths there? Yeah.

Gregg Cohen: 31:11

When we look at the properties we currently have available for our owner occupants, they're in the same neighborhoods that you're investing in. They're in Arlington, they're in the North side, they're in West side. They're in those same neighborhoods right next to, right? Like Chenango, right next to the ones that are going for our investors. And, It's a great opportunity for, what is it that Pablo always says, rising tide. Lifts all boats. Yeah, and that's exactly what's

Tara: 31:37

happening. There you go. And that flexibility that we have because of Tara's leadership and JWB Realty Group is, it's critical to know that JWB as a company. can survive and thrive in any real estate market. You know, that's the reason that we started in 2006 and we're here 18 years later and we've endured pandemics and eviction moratoriums and all these good things. It's because we have incredible flexibility as a vertically integrated operator. You know, you know, and maybe if you could shed some light on some of the neighborhoods, how do we make the decisions of what to make as a retail home, one that would sell to an owner occupant? And how do we make the decision of what would sell to a turnkey investor?

Gregg Cohen: 32:56

So a lot of that depends on what's happening in the market at the time. I mean, in 2020, there were a lot. Less retail homes available because our demand for investment properties was much higher. But a lot of what we're doing is just looking at the basic numbers, investment wise, what makes sense, and then to the market right now, what makes sense. And we're not cherry picking anything. Most of what we're doing is just saying, hey you know, for our amount of sales that we need right now for investors. These three work and for our, for our retail side, these

Tara: 33:27

three work. And it's flexibility. Absolutely. There's more than enough to go around for all of our owner occupants, as well as our turnkey investors. So that flexibility really helps. All right, guys. Well, there are a ton of really good questions here. I'm counting eight right now and I can see more and more coming in. Go ahead and fire those questions in. I'm going to kind of wrap it up for a bow here. And then we've got Tara here who's going to answer some questions, for all of us here. So here's the thing. When you invest with JWB, here's what you're doing. You're a part of the housing of the affordable housing solution. You're not a part of the affordable housing problem. When you invest with JWB, you're investing in housing inventory. That is probably new to the market. It's either a brand new home or it was a newly renovated home that probably wasn't lived in before. So this is all new inventory that you're bringing to the market. And new supply, new inventory, is the number one solution to be able to solve the affordable housing crisis. And as a special little side note, That's all new inventory serving affordable housing that requires no government assistance. When you invest with JWB, you're providing workforce housing, which is the most needed section of housing that we can provide there. When you invest with JWB, you are indirectly helping to build additional for sale inventory. Just like we've talked about with JWB Realty Group. You're helping through your rental property investments. You're creating a platform for more for sale inventory as well. How about this one? When you invest with JWB, you're creating more tax revenue, which contributes to going and paying all of our essential workers, our teachers, which Tara was a teacher in a former life, so that's why I look at her there. She's, you're always a teacher, you always teach us, but we love our teachers and if we want to be able to pay our teachers more, part of that comes from our property tax revenue or firefighters or police. So when you're investing in a JWB property, that's what you're contributing to. And when you're able to be able to pay our essential workers more, those who work in workforce housing who live in workforce housing neighborhoods and work those jobs, you're able to solve the affordable housing crisis, not just from the supply side, but also from the side of raising their median incomes as well, which ultimately is how you make housing more affordable. And then lastly, when you invest with JWB and you buy raffle tickets and you contribute and you sponsor the golf tournament, all of those good things you're doing the most one to one thing you can possibly do to solve the affordable housing crisis, which is supporting JWB Cares so that we can build and donate a home. to a very deserving resident of JWB and change their life. And so if you're not feeling good about where your dollars are going before, hopefully you do now because that's the real. That is exactly what's happening and I want you to feel good beyond some of those headlines that we read out there. You feeling good over there? I'm feeling great. I feel good too. All right. Well, let's go to some of these questions that we have. And I appreciate all of you for firing those questions in here. We've got the patron Santorio's and his first question is, Greg, are those numbers for rent and mortgage increases adjusted for inflation? Great question. Patron Santorio's there. I will go and double check that and then I'll have that answer for you at a future show. MVP Lee Bishop, he said, Were the first two slides national numbers or Jacksonville only? Those were national numbers, Mr. MVP Lee Bishop there. He said, I think they could represent the national numbers, and he is 100 percent correct. Alright, Mr. MVP, another question. He said, Changing the mindset of younger individuals starting families, that affordable housing is a much better solution than apartment dwelling. What do you think? Do you feel, what's the feel that you're hearing from both on the resident side and then on the homeowner side who are buying homes?

Gregg Cohen: 37:19

I think the difference is knowing how to buy a home. I think the education of what is out there, what you can purchase, and not being the scary thing is the most important part of it. Everybody's rented before and that seems a lot easier. And you know, saying You put a down payment on a property. That sounds a lot scarier than a security deposit that you might get back. Right, but you had shared a stat in our preparation about the difference in the income that you have from a property or from the wealth that you have from a property. When you're actually owning the property versus renting it. And I believe it was San Diego that it looked at. And it was like a million dollars worth that you would have had as as your wealth growth if you had owned the property rather than renting the property. And so I think just learning that. The full financial education of it is the most important part and making it real and tangible. And that's why I'm really excited about our class on the 20th. We've had a lot of that knowledge and put it out in you know, websites and webinars and things of that nature, but actually talking to people and telling them on their level and understanding their situation is going to be really powerful. I

Tara: 38:36

am so excited for that first time home buyer. Session there, and I think you're a hundred percent spot on on the lack of just education behind how beautiful home ownership is I think home ownership overall, especially since the great recession has gotten a bad rap Absolutely And if you don't understand how you're setting yourself up and your family up and your future generations up by helping people Latch on to this dream of american home ownership you know, you're you're missing you're missing a lot Right? There is, there's huge correlations between those who are financially stable and financially strong and even able to financially retire and between those who own homes. And so, at the source of it, and I, and I hope to share more about this in upcoming shows but just re Falling back in love with owning homes, again, I really believe if people just knew more, if they just understood how this would help them later on, you know, it's not perfect, and owning a home is not perfect, and there are little things that happen along the way, but the, the value and the beauty of it is transformational for The individual, the community and society overall. And

Gregg Cohen: 39:45

I think the leverage, I think a lot of people don't understand that, you know, everybody thinks of debt the same as credit card debt and it being scary and you don't want to be in debt, but leveraging a property and the power within leveraging a property is something. That's amazing. I didn't know when I first came and so having that knowledge has really put me in a place of power for my future and I think having, spreading that knowledge to others is really

Tara: 40:09

important. I love it. And though, by the way, in those first time home buyer classes, like you're talking about, helping people secure up to 50, 000 of down payment to do it, we can really turn a lot of folks that might not have thought that they could actually own a home. into owning a home that was built, that's affordable, and just solving the problem one, one family at a time. Great question, Mr. MVP. Cynthia Robinson asks, when you set monthly rental rates, are they below at or above market rate? Great question for you, Tara.

Gregg Cohen: 40:36

So it depends on the market right, Back 2020, when everything was going really hot we do a flyer out there a little bit higher but we do typically look at comparables in the area size of the home, bedroom, bathroom count, and set at what the market is right now. And then we review the properties every 14 days, days ish after being on the market to see, you know, are we getting the right leads, are we getting enough showings, and then address them.

Tara: 41:02

100%. And when you manage 6, 000 homes, right, to put it in perspective, a normal property management company has about 10 percent vacancy. So that would be 600 homes on the market at one time. Luckily we have Tara's leadership and we don't have anywhere close to that. We usually run about 200 homes on the market at any given time. But the, the ability to sit in her seat and adjust rent rates. I mean, she has the ability to change rents for 6, 000 homes in the Jacksonville market. If you want to learn how to do it right, talk to this lovely lady over here. We have Patriot Santorio. It's another great question. He says, Greg, wouldn't building more multifamily quadruplex units or rezoning some of the larger single family homes on large lots to two homes versus one home be a part of the solution? And absolutely Michael, great point there. So this isn't just about building new supply. We have a great opportunity to work with our city leaders to change some of the zoning requirements so that we can bring more density onto the land that we already have. And JWB works directly with a lot of our city leaders. There have been a lot of initiatives that have been passed, even over the last year or two, that specifically allow us to build more density. And, you know, that is just as big of an opportunity if you can think about. That opportunity across the entire country, that is just as big of an opportunity as is building new inventory. And it's a whole lot quicker, too, to be able to do that. So, great question right there. Mr. Lee Bishop, the MVP, says, Greg, while on the tour, we saw those two houses looking for, they were looking beautiful. We witnessed a few that could be great home opportunities for JWB to purchase. My question is, are the older homeowners, able to reach out to JWB in those areas. Tara, you

Gregg Cohen: 42:49

want to take that one? Yeah so we have a great acquisitions team, KJ and MJ, and they purchase properties in in Jacksville for JWB. But additionally JWB Realty will be able to help people sell their properties now that

Tara: 43:04

we've launched. Yes, we will. You know, this can be an entire ecosystem. That's what being vertically integrated allows for us to do. So the amount of times that we just are maybe out there building or renovating a home and a homeowner comes up to our construction team and is like, Hey, I want to sell my home or can I rent with you or whatnot? It's the beauty of this all being one ecosystem. And JDOB Realty Group is of course a big part of that as well. Curious. Did, did you all know that JDOB Realty Group existed? And that we have these resources for you to be able to sell your assets if you needed to, or that we're able to sell, call it, you know, 42 percent of all those homes that are under 300, 000. If you could put that in the chat, that's great. I'm seeing no from Cynthia Robinson and a few other folks as well. Yeah, I didn't think that you all knew this. So thank you so much for sharing this week with us, Tara. All right. We've got the Maven. You remember who the Maven is? Leslie Wilson. Leslie Wilson, right? So Leslie says, My first purchase with JWB was a resale home. I would like to roll out this property or I would like to roll this property into one of the beautiful new JWB homes. Can JWB help me with this process? I'm getting lots of unsolicited offers for the property, but I don't know those people. Well, let me just kind of take that one, Leslie. And I think this is where. You know, sitting down and talking with our team about the best thing for you would be a great service. Because, you know, the idea of taking this asset that you already have with JWB and selling that and maybe getting a new asset with JWB, I think there's a better way. Because what I look at as my job and as your job as an investor, is to stack up income producing assets. I want to build up an army of income producing assets. And if there's an opportunity for you to continue to own that asset but pull out the equity that you might otherwise get just from the sale, but still hold on to that asset, I think that is always a better solution if it's possible. And that's especially if it's here in Jacksonville and it's a JWB property, it's always that way. If you're in a different part of the country, you might not have a vertically integrated opportunity there or management like JWB, so you may want to sell that asset and bring it to JWB. But I always root for you to hold onto the asset no matter what, because that's the beauty. That's how you keep stacking these victories. So Leslie, great question. What we'll do is we'll have your portfolio manager reach out to you and set up that phone call and really find, I think, the best solution for you and explore holding on to the first one right off the bat there. So thanks so much, Leslie. Lee Bishop says do the investments go to both retail houses and investor rental income housing? I don't know exactly what he's asking there.

Gregg Cohen: 45:47

I'm wondering if he's asking when we When we sell a home and we receive income back. Okay. And yes we usually build a home to build a home and then determine later as the home's finishing whether it makes more sense to go retail or not. But the main goal is to provide affordable housing, whether that be for investment purposes or for owner occupants. Yeah.

Tara: 46:10

And I know we throw around the terms affordable housing, workforce housing, and then there's This affordable housing crisis. I'm going to lump it all together just for ease of use here. We know that our bread and butter, the place that we can make the biggest impact is that affordable housing section of the pie, right? You've got above middle, you've got middle income, you've got above middle income, and then below middle income is workforce, housing, affordable housing. That's where we can make the best impact. And we can do that through owner occupant sales. We can do that through. Turnkey sales. It all kind of funnels into that area of expertise for us. Leslie says, are the new construction homes sold to a home buyer versus an investor? Are the new construction homes that are sold to a home buyer versus an investor more expensive than the ones sold to an investor? I'm thinking about the backyard saw that we saw on the property. I can provide a little color on the backyard saw, but why don't you take that first one there? Are there different prices if it's in the same neighborhood in the same houses? Are they more expensive for a owner occupant than it would be for an investor?

Gregg Cohen: 47:13

No so we are selling at what the market is demanding at that time. And all homes have to appraise whether you're purchasing it for an investment or for your owner occupants. So no, they're the same

Tara: 47:25

prices. It's a great question and a great point there as well. So again, one of the questions that we hear either on the show or on the, on the sales side sometimes is, well, I really like this idea of getting into this asset, but I don't know how I'm going to get out of it. I don't know if I can sell this later on. And what we try to share with folks is, We're selling half the stuff we sell is being sold to owner occupants already today. And it's been this way for many, many years. So hopefully that answer there takes that off the table, right? If, if you love this asset and you work with a vertically integrated provider like JWB and you get to work with JWB Realty Group. You really don't have that concern, whereas you may have that in other rental property neighborhoods and other markets with other providers that might not be so vertically integrated. Great question. And then DJ McKay, long time client, says, Are you seeing more interest in smaller type homes, speaking more of lot size and exteriors, due to the cost of maintenance not being a drain on finances compared to more income and mid upper

Gregg Cohen: 48:33

leve it's a mix. I think you h really interested in town the ones who do the yard exterior work of the home in that kind of covid min an extra room to be able they're working from home working from home and the to be outside. Um, so it always has been and always We are seeing a little bit different change as far as parking goes in the past. We really noticed that garages were something that people really craved and wanted. And now street parking is okay or having kind of just a pad is okay. So that's the one change that I've noticed most recently.

Tara: 49:19

Wonderful team. Well, you guys had some fantastic questions. I wanted to say thank you guys so much for being a part of the discussion today. I know it really resonates with our investors because they care a lot more than just about the return on the investment that they're making. They care about the resident, making sure it's a win for them. And they care about. The affordable housing crisis overall. So, thank you all. We've had over 70, over 80 folks here live on the, on the show here. It's pretty cool. You were here in the beginning, back in the day, when we only had like five or six people on the show. How's it, how's it feel to have 70, 80 folks just joining

Gregg Cohen: 49:54

all the time now? The lights are a lot different now. Yeah, right? It's really awesome. It's really awesome to see the community. It was awesome to see how many of you came and visit us for Summit. And just, thank you guys.

Tara: 50:05

Well, thank you, Tara. This has been it's been really fun to kind of go back a little bit through memory lane with you. I love going down memory lane with you. Um, JWB would certainly not be where it is today without Tara's leadership. So, thank you so much for spending some time with us and for everything that you do for JWB. Thank you. Of course. And thank you all. So we are if you are one of those, Lovely folks that are listening on the podcast. We love that you're listening on the podcast, but the real party is here on zoom. So you get to be a part of the chat, the roll call asking great questions and all that. So if you'd like to join us live and be in the live audience the next time, just go to NYAIS. com register to join the live audience. It's free. And we'll catch you there on the next show. Speaking of the next show, you know who we have on the next show? We have Mama Jane. We have Mama Jane. Good Alex stories

Gregg Cohen: 50:59

for that.

Tara: 51:00

My business partner Alex's mom is Mama Jane. She's like my second mom. And for all of you who came to the summit, you got to meet Mama Jane. Well, I twisted Mama Jane's arm a little bit and I asked her to come and be our guest investor on Thursday's show. So I would love all of you to show up, support Mama Jane. She's going to share her story. And if you want to know really what it was like to invest with. Greg and Alex, 18 years ago, before there was this fancy studio, before we had J. W. B. Realty Group or any of these things Mama Jane was there, and she said yes, and she supported us when it wasn't always, what I would say, a no brainer decision. So, super excited to go down memory lane with her. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate you. We know that you take an hour out of your day every Tuesday and Thursday to be here. It warms our heart. And so a very, very big thank you. And we will send you off. You know how we send people off these days? All right. You got any advice for the people out there, Tara?

Gregg Cohen: 52:03

Don't be

Tara: 52:05

average. Don't be average. We'll see you, everybody. Take care.