Judica County Radio: Real Estate Investing 101, Plus Soft teeth and Fat Arms

Coming up on this edition of Judica County Radio, have you ever wanted to get into real estate investing?

Well, how do you do it? We're going to break it all down when we come back on Judica County Radio. Whitaker and Hamer presents Judica County with Joshua Whitaker and Joseph Hamer. Welcome in to Judica County Radio.

Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And they've got offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week it's legalese. We talk it. We also give you an opportunity for a complimentary consult.

We'll tell you about that as we move into the program. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, obviously just give the number a call. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information in your name and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you to line up that consult. All right, gentlemen, before we dive into real estate investing, how was your week? Josh, we'll start with you. So I'm going to give you, Morgan, I'm going to give you some advice. Joseph, anybody who's listening, this is not legal advice.

It's just general life advice. But I had to, I had a root canal that, I had a root canal, I've had many root canals. The Whitakers have famously soft teeth.

I was told that as a little kid and I was like, you got to take care of your teeth because Whitakers have soft teeth. I've had a bazillion root canals. I didn't listen very well. Maybe there's nothing I can do about it.

Maybe it's not even my fault. But for the first time in my life, one of my root canals went bad. It got infected, the tooth broke, and so I had to get it removed. And I got a great dentist who did a great job. But I will tell you, you don't want that. Whatever you can do now, starting today, to prevent that from happening, you don't want to have to do that.

It sucks. Well, you got to have ancestors with hard teeth, apparently. Good grief. So what kind of, your teeth are soft. What do you do, what kind of teeth exercises do you do to get them toughened up, man? What kind of teeth lifting? Yeah, I got to do some teeth push-ups.

Kettlebell swings? Have you thought about that? All I know, man, I can take a root canal. Like, I'm man enough, I've had enough. You've had a bazillion of them. That's insane. I know, I can take them.

Let's get it world record style. Nah, don't numb it. Just give me the root canal. Dude, you just need to get one root canal with no anesthesia, and then I'm sure you'll take great care of your teeth from there on out. But when I was getting these bazillion root canals, I thought that was it. I was like, yeah, it's a root canal, it sucks, but now I got a nice ceramic cap there.

They canal all your roots. What's left to do, right? That's right. I thought I was done. All right, I'm done. The Whitakers find a way to beat root canals.

Soften it up. My tooth got infected, which I guess is the thing that happens to a lot of, it's the thing that happens, your root canal is only good for a certain amount of time. And maybe you get five years out of it, maybe you get 15, but your root canal is only good for certain. I did not know this. They didn't teach me this in law school or undergrad. Well, we're at your bazillion root canal appointments.

They didn't mention it. So I had to get the root canal itself removed and prep for an implant, which I don't have yet, but it was unpleasant. So what is happening right now in your mouth? You just have a hole? With some stitches. Nice. Nice. I'm about a week out.

It's still not great. And I got to wait a certain amount of time to get the implant, apparently. This is not a medical advice show. We are not dentists or doctors. I'm just telling you, brush those teeth like three times a day. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm brushing like there's no tomorrow.

And that wasn't bad. It's not like I just went days without brushing my teeth. I feel like I took pretty good care of my teeth. You know what you should have done, man? You should have just chewed 17 packs of Big Red every day. You know what I'm going to do?

You know what I told my kids? When they turn 21, we're pulling all their teeth. Yeah. They're just getting implants. Yeah. And we're just going to be done. Give them shark teeth.

I think that'd be cool. All the Whitaker kids just have shark teeth. No, no, no. Implants. Right into their jawbone. Just an implant. All your teeth. No more root canals. Brush them.

Don't brush them. Who cares? Who cares? What you need to do is you need to announce this like at Christmas, like Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Hey, this is what's going to happen on this birthday. We're going to get rid of all your teeth. We're going to put implants in.

And that's expensive. So for the next four or five Christmases, no presents for you guys. I'm going to take a second mortgage on the house. You guys are going to have titanium implant teeth. And we'll, for Christmas every year, I'll tell you the story of Jesus's birth. And that's what you, we'll wrap that up in a box.

And that's what you get. No root canals though. Yeah, no root canals.

No root, you could chew through steel, like they'll be. Yeah. It'll be like a villain origin story. I like that, man. I like all your kids just being super villains that just bite people. That's their thing. Just eating the populace.

Did your dentist say that, is there anything you can do or is it just genetic and you've got to go through this or can you strengthen your teeth in any way? Oh, I don't know. I didn't ask any of those fun questions. I just, uh, it hurt. I was too busy being in excruciating pain. They show me like, well, this infected here's and here's where your tooth, cause your tooth, I mean, I guess just my tooth just broke in half. Like it just couldn't, it was just done.

And they were like, yeah, there's nothing. I mean, your tooth is done. And I guess it could kill you. It could kill you? Now it's just going to a whole other area, man. Yeah, cause you get it infected and it gets into your bloodstream and people die.

It's a real thing that happens. Okay. All right. Well, stick around with us, man. I was like, I was like, I'm not ready to, uh, I'm not ready to peace out from a broken tooth, you know. It's gotta be on the worst ways to go. You've got to come, you've got to do the radio show. I'll tell you what though, man, the Josh Whitaker Memorial Radio Show would be one of the, like we would really, I feel like we'd bring it. I'd cry the whole time.

I think we could get Bart Simpson as a guest host. I don't want to go, you know, I want to go out some way silly. Like I want to go out like... That's about as silly as it could be though. No, no, no, no. I don't want to go, I want to go out like trying to catch a Frisbee over a mountain or something.

Or something just ridiculously dumb, you know, I don't want to go out cause I got an infected tooth and it took me out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll lie however you go out and we'll, we'll do the Frisbee mountain thing.

I'll tell everybody I saw. My message to everybody, I don't know, I don't know the answers if you have, if you're, if you're cursed with genetic soft teeth like I am, but do something and try, you know, do something. All right.

We don't know what it's going to be, but do something. Take positive action to save your teeth. Yeah.

Tell all your kids, we're going to yank all your teeth and we're going to put in cats. Brush and floss, man. Isn't that it?

That's all you got to do, brush and floss. Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. I thought I was doing pretty good, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Apparently, apparently not Josh. So, so y'all's weeks had to be better than that. Oh yeah, that was right.

I forgot how we got on this topic. Yeah, definitely man. Compared to that, fantastic week. No complaints. Now we had a couple of leaks spring out underneath the farmhouse when we had the super cold weather. Oh yeah. Very thankful that our oldest who lives with us is he's just one of those mechanical minds.

He can watch stuff on YouTube and just go fix it. Plus it's an old farmhouse close to the ground. So you literally have to spelunk under this house to get to the pipes. And he's like, I got it. And being that it's awesome. Bing, bang, boom, done.

Probably saved us a couple of grand. Yeah, easy. My brother's like that.

My brother can, he's got that kind of mind and he can, he can figure anything out. Well, I do too, Josh. I'm just not skinny. I can't get under the house.

I mean, we're talking about a crawl space of about a foot. We're not, I mean, we're like tight. We had to, I can't, what do we have to have done?

I can't remember. We had to have something done and my arm was just too fat to get there. That's what happened to me, man. But your arm was too fat?

Yeah, like I just couldn't like, oh, it was electrical. I was doing something electrical and I was like, we're gonna have to hire somebody cause I can't, unless I go on like some strict diet for a couple of months. Arm diet? Target spot fat loss on your arm? I was like, I'm not hiring this man for his expertise. Like I'm hiring, I need like a 150 pound guy. Just get some Mozambique and just inject it straight into that one arm.

That's the play. Yeah, I have a tourniquet up there. Again, we're not doctors, you know. Yeah, we're not doctors, but maybe that'll help your teeth too, man. Maybe your big fat arm is the reason why your teeth keep getting messed up, man. It's from shoveling cereal into your mouth, man. One jacked arm, just pumping it, dude. Cereal eating was an Olympic event.

Josh would be my man. I do love some cereal, man. I can't keep, I got three boys, man. I can't keep cereal in the house, man. All right, now here's the next question, and everybody wants to know, what are the cereals? Ah, we usually keep some Reese's Puffs, right? We usually keep those handy, some Frosted Flakes. It's a fat arm right there. A lot of nutritional value in those.

There's no Raisin Bran, there's no, I remember I bought like the Chex cereal. That was your last wife, because you surely divorced her. She bought like three. After she did that.

Yes, she bought three bucks and then just sat there. Honey, your right arm is disgusting. And when I go to kiss your face, I see your arm, and it makes me want to throw up.

No, you look great in a Speedo, but that arm. There's Reese's Puffs covering your beard. I don't understand what's going on right now. But the problem is the kids, man, they attack. The Lucky Charms, the Cap'n Crunch, they get attacked, man.

Day one of the grocery store. Lucky Charms in my house, man, they just end up being marshmallow free in a bag full of whatever's left over, man. And the last kid that comes and gets it just raves him out. I was going to say, this sounds like two scenarios where, do you guys go and hide the cereal that you like so you can have some? Because the kids do eat it.

I mean, it's gone. My kids look, they look for it, man. They know all the spots. They look, you can't hide anything from them. And they know, they come home and they just know you went to the grocery store, you know. My kids hide it from each other. Yeah, it's not a good thing, man.

We shouldn't be keeping secrets from our family. All right, so tell me where the Pop-Tarts are. Oh, man, you can't keep Pop-Tarts in my house.

No, man. That's part of my tooth problem, probably. And your fat arm problem. Nah, Pop-Tarts are great for you. That's what I heard. As we continue our discussion about Josh's fat arm and his soft teeth, we do have complementary scenarios. We are going to get into real estate as an investment, how you get into that, things you can do. But, Josh, kind of walk us through these consultations.

They are complementary. Yeah, if you call the radio show's number, and I know Morgan will give you that in just a minute, but if you call the radio show's number, the podcast number, what we do is we call you back, figure out what's going on, try to get you set up with a free initial consult with one of our attorneys to get you in the right direction. And like Morgan often says, there's no obligation. We just want to talk to you, figure it out. If we can help you, great, we can talk about that. If we can't help you, at least get you in the right direction. And that's kind of what we've used these for, and we've been able to help a lot of people. Some of them become clients, some of them we can't help, but we can at least give you some direction.

Because a lot of people, when you encounter a legal issue, a lot of people just don't even know what the next steps are. And so that's what these are designed for. Here's what's happening, and here's what you can do, and this is what it will cost, this is what it won't cost. And maybe you don't even have that big a problem, and you come to what we talked to, and you're like, well, that's not a problem, all you've got to do is blah, blah, blah.

So anyway, that's the goal, Morgan. Okay, well the consults are available at any time during the show, just call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186, leave your name and contact information, and an attorney will be in touch with you to line up one of those complimentary consults. And again, you're not agreeing to become a client, this is a great opportunity to test drive Whitaker & Hamer Law Firm, and also get answers to your questions, your legal situation, and look, it's a great starting point. 800-659-1186. When we return on Judica County Radio, we will get into real estate investing.

How do you get started? It's all coming up next. Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners Whitaker & Hamer Law Firm, plastic attorneys here in North Carolina, offices conveniently located Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Marina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City.

I'm Morgan Patrick, each and every week it's always legalese conversations in and around the law, and you're going to have questions about a situation you might be dealing with, you can always grab a complimentary consult by calling 800-659-1186, get your questions answered, 800-659-1186. Gentlemen, we started off with a very entertaining conversation about soft teeth, fat arms, now we're going to move into real estate investing, at least I think we are. Yeah, sometimes that opening segment gets away from us, but we're going to reel it back in.

We have a theme show today based on some questions that me and Joe get a lot, and so the way we're going to phrase this question, because we always like to start with a question we get asked, and so here's kind of where we're starting today. So we had someone coming to us saying, you know, I'm looking to get into real estate investing, I'm not sure where to start, I've seen different programs offered online, is there anything your firm can do to help me? And so we see a lot of people who've become clients who have decided to get into some type of real estate investing, and it's people who just decide, you see a lot of times when two people get married, they're buying a new house and then they got the townhouses they were living in, they decide to rent those out and use them as real estate investment. Well, Joe, you have people that kind of see these things offered online, you see some of those.

Yeah, so there's a few ways you can get into this game, man, and usually for everybody it's the same starting point, right? I think it's a pretty common thing for folks to sit around and say, hey, I wish I had more money, I wish I had more financial freedom, and we live in a day and age where social media is very prevalent, and every year, it seems like every passing day that goes by, the advertising permeates that social media harder and harder. And the algorithms are really good at picking up on your personality and tailoring these ads to you directly, and so something that we've seen a real explosion of in the last few years has really been people selling courses on how to become a real estate investor, and so they take many different shapes and forms, they aren't all created equal. I'm sure that there are some people who have purchased these courses and had some success with them for sure, but I think for the first part of this segment, we wanted to kind of talk about what a lot of those courses look like, some of the things that those courses pitch to you, the reality of those things and what it's really going to look like in practice, and the likelihood of success for some of these courses, at least traditionally what we've seen and heard from the clients that come to us, because I know like you, Josh, you get folks that will call you up, very little to no real estate experience whatsoever, and they've taken this course, they want to get into the game, and that's not a bad thing in and of itself, and I'm not saying that you can't be successful doing it from scratch, but there's a learning curve, there's a lot you're going to have to learn, and there's a lot of things that some of these courses pitch and talk to you about that really are not super feasible in practice.

I guess that's the best way I could phrase it. Yeah, yeah, so a lot of these courses, you know, they'll offer them in like a church or like a hotel, you know. And a lot of it's just purely virtual too, you know, I'm speaking more to like the influencer types, and so you've got somebody who's showing you all this money, they're rich, or at least you think that they're rich, and they're selling you a $5,000 to $10,000 course on how you can become an investor in real estate. And so just broadly speaking, the most common way I've seen that pitch to people is, because again, you can't just come off of your couch and enter the development game, unless you've got ridiculously deep pockets and somebody who knows what they're doing. So you're not going to come off your couch and start developing big, big, gigantic residential multifamily projects, which is really where real, real money is. And there's people who are doing that at a very high level, but those people have built for years and years, they've built up a ton of experience. So the more common solution and route that I see pitched in these courses is some form of wholesaling or assigning contracts or coming up with like creative financing options that you're pitching to owners and kind of tracking down deals that way, which again, in and of itself, it's not impossible.

I've seen people do it, but I don't know percentage of success, but it's up there with like getting to the NBA as a rec league basketball player. You know, like there's such a small percentage of people who are doing it successfully. I was going to ask along those lines, Joe, that I think that's a great point. I mean, there's so much out there.

You're mentioning social media and Instagram, but if you watch, if you watch any, you know, home network, all the flip shows, you see it everywhere and they make it seem like, hey, you know what? You know, I'm going to go flip this house. I'm going to make some money.

I'm going to go to the next house and the next house and the next house. It's not as easy as it looks. No, and it's very doable if you have money to play with.

Right. And so what I don't like about some of these courses is the person who doesn't have a, doesn't have a big nest egg to fall back on and doesn't have a bankroll or aren't super credit worthy where they can go out and get a loan. Because again, if you have enough knowledge, anybody can purchase and flip real estate and be successful with it. You know that that has enough knowledge that does it conservatively and intelligently. It's probably not going to be a quick process. It's going to be a slower build. But some of these courses target the folks who only have five thousand dollars to their name and they target them under the pretense of you don't need any money to do this. You need none. And again, that could be true.

You could get extremely lucky, find a bunch of owners that have a ton of equity in their house, pitch them on these creative financing options and make that work for you. But we're talking sub two percent success rate, I'd say, if not lower. Would you agree with that, Josh? Yeah.

Any anybody who who tempts you to get into real estate investing and says you don't you don't need any money. Like Joe says, there's ways it can work. I'm trying to find the quote I saw the other day real quick. But Simpsons quote?

No, no, no, it's not actually. But there's just there's just a low chance you really need. You know, if you let's say you've got and I've seen this I've seen it go bad for people who have one hundred thousand dollars to invest. Right. Because they they still expect everything to go right. And then let's say an annual it's it's very low probability that everything goes right. You know, property sits longer than you expect.

I mean, it's it's a business and you and you got you got a budget. But this is here. I'm almost at this little quote.

Where is it? Oh, yeah. So this plan, this plan would say you just need an impossible sequence of events to play out in perfect order against all odds.

And you'll be fine. Yes. Yeah. You talk about this.

Get in for no money. Yeah. It might work out just fine.

But every little thing has to go right. Yeah. You got to find the other.

You got to find other players. And then just just to just to talk about it in general, as far as like wholesaling goes, that's that's one of the angles you you see. Right. It's a very popular angle. Yeah.

So you get you get property is under contract as a buyer, but then you your hope is to assign that contract to somebody else who's going to pay more for it than you were. And so that's that's that's one of these things that people try to get into, because if that works for you, you know, and it can work, man. I'm not saying I've never seen someone do it successfully, but I'm telling you, the number of people that call our office and they're like, I took this course. I'm getting into the game. I'm hitting the ground running.

I'm going to kill this. We're wholesaling contracts. I would say less than five percent of those people ever close a single deal.

And they'll usually find a deal and bring it to us. And it'll be so it'll just die in the most spectacular ways because there's problems, right? There's tons of problems. We're going to talk about that in the next segment in terms of what we can do to help identify problems if you are trying to successfully do this. But I don't want to discourage your dreams, people like look, it is possible, but I want to have realistic expectations, man.

I'm not telling everybody. I'm not saying you can never you can't do this, but you need to set realistic expectations and understand. I don't want you paying ten thousand dollars to an influencer and then you're out ten thousand dollars and you never make a dollar off of your real estate investment. So basically you're going to give them a how to, but you're also going to preface that with, look, it's going to cost. I mean, it's not like it's I mean, there's money involved and there's money involved and you need to be prepared to lose if indeed that happens.

Yeah. And it's not it's not as easy as a lot of these folks make it seem, you know, because the reality is there are other people in this game doing the same thing that have a lot of money. And they've been doing it for years and years and years. And they know your local market better than you do.

So to me, the better the you know, finding a mentor that is local to you, that is here, that has done it. And that's not easy either. Right. Because a lot of these people who are in the game and who are successful, they're busy. They don't have time.

They don't need. And then that's one of the red flags with a lot of these influencers that are selling these courses is why are they selling you a ten thousand dollar course if they're making millions off of their real estate? And again, that's not to denigrate all of them. There's some that are very legit.

I can't name any names because I'm not you know, I couldn't tell you which ones to go with or not. I just want to urge caution, man. I've seen enough people that have gotten have spent this money on a course, pour themselves into it and never made a dollar. Well, real estate's super local in a lot of ways. And one of the ways it's super local is if this person's in New York teaching you this class, the real estate laws and what you can and can't do from one state to another is different.

Right. So North Carolina, there's things you can't do on the wholesaling front and the owner financing front. And you're dealing with local municipalities, too. You know, you've got regulations that it's very difficult for someone who is not in your area to really account for every single situation, especially in some of the counties in North Carolina. They're very rural counties, which is a lot of times where you're going to find the deals that this could actually work with.

You know, you're looking for someone. A lot of times you're looking to for an owner financing type of situation. Like if you're going to get in and you don't have money, you can't go get a loan. You're basically talking about a situation where the best way you could do this is pitching some kind of owner financing where you've got an owner.

They've got some equity in the property and they're willing to do that property, take a deed of trust back on it, essentially giving you a loan where, you know, you would hope to to to pay them back based on your whatever realization of income you get, whether you rent that property, whether you flip it. And it happens. I've seen it happen successfully.

There's people who do a very good job of it, but it is a small subset of the population that is capable of doing that. We are talking today on Judica County radio just about real estate investing and things to be aware of if you are going to go down this road. Obviously, inform, educate, and it is going to be a financial, you know, investment. So make sure you are ready for it. And again, having these types of conversations before you dive in, Paramount.

All right. To get a consultation and these are complementary and you can come in and talk about real estate and investing with the firm. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. There's no obligation. You're not becoming a client, but it's an opportunity for you to get your questions answered.

And it can be anywhere on the legal spectrum. Again, it's 800-659-1186. When we return on Judica County radio, we will talk more about real estate investing.

That's coming up next. We are back on Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They've got offices located conveniently for you in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick.

Just remember, we talk the talk, but we also walk the walk. If you've got a legal question and you need some answers, we have a complimentary appointment. All you have to do, it's a consultation. Call 800-659-1186. Want to make it very, very clear that if you grab an appointment, you're not agreeing to become a client.

This is no obligation. We're here to help. 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney will be in touch with you for that complimentary consultation. So, real estate investing, guys. Yeah, so we talked about the pitfalls of some of these courses, and that's not to say you can't do a course, you can't be successful. The next thing we can talk about is what can we do as a law firm to kind of be a resource for you and to help you out if you do go this route. So, we deal with a lot of investors.

We deal with a ton of them. And, you know, me personally, there was kind of a golden age for folks that I knew that would kind of go and peruse the courthouse and look for, they'd pull these foreclosure lists, and they made a very successful living kind of vetting certain foreclosures. There's factors you can look at to see which deals are good, which deals are bad. And then buying these properties in foreclosure, turning them around, flipping them, or keeping them as long-term investment properties. So, I think it's a good idea to spend some time talking about what can we do to be a resource as a law firm for you in the event that you want to do this. So, I think we can segment that into two separate categories.

And the first category is kind of on the title side of things, right? So, identifying what potential title issues, whether it's liens or judgments or tax liens or ownership issues, what red flags should you look out for? Because you, as a person, you see a property, you can look at the value of that property, you can figure out how much is owed on that property, and you can look at that and be like, man, this is a slam dunk.

This is the best deal possible. But there's some hidden things that you'd have to have some nuanced knowledge that we have to look for that could kill a deal dead. And then the second part of that, which we'll jump into next segment, is more of a business structure.

If I'm trying to start real estate investing, what can I do to protect myself from personal liability, and how should I structure my business in the most intelligent way? Yeah. So, like you said, Joe, title searching, right? So, you use your knowledge or what you learned from the class or your own gut instinct, and you're looking at something that's being – there's different kinds of foreclosures. There's sheriff sales, there's tax sales. But you're looking at a foreclosure, and you've decided like, hey, this is what my bid would be for the foreclosure. This is what the property needs. A lot of times you're not really being able to get inside these properties, right? These properties that are being foreclosed on, sometimes people are bidding on them just looking at them from the street. And with these true foreclosures, it's very difficult to get into the property, right? Because you really have to get creative, and you either have to talk to the owner and you're at their mercy, or there's less ethical ways that I would not advise. But I've seen – I mean, I've seen investors that'll just walk into – there's some properties that are abandoned.

And people have told me, we just walked in, we took a look at it. And there's a very slippery slope there, risk reward. Well, Joe, I think we should make it clear, that would be illegal. And that's why I said we would not do that, and we would not recommend that. But doing things the right way comes with risk, right? And so that's why I come back to it's very, very infrequently that there's going to be a slam dunk that you're going to find.

Because, again, you've got to always consider there are people who I guarantee you have been doing this longer than you. It's very rare that deals are just going to slip past these folks. So if you find one that looks too good to be true, a lot of times it's too good to be true. And so there's these hidden issues that can kill an otherwise very attractive deal that you can't know about unless you dig a little deeper. And that's where we come in.

I was going to say, it's almost like you're not saying beware, you're saying be aware. Yeah, exactly. That's right.

Be in tune. Yeah. This reminds me, I was watching Major League this weekend, which is a fun movie that everybody should watch. But they're putting the team together and the whole thing of Major League is they invited a bunch of quote unquote bad players, right?

That's the, you've seen Major League. Yeah. The owner wants to move the team.

They have to finish dead last so she can move the team so she gets a bunch of misfits to finish last. Right. And so Pedro Serrano is one of those guys, right? And they're watching him hit all these home runs off the fastball, but then they throw him a curve and he can't hit it.

They're like, hey, how did so many people lay off this player? He couldn't hit the curveball. Yeah. You don't want a house that can't hit the curveball.

Right. You know, and if it's too good to be true, like we've had clients who have not done their due diligence, haven't vetted, haven't had a title search done, and they buy a house that like it's an HOA lien. It's a junior. We would call it a junior lien, right? It's not the first mortgage being foreclosed on. It's a second mortgage, an equity line, an HOA lien. And, you know, foreclosure doesn't get rid of senior liens.

Right. So if an HOA and so an HOA can foreclose on you if you don't pay your HOA dues. And the lien may be a thousand dollars.

And you see that and you're like, oh, I can buy this house for a thousand bucks. But then there's there's two senior liens. Right. If you didn't do a title search, you'll say there's a Wells Fargo first mortgage, a credit union equity line.

Those don't get wiped out. And you take subject. Yeah. So we had someone buy a house for like ten thousand dollars, spend money fixing it up, and they went to sell it. And we're like, hey, man, there's two liens on this house.

Yeah. And so, you know, or there's a there's an IRS lien. IRS liens don't get wiped out by foreclosure. IRS liens are. And that's the big one, man. That's the that's the big one that that I have seen kill even savvy investors, because, again, a savvy investors is usually has enough wherewithal just because anybody can look at public record.

Right. Anybody can go on the registered deeds website with a little bit of training. We can make them dangerous in the sense of being able to identify liens that are not canceled. And you can you can use some tricks to figure out approximate balance and do some math and determine if a deal is good.

But even some of these savvy folks don't know how to look in the other places to find these more hidden liens and judgments that may be senior and may survive and can take a very good deal. Like you're 10. I'm sure you're ten thousand dollar property person strolled into the office doing the Vince McMahon walk, living large. I got this ten thousand dollar house. I'm rich. And then you got to crush their hopes and dreams, man.

And that's a sad conversation to have with somebody. And it takes it takes like you might get lucky, everything might work out. But a lot of this stuff, you know, we've been doing this for over 20 years. A lot of this stuff, you just you you got to get the eye for it. You got to see it go wrong so many times, you know, and figure out the pitfalls. You really develop a spidey sense, man, as a as a real estate closing attorney where you can kind of I don't know what it is, man. I can almost see a property address and be like, oh, yeah, that's a problem, man. That's a problem. I don't know why, but my gut tells me there's a bomb in that house.

I want to be sitting in my in my chair like 40 years from now, having done this forever. Just no teeth. Just go. Yes, of course you won't have teeth, man. You're hailing it. Somebody else's teeth. Yeah.

Just gumming some cereal like I wouldn't buy the house. Yeah. But but yeah, there's estates, there's foreclosures, there's.

And that's the other piece, too, right? The other big piece is you're dealing with an estate. And again, you could be dealing with one heir of 15 and you're only talking to that person. And that person's selling you this this this whole rosy picture of I'll sell you this house for eight thousand dollars.

No problem. And you got 14 other idiots that you got to deal with. And and and you've given them ten thousand dollars of non refundable deposits. And then you find out you can't even buy this house from.

Yeah, I've had I've had people come through and like we've had we've had people come through where we didn't help them on a purchase, but they're coming to us after the fight because they they bought it. But there's a condemnation order. Right.

Like there's an order from the county that you're going to have to tear down certain things or there's unpermitted things. There's all men. There's all kinds of nightmares out there. So the lesson the lesson, if we could give you one lesson in part one lesson on you is it doesn't have to be us. Right. But have a resource, have an attorney that you can you can bring these deals to.

Right. And maybe you reach a comfort level where you feel good about it and you develop your own system. But until that point, come see us or come see somebody and let's figure out on the front end.

Are there any of these hidden pitfalls that are going to kill this deal for you? Because it's a whole lot. You'd rather spend a little bit of money up front having us help you with that than a whole lot of money on the back end to try to fix a problem that was preventable. It's about having it's about having a plan and having confidence in that plan. And if you're going in flying blind and you think you've got a great deal, you know, why not ask professionals that do this on a daily basis?

Hey, take a look at this. Am I am I barking up the right tree here? And if you are, you proceed. But if you're not, at least you're going to know the red flags are there. Tell you folks, grabbing a complimentary consult.

It is this easy. Call the number 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, if you've got a legal question, maybe it's in this area of real estate we're talking about today. Maybe you saw a foreclosure that you're interested in.

But now we're finding out, man, there could be a lot of strings attached. You need to be aware of it. Call this number 800-659-1186. Grab one of the complimentary consults. You're not agreeing to become a client, but you are going to be able to get your questions answered. 800-659-1186.

We'll grab one of those. Leave your contact information briefly. What the call's about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch again.

It's complimentary. You're not agreeing to become a client. 800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County coming up on the other side. Back on Judica County Radio, hosted by Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

They have placed offices for your convenience in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. My pleasure each and every week to go back and forth with Josh and Joe. And we talk legalese. And again, there's going to be an opportunity for you to grab a complimentary consult. You can call this number at any time.

And when I say complimentary, you're not agreeing to become a client. This is an opportunity for you to get your legal questions answered. Call the number 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and an attorney will be in touch and line up that complimentary consultation. But we are talking real estate investing. We just finished up with foreclosures.

Where are we going next, guys? Well, I think next, we'll say you're able, right? You're not one of the people who kind of fail at real estate investing. You don't get caught up in one of these get rich quick classes or schemes or TikToker things, right? You've got the money to invest.

You still find a good deal. You invest in it. And you're going to be flipping the property, renting the property, whatever you're going to be doing. We need to talk about protecting your personal assets, right?

So if you have money to invest in real estate, I'm going to assume this is this is extra money, right? You've got your money that you live on. You got your personal residence or whatever your cars, your family. And so I think now is a good time to talk about the importance of protecting your personal assets so that you're the money that you have free to invest in real estate. Again, if you run into a nightmare situation or you get sued or a tenant or somebody gets hurt on your property and you get sued, you don't want to lose your your safe money. You don't want to lose your personal assets.

And so a lot of times me and Joe start talking to folks, you know, OK, now that you've got this real estate, this deal went well for you. Well, I need to protect your your personal stuff. You need to protect your money, right?

Yeah, for sure. And that's a big one, man. You know, we we and I say we collectively, everybody listening to this, everybody on the earth, man, nobody, nobody plans on things going wrong. No one plans on getting sued or someone, you know, at your mountain vacation property, you're tossing Frisbee and you toss it to your buddy and he's diving for it and he goes over the side of the mountain and dies. Nobody plans on that other than Josh Whitaker has planned his death that way.

But it can happen to anybody, man. You know, you never know what's going to happen. And so if if you go through if you accumulate enough wealth and you develop this great business plan and you get into the real estate investing game, like Josh said, you want to protect what you've got. You want to protect your individual assets that are separate from that business venture and you want to insulate yourself in liability. So how do we do it? And there's a few few different ways to go about it.

And we'll talk about all of those ways. But I guess the most common and frequent way that we would see is just forming a business entity, forming a holding company. And that holding company is going to hold all of the real property that you own.

And so that's something you may be in a situation, depending on how robust your your real estate portfolio is, you may have several holding companies, you may segment each property into its own individual holding company with a blanket company over the top. There's there's a ton of different ways you can go about it. And that's very much an individualized thing that, you know, we would handle on a case by case basis.

And that's why sitting down and talking about it is important because one size doesn't necessarily fit all in this game. And you could have some some unique things going on with your situation. So you can have a buddy who's very successful and they could tell you, hey, this is what I do.

This works for me. And you may need a completely different strategy just based on your own unique situation. So that's why, again, it's very important to to come see us. But Josh, can you talk just generally speaking about the benefits of having a separate entity, whether it's an LLC or corporation and what kind of what kind of pros that brings with it? Yeah, there's a lot of different there's a lot of different pros, right?

There's there's a lot different. And the biggest one for for our purposes today, we're talking in the context of creating a liability shield to protect your personal assets. Right. So you start a corporation, you start an LLC, you're creating an entity. Right. So it's its own business.

Right. It has a tax I.D. It files its own tax returns. It has its own bank accounts.

Right. So rent would come into it. You'd pay mortgage payments, you know, contractors out of that. It's not your personal money. It's the business's money.

Right. And you have to treat it like a business. That's part of getting the protection. If you just opened up an LLC and you deed the property into the LLC and then you just do everything out of your personal accounts. Well, then you're not you're not getting the you're not going to get that liability shield if someone sues you.

That business is a separate entity from you. Yeah. And you could.

But it's rolling the dice. Right. Like someone can can can attack that and then still come after you personally. And one of the things the court looks for is exactly like you said, Josh, are you are you following these formalities that are required to have a legitimate business? Or is it just a mere instrumentality extension of yourself? And you're just you know, it's a sham, basically.

Right. So if you if you ever get sued, let's say a tenant trips and falls in your home, dies and you get sued because the steps needed to be fixed and you get sued for for a wrongful death claim. And you haven't been running your business like a business.

It's just it's just a name only. They're going to they're the judge is going to more than likely if the side the other side can prove it, allow them to penetrate the the liability shield, their peers, the corporate veil and sue you personally. So starting this LLC is a mindset. You know, you it's going to be a business. It's going to pay business expenses, you know, at the end of the month or the end of the quarter, at the end of the year. And you're going to have a separate account, too. That's another big one.

Yeah. You're going to have a tax I.D. You're going to do an informational filing and it can make money. And that money can be you can pay yourself that money and then you do whatever you want to with that money. But you're going to have to run this business as a as a as a business. But if you do it correctly, the LLC, the corporation, whatever you choose, will will protect you. And you have to be properly insured.

Right. You have to there's a lot of things that you have to do, especially in it. And and for I think folks who are already in business, it kind of makes sense already, like we're just used to it.

But if it's something you haven't done before, between your attorney, your tax guy, your CPA, you really need to sit down and think about, OK, you know, this is a this is a separate business. And but it's not it's not overwhelming. It's not hard. There's a lot of people that that can help you figure it out. But don't don't mess it up.

You take the time to do it, do it the right way so that it actually does protect you when that time comes when you when you may need it. Yeah, that's right. And again, I can't implore you enough to sit down with an attorney. And it's like Josh said, it takes a village to raise a real estate investor. And so it's not just going to be the attorney piece. You know, you're going to need somebody who who has good tax knowledge as well, because there's going to be there are situations that we can't help you with on the tax front. And so it's a it's a multifaceted question. And we can't really touch on a lot of the ways that you can have the most beneficial structure for tax purposes, because, again, that's very individualized.

It's going to depend on your situation. But but you're going to want to bring professionals into the fold if you want to do it the right way. And if you want to avoid a lot of the pitfalls and and because there is it's very real, the possibility of you entering this game, you could be successful at finding deals, acquiring property, and you could do just a few things the wrong way.

And you could put yourself in a tough situation where, you know, you eat through a lot of that profit fix and dumb mistakes that were very preventable on the front end. Important to remember, you need to proceed with caution, have a plan, work with professionals when it comes to investing in real estate, because there are a lot of things out there that can trip you up. So, again, being proactive in the planning process, working with attorneys to make sure that real estate transaction goes well.

And again, if you're going to get into real estate investing, these are all things you need to be putting on the table and talking about. Now, complimentary consult available with Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call 800-659-1186. Maybe you're in one of these situations. Maybe you've got questions.

Maybe you're thinking about getting into real estate investing. This is an opportunity for you. 800-659-1186. And if you grab one of these complimentary appointments, you're not agreeing to become a client.

This is totally fact-finding. So this is an opportunity for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Again, leave your contact information, briefly what the call's about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch.

800-659-1186. We've got more Judica County Radio coming up on the other side. We are back for our final segment. Judica County Radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Again, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

They've got offices located in Raleigh, Garner, Cleveland, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick. Each and every week, it is legalese, but each and every week, we offer up complimentary consults.

That's complimentary. You're not paying for it. You're not agreeing to become a client. This is a great way to get your legal questions answered. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. What did we learn today on the program? Well, we've got one attorney with soft teeth, and that same attorney apparently has a fat arm. One big arm and one little arm. I was thinking during the show, you know, I was thinking like fat finger, right? That's a thing, right? If you're fat fingered, you're fumbling stuff, right?

Isn't that what that means? Yeah. We need to come up with a meeting for when you fat arm something. I feel like, so you're telling me you've got a real big fat arm and then tiny fingers on that arm? Like, that's real strange, man.

I'm just saying, there's a thing. You shake hands with your fat arm? Is that the one you always shake hands with? That's my strong arm, yeah.

Yeah, you're just squeezing people to death with it? You let people pick. You hold them both out. Like, which one do you want? When you meet somebody? With the big guy?

You want the little guy. You want a normal handshake, or do you want to be smothered? Yeah. So is that what we're going to call fat arming?

Is that going to be the definition of fat arming? I've just been eskimizing people when I meet them lately, just nosy nosy in them. And that's really the level of closeness I've been building with people out of the gate based on that has been, you should try it and work it into your routine, man. You know, it's going really well, especially during flu season, man. People love it. There's a big hit.

I don't know, man. I'm going to work on the definition of fat arm, and I'm going to make it part of my vernacular. That's what I try to do. I try to come up with my own.

Have a support group for people with one fat arm and soft teeth. And it's you and one other guy that eats a lot of Reese's Pieces, Puffs, whatever we call them. That's a good cereal.

You think so? Good for you, man. Good for you. You said you were all lucky charms. That's all you do is lucky charms?

No, man. I don't really eat any cereal. I've never been a cereal guy. You're eating all the meat these days, right?

Well, these days, as a kid, man, I'd challenge virtually anybody. If you put me on a list of people in the world who've eaten Pop-Tarts, I'm up there. High up there. Okay, so you're a Pop-Tart guy.

I was. Being a Pop-Tart guy is not sustainable because you die eventually. That's the end game of being a Pop-Tart guy.

You're just going to die. They should, like at the Pop-Tart bowl, they should have a Pop-Tart eating contest, like a hot dog eating contest. How many Pop-Tarts can you eat?

I'd get back in the game for that. There's no glory in the Pop-Tart game. Like, that's not a very glorious thing to be the best at. So, Joe, you're a protein guy. You're an egg guy. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to eat better now. I don't want to die.

I don't want my teeth to fall out. Do you guys see the latest story with the egg prices where they are that Waffle House is going to have a surcharge on each individual egg they serve? Yeah, the eggs are crazy right now, man. I've got some chickens at the house that met an unfortunate end recently, man, and it was a real tragic time. Used to be a chicken would die would be a sad thing, but now it's like a financial burden. It's like, God, how are we going to survive this? I'm going to have to file bankruptcy if these chickens die. Yeah, really, man, really.

I've got one left, and he's a survivor. He's a good boy, girl, girl. Do you ever see that family guy where they go on tour, they're singing, and they have that song about putting butter on the Pop-Tart? Have you ever seen that?

No, but it sounds right up my alley, man. You're going to have to give it to Google, man. They go and they start singing these songs, and one of them is about putting butter on a Pop-Tart. Just hearing the word Pop-Tart so many times, I've got a problem, man, because I hear that, and it triggers something in my brain. I just want to go and just eat a bunch of Pop-Tarts right now. I thought you were hooked on the Burger King sandwich. Yeah, I was for a while, you know, so it used to be. I was a two croissantwiches in the morning type of fellow, and then this is a true story, man. True story.

I ended up having something happen where my stomach started eating itself, and I had to go have surgery, and to this day, I believe it was attributed to my two croissantwiches in the morning a day. I don't think we need to be. I feel like we're opening ourselves up to some liability there. I think you need to be very clear that you don't know what caused that.

I don't know what caused that, but it did happen to me. But you know what, man, this is what I'll say. Worth it. It was worth it. The deliciousness of the, I don't know what they put in them, but it's good. They're good. It's really good, and God, man, you guys are making me. You guys. I'm going to have, your big fat arm is going to be my whole body. I'm coming back next week, and you're going to be like, what happened to him?

Michelin Man! It's going to blow up, yeah. Weight gain. I'm going to make fat arm catch on, man. Yeah, it's already caught. I think it already has. I'm going to work on it real hard, see where it goes. Yeah, for sure, man. I believe in you.

You can make anything happen. Judica County Radio, another edition in the books. We want to remind you there are complimentary consults available with Whitaker and Hamer. All you've got to do is call the number 800-659-1186, and when we say complimentary, you're not agreeing to become a client. That's 800-659-1186.

Again, 800-659-1186. Maybe you've got questions about our discussion points today about real estate investing. It's a slippery slope. You've got to be careful. You've got to have a plan.

You need to work with professionals that do this. There's so much out there, so much information. You're being bombarded by it, and it looks like get rich quick type things. As the attorneys have said today, if it looks too good to be true, you need to investigate, right? Need to investigate. Grab a consult. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Another edition of Judica County Radio is in the books. For Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, I'm Morgan Patrick.

We'll see you on the radio next week. Judica County is hosted by attorneys licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on this podcast may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion on this podcast is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live has the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on this podcast are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at mwhlaw.lawyer.