Our Guest: Flavio Jimenez, Vice President of Business Development, Hispanic Market
Join us on Wednesday as Flavio Jimenez provides a primer on growing your business in the Hispanic demographic.
Wednesday, October 20th @ 1:30 PM Central Time.
Show Transcript:
0:00:00.0 Geoff Stertz: Hello, and thanks again for joining us for another Fathom Live, a livestream show dedicated to giving you tips and insights from experts in and around the real estate industry. I’m your host Geoff Stertz. Today we have with us Flavio Jiménez, good to have you today.
0:00:13.2 Flavio Jiménez: Hey Geoff, how are you? Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure being here with you today.
0:00:16.9 GS: I’m fantastic. And the same to you. I can’t wait for our interview here, so we’ll get to that in just a moment. And I really do encourage you to watch the show today, you’ll hear a great story and hopefully some really, assuredly, some great tips for working within the Hispanic market, and so excited about that. But first here, I just wanted to give a shout-out to our sponsors Go… Our sponsor GoSocial agent offering affordable and effective social media marketing solutions to help agents grow their business. So, you can head over to gosocialagent.com to get started there, and if you’re a Fathom agent, you actually get some of the stuff for free, so that’s pretty cool.
0:00:54.2 GS: Also, as we do always, we always do a drawing, so if you comment on Facebook or if you comment on YouTube, and whether or not we use that comment in the show or anything, you’re automatically entered into a drawing to win one of three prizes, you can win yard signs, a photo listing package, or a GoSocial agents leads service, all valued up to 200 bucks, so you can… So just get to commenting, if we use your comment on the show as part of the conversation, which we really encourage you to do, is ask those questions, be part of the conversation, then we’ll add you to the drawing five times, that way you have a little bit more of a chance, so be a part of what’s happening today. I think that’s it. Let’s just jump right into things. And to start with, you’re out in Las Vegas, Nevada, correct?
0:01:42.4 FJ: Correct, I’ve been here for 24 years now.
0:01:45.8 GS: Wow, okay. And have been in the real estate industry the whole time?
0:01:49.7 FJ: For 23.
0:01:50.9 GS: 23 out of the 24. Okay, great.
0:01:52.1 FJ: Yes.
0:01:52.5 GS: So, I want our agents, and not just our agents, everybody that’s watching, I want them to hear your story about how you got into the real estate industry and why you’re so passionate about what you’re doing right now.
0:02:04.7 FJ: Okay. Well, I came to Las Vegas back in 1997, October 1997. And back then, I used to be a civil engineer, no longer, I don’t remember anything about civil engineering. But my father, he lived here in Las Vegas, and he told me that the American dream was to purchase a house, and I believed the guy, he’s my father, he’s not gonna give me bad advice. So, I asked him, “How do you do that?” And he said, “Well, you need to talk to a real state agent, and they will find you a house,” and I did. I got… I went back then to the yellow pages. For those of you who are very young, Yellow Pages is what we used to have instead of Google.
0:02:52.8 FJ: And I went to the Yellow Pages and found a real estate Hispanic real estate agent. I gave him a call, and that was November 1997 around, and by March 1998, so five months later, I was already in my house. And long story short is that I called the bank to complain around May, May, June, I called the bank to complain about the increase of my mortgage payment, and they say, “You know what, it’s not an increase of your rate or anything, it’s just the taxes on the property were calculated bad or wrong, and we need to adjust for the escrow account into the mortgage payment.”
0:03:37.9 FJ: So, they asked me questions, I answered the questions, and then they say, “You know what, let me transfer you to my supervisor,” and then the supervisor asked me a couple of more questions, I answered everything, and then he said, “Well, let me transfer you to my regional manager,” and then, you know, I thought I was gonna be talking to the owner of the bank, the way they were transferring me to different people.
0:04:02.6 GS: Yeah. So, are you suspecting something fishy is going on at this point or just…
0:04:06.9 FJ: No, I thought I was gonna get reimbursed, I thought I was gonna get some money back for the extra payment they were asking. And now after the conversations, they… I ended up talking to the regional manager and he said, “Mr. Jiménez,” and when he called me Mr. Jiménez, and back then I was like 25, 26 years old, and he said, “You know, Mr. Jiménez, I have to tell you something,” and he said, “You committed a fraud by buying this house.”
0:04:42.2 GS: Oh, my goodness.
0:04:46.1 FJ: Yes. And Geoff, to be the pride of your father one day and then be the dark black sheep on the family the very next day by… Yeah, of course, you bought a house, five months into Las Vegas, you committed fraud, like that anybody can buy a house.
0:05:09.8 GS: Wow. Did your… Did they tell you that you… Did the bank say… Suggest that you were the one that did this, or did they say, “Hey, something’s been screwy with your documents”?
0:05:19.4 FJ: No, no, they asked me very specific… When they say, “You know what, you committed fraud by buying this house,” I asked him, “What do you mean fraud? I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” and he asked me very specific questions, “How long have you been in Las Vegas?” And I said, “Five months, six months by now, seven months,” and he said, “Well, on the application, you stated or you signed that you’ve been working in this restaurant in Las Vegas like for five years.”
0:05:46.7 GS: Oh, ’cause they needed employment history.
0:05:50.7 FJ: Yes, you know, and I didn’t know back then. Now, everybody that is listening right now, they’re familiar with the programs, I bought my first house with an FHA loan, so FHA require for you to be employed for two years and taxes for two years and all that stuff. So, long story short, the real state agent, Hispanic, and the loan officer who also is Hispanic, they committed fraud, they provided all the documents, employment history, taxes, pay-stubs, I think they also provided bank statements that were not mine, and I purchased my house.
0:06:32.5 FJ: When I talked to a real estate agent about this, he told me straight out, he said, “You should be thankful we got you into a house, we did it to give you a house, we did it for you, you wanted a house, we gave you a house, you should be thankful.” And that’s how I started my relationship with real estate, because of fraud. Thank God everything was… End up good for me, not so good for the real state agent and loan officer. And then, because of this, my soon-to-be wife asked me, “What are you gonna do?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know, I cannot trust anybody.”
0:07:13.4 FJ: I trusted Hispanic agents in real estate, we were communicating in Spanish in my own language, and I just learned that I cannot even trust my own kind. So, my wife told me, my soon-to-be wife, she said, “Well, why don’t you do it yourself? Go and understand yourself what happened to you.” So, I thought it was a good idea at the moment, so I went to this academy, a mortgage academy, they called it back in the days.
0:07:41.9 GS: Yeah, you were… But you came to the United States with the hopes of using your civil engineering degree?
0:07:47.3 FJ: Yes, sir. I was born in California, I was born in California, and I grew up in Mexico, so I am a US citizen by birth. And I grew up in Mexico, graduated as a civil engineer. I came to study the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The company that I was working for back then, they wanted to build a local Golden Gate Bridge in Mexico, and because I was born here, I had no issues crossing the border, and I kinda spoke English back then a little bit better than the rest of the company in Mexico, so they sent me over here to study, and the budget in Mexico didn’t go through, so the project fell and they told me, “Well, you’re on your own, you finished the studies, we already paid for the course, so just finish the thing and you’re on your own.”
0:08:40.1 FJ: So, I decided to work very hard to save some money, go back to Mexico and build my own construction company as a civil engineer, that was the plan. And then, all of this happened. And so, when I went to this academy, mortgage academy to learn about the mortgage industry, I realized what they did to me and fell in love with the finance and the real estate and all the benefits of having a real estate and leverage your money and cash flow and equity and all that stuff. And I decided to give it a shot, and I discovered my true calling, I discovered my passion, and I’ve been doing real estate since then.
0:09:27.1 GS: Wow, that’s amazing. So, I mean, all of that, and I’ve always argued, if you get a college education, even if you don’t use it in the field that you’re going to, you’re going into, you use it because there’s a lot of disciplines that you can bring into other areas of your life, but man, that’s quite a shift. So, what you’re saying is the bad experience of real estate actually propelled you in it, which is actually very fascinating now that I think about it. And this we didn’t talk about this before, but if you go back and look at Josh Harley’s different kind of testimonies of how he started Fathom, it was really the same thing. He got into real estate with a big box office, didn’t like the model, went to a smaller one, got ripped off, and then was like, “There’s gotta be a better model out there,” and then started Fathom. It’s really kind of the similar idea of just like seeing that there’s this gaping hole in what is being offered. And so, you’re saying that within the Hispanic community, you saw that there was a need for someone like yourself who was gonna bring to the table a great experience for your agents?
0:10:39.0 FJ: Oh my God, you know, that’s…
0:10:40.1 GS: For your clients, sorry, yeah.
0:10:42.9 FJ: Yeah, you know, I promised to myself never to sugar-coat it, I promised to myself never to lie to a client about their finances or their FICO score or their loan approval or the real estate transaction, I’d rather give it to you the way it is so you can make a decision based on the truth, and let’s just go from there. I don’t wanna… I never tell my clients what they want to hear, I tell them my truth. And 23 years after that incident, I’m still amazed of what people are doing to the Hispanic community, and I’m talking about real estate professionals, and I’m talking about loan officers, they’re Hispanic and the fraud is still here, there’s a lot of misrepresentation, there’s a lot of lies, a lot of mis-guidance to the public, to the consumer, to the clients, and I’m still surprised that it’s going that way, and I’m also surprised at the fact that when you talk to a client, they say, “You know what, they never talk to me like this,” it’s like, “Well, this is not the way, this is the truth,” and they’re saying, “Well, we’re not used to people telling us the truth on real estate,” and that’s kind of intriguing to me, it’s kind of fascinating to find out that still 23 years later we are facing the same problems and the same issues in the Hispanic community.
0:12:16.9 GS: So, I wanna ask you a little bit more about that, but maybe just real briefly to finish the story part, after getting to real estate, you actually you were both in the loan business as well as the real estate agent side of things, correct?
0:12:35.8 FJ: Correct. I started…
0:12:37.1 GS: And what did that look like? How did you get from where you were to where you are now?
0:12:39.9 FJ: Well, I started my career back in October 1998 as a loan officer, that’s how I started. Two and a half years later, I got my license as a real estate agent. So, from 2001 all the way up to 2012, ’13, I did both, I did real estate and loans. And it was a good run, it was a lot of work, a lot of baby-sitting to do to both my clients and my agents, ’cause at one point I was a branch manager for a mortgage company, and I had over 70 loan officers working under my belt. And I also was a team leader for a real estate company, and I had like 15 real estate agents in my team, too. So, it was a good run. It was hectic for the most part, I had no life.
0:13:37.0 FJ: I was closing on an average of 60-70 loans a month and about 30-35 real estate transactions a month just by myself. So, I was doing more or less like 100-110 transactions a month between real estate and loans by myself for, I’m gonna say, six, seven years straight. So, it was crazy. It was a good run, I learned a lot, and it was great. And I decided back in 2012-13 not to do loans anymore, and I focused all my attention and to develop a real estate team and create a system to help and to provide more education to the Hispanic community through real estate.
0:14:21.8 GS: So, you mentioned when we were… When we talked earlier that you had sort of a crisis moment, I guess, in your journey with real estate during the quarantine, so you built this business, but like you were saying, kind of the baby-sitting aspect of it kinda caused a pull back a little bit to just like, let’s try to do something more, I don’t wanna say more manageable, but with maybe with less headaches, but then rather than just continuing down that line and doing that, something kinda, you said something kinda happened during quarantine that really sort of changed your perspective again? I would love an honest opinion.
0:15:04.4 FJ: Yeah, you’re right, I’m…
0:15:09.5 GS: I’m teeing you up for this, yes, no, I figured you wanted to talk about this ’cause I thought… To me, it was very inspiring.
0:15:18.6 FJ: Well, you know, I’m the type of guy that actually like to write everything down, I have a lot of notes, a lot of sticky notes, a lot of half-way used notebooks and notepads, ’cause I do write a lot, and I write my goals, the way I’m thinking at the moment, ideas and everything. So, when COVID first started, we went home for 45 days straight. I decided to close my office ’cause everybody was afraid, we didn’t know what was going on and what was gonna happen. So, I decided to work from home and the rest of my team and all my agents and everybody, we went from home to home, and we worked from home for 45 days.
0:16:00.8 FJ: During that time, I also noticed that my home office was a mess, books everywhere and papers everywhere in my desk at home, so I thought, “Okay, let me just clean it, I have plenty of time now, and I can be here up until 4 o’clock in the morning and nobody’s gonna tell me anything if I wake up 11 o’clock in the morning next day.” So, I started to clean up my office and I stumbled to a lot of notes that I did back when I was 15 years younger, 20 years younger when I first started, and I realized that my dream back then 15, 20 years ago was to create a legacy, to build something big across the country in real estate and really help the Hispanic community.
0:16:52.7 FJ: And then, it got me thinking, what happened in those 20 years? Why didn’t I accomplish it? Or, why didn’t I follow my dreams from 20 years ago? And I really started to think, and I started to make excuses to myself, “Well, I know what is it to baby-sit 100 people, and it’s not fun.” I’m making very good money working with my team of five. My team, my personal team is six people right now. I’m closing 200 transactions plus a year by myself, so why the hassle? Why the baby-sitting? Why the pushing? Why… I don’t wanna be motivating people that don’t wanna work, I don’t wanna do that. And then, I started to read all the dreams that I had when I was younger and the things that I wanted to do. And then, something happened in September 2019 on a personal level. And hopefully, my mom is not watching this ’cause she doesn’t know.
0:18:08.2 FJ: No, she will never watch this, I’m assuming. [laughter] So, September 2019, they told me, “Your cancer is back.” Right? And I thought I was gonna go in remission, I thought I was clean, I had three more months to go, to be five years in remission, and they told me, “If you hit the five-year mark with no cancer, you’re clean, you’re good to go.” So, three months before I hit the five-year mark, they told me, “Your cancer is back.” So, I was in the middle of the pandemic, watching my notes, “The cancer is back,” and I was dealing with everything, and I said, “You know, I’m gonna give it a shot ’cause I didn’t do it not because I didn’t want to, I think I didn’t do it because I was afraid of failing, afraid of not making the big impact that I wanted to make,” and I’m.
0:19:02.0 FJ: I don’t care about the baby-sitting, I was afraid of being responsible for those agents for me to babysit. So, at the end, Geoff, I didn’t do it because I was afraid, that is the honest truth, not because I didn’t want to or didn’t know how to, I was just afraid of giving up the comfort that I have, no, the income that I’m making, the team that I have, the family that I created in my office, the culture that I have with my team, that I see them more as a family member than co-workers. So, everything put together, my 20 years of dreaming of what to do, and creating a goal, plus the pandemic, plus the cancer being back and now thinking, “Am I gonna have time to actually do it and make it happen?” I made a decision right there.
0:20:00.2 FJ: I remember it was May 16th, one day before my wife’s birthday, and I told her on her birthday, I said, “Listen,” Martha is the name of my wife, and I told her, “Martha, today is your birthday, and I made a decision yesterday to go big,” and she goes, “What do you mean go big?” And I go, “I’m gonna go national, I’m gonna put and put all my efforts and energy to go national, to teach my system on how to produce real state not only to the real estate agents that are Hispanic and do it the right way, but also to teach the consumer, the clients the right way to do business, and I have everything.”
0:20:43.0 FJ: I’ve been in my radio, I have a radio show Monday through Friday, and I just celebrated 18 years being in the air uninterrupted, 18 years straight on the radio. I said, “You know what, I have everything, I have the radio show, I know how to build the teams, I understand the culture of the Hispanics, I understand what they say about achieving the American Dream, I understand about the lack of information, I understand about the fraud that is in the Hispanic community in real estate, in loans, I understand loans, I understand pretty much all the aspects of real estate in the Hispanic arena, I’m gonna go big.”
0:21:20.5 FJ: So, I started to call people, I called a lot of people that I know that they work in the national platform, and one thing led to another, I had three major banks across the country that I did my presentation and my business plan, and they said, “Yes,” all of them said, “Yes, let’s do it.” And one bank in particular, they put a lot of money behind it for me to do a national platform, and I was about to choose the bank that I was gonna get married and do business on a national level when I was introduced to Josh.
0:21:56.7 FJ: And I called the guy straight up and said, “Listen, I’m gonna give him a call, if he answers, fine, if he doesn’t answer, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s not meant to be.” That’s what I thought. So, I called Josh, and to my surprise, he did answer the phone, and it was awkward. He’s the founder of Fathom, and I think the time I… When I called him, I think Fathom was like one month public, not even, it was right there in July, August of last year. And he said, “There’s a lot of things happening right now.”
0:22:38.4 FJ: And then he listened to me, and I didn’t know nothing about Josh, and I was cursing left and right in our conversation, ’cause he gave me… I guess I felt very, very comfortable talking to him, and he was laughing and he was just answering all the questions, and then he said, “Let me introduce you to Marco. We need to talk to Marco.” And when I talked to Marco and Josh on a three-way call, they put something together really, really fast, and I loved it.
0:23:13.3 FJ: I said, “This is it, they have everything, they have the national platform, they already have integrated the mortgage company, they’re gonna integrate the title company, they’re gonna integrate the insurance company, and they have everything, I don’t need to look anywhere else, and they don’t have a Hispanic department, nobody has a Hispanic department,” you name it, every single major real estate company out there, they have bilingual real estate agents or bilingual loan officers, they just don’t have a dedicated Hispanic department to work with, and when I proposed that to them, they said, “Yes, let’s do it.”
0:23:49.6 GS: So, that’s probably… If you’re going around to every single company, you’re a dynamic person, and not to discount any of that, but if you’re going around to different people and they’re all saying, “Yes, yes, yes, we want a Hispanic division of our company,” that to me is an indicator, anecdotal as it may be, that this is something that’s coming here in the US, there’s a great opportunity for businesses and individuals alike to be able to provide a great product for the Hispanic community, so just hearing you talk about it, for Fathom sake, is just brilliant, it’s exciting.
0:24:36.2 GS: And so, I want to kinda wet our agents’ appetites, the people listening with, okay, what is the Hispanic community, what’s sort of the state of things right now? How do you reach them? What’s the culture? And then, also, somebody, I keep forgetting about this, Sammy Ferguson she said, what were the consequences or were there consequences for, in your original part of the story, for the agent and the loan officer who sold you your house, did anything happen to them?
0:25:03.9 FJ: The real estate agent, he lost his license for life, and got a fine of, I believe, $5000, I believe he was, and he got his license revoked for life. The loan officer got off line, I believe it was $10,000, and back then in 1999, when this happened, when we went to court and everything, back then the loan officers did not require to be licensed, so it was no license, it was just, “I’m a loan officer and I work under this mortgage company,” and that’s it. It was not regulated as it is right now, like it is right now. So, the loan officer, believe it or not, he is still doing loans here in Vegas.
0:25:45.6 GS: Wow!
0:25:45.6 FJ: I know that he is, yeah.
0:25:49.6 GS: So, about the Hispanic community, what… How do you… How did you differentiate yourself? You’re doing a lot of business for the size of your team, how are you differentiating yourself? And what’s been the impact there? And then, kind of a follow-up to that is… Well, let me just start with that one because I have another question. There’s a lot of questions I have, it’s my job. But, yeah, go ahead. So, how are you differentiating yourself in the Hispanic market?
0:26:22.6 FJ: For the most part, since I know the culture and I know how it feels to be in a country that you call yours, but it’s not fully yours. I was born here in California and grew up in Mexico. For my… For the guys in Mexico, I was not Mexican, and here in the States, I’m not fully American, even though that I was born here, so I’m in the middle. I’m not American according to the American standard, I’m not Mexican because I wasn’t born over there, and a lot of people feel the same way, they call the United States their home for the last 10, 15, 20 years, but they still feel left out and they still know that the American Dream is to be homeowners.
0:27:17.2 FJ: So, what’s the difference between me and the rest of the real estate professionals, Hispanic real estate professionals out there? I think the biggest difference besides telling the truth all the time and not sugar-coating and cursing a lot, I think I do curse a lot, I think the biggest difference is is that I understand the culture enough to teach ’em how to become wealthy in real estate the right way, you don’t need to commit fraud, you just need to focus, you just need to actually do it.
0:27:56.5 FJ: I start my conversation with my clients, every single client that I see, this is one question of many that I ask them, and this is where I put a lot of attention. I ask them, “How do you see yourself in 10 years? How much are you making a month in 10 years? How much do you need to make a month in 10 years? What part of the city are you living in? What kind of car are you driving? Are you gonna have kids in college? Who’s gonna pay for that?” I ask them this questions, they’re not related to real estate, I just need to understand how they see themselves, and 99.9%, they don’t know. And I ask them, “Well, what if I teach you to make the exact money or more that you’re making right now working without working? What if I teach you how to make money without going to work, will that work for you?” And, of course, every single one say, yes, and then I start working on real estate.
0:29:02.2 FJ: See, my approach is very, very different. My approach is, real estate to me is a money-making machine, to the rest of the population, to the majority, real estate or buying a house is similar or equivalent to putting a roof for your family, to me, no, real estate to me is a money-making machine, and then it will give you a roof to cover your family. And the majority of Hispanics, because of culture, they think it the other way, they say, “You know what, let me just buy a house so I can provide a roof for my family, and maybe, maybe 30 years from now I will make money in real estate.”
0:29:46.8 GS: Right, which is, in this market, is not the case, you’re making a lot of money if you’re buying a house as prices go up and inflation goes up. So, one of the things that you mentioned before was that there’s different generations of Hispanics, so when you’re talking to, and obviously different countries that Hispanics are coming from, and so as far as generations, ones that came here, first generation, second generation, third generation, what’s the significance between those generations as far as it relates to having these kind of conversations with them?
0:30:29.4 FJ: The attachment to your culture, I consider myself second generation, my father lived here in the States for 45-46 years, so I consider myself a second generation. First, second, and third generation are very linked, are very attached. And first generation, they have their own their country beliefs, and customs, and culture, language, everything, traditions, everything. Second generation, they’re in between worlds, they don’t feel 100% American and they don’t feel 100% Latino or Hispanic, and they’re in between, but they still speak Spanish, they still listen to music in the Spanish, they still go to concerts in Spanish, soccer games, they still go… Do the culture, they still listen to their mom and dad, regardless.
0:31:27.1 FJ: Family to us is the very first thing, that’s the very first thing for us, family. So, second generation is that. Third generation, they speak more English than Spanish, they no longer watch TV in Spanish, they may not do the same things their parents did, like fax, they don’t believe in fax anymore. First and second generation, they want to send me everything in fax, and they don’t have emails for the most part. If you ask first and second generation to sign electronically, they think you’re committing fraud, they want to see you face-to-face, they want to sign everything in paper, they want to see you.
0:32:10.7 FJ: Third generation, they understand that the lesser you talk to them, the better, they want to text you, do everything electronically, they don’t wanna it to go face-to-face. Four generations of Hispanics in the country, they’re American, they are the same as an Anglo person, and we are losing touch. And the only thing that come in between first, second, and third generation to the fourth generation is the last name, that’s it, other than that, they are ready… They’re not ready… They’re not Hispanic at the core anymore. That’s the big difference.
0:32:45.1 GS: Gotcha, so know who you’re working with, and then you’ll be able to speak to the needs and the concerns that they have and be able to coach them in the right way. So, just by way of application then, what’s your message to the Hispanic agents out there doing business? And then I wanna ask you the same thing about non-Hispanic agents working within the Hispanic community. I’m just curious, so what would you say to the Hispanic agents watching?
0:33:12.8 FJ: The first thing, don’t sugarcoat it, don’t be afraid of telling the truth and saying the truth, if you don’t qualify, you don’t qualify, if your credit is ugly, let them know, “Your credit is ugly, you don’t even pay your month, you have a really, really bad credit, that’s why you don’t qualify.” Or, “You know what, because of culture, you guys get paid in cash and you don’t declare it to the IRS, you’re not declaring your taxes, if you don’t declare your income, you qualify for less. Let them know, listen to them.
0:33:46.8 FJ: Hispanics, they have to be listened to. We need to learn how to listen to their needs, and their needs is not a real estate transaction, or “I wanted to buy a house, a three-bedroom house with no pool and one story,” that’s a wish, that’s what I want. I don’t need that, I need the assurance of knowing that I’m doing the right thing financially, I need to have the assurance that this thing is gonna provide for my family, even though if I die tomorrow, I need to understand that my family is gonna be protected. And we as professionals in the same culture, we need to make sure that they understand that.
0:34:30.0 FJ: So, first of all, they need to understand that transaction and the implications, and they need to be reassured that everything is gonna be crystal clear and everything is gonna be fine. And to the non-Hispanic agents that are dealing with Hispanics, they need to understand the culture. And it’s very simple. They need to understand that for Hispanics, the very first thing is God, the second one is family, the third one is work, and then the fourth one is finances, in that order. Right now we are 20% of the population in this country, we are a population that by the year 2030 we’re no longer gonna be a minority, by the year 2040, 70% of every single real estate transaction in this country is gonna be done by Hispanic or Hispanic descent, 70%.
0:35:25.5 GS: That’s crazy. And that’s not that far, that’s less than 20 years, is what you’re saying.
0:35:30.4 FJ: That’s in 20 years, hopefully, we’ll be around, too, still.
0:35:35.7 GS: Fathom or you and me?
0:35:38.4 FJ: Both. [chuckle] Is it too much to ask for both?
0:35:42.3 GS: No, I hope not, yeah.
0:35:44.4 FJ: So, every minute, a Hispanic turns 18 years of age, every minute in this country.
0:35:49.3 GS: Wow, wow.
0:35:50.6 FJ: So, we need to understand… Oh, I’m saying all this statistics, because even though that we are a potential power and we have an acquisition power that is unheard of, and for the first time in history, Hispanics have more equity in their homes than any other ethnicity out there, we’re still poor. How do you explain that? How do you explain that African-Americans are the poorest in the country. And then, next to them is the Hispanics. And we only make $1200 more a year to claim the second position of being poor. If African-Americans as a whole, if they make $1300 a year more, we Hispanics will be the poorest one in the country.
0:36:42.4 FJ: So, how do you explain that? We are 20% of the population, how do you explain that we have the most equity than anybody in the whole country for the first time in history, how do you explain that we are… If Hispanics here in this country were a country by itself, we will be the eighth potential economic power in the world above Italy and above Brazil? How do you explain that, and at the same time being one of the poorest people in the country? And the answer to that is education, we don’t know financial education, we don’t know what to do, where to go, and everything is culture. Here, you guys, when I say “you guys” is the Anglo, the non-Hispanic, it’s very common for you guys to have a life insurance. Right?
0:37:29.0 GS: Right, yeah.
0:37:30.1 FJ: For us, we don’t have that, for the rest of the country it’s natural to have a will or a trust, we don’t have that. Culturally, we don’t do that in our countries. We make jokes about death, it’s a tradition. On the 2nd of November, we worship the death. Even Disney came with this cocoa thing. We worship the death on the 2nd of November. So, when we talk about death, we say it as a joke, as, “Oh, yeah.” And Hispanic, they would rather joke about death than buy a life insurance and take care of their family. It’s totally different, the culture, the mindset is different, and this is a great opportunity for us as professionals to provide a different way, a different path, to make sure that we are providing for our families the right way, and my mission as a person is to create wealth through real estate, to create legacy through real estate for the Hispanic community.
0:38:39.0 GS: Are you having these conversations with your clients?
0:38:42.6 FJ: Every time.
0:38:42.7 GS: Yeah. So, I guess what I’m asking or suggesting is then, as an agent, you’re not just providing a smooth transaction, you’re kind of coming in as a sort of a lay financial planner, or at least pointing people in the right direction to help them consider financial choices, and then real estate’s a great foundation for that because you’re now, you’re buying something that has lasting value, that, like you said, it can be a roof over your head, and, of course, it’s an incredible investment, it’s not in every decade, obviously, but over the long term, if you’re holding on to property, it’s obviously a great investment. So, that’s what you’re doing, you’re coming in and you’re saying, “Let’s talk about your finances as a whole.”
0:39:29.9 FJ: Yes, I wanted to make sure that I understand their position. It usually takes me between 10 to 15 minutes ’cause I’ve been doing this so long now that I know exactly what to ask, and usually the first 10-15 minutes of our interview is for me to understand where they’re coming from, is for me to understand their finances. I ask all kinds of questions. And if you’re a lady and you come to my office, I will ask you as a lady, how old are you? And they always come back with the same answer, “You never ask that…
0:40:10.5 GS: It’s very dangerous.
0:40:12.8 FJ: You never ask that to a lady.” Right? [chuckle] And I say, “Well, yes, yes, I just did. How old are you?” And I wanted to know people’s age. And the reason for that, they ask me, “What do you wanna know?” “Well, I wanted to know and find out how much time you have in your back to work on a regular job until you’re 63 or 65, and then see how much time I have to create a strategy, a real estate strategy so you can retire not depending on social security, you can retire not depending on your kids.” By the way, Hispanics culture, again, this is culture, this is family, we get old and we’re already assuming that my kids are gonna take care of me. It’s culture, if you don’t do that…
0:41:04.4 GS: It’s not… It’s a good culture, it’s not a bad culture, but if it’s built on the idea that I’m just sort of out of responsibility at that point, then that’s not… Culture or whatever it is, it’s kind of a dangerous play, especially if your relationship with your kids go sour. [chuckle]
0:41:24.4 FJ: But if you see these places when you go… What are they? Retirement homes? When you go and you go yourself just to die pretty much, are those retiring homes? You don’t see Hispanics there, or the percentage of old people going to retirement homes is very minimal, and the reason for that is me as a son or a daughter of a Hispanic, I will never allow for my mom or dad to go there, I’ll take care of them, it’s cultural. And then, if you don’t do that, you, again, culturally, you think that God is gonna punish you. So, I teach people how to retire without working, I teach people how to retire through real estate without depending on their social security or their kids.
0:42:12.1 FJ: And when you tell them how to do it, and this is the time it’s gonna take you to do it, and you teach them every single step of the way, they become clients for life. I know that I’m old because I’m already selling real estate to the grand-kids of my first clients back in 1999, ’98, ’99, and I’m already serving three generations for clients. And that it is so cool to see that my very first clients, and some clients did exactly what we were supposed to do, and now they have three, four, five, six, seven properties free and clear, they’re making $10,000-12,000 a month in rental income, and they’re making more money right now not working than working, and they can care less about $1100 they’re gonna get up from Social Security or whatever they’re gonna get, they don’t care about that anymore, they know they are worth $2, $3, $4, $5 million, they’re making, again, $10,000-12,000 a month on rent.
0:43:18.4 FJ: And I can tell you without being selfish that I made that happen for my clients, and I’m so grateful for that. I go home every single day, Geoff, asking me one question. I ask, before I leave my office, I ask one question to me every single day for the last 15, 20 years, “Did I empty my tank today?” And if the answer is, yes, I’ll go home, if the answer is, “I still have a quarter of a tank left,” I’ll just come back to my desk and keep on grinding and keep on doing it. I always make sure that I empty my tank. And usually the last things that I do in my desk is to call clients that I have in the past or… And ask them if there’s anything I can do for them, you can’t… I don’t even know how many times, “You know what, thank you for calling me, I was about to call you. I need to sell, purchase, or refinance and get some cash out and buy more property with you.” And this is just a very natural thing to be loyal as Hispanics, once you do something right for them, they will never go away, they will always be giving you business, and they will send you their kids and their mother to do business with you as long as you treat them right.
0:44:41.6 GS: Well, maybe we can kind of… Because you and I won’t talk forever, maybe we can kind of close with this line of thinking. So, in 2040, Hispanics are, you said, potentially 70% of real estate transactions? Is that… Was that the statistic?
0:45:02.7 FJ: Yes.
0:45:04.3 GS: Okay. So, we have agents that are… They’re in 50s, 60s, they’re looking to retire soon with that, but we also have a lot of agents, even if you’re early 50s or whatever, it’s not too late to jump in on this wave coming, but if you’re a younger agent, especially, and you’re talking about this multi-generational sort of effect that you serve mom and dad, and you do a good job, and then you’re gonna get their kids probably, if the Hispanic population is growing that much, and likelihood is it’s growing not only because you have immigration, but you also have Hispanics typically have more kids than probably Anglo Saxon, it’s part of your… It’s part of faith, it’s part of culture, and so you’re having this huge second and third generation wave coming, or is here, it’s happening, right now you have that opportunity to get either learn Spanish, get somebody on your team that can interact with the Hispanic community and start serving that population, to me, it seems like that…
0:46:15.8 FJ: I’ll tell you something.
0:46:17.5 GS: If you’re gonna make one investment over the next 20 years in people and in some sort of business direction, that just seems like… I mean, Fathom’s just done it, [laughter] you know, as a company, but I’m thinking as a team or individual. Go ahead.
0:46:32.5 FJ: And take it, I’ll sign it. If you write it down and you present it to me, I’ll sign it. This is… If we have real estate agents right now at Fathom, they’re not Hispanics, and they’re, let’s say, 45 years of age or older, and you’re thinking, “Well, I’m not gonna be around 20 years working, hopefully alive but not working 20 years from now when this thing is happening, the Hispanic wave.” Let me tell you something. The Hispanic wave is already here, it’s here, we have it, if you really wanted to retire, if you’re thinking of retiring in 10 years and you wanna retire in five instead of 10, just hire a bilingual assistant, and I’ll teach you, we’re gonna develop this department, a Hispanic department, I will teach you how to double your business, do the same 20-30 transaction you’re doing by yourself, and then do another 20-30 transactions in the Hispanic arena, and you’re gonna retire in five years instead of 10. This is it, this is the way.
0:47:42.4 FJ: And I’ll teach you how to do it, and trust me, as long as you understand the culture, as long as you understand what we are about as Hispanics in real estate, you’re gonna be killing it, and I’ll teach you how to do it, it’s not complicated, it’s just you need to come with the right angle and the right questions, understand, and then move forward. And as soon as you do that, I’ll teach you my strategies, I’ll teach you my system, I’ll teach you everything that I know, everything that I’ve been learning for the last 23 years in the Hispanic arena, I will teach you everything, ’cause I want this department to be successful, I want Fathom to be the number one company in the whole country, and I know for a fact that we’re gonna make it happen once we build this Hispanic department, and we will be number one, trust me, mark my words, Fathom will be the number one company, a real estate company in the whole country, and it’s gonna be powered by this engine of Hispanics doing transactions the right away, that’s why I truly believe and I’m very passionate about it.
0:48:43.9 GS: Well, I think that might be a good place to stop. That was… That’s good stuff. I hope those of you watching got a lot out of it. And we’ve got your website down on the bottom here that people can contact you, obviously can reach out to you via Facebook, and then I assume your contact info is on the website, too, that they could get in touch with you?
0:49:02.8 FJ: Muchas gracias, Geoff.
0:49:06.0 GS: Okay, well, de nada. It’s been… Man, see, this is terrible, I’m not even gonna try it, I’m not even trying it here on livestream.
0:49:15.5 FJ: I’ll translate, don’t worry.
0:49:16.8 GS: Yeah. Well, we’re grateful to have you on, and we’re grateful to have you at Fathom, and looking forward to seeing what you do with the Hispanic division, and obviously, much more to come here with educating our agents, Hispanic or not, in how to do business in this arena, so thank you. And so, we’ll let you go, and hopefully have you back on. I’m sure we’ll have you back on here in the coming weeks.
0:49:43.7 FJ: Muchas gracias. Muchas gracias. It will be my pleasure any time. And just make sure that you tell me what the Mexican time is gonna be for me to be back with you, and Mexicans are always late, so let just let me know a couple of days before so I can be on time, and we’ll do it, we’ll make it happen.
0:50:03.0 GS: Duly noted. Alright, alright. One way or the other, you’re gonna get me in trouble here, so… [laughter] Alright, we’ll talk to you later.
0:50:12.0 FJ: Bye. Take care.
0:50:13.1 GS: For those of you who are still watching… Oh, I’ve got Flavio, I’m not Flavio here, let me turn that off. There we go. For those of you who are still watching, if you haven’t checked this out, I hope this is intriguing, head over to fathomcareers.com. We are nationwide, we’re all over the place, continually growing new markets, we have a boatload of technology that will help you as an agent, including mortgage, and title, and insurance, and then, of course, all of the different tiers of Fathom support as well. So, check us out at fathomcareers.com. We’ll see you on the next show.
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