First off, you have to understand what happened. Is it behavior or was it a circumstance? So somebody making payment for 15 years and then they start making payments, they start behavior. Something happened to that person. Otherwise it would be always had a problem, have many problems in the past. They lend way too high. The CLTV is too high. The DTI is too high. So the math is the biggest mistake. I tell you this much, I love to help everybody, but I can’t. You have to pay to have the right folks, right? So another mistake is not having the right people helping you out. If you create your own documents, rest assure you’re going to make mistakes. If you protect yourself and the math makes sense, there’s no way that you’re going to lose. It has a lot to do with lending, and most folks do not understand consumer law, bank law, and things of that nature, and they don’t understand the process.

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What’s going on, Robert? Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you’ve been in the space for a long time, but I am curious to see how you were drawn to real estate in the first place.

Well, first off, thank you for the invitation. And I’ve been in lending since 1991, and all my career has been mostly residential lending. And about 2010, right after 208, 209, I used to be a branch manager for Countrywide Home Loans, a big company back in the day. And 2010, I started a pivot a little bit from residential lending to commercial lending. And then I started doing some investing, buying some properties, selling some properties. And about a little bit over a year ago, I noticed that there’s over 35,000 people losing the houses every month. So we decided to open up a company called Save My Nest to protect folks and lend money to folks based on my experience in lending to protect them from losing their house and cureing the loans. And that is how this all got created. I

Love it. I love it. And what was your life like before investing?

I’d always been extremely successful in lending. I was recognized as a top producer in America by Mortgage Originated Magazine. And one year I closed 885 loans.That was ranked very high in that world. But when you are in a commission base, you’re unemployed every single day after you close a deal. When it comes to investing, money keeps coming every day. So it’s a little less stressful when it comes to how you generate money, but it also has this level of stress when you’re dealing with a lot of people and all of that good stuff.

Yeah, for sure. And just for the people today, you kind of explained it a little bit, but what does the business look like today? How many people? What’s the operation look like? And for anyone listening that could use your help and use your service, what would that person look like?

Well, if you think the operations is with three partners and everything’s done in- house, right? We do all the marketing, underwriting, direct marketing, so on and so forth. The need is because every month, like I said, there’s 35,000 people losing their houses in America and nobody’s lending money to them. And what happens is that a mortgage is a 30-year long-term process. So the moment that you qualify, at that moment, you’re very strong. You have good credit and you’re young and you have a great job and so on and so forth. But a lot of things happen in 30 years. People get sick, people get old, people lose their jobs, people get divorced, some pass away and income drops because of one reason or another, right? And folks that are very responsible, they mean well, they want to stay in their houses. They find themselves in a position where it becomes a little hard for them to pay their mortgage. Let’s just say one circumstance that you lost your job and it took you like three months to get another job or two months to get another job. What happened is that every month you have to be up to date in your payments of your mortgage. If one month you don’t make a payment the following month, you cannot just be late one month. You have to pay two months in one shot. Three months go by, then you have to, if you didn’t pay two months on a row, you cannot just make one payment and be late two months. So every month, the payment that you have to send, it has to bring you current. They will not accept you to be late. And typically on the fourth month is when banks have said, okay, you know what? This is going to become a legal issue and we’re going to have our attorneys follow on the process of seeing how we can go get all our money back or you have to bring yourself car in one way or another. And so on the fourth month, not only you have to pay four months of that mortgage, but also now you got to face some legal fees, late fees, things of that nature. So if you had a thousand dollar payment on the fifth six months, you’re probably looking around $11,000 instead of four. And if it was hard to bring yourself current for $4,000, it’s much tougher to do it for 11, 12, 15, and so on and so forth. So there’s an insane need for funding these type of houses, and that is how we came about this idea of creating loans and helping them out, saving their houses. And what we do is we go directly to them. We do an insane amount of direct marketing. So there’s a lot of information out there. Most of the information is public information, pre-foreclosures, foreclosures, values of houses, who owns them. All that is very easy to obtain. So what we do is we reach out to them. If the folks are a little older, typically they’ll respond better to letters and postcards. If they’re younger like you, they’ll probably respond better to emails or tax or different technology. So what we do is we use, according to who they are, the best method for them to respond and react to our marketing. And then we give them options. They say, “Hey, what do you need? How can I help you? You want to leave? You want to stay? If you want to stay, let’s create a loan, bring yourself current. How much you owe? How much is your reinstatement amount? What is your house worth? Are you back to work?” All of those things, we put them together and then we create a solution, which at that point they can say, “Robert, help me out or no, thank you, and that’ll be okay too.”

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Why do you think so many investors overlook this part of the business?

It has a lot to do with lending and most folks do not understand consumer law, bank loan and things of that nature, and they don’t understand the process of foreclosure. So most people, when they target a property, it’s either when the homeowner’s probably gone through the banks, REOs and things of that nature, or they go to auctions and they pick it up that way. Or in that process, people trying to sell their houses and somebody goes into a contract and they buy that contract to wholesalers and whatnot, right? We go before all of that happens. We go directly to the homeowner before that happens, right? So most folks do not … They think it’s better to deal with either a lawyer or an institution than it is to deal with the homeowner. I find that it’s a lot better to deal with the homeowner and give them a second chance. And also there’s a lot of math that we had to put together and a lot of investors, they understand, pick up a property, add value to it with funds, and then sell it after the product is finished. We make sure that we don’t have to create value through adding money to it. The value is already created by the homeowner if he chooses not to pay us and then we have to pick up the property and whatnot.

Right. Well, what do you think the most common misconception is about what you’re offering?

It’s the math. I’m going to tell you, it’s just the math, right? Because a lot of people say, if somebody is not paying the bank, what would they pay me? I’m going to share a little bit of math and make this a little simple. Let’s just say a homeowner owes $100,000 on a $200,000 house and he’s behind for say six months and to cure the loan, you’re going to need $20,000. So most folks first off think that they had to come up with $100,000 and that’s not the case. So now this person owes $20,000 because they weren’t paying, but not because they cannot pay, it’s because of what happened. They accumulated. So a lot of investors said, “If that person’s not making payments, why would I lend them money if they’re not making payments? So why would they pay me when they couldn’t pay the bank?” Well, so you have to look at their income now, what happened? And first off, you have to understand what happened. Is it behavior or was it a circumstance? So somebody making payment for like 15 years and then they start making payments, it’s not behavior. Something happened to that person, right? Otherwise it would be always had a problem, have many problems in the past. And then what’s the circumstance corrected? Are you making more money? Are you back to work? What are you doing with this house? What’s your exit strategy? You want to stay there? You want to sell? Do I need … And then the other thing is that there has to be enough equity behind what the combined loan of between what they already have with the bank and what they’re going to give to that person. So you have to have that equity. You cannot go too high. We typically, a CLTB is like around under 70. More often than none is low 60s, high 50s under CLTV. So there’s plenty of equity. Keep them motivated to find a solution. And they have to understand what timeframe do they need to become strong again. So typically what we do is the loans that we create are usually around 18 to 24 months. So if they pay 12 months in a row, now they have the ability to refinance through an FHA or something along those lines or VA, whatever the case is, right? That time is sufficient as they’re making payments. If we had to go 24 months, it’s because we may need something else, right? But typically it’s 18 months. We do it interest only, that way they don’t increase the payment too much. And we do it a balloon. So after the 18 months, on the 18th payment, they have to pay all in one lump sum. The interest rate is based according to what the state allows us as a maximum usury. In Florida, it’s 18%. So that’s what we do. The loan that we put in second position, we do it 18%, interest only and whatnot. And the way that we do it is, let’s just say they needed that $20,000 based on the same example. Well, we create a loan for, let’s just say $27,000. That way we pay 27, 28, 30, whatever the case is. So we paid all the closing costs, right? Title, because we do study title. We want to make sure that there’s not all the liens and things of that nature. There’s no other owners. We had to protect ourselves and we had to look at the value, but we had to pay the title company, we have to pay the doc preparation, the recording, all the notary and so on and so forth. And then the difference is our margin for our profit and we sell it to investors. So I’m going to tell you this much, I have more opportunities than I have money. So I’m always looking for investors that say, “Hey, I would like a secure type of investment with an 18% cash on cash return with a lot of equity in case of default I can make more money.” And it’s pretty safe because it’s attached, we record that and we do it all that math.

So what do you offer the investor? If someone was like, “Hey, I’ll offer you, let’s just say 100,000, 200,000 cash for you to charge someone 18%, what do you give to the investor? What do you offer as a package?”

Okay. So the loan is his, not mine, right?

Gotcha.

What we do is create a margin, but we do it under their name, not our name.

Gotcha.

So what we do is we provide, for argument’s sake, the 18%, they have to become their bank. For less, we will do the servicing, right? Let’s just say that it’s still 18%, but if they take, let’s say, 12%, 13%, the difference will help me with the servicing and I will collect the money, I will pay them, I guarantee that they don’t pay, I’ll pay, so on and so forth, and I will deal with all the backend. The other thing that we do is we do either, depending on the state, if it is a deed of trust or if it is a mortgage, we either create a warranty deed or a deed in loop and the investor does not get the house. That warranty deed or didn’t lose is for my company because I don’t want the investor for one day to the next day, “Hey, you know what? I’m just taking the house.” So I have to protect the homeowner and I have to protect the investor. But if the homeowner doesn’t pay me, I have to go and take the house and then I can tell the investor, “Do you want this house?” So there’s still a $100,000 worth of equity. We transfer the deed to you for, let’s just say $10,000 for argument’s sake, and they can do whatever they want with the house. They can rent it, they can refinance it, they can sell it to the open market.

Gotcha. Well, what would you say is the most common misconception or mistake that investors make or lenders make in this situation? What’s the most common mistake that you see?

The math. They lend way too high. The CLTV is too high. The DTI is too high. So the math is the biggest mistake. I tell you this much, I love to help everybody, but I can’t. Mathematically, like yesterday or two days ago, there was a 70 something year old man in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. I would’ve loved to help him. He was a sweetheart, an angel, right? But he was not going to be able to pay the loan. It would’ve been in third lien. It would not leave a lot of money behind in equity. So all the math was wrong, and my heart goes out to him, but mathematically, if I would say, “Okay, let me just still help you, I will put my money or my investor’s money at risk.” So you have to think like a bank when you’re investing. But like I said, the main mistake most people make is the math. Also, document preparation. I mean, if you use the right title company, you have to pay to have the right folks, right? So another mistake is not having the right people helping you out. So if you create your own documents, rest assured, you’re going to make mistakes. Hire the right people to do what they need to do for you.

Yeah. Well, in fix and flip wholesale, there’s top operators that do hundreds of deals a year or 50 plus deals a year. And there’s guys that do one or two of these a year. Is it the same in this space because there are a lot of onesie, twosies, and then people that do this on a big level, or is it not quite the same?

I will tell you that probably folks that do the way I do this, probably there’s about 10 to 12 in America. And people that do one ever in the life, there’s probably a bunch, right? But people that do it the way I do it, there’s not a lot of folks doing it.

So what separates the top operators like yourself versus everyone else in the business?

Well, first, I’ve been in the lending industry for many years. I understand risk when it comes to … I understand behavioral math more so than just buying something, making it nicer and selling it, right? So I understand that part of the business a little bit more than most folks, right? And it’s not that complicated once you get it, because it’s going to be … If you protect yourself and the math makes sense, there’s no way that you’re going to lose. So the biggest issue is not knowing how to put things together, not knowing how to calculate risk. And that goes for fix and flippers. I mean, I do commercial loans and a lot of folks say, “Oh, I want to buy something nearby where I live because I can control it and this and that, but that necessarily makes you the better deal.” The notes that I create, those promissory notes and all of that that I create, I’d have them all over the country, but I select the states that I like and they don’t have to be nowhere near where I live. So the emotion and all of that has to be out of the equation and just focus on risk and math and whatnot.

Yeah. A lot of people define the word success differently, they strive for it differently and they measure it differently. How do you define the word success in your life? How do you measure it? And then how do you strive for it every single day?

I feel that I’m extremely blessed, right? God was too kind to me. I have a great family. I’m 60 years old and I’m super healthy. I have a great education, but I have a lot of comfort in what I’m doing. I’m helping people and making money at the same time. I buy folks second chances and I’m being compensated for doing that. I help people that 10 days from now, they’re going to have nothing and now I help them and they save their houses. They still have all that equity. They can go and sell the house the very next day. I do give them a four months or five, six months depending on prepayment penalty. Obviously if my investor needs to make money, right? But I help folks, I create solutions and I get compensated for it. To me, that is the best way to live.

Yeah. Well, what’s the biggest challenge that you’re seeing in the market right now?

Well, I’m going to tell you that the number is increasing. I can go and teach how to do what I do to a hundred people and I’ll still be able to continue to do my numbers. There’s an insane amount of people losing their houses. That’s just not enough folks that … This opportunity should be duplicated a lot more by a lot more folks because the market is so big. I don’t think that right now, every month there’s 37,000 opportunities to flip houses and have 30 plus percent margins, right? You have to go and create that, so on and so forth. But when it comes to doing what I do, I will tell you that probably about 70% the numbers will fit, if not higher.

How do you see technology like AI or marketing evolution affect this part of it? Has it helped at all in any of even just the math senses of it? I mean, it’s not 100% right, but how have you been using that in the business and how do you see it helping in the future?

Well, absolutely technology has helped because now the world shrunk and I can connect with folks all over the country and there’s information out there that it’s so easy to obtain. I mean, not for nothing. If you want to know what a value is, and you don’t want to go do PPOs and all of that, you can very well just ask right now, ChatGPT, for argument’s sake and say, “Hey, give me all the values associated with this particular property.” And it will tell you, “This company thinks this is the value, this other company thinks this is value and so on and so forth.” So absolutely knowing more has helped what I do. I can get a lot more information about anybody for phone numbers, emails, what liens they have. And so it’s just insane. And it’s a lot least to calculate everything nowadays. I started my career. I’m going to share this with you. I started my career where you take an application at the kitchen table with a paper 103 and a pencil and then you have to calculate everything yourself. Now just like put in the system, it does it for you.

It definitely makes it a lot easier, that’s for sure. Well, let’s say the business went away, partners went away, everything went away, you get to keep all the knowledge that you’ve learned over the years. What would you focus on first to rebuild what you’re doing right now?

Ah, great question. Never thought of that. See, the thing is this, I think that folks are always going to need money because I pair myself with banks, like a bank mindset. So there’s always going to need, people are always going to want to have money. People need money for it to start something new, to grow what they have or to get out of a problem, right? So I focus a lot right now of folks that are getting out of a problem. If that goes away, they now have to focus on folks that want to grow or folks that want to buy their first house, start something new or first new investment. So the need is never going to go away. One or the other maybe increase or decrease, but folks are still going to need money.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, what drives you to keep innovating and helping people succeed and get out of these situations?

I’ve been so blessed, man. So blessed with my whole life that it just feels good to share what we do. It just feels good to share what we do. I’m bilingual. I was born in South America. I speak Spanish. I came up to America in 1980. I naturalized American in 85. And as a matter of fact, I never went back to anywhere to South America, right? I don’t. And I’m so blessed to be able to help folks that do not understand banking and process and math and things like that, or consumer law, bank loan, tax law, right? All of those things that I learned through my career, it just feels great to be able to share that with other folks that are younger, that they need to learn it, or they’re not exposed properly, or there’s a gap in information between one community to another community and things like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, where can people learn more about you? If someone’s interested in maybe investing in you or looking to maybe even learn from you and start something like this, where can people reach out to you? Where can people find you? If someone’s interested, where can they get you at?

Well, the best way to reach me is always going to be my cell phone. I’m always busy, therefore I’m always available. So the best way to reach me is my cell phone or my email. I respond to everybody all the time. So 954-614-6316 is my cell phone. My name is Robert Ferra and I’ve been doing this forever. So I like to do this on a one-on-one basis. SavemyNest.com is our company, our website, and those will be the best ways to get to me. Awesome.

I love it. I love it. Well, first off, thank you so much for coming on today, Robert. Everyone, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time.

Thank you. You’re very kind.