The Rent-ish Pod
Welcome to The Rent-ish Podcast, where real estate meets curiosity, comedy, and a little chaos! Hosted by Zach and Patrick, two newcomers navigating the unpredictable world of rental properties, this podcast offers a fresh, unfiltered take on real estate investing.
Whether youâre a property owner, aspiring landlord, real estate investor, or just love crazy rental stories, youâll find something to love here. Expect raw conversations, hilarious mishaps, and real-life lessons as we explore buying, managing, and profiting from rental propertiesâwith plenty of laughs along the way.
Hit subscribe and join us on this unpredictable journey into the rent-ish side of real estate!
đď¸ New episodes every week.
Have questions or want to share your own rental stories? Email us at questions@therentishpod.comâweâd love to hear from you!
The Rent-ish Pod
đ Flood or Flee, Real Estate Riddles, & The Prosperous Conman Scammer Saga!
In episode eight of The Rent-ish Pod, Zach dives into a high-stakes housing dilemma: what do flood-soaked homeowners do when they have to choose between raising their home or razing it? It's a splash of real estate news you wonât want to miss.
Then, it's game time! Real estate investor and expert Mary Ragano returns to test Zach and Patâs knowledge in a riddle-filled round of Real Estate Term Guessingâexpect laughs, head-scratchers, and maybe even a few new vocabulary words.
And finally, we close things out with a jaw-dropping Tenant Horror Story. This oneâs about a smooth-talking scammer weâre calling âThe Prosperous Conmanâ.
đď¸ From high water marks to high-stakes scams, this episode has it all!
đ§ Tune in now for wild stories, helpful terms, and the type of rental drama you just canât make up.
đŠ Got a horror story or real estate question? Email us at questions@therentishpod.comâwe might feature it in a future episode!
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What's going on everybody? I'm Zach and I'm here with my co-host Patrick. Hi. Oh, shit. Shake it off the rest, baby. Shake it off the rest. Oh,
SPEAKER_02:shit.
SPEAKER_03:All right, let's try that again. Sorry, I'm ready. What's going on, everybody? I'm Zach, and I'm here with my co-host, Patrick. What up? We are your hosts for the Rent-ish podcast, a podcast that's kind of about rental properties and hosted by two guys that work in the real estate industry and sort of know what they're talking about. But mostly different. That's right, Patrick. You nailed your catchphrase, which is why you're going to have fun hearing us talk to experts, learning with us, or just laughing about how little we know about this whole thing. Correct. You're nailing it. I just want to say I appreciate you as a co-host. Thank you. Doing all the great things, saying all the lines. We got a good episode, Patrick. I'm excited. We're going to talk about some real estate news, including flooding, what to do about that situation. And then we're going to talk about a tenant horror story. So looking forward to seeing if you have any more narration for me down the pipeline. And then we're going to play some more real estate games with our real estate expert, Mary Regano. She's going to be back on the podcast. I love games. Again, Rent-ish. Thank you guys for listening to the podcast. We appreciate everyone for hanging out and listening with us. Email questions at therentishpod.com. If you'd like to ask me and Patrick a fun, fun question about real estate or about not real estate, because We also like talking about anything else. Patrick, it's been a minute. Yeah, it's definitely been a minute. Not to break the fourth wall too much, but we took a little bit of a break during some busier times of the month. And now we're back so that we're recording for the first time in a little bit. I feel like we got to shake off the rustle a little bit. I have nailed the catchphrases, though, so no concerns there. I noticed you wrote them down on your hand. Yeah, you're like, what? Oh, shit. Can't spill my secrets. Well, all right. What do you say we start diving into some of the real estate stuff for today? I say to that Yes. Yes. Okay, good. I'm glad I have your approval. Um, uh, we're still working on a segment title, so please feel free to email questions. Do we not have one for the Zach with the facts? That was, that was our producer. We can, we can roll with that for now. Zach with the facts. Uh, yeah. If you have a better idea for the love of God, email us, uh, flood soaked homeowners face a costly choice, uh, raise or raise. Now that's, a double entendre I don't understand it's spelled differently you see how is the other one spelled so raise R-A-I-S-E like raise raise R-A-Z-E R-A-Z-E yeah I've never heard that word in my life what does that well it's like you would raise something so I think it means like oh with fire or like burn like a razor like sure like that you use for your beard I would yeah right sure if that helps it's like the verb version of that To raise. I don't think. To raise. Get Webster up in here. Where is it? To destroy to the ground. I don't know if that's. Yeah, burn to the ground. Like you would raise a crop. That's what I've heard. Or like you'd raise the hair on your chin to the ground. Oh, so you're saying that etymology here. I'm saying. Maybe that word morphed into razor when Gillette got on board. I mean, I'm mostly saying that because I've never seen the word raise, but I have seen the word razor.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So I could be wrong. Well, this has been the dictionary pod. No, no, no. We're here to talk about the news. We're here to talk about flooding and a recent New York Times article called Flood-Soaked Homeowners Face a Costly Choice. Patrick, did you read the article? I did not. Unfortunately, I kind of forgot about the article this time. Next time I will, though. It's okay because it looks like it wants you to log into the New York Times, which I'm not going to do because I don't pay for the New York Times. But the article's here and our producers have done a great job of bulleting it down for us to kind of discuss. So, flooding There's your raise and raise, right? Raised. Raised. Raise. And then raise. See the subtle difference? I get it. Right. With rising flood insurance costs and mounting repair expenses, the debate over whether to raise or raise is intensifying across vulnerable communities. We've really committed to this raise or raise bit. Raise or raise. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We're
SPEAKER_03:way super deep into that. I'm going to guarantee you it's not even the last time it comes up. There's still time. There's still time. Okay. So... I asked you when we were doing the planning for this, I was like, do you have any flood stories? I'm waiting for, I have one to share, but I'm not sure if right now is the right exact time, but I want you to start thinking in your old brain. Flooding, rain, raising, maybe tell a story about a raising. All right, the growing threat of flooding. So here we go from the article. I'm just kind of kind of bullet some stuff out. Feel free to chime in if you want. Increasing flood events. In the past decade, flood events have surged by 50% in coastal and in low-lying areas. Makes sense, global warming, rising sea levels. Cost of recovery, on average, flood repairs cost home owners 40 to 70,000 per incident with repeated flooding driving expenses even higher. Oh man, I didn't realize it was that expensive. How would you like to pay$70,000 for a home repair for a flood? I wouldn't like to nor be able to, so that sounds less than ideal. Yeah, I would be in big trouble. I had no idea it was that expensive, wow. Hotspots, states like Florida, Louisiana and New Jersey are seeing the most significant impacts. Checks out there. You got some hurricane zones as well. Florida and Louisiana. New Jersey's kind of surprising. Florida and Louisiana makes sense to me, but I didn't know New Jersey had a flooding problem. I guess it does. You want to hear a New Jersey stat? Yeah. I got a Jersey stat. A New Jersey neighborhood near the coast faced about three floods in one year, which forced several homeowners to consider home elevation. Do you know what home elevation is, Patrick? I don't. What is home
SPEAKER_02:elevation? If you had a guess. What would you guess?
SPEAKER_03:Don't read. Eyes up. Home elevation is, is it like a house on stilts situation? Is it like one of those? Yeah. Okay. Stilts. You know what I mean, though. I know. I've seen them. I think I saw them in South Carolina. You see a lot of these in South Carolina, like beach houses on the coast, like places that put their hard pavement at the very, very bottom with then like the legs going up. up for the house, like to build the house on a platform, and then you have like a car garage underneath. So it's like people will park their cars, walk up the stairs to get into their house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't know that these were in New Jersey, though. And also, side note, three floods in one year in a single neighborhood. That's got to be really rough. Really, really rough, yeah. For the raise option, so the home elevation. You were basically right. Yeah. So homes are lifted about six to 10 feet on stilts or platforms, keeping them above future flood levels. So it's literally just taking the house. It's the Patrick meme from SpongeBob. Take the key, Bob. Push it somewhere else. Just raise the house up. Elevating a typical single family home costs about$100,000 to$250,000. So that depends greatly on size and location. Not an easy renovation. Yeah, but like how do you do that? Do you just get like a... Just something to scoop up the house. It just doesn't make sense to me how that would even be. It's like a car jack that you have in the back of your car, except it's a really big one. You have to turn it. That's not true, by the way. If you're living in a flood-prone area and you need to raise your house, R-A-I-S-S-E, call a flood professional or someone that knows about water. Not us. Maybe we'll get Mary Regano in here sometime to talk about flooding. Benefits. Protection. It reduces the flood insurance premiums by up to 70%. Now, you might be asking, Patrick, what are the drawbacks of raising a house? I was just about to ask, yes. It requires homeowners to relocate temporarily, which makes sense. Like you were saying, if they were going to invest all this money into raising their actual house, you can't be in the house once being elevated into the sky. Although the image of that is quite funny. Yeah, you're going to have to find some other kind of situation for your temporary housing.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Also, aesthetic changes. I mean, it might sound silly, but literally it would be changing exactly what your house looked like. I mean, you bought this property. You might have bought it because you'd love the way that it looked. You're attached to the way that it looks. And all of a sudden you've got this house on stilts. It's like, is that really what you want? I don't know. But again, the cost. So a Florida couple, here's an example from the article. They spent about 180,000 raising their waterfront home after three flood claims in five years. This may have changed their house, but it cut their insurance bill in half. I guess that makes sense. Last option you might be asking, what What about the raise option? And that's... Like raise with a Z? Yeah, exactly. Or a Z for our British listeners. What? That's so stupid. Reset? Zed. What? Zed. That's how British people say the letter Z. You didn't know this? In England... Oh, we're getting a thumbs up from the producers. I apologize. Yeah. I did not know. It was a stupid joke. The fact that I had to explain it was not... Okay. So it's like... X, Y, Z. Yeah, you didn't know that? No, I didn't know that. I was going to say weird, but that would be insensitive. It's interesting. It is fascinating. Yes. Demolition. Rebuilding. The raise option. And that's with a Z. So, you know, you don't want to raise your house. You don't want to elevate it. What if you want to just knock it down, start over? You want to go Sims on it, right? You want to... When you select the house on Sims and you click the trash can icon. Rebuilding elsewhere. Some homeowners choose to demolish and relocate to less flood prone areas. I almost said food prone again. I got to be careful with the L's and the O's there because I almost said food prone. Obviously, you want to live in a food prone area. Cost. Demolition can cost$20,000 to$30,000 with new construction ranging from$200,000 all the way up to$500,000. Just like the option. I mean, it sounds like it's going to be a little bit more expensive because you have to factor in the cost of demolition with the cost of new construction. Right. But it does benefit peace of mind. You know, you avoid future flood threats altogether. Like if you're, you know, you want to just build a really great flood prone house in a great area with a great foundation, peace of mind, right? Here's another one. Opportunity to build energy efficient climate resilient homes. So maybe this is not your ideal situation if if you own a beautiful 18th century Tudor. It is a benefit, though. More energy-efficient, climate-resilient homes. Modern homes are built with more knowledge of those situations and the end of the changing climates of the world. Challenges. Emotional toll. The article does cite that leaving a long-time home or neighborhood can definitely be difficult. Yeah, for sure. I'm not sure if this is the place where we want to do it because we're running long on this news story, but moving stories. I'm sure we both have moving stories. We'll have to tell eventually. Land acquisition. Finding affordable land in a safe area isn't always easy. Makes sense. You got to do the whole property hunt thing. You got to find a location, find a better area. It's difficult, especially when a lot of other people are looking to do the same thing. So an example, again, from the New York Times article, a Louisiana family raised their home after Hurricane Ida, relocating inland to avoid further flood risks. So literally just demolish the house, Move farther inland. Difficult. I mean, I'm sure that they liked where their home was. You gotta move to a different area. And the last thing, we gotta talk about money. Really quick. FEMA grants. So homeowners can apply for FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance, which is HMA. It grants to cover part of the cost of elevating homes. So you can actually get assistance in the elevation of a home if you live in one of those flood-prone areas. State programs. Texas Home Elevation Program. There's actually the T-H-E-P right there for you. The Texas Home Elevation Program. T-H-E-P? T-H-E-P. Am I supposed to know that acronym from something? Texas Home Elevation Program. Thep. I work for Thep. It offers grants and low-interest loans for flood mitigation. And then there's the New York Rising Program, which provides up to$150,000 for homeowners in flood zones to elevate or rebuild. And some local governments offer buyout incentives as well for homeowners willing to abandon flood-prone properties, turning the land into wetlands or public parks to absorb future floods. Not sure about that one. We're going to leave this flood blood-prone property and just turn it into a park for kids. It's a water park. What's your flood story? So my flood story is that when I lived in an apartment in Oakley in a neighborhood in Cincinnati, it was an old, old house that was renovated from like a single family, like way back in the day to a three story apartment building. So first floor, two bedroom tenants, second floor was me, two bedrooms. And then the third floor was basically the attic, but it was converted from an attic into a like a And one day I was traveling, I was out of town and I was visiting a friend in Cleveland and I had ring cameras set up. I have ring cameras in my house. I've always had like little ring cameras for them. I'm out of town, I can set it so that I get like motion alerts if anybody comes into the apartment or if there's anything going on. Randomly, I get a ring notification at like two in the morning on a night where we supposedly had like heavy, heavy rain. Turned on the ring notification just in time to get the footage of what had happened was the upstairs neighbor simultaneously with this heavy rainfall had left the bathtub or sink running and it overflowed. And the bathroom was right above where my kitchen was. And my kitchen ceiling was just their floor, their floor's wood, and then ceiling tile. So I opened my Ring camera to see just a huge waterfall fall through the ceiling of this room. And all of the tile, it was these kind of tiles, those kind of tiles above us in the studio. And they were all just falling, falling, falling, falling, and all this stuff. And you could see the... gusts of like rain too coming in it was like it was crazy so yeah I had to call the landlord at the middle of the night I'm like I'm like there's something happening I was like okay and so my landlord at the time was gonna go over and like see what was going on he was able to stop the leak upstairs thank God or whatever was happening with the upstairs neighbor this is also a tip for landlords out there make sure you have updated keys he didn't for some reason have updated keys for the walk so he couldn't get into my apartment until I came home from Cleveland and I was out of town for the whole weekend. So by the time I got home, I just like had to mentally prepare myself for opening up the front door and just being like, well, crap. And it was just like kitchen tiles were all busted. All my stuff. Like I had like art prints that were on the wall there that got all rain messed up from the water. It was, it was terrible. So that, and that flooding seeped into the living room on that. And not mine. It was this landlord's hardwood flooring, but the construction of the place, the faucet upstairs, Yeah. To wrap up, as flooding becomes more frequent, flooding not like mine, homeowners are being forced to adapt or relocate whether raising or raising. The financial and emotional decisions are profound, but they are also a critical part of shaping how communities respond to climate change. Understanding the available options and incentives can help families make informed decisions about their future. And that's the news you need to know about. All right. Welcome back to the show. Today we're diving into a wild story about a landlord who got duped by someone who seemed too good to be true, and well, he was. It's a reminder that not everything is as it seems, especially in the world of real estate. So stick around, because after Patrick's story time, we're gonna unpack the lessons here and explore how landlords and really anyone can avoid falling for a con like this. And now, the stage is set, and Patrick is about to read a story. throat clear appearances can be deceiving never has this adage that's a new one good word there producers Never has this adage. Adage. What? Have I
SPEAKER_02:read it?
SPEAKER_03:Adage. What's adage then? Like an old adage. Adage? Adage is like a story. Yeah. I think adage is a simile. Alright, well that's word of the day then. Yeah, word of the day. Ray's adage. We've had multiple words today. Okay, take it back. Appearances can be deceiving. Never has this adage held more truth than the story of a seemingly refined man whose polished demeanor masked a scheme as cunning as it was insidious. The tale begins with a landlord, a long member of the National Association of Independent Landlords, who prided himself on his ability to judge character. His apartments were meticulously maintained, and his tenants were carefully vetted. But even the most discerning eye can be blinded by the glitter of a well-spun illusion. I love a good well-spun illusion. Avada Kedavra. Lumos Maxima. It's a Harry Potter joke. Don't worry about it. Oh, yeah. That went over my head. Nerd. One day, a man appeared at the landlord's office. A vision of sophistication. He wore tailored clothes that whispered affluence. And he arrived in a gleaming car that exuded understated luxury. His charm was effortless. His manner is impeccable. And then there was his story. A poignant tale of heartbreak and urgency. I've just lost my wife, he began.
SPEAKER_01:Patrick's going for the Oscar. That's not what I was expecting. He's lost my wife? Not funny. But that's not what I was expecting.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Getting the character here. So he didn't do a background check. He decided that it was not necessary for this polished, grief-struck man. That is correct. That's what happened. Thanks for the recap. Today, time was of the essence, or so the man claimed. The lease was signed within days. For the first month, all seemed well. The man settled into the apartment, his presence as unassuming as his appearance was refined. Rent was paid promptly, but as the calendar turned to the next month, the landlord's faith in his new tenant began to falter. No payment came. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. the landlord watched as his carefully curated property became a haven for someone who had no intention of honoring his obligations. As the pieces of the puzzle came together, a disturbing pattern emerged. The man was no victim of unfortunate circumstances. He was a practiced predator, a con man who had pulled the same scheme on other landlords across the city. He moved from one property to the next, leaving a trail of unpaid rent and exploited kindness. By the time the landlord regained possession of his apartment, the damage was done, not just to his finances, but his trust and others the con man of course had already moved on his next target none the wiser terrifying yeah it's like a slasher movie you can make a horror movie out of this this story serves as a grim reminder appearances can deceive and even the most polished facade can conceal the darkest of intentions always always do your due diligence trust but verify for the world of real estate or life some lessons are learned the hard way so yeah this is not just Just a landlord tenant screening story. It's, I guess, for anybody who's alive. Yeah. I would say so. All right. Round of applause out there in the audience for Patrick. Great job. Great reading. You did great. You powered through it. I was hoping for more comedic voices from you, but saying my wife's dead. I tried my best. You promoted on that line. That was your Oscar clip when they eventually nominated you. Yeah. Quite the story. Terrifying to think that it's that easy to scam someone. Yeah, right. It makes you second guess everyone you've ever given a pass before. Right, right, right. I've never been a landlord, but I've also definitely been... We'll lend money to friends or whatever, acquaintances, take someone for a, you know, drop someone off at their car. It's like how quick someone could frigging turn and just be like a total villain and wreck your apartment, wreck your life, like ruin seven months of just like all of this crap that this dude had to go through. I mean, it's, it's terrifying. That's rough. Yeah. Really, really terrifying. And I mean, like, you know, I kind of made the yikes at it earlier in the story, but like, I'm sure the more, one of the big morals of the story is the just, opting to circumvent the typical process of going through screening, checking your background, just a couple basic things to do that would have maybe set off some red flags. Yeah, right. I think more thorough tenant screening could have definitely made this whole situation be avoided to begin with. But it's hard too. I mean, like hearing it, like I'd be susceptible. I'm a big baby, I was going to say. Someone tells me their sob story, I'm likely to believe it. Yeah, I know. So it's like, you know, you got to be more careful. Right. Have you ever been tricked or scammed by someone? Have you ever been scammed, Patrick? I'm trying to think. Have you been scammed? Nothing major. No, I've had credit card theft before. Like I've gone shopping at a mall and I swipe my card somewhere and then a few minutes later I got like an alert. Oh, a bartender at Max Pizza Pub in Clifton totally yanked my credit card and used it to buy some Nike stuff. Yeah, I ended up getting those. But that's like the closest I've ever gotten. I've never had someone like swindle me and likeâ my name's Johnny B. Goode, and I'm going to sell you this Volkswagen. And I get it, and it's like squares for tires. Yeah, I guess as close as I came was I had a charge on Amazon for like$100-something bucks. I did not recognize. So I started freaking out that they had access to my Amazon account and my card and everything. So I went ahead and canceled my cards, changed my password to Amazon, all this stuff. And all my cards on Amazon I canceled because I got the charge on two credit cards on Amazon. And then Iâ Come to find out, after I cancel everything, change everything, I realize that was my Amazon Prime subscription automatically renewing. And... So you plagued yourself. I freaked out for no reason. Yeah, and then it was a whole disaster getting everything. That surprised me when you reached out to them that they weren't like, this is what this charge was. Well, you know, Amazon's impossible to reach out, but Capital One originally, they flagged it. They originally flagged the transaction. Did you, like, we did not recognize this charge or whatever. Like, did you make this? I was like, oh.$180, like whatever, how much the annual subscription is. I'm like, no, I definitely didn't buy anything on Amazon for that amount. So I'm like, I'm freaking out. It was a difference between like Amazon charge because it was the subscription versus you were thinking like, oh, it was a purchase on Amazon. Exactly, yeah. Amazon Prime didn't even, yeah. So anyways, I thought I was like mega scammed there, but then it ended up being me being an idiot. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you got it. Do you think, I like this question. Do you think it's harder to trust people nowadays? How do you balance being cautious without being overly suspicious? I'm definitely pretty trustworthy, I think. It's probably to a fault. I remember one time I got in trouble at my very first job in high school, which was JCPenney. You worked at a JCPenney? I worked at a JCPenney. What did you do there? Retail? Yeah, I worked. Correct. It is a retail store. But yeah, I was in the men's department. I folded clothes, emptied fitting rooms, asked customers if I could help them find anything today. One time I was talking to these customers and they're asking if we had any more flannel in the back or something. I was like, yeah, come to the back. I took them back to the back warehouse room. I was like, here's everything we got because I didn't feel like taking one of everything out. And then after they left, my manager just came like, who are those people that you let into the back of the store? And I was like, oh, they were just customers who want to see something. He's like, don't you ever do that again because if they get access to the back of the store, they can steal and all this stuff. I think that's a good example. Is it? Because you trusted these people, you went into the situation, and then you learned from it, right? Halfway through telling that story, I'm like, wait, why? Why did I start with that question? JCPenney, JC Jeans, I should go buy some new jeans. That's right. My brain broke down there. I don't know. I'm with you. I think it definitely seems like it's harder to trust people these days, but I think it's just paranoia from social media and news, and I'm always just like, should I trust people? There's so much. We get such exposure to all the bad things happening in the world, it's like hard to, you know, you feel like a little bit of distrust these days. I don't know. Maybe for like online. So like when I call somebody, like I call like my card company or like insurance or whatever. And then they ask for like my social security number or something. I'm like, what do you need that for you? Are you some sort of scammer? But it's like, no, it's like the number that I called. You know what I mean? So like, I feel like if I'm on the phone with somebody or somebody reaches out electronically, I'm probably very suspicious. But if you're like a real life, like human being in front of me, it's like, oh, they can't lie. I guess is how... It's physically impossible for this person to lie to me right now. I feel that. Yeah, so we kind of talked about it earlier, but with applications and screening and going through the normal processes of not going around, not falling into this guy's trap, were there any other things you can think of that the landlord could have done differently here? I think just having a system and not deviating from it. It's like if you have a tenant screening process, you have a list of things that you do, and you've got to make it consistent for everybody, right? Like, oh, credit report, background check, references, call the references for the past residencies or whatever like just having a system and even if the person seems reliable or even if the person is in kind of a tough situation you know it's important to like do your due diligence not just take the person's word at face value but actually like investigate for yourself yeah I just say like don't cut corners in anything but like goes to say and not to be pessimistic but it's like you could follow all the right steps and something like this could still happen so it's just like knowing the risks knowing those kind of things going into it is smart like having preventative measures like backed up like a good lease contract and we've talked about that many many times at this point but it's like make sure that you have like a pretty foolproof document that if something goes down that you're you're protected that you have like something to protect yourself right so
SPEAKER_02:yeah good point
SPEAKER_03:all right well that's about all for the story time with patty thanks for reading we shouldn't be allowed to name any of these segments because every week they're different someone someone's got to email us in and then give us a segment. Questions at therentishpod.com. Patrick, what do you say we swap from story time and play some games? I love games. Okay, here we go. You're back, and it's time for the fun and games segment, as we're calling it, or if you have a better idea for the segment out there, fun and games. I don't know, you know, something like that. Real estate terms and fun. Real estate fun. Real estate fun. Real fun. Real fun. Real fun. Boom. We nailed it. We nailed it. Okay, yeah, real estate terms and fun here. We have a special guest. Joining us on the show today is Mary Regano. She's a senior marketing program manager at Enago. Mary, thank you for being on the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks so much for having me, guys.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you come from, what it is you do.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, yeah, definitely. So like you said, I am a Senior Marketing Program Manager at Enago. I've been with Enago for just over a year now. But prior to that, I had, gosh... almost 15 years of experience working across tech companies and in sales and marketing organizations. And even at one point in that 10 to 15 years, got my MBA from Chicago Booth. So lots of interesting work experience. But then in addition, about five years ago, I started investing in real estate on the side. I have properties in Chicago and in Cincinnati and just have been kind of slowly working on building out that portfolio and I'm learning a lot as I go as many real estate investors would probably attest and say the same and it's been a lot of fun but also brought on many, many challenges. Cool.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, it's good to hear that someone as experienced as you still says that they're learning a lot because Patrick and I here, we've got a long ways to go. I think we'll catch up to you. Mary, do you want to introduce specifically the game that we're going to be playing?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Are you guys familiar with the game Taboo?
SPEAKER_03:I invented Taboo, Mary. Okay. So when the producers told us, hey, we're going to play Taboo, my co-host Patrick said, and I quote, I'm the Taboo expert. The Taboo expert. I said master, but yeah. Master, sorry. Oh, my apologies. Show some respect. I'm familiar with Taboo. It's not a game I play all that often, but I played it many times growing up.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, awesome. Well, we're going to play Real Estate Taboo. So you guys, one of you... One of you have been given a term. that you know about real estate. And you're going to try to get the other person to guess what that term is. But you can't use the certain words that are included, just like if you were playing regular taboo. So any of those very common words that make it easier to guess what the term is. So as long as you avoid those words, then you can do what you need to do in order to try to convey what this term is to the other.
SPEAKER_03:Not a problem. He's ready to roll. He's got a lot of confidence. He's got so much confidence. I think he said what? You can get me to guess it in eight seconds? Eight seconds. Let's do eight seconds. Okay. It's going to be great radio. It's like, welcome to the game, and the game is over. All right. I'm ready to roll whenever you are, Patrick. Patrick's the question master. He's going to be asking me today. Let me open the clue, and then we can go. Opening the clue. There he goes. All right. This word, I actually have no idea what it means in real estate terms, but I have no clue what the term means in real estate terms. But the word, without using the taboo words, is the part of your body between your shoulder and your wrist. Arm? Yeah, that's the word.
SPEAKER_02:What? Hold on a second.
SPEAKER_03:I have no idea what it means in real estate terms. So what, the arm bones connected to the hand bone? What are we doing here? It's just arm? The word, the term I was given, I will read you. It says real estate taboo. Term arm. Taboo words, leg-handed boxing. Oh
SPEAKER_00:my God. Okay, so you just got the, okay, very cool.
SPEAKER_03:Call me baffled and impressed because, yes, you did not use any of the taboo words, but you got it in less than eight seconds. Well, duh. Did you think I was lying to you? I think we need some education here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can imagine. I'm sure you guys are both wondering what the heck does an arm have to do with real estate.
SPEAKER_02:We
SPEAKER_00:are. So arm is not actually the word. Arm stands for adjustable wrist. rate mortgage. It's an ARM.
SPEAKER_03:I would like to see you get that in eight seconds. How about that, Patrick? That makes so much more sense. Say it again, Mary. What's it stand for?
SPEAKER_00:The term is an adjustable rate mortgage. Or ARM, if you put all of those together. Adjustable rate mortgage. I could
SPEAKER_03:never have gotten you to guess adjustable rate mortgage. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I was wondering how you were so confident.
SPEAKER_03:That's impressive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, okay, now that you know what the actual full term is, are you guys familiar with what an adjustable rate mortgage is?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe, actually. I'm just going to use context clues to guess that it means the rate of your mortgage, like the rate that you pay for your mortgage, is adjustable.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that's correct. It's an a very simplified definition for it, but yes, that is true. So an adjustable rate mortgage is going to be, so you can have a fixed rate mortgage rate. So you buy your house and you've got a 5% fixed rate mortgage on it, which means that for the life of that mortgage, let's say you signed a 30 year mortgage for the life of it, you're going to pay 5% interest on it. A adjustable rate mortgage is a little bit more complex than that. So what it does is there's an initial period that's a fixed rate. So let's say you lock in 5% for that fixed rate portion. After that initial fixed rate portion is over, it's typically five years, maybe seven, 10 years. These are kind of the general buckets that we typically see. After that period, it becomes adjustable. And what that means is that it can adjust based on market conditions. So you kind of put yourself on the up to the world of, you know, however interest rates are fluctuating. So it could go down or it could go up. You don't really, you don't really know until that period ends. So there, like I said, there's some complexity to it and there's definitely some, a little bit less complexity knowing of, of, you know, what's going to happen. Whereas with a fixed rate mortgage, you kind of know what your payments are going to look like in, in the life of the loan.
SPEAKER_03:So, so it's riskier than a fixed rate mortgage, but so, okay. So I have a question is, is when, when, when decide, cause you get to choose whether you, you go with a fixed rate or adjustable rate mortgage. Is that right? Like when you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. As long as the bank offers it. So not every single, and not in every situation and not every bank is going to offer it, but often often there are options for you to do either fixed or adjustable rates.
SPEAKER_03:When you're purchasing a house and getting the mortgage and all of that, is generally the strategy, if you're buying or getting the mortgage in a rough time where interest rates are really high, in that case, you want to go with adjustable in hopes that it'll go down. And if interest rates are great, then you probably want to do a fixed rate. That way, you have that interest rate over the course of the mortgage's lifetime. Is that the a basic strategy or am I wrong on that?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no. That can be a strategy. So typically with an adjustable rate mortgage, you do get lower rates during that fixed period. So it's an incentive to want to go with that option over doing the fixed rate option. And like you said, if you're buying a house now or in the last year or two and the rates have been kind of on the high end, an adjustable rate mortgage might be something that you want to consider especially if you believe that the rates are going to eventually go down. Now, again, there's no guarantee you could have it wrong. You could read the market wrong and the rates are only going to go up and then your costs are going to go up in the long term. Another reason why people might look to do an adjustable rate mortgage is if you know you're only going to own the property for a short period of time because then you get to capitalize on that lower fixed term rate in the short term and then potentially be selling or giving up ownership before you even hit the variable rates. So there can be different reasons for why you would use it, but it is definitely a riskier option than going with just the fixed rate mortgage where you know what you're going to get every month, every year, as far as the interest rates that you're going to be paying. Interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Gotcha. Get it? It's interesting. Oh, my. You did not plan that, did you? Yeah. No. That was a good one, though. Awesome. All right. Cool. Well, we learned a little bit today. That was a fun game. We're going to play this again sometime and get a term that's not a body part. A real estate term that's not a body part. I would be so screwed if I had the whole definition.
SPEAKER_00:It was impressive. I was impressed.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Very impressed. Mary, thank you again for coming on the show. We really, really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that was such a fun game. That was a fun game, wasn't it, Patrick?
SPEAKER_02:So fun.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Thank you again, Mary Regano, for being on the podcast and playing some real estate terminology games with us. It was a good time and a great episode. Patrick, thank you for being such a good co-host and thoroughly reading the scripts. You're welcome. Did we come to a decision? What's better, raise or raise? I'm going with raise. I'm also going with raise. Make sure to tune in next time for another episode of the Rentish Podcast. I'm Zach, co-host Patrick. You can follow us on all the social feeds. If you're listening on Spotify or any of those normal podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to, drop us a like, give us a follow, turn on the notifications if you want to be notified when new episodes go online. And then you can also email the show questions at therentish pod.com until next time happy renting see ya do we have a catch sign up happy renting happy renting go rent or bye bye that's the catch for the richest podcast bye bye bye bye all right bye everybody