On the twelfth entry of our See It to Be It podcast series, Amy C. Waninger speaks with OJ Gordon about his entering the real estate industry from the insurance industry and the unique role he's taking on in doing so. OJ also suggests that people interested in getting started or learning more about the industry look into getting involved with the local chapter of their National Real Estate Investors Association (REIA). Check out the show notes to find out more!

Click here to find your local National REIA chapter.

Find out how the CDC suggests you wash your hands by clicking here.

Help food banks respond to COVID-19. Learn more at FeedingAmerica.org.

Visit our website.




TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate. Now, look, every now and then we try to mix it up for y'all. So look, dependency and consistency is really important, but even within those lanes of consistency, you gotta have a little bit of variety, you know what I mean? You don't come home and just eat the same thing every day, or even if you do--you know, you got a meal prep thing--maybe sometimes you put a little red sauce. Maybe sometimes you put a little green sauce. You know, you gotta just, you know, mix it up from time to time. Maybe sometimes you grill it. Maybe sometimes you saute. Maybe sometimes you rotisserie. You gotta just--am I hungry? Yes, I'm hungry, y'all. My bad. Listen, check it out. We have another entry for y'all from our See It to Be It series. Amy C. Waninger, CEO of Lead at Any Level as well as the author of Network Beyond Bias, she's actually been a member of the team for a while now, so shout-out to you, Amy. Yes, thank you very much for all of your work here. And part of her work has been in driving this series called See It to Be It, and the purpose of the series is to actually highlight black and brown professionals in these prestigious roles, like, within industries that maybe we--and when I say we I mean black and brown folks, I see y'all--may not even know exist or envision ourselves in, hence the name of the series, right? So check this out. We're gonna go ahead and transition from here. The next thing you're gonna hear is an interview with Amy C. Waninger and a super dope professional. I know y'all are gonna love it. Catch y'all next time. Peace.




Amy: Hi, OJ. Thank you so much for joining me today.




OJ: Hey, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.




Amy: Oh, it's great talking to you again. So you're one of my Network Beyond Bias success stories because you and I met at my very first ever industry conference when we were both in Hawaii for the CPCU conference, and you were part of my "I'm gonna talk to three people today if it kills me" program, and we were both sitting front and center at a big session, and I think I turned to you and said, "Hi, you're sitting front and center too. We should probably talk," or something really dorky like that, and then we became friends from that. So you were one of the people that I kind of collected at that conference just because I forced myself to talk, and I'm so glad I did.




OJ: And I'm glad you did as well, absolutely.




Amy: Well, thank you. So we're gonna talk today about your entering the real estate industry--and the role that you're taking on is a little unique from what most people think of in terms of real estate, so can you tell me first what it is that you do, who you help and how you help them?




OJ: Sure, absolutely. So my primary focus is helping people who have real estate problems. So folks who have repairs that they can't make at their home. They have code liens, tax liens, debt that they can't pay off, or for whatever reason they need to get out of the home that they're in and they don't have a solution that traditional real estate can help [?]. So for whatever reason they can't put this house up on the market. They can't make a profit selling that house on the market. Planning unique solutions to help them get to where they want to be.




Amy: And so this is--like I said, it's kind of a special situation that you're creating, a special opportunity that you're creating for yourself. Can you tell me how you got involved in this and sort of what about it appealed to you?




OJ: Yeah, absolutely. So as you know I work in insurance, and there are many times where you run into a situation where there's something not covered by a policy, and that could be a $10,000, $15,000, $100,000 problem, and when someone has an issue like that and they're not able to get financing or fix the problem, you know, it becomes a safety issue where they're living in a home that's potentially unsafe, they're living in a situation where, you know, no one should be living, and I got into insurance because I wanted to help people, and for the most part we can. There are tons of things that are covered, but in those situations where something isn't covered and, you know, there are people who feel helpless, they don't know what to do, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to [?]. So I started looking into different solutions, and I actually met a couple real estate investors who were like, "What? That's exactly what we're looking for." I was like, "Why would you want this house that has, you know, $30,000 worth of damage? There's a mortgage on it. There's all these issues," and they were like, "This is exactly the situation that we're looking for. We want to help people who are in these situations, because we want to get them living somewhere safe, and we want to take that home and put in a position where someone can live in it again." So it just really appealed to me. You get the opportunity to help people. You kind of get to be thrifty and take something that was broken and fix it, and just, for those reasons, this industry really appeals to me.




Amy: That's fantastic. So I recently moved into a new home about three years ago, and it had a lot of problems that we weren't anticipating. You know, we knew it would need a new roof for example. We didn't know that within the first year of ownership we were gonna lose our water heater, our HVAC system, our sump pump, you know, and have problems with some other things, and so I can see how very easily, even without, like, a traditional insurable loss--like, you know, there was no fire, there was no flood, right, it was just wear and tear on a house that had not been maintained for 20 years--and, you know, it was expensive, and we were already sort of maxed out on the mortgage, and so, you know, we had to kind of take out a second mortgage. It's really embarrassing to say, but we had to take out a second mortgage to pay for, you know, several thousands of dollars worth of repairs to a house so we could live in it, 'cause you can't live in a house in Indiana without heat, right? You can't live in a house in Indiana, you know, that's leaking carbon dioxide into your house. So, like, we had real problems, and people don't have a lot of reserves. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck. I know that's been my situation for most of my life. You know, it's really easy to get upside down really fast, not just in your mortgage but in your monthly expenses, and then to have somebody who can come in and say, "Hey, I can help with this." You know, "You're not gonna be homeless. You're not gonna lose money on your house." I can see where that would be a really welcome message for folks who are struggling or who are concerned about those things, because I can see how, you know, just a lot of people are just a few thousand dollars from disaster. I know I've been there many times in my life.




OJ: Absolutely.




Amy: So it's wonderful what you're doing. So what's something--I know you have already alluded to this a little bit, but what's been the biggest surprise to you about this industry? Something that you weren't expecting when you first got into it?




OJ: So actually, the thing that surprised me most was, you know, you hear about real estate investors and you're like, "Oh, they're these slimy people and, you know they're just trying to make a quick buck and, you know, they're gonna offer you way less than what your house is worth," and that's kind of the stigma, and there are a few bad people who do those kinds of things, but for the most part everyone I've come across has really just wanted to help people. You know, whether it was me first getting into the industry and wanting to learn, people were willing to take the time out of their day to explain things to me, to walk me through processes. Their main focus is not how much money I've made, it's how many people did I help, and I think when you can go to bed at night knowing that your main focus is how many people we can help, you can sleep well, and it really kind of changed this thing in my mind. I was thinking, "Oh, man, I'm gonna be one of these slimy real estate investors," and really it's not that. You know, there are many times where a person doesn't need a real estate investor. They just need a real estate agent or, you know, they don't need either one of those things. They need help managing their cash flows, right? They're just spending too much on their discretionary spending, and that's taking away from their needs. And just being able to have those conversations--like, I went and got my real estate license also so that I could help those folks who need, you know, a traditional solution. And, you know, I partnered with some credit repair and some budgeting specialists who can talk to people about money management and focusing on taking care of their needs before going out and, you know, spending on things that they want, and that's really been able to help people, and it's just an amazing feeling knowing, "Hey, you know, I might not have made any money today doing this real estate investing, but I've helped someone, and this thing that I've done is gonna benefit them and it's gonna benefit their kids for years to