The Laws of your Money with Ann-Margaret Episode 29

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host

(00:23):
and Margaret Caroza.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a show dedicated to protecting you and your family
from legal and financial mayhem. When it comes to personal finance,
I believe the single most important factor is protecting yourselves legally.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
What does it.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Matter how diligently I save and how brilliantly I invest
if there is a greater than forty percent chance of
losing assets to a long term illness and expensive divorce taxes.
This can be a state taxes, capital gains taxes, not

(01:09):
to mention ordinary liability.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
We all know that we're living in.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
A litigious gotcha society. Everyone is looking to sue someone,
and it comes as a surprise that we are actually
more likely to be involved in a legal skirmish with
a former loved one than with a stranger. We are

(01:36):
going to share tips on protecting yourselves, protecting your family
from legal and financial mayhem. I am asset protection attorney
and Margaret Carosa, joined today by my co host, the
Reverend Paul Slackus. Welcome back to the program, Paul, Thanks Ann.

(01:58):
So we spend and a great deal of time on
this program talking about what we do to protect our
single most valuable asset, and for most Americans, that is
the home. Approximately eighty percent of folks sixty five and

(02:22):
above in the United States.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Own their home, and.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
We can make legal mistakes with the home, and we
can also make renovation mistakes with the home which will
reduce the value. So I have invited onto the program
today an expert. But before we jump to our expert

(02:48):
who is on the line, I encourage all of you
to look at my Instagram at my lawyer Ann, where
I have uploaded a picture of a book because I
don't think people would believe me that this book really exists,
and it is called Home Remodeling for Dummies. Everything you

(03:10):
need to know about electrical and plumbing. So this is
a book that you can buy for twelve ninety nine
and I'm going to show you Paul Home remodeling for Dummies. Well,
this is a very scary book to me, and I
don't think we should be getting our renovation advice from

(03:33):
the dummy series of books. We are fortunate, sure electric Electric, Yeah, no,
that that's just scary stuff.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
We have joining the program.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Today the CEO of king Quality Construction. And if you
live on Long Island or Westchester particularly, you know that
this company is taking the area by storm. You can't
drive a mile without seeing a billboard, turn on the

(04:09):
TV commercials, and there's a reason for it. I have
clients who rave about the job that king Quality has
done with their properties. So at this time, it is
my pleasure to welcome to the discussion the CEO and

(04:30):
founder of king Quality, Jeff Brett. Welcome to the program.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Jeff, thank you for having me in and Paul, I
am so psyched me on your show. You're amazing and
I appreciate it. And I love listening to the intro
just now because I couldn't. I was like, oh my god,
I gotta protect more stuff. I always listened to it,
but it is scary, one of the scariest.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Did you go on to my Instagram?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Did you see this book? Really exists home remodeling your dummies.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
I did, I did. I saw when I went on before.
I can't believe that.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, absolutely crazy. So you know, let me ask you,
what how many years have you been in the business.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
I started, you know, in the business nineteen eighty eight,
but I didn't open Kink Quality till nineteen ninety two.
And just exactly what you're saying, it's amazing. You know,
I specialize in siding, windows and roofing, but I also hear,
you know, other construction going on, and it's the number
one complaint industry. Better business build consumer affairs because it's
so diversified, and there's not enough there's not enough studying.

(05:35):
And I think both Well you said too, I hope
you're home for dummies. Do you know what I mean?
It's sometimes people hear a dream or they hear a
price and they make a quick decision, but it might
not be the right decision. I think it gets them
into trouble.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
You know, any one who listens to the show, and
anyone who knows me, you know that I am a cheapskate,
no two ways about it. But there are places where
we don't want to be a penny wise and a
pound foolish. And I think you know, I love watching HGTV.

(06:12):
I love watching your website, Jeff, like the before and
after pictures, and you know, I would describe it as
real estate porn, right. It's just it's addictive.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
You just become engrossed in it, and you know the.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Miracles that it looks like you create by transforming properties.
I think the danger is people think that they can
do it and maybe save a few dollars by doing
it themselves. I'm sure you have seen situations where people

(06:54):
sort of get out over their skis and they do
things and then they end up in a problem and
it costs them more to redo it.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Do you see things like that?

Speaker 4 (07:06):
You're absolutely right, and that's probably the biggest issue. And
prices of materials increase back in two thousand and eight,
probably quadruple, which I know it seems crazy, and then
recently now with you know when COVID hit, prices increased again.
And what sometimes people look at, it's what they see
on the outside. If it's the roof, they look at
the shingle and they try to pick a great shingle,

(07:27):
but they don't concentrate on what's underneath the shingle, which
has really become the most important thing, you know, for
a roofing system is how do you vent the house?
You know, when we were kids, everyone had single pain
windows and no insulation. So the house breathes right now
because oil is unbelievably expensive, it's not twenty six cents
a galln anymore. The house is air tight, but everything's

(07:49):
going up into the roof, and the roof gets destroyed
because it doesn't breathe properly. But ninety percent of the
contractors that come to talk about the roof don't even
talk about ventilation. They talk about the shingle, and that's
what the homeowner things is the most important. But really
the most important thing is what's underneath it and how
is it breathing and what's the system. And that's what
changes everything. And you talk about warranties and people make

(08:09):
a mistake. People look at the shingle and they say, oh,
it's twenty years, thirty or fifty years. That's only if
the job's done right. And people don't understand that. You know,
it's a warranty on the shingle if the workmanship is right.
So the manufacturer most of the time never covers anything
because they come and say, hey, the guy and stole
it wrong, and now the customer's stuck with a whole
nother bill. And you know, the way we do it.

(08:30):
We searched the world for the best underlaym. It's whether
it's the windows, siding, and roofing. But for roofing, we
put our own systems together and we actually give a
fifty year workmanship warranty, which is way different than most
of our competitors. And we actually found a purple underlayment,
which is crazy because you know when we went to
high school, purple. Yeah, the Royals, the Royals, and we

(08:51):
have kin quality, the Royal treatment with a lifetime fifty
year warranty, which is crazy, you know. But we can
do it differently than everybody else because we helped search
for the best. And when we go to the customer's house,
we don't ask them, you know, what do you want
to use? What do you want to put? Did we say, hey, listen,
we did the research for you. You don't have to whe
there's the siding, one of the roof We found the

(09:12):
best products here they are. This is what we offer
because we stand behind them and not give you a
one year guarantee. We can give you a fifty year guarantee.
And I think that's what sets us apart from everybody else.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So, you know, I think that people should not look
at the quote, you know, what is the best price,
because really, if the job is done right and if
you pick the right job to do. So I'm going
to ask you, Jeff, where you get the biggest return
on the dollar invested, But if you pick the right

(09:47):
job to do, and if you pick the right contractor
wouldn't you say that the expenditure is simply moving money
from one account, from your money market account at the
bank into your real estate sector of your finance spreadsheet. Right,

(10:09):
you're not spending money.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
You're not spending money. You're reinvesting in your home, which
for most people that's their biggest investment is their house,
and that's going to give them the biggest return. And
sometimes they don't look at it good enough that way,
and they get a new room or they get new windows,
and they wind up spending money all over again five
years from now, ten years from now, where they could
really look at it and do it right the first time.

(10:34):
We offer easy payment programs too, which makes it more simple.
But if somebody can get a job done once on
their home and never do it again, and like you
said earlier, it's their investment their home, so they're moving
it from a different area, or they're taking easy payments
from us, but it's building the value of their home.
We get so many calls or I see so many

(10:55):
ads in the paper for a house for sale, and
on the house on the real estate says the king
quality roofing system or the quality siding system, and it
says peace of mind for a lifetime on it. And
I love that when someone new gets in because we
do pass the warranty onto the new owner, and that's
where the value comes up, you know, and it changes everything.

(11:16):
You can do a job once and you never have
to do it again. That's the difference of finding the
right contractor or the cheapest contractor. The cheapest contractor might
show you the outside look and you like it. What
is he doing underneath? And that's the big difference.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Well, I had a client who thought he was going
to get into the fix and flip part of the
real estate sector, and he thought he'd save some money.
And a friend of a friend knew of this construction
crew that would do the job. So what he thought

(11:54):
he would do, he was doing a full kitchen gut reno.
He thought he would do the dismantling of the current
kitchen on his own. So a small van full of
sketchy characters with sledgehammers showed up at at his home

(12:16):
and started going to town taking out the existing cabinets.
And it turned out that they took down a load
bearing wall. So this guy part of his house collapsed.
And do you think do you think his homeowner's insurance

(12:38):
covered anything? They thought it, right, They thought it because
this was an illegal activity. He was hiring people off
the books. And we see this, you know in the
caregiving sector when we have an elderly relative, you can't
just pay someone from around the corner fifteen bucks an

(13:01):
hour because when something happens, they will sue you, and
your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover anything. So definitely, we don't
want to be a penny wise and a pound foolish
and chef. You mentioned that you offer financing to your client. Yes, yeah,

(13:21):
and that's.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
A big difference. You know, we make it affordable, we
call it easy pay. We have no payments no interest
for up to a year, or we have amazing payments
up to fifteen years, whatever whatever works best for the homeowner.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know, when you are doing financing with a construction company,
they must be a quality organization. Now, when I was
a state legislator, we have an office in the district
who handles all manner of constituent problems and complaints. And

(13:58):
someone call me. They didn't want to be identified, but
they wanted to help their neighbor who got involved with
a very sketchy home improvement company and they arranged for
financing for him, and little did he know that he

(14:22):
put up his home as collateral and they organized a
schedule of payments that he was absolutely unable to make
these payments, and he ended up losing the house to
this crazy company. So I contacted the late Great Richard Brown,

(14:48):
who was the District Attorney of Queen's County, and this
one had a happy ending because the quote unquote contractor
ended up going to jail. But you know, when you're
dealing with your home, when you're dealing with financing, you
need to be ladies and gentlemen with a reputable company.

(15:11):
And Jeff, I can't recommend you and King Quality highly enough.
You guys are the best, and how can people reach you?

Speaker 4 (15:22):
And that's all they can reach us at the office
one A eight eight six oh King one eight eight
eight six oh King or of course Jeff Atkinquality dot com.
And you've brought up with a really amazing thing just
now about the financing. Most of the smaller contractors and
most of the ones that aren't doing a great job,
they go to the bank and get mortgages for these
people and they don't really realize what's happening, or there's

(15:45):
a lean on their house, but they take all the
money up front. Our easy pay what we call it,
is all onsecure. It has nothing to do with the homeowner.
And even our fifteen year rates are seven point nine
to nine a fixed rate for seven nine nine for
fifteen years and no fees, and it's not secure to
the house, which is a big difference. You know, it's
very It's you have to be a good contractor to

(16:06):
offer unsecured loans because the bank has to trust that
you're going to do it right because they can't put
a lean on the homeowner and the homeowner has to
look for contractors to do a good job and offer
the right warranty so they can have the best easy
pay programs. Because the story you just told is a nightmare,
but you hear those all the time and it's horrible.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Absolutely well, Jeff, thank you so much for sharing some
of your wisdom with us, and I hope that you
will visit us again.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Absolutely, thanks for having me, Thanks for talking again. You're
amazing and I appreciate the time.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Take care, Jeff, thank you. Okay, all right, I believe
that we have our next expert joining us, Christopher Romano,
a real estate law expert who I have not known
for a long time. I met him at a closing

(16:59):
and he so impressed me with his level of competence
that I thought, let's have him on the program and
give some advice to folks out there navigating real estate
as an investment as their primary residence. Welcome to the program,

(17:21):
Christopher Romano.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
Good morning. Thank you for having me in. Thank you
for sharing.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Christopher, you specialize in the fix and flip niche of
the real estate market. Is that right?

Speaker 5 (17:39):
I do have a large amount of clients obviously that
are in that space. You know, we obviously have plenty
of retail Division two. So I represent a lot of
regular homeowners, but a lot of fix and slippers as well. Now,
I was listening to some of the comments from the
prior guests, and yes, you do have to be a
little bit more wary on the fix and flip side,

(18:01):
because there are some who do an improper job just
to you know, keep their profits up.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
May I ask you, do you do this in your
own life real estate investment?

Speaker 5 (18:13):
I do. I do. I've been doing it for years.
It's basically I had seen a couple of my very
good clients be very successful at it, and you know,
you watch and you learn, and then you're like, well,
this can be done if you do it the right way.
I mean, obviously I provide myself. I'm putting out a
very good product, making sure everything's done well. And it's

(18:33):
you know everybody like like you said with the real
estate porn, Like how many people have to watch those
shows and the fix and flips and you know, and
it is exciting and you get to use your creative
side as well, which is which is always exciting.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Now I do some real estate investment in my life
as well, and you know, I just I shudder when
I see young people who watch you know, HG TV,
they watch Shark Tank and they get all hopped up
and they get out there too thinly capitalized, right, and

(19:12):
they're on a shoe string budget and they buy something
and only if all of the stars align perfectly will
they be in the black at the end of the transaction.
And they don't necessarily have the money to deal with
a sinkhole on the property or something that comes up.

(19:36):
Do you see people out there getting into it, and
do you advise them if they hire you as the
real estate attorney to do this closing and you feel
that this is really not the right move for them,
do you try to counsel them?

Speaker 5 (19:56):
I do? I do, And I guess you could say,
maybe it's not generally in a regular real estate attorney services,
but one I do want to see my client succeed, right,
and then if they do succeed, maybe they've become really
really good investors. And then they you know, they do
lots and lots of deals a year, so it's also

(20:16):
in my best interest to see them succeed and do well.
But there are many times when they'll send me a
deal and I look at the numbers and you know
the comps because you know that part of investing is
basically like, Okay, what are you buying it for? What's
your rehead budget? How much do you think it's going
to sell for? You know, And being that have been
doing this for twenty something years, I'm able to get

(20:38):
a good pulse on things, and there are times I'm like,
you should maybe rethink this. And then with your comment
about getting over the heads, you can guarantee whatever your
budget is, you're gonna blow past it because there's always
something that you didn't see in the beginning. There's always
going to be an extra expense somewhere. So if they
don't have like that extra ten to fifteen percent construction

(21:00):
reserve in their budget for what if? Yep, then they're
probably coming in too tight on the deal.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
So then we move to if the individual investor says,
you know what, I don't have the capital yet to
really do this properly. They can either wait and save
or they can put a group together. And I guess
when you put the group together, do you help people

(21:30):
with those contracts because I would imagine a lot can
go wrong.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Yeah, I do, I do, And you can either generally,
you can form a new LLC of which they're all members,
and then an the LLC operating agreement you lay out
whose rights, whose duties, who runs the contractors, who gets
to pick the realtor, who's responsible for the financing, you know,
the spit of the split of the procted loss. But

(21:58):
obviously people we're always thinking about, well, we're going to
split the profit this way. And then I posed to them, Okay,
if you lose money, are you also splitting it in
the same percentage? And then they're like, what do you mean.
I'm like, well, because it's not as easy as it
looks on TV exactly. There are times, and you know,
you have to take in market concerns. In many parts

(22:19):
of this country, the market's starting to reverse when the
prices are coming down.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
You have to take that into consideration.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
What's your advice for someone who buys a property often
site unseen when they go to a foreclosure, right, they've
never been inside the property. Often with the disclosures, what
do you do? You buy the property on the courthouse
steps and it turns out that there is an existing

(22:52):
tenant or a squatter, what can that new homeowner do?

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Yeah? So that does come into play a lot we
do buy at the auction quite often. New York is
very unfriendly. Let's just say to the owners, as far
as removing tenants are occupied.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
One hund those tenants can be there for two years easily.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah. Yeah, city in New York for sure a little
bit better longed than NASA and Suffolk. But I still
tell my clients to be prepared for maybe eight to
twelve months.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
In landlord tenant court.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah, I had a lovely client who bought a property
at foreclosure. Thankfully, the tenants had abandoned the property but
left behind, you know, rooms full of garbage and debris.
So they cleaned it all out, hired a dump truck,

(23:46):
and then the quote unquote tenants who hadn't paid rent
in two years, reappeared claiming that very valuable antique artifacts
were tossed and there was a huge judgment against the homeowner.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
It was a nightmare, isn't that scary?

Speaker 5 (24:08):
Yeah? I always tell my clients go in there with
the video. Yeah, film everything if you're going to discard everything,
or obviously if you did it without making sure they
were out, they can claim an illegal lockout, which is
trouble damages. Yep, you know. So in that case, like
a lot of times, if my clients buy something at
the auction, I have them execute with ald a surrender

(24:29):
agreement because a lot of times they will do cash
your keys like hey here is yes, you'd be surprised
ten fifteen, twenty thousand dollars to leave. But you have
them sign a surrender agreement where they wave their you know,
any of their pudcestory rights and you know, and you
lock the doors behind them type of thing. But it's
something that you have to be prepared to deal with,

(24:50):
and you know, and I could take that law.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Really good advice. What do you tell your clients about
the importance of a home inspection and a property survey?

Speaker 5 (25:03):
Yeah, so obviously this is a lot more for retail clients.
Investors are usually buying something that needs a lot of work,
and like you said, a lot of times, size and
the scenes. We obviously you have to put a bigger
cushion in your budget for those For the average homeowner
New York for over one hundred years, has been you know,
barer beware type of jurisdiction. So there are no warranties

(25:24):
when you buy a house in New York. So I
always tell my clients, my retail buyers, you know, the
day you close on this, that house is yours, and
if something breaks the next day, it's it's just bad timing,
like you know, And it happens two three times a year.
Assessed pool caves in, a boiler breaks down like a
week after closing, and they're like, well, what can we do.

(25:46):
I'm like, it's just the only thing you can do
is try to do a home inspection to protect yourself.
And you know they're not infallible either, but it's better
than you know, not doing the most you can to
protect yourself.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
What advice do you have for first time buyers? What
can they be expected to pay in terms of closing costs?

Speaker 5 (26:13):
With regard to closing costs, there are a lot of
estimates out there, though some people will say four to
five percent of the purchase price. You know, SAHA is
a little bit more as an SAHA funding fee if
you're going SPHA, although you're allowed to write that into
the contracts. But the one thing is it's very hard
to me to estimate what your closing costs are going

(26:35):
to be because although the title insurance and the mortgage
tax are all pretty much statutory. The place where you're
going to save your money is with your loan officer.
For example, if you're getting a six hundred thousand dollars
mortgage and your loan officer says your origination fees, that's

(26:55):
the money that they're charging you to get the loan
is one percent, that would be six thousand dollars. But
if you go to another lender they say our loan fees,
you can see how your closing costs can vary by
six thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
No, that is such Chris, such valuable advice. And you
know the part of the discussion where it comes back
into my wheelhouse is to help people avoid the delays
in putting the property on the market because they have

(27:30):
to go through probate. Right, So, ladies and gentlemen, if
you own a home, you need to put it in.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
What Paul.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Trust, Put it in a trust. It can be a
revocable trust and asset protection trust. This way you avoid probate,
the kids avoid capital gains taxes. And you know, when
we get done with kin Quality and Christopher Romano, with
the Fix and flip Logistics, the properties are going to

(28:07):
be worth more, there are going to be capital gains,
and with some good planning involved.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
We can avoid that.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Christopher, how can people reach you?

Speaker 5 (28:18):
You can reach my office at five one six five
hundred three two seventy five. We have offices in Uniondale
and Bayshore, so we're in Nasau and Stuffa counties.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Thank you so much for being with us, and I
hope you join us again soon.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Thank you so much for everything. Appreciate the wonderful knowledge
today and have a great day.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Thank you to take care all right, folks. Unfortunately we
are about out of time again. I encourage you to
reach out to me during the week at my lawyer
ann on Instagram. The website is my Asset Protection Attorney
dot com. And I am scheduled to be on Good

(29:02):
Day New York this coming Tuesday, I think in the
eight o'clock hour. So hope to be with you again
next week here on seven ten WR, the Voice of
New York. Have a great day everyone.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed