November 14, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Bruce Norris takes listeners through his personal journey into real estate and the path that led him to master market timing. From digging into early research and writing his first market timing report to navigating the 2008 crash and identifying the recovery in 2012, Bruce shares the key insights that shaped his investment strategy. He breaks down why understanding market cycles matters, how timing influences risk and opportunity, and what trends may shape the future of real estate.
In this episode:
- Bruce shares how he first got into real estate and discovered the importance of timing.
- His early research into market cycles and why timing shapes smart investing.
- What inspired Bruce to write his first market timing report.
- Key lessons from the 2008 financial crisis.
- The role of market timing in managing risk and finding opportunities.
- Bruce’s outlook on future market trends.
The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Narrator (00:01):
Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a
show committed to bringing youinsights from thought leaders
shaping the real estateindustry. In each episode, we'll
dive into conversations withindustry experts and local
insiders, all aimed at helpingyou thrive in an ever-changing
real estate market. continuingthe legacy that Bruce Norris
(00:24):
created, sharing valuableknowledge, and empowering you on
your real estate journey.
Whether you're a seasoned pro ora newcomer, this is your go-to
source for insider tips, markettrends and success strategies.
Here's your host, Craig Evans.
Joey Romero (00:45):
All right. Welcome everybody to The Norris Group
Real Estate Podcast. We have avery special guest today, Mr.
Bruce Norris, oh, wait, let medo the official two page
introduction. I got it righthere. Hey, Bruce, how you doing?
Bruce Norris (01:02):
I'm good. Joey, how are you?
Joey Romero (01:04):
I'm doing well, doing well, trying to try to get
my lighting right. Oh, we can.
So today, I thought we would, wewould take some time and go
through the journey of your timereports and how they came about,
you know? What you learned, youknow, how accurate they were and
and just, I thought it'd be funto do that, and then, and then
get to the end, talk about, youknow, what this upcoming event
(01:27):
will talk about, and what youhope to accomplish with it.
Bruce Norris (01:32):
Okay.
Joey Romero (01:33):
But you know, I honestly, I know your history.
You know, I'm sort of, I fancymyself a little bit of The
Norris Group and the BruceNorris historian. But I've heard
you're journey through a youknow, I got fired. I was working
hardware. How did you end up inbuying houses, though? I don't
(01:56):
think I've ever heard that.
Bruce Norris (01:58):
Well, I was in sales, and I had somebody that I
knew. He said, 'Let me show youwhat I'm doing. I work for a
company that buys houses', andso I find houses for him. So I
went with him. It was a home inOrange County. We went in there
was a single lady that owned thehouse. We were in there about
five minutes. We got kicked out,and went back to the car with
(02:22):
him, and I said, 'You know, thelady will sell you her house.
You just didn't listen to her,and you irritated her'. So I
knocked on the door and got usback and we bought the house. So
driving home that night, Ithought, You know what? I think
I understand the concept. Youknow, the basic thing is, we
have money, you have equity, andsometimes our stuff is cooler
(02:44):
than yours. I just simplified itto that extent. I then went, I
said, 'Okay, what do I have tohave to work for the company?'
And I had to have a real estatelicense, back then you could get
in a weekend. I took a course. Isat in front of the owner on
Monday, his first question, andby the way, there were two
people applying for the job.
This guy had brought his trophycase with him, so he literally
(03:06):
had 50 plaques, you know. Andthen he went first, and I went.
He said, 'How long have you hadyour license?' I said, 'One
day'. And he laughed at me said,'Yeah, this, this is no place
for an inexperienced agent'. Isaid, 'Well, let me ask you a
question'. I said, 'Isn't thebottom line here, whether you
buy properties for profit ornot?' He said, 'Yeah'. I said,
'You'll know in 30 days, I cando that better than anybody you
(03:27):
have.' And he was like, 'Okay'.
Now what was interesting I had,I still had a job. I mean, I was
selling electrical stuff tohardware stores, so I couldn't
do it full time. I would getthere about noon, and they had,
he ran ads and stuff, and you'resupposed to take there were five
other buyers, so every sixthphone call was you. I didn't
(03:49):
wait for that. I didn't knowanything about real estate, but
I just called every expiredlisting. Made offers on anything
that made sense. I was the leastpopular person in Orange County
real estate for the three monthsI was there, because I did some
pretty bold things anyway. Longstory short, I bought 10 houses
(04:14):
the first month, set a companyrecord, made a year's worth of
money, and I did it every monthI was there, and then I, I
really didn't like how he do didbusiness.
Joey Romero (04:24):
So I guess that's what I was gonna get to is that
you learned the ropes, you know,while you were there, but you
also learned that it didn't fitthe person that you were, you
know, the way they did thingsand and the way they just kind
of were, right.
Bruce Norris (04:41):
You know, I can't even say I learned the ropes.
What I learned I already Ia price that's at 65% of value.
(05:01):
So that's what I did, well, andthere was a lot of things Joey,
when I left that company, therewere big holes. I understood how
to get a yes answer. I didn'tunderstand how to do a lot of
stuff that you think, okay, oh,now you have to fix your house?
What? So that was a lot easierif I was wholesaling it to the
(05:23):
company I worked for, but therewas a transaction where I was
just really disappointed at theoutcome. Bought it from a lady
that had lived in neighborhoodsfor 30 years. Neighbors were so
sorry she was leaving. Theythrew a big block party, and
then the guy didn't close, andso she had all her furniture
sent to Northern California. Shehad to bring it all back face a
(05:44):
neighbor. She wasn't going. That
Joey Romero (05:54):
Absolutely disappointing. So now, from
correct me, if I'm wrong, fromwhat I understand, you know, you
worked and you had some success.
You bought houses and you endedup doing your your first million
dollars in a big transactionwhere you were, you know, you
we've heard the story about howjust irritated me. I said, I
don't want to deal with theyou lost, but what I want to get
to is the next time you went outon a strategy, it didn't really
(06:18):
work out. I'm talking about Palmcompany that does that.
Springs, and that caught you offguard. And is that really what
sets you on this market timingjourney, like not knowing why
things weren't working?
Bruce Norris (06:33):
That was my first glimpse at it. You know, it was
interesting because I had thesuccess on the 50 building lots
that was right outside of thetrack of houses I had a problem
with. So I I had a milliondollar success selling 50 lots,
and six months later, couldn'tsell three houses, and you're
going, 'Okay, well, that was myfirst inkling'. But a few years
(06:55):
later, there was a house on a VAlist, and that was really the
eye opening thing that had mejust scratching my head. You
know, at the time, I had alreadybeen doing it for over 10 years,
and this was a house on the VAlist. Gonna try and remember,
Oh, well, I remember because,Aaron's car. Remember I was,
(07:17):
that's it was Aaron graduated,and I bought his car for 15
seven, and then I buy a threebedroom house in Riverside that
would rent for 500 bucks, for13-3. And what bothered me about
it, it was on a VA list, whichmeans all the people that would
occupy it got to bid first. Noone did, and their asking price
was 15. So no one would buy ahouse for 15 that rents for 500
(07:42):
that was first, wait a minute,and then I was the only bidder.
And I knew the formula, so mybid for the 15 grand house was
13-3, and I was the only bidder.
And it was that moment that Ijust thought, I have no idea
what happened to real estate.
(08:02):
How could you have, you know,the momentum that I could sell
50 building lots inside of, youknow, the timeframe I had, like,
a three or two month escrow, andI counted on being able to sell
all those lots that I did, andthen it changes, where you
couldn't sell anything, and youhad to give it away or trade it
for a boat, which I did, by theway, so it just was that aha
(08:24):
moment, and I didn't start tolearn it as much as I wanted to
find the expert that had figuredit out. So I went to the library
and I looked up every articlefor 25 years about how real
estate works. You know, what'sthe timing of that type of
thing? I just found nobody thatgave me a complete answer. I
found a lot of people that saidthings after the fact that
(08:46):
actually disagreed with whatthey said before the fact. And
so I thought, okay, maybe youcan't figure it out, but I'm
going to try. And that was theimpetus to try and figure out,
and it was probably the biggestthing for me was I didn't have
an agenda to be somebody. Iwanted to know where to put my
money safely and know when toget the heck out of it. Because
(09:10):
you're usually in a reallyeuphoric state where it's about
the same time you used to say,I'll see you later. It's really
hard to do. And you also oughtto say, I'm going to go all in.
When everybody hates realestate, they're fearful. But you
can do that with charts, if youunderstand them. Can you do it
emotionally? No.
Joey Romero (09:29):
So, so once you figured it out, and you're like,
Okay, I think I've got this, atleast this first go at it. I've
got to figure it out. What madeyou decide to give it away?
We'll not give it away, but youknow.
Bruce Norris (09:42):
You know, I really wrote that report to help my
dad. That was the originalthought. Is that I wanted my dad
to do better in retirement, thatI knew where he's headed, and so
I wanted him to understand hecould buy a rental house, and it
probably would work out reallywell. And so that was kind of
the gist of it. You know, I wasalready speaking in front of
(10:04):
some real estate places, and sothat was, I had that door open.
And of course, it's interestingwhen you write a very happy
report at the bottom of amarket, you're just wonderful.
Joey Romero (10:17):
People can't wait to book you up.
Bruce Norris (10:19):
Yeah, then they don't believe a word of it. But,
you know, I said prices weregoing to double and but they
were just happy it was going todo something other than go down
or be dead.
Joey Romero (10:27):
That was an ask you. I was going to ask you,
what was your prediction andthen what was the result? So,
what was the result?
Bruce Norris (10:33):
Well, California, come back, yeah. Predicted
prices would double in eightyears, and it doubled in seven
and then tripled in nine. And Iwas like, well, mathematically,
that makes no sense to me. Andso we had an event where we had
hundreds of people, and I was,we were at an affordability
(10:56):
number that had never beenattained before. We were at 13.
We always stopped at 17 and I,in front of an audience, I asked
a lender, 'Stated income loans,where does the stated income
number come from?'
Joey Romero (11:12):
So we're jumping ahead, though now, right?
Because this is, it tripled. Butnow you're starting to talk
about why you, why you createdthe next one, which was, right?
Bruce Norris (11:22):
Like I got, I got concerned that, okay, how did we
even get to this price level?
Because it had never, it neverhappened. Well, as soon as she
answered the question, I said,'Stated income, loans, where do
you get the number of theincome?' She said, 'Oh, we just
make it up'. And there had to beat least a 42nd pause as I
contemplated what that meant,because that was an acceptance
(11:45):
of an, in the whole industry. Wedo not care that the people
actually make the money and thepeople that buy the loans from
us don't care either. We justwant to fund a loan. And I went
it, 'Whoa!'
Joey Romero (12:02):
And I'll tell you, I'll tell you from the consumer
side, because that's the firsttime I ever bought a house, was
in 2002 and so did I understandwhat was going on? No, but my
real estate agent brought in alender that just filled out that
stack of papers, right? 'Oh,initial here. Oh, that's just
saying this. Oh, it's, yeah.
Nobody stays in this, you know,you're probably gonna refi in
(12:24):
five years', you know, I didn'treally understand what, what I
was signing. I was like, 'Well,'Okay, I qualify?
Me? Okay, let's do it', youI get to buy a house?'
know. And so that's how it was.
So I imagine there was probablymillions of people that were in
that same boat, you know.
Bruce Norris (12:39):
Yeah.
For sure. And forthree years, four years, it was
an exciting thing you did,right? 2000 2006 was cool.
Joey Romero (12:52):
I bought, I bought at 202 in Corona.
Bruce Norris (12:56):
Right.
Joey Romero (12:56):
202,000 and like all my neighbors were talking
about, 'Well, we're refi, we'rerefinancing'. 'Why are you
refinancing it?' 'Well, becausethey're worth 300 now'. 'Oh,
they're worth 450 now? Oh,they're worth 550 now?' And so
all my neighbors were just refiin to the hilt, you know. And I
had a wife that stayed at home,and she was like, 'No, we're not
(13:19):
doing that. We're not doingthat. We don't need a new car.
We don't need a boat, you know,I just want, I just want to be
home with the kids and, not loseour house'.
Bruce Norris (13:28):
Okay.
Joey Romero (13:28):
And so we didn't, and luck to leave we didn't,
because, you know, whileeverybody's, you know, values
still went down even below whatI had, we had, I didn't have to
lose my house because, buteverybody around me did.
Bruce Norris (13:43):
Yeah, oh, that was a crazy, a crazy time.
Joey Romero (13:47):
So all that stuff's happening. When did you actually
decide, like, 'Hey, this isgonna hit the fan, and I want to
figure out how bad it's gonnabe.'
Bruce Norris (13:55):
Well, oh, I think at '05 or '06, we wrote a report
that was...
Joey Romero (14:01):
Yeah, you wrote in '06. But you know, that had to,
there hadn't been some lead upon why you did it
Bruce Norris (14:07):
Well, but we wrote a report before the crash that
had...
Joey Romero (14:11):
You did.
Bruce Norris (14:11):
Yeah, and it was basically telling investors,
this is on its way, and that'swhen we went to take everybody
to other states to buy houses.
So we had a lot of Californiainvestors selling their stuff
and going to Texas. That was thestate that I felt was the
safest, because it virtuallywent up when California had gone
up and gone crazy. Texas hadbarely moved. You can still buy
(14:33):
a house for 120 grand. It wasnew. And so we had a bunch of
properties that we bought. Butthen when the number kept on
getting crazier, that's when wewrote the crash and said, 'Okay,
this is really going to beugly'.
Joey Romero (14:50):
What was the prediction for California Crash?
Bruce Norris (14:54):
There was a range.
There was, you know, if you getthis kind of a number of
foreclosures, it'd be this, butit was, it was a good half off
is, was...
Joey Romero (15:05):
What ended up being the result?
Wow. Would you saythat this time period as
Bruce Norris (15:07):
It was a little more than half, not much more
than half. But that was, thatwas unbelievably devastating to
people that owned real estate,because they kind of did what
you said. As equity grew, theyrefined it, and so they were
pulling out stuff. If they hadstayed maybe with the original
loan, they might have survivedit. But was also going on, Joey,
(15:30):
which is really devastating toprices, was the market became
dominated by lender ownedproperties, and the lenders were
very stubborn at first. Yeah, wewere all 400 we're going to ask
for 350 and so we hadrelationships with these REO
agents, and they asked us tooffer them 100 grand, just to
smack the lender upside the headand go, you aren't going to get
(15:53):
300 or 200 but they didn't do itright away. What happened,
though, the building departmenthad nothing to do, so no one
could build a house, right? Madeno sense, but those people were
employed with nothing to do. Sowhat did the builder or the like
Marino Valley people that workfor the city, they inspected
(16:14):
REOs, and they find them $1,000an infraction a day. Now most of
these lenders weren't inCalifornia, so they would get an
inspection and say, you have agreen pool?You have a broken
window? You have a garage doorthat's cracked? Starting Monday,
devastating as it was, free wasthe biggest wealth, generational
that'll be three grand a day,and it would go to 100 grand.
And then they couldn't go beyondthat. Lenders freaked out
(16:37):
because they weren't getting the150. So we started buying
properties in Moreno Valley for70, 80 grand. There was one that
actual the lender fine was morethan the purchase price, and
they had to write a check to getrid of the house that they had a
300 grand loan.
(17:06):
wealth creator that you had inyour lifetime?
Only because I gotout. You know, when I wrote the
report, we had, we had a trackof homes that we're building,
and we made sure that was donein time, and those were all
done. Had I not gotten out ofCalifornia, the only thing I
(17:27):
kept was my residence, but I hadsome rentals, and I had those
other houses. I had 100 totalhouses I sold in 2005 and six,
and that's the only reason Isurvived it, because I had made
a profit, I had sent it on thefine line and, you know, waited
for the prices to come down.
Well, who's been...
Joey Romero (17:50):
I've heard from a lot of people that did the same
thing because they followed you.
Bruce Norris (17:56):
Yeah, that was scary, though. You know, it's
interesting again, the mood of,when you have a report called
the California Comeback andeverybody's depressed about the
real estate market, they love tohear you speak when you're at
the peak of the market, and youwrite a California Crash, when
everybody's making money and youcan't do anything wrong, that's
a very different reception.
You're like, 'What are youtalking about? Man, I have
(18:18):
listings that sell for hours'.
Yeah, that's not wonderful.
Joey Romero (18:25):
I've heard you talk about your hairdresser. You
know, everybody's jumping realestate...
Bruce Norris (18:28):
...three of them in one year. Well, oh, that's
often.
Joey Romero (18:33):
So I was, I was doing insurance for 10 years
between 2004 and 2014.
Bruce Norris (18:40):
Yeah.
Joey Romero (18:40):
Well, in 2008, guess what? Every application
that we got in to sell insurancewas an ex-realtor. They were
just left the real estateindustry. They're trying to
start over, but.
Bruce Norris (18:55):
The guy that was the biggest guy in Moreno Valley
that had REO listings by themany hundreds, some almost 1000
I would be there to speak totheir office, and they would go
over their monthly numbers,okay? And it would be like,
'Okay, this guy has 70 closedtransactions. Second place,
(19:16):
Doris with one'. It wasn'tanything.
Joey Romero (19:22):
Yeah.
Bruce Norris (19:24):
And by the way, that agent took our seminar, and
made relationship with all thoseagents, or all those companies,
before they had foreclosures.
Joey Romero (19:36):
So, all right, so after that, you know, once the
dust settled, people wereactually getting really active.
Got to, you know, buy somehouses on the cheap, but there
was a point, where your yournext time report was in 2012 and
it was called All In or Fold.
Why was that a big deal and thatin that time frame?
Bruce Norris (19:59):
Well, we had really started deteriorating
price in '08, and it just wentdown, and then it stayed there.
So from 2008-2009 lot of theprice damage was done, but now
you're at a price that's halfand you don't have, you don't
have any of swing. It's justcamping out there. And it's
(20:19):
camping out there with peoplegetting paid eight grand to buy
one. So my daughter Sarah had aneight grand check from the
government that she got so shecould buy a $350,000 for 100
grand. That's how much they weremotivated to try and get
somebody back into wanting realestate, okay? And it just kept
(20:42):
on sitting there, and the pricefrom the national number to the
California number had never beenthat close, and I just played
devil's advocate. I wanted toknow, and maybe it's over. Maybe
the differential from Californiato the national number is not
going to be there anymore. So Istudied all that, and I came out
with the opposite conclusion,that it's all in and as a
(21:06):
lender, we added, we created aneight year program so people
could buy in 2012 and finance itall the way to 2020 and I'd have
to say we created our fair shareof multi millionaires doing it.
Joey Romero (21:17):
But ultimately, what came out of the report was
that, yes, it would, it would,it would go up again.
Bruce Norris (21:24):
Yes, it would escalate. And as you know, the
Mood-O-Meter chart that we have,that Mood-O-Meter is very
gradual in process. You don'tget euphoric in 2012 you're
still afraid in 2012 and 2013you feel a little better in 2014
and then by 2018-2019 okay,we're losing people that are
(21:47):
arrogant. But it is, it's aprocess. Because especially when
you sell properties, yourealize, okay, I don't have any
multiple offers anymore. Andwhen it was in the heyday, you
knew by noon you were going tohave seven offers and you were
going to sell it. That's a verybig difference in confidence
level of what you can get, youknow.
Joey Romero (22:07):
The next time that you jump back into the market
timing report, there was one inbetween. There was category
five, but the one where youreally made some headlines is
one that you thought was goingto be your, you know what? I'm
this is the last one I'm gonnado. And it was 2% mortgages, 40
(22:29):
trillion in debt and othersurprise endings. That was, I
remember that because that's thefirst time I ever went to an
anything that was Norris Groupevent. Okay, you know, Aaron.
Aaron had asked me, like, Hey,are you interested in coming
out? If you are, like, come onout. Take a look and see if this
is something that you'd want tobe a part of. And so that was my
(22:49):
introduction to The NorrisGroup.
Bruce Norris (22:51):
Okay.
Joey Romero (22:51):
And so I came in and I saw, you know, it was like
400 people at the conventioncenter, and it was, it was, it
was you doing your thing upthere, and it was an hour of
Aaron doing his, you know,innovation in real estate and
what's coming and, and so I wasexcited, but that was February
4, 2017 so how cool was it toactually see that two point,
(23:16):
whatever number come tofruition? Because...
Bruce Norris (23:19):
Yeah.
Joey Romero (23:19):
You were early. You were early on that. I mean, you
came out and said, hey, it'sgonna be, yeah.
Bruce Norris (23:24):
No, yeah. Well, first of all, most people
thought, 'Well, of course,that's just really a dangerous
thing to say, Bruce, becausethat'll never happen', you know.
So it's interesting. John Burns,you know who he is. He's got a
big following at the buildersand all that. And he and I are
exchanging emails as the 10 yearT-Bill goes goes below 1% which
(23:50):
is was crazy, and that made thethe mortgage rate go below
three. That's such a significantevent because of the safety it
created. So you know, one of thethings that the event that we'll
have is there's a chart thatshows 40% of all real estate,
(24:12):
residential real estate, isowned, free and clear, and
another 40% which is like up to80% has a mortgage that's under
five it's just sort of like youhave built in safety for a ton,
a ton of the property, verylittle of it is at risk. And
that's why, you know, if you goon YouTube, oh my god, you know,
(24:33):
foreclosures are up 50%, well,what did they go from two to
three? In other words, it's arounding error in 2000's and
let's say eight at the worst, itwas 70% of the California
market. 7 of 10 sales werelender owned properties, and it
was the value of what you had.
Well, now it's not even, even inFlorida. Florida is like, 'Oh my
gosh. Florida is terrible'.
(24:57):
Well, Florida's REOs and shortsales did not make up 1% of the
closings. They do not impact thevalue of what you have now, what
does? Okay? You can have newhomes that are having a hard
time selling, and they have alender that has a 12 month loan.
(25:17):
And so, okay, I'd like you toget paid back, please. That type
of thing. As far as the normalperson fearing that foreclosure
going to dominate, there is justno way.
Joey Romero (25:28):
All right, everybody that's going to do it
for part one with Bruce Norrisas we talk about his journey
through market timing. Be sureto tune in next week as we get
into his latest coming nextyear, in February of 2026 Beyond
Uncharted (25:43):
What's next has never happened. Tune in to hear about
why he decided to write anotherreport.
Narrator (25:50):
For more information on hard money loans, trust deed
investing, and upcoming eventswith The Norris group. Check out
thenorrisgroup.com. For moreinformation on passive investing
through the DBL Capital RealEstate Investment Fund, please
visit dblapital.com.
Joey Romero (26:10):
The Norris Group originates and services loans in
California and Florida underCalifornia DRE license 01219911.
Florida mortgage lender license1577 and NMLS license 1623669.
For more information on hardmoney lending go to
thenorrisgroup.com and click thehard money tab.
Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a
show committed to bringing youinsights from thought leaders
shaping the real estateindustry. In each episode, we'll
dive into conversations withindustry experts and local
insiders, all aimed at helpingyou thrive in an ever-changing
real estate market. continuingthe legacy that Bruce Norris
(00:24):
created, sharing valuableknowledge, and empowering you on
your real estate journey.
Whether you're a seasoned pro ora newcomer, this is your go-to
source for insider tips, markettrends and success strategies.
Here's your host, Craig Evans.
Joey Romero (00:45):
All right. Welcome everybody to The Norris Group
Real Estate Podcast. We have avery special guest today, Mr.
Bruce Norris, oh, wait, let medo the official two page
introduction. I got it righthere. Hey, Bruce, how you doing?
Bruce Norris (01:02):
I'm good. Joey, how are you?
Joey Romero (01:04):
I'm doing well, doing well, trying to try to get
my lighting right. Oh, we can.
So today, I thought we would, wewould take some time and go
through the journey of your timereports and how they came about,
you know? What you learned, youknow, how accurate they were and
and just, I thought it'd be funto do that, and then, and then
get to the end, talk about, youknow, what this upcoming event
(01:27):
will talk about, and what youhope to accomplish with it.
Bruce Norris (01:32):
Okay.
Joey Romero (01:33):
But you know, I honestly, I know your history.
You know, I'm sort of, I fancymyself a little bit of The
Norris Group and the BruceNorris historian. But I've heard
you're journey through a youknow, I got fired. I was working
hardware. How did you end up inbuying houses, though? I don't
(01:56):
think I've ever heard that.
Bruce Norris (01:58):
Well, I was in sales, and I had somebody that I
knew. He said, 'Let me show youwhat I'm doing. I work for a
company that buys houses', andso I find houses for him. So I
went with him. It was a home inOrange County. We went in there
was a single lady that owned thehouse. We were in there about
five minutes. We got kicked out,and went back to the car with
(02:22):
him, and I said, 'You know, thelady will sell you her house.
You just didn't listen to her,and you irritated her'. So I
knocked on the door and got usback and we bought the house. So
driving home that night, Ithought, You know what? I think
I understand the concept. Youknow, the basic thing is, we
have money, you have equity, andsometimes our stuff is cooler
(02:44):
than yours. I just simplified itto that extent. I then went, I
said, 'Okay, what do I have tohave to work for the company?'
And I had to have a real estatelicense, back then you could get
in a weekend. I took a course. Isat in front of the owner on
Monday, his first question, andby the way, there were two
people applying for the job.
This guy had brought his trophycase with him, so he literally
(03:06):
had 50 plaques, you know. Andthen he went first, and I went.
He said, 'How long have you hadyour license?' I said, 'One
day'. And he laughed at me said,'Yeah, this, this is no place
for an inexperienced agent'. Isaid, 'Well, let me ask you a
question'. I said, 'Isn't thebottom line here, whether you
buy properties for profit ornot?' He said, 'Yeah'. I said,
'You'll know in 30 days, I cando that better than anybody you
(03:27):
have.' And he was like, 'Okay'.
Now what was interesting I had,I still had a job. I mean, I was
selling electrical stuff tohardware stores, so I couldn't
do it full time. I would getthere about noon, and they had,
he ran ads and stuff, and you'resupposed to take there were five
other buyers, so every sixthphone call was you. I didn't
(03:49):
wait for that. I didn't knowanything about real estate, but
I just called every expiredlisting. Made offers on anything
that made sense. I was the leastpopular person in Orange County
real estate for the three monthsI was there, because I did some
pretty bold things anyway. Longstory short, I bought 10 houses
(04:14):
the first month, set a companyrecord, made a year's worth of
money, and I did it every monthI was there, and then I, I
really didn't like how he do didbusiness.
Joey Romero (04:24):
So I guess that's what I was gonna get to is that
you learned the ropes, you know,while you were there, but you
also learned that it didn't fitthe person that you were, you
know, the way they did thingsand and the way they just kind
of were, right.
Bruce Norris (04:41):
You know, I can't even say I learned the ropes.
What I learned I already Ia price that's at 65% of value.
(05:01):
So that's what I did, well, andthere was a lot of things Joey,
when I left that company, therewere big holes. I understood how
to get a yes answer. I didn'tunderstand how to do a lot of
stuff that you think, okay, oh,now you have to fix your house?
What? So that was a lot easierif I was wholesaling it to the
(05:23):
company I worked for, but therewas a transaction where I was
just really disappointed at theoutcome. Bought it from a lady
that had lived in neighborhoodsfor 30 years. Neighbors were so
sorry she was leaving. Theythrew a big block party, and
then the guy didn't close, andso she had all her furniture
sent to Northern California. Shehad to bring it all back face a
(05:44):
neighbor. She wasn't going. That
Joey Romero (05:54):
Absolutely disappointing. So now, from
correct me, if I'm wrong, fromwhat I understand, you know, you
worked and you had some success.
You bought houses and you endedup doing your your first million
dollars in a big transactionwhere you were, you know, you
we've heard the story about howjust irritated me. I said, I
don't want to deal with theyou lost, but what I want to get
to is the next time you went outon a strategy, it didn't really
(06:18):
work out. I'm talking about Palmcompany that does that.
Springs, and that caught you offguard. And is that really what
sets you on this market timingjourney, like not knowing why
things weren't working?
Bruce Norris (06:33):
That was my first glimpse at it. You know, it was
interesting because I had thesuccess on the 50 building lots
that was right outside of thetrack of houses I had a problem
with. So I I had a milliondollar success selling 50 lots,
and six months later, couldn'tsell three houses, and you're
going, 'Okay, well, that was myfirst inkling'. But a few years
(06:55):
later, there was a house on a VAlist, and that was really the
eye opening thing that had mejust scratching my head. You
know, at the time, I had alreadybeen doing it for over 10 years,
and this was a house on the VAlist. Gonna try and remember,
Oh, well, I remember because,Aaron's car. Remember I was,
(07:17):
that's it was Aaron graduated,and I bought his car for 15
seven, and then I buy a threebedroom house in Riverside that
would rent for 500 bucks, for13-3. And what bothered me about
it, it was on a VA list, whichmeans all the people that would
occupy it got to bid first. Noone did, and their asking price
was 15. So no one would buy ahouse for 15 that rents for 500
(07:42):
that was first, wait a minute,and then I was the only bidder.
And I knew the formula, so mybid for the 15 grand house was
13-3, and I was the only bidder.
And it was that moment that Ijust thought, I have no idea
what happened to real estate.
(08:02):
How could you have, you know,the momentum that I could sell
50 building lots inside of, youknow, the timeframe I had, like,
a three or two month escrow, andI counted on being able to sell
all those lots that I did, andthen it changes, where you
couldn't sell anything, and youhad to give it away or trade it
for a boat, which I did, by theway, so it just was that aha
(08:24):
moment, and I didn't start tolearn it as much as I wanted to
find the expert that had figuredit out. So I went to the library
and I looked up every articlefor 25 years about how real
estate works. You know, what'sthe timing of that type of
thing? I just found nobody thatgave me a complete answer. I
found a lot of people that saidthings after the fact that
(08:46):
actually disagreed with whatthey said before the fact. And
so I thought, okay, maybe youcan't figure it out, but I'm
going to try. And that was theimpetus to try and figure out,
and it was probably the biggestthing for me was I didn't have
an agenda to be somebody. Iwanted to know where to put my
money safely and know when toget the heck out of it. Because
(09:10):
you're usually in a reallyeuphoric state where it's about
the same time you used to say,I'll see you later. It's really
hard to do. And you also oughtto say, I'm going to go all in.
When everybody hates realestate, they're fearful. But you
can do that with charts, if youunderstand them. Can you do it
emotionally? No.
Joey Romero (09:29):
So, so once you figured it out, and you're like,
Okay, I think I've got this, atleast this first go at it. I've
got to figure it out. What madeyou decide to give it away?
We'll not give it away, but youknow.
Bruce Norris (09:42):
You know, I really wrote that report to help my
dad. That was the originalthought. Is that I wanted my dad
to do better in retirement, thatI knew where he's headed, and so
I wanted him to understand hecould buy a rental house, and it
probably would work out reallywell. And so that was kind of
the gist of it. You know, I wasalready speaking in front of
(10:04):
some real estate places, and sothat was, I had that door open.
And of course, it's interestingwhen you write a very happy
report at the bottom of amarket, you're just wonderful.
Joey Romero (10:17):
People can't wait to book you up.
Bruce Norris (10:19):
Yeah, then they don't believe a word of it. But,
you know, I said prices weregoing to double and but they
were just happy it was going todo something other than go down
or be dead.
Joey Romero (10:27):
That was an ask you. I was going to ask you,
what was your prediction andthen what was the result? So,
what was the result?
Bruce Norris (10:33):
Well, California, come back, yeah. Predicted
prices would double in eightyears, and it doubled in seven
and then tripled in nine. And Iwas like, well, mathematically,
that makes no sense to me. Andso we had an event where we had
hundreds of people, and I was,we were at an affordability
(10:56):
number that had never beenattained before. We were at 13.
We always stopped at 17 and I,in front of an audience, I asked
a lender, 'Stated income loans,where does the stated income
number come from?'
Joey Romero (11:12):
So we're jumping ahead, though now, right?
Because this is, it tripled. Butnow you're starting to talk
about why you, why you createdthe next one, which was, right?
Bruce Norris (11:22):
Like I got, I got concerned that, okay, how did we
even get to this price level?
Because it had never, it neverhappened. Well, as soon as she
answered the question, I said,'Stated income, loans, where do
you get the number of theincome?' She said, 'Oh, we just
make it up'. And there had to beat least a 42nd pause as I
contemplated what that meant,because that was an acceptance
(11:45):
of an, in the whole industry. Wedo not care that the people
actually make the money and thepeople that buy the loans from
us don't care either. We justwant to fund a loan. And I went
it, 'Whoa!'
Joey Romero (12:02):
And I'll tell you, I'll tell you from the consumer
side, because that's the firsttime I ever bought a house, was
in 2002 and so did I understandwhat was going on? No, but my
real estate agent brought in alender that just filled out that
stack of papers, right? 'Oh,initial here. Oh, that's just
saying this. Oh, it's, yeah.
Nobody stays in this, you know,you're probably gonna refi in
(12:24):
five years', you know, I didn'treally understand what, what I
was signing. I was like, 'Well,'Okay, I qualify?
Me? Okay, let's do it', youI get to buy a house?'
know. And so that's how it was.
So I imagine there was probablymillions of people that were in
that same boat, you know.
Bruce Norris (12:39):
Yeah.
For sure. And forthree years, four years, it was
an exciting thing you did,right? 2000 2006 was cool.
Joey Romero (12:52):
I bought, I bought at 202 in Corona.
Bruce Norris (12:56):
Right.
Joey Romero (12:56):
202,000 and like all my neighbors were talking
about, 'Well, we're refi, we'rerefinancing'. 'Why are you
refinancing it?' 'Well, becausethey're worth 300 now'. 'Oh,
they're worth 450 now? Oh,they're worth 550 now?' And so
all my neighbors were just refiin to the hilt, you know. And I
had a wife that stayed at home,and she was like, 'No, we're not
(13:19):
doing that. We're not doingthat. We don't need a new car.
We don't need a boat, you know,I just want, I just want to be
home with the kids and, not loseour house'.
Bruce Norris (13:28):
Okay.
Joey Romero (13:28):
And so we didn't, and luck to leave we didn't,
because, you know, whileeverybody's, you know, values
still went down even below whatI had, we had, I didn't have to
lose my house because, buteverybody around me did.
Bruce Norris (13:43):
Yeah, oh, that was a crazy, a crazy time.
Joey Romero (13:47):
So all that stuff's happening. When did you actually
decide, like, 'Hey, this isgonna hit the fan, and I want to
figure out how bad it's gonnabe.'
Bruce Norris (13:55):
Well, oh, I think at '05 or '06, we wrote a report
that was...
Joey Romero (14:01):
Yeah, you wrote in '06. But you know, that had to,
there hadn't been some lead upon why you did it
Bruce Norris (14:07):
Well, but we wrote a report before the crash that
had...
Joey Romero (14:11):
You did.
Bruce Norris (14:11):
Yeah, and it was basically telling investors,
this is on its way, and that'swhen we went to take everybody
to other states to buy houses.
So we had a lot of Californiainvestors selling their stuff
and going to Texas. That was thestate that I felt was the
safest, because it virtuallywent up when California had gone
up and gone crazy. Texas hadbarely moved. You can still buy
(14:33):
a house for 120 grand. It wasnew. And so we had a bunch of
properties that we bought. Butthen when the number kept on
getting crazier, that's when wewrote the crash and said, 'Okay,
this is really going to beugly'.
Joey Romero (14:50):
What was the prediction for California Crash?
Bruce Norris (14:54):
There was a range.
There was, you know, if you getthis kind of a number of
foreclosures, it'd be this, butit was, it was a good half off
is, was...
Joey Romero (15:05):
What ended up being the result?
Wow. Would you saythat this time period as
Bruce Norris (15:07):
It was a little more than half, not much more
than half. But that was, thatwas unbelievably devastating to
people that owned real estate,because they kind of did what
you said. As equity grew, theyrefined it, and so they were
pulling out stuff. If they hadstayed maybe with the original
loan, they might have survivedit. But was also going on, Joey,
(15:30):
which is really devastating toprices, was the market became
dominated by lender ownedproperties, and the lenders were
very stubborn at first. Yeah, wewere all 400 we're going to ask
for 350 and so we hadrelationships with these REO
agents, and they asked us tooffer them 100 grand, just to
smack the lender upside the headand go, you aren't going to get
(15:53):
300 or 200 but they didn't do itright away. What happened,
though, the building departmenthad nothing to do, so no one
could build a house, right? Madeno sense, but those people were
employed with nothing to do. Sowhat did the builder or the like
Marino Valley people that workfor the city, they inspected
(16:14):
REOs, and they find them $1,000an infraction a day. Now most of
these lenders weren't inCalifornia, so they would get an
inspection and say, you have agreen pool?You have a broken
window? You have a garage doorthat's cracked? Starting Monday,
devastating as it was, free wasthe biggest wealth, generational
that'll be three grand a day,and it would go to 100 grand.
And then they couldn't go beyondthat. Lenders freaked out
(16:37):
because they weren't getting the150. So we started buying
properties in Moreno Valley for70, 80 grand. There was one that
actual the lender fine was morethan the purchase price, and
they had to write a check to getrid of the house that they had a
300 grand loan.
(17:06):
wealth creator that you had inyour lifetime?
Only because I gotout. You know, when I wrote the
report, we had, we had a trackof homes that we're building,
and we made sure that was donein time, and those were all
done. Had I not gotten out ofCalifornia, the only thing I
(17:27):
kept was my residence, but I hadsome rentals, and I had those
other houses. I had 100 totalhouses I sold in 2005 and six,
and that's the only reason Isurvived it, because I had made
a profit, I had sent it on thefine line and, you know, waited
for the prices to come down.
Well, who's been...
Joey Romero (17:50):
I've heard from a lot of people that did the same
thing because they followed you.
Bruce Norris (17:56):
Yeah, that was scary, though. You know, it's
interesting again, the mood of,when you have a report called
the California Comeback andeverybody's depressed about the
real estate market, they love tohear you speak when you're at
the peak of the market, and youwrite a California Crash, when
everybody's making money and youcan't do anything wrong, that's
a very different reception.
You're like, 'What are youtalking about? Man, I have
(18:18):
listings that sell for hours'.
Yeah, that's not wonderful.
Joey Romero (18:25):
I've heard you talk about your hairdresser. You
know, everybody's jumping realestate...
Bruce Norris (18:28):
...three of them in one year. Well, oh, that's
often.
Joey Romero (18:33):
So I was, I was doing insurance for 10 years
between 2004 and 2014.
Bruce Norris (18:40):
Yeah.
Joey Romero (18:40):
Well, in 2008, guess what? Every application
that we got in to sell insurancewas an ex-realtor. They were
just left the real estateindustry. They're trying to
start over, but.
Bruce Norris (18:55):
The guy that was the biggest guy in Moreno Valley
that had REO listings by themany hundreds, some almost 1000
I would be there to speak totheir office, and they would go
over their monthly numbers,okay? And it would be like,
'Okay, this guy has 70 closedtransactions. Second place,
(19:16):
Doris with one'. It wasn'tanything.
Joey Romero (19:22):
Yeah.
Bruce Norris (19:24):
And by the way, that agent took our seminar, and
made relationship with all thoseagents, or all those companies,
before they had foreclosures.
Joey Romero (19:36):
So, all right, so after that, you know, once the
dust settled, people wereactually getting really active.
Got to, you know, buy somehouses on the cheap, but there
was a point, where your yournext time report was in 2012 and
it was called All In or Fold.
Why was that a big deal and thatin that time frame?
Bruce Norris (19:59):
Well, we had really started deteriorating
price in '08, and it just wentdown, and then it stayed there.
So from 2008-2009 lot of theprice damage was done, but now
you're at a price that's halfand you don't have, you don't
have any of swing. It's justcamping out there. And it's
(20:19):
camping out there with peoplegetting paid eight grand to buy
one. So my daughter Sarah had aneight grand check from the
government that she got so shecould buy a $350,000 for 100
grand. That's how much they weremotivated to try and get
somebody back into wanting realestate, okay? And it just kept
(20:42):
on sitting there, and the pricefrom the national number to the
California number had never beenthat close, and I just played
devil's advocate. I wanted toknow, and maybe it's over. Maybe
the differential from Californiato the national number is not
going to be there anymore. So Istudied all that, and I came out
with the opposite conclusion,that it's all in and as a
(21:06):
lender, we added, we created aneight year program so people
could buy in 2012 and finance itall the way to 2020 and I'd have
to say we created our fair shareof multi millionaires doing it.
Joey Romero (21:17):
But ultimately, what came out of the report was
that, yes, it would, it would,it would go up again.
Bruce Norris (21:24):
Yes, it would escalate. And as you know, the
Mood-O-Meter chart that we have,that Mood-O-Meter is very
gradual in process. You don'tget euphoric in 2012 you're
still afraid in 2012 and 2013you feel a little better in 2014
and then by 2018-2019 okay,we're losing people that are
(21:47):
arrogant. But it is, it's aprocess. Because especially when
you sell properties, yourealize, okay, I don't have any
multiple offers anymore. Andwhen it was in the heyday, you
knew by noon you were going tohave seven offers and you were
going to sell it. That's a verybig difference in confidence
level of what you can get, youknow.
Joey Romero (22:07):
The next time that you jump back into the market
timing report, there was one inbetween. There was category
five, but the one where youreally made some headlines is
one that you thought was goingto be your, you know what? I'm
this is the last one I'm gonnado. And it was 2% mortgages, 40
(22:29):
trillion in debt and othersurprise endings. That was, I
remember that because that's thefirst time I ever went to an
anything that was Norris Groupevent. Okay, you know, Aaron.
Aaron had asked me, like, Hey,are you interested in coming
out? If you are, like, come onout. Take a look and see if this
is something that you'd want tobe a part of. And so that was my
(22:49):
introduction to The NorrisGroup.
Bruce Norris (22:51):
Okay.
Joey Romero (22:51):
And so I came in and I saw, you know, it was like
400 people at the conventioncenter, and it was, it was, it
was you doing your thing upthere, and it was an hour of
Aaron doing his, you know,innovation in real estate and
what's coming and, and so I wasexcited, but that was February
4, 2017 so how cool was it toactually see that two point,
(23:16):
whatever number come tofruition? Because...
Bruce Norris (23:19):
Yeah.
Joey Romero (23:19):
You were early. You were early on that. I mean, you
came out and said, hey, it'sgonna be, yeah.
Bruce Norris (23:24):
No, yeah. Well, first of all, most people
thought, 'Well, of course,that's just really a dangerous
thing to say, Bruce, becausethat'll never happen', you know.
So it's interesting. John Burns,you know who he is. He's got a
big following at the buildersand all that. And he and I are
exchanging emails as the 10 yearT-Bill goes goes below 1% which
(23:50):
is was crazy, and that made thethe mortgage rate go below
three. That's such a significantevent because of the safety it
created. So you know, one of thethings that the event that we'll
have is there's a chart thatshows 40% of all real estate,
(24:12):
residential real estate, isowned, free and clear, and
another 40% which is like up to80% has a mortgage that's under
five it's just sort of like youhave built in safety for a ton,
a ton of the property, verylittle of it is at risk. And
that's why, you know, if you goon YouTube, oh my god, you know,
(24:33):
foreclosures are up 50%, well,what did they go from two to
three? In other words, it's arounding error in 2000's and
let's say eight at the worst, itwas 70% of the California
market. 7 of 10 sales werelender owned properties, and it
was the value of what you had.
Well, now it's not even, even inFlorida. Florida is like, 'Oh my
gosh. Florida is terrible'.
(24:57):
Well, Florida's REOs and shortsales did not make up 1% of the
closings. They do not impact thevalue of what you have now, what
does? Okay? You can have newhomes that are having a hard
time selling, and they have alender that has a 12 month loan.
(25:17):
And so, okay, I'd like you toget paid back, please. That type
of thing. As far as the normalperson fearing that foreclosure
going to dominate, there is justno way.
Joey Romero (25:28):
All right, everybody that's going to do it
for part one with Bruce Norrisas we talk about his journey
through market timing. Be sureto tune in next week as we get
into his latest coming nextyear, in February of 2026 Beyond
Uncharted (25:43):
What's next has never happened. Tune in to hear about
why he decided to write anotherreport.
Narrator (25:50):
For more information on hard money loans, trust deed
investing, and upcoming eventswith The Norris group. Check out
thenorrisgroup.com. For moreinformation on passive investing
through the DBL Capital RealEstate Investment Fund, please
visit dblapital.com.
Joey Romero (26:10):
The Norris Group originates and services loans in
California and Florida underCalifornia DRE license 01219911.
Florida mortgage lender license1577 and NMLS license 1623669.
For more information on hardmoney lending go to
thenorrisgroup.com and click thehard money tab.
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