Investing in California: 4 Strategies for Success in Real Estate & Insurance

John Harcar (00:01.752)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Cory Neubauer. Hope I got that right. and what we’re gonna, what we’re gonna talk about, you know, besides Cory’s journey in business and in real estate, we’re going to talk about, you know, how important it is to really educate others, you know, really share your expert expertise with others because there’s so much misinformation out there. You know, we want to make sure that we help guide people to the right, to right ending.

Cory Neubauer (00:09.752)
You sure did.

John Harcar (00:30.022)
Remember guys at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, I mean really all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their business. And we do it because we have the tools and resources to grow exponentially the business that they want to grow, which in turn helps them live that incredible life that they’re looking to live. Corey, man, welcome to our show.

Cory Neubauer (00:50.85)
Hey, thanks for having us. I’m excited to be here. Let’s dig into this, right?

John Harcar (00:55.674)
Yeah, I’m excited to go about our topic, you know, you know, with our mastermind and with what we do and the people I talk to, I love to try to give as much of my knowledge as I can, because like you said, you know, on our pre call, so much information misinformation out there. But before we get into that, okay, tell our audience a little bit about you, you know, kind of your background, how you get into real estate, what you’re doing today, and you know, what brought you what brought you to today?

Cory Neubauer (01:21.166)
Yeah, no, definitely. I appreciate it. So yeah, I came across your podcast a while ago. And I just like what you’re doing in your intro, what you said of bringing in other service providers. I think sometimes, hey, you’re an investor. You’re only talking to investors. Or you’re in this party, you only talk to this. So a larger pool, I think, is so good to have a different frame of reference. So Courtney Bauer with Next Hero Insurance. we focus on a large Homeowners Association insurance in California and a lot of the Western states.

You know, for us in our quote, my journey, right? I’ve been in commercial real estate. worked for CBRE for quite a few years, kind of ran around the country doing a lot of commercial stuff, working for some large corporate 100 companies. So I’ve kind of seen it all. And a few years ago, kind of got tired of traveling and, you know, got into the insurance space, which has been really kind of interesting. And now with insurance just skyrocketing, especially in California, right? We’ve had the recent fires. I mean, it’s

John Harcar (02:19.12)
Yeah.

Cory Neubauer (02:20.976)
crazy. The numbers on those fires are astronomical. think there’s going to be something upwards of $200 billion in losses. So this is just cratering these markets. I Florida’s had their issues, right? I think they’re kind of coming out the other side of it. You know, we’re kind of just getting into it. So from an investor standpoint, I think it’s really interesting. I kind of want to dig in with you, John, is how are your clients kind of dealing with that? you know, insurance used to be an afterthought. Oh, go get the insurance. Now we’re seeing

people having to make decisions on particular properties based off how much the insurance is.

John Harcar (02:58.598)
That’s 100 % right. mean, you just nailed it. Those numbers rising really make us have to reevaluate, reconsider if it’s viable, if it is a good investment. Does it work now? And it’s been a…

Cory Neubauer (03:14.05)
Yeah, and yeah, good.

No, no, yeah, we’ve seen that. mean, it’s literally, you know, it could be double or triple the price based off of what it is. In California, we have the fire risk, right? So it could be, you know, a mile down the road. And it’s so substantially different. and it’s just been, it’s taxing.

all around, is from an investor standpoint, you want to have the best return on investment as possible. it’s eroding that dramatically. what do you, John, what do you see your teams doing? How are they kind of tackling that or looking at that?

John Harcar (03:56.314)
Well, I mean, once again, it’s just, we have to factor those higher numbers in and it just, it’s, it’s making things tighter. you know, I don’t know if there’s really a pivot around it, you know, for, for what I mean, I’m, not affected by it as much, you know, I’m not doing business in those areas, but you know, guys that are doing business in those areas that I know are, know, they’re just having to reevaluate a lot of stuff. It’s like how, how maybe our, maybe their exits might be a little bit different. Maybe they, you know, I don’t know. So there’s a lot of.

discomfort you could say with having those higher numbers and it is affecting their business.

Cory Neubauer (04:31.854)
Yeah, we were talking about teaching, right? Or, you know, educating, right? My mom was a teacher for many years and she always said that, you know, do you have the heart of a teacher? Right. Do you listen? Do you want do you care? Do you want to understand? We talk in our business like, you know, we’re going to we’re not just going to tell you what to do. We’re to walk hand in hand. Right. We’re going to walk with you. And I think that’s really what we’ve been doing lately is how do we walk with you, understand your unique

John Harcar (04:36.55)
Yeah.

Cory Neubauer (04:59.822)
perspective or where you’re at and what you need help with and then how can we help guide you so that you can be educated, right? Obviously, your audience is very educated, very savvy, but things continue to change, particularly here in California, right? We have a lot of regulation, and many states do, right? So it’s, know, these open markets are not open. They’re being, they’re being coerced by the regulation and you see carriers are leaving the states.

John Harcar (05:17.158)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Neubauer (05:29.776)
leaving these states and not insuring. So yeah, it’s going to continue to be a challenging sector and money’s more expensive to get. we kind of call it the perfect storm, especially here in California, right? We’ve got rising rates, we’ve got catastrophic losses and inflation. Yeah, it’s an interesting one for sure.

John Harcar (05:53.574)
It’s funny because the podcast I did right before this was a realtor in Malibu. And we talked, you know, all about the fires and how it affected the market and the shutdown and people that who weren’t even properties that weren’t even damaged or affected have to leave because of the access point and access part, right? You got PCH, you know, so or the Canyon roads.

Cory Neubauer (06:00.919)
John Harcar (06:19.142)
So, you know, yeah, it’s been a huge effect and it’s just sad to see. mean, I remember surfing in those, you know, in those waters right there.

Cory Neubauer (06:26.126)
Yeah, you’re saying you’re a California boy. So yeah, you you you’ve seen that. I mean, yeah, to give you some context to write the California the fires up in northern California. That was 2018. The campfires. think it’s yeah, there’s something like 13000 or about 12000 structures that were that were destroyed eight years later. Only 3500 have been rebuilt. So right there is the scar that’s going to be here for so long.

John Harcar (06:28.399)
Yes.

John Harcar (06:36.826)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, they can’t fire.

John Harcar (06:50.415)
I read that number, I think.

Cory Neubauer (06:54.894)
Not just a financial scar but to your point right there’s some houses that didn’t get burned But if all your neighbors have burned down like do you want to live in that community? But if you’re raising a family are you gonna wait eight years for everything to come back? So yeah, it’s it’s saying we see raw land being sold now because they just don’t want you know It’s just too much regulation. I think I was listening to something. There’s 12 government Agencies that you have to go through to rebuild a property right like it’s hard enough right let alone having to go through the coastal

John Harcar (07:07.398)
Mm.

John Harcar (07:20.75)
Yeah, that’s a stupid-

Cory Neubauer (07:25.068)
and this and this and all these things. So I think it’s gonna highlight, regulation is good to a certain extent, but when you overregulate and we’re in California, we’re in the most, let’s just state in the most regulation. So from an investor standpoint, it just continues to be more and more challenging. But we pay the sunshine tax for sure.

John Harcar (07:47.014)
Of course, yeah you do. So tell us a little bit about what does your business look like today? What’s your primary focus?

Cory Neubauer (07:54.572)
Yeah, no, for sure. appreciate that. Again, we focus on homeowners associations. So large condos, communities throughout California. So I think there’s something like 55,000 HOAs in California. So we have a little bit of work to do there for sure. So yeah, our big thing is finding alternate solutions because those rates are going up so high. How can these associations tweak their policy or maybe re-look at things?

and be able to find something that’s more affordable. Because these HOAs, don’t have an unlimited budget and everything keeps going up. that’s kind of our jam right now is really trying to, do we rejig this with decreasing carriers that want to write this stuff? that’s been a big part of us right now is we’re just trying to, how do we find a more cost effective solution in this crazy market? So a lot of education that we

We do work with lot of large property management companies, direct boards, everything. it’s education, education, education is everything. Because I think when you bring the value first, and then the business will come. So that’s kind of our approach.

John Harcar (09:02.544)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (09:08.27)
Yeah, sure. So, and you might have mentioned this and I might have missed it. So you were doing commercial real estate. What prompted you or what drove you or what need did you see to follow this path to do insurance with HOAs? And then also as a second question, what other solutions are there for HOAs? What other alternate things are there out there?

Cory Neubauer (09:33.144)
That’s so yeah, so on the first one, right? It’s actually a marriage, right? So my wife.

John Harcar (09:39.951)
Okay.

Cory Neubauer (09:40.78)
was in insurance. So I did commercial real estate. She was insurance. Her father started a farmer’s insurance, right? So I saw that I’m kind of an operational guy for sure. So I was helping out their business in the background. And then when the transition happened, you know, in commercial real estate, you’re working for a big company, you switched to something else. It just, it just seemed like the right move. So kind of got myself up to speed with all the insurance stuff and realized, Hey, there’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of help that could be done here.

John Harcar (09:45.03)
All right.

John Harcar (10:02.31)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Neubauer (10:10.784)
So that’s that’s what we did a couple years ago because of the crazy insurance market. My father-in-law is a farmers agent which is captive. He can only sell that product. So I my wife and I rolled out and created our own independent insurance brokerage. So that’s for the past two years. Next tier insurance is what we’ve been working on. We recently started a podcast as well. Again education. We call it Infotainment right. Little funny thing. I mean you want to talk about the most the two most boring

John Harcar (10:27.29)
Now, cool.

John Harcar (10:39.078)
Info-Theme. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cory Neubauer (10:40.64)
spaces, homeowners associations and insurance. mean, everyone hates their HOA and they don’t pay their taxes or pay their premiums. that’s what we’re trying to bring. Yeah, we’re trying to bring a little personality and say, hey, it’s not the funnest thing. I think we can make a difference. Having a different policy, I mean, I’m working on one right now.

John Harcar (10:45.573)
Right.

John Harcar (10:49.19)
The tax guy is pretty close up there.

Cory Neubauer (11:05.806)
They last year they were at 60,000 now it’s at 750,000 and we’re going to come in at 600,000. So right. still, it’s still a 10 X, but.

John Harcar (11:15.225)
Yeah.

Cory Neubauer (11:16.002)
We’re saving them $150,000. So when you can do things like that and work hard and find solutions and negotiate, that’s where, okay, you are making a difference and you’re helping these communities be able to sustain their properties, right? Because we see a lot of HOAs are having to defer regular maintenance just to pay their insurance premium, right?

John Harcar (11:39.632)
Exactly.

Cory Neubauer (11:40.542)
So it’s crazy what they have to decide. Hey, do we replace the roof or do we pay next year’s premium? It’s getting a little crazy. But we have a good time with them. We have a great team. we’re just trying to get out there, get the word out, and kind of change the whole view of HOAs and how they’re working. So we work with a lot of property management companies that we see are starting to see that. They’re using more AI.

John Harcar (12:09.414)
Mm.

Cory Neubauer (12:10.416)
They’re trying to communicate more because I think you know we all get frustrated when there’s no communication Right if you know what the other person’s thinking or you can find the information out some of those those assumptions Go away because you can actually talk to the person or get to get the information you want So I think I think I’m hopeful that the the future of this is more transparency and I always say transparency builds trust and they’re gonna say okay These people aren’t trying to screw you they just have a lot of other things going on So how do you how do you get information out and make it

John Harcar (12:16.138)
yeah.

John Harcar (12:26.256)
Yeah.

Cory Neubauer (12:40.336)
easy for people to understand and I think then that that brings down the the temperature in the room if you know what I mean.

John Harcar (12:46.598)
Sure, no, 100%. So as you and your wife started this, you said two years, Two years. What struggles did you run into as you guys got started? Maybe getting your name out, building your client base. What kind of things tripped you up a little bit?

Cory Neubauer (12:51.533)
Yes.

Cory Neubauer (12:57.537)
Well.

Cory Neubauer (13:02.466)
Believe it or not, it was the carrier. So when we’re a broker, so we’re kind of like being a product, you’re selling different products. So you have to get authorization to sell these products or get appointments with these carriers. That was our biggest challenge because they already had enough brokers out there brokering all of their policies or different carriers. So that’s been the biggest challenge. Luckily for us, we’ve been in this space for a long time. have good relationships. It’s easy to go that, but it’s like, can you deliver that product? So that’s been our biggest challenge.

John Harcar (13:11.174)
Mm-hmm.

Cory Neubauer (13:32.382)
and there’s some misconceptions about farmers agents and us and are you are you trying to control business things like that. So we’ve been kind of fighting that but you know what you fall down and you get back up and you do it again and next time you fall down it doesn’t hurt as much and then you learn with sharp edges and you move this way and that way. Exactly right. Or you just get it.

John Harcar (13:50.298)
Or you learn how to fall. Then you learn how to fall.

Cory Neubauer (13:54.22)
You get a padded vest like I like to wear so can take more hits. But no, been good. I’ve always kind had that entrepreneurial spirit. And now being able to own your own business and affect change and being small enough to be agile and make those changes. I’ve always worked for really large companies, which is great because you have all that horsepower, but it’s kind of like moving a boulder, right? It takes forever. So now with a smaller team, we can sit down, brainstorm, and

John Harcar (13:58.661)
Right.

John Harcar (14:08.294)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (14:18.042)
Yeah.

Cory Neubauer (14:24.184)
and completely change directions and pivot. So I think that’s been a big advantage for us and that keeps it exciting every day because it’s like, wait, what can we tackle today overall? So yeah.

John Harcar (14:38.66)
Alright, I got a very serious question and I need a very serious and honest answer. Who’s really the boss? Come on! Who’s the boss? You or your wife? Who’s the boss?

Cory Neubauer (14:43.662)
I don’t know about that.

Cory Neubauer (14:50.498)
That’s, you know what? My wife has said this from a long time ago and it’s great because my wife is, she’s the yin to my yang, but she’s like, he controls the head, but she controls the neck.

So as long as I’m going in the right direction, it’s good. And that’s the best way to put it. And I know that she’s right behind me, but if I’m not going the right way, she’s gonna let me know. So you can leave as long as you want. Yeah, so it’s great. I met my wife a little later in life and she’s the best. She lets me be me and we compliment each other. And I think when you have a team like that, personally and then professionally as well,

John Harcar (15:02.726)
Mmm.

John Harcar (15:07.568)
That is, that’s great.

John Harcar (15:13.712)
She’s gonna, she can turn you. Yeah, she can turn you.

John Harcar (15:26.288)
I love that.

Cory Neubauer (15:32.288)
it gives you the fire. We spar all the time, it’s out of passion for that. we kind of each have our own areas of expertise, right? She’s the compliant. She’s in the nuts and the bolts. I’m out front. She doesn’t want to be out front, and I don’t want to be in the back. So it works.

John Harcar (15:52.09)
Same. Same with mine. Yeah, it’s, yep, same.

Cory Neubauer (15:55.534)
It works well. I’m like, stay in your lane, I’ll stay in my lane. And when we start to cross, it’s like, wait, don’t tell me what to do and I won’t tell you what to do. So it works. It works well, you know, and her parents are both in their business and she’s seen that growing up. She has a great work ethic and I’m blessed to have, you know, a partner and two beautiful children. So I got all the motivation in the world to get up every day and hit it as hard as I can. And that’s what we’re going to do.

John Harcar (16:04.132)
Exactly.

John Harcar (16:23.824)
God bless you, man. God bless you. I just like, I like to ask, yeah, I like to ask that question. I like to get some, I’ve never really heard, I’ve never really heard someone say like, you know, well, I’m the boss. Most of time it’s either she’s the boss or, you know, we both do it very, kind of like how you laid it out. And I know it’s like me and my wife, kind of like how you said it, I’m the out front. She does not want to be anywhere near that front, but she is the more,

Cory Neubauer (16:25.488)
That’s a good question. I like that because it is.

Cory Neubauer (16:43.501)
Yeah.

John Harcar (16:52.582)
Yeah, the administrative, the tedious, the stuff I don’t like that you have to calculate her exactly.

Cory Neubauer (16:54.21)
Calculated, right? Yep.

Which is so, which for me is so amazing because before meeting her, I didn’t do those things well, right? And now that you have that partner that wants to attack those things that you don’t like or that aren’t great at, I mean, I feel like I have an even bigger superpower, right? Because it’s like, wait a second, I got someone to back me up with this. So that’s been, that’s the fun part for sure. speaking of things, she’s calling me right now.

John Harcar (17:22.106)
Very cool. What do you see? well, there you go. Tell her I’m on a podcast. Leave me alone. What trends do you see or what things do you see in your world that are happening that might be changing or coming down the pipe?

Cory Neubauer (17:38.018)
Yeah, no, I mean, on the insurance side, especially here in California, right, we have, you know, I think we’re a couple of years behind Florida and some of these other markets that have really experienced a catastrophic situation from either, you know, weather regulation, whatever it might be. So we’re still we’re still kind of in the thick of it. We are hoping we’re getting to the top of the crest before the L.A. fires.

Okay, hey, the carriers are understanding the markets. They’re getting a little more comfortable. They see that they can kind of forecast what’s happening. So they were a little more comfortable. And now this has kind of thrown another whole wrench into it. So I think we’re going to continue to have uncertainty. We see somewhere at least for the next 12 to 24 months.

is anything going to fundamentally change. It’s still the property costs money. It costs this much to replace it. It’s a multiplier. That’s how much you’re going to pay for insurance. for us, it’s not the thing. a lot of people are asking, oh, well, can the state come in and do this? You can’t regulate your way out of paying lower prices. There’s just, right? There’s like, no matter. then I always say, if you want, my line’s always, if you want something done right, you let the government do it, right? So what are we going to put this

in the hands of the government and they’re going to do it better, cheaper and faster now. So I think it’s hopefully competition, you know, I think competition breeds, you know, lower prices. So if there’s less regulation and you let those carriers come back across the country, right.

that they can then now be competitive and then they’ll bring there’ll be competition and that’ll hopefully at least level the prices that we’re never going back down to where we were. Same thing with gas. Same thing with housing prices. Right. I mean where you’re at five ten years ago. I mean houses were half the price. Right. Are they going to go back down to that. No way. So yeah. Yeah. Or a third. Right. Well yeah. Now I know all those people that live there they’re not so happy with you. Right. You raise all the prices. Right. Yeah.

John Harcar (19:27.12)
A third, a third of the price.

John Harcar (19:36.678)
No, no, yeah, really, right? I appreciate you coming on here, Cory, and sharing all that stuff, man. That’s some good stuff. For those that are listening, maybe they’re in the area, maybe they just have more questions on HOA insurance or any of that type of stuff, how do they get in touch? What’s the best way to reach out?

Cory Neubauer (19:43.66)
Of course,

Cory Neubauer (19:56.568)
Yeah, no, perfect. appreciate that. Yeah, so we, you know, we’re, we’re focused mainly on the, you know, California, Arizona, Nevada, but we have, we have great referral partners for everything. We’re always happy to answer a question. think relationships are everything, right? You might not need you today, but you know, there, there’s always a need. So for us, it’s next here insurance. So it’s any X T I E R I N S next here, insurance.com. So, you can, you can get us there. we got a thing. You can look at us on social.

new next level next level living podcast is out there. We’re starting to put some episodes John. We probably don’t have as many as you have. I mean how many you up to John? How many how many you have a lot?

John Harcar (20:36.678)
Probably not. A lot. A lot. I don’t know, a lot. mean, just to give you an idea, because I do them on sporadic days. I lay them out. But like today, I had five.

Cory Neubauer (20:48.194)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well.

John Harcar (20:49.636)
Yeah, so it’s just, well, we have a lot of people that want to be on the podcast. That’s the cool part, right? We have a lot of content to bring our listeners.

Cory Neubauer (20:57.066)
That’s good problem to have. Well, keep doing what you’re doing. We appreciate it. I’m definitely learning from you just as we learn from everybody. again, to be here. We got a chance to catch up. And let’s keep this conversation going for sure.

John Harcar (21:06.566)
Yeah.

John Harcar (21:14.594)
Yeah, definitely. And guys, we’ll put all his contact information down in the show notes. So if any of you are out there, you want to reach out, maybe want to have a conversation, please do. Once again, Corey, thank you for coming on and spending your time with us. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show and we will see you on the next one. Cheers.