Helping Military Families Buy Smarter with Must Wants

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Erika speaks with Scott Hayford about his journey in real estate, particularly focusing on how he helps military families navigate the complexities of home buying and investing. Scott shares insights on the unique challenges faced by military families, the innovative approach of his platform Must Wants, and the importance of understanding local markets for successful investments. He emphasizes the need for due diligence and the value of building a strong network in the real estate industry.

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Scott Hayford (00:00)
The essence or our patent is in visual collaborative decision making. And so one of the greatest challenges that ⁓ people sometimes don’t realize and it actually impacts communications is when you answer a list of questions, whether it’s a number of bedrooms or the location, there are certain factors in answering a list of questions. And part of that is my answer to one question may have a higher weight or higher priority than another question and answer.

When I answer, hey, I want to pool. Well, you may say I don’t want to pool, but are you locked in on not wanting a pool or is that more of a lower answer to you?

Erika (02:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Erika and today I’m thrilled to be joined with Scott Hayford. Scott, it’s awesome to have you on the show today.

Scott Hayford (02:22)
Thanks, I look forward to talking with you today.

Erika (02:24)
Yeah, yeah, I’m really excited to chat more about how you are helping military families with investing. you know, let’s jump on in and let’s start with what your journey was like. How did you get started in real estate?

Scott Hayford (02:39)
So through my father and my family, back at the beginning, back in the 80s, my father invested in property, so I got exposed to that. I actually helped ⁓ do some of the construction early on when he was investing in some land and then building homes and properties on those. So that was my initial exposure to it. And then upon joining the military, I ended up at West Point and had an econ professor that emphasized purchasing homes along the way.

every time you moved and so I took that advice and ⁓ it worked out quite well for me.

Erika (03:13)
Wow, that’s great. also thank you for your service, Scott.

So when it comes to following that strategy, what was that journey like? And when did you start to think, maybe this is my lane here?

Scott Hayford (03:27)
That’s an interesting one. We’ve consistently purchased homes along the way as, you know, life’s gone on and we’ve moved around. 19 moves obviously in the military and then a few more moves after that because my wife was military, so mil spouse. Creating the technology that we’re currently doing with Must Wants, that was somewhat of a pivot, but it was based off of those…

searches for homes and finding ways to work with, in this case, my spouse, but I’ve looked at using it for partners, right? So that we can both look for properties together and then more effectively and more ⁓ transparently discuss like, hey, why do you like this or why are you looking for this in a property? So that’s kind of where the foundation of Must Wants came from.

Erika (04:13)
Yeah, and you know what you’re doing is very unique. Can you go into more detail and you know what sets must wants apart from the rest?

Scott Hayford (04:24)
shirt.

The essence or our patent is in visual collaborative decision making. And so one of the greatest challenges that ⁓ people sometimes don’t realize and it actually impacts communications is when you answer a list of questions, whether it’s a number of bedrooms or the location, there are certain factors in answering a list of questions. And part of that is my answer to one question may have a higher weight or higher priority than another question and answer.

When I answer, hey, I want to pool. Well, you may say I don’t want to pool, but are you locked in on not wanting a pool or is that more of a lower answer to you?

So maybe that in the weight of things, you’d rather have a bigger yard, but no pool. But there’s aspects of that between you and I or three people or four people, say investors, if we’re all looking for properties together, how do those answers to those questions, how are they weighted? And so that’s the essence in the

that we have is the ability to actually weight those questions, which results in answers. But what we’re not doing is deleting any of the answers. ⁓ So in the case of houses, it’s not about saying, we’re gonna dismiss all two bedroom houses because we only want three. Well, what happens if that property happens to be on a great piece of land in the right location and it has everything else we were looking for? It just doesn’t have the number of bedrooms.

there’s a good chance we may say, you know what? The price is right. We’re going to buy it and add on a room or two rooms. And so that’s the essence of must wants is being able to organize those thoughts more effectively. So there’s more transparency in that conversation between the individuals and the realtor in this case, right? Having the realtor understand some of the nuances in that are happening. As one agent said, the pillow talk at 11 o’clock at night, when that conversation’s happening and the agent’s not present, it helps to all of sudden see

that they moved a house from number one to number 10. Well, what happened there? Why did that happen? ⁓ we didn’t like the commute. ⁓ we didn’t like the yard. we didn’t like the paint color. ⁓ You know, whatever those little moments happen that happen at late at night or early in the morning, the agent is now able to be more effective through that communication and as well as the partners.

Erika (07:25)
Absolutely, and I’m sure it provides a lot more clarity for everyone involved. Do you have any stories about how this powerful ecosystem that you’ve made, how it’s helped various families and groups?

Scott Hayford (07:38)
So yeah, so that’s one of the interesting things is the antidotes that happen from the being punched in the arm a couple of times by male spouses that ask where was this when we were moving? ⁓ Because a lot of times for military families, one member is in training, they’re deployed, they’re not paying attention to it because it’s too far out in their mind in the planning. But one of the spouses may have a very organized mindset and be planning out because they know the assignment and the movement is happening. And so

We get a lot of those little anecdotes of, know, this helped us kind of clarify that this was our number one house. And that’s part of what we’re trying to do is that reducing the buyer’s regret. Why did we choose this house? Well, this is why, right? It had the right number of bedrooms. It had the right yard. It had these other features that we were looking for. So we’ve gotten benefits from that. The other aspect of what we’re doing is the agent discovery. So all of our agents are vetted. They’ve moved before. They understand the military movement.

⁓ There are a lot of times real estate agents, know the location, they know the city, they know everything about it, but what they don’t know is when that military family shows up, they need to find a veterinarian, they need to find a hairdresser, they need to find a daycare. All of these other little things they have to do that a realtor that doesn’t move a lot or works with local residents more often, they may not be as exposed to some of the challenges for a military family relocating to a new location.

vet our agents. They don’t have to be military or veterans, but we do look for agents that have experience dealing with military families in relocation to help minimize that stress level that the families are going through when they’re trying to settle kids into schools and things like that.

Erika (09:24)
Absolutely. ⁓ With your tool, what would you say are some of the biggest opportunities that you see right now for investors or for people who are moving a lot and they know that they have to keep that in mind with whatever they purchase?

Scott Hayford (10:16)
So we’re working on several tools that help understand the median income in an area, understand crime, walkability, other factors that are involved with purchasing homes. So from an investment standpoint, especially for military families, if they’re looking at doing what we did in the 90s, which buy a home, move two years, buy a home, move in a year, buy a home, that ability to do that, it behooves them to make sure they’re buying in the right location. And a lot of times agents can’t talk about it, right? They can’t talk about schools. They can’t talk about crime.

in most states. And so what we’re providing is a visual mapping of those ranked homes inside, know, visually so that they can understand the crime may be questionable here. The schools, right? Am I in the right area? The median income, ⁓ you know, the prices of homes. ⁓ Realtor.com obviously has a great interface as far as the data they provide, but most families don’t know about that data. And does a realtor tell them about it? ⁓

It just depends on that level of expertise of that agent and how much they want to share. I’ve had agents tell me too much information is not good. Well, if you’re investing in properties, too much information is…

what you need, that you want more information, right? You want to make the smartest decision you can because in two years you’re leaving and you need to be able to rent that property or sell it. So from an investment standpoint, there’s a significant value in having that conversation and making sure you understand that the commitment you’re about to make on a property.

Erika (11:44)
Absolutely. ⁓ speaking of too much information, which is not too much information, what kind of advice would you pass on to our listener, Scott, when it comes to investing and building their portfolio? What do you think everyone needs to know?

Scott Hayford (12:01)
that real estate’s ⁓ regional, it’s local. Don’t listen to those that are out there talking about it’s an up market or down market. You don’t know. I have property in New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida. Well, where are you located, right? In the Florida market right now where I am, my houses are flat and declining because inventory’s going up and there’s not the influx of northerners coming into the space. If you go to Virginia and the Arlington area, those properties have been going up three,

to 5 percent, maybe a little bit more in some areas in the Arlington area. So they’re popping. So that’s huge thing for anyone in the investment, especially for military families when they sometimes they get afraid that they’re going to miss out. ⁓

You need to recognize that it is regional. So really talk to your local agents, your local experts. Don’t listen to a lot of the YouTube video folks that are, you know, the market and you’re going to miss and you need to buy now. Well, it depends on the region. I’ll tell you right now in upstate New York, it’s flat and it’s really tough and rentals are really tough up there. You know, I tell people what I get for rent in Arlington, Virginia, and they’re like, my God, that’s a year’s rent in upstate New York.

So that’s a big factor.

Erika (13:19)
I see that. ⁓ Scott, with your experience, I’m sure you know this, that every operator has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or you had to completely pivot. Can you share one of those moments on your journey and what you learned from it?

Scott Hayford (13:37)
⁓ So we held a note for a potential buyer of a property and ⁓ making sure you do your due diligence. Luckily we were able to ⁓

stop it from going through in time, but ensuring that that due diligence is done, even though that rush to exit a property sometimes that pressure to stop the loss, ⁓ you know, from happening for whatever reason, you know, revenue wise, that kind of thing. But doing the due diligence is ⁓ is definitely very important. I think AI is definitely going to help in some of that to make that more efficient and faster. So I have been seeing some use cases there that have helped us. ⁓

not only from ⁓ doing the due diligence, but also from a legal standpoint, right? Analyzing contracts, things like that.

Erika (14:25)
When it comes to due diligence, do you kind of have ⁓ like a checklist or something that if these red flags pop up, this is an absolute no-go?

Scott Hayford (14:36)
We didn’t before this, so we are now a little bit more ⁓ focused on that. you know, it’s a function of you can’t do everything, so you need to surround yourself with smart people. you know, mistakes happen, oversights, people get busy, life happens, and so that’s all part of it, right? And that’s what I think sometimes you forget, you’re not operating ⁓ in a vacuum.

Erika (14:40)
Ha ha.

Yeah, exactly.

Scott, if you were starting in real estate today, you know, from the ground up in today’s market, what would you be doing? What kind of advice would you pass on to our listeners?

Scott Hayford (16:00)
Analyze the market, historical trends, but also recognize that there’s disruption coming with AI. So look at what the… ⁓

you know, the businesses, the commercial side of that area is looking like. And when you’re making that decision on purchasing, you know, are you doing multifamily? So what are what are the levels and the incomes in those areas? If you’re doing commercial, you know, what type of businesses are you looking for? The restaurant business is a real tough one right now. Right. So if you’re looking at a commercial building for ⁓ establishing a restaurant, you might have a high turnover because it’s becoming tougher and tougher in many states to run a single

franchise or single restaurant, right? Franchise is different case because of the fact that you can spread the overhead and the cost out more, right? So your margins are a little bit better than if you’re just running one restaurant, that kind of thing. Same with a lot of the other commercial sales spaces, right? Amazon, et cetera, Walmart, they’re all gonna be doing air delivery. And so what does that mean for infrastructure, roads, et cetera? So where you have businesses, there may not be as much traffic ⁓ flowing by certain locations.

So what does that mean? And so I think that’s a big part of ⁓ people need to recognize that when they’re looking at doing their investments.

Erika (17:18)
Scott, when it comes to the networking that you’ve done over the year or the relationships that you’ve built in real estate, what’s been the biggest game changer for you?

Scott Hayford (17:30)
I mean, game changer in regards. Our network continues to expand because of the fact that we’re working on social media. We have 170 social media channels. We leverage LinkedIn for expertise in finding access to the CEOs. I’ve seen the gatekeepers. I used to be a gatekeeper in the secretary’s office. So getting past that one layer that sometimes doesn’t think you’re a value add, and so they dismiss you and being able to leverage like LinkedIn to get connected with more

⁓ senior individuals or decision makers has has helped us significantly in growing our team and growing what we’re doing.

Erika (18:09)
Awesome. Well, Scott, before we wrap up, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about Must Wants, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Scott Hayford (18:20)
Sure, Scott at mustwants.com. mustwants.com, there’s a link there for my TidyCal, my calendar. I operate seven days a week, eight o’clock till nine o’clock at night, Eastern time. So I’m always open to any type of conversations, teaming, thoughts of ways of partnering, that kind of thing. We are building an ecosystem and it is designed around creating partnerships and just being the foundational technology behind it.

Erika (18:46)
so much for being on the show and it’s inspiring how you are empowering military families and investing with this.

Scott Hayford (18:54)
Yeah, I hope so.

Erika (18:55)
And for our listeners, if you got value from this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pros podcast. We’ve got more conversations lined up with operators like Scott who are out there building fantastic real estate businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.

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Helping Military Families Buy Smarter with Must Wants | Scott Hayford

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