How Nonprofits Are Saving Homes From Foreclosure and Taxes

Andres Holliday (00:00)
You’re concerned you might actually lose this home. Well, what we do is we make sure that we provide you guys access to protections by putting the home and deeding it over to the nonprofit. Once it’s deeded over to the nonprofit, at the same time, we provide a 99 year preservation agreement that states that you still have full usership and ownership right over.

Rights over the home, meaning that you choose who lives there, what happens to the home, and what’s going to happen to the home in the future. And by doing this, it makes it a very unique system to where you get to stay in your home, but you are no longer responsible for taxes. Because once the home is deemed under the nonprofit, it’s considered fully tax exempt. And so giving you complete protections, not just that, but even expenses like electricity, cable, ⁓ internet.

Those are also considered tax exempt and in some municipalities you won’t even have to pay those fees. So being able to be under this program can really put thousands of dollars extra in homeowners pockets.

Michelle Kesil (02:32)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. And today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Andres Holliday, who’s been making serious moves in the nonprofit and creative housing space. So I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching helping people.

have affordable housing and yeah, just all these creative solutions that you’ve been sharing. So really glad to have you here today. Let’s dive into all of that.

Andres Holliday (03:12)
Yeah, absolutely. I’m definitely excited to be here.

Michelle Kesil (03:15)
Great. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with you and your world, can you just give the short version of what your main focus is these days?

Andres Holliday (03:27)
Yeah, absolutely. So, ⁓ so I’ve been in the nonprofit space for about 10 years now. And, and for when I first started off, I actually was a part of chambers of commerce, helping business owners expand themselves, give themselves more opportunity in their town. But as I continued on, I realized that

You know, in the nonprofit space, there’s not really enough money to pay for your bills. So you have to figure out a way to actually start making some money. So I got into advertising and I eventually started my own marketing firm, but still understanding and still having a passion for nonprofit and, and being able to do the marketing and advertising firm. I’ve worked a lot of real estate investors and got to know the world of real estate.

and creative financing and was able to come up with this really kind of interesting idea, which was a combination of my nonprofit background and then my real estate experience. And I was able to, by early this year, get our 501c3 status for Everhome Creative Housing. And we’re a unique nonprofit. We’re really specifically focused on helping Americans maintain home ownership. We believe that a part of the American dream is owning a home.

And as long as Americans are feeling like it’s too much of a burden, it’s too heavy, and they have to sell their homes to investors or hedge funds or private equity, then we’re losing the ability to actually maintain that American dream. And so our mission is to make sure to make it easier for them, whether that’s eliminating tax burdens, while eliminating any type of foreclosures and also giving preservation to that home and making sure it stays within the family.

The nonprofit is running already. We have over $2 million in assets a part of the nonprofit already. So we’re excited to help more people in Texas.

Michelle Kesil (05:12)
Amazing. So is this only in Texas or is this nationwide?

Andres Holliday (06:05)
So we are, we’re recognized nationwide, but we’re starting off here in the state of Texas. We’re currently working on expanding to California as there’s definitely a lot of need there, but Texas has millions of Texans who are currently dealing with tax issues. We also have one of the highest tax, property taxes in the United States. So this is really where we think we can make a huge dent.

Michelle Kesil (06:29)
Yeah, absolutely. So what has been like the key to keeping this business running smoothly?

Andres Holliday (06:36)
Well, I think the biggest thing about this, especially being a nonprofit, is that it’s compliance. So making sure that we maintain our nonprofit status, I always say that that’s our most valuable asset, is our 501c3 status. Because through this, we’re able to give Americans access to tax exemption, we’re able to protect their homes and also put preservation covenants on homes, which makes sure that it’s protected from any type of liens, foreclosures, or anybody from the outside trying to take that home.

And so our three main programs are really, really big and lean on those specific type of nonprofit statuses. so, and I’m sure we can go into those a little bit later, but that’s, that’s the biggest part. Yeah, sure. So we have three main specific programs that benefit Americans and at the same time investors. And so our first program, it’s our 99 year preservation program. And what that does is let’s say you’re a homeowner.

Michelle Kesil (07:16)
Yeah, you can expand on this. Yeah, I agree.

Andres Holliday (07:32)
and you currently have a home and you’re owing back taxes on it and it’s just going up and taxes are going up.

You’re concerned you might actually lose this home. Well, what we do is we make sure that we provide you guys access to protections by putting the home and deeding it over to the nonprofit. Once it’s deeded over to the nonprofit, at the same time, we provide a 99 year preservation agreement that states that you still have full usership and ownership right over.

rights over the home, meaning that you choose who lives there, what happens to the home, and what’s going to happen to the home in the future. And by doing this, it makes it a very unique system to where you get to stay in your home, but you are no longer responsible for taxes. Because once the home is deemed under the nonprofit, it’s considered fully tax exempt. And so giving you complete protections, not just that, but even expenses like electricity, cable, ⁓ internet.

Those are also considered tax exempt and in some municipalities you won’t even have to pay those fees. So being able to be under this program can really put thousands of dollars extra in homeowners pockets.

Our second program, it’s our transfer program. Is there a legacy transfer program? And what that focus is on is let’s say you have a home, but you do want to sell it. But you’re concerned that if you do sell it, because of the fact the value has grown so much, you’re going to lose a lot of the wealth that you’ve developed in there.

What we’re able to do is same system when you deed the property over to the nonprofit, the nonprofit will actually manage the transaction and sell the home. When we sell the home, it also is able to trigger our 501 C3 status, eliminating any type of taxes or even capital gains on the property. What we do then is we take that money, we put it into a nonprofit bank account or a portfolio for that homeowner, and then use that money to purchase them a new home.

And that makes it to where now the purchase is also tax exempt. So the homeowner is able to completely be protected and shielded from some of these large taxes that happen every single day. And we do that and then you become a part of the ever home community where now it’s not just about, know, hey, can I make every ends meet? Now you have an organization that can support you and back you and is supported by investors and real estate professionals all over the state of Texas.

And that’s what opens us up to our last program. And this is really our flagship, which is called our 1031 Gold Program. This is specifically for real estate investors who are helping us in our mission. We call them mission-driven investors. And what they do is these are people who have stated that they want to support our mission in helping Americans maintain home ownership. And as a reciprocal, we give them access to our nonprofit benefits. So for example, if you’re an investor,

You can bring in a property, let’s say that you found, that owes 30, $40,000 in taxes as the mission-driven investor. You can put it into your portfolio that’s within the nonprofit. We eliminate the taxes that are due, and we also deem that property tax exempt. We can then rehab the entire property, eliminating taxes on that, which is about 10%, and majority of the suppliers offer about a 15 % discount, so sometimes up to 25 % off of the rehab.

And then once the home is completed, we will actually take care of the exit as well. When we take care of the exit, just like the transfer, legacy transfer program, all that capital gains and all that taxes is actually maintained. We don’t have to pay the taxes and we can keep it in as long as you want to put it into another project.

Now, similar to a 1031 exchange, the exchange is very strict that you could only spend the money on like.

type of ⁓ assets. So if you buy a single family home, you could only spend that money on another single family home. And there’s very tight timelines. 16 weeks is the very common timeline. With us, that same type of money with the 1031 gold can go to any type of investment. So if you made money on a single family, you can reinvest that in a multifamily. If you want to reinvest that into operations to expand your business, you could do that as well. Not just that.

But when you do actually exit out of the home, it’s completely tax free. So once you do decide, hey, you know what, I want to actually cash out. These cash outs are made through payments, keeping you tax free, or they could actually take a loan on the money, which is still 100 % tax free. So we’re creating opportunities for investors to be able to invest 100 % tax free and compliant while helping Americans have access to more affordable homes because we know

that if real estate investors save money on their projects, Americans are going to save money on their homes and on their rents.

Michelle Kesil (13:00)
Amazing, yeah, that’s so beautiful and it sounds like you guys have a lot of value to offer. How did you like get started with all of this?

Andres Holliday (13:06)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so really it came to it came down to just talking about nonprofits and how it functions. and really, I have a lot of background in politics. And that’s when I really got to know that there’s more than just a 501 C3 charity status. There’s 501 C4s, 501 C6s. So there’s so many of these different brands. I got very fascinated by them. So I wanted to learn what all comes with that. What does it actually mean? What are your rights?

And when I started looking over nonprofits, statuses, especially 501c3 charitable status, their rights are incredible. And these are rights that are not seen anywhere else in the world. Charitable organizations are all taxed across the world. United States is one of the only countries that does not tax them. And so when I found out that the Catholic church is one of the largest landowners in the United States, it made perfect sense. The reason they’re doing this because they don’t have to pay.

any taxes. In fact, they can just hold these homes completely clear. And then what these organizations are doing is they’re taking the homes and they’re actually pulling lines of credit on them. So not just are they saving money on that, but they’re able to claim homes at no charge and then pull lines of credit. And it’s really how the ultra rich are able to maintain their wealth. In many cases, it’s through foundations and nonprofits. And so

For me, was, I’ve always had a passion about economic freedom and helping Americans reach that. And what better way than to eliminate some of these unnecessary taxes to Americans who are saying, hey, I can’t pay $10,000 a year for property taxes. I live on social security. You know, some of these homes, and we’ve seen it just even in the past couple of years, you know, where they were valued $200,000, all of a sudden are worth $400,000, $500,000, according to the tax assessors.

and they’re paying taxes on that. And these people are living on social security, fixed incomes. There’s no way they’re able to pay for that. So what’s happening is the districts are taking the homes. And so we believe that that is not right. We believe that Americans should maintain. And if they need some help with that, we wanna help them. And so we’re gonna do everything we can to push legally to make sure that they’re able to be protected. And then also,

Spread this out to other states. know Florida’s having a struggle. We know people in New York and New Jersey are really struggling. California. And so we know this is a big need and we’re excited to be able to take it all across the country.

Michelle Kesil (15:39)
Yeah, amazing. That is a beautiful story. So what is like your next big goal for your business?

Andres Holliday (15:44)
Absolutely.

Yeah, so the next big goal here is one, we want to get this in front of as many real estate investors as possible because we know that there’s no way I’m going to be able to talk to all the homeowners. There’s no way our team is going to be able to reach out to everybody. It’s going to come to the people who are already doing the work on the ground. And that’s the investors. These investors are talking to homeowners every single day. And I know because I’ve spoken to many of them and they tell me you’d be surprised

how many homeowners refuse to leave their home and they don’t want to deal with the taxes because they know it’s just almost an impossible fee. And in many cases, they’re being forced to sell their home at 20 to 30 % of its value because they’re in these tough situations. And so what we’re saying is, look, if you’re an investor, bring us those homes. What we will do is we will put those homes into a portfolio. And once you…

you reach 10 homes in that portfolio, we will give you access to 30 % of the equity of that portfolio. So if you bring us three or 400, let’s say you bring us $300,000 homes, you bring us 10 of those, that’s a $3 million portfolio, we will give you access to 25 % of that, which is close to $800,000 credit line. In any other scenario in real estate, it’s very difficult to get that type of credit line.

without paying an arm and a leg. And what we’re saying is if you can commit to helping Americans get access to this, we can commit to giving you access to credit lines that will help you expand your real estate empire and will help us help America. Because I know that America needs investors, needs big players, and without the big investors, we’re not going to be able to make this change. that’s the next step. How do we get them to see the mission to help us reach more Americans?

And if anything, help grow their empire by helping us.

Michelle Kesil (17:50)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s so important to collaborate and to support each other through your shared missions.

Andres Holliday (17:58)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Michelle Kesil (18:01)
Yeah, so I’m curious. know every business has moments where things get more real, maybe deals go sideways, or you just have to make a fast pivot. And I’m, yeah, if you would mind sharing one of those experiences for you.

Andres Holliday (18:21)
Yeah, absolutely. I can tell you that when it comes to this world where we’re working with individuals who are stressing out about tax foreclosures, losing their homes, it’s a very touchy situation. every single day we’re dealing with this. in fact, recently we had a family where the gentleman’s father, who’s 97 years old and the gentleman is 76 years old,

He has had a property 27 acres for 30 plus years and his taxes were $296 on the 30 acres, which is incredible. But the moment his father passes away, which is that he’s in hospice now and they’re expecting it to happen any day now, that tax is going to go from $290 something to $11,000 a year because over the past 30 years, the property has grown a lot of value.

And the moment that the property switches over to his son, the property gets reevaluated. So what we were able to do, we were able to put the property underneath the nonprofit. We’re able to secure that $290 plus tax bill every single year for the rest of that property’s existence. So now the family can know.

They’re not going to lose it because they can’t afford the taxes. They know that their children are going to be able to inherit this. They know that now they feel like they can see the future because they’re not having to worry about holding on to everything right now. And so ⁓ it was a very, it was kind of a nerve wracking moment because it is a lot of pressures, this idea that if they can’t pay that within a year, they’re going to lose the property. And so we only had a time crush, but luckily we were able to get all the paperwork good.

cleared and now they’re able to enjoy the property without having to worry about any of these additional type of concerns. Am I going to lose the property? Are the taxes going to go even higher? And that’s really what makes us want to do this every single day is that we know we’re making a benefit in people’s lives.

Michelle Kesil (20:26)
Yeah, absolutely. That is so valuable. So when it comes to all of these laws and taxes and stuff, did you have to study all these different regulations and rules as well as the real estate side? I’m just curious what you had to learn and experience in order to gain all of this value.

Andres Holliday (20:53)
absolutely. ⁓ And I am not a realtor. have never purchased, I’ve never invested ever before. ⁓ And so this is all having to, stuff I’m having to learn. And not just that, but learning confirmation and confirmation and confirmation and talking to attorneys and talking to individuals. And also, mean, Chad GBT did a great job as well supporting in that cause, but it really has been just a constant learning.

For myself and for our team, this is, we’re really doing something that has never been done before. No one has ever done this for the individual American. It’s been done for large institutions. So it’s not a new idea, but no one’s ever built it specifically for, individual Americans. And so it’s a complete, everything is about learning here. Everything’s about learning here for us. And so, but yeah, absolutely. I, a lot of nonprofit law that we’ve had to figure out.

We’ve had to figure out real estate law. does that ownership law, how does Texas manage that? You know, it’s not just a relationship with the homeowner. It really is also a relationship with the state of Texas. So it’s how do we balance all those things out? But I mean, that’s, think that’s what makes it so exciting. So a lot of late nights, a lot of early mornings, but, but I know that we sleep well knowing that we’re helping Americans and helping them maintain their properties.

Michelle Kesil (22:10)
Yeah, absolutely. And how are you growing your network and expanding to connect with the people that need your services?

Andres Holliday (22:20)
Well, we’re doing podcasts like this. We’re going to networking events. We’re doing speaking events. We’re all over social media. We’re wanting to get this idea out to as many people as possible. And it’s really, a lot of it has to do is it’s not necessarily just because of the cause, right? So I didn’t like, and I think that’s what makes this so special is that I’m not a real estate person who saw an opportunity is like, Hey, we should do this. Here’s a hack. No, I, for me, it was four years ago, my parents,

⁓ they lost their home because they weren’t able to afford to pay for the taxes on it. And this was the home that I grew up in. This is the home that I held Christmases in. The memories are in there. And ⁓ it was a moment that it broke me to see my mom broke and my dad broke after all the years that they put into work and protect the home. And my dad telling me that no one’s ever gonna run us off of this property. And then having to see that, I think it allowed me firsthand to see

what happens to Americans? What really does it mean to have the stresses of taxes and have these things taken from you? And so really my goal with this nonprofit and everybody I speak to is to express to them that it’s real. And there are people out there losing their homes, losing their opportunity, losing the wealth that they’ve built their whole lives. And I’ve seen it firsthand in my own family. And so I’m hoping that this nonprofit does everything it can to protect Americans in their homes.

and that no one has to experience what we went through.

Michelle Kesil (23:49)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s so important. All right, so before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, collaborate, or just learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Andres Holliday (24:03)
Yeah, I would suggest go to Everhome Creative Housing. ⁓ It’s called EverhomeHousing.org, but Everhome Creative Housing is the name of organization. Look us up, read through our pages, look how we function, go to our social media pages, or you can even, would tell you, call me directly, 210-632-4511. I would love to talk to you about any way that we can help and support you guys. If you’re an investor and you see…

a chance or you have properties even right now that you know that are going to be heavy for you on the capital gains side. Partner with us, partner with our mission and I know that we can help make things easier for you. But look us up online, find us, give me a call, give me a text. I’m very accessible and help us help Americans.

Michelle Kesil (24:46)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, story, and perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing things in this right way. So thank you for being here. Sure. And for those of you that are tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Andres, who are out here building real businesses. And we’ll see you all in the next episode.

Andres Holliday (24:56)
Thank you so much. appreciate your time.