How to Recover Excess Proceeds After Foreclosure

Alexis Holifield (00:00)
Don’t build or chase business, build and chase people. And when you have a—Yeah, so pe—a lot of times, especially in real estate or any transactional environment, insurance, real estate.

Sales, they focus so much on quota. But I say for—I tell my team, focus on quality, not quota. We want to focus on quality over quantity. So quantity says call as many leads as you can, go to as many networking events as you can, do all these things, which is quantity. But when you focus on the quality of serving people, yes. You’re in the people business. We’re not in real estate. You’re not in finance, you’re not in insurance, you’re not in podcast, you are in the people business.

Freddie Steen (02:12)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Freddie, and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with for quite some time. Alexis, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry, particularly in getting the knowledge and experience out there that she has and her family has built over decades on making sure that the real estate investors and their clients are not being taken advantage of.

Alexis, I’m glad to have you here. I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching real estate and building a team. Let’s dive in. So, first off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days in real estate and what markets are you operating in?

Alexis Holifield (03:03)
Great question. First of all, thank you for having me. I genuinely appreciate you. Your energy is so infectious. I love that. So some things that I would say we’re focusing on in this season in real estate is really helping families to recover wealth.

Freddie Steen (03:19)
Explain.

Alexis Holifield (03:19)
So our company is called Wealth Recovery Group and we specialize in what’s called excess proceeds and surplus funds, which assist individuals who recently went through foreclosure obtain the excess proceed that was earned from the sale of their home that went into foreclosure.

Freddie Steen (03:37)
Love it. And what caught my attention about you, Alexis, was the way you’ve been able to manipulate in this climate, you know, excess excess proceeds and overages, getting that information back to the consumer and doing it on a national scale in multiple markets. That’s not easy, especially in this climate. Alexis, what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Alexis Holifield (04:02)
Delegation. No, but seriously, I would say market research and delegation truly, understanding A, that for the past five to eight years, this is like the highest the foreclosure rate has been in quite some time. And so for me, what keeps it running is truly delegation, being able to have licensed professionals. I work with a lot of realtors that in different states that have been able to acquire this knowledge and help families to get their funds back, if that makes sense.

So definitely market research and understanding also to on a spiritual and emotional aspect, how these claimants are feeling after a foreclosure, not knowing what’s next, not know—not knowing what’s gonna happen. And being able to receive a call to let them know that there is light at the end of the tunnel has helped the delegation lead to acceleration because the team is absolutely on fire being able to help others in such a uncertain time or transition in their life.

Freddie Steen (05:51)
Thank you for that, Alexis. I—every operator I know, Alexis, has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments for you for our audience?

Alexis Holifield (06:05)
I mean, honestly, getting into this industry was definitely one of those moments. I would say being able to pivot, there was like a pivot or pause moment just transparently, as I was sharing with you in the prep that we have a wealth management firm. So the wealth management firm started scaling. In the wealth management firm, we teach family office formation. So we teach high income earning families, professional athletes, things of that nature, how form a family office. At the same time that that was scaling, so was the foreclosure rate.

And so it was actually a challenging decision to identify if I’m going to pause a thing that on the surface I know is going to the heights or digging deeper for those families that are actually going through strife and turmoil. So some people may say a deal gone bad, but for me, really having to pray that through to identify is this gonna be a pivot or a pause? Do we take all of our resources, our human capital and focus on helping families that have just lost their home and foreclosure, helping them get those funds back, or do we help families that appear or do already have a certain amount of wealth and need to preserve it? So for me, that was one of the—I wouldn’t say most challenging, but definitely most challenging decisions that I’ve had to make in my real estate career for sure.

Freddie Steen (07:20)
Pivot and pause. That’s the kind of stuff people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term like you. Alexis, let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you?

Alexis Holifield (07:37)
I would say family wealth as a whole. So, and it’s fun because so what—what I was allowed to do or what I was exposed to is actually merging the two together. So in wealth management, obviously it’s about making, managing, and multiplying. Well, you can’t really talk to someone who’s going through survival or just losing their home about managing or multiplying. So what we’ve been able to do is when they have reclaimed their funds, we’ve been able to help structure and position them to start building wealth.

Does that make sense? Now, when we say wealth, we’re not just talking about a dollar amount. We’re talking about the state of being well off and healthy. Right? Because the word wealthy are the two words well off and healthy put together. And we’ve been able to integrate their family into that, having the conversations on how we could have avoided this. And moving forward, how will we ensure that we have a strong foundation for wealth creation so that doesn’t happen?

I don’t want to bring race into this, but there is a lot of specific culture, right? A specific culture—cultures where we lose our assets, where we have our generation above—our mom, our aunt, or grandmother who’ve paid off properties. Some of these homes that go into foreclosure, the home was paid off already, but they didn’t pay the property tax because they didn’t know. So they couldn’t have had the conversation. So our main focus right now is bringing awareness to that is A, how can we prevent this moving forward? And B, how can we integrate this conversation into families that are striving to build wealth so that this is not something that’s repetitive?

Freddie Steen (09:45)
Love that compound word—wealthy—that you said. Well and healthy. That’s awesome. That’s big. And especially when well off and healthy, excuse me. Well off and healthy for our audience is wealthy. Especially when you’ve already got such a toehold in—excess proceeds and overages niche. The next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it.

Alexis Holifield (09:55)
And healthy.

Freddie Steen (10:14)
Now, I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up. And I think they benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest biggest difference for you, Alexis?

Alexis Holifield (10:32)
Hmm.

So I’ll say this, there’s three dimensions of wealth.

Three. There’s the human asset, the intellectual asset, and the financial asset. If you looked at it like an equation, it would be human asset times intellectual asset equals financial asset. When they say your network equals your net worth, that literally means the people that you align with, the human capital, when you can learn from their intellectual capital, it will advance you financially in quantum leaps, if that makes sense.

So how it has helped me is ineffable. I can’t put in words. Gen—genuinely I cannot. Even as we spoke before, from one person to the next person to the next person of synchronicities. So when we say how important it is, I think it’s even more important than chasing business or trying to build business.

Don’t build or chase business, build and chase people. And when you have a—Yeah, so pe—a lot of times, especially in real estate or any transactional environment, insurance, real estate.

Sales, they focus so much on quota. But I say for—I tell my team, focus on quality, not quota. We want to focus on quality over quantity. So quantity says call as many leads as you can, go to as many networking events as you can, do all these things, which is quantity. But when you focus on the quality of serving people, yes. You’re in the people business. We’re not in real estate. You’re not in finance, you’re not in insurance, you’re not in podcast, you are in the people business.

And when you build the people, the people will show you how to build anything. They can make one phone call. You are one phone call away from your—your biggest blessing. You are one phone call away from the commission you’ve been desiring, praying, and seeking for. But the question then becomes, are they preparing for what they’re praying for through the people that they’re meeting? Does that make sense?

Freddie Steen (13:07)
It does. I mean, you—you can’t fake that. I mean, relationships are everything in this space. So, all right, before we wrap, Alexis, someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing. What’s the best way for them to reach you?

Alexis Holifield (13:17)
Yes.

The best way for them to reach me is I’m on mostly all social media platforms. So LinkedIn, Alexis Holifield, Instagram is @alexisholifield_, YouTube is Femininity and Fine.ance, and lastly, website is www.alexisholifield.com and it’s Holifield with an I and not a Y. So H O L I F I E L D. Yes.

Freddie Steen (13:52)
Perfect. Well listen, Alexis, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. We need more people in the space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here.

Alexis Holifield (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Freddie Steen (14:05)
I appreciate it. And for those of you turning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Alexis Holifield, who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you, Alexis.