How to Win Bidding Wars Instantly Using Cash-Like Offers, Creative Lending, and Smart Market Positioning

Tony Ojeda (00:00)
we have a large resource and good partnership with this investor that we we’ve been able to build this out for. So on a high level I can tell you that let’s say you, Cody, wanted to go ahead and buy a house and and your family needs X, Y, and Z. one of my clients specifically, she was living in Alabama and she needed her son to get extra school for a specific reason.

Cody Crabb (01:56)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Cody Crabb and today I’ve got Tony Ojeda with me. Tony is based in Irvine with West Capital, where he works at the intersection of real estate, mortgage financing, and data-driven strategy. We’re going to talk about what’s changed in the market, why the old playbook is breaking down, and how better partnerships help deals get done. Tony, welcome to the show.

Tony Ojeda (02:18)
Cody, thank you so much for having me. I’m honored to be a guest here.

Cody Crabb (02:21)
I’d love it if you could kind of introduce yourself to the audience. How did you get into the industry and kinda what brings you to you the position you’re in today?

Tony Ojeda (02:27)
Ooh, that’s a doozy, man. ⁓ well, Cody, let me just say this. ⁓ I’m I’m very blessed to be where I am today. It’s it’s been a long road, but how I stumbled into mortgage and into real estate in itself was roughly ten years ago. ⁓ I had always been in sales and people always said that, hey, listen, you you are pretty talented at just talking to people. ⁓ this this company over here is hiring, give it a shot. And I I’d bet on myself.

And that’s kind of how I found myself in the industry. To back to backtrack, I grew up here in Los Angeles, California, specifically East LA. And this was this position was never on my radar. It was always kind of just go to go to college, try to do sports, you know, make it out of those constraints ⁓ of the environment that I grew up in. So being where I am, it it’s a privilege and I’m just honored to be here.

Cody Crabb (03:26)
Well, ⁓ so a couple questions to start out. ⁓ so ⁓ tell us what tell us kind of the the intersection of what you do because ⁓ something that you mentioned to me as we started out is you don’t just kinda serve one purpose in your role. ⁓ you kind of are a multifaceted ⁓ professional. I’d love to kind of if hear your explanation of I’m totally gonna botch it. So so if you could just kind of explain what it is that you do in the and how they intersect.

Tony Ojeda (03:55)
Yeah. What what we really excel at here at West Capital is really being able to go ahead and operate on both sides of the transaction and provide a cohesive strategy to ⁓ our clients. Now our clients come in many different shapes, sizes, and needs, but realistically diving in, ⁓ we can provide the financing aspect as well as the representation on the real estate side. So it really kind of helps the buyer.

or seller knowing that we’ve already reviewed 90% of the information and we can confidently ensure that this transaction is going to close. That’s one aspect of what we do. Another thing is is that we we really build out a a a clear strategy ahead of time. We really sit down

as a counselor or a doctor would or a lawyer would and really dive into the specifics, the potential pitfalls, where weaknesses are in building these opportunities are, right? And we make sure to bring them to light ahead of time so that we’re not caught off guard or the client doesn’t get into a disposition or an emotional position where they’re confused and they lose confidence.

Cody Crabb (06:01)
So give me an example of ⁓ one of those pitfalls that you that you would maybe help someone catch early on.

Tony Ojeda (06:08)
That’s that’s a really good question because 90% of the time, whether you’re on the real estate side or you’re operating on both sides, many of the standard, let’s call it the retail chains, the big, the big guys, they’re taking phone calls and they’re they’re turning and burning clients. They’re really just trying to get an application in. They’re really just looking to go ahead and earn the front end of the deal. So what we’ve seen is that.

When you’re not looking at it through a whole, but you’re looking through a porthole of things, you’re you’re limiting your ability to really serve this client. So what we’re really seeing is that one example, client Jesse, he went from being W-2 for over 10 years, decided that doing that role and paying those taxes and getting taxed ⁓ by the company was no longer befitting to him and his family.

So he took those skills that he earned and learned over 10 years and said, hey, I can do this better. I’ve built the partnerships, I’ve built the relationships, now I can do it better. But what what do we see more often than not is that transition from W-2 to 1099 as self-employed, there’s a gap. When you go to the big four, Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America, and those guys, they ask for two years of employment history. They want to see that.

As self-employment. They want to see your K-1s. And often than not, they are not being reviewed the right way. So by going ahead and offering, hey, listen, that’s not the right way, you’re gonna see these things. And I guarantee if you go to your bank or went to your bank, they’re gonna say, hey, this looks good on the front end because you’re saying you make 300,000, but where you’re writing everything off because you don’t want to pay in tax, right? And and that’s that’s a key right there to understanding how do we pivot.

So we’re able to go ahead and provide offerings, bank statement, P&L, other options available on the financing side to go in and do that. Now, for sellers and real estate agents, we are kind of combining a unique scenario of buy before you sell, placing no contingency offers on houses. So when you’re a seller, you’re waiting for a buyer. Well, we can now go ahead and position that seller to position them to buy their house.

while it’s still selling. So you have an empty house that is staged and effectively getting more traffic and allowing more imagination for that new buyer to come in and put an offer where you want it to. And nine times out of ten, the statistics tell us that when it is staged, you’re gonna get a higher price point.

Cody Crabb (08:44)
Hmm. Gotcha. So so things you fill in gaps that people may not even know exist, which I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know. So that’s that’s really that’s really awesome. So you’re you’re not just asking, does this person qualify? You’re like, how can we actually what can we do to make you qualify to get the deal done and kinda am I am I kinda getting that right?

Tony Ojeda (09:06)
It is it’s about going ahead and making sure that they’re comfortable with the strategy and we have several different contingency or fallback options, right? And making sure that they’re involved in the conversation as if we were partners, as if Cody and I, we’ve been working together and we were setting up this business model. We wanted to be engaged to go ahead and make sure that this is a win. So what we also have the ability to make a conventional buyer a cash buyer. So if you’re looking into a hot market where you’re looking for a

great school and you are capped at your purchase price and really trying to go ahead and make sure that your family and your needs are met and it crosses all the boxes and this house is a 10 out of 10, then we put you in a position to close no contingency, 10 day closing, and you’re a cash-like buyer. And sellers love that.

Cody Crabb (09:54)
So, what’s ⁓ how does that kind of work at like a high level though? Like how do you turn a conventional buyer into something that looks like a cash buyer, but like without the risk?

Tony Ojeda (10:49)
Well, we have a large resource and good partnership with this investor that we’ve been able to build this out for. So on a high level I can tell you that let’s say you, Cody, wanted to go ahead and buy a house and your family needs X, Y, and Z. one of my clients specifically, she was living in Alabama and she needed her son to get extra school for a specific reason.

And this school district was the only one in this housing area was the only one in that school district. So what we did is like, okay, how much money are you comfortable putting down? Okay, cool. ten to fifteen percent, amazing. What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna use that and then put our money into that to bridge the gap. So if you’re at fifteen percent down, we bring in the other eighty-five percent. Okay. And then from there we just go through on the contract saying we’re not gonna do any contingencies, meaning

We’re we’re not gonna wait for a loan approval. We’re not gonna wait for the inspection to go ahead and give us a clear. We’re not gonna wait for the appraisal to clear. We’re gonna do those things, right? We’re gonna go through inspection independently outside of the need of the seller, right? But we don’t want to rely on them. So by bridging the money from us and the buyer together, it positions them to look to the seller like, okay, this this is this is guaranteed. I’m gonna move quickly and they’re gonna be moving in.

even faster.

Cody Crabb (12:13)
Gotcha. So it’s not so much that you’re skipping steps, it’s that you’re doing D, E, and F kind of as A, B, and C are happening.

Tony Ojeda (12:20)
It’s an A through Z conversation and there are moving parts that we cannot go ahead and miss. So that right there is exactly it. You nailed it. Whereas many of the rocket mortgages that on the retail side are all those big guys, they they don’t have the ability to anticipate movement and they cannot move all the moving parts together. At West Capital, we have the resources and ability and team behind us, teamwork, ⁓ to go ahead and bridge the gap and ensure that there is no

kind of missing component to this.

Cody Crabb (12:53)
Hmm. Gotcha. So what kinds of buyers is this best for? Like is this are we talking like owner occupants in places that people that want to move at a specific place? Like is this for investors?

Tony Ojeda (13:16)
Investors are treated the same way in reference to they’re already used to bringing in twenty to twenty-five percent. They’re already used to that. So the pitch to an investor is really, hey, listen, you’re accustomed to a higher exposure on what you’re bringing to the table. You’re already accustomed to having, you know, the idea of cash flow. Whereas a consumer buyer is not thinking of those two things. So when we’re talking about an investor, we just say, Hey, listen, you’re already comfortable with doing that. We’re just bringing in the other the difference of

And no contingencies. They’re already used to going ahead and trying to go against cash buyers. There are investors that can come cash because they’re trying to do a fix and flip. They’re trying to go ahead and do a buy and hold. They’re trying to do that play. So we work with a population of those guys and they they do very well because they’re able to get on the project faster and really remove the holding cost that really is a burden for them. Now on the consumer side, it’s more niche.

In the sense of where are you looking to live? What are your needs in regards to school district? Yeah. are you

Cody Crabb (14:22)
No, can you get into kind of the why too?

Tony Ojeda (14:28)
Yeah, exactly it. It’s really in Los Angeles, there are hot markets in Orange County. There are hot markets in LA County, Pasadena, Newport Beach. And I’m not talking about the two million dollar houses. I’m talking about the ones that are one million dollars, the everyday house where we have a consumer buyer that could potentially be outbid, or if it’s listed at nine hundred and ninety thousand and it looks to be a deal, that purchase price

quickly elevates to equalize and a lot of times buyers get left out. So by utilizing the cash program, you are providing yourself a sure lane to getting into this house.

Cody Crabb (15:51)
Got it. So yeah, this is this is great. I think people kind of need to know what their options are sometimes. And especially when you’re on the early side, like there’s decisions that you might make that are not the same as if you were fully informed.

Tony Ojeda (16:23)
The major changes in reference to our recent timeline, I won’t even go back to 2028, I won’t even go back to 2020, but the mindset is still there. The perception of, hey, the rates are high, that’s a limitation, right? But what I can tell you is that our real connectivity is coming into how we’re able to go ahead and empower clients.

Right. Empower them knowing ahead of time that even if you’re not ready today, we’ve already built this blueprint out for you. We’ve already kind of put you in a position to win before you even got through the door. And what’s changed is really that the housing market is no longer a strong selling, like the seller doesn’t have control or complete leverage over things.

That’s kind of what’s changing. We’re now seeing nationally, because we operate nationally, that the sellers are more willing to negotiate. And we’re seeing personally on my team of the last five transactions on the purchase side that we’ve been able to come in a little bit under ask and be able to get seller concessions, which really benefits the buyer because they’re already exposed and leveraged all the way up. Most of these buyers are coming cash poor is a term that may go around a lot.

So what we want to do is we want to leverage this new fluidity in the market, in the housing market, to go ahead and say, all right, Mr. Buyer, we can now rest assured if we target these properties to only come in with your down payment. We can find a resource and a lane for the seller to pay for your closing costs.

keeps you with some cash flow, keep you with some reserves.

Cody Crabb (18:19)
Yeah, yeah. I mean that’s a useful point. I think the investing is one of those things where obviously risk is the whole point. You’re trying to balance the risk versus the reward, but I think as you mentioned, if you can kinda lower some of the risk while keeping the same reward, why on earth wouldn’t you try to do that?

Tony Ojeda (18:42)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Cody Crabb (18:44)
Well, thank you so much. I think this has been really good, a really good episode. ⁓ kinda as we’re closing out here, for a buyer listening right now, how do they know when they’ve got leverage? Like what are the signs for them to look for in order to know that this is a good opportunity for them?

Tony Ojeda (19:02)
The easiest way for a buyer to kind of conceptualize if they’re ready to go ahead and make a move is looking at what they’re currently paying. If they’re renting, that’s a big component. If you’re paying thirty four hundred dollars, you gotta look at the annualized, the annum of that, right? And then just really compute, okay, can I take on maybe another five hundred to a thousand dollars on that monthly payment.

That’s one component. The second component is are you financially stable? Do you have the ability to let’s just say a rainy day comes, something tough comes? Can you cover that expenses, right? And the last thing and I I really stress this: job security. Do you have job security where you know that it’s not going to be, hey, this company’s shutting down next month?

or that your position is being liquidated, those are the three main components that I have conversation with. Do you have job security? Do you have financial fitness? Do you have the means in regards to not just the down payment, because that could always be afforded and built up, but what are you paying now? And then we can compare that to what you would be

Cody Crabb (20:15)
Okay. So for people that really love what you’re saying, they like your vibe, they like your message, how can they reach out to you and who should be reaching out to you? You said you work nationwide, is that correct?

Tony Ojeda (20:26)
Yes, yes.

You can go to westcapitallending.com. You can go and type in to search for my name, Tony Ojeda, and you can go directly to my website. You can also go to Google, type in my name. It’s going to come up on the first several results. You can find me on Instagram, @talk2tonyyy with three y’s. I’m constantly putting out content that is very informative and just driven to providing value and a resource.

And ultimately, we are not just a lending company. We can provide you the means to finding your house as long as you give us the right tools to build for you.

Cody Crabb (21:08)
Well, perfect. I think that is a perfect place to land it. Tony, I appreciate you coming on. I think this is really good and I can tell there’s a lot of strategy behind getting a good deal done and you’re definitely one of the people that can help with that. For all of our audience listening, if you got some value today from this, make sure you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pros podcast and visit Tony online like he said, and make sure you don’t miss another episode.

Once again, Tony, it’s been fun. Have a good one.

Tony Ojeda (21:34)
Thank you guys.