Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Iean Finley, a seasoned real estate professional with over 20 years of experience. Ian shares his journey from selling insurance to becoming a mortgage lender and eventually specializing in short sales. He discusses the challenges of the current real estate market, the importance of problem-solving in real estate transactions, and his passion for helping clients navigate difficult situations. Ian emphasizes the need for proactive solutions in the face of market changes and highlights his focus on connecting distressed properties with investors to create inventory for home buyers.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
-
- Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
- Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
- Mike on Facebook
- Mike on Instagram
- Mike on LinkedIn
- Iean Finley’s Email Address: [email protected]
- Iean Finley’s Phone No: (618) 401-8682
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Iean Finley (00:00)
You know if they’re saving money or losing money They’d rather save some money. So leaning on that we’re able to to negotiate the short sales and and get the sellers out debt-free and so You know when a homeowner has you know? 40 50 $80,000 in in in debt over and above what the property would sell for You know in some cases. I’ve had million dollar short sales thatYou know, they’re walking away from millions of dollars in debt and ⁓ they can potentially qualify for another mortgage in as little as two years or less. So, ⁓ you know, that’s a big deal to the consumer, to that homeowner ⁓ versus foreclosure.
Quentin (02:21)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. And listen, I got someone here today who has 20 years of experience in the real estate game. Started off doing lending, then started a mortgage company and became the master at short sales. And so I am super excited for you guys to peek through the lens of my guest, Mr.Mr. Iean how you doing today,
Iean Finley (02:52)
Excellent, Quentin. How you doing?Quentin (02:54)
man, man, I am doing great. I cannot complain. Like I said, I’m excited to talk to you. I always love connecting with people and getting to see things through their lens, through their eyes. so Iean, man, listen, I want you to take us into your world. I want you to maybe tell us how you got started in real estate. Take us through what your main focus is these days and maybe even tell us what markets you’re operating in.So go ahead and man take us into your world, brother.
Iean Finley (03:24)
Sure, absolutely. ⁓ like a lot of people, I know I’ve talked to ⁓ a lot of other real estate agents. That’s what I do as far as ⁓ license here in Illinois. And ⁓ I’ve talked to a lot of other real estate agents that they ended up in this industry kind of by accident. And that’s really kind of how I ended up in it. I started out, I was actually ⁓ selling insurance and ⁓ this is way back in like 99.and I was doing pretty good at it. And ⁓ I actually had a team and we ⁓ were building and growing. And that company that we were working for just didn’t treat us so well. ⁓ one day, ⁓ one of my team leaders ⁓ had left and he called me up and he said, hey, buddy, ⁓ I know you really love selling insurance and everything, but ⁓
I’m over here at this mortgage company and they’re looking to hire and ⁓ I thought to you, why don’t you come over and check them out and talk to them. And so, ⁓ you know, being open to opportunities as I generally am, I’m willing to at least look at something, right, before I make a change or anything like that.
And so I went over, interviewed and really liked what they were saying and ⁓ the company had already been around since, I think, 1963.
They were established and definitely seemed like something that I would be into. And ⁓ over the course of that next six months, I got a ⁓ really baseline, amazing training. The company that I went ⁓ to work for, ⁓ like I said, was ⁓ one of the first mortgage banking companies in the ⁓ entire United States. It was called Delmar Financial. And ⁓ they…
they taught us old school. There was no computers. It was all calculators and paper and you filled out applications with a pen, you know. And ⁓ so, yeah, it was interesting because instead of just throwing you to the wolves, they made sure that you had ⁓ old school training. Like I said, you spent two weeks with processing, two weeks in secondary, two weeks in the underwriting. Then you got…
Quentin (06:14)
Yeah, yeah.Iean Finley (06:33)
you finally got put into the sales training and learning about how to be a loan officer and how to fund the loans and go through that whole process. So I have to tip my hat to the old school training that we learned. And again, at that time, 0203,it was pretty prestigious to be a lender. so, you know, it was one of those situations, oh, you’re a mortgage broker, you’re a mortgage lender. Oh, you know, tell me about that. Let’s, know, if I ever need a loan, can I come to you? You know, things like that. So it was kind of an exciting time and I hate to say it was the Wild West, but.
⁓ Again, when it comes to lending, mean, there were all kinds of new programs coming out and ⁓ you were able to service your clients and that’s the biggest thing is making sure that they’re happy on the other end. ⁓ so my production went through the roof. I was closing anywhere from 20 to 30 loans a month. that was… ⁓
close to two or three times ⁓ what the average loan officer was doing back then. And so I didn’t have any hobbies, I just liked to work. So trying to rake that in for the family ⁓ and to build something. And so ⁓ I kind of grew out of my position at that company ⁓ and thought, you know, I…
I think I can probably do this on my own. And I found what was called a net branch at the time, which was a company that is like a franchise. So basically I bought into a franchise that that did mortgages and started that. I was only 24 years old. I think that was in 2004. 2004, I started that company and and we grew. started
Quentin (08:23)
Mm-hmm.Iean Finley (08:39)
reaching out, marketing and doing ⁓ other things that ⁓ were kind of cutting edge. I got a digital phone system and all kinds of other things that nobody was using, know, auto dialers and all kinds of other cool stuff that I was investing in in my business. And so ⁓ really, really focused on investing in the business and trying to grow it, ⁓ bring new people in andQuentin (08:48)
youIean Finley (09:06)
train them and things like that. so a lot of my other constituents, they were out there, you know, my competition, were buying Ferraris and GTA, all kinds of other stuff like that. I thought, hey, that’s really nice. I’m investing in my business. want this thing. I want to retire by the time I’m 35 or 40 years old. And so that was really the goal.You know, being pretty young and a little bit naive, I didn’t realize that there’s ⁓ other things out there that have to transpire and other things that can affect no matter how ⁓ dedicated you are, no matter how ⁓ honest and everything else that you are with regards to your clients and best interests and everything.
the rug can get pulled out from under you. And that’s essentially what happened. Like I said, in 08-09, ⁓ you think you have a really solid business and then all of a sudden, you know, the government makes some changes, ⁓ the lending dries up, the buyers, four loans dry up, and next thing you know, ⁓ your amazing business that you think you’re gonna have for the rest of your life is gone. And ⁓ so…
you know, we had to figure out, well, what’s our next step? What are we going to do? And so ⁓ at the same time, a lot of those those clients, those people that I helped get loans and and, you know, their first homes or second or third homes, whatever the situation might have been, ⁓ you know, they were coming to me saying, hey, we can’t afford this loan anymore. We’ve lost our job or whatever. And and so being a solutions provider that I am, you know, trying to to help these people out.
⁓ We figured out that there was a thing called a short sale and so short sales ⁓ is the easiest way to say it. It’s when somebody’s upside down on a mortgage they’re behind or upside down and ⁓ what we do is we we do a loan in reverse. So essentially ⁓ when it comes to short sales the lender all the information that the lender needs to actually complete
a new loan is the same kind of information that they need to be able to undo a loan or to be able to do what’s called a short payoff. And short sales, a lot of people think, ⁓ know, short sale, means it’s going to be fast. It’s not fast. It takes a long time for a bank to dig into their research department and figure out where that loan actually is and who the investor is and ⁓ what other ⁓
you know, situations that they can do other than a short sale. Short sale saves banks money in the long run significantly. And so most banks would prefer to do a short sale than a deed in lieu of foreclosure or to actually take the property back as a foreclosure. It saves them thousands and thousands of dollars in money. And I mean, that’s really all a bank cares about at the end of the day is money. And so
Quentin (12:55)
Yeah.Iean Finley (12:56)
You know if they’re saving money or losing money They’d rather save some money. So leaning on that we’re able to to negotiate the short sales and and get the sellers out debt-free and so You know when a homeowner has you know? 40 50 $80,000 in in in debt over and above what the property would sell for You know in some cases. I’ve had million dollar short sales thatYou know, they’re walking away from millions of dollars in debt and ⁓ they can potentially qualify for another mortgage in as little as two years or less. So, ⁓ you know, that’s a big deal to the consumer, to that homeowner ⁓ versus foreclosure.
And in fact, my lending partner and I just went through ⁓ all the guidelines here recently. ⁓
You know, like what was, what’s the worst thing that can happen on your credit or what’s the worst? Well, bankruptcy is still the worst. And so a lot of people think, okay, I’m behind on my mortgage or whatever. I can do a bankruptcy. Well, you know, that’s, that’s going to keep them from buying a house or really being back in the mainstream, ⁓ you know, for at least seven years. And so, you know, if they don’t have a lot of other debt and they don’t have, ⁓ you know, credit cards, ⁓
you know, up to their eyebrows and things like that, then a short sale is probably their best solution to be able to get out from under the debt and be able to walk away as unscathed as possible. ⁓ So yeah, and then the next step is a foreclosure. You know, if they’re proactive and they do a bankruptcy, like I said, that’s one thing, but a lot of these people, they put their head in the sand, they will even move out.
Quentin (14:36)
Yeah,Yeah.
Iean Finley (15:33)
You know, they get that nasty letter from the bank and ⁓ they think that there’s no solution. So ⁓ we want to reach out to them. We want to let them know, hey, there is a solution, ⁓ there is ⁓ an alternative that, again, is not pretty, but it’s a lot less ugly than getting foreclosed on and ⁓ a sheriff knocking on their door saying, hey, you’ve got30 days to be out of here type of situation. so that, like I said, with over 600 successful short sales, we’ve helped a lot of families ⁓ not have to go through that alone.
Quentin (16:17)
Yeah, man, I love it. I love your progression. I love coming from insurance to getting into real estate to helping our families with these short sales. I guess my question is, what keeps you still passionate about real estate? What keeps that passion still going?Iean Finley (16:33)
You know, it’s something different every day. And that’s one of the biggest things I think ⁓ that keeps me going is that it’s always interesting. There’s always new people. ⁓ There’s always some kind of new solution, new situation that ⁓ we have to ⁓ figure out how to jump through the hoops and get the deal done. And that does drive me quite a bit. ⁓Because again, once you have this many years and experience, there’s certain solutions that just pop right to your head. You’re like, yeah, didn’t we do that like this once before? Or we’ve run into this before. ⁓ Whether it’s, ⁓ in fact, mean, we just, a recent transaction, ⁓ a power company cut through the, ⁓ a power company was, ⁓
putting in a new power line or something along those lines and actually cut through a sewer line. And so, you know, that, and it had been, it had been like that for probably three years and nobody knew the difference. and ⁓ so then the inspection comes and next thing you know, ⁓ you know, they find out that the sewer’s messed up and it could be, you know, thousands of thousands of dollars. Well, you know, just knowing right away, we went back to
where the problem started, which was the power company cutting that line. And we managed to get all that stuff repaired, fixed with no cost to our sellers. And we managed to save the deal. So the buyers who were concerned about ⁓ the sewer system and everything, we got their inspection response and they asked for nothing. And so, you know, it’s solutions like that that we’re able to bring to people just through
Quentin (18:21)
Yeah.Iean Finley (18:26)
⁓ experience that makes a big difference in there. you know, there’s problems everywhere. I guess one of the biggest things I like to say about a real estate transaction, if you’re on the low end and you’re lucky, there’s probably 13 different people involved in that transaction. On the high end, it could be like a short sale where you have negotiators and you have all these different hands. You could have 25 pluspeople involved in that one transaction, that one real estate transaction. So all those people have, you know, there’s all those different decisions, all those different, you know, people touching that information to figure out, you know, what the next steps are and to get that consumer, ⁓ you know, into the new home or whatever. So a lot of people don’t really think about that. They see their real estate agent. They see, ⁓ you know, maybe their lender.
and they see maybe the title company at the end or they may communicate with the title company whenever they deposit their earnest money or something like that, but they don’t realize how many moving parts and how many things are actually going on in the background to be able to get them to that end goal. that kind of makes me laugh a little bit because again, that
Quentin (19:35)
ThankIean Finley (19:50)
Those are the wheels of commerce moving. mean, every time that title company gets paid, some underwriter somewhere is getting paid, everybody’s getting paid ⁓ through that transaction. to be able to, any one of those can go wrong somewhere. And it’s really that real estate agent and that loan officer, they’re kind of the head ofQuentin (20:11)
Yeah.Iean Finley (20:19)
of the transaction ⁓ to be able to make sure that it’s as smooth as possible. And so we always like to work with experienced real estate agents and experienced lenders to make sure that they’ve been through the fire a little bit and that they ⁓ know at the end, the consumer is really our most important piece ⁓ of the puzzle. ⁓And so yeah, mean, ⁓ like I said, the fact that so many people touch a real estate transaction and ⁓ we’re able to smooth that process out, ⁓ the consumer just generally doesn’t even know.
Quentin (21:02)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. And I love how you said, what your years of experience just when a solution is always coming up because you have built up the reps. So you know exactly how to serve the client when you need to serve the client with whatever solution there is. And I absolutely love that. So I guess for me, the next thing is what are you most focused on scaling next or solving next? Like what’s the next real goal for you?Iean Finley (21:25)
So yeah, mean, right now there’s not a lot of inventory ⁓ in the market. And I hear that from all over the place. And we’re in the Midwest, we’re in the St. Louis market, ⁓ Metro East specifically. So like Madison, St. Clair, Monroe counties, they all were right across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. ⁓And so ⁓ even in this area, a lot of the coastal markets, a lot of things hit there a lot sooner. ⁓ But we’re feeling the same pain that they are as ⁓ far as not enough sellers, not enough properties for ⁓ the buyers. And the buyers are, in a lot of cases, given up. So what we do is
my team focuses on finding properties and connecting those with ⁓ investors a lot of times. So, distressed properties, whether, again, like I said, whether they’re short sales or foreclosures or, ⁓ like I said, we purchase properties at the actual foreclosure sales. And ⁓ by working with investors, we’re able to get those things turned back over and create inventory for…
the home buyers that are searching for properties out there. So a lot of times I’ll have a number of off-market properties that are in the process of getting new floors and paint and all that kind of stuff. so depending on my buyer pool, I might already have a house waiting for them. I hate to say pocket listing, but again, I work from between
six or eight investors at a time, sometimes more, and I’m always looking for more investors because, like I said, we find those distressed properties that we can offload to somebody that’s got a team to do the rehab and get it back on the market for somebody as quickly as possible. that’s kind of how my business has survived and thrived this last 10 years.
Quentin (23:29)
Yeah.Iean Finley (23:39)
since, like I said, short sales were not a major thing as of like 15, 16. And we kind of transitioned into regular real estate and doing regular listings and things along those lines. We still run across short sales and we still have done short sales since then. But again, we haven’t cast as big in that. There hasn’t been as much of a need. as we see this,Quentin (23:44)
Yeah.Iean Finley (24:05)
this changing market and ⁓ you know as of right now ⁓ in September of 25 ⁓ you know there there are ⁓ some signs that you know having been through this before ⁓ you know I talked to other people out in the market other experts and ⁓ you know I’ve talked recently with with some of my bankruptcy attorneys and they say that their business is up 20 and 30 percent year over year. Yeah I hadQuentin (24:26)
ThankWell.
Iean Finley (24:34)
one that I met with last week and he said that he’s looking, he asked me if I knew any good attorneys because he was looking to expand his business as that what he was previously doing in 2024, which was anywhere from five to 10 consults a week. Okay, so five to 10, that sounds, you five to 10 bankruptcy consults week, you know, and is, you know, that sounds like it’d keep you pretty busy.Quentin (24:43)
Yeah.Iean Finley (25:02)
⁓ But right now he’s got between 25 and 35 a week. And so, I mean, to me that’s kind of a sign, you know, there’s something going on. And ⁓ then some of the people that I’m running into, you know, again, whether they’ve lost their job downsizing or because of, ⁓ you know, all the different, ⁓ you know, people working from home and things like that, all the technology.Quentin (25:12)
Yeah.Iean Finley (25:31)
that’s phasing people out. And so, ⁓ you know, I can see the pain coming, the pain points are there. And ⁓ we definitely want to be able to reach out to these people and let them know, hey, if you’re having a hard time, you’re not alone. There’s other people that are in that situation ⁓ and there’s ways to go about ⁓ making it a much more graceful situation and that you don’t have to, ⁓ you know,you don’t have to go through it alone.
Quentin (26:02)
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Iean, man, this has been great, man. I thank you for the information and the nuggets that you’ve dropped. I thank you for taking us through your journey. Listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?Iean Finley (26:19)
Yeah, sure. You know, honestly, my cell phone, I love talking to people. They can always call me. 618-401-8682 is my direct cell. ⁓ Our website is ⁓ actually, let me give you my email as well. It’s IEAN at Finley Team Sells dot com. That’s F-I-N-L-E-Y T-E-A-M Sells, S-E-L-L-S dot com.Quentin (26:48)
man, I love it. love it. Listen, thank you so much, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your perspective. Thank you for your story. This has definitely been great, man. And I know people want to take so much takeaways from this episode. So again, Iean, thank you so much, man, for being here.Iean Finley (27:05)
I hope so, I look forward to it. Nice talking with you, Q.Quentin (27:07)
Absolutely.Same, man. Now listen, y’all heard Mr. Iean, y’all heard Mr. Finley. You know we bring you very valuable, great content, great people, just have great stories and experience, and you do not want to miss out on it. So please make sure you are subscribed. Just hit the little bell, little button, that way an alert comes out when we’re on, because you do not want to miss out. So again, Mr. Iean, thank you. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.
Awesome
-
