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Stopping Foreclosures & Saving Families | How Jana Baker Helps Investors AND Homeowners Win

By December 2, 2025Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Jana Baker discusses the importance of bridging the generational gap in investing, particularly between the baby boomer generation and Gen X. She shares insights gained from listening to seasoned investors and how these lessons inspired the creation of Investor Arena, a platform aimed at engaging a younger audience in investment discussions.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Jana Baker (00:00)
    Well, there’s a program that I’m really trying to push out, know, especially surrounding the holiday time, because I just, my heart is still helpful. I mean, that, and that’s where I come from. You know, I am built, I am a relationship builder. It is important for me to have good connections and good solid firm foundations. And I’ve partnered with a company, Elite Management, that runs a program that’s called Stop Foreclosure in its tracks. And that is huge for me right now. And there’s huge opportunity. Our foreclosure numbers are just absolutely sailing.

    ⁓ here in Alabama. And so we really, we need to do something. And I want to be able to help keep those people in their homes. And so this program is great with we have fabulous bank negotiators, we can either keep them in their home by running back to them. There’s several entrance and exit strategies.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:19)
    Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited today. I have another fantastic guest. She is a strategist. She knows what she’s doing. She has a saying, and I hope she don’t mind me saying it, kinda tease a little bit. It’s either an area no or it’s an area go. She’ll tell you more about that, but when she said that, that just stuck.

    out in my mind, but I really am excited for us to peek behind the lens of Miss Jana Baker. Miss Jana, how you doing today,

    Jana Baker (02:56)
    I’m doing fantastic. Thanks, Q.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:58)
    Absolutely. Well, listen, I want to dive right in. I would love for you to take us into your world. I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days. You want to give us a little bit of an origin story of how you got to where you are and kind of got into real estate. And also tell us what markets you’re operating in, what part of the world you’re in. So Ms. the floor is yours,

    Jana Baker (03:18)
    Thanks, Q. So ⁓ I’m actually a realtor here in Alabama. So that’s the markets that I work. ⁓ I own a ⁓ insurance agency. It’s a small boutique kind of white glove investor service agency. It’s called Jana Baker Insurance. So, and that’s kind of where Investor Arena was born. So I’m really niche. I work particularly with investors, whether that be multifamily, single family portfolios.

    ⁓ working out, you know, insurance deals, realizing that insurance strategy is so important. ⁓ and you know, in, making money and actually closing deals. So that’s kind of where it all started. So I’m that person that, know, investors wise are tired of listening to them. Their kids don’t want to hear it anymore. You know, so I listened and actually learned a ton from the baby boomer generation of investors. And I’m really working hard to try to pull that into my.

    a Gen X kind of arena. And that’s where investor arena was born.

    So realizing all the pain points that investors have, what makes, what breaks deals, and insurance being one of the big factors in that, you know, that you, that insurance really can. So I’m really fortunate to be in this Alabama market. ⁓ I have a lot of national and international clientele.

    So I’m boots on the ground for them here. I work as a strategist. have a team that kind of works around me ⁓ on the insurance side as well as on the real estate side. ⁓ So not only do I work with investors, but I do work with builders, developers, that sort of thing as well. ⁓ Like I said, boots on the ground. I go out, I look at properties. see whether I know that Q kind of alluded to an investor know or an investor go. I work with a lot of ⁓

    BRR investors as well as DSCR. We do those kinds of things. have calculators that I use and that’s kind of how we determine yes or no, or a no or go. So we’re real clear from the beginning. I’m looking at exit upfront. So we kind of get our plan together. I do that through a strategy session with each investor.

    I am, like I said, white glove services. I do not take tons of clientele. So I’m not, you we have to be a good fit for each other. I have a huge, very valuable network that I work with ⁓ that is very trusted. They’re completely vetted. ⁓ And so through that, I’m able to offer investor services that they may not have had access to. So I come fully armed.

    ⁓ And that’s what they like. mean, me having all the resources that they need. So again, it was kind of born out of, hey, Jana, this is where my pain points are in the investment arena. ⁓ And so that’s where we are today. So, and the investor arena itself is a platform that I’ve been building on for about the past year. It’s continuous, you know, we’re still continuing to work on that.

    run a very active insurance agency and also a very active realtor. you know, time is my biggest issue. ⁓ But when we’re done with this thing, it will be a place for investors to pool and to come together to learn from each other based on their SEC value will be what kind of deals that they have access to. These deals, most of them being dirt deals would be paired ⁓ with construction or reconstruction.

    ⁓ they also have all the pieces that they’ll need to close a real estate deal. So there’ll be title involved. There’ll be banking involved and so on and so forth. And like I said, I have that network built already. So that’s not something that I’m going to have to build from scratch. I’ve been working the last 10 years, trying to actively build those relationships and have found some fabulous partners. ⁓ not all of them are here locally in Alabama. I do use a lot of national brands as well. but have some really.

    good trusted network partners that you know to work with. So yeah, so eventually ⁓ Private Wealth is going to be able to post in the arena just like they do on Zillow.

    Quentin Edmonds (08:19)
    I love it. I love it. So I love it. You, realtor, have your insurance company, building investor arena, but at your heart of what you said, are a strategist. So I want to talk about strategies for a little bit. What are some of the key strategies that you had put into place for business and actually personally that helps you power you towards your goal, that keeps you focused, that keeps you going with the eyes on the prize.

    Jana Baker (08:46)
    Well, that’s kind of difficult to say. There’s been a lot ⁓ over time and that’s kind of transitioned over time. Like I said before, I really, I learned from the pros. So I had a lot of investors come in and kind of just like put their arm around me and, Jana, you’re interested in this stuff. You like it. You’re enjoyable to talk to. So let me teach you a few things. So I listen. mean, and my background, which I didn’t share with you before, actually came out of medical.

    So I was in the nursing field. Yep, I was director of critical care ⁓ for a large hospital here in Birmingham. And so I learned how to talk with physicians and realize that they’re kind of in that investor arena as well. ⁓ And so it just all kind of transitioned over time. And then just the whole learning gamut and just keeping my eyes open. do pull a lot from what, you

    from using AI tools. mean, I’ve learned all the things over time. So I definitely say that those things have seriously helped me be able to scale and grow more quickly.

    So that’s definitely something that I’ve used, but really growing organically and I’m super referral-based. ⁓ I’m very selective and have learned to be selective. casting a net out and just pulling back everything does not work for me.

    I like to build relationships. I want to get to know you. I want to partner. You know, we, we really work together. I mean, I always tease that the investors most days, the ones that I work with most closely, I can tell you what color their underwear is for the day. mean, you just never, you just never know. I mean, we really work that close and build that kind of relationship. We’re not, ⁓ you know, it’s more of a.

    a partnership than it is a just, you know, casual relationship. We know each other’s families. So I particularly like to work with very active investors. So I help them from the real estate side on the acquisition point. ⁓ Then when we’re looking at acquisition, like I was telling you before, ⁓ I’m looking at exit from the minute we’re looking at entry. So that to me, that’s so important. So, and that’s just something that I’ve learned from them.

    I mean, they’ve taught me that from the beginning. If you don’t know where you’re going, then you don’t know how to get there. And so I’ve kind of taken on a lot of that from them. So I’m talking these, you know, these guys that I’ve learned from are in their sixties, late sixties and seventies and have been fabulous. They just, ⁓ their families are just tired of hearing what they’ve been talking about for years. And they were glad to have somebody, I guess, that wanted to listen to it again. And I was the lucky one that got that opportunity.

    So it was fabulous. mean, I just really, was a huge opportunity for me to be able to learn and grow. And so I’ve had a couple of different kinds. So I’ve had a lot of experience in the section eight type investor all the way up to, you know, just your typical portfolio investor, bringing, being either out of state or international or even national investors. So then, I mean, it’s just, it’s just been really good for me. I’ve just had a lot of, ⁓

    handholding type experiences and then be able to throw my own spin in there. I’m kind of a no nonsense kind of person and either the deal works or the deal doesn’t work. And there’s no sense in trying to make that, you know, that square peg fit in that round hole. It’s a yay or a nay. And so that’s what my investors really like and enjoy about working with me is even if insurance is going to break the deal, the insurance breaks the deal. So either it’s like I said, a yes or a no, and there’s no

    you know, no in between. ⁓ And I was telling you before, I use really conservative scoring ⁓ capture. So even with DSCR, I know a lot of people here in Alabama may, you know, use a lower score. If you’re using like a 1 % rule, ⁓ I’m gonna lean up higher, a little higher than a 1 % rule if that’s your only scoring mechanism. But you know, it’s really, ⁓ it’s really important here to buy in correctly.

    ⁓ to be able to exit correctly. I am not fond of, let’s wait in the next five or six years. You know, we’ll start making money. No, we like to make money from the start. need to be able to cover everything. ⁓ so that’s kind of how I evaluate that for them and look into what that construction looks like. You know, what’s our actual, what’s our actual costs? We do real numbers here. I use MLS values. I was telling, you know, telling Q before that I’ve not that.

    I’m not that person that’s just gonna try to sell you something. ⁓ I want to know that the deal works. If it’s broken for you, I feel like I failed as well. I I want you to be successful just as much as I want myself to be successful and then we can all do this together. So it’s very much a team approach.

    Quentin Edmonds (14:10)
    Yeah, I absolutely love the way you talk about people and your interaction with people. How you talk about the people that’s helping you along the way. How you talk about, listen, if it’s broken for you, I failed you. Like you really invest and want to really serve the people, your clients, the people that’s right in front of you. And so I want to talk about relationship building for a little bit. seems like you are really good at relationship building and it matters to you. So how has building relationships

    and building your network, how has that made a difference for you?

    Jana Baker (15:23)
    Because it’s that trust. mean, so where, you know, if I just let me give you an example. So say I have an international investor and I do this quite a lot. So I’m beats on the ground for them. Well, I come with a full armory. So I am not going to just go look at the property myself and say, hey, this is where it is. I’m going to if there’s foundation issues or if there’s questionable anything, I’m bringing those folks with me, you know, and we’re looking. So you have a professional looking at what

    you know, at what we’re doing. again, either it’s a yay or a nay. I mean, if it’s broken, it’s broken, but I work with the same contractors all the time. So they do things for me that they’re not going to do for you, you know, and they know at the end of the day, they’re going to get the business if the deal is a go, but we run so many deals that there’s plenty enough churn for them to get what they need out of it. ⁓ And so, and we also look at a little bit different scale, especially if investors are buying pretty aggressively.

    So, you the way we charge or the way they rate for that is going to be a little bit, you know, a little bit different because we know that there’s going to be business to follow. It’s not just like a one and done. We don’t move like that. We move for, you know, for ⁓ acquisition. So we’re moving for continuous, you know, acquisition for clients. We’re not really, you know, I’m not a one and done. I’m not a, it’s all about building those relationships. I’ve kind of, I’ve learned through

    you know, like I said, I was medical before and so I came into this completely blind, ⁓ didn’t have a network, knew that I couldn’t do this alone, knew that just was not going to work. So I joined ⁓ BNI actually, and that’s where I was able to start building my foundation. And then one person led to the next, to the next thing I know, two or three years down the road, here I am, you know, with ⁓ this armory all the way across the state of Alabama.

    So I mean, I have contractors that I can call for South Alabama, just like for North Alabama. ⁓ I tend to hover around that Birmingham market just because that’s more local to me. ⁓ But I find myself quite oftenly being pulled into North Alabama, especially with the, you know, the FBI recently moved into the Huntsville market. Then we have NASA that’s coming, you mean all these new things. So.

    there’s definitely, know, especially in that commercial realm with warehousing and that sort of thing, I’m being pulled a lot into that North Alabama space. ⁓ So, you know, that’s definitely a hotspot for us right now. ⁓ And I have a lot of people just randomly calling me about, hey, do you think I should grab some rentals up there while the getting’s good? And I’m like, absolutely.

    But it has to math out for us. That’s my biggest thing is we still have to buy right. We’re not just buying because something shiny, something pretty, where we’re looking at the numbers before we buy.

    Quentin Edmonds (18:15)
    I love it. love it. So, Ms. Jana, what’s the next real goal? Like, what are you aiming for? What’s the next real goal for you?

    Jana Baker (18:22)
    Well, there’s a program that I’m really trying to push out, know, especially surrounding the holiday time, because I just, my heart is still helpful. I mean, that, and that’s where I come from. You know, I am built, I am a relationship builder. It is important for me to have good connections and good solid firm foundations. And I’ve partnered with a company, Elite Management, that runs a program that’s called Stop Foreclosure in its tracks. And that is huge for me right now. And there’s huge opportunity. Our foreclosure numbers are just absolutely sailing.

    ⁓ here in Alabama. And so we really, we need to do something. And I want to be able to help keep those people in their homes. And so this program is great with we have fabulous bank negotiators, we can either keep them in their home by running back to them. There’s several entrance and exit strategies.

    I’m trying to pull other realtors. I mean, either you’re a short sale realtor or you’re not you’re, you know, either you’re willing to do it or you’re afraid of it. So you know, I am

    all about that short sale, can absolutely maneuver that ground well. So, and with all the support that I have behind me. So this is definitely a team sport for sure. But we have fabulous negotiators ⁓ that work with banks that already have those very built in long-term relationships with the people that matter. ⁓ So they’re able to help us with that transition and getting that access point. And so then a lot of times,

    what has happened or what I’ve seen in the past with this program is we’re able to stop that foreclosure, save a lot of dignity. Cause I mean, you know, having your name in the local paper and here we’re, know, Alabama is real community-based even in the city part. So it matters to people, know, things like that really matter. So saving face is huge and we’re able, you know, to stop that in its tracks, ⁓ save that dignity, able to either rent back to them and then

    one of our most recent success stories ⁓ is that the client actually bought their house back. And so we were able, they did rent for a year, then we put them in a rent to own program for the rest of the remainder of the time, and it worked back for them. So it was great. So their kids didn’t have to get uprooted. They were able to continue in the same school systems that they were in. Nothing really changed for them.

    ⁓ other than they went from, my God, I don’t know what to do to, it’s going to be okay. And so we love to see things like that happen. I mean, that is a win win for everybody. ⁓ and you know, and you know, there’s still money to be made in all those transactions. So everybody wins. So it’s great. You’re helping people and maintaining a good solid business performance. So it’s a win win.

    Quentin Edmonds (21:06)
    I love it. I love everything about what you’re doing. I love how you’re serving people, how you’re really helping people. Like you said, it’s my name to be me, but at the heart of this is to make sure that we can help people and serve people. And I always say at servitude is at the foundation of any sustainable business. And so I love what you’re doing. I love what you’re building. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you, man?

    Jana Baker (21:34)
    Yes sir. So I would, I’m available ⁓ by email at any time of course. So it’s Jana, J-A-N-A at investorarena.net. ⁓ And you can reach me in my office at 205-829-1288. That’s actually my insurance office. And then you are welcome to text me at any time at 205-422-4917. ⁓

    Quentin Edmonds (22:01)
    She is Miss Jana. Thank you so much, ma’am. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your perspective. Thank you for just being someone I want to serve people and help people. Very, very refreshing episode. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming through.

    Jana Baker (22:15)
    Thank you.

    Quentin Edmonds (22:16)
    Absolutely. Listen, y’all heard Ms. Baker, y’all heard Ms. Jana, y’all got the value, you know what she’s about. So please just make sure you subscribe. That way when we continue to bring people up, incredible people like Ms. Jana you can come in and get the resources, get the nuggets. And so again, I thank you, Ms. Baker and to everyone else. We’ll see you on the next time.

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