The Power of Collaboration: How Agents and Investors Can Win Together

Dylan Silver (00:00.878)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver and today on the show we have Brandon Lauder out of the Los Angeles area with over 30 years of experience and 20 years of real estate professional development instruction and training throughout the country. Brandon, welcome to the show.

Branden Lowder (00:21.426)
Hey, thanks for having me, appreciate it.

Dylan Silver (00:23.616)
Absolutely, you know, I always start off at the top of the show asking folks how they got into the real estate space

Branden Lowder (00:31.508)
Well, that’s a great question, Dylan. So I actually started in a very small town in Arizona called Lake Havasu City back in 1993, believe it or not, I was 24 years old. Did a little college, wasn’t really into college. And I’ve always had this entrepreneurial mindset and decided that real estate would be a good opportunity. And I’ve been at it for 32 plus years now.

Dylan Silver (00:58.83)
So is this in California?

Branden Lowder (01:00.882)
No, I started in Arizona and then I moved to Los Angeles about 16 years ago.

Dylan Silver (01:02.936)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (01:07.48)
So Arizona today is I feel like one of the hotbeds of real estate. I’ve had so many folks in Arizona. I’m in Texas myself, so another hotbed. Back then, what was Arizona like? You’re talking early 90s. What was the space like in Arizona?

Branden Lowder (01:25.918)
Well, I think Arizona has always been, in my words, more of a pro growth state. So they didn’t have a lot of regulation. They encouraged, you know, building and development. Arizona obviously has a lot of land as well. And so from that perspective, we really traditionally had two primary markets back in the 90s. We had snowbirds. And if you don’t know what a snowbird is right, a snowbird is someone from the.

Midwest who doesn’t like the cold anymore and wants a second home somewhere warm. And Arizona was one of those places. And so that was primarily the winter market. And then the summer markets, we had a lot of additional second home buyers or more importantly, second home. I guess, guess individuals who, who wanted to get out of the state they were in primarily Southern California. And it was a combination of that and, the affordability.

You know, if you were in Southern California, you might live in a 14 or 1600 square foot home, but it might be worth a million. And then you go to Arizona and you find a bigger home with a pool for 300,000. Right. So it’s very similar. And that that has been a trend along with new construction for quite some time.

Dylan Silver (02:42.062)
So you’re out in Arizona and you’re out of school. You know that you have this entrepreneurial bug, which is unique in some ways because some people don’t realize it until they’re entrenched in a W-2 job and realizing this isn’t what I love to do. But you knew pretty much right away. Was real estate immediately, you saw it as an opportunity and you said, what do I got to do to get started?

Branden Lowder (03:06.088)
A little bit of that. had some friends that were already in the business. I, again, I really, I really, in the area that I was in, we were seeing so much new construction. It was, I knew early on that just the desire to own a property or build a home was intriguing just on a personal level. And then I saw, you know, some people that were in the business and I thought, yeah, this would be a great opportunity.

to be my own boss, run my own business and haven’t looked back since.

Dylan Silver (03:38.158)
Do you remember those first couple deals or that first deal?

Branden Lowder (03:42.388)
yeah, absolutely.

Dylan Silver (03:43.726)
Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Branden Lowder (03:45.844)
Yeah. So, um, you know, lot of speculative investors back then, believe it or not. And, uh, the place that I was in, which was Lake Havasu city was unique in that there were homes that were built in the seventies and then brand new homes being built next door. A lot of diversity, a lot of land that was, that was for sale. And one of my first clients was actually a real estate investor. And he actually came from the Southern California area. And I’ll never forget Dylan because

He bought three lots or at least I originally wrote these offers as three lots, right. and he was paying cash and I didn’t really know any different, different. And, and when he came to close, he literally brought coffee can money, $33,000 in cash and coffee cans. And I’ll never forget while he was counting it out in the table on the table and our, brokerage, the broker came walking by and he just had this look on his face, like what is going on?

And so that was my first introduction to a real estate transaction, all cash. And so that was a fun experience.

Dylan Silver (04:50.894)
Okay, so you went the path of being a licensed agent, it sounds like, Okay, so licensed agent, I actually just got licensed last week in Texas. So I went from selling cars, I’ve said this on earlier shows, selling cars, was entrenched in it and felt like I wasn’t able to see how this was a wealth creation strategy for me, wasn’t getting promoted, felt stuck, got into real estate wholesaling.

Branden Lowder (04:55.102)
That is correct.

Branden Lowder (05:00.211)
Nice.

Dylan Silver (05:18.958)
had done that for a year and a half, really enjoyed the networking component of it, but also felt like, as you can probably attest to, Brandon, there’s some level of tension between wholesalers and realtors. And I felt like every time that I would get on the phone with a realtor, I would just get shut down to a degree. It would almost have to be like beat around the bush to the point where there are some major, major companies that do wholesale or some variation of it.

Branden Lowder (05:21.16)
Right.

Branden Lowder (05:31.092)
There is.

Dylan Silver (05:47.662)
instead of calling themselves wholesalers, they’ll be like, oh, no, no, that’s not what we’re doing. And they’ll use some fancy way to dress up. Yeah, you know, it’s like you’re a wholesaler and be proud of it, you know? And so I decided I am going to go be a real estate agent. So that’s the path that I took. You went that road immediately in your head at that time. Are you thinking real estate investments or are you thinking I’m going to grow a brokerage and get this as big as possible?

Branden Lowder (05:54.42)
Sure.

Branden Lowder (06:15.604)
No, I, um, I went into it because I knew I wanted to be my own boss and, really control. I’ve always been a hard worker. I, I was raised that way. So putting in the time and energy that was easy for me. And to your point, right? If you’re going to put in time and energy, uh, maybe it would be nice to make a little bit more income. Right. But Dylan, I didn’t grow up in money. So for me, having any kind of an understanding of investing in real estate, uh,

purely came from me getting into real estate, falling in love with it and meeting other clients who bought and sold real estate that at that point, you know, I recognize there was a whole nother level of real estate to your point about wholesaling. Really what I learned to do in the nineties was not called wholesaling at the time. We called it double S growing and similar, except that we.

We really weren’t trying to transfer or sell a contract. We were literally opening an escrow. So let’s say you owned a vacant lot and you and I agreed to, was going to pay you $10,000 for it. But I also had somebody else who was willing to pay me 13,000. We would just open up an escrow and you and I would have our agreement that you were going to get paid $10,000. And I had the agreement with the buyer bringing, you know, $13,000 and I got to keep the difference. So.

Dylan Silver (07:22.253)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (07:37.742)
Mmm.

Branden Lowder (07:38.324)
Back in the day, it was done a little different. You’re not really allowed to double escrow anymore. you know, again, it is very much so. Yeah, very much so. So I learned that, but I really didn’t become a real estate investor until 2012, believe.

Dylan Silver (07:41.218)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (07:45.614)
It’s like a double close in a way.

Dylan Silver (07:56.426)
Okay, so remind me again, Brandon, how long were you in Arizona for?

Branden Lowder (08:01.78)
So I left Arizona in 2009. So right at the tail end of the great recession, right? It was time for me to get out of a smaller town and go, you know, see the world a little bit. Ended up in Los Angeles and very happy that I’m in Los Angeles because it’s helped me grow in so many different ways, including the real estate side of things, the investor side of things.

Dylan Silver (08:08.386)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (08:29.774)
So in a way, Arizona still probably feels like home because you spent so much time there. In my life, I look at it, I feel like I’ve moved every five years, but each city that I’ve been in, because five years feels like a long time, at least to me, each city feels like home. But you go to Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles, you’re there, it’s 2009, you said, so I’m trying to think in the arc of Los Angeles.

Is this Los Angeles and it still feels like heyday Los Angeles or is this Los Angeles and you’re beginning to see some of the issues which we see now without going too much into that.

Branden Lowder (09:07.24)
Yeah. I think I, I honestly went into it, Dylan blind, not, not necessarily knowing what the real estate market was like, or going to be like. And so, I met my current wife, who’s also my partner, at that time, she’s been in real estate as well. And her business was predominantly foreclosures and REOs at that time. So, so when I came to LA to your point, what I got immersed in was

BPO’s and foreclosures and evictions. And that just elevated the whole introduction to the investor space because, you know, predominantly most of those REO properties that were sold were to investors themselves.

Dylan Silver (09:51.15)
So you actually got into a business which was, in some ways, depending on which side of it you were on, booming. Because if you’re involved in foreclosures, if you’re able to facilitate and transact in that space during that time period, you’re one of the few people I can imagine that has a working model because everyone else was seeing the blood in the water.

Branden Lowder (10:16.914)
I would, I would like to think that to be fair. I don’t know. Very many real estate agents that actually have a working model. think the top producers do. think the people who are, genuinely making a business in the real estate industry are following models and systems, but I would say a hard 85 to 90 % of most real estate agents don’t have a model. And I was one of those models. It’s just, you’re, you’re taking the business that’s basically being handed to you. Right. And so, it was, it was a blessing because to your point,

the, the amount of inventory was there at that time. Right. So in 2009 and 10 and 11 and 12, there was a plentiful amount of properties, especially for investors, uh, because the banks at that time, right. They, they needed to turn properties. didn’t really have the wherewithal to manage utilities and all the things that come with that many properties. Uh, and they were, you know, you could get a property for 60, 65, 70 cents on the dollar, you know, at that particular time. Right. So.

Good way to flush the system from inventory and provide opportunity to investors. And from our perspective as a, as a real estate agent, put us in front of more and more investors, which helped us in turn learn more about that space and you know, how do investors work? Right? So I didn’t go to a school. didn’t go to classes on real estate investing. It’s all learning from others and street smarts, right? To a certain degree until around 2010, when I actually started teaching.

a class called the certified investor agent specialist class. And that again is just another part of real estate where there’s so much real estate. There’s so many variations of real estate trying to find your niche can be, can be challenging for a lot of agents and just clicked for, for Tammy and I, because we had product, we had investors, and now it’s, it’s time for us to learn what that really means, even as an investor for ourselves, like the math and

when to say no and not everything is a deal, right? Kind of thing.

Dylan Silver (12:20.006)
Brendan, you still remember those years when you were getting to LA and working with the foreclosures? Is that kind of ripe in your mind or does it seem more like a distant memory as far as your origins goes?

Branden Lowder (12:34.516)
No, I mean, I remember it pretty vividly, right. And it wasn’t even the, the foreclosure part of it, Dylan was, was on the front side of it. And then what started slowly transitioning into that space was short sales. So there weren’t a lot of short sales necessarily happening or there were more foreclosures I could say than short sales. And then that, that opportunity changed again, because right around 2010, the, know, the government got a little bit more involved in the Dodd-Frank Act came out and

It was all about helping people avoid foreclosure, which I still believe in. you know, but there are a lot of people who, like you said earlier, they smell blood in the, in the water and, right or wrong, you know, maybe potentially took advantage of, of certain situations for sure.

Dylan Silver (13:23.426)
I can imagine that there were definitely some sharky people who probably investors who weren’t encumbered by having a real estate license could come in and make very low offers and make deals happen. But being in that space, if we can do a deep dive here, this is a space where I think a lot of agents don’t touch. A lot of agents don’t touch.

Branden Lowder (13:45.748)
Sure.

Dylan Silver (13:53.228)
So here you come, you’re new to LA and you’re effectively immersed in this. You’re talking about starting looking at some of these foreclosures but then dealing with short sales. Were you doing a lot of short sales at that point in time? Was that like what was happening? It was the main deal at that point in time?

Branden Lowder (14:10.708)
So I think the right way for us to say, I think what you’re asking would be, so we have a combination of transactions. We actually facilitate ourselves. And then we had other real estate agents or institutions where we help them facilitate a transaction. So collectively between foreclosures and short sales, we’ve probably done. Almost maybe 500 or just a little over 500 of those transactions. And, you know, that’s a lot.

And not just the transaction itself, it’s, it’s what comes with it. Meaning people who are genuinely upset or disappointed that they’re in the financial situation that they’re in, or that they’re getting ready to be evicted or, you know, people who just flat out didn’t care and kind of said, you know, whatever to the man and, you know, let properties deteriorate or demolish them. So, I mean, we’ve really seen it all to be fair.

And I think what I’ve learned is that there’s always gonna be a distressed market to a certain degree. It just might not be as significant as it was in 2009, 10, 11, and 12.

Dylan Silver (15:23.118)
So are you at that point in time, really getting into the details here, are you as the short sale agent getting on the phone with the banks and talking about them with the appraisal, what it’s appraising for? Are they doing this on their own end, talking about what it’s going to sell for? I’m unfamiliar with this process and some of our listeners maybe as well. So what was that process like?

Branden Lowder (15:43.23)
Sure.

the process because of the, of the volume was a little tedious and really to be fair, had not only property owners, had agents and you had lending institutions who were really not familiar with a process. And so there was, there was a lot of tension, in a lot of different ways, at that particular point in time, Dylan, because the, process is pretty simple. In other words, I own a property. I owe more than what it’s worth.

And can I reach out to the bank and find a way for me to get relief? Right. And that relief is in the, in the industry called non recourse. Right. So in other words, I want you to forgive me for my debt and in return, right. I, I promised not to do this again. So sort of thing. And so as it was a culmination of us understanding the seller’s situation, gathering the right information and documentation to present that to the lender, to ask for it.

Right? So there was a little bit of a process where you have to demonstrate that they’re in financial hardship. As an example, you have to be able to prove that the property is only worth so much that usually came in the form of an offer or two. But here was one of the bigger challenges, not only were the lenders and the servicers not necessarily staffed or trained in it. You’re talking about an employee in a company who made $30,000 a year.

didn’t really care whether you had a financial problem or not. You were just a number to them. You just showed up as a, you know, a file on their desk and they would get to it when they decided to get to it. And if you, if you didn’t treat them fairly, they would put it at the bottom of the pile. So it was, there were some, definitely some tough times trying to get things, you know, through the system. And on average, probably eight to 10 months on a good day to get a short sale approved. So it took some time.

Dylan Silver (17:39.65)
Yeah, thank you for that explanation. That’s the first time that I’ve been walked through it like that. So I can just sense the frustration on all ends dealing with this. But then you’re doing this at scale, right? So you’re seeing some similarities. I am imagining you’re developing this book of business and you’re becoming known, building somewhat of a brand as someone who is familiar with this, maybe even other agents who don’t feel comfortable, which I’m imagining many would.

would refer people to you in these cases is that what was happening and is that how you were growing at that point.

Branden Lowder (18:15.026)
Yeah, and it still happens today. And you made the comment earlier, even about investors, you know, we’ve made a decent name for ourselves working in that space. So we get those referrals to your point, because there is an agent who I would say they’re a decent agent in the fact that they recognize it’s not at their level and they should pass it off to somebody who knows how to do it. And so, yeah, we, we absolutely got referral business from.

Dylan Silver (18:41.878)
Okay, so

Branden Lowder (18:42.588)
including the banks and servicers. We would get calls directly from them, from a borrower who reached out and said, hey, I’m in trouble, what should I do? And we had such a great reputation that even the banks would call us.

Dylan Silver (18:46.231)
Mmm.

Dylan Silver (18:55.982)
Would these be the banks that they owe the money to? Wow. That’s really the best scenario possible, that means that they know what’s going on, they need an agent, and they’re already willing to work with you because they know about you.

Branden Lowder (18:58.398)
That is correct.

Branden Lowder (19:07.156)
Right. And the same thing actually happens in the REO world, the foreclosure world. A lot of the asset managers already have relationships with agents who are already trained on how to manage and handle a foreclosure. And that’s why they predominantly will get those, those leads or those listings for those REO properties. So yeah, it evolved during that, short sale period where the banks and servicers started to do the same thing. Like I

I really need to pass this borrower off to someone who knows what they’re doing just to make my life easier.

Dylan Silver (19:40.184)
very very interesting. I’m sure we could spend another whole podcast just talking about these strategies. But I do want to get to where you are today. It sounds like heavily involved in it correct me if I’m wrong. Instructions and training. Is this correct.

Branden Lowder (19:41.768)
Yeah.

Branden Lowder (19:56.454)
It is, and the instruction and training, is really helped me build the systems and models to follow. It’s helped me not be a hypocrite as an instructor. It’s helped me help thousands of other real estate agents learn how to work with investors properly, to not only understand the investing space, but to hopefully become an extension of what that investor’s goals are.

We teach a very proactive model, meaning we really teach agents how to look at real estate through a different lens. In other words, Dylan, every property out there has some rate of return. It’s just most real estate agents aren’t looking at it that way. They look at the home you own as an opportunity to get a listing and make a commission and they limit themselves. you know, it’s, it’s like the hammer analogy. If the only tool you have as a hammer, everything that you see is a nail.

Right. And, and there’s so many other issues out there than just nails. There’s so many situations and real estate. So, so what it’s done for me is several things. I became an instructor teaching it, which made me realize I need to understand it and own the content, which then made me realize somebody already put together a system and a model that I should follow for us to build our real estate business around. And more importantly, if I do it correctly and ethically and with great integrity,

A lot of great things will happen, including us learning how to be investors, us building trust and relationships with our other investors. And now I’m at that point where not only we’re still doing that in real estate, I’m really big on trying to help other real estate agents who want to work in this space be really good at

Dylan Silver (21:41.506)
Okay, lots to touch on there. So as you’re developing this instruction, is this a passion of yours at that point in time? Also, what year are we talking about here? And was it something that you’re like, I want to bring this to more people? Or was it more people coming to you and saying, hey, how do I do what you’re doing?

Branden Lowder (21:45.2)
Hahaha

Branden Lowder (22:02.866)
No, I originally in 2010 got the opportunity to become an instructor for the same class that I, I have now. Right. So I was an instructor and that company, the sharpens, had already built a book of business nationally with other brokerages. So this became a training program that they were offering in 2010.

And I was just blessed to be one of the lead instructors. And so I taught this class from Portland, Maine to Seattle, Washington up until about 2015. And then those, those owners put everything on the shelf and, it, it really didn’t do anything with the product. And then in 2022, they reached out and said, Hey, I think this is a good time to bring the product back. Are you interested in buying it? And so my wife and I, Tammy and I,

decided this is a great opportunity because I, I do love teaching and instruction. We’re still in the investor space. So we updated the content and kind of revitalized it and launched it about a year and a half ago. And, since then, right now we’re, we’re getting the word out there. And the idea Dylan is there are, are real estate investors who would love a trustworthy real estate professional.

to help them find deals or sell deals without it making it sound like it’s all about the real estate agent and the commission, right? And most agents genuinely don’t understand how investors work. You brought up a great point earlier in the fact that you became a wholesaler and that’s a great example of if you don’t understand the wholesale market, you’re probably already gonna have an attitude about wholesalers. If you don’t even understand the opportunity or why. So what I would tell you, well, most of the people we teach today, real estate agents,

When it comes to lead generation and marketing, I always say, you want to know who does a better job at lead generating to homeowners? Those are wholesalers. They do a way better job than you do. And, there’s truth to that, right? So, but there’s no reason to have these walls and these barriers. And so I’m a, I’m a believer in collaboration and that you can’t take a hundred percent of the business. And so we’re just trying to bridge that gap with this class to where we can have real estate agents be more comfortable.

Branden Lowder (24:23.772)
And understanding real estate investing. That’s the first step. How can they be an investor themselves, maybe, which would be a great step, helping them build wealth. And then more importantly, how can you again, work with investors and not, you know, be a thorn in their side, so to speak. and that example would be real estate agents, Dylan, typically they find a deal, whatever they think deal is. But what they do is they send the investor an address as an example.

And what they don’t realize is that investor now has to do work. They have to run the numbers. They have to, right. They have to do all of these other things to make a determination of whether it’s a deal or not. And, because most real estate agents don’t understand that they don’t, they don’t, they now are missing that, that major component on how that investor feels about that real estate agent, which is like, you’re just another real estate agent. So what we do is we teach a proactive model, meaning

I already talked to Dylan, he’s got a property to sell. I already ran the numbers and those numbers are this. And now I’m going to send that to the investor in such a way that the investor only has to say yes or no to it rather than having to do all of the work. Right. so that’s, that’s, that’s an example of, what we’re trying to accomplish is teach the agent, real estate investing. Hopefully they become an investor and then hopefully they understand it to where they can go out and earn the right to work with investors.

Dylan Silver (25:34.978)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (25:49.848)
man, we could have a full conversation about this. Because I’m thinking about all the deal formulas that I learned as a wholesaler, which I know there’s a great real estate school out here that helped me pass my real estate exam on the first try, didn’t think I was going to pass. But they didn’t, of course, their goal is not to teach you to think like an investor. So, you know, to your point, Brendan, it was exactly like you’re saying. these investment strategies are going to be

Branden Lowder (25:52.052)
I’m

Branden Lowder (25:56.648)
Right.

Dylan Silver (26:19.49)
you know, obfuscated or unclear or maybe even seem like hands off to a lot of newer agents and even seasoned agents because you just don’t deal in that realm. And in some cases, I experienced at least personally that it may even be frowned upon to network with wholesalers, which I am and was one at the time. But, you know, I digress a bit here and we’ll have to have you back on. We are coming up on time, though, Brandon. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Branden Lowder (26:29.812)
Right.

Branden Lowder (26:39.198)
Yeah.

Yeah, no problem.

So the easiest place is our website, is C I A S, which stands for Certified Investor Agent Specialist. So C I A S designation.com. They can get a good understanding of what it is that we have to offer any upcoming classes as well. Or our Gmail, which is C I A S designation at gmail.com. If they’d like to learn a little bit more about it. We always get this question to Dylan, if you don’t mind.

We just did a live class in Phoenix and I would say 30 % of that class were other investors who weren’t licensed. So the class is a great class just to understand the fundamentals or maybe a more responsible way to invest in real estate, along with self-directed IRAs and 1031 exchanges and financing. And so it’s a very well-rounded course. It’s very eye-opening for most people, which is great.

Dylan Silver (27:44.14)
Is there an event coming up here that’s already on the calendar?

Branden Lowder (27:47.07)
There are several and most of them are via zoom at the moment, which is great. So we, do a live in-person zoom class. And then the only other live in-person class we have is in the city of orange, California at the end of the month.

Dylan Silver (28:02.67)
got it. Well, wow, so much to dive into. We’ll have to have you back on Brandon. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for giving us some value today.

Branden Lowder (28:11.742)
Yeah, Dylan, thanks for the time and the conversation. I really appreciate it.