Unlocking Home Ownership: Candice Crawford’s 30-Year Real Estate Journey

Dylan Silver (00:02.402)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, I have a seasoned real estate investor, entrepreneur, 30 years of experience, specializing in creative finance and helps everyday people become homeowners and investors through Dream Home Bridge and Money Flow Genie. She empowers others to build real wealth through real estate out of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, beautiful area, Candace Crawford. Candace, welcome to the show.

Candice Crawford (00:29.453)
Thank you so much, Mike. It’s a joy to be here.

Dylan Silver (00:32.416)
It’s Dylan, but it’s okay. That’s okay. Mike is the owner of the show. Shout out to Mike.

Candice Crawford (00:33.913)
Oh, sorry. I don’t know. I Mike, nevermind.

Candice Crawford (00:41.695)
Yeah, shout out to Mike. It’s because you just said his name and I’m staring at Dylan in the podcast thing, but I heard Mike’s name. yeah. That shows how human I am.

Dylan Silver (00:50.902)
It’s okay. We’re glad to bring Mike up here. That’s exactly right. Candice, want to ask you about starting off at the top, how you got into real estate. think a lot of people, and I ask this to a lot of guests, will see kind of the end result of the journey, but they don’t see the first step. So how did you get into the real estate space?

Candice Crawford (00:57.271)
Yeah, yeah.

Candice Crawford (01:14.809)
I got into the real estate space just merely wanting to have a roof over my head here in Cape Cod. 27 some odd years ago, the housing crisis was really starting to happen very quickly because the vacation home rentals, they just went crazy here, obviously on the resort area. And what it did is it took the year round housing away. I had a landscaping business that I had for two,

had been new for two years. And because I had my own business, ironically enough, no one would give me housing. If I worked for a restaurant or did something in the service industry, they could say, yeah, that business has been around a lot. You’ll have a job. But they didn’t want to give me housing. And so it became, I became desperate and I ended up, because of my previous experience of building artificial trees and rocks for zoos, I was able to

already have my apprenticeship ready and rolling and just took the test for my construction supervisor’s license here in Massachusetts. And so I didn’t have much money, but there was land in the next little town over. And so I bought land and I built my house. And that is when I learned the power of real estate, I had no idea. I came from a farming family. We didn’t talk.

Dylan Silver (02:33.486)
Wow.

Candice Crawford (02:42.617)
We just built our houses and we just lived in them and we just farmed. It wasn’t about anything about value. I didn’t even know what that was. I thought appreciation meant like I appreciate having a meal on the table. That’s what I thought appreciation was. mean, how naive. mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Dylan Silver (02:50.198)
appreciation or you

So out of necessity.

Dylan Silver (03:06.114)
So out of necessity, and I mean building a home, that’s I mean, you came from a family where that that was a thing, but walk us through that. That had to be a giant undertaking.

Candice Crawford (03:18.943)
It was and it wasn’t. For me, it was not because I have an engineering mind. And I went into mechanical engineering for, you know, when I went to college and I ended up not going into mechanical engineering because I’m an outdoors person. And when I went to a job fair, all the women were in dresses and suits and high heels and I want to make everything.

I wanted to be the person that was actually making the designs and I learned very quickly that no, I’d be basically behind a desk pushing paper. And I was like, that is not me. So I changed my over to art, which went into sculpture. with all that being said, just, my brain is set up to build things. reading up…

Dylan Silver (03:50.371)
Yeah.

Candice Crawford (04:11.807)
a plan and things like that is not something that’s challenging for me. But I would not recommend it for someone that is not, doesn’t think that way.

Dylan Silver (04:20.878)
Now I want to ask you pivoting a bit here Candice about Cape Cod and kind of the history out there. I’m actually ignorant to the history of Cape Cod and when I think of Cape Cod I think of what it is today. You tourist destination beautiful area but you mentioned that it wasn’t really always that way that there was this influx of it being seen as more of a destination as influx of you know rental

opportunities and so on and so forth. What was that time period like and what was it like before that time period?

Candice Crawford (04:53.273)
Well, when I moved here in 89, it was like a little Bohemian town and the homes were old Cape homes that were built when the town in like the 1800s. And those were the homes that people were buying, the investors were for cash. People at the time, there was generations that owned them. They thought getting that chunk of cash, 150 and $200,000 was like gold.

Like I hit the pot of gold and now I can retire. I just cringe when I think about that because I know how far that money will go, not far at all. And you really have to know how to manage money when you get money or you lose it. I mean, just look at what the statistics are. The people that actually win the lottery, people like, wow, they end up in five years being more debt than they were when they before they even won the lottery. So you have

Dylan Silver (05:51.862)
And then you have to be savvy with taxes too, the tax liability.

Candice Crawford (05:54.777)
Everything. There’s so many nuances. mean, there is when you when you grow financially, you grow financially and therefore you do end up getting more stuff. You have more responsibility. You have more to learn and you have to learn how to manage that money, how to make your money work twice. And that’s how I ended up starting with the podcast, Money Flow Genie podcast is because I was learning a lot of things that I never knew. And if I knew that

a long time ago, my gosh, I would just be kicking back right now. I would still be as active as I am, you know, in businesses and such, but my life would be completely different. I would be already sitting here in a financial free position that would have just been incredible if I knew what I know now. And so that’s why I started the podcast is to share that information.

Dylan Silver (06:46.104)
Sharon. You know one of the

One of the things that I think about when talking about financial freedom, asset management, cash flow, you talk about that home in $100,000, $200,000, I can’t even imagine what those homes in that land would be worth today.

Candice Crawford (07:06.637)
They, the appreciation in this area is insane. The home itself. All right, just to give you an example, when I built my home here, I got a construction loan that just rolled over into a mortgage for the whole package. And I have a hundred, I have a thousand eight hundred square foot house, Victorian house that I built. And that mortgage was for $124,000 in 1992.

This house is worth now $1.2 million. That’s insane. It’s good for me, but it’s insane and it limits who can do what here. It is not a place that a family that wants to buy a starter home, that doesn’t happen here. Now I will say this, was able to acquire and I wanna inspire people with this story because I can say I did it.

Dylan Silver (07:51.822)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:58.392)
in Cape Cod.

Candice Crawford (08:06.841)
I, when I saw this housing crisis getting worse and worse and worse, I went into lease to own purchasing, where I would purchase the property from a seller with lease to own, and then I would then resell it to someone that they didn’t have to qualify for the bank mortgages. And I bought a half a million dollar house for $10 down. And that was in 2021.

Dylan Silver (08:32.205)
Hmm.

Candice Crawford (08:36.631)
So it can be done. It took me six months of calling and talking to people and about seven to eight conversations with that particular seller to get that house under contract. Now, the big kicker was, and why did I get that house as opposed to, ironically enough, my mentor that was teaching me was also bidding against me. That was kind of icky. I had a contractor’s license and they had some issues with permits and I was able to…

used my contractor’s license as leverage and then I was here and that’s why I got that contract. So don’t think when you’re moving into real estate, look at every asset, everything that you do in your life. If you are a mother, a stay-home mom or stay-home dad and you have organizational skills, that is huge. People dismiss, oh, I can’t do that.

There’s so many things about everyday life that we can bring into our business, particularly real estate. You know more about real estate than you do, than you think you do, because if you rent, you know a lot, because you know what you need as a tenant, you know what is required, you know the basics, you know when a landlord is not being a good landlord, you know a lot more than you think you do.

Dylan Silver (09:58.158)
It’s true. It’s true. mean, I got into real estate out of necessity as well. But because I was renting and seeing the rents go up year over year, I liked where I was living. I figured I’d made it. I tell people living in San Antonio, I think I was paying $1,200 a month, two pools, two gyms. This was recently 2021 timeframe. And I’m saying, hey, this is great. But then I saw it go up by $100. And I saw it go up. then by the time I left, it was like $1,500 a month. And I’m thinking, well, I’m

how much money am I really saving? And then what do I do to buy a house? And I was seeing, wow, I got to do all this. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to. And ultimately, I said, well, if I can’t beat them, join them. And I ended up learning more about real estate and making a career switch. But going back to your point of this massive appreciation, which, by the way, is also inflation. But when you own real estate, it’s appreciation. It’s our appreciation, right? Same thing happened where I grew up in northern New Jersey. So I mean, I was

Candice Crawford (10:51.032)
Right.

Dylan Silver (10:54.158)
talking about this, but before hopping on here, it’s like to get a middle class home in the area that I grew up and you need a combined household income of close to $220,000 a year and it’s 27 miles from Manhattan. So that’s probably one of the reasons why. But I mean, you talk about going from a $200,000 home to $1.2 million home in Cape Cod. I don’t know if it was that much where I grew up, but it’s probably similar. And so I want to pivot here, Candice and ask you about

seller financing because you mentioned you got into that deal through a creative finance structure, but also I know that you’re involved in helping other people get housing through seller financing and creative structures as well.

Candice Crawford (11:35.607)
Yes, and that’s where I formed dreamhomebridge.com. so Dream Home Bridge is actually, I’m basically the bank and I’m providing a house that comes with it. And that’s basically what it is. Currently, because of the inflation, really it is inflation, the cost of the homes here, it’s just, I would barely be able to make a dent in people’s lives.

trying to every six months trying to get a property under contract here. So I went to an area out in the Midwest to buy inexpensive, what I call inexpensive homes, but they’re really nice homes. These same homes would go $4 million if they were here that are $50,000 and lower. And then what I do is I pay cash for those and then I will resell those immediately.

Dylan Silver (12:19.842)
Yeah.

Candice Crawford (12:31.449)
to someone that doesn’t qualify with the banks. And this is people that I’ve got one home actually out in Indiana that this is why I do it. The first thing the gentleman said to me was like, for the first time in my life, this is so exciting because my wife has always wanted to have a vegetable garden in her own yard. And they get to do that. This is why I do it. These are the reasons why I do what I do because it’s not about, yes, do I make money in this? Of course I do.

It’s, but it’s a lot of, you know, I’m helping people that don’t necessarily know much about the industry of banking and mortgages, the responsibilities that go with home ownership. So not only am I offering opportunities, but I’m helping them along the way. I’m not just saying I’m the bank and then you’re on your own. provide resources with them. I talk to them about what it is. Can they really afford this?

Do they really want to take this on to understand what happens if you own a home and all of a sudden a tree falls on the side of the house? That’s not something that you call anyone other than the repair person or you fix it yourself.

Dylan Silver (13:41.912)
That’s right. mean, with seller financing, that is one of the potential upsides of owning a seller financing property because you’re not responsible for the repairs and the people are likely to take good care of it because it’s their home. So if I mean, there’s this common idiom that if you rent the place out, that it’s just going to be Armageddon by the time the new person comes in many cases, there’s dogs you didn’t know about. now all this damage, you know, holes in the walls. And it’s like, what do these people do here?

But if it’s a seller finance situation or a lease to own situation or a lease option situation, people see it as, you know, pride in their, where they live, right? So they’re gonna take good care of it. Now, you mentioned Midwest and buying $50,000 homes. I have some experience with this, because I’ve seen the same thing. Doing real estate investment remotely.

What has been your approach? Are you buying in specific areas where you know it well or where you may have some boots on the ground knowledge of the area? Or how are you underwriting these deals?

Candice Crawford (14:44.963)
Well, with any, most investors do buy outside of the areas in which they live. But for the most part, start, can, know, obviously the beautiful thing of the internet is that you can get a lot of knowledge. So you search and you find an area where these houses exist. And then you look at, know, what is the crime rate? What is the population? Is the population decreasing rapidly? Is it just slowing down? You don’t want to buy an area necessarily that it’s a one horse town, which means

that there’s only one main source of income and that is like, look at Detroit as an example, when the car industry started to tank, you know, the whole city was built around the automobile industry and then they, you know, they had their struggles and then Detroit, although is building back up, it’s actually becoming, it’s becoming a place to buy. But so that’s what you do. And then yes, you absolutely have to have boots on the ground.

Dylan Silver (15:34.35)
Stay on.

Candice Crawford (15:43.459)
You join, whether it’s a real estate meetup or stove through the internet, you can just put up meetup and find the town, the area, see where you can find a place, Facebook, you can go on Facebook groups in the area of real estate. Connect with people, you have to talk to people, get to know them. Obviously you have to pay these people. It’s not something they just do for, you know, I’ll do it for you for free. No, you’re paying these people, but you’re creating relationships.

And then just having the knowledge about real estate and looking at it from the perspective of like myself as a builder, when they’re walking through and I’ve already given them like the checklist to make sure you take pictures of this or that, but I also want a video. And then I can see, get a better feel as we’re walking through as well, the video. And then from that point, that’s how I’ll make a decision whether I want to buy something or

Dylan Silver (16:38.602)
Now, Candice, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to maybe learn more about your business or reach out to you, get in contact with you?

Candice Crawford (16:46.945)
Okay, one of the easiest ways is go to Moneyflowgenie.com or go to the Moneyflow Genie podcast because all of my information and contact information will be there or you can email me at Candice, C-A-N-D-I-C-E at dreamhomebridge.com. You can go to dreamhomebridge.com, can go to ruthbound.com. There’s lots of ways, I’m on Facebook as well.

Candice Crawford, please reach out or my I’m sure there’ll be some type of link also attached to this podcast that you’ll be able to reach out even if you don’t know what you want, but you’re interested in either buying or being in real estate or Do I want to do this? Talk to me. I’ll be really transparent and all my podcasts I talk a lot about getting into real estate and the different types and some of the real

issues that you could come across not saying that it is all bad because it’s not. It’s not all bad just like all tenants aren’t bad. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. But you just want to be prepared and but take action of some sort and remember just a baby step will get you one step closer to what your dreams are.

Dylan Silver (18:07.119)
Candice, that’s exactly right. Thank you for coming on the show here today.

Candice Crawford (18:11.779)
Thank you so much. It’s been really wonderful. Thank you for having me.