William Dennis Explains How to Buy a Home Without Becoming House Poor

William Dennis (00:00)
Someone’s going to buy a home, you’re approved at eight hundred thousand, with me as your realtor, I usually guide you against spending the eight hundred thousand. Yeah.

No, I tell people, you know, you need three months of reserves. God forbid you hurt yourself walking out the driveway or you slip on something, you can’t go to work for a few weeks. You’re laid off, you need some time.

Q Edmonds (01:50)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I’m excited about my guest. One reason why I’m excited about my guest is because a key word when we were talking that this gentleman laid down is the word honesty. And I believe, you know, us being integral, being, you know, bringing our best self, bringing ourselves, you know, with integrity, showing up with integrity is a big thing. And so honesty is big with this gentleman.

Another thing is educating. He wanna educate his customers. And so I’m excited to have this conversation. We probably gonna talk probably a little bit maybe about bankruptcy and how he can help people with that, but I’m just so excited by the way he’s building and the way he’s growing. And so I’m excited to introduce you all to Mr. William Dennis. Mr. William, Mr. Will, how you doing today, sir? Man, doing good, doing good, man.

William Dennis (02:44)
I’m doing all right. How are you?

Q Edmonds (02:48)
I’m glad that you’re here, sir. I’m excited to have this conversation. And, well, I am the type, I like to dive right in, man. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. And, well, if you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, man. How you got to the space and the passion that you’re working with now, if you don’t mind.

William Dennis (03:09)
Okay. I am a licensed realtor since 2004. I work for Globalized Realty Group, and my broker is one of my closest friends. Yeah. His name is Jamal Gibbons. Very popular here on Long Island in real estate, but very, very humble. You know. You know, he’s like the millionaire who drives the Prius. So my space happened being young, and I really didn’t have any direction. No college degree.

Mm, and had a friend give me an opportunity to teach me something that I didn’t know I’d be—I’ve never, I never knew I’d make it to this point doing this. Yeah. I took the chance, and it worked out. I got into an investment space. My wife and I just saved the funds. Well, I had a landscaping company, and she was the director of nursing. We saved the money. I think for our first investment property, we saved a hundred grand in a year. Wow.

That’s because my landscaping. I never spent a single dollar. Yeah, I would just buy, like, a soda after each day of working, or juice or water, and then I’d come home and that was it. I’d hand the money to the family, and we saved it. And we bought our first investment property in Shirley, New York. It was a five-bedroom, three-bath, twenty-three-hundred-square-foot home on three-quarters of an acre lot that needed everything brand new, from electric to plumbing.

That was like—that, I’ll say that property there was my college, because I hired a terrible contractor, took my first hard money loan, mm, overpaid for extra work. So out of all of that, I ended up probably making about twelve thousand dollars on my first flip ever. Yeah. Yeah. That was the education. I mean, I made something. I didn’t lose twelve thousand. So that’s where we’re at there, and ever since then we just hit the ground running. Yeah. Staying positive, continuing to learn, continuing to grow, and having good people around that care about us the way we care about them.

Q Edmonds (06:03)
Yeah, yeah. I love it, man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for keying us in on what you do now and kind of taking us through the journey, kind of how you got to where you are. And man, I love it, man. I, you know, the journey is the journey, right? Like, I, you know, I often say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Meaning, like, as we go through life, we’re just building to the people who we are today. And so we learn things throughout the journey. And so I would love to know, man, throughout your journey, what are some of the strategies that you’ve learned that’s really helping you now?

When I say strategies, they can be operational or just even, you know, just some things that you put into place that you know is kind of sustaining where you are now. But what are some of the strategies that you use that kind of help you, you know, get to where you are and sustain you where you are?

William Dennis (06:48)
What I tell a lot of people is one thing is this.

You can step into a baseball game and win by home runs. Grand slams. And every deal is a grand slam. Mm-hmm. But you also win baseball by hitting singles. Mm-hmm. I chase the singles. You get the home run, you might not be busy for the next three, four, five months of your life. But every time you hit a single, you’re setting up the next base runner. So I’m very big on hitting the single because I like to be busy. Yeah. And by me hitting the singles, I’m able to strategize my business, set things up for the future. Yeah.

So I really like educating people. I give a lot of education to people who are interested in buying houses and want to know what it’s like buying a house. They may not have the credit or the money yet. I guide those, too. So maybe six months, twelve months, eighteen months from now, like, well, I’m ready to buy a house. Yeah. And now I’m right there. So I keep—I try to create my pipeline of new buyers or new sellers or things like that. People in foreclosure. I get a foreclosure list, I go directly to consumer. I go door to door to these people and speak to them directly.

I show them their options. I tell them what will happen, what can happen, and what we can do for them. Yeah. They don’t have to use my business, but whoever that investor comes through, maybe a better deal, got a little more savvy. At least they’re prepared with the correct questions, so now they’re not being taken advantage of. Education is key. Transparency is key. Laying them down. And I could always negotiate. Nothing’s the end-all, be-all. I like to stay busy, and at the end of the day, people are losing homes, and you don’t want to lose your integrity over someone. You don’t want to take advantage of them losing what they’ve worked for.

You know, buying a house is probably most people’s biggest asset they’ll ever have in their lives. And to lose it is heartbreaking. And you just wanna make sure you’re able to give them the tools where they can rebound their life from the situation they’re going through. And that’s what I’m very big about. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (08:44)
So you gotta, you gotta tell me, man, why is educating people so important to you? I mean, ’cause you keep—you said it earlier when we was prepping, and you continue to say it now, like educating people. So why is that such a passion for you, man?

William Dennis (08:58)
Well, it’s like you go to a doctor’s office or you go to a hospital, and you sit there and they tell you this is wrong with you, and they give you all these terms and you’ve never heard of it. So you really don’t know what to do. You just take their word for it. You take their word for it, you know? And I’ve, like myself, for example, I was out for a weekend, hung out with some friends, maybe overdid it a little bit that weekend. I go to the doctor, the doctor tells me I have high blood pressure, wants blood pressure pills.

I’m like, I don’t need it. He said, “You know, if you don’t take it, you’re gonna have a heart attack, young man.” I said, I said, “Listen, my man, I, I, I promise you, I’m gonna be okay.” I took the medicine. I had a reaction—ankles, Achilles swelling up, couldn’t put shoes on. I went to my regular primary doctor, explained the situation to her. She said, “Do me a favor, don’t take it for two weeks and come back.” I said, “No problem.” Two weeks later, blood pressure was normal.

Didn’t need the pills ever again. He didn’t educate me on what I could have done, what was different, or what I could have did different to help myself or anything like that. So it comes to someone in foreclosure. The first thing I know that people do, they turn to an attorney. I’ve met a lot of attorneys. They’ll help you, help you, help you to make a dollar. They will also, when it comes time to sell it, what do they do? They call one of their friends up, or they try to purchase it themselves through their firm. I want to educate people out there. If you’re going through a foreclosure, you have to short sell your home.

There are still ways for you to gain capital and sell that property. No. Strategical financing. There are still ways for you to be able to help yourself, other than think you need a modification or you need to file Chapter 13. There’s always time in the beginning to save yourself, you know. So that was—that’s what’s big for me, you know.

Someone’s going to buy a home, you’re approved at eight hundred thousand, with me as your realtor, I usually guide you against spending the eight hundred thousand. Yeah.

No, I tell people, you know, you need three months of reserves. God forbid you hurt yourself walking out the driveway or you slip on something, you can’t go to work for a few weeks. You’re laid off, you need some time.

You need to keep reserves safe for your mortgage to go forward in buying it, you know. You need to realize that your interest rates and your monthly payments can exceed what you really need to be able to pay. Why not pay less? Why pay less? Don’t spend the full amount on a preapproval. Unless that’s what you really want to do. But I never take a buyer out to say to buy the max house or anything, you know.

The commission’s there. The commission’s the commission. You know, so it is what it is. That’s why I stay busy. I wanna make sure that I am working in the best interest of the customer at all times. Yeah, yeah. That’s why I think education’s key. So I like telling them what to look out for, you know. If you have someone go blindly, they’ll make blind mistakes going forward.

Q Edmonds (12:15)
That’s a bar. Man, yeah, man. Thank you, man. Thank you for explaining that. I really appreciate that. I think that gives people more insight on just why you want to educate, where that passion is. So, man, what’s next for you, man? What’s the next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve at scale next, man?

William Dennis (12:34)
Well, right now I’m looking to, like—I love being a realtor. I love being a realtor, ’cause I love the faces of buyers when they accomplish that goal of homeownership. I love seeing a seller’s face when you get that check at the closing table. Yeah. Those are always wins for me. I love doing the flips also, ’cause I love the finished product and seeing someone buy that home for their first home, knowing I actually did the work the correct way. You know, you know, no shortcuts. Yeah.

There’s no shortcuts in We Care Home Buyers. Yeah. So that’s what I like. For our business, we just, like—we want to, like, into—I need more buy-and-hold rental properties. I want to scale it where we have a couple of properties sitting there for rental properties. I want to get to other markets, other states, because the sponge is saturated here in New York. It’s filling with all the water it could fill up with currently right now. Yeah. I mean, there are deals here and there, but I’m looking at a space where I could have places out of the state of New York.

And I would also like to be more on, like, renting space to give maybe little seminars. Yeah. First-time homebuyer seminars, investment seminars. I like to be in that kind of space here, which will also help me generate some kind of business for people as well. But I just want people to know, I’m just—I just really worry that, you know, we don’t want a housing crisis, and we want people to be aware of what they’re getting into before they do it. And that’s what I want to do. I want to be a guide.

Especially for the people who don’t think they usually buy homes. We sit in a market, a minority-based market here on Long Island, where the people buying the homes mostly are down the center of the island. North Shore, South Shore is more money, but the middle of the island, central Long Island, are where the meat and potatoes of new homebuyers are coming from, who I think need to establish the education more to be able to know what to look out for and what not to look out for. Yeah. And that’s what I’m trying to establish. I’m trying to help the middle of America with homeownership.

That’s my big goal.

Q Edmonds (14:34)
Sir.

Man, I love it. Helping the middle of America with homeownership. Yes. Yeah. Because sometimes they—

William Dennis (14:41)
Yeah. My daughter’s eighteen, and I’m already drilling this information in her head. I got a son who’s ten years old. I’m already drilling it in his head. My son goes with me, and he hangs my door hangers up on the doors with me. You know? Yeah. Like ten dollars an hour. He’s very happy about it.

Q Edmonds (14:51)
Love.

You’re paying him. That’s what I’m talking about. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that, man, that’s brilliant, man. So this is good because I want to talk a little bit about relationships. So obviously you got the relationship with your son, relationship with your wife as your partner, but what are some other relationships? Well, let me ask—I mean, I’m gonna ask it two ways. One:

How do you value relationships as far as in business? Like, what is your perspective when it comes to valuing relationships in business? And if you do value them at a high level, what are some relationships that’ll help you kind of get to where you are with your success?

William Dennis (16:16)
I value relationships very, very much. I am almost overly loyal to people at times. And the mindset of business and personal being two completely different things. Hmm. I can have a business relationship with you and things go sour, and we’re arguing and all that, and, right, it’s over. Let’s go grab a drink. You see, now that stuff is already done with.

That’s the model I’ve always followed. We cannot mix emotions with the business we do. I gotta tell you, my broker is one of my closest friends, and we’ve been doing business together for almost thirty years. Yeah. And when I was learning this, I’ve made mistakes. We hash it out. We go eat lunch. Yeah. It’s over with. Relationships are very good. I used to—I used to have this motto: your credit is better in the streets than it will ever be from a bank.

Because when life gets hard, goes hard, and things aren’t going right for you, the bank’s not giving you anything. But those same people will take care of you that you’ve known your whole life. Yeah. That will still give you the credit, still give you the loans, still give you the opportunity to do what you need to do with regard to your business. Yeah. So we keep relationships. I have a very small circle of people I do business with, but we all generate the income together. So we have a small circle, you know.

My friend Jamal, he has 24/7 REI. That’s Real Estate Investment Group. They’re very big at Thomas. I have a friend named Camilo Tatis at the Cam Group. He’s very good with his business. I have a guy named Randall we do business with. Randall, he’s very good with his business. He’s out in Baldwin, Long Island. And my real estate office, Globalized Realty Group, I’m the only agent in my office. Wow. I just got licensed in my broker’s license, but I’m still where I’m at. Yeah.

So these are relationships I keep because these are people that we have a sense of integrity with, you know. A guy named Eduardo Aponte, he’s a real estate investor as well. We do some business together. So I keep, you know, it’s like what Jay-Z said, “the secret society.” Yes, we trust. So we trust each other, we work well together, and we all have the same agenda. We’re all fathers, all family men, all husbands, and all we’re trying to do is, like, change the generational curse that we grew up with and make life better for our children.

So our loyalty within the people I work with is very, very strong. Yeah. Very, very strong. You know, and if it’s a mistake made with my integrity as well, and I take accountability, I will apologize for a mistake. But, yeah, we’re to the point we don’t really make too many mistakes anymore.

Q Edmonds (18:55)
Yeah. Well, man, I appreciate you, sir. I appreciate the information that you gave, the experience that you gave, just the nuggets that you dropped today. I know someone’s gonna see this, and it’s really gonna impact them in a positive way. And so, listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, sir, how can they get in contact with you, man?

William Dennis (19:19)
They can log on to WeCareHomeBuyersLLC.com. And we just updated the webpage. I like it a lot. I want to give a shout-out to this guy, this kid named Luke, seventeen years old, one of my daughter’s friends. Said, “Mr. Dennis, I want to help you scale your business.” He made me a brand-new webpage and all these things for me. Yes, it was—I love that as well. I can also be reached via email at [email protected].

And I have a phone number for my business, (631) 383-4885. That is We Care Home Buyers LLC. That’s what we do. You can also find us on Facebook at WeCare HomeBuyers LLC and Instagram at @wecare_homebuyersllc. That’s what we are. We get a lot of, we get a lot of, like, real estate business through certain groups on Facebook. So that’s pretty cool as well. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (20:08)
Well, man, again, sir, thank you for coming through. I want to say three things to you sincerely. So, one, thank you for your time. And I think time is our most precious commodity. So thank you, man. Thank you for your story, man, for showing up as your authentic self, showing up with integrity. I believe—our stories, they plant seeds. And we don’t know when those seeds are going to take root and they’re going to grow, but eventually they can. So thank you for dropping some seeds today. And thank you for your mindset, man.

Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today, Will.

William Dennis (20:40)
Thank you.

Q Edmonds (20:42)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard my man Will. Y’all got his experience, you got the nuggets, you got the education. Look into the show notes. His information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Will. So, sir, I say thank you again.

William Dennis (20:59)
Yeah, it’s—

Q Edmonds (21:05)
And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.