If the real estate market has gone to a terrible state, you must remember to go back to the basics of marketing and remember, you must always do where your passion is and what makes you happy. Tune into this episode as your host Scott Carson talks with Orange County Realtor and real estate investor Liza Florida about southern California’s distressed real estate markets. Liza discusses her background in short sales and foreclosures and being a second-generation real estate investor. She wanted to help people, especially homeowners, by listening, educating, and serving them. She emphasizes that having a good relationship with them can eventually lead to sales considering she already has a big network of people in the real estate business accumulated through her 20 years.

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Understanding The California Distressed Real Estate Market With Liza Florida

This is Liza Florida, the host of Eight Billion Podcast. In this episode, Scott and I talk about the Orange County, Southern California for closure market now that the moratorium is done, but we also talk and delve into how I’m going to be the next healer for the homeowners. Stay tuned for this episode and you won’t want to miss it.

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Welcome to this episode. I’m excited to be here and I am so jacked up. We’ve got a very special guest that for those of you guys, our California investors and audience out there, you’re going to love because this lady has her ear to the ground. She knows what’s going on in the market out there because she’s been around longer than 60 seconds.

This is a lady that’s been through some ups and downs in the market out there and absolutely is a professional. I’m so excited to have her on the show to talk about what’s going on here in Southern California. She’s a real estate expert in specialized assets and she’s the host of the Eight Billion Podcast if you want to check it out. She’s the Managing Partner of The Myriad Group. It’s a boutique real estate firm that specializes in short sale, pre-foreclosures and foreclosed assets.

She’s been around since the last downturn like yours truly, working with the likes of Bank of America, Wells Fargo, IndyMac or OneWest Bank now, as we call it. She’s a phenomenal person. She’s committed to serving others in her work in real estate and one day, looks forward to expanding the Eight Million Podcast Project to work on a global cause. We’re so honored to have Liza Florida join us here on the show. What is going on, Liza? How are you doing?

It is amazing to be here and you made me sound so wonderful.

That’s because you are. You’re golden. Those who have been around longer than 30 seconds or so, we do so much stuff, and I think we forget a lot of how awesome we are in a lot of cases and how we work with so many people. We’ve taken the lumps going through something years ago and are still being around. Don’t you think?

Absolutely. We know that markets cycle, but to see it come around again, I was like, “Oh my goodness. We are right on the cusp of it.” I think it’s already here, to be honest. It’s just not announced on the media yet.

This is no offense to realtors, I can say this. I think a lot of the reports that come out are always backward-facing, like, “It’s a record month.” They don’t look at what’s coming down the pipeline as much. You think differently than that, which is the beautiful thing of what we have here. Before we dive in, why did you get into distressed assets back in 2000? What was your foray into becoming a realtor and investor?

It’s a family business started by my mom. She was in accounting. She came here from the Philippines as a CPA and she was doing people’s taxes. What ended up happening, was for many years, she told people to get into homes because it was a tax shelter. After some time, she said, “Why don’t I take my chances and go into real estate?” She absolutely did amazing in it because she was good at crunching numbers.

She saw different markets come on in 1988, especially for us in Southern California, that was because Aerospace was having some issues and we were hit immediately in our area of Los Cerritos, Long Beach because that’s where a lot of the corporations are. That began short sales, but it was in 2006 when she did start to notice the frenzy of the market. Some things weren’t making any sense and she goes, “We’re going to pivot you guys.” Our whole family was in it, all three kids.

California Distressed Real Estate: You have to try to reach out and schedule an appointment. You can only do so much if your mailbox is bombarded with messages.

She was a great leader and because she was good with numbers, she saw it and she goes, “We’re going to pivot and we’re going after the banks.” The first bank that we landed was Countrywide Home Loans, which at the time they boasted 1 in every 4 loans, it was a Countrywide loan, which became Bank of America. That’s in a nutshell for a really quick reference of how we got into it, but to be boots on the ground during that time to try and describe that in two minutes, I could never describe it, even in like maybe a documentary.

Back in 2006 and probably before, everyone was earning 20% equity. It’s like what was happening these last couple of years. They turned around or blinked their eye and then their homes were 20% more. Everyone was able to get into loans. If you could breathe, you could get a loan. If you could prove you had a pulse, you could get a loan. Everything was income-stated assets.

It’s the liar loans. You had the pick-a-pay. The negative amortization loans, which were so big. It was part of the downfall of Countrywide.

It was huge. It was those introductory interest-only. Once it reset, everyone was like, “What do I do?” The equity wasn’t there. The Big Short documents the whole thing where they hedge against the actual market or they purchased against the hedge funds and they were lying because they said all these papers were good and they were not at all good.

Everything was cut, pasted and doctored. To say the least, we were fortunate enough that because my mom was good with numbers, we understood how to package short sales. On top of that, what you couldn’t beat was the volume of people that were in default as opposed to the time they had on their hands. Even the banks were not ready for it.

I think it is the biggest thing. The banks never expected it to be what it was. We were talking previously about how Titanium and Equator came about. Some of these programs the banks have put in place to help deal with this, but it took a while. Short sales and distressed sales were rampant. We were talking about this beforehand.

It feels very similar eerie with that big run-up with the appreciation of value, and we’re at that cusp where is value still going up or going down? Is it the end of the world? What’s going on? What’s your take on what you’re seeing out there because you’re in the Mission Viejo, Orange County area, correct?

Correct. I was surprised to run the numbers. For us in the distressed property industry, we try to run numbers. We tried and stay close to our title reps, but our title reps were also busy servicing all of the people that were doing the frenzy real estate. I ran my research for the end of July 2021 to current and in Orange County alone, there were 450 people with a recorded notice of default. I am literally boots on the ground. I have identified who these homes are. I still have to do research because you can’t always get the most accurate.

A couple of times a week, I’ll try to reach out to some of these families. You can only do so much because I’m pretty sure that they’re inundated with so many people bombarding their mailbox, but I try and at least reach out and try to get an appointment so I could serve as an advocate, but that’s Orange County alone. The network of distressed property real estate agents that I work with, they’re anticipating that and they are saying that what you’re only seeing is about 30% of what’s really to come.

The 400 plus that you’re talking about now is more so 1,200, do you think in the next quarter?

Yeah. Potentially in the next quarter, only because with the mortgage moratorium ending on September 30th, 2021, the banks are now allowed to report FICOs on October 1st, but likely, they’re not going to because they’re going to get everyone that’s had forbearance all rallied up and saying, “This is what you owe. Let’s see if there’s a portion of it you can pay if you owe the whole thing,” because what a lot of American homeowners don’t know that when they agreed to these forbearance programs, they didn’t know exactly what their agreements were.

I was doing a live stream and I was saying that you come from so many different backgrounds of either people who completely lost their jobs, some people only made partial mortgage payments, some people missed payments, and some people went the whole eighteen. When you’re talking about, let’s say, an average mortgage here in California, $3,500 times 18 months, that’s $63,000. The banks aren’t going to say like, “I’m going to tack this onto the back and you can go ahead and make your mortgage payments.” I’m telling you and your audience that this is true.

I’ve already had two people that I know personally, as friends, that have gone back to their banks and tried to get out of their forbearance. I think one of them was like, “Make the payment for three months at this rate,” which was higher. You’re talking about people that have, in some cases, job loss, career changes and business losses. You can’t just pick up from where you left off, you also have this big balance that you haven’t paid for probably eighteen months.

What people don’t understand is they’re technically delinquent until they are reinstated in the system. That poses so many different scenarios. That’s what we were talking about. Inside the banks, there are so many different divisions of nonperforming assets, and then once you decide a route, it’s like, “Get in line under loan mods. Get in line under refi, if you can even qualify for a refi.”

With you pulling your numbers and seeing the 400 plus and figuring an average mortgage payment of $3,500, any insight into the average of months that maybe some of these people are behind? I know that when we pull a foreclosure list, sometimes we’re able to see, “They’re 6 or 12 months behind.”

In most cases, we’re pulling ours from either our title reps. Black Knight is another great source. Also, PropertyRadar, but then you still have to do all of your research. What I do is I pull from those sources, I scrub the list and then I go to my title rep, but as far as us knowing exactly how long most of the homeowners are, it’s hard to say.What we do know is according to Black Knight, and this is prior to the forbearance program starting, 1.6 million homeowners are estimated to be on forbearance, but they didn’t report for eighteen months, so you don’t know. Those numbers don’t add up in accordance with how big our unemployment was. At the height, 50 million Americans were unemployed or on EDD.

That’s why they said that at the peak there were four million forbearance agreements or modifications. A big chunk of that is your government, your Freddie and Fannies, your Ginnie Maes and the VA loans. We see a big default in those. The lenders are taking and putting the 6 or 12 months to the face amount of the note and extend it for another 6 or 12 months, but there are so many other loan programs out there that aren’t government-backed.I love what you’re talking about. You’re seeing the insight. In a market that’s been as hot as Orange County, we often joke about California being so overpriced and the demand, people are gobbling up like crazy. You shouldn’t see defaults of people wanting to sell because they should have that, “Get out of jail, I’ll just list to the market, get a price, move on and cash out.” That’s not the case, right?

No, and I’ll give you an example. I’m going to do all of Orange County. The list that I have will take me probably three months at the rate that I’m going out, but then I also have to consider that if I put out all of this, I have to make the appointments and make time for those people to schedule with me so I can’t do too many at a time.

The neighboring city to us is Ladera Ranch. Out of my eight homes in Ladera Ranch that I was reaching out to, two were already under notice of trustee sale and they were in high-end gated communities. That’s what you were talking about. These coastal properties, because it’s the high-value homes that lose the fastest equity, and then it’s hard because it’s not like the investors aren’t looking to pick those homes up. That’s why they lose equity so fast because it’s really in a category of its own.

California Distressed Real Estate: They’re not listed because they can’t come to terms with the fact that they have to sell. But they’re working against the time and equity that they potentially have.

That’s the thing. We’ve seen that in Phoenix too. I was out in Phoenix and you’re starting to see that million-dollar-plus price point in Scottsdale. That’s the longest days on market for people trying to sell that, and people, if they’re out of a job and it’s a second home, or they’re not making any money, a year of payments not being made or you’re on a market, you’re going to get motivated seeing homes drop for $5 million to $2.5 million over the year. It could potentially be great deal for somebody to come in. I’m curious though, have you seen an increase in short sales listings on the MLS?

Yeah. Interestingly enough, for everyone boasting how hot this market was, I had a client that came to me weeks ago. They told me, “Disneyland, Anaheim guys. Point of reference.” I think they were at a max sales price of about $700,000. Out of the twelve listings that I could find, two were already in short sales over 100 days listed. That’s why seeing a lot of these things don’t make sense. In media or wherever you’re getting your reports, everyone’s saying the market’s hot, but I’m like, “Why are there short sales or why am I visiting these homes with recorded NODs?”

Imagine, these people would record NODs, I’m still trying to figure out what their situation was because typically, I would think for the last eighteen months, the forbearance programs protected them, the foreclosure moratorium. I’m curious to see what their issues are as to why they’re this far and they’re not listed. Especially with a notice of trustee sale, you would think they were listed and they would be in some type of negotiation inside the banks before they can even get a notice of trustee sale.

Exactly, or if it’s a short sale, it’s got to be listed. It used to be a requirement to even submit in a short sale package in a lot of cases too.

You are seeing a lot of that happen, and then even across the board when I’m masterminding with a lot of these agents, what’s sad is you have reverse mortgages too. These are older senior citizens that have relied on the equity of their homes to keep them there and the only way to get out of it is a short sale. You’re in your older years, you shouldn’t have to be thinking about this stuff. It is interesting where this is all going on top of the fact that and I’m pretty sure that all eyes are on this that we have to raise the debt ceiling.

That’s definitely an interesting conversation to think about what’s going to happen. Your heart goes out to folks, especially the elderly. They’ve gotten a reverse mortgage with the idea that, “We’ll live off the equity and not have to make a mortgage payment, but now we’re upside down and the banks don’t want to carry that upside down debt anymore.” It’s also the fact that banks’ bet on appreciation continues to increase as well too.

Granted that for a short sale, you give a hardship letter. The banks don’t see things like, “I’m a senior citizen or I’m going to be out of the house.” Banks see numbers. They calculate the risk. That’s all it is, and then I was telling people, “With this forbearance program, do you think the banks are going to forget what you owe? They are not going to forget. They are in business as bankers to create money or to create profits from interest from us. Why do you guys think it’s so easy not to make a payment and figure it out?”

It goes back to 2009 or 2010. You had banks that were taking short sales and then negotiating unsecured second liens or unsecured loans with the borrowers that were walking away from negative equity-like, “We’ll approve the short sale, but you’re going to have to start making a payment on this $50,000 loan, which you’re writing off at $500 a month. We’re not going to forgive that debt.”

Now, if you’ve got the deficiency or you choose to be insolvent, and I think it’s what IRS form 928 is, you can write off those deficiency judgments without worrying about paying it, and then also depending on what kind of state you’re in, whether it’s a one-action state or a multiple-action state in the foreclosure process. There are some different things you got to worry about. I have a question for you. On the report you pulled on the 400 plus, did you see the lender? Did you see who the bank is on a lot of those?

No, I didn’t. I would have to go on tax records to see a lot of who those banks are, but because I got in touch with you though, I’m looking at who those are. That is going to be an option for me now that I have that or have you as a connection is to be able to see what banks and then see where these homeowners want to go because a lot of them, really do.They’re not listed because they can’t come to terms with the fact that they have to sell. Here’s the thing, what they’re working against now is time and equity that they potentially have, but as more properties start coming on the market, that equity is going to start going down and they’re going to be losing it. The distressed property market is a completely different beast. You understand for good reason.

It’s different, especially in those higher-end homes. A $1 million dollar home, it’s a different model than buying a $500,000, $300,000 or even a $100,000. In $100,000, you’re going to live at what looks like the dog house. It’s a tent on a lot, for the most part.

We are in unprecedented times.

I want to throw this in here. This just came out in the news a couple of days ago. The added difficulty of what’s going on in California with the fires, the drought and the oil slick on Manhattan Beach. It’s maybe too soon to talk about, but have you seen concerns from buyers and sellers struggling with that stuff or any buyers that come in like, “I don’t know, because of this A, B or C,” or people more motivated to sell to leave California because of those things?

A lot of them just happened, like the oil spill, but another thing too, if you guys see the news but our ports are backed up. I don’t know if that’s happening across the nation, but our Long Beach and LA ports are backed up. They’re saying, “Buy your Christmas gifts now because there’s going to be a shortage of goods coming to the holiday season. Inflation is going to rise. Everything’s going to be more expensive,” as if it already isn’t. Also, the cost of living in California, even I’m like, “My son’s a senior. Maybe I should plan on getting out of here.” It’s becoming very real for a lot of people. That’s what I was going to say, like, “Please don’t hate us Californians because we’re going to continue going to Texas.”

We’ve seen an average of 50,000 individuals coming into Texas from California on an annual basis, especially on the north side of town. We’ve seen that so much with the average and median home price value going from $396 to $500 nowhere in Austin. Part of that is because of people moving from the west coast. They have a $1 million housing budget, they sold their house off, they got some equity and they don’t mind paying $50,000 to $100,000 over our list price to get a deal because we have such a small amount of inventory.

As far as natural disasters, we’ve had to deal with earthquakes but in the last few years, it’s sad to watch your state go through all these fires. If it’s not up North, then it’s down here. If it’s not on the Malibu side, it’s inland. I was like, “Did someone go around and start these things every year at the same time?”

I also ask the question because then you start running into insurance costs which is exorbitant. The same thing happens in Florida on the east coast with hurricanes. In Louisiana, everything’s being below value. That’s another cost a lot of investors may not initially consider when buying assets, “What’s the insurance going to cost me?”

Everything counts now. Now more than ever, you’re going to start seeing that. I think there’s going to be less consumer spending because we need to bring the value of the dollar back up. We knew this. We’ve been seeing it for a long time. We’re printing too much money. I know this is going off random things, but I was watching Robert Kiyosaki. He predicts the biggest financial crash in history. We’re not trying to scare anyone. Everyone has their own opinions, but he says he’s excited about it because, for him, he’s a big capitalist. He’s going to load up on Bitcoin, gold and silver.

California Distressed Real Estate: Share inspiring stories of people who are finding their purpose and passion.

There are opportunities wherever. Whatever the level of water, especially your own, run towards it, not away from it. With everything going on, how are you leveraging what you’re learning and applying it to your own bottom line? You mentioned you’re going out and working to make appointments with these bars trying to help them in their houses, but obviously, that leads to profits, potential listings, foreclosure sales and REOs. Have you toyed with the fact of going more into short sales again? Is that number starting to pop back up again or do you have enough years ago?

Not by any means. That’s what I told you. I was like, “God, please let me make it through another market.” To be honest with you, in that last market, we were overleveraged. We had purchased a lot of investment properties between 2004 to 2006, so we experienced loss ourselves and we had to recoup, but then at the same time, I feel like that balanced out, so now I’m given an opportunity like, “I see this.”Also, that’s another thing too. I feel like I’m more emotionally equipped to deal with these distressed homeowners where a lot it was very emotional, like the anxiety and all that kind of stuff. We have a responsibility to our relationship with the bank, but then you also have compassion for these people. That’s why I thought that what you do is amazing because you give the homeowner an opportunity to make these payments first truly and then if that is not an option, I’d rather deal with you than maybe the bigger banks where it is a hard pull of the plug.

That’s the thing and then you’ve got an hourly employee making a decision who really doesn’t care about what’s going on with that asset or that borrower. It’s a matter of churn and burns for the most part. When they look at their desk and they’ve got all these files, they’re not worried about it. If there’s something missing, they’ll look at the hardship letter. It’s more of a check the box hardship letter versus seeing what’s going on.

That’s the power of when you’ve been through a downturn. You’ve struggled and you’ve had losses, so now you have that empathy and are able to talk that language to understand the fear and the stress that the borrowers are going through because a lot of times bars are so stressed out. People do stupid shit. When they’re stressed out monetary-wise, they make dumb decisions a lot of times because they’re not thinking or they keep praying that Biden’s going to save them. Biden’s done about all he can.

Here’s another sad part because I was in a mastermind and they were all like, “I’m a victim of mortgage fraud.” Our coach was the head loss mitigator for IndyMac bank. He’s like, “I’ve heard it all, and that comes up all the time.” It’s sad because there are some that were victims of mortgage fraud. That’s what he was saying. A lot of the hardship, they didn’t know.It’s true. They don’t know. They’re getting into these complicated contracts that the banks created and all they wanted was a home and he was saying, “You do everything to qualify for the loan, I’m not saying lie, in essence before lie, but now you want to tell them the truth that you don’t make all this money and you want to reduction?”

You turn tail real fast. I’m glad you brought that up. You think back to all the laws that went into place after 2008, 2009 and 2010 with CFPB, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the mortgage brokers being responsible to look in a crystal ball to see if the borrowers could afford the mortgage up to three years after they originate the loan That’s the stuff that as an ex-mortgage banker, I’m like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” People will do all sorts of stupid stuff. They change jobs, God knows a pandemic kicks in or a plandemic, as some people would say, and then you look at all the craziness of the California re-election taking place.

I was telling you offline and to the audience, we had this huge thunderstorm in Southern California. I’m driving to go have dinner, pick up our food and my son, and the hail is huge. I’m all like, “This is not safe.” He’s all like, “This is the coolest thing,” and you see all this lightning come across. I was like, “Please, God. Let me make it through one more market so I can help these people.”

It sounds like a scene out of The Day After Tomorrow.

We are in unprecedented times. It’s going to be interesting.

You took the words right out of my mouth. If those that understand the opportunities, because, with every upturn or downturn, there are opportunities to help people. You’ll probably see a re-increase of short sale experts coming back into the market or loan modification experts coming back in the market trying to work with borrowers that don’t have a clue what’s going on or don’t have the patience for it. People had months to try to figure something out. The conversations I’ve been having are that banks have been very flushed with a lot of cash.

During this past couple of months, we’ve seen savings and the average amount that people are saving increased whereas beforehand, we had a negative savings amount with record amounts of credit card debt, but we’ve also seen record defaults of cars, car loans or auto debt, medical debt and credit card debt. This house of cards that we’ve built our finances on or our economy is literally starting to crumble.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you start seeing an increase in garage sales or estate sales, is what they say a lot of times because what happened back then, we started seeing a garage sale economy. People had cashed out their equity or saved their money to buy all these toys, these boats, these jet skis and the second car and now they can’t pay their bills, so they’re going to attempt to sell off their toys to try to float as long as they can to the next month or so.

That’s absolutely what’s going to happen and you have this record of people that can’t find employees. All of a sudden, no one wants to work.

That’s because we’ve been giving people free sandwiches and free food, “We’ll give you another $2,000, another $800 or another $3,500 a month. You don’t have to work.” We see that everywhere. If we got a record amount of job openings, there shouldn’t be any unemployment. There shouldn’t be any of this stuff. If people want to work, they need to go to work because there are opportunities out there. I have a buddy that runs a Caterpillar dealership up in Indiana and he pays $125,000 a year for a decent mechanic. He will hire somebody, send them to school for two years, making six figures and he can’t fill the positions.

I’ve got another friend who runs one of the largest plumbing franchises out of Waco, Texas, throughout the state of Texas. She can’t hire enough plumbers and if you’re a decent plumber, half-assed, you can make $80,000 to $100,000 a year doing that. I think this sense of entitlement by a lot of people, it’s almost like the Randy Quaid or the Uncle Joey aspect from Christmas vacation. He’s been waiting for a management position for years. It’s that aspect of things.

That’s why I was like, “If this thing doesn’t work, I’ll go to Indiana.” Going back to that question that you asked a while ago, I’m looking for an opportunity to help a lot of these homeowners out because not every one of them is going to equate to a sale. As I create relationships and if they do end up having to sell their home and they trust me with that, then I also have a big network of people that have been in all kinds of real estate for many years, then I’m looking to save up. It is going back to the basics.

The thing is, in an upmarket, everybody can make money, but when the market turns south, you’ve got to get back to the basics of marketing. You got to get back to the basics of door-knocking, talking to people, getting in front of people’s faces, not in a negative way, but getting back in front of them and say listen, “I’m God’s answer to your problems.”

It’s permission-based marketing for me. I go out, I stick a notice and then they call in to make an appointment. Typically, what happens, I didn’t have my package and she was outside, so I was like, “How could you forget your package?” but I felt so compelled. I was like, “Are you okay? Do you have all of your resources available to you? Do you understand what steps have you taken?” I understand that there are all kinds of people that solicit. It takes time to warm up to the conversation to at least let them know you’ve been in the business and that you understand, but it’s going back to the basics. It’s boots on the ground now.

You’re right. People are being inundated with direct mail postcards, Robo dollars. We don’t do a lot of direct mail marketing because we’re going directly to the banks, but we are targeting subject to deals. We’ve gone back to the point of putting my picture on the bottom or my telling my students like, “Put your picture in the bottom of your letters and then put in the bottom PS. I put my picture on here so you know I’m a real person with real solutions.” People like that. They want solutions. They don’t necessarily want to sign over their house and let somebody else make a ton of money. There are a lot of people that want to walk away too. They want to get out of a bad situation and restart everything all over there.

They do. Another concern that a lot of the real estate agents were talking about too is, “We’re going to lose our business to Zillow because they’re going to list with them,” but I’m telling you this market that’s coming on, it’s nothing Zillow can give you.

Zillow’s been overpaying for assets too and buying their own assets. BlackRock has been overpaying for assets. I wouldn’t be surprised you start seeing some short sales and Zillow was the buyer at some point. You’ve got some cheap money and you might be able to ride that through a little bit, but it goes on. It’s not going to be a quick turnaround. If it does drop, it’s going to be for a while. I would not be surprised if you start seeing some opportunities from foreclosures and from some of the big eBuyers out there.

It’s different. What I was also telling people was back in 2008, you had a lot of millionaires that had capital and they were the individuals that were going to the auction blocks buying $70,000 and $80,000 homes. Now, everyone’s the big Grant Cardone, the big capital groups where they’re buying hundreds of millions of dollars in portfolio. The gap is growing big.That’s why I’m saying like, “People have to open their eyes.” I get it because there’s going to be a lot of Americans that if the market crashes, they don’t have the money, but what I’m saying is it would behoove you right now to save and save while we start undergoing this correction and going back to the basics.

California Distressed Real Estate: That’s partially why you’re not finding a lot of people that want to be employed because they’re finally deciding that they are going to take that leap of faith. And even if it really overhauls their lifestyle, they’re willing to be more committed to what their heart tells them.

Cutting out any exterior expenses and putting as much money aside because if you’ve got cash or you’ve got savings, retirement, 401(k) and self-directed IRAs. Having that cash is going to be king to pick up assets, especially as we get to the fourth quarter. We’re filming this the first week of October 2021, the 4th quarter of 2021, I think it’s going to be Christmas for the distressed asset, distressed realtors and distressed investors out there that have the capital to purchase this stuff off the bank’s book and whatever doesn’t happen in the fourth quarter, it will definitely happen in Q1.

Now, you’re thinking like, “All these people that are coming out of forbearance, now they’re in negotiations.” Depending on what type of negotiations they might get a reporting on November 1st, 2021, it’s going to start trickling. A few months from now, you’re going to have your NODs.

You have such a unique thing in California, too, whether it be in a non-judicial foreclosure, owner-occupied, you have a judicial foreclosure, not occupied investment. It’s going to be nonjudicial. It’s a faster foreclosure process, so you’ve got that thrown in the mix as well for you.

There’s a lot and then you also have what’s going to trigger now because the eviction moratorium ended or lifted.

The only reason you’re not seeing too much of a frenzy now is because the actual physical part of it has not happened but all the reporting have started, but once that physical eviction starts, we are in for a big show. We could foresee it. We knew it was the people from The Big Short. They saw it.I was already posting about the distressed property and short sales on my Instagram but I got no likes, maybe ten, so thank you to all of my audience. I was like, “They’re not listening,” but it’s okay because everyone would be like, “What are you talking about? This is a hot market and it’s not going to stay like this.” I was like, “That’s what they said in 2006.”

Let’s talk a little about your passion. You’ve got an amazing podcast in the Eight Billion Podcast. Tell us about it. Tell us why people need to listen to it because you do such a great job with it.

I know that I’ve put out a lot of real estate info in the first 40 minutes, but a big part of my life is a mission and a calling that I said yes to, and it’s a passion project. It’s called Eight Billion. Now, it serves as a podcast and I’m close to hitting my one year. I’m so excited. In the first year, I hit the top 5% in global podcasts on Listen Notes. Everyone was like, “How did you do that?” At first, I started live streaming in the Philippines and then I ended up starting the podcast because someone said, “Have you ever thought about doing a podcast?” I said, “No,” and so I looked into it.

I started it within a week or two and I set off on a global mission. What I wanted to do was to share inspiring stories of people that were finding their purpose and passion. Believe me, there’s no shortage of it. In every division, there are people that have given up 20 or 30 years of their career and I’ve said, forget it. “I’m going to do what makes me happy.” I think that’s partially why you’re not finding a lot of people that want to be employed, because they’re finally deciding that they are going to take that leap of faith, and even if it overhauls their lifestyle, they’re willing to be more committed to what their heart tells them.

I think we need to hear those stories because of all the doom and gloom and the negativity on social media and Facebook, having positive and inspiring stories is something that we don’t see on NBC, ABC, CBS News at night. That’s what I love so much about your podcast, are such great stories that you’re sharing out there of people being committed to their why or saying enough is enough, like, “Take this job and shove it. I’m not working here no more.”

That’s exactly what the Eight Billion mission is. I do believe that we are in what I kept saying as unprecedented times. What you’re going to start seeing is a rise in different leaders that are coming up from more of the heart space. It’s not always going to be about the revenue and profiting. It’s people genuinely concerned about each other. I share those stories and it’s more about people that have gone down the road of healing and they’re empowered and they’re speaking their voice.

I’ve been fortunate enough to record 43 episodes. I’ve got another season lined up already. It’s been amazing. I do hope that as travel restrictions start to lift depending on where they decide that they want to go with restrictions that I would take this podcast global and then eventually use it towards different causes. There are lots in the works. It’s interesting.

You’re not an underachiever at all, are you?

Everyone’s like, “How do you do everything you do?” I was like, “I don’t know how to not do this.” It’s the weirdest thing. If my life isn’t chaotic, I feel like it’s too quiet and I’d be like, “I’ll go find something to do.” I’ll find a reason to save the world, but now I’m going to be the healer for the homeowners.

I love that. You got to throw that up. The #HealerForTheHomeOwners. That’s great marketing right there. Put that on every flyer or business card out there for you.

That’s what I was thinking about those because it comes a time when a lot of them just need to know that they’re okay with their decision and that it’s okay. We are dealing in this age of social media and everyone’s ego is boosted, so it’s hard when you come from million-dollar properties and you can’t afford it anymore. Sometimes it all is about that person having compassion and saying, “I understand or I’ve been down that road. I know what it feels like to take that next step.”

When you think about it, you’ve been through things. You’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly out there. The ups and downs. You’ve been around longer than four minutes. The fact that you’ve been around works in your favor too, versus so many new realtors getting in the market. They’re like, “It’s an easy market.” Everybody wants to be a realtor. We saw that here in Austin, where 67% of the realtors actually stopped being realtors during the last downturn. You’ll probably see something like that again in the next months as well. What’s your big goal? Have you started working on your 2022 goals?

Yeah, absolutely. We were watching it. I knew it because of forbearance, but I didn’t know it was going to come on like this, even though we’re watching the statistics. Biden can extend as far as he wants, but the banks are going to be like, “It’s not happening anymore.” Big goals for me, I’d love to expand Eight Billion to go global. I’d like to do some projects outside of this country.

From a real estate perspective, what I’m going to do is continue to be that resource for these homeowners. As long as my body can handle it, if I can build a team around it and I can truly educate them, which is what my mom taught us as the kids. Be of service and give them their options, and they come back because they trust you. If I could do that in 2022, then I would have already exceeded anything that I had put a vision out there for.

We have a lack of that a lot of times. People don’t realize you stick around, you keep giving, being of service to your audience and walking along, not just talking about, but literally going out there and continuing to give to people. To pour yourself into people that are having a rough time is such a valuable thing to have. People will see that they’ll love you for it. They’ll come back and you’ll be the person that they reach out to when they need help or healing. I’m looking forward to you helping and starting with those 400-plus that are struggling there in Orange County, those bars that need some help out there. It’s a good drop in the bucket to get things rocking and rolling for you.

It sure is. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

What’s the best way for our audience to connect with you?

I am on all social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook under Liza Florida. I have a website, LizaFlorida.com. I have a website for Eight Billion, it’s EightBillionProject.com. You can find me on all of those platforms. If you have any questions, please DM me, especially if you are a homeowner in distress. If you’re not in California, I can at least plug you in or refer you out to someone that’s in another state. Just remember that there are laws that apply to each state, so you need to definitely get with those people that are your specialized agents in those areas.

She’s very active on LinkedIn. Check it out and connect with her guys. Check out the podcast and hit the subscribe button. Amazing stories on the podcast and I think everybody should get out, binge it, check it out and take some action and be an asset to everybody out there. Be a healer for your own homeowners in your own community. Thank you so much. It’s been such a fun episode as always. Thanks for coming to the show.

Thanks for having me. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Guys and gals, go out there, take some action and we’ll see you all at the top.  

Important Links:

• Eight Billion Podcast
• The Myriad Group
• Black Knight
• PropertyRadar
• LinkedIn – Liza Florida
• Instagram – Liza Florida
• Liza Florida – Facebook
• LizaFlorida.com

• The Distressed California Real Estate Market with Liza Florida – Youtube

About Liza Florida

Liza is the Mananging Partner of The Myriad Group, a boutique real estate firm that specializes in short sale, pre-foreclosed and foreclosed assets. In 2008, The Myriad Grouo represented 6 banks including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Indymac Bank.