The Real Estate Traps That Will Screw Up Your Life Forever

If somebody tells you they have a "great program" you just have to hear about, hold onto your wallet. Today, we are taking a hard look at the realities of the housing market, pulling back the curtain on the advice that could trap you financially for decades.

I spent a long time playing cop in Los Angeles, and the way people will lie right to your face still shocks me. That’s why we are breaking down exactly what you need to look out for. We cover the hidden dangers of adjustable-rate mortgages, the questions you need to ask about "free" grant money, and the brand-new lending programs that let you buy a new house before selling your old one—provided you agree to their strict marketing rules.

Plus, we talk about the lost art of actually reading your contracts. With over 40 general disclosures on a standard purchase, clicking "sign" on your phone isn't enough. Take a page out of the Jet Propulsion Lab engineers' book: read every single page.

Watch the full video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/fuNvTmhWZOs

For more resources, check out FairFixedFee.com.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That isn't really normal garden variety stuff, you might want to check into it. And I have a couple cases to give you an idea. But you understand, most people understand that when it comes to a 30-year mortgage, most residences are purchased that way. Usually it takes 30 years to pay off. That's the program that's associated when buying real estate. Now, one of the things that I would mention, there's also other types of loan programs, adjustable rate mortgages. Now, in a 30-year mortgage, the mortgage fee, that interest rate, stays the same. So if you're doing it today at six and seven, if you did it a few years ago at two and three, if you do it in the future, it might be higher, might be lower, just depends. It's going to stay that interest rate all the way through. So your payments not going to change. Now, there are other factors that in your monthly amounts that could change. Maybe your homeowners association is going to increase for some reason. That's going to be up to a whole different mechanism. And you'll know that when you're purchasing the residence, condo townhome, or even a single family residence with a homeowners association, you'll know how frequently, how often they can increase these amounts. So you understand that that will potentially happen. Usually, when somebody can increase something, of course, they're going to increase it. They're going to take everything they can get, because that's just the way human beings are. That's a typical mortgage, 30-year fixed. Now, if somebody comes to you and says, hey, listen, I know you're buying a house and we got this great program. You got to hear all about it. And when you hear those words, that preparatory, uh, preparatory intro verbiage, yeah, it's kind of wow, maybe I have a kind face. Maybe he's looking out for my best interest. Maybe he just wants me to have all the advantage that other people don't have. Yeah, probably not. Probably wants to make a little bit extra. Now, in some cases, maybe if dad is saying to maybe do something, or your brother, if you like your brother, or maybe a best friend or a wife or somebody that really has your interest at heart, yeah, maybe them saying something to you might be worth investigating further or even doing without a lot of investigation. But of course, trial by fire, right? You get burned a couple times and you end up not trusting, not even trusting yourself. Case in point, real estate. Somebody says, hey, let's do an adjustable rate mortgage. For the first couple years, your interest rate's going to be a lot less than what you would be paying today. You need to kind of extrapolate that out a little bit. What's going to happen in the future? Let's say worst case scenario stuff. I'm a worst-case scenario person. I'm a I'm an eternal optimist, but I like worst case scenario. Maybe that's your same mode of operation. So in three years, when you say that it could change, what's that worst case scenario if it does change? What does that look like? And the number they're going to give you might shock the holy hell out of you. And it might be way too much. Now, is that going to happen? Don't know. They're going to say, in all the history of these types of loans, it's never happened to an extreme that where it could possibly happen too. They're going to tell it to you. But of course, with me, of course it's going to happen, and then it's going to make all the news. You know, we've never seen interest rates do this, and it went through the roof. And yeah, you're the first generation of this type of loan that actually ever hit that kind of negatory lottery. Yeah, of course, that happens. Now, other programs out there of which I speak, if people are talking about grant programs and different programs for first-time buyers, you want to look at all of these programs and you want to understand them. What does that look like? Now, if they're going to give you free money, whatever free means, and you need to really qualify free, if they're going to give you $15,000 from a grant program, do you have to pay it back? You know, maybe not, maybe yes, but you need to figure that out. And then how do you pay it back? Is it attached to the residence? So it's something 30 years from now that has to be back? Does it increase in cost over that time? You have to ask all the questions. And it's not just enough listening to me or your agent or whomever tell you you're going to be fine. I mean, my God, 30 years from now is a long time. You might make it. You might make it that time. And then you're going to be hating it. So you need to get all of that. And what I was going to mention is if somebody says, well, of course, believe me all day long, because I'm the McGuy, right? I'm the guy. Um, okay, guy, put it in writing. I should see this in writing so I understand it further. Because, you know, I'm a little slow. So I want you to put it in writing, exactly what you explained to me, how it works, because it sounds pretty good, and I think I want to make a decision, maybe in the positive favor of it, but I still want to see it in writing. Now, you're gonna find out nine times out of ten, maybe ten out of ten, they're not gonna put it in writing because it's kind of bullshit and it's not really true. Do people still do that to people? It shocks the hell out of me, too. I played cop for a long time in Los Angeles, and every time I was lied to, just it just still shocked me. Maybe I'm naive and never learn. Now, that doesn't mean I go out there trusting everybody because I'm that way. I'm not that way. But yeah, when people lie to my face, yeah, it blows my mind. Something else that's been rearing its ugly head as we close out May 2026. And maybe it's not an ugly head, but it's gives people an opportunity to be able to sell their house later and buy now. So instead of selling your house now, typically a real estate upgrade, downgrade, or purchasing somewhere else is predicated on this the house that you have, using that equity in the purchase of something else. So basically, I I have this house here, and now I want to move out of state or upgrade or downgrade here. Usually the equity that I have here, if I'm not tapped out, and if I'm tapped out, that's a whole different conversation. But usually that equity here is going to be applied to the next residence. There's ways to do that. You can you can close them both at the same time. You can have this one, get it into escrow with a buyer willing to wait till you identify the next property. Then you go find the next property. Again, this isn't an easy game, but you go, let's say you do find it, and you find a seller on that property that's willing to have you in contract on your property with a buyer. And yes, that happens, and everybody gets their their uh stars aligned. They make sure the agent representing the seller, uh, that your particular buyer as a seller on the residence is going to be communicating with your agent back and forth, the seller's agent on the house, you're buying, and all of that. So all of it lines up, and yeah, it's able to happen. You can actually get everything closed. So the money from the residence you're selling is gonna go in to fund the residence you're purchasing, and then it's all neat and clean and uh shebang, shaboom, we're done. That's one way. Another way, and this is something new, there's programs out there where they basically say, okay, we need to do an investigation on your residence. It might not be for sale yet, but we need to do a worksheet to see the numbers. What's the estimate that you're gonna be able to pull out of the residence to be able to apply to the new purchase? Then you can go and start looking at residential real estate as long as they have all the contracts in place. Now, the contracts in plates are gonna be from the lending authority that's gonna be floating this money to you because at some point somebody's going to have some kind of an interest on the residence that has to be sold at some point in the future. The some point in the future is the question you're going to have. And then what are the requirements? Because it's going to be a have to, not a maybe. If they're doing this transaction, they're going to put some teeth into it. So there is no way you're going to be able to renege or back out on the deal as it moves through the process. You're already in the new house, you're already happy, you got the mental curtains, you got the real curtains hanging, right? You got all your furniture moved in, you're excited. Now this house gets put on the market, and the requirement for the house being put on the market has to be at a particular level and a particular cost, and it has to be advertised and marketed in a certain way. So your agent's gonna have to have the alignment, and in most cases, agents are the ones setting these things up. So knowing that you have your agent, they're gonna be listing it under these lenders' requirements. The lender's gonna be floating the loan, you're gonna go out there, you're gonna find that, you're you're gonna buy and close the other residents, and then the money's gonna transfer at some point in the future. Read all the small print. There'll be costs associated with each piece of this. Every little part, there's gonna be a cost. You also want to make sure that nobody's kind of skimming the cream off the top trying to take more. Now, of course, every fee that's taken, there's no hidden money anymore. Maybe 30, 40 years ago, hidden money. No hidden money. All the money is somewhere on some document. Some document. You need to you need to understand exactly what's being paid out on these some documents that people are giving you. And that's a lot of paperwork. Whenever you buy a house, it's inch and a half-ish, right? It's uh it's a whole bunch of stuff. And usually you don't ever see the finished volume of the work. I started this back in 1998. At that time, you left with the finished volume of the work. You had everything, all the crap in front of you. Had just this massive, and back then it wasn't as much, but you had you had your final closing package, it had everything in there. Now, there's 42 or 43 general disclosures on a purchase of a residence. There's even more on the seller with regard to those disclosures. There's a lot of paperwork. So usually everything, and this is something else that you need to be aware of. Usually everything today is done doc you sign. It's easy. You have you have your phone and you have the document, something that you need to sign because it's super important. And uh, here you got it. And really, can you read it? I mean, you mad, you know this, this trying to get it, yeah. Good luck. But people sign it all day long. They don't wait until they're in front of a screen, they don't wait until, hey, give me a couple hours, I'm gonna go print this out so I can read it, which I don't think I've ever really heard. Um, engineers are fun. I I had a couple engineers, Jeff Propulsion Lab type engineers, they read every piece of paper and talk about a challenge. It was a beautiful thing, not only for them, but for me. Because to read every single paper, even paperwork in other parts of the process as it came in, it was incredibly what a valuable learning experience. Now, at the time they read this War and Peace size paperwork, you know, the people that were working with them, like the notary, they were pulling their hair completely out, and the other people too. But it's their right. It's their right. Don't worry about making people think that they're wasting their time because it's your time, it's your purchase. They're getting a piece of this as far as some kind of a fee or a commission, but that's their job. At the end of it, it's you. And you know what, human beings, some of some of us they're just so lovely and they really give a crap about other people's time and other other people's feelings. The shoe isn't gonna be reversed. They're not gonna think the same about you if it comes to it. All right, they're gonna want to get done. So, whatever you're being pitched, whatever you're being told, try to back up just a little bit and ask that question, well, why? Why me? Do I have kind eyes? Is that what it is? Or is this really something that would benefit me in the long run? I'll the I'll leave with this one. A lot of people talk about buying down a rate. So right now we have interest rates again, little a little higher than we've been used to, at least in the recent past. That doesn't mean they're higher than the uh the average all time. You know, there were rates 16, 19% back in the day, but houses also weren't 800,000, they were 80,000. So there's some differences in trade-offs. But when you're looking at the rate, in some cases they're gonna say, well, for an extra few grand, you can buy down your rate this much. Well, then you need to see what that number is. How long is it gonna take you to recoup? If it's gonna cost you $10,000, I mean $10,000 real money, if it's gonna cost you that to buy down a rate, some semblance of a percentage of a point, something, then you need to find out when it's gonna take you to catch up. So if that's gonna change your payment $200 a month in your favor, and it's $10,000, you need to do the math out and to see how long it's gonna take. Are you gonna be in the house that long? And if if it's your forever house, you're gonna be there 30 years, and the cost of this is $10,000, then you need to think, well, are interest rates gonna come down in the future all by themselves without me buying it down. Right now, right now, as we end out May, there's a lot of activity in the economic world as far as oil and these other things. So it's causing effects on interest rates. Interest rates aren't in the happy place they were before the Middle Eastern War in Iran started with us and Israel and Iran. So it was a different place. Now, today it's different. Now, when that resolves itself, I should say when it gets resolved, then at that point we'll probably see a relaxation in rates, maybe. But again, we have to get to that point. You purchasing anything or selling something, depending on the future estimates of what's going to happen, folks, that ship has sailed. Right now, and I'm I'm I'm gonna go off on one more tangent. Artificial intelligence is feeding us all the time about a lot of different things. This happens to be a video that I'm doing myself on purpose. But some people have AI systems produce videos based on the content you're consuming. You, you know, Joe Citizen, Jane Citizen, whatever it happens to be, it's based on what you like. And content gets created specifically for you. I mean, just you. So you can feel really special in that regard, but also look at it if you got somebody coming after your pocketbook, you need to protect it even more. All right, I'm gonna get off the soapbox. This was a blast. I'm Connor with Honor. When you're ready, it's on the shirt. When you're ready, reach out. I'm here. You can find more about me at Sellers OnlyAgent and Connor with Honor. And I offer a fair fixed fee program. I'm the certification mechanism behind that, the originator of fairfixedfee.com. Thank you for watching. Be well. Talk to you soon, bye.