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Why the Wealthy Love Debt: Mortgage Hacks & Equity Secrets with Jason Johnson | Future of Finance
12 Plays7 days ago
What if debt wasn’t the enemy—but your greatest tool for building wealth?
In this powerful episode of The Future of Finance, host Marissa Wood sits down with mortgage expert Jason Johnson of Sun Point Home Loans to uncover how the wealthy use strategic borrowing to grow their net worth. From celebrity mortgage moves to bridge loans and amortization tricks, Jason shares 22 years of experience to help everyday homeowners and aspiring investors make smarter financial decisions.
Whether you’re a first-time buyer, investor, or just looking to refinance the right way—this episode is packed with actionable insights.
👉 Need a mortgage consultation?
Reach out to Jason at (813) 781-2744 or search "Jason Johnson SunPoint Home Loans" to see his 400+ 5-star reviews.
💬 Ready to talk investing, life insurance, or retirement strategy? Book a meeting at UnionFinancial.com
⏱️ Timestamps
0:00 - Intro: Why the wealthy love debt
1:05 - Jason’s journey from carpenter to mortgage broker
2:20 - Why celebrities (like Meghan & Harry) take mortgages
3:50 - The power of leverage and investment returns
5:00 - How to get pre-approved for a mortgage
6:20 - How much house can you actually afford?
8:00 - What is a HELOC and when should you use one?
10:00 - Refinancing: When does it make sense?
13:15 - What to do with your savings after refinancing
14:30 - How amortization works and how to beat it
17:15 - Recasting: The mortgage trick no one talks about
20:00 - Why life insurance is a must with a mortgage
22:20 - Jason’s best & worst financial decisions
26:00 - What first-time buyers and investors need to know
27:00 - Bridge loans: A powerful strategy for movers and investors
29:00 - Florida’s Hometown Heroes program explained
30:30 - How to get in touch with Jason and Marissa
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Future of Finance podcast. I'm your host, Marissa Wood, with Union Financial Services. And today I'm joined with a really special guest, Jason Johnson, who is a mortgage broker with Sunpoint Home Loans.
00:00:22
Speaker
And today we're going to be discussing why the wealthy love debt and why you should too. So welcome, Jason. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Career Transition and Success in Mortgage Brokering
00:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. So tell me a little bit about how you got started in the industry and little bit of your history on being a mortgage broker.
00:00:38
Speaker
That's a great question. So started in 2003, I was actually a remodeling contractor and doing a lot of estimating for a high-end remodeling company in Minnesota. And my wife was a mortgage loan officer at the time. And started talking to her boss and started talking about the refinance market that was coming up and Found an opportunity to join a company called Wells Fargo.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I worked for them for nine years and I learned how to do refinances first and foremost and then got into the purchase market. But my math background got me into mortgages at that time. so it was kind of just an easy transition going from estimating, running numbers for people to running different type of numbers for people based on refinancing.
00:01:17
Speaker
So you got into the industry before the 2008 bubble and have sustained it all the way through. So how many years do you have now? 22 years experience. Wow.
00:01:28
Speaker
Amazing. yeah And it does show. I will say to all of our listeners, I have personally used Jason Johnson for a mortgage and the process was as seamless as it could have been, even though it's a stressful process, it's a stressful transaction, but you know I do recommend you to
Educational Insights: Home Equity and Mortgages
00:01:45
Speaker
everyone I know. And you really are going to be sharing a lot of education today with any of our listeners that are either thinking about using some equity from their homes, or maybe they're getting a first-time mortgage, or need some
00:01:59
Speaker
reconsolidation of some existing debt. think you're going to share a lot of education on that because it's it's really at the forefront of a lot of Americans' minds, buying real estate, investing in real estate. It's a big process.
00:02:13
Speaker
It really is. So i would love to answer any questions you have today and help educate your audience on refinancing, purchasing, et cetera. OK, awesome.
Leverage and Wealth Building
00:02:20
Speaker
So before we really dive in to some interesting questions, I want to use an example to show everyone the power of leverage.
00:02:29
Speaker
And leverage is using the bank's money to ultimately build your own wealth. And I want to go through an example of why celebrities take out mortgages when we know they have the funds, they have the liquid assets to just buy things in cash.
00:02:46
Speaker
So why in the world would someone like Meghan Markle and Prince Harry take out a mortgage? It's pretty simple, honestly, and I see this every day. So when you can borrow and leverage the bank's money, you're not borrowing your own money.
00:02:59
Speaker
And when you do have a good financial advisor, you can remain liquid to where it's you're leveraging the bank's money, talking to someone like yourself and finding investment opportunities and staying liquid immediately. So if an investment opportunity comes available,
00:03:13
Speaker
you have the cash to do it versus trying to wait for a bank to borrow the money back out of the property. And so, you know, a real world example with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, they bought a $14 million dollars home.
00:03:25
Speaker
And now obviously we're using big numbers here. Still a good example, but scale it back on your own numbers, on you know the middle class numbers. But they bought a $14 million dollars home and they took out a $9 million dollars mortgage on that home. Could they have bought it in cash?
00:03:39
Speaker
Most likely, I would say. So why would they take out that $9 million dollars mortgage paying an interest rate of about 6% on that mortgage? Seems crazy when you first think about it.
00:03:50
Speaker
But let's say if they invested that $9 million dollars that they borrowed from the bank. yeah they're Loan rate is 6%. They invested that $9 million.
00:04:02
Speaker
And even if they earned just 8% interest, so just a little bit more than what they're paying, if they earn that 8% on average for 30 years, you want to know how much money that $9 million dollars would grow to?
00:04:15
Speaker
It's a lot. $83 million. Mm-hmm. three million dollars It's staggering. And how much would they have paid in interest over those 30 years? I'll tell you, it's $10 million.
00:04:26
Speaker
So they have net profited $73 million dollars by taking out that mortgage and investing the loan. Correct. That's why celebrities love debt.
00:04:38
Speaker
So that's our hook. and that's why you should love debt too if you're listening to this. Use debt to build your wealth. If you do it the right way with a good loan officer and with a good financial advisor, you can really build up your net worth and always have that liquid money.
00:04:56
Speaker
So that's kind of just an example of why celebrities do take out mortgages. And it makes sense when you think about it. So tell me little bit more about some of the process of how someone, let's say they're buying a first time house.
00:05:15
Speaker
How do they get pre-approved?
Mortgage Pre-Approval Process
00:05:17
Speaker
What is the first step in that whole process? The first step is obviously talking to a mortgage broker or a mortgage advisor or a loan officer because we're going to guide them through the process. And we're going to look at everything from their bank statements, their deposits, to their monthly income, to their credit, and establish what products and programs are going to be best for them.
00:05:34
Speaker
So a lot of times people get very emotional when it comes to buying real estate and they see a property, it's shiny, eat it's new, they fall in love with it. They have no idea how much they have to put down, how much closing costs they are going to be how much the monthly payment's going to be, and they're wanting to write an offer on it. So when you get pre-approved, you get a base of where you should be looking, what you should be looking at based on your current financial situation.
00:05:56
Speaker
Okay, so that really is step one. Before you even think about buying a house, you have to get pre-approved first. Correct. Okay. And it lets everybody know and the in in the process that you're serious about this. So if you go to look at a home, the selling agent knows, all right, they've taken some time, they've taken the steps, they've provided all their documents.
00:06:16
Speaker
They're good to go if they're serious about this property. If someone's going to show their house, you would want to know that the people have taken the time to make sure they can finance or pay cash for the property. And how do you know how much house you can afford? Is that something that there's a formula for or that you create a formula for? Yeah, that's a good question. There's several formulas. So depending on what we're looking at, if they're W-2s, if they're, pay you know, look at the pay stubs, look at the income, whether they're seasonal employment,
00:06:42
Speaker
whether you know they're full-time, whether they have bonus commissions, self-employed. We have several factors we have to look at for that, but that's exactly what a mortgage broker will do is they will look at the documentation say, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, you're qualified for up to $400,000 and a payment of $3,000 a month.
00:06:59
Speaker
If it's above that, please contact me. We'll see what we have to do to make it work for you. So gives them a ballpark. Yeah, because I think most people don't even know where to start on how much house you can afford or how much you should put down versus maybe not putting as much down. um And it's it can be stressful, I will say, if if you don't know where to begin. So the first step really is speaking to someone like you. Correct.
00:07:23
Speaker
Okay. Now, let's say someone's pre-approved. What's the typical process of getting the actual mortgage? So once you get pre-approved and you've provided all the correct documentation, at that point it's finding the house. So if you found a house in two or three days, depending on the seller's needs, you could close in as little as 10 to 14 days. The average turn time is about 30 days. so So depending on everybody else's needs, because it's not just the buyer's needs for moving out of their apartment or the house they're renting.
00:07:53
Speaker
um It's also the sellers have needs. So they may be building, they may but maybe be moving out of the state, moving out of the country. You just don't know. So that's where the realtors kind of come in and negotiate that. But the average turn time is about 30 days. Okay.
Understanding Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC)
00:08:04
Speaker
All right. Now, here's a question that I've heard from a lot of people. And I think it's common to not know exactly what it is, but to think you should know what it is. So we all just pretend we do.
00:08:15
Speaker
And that is, what is a HELOC? A HELOC? A HELOC is a home equity line of credit, and there's several products out there regarding a HELOC. So a true HELOC is basically, it's a line of credit on your on your house. So if you've built equity up and you say, okay, i want to borrow $100,000 of that equity to remodel my house, pay for student debt, student loan, um buy another investment property or buy a vacation property, you can pull that equity from your house in a home equity line of credit.
00:08:43
Speaker
Typically, they're interest only with a 3, 5, or a 10-year draw period, and they turn into a 20 or 25-year loan at that point once the draw is up. So you have a short period of time to borrow the money, pay the money like a credit card on your house.
00:08:56
Speaker
But then once that period's up, you have to pay it back. Now, there are a lot of products out there that are hybrid, meaning you could have a 30-year fixed rate right from the get-go, but you can still draw on it for five years.
00:09:07
Speaker
That's a hybrid HELOC. And then there's second mortgages, which are just a second fixed 15, 20, 25, or 30-year loan on top of your first mortgage that sets in second lien position behind it. What would you typically recommend someone do, a HELOC or a second mortgage? it Depends on their situation. so a lot of the times the conversation comes up, I want to borrow some money. Tell me a little bit about what you want to borrow the money for. Well, I want to consolidate some debts. Well, that's where maybe we look at the the fixed rate loan so it's more safe for them. I need it for a couple of years, then I'm going to sell this house.
00:09:36
Speaker
That's where you do a home equity line of credit. It's interest only. You make a smaller payment until you pay off the loan. So what does that look like when someone takes out a HELOC? They're just paying the interest for a certain amount of years? Correct. If you're doing the interest-only option, you just pay the interest.
00:09:50
Speaker
And typically, they are a variable rate. So in this market, they're not that bad. People get scared with variable rate. Rates have been very high lately, and they're trending down. So if you took out a HELOC today at 6.5%, 7.5%, depending on your credit score, it could be 4.5% or 5.5% a year or two, depending on what the Fed does with prime rate.
00:10:06
Speaker
Interesting. So that kind of leads us into our next topic of refinancing. And I know that's been on everyone's minds these days because rates have been relatively high. Now, do I think they're high in general? No, because if you look at the last 30, 40 years of rates, I don't think 6% to 7% is that high. But yeah, when we're comparing it to the two and threes that we saw. yeah Yeah, it's high, but that seemed out of the ordinary.
00:10:38
Speaker
Now, when would it make sense for someone to refinance their
When to Consider Refinancing
00:10:42
Speaker
mortgage? A lot of that depends on the loan size. So, you know, if it's a $400,000 loan, you're at seven and a half percent, rates drop to six and a quarter.
00:10:49
Speaker
The math doesn't lie. You can look at the numbers and say, this makes sense. Refinancing always has been and always will be a long-term investment because you're going to reset your amortization or depending on if you put it down to a 20 or 25 or a custom ah loan term, it's resetting it. So whenever you look at that, you have to do the math and see what's best for each loan. I say this every day and I get sick of saying it sometimes, but loans are like fingerprints. I've done this 22 years. I've never seen two exactly alike. So it comes down more to the advice side of it.
00:11:16
Speaker
But you know when you're dropping $200, $300, $400 a month, if you plan on staying on that house more than five to seven years, then yes, the refinance makes sense okay for a rate term. It has to be that you're planning on staying there. Correct. Oh, okay.
00:11:30
Speaker
So I've had people call me say, I'd like to refinance. We're going to sell this house. Okay. So what are you wanting to do with the money? Well, we want to cash out and we want to probably make some repairs before we move out. So that's where we do the analysis and look and say, well, maybe a HELOC's best for you. So you're not refinancing, paying all the fees for it. So there's different things you can look at in that scenario. So let's say if rates go down 1% from now until next year, at what point does it make sense for someone to contact a mortgage broker to say, should I refinance? Does it have to be that 1% or –
00:12:05
Speaker
What's some triggers that would cause them? 1% has always been a good rule of thumb, depending the loan size again. But if you're going to save money long term and you have no plans on leaving that house, absolutely call a mortgage broker and find out if it makes sense for you.
00:12:18
Speaker
We can run numbers. We can run your amortization. We can look at everything long term and see what is going to actually save you an interest. What are some of the reasons that people refinance their home? home improvement, ah retirement planning.
00:12:29
Speaker
I had one the other day. They're wanting to retire in eight to nine years. So we were looking at several options, a recast versus refinance, looking at going to a 15-year, possibly a 10-year. So that's where I go and do the math for them and find out what's going to make the most sense for when you guys retire and want to have and a nest egg and start start taking advantage of that. So that's where we run the numbers for them and see what makes the most sense.
00:12:53
Speaker
think the important thing, too, of course, it's great to get your payment down when you can refinance. The important thing, too, is to make that money work for you when you do refinance.
00:13:05
Speaker
If you're saving a couple hundred dollars a month, let's not spend that. Let's at least invest a portion of that That's exactly right. Or else, what was the point of the whole refinancing? yeah you know You're just extending now your mortgage. If you don't put that money to work for you,
00:13:21
Speaker
You're not really going to benefit too much. And that's part of the conversation that I typically have with a client. So in this last example I was sharing, they're going to be saving between $700 and $800 per month. So instead of putting that towards a principal balance, my advice is or ask them was, have you talked to your financial advisor or do you have a financial advisor to bounce this off of to see what makes more sense, taking that $700, $800 and paying it into something that's going to earn them some interest and then possibly be tax-free by the time they retire or paying it towards your mortgage note.
00:13:49
Speaker
And that's where you can have a strategy with a financial advisor and a mortgage advisor and see what's going to make the most sense for 8, 9, 10, 15 years down the road. and it's also ah it's an interest rate conversation.
00:14:00
Speaker
If we think we can average more – in the market or in your investment than your current interest rate is. Correct. So when people have credit cards that have a 25% interest rate, my advice is always pay down that credit card before we invest because on average, we're not going to earn 25% time after time in the stock market. It's going to happen sometimes, but you're probably better off paying down that really high interest bearing debt.
Understanding Amortization and Payoff Strategies
00:14:31
Speaker
then investing but with mortgages and car loans usually makes sense to invest it that difference and so talk to me a little bit more about what an amortization schedule is let's say someone has a mortgage they've been in their home for a couple years now and in a perfect world they would like to pay off that mortgage earlier than 30 years what's the efficient way to do that So when you look at amortization, it's front loaded. The banks get their money first. So the sooner you take out a loan, the very first couple of years is going to be mostly interest. And as you get into the mortgage, it's going to chip away and you start paying more and more principal balance down.
00:15:07
Speaker
So when you get into year two or three and you say, OK, I want to pay this off by year 20, that's where you can run an amortization calculator and say, OK, if I put $300 or $400 a month, for example, I could possibly pay it off.
00:15:19
Speaker
A lot of times people will talk about biweekly payments. That's one extra payment per year. Sometimes people will pay the difference throughout the month. So if your payment's $1,800, they may pay $2,000 and just round it up to help pay that off a little bit sooner.
00:15:31
Speaker
Do you have to specify that your extra payment is going just towards principal? Typically not. Most conventional government loans, Freddie Fannie, if you pay extra, it will automatically go to the balance. the only rate The only reason it would not do that is if you specify, I need to pay extra on my escrow.
00:15:47
Speaker
Okay, for taxes and homeowners insurance. Okay, got it. Now, can anyone just Google an amortization schedule or how can they find out what their breakdown of? can actually. And when you purchase a home, your mortgage is going to come with a pretty scary document called your amortization schedule. It's about four or five pages. I'm sure you saw it.
00:16:06
Speaker
And it breaks down every single payment. If you pay your payment on time, how much interest, how much principal you're going to pay throughout the entire 30 years, 20 years, 15 years, whatever term you take the mortgage out on. So you're going to have a copy of that to see where you're starting at.
00:16:19
Speaker
Where the math gets sideways is when you start making extra payments and you start chipping away at that principal balance and the banks start paying less interest. Anybody can Google it. You can find an amortization calculator. You can even play with it and put extra numbers in there and say, OK, I want to pay $500 extra per month.
00:16:33
Speaker
And it will show you your estimated range of when you can pay off your mortgage note. That's very interesting because I know it can be discouraging at the very beginning getting that mortgage statement and you see, okay, my my mortgage payment is $3,000 a month and $2,000 of it is going towards interest? What what are you talking about? you know Why is it not paying down the principal? And then as time goes on, I think of it like an inverse chart.
00:17:00
Speaker
It switches. It does. Towards the end, all of it almost is going towards principal. But I think most people don't want to get to that point where they're 20, 25 years into their mortgage. They want it to be over before that. Right.
00:17:13
Speaker
And so another one of my questions is, let's say someone comes into a lump sum of money, whether it be an inheritance or they sell another property or ah lawsuit, and they want to put that chunk towards their mortgage. Mm-hmm.
00:17:27
Speaker
What does that look like? Does that take years off of it or does it bring down the overall balance? couple ways you can do it after talking to your financial advisor to see what makes the most sense, of course. yeah um You can recast your loan. And that's kind of an industry secret. A lot of people don't like to talk about it because some people will say, let's just refinance you and get get the commission. A recast is resetting of your amortization. So If you're taking $200,000 and putting it down on the balance, let's just use $400,000 for an example. Your current balance $400,000 and you put $200,000 down towards it, you're now going to have a $200,000 payment on a recast.
00:17:57
Speaker
So it's going to reset that amortization to the new balance. so if you're in the second year of your mortgage, your next 28 years are based on paying it off in 28 years at the new recast balance, same interest rate, and it's typically only a couple hundred dollars. so wow so And that's on conventional loans only. So if someone's, I'll give you a prime example of a recast. Someone has a property in Oregon that has $400,000 equity.
00:18:19
Speaker
They pull 20% out to buy a property here in Florida with their job transfer. They put 20% down, couple months later that house out in Oregon sells, and they now have another $200,000. If they took a government loan, whether it's FHA or VA, they can't do that. But on a conventional, they could turn around and just recast that balance and now have the lower payment.
00:18:37
Speaker
So that's a strategy some people will take advantage of. When is your window to recast? Anytime. So if you take out a mortgage, now they may say six months because you're not in servicing yet and they they've got to get it set up.
00:18:48
Speaker
um i've I've been told three to six months. So they don't want to do a recast in the first couple of months. Right. But I think after six months, your window for that does open up. And every bank, every lender is different. They may have a guideline that says six months, 12 months, but it's an option for them.
00:19:01
Speaker
And does that expire at any point? It does not. Typically, it's got to be more than 5% of the balance. So you can't just say, here's five grand on my $400,000 balance, recast it. You got to put down a big chunk. Okay.
00:19:12
Speaker
Okay. That's very interesting. And is that only a one-time thing? Some lenders, it is actually. And some lenders, you can do it as many times as possible, maybe once per year. I think they have guidelines on it. And again, every bank, they have their own overlays on it. They don't want people recasting all the time. But yeah, it is something you can typically do once per year.
00:19:29
Speaker
Okay. So recasting. And- That's great too, because that will lower your payment and then... If you can afford to put more on it, then you can, of course, pay off the loan quicker. Accelerate it. you can invest it. Talk to a financial advisor and see what's best for your long-term goals. Yeah.
00:19:46
Speaker
We can see that we're hitting on that. It all comes back to the same. Getting advice. The same statement. Exactly. Getting advice. um But that's really great. And I've never heard of that term used by anyone but you.
00:19:57
Speaker
And so recasting, it's really a clever strategy that I think most people don't even know that that exists. Yeah. Now, another question I have for you is the importance of having life insurance when you have a mortgage.
Life Insurance for Mortgage Holders
00:20:11
Speaker
Can you explain to me really that conversation that you have with clients and why? it's It's a great question because I can't give financial advice. I don't have ah a license for that. However, I'm advising people on $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 mortgages, and maybe the spouse, maybe the wife is the only one who works and the husband stays home or vice versa.
00:20:29
Speaker
If something was to happen to that person, how is that household going to be cared for? you're taking out a three, four or five hundred thousand dollar mortgage. That's where my advice to talk to a financial advisor and see what it would cost to protect your family. Because if you're buying this house for your family, you're buying it for your legacy, for your wife and your children, you want to be protected.
00:20:49
Speaker
So for a couple hundred dollars a month and you're taking out a mortgage, it's not that much when we think about it the grand scheme of things to talk about life insurance. Yeah, I mean, we always recommend that both working spouses have at least a couple years of income.
00:21:06
Speaker
And then even if they don't work, to have the outstanding mortgage balance as life insurance. So you know even if someone's ah stay-at-home mom that's technically not bringing home a paycheck, but you guys have $300,000 mortgage, she should still have coverage because first of all, you know, her life does have a financial value.
00:21:28
Speaker
Whether it's paycheck or not, she's doing things around the house, maybe taking care of children, cooking, cleaning. um Same goes to if it was the husband that stayed home. And so we want to be able to give them that financial peace of mind during a time of grief that you can stay in the family's home. The kids don't have to change schools. We can pay off that mortgage.
00:21:48
Speaker
And it's one less thing you have to worry about for a couple hundred dollars a year. I mean, when I talk about how cheap term life insurance is, it's a no-brainer. really is. If your health can allow you to get approved.
00:22:01
Speaker
Not always. And it really is a no-brainer. And i I think it's great that that's a conversation that you have with your clients. um Now, another question that I like to ask any of our guests on the podcast is the best and the worst financial decisions that you've ever made in your life so far or one of the best and one of the worst that you wouldn't mind sharing with our listeners.
Personal Financial Moves and Lessons Learned
00:22:25
Speaker
I'll share a couple. So my best advice was buying my first house because I bought a house that was the same as my rent. My wife and I saved all summer long for the down payment. It was FHS. Do you remember it was 8.75%. Everybody talks about high interest rates being 6%.
00:22:41
Speaker
And we lived in that house for two and a half years. We got married during that time period, got married in that house, had two children in that house. I renovated the house. I was a carpenter at the time. And we sold it. We walked away $68,000 two and a half years later.
00:22:53
Speaker
wow Imagine being a 25-year-old parent and having that type of capital, moving to my next house and not worrying about car seats, car payments because I was able to leverage that money that I would have never had that opportunity renting.
00:23:08
Speaker
sir That's probably my best. Yeah, I would say that is that is a good one. It's a little bit of luck with timing. It was. But it's also making the decision. Making the decision, putting in the work, putting in the sweat equity, which a lot of people have the opportunity to do, especially here in Florida.
00:23:25
Speaker
With the housing market the way it is, there's a lot of houses that need some elbow grease. They need some work. And if you buy in it, live in it, paint it, fix it up, redo the flooring and do the work yourself or hire a contractor or handyman, you can reap the rewards of building sweat equity.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of people have been sitting on the sidelines a bit worried about getting in the market at quote unquote the wrong time or not wanting to make the renovations because it's just going to be too much, they feel like. But I think it's worse to not get in and give it a shot because it's the opportunity cost you're missing out on at that point.
00:24:03
Speaker
That's right. All right. Well, that's a good one. Any other good ones you want to share do you want to tackle the bad decision? The bad one? It's a little embarrassing, but it's me being real. It's truth. 2008, there was a housing crash.
00:24:14
Speaker
There was a major crash in the economy. It wasn't just housing. And i pulled out a 401k and I paid the taxes on it and I used that money to live on. And you paid the penalty. I paid the penalties for it. And the massive penalty was not letting it sit for the next 20 years because that was a large, large chunk of money that would be very valuable today and very valuable at my retirement. Now, I've learned a valuable lesson and I've started reinvesting. And I know you I have talked about IRAs and a few other you know avenues we can look at.
00:24:43
Speaker
But that's my biggest regret is, you know, thinking I could just, well, let's just take this retirement account and spend it now versus just sitting on it, leaving it alone. Was your mindset that you were going to replenish it within the next year or two? Correct. Okay. And I think that's what a lot of people did.
00:24:59
Speaker
I hear it all the time, even now, when clients will call me about taking withdrawal from their account. And of course, I am your advisor. I am not here to place handcuffs on you and tell you to never spend your money. I don't even know what you're... i don't need to know what you're spending it on.
00:25:16
Speaker
Most people feel obligated to tell me, but they don't have to. And I hear all the time... I'm going to take this withdrawal or I'm going to take this loan against my 401k or IRA, but I'm going to pay it back within a couple of years or however long.
00:25:31
Speaker
Nine times out of 10, they don't pay it back. and And then you lost all of those years of earning potential and compounding interest and life happens, but it's so common.
00:25:44
Speaker
and it it can cost you in the future. So understand that. And you know I appreciate your honesty there. Now, do you have any advice for anyone that is maybe looking to buy their first home or wondering about purchasing investment real estate on what their first step should be or what information they should start putting together before meeting with
Tips for Home Buyers
00:26:07
Speaker
someone like you? Yeah, for the first time home buyer, it's simple, just getting pre-qualified like we talked about, getting the first step out of the way, and then getting introduced introduced to a phenomenal realtor.
00:26:15
Speaker
um The real estate agent makes such a big difference in this market when it comes to negotiating, getting closing costs, getting things paid for, especially in that first home. i A great home inspector, you want to have all these things at your fingertips because you get into a house and if the water heater isn't caught and think the air conditioning is kind of running old,
00:26:33
Speaker
you want to make sure that you're getting in this house and not going to have those overhead expenses. So that's that's the advice for the first-time homebuyer. For the investor, it comes down to what are your goals? What are you trying to achieve with real estate? And again, having a conversation with a mortgage broker, getting introduced to a great realtor that understands investing and the power of real estate.
00:26:51
Speaker
um It comes down to just having those conversations. Any other advice that you'd like to share today or some trends that you're seeing that you think people can relate to or want some information on? I'm seeing bridge loans come back very, very strong. So a lot of people ask, what's a bridge i don't even know what that is.
00:27:09
Speaker
It's when you take equity from a house. So for example, client wants to buy a property. They've got money in investments, 401k, IRA. They don't want to touch that crypto. They don't want to touch any of that. But they want to buy this house and they want to buy it now.
00:27:20
Speaker
Well, lot of times to get your best interest rate, you want to put 20 25 percent down and also look stronger on paper if you're putting that money down. So a bridge loan allows you to take, if you have equity in your current house, take that money and borrow it on an interest only term and put it towards the new house for your down payment, not using your cash, not using your investments.
00:27:39
Speaker
And it allows you to purchase clothes and then say, OK, let's get this house cleaned up. Let's get it rented or let's get this house sold. And I can stage it. I don't have to worry about disrupting my family life, my dog's barking every time something comes to the door.
00:27:52
Speaker
And it allows you to just take that money and move it to the next property. And then, like I said, once you sell that property, you pay off the bridge loan. Okay, so that's when someone wants to move into their next house before they sold their existing house. Correct, Okay, that's interesting. Or investors. I have an investor that took out a $400,000 line of credit, bought three other properties.
00:28:13
Speaker
They did that almost four years ago, and now they have equity in the other four properties, and they're pulling out now with the market that's dipped a little bit to buy some more properties. Mm-hmm. So you can leverage the bank's money again, going back to what we started the conversation with, and not use your own funds or investment accounts to tap into. You're using the bank's money instead of your own.
00:28:32
Speaker
Very clever. There's so many strategies that we can get into about this. And i think it's fascinating. And I think anyone that is somewhat involved in real estate or wants to be will really find a lot of these tips helpful. And we're just scratching the surface. Of course, this is, it's a personal type of conversation that you have to have with everyone. And I get that. So it's We're the same way. We can't just make blanket recommendations. but Now, Jason, there's been a lot of buzz right now in Florida about the Hometown Heroes program.
Support Programs for First Responders and Teachers
00:29:04
Speaker
Can you share a little bit about what that is? What kind of assistance that gives buyers? So Florida is a great state when it comes to helping first-time homebuyers. We've got a lot of different programs. We have USDA bond.
00:29:15
Speaker
County assistance, but Hometown Heroes is specifically for heroes. So if you're a school teacher, if you're a first responder, paramedic, military, military reserves, there's different options called Hometown Heroes where you can get up to $35,000 or 5% of your sales price towards down payment or closing costs, and the state funds it.
00:29:33
Speaker
So it can help someone where if the seller's paying the closing costs and the buyer could put $20,000, $25,000 towards the balance, get a lower payment to help qualify for a new home in the state of Florida. Wow, that's great. And is that different than first-time home buyer assistance?
00:29:48
Speaker
It is because this is a bond program, so it's through the state, so you're getting the assistance, so there's a few more qualifications, meaning you have to work for a Florida-based company. You can't work for a company out of California or Nebraska to qualify. You have to work for a brick-and-mortar business here in Florida, and you have to be in one of those professions.
00:30:03
Speaker
There are income qualifications. There's a lot we look at just like most first-time homebuyer programs, but this one is very beneficial to the right homebuyer, and it's something worth having a conversation about if you know someone or have a family member that could be looking to buy their first home.
00:30:16
Speaker
taking advantage of this because once the money's gone, it's gone. and only rolls out a couple times a year. Wow. Okay. That's good to know. And that's great that there are these programs that help our hero professions get into their dream home because sometimes it can feel unfeasible, especially with where real estate prices are right now.
00:30:37
Speaker
And so if someone has questions on if they qualify for that Hometown Heroes, would you be able to qualify them?
Contact Information and Customer Satisfaction Emphasis
00:30:43
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. And same goes for first-time home buyer assistance in Florida? Any type of assistance down payments. I would love to help them have a conversation about it. Okay. That's great.
00:30:53
Speaker
I appreciate that. How can someone get in touch with you if they want to talk about the pre-approval process or maybe taking out a HELOC on their existing property? they can always call me at 813-781-2744 or just Google Jason Johnson Sunpoint Home Loans.
00:31:09
Speaker
And the first thing will pop up is our five-star reviews. We're over 400 five-star reviews now. Wow. And there's no charge for any kind of consultation? Consultations are always free. Okay. That's really good to know. Well, thank you so much for sharing some of the power of leverage, Jason.
00:31:24
Speaker
You're always a pleasure to work with and a wealth of knowledge. And for anyone listening, if you have any other questions for Jason that you'd like to funnel through me or you need to talk about your finances, maybe you...
00:31:35
Speaker
Did do a refinance and you have a couple extra one hundred dollars a month that you can invest towards your future. we can maybe put it in a tax-free Roth IRA. Or you bought a home and you need some life insurance.
00:31:47
Speaker
Let's have that conversation. You can go to union-financial.com and click schedule a meeting. It'll take you to my calendar where we can book either a phone call, Zoom call, in-person meeting, always complimentary.
00:31:59
Speaker
And for everyone else listening, we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Future of Finance. I'm your host, Marissa Wood. We look forward to helping you live a better financial future. Thank you, Jason. Thank you.
00:32:13
Speaker
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00:33:25
Speaker
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00:33:44
Speaker
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