YFP 160: Navigating the Home Buying Process Through the YFP Concierge Service

Navigating the Home Buying Process Through the YFP Concierge Service

On this week’s episode, sponsored by HPSO, Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPH, interviews two pharmacists, Shelby Bennett and Bryce Platt, about their home buying experience. Shelby and Bryce recently worked with Nate via the YFP Real Estate Concierge Service to craft a plan and connect with a local preferred agent to buy their first homes.

About Today’s Guests

Dr. Shelby Bennett

Dr. Shelby Bennett is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Pharmacy. Originally from rural northwest Iowa, Shelby graduated with her PharmD from Creighton University in 2016. She then completed a community-based pharmacy residency with the University of Kansas and Balls Food Stores in Overland Park, Kansas, where she earned a teaching certificate from the University of Kansas Health System. After residency, Shelby designed and implemented clinical services at two independent community pharmacies closer to her hometown. Shelby made the switch to her dream career field and bought her first house (with some help from Nate and the YFP team!) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she’s here to tell the tale. She is excited to be back in Omaha, where she resides with her cat, Sophia.

Dr. Bryce Platt

Bryce Platt earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Kansas and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Population Health Management with Omnicell and Campbell University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in July 2019.

Applying five years of experience in community pharmacy practice and the same passion for improving healthcare, Bryce has worked alongside engineers, data scientists, business analysts, and executives over his career, providing clinical expertise and gaining valuable experience in improving population health. Key projects include leading clinical content preparation for a national health plan program, evaluating international markets for potential Omnicell expansion, working with international teams on protocol development for a research study, assistance with development of a new Medication Therapy Management platform, developing an opioid abuse mitigation program, and preparing business cases for innovative Omnicell solutions.

Bryce is currently the Clinical Pharmacy Specialist at Omnicell and serves as a preceptor for pharmacy students from six different universities during their rotation.

Summary

On this podcast episode, Tim Ulbrich hands the mic over to Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPH. As both a pharmacist and a real estate agent, Nate has a unique perspective on the home buying process and he’s used it to help many pharmacists achieve their dream of owning a home. Let’s put it this way: he’s got the insider’s view.

Nate interviews Shelby and Bryce, two pharmacists that both bought their first homes with the help of the YFP Real Estate Concierge Service. Shelby purchased a single family home Nebraska and shares her journey of real estate agent struggles, house she chose a lender and her lessons learned along the way. Bryce recently purchased a condo in North Carolina to house hack. Inspired by YFP 130: House Hacking Your Way to Financial Freedom, Bryce got to work and within months made this dream happen. Bryce talks about how the YFP Real Estate Concierge Service connected him with a preferred local agent, his most crucial team member on this real estate adventure and how he was able to get a pharmacist home loan with IBERIABANK/First Horizon for 3% down with no PMI.

The Real Estate Concierge Service is designed to help pharmacy professionals get connected with local preferred agents and have support well past closing on a home. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Crafting a Plan. We start by designing a plan that works with your budget and your financial goals. Our 30-minute jump start planning session helps determine your needs and answers your important questions right from the beginning.

Step 2: Connecting you with a Pro. You need an agent you can trust. And one that understands a pharmacist’s busy schedule. Our network of agents have gone through a rigorous screening process to ensure they have your best interest at heart. Once we know what you’re looking for, we’ll connect you with one of our preferred local agents that will help find the perfect place to call your own.

Step 3: Staying the Course. After connecting you with a preferred agent, we stay involved well past closing. If questions come up, priorities change, or you need an unbiased opinion, we’re available to lend an ear and a helping hand.

Book a free 30-minute jump start planning call with Nate today!

Mentioned on the Show

• Get Professional Liability Insurance with HPSO
• Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPH
• YFP Real Estate Concierge Service
• FIrst Time Homebuying Guide
• YFP Planning
• IBERIABANK/First Horizon
• YFP 130: House Hacking Your Way to Financial Freedom w/ Craig Curelop
• BiggerPockets
• The House Hacking Strategy: How to Use Your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop
• Compare Multiple Mortgage Lenders with Credible
• YFP Real Estate Resources
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss
• Real Estate Rookie Podcast
• Schedule a Free 30-minute Jump Start Planning Call with Nate

 

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Hey, what’s up, everybody? Welcome to this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast. Excited to have back perhaps the most frequent guest on the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, Nate Hedrick, The Real Estate RPH, who’s going to be joining us as we highlight two case studies of pharmacists that worked with Nate as a part of the real estate concierge service to land really two incredible opportunities. And we’re going to talk about those in more detail on this week’s episode. So Nate, welcome back to the show.

Nate Hedrick: Thanks, Tim. Always nice to be here.

Tim Ulbrich: What’s new and exciting up in Cleveland, Ohio?

Nate Hedirck: Besides quarantining, actually Kristin and I just dove into our first out-of-state investment property. So we’re currently in the middle of figuring that whole game out. So I’ve been posting a little bit about it and I’m sure I’ll be posting more as demo gets underway. But that’s the exciting real estate world that I’m living in right now.

Tim Ulbrich: I saw your photos on Facebook, and I think for those that may not have experienced that firsthand or that experience of doing a flip and a demo, quite a project like that might give some people palpitations. But it looks like you’ve got your hands full.

Nate Hedrick: Oh man, yeah. The smell in there — and I have not been there, full disclosure — but I have been told it is horrible and the heat has not been helping. So we’re starting off maybe on a yucky note. But hopefully it will get better as time goes on.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, which either unfortunate or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it with real estate, often means a great opportunity if you’re willing to work through some of that to be able to have a good investment opportunity, whether you end up flipping it or whether you keep it and BRRR it, it sounds like it might be a good opportunity. And we’ll feature that perhaps on a later episode of the podcast as well.

Nate Hedrick: Great.

Tim Ulbrich: So really excited, two awesome stories that you are going to feature, individuals, pharmacists that you’ve worked with as part of the real estate concierge service to help them with their home buying purchase as their agent and I think two very different stories. But we’ll really give our listeners an inside look into what that service is all about and perhaps even give some of our listeners some ideas about investment opportunities with Bryce’s story. So tell us a little bit about what our listeners can expect to hear from these two interviews that you did.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, so you let me take the mic for the first time, which is kind of cool. I got to be on your side of the table, which was fun. So I interviewed Shelby and Bryce. And Shelby — both of them, actually — are first-time homebuyers. And what I think is going to be nice to share with you guys is that Shelby was really kind of your standard first-time homebuyer, looking for a place to live, you know, nothing frilly about it. And so I think moving for a new job. So she’s going to be a really great story to kind of showcase what most people are going to go into. And then Bryce is another great case study because he was looking for more of it as an investment property. And he actually ends up buying a 4-by-4, which we’ll talk about. But he’s a house hacker. So we’ll talk about what that looks like and what that’s going to do for him. But it’s two good stories of how first-time homebuyers can go in different directions and I really think it brings interesting notes to what the concierge service can provide.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, I think there’s a little bit of everything here for those that are listening, you know, whether they’re first-time homebuyers going about it more the traditional way, first-time homebuyers that want to do some more creative house hacking, investing, or those that have a home and perhaps want to get into real estate investing. I think there’s something to take away for everyone that’s listening. And you use as the framework for your interviews the six steps to the home buying process, which we outline in the home buying, YFP home buying guide. And so for those that want to download that guide and learn more about those steps and be able to connect that with the interviews that you did, head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/homeguide, all one word. Again, YourFinancialPharmacist.com/homeguide. And hang with us, so we’re going to go into Shelby’s interview and then you’ll hear from Bryce as well and his interview with Nate. And then we will wrap up the show talking a little bit about the concierge service, connecting it back with those interviews and those stories and where you can learn more to connect with Nate from there. So let’s transition to hear Nate’s interview with Shelby.

Nate Hedrick: Hi, Shelby. Welcome to the show.

Shelby Bennett: Thanks, Nate. Thanks for having me.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah. It’s great. I really appreciate you being here. It means a lot to have you on the show. Can you dive in and tell us a little bit about yourself?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So I am a pharmacist that graduated in 2016. So this is going into my fourth year of practice and recently made a big job change from an independent community pharmacy in rural Iowa where I’m from and recently took a job teaching at a college of pharmacy in Omaha, Nebraska. I went to college at Creighton here in Omaha for undergrad and pharmacy, so it’s kind of good to be back in my old college town. And yeah, I just bought my first house, which is what I’m here to talk about a little bit.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, you just moved in — what? Two weeks ago now? Three weeks ago?

Shelby Bennett: About a month ago. I closed May 29.

Nate Hedrick: OK. Nice. And how’s the move-in process going?

Shelby Bennett: It’s going well. Everyone’s telling me that home projects never end, and I’m definitely starting to understand that. I think I’m finally to the point where all the stuff is out of the boxes. It’s just not put away yet.

Nate Hedrick: I knew that when we moved into our last house that any boxes that were there after like a year, we just didn’t need that stuff. We could just throw it out. So hopefully you’ve got everything unpacked, you’re in a good spot.

Shelby Bennett: Absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: Well we’re going to jump in and do a little bit about that experience. I again want to follow the Six Steps to Home Buying Guide that we have available through Your Financial Pharmacist. That guide will actually walk you through the same six steps that Shelby and I are going to walk through today. So if you take a look at No. 1, we are talking about making sure you’re ready. So this is before you start a Zillow search, before you do anything, you know, how do you determine if you are ready to buy a home? So Shelby, can you tell me a little bit about why you decided to buy a home instead of continuing to rent?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So I decided to buy a home because I was ready for the permanence of living in one place, because I wanted to feel I had the freedom to make changes to the house or the yard without having to ask for a landlord’s permission. My last rental was a small house, and I liked not having neighbors as close as you do when you live in an apartment. But I was also ready for more space. My last place was only about 650 square feet, so I was ready to expand.

Nate Hedrick: Totally understand that. Yep. We were similar when we made our decision. So that’s great. And then if you’re like any good pharmacist like me, you’re probably extra detail-oriented. But did you dive into the numbers really deep on the budget? Or were you using something more broad? How did you set that ideal budget or how did you look at that question?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, so this is going to be one of those don’t-try-this-at-home examples.

Nate Hedrick: Perfect.

Shelby Bennett: I discovered the YFP Home Buying Guide after I’d already started looking at houses online. So I definitely did this part in the wrong order. I started looking at house in the neighborhoods I wanted to live in and then extrapolated my budget backwards based on the houses that I liked.

Nate Hedrick: That’s awesome. You’re not alone in doing that. I think most people actually operate that way.

Shelby Bennett: My logic was, OK, so it will cost x amount of dollars to buy a move-in ready house in Dundee, like can I afford to live there? But then I got lucky in that after meeting with Tim Baker and working through some of his equations based on income and expenses, the budget I had originally set wasn’t really too far off topic. So I got lucky there.

Nate Hedrick: That’s good. Yeah. Tim’s home buying guide that he does with the YFP Planning is great. I love that spreadsheet.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, that’s really nice.

Nate Hedrick: Great. Alright, so you’ve set your budget, maybe in a little unorthodox way, but I think probably more normal for most people, I like that. And then you’ve got to determine what’s important. You’re looking at things like location, size, flexibility, that’s our step No. 2. So this can get a bit overwhelming. You’re going from every house in a particular location and how do you narrow it down to what you’re looking for? So what were some of the criteria that you focused on when you were trying to determine what was important to you?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So it was really important to me to be close to work. I grew up in a rural area, so everything that you wanted to do from a work perspective was really close, and then everything you want to do from a cultural or a shopping standpoint was a long ways away. But it was important to me to maintain the same short commute that I had had in my previous experiences. So because I’d lived in Omaha for six years during undergrad and pharmacy school, I had a pretty good idea of the neighborhoods that I’d want to live in that would be a short commute to work.

Nate Hedrick: Nice.

Shelby Bennett: And I also wanted enough space for my immediate family to visit and stay. My previous house was too small for all of us to hang out at the same time. And then as I alluded to earlier a little bit, I wanted a house that didn’t need a lot of interior work done. I figured starting a job, buying my first house, moving in a couple hours away, was enough projects to start with, especially since I’d be living in the new house during a renovation. So exterior work I was OK with since it doesn’t really affect the function of your house. But interior work, I wanted it mostly done.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, that makes sense, especially with starting a new job and moving across the state and all that. That makes total sense.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah.

Nate Hedrick: Great. Well, were you able to hone in on that? It sounds like you had a couple of projects, but hopefully they haven’t been too overwhelming.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, yeah. So I actually had a contractor come earlier today and look at a couple things. But yeah, I ended up picking a place that had some exterior projects that needed to be done but ended up finding a place that almost everything I wanted done was on the inside. So almost everything on the inside was already done, excuse me.

Nate Hedrick: Great. That’s great.

Shelby Bennett: So that was really nice.

Nate Hedrick: Good, good. Well one of the other important aspects that we really want to focus on too is Step No. 3, which is assembling your team. You know, there are a lot of important team members included in the home buying process, right? You’ve got a real estate agent, you talked about working with Tim, so your financial planner, maybe an accountant, sometimes a lawyer in most states. So looking back at your purchase, who would you say were the most essential members of your team?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, so I’m going to rank my team members by how many questions I asked each of them.

Nate Hedrick: I like this.

Shelby Bennett: Definitely the award for the most questions asked and answered goes to my local real estate agent that I worked with through most of the process, Rebecca. A month out from closing and we still probably talk about once a week. So she was really great to work with. Next up is probably Tim Baker, who’s been working with me on financial planning with YFP since November of last year. So kind of around the time I decided I wanted to be buying a home soon and kind of looking at some of those things. My parents were definitely a sounding board for me when I had questions. And they came with me during showings to catch things that I didn’t. None of us are real estates experts, but it was nice to just kind of have an extra set of eyes and to think about things that maybe I didn’t. And then last but definitely not least was you, Nate. You definitely came in clutch for me during a couple of slightly awkward dilemmas throughout my process.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, I want to talk about that because that’s actually one of the main reasons I wanted to have you on because I think this is really good. We talk about our concierge service and the home buying concierge and how that works. And in my head, it’s this perfect system, right? We match you with an agent and you get off and you find your dream home. But in reality, it’s not always perfect, right? So we originally connected you through the concierge service with Emily, right?

Shelby Bennett: Mhmm.

Nate Hedrick: And things were — it was OK, but it wasn’t a perfect fit. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about that because I think this is a really cool story to share about what this can look like.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So I think I talked to you probably on a Thursday night, and I think by Sunday night I’d already received an introduction to my first agent, Emily. And I was pleasantly surprised at how quick the process was, even though you hadn’t worked with agents in Omaha before. My first interactions with Emily were pretty positive. She was quick to respond to my questions. I had requested to see a few properties that I had seen online, and she set up showings for them. I’d never really been to a house showing before. So I didn’t know what to expect except that I figured it probably wasn’t exactly like you see on HGTV. I remember not really knowing how to feel after that first day of showings. It was exciting to get out and see houses, but I didn’t feel that supported by Emily as we looked at houses. She’d let us into the house and then just kind of wait for us to be done exploring. She was available for questions but usually gave short answers I didn’t fully understand. The one house I saw that I felt like I could see myself in needed a lot of yard work and some of the windows needed to be replaced. I felt like the more excited that I got about the house, the more she seemed to be talking me out of it. Spoiler alert, that’s the house I ended up buying. But we’ll get to that later.

Nate Hedrick: Nice.

Shelby Bennett: But yeah, my situation was a little unique in that I was looking for houses during the interview process for my new job. So I wasn’t in a place to make an offer for at least another couple weeks. I think that definitely affected my experience with Emily. So the second time I wanted to set up showings, I feel like she tried to talk me out of them a little bit, saying they probably wouldn’t even still be on the market by the time I was ready to buy. When I asked if I could still see the properties to learn more about the home buying process so I wasn’t scrambling at the end when I really needed something, you know, she made me whittle down the list of places I wanted to see from five to three for a five-hour round trip drive on my part. And then all of a sudden she had this schedule conflict, and she sent another agent to show me the homes. And that was super awkward for me. I didn’t really know. I was like, isn’t that your job? I didn’t really know what to expect from her or from me or if I’d done a wrong thing. It was definitely awkward for me. But even though that was super awkward, I feel like it was the best thing that could have happened in hindsight because the new real estate agent, Rebecca, was super personable, she was exploring the houses right there along with us. And she was giving us insight about the homes and the neighborhood. And I felt like she really welcomed my questions. I didn’t feel like they were stupid questions, that I asked too many or anything like that. And we just had a great time seeing the homes. We had a lot of fun, and I left feeling just a lot more hopeful. The only thing is I didn’t know like was it possible to break up with your real estate agent? Could you switch to a new one? Like I had no idea.

Nate Hedrick: Yep.

Shelby Bennett: So thankfully, the next day, Nate, you’d sent me an email just checking in to see how things were going. And thank goodness for that. I had decided to fill you in on my predicament.

Nate Hedrick: I remember that email.

Shelby Bennett: Oh my gosh, I’m so glad I did. I feel like you just really validated all of the concerns I was having, and you helped me make the transition from Emily to Rebecca by helping me understand kind of the structure of real estate offices and kind of what to focus on when kind of asking to switch. I can’t imagine how the home buying process would have gone if I hadn’t reached out to you, taken your advice and then decided to work with Rebecca moving forward.

Nate Hedrick: Well, we messed it up to begin with, right? We gave you Emily first, so we had to fix it and get you back on track.

Shelby Bennett: Well you didn’t know.

Nate Hedrick: No, and you know, it’s hard, right? So we do these interviews, and we interview these agents. But until someone’s worked with them that we know, there’s no way to know up front. And so luckily, Rebecca was on Emily’s team and was just a much better connection point for you. She was much more first-time homebuyer-centric. And it was obvious in your email that she was someone that you connected with and that you were going to be able to work with long-term. So I’m really glad we were able to get you switched over to Rebecca. So again, the point here is that, you know, we try, we do the best that we can, but the concierge service is not perfect. But the good news is that we’re always a part of your team. So when something like that happens, you did the exact right thing, just reached out, say, “Look, this isn’t working. I need to pivot.” And we can help you make that pivot. So again, I really — I love sharing the good stuff that we do with concierge services, but I’ve also got to make sure that we share the real stuff too. And this is exactly that. So thank you for telling that story.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah.

Nate Hedrick: Alright, so then once we found a place, we found the original place and then we got talked out of it, now we’re back. Then it’s choosing a loan and getting preapproved. So a lot of people kind of struggle when it comes to getting financing. And so this is Step 4. So can you tell us a little bit about how you went about navigating that process and any tips that you have for our listeners now that you’ve gone through it once for yourself?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah. Absolutely. So I was in the market for financing in April. So right in the middle of the COVID shutdowns. So Rebecca had recommended that I choose a lender I knew I could get ahold of on short notice since not everyone was working from the office anymore. She said that delays from lenders can delay closing on the house. I definitely didn’t want that, ended up kind of a short schedule from by the time I accepted the job to the time I needed to be moving. So I knew I needed to get going more quickly. So yeah, so thankfully I have an extended family member who’s a home mortgage consultant. So I knew I’d be able to contact him if I needed. So the process I used, I got some rate quotes from both my family member’s national lending company and then I talked to others to see what rates were being offered by IBERIABANK/First Horizon, as recommended by Tim Baker. And then because I’d be putting 20% down with a conventional loan — and that was I guess a recommendation from Tim as well — and the interest rates were similar between the two lenders, I decided to choose my family member as my mortgage consultant because I wanted somebody, kind of like Rebecca, that I was comfortable asking questions to and somebody I felt like would recommend the best options for me and not just try to sell me something. I think my biggest tip is to really just use your home buying team to help you make those financing decisions. I don’t know about a lot of you out there, but I am not an expert on finances by any means. And so it was so nice to have pros to reach out to when I had questions or wasn’t really sure because I ran into another situation I was pretty sure I had all my financing ducks in a row. And then I had an immediate family member recommend I put less than 20% down after reading an article about how COVID would affect the housing market and its potential to be worse than the Great Depression, in the article’s words. And man, that really threw me off. On super short notice, I talked to both Robert and Tim Baker at YFP and to you, Nate, to kind of get your take on the situation. I knew my family member was coming from a place of care and concern for me, but I definitely didn’t want to make a decision I’d regret later, especially not one that costs a lot of money and was spread out over 30 years. So just like with my real estate concerns, both Robert at YFP and I feel like Nate, you really took the time to answer my questions, kind of justify both my concerns and then tailor your response around some of the details of my particular situation. And it was just so nice having another opinion. It made me feel like no question I had was a stupid question. And it just really made me feel like I had another person I could reach out to and I was like, I have no idea what I’m doing.

Nate Hedrick: Good, well I’m glad we could be there for you. And you’re right, the amount to put down and the type of financing and all the things that go into that, it’s so different for everybody. I think we’re so quick to say, you know, 20% is what you’re supposed to do. And it just feels like that’s what you hear about. But the reality is that it’s different for every situation and every person. So it’s always good to get those second and third opinions from someone else that knows your finances and knows what you’re going through. So yeah, definitely a tricky spot, but I’m glad you had the support that you needed. Alright, so Step No. 5 is finding your home and negotiating. So we talked a little bit about finding that home and the home search process. But I guess I’ll ask this too, it sounds like COVID did have an impact. Did that interrupt showings in any way? Or did you have any issues with seeing houses?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from that search process kind of at first. I spent a lot of time, especially early on, looking at real estate websites online. I set a lot of email alerts for houses that fit my criteria. But yeah, COVID definitely affected kind of the second half of my search process. Ended up doing a lot more FaceTime showings than in person, which with a five-hour round trip drive was actually really nice. I don’t know that I would have done as many of those without COVID. And so in some ways, it was nice because when you saw a house on FaceTime and you knew it definitely wasn’t the one, then you didn’t have to drive so far. But it was hard to get a really good feel of the house just from your phone.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, until you’re standing in that space, it can be tricky to get a true feel for what that house is going to be like.

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, so I got really lucky in that the house I ended up buying I had seen in February before I knew I was going to be moving and before all of that. They had fixed up a lot of the windows and some of the yardwork, and so then Rebecca actually reached out, you know, mid-April to say, “Hey, what do you think about this house?” And I was like, “Funny you should mention. I feel like that was the house I liked.”

Nate Hedrick: “I know the house well.”

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, “that was the house I liked that nobody else liked for me.” COVID also made me feel a little bit like people weren’t putting houses on the market. And so it was frustrating at times to feel like I wasn’t going to find a place in time. But kind of by the end, I guess the search process was more or less like I imagined. You go to the house, you open up all the cupboards, you explore everything, and then you kind of talk about pros and cons of each place. Turns out Omaha is a seller’s market, so it was a little more stressful than I thought with fewer homes on the market and a little more buyers competition. Some houses I liked were off the market in less than a day, and so that was just kind of blew my mind.

Nate Hedrick: Wow. Yeah, no doubt. Gees. And we’re actually seeing that around the country right now. We’ve got a seller’s market pretty much everywhere. Inventory is very low. I know of very few areas in the country right now that are buyer’s markets. So that’s not totally unique to Omaha at this point. And then did you — you know, the part that intimidates most people about this step is the negotiation. Did you get into any negotiations with the seller or how did that part go?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So Rebecca was really great at walking me through the negotiation process because I definitely wasn’t comfortable with that going in. So she had recommended a price range to start my offer at and actually had reached back out to Emily to kind of get her thoughts since she had seen the house as well. And so they kind of helped me understand where would be a good place to start and then helped me understand a little bit of the seller’s thought process kind of through the negotiation process and what they’d likely be thinking. And then, you know, she talked with me about common things home buyers usually negotiate on when they offer versus like what you might negotiate or put into the offer after the home inspection and kind of at different points along the way. We ended up negotiating the price of the home down about $17,000. And we got the seller to purchase the home warranty, so I was really happy about how that all ended up.

Nate Hedrick: Nice. That’s great. And it’s really nice to hear that Rebecca and Emily helped you really kind of step into the seller’s shoes for a minute because I think it’s easy to walk into a sale as a buyer and think, gosh, I’ve got to get this for as low as I possibly can. And I’m going to negotiate hard on everything. And the reality is like, there’s just two people trying to have a transaction. And so stepping into their shoes can actually help you a lot of times with that negotiation. So that’s great.
Shelby Bennett: Yeah, absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: And then the last step is Step 6, which is inspect, insure, and close. And I think a lot of this tends to run together, right? All these steps are kind of going on simultaneously. So you know, with all of the stuff that’s going in this, I guess I’ll just ask, is there anything that you learned or that you would have done differently now that you’ve gone through the closing process as a first-time home buyer?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah, so I definitely learned at the inspection that I don’t know a lot of structural things about houses.

Nate Hedrick: They didn’t cover that in pharmacy school? What the heck?

Shelby Bennett: No. My inspector and my agent were really good about explaining the significance of the findings during the inspection and kind of suggesting what to ask the sellers to fix. I definitely recommend being present for your inspection walk-through, even if it’s in the middle of a pandemic and you have to wear a mask like I did. But so you can physically see the inspection report findings, they can physically point out different things throughout the home. There were a lot of terms that I didn’t understand. But once I could see what they were talking about, it made a lot more sense. I definitely recommend that. Closing was definitely a blur for me. I was I think the first in-office closing the title company had after doing drive-through closings for COVID.

Nate Hedrick: Oh, wow.

Shelby Bennett: My title agent said she would email me the closing documents to review beforehand, and with all the craziness going on, I wish I’d remembered to reach out and tell her I never got them. But I couldn’t until it was too late, and then I closed right away in the morning. So when I got to closing, like there would be all these super long documents, and my title agent was great and would say like, “Hey, this is just a document that your lender needs to do x.” But I’m like, “It’s four pages long and this is all it says?” You know? But I definitely didn’t take a lot of time to read them being close proximity like in an office was definitely something that was very taboo kind of at the end of May with COVID anyways. And so I didn’t necessarily probably take as much time as I would have to like read everything. And then it was a bummer that Rebecca, my agent, couldn’t be there either. Turns out real estate agents and sometimes family members can be present at closing to kind of help answer any questions and kind of be there for support. And instead, I was in a conference room across from the title agent with a big plexiglass divider and just a little slot to pass papers back and forth.

Nate Hedrick: Wow. Oh my gosh, that’s so crazy.

Shelby Bennett: So yeah, so that was a little wild. So I wish I had been a little more proactive and remembered to reach back out and see those closing documents ahead of time. But overall, you know what, it went well. I haven’t discovered yet that I made any big mistakes. So you know, it all turned out for the good. But definitely something I feel like you just, you don’t know about until you have the experience.

Nate Hedrick: Absolutely. I remember my first closing as a home buyer and was just overwhelmed with the amount of things I was signing and I just wrote a giant check for a bunch of money, and it was terrifying.

Shelby Bennett: Right.

Nate Hedrick: So yeah, I totally understand. And that’s really great that you were able to share some of that with our listeners because again, step back, ask questions, and review the documents ahead of time. That’s a really good piece of advice. Well, you’ve given us some great tips, and I really appreciate you sharing your story today. Is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners that you — about the home buying process or really anything in general?

Shelby Bennett: Yeah. So really the only thing I had to share was something you just touched on. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I think especially as a first-time home buyer, I definitely felt a little bit like I was annoying people on my team at times. But I’m like, this is your job. You know, like.

Nate Hedrick: I pay you for this. Hold on.

Shelby Bennett: I was like, home buying just isn’t one of those things, like you mentioned, like we don’t learn that in school. There’s no place to learn about it except for when you go through it. And it’s a huge decision. So I definitely say reach out, take advantage of all your resources. There’s lots of pros who’ve done this before and are super willing to help. So you don’t have to do it alone, and no question is too small.

Nate Hedrick: That’s really great advice. I really appreciate it. That’s awesome. Well Shelby, thanks so much for being on the show. It just means a lot that you would come on and share your story. And again, I think our listeners are going to learn a lot from what you had to say. So appreciate it.

Shelby Bennett: I appreciate that, Nate. Thanks again for having me.

Nate Hedrick: Hi, Bryce. Welcome to the podcast.

Bryce Platt: Hey, Nate. Thanks for having me.

Nate Hedrick: Absolutely. We’re glad to have you on the show. So I guess we’ll start off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Bryce Platt: Sure. My name is Bryce Platt. I’m from Kansas originally and went to the University of Kansas for my pharmacy school, graduated in 2018 and then did a post-grad fellowship in population health management in North Carolina. I’d never been to North Carolina before until that fellowship. Spent a year there and did I guess not bad enough that they felt the need to get rid of me, so they decided to keep me. And stayed on as the clinical pharmacy specialist for pop health programs. And that’s where I’m at now.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. That’s amazing. And you just bought a house there, right?

Bryce Platt: I did. I just bought a four-bed, four-bath condo.

Nate Hedrick: That’s amazing. Yeah, and that’s exactly why we’ve got you on the show today to talk a little bit about that experience. So again, we appreciate you being here.

Bryce Platt: Thank you.

Nate Hedrick: Great. So what I thought we would do is out on our website, on the YourFinancialPharmacist.com Real Estate page, we have a home buying guide. And it is the six steps to follow to basically have a great home buying experience. And so I thought we’d walk through those six steps and kind of see what your experience with those six steps and get some feedback from you, if that works for you.

Bryce Platt: Yeah, hopefully I can share a little bit of knowledge and help some people who haven’t done this before.

Nate Hedrick: Perfect, that’s what we’re looking for. So alright. We’ll start with No. 1 — oh, and if you’d like to get access to this yourself, you can to YourFinancialPharmacist.com/homeguide. And you can download those six steps. You can follow right along with us or work on your own plan there at home. So Step 1 on there is making sure you’re ready. So this is kind of the before you start searching on Zillow, you know, when you’re deciding that buying a home is the way you want to go, there are a number of steps that you should be taking, things like budget, things like looking at your location and all that goes into that. And so Bryce, tell me a little bit about how you decided to buy a home instead of continuing to rent.

Bryce Platt: Neither you or Tim know this, but this completely started from me listening to Episode 130 on this podcast.

Nate Hedrick: Oh nice.

Bryce Platt: It was where Craig Curelop from Bigger Pockets came in to talk about his house hacking strategy guide, his book that he had released.

Nate Hedrick: Yep.

Bryce Platt: So I listened to that mid-February and was like, I mean, my lease ends in early August. So I can go ahead and do this. It wouldn’t be any more expensive than renting, and I’d have the benefit of the cash flow and building some equity in an actual property. So I went forward with buying the book and from that first step in mid-February, I had closed on this condo by June. And before that never even considered should I look at a property? Should I buy a house? Didn’t even cross my mind at all.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. Well, that’s awesome. I’m glad we’re inspiring a couple people out there. That’s the goal. So that’s amazing. And like I mentioned, one of the other steps to determining if you’re ready is figuring out things like budget and questions like that. So did you sit back and were you the classic detail-oriented pharmacist doing all these hard numbers? Or how did set about things like a budget?

Bryce Platt: You know, I can’t say that I had a budget. What I did was I completely looked at deal numbers. I looked at it completely as an investment. So I didn’t have a top number except for what the bank was willing to loan me. Beyond that, just did the numbers for the property work? Which of these look like the best deals and investment property? So as long as those numbers worked, it was very loose on the actual list price.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, this is really different than buying a traditional home that you’re going to live in. It’s really more of an investment. And so approaching that like a business decision makes a lot of sense.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: I guess, so that leads us really nicely into our next point, which is determine what’s important. And it sounds like house hacking was the thing that you wanted to do. So maybe you can — I know we talked about, like you said on Episode 130 with Craig, but can you talk a little bit more about exactly what is house hacking and how does that work?

Bryce Platt: Sure. House hacking is the idea of you owning a property, buying some kind of property, and being able to essentially lower that mortgage payment by having other people pay you money to live there. So that could be as intense as you buy a mobile home and live on the parking lot in front of your apartment or your property and rent out the actual property. Or it could be as minimal as you live in the house and you have like a garage that you’ve turned into an Airbnb spot. And you just rent it out occasionally for short-term renters. So there’s a big spectrum there. The traditional is you buy like a duplex, a triplex, quadplex, and rent out the extra units and you live in one unit. I tried to do that, and we can talk about that a little bit later. But this condo worked out much better as a investment property for me.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and so you’ve got a four-by-four. So maybe you can explain what that is for someone that might not know.

Bryce Platt: Sure. So the — if you remember, I don’t know, maybe back in college, you have this shared space where there’s a living room, a kitchen, that four people share. And then each person has their own bedroom with a door and a lock, a bathroom and a walk-in closet. So we all have our own private space as well as sharing the living room and kitchen.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. What an amazing setup. And I’m sure that’s not possible everywhere, but it sounds like that’s a great fit for you guys.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely. It’s near the big public college here in North Carolina, so it’s traditionally been for students. But with COVID just happened in March, the students that were here broke their lease and moved out. And that wasn’t uncommon for the seller. So he had multiple properties like this that had nobody in there.

Nate Hedrick: Oh, wow.

Bryce Platt: And so he was looking to get rid of some of these.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great. And I guess we don’t have to get too far into the numbers, but I mean, is it looking good? Like are you going to be able to live for free? Because that’s the dream, right?

Bryce Platt: Yes, that is the dream. The reason I chose this property was — so I looked at multiple duplexes, which were really all that are around this area of North Carolina. There’s not really triplex or quadplex that are available. And the duplexes had decent cash flow numbers, but because of COVID, no one really wanted me to come like look at it in person.

Nate Hedrick: Oh, wow.

Bryce Platt: Because, you know, they were listed before COVID happened. So these were just people looking to sell eventually but not in a huge rush. For this condo, the numbers are much better anyways. So I essentially am doing a rent-by-the-room strategy, as you might imagine, with four-bed, four-bath. So these aren’t people that knew each other before coming in. So if we talked about the 1% rule here, this is more like the 1.5% rule. So the numbers are pretty good. And even with me living here as one of the rooms, I’m making a few hundred dollars every month over the mortgage.

Nate Hedrick: That’s amazing.

Bryce Platt: And the interest and the insurance and the taxes and the HOA fees, even.

Nate Hedrick: That’s amazing. Good for you. And for those of our listeners that don’t know the 1% rule, really popular in rental property investing, means that if the purchase price is, let’s say it’s $100,000, you should be able to bring in about $1,000 in rent every single month. So 1% of the purchase price is your goal number. And that 1% rule is kind of a quick back-of-the-napkin math for determining if a rental property is going to be worth considering.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: So anything over the 1% rule is great, and it sounds like you’ve almost hit the 1.5%, which is amazing.

Bryce Platt: Right, and that’s even, like I said, with all of the PITI, insurance, taxes, interest and including the HOA fees, which are an extra couple hundred dollars on top of all of that.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, those HOA fees can be killer, so being able to include that and including that in your budget, like that’s amazing. That’s great.

Bryce Platt: Yeah, I really am not bothered by the HOA fees because as my first house and as never having even considered doing things before this, like I mentioned, I do not want to have to figure out how to do landscaping and take care of huge roof, replace the roofs and the siding on the houses. Here, they have a pool and a sand volleyball court and a basketball court. And there’s no way I’d want to take care of those either.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah. I mean, your repair costs go basically to $0. It’s great.

Bryce Platt: Well, I wouldn’t say that because inside the condo, I have to take care of everything inside the condo. But anything that’s really — that’s typically a really large capital expenditure for a house, I don’t really have to prepare for those.

Nate Hedrick: That’s perfect. Great. Well and then I guess the next step, we’ll move along here, No. 3 is assembling your team. And there are a number of important team members that we list in our document, everything from a real estate agent, a financial planner, an accountant, sometimes there’s a lawyer that needs to be involved. So now that you’ve kind of made this purchase and you’re looking back, who were some of those most essential members of your team, would you say?

Bryce Platt: It was easily my real estate agent, Adam.

Nate Hedrick: OK.

Bryce Platt: When you’re looking for a real estate agent for house hacking specifically or any kind of investment property, really, you want a real estate agent that has done investing themselves so they know what you’re looking for. You’re not looking for the super expensive, granite countertops and the high-rise ceiling and the fancy chandeliers. You’re looking for a place that, for example, meets the 1% rule or you are able to cover the mortgage with your rent. So working with a real estate agent that understood that made it a lot easier.

Nate Hedrick: Good. And we were actually lucky enough to be able to connect you with Adam through our concierge service, right? So can you tell me a little about that experience? It sounds like it worked for you.

Bryce Platt: Yeah. Again, neither Nate or Tim paid me for this. So I will give them my endorsement.

Nate Hedrick: Uh oh.

Bryce Platt: It was super easy and working with Adam, made connecting me with Adam here in North Carolina. Because I had — like I said, I started from absolutely no idea what I was doing to getting this book and was able to eventually turn it into a condo a little over three months later. So the connection with the real estate agent was vital to doing this.

Nate Hedrick: Wow, that’s so good. I’m so glad you had a good experience. That’s what we’re all about. I appreciate the endorsement, and I’ll send you the check after this.

Bryce Platt: Yeah, alright.

Nate Hedrick: Great. Well No. 4 is choosing a loan and getting preapproved. A lot of people tend to struggle when it comes to financing. I get this question a lot that people are pretty good about the home search and what they want. But when it gets to financing, people kind of struggle a bit. So how did you go about navigating that process?

Bryce Platt: With house hacking, you want essentially the lowest down payment as possible. Obviously on Your Financial Pharmacist, I mean, I’ve followed you guys for a little while and I use the website, so I started with Credible to compare the different lending institutions and what kind of rates they had and the limits and such. But after that, IBERIABANK/First Horizon, which is a specific partner of YFP, they had the best interest and guaranteed no PMI, which is Private Mortgage Insurance where if you typically on a normal property, if you put down less than 20% on the property as a down payment, you have to pay PMI to protect the lending institution. The insurance doesn’t cover you. It covers the bank in case you default on that. So you’re paying them insurance for the bank, which is ridiculous. Anyways, and they also only require a 3% down payment. So I only had to put down 3% and was able to go without PMI and still have a pretty low interest rate. The 3% down payment, I will say was only if it wasn’t multi-family. So even if it was a duplex, triplex or quadplex, they do require for IBERIABANK/First Horizon 15% down payment.

Nate Hedrick: OK.

Bryce Platt: That’s something that both Tim Baker and I learned. And so I felt the need to share that. But if it’s not a multi-unit property, you can do as low as 3% down payment, and that’s what I did.

Nate Hedrick: Nice. Yeah. So this was — it basically is almost like a four-plex, but it wasn’t considered that because it’s a four-by-four as far as the bank is concerned.

Bryce Platt: Right.

Nate Hedrick: Oh, that’s great.

Bryce Platt: It’s a single family property.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah. Cool. Interesting. That’s a really neat mix. And for our listeners who are interested, you can go learn more about Credible and IBERIABANK/First Horizon at YourFinancialPharmacist.com/real-estate. So please take a look at that and you can learn more about those sources, just like Bryce did. Great. So No. 5 is finding your home and negotiating. So a lot of people, again, struggle with the negotiating side of this. But we’ll start with the home search, so can you tell me a little bit more about the actual search process, and it sounds like COVID kind of impacted some of that as well, so maybe you can share a little bit more about how that went.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely. So it was easier than I expected, but like I said, I didn’t really have any preconceived notions on what it was going to be like because I had never even considered this before. So Adam set me up on the MLS, the listing service, so I could see everything that was available to buy and so I could evaluate properties based on, you know, evaluating the deals and investment property whenever I wanted. And in the MLS, I could even request a showing from Adam to see these properties. This aspect was kind of impacted by COVID, like I mentioned. There were a couple duplexes that I had tried to see. But they didn’t want to open for showings, so I kept looking at other deals that were coming up and then eventually, this condo came up. And he was in much more of a hurry to sell, you know, because he had been vacant for a month or two at that point because the students had broken their lease. So it came on the MLS, the numbers were way better anyways than the duplexes, so made it a lot easier to request a showing here. And since there were no students or anyone here, didn’t have to worry about COVID stuff.

Nate Hedrick: Nice. Yeah, and it sounds like, you know, with it being vacant, you might have had a little room to negotiate there too, I imagine.

Bryce Platt: Yes. So personally, I’m comfortable with negotiation. If you guys have ever read the book, “The Difference,” about a boss — it’s an amazing book.

Nate Hedrick: Yes.

Bryce Platt: I’ve read it multiple times, both before I negotiated for this property and before I bought my car. And it worked out very well. I was able to bring the price down about 5% and keep all of the furniture that was here.

Nate Hedrick: Oh, wow. That’s amazing.

Bryce Platt: It worked out pretty well.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah. Well, we should put a link to that book in the show notes. I highly recommend that book. It’s good for business negotiations, life negotiations, I use it to negotiate with my toddler all the time. So I definitely recommend it. Very cool.

Bryce Platt: Throwing some mirroring out there.

Nate Hedrick: Exactly, mirroring works great on a toddler, I promise. That’s so cool. Well, and then the last step is No. 6, inspect, insure and close. So a lot of this can kind of get a bit nebulous. There’s a lot involved. So I guess what I’ll ask is, is there anything you learned or would have done differently now that you’ve gone through the closing process, you’ve been a first-time home buyer and made it out to the other side. You know, what are some tips you can share with our listeners?

Bryce Platt: Find a really good real estate agent because Adam made this go so smoothly for me. I had no issues. He provided me with a very good inspector. I had an insurance broker that I had no issues with, a closing agent, and had nothing that I needed help with. Zero issues with closing. And I hope that I can say that after every property I close on.

Nate Hedrick: Good, I’m so glad. And you’re totally right. That agent is so in charge of connecting you with the right people, otherwise you’re going out and finding your own lender just magically, and you’re going and finding all these different people. If you’ve got one point of coordination, it can get so much easier. So I’m glad that you had that great experience. That’s amazing.

Bryce Platt: Yeah, if people have the connections, which obviously I did not just starting, I mean, you could maybe find some good people to work with. But when you’re just getting out here in the first place, I think it’s more important to just figure out the people that your real estate agent trusts, as long as you trust your real estate agent.

Nate Hedrick: That’s great advice. Awesome. Well, good. Well those are the six steps. It sounds like you’ve made it out the other side. How is everything going with the actual finding tenants? I mean, that’s where we’re at now, right? Are we still running into COVID issues? Or how is that going?

Bryce Platt: Sure. So I had expected to rent to mostly students. As I had mentioned, it’s nearby the school and there were students living here before. As I made my listings, almost mainly following what Craig mentions in his house hacking strategy, I had many people interested. But they were mostly non-students. So right now, I have one person that’s in a similar life position as me, recently graduated out of school, so a young professional. And then one that is an intern and in school or I guess in the summer part of school. And then the third person of the, you know, there’s four rooms, I’m taking one of them obviously, so two of them are filled. The third one just applied this morning, and I expect that he will be accepted as well. So I think I’ve got it all filled out. And as I mentioned to Nate before we started the podcast that I don’t have to pay the first mortgage payment until August. So I am getting — I got my first rent payment like a week and a half ago. And that was nice to have before I even have to pay the property costs.

Nate Hedrick: That’s a cool moment. That’s when it feels real, like OK, I’m actually doing this. This is pretty awesome.

Bryce Platt: Yeah. And like I said, from starting mid-February from absolutely nothing to middle of June or the beginning of June, I closed on a property, I would not have ever guessed that.

Nate Hedrick: So yeah, so now you’re basically a landlord a couple of months later. That’s pretty incredible.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely. And like I said, no — I could have had no idea this was something I could do. But with lots of education — the YFP podcast was what kickstarted it. And then that’s also how I found Bigger Pockets, and Bigger Pockets was a huge education for me. I’m still working through all their podcasts. I haven’t even gotten through to the current ones, and I was still able to do it before I even caught up on Bigger Pockets stuff. So that’s two great communities that can help educate people to feel at least comfortable enough to take a step and do it.

Nate Hedrick: Great. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes as well. I love Bigger Pockets, and I’ve been really diving into the Real Estate Rookie podcast they’ve been putting out recently. That’s been a great show.

Bryce Platt: Absolutely.

Nate Hedrick: Well Bryce, anything else you want to share with our listeners before we let you go?

Bryce Platt: Spending time to educate yourself is going to make you feel better about actually taking action. But you can’t stop with just educating yourself. There’s always — you have to take an action step. And after I bought that book, I kind of felt like, oh, I’ve made my step. I’m doing well now. But luckily for me, in my toastmasters group, there’s a real estate agent. And so I started talking to her about investment properties. And she kind of worked with me a little bit and wasn’t able to commit the time because she was working on her own investment property at the time.

Nate Hedrick: OK.

Bryce Platt: And then Tim Baker actually recommended I work with Nate to get a real estate agent here in North Carolina. And so that was the real action step that after I had done that, it was just a snowball effect. You didn’t have to worry about like, oh, am I doing the right thing? It was, I’m in the action phase now.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, it’s hard to make that first jump. But once you do, it’s easier to make the next one and the next one. So that’s great.

Bryce Platt: Oh yeah.

Nate Hedrick: Well Bryce, we really appreciate you being on today. I think this has been an awesome story to share with our listeners. So just appreciate your time.

Bryce Platt: Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me on, guys.

Tim Ulbrich: Alright, great stuff, Nate. Thank you for taking the mic and taking the time to interview Shelby and Bryce. And a thank you to Shelby and Bryce for taking the time out of their schedule to do that interview. So let’s talk, Nate, through the concierge service. Obviously they saw it come alive through these stories. But we’ll talk step-by-step what folks can expect from that service, how it works, and what they can expect throughout the entire process from looking for a home all the way to landing that property. So Step No. 1, crafting a plan. So talk us through that.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, so just like we were talking a little bit in the interviews, the whole first step is figuring out a plan, right? We want to come into this with your goal is to buy a home or sell a home or invest or whatever the plan is. Let me help you put some framework behind that plan, so looking at things like budget, looking at things like location, what’s your goal with this property, right? Are you looking to buy your first house and then rent it out in a couple years? Or are you looking to buy your forever home? And those are all very different approaches, and they require very different agents and what they specialize in. So that very first step is really going to be our 30-minute jumpstart planning call. And during that call, I’ll be connecting with you and actually talking through those things that I just mentioned to figure out what the best course of action’s going to be. And that allows to kind of move forward with a really good mindset of, this is the goal. This is what we’re trying to achieve with.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So Step 1, crafting a plan. Step No. 2, connecting you with a pro.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, and this is where we then jump in and use that information from that jumpstart planning call to actually connect you with a local agent. And this is either someone that we’ve worked with in the past that other pharmacists have utilized or worked with recently, or it’s maybe a new person if you’re in an area where we haven’t added someone to our network yet. And what I’ll do is I’ll actually go out and interview a couple of agents, find somebody who I think is going to be a good fit, and then I’ll get you connected with that person. And it’s not just an agent too, right? Because that agent is going to become the boots on the ground leading your team. But it’s also going to lead to connecting you with lenders, connecting you with contractors, lawyers. Whoever you might need in that local area, they’re going to be the expert for that. And so we help kind of facilitate all those things with that connection.

Tim Ulbrich: And after connecting with a pro, Step No. 3, staying the course, to me is really important. Because I think while they’re going to have that interaction with the agent, obviously questions will come up. And through that crafting a plan in Step No. 1, you’ve got an idea of what they’re looking for for their situation and how that may fit, you know, in with other questions that they have as it relates to that home buying experience. So talk to us about staying the course and your involvement with them throughout the process.

Nate Hedrick: Yeah, this is the part that I think is actually most important because finding that initial agent is not a foolproof process, as you can tell with Shelby’s interview, right?

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah.

Nate Hedrick: We didn’t get it right right off the first bat. And that’s OK because we’re there as a part of your team the whole time. So even if it doesn’t go 100% the first time, we’re still involved in the process. And we’ve had a couple of clients now where we’ve pivoted a little bit from the initial person that we worked with to maybe a subagent or a totally different agent based on needs and how those have changed. So that whole idea that we are still on your team during the entire process, it’s absolutely essential to the concierge service. And it’s really the cornerstone of what we do.

Tim Ulbrich: Yeah, and I’m so glad that came out in Shelby’s story. And as you said, we’re not always going to get it right, and I don’t think we should expect to, right? As I think about so much of the agent relationship with a client and my experiences buying a home, sometimes that just comes down to personality fits. You know, obviously there’s the knowledge component and you want somebody who knows the market and who’s going to be your advocate. But sometimes, you know, an agent that works for Shelby or for Bryce may not be a good fit for me or somebody else that’s listening. So really finding that right fit and if it’s not the right fit being able to get back with you to be able to make sure that that right fit ultimately does get in place with the client.

Nate Hedrick: Yep.

Tim Ulbrich: Awesome. So as a reminder, if you head on over to YourFinancialPharmacist.com and you click on “Buy or Refi a Home,” from there you’ll see an option where you can find an agent, get a time scheduled with Nate for that 30-minute jumpstart planning session. Again, YourFinancialPharmacist.com, at the top you’ll see there “Buy or Refi a Home,” find an agent, and that will take you to get a time scheduled with Nate. So again, Nate, thank you for taking time to come onto the show again and thank you for taking the time to bring Bryce and Shelby’s story onto the show as well.

Nate Hedrick: Happy to do it.

Tim Ulbrich: As we wrap up this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, I want to again thank our sponsor, HPSO. HPSO’s the leading provider of professional liability coverage, insuring more than 100,000 pharmacists nationwide and sponsored by the American Pharmacists Association. As I mentioned before, when I was a practicing pharmacist, I carried my malpractice insurance through HPSO. And with individual policies for qualified persons starting at just under $150 per year, it’s a no-brainer compared to the cost of a claim and worth the extra peace of mind. Plus discounts are available for qualified students and recent grads. So head on over to HPSO.com/YFP to learn more. Again, HPSO.com/YFP. And as always, if you liked what you heard on this week’s episode of the Your Financial Pharmacist podcast, please do us a favor and leave a rating and review in Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts each and every week. Have a great rest of your day.

 

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