Feeling Entitled, with Steve Cory

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What does it really take to build something extraordinary? Behind every thriving business is a powerful mix of grit, creativity, risk, and the relentless drive to keep going when others would stop. Welcome to the next Venture alliance show, the podcast where entrepreneurs, innovators and trusted advisors come together to uncover the stories and strategies behind remarkable ventures with your host, Oliver Kotelnikov. Whether you're building, buying, scaling, or selling, this is your space to learn, gain, get inspired, and prepare for your next venture. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next Venture Alliance Show. I'm your host, Oliver Kotelnikov, and I'm an entrepreneur, a storyteller, a mergers and acquisitions advisor, and a business and commercial real estate broker. On this show, we sit down with founders, business owners and industry leaders and trusted advisors who support them. And together, we explore both the strategic and human sides of entrepreneurship. And our guest today is none other than Steve Corey. And Steve is a member of the title insurance and commercial closing team at Fidelity National Title, based in Bellevue. Steve and his team serve the commercial real estate industry throughout the Pacific Northwest and across the continental United States. Their expertise covers a wide range of commercial real estate transactions, including industrial, multifamily, retail and office properties for both owner occupants and investors. They also provide escrow and closing services for business acquisitions and are uniquely qualified to coordinate the simultaneous closing of a business and its associated commercial real estate. Now, I've had the good fortune of working with Steve and his team on many transactions of all shapes and sizes, and I find find their expertise through problem solving ability to be invaluable in my about a decade in this industry. Title insurance is one of the most underestimated and misunderstood aspects of commercial real estate transactions. And you know, given the complexity of the subject, I'm not suggesting that everybody needs to become an expert, but what I am saying is that much like other highly specialized disciplines such as finance, law and accounting, that we surround ourselves with good counsel and learn to take advice from professionals who spent their careers mastering their craft. And when it comes to matters of property title, Steve is among the very best in the business. So I encourage you to listen to this conversation and get to know him. Because beyond being exceptionally knowledgeable and a consummate professional, he's also approachable, generous with his time, and genuinely invested in helping others succeed. And I don't know how often you find that in this industry or any other industry, but Steve, you're one of a kind. It's an honor. Welcome to the show. [00:03:03] Speaker C: Wow, I am really cool. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Did I miss anything? [00:03:09] Speaker C: No, I think you pretty much covered it. All. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Well, it's wonderful to have you. Like I said, you know, it's. I counted it up and I don't look back a whole lot, but it's been about 10 years since, since you and I first met and I don't know if you. Do you remember our first meeting? [00:03:29] Speaker C: I don't know. I did. I mean, I know we went to Bengal Tiger. [00:03:35] Speaker B: That was one of our meetings. So I distinctly remember our first meeting because you, I realized that you were the professional advisor supporting commercial real estate that I met at the beginning of my journey and I got an invite from you. It was an email and this is why I remember it. And the subject said, stephen Oliver, take over the world. And having met no one or very few people in the industry, I was like, click. I'm going to accept that because I can roll with that program. [00:04:11] Speaker C: Our plans have worked out nicely. [00:04:14] Speaker B: I don't know if we've achieved that goal. I'll just say we're really close. And then from there you introduced me to your team and, you know, the rest is history. I and many other members of IBA have gone on to close numerous transactions through Fidelity and have relied on your expertise for many years now and enjoy the, the partnership and the relationship and just wanted to. The opportunity to share some of that with the listeners. [00:04:45] Speaker C: Absolutely. And thanks for, thanks for your support and for keeping us busy. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:52] Speaker C: Usually when I, when the phone rings [00:04:55] Speaker D: and I look at the you know [00:04:56] Speaker C: who it is and it's Oliver, I'm the first thought to my mind, isn't really world domination, but it is. [00:05:03] Speaker D: I bet there's something interesting going on [00:05:05] Speaker B: now and I probably never disappoint you. So, you know, if I'm, if I'm in the industry for 10 years, you're what, four times that? And you know, safe to say I've seen some things but are probably also surprised on a daily basis by, by the things that come up. [00:05:29] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it, I mean, I don't know if it's really just sales or real estate sales, but, you know, a [00:05:36] Speaker D: day doesn't go by that, you know, there isn't something or somebody's view of how something should work. You know, could be, you know, a brand new trend or it could be the worst idea that ever was. [00:05:49] Speaker C: And. Yeah, it's just fascinating how deals come together. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:55] Speaker B: And we're both, we both have, you know, have the privilege to have the front row seats to that show. You know, I'm, I'm in this section over here. You're a little bit to the left or to the right, but. But we're watching the same show and, and it's been a fun ride. But I mean, let's begin in the beginning. You know, what is title insurance? Why do we need it? Why is it important? [00:06:25] Speaker C: The easy answer is you're about to buy a building and you've met the [00:06:32] Speaker D: person who the seller, and he said [00:06:34] Speaker C: he's going to sell it to you [00:06:35] Speaker D: for a million bucks. And he also the owner of the business, so there's another million dollars on top of that. How do you know, [00:06:47] Speaker C: other than it [00:06:48] Speaker D: seems like a nice guy and he [00:06:50] Speaker C: has a firm handshake and how do [00:06:53] Speaker B: I know that he owns the property that he's proposing to sell me? [00:06:57] Speaker C: Right? [00:06:59] Speaker B: I don't, so how do I know? [00:07:01] Speaker D: And so you look to someone like a third party. Back in the old days, it was your cousin Vinnie who would say, oh, yeah, I know this guy forever, and, you know, able to get it done. But, you know, there isn't really a repository of knowledge that says, you know, Bob Smith owns these five properties. You know, we go in and we do the research to find out, you know, who is the owner of the property. You know, what are the other bits and pieces that are going to impact your future ownership. Like, did he pay his taxes? Has he paid off all his deeds of trust? Are there easements or restrictions that may affect how you want to use your property? And that's why you need us. The other reason is maybe a little more plain. The bank doesn't trust you. And so the bank wants proof that you are the owner. And so, you know, very few. I mean, there are transactions that happen without title insurance because two people know each other pretty well, that type of thing. But if you're going to, you know, get financing through a conventional source, you are going to get title insurance because the bank wants that protection, that security [00:08:25] Speaker C: that, you know, they've got a full picture of what was on the file. [00:08:31] Speaker B: And so in essence, you know, and it's understandable, whoever's funding it, let's say it's the bank, they are assuming the majority of the risk. Now they're trying to diversify that risk or even shift it over. I mean, title insurance, what you're telling the bank, that if there's something wrong with the asset that they're buying and there is, or unknowns come up, you essentially absorb all or part of that risk. So your risk exposure is equal or greater to that of the bank in this case, [00:09:05] Speaker C: yeah, other than the Fact. Yeah. [00:09:08] Speaker D: I mean, title premiums wouldn't imply that there's that much risk. I mean, usually there's a risk reward coefficient. [00:09:17] Speaker C: Right. [00:09:19] Speaker D: You know, the bank is putting all the money in and there's lots of ways the bank could lose money regardless of what's on title. In terms of the client doesn't pay, isn't anything to do with title insurance, but we have it fairly well dialed in in terms of what we do the research in and how we do the research that we can offset their risk. If somebody came in and said you've got a first deed, you thought you had a first deed of trust on this property, but we actually have a recorded first deed of the property. [00:09:59] Speaker C: Yes. [00:09:59] Speaker D: The bank's going to turn that immediately over to us. And that's a claim you as an owner of the property, if someone was knocking on your door after you bought it and said, hey, you owe me $50,000 because I just redid the roof on that four months ago and I haven't been paid, you're going to be looking at the title company to take that on. [00:10:21] Speaker C: But we've built processes into how we do our business, that we've got the research down so that we can protect ourselves. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Which is why you're able to issue that insurance policy because you're fairly confident that there are no issues or the risk is fairly right. [00:10:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Our real job is transparency, is that, you know, here's everything. [00:10:51] Speaker D: When we do a title report, you know, this is everything that's going to impact either the bank's collateral or your new owner's use of the property. And so, you know, those pieces I just lost where I was going. But the, the ability to get to that bottom line and understand what the [00:11:18] Speaker C: risk is is what we do. [00:11:23] Speaker B: So let's, let's shift to the title report. So every, you know, every part of the transaction has its defining document. You have, you know, landlord, tenant relationship, has a lease, a, you know, an acquisition document, you know, the purchase and sale agreement. You know, there's various financing documents. So the, the governing document that we look to for title insurance is the title report. Now we have the preliminary title report, then we have the final title report to cover the gap of what may have happened between the preliminary and the final. And so one of the things that, you know, fascinates me is that how far back this history, and maybe that's where the risk is, how far back the history of the property can go. And so looking at the title report, I mean, can that, can there be things on the title from 100 years ago that somebody wrote a handwritten note and said, you can use this corner of my property to carriage your firewood. And then that is a binding and legal document today. [00:12:39] Speaker C: Right. So kind of I'll give you the long answer to the question is when [00:12:45] Speaker D: we insure title, we really on a commercial piece of property. I mean, there's lots of different ways we do stuff, but we go back to 1889, when Washington became a state. [00:13:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:01] Speaker C: And from that point forward, you know, we're responsible for those documents. [00:13:07] Speaker B: I mean, is that a line in the sand with title in Washington, 1889? [00:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:12] Speaker D: I mean, there are things that happened before instead of, you know, government patents or those type of things. But really, you know, until we became a state, it didn't codify. You know, we didn't have the recording rules. You know, things weren't necessarily the same. [00:13:30] Speaker C: I wasn't there. [00:13:32] Speaker D: Seems like I was. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Neither was I. We go back a little way, but not that far back. [00:13:36] Speaker C: Right. And so we look at every deed, [00:13:42] Speaker D: deed of trust, easement. And most of the time back then, if there was an easement, it was in a warranty deed where I sold my property to you, but I retained the use of a road, or, you know, I gave the use of a road to someone else. And so, yes, if there was an easement done, you know, a thousand years ago, and the easement itself, the document [00:14:09] Speaker C: didn't say, this expires in 1972, it's still on. [00:14:15] Speaker B: So that's something that runs with the land and transfers and continues to impact the property from one owner to. To the next, essentially. [00:14:23] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:24] Speaker D: And so luckily, you know, we're a relatively young, you know, state and in a relatively young country. Right. So many titles are clear of a lot of encumbrances just because they were transferred one to the other. And people don't necessarily like giving part of their property for someone else to use. It just kind of ruins the. The package. And so. And yet those. That easement, if you were going to buy this piece of property and you were going to do a development and you needed, you know, every square inch for your building or for your parking, that easement's going to reflect a problem that you'll need to have to figure out and work around. And so that's the disclosure that everybody has. And, you know, we search the public records. We also search what's called the general index, which is if there's something that you, your buyer or seller has done that it has Another kind of a financial obligation on you, like federal tax liens, judgments, bankruptcies. All of those things are things that [00:15:44] Speaker C: can, you know, have an impact on [00:15:48] Speaker D: a real estate transaction or on a business transaction or kind of, to our earlier point, you know, if. If you have a bankruptcy, most banks are not too excited to extend you any funds. And so that's what the general index gets to. You know, here's. Here's a judgment, here's a bankruptcy, here's a divorce. You know, how is that going to impact the property is also part of it. And then the third area that we search is, for want of a better term, municipality issues. Municipality issues are if you own a piece of property in Washington, you do have real estate taxes. Not a surprise. But those taxes, or if the government's gonna pay, if your county's gonna pave the road in front of your building, you know, you'll probably get a local improvement or a rural. Rural improvement district and end up having to pay a portion of that fee. So a new buyer wants to know all of those things and make sure that what can be cleared off is. And that's where the title officer comes in. And, you know, Oliver calls and says, I'm listing this piece of property, and it's got a deed of trust on it from 1972. Well, everybody knows it's paid off, but [00:17:15] Speaker C: the correct paperwork wasn't done. And so it does hang out there as a risk. [00:17:22] Speaker D: And the title officer can help you figure out the right path or how to get around it. [00:17:30] Speaker B: So. Because now talk about what that means a little bit clear off. You mentioned that term. So somebody at some point recorded something, and we can, you know, talk about what that means as well. Somebody recorded a lien, recorded an encumbrance that has since been removed. It's actually no longer there, but no one went through the process of removing it from title. So as far as anybody reviewing the report, they don't know that. They say, hey, there's still xyz, right? [00:18:06] Speaker C: One of the interesting practices, I don't think it's done anymore, but it used to be that you went in and [00:18:13] Speaker D: got a deed of trust with the bank, and after you paid on it for your 30 years, they would send you the original note and the original deed of trust, and on it would say, this has been paid off. And you'd be so excited, you would [00:18:27] Speaker C: call all your friends over, have a [00:18:29] Speaker D: party and burn it. [00:18:31] Speaker B: You'd have a mortgage burning party. [00:18:33] Speaker C: Yeah. And there's. You've just ruined the evidence that Showed that you paid it off. [00:18:40] Speaker B: And right after the fire subsides, the banker knocks on the door and says, hey, we're in need of a payment. And you go, no, we're all paid off. Really? How do you know? [00:18:51] Speaker C: Yeah, show us the click. [00:18:56] Speaker D: So everybody knows that, but you're going to hold onto the house for another 10 years and you're going to attempt to sell it, and that's going to show up that you still owe that money. Because the reconveyance, there's an actual document called a reconveyance that needs to be filed when the deed of trust is paid off. And there's a path to get there. And part of that is to get a hold of the bank and say, you know, I need, you know, the records that you sent me that I was all paid off. I'd like to get a copy of that so I can get the reconveyance done. Well, the bank's been sold, the bank's been closed. You know, issues happen. And so most of the time we every. The nice part about title, from my perspective, is tell anybody, you know, on title insurance. But we don't do brain surgery. We do straight over tackle. Here's a document, here's how we can fix it. Your title report will show. Here are five paragraphs of things that are potentially onerous to you, the new buyer, or to you, the lender. When we say clear it off, we mean we discover that we did find the payoff information for that deed of trust and we did get the reconveyance filed. [00:20:18] Speaker C: So we can remove that paragraph or [00:20:20] Speaker D: that risk from the title report. And some of them just aren't removing. An example of that is if you are in a subdivision and there's an easement for that subdivision to have power on the front of all the lots. That may be a problem because you want to develop your lot in a particular way. But in order to get that fixed, you have to get that easement removed by whatever number of people the easement says has the capacity to remove the easement that might be on 100 lot plat. You might have to be getting upwards of 60 or 80 signatures to get that easement removed. [00:21:09] Speaker C: Does Oliver want to do that? [00:21:13] Speaker B: Oliver does not. And Oliver has run into those kinds of issues. Issues. Whereas, as you know, you know, let's say Oliver or another broker calls you and say, we're closing in three days. Can we just get. Take care of this? And you say, you know, this might take a little longer. I wish you before, which is which is kind of the, you know, why we're trying to, you know, provide this education and to say that this is really best addressed ahead of time. Because many of the things that are on the preliminary title are actually what are going to end up, you know, on the final title commitment. And we can deal with those ahead of time. So you mentioned some talk about the terminology of the title a little bit, because the title report, you know, we're talking about easements, encumbrances, liens, exceptions. [00:22:12] Speaker D: Right. [00:22:13] Speaker B: What are some of these things mean? [00:22:15] Speaker C: Well, a quick, quick thing maybe to clarify too, is so one of the things that most title companies. [00:22:23] Speaker D: Well, all title companies are going to do. When you have a transaction fairly early on in the transaction, you're going to get what's called a preliminary commitment or [00:22:32] Speaker C: a commitment for title insurance. [00:22:34] Speaker D: And it's going to just be, you know, as of today, here's everything that's on there, some of which will get cleared up through escrow, meaning the real estate taxes are going to be paid at escrow. The property can't transfer without the taxes being paid. You have a deed of trust on your property that's probably going to get paid off by the sale. [00:23:00] Speaker C: And so that'll get cleaned up when [00:23:02] Speaker D: everything is done after escrow. What you get is a policy, and the policy is what you would end up with a claim on. If the policy showed that there was no deed of trust and someone was [00:23:19] Speaker C: able to prove there was a deed of trust, then that's a claim, and [00:23:25] Speaker D: that's why we exist. But we do our very best to [00:23:30] Speaker C: not find those time [00:23:34] Speaker D: in the title report. You know, things that are. One of. One of the first things that we show is the vesting. And vesting means who do we think owns the property? And that could be, you know, Steve and Oliver. It could be Steve and Pam Corey. It could be, you know, Kotelnikov llc. It could be, you know, corporation. All of those have different rules on how they can transfer title, and those are usually in the documents that are there. So we always ask for the LLC operating agreements just to make sure. Or if it's a community property, we know the laws for that and how [00:24:18] Speaker C: to deal with that. [00:24:20] Speaker B: So this is charter documents of a particular entity to understand how, according to their rules, they can or are allowed to transfer title. [00:24:31] Speaker C: Right. [00:24:31] Speaker D: And. Or who mostly it's who has capacity to sign. So a very painful one that is often, maybe not often experienced, but has been experienced is, you know, you go out to take a listing on a piece of Property and you meet with Bob Smith and you get the listing signed by Bob, you get the transaction moving forward. You know, the title report shows that it's now Bob and Mary Smith. And you know, did Mary sign off on the purchase and sale agreement? [00:25:07] Speaker C: Yes. [00:25:07] Speaker D: Did Mary sign off on, you know, Bob, what's the story with Mary? Well, we're getting a divorce. [00:25:13] Speaker C: Well, you're also not getting a transaction or at least until we get some facts clarified. [00:25:21] Speaker B: And this is community property states. [00:25:26] Speaker C: Right? [00:25:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:29] Speaker D: Well, even in a, in a non community property state, if the deed was to Bob and Mary Smith and only Bob signed it, you know, the listing agreement or the sale, purchase and sale, you know, you still have an issue because only one of your sellers is on the document. [00:25:48] Speaker C: Right. [00:25:49] Speaker D: So those are things that we're going to be taking care of. So we look at the vesting. The next thing that is vital in a title is the legal description. And Oliver and I have seen some very interesting legal descriptions [00:26:10] Speaker C: and some of them are very easy. Lot one, block two, missed addition. Great. [00:26:16] Speaker B: What is it? Just give. What is a legal description or what's the definition of a legal description? [00:26:22] Speaker C: A legal description is. I don't know if there's legal. [00:26:29] Speaker D: The legal description is a definition of a piece of property. Meaning if you bought a piece of property and the legal description was lot one, block two of Smith's Additional. There is a map, there is some documentation that you can show that there is a piece of property that is [00:26:54] Speaker C: lot one, block 10 and that's on [00:26:56] Speaker B: record with the county. It's someplace where everybody can verify how the property is described to ensure that that's indeed the property that we're talking about. [00:27:06] Speaker C: Right. And some of them, I say the [00:27:10] Speaker D: lot and blocks are relatively easy because they're short. You know, on some of the ones that I've worked on, the legal description could be a meets and bounds legal [00:27:21] Speaker C: description which can be five pages long. And you know, it's usually a bigger acreage piece. But you know, go up here, turn here, go up here, turn there, go there. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Or government survey. [00:27:35] Speaker D: Right. [00:27:35] Speaker B: I mean those are all types of legal descriptions that. [00:27:39] Speaker C: Right. [00:27:39] Speaker B: A different. [00:27:43] Speaker C: And they can be problematic just because, you know, initially maybe the person that [00:27:50] Speaker D: owned the property had 40 acres and that was incorporated into a city. And so now he could sold 10 acres off for one subdivision, 10 acres off for another subdivision, 10 acres, went to bed, you know, a commercial plat. And then they can get broken down more from there. And so depending on how long your customer, you. You've held the property. That's going to be a challenge in terms of the legal description from when you bought it on the deed to what it is now is going to be different. And so that can be a challenge. [00:28:29] Speaker C: So. [00:28:31] Speaker D: Yeah, and so those two things are [00:28:34] Speaker C: kind of the first wave to take a look at, you know, am I dealing with the right property? Am I dealing with the right people? [00:28:42] Speaker B: And so that the vesting and legal description. [00:28:47] Speaker D: And then in the body of the document, we will. There's an area called the schedule B, part 2, and that will list specific things that are against the property that you should be aware of. And so one of them is always going to be a tax paragraph. There's real estate taxes. There are any monetary encumbrances, which means, you know, deeds of trust, mortgages. Those are also going to show up whether they're to be paid off in closing or not. You know, they are going to be on the report because they have an impact on you. But then those two categories are very common, taxes and encumbrances. But then we usually set it up in its own section. We set up all the easements that [00:29:43] Speaker C: may be across your property or may serve your property. We set up so this would be [00:29:50] Speaker B: like a utility company having the right to come in and service a water system perhaps or electricity or gas or any of those kinds of things. [00:30:00] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:00] Speaker D: And if you're in a rural area, you may have a well easement where you have right to go to your neighbor's property and they have a wellhead and you have, you know, water, you know, you get your water from there. So easements aren't, aren't bad. But, you know, they could be for power, which you would like. They could be for water, which you wouldn't like. They can also be drain fields or anything along those lines. And so those are all going to show up if you had any agreements, you know, concerning the property, meaning you have a restaurant and you have an agreement with the neighbor to provide parking places, that's material in a transaction that's [00:30:43] Speaker C: going to show up. And so we're going to show those things. [00:30:46] Speaker D: And because it impacts the operating business [00:30:50] Speaker C: on the property well or the sale of the well, it had to be, [00:30:56] Speaker D: it would have to be recorded. So a lot of times, you know, business agreements aren't because they're not really dealing with the real property. But if there was something dealing with the real property that is going to [00:31:10] Speaker C: be, you know, shown because it, you [00:31:15] Speaker B: know, if somebody can come on your property and park at Any time. If they have that right, then, you know, maybe I want to put a basketball hoop on one of the parking spots. [00:31:29] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:29] Speaker B: But I can't do that because they now it turns out that somebody has the right to come and park their car there at any point. [00:31:37] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:31:38] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:31:39] Speaker C: Well, and, you know, other examples are, [00:31:42] Speaker D: you know, if there are specific agreements with, say, the city that said you can't put up a basketball court in your property because, you know, we don't allow that. You know, zoning isn't really something that we cover because zoning is a. As a governmental entity. Zoning can change tomorrow. We can't control that. But if there's an agreement between the city for, say, a sidewalk cafe, that's [00:32:16] Speaker C: going to be of record, and so [00:32:18] Speaker D: that's going to show. [00:32:21] Speaker B: But if there's a utility easement and I say I'm going to level it and make a parking lot out of it, then I need to know that the utility company can come in at any point. And so that might conflict with my use, which might conflict with. Which might raise flags with the lender, who is going to say, well, this is going to impact the profitability of your business model because it conflicts with what you're trying to do here. So a lot of that stuff, we need to be aware of what's written and how it impacts what we're trying to do, because one owner may not be using the. Somebody may not have been bothered by the utilities, meant the next owner wants to do something else, and now it's a problem. [00:33:09] Speaker C: Right. And that's, I mean, again, going back to not being rocket scientists. Yeah. That easement was done between, you know, Oliver's family and Steve's family, and it [00:33:21] Speaker D: was done 50 years ago. Well, Steve's dead, and so that means that for that easement to get off, you know, the heirs and devizes of Steve Cory are the ones that are [00:33:33] Speaker C: going to be there. [00:33:35] Speaker D: Well, what if they live all across the United States? I mean, that's the discovery piece [00:33:44] Speaker C: that [00:33:44] Speaker D: people need to go through, and that just takes time. [00:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah, but what constitutes. So if Stephen Oliver made that agreement over the fence line, you said, hey, can I use this part of your property? You know, I'll give you some apples every year for my fall harvest. And I'll say, great, I love apples. And we shook hands and we wrote something up on the back of the envelope, or maybe we didn't, but we recorded it with the county. [00:34:12] Speaker D: Right. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Not a valid contract that creates an easement on the property, because, I mean, I've seen some things on the title report that look like they're just handwritten notes of things. [00:34:24] Speaker C: Well, not that you remember, but, you know, typewriters were a relatively recent acquisition into business. [00:34:36] Speaker B: Say that word again. What are they called? [00:34:39] Speaker C: Yeah. No. So [00:34:43] Speaker D: every document has requirements in order for it to be effective, you know, like a contract, you know, and a. I'm not an attorney. Certainly didn't make it that far anywhere. [00:34:59] Speaker C: But, you know, in a contract, there has to be a monetary consideration. [00:35:05] Speaker D: So if there's no monetary consideration, even [00:35:07] Speaker C: though you might have recorded it, can you get out. [00:35:10] Speaker B: You paid me a nominal amount, 10 bucks. We see that all the time. [00:35:14] Speaker C: Right, right. $10. [00:35:16] Speaker B: Another consideration, which is hereby duly acknowledged. [00:35:21] Speaker C: Right. So, yeah, if it meets the requirements, [00:35:29] Speaker D: it. It's there, and the impact of it should be clearly discussed. But a lot of documents are very vague in terms of what it is that is being covered, other than Oliver gave Steve the right to drive his car across the property. Well, does that mean the east 10ft, the west 10ft? Anywhere Steve wants to drive his car, he can drive across the property. So that's why they're in the report. They may not have a negative impact on what you want to do on the property, but we, as a third party are making sure that you have disclosure that here are the things that are going to have an impact or that we think that there's going to have an impact, and you review that as a buyer or a borrower or a lender and make a determination whether you think that there's any risk to what you want to do in doing that. [00:36:38] Speaker C: There are pieces of property that have no encumbrances on them. [00:36:44] Speaker B: I don't think I've seen any like that. [00:36:46] Speaker C: But, yeah, they're pretty rare. And especially in the Financial Times in [00:36:54] Speaker D: which we live, there are cash buyers for all sorts of different products. But most houses have a deed of trust on it. Most commercial buildings have a deed of trust on it for the leverage. [00:37:10] Speaker B: What are exceptions on the. On the title? [00:37:16] Speaker C: Right. So we've called out easements, covenants, encumbrances. [00:37:25] Speaker D: Those are the official names of it. When they go into a report, they are given a paragraph number. This easement is paragraph one. [00:37:34] Speaker C: And that is the exception, number one, out of our policy. [00:37:40] Speaker B: So it's an exception because we found out that there's an easement or an encumbrance, and we're letting you know that that's not covered because it's been uncovered in our research that that exists. [00:37:53] Speaker C: Right. And so when we go to policy, meaning after the. When the transaction is closed and we issue the final policy, we are accepting [00:38:04] Speaker D: that out from what we're going to cover. If you know about it and you've seen it, you can't come to us a month after you did the closing and say, you know, this easement means that, you know, Oliver's parking on my [00:38:19] Speaker C: property and I can't stand it. Well, you signed up for it. [00:38:26] Speaker B: I mean, it was in the report. [00:38:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Listed as an exception. [00:38:31] Speaker C: Right. [00:38:31] Speaker D: And we didn't. There was no. I mean, if there. There can be situations where I thought, oh, I thought we were getting that cleaned up. [00:38:38] Speaker C: Well, we didn't. [00:38:42] Speaker D: Did you know who's responsible for that type of stuff? [00:38:49] Speaker C: But so an exception is just part of a policy. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Okay. And are there situations where a title company can reverse their decision on acceptance or if they say, you know, or a requirement, what is it called when the title company mandates certain conditions to closing, but then they waive some of them? [00:39:17] Speaker D: Well, there's lots of things that potentially can be fixed. So we have different tools that can do different things. One is we have endorsements to policies. And so let's say there was an easement issue because it's been there for 100 years and, you know, the bank or the borrower wanted, you know, affirmative coverage that they're not going to lose money from that easement. There may be things that, you know, we can collect from either the seller or from the buyer that will allow us to put together an endorsement that says, you know, we limit the impact of this document. We often can look at something, [00:40:09] Speaker C: you [00:40:09] Speaker D: know, like a, say, an old deed of trust and make a determination, you know, if you. If we were able to get an indemnity from an indemnity as a, you know, I agree to take care of this problem document, you know, from the seller or from the buyer, maybe it's not. We can figure out how to get it out of the title report. So there are ways to remove exceptions based on facts that are uncovered. Sometimes it can simply like on an old deed of trust, you know, the seller brings in, here's a copy of my last check. Here's a note, letter from Washington Trust bank or whoever that says this has been paid off. You know, here's the documentation. We could take something out by risk. And so all of those are issues that can work. And a lot of it can be, you know, here's a survey that shows the new property. And that problem was on, you know, the property that was it subdivided off of 20 years ago. So, you know, there's information that can be useful in terms of a transaction. And a lot of that is the broker, you know, sitting down with the [00:41:32] Speaker C: seller and saying, gosh, you know, there's this issue on here, you know, tell [00:41:38] Speaker D: me a little bit more about that. [00:41:40] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, no, I took care of that 20 years ago. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a phantom issue. Right. The seller didn't know that it didn't get cleaned up. It just still appears on the title. But it could be a phone call away. [00:41:50] Speaker C: Right, right, right. And. Or he goes to his file cabinet, goes, oh, no, here's the document that says, oh, let's take the document and get it recorded so that, you know, somebody else knows about it and, you know, problem goes away. [00:42:06] Speaker B: So you mentioned survey and you mentioned legal descriptions getting complicated. Let's say we start digging through it and the legal description, it becomes apparent that it's no longer valid or there are different versions of it out there. The title company or the bank, you know, may require an, an updated survey saying, look, we really need, we can't keep modifying this legal description on incomplete or unknown information. We need a new survey. How does survey tie into title work? And I guess what is a survey to. To begin with? [00:42:45] Speaker D: So a survey is what a surveyor [00:42:49] Speaker C: does, is he looks at all the [00:42:51] Speaker D: property records that he has access to, including county maps, documents. They actually know how to read the meets and bounds legal description so they can plot it on a piece of paper and so they can give a graphic representation of the property and its current boundaries. It can also show where the buildings are, where the easements are, you know, a number of different facets that can be part of it. And so they surveyor is, you know, independent of a title company and [00:43:31] Speaker C: do a great job [00:43:35] Speaker D: most of the time. I mean, there are surveys done because [00:43:40] Speaker C: two neighbors are trying to figure out where the boundary line between their two properties are. That can be as specific a survey as you need. [00:43:50] Speaker B: It's just never been established. They've assumed it's been moved. You know, people build things without knowing where it lands, any of those. [00:43:59] Speaker C: Right. And you planted tulips in my daisy bed. And I'm going to spend the $3,000 to get a survey and everybody will know. [00:44:09] Speaker D: And so that's good news. Where the survey impacts my world more is there are things that we're asked to cover that we can't do unless we have a survey. And so I'm guessing that we'll get to standard versus extended coverages. [00:44:32] Speaker B: Do it. [00:44:33] Speaker D: Yeah. So we'll take that. [00:44:34] Speaker C: Now, [00:44:37] Speaker D: the way to think about standard coverage, which is what most real estate transactions have between buyer and seller, is called standard coverage. And it's everything that we've described. But one of the things that to think about is that we're looking up. There is a piece of property known as Lot 1, Block 2. And here are the exceptions on that. We're not actually showing that there are easements or encroachments. We're not actually showing that the frontage is 50ft. You know, it's 50 by 100. We're just showing that there is a piece of property known as this, and it exists. And with it comes these exceptions and rights and responsibilities. Extended coverage. What the buyer is asking us to do or what we're being asked to do is prove or show that it's 50 by 100ft. They want to know that the buildings are all on the property. They want to know that there's a rockery encroachment on the boundary line. And so when someone asks for extended coverage, the two things that they're looking for are questions of survey. And so the only way we can cover that is to get a survey. And so, you know, there will be a paragraph in the report that says, you know, if the buyer or if the, you know, anybody needs an extended, you know, extended coverage, that we'll need a survey for this. And then the other thing is material liens. And so every state has different rules in terms of. We had this. I mentioned the scenario of, you know, I'm a roofer and I did your roof a couple months ago, I never got paid. Now I find out that you're the owner. [00:46:32] Speaker C: Well, I have a lien on that because of the work that I did. And it doesn't matter that the other guy did it. My lien is against the property. And so you get to fix that or pay it. [00:46:44] Speaker B: So the new owner, because the lien is against the property, they've assumed ownership of the property. Now the lien is against them, in essence. [00:46:52] Speaker C: Right? And so now they're going to go. The new owner is going to go right after the old owner to try [00:46:59] Speaker D: and, you know, collect the $50,000. But if you have extended coverage, you're also going to go after the title company, because why didn't we show that? [00:47:09] Speaker C: And [00:47:12] Speaker D: which, when we're asked to do extended coverage on an owner's policy, we're going to research, you know, as we're going to go out and inspect the property and See, gosh, it looks like there's a brand new roof on here. Does the seller have a canceled check? I mean, how do we know that it's gone? And so it's a, it's a much. It's a heavier. I mean, it costs a little more to get extended coverage in terms of the policy cost. [00:47:40] Speaker C: But the survey is really the, you know, the expense. But if you have a piece of [00:47:47] Speaker D: vacant land that you're going to be planning on going to develop anyhow, get extended. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Worth it. [00:47:55] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, get the survey. Because it's better to know now than you know. Because part of, again, that coverage is in order for you to do your development, you need 10,522 square feet. And if you don't have that and you can't put in that last parking stall, that's going to be a challenge for your project. Could have been an easier one to figure out that you're there. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Makes sense. What is an ALTA survey? You see that come up a lot. And why does that come up as a requirement? [00:48:33] Speaker C: So this is one of. I've had to face two things since the beginning of my career in title insurance. And one of them is do share. Yeah, one of them is, you know, what's an Alta? I want ALTA coverage. [00:48:51] Speaker D: Well, ALTA stands for American Land Title Association. And the whole concept of that is that if you're buying a house or a building in Florida and they do [00:49:05] Speaker C: a report for you, a title report, [00:49:07] Speaker D: wouldn't you like that to be. And cover the same things that you would get if you were doing that deal in Seattle? The American Land Title association promulgates or [00:49:20] Speaker C: puts out forms for title insurance that everybody in Washington uses and everybody in Florida uses. [00:49:28] Speaker B: So it's like a uniformity mechanism, something that everybody can count on. [00:49:34] Speaker C: Right. And so an ALTA survey is a [00:49:37] Speaker D: little bit different, but alta, again, stands for American Land Title association. And it has minimum standards or what should be on a survey for a title company to cover it. And that includes, you know, location of improvements, location of easements. Are there manholes or power poles on the property. All of that should be part of a ALTA survey. [00:50:05] Speaker C: And so it's just standardization and again, make it a little easier to do business across the U.S. yeah. [00:50:16] Speaker B: And where that can become a problem is that those can take some. They cost, you know, they cost some money more than a normal survey or, or I guess normal survey isn't the right term, but more than a standard, what most people would consider a survey because they're more detailed and they can take some time. Now, when somebody receives a phone call three days from closing, from escrow or title saying, you know, please provide a copy of the Alta survey, and they're saying, we don't know what that is. How can that become a problem and an impediment to closing? [00:50:56] Speaker C: Well, I thought you just described that [00:50:59] Speaker B: well, but that happens, right? So how long does an Alta survey take? What's the typical cost? I mean, yeah, just going, if somebody sees that requirement on the title, what should they expect? [00:51:14] Speaker C: Right? They, they. [00:51:18] Speaker D: Anything within a week of closing is a problem. So, and especially, I mean, currently, I don't know what survey workloads are, but it hasn't been that long ago that survey workloads were three months out. And so, you know, there are, maybe you have a copy of an older survey or maybe there's some information you have that could be useful and a title officer could review and see if, [00:51:46] Speaker C: you know, we're going to go down [00:51:49] Speaker D: the path of, you know, providing extended coverage without a full survey. That doesn't happen a lot. But one of the easy ones is [00:52:00] Speaker C: that if you had, if there was a survey, would that be an endorsement? [00:52:04] Speaker B: Is that an example of an endorsement or like, if you waive that requirement or what would that be? [00:52:10] Speaker C: No, that would be just waiving the requirement. [00:52:14] Speaker D: And most of the endorsements for survey require a survey. So. [00:52:21] Speaker C: So, you know, yeah, we give it, [00:52:25] Speaker D: then we take it away. The. But I would say, you know, a surveyor is probably, you know, if it was an in city lot, you know, two weeks and 4,000 bucks. [00:52:42] Speaker C: But if it was, say, up in Skagit county, you know, in the middle of the woods somewhere, it might be, you know, two months and 8,000 bucks. [00:52:54] Speaker B: It's, it's basically 500 bucks per mile. The further you get away [00:53:02] Speaker C: from downtown Bellevue. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, with the, the, yeah, the prime meridian, downtown Bellevue. [00:53:11] Speaker C: So it can create a problem. [00:53:13] Speaker D: And you know, the, and you know, as a third independent, third party, we don't like creating, you know, problems on files. And we try to, you know, we try to get the report out early. You know, if there's communication between, you know, parties in the escrow officer or parties in the title officer, you know, we try to make sure, you know, we need these documents by this date in order to get things cleared up. I am perfectly happy to review any title report that we do or if it helps, take a look at somebody else's, but give you the action plan for what you need to get done in order for this to happen. And you and I have done that several times on what are we looking at? [00:54:05] Speaker B: I mean at this point it's standard practice for us to do that ahead of time and order a preliminary report and go through it with you if there are any questions. And you know, it's a lot easier to do being six months out from closing than six days. [00:54:19] Speaker C: Right, right, right. Yeah. And you know, but it can be a delay and [00:54:29] Speaker B: yeah, and I mean this is ultimate the reason I said that it's, you know, title is underestimated, you know and then in terms of its complexity and impact on transactions is how long some of these issues can take. And part of that is it's actually not that long. But if you have three days to close, everything seems long. So. [00:54:55] Speaker C: Right. [00:54:56] Speaker B: You know, and it somehow, you know, it falls into this category of last mile delivery ships coming into port. But that's where a lot of transactional fatalities happen is when you're just assuming that things are going to fall into place. And I hear this a lot, it's just like, well, title will take care of that. And let's ask them if they will take care of that. And what is it exactly that we're asking them to take? It may not be in your. So you know, all this to say there's plenty of opportunity to get a head start on this. I know that you're available and you talk to myself and other IBA brokers and I can only imagine, you know, just brokers and CRE professionals in general. I mean what, what sort of service? I guess what do you provide in terms of title analysis? And if somebody gets a copy of a preliminary title from you, what does it look like from there? You know, they look at it, they have some questions. Can they call you, can they email you? I mean how does that go? [00:56:02] Speaker C: Well, hopefully, I mean one of my pitches is we want to do the preliminary title as early in the process as it, you know, there's a letter of intent or if there's a listing agreement, we want to get the title put together then so that there aren't any surprises. [00:56:22] Speaker B: So listing agreement is at the listing agreement phase is a perfectly find time to reach out to you and request preliminary title on the property. [00:56:31] Speaker C: Right. Because one, there are lots of things like you said that could be fixed in six months. We [00:56:44] Speaker D: and most transactions, you know, the title usually is ordered at least a month. I mean on like a refinance or something like that. You know, we're looking at a month turn time [00:56:56] Speaker C: where before it gets into [00:56:57] Speaker D: escrow and so people have a chance [00:56:59] Speaker C: to look at it. [00:57:00] Speaker D: But in that pitch for a broker to get it at listing agreement, I am happy to review a title with you. The challenge is that as a title company we are putting out 300 reports a month. And so I have had conversations with [00:57:30] Speaker C: buyers or brokers and they're like, well, [00:57:32] Speaker D: why didn't you tell me about this particular issue when I ordered the title report? Well, in a sense we did because we gave you the report and on page five it says problem. I mean, if you just got it and threw it on the, you know, in your due diligence file because you wanted to check the box that said the title report was done, you know, you've accomplished that. But you need to be able to look quickly through and see. Yeah, does the vesting make sense? Does the legal description work with what I want? And you know, are all the monetary exceptions, you know, things that I knew [00:58:12] Speaker C: about because those are going to have [00:58:14] Speaker D: the biggest impact on your transaction. But yeah, I mean, if right now we're kind of in a transition market and so we are getting requests, gosh, you know, I need to get this done by next Tuesday. All right, well, [00:58:33] Speaker C: yeah, I don't know, [00:58:34] Speaker D: I don't know what's on the report, [00:58:35] Speaker C: but if it's here on fire, there [00:58:40] Speaker D: could be things on there that are going to be a surprise when the [00:58:43] Speaker C: title report report gets out. So. [00:58:46] Speaker B: Well, talk about that for, for zoom in on that. So rights and responsibilities. When someone orders the title, they may assume that if there are any issues, they're going to give me this report and they're going to bring those issues up or if they didn't bring anything up, there are no issues. That's not really the case. I mean, you've, right, you've issued the title report and now it's on the parties, the broker, the right. You know what? [00:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if [00:59:15] Speaker D: it's a sale transaction, it's, you know, did the buyer read the title report and look at the exceptions that were on there to see if it was going to have an impact on, you know, his use of the property? [00:59:30] Speaker B: Because you're not going to. The title company isn't going to say, hey, we found out there's encumbrance X and that's going to conflict with your property. You should look at, you should look at that. That's on the parties to, to sort through. [00:59:49] Speaker C: Right. I mean, you know, most everybody has, you know, if it's a lender and it's a loan processor they get the [00:59:57] Speaker D: title report and they're going through it with a fine tooth comb. If it's, you know, an institutional buyer or seller, you know, that title report goes to an attorney, and that attorney goes through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that everything's there. Most brokers, you know, yes, like you and I have had conversations about, you know, here's what this report is showing. You know, I would think that your buyer or your seller would want to be aware of these type of things. You know, you as a real estate professional, me as a real estate professional. We're not their attorneys. But, you know, here's a document you should be in the know of everything that's in there. And so, you know, that's. That due diligence piece should be part of. You know, everybody is involved in a transaction. You know, it's. It's very. Terrifying, I guess is the right word, you know, to think about. You know, this is a transaction. You know, it's a buyer that has, you know, no experience, just, you know, glomming through the process. I mean, usually there's a lender involved, there's title, there's brokers, there's everything. It could be, you know, at least pointing them in the right direction to do the review. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd say, you know, our collective job is to make sure that the client, whoever it is, understands. So it's interpreting the information and helping them make. Make, you know, an informed decision. Whether that's use or whether to buy or not to buy. It's really going through it. And sometimes, you know, correlating data points. Like if a seller fills out a seller disclosure form 17 and notes or doesn't note something that doesn't echo with the title report, that's a conversation with the client and saying, you know, you mentioned an easement. It didn't come up on the title report. Is there an easement? How do you know there is one? Should it be on the title? You know, so I mean, all of those kinds of things. And. And again, those conversations are so much easier had, you know, six months ahead of time as we're preparing the listing for market versus due diligence. And that question coming from the other side saying, hey, what's going on with this? And, you know, and then. Let us get back to you on that with the obvious directional error to the fact that we had no idea this was happening. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Surprise. [01:02:53] Speaker B: No, no, no. We knew about this. Let me just. I just don't know what this would be. [01:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah, and it doesn't really, I mean it doesn't happen all that often, but I think it's fair to say that every real estate transaction has a twist. Yeah. [01:03:09] Speaker B: One if you're lucky. [01:03:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And you know, my goal is for [01:03:14] Speaker D: it not to ever be title and escrow. [01:03:17] Speaker C: But you know, you've got lots of [01:03:20] Speaker D: professionals, whether it's a surveyor, whether it's someone doing the inspections, whether it's someone calculating the lease, you know, all those different bits and pieces that go into [01:03:33] Speaker C: a transaction and let the buyer beware. The. [01:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Under the broker community out there, I would say, and this serves their client in my experience is, you know, early stage disclosure is best if you have a preliminary title copy and there are material, material information on there impacting the property. Again, getting that to the buy side as early as possible is better than, you know, disclosing it later and saying. And then, you know, time and money wasted. And then I'm saying, well, we wish we knew about this earlier but you know, we're gonna have to walk based on this. Right. Or, or, or showing it to the bank. I mean I've had that many times where, you know, bank has a legal department and real estate attorney who reviews title reports and could have potentially reviewed it much earlier and uncovered something but didn't simply because a copy wasn't provided. [01:04:40] Speaker C: Well, that is, I mean, that's the other. [01:04:47] Speaker D: I know, you know, we'll get a purchase and sale agreement in and you know, we'll have the name of the buyer or the. But it won't have any of their contact information. [01:04:59] Speaker C: The. You know, hard to get ahold of somebody if you don't. All you have is, you know, their LLC name. [01:05:07] Speaker D: So usually an escrow officer is going to catch that in the first week or so and you know, ask for better contact information. [01:05:15] Speaker C: But you know, that all we can do [01:05:21] Speaker B: and sometimes title gets conflated or confused with escrow and they're really not. I mean, they, they work. So how does title integrate with escrow and how are they different? Because they're both, you know, integral to closing a transaction and. [01:05:41] Speaker C: Right. [01:05:42] Speaker B: But. [01:05:43] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess it's a kind of a question of timing as much as anything else. I can do a title report today and it's not going to close for a year and so escrow is only going to get activated on it next October. Right. But the title was already there. It could have been reviewed. Things could be working towards their solution if there was anything that was necessary. But an escrow officer title is just one of the things that they're looking to clear if there's a sale. The escrow officer's bible is the purchase and sale agreement. And so if the purchase and sale agreement says these are the dates, those are the dates that we're going to be dealing with. [01:06:41] Speaker C: And [01:06:43] Speaker D: yes, they are going to collect the monies or the information on how much to pay off the underlying deeds of trust or the real estate taxes. There may be leasehold prorations or tax prorations or any number of different things that they need to go through, of which, again, title is just one aspect of it. And, you know, just trying to get the timing together for the loan. Documents are going to come in from the lender and that's going to create, again, the escrow officer needs to balance with the lender [01:07:22] Speaker C: and work on the [01:07:23] Speaker D: documentation for the transaction and then put all that together in terms of what are the state requirements for documentation or the federal requirements and make sure that [01:07:36] Speaker C: all that's done as part of their [01:07:39] Speaker D: gig and collect all the documents from one side and collect all the money from the other side, and one magic [01:07:49] Speaker C: moment, it all changes hands. [01:07:51] Speaker B: Well, I think it's, you know, with Fidelity, what I like about you guys is that it's one roof and you provide all those services. So you can sometimes feel like it's one service. [01:08:02] Speaker C: Right. [01:08:02] Speaker B: The closing, title insurance, the closing of a business transaction and the closing of the real estate transaction, all of this happens simultaneously. And I think there's a ton of benefit to it because I've, you know, sometimes we don't choose, you know, the advisory roles and then people bring their own, and you're having to work with multiple different parties and companies. But closing a business transaction and a real estate transaction, that the purchase and sale agreement needs to close simultaneously, but they're completely two different closers is challenging. [01:08:39] Speaker C: Right, right. [01:08:40] Speaker B: So if then there's a third party providing title insurance, I mean, now you're really trying to get people to, you know, to talk. And sometimes it just ends up being people talking at the same time without achieving a whole lot or moving the ball forward. [01:08:56] Speaker C: Well, and especially if they're in different counties or different cities. [01:09:01] Speaker D: I mean, it's hard enough to coordinate a closing. [01:09:05] Speaker C: I mean, [01:09:08] Speaker D: it always is surprising to me that someone has a closing date of November 1st or November 30th. [01:09:14] Speaker C: Well, that's when they're going to be in Brazil. [01:09:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:19] Speaker C: Well, maybe the first of December wasn't really the date that you really wanted to do. [01:09:25] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:25] Speaker B: Or you get attached to the first of Something and it's inevitably a Sunday, you know, and it's, we'd like to sign in person and okay, so everybody's coming down to the title company on a Sunday. [01:09:38] Speaker C: Now they're not. We can get a mobile notary out to them, but it's pretty quiet around here on a Sunday, I can tell you. [01:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, but you guys do do a really good job of accommodating those types of, you know, circumstances because it is, you know, oftentimes when it is a sale of a business and a property and it's multiple parties and people are traveling and still trying to run a business and sign documents, I mean, it's, you know, it's a complicated, fairly complicated equation. And then lots of logistics. [01:10:18] Speaker C: Well, and, and like you said, they are, they are very different closings. [01:10:30] Speaker D: Not a lot is recorded on a sale of a business. And yet a business can also include 50 trucks. So the department of licensing is dragged in different bits and pieces. So getting that all together in one spot can smooth out some wrinkles. And Aubrey, who I've worked with as an escrow officer for, [01:11:03] Speaker C: I don't know, 20 years, she has closed lots of both. [01:11:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:11:12] Speaker C: Can get it done. So, so awesome for us. [01:11:17] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, when you add the complexities of a business closing and, you know, vehicle titles is one of them. And, and you know, Aubrey is also best in the business at. [01:11:26] Speaker C: Right. Liquor license. [01:11:28] Speaker B: What's that? [01:11:29] Speaker C: Liquor license. [01:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah, you have licenses, you have lender, you know, you have loan documents, you have vehicles. And so it, it helps to, to have an experienced team and, and it helps to have as much of it as possible coordinated under the, under the same umbrella if possible. Certainly for a broker who is, you know, we're very customer facing and you know, oftentimes our clients understand, you know, who the other players are and the pieces of a transaction, but really the accountability of it comes back to us. So we really can't have a long and winded story of why something isn't working because of these XYZ things. It's, you know, they come to us and you said, you said this would close on day X. I can't go into, you know, the department of Licensing, you know, the, the weight of the vehicles requirement that we didn't see and didn't file the right paperwork. But Aubre will catch that ahead of time and say, hey, did you get me the, the registrations? The three of these vehicles, you know, are over the weight limit and need a different type or it's not going to close. It's not going to transfer. [01:12:52] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:53] Speaker B: So, I mean, that helps us really deliver good customer service. So. [01:13:02] Speaker D: And that's again, you know, a timing. If you had a week to, you know, on that truck issue, [01:13:13] Speaker C: it's all [01:13:13] Speaker D: very doable if it's on the day [01:13:16] Speaker C: of closing, you know, starts to become a little, a little hairier. [01:13:22] Speaker B: But it's, it can, it can get pretty hectic. [01:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. But I do, I think a great [01:13:32] Speaker D: escrow officer and Aubrey being one is, you know, here's the issue, here's what we need to do. [01:13:43] Speaker C: Let's get it done. Yeah. Doesn't do any good. Oh, it's his fault. [01:13:53] Speaker B: But you know, you guys and escrow and title there too. I mean, whoever is bringing up the closing issue is the one who is blamed. It doesn't help to write angry emails and include everyone on them and said, we need to close today. But I'm sure that you're sometimes on the receiving end of difficult emails and phone calls. I mean, how do you handle that? Because people will tell you, hey, this is our life's work. It needs to close. You know, all of these things are seemingly in the balance. How do you maintain that balance? How do you handle a difficult conversation? [01:14:36] Speaker C: I mean, the, the hardest part is, you know, to let them vent. [01:14:46] Speaker D: And you know, most people, I think deep down inside realized that part of the reason why they're upset is because [01:14:58] Speaker C: they didn't do what they were supposed to do. [01:15:01] Speaker D: And it's not my job to say, [01:15:03] Speaker C: you know, if you would have gotten [01:15:05] Speaker D: us that LLC agreement, you know, six months ago, this wouldn't have happened. [01:15:10] Speaker B: So you don't say that. [01:15:11] Speaker C: I know. [01:15:16] Speaker B: A little fuel to the fire. Well, lighting field of the barbecue there. [01:15:21] Speaker C: Yeah, no, but I mean, you know, [01:15:26] Speaker D: again, you know, I keep my eye on the prize and that is getting the deal put together. And yes, there's lots of reasons why, you know, Tuesday is a drop dead date. But, you know, a quick addendum and it's Wednesday. You know, the, you know, there, there are always challenges. [01:15:54] Speaker C: You know, [01:15:57] Speaker D: you said this or they said that or, you know, we didn't feel like we were getting, you know, treated respectfully, you know, all those bits and pieces. You know, again, you know, I am the customer's advocate to the company, but I'm also the company's advocate to the customer. [01:16:16] Speaker C: And [01:16:19] Speaker D: we have an awesome team here. And at the same point, very sensitive to like what you said is that this is the biggest transaction someone's going to do and it may be what's between them and the most wonderful retirement that they've ever had. You know, how do we, you know, get this set up and get it moving forward and that, you know, again, you know, we're, you know, we're focused on, you know, let's get this documentation in, you know, two weeks before as opposed to, you know, the day of closing, finding out that, you know, they just had a contractor go in and, you know, gut the interior of their business. You didn't. No one said this would be a problem. [01:17:14] Speaker C: Well, no one knew. [01:17:17] Speaker D: Yeah. Type of stuff. So it's just listen and try and [01:17:24] Speaker C: get to a solution that works. And [01:17:30] Speaker D: if that means me picking up some documents and driving to Kent to get somebody to sign or trying to [01:17:41] Speaker C: assist anyway, that's what we'll do. [01:17:45] Speaker B: Well, and you, I mean, you walk the walk. I can say, you know, multiple examples. But I remember a few years ago we were closing a plumbing company. It was in Seattle. And you're typically not one conducting business opportunity signings. [01:18:02] Speaker C: Right. [01:18:03] Speaker B: But it was, I think it was right around Christmas time and complicated closing logistics and schedules and holidays and. And you ended up, I don't know if you remember this, but you ended up in person signing the parties for the closing of this deal. [01:18:21] Speaker C: Right? [01:18:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, not something you do every day, but if it, you know, if it requires it, you got that hat on the wall, say, oh, come on, commercial closer. [01:18:33] Speaker C: Right. [01:18:34] Speaker B: And you know how to do it. And you know, Aubrey too, in a recent transaction, you know, made a house call on the weekend for a client that, you know, needed it and appreciated it very much. [01:18:47] Speaker C: Right. And that's something, I mean, I am a notary and I do, you know, [01:18:54] Speaker D: I enjoy the title and the escrow process, but you know, getting out and meeting your customer in their, you know, potentially their plate of business place to business and seeing, oh, we make widget. You know how you have a whole company develop make widgets. It's just the education of Steve Corey and you know, they're all usually pretty good people and yeah, I mean stuff happens and there is opportunities to, you know, provide better customer service and learn from mistakes and that type of stuff, but do the best we can. [01:19:38] Speaker B: What does that mean? What, what does your week, day, month look like? I mean, we focused on title and insurance a lot. But I mean, like I said, you're out there in the field, you're out at events, you're, you know, you're teaching classes, you're a resource to the industry. And what sort of stuff do you do you work on as part of Fidelity and otherwise. [01:19:59] Speaker C: So probably teach. I mean, this, I'm going to count this one as a class. They, you know, teach a class a [01:20:12] Speaker D: week, you know, in terms of, you know, helping brokers or lenders, you know, understand title or escrow or prospecting. I do a lot of property research, so. And then luckily I've always felt that being part of an industry association has huge value for giving back, but also huge value for being able to go. Like we were at the CCM meeting yesterday and, you know, I can go to a CCIM meeting and, you know, shake hands with 20 people and if I've been active and involved, those are 20 people that are, you know, probably friends and, you know, it's an awesome way to, you know, be name awareness again as a liaison for the company out to the public. I spend a lot of time doing cold calls, whether that's to brokers or lenders or developers, trying to figure out if there's ways that I can be of service to them or if they've got a listing that might be something that we should get a title report out on so that they do know what's going on. So it's a sales job and, and [01:21:40] Speaker C: then towards the end of the month, [01:21:43] Speaker D: usually I'll help Aubrey out or our other closing teams, Loren or Kim, and [01:21:54] Speaker C: sign three or four files a month and all good. Pretty enjoyable life. [01:22:05] Speaker B: Well, it is a sales job, but it's also kind of as an ambassadorship in a way. I mean, you're out there representing the [01:22:12] Speaker D: brand and [01:22:15] Speaker B: sharing what you know, which, which we can all learn from. And you taught a class for, for us recently and. [01:22:21] Speaker C: Right. [01:22:22] Speaker B: And you know, that's we're, we're a team of 20 plus brokers that are out there that are very experienced and active and we all learn something. We got credit for it as well. And I'll have Kristen send you credit for, for this conversation. That's a SEBA certified. You can, you can add it to [01:22:42] Speaker C: your, to your, My wall of shame. I mean, [01:22:52] Speaker B: But what are you seeing out there kind of in your adventures in the space of commercial real estate in general? I mean, it is changing. Like many industries, you've been in it, you know, for a minute now. How has the industry changed? What are you seeing out there today when you look out the window or your car window, whatever the case may be. [01:23:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, [01:23:24] Speaker D: The interesting challenge, right, is that some parts of our business are doing great. I mean, I think the business opportunity side, there's a Lot of activity there. Gas stations, mini storage, small medical office, contractor yards are all sectors of the real estate market that are doing very well. And part of that is because they're not totally interest rate dependent. You know, looking out my window here at the downtown Seattle commercial core, there's a lot of vacancy, there's a lot of angst. And part of that, if you're financed in one of these buildings at 4 [01:24:16] Speaker C: or 5% and your term's up and you're looking at 9%, you know, or, I mean, I think the going rates [01:24:27] Speaker D: seven top six, but it's on its way up. [01:24:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I hear you. [01:24:31] Speaker C: So, you know, that uncertainty piece is, you know, really impacting a lot of investment level real estate. And, you know, I don't, [01:24:48] Speaker D: I just, you know, that uncertainty isn't, doesn't appear [01:24:53] Speaker C: to be leaving the market yet [01:24:58] Speaker B: or maybe ever. Maybe yet is not the right word. [01:25:01] Speaker C: Right. [01:25:02] Speaker B: It may not. We, we may be with it for a while or, or for the long haul, you know. [01:25:07] Speaker C: Right. [01:25:08] Speaker B: Like people ask me, you know, on, on what I see and, you know, I give an example, like, well, I, I recently went and played pickleball in what used to be a Bed Bath and Beyond. You know, those are, those are changing uses and, and, you know, new wins out there and, and things are. [01:25:33] Speaker C: I was at a meeting today and they, they said that Jazzercise, which was a big, you know, workout training. [01:25:40] Speaker B: I do remember that. Yeah. [01:25:41] Speaker C: In the 80s. And now Jazzercise is coming back as a amenity tenant for a lot of retail spaces. [01:25:51] Speaker B: Class. Steve, let's sign up for Jazzercise. We'll advertise it on ceba. We'll do an industry Jazzercise day. It'll be the biggest thing. [01:26:00] Speaker C: Right. I don't know that I still have my leg warmers, but I could dig. But I think the [01:26:14] Speaker D: challenge, right, is that whatever the interest rate is, the market will ultimately adjust as long as that stays stable. And I mean, just like at the beginning of the year, it looked like it was going to be a good year because we would have been at what, 4, 5% for long enough that people were getting used to it. We're starting to see some refinances, you [01:26:39] Speaker C: know, that type of stuff. And then, you know, boom, we're up at 5, 6, 7, you know, pretty quick. [01:26:46] Speaker B: So, of course, the old timers will tell you, hey, that's still really cheap money. [01:26:51] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, no, I bought my first house at 12%. Of course, it was also a $50,000 house. So I Mean, a lot easier to handle. Right. [01:27:05] Speaker B: We live in the same neighborhood and I did not buy my house for 50,000, I'll tell you that. [01:27:11] Speaker C: Well, my kids are now all looking at houses and [01:27:19] Speaker B: sticking. Shock and disappointment and bewilderment. [01:27:23] Speaker C: Yeah, Well, I mean, they're trying to figure out how to do it. Which million dollar starter home. This is crazy. [01:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Million dollar starter home. Do I need a home? That's kind of the sequence of the question, you know, so. [01:27:45] Speaker C: Right. [01:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, outside of the industry, you're also very widely read and then. Curious individual. I, you know, we've talked about books many times and what's on your. What's on your nightstand? What's on your Kindle? What are you reading these days? [01:28:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:28:08] Speaker B: And you read several books at once as far as I remember. Like, you're. Yeah, so. [01:28:13] Speaker C: So right now I have a Joel Osteen book I'm reading and then a murder mystery. [01:28:26] Speaker B: That's what I'm talking about. You can read all. You can read those probably in the same day. One in the morning, one at night. [01:28:33] Speaker D: One's calming, one isn't. [01:28:35] Speaker C: And that [01:28:38] Speaker D: I have a science fiction orc battle book I'm reading. [01:28:44] Speaker C: And then I really think the Duke of Wellington was an amazing individual. [01:28:52] Speaker D: So I was reading, you know, that [01:28:53] Speaker C: period of history and, and what makes [01:28:56] Speaker B: himself, [01:28:58] Speaker C: you know, [01:29:01] Speaker D: I look back, you know, at the French, the French, the English and French wars and to think of myself as a, you know, I would be one of the privates marching in a row up to the cannon. [01:29:22] Speaker C: How do you do that? [01:29:24] Speaker D: I mean, that is, you know, they got to beat you back. [01:29:29] Speaker B: Yeah. All that, you know, commit. Commitment, leadership. Leadership. [01:29:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:29:38] Speaker B: I resigned. Resigned to the, to destiny. You know, part of something bigger. I mean, it's certainly a different time in history that produced a different kind of human being, you know. [01:29:52] Speaker C: Right, right. I just. Yeah, that's just he. [01:29:57] Speaker D: And. [01:29:59] Speaker C: Oh, [01:30:02] Speaker D: I can't even remember the guy's name. The victory of Trafalgar. Oh, Lord Nelson. [01:30:13] Speaker B: Okay. [01:30:14] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:30:14] Speaker C: Just. Just amazing. [01:30:18] Speaker B: I mean, is it the, Is it the, the warfare and the. And the strategy that. That grabs you in those books or what. What's fascinating about. Or history, biography. I mean, what's the kernel there that's. That's interesting to you from. [01:30:37] Speaker C: Not. I mean, the. [01:30:42] Speaker D: Yeah, I guess more just the biography piece. You know, I mean, they were flawed individuals, but they stepped up and went into do it all for their country [01:30:59] Speaker C: and [01:31:01] Speaker D: came out the victors. And, you know, I mean, on the Navy side, there are probably good reasons [01:31:07] Speaker C: for that, but I, you know. [01:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Historically, a very powerful navy, you know. [01:31:13] Speaker C: Yeah. But, you know, on the land side, I mean, Napoleon, I mean, think of how different our world would be if he would have been the winner. [01:31:28] Speaker D: And. [01:31:29] Speaker C: And those particular. [01:31:30] Speaker B: Well, if he won, you know, if Napoleon, you know, succeeded in Russia, if Napoleon succeeded at, you know, at, you know, any 10% slice of the pie of his ambitious plans, it would have been a different world, you know. [01:31:45] Speaker C: Right. [01:31:46] Speaker B: Mr. Bonapart had some ideas. [01:31:49] Speaker C: Yeah. The. And it's all in the execution. Right. So I. I don't know. [01:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:01] Speaker C: I just think it's interesting. Yeah. [01:32:04] Speaker B: Any recommendations? I mean, this could be books, podcasts, magazines for people that are. And it could be industry or. I mean, you've mentioned a few. But what are some good resources that. That you go to daily for inspiration or information? [01:32:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I think anytime that you're reading [01:32:29] Speaker C: something, I mean, like, you know, I. [01:32:33] Speaker D: Every other year, I go through and read the Bible again. You know, I certainly don't know it well enough to be proficient at it, but it is a mental break from the day. Granted, I usually do it in the morning type of stuff, but, you know, whether that's it or, you know, if you did some sort of meditation in the morning, I've always failed at that because I go to sleep. [01:33:08] Speaker C: But, you know, something that, you know, [01:33:12] Speaker D: takes you out of your work so that you can go back into it, [01:33:16] Speaker C: you know, with a full spirit is perfect. [01:33:23] Speaker B: Just a complete perspective shift once or twice a day. A reset. [01:33:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:31] Speaker B: Because, I mean, it is kind of a vortex, you know, the age of information. It's so easy to get up in the morning and look into the phone, you know, and that you're Right. And now you're there. Now you're there. And it takes a pretty strong force to, you know, be yanked out of that and say, okay, this is some type of, you know, dimension that, you know, it's presented to me as reality, but it may not be. So, you know, I gotta find a way to unplug from that. [01:34:05] Speaker C: And, [01:34:07] Speaker B: yeah, looking, you know, some perspective on history or just trying to clear the head. By the way, if you're able to fall asleep when you're meditating, you're a mentally very sound individual. And they start checking their phone or their app and going, I am supposed to be doing this for 20 minutes. It's 17 minutes and 39 seconds. How long is this thing gonna take? I'm nervous by the time it's done. You know, I'm oftentimes I'm like, this can completely defeats the purpose of trying to. [01:34:39] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I guess, you know, my educated piece on part of that is, [01:34:44] Speaker D: you know, I, I started watching YouTube videos because, you know, I need to fix something or do that type of stuff. And then, you know, after about a month, you, you know, you notice that you're spending three hours watching YouTube videos [01:34:56] Speaker C: on, you know, absolutely nothing. [01:35:00] Speaker B: Guilty. [01:35:02] Speaker C: I canceled my YouTube. [01:35:05] Speaker B: Do you see the thing? I, I mean, Warren Buffett apparently watches YouTube videos. And that's his. [01:35:11] Speaker C: Yeah. On the big screen. On the biggest. [01:35:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And he listed the subject matter and it was everything from, you know, a Swedish comedy contest in, in Swedish. To, to, you know. [01:35:29] Speaker C: Right. Oh yeah. [01:35:30] Speaker B: He watches very little of. But I, I mean, I think, I think someone hit the nail on the head with, with us, with, with YouTube because there's just so much there and it's so easy to go down the rabbit hole. [01:35:48] Speaker C: Yeah, no, the, I mean that's. And I guess, you know, we've, we actually, I mean we do have a television, but it's in the basement. And so it's easier to read a book when you've got no other distraction going for you. [01:36:08] Speaker B: Which, when does that really happen for us? To not have any other distraction going for us? I mean, if you're out there on YouTube or reading books, like a lot of self help stuff is coming up with routines to eliminate distractions. It's turn off your phone, turn off, you know, pull the WI FI out of the wall, go for a walk, don't take your device. [01:36:29] Speaker D: Right. [01:36:30] Speaker B: It's just like, how can you somehow set it up so that you're not so tempted? But you know why? We're in a world that constantly tries to convince us to. How did we get to a place where we're just always wanting to see what is happening somewhere else versus right here? Like almost anything somewhere else is more exciting than whatever is going on here. I mean. [01:36:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:36:55] Speaker B: Like we're all sitting at an airport or at a restaurant or you know, and we're over here versus. [01:37:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:37:04] Speaker B: Somehow whatever is in front of us is inferior to whatever is going on on the screen. [01:37:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:37:10] Speaker D: I don't know how we got there, [01:37:12] Speaker C: but it is, it is very nice [01:37:18] Speaker D: to take my phone out of my pocket at 5:30 and throw it on [01:37:22] Speaker C: my desk at home and not think [01:37:24] Speaker B: about it, not look at it till. [01:37:26] Speaker C: Yeah, but guess what? They'll still be there in the morning. [01:37:32] Speaker B: Yeah. No, for sure. And I've had that with, you know, kind of forced disconnection or when you lose a phone or you go camping or you're off grid and there's a little bit of anxiety at first and you know, how is this gonna happen and how will this come or be taken care of? And then, you know, three or five days goes by and you return to the world and yeah, you feel better. And also somehow everything sort of worked out like, right. Which the meta message there may be one chill out and that you're maybe not that as important as you think you are. [01:38:09] Speaker C: You know, don't say that. [01:38:11] Speaker B: You know, which is very liberating. It's like not that much depends on me. You know, I can, I sort of can, you know, can do just about anything and the world and it's on a global scale will not, will not change. So. [01:38:28] Speaker C: But Steve, I always think of that commercial where, you know, Bob's calling in and boss, I don't really think I'm feeling good enough to come in today. And he's like, oh God, you know, Will's doing a great job. He's, yeah, he's knocking it out of the park all of a sudden. I'll be there in five minutes. [01:38:48] Speaker B: I'll be there. Let me just pop some meds. I'll be there. [01:38:51] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:38:54] Speaker B: Well, speaking of change, I mean, we touched on this briefly before, but how do you think AI impacts, how's it impacting you? Do you think it's going to impact the industry? And is it, is it a positive or negative if you had to, you know, maybe lean one way or the other? [01:39:15] Speaker C: Well, I'm hoping I'm out by the [01:39:19] Speaker D: time it really takes over. [01:39:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know if that's positive [01:39:24] Speaker D: or negative, but, you know, no, I think there are like one of my favorite databases is, is fairly convoluted and if you knew how to do AI, you could go in and say, okay, here's the database. Here are the pieces of information I want. And it could scrape it out and put it in a nice pretty package with a bow on it and would make it far more useful. So big prospecting tasks, you know, anything, you know, with data, you know, I can certainly, I mean, [01:40:10] Speaker C: I don't know [01:40:11] Speaker D: that we're worried about it in terms of, you know, the title industry. I mean, blockchain was supposed to wipe title out and somehow we survived. But a lot of what we do, you know, going through the public records to find, you know, what's going to be an impact on, you know, a title report, some of that could be automated very easily. But the 1889 piece can't be automated very easily. And so, you know, we may have a more specialized workforce as opposed to a, you know, a broad workforce. [01:40:56] Speaker C: But I don't know how AI is [01:40:58] Speaker D: going to step into escrow's chair and put together all these different pieces and deal with the vagaries that are humanity of gosh. I can't sign at 1, but I could be there at 3. So I do imagine that there's going to be an impact. I think, you know, a lot of, You know, things maybe in terms of, you know, listings, those type of things are going to be easier for people to search. And so I don't know, you know, how's that going to impact brokerage, [01:41:46] Speaker C: you [01:41:46] Speaker D: know, trying to go through, you know, lending packages, you know, to find out, you know, who's got the best rates, that type of stuff. You know, we already have online lenders, you know, is that going to even change more, you know, for the bank, [01:42:06] Speaker C: you know, so lots to consider. Yeah, yeah. And I, so I think I, I do think it will have an impact. [01:42:15] Speaker D: I don't know, lots of people's jobs could be taken over by some data driven product. [01:42:27] Speaker B: Already are. I mean, wholesale basis. Some industries are, have gone away and, or are in the process of doing so. [01:42:36] Speaker C: Right. And so what are those people going to do? Doesn't sound like they're going to be [01:42:43] Speaker D: doing AI because AI can do itself. [01:42:47] Speaker C: Right. [01:42:49] Speaker D: So yeah, yeah, I do think it is going to have an impact. I'm not sure whether the impact will be on you or I, [01:43:04] Speaker C: but I could see, [01:43:09] Speaker D: I could see it. [01:43:10] Speaker C: Right, [01:43:13] Speaker B: yeah. I think the challenge is, you know, the counter argument to it that you hear a lot as well. We just need to use it as a tool and we need to be, you know, we need to be very discerning and say here's what we're going to use it for and here's what we aren't going to use it for. It's not, one, we're really bad at making that kind of choice because we like convenience. And two, I don't think it's going to be up to us very soon what AI does or doesn't do because like you said, it does itself. So it's sort of, I think pretty soon we'll decide what its tasks are going to be and then we're, I think, very optimistic and bullish. If we're sitting here and, you know, giving, creating all these capabilities but then saying, you know, we're going to decide what it will venture into and what we, you know, what doors will open and it's going to, it's going to have a set of keys and start opening whichever doors it wants if we're giving it those kinds of liberties and capabilities. So. And it's, it's wildly unpredictable. I mean, I dare anyone to say, tell me what the next, you know, even five, much less 10 years is going to look like. [01:44:33] Speaker C: Right. And you know, we're, [01:44:40] Speaker D: I guess part of my question is, I guess, are we too late for the guardrails to even help? I think we are. We are. [01:44:50] Speaker C: But I. Where's the plug? [01:44:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and know, maybe the guard rails were, you know, they're, they're not. We made them from the wrong material or we didn't fasten them because we underestimated what it is that we're guarding against. So. Yeah, it sounds like we're both a little cautious, to say the least. [01:45:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Or terrified, maybe. Terrified. [01:45:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:45:21] Speaker B: I, I mean, it is scary. You know, it's, you know, for me it's just for that reason is that I, you know, may feel like we're in control, but I think pretty soon it'll just be out of our hands. [01:45:36] Speaker C: Right. [01:45:37] Speaker B: So, you know, whether, I think whether that impacts any specific industries is probably a. A smaller question. This is clearly a humanity, a larger humanity question than something that's never been seen before. I don't think on, I mean, something of that magnitude challenging the global status [01:46:03] Speaker C: quo of us as well, unusually, which [01:46:08] Speaker B: may be a good thing. Maybe we need to be more challenged. And I hope that it's benevolent and that it is wise and it doesn't think like us or thinks better. [01:46:20] Speaker C: Right. And that could very well be possible. But it also, I mean, I think the [01:46:31] Speaker D: challenge of it's happening so fast or it feels like it's happening so fast. I mean, when automobiles took the place of horses, that took decades. [01:46:46] Speaker C: And this seems like, gosh, didn't AI get started in January and now it's September. [01:46:54] Speaker B: No, there were decades and, you know, sometimes centuries where things really didn't change in, in any perceptible way for, you know, like someone's life looked materially like their parents or their grandparents and, you know, the three generations could be in the same room and, and all relate. You know, I don't. You can't say that now. You can't put, you know, three generations at a dinner table and they'll find things to talk about, but, I mean, their life experiences are just wildly different. And you know, there are things that the younger generation can talk about that, you know, even their parents will have no idea. Like, they will need to really be fully initiated. Okay. Start from the beginning. What does this mean? How does it work? Why did you say that? No reference. [01:48:06] Speaker C: Right. [01:48:07] Speaker B: There are elements. They're just pieces of conversation that one side will have complete information imbalance. [01:48:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:48:16] Speaker B: So. [01:48:16] Speaker C: And you think of, you know, the. Those changes. I just. And thinking about some of the questions you had sent me, I remember, you [01:48:26] Speaker D: know, my first job in title was, you know, 84, 1984. And so, you know, I was a broker, went to title, got a company car. [01:48:39] Speaker B: You were a commercial broker? [01:48:41] Speaker C: No, residential. [01:48:42] Speaker D: Residential. [01:48:43] Speaker B: Okay. [01:48:43] Speaker C: Got it. Got a company car. Salary, was it here? [01:48:50] Speaker B: I mean, like, where was it? Seattle. [01:48:52] Speaker C: I was in Spokane. [01:48:54] Speaker B: Spokane. [01:48:54] Speaker C: Okay. And my salary was, you know, 1800amonth. And I thought, [01:49:02] Speaker B: you're set. [01:49:05] Speaker C: I can retire. And the best part was initially, you know, how they were able to track us down is that you would get a pager. [01:49:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:20] Speaker D: But the pager didn't have a display at the time. It was just, you know, bang. And then you'd have to go find a pay phone and call in and say, yeah, what's going on? Or, you know, that. [01:49:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:49:31] Speaker D: And then I remember, you know, two months in, they went to pagers with [01:49:36] Speaker C: a little display on it so that you would know to call a particular phone number. I thought I had one of those. [01:49:44] Speaker B: I had one of those. [01:49:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Technology is so amazing. [01:49:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And then people would use the phone number to, like, abbreviate and spell certain [01:49:54] Speaker C: things, you know, get your ass in here. Yeah. [01:49:58] Speaker B: I mean, that kind of stuff. But you would use the numbers that. And there was, like, an agreed upon. [01:50:04] Speaker C: Right. [01:50:05] Speaker B: Of what each number stood for. Yeah. [01:50:07] Speaker C: Yeah. Weird. [01:50:09] Speaker B: So 1800. So. So how did it go from there? I mean, what. How did things progress? You were. [01:50:17] Speaker C: Well, I. While I was still there, I got [01:50:19] Speaker D: my first car phone. And basically it was a shoe box. [01:50:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:27] Speaker D: That got hardwired to an antenna in the car. But it was a. [01:50:33] Speaker C: It was a. There was a rotary dial and a handset that you would, you know, dial the phone, hold the rotary dial to your ear, and I mean, you must [01:50:45] Speaker B: have been pretty important there. Not that many people had those. [01:50:49] Speaker C: Yeah, I was an early adopter. [01:50:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:50:54] Speaker B: Big standard early adopter. [01:50:56] Speaker C: And Motorola Brick. Yeah, those. For a while. Yeah. My best. I. My favorite one was the. Remember the BlackBerry? [01:51:06] Speaker B: I remember the BlackBerry. Never had one, but there's actually a pretty good documentary on the BlackBerry. I don't know if you Saw it, [01:51:14] Speaker C: but yeah, I did see part of it, but yeah, no, it was, it was an awesome tool. I mean, but it was, it was an awesome tool because it was a phone and it was texting, even though it wasn't. [01:51:27] Speaker B: I mean, that was the first essentially texting platform that. [01:51:32] Speaker C: Well, I mean, it was email. Okay. Still, but. Yeah, I know. [01:51:39] Speaker B: But hey, a lot of big real estate deals and sports contracts got done on blackberries. You know, people were, if you were moving and shaking at that time, you had a BlackBerry and you were getting notifications of important developments on that thing. [01:52:01] Speaker C: So, yeah, those guys were there and then there was me. [01:52:04] Speaker D: Yeah, [01:52:09] Speaker C: You want to sell that ten thousand dollar lot on third Avenue? Okay. I'm all over it. [01:52:15] Speaker B: Okay, well, you were, you were aspiring something bigger and shooting for the stars. [01:52:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:23] Speaker B: Look at you. You landed on the moon. However that saying goes. [01:52:27] Speaker C: Right on the move. [01:52:28] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:52:30] Speaker C: Cool. [01:52:30] Speaker B: What's, what's next for you? What's happening for the rest of the year? I mean, what's, what are things looking like? [01:52:40] Speaker C: So we're [01:52:44] Speaker D: doing pretty well. I mean, you know, the big deals are, you know, kind of out of the loop. I mean, there's some big restructurings that'll be part of it. But so much of what I do is small industrial, small commercial business opportunities. SBA level lending or local bank level lending are all customers of mine. And, and that's a relatively busy market, so hopefully, knock on it, stays busy. [01:53:28] Speaker C: And I, and I don't see. [01:53:30] Speaker D: I mean, a lot of that isn't necessarily interest rate sensitive. I mean, everybody's sensitive to the interest rate. Yeah, yeah, but, but if you're a contractor in Seattle and you've got 15 jobs lined up and you need someplace to park your five trucks and lay [01:53:51] Speaker C: down all your lumber, you know, the interest rate isn't your problem. [01:53:58] Speaker B: I mean, that's a, that's, that's a great point. You know, and we often, I often have that conversation with, with clients. You know, people will attach to certain markers, you know, whether that's in interest rate or labor market or residential real estate or, you know, any number of things. And, and we'll use that to, to judge everything else. [01:54:26] Speaker C: Right. [01:54:27] Speaker B: You know, we are not ready to sell because the interest rates are going up. You know, and we have to have the conversation of, you know, does that really impact. Or the real estate market? You know, does the residential real estate market, national indicators of residential real estate impact a painting business that we are selling in Lewis County? Are they connected? Are you, I mean, is that Accurate. It may be, but let's look at it, you know, reasoning and that's part of, you know, being a professional advisor is just having those conversations and, and, and you know, hey, making sure that things relate, you know. [01:55:10] Speaker C: Yeah. The existing business that you think you can run better is painting 100 houses a month. [01:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:17] Speaker C: And you know, you think you can paint, do it better and paint more or you are be able to make, [01:55:23] Speaker B: or you can add school contracts, you know and you know, fire departments, does the interest rate impact you? [01:55:35] Speaker C: So I mean [01:55:38] Speaker D: we're all looking for some level of crystal ball. [01:55:41] Speaker C: But I mean, was it. [01:55:45] Speaker D: I remember whether it was. I mean, I'm sure it's in one of my self help books, but I think it was Lincoln, you know, you're about as happy as you set your [01:55:56] Speaker C: mind to be [01:55:58] Speaker D: and [01:56:00] Speaker C: is, [01:56:03] Speaker D: you know, I talked to one commercial broker, this is last week and he's doing apartment buildings and he's like, I've never been busier and you know, this is great. I'm going to knock it out of the park, you know, talk to another broker, you know, 10 minutes after that. Oh my God, those are very killing me. Oh yeah, the same guy? [01:56:29] Speaker B: No, 100%. And so it has to be applicable to, you know, wherever we're getting our information and the signals that we paying attention to, you know, we need to be mindful and make sure that it applies to what we're doing. Otherwise, you know, a lot of it can be just selling fear and in a way, that way to procrastinate and do something that we know we should be doing but maybe are uncomfortable doing and then we slap, you know, a socially acceptable reason on it. I'm not doing this because the midterm elections are coming. That's another one. Right. Is that valid? Are things going to change? Absolutely. Is it, you know, a major needle mover for what? The decision that you're considering. Should you be putting your decision on hold because of that? Maybe you should. But you know, let's think it all the way through. [01:57:27] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I, I mean it is. [01:57:34] Speaker D: I guess one of the fascinating things that has always happened to me is, you know, when you're doing cold calls, I don't know, this is run up with you, you know, and you have been doing cold calls all afternoon and it's four o' clock and you're ready to pack it in and you think, gosh, I'll just make one more. [01:57:55] Speaker C: And that call is the one where somebody wants to have a conversation, wants to learn about title or astronomy. [01:58:02] Speaker B: You just caught them. They're in the right mood, they have time. They've been meaning to, but. Yeah. [01:58:10] Speaker D: And all of a sudden. [01:58:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:58:12] Speaker D: My dad's theory, he was a real estate broker and as a family, we never got a vacation, you know, like Fourth of July or something. You know, my mom would take us somewhere, but my dad was always working and his theory was, I'm the only guy that's open to do business on July 4th. [01:58:37] Speaker C: Somebody's going to want to buy a house. Invariably it worked out for him. I mean, would have been handy if he would have been able to do a deal on July 5 too. [01:58:49] Speaker B: But, you know, that mindset worked for him. [01:58:53] Speaker C: Right. [01:58:54] Speaker D: You know, because he go in with an expectation that you're going to have [01:58:57] Speaker C: success doing this and, and it worked. The. So, yeah, I don't. [01:59:05] Speaker D: I mean it is keeping. Keeping all the cats in. In line and moving forward. [01:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah. But I, I think it's gonna. [01:59:17] Speaker D: It is gonna be what it is [01:59:19] Speaker C: gonna be and let's make it great. [01:59:23] Speaker B: I mean, I, I think that's great life advice and, and a way to keep a positive lens. There's really no, no good reason to. Sometimes we succumb to it, but there is no good reason to keep a negative lens. So approximating in. In the direction of staying positive and optimistic. I think under any circumstance, even one with sort of increasing uncertainty, which is, I think the times. [01:59:58] Speaker D: Time. [01:59:58] Speaker B: Times that we're in. You know, one book recommendation that I. I will throw out there and kind of our conversation got me thinking about it is, you know, Steve Martin. [02:00:09] Speaker C: Right, Right. [02:00:10] Speaker B: So he's got a book called Born Standing Up. I don't know if. Have you heard of it? Have you read it? So it's about his story and how he. Because he basically built his, you know, comedy career and then he walked away kind of at the, at the peak or thereabouts and. But, but he, but he stopped abruptly, which sort of became his MO. He then did the same with movies and you know, he was. Became an art collector and he did that. But what really taught him kind of about life and it's, It's a. Just a great book. He starts from the very beginning and how he invented his act and you know, it wasn't great. He wasn't funny for a long time. He didn't have an audience. He, you know, in any of the things that, if you remember like his routine, the wild and crazy guy and him, like, you know, taking the audience outside with him, like all of that happened on Accident. And as a result of just constant experimentation and trying to perfect this craft and basically becoming somewhat numbed, you know, quote unquote failure. And just everything is always in flux. And you're learning as you're doing it because there's no better place to learn. You can't practice it backstage. I mean, you can, but you're really going to learn something. When you say it on stage and it doesn't work, then you're gonna have to figure out your way past that. And he really talks through that. And I mean, It's really kind of a step by step journey where I think it's helpful because many books, success is one of those things that people kind of co opt and say, [02:02:13] Speaker D: I [02:02:13] Speaker B: did, I did this. And then through my perseverance and hard work, I achieved this. But the reality is the factors of luck and sort of happenstance and that coupled with hard work and then it turns into something special. [02:02:31] Speaker C: Right. [02:02:32] Speaker B: Problem is, we as the audience see it when it's something special and then we read something, we want to be able to replicate it. But he takes you through the journey and it's amazing for how long and how persistently. It just wasn't great for him. It just written down, I mean, and then it goes great in audio too, if you want to, just because he's a good storyteller. [02:02:56] Speaker C: But does he. Is he the reader? [02:02:58] Speaker B: Instructive and inspirational. So that's my recommendation. [02:03:03] Speaker C: Oh, that does make me think I did Trevor Noah. You know, Trevor Noah Trevor. Yeah, he's got a book out, I think it's called Born a Crime. [02:03:16] Speaker D: And it talks about his childhood in South Africa where, you know, his white father and his black mother got together and created him and the fact that they. [02:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Were in an apartheid situation. You know, he, you know, he's a crime. Right. [02:03:39] Speaker B: Oh, God. Born a crime. Okay, I see it, I get it. [02:03:42] Speaker C: And. [02:03:42] Speaker D: But he does it. And it's not a particular. I mean, it's, you know, he has such a great style but, you know, so. But it's not a, you know, a laugh out loud kind of book but, you know, kind of explains how he got to where he is and it was great. [02:03:58] Speaker C: Life story. [02:04:00] Speaker B: No, and then many of them are. And thanks for the recommendation. Many of them aren't if they, you know, if they're honest about it. Even the comedy careers, many of them are quite tragic and they're not, you know, for the majority of the journey, they're not funny or comedic or great or comfortable. You know, we see the Result, they, through all that hard work, they finally get something that becomes that people accept and pay money to go see. [02:04:30] Speaker C: Right. [02:04:31] Speaker B: But the stuff before that, I mean, that's really, that's really the lesson. Oh, you know what I told. This is what got me thinking about the Steve Martin recommendation. So his dad was a real estate agent. His dad, he. His main motivation. Steve Martin's main motivation, childhood memory. He saw his dad unhappy. He was. And he either. I forget if he was talking about it or he could just sense it that this is not what he wanted to do. And he never really got it together to do what he wanted to do, which he had artistic inclinations and he wanted to be an actor, I think. [02:05:14] Speaker C: Right. And. [02:05:19] Speaker B: And was very unhappy. And then Steve became an actor and his dad rejected him for a long time, said, oh, this is crap. Yeah. And they, they finally, you know, without giving any spoilers. But, but it was sort of a big full circle moment when his dad told him, you know, I, I should have done what you did, but you did it. And so it's. And there's many little powerful kind of mic drop moments like that in there. So. [02:05:47] Speaker C: So I think my favorite Steve Martin [02:05:51] Speaker D: movie is Father of the Bride. [02:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great one. [02:05:56] Speaker C: And partially because I've had to live through it a couple of times. [02:06:00] Speaker B: That's right. I mean, you're living through it now, aren't you? [02:06:03] Speaker C: Yeah, well, yeah. [02:06:05] Speaker D: My youngest is engaged to be married [02:06:09] Speaker C: in September and it's. [02:06:11] Speaker B: Congratulations. [02:06:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. He's an awesome guy. 27. [02:06:18] Speaker D: Okay. [02:06:19] Speaker B: Now you have two girls and a boy. [02:06:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So the other two are married and everybody's working and, you know, so [02:06:29] Speaker D: great job, wife. [02:06:33] Speaker B: It must have been that BlackBerry and that Motorola brick. [02:06:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [02:06:38] Speaker B: Set you up for success and, but, but no, that's a, that's a big accomplishment. And yeah, congratulations. Must have done something right. I mean, parallel to this career and all real estate and title and reading. I mean, you're trying to raise three other humans. I mean, that's, you gotta find time for that too. [02:07:04] Speaker C: You think about all the baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball games you go to, and [02:07:12] Speaker B: how many would you say that is if you had to put a number, how many sporting events have you attended? A thousand. [02:07:20] Speaker C: Well, if you did 12 years times 52, you would end up with 600 something. 600. [02:07:30] Speaker D: 600 possible weeks of which with three [02:07:37] Speaker C: kids, you're at least three times a week. [02:07:46] Speaker B: So you're, you're between a thousand and two thousand sporting events. Any one particular stand out There any that you remember that were just tragic or triumphant or. [02:08:01] Speaker C: No, I. The triumph. I mean, I was. [02:08:08] Speaker D: My youngest daughter's one of her fourth [02:08:11] Speaker C: grade soccer coaches and they ultimately won, you know, the CYO league type of stuff. But I don't know anything about soccer. And so I was the spiritual advisor and also the guy that. [02:08:26] Speaker B: You were the spiritual advisor on the soccer team. [02:08:29] Speaker C: Okay, play nice. Let's, you know, and. But I was also in charge of the rotations and you know, in CYO you're supposed to be. Everybody's supposed to play equal time. [02:08:40] Speaker D: And you know, and so I'm subbing out and. And you know, the lead coach is doing a great job keeping him on task and. And yeah, one of the fathers from [02:08:55] Speaker C: the stand goes, why don't you have all your good girls in? You've got 15 minutes. And like, all our good girls. All our good girls are in everyone. And that type of stuff. And [02:09:12] Speaker D: at a different one, at the, you know, the awards dinner or whatever, you know, the pizza party, they're like, you know, Mr. Corey, we're discussing it [02:09:24] Speaker C: and we're pretty sure you don't know what a blue line is or offsides. Offsides. Sorry. [02:09:30] Speaker D: I'm like, [02:09:33] Speaker C: I think it's where everybody gets down there too fast. [02:09:38] Speaker B: Did you admit to not fully having a grasp of that? [02:09:42] Speaker C: That's not my job. It's your job to know where the phone is. [02:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I saw that on the. During the World Cup. I saw that on the gas station marquee. It said something like, keep, keep trucking and pretend like you know what the offside rule is. Somewhat. Some wisdom like that. [02:10:11] Speaker C: I can explain wrestling. [02:10:13] Speaker B: Were you a wrestler? [02:10:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:10:15] Speaker B: Okay. All right. What level? I mean, how far did you get up that ladder? [02:10:20] Speaker C: Just survived high school. [02:10:25] Speaker D: I mean, it's one of those ones [02:10:27] Speaker C: where it kind of grows on you [02:10:30] Speaker D: and you think, you know, first couple years, you know, you're not everybody's beating up on you, so you don't really know anything. [02:10:36] Speaker C: But then, yeah, it sounds like brokerage. Yeah, very similar. By the third year, you start to think, gosh, I could do this. And then the fourth year you actually have a little bit of success. And I never went to state or anything like that, but it was fun. [02:10:54] Speaker B: Well, awesome stuff. By the way, the Bengal Tiger was that meeting that you mentioned in the beginning. I remember. So that was at the closing of one of the transactions. So the Roosevelt Square was first meeting. That second meeting was a little bit of a milestone for me. And you were there for it. [02:11:19] Speaker C: So I I knocking it out of the park. [02:11:24] Speaker B: Yeah, we're blessed. Blessed to be busy and, you know, and albeit in a rapidly changing world, but, you know, keeps us sharp and keeps us learning, so. And that's what's exciting. [02:11:38] Speaker D: Absolutely. [02:11:39] Speaker C: The. I mean, there's something new every day and I've. I kicked myself in the head that I, you know, didn't have a journal or I don't journal because wouldn't that be start now? Well, I've got to have it. Got a habit of not doing it, so it'll be hard to break, but you're right. Yeah. Pass it on to the next kid. [02:12:06] Speaker B: You know, I heard something recently, someone said, you know, having starting an email address for your kids or someone in the family and writing them, you know, daily, regularly, and then at some point giving them the access, credentials and as a gift and saying, here's what I've written over the past for you to you, you know, and it could be. Be kids, could be partners, could be parents, you know, kind of a cool idea. [02:12:42] Speaker C: That is a great idea. [02:12:43] Speaker B: I mean, it's a way of journaling, but it, you know, it's sort of the ultimate surprise gift where even you don't remember what you said on April 3, seven years ago to what you thought of as your kid walked off to school or whatever it was, you know. [02:13:02] Speaker D: Right, Absolutely. And so much of those journaling aspects are wonderful for the people that are part of the message, but I think [02:13:17] Speaker C: even more wonderful for you as an individual to go back and say, where was I at? Where's my head at? On, you know, April 30th, ten years ago. Yeah. Yeah. [02:13:30] Speaker B: One of the things that comes up a lot, and, you know, as you listen to, it's writer specifically, but. But just people in general talking about how they go about their craft or their field is, you know, writing is a way of clarifying your own thought process. Right. It's not to necessarily. It can be to explain it to someone else, but first and foremost, it's do I understand whatever it is that I'm trying to think through or understand? [02:14:03] Speaker D: Right. [02:14:03] Speaker B: Writing it down clarifies that pretty quickly or forces you to advance and say, look, I really don't understand. Let me see if I can put [02:14:13] Speaker C: it in a paragraph right now. I know why this is a problem. I have no idea what I. I don't understand. [02:14:19] Speaker B: I'm giving a speech on it. I don't understand it. Well, that's a problem. [02:14:25] Speaker C: All right. Oh, man. [02:14:29] Speaker B: All right, Steve, Those are all my questions. It's a fun chat. I've always enjoy talking to and appreciate, you know, the opportunity to connect and hope there's many more of these. You know, this one happened to be recorded, but the others are just as fun. [02:14:50] Speaker C: And the Bengal tiger's still open, I believe. [02:14:53] Speaker B: Hey, let's, let's put that on the calendar. [02:14:56] Speaker C: Perfect. Yeah, no, it's been great. And just living through the technology. I mean, think of all I've learned in the last couple of days. [02:15:07] Speaker B: Speaking of technology, where can people find you? I mean, do you, is it phone, email? Are you teaching a class that folks can sign up for? What's a good way to get a hold of you? And we can leave all that in [02:15:20] Speaker C: the show notes, but just walk us through anytime. [02:15:25] Speaker D: So, Steve Corey, Fidelity Title 206-707-1779 or [02:15:33] Speaker C: Steve Period Corey C-O R Y F [02:15:38] Speaker D: N F.com Fidelity National Financial but yeah, if you've got anybody out there has a question or wants a little bit more understanding on something, I'm happy to give it a shot. [02:15:55] Speaker B: And then you're teaching classes through ceba. Anything coming up? Anything on the calendar already that folks can sign up for if they wanted to? [02:16:02] Speaker C: I don't really have anything on the book coming up, [02:16:10] Speaker D: but I am on LinkedIn and if I do a class, I will post it on LinkedIn. So look up Steve Corey, Seattle, and [02:16:24] Speaker C: make a new friend. [02:16:28] Speaker B: Send you a LinkedIn invite, trust you, accept you accept new friends. [02:16:34] Speaker C: I do, I do. [02:16:35] Speaker B: Good, good. That's a good way to be [02:16:40] Speaker C: perfect. [02:16:40] Speaker B: All right, Steve. Well, I appreciate it. I'm going to end recording, hang out for a little bit. See you soon. [02:16:45] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the next Venture alliance show. We hope today's conversation left you inspired, informed, and ready to take bold steps towards your next venture. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Spotify. And subscribe Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you're tuning in. It really helps more entrepreneurs discover the show. For resources, show notes, and more inspiring stories, visit us online at nextventuraliance. Com and stay connected until next time. Keep building, keep growing, and keep moving forward.