Live from the KC Property Guys and KC Pier Studio in beautiful Kansas City, home to over 200 fountains and more barbecue restaurants per capita than anywhere in the nation. It’s the Kansas City Real Estate Industry Leaders show, a show about industry leaders from the local Kansas City Metro market for Kansas City real estate related professionals and enthusiasts like you. And now here’s your hosts, Eric and Lucas Sheele.
Lucas Sheele:
How’s it going everybody? My name is Lucas Sheele and welcome back to another Kansas City Real Estate Industry Leaders podcast. We actually don’t have a guest today. I’m just here with my cohost Eric Sheele, and we’re going to be talking life scenarios that people might be getting into where they may be looking for a creative real estate solutions. So Eric, you want to just kick us off with one of our first situations that we always encounter?
Eric Sheele:
Yeah. But before I do I just need to comment on your attire. You just look fantastic.
Lucas Sheele:
Oh yeah.
Eric Sheele:
Yeah. The shirt just works.
Lucas Sheele:
Oh yeah, you too.
Eric Sheele:
How did that work?
Lucas Sheele:
Oh, I don’t know.
Creative Real Estate Solutions
Eric Sheele:
So we do, we work with multiple people in different life scenarios and even on our webpage at KCPropertyGuys.com. I mean you do the marketing for this and you do videos that are linked to those what we call our pillar pages. We have this separated out on the website because we deal with people in different scenarios, whether it be … And I can’t think of them all. We can look them up. Bankruptcy. We get calls from people in bankruptcy. We get calls from people with inheritance, or retirees that are downsizing, houses that are just money pits, you know, they’re in disrepair and need creative real estate solutions. And of course foreclosures are a big piece of that. And so we get calls from multiple channels and working with people is really kind of what we do. I mean we can talk about different scenarios and different creative real estate solutions that are available to people in some of those scenarios.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah, definitely.
Eric Sheele:
We can talk about some of the different houses that we’ve worked with in the past. That’d be kind of fun. And we can go from there. But for people that are watching, anybody generally speaking, if you want to raise it up to 10 000 foot level, anybody that’s interested in selling a house is really kind of fair game to consider. And we’ve kind of talked about that before. A cash option as a house because-
Creative Real Estate Solutions for Inherited Homes
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. Especially with inherited homes, sometimes they can be in really bad condition when they get them inherited. So they don’t want to put in the work to get it back up to tip top shape. So they’re looking for cash home buyers in Kansas City.
Eric Sheele:
And that it could be condition or it also could be that … We’re selling one in Olathe right now and the owner is in Florida and he’s inherited this house. His mom passed away, but he’s inherited this house and he obviously doesn’t want to move back to Kansas, especially this time of year when you’re sitting in Florida.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
Right?
Lucas Sheele:
It’s so nice own there.
Eric Sheele:
And so it actually is just going for sale today. It’s one of those scenarios that it could be in disrepair or it could just be situational, where there’s no interest in the house. We’ve had calls from inheritees that live next door to their parents and they don’t necessarily want to be a landlord anymore, or they’ve rented it and don’t want to be a landlord anymore, or they just don’t want to be a landlord. So they don’t want to keep the house and they ultimately want to look for an option to sell it.
Eric Sheele:
Specifically with inheritees, when you inherit a house, what I always like to tell people is treat the house … since it is inherited from a family member and assume it’s someone that you have entrusted and loved through a lifetime. Do something that honors them and do that in a method that would honor them. So if they feel like cashing that house out or working through a creative real estate solutions … I should mention that as well because many times we get phone calls and we walk the house and talk about the cash option, but the cash option doesn’t fit all their needs-
Lucas Sheele:
Doesn’t necessarily work all the time.
Eric Sheele:
It doesn’t-
Lucas Sheele:
Absolutely never-
Eric Sheele:
because it comes-
Lucas Sheele:
Honestly a lot of the time.
Eric Sheele:
It comes at a cost.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
Right? It comes at a cost. It’s fast, it’s easy, there’s the easy button. We talk about that a lot. It’s painless. You can literally sell a house in 10 minutes if you wanted to, 15 minutes contractually, and then it takes days after that. Or if you want to wait months. It doesn’t matter. All those are just variables. But it may not work. The cash numbers and the finances don’t necessarily work on the cash option. So that’s when we go into our creative real estate solutions, what I call-
Lucas Sheele:
Real estates-
Eric Sheele:
Creative real estate solutions. And there’s multiple. It’s a gamut. And so we could just talk about those types of options. Back on the inheritance houses, handle that house. What I advise the owners to do is obviously you’re getting an asset and you’re getting a windfall of monies. Do something with those monies that would honor the person who had passed. Treat that … And if he knows that keeping that house and trying to maintain it, and continue to work extra hours so you can fix up a house which he’s lived in because you feel you’re emotionally obligated to it, a lot of times that person that passed doesn’t want to see you do that. He wants to see you take that asset and use that in a more beneficial way emotionally and financially for yourself. So we talk about a lot of those types of things with inherited houses specifically.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. We were just working on a video at an inherited house yesterday actually.
Eric Sheele:
Yeah. Where was that one?
Lucas Sheele:
I forget. South Kansas City?
Eric Sheele:
Yes. Oh, it was South Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah. A lady she lives in Belton. She inherited the house from her mom. She had rented it for close to three years.
Lucas Sheele:
Wow.
Eric Sheele:
And finally she just got to the point where it was like, I don’t want to be a landlord, which I don’t blame her. I’m not not the best landlord myself. So yeah, absolutely. Every situation is kind of different. Inherited houses come from a lot of different directions, and so we just talk with people and talk about all the scenarios and variables around that, and then just make sure they’re making the decision that hopefully is in the best interest of everybody, including the one they’ve inherited the house from.
Lucas Sheele:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Eric Sheele:
Yep.
Creative Real Estate Solutions for Downsizers
Lucas Sheele:
Absolutely. Next one we could probably talk about would be retirees, downsizers.
Eric Sheele:
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Lucas Sheele:
We also do-
Eric Sheele:
We do those a lot.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
We get a lot of calls from people who are like, “Hey man, I’ve lived in this house for 20, 30 years and I’m done,” especially this time of year. In fact we’re working with one in Prairie Village. They … let’s see. We start the house in two weeks but they took off and moved to Verona Beach, Florida.
Lucas Sheele:
Already?
Eric Sheele:
Oh yeah. They’re down there and they’re texting me and calling me and it’s a creative. So we showed up as a cash purchase. The numbers weren’t right. And we’re working with somebody out of state. They have a sister that is in Tennessee that also has an interest in the house, but they own the majority of that house. They’re downsizing and moving to Florida. And so it turned into a creative real estate solutions, where we’re actually going to be fixing most of that house up in conjunction with them, working through that creative channel. And they’re already in Florida.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Eric Sheele:
And so we start that project in two weeks. And we do get a lot of calls from retirees and down sizers, people that have … in fact we’re talking to one tonight actually Oletha that’s moving to Lawrence.
Lucas Sheele:
Got you. Cool.
Eric Sheele:
And so it happens a lot. And oddly enough we worked with one last week in Kansas City, Kansas. Same thing. They’re moving to Lawrence. They want to be closer to grandkids. So not only are they downsizing but they’re trying to get closer to family members. And so down sizers are a really good candidate to talk to because they tend to have a lot of equity in the house. So you have room to work not only the cash option, you can work the creative real estate solutions. They tend to have some deferred maintenance in them, because I mean when you move into a house you fix them up right away. You’re all anxious and ready to go and say you’re gung ho, and then you start to live in it awhile, life happens. And the motivation to maybe fix up that house over time, it doesn’t necessarily come about-
Lucas Sheele:
It kind of fades away.
Eric Sheele:
Yeah, fades away. And so you get a lot of deferred maintenance. And so there’s that, and a lot of down sizers they just want to be done and move on. They don’t want to handle that deferred maintenance piece before they actually list it. So there’s lots of creative real estate solutions there for down sizers typically.
Speaker 1:
Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking the subscribe button now. The podcast is made possible by listeners like you. Thank you for your likes, shares, and support. Now, back to the show.
Lucas Sheele:
Absolutely. And speaking of just maintenance when it comes to a house, money pit houses, you mentioned it earlier.
Eric Sheele:
Rarely-
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
Rarely, rarely, rarely do I ever walk into a house and it’s like, “Hey man, this one’s good to go. Why’d you call me?” No, they all need attention. I mean that’s the biggest reason why you get … and for the pioneers namesake, I’m going to plug and talk about We Buy Ugly Houses because they are a pioneer in the market, and that’s the namesake of which people think about in terms of this industry.
Eric Sheele:
It doesn’t have to be an ugly house. We’ve talked about that before. We’ve worked with million dollar houses. We’ve worked with 600, $700 000 houses. Most of them we work with are in that hundred to $300 000 range but we’ve seen all types. But historically, because the name has always been out there as We Buy Ugly Houses, a lot of times you’re talking about an ugly house. You’re talking about a house that in the owner’s mind needs a lot of work, right, needs a lot of attention, whether it’s foundation work or roofing or some of the major pieces, windows, structural, things that actually are going to cost a lot of money. And obviously those are a popular candidate for houses we deal with.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. And then the next one that we’d probably talk about would be aging parents or relocation, that kind of go to the same thing. Because when it comes to the aging parents they’re moving onto a different spot and their child’s going to try to find out something to do with them. Because with declining health comes a lot more problems in the family.
Eric Sheele:
Aging parents we break out on the website. They can kind of fall under the down sizers as well, but we do break them out because some people are actually moving their parents and the parents aren’t making the decision. That’s why we put aging parents there, and so we deal with people that are calling for their mother, their father, and they’re trying to help them, assist them moving. We’re working with the house in Raytown right now where the lady, Sharon, was in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mom was in Raytown. Mom was wanting to move back home into Minnesota. She was 95 years old.
Lucas Sheele:
Holy cow.
Eric Sheele:
Marie. Yeah, she’s 95. She got around on a walker. She was a ball of energy, but when it came to the decision making she wanted to entrust her daughter to help her make that decision. So we coordinated a cash buy, specifically. They just hit the easy button and she actually just moved about three weeks ago, went up to Minnesota.
Lucas Sheele:
Oh wow.
Eric Sheele:
So the aging parents thing could be down sizers but it also could be the siblings making decisions for their parents.
Relocation
Lucas Sheele:
Definitely, which kind of applies with the relocation.
Eric Sheele:
The relocation can be that way. Also on relocation, sometimes it’s changes of jobs. We worked with a couple that are actually … they’re our guests next week. They’re coming in from Topeka. We worked with them in Topeka. They’re coming to actually do a podcast with us to talk about their experience, which is … I’m happy to have them in.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah, absolutely.
Eric Sheele:
I’m kind of excited to talk to them. So we’ll have that going next week. But those were ones that they wanted to go to Washington state, and so they called us up and that one started as a cash buy, turned into a creative solution. And from that creative solution, from Topeka, they’re awfully excited, they were going to Washington state and get back closer to family.
Lucas Sheele:
That’s good. That’s good. And then for these last two bullets that we have, you mentioned change of job. Well, this one would be job loss, so somebody who’s out of a job. And then the next tab would actually be foreclosure. So the two kind of play hand in hand with each other. They can-
Eric Sheele:
They can be. Not necessarily but they can. They can.
Foreclosure
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. There’s a lot of different situations for foreclosure-
Eric Sheele:
Job loss-
Lucas Sheele:
But … yeah.
Eric Sheele:
Worked with a guy just last week. We haven’t done anything but he’s up in Smithville and recently lost his job, and so he’s looking for an option of cashing out, maybe pooling that money and downsizing. He’s dealing with those decisions. And we see that a lot and as you indicated sometimes job loss leads to foreclosure. And so we ultimately deal with-
Lucas Sheele:
In some situations not all though.
Eric Sheele:
Yeah.
Lucas Sheele:
Not all.
Eric Sheele:
And the foreclosure scenario. But yeah, change of job, job loss. Absolutely. Those are great reasons to call, and whether the cash number works or a creative solution works, there’s typically always at an option.
Lucas Sheele:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Eric Sheele:
And sometimes it’s three or four options but-
Lucas Sheele:
And that’s what I’ve kind of noticed as we’ve been just hitting all these bullets. We haven’t hit all of our bullets yet, but get kind of the gist that some of these creative options, creative real estate options and solutions that we have, they play into a lot of different categories
Eric Sheele:
Oh yeah, because life happens.
Lucas Sheele:
Exactly. Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
And you do this enough and you just see life happening. And there was times when I first started back in 2015 … I wanted every house but it’s not like that anymore. We do 70 plus houses a year. We stay extremely busy, but we work with people. We work with the life scenarios. And so we’ve kind of separated on our webpage those pillar pages that we’re talking about today, that talk about-
Lucas Sheele:
Describe life scenarios.
Different Life Scenarios
Eric Sheele:
All the different life scenarios of which we’ve worked with people.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah, absolutely.
Eric Sheele:
And there’s always something new that kind of stands out and so there’s probably a couple that we haven’t even talked about that I can’t think of right now. But-
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah.
Eric Sheele:
A divorce I guess would be another one. That one’s on there. That one’s never a pretty one. They don’t have to be all doom and gloom. They can just be, “Hey man, I’m just looking to make a change and so I’m exploring this option.” It’s getting to be really popular. It’s an alternative to realtors. And so let’s talk what you may have. But divorce is a common one. We have one that we just actually unfortunately worked through in Belton, that recently got a divorce, and so this was … At least it was amicable and we’ve worked with divorces that aren’t amicable, where I’m delivering the paperwork to one and I’m delivering the paperwork to the other because the two-
Lucas Sheele:
Geez.
Eric Sheele:
Just don’t want-
Lucas Sheele:
Don’t even want to see each other.
Eric Sheele:
No, they don’t want to see each other. But the ones that we’re dealing with in Belton right now, which closes at the end of the month, they’re just like, “Yeah, this is great. We’re both taking the assets of the house. We’re splitting these proceeds. I’m glad you’re able to work it out because it’s easy, it’s painless, and it’s done. Divorce happens at this date. We can’t go through a realtor because it’ll go too long, it’ll prolong the transaction, and we need these proceeds prior to the divorce.” So the cash option was extremely efficient and the right answer for them.
Lucas Sheele:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Absolutely. Well, I think we touched on most of our tabs for today, wouldn’t you think?
Eric Sheele:
Well, if we didn’t you can go to KCPopertyGuys.com and you can look over … It’s on the first page and we call them the pillar pages, but they’re big boxes that kind of list it out. And even if it doesn’t fit your situation doesn’t fit one of those … we try to put a a unique video. We’re still filling those in.
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah. We’re doing some blogs for our pillar pages.
Eric Sheele:
Unique videos for each of those houses, which are fun to do-
Lucas Sheele:
Yeah, they are.
Eric Sheele:
And just kind of talk about, and they actually show different houses. We’re doing before the house works on. We’re also going to start to add some where after … we get after the work, which we’re actually going out tomorrow, which will be fun. But go on the page and just simply fill out a form, or just give us a call and we’ll talk about life scenarios. We’ve heard it all and we’ve seen it all.
Eric Sheele:
Some people don’t say, “Hey, I don’t come over until I cleaned the house.” Don’t worry about cleaning the house.
Lucas Sheele:
We’ve seen it all, trust me.
Eric Sheele:
Yeah, we’ve seen it all. So just just fill out the form, give us a call, and we’ll talk through the life scenarios and we’ll try to work out the best solution for everybody and make it a win-win-win, and move on to the next next life scenario. Because you’re on a roller coaster so it’s a matter whether you’re on the high or low or somewhere in between, but you’re somewhere on that life roller coaster.
Lucas Sheele:
Absolutely. So we hoped you guys enjoyed this episode today, just talking life scenarios. And if you guys are dealing with this kind of scenario, or just wanting to look at creative real estate solutions, feel free to give us a call on KansasCityPropertyGuys.com, and we’ll see you on the next episode.
Eric Sheele:
All right, take care.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for joining us this week on the Kansas City Real Estate Industry Leaders show. Please support all things local to Kansas City, and hey, be sure to subscribe and share our podcast on Facebook and LinkedIn. This has been a KC Property Guys production, KCPropertyGuys.com.
