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, enthusiasts, and home owners like you, like you. Now, here’s your hosts, Eric and Lucas Scheele.
Eric Scheele:
Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to another episode of Kansas City Real Estate Industry Leaders podcast. My name is Eric Scheele. I’m your host today. Lucas is out of studio. We have in studio today Alithea and Anthony Robertson out of Topeka. This is a lot of fun. I normally have Lucas across from me. This is a little different, but I’m glad you guys are here for this home owners podcast. Welcome to the studio.c
Eric Scheele:
What we do on this home owners podcast is we talk KC property. Lucas and I will talk KC Property Guy stuff and stories and foreclosures and investments. I’ll bring the KC Pier guys in, and we talk foundation issues, Kansas City Foundation issues. Then we bring in real estate industry leaders, and we talk to them about just what they do. We pick their brain, right?
KC Property Guys Home Owners
Eric Scheele:
I like getting, in this case we have customers of KC Property Guys, and you kind of touch upon every one of those channels, right? Because when we worked with you, we did a little foundation work, right? We got creative, which I love to do. I’m a creation solutionist in terms of real estate. And you got to work with, in my opinion, some real estate industry leaders in terms of KCPG Realty Group. And so, you guys are like a hybrid of everything, which is fun to have. So, welcome to the studio.
Anthony Robertson:
Thank you.
Alithea Robertson:
Thank you.
Eric Scheele:
Love that you’re here. We’re going to talk a little shop today, and kind of cross and hybrid into a lot of different things that we talk about on a weekly basis. So, what we normally do is talk about your story, right? So let’s go back to the beginning. How did KC Property Guys … We’ve talked off video a little bit, but we’ve never even talked about this part. How did KC Property Guys even enter the picture when we first were introduced?
Anthony Robertson:
Do you want to cover it, or do you want me to?
Foundation Issues
Alithea Robertson:
Okay. Well, we were in our house feeling very stuck because we knew we had a lot of foundation issues and a lot of things that needed to be done. We’ve been in the house for about nine years and we bought it as a fixer-upper, but we realized really quickly that we were not the fixer-upper kind of home owners. And so-
Eric Scheele:
Right on. who made that decision? It was like, “Hey honey, I found this house, right? I’ve seen HGTV, and I can do this?” come on. That conversation had to be had, right? At some point and level, you know who you are. Okay. There it is. The proof is in the pudding. Alithea, you were gung ho. You’re thought you’re like, “Man, I can swing a hammer. Anthony, if I can’t do it, you can. Come on. Let’s jump into a $150,000 commitment and make this thing happen.” Right?
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it went.
Eric Scheele:
So your first six months are spent gung ho, paint brushes come out, watching the videos, how-tos, improvements happen. Home owners life then begins, the motivations change. How do I know this so well? But motivations change. The enthusiasm starts to die. Life starts to happen. The kids are involved in sports, activities. The weekends of tearing and changing and fixing get a little bit longer. It’s pretty easy to find other things to do after about six months. Nine years goes by. Was it nine or seven?
Alithea Robertson:
Nine.
Eric Scheele:
Nine years go by, and-
Alithea Robertson:
Eight.
Eric Scheele:
Eight years go by.
Alithea Robertson:
Around there.
Eric Scheele:
And you’re like, “I don’t know about this was such a good idea anymore.”
Anthony Robertson:
The repairs, right? Especially with the foundation. You would invite people over.
Eric Scheele:
It gets overwhelming.
Anthony Robertson:
And everybody has a different idea of what needs to be done. With my background, I had no clue, so it was overwhelming. It’s like, “Who actually is telling us the right story and the right fix?”
Eric Scheele:
Oh, and you even mentioned that on KC Pier, and I could go on and on about KC Pier and talking with home owners. You’ll have five Pier guys out there, foundation guys out there, and you’re going to hear five different things, and you’re left like, “Okay, what’s real? What’s not real?” One has a $20,000 bill to it. The other one has a $3,000 bill to it. If they were all within 2000, that’s one thing. But when the gamut is huge, it’s like, “What do I do? Who do I trust? Where do I go?” You’re not alone there. That happens all the time.
Eric Scheele:
So with that, you get to the point where it’s like, “Okay, what do we do?” That’s where we came in the picture. Is that what you’re saying?
Alithea Robertson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, pretty much.
Cash Option for Home Owners
Eric Scheele:
Okay, so you call KC Property Guys for the cash option for home owners. All right? I show up, and what happens?
Anthony Robertson:
Do you want to? Okay, yeah, I can go first. So, probably the biggest turning point for us was when actually had your guys come out, we were talking about everything, and you initially had one idea about what the situation might be. But I liked the fact and it made me feel a lot more comfortable that instead of just looking at the surface, you guys went and said, “Let’s take some measurements, take some reads just to make sure that the story matches with what we think.” Immediately when they came back up and they were like, “We thought it was this, but there’s great news. It’s actually this,” because they took the extra step and actually did the measurements. So immediately, I felt a lot more comfortable realizing they were just going to kind of walk in, do something really quick and be like, “Yep, everything’s good. Your life’s perfect.”
Eric Scheele:
Yeah.
Anthony Robertson:
More than skin deep.
Eric Scheele:
No, absolutely. And very, very good point. I don’t mind being wrong and I don’t mind being verified and so, I may be the president of KC Pier, but I got structural consultants under me that have the tools that can measure and tell us exactly what’s going on in a, in a foundation and we’ll draw it up professionally and present it that way. So a good point, I hadn’t heard you mention that before, but having that affirmation of, “Hey, this guy has some resources and these resources actually know what they’re doing.” There’s some trust there. It was important to you.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah, definitely.
Eric Scheele:
Okay.
Anthony Robertson:
Crucial.
Eric Scheele:
Good. Okay. So from that visit, came this cash offer, and this is not uncommon that our debt is this, the cash offer is this down here. What do we do? And that’s kind of what we were dealing with. Correct? If I remember correctly, it was close, but it was like, “Ah, it doesn’t look good.” And so the creative solution starts coming out. Right? I really enjoy that piece of it because we mentioned this off air is it doesn’t always start that way.
Eric Scheele:
When we first started five years ago, it was like, you’re either a cash option for home owners or you’re nothing. And there’s only certain people that fit that cash option. And it has to be, the prerequisite for it to work is, here’s what I owe and here’s the cash option. It has to be something above that. You can’t go below. And there’s a lot of times where it’s below and I didn’t like walking away from those solutions. And so we came up with something creative, right? And so when the creative solution comes out now, now what are you thinking?
Alithea Robertson:
Well, it really felt like this was our one shot to get out of the house. We wanted for so long to just be done with that house.
Eric Scheele:
Did you know in your heart of hearts that you were underwater?
Alithea Robertson:
It felt like it.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah.
Alithea Robertson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Eric Scheele:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anthony Robertson:
Especially with the foundation. The other stuff, probably small, small beans, but that right there felt overwhelming. It’s like we’re not going to be able to get what we want if we just throw it on the market as it is.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. Yep. And foundations, we talk about this a lot. Foundations and mold turn away more buyers in a traditional real estate transaction than any two things for home owners. And every realtor will tell you that. And so you had one of those two, you had the foundation issue. So going on market as is given that situation was probably setting yourself up for failure. And we kind of talked about that. So yeah. From there you hear the creative stuff, now what? You’re thinking it’s the one shot.
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah. So then we started looking for places to live, so you guys could fix up the house. And we got out of there within like the next couple of weeks, right?
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah.
Eric Scheele:
You moved like lightning. I mean it was like-
Alithea Robertson:
We were a little motivated.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, you are out of there like a cat with a long tail and a room full of rockers, man. You were just bolted. A. You don’t have to move. And I was really surprised when you said, “Yeah man, we’re out.” And you turn yourself loose on the property, which means that it allows us to really take and speed track a lot of our fixes because we had some sheet rock work, we had a lot of painting work in there, we had the foundation work obviously.
Eric Scheele:
We did a lot of dressing up, right? And did some deferred maintenance as you spoke about. We had to do some deferred maintenance repair and nine years worth of unfinished projects and some structural integrity on the deck, if I remember correctly. And so you being out of the home was extremely helpful. Not necessary, but extremely helpful. I mean, you were living simple enough where it could have been done, but that was a huge bonus. It really was. And so when you turn around and you say, “Okay, I’m out.” Two weeks later, you’re serious, you’re out of there. I’m like, “Okay, these guys are definitely serious.”
Eric Scheele:
So we turned to crews loose and we walked through it. So you were comfortable jumping in even before that you were like, “Okay, this is our one shot to make this happen. We’re going to make it happen and we’re going to do it. We’re going to really do it.”
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah. I was amazed at how smooth everything went. So you guys just came in, you took over and we didn’t have to really do anything. But I mean, we didn’t really do anything.
Eric Scheele:
Well, you took marching orders and you did it well, and you asked your questions ahead of time. Great teachers show up when great students walk the path. And so you were great students. You listened, you took advice, you trusted, which a lot of people have a hard time doing. By doing so, now we can look back and you were rewarded. Right? So we go to market, I think we’re in the house maybe fixing it for, I don’t know, three weeks, something like that.
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah.
Eric Scheele:
And probably had it listed within two weeks after that. I’m guessing. It’s Topeka and Topeka is a slower market than Kansas City in terms of selling. So my stats showed that we hopefully are going to have a contract in 37 days. And what happened?
Alithea Robertson:
Two weeks later.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah.
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah. We had a contract.
Eric Scheele:
That’s fantastic. And that was really surprised me. And we were talking about that earlier when the realtor from KCPG Realty group said, “We’re under contract,” I was like, “Really?” It’s like I should, I shouldn’t have been that way. I showed my cards. I was like, “Yeah, well I expected it.” No, I didn’t. I was like, “Really? That’s awesome. Well, that’s fantastic.” And so you guys now on a path, right?
Eric Scheele:
We flipped the script financially. We’ve taken you from a negative equity position, flipped it and got you into a positive equity position, right? Which we all celebrate. You’ve taken that equity and you have a plan, right?
Alithea Robertson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. You want to talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 1:
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Alithea Robertson:
Do you want to or?
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah, so the goal at this point and obviously selling the house was a big part of that is just being able to get out of debt this year is the goal. Open ourselves up to move out to Washington State and we really like it out there.
Eric Scheele:
You got a life path, man. You’re walking it.
Anthony Robertson:
Was it last year? It was very recent that he introduced me to Dave Ramsey and then we started following his steps to get out of debt and his baby steps.
Eric Scheele:
You’re entering my world.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah
A Creative Real Estate Solution
Eric Scheele:
Welcome. This is fantastic cause I love taking a creative real estate solution for home owners. I mean, literally we have Kansas foreclosure help as well. We help and reach out to people that are in foreclosures and we come up with strategic strategies to help people garner themselves out of foreclosure. And this is a big part of that, that willingness and really desire to help people with real estate problems. This is what drives me. And so you guys are now on a financial path through Dave Ramsey, which I’m a huge proponent of. So you’re on the baby steps, right? The house doesn’t necessarily have to come first.
Eric Scheele:
In fact, it typically doesn’t in Ramsey. You flip that script a little bit where you took that equity and I assume planned it towards debt, right? That puts you at which baby step.
Anthony Robertson:
So we’re at baby step two.
Eric Scheele:
Baby step two, you got your $1000 of savings, maybe a little bit more if you’re putting some stuff away and now you’re approaching and attacking debt from smallest to largest, right? And the big part of that debt is?
Anthony Robertson:
Student loans.
Alithea Robertson:
Student loans.
Eric Scheele:
Student loans. Student loans, which is a big part of a lot of people’s debt, yeah? And so your path, have you projected it out, your path to graduate or pay off all debt?
Alithea Robertson:
This summer.
Eric Scheele:
Summer? Really? When did we sell this house?
Anthony Robertson:
End of January.
Alithea Robertson:
January.
Anthony Robertson:
Very last day.
Alithea Robertson:
Last day of January.
Eric Scheele:
Within a few weeks. You’re telling me is this August, January, July? What do you think it’s going to be?
Alithea Robertson:
By the end of August is what I was thinking.
Eric Scheele:
You’re about to go from baby step one to baby step seven, and graduate in about eight months. Yeah?
Anthony Robertson:
We’re hungry.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. Good for you. Man, that’s so awesome. You realize that most people, it takes them on average two plus years to do that. And you’ve probably have been following Ramsey for some time. People typically, I don’t know if you’re the typical case, we were where a lot of times it’s a male figure or the task master who says, “All right, man, I’m all in on Ramsey. If we’re going to go, I don’t care if you’re coming with me or not.” And it doesn’t work out that way.
Eric Scheele:
But that’s the way it usually starts. And then once both couples kind of dive in together, then huge things are accomplished. And so you’re there. You both are hungry.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I guess that was more of a less [crosstalk 00:16:36] than Dave Ramsey, but same thing.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, right? God, that’s fantastic. So you guys are looking to maybe graduate by August and then by graduating off to Washington State you go, debt free.
Alithea Robertson:
Debt free.
Anthony Robertson:
And we wanted to do it right.
Eric Scheele:
Yes. Fantastic. Dave Ramsey, I hope you’re watching cause these guys are coming for you. Right? I hope I can talk to you sometime because I feel like we’re a big part of that with a lot of people’s story. But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen/ I’m still hungry to help people and I’m glad that you guys could be a part of that and could experience it firsthand. And now that you are on your path to being debt free and it’s life-changing.
Eric Scheele:
We talked about this earlier and I repeat a lot of stuff. What Ramsey says is that, “You create that new branch off your family tree.” You change history when you’re debt free, you really do. You set the tone for your kids and you’re able to eventually at some point, you give generously. And you’re able to give and from all of that you change from the inside out as well. That’s a fantastic life story. So I hope someday you can actually give that debt free scream and you’re headed there.
Anthony Robertson:
Well, I mean, just to kind of rewind just a little bit. I mean, one of the other parts that I think was really integral to all of this working out as well as it did, and I know Alithea mentioned how smooth everything when it was because of how upfront and transparent you were, right? “This is what’s going to take. This is the kind of commitment I need from you.” And then you also found out what we needed. So it was all two-way street communication, which is necessary. And we knew everything upfront at that point. We knew, right? Plans don’t mean anything unless you execute. So it was time to execute.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. Yeah. Right on. No really, really good points. And we are transparent. That’s the only way to be, that’s the only way that you can accomplish big goals. You can’t do it by hiding. And I’m going to tell you everything except this. And it doesn’t work that way. Because the except this comes up and bites you every time with that exception. So no, absolutely. Transparency is huge. And we show all those numbers, so we know what our goal is. We are in a partnership with a lot of this creative stuff.
Eric Scheele:
When we get into this bucket of creative solutionists, it becomes a partnership and part of that partnership has full transparency because if you’re not. And through experience, we’ve been bit through non-transparency and it doesn’t work out and so we talk about that upfront. And so that’s a really, really good point. So what’s next? You’re paying off the debt, right? You’re there. You’re, gosh, it sounds like you’re going to be there in no time. And then there’s going to be at some point a move to Washington State. You already know where you’re going?
Alithea Robertson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah.
Alithea Robertson:
Bellingham.
Eric Scheele:
Bellingham. Okay. All right. Anthony, you’re all in with this?
Alithea Robertson:
I actually-
Eric Scheele:
You’re a small town Kansas boy, right? You’re going to Washington State.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah. Would like to have a change of scenery. She had always told me that. She’s like, “Oh, you’d really love it here.” I’m like, “Ah, I don’t know.” I mean, I’ve been a few places, but then we went and hadn’t got to see all the scenery. And the big thing is here if you want to do outdoor activities, unless it’s winter, tons of bugs. And I got hassled by two bugs total in a whole week of being there and the scenery was beautiful. I had the ocean right there. The mountains are within an hour.
Eric Scheele:
Nice. You’re all that.
Anthony Robertson:
I was like, “Oh yeah, I want to live here.”
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, that’s unbelievable to me that you guys are going to move that quickly along that line. So any shout outs? We didn’t really talk about this, but here’s your opportunity to say any shout outs. Is there anybody that you want to reach out to or anybody kind of helping you along the way? Or is this like a self-commitment that you guys have kind of done on your own? Or is there a celebrity mentor out there that you kind of follow that’s a outside of Ramsey that’s motivating you? I mean, what’s really kind of sparking you on this journey?
Alithea Robertson:
Well, okay, it’s two things. The celebrity mentor is Tony Robbins. So shout out to him, but not that he’ll see.
Eric Scheele:
You’ll never know.
Alithea Robertson:
Well, we just came back from two of his events and life will never be the same, ever.
Eric Scheele:
Nice.
Alithea Robertson:
And then the other thing is you, I want to thank you for what you’ve done for us.
Eric Scheele:
Right on. No, it’s okay. The $50 is in the mail for that little plug. That’s not a problem. It’s coming. No. Yeah, I appreciate that. But it’s just what we do.
Alithea Robertson:
It was like you were a superhero. You came in, we were feeling really trapped. And then we feel like we got rescued. But I know we did a lot of it ourselves, but you did that.
Eric Scheele:
You did. And you did it by trusting and just let the resources work for you. The Pier and property guys and KCPG Realty Group, you trusted in the system and doing so you’re rewarded and that’s fantastic. Well, I appreciate the comment. You don’t mention me in the same sentence as Tony Robbins. That’s unequivocally not equal. The guy’s fantastic. In fact, a lot of our realtors are big proponents of Tony Robbins in terms of business motivation, life motivation, and you put those guys in the same conjunction and life path of a Ramsey solution formula.
Eric Scheele:
Ah, you guys don’t experience this. Now I’m, I’m fortunately a Ramsey graduate, but you are headed in a different path. I mean, one year from today, I want you back here. All right. I’m flying you back from Washington and we’re going to talk about what life is now.
Alithea Robertson:
All right.
Anthony Robertson:
Can it be in the fall?
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, It can be in the fall, but it doesn’t have to be in the winter.
Anthony Robertson:
Winter or summer are terrible months here.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, and that’s no problem. Well, it can be in the fall, but seriously, I would love to have you back here. You’re gleaming now, but you’re going to glow differently then. When you become debt free and you change life paths forever. And that’s the journey you’re on, which I think is just absolutely, I keep saying the word fantastic, but it is phenomenal. So congratulations.
Alithea Robertson:
Thank you.
Eric Scheele:
You’ve done a big chunk and you’re on your way.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah. Well, and just to kind of add on to hers. I mean, you were an integral part of this and then also just your whole team. Robin was also amazing. She was willing to take phone calls and texts, and work with us whatsoever with our traveling, which was not easy during this process.
Alithea Robertson:
In the middle of the night.
Anthony Robertson:
In the middle of the night.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. In fact, you went to Tony Robbins during this process, if I remember right.
Anthony Robertson:
Yes. Actually twice.
Eric Scheele:
Twice.
Alithea Robertson:
Twice. Yeah. In the beginning and during the closing. That’s funny.
Eric Scheele:
That’s right. That’s right. That is awesome.
Alithea Robertson:
Life changed.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah. Life changed forever.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah, but the whole team, everybody, all the different, the foundation guys, Robin with the Realty. I mean everybody made it super easy and were just really conducive.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, that’s a great testimonial and I appreciate you guys coming in and yeah, you’re welcome. But thank you for trusting it and in the end, you get the reward, right? So appreciate you coming in.
Anthony Robertson:
Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Alithea Robertson:
Yeah, thank you for having us.
Eric Scheele:
Yeah, you bet. So we’re going to wrap it up. So this is another episode of Kansas City Real Estate Industry Leaders and we will see you next week. 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.
Check out the rest of our Kansas City Real Estate Leaders Podcast episodes here. If you’d like to sell your house get in touch with us here!
