Ep 12: REI MBA - President of Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors Shares Insight on the Real Estate Market
On this episode, Jack Gross joins us for an interview. Jack brings a vast amount of experience and toughness as he leads all of us through 2020 as the President of Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors. Jack discusses the Lehigh Valley Market in comparison to some neighboring markets and why it is attractive to property owners.
Jack began his career in Real Estate at 19 years old, which has spanned 30+ years. In that time, he has been the recipient of numerous national sales awards from HUD, Fannie Mae, Coldwell Banker, Citicorp and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. He is President and CEO of two brokerages. Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Cassidon Realty, comprising of 60 agents, two offices in the Lehigh Valley and Cassidon Property Management that currently manages 500+ units for small to medium size investor/owners throughout the Lehigh Valley PA (Allentown, Bethlehem & Easton).
Currently, he is the 2020 President of the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors and member of the Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors. Jack preaches and speaks often about wealth building through real estate. His development company Petra Holdings LLC & JG Properties has been built over his career through the acquisition of under producing and distressed properties, redeveloping these opportunities, renting them and reinvesting the returns. To date he owns a portfolio of over 125 rental units and is proud of a very low LTV ratio. He is an approved PA Real Estate Instructor and an occasional speaker on subjects such as leadership, building wealth through real estate investment and a frequent article contributor to Inman News and other media outlets.
Most importantly, he is the father to two outstanding young men. They have been taught the value of good leadership, the necessity for strong work ethic and the need to laugh at oneself from time to time. They have been taught that a strike out is learning lesson and that management is doing things right, but leadership is doing the right things.
You can reach Jack through LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackgrossrealtor/
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Interview Transcripts
Tejas Gosai: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another one of your favorite episodes of RealEstateInvestorMBA.com. We have been pumping out some awesome shows for our guests in the community and we can't thank you enough for giving us a foothold here in the Lehigh Valley. We're really enjoying the guests that we've had on and we are bringing a lot of valuable information. So we transcribe our podcast on our website. You can read it. We also have it on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, we share it on LinkedIn, Facebook and iHeart Radio and we also have this video version that we transcribe as well. We're always looking for guests and we always want to talk about some different topics. So I'm super excited for the guest will have today. Here's my co-host Jeremy. Do you mind introducing our guest?
Jeremy Moyer: Absolutely. Thank you Tejas. Hello everyone. We have Jack Gross with us today. So I'm going to give a little bit of Jack's bio and then he can fill in the gaps. So Jack began his career in real estate at 19 years old, which has spanned 30+ years. In that time he's been a recipient of numerous national sales awards from HUD, Fannie Mae, Coldwell Banker, Citicorp and Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. He is the President and CEO of two brokerages. Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate & Cassidon Realty and comprising over 60 agents, two offices in the Lehigh Valley and Cassidon Property Management that currently manages 500+ units for small to medium-sized investor owners throughout the Lehigh Valley (the Allentown Bethlehem and Easton markets). Currently, he is the 2020 President of Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors and a member of the Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors. Jack preaches and speaks often about wealth building through real estate. His development company Petra Holdings and JG Properties has been built over his career through the acquisition of under producing and distressed properties, redeveloping these opportunities, renting them and reinvesting the returns. To date, he owns a portfolio of over a 125 rental units and is proud of a very low loan-to-value ratio. He is an approved Pennsylvania Real Estate Instructor and occasional speaker on subjects such as leadership, building wealth through real estate investment, and a frequent article contributor to Inman News and other media outlets. Most importantly, he is a father of two outstanding young men. They have been taught the value of leadership the necessity for a strong work ethic and the need to laugh at oneself from time to time. They've been taught that a strikeout is a learning lesson and that management is doing things right but leadership is doing the right things. Jack. Thanks so much for joining us this afternoon for the interview. There's a ton to unpack here. So let’s get right to it. So from building up two brokerages, a property management company, a sizable rental portfolio, and being the President of the Greater Lehigh Valley of Realtors. It's pretty impressive. So starting out, why did you start in real estate in the first place? And why are you still doing it 30 years later?
Jack Gross: Good question, and it was a great year to be the head of the Board of Realtor, I'll tell you that. But, I've been on my own since I was 14 years old. I live with my father and he was he was probably one of the first, if not the first, he was one of the dialysis patients in the Lehigh Valley. So back then the technology was very different. So he was pretty much in the hospital 90-95% percent of the time and the 5% of the time that he was home, he wasn't very functional. So from 14 till 18, 19 years old, I worked in retail at Rickel Home Center; also had two paper routes. I shoveled snow, I cut grass. I mean, at 14-15 years old, I was paying the oil guy. I was paying the electric bill. I was doing all those things. Then my dad died when I was....just turned 18 he had died. But you know, that was...it was a sad time, as it was a rough time, but it was also a new beginning for me because my dad.... One of his best friends was a gentleman named Bob Agentis who own a brokerage, a real estate brokerage on East Broad Street in Bethlehem. So at my dad's funeral, in talking to Bob. I hadn't seen him for a while. In talking to him, you know, he suggested that sometime in my you know, I should reach out to him and for a job and possibly become a Realtor. And situations were handled, came out and worked themselves out that, that opportunity became available three or four months later. I came home very frustrated one day from my retail job and for a silly thing and I called Bob and said, can I come work for you. And he said yes, you can. And I was signed up for real estate classes and there he went. Now I can tell you that in the first couple of years, I struggled. I won't lie. Not too many people...even back then, 98% of people in America, their largest asset was, is their home, just like it is today. So, you know, I'm a 18, 19, 20 year-old kid. I can't even drink legally yet. Not too many people are willing to entrust their largest asset to a kid. Some did so... I worked worked hard. I ate, slept and drank real estate.
Jeremy Moyer: That's an amazing story. That's awesome. So I mean over the years. I'm sure you've seen a lot of changes within the the industry, in the area here. Can you speak to any of that? And why do you like this market? Like, why didn't you just pick up and move to Virginia or to Florida or or another market?
Jack Gross: Well me personally I don't pick up and move. We're like a hub. Lehigh Valley is kind of like a hub. We are geographically blessed. And I say that because we are an hour and 15 (minutes) from New York, an hour to hour and 15 (minutes) from Philadelphia. If we want to go to the shore, we can go to the shore. If we want to go to the mountains, we can go to the Poconos. And you know because of that we're also, you know within 1/3 of the nation's pop....because I think it's like 1/3 of the nation's population within a few hours of our location. So, of course, you know the major employers in the country have realized that as well. So now we've got all these opportunities going on with manufacturing and warehousing. It kind of makes us, the Lehigh Valley, kind of like a hub, you know, you can get anywhere from anywhere. And I've seen us go from the manufacturing hub to a warehousing hub, and it's created other opportunities.
Tejas Gosai: Let me jump in on that. So, you know, we've had some previous guests that were immigrants that came to the Lehigh Valley and built up a whole entire world. And you know, we've seen so many visitors come here, but you've been here you've seen all these changes and now in a nice way you got stuck with us the year of COVID. But we've been on an exponential incline for the past few years and it's been difficult to explain to people that you know, the Valley is still performing extremely well pre, during and post COVID. You mind talking about how the past year and this year is different for you specifically dealing with all these Realtors like me who are freaking out?
Jack Gross: I'll tell you this you know....right now what we're seeing is, if I talk to some friends of mine who were in and out of the city...of New York City or on a daily or weekly basis and basically they are telling me they can't keep up with the moving trucks. So, you know, what we're seeing now is.... and we've always had some of this. You know people selling their townhouse or their duplex or Triplex from New York for $1, 2, 3 Million dollars and coming here and replacing that property, you know for 1/3 of the cost or whatever. So we always had some of that, but now it's ballooned beyond even what I expected, you know.
Tejas Gosai: When you say balloon, do you mean like now past COVID?
Jack Gross: Absolutely. It is because of COVID. People just leaving the city, you know. They're wanting to get out of New York, you know. And I don't we have the data right now in front of me, but just from talking to different agents and people within my own company, with other agents as well from outside my company. It's got to be 75% of the buyers out there that are New York buyers. I mean, it's pretty pretty extensive, you know, and I'm sure you're seeing is there's well. I mean, I went out to a good friend of mine from high school. He called me last year...year and a half ago, saying he wanted to sell his house. He was thinking about it. I went over. I don't do a lot of, you know, I don't represent a lot of buyer's or seller's anymore. But you know, I will take an occasional...a personal referral. But he said...I went out and back then I told him a year / year and a half ago. I said $300k - $310 or somewhere around that price range and then him and his wife decided to wait a little while. So now this is, you know year and a half later. He's calling me up now since now they are seriously thinking about going selling their home. And I went back over and I told him $360k - $370k So right then and there that's a 20% appreciation from a little over a year. You know, you break that down that's 2% per month. The last time we seen anything like that is and that's just one case but I mean, you know the last time we seen anything like that, in this area was back in the late 80s with the I-78 boom. The I-78 boom for us was when I first started in real estate. That was when 33 got connected to 78.
Tejas Gosai: Do you know what year that period was?
Jack Gross: Late 80's....87, 88, 89...somewhere in there.
Tejas Gosai: Just to frame it up though. You know, this is...22 was around, 33 was around, 78 didn't exist.
Jack Gross: Right. Well the extension of 78. 78 was extended into New Jersey. So what's different about this, was that was a one-off. You know what I mean? That was, with respect to just our region, for the most part. This is, what we're seeing now..... And the other thing I'll say is, people coming in from....you look at all the counties around us. We are primarily Lehigh, Northampton, and Carbon County. That's our footprint for our MLS. You look at Montgomery, Bucks. We're still...we're Walmart. Okay, so I mean, you know, they look at us... people from New York. We're flea market. Okay, we're Walmart to people from Montgomery and Bucks. We're a flea market to the people from New York, you know.
Tejas Gosai: That's good.
Jack Gross: You know, I mean, that's how I'm looking at this. Because it's like Christmas to them. And it's Christmas for me because I own a 100 some properties and I'm going over my portfolio last week and I'm recalculating my value based on from the last time I did a year ago and my values....my equity went up 10, 15, maybe 20 percent on many of my properties. So it's a great feeling for me.
Tejas Gosai: Yeah, Jeremy. Did you have one?
Jeremy Moyer: Yeah, yeah, I have a question. So Jack for our listener base is built up of novice investors, through some experienced investors. But for the novice crowd, if you're thinking about....you're seeing this jump in appreciation in the market. You're reading the stories of people moving here out of the cities and putting two and two together thinking this might be a good time to jump into real estate. You know, what would be some of your advice for those folks? Getting in the market now, buying their second or third rental property just some words of wisdom.
Jack Gross: I'm a little different than a lot of people. So I've always been a 'build wealth guy'. So a long-term, build wealth guy. Yes, I flip. I flipped a 150 properties in my career. I have. I'm not going to give up on a transaction of a deal, if it's a deal. But not every deal is a good rental. But, I've always, at heart, my primary focus and what I've always preached to people to be able to build wealth. I'll tell you....I've spoken, I've sold flip properties to many, many, many, many people and there are some people I sold 20, 30, 50 flip properties to. And a lot of the time they don't put their money back into their business and the money goes elsewhere. Whereas I took money from my business, from my real estate brokerage business, from any other business and put it into my real estate assets. Whereas most people don't do that. They are getting and they're flipping or they're doing whatever and they're taking that money's going elsewhere. I did not operate that way. But that's why I'm in the position....a very good position that I'm in today that I'm proud of, you know. So I don't think there's ever a bad time to get into real estate. I really don't. You know, on an upmarket, I mean, yes. Is it very, very difficult to find a deal now? Yes, it is. But it can be had if you work hard enough and you looked; you don't limit yourself from any possibilities or whatever. You sometimes got to be creative you know, in what you do. You know, you guys are outside the box thinkers. I like that, you know, and you got to be an "outside-the-box" person to be able to be an "acquirer" in this market, because you know the rules on these. You buy low, you sell high. You know, I don't know that we are done being high yet. So, I don't know.... I don't think we are.
Tejas Gosai: Yeah. Well that that...that's the billion-dollar question right? Because there's a very big consensus that... I mean every day, I'm getting calls from and I do a lot of commercial so every day it's like, you know. Should I wait? Should I wait? Should I wait? And I'm like no and you've lost a bunch of opportunities and asking all of these questions and not just coming and looking at inventory. And you know, a lot of people are discouraged from our Market because it's like it's almost impossible right now to get some inventory.
Jack Gross: I will tell you what I preach to my agents. In my real estate career, in the year 2000, I was featured in Realtor Magazine for the #2 agent in the country for units sold. Very proud of that.
Tejas Gosai: That's awesome.
Jack Gross: We sold 724 units that year. This was long before... I had a team before anybody knew what a team was.
Tejas Gosai: That's insane.
Jack Gross: And with team of 3 people. Anyways, you know, we did that but I've always... My first broker Bob Agentis is the smartest guy I ever.... I was blessed to be able to be mentored by him. Because, one of the things that he told me was, "if you have the groceries they have to shop in your store whether they like you or not." Now, I didn't understand what that meant when he told me that when I was 19 years old. When I was 22 when I was starving, I knew what he...I reflected on that conversation. I knew what he meant by that. And from that point forward, I can remember that I was always going to be a listing agent. My primary focus was going to be listings. Only because and now you're in a situation where...because I have my own agents will call me and they'll complain and yell and scream because you know, they were one of 20 offers and didn't get the deal, and they were $30k, $40k, $50k over list price. And I will say to them at that point. This is why Jack preaches what Jack preaches. If you are the listing agent, who's the one person guaranteed to get paid? It's that simple. I've always been....in my career, I was 80% Listing Agent, 15% Investor Buyer and 5% Buyer...probably less than that actually.
Tejas Gosai: That's amazing. I appreciate that. A lot of people don't know where the market's turning or what's happening. And I mean Jeremy you own a bunch of units as well. So, you know crystal ball wise, the selection plays a little bit of something. I have been saying, the Lehigh Valley is insulated, you know, you mentioned that as well. We have this perfect like microcosm. But yeah property prices are going up. You know, everybody's kind of flocking here and COVID, you said it, is the is the best marketing that we never really wanted but it's here. What does this mean for like the Lehigh Valley Realtors? Are there more Realtors now looking here because I remember pre-COVID it was like we had so many new Realtors moving to this market and you know, the the orientation classes are like 70 people now, so you must be seeing some changes in that regard.
Jack Gross: Me?
Tejas Gosai: Yeah.
Jack Gross: Okay. Yeah, yes we're seeing a lot less people getting into the business. Well, I will say this. We didn't...as a, from a board perspective, from the MLS perspective. We did not see.... We expected a 20% decline in licensing, you know people just getting out of the business from you know, but we didn't see that. Right now, we're at around 2,600 members in our local board and now we're starting to see it ramp up again where people are getting into the business. I mean, I will say this and I'm an optimistic guy. I'm always an optimist. I'm outside the box person, but right now it is tough. Like I've had people ask me, 'Jack, how do I get my real estate license?' You know and depending on their makeup and what type of person they are, you know, I'm a realist and I like...I don't like to blow sunshine at people. You got to be a certain, you have to be a certain mindset and very, you know to be able to do this for a living. Because the statistics haven't changed. In fact they're probably even more so today...10% of us make 90% of the money. And you know, if you're not going to be in that 10%..... It's not easy to be in that 10%. It's not. It's an 80 hour a week deal. You know, it's a major commitment. Sometimes there's sacrifices, personal sacrifices, family sacrifices. I'm not seeing a great deal of people getting into the business...maybe moving in from the outside the area. But it's been pretty consistent, even after COVID. I would say that.
Jeremy Moyer: That's interesting. So Jack I want to kind of go in a little different direction with questioning. Do you mind.....your investment properties, do you mind going over a sample deal that you did recently? Like what you bought it for, rehab you had to put in it, what you're renting it for...refinance? How did you structure it....the financing, etc? Just to kind of give the listeners an idea of you know, someone just starting out like, how do I do this? How can I piece this together? How do the numbers work?
Jack Gross: All right, so I'm a cash guy. And I buy mostly distressed stuff. So it's been very difficult for me to buy anything as well. I buy a lot of sheriff sales stuff, a lot of tax sale things, sometimes off the MLS, you know sometimes I will get a phone call and somebody just wants to get out of something, you know. They know that....they're referred to me or they know that I buy properties. But typically I'm going to buy...I buy cash and what I'm looking to do is to create value. So I'm looking for in the fact that it is distressed. Maybe needs a kitchen, maybe needs maybe if it's a residential single-family residential maybe needs a kitchen, roof, windows. It might, you know, we've done everything from studs up, you know. So what I'm looking for is to...I am looking to I will refi. I'm a low....but I don't necessarily refi all of the money I have into it out of it. I don't. I know that's odd but I am not...I'm at a different stage than some of your people might be in and that I'm not looking for that you know that cash that....I want my, I want my loan to value to be very very low. My goal, personal goal, and this is where a lot of people screw up. My personal goal, when I decide to quit, if I ever decide to quit. I would want to walk away with 50 paid off properties. That's just my goal.
Jeremy Moyer: Jack, were you always like that? Like when you started buying properties, maybe what 20 years ago...were you always...did you max out your cash out? Like have a higher LTV or were you always more on the conservative side like a slow build wealth type of approach?
Jack Gross: No, there was a couple times I did max out my LTV only because I needed the money for other deals. Okay, but see, I don't look at....at this stage of the game, I don't look at it as a per property deal. To me, I look at it from a portfolio standpoint. Okay, so that changes things a little bit and I understand when you're starting out. Sometimes you can't do that. You gotta, you gotta look at....you got to max out because you need...you want those funds to be able to put into another project. I get that. But I'm not there right now.
Jeremy Moyer: That makes sense.
Tejas Gosai: Before you jump forward, I got to ask. Did you have the foresight to think of it as a portfolio in your first acquisitions when you were like...I'm buying this because right...that was your goal with a plan.
Jack Gross: Here's what happened to me. I always made very good money when I was on the street selling. Okay, I mean I was one of the top agents in the country for years. But I'm driving down the road one day on Broad Street in Bethlehem. West Broad Street in Bethlehem coming from the closing. And gentlemen that I had closed for, I found the property for him. I rehabbed the property for me. I sold the property for him. I went to closing for him. Okay, he saw the property one time for 10 minutes and I made him a lot of money. So anyways, you know now I make good money doing that. Okay, but I'm driving back to my office and thinking to myself, you know, I'm making all these guys millionaires. And why am I doing this? Because if the market goes south tomorrow, I'm screwed. And these guys are still going to be having their properties, or some of them will still have their properties and do whatever. So that's when I decided I need to start buying, so I started to buy, but I had a problem. Because I'm buying, but I'm also working 80 to 100 hour weeks. I had a wife and two kids I had...you know, I was a workaholic. I would go two days without sleeping sometimes. There was...I mean I was I was insane. But I wouldn't do the same way today anyways, but you learn. But I understood, but I had a problem because I was buying now I'm buying properties, but I wasn't maintaining them well. You know because I didn't...it would go vacant and I didn't have time to get somebody in there. And this was long before property management became a real thing, okay. Okay, this is back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Property management was not what it is today. You didn't see many property management companies, you know. So I basically started doing it myself, you know and creating that aspect and after the third or fourth one, you know, I didn't....I knew that I had a goal of 20 properties within a certain period of time. And I reached that goal, but that's how I....that's how I had to look at it. I had to look at it from a portfolio standpoint. Because there was you know, if I looked at it on a case-by-case, every time there was you know, if a roof went bad or a heating system went bad and if I'm looking at that from a case-by-case basis. Some of these properties you're only cash flowing $300 a month or whatever it is. That's your profit for the year. So my goal was to get as big as I could. So that all those things become minuscule after a while. You know what I mean? It's all one. That's a small tiny piece of the pie. It doesn't have a devastating effect on that piece of on that pie. You know what I mean? As it did if I only bought one or two, you know, so that's how I just looked at.
Jeremy Moyer: So from the portfolio perspective like do you still get individual loans for every property you refi out of? Do you have a do a portfolio lender...several properties group together? How does that look?
Jack Gross: My advice would be to never work with one lender. You need to spread your lenders out. I work with 5 different lenders; commercial lenders. I watched what a commercial lender can do to an individual guy.
Jeremy Moyer: Can you share some of that just so our listeners understand why?
Jack Gross: I had a client...friend / client that I sold some properties to. He didn't have...he was a huge or anything like, that but he had 14, 15 properties and between them maybe, 25 units or something like that. I walked into his office one day and he was paler than I am and was very upset. And I said, you know my God was the matter? He goes, 'the bank just called my loans'. You know the bank just called my loans. What am I gonna do right? Right, but the market had just turned and the bank decided they were going to be more conservative now, but the market had turned a few months...a month before, you know, and the projections for the market was not good, you know. So he wound up, you know, losing some of his properties and he was he was leveraged high and he wound up losing some of them and having to sell, you know, others and stuff like that and wound up out of the business. So I learned from that; that experience and I don't exclusively use one commercial lender.
Jeremy Moyer: So Jack, do you mind just again, I just want to dive a little deeper here..."calling a loan". How can a bank you that? I understand how, but just to explain to the listener. How can a bank do that?
On a commercial note...a lot of times in a commercial note they can basically say games over we decided want our money, you know. So make sure you read the fine print in your commercial notes, you know and understands what that means. Especially understand what personal guarantee means. In Pennsylvania, there's also personal guarantees on these things. Meaning that....they don't only get one. They don't only take or go after the property that the loan is against. They can go after your other stuff too. So understand all that stuff. My Bible says not to be a servant to the lender. That's what I subscribe myself to.
Tejas Gosai: You are honestly a lot of like what was the reason that we created this podcast was because people don't talk about the exact answer from a perspective of someone like you and I mean you have a big name, so it's fun to be able to hear this from you. I'm going to...we're going to have to start wrapping up a bit. But we're probably going to have you back on the show because you're great.
Jack Gross: Thank you.
Tejas Gosai: So one big thing that has affected all of us and all the Realtors and this market is there are... I wouldn't say this is a bad thing but coming soon and Off Market stuff and pocket listings and things like that have been nationally recognized from the Realtor Association and I have dealt with this a lot because I do a ton of commercial and it is big commercial and sometimes there are sellers that may not want to go on the MLS or stuff like that. But I'm a licensed realtor. I'm in the MLS. So I am now required to you know, use the MLS, throw the property online and this happened because there was discrimination I can say where you know, maybe there was somebody like me who had a $5 Million dollar property and I wasn't sharing it with somebody who was less fortunate because I didn't think they were a potential buyer and I'm just using this as an example to explain where we're at. But you know rules have changed regulations have changed and this "coming soon" thing has been like the pinnacle of you know, the MLS and a lot of complaints and issues and agents, you know yelling each other. And it's because of the supply and the demand, you know. The demands up here, the supplies here, you could sell a property in a different way, but that might not be to the best advantage of the seller. And my last point is what what I have said months ago, is with COVID, with what's going on, if your Realtor and you don't put your sales or you don't put your stuff into the MLS, you're actually hurting me, you're hurting my investors and you're hurting the legacy of our market because the appraisers don't have those numbers to look at and I've been a big proponent of we need to get the data in there so that the appraiser is get this and you know, if we're missing a $10 million dollar sale or something. It's going to hurt us. I know that was a big warm-up. Can you tell us what will be happening with the Realtor Association and the coming soon issues?
Jack Gross: So basically what's going on is...back in November / December, I was out as NARs convention in California long before COVID started. And I was there when they voted for 8.0. And what 8.0 is... it says whenever you actively, when you've listed property, the moment that you initially give information or share information or market that property to the public in any way, shape or form, within 24 hours it has to be put into the MLS. So if you put a sign out front, if you make a flyer, okay, if you, so no more, if you put it on social media and say coming soon. Okay within 24 hours it's got to be on that. And you know NAR did this because of...a lot of 'coming soon' was being...a lot of complaints about it being abused, you know quite honestly and I'm sorry, I do agree with 8.0 to a point. Because, I'm sorry, I have not heard a good argument yet for how not exposing a property to the most number of people you possibly could, how that is beneficial to the seller. I have not heard a good argument about that yet. Are there certain cases where, I don't know what celebrity or a notorious person or whatever, does not they only.... I mean, in my career...32 years, and understand this, I sold over 8,000 properties. Okay...probably more than 10,000 actually. I've never sat down and counted, but It's over 8. I know that. In 8,000 transactions only one time in my career, did the seller say to me, I only want you in my house...only you. Because I trust only you. And it happened to be an elderly gentleman who had a lot of art inside of his house. So I mean, you know, okay, so I still cooperated with other agents, you know, but they couldn't go inside of his out. I showed their buyer, you know whenever but I mean. I don't have a problem with it from that standpoint, you know from the fact that I...it is my belief that the more exposure a property has to a ready, willing and able buyer-pool, the more that, that seller is going to achieve in that sale. You're seeing that right now in our current market, where you're seeing $300,000 properties listed at to $299,900 and they're selling for $360k.
Tejas Gosai: We have this now amazing market that's been on this amazing incline and then we had COVID and now we have this incline. So, you know, all these appraisers have to get the data right. And so when we have this much change, it's difficult to comp properties and things like that unless you have the data. And I don't think other agents take enough time to understand that because it's such a big deal. And from my world, doing a lot of multifamily and Commercial, you know, we have the income approach and it's different on you know other properties. So, you know, I guess I just also wanted to say like, you know, this is an issue for all of us not just us as the Realtors, you know, it's the appraisers. It's the inspectors. It's the investors. It's the people coming here. It's the resales in four or five years. It's everything and you administer that. So thank you. Thanks for being awesome. And I hope it works with this coming soon.
Jack Gross: Also too, if you look at it too, in our local market, there's a difference in the market pre-April 1st to post-April 1st. So I mean when you're looking at comps now in our local market, you really got to focus on after April 1st because that's when things really heated up even more so than normal.
Tejas Gosai: Awesome. Well I got my question out. Jeremy do you want to ask our last question?
Jeremy Moyer: Sure. Absolutely. So Jack we asked this question for everyone. It's a fun question. So what's your favorite restaurant in the Lehigh Valley area?
Jack Gross: Oh boy.
Tejas Gosai: And everyone does that.
Jack Gross: Right now, right now, I gotta say, it the Silver Creek Steel Club. Down in Hellertown. That's my favorite.
Jeremy Moyer: Perfect.
Tejas Gosai: Thank you Jack for everything. This means a lot and we hope to have you back the program in the future. You're you know, you're our President. You're literally dealing with the worst year ever..... But…Honestly a lot of what we talked about on the program, and on the previous ones if you ever listen, a lot of the investors and people we talked to, they first talked about mindset before they talk about real estate and you pretty much did the same thing and it's cool to see what you did. I mean you're tough as nails, clearly with everything you've been through, so there's no other better President to have to get us through all this, so I appreciate it.
Jack Gross: Thank you very much. That was very kind words. Thank you very much.
Tejas Gosai: All right guys, this is Real Estate Investor MBA. That's my co-host Jeremy Moyer. We have Jack Gross here today. We're going to have everything online. Give us about 72 hours and thank you all for the support and Jack will have you on in a couple months.
Jack Gross: No problem. Anytime. Thank you.
