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489: Strategic Loan Options for Real Estate Investors, Mortgage Rate Forecast

Complete episode transcript:

Keith Weinhold (00:00:01) - Welcome to gray. I'm your host, Keith Reinhold. An affordable way to simultaneously invest like a billionaire. Get diversified in multiple ways with real estate. Help the earth. And if you prefer, even achieve residency in a second nation today and get rich education. When you want the best real estate and finance info, the modern internet experience limits your free articles access, and it's replete with paywalls. And you've got pop ups and push notifications and cookies. Disclaimers are. At no other time in history has it been more vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that actually adds no hype value to your life? See, this is the golden age of quality newsletters, and I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor and it's to the point to get the letter. It couldn't be more simple text gray to 66866. And when you start the free newsletter, you'll also get my one hour fast real estate course completely free. It's called the Don't Quit Your Daydream letter and it wires your mind for wealth.

Keith Weinhold (00:01:16) - Make sure you read it. Text gray to 66866. Text gray 266866.

Corey Coates (00:01:28) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.

Keith Weinhold (00:01:44) - What category? From Sorrento, Italy to Sacramento, California, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Reinhold, and you're listening to get Rich education the Voice of Real Estate since 2014. As we're two months into the year now and the US economy has continued to stay strong. Let me ask, how's your portfolio doing and how resilient is your real estate? How diverse is it? How would you grade yourself on those criteria?

Donald Trump (00:02:17) - I would give myself, I would look, I hate to do it, but I will do it. I would give myself an A-plus. Is that enough? Can I go higher than that?

Keith Weinhold (00:02:29) - Well, well, whether your, I guess, straight A's or not. Consider this land report.com. They recently published a report about America's top 100 Las donors. Now, Lynn could be vacant and nonresidential, yet have active ranching or agriculture or forestry taking place.

Keith Weinhold (00:02:52) - That way the land produces something while it might increase in value at the same time. But the reason that often land is the domain of the wealthy is that it's harder to get loans for land, and therefore one must often pay all cash. Well, by the time they were done. Today, you'll learn about producing land that's actually available at such a low price point that alone typically is not required for you to buy it. In 2024, America's largest land owner is Red Emerson, and that's what the report found. Read and his family owned 2.4 million acres in California, Oregon and Washington through their Timber products company and the number since they became America's largest landowners in 2021, when they acquired 175,000 acres in Oregon from another timber company. Well, with that acquisition, the Emerson surpassed Liberty Media chairman John Malone's 2.2 million acres. And then in third place is CNN founder Ted Turner. Yeah, he's America's third largest landowner, with 2 million acres in the southeast on the Great Plains and across the West. And it was a few years ago now.

Keith Weinhold (00:04:05) - It was 2020 when news broke that Microsoft co-founder Bill gates was America's largest farm land owner, with more than 260,000 acres. So the wealthy are attracted to real assets that can produce yield in something like land, which they aren't making more of. That's the backdrop for today. Surely we'll talk about income producing land, although most years it won't pay out and it's available to any investor, big or small. But before we do, let me share that. About ten days ago, I climbed up the highest point on Earth here while we're talking about non-residential real estate. Well, where was it? Where was I? Yes, I was on Earth's highest piece of real estate. Kind of a trivia question here, and I used to think that that must mean Mount Everest, but it's not. So there's a clue for you there. Where is Earth's highest point is you ponder that. I'll give you the answer later. Let's talk about investing like a billionaire with the opportunity to own producing land did it to you? We've discussed this topic before, but it's been quite some time and there have been some important updates, including a sawmill for the production timber.

Keith Weinhold (00:05:32) - After success in the computer industry, today's guest formed ECI development in 1996. I suppose going on nearly 30 years now. He served on advisory boards for the Na as a resort community developer. They have projects in Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, and neighborhoods include homes, condominiums, golf courses and over five miles of beachfront. So they got some really beautiful properties. He and I first met in person in 2016. He and his family lived in Central America from 2002 to 2016. It's always fantastic to have back on grea, and I guess I must button up here because it is the chairman and CEO, Michael Cobb. It's good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Michael Cobb (00:06:21) - Back on the show. It's fun to have these conversations. I didn't realize we met in 2016. That's a little while ago.

Keith Weinhold (00:06:27) - Yeah, it has been eight years. Yes, we met in the region then down there and Mike's about the most relatable and down to earth guy that you can find and literally down to earth is.

Keith Weinhold (00:06:41) - Besides the resort development, you've made it easy and inexpensive for investors worldwide to buy producing teak tree parcels. But before we discuss that, you've got a project that's drawn a lot of interest on Ambergris Key, Belize, which many of our listeners already know, that's Belize's largest island and its top tourist destination. I have visited and owned property there, and it's coming online next year. It's pretty exciting. Tell us about it.

Michael Cobb (00:07:08) - It is exciting. It's been in the works for goodness, eight years. I think we signed our contract with Marriott maybe 7 or 8 years ago. We started construction just about a year ago last January. So almost exactly a year. Yeah, it's a marriott resort, 202 room oceanfront resort. It's fantastic. It will be done in August of 2025. Soft opening heart opening October 25th. So yeah, about 1618 months from now have this project finally finished. You know, the big challenging thing in this part of the world is financing. But it's really hard to get financing or affordable financing.

Michael Cobb (00:07:42) - Let me say it that way. Yeah. And so we took our time and we would not start a project until it was fully funded. I think a lot of challenges are people start these projects are kind of betting on the. Com. Right. Oh well we'll figure it out later. And we don't operate that way. We've been around for yeah 28 years. And so we're very very conservative. And until we had all the money to build the hotel, the resort, we did not start. And so we kicked it off last January. It was just down there last week. Steel is arriving. The superstructure is already going up. Yeah, man. It's just so nice to see it really coming to fruition. But you know, it's prudence and patience to take our time, make sure we have all the funding and then launch so that what we start finishes. And that's really been our mantra for almost three decades now.

Keith Weinhold (00:08:27) - Make it up, make it real, make it happen. In the largest town there on Ambergris Key, Belize, just a few decades ago, it was still this sleepy fishing village.

Keith Weinhold (00:08:37) - And with the setting that that island has and all the great snorkeling and everything else, it's really become popular and is boutique hotels grew into larger hotels. Yeah, it was probably, what, ten years ago perhaps, that you saw some of these big brands start to take more of an interest, like Hilton and Marriott, in branding the buildings what is.

Michael Cobb (00:09:00) - And, you know, I give a presentation called Why Belize, Why Right Now? And you nailed it there when you talked about the timelines. Right. And how a country or a region, it's not even a country in this case. Ambergris key. It's very specific. Right. How ambergris Key Belize has moved through this timeline, this path of progress. And at some point it goes from being a niche market or a no name market to a niche market, to a boutique market. And then all of a sudden, you're right, at some point the brand start to pay attention and then you move into popular acceptance and really mainstream tourism. And so, right.

Michael Cobb (00:09:31) - The cruise ships started going to Belize about 15 years ago, which put Belize as a country into the mind of a more mainstream traveler. And then you're right, about eight, ten years ago, the brand started to pay attention. And we do. We have a Hilton, we have a curio by Hilton, we have an autograph by Marriott, our company, ECI. We picked up the best Western franchise, and so we operate a Best Western on the island for that middle class market. And then Marriott, obviously, for the very high end traveler who wants an oceanfront 4 or 5 star kind of property. So yeah, but the brands are paying attention. And by the way, we're just seeing the beginning of that happening. This popularity curve Belize has entered what I would call the fast growth period. And over the next five, maybe eight years, we're going to see incredible growth in the tourism industry. Airlift is up. JetBlue just started flying down. So we're starting to WestJet. So we've got Canadian Air.

Michael Cobb (00:10:22) - We've got a discount carrier southwest. So when those things start to happen what you see is a market dynamism that's you know really it's exciting and it's going to change. Very, very rapidly. The pace of change is going to grow rapidly as well. So great time to look at Belize. If folks are interested in sort of that positioning in the path of progress in the marketplace.

Keith Weinhold (00:10:43) - Each time I visit Ambergris Key, Belize, the level of development increase is palpable. And, you know, this is an opportunity for a US or Canadian buyer or a buyer from outside that nation to come in. And it's just a very easy step with the English language and the common law in Belize, where you can invest yourself in this Marriott project that Mike discussed. Now, Mike, a while ago, to change topics, you recognize that the world has been really deforested and losing its valuable teak hardwood forests so continuously since 1999, you've offered a program so that individual investors at a really affordable price. We'll get to that price later.

Keith Weinhold (00:11:30) - They can own quarter acre parcels with the property deeded in their name, and reap the benefits and returns from the growth of the teakwood on top of the land. And now this is pretty novel, because for hundreds of years, only the hedge funds and super wealthy had access to an investment like this. So get us up to date with what you're doing on the teak hardwoods, because I know that so many of our listeners and viewers have already gotten involved.

Michael Cobb (00:11:56) - They haven't really. Thank you for being one of the people who put the word out there. Right? Because most people don't even know you can own teak or let's just back it up and you say, own timber, right? You start there. You're right. Only the super rich land barons, hedge funds. Those are the people that have always owned timber for centuries. Right. And so I think in most people's minds it's like, oh, I can't even get there. How would I even do that? Right. Well, then you take it overseas and you take it into something very, very specific, like teak timber.

Michael Cobb (00:12:25) - That's just not on anyone's radar. So. So you have done a great job. Thank you for getting the word out to just let folks know that this is something that they can do. So quarter acre teak parcels. We are now on our third plantation in Panama. We have one in Nicaragua as well. And so we're in our third plantation in Panama. Just because of the incredible number of folks, well over a thousand folks now who have decided they want to invest in own teak. You said something really interesting, Keith. You said you get to own the land, you get title to land and you get the harvest of the trees. That's absolutely correct. But it gets better because when the trees are harvested, they get replanted. And then the next generation of people your children, your grandchildren, whoever that might be, get the next harvest. But because you still own the land and the trees are replanted, a third harvest, you know, and a fourth harvest. So what you've really created with teak ownership is generational wealth stewardship.

Michael Cobb (00:13:24) - And that is something that's just so far beyond the comprehension of so many people that it can be so easy and so affordable to do.

Keith Weinhold (00:13:32) - I'm an investor myself in producing land like this in Latin America, so I know what some of my reasons are for being interested in this. And yes, it's more than the fact that I'm just a geography guy. It's the fact that I know I'm diversifying in multiple ways at the same time, a different product type in residential real estate. And I'm getting international diversification in a different nation, for starters. So are those some of the reasons that you see for why so many people are interested in teak investing like this? What are their reasons?

Michael Cobb (00:14:05) - Yeah, I think you've nailed a big part of it, which is the hard asset. A lot of folks, your listeners, readers in the news that are right, I mean, hard assets are important. I hope more people recognize that. Right. And more and more people are, thank goodness. So hard. Asset real estate being this particular hard asset.

Michael Cobb (00:14:22) - Right. And then the international diversification, one of the challenges we have is us, especially in Canadians to some degree, is that we kind of locked into the US system like we can own, say, Toyota stock, right? Japanese company, we can own Nestlé, a Swiss company, but generally we're doing it on the New York Stock Exchange. And so even if we own an international stock, it's still the US basket are still the Canadian basket that we hold it in. Right. And so when you physically own a titled property outside your home country, you have now truly diversified internationally. And there's a lot of prudence in that. And even just tiny little percentages of your portfolio, 5% of your portfolio, 10% of your portfolio outside your home country and hard assets is prudent because you want some other baskets for those nest eggs. Antiqued because it's such a low price point of entry with a huge yield, by the way, that it has become very, very popular for folks who want that international diversification in a hard asset.

Michael Cobb (00:15:23) - But to have the true international diversification because it's a physical asset outside your home country. And then I. Just say this and we can pick up on the theme or not. The other reason that people are looking at teak in Panama and Nicaragua, by the way, both countries, is because of the availability or the qualification for a visa for a second residency. And a lot of times people look at that as a plan B, if we kind of think maybe the US is going off the rails or Canada or wherever your home country is at, or it could go off the rails. Doesn't have to be now. It could be going off the rails in the future. You sort of that Boy Scout mentality of, you know what, I want a plan B, and if we have a second residency outside our home country, we now have an option. If we don't like the way things are going or where they get to, we can actually pick up and we can move and we have the right legal right, because we have a residency to live in another country.

Michael Cobb (00:16:17) - That's another reason that a lot of people have picked up the teak because it qualifies you for that residency. But I think the bigger reason is the international hard asset diversification. I think that's the leading reason people do it.

Keith Weinhold (00:16:31) - I want to ask you more about the residency shortly, but tell us more about the investment. We're thinking about maybe capital growth as the trees grow. And then what about the income?

Michael Cobb (00:16:42) - Sure. And so I think let me back it up. A lot of people think in cash flow cycles, right? If we have a job, we get paid every two weeks. You know, you have a lot of folks that have invested in properties. We get a monthly rent check, right? Or if we have stocks, maybe we get a quarterly or annual dividend. Right. So those are the what I would call the common time frames that we think about in cash flow. But what the Uber wealthy, what the hedge funds, what the family offices, what the endowment for places like Harvard, Yale, these big institution or big institutional thinkers have known for centuries is that there are actually other cash flow cycles that are largely ignored by the what I would say, the average investor.

Michael Cobb (00:17:21) - And those cash flow cycles are much longer. Teak, for example, is a 25 year cash flow cycle, right? You plant the trees and in 25 years you harvest them. You plant them again, not them. You plant new ones, right? In 25 years you harvest those and then so on and so on. So what you're creating is this 25 year cash flow machine. Now the kinds of returns are truly outsized. I mean you're talking about double digit ers. Now a lot of people say, well Mike, that's great. But what happens if I need the money in year 15? You can't have it because there is no money in year 15. Your trees are still growing, right? So it's this weird investment timeline. It's almost flatlined until the very end. And then it jumps way up and then it drops back down to a flatline again. And so it'd be silly to put tons of money into teak unless you had thousand times tons of money, right? But for some small piece of your investment portfolio where you have enough cash flow coming in from your maybe your job, your rent, your dividends, whatever, that a small piece that moves into this 25 year cash flow cycle with the thought process that this is how I steward wealth into the future, to children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, because the 25 year cycle is almost generational, right? In fact, in the US, it probably is generational because we're having children in the ages of, you know, 25 to 30.

Michael Cobb (00:18:44) - So it kind of starts to line up with generational income as opposed to, you know, sort of that whatever biweekly, monthly, yearly income. So it's just a different cash flow cycle.

Keith Weinhold (00:18:56) - That's right. And I brought up before that, when you think about the growth of one of your investments, you now get to think about it in two ways. If you own a duplex, it might have growth in its price. However, it doesn't grow into a fourplex and have growth in its price. However, with teak, you might have an increase in the value of the wood, perhaps on a board foot unit basis, and at the same time it is growing in height and volume.

Michael Cobb (00:19:26) - Absolutely no. That's a cute way to say it. I never really thought about a duplex growing into a fourplex, right? That's good. Exactly. And so what you do, you're right. You have the physical growth of the trees. And we have located our plantations in the optimal growing conditions, fatigue. And they are very known.

Michael Cobb (00:19:42) - Right? I mean, the British started plantation growing teak 350 almost 400 years ago in Southeast Asia. And so the Brits have just meticulously kept statistical records of every plantation that they were involved with the altitude, soil type, rainfall, temperature, on and on and on. And so it's really well known exactly where teak will grow well, and both where we have our plantations, it does Nicaragua and Panama, and we'll stick on Panama today, but the locations are dead center bull's eye locations for the best optimal growing of teak. So you have this growth of a physical thing, right. But you mentioned the board foot price. And by the way, the track record on teak being grown in plantations is 350 years. So what a track record, right? But since 1970. Two. The average price of teak over 5152 years has been 5.5% a year. That's the growth in the price of teak, right? And so you know who knows the future, right? I mean, the future is the future, right.

Michael Cobb (00:20:44) - But if a 50 year track record on a 5.5% increase in the value of the teak itself is pretty powerful, right? That's the long track record of nice growth. And when we factor in our teak into our business plan, we take that 5.5 and we make it zero. We just say, what if there is no increase in the price of teak over 25 years? How much will the tree grow? And if that tree is cut down and is sold as lumber? When we'll talk about our Solomon in a minute. If that tree is sold as lumber, what's the value of that lumber today? And what will the tree be worth in that value 25 years from now? And so if things do continue to increase at 5.5% a year, that's just all gravy. And that just starts to take that rate of return and just ratcheted up even further.

Keith Weinhold (00:21:33) - Teak has a number of physical properties that make it valuable, from its beauty to its fire resistance and more. Mike has now touched on a few interesting things.

Keith Weinhold (00:21:44) - We'll come back and talk about that soon, including how you can achieve residency in Panama by owning teak, what the risks are, and more about their sawmill that he just mentioned, adding value to the operation there. And then we're going to talk about what the prices are. We're talking with ECI Development Chairman and CEO Michael Cobb more when we come back. I'm your host, Keith Wynn. You know, I'll just tell you, for the most passive part of my real estate investing, personally, I put my own dollars with Freedom Family Investments because their funds pay me a stream of regular cash flow in returns, or better than a bank savings account, up to 12%. Their minimums are as low as 25 K. You don't even need to be accredited for some of them. It's all backed by real estate and that kind of love. How the tax benefit of doing this can offset capital gains and your W-2 jobs income. And they've always given me exactly their stated return paid on time. So it's steady income, no surprises while I'm sleeping or just doing the things I love.

Keith Weinhold (00:22:52) - For a little insider tip, I've invested in their power fund to get going on that text family to 66866. Oh, and this isn't a solicitation. If you want to invest where I do, just go ahead and text family to six, 686, six. Role under this specific expert with income property, you need Ridge Lending Group and MLS for 256 injury history from beginners to veterans. They provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four Plex's. Start your pre-qualification and chat with President Charlie Ridge personally. They'll even customize a plan tailored to you for growing your portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending group.com Ridge lending group.com.

Speaker 5 (00:23:49) - This is the Real World Network's Cathy Fekete, and you are listening to the always valuable get Rich education with Keith Reinhold.

Keith Weinhold (00:24:06) - You're listening to the SOS created more financial freedom for busy people just like you than nearly any show in the world. This is guitarist education. I'm your host, Keith Whitehill. We're talking with ECI development chairman and CEO Mike Cobb about teak hardwood investing in Panama and Nicaragua.

Keith Weinhold (00:24:22) - Like, tell us more about how one can achieve residency, for example, in Panama if they own teak there maybe just how residency varies from citizenship?

Michael Cobb (00:24:33) - Sure. Well, why don't we start with the second part, how residency differs from citizenship. And there's a good place to start. You know, citizenship is you become a citizen of the country. You have a passport, you can vote. You have every legal right of that country. Right. The decision would have residency to use a US term is like a green card, right? It's the legal permission to live in that country for some period of time. Many of them are permanent. In fact, Panama's is permanent. So once you have a Panama permanent residency, you could literally pick up, you could move there tomorrow, and you could live for the rest of your life in Panama. And so it gives you the legal right to live there. But you don't have a passport. You can't vote. I guess that's the main difference, right? You don't have a passport, you can't vote.

Michael Cobb (00:25:18) - But for most people, in fact, the overwhelming majority of people, a residency delivers exactly what somebody wants, which is the ability to live somewhere. Right? And we don't care if we vote or not. I mean, right, we'd still be citizens of our home country, US, Canada, or wherever we can vote back home or citizen. We have our passport from those countries, but the right to live somewhere else is powerful. And so the teak in Panama qualifies you in two ways for two quarter acre parcels, and then the legal fees and stuff like that. It's just under 22,000. A little less gives you permanent residency in Panama. Right? That's such an affordable way to be able to I call it the back pocket. Right. The insurance policy or the plan B in the sense that, like, I think a lot of folks are worried about the direction things are headed. And, you know, you have the teak parcels, which are going to produce a tremendous return. And then this byproduct that you qualify for and you have to go, you have to get down there a couple times.

Michael Cobb (00:26:16) - I mean, there's a little bit of administrative stuff, some legal fees, that's all included in that 22,000. Right. So that's all included. You have to go there a couple times. So there's a little bit of friction I would say. But when you get finished with that friction, you are a permanent resident of Panama and you only have to go there one day every two years. So you fly down every other year, whatever. Go, go talk to your trees, maybe sing to your trees a little bit, whatever you want to do and fly. All right. And you have a permanent residency. So it's a very easy, fast way to get that plan B now in the future, if you ever said, well, I really love Panama, I'd like to live here. Panama is beautiful. The city itself, it's got skyscrapers, apartments on the 50th floor of use or killer. You can be out on the beach or somewhere. You can be up in the mountains. So there are a lot of different climates and geographies in Panama where you might say to yourself, yeah, I think I want to come down here and live someday.

Michael Cobb (00:27:09) - Well, you already have your residency. You already have the legal right to do that.

Keith Weinhold (00:27:14) - Yeah, I mean, 100%. Now, Panama isn't predominantly English speaking like Belize is, but Panama just has a lot of inherent familiarity and feel to a lot of Americans. Since the canal is there and there is that strong American presence, and they've even dollarization their economy there, for example, in Panama. So it might be that nice plan B for you. And tell us more about the residency and the investment into the sawmill and how that works. So it sounds like there's now a value added component is you essentially vertically integrated and now have this sawmill with the teeth. Tell us more about that.

Michael Cobb (00:27:56) - So we've always factored in the sawmill into the investment proposition. Because if we were to just take the logs for example, 25 years, you cut down the trees, you stick the logs in the container and send them off to China or India, which is where most of the logs go. The return on investments.

Michael Cobb (00:28:13) - It's not great, it's okay, but it's not great. The way you actually get a phenomenal return on investment is you take those logs and you turn them into lumber, which has about a 3 to 4 x differential, or what we call first stage end product or simple end product, which would be something like flooring, which is basically lumber that's been finished one more level rooted and bulldozed so that you can put them together right on a wood floor. So those two modifications from the log all the way to the first degree of finished product, the returns start to really jack it up into that double digit IRR right over 25 years, which again is phenomenal. So we talked about price. But just to give an idea, a $7,000 quarter acre parcel at harvest turned into lumber and first level finished. Product turns into about $94,000, right? So 7000 turns into $90,000, which is a tremendous return. But the way you get that return is to deliver to the marketplace lumber and first grade finished product. And so Soma has always been part of our business plan.

Michael Cobb (00:29:19) - Well, we are now two years away from our harvest on our first plantation, the one I planted back in 1999. Right? I mean, it's incredible thinking that, you know, 20, gosh, 24 years ago planted a teak plantation. So we're two years from harvest. We have one more set of kind of odds and end thinning of just trees that didn't quite grow. Right. We're going to use those thinning over the next couple of years to practice in our sawmill. Because you know what? We are going to make mistakes. I mean, you don't ever get it right the first time. So we're going to make mistakes. We're going to learn from them. And by the time we actually do the real harvest of that first plantation, 100 acres of teak, two years from now, we will be up to speed with our sawmill will size up, we'll capacity up to do that. But yeah, so folks can actually we have a $2 million opening in the sawmill. And it's a real simple formula.

Michael Cobb (00:30:07) - It's two times your money and then a proportionate 10% interest in the sawmill. So for example, just rough numbers off the top of my head. You put in $100,000, you get twice your money back in about a 3 to 4 year period. As a sawmill really becomes operational. We take the first harvest, like the thinning, aren't going to produce much. In fact, we hope to just basically kind of break even over the next two years while we practice. Then we cut down 100 acres of teak. We start putting that through the sawmill, right? So you get two extra money, you invest 100 to get back to 100, and then your return would be about 13 or $14,000 a year. On going after that, because you get a 10% carried interest in the sawmill into the future as well. So that's the investment opportunity that produces a shorter cash flow, much tighter on the cash flow. But then a nice trailer for many years. But the investment is 100,000. So it's a more significant investment than, say, somebody wanting a little bite sized piece of a quarter acre parcel or two quarter acre type parcels paired with the residency that gets you that.

Michael Cobb (00:31:13) - So a couple different levels of investment depending on what your goals are, but also what your timelines are.

Keith Weinhold (00:31:19) - We described the sawmill investment numbers there. And then just to clarify, on the quarter acre parcels, they cost $7,000 each with an expected value or return of $94,000 after 25 years.

Michael Cobb (00:31:37) - That's correct. 6880. I'm using round numbers, but 6880 is the quarter acre teak and right at harvest when it processes through the sawmill. A little over that, but $94,000 is returned to the investor along the way. I'll mention this. There are maintenance fees. It's about $150 a year. We just take a credit card. We just tap it once a year. That takes care of property taxes, thinning, cleaning, anything that they have to do with the plantation. So $150 a year, your maintenance fee. But yeah, 6880 turns into 94,025 years. If teak continues to go up at 5.5% a year, the return would be better than that.

Keith Weinhold (00:32:16) - You probably have investors that come in oftentimes from North America, maybe some from Europe, and they see this as a really low cost of entry, $6,880 for one quarter acre parcel.

Keith Weinhold (00:32:29) - So are there any risks that one should consider? Therefore, if they're a first time investor abroad, maybe something they're not thinking about if they buy a rental single family home in their own hometown?

Michael Cobb (00:32:41) - Yeah. Very different. I mean, in some ways it's very different. In other ways it's pretty similar. Right. You're going to get title to the property. The process of getting title will be a little different. You're going to have to send in copies of your passport, a notarized utility bill. Just some things that you wouldn't have to do if you were buying a property in the States. But at the end of the day, you will get what's called Escritorio Publica public title. So it's a registered land deed. And so that part of it's all pretty similar risk factors. Absolutely. The business plan has them in there. But the big ones are any kind of disease. It's monoculture. So I mean a disease could come through and kill all the trees. Right. The good thing there is, again, teak has a 350 year track record of being managed and grown in plantations.

Michael Cobb (00:33:24) - So it has a long track record where they've kind of figured out, well, if this happens, then do this or if this pest comes along. This is how we, you know, we mitigate that, but nothing can mitigate all risk. That fire is an interesting one. Fire is a risk in the first three years of teak. So we call it baby teak. But once the tea trees are 3 to 4 years old, they're really above any kind of fire. Because you clean the plantation and the guys are in there with the machetes chopping to keep the, you know, the brushed and grass down in the dry season, which, by the way, you mention the qualities of teak, the hardness of teak is actually the most. Prized quality. And so the hardest of the teak that we get will actually be taken and sold as marine lumber, which is an unbelievable differential in price. But only 5 to 10% of your teak would qualify as marine lumber. So it's a small percentage, but the value of that is very, very high because it's set to hardwood.

Michael Cobb (00:34:20) - But the rest of the tree is also likewise very hard. The dry season is what cures the teak. And so in the dry season teak drops its leaves. And so it's very resistant to fire. If you do good maintenance on the plantation, we do so fires only a risk really in the first three years. And we actually warranty the trees of a fire comes through. In the first three years. We replant the plantation for any parts that are burned. So there's sort of a warranty that comes with the first three years. I mean, the other risks are political risk. What if Panama goes off the rails? The good thing about Panama, it's got the canal. And that is a major, vital strategic US interest. I just don't see the US letting Panama kind of go off the rails. But it could. But those I think are the three what I would call main risk factors. And we mitigate those to the best way possible.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:13) - You heard Mike mention about the thinning and cleaning. Yes, there is ongoing management, but that is already handled and taken care of in any of the prices that you already mentioned.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:24) - Is that right, Mike?

Michael Cobb (00:35:25) - Yeah, correct. And we outsource to a company called Geo Forest. All Geo Forest, all. They've been our plantation manager from since 1999. And and they're phenomenal. What they do, their world class. They've been doing it for longer than 25 years, maybe 30 years at this point. But we outsource what we have to outsource because we're not management plantation managers. So we can find folks that are.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:47) - The same property manager for a quarter century, a property manager that actually doesn't get fired. Hey, that's a novel concept. Two times two is what some investors back here in the U.S. are thinking with their residential real estate investments. If you want to learn more about this investment, I encourage you to check it out. You can do that through Gray Marketplace at Gray marketplace.com/teak. Mike, do you still offer tours.

Michael Cobb (00:36:16) - Oh my goodness yes. And I hope that you will take us up on the opportunity to come down and see the dairy and province. But yes, we do.

Michael Cobb (00:36:24) - And I don't know the dates off the top of my head, but for folks who are interested, uh, two things. One, we actually run a tour that's fun because it's a group of people and it's just, you know, you come down and you do it. But if somebody says, hey, I can't make those dates, but I want to come see the trees. Yeah, it's very reasonable. I think it's a couple hundred bucks. They pick you up at your hotel, they'll run you out to the plantation, bring you back. But it's a whole day. I mean, it's four hours outside of Panama City and four hours back, so it's a long day. And if it's a couple, it's still 200. It's basically for the vehicle out and back. Right? The driver and the vehicle. So you can come anytime or you can come with a group. And if you come with a group there is no charge. I mean, we get the van or the bus and we pay for it all.

Michael Cobb (00:37:03) - And yeah, we make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we have fun.

Keith Weinhold (00:37:07) - All right. Well, I think people have probably covered for the tea more than the sandwiches, but that is a nice touch that you do for people because you do that whether someone is a great investor or not, whether they haven't invested at all yet, and they just want to go ahead and check it out. And you can learn more about those dates at GR marketplace.com/teague Mike, it's always such a fun chat to discuss something so exotic. It's been great having you back on the show.

Michael Cobb (00:37:34) - Nice to be back with you. I look forward to seeing you in Panama one of these days.

Keith Weinhold (00:37:43) - Trees grow through recessions, they grow through market cycles, they grow through Covid, and trees just keep growing through every single fed rate decision. The wealthiest families on the planet, the top 1%. They have locked up vast portions of their wealth for timeframes even longer than the 25 year peak harvest cycle. In fact, Harvard has fully 10% of its endowment, specifically in timber.

Keith Weinhold (00:38:11) - To follow up on what I asked earlier, as we're discussing non-residential real estate today, Earth's highest point above sea level is Mount Everest. The highest from base to peak is Monica. But Earth's highest piece of land, uh, the highest point is measured from the center of the Earth is Chimborazo Volcano, Ecuador. That's because Earth is not a perfect sphere. But there's an equatorial bulge. That's what I was climbing ten days ago. Earth's highest real estate, Chimborazo, was also there for the closest real estate to the sun and moon. But back down here at a lower elevation where the teak plantations are in Panama and Nicaragua, there are no loans for teak. But at prices under seven K, many GRI listeners have found that they don't need a loan and they have bought ten or more parcels. But you can buy as few as 1 or 2 a quarter acre teak parcels and then later cash it out for yourself or build that wealth legacy for your family. Kind of like the top 1%. If it sounds interesting to you, learn more.

Keith Weinhold (00:39:22) - Get started at GR marketplace.com/t. Until next week. I'm your host, Keith Wild. Don't quit your day dream.

Speaker 6 (00:39:34) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get Rich education LLC exclusively. The.

Keith Weinhold (00:40:02) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com.

Direct download: GREepisode490_.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:00am EDT

Mon, 19 February 2024

You’ll get an exact mortgage rate prediction from the President of the lending company that’s provided investors with more financial freedom than anyone in the nation.

Learn how to best access your equity, yet keep your low mortgage rate first loan untouched.

In this Get Rich Education podcast episode, host Keith Weinhold and guest Caeli Ridge, President of Ridge Lending Group, delve into the direction of mortgage rates.

They highlight the importance of understanding today’s environment and discuss refinancing opportunities in the current market.

Caeli outlines various loan products available to investors and predicts over 50% of appraisals now come in high, indicating strong future valuations.

She also forecasts higher mortgage rates to persist, with a possible Fed Funds Rate reduction by June and a 6.125% rate for 30-year fixed mortgages, non-OO, with 25% down, by the end of 2024.

The episode emphasizes education and strategic planning in real estate investment.

I get my own loans at Ridge. You can too at RidgeLendingGroup.com

Timestamps:

The impact of inflation on real estate investing (00:00:00)

Discusses leveraging properties to increase wealth, the relationship between mortgage rates and real estate, and the impact of inflation on property values.

Understanding the importance of mortgage rates (00:03:52)

Explores the neutral relationship real estate investors have with mortgage rates, the impact of mortgage rates on home affordability, and the significance of current mortgage rates.

Historical perspective on home price affordability (00:06:18)

Provides insights into the historical trends in home affordability, comparing past and current median home prices and the impact of inflation on home values.

The power of leverage in borrowing (00:10:14)

Illustrates the impact of inflation on loan principal balances and monthly mortgage payments, emphasizing the benefits of optimizing borrowing.

Mortgage rate prediction and refinancing trends (00:16:57)

Discusses the future direction of mortgage rates, refinancing trends, and the importance of considering interest rates in the context of overall investment strategies.

Explanation of high points charged on investment property loans (00:23:12)

Provides an explanation for the high points charged on investment property loans, related to the servicing of mortgage-backed securities and the absence of prepayment penalties.

Accessing Equity with HELOC and HE Loan (00:24:21)

Discussion on accessing equity using keylock and HE loan, including LTV ratios and interest rate comparisons.

Trade-offs Between HELOC and HE Loan (00:25:27)

Comparison of trade-offs between keylock and HE loan, including flexibility and interest payment structures.

Considerations for Second Mortgages (00:26:36)

Exploration of the benefits of having a second mortgage as an option and the potential drawbacks related to minimum draw requirements.

Blended Mortgage Rates (00:27:56)

Explanation of how to calculate blended mortgage rates based on the balances and interest rates of first and second mortgages.

Appetite for Adjustable Rate Mortgages (00:28:44)

Assessment of the current environment for adjustable rate mortgages and comparison with fixed-rate mortgages.

Obstacles for New and Repeat Investors (00:29:45)

Common obstacles faced by new and repeat real estate investors, including understanding investment goals and managing debt-to-income ratios.

Forecast for Mortgage Rates (00:33:45)

Prediction for future mortgage rates based on inflation indicators and the potential impact of the Fed's decisions.

Loan Types Offered by Ridge Lending Group (00:35:54)

Overview of the various loan types offered by Ridge Lending Group, including Fannie and Freddie loans, non-QM loans, and commercial loans.

Resources and Tools for Investors (00:38:03)

Information about free resources and tools available on the Ridge Lending Group website, including simulators and educational content.

Conclusion and Recommendation (00:39:38)

Summary of the discussion with Caeli Ridge and a recommendation to explore the services offered by Ridge Lending Group for real estate financing needs.

Resources mentioned:

Show Page:

GetRichEducation.com/489

Ridge Lending Group:

RidgeLendingGroup.com

Call 855-74-RIDGE

For access to properties or free help with a

GRE Investment Coach, start here:

Get mortgage loans for investment property:

RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE

or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com

Invest with Freedom Family Investments.

You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866

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Complete episode transcript:

Keith Weinhold (00:00:00) - Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. A new take on how to profit from inflation. The best strategies for accessing equity from your property while leaving your low rate loan in place. A surprising trend with real estate appraisals. Then the president of one of the most prominent national mortgage companies joins me to give a firm mortgage rate prediction today on get rich education. If you like the Get Rich Education podcast, you're going to love our Don't Quit Your Daydream newsletter. No, a eye here I write every word of the letter myself. It wires your mind for wealth. It helps you make money in your sleep and updates you on vital real estate investing trends. It's free sign up egg get rich education.com/letter. It's real content that makes a real difference in your life. Spice with a dash of humor rather than living below your means, learn how to grow your means right now. You can also easily get the letter by texting GRE to 66866. Text GRE to 66866.

Speaker 2 (00:01:11) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world.

Speaker 2 (00:01:18) - This is Get Rich Education.

Keith Weinhold (00:01:27) - Welcome to Gary from Oak Park Heights, Minneapolis, to Crown Heights, Brooklyn in New York City and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and this is Get Rich education. When you have that epiphany, that leverage creates wealth, it can be enough to make you want to be the town iconoclast. Walk around, beat your chest, and boldly proclaim that financially free beats debt free. You might remember that I helped drive that point home a few weeks ago when I talked about the old fourplex owner, Patrick, who owned his fourplex next to mine years ago. He wanted to pay his down and I wanted to leverage mine up. I told you then that rushing to pay off one property by making extra payments on the principal is like drilling a deep hole into one property. And the deeper you drill, the more likely that hole is to cave in. Your return goes down and now you've got more of your prosperity tied up in just one property, just one neighborhood and just one market.

Keith Weinhold (00:02:34) - The most sure fire way to wealth, and exactly what wealthy people do, is optimize and almost maximize the number of properties that you own. And as long as you buy right as they inevitably inflate, just keep borrowing against them. And that way you never have to pay capital gains tax either. And that goes beyond just real estate. That's assets of many types. You'll want to own more assets. The way to do that is with more loans. And paradoxically, that is why the richest people have the most debt. As you watch your debt column grow, watch your column grow even faster. And as we're talking about mortgages and the direction of interest rates today, us as real estate investors, you and I, we have a somewhat neutral relationship with mortgage rates. Yeah, it's often a neutral relationship. Now, prospective homebuyers, they often want mortgage rates to be low. Sellers often want rates to be low two so that they'll have more home bidders, legacy landlords, ones that own a bunch of property and they're not buying anymore.

Keith Weinhold (00:03:52) - They often want mortgage rates to be high because it hurts first time homebuyer affordability, and then it keeps the rents high and it keeps the occupancy high. And then you and I see we both own real estate. We also look to opportunistically put more in our portfolio. Well then we want rates to be high in a sense and low in a sense too. So you might have relative neutrality, feeling aloof about it all because you're thinking about it from both sides. But in any case, we can always predict the future. But the one thing that you know for sure is what you have now. A lot of people don't optimize their potential for what they have now. Instead, they speculate about the future. Now, one thing a lot of people have now is so many Americans are still loving their 3% and 4% mortgage rates they locked in 2 or 3 years ago, and they're refusing to give it up. However, over the past two years, when the number of real estate listings were at historic lows, a lot of life changing events have occurred in the past two years 7 million newborn babies with a need for a larger sized home and a desire to get out of the starter home.

Keith Weinhold (00:05:11) - Also in the last two years, 3 million marriages, including some of those marriages, are among older couples who now need to sell a home that can help solve the market. And then, of course, most home sellers. They also become home buyers. Next, they need another place to live. So home sellers, they often don't add a net one to the supply. We had a million and a half divorces, 7 million Americans turning 65 years old that might want to trade down during the retirement years and also during the last two years. Consider that there were 4 million deaths and 50 million job changes, some of those inconsequential, while others with fundamentally changed commuting patterns. So the point here is that life moves on. For some, though still a minority, but a growing minority, it is time to give up the three and 4% mortgage rate. Still not enough of them, but for better or worse, that is what it's going to take to move this market and put some available supply out there.

Keith Weinhold (00:06:18) - Now, today we have apparently finally just come off this period where home price of. Affordability had hit 40 year lows for 40 years for decades. Again, with low affordability, you dislike that if you're a home buyer or seller, you might feel neutral about low affordability as a landlord or a real estate investor because it makes your new purchases less affordable. But it keeps your renters as renters when you buy that income property. From an affordability standpoint, the very best time to buy was 2013. Yep, 2013 is when prices hadn't fully recovered from the GFC and mortgage rates had fallen dramatically. Now, to open up that range in years, from an affordability standpoint, it was just a sensational time to buy a home or property from 2009 to 2021, just historically extraordinary, that sensational affordability level during that decade or so, 2009 to 2021, that added to the exceptional rise in home values over end since that time. But yeah, a few months ago, affordability reached its worst level in 40 years and it has since improved.

Keith Weinhold (00:07:43) - I mean, 40 year lows in affordability reach then in 1984 and what happened in 1984, that is when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale for his second presidential term. Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh personal computer. John Schnatter opened the first Papa John's store in Indiana. LeBron James was born in 1984, and on television running were The Cosby Show and The Dukes of Hazzard. Hey, if you were alive then and you watch those shows, um, I know you wouldn't confess to watching Charles in Charge back then, and you'll never get back those socially redeeming hours that you spent watching Punky Brewster, and you would not admit to doing that either. What is this show, the Jeffersons still on TV in 1984? Look into that. Yeah. You know, that was kind of a real estate ish show. The deluxe apartment in the sky. Yes. It was on then. Yeah. Sherman Hemsley, Isabel Sanford Q that up.

Speaker UU (00:08:55) - Where we're moving on now? All up to this island, to a deluxe apartment in the sky.

Keith Weinhold (00:09:06) - Yeah, they even had the episode where the landlord came over and threatened not to renew their lease. I'll tell you. Has there ever been a television show in history where the landlord was depicted as a good guy? I mean, a landlord in television, they're always cast is a money hungry bad guy that won't fix anything, or is just trying to unscrupulously kick out the tenant, a slack jawed slumlord, every single time. I never really understood that show's theme music, either Beans or Burden on the grill or something. Let's get back to mortgage loans. Understand this. It might be in a way that, okay, you've never thought about it before. It's the power of leverage in borrowing. Now, you probably won't hold any 30 year fixed rate loan all 30 years in reality, but they'll make this effect clear. Let's just act like you have done this on a property. Now the median home price is near 400 K today. But what was it not 40 years ago, but in this case 30 years ago? All right.

Keith Weinhold (00:10:14) - So 1994, per the Fred numbers, which are sourced from the census and HUD, it was 130 K. Yes, a 130 K median priced home in 1994. So then if you put a 20% down payment on that property, you'd have a loan principal balance of 104 K. Now imagine it was an interest only loan somehow, and you still just owed a 104 K balance on that home today, whose median price is up to 400 K. Well, that 104 K. That just seems like a little math that you could almost swat away. I mean, this is how inflation makes the numbers of yesteryear feel tiny. But now if you're 104 K loan were an amortizing loan and the principal were being paid down to hopefully all principal pay down made by the tenant. During all those years, mortgage rates were 9% back then. So if you were making the final payment today on what's now still a median priced home, today your mortgage payment would just be 837 bucks a month. It feels like nothing. Inflation benefited you both ways on the total principal balance and the monthly payment.

Keith Weinhold (00:11:35) - Just feeling lighter and lighter and lighter in inflation adjusted terms now. And if your mortgage rate were 6% on that property, your payment would only be 623 bucks. You might have refinanced to something like that. I mean, 623 bucks. That is lower than the average new car payment today of 726. But if you had not gotten that loan back in 1994 and instead would have paid all cash for the 130 K property, were you 130 K all cash that was put into the property back then? Well, that would have had the purchasing power of today's approximately 400 K reflected in the price of today's median priced home. But to take it back ten years further to 1984, the George Jefferson year, the median home price was 80 K and your loan would be 60 4k. I mean, these numbers feel like little toys or almost lunch money or something. So this is the power of optimizing your borrowing and perhaps but not quite maximizing your borrowing power because that does risk over leverage. That is the inflation profiting benefit that you're feeling right there.

Keith Weinhold (00:12:59) - Coming up in just a few minutes, the president of one of the most prominent national mortgage companies for investor loans will be here with me. We're going to talk about mortgage rates some more, the overall temperature of the mortgage market. And I expect that she'll give a firm mortgage rate prediction for where we're going to be at year end, because she's done that with us before. They see so many investor loans in there at their lending companies. They've really got a great pulse on the market. We have set up the makeshift gray studio again for yet another week. Here is this week I'm in Nevada, where I will be the best man at my brother's wedding. I have been on the road a lot lately. That's what a geography guy like me does. Gotta get out and see the world. Life is meant to be lived, not postpone. Before we discuss both general and some intermediate Murray's concepts shortly. If you happen to be new to real estate investing. And you just like to listen to that one episode that tells you, step by step, how to get started and how to build your credit score and make an offer on a property, and best navigate the inspection process and the property appraisal inside the management agreement and more.

Keith Weinhold (00:14:15) - You can find that on get Rich Education podcast episode 368. It's simply called How to Buy Your First Rental Property. More next. I'm Keith Reinhold, you're listening to get Rich education. You know, I'll just tell you, for the most passive part of my real estate investing, personally, I put my own dollars with Freedom Family Investments because their funds pay me a stream of regular cash flow in returns are better than a bank savings account up to 12%. Their minimums are as low as 25 K. You don't even need to be accredited for some of them. It's all backed by real estate and that kind of love. How the tax benefit of doing this can offset capital gains and your W-2 jobs income. And they've always given me exactly their stated return paid on time. So it's steady income, no surprises while I'm sleeping or just doing the things I love. For a little insider tip, I've invested in their power fund to get going on that text family to 66866. Oh, and this isn't a solicitation.

Keith Weinhold (00:15:24) - If you want to invest where I do, just go ahead and text family to six, 686, six. Role under the specific expert with income property, you need Ridge Lending Group and MLS for 256. In gray history, from beginners to veterans, they provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four plex's. Start your pre-qualification and chat with President Charlie Ridge. Personally, though, even customized plan tailored to you for growing your portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending group.com. Ridge lending group.com.

Speaker 3 (00:16:12) - Hi, this is Tom Hopkins, and I can't tell you how smart you are to be with get rich education and make these ideas you.

Keith Weinhold (00:16:32) - What is the future direction of mortgage rates? How do you qualify for more mortgage loans at the best terms with the lowest interest rates, and Americans have at near record equity levels in their properties? So what's the best way to access that equity yet? Keep your low rate mortgage in place. We're answering all of that today with a company president that's created more financial freedom through real estate than any other lender in the entire nation.

Keith Weinhold (00:16:57) - That is, the top tier and eponymous ridge lending group is time for a big welcome back to Charlie Ridge. Keith, you flatter me. Thank you very much.

Caeli Ridge (00:17:07) - I'm very happy to be here, sir. Good to see you.

Keith Weinhold (00:17:09) - Well, you help us here because debt and loan are our favored four letter words around here at gray. Can you help us efficiently optimize them both, Charlie? Interest rates have just been on so many people's minds. Shortly after, they had their all time low in January of 2021, and they since rose and then have settled down. Charlie, I've been trying to think through myself why people seem to put this over emphasis on the interest rate now. It's surely important. It is your cost of money. But the way I've thought that people overemphasize the rate is because maybe people love to discuss the direction of interest rates, even more so than real estate prices in rents is because prices and rents nearly always go up in interest rates can go up and down. So therefore it's maybe more interesting for people to talk about.

Keith Weinhold (00:17:57) - I also think about how rates sort of tap into that human fear of loss by paying interest, trumping the triumph of gain through cash flow or appreciation. And then maybe as well, it's because higher mortgage rates, they mean higher rates of all types which permeate into all of one's life's debt. So these are my thoughts about why people maybe put an over emphasis on mortgage interest rates. What are your thoughts?

Caeli Ridge (00:18:23) - I'm sure there's probably something to that. And you're right, Keith. Interest rates are always the hot topic. Everybody wants to talk about interest rates. I think that overall though, it is a lack of education and there's a psychology to it. You and I have talked about interest rates at nauseam over the years, and I do understand, but I think you and I agree, because we live in this space and we're constantly looking at the math. They are probably third or fourth on the list of priorities. When you're deciding on if this investment is valid. For fitting into my goal box, I think it's more about getting information out there and informing the masses about interest rates, and doing that math to make sure that they're not just pigeonholing themselves into keeping a 3% interest rate, or not expanding their portfolio because they're afraid of giving up what they have and not really realizing the power of the equity, the tax deduction, the rent increases.

Caeli Ridge (00:19:15) - All of those variables are often ignored when people start talking about interest rates, until you start to have that reasonable, rational conversation that helps them identify what the math is. Because the math won't lie, right? The math will not lie.

Keith Weinhold (00:19:29) - Yeah, that's right. Things more important than interest rate with an investment property might be the price you're paying for that property, or the level of rent that's there, or even maybe knowing you already have a good property manager that you trust in that market where that property is. But of course, rates matter somewhat. Now we're going to get a future looking prediction from you later. But your last mortgage rate prediction, Charlie, you may not remember the details of it. It was made here on the show in November of 2022. That's when rates were 7%. Back at that time, you said that rates should keep climbing but at a slower pace, and that happened. And you predicted the peak by spring of 2023 of 7.625%. What happened is in October of 2023, they hit 7.8% per Freddie Mac.

Keith Weinhold (00:20:17) - So you almost completely nailed it because most everyone believes that that was the peak for this cycle. And if so, you're within a few months in just 2/10 of 1% of identifying the peak.

Caeli Ridge (00:20:32) - Thank you Keith. I appreciate that acknowledgement. I get it right a lot. My crystal ball has been broken several times over, especially the last couple of years, so I'll want to acknowledge that too. I pay attention to the fed and as a good friend of mine is always saying, don't fight the fed if you are listening to what they're saying, actually listening to the words that are coming out of their mouths, it's not too terribly hard to kind of predict where we're going to be in certain milestones of any given year. So I do have a good prediction for this year. We'll share later. As you said, rates are not completely irrelevant. I just want to impress upon your listeners that they really should be looking at the investment holistically, and not just laser focused on that interest rate. There's more to it.

Keith Weinhold (00:21:15) - That was excellent. You have more audacity than me when it comes to predicting interest rates. It's a business I typically stay out of, so I'm going to outsource that to you later. I'll predict things like real estate prices, but I think rates are notoriously difficult. And what's happened with rates now that they have come off their peak substantially from back in October of 2023. What's happened with the refinance business, is that something that's picked up again there?

Caeli Ridge (00:21:39) - Yeah, we're starting to see a bit more. I would say that last year refi numbers were down right for obvious reasons. But we are seeing some more business in the refinance department. I think depending on the individual and largely the strategy of the investment, the long term versus the mid-term versus the short term, we're seeing a little bit more on the refi side for the short term rentals than we are in the long term. But overall, yes, I would agree that they're starting to pick up. I may mention to Keith it might be useful for the listeners.

Caeli Ridge (00:22:06) - So while I agree, we've seen that interest rates started on their descent, which was great news, everybody was excited to see that. We're still finding that the points that are being secured or paid on, especially investment property loans, are still on the high end of the spectrum. And for those that aren't aware of the why behind that, how might be important. Just to mention that when we talk about mortgage backed securities, the overall servicing of these mortgage backed securities that are bought and sold and traded on on the secondary markets, they're pretty smart in forecasting when rates are high, what happens to those mortgages? When they come back down, they start to refinance, right? They start to pay off. And the servicing rights of these loans take 2 to 3 years before they're even profitable. So the servicers and the secondary markets know that they have to charge those extra points to hedge their losses, because when the loans that they're paying for and servicing today are going to pay off in six months or 12 months, they're going to be at a loss.

Caeli Ridge (00:23:01) - If it takes them 24 to 36 months to be profitable. That's why investors are seeing especially investors are seeing extra points being charged on the loans that they're securing today.

Keith Weinhold (00:23:12) - Oh, that's a great explanation. And really, this is because there's no prepayment penalty associated with residential mortgage loans in the United States typically. So therefore, the person that's on the back end of these loans, the investor there needs to be sure that they're compensated somehow when one goes ahead and maybe refinances out of their loan at a presumably lower interest rate, maybe in as little as 12 months or so.

Caeli Ridge (00:23:39) - Yes, sir. Exactly right. Yeah. And prepayment penalties on conventional. There are no prepayment penalties on conventional. Just to clarify on a non QM product which of course we have to, you know, debt service coverage ratio products etc. on non-owner occupied those typically will have prepayment penalties. But the Fannie Freddie stuff, the GSE stuff no prepay ever.

Keith Weinhold (00:23:57) - Now the rates have come down presumably off their peak in this cycle. You know, I think a lot of people wonder about all right now, what's a prudent way for me to harvest my equity since we have near-record equity levels in property and yet keep my low rate mortgage in place? I think a lot of people don't even understand that you can do that and take a second mortgage to access some of that dead equity.

Keith Weinhold (00:24:20) - What are your thoughts?

Caeli Ridge (00:24:21) - I love a keylock in general. We do now have one of our newer product lines is a second lien lock. We have two options there. Both of them cap at 70% LTV. That's combined loan to value. So all you need to do to figure out what you're going to have access to is take the value that you think the property would appraise for times 70% from that number, subtract the first lien balance, and that will give you what your line on a key lock. Secondly, and position you lock would be. And I love it.

Keith Weinhold (00:24:49) - All right. So therefore if one has 50% equity in a property they could access 20% more up to that 70% CLTV. That combined loan to value ratio between your first mortgage and your second mortgage, which might take the form of a keylock a home equity line of credit.

Caeli Ridge (00:25:07) - Perfectly said. We also have second lien he loans worth mention. He loan is really exactly the same thing as your first lien mortgage. It's a fixed rate.

Caeli Ridge (00:25:15) - Second it's just in second lean position 30 year fixed. Those go to 85% CLTV. So you get quite a bit more leverage. But the rates are going to be on the 1,213% range.

Keith Weinhold (00:25:27) - That's interesting. Tell us about some more of the trade offs between the key lock, where we typically have a fixed rate period in a floating period afterwards, and the he loan some more of those trade offs as we devise our strategy.

Caeli Ridge (00:25:41) - Yeah. The key lock is variable right. The interest rate can change. As you said. The reason I prefer the He lock, if the numbers made sense, is that you're only paying interest on monies that you're using at that point in time. So if you had $100,000 key lock and you're only using 20,000 of it for whatever investment purposes or whatever, then you're paying interest just on the 20 that he loan is exactly as you would expect. You're getting all of that money at once, and you will be paying interest on all of it, whether or not you're using it.

Caeli Ridge (00:26:10) - There's less flexibility on a key loan. While it does provide extra leverage, I do generally prefer that he lock.

Keith Weinhold (00:26:18) - Now, sometimes a question that I've asked myself in the past, Charlie, when I was new as an investor, is sort of why wouldn't I take a second mortgage? He lock or he loan? Because I don't necessarily have to draw against it, but it might be good for me to have it as an option just to be sure that it's there.

Caeli Ridge (00:26:36) - Absolutely. Especially the key lock, because like I said, I will not pay interest on anything you're not using. And to have it when the time comes, right. If you want to be prepared, which I think is huge. We both agree there. The one thing I would mention about that though, is oftentimes on the helocs there will be a minimum draw at closing. You can put it right back after closing, but chances are there's going to be a 50,000 or 100,000 minimum draw, depending on what the line limit is.

Caeli Ridge (00:27:01) - Maybe 75% of the entire limit is what the minimum draw would be. But again, you can put it right back after closing. So maybe you pay 30 days of interest on that before you're able to to stick it back in the lock. Otherwise, it's one of my favorite strategies for investors and having access to those funds when the time comes.

Keith Weinhold (00:27:20) - That's an interesting piece there. So you as an investor is you're devising your strategy as you're looking at the equity position in your own home as well as your rental properties. Maybe you're looking at a low rate of, say, you have a 4% mortgage loan, but you've had a bloated equity position, and you go ahead and you take out a second mortgage in any of the forms of Charlie is talking about. And that second mortgage has, say, a 10% interest rate. Well, you don't simply take the 4% on your first loan and your 10% on the second and average it and say, well, now I'm paying 7%. Of course, you have to wait those averages.

Keith Weinhold (00:27:56) - It's pretty likely that you have a higher mortgage balance on your first loan than your second loan. So depending on their balances, therefore, if your first mortgage has a 4% interest rate and your second mortgage has a 10% interest rate, you're blended rate might be something like five and a half.

Caeli Ridge (00:28:10) - Exactly right. And there's all kinds of tools and calculators online. If somebody wanted to check that out you can find them very easily. Just the weighted average of mortgage rates. And you can plug in your numbers. It'll tell you exactly if you're using this amount or this amount or whatever it is, what your weighted average would be.

Keith Weinhold (00:28:27) - Yeah, definitely important for you as an investor checking your arbitrage and your cash flow. Certainly, Charlie, I wonder now that we are in an environment finally where rates have actually fallen, how is the appetite for arms adjustable rate mortgages looked in there?

Caeli Ridge (00:28:44) - We're still on what's called an inverted yield from the 0809 housing and lending kind of debacle, we found ourselves in a place where adjustable rate mortgage or arm's actually priced in interest rate higher than a 30 year fixed, creating that inverted yield.

Caeli Ridge (00:28:58) - We have yet to see the correction of that. So we're still kind of in that place where depending on the characteristics of the transaction, the arm might be a higher interest rate. Maybe it's about the same as the 30 year fixed. If there is a scenario where the arm is lower, it might be an eighth or a quarter of a percentage point. So it's unlikely that we would recommend an arm over a fixed. There'd be have to be some very specific circumstances. If it's only a quarter point improvement to rate for a five year arm versus a 30 year fixed.

Keith Weinhold (00:29:26) - Charlie, you deal with so many investors in there, both newer investors and veteran real estate investors. So when we talk first about the new investors, are there any just sort of common obstacles to overcome that you see in there for people that are looking to get their first investment property?

Caeli Ridge (00:29:45) - I think they're why a lot of times we'll have investors come to us and really not even understand more than they just don't want their money in the stock market anymore, and they want to find another venue or another vehicle in which to create their investment freedom, their financial freedom through.

Caeli Ridge (00:29:59) - So I would say for brand new investors, really start to ask that question, what is your why? What is it that you want to get out of this? Do you want total replacement income of your ordinary income today? Do you love what you do for work and you just want supplemental income? How much does that income need to be? Does it need to be what you're making today? Can it be a little bit less? Does it need to be more based on what you expect your lifestyle to be? So lots of different questions to be asking yourself. So I would say that commonly just really understanding at least a baseline. And then we can start connecting some dots together and planting seeds that I talk about a baseline of, of what it is that you're hoping to accomplish through real estate.

Keith Weinhold (00:30:37) - So that's what you often see with the beginning investor. How about that repeat investor. Their obstacles to overcome that are common in there on expanding one's portfolio. Maybe that's a debt to income ratio threshold that one reaches and you need to strategize with them there.

Caeli Ridge (00:30:54) - Yeah, the debt to income ratio problem ultimately when you get there is probably a good problem to have, right when you're having to have conversations that way. I think that the obstacles to overcome is making sure that you have a good support team, and I think that would start with your lender, someone that has a multitude of loan products that aren't just one size fits all. I would say that we check that box very well, but strategizing. One of my favorite conversations with my clients is having those strategy one on one calls about their debt to income ratio and figuring out from a scheduling perspective, how can we maximize their deductions, because that's one of the beautiful things about real estate investing, right? Is that schedule E so maximizing over there without it taking you over certain thresholds to continue to qualify, there can be a weighted scale there as well. And those are the conversations that we have with our clients usually earlier in the year. But we're always looking at our client's draft tax returns. That's important.

Caeli Ridge (00:31:47) - Before you ring that bell, get us copies of your draft tax returns so that we can run the math, and we'll even show them how the pluses and minuses work. It's pretty interesting to most people. And then come up with a solution that says, okay, if you want to do this for 2024, here are our recommendations X, Y, or Z. And then they can make the informed decision that fits what their goals are for the year.

Keith Weinhold (00:32:08) - Yeah, these are the scenarios that a mortgage loan company that specializes in income property loans can help you with your future planning. How can you set yourself up considering your personal situation, your tax deductions, how much income do you want to show, and all those sorts of things to give you more runway to add income properties to your portfolio. And you do see so many scenarios in there and so many investors. Sometimes when you're here, I like to ask you to get a temperature of the appraisal market. What percent of appraisals are you seeing coming high on and what percent are coming in low? Approximately.

Caeli Ridge (00:32:43) - We're probably over 50% on the high, but not by any large margin. I'll see 10,015 thousand regularly over what we had expected in the actual value. Pretty commonly, just right on the money, right on the mark. I think it's real market specific, to be sure. I don't see that the short values come in all that much. If it is, generally it's probably because the investor is brand new, didn't unfortunately talk to us in advance. They were doing the BR method and they didn't get the right comps or have the right advice about what that RV might end up being. So they got trapped in a situation where they learned the hard way.

Keith Weinhold (00:33:21) - Interesting. I don't know that I remember that from the past, where more than 50% of appraisals have come in high. That pretends well for future valuations, at least here in the near term. All right, Charlie, well, we talked about your record with mortgage rate predictions here and how good that track record was. Why don't you let us know where you think mortgage rates are going to be by the end of 2024.

Caeli Ridge (00:33:45) - I do think that the rates are going to be higher for longer. Don't fight the fed, remember? Listen to what they have to say. I would preface this by saying that all of the indicators for inflation, except for one of them, have been hot to the side. That does not help us with interest rates. The employment jobs report, you've got the CPI, all these different metrics have come in hot where they're higher than what we would want to see them for that inflationary measure, where the feds have been extremely clear that they want to hit that 2% mark, where that number came from, I don't know. That's another conversation. There's only been one metric that actually worked to the rate environment to get it lowered, which is the PCE, the personal consumption expenditure. For those that aren't familiar with that acronym, I think they're going to be higher for longer. There's been a lot of headlines out there saying that I'm getting to a rate. I promise. I'm just going to to preface this first, that March might be the first reduction in the fed funds rate, which, by the way, remember, is not the same as a long term 30 year fixed mortgage rate.

Caeli Ridge (00:34:42) - There are links to them, but they are different. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that if we're going to see rates come down, the first fed funds rate reduction, probably sometime in June, is where I may put my predictions. And then by the end of the year, the interest rate, I'm going to put at 6.125 for 30 year fixed mortgages and non-owner occupied purchase with 25% down. That's my prediction.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:09) - You are on the record though, and it's so interesting, at least with what the fed does with rates generally. It's like an entire world where good news is bad news, right? If you've got great job growth and great GDP, well, that's bad news because they're probably going to keep rates high since those things tend to keep inflation high. It's like, what if you want the lowest mortgage rate, everyone in the world would be unemployed except you. You know, it's just so funny. I'm glad you said that. Yeah.

Caeli Ridge (00:35:36) - The worse the economy is, the better the rates are.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:38) - Yeah. That's right. You offer so many products in there, mostly to investors, but you have other ones that it's not just for buy and hold type of investors. It's for those that are doing better strategies like you mentioned in other strategies. Well, you tell us about all the loan types that you offer in there.

Caeli Ridge (00:35:54) - Yeah, we do have quite a few. Thank you for asking. So we start with the Fannie Freddie's. We call these the golden tickets. Everybody. Highest leverage, lowest interest rate. A lot of times the newer investors will start by exhausting those. There are ten per qualified individual. If you're a married couple, you can have up to 20, as you and I have talked about in the past, Keith. Beyond that, we've got something called Non-cumulative. QM stands for Qualified Mortgage. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the definition of what a qualified mortgage is. So everything outside of that box of underwriting is now non QM. And non QM in and of itself is extremely diverse, not just for investors, for anybody, but within that subset of product you've got debt service coverage ratio where there is no personal income documentation.

Caeli Ridge (00:36:33) - It's all about the properties rents divided by the payment. We have bank statement loans in there. We've got asset depletion. So if you've got $1 million in an exchange, a stock exchange account, there's a formula that we can use to utilize that as income. Beyond that, we have short term bridge loans for those that are fixed and flipping or fixed and holding where you need cash for the purchase and the renovation or rehab. So we have second lien helocs. Those are newer to our product line. So I'm pretty excited about those. We touched on that. We have commercial loans for commercial property, commercial loans for residential if it were applicable. And then of course the all in one, which is a first lien Helocs still my favorite, but we've spent lots of time talking about that. So that's probably a good overview or at least abbreviated checklist of products we have.

Keith Weinhold (00:37:16) - And I've got investor loans in there myself or new purchases I've done investor loans in there myself or Refinancings. I mean, you're who I go to for my own loans and you're in nearly all 50 states, right? And these are the states where the property is not where the investor resides.

Caeli Ridge (00:37:34) - Yes, sir. Exactly right. We are in 48 states. We are not in New York or North Dakota. Otherwise we're going to be funding everywhere that they're looking to purchase, refi, sell, etc..

Keith Weinhold (00:37:45) - We'll let our audience know where they can learn more, because I know you offer a lot of good free tools, like something we didn't get a chance to talk about a first lien helocs all in one loan. Like for example, you have a simulator there when an investor can just go ahead and run through that. So we're one find all of those resources.

Caeli Ridge (00:38:03) - So check out our website. There's a lot of good information on there. Lots of video content free education. The simulator link will be on there. If you wanted to check out the comparison between what you have now, your 3% interest rate, or your 2.5% interest rate compared to this all in one. I'll tell you guys that I've run that scenario all the time, and people are very surprised when they see that this adjustable rate first line is beating the pants off of a 2.25% rate.

Caeli Ridge (00:38:26) - So check that out. Our community is in the website we meet every other Tuesday. It's called live with Charlie. That's Ridge Lending group. Com. Email us info at Ridge Lending Group. Com and then you can call us of course toll free at (855) 747-4343. The easy way to remember is 85574 Ridge.

Keith Weinhold (00:38:45) - Charlie Ridge. Informative as always. And brazen. With the mortgage rate predictions. You can learn more about how they can help you at Ridge Lending group.com. It's been great having you back on the show Charlie.

Caeli Ridge (00:38:58) - Thank you Keith.

Keith Weinhold (00:39:06) - Oh, yeah, there's such experienced pros in there. And as you can see, they offer nearly every loan type. In fact, there were so many that I almost asked her, do you even loan lunch money to elementary school kids? Uh, because, uh, because they've seemingly got a loan type for most every real estate investment scenario that there is primary residence loans as well. Helpful people over there at Ridge. In fact, I even visited their headquarters office and I was hosted by Charlie there one day.

Keith Weinhold (00:39:38) - See what they can do for you in there. They are real strategists in helping you grow your real estate portfolio, going beyond just what a typical retail mortgage company does. It helps people with primary residences. You can join their free community events too, and they've really expanded their educational offerings to a giant degree the past couple of years. Financially free beats debt free, and she helps bring it to life and make it real. So big thanks to Charlie Ridge at Ridge Lending Group. Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Wangled. Don't quit your day dream.

Speaker 5 (00:40:17) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get Rich education LLC exclusively.

Speaker 6 (00:40:45) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com.

Direct download: GREepisode489b_.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:00am EDT

Mon, 12 February 2024

Learn the pros and cons of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin can be moved well across space and time. You can’t move dollars over time due to inflation; you can’t move gold over space due to weight and security concerns.

Real estate, bitcoin, and gold are all scarce and take real-world resources to produce.

Bitcoin is a global digital currency that’s decentralized.

Nick Giambruno joins us to discuss why bitcoin has value today.

Since there can only be 21 million bitcoin, it cannot be debased like dollars are.

By April, bitcoin will experience a halving. Rather than 900 new bitcoins brought into issuance daily, there will be 450.

The SEC’s recent Spot EFT approval will give more investors bitcoin access.

The higher the stock-to-flow ratio, the harder the asset.

What about governments shutting down bitcoin, regulating it, or taxing it to death? We discuss.

Bitcoin price volatility is a problem in currency adoption.

Lots of energy is used in bitcoin mining. But much of it is stranded energy.

Bitcoin cannot produce income.

Keith Weinhold stresses his preferred way to hold bitcoin.

Timestamps:

Bitcoin's value proposition (00:00:01)

Keith Weinhold introduces the topic of Bitcoin's value and why it is relevant to a real estate show.

Jamie Dimon's criticism of Bitcoin (00:05:27)

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon expresses his disdain for Bitcoin and blockchain technology in a heated conversation.

Bitcoin's resistance to debasement (00:07:19)

Keith Weinhold discusses the resistance of Bitcoin to debasement and the skepticism of governments and financial institutions towards it.

The origin and value of Bitcoin (00:08:18)

Nick Giambruno, an international investor, explains the history and value proposition of Bitcoin, emphasizing its decentralization and resistance to debasement.

Bitcoin's hardness and production rate (00:14:21)

Nick Giambruno delves into the concept of Bitcoin's hardness and its production requirements, comparing it to other assets like gold and real estate.

Bitcoin's upcoming halving event (00:16:28)

Nick Giambruno discusses the significance of Bitcoin's upcoming halving event, which will impact its stock-to-flow ratio and reinforce its value proposition.

Bitcoin's scarcity (00:19:42)

Bitcoin's limited supply and its unique scarcity attribute, compared to other commodities like gold.

Upcoming halving event and Bitcoin ETF approval (00:20:53)

Discussion on the significance of the upcoming halving event and the approval of a new spot for Bitcoin ETF, indicating the growing acceptance of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin as a currency and value proposition (00:22:42)

The value of Bitcoin as a currency for transferring value and its resistance to debasement, emphasizing the importance of self-custody of Bitcoin.

Global adoption of Bitcoin (00:24:30)

Comparison of Bitcoin adoption in different nations, highlighting the potential benefits for early adopters and the impact of Bitcoin on the world's financial landscape.

Bitcoin's market potential and investment consideration (00:27:27)

The potential market share of Bitcoin in the global economy and the consideration of Bitcoin as an investment asset.

Government's ability to regulate Bitcoin (00:34:11)

Discussion on the government's potential regulation and taxation of Bitcoin, emphasizing the power of economic incentives and Bitcoin's resilience to government intervention.

Bitcoin's uniqueness and credibility (00:36:12)

Differentiating Bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies, highlighting its credibility and resistance to change, making it the real innovation in the crypto space.

Bitcoin as a Store of Value (00:37:55)

Discussion on Bitcoin's role as a store of value and its comparison to gold.

Bitcoin as an Emerging Form of Money (00:38:25)

Explanation of Bitcoin as an emerging form of money and its distinction from established money like gold.

Bitcoin's Transaction Network and the Lightning Network (00:39:37)

Explanation of Bitcoin's transaction network, scalability, and the use of the Lightning Network for smaller transactions.

Earning Income from Bitcoin (00:41:40)

Discussion on earning income from Bitcoin through related companies, dividends, and caution regarding Bitcoin lending services.

Bitcoin Exchanges and Custody (00:44:20)

The importance of custodying your own Bitcoin and the risks associated with centralized Bitcoin exchanges.

Connecting with the Guest (00:45:13)

Information on how to connect with the guest and access a helpful Bitcoin guide.

Bitcoin's Energy Use and Price Volatility (00:46:01)

Insights into Bitcoin's energy use, price volatility, and the use of stranded energy sources by miners.

Real Estate vs. Bitcoin (00:47:04)

Comparison of real estate as a wealth builder with the merits and risks of owning gold and Bitcoin.

Disclaimer and Conclusion (00:47:54)

Disclaimer about the content and a conclusion to the episode.

Resources mentioned:

Show Page:

GetRichEducation.com/488

More on Nick Giambruno:

FinancialUnderground.com

For access to properties or free help with a

GRE Investment Coach, start here:

Get mortgage loans for investment property:

RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE

or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com

Invest with Freedom Family Investments.

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487: Immigration Crisis Worsens—Severe Housing Impacts Felt

Complete episode transcript:

Keith Weinhold (00:00:01) - Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Why does Bitcoin have any value? And why is a real estate show dedicating one episode to this topic now? The benefits and criticisms of the world's largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin today on Get Rich Education. If you like the Get Rich Education podcast, you're going to love art. Don't quit your day. Dream newsletter. No, I here I write every word of the letter myself. It wires your mind for wealth. It helps you make money in your sleep and updates you on vital real estate investing trends. It's free. Sign up egg get rich education com slash letter. It's real content that makes a real difference in your life, spiced with a dash of humor rather than living below your means, learn how to grow your means right now. You can also easily get the letter by texting gray to 66866. Text gray to 66866.

Corey Coates (00:01:06) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.

Keith Weinhold (00:01:22) - Work degree from Quito, Ecuador, where I am today, to the Mosquito Coast, Nicaragua, and across 188 nations worldwide.

Keith Weinhold (00:01:29) - You're listening. One of the United States longest running and most less than two shows on real estate investing. I'm your host, Keith Reinhold. Yes, we're a real estate show, but with 488 episodes, it's time to focus at least one of them. Finally, on Bitcoin. We'll bring it back to US real estate next week. Now, this is for a few reasons. Today, Bitcoin is largely misunderstood. It's become so big that it's hard to ignore. And there are two recent Bitcoin events two happenings with global impact that makes now the right time to cover this. Now look, I think that it's human nature that when you learn about something new for the first time and you don't understand how it works like Bitcoin, it's sort of innate to you start criticizing it or sort of discounted in your mind, chiefly because you don't understand it. Though Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin paper in 2008 and the first Bitcoin was issued in 2009. And, you know, when I first heard about it sometime after that, I probably discounted it in my mind as well.

Keith Weinhold (00:02:45) - And I think most people that don't understand Bitcoin, you know, they first think something like, oh come on, what is this. Just magic internet money. How does that work? How could that have any value. And I think is one matures when encountering the unknown. They inquire rather than criticize it. Look now and I'm getting really personal here, aren't I? I don't do drugs and I never have. But I don't criticize those that do drugs because it's a world that I just don't understand at all. Last year I was having dinner with a couple. They asked me what book I'm currently reading, and I told them that it's a 350 page book about Bitcoin, and the response was laughter, sort of dismissing it. And they said, well, how could anyone write that many pages about Bitcoin just completely discounting the whole thing? Well, for me, a turning point on Bitcoin is when I found highly intelligent people that understood it well and they were excited about it and they endorsed it. Now real estate has more intrinsic value than the dollar or gold or Bitcoin.

Keith Weinhold (00:04:02) - Because real estate is essential to your survival. You can make arguments that the dollar, gold and Bitcoin all have questionable backing. But today enough people agree that the dollar, gold and Bitcoin all have value. People are agreeing all three gold, the dollar and Bitcoin have varying levels then of anthropogenic faith. Today you and I, we live in a digital world that's comprised of 195 world nations. Well then, shouldn't money be made of something that's digital and doesn't know any national borders? Think of Bitcoin's value proposition this way you cannot move dollars across time. That's due to inflation. You can't move gold across space that's due to weight and security. But consider this Bitcoin can be officially moved across both space and time. Its supply is absolutely fixed. At 21 million, there can never be more than 21 million bitcoin either. It's traded on the blockchain, which is basically a digital ledger, but not every intelligent or influential finance person believes in Bitcoin. Of course, not every one of them. For example, it gets a little heated here from last month.

Keith Weinhold (00:05:27) - This is one of the most powerful men in the world. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. He's getting annoyed about CNBC asking him about Bitcoin just entirely too often. What do you make of the other firms the BlackRock's of the world.

CNBC (00:05:42) - That that obviously and Larry Fink change his view of this obviously. And maybe he changed his view because you think he genuinely believes in Bitcoin or or believed it because he thinks that there's a marketplace for it and he wants to be part of that market. But what do you think of the there's about a dozen big financial companies, fidelity included.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:05:59) - Number one I don't care. So just please stop talking about this. And and I don't know what he would say about blockchain versus currencies to do something versus Bitcoin that does nothing. And maybe that's not different than me. But you know, this is what makes a market. People have opinions. This is the last time I'm ever in state. In my opinion.

CNBC (00:06:18) - Gold really didn't do anything either.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:06:21) - Yet because it's limited in supply.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:06:23) - So it's and it's been used. Uh, so you think so, huh? I do think there's a good chance that when bitcoin when we get to that 20 million bitcoins 42 know that Satoshi is going to come on there laugh hysterically. Go quiet. All Bitcoin is going to be erased I think. How the hell do you know it's going to stop at 21? I've never met one person who told me they know for a fact they take that as it's not.

CNBC (00:06:44) - It hasn't happened because by the last one will be mined in 2150. And it gets harder and harder every time there's another halving. But but, Jamie, I do like looking back over.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:06:55) - Just do what you want. I'll do what I want. Ask for gold.

CNBC (00:06:57) - You can. The six characteristics that make gold valuable for 4000 years. They're all present in Bitcoin. That's all I'm saying. I love you and I don't want to. And I also don't I don't also don't want to be a you may enjoy Joe.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:07:08) - You may be right.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:07:09) - Yeah. Like I don't own gold either. So okay. That's what.

CNBC (00:07:11) - I mean.

CNBC (00:07:12) - Couple of quick final question.

Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase (00:07:12) - I like to own things that pay me incomes, but it doesn't cost money to carry anyway. And it costs money to carry Bitcoin to. By the way.

Keith Weinhold (00:07:19) - Uh, that was Jamie Diamond. Now governments and banksters like Jamie Diamond, they often dislike bitcoin because it cuts out the use of their chief product, the dollar. So governments are especially hesitant to want to promote bitcoin, a lot of them in the world. Anyway, I've got a conversation with a bitcoin expert coming up. We're going to talk about its value proposition and then the criticisms. Yes, I'm in Quito today. I was last year in Ecuador two years ago, this Colorado sized nation of 18 million people. I plan to attempt climbing to the summit of a 20,000 foot mountain later in the week. As for today, let's continue with why should Bitcoin have any value? Today's guest is the founder of the Financial Underground, and he is the editor in chief of that publication.

Keith Weinhold (00:08:18) - He's a renowned international investor, and he specializes in identifying big picture geopolitical and economic trends ahead of the crowd. And you've seen him featured seemingly in everything from Forbes to the Ron Paul Liberty Report. He was a speaker at the well-known New Orleans Investment Conference as well. Hey, it's great to welcome on to gray, Nick. Jim Bruno.

Nick Giambruno (00:08:41) - Hey, Keith, great to be with you.

Keith Weinhold (00:08:43) - I think a lot of our listeners are real estate investors are going to be wondering now, why are you talking about Bitcoin on a real estate show? Actually, I think there are a few more commonalities here than what a lot of people think. What a real estate in Bitcoin have in common. They're both scarce, neither can be easily deluded, and they both take real world resources to produce more of. You could apply those same three attributes to gold. So real estate gold and bitcoin they have this scarcity. And really I think that's a wise investing theme. Go ahead and invest in what's scarce. Limit what's abundant and take zero cost to produce like dollars.

Keith Weinhold (00:09:21) - So really that's the commonality between real estate in Bitcoin. But on a real estate show, I think we have a lot of listeners that just don't have an overall common understanding. Nick, of just what is bitcoin and why does it have any value in the first place?

Nick Giambruno (00:09:37) - Well, that is a some very good observations and a very profound question. What is Bitcoin. Well, Bitcoin is a relatively new asset. However it has been decades in the making. People don't understand that Bitcoin didn't just fall out of the sky, or is some kind of accident in some mad sciences garage. This is something that has been in the the works basically since the late 70s, and it came out of the Cypherpunk movement. Now, you may have heard of these people. You may have not. The Cypherpunks are basically I find them as the good guys. They are involved in creating technologies that empower the individual and disempower the state. They are behind some of the most prominent freedom oriented technologies that you and I may take for granted, including encryption.

Nick Giambruno (00:10:27) - And that's another story in and of itself. Let me just briefly get into that, because that's what puts the crypto cryptography in cryptocurrency. Cryptography is a very important field. It's basically the method of encoding information so that only the recipient can see it. And it's very important to understand that while we take for granted the average person has access to unbreakable cryptography today, that was not always the case. Cryptography has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks, and maybe even before, but it's always been a government monopoly until very recently in terms of historical standards, when cryptography was made available to the average person. That is a very profound thing, because now the average person can secure their information and secure their online life in a way that nobody can break. The US government can't break it. Chinese government can't break it, nobody can break it. And that is very important. And that laid the foundation for Bitcoin. So what is bitcoin. It's just a summit. But it is a superior alternative to central banking.

Nick Giambruno (00:11:27) - And that is a very revolutionary thing. It basically does the job of what a central bank does but much much, much better and removes all of the corruption, all of the nastiness that goes along with central banking. So what we have here is a genuine, workable alternative to central banking, and we can get into the details of that. But if you want to look at it, what it is, that's what it is. And at the same time, it's a form of money that is not just resistant to debasement, it's totally resistant to debasement. You're talking about gold and real estate. Well, gold. What made gold money over thousands of years? Yes, it is scarce. However, I always like to use this example. There's a concept that's related to scarcity, but it's not that it was scarce. And the reason is, is think about platinum and palladium. There's actually scarcer than gold, like there are fewer ounces of platinum and palladium in the world than there are gold ounces. So why don't people use platinum and palladium as money? It's a very, very important point.

Nick Giambruno (00:12:26) - The reason is, is because the platinum and palladium supply is not resistant to debasement. So it's scarcer, but it's not resistant to debasement. What does that mean? It means the annual supply growth of platinum and palladium are basically equal to the stockpiles. So depending on what this year or next year's annual production of platinum or palladium are going to be, it can wildly swing the market. That is not true of gold. Gold is only about 1.5% growth per year. And that's very, very consistent. What does that mean? That is a very important concept. So the gold supply only grows at about 1.5% per year.

Keith Weinhold (00:13:02) - And this is basically an inflation rate.

Nick Giambruno (00:13:04) - Yes it is its inflation rate. But it's very small and nobody can really change that. Think about it. There's a. It's not as if people don't want to increase the gold supply. They would love to. The way that the gold is distributed in the world, and the cost it takes to mining it puts a really hard limit on what you can produce each year.

Nick Giambruno (00:13:22) - So that's what makes it a good store of value. And if something is not a good store of value, it's not going to be a good money. These are some very, very fundamental concepts I'm talking about because they also apply to Bitcoin.

Keith Weinhold (00:13:35) - Then when someone asked me what Bitcoin is to give it a really short definition, I call Bitcoin a global digital currency that's decentralized. And you brought up the decentralization. That's really important. That's where I can make a peer to peer payment without having to go through an intermediary where I can send my Bitcoin directly over to Nick. There was no bank involved in that transaction, for example, the decentralization of Bitcoin. But we talk more about why Bitcoin has value. I believe you began touching on it there, Nick. Bitcoin has this hardness, which is a strange term to people because Bitcoin is digital. So can you tell us more about Bitcoin's value that comes through its hardness.

Nick Giambruno (00:14:21) - Let me just touch on a quick point you made also. So simply put, the value proposition of Bitcoin is that it allows anybody, anywhere in the world to send and receive value without depending on any third party.

Nick Giambruno (00:14:32) - At the same time. It's a form of money that is 100% resistant to debasement. That's its value proposition. That's a very profound thing. So going to the hardness. Yes, hardness is a concept that a lot of people get confused. Look, I love gold, I own gold, I recommend gold chain from the gold community. And I know the gold community. So I think a lot of people in the gold community get confused around this hardness now. They think it's hard, like physically hard, like abrasive metal. That's not what art means. Hard. And in terms of a hard asset, what it means is hard to produce. That's what it means. Yeah, that's what a hard asset is. It's hard to produce. And what is the opposite of that? Something that's easy to produce. Nobody would want to store their value, store their savings, store their economic energy into something that somebody else can make with no effort, almost like, you know, oh, let's put our life savings in arcade tokens or frequent flyer miles.

Nick Giambruno (00:15:26) - It's ridiculous when you think of it in that way. But that is, in my humble opinion, the most important attribute of money is that it's hard to produce all the other attributes of money. Quite frankly, are meaningless if the money is not hard to produce. Because if it's not hard to produce, none of the other stuff matters. And that's the most crucial attribute of money.

Keith Weinhold (00:15:45) - Yes, reinforcing why we have that investing theme of invest in something that's scarce and difficult to produce and takes real world resources to produce, much like real estate does. Much like gold with all the mining and assaying and much like Bitcoin, because to produce new Bitcoin, it takes electricity, it takes hardware and it takes software, some real world resources in order to produce Bitcoin. We talk about the production rate or the inflation rate in just a couple months. Here we're coming up on something really interesting, which is really one reason why I have you on the show talking about Bitcoin now. And that is the having event, the halving being that rate of new Bitcoin issuance is cut in half every four years.

Keith Weinhold (00:16:28) - So tell us more about that and bring the stock to flow ratio into the conversation here. We're at a cusp.

Nick Giambruno (00:16:34) - Of a very important moment in monetary history. Because you can quantify the hardness of an asset. It is quantifiable. It is basically the inverse of the supply growth. And there's another way of saying that, as you mentioned, the stock to flow ratio basically. In short, you got the stockpiles. That's what's available. And then you have the flow which is like the new supply. So the higher the stock to flow, the harder the asset is and the more resistant to debasement it is. And same thing when you take the the supply growth, you want a smaller supply growth. It's just the inverse of the stock to flow. So gold has always been mankind's artist money for thousands of years and gold's stock to blow ratios about I think it's around 60 which means it takes about 60 years of current production to equal current supplies. If you look at silver, it's much less than gold.

Nick Giambruno (00:17:25) - And every other commodity is closer to one, which means that every year the new production basically equals the existing stockpiles. And that's not a very good attribute for something that you want to have as a store of value. Now, what is going to happen in this having that's coming up in around April of this year? You can quantify the stock that flow. I just told you how to quantify it. So right now Bitcoin and gold have about equal stock to flow ratios in about equal hardness. However a key feature of the Bitcoin protocol is that every four years the new Bitcoin supply issuance gets cut in half until around the year 2140, when it is just goes to zero. So Bitcoin is not only going to exceed gold's hardness in a few months, it's going to double it. Now that is a very interesting moment in monetary history because mankind has not had a harder money than gold I don't think. Ever. So this is all going to be very important and it's coming very soon in April. Late April I think is when it's going to happen.

Nick Giambruno (00:18:28) - So a very important moment in monetary history.

Keith Weinhold (00:18:31) - There is real profundity there with the stock to flow ratio of Bitcoin exceeding that of gold with the upcoming having. And if you, the listener still hung up on the stock to flow ratio, we're talking about the ratio of the existing stock, how much of this stuff already exists, whether it's real estate or gold or Bitcoin divided by the rate of new issuance. So the higher the stock to flow ratio, and as it has the greater hardness it has. And currently 900 new bitcoins per day are being produced. And the having means just what it sounds like in April that will drop to 450 new bitcoins being mined into existence each day. So really you can think of Bitcoin as being disinflationary. It will continue to inflate until the year 2140. Like Nick described. That's when new bitcoin will cease to be mined. And until that point, the new amount the flow continues to get halved. Every four years, there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin that exist, and 19.6 million of those have already been mined.

Keith Weinhold (00:19:36) - So you can get an idea of the hardness and how this helps supply the value of Bitcoin.

Nick Giambruno (00:19:42) - Well, absolutely. And it's he talks about that. I think it's something like 93% of the time, supply has already been mined, and the remaining 7% are going to come online over the next 120 years or so. You might want to get some before other people figure this out. There is definitely not enough Bitcoin for every millionaire to have one bitcoin, it's far less. I think there's something maybe 50 million millionaires in the world, probably more. They can't all have a bitcoin. It's a very tight supply and we have a situation here too that is related. Because Bitcoin is the only asset, the only commodity were higher prices cannot induce more supply. If gold went to 10,000, you can be sure there are going to be more gold miners getting into the business, more economic deposits being found and and exploited and more supply eventually coming on to the market. Great point. And the same is true for every commodity.

Nick Giambruno (00:20:38) - Gold is just the most resistant to that process. However, Bitcoin, no matter how high the price goes, it cannot induce the production of more Bitcoin. That's a very unique scarcity attribute that I don't think people really appreciate very much. It's certainly there.

Keith Weinhold (00:20:53) - So this upcoming halving event is one reason why I'm having Nick on the show now to do our first ever Bitcoin episode in almost 500 episodes. And the other reason is the nation see of the SEC approving a new spot to Bitcoin ETF. And all that basically means is it helps give everyday investors really easy access to Bitcoin without having to set up a crypto wallet and bam, hey, your mom can become a crypto bro now.

Nick Giambruno (00:21:22) - It is certainly a milestone in acceptance. I think it signifies that Bitcoin is no longer a fringe. It's here to stay. It took over ten years for the SEC to approve one of these things. I think the Winklevoss twins applied over ten years ago for the first Bitcoin ETF, so they reluctantly did it. I don't think they want it to do it.

Nick Giambruno (00:21:43) - I think they lost a couple of key court cases that kind of forced their hand, but they did approve it. I frankly don't recommend the ETFs. It's not really Bitcoin because what you have is a Bitcoin IOU, several Bitcoin IOUs. So let's say you buy the Blackrock Bitcoin ETF. Will you have an IOU from your broker for the Blackrock ETF share. And the broker has an IOU from Blackrock. And then Blackrock has an IOU from Coinbase which actually holds the Bitcoin. So I always tell people look it's a spectrum. If you want to take that trade off and you're taking a trade off for convenience over a security and sovereignty, if you want to take that trade off, that's go right ahead. But be have your eyes wide open and be conscious of the trade off that you're making. I always prefer to, uh, tell people Bitcoin is unique. This is a bearer asset. People forget about bearer assets. Bearer assets are a very good thing. They give the people who hold them ownership over them.

Nick Giambruno (00:22:42) - I think people who are interested in sovereignty. One thing too that's very important is that even if the Bitcoin price stays flat forever, it doesn't go up at all. It still offers people tremendous value as what we were talking about before, even if it stays flat and doesn't go up ever again, it's still offers anybody, anywhere in the world the ability to send and receive value from anybody else, anywhere in the world, and to hold money that's resistant to debasement, that's hugely valuable, even if the price doesn't go up. So and you can only get those benefits if you hold Bitcoin properly in your own bitcoin wallet, where you control the keys and only you control the keys, because that's who has ownership to this. Bitcoin is by who controls those private keys. You can just kind of think of that like the password dear Bitcoin. So that's what you want to do. If you can learn how to drive a car you can learn how to self-custody Bitcoin.

Keith Weinhold (00:23:33) - I love what you did there, Nick, because what you helped us do is you helped us transition from talking about Bitcoin as an investment asset to using bitcoin as a currency, if you wish to use it to transfer value.

Keith Weinhold (00:23:47) - Really, Nick, I think a lot of people in the United States, one reason that they're not that interested in Bitcoin is because our currency, our United States dollar, it sure has problems. It sure recently went through a big wave of inflation, but our currency just is not as bad as some of these worthless pieces of paper have been in the Argentine currency or in Turkey or in Iran or Haiti. So maybe Americans don't have enough of a reason to want to go ahead and get a currency that holds its value. So what are your thoughts with what people in other nations are doing, including El Salvador, with immediate legal tender versus the United States, where we have this dollar that's being debased but just not quite at the rate of most other world nations.

Nick Giambruno (00:24:30) - That's a good point. I see this in my travels around the world. It may seem like an advantage for the Americans, but I think it's a disadvantage because they're going to be catch on to this last because they're going to have, oh, we've got the dollar.

Nick Giambruno (00:24:43) - The dollar's great. So why do I need to look at other alternatives. And and they're going to be the last people. So you're going to have I think what you could see over this the next few years, and certainly over the longer term, is that countries like El Salvador, the countries that are experiencing the highest rates of inflation now and are thus more motivated to look at a superior form of money like Bitcoin or gold, but a lot of them are going to Bitcoin. These are going to be the countries that might fare better over the long term, because they're going to be relatively early adopters in this superior monetary technology. Nobody takes a horse and buggy from New York to California anymore. No, you don't need to because you have airplanes, you have cars, superior technologies for transportation. And likewise, we now have a superior technology for money, which is to say storing and exchanging value. That's all money is. People think it's all confusing. You need a PhD and there's all these charts and confusing jargon.

Nick Giambruno (00:25:38) - Money is not confusing. It's actually intuitive and anybody in the world can understand it. It's just something that stores and exchanges value. It's really quite simple. So now we have a superior technology for storing and exchanging value. And I think people who adopt it first are going to reap the most benefits. There are a lot of Americans who have adopted it, but they have been spoiled by the fact that the dollar has been the world's reserve currency. Now, I think that's going away. That's a whole other story. I think that's the two big reasons why, you know, you shouldn't just depend on the dollar one. We can talk. This is a whole new discussion about the dollar as the world reserve currency. I think it's going away. But now despite that we also have a superior alternative with Bitcoin. So yeah, I think the people who are going to adopt this technology sooner are going to reap the most benefits.

Keith Weinhold (00:26:24) - Well, Nick, in your opinion, is Bitcoin's takeover inevitable and how does that look?

Nick Giambruno (00:26:30) - I don't think anything's inevitable.

Nick Giambruno (00:26:32) - I think it's a good that I mean, if I thought it was inevitable, I would sell everything and buy it. I have a more diversified portfolio, but I have a strong conviction in it, very strong conviction in it. But nothing is certain. Nothing's 100%. So I never tell people, you know, and I'm not giving anybody any investment advice. I'm not a registered investment advisor or anything like that. But in any case, even if I was, I wouldn't tell anybody to go all in on anything. And that's certainly not how I manage my risk. However, I do have a very high conviction in it, and I think as it stands now, it has an excellent chance at gaining huge market share in the market for money. And people don't think of money as a market, like a real estate market or a technology market, or the market for any industry. But money is a market. It's probably the biggest market. And I think Bitcoin is you need to put it into perspective, the market cap of all the gold in the entire world is about $13.7 trillion.

Nick Giambruno (00:27:27) - The market cap for all Bitcoin in the world, last I checked, is around $850 billion. So we're less than 10% of gold's market cap. It has. And that's not even including all the fiat currencies. All the fiat currencies have a much larger market cap than even gold. So Bitcoin is just a blip on people's radars. So I think it has a lot of upside from here.

Keith Weinhold (00:27:46) - One important question an investor can ask themselves once they learn more about Bitcoin is, can I really afford to have absolutely none? You're listening to get reciprocation. We're talking with Nick Bruno of the Financial Underground Warren. We come back when now we've talked about the upside of Bitcoin. Let's talk about a lot of the criticisms you're listening to get rejection I'm your host Keith Weiner. Role. Under this a specific expert with income property, you need Ridge Lending Group and MLS for 256. In gray history, from beginners to veterans, they provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four Plex's.

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Keith Weinhold (00:29:52) - This is Richard Duncan, publisher of Macro Watch. Listen to get Rich education with Keith Winchell. And don't quit your day dream. You're listening to SOS created more financial freedom for busy people just like you than nearly any show in the world. This is jet versus cash, and I'm your host, Keith Whitehall. We're talking with the Financial Underground's Nick Bruno. We're talking about Bitcoin in a dedicated episode for the first time ever here in the history of the show. And when we had a chance to talk to Nick Bruno, you can see why we wanted to do this. But, Nick, a lot of people in the United States are concerned that the US government might do something similar to what China did and just go ahead and shut down Bitcoin and shut down cryptocurrency because Bitcoin, it basically competes with the US government's product, the dollar. So what are your thoughts when people say, oh I don't know about that. The government can just shut Bitcoin down.

Nick Giambruno (00:30:53) - I'm glad you mentioned China because the communist governor of China is a very powerful governments.

Nick Giambruno (00:30:58) - It's one of the most powerful and maybe arguably the most powerful government in the world. And they've tried many times to ban Bitcoin. You know how it turned out. It was a total failure because Bitcoin is basically code in its mathematics. So it's not the easiest thing to ban even if they wanted to ban it. You're trying to ban mathematics because that's all Bitcoin is. And further many Bitcoin wallets and it all works on cryptography. As and as I said, cryptography is just advanced mathematics. Many Bitcoin wallets have a way to back up your funds a 12 word phrase. So if you can memorize well words, which represents your wallet, you can potentially store billions of dollars just in your head. Now this is how are you going to ban that? You can't ban that. It's completely impractical. I always tell people, you know, look at how governments have tried to ban cannabis. Everybody has been able to buy cannabis in any city they wanted to. And then also other countries have tried to ban US dollars.

Nick Giambruno (00:31:57) - Argentina tries to ban U.S. dollars, Venezuela tries to ban U.S. dollars. You know what it does? It creates nothing. But an underground market doesn't extinguish people's desire to have dollars. And I think that's what we have here. I think economic incentives are more powerful than governments. And aside from that, I don't think that's going to happen because what they approve all these ETFs, that they were just going to turn around and ban it? I don't think so. Further, you have lots of court cases. There is established federal court cases that have ruled that computer code, which Bitcoin is just computer code, is equivalent to free speech protected under the First amendment of the US Constitution. Oh yes, I understand the Constitution is not people can change it and it's malleable. But still, that complicates any government's desire to ban it. They're going to have to overturn those federal court cases. That's not going to be easy. And even if they do, how are you going to ban something that somebody can just memorize with 12 words written on a piece of paper or in their head, it's completely impractical.

Nick Giambruno (00:32:58) - And then, of course, you have the example of China, which has banned Bitcoin several times. You know what? Absolutely nothing happened. But Bitcoin business is moving out of China and Bitcoin adoption among regular Chinese people going up. They can hinder businesses and large like entities that have big presences. They can hinder that certainly. But Bitcoin is global. It'll just go where it's treated best. It's like water. It'll just move to wherever it's treated best. I always say this too. So even if like the northern hemisphere disappeared, let's say there's an all out nuclear war between Russia and the US that will basically wipe out the northern hemisphere. You know what? Bitcoin won't miss a beat in the southern hemisphere. It'll still keep going in the southern hemisphere because it is decentralized and un over tens of thousands of computers around the world. And if even one of those computers survives Bitcoin lives on. So I think this is a very, very hard I wouldn't want to be trying to ban this thing because it's not practical.

Keith Weinhold (00:33:56) - Other critics say, all right, if the government can't ban it, well, the government can just then allow it make it be legal, but they can regulate the heck out of it and they can tax it at really high rates. What are your thoughts there?

Nick Giambruno (00:34:11) - Well, the government can do whatever it wants, but I think, yes, it can do all of those things. But I think here's the main point is that Bitcoin is we talked about economic incentives. Economic incentives are more powerful than politicians. And I think that's a truism. So as more people become holders of bitcoin aware of bitcoin, I don't think restricting bitcoin or banning bitcoin or adding regulations to Bitcoin or adding taxation to it, I don't think that's going to help anybody win an election. Is that going to help anybody win an election? I don't think so. That would be extremely politically unpopular. Yeah, that could happen. It would be bad news for the people who live in that jersey. But you know what? It's not going to kill bitcoin.

Nick Giambruno (00:34:52) - It's going to just be a hindrance for the people who live under these Luddite politicians who would do such a thing. But I don't think they're going to do such a thing. They just approve the ETF. I think Bitcoin has reached escape velocity in terms of its political popularity. I don't think anybody is going to win an election by being tough on Bitcoin.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:11) - A number of congresspeople hold bitcoin, Cynthia Loomis being one of the more prominent ones. And then you and I talked about the SEC spot Bitcoin ETF approval earlier. Well, that's a bit of a de facto stamp of approval on bitcoin really in a sense. And I think another criticism Nick, in my opinion this is easy to dispel. But some people will say, well, there are tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies out there. This stuff's just junk. There's something like hump coin that a prominent rapper promotes. I mean, all this stuff is just a bunch of junk. When all these cryptocurrencies come out. And I tend to think that's very different than Bitcoin.

Keith Weinhold (00:35:50) - Just like if there's some new stock IPO with zero fundamentals that comes out, I mean that doesn't diminish blue chippers like Apple or Microsoft at all. So I think of Bitcoin as the first or one of the first cryptocurrencies with a finite supply. So these overnight fly by night new cryptos I don't think that's really a very good criticism of Bitcoin.

Nick Giambruno (00:36:12) - No, I think this is one of the most popular misconceptions is that there is this crypto asset class and that Bitcoin is just one of 20,000 cryptocurrencies. And I think this is transparently false. It's like saying, oh, you know an increase in the pyrite supply is going to, you know, dilute the gold or something right. So it's kind of ridiculous. And the reason behind this is very simple. Bitcoin is the only one that nobody controls. Nobody can change bitcoin. It's the only one that is like that from Ethereum which is number two on down. They can be changed. A group of people can get together and change it. And in fact, Ethereum's monetary policy has been changed more often than the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

Nick Giambruno (00:36:54) - It's just instead of the FOMC getting together and deciding what we should do with the money supply, it's a group of Ethereum developers and insiders that get together and change it. And the same thing is true of every other cryptocurrency. So that's the very defining feature of Bitcoin is that nobody can change it. That's what makes it interesting. If somebody could change Bitcoin, it wouldn't be interesting. And we don't need to get into the weeds of that. But needless to say, Bitcoin is the only one where the supply has credibility. We all know the bitcoin supply is 21 million. Nobody can do anything to change that. What is the Bitcoin supply going to be in five years? I could tell you with precision what it will be in five years. I can tell you with precision what it'll be in ten years. And you tell me what the Ethereum supply is going to be in five years. Can you tell me what the supply is going to be in ten years? You tell me what any cryptocurrency aside from Bitcoin supply is going to be in five years.

Nick Giambruno (00:37:41) - No you can't because it depends on how the developers are going to change it. So it's quite ridiculous to lump these two things together. They're entirely separate. Crypto is a cesspool. Quite frankly. Bitcoin is the real innovation.

Keith Weinhold (00:37:55) - And immutable protocol as they call it. Nick, I think one criticism is to pull back. We all know that money is three things. It's a store of value. It's a medium of exchange and it's a unit of account. And a lot of people say, I don't think Bitcoin can be a legitimate currency because all people do is store it. So it might meet the store of value criterion of those three. But I don't know about its legitimacy as a currency. Does that matter? I mean, people kind of use gold as a store of value, but not a currency. What are your thoughts?

Nick Giambruno (00:38:25) - Yes, it does matter. And it's a good question. The answer is is Bitcoin is not an established money. Take gold for example. Gold has been around for thousands of years.

Nick Giambruno (00:38:34) - It is an established form of money. Bitcoin is an emerging form of money. It's a very big distinction. So I personally think the way this will go and you know people disagree. But I think just logically, if you look at it, yes, story of value comes first. Why. Because once people store their value in Bitcoin, the monetary network of people who will be willing to exchange that bitcoin for something else grows and you can't have one before the other in terms of like nobody's going to exchange bitcoin if they're not already storing bitcoin. So the more people that store bitcoin have it available to exchange it for other people, it's like a network effect, any kind of network effect. That's a monetary network effect. And that's time to build further Bitcoin related misunderstanding is you kind of view Bitcoin in a different lens than just paying for like a cup of coffee, because that's really not what it's made for. The Bitcoin network has a hard limit on the number of transactions that I can process every day in order to keep it decentralized, because if it processed everybody's coffee transaction, you would need huge data centers to run the Bitcoin software.

Nick Giambruno (00:39:37) - The matter is, is that the Bitcoin software needs to be decentralized. So right now, anybody who has an average laptop, an average Raspberry Pi can run Bitcoin. That is very important for its decentralization. And if you were putting everybody's retail transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain would be impossible. You need large data centers. Now does that mean Bitcoin can't scale to become a medium of exchange? Absolutely not. You have to just think of bitcoin. What is a Bitcoin transaction represents. It represents final international settlement and clearance. So it's more akin to an international wire transfer. You wouldn't pay for a cup of coffee with from a Swiss bank account to Starbucks in New York. That's basically what you're talking about. What you do is you build layers. There are different layers that are built on top of that bedrock, which is the Bitcoin network that is immutable, unchangeable, and then you build transaction networks on top of that. So what we have with Bitcoin, the most prominent one right now is called the Lightning Network, which is another network that's built on top of Bitcoin that is really more suitable for smaller day to day coffee transactions.

Nick Giambruno (00:40:43) - You can actually send about 1/32 of a penny over lightning. So you can do all sorts of micro-transactions. Very interesting. So that's akin to, you know, like a credit card or a credit card is kind of like a layer two network that's built on top of central banks, which do international clearing and settling, and credit cards are built on top of that. And you can think of the same kind of solutions that are going to be built on Bitcoin. You're going to have different layers for different applications. And in terms of these medium of exchange and transaction network in Bitcoin it's the Lightning Network. And it's very exciting to use.

Keith Weinhold (00:41:19) - Yeah the Lightning Network it's been around for a while. It's been getting more adoption to help promote payments through Bitcoin. Being a real estate investing show here, oftentimes our listeners are interested in buying a property that will produce income from a tenant that's in that property. Can Bitcoin produce income?

Nick Giambruno (00:41:40) - Bitcoin itself cannot produce income because it's just simply money. It's simply an asset in the same sense that gold doesn't produce income.

Nick Giambruno (00:41:47) - If you want to earn income from Bitcoin, invest in Bitcoin related companies and Bitcoin related businesses that pay dividends. There are some and there is going to be many more. There are Bitcoin mining companies. These are companies I specialize in covering. In my financial research. They're relatively new. They don't pay dividends yet, but there are several that are looking to establish dividends. You can also lend your bitcoin I mean that's not bitcoin giving you a yield. That's you earning a yield from lending your bitcoin. I would caution you because there's been a lot of these kinds of bitcoin lending services that have gone bankrupt. BlockFi Celsius I'd be. And so whenever I hear about Bitcoin yields I caution people to be not just vigilant, be double vigilant of how you would normally be because there's been so many scams in this area and bad companies that have gone bankrupt. Taking advantage of people looking to earn a yield on their bitcoin. It's really a nascent industry. And you know what? Look at Bitcoin's compounded annual growth rate over any period of time for years.

Nick Giambruno (00:42:50) - You don't need a yield. It's going up if the trends continue. And I always tell people if you're going to invest in Bitcoin, have at least a four year time horizon, because that's a long time horizon. But the reason is, is because that gives you through one halving cycle, these having cycles go every four years. It's almost impossible. There's maybe a couple of instances, a couple of days where the bitcoin price wasn't higher than it was four years ago. So I always tell people have a four year time horizon when you're dealing with Bitcoin. And when you look at the returns, that could be possible. And I think the pastor. Returns. Past performance doesn't guarantee anything in the future, but I think that being said, we can expect this cycle to be similar to the other cycles. When you see that kind of potential, it should really make you not interested in these yield products.

Keith Weinhold (00:43:39) - You mentioned a couple of bankrupt crypto exchanges there, BlockFi and Celsius. I got caught up in some of that.

Keith Weinhold (00:43:48) - Now I keep all of mine on a hard wallet because really what these exchanges do is they're centralize something that's supposed to be decentralized like Bitcoin, and it gives Bitcoin a really bad name. Nick, I had some people reach out to me when FTX imploded and people said, this proves that Bitcoin is a scam. And I had to gently explain to people, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Just because Wells Fargo or Chase fails. We didn't say the dollar failed. It wasn't a failure in Bitcoin. It was a failure in these exchanges.

Nick Giambruno (00:44:20) - Oh, yes. This has been going on for a long time. And before FTX, there's Mt. Gox. There's a lot of these things. So I think the underlying lesson here in all of these examples is that don't trust third parties. And with Bitcoin you don't need to trust their authorities because if you can learn to custody your own Bitcoin, you are totally responsible, totally in control of your destiny. You don't have to worry about one of these bitcoin companies going bankrupt because you hold it and only you hold it.

Nick Giambruno (00:44:48) - And I think that's what makes it special.

Keith Weinhold (00:44:51) - This has been a great chat and I think a really good Bitcoin 101 for a person that still doesn't understand very much about it. And you help people understand Bitcoin, you do an awful lot of other things, including informing people about global trends and macroeconomics. So if someone wants to connect with you and learn more from you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Nick Giambruno (00:45:13) - The best place is Financial Underground Comm. I have a really helpful Bitcoin guide that shows people how to use it in the most sovereign and the most private ways possible, and I keep that guide up to date with the current best practices, because these things change very frequently. Like what is the best wallet, what is the best hardware wallet, and so forth. So I keep this guide alive with the best current practices. I think that would be a big help for people. Could definitely save them many, many hours of time by simply just identifying today's best practices. So I think that would be very helpful.

Nick Giambruno (00:45:45) - You can find all that at Financial underground.com.

Keith Weinhold (00:45:49) - Nick Bruno has been super informative. Thanks so much for coming on to the show.

Nick Giambruno (00:45:54) - Thank you Keith, great to be with you.

Keith Weinhold (00:46:01) - Another Bitcoin criticism is its energy use. Oh, look at all the electricity that mining consumes. What a waste. But the more you learn, you find that Bitcoin miners, they often use stranded energy sources that might not get used otherwise. In fact, miners have an economic incentive to use stranded and low cost energy. Volatility in Bitcoin's price has been a real problem if you want to use it as a currency. The price for one Bitcoin peaked at almost $70,000 in late 2021, and just a year later it was under 16 K, and now the price has swelled up a lot again from that recent low. In any case, if you choose to own Bitcoin or any other crypto, please store it on a cold wallet for security. It's a small device. It's about three times the size of a thumb drive. It looks like a thumb drive, and there is a learning curve that you have to meet in order to use one.

Keith Weinhold (00:47:04) - I don't own much gold or bitcoin, just a little. They both have their merits and risks like we've discussed. I'm a real estate guy. Even most gold and bitcoin proponents that I've talked with seem to agree with me that real estate is the proven wealth builder. I'm not sure if we'll ever devote another episode to Bitcoin here. I hope that today's episode at least equipped you to ask better questions, in case you want to know more about it. Today's episode had a more international than usual feel. Bitcoin has no boundaries. I'm in Ecuador and our guest Nick joined us from Argentina today. I'll be back in the US next week when I have some really important real estate trends to tell you about. Until then, I'm Keith Reinhold. Don't quit your daydream.

Speaker 7 (00:47:54) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.

Speaker 7 (00:48:09) - The host is operating on behalf of get Rich education LLC exclusively.

Keith Weinhold (00:48:22) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com.

Direct download: GREepisode488_.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:00am EDT

Mon, 5 February 2024

Immigrants keep pouring into the US’ southern border.

How are we going to house them? We’re already millions of housing units undersupplied.

Some migrants get free housing. Yet there are homeless veterans.

Here’s what to expect from more immigration: more rental housing demand, more multigenerational dwellings, more homelessness, higher labor supply.

Get a simple explanation about title insurance.

Our in-house Investment Coach, Naresh, joins us with a real estate market update.

Two popular investment markets are Memphis BRRRRs and Florida new-builds.

He provides free coaching at GREmarketplace.com.

Timestamps:

The immigrant crisis worsens (00:00:01)

Discussion on the increasing number of immigrants and the housing shortage crisis in the United States.

Housing supply shortage (00:02:44)

Analysis of the shortage in housing supply, estimated to be around 4 million units, and the decline in available housing units.

Impact of immigration on housing demand (00:05:07)

Forecasted impacts of immigration on housing demand and the expected population growth due to immigration.

Challenges and solutions for housing immigrants (00:09:03)

Discussion on the challenges of housing immigrants and potential solutions, including easing construction restrictions and promoting the building of entry-level housing.

Title insurance explained (00:17:29)

Explanation of title insurance, its types, and its significance in real estate transactions.

Update on property manager's situation (00:15:08)

An update on the property manager's situation involving stolen rent payments and the tenant's agreement to compensate for the loss.

Mortgage rates and inflation (00:21:52)

Discussion on the current mortgage rates and their correlation with inflation, as well as predictions for future rate movements.

Mortgage Rates and Fed's Strategy (00:22:54)

Discussion on the impact of the Fed's decision to hold rates and its potential effect on mortgage rates.

Incentives and Real Estate Markets (00:25:08)

Explanation of incentives offered in Memphis and Florida real estate markets, including the BR method and new build properties.

Real Estate Investment Strategies (00:29:04)

Comparison of the Memphis BR method and Florida new build as investment strategies, emphasizing the benefits of each approach.

Property Investment Insights (00:32:16)

Discussion on the impact of property ownership and the potential for life-changing outcomes through real estate investment.

Economic Uncertainty and Real Estate (00:37:07)

Anticipation of potential economic volatility and its impact on real estate investment decisions, emphasizing the stability of real estate during uncertain times.

Resources mentioned:

Show Page:

GetRichEducation.com/487

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GRE Investment Coach, start here:

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RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE

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