Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Once you're in the game becomes how
[00:00:02] Speaker B: do I get out any investment you're making, especially in it. When you're dealing with an auction, you got to have an exit strategy. That's almost like number one for me. 2027, I believe is going to be a year of reckoning for the industry.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: It's a big one. You got to go out with the bank.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Those of us who are in distress, it's good for us. Unfortunately not good for a lot from an investment. I'm an investor. I've warned, I've bought tax deeds. So I think one, there's going to be more tax, more delinquent property taxes, that's for sure. So there'll be more liens out there for potential invest Submit
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Quick note before we continue Nothing we discuss in this podcast should be considered legal, financial or investment advice. Tax lien laws vary significantly by state and every property situation and investor is unique. Always consult with qualified legal and financial professionals in your jurisdiction before making any investment decisions.
Now let's get back to the show.
This is part two of our conversation with if you haven't listened to the Part one yet, be sure to check out the previous episode on the Innovative Investor Podcast.
I want to, I want to. There's a few couple really important segments I want to, I want to touch on and one and this, this one I'm going to move fast forward a little bit in the script because I feel like right now I wanted, I want the listeners to know more about your journey because they've heard me and they've heard other guests talk about kind of the current state of affairs and we'll, and we'll touch on those in a little while. But, but you're the most unique thing about the show right now and I want to take advantage of this time we have with you.
And so I'm really interested in this, in asking this next question because it gets into a part of our relationship where you and I weren't as closely communicating and so you know, we kept up once or twice a year kind of thing. But, but you added mediator and then an arbitrator certifications later in your career.
And I'm interested to know more about that. What made you want that kind of seat at the, at the table in addition to being or, or that changing of guard, if you will, addition to being an underwriter?
[00:02:07] Speaker B: That's a good question.
Well, prior to joining Chicago Title again, I was recruited.
I'd been semi retired three years from Title and my last stint before I semi retired Was.
Was.
I was a senior national underwriter, but I also was a claims officer.
And so I had to process claims.
And a lot of those claims I'd have to retain counsel for tender defense, and basically legal actions, lawsuits, and our insureds getting sued under title insurance, that's part of our responsibility, is when an insured gets rightly sued and. And their title is challenged in one way or the other, then we have to defend them. And so then I would retain counsel as the claims officer, and I would process this claim. I'd acknowledge the claim, determine coverage, retain outside counsel to protect our insured in court. And so a lot of times, and I also was at the company's settlement officer. So when we got into litigation and we'd end up in either mandatory settlement conferences, MSCs and. Or mediation, a lot of times mediation was there.
And I just remember some of these. Most of these mediators, you know, or, you know, or retired judges.
And I just remember going through this one case where we had tender basically maximum. Our maximum policy amount was about, I think, 650,000.
And so I told the judge on half of our insured, I go, look, we'll. We'll just tender 650. But the other side wanted 1.3 million, you know, And I. So I just remember the judge, you know, and eventually I started telling the judge, you know, have you thought about this? Remind him of this.
And then eventually he went to the other side and they came down. We were only maybe $50,000 apart, but again, I'm already. I'm already at max policy amount. Why? I don't need to tender any more than the max. And so this judge came to me and said, dave, I want you to kick in another 50.
I go on top of our 650.
And it just kind of rubbed me wrong. Like what? Like, do your job.
You're making 7, 500 a day on this. I'm not getting anything other than my. My salary.
I could do better than you on this. And so that kind of led me to go, I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get into mediation. And then with, like, with anything else I do, I. I always take it one step further.
Kind of like when I was an umpire for my little kids Little League, I got certified, and I did high school and college and semi pro. And so I got. So I became an arbitrator, and now I still do fin. I do. I'm a finra arbitrator. I do fender cases. I just. I'm in one right now.
So to me, and Then I got, you know, and then I wanted to learn more about alternative investments negotiations. So I went, I, I got mediation arbitration negotiation certifications through Harvard and that, and I always thought that that would just help me in negotiating, whether it's real estate investing, whether it's dealing with insureds, clearing title negotiating with, you know, I got more respect when I'm talking to an attorney when they know I'm a mediator and an arbitrator and they're, you know, so it just was more tools in my belt to make me more of an expert than I already was.
And so I call it wearing a hat. Like I can put on any hat that anybody needs me to wear depending on who I'm dealing with.
You know, the knowledge base sale. I was, I'm a, I was, I had my own title company, title service company. I, I was an underwriter, I'm an investor. I, I, I, I've been in court, I've, I've litigated court, I've dealt with, I've settled and negotiated.
So that just is just a tool, another tool in the belt. And I've taught my kids, you know, you know, just master something that nobody else wants to do and you'll have a job for life.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: So you're back in the underwriter game now and, but now you have these additional, this additional training experiences under your belt.
Most of our listeners are investors or tax sale investors. So, so think about this. What, what, think about what lessons from your arbitrator mediator trainings and experiences do you think investors could and should apply to how they deal with their own investment portfolios?
[00:06:55] Speaker B: I have to think about that a little bit but from an invest because again as we were talking earlier in order to create these title products and these title solutions and it's a knowledge based sale I wanted, I knew it was important to step into the shoes of my clients, which is investors. Those of you are listening to this. So, and I went to, in 1994 I, I went to tax sales and I bought tax sales using my IRA, you know, self directed IRA. That was back in the 90s. Nobody had done all that. So, so I've, so the more that you can educate yourself on the, on the issues, especially if you are an investor in this, in tax liens. You know, when you go to the closing table and you want to clear your title or you want, it's important to know what your, what the issues are so that you can, you know, when you have a buyer on the other side trying to buy your Property, you got to educate them.
So anything that you can do, you know, negotiation is negotiation. So, you know, for me as an arbitrator, mediation is basically just.
Mediation and arbitration are becoming more and more prevalent in Canada and in and over in Europe. It's a mainstay. You know, people don't necessarily go to court, they go to mediation and arbitration. That's starting to, you're starting to see mediation, arbitration starting to get more of a foothold because it's basically, hey, let's just sit down and see if we can't figure this out together.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: So as an investor, that's the main theme that, that that's coming to me as we talk about this is, is being able to sit down at a closing table, especially if you're in a closing table kind of real estate state, you know, where you, in some states like here, where I live, in California, that's not. You don't sit down at a closing table. But in judicial states, Louisiana and New York, you know, you still get, you still sit down at a, at a table with the other side. They've got an attorney and you, your view as the, the investor, seller of your tax deed, property are also have an attorney. And so you sit down. And sometimes those things can get contentious and, and you know, to be honest, again, no offense to attorneys, but you know, sometimes the more complex and theatrical they can make this, the more they can make. So there's not kind of a lot of incentive. Again, I, again, I apologize for anybody who's an attorney listen to this, but.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: No, no, yeah, I think everyone's going to appreciate you digging on attorneys.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: And I apologize. I dealt with this, you know, and look, all you attorneys, I'm going to put money in your pocket, but forgive me not, But I'm sorry, not sorry. The longer you take, the more you make. And, and there's no really incentive for, for attorneys, you know, you know, to, to sit down and talk it out, you know, without really billing everybody so hard. So, so that, so the takeaway from as far as being an arbitrator and a mediator is, is, is anything in negotiation is have an open mind. You know, if you don't, you're going to end up in court and only the attorneys are going to make money and you're going to, you're end up, you're going to end up in some kind of settlement anyways because judges don't want to. They don't want, they're going to, they force you. They call it cmcs, you know, you know case statuses and they keep trying to get you to settle. So why not do that without the meter necessarily running?
[00:10:13] Speaker A: So one of, one of the biggest traps of that I see most investors making that have not been in the game for very long and haven't had to learn this themselves, usually the hard way is they put a lot of time and effort into how they get into tax sales and not so much into how to get out of them. And I think that's where what you're talking about really can be leveraged. Because liquidity is everything, right. Once you're in the game becomes how do I get out? And a lot of times that's where I think most the negotiating skill and the ability to be flexible and to think about multiple different solutions to the same end goal really come in to benefit you rather than something that you scripted ahead of time or you read in a course module or learned from a guru.
And sometimes you might need to exit earlier than you thought, right. And then now you need to find a secondary market transfer and negotiation. Or you might need to negotiate, like you said, with a buyer or teach the buyer that there is no issue on title.
All of that is to help you liquidate your lien. Right. I mean, your deed and that which is the whole point, hopefully with more than you started with.
But the worst case scenario is you don't get anything you stock. Right. And it seems like that's where that could come into play.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Well, yeah, like, just like anything. I mean, I'm an investor. I've been buying distress, you know, real estate. Any investment you're making, especially in it, when you're dealing with an auction, you got to have an exit strategy. That's almost like number one for me is. Is. Yeah. Is what? Once you get this property, what are you going to do with it and how are you going to be able to do with it? And that's more. That's the biggest takeaway of anything. Especially because the problem with tax sales is even with the big players, the hedge funds, who it's hard for mom and pops to compete with nowadays, but even the big hedge funds, most of the time, out of all the billions of dollars that these firms are buying, I'd say at least 90% of those get redeemed. Most of these. And that's the false sense of security is, you know, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get my statutory interest. And so it's very, very rare. Even if you have to initiate foreclosure on your lien, the likelihood of you getting redeemed is very high. And so that's where people get, I don't call it lazy, they just, they get a false sense of security.
Yeah, that's a good word. And, and so, and then all of a sudden they get title. Now if you're a billionaire, you have, you have, you're a hedge fund with billions of these titles things or like hundreds of thousands of certificates in your portfolio. You know, 10% of that is a lot, you know, of titles that you have to deal with.
And, and then obviously in distress cycles those numbers go up. You know, like in 2008, you know, you had a massive collapse. You know, the Great Recession and not just mortgage foreclosures, people weren't paying their mortgages, they also weren't paying their tax, but property taxes. So when mortgage foreclosures go up, so do tax, sales tax.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: Yeah, usually with a little bit of a lag time. Like a little bit of a lag. Like usually as I say one to two couple years after mortgage, you know, delinquencies rise T. The tax kind of follows it about two years afterwards.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Because well again if you have a delinquent tax in most states, your tax certificate state or in California it's a five year delinquency before you can you take it to auction. So you're right that you know, and you know you got a, you know, six months to two years on an average, you know, including Louisiana, Florida is two years. Texas two years depending owner occupied or not. So, so sometimes you're right. I mean, so you know, you, you know, and I see right now, not to go off on a tangent but you know, obviously we're in a I, what I believe to be the probably the biggest commercial default cycle that's playing itself.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: No, this is my next question. So this is a great segue but yeah, go, go for it.
Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: So here we go with, you know, just like in 2008, you know, that was residential driven and it happened overnight, it collapsed. You saw Lehman Brothers go bankrupt and that scared the whole world and everybody, it went, fell off a cliff here. The difference, this cycle one is commercial driven but it's also a slow, what I call. It's not going to be, it's not going to fall off the cliff. It's a slow burn of cycle. And this cycle I think is going to be just as long as the Great Recession was. You had three to five years of distress and finally they did loan mods. Same thing going on here. We call it pretend and extend the Lenders don't, especially on commercial real estate, you know, they don't, they don't want the asset. So they're hoping that the feds cut the treasury rates, the rates come down and then all, then we can, we can refinance, the borrower can refinance out. But unfortunately you're just like in residential, that's playing out now as well. There's a distress cycle building again in residential behind commercial because you're, you know, you had a 3% and 2 to 3% rate environment on residential through, through 2020, you know, through Covet and all that ppl money. And then so you had this 3% loans prior to the Great Recession. And so now you're in a 6%, 7% rate environment.
You can't sell, you don't want to sell because you're not gonna be able to afford the next house or whatever. Yeah, commercial's the same. You had, you had rate, rate rates, a lot of securitization going on, a lot of easy way to raise money. And people were investing commercial real estate, especially multifamily. Texas was the, the, the mother load of all of that. You see now that's all collapsing and because again, you've got, you know, it was, you know, people were thinking, okay, I'm going to buy this, this multifamily and this commercial and I'm going to add value, added value was a big, big thing. And, and then I'm going to raise the rents and then I'm going to ref, I'm going to exit out in three to five years. And my, my, my limited partner investors are going to make money and I'm going to make money. Well now, you know, unfortunately, yet those loans now are due, they've matured and you have an environment where your loan, you know, you don't have the loan to value anymore. That equity is gone. You're, you're, you're under what I call what's called dscr. Again, I'm going commercial on you. Sorry, but meaning that the, your expenses to your net operating income has dropped below what they call 1%. You usually need 1.25% on these, between operating and debt on a commercial property to make money. So then all of a sudden the loan covenants get called. And so, you know, we've got Wells Fargo and Chase, the top four biggest lenders out there. You could have a fully occupied commercial building, 100%, 96% occupied, not in delinquency, fully performing. But the loan to values have dropped, cap rates have Gone up which means the value has dropped. And now sudden the Wells Fargo triggers the loan covenants that says if you go below Mr. Bar or developer owner if you get below a certain ltv I get to, I get to make, you have to, I can make a capital call on you and you got to pony up money. So they're, so they're, they're, they're going after fully performing and saying look Mr. Mr. Jim General Partner, you, you need, you need to give us 3 million to, to bring your LTV.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: And they don't have it and they won't, they're not going to have it.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: And then the loan gets called and so, so what style playing out is what you know the lenders now are, we're starting to see more enforcement now because the, the extensions on commercial loans have expired and they're seeing now the treasury rate inflation can't. Is still not under control. So the treasury for those in commercial lending rates are tied to, to the treasury rate. So when that treasury rate is high the 10. It's called the 10 year 10 year treasury when that's still high and you can't bring that down. You can't refinance. The loans are too expensive. So now you get, the loan can be called and you get foreclosed. And that's happening commercial is you know Covid drove to hybrid workforce that killed office that's still having to play out. I mean we, you know this was it last month a downtown Denver high rise commercial building. It was valued I think around $200 million five or six years ago. Just sold for 6 million.
I mean that's crazy. Yeah, that still has to play out. So the look you know we, it should have just like in the Great Recession. You know you should be foreclosing earlier than later. But everybody thinks the feds are going to help cut rates and it doesn't announce you're two to three years behind schedule.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: We are going to have to have a completely other episode with you on this topic because it's, this has fascinated me and it's a little bit you know disconnected. Not disconnected entirely but just from what I do right with, with what with my company with jurisdeed.
So it's, it's kind of like this side interest with the commercial defaults that are like this almost a tsunami of commercial defaults that, that are coming. And I have a lot of theories about it and about what's going to happen.
But you just like increased the magnitude of it with what you just said.
I mean more my Understanding of it, I think tenfold, because I'm sitting here kind of thinking about what's coming down the pipeline in this, in this commercial default topic is those loans that are in default. Right? Okay, yeah, it was, it was low interest loans. They were short. There were, there were, you know, variable rates terms. And so now the, they're ballooning and they're due and the, the debtors can't pay the note, they can't pay it off. And so it's going to foreclose and the lenders are going to take it. But the problem is, is that a lot, in my mind, a lot of these lenders are some of the small credit union banks too. Think about like smaller commercial buildings that, that are what really you use credit unions and smaller local banks for. Right? This isn't Wells Fargo Chase. This isn't too big to fail. These are the ones that are, that are, you know, big enough to fail.
And, and what happens when the banks can't hold that, that paper anymore?
The one, they're too small and they don't get bailed out like the ones in 0809 did? Right? What happens then? And it's like there's no end in sight. And I just think we could, we, like I said, we could go on for a whole other episode talking about this, but what you just said is you can't just be looking at the ones that are delinquent right now. You got to be looking at the terms of the note itself. Even if it's fully occupied and not technically delinquent, the numbers are off now, which triggers covenants that say, I don't care what the status of anything else is, I want out because I have, I'm entitled to get out because of the terms you signed on to. And they're not going to be able to afford to get out and it's going to be a problem that's going to.
Yeah, I think most people are looking at the delinquent notes and this is like you should be looking at almost all notes at this point.
It's crazy.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: You're, you're. Yeah, so we, you got a trillion dollars, basically a trillion that has been extended and modified out. And now those are coming due, right? Should have been. They matured two years ago and now they're, they're. No, now they're due again and then you have another trillion, you know, at least a half a billion to a trillion that are maturing between now and next year.
2027, I believe is going to be a year of Reckoning.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: For, for the industry and residential now you're starting to see a, a massive uptick in Florida residential foreclosures again. The Sun Belt states are always the one that lead the residential foreclosures. That's starting to happen, you know. You know so yeah you're right. I mean but that's kind of why I'm out of, I'm back in title and distressed title again.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Because Chicago title recognized that receiverships, Chapter 11 bankruptcies, all that is grow is going to grow because when you're dealing on commercial oriented tax sales are mainly residential. But as an underwriter you know you, when, when commercial distress hits you usually get the courts, you know the lenders, you know to protect their loans and protect the asset from being run. Right. They'll appoint what's called a receiver which is basically a court appointed, usually an attorney that that is now gets, it's a court appointed order to take over the title to take over the property and manage it and then eventually they'll do what's called a court order sale through a receivership sale that end up like a judicial foreclosure. Selling the asset. That's another that, that kind of title just like tax sales is not, is another title that title companies don't like to insure because it's, it's involving litigation and it comes with risk.
So I, I, I took what I did with tax sales and I applied it to receiverships, I've applied it to chapters to bankruptcy, 363 sales, UCC foreclosures, all these kind of titles that are very anti industry doesn't like. I've applied the same kind of mindset and so I got pulled out of semi retirement because receiverships are growing because as these loans mature and they go into foreclosure and they get enforced the receiverships get appointed bankruptcies gets filed similar to a Chapter 11 or Chapter 13 in a residential sale. You know when somebody has equity in their property and, and they're getting foreclosed out they file a chapter 13 to try and stop that or try to come up with a plan to save the equity.
That's the version of Chapter 13 is a Chapter 11 on a commercial property. So that's growing. So here I, here I can, you know here's comes this cycle that's another distress cycle. Commercial and residential, residential.
Little bit behind on it but it's coming man. This, so here I come run, I'm going to run this last big cycle. I'm 58 and this is probably my last big cycle, so it's a big one.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: You got to go out with the bank.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Those of us who are in distress, it's good for us. Unfortunately not good for a lot.
People need experts like us who do, who know distress and feel comfortable with it so we can help.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: No, no doubt about it. It's going to be the rule that, that governs the, the way we do business for the next however many years. It's, it is going to be a
[00:25:23] Speaker B: 10 year play again.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: So we, we only have a little bit of time left but again like I, I, I, I'm, we're definitely having you back on because this is like that whole topic is, is so fascinating to me and I think our listeners would really love to deep the deep dive more into it. But just can you give me a, a like 60 second answer on what that means for taxes? What, what all this means for tax liens and tax sales in the short term? Like what? I'm a tax sale investor right now and I'm hearing you Dave, and I'm hearing that this is like okay, I believe you, but I'm not in, I'm not a commercial investor, I'm a tax sale investor. Like why do I care? How does this affect me this year, next year, next five years? What's your answer?
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Well, you know, from an investment, I'm an investor, I've worn, I've bought tax deeds so I won. There's going to be more, more tax, more delinquent property taxes, that's for sure.
So there'll be more liens out there for, to, for, for potential investment.
I also believe though that you, if, when you, if you end up with a title two to five years from now, you're probably going to be in a down market and you're going to have to deal with how do you sell your property or how do you fix and flip or whatever you're going to do. How you're going to probably end up doing it not in a, in like in a 20, 20, 21, you know, where property values are up. Even like today, property values are still up. But that's false equity.
You know, when, when, when, when.
Because we're talking because tax sales are more residential. My take on residential distress is you had the same environment, 3% loans.
No one was selling because, and so equity went up because there wasn't a lot of inventory because no one wanted to sell because they didn't want to go from 3% to 7% on the next house.
So that's created False equity. And then what happened is what you saw is because people had equity, they started getting helocs. You know, that's your equity loans. So they started pulling equity out and even though they had this 3% loan, now they've got two loans. And now all of a sudden they get over their. I, I call it. People start getting over their skis. You know, they, they, they, they get, they're, now, they can't afford two payments. And so now you're going to start seeing foreclosures. Economy is not good. It. That has to. The stock market's going to correct itself, that's for sure.
So you're, you're going into a, your economy is, is, it's, it's, it's somewhat strong only because the dollar is, is the world's reserve. So we get to keep printing money, but that has to be dealt with.
So, so the answer to the question is keeping it under 60 seconds is you're what, you're going to be in a distress cycle when you probably, if you end up with, with a tax deed, property. And so you're gonna have to know how, what again, what's your exit strategy in that kind of environment? That's my best advice.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Okay, we got time for basically one more question before we will put a pin in this amazing episode and start scheduling the next one. But.
All right, so it's 1995. Ish. Right. And this whole opportunity of starting tax title services is kind of brewing and you're putting the pieces together and everything.
Now Fast forward to 2026. Dave Schumacher from 1995 is now in 2026, and you're looking at the same opportunity. What do you do differently? How do you build that company today with current technology, AI things that you've known experiences? What does that look like today?
And I know this is going to be a conversation that you and I could talk about for a long, long time, but give me the best version of it you can in a few minutes.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: To be honest, it's, it's not much different.
1990. You're still, you still have a, an industry that still doesn't like tax deeds, period. I mean, it's not changed.
So, you know, but for me, I always thought, and this is you and I tried to get into this where I always thought that the real, and it's still true to this day is if we can get the noticing taken away from the tax collector and put it in your hands or my hands.
That's the key to me, because if you, if you Fix the due process problems you don't have. You don't have title problems and you don't have claims. And you know, so basically I always, I always thought that the real, the real opportunity was in the due processing of you know, you know, creating systems. Kind of like what you've done with Juristeed is what I always thought was the key. It wasn't, it wasn't tax deeds, it was tax certificates and the enforcement of that which if you get, if we could get into the noticing and do the noticing for the tax collector, we would do it at a standard, a higher standard.
You know, first class mail, certified mail, post the property.
You know, if notice comes back undelivered, make sure you've done the due diligence to skip trace. So you can say you did all this to get notice to you so they can't fight you. You know, so I still see that as the what would I change? Nothing other than that's still the opportunity. That's where all the, that's where all that where you really can help. Because I still think and I think the tax collectors with AI and with you with AI and what your systems can do, that's the key to clearing up tax deeds. In my mind that's not, that's not changed. I never got the, I never got to get into that realm as much as I wanted to.
But that's still, that is where if you can automate that AI is really going to be able to help with that.
And jurisdeed is kind of again, I'm a little bit jealous because I always wanted to create Jurisdeed back then. That was the answer is let me do the noticing so I can do it at a level of. And I can sell that to my title company, my underwriters that I've got, we've got clear title.
We don't. We've met Mennonite. We've actually exceeded Mennonite and do process problems.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: Well, who knows Dave? Maybe. But if we keep on the path we're on right now, things are going well. We'll, we'll. You'll have your opportunity but. And we'll be working together closer than ever it be.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: It would be a great full circle.
I would love that to happen.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: That. Likewise. Likewise.
And so la last part of that question is again talking to the like the main concerns of our listeners, the tax lien investment industry.
What would be your advice to investors who are frankly concerned or overwhelmed by the complexity of this getting title insurance? And now they're even more concerned because we're listening to this podcast. They're like, hey, yeah, this is still a problem.
You still need to be concerned about this. You could get stuck and everything.
How should they be thinking about what their resources are, what their options are?
What could mitigate that concerns today in 2026 and moving forward?
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Well, like I always say, you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
There's those of us, you and me, that understand that. And so it's about having a good team.
You know, whether it's a good lawyer, whether it's a good realtor, whether it's a good lender.
It's just, you want. I have. Especially if you're a tax lien, tax deed investor, you want to have somebody on your team that can handle the, you know, if you have to enforce it yourself, if you. And then what happens when you get title? You know, and I'm not that we're touting ourselves, but, you know, call David, call, call me, call Stephen. You know, we're, I got the title side, you've got the due process side. You know, you've got, you know, you know, we're up on the case law, we're, we're up on statutory procedures. And so it's just that, you know, it's like anything else, you know, add, Add. Add this to your resource, to your. Add somebody like us to your team. That's it.
[00:33:34] Speaker A: Right.
Amazing. Amazing. Well, I'll get. Things have to come to an end. But I do want to close out with one last thing. So every episode where we do the Innovative Investor podcast, we close out with the same kind of question.
I call it the deed line. Because in the real estate industry, and no different from tax sales, the deed is where the rubber meets the road. If you can't get to a deed or you don't have what it takes to get there, you're going to be stuck, you're not going to be successful.
And so it's where the rubber meets the road in the industry. If you had to write one sentence, I know it's hard for people like you and me because we could write a thesis, but if you had to write one sentence on the deed of this moment in the tax title, insurability and underwriting world, something that captures what investors would need to understand about where we stand right now at this moment in time, what would that sentence say?
[00:34:30] Speaker B: Case law.
I won't. Not much of a sentence, but there is a lot of case law, and you've been very good at educating your clients in the industry. On case law is dictating is done good and it can is done bad.
But with the deed, case law is always going to drive title insurance. Case law is always going to drive statutory procedures and increase or decrease your costs as an investor on tax liens of how you get to the deed, how do you get to that deed. And so case law is just, it's always been one of my words and not really a sentence, but the Putnam case, Isabella county case, all that is going to drive the industry. I'm following it obviously as an underwriter doesn't really change things for me, you know.
So yeah, in order to get case lodge is going to drive your deed to, to your deed and just staying up on procedures. But case law is going to always can be good and bad and there's always going to people are going to sue, you know, so that's right.
Well that answers the question. But that, you know, that's. That to me is always key.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. No, the answer to the question is your is whatever your answer is. And that's the beauty of it is is from your perspective, that is the answer. And but I love it and I think it's connected to the second to last answer you gave which is have a good team. You got to have a team you trust and rely on the resources and tools. Don't get into this without having that. And why? Because you want to be an investor. You want to be able to wash your money and make good calls and make good decisions and you need to be able to trust others that can keep up with things like case law, which in your own words is the D line of the moment. So you should write that one down.
And if you didn't hear it the prior podcast episode with attorney South Carolina attorney Matt Abey, who's one of the foremost minds in tax deeds and tax liens with constitutional law in the country.
He was on our podcast for a second episode just recently after the pung case came out and where the industry is headed as a result. If you did not hear that, please go back and check that out. We'll drop a link in the show notes, but it's in the Innovative Investor podcast channel as well.
So Dave, thank you so much for being here. Seriously, this very few people in this industry have seen tax title risk from as many angles as you have.
And the person from as the person who built the certification model, the underwriter who applies it today and now is a trained mediator and arbitrator who resolves disputes when it all breaks down, you have definitely given our listeners a real education today, and everybody should be grateful for the time you've given today to be here on the show.
For everyone listening, we'll link to David and Chicago Title NCS in the show. Notes if you're bidding on tax liens or deeds and you haven't thought about insurability before you bid, hopefully today's episode is your reminder to fix that now, not after you've won the auction. And this is exactly why we built jurisdeed, because the gap between winning a tax sale and holding a clean, insurable title is where deals quietly die. The investors who win in this environment aren't necessarily the ones with the most capital.
They're the ones who understand the title risk before they bid. And if you want to invest in delinquent property tax liens like a pro without having to be one, head to juristeeve.com and get on the waitlist now. We're launching our public platform, available nationwide later this year. We're building the platform that makes all of this manageable. If today's episode was valuable to you, please subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share with at least one person in your network who invests in or is seriously thinking about investing in real estate, debt or tax liens. That's how we grow this community. I'm Steven Morell and this is the Innovative Investor Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you.
