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Release of HRP’s 2023-2024 Annual Report – Harvard Law School

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Release of HRP’s 2023-2024 Annual Report – Harvard Law School


Release of HRP’s 2023-2024 Annual Report

We are pleased to present HRP’s 2023-2024 Annual Report. The report showcases the global reach and impact of the Human Rights Program in the year of its 40th anniversary, featuring work on African perspectives on climate change law, a new UN draft declaration on the rights of people of African descent, and much more. It spotlights the impact of visiting scholars and fieldwork undertaken by students and alumni, and details the rich assortment of HRP events.

We thank all of the partners and alumni who contributed not only to the success of the past eventful year, but also to the success of HRP’s past four decades.

The 2023-2024 Annual Report can be downloaded as a PDF file.



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How to Get Back on Track with Your Healthy Habits this Fall

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How to Get Back on Track with Your Healthy Habits this Fall


Raise your hand if you feel like your summer went totally off the rails.

If it’s up right now, I can promise you that you are definitely NOT alone!

And honestly, it’s not really that surprising when you think about it.

Between the vacations and the disruptions in your normal routine, it’s easy to get off track.

Are you ready to lose weight and heal your body for life (without dieting, drugs, or making yourself miserable)?

Our free on-demand video training will walk you through how to make this THE year you set health goals…and keep them.

But that doesn’t mean you have to STAY off track.

And since Labor Day has now come and gone, and autumn is right around the corner, I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about a few super practical things you can do to, first of all, let go of any guilt and shame you might be feeling and instead set yourself up for success with healthier habits this fall.

Because the truth is that it’s not always easy to get back on the wagon if you feel like you’ve totally blown it, but it IS possible to get yourself back to a place where you’re feeling healthy and energized and motivated.

So hopefully this is the blog post that will help you do just that.

I know what it’s like to feel completely overwhelmed by all the conflicting information out there about the best way to lose weight and get healthy. I know what it’s like to feel like you just don’t have the TIME to take care of yourself, or to get in a good workout, or to cook healthy meals. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re doing everything right, and still not seeing results. And I know what it’s like to be so frustrated and discouraged by your lack of progress that you just want to give up.

Because honestly, that’s where I was a few years ago. I had been struggling with my weight for a long time—pretty much ever since my kids were born—and I had tried just about every diet and weight loss program under the sun. And nothing worked. Or at least, nothing worked for very long. I would lose a few pounds, and then gain it all back. And it was so frustrating.

And to make matters worse, I just didn’t FEEL good. I was exhausted all the time. I was constantly getting sick. I had headaches every day. I’d get this weird brain fog that made it hard for me to think or concentrate. I had all sorts of stomach issues.

And it went on for so long that I started to think it was just normal. That this was just the way things were. That it was just part of getting older.

But finally one day, I decided it was time to try something different. My daughters were now teenagers, and became acutely aware of how much they were watching me. And I didn’t want them to see me having an unhealthy relationship with food or with my body. I didn’t want them to see me starving myself on yet another diet.

And that’s when I started to really dive into the science of weight loss and metabolic health, and to learn everything I could about how our bodies actually process food, and how our hormones work, and how all of that is connected to inflammation and disease.

And the more I learned, the more I realized that so much of what we’ve been told about the right way to lose weight and get healthy is just plain WRONG. And that if I wanted to actually be successful in losing weight and getting healthy, I was going to have to unlearn a lot of the things that I thought I knew, and retrain my body to work the way it was designed to work.

And that’s how I ended up creating the Thin Adapted System, which is the program that we use here at Thinlicious. And honestly, it’s the program that I used to transform my own health and my own life.

Because once I started eating the Thinlicious way, everything changed. The weight started to come off, and it just kept coming off. I lost 40 pounds in about 6 months, and I’ve been able to keep it off ever since. In fact, my weight has even gone down a little more since then. And not only that, all of health issues went away. I had more energy than I’d had in years. I was sleeping better. My skin looked better. I just felt better. And I still do.

And that’s why I’m so passionate about this work, and about helping other women to transform their health the same way that I did. Because I know what a difference it can make. I know how it feels to be on the other side, and I want that for you too.

And that’s also why, in every episode of my podcast, I want to give you the tools and the knowledge and the inspiration to help you on your journey to better health. I want to help you cut through all the BS and get to the truth about what actually works. I want to help you understand the science behind our program, and why it’s so effective. And I want to help you implement it in a way that is actually sustainable for the long haul.

Because the reality is that losing weight and getting healthy is a PROCESS. It’s not something that happens overnight, and it’s not something that you can do for a little while and then go back to your old habits. It’s about making a real, permanent lifestyle change. It’s about changing the way you eat, and the way you think about food, and the way you take care of yourself. And I know that can be really hard, especially if you’ve been struggling with your weight for a long time, or if you have a lot of weight to lose.

But it’s also why I think it’s so important to talk about the fact that we ALL have our ups and downs on this journey. There are going to be times when you’re feeling super motivated and you’re making a lot of progress, and then there are going to be times when you get derailed, and you fall off the wagon, and you start to slip back into your old habits. And that’s okay. It happens to all of us. The key is to not let those moments of setback become permanent. The key is to find a way to get yourself back on track.

And so, with that in mind, in today’s blog post I want to talk about some practical strategies for doing just that—for getting yourself back on track after you’ve fallen off the wagon.

And honestly, it’s just as much a reminder for myself as it is for you, because frankly, it has been a crazy season and a crazy summer, and I’m SO ready to get back into the healthy habits that I know help me look and feel my absolute best.

But before we dive in, there’s just one super quick thing I want to say, and that is that if you are brand new to this blog and to Thinlicious, and you want to understand more about how our program works and how it can help you transform your health—and your life—then I would love to have you join me for my favorite training workshop. Oh, and it’s free! You can get signed up for the next one HERE. So hopefully I’ll see you there.

And with that out of the way, let’s dig in to the topic of the day and talk about how to get back on track with your healthy habits this fall!

Stop the Self-Sabotage

But before I dive right into the practical steps you can take to get back on track, I want to take a minute to talk about something that I think gets in our way more often than we’d like to admit:

Self Sabotage.

Because the truth is that losing weight and getting healthy is hard work. It’s a journey, and it’s a process. And along the way, there are going to be ups and downs. There are going to be days when you feel on top of the world, and there are going to be days when you feel like you just can’t do it. There are going to be days when you make a lot of progress, and there are going to be days when you feel like you’re moving in slow motion. And that’s okay.

But what’s not okay is when we start to get in our own way. What’s not okay is when we start to self-sabotage ourselves, and do things that we know aren’t helping us reach our goal. What’s not okay is when we start to let doubt and fear and insecurity take over, and we start to believe that we’re not good enough, or that we don’t deserve to reach our goal, or that it’s never going to happen for us.

Because often, when it comes right down to it, the only thing that’s truly holding us back is OURSELVES.

The biggest thing that’s keeping us from reaching our goal is our own self-sabotage.

And so if we can learn to recognize that, and we can learn to get out of our own way, then there’s no limit to what we can achieve.

So what does self-sabotage look like? I actually think it shows up in lots of different ways.

Diet Sabotage

First, there’s the obvious—diet sabotage.

Because obviously what we’re eating on a daily basis is the biggest factor in whether we’ll actually be successful at reaching our health and weight loss goals. And so if we’re not paying attention to what we’re eating, and we’re not fueling our bodies in the right way, then we’re basically setting ourselves up for failure.

But what happens is that we often start to self-sabotage by making excuses for ourselves. We’ll say things like, “I had a really stressful day at work, so I deserve this cookie,” or “I’ve been doing so well all week, I can afford to indulge in this pizza.” And while it’s okay to enjoy treats every now and then, constantly using them as a coping mechanism or reward is only going to hinder our progress.

Or we stop tracking our macros, telling ourselves that we don’t have time to worry about that right now, or that we already have a pretty good idea of what we’re eating and we don’t need to do that anymore, but all those little “cheats” start to slip in. And before you know it, you’ve completely derailed your progress.

But typically that diet sabotage starts out small and innocently, and then slowly starts to snowball. So it’s important to recognize those moments where you’re starting to make excuses for yourself, and nip them in the bud before they become a habit.

All or Nothing Thinking

The second big way that we tend to self-sabotage ourselves is with our THINKING. In other words, we let our own thoughts and beliefs get in the way of our success. We start to tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, or that we don’t deserve to reach our goal, or that it’s never going to happen for us. We start to let doubt and fear and insecurity take over, and we start to believe all the negative things that we tell ourselves.

And this is something that I see happen all the time, not just with weight loss, but with anything in life. We tend to be our own harshest critics, and we tend to let our own thoughts and beliefs hold us back. We start to buy into this idea of “all or nothing” thinking, where if we’re not perfect, then we’re a failure. And that’s a really dangerous mindset to get into, because it basically sets us up for failure from the beginning.

Because the truth is that there’s no such thing as perfect. And if you’re waiting until everything is perfect before you start taking action, then you’re never going to get anywhere. You have to be willing to take imperfect action. You have to be willing to take that first step, even if you’re not 100% sure of yourself. You have to be willing to be a beginner, and to make mistakes along the way.

And the more you can change your thinking, the more likely you are to actually reach your goals. Your mindset is incredibly powerful, and it can either be your biggest asset, or your biggest liability. So make sure you’re using it in a way that serves you, and not in a way that holds you back.

Habit Sabotage

And that leads us right into the third way we tend to self-sabotage—with our HABITS.

Because the reality is that we are what we repeatedly do. Our habits are what shape our lives, and our habits are what determine our success. And so if we have a lot of bad habits, or if we’re not willing to change our habits, then we’re basically just setting ourselves up for failure.

And this is something that I see happen all the time. People will come to me and say that they want to lose weight and get healthy, but they’re not willing to change any of their habits. They want to keep doing the same things they’ve always done, and they want to keep living their life the same way. And then they wonder why they’re not seeing any results.

Because the truth is that if you want to change your life, then you have to be willing to change your habits. You have to be willing to do things differently. You have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone, and to try new things. You have to be willing to make your health a priority, and to take action every single day.

And I know that can be really hard, especially if you’re trying to change a lot of habits all at once. It can be really overwhelming, and it can be really easy to get discouraged. But the reality is that you don’t have to change everything all at once. You just have to be willing to take it one step at a time, and to focus on changing one habit at a time.

But habits is a big one.

Mindset Sabotage

And the fourth big way we tend to self-sabotage is with our MINDSET.

And I know that might sound a little bit redundant, since we already talked about changing your thinking and your beliefs. But when I talk about mindset, I’m really talking about your overall approach and attitude towards life, and how that impacts your ability to reach your goals.

In other words, I’m talking about whether you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. And if you’re not familiar with those terms, a growth mindset is when you believe that your abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved over time, through hard work, learning, and perseverance. In other words, you believe that you have the power to change and grow.

On the other hand, a fixed mindset is when you believe that your abilities and intelligence are static and unchangeable. In other words, you believe that you are who you are, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.

And the reality is that your mindset has a huge impact on your ability to reach your goals. If you have a growth mindset, then you’re much more likely to be successful, because you believe that you have the power to change and grow. You’re willing to put in the work, and you’re willing to take risks. And even when things get tough, you’re able to pick yourself back up and keep going.

But if you have a fixed mindset, then you’re much more likely to self-sabotage. You’re much more likely to give up when things get hard, because you believe that there’s nothing you can do to change the situation. You’re much more likely to make excuses, and to blame other people or outside circumstances. And you’re much more likely to let doubt and fear and insecurity creep in, because you believe that you’re not capable of reaching your goal.

X Steps for Getting Back on Track

So those are the four big ways we tend to self-sabotage our health—with our diet, with our all or nothing thinking, with our habits, and with our mindset. And it’s important to be aware of all of those tendencies.

But then the question really becomes—what can you do about it? How do get back on track when you’ve been sabotaging yourself?

Acknowledge the Problem

The first step to getting back on track after you’ve fallen off the wagon is to actually acknowledge that there IS a problem. And I know that might sound a little bit obvious, but I think it’s actually a really important first step, because so often when we start to slip back into our old habits, we don’t want to admit it to ourselves. We want to just keep burying our head in the sand and pretending like everything is fine, even when we know deep down that it’s not.

And I’ve definitely been guilty of this in the past. I’ll start to notice that my clothes are feeling a little bit tighter, or that I’m not sleeping as well, or that I’m feeling more tired and sluggish, and I’ll just keep telling myself that it’s no big deal. I’ll tell myself that I’m still doing okay, and that I’ll get back on track soon, and that it’s not really a problem. And I’ll just keep ignoring all the warning signs.

But the truth is that the longer you ignore the problem, the bigger it’s going to get, and the harder it’s going to be to actually do something about it. And so the first step is to just be honest with yourself and acknowledge that you’ve fallen off the wagon, and that you need to make a change. You need to take a good, hard look at where you’re at right now, and where you want to be, and you need to be willing to admit that there’s a gap.

And I think it can also be really helpful to actually write this down. Take some time to do a little self-assessment and really think about where you’re at in terms of your health and your weight loss journey. Think about what your goals are, and where you want to be. And then think about where the gaps are. What are the things that you’re not doing, or that you’ve stopped doing, that are keeping you from reaching those goals? What are the old habits that you’ve slipped back into? What are the things that you need to change?

Get it out of your head and onto paper, so that you can really see it and look at it and start to make a plan for how to move forward. Because the truth is that you can’t change what you’re not willing to acknowledge. You have to be honest with yourself about where you’re at, and where you want to be, and what’s standing in the way.

So that’s the first step. Just acknowledge the problem, and be honest with yourself about where you’re at, and where you want to be.

Reconnect with Your Why

The second step to getting back on track after you’ve fallen off the wagon is to actually take some time to reconnect with your WHY. And I know that might sound a little bit cliche, but honestly, I think it’s one of the most important things you can do, not just in this situation, but in life in general.

Because the reality is that we are all driven by our WHY. We are all motivated by our reasons for doing things, and when we lose sight of those reasons, it’s really easy to slip back into our old habits and to stop making progress. But when we can stay connected to our WHY, and keep it at the forefront of our mind, it becomes a lot easier to stay motivated and to keep moving forward, even when things get tough.

So take some time to really think about what your WHY is. Why did you start this journey in the first place? What were the things that were motivating you to make a change? What were the things that you wanted to be different in your life? What were the things that you were hoping to gain, or to avoid? What were the things that were important to you?

And again, actually write this down. Get it out of your head and onto paper, so that you can really see it and look at it and remind yourself of it on a regular basis. Because the truth is that we all have a tendency to forget. We get busy, and we get distracted, and we start to lose sight of the things that are really important to us. And so we have to be intentional about keeping those things front and center in our mind.

And I think it can also be really helpful to take some time to actually visualize what your life will look like when you reach your goals. Really try to paint a picture in your mind of what that will be like. What will it feel like to have more energy, and to not be out of breath all the time? What will it feel like to be able to wear whatever you want, and to feel confident in your own skin? What will it feel like to not have to worry about all the health issues that are associated with being overweight and out of shape? What will it feel like to be able to do all the things that you want to do, and to not be held back by your weight?

And I know that for a lot of us, this can be a really emotional process. Because the truth is that our WHY is usually tied to our deepest desires and our deepest fears. It’s usually tied to the things that we want more than anything, and the things that we’re most afraid of losing. And so it’s okay to let yourself feel those emotions. It’s okay to cry, or to get angry, or to get really fired up. Because those emotions are what will ultimately drive you to take action.

So that’s the second step. Take some time to really reconnect with your WHY, and to remind yourself of all the reasons why this journey is important to you. And then keep those reasons front and center in your mind, and let them be the thing that motivates you to keep moving forward, even when it’s hard.

Start Small

The third step to getting back on track after you’ve fallen off the wagon is to actually START SMALL. And I know that for a lot of us, this can be the hardest part, because we have a tendency to want to do ALL THE THINGS, and to do them all at once. We want to go from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye, and to completely overhaul our entire life and our entire routine in one fell swoop. And then when we can’t sustain that level of change, we get discouraged and we give up.

But the reality is that big changes rarely happen all at once. Big changes are usually the result of a lot of small changes, made consistently over time. And so if you want to get back on track, the best thing you can do for yourself is to actually START SMALL, and to focus on making just one or two small changes at a time.

And the key word here is SMALL. I’m talking about changes that are so small, they almost feel insignificant. Changes that are so small, you don’t even really have to think about them. Changes that are so small, you can do them without a lot of effort or willpower. Because the truth is that willpower is a finite resource, and if you’re relying on it to make big changes, you’re probably not going to be very successful.

So what are some examples of small changes that you can make? Well, it really depends on where you’re at, and what your goals are, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

If you’ve been eating a lot of processed junk food and sugar, and you’re feeling like you need to get back to eating a more whole foods based diet, then maybe your first small change could be to just focus on adding more vegetables to your meals. You don’t have to completely cut out all the junk right away, but just start by adding more of the good stuff.

Or if you’ve been struggling to find the time to cook healthy meals, then maybe your first small change could be to just start meal planning. Even if you’re not actually cooking the meals yet, just having a plan in place can make a big difference.

Or if you’ve been feeling really overwhelmed and stressed out, and you know that you need to find a way to take better care of yourself, then maybe your first small change could be to just start by taking a few minutes every day to do some deep breathing or meditation, or to go for a short walk.

Or if you’ve been skipping your workouts, then maybe your first small change could be to just commit to doing 10 minutes of exercise every day. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but just getting in the habit of moving your body on a regular basis can help to build momentum.

So those are just a few examples, but like I said, it really depends on where you’re at and what your goals are. The key is to just start with one or two small changes, and to focus on being consistent with those changes before you try to add anything else.

And I think it can also be really helpful to actually write these changes down, and to make a plan for how you’re going to implement them. So take some time to think about what your first small changes will be, and then write them down, and put them on your calendar, or on a sticky note on your bathroom mirror, or somewhere where you’ll see them every day. And then just focus on being consistent with those changes, and on building momentum, one small step at a time.

So that’s the third step. START SMALL, and focus on making just one or two small changes at a time, and on being consistent with those changes before you try to add anything else.

Get Support

The fourth step to getting back on track after you’ve fallen off the wagon is to make sure you’re actually getting the support and accountability you need to be successful.

And I know that for a lot of us, this can be a really scary and vulnerable thing to do, because it means that we have to actually ADMIT to someone else that we’ve been struggling, and that we need help. And that can be really hard, especially if you’re used to being the one that everyone else looks to for support.

But the reality is that we all need help and support from time to time. We all need someone to cheer us on, and to hold us accountable, and to help us stay on track. And so if you’re feeling like you’ve been struggling to get back on track, then finding a coach or an accountability partner or a supportive community might be just the thing you need.

I think the most important thing is to find someone who is going to be supportive and non-judgmental, but who is also going to be willing to give you a little tough love when you need it. You want someone who is going to be there to cheer you on, but who is also going to be willing to ask the hard questions, and to hold you accountable when you start to slip back into your old habits.

And that’s also one of the big things that I think makes our program so helpful. Because that support is built in. But you also have to be willing to lean into it.

So that’s the fourth step. Get the support you need to get back on track.

Forgive Yourself and Commit to Moving Forward

The fifth and final step for getting back on track is perhaps one of the trickiest: forgiving yourself and committing to moving forward.

The truth is that we all mess up from time to time—it’s sort of the unspoken rule of being human.

But you can’t go backwards. What’s done is done. You can’t change the past.

But you can change the future.

So re-commit to your goals and to moving forward, and then let go of any anger or disappointment in yourself that isn’t actually serving you.

Getting healthy is a marathon, not a sprint.

And big goals never happen all at once. They are only the result of small steps taken consistently over time.

So commit to taking the small steps you need to, starting today.

And then watch what happens.

Because I know you’ve got this friend, and I believe in you.





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Why Your Small Town Is the Best Place to Buy Rentals

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Your small town might be the best place to invest in real estate, even if it’s got only a few thousand residents. We know—everyone has told you to go to the bigger, growing cities where you can chase appreciation, but today’s guest might change your mind. He was able to scale to over twenty rental properties in just a few years, all by buying in his rural Ohio town that you’ve probably never heard of. Even better? He bought the rentals with none of his own money, AND he was cash-flowing THOUSANDS per month. So how do you do it, too?

Josh Bauerle tried to invest in real estate back in 2006. What was supposed to be a “quick flip” turned into a thirteen-year investment, which (thankfully) made a bit of money by the end. After taking a decade off from real estate investing, he got back in the game, first by buying a rental from his father and then by purchasing a twelve-unit real estate portfolio from a local friend. He then scaled FAST to a serious amount of rentals, all in a tiny town with a small population.

After that, he stumbled upon the best-kept cash flow secret in real estate investing: section 8 rentals. Today, Josh is sharing how he did it without using his own money, and how you can do it, too, whether you’re in a sizable city or a small town.

Dave:
Many investors would find the prospect of owning real estate in a small town of just 6,000 people. Too risky to even consider, but it’s a little different when you grew up in that community and already know a lot of potential partners and tenants. Today we’re going to hear from an investor who made the absolute most of these connections and mind all these advantages of a rural community where everyone knows everyone. And we’ll talk about how this guest applied these lessons to a bigger market that he eventually moved to everyone. Welcome to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. This is Dave Meyer and we’re starting this week with a story from investor Josh Barley. Josh was a small town CPA in Ohio who took his portfolio to the next level by somewhat serendipitously acquiring 10 properties in a single transaction, and he did it without putting any of his own principle into the deal. We’re bringing on Josh, and I’m excited for this conversation because we’re going to talk to him about how his first supposedly quick flip investment turned into a somewhat disaster. He had to hold onto it for 13 years. We’ll talk about the advantages he’s found from investing in a small rural community and why the benefits of accepting Section eight tenants far outweigh the bureaucratic downsides. Let’s get to Josh. Josh, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Thanks for being here.

Josh:
Hey, thanks for having me.

Dave:
I’m excited to have you, Josh, and eager to jump in. So tell me a little bit about your introduction to real estate investing. Where did this idea come from for you?

Josh:
Yeah, so my dad was a big real estate investor when I was in college. Basically he had had a lumber business. He sold it and he kind of said he was going to go into real estate and I had no idea what that meant, but he started buying some rental properties and my introduction, I would say wasn’t a great one. It was me working on all these crappy houses with him and making them not crappy. There was even a time he was having me tar a roof and I’m sitting there walking backwards, tarring it and walk straight off the roof. Oh my gosh. It wasn’t the best introduction. Were you

Dave:
Okay?

Josh:
It was like a 10 foot roof. It just scared the crap out of me. And of course my dad said, get back up there and finish. So it was an interesting start.

Dave:
So why do you invest in real estate now? This sounds terrible way to start,

Josh:
So No, but I was in my college library one day and I passed a book called The Millionaire Real Estate Investor and I was like, I’m going to get that for my dad. That sounds good for him. And I read the whole, ended up just got back to my dorm, read the first page, and then read it front to back in two days and became obsessed with it and suddenly understood what he was doing and why it made sense. And a few years later I bought my first one myself and then this was 2006. Right. So my first one did not go well. It was right before the crash. It was a disaster. It was supposed to be a quick flip that turned into a 13 year flip basically.

Dave:
Oh my God.

Josh:
So I got out of it

Dave:
For

Josh:
Good 10 years and then dove headfirst in about 2017.

Dave:
Wow. Okay. So there’s a lot to unpack in this story. So when you started in 2006 you said, so you had, I assume just recently gotten out of college. Is that right?

Josh:
So hilarious. I was still in college, had no income and I was still given a mortgage, which shows why

Dave:
The

Josh:
Market crashed shortly after.

Dave:
So you were able to finance this deal yourself?

Josh:
I would finance it myself. My mom lent me the down payment, they didn’t care. They gave me the loan and I had a house. Unbelievable.

Dave:
This is just side note here for everyone. If you want to know why today’s real estate market is not like the lead up to the crash in 2008, here’s a perfect example. The lenders no longer give loans to people who don’t have incomes anymore, at least that I know of. No conventional mortgage does that. So just a little bit of an aside here. So why a flip, Josh, of all things after reading the Millionaire Investor, why did you choose that strategy?

Josh:
Yeah, I mean I was 22 years old at the time. Getting money right away sounded a lot better than putting into rental property and sitting and waiting for the equity to build. It’s actually really funny looking back, I think I planned to sell it for one 70 and I bought it for 1 42 and thought this was the best deal ever. And now I’d look at it and wouldn’t touch it. So even before things crashed, it wasn’t a good investment. But at 22 years old thinking I might be able to make 10 or $15,000 off this, it sounded amazing.

Dave:
Yeah, it’s just probably more money than you had ever imagined at that point in your life.

Josh:
Exactly.

Dave:
So were you doing the work yourself?

Josh:
No, I have no skills. So everything was done. It needed no repairs. I was going to buy it as is, put it right back in the market. It was a situation where we knew the seller, so we were getting it a little less than they could have gotten it for and yeah.

Dave:
Okay, and so what went wrong? Was it just bad timing of the market?

Josh:
Yep. It literally was months before the market crashed and this was rural Ohio, so if you think that it got bad in the nation as a whole, rural Ohio got absolutely destroyed. I mean it was unsellable.

Dave:
Wow, okay. So that’s why it sounds like you held onto it for 13 years.

Josh:
13 years. Rented it out. Yep. It’s fun. My dad ended up renting it for a little while and then my mom ended up renting it while she was between houses for a little while. Then had some strangers that rented it. So some months I broke even. Some months I lost a little bit. Was not a good first investment, but it was a good learning experience.

Dave:
What happened to it eventually? So you sold it in 2019, what did you sell it for? Eventually

Josh:
One 60. So I ended up making a little money after all was said and done. But not anything that you’d want to sit on 13 years to make.

Dave:
No, from a time value of money perspective, that one’s got to hurt for sure. Alright, so you said earlier that you jumped back in 2017. What were you doing between this first tough entry into the real estate market and 17?

Josh:
So after actually reading the Millionaire Real Estate Investor, I was majoring in criminal justice at the time, was telling people I was going to go to law school, but I did not have the grades to get into law school, so I had no idea what I was going to be, but I read this book, I’m like, I really like numbers. And I immediately switched my major to accounting and ended up getting my accounting degree became a CPA. And in 2012 I started my own CPA tax practice. And so for the next five years before getting into real estate again, I was just running my tax practice.

Dave:
Oh wow. That’s a pretty big shift from law school to a CPA. So what happened? Where were you living? Were you still living in rural Ohio? What’s sort of your life for the next 10 years?

Josh:
We were in Denver, Colorado for a while. I was a CPA there, that’s where I started my business. And then we moved back to rural Ohio and that’s when my dad still had some rental properties and actually the wages and I got back in, he went to sell one and this was 2017 rural Ohio, so he was going to sell it for $30,000 and it fell through and I was like, well, if you’re going to sell it for $30,000, I’ll buy it for $30,000. I want to try this again. I want to try a rental property. So I bought this property off him for $30,000, rented it for five 50 a month. It was cash flowing, 200 a month before repairs, which felt pretty good at the time, but that’s how I got back into it.

Dave:
Did you finance that deal?

Josh:
I did. Yep, I did. I had to put 20% down, 25% down, and I financed the

Dave:
Rest. Yeah. Okay. Wow. I mean if you’re looking for an affordable way to get back into the market, a $30,000 deal is a good one. And so what about that got you back interested to keep going with this the second time around?

Josh:
Yeah, it kind of hit either get out or get bigger situation because I had a sewer line issue that just every single month the sewer line would clog, someone would come out, unclog it, couldn’t figure out what the issue was, and over three months I spent $2,000 trying to do this. I’m like, I just wiped out two years worth of cashflow with this deal. And I talked to my wife and I was like, we either got to go all in with this and get 10, 20 whatever properties so that when this stuff happens, we’re covering it or we just need to sell this and get out. I don’t feel like we can have an in-between here. We’re either all the way in or all the way out and we decided to go all the way in. Does that mean you quit your CPA job? Not quite. That didn’t happen until a year later. So after we decided to go all in, I started looking at a duplex in town and the seller happened to be a guy that my parents knew grew up, we knew him and he called me after I’d contacted the agent. He’s like, Hey, if you’re interested in this one, I have 12 properties, would you be interested in all of them? Whoa. I was like, I would be, but I don’t finance that. He’s like, give me a small down payment and I’ll finance the rest for you

Dave:
As seller financing.

Josh:
It’s seller financing. So I put 8% down to him and he financed the rest.

Dave:
Wow. And this is someone you knew?

Josh:
I knew him growing up. Yeah, he was a family friend.

Dave:
So this is the benefit of investing in a small town. I’ve never really lived in a very small town, but everyone says everyone knows everyone, that kind of thing. Is that true? Has that really benefited your real estate business?

Josh:
A hundred percent has. I mean, this is a 6,000 person town, so everyone literally knows everybody. I mean, I didn’t even talk to him directly, he just heard from the agent. I was the buyer interested in it and then reached out to me and was like, Hey, would you be interested in these other properties?

Dave:
Wow, okay. And I’m just curious, what’s it like being a property owner in a rural area? I do a lot of analysis, look at markets, and there are a lot of rural areas that have great fundamentals. I’ve always personally shied away from them because I wonder where the renter pool comes from. A lot of rural areas have a very high home ownership rate, so there just aren’t that many people who are renters. So what’s that been like for you in your first few years as an investor if you struggled to find tenants or tell us about it?

Josh:
Yeah, so this is an interesting, a lot of rural towns are, like you say, it’s high ownership. This is the reverse. It is about 60% renters, 40% homeowners.

Dave:
Oh wow.

Josh:
So there is plenty of renters. It’s a lower income area, so you have to be careful, but there’s a lot of people looking and once again, the benefit of knowing everybody in town is I can see a rental application come through and say, I went to high school with you and I’m not going to rent to you. I remember you. Wow. Yeah. So you got to be careful. I would say when you’re looking, when I got into this, I was thinking these will never appreciate,

Dave:
But

Josh:
They were crazy cashflow. I mean, I was bringing in, when I bought these first it was 13 units when I bought ’em, they were bringing in 7,000 a month rent, and my payment to him was like $3,100. So it was insane cashflow

Dave:
And why did he want to get rid of them?

Josh:
So he was getting older. They were a pain. He was a full-time agent as well, managing himself. There’s no property managers in this town, so you’re going to manage yourself. And at the time, this was 2017, no one was buying. So if he could find someone that would buy all of them at once, it was a benefit to him.

Dave:
Totally. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What was that like for you though? Because it sounds like you did, you got scorned in 2006, you jumped back in and then you’re looking for a duplex, all of a sudden you’re now managing what, 13 units it sounds like?

Josh:
Yeah, 13 and then the one I already had or then two I already had. I had the 13 year flip in there too. So we jumped right up to 15.

Josh:
And it was interesting. I mean, I think we did a good job of creating systems as much as we could right from the start. So one of the things you’re going to run into in a community like this is people don’t have bank accounts, so you have to figure out how they’re going to pay you rent. So I went to my bank was like, Hey, can I just get a bunch of deposit slips and give these to my tenants and they can come to the bank and put it directly in my account? They’re like, yeah, that’s not a problem. So we got all these deposit slips, just did everything we could to make it as easy as possible for them to pay rent. We didn’t want to have, oh, I mailed it. It must’ve gotten lost in the mail. We want to take away every barrier and just make it easy for them to pay rent and easy to know whether they actually did pay rent.

Josh:
So we created as many systems as we could. I tried to be the best landlord I could so that when people rented from me, they said, this is where I want to be. I don’t want to rent from someone else in the small town. You’re going to have a lot of landlords that aren’t very good landlords and they’re not going to keep nice places. They’re not going to respond to repair requests. We wanted to be the opposite. We made the places look as nice as we could. Every time we had a request for maintenance, we got on it right away. So people started to hear that and we’d have people reaching out to us like, Hey, do you have anything available? We want to rent from you. We heard you’re good to rent too rent from. That’s awesome. We tried to build that from the start and it paid off. I think

Dave:
I love that. We talk about on the show a lot about the idea of creating mutual benefit and really wanting to create a good positive experience for your tenants. And that all sounds nice and good, and I think that is nice and good, but it also has a real financial benefit to you. Clearly, you are now able to attract the best tenants in your area because they know that you’re a good reputable landlord who provides a good experience and you’re hopefully going to find people, you’re going to lower your vacancy rate and you’re going to probably just have less headaches because these people value living in the properties that you have to offer

Josh:
A hundred percent. And I mean, they don’t want to leave either. And when they do leave, they say, Hey, do you have something else available? I had a kid, I need something a little bigger and they want to come to another one of your properties. So it definitely pays off. And I mean the vacancies alone I think is the biggest thing. If you can keep people in your properties, your costs go down dramatically.

Dave:
So cool. And it’s so true. I was running a deal yesterday actually, and I usually put eight or 10% vacancy rates in, and I was just curious, this is sort of in a family area. If I could get my vacancy down to 4%, which would be about one month every two years instead of what I normally budget for, which is one month per year, I’ve never actually had that, but I just do that to be safe. But it dramatically changes the return profile of a deal. If you’re basically saying you’re giving up 8% of your revenue every year because you have turnover that could make it go from a deal that may not pencil to one. That is really good. And I imagine that impacts your underwriting now, right? Because you probably have more confidence that you don’t have to set aside as much money for vacancy, and that means more deals are possible for you.

Josh:
100%. Yeah. I mean, I think when people say you can’t find cash flowing deals right now, it is hard. It’s more difficult obviously, but there’s ways you can manipulate that. You have two choices if you want to make more money off that rental. You can either make the rents higher, which you’re limited there, the market is what it is, or you can decrease your expenses. And I think decreasing the expense side is where we’ve been able to get creative, whether that’s managing ourselves, which takes 10% right off the top, or like you said, getting people to stay longer, which can drastically lower your costs involved

Dave:
And reducing vacancies even by half, still having them from time to time, that’s 15% of your revenue. It’s a very efficient way to improve your cashflow if anyone out there is looking at ways to do that. Josh, I want to ask you where you took your portfolio next, but first we’re going to take a quick break. Thanks for taking with us. We’re back with Josh Bley. So back to your journey a little bit, Josh, you buy these, you’re up to 15, is that when you quit your job so you can manage this full time?

Josh:
So we bought a few more after that. I think we got up to about 28 pretty quickly at that point, I decided to sell my CPA business, so I found a guy that was willing to take it on, sold that, and we went all into real estate from there.

Dave:
Well, I have two questions. First, you got to 28. Was it more seller finance or were you reinvesting the money you were making as a CPA into more properties?

Josh:
Yeah, so it was a little bit mix of everything we were able to, the interesting thing was we were able to get other people in on that seller financing thing by saying, Hey, Roger did this. He can vouch for me. I pay him every month. He gets a check every month. I know you want to sell some of this stuff and it’s hard in this market in this area. I’ll take it on. I’ll give you a down payment and then we can finance the rest. So I think we got at least two, maybe three other deals by doing that.

Dave:
I’m laughing because it sounds so quaint. You’re like, oh, Roger did this and everyone knows Roger, he’s having such a great benefit from this. And that may seem difficult to scale, but it does underscore this idea that having a good reputation gets you deals, it gets you tenants, and clearly you developed a reputation as creating win-win scenarios, and that’s why you were able to attract these types of seller financing deals over time. Of course, that doesn’t work for your first deal, but if you’re trying to scale, this is a really good example of how to do that well. But I wanted to ask you, Josh, about selling your CPA business. At that point, was your real estate portfolio generating enough cashflow to replace your income as a CPA?

Josh:
It was not generated enough to replace that income, but between that and the amount I got for the sale of it, it came pretty close. And then the guy that bought the business, my business, I was like, I might be starting a new firm with my friend. And he’s like, no problem. I don’t need a non-compete. So literally the next day after that close, I started a new firm with my friend where he basically handled the day-to-day, and I just did the sales and marketing stuff. And between all of that, we pretty easily replaced the income from that.

Dave:
Was it a difficult decision for you? I imagine being a CPA is a stable, relatively high income job, and I’m curious what it’s like to give that up.

Josh:
Yeah, I mean, it is interesting when you say that I didn’t think that at the time. I’m kind of one of those people that’s like I make decisions and I go, right, I got a really good offer on this firm. I’ll think if this doesn’t work out, I’ll think of something else to make money. And having those, that real estate there in the background, it does give you that cushion where I do have this guaranteed money coming in might not be quite what I was making before, but it’ll at least cover our living expenses if it needs to.

Dave:
That’s very brave of you. I commend you for that. I overanalyze every situation because I’m a professional analyst and sometimes that backfires. So what, after you sold it, it sounds like you got some income from that, a chunk of cash. Did you reinvest it all relatively quickly?

Josh:
No. So to this day, I don’t think I’ve ever put a dime of my own money into real estate.

Josh:
So even when I did the owner financing, I had to put 8% down. I went and got a personal uncollateralized loan from Lighthouse for the 8%, and then from there we started taking the cash flow from those and putting that aside if we needed to for down payments. And my goal is when I buy a property, I want to get it low enough that I don’t have to put my own money into it. I have a hard money lender at this point that will fund a hundred percent of the purchase and rehab as long as I keep it under 75% of a RV minus repairs. So at this point, we buy everything without our own money.

Dave:
So when you say your own money though, the cashflow that you generate from your portfolio is technically your money?

Josh:
Sure. Yeah. I would think that as I said that, you’re right. I didn’t use that cashflow directly. I use that cashflow more to improve the properties and then we would leverage those properties to buy new properties. So maybe I’d do a cash out refi on the property and then use that money to invest in another property.

Dave:
No, that makes sense. It’s a great strategy. I just want to clarify for other people, if they’re thinking, Hey, this guy Josh, he doesn’t put any money in, but it’s really that you’re taking the proceeds from your existing investments and reinvesting them, which is awesome, but you’re not adding what I would call new principle, right? You’re not taking money out of savings and reinjecting into your portfolio. You’ve sort of created this system and portfolio that churns out enough new profits that you can just continuously reinvest that and still grow your portfolio.

Josh:
Exactly.

Dave:
Very cool. After the deal then, what did you do? Was it more seller financing deals or what have you been doing over the last few years?

Josh:
Yeah, so when we bought all those, when we got up to 28 units, like I said, we planned for zero appreciation ever. And then suddenly the market turned and they did appreciate. And in 2021, we sold 25 of those 28 units to one seller as a package deal. Moved out of our small town, moved to Columbus, Ohio, and kind of started over there and we’re building a portfolio here now.

Dave:
Cool. Yeah, Columbus has been one of the hottest markets in the country. So what’s that been like? You got a big injection of cash again. How did you start to deploy that in Columbus?

Josh:
Yeah, so when we first got down here, I bought a duplex. It was the only property I’ve ever bought at market value. I think as an investment, I feel like we made a mistake. I felt like I had all this cash, I had to buy something, inflation was going crazy. So we bought a duplex right away. It’s fine, it’s not the best investment I’ve ever had. But then I kind of settled down like, okay, let’s go back to doing what we know how to do. Let’s get these off market deals below market value. And we started building it again from scratch. So we bought another single family house, bought a few more, and then over the last couple of years we kind of sat down my wife and I and said, let’s make a goal. Let’s look at exactly what we want to do with this. And we set a goal of how many units we want to buy, how much equity we want to get to, how much cashflow we want to get to. And we’ve been slowly building towards that.

Dave:
So that’s a big change, Josh, because it sounds like some of the advantages you have were knowing people in this town. So how did you start finding deals when you got to Columbus?

Josh:
Yeah, so like I said, the first one we just bought off the market. And then from there we got involved, we started doing some marketing to off market sellers and we started getting some houses that way. And then one of the big things we did, honestly, I started posting and my wife started posting on Facebook and Instagram like, Hey, this is what we’re doing. We buy houses, we close quickly, we buy them ads, is if you know anyone looking, we’re looking to buy 10 more rental properties this year. And we started to get a return on that. People we go to high school with and be like, Hey, my parents have to go into long-term care. They need to sell their house. Would you be interested? And we started getting a bunch of leads that way as well.

Dave:
And what year was this?

Josh:
This? We moved to Columbus in 2021.

Dave:
Okay, so was this pre or post intel moving to Columbus?

Josh:
So that got announced I think early 2022, which is when we started really investing in Columbus is 2022. But yes, that was a big thing.

Dave:
Oh man. So you timed that one perfectly.

Josh:
Yes.

Dave:
So anyone who doesn’t know this intel, the chip processor announced a enormous investment in the Columbus area as part of the CHIPS act. The US government is trying to improve domestic semiconductor and microchip creation. And so Columbus has been one of, if not the biggest benefactor of that investment. And since then it’s been going crazy. Actually, maybe it was last year in 2023, I went to Columbus. So many good things there and I was considering investing there myself, and there’s just so much activity there. I wound up not investing because I was doing it remote, and I felt like there was too many good investors like you who were going to be hustling and I wasn’t going to be able to find good deals. But it’s super cool what’s going on in Columbus right now. We have to take a quick break, but we’ll have more of this investor story on the other side. Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast. Let’s get right back to Josh. Tell me a little bit about what you target, what kind of deals you’re doing in today’s environment.

Josh:
So we’re doing mostly single family houses. We do have some multifamily, just bought a five unit building a couple of months ago. Actually, my biggest thing is still, I don’t want to put cash from outside the real estate business into these properties. So we have a hard money lender. They will fund, like I said, a hundred percent of the purchase, a hundred percent of the repairs as long as we get these deals for 75% of a RV minus repairs. So everything we’re looking at, that’s my standard. Are we at 75% minus repairs? And then I’m looking, does it hit the 1% rule just as a basic guideline? I know it’ll at least break even with mortgage rates right now if I hit the 1% rule.

Dave:
And how hard is that to do? Hitting the 1% rule?

Josh:
That’s where we’ve gotten creative. Number one. I talked about that you can increase rent. That’s one way. It’s usually really hard. One thing we went all in on this year is going to section eight because in most places, section eight bases it on the county. They base their rental on the county. So if we target some of these lower income areas that are up and coming, but still lower income, the rent that section eight will pay, could be a hundred, even $200 a month higher than the typical market rent. So that’s one way we’re getting properties to cashflow.

Dave:
Josh, can you explain to people who don’t know what Section eight is?

Josh:
Yeah, so section eight is essentially government. The government paying the rent for extremely low income individuals. They get on the program. The government steps in and pays either, usually in most cases that we’ve had all their rent, sometimes a portion of it if they have a job that they can pay it, but they’re paying the majority of their rent. So you’re a hundred percent guaranteed. You’ll see that rent every month. It’s going to come from the government. You don’t have to chase anybody down. It can be a little bit of a pain upfront to get the tenant in. There’s a lot of hoops you have to jump through. But once you do that, it’s pretty smooth. Sailing

Dave:
Is the pain, just bureaucracy.

Josh:
Yes, you’re going to fill out this massive RTA packet that they have that you’re going to have to list everything about the property, the rent, what you cover, what the tenant has to pay. It’s going to take two to three weeks before they even respond to that. Then they’re going to send out an inspector to look at everything on the property and tell you if there’s anything that they deem you have to fix. And after all that’s done, you’re finally going to get your tenant in and start getting your money.

Dave:
But it sounds like it’s still been worth it for you.

Josh:
Yeah, I mean, it is literally letting me buy properties that wouldn’t have been able to buy because I’m getting maybe $200 more a month than I would’ve, and now all of a sudden, this deal, that would’ve lost money. Cash flows a little bit.

Dave:
It sounds great. I mean, I hear a lot of investors who shy away from it, whether it’s from the bureaucracy or some stigma about the Section eight program, but it’s encouraging to hear that this works. It obviously helps people who need housing get into housing and seems like it allows you to generate a better return than you normally would, which again, just a win-win situation.

Josh:
Yeah, like you said, I feel like I’m doing a good thing for that part of our county here. There’s a ton of people on this that desperately need housing, and there are a lot of investors that don’t want to deal with it. So these people, I mean, when I post one of these for rent and I say accept section eight, I’m overwhelmed with response from people that want to look at it. But the other benefit is not only, I mean, you have the government paying the rent every month. So let’s just say we hit a recession and a bunch of people lose their jobs, that government’s going to sit there and pay their rent every single month. So I don’t have to worry about that. I’m not taking that risk, especially when you’re in a lower income area where that might typically be a higher risk. The other thing is they stay forever. The average section eight tenant stays for five to seven years.

Josh:
So you’re massively cutting down those vacancy rates that we talked about. And then the third thing is section eight’s almost going to act like a property manager for you for free, because if these people violate their lease and either they’re not paying the portion they have to pay or they’re trashing your property or doing something that would cause them to get evicted, not only are they going to get evicted, they’re going to lose their section eight. And I mean, that’s a massive incentive for most people to do what they need to do. And not that I don’t want to sound like, yo, you’re hanging this over their head at all times. Like, oh, I’m going to go tell on you. But if they’re doing something in your property that they shouldn’t be doing, then it’s more incentive than the average person has of Okay, you’re just going to have to leave the property going to lose this lifeline of paying my rent every single month.

Dave:
So much of business in every business I’ve worked in is incentive alignment. Just making sure that you and the people you work with are all working towards the same thing. And that’s what you’re describing. It’s basically just creating a scenario where your tenant and yourself both want this situation to go really well. They both want the property to be in good condition and for this to be a headache free and positive experience. So I think that that sounds great. Do you run into people when you tell people you do section eight? Do other investors question why?

Josh:
I’d say the majority of people think I’m crazy for going the section eight route in the first couple you do, you’ll think you’re crazy too. But then you start to get the hang of it. I know these forms inside and out, now I can sit with the tenant and say, let’s fill this out together. Let’s get this done. I would say, if this is something that you want to be hands off on and you just think that you can just give the tenant the packet and rely on everything to work, it is probably going to be a nightmare for you. A lot of these people aren’t going to understand the process. You’re going to want to learn the process front and back, and you’re going to want to hold their hands through it. You’re going to want to stay on section eight, call them up, say, Hey, I submitted this packet two weeks ago. Where are we at? If it’s going to be, I just want to do this and be passive. Everyone says they want, this isn’t the route for you to go. But for me, the higher return has been worth it.

Dave:
Great. I actually maybe four or five months into having inherited my first Section eight tenant, it’s been going great so far, but I’m just taking the benefit and didn’t have any of the upfront bureaucracy yet. So far, to me, it seems

Josh:
Like yet the best of both worlds.

Dave:
And I have a property manager who’s experienced in Section eight and knows all that stuff, but I’m eager to learn more about it. I’m really interested in just the idea of being able to provide this type of housing. And it just seems like it can be really beneficial as an investor as well if you’re able to attract great tenants and get basically guaranteed rent payments. So Josh, what’s next for you? What’s your vision for the next few years?

Josh:
Yeah, so a couple of years ago we started getting into flipping as well. So right now we’re flipping five to seven houses a year, and we want to just keep growing that rental portfolio. When my wife and I sat down about a year ago, a little over a year ago, at that time, we had six units in our portfolio and we said we wanted to be up to by the end of this year, so the end of 2024, we wanted to be up to 20 units. We wanted to have a million dollars in equity, and we wanted to cashflow 5,000 a month. And it was crazy because until about May this year, I’m like, we’re not even going to come close. We’re not even in the vicinity. We had a really good last few months and we crossed the 5,000 cashflow. We’re up to 21 units and we we’re like 15,000 from hitting a million in equity.

Dave:
Wow,

Josh:
Amazing.

Dave:
Good for you.

Josh:
Yeah. So now we just got to sit down and kind of map out what the next couple years are going to look like with that. But we definitely want to keep growing the portfolio and see where it goes.

Dave:
I love how specific that goal is. This is something I actually talk about in my newer book, start with strategy. It’s about when you come up with a very specific goal, it’s so much easier to hit. If you just come up with this idea and say, oh, I just want to be a bajillionaire. It’s really hard to work backwards from that and take actionable steps. But if you say, by this time, by the end of 2024, I want these specific things, it helps so much in analyzing deals because you say, Hey, is this deal going to help me towards this very specific goal? And it becomes just an easier yes no question, whereas at least for me earlier in my career, I’d look at a deal and I’d say, is this a good deal? I’d be like, yeah, kind of. But maybe there’s a better deal out there. Or maybe I should consider flipping houses. But having that goal makes it so much easier to narrow down all the potential ways to invest in real estate into just the ones that make sense for you

Josh:
A hundred percent. And I think the other thing, if you’re a competitive person at all and you have that goal spreadsheet up on your computer while you’re sitting there and you’ve seen your fallen short, it’s going to kick your butt a little bit and get you into gear. And you might sit there and say, well, how am I supposed to hit $5,000 in cashflow when nothing’s cash flowing right now? And you’re going to have to rack your brain and say, all right, let’s look into this section eight thing. Maybe we can increase cashflow a couple hundred bucks. And if you’re competitive, it lights that fire under you that you do not want to miss that goal that you wrote down for yourself.

Dave:
I love that. Well, Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. Really enjoyed this conversation. Learned a lot. I will make sure to put Josh’s BiggerPockets profile and his contact information in the show notes below. Josh. Can’t wait to see what you do next. Thanks for joining us today.

Josh:
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.

Dave:
Absolutely. And thank you all so much for listening for BiggerPockets. I’m Dave Meyer. See you soon.

 

 

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Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris Has a 7-Year Adjustable-Rate Mortgage

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Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris Has a 7-Year Adjustable-Rate Mortgage


By now you’ve heard the news. President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and paved the way for current VP Kamala Harris to run in his place.

That was big news that shook up the election overnight, and now there is a renewed focus on Harris, including her financial disclosures.

The WSJ ran a story today about how she manages her money, pointing out her penchant for index funds and her ultra-low rate 2.625% mortgage.

I dug a little deeper to see what kind of mortgage she had, along with when and where she got it.

And it turns out it’s an adjustable-rate mortgage, which we all know aren’t for the faint of heart.

Kamala Seems to Really Love the 7-Year ARM

With regard to that 2.625% mortgage Kamala Harris holds, it turns out it’s a 7-year adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM).

This is a popular type of ARM these days because it provides 84 months of interest rate stability before the first adjustment.

In that respect, homeowners can take one out and not worry about their rate increasing for many years.

And in the meantime, either sell their property or refinance the mortgage if need be.

Harris obtained her latest mortgage in 2020 and was able to get a very low interest rate set at 2.625% until the year 2027.

It’s unclear what the exact loan amount is, but it was revealed to be somewhere between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000.

We also know that the lender in question is Wells Fargo, which has had its share of controversies over the past decade, including improper mortgage lock fees.

What’s even more interesting is this isn’t Harris’ first 7-year ARM. A prior financial disclosure revealed that she took out the same type of loan in 2016 as well.

Kamala mortgages

It featured the same exact mortgage rate, 2.625%. And you guessed it, also came from San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo.

But wait, there’s more! If we go back to 2012, she took out another 7/1 ARM set at an even lower 2.5%.

In total, that’s three 7-year ARMs in a row dating back about 12 years. Based on that timing, you’d expect a fourth around now, but mortgage rates are no longer cheap.

Unfortunately, a typical 7-year ARM might now go for closer to 5% or higher, making it a pretty terrible deal. So until rates improve, she’ll likely be holding onto the 2020 loan.

She’s Got Another Three Years to Figure Out Her Next Move

It’s not uncommon for homeowners to take out ARMs and refinance them over and over into new ARMs.

The logic is that an ARM is typically cheaper than a fixed-rate mortgage, and if you refinance it before it becomes adjustable, you get the upside (lower rate) without any of the downside (higher rate adjustment).

The one caveat is the closing costs each time you refinance, though a no cost refinance can work if rates remain cheap.

There’s also the time aspect, as it can take about a month to get a mortgage, and it can be a pain to go through the process.

But if you don’t mind all that, you can get a cheaper mortgage and allocate the savings elsewhere, such as an index fund.

You also get a smaller payment over time if you refinance into a new 30-year loan term since the loan amount will be smaller thanks to several years of paying it down.

Anyway, it seems Harris employed this strategy for the past decade while mortgage rates hit record lows and it worked out favorably.

However, it appears her next move won’t be as easy now that mortgage rates have more than doubled in the past few years.

Her Mortgage Rate Could Jump to 4.625% in 2027

Come 2027, her 7-year ARM will see its first adjustment, and that means it’ll likely rise from 2.625% to 4.625%.

There are typically caps in place that limit initial movement by 2%, and subsequent adjustments by 2%, with a lifetime cap that can’t be exceeded.

So beyond that first adjustment, it could go even higher than 4.625%, perhaps to 6.625% if the associated mortgage index is still inflated at that time.

Assuming that happens, she’d want out of the loan and into something cheaper.

But if mortgage rates are still high then, it might remain her best option, despite being more expensive than her original loan.

This is the big risk of taking out an ARM vs. a fixed-rate loan. With the latter, you never have to worry about a rate adjustment, though you do pay a premium for that assurance.

If all else fails, there’s always the option to sell the property, which solves the adjustable-rate problem.

And if she’s living in the White House, that might work out just fine.

BTW, Joe Biden had been known to refinance his mortgages a lot in the past, but currently has a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage set at 3.375% that he took out all the way back in 2013.

Read on: Are adjustable-rate mortgages finally a good deal again?

(photo: Gage Skidmore)

Colin Robertson
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Kamala’s Fast Flip-Flops On Guns

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Kamala’s Fast Flip-Flops On Guns


Screen capture by Boch via X.

Give it to Kamala Harris. The woman told us in her first of two interviews that her values have not changed. Moreover, she has always supported gun bans and gun confiscation that she euphemistically terms “mandatory buybacks.” Last Tuesday night, she chided President Trump for his “continuous lying” about her desire to take people’s guns away. After all, she claimed, she and Timmy are gun owners.