Speaker 1: Welcome back to Brown Ambition with Tiffany, Alicia, and Mandre
Speaker 1: soon to be another last name.
Speaker 2: You just said Mandre. I did no, no, no no, because
Speaker 2: that my you. I have friends who call me Mandra
Speaker 2: because that is that. That accident happens so often. Really
Speaker 2: at my own graduation, both college and high school, the
Speaker 2: person reading my name because my last name is Woodruff
Speaker 2: and when they say Amanda, they start reading Woodruff before
Speaker 2: they finished, and I think, okay, so it's always been
Speaker 2: Amandra or Amandra Wandruff.
Speaker 1: I'm not I can say that.
Speaker 3: Not bad.
Speaker 2: That's ok. That's my nickname.
Speaker 3: I'm so used to it, right, So people always call
Speaker 3: me Stephanie.
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, Africans cannot say Tiffany. They cannot. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you.
Speaker 3: They're like, You're like, no, Tiffany's like literally and uncles
Speaker 3: they're like, ah, Steph, how are you. I'm like Steph,
Speaker 3: So now I have it. I can't even say tiff
Speaker 3: That's tell you.
Speaker 2: Like how a native Spanish speaker might say, they put
Speaker 2: e in the friend and most words.
Speaker 3: But I was gonna say that the natives they do that,
Speaker 3: both the Africans, West Indians and Hispanic people tend to
Speaker 3: call me Stephanie.
Speaker 2: So that is your linguistic lesson of the day, Brown ambition.
Speaker 2: It's important to learn languages, so you know what it's
Speaker 2: We're already almost halfway through February. That's why is it
Speaker 2: sucks that this is the shortest month. But I thought
Speaker 2: we could kick off the show by sharing a little
Speaker 2: bit of black history. If you don't mind, are you
Speaker 2: down for the something I learned today? Let's do let's
Speaker 2: let's do it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I Well, one thing I'll point out is so the
Speaker 2: end day n double a CP Image Awards for yesterday,
Speaker 2: so I relived it through my Instagram feed. I don't
Speaker 2: actually know what channel they come on, but uh, I
Speaker 2: never actually watched it, but I always tune in for
Speaker 2: the speeches after So of course Hidden Figures one and
Speaker 2: they're amazing. But then Denzel won for his role in Fences,
Speaker 2: and he gave just a really I mean, I feel
Speaker 2: like Denzel should have been a preacher if he wasn't
Speaker 2: like a multimillion dollar, you know, award winning actor. But
Speaker 2: he can preach, you know, and it's like, really, yes,
Speaker 2: if you haven't you need to go. I might play
Speaker 2: a clip of his speech but he just gave an
Speaker 2: amazing speech. He was like, basically the theme of his
Speaker 2: speech was that don't let anyone tell you this is easy.
Speaker 2: It's hard and if and I'm glad that it's hard,
Speaker 2: because if it weren't like he says, easiness is a
Speaker 2: bigger threat to success than difficulty, and he talks about that,
Speaker 2: he talks about the benefit of challenges, and you can
Speaker 2: just I don't know. I just felt like I went
Speaker 2: to church in two and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: I'd do very much.
Speaker 4: Thank you, very much, Thank you, Tanny See Williams, Arthur Miller,
Speaker 4: Eugene O'Neil, Edward Albie, August Wilson. August Wilson is one
Speaker 4: of the greatest playwrights in the history of American all
Speaker 4: world theater. It is a privilege and honor, a responsibility,
Speaker 4: a duty, and a joy to bring his brilliance to
Speaker 4: the screen. I am particularly proud and happy about the
Speaker 4: young filmmakers, actors, singers, writers, producers that are coming up
Speaker 4: behind my generation, in particular Barry Jenkins. Young people understand
Speaker 4: this young man made ten, fifteen, twenty short films before
Speaker 4: he got the opportunity to make Moonlight. So never give
Speaker 4: us up. Without commitment, you'll never start, But more importantly,
Speaker 4: without consistency, you'll never finish. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: If it was easy, there'd.
Speaker 4: Be no Kerry Washington. If it was easy, there'd be
Speaker 4: no to Rogi Henson p Henson. If it were easy,
Speaker 4: there'd be no Octavia Spencer. But not only that. If
Speaker 4: it were easy, there'd be no Viola Davis. If we
Speaker 4: were easy, there'd be no Michael T. Williamson, no Stephen
Speaker 4: McKinley Henderson, no Russell Hornsby. If we were easy, there'd be
Speaker 4: no Denzel Washington. So keep working, keep striving, never give up.
Speaker 4: Fall down seven times, get up eight.
Speaker 5: Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship. He's
Speaker 5: is a greater threat to progress than hardship.
Speaker 4: So keep moving, keep growing, keep learning. So yeah, it work.
Speaker 2: Wow, And it was nice he called that all the
Speaker 2: different names and the actors and the audience, and just
Speaker 2: felt so nice. But what I also wanted to share
Speaker 2: is I read this article and I don't know how
Speaker 2: I missed this last year, But last year this news
Speaker 2: came out. So everyone knows Jack Daniels, this famous Southern bourbon.
Speaker 2: Don't I knew Kennethy, Kennethy, thank you. I was gonna
Speaker 2: say Tennessee or Kentucky. I forget Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It turns out so the history of the company's over
Speaker 2: one hundred years old, I think one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: years old. And you know, this man named Daniels who
Speaker 2: created the whiskey was always credited for it. But actually
Speaker 2: this apparently the original Daniels was taken in by a
Speaker 2: family and the patriarch of the family is who got
Speaker 2: him into to making whiskey. But it was that guy's slave,
Speaker 2: a man uncle Ners or near Us, who was really
Speaker 2: responsible for all the methods and the recipe for the
Speaker 2: original Jack Daniel's whiskey. And I never knew that.
Speaker 1: I think I saw that somewhere. I think I saw
Speaker 1: an article about that, and I was like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Black Enterprise did another story yesterday on it. That's
Speaker 2: where I read it, and then I was like, wait,
Speaker 2: they said it happened last year. So this came out
Speaker 2: last year and the Telegraph, of all places, look at
Speaker 2: Britain calling out Colena. How America has whitewashed its own history.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and this guy's descendants have been trying to
Speaker 2: get him more credit for the actual recipe and all that,
Speaker 2: but you know, just kind of reminds you. And I
Speaker 2: mean this was also in the year that you know,
Speaker 2: Hidden Figures came out, and you just realize there are
Speaker 2: these like huge moments in history, these huge things that
Speaker 2: were accomplished, and all these nameless people, these nameles African
Speaker 2: Americans who don't get credit or didn't get credit. So
Speaker 2: I just wanted to give a shout out to uncle near.
Speaker 2: Yeah n e A R I s.
Speaker 1: Although I don't partake in the drink, I know, but
Speaker 1: you know, no, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Actually, that's funny story. Jack Daniels is like my everyone
Speaker 2: has like if you do drink, you you know, you
Speaker 2: have like your trigger liquor, the one it turns you
Speaker 2: into like a crazy person. That's my trigger liquor. Trigger
Speaker 2: trigger liquor. That's a dangerous combination of it sounds really terrible.
Speaker 1: I was somebody I was wearing like a Detroit like sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: It's just like sweating. I got so nervous.
Speaker 1: Liquor.
Speaker 2: Stop saying that exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Like it's like funny because it's like the same kind
Speaker 3: of like player on words and I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, you have a Detroit sweatshirt. And I said, girl,
Speaker 3: I love the d And then I realized and I
Speaker 3: said it like so loud, proud, and like I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna leave that.
Speaker 2: We all have those moments. That's that's what she said,
Speaker 2: moment you.
Speaker 1: Know, yes. And then meanwhile, there's some people who are like,
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
Speaker 3: Is that once again, that's one of those You're innocent
Speaker 3: and we want to keep you that way, so we're
Speaker 3: not going to explain what that means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like our audience is
Speaker 2: on to us to get it.
Speaker 1: But I I can't wait for the wins because I
Speaker 1: have an awesome win. But I'm gonna save it.
Speaker 2: Okay, oh did you buy a house?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, it's not me. It's an awesome win
Speaker 1: for somebody who like, I'm like, I'm so proud of that.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, good. I'm trying to I always do that.
Speaker 2: Someone's like I have a surprise that I'm like, immediately
Speaker 2: start trying to guess it until I ruin it. For
Speaker 2: my song. It's a cute little habit. So the biggest,
Speaker 2: one of the biggest things, well, two big things in
Speaker 2: women's news today, women's history. So one step backward is
Speaker 2: that Betsy de Vos was nominated to be the Department
Speaker 2: of Education secretary. As a former teacher, Tiffany Leitch, how
Speaker 2: do you feel having a woman of her you know,
Speaker 2: lack of stature and experience.
Speaker 3: That's charge because one thing you learn when you're a
Speaker 3: teacher is you learn how critical it is for the
Speaker 3: upper levels of you know, of people who are in
Speaker 3: education and creating policy, how critical it is is they
Speaker 3: have at least taught because there's no substitute for that.
Speaker 3: Like there's certain things that you cannot learn without being
Speaker 3: in the classroom because you're like, oh, for example, I'm
Speaker 3: working on you know, like that that literacy bill was
Speaker 3: my friend who's an Assembly women Assembly Women, Angela v. McKnight, Right,
Speaker 3: So we're working on this financial literacy bill for elementary
Speaker 3: and middle school students that they make it mandatory to
Speaker 3: teach financial education in the lower grades. They already have
Speaker 3: a law in place for high school. So I met
Speaker 3: with the Education Committee in New Jersey and the women
Speaker 3: were like adamant, like they were kind of like pushing
Speaker 3: against this potential law. And Angela asked if I would
Speaker 3: come and sit with them and talk with them, and
Speaker 3: so I did. And this is the pushback. It was like,
Speaker 3: the educational day is already two packed, and me, being
Speaker 3: a teacher of ten years, totally got it. And I
Speaker 3: explained to them, I know what that looked like to
Speaker 3: have a new you know, some sort of new mandate
Speaker 3: and then having to fit it where, when, and so
Speaker 3: what I was explaining is that the way I wanted
Speaker 3: the law to be phraised was not that you had
Speaker 3: to set aside time in the day for its financial
Speaker 3: literacy time. Instead was to give teachers the tools to
Speaker 3: teach to incorporate it. And they're already packed day. So
Speaker 3: instead you already have library time. Why can't there be
Speaker 3: at least three or four books in your library area
Speaker 3: that deal with money. You're already doing counting. Why can't
Speaker 3: you know that sometimes some of your counting activities include
Speaker 3: you counting up money. So that nuance of like, because
Speaker 3: it's so easy for somebody to say, hey, add this
Speaker 3: new thing to your classroom.
Speaker 1: It's good for the kids, But as a teacher, you're.
Speaker 3: Like why and how and so if you don't get that,
Speaker 3: if you don't understand what it's really like to implement
Speaker 3: these like laws and mandates, because ultimately the teacher has
Speaker 3: to be the one to implement those things, and she
Speaker 3: doesn't have that nuance understanding. And so it's really frustrating
Speaker 3: because you know, she's going to make laws and or
Speaker 3: make changes based upon something that she has no idea
Speaker 3: how that's going to affect the day to day learning
Speaker 3: of a child, you know, and you can see the difference,
Speaker 3: like you know, so it's just really frustrating. But I
Speaker 3: did get a giggle out of her trying to visit
Speaker 3: a public school and then.
Speaker 1: Running her out. Here's a video. I will send it
Speaker 1: to you so maybe we can share it.
Speaker 2: In they like protest, there's one guy. Your kids are
Speaker 2: the wokest of the woke. On another level, I feel
Speaker 2: like I slept through middle school. These kids are like
Speaker 2: mm hmmms, Betsy, we see you, we know who you
Speaker 2: are and have you.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the kids.
Speaker 3: It was like I guess some like protests or so
Speaker 3: like parents or whatever, and this guy told and he's.
Speaker 1: Screaming shame, shame, shame.
Speaker 3: So that's been like that's been like my hashtag with
Speaker 3: my friends, like shame, shame, And so he's like basically
Speaker 3: telling her our schools are not for sale.
Speaker 1: She looks so uncomfortable. They usher her to the car.
Speaker 3: You know, he doesn't touch her anything, but he's very
Speaker 3: clear and vocal. But yeah, I'll share the video because
Speaker 3: I definitely got a snicker. Like you thought it was
Speaker 3: gonna be easy. She was like, you cannot buy our schools.
Speaker 1: Shame, sham, shame. That's a good title for the podcast today.
Speaker 2: Shame, shame, shame. I don't know, I feel like that
Speaker 2: my term people.
Speaker 1: Away, like what's happening.
Speaker 2: This is the Catholic edition of Today's past exactly ten
Speaker 2: million hail marries for everybody. So the other half of
Speaker 2: this was so Betsy Devas was, you know, after a
Speaker 2: highly contested confirmation hearing, finally she was approved. She's in
Speaker 2: it where you know, it sucks, but it's over. But
Speaker 2: during the course of the week, Elizabeth Warren had a
Speaker 2: moment for her. You know, I feel like she's like
Speaker 2: launching her twenty twenty campaign already. But Miss Lizzie Warren
Speaker 2: on the floor of the Senate was trying to read
Speaker 2: the letter from Credit Scott King criticizing Jeff sessions from
Speaker 2: back in the eighties. Credit Scott King wrote this letter
Speaker 2: and while she was reading it, apparently there's some like
Speaker 2: old rule on the Senate floor that you're not able
Speaker 2: to disparage actual lawmakers like your your senate brethren or whatever,
Speaker 2: and they invoke that and kicked her off the floor.
Speaker 2: But there's you know what they say about when you
Speaker 2: ban a book or when you ban something like there's
Speaker 2: you're not by banning it, You're only ensuring that everyone
Speaker 2: is going to read it, like way more people are
Speaker 2: going to hear it or read it than ever before.
Speaker 2: And of course, what did miss Lizzie Warren do. I
Speaker 2: love her, She's my spirit animal. And those purple pants suits,
Speaker 2: I love it. She went outside and proceeded to read
Speaker 2: the letter on Facebook Live and got like over two
Speaker 2: million views, and it was all over the news. She's
Speaker 2: got her own hashtag.
Speaker 3: Now, let's Lizzie speak, Let Lizzie speak, Let Liz speak.
Speaker 2: But then and hashtag, she persisted, it's everywhere. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's gone viral. She's still I got an email from
Speaker 2: her campaign like this happened on a Tuesday. By Thursday morning,
Speaker 2: I had an email saying you can buy your she
Speaker 2: persisted t shirts on Elizabeth Warren got I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, all right, all right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: goes toward her campaign or whatever, but uh yeah, I
Speaker 2: just so shout out to Elizabeth Warren and I feel
Speaker 2: like her voice, you know, was absolutely heard in the end.
Speaker 2: And who was it that Chuck Schumer came in behind
Speaker 2: her and he was able to read the whole thing?
Speaker 2: You know what I do? You know, hearing that, I
Speaker 2: just have to say, I feel a little weird hearing
Speaker 2: about the the protesting. Well, the way you know, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Warren was treated was sort of people were saying, you
Speaker 2: know what, they had done that to a man. Because
Speaker 2: then Chuck Schumer came right behind her and read his
Speaker 2: letter and then to hear the I mean, I know
Speaker 2: that Betsy da Voss is like completely unexperienced for this
Speaker 2: office and all that kind of thing, But I wonder
Speaker 2: if the same sort of visceral reaction would be happening
Speaker 2: if it were a guy. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 2: Jeff Sessions is getting run out of you know where
Speaker 2: if he goes near a police precinct or I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I and when you said
Speaker 2: the shame, shame, shame. That made me think of Game
Speaker 2: of Thrones when you know, as a nerd Game of Thrones,
Speaker 2: there's a central scene that's like famous and the queen
Speaker 2: is being shamed by this church who has all this power,
Speaker 2: and she's forced walk naked through the town and as
Speaker 2: she walks, they yell. This nun is yelling shame, shame,
Speaker 2: shame at her the whole way down, and it was
Speaker 2: sort of seen as like a and she's you know
Speaker 2: in jail, in church jail, which used to be a thing,
Speaker 2: I guess, wow, for committing adultery. So it's it's it's
Speaker 2: just fascinating. I mean, yes, there's reasons to completely you know,
Speaker 2: not want her anywhere near our public schools and our
Speaker 2: you know, higher education. But I don't know, I just
Speaker 2: I'm trying to like step take a step back and
Speaker 2: listen to how how people are criticizing and how they're
Speaker 2: sort of treating people, you know, as Voldemort is fleshing
Speaker 2: out his cabinet, I mean I think she's like the
Speaker 2: only woman.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: I can't think of any other women in his cabinet.
Speaker 2: I mean, so, uh, it's just it's it's it's interesting,
Speaker 2: and I'll just I'll just leave it there at dot
Speaker 2: dot dot.
Speaker 3: I will I'll give you some update about my I
Speaker 3: told you a little earlier we had some update about.
Speaker 2: My house search done.
Speaker 1: So I've learned so much about this process. I meant,
Speaker 1: what so you know?
Speaker 3: So one, for those of you who know Superman and I,
Speaker 3: I wanted to buy a house.
Speaker 1: You know, we just recently were engaged.
Speaker 3: But one of the reasons why I wanted to get
Speaker 3: a house, it's because when when we first started dating,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to purchase a house.
Speaker 3: I had one before when I was like in my
Speaker 3: twenties and lost it to a foreclosure, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to do it right the second time around.
Speaker 1: And as we started to get more serious, I realized, Huh, if.
Speaker 3: We purchased the house in the right way, I can
Speaker 3: really and we can really position Superman, my fiance to
Speaker 3: to to really start a business.
Speaker 1: And so he works for the city where we live
Speaker 1: in Newark, for the.
Speaker 3: Housing Authority, and one of the things he does is
Speaker 3: that he flips properties and stuff for them. It's like
Speaker 3: knows how to fix everything. So I thought, well, why
Speaker 3: don't we get multi family house since literally this is
Speaker 3: what you do for a living. And he was like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be a landlord.
Speaker 1: And it took like a year and a half, but
Speaker 1: finally I was like, you are a landlord. You are
Speaker 1: a landlord.
Speaker 3: You're a landlord of three hundred units, so what's you know,
Speaker 3: like you're doing it? And so I'm like, but you know,
Speaker 3: and so we did the math and it wasn't until
Speaker 3: we did the math that we saw that after basically
Speaker 3: three multi family houses, it well exceeded what he made
Speaker 3: as as working for the city. And so not going
Speaker 3: to say that he would quit, but at least that
Speaker 3: was an option for if I decide that I no
Speaker 3: longer want to work for the city. Once we get
Speaker 3: three properties, you know, I've more than matched my income.
Speaker 3: So that was like my dream because I, you know,
Speaker 3: I travel a lot, and sometimes he wants to go
Speaker 3: and can't get off work and he wants to kind
Speaker 3: of go back to school, but you know, he's raising his.
Speaker 1: Daughter, so he doesn't have as much time.
Speaker 3: So we've been looking for multi family properties and we
Speaker 3: wanted to live in Newark because Newark is really starting
Speaker 3: to yeah, pop honestly, Like you know, they talk about
Speaker 3: places starting to transform, and they've been talking about Newark
Speaker 3: is coming for years.
Speaker 1: But it's fine. You should have heard.
Speaker 2: I went to a baby yesterday and all the way
Speaker 2: out in Long Island and those crowd of people were
Speaker 2: talking about Newark. So you watch out.
Speaker 1: I know, honestly, it's Mandy.
Speaker 3: It's like scary, like scary, but exciting. I mean if yeah,
Speaker 3: there's so many first of all, one like you know,
Speaker 3: the they it's almost basically here. They have these new
Speaker 3: apartments downtown Newark for a one bedroom Mandy twenty two.
Speaker 1: Hundred dollars, what Newark, New Jersey twenty two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: for a one bedroom.
Speaker 3: It's crazy because Newark has already has two trains that
Speaker 3: go directly to New York City. They're building a third,
Speaker 3: so you're gonna have three trains directly to the city.
Speaker 3: And I can literally from Newark get to Midtown faster
Speaker 3: than somebody from Brooklyn can. And then Newark has an
Speaker 3: international airport that flies everywhere in the world, so it's
Speaker 3: already and then it's right next to a port. It's
Speaker 3: it's the position of Newark is already perfectly positioned it
Speaker 3: just the infrastructure was there but not being utilized. And
Speaker 3: so now they're starting to clean up the neighborhoods. And
Speaker 3: there's one neighborhood in particular that I particularly like. It's
Speaker 3: a Weekway section of Newark. It's very family focused, so
Speaker 3: everybody there has lived there for like I lived here
Speaker 3: twenty years, I lived to ten years during the riots.
Speaker 1: Is one of the few neighborhoods that did not fall
Speaker 1: victims to the riots.
Speaker 3: So the houses are beautiful, like nineteen thirty, nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 3: and I love those kind of like old houses, and
Speaker 3: many of them have been renovated. So we've been looking,
Speaker 3: but it's been discouraging because a lot of the houses
Speaker 3: have not been kept up.
Speaker 1: So you might find a house for eighty.
Speaker 3: Thousand dollars and you're like, well, I don't know that
Speaker 3: we have the skill set yet to renovate at this level.
Speaker 3: Or you see a house for like two fifty or
Speaker 3: two seventy and you're like really, like the floor is
Speaker 3: pulled up, like is it even worth this?
Speaker 1: So we finally found the house this weekend, whoo whoo.
Speaker 1: So Mandy, it is perfect. I cannot wait for to
Speaker 1: have you a fiance bou to come.
Speaker 2: Is it a house? Are you doing? Are you doing?
Speaker 3: Like the multifamily, it's a multi family, and so this
Speaker 3: is what's so great about it.
Speaker 1: It's three units. It's in my beloved Weekway section where
Speaker 1: I want to live. It's two blocks from the park.
Speaker 1: Weekway is famous for the Weekway Park.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful park, and they're even renovated even that,
Speaker 3: but it's already a beautiful park with a big lake
Speaker 3: in the middle. So it's super close to the airport.
Speaker 3: It's three family. Two of the units are already rented.
Speaker 3: Unit one is renting for one thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 3: The unit two is rerunning for fifteen hundred, so twenty
Speaker 3: five hundred. This is already making. So we did the
Speaker 3: I spoke to my mortgage guy a couple of days
Speaker 3: ago and I said, you know, how much would the
Speaker 3: mortgage be for this house if we put fah loan
Speaker 3: thirty year, two percent down, current interest rate, our mortgage
Speaker 3: would be two thousand dollars a.
Speaker 1: Month if we lived there.
Speaker 3: And so so rent is already making twenty five hundred.
Speaker 3: Our mortgage is two thousand so one we live rent
Speaker 3: free and two we make five hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 1: Woo.
Speaker 3: And what makes the house so great is that, like online,
Speaker 3: I didn't even want to go see it because my
Speaker 3: realtor was like, let's go see it, but I said no,
Speaker 3: it says there's only five bedrooms total in the three
Speaker 3: family house. So I'm like, five bedrooms is not enough.
Speaker 3: That's just two bedrooms for a unit and one bedroom
Speaker 3: in the unit in the attic. She said, let's still
Speaker 3: go see it. So she tricked me and made me go,
Speaker 3: I don't know who wrote the listing. It's not five
Speaker 3: bedrooms total. One unit is five bedrooms. Fandy, five bedrooms
Speaker 3: in one unit, and beautiful horns were forced through it,
Speaker 3: I know. So I walk in and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 3: this place is huge. And then we go and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: so here's one bedroom in the front. That's weird, but
Speaker 3: there's another bedroom here, and then this bedroom has an
Speaker 3: office off of it, and then there's three in the.
Speaker 1: Back and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 3: So one and a half as five bedrooms in office
Speaker 3: open concept, but it's still it was built in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 3: so it has my charm. So if that wasn't good enough.
Speaker 3: The price of the house is actually like, so, well,
Speaker 3: so what place. It's a two hundred and thirty nine
Speaker 3: thousand for a three bedroom, three family that's nothing. And
Speaker 3: then we went go to the back and I said, well,
Speaker 3: let's see the backyard. And I was like, oh, there's
Speaker 3: a cute little garden kind of space. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: there's not much of a backyard, but okay. And then
Speaker 3: behind the backyard there's this little like park and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is cute. It had like a
Speaker 3: little slide and I'm like, oh, this is like you know,
Speaker 3: it looks like a slide that somebody bought, like for
Speaker 3: their kid. And I'm like, this park is cute, but
Speaker 3: it seems weird that there's a park behind the houses
Speaker 3: because how would anybody reach it?
Speaker 1: Like how did they get to this park? So she's
Speaker 1: looking at the listing and she's.
Speaker 3: Like, wait, I don't think that's a park. I think
Speaker 3: that's that's part of the property. You have a double lot.
Speaker 3: Mandy almost peed my pants. We have a park, like
Speaker 3: literally it's all fenced in, like it's we have a park.
Speaker 3: We have our own park. So like if we have kids,
Speaker 3: if we don't want to go to the park, you
Speaker 3: know up the street. Like here you go in the backyard,
Speaker 3: and the neighbor of the next door neighborhood she came out.
Speaker 3: It was funny because a superman actually knew her. They
Speaker 3: were old coworkers.
Speaker 1: And I asked her and I said, this piece in
Speaker 1: the back is that all?
Speaker 3: She said, yeah, she said if you look next door
Speaker 3: where she lives, she's got a double lot too.
Speaker 1: She said, see all of this back here, she's got
Speaker 1: her own park. And I was like, are you.
Speaker 2: Giving up parks to people in Newark?
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe a double lot. It's basically a quarter
Speaker 3: of an acre, that's how big this property is. What Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Newark has notoriously low taxes, so like it's like half
Speaker 3: the taxes of the surrounding area. So this house is
Speaker 3: like you don't understand how I've been like, we saw
Speaker 3: the house yesterday.
Speaker 1: Was it yesterday?
Speaker 3: I believe yes today yep, and put an offer in already,
Speaker 3: and like so I've been calling, like I was like
Speaker 3: calling all of my like my team, my lawyer, my
Speaker 3: mortgage person.
Speaker 1: I know they've been annoyed.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I know it's Saturday. I know it's Sunday,
Speaker 3: but honestly, I need this property, Like where are we.
Speaker 1: Going to find this? And so this is how God works.
Speaker 1: If you believe in him and I do, the good thing.
Speaker 2: Is going well exactly. That's my that's my standard. Otherwise
Speaker 2: he ain't real. I don't want any angry emails. I'm fine.
Speaker 1: So this is what this is what we found out.
Speaker 3: So literally, the listing was just opened two days ago,
Speaker 3: so we saw it like on the second or third
Speaker 3: day of that. The listing was open and they're only
Speaker 3: showing the property on Saturdays from eleven to noon. So
Speaker 3: we went and for whatever reason, this was the first
Speaker 3: showing and the person on the third floor and on
Speaker 3: the second floor they weren't available, so we were only
Speaker 3: able to see at first the first floor. And as
Speaker 3: we were leaving, the person I served for it happened
Speaker 3: to like, I guess, come home when we were leaving it,
Speaker 3: and he let us.
Speaker 1: See his apartment. But everyone else that went to go
Speaker 1: see it.
Speaker 3: Because one it's not saying five five bedrooms per unit,
Speaker 3: it's saying five bedrooms total. So a lot of people
Speaker 3: are not going because they're like that's too small. You know,
Speaker 3: So that's one and then two those who did go
Speaker 3: to see it and they're like, whoa, there's five bedrooms
Speaker 3: in this one unit I'm allowed to see.
Speaker 1: They're waiting until next week to see the rest of
Speaker 1: the units.
Speaker 3: We're like, we're not gonna wait because next week it's
Speaker 3: going to be like a bidding war. So I'm trying
Speaker 3: to lock it in. So we put in our offer.
Speaker 3: They basically kind of accepted it, and we're trying to
Speaker 3: push through attorney review, which is like the So what
Speaker 3: happens when you buy a house. You see it, you
Speaker 3: love it, You tell your your realtor, I want to
Speaker 3: make an offer. So even before that, you should have
Speaker 3: your financing in place. So you find a bank that
Speaker 3: you want to work with, and they give you what's
Speaker 3: called a pre qualification letter, which basically the bank saying
Speaker 3: Tiffany's good, if she finds a house, we're going to
Speaker 3: give her money up to this amount of money. And
Speaker 3: typically the pre file pre free qualification letter you match
Speaker 3: it to the house. So if the house is two fifty,
Speaker 3: the bank will create a letter specifically for that house saying, yes,
Speaker 3: we'll give Tiffany too fifty and if we find a
Speaker 3: different house. Yes, we'll give you money for up to
Speaker 3: two seventy nine whatever it is that your income and
Speaker 3: stuff will bear.
Speaker 1: The bank will create a letter.
Speaker 3: Specifically for whatever house you're interested in. So every time
Speaker 3: you see a house, you have to call your mortgage
Speaker 3: person if you're interested, for them to create a new letter. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: this is Saturday. I text David, I emailed him, I
Speaker 3: called him. He got my letter within ten minutes. I
Speaker 3: send it to the mortgage person. She said it to them.
Speaker 3: She said it to the buyer's agent and they were like, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, like you know, it's full.
Speaker 1: It's a full offer.
Speaker 3: So you know, the next step really is my attorney
Speaker 3: tomorrow is going to review and submit to say you
Speaker 3: know that yes Tiffany will Superman will buy this house
Speaker 3: pending there's no lead, there's no you know, just basic
Speaker 3: things that you want to put inside the letter. And
Speaker 3: so if they accept that and woo who on you.
Speaker 3: Once you exit attorney review, they can't take in any offers.
Speaker 3: So right now we're in a very iffy place because
Speaker 3: they can still take offers, but not too many people
Speaker 3: wanted to make an offer because they didn't get to
Speaker 3: see the rest of the house. They're waiting until next week.
Speaker 3: So if we can lock this up before Friday, it's
Speaker 3: our house. So that's like, I know, I feel like it's.
Speaker 1: Like like who wants to be a millionaire?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, e so like, which is crazy because
Speaker 3: tomorrow I go take the reel on Tuesday, and so
Speaker 3: I'm like, gonna be on a plane for six hours.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, so many gets, so many things can
Speaker 1: happen in six hours.
Speaker 2: You know, it's Wi Fi on planes, I know.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I'm buying it for the first time.
Speaker 3: My cheek behind is gonna get it, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: so now we're just I'm just waiting to see what
Speaker 3: the other side would say. And so it's such such
Speaker 3: a great learning lesson my My realtor came to me today.
Speaker 3: She knows I really want it, and she said, Okay,
Speaker 3: here's what could possibly happen. Somebody could say, Okay, instead
Speaker 3: of two thirty nine the asking price, we'll give you
Speaker 3: two forty two. So she said, what what you can
Speaker 3: do to combat that? Is say, she said, you can
Speaker 3: add an addendum to your offer, and the offer would
Speaker 3: say if somebody comes to you with a higher price,
Speaker 3: we will exceed it by one thousand dollars automatically up
Speaker 3: to this amount. So today, that's what I have to
Speaker 3: decide tonight before we got on and take.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that make them want to get another? Like, doesn't
Speaker 2: that make them want to start a bedding more a
Speaker 2: little bit?
Speaker 1: Well, they're risthic there is. So that's the risk. The
Speaker 1: good thing is is that they can't. They can't say, hey,
Speaker 1: we got to all.
Speaker 3: They have to show us the other person's offer, like
Speaker 3: someone has to come and say yes, and they have
Speaker 3: to show us the official offer to say this person
Speaker 3: actually put in for two forty five. So I my
Speaker 3: task was to go to my mortgage guid and I
Speaker 3: felt so bad. It was like Sunday night. So I
Speaker 3: was like, hey, David, so the house is two thirty
Speaker 3: nine right now, and that means our mortgage is two
Speaker 3: thousand right now. The house is making twenty five hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a month at the very least, we want to
Speaker 3: break even, no, no, no money out of our pocket
Speaker 3: every month? How much house can we buy up to
Speaker 3: twenty five hundred? And he was like, honestly, the house
Speaker 3: is two thirty nine at if the house was to seventy,
Speaker 3: your mortgage would be twenty.
Speaker 1: Two hundred a month, And I said, oh, I was
Speaker 1: actually surprised. I didn't know you could go that high.
Speaker 3: So I said, okay, so that's our new MAX said,
Speaker 3: So I gave Adrian permission that up to two seventy
Speaker 3: she can that Adria my agent, Diana, I gave her
Speaker 3: permission that up to two seventy we can match and
Speaker 3: exceed one hundred dollars by someone else's bid, because what
Speaker 3: that does is automatically they have to go with us. Like,
Speaker 3: so basically, I want this house because it's worth it,
Speaker 3: because it's already below market. Honestly, Mandy, when I looked
Speaker 3: online to get tell anybody I know, I just like, well,
Speaker 3: they don't know where it is. But like, when I
Speaker 3: looked online, the house, according to Zillo and Trulia, is
Speaker 3: worth about three hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. So already,
Speaker 3: even if we get it for two seventy, it's still
Speaker 3: built in equity. So I'm like, I'm willing to pay
Speaker 3: up to two seventy, you know, and still we still
Speaker 3: would not Instead of making five hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 3: we would make three hundred because our mortgage would be
Speaker 3: twenty two and our income would be twenty five and
Speaker 3: we would live rent free. So either way it's a
Speaker 3: win win win. So y'all stay a prayer that by
Speaker 3: the time we come live, I'm like, I got a house, y'all,
Speaker 3: we make him money. And you know from the air,
Speaker 3: this is the beginning stept for Superman to get the
Speaker 3: next one and the next one and the next one
Speaker 3: and hopefully turned this into a business for himself so
Speaker 3: he can have more time freedom.
Speaker 2: And that's the idea for like any repairs and stuff
Speaker 2: that is Superman like, is that the plan that he'll
Speaker 2: be able to handle whatever if it needs work or
Speaker 2: whatever exactly.
Speaker 3: So that's the benefit too, that anything next level that
Speaker 3: he doesn't know how to do because he works in
Speaker 3: that industry. He's got a guy, you know, so he's
Speaker 3: always like all my friends call him, like, he's the
Speaker 3: guy that my friends call when they're like, does Superman know.
Speaker 1: Somebody for you know, next level plumbing?
Speaker 3: He knows a guy. And so that's what makes me
Speaker 3: very comfortable because people don't want to be landlords because
Speaker 3: they worry about that piece. And that's the piece for us.
Speaker 3: That's already taken care of.
Speaker 2: Here's my technical question. How are you guys doing the mortgage?
Speaker 2: Are you both on it or is one of you
Speaker 2: on it? How are you discussing?
Speaker 3: So because I had a foreclosure, I think this is
Speaker 3: the year my foreclosure falls off, So technically I can't
Speaker 3: qualify for a mortgage. So what I did when I
Speaker 3: first started dating him. You know how women were always
Speaker 3: planning in events like we're getting married.
Speaker 1: You just don't know it yet. I know, I just
Speaker 1: met you.
Speaker 3: So when I first met him, within the first six months,
Speaker 3: I taught him how to raise his credit score from
Speaker 3: like a six twenty to a seven fifty, which is excellent.
Speaker 3: And then I showed him how to automatically save, so
Speaker 3: his paycheck that he gets gets split in like three
Speaker 3: or four ways. Money goes into his daughter's college fund,
Speaker 3: money goes into like a savings account for him, and
Speaker 3: now money goes into what's our joint joint savings account
Speaker 3: for the house. And so he's been saving, saving and saving,
Speaker 3: and so so his credit is good. He's worked at
Speaker 3: his job for like sixteen years. He makes you know, enough,
Speaker 3: and he's got the money saved that he's been saving
Speaker 3: for three years. So it's really this this his name
Speaker 3: will go on and he can add me to the deed,
Speaker 3: but I can't go on.
Speaker 1: Financially, I can't go on. And so what we did
Speaker 1: was we looked around.
Speaker 3: So if you're brown, which you know brown ambition, there's
Speaker 3: a bank called M and T Bank that around.
Speaker 2: Are they only Are they only in this region?
Speaker 3: I don't know, Honestly, you should google to see because
Speaker 3: M and T Bank the government is forcing them because
Speaker 3: they they they participated in some discriminatory practices against Latino
Speaker 3: and people are black people, and as a result, the
Speaker 3: government is forcing them to give money to us. So
Speaker 3: M ANDT Bank is going to give us money. I
Speaker 3: know they're gonna give us money up to six percent
Speaker 3: of the loan amount. So it's about we're gonna get
Speaker 3: about fourteen thousand dollars from M ANDT Bank of just
Speaker 3: money toward the house, so you can put it toward
Speaker 3: the down payment, you can put it toward closing costs,
Speaker 3: whatever it is. Six percent of the maxim they'll give
Speaker 3: you about nineteen thousand dollars in total. And so that's
Speaker 3: why we decided to get our mortgage through them. So
Speaker 3: we can get that free money. Basically you have to.
Speaker 3: The only caveat is with MT Bank as long as
Speaker 3: it's in your area, is that you have to live
Speaker 3: in an area where it's over fifty percent people of color.
Speaker 2: Check that box anywork? Pretty sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically, I'm exactly because I know so imagine all
Speaker 3: of this, and even though like our down payment because
Speaker 3: we're doing a three point five percent down payment because
Speaker 3: it's an fah loan, it's like a little over eight
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, but honestly, technically nothing out of pocket because
Speaker 3: as far as the down payment, I don't know how
Speaker 3: much closing costs will be. I'll let you guys know
Speaker 3: how much they end up being, but we might only
Speaker 3: end up coming out of pocket for all of this,
Speaker 3: like maybe a couple of thousand dollars to have a
Speaker 3: house and not having to pay a mortgage. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2: That is especially since like this has been like a
Speaker 2: roller coaster for me, just as listeners, because like two
Speaker 2: weeks ago, you're like, I'm not getting an incompaverity anymore.
Speaker 1: It's hard, no, but it's been such a roller coaster.
Speaker 1: That's so I'm glad that I'm.
Speaker 2: Sharing I am cautiously optimistic. Yeahsing my fingers. I hope
Speaker 2: it all works out. It sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess you know they're selling it.
Speaker 3: Who knows how much money they put into it, but
Speaker 3: obviously they're probably gonna make honestly, probably one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars on this house.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, interesting, Okay, I have a thousand more questions,
Speaker 2: but yeah, so right up next, because I just well, well,
Speaker 2: I'll ask the big question is what kind of rate
Speaker 2: did he qualify for if you don't mind sharing? And
Speaker 2: have you locked in the rate and how that kind
Speaker 2: of all works because people always want to know when
Speaker 2: you lost in the rate.
Speaker 3: So the rate doesn't get locked in until the offer
Speaker 3: is fully accepted, meaning like you, so once you leave
Speaker 3: attorney review, So when you make an offer, they can
Speaker 3: accept it, but it doesn't mean they can't accept other offers.
Speaker 1: So what happens is.
Speaker 3: You make an offer, they say, Okay, this seems cool.
Speaker 3: Then their attorney and your attorney basically go back and forth,
Speaker 3: and my attorney might say, well, we want to put
Speaker 3: a clause in there that says that there's lead pain,
Speaker 3: y'all got to pay for this and we want to
Speaker 3: put a clause in there it says it has to
Speaker 3: be a legal three family, because what if it's not,
Speaker 3: and then I can't run out the top space legally,
Speaker 3: So my attorney will want all these clauses, or like
Speaker 3: if the if the inspection comes back and there's you know,
Speaker 3: like there I don't know, you know, an oil.
Speaker 1: Tank in the ground that needs to be removed.
Speaker 3: So she's gonna put all these clauses and their attorney
Speaker 3: is going to go They're gonna go back and forth.
Speaker 3: We're basically that's attorneys reviewing the contract back and forth
Speaker 3: once they come to an agreement and both sides say, yes,
Speaker 3: we like what this legal agreement is saying about the
Speaker 3: contingencies about buying this house. Once you leave attorney review,
Speaker 3: you are officially in contract and you can lock in
Speaker 3: that rate. So our rate is about four percent right now.
Speaker 3: This is what the this is what the standard rate
Speaker 3: is like. This is the lowest rate right now anyway
Speaker 3: that you can get if you have excellent credit and
Speaker 3: excellent it is seven forty or above. So it's about
Speaker 3: four percent. But the rates are only going up, so
Speaker 3: literally it's four percent today. We might lock it it
Speaker 3: might be four point two so right now, but we're yeah,
Speaker 3: we're not locked into a rate right now. Until you
Speaker 3: have an official contract and you're locked in I think
Speaker 3: for about like thirty days or I'll find that exactly
Speaker 3: how long you lock in your rate. But yeah, right now,
Speaker 3: our rate is not locked in. So it's like yay,
Speaker 3: It's like pins and needles because you're like, well, what
Speaker 3: if Because in this moment, right now, until we leave
Speaker 3: attorney review, anybody can make a offer, gotcha, And so
Speaker 3: we're just like somebody can come and say we want
Speaker 3: to pay two fifty that's why we put the adendem
Speaker 3: in today. Well up till two seventy we're willing to
Speaker 3: pay two fifty one to fifty two. It's like you know,
Speaker 3: and so, I mean, I have a good feeling about
Speaker 3: it because now that we're adding this addendum.
Speaker 2: It sounds like perfect. It sounds like if it doesn't
Speaker 2: work out, then there probably isn't a God.
Speaker 1: I feel, yeah, God, God, Mandy said that I did it.
Speaker 2: I'm feeling really really heathen is today. So I want
Speaker 2: to say one thing real quick. I want to back
Speaker 2: up because I love one thing that you did, which
Speaker 2: is exactly what we did. We were shopping for an apartment.
Speaker 2: Even is you kind of work the opposite of most
Speaker 2: people when they buy a house or look for an
Speaker 2: apartment or whatever. It's like, oh, what's the most I
Speaker 2: can get for, Like, how what's the biggest loan? And
Speaker 2: then I'll shop backwards from there. But you you were like,
Speaker 2: here's what I can afford. How much of a mortgage
Speaker 2: can I get to where I can still afford my
Speaker 2: monthly payments? And I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 2: do that, and it's especially important now because you know,
Speaker 2: to kind of bring it back to Lord Voldemort's salary.
Speaker 2: But everyone sort of I mean, you may not know
Speaker 2: what Dodd Frank is, but people are talking about how
Speaker 2: Trump wants to roll back Dodd Frank legislation, and just
Speaker 2: to do like a quick explainer on what that is.
Speaker 2: So Dodd Frank regulations went into effect after the recession,
Speaker 2: after the subprime mortgage lending crisis, and you know, millions
Speaker 2: of homeowners lost their houses and were underwater on their houses.
Speaker 2: It was a big mess because banks at the time
Speaker 2: were lending all willy nilly to people, giving people huge
Speaker 2: mortgages they could never afford and lying about the people's
Speaker 2: income or leaving their income blank on their mortgage applications,
Speaker 2: and it was the bank's fault, but it was also
Speaker 2: like five percent the person's fault for like, you know,
Speaker 2: believing that they could afford this crazy house. And so
Speaker 2: I think it's really important now as Trump plans to
Speaker 2: roll back these legislations on banks that made it a
Speaker 2: lot tougher. Basically what Dodd Frank did it created the
Speaker 2: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is an agency that's cracked
Speaker 2: down on tons of financial businesses, from mortgage lenders to
Speaker 2: payday loans to prepaid debit cards. They created the CFPB,
Speaker 2: and it also made it a lot harder for like
Speaker 2: banks to make easy, easy mortgage loans to people. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I feel like it's really important for people now,
Speaker 2: like if if they do roll back these regulations, all
Speaker 2: like the sort of the kiddie wheels are coming off
Speaker 2: again and it's going to be a lot easier, I think,
Speaker 2: for people to get sold huge mortgages they can afford.
Speaker 2: So it's it's even more important to like go in
Speaker 2: there and know know your numbers, and like don't listen
Speaker 2: to what the bank person says, because it's the interest
Speaker 2: to sell you the most faddest loan possible for the
Speaker 2: longest term, you know, with the highest highest interest rate.
Speaker 2: So I just want to say that real quick, and
Speaker 2: shopping for a good rate and and knowing what you
Speaker 2: can afford, all that's really important because you don't you
Speaker 2: can't trust that the bank officer is going to be,
Speaker 2: you know, looking out for your best interests, because how
Speaker 2: often are they?
Speaker 3: Honestly, So take a first time home boyers class. Honestly,
Speaker 3: that to me, that was when I bought my first day.
Speaker 1: It was really helpful.
Speaker 3: Like even though I took one before and I bought
Speaker 3: a property before, there was so much new stuff. Mandy, Honestly,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't remember this, you know. So taking
Speaker 3: a first time home buyers class would be also really
Speaker 3: helpful because there's so many nuances that you're like, so
Speaker 3: what happens next? And having a team if I knowing
Speaker 3: what I know now. One, take a for first time
Speaker 3: home buyers class. Make sure you have your budget tight.
Speaker 3: You've already been working on your credit and your savings plan.
Speaker 3: This is all before even searching.
Speaker 1: And then two having your team in place, like a
Speaker 1: really great realtor that comes highly recommended. I had a
Speaker 1: real tlor. At first, she wasn't that great. She was nice,
Speaker 1: but wasn't that great.
Speaker 3: And then so I got I got recommendations from her,
Speaker 3: from people knew had just purchased a house, even my lawyer.
Speaker 1: Last night, I was gonna.
Speaker 3: Go with the lawyer that I used for my first
Speaker 3: house ten years ago, and I left him a message.
Speaker 1: I called, but you know it's Sunday. It's Saturday.
Speaker 3: So I called my friend who was an actual lawyer,
Speaker 3: and I said, hey, Mikaela, you just bought a house.
Speaker 3: I know you're not a real estate lawyer, but who
Speaker 3: did you use? Because who better than tell you who's
Speaker 3: a good lawyer than a lawyer? And she told me, oh,
Speaker 3: I use a friend of mine Sharing, she's a real
Speaker 3: estate lawyer. I called Sharon. Ten minutes after that, Sharon
Speaker 3: picked up. I've been on the phone with Shared four
Speaker 3: times over this weekend. And you want a great team.
Speaker 3: So you want your real estate agent, you want a
Speaker 3: great lawyer. You're gonna want a really great inspection person.
Speaker 3: So these are people that have to be on your team.
Speaker 3: And what you don't want is they all are working
Speaker 3: with each other, like meaning like I don't want my
Speaker 3: real estate agent to tell me what lawyer. No, I
Speaker 3: want to find my own. They should all be working
Speaker 3: for you, not for each other. So you're you're a
Speaker 3: real estate lawyer, should not be the person that you're
Speaker 3: your inspector suggested to you. They should be separate entities,
Speaker 3: so you know, so that way you know that, not
Speaker 3: to say that the people are going to be in cahoots,
Speaker 3: but just to kind of protect yourself against that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: some of the team members are that A mortgage person
Speaker 3: that's very responsive. You know my mortgage person, I mean
Speaker 3: he's off and then Monday he has off. But I've
Speaker 3: been texting David all night and he's been on it,
Speaker 3: sending me my pre qualification letter when I needed it.
Speaker 3: So that's you know, that's going to be critical. Or
Speaker 3: do these people move for you? Because if not, if
Speaker 3: David waited till Tuesday, the house might be gone then
Speaker 3: what And so yeah, so that I mean I think
Speaker 3: that if you guys have any house, I feel like
Speaker 3: we did we did Today's tips through this, but if
Speaker 3: you guys have any questions, you know, and I can't
Speaker 3: wait to kind of share I feel like I really
Speaker 3: we need to do like a really good like blog
Speaker 3: post about this, right Mandy, Like about like the steps.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's different in other states, but
Speaker 3: about really buying a home, especially if you want to
Speaker 3: buy a home slash investment property.
Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah, I think it's really important because I
Speaker 2: don't think a lot of people realize that the mortgage
Speaker 2: the home buying process starts before you even go home shopping,
Speaker 2: Like it starts for months and months and months in advance.
Speaker 2: It starts, like what you said with Superman. It starts
Speaker 2: with the work of preparing yourself and building your credit
Speaker 2: and making sure that you're not doing a lot of that,
Speaker 2: like a lot of the things that are like red
Speaker 2: flags when you're being like picked apart by a lending
Speaker 2: like a mortgage financing company, a bank whatever. You know, Hey,
Speaker 2: you went really ham at the store over Christmas and
Speaker 2: you know, well, it's credit card debt, you know, and
Speaker 2: I approve you. Or hey, you lost your job or
Speaker 2: you just started a new job in the last three months,
Speaker 2: you know, you look like risky. Like people don't know
Speaker 2: all the different things that they can do to kind
Speaker 2: of like cause bumps in the road, so it's like
Speaker 2: you have to prepare early. And yeah, if if you
Speaker 2: guys have homeowners questions buying a house, whatever, you can
Speaker 2: send those two go to Brown Ambition Podcast dot com
Speaker 2: ask us anything to leave us a question there or
Speaker 2: email us at Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: And yeah, maybe we can put something together for people
Speaker 2: just based.
Speaker 3: On I think we do, like maybe like a checklist
Speaker 3: of like the steps of home buying or something like that.
Speaker 2: I think that would be great if people are just interested.
Speaker 2: I mean, how many people watch HGTV like they don't know,
Speaker 2: but I feel like I'm an expert. I'm like, how
Speaker 2: much do you have left for your renovations and repairs
Speaker 2: on the but you know, and maybe it's just like
Speaker 2: a list of free home first time home buyers classes
Speaker 2: resources I took. I took a seminary and I took
Speaker 2: the the Tanya rape leays or it. It was good.
Speaker 2: I think I talked about we went sometime earlier this
Speaker 2: year or sorry last year now, and I you know,
Speaker 2: we were nowhere close to buying a house, but it
Speaker 2: was still really educational. And there's a free pdf like
Speaker 2: an ebook that the loan officer who works from the
Speaker 2: largest lending companies in the US call Guaranteed Rate. He
Speaker 2: actually just wrote and like a free ebook. I might
Speaker 2: just post that online. It's an excellent like primer on
Speaker 2: just the mortgage process and this like exactly like I said,
Speaker 2: the things you can do to delay the mortgage process,
Speaker 2: the things you should do to make sure it's a
Speaker 2: smooth process. Like I read that, you know, in like
Speaker 2: I gobbled it up because it was really interesting. It's
Speaker 2: like all these insider experiences from the right, from the source,
Speaker 2: like a mortgage loan officer who's right there in like
Speaker 2: the trenches with everyone all the time. So maybe I'll
Speaker 2: post that and then if you guys have any questions,
Speaker 2: send him in and who knows, maybe I'll get that
Speaker 2: guy to come on sometime. That'll be awesome some tips,
Speaker 2: but then just learning from your experience too. It's really
Speaker 2: interesting because you're right in it, in it it's okay,
Speaker 2: all right, good vibes, everyone said, tifany good vibes.
Speaker 1: Yes, So now it is time for brown break, brown boost.
Speaker 1: What you're gonna do. What you're gonna do brown break
Speaker 1: or boost?
Speaker 2: Nice?
Speaker 1: I like it, I know, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: was like in my mind.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, what am I gonna say? I
Speaker 3: don't know, and it came out just but goodie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it came out good. So are you
Speaker 1: gonna are you gonna break? Are you gonna boost?
Speaker 2: I want to take a boost today? Well, I want
Speaker 2: to answer if someone had asked me on one of
Speaker 2: the social media channels, what was the name of the
Speaker 2: money app that I gave a boost to a while ago?
Speaker 2: And it was called Level Money L L e V
Speaker 2: as in Victory E L Money. And that's the app
Speaker 2: that I use day to day. And it's it's cool
Speaker 2: because you don't really think about it. It just tells
Speaker 2: you every day you have seventy five dollars left to
Speaker 2: spend today if you want to stay on budget, you know,
Speaker 2: and if you spend eighty, then it takes five from
Speaker 2: tomorrow's budget and on and on. So Level Money and
Speaker 2: Today's Boost I wanted to. I start thinking of sort
Speaker 2: of what my favorite bank products are, and I just thought, men,
Speaker 2: I haven't even like really given a shout out to
Speaker 2: the fact that I love my savings account bank, my
Speaker 2: Ally savings account. Yes, I know we both use Ally.
Speaker 2: You're a fan of Alley but we haven't given them
Speaker 2: a shout out.
Speaker 1: There Bay and they are Bay all.
Speaker 2: And then also I'll give a shout out to my
Speaker 2: former Bay. Capital one three sixty ally just narrowly beats
Speaker 2: Capital one three sixty. They're both great. But our online
Speaker 2: banks are just huge. I mean, I don't know why
Speaker 2: more people don't know about them. It can be I
Speaker 2: guess a little nerve wracking or not nerve wracking, but
Speaker 2: just it's just different to think, Okay, I don't have
Speaker 2: a bank branch to walk into, there's no person behind
Speaker 2: the count or my dad would never like do it.
Speaker 2: All he called me was watterday. He was waiting in
Speaker 2: line at the bank and I'm like, to do what
Speaker 2: posits some money? There's an ATM right outside. He's like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, my friend brand is working today. I
Speaker 2: want to say, yeah they do that? What are the
Speaker 2: DA does love Brenda? I'm like, yeah, I still no
Speaker 2: Brenda and say hi, but you know, you know, getting
Speaker 2: any interest? I digress so online banks. So the biggest
Speaker 2: reasons why I love online banks. Online banks means no
Speaker 2: bank branches, no bank people, lower overhead costs, and that
Speaker 2: means less fees tacked on to their products because a
Speaker 2: lot of the reason that bank, like big bank fees,
Speaker 2: Bank of America, all the big banks are so freaking high.
Speaker 2: Like they charge you for a minimum balance, they charge
Speaker 2: you for maintenance, they charge you for I mean, I
Speaker 2: had to pay for a cashier's check, like to get
Speaker 2: my own money, you know what I mean? The other
Speaker 2: day eight dollars at Chase is nuts. The reason they
Speaker 2: do that is because your overhead costs are so freaking high.
Speaker 2: So I love online banks. They have very low fees.
Speaker 2: They often reimburse you for ATM fees, and if they
Speaker 2: don't reimburse you, they have they have a you know,
Speaker 2: free fees up to a certain dollar amount. No monthly
Speaker 2: maintenance fees to worry about. Uh. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: they actually earn you something on your money. So ally
Speaker 2: is one percent on their savings accounts, and I don't
Speaker 2: forget what the checking account interest rate is. I actually
Speaker 2: don't have a checking account with them. And Capital one
Speaker 2: through sixties point seventy five percent and like that may
Speaker 2: not sound like a lot, but my Bank of America,
Speaker 2: my old, good old Bank of America savings and checking
Speaker 2: account was like point zero one point zero one percent
Speaker 2: interest which was like maybe two pennies like a year
Speaker 2: from them, which is Pray Cray Gray. So that's my
Speaker 2: shout out. Ally, Bank Capital one through sixties are good
Speaker 2: ones and just you know, Magnify Money on give another
Speaker 2: shout out to them. If you want to just shop
Speaker 2: around for a better savings of checking account. It's not
Speaker 2: that hard. People don't people like people wait forever to
Speaker 2: change their banks. It's crazy, like they it's it seems
Speaker 2: like a lot of work, but it's it's really not
Speaker 2: that hard to transfer banks and to get out of
Speaker 2: a bad bank and get to a bank that actually
Speaker 2: earns you some money and treats you better and doesn't
Speaker 2: charge you so many fees. A good place to start
Speaker 2: I love Magnified Money is Savings Account Comparison Page because
Speaker 2: we just lay everything out every single bank. We look
Speaker 2: at them and we rank them based on their interest
Speaker 2: rates and their fees and also how transparent they are
Speaker 2: about their fees, which kind of like sets our page
Speaker 2: a part of the thing from other ones out there.
Speaker 2: So if you if you want to shop around, you're interested,
Speaker 2: you're curious, you can you can definitely start there. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're not banking online. I don't
Speaker 2: know what you're doing with your life.
Speaker 3: I want to give a shout out too, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: see I don't know, just like team like, the last
Speaker 3: few weeks have just really showed me how important it
Speaker 3: is to happen like an awesome dope team around you,
Speaker 3: you know, because sometimes there's just so many things floating,
Speaker 3: so many things happening, it's hard to keep up with things.
Speaker 3: But I have an awesome, awesome, awesome team, and I'm
Speaker 3: recognizing that it's not just like the team for the Budgetista.
Speaker 3: It's like my life team Superman is part of the
Speaker 3: team Supergirl, my sisters, just having like such a great
Speaker 3: support system. And so that's my brown Boost. I'm feeling
Speaker 3: in a great mood. I'm not trying to put any
Speaker 3: wie down and rides out there because I want this
Speaker 3: Dagon house.
Speaker 1: I want to park in my backyard. I want my park.
Speaker 3: What I'm already like want to put a hammock right here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so that's my That's why brown boost is
Speaker 3: just the teamwork.
Speaker 1: Makes the drig work. We will indeed, So now it's
Speaker 1: time for wind.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're moving us along. I know you're
Speaker 2: about to pack and go to California.
Speaker 1: Move this train along.
Speaker 3: Yes, I cannot wait to go. But I'm like, yes,
Speaker 3: I gotta get up at like four am. So I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so Wins, I can guess what you're I
Speaker 1: just thought. I So we've had her on as a
Speaker 1: win before, we actually had it on as a guest.
Speaker 1: Love the a j.
Speaker 3: My Win is so epic for her, so lovey. I'm like,
Speaker 3: we didn't talk about this last week, didn't. No, this
Speaker 3: is new, this is new and so awesome. It's like
Speaker 3: beyond awesome. I'm like, I can't even believe it's happening. So,
Speaker 3: for those of you who don't know Love, we had
Speaker 3: her on before. She's amazing. She's funny, she's smart. She
Speaker 3: is the personification of black girl magic. And what I
Speaker 3: love so much about Love is that it's not just
Speaker 3: that she's just really dope. She's actually so nice, Like
Speaker 3: she's always looking out for you, like she'll hit me
Speaker 3: up if she sees an opportunity, or like she's just
Speaker 3: a really dope nice person. And you know when even
Speaker 3: from first meeting her in person and her not knowing me.
Speaker 1: She wasn't one of those who are you again? Are
Speaker 1: you important?
Speaker 3: Not that kind of person at all. And so love
Speaker 3: has a New York Times bestseller, be clear, It's called
Speaker 3: I Am Judging You. She shared it with us on
Speaker 3: a podcast and as if it wasn't cool enough that
Speaker 3: her first book was a New York Times bestseller and
Speaker 3: you know, did really well.
Speaker 2: Accolades genuinely funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, accolades on top of accolades. I mean, every celebrity
Speaker 3: you could think of holding that I Am Judging You book.
Speaker 3: Shanda aka call me Miss Rhymes has brought the rights
Speaker 3: to Lovey's book Are You Kidding Me? And it's going
Speaker 3: to make a comedy series, like if It's unbelievable because
Speaker 3: one Lovey first was connected with Shanda because Lovey used
Speaker 3: to do at least a live tweet Shonda shows, and
Speaker 3: so that was like her so just to see that,
Speaker 3: and like at twenty twelve, love used to tweet like
Speaker 3: one day you gonna see me?
Speaker 1: She always wanted to.
Speaker 3: She just told me like personally and like and chatting
Speaker 3: like when I saw her person once.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd love to be a TV writer. I
Speaker 1: can see that. I love to write, I'm a writer.
Speaker 1: This is what I love to do.
Speaker 3: And she shared some tweets from like three or four
Speaker 3: years ago, even earlier than that, like twenty twelve where
Speaker 3: she says, you know, one day you're gonna see my
Speaker 3: name name in the credits. And to have Shonda the
Speaker 3: coin of TV. Let's be clear, Shonda Rhyme Hymes is
Speaker 3: the dictator of TV right. She owns Thursday Night, she
Speaker 3: owns Your Soul on Thursday. And to have her developed
Speaker 3: Lovey's book, I am judging you into a comedy series.
Speaker 3: I don't even know how love is able to to
Speaker 3: just stand I mean, like.
Speaker 1: Just how how can you stand it?
Speaker 3: She said the other day. And I thought it was
Speaker 3: so cute. She was like, honestly, it feels so surreal.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling like I'm watching a good ass movie on
Speaker 3: somebody else's life, and I'm like, yo, this movie is
Speaker 3: good as hell. Yeah, she's it doesn't feel real. And
Speaker 3: what I love And someone said, because I had posted
Speaker 3: about it, someone was like, what excites them? Almost as
Speaker 3: much as the fact that Lovey is Doue has this
Speaker 3: deal with Shanda is the number of women of color
Speaker 3: that have posted about it. And shared it because love
Speaker 3: and I said, it's a testament to her character because
Speaker 3: she's so awesome. I am so genuinely excited for it,
Speaker 3: like it's me. When I read it, I was like,
Speaker 3: are you kidding, Like I'm telling him, like Superman like, yo,
Speaker 3: so Lovey because he knows Lovey and he was like what,
Speaker 3: So we're all excited. It's not even me, but yeah,
Speaker 3: so that is the win on wins on wins, and
Speaker 3: I'm just really proud of her. And what I love
Speaker 3: is that Lovey is using this opportunity to also teach
Speaker 3: us along the way. She's face book the other day
Speaker 3: that although that this is a huge deal, people think
Speaker 3: that that means she's rolling in the dough. And she's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to share the good, the bad,
Speaker 3: the ugly of this whole process. And she said, can
Speaker 3: I buy some more Oxford shoes and some more Blazers? Yes,
Speaker 3: am I super rich? Now No, that that's not how
Speaker 3: it works. That the more money you make, the more
Speaker 3: people you have to hire, the more money you have
Speaker 3: to spend. And she's just like, I love the fact
Speaker 3: that she's showing the other side of this. So yeah,
Speaker 3: she's just awesome, and so I'm proud of her.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes me so happy because especially for kids
Speaker 2: out there, just anyone who's like a writer or whatever,
Speaker 2: it sounds all glamorous.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Cheryl Strade wrote an amazing or it was an amazing
Speaker 2: excerpt from her she's the author of Wild and like
Speaker 2: she's like super famous, and she wrote like the real
Speaker 2: story of what it's like to be an author and
Speaker 2: how the book advances work. And so I think that's
Speaker 2: it's great to tell the other side of the story.
Speaker 2: And like TV business is rough, like because a while back,
Speaker 2: Issa Ray, before she did the HBO show Shonda, Shonda
Speaker 2: and her team had bought the rights to Issa's book
Speaker 2: and we're going to not her book, but she they
Speaker 2: were gonna work with Asa Ryan developing a series, and
Speaker 2: then that didn't work out. I don't think ABC was
Speaker 2: like down for it or whatever, and she had to
Speaker 2: bunce back and came back with HBO. But it's rough
Speaker 2: out there. But I feel like Levy Levey's star is
Speaker 2: like this rising. I mean it's like up in the
Speaker 2: skies in the universe is in a different like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's in a different stratosphere right now. And it's really
Speaker 2: exciting for her and just Shonda, I feel like Shonda
Speaker 2: and and and it reminds you like Ava Duverne. But
Speaker 2: these are women who were like reaching back and lifting
Speaker 2: people up behind them, which is which you know you
Speaker 2: don't really get to see a lot of. And it's
Speaker 2: just like, and here's why we need more women in
Speaker 2: power police.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they can look behind them and see who
Speaker 2: who needs to catch up and give them that leg up.
Speaker 2: And oh, it's exciting. I can't wait. Yeah, right, so
Speaker 2: we need to have back on the show then, right
Speaker 2: to tell us when in details and like what's the
Speaker 2: story going to be? Like what is she going to
Speaker 2: be in it? Who's who's playing her?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Who would you get to play her?
Speaker 1: I don't know? And I'm like, how is it really
Speaker 1: gonna go?
Speaker 2: It's known actress, Like I think that she needs an original,
Speaker 2: like someone new.
Speaker 3: But I wonder if it's like because because I am
Speaker 3: judging you, really isn't like a story of Lovey's life necessarily,
Speaker 3: so like it's it gonna be like a collection of
Speaker 3: different story It's gonna be like skits like who knows, I'm.
Speaker 1: Just who Chad? But yeah, We definitely have to have
Speaker 1: her back on again for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, you work on that.
Speaker 1: She gets to hint, do it. I'm like, anyway maybe.
Speaker 2: And with Lovey No, it's amazing. Hey, I'm gonna tach
Speaker 2: him off that way, and I can't think of anything
Speaker 2: better than none.
Speaker 1: Right, it's awesome.