How Smart Homebuyers Take Control: Lessons from the Tahoe Market With Fred Glick, Natalia Butler and Precious Star Moreno of Arrivva

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Why buyers lose leverage in complex markets without realizing it
• How Lake Tahoe’s cross-state rules and neighborhood differences change the buying strategy
• What most buyers misunderstand about price per square foot
• The overlooked factors that can make or break a deal
• Common pre-approval mistakes that quietly knock buyers out of contention
• The approval strategy that can make or break a competitive offer
• How representation choices impact negotiations and outcomes
• Insider tactics buyers use to compete smarter and protect themselves

In this episode with Fred Glick, Natalia Butler and Precious Star Moreno

Buying a home doesn’t have to feel stacked against you.

Fred Glick, along with Arrivva agents Precious Star Moreno and Natalia Butler, reveals what most homebuyers are never told. From navigating Lake Tahoe’s complex cross-state markets and tax traps to exposing the price-per-square-foot myth, this episode breaks down what actually drives value, including views, insurance, risk, and financing power.

Learn why most pre-approvals fail, how fully underwritten approvals help buyers win, and the strategic moves that separate accepted offers from lost deals. If you want to compete smarter, protect yourself, and buy with confidence, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Arrivva Mortgage
• Natalia Butler on LinkedIn
• Housing Rebel (@laterwendy)

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

​

[00:00:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: We are at the first episode of We Fixed Real Estate for 2026. Today we have Natalia Butler on the call and Precious Star Moreno from San Francisco, and we will be talking about a few things. But let’s start off with talking about Tahoe, what a unique market is. Sort of not so much a deep dive, more of a reality check, how it’s not like most, most areas.

Welcome to the show, Natalia.

[00:00:48] Natalia Butler: Thank you, Drew. Happy to be here and tell some people about how Tahoe works and the area works.

[00:00:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: If anybody’s been up there, it’s, I mean it, even just driving around the lake, each one of those communities is very, very separate.

 Tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive into the Tahoe.

[00:01:04] Natalia Butler: Okay. Well I grew up in the Sierra Nevadas a little bit north of Lake Tahoe in a small town called Quincy, California.

And then spent most of my life in Chico, California. And then moved back to the area a few years ago. So I came out here, chose Reno because it’s a little bit bigger of a city.

Airport, all the amenities. And I am licensed both in California and Nevada and I really love it. When I first came out here, I took a position with a investment company that flipped houses, so a big national investment company. So I was flipping houses out here for the last two plus years and working with wholesalers and kind of on that foreclosure, pre foreclosure side of things.

And then also spent some time with Compass and did some of the luxury real estate up in Tahoe. But mostly focused on the investment side of things. So I have a lot of knowledge around Tahoe and the lake just from being a part of that community for so long. And then my sister-in-law’s also licensed in Truckee and does a lot of larger homes.

And so I have a wealth of knowledge about the Tahoe area in Reno after being out here for so long.

[00:02:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. And it’s such a unique geography ’cause you’re not, you’re only talking about an area around the lake, but you’re also talking about California. You’re talking about Nevada, you’re talking about the North Lake versus the South Lake.

[00:02:32] Natalia Butler: Yep.

[00:02:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Why don’t you give us like a, kind of a how does the real estate work there and kind of a, a brief rundown for someone that may be looking for a vacation home or someone just really wanting to relocate to the lake life.

[00:02:45] Natalia Butler: Yeah, so there’s a lot of people relocating out here from both, you know, Southern California and the Bay Area.

Mainly the huge migration has come from the fact that California’s taxes have gotten pretty hefty and so people wanna come out here to save money. So a lot of people have been looking on the Nevada side as opposed to the California side, but there’s still a huge influx of people that just wanna be by the lake, whether it’s for summer recreation or winter recreation, ’cause it’s kind of a year round place.

We call fall and spring, the shoulder season. But they bleed into each other often a lot because you know, ski season, Squaw Valley, or now Palisades has stayed open till 4th of July. I mean, it’s rare, but it happens. So there’s a lot of recreation out here and that’s what really draws people.

You know, Reno is not the casino town that everybody, or city that they think it is anymore. It’s definitely moving away from that and wants to be part of that recreation. So when you’re talking about the lake, you have lots of different areas. You have South Lake Tahoe, which is gonna be kind of your primary destination for like the casino type of stuff. ‘Cause that’s where the casinos are. They don’t live in North Lake Tahoe, so you’ll see a lot of concerts down there. Bachelor, bachelorette parties.

The community itself is a little bit more affordable out of all the places on the lake. It’s gonna be a little bit more affordable than North Lake Tahoe in just the general sense.

 The more expensive side of things is gonna be like Secret Cove in Incline Village because that lies in Nevada and that has the better taxes. Right.

[00:04:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Help people understand who may be from California that don’t really know the advantages of living on the Nevada side.

[00:04:32] Natalia Butler: So you don’t have a in-state income tax when you live in Nevada.

And so people who have more wealth and are trying to protect that wealth tend to move to the Nevada side for that reason. They don’t have to pay an income tax as opposed to if they were on the California side and that was their residence, they would have to pay that income tax. Yeah, so you, and then you also have Mount Rose right there.

So Mount Rose is in Nevada. It’s a great ski resort as well. So a lot of people love to do that. It’s at a high elevation for being kind of, you don’t have to take like a gondola to get to the, the resorts about 10,000 feet. And then you have the lake, and then incline also has the they’re kind of utilities district gives you a little card so you’re able to access like the beaches and the different things.

And you don’t necessarily have to be within like a planned community or an HOA to access those amenities. It’s kind of an incline special little thing. There is a golf course there as well, and so a lot of people have moved out to those areas from Southern California, Bay Area because you get that tax break, but it doesn’t exclude the rest of the lake so quickly.

From Incline, you’re in Kings Beach, you’re in, you know, Tahoe Vista, Carnelian Bay, Tahoe City and that’s kind of North Lake Tahoe. And then you kind of start curving around the lake and then you’re gonna be in where the ski resort Homewood is. It’s kind of the local ski resort there that was going to go private, but they decided to stay public, which is wonderful.

You have Tahoma and then that’s gonna get you towards like Emerald Bay and then, then you’re into South Lake Tahoe. So that’s kind of like Lake Tahoe. And a quick summary and it varies. You know, all the lakefront properties are gonna be very high-end luxury properties. Mark Zuckerberg lives on the West Shore, if anybody’s curious about that.

So that’s kind of where his property is. Nobody knows exactly where, but some people do. And then like Tahoe City’s kind of a mix. They try to keep it a community up there. There’s, you know, an elementary school, high school, North Lake Tahoe High but you still have a lot of second homeowners out there, a majority of them are second homeowners. And over the years a lot of people have pushed back on that to kind of keep it still a community. It’s kind of battling that right now. And so they put lots of restrictions on short-term rentals. So just so people are aware, just because you buy a property in Lake Tahoe doesn’t mean you automatically get to be a short term rental.

You have to have a permit. Those permits are limited. And some a lot of them are maxed out, and then every place is a little different. And then when you add the HOA, so the county restrictions, then you add the HOAs as well. And so you really have to have somebody doing the research or do the research to really narrow down the specific property and what those restrictions might be.

And then from the lake, you kind of go in, there’s North Star and then there’s Olympic Valley, which is like where Squaw Valley Palisades is. And then North Star is kind of its own gig. That’s where a lot of condos are. Ski and ski out is a big thing in North Star. And then within North Star you also have Martis Camp, which is like the very luxury.

That’s where the, you know, the Ritz-Carlton is near and one of the, like most expensive HOAs, they have their own access from North Star and different things like that. So that’s kind of a rundown of the lake and then Truckee’s kind of its own little place too. You have Tahoe Donner, which is one of the biggest planned community developments there, which has, you know, Trout Creek, a golf course various different little restaurants and they have their own ski hill there.

So you part of that amenities when you’re part of that HOA. There’s also condos within that, so it’s a pretty, pretty big community out there. And then you have just the general population of Truckee, which varies in different pockets. And then you have the golf course communities like Old Greenwood, Shafer’s Mill and those are gonna have their own HOAs as well in different memberships.

And so that’s a very short rundown of how it works out here. And that’s just like the Tahoe area, so there’s a lot to do. They’ve planned it much around recreation like I had said.

[00:09:10] Fred Glick: Just to throw this out, I wanna let everybody know we’re, we are licensed in California only. Eventually, we will be in Nevada, but Natalia can handle you in Nevada, just not under Arrivva, so.

[00:09:23] Natalia Butler: Correct. And we can get into Nevada.

[00:09:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Nationwide Cash Back.

[00:09:29] Natalia Butler: Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:31] Fred Glick: That is correct. We wanna do that now.

Why don’t you give the pitch on that little brief commercial? What I’ve developed for everyone who’s not in our licensed state, is that you come to us, tell us what you’re looking for, where you wanna buy price frames, all that kind of stuff.

We’ll help you find a real estate agent. And the way we do that is we talk to them and tell them about your situation, make sure they’re cleaning green and we’re using the, what, what is Wendy’s thing called? I keep forgetting. Anyway, it, it’s this

[00:10:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Housing Rebel.

[00:10:08] Fred Glick: Housing Rebel

[00:10:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Laterwendy.

[00:10:12] Fred Glick: Yes.

Laterwendy. So it’s, it’s all very ethical agents, so we’ll find you someone hopefully from there. But what we’ll negotiate is if they’re charging 3%, let’s say that’s what their fee is, we’ll negotiate to get a, say at least a 25% referral fee, which is normal. It’s what Zillow does and is getting sued for in terms of not doing anything.

But what we’re doing is completely helping you through the process. We’re not licensing those states, so we can’t do the contracts or anything, but we can have a Slack channel, we can pay you what’s going on. We can, just be a second set of eyes for you. But what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna get that 25% referral fee, and then we’re gonna take, only a flat fee of $750 of that and then give you the rest.

So literally, you can get rebated on any property you wanna buy all over the country, so.

[00:11:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s very cool.

[00:11:10] Fred Glick: Money to you.

[00:11:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. 750 is pretty inexpensive for a real estate mentor.

[00:11:16] Fred Glick: Yeah. It’s like having, you know how family tells you everything you wanna do.

Well, replace them with us, we’ll tell you because we know what we’re talking about.

[00:11:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Back to the regular scheduled script.  Today we’re talking about price per square foot, and Tahoe is actually one of the perfect areas to kind of exemplify what this price per square foot myth is.

[00:11:38] Fred Glick: Let’s go back to the history of the price per square foot. I know that sounds ridiculous, but there is one. It sounds fascinating. I know. This was basically used in commercial real estate, so if you think of an office building in the suburbs where they have five floors, let’s say, and they rent out every floor to a different company, make this simple the first floor, which is completely empty, they will say, “Okay, we’ll rent it to you for $1 per foot per year.”

Okay, great. If you wanna go on the second floor, because it’s a better view, it’s a 1.50 a square foot. You want the third floor, it’s $2 a square foot, and so on and so on, and the top floor is $3 a square foot. So you’re paying for empty space, nothing is in there. So the problem is it’s easy to figure out.

So what real estate agents in residential decided to do is, “Hey, let’s just take price per square foot, and that’s how we’ll price everything. ‘Cause then it’ll be easier to explain and it’d make it easier for a buyer to understand comparables because we could just say, ‘Oh, well that’s a hundred dollars a square foot and you know they want 125 a square foot.'” Well, here’s the problem. There are many problems, but here’s the major problem. Every development is not a Toll Brothers community where the houses️ are built exactly the same. Even in those communities, somebody paid $200,000 in extras and somebody else didn’t. So the value of that house is going to be more,️ even though it’s the exact same square footage. So how do you compare it? Single family houses in the burbs that are completely different, have different views, have different appliances, have different layouts. You could go to a house with 3000 square feet that looks completely different than another thousand square feet. There could be 27 rooms in 3000 square feet. They’re all useless.

So the price per square foot, although it can be kind of a guide, do not use it as gospel. Because the only thing that will happen to you is you might get fooled because of that. So you really, really, really, I’m sure somebody can come up with an algorithm where they take the value of the upgraded kitchen and the upgraded desks and compare it to the other people.

But nobody’s really doing that. They’re just looking at Redfin and Zillow and seeing price for square foot, and that’s, you’re kind of thinking it’s gospel and it’s easy for a real estate agent. So if your real estate agent uses that, you’ll they’re just kind of cheating. They don’t understand that it shouldn’t even really exist.

 In it’s current form.

[00:14:28] Precious Star Moreno: So what are you saying then, that it should be really based on comps versus just like what the square footage is like via like a Zillow ad? Is that what you’re saying?

[00:14:39] Fred Glick: Well, no, if you look at an appraisal, an appraiser takes a property, shows the sale price of what it was, and then adjusts that house to the house that you are trying to get the comparable for. So if it has an upgraded kitchen, he gives it maybe a minus three, $30,000 or one extra bath gives it a value. Or 20,000, whatever those numbers are, and that’s kind of how you do it.

[00:15:11] Precious Star Moreno: Right, but what you’re saying, yeah, but what you’re saying now is like, we shouldn’t be looking at the square footage toward the price, is that we should more see like the substance of the, of the property.

That’s what I’m, what I think you’re saying.

[00:15:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: What’s actually in that square foot? Is it marble floors or is it a

[00:15:28] Precious Star Moreno: Right. Okay. So could you gimme a real life example of what that would look like?

[00:15:32] Fred Glick: Well, the example, you got two flats in San Francisco.

[00:15:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: One just got completely updated and the one next door hasn’t been updated since 1968.

[00:15:40] Precious Star Moreno: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Drew Thomas Hendricks: One’s got a full amenities, heated floors, marble. The other one’s got linoleum and a tile bathroom. They’re same square footage, but one’s far, price per square foot on part different than the other. Or in the case of Tahoe, you’ve got two condos side by side.

One of ’em has a completely awesome view of the lake, same square footage. The other condo looks out into the courtyard.

[00:16:06] Precious Star Moreno: Got it. Yeah, I was kind of got that question yesterday from the men that live downstairs, they’re immediately underneath that unit.

[00:16:15] Natalia Butler: Oh yeah.

[00:16:15] Precious Star Moreno: The suite the penthouse suite actually was added after the fact. So the square footage was slightly different and they had more outdoor space. And so I was wondering like, it was like a similar thing in terms of like the, like what, like what we’re talking about. But yeah, that kind of makes sense. And like that unit actually had central air conditioning, whereas the one down below did not.

So it was just like a little, yeah, it was ’cause it was, it was added later. So the menu are, are list of things that are provided are a bit different than the ones that are like below it.

[00:16:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I wouldn’t think all those buildings would’ve had

[00:16:52] Precious Star Moreno: No, they told me, they’re like, yeah, “I was just wondering if they had central air conditioning house,” like given my, like, I didn’t know off the top of my head, but like, most apartments don’t.

So I was like, “I’m not sure. Let me look.” And so, yeah, they do have central air conditioning, so it was a bit different. But yeah, they were very curious, very, very curious about like those, like the square footage and like the differences between the two units. But it’s just one, you know, like you were saying, like there are two different units, one here, one here.

So like there was a world of a difference.

[00:17:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, that makes a lot of sense. I’m shocked. I’m shocked that a 3 million, the 3 million you, that the one that we’re showing has

[00:17:33] Precious Star Moreno: It does. It does. It does. Yeah.

[00:17:35] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You would think you’d get that for that amount. But Natalia, why don’t you give us an example of some of the disparities or some of prizes people see in Tahoe when you’re comparing condos or houses as far as the different values.

[00:17:50] Natalia Butler: Different values could be, you know, location, like you were saying. Is it ski in, ski out? How many units are in the apartment. What view, what are your amenities? Yeah, it hasn’t been, you know, some people mo a lot of the properties in Tahoe have been updated to some degree ’cause people see the value in upgrading their properties.

But you know, everyone’s always looking for the one that needs just that cosmetic fix so they can get that equity, right. So yeah, it varies. I mean, I find it’s interesting what practice was. I find that like, usually in a complex, it usually all of them have central, or none of them do. Or some of them have, they have mini splits or they had, you know, baseboard heaters and then they upgraded up to mini splits or whatever.

So there is definitely value in that and some of, you know, some of them have grandfathered in, you know, fireplaces where that’s not allowed anymore and there’s even issues with insurance. You know, we’re having a big issue with insurance in these forested areas because the HOA

[00:18:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Don’t we know.

[00:19:00] Natalia Butler: There, and they didn’t plan for the fact that these insurance companies are gonna say, “Guess what? We’re not gonna insure you.” So then now these are having to accept that this is not insured. And then they’re scrambling, which to find insurance. That’s happened in a few different, you know, condos in Chucky. So.

[00:19:25] Precious Star Moreno: That’s rough.

[00:19:27] Natalia Butler: And now it’s bleeding into incline. ‘Cause Nevada typically wasn’t, but there, you know, there was a fire just off Mount Rose couple, you know, couple years ago now, and it burned down quite a few, not a ton of homes, but quite a few homes. So now, you know, that area has lots of high fire insurance and so Nevada’s trying to figure out how they’re gonna deal with it. Kind of like California has the FAIR Plan. So that is a huge factor too. Right. And like value, right. If you can’t get insurance, it’s gonna affect

[00:20:01] Fred Glick: You can’t get more than for sure.

[00:20:03] Natalia Butler: Yeah, exactly. And then even if you, if you could buy cash, do you want the risk of, you know, house burns down, you’re out all of that money, so.

[00:20:14] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, that’s,

[00:20:14] Fred Glick: Yeah, the thing is, before you even, we do this, normally we ask for the AQA docs and anything we can get for disclosures and inspections before you put a contract in, and we’ll wanna contact the HOA ahead of time.

Say, is it insurable and what’s going on? So that’s something to do before you put a contract in. They’re gonna have to give you all these disclosures anyway. They’re gonna have to give you each HOA docs. But go ahead, ahead of time and ask. It’s important. Why waste your time on something that’s ridiculous?

So you know what happens sometimes is listing agents just find people off the. Literally off the scrap heap to do open houses and these younger people are thrilled to do it.

 Question Natalia on, what about property taxes in Nevada versus California?

[00:21:09] Natalia Butler: So property taxes are a little less in Nevada, but it depends on, you know, like Incline Village is gonna have. It’s kind of county things are kind of county dependent.

So Washoe County versus, you know, like Carson City is actually its own county. And everything outside Carson City is either like Lyon County, which we’re getting like kind of East Nevada and then Minden and like Gardnerville, which are, Minden is kind of a popular place for people to move. It’s kind of country and like larger lots. That’s gonna be in Douglas County. So you have like different counties to contend with there. But yeah, the property taxes are less in Nevada than they are in California.

[00:21:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So like a place in Nevada, like right state line is right by Carnelian Bay, is that right?

[00:22:00] Natalia Butler: State line is, no, it’s just past Kings Beach.

[00:22:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So that would, so like a complex, that’s like literally a stone’s throw from California to, to Nevada would be a good comparison. Is the Nevada side less expensive or generally more expensive than California?

[00:22:17] Natalia Butler: On property taxes? I mean generally

[00:22:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Or just general price? Price per square.

[00:22:21] Natalia Butler: Oh, price. No, because on, I mean, sometimes, I mean, it really depends on the neighborhood, you know?

Like Kings Beach is like right there almost in Nevada to kind of where going into like Incline Village, but some of those properties in Kings Beach are pretty inexpensive because it’s not as of a luxury area.

Right. So it really just depends on your pockets. Right. And then some little areas of Tahoe City are hyper local and have a lot of local people in it, and you get more by the lake and there’s less, like Carnelian Bay has a little bit more of a higher price point than some of the stuff.

Like in Tahoe city proper that isn’t by the lake. So you really have to find somebody that knows the areas or do your research when it comes to Lake Tahoe and like Truckee, because every area is different. You know, in Truckee there’s an area where there’s some houses that are still on septic and are not tied to the sewer city or the city sewer.

So it really kind of depends on where you’re at.

[00:23:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay. Fred, are you back?

[00:23:37] Fred Glick: Oh, I’m here. I’m now walking through these beautiful halls of terminal four.

[00:23:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You’re educating us on open houses and how the agents sometimes don’t know.

[00:23:49] Fred Glick: Yeah, they’re not made aware, and this is especially important in condominiums where there’s rules, regulations, thoughts, opinions, and just things you have to know.

Like is it incurable? You know? And some of these agents just don’t know and you know, it’s nice to ask the listing agent when the listing agent’s there, but it’s not the listing agent and they’re from an outside company and they’re not part of the team that should have the knowledge. Then, you know, say thank you very much.

Contact your buyer broker. We’ll find out. So it sometimes questions are answered differently if it’s a buyer rather than an agent.

[00:24:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay?

[00:24:34] Fred Glick: So just keep that in mind. Another reason, talk of an agent.

[00:24:39] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Talking about an agent. There are groups of people that do not have, they aren’t represented. And Fred, I know there’s a big issue with you know, dual agency and how there’s also some nuances and some alternatives that

[00:24:53] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:24:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You represented an unrepresented buyer.

You want to delve into that with Precious.

[00:24:59] Fred Glick: Yeah. When you’re listing your house, obviously you’re gonna pay a fee to list the house with a broker, but then the broker’s gonna show you, and it’s even part of the California contract and I’m sure it’s in other states. What happens if they procure a buyer, if’s from an open house, let’s say?

Usually, and it’s gonna say in the contract that they’re gonna want to do dual agency and represent the buyer, and then they’re gonna get usually two and a half percent or something like that.

But here’s what we do. If you want to come in, there’s kind of two parts to it.Number one, if you wanna represent yourself, you think you’re smart enough to know the situation. And there are people, you know, they bought three, four houses. They know what they’re doing. Investor knows what he’s doing. You know, paying cash, maybe, you know, trying to make it easy.

What we can do is since we represent the seller, we’ll let you come in. Literally tell us how, what you want to fill in on the contract, the price, the mortgage amount, the date, the conditions, the anything. And you know, we’ll explain to you what’s normal in the market. And generically, you know, what happens like you don’t know, you know if you should pay for escrow or the seller pays for escrow.

Every county is different, so we’ll help you with things like that. We’ll guide you through that, but we will not give you any guidance as to how much to offer. We will not represent you. We’ll literally be just like passing through, we’ll put it in and we will not charge you anything for it ’cause we’re not representing you.

It’ll go on the contract that you’re self-represented.

[00:26:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Mm.

[00:26:53] Fred Glick: So it’s a different way to buy. It’ll also be a cheaper way to buy the house. ‘Cause you don’t have to pay for anything and it’s not a problem. I don’t know what other agents do but some that I’ve seen, you know, basically just ignore people like that.

Here’s the problem, especially in California, if you wanna self-represent yourself, you have to have the exact contracts that the agent understands and accepts, which are the contracts that CAR provides. Even us as a non realtor, we still use the CAR contract. We’re allowed to use it, we license it, pay a licensing fee every year and we present it to an agent of the listing, and they know it’s the right forms to use. If we, you know, I would love to rewrite it more consumer friendly and a lot less of the garbage that’s in there. But if an agent got it, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.

And, and they literally, there’s some of them in the middle of the peninsula have their own contracts. It’s a separate one that nobody has access to unless you get a PDF from it. It’s like there’s really no big difference, but they think there is. Or people have, you know, lawyers or brokers have said there is ’cause they want you to use their contract, but it’s not, it’s completely ridiculous. So one of these days I gotta threaten ChatGPT and figure out what the difference exactly is.

But no contract has been voided because you didn’t use their particular one. Paragon. Paragon, no, it’s somebody, I forget the name. Anyway. Yeah, so on our listings, if you come in, you wanna buy the place, you just and you wanna self-represent, that’s fine. Realize you’re still going to need a copy of your mortgage approval and your proof of funds so that no matter who represents you, ’cause actually part of the contract.

So that’s kind of the nature of that.

[00:28:56] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Very interesting, Precious,what do you think about that?

[00:28:59] Precious Star Moreno: I think it’s a bold move for some people, and I think that’s what this company’s about, is making bold choices and being able to own like the direction you go. And I think sometimes in these situations, you know, like the power is like assumed by the, the real estate agent versus the person being able to be autonomous and make these decisions. So I think it’s a cool way for those people that think out the box who really wanna take an active kind of lead in what they’re doing. I know that there’s like currently, like someone that had.

Reached out to us saying, “Hey, I wanna do this on my own. This is what I’m doing so far. I’m looking for this guidance given like my goals.” So I think it’s like, it’s exciting time for people who really wanna be their own kind of like, lead in the process. So I think it’s a cool way to have someone guide you through it without doing it for you.

I think it’s very brave. I think it’s very brave for, for someone to do that. But it’s cool that they have the option.

[00:29:57] Fred Glick: So here’s the thing. If you come to one of our open houses and you wanna buy the property, but you do want to be represented and you’re not represented, and you decide you want us to represent you, and you’ll pay us our fee, that is technically dual agency, but here’s what I do. So let’s say it’s my listing and Precious has done opens and understands and talk to the owner. Well, we’re not gonna give you to one of us to prepare a contract. I’ll say we’ll give that buyer to Natalia. Natalia knows nothing about the seller and the seller’s motivations.

You know, are they getting divorced? Do they want to sell no matter what a, you know, so that’s something she’s not gonna know. So she’s gonna be able to represent you kind of blindly without hurting the seller. And that’s what usually happens in these dual agency situations. The agent knows both the buyer and the seller’s motivations to watch the, those guys, the Altman brothers on tv, whatever their stupid show.

I’ve seen them commit like literally felonies on the air of talking to the seller.

[00:31:04] Precious Star Moreno: The twins?

[00:31:04] Fred Glick: Oh yeah, the twins. I mean, they, they’re just conspiring.

[00:31:07] Precious Star Moreno: It’d let them.

[00:31:08] Fred Glick: They’re not, yeah, they end up liking the buyer better, so they get them a better deal and they lie to the sellers.

I mean, I don’t know if it’s fact or fiction, but

[00:31:16] Precious Star Moreno: Might be.

[00:31:17] Fred Glick: Fact is assume, assume it’s fact from some brokers. So that’s obviously what you want to avoid. The whole idea is don’t do dual agency because you know, it’s a bad thing. But we will also ask the permission of the seller.

“Look, we’ve got a buyer, they’re really interested. They wanna put an offer in, but they wanna be representative. Do you mind if one of our other agents represents them who you don’t know.” And we’ll get a yes or no. And if they say no, then we’re gonna have to tell this buyer that we can either do a self-representation or they can find another buyer broker.

So, you know, we wanna protect everybody’s interest. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s where people get in trouble.

[00:31:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Could they use the Nationwide Cashback network.

[00:32:05] Fred Glick: As a referral. Yeah, I guess you could.

[00:32:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:32:08] Fred Glick: Yeah. If we have to find you an agent in let’s say San Diego, I don’t know, I’m making this up. We’ll find an agent on the list and get the referral fee for you.

There you go. So that we can do there. That’s a good one, Drew. Thank you very much. I hadn’t really thought about that. It’s like, you know, not, not a lot of job has been happening, but yes. That’s what we’ll do.

[00:32:31] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And that’s why we’re fixing real estate one episode at a time.

But we’re not over yet. We’re not over yet. We still have to talk about the pre-approval myths.

[00:32:40] Fred Glick: Preapproval myths. Okay.

Yeah, pre-approvals. I mean, we’ve talked about this before, but let’s, it’s always worth talking about it again.

So if you’ve taken the advice of a lot of people and you go and try to get your financing lined up before you even start looking at property, or we know you’re looking at Redfin or Zillow, come on.

It’s like, we get it. You might have even poked into a couple open houses. Okay, fine. So if you go to your local friendly mortgage originator of any kind, bank, mortgage banker, mortgage broker, the usual thing is, “Oh, we’ll get you pre-approved.” Now, the word pre-approval is kind of thrown around. What does that mean?

First of all, everybody uses the same mortgage application. It doesn’t matter if you go to Chase or us or Larry’s loans it doesn’t matter. It’s called the Fannie Mae 1003. It’s been the same forever. And there you put in all your information. Where you work, where have you lived? Both for two years.

Who are you? Social age, date of birth, years of school, assets, income, answer a bunch of questions. So it’s all the same. So once you do that, if a loan officer just says, “Oh, based on what I’ve seen of that application which you put on, oh, you’re fine, and here’s a letter approving you.” If they do that, absolutely run to the hills.

It’s beyond completely worthless because the next thing that has to happen is they have to run your credit. ‘Cause you may know what your credit is and you may know what your balances are, but the credit, the lenders have to run a credit. They have to see it from the three credit repositories. And once you do that, even if a loan officer says, “Yes, you’re fine.”

No you’re not. Because then they take their credit report and the mortgage application, they run something through one of the two quasi-governmental organizations that literally fund loans. They don’t give the loans. They’re not lenders. They’re the replenishers, as I call them. We sell the loan to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and then they sell it on what’s called the secondary market in a mortgage backed security.

Take that money, get it back, and reloan it. So it’s a vicious cycle, and we could have the explanation on how MBS works, but that’s a whole different topic. But anyway, so at this point, what they do is we automatically take your loan application, which is obviously all digital with your credit report, hit a button, and we get it approved through either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, depending where we’re gonna sell the loan. They’re basically the same price, so it’s not a big deal, but maybe there’s a little nuance and a reason to go to Freddie rather than Fannie. Don’t worry about it, it’s not gonna really change anything for you.

So let’s say we get that approval. Okay, so what have you done? You’ve written down what your income and your assets are. No one has checked it. They run your credits and they know your credit score and the computer gave you an approval. So what some mortgage people will do is call that a pre-approval. I’m saying that’s not a pre-approval. That’s what people have accepted as a pre-approval. But as a listing agent, I look at that and say it’s toilet paper.

Why? Because the loan officer is not allowed to approve loans and guarantee that they’re going to be funded. You need someone to say that now, number one, there is absolutely no mortgage broker on the planet that can approve a loan and issue you a letter saying that their company will fund this loan.

It must go through somebody called the underwriter. That’s the person who checks your pay stubs, your W-2s, your bank statements, calculates the income properly, calculates the assets properly, goes through the whole file, your fourth-grade report cards and everything, and then they issue an approval. Then what you have is a fully underwritten mortgage approval. This is the same underwriting you would go through if you got a house under contract and then went for your mortgage.

This is just doing it in advance. And guess what? You’re all done. So if you’re looking to buy a house in Northern California, in a beautiful area with a 10 school district where 25 other people are gonna be bidding, at a minimum you have to have the fully underwritten mortgage preapproval.

If you’re buying some stack in Joshua Tree, just to make that up, you should, and nobody’s bidding on it. You should still have the fully underwritten preapproval. Why? Because you can say to the seller, “Look, dude, I’m approved. So it’s like cash. So I want a discount and get it for five, $10,000 cheaper,” because you waived the mortgage contingency.

[00:37:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: ‘Cause there’s nothing more to do. What about the myth though? The myth that you should get pre-approved just for the amount of your offer price.

[00:37:52] Fred Glick: Okay. That’s the second part of it. So here’s the other thing.

[00:37:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Add to the spoiler.

[00:37:56] Fred Glick: No problem. But now you have that fully underwritten pre-approval, what do you do with it?

So when you go and you make an offer, let’s say we go to that Cupertino thing compared to the Joshua Tree, we’ll use those two as an example. We’ll keep going with this. Let’s say the house, you want to, you know, it’s listed for two and a half and you want to bid 3 million. So what you think you would do, because this is what your lender says to do.

“Hey, dude, I’ll give you an approval for 3 million, just what you’re gonna bid.” So that’ll get you, you know, better because, you’re being a tough guy and you’re showing that’s all you qualify for. And you know, well, here’s your problem. 28 bids. The, there’s bids over 3 million from three other people and you, but the three other people have a fully underwritten pre-approval for 6 million.

[00:38:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Hmm.

[00:38:53] Fred Glick: So they qualify to go higher. You only have a pre-approval for 3 million. Guess what? It’s gonna go over 3 million. So they don’t invite you to the second round. Because you only show 3 million. And it’s a game, and a lot of these agents know it. But what I do, and it works a hundred percent of the time, as I tell you, get an approval for the max you qualify for.

Matter of fact, I did have that situation. It was like a 3 million house. I got them for the 6 million. Because what you say to the seller is, “Look, dude, look how easily he can. He gets approved, it’s easy. He’s done, he’s got a fully underwritten, he qualifies for so much more.” This has nothing, zero, to do with the price of the house because what?

The seller may come back at a bigger number, but you’re just not gonna go there. So what, so what’s the difference? They know you can afford more, but they now know you’re a strong buyer compared to the one who’s just on the edge. And what happens if the property doesn’t appraise?

You know, even though you have the cash to pay it down, you know, you feel like you’ve been ripped off because you paid too much and you know, you just had the approval for there, and you try to go back and try to get out of the deal. “Oh, I just had an approval for this.” It doesn’t work. It does not work.

Now let’s go to the Joshua Tree. So you’re sitting there and you’re saying, “Okay, well let me just be a tough guy. I’m only gonna show my approval for 200,000.” Well, no. You want, again, send these people, ” Look dude, I’m super pre-approved.” And I’m super pre-approved. There we go. There’s a new tagline. Get super pre-approved, get super fully underwritten pre-approved, mega super underwritten. Anyway, it’s silly.

So the idea is you wanna be able to say, ” Look, I’m a really strong buyer, so we want five grand off the price. ‘Cause I’m fully underwritten pre-approved for a gigantic amount. I’m not paying you more and you’re just gonna take, and it’s gonna be really easy ’cause I’m super qualified.” So that’s the idea.

So these mortgage people will tell you, you know, come back on every deal you do, and I’ll give you a new approval. Well, that’s even worse. ‘Cause it looks like you lied to the, to them, and they just wanna interact with you so that you’ll stay their customer. So that’s the other big thing. So they think, you know, “Oh, I’m your guy and I’ll do for you…”

No, they’re not helping you. They’re hurting you.

How’s that Drew?

[00:41:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Very good, very good, very good.

[00:41:31] Fred Glick: Also, just to interject, so once you get that fully underwritten approval, it doesn’t mean it’s an end all be all and go spend all your money and change your finances and buy a new car and buy new furniture for your house because right before the loan funds, they’re gonna check again. Just to make sure you didn’t do anything silly. So don’t ever do anything crazy until you’ve closed, until the deal is done. 1000%. Yep. 1000%.

[00:42:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s a very good point. What happens if just life happens and you have to buy something while you’re shopping for a house?

[00:42:06] Fred Glick: As long as your debt ratio doesn’t exceed the maximum, you should be okay. But, and also if you’re cash to close, you had to use cash or something like that, you just have to go back and tell the loan officer, let them rerun the numbers. That’s all.

[00:42:24] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That makes sense.

[00:42:25] Fred Glick: That’s a good point.

[00:42:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, Natalia. I gonna lead us off to the last, I don’t know, I’m clearly closing the podcast ’cause I don’t know what to say.

I wouldn’t say.

[00:42:40] Fred Glick: And I wanna get out of the damn airport.

[00:42:42] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Fred, sit in the airport. We’ve done deep dives. Give us some closing thoughts to this latest first episode of 2026 We Fixed Real estate podcast.

[00:42:52] Natalia Butler: Well, you know, I think this was a wealth of knowledge from all different points, depending on what you know, what you don’t know about real estate.

But the main thing is, is that real estate is changing and people have more information than they ever have before. And so if you feel like you’re an educated person and you understand these concepts. You don’t need to be ripped off by realtors who just wanna get a big commission, or realtors are getting forced by their brokerages to get these big commissions.

It’s not just the agents that are wanting these, it’s the broker requiring these and why is that? What are they serving? So, so put the knowledge in your hands andsteer the ship yourself. You know, you have people like Fred, people like Arrivva that are doing things differently and can help you in this journey.

It doesn’t have to be the same way. And you know, there’s a lot of people that are privy to that. Realtors got sued and there was a big issue with the commissions. And so I think with ai, with all these things we have at our fingertips that you don’t have to just let the agent steer the ship. You can steer the ship and you don’t have to pay as much.

There

[00:44:12] Fred Glick: you go, thank you. I didn’t even tell her that.

[00:44:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s very good. Fred, last thoughts before you leave the airport?

[00:44:23] Fred Glick: Well, it’s been a fun couple of days. I’m just traveling. It’s crazy. But anyway, even in the rain yesterday, I had a half dozen people come out to a $4.2 million house in Morgan Hill, to see it. And they were real buyers.

So I think all the rains have been crazy for the last couple of weeks. But now people, when they see a little bit of a break, they want to get out of the house. So maybe open houses are not a bad idea during this period of time.

So it, it seemed to have worked out

[00:44:56] Natalia Butler: Nice.

[00:44:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Very good. Well, tune in next week for another stimulating conversation on real estate.