How to Spot Fake Pre-Approvals on Your Home Loan With Fred Glick and Jennifer May Of Arrivva

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

• Uncover the truth about fake pre-approvals and how to tell if yours is real
• Dive into the fully underwritten pre-approval process and see why it gives you a major edge in competitive markets
• Learn how to avoid costly mistakes with buyer broker agreements and open house rules in California
• Discover insider strategies for negotiating new construction deals
• Understand the dangers of waiving mortgage contingencies and how to safeguard your offer
• Get the inside scoop on hidden escrow and title fees and how to avoid them

In this episode with Fred Glick and Jennifer May

Think your mortgage pre-approval is solid? Think again. 

In this episode of We Fixed Real Estate, Fred Glick and Jennifer May of Arrivva expose how fake pre-approvals can derail your home purchase. Discover how to verify a lender’s commitment, what a fully underwritten pre-approval really means, and how to avoid costly surprises before closing. Plus, learn the truth about buyer broker agreements, hidden escrow fees, and negotiating new construction deals the smart way. 

Don’t miss this must-watch episode!

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• Live Mortgage Rates
• Jennifer May on LinkedIn
• Arrivva on Reddit
• Fidelity National Financial

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:25] Jennifer May: Do you get fined if you don’t have a buyer, ‘ cause I joined some group or something and they keep saying that they got fined because they didn’t have a buyer broker. They took a, like a friend to a showing.

[00:00:35] Fred Glick: Fined by who?

[00:00:36] Jennifer May: By the realtor organization they’re in. Does that really happen? I’ve never been part of a realtor or organization.

[00:00:43] Fred Glick: Not that I’m aware of, and they have to answer for themselves. But the, let’s put it this way, it’s a state law, so the only ones who can enforce things are the state. Not the realtor association, you don’t have a signed buyer broker.

And the buyer broker agreement is only for being able to write a contract, not being able to just show a property in California. You open house. It’s an open house. How come you have big signs out on the 405 to come to your open house? Hello? They’re not gonna have a signed buyer broker agreement.

[00:01:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: We’re in the thick of it on We Fixed Real Estate.

[00:01:24] Fred Glick: And remember this, Hells Angels do not have a buyer broker agreement when 20 motorcycles show up at your house for the open house because they saw the sign on the 405.

[00:01:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Those who have just tuned in, we are in the thick of a heated discussion that stemmed from our pre-talk on This Week in Reddit.

The person asked, you’re paying your buyer broker fee in the price of the higher mortgage amount. This is why big brokerage and realtors got the $1.6 billion judgment. But then someone asks a very interesting question. It says, “You need to find a buyer agent is part of the settlement ’cause no buyer’s agent can even show you a home without a signed agreement.” And you responded to elegant_highway7095.

[00:02:09] Fred Glick: Yes, I did. And let’s talk just California. You do not, do not need to have a buyer broker agreement or any kind of one day buyer broker agreement with the listing agent, anything like that, to see a house. If anybody wants you to sign anything going to an open house, no. And they should know better, but they’re gonna say, “Well, the seller wants to see who came to the house.” But here’s what they’re also doing, they’re also trying to get your name in case you buy the place within 60 days after their listing expires because you attracted that buyer. That’s really what they’re trying to do, because in the listing contract, it says, anybody who you procured for the next 60 days after the contract expires is still the client of the, you should get paid.

So that’s another reason. But you know what? Too bad. You only wanna worry about the people who actually gonna put in offers. You know, if somebody comes it, it’s ridiculously unusual for somebody to see a house and then come back, you know, four months later, say, “You know, I really want this house and no other house.” But no need to sign anything.

You sign a buyer broker contract because you’re submitting an offer. Now, you can sign it ahead of time so everybody knows what you’re getting paid, which is the best thing to do. We try to do that in the very beginning. Here’s everything. Our people are only paying 9750, so it’s prefabbed into our prior broker fee.

And that way everybody knows what’s going on, and I explain what happens if there’s more buyer broker fee. How about this: new construction. And you’re not gonna know this as a human being buyer. They send out emails to agents telling them how much buyer broker fee they’re offering.

So I got one the other day from a company that said, “Hey, we’ll pay you 2.5% on the first buyer you bring and 3% on the second buyer.” Well, the idea they don’t understand is you have a contract. These agents have a contract with the buyers. What if they’re all one point a half percent? What are you doing with the extra money? Are you giving it back to the buyer?

Is the agent trying to get a new buyer broker contract for the higher amount? Be careful out there. Ask, when you’re in a new construction site and you’re with your broker or anything, ask. Somebody ask, “What are you paying the buyer broker?” Because you don’t know. They don’t volunteer that information, but they’re trying to get brokers to bring in people. So they throw out these big numbers like it was pre-NAR, pre-NAR Settlement. 

[00:04:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Actually not sales levels too. You get 2.5 for the first three for the second, if you bring in a six pack of people, or is, do they even get more?

[00:04:57] Fred Glick: Probably you can negotiate more. So what that tells you also, all that is built into the price of the house.

It’s like if you don’t want to have a real estate agent, you wanna buy new construction, go in and you want 2% or 3, you ask ’em what they’re paying a buyer broker, you want that off the price or you want that given to you as a concession. Because you don’t have a buyer broker and they’re just smiling. ‘Cause they don’t have to pay it. So there’s another thing.

[00:05:25] Jennifer May: Do they ever do that? Have in your experience?

[00:05:29] Fred Glick: I don’t know. I’ve only represented people in new construction, but try it. There you go. Here’s a way to save 2 to 3% on buying new construction. That’s the headline right there. Go in without a buyer broker. Because you know what also?

Those contracts are sealed with a kiss. You can’t change them. You can read it, you can go through it. It’s lawyered up to death. They’re gonna try to get you to spend a lot of money on options. ‘Cause that’s where they really make money. They’re gonna force you to use their mortgage company in order to get $10,000 credit towards whatever or furniture. And the title, use their title company ’cause it’s next to impossible to go to another title company ’cause they have so much documentation. That’s kind of fine ’cause it’s all the same price but beat up if it’s a separate escrow. I don’t think they use escrow companies, they just use straight title ’cause it’s, it’s just easier.

Every state’s gonna be a little bit different but beat ’em up.

[00:06:30] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That is interesting and this is exclusive to new construction. ‘Cause there’s not a whole lot of

[00:06:34] Fred Glick: Yes, yes. This is new construction I’m talking about.

[00:06:38] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Hmm.

[00:06:38] Fred Glick: So again, you take your contracts, throw it into ChatGPT, that might be enough to tell you what to look out for.

And not really need an agent to go to new construction. People we usually get, who want us to help them with new construction. Love it. And that they’re getting a rebate from us. We’re helping them. And there’s certain things that we’re advising them on it, but it’s not like it’s a regular deal that’s not new construction.

And we have to work every little piece and every little paragraph. With the new construction, it’s basically done. So we get our 9750 and then we give them an rest. I just sent 50 grand to somebody a couple weeks ago for a Toll Brothers deal. I think I talked to them twice, registered them, waited a year until it closed, and then here’s my money.

Here’s your money. Toll never, Toll never knew anything.

[00:07:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So those sales goals actually work in the flat fee model because the more houses you sell in that Toll Brothers or whatever, suddenly your, your buyer broker fees up to like 4%. Rebating it right back to the buyer.

[00:07:41] Fred Glick: Exactly. Exactly. So it’s either one of two things here. You come to us to get the rebate or do it yourself and literally ask for that credit towards something. They’ll give it to you.

[00:07:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And in new construction, you can’t really negotiate the price of the home?

[00:08:00] Fred Glick: Usually not. That’s their foundation is the, is the list price.

Yeah. So that, that’s the way to do it. Now they’ll say to you, “Oh, well you didn’t come with a buyer broker so you’re not eligible for this.” They’ll say, “See ya, I’m going down the street. I’ll remember to get a buyer broker first to come in so I can get the rebate.” You know, and then they ham, maybe, you back.

That’s a reference from the fifties and sixties. Anyway, you know, you just have to see play with them. They’re salespeople. They’re gonna have to go to the sales, head of sales, who goes to some corporate guy and, you know, but play ’em out.

[00:08:37] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now for all the people that are not buying new homes, you gotta be prepared.

And we’ve talked about this a lot on the show, fully underwritten pre-approved. We are gonna break that down completely today. No questions unsolved or that is.

[00:08:55] Fred Glick: Here we go. I got a contract today on a property, one of our listings, with a just a typed letter on stationary. The guy did not say he was a mortgage banker or a mortgage broker, but I found out he is a mortgage broker because I went and checked his NMLS number in the NMLS consumer thing.

By the way, you can check on any mortgage person, just Google NMLS Consumer, National Mortgage Licensing System Consumer, and you can check by their name, by their company, by their  NMLS number. Anyway, so he’s a mortgage broker. So think about it. If I’m a broker, I can’t guarantee to anyone that I’m gonna be able to fund their loan, that they have a commitment.

So as a broker, I have to go to a actual lender. That lender has one person, not one particular person, one category of person who guarantee who can approve the loan, and then the company is bound to guarantee the funding of that loan. And that’s called the underwriter. Okay? So what we do is we take your application, we clean it up, make sure you got all this documents, get all the paperwork from you, upload it to the lender that we use, and ask them for a fully underwritten mortgage pre-approval.

So what happens is they run your a full credit report, a real credit report, which is gonna ding your credit three to five points. But what else do you need credit for right now? You’re buying a house. So ignore the fact your credit score went down, it’s gonna come back. Everybody freaks out about that.

I don’t wanna run, I don’t wanna, don’t worry about it. It comes back and you have to do it. They then run your entire digital file and that credit report through either one of two places, the Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae system is called desktop originator. Desktop underwriter, depending on who’s using it.

And Freddie Mac is LP, Loan Prospector. And I used to be on the loan prospector advisory committee years ago. So I got into the backend with people. I mean, I know what it does. So what that does is it, if you’re within conforming limits, which is not a jumbo loan, it’ll approve the loan. Will say, “Accept eligible.” Accept means that it approves the loan. Eligible says it’s eligible to sell to Fannie Mae.

If we have a jumbo, we can still run it through there. It says, “Accept ineligible.” And the ineligible only means it’s a jumbo and they won’t buy the loan. But this way, so, so at that point you have generically a pre-approval. That’s what a pre-approval is. Done. Nothing else. Fannie says, “Okay, we’ll take it.”

But what you need to do and what will happen after you get under contract or before, because you have to do this anyway, is an underwriter will then step into that file and look at your income assets, credit everything, and make sure that all the numbers that you’ve told them are correct. If you claim you make, you know what happens is people think they make more money than they really do overtime, and bonuses are usually, I just got overtime and I just 10, 10 hours a week.

It started three weeks ago, and you think you can count it on your mortgage and that’s why you’re going for that new house. Well, guess what? They can’t count it. They need a history, usually two years, and then they average it. Overtime, bonuses, so little things like that. RSUs, Restricted Stock Units, that’s a whole mess on how long you have to have them for Fannie Mae, so you don’t know if that’s right.

Your assets, if you have deposits other than your pay stub, you’re gonna have to verify where that money came from and it better be an acceptable source. There’s 50 million other little things that an underwriter does. Actually, through a company called Provident Funding, I got trained as an underwriter.

So I know these things backwards. It’s an audit trail. If you’re an accountant, you know what that is. If you own a business that’s been audited, you know what that is. It goes through every little last piece of paper and make sure that it works. So with a fully underwritten preapproval, the underwriter goes and goes through it piece by piece and makes sure it’s okay.

They pretend there’s a contract. So they issue the approval subject to an acceptable contract with acceptable numbers on there. And the appraisal and the clear title report, which is, and insurance. Four things. So as long as you get those four things and they’re all right, boom, you can go to closing.

Now if you come to me with a piece of paper like this guy did, and he says, “We have our client pre-approved and we went through the income assets and credit, we underwrote them.” Which means the mortgage bank broker underwrote them. Can the mortgage broker guarantee funding as a commitment to lend? Three most important things in a fully underwritten preapproval: commitment to lend.

And obviously he did not. So I sent it back to him and I said, “Nice piece of paper, but you’re, you’re a broker. I need to see the approval from your lender.” And I know I said to him, I use Rocket. I use this one. I get an actual physical commitment that I give to agents ’cause I don’t care that my name’s not on it.

What do I care? He’s, ” I don’t know anything. So I can approve loans.” Well, no, you can’t approve loans, dude. Then he starts saying to me, “Oh, you’re insulting me.” And I said, “Dude, been in lending since Reagan was president. Okay? So take a look at your calendar and see when that was. I think I know what I’m doing.”

I send them out to Rocket and other people, they give us fully underwritten. I need to see fully underwritten. What did he send back to me? He sends back the Fannie Mae DU. Okay. But he literally crosses out the ratios, how much assets they have, where they work because they’re submitting an offer and they’re trying to say, well, that’s all they qualify for.

Which I know is complete utter bold dirt. Okay? ‘Cause we’re gonna counter them at a higher price anyway. And then I’m gonna ask to reproduce his approval. He also gave me the approval from this company called UWM, United Wholesale Mortgage. One of the top lenders in the country, they only use brokers.

They’re so weird. They say, “If you use Rocket, you can’t use us.” ‘Cause them and Rocket are like vial enemies, I don’t care. United Wholesale Mortgage, I know for a fact, does not issue fully underwritten mortgage preapprovals. And it said that right on their approval. You know, it’s still subject to review by an underwriter and it’s like, “No, I caught you.”

You were all but the agent and the mortgage broker were trying to lie. But let me explain this. This is the most important thing. 90% of the listing agents have zero idea how to read a mortgage approval. They’ll say, these guys can, and you have to put it on the California contract.

This happened to be Washington, so it wasn’t on there. Pre-qualified, pre-approved, fully underwritten. So I’ve seen it come through fully underwritten and you get this sloppy pre-approvals like this. And you know, they also are probably telling the buyers, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s fully underwritten, don’t worry about it.”

And you know, sometimes they waive the mortgage contingency and that’s really stupid. In this case, they had a 21 day mortgage contingency, but a like 18 day closing. Oh, and also this agent forgot to put her commission on it. Oh, I wish it was a perfect contract where she missed her commission so we could have signed it, but she figured it out on the second round.

So we’re still futzing with it. But really the bottom line is the fully underwritten is something you have to go through anyway. So do it in advance. Get everything out of the way. You’re probably able to get a house cheaper. If you waive the mortgage contingency in some circumstances, ’cause you’re all done, because it doesn’t matter you’re done. Unless you…

[00:17:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It bring us a couple questions.

[00:17:17] Fred Glick: Yes.

[00:17:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Couple questions. So, one, the risk. So this, this buyer agent is putting his clients at a risk saying that they’re, he’s or the mortgage guy says, “Oh yeah, you can get the loan.” And they’re gonna submit an offer, but there’s a chance the client thinks that they can get that loan but they can’t. So they’re at risk.

[00:17:36] Fred Glick: They’re at risk only if the mortgage contingency is waived.

[00:17:41] Drew Thomas Hendricks: But if they can’t get the, if they can’t get the mortgage in 18 days, ’cause…

[00:17:46] Fred Glick: They’ll get, we’re changing it down to 7 because 18 is ridiculous. I mean, and nobody was thinking, nobody like reread what they wrote so they have any logic to it. So we’re going back with logical conditions.

[00:18:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Two question, still two questions. So the mortgage pre-approval, if someone just gets that generic one, the big risk is that they can’t actually get a mortgage.

[00:18:10] Fred Glick: The risk, yeah, but that’s why you put a mortgage contingency.

[00:18:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s why you have the mortgage contingency. But you still have, there’s still that little bit of risk that you may not get it.

Now if you go through the fully underwritten pre-approval, does this shorten the timeline and the amount of like legwork you need to do once you actually go through the official mortgage process ’cause you’ve already done it.

[00:18:29] Fred Glick: Exactly.

[00:18:30] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So you have to do it twice.

[00:18:31] Fred Glick: No, no. Here’s what happens. Like I mentioned, you gotta get an appraisal done, you gotta submit the agreement of sale, you gotta get a title report and you gotta get insurance.

So you do those things. The only other thing that you would go through normally, let’s say you got a fully underwritten pre-approval is, got it last week, you went under contract today. The only other thing is your escrow deposit money has to be trailed. So we need a copy of the canceled check or the wire receipt.

We’re going to compare that with what the escrow company or title company gets as the receipt that they get for the wire. But basically that’s about it. Jen, can you think of anything else?

[00:19:12] Jennifer May: It just depends when you got the underwritten pre-approval. ‘Cause we, you need a, a pay stub within the last 30 days and if you’ve gotten another bank statement, just you have to keep all of your papers up to date throughout the process.

[00:19:27] Fred Glick: Yeah. If it’s been longer.  

[00:19:29] Jennifer May: That’s easy to do from zero.

[00:19:30] Fred Glick: Example I went through was like last week you got the approval, but if it’s two months ago, yeah, you gotta, that’s it though. You’re not, if nothing’s changed, then don’t worry about it. If you got a new job making 200,000 less, yeah. Maybe you worry about it.

Let your lender know when you have changes.

[00:19:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now, once you’re fully underwritten, that’s just from, for one particular mortgage company?

[00:19:55] Fred Glick: Right.

[00:19:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Whereas, so if you want to go to try a different outfit, you’re gonna have to go through that same, that doesn’t transfer. You can’t just shop around the mortgage.

[00:20:02] Fred Glick: Correct.

[00:20:03] Jennifer May: Application doesn’t, but they all are looking around. If they’re fully underwriting the approval, they’re all looking at the same stuff. So you don’t need to get five different underwritten.

[00:20:14] Fred Glick: Okay.

[00:20:14] Jennifer May: Fully underwritten approvals.

[00:20:15] Fred Glick: Right? So if you’re a jumbo, you go to Wells, City’s gonna have basically the same underwriting.

I mean, there’s little things like City does something interesting. They’ll let you take on jumbo money directly from your business without getting a letter from the accountant saying that it’s okay to do that. Whereas Wells or Norman, or Fannie Mae, if you take money directly out of your business to buy the property your accountant says, has to say that the money you’ve taken out of that account won’t affect your business operations.

And most accountants are kind of scared to write that for liability purposes. So there’s a minutiae thing. The mortgage companies are full of minutia. The rules are full of minutia. Hey, you, you dealing with a lender, maybe even call, ask them for their guidelines ’cause they’ll share them, you know, they got nothing to lose.

And throw and ChatGPT with your mortgage application or all your documents and say, “Will this meet the criteria?” I mean, what we’re gonna do, and we talked about this a little, is literally get every one of our lenders every one of their guidelines, including the subprime, non QM crap, bank statement stuff. We’re gonna put that into the website.

[00:21:31] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Jen, you might be answer this question. The question came up in one of our Slack channels. Someone asked the question, is it easier to get a condo with an FHA mortgage?

[00:21:41] Jennifer May: No, it’s not.

It depends on how the HOA is running the condo.

[00:21:47] Fred Glick: Well, here’s the thing, Jen, you might not even realize this. With a conventional mortgage, you can get what they call spot approval. So if you wanna buy unit 208 and the, and the building’s not approved for as a Fannie Mae approved building, Fannie Mae will say, “Okay, if you meet this criteria,” all the crap Jen was talking about, “then we’ll buy the loan.”

FHA says you have to get the entire building approved and then we’ll buy the loan. They used to do what they call spot approvals, but they don’t do them anymore. That’s the big difference. Same with VA. Whole building’s gotta be approved. So…

[00:22:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That means the balcony has to be fixed even if you don’t have a balcony.

[00:22:29] Jennifer May: Yeah.

[00:22:31] Fred Glick: Always. Yes. Always. Always, yeah. But yeah, they gotta meet the criteria. Number of investors, reserves, blah, blah, blah.

[00:22:41] Jennifer May: There’s also, we’ve had problems where there’s like litigation that has prevented a loan from closing because of the condo litigation that’s going on.

[00:22:50] Fred Glick: Yeah, like, like it’s been going on for five years and they’re suing a developer to make repairs.

Well, I’ve seen lenders say, “No, I’m not gonna do that. ‘Cause I know there’s repairs to be made. So we’re worried about the property if the guy ever does the repairs.” Number one question in a condo building: is there any litigation? Anywhere, plaintiff or defendant? ‘Cause sometimes it actually matters.

I know it’s crazy, but it is what it is.

[00:23:18] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And the listing agents, the listing agent has to disclose all the litigation? Or do they have to be asked in order for them to disclose it?

[00:23:25] Jennifer May: Some of them don’t know.

[00:23:27] Fred Glick: Yeah, so that’s why every deal, you contact the HOA to get all the documents, either the listing agent does it upfront or you know, for the people who still do it the way it shouldn’t be done, once you get under contract, then you get everything from the association, which is just, it’s just stupid.

Get it ahead of time.

[00:23:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, that seems kind of, it seems like that’s stuff you’d want to know before you even consider making an offer.

[00:23:52] Fred Glick: That’s very Southern California listing agents. They are the worst.

They do no disclosures, no inspections, no documents, nothing. They say you signed a contract and then we’ll give you the stuff and then you can get out of the deal. Yes. That’s why we’re putting a big push on listings in Southern California because we’re gonna save people time and money. Because you’re not gonna have a second round of negotiation. The inspections are already gonna be done. All the disclosures are there. It’s done and over with. And you come in with a fully underwritten pre-approval, we got everything waived. You get it closed in 14 days.

The other thing is, and I’ve talked about this a million times, the when you go and you talk to your Coldwell Banker, Compass agent in Southern California and you trust them, and they said, “Well, we’ll order the escrow and title and don’t worry about it.” Well, they order the escrow from whoever they want to, and these escrow companies charge per thousand of the transaction. The escrow company does exactly the same thing, no matter if it’s a dollar or $10 million. Exactly the same process. Why are they charging you per thousand? We use Fidelity National, big, big, big ass national company.

They do combined escrow and title. So really I’m dealing with a title agent who acts who, who does the escrow work. So they’re actually more trained, they’re more professional, they’re better. And so they charge a fee like anywhere from 1500 to 2000. Whereas you have, you know, if you go to somebody charges $2 per a thousand, a $2 million deal, it’s four grand. I mean, why? And it’s four grand for each side in LA County and Orange County ’cause they split it 50 50. It’s like, it’s monumentally stupid and expensive. And that just tells you that the listing agent doesn’t give a damn about you.

[00:25:46] Jennifer May: A lot of the time the listing agents are, they have, they’re an affiliated business with the escrow. The companies are affiliated.

[00:25:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yes.

[00:25:56] Jennifer May: And they want you to sign that disclosure.

[00:25:58] Fred Glick: Right? And they do it. After you sign a contract and in the contract it says what escrow company you’re using, they then send you the disclosure.

Oh, by the way, we’re Keller Williams. We own that escrow company. I mean…

[00:26:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Must be can own, a realty company can own an escrow company too. Absolutely Monopoly.

[00:26:16] Fred Glick: Yep. Yep, yep, yep. We had one in Keller Williams and Beverly Hills. They were charging like $4 per thousand some insane number. ‘Cause that’s where they make their money.

You know, and it, so they can pay their agents 90% instead of 80%. They’re gonna make it by forcing them to use their escrow company. And you know, and half my life with these buyer broker deals in Southern California is fighting with the escrow companies. I have a standard thing from ChatGPT sent, that scares the living hell out of them.

And they acquiesce. I’ve had a couple of escrow companies just say, “We’re not gonna do it.” And you gotta change escrow companies. I love those because, ’cause those age escrow people go out of their minds trying to facilitate, you know, why you should use them. And it’s just like, “No, nothing’s making sense.”

So the old guard of escrow companies is coming down. People, doesn’t matter where you are in the state of California, use a combined title escrow. It’s going to be cheaper, better, more technical. You like, Fidelity’s got a great backend system for, here’s a great example. All these escrow companies in Southern Cal, we’ll get an email the day the, the agent tells ’em we’re under contract.

“Oh, please. What’s your client’s email and their names and their phone numbers so we can call them to give them our wiring instructions.” It’s like, no. The way Fidelity does it is we get their phone number, they’re sent a link, they go into a secure link that’s inside the Fidelity system where they then put their wire information.

So nobody talks about it over the phone. No email is exchanged. It is buried behind firewalls. And your, your stuff is a hell of a lot safer. And these title companies do some serious, serious work on, you know, preventing anything from happening, it’s a much better way of doing it. I mean, I do it, I use a bank called Mercury Bank, and when I have to have people send money or I send them money, I just send an, it’s an email that sends to them that they go into Mercury system and put in their bank information.

I never want to know it. I don’t care. What do I need it for? What do I need to write it down and then copy it? I mean. So I can go on about these escrow companies and just what, why there’s five people on every email for an escrow company. It just boggles my mind too. So I’m sorry to be in the 21st century.

The calendar says it’s 2025. It’s not 1997, and just people don’t want to change, but it’s time to change people. We’re coming for you Southern California.

[00:29:01] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now why demarcation? Do you consider Southern California like thousand oaks down, or?

[00:29:06] Fred Glick: Who the hell knows. I don’t care. I is Santa Barbara. What? What is that?

You know, it’s kind, I guess something, Santa Barbara county’s kind of the beginning of Tijuana of what I’ll call Southern California. And then once you get Gilroy and above is Northern California and everything in the middle of that is Central.

[00:29:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Central would be like San Luis Obispo.

[00:29:31] Fred Glick: Yeah, for sure. That’s the capital of the central.

[00:29:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Everyone who lives in California and surfs in California, it’s an endless debate on where Southern California ends and Central California starts.

[00:29:42] Fred Glick: But kind of more important is East and West California, I think. Because you got the mountains and everything to the east and the mountains has nothing to do with what’s on the west of the mountains.

[00:29:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yep.

[00:29:52] Fred Glick: Except maybe Palm Springs. That’s about it. Everything else is completely different. Farmland, you know, and then you got Northern, Northern California where they’re just Yeah.

[00:30:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: For surfers, the debate usually is San Francisco south is Central California. All the way down to, because

[00:30:10] Fred Glick: Is it the same type of surf?

[00:30:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s the same type of surf. You’ll go to Santa Cruz down to Central Coast, San Luis Obispo. Anything lower than that’s gonna be Southern California. And then anything north of San Francisco is Northern California.

[00:30:24] Fred Glick: Yeah, ’cause Santa Barbara Ventura is different. And then you hit Malibu and Malibu’s kind of turned the other way.

So it’s really a Southern exposure. So it’s different.

[00:30:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Just think about how happy the surfers look in Southern California. Then you get like the Santa Barbara surfers. By the time you get up to San Francisco, they’re starting to look pretty burly. You get, yeah.

[00:30:43] Fred Glick: The Santa Cruz stuff is for lunatics. Okay? Let’s just state that right here.

If you’re new to surfing, do not go to Santa Cruz for any reason. Just Google it. You’ll see why.

[00:30:54] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Make outta cows with a hundred long borderers. But don’t, don’t paddle out at steamers.

[00:30:58] Fred Glick: No, no. Today I heard was a little ugly getting out there. There were some rough, rough seas out there in LA.

[00:31:06] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh it was.

We had a good fog going today.

[00:31:09] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:31:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Not that I,

[00:31:11] Fred Glick: But there’s some warning, you know, that comes up on the phone. Don’t go out in the water, you’re outta your mind, blah, blah, blah. So anyway.

[00:31:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: There we have it. There’s the Surf.

[00:31:22] Fred Glick: California Surf Report.

[00:31:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And the surf report, didn’t do any food recommendations this podcast, but we did got couple surf tips.

[00:31:29] Fred Glick: There you go. Jen, Have you ever surfed?

[00:31:34] Jennifer May: No, it just seems so like, I don’t think I could, I don’t think I have the upper body strength to paddle out. That’s what. It looks like It’s so hard.

[00:31:42] Fred Glick: It is.

[00:31:43] Jennifer May: I’ve seen people, I watch my friends surf and I’m like, I know it’s not for me.

[00:31:48] Fred Glick: Well, they have these manmade surf places now. They have one in Palm Springs.

[00:31:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, yeah?

[00:31:54] Fred Glick: Yeah. Where you go there and it, you know, you buy a period of time, I guess. And there’s different wave sizes and different waves, and they can change which way. It’s a right. Or a left. And the height, you know, it’s Kelly Slater, I think.

[00:32:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So the guy that’s doing the Palm Spring ones, he’s the, with the Rady family. Kelly Slater’s up in Lemoore and he is done one in Dubai.

[00:32:18] Fred Glick: Oh, right.

[00:32:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Guys get a wave pool and then they’re building an Olympic wave training facility in Oceanside now.

[00:32:26] Fred Glick: Nice.

[00:32:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Right by the airport in Oceanside.

But yeah, you can definitely learn in a pool. And then you’ve got Waco, the Waco wave pools pretty popular.

[00:32:36] Fred Glick: Yeah. Yeah. Plenty of surfing stuff here. And we’re gonna have the Olympics next. No, 28, right? Yeah, 28. They’re gonna be somewhere near you.

[00:32:46] Jennifer May: I think the swim is out near me at the Rose Bowl.

Right?

[00:32:51] Fred Glick: Right. That pool’s amazing in Pasadena.

[00:32:54] Jennifer May: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Fred Glick: Yeah. That pool in Pasadena, I was just there a few weeks ago. It is, if you ever want to train and do laps, it’s just the best.

[00:33:02] Jennifer May: Can you just go or you have to,

[00:33:04] Fred Glick: Yeah, you pay like $15 or $17 or something. They got locker rooms. They got a good little cafe there.

And I can’t remember what I had, but it was pretty good.

[00:33:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Watermelon water?

[00:33:16] Fred Glick: Yeah.

[00:33:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay. Well we met, got some food in there too. That must mean we reached the end of this episode.

[00:33:24] Fred Glick: There you go. Be careful with them pre-approvals people, and especially agents. Hey, if you’re an agent and you don’t know what you’re looking at, call me, ping me.

I’ll be happy to look at what it is you got as a listing agent. ‘Cause some, you don’t wanna screw your clients. If you don’t know, you don’t know.

[00:33:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So if you’ve got a question tag Arrivva on Reddit and Fred will answer it personally.

[00:33:51] Fred Glick: Yes. Gotta a bee flying here. Okay, let’s get outta here.

[00:33:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Gotta go. Protect yourself.

Stay safe.

[00:34:00] Fred Glick: Enough aggravation. Bye.