Owning The Coast
Owning The Coast is your weekly deep dive into the people, places, and possibilities that make Santa Cruz one of the most inspiring places to live. Hosted by real estate pro Brandi Jones, mortgage and market expert Ryan Buckholdt, and insurance specialist Jerry Seagraves, the show blends their unique expertise with candid conversations and dynamic guests. Each week, you’ll hear stories that go beyond property lines — from navigating the local housing market to discovering hidden trails, tasting the best bites in town, and meeting the entrepreneurs, artists, and community leaders shaping the coast. Whether you’re a long-time local, a newcomer, or dreaming about making Santa Cruz home, Owning The Coast offers the insights, inspiration, and insider knowledge you need to thrive in life and living by the sea.
Owning The Coast
The Insider's Guide to Living and Buying in Monterey Bay
Welcome to the inaugural episode of Own the Coast, your insider's guide to navigating the unique real estate landscape of Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay area. As locals who've witnessed the region's evolution firsthand, we're cutting through the noise to reveal what it truly takes to live and buy in this coastal paradise.
Our roundtable of experts includes Ryan Buckholdt, Santa Cruz County's #1 mortgage lender and branch manager at Cross Country Mortgage; Jerry Seagraves, a third-generation Santa Cruzian who transitioned his insurance business to a brokerage representing over 40 brands; and host Brandy Jones, a realtor with Keller Williams Thrive who brings perspective on how Silicon Valley's influence has transformed our community.
The conversation dives deep into Santa Cruz's changing culture – from the formerly exclusive "Valley Go Home" surf mentality to today's entrepreneurial melting pot that's produced global brands like Santa Cruz Mountain Bikes and innovative ventures like Joby Aviation. We explore how approximately 22-25% of current residents have migrated from over the hill, creating what industry professionals call an "intake community."
The heart of our discussion tackles today's most pressing real estate challenges, particularly the insurance crisis affecting California homeowners. We reveal why condo insurance premiums have skyrocketed from $300 to $2,200 annually, why obtaining coverage has become increasingly difficult, and practical solutions like water leak detection devices that can make properties more insurable. We also unravel the complexities of condo purchases – from HOA fees that can reduce buying power by $100,000 to potential special assessments stemming from balcony inspection requirements.
Whether you're a potential buyer wondering if now's the time to invest in Santa Cruz real estate, a homeowner concerned about insurance coverage, or simply someone who loves this unique coastal community, this episode offers valuable insights from professionals who've built successful businesses by adapting to our ever-changing market.
Connect with our experts directly to continue the conversation: Ryan Buckholt (831-818-2339), Jerry Seagraves (831-239-9425), and Brandy Jones (831-588-5145).
Welcome to the Own the Coast podcast. Well hello. We are here today with our first episode of Owning the Coast. Own the Coast podcast is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise of what it takes to live and buy here in Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay area. I really wanted this podcast and I specifically picked two handsome gentlemen here who are actually very well known in their industries. They are second generation Santa Cruzians, and I'm gonna start with Ryan Buchholt at Cross Country Mortgage.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody. This is Ryan Buchholt, branch manager at Cross Country Mortgage. Born and raised here in Santa Cruz, have been doing mortgages for, I think, 26 years here in Santa Cruz, when you were born. When I was born, exactly Love it here. This is one of my favorite places to be. Best spot in the whole world. Have another business in town, also Hideout Vodka. Hopefully it's growing right now and people are seeing it, but super excited to be here. I think this is going to be fun. I want to learn from you experts in your industry too.
Speaker 1:And our second gentleman is Jerry Seagraves.
Speaker 3:Tell us about you. Yes, so I'm a third generation Santa Cruzian, I guess. Yeah, so I'm a guess. Uh, yeah, so I've second generation farmers agent. My dad was an agent, um, for what? 20 years, became a district manager. After that I resisted, didn't really want to go down that path, and then I fell in love with it, you know, and I started my own agency. I have transitioned to a brokerage now. So, um, we had some tough times over the last two years and kind of forced my hand at opening up what I could offer my clientele. And so now we are branded Seagraves Insurance Services and we represent about 40 direct brands and we use surplus lines, markets as well. On top of that, where needed Love what I do? It's crazy time right now, as we were just talking about, and you know, just like Ryan said, love living here. I think it's an amazing, unique place to live and stoked to be able to talk about that unique side of the area we live.
Speaker 1:Well, it's pretty interesting. We've got a lender insurance and I'm Brandy at Keller Williams Thrive and I'm a realtor and the three of us I mean we could really bore people, but I don't think any one of us are boring, but I do want to shout out to you, toppers Toppers, yeah, yeah, that, um farmers has is kind of like a little bit of a cult, not really.
Speaker 3:But we have these like achievement clubs we call them right, and they send you places to say like it's a vacation we're paying for, but you got to go to meetings so we can ride it off, and toppers is one of those. So, yeah, we made toppers this year. It was a really tough year. Farmers kind of decided they wanted to shrink and I didn't really want to shrink, so we kept pushing and kind of beat the odds, so to speak, in the area and we were one of, I think, two or three agencies that made it. I was really happy to make it. It made me feel like I was still relevant.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's what's fascinating about you and why I think your business does so well you adapt. Actually, both of you are great at adapting, and Ryan is the number one lender in Santa Cruz County. I know he doesn't boast it, but I'm going to boast it for him.
Speaker 3:I feel like Ryan's done probably all my loans, so just by chance it's been great yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting. I've watched him in public settings and office meetings and there's something about Ryan that sets people at ease and I love that. We can bring up any topic. You'll ask questions but you'll say something that people go uh-huh and just talking to other realtors in town. There's never been a realtor that didn't say I just learned something from Ryan and what I think is great about.
Speaker 1:I know you're welcome, ryan and Jerry is that you know? What is it? It's not the. It's not the fight of the. What is the? I can't think of it right now. Survival of the fittest, but it's those who adapt Darwin's, it's those. Do you guys adapt? So not only are you number one in your industries and insurance is getting kicked in the balls, we don't have to take that out, and it's tough and it's affecting both Ryan and I. So we were going to generally go over condos and how that is really affecting people. Condos are very affordable. Well, to a degree, it tends to be someplace where people have used them for vacation, entry point or investment. But we were just talking about deals that didn't go through, simply because insurance is having a hard time in California. But we'll circle back to that in a second.
Speaker 1:What I really wanted to talk about is you guys have you've been here for three generations, two generations. I've been here since 1999. Thank you, prince, and one of the things the reason we're here and talking is because there used to be a vibe in Santa Cruz that was very exclusive. Just talk about the surf culture. We are kind of like an island, like Hawaii, in the sense of. We got the mountains around us or 17 to 20% natural land, so parks, recreation that's not buildable. We have a topography that's almost as vertical as Tahoe.
Speaker 1:Speaking of Tahoe, we'll talk about that in a sec. We've got the ocean, but now what we see is about 22 to 25% of the people that live here came from over the hill, and then you've got 22 to 25% that are from here commuting over the hill. So we have the Silicon Valley here. So a lot of times in the industry we call that an intake community. We used to be a move up, move down community. Now we're an intake community. So if in two sentences or two big points, what do you think the biggest difference in our Santa Cruz culture is? In just buying and selling and living here? I'll start with you, ryan.
Speaker 2:So born and raised here in Santa Cruz, went to school here. Back then it was Valley, go Home it was Santa.
Speaker 3:Cruz locals.
Speaker 2:If you're here, you're here, if you're not, go home. It's changed. It's changed to no. Now it's more of a melting pot. It's brought in so many different people together. It seemed like previously, before, it was general contractors, people that survived, small businesses here in town, and now it's a lot of people commuting and bringing in different entrepreneurial businesses and it's actually really cool to see, like the things that we're producing Santa Cruz mountain bikes, that's insane, great company.
Speaker 2:Santa Cruz skateboards just all the different industry we have now Joby Joby Aviation it's yeah, it's really cool to see that yeah, so I, I surf.
Speaker 3:I notice it mostly in the water, like everybody's nice now well, they say like I used to like almost get in fights pretty much every day and now it's like everybody's really cool and and go ahead, you can take this one you're like, I sharpened my elbows for you.
Speaker 1:What's going on? Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3:It's definitely interesting to see that that influx, uh, we're obviously in a different time too than when we grew up here, right, but, um, like going on what you said, yeah, I just I see that there's a lot of influence happening.
Speaker 3:Uh, there's a lot of young minds coming up. Uh, I, I can speak, I used to coach cycling here in town and a lot of the kids that we coach have gone on to become like engineers and influential people in the bike business, and at my age or at their age, when I was young, we were doing nothing. You know, we have 19 year olds who are really really doing their most, the most they can, to become something in business. You know, and that's what I see, most of what's changing is there's almost maybe it's social media that has happened, but it's almost like what would I say, like groupthink, right, like they are. They're kind of getting together and trying to do better, influence more. I noticed downtown has changed a lot. You know, this building that we're in, you know in, is not something that would exist when we were young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I went to UCSC. I'm originally from Visalia, so I'm a California born and raised girl and coming to UCSC I got a full ride to Berkeley playing water polo.
Speaker 3:Slight flex, I know.
Speaker 1:I was like now I play beach volleyball, Just wait.
Speaker 3:No big deal, full ride. Now I play beach volleyball, just wait, no big deal Full ride.
Speaker 1:And I didn't go because I was still a small town girl and Berkeley was too big for me. So from Berkeley I drove down here, I went to UCSC. I wanted to become an international lawyer. I majored in East Asian studies Chinese, japanese, all from India over and one of the things that I learned is that UCSC is the number one transfer school to Stanford. So there is always been this nice little bridge to the Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1:But it was quiet, it was like I didn't know that. I just literally drove because I was scared. I got my butt handed to me in the pool and I had to ask myself like you're not a gentleman, you're not going to take this sport to a professional level. That's going to pay you, you're probably going to have another jaw surgery and so you're at a high level school. What, what is, what is in it for you? When I came down here, it was everything I wanted.
Speaker 1:In one experience. In one experience and I'm not kidding you I drove past 41st Avenue and I said I will live here and I live in Capitola and one of the things I've noticed for me you know you got to be sensitive of how you describe people, but I absolutely love seeing in Capitol in Santa Cruz different cultures. I recently left the most beautiful company, local company, to Keller Williams, thrive. It was a very hard decision.
Speaker 1:But one thing I really liked about what I like, about what I see at Keller Williams I haven't been there long enough to say much is that they really have a sisterhood over in the Silicon Valley and going to one of their openings, it was Hindu, it was Chinese, I mean, there was so much culture and in celebration it had. Another part of me is like I'm a mystic in many ways. I love numerology, astrology, and so they build their cultures on that mysticism. So you have a dragon dance in front. I happen to be a dragon, you know. So it just it's really fun to see, uh, different, different perspectives from around the world that come and enjoy our area as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh. I always tell my staff you know when they're grumbling about whatever's happening, I'm like you forget you live in a vacation spot Like that's. That's really hard for us to understand. People travel around the world to come here for vacation. It's pretty heavy.
Speaker 1:It's pretty heavy.
Speaker 3:We live here.
Speaker 1:It's. You know it's pretty heavy when you're complaining, when it's five degrees above 65 and it's five degrees below. I'm too cold at 55.
Speaker 3:And just then the fog breaks.
Speaker 2:I know, oh my gosh, it's 90. It's so high.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have to go to Scotts Valley. It's such a commute, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:We have a very unique life. I mean, I drive three minutes to work. All my friends sit in traffic.
Speaker 1:I walk three blocks to work and then, honestly, coming down here, everybody was super friendly. My favorite candy store is at Sugar. I am a sugar fiend. The Swedish candy I'm literally drooling right now. I was like are we done? Yet I need to go over there. Speaking of vices and fun things, hideout vodka.
Speaker 2:Hideout vodka, yep. So, uh, we started that in 2019, um started producing our first product then and uh, we've grown it pretty dang good. Um, we're doing a lot of stuff with uh MGM resorts in.
Speaker 1:Las.
Speaker 2:Vegas. Uh, we have a collaboration with the Vander pumps. Um, so they're a TV reality TV show. Uh, we did a? Uh vodka bottle to bong with Cheech and Chong Nuh-uh, yeah, you have to see it.
Speaker 1:Well, that is perfect for this, for the 420 here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been fun. It's been. You know, mortgage is stressful getting people in the homes, timeframes, all of that. When we started the company, we wanted something to do fun. We wanted every event to be fun that we go to, and so we started it and it's been pretty good. It's been a fun ride.
Speaker 1:Well, that's pre-COVID and you did something fun pre-COVID.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I started a taproom up in South Lake Tahoe. I sold it in. What was that? So we started in 2020. I think I sold it in 2023 to my business partner.
Speaker 3:Things started heating up here with insurance and so I was not able to go up as much as I used to and I just decided it was good time. You know, we were profitable in a hard market. We were profitable, which was huge, and it was great to feel that success, just like hideout vodka, like, you know, your first big contract. You're like, oh yeah, we actually made that. You know, and that's how it felt for me. You know, I would have people, you know, tag us and in their Instagram posts, influencers coming up. And now, you know, my partner's taking it to the next level. They have shows all summer long out there and it's just an amazing place. And, you know, shout out Nate for keeping that going. I really am proud to know him and have worked with him and we've had our moments. Things are really good now and, um, he's taking it to the next level, so it's cool to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's awesome well, shout out to hideout. Hideout is the name for for isn't it hideout restaurant?
Speaker 2:it's not, it's actually. We just really yeah, we designed it and it happened to be hideout restaurant also, and then we actually sell there too oh my gosh, okay, so now I need to hear this.
Speaker 1:This is urban legend. I thought this was because of Hideout, the Restaurant which burnt down and was rebuilt. So it was revamped and it's a great restaurant. Everybody hideout, yeah, apptoss.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. So story behind it was somebody came to us so we were actually down here in Cruzeo, down here, and I told him I'm looking for a company to invest in. That's fun, I want it like GoPro wherever they go, they're having fun, yeah. So they were pitching ideas. This one guy brought in his vodka here that he had made. He's actually a scientist up at UCSC and my friends approached me with it like hey, this guy wants to make this vodka and wants to create a label. What do you think? And I was like I don't know, I don't drink. So got all my friends together and we would get together, like maybe once every three, four weeks, and we'd try a different variety, try a different variety. Well, it started being known as the hideout. That's where we would go. The guys would go there, show up there, and it was like in somebody's garage and it was the hideout.
Speaker 3:We have to test alcohol all night.
Speaker 2:Exactly, they were testing alcohol.
Speaker 1:I don't drink, I don't know, do you sip? I was like, yeah, testing, testing.
Speaker 2:It was really fun watching them drink, oh yeah yeah, yeah, you're the Uber driver.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly, and so that's where the name kind of came from as well. Hey, let's just take it to the next level and put a label on it, and we've actually grown it to be really good. Again, we're always taking feedback from other people, so we would tweak it as people would tell us until we got to the final point of we'd test 250 people and 200 would agree with ours compared to anything else. And so we're like okay, if 200 people are saying yes on our flavor profile, let's go with that one.
Speaker 1:Wow, I don't drink and I want to taste that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's super smooth.
Speaker 2:Everybody says super smooth uh corn based oh, so it's like titos correct awesome, yeah, and then what's your favorite from your restaurant?
Speaker 3:like if you were to take away something from that uh, as far as to drink, yeah, oh yeah, I'm a big West Coast IPA guy Like yeah, I'm a I. For a while I got in the hazy beer scene, but it just it's too filling.
Speaker 3:I don't really drink anymore at all, actually because I just like I ride my bike all the time and it makes me feel like really sluggish and you know so once in a while I'll have something, but I'm I could go without it. But I could go without it. I don't know. I was raised. My parents raised me not to drink, not because it was bad, they just never did. And so I always felt like, you know, I wasn't interested in it, just based off the top, you know. And in college, obviously we drank a little bit.
Speaker 1:We won't talk about what we did do. What we're doing now is we're going to have cleaner lifestyles.
Speaker 3:But I'm just saying that was the peak, you know, like after that I just I had kids and you get busy, you know.
Speaker 1:Or you drink more with kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually, that's probably what I didn't do, right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's pretty awesome around here. I mean, we are not not promoting alcohol, because we have over 78 different wineries in the Santa Cruz mountains that are local and we have a large amount of breweries. I don't know. Do you know how many brewers we have locally?
Speaker 3:I think we have, you know, three that are on the map, that are really well-known. There's a few others that are, you know, smaller, but I mean Humble Sea is like kind of the one right. Like they blew up their east coast to west coast. Like they're all over the place. They've won a bunch of stuff. You know they're amazing brewers, I mean. But outside of Santa Cruz area, you know you've got Alvarado Street downtown.
Speaker 1:That is my brother's favorite, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, alvarado Street's really well known, and or Alvarado Brewing, but yeah, so we have a lot of brewers. I think there's what core in Corlitis there's a, I don't know the one. There's one out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hear that one's a great one too, yeah.
Speaker 1:We should have some. We should get some of those people in here to talk a little bit about their craft. Well, I want to transition into. All of us work really, really hard, and something that both of you touched on is fun. So you did this entrepreneurial fun thing, which is really ironic. I think that's what makes you guys so adaptable and so lasting, having been in the business generations and over the years. In fact, you're a real estate second generation. Your mother is a realtor, my father is was a realtor, but we won't talk about him because he was the very shady kind. I'm the opposite. Oh man, I'm the opposite.
Speaker 1:Shots fired what? On the next podcast we're getting into daddy issues. I was going to say I'll wear my white t-shirt, but never mind Anyway.
Speaker 1:I would say one thing that you also touched on is surfing. Yeah, skin border beach volleyball player. Yep, you also like water sports. I've noticed that over the years, a lot of people have used this, saying that surfing has replaced golf in the Silicon Valley. So surfing is the new golf. So when you're just talking about, hey, I'm out in the water and they're nicer, you know, some of those people are worth billions of dollars.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they drive like million dollar vans out here. Yeah, I know right. So we aren't necessarily talking about those people today, but I will say I will say I didn't mean to interrupt you, I think, ryan and I did something fun, because we don't get to go surf while we're working and work from our van.
Speaker 1:Like that would be a totally different life, right, like if you just could go surf and you're like I did all my data entry earlier today. You know Well, in a sense you're nine to five, you're banker's hours and so you get a chance, but I know both of you take phone calls off hours and I think that's what makes you guys very lucrative and why people love working with you. It's not an inconvenience. And something that I had to break out of this stereotype of growing my business, building a business in Santa Cruz was that contractor mental place of like I don't need to advertise. In fact, I'm a victim of myself in this situation.
Speaker 1:One reason I moved companies to help me structure a better CRM, be a better organized business person Like I. I have a great, I would say let's talk about me. I have a great reputation, but when it comes to the structure of the business, I would say that's where I need to grow more. And I and I realized, like a lot of people around us, like you and I did a radio show and you said you know, once we did the radio show you had some great tips and really it comes from the idea that this radio show is like off the lift sort of, because people don't advertise. So you know contractors or local people just have that mental space where we don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I was bringing up is like you guys don't really advertise, but now you do, or what is that your go-to place Like? How did you incorporate the Santa Cruz? As I'm mixing like 10,000 thoughts here we have the Silicon Valley coming over here. They don't know who you are, they don't know who I am. How are you still successful transitioning from an old school idea of how you advertise or how you become important around here to maintaining being number one in your industries? You want to go first to maintaining being number one in your industries.
Speaker 3:You want to go first. You're way more number one than I am.
Speaker 1:I don't know, he's not a topper.
Speaker 2:So for me it's when I got into the business. So real estate agents are the referrers of the business. So nobody really goes out and shops for a mortgage and goes, okay, I'm going to go get a mortgage first before I get a home. They want to look at the sexy part. The sexy part is the home. Let's go look at the home first, then think of the mortgage after.
Speaker 2:So it was really I needed to have my reputation with the real estate agents to be a hundred percent solid. So I, when I got into the business, I wanted every agent to know my name. And then second thing was never have an agent say anything bad about me. So I'm constantly making sure that they're taken care of, along with also always making sure that the client's taken care of. So I've had to write some checks, because money is usually in my business, what solves problems, and so I just always want to be with my word, and then I have no problem writing the checks when I do something that's inaccurate or something like that. So I think that's what helps me grow my business and stay top of mind here in Santa Cruz is again taking care of agents and making sure the transactions go through seamlessly and no delays.
Speaker 1:I did notice you've got some family members that are working on your marketing and I think they're doing a great job, so your last year of like posts on Instagram and stuff are pretty hilarious. So shout out to your daughter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 24 year old daughter. She has daughter. Yeah, 24-year-old daughter. That's her department. She's the marketing department. I didn't really know what Instagram was. She's like dad, let me just record you. Let's ask questions and stuff that my generation wants to know. Explain things to me so I can understand better. So she's definitely helped me out with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so early on. So my job has changed a lot over the years. So when I first started, obviously you're not writing enough business to survive, it's commission only. So I had to hustle. I would go out to the, the open houses and introduce myself and bring you know sample quotes for people. Um, as time has gone on, you you know I'm limited by my capacity or my bandwidth to produce, so I have to hire people and then I have to manage those people, and so my advertising has come and gone based off of my ability to produce. It's interesting. But now I've realized, so we've centered on commercial as our number one appetite.
Speaker 3:And then all of a sudden, the homeowner's market blew up, and I have homeowner's knowledge and I have homeowner's access and people started calling me and I realized that there's an underserved part of this county, that there's a lot of agents that are my you know, I guess my genre or my era, that just don't want to do the work. And it gets to a point where people are calling and they're like I've called five agents and nobody will help me. And you know I don't. I hate to speak transparently, but that's easy money, that's easy money, it's money on the table when nobody will help you. And it's takes me like 20 minutes to get this thing done. It might not be a great price because there's no good prices out there, but I'm going to help these people out and if that's what they go with, that's what they go with, you know.
Speaker 3:And so we've just we've made our realtor relationships stronger, our mortgage broker relationships stronger. If we can help, great. But if the business stops tomorrow, our number one appetite is commercial and so we just keep chugging along with commercial and so that's how we've been able to maintain all the years. And our commercial appetite is mainly mom and pop, small manufacturing, and those guys renew constantly with us and so it's given us a stable platform to to work off of. And you know, now we're realizing that. You know this is not going away. This homeowner's market is not going away. So we're building that side of our team to be bigger and more capable so that we can handle more, more of those people. And hopefully, number one, you know, insurance personal insurance agency in the Bay Area is someday, you know.
Speaker 1:Well I, just for those of you listening, I want you to realize how important Jerry is and why he's saying it's easy money, but the reality is it's actually not easy money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's saying it's easy money, but the reality is.
Speaker 1:it's actually not easy money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Because because sorry about that. No, no, that's fine.
Speaker 1:The insurance contract is like 11 to 22 pages and it's a legal contract.
Speaker 3:It's like signing for a house.
Speaker 1:It is absolutely like signing for a house and so you know you're the expert and it's really nice for people like me, as a realtor, or Ryan, to be like, hey, my client needs to understand because right now we have almost 50 pages in writing an offer. Then you have almost 800 pages, depending on how disclosures are. So you simplify it and I love that and people absolutely love calling you and you take their call and you turn around quotes and a lot of times you don't necessarily get that business. But what I also like, these two hacks that you told me about when we were on that radio show.
Speaker 1:One hack was you need to call your insurance provider once a year because construction costs change and so, unfortunately, we have the remnants of a lot of homeowners who lost their home in the CZU fire and, with the difficulty of rebuilding, we really only have about 44 that have been legally rebuilt. We have a huge population of people that didn't know to keep looking at their insurance. Your second hack was the water leak detector. Do you want to talk about those?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's a whole house leak detection device that goes in. That makes your house more eligible for other carriers that are willing to write a package outside of the fair plan. And that's huge. It's a better premium, it's a better product and all you got to do is put in $700 device in your house that makes sure that you will never have a water claim ever. And if for me, I mean that's a huge inconvenience as a homeowner, right, you have to move out. Maybe you just got new wood floors in and now they're destroyed.
Speaker 2:It's terrible. I've done it twice.
Speaker 1:It's not fun.
Speaker 3:Our ice maker just leaked, like six weeks ago, and a brand new remodel buckled floors. So that's something that you can avoid with a $700 device. And more companies are trying to think outside the box at maintaining good clientele who are willing to look at, you know, maintaining their properties, improving their properties, making them more fire resistant. The problem is it's on the heels of double triple the insurance rate, so people right now are having a hard time digesting that added cost. But over time we will get to that point where that's just the normal thing. I mean in the Midwest they're paying for, you know, windstorm coverage, hail, it's all separate. It's very expensive. I think we're just kind of on those coattails.
Speaker 1:You were saying something that I thought was super interesting was the largest insurance claim has now officially been natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, and then the second one is water, water used to be our number one wow yeah, used to be our number one claim.
Speaker 3:Uh, if you had a prior water loss, nobody was going to write you right. So it's changed and and certainly I think that this is just a moment in time, like things will change again, but right now it's just on the forefront of everybody's minds. After palisades and all these fires, I can't remember if palisades has happened last time.
Speaker 3:We it had not yeah so now we had that right yeah, so we're waiting for that other shoe to drop, but so far nothing major has happened that's great I have one of the water devices on on both our homes and it's it saves big time.
Speaker 2:It'll shut my water off if it's running too long and completely um, my kids are actually. They'll take a shower for 15 minutes and I'll shut off. Oh, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:That is brilliant, they're calling me dad turn on the water.
Speaker 1:I was going to say those teenagers in the showers, I swear to God. Well, one thing that we were talking about before we started was, I think you said hey, Brandy, what are you telling people that want to buy condos? And so one of the things I sort of want to segue into is when you have high insurance and then a lot of people like, oh my gosh, interest rates are so high, I can't afford anything. Well, what happens is the American dream is still out there. People want the write-offs, they want to own their own property and the average income here in Santa Cruz County is $90,000. The base average income, which sounds weird over in the Silicon Valley, is 130. Moving on up, the average price to buy a home in like Santa Clara would be 2 million. You know, and you come over here, our median home price is 1.3 right now.
Speaker 1:But where we have the softest right now, softest, softest market is the Santa Cruz County condo market. But with that comes these booby traps, and it's pretty remarkable, especially with you guys here, being able to solve these problems in real time, which you were talking about insurance on one, you're talking about lending on another. But one of the things that people don't realize is a condo is interesting and Ryan, I'm going to lean to you on this. Let's say, somebody comes to you and you say, oh geez, you only can afford $900,000. So then they're like great, that really puts me out in Boulder Creek, maybe Watsonville, and so I'm going to start looking in the condo market. And then I'm noticing okay, I walk away as a consumer thinking I can afford $900,000. But then what happens when they start looking at HOA fees, what's kind of the affordability on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So HOA fees. I see anywhere from $400 to $800 per month. A $700 HOA fee is going to have somebody qualify for $100,000 less. So if you didn't have an HOA fee, you're going to qualify for a hundred grand more. So it is a factor in qualifying.
Speaker 1:And the factor is just a small breakdown. It's like what you're looking at as a lender is not just your income. What are you looking at?
Speaker 2:When you say just the income.
Speaker 1:So like I'm trying to qualify for a loan and you say, okay, this is what you can make, but it's the debt each month that they're affording.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely yes. So basically your income, let's just say you make $10,000 a month. Most programs are a 50% debt to income ratio. Okay, so the $10,000 is your before tax income. So $10,000, $5,000 per month. If you have a $500 car payment, that comes off that $5,000. So now you qualify at $4,500. So at $4,500, that needs to be principal interest taxes, insurance, HOA dues. So we're going to factor all those in in somebody qualifying.
Speaker 1:And, honestly, the place that, as you said, most buyers and consumers start with the realtor, either at the open house or some sort of online way that they captured them. And so, really, my plea to the realtors out there and to the consumers that are watching this is that get a lender right away. And there's another hack that you have that I really liked the other day Not only get a lender, send in all your documentation. As I shake my fist in the air, I think what I want this podcast to be is to be the hacks of real estate, and why? Because we're all overwhelmed right now. You cannot scroll without a you know, just more, more, more intensity out there, and so, when it's really important and we need to focus on our own financial freedom, our own wealth, our own families, it is very complex, but it can be very simplified. So when you are saying, hey, just send me in all your paperwork, your lead time typically for you to get their paperwork if they're not in contract is weeks to not months, right?
Speaker 2:It's sometimes so. It all depends on somebody's situation. So a W-2 person working at Apple doesn't own any other homes. That can take me an hour. So somebody gets me over paycheck stubs, end-of-year paycheck stubs, bank statements that's going to take me an hour to figure it out, Whereas a guy like me.
Speaker 3:you're like I don't know dude, you look real sketchy.
Speaker 2:Straight commission owns a few homes, like all that other stuff Tap room, everything else.
Speaker 1:Sold it to his partner. Did you take it away in cash? What are these?
Speaker 3:car loans man.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but yeah, so some people it'll take a little bit more time, but for the most part I can get through it actually pretty quickly and usually I start out with a five 10-minute conversation and usually by the end of that five or 10-minute I can have a good idea and tell the client what exactly they can or can't do.
Speaker 1:That's nice. I think what people don't understand is that you are the person, the real gatekeeper if you need to get a loan to a purchase is actually your lender. You need to treat them well, send them gifts and turn in your paperwork and nobody wants to nag. But I think the idea is the importance of it, and I would say the second importance is if you are a listing agent or somebody that wants to sell their home, there's a lot of preparatory documentation or inspections that you should have and that's where you come in, jerry. I think listing agents should be calling you and saying, hey, I've got, because you have a lot of different things to consider around here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, in some cases we have to do an inspection beforehand and that's a total nightmare. You know, I didn't actually know that. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot that goes into getting an approved quote in our hands, and I think there's more than what agents understand or or brokers understand. Um, but we, you know, we, we do it kind of quietly in the background, we don't want anybody to know that it's like a cumbersome task, um, but I, I, but I was going to pipe in for a quick second on the condos. The one thing that we've seen is condo rates have gone from like $300 a year to like $2,200 a year in the matter of two years.
Speaker 1:Okay, can you expand on that? Sorry, that got me all excited.
Speaker 3:Well, the shocking thing too is that there's no building coverage. Generally on a condo policy, we're covering a little bit of walls in coverage, depending on the CC&Rs how they read, but it's not the whole structure. But they have decided as a whole that this is something we don't want to do.
Speaker 1:I'm going to break this down a little bit. So I'm going to go buy a condo. Now, when I go buy a condo, there's an HOA, there's CC&Rs and there's a property management company that's managing the larger picture, the whole parcel, the whole property. They have a policy.
Speaker 3:Called a master policy.
Speaker 1:And that master policy is not what you're addressing right now.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yeah, I'm talking about the individual unit owners. So we've had a lot of deals fall through because of the unit owners. You know they're anticipating a 300 premium comes back at 2200 or maybe we can't even get it, like I was telling you guys before the show that there was that one deal that we couldn't even get because the roof of the hoa or the roof of the condo itself, the structure was too old. You know, and that's a what I don't know what's knolls, how many units is in capitol and knolls? I think it's 160 yeah, something.
Speaker 1:Yeah know what's Knolls. How many units is in Capitola Knolls? I think it's 160. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and what's interesting about Capitola Knolls?
Speaker 3:I probably shouldn't have said that oh well.
Speaker 2:Call it out.
Speaker 3:Well, I think we do need to call it out, because it is what it is.
Speaker 1:I mean people need to get blacklisted. Well, because this is consumer beware. I mean our California Association of Realtors contracts are buyer beware. I mean they don't say that, but it's an as-is sale and it's the buyer's job to figure out what as-is means to them. And this is all black magic, like in the sense of what voodoo happened here. Why, you know. Now I first. I meet Brandy. I want to go buy something. It looks like I want to buy a condo because I feel like that fits my lifestyle. I go to Ryan. Ryan says okay, that's great, based on your income, you're not at the price you thought you were. You're actually at this price and you know you're paying. You know, 700, 800 a month. Those things can go up. Go back to your realtor and figure out are they going to have any assessments? Have they done their inspections? We'll get to that in a second. Now we, ryan, needs at some point an insurance quote for the loan. Correct, correct. And so you need the master policy.
Speaker 1:Along with the policy that Jerry's talking about, which has gone up, like you'd said, a huge amount. Yeah, where the heck, how the heck does walls in turn into 2200?
Speaker 3:that one's the most mysterious one to me because there's relatively low risk on the table for these guys.
Speaker 3:Right, and the only risk, as I see as an agent, is you have two units, one's upstairs, one's downstairs. It floods Now, the downstairs units taking on all that water. But if our limit on that policy is only $30,000 of building coverage or $100,000 of building coverage, that is your limit, whereas a home burns down, you're paying a million, plus your personal property, plus you know the loss of use. So it is a peculiar scenario and I don't I mean, I've been an agent 20 some years and I have a lot of clients, like 6,000 clients, and I would tell you that I haven't seen that many condo claims.
Speaker 1:So I mean, that's a good sample right, fascinating, wow, okay. So just I'm hacking this in my brain, I run into this. We're all in trying to get this escrow together. We have got this person in escrow on a condo that shows up. What are the resolutions?
Speaker 3:Uh, if they have enough money to make that payment. I mean, that's happened so many times because three $400 a month, right. So you get in a situation where you were talking about HOA fees, they only have $4,500 to work with and I just push them over, right? So it's dicey and you have to have the right coverage. So, as far as I'm concerned, I can't come in and be like, let's strip this down and make it work for you, because that puts me on the hook. It puts you on the hook. So there's a lot of right now. It's a very litigious time in the insurance industry and more than ever, I'm having to be very exacting. It used to be. I could say like, ah, it looked like it built in 89. And I don't do that anymore. I find out exactly when it was built.
Speaker 1:That's another reason why I absolutely love you guys. The quality of your work is not shady and that has been the case since I've known you. And since I've known you and one of the things that there are some people, realtors included, who feel the pressure from the buyer and everybody wants the sale. I don't think it's necessary selfishness or greed, but there was a time you could go to somebody and they would hey, you can get this insurance quote, but nobody would show them what are you actually insuring? Like $100 a square foot to rebuild is not realistic.
Speaker 3:I still get those sent to me. I'll have like a realtor say, well, we got this one from this guy. I say, send it over. It's like half the dwelling coverage and they're saying but it's full coverage right? No, not at all. It's not going to rebuild that house. And that's the biggest thing.
Speaker 1:I'd love for one of our episodes to take an insurance quote and just in 10 minutes, like pick it apart.
Speaker 3:for people. That sounds exciting. So if you wanted to sleep tonight, we are going to have our next show I'll put you to bed.
Speaker 1:No, I mean like just 10 minutes of like hey, I hear what you're saying. I want to go, look at my policy. I'm going to go in my it is super important.
Speaker 3:I mean, I've had situations in my own life where, as an agent, I've been underinsured, right.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting, like the whole full coverage that you're saying like so lenders are there to protect themselves, so you have to have insurance when you have a loan on a property. So lenders are there to protect themselves, so you have to have insurance when you have a loan on a property. All they care about is their protection. If you have a $2 million house and a $600,000 loan, that's what they really care about is the $600,000 that's paid, so you could be definitely underinsured that you're not the other $800,000 not covered.
Speaker 1:I think that's why you know those of you that are listening that are realtors. I hope you can take something from this because this is going to make you shine, in my opinion, as being an exceptional realtor for your buyer and your sellers, because right now in the condo world, it is the black magic world in a weird sort of way. I'm coining that phrase that you said because there's now even more. What we don't realize in condos is that in 2019, certain laws were passed that anything that's elevated has to be inspected. So, for example, that stairs and balconies now every condo complex had to do that inspection. Okay, so you, we have our mutual buyer. We've been our fake buyer that Betty Boop is going to be our buyer. Betty Boop Is that generational, that's like my grandparents. But Betty Boop is going to be our buyer and when she is seriously considering this, as me as an agent and I talked to Ace Woods she's at Dreamcatch Realtors, Dreamcatch Properties. She's like it is aggravating because you don't get the straight answers from the property management.
Speaker 1:So, just so everybody knows the way that a condo is, it's a zoning type condo that's governed by the state of California. It has laws and regulations. You have to have CC&Rs, you have to have reserves and you have to have reserve studies. That's already cumbersome. So most people that are on an HOA board are the homeowners. They don't know how to follow the laws, so what do they do? They hire a property management company. The property management company, at least in my experience, is almost ridiculous to get a hold of. First, they don't answer a realtor's questions. Second, you have to have the homeowner and if you're representing the buyer, you have to beg the homeowner. Now, the homeowner doesn't want to, because they want you to figure it out, and you're just going to buy and you're going to move on. This is not every case, but the the line of communication that's accurate is very difficult. This is like four wheel driving in a Tesla. It's. The components don't make sense. So, as you as the realtor are trying to represent Betty Boop or whatever, and then you're trying to get these answers, we have this timeline of pressure. Once you're in contract, you're go, you're a go, I'm a go, we have deadlines. And again, you're in contract, your go, your go, i'ma go. We have deadlines, and again you're trying to figure out. Okay, what can you show me to prove to my future buyer that you've done the inspection. One and it's compliant, instead of just emailing me that it's compliant. Two, getting a bid on any repairs that are required. And three, finding out what the assessment's going to be.
Speaker 1:Now, again, I'm the one throwing people under the bus. Here's an example Seascape. They did their inspection. That's great, and people are like let's go buy. But what didn't they do Thus far? They have not provided, and if anybody knows different, please let me know. I'm at 831-588-5145. If they did, they didn't get a bid.
Speaker 1:And now, with this amount of perceived work, we could be seeing the homeowners there being assessed with five or six figures. That's insane. Now the reality is like it would be lovely to be like hey, here's what it looks like. We don't know yet. We're working on it, or this, that and the other thing. So there's a lot to unravel.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, I'm the bad guy because I'm the point of contact with Betty Boop. So it's fascinating that Ryan started this question like would you encourage your buyers to buy a condo right now? And I said depends, because right now we have the softest condo market we've seen since 2020. Condos on a median price since COVID were 900 range. We're now in the higher sixes. Now the affordability and if you get certain condos such as Capitol or in Santa Cruz or Scotts Valley, you can rent a two bedroom up to $3,200. So the rent is there for many of them. Then you brought up Jerry, like well, what is the HOA doing when it comes to repair? So I just gave you the elevated conversation that's on people's minds since 2019. That's got shuffled under the rug. But there's other things, like the roofs. Why is insurance chiming in and making people have new roofs Because they haven't been maintained?
Speaker 3:So I'll butt in really quick just to give you some backstory on that. So in the last few years, what we've seen is the companies are less concerned about where you're located, more concerned about how recent your updates are on your dwelling, whatever that is, and when it was built, which we're in this weird zone, right, we don't have a lot of new construction here, so everything's old. So now they're weird zone, right, we don't have a lot of new construction here, so everything's old. So now they're going like well, you don't need to, you need to replace the roof within the last 20 years. Well, these roofs are 40 year roofs, right? So people are not ready for that.
Speaker 3:I was, you know, I'm one of those people. I have a 15 year old presidential roof on my house and they're asking me to change it. It's crazy, yeah, but again, it's a privatized company that is asking if you want to participate in our program, you have to do these things. Well, if you get enough of them together. Now they've just annihilated Santa Cruz and that's what you're seeing right now and that's the situation. Not to call Capitol Knolls out, because it's not deferred maintenance, necessarily, it's that they're asking for a new roof before that old one was worn out.
Speaker 1:That's where you have suits on the ground that don't actually know what they're talking about. I get it Bottom line.
Speaker 3:They're bean counters, right, they're actuarials that just know like, hey, we're taking logical bets and this is safe. Right now. We need to be safe. It'll change again.
Speaker 2:So in regards to values of those homes, it's because Fannie Mae won't lend on when there's a situation like that, so it's called a non-warrantable condo. So Fannie Mae won't lend on a non-warrantable condo, which is Fannie Mae will do as little as 3% down. Then you got to go to an agency that will do a non-warrantable condo which usually requires 20% down and a usually higher interest rate of half a percent, maybe 1% more in some of those cases. So I think the fact that their financing is tougher on those is what's brought down the prices, which then might be a good investment opportunity, because this is not going to last forever. Like eventually they're going to get new roofs, eventually they're going to have the adequate insurances, which then brings up the value because more people can afford them. Then with the 5% down. So first time home buyer not positive buy in a non-warrantable condo Investment opportunity might make a couple hundred grand quickly. No idea. That's time of show. I absolutely agree on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I got the cue that we are wrapping it up, so I want to thank you guys. I feel like this first podcast was a lot of fun for me Super fun.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:I think that you start with you and your contact information so that if anybody wants to reach out to you in the next week or so, Cool Ryan, if anybody wants to reach out to you in the next week or so, cool Ryan Buckholt, cross Country, mortgage my cell personal cells 831-818-2339.
Speaker 2:To me I love business, I love talking about it, I love helping people. So any question, every question, please call me, see if I can help you out.
Speaker 3:I'm Jerry Seagraves, seagraves Insurance and absolutely same thing. I love doing the job. I love I love even consulting with people that don't go with me. Like I just like talking to people right, like so for me it's fun to just help people problem solve. And so if you want to get ahold of me 831-239-9425. My email's office at seagravesnet.
Speaker 1:And I love helping realtors and my own clients and I love collaborating with people like you guys. I really could not be more excited. Yay, I am Brandi Jones. I'm at 831-588-5145. Brandi Jones, realtor at Gmail. And yeah, even if you're a realtor, go ahead and call me and we can talk about this.
Speaker 2:That was fun. Thank you, guys.
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