Paul currently serves as Government Affairs Director for several large REALTOR(R) Associations. The current group includes the Inland Valleys Association of REALTORS(R), The Inland Gateway Association of REALTORS(R), and the California Desert Association of REALTORS(R). Together, these three groups boast more than 10,000 members, including real estate professionals and representatives of affiliated businesses and industries.
His unique experience includes an award-winning journalism career with newspapers in Florida and California where he covered real estate, small business, the aviation business and the confluence of government policy, politics and business. His coverage of real estate and growth in Florida earned him top honors from the Florida Press Club in 2002.
In 2004, he won first place for in depth business writing from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. After journalism, Paul served as communications director for the San Bernardino County Economic Development Agency, coordinating everything from press outreach to speeches and video production. In four years with the agency, he oversaw external communications, managed a communications team and helped publicly position a variety of projects and initiatives.
The combination of mass media experience, local expertise, policy and political background and understanding of real estate issues prepared him to lead IVAR’s government affairs and communications efforts through coalition building, strong messaging and technical understanding.
Paul earned his Bachelor’s of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
In this episode:
- Getting to know Paul Herrera
- Industry differences between California and Florida
- The role of real estate associations in promoting homeownership
- Â Changes in Agent Commissions and Buyer Representation
- Dual agency Representation
Episode:
Narrator  Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we’ll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here’s your host, Craig Evans.
Craig Evans  Hey everybody. We’re super excited to be on today. We’ve got a great show. We’ve got Paul Herrera. He is a government affairs director. Paul serves as an advocate for realtors and their clients on local issues, helping to preserve and protect property rights and the value of home ownership. Working with colleagues at CAR and at NAR, Paul helps members make a difference for their clients at the local, state, and federal levels, his unique experience includes an award winning journalism career with newspapers in Florida and California, where he covered real estate small business, the aviation business and the confluence of government policy, politics and business. His coverage of real estate and growth in Florida earned him top honors from the Florida Press Club in 2002. In 2004 he won first place for in depth business writing from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. After journalism, Paul served as communications director for the San Bernardino County Economic Development Agency, coordinating everything from press outreach to speeches and video production, the combination of mass media experience, local expertise, policy and political background and understanding of real estate issues prepared him to lead IVAR’s Government Affairs and communication efforts through coalition building, strong messaging and technical understanding, Paul earned his Bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri at Columbia. Paul, again, man, it is great to meet you officially. We you’ve been a longtime friend of the Norris group and it’s great to officially meet you and have you on the show. So, let me jump right in, if we can, with everything going on this, we’ve got an election year. You know, The Norris Group is still in California, where our base is, where we’re we’re California based business. You know, every election that we have seems to be an opportunity to somehow change how we do real estate in California, right? But before all that happens in November, there’s a major change happening in the real estate world, in the market. So what I want to do is, I want to jump in. And first of all, I want to talk some today about the NAR decision. You know what’s going on in that case. How you see it affecting the market, as well as realtors, I know it goes into effect on August 17 of this month. So what I don’t want to do is, I didn’t want to wait and cover this in our I Survived Real Estate Event. You know, matter of fact, we’re, we’re launching that next week, the marketing for that, getting everything ready. I really wanted to bring you on and let’s talk about the things that’s on the ballot this year that our investors should be looking at, this NAR decision, how that’s going to affect the market, before we get into that. If we can, let’s talk a bit, a little bit about you the Inland Valley Association of Realtors or IVAR right? So let’s talk about those things, right? So I guess what I want our listeners to do is start to get a, know a little bit about who you are, right? I’m I’m in Florida. My understanding is you lived in Florida for a while. I’ve been here for almost 2019, years now. So where were you in Florida, and how long were you here?
Paul Herrera  Sure, let me correct one thing real quick. I actually represent three associations of realtors. So I you know, one of them is Inland Valleys, with its about 4500 members. I’m also the Government first director for the Gateway Association realtors, which is, it’s 4000 members or so, and the California Desert Association realtors out in the Coachella Valley, and it’s 3000 members or so. So, I don’t want them to feel like I’m not representing them. I work with essentially most of the Inland Empire region, with the exception of the High Desert and south of Georgia Tech County, but much of Riverside Counties are part of areas that I represent.
Craig Evans  Well, so then I will say my apologies to the other associations. I don’t ever want to leave anybody out and quite frankly, that even steepens what we’re doing here, because obviously you’re representing a huge swath of the agents there in that area. So I appreciate you correcting us on that. I appreciate it.
Paul Herrera  Yeah, no, no. Probably, I know confusing, because I have bios on each one of the associations, and each one obviously refers to their association. So it can be a little confusing there. As far as your question about Florida, I lived in Naples, specifically Bonita Springs. And Bonita Springs was pretty small. You know, this was 2001 it was really just developing a sterile was just coming out of the ground, and I worked for the Naples Daily News covering from like the Fort Myers area down, not really Naples, you know, but the Florida Gulf Coast University was being planned. There was a race for who would build a large regional mall between, Jacobs group, and can’t remember the other one. All kinds of housing was being developed. I learned how to how to fish in the canals with my old editor boss. Get up in the morning, get you to buy mosquitos in the mangrove swamps, you know, and catch a few fish. I enjoyed Florida.
Craig Evans  I did not know, because, you know, we’re out of Fort Myers, so you were, and actually, I lived in Florida back for about a three year stint. And I was actually in Bonita Springs at that same exact time. So I moved out in 2001 so that’s, very I had no clue about that. I wasn’t given that data in your bio or your background. So that’s awesome.
Paul Herrera  Yeah, I had a blast in Florida. It was a great place to be.
Craig Evans  So how long did you cover real estate in Florida?
Paul Herrera  In Florida, it was those two years. I was a little more general.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Paul Herrera  But if you covered business, you know, I covered business in Florida.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Paul Herrera If you go to business southwest Florida, you’re covering real estate. Because the business was real estate, there was no way to, you know, be working on business issues and not get into housing.
Craig Evans  It’s, yeah, people always ask me, What’s the industry down here? I’m like, real estate. That’s it.
Paul Herrera  Yeah, yeah. Because even then, I mean, I, like I said, I covered the development of those new malls that were coming in. So you just had major investment coming in on residential, serving retail.
Craig Evans  Right.
Paul Herrera  Prior to that, it was, you know, little strip malls, you know, the little tourists serving things, but nothing that was really looking at serving a year round economy on a large scale. You know, the restaurants would mostly, you know, start to wind down when we get to April, you know, when the sun started heating up, then things would really wind down. And you know that was the economy. I haven’t been there now in a good 15 years. So I haven’t actually 10 years. I was there about 10 years ago, and I could already see, even then, I could see a large difference. And I came in, I’ve never visited Florida, Gulf Coast University. That thing was literally a swamp. There was nothing there.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Paul Herrera  When I left, and now I’m watching them compete on television.
Craig Evans  My oldest daughter is actually doing her freshman year of college there actually, so. So, alright, so you were here, you were in Florida, two years, is that correct?
Paul Herrera  Yeah, just two years. 2001, 2000 and late. 2003 I came back to California.
Craig Evans  Okay, alright. So what do you see then, is the biggest difference between California and Florida?
Paul Herrera  Well, there’s, there’s a lot of them. If you’re talking about…
Craig Evans  Tax basis..
Paul Herrera  Yeah, if you’re talking about the government side, it’s regulatory. Now, some of that, there are some commonalities too, when it comes to regulation. When I was in Florida, especially in that estero area in Naples, there were very restrictive local zoning codes and very extensive development procedures going through architectural committees, design review committees, and a lot of layers of approvals that need to happen, even for relatively small projects, you know, much less, much more so for for huge projects that were taking place in the area in California, those same zoning restrictions are The biggest impediment to building more housing, in particular, affordable housing in the region, workforce housing, as we talked about in California. So those things are actually a common through line in a lot of communities across the country, especially fast growing areas across the country. As far as the biggest difference, it’s what the state does. It’s it’s regulatory, it’s the tax situation and how each state views its position. One thing though I remember, the other thing that was in common is that Florida essentially has a Prop 13 like California does not allow states. Do you know Florida has the Saver Homes Act that essentially. Actually does a very similar thing to a Prop 13 does in California. That was another commonality, because people saw these very fast rising real estate values as a liability when it comes to your tax bill. You know, when I don’t know why we treat houses like it’s income producing asset if it’s something you live in a house is an expense, and if we you can’t, it’s the only, you know, quote, unquote investment that might produce zero income, but they want to tax it as if it’s producing dividends on the yearly basis. But Florida and California both recognize that you didn’t want to tax people out of their houses. On the regulatory side, you know, there are challenges that are that are similar because of the population growth, but the responses are very different. California has this sense that from Sacramento, they can micromanage the development and even the individual behaviors and interactions between landlord-tenants, you know, home buyer-home seller, individual developments and workers. And we always argue that what you want to do is create guardrails and then let give people maximum freedom to address the marketplace within these guardrails of where you don’t want to go. And I think Florida does it pretty effectively. If anything, they can be a little lax on some of those things, you’ve got to be careful how much room you give. You know there are areas where you don’t want to touch down a bounds line, you know, right? But you gotta be very careful where you place that and that it, you know, if anything, you want to be looser than you want to be, because the market can respond in a way that government has no idea.
Craig Evans  Yeah, yeah. Well, so in that, you know, when we’re talking about what’s going on from a regulation and government standpoint, listen, I love looking at data and what’s going on with policy, and how does policy affect the data and what’s coming and what’s what happened 40 years ago, how did policy affect that, things like that. So, you know, my wife calls me a policy nerd, right? So do you consider yourself, you know, from with what you do in the agencies you represent. Do you consider yourself a policy nerd? I guess I would say, do you? Do you focus on it that much, you know?
Paul Herrera  Yeah, that’s my favorite part. Is getting deep into the weeds. You know, government tends to spend a lot of time as far as what faces the public. You see a lot of posturing, of messaging, and I try to spend a lot of time in the details. My view is you can call your bill whatever you want you want to call it, so long as in the details, it does what we need to do. You can call it the Paul Herrera is a jerk and should be strung up in the town square act, if you want, but if, in the details of it, it, you know, gives me a tax break and build some housing, great, we’ll go ahead and pretend I’ll be strung up.
Craig Evans  Right exactly, so, especially for our listeners on the California side, and really even on Florida side. We’re getting a lot of listeners in Florida side now from a bi coastal type of thing that we’re really working to create, you know. Again, based off of our background, I was looking at IVAR, but you know, now that you’ve talked about the three groups that you work with, you know, and the three agencies kind of walk us through IVAR and the other agencies, you know, what they are, what they represent, that type of stuff,
Paul Herrera  Sure. So the the local associations of realtors are the current version of the trade associations that essentially made real estate work for the last 100 years or so, and they’ve had to adapt over the years. So you go back, say about 40 years, maybe not quite that long. And if you wanted to create a marketplace to buy and sell real estate, you had to, you know, place your your listings into a printed MLS. You had to go pick up a book once a week so you knew what was actually up for sale. And you had to find a way to connect with the people brokering on either side of the transaction. One side brought the buyers, once I brought the sellers without the printed listing book and access the newest version of it. You really were just waiting for the classified ads, I guess, you know, and then was printed a newspaper come Sunday and but you didn’t have the ability to really engage up to the minute. So what the realtors? Really accomplished was creating a pretty seamless marketplace, or buying and selling property, then later adapting that into the Multiple Listing Service as a computerized product. You know, they created all the forms that were part of real estate, so your standard real estate transaction didn’t have to be lawyered on every side, right? Instead, you just had the stack of forms that used to be carbon paper, and now it’s all computerized that could take the place of, you know, having a lawyer write up a contract, write up conditions as a contract, and put everything together. So the role of these local associations has been to try to create the most seamless possible marketplace for buying, essentially the guts of of the marketplace for real estate, something that, if you don’t have it, I guess the next best version is what you see in commercial real estate, which is very fragmented. You know, you look at commercial, there isn’t really like one central database. There’s a one place you can go. You often literally have to drive around, look at signs and see what fits in what you’re trying to get to. And it’s far, far more tedious. But real estate, through the cooperation really built this system. And even, you know, modern products like Zillow are based off of the data integrity, the fact that there is this highly reliable and in fact, enforced source of data that the MLSs have created across the country, and yeah, and the realtor associations were there to try to enforce those data integrity standards and forced that code of conduct, you know, sometimes for great results, and, you know, sometimes a little more challenging.
Craig Evans  So it’s funny, as I was sitting there listening to you begin to talk and talking through that process. My whole background is real estate and construction, and for three generations now, right? And my mother was actually in the sales side for just shy of 30 years, or probably 27, 28 years, and that ended, I don’t know, 16 years ago, 17 years ago. So, you know, so the real estate sales side of that. I remember, literally, as you were talking through those things, I remember her having to go pick up her book every week when MLS started coming out, she was picking up her book and and working through that, and then trying to work what’s in the paper and then literally driving around, you know, as people would say, I want to live in this area. And she’s just driving around and talking and you know, that time still cold calling, you know, so, but it’s one of those things, you know, we’ve got a lot of listeners that are new in this industry of investing in real estate and things like that. And it’s so interesting that so many people just don’t know the history of what these associations are really about we just take it for granted, now, you know, in an age of data and the Internet and everything else that you can get everything at the drop, that we just take it for granted of what the associations are for. So what do you think is the most critical function that the local associations, IVAR and the different ones that you’re a part of and all of the associations throughout the country, what do you think is their most critical function that they serve in today’s market?
Paul Herrera  Promoting cooperation, maintaining, yeah, maintaining open lines of communications, that integrity, but that cooperation piece, and then collectively representing that the needs of home buyers, home sellers, the government plane. We invest a lot more now in lobbying local state and federal government than we did in the past, out of need. So let me start with that piece. There is no California Association of Home Ownership, there’s no Federal Association Home Ownership that’s walking around the halls of Congress or, you know, sitting in the lobby in Sacramento or hanging out at City Hall presenting the basic case for home ownership. It doesn’t exist.
Craig Evans  Right.
Paul Herrera  There’s a lot of other groups with a lot of other interests out there who are trying to get their piece and real estate is highly valuable, so everybody wants a piece of it, but just the basic interest of owning a home, being able to easily buy and sell property, enjoying the rights of ownership and join the rights of investment that you know is very, very fragmented. The realtors, through the government affairs efforts are really the one group that have the muscle and muscle equals human beings and money to engage in that fight without it being a self serving fight. I mean, one of the really interesting things, and one reason that I really enjoy working with the realtors is until very, very recently, when we’re dealing with independent contractor issues that we’re trying to defend against and trying to deal with, you know, with commission stuff where it affects state policy making, I have never been asked to go and lobby bills that put $1 directly into a realtor’s pocket. You know, we’ve never gone and carried legislation say you must pay, you know, 3% commissions on either side. And you you know, we don’t engage in that sort of thing. Everything that we’ve worked on has been about expanding access to homeownership, building more creating, you know, securing a transaction, getting rid of scam operations, taking advantage of current rules that are hurting home ownership. The theory being that, if you one promote home ownership as important, that it’s not just about renting the house and walls. But, you know, the rights to homeownership as a matter protect a financial interest in it and help people achieve it, that just based on those things, the realtors will do fine. They don’t need someone to, you know, to force the public to pay a certain amount. You know, we’re not a trade union negotiating labor contracts.
Craig Evans  Right.
Paul Herrera  So on that side, yeah, that’s, that’s a function. Then the, you know,
Craig Evans  So really is, I’m listening to that from a business side, because I love business. So really, that’s actually helping free market function correctly then.
Paul Herrera  That’s the idea, you know, the challenge always with stuff like this is there’s a free rider program problem, right? And that if you’re not receiving a direct benefit, I mean, even unions where they are receiving a direct benefit have a problem with this. You know, with members saying, ‘Well, my particular dollar doesn’t matter to you’, but the collectively they all do. So everybody wants to, like, how do I hold my money back while retaining the benefits of what you’re doing? Same thing with us, you know, we’re trying to protect the central value of home ownership. I mean, we’re negotiating between the California Insurance Commissioner and the insurance industry. And, you know, we’ve been the marriage counselor in this whole thing, because our role is we just need this thing to work. We need people to be able to get insurance. We need to be able to afford it. We need them to be able to use it. You know, in the case that something happens, I know you guys are having enormous insurance problems in Florida at this same level, if not worse, in some cases, than we have in California. And it’s becoming a national problem, but you know, ours might be a little more regulatory than yours, but still, you know the end result is, what matters? The result is, can you insure properties as something reasonably affordable so that people can become homeowners or retain home ownership later on.
Craig Evans  Right. Exactly so. How long have you been at IVAR and the other associations that you’re that you represent. How long have you been at each of those.
Paul Herrera  IVAR, I started with them in 2011 then the other associations became their government affairs director in 2015, and 16.
Craig Evans  Okay, okay, so you’re, you’re, you’re pushing little over 13 years in representing Associations of Realtors on this. Okay. Well, listen, I know a lot of people that are going to be tuning in listening to this. They’re anxious to say, hey, great. You know you guys are talking and but get into what’s going on with NAR, right? So let’s start talking a little bit about that, right? So for those of you that that are tuning in, or you know, as we’re talking about this, in March of 2024, this year, the National Association of REALTORS agreed to pay, $418 million to settle antitrust lawsuits that accuse the organization of inflating real estate commissions settlement include changes to real estate transaction that goes into effect, as we talked about, earlier August 17 of this year, or this year and this month, and are intended to benefit buyers and sellers. So you know, as we go through, what I want to do is just start going through some of the things that we’ve pulled out of the drafts, and let’s just talk through some of that. So you know. So one of the first things when it comes to buyer agreements, buyers will be required to sign a written agreement with their agent before touring a home. The agreement must include details about agent commission or compensation services and value and buyers should ensure it reflects the terms they negotiated with their agent. Diving into that’s a whole convoluted conversation. What’s your take on that?
Paul Herrera  My, like I’ve mentioned before, you know, when you and I were talking to pre show, I’ve got a lot of questions, and I lack a lot of answers, and I think we’re going to learn a lot of things the hard way over the coming months and years. This what’s coming is going to be very, very difficult for buyers, and I can’t see it any other way at this time, I understand where the complaints came from. On the other side, you know this idea that that, you know, sellers always look at the entire bill of things that they’re paying for, right? And like, wow, look at all these costs that are that are piling up in all directions on the buyer side, though, and that’s, that’s where I really want to focus on. What’s going to be the buyer experience for the buyers, this process has always been simple, right? I have an agent. The agent shows me listings. They drive me around. They help me open up homes, you know, access lock boxes I can tour. They write offers for me. They make sure all the right boxes are checked. They talk me through the details, they negotiate counters. And you know, we work through the process and all through these weeks, months, sometimes years. In recent time, I pay $0 out of my pocket, and in fact, I will never write a check to this to this person for the work that they’re doing. This changes now in which the buyer says, ‘Well, I I need your services. I need your help, and so we have to negotiate what I’m going to pay you’. So how exactly that functions, I am really not sure, right? Because if a seller, if there is no compensation, coming to a representative of the buyer. How do you write an offer? How does a buyer write an offer to buy, to buy real estate, right? Because you can go to an open house, that’s fine. You know, anybody can walk in open house and say, I like this house. I’d like to make an offer. So what you turn over the back of the open house flyer, and you write a number on there, and you hand it to the agent, you know, sitting there minding the house. But that’s not an offer. It kind of is. But it lacks, I don’t know what is in Florida, in California, it lacks about 17 pages worth of fine print that needs to be negotiated out as to what the terms of the offer are, and the contingencies are going to be, what the timelines for performers are going to be, and all these other things. So if I’m on the sell side, I say, well, thank you for your offer of $800,000 I’m going to now fill out these 17 pages of information, earnest money, deposit and everything else, and say, Here you go. And you receive that. You do what with it exactly, you know, if you’re underrepresented?
Craig Evans  Right.
Paul Herrera  You know. So you can go to your lawyer and say, ‘Okay, can you review these documents?’ And the lawyers say, ‘Sure, it’s $400 an hour’, and start billing, and every time there’s a counter, I mean, I don’t know what a counter is going to cost, you know, to review the documents, and if you go that down that route, alternatively, you work with a with a buyer’s agent, a broker, that can walk you through this information. So those are, that’s where I go, is, how does that impact it? So I think we’re going to go through a lot of through a lot of really difficult scenarios and then start rebuilding a more seamless infrastructure that starts to bring this into something more useful, or sellers are just going to be in complete control the transaction going forward.
Craig Evans  Well, so one of the things that I haven’t been made clear yet, so written agreement, and do you know, does that written agreement, is it per home, or is that per is it per home they show, or is it per buyer that they’re representing?
Paul Herrera  It, presumably it would be, I can’t imagine a scenario in which you’re writing one of these up per home and more, it would be a letter of engagement, essentially, with a person representing you.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Paul Herrera  So, this is one of the things that has to be updated, and that in the past, you know, person calls you and says, Hey, I’d like to look at this property. And you might, you know, drive them around, open up places and have nothing signed between you. You shouldn’t do that, but it could happen because the cooperation was built into the MLS. If this buyer, bought with you as representative. Now that that clearly cannot be the case you you will. You don’t want to begin representing yourself as the representative in any way without having that clarified, including the compensation piece.
Craig Evans  Yeah, so that almost goes back to, you know, your description, you’ve got somebody that’s hosting an open house. Somebody walks in. So now, instead of having a sales contract there, do they have to have a buyer’s, you know, an agent, you know, buyer’s representative agreement there for them to sign before they can show them the house if they’re not being representative, or if they’re not being represented. You know that would bring in a tricky conversation, because now, technically, they’re showing a house. It just, and that’s where, you know, our team and the realtors here, in the associations here, as we’ve been talking through, there’s so many loose ends that are just as you’re saying, unanswered questions.
Paul Herrera  And, I mean, this is going to get lawyer to death, I’m sure, right, but let’s, let’s give the the open house scenario. You’re a buyer, you walk in and you say, Oh, were these, you know, this cabinet done recently? That’s fine. You know, the you have an agent that’s sitting there minding the open house, they can say, oh, yeah, they just got done, you know, six months ago, and basic stuff like that. The moment where that clearly goes the other direction is, if only person or buyer says, I’d like to make an offer, can you help me out with that? Now, at that moment, you must, you must have some agency relationship, or you have to tell the buyer, listen, I’m working with a seller, I can’t represent you. You know, if that’s the situation you have with the seller, and if anything I’m going to sign, I’m going to have you sign this document that says I have no agency relationship with you whatsoever. So you need to find your own representation somewhere else, or look at you directly. But my interest, my fiduciary responsibility, to the person selling this property, not to you. California, we have dual agency. I don’t know. Florida status on dual agency?
Craig Evans  You can, Yeah.
Paul Herrera  Okay.
Craig Evans  So, and that was interesting, because I was talking with one of my attorneys, and we were going through this process as well, and talking about the just that aspect of you’ve got so many quote, unquote, ambulance chasers that are looking for in the medical field, looking for anything of how to create a lawsuit, even from the legal side, my attorney is saying, you know, we’re already talking in the legal field about, you know, how many people are going to go out looking for a way to create a gotcha situation, to be able to create an environment in open houses and other venues to where now there can be lawsuits created by breaking those processes and going against what these laws are, understand the intention, but going against that to now create a situation to where you’ve almost entrapped an agent that’s sitting there trying to host an open house because they didn’t have a binder agreement for a buyer’s agreement. Now they’re at the behest of this person that’s walked in. And so there’s a lot of questions that are coming out that I don’t think anybody has the answers to yet, you know.
Paul Herrera  Not yet. No, I suspect real estate agents and brokers will be pretty good at laying out some boundaries, especially. I mean, obviously some people pick corners, and they would be very unwise to pick corners when it comes to this stuff. But agents are pretty used to dealing with the finer points of this, because agents, you know, brokers, get asked tax questions. They get asked legal questions. They’re often asked to try to play the role of the profession that they’re not part of, and they have to tiptoe around those questions, you know, and learn how to explain the forms or explain basic aspects of it without providing legal advice. So agents and brokers are going to be pretty skilled at tipping doing around this once we have a much clearer handle on where those boundaries are. And I think it’ll be easier to create boundaries than to navigate, you know, areas than to than to navigate it later on.
Craig Evans  Well, I think that comes in doing, you know, as everybody’s trying to learn, one of my team leaders here, he was, he made the comment, he said, you know, as we’re working through same thing, I think once we know the boundaries, we’ll be able to navigate. It’s the process of just who knows what the boundaries are, trying to learn the boundaries. You know,
Paul Herrera  I think we’re drawing the boundaries on the safe side. You know, that’s always gonna be the case, and it’ll lead to some frustrations saying you really you can’t even do this for me. Sorry. I mean, if I do it opens up a door. Lawyers are very good at this too. You know, how much advice would you know? They know until you have a letter of engagement with an attorney. You, there’s very little you can do, and you can’t go giving people advice on what to do.
Craig Evans  Hey, that’s going to do it for part one with Paul Herrera. Be showing catch us next week.
Narrator  For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.
Joey Romero  The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.