Bruce Norris is an active real estate investor and educator with over 40 years’ experience. Bruce has been involved in more than 6,500 real estate transactions as a buyer, seller, builder, and money partner. But he considers himself a pretty regular guy that loves to teach.
Renowned for his ability to forecast long-term real estate market trends and timing, the release of The California Comeback report in 1997 gained him much notoriety. The accuracy of the extensive report led many California investors to financial freedom. His January 2006 release, The California Crash, was an in-depth look into the California market correction and the statistics behind Bruce’s predictions.
Bruce has spoken and debated nationally. He is a regular presenter at several local and national investment clubs, associations, and seminars. Bruce has met with local and national government officials including FHA and Fannie Mae to discuss market solutions and market insights.
Bruce and his son Aaron created the award-winning charity series, I Survived Real Estate hosted every year at The Nixon Presidential Library. This event has helped raise over $1,000,000 for charity since it began in 2008. Bruce has dedicated his career to helping “Main St.” real estate investors.
In this episode:
- The Rohny Award
- Fed’s rate cut speculation
- Impact of interest rates and market conditions
- Impact of NAR’s new rules on the real estate market
- The Rohny Award Recipients
- The Aaron Norris Creative Fund
- I Survived Real Estate 2024
I Suvived Real Estate is on October 25, 2024
To purchase an individual ticket please Click HERE!
More info HERE
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.
Joey Romero Alright. Welcome everybody. I am obviously not. Craig Evans, I’m your guest host, Joey Romero, and with me today is the one and only. Bruce Norris, I’m gonna read your long bio, if that’s okay.
Bruce Norris No, I’m, not. No, please.
Joey Romero No. So that’s more we’re trying to engage the listeners, engage. So what we wanted to do is jump on today and just, you know, talk about our event coming up, I Survived Real Estate. One of the really special things that has come out of I Survived Real Estate is the Rohny Award. It wasn’t always given. But in 2014 we began giving out the Rohny Award, which was an award that was designed to be given out to people who have impacted the real estate investment or real estate in general, in a meaningful way, by way of their information, their mentorship. And some of these folks are just flat out teachers. Now, before we get into some of these Rohny Award winners, I want to just give a little love to the people who have committed early and already, you know, sent their sponsorship forms to us. So I want to talk a little bit about the Platinum sponsors for I Survived Real Estate, uDirect, Kaaren Hall. She’s always great, you know, she was as soon as we announced we were going to do it again. She was like, you know, I’m in so that was great. The FIRE Center, which is actually the rebrand of the Inland Empire, real estate investment club. Rich rice and the group from the Inland Empire have committed early White Feather and Buddy Rushing and Kimberly Rushing. They’re, once again, a platinum sponsor. And our oldest, probably our oldest friends, the San Diego Creative Investment Association, SDCIA, we do have a couple Gold Sponsors that have committed early, NorCal REIA, David Granzela, and we’ll have some news on that, because there’s going to be a kind of a passing of the torch there. NSDREI, Keystone CPA, FIBI Pasadena, and IVAR. IVAR was actually the first Gold Sponsor that committed. So that’s great. So Bruce, before we get in…
Bruce Norris Just so you know, Joey, you have two more Platinum Sponsors.
Joey Romero Yeah, no, I know, but you guys never want the publicity.
Bruce Norris No, we’re supporting it. Okay.
Joey Romero Yeah, absolutely no. You guys have always been the silent, well people don’t know is that they’re you guys are the reason we have extra chairs for people, because oftentimes we sell out, and the only tables we have are the ones that we get to fill because of your generosity.
Bruce Norris Okay.
Joey Romero All right, so before we get into that, let’s give them a little bit of real estate first. Now, the Fed’s meeting today, and they’re expected to announce it, if they’re going to cut a quarter or half a percent, what do you think the difference is going to be, and if they’re actually going to follow through? Yeah, I think it’s time that they have a rate cut. I know there’s mixed signs on the economy, so you know that they didn’t, I think that would be more of a surprise at this point. So the Fed is probably looking at the job situation more than anything. So you have GDP growth that’s still holding in there, but I think there’s a lot of a lot of layoffs, and I think they’re looking down the road saying, okay, that’s going to affect unemployment, and that’s going to affect the economy. So you have some dominoes that are about to fall, and they’re tilting already, it would be hard for them not to fall. So, if there’s, because I heard somebody say that it if they’re really worried about the economy isn’t super great, then they’re going to cut it half. And if they’re okay with it, then they’re going to cut it a quarter. So you’re thinking they’re going to cut a full half, half percent.
Bruce Norris I think that’s more probable. But, you know, think about how long it’s been since they cut anything. You know, we’ve been waiting most of the year for somebody to cut something?
Joey Romero Yeah, I know early of the year we had, you know, a lot of realtor representatives, even at the end of last year, they were like, 2024, is going to be great, you know, we’re going to get some rate cuts. And this interest rates going to go into the mid six, maybe even five, you know. And that hasn’t come to fruition. And it’s a and it’s shown it like you’ve talked about in your presentations. You know, going anything from a seven, like an eight to seven to even now at like a high six feels like everything’s on sale, right?
Bruce Norris It’s still, you know, it’s the the key question is, who’s coming off the sidelines, the person that owns a property with a mortgage at 3% or the buyer who’s been lagging, waiting to get a more reasonable rate, and lenders are actually doing something that’s really smart, to induce somebody to say yes today, because I know lenders that will do a second loan at no cost. Should there be a chance to refi within the next year, so that could get people off the sidelines, because they might sign up for something higher than they really want, knowing that they’ll have a chance to get that at no cost in a year or so.
Joey Romero Sure.
Bruce Norris So, yeah, I think that’s a I think that’s a good strategy. Rates have gone down already. You know, interest rates have come down. Last time I saw it, it was in the low sixes.
Joey Romero Okay.
Bruce Norris So, yeah, they’re starting to come down without the Fed’s help. You have a 10 year T-bill that went down just on the anticipation of all of this. So, you know, historically, if you look at the journey of interest rates. A six and a quarter percent mortgage is a deal, but it’s not a deal when your mood isn’t euphoric and your price is California is almost 900.
Joey Romero Yeah.
Bruce Norris That makes that affordability number, you know, in the teens. And that’s usually, that’s usually a peak market price, and also a peak, motivated buyer. And you don’t have that motivated buyer. To that extent you have, you have enough to where you’re, you’re, you’re having price stability, but you also are doing 40% less volume. So the person that’s really suffering through this year is the agent and the land.
Joey Romero Yeah. And then stack on the the whole NAR, new rules, you know, it’s a new world in real estate, you know, really is, and everybody’s, you know, kind of adjusting to that.
Bruce Norris Yep.
Joey Romero Alright, so let’s get into this, the Rohny Award now come 2014 you know, you Aaron decided, hey, you know, weYshould give a mentorship award. Actually reached out to the Jim Rohn family and got permission to use the name.
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero So that’s a big significant. Can you just touch a little bit on what Jim Rohn has meant to you in your career
Bruce Norris Yeah, I heard Jim Rohn speak one night. I didn’t even want to go. I had to go. I worked for a company that was saying, Well, we’re all going. And I had never, really never been to talk. That was three hours. In my mind I was thinking, My God, that’s six sermons. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. And I still have my original note in the book that I took it in, and my first note was to my brother, who is also there. I said, this guy doesn’t need our money, and he got my attention. In other words, I thought there was a much deeper reason why he was doing this, and he told a story that kind of embedded that and why he determined to help other people. A Girl Scout knocked on his door when he was 25 years old, an adult married man tried to sell him a $2 box of cookies, and she did such a good job he wanted to but he didn’t have two bucks, so he told her that she was like the second one he had seen, and he just bought 10 boxes from another girl. So he lied to her. When he closed the door, he slumped on the on the floor and cried, and he said, that’s never going to happen again. And so it, obviously it didn’t. And he also carried hundreds of dollars of bills. So if he saw another Girl Scout Cookie, you know, like you go to the market, he’d buy them all. So anyway, yeah, that was an impressive night for me. I took notes. I decided, You know what, I think this guy could change my direction completely, and he did. So that night, all night, all morning, I wrote goals for the first time in my life, and it changed my life. So, yeah, that’s a worthy trophy, man. We didn’t give them away lightly, by the way.
Joey Romero So, the first one went out to Coach Jack Fullerton from the Commonwealth Club, you know, which was kind of known as the precursor to the no pitch club. You know, it’s all education. And so what can you tell the audience about, Coach Fullerton?
Bruce Norris Well, it was interesting. We met, and it was sort of, it wasn’t a positive meeting, in a way. I never had been to a real estate club meeting. Once again, I apparently go to very few meetings up until then, I was always sort of suspicious of the content. Anyway, I did go, and there was a statement. He made right at the beginning of his meeting. He said, anybody that says they can buy a house and immediately sell for profit is lying. And I just thought, my God, that’s what I do. And I thought, Okay, well, I’m going to tell him. So this was 1986 and the only reason I know that is the car that I had at the time. So I waited to the last person, you know me and him were the only two there. And I said, ‘Jack, I do what you I actually called him Mr. Fulton. I said, Mr. Fulton, I do exactly what you said. It’s not done. That’s the only business model I have, is I flip houses.’ And in the parking lot there was like a Ford Pinto that was 25 years old, and there was a 420 SEL Mercedes that was brand new. Of course, I owned the Mercedes, and had no idea that this guy was way richer than I was. He just didn’t need anything to show it. And he looked at that car and he, I could just tell he kind of wrote me off. ‘Yeah, pal,’ so he irritated me and of course, you know, when I get irritated, I raise it to the next level. So I took photos of about 100 properties. I had flipped, put them in a book and mailed it to him, basically just to say, ‘Up yours, Val.’ And so he calls me up. He says, Bruce, I have never seen anything like this. You can teach to my club. I said, Teach your club. I don’t want to do that. I just wanted you to know that that’s possible. He says, No, I’m serious. You need to do that. You need to come and teach us. Okay? And I was not excited about public speaking. That night, we went to a dinner, you know, he had, he gave dinner to the guy that was going to speak, and I didn’t eat a thing. He was looking at me, going, ‘are you nervous?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m nervous. I don’t talk.’ He said, ‘Well, I tell you what. And in a way, he said, ‘Get the attention off of how you’re going to do and realize that you’re going to change people’s lives tonight, if you can teach them what you know. And, wow, that was a smart thing. And A.D. Kessler actually was a big influence on another thing that I learned. It was, don’t worry about perfection, you know. And so all of those things played a part in me being able to speak in front of an audience. I wasn’t searching for perfection. I was looking for a way to to impact lives. And Jack Fullerton obviously did that a lot, and he was, yeah, he was true to his basic setup where you know you weren’t going to buy your way into speaking in front of Jack fullerton’s Club, and that club knew it. If you were speaking, you had earned it somehow.
Joey Romero Well, he, he actually shifted your, your thinking a little bit too, right? Because it wasn’t he the reason you actually started holding some of this stuff too.
Bruce Norris And that wasn’t right away, that was when Marsha got cancer, and he, he was pretty direct. He says, What will you do if you can’t do any work for a while? Okay. I’ll get some of that stuff.
Joey Romero Well. And that’s he’s just, he’s shifting your thinking about, what if you can do it now, but eventually all of us, don’t want to do it. So, like, that’s something that we should think about. Anyways. It’s a great vehicle to fund, you know, or at least supplement your retirement.
Bruce Norris Yeah, no, it’s, thank God I have that, you know. It makes my month boring. It was wonderful.
Joey Romero You need some volatility. Bruce, is that what you need?
Bruce Norris You know, and I think that’s what the Rohny Award was looking for, is, let’s find the leaders in our industry that impact other human beings in a very unselfish way.
Joey Romero I’ll tell you just really quickly. One thing you had in common, Coach was always a big supporter of, you know, I Survived Real Estate. He, you know, I was always a Platinum Sponsor, and he would always show up, you know, dressed to the nines, you know, nice tuxedo, you know, bow tie and tennis shoes. And the one year you forgot your shoes.
Bruce Norris That’s right.
Joey Romero And you had to borrow mine and the only extra pair of shoes that I had was the tennis shoes. So, you were, you and coach had the same thing in common, at least for that one event.
Bruce Norris That’s funny.
Joey Romero Okay, so the following year we go to another, you know, a great mentor and teacher, Ward Hannigan. Now his company, innovest resource focused on foreclosures. What can you tell me about Ward other than his really crazy story, which we’ve actually had him on and he’s told the stories about him being an orphan and all that, which is, I’ll recommend that you go find that podcast, because it’s truly interesting. But how did you come up with choosing.
Bruce Norris Well, I took, I took one of his one on one classes. It was for trusts. Actually, I did put Greg through his foreclosure, buying, you know, buying a trustee sale class. And after that, I would think, I think Greg bought in a nine year period, 900 houses. So 100 a year, doing what he learned from Ward. Ward has always been very unselfish with what he knows. And in that category, you know, you can’t touch I don’t think you can touch it. That’s the thing about, you know, I guess everybody has their niche, Ward’s with buying at the courthouse steps. He’s just, he loves to teach. You know, that’s what part of it is. Most people with trustee sales don’t want to teach a soul. They don’t want anybody else at the sale. That’s, that’s the spirit of the I Survived Event, and the Rohny Award is that all of these people didn’t worry about you being a competitor. They wanted to you to be a companion and get what they got.
Joey Romero Yeah, his upbringing would tell you that, you know he, he should have grown up an introvert, but he’s everything, but that.
Bruce Norris It’s interesting, well, that his life changed, and that one comment, where that remember his relative?
Joey Romero Mm, hmm.
Bruce Norris He spent a couple days. He lived in a home, right? He didn’t live in a with a family. He lived in a home.
Joey Romero His aunt would come and pick him up for a couple months and then take him right back.
Bruce Norris Yeah, and I don’t remember what the relationship was, but it was a very positive experience for him. And she said to him, I’m no longer going to worry about you, Ward you are going to end up being a great man.
Joey Romero Yeah.
Bruce Norris And he believed it. And, I mean, he believed it to the point where, when crap happened, and there’s all that can happen to everybody in the journey. He remembered thinking, Oh, well, I’m going to be okay. Because she said that was going to be great.
Joey Romero That’s the. Yeah. It sure is. I, you know, I got to meet him at one of the SDCIA Christmas parties, and he was just like, holding court in the corner, just, oh yeah. Everybody was coming in and just talking to him.
Bruce Norris He’s just there, same thing, yeah, yeah.
Joey Romero Alright. So we go to 2016 now Mic Blackwell, he was a different cat. You know, you talk to guys like Mike Cantu, they swear up and down that that he’s the biggest influence that he ever had on his life.
Bruce Norris Yeah, Yeah, that’s he was more of a small meeting guy, let’s have a breakfast meeting once a once a week, and he would hold court there. But yeah, Mike Cantu would definitely say that Mic Blackwell was a huge influence on his life. I think also the opposite. Be honest with you, Mike Cantu flipped him many, many dozens of homes, if not hundreds of homes, because, you know, Mike, that was part of what he wanted to do, was wholesale as he built his own rental portfolio. So Mic was a beneficiary of that. But I think in the beginning it was interesting. You know, the one thing I really love about both of them is they were facing a really tough time. I’ve been there a couple times, and they had done a bunch of land purchases, and the market changed, and they had, they owed all of this money. And I think Mike was talking to him, okay, what are we going to do? And Mic said, basically, well, I can tell you what we’re not going to do. And he got the trustee doubt and read the words I promised to pay. In other words, we don’t have a back door. We solve it and and they did. They worked, you know, they had land that’s the most unpopular product in a downturn. But they developed a way to, I think this is the phrase that Mike told me when you do a trade. Let’s see what if I can remember for verbatim, take what you have to get, what you need to get, what you want. It’s almost always a two stage event. So you’ve got land that doesn’t cash flow, but you’ve got somebody that hates a motor home that they own, and it’s free and clear. Okay, well, you don’t really want the motor home, but you now have something that you can trade for, what you want. And so there’s it’s always like a several stage process to go when you’re trading. And so that’s what they did. They traded these lots for, I mean, everything under the sun, and a year later they were done.
Joey Romero It’s like those experiments online, where you get, you start with a paperclip, and you see how far you could trade up. And people like, end up, like, with a house. It’s like, what? None of that have it.
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero And so that sounds like the, the precursor to these exchanger clubs, because there’s like, clubs now that just, that’s all they do, right?
Bruce Norris That’s right, yeah, it’s peak Fortunato has got one of those, you know, basically.
Joey Romero We’ll get to him in a second. So, yeah, he was super famous for, for those lunch meetings, those breakfast meetings. You know, people talk about him. You know that that was like a time in their lives that man, like you can’t go back to them, but they, you know, they certainly remember him fondly. So in 2017 we do a twofer. 2017 was actually the first year that I was with The Norris Group. So it was my first I Survived Real Estate. And we had John Schaub, who, you know, was famous for his book, Building Your Rental Portfolio, One Rental At a Time. And then Pete Fortunato, so he, he’s always been referred to as the most creative mind in real estate. So, yeah, what can you tell me about that pair?
Bruce Norris Well, you know, it’s interesting. We invited him as a pair, because that’s how I connected them. I, you know, I just every time I’ve seen them, usually it’s, they’re doing a joint seminar together. They fill, what’s cool about them is they have a following that repeatedly comes to the seminar, so they have no trouble filling a 300 you know, person place, because people are excited to get to hear them again, and they each have a different approach. So that’s why they did it together. So, you know, John’s job is okay, you know, let’s buy a house a year and get to the finish line. You know, of taking care of my cash flow and Pete Fortunato is on another level of creativity. It makes my head hurt every time I hear it speak. It’s like, okay, what was that? He just, he his brain thinks of very creative ways to get what you want, you know, and so it’s quite a gift that those guys shared what they knew to the real estate community. And I guess that’s what maybe all of these people have in common, is they didn’t have to do that if they were going to be like a greedy and it’s somehow going to cost me. They wouldn’t do it. But that’s not how they’re built. They’re not worried about anybody’s competition at all. They just get it. They have a love for saying, Have I improved somebody’s life today? You know? They teach an all day seminar, and then for the rest of the year they get calls going, Oh my God, that’s a great, you know.
Joey Romero Well, John, you know, one of the things that I’ve heard John over the years, you know, through our interviews and, you know, meeting them in person, he was the first real, like, really, truly, like, mega successful, you know, real estate investor that valued the work life balance more than anything. You know, he talks about flying his own airplane to go skiing, and taking his whole family, you know, flying to go water ski, you know, somewhere in, and so that’s one of the things. And Peter, with his, you know, his house that he, you know, it’s still, it’s that, that famous house that you breaks down, right? Can you talk about that?
Bruce Norris I have to go to a seminar, but no, it’s like, okay, he looks at a house and there’s little pockets of goodies, right? There’s equity, and there’s an existing loan, and there’s a possibility of income from a lease, etc. So yeah, that’s how he looks at this. And every time he’s talking to an owner, he’s looking for the pocket that works for this situation. So that’s how his brain works. You know, it’s funny. Last time I talked to John Schaub, he was in his plane. That’s pretty funny. And I, you know, I gone to Pete’s house a couple of times, and we just sat there and talked for a while. So, yeah, he just, I think it’s nice when I call him, it’s like, I’m not calling for anything, just trying to say hi. And it’s sort of that’s a good connection for him. In other words, I don’t have an agenda when I call him. I just think, you know you’re one of those big influences in industry. I just want to say, hey, you know how you doing?
Joey Romero In 2018 we go to “Fixer” Jay Decima. Now, he’s on the West Coast, and, you know, he’s an author. He’s, his book was, Start Small and Profit Big in Real Estate.
Bruce Norris Yeah. And he, you know, a lot of these guys did the keeper stuff, right? Most of them did keepers. And Fixer Jay was definitely in that category. I met him at the NorCal…
Joey Romero NorCal REIA meeting.
Bruce Norris Yeah, and we just started talking, and I was just like, holy cow.
Joey Romero Just kindred spirits, right?
Bruce Norris This guy knows what he’s doing, so that’s how, that’s how Fixer Jay got that award because he was doing a lot of influencing and teaching up in Northern California, but I hadn’t heard of him before. Well, when I got to speak with him for about an hour, and yeah, we sort of did not seem to share much of our time with anyone else once, we figured we were kind of on the same page with stuff. But yeah, that was, he was a good guy, and I enjoyed and again, he had a philosophy that was different. You know, I bought and sold most of everything, and he kept everything.
Joey Romero The next year, we go to Dyches Boddiford, now Pete Fortunato, you know, you have to, like, watch the recording again, or go to a seminar a couple times because of the way he thinks. Now, Dyches is really getting into and delving into, like advanced, like tax strategies and, you know, giving and things like that, and how that can, you know, impact your life and in your retirement, right?
Bruce Norris Yeah. I mean, my whole retirement plan is based on his seminar. So when I decided to do that, you know, just a few years ago, which was about time I talked to Pete. He said, ‘Just buy Dyches’ stuff.’ So okay, good idea. So I called Dyches up. And, you know, he had a quite a bad year in the last year, getting injured and all that. So I, I really haven’t felt like I could call him or but he’s changed so many lives and taught real estate investors how to protect their stuff. So each of these, you know, that’s what’s fun about each of those has a niche. That’s why they were able to teach together, because it wasn’t a repetitive message, and it was nice because you could see, wow. Okay, you know, I think John Schaub wants to be flying in a plane rather than talk to somebody across the desk about a real estate deal, Pete Fortunato thinks that’s the on vacation when he’s talking to somebody about real estate. So and and Dyches is very strategic about okay, it’s almost like when you read a seminars, and it literally is in a desk over here, there’s a process, okay? It’s almost like, if you want to get to silver level, then this is what you do if you want the gold level, then this is what you do if you want the platinum level then you go through this, and it was, yeah.
Joey Romero Laid out.
Bruce Norris It was laid out, but it was understandable too. That was the part that was good, is that I could go, Okay, I got it. I understand the process. And I don’t think I ever had done that before. And part of the problem is, when you sit in front of somebody, they always have a different take, and it’s inaccurate. I have never sat in front of an attorney that agrees with another attorney’s process. And, you know, I don’t know Dyches Boddiford’s education. I don’t think he’s an attorney. I think he’s a real estate, a street, smart real estate investor that figured out how the laws work, how to protect your stuff.
Joey Romero Yeah, he actually went to Georgia Tech and had some engineering degree, and just ended up in real estate and then leading, like, the you know, like the car of Georgia, you know.
Bruce Norris Yeah, that’s interesting, yeah.
Joey Romero So for the next few years, through the pandemic, we went dark with the Rohny Award. We still had the event, but it was virtual. And you know, we didn’t feel right. I remember Aaron and you guys talking about it just didn’t feel right, not being able to hand something to him. And you know, properly, do give them their, you know, their roses, as you know, as you might say. So we went dark in 2021 and 2020 but we came back in 2022 with the event, first live event in three years. And we had, like the mentor’s mentor, like this guy was the guy that all of these guys were talking about, looked up to and were taught at some point. And it was Jack Miller
Bruce Norris Yeah, and you know, it’s interesting. You just said it correctly. And what was so nice about and so respectful is a lot of these guys lived in Florida as Jack, excuse me, as Jack Miller did, but we gave the Rohny Award at the Nixon library event, but all those other guys in Florida came out to what to receive it because Jack Miller had passed. So it was an honor, honorarium, I guess what you say.
Joey Romero They bought a table, and they called it the Friends of Jack.
Bruce Norris There you go. That’s when you know you’ve gotten somebody’s respect. And I remember Mike Cantu you telling me one time he was even talked to Jack Miller, and Miller had spent like hours reading the IRS code and found a cool niche he didn’t know existed. He was all, yeah!
Joey Romero Fired up.
Bruce Norris Yeah. I think what’s common in everybody is they love to share what they know they weren’t afraid of anybody’s competition. It had changed their life and the rest of their life was going to be about sharing just that, you know, it gives me it’s much more meaningful than real estate, way more.
Joey Romero He was the first one that we had. I, you know, I personally had to do a lot of research on because I couldn’t just call him and talk to him, you know, and one of the things that was overwhelming is that everybody went to his meetings. They were at his house, for one. The memes are his house, and it was like, he’s always feeding people. And he enjoyed his little, you know, little glass of wine. And it was like, All right let’s talk about business, but let’s have fun together, and you felt like you were part of his family. And that’s why they made such an impact. You know, he made such an impact on guys like Pete, guys like John, you know, he’s like, you know, like the Bill Belichick, right where now, Bill Belichick, he’s retired, but he has all these guys that were coaches for him, that are now head coaches, and now, you know, they’re the ones leading the industry. So, he was certainly one that, obviously, I came into a little late, but it would have been fun to know him because of just the way he ran things. And he was, again, the common theme is, you know, giving more than taking. He didn’t need anything. You know, he was, he could have retired a long time ago.
Bruce Norris I took one seminar of his, and it was because I needed to figure out how to make an offer on the 50 lots in Palm Springs and his, what was interesting about, and this is true ofJack Miller seminars is that you got a book and then he taught a different seminar. I mean, it was like out of his head. You didn’t need to look at a note.
Joey Romero Two for one.
Bruce Norris You were trying to follow along. It wasn’t gonna happen. He knew his stuff well enough he didn’t need to bother with that book. I’m sure it covered the same stuff, but different sequence, and I was kind of lost, because I was a newbie, and I was just like, okay, so I did buy those 50 lots.
Joey Romero Well, it worked.
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero So in 2023 we decided that it would probably be the last year for the Rohny Awards, and we gave it to Aaron. And now Aaron certainly wasn’t as prolific, you know, as some of these guys, in the fact that he didn’t run a club for many years, or he didn’t run seminars for many years, but the impact that he had on people was just as great as some of these people, and to this day, you know, when people ask me to describe Aaron, you know, I get asked a lot, I simply tell him he was the best person I’ve ever known.
Bruce Norris Yeah, I agree with that. I, you know, when he passed, I mean, I, of course, I cried, but I was so proud, and I just saw, Wow, so lucky. I learned a lot from him, you know. And I mean, his whole idea of he comes up, you know, he didn’t work for the company too long before he dreamed this thing up, ‘Dad, let’s have a charity event. The company will pay for everything, and the money that’s donated will all go to, you know?’ ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll do that.’ But it was that wasn’t normal, right?
Joey Romero It was hard to say no to him, right?
Bruce Norris Oh, yeah, no, I’m gonna say no to that. But I just thought, well, that’s what Aaron does. How do we how do we do good for people he was so unselfish and so caring about other people. And you know what? You know, whose philosophy he liked most?
Joey Romero Who’s that?
Bruce Norris John Schaub.
Joey Romero Yeah, he credit..
Bruce Norris He didn’t want to flip 90 hours. I would drive him nuts. He wanted to own one house at his time.
Joey Romero Yeah, he credited John to actually bringing him into being a real estate investor.
Bruce Norris Yeah, I think, you know, when he was growing up, you know, we were dealing with homes that had, you know, that were nasty. He was in there picking up dead cockroaches, it’s five years old, and stuff like that. I’m sure that’s not a real fond memory. But yeah, he was, he just wanted to do less volume and end up keeping stuff, which, you know, kind of is what he did. So that worked for him. But his great gift was he loved people. He just, he loved people. From there was, and I, maybe I’ve told this story before, but this is the spirit of what was in him was so unusual. He was in the acting, you know, kids acting he was, had gotten good enough where he was getting most of the lead roles for every male part in a play. And he had done a try out, and I think it was Mary Poppins, and he was the lead role, The Dick Van Dyke role in. And at the time, we had a weight room in the house. I was working out, and he had found out he got the lead role. And as I rested in between reps, I could hear him calling different people, you know, and so the whole people that’s a cast is getting called by Aaron. And my mind went to, well, what would Bruce Norris be doing? Yeah, I got that isn’t what he did. He was calling and he downplayed whatever happened to him. He said, ‘What’d you get?’ And then the kid go, ‘Well, I’m only whatever.’ ‘Oh, no. Oh, that is so cool. That’ll be so neat.’ And by the time the next Saturday came about, you know, the 50 kids that were in the play were just excited if they were a stump, because they make that special. That’s what he did for people, and he constantly did that for his whole life. Another memory, if you don’t mind, the he’s getting radiation treatment in UCLA. This is the second visit, and I think the visits were two weeks apart, so we were at UCLA two weeks before that, for, you know, whatever time frame it took him to get the treatment. So we come back, I park the car, I go walk up to where he’s going to get treatment. And as I pass by the nursing station, it’s literally a buzz, and I overhear ‘Aaron Norris is back,’ and I’m like, holy cow.
Joey Romero Well, it was actually six weeks that in between six weeks so, so six weeks had gone and they were still…
Bruce Norris They know him by name, and they’re excited he showed up. I mean, that’s such an amazing gift. I do pray, and that makes sense to me that he’s onto something new and doing the same thing. I hope, I hope that’s allowed.
Joey Romero So, for me, you know, I just remember him getting so excited for people, like, if he was, if you got to Aaron, and you got to tell him what you were doing, and it was something great, he would celebrate it like you had won the World Series, like he would be your biggest fan. ‘Hey, how can I help? Do you need money?’ Like he was, like ‘IN’, you know, and he would be your biggest fan and I think his greatest attribute was everybody who got to meet him, whether it was for five minutes or, you know, got, you know, was blessed with more time, truly made him feel like they were a friend.
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero They were not just somebody who he was using to, oh, get let me get to the next guy. No, he truly made them feel special, like I, you know, obviously, you probably got inundated. I got inundated with just, you know, stories of how, you know, hey, I met Aaron at this club, and I didn’t speak to him very much. But, man, he was, like, interested in what I was doing. And right away was like, oh, did you try this? Or, Hey, we’ve been doing this and just giving them suggestions, just right there. And, you know, a lot of these people’s like, nobody, you know, I was going to these clubs, and nobody would talk to you sometimes. And, you know, but I got to meet Aaron. Not only did he give a great presentation, but then afterwards, he would sit around and talk to everybody. He would go hang out with people like that was his. I think his greatest gift is making you feel like you were special, whether you met him for two seconds or you were in, you know, his circle.
Bruce Norris Yeah, and that so sincere. It’s just, I was so lucky to have him as a Dad, watching him grow up and do all those things at his funeral, as kind of spoke for as is for itself, right? I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and it was a celebration.
Joey Romero Yeah.
Bruce Norris This we’re, we’re glad to we got to know this guy.
Joey Romero Standing room. You know that it wasn’t big enough. And it was the biggest room that they had at, you know, at the church there in in Riverside. How do you transition from that, you know? Well, I’ll give, I’ll give everybody a little bit of an update. Because I don’t know if a lot of people know or don’t know, but as he’s battling cancer, I’m gonna try and get through this Bruce, as he’s battling cancer, you know, he’s, he’s working hard on, what am I gonna do, you know, not only with the treatments, how he can, you know, possibly beat this, but he was already thinking, it’s like, how am I going to continue to leave a legacy and continue to impact the lives of people? And what he did was, he set up the Aaron Norris Creative Fund. And it was a fund that he put the seed money into. A lot of his wealth got in, put into this fund, and it was so that he could, it could give to people and kids pursuing the love of the arts. And this last year, you know, on the Second anniversary of his passing, we were able to give several big grants to Riverside’s Children’s Theater, the Riverside Arts Academy, and so a lot of people are still going to benefit from Aaron’s love and Aaron’s just passion to give back to the community. And I, and I’m lucky enough to still be involved in it. And so right now, like it’s just, it’s turned a moment of just pure sadness for me to know that I’m carrying out his dream. You know, his dream was to help that little boy and and it’s funny that you said the Mary Poppins. You know, that was the play that he was doing. We had the Riverside children’s theater come and, do you know a couple numbers from their current and it just happens to be Mary Poppins. So it was, it was fitting. It was certainly fitting it. And his old theater friends came out and they talked. And so we’re going to be doing that again, and we’ll do that every July 1, we’ll be announcing, we’ll make the we’re gonna try and, you know, make that event a bigger, a bigger deal and I’ll make sure I invite you. You know, next year, I think I downplayed a little bit because I didn’t know how it was gonna go. But, you know, love to have you again.
Bruce Norris You bet.
Joey Romero October 25 everybody. That’s when I Survived Real Estate in now, in its 17th year, wow. And it’s, it’s certainly, you know, a great tradition that that was started, you know, you know, with Bruce and Aaron, but now it’s grown to something that, you know, a lot of real estate investors, a lot of realtors, a lot of people look forward to, you know, getting dressed, the joke is that, you know, it’s the, I mean, it probably is only the first and last time Peter Fortunato ever wore a tie, right?
Bruce Norris Yeah.
Joey Romero It’s at the Nixon library. Again. We are our charities. Make a wish this year. I’m truly looking forward to that night. We have some great new panelists. We mix it up a little bit. We’re going to have Bill Allen from 7 Figure Flipping Marck de Lautour. We have the Chief Economist of Fannie Mae, Mark Palim, which is the he’s going to be the one, because Doug Duncan retired, and Selma Hepp, the Chief Economist of CoreLogic. We are working on a little bit of a surprise. We still kind of got some feelers out there. Hopefully we can get something a little more realtor centric. But you know, if we can’t, we still we’re going to have a great panel and a great night already. So that bed question and the inflation that’s going to be something that’s going to be a great topic, and I’m sure we’ll tackle on the panels.
Bruce Norris Yup.
Joey Romero Well, Bruce, thank you for jumping on. Really appreciate it. It was really fun going down memory lane with the Rohny Award. And, you know, maybe, maybe we’ll talk to Craig, and next year we’ll do a version of it. Maybe we call them the AN A’s the Aaron Norris Awards, or something like you know that’d be something unique to us, but hopefully you enjoyed our Rohny Awards Special. And Bruce, thank you so much for jumping on and going down memory lane with us.
Bruce Norris You bet Joey, enjoy it.
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.