Title Insurance with Mike Ham

This is episode number 141 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are glad that you could join us this fine late, late, late night edition of The Homeowner Show. We're coming at you live from The Homeowner Show studios.

That's right.

Which has decided to be a big old pain in our rear ends tonight.

I feel like this is like the most resounding thing that our listeners are hearing right now is problems in the studio.

Problems in the studio.

We're gonna get it all, all figured out. But, um, until then, thanks for being patient with us. And, uh, yeah, so how you doing, man?

Uh, well, other than, you know, technology being the bane of my existence this evening, I'm doing fantastic.

Oh. Well, in that case, congratulations.

Everything else is just peachy.

Yeah, well, good. Yeah, it's, um, actually, I actually love this time of year. It's, uh, it's fantastic for a lot of reasons. But, uh, I will tell you this. So we've got a little place on a lake here in Texas called Caddo Lake. It's the only natural lake in Texas. And so some of my family, um, were down there kind of working on the place, doing some things here and there, and, uh, they found something they didn't want to find.

Uh-oh.

Yeah, so they found, uh, neighbors. Well, yeah, that would have been bad actually, because there's not very many of those down there. Um, they found some termites that they had not seen before, and, uh, so they're like—

Is this the one you sent me pictures of? Yes, it is.

And so we Well, they, they sent me a couple of pictures. So they were looking, so they started tearing out like the wall and, you know, finding some significant damage in this one area. But here's the, here's the real problem. Okay, so that's bad enough, right?

Right.

Here's the real problem. That was the second floor.

Oh, dude.

Yeah.

So it's gonna be, it's gonna be brutal, man.

Yeah.

So I mean, termites don't start from the top and go down.

No, right? Well, that's not, that's not true. There are some that do that.

Really?

Yeah. Dampwood termites will do that.

Let's pray they're dampwoods.

No, no, don't do that. Okay, that's when tents get involved.

Oh my goodness. So well, who knows what all they found, but they were tearing out stuff and trying to figure out. I think there was some floor damage as well. So it could be interesting.

It's gonna be interesting if they're on the second floor.

Yeah.

I mean, more than likely they're Formosans. Um, if they're, if they're that aggressive, they've gotten that high. They, and, and when they get that high, they'll actually build an additional carton and, and then just really go to town. Um, it's gonna be unpleasant.

Yeah.

Unless it's just old damage that, and they've just left it there for you to, you know, like cave in on yourself.

Well, I think, I think the real problem is that these termites, that they found, I think they were dead.

Did you say termites?

I don't know what I said. Um, it's late, remember? Um, I, I think the real problem is that the ones that they found, they had not seen before.

Uh, okay.

So I think they were dead. The ones they found were dead.

Oh, they found some actual—

they were like, they were like on the, you know, the floor of the second story up there. But, um, but yeah, uh, they hadn't seen them before. So yeah.

Our, our buddy Eric is watching right now and he just said, say no to termite tents. And I agree, they are the absolute worst.

Well, I'm just gonna have to take your word for it. I don't really know what that is, but no.

Yeah.

That's all I got.

All right. So we have a really cool show for you guys tonight. And let me tell you, we have the guy, the guy who is the coolest guy in title insurance.

Okay. Well, he's gonna have to prove it.

Well, yeah. So, but we, we've got my buddy Mike Hamm on the show, the coolest guy in title insurance, who is also the host of the Morning Spotlight.

Awesome.

Podcast, uh, among many other things. Mike, thank you so much for being on the show, bud.

Uh, it's great to be here, and I plan on proving it, so don't worry. And I— we're coming off a conversation about termites, and then we're gonna get into title insurance, so this is just gonna be electric. I could already tell.

Oh yeah, there's nowhere to go but up after a talk with termites.

Literally.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, well, I have no doubt, like, talking with you just a few minutes before, I'm like, I think I can joke around with this guy. I like him.

Yeah, yeah, right. Well, we got— we're both bearded out the gate, so that's, that's kind of how I, you know, connect with people.

There you go. I'm with you.

So like, do you, do you guys like— because I can't grow a beard. Like, it's just not gonna happen.

That's true.

I can grow a mean villain on the railroad track mustache. Oh, but beards— I'm just, I'm curious, like, when you guys like saw one another, did you like immediately like size up each other's beards? Was it like I think mine's, mine's a little bit, a little bit fluffier. Mine's a little bit longer.

Yeah. Well, I did. Yeah, you did.

So I didn't— here's what I did. I basically said, that guy's beard is way more thick than mine. But mine is way more long than his. And that's, that's what I thought. Is that what you thought?

It's like puffy and just kind of puffs out. And the first thing I noticed honestly was just the mustache.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, because that just kind of completes the top of the beard. I don't have that. I can't get that for some reason.

Yeah, I don't know.

That just hangs out to my lips. I don't do that.

Yeah, I just tried it one time and I was like, okay, can I? Okay. Yeah, that thing, that thing is out there, man. Okay, let's try it. My wife hates it. I'll tell you that much right now. She told me the other day, she was like, alright, Kevin, that thing is a little bit out of control.

And I was like, I know.

You haven't, you haven't made the full circle yet.

No, I haven't. I'm like, this thing, this thing—

You gotta get Raleigh Fingers level.

Exactly. See, now, now you know what I'm talking about. I'm just not quite there yet. So we'll get there one day.

I have faith.

Yeah. And, and so everybody knows Mike and I actually connected over on Clubhouse. So, and, and Mike, you, you host a, a pretty healthy room over there. What, remind me what that one's called.

Uh, it's the Podcast Lunch Hour. We do it Monday through Friday, 12 to 1 Eastern Standard Time. So, uh, we've been doing that. First one I ran was January 18th and we've been doing it ever since. So I think we're up to like probably like 79, maybe tomorrow's 80. I forget what the exact number is, but we've been doing it for a while and it's, it's a lot of fun.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a great place to go and meet other podcasters, ask some questions, you know, maybe get some tips and tricks and just network with some other guys and gals.

Maybe we should bring some of these technical problems into the Podcast Lunch Hour and get some people that can iron this stuff out for you guys.

Right.

Hey, don't think I hadn't already thought about that just now. Number one thing.

Let me, let me say this, Mike, because I, I have, like, I've taken this out, not, not to the Lunch Hour podcast room, you know, because I would have gotten my problem solved over there. I've taken it out to some other rooms and everyone's just like, yeah, man, just plug in your, your RODECaster Pro and you'll, you'll go on down the line. I'm like, great. But it didn't work. So we had to go back to the, the old way of doing things. But we'll, we'll We'll get there. Yeah. Yeah.

No, sometimes old school is better. Gotta go retro.

One of these days, we're just gonna go reel-to-reel in here. Old magnetic tape. I know how to do that.

Oh, goodness gracious. Well, let's do this. Uh, tell us a little bit about you, how you got into title insurance and, uh, all that kind of fun stuff.

Just give it to us.

Cool. Um, yeah, so I have been selling title insurance since, uh, 2017. So it'll be 4 years in August. Um, before that, I was a college coach. So really had the whole 180-degree turn on the whole career path at some point in my life. Um, I went to the College of New Jersey, which is right outside of Trenton. Um, did that, uh, played baseball there, then started coaching, got my first job there, second coaching job at Franklin Marshall in, uh, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. My last job was up at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, where I was a grad assistant, got a free MBA, got paid to coach, which was pretty sweet. Then didn't really know what I wanted to do with life. Moved back home with mom and dad, got a job at an indoor sports facility as like their

director of operations. And then did that for 8 months. Hated it.

No way.

For a variety of reasons. It just like wasn't a great fit. I liked coaching and I liked working with the kids and whatever, but it just wasn't a good fit. So I did that for 8 months. My father's worked in the title insurance industry for about 35 years and he's an attorney. And he was like, oh, I know Fidelity's looking for some sales reps. I know they have some that are retiring this year, some of them are coming up for retirement. And so I was like, let's try it. And now here we are almost 4 years later, started the show last year due to, you know, current events and needed a way to get out in front of people. So this was my way to do it. So that's kind of how the show started.

That is like the super SparkNotes version of my life over the last, you know, maybe 8 or 8 or 9 years.

Yes. I mean, like you, you're talking about the Morning Spotlight, you started that once COVID hit because I mean, like, As a sales guy, you, you gotta be able to meet people, right?

Right. Yeah. So for title insurance, especially here in New Jersey, I'm, I forget exactly how it works in Texas because I'm licensed here in Jersey. Um, but here in New Jersey, all the rates are filed rates, which means it doesn't matter what company you go to, you get charged the exact same price for essentially the exact same product. Um, and so basically your whole business is built on relationships and service.

Because that's the only thing to differentiate yourself, right?

Exactly right. So all I would do is basically take people out for lunch, go to events, go out for drinks. It's not a bad job. I mean, I like my job quite a bit. It's fun for sure. But then obviously when I wasn't able to do any of those things last year, obviously I needed a way to get myself out there. So I started doing virtual networking events basically right away. You know, in March everything shut down here in New Jersey. So started running virtual networking events basically right outta the gate, maybe like a week after everything shut down. Got, was, was getting really great traction on LinkedIn from those events, like very good, like LinkedIn views or post views, comments, likes, all that kind of stuff. So I had always heard that

video was a way to get more engagement on LinkedIn. So I started doing the Morning Spotlight. Uh, which I did as like a 5-minute interview series where I would like spotlight someone in the morning at 9 AM every Monday through Friday. And then did that for 12 weeks in a row for— so 60 total episodes. Um, and then eventually wanted to try to transition it into what it is now so that I could only do 1 or 2 episodes a week and, um, you know, not have to schedule, edit, record, re-record, re-edit. that many episodes and actually have some in-depth conversations with the people that I have on the show.

Yeah, because you, you, I mean, you kind of have 2 different sections to your show every week, right? I mean, you kind of have like a real estate related topic and then you have just like a, I mean, just something. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So every, yeah, every Tuesday I have real estate focused guests and then on Thursdays I have just people that I find interesting or topics that I find interesting. So I've had professional athletes, Olympic athletes, other podcasters. Like today, Faith, who runs a lot of those lunch hour rooms with me, was my guest on today's episode. And then a lot of different kinds of people, musicians, business people, like marketing type folks that are outside the real estate realm. So just a lot of different stuff just to kind of, you know, if I find it interesting and my audience demographics are basically like me, they're 25 to 35 in the Northeast. So why not put stuff that

I find interesting? Because then if I find it interesting, odds are they will. So that's kind of how I set that whole thing up.

That's awesome, man. Well, and so part of the purpose of our show is just to kind of educate the homeowner. And I imagine, you know, after 12 minutes, there's got to be somebody out there asking, what is title insurance?

And why do you need it?

Yeah, right. Yeah. So if they're already owning a home, you most likely have a title policy somewhere that you paid for when you bought your house. So I'll give like the general overview of what title insurance is, and then we can get more into some questions after that.

Sure.

So basically, title insurance is different than any other kind of insurance you're ever going to buy in your entire life. So it's different than car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, where you pay, you know, a one-time or monthly or yearly premium for anything that's going to happen in the future. Title insurance is you pay a one-time premium at the closing of a real estate transaction. So it could be a $100,000 house or a $100 million commercial property. So title insurance is involved. And the way that it works is it covers you for anything that's happened in the past on that property. So let's say, you know, like for example, the bank, you know, the, uh, there's a— the bank has a lien on the

property. You as the buyer come in, you buy that property. You don't know that the bank has a lien on that property. You don't get title insurance. Next thing you know, that guy leaves. He hasn't paid his mortgage. He leaves. The lien does not follow him. It stays on that property. So now you come into ownership of that property, and now all of a sudden you're on the hook for that lien. Because now you're the owner. It's just like an example of one of the things that title insurance would help prevent against. So like a lot of title insurance is making stuff that— making sure that stuff is cleared up before they actually, you know, before you actually step foot in your home. Wow.

So it's a one-time fee instead of an ongoing thing, but it basically says, look, if anything is wrong with the title, We're going to take care of it for you.

Correct.

Yep. Yeah.

I mean, like, and the title insurance stuff goes just beyond just like the actual title of the, like the deed or whatever. So like if we, if we do a survey, we don't do surveys, but we, you know, we have survey companies do a survey. We issue survey endorsement. Like we should know like where the boundary lines are. So if there's a dispute on a boundary line between you and a neighbor, that should be covered as long as we did the right kind of survey. And you got that survey endorsement, you know, and then like there's other instances where if a power company has an easement through your backyard and you want to put an

addition on the back of your house, the power company, because they have that easement, has access to that power line. So next thing you know, like let's just say they have to dig up your backyard to get to that line. But there's a— there's part of your house on it now because you put that addition, you had no idea. Obviously, you're going to be up the creek. So it's one of those things where it's like just to be safe, better safe than sorry, and just make sure that the stuff that is going on on that property is protecting your investment. So if anything that does show up, just make sure that you know what you're actually buying.

So in the scenario that you just set up, what what would the title insurance, like when it's, I guess, activated, what would it do for you then? I mean, would it, you know, kind of COVID your legal costs of dealing with the easement dispute, or what would it do?

Well, so let's just say that, you know, we did our due diligence on that. We'll take the power company easement thing. So if we do our due diligence where we say that there is, there are no easements. So next thing you know, like now you have an opportunity to put a claim in. And so that, that's just be one of those things where then like that gets worked out, you know, with people that I don't necessarily work with. But, but yeah, so then you would have, like, you would be covered in that instance if like the power company says that they did, we somehow missed it. And then, you know, there, there you go. So that's, that's what it would protect against.

Okay, so like, would the— I don't know, I'm, I'm horrible at understanding this kind of stuff. So like, would the insurance then reimburse you for like the losses based off the, you know, the damages that the power company does to the property? Or how does that work?

It's really, it's honestly like a very case-by-case type basis thing.

Yeah.

So like, I mean, if it's minimal, then maybe it's just You know, like, I guess it could be legal costs. Like, it could be a lot of different things. But again, like, I personally, as a sales rep, which is, you know, like, the very first step of this whole process, I have, like, never seen a claim. And honestly, I think the stat is, like, less than 5% of analyses come back as claims.

Hmm. I don't know what just happened. We just lost him.

We just lost him.

Yep.

Well, that's okay. See if he can— did his video go down?

Yeah, like Switcher stopped.

Switcher stopped?

Yes.

Well, that's fun. Let's keep rolling, see if we can bring him back on.

All right, we're gonna bring him back on here, see if he can hop back on. Just a minute, guys. Thanks for hanging with us. More fun. All right. There he is.

All right.

We just— yeah, we just completely, uh, we, we dropped something here. So our bad. We are back with you again. Um, and, uh, so you, you were telling us, um—

Well, and in true form, we're not going to edit any of this out.

No, why would we?

Well, right.

Yeah.

I wouldn't expect it to get edited out.

No. So you were, you were in the process of saying it's kind of a case-by-case basis and, um, you know, just kind of depends. And you've never personally seen being the first one of the, you know, line of defense. That's where we ended.

Right. Yeah. So for me, like on, on the sales end, it's, it's basically something where it's like, since I'm the first step in the process, Usually, like, if there's going to be a claim, it's going to be way down the road. And it's not going to be like, hey, Mike, one of your policies came back as a claim. It doesn't necessarily work that way. Like, that gets taken care of, like, in a different department. You know, so that's just something where, like, you know, you would just make sure that you hang on to that title policy because a lot of people don't. They lose it and they have no idea what they're covered for. Um, so just hang on to it and then make sure that, you know, you go to your attorney or whoever to make sure that they can take the necessary steps to make

sure that whatever you are covered for gets taken care of.

Well, and I, I can, I can sort of feel the, the anxiety in people listening to this right now. It's like, oh my gosh, I bought a house. I'm sure I paid for title insurance, but I don't know where it is. Where does that usually come into somebody's possession in the, in the home buying experience?

Uh, so the way that it works here in New Jersey is that I forget the exact number of days, but you get sent a title binder after your closing. So we send out a commitment so that the attorneys can review it, make sure that they're okay with it, both seller and buyer attorneys. Then we'll help facilitate the closing. Especially here, we'll send a closer out. They'll do the closing. They'll take care of all that kind of stuff. And then I think it's like maybe 6 days after—

6 days.

your closing. Again, it varies state by state sometimes, but 60 days after the closing, they'll send the title binder, which is your actual policy. So that's where that comes from. So you should get one from your title company, whoever that may be, shortly after you close on your property.

So how does that work with— so you're paying a one-time fee for this, How is it that this is one of the only insurance policies that you're not paying in perpetuity for if they are guaranteeing, uh, guaranteeing that that's going to kind of follow you as long as you own that title?

Because it's, again, like, it only covers the stuff that happened prior to you actually taking ownership of that property. So like, once you take ownership of that property, Anything new that comes up. So like if the power company has to put a new easement in after you already own the property, that does not come under the title insurance banner.

Okay.

That's something else.

Okay.

So title insurance is just anything that's happened before you get the keys, open the door, and walk in there for the first time after your closing. Now you're on the hook for anything else that, that title insurance doesn't touch that. So it's just like all the stuff that happened prior.

Okay.

Yeah, because after that, you can be a jerk to somebody, and then they can put a lien on your property.

True.

Right? Yeah.

Like, never pay your mortgage. And then there's a lien on the property. And then you try to sell it. And then the title company that if they're doing what they need to do will make sure that, that, you know, that gets discharged somehow, so that the person buying a house doesn't get stuck with your lien.

Yeah.

So there, I mean, a title in a title company should do their very best to make sure that the title insurance never has to really begin to do something because they're looking for liens, they're looking for all that kind of stuff before you ever get the mortgage on that house, correct?

Yeah, correct. So I mean, like, it's just one of those things where as long as every— everything is recorded the right way. So just like the way the whole process works, like if I get a deal in the door, like an application for title insurance, we'll send it to a searcher. So here in New Jersey, the way the searchers operate is they go into the county records offices because not everything is, uh, e-recorded here in New Jersey. Um, there's a lot of just binders with books on, you know, pages on shelves in the county records offices. So they'll literally like pull books off shelves, make copies of, you know, stuff written in handwritten recorded documents written in like 1875. you know, in like Old English, and our searchers, our

underwriters have to go through and search through all that stuff, see like what the chain of title looks like, make sure that that's all good. And then that's kind of how that process operates.

Okay, so—

I don't know if that answers your question.

So, is— let me make sure I hear you correctly. Is the title— so let me say that differently. The mortgage lender, is the mortgage lender going to the title insurance people and saying, hey, we're going— we're about to lend on a property, so, uh, we're gonna have to buy title insurance.

Yeah.

So at that point, uh, do— does the title insurance company begin going through all of it before they ever issue that insurance so that they don't get put on the hook? Do they then turn around and say to the lender, for example, nope, they got problems, Like, how does that whole process work?

Yes. So basically the way it works is, like, so if I have mortgage lender clients, so they'll send me a deal over being like, we're giving this person a loan, they need title insurance. So we'll go in, start our process, then we'll give them the commitment. Once the underwriters are done doing their stuff, looking through all those searches, we'll give them a commitment, which is basically like our view and what we're covering on that particular property. The people that are involved, whether it's the mortgage lender, the attorney, if there's a realtor, depending on— again, all depending on the state— will look at that and decide whether or not that that's an acceptable commitment to take. So like, they can request that we make some edits and all that

kind of stuff. And that kind of goes back and forth between our underwriting team, our legal team, and then the team on the other side, the buyers or the sellers. But There have been instances where we've— I mean, not me personally, but I know of instances where they've gone in and the title is so messed up and there are liens and a lot of stuff that can't get discharged. And it, in some cases, does make a transaction fall apart.

Okay.

You know, so like it could be an instance where it's like— there have been instances in the past where, like an extreme example would be somebody not actually owning the property. And then giving them, you know, trying to sell this property to a new, you know, nice young family. They come in, they don't actually own it, you know what I mean? So that's something that we would make sure that they know, like, hey, this is not the actual seller, the actual owner. Um, so then we'll make sure that that doesn't happen. So part of doing the title insurance process is that, again, like, it protects your investment. So that you know what you have going in. And

if it's something where, like, if you know you're going to go in, it's going to be more of a financial burden to take that property, then maybe it's not the right property for you.

Yeah, I mean, that's a, that's a really cool thing because, you know, you're, as a, as a home buyer, you're getting protected even before you buy that property if the title insurance is doing their, you know, their due diligence. They're You know, they're going to come back to your mortgage lender, your lender is going to call you and go, look, this is not the property for you because there are so many issues with it. You're, you're going to be, you're going to be screwed if you actually buy this house, right?

Yeah, right. And that's just, I mean, that's part of like what the process is. So it's like, we'll make sure that you know all the stuff going in. And like, and like, I think what I was going to try to say before with the whole search process, As long as everything has been recorded the right way in the past, you shouldn't run into any issues. Like, we're going to tell you all the stuff that's wrong with that property, and then your team, whether it's— again, it's your mortgage lender, your attorney, your realtor, whoever is helping assist you through this process— they're going to make sure that they're able to guide you on making the right decisions as you

move forward. Okay.

Well, let's say for a second, like, this you know, this property has a— this hypothetical property has a bunch of liens on it. And, you know, let's, let's say they're to the tune of, you know, $10,000 to $20,000. And wife looks at husband and says, husband, you know, this is, this is my dream home. Like, and the, you know, the title insurance, you know, the coolest guy in title insurance comes back and says, like, look, the search team came through, it found all these liens, it's somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. And she looks at him and she says, pay it. Is that a good idea?

I mean, that kind of comes down to the actual buyer, you know, because like, I mean, is that something they can do? Yeah. So it's gonna get discharged somehow. And it could get discharged with the, with the seller paying it off finally. And then, you know, it being good because ultimately, it comes down to that person making that decision. But if the seller's not— I don't know an instance of where he would— I mean, I'm sure that he would refuse, but he's still on the hook for that mortgage anyway.

Right.

At least the lien on that property. So if you're a buyer and it is your dream home and that's something that you want to do, again, it's like our job is to protect your investment. If you decide that you want to do something like that, that's, that's got to be on you. I'm not— I wouldn't say necessarily if it's a good idea or a bad idea. I think it just kind of comes down to the person, the property, the transaction, what the lien actually is, what the issues with the property actually are. Um, so I think that would be something, again, like a case-by-case basis.

Sure.

Um, but, you know, if it's dream home, you know, whatever, and like that's your shot and then you want to pay it, then More power to you. I think that's, you know, I think it's great. Should you actually— I guess go for it.

It's a free market. You can do what you want, sort of.

Exactly right. It's America, baby. Yeah.

So that actually brings me to another question. Do you, do you have the opportunity as a homebuyer, if a lien— if you find out that a lien has been placed on a home that you're trying to buy, can you find out what that lien is, how much it is, and what it would take to get rid of that lien in order to make a decision like that?

As long as the lien is filed in the county that that property is, which it normally is because the way that liens generally work, it's like first recorded lien would be probably your mortgage. And then it kind of goes down from there. So if there's a construction lien or a construction loan, if there's whatever else, they all kind of fall in a pecking order.

Mm-hmm.

And they're usually recorded so that the people that are searching that know. So you can potentially go in and pick a property and run a search to see if there's a recorded lien there. And if there is, then you would know. If not, then you won't know. I mean, or there isn't one because anything that's recorded is a public record. So you can go in and— not you personally, but have somebody go in and get it for you.

Yeah, because you can figure that out without a mortgage or with— excuse me, without a title insurance company doing that for you because it's public record, right?

Yeah, so you would have to go through like a searching company. Like you yourself probably wouldn't be able to walk in and just go find that deed book or that binder that has like those liens in it. Um, but, you know, you would be able to like have somebody that does do that for their job go in and do that. So that's again, like, you know, we here in New Jersey, we don't have searchers that work directly for us. We outsource our search work to search companies. Um, there are other underwriters that have their own searchers that do that. So we get asked to do title searches all the time, and we basically just throw it over to them. We put a little title report together for you and send it out, um, so that you know what you got.

Okay, well, so I, I, it seems to me like, um, one thing that might come up as a question right now is probably a little— it's probably one of these things you're like, okay, is that really a question? But let's go there for a second. What is a lien?

Okay.

If someone doesn't know what a lien is, what is a lien?

So a lien would be like, you know, if, if the bank puts a lien on your house, that means that you have missed mortgage payments. That means that they, you know, can— they have money owed against the house. They can— they're entitled to that money because they did give you a mortgage. Um, so if you're not paying it, they're still entitled to that money one way or another. So they own that house and they'll take the house if you, if you can't pay it. Um, so if there is a lien on the house, that's kind of how that works. So that's why if you were gonna, you know, buy a house that has a lien on it, you would want to make sure that that gets discharged so that you're not on the

hook to pay that, you know, extra money. Does that— does that adequately answer what a lien is?

No, absolutely. Craig, let me ask you this question. Could you put a lien on my house?

Yes.

And so explain that for a minute, because I know the answer is yes, but why?

Well, I mean, like, we, we have a service company. And so like, if we perform a service, and you don't pay for the service, we can put a lien against the house. And I forget what it's called. Mike, do you guys have something like that in Jersey?

So it's like, for that would be, it's either like, so I know for like construction, it used to go by mechanics liens.

That's what it is, mechanics lien.

And now it's construction liens.

Yep.

But again, Texas might be a little bit different.

No, it's exactly the same. It's a mechanics lien. Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and like, it can be as little as like $200 or something like that, I think.

Sure. Right. But then it's another one of those things where like if, if you put a, that $200 lien against that house, again, like, it's like that first in, first paid type thing. So that's why like the mortgage comes first. There might be a couple others after that, and then your $200 lien against that house. So you have to, as the service provider, you basically have to wait until all those other things get paid off.

Oh yeah.

Before you actually get paid.

Yep. We're at the, we're at the bottom of the, uh, the lien pool.

Yeah. Yeah.

But no, but I think that's, That's something important to know from a couple of different places. Like, first of all, people, look, if you, if you hire someone to do a job and choose not to pay them, because this happens a lot where people are like, oh, well, I'm not satisfied with the level of work that was done. So let's say that, that our friend Christie comes in, does a $50,000 remodel on your kitchen.

Okay.

Sounds fantastic. She— you vetted her, she's awesome, which she is, by the way. And she comes in and for whatever reason, you know, you— she put in the exact countertops that you wanted. You actually saw them beforehand. She puts them in, you decide you don't like them now, and you choose not to pay her. Then listen, people, she could go put a lien on your house.

Yeah.

Because you paid— you should have paid her for something that she did for you, you didn't pay. So you're actually losing out here. Um, and then you may wind up being in jeopardy of actually being able to ever sell your house because you've got a lien on your house. And so it's just a— it's a big, big deal. So, um, you know, all of this kind of dominoes to a place where Mike then gets involved. And, uh, you know, so I, I guess—

All of a sudden you can't sell your house.

Well, you can't sell your house. Yeah. And so, uh, the, the cool thing that, that I actually kind of like about this whole thing with, with mortgage insurance is, um, if they— Mike, if you do your job correctly, then you've, you've already paid for yourself in the cost of that, of that insurance policy at the very beginning. And hopefully it'll never come back up because you already did your job up front, right?

Yeah.

Like, you should hear, like, Chicago Title or Fidelity or whatever. If you buy a house once, you should hear our name once. At the closing, we'll be like, here, write a check to Chicago Title. And for your title insurance, that should be the last time you ever have to think about title insurance.

Yeah.

And again, it's like one of those things, like you just said, as long as we're doing our job and doing what we need to do and everything's recorded the right way, when we go in and we search it, You should never hear from us ever again.

Yeah. So, uh, are the— okay, I, I don't know exactly how to ask this question, but how do, how do you come into the equation? Um, specifically you, not just the— I mean, obviously you have to have title insurance, uh, in order to get most mortgages. Um, how do you specifically come into the equation? Do the— does the mortgage lender have a relationship with you? Does a real estate agent have a relationship with you? Who has a relationship with you? So that you come into the process?

So I have relationships with everyone from attorneys to mortgage lenders to realtors to actual homebuyers. That's one of the things that I think would be important for your audience to know is that your mortgage lender, your attorney, and your realtor have these types of connections with people like me. But at the end of the day, you are the one— again, sometimes it's Some states the seller pays for title insurance. Some states the buyer does. Some states it's split. Other states, the rates are negotiated. So it's a very different state by state. But normally, the buyer is the one that's paying for it. So you should know at the end of the day, because you're the one that's cutting that check to a company like ours,

you have the ultimate say in who you're going to go to. So if you have a relationship with someone like me and you want to use someone like me, then tell them right out of the gate. Be like, hey, for title insurance, I want to use Mike. More often than not, that doesn't happen. I mean, I'm at an age where a lot of my friends are buying houses, so I wind up just doing their title work for them. So I'm getting that work because I have those relationships. But I basically get my work— probably 90% of my work comes from real estate attorneys. More often than not, it's commercial real estate attorneys here in New Jersey. I have a decent amount of residential clients

as well, or it comes from a realtor or a mortgage broker. So if they get a deal in the door, whether it's a refi or a purchase or whatever, we'll go in and they'll reach out to me. They'll send me the signed contract or the loan, the refi sheet or whatever it is. And then I'll go and I'll start my process. And then we'll basically kind of help facilitate through the— negotiation process, I guess, once that contract's signed all the way up until closing. And then we'll send the closer out. And so I get involved right at the very beginning when the client actually sends me, uh, you know, a project that they're working on. They want to get me involved early on.

Yeah. So I, I think this is, uh, also important to note that, you know, you go in, you go, look, I'm— uh, you tell your real estate agent, look, um, I'm— I want to do this with this house, and I want to do a quick close. I want to have a 30-day close, or whatever it is. And, and, you know, sometimes the mortgage lender will, will talk to you and say, look, we'll do our very best to get it closed in 30 days. We're going to guarantee 45, or whatever the case is. And part of it is because we got to get people like you involved, and you have to then go do your job.

Right.

It's not just the appraisal. It's not just the inspector. It's not just you know, making sure that you've got all your ducks in a row financially. There's also people like you that come into the equation, and you have to have the bandwidth to get this done, the capacity to get it done, the timeframe to get it done, and make sure that once— I mean, if it comes back clean, great. But if not, you have to dig into it. It could take even longer, right?

Yeah, well, that— I mean, that's the thing. I know we're talking more to homeowners, but like, we have some commercial searches that'll take 6 months.

Wow.

You know, like, they'll take forever, you know, several hundred thousand dollars because the chain of title and the sizes of the lots and the properties and everything is just so insane. And like, they have to dig through a lot of stuff to actually get it. That never happens with residential property. And if it does, then run, because that's not the one for you. Um, but I think that it's just one of the things to know is that like, You know, if we get a deal in the door and they're like, hey, we need to close within 30 days, more often than not on residential transactions, we can get that turned around as fast as possible.

And most title companies will be able to do that. You know, usually even during COVID now, where we here in New Jersey, we still have restrictions on the county records offices, we still seem to get these residential policies out within 2 weeks. So that's just something to keep in mind is that If you are looking to get it done quickly, you gotta like order it as soon as you can. And then just tell us like, hey, this is what we're shooting for. And then we'll try to do what we can do to make sure that it gets there.

Yeah.

And again, this is one of the reasons we have said before, make sure you know that your mortgage lender is really good at their job, right? And that your real estate agent has a good relationship with a good mortgage lender because they're gonna know, hey, I gotta order this at this time and I gotta do this at this time. And they know what they're doing. And it does make a difference how long they've been doing it, how good at organization they do things and all that kind of stuff. So just kind of do your homework. I mean, I'll say this, every real estate agent out there is not equal to the next real estate agent. And the same thing is true about

mortgage lenders.

Right.

And I'm sure the same thing is true about title insurance people as well.

Yeah, right. And that's the thing too, because you get into these situations where it's like the relationships— that's what I was, you know, saying before, is that you don't want to necessarily be beholden to a relationship that your, let's just say, realtor has with a title agency, because it might just be like 2 guys sitting in a, you know, a trailer somewhere churning out title policies. Where do you want them working on it? And I'm not saying that there's agents out there that are great. I happen to not work for an agency. I work directly for the underwriter, so it's a little bit different. It's like cutting out the middleman and going directly to the source. But you want to make sure

that you're doing your homework on everything, whether it's the realtor, the mortgage lender, the attorney, the title company, because like I said, you're the one that's paying for all those services. You want to make sure that you're getting the service that you need so that you are protected, because even if something does pop up in your title policy down the road, and you know that you're covered, but it was from some rinky-dink agent somewhere because your mortgage lender had a relationship with this guy and that's it, you might like have an issue with, with that stuff because of the, you know, level of sophistication in a lot of, in a lot of instances. So it's, you know, you got to make sure that you're doing your homework on everything for sure.

Okay. I really appreciate that you used the word rinky-dink.

Yes. Yeah, rinky-dink.

It doesn't come up enough in normal conversation anymore. We need to bring that back.

Yeah, no, I think I like, I like using rinky-dink myself.

Well, here in Texas, we use lots of words.

Yes.

That many of them have never been heard before.

Yeah.

Just kind of is what it is. What, what, what are, uh, what are your other questions? Uh, Craig, you got any?

Yeah, I mean, circling back to claims on it, I was, I was curious, are there deductibles on, on title insurance?

No.

No. There you go. I like that. I like it better already than any other policy I've ever had.

This is my favorite type of insurance ever. I love it so much. In fact, our, our friend here, Jim Bell, she was like, love title insurance. I'm with you.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Well, it's just like one of those things where, like, I think the initial sticker shock, you know, especially here in states like New Jersey and New York where our rates are higher than most of the states in the country. I mean, our taxes are higher, our rates are higher, everything's higher.

Y'all just like to pay more for stuff.

That's fine.

Yeah, right. So like, if you're— if, you know, it might be a few grand if you're buying a house to get a title insurance policy, you know, depending on the— it's all based on the fair market value of the property. Um, that's how we determine our rates. Um, and if anybody wants a quote on a property for title insurance, just reach out. I can do a quote wherever. But here in New Jersey, it's based on the fair market value of the property. So if you're, you know, going to buy a $450,000 house, let's say, you're going to wind up paying probably somewhere in the ballpark of $4,000 to $5,000 for a title insurance premium.

Well, what you're talking about right now is a little bit controversial for some people because, like, when you talk about fair market value, I mean, like, that has a totally different meaning right now. Is that the case in Jersey right now?

Yeah. So like, I mean, our home prices are inflated like crazy because people are just going nuts to try to get out of New York City and Hoboken and Jersey City.

Are they fleeing to Jersey?

Yeah.

That's good for you.

Coming out like, yeah, they're coming out west, like more towards where I live and even pushing further out west in New Jersey. Some even getting into Pennsylvania, depending on where they are, where they were in New Jersey, like if they were But the fair market value, generally, the fair market value is the purchase price. If you feel like you're overshooting it and you want to get an appraisal done, which you probably would because you're getting a mortgage, then you would have to be able— you would make sure to be like, hey, this is what I want my amount of insurance to be. So the amount of insurance is the amount of the fair market value of the property. Even though it's inflating the house prices right now,

you know, there's, there's ways to figure out a way to make sure that you're paying what you should pay. Um, sure. But we're just seeing, I mean, especially here, just seeing it like the, the contract comes in, this is the number at the top, this is the purchase price. So that's, we're gonna base this whole title premium on.

Right. Well, this is, this is actually like something I've been talking about with a lot of people around, and this really is more in regards to like, homeowner's insurance because I think it was like, what, 6 months ago we, we refinanced this house?

Yeah, something like that.

Something like that. So we had it, we had it appraised and I mean, and that was 6 months ago and I can tell you it's already worth more than that now. But when we had it appraised, man, we, we made over $100,000 just on the appraisal for the refi. Right. And I was in my, my brain immediately went to, I know what my premiums are on my homeowner's insurance. They're not going to see this appraisal. So if anything catastrophic happens to my house, it's potentially not fully covered. Yeah, for the replacement value of the home, because my insurance only covers what I paid for the house. Yeah.

Right.

And you think about people who have been in their homes, gosh, for 30 years now, that, you know, for people around here, man, like a 3/2, 30 years ago, you probably could have got into for like $60,000, $70,000, maybe $80,000. And so like, you know, obviously their premiums have probably gone up, but there's no way that if something catastrophic happens that that insurance is going to cover that.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, they definitely— that's a good point. I mean, you definitely need to be evaluating your insurance policy from time to time because you can go in and change it.

You can, but like, who wants— I mean, like, who wants to go in and double their premiums at this point?

Man, I don't. Especially whenever you think, okay, I'm probably not going to stay in this house forever, you know, or if I am, then, you know, eventually the price of what I paid, it's going to go back down and this, that, and the other, right?

But I mean, like, what, what, between now and then, right? Mike, you might have some insight on this, but from everything I'm hearing, they're saying prices are where they're at.

Yeah, well, I think it's just for the, for the home prices, I mean, I don't know how it is down there, but like inventory here in New Jersey is so low and demand is so high that, you know, there's probably like 20, 30 people showing up at an open house and that seller is going to walk away from that open house with probably 20 or 30 offers that are all— in some cases, I did an episode of The Morning Spotlight, the first one I ever did, it was a residential New Jersey residential market outlook.

Okay. We—

the one of the attorneys that came on that episode said that he had a client that put an offer in on a house $150,000 over the asking price.

Oh my goodness.

And the attorney was just like, well, do you have this much cash? Like, just on hand that you could just pay this? And he was like, yeah.

Oh my goodness.

So but that's, that's how desperate people were. The guy got beat on probably like 8 or 9 other houses, was desperate to get out of New York City. and just said, screw it, this is what I'm gonna do.

Yeah.

And that seems to be the case in a lot, in a lot of instances. Like, if you're, if you're going in at the asking price or below, you're out. Like, there's no way you're getting that house right now. If you go $25,000 to $50,000 over, you got a shot. But there's gonna be somebody that pays more. And that's just the way the market is right now. It's just wild.

Yeah. Well, we had a former guest that posted something, was it Was it yesterday that David posted that about the 600-square-foot house?

Yeah.

That was like $1.2 million or something, right?

In California.

In California. So, and that's, that's what's happening here, man, is like everybody's following Joe Rogan to Austin and from California. Half, half my new customers right now have California plates.

Yeah.

And, you know, if you can get $1.2 for a 600-square-foot house in California, you're coming here with a bunch of cash and you're gonna be able to beat out pretty much anybody that lives here or has lived here any amount of time on any sort of bid on a house. So it's absolutely insane, man. And it's just— Right.

And that's the thing, like—

Go ahead.

Yeah, that's the thing. Like in New York City, people have $3, $4, $5 million penthouses in New York City and they just wanna get out now. And they wanna move to the burbs out here in New Jersey. And, you know, they have that money to buy a house here in New Jersey. So then you just start thinking, like, you know, what you can get, where you can live with, with something like that. So it's exactly to your point. I mean, it's, it's, you can, you could do a lot. And it has really shifted the way that the whole residential market looks, especially here. And I mean, I think it's going to take a long time for the dust to actually settle

on what we're actually going to see moving forward. So We'll see, I guess.

Yeah, I think the big, the big factor is once building materials become affordable again, I think we'll see a, you know, we'll get a glut in supply.

Yeah.

But I mean, like, that has, that has no signs of slowing either. I mean, it's still like $50 for a 2x4.

Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy. Well, listen, question here. What, what have we not covered in regard to title insurance that you want to make sure that people know? Is there anything?

I don't think so. I mean, I think we pretty much covered it. I mean, from a buyer's standpoint, it's pretty straightforward. Like, you know, you should have— you should do your homework. You should make sure that your relationships, that your— the relationships that you have, they have a relationship with a good title company. Or if you have a good relationship with a title company, just use them. And then just hang on to that policy. Like I said before, I mean, like, I talk to people all the time that have no idea where it is. So you should, you should find it.

Yeah.

Um, and then in, uh, just to make sure, like, because it's one of those things, like, again, you shouldn't— you should never need it, but in the event that you do, the issues with not having it could be large. So, um, I think we covered pretty much the, you know, the basics. I mean, obviously there's stuff to get like really in the weeds, which I don't think is really necessary for this, you know, um, audience and like what we're talking about. Like, we're just trying to do like a more high-level type thing. But, but yeah, I think that that's, that's what I would say. I mean, I think we covered pretty much the whole, the whole kit and caboodle on the whole title insurance thing. Cool.

Another one, kit and caboodle.

Yeah, I was gonna say that. Hey, we got, you know, rinky-dink, rinky-dink, kit and caboodle. And we're gonna find out if there's any more because we're about to jump into the most important segment of the entire show. Always, always, which is the Final Four.

Final Four.

That's right. I don't know if you were educated on this. Mike, but these are the final four questions we ask each and every one of our guests. And so this is why I just tell people you need to go listen to our show because if you don't, you're gonna get popped with the final four here and you're not gonna know what to do with life.

Yeah, right. You won't see it coming.

That's right.

Which is just more fun for Kevin.

I like to think of myself as a pro, so there you go. I can figure this out.

Hey, well, these these four questions will weed out the the pros from the rinky dinks.

That's yeah. We're gonna give you the whole kit and caboodle right now.

Here we go.

All right.

All right, the first and most important question of the entire thing here is, what is the must-have tool that you won't leave your house without?

Like a hardware tool?

Yeah, like, so if Craig were to call you up and be like, dude, Mike, I got some crazy stuff going on in my house. Could you just show up? Grab something, right? What would you grab? Because you're not gonna leave the house without This tool.

Okay, so it's not like I'm carrying this tool all the time wherever.

I mean, you could.

I'll tell you this. Yeah, we have a lot of people that take this a very specific direction because they're like, look, I don't leave the house without a certain device. But, um, you know—

Objection, leading the witness.

Jeez. All right, well, if, if you had to put something in your kit In Caboodle, what would it be?

Um, again, so as a title sales rep and a podcaster, I'm not always called to jobs, but if I had to pick one tool that I own, I would pick my drill because it's got a lot of cool, like, attachments. There we go. So it has like an air pump, it's got a regular drill, it's got all the bits, all that kind of stuff. So I think that's what I would pick.

Did you say it has an air pump?

Yeah, it's like you pull the trigger and it pumps up like my basketball, it pumps up my tires, it pumps up everything.

What kind of, what kind of drill is this? What brand are we rocking?

Honestly, like, I forget. I don't even know. Black Decker, I think.

Okay. Okay. That's cool.

It's a solid drill. Like, it gets the job done. Like, I use it for everything. Not everything, but you know what I mean?

But almost everything. Hey, I'll tell you this. If you go back all the way, which is a long time now, go back and listen to episode number 1, which we don't recommend doing. Yeah, but if you do, Craig and I answer the final four questions in the very first episode. My answer: a drill. So there you go.

Nice.

Yeah.

See, I knew I liked you.

I knew we had. We were like simpatico from the very beginning. I knew we had something in common.

There's no doubt. There's no doubt. And I could. I just somehow intuitively knew like this guy loves baseball and I love baseball. There's something right here. I just knew it. I don't know.

Y'all could do like a shirtless magazine cover with drills and baseballs.

Nobody would watch that. Maybe I would share it.

All right. I'd share the hell out of it.

I know you would. I know you would. Another reason I'm not gonna do it. All right, second question. All right, the question is this: what's a job you walked away from? Now, it sounds to me like you have walked away from a lot of different little career things that you started up, but— and that's fine if you want to go that direction. We might be super interested to know what the— what your favorite, uh, walk away was. But when we wrote this, it was kind of like, okay, if you were doing something at your house, maybe you had a plumbing project or something and you started like, I can handle this. You started up and then like halfway through you're like, forget this. I'm calling a plumber, calling the professionals. I'm out

on this. But take it whichever way you want to. What's a job you walked away from?

Okay. I'm going to go outside. I don't think you're going to expect this answer.

Okay.

So, I mean, obviously the indoor sports facility was like a big one, but I'm not going to go that route.

All right.

So like I had this idea.

I see how you slipped that in, by the way. That was good.

Right.

Which, which made you think maybe I knew what the Final Four were gonna be, but I had no idea. Um, but, uh, so I had the, I get sometimes like these ideas in my head and I either I run with them for a little bit and then sometimes they kind of crap out. But one that I was really into and it's still TBD if I ever actually continue with it. And hopefully as Texas guys, you can appreciate this. Like, I love barbecue.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I have my own smoker.

Okay.

I have this, you know, the whole thing. I got t-shirts and everything, like Ham Bone BBQ t-shirts.

Okay.

And I had this idea in my head that I wanted to open up a barbecue place, you know, and I wanted to have a food truck or something cool like that. And then reality set in. And I had— well, I was like starting, I was like looking up prices on, you know, big commercial smokers and like what it would cost to get a food truck here in New Jersey. All these different things. And then eventually I was just like, uh, I need to put this on the back burner, or at least, you know, uh, let it, let it sit for a while so that I can focus on some things that actually can make me some money right now.

Okay.

So that, that would be what I would say, the hambone BBQ. Now I haven't totally walked away from it. I still do the— I still barbecue, I still do all the kind of things, um, but maybe as a career path might not be there.

So All right, so I need to know, favorite cut of meat to do some BBQ on?

I'm a baby back pork ribs guy through and through.

Okay.

So what's your method for ribs? If you love to do it so much, what's your method?

Okay, so I do— I just gotta trim them up, remove the membrane, yellow mustard on them. That's like your binder. I make my own rub, so then I'll put that on. It's like a lot of brown sugar, salt, some spice in there too. You smoke them for usually like 3.5 hours at about 275-ish depending on like your smoker and what kind of, you know, heat source you're using, and then take them out. I use KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce just because it's too tedious to make my own barbecue sauce. Put KC Masterpiece on them, put them back in for another probably 30 minutes. They come out, they're sticky, they're tender, they're just off the charts. Boom, pork ribs.

Okay, love it. All right, I need that. Yeah, no, I love it. We— Craig and I both really enjoy, um, smoking stuff, so— and meat specifically.

Meat.

Um, yeah, so specifically, yeah.

In fact, uh, the last 2 days were really good because, um, my, my, uh, my boss and I, we, we— I was like, hey, what are you doing? You want to go get some lunch? And he's like, sure. So we went and got barbecue because that's what we do. He and I do barbecue. And then, um, yesterday I was like, hey, uh, I've got to run down, uh, downtown Houston. And, uh, he was like, I actually need to go downtown Houston. Where are you going? I was like, well, I'm going here. And he's like, well, that's actually where I need to go. And I was like, well, Cooper's Barbecue is down there. And he was like, well, we gotta go now. So we had—

Yeah.

Barbecued 2 days in a row.

It was fantastic. So, yep.

Yeah, that's what we do. In fact, uh, Craig and I— Craig was actually making fun of me the other day because I've actually got a spreadsheet of barbecue places, and we rate them.

I have a bucket list on my phone of barbecue places I want to go to.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah.

Hey, I get that.

I love it already.

That's less nerdy. It is.

It's less nerdy. However, if people want to know, like, hey, tell me about this place, I can go, well, it got a 7. Or it got a 4, right? You know, or got a— this one got a 9.5. We do have one that had a 9.5. So anyway, all right, well, we're gonna, you know, people are bored now. So we're gonna go on to the next question, which is question number 3. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Usually I just flop on the couch. We'll usually watch like a movie, maybe have a bourbon. There you go. Eat some dinner. Go to bed.

Nice.

This is like way past my bedtime because it's 11:30 here. So usually I've had wine down already and I'm slipping into bed at this point. Nice. No, I hear you.

It's late here too, but not that late.

Not that late. All right.

We're going to jump into the 4th question then. What's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

So it's my favorite quote ever. Um, it's a Gandhi quote, so as told by Mike Hamm, so it's gonna get, you know, a little filtered there. But, uh, if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly. So if you're— that just means if you're gonna do something, you gotta do it like full boat, full boat, you know. If you're gonna do something, why wouldn't you wanna be the most biggest badass version? Can I say badass here?

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

All right, cool. So the biggest, most badass version of that thing. So that's just kind of how, like, I like to approach, obviously, podcasting and my job and different things that I do in life. Um, so that would be my best piece of advice I ever got.

I love it.

Yep.

They're really, really good. Now, um, here, here's the thing, man. Um, we're, we're gonna throw you— I know you're a baseball guy, so we're gonna throw you a curveball here. Uh, we're gonna see if you can stand in the batter's box or if you're gonna jump out. All right. Because there's a secret.

I was a pitcher, so definitely jumping out. Okay.

You're jumping out.

I got it.

All right.

So you're the one throw the curveballs. This is the hands on the other glove— gloves on the other hand. Anyway, whatever. Um, so there's a secret 5th question, and Craig's gonna ask this question. It's the only one that I allow him to, to ask.

So Craig— It's fitting too, because I'm the lefty.

Oh, that's true. I'm a lefty too.

Oh, that's right. So there you go.

All right, what is it?

Mike, if people want to find you, how do they get a hold of you?

themorningspotlight.com. That is the hub for everything. You can get title insurance stuff there. You can get the podcast there. You can get me there. So that was where I pretty much push everybody. I mean, I'm on Instagram as @themorningspotlight. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn as well, Michael Hamm. Um, but, uh, but the hub is, is the website. So themorningspotlight.com. Nice.

Awesome. Yeah, very cool. Well, listen, man, it has been a pleasure, uh, speaking with you, hearing all about the things, uh, related to Title insurance and a bunch of other things as well, man. Uh, you seem like a really cool dude. Hopefully we can, uh, we can catch up again, do this more often.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate you guys having me on. I mean, it was, I guess, come on. I was just pumped up and ready to, ready to do it. So I'm glad. Hopefully everybody got some good info out of it. And if, if not, if you have more questions, just reach out. That's okay. I'd be happy to help.

Yeah. And as always, if you have complaints, just send them to Kevin.

That's right. Right. Yeah, don't send me complaints.

Yeah, well, I mean, I'm fine with complaints. I have a special file for them.

A spreadsheet?

Yeah, it's a form, Craig. It's a form. Anyway, all right, guys, uh, thanks for, for tuning in. Mike, thanks for, uh, for giving us your time. Uh, you know, we are here each and every Tuesday, so if you have not already, go ahead and subscribe to us so you don't miss any of our content. If you're watching this on YouTube, click the, the subscribe button and the bell there so you'll be notified anytime we go live. That would be fantastic. But until next time, guys, we'll see you later.

See ya!