- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum", land is power, property is legacy, and for too long, Black communities have been locked out, pushed out, and priced out.

But today we're talking about taking back ownership of homes, lands, and our futures.

Coming up next, stay with us.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome to "Black Issues Forum".

I'm your host, Kenia Thompson.

Well, today's conversation is about creating lasting generational wealth in the Black community, but not just through income, through assets that grow over time.

Real estate, land, ownership, and home equity.

Joining me are two phenomenal women who are leading in this space.

The first is Danielle Still.

She's an entrepreneur and builder who's teaching people how to secure land and create sustainable housing.

And next to her is Kimberly Williams, CEO of Right Time Realty, a powerhouse realtor and advocate, helping our community navigate the housing market and understand the real cost of waiting.

Welcome to the show.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Yes.

- Thanks for having us.

- Of course.

It's an important conversation, right?

We see so much development happening around us, especially when we look at the RTP area.

I mean, even when we go out to rural areas, we see a lot of development happening.

So I think it's very relevant for us to have this.

First I wanna come to you, Kimberly, and let's just talk about the state of Black ownership today as it compares in North Carolina, as it compares to nationwide numbers.

- So the state right now is not as optimistic as it was last year at this time.

That has a lot to do with the economic situation, with the political environment, the uncertainty when it comes to employment.

So at one point, North Carolina was pretty average when it came to Black home ownership, and we were just a couple of percentage points above average, actually.

- [Kenia] Wow.

- Because North Carolina's like a hidden gem.

- Yeah.

- Especially the Raleigh-Durham area, most areas are overpopulated.

So you have a, it's totally different segment that wants to be here now.

Whereas before, North Carolina wasn't something that people thought about.

You have retirees that wanna come here because we get all four seasons.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- You have the research industry, so you're having people that are relocating because of the jobs.

And so North Carolina has all of a sudden become this boom in terms of livability.

Also helping out was the COVID trend of everyone being able to work from home.

- [Kenia] Yes.

- So Black home ownership benefited tremendously from all of those issues, but also the low interest rates helped out a lot.

So now that we are on the opposite side of that.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- Home ownership is, Black home ownership is trending down, but that's happening nationwide, not just North Carolina.

- Indeed, and I think that trend is kind of what started about a year or two ago.

- Yes.

- We started to see that decline happen.

- Yes.

- Steadily, right?

And Danielle, you are more on the investor side of the real estate industry.

When we think about real estate, we usually think about, like Kimberly said, buying a home.

A personal residence.

But talk to us about what you do exactly in investing and what does that look like for you?

- Yeah, so my brand is Danielle Still.

I build community, I build businesses, and I build wealth.

For the wealth pillar, I really looked years ago and decided that time, freedom, and financial freedom were super critical for me.

So one of the ways to do that, one of the easiest ways to jump into wealth is through the real estate.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- So, purchased my first property when I was about 22 years old.

Moved to Durham, moved to Raleigh-Durham, I guess in about 2014, ended up purchasing a property here, ended up purchasing commercial property here.

- So how easy was that to purchase the property though?

Like what was that first step of saying, "All right, this is what I wanna do."

And how did you figure that out?

- I don't know what was in me in my early 20s that made me wanna buy a home.

I guess I had always lived in homes growing up, so it was just something that we did.

- [Host] Yeah.

- So when I got my career, I thought the next thing was to go buy a house.

- Buy a house.

At that time though, the house was a $100,000.

- Mmh-hmm, it was easier to buy a house then, right?

- It was a lot easier.

You're not gonna find a $100,000 house right now.

- And this was in 2014?

No, when I initially first purchased, this was in 2009.

- [Host] Okay.

All right.

- So completely different market.

- [Host] Yeah.

- When I came to North Carolina, I rented for a little bit first trying to understand the lay of the land.

When I decided to purchase in Durham, though it was a rougher market.

This was 2019, and I was trying to purchase...

I'm in the military, so I was away preparing to relocate here, and I would have a list of homes to look at.

And then when I got here over the weekend, all those homes were gone.

- Yeah.

The market was getting really, really tough.

- Yeah.

At that time.

So I purchased my home and then had the opportunity to really stumble upon the commercial space that I owned.

So the young lady who was doing my hair at the time asked me to be her investor.

We saw a property for rent, initially.

Rented it for a little bit and then asked the owner, "Hey, can I buy this?"

- Wow.

So I think buying was just always in the back of my head.

So stumbled into that.

- Yeah.

And then was able to just pull equity from those properties to go and purchase the next property.

- But to buy that first one... And Kimberly, I'm gonna come to you for in a second...

But to buy that first one, you had to have a pocket of change, right?

To be able to do that.

And so what realistically is an amount that folks would need to be able to buy a first piece of investment land or property?

- I would say yes and no.

I think the interesting thing is there are a lot of programs out here, right?

- So I think just first starting, going and talking to a lender and understanding, what opportunities are there so you can know, "How does my portfolio look?

What's my buying power?"

So that's what I did.

For the commercial property, I just started asking questions like, "Hey, I need financing."

And a lot of banks were like, "Mm, we don't do commercial," or, "Talk to this bank."

I kept getting the run around, but I ended up talking to a lender who told me to go to the Carolina Small Business Development Fund.

- And we've had them on before, yeah.

Okay.

- So really just asking questions.

To me, I don't take no for a answer.

- Yeah.

Perseverance.

You know.

Right.

It's all for yes.

- Yeah.

"How can I figure out how to do what I wanna do?"

- Yeah.

I wanna bring Kimberly back into the conversation.

On the show before, we've talked about not selling grandma's house, right?

Lately we've heard about buying back the block due to gentrification and seeing how do we get back into the spaces that once originally belonged to us?

Talk about the importance of that mindset, if you find it important, right?

Buying back the block and not selling grandma's house.

- So not selling grandma's house.

I get that call all the time.

So it's really relative to what your personal situation is.

You know, if you can't afford to keep grandma's house when it comes to taxes, maintenance and repair, can't get tenant in there, grandma would be okay with you selling her house, using the proceeds from the sale of the house and building generational wealth somewhere else.

And so you could always be selective in terms of what your options are based upon when you know what the options are.

And you don't listen to the hype of not selling grandma's house.

Now, there are some situations where grandma's house can be maintained, especially if grandma has made it very clear who is to get the house.

Because that's the issue that comes up a lot when you have multiple heirs that have access to the property and you can't come to an agreement on what are we supposed to do after grandma has already passed away?

- Yeah.

- Buying the block, same thing.

It's not just buying the block, but it's also maintaining those houses in that block.

Unfortunately, gentrification also occurs because absentee owners, which are landlords, sometimes slumlords are not taking care of their property.

And so when you don't take care of the property, you have all this deferred maintenance, meaning items that you have not had replaced on a regular basis or maintained on a regular basis, and then the city comes in, condemns the property.

Now you've lost out, you have no value because you have not done the things that you need to do to not just buy the block, but maintain the block.

So it's really relative.

It's a conversation that I have after peeling back the layers of what is your situation?

What are you looking to gain?

Everyone's not meant to be a landlord.

Some people need to sell and move on, use that money to pay off student debt.

That's another way to build generational wealth.

- I was gonna ask, what does generational wealth investment look like from selling the house?

- So, yeah, I've had a client before who she knew she was not gonna be here forever.

So she sold all of her property, her investment property, paid off all her grandkids student loans.

That set them up for success so that when they go and purchase, now when the bank looks at their finances, they don't have that 500, $300 monthly payment on their credit card.

So she helped them build generational wealth.

She could have also taken that money, and put it towards a down payment for them to purchase, you know, their home.

But they still have that payment on the other end from the student loan.

- Exactly.

- So it's a matter of sitting down with me, a financial planner, and saying what makes sense for your particular situation and how do we move forward to reach that goal?

- And it calls for transparency.

We've had this topic many times, and consistently we've heard, we don't talk about money enough within the family, right?

We don't sit down at that kitchen table, we don't look at our bills, we don't talk about what debt we have and how to resolve those things.

Danielle, you build communities, you said.

So share, what are some of those developments look like and who do they benefit?

- Yeah, I wanted to touch on that point about whether or not to sell grandma's house.

if I can.

- Yeah, please do.

- Yeah.

I think to your point, Kimberly, like you do really have to understand where you are financially, but I think even more than that, we have to position ourselves to be able to do so, right?

- So we know that our elders are aging.

They're not gonna be here forever.

So what are we doing now to make sure that when they are ready to go on that we're able to purchase?

- Yeah.

But realistically, we know that people are just trying to survive day to day.

Right?

And so when we do see, okay, there is an opportunity to invest in my parents' home, my grandparents' home, but I just don't have the capital to do so.

I mean, I know you talked about there's lending options, but we kind of are in a tight space sometimes.

And then like if we look at the political landscape now and the way that we are having to kind of hold our purse strings, it might not be an option for a lot of people, right?

- Yeah, it is.

It is really tough.

I think we do have to get creative about how we position ourselves.

- What does positioning ourselves look like?

- I'm really big on, I worked a job that I didn't care for necessarily for a number of years.

I was in the pharmaceutical industry and I basically invested in my 401k.

You know, make sure you do at least the bare minimum, where the company is going to match.

Not every company does that, but I would encourage people to find careers that give you those type of opportunities so that way now you're have a better buying power.

Right?

So before I knew it, my 401k is at $200,000, right?

I could let it sit there.

That's generational wealth that I'm accumulating.

Or I could pull money from that and then go and start investing in real estate.

- Yeah.

- There are, you know, hard money lenders out there.

I know, it's not a very popular option necessarily.

It's a little bit scary, but, you know, I've seen a good number of successful stories by going through the hard money lenders.

- And those are like predatory lenders is what you're saying?

- They are, yep.

But they'll give you the money upfront.

- Feel free to jump in.

- Yeah.

So kinda sort of predatory because I have some investors that use hard money.

It's not that it's predatory.

You're paying the cost for not being ready.

- [Kenia] Right.

Okay.

What does that cost look like?

- So the cost is probably gonna be at a higher interest rate.

- [Kenia] Okay.

- But it's a opportunity for you to go in and buy a property that normally you would not be approved for through a traditional bank.

And so that's where you have to have a team of experts, real estate agents that can run the numbers to say, once you fix this property up, this is what you'll actually be able to sell it for.

A general contractor, and this is all Danielle's lane, but a general contractor who can give you an idea of what it's gonna cost to bring this property up to market value to be able to sell it.

And then you back into the conversation with your hard money lender to say, this is the timing, this is the cost.

What type of money can you lend me- - [Kenia] Right.

- Towards purchasing the property and what are the terms in order to be able to pay it back?

But you have to be savvy to work with a hard money lender.

- Right.

- And it's also for those people that have a heavy portfolio that a traditional bank says you're over-leveraged.

- [Kenia] What's a heavy portfolio?

- Heavy means you have maybe 10, 15 properties.

- [Kenia] Okay.

- And so a traditional bank, they don't wanna take that risk, you know, because they're looking at it like that's a really big amount of money for us to lose if you go into foreclosure.

So sometimes people use a hard money lender as a bridge loan to secure the property because they know that they're gonna sell it.

- [Kenia] Yeah.

- So it's not predatory if you understand it.

- Yeah.

- But it is a higher cost because you're gonna pay for the fact that either you're over-leveraged, you don't have the best credit score, or you are new to buying investment property and no one wants to take a chance with you.

- Yeah.

Thank you for that clarification.

Danielle, wanna- - Higher cost, higher risk.

So some people might look at it as predatory, right.

'Cause if you don't, to your point, know what you're doing- - That's right.

Yeah.

- Don't have the right team of people around you, you can lose out.

- You lose out.

That's right.

You'll see that a lot.

- It's important to have a plan before going in though.

- Yes.

You'll see that a lot with houses that are not complete.

You know, someone started to rehab the house and then they stopped.

- They stopped.

Yeah.

- Usually it's because that person did not consult with, you know, the right people and they got in over their head and so they couldn't finish finish the product, so.

- Let's go back to your communities, the developments that you create.

Share what those look like with us.

- Yeah.

So you talk about buying the block.

- Yeah.

- Fortunately enough in Atlanta, I have a street where I have three homes on that property.

- Okay.

- So I think it's important to be able to, if you're able to buy close together, 'cause now you have the ability to basically work the market, right.

So you can help impact what the rental market is.

You can ensure that the property value is going up because you're renovating all of them on par versus being the only house in the neighborhood- - [Kenia] Right.

- That's worth- - Throwing everything off everybody.

- Yeah.

- Right.

So I think buying a block is important, you know?

But building community for me, I'm working on a land deal in Georgia.

So this will be like, the biggest project.

It's a 27-acre deal that I'm working.

So to be able to make affordable housing opportunities and equitable opportunities is one of the goals.

- And that's what you would do with these 27 acres?

- Correct.

Mhm.

- Nice.

Wow.

Okay.

And then, so what does that look like in North Carolina?

Are there opportunities like that here?

Is it more expensive?

Is that why you went to Georgia?

Like, what does that look like?

- Yeah, so Georgia is home is where I'm most familiar.

- [Kenia] Okay.

Okay.

- I do still look for opportunities out here in North Carolina.

I do have a couple rental properties, commercial property of course, and then duplex here as well.

But one of my goals is to buy as much real estate as possible.

I'm right now targeting just about two or three properties a year to be able to offer affordable housing.

One of the things that North Carolina has done over the last decade is really made the ADUs more accessible.

So the accessory- - what are ADUs?

- Dwelling units.

- Okay.

Accessory.

Okay.

- Accessory dwelling units.

So Raleigh is ahead of the game.

Durham is ahead of the game.

Other cities throughout the state are doing a lot in that work too.

So I think, you know, if someone already owns a home and they don't necessarily have money to go and invest in another property, now there's money that's coming from the Government, more feasible lending opportunities that now you can put additional property on your lot and rent that out for additional income.

So I think that's a really good- - But does your lot size have to be a certain size though?

- There are certain restrictions, but they are really working to reduce the restrictions.

- Okay.

- So there are a lot of homes that historically, you would not have been able to put an ADU on that.

Now you can can.

- Okay.

- So, I would suggest people look into that.

Think a bill just passed this year, probably last month or so, and I think it'll go into effect at the end of this year, so- - And that can be additional income for- - Additional income for families, yeah.

- Kimberly, I wanna bring you in, and you know, so we're talking development, but in the real estate work and the residential work that you do, what are some of the financial concerns or roadblocks that families face or have when they're looking to buy a home?

- So there's the pressure of just, but the bank says I can afford versus what I know that my monthly can out budget.

Exactly.

[laughs] - Yes.

- You know, and so, I had this conversation because people get excited.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so, When they come to me and they've gotten that preapproval letter from the bank, I usually have about an hour and a half, two-hour conversation with them before we even start looking at houses.

- Yeah.

- To talk about the true cost of buying a home.

- Mm.

- The bank says you can afford 500 at a $2,500 mortgage payment, you're currently paying $1,200 a month in rent, you know, that's that payment shop.

- Can I say something real quick?

- Yes.

- I saw something on TikTok last night, and this, she does a lot of these parodies anyway, she was denied for rent 'cause she didn't make three times the income for $2,500 monthly rent costs.

But she was approved for $350,000 home at $2,800 a month.

How does that make sense?

- Systematically, there's some things that we feel like landlords put in place to red line, so to speak.

- Okay.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- All right.

- Yeah, I think in that case, the banks are willing to assume a little bit more risk than an individual Landlord.

- But that's a barrier in a sense.

- It is.

It is a huge barrier.

It's a huge barrier because - If you are denying me the $2,500 that I can probably barely pay, but you want me to pay $2,800 plus what it takes to upkeep a home.

- That's right.

- Right?

- [Host] Insurance, all the things that come with a homeownership, that doesn't seem like they're setting us up for success.

- It does not, and that's why you have to have a good team.

Yeah.

You have to have a good team.

You have to have someone that has the knowledge and the expertise to help you understand that.

- Because that's when they come in excited.

That's when they come in, you know, and wanna immediately start looking at homes.

And so, based upon a certain price point, I can let you know, can you buy something new construction?

Are you gonna have to buy something that's a resale that somebody's already lived in?

What are some of the yearly expenses that are gonna come with that?

You know, I'm having a lot of conversations with people who purchased four or five years ago, and now their values have gone up and so property taxes are going up.

- Yeah.

- And so the banks, it is not setting you up for failure.

The banks just don't have that additional education piece like they used to back in the day.

Now there are some lenders who when they were first time home buyers, they go down, you know, the gamut of everything with you.

So by the time you get to me, you are pretty much educated.

- Right.

- But there are some banks that are, that's all...

They're not in the business for the education piece.

They're in the business for lending.

And so, based upon the lending and the way the numbers work when they put it in the system, they want the ultimate decision to be yours about whether or not you decide to move forward with it.

That's the part that people don't get.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and just because you get approved for 500,000 doesn't mean you need to go and buy a 500,000.

- Exactly.

- Exactly.

- But to bring someone down.

- Mm-hmm.

- Oh, it is a conversation.

- It's hard what you've given them.

- Yes.

- Because they've already looked at those $500,000 homes, right?

- Yes, they got a list that they wanna go see on Saturday, yes.

[laughs] - [laughs] You mentioned redlining and I'm one of those people.

[laughing] But you mentioned redlining.

What is redlining for those that may not understand what that looks like in real like?

- Redlining was a historical way of discriminating against blacks in order to be able to purchase homes in certain areas.

And so what happened is when blacks started achieving more career success, whether it was working in warehouses or on the farms or whatever, they decided they no longer wanted to rent, they wanna purchase homes like their white counterparts.

And so as they're moving into these neighborhoods, the whites are, you know, they're upset because they wanna keep their neighborhood, you know, the way they want to keep their neighborhood.

So banks would come up with ways based upon zip codes that if you, as a black person came into the bank and you want to buy in this zip code, they would make it harder for you to be able to purchase in that area.

And so, FHA came along and eliminated redlining, but there's still some ways that people participate in redlining.

- It's just five minutes left, so I wanna make sure we fit in some critical things.

If people are experiencing that, we know that it's not legal technically, but how do we push back against that?

- So, honestly, that's a really tough question because the systems that are in place are not breaking any laws at this point.

So North Carolina as a whole has done a whole lot better job with predatory lending and redlining because of some cases that have come out against some banks proving that different people are getting different mortgages, which allow them to go somewhere else.

The problem with redlining is that some areas, appraisers are historically undervaluing those areas because of the population and the demographics in that area.

And so then once again, that's a hindrance to generational wealth because this same house can be built, you know, in another zip code and it's worth more money, which allows them to generate more wealth.

So it is very hard to prove, and so my goal is to help them reach the home ownership by any means necessary.

[laughing] - Danielle, I wanna bring you back in, we've got about four minutes left.

If someone says, you know, I have a dream to own land to purchase multiple properties, but they don't have a plan, what would the first three steps be for them?

- Yeah, first thing I would say is to prepare.

So talk to a lender so you can know exactly where you are and what they say you can afford.

Even if they say you can afford 500,000, see what you can find in the lower budget.

I would say get in the room with people who are talking about real estate, who could be mentors.

I'm a part of several different organizations, but the Durham Chamber of Commerce recently hosted an event where there were hundreds of people in the room, tons of investors, developers, real estate brokers.

And, you know, getting into those type of spaces and hearing the conversations, finding mentors to actually glean from, and then- - Sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I was just gonna say, and kind of part of that is being aware of what's developing on the outskirts too.

- That's right, oh my goodness, yes.

Yes, so it's a paradigm shift to have to get people to understand that you may not be able to live in Durham.

Even though you work here, you play here, you may have to live on the outskirts and come into Durham because the outskirts are a little bit less expensive because they're not as built up as the heavy metropolitan areas.

But that is a paradigm shift when people are just used to getting somewhere in 20 minutes, 15 minutes, but it is something that I've helped a lot with changing that mindset that you may not be able to live in Durham if you want to be a homeowner.

- Yeah, a couple minutes left now.

What are some steps, either first time home buyers or folks that are looking to reinvest in another home that they could?

- So the first thing is to get your financial peace in order.

Some people are nervous about getting their credit pool because they're like, I don't want my credit score to drop.

Well, there's no way to know unless we look at your credit.

So you have to get your credit pulled.

Because there could be errors, you know, on your credit report.

We need to look at where your income-to-debt ratio is.

Maybe there's some things that you need to pay down before we start looking at a property.

The other thing is don't tell anybody because you're gonna start getting all kind of advice.

Oh, my uncle bought a house for a dollar back in 1930.

[Kenia laughing] You know, you're just gonna hit all of that.

- [Kenia] Right.

- And it's an emotional process already, so you wanna be able to focus on the real up-to-date, real-time facts about what's going on in the market.

Had a young lady that saved up $200,000, move back in, I'm sorry, $20,000, move back in where her parents, but she only qualifies for 210.

You know, she's gonna have to wait.

210, it's just there's nothing available in that price point.

So maybe we take that $20,000 and use it towards a debt to pay that debt down and then come back in a year or so to see where you stand in terms of your income.

So you have to get the facts up front.

- Yeah, and I know we don't have a crystal ball, but we have seen property prices increase.

Do we foresee that continuing to happen in 2025, over the next couple of years?

And again, I know you don't have the answers, but, Danielle, what are you seeing?

- Yeah, I think the market is not gonna ever go back to the $100,000 home that I first bought, but for sure we got to brace for a recession, and you never know what's gonna happen.

So it could be another 2009, where houses prices do at least drop and become more affordable.

- But if folks are prepared, then they can make some good choices for themselves.

- That right.

- And create generational wealth.

- That's right.

- That's correct.

- Danielle Still, Kimberly Williams, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for sharing your knowledge, and we thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

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