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In this episode of Premier Insights, host Raphael Price interviews Dennis Kozak, President of the Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors. They discuss Kozak's journey from the agricultural industry to real estate, his passion for music, and how his analytical background influences his investment strategies. The conversation also covers advice for athletes on retirement portfolios, lessons learned from early investment experiences, and effective marketing strategies for Airbnb vacation rentals.
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Raphael Price (00:03.082)
If you like to win, you're in the right place. Welcome to Premier Insights podcast. My name is Raphael L. Price, and this podcast is custom built for the student and professional athletes.
Today we are blessed to spotlight Mr. Dennis Kozak, President of the Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors. And today's theme is how to sell your Airbnb vacation rental.
A former botanist, for all you plant lovers out there who might want to put some plants in your vacation rental, has worked in various roles in the agricultural chemical industry for 15 years. Dennis launched his career in real estate while living in suburban Chicago. After moving back to Michigan with his wife of 47 years, Dennis established his real estate career in Michigan. As an active member and musician,
At his church, Dennis continues to refine his talents as he enriches the lives of others. Currently, Dennis is the president and an active instructor at the Greater Metropolitan Association of Realtors, and he's a licensed professional realtor at At Properties Remit.
Welcome to the show, President Kozak.
Dennis F Kozak (01:34.482)
Thank you so much, I'm happy to be here, Raphael.
Raphael Price (01:38.018)
You're very welcome. And we are so excited to be able to host such an important Illuminary in our community.
Dennis F Kozak (01:48.926)
Wow, you're really building this up, aren't you?
Raphael Price (01:48.984)
So we're gonna get right into this. Well, have to, we have to take some marketing tips from our experts in our brokerage and figure out how we can promote the people around us and highlight the various rich resources we have in the landscape. So we'll start with our first question, President Kozak. Please tell us the story of how you got into real estate.
after a storied career in the agricultural industry. Because many people are trying to figure out how do you connect those dots?
Dennis F Kozak (02:25.0)
Right? I get that. Well, it's an interesting story. And I'll start in the beginning. I, you know, I went to school here in Michigan at the University of Michigan and then over at Michigan State to get my master's degree. making those two moves, I actually had purchased two different homes. And then from there, moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. And then from there, I went to Kansas City, Kansas, and I covered three states out that way as a district sales manager, had some sales reps under me. And then
from there moved to Des Moines, Iowa, and then eventually to Chicago. So before I began my real estate career, I had the opportunity to participate in several major, I would call them major real estate transactions because they involved me and my wife. And I learned a lot in that process, of course. And one of the things I witnessed many times is the realtor that was actually servicing us was someone that came to us from a different
probably career or background before they became a realtor. So I always and often said, you know, at some point, if I ever leave corporate America, I would love to perhaps begin a career in real estate. And by golly, the opportunity presented itself probably about two or three years after we moved to Chicago, the agricultural chemical industry was undergoing some consolidation and some changes. And so our company was being sold.
And it would have meant me moving again and already we moved so many times. I promised my wife I wasn't going to put her through that again. And the prospects with the new company weren't anything that would make me feel like let's just jump and move with this, with this new company. So we decided to, I decided to leave. And of course my wife was a nurse and was able to hold down a nursing career throughout all of those moves, which certainly helped.
provide some stability because as you know when you move into real estate you move from a salary deposition with benefits to a entrepreneurial independent contractor you depend entirely entirely on your commissions to make a living so anyway the wife was always supportive and behind me on that and I got into real estate in about 1992 and if you know anything about the history back in those days the
Dennis F Kozak (04:47.848)
Couple things were happening. Buyer agency was brand new. Prior to 92, all realtors were working as sub-agents for the seller. I hope I'm not getting too technical for the audience here. Is that okay if I talk some of the jargon of the real estate industry?
Raphael Price (05:04.395)
be sneaking and eavesdropping on the conversation too. I said I'm sure there'll be some real turks eavesdropping on the conversation too even though this is geared toward our student athletes and professional athletes but this is wonderful so please carry on.
Dennis F Kozak (05:07.998)
Say that again, I'm sorry.
Dennis F Kozak (05:13.137)
Okay.
Dennis F Kozak (05:16.998)
Yeah. Well, the point point is there are some things happening in the marketplace. One was the introduction of buyer agency, which was a change from what we called sub agency for the seller, where all realtors work essentially for the seller either directly as a listing agent or as a sub agent. And they actually were bringing buyers to purchase them as a quote unquote sub agent for the seller. So there wasn't any advocacy for the buyer back then.
The point of my comment was though the real estate market in 1992 was really booming. Unlike what we face today with shortage of inventory and high interest rates, we had favorable interest rates and a pretty good balance of sellers and buyers in the marketplace. So there wasn't this logjam of inventory, which was slowing down transactions. So it was for someone, you know, new to real estate, but having some background in sales and marketing. That was my corporate background.
Raphael Price (06:14.275)
Yes.
Dennis F Kozak (06:14.536)
the technical background is a different thing. think when you go to college, you learn how to learn things and assimilate information and learn how to think, learn how to make decisions and so forth. So all those things we don't realize lead up to who we are at the moment. Like who I am today is a product of many years of being on the planet and experiencing many things. So the real estate market was one of those
points where it was just starting to really take off. And I would say to you, and I said this all the way to 2007, when a client would ask me, Dennis, do you think this property you'll appreciate, you think this would be a good investment? I said, yes. And based on our recorded history, this property has never gone down in value. Now, can you imagine me saying that after 2007? Cause in 2007, the
advent of these bad mortgages caused our real estate market to crash. There was this artificial bubble that was created through this increase of price. Every transaction a house would sell and then three years later when it would sell again, it would sell for more money and so on, creating the appreciation that sellers would benefit from as homeowners and so forth. But the caveat there was it was probably during the period of these
Raphael Price (07:18.542)
you
Dennis F Kozak (07:40.83)
bad mortgages. By bad mortgages, mean they were risky investments. Lenders were providing mortgages to folks who really should not have been in a position to buy them. They sort of removed a lot of the qualifications that we now go back to. It's like a pendulum. We've swung back to a more of a conservative approach on qualifying buyers to be qualified to get a mortgage and purchase a home. But back in those days, it wasn't so.
Everything was great up until that, the 2007, then, know, property values, you know, you may have experienced things going down as much as 50 % of what you had paid for it in recent years. So that was a pretty drastic move. So I can no longer in my repertoire of comments when I was being brutally honest with people and I said, this property is appreciated ever since it hit the market. And ever since it's it's it's been in existence, really the history of the property.
but you know you can no longer say that is a realtor any longer because here's an example i just gave you were things don't always stay above water in fact sometimes you go below water so you know those are some of my like war stories i guess from the front you might say
Raphael Price (08:57.1)
Yes, yes, and you have such an incredible background. I wouldn't expect anything less than such a wonderful, thorough response to that first question. That took up about half the interview.
Dennis F Kozak (09:09.343)
yeah, I didn't ask how much time we have. I should have asked you that, Raphael.
Raphael Price (09:12.925)
and we have as much time as you have because you you're the president so we have to work around you.
Dennis F Kozak (09:15.42)
Okay. All right. Well, the other Raphael can edit it out, know, if it's
Raphael Price (09:21.518)
That's right. For those of you wondering, that's my producer. name, he's got the same name. So for our second question, you have obviously an incredibly diverse and unique trajectory as a scientist, business professional, real estate investor, and now president of GMAR. But what many people may find especially intriguing is that you are also an accomplished musician. So who influenced your artistry and how have you been able to find a balance with your passion for music?
and your demanding career in business as an executive, a realtor, and investor.
Dennis F Kozak (09:55.954)
Fantastic. Well, I'll tell you the musical sort of interest and drive, I guess, began at an early age because my dad was a very, he wasn't a musician, but he really loved music and there was always music on in the house. My dad was of the era where big band music was very popular when he was a young man growing up and he shared that big band music in our house.
in the growing up in the fifties, sixties and seventies, fifties and sixties, I guess, mainly. And so I always it's kind of funny. I always have a radio on in the background, not when I'm in an office environment, but in my home office. In the background, even classical music, I have that on the background. just love the music. I just and I love all kinds of music. My wife has been a great influence on me on that. But my interest personally, I guess.
Raphael Price (10:37.87)
Mm.
Dennis F Kozak (10:52.208)
stemmed from, you know, rock music, probably classic rock and blues music, believe it or not. I'm a real fan of blues music. I'm talking about the original blues artists that came up from the Mississippi Delta. Even what they recorded down there before they moved up here, they came into Chicago and really brought their music to a wider audience. And then of course,
bands like the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and others introduced maybe more of a white audience to that type of music. I go back to all of the music is sort of rooted back in the blues. Your rock music is a three chord sort of a progression. And if you listen to blues, that's pretty much what that is. So I began.
to actually play an instrument sort of late in life. was probably in my mid thirties when I was in Des Moines, Iowa, all places, you know, you're kind of this, I don't know, you're, you're out in the middle of the Midwest and, we had a couple of radio stations that would play, you know, blues music in Des Moines, but not in the big way until I moved to Chicago. Could I really appreciate the blues? And they have
Raphael Price (11:51.426)
Mm-hmm.
Dennis F Kozak (12:11.494)
and you've heard of them here too, open mic nights. And as I started to play and got a little more comfortable, I would go to the open mic nights. And it was kind of a very cool experience where you get met, you know, the guy that's leading the, I guess that the open mic is usually the band leader for the opening band. And then they do the open mic after the opening band plays a couple of sets. Well, anyway, you get paired with musicians that you've never met before and they all play different instruments. And, so here it is, you know, you just say, well,
what song are we going to play? And someone would say, you know, you know, got my mojo working or something like that. And they would say, what key is it in? you, and then you have someone lead the song started out and maybe that person would be the singer perhaps and an instrumentalist. And so I got to play like that a little bit. And then I got to meet musicians in Chicago and, you know, say, how does, how do you fit this into a busy career? Well, I was younger when I was doing this. So yeah, it meant
Maybe I didn't sleep as much. Because sometimes you open mic nights who are on a weeknight and I still had houses to show the next day. Or my real estate duties as well. But being a younger person I was able to manage to do it. Today probably not so much. I need my rest. And then I would join a couple of different bands I was with. We would perform at parties and do some things at some clubs and so forth. But it's a season thing.
Life is seasons. know, right now I'm in a season where I'm not playing as much. I played a little bit last summer because I was preparing to do a short stint at a gig. I was in there with another musician friend and he asked me to sit in with him at a particular gig and it happened to be a GMAR gig. was the GMAR RPAC summer event, which is held out at one of our agent's homes in Bloomfield Hiss. So it's like a pool party kind of an environment.
So what happens, Raphael, is if you have a gig, then you practice. If you don't have a... It's kind of how life works. If you don't have a gig to perform, you kind of say, well, you know, don't feel like practicing today. then the next day, I don't feel like practicing. But anyway, so for me, it's a release. when you're playing the guitar, even at home when I'm just practicing or just playing for the fun...
Dennis F Kozak (14:31.41)
you can't think about anything else about what you're playing. So it's a very, it's kind of a nice vacation from reality to some degree. And you know, if you've got some things on your mind that are troubling you, you can go away for a little while and then you come back and maybe, you know, you have a fresh approach, kind of like sometimes, you know, I'll sleep on it and I'll give you a decision in the morning. You know, things are a little more clear and the morning, well, it's sort of the same way with, when you, when you play and play an instrument. So guitar is my, my main thing, but,
Sorry, I don't know if I dusted off the track of the question, but.
Raphael Price (15:01.826)
Yes.
Raphael Price (15:05.356)
No, absolutely. You know, the whole point is to help people to get to know you a little bit better before we really get to the bottom line, the big question that people want to know about how to get that profitable ROI on their vacation rental. And so we're just asking a few more questions here to give us kind of a build up to that big one there. Can you share with us how your background as a scientist has enhanced your approach to selling, buying and investing in real estate?
Dennis F Kozak (15:30.29)
Yeah, I can. I guess I've in my corporate environment, they would send them the company would send their managers to training classes, just like any we do it in real estate. They do it in the corporate America. And they had these classes where they would sort of determine what your character style was, you know. And I always came out as an analytical person. And over the years, I guess I've become even a little bit more outside of that core.
quadrant. I've been, you know, involved more in public speaking and communicating and for some reason I really love doing it and I get a pretty good response when I'm talking to people. So I think the fact that I'm analytical helps. Not that you have to be analytical, but you know there are certain things you can do before you make a decision to buy something. Sometimes you can overanalyze too and I don't recommend that.
Real estate is a purchase that's normally made out of emotion and I won't say impulse, but how does it feel? And if it feels right, you're probably going to spend most of your time after you come to that conclusion, analyzing why does it feel that way? And so maybe if you have a way of documenting how you feel, as in the case of a investment property,
the income property, let's say, say that, for example, there are some tried and true methods that are used to analyze a property. You know, they use the income approach where you analyze all your income coming in from a potential rental property minus your expenses. And if you can afford to buy something without a mortgage, that reduces a huge amount off of the expense when you're doing that calculation. And in the risk of, let's say,
maybe you have a vacancy for a while, you're not sweating it as much as an investor who's got a mortgage payment and there's nobody renting the property. there's a lot of areas to look at, but the income approach where you analyze things, if you're going to, and if you're going to get into even office space and commercial buildings like newer buildings and work in that environment with a developer and so forth, they use the cost approach sometimes.
Dennis F Kozak (17:51.068)
Yeah, sometimes the cost approach is used if you don't have a way to measure income, you would just value a property that, the cost approach method that would, what would it take to reproduce this property? What would it cost to build this property? And that's how those are valued. If you owned one and you wanted to sell it, that's, that's maybe one of the approaches you would use. So there's, it's an analytical approach and I think investors,
Raphael Price (18:15.406)
Sure.
Okay.
Dennis F Kozak (18:20.956)
they have the return on investment they're looking for on a monthly basis. So you have to set the rent high enough to cover those expenses. And then you have to look at, you know, other things that you can do to maximize your margins and income on the property.
Raphael Price (18:25.891)
Yeah.
Raphael Price (18:38.446)
Sure, that's great information. Based on your experience as a real estate investor and realtor, what advice would you give a student and a pro athlete to enhance his or her overall retirement portfolio?
Dennis F Kozak (18:50.632)
That's a good question too. And I think as you look at the recent marketplace, I would emphasize if I was asked to do that with a client, maybe focus on residential versus the commercial office space or even retail space. Because if you look around you right now, look at the COVID has created this sort of, you know, environment where there's so much office space that's not being utilized because folks are working from home.
Raphael Price (19:15.694)
Thank you. Yes.
Dennis F Kozak (19:17.17)
I've heard of restaurants that are going out of business. I've heard of some major, you know, retail chains like Joanne Fabrics. They just filed for bankruptcy. They're closing all their stores. So if you were involved in any of those real estate transactions or owned and leased those to those companies, cause I don't know if they would lease them or buy them. They may have purchased those stores. But my point to you is everybody's going to need shelter, right? Everybody.
on the planet needs to have a roof over their head. Even, you know, in times of hard economics, and we saw that in Michigan in 2008, 2007, I alluded to that earlier, the first homes that people sort of walk away from are the vacation homes. There was a huge number of people that had second homes up in northern Michigan and they walked from those, but they were less likely to walk from their primary residences. So,
I'm not saying that you can't invest in Airbnb's up in Traverse City and up in the lakes and things like that. But if you want to be conservative, maybe you would err on the side of residential since I would say that demand is a little bit more predictable. Now, we still see a decline in values if the market were to tank again for some reason. I don't anticipate that. But hey, I said that to all my clients up to 2000.
Raphael Price (20:21.602)
it
Raphael Price (20:35.245)
Yes.
Dennis F Kozak (20:45.054)
from ninety two to two thousand seven and i had a good my face in two thousand seven so i've learned not to is anything's possible but the trends are indicated that that unlikely that
Raphael Price (20:55.906)
Sure. So in your personal experience as an investor, have you tended to favor what kind of home? Vacation homes, modest single-family or multi-family residential units for income?
Dennis F Kozak (21:07.482)
In my personal investments, I focused on single family residents in a condo association.
Raphael Price (21:14.444)
Why the condo association? Because many times it's hard to rent those out, especially if the HOA has to pass laws or what they want to change. So why would you?
Dennis F Kozak (21:19.708)
Yes, that's right. There is a cap on some, you have to be knowledgeable before you do anything as to what the percentage of home ownership is allowed by that condo association and what percentage is that condo association owned by investors and so forth. But if you can get into a condo, the nice thing about it is all your exterior maintenance is covered, your snow plowing, your lawn mowing and all that. So you avoid a whole...
aspect of maintenance and service to the rental property. Now know some landlords make it part of the lease when they rent a property out as an investor, they rent it to a renter and they allow the renter to cut the grass and the major things that need to be done to the property. The investor would be calling in a professional to do the work. Maybe it's plowing snow, maybe it's repairing things outside of the house and so forth.
It just depends on, you know, the situation. There are risks too with an association because the condo association could have financial trouble and there could be some special assessments that come about as a community that require, you know, every owner and being that the renter is living there, the homeowner and the investor would be responsible for paying those. Now,
Raphael Price (22:34.796)
Yes, yes.
Dennis F Kozak (22:46.524)
whether they could pass those along to the tenant as a rental increase, guess, you know, that would remain to be seen. But for major projects like roofs and so forth, there's usually sometimes a special assessment if there's not enough funds in the budget, funds collected through a normal dues collection at the association level. So.
Dennis F Kozak (23:13.532)
I couldn't hear you, you're muted.
Dennis F Kozak (23:18.91)
Still can't hear you.
Raphael Price (23:21.738)
second can you hear me now okay hopefully you hear me before
Dennis F Kozak (23:27.814)
I've been hearing everything up until just I stopped talking. Yeah.
Raphael Price (23:31.222)
Okay, great. It's just weird here, technology. But anyway, so...
Raphael Price (23:45.304)
No, I don't have anything. I heard that sound, but I don't have anything that's blowing noises, but I heard it and I thought it was you.
Raphael Price (23:58.913)
Okay.
Raphael Price (24:04.64)
Okay, yes. So do you have any bad experiences, President Kozak, that you've learned from in your early years as a real estate investor?
Dennis F Kozak (24:16.414)
Yeah, I can share one that that still I remember clearly and You know in a lease you want to stipulate specifically how you want the tenant to use the property and with regard to smoking tobacco, you know I specifically in this particular case with this one tenant had stated in the least that smoking tobacco of any kind cigarettes cigars
pipes. Sometimes you have to spell out, somebody may say, you say cigarettes, but if you don't mention pipes, well, they think you can smoke pipes. Well, you have to be explicit with your, your comments. So I thought I had the bases covered, no smoking allowed inside the condo. Wow. Guess what? It's an attached garage. They thought you could smoke in the garage. And I didn't realize this cause I hadn't been there for a couple of months cause everything was going fine. They were paying their rent and I hadn't been
But I had a reason to go back and three months into the lease and I was appalled at the smell inside the garage because the they had turned that into a smoking room, I guess. And a cigar, was more cigarettes, but both the husband and wife both smoked. So there was constantly smoking going on and it was absorbed into the drywall to the extent when I, you know,
Raphael Price (25:24.162)
Cigar Lounge.
Raphael Price (25:28.568)
Yeah
Raphael Price (25:32.978)
Hmm.
Dennis F Kozak (25:38.514)
eventually terminated their, not terminate, they didn't want to renew their lease. I raised the rent and they weren't able to make, you know, reconcile that and they decided to move on. as you know, in a, in a garage, the drywall is five eighths inch thick, which is thicker than interior walls inside the unit. can go one quarter inch. It was so bad that you could open up the,
when you're in the kitchen sink, which by the way that kitchen sink backed up to the wall that was adjacent to the garage, you would basically hear or smell cigarette smoke when you open up the two cabinets below the sink.
Raphael Price (26:19.512)
Yes.
Dennis F Kozak (26:20.99)
And it was, it was, uh, you know, just so badly, you know, so what I learned in that experience is you have to be more explicit than I was. You have to specifically say no smoking in the house, in the garage, anywhere inside the garage or living space or, you know, be very specific. Cause it ended up costing me a little extra money to have that repainted. And I guess all they ended up doing is encapsulating that smell with a
paint that I think captured that smell. Because you could walk in the garage even after they move down, just, man, it smelled like an ashtray. And I have nothing against people that smoke. Don't get me wrong there. I'm just saying that if you're trying to rent the house to the next tenant and they have some sensitivities to that, you've kind of cut your potential rental tenant population down significantly because they don't like that.
Raphael Price (27:02.99)
Sure. Yes.
Right?
Raphael Price (27:17.646)
No, absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that with our viewers because sometimes these are issues that we don't necessarily think about as new investors.
Dennis F Kozak (27:30.238)
And now with the advent of legalized marijuana, you have to probably be specific because there's some challenges with folks that have smoked marijuana in a home because it has a very strong and pungent odor which can embed itself into the drywall, carpeting, drapery, and so forth. And you'd have to maybe stipulate that that's something else that is not allowed.
Raphael Price (27:54.732)
That's right, that's exactly right. So now we're coming to the question that everybody is here to learn about. And we're gonna look at a hypothetical case study. A friend of yours has a friend who was planning to sell his waterfront Airbnb vacation rental. And we're gonna assume that nobody was smoking in there. So it's clean, okay, the air is fresh and clear.
Dennis F Kozak (28:04.327)
Yeah
Raphael Price (28:21.39)
It's not going to affect anybody in any way whatsoever to breathe the air in that place, but you want to earn his listing. Walk us through what that process looks like for you and the seller as he or she is marketing both to homesteaders and to investors.
Dennis F Kozak (28:40.008)
Well, like in any business meeting, you want to try to get that person to trust you, assuming it wasn't someone that was referred to you, which usually when there's a referral coming in and someone has referred this client to you, there's already a little bit of trust established already. And say this is someone that just cold called into the office and wanted me to come out and talk to them. So you try to establish some trust on the early
you know, engagement that you have with them and really tell them that your whole purpose for doing this is to really try to get them the highest possible dollar they can. and that you're their advocate. You are not working for any buyers. You're working strictly for the seller and you might even, as you talk about that, talk about dual agency and how that's legal in Michigan, but you don't, I don't believe in that. I don't believe in practicing dual agency. I'd prefer
that the buyers that come in have their own agent. And that may impress them to the extent that, you know, we're not looking like we're getting greedy and trying to get both sides of the transaction and both commissions in that way. And then as you market a property, if it does has attributes that are highlightable, making it an ideal Airbnb, you would want to highlight those and recognize them so that you could
let the seller know that you recognize them and maybe share with them some ways that you might market the property with those benefits or features and benefits that those attributes may have something like, well, it's located right in a area of town where you could walk to restaurants and movies and things like that. You would, you would try to tell a story if you will, as to how you would maybe
sell the house if you were with a buyer and present the house to them. Now, if it's a Airbnb opportunity and you could sell it as an Airbnb, there may be someone that may want to buy it, as you suggest with your question, Raphael, as a residence that they may themselves want to live in. all of those attributes that would be ideal for an Airbnb, I would think would be something that a homeowner would
Dennis F Kozak (31:05.31)
appreciate if they were to become a homestead and owner of the property. One of the things with the short-term rentals, which is another way of saying how the Airbnb is actually engaged when someone rents an Airbnb, it's a short-term rental, is you have to be certain that the city in which those properties are located does not have any ordinances that would ban short-term rentals.
Cause it could be a situation where it's a homestead home, but maybe it has potential to be in Airbnb. So you've got to look at both sides coming into the thing, or maybe it's been used as an Airbnb, but maybe you want to market it to both Airbnb people. And so you would, you would want to be on, on your radar, what's going on in the city council. Now, you know, one of the things we do at GMAR is we, we have a government relations, staff person.
that their role is to identify and communicate where there's some of these ordinance coming about in some of the communities that could be adversely affecting property rights and homeownership rights. Let me tell you a quick story about short-term rentals as it relates to a real-world situation in the market we're in. Did you know that in a situation where we've had many transactions over the last couple of years because of the short inventory supply where
A seller will basically sell their house to a buyer, but they'll ask the buyer for a possession escrow agreement, meaning they want to remain back in the house for a number of days, maybe weeks until they can secure housing to move out of that house into their new house. That's a short term round.
Raphael Price (32:44.174)
you
Raphael Price (32:52.78)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dennis F Kozak (32:54.248)
So if the city of Royal Oak were to decide, we're going to ban short-term rentals, they could in fact impact many real estate transactions that are driven by the current market situation and short inventory and possession escrow agreements where the seller needs to stay behind because they didn't want to buy a house so they knew they sold their house. Number one, they maybe needed the equity to do that. Some don't want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire until they have a place to jump to.
Raphael Price (33:02.135)
in.
Dennis F Kozak (33:24.424)
So they may do a short-term rental. So you kind of have to be aware of that. And I think that, you know, we do a pretty good job at GMAR circumventing and preventing cities from passing, you know, bans on the short-term rentals based on that example I gave you, because if they did so, they would be banning the possession escrow agreements in a real estate transaction.
So the other thing to say is the short term rentals are important a part of our economy. And we as realtors and as an association do not want and it just isn't even myself personally as a realtor. don't want to damage the neighborhood. People say, yeah, I'm OK with short term rentals and Airbnb as long as it's not my neighborhood. People say, you know, human nature. But.
Raphael Price (34:14.382)
Thank
Dennis F Kozak (34:19.656)
There's a challenge sometimes in some of the communities where the cities aren't even implementing their standard rental ordinance. You know what saying? Ordinances on long-term rentals. They're letting tenants that have a single-family home let the grass grow too long and let things fall apart outside and so forth. We're the advocates for all of our members and all of our realtors and our clients. We want to let them know we have their backs as far as
Raphael Price (34:25.422)
Ehh...
Dennis F Kozak (34:49.982)
protecting their property rights and homeownership.
Raphael Price (34:55.074)
That's excellent. I really appreciate that. And that term position escrow. Now I've done something like that in a transaction with investors and it's wonderful to actually hear the concept that describes that. You see, there's so many things that happen, you know, on a case by case basis and you're always learning something new. That's what I love about real estate. You never stop learning. It never gets stale.
Dennis F Kozak (35:19.002)
And I've been in this business 32 years, Raphael, and I'm not done learning. I learn something new every day.
Raphael Price (35:25.644)
Hey, that's wonderful. Now, as you know, most of our audience are comprised of athletes, student athletes, professional athletes. And because you graduated from an interstate rival here, two schools here that hate each other's guts, you know I have to ask you, do you root for the maze in blue or the green and white?
Dennis F Kozak (35:44.252)
Hehehehe
Dennis F Kozak (35:49.586)
Well, it's a good question and I'll tell you a quick story on that. spent more years, I spent four years for my undergrad degree there at U of so I probably lean towards U of in a U of Michigan State game. Now, I try not to get too boisterous and excited and jump up and down with my friends and we're watching the game together. I will remember a time when I was, I think I was a sophomore at U of and we went
Raphael Price (36:07.584)
You
Raphael Price (36:15.064)
Yeah.
Dennis F Kozak (36:18.642)
to see the U of Michigan State game in East Lansing. And I'll tell you what, I was probably younger then, well I was younger then, I was a little more outspoken then and I was cheering for Michigan right there in the freshmen's section or the student section at state and I, know, there's a few people that were getting pretty angry with me so I had to tone it down. But I support both.
Raphael Price (36:22.598)
boy.
Dennis F Kozak (36:44.734)
teams if Michigan State is not playing Michigan I obviously am all behind them but unfortunately I still I must have some maize and blue in my blood or something and I was I was there during the Bo Schembechler years and my freshman year in 1971 I actually went out to the Rose Bowl with Bo and the team and now we lost to Stanford because Michigan and Bo Schembechler was always known for the running game. Well
Raphael Price (36:58.894)
Mmm.
Raphael Price (37:04.523)
Wow.
Raphael Price (37:13.315)
Yeah.
Dennis F Kozak (37:14.334)
we this is only time we would meet some of these specific teams was in the Rose Bowl because the Big Ten was the Big Ten. There were only ten teams and we all played each other and we never saw anybody else. Well, that's certainly changed now. The point is we didn't have a passing game and guess what? Our past defense wasn't very good and Stanford was passing the ball and scoring touchdowns and we lost that game. But it was a fun trip and you know, since then, Michigan has had to adapt to the change of.
you all these other teams that have passing and not just a running game. hope I haven't alienated any of your audience here, but,
Raphael Price (37:53.166)
I wouldn't worry about that if you did, know, President Kozak, because what you have shared with us is so rich and not many people can say that, you know, they were there when Bo Schemblacher was the coach. I was at Michigan when Lloyd Carr was the coach. In fact, I was a freshman when they won the national championship in 1997.
Dennis F Kozak (38:23.251)
Beautiful.
Raphael Price (38:23.562)
And yeah, Charles Woodson was a big time there. He won the Heisman. And so that was a very special year. And then it took a long time for them to get back there and do it again. And so we are very grateful to you, President Kozak, for joining us today. And we want to thank all of our viewers for watching this episode of Premier Insights podcast. I want to encourage you to wisely invest your talents and resources for the greatest
Dennis F Kozak (38:34.334)
Yeah.
Raphael Price (38:53.062)
ROI and that's eternity because only what we do for Christ will last. See you next time.
Dennis F Kozak (39:01.896)
Thank you.