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The Healthy Wealth Experience - Where Financial Success Meets Personal Wellbeing
Host Chris Hall combines 30+ years in finance with wellness expertise to help entrepreneurs and professionals build wealth without sacrificing their health. From investment strategies to money management, we offer advice to make financial success more sustainable.
New episodes every week
๐ Market Analysis with a Wellness Twist
๐ช Entrepreneur Health & Wealth Stories
๐ฏ Practical Money + Mindset Strategies
Join 323K+ people transforming their relationship with money and health.
Chris Lamm (00:00)
I just started, you know, volunteering. went down to the mission and volunteered for six months.
because I didn't have a job for about six months and I knew I needed to stay busy and find ways to just not be selfish and to do things for others. That was just sort of this internal switch that got flipped where I just knew that half the issues in my life were because it was always about me and I needed to start thinking about you a little bit more. And honestly, that's become the greatest secret in life is serve, is you serve people, you serve to earn, you serve.
And that's the key to happiness.
Chris Hall (00:51)
Hello and welcome to the Healthy Wealth Experience. I am your host Chris Hall and today I have a good friend of mine on the podcast. His name is Chris Lamm Chris, go ahead and say hello.
Chris Lamm (01:02)
Hey everybody, thanks for having me on this morning, Chris. Happy New Year.
Chris Hall (01:05)
Yeah.
Happy New Year to you. Thanks for being here. So Chris and I have known each other for a really long time. โ Gosh, probably been like 30 years now, I'm thinking. Probably right around there. And then Chris has been a mortgage broker for the last 25 years. He works nationwide, so he's not just in a small area. So thought he'd have some really good insights into the housing market. But I want to talk to Chris about the idea behind healthy wealth is like you can't be wealthy unless you're also healthy.
Chris has done a really good job in his life of implementing coaching, implementing leadership, implementing health strategies. He's not just grinding out to get all the money in the world. He's trying to do it the right way. And that's why I wanted to have him on the show. So let's start out with this. Chris, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a mortgage broker.
Chris Lamm (01:48)
Yeah, well, that's a that's a long story, but I'll make it as short as possible. I grew up in a OK, cool. That sounds good. I'll take all 59 minutes for this and โ I grew up in Cottonwood, CA, single parent household. Lower middle class and struggled a lot with school and just. Everything and got into partying at a pretty young age.
Chris Hall (01:52)
We have an hour, you're good.
You
Chris Lamm (02:12)
and when I was in high school, you know, I was always decent at getting tests done and passing just by looking at notes the night before. But for me, like just getting a C or a D was good enough. I didn't really want to break any records and I wanted to play and hang out and do fun things. And what happened was my junior year, I was getting into some trouble. My partying was starting to turn into more of a lifestyle, but I was still holding it all together and
A friend of mine had said, Hey, you know that there's a way that you can leave school at noon and go work till five and get school credits for it. And for me, that was killing two birds with one stone because number one, I could leave school. I didn't like it. And I had ADHD in a bad way. Still do learned how to harness it, but. Just it was very difficult to sit in a formal classroom and to be there for an hour and focus. And so. The other the other thing that was really valuable is I could make money, and so I could find a way to
Chris Hall (02:47)
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (03:03)
I was a time. I was DJ in it. Electronic music festivals all over the my mom didn't know half of this until later on, but I had friends that were DJs and I had turntables and so we were traveling around the weekends going to raves at what they were called raves at the time and.
Having a blast. And so I had I had earrings and Tommy Hope figure clothes and. Walk into this broker's office. He said, Okay, come back next week. Take out your earrings and put on a colored shirt and I'll hire you like that was my job interview. So I was like, Great. I got a job. You know, up into that point, I had worked restaurant worked for a fencing company. I always worked in the summer but never had a job during the school year. So went in, got the job started answering
Chris Hall (03:42)
you
Chris Lamm (03:55)
in some of their paperwork when the phones weren't ringing and just kind of learned the business. Now, at the time, the business was very different than it is today. This was 2001, 2002, and then finally when I graduated, I stayed in the business. More on that later. But back then, there was a lot of loan products that were referred to as subprime. this was, it wasn't nearly as hard to get a loan done back then because you could.
We always joke around and say that back then you could fog a mirror and get a mortgage with no money down and bad credit. And that was certainly true. You could get two. You could get two. And you could probably borrow your closing costs and everything. So anyhow, graduated high school, stayed in the mortgage business. The party and lifestyle caught up with me. I was getting into trouble. I was finding myself really just completely addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Chris Hall (04:24)
Get two. You could get two with fucking a mirror.
Chris Lamm (04:43)
started showing up where I couldn't keep a job and. You know, just was having a lot of personal problems with my life, and I ended up getting sober in 2003. And you know that was really where things started to change for me because I ended up going into a recovery program, and I started attending a small church in town, which is actually where I met you. Chris was that church.
and I was just raw and real and I was just like, hey, like I've done everything bad and done it twice. Like what do I do? And a lot of the people that came around me, I think looking back, just never, they appreciated that vulnerability and that someone was earnestly trying to change and was being honest about being a liar, cheating the thief and but wanted to do something different about it. So I just started, you know, volunteering. went down to the mission and volunteered for six months.
Chris Hall (05:06)
been here.
Chris Lamm (05:34)
because I didn't have a job for about six months and I knew I needed to stay busy and find ways to just not be selfish and to do things for others. That was just sort of this internal switch that got flipped where I just knew that half the issues in my life were because it was always about me and I needed to start thinking about you a little bit more. And honestly, that's become the greatest secret in life is serve, is you serve people, you serve to earn, you serve.
And that's the key to happiness. Up until early on in my sobriety, like so many other people, I just thought the key to happiness was money, fast cars, and girls, and fancy things. And I that that's not true. Like happiness is a byproduct of right living. And right living is usually the complete opposite of what the world tells us makes us happy. So got back into the mortgage business.
with a better foundation under me, sober, living my life better, telling the truth, showing up on time, cleaning up my messes. And then from there, you know, it started kind of taking off. It's amazing how many doors open when you live your life honestly and vulnerably. You know, lot of people, they see a lot of risk in that. And a lot of people live their life very guarded, which I completely understand. But what I learned early on is,
If you want to connect with people and if you want to open doors, like if you can learn to just live authentically, which I get is hard to do, like it's crazy the amount of opportunity that will come your way. Whether that's employers, partners, clients, people want to be around people that are real. And so I wasn't trying to be real. I just had learned through the recovery, rigorous honesty and
authenticity and I got told the story the other night that you know, remember like correcting my behavior on the spot. I would be telling someone a fishing story, for example, and I would say, hey, I caught a fish. It was this big. And they say, really? I said, no, was was this big. And they would laugh like I was joking. But I was actually learning to start trying to tell the truth in the small things, you know. And so it just opened a ton of doors for me. I joined the mortgage bank at the I started working with a guy at our church at the time, Eric Hyatt.
because what I was doing, the regulations were starting to change and refinances were kind of going away. This would have been the early 2000s going into 05, 06, 07 when the foreclosure crisis started and all the subprime lenders closed down. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac got taken over by the federal government, massive stock crash and what was eventually to become the great recession and the housing crisis that really, really hurt a lot of people.
Chris Hall (07:43)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (08:11)
And so Eric at the time was running a mortgage brokerage, doing reverse mortgages, and he kept telling me, should come do this. There's a real opportunity. And I did. And I stayed with him for several years. We did really well together. And all throughout that, we're going to China and Africa and doing missions trips. And I'm real involved in the church and in recovery and loving my life. And I was never motivated to make money.
It was a means to an end for me at the time. And what happened for me was when I met my wife around that time, I was also diagnosed with cancer. This would have been 2000, think 2009. And it was a crazy season for me because we were gonna get married and then we had this cancer thing, went through all that, chemotherapy, all of that. And...
As soon as I got a clean bill of health, my wife and I were married probably six months at the time. I got a call from a bank that was looking for someone to run their mortgage division. And I took that role. And for some reason around that time, I don't know if it was this kind of provider thing kind of turning on that now I have someone that depends on me. And, you know, we're talking about family that or if it was just that the competitive side of me turned on, but I wanted to be successful. And I wanted if I'm going to do this.
I want to do it right. I want to do it well. And you know, one of the things about the mortgage business as well as lots of other businesses is if there there's not a lot of training on how to run it properly. And so you can go out and you can acquire clients. You can figure out how to put loans together, all these things. But the thing that's hard for so many people is how to scale it, how to have a team and what telling them what to do and
and how to do that in a way where you don't lose the personal touch with the clients. And at the time, I was doing pretty well. But I was working a ton of hours, and my life was totally out of balance for the first time since I had gotten sober. And I really had a high value for trying to make sure I'm prioritizing the things that got me healthy, spirituality.
taking care of my body, getting proper sleep. And now I've got a new wife and I don't want to mess this up. But I didn't know what to do because my phone, I had no boundaries, man. Like I was taking calls 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night. I was super competitive. I was looking up all my competitors online and seeing what they were doing. And I just was grinding my teeth like I just want to beat everybody. I probably had a chip on my shoulder from being a kid and I just
Chris Hall (10:38)
You
Chris Lamm (10:42)
I just wanted to crush everybody. And I knew that I could do it, but it was hard because it would have been at the expense of all these important things in my life, right? And I wasn't willing to pay that price. So I was literally at the point where if it would have required me to quit, I would have quit my job. And luckily for me, I got an email about a coaching program doing a call teaching systems and structure.
And I got on that call. I realized there's a group out there that teaches guys like me how to do this and do it well. I went to a conference I signed up immediately. And I've been with that coaching firm ever since it's been. You know, whatever it's been 15 16 years now, I became a coach for them five years four years ago. And you know, my business has continued to grow. we've gone on to break tons of records. We've been in the top 1 %
mean, least 10 years now. We're doing loans all over the country now from Redding and everything's by referral and we have the best clients and some of my clients become my best friends and. And things. Yeah, I mean, it hasn't been easy. There's been lots of challenges, but it's been a great experience and just a lot of opportunity to grow and learn and, it's been awesome. So you know, that's kind of the short story. There's obviously a lot to that. And but I figured I'll come up for air because I might have talked longer than you expected me to.
Chris Hall (11:56)
No, that was great. That was great. The thing I wanted to like point out just real quick is when he said new wife, he was talking about new wife back when he was first married. still has the same wife now.
Chris Lamm (12:05)
Only wife. yes. One and only wife. Although I
feel like she, you know, as you stay married for long time, you always kind of have to reinvent the marriage. So it's like you are getting remarried four or five times because you kind of grow and become different people. so, yeah.
Chris Hall (12:15)
Absolutely.
Right. That's good. That's good. That's actually really good insight. And then I also wanted to kind
of like just go into more of the coaching thing. So, you know, with the coaching side of it, you know, you know, I'm happy to announce that it's called the core. Right. And it's specifically for mortgage lenders as well as real estate agents that they can get into the core. And I've listened to a lot of the stuff.
Chris Lamm (12:35)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (12:44)
guy who kind of like is really big to Rick Ruby. He has his own podcast. I've listened to much of his podcasts as well. And even though I'm not a mortgage professional, I'm not a real estate professional, I like the idea behind the systems. And I think that there are people in my industry that also do systems like that. But I don't know that there's anybody that in my industry that does a system as well as the core does it for these people because
So I've just noticed from my standpoint, I know you took on a seasoned veteran, and she had the best year she's ever had before. And was because she started using these core principles. So I would love to hear a little bit about what the principles are, the major core tenets of core.
Chris Lamm (13:19)
Mm-hmm. Yep. โ
Yeah, so the core, I mean, we are specific to lending and real estate, but the principles are universal. And that's why you are attracted to it, Chris, because I mean, you've listened to enough of Rick to know that he has coached financial planners individually, plumbers, professional sports athletes, even helps.
Joey Logano, the NASCAR driver, mean, what we teach people is very simple. It's prospecting, which is building and deepening relationships. It's the lifeblood of every business for the most part. you need clients to create revenue, then you have to acquire new clients and have a steady flow of new clients, right? That's just the truth for most businesses, right? So prioritizing that and having systems and processes to do that right.
And then building a team to cater to your clients, giving clients a white glove experience. You know, we really believe in a lot of the principles in the book, Raving Fans, which is know your perfect client, find more of them, and deliver plus one service. You just need to be a little bit better than the average, and you'll do really well. And then the third principle, which is incredibly important, is manage your money well.
Not just from a personal standpoint, but from a business standpoint. And that is so critical because most people work a 30, 40 year career and a lot of them become the best in their industry, in their lane. But they're so immature and under educated when it comes to managing their money simply because they haven't taken the time to really.
prioritize money management wealth creation and I see that all the time as a mortgage person, you know, and it's it's โ it's understandable. It's hard and a lot of people have grown up with, you know, really bad money ideas, belief systems and fear and lots of emotions around it. So it's almost easier to just avoid looking at it for so many people. But in the core, we really focus on having a business that gives you the life that you want to live.
and making sure that you're doing the right thing with the money. And so the way we do that is we track everything. We're very data driven. And we have forums that we help people track leads and lead sources so that you can credit where credit's due. And you're taking care of your best people and the conversion of those leads. So you know where your best leads come from.
That data is critically important. If you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business. That's Marcus Lamona says that all the time in that TV show, The Profit, which is an awesome show. He goes out and looks at businesses, and these are the things he looks at in every business. How are they getting their clients? What's their conversion? What's their P &Ls look like? What's the staff and the culture look like? He doesn't even focus a whole lot on the product. Because if you can get those things right, usually those are the biggest problems with most businesses.
When it comes to a team, like we have a playbook on who to hire, how to hire, what to look for, what to avoid, SOPs and job descriptions and systems and processes so that you can be as the business owner, as the salesperson involved in the money generating activities of your business most of the time instead of getting pulled into the weeds and the things that aren't gonna help you grow your business. You can get people to do
those things so that you can continue to grow the business. Then finally, when this all starts working, your profit goes up, your revenue goes up, and we guarantee it. I had several clients last semester that one of them was up 150 percent year over year. Many of them were up 50, 60 percent year over year. We're talking about a year where the-
Chris Hall (17:04)
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (17:11)
there was 15 % less transactions in 2025 than 2024. So if you just did what you did the year before, you're down 15%. So not only did they grow, you know, anywhere from 40 to 150 % for my best guy, but they also, you know, they didn't feel the impact of less transactions. So when they start doing better, like we're looking at their personal family budget,
Chris Hall (17:21)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (17:36)
We're looking at their PNL and we're helping them manage the money monthly. Every month I have to turn in a personal family budget to Rick. I have to turn in my PNL and he sees where every dollar in my household goes. And he and that's extreme accountability. But what I've learned in life going all the way back to getting sober is extreme accountability is the one thing that will take you where you want to go 10 X faster.
Chris Hall (17:41)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (18:03)
It's scary. I remember sending in my family budget the first few years. I always felt ashamed about it because it wasn't very good, but I just kept doing it and it's changed everything. So we look at their budgets and I look at their survival number and I look at where they're spending money. Our goal is that they save 20 % a month.
Chris Hall (18:22)
Yes, you know, that's to me as a financial advisor, that's phenomenal target. And I feel like we live in an age where people are like, do everything you can to live like so well right now. And then like put away 3 % because your company will match it. And then you're getting 6%. And it's like the that was one of the tenants I hear over and over and over again, put away 20%, 20%. And and I think what it's doing and
and talking to you and talking to other people who are doing it is like you're building a massive amount of wealth so fast because you're aggressively targeting that. And I feel like when you talk about the systems and structures, I have this thing goes off in the back of my head that I feel like a lot of people consider those to be chains. Those are chains. They're holding you. Yeah. But really, it's actually what I'm hearing from you and what I've seen is that it's actually very freeing.
Chris Lamm (19:10)
Limitations.
Chris Hall (19:17)
to have those procedures and systems in place.
Chris Lamm (19:18)
Yes.
Yeah, it is. You know, I have clients on a regular basis who will sit down with me and look at their mortgage payment on buying a house. And one of the common things they say is I don't want to be house rich and cash poor. And so what I always say to them is say, hey, I totally understand that. Let's take a look at a few things, OK? Do you do a personal family budget? And this is not to shame anybody, but most people say no. So I say, OK.
I want you to go home and I want you to print out the last two months bank statements. Are you using credit cards to pay bills to and to buy things? Yes, print out your credit card statements. I want you to highlight every single thing that you paid for over the last two months that's non essential, meaning it's not your food, your gas, your housing expense, your insurance, your cell phones, etc. It's non essential. It's coffees, it's movies, it's subscriptions to all the different streaming services, it's
Amazon purchases, whatever, just highlight them. Don't think or try to judge it, just do this. And I want you to write down how much that is. And so when people do that, what I tell them is this. I say, do those things actually make your family better and make you happier and make life better to live? And most of the time they say no. I say, OK. So.
Chris Hall (20:30)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (20:32)
you would you think then what happened if you got a mortgage payment and instead of you buying half of that I'm not saying you can eliminate all of it. But you got rid if you got rid of half of it sometimes that's 500 bucks that they just didn't even know was going out the door. As I can you got a mortgage payment like you said cash rich and house poor but you'd be better off. With a force savings of paying this mortgage and not spending all of this then you are right now do you see that. And then I always try to help them understand like what is rich.
Chris Hall (20:56)
Hmm.
Chris Lamm (20:59)
you know, what does rich and wealth mean? Because those things have different meanings to people. But you're absolutely right. I think the biggest thing that people have to understand is if they're not, if they think that they're free, just spending their money however they want, whenever they want, they actually are very, very wrong about what being free looks like. What being free looks like is that you can actually, if one of your spouses lost their job today,
You would not be stressed out because you have six months worth of payments in a money market account and you could take your time and breathe and figure out what's next. Where most people live paycheck to paycheck, right? The next level of that would be you've got 250 to 500,000 invested with Chris Hall, where like if something really bad happened, maybe you're not at your goal, but you have some significant runway. You are not gonna go broke. Like your family is not at risk.
Chris Hall (21:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (21:50)
And so what I think is really important for people is that they begin to reframe what it looks like because living on a budget is the opposite of limitations. It's actually the thing that makes you free and being someone who's had a lot of nice things in my life and has ended up selling most of those things, I will tell you that having the things I dreamed of as a kid, they didn't make me any happier. And a lot of times they made me less happy because I had more things that I had to pay insurance for, take care of.
have bigger garages for, and they choked my life out. And the people that I know that are wealthy and happy, they're actually some of the most frugal people I know. And some of their hobbies are vegetable gardens and raising chickens. And they're the simplest things. And so the journey through wealth is very interesting because you end up getting to this place where you realize that the best things in life are free.
Chris Hall (22:31)
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (22:39)
and that the very thing that the world has told us, is having all the nicest things and going to the nicest places of what makes you happy, it actually doesn't. It doesn't make you happy. Like getting your time back makes you happy.
Chris Hall (22:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, like we talked a little bit off the air about like New Year's and like, know, what do do? And it's like, you know, I stay home with my family and, I didn't go do anything. And it's like, I think that we, you know, we live in a society where people just want to like, always be doing something just to kind of like show up and show out a little bit. But then you get a little bit older and you realize like spending time with your family is like, like one of the most important enjoyable things you can do, obviously, if you enjoy your family.
Chris Lamm (23:14)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (23:16)
But to me, that's kind of where you start heading with this. Once you get to a certain thing, you realize that wealth is defined differently. It's not just about dollars and cents. It's literally about what's your quality, how are your relationships, et cetera. So let's talk about your workout. You have a crew that you work out with. Tell me how that kind of came about.
Chris Lamm (23:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, when I got sober, I was 230 pounds and I'm only 5'6", so I was a big boy, man. And I had never really worked out at all in my life, unlike you, man. I tried out for football and it was not for me. I did not like hard physical things. But when I got sober, I immediately started going to the gym. And I've never stopped over the years working out. And I didn't ever do it because I wanted to lose weight. It was definitely...
part of the motivation. I did it because I wanted to feel good, you know, being a recovering drug addict and alcohol. I like to feel good. I still like to feel good. And I just realized at one point when I did cardio hard, I felt so good afterwards, you know, when I lifted weights and then when you start seeing the results and your body starts changing, that feels really good. And so the challenge that for me is over the last 20 years of working out like there, I had big arms, but there was a lot of times you wouldn't really know it.
because I still ate pretty bad. And I kind of ate whatever I wanted all the time. I am a foodie at heart. โ about five years ago, I got connected with this friend group that I run with now. Again, a lot of these guys were my clients, and some of these guys were pastors and businessmen. And we just started smoking cigars and hanging out together. And they're all pretty excellent guys that.
Chris Hall (24:39)
Same.
Chris Lamm (24:57)
have the same values I have. And, โ Man, you've heard it before, like the five people you run with your you're going to be the average of those like that is so true because. You know one of our we went to a shooting school and one of our friends was a fitness coach. He owns a gym out in Phoenix, Arizona. Actually Scottsdale called the hive and he's a health coach. He's really well known. He's got the craziest,
and really inspired a friend of mine, a hab who was at the time about ยฃ150 overweight. Extremely obese and dealing with health issues, kidney issues. And a hab after that shooting school lost ยฃ150 and did a fitness competition. And it just really catalyzed for all of us. We're all at this age in our forties where we need to learn how to get in our best shape. And so we started working out together and we have a text thread where we wish
I've pictures, struggles, wins. And. A couple couple guys started joining me in my workouts in the morning, which just I've always known that when you bring people into what you're doing. You're going to do it more frequently just because you got people there that are going to show up. And so I always tell people that want to get in shape like either hire a personal trainer or invite a few friends into it. It will increase your chances of sticking it through it. 10 X.
And then it's just a great time for us to hang out. You know, in your forties. When you have kids in the business and you're doing life like there's not a lot of extra time, so you have to learn how to kind of blend. Your lives together with the things you're doing. And the I think the atomic habits book, which I love try to read it yearly. It calls it habit stacking. Where you're just like you're stacking hanging out with friends with working out, you know, and you're just trying to find what are the things I like to do?
Chris Hall (26:30)
โ yeah.
Chris Lamm (26:34)
like into that. It's also a great way to do business. You know, mixing the things you like to do with the people you want to do business with. So, so yeah, we've been working out. Yeah.
Chris Hall (26:41)
Right. Like a lot of people like to do golf. So that's what
they they try to find a way to do business relationships and golf at the same time. Smart. Yeah. Poker.
Chris Lamm (26:48)
Yeah or poker. I mean, it can
be. It could be anything. You know, it just, but, we've been working out together for, know, several years now this time of year. A lot of those guys drop off because it's cold and dark in the morning. But I'm still showing up and it's I think it's the greatest, the greatest competitive advantage that anyone could ever have in business is being in shape. You know, Rick is a very difficult coach, as you know, because you've
Chris Hall (27:02)
you
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (27:12)
He is constantly telling people they're fat.
Chris Hall (27:15)
That I didn't know.
Chris Lamm (27:16)
Yeah, like we could be like last time I seen him and I had lost 20 pounds in the last couple years and I put on a lot of muscle and he grabbed my belly. He said you still got a ways to go. And you know that could sound really harsh, crude or traumatizing to some. But for me, I've really I like to be around. I feel like true friends will stab you in the front. And they'll tell you the truth. They'll tell you the truth, man. Like I don't think people are true friends unless they tell you the truth.
Chris Hall (27:36)
That's really good.
Chris Lamm (27:44)
at least from my definition. So yeah, just the environment and the ecosystem that you live in, the people you live around, the people you run with, it will shape your life for the better or for the worse.
Chris Hall (27:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. now Rick is a very, like he is, how old is he? Probably late 70s or early 70s, somewhere in there?
Chris Lamm (28:02)
no, he's in his,
he's like, I think he's 65.
Chris Hall (28:06)
Okay, sorry. Sorry, Rick. But no, he is very old school. He is very much like, as I see it, not worried about hurting people's feelings, because in his defense, he doesn't need me to defend him, in his defense, he cares a lot about people, and he knows what works, and he knows what doesn't work, and he doesn't want to spend any time coaching you on things that don't work.
Chris Lamm (28:28)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (28:28)
So
I feel like that's where he grabs your belly and he does it. he's actually, think he probably loves you so much that he would do that for you.
Chris Lamm (28:36)
It's
100 % man and I will tell you the people that I've seen through the years who've had the greatest transformation in their business. They also had the greatest transformation in their health. The people if you look at the top five lenders or realtors in the core, they're also shredded. and you know Tony Robbins says success leaves clues, so does failure and I've seen a lot of people who have had good months. Even good years, but.
Chris Hall (28:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (29:00)
You can't have a good decade unless you take care of your body. I'm convinced. have seen people have flashes in the pan years, but if they're not taking care of their body, they're not going to be able to sustain it. And they're certainly not going to have the stamina to put in 110 percent at work and then go home and still have the same energy to take care of their kids at home. And so fitness has to become more than just losing weight and vanity. It has to be because you want energy. You want mind clarity.
โ It's just so powerful. You don't need to sleep as much when you're eating good and you sleep harder And when you wake up you wake up before your alarm and your mind is just in a different zone And so until people experience that they don't really know what they're missing. But once they do they're like, my gosh This is the secret. This is the greatest advantage to everything in life is working out trying to eat good as much as possible drinking water trying to get enough sleep like
Chris Hall (29:45)
Yeah.
Chris Lamm (29:53)
mean, you see it in sports all the time. Like I was showing my boys some Kobe Bryant videos the other day and his and how hard he trained and he was up at four o'clock before everybody else shooting very basic shots. You know, he ate really good. He outworked everybody. And there's a video where he talks about like the hours that he put in that no one else put in like four or five years down the road, like even if they wanted to catch up, they never could because he simply did the work no one else would do. And
Chris Hall (30:16)
you
Chris Lamm (30:19)
And that's the biggest thing that people have to realize when they fall into comparison or when they get envious, when they see someone else's success. Like I tell people all the time that when I see they feel that way, it's like you have to understand that person is not better than you. They just did the things that you haven't done. If you do what they do, exactly, or chose not to do, exactly, if you really want what they have, then just do what they did.
Chris Hall (30:36)
or chose not to do. Yeah, or chose not to do. So we all make choices. Yeah.
Chris Lamm (30:44)
or decide that you don't want to do that and be okay with who you are because they've made their choices to get what they have in life right or wrong, but there's just no reason to compare if you actually knew what they did to get there, you know?
Chris Hall (30:56)
No, that's so good. Kind of like going back to the weight loss goes with success. I remember when I first started as a financial advisor, I was outdoor knocking. And we did that back in the day. I don't think they do that anymore. we did that back in the day. We would door knock. And it was hot. And I'm wearing a suit and the whole thing. And it's like, I started growing my business so fast because of my work ethic.
inside the business was so good. I was working 6 AM to 6 PM Monday through Friday, half days on Saturdays. mean, was like the big treat for my family was if I opened a new account, I would take the kids to ice cream on Friday night. And so that was good because they got their route for me to do it. And I noticed after a year, I had probably achieved more success in that first year than probably 90%, 95 % of brand new advisors because I was really paying attention to it. Well, then I just woke up one day and I was like, man, you are.
really overweight. Like you know, I've always been a big guy, but I was really overweight. I thought, you know what, you're gonna be, you're gonna be 5055 years old, you're gonna have a ton of money. But no, you're gonna be like, you know, limping, you're gonna have if you're alive at all, you know, if you don't have a massive heart attack. So, so I actually changed my system to working out in the morning. And it was like, but you know, you go to work 6am, how do you do that? It's like, no, I'm gonna cut some time out. So instead of getting a 6am, I got in at like 830.
Chris Lamm (31:46)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (32:10)
And
what I found was I was actually way more productive. I was way more productive because like I felt good after just a couple of weeks of like eating better, working out, cardio, you know, like all of sudden I felt like, oh, I'm more clear minded. I can like strategize better. And so I do believe that they're very interlocked. And I do think that, you know, in my personal life, you know, I try really hard with my diet and exercise. I'm not perfect by any means.
Chris Lamm (32:13)
Yes.
Chris Hall (32:38)
But I really do think that that's something I think the core is really onto. That's one of the things I'm really attracted to, the way that you do your life. And I think that's a really good, that's one of reasons I wanted to have you on the show is I wanted people to know that these things are hand in hand. They just are. And so I appreciate you sharing that too. So let's talk a little bit about interest rates, housing market, stuff like that. First of all, you had mentioned you were in the top 1%.
Chris Lamm (32:53)
They are.
Chris Hall (33:04)
Give people out there an idea of how much loans you guys did in 2025. What's the dollar volume on the amount of loans you guys did in 2025? โ
Chris Lamm (33:12)
did. So
I personally did about 75 million in 2025. Our branch probably did an extra. You know, we probably we probably hit over somewhere over 100. I haven't checked the full numbers yet. The average lender does about 10 million a year. And a really good lender from the Corps perspective, like you can't even come to our events unless you're 20 million. So a good lender.
by definition is about 20 million a year. so, yeah, so we, my team and I did 75. I say my team and I because it is a group effort. I could never do that on my own. Although I do meet with all of my clients one-on-one. You know, I have a really good team right now and we're growing that, we're growing our team this year. So our company is a midsize mortgage bank. We're based out of San Diego.
and I am a partner in the company and we did about a billion this year, which is small, just to give some perspective, like Rocket probably did 25 billion this year. Mid-size would be anywhere from like one to four. When I started here two years ago, we were 300 million a year, we've tripled in size and we've added some really great partners nationwide. It's an awesome company, great people. Bryce, the owner, is a good friend of mine.
Chris Hall (34:06)
Thank
Chris Lamm (34:23)
and it's been hard, man, but it's been a lot of fun. We've had to do a lot of pivoting and adjusting and changing how we approach things for the last three years because of the higher rate environment and the market being the way it is. I really had to reinvent my business three years ago and change everything about how we did things and we're still making some of those changes, but we feel like 2026 is gonna be a really, really good year and we feel like we've got some tailwinds instead of headwinds for the first time and.
you know, it looks better for 2026 for home buyers and for transactions.
Chris Hall (34:55)
You see had to retool it quite a bit. I noticed that like a lot of during this last three years, a lot of mortgage people really struggled. Lost their houses, had to downsize their car, really had to change their lifestyle. A lot of people exited. I'm sure you know the numbers on that. I don't know the numbers on it, but I know a lot of people who are mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders, they exited completely, tried to get into something else. Same thing happened in real estate. A lot of realtors are out.
Chris Lamm (35:02)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (35:18)
So like when you say you had to retool it, like it's not like you retooled it to be like the same as you were, right? You retooled it and you grew. So that's, that's, I think is really interesting as you're growing in a time when everybody, not everybody, but a lot of people are very shrinking, you know, they're receding. So how do you, how do you kind of like correlate that? I mean, obviously you mentioned your team and your systems, but
Chris Lamm (35:26)
Mm-hmm.
Most. Yep, most.
Chris Hall (35:41)
Like what do you think is probably the key indicator of why you continue to grow in a market that seems to be shrinking?
Chris Lamm (35:46)
You know, it was for it all started with just going back to the basics. I truly believe that the essentials of being in a business where you're whether it's a financial planner, a realtor or a mortgage lender, there's some very basic things that if you do them well, you will grow. And during the years 2018 through 2020, I got so busy.
that I got away from some of those things. And some of that was essential because we couldn't handle the amount of business we were getting. I I did 550 units for roughly 140 million in 2020, and my branch did 1,000 units that year, it was, and we still couldn't take care of every client. So naturally, I was not involved with every client. And,
Chris Hall (36:30)
Okay.
Chris Lamm (36:38)
What I had to realize when rates went from three and 4 % to seven and 8 % back in 2020, 2021 is really when inflation hit and the Fed started moving rates up is I have to go back to the things that got me here and which is relationships. And so I just I changed how I approached the business and I just said we're going to focus on getting better, not bigger.
Every business is always focused on getting bigger. And if we just focus on getting better, having a better experience, me showing up and giving really good value to the people that I meet with, not only do I enjoy that more, even if the revenue is lower, but it's really the right way to grow. So we changed our process. We fixed our CRM. It was a mess.
we started looking at the data and understanding who our best referral sources were and that we had gotten out of relationship with a lot of the people that took care of us really well over the years. And I started asking for really hard feedback from some of those people. And then I just started taking that feedback and making it right and finding ways to make sure that I was doing the things that I did. And as I started doing that, started
getting back involved with meeting with my clients on Zoom or in person, not just over the phone. And when I meet with clients, it goes great because I have so much value to offer them because of all my experience, whether that be investing in real estate, buying Airbnbs, taxation, tax benefits, building wealth. That's what most people are really trying to do when they buy a house, but they don't know that. They just think they're here to get a pre-approval letter to go write an offer. โ
So when you can approach it from a place of actually really trying to help them with their money, you win. And same with my business partners, realtors, builders, financial planners, CPA. If I can try to help them in their business with their money, then I will add more value than anybody else in my field can add to them because I have more experience than 99 % of people with those things. Take you, for example.
Chris Hall (38:40)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (38:46)
You're financial planner, so like there's four things that I could do to help you, or a combination of the four. And depending on where you're at in your career, one or two of these things might be more important, and here's what they are. Number one, you're gonna want a reciprocal business. You want me to refer you people that need to make investments and need a good financial planner, and I've done that, right? Number two, you need introductions.
Chris Hall (39:01)
Yep.
Chris Lamm (39:10)
to big relationships that I have that you don't have. People that could become big accounts to you that could refer you people that need to invest their money. I know a lot of people you don't know and if I can connect you with those people that would help your business, Number three, as you grow your business, you probably need to hire a team. And I've hired a couple hundred people over the years and I've made tons of mistakes and I've got really good things on hiring and disc testing and ways to retain people.
Chris Hall (39:30)
now.
Chris Lamm (39:36)
over over time, so you don't have people coming in and going out because it's really hard to keep good people. You always hear that from business people. There's a lot of ways that you can retain people even in California, just by taking interest in their lives, and there's. Strategies to do that. So if I could help you with your team, building your team, hiring your team, keeping your team. That's really valuable for a guy like you. Um. Co marketing. You know, say you want to do an event and we're doing business back and forth, and you don't have to take all the cost on and I throw some money to help you throw an event.
That's something I can do for you. And so when I take that approach with referral partners and business partners, it just, you're adding value. And when you add value, you deepen the relationship and you set yourself above the competition because you're giving someone way more than they would ever expect. And I try to approach my clients that way and I try to approach my business partners that way. The other thing that we did is we realized California is one of the most unaffordable states in the nation.
Chris Hall (40:04)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Lamm (40:29)
There are places in the Midwest, Florida, Texas, that people can still buy a home with $60,000 a year income. I needed to get licensed in every state, and I needed to be able to have relationships out of my market. So we worked really hard on that, and we're doing 30%, 35 % now out of state, and all by referral. So you can build relationships everywhere now. It's crazy, the pandemic, if there's one good thing that came out of it is it made the world a lot smaller because of Zoom and...
Chris Hall (40:39)
Mm-hmm.
you
Chris Lamm (40:56)
People willing to work with people anywhere else โ You're reading still a very affordable place where I live so we do a lot here And we do a lot in California, but you know growing out of state has been has been key And so yeah I would say those were the the main things that we've done And we're still working on doing a lot of those things diversifying loan products was really big. We're doing a lot of business purpose stuff now You know investor loans Airbnb loans
Chris Hall (40:59)
Right.
Chris Lamm (41:21)
Stuff for people with really complicated tax returns that get denied by banks, but are good borrowers. have portfolio loans we can do for them. Even a little bit of commercial stuff we've been doing. So broadening our product offering has been really key to being able to solve unique problems for the clients we have. so those are the things that we've done and it's worked, but it's been a ton of hard work changing things.
moving back into some of these basics, you know, we're on the other side of it now and it's going well.
Chris Hall (41:48)
For those of the out there have never heard of a portfolio loan Why don't you kind of give a little bit more on that because I think that's something that is a valuable product for you guys and and I think people don't even know exists So give us a little bit more information on that
Chris Lamm (42:02)
Yeah, so 98 % of all mortgages for residential real estate in America are sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Okay, so whether you go down to your local community bank, your depository bank, you talk to a mortgage broker or mortgage banker, they're gonna sell that loan to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Okay? They have very specific guidelines on how to qualify. And it's a lot. But there are tons of people that don't fit in that box. But they are good borrowers. They either just started a business,
and they don't have a two year tax return history. So they got a startup or they take a ton of deductions and write offs that are completely legal, but Fannie and Freddie penalize them for it. And so they've been dealing in all cash. Foreign nationals that have green cards, but the way they make money is hard to prove on tax returns. There are portfolio loans available now where you can work around a lot of those things with a very common sense approach.
and still buy a house. I do it all the time. I started doing this about 10 years ago, and it's become a really big part of what we do. So business owners, entrepreneurs, gig workers, the rates on those are comparable. They're not much less, or they're not much more than a conventional loan, but getting through them and getting close is so much easier. I mean, I just, I'll tell you a couple of stories. I had a guy referred to me up in Seattle. He runs a Toro company.
He's Ukrainian, and he's got some special status with his green card. A lot of lenders said, we can't do it because of your citizenship. And then the other lender said, you've only done this Turo business for one year. You've made $400,000, but you've got to have a two-year history. And so he had a lot of different things. We found a loan, and he bought a great million-dollar property with a shop to park all his cars for Turo right by the airport. And he's killing it, and he was super happy. We had a guy just closed.
two days ago down in the Bay Area, who's had an auto mechanic shop for 30 years. He does all the police cars and. But he writes everything off and he has like 10 properties paid off, but he's always dealt in cash and never thought he could get alone and he closed three days ago on a new house, and he couldn't believe it. He was so happy because we found an alternative way to look at common sense. This is a very good borrower. This guy is and many cases. These guys are more.
They're less of a risk than some first-time buyers who can get loans with no money down. the regulations are challenging because it's not intentional, but they end up kind of pushing some people out that are actually really good borrowers. And we found a way to help those people. Yeah.
Chris Hall (44:23)
That's awesome. I think that
is so necessary. you know, from my standpoint as a business owner, you know, for the longest time, I was a W-2 wage earner for a firm. And then when I started my own firm, the first thing I did was, you know, corporate, go to S corporation. And when you do that, you know, you can make the same amount of money, but keep a lot more of it because the government allows you to deductions. I talk all the time on this program and to anybody who will listen.
Chris Lamm (44:44)
Yes.
Chris Hall (44:50)
And I tell people, if you can get away from a W-2 job and do a 1099 job or some sort of like, you know, independent consultant or whatever, whatever your side, your side gig, basically I'm saying is like your side gig needs to be not a W-2. And if you can get into that, like you can create some, some significant wealth over and above your W-2 job. Well, the problem is, that, you know, we're, we now get a bunch of write-offs that we never got as well, cause you don't get write-offs for W-2 jobs. You know, you get them for business owning.
And that's the way the whole system is set up. And then you turn around and you go, hey, I want a loan. And they go, well, you don't make any money on paper. You're like, OK, look at it. I mean, I make this much money and I pay all my bills. so I think that is such a clever, needed type of a thing out there for people to have, especially for people like myself. So I'm actually working right now on my tax planning certificate. I'm getting a certification in tax planning as well, because I think it really goes hand in hand with what we do.
Chris Lamm (45:33)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (45:42)
For financial advising, it's always about like how much money can I save you in taxes as well? So I'm working on that. you know, my point is like, yeah, it's like it's so important to like, I always say like, you need to pay the government what they're due, right? But we don't want to tip them, right? We don't want like, you how they always flip the screen around now and they say, what kind of tip do want to give me? Like, we don't want to tip the government. They're obviously, mean, now more than ever, we can see they're not being very good with our money.
Chris Lamm (45:48)
That's huge.
Chris Hall (46:08)
So I want to pay the most amount of taxes that I have to and not a single cent more. And so I think that you're going to do that. But then you're to turn around and say, want a loan. then the average, again, the average broker, the average loan company is going to be like, hey, we don't want that. So these portfolio loans, that's why wanted to dive into that a little bit more, because I really do truly think that people are not aware that those exist. And they're not aware that guys like you do business in all 50 states and can do those.
Props to you for finding that and filling that gap.
Chris Lamm (46:38)
Thanks man, yeah, I just think that the taxation piece that you touch on is so important. โ I'm also doing a ton of tax education right now. And again, it just helps us help our clients so much more. Because most CPAs, they want to sign your return, but they don't want to take any extra risk, which means they're not gonna bring you strategy and ideas. But the truth is, is there are a ton of ways that you can get creative.
and take legal deductions, even on a W-2, believe it or not. A lot of people just believe that if you have a W-2, there's nothing you can do. That is so not true. And a lot of CPAs, they're not going to bring you these ideas because it creates more work for them. It creates higher risk for them. But I'm the same as you. If I can defend this and it's legal, I'm going to do it, if it makes sense.
Chris Hall (47:28)
Mm-mm.
Chris Lamm (47:28)
And
that's the way we should approach our taxes. Like we're not talking about committing fraud here. We're talking about if there's a legal creative way to take deductions, even if it increases risk of an audit, if you can defend it, you should do it.
Chris Hall (47:41)
Yeah, so to go with that, the tax code now is like 6,000 pages. It's ridiculous. The tax code is like 6,000 pages. Like 30 of those pages, 30, are about what you should pay in taxes. The other 5,970 pages are all about how to pay less in taxes. The tax code is generated to get people to pay less in taxes. It's just once again,
People don't want to do it because they don't want to commit fraud, like you said. But that's like, no, you're just doing what's available to you. And the other thing is, again, going back to it, here in this town, CPAs, I have several good relationships with CPAs. But you're right. They don't want to do tax planning. They want to do tax preparation. And so guys like me and you have to pick up that slack. We have to get people to know where are. And that's why I primarily work with business owners now, because my skill set as an investment advisor is one thing, my skill set as a
Marketing guy is another thing. My skill set as a business coach is another thing. And then now I'm adding tax planning. Or you can just go to a financial advisor. Or you could go to me. And they're going to cost you roughly the same. So why wouldn't you go to me? That's kind how I feel about it.
Chris Lamm (48:46)
That's awesome, yeah.
Chris Hall (48:47)
So โ as far as the housing market goes, have talked a little bit about interest rates. Interest rates are a little bit lower than they were. OK. So I mean, I know this changes daily. it's like whatever we say today, by the time this even publishes, might be completely different. But just give us an idea on what the average person is going to pay on a 30-year mortgage.
Chris Lamm (48:55)
they're quite a bit lower. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think that rocket mortgage today was at a six and a half. I mean, you're looking six to six and a half range today on a lot of loan programs. Might even be able to get a hair lower depending on the loan type that someone's doing. They were over seven not long ago. The housing market is starting to heat up and we believe that in the spring it's gonna heat up quite a bit.
A lot of National Association Realtors Mortgage Bankers Association, they all predict about a four to 5 % appreciation in 2026, which is, you know, it barely appreciated in 2025. And the rates are the biggest motivator to that because it takes the average payment three to $700 down from where it was six months ago. Plus sellers are a lot more willing to make deals right now. That's not gonna last forever. And
There's a lot of people that have been calling a housing crash with these higher rates and it hasn't. Now real estate is local. There's areas that have seen price reductions that have resulted in, you know, lower median prices like Florida, parts of Texas. Austin got hammered. But California has been surprisingly very, very, very stubborn with values. And a lot of that just has to do with inventory. We just, we have more population than homes being built. And that just continues to be.
Chris Hall (50:10)
Yeah, Austin, Texas. Yep.
Chris Lamm (50:25)
The trend even with people leaving California, there's still not enough housing to support the population here. And when you have less supply than you do demand, it controls prices. if the cost to buy a house goes down because rates go down, more people step into the market. It puts more upward pressure on assets like real estate. And we definitely think that's the narrative for 2026, that values will get pushed and people.
people enter the market and it will be a much harder market than we've seen for a couple years.
Chris Hall (50:53)
And I think that what you bring to light there is that it usually goes down to supply and demand. So and like we talked, I just briefly mentioned Austin, Texas, their real estate market is down quite a bit. But you have to look at the growth of the market over the last 10 years as well. it's receding from these really all time highs. And whereas California, we have a lot of people who are leaving the state, but we still have people who are moving here. have, realistically speaking, we have a lot of houses that burned down.
Chris Lamm (51:08)
Yeah.
Chris Hall (51:20)
You know, we have a lot of people who are turning their houses or their rentals into short-term rentals, Airbnbs, VRBOs, et cetera, so that those folks, those houses are no longer, you know, quote unquote, housing. You know what mean? Those are hotels. So like, you know, if you converted 20 % of California into Airbnbs or VRBOs, which I know that number is ridiculously high, let's just call it 10%.
Let's just say 10 % of these over the last 10 years have become VRBOs or Airbnbs or stuff like that. That's a massive drain from the people who can get a house. It takes away a lot of their supply, especially since those homes a lot of times aren't really high end things. They're usually like entry level homes. They're usually like mid grade homes, or maybe they have a nice location on them or something like that. But that's a house that someone could have lived in or rented, and now it's
It's not that way. So that does take inventory as well. And I think that's important for people to know that, especially in places like California, where a lot of people are trying to get into short term rentals.
Chris Lamm (52:23)
Yeah, we don't have the construction here. The other issue with Austin is they had a ton of new construction. Millions of homes got built in Texas because their regulations to build are so much easier and cheaper than California. California, we hardly have any new construction here. Very, very little.
Chris Hall (52:42)
Well, mean,
yeah, like even locally, if you want to like just break dirt in Redding, California, you're going to have to pay the city of Redding about 50 grand just to break dirt. And I mean, those are those costs are horrendous. Like if you talk about building a 2000 square foot house, twenty five dollars a square foot for to just get a permit. And and again, like that's not the case. I have buddies who live in Texas and, you know, he walked in with a plan to build a pretty large shed, you know.
You could call even like a small garage or whatever. You walk to the planner and put it, you know, it's like, Hey, I want to do this. And the guy goes, So what are doing here? He's like, Why don't I need to get a permit for it? He's like, No, go build it. out of here. And like, he literally like didn't have to even get a permit because it was like an outbuilding structure.
Chris Lamm (53:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, there's also the cost of labor and materials are because of all the taxes in California, the gas tax. mean, our fuel costs here, it makes everything cost more. So there's just a lot of things in California that have been contributors to our housing market being the way it is. you know, it's the crash isn't coming that people had hoped for. And I understand why people want to see a crash.
because they want to see affordability come back. Like, trust me, if there was anyone that wanted that more, it would be me. But it's just not going to happen. And unfortunately, a lot of people are priced out of buying real estate, and the only way that they're going to be able to enter the market is if they raise their income.
Chris Hall (54:06)
Right. Right. Which goes back to, again, like one of my tenants, which is like, really do believe in side income. I really do believe that if you're at home listening right now and you make 60, 80 grand, but you have some time, you know, like think about how much time you spend on, you know, Instagram and TikTok and things like that. And then say like, what if I were to pour like just an hour a day when I get home, kids go to bed, everybody's sitting there, you know what I mean? Like, what if I just poured a poured myself, you know?
a beverage. I'm not a drinker either, so I don't know how to say this. But anyway, you just pour yourself a beverage and you you worked on that business for an hour. Like, what would that look like after a month, two months, six months? And it's like that's I think that's probably part of the reason that we're having issues is because people the job market, the like, hey, I'm going to pay you 20 bucks an hour. That doesn't meet expectations if you want to own a home. But
You know, like in the past, like you could make 20 bucks an hour. And if your spouse made 20 bucks an hour, then you could probably buy a small home. That's probably not going to be the case now. And so you if you're making 20 bucks an hour or 30 bucks an hour or whatever, then you need to turn around and go like, how do I make more money? And yeah, you might just switch jobs and that'll work. But that's why I'm a huge fan of the side hustle stuff. I really think that like people don't understand like how much they have to offer that people are willing to pay for.
Chris Lamm (55:08)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Chris Hall (55:25)
And I think the millennials and the Gen Zs have done such a great job of monetizing knowledge. These are people who, know, they're life coaches charging people $1,000 a month. And they're like 27. Like, how are you life coaching people? You haven't even had a life yet. But they've got to structure the systems and the drive. And I think that's really cool stuff.
Going back to real quickly with the housing market you did mention that you thought I would go between four and five percent this year Is that is that more nationwide or is that do think that's California or is that regional based? Where do think that that lies?
Chris Lamm (55:56)
That's
nationwide trend that NAR put out. I think Zillow and Redfin have a very similar prediction to that. that is nationwide. So obviously that could vary, know, state to state, market to market. But I definitely think that that is true for Northern California. I definitely can see it. And if you were to look at any graph of the median sales price for any area,
It always drops between October and February, and people think there's a housing crash because the median sale price pulls back 10 percent. But that's a very normal thing. But then what you see is a very big spike from late February through the end of August, which is when most of the homes get sold and the demand steps in during the good weather. So you always have to look at a year over year basis. So four to five percent is very, very realistic that we could see that.
here in Shasta County next year, especially if rates continue to stay low and go a little bit lower. People wanna buy homes and there's a lot of people that are starting to become okay with the idea of giving up their 3 % mortgage on the house they have and will put their home on the market and buy another house. I mean, we're seeing more of those locked in people starting to just say, you know what, the 3 % and 4 % I have, yeah, it's great, but we've been waiting for two years, our kids are growing, we just need to bite the bullet.
and buy another home. So I think that that's gonna be a part of it is there's a lot of people that will finally list and buy their next house. so yeah, we think next year is gonna be the first year since rates went up where things are gonna be heading in a better direction. And it's probably gonna be a slow market for several years to come. But I think 2026 will be a good opportunity. The last thing I'll say on housing is this, it doesn't matter what market you're in.
There are always opportunities to buy right to make a good investment and to to make money on real estate every market. There's always those opportunities. So no matter what the market's doing, you want to make sure you're working with true professionals and you educate yourself on how to make the best possible decision with whatever the rules of the game are at the time. And and there are still a ton of ways to do that. We see people winning in real estate all the time right now.
But it does take a little, it's a little more challenging than it was, you know, when rates are two and three percent. But it's still very possible.
Chris Hall (58:11)
Well, and I also, you know, kind of going back to something you talked about earlier, I also think the portfolio loan is something that would really help a lot of people get to this next stage. You know, maybe they don't even want to get rid of the house with a 3 % mortgage, but they want another house and they want to try to rent a little. But it's like, man, it's like 6%, 6%, 7%. And I don't make any money on paper. And I have this other mortgage. And it's like, you know what? That's why it's important to just talk to a professional and not assume that you know what you're talking about.
โ You know, we all get our information from a lot of places. But you know, like when it comes down to like anything that we talk about, Chris with mortgages, me with financial investments, when I talk to people who are, you know, estate attorneys, like all those kinds of things, like go to the source. Like those people, like we really legitimately spend hours and hours and hours into this stuff. We're not just watching like two minute clips on Instagram and trying to figure out that we got it right, you know, like Alex Hormazi or something. We're trying to like...
really be experts in what we're doing. So go find an expert and get into that. And ask them for what they're trying to do and tell them what you want to accomplish and let them be a partner for you. That's what I would say. So speaking of that, Chris, what's a good way to get a hold of you for people that want to do business with you? They want to like learn more about portfolio loans or just traditional housing loans is fine too. But like how do they get a hold of you? What's the easiest way to do that?
Chris Lamm (59:26)
They can always search my name. I'm everywhere online. I get a lot of clients through Instagram. It's Chris Lamm with two M's. Or they can just shoot us an email and I can give you all of that to put in the notes. But if they just...
Chris Hall (59:39)
Yeah, we'll put it all, we'll put that, the website, etc.
Whatever you want, we'll put it all in the show notes for people to get a hold of you. I appreciate your time. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Do you have anything that you'd like to say before we sign off?
Chris Lamm (59:46)
Thanks, man.
No, man, it was a great conversation. Thanks for having me.
Chris Hall (59:53)
Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Happy New Year to you and your family and to all of you out there listening. I'm going to make the plug. You know what mean? Share this with your friends. Like it, comment, do all the things. Let's let the people out there know that this is a good show and people and we're bringing interesting topics and we're bringing interesting guests. And by doing those small things, you let the algorithm know that you want to hear more of it. That helps us. It helps us get new and better guests.
It's very much like, buy in to what we're doing here. And I promise you'll be really happy with the results. We had a great 2025. I'm really looking forward to 2026. So thank you all for listening. Thank you so much, Chris, for being on the show. And everybody โ have a great New Year.