My take on the current market is based on my background of coming into the ma...
during a real estate crash. When I started my practice, all I was doing were short sales,
debt settlements, for closure defense. You know, I basically was in a standstill in the law firm,
basically saying, what are we doing because the amount owed on the homes at the time far exceeded
“the value. So we basically were in a stage where, hey, what are we doing?”
Jody Strang is a resilient, strategic and highly skilled real estate attorney, and the co-founding principle of Strangtrice and PLLC. Drawing from her extensive legal expertise, she helps entrepreneurs and investors navigate complex transactions, creating a lasting legacy of secure investments, financial freedom and empowered leadership. But I hit a plateau in the seven figures, and I said, you know, let me expand the practice. And it wasn't just because of the seven figures,
it was because I wanted to make a more profound impact in the market. And with only two people,
or three people, three employees, including myself, you know, there was only so much that we could do. So I had to learn how to scale. So where for you was the moment where you realized like, "This is it." I think I knew when I was obsessed with playing.
“It spans the globe, like a super high school, into their elders.”
Today, Apple is going to reinvent the fall. It's not over! I'm telling how we are! The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's sensational to open! Check out what was the link. You said, Paul, in the box is not on the planet. You can live your dream! Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast.
I am joined today by Jody Strang, a Strang Trisen PLLC current. God, you got you. So, Jody, this is an opportunity for the viewers out there to just get to know you a little bit. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, where you grew up. Let's just, let's take it. Let's walk it all the way back. Okay, so I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All right, are you ready to run around the corner? Yes, and then, unfortunately for me, my parents decided
to move to Port St. Lucie, which is a very small town in the 80s and 90s.
Very boring over there. Yes, so I grew up in Port St. Lucie and basically started planning my way out.
When I was eight. That was escape. Exactly. I have to come back to South Florida. So I grew up in Port St. Lucie and then as soon as I could, I came back to South Florida for undergrad. And I started working in the banking and finance industry when I was 17 years old. That quickly turned into real estate, finance, mortgages, the salt title. Yeah, exactly. And by the time I was 22, I became a title agent.
So I knew that this was what I wanted to do. Real estate closings.
“Where, so where for you was the moment where you realized like, this is it?”
When I started working in the banking industry at 17 and then I learned a bit about real estate, that's when I knew. It was like, I mean, I actually should say let's go backwards. I think I knew when I was obsessed with playing Monopoly at eight, nine and ten years old. That'll do it. Were you like a hyper competitive Monopoly player? My sister is the same way. I can't play Monopoly with her as the worst. I am undefeated. You know what? So is she and we don't need to talk
about it because I, my ego is hurt even thinking about it. But all right. So you take the path of finance, right? Yes. And originally you're working in banking and then you make the pivot over into real estate. Right. Now real estate obviously down here in South Florida is a huge industry. Everyone I know there's there's two paths you go in South Florida. You go real well three. You go real estate, your sports agent, or you work in health. There's a pretty, those are pretty
much the three paths that you go down. I went the non-traditional path of going down film, went up to Orlando, did film school up there. What would you say was kind of the draw for you for finance? What was sort of the thing that was pulling you in? I mean, I was a numbers person. And, you know, once I learned real estate finance, I started doing that in my 20s. Then I learned title. So I would say it was everything I knew and it was my, it became
everything I practiced at an early age. So I think that my passion came from knowing it well.
From experiencing, you know, working in the industry for many years.
You know, and then I basically said, you know, I'm a title agent. Fine. I'm 22 years old. I'm a
title agent, a licensed title agent. And I said, you know what, I want to go beyond this. I would like to go to law school and become an actual real estate lawyer and broaden my knowledge base and you know, take it to the next level in title. But I knew I wanted to still do title and closings. But I wanted to do it as a real estate lawyer and not a title agent. Yeah, because that's like you're taking it a step above. Yeah. Like, it's funny enough. When I got into, when I first started
messing around with cameras and I first started taking clients, my first ever client was a mortgage broker. So I was doing all of his advertising and social media content for a number of years. One of my good friends. And so I got to learn a lot about that industry, right? And so
“in real estate, I think the biggest thing that people don't understand or the people, the biggest”
thing that causes people to kind of stay away from it is lack of information, right? There's not enough information out there on the options that people actually have to get into housing as opposed to, you know, everybody thinks, well, all right, the numbers don't make sense. I might as well just not buy a house or I might as well not get into the real estate industry because, you know, this guy is trying to get a contract out of me. This, you know, by the time I closed on this house,
I've had to go through 17 different people to get, you know, get this closing done. So talking me a little bit about your take on like the real estate industry as a whole as it stands right now, because there's a lot of, I'm sure, you know, there's a ton of points of contention on where we stand within real estate. Yes. I mean, so coming from me, when I opened my law practice, I was 28 years old. It was 2008. So my take on the current market is based on my background of coming into the market
when it was during a real estate crash. You know, it was tanking. It was tanking. So, you know, when I started my practice, all I was doing were short sales, debt settlements, for closure defense. You know, we, I basically was in a standstill in the law firm, basically saying, what are we doing? Because the home prices far, like the, the amount owed on the homes at the time, far exceeded the value. So we basically were in a, and a stage where, hey, what are we
doing? You know, how do we clear title when, and everybody looking around it, and no one wanted to answer that question. Right. Like, the mortgage was, you know, the house wasn't worth what the mortgage
“was. You know, in many cases. So when you asked me my opinion on the market, I think this is an amazing”
market. Because I came into, you know, my practice. It opened my practice a lot of time. Yes, like during the real estate crash. Yeah. So, you know, since then, the market has evolved, you know, and recovered. And I think that we're in a great buyer's market. I think there are deals to be had. I think there are opportunities. I think that rates are pretty fair. When I started working in the banking industry in the late 90s, it was 97. So now I'm aging myself.
But rates were easily, you know, 6, 7, 8, 9. So, you know, rates now are great. If you can get into a 30 year mortgage at 6%. It's fair. Yeah. But I think this is a great market. I think there are opportunities. And, you know, I just, you know, but again, that's based on my background. I came into the crash when I opened my firm. Would you say that we have a little bit of an inventory problem? I would say there is a lot of inventory, especially in the values, the home prices that are
under 3 and 4 million. There's a lot of movement in the homes that are above 7, 8, 9, 10 million.
Yeah. So, you know, there's, there is a bit of a standstill in the market, so to say. But because you have a ton of people that, you know, in 2020 during the pandemic, they were getting their rates at like the twos in the threes. Exactly. And you're not, I'm not coming out of that mortgage ever. But I wouldn't say it's flooded to the point where it's just a crazy buyer's market.
“I think it's a reasonable buyer's market. Mm-hmm. I saw a statistic, I think they might have”
been earlier today, that, you know, and this is the reason why I even brought up the question of
inventory, that in the 80s we were building half a million, and this is nationwide, but in the 80s
We were building about half a million homes a year in the 90s that number shr...
a year. Now we're floating at around like 150,000 homes a year that we're building, right?
“Right. So, a lot of questions that I hear at least as far as real estate is concerned is,”
why are we not building? So, and this, this statistical pertains to single-family starter homes, right? Homes that are going to be two, maybe three bedroom, as soon as you get to four bedroom, then the numbers are entirely different, but what would be your take on sort of those starter homes? For somebody that's out there that's, you know, just maybe starting a family and just wanted to get into their first home.
What's your advice to them? Well, first of all, save because, you know, the average starter home in
Miami is close to a million dollars now. Yeah. Okay. So, it's really difficult to find a very nice
house that's under a million. But, you know, when you look at the rents, in many cases, because the rates are decent, it would make more sense to buy. So, I would say, buy, I wouldn't hold off, you know, and wait for the knife to drop in the market, you know, I would get into the market. I mean, in my meat personally, my greatest investments have been real estate, and I started investing in my 20s. So, I would say, get into the market. It's, you know, a lot of people are relocating
here. I think that there's opportunity sellers are becoming more reasonable in their sales prices. That's something that I've noticed as well. Yeah. My mom's a real estate agent as well. Right. So, prices are coming down a little bit, but they're still, they're still steady. They're still, you know, you're not going to see like, no, a $200,000 drop on the house. But, they're coming down to a point where it's like, okay, this is a reasonable purchase to make at a 30-year fixed
at six, at six percent, like, that's just makes sense. And then on top of that, like, you have
also, if you're a first time home buyer, like, you have all sorts of, you know, assistance programs
that are going to, you know, help you out with down payment assistance, things of that nature,
“like, there's a ton of ways to get in. And that's why I was talking earlier about, like, the”
lack of information. People out there don't necessarily know what their avenue is to get in. But once you're, once you're in the market, you're in the market, right? Right. And I would say another piece of advice is just really focused on location, because you will receive the highest appreciation and value improvement based on location. So location, location, location, location. Yeah. So I want to pivot here and just take this opportunity to just kind of highlight your business,
highlight a strength crisis and talk to me a little bit about what, what are the goings on today, what's, what are your current projects, what are your current initiatives? So to answer that question, I, I think I have to go back to the predecessor firm. Mm-hmm. So strength,
tryson is the second law firm that I opened. When I was 28, I opened my first law firm, which was
strength Adams PA. And I ran strength Adams for about 15 years. Mm-hmm. And then I realized I had hit it, you know, I had brought it to a seven. I thought you were 24. Thanks. Thank you for that. But I've already aged myself in this interview. But I ran it for 15 years. And I realized I hit like a plateau. I brought it to a seven figure firm. But I hit a plateau in the seven figures. And I said, you know what? Let me expand the practice. And it wasn't just because of the seven figures.
It was because I wanted to make a more profound impact in the market. Mm-hmm. And with only two people, or three people, three employees, including myself, you know, there was only so much that we could do. Mm-hmm. So I had to learn how to scale. Mm-hmm. So I basically ended up, um, opening my second law firm, uh, which is strength tryson PLLC. And now we're really focused on, um, other practice areas in addition to real estate closings, such as community association law, condo association law,
real estate litigation. And of course, what I love is the real estate closing aspect. Both commercial and residential. So I would say we're looking to expand our market share and make a profound impact. We, um, I mean, the service level that we give, we can reach so many more people.
“We've grown from a team of two to three to ten. That's what I love to see. So expansion.”
That's what I love to see. Would you be the right person to talk to if I have a bone to pick with my joy? Yes. Nice. I would refer you to another one of the lawyers in my firm now,
Because my, my thing is real estate closings, but, but yes.
one thing that I love about, uh, a good business owner understands that like, hey, I have my thing,
like, this is my thing. And I know how to do this really well. Yes. I don't need to try and
“wear every hat. Like, I think, uh, to your point when you're talking about scaling,”
the biggest thing that most business owners need to learn to let go of is trying to wear. Of course, you're going to have to wear different hats in your business. Of course, you're going to have to take on a client that might not be in your direct area of expertise, because you don't have somebody to delegate that to at the time. But a really good business owner understands that like, I have to be able to be the best at my thing. And I can find somebody who's the best at this
thing and offer their services as well as a part of the package that is my business, right? Yes. It took me a while to, I mean, it took me 15 years to learn how to delegate. And then, you know, once I realized that I was delegating to, you know, super professionals, that we're running circles around me, I said, wow, you know, what, why did it take me 15 years to understand delegation, you know, into empower others. Delegation is just a really big trust exercise. Yes.
Why did it take me 15 years to learn how to trust other people to be as professionals? Yes. I'm, I'm still in the process of learning that trust myself, especially when it comes to like putting together productions and, you know, hiring on crew and hiring on different, you know, production assistants, gaffers, directors of photography, things of that nature.
I can judge a lot by someone's portfolio, but it'll never tell me what the experience is like of
being on set with that person, right? I can only learn that through experience. And it's right now that I've been doing it for 10 years. Now I'm like, okay, like, I have my core group that I'm like, these are my, this is, this is, this is my crew. Yes. If we're getting hired to do anything,
“I'm bringing the same group of people because I know how we operate on set. And I think that”
transfers over to really anything in business. Once you understand that, hey, I need to be able to trust my team, then I can expand that team with like, hey, are you struggling with anything? All right, we need to expand. I need to hire you an assistant and I need you to be able to create an SOP around what it is that you do and we're going to create, you know, this new system so we can train the next person to be as good as if not better than you, right? Yes. And not to mention the
impact it makes on others when you empower them. Like, I, you know, my, my lead associate, Jordan Perez, he is now an attorney and he started working with me when he was 20. So I trained him for eight years. So, you know, of course, I can delegate to him now. I've trained him for all of that time and look at what he's been able to do, he's a lawyer now. You know, so it's all about empowering others. Shout out to Jordan. So guys, if you are still tuning in at this point in the episode, I want to
make sure that you guys go ahead and check out her episode, you know, it's going to be coming out
shortly after this podcast drop. So first and foremost, when people are checking you out,
“where can they find you on social media, on the internet, what's our, what's best, best practice?”
All right, you could find me on Instagram. Jody.strang.esq. Jody.strang.esq will make sure we put a little title card for you there. Yes. And you could find me in my offices, my me beach coral gables and we're also expanding into Fort Lauderdale now as well. Perfect, perfect. Guys, that's it for us here. This is another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Tyler. This was Jody Strang. Make sure you guys go and check out her episode.
And that's pretty much does it for us. We'll see you guys in the next one.
