Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] well good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world it’s dr janice hooker fortman with you today on relationship matters tv welcome welcome welcome all of you you know what i am so happy that we’re starting to open up and we can start traveling again i was talking with my husband i said you know what we haven’t been anywhere since i think it was last october and we usually try to travel at least maybe three or four times a year but things are opening up now and we’ve decided well our first trip is going to be on a cruise in february of next year but i’m trying to convince him to go to hawaii in january and then maybe a couple of side trips you know little short trips but anyway uh let me i’m going off into my own thing but this evening or this morning this afternoon wherever you are i know i have some viewers in the uk so it’s one o’clock in the morning so good morning to you we have a power couple on a power couple who travel who they have some things they’re going to tell us about traveling and i am so excited to bring them on to you but before i do i’m going to tell you a little bit about them we’re going to meet and have a conversation with melissa and andre farmer hill now let me tell you about melissa she is a retired military veteran and author she has served worldwide as an army human resources warrant officer and has deployed been deployed to iraq iraq and kosovo and while serving she was awarded the douglas macarthur leadership award the army recruiting ring the army resources instructor of the year and has over 20 other military awards and decorations girl you are something else but we want to thank you for your service to this country she’s also an author and the title of her book is army strong women and we’re going to talk about that a little later on in the show and uh let me tell you about her hubby andre hill when i say a power company couple it’s a power couple he’s been in the housing industry for more than 10 years starting as a section 8 housing inspector he became a relocation specialist and now he is a real estate agent he’s also a strong advocate for his community and he serves as the president of richton park human relations commission as the and he serves on the beautification committee and he makes sure that the residents in his community are living in safe and sanitary conditions and in affordable housing and he’s also an author he’s authored two books quick tips when searching for a house for rent and i know some people who needed that book and life as a section 8 inspector you know i’m going to ask him all about that so i want to bring to you right now andre and melissa farmer hill all righty come on y’all
Melissa Farmer Hill
Dr. J thank you
Andre Farmer Hill
I know I mean when I said a power couple thank you and tonight we’re I’m saying tonight because we’re in Chicago right and um so I want to talk about travel and I know you all are tops in the travel industry and I also know that uh we had a nice little talk beforehand but I do know that you have a bed and breakfast and so I wanted to start off because I wanted to talk about a bed and breakfast exactly what it is and what makes it different from a hotel so is it more expensive and why we should stay in a bed and breakfast instead of you know like in a luxurious hotel so tell me
Melissa Farmer Hill
Absolutely so I’m gonna I I think I’ll start off Andre
Andre Farmer Hill
Okay that’s fine
Melissa Farmer Hill
One of the things we really have to think about is why we travel I think that’s okay very exciting uh one of the reasons we travel I mean we want to escape the routine especially now like you said in your introduction the world is opening up and guess what people are ready to vacation and they’ve changed the lingo they don’t even call it vacation anymore Dr. J and they call it vassications because the vaccination the covid19 so people are taking what’s called basications now and they are ready for it indication okay let me tell you what businesses are ready for for you know patrons they’re ready to serve people uh and traveling introduces you to it’s an educational experience yes culture cuisine food uh just entertainment and so I just wanted to open up with you know why why which why people travel and those are the reasons why we love traveling too so yeah so the next thing you talked about was the bed and breakfast we actually have airbnb and I’m going to let Andre kind of
Andre Farmer Hill
Isn’t that different from different from what oh really right so I can I can break it with this thing so bed and breakfast airbnb is a spin-off from uh bed and breakfast that’s what airbnb stands for air bed and breakfast you know the the br that when I think of bed and breakfast I think of those places where you have you know you go to a room you have community breakfast and you do things like that but airbnb it’s so exciting it’s it’s a lot different and that’s what we do we do the airbnb but there is an airbnb uh on the south side I mean a bed and breakfast on the south side of Chicago but there are hundreds of thousands thousands if not millions I’m sure that are doing airbnb and I’m gonna let Andre talk a little bit about that
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so you asked the question why do uh airbnb versus um a hotel well a lot of people they like um for instance they want to be off to themselves um a lot of times especially during covid um a lot of people they didn’t want to be around a lot of people so what they did was started looking to the airbnbs um the good thing about the airbnb’s versus the hotel is most times you have house to yourself you got a kitchen you got a refrigerator um you have swimming pools yeah we didn’t have that yeah and so yeah so and so a lot of people they like that that convenience of being able to be off to themselves didn’t have to deal with a lot of people especially during the um co-vet and yet alone during that time a lot of um hotels were closed um so what me and Melissa decided to do was what we call house hacking so house hacking is when um you take a trip right and you let your your airbnb rental pay for your trip so we watched a lot of youtube watch a lot of youtube videos and we said we’re going to try we’re going to try this house hacking we’re going to rent our house out to airbnb and what I did Dr. Jam was I automated our house so when I automate our house it pretty much this is what I did when you automate your house I make sure that you can operate everything from your cell phone so I’m able to change my walks for my cell phone I’m able to change my heat or my turn off my air conditioner for my cell phone I’m able to look at my cameras through my cell phone and yet along through the airbnb platform they also insure you um up to a million dollars if anything was to happen to your house right so it was a win-win so I was like okay well we’re going to take some trips to Florida we’re going to rent out our house and you know you can rent out your house wherever you want well you know we did pretty much I think like 120 120 a night but I have seen places in Chicago but it is written out for about 250 to 350 depending on your location
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
What?
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah yeah so uh so that’s what we did we rented out our house we had a beautiful home we and then about the thing about it is we you can choose who you want to stay in your home right as well you know we did pretty much we didn’t do to local people and the reason we didn’t because most people stayed around the corner from your house they just want to throw parties and stuff like that so we knew you know if I’m living there if I’m living in math and I ain’t written out to you if you stay in Chicago no no no god we started taking trips and people started booking and we will take that money and that money or pay for our hotel and airbnb pay you 24 hours after they book so you know so we’re like man we kind of like this here so we went out and started getting I’m grabbing other airbnb properties and started renting them out as well so that’s pretty much what we like doing is running out the airbnb properties and also you can find owners that’s willing to rent out as well
Melissa Farmer Hill
Absolutely and so that’s uh just a caveat off of what he said that’s one of the great things about you know between the hotel and the airbnb you have the place all to yourself you can you know you actually live in this space where as a hotel you have your room and that’s it if I wanted to cook a a 10 course meal I could do that in the airbnb and then they have different amenities they usually have more amenities in an airbnb it’s usually the price is usually cheaper as well when you go through uh airbnb uh the safety factor is really good I think because the process that we go through we can like Andre said we can choose who we want
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah we can choose who we want Dr. Jam but also um airbnb they do a background check on everybody as well they do the background check they do the strength screening and stuff like that which made it convenient for us as well so uh we definitely love the experience and doing kobe we also you know um we also make sure that our house is um sanitized as well
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah um we we left it where airbnb headed where you could leave your property vacant for a couple of days where you can get your house you know you want to make sure your house is sanitate sanitized sanitizer stuff like that and we brought the um ozone machine as well from right um on amazon so amazon has all this yeah they have an ozone machine that actually kills viruses and stuff like that
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so yeah so we had a person come in clean set the ozone machine up and then um let and let it do its job
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah it’s great okay so um you you have your your cell phone and so you can see everything that’s going on in the in your house while someone is in there renting it is when you said that you automate everything on your cell phone
Andre Farmer Hill
Yes we’re not stopping outside outside the house it’s actually we have cameras outside the house by now remind you I do have friends that actually um have houses where they ran out each room I posted on my facebook page about it about a month ago but they ran out each room but they had cameras in their common areas the common areas are in your kitchen um like in your um uh kitchen your living room dining room not the bedrooms or the bathrooms because you validate privacy so um you can do that as well but we didn’t take that that measure it’s pretty much just outside the house
Melissa Farmer Hill
Right yeah and so that and that’s the other beauty about airbnb you can create it however you want to just like Andre said he has friends that rent out each room they may have a seven bedroom home and they want to rent out each each bedroom or you might have a you want big families to visit so you’ll open up all seven bedrooms so you can rent out a room you can rent out a space in your home you can rent out your entire house some people have coach homes and they rent it out so you can that’s the beauty of airbnb because you can kind of design it however you want to
Andre Farmer Hill
And then uh Dr. Jan you also ran out you could run out just about anything my mouth was hanging over right you can run out your land I know people that rent out pampers rent our mobile homes um a lot of people now doing like the tiki tents they re um written out to people people are looking for an experience they want something different right and that’s what the airbnb platform provides for you and actually the guy we learned a lot of our stuff from us on youtube and he but he got a hundred over a hundred dollars Dr. James he’s making a million dollars he’s making 10 million a year but he started six he started six years ago
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah and then he amassed 10 million dollars in those years well he’s doing probably more now he got over 100 doors
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so yeah yeah so that’s what we’ve been playing and learning from
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay how many doors do you all have
Melissa Farmer Hill
Oh we got a few doors we have a few
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah okay you know I mean you all I I I’m thinking you know look my wheels are spinning really really so now when you rent out your airbnb do you like in between rentals or after a certain period of time you all come home and stay in your house or is this something that
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so what do you do with your belongings
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s a good question doctor
Melissa Farmer Hill
That’s a great question
Andre Farmer Hill
That’s an excellent question so anything that’s um of value um we um we locked it up um in our garage and stuff like that where people can get into it and stuff like that um so anything that we felt that was really real personal and stuff like that we made sure that we packed that up each time we left and stuff like that but yeah so yeah you don’t want to leave that stuff so if you got a safe or something like that yeah you definitely want to have that definitely need to lock it up in a safe to keep it protected um but yeah it didn’t take much it doesn’t take much but we had to stop doing the the the home rental though
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yes yes every experience every experience of Dr. Jan is not a good experience because I mean it’s just like being a landlord every tenant that you have is not going to necessarily you would hope for all girls but yeah you want to break the rules it’s just that one person that can spoil them for the whole bunch
Andre Farmer Hill
Right one apple one apple that’s all it took about the so so have you had any uh bad experiences as far as your airbnb with someone staying there
Melissa Farmer Hill
Um I wouldn’t say it was it was well I I’m just they broke they broke the rules they broke the rules Dr. James you know especially they had a party they had a party can’t have a party no no no airbnb they have strict rules now you can’t have parties especially during the covenant you definitely couldn’t have forgotten it
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah yeah so um I so I told you everything’s automated through my phone so I kept getting alert on my phone my door kept opening and closing man right we can’t even enjoy our vacation so I looked on my camera I just seen four people focusing went from six six to twenty six and so uh and then I you know I go by me being a real estate agent I can look up just about anybody in the country right so um I kind of looked the person up went to the facebook and now there was a nails on facebook live Dr. Jen they probably had a problem with a million views they was getting here they had a party they they had so they were like um yeah tomorrow Saturday we gonna definitely get it in tomorrow
Melissa Farmer Hill
In all fairness and all fairness even though they had a party yeah the house was nice and clean when we got there nothing was tore up nothing was dying she was very apologetic I it was the apologize behind everything so we had to stop that so that’s why we had to expand and give out different areas in the Chicago area and stuff like that
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay oh okay all right so now uh when you like you say so do you purchase you purchase other properties and and then I guess get them ready and then list them as an airbnb
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah it’s two ways you can do whatever you can do yeah there’s two ways you can do it you can you can purchase properties um and then once you purchase a property of course you can fix it up and you can uh rent it out to individuals a lot of people we know do what they call rental arbitrage
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah rental arbitrage is where you find the owner that’s been having a hard time writing out their properties most of them tired of renting especially during the pandemic because the simple fact is it’s hard to find renters that’s going to pay rent right
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so what a lot of them will do they decide okay well you can work out agreement with the landlord and say look let me take if you especially if you got a building if you got a building we’re gonna say Dr. Jan you got only 10 units in your building I may come to you and say Dr. Jan you got three vacancies let me take those three vacancies from you um I’ll rent them out to airbnb if you let me and then what I do I do a three year lease with you give me two months free two months free is so I can get it ready get it up and running and stuff like that so normally what you would make for a regular tenant being in your house same thing you may make 12 1200 just for renter being in your one bedroom but with airbnb you’re probably going to make 3 000 to maybe 5 000 a month right depending on what your prices are so you may say well this may like a good business move for me I get three properties you didn’t lock me in and then lock you into a three year lease and yet alone I’m making about five thousand dollars a month off this airbnb it’s a no-brainer and so yeah and so you can’t beat those when you look at the numbers and things like that it’s such a great opportunity that you know people are people are actually taking and I think initially when you think about airbnb when you think about staying in someone else’s property and things like that that’s an old way of thinking because the world has opened the world right the world has opened and so now we’re we’re actually doing those types of exchanges instead of giving all the money to these big change large chain hotels and resorts and those are still that you still can’t do those things but this just gives someone who’s I would say on a budget or if you want to ball out because they have them this just provides um the consumer with a with another option if you don’t want to stay in hotels and it’s it’s coming against resistance because guess what they they’ve disrupted the hotel industry right airbnb has disrupted the the hotel uh industry and so in some places you have to check with your local community if you want to start an airbnb you have to check with your state because they have do have laws you know that might state different you cannot do this homeowners associations may say you cannot do this so it just it’s just all dependent but if it’s something that someone was thinking about starting um it’s it’s a great opportunity and travel is it’s just great for travel
Andre Farmer Hill
And I think Chicago laws are um you pretty much got I think I get permit through Chicago and I think if you have a building you can only rent 25 percent of that building to a airbnb so a lot of times we try to stay away from Chicago we need the rules and regulations in the shop
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah yeah yeah yeah I’m what is it uh vote vote early vote often and you do all kinds of things so um let me ask you this has has anyone famous devastated any of your airbnbs
Andre Farmer Hill
No besides me and Melissa nobody else has come through
Melissa Farmer Hill
No not not yet but that’s that next level Dr. James
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah yeah that’s the next though you know this is so amazing I mean it I mean it’s really at least I you know uh it’s opening my eyes you know what I’m I’m gonna talk to my husband and uh wait when my grandmother I used to say about you know when you declutter she should say getting shed of things I think we’re gonna get his shed of things he just retired and you know we can rent this out and make some money and travel all over the world this is it’s this is I mean it’s amazing to me this this is an industry that I never knew you know you see stuff but I I never knew I never knew anyone of course who owned the airbnb and I don’t even know anyone who has stayed at an airbnb but
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah really
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So what you’re telling me is like uh all the traveling that I used to do it was just like hotels all the time hotels and uh I see that I would rather stay at an airbnb for the security and for not having to deal with a whole bunch of people you know so yeah I I think that’s great I I I admire you
Melissa Farmer Hill
We try to make the experience comfortable for our guests we make sure we give them water they get wine to get um coffee to get tea um you have your utensils you have you know everything you
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah you have everything you need things like that and and for us it’s easy like I said we do everything from our home even with down to our house um cleaner right my housekeeper um we let them know you can do make them your co-host as well so they can see the book is coming in and out and then um the good thing about that there is your um cleaning fee is included in your airbnb price so you’re not coming out your pocket you’re passing that cost on to the person that’s written out your property
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah so you know what uh you know my head is always spinning writing a course and an online course so you only have to do it once you know like a webinar and then um I mean this I mean your information is because people are looking for different things to do a lot of people are not going back to their jobs you know a lot of people are retiring and stuff like that and this industry is is really great especially I didn’t know you made that much money
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah I mean you could make that much money so uh I’m gonna be talking to you all and because this is it’s really yeah it’s really amazing now I know to get off of that a little bit uh I know you do something called curated events you also do that now what’s that
Melissa Farmer Hill
Okay so so I have a master’s degree from Roosevelt University and event planning and tourism so one of the things that I enjoy doing is creating curated events I like can I be an event planner of course I can but that wouldn’t bring me as much joy as putting my own events together so what curated events means is I love to put together wine tours last well 2019 we started taking people out to Utica Illinois to different wine tastings I had partnered up with a couple of wine wineries out there and we started doing wine tours and guess what Dr. Jan 2020 was the year that I was just gonna ooh all those wine tours we’re just gonna do it and then of course the whole world shut down and so now in 2021 what I’m doing is curating uh I’ve got a couple of silent auctions I really like to aim for for women women in business so I have a couple of those events coming up and then I have um vision board workshops so those are the curated events that I love to do we also in 2018 we put together an author’s event a curated event so I had uh this was in Madison Illinois I had a number of uh authors come and talk about what’s the process because like our show it’s like what we say we want to give all you know we want to provide solutions we want to provide solutions and so people always have the question well what does it take to write a book I’m a published author Andre is an author so we had a entire panel of women talk about what their process was whether they uh self published or whether they went with a published company we talked about the pricing and different things like that yeah so that’s where my heart is I really love putting events together for for women primarily he was the driver but that’s what curated events are
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Look uh now this young lady here Maxine Walker and she said why because we are members of this organization called the South Side Wine Divas and so when you said what why because I I I have an associate who owns a winery in L.A and you know in Napa Valley and so we have to get together but yeah oh my goodness
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yes we do and one thing we did we we tried to bring it to the um the south suburbs we know Chicago was having them going to Michigan
Andre Farmer Hill
Right right and so when we was in the south suburbs we’re like okay can do it in south suburbs it gets something different and we didn’t want to go to Michigan because Chicago already go to Michigan that’s why we decided on Utica Illinois and uh man they yeah they accepted um us and they they loved us wonderful I think they did four stops I think we did four stops on the way there Dr. Jen the women are hyped on the way there Dr. Jam they loud they rowdy all the way back your number snoring everybody knocked out
Melissa Farmer Hill
That’s because of they were tasting the wine it was an educational tour I’m sure and and a lot of times and you have to immerse yourself uh in education so I’m sure they had immersed themselves in education look this I gotta take a quick couple of commercials and we’re coming back and so um and I want to talk about your books and uh okay I want to talk about uh being a realtor and and uh so get off into some more stuff but uh now you’re making me want a glass of wine
Andre Farmer Hill
So go with glass of wine Dr. James
Melissa Farmer Hill
I’ve been up since four o’clock this morning and I haven’t had a nap or anything and so no I’m not I uh uh you’ll be talking and I’ll be asleep and so we will be right back with the power couple the should I call you the farmer hills or the hills
Andre Farmer Hill
And the hills
Melissa Farmer Hill
Oh okay and um the hills are our next um multi-millionaire power couples we’ll be right back [Music] do [Music]
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right we are back now if you would like to advertise on the show with eye-catching videos and increase your visibility you can contact us at 1-877-667-7325 for details or you can email jan for now 125 at gmail.com and also if you would like to be a guest on relationship matters email again at jan4now125 gmail.com we are back with the hills the hills are alive so now Andre yes you are a realtor and you have two books uh one is called quick tips when searching for a house for to rent and life as a section 8 inspector what made you get off into real estate
Andre Farmer Hill
Um actually I had I was um in management for like 12 years I did retail management um and I got tired of retail I got tired of being behind the four walls um I got tired of managing I was a store manager and I was like you know but I know the conferences we used to have so I was like after this San Antonio conference that’s it I’m finding me another job well lo and behold I found out um when I got back that Chicago Housing Authority was hiring for section 8 inspectors so I put in on a Monday they call me Tuesday they hired me Wednesday so I had to play hooky from work for a week because I had to do a week training and I had to pass the national exam that Friday so long story short I’m nervous I gotta pass this exam I need something new um and then I passed the exam with 85 87 so that was cool um from there that’s when I started doing um section 8 inspections I did that for close to eight years um after the eight years um I went and got my leasing license I kept hearing about you can be a leasing agent because I wanted more income so I was trying to try to find out how can I make more income and I kept hearing people talk about becoming a leasing agent where you know you rent out the houses you get licensed normally you get either first month’s rent or half the first month’s rent so I’m like oh that’s not bad if I could rent out a house for you know eight sixteen hundred dollars sixteen hundred get about 800 of that or about 500 or what have you that’s good income so I started doing leasing um as well now and ironically when I met Melissa that’s what she was doing she was in school for leasing as well so licensed leasing she’s a licensed leasing agent yeah so um I went in there the test was like 50 questions um I knocked it out on first go around uh recently um I went and decided to go get my broker license back in October I think October because I needed something to challenge me Dr. Jan and leasing was fine I think I had outgrew it after doing it for six years um and I was nervous because the Illinois real estate exam only 45 percent of the people passed on the first go around um yeah I disciplined myself I focused um I went in there and knocked the test out and I called my wife if I passed the test I’m gonna call you like let’s sell some houses so I called her I said babe let’s sell some houses so so that’s how I got into um the real estate business business um I started off as a um section 8 inspector and as as a section 8 inspector the good thing about it is you meet a lot of people from all walks of life so I began to meet owners I began to meet politicians doctors lawyers people they can repair people that can repair stuff so and I kept all those contacts over the years even in my phone today um because that’s how I built a relationship that’s how I built my network
Melissa Farmer Hill
I was gonna say relationships
Andre Farmer Hill
Absolutely yes relationships and it’s something it’s amazing how people love you when you inspect them because they want to pass some respects on the first go around Dr. Jen so that’s how I ended up getting in um in real estate um I love it and yet along it took me out to four walls um so I like to be out I like to be moving around um so he gave me that opportunity where I’m no longer confound to compound to a building but now I can move around do my job and do what I got to do
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Now I have a viewers that are not in this country and so explain what a uh section 8 inspector is what’s what is section 8
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so section 8 is um pretty much a a program where um the government funds your housing for you this is normally for people that has low income that normally can’t afford to pay for housing so what the government normally do they pay normally about 70 percent of the rent for you now if you’re not working um they’ll pay 100 of your rent for you and then you know there’s a lot of times um they have programs that I recommend that people that’s on section 8 get involved in that’ll help you go to school help you get educated where you can come off the program as well so that’s what section 8 is it pretty much help those that need houses and need affordable housing it helps those get help people get homes so as a section 8 inspector I go in to make sure those houses are up to standards um as far as whether plumbing electrical the furnace the windows the doors I’m inspecting the entire house making sure that this house is inhabitable for those that’s moving in
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh okay I know um a lot of times you hear uh negative stuff about section eight and section eight housing you know uh so uh do you have any stories
Andre Farmer Hill
Well I’ll talk about that um in um my book um and in the book I talk about it’s the uh it’s a myth um I unexpected over ten thousand houses in my lifetime with the section eight over the um eight years um you’re very seldom run into houses that’s damage that’s tore up so okay you know yeah it’s a bad stigma for section 8 but majority of the people I have met you you’ll meet people that have degrees that have graduated from college they got math degrees that’s looking for um employment that can’t find employment I have met people that that um that was ill sick and eventually died of cancer I have met people that kids was murdered in the streets and stabbed to death I met people that went on to do great things in life and stuff like that people of all walks of life um that’s a stigma majority of people you deal with section 8 are good people they’re trying to make a living just like everybody else they want the very same thing that everybody else want they want to go out and be able to take care of their families take trips vacation and be able to feed their family so okay your owner I always recommend that you know if you can’t find a tenant a cash tenant section 8 is always way to go
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay all right okay so you’ve dispelled the myth and I know your your other book quick tips when searching for house to rent what is one I would say main primary tip that people should look for if they’re renting trying to rent a house what’s the one thing
Andre Farmer Hill
Um you want to want to make sure that you can afford the property okay most people um normally owners look for you want to make three times the monthly rent um yeah so normally you want to make three thousand your say for instance if you want to pay two thousand dollars a month in rent well you need to make sure that you making about six thousand dollars a month as far as what they pay you um once you get paid um so I get a lot of people they want the they want the four they want the four bedroom three bath two car garage with the uh finished basement and then okay that’s all right there’s nothing wrong with that but then when I get to action the income portion of it well they only make it 1200 a month uh or you know fourteen hundred dollars a month and then they want to go to the areas like your mansions your country club hills for those are normally are what they call opportunity areas just south holland okay or something like that that’s what they call opportunity areas those areas are normally areas that have good schools good communities crime is not too high um you got stores around there they got places where you can find jobs and stuff like that um but unfortunately a lot of people they can’t afford to live in those areas as well so one of the things people might want to make sure they make at least three times the monthly rent and sometimes you need to know your credit score as well
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay all right uh and now Melissa you have a book called army strong women tell us a little bit about that book
Melissa Farmer Hill
Okay so so I wrote that book based upon my experience of just being out and about in my uniform when I was in the military I would always be out in my uniform and I would get young girls that will would ask me what’s the army like what’s the army like and so I would try to sit and have a conversation with them and you know I’m in the grocery store and so you know customers behind me and things like that or wherever I would go and so I decided one day I was like this would be good information for a high school student or someone that’s thinking about having a career in the military so what I decided to do was write a book and so I interviewed I interviewed over 30 women they’re about maybe 15 vignettes in the book total uh but I interviewed about 30 women and I basically I wanted to answer some basic questions and those basic questions were why did you join see a lot of people we don’t we think we join for many reasons we we do join for many different reasons some people were running away from their husbands some people were some people were trying to go to college I mean there are so many reasons why people would join the military and some people it was based upon family you know being patriotism and joining and so what was that pivotal moment that made you join then what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned because a lot of things happen to women if you just look at the military history of how we got there some of these things we continue to experience um what what are some tips that you can give to women if they decide to make it a career and then it’s a little guideline on how you can even join the army and the things that you should look for so that’s really what that book is about I wanted to answer the simple question you know what would you do if you joined the army and that’s what army strong women is about it’s about like I said a couple of vignettes on all of these wonderful women their backgrounds and everything like that so yeah that’s what that book is about
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah so uh I have a question that came in um for um Andre how did covet 19 affect the real estate market
Andre Farmer Hill
Um right now um if you if you selling houses right now you can sell your house make about forty sixty thousand dollars more than what’s working it’s a seller’s market right now it’s a seller’s market okay public market um as far as a lot of owners that have property is hurting them right now because they got the moratorium so as a right now you can’t do any evictions um you can’t do anything like that there you have it where you can’t do no type of evictions or put anybody out um unfortunately you do have a lot of people that’s right that’s living in houses that’s not paying rent um we actually got a situation like that now over in one of on properties we manage over in Chicago Heights as well um where people’s been living there um for over a year now without paying any rent and stuff like that um unfortunately you know they have bailed out the banks they have bailed out the uh automotive yeah and they have not bailed out the um the owners right um so right now then they talk about maybe extending the moratorium to September um so that’s that’s a sad thing that you know as an owner they’re unable to pay their mortgage yet along provide for their family if they do it full-time but if you’re looking to sell your house right now it’s time to sell
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah okay I was just gonna comment on that that’s kind of like why that airbnb rental arbitrage so if you have a building and it’s empty and you do want to generate money into that building that is a great way to go because now you’re not committed to that year-long lease or that 18-month lease so that really helps and it brings in more than a month’s rent so
Andre Farmer Hill
Right and then that one one last point is also right now it’s a shortage of houses as well that’s why a lot of thing is up because the inventory is low shortage
Melissa Farmer Hill
Okay yeah yeah even the rentals I go to the mls um people that’s looking for houses and it’s hardly like nothing in there back in the day you get about a hundred plus listings but now you go on there by about five ten listings if you’re lucky
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah and then don’t forget when when when someone puts their home on the market whereas you might have four or five people interested in buying now you’re getting 30 offers and 20 offers way over the asking price 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 000 over the asking price so that’s why he keeps saying you know it’s a seller’s market so if you’re if you’re gonna sell now’s the time to do it and it’s probably without our friend yesterday and he said he walked away with um yes sixty thousand yeah sixty thousand he walked over yes right over asking price sixty thousand over the asking price oh Dr. Jam we wanted a vacation home in Florida so we had started looking and good thing I’m a real estate agent because I started looking at some of what some of the places we had looked at and I started looking I said well let me go and I got a software caller investor’s edge I went into the software and I began to look at the prices that I actually have what the houses are worth and they were trying to sell these houses forty six thousand dollars over what it was worth now you know we’re not buying that because we know better because if you go we’ll never be able to sell it
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right wow now uh before we go we just got maybe about 10 minutes I know that um you have a non-profit so tell us about that about your non-profit
Melissa Farmer Hill
So so actually I Vet Connect is a non-profit organization that’s for women so one of the biggest problems I had when I transitioned out of the military was just finding a connection finding a connection kind of like a mentorship peer ship just to assist me in my my process I lost out on a lot of benefits that I did not know I had and so that’s really what I Vet Connect is there to do it’s to kind of guide you through that process we do provide uh information and support for people that may be about to experience homelessness for veterans and things like that and so that’s what I Vet Connect does
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay so how transitioning uh-huh so how do women get in contact with I Vet Connect
Melissa Farmer Hill
Absolutely if you go to ivetconnect.com that’s ivetconnect.com put your information and your situation and then someone will get right back to you
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay ivetconnect.com all right great great great that that sounds that sounds something a non-profit that’s that’s I really need it now um I understand uh oh dad we don’t know what’s gonna come from you doctors man so we have to brace ourselves
Melissa Farmer Hill
No you don’t
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I understand that you have both of you have a tv show that’s coming soon tell us about your tv show
Andre Farmer Hill
All right so our television show is called contemporary living uh with farming hill we originally started um comcast channel 19 in the Chicago area which will still come on each and every Thursday night at 9pm central standard time actually we’ll be on tonight if you’re in Chicago area
Melissa Farmer Hill
That’s right
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so uh we talk about uh health fitness um we talk about travel we talk about real estate and we talk about um biblica I do biblical lessons as well so we break each segment up into like um five categories and then what we do also we like to interview local um talents and local guests as well because we like to highlight those that’s in our community
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yes Dr. Jan you’re coming home
Andre Farmer Hill
That’s right yeah yeah really what it’s all about you know like you say relationship matters our big thing is just you know providing lifestyle solutions for everyday people we give the tips we give you know the hacks we give all of those things that can help you or provide you with information so as soon as our show goes off you’ll you’ll know something about one of those areas so that’s really what we wanted we want to do with the show
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah so and long story short we took uh strengths which was hers was on health and fitness because she loved that and we just put them together our mouths the biblical lessons and and real estate and stuff like that and we both love travel so we just put everything that we love together we just put it all together and then we just hit on each one for five minutes and you know give people like she said those lifestyle solutions and so when you come on our show it’s it’s kind of like having a conversation you know when you go visit someone you just you talk about all different topics so we’ve combined a lot of those topics that we love to talk about and we present them to our viewers
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes that’s that’s wonderful now we talked a little bit uh before we uh came on and um I understand that you all will be broadcasting from different locations because you all will be living from I you’ll be island hopping with a continent hopping island hopping and so I I I think that’s one for now when does your show come on and and you know like where where do we go to look for it
Andre Farmer Hill
Um we’re actually coming to the e360 platform as well
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah Sunday night
Andre Farmer Hill
Sunday night starting June 6th on June 6th that’s next Sunday next Sunday 8pm 8pm central standard time so they can follow us um on e360 television of course we’ll still be on our on comcast show which is about 30 minutes e360 will be on for of course um an hour um so yeah so that’s what y’all can find us at on e360 television
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yeah and you can go to our um www.contemporarylivingtv.com as well to also check us out and get more information and on that that’s like our facebook page as well
Andre Farmer Hill
Yeah you’ll see a lot of inspirational motivational stuff yeah funny stuff not to make you laugh man cry [Laughter]
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Melissa wow that is that it is really wonderful so uh you all are a power couple and I command you because a lot of times you just don’t see couples who who work so well together who and who have the same vision and the same goals you know so uh before we go I this is the relationship matters show so tell me Melissa how important is it to you and what does what does relationship mean no that’s not what does what do relationships mean to you as far as your journey where you are now and what you do you and your mission
Melissa Farmer Hill
Well relationships relationships matter it’s so funny that I’m using the title of your show but I mean it’s so it’s so critical because without relationship nothing moves nothing happens you you get your your this journey that you’re on living through relationships my relationship with my husband my relationship with the women that I work with my relationship with my family it’s all about relationship and then within that relationship you have to have a a great great communication you have to have great communication within that relationship because having those two things great relationships great communication helps me on my journey
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay and what about you Andre
Andre Farmer Hill
Yes I I agree that relationships are important um when you when you’re trying to do things in life and you’re trying to grow together and stuff like that the communication is definitely the key um to your um success your growth and your building together um and having that relationship um open up doors whether you’re looking at relationships or whether you’re looking at business relationships they open up doors in many areas that perhaps you yourself can go into so yeah relations are very important to us and I thank God for our relationship because when we look at our life from where we started um and to where we are now and how we have grown and how we have built things we just know the sky’s the limit and God got great things for us as long as we continue to focus on him and the things that’s above and he’s going to provide and make the way
Melissa Farmer Hill
I agree
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s that’s wonderful well you know this hour has gone soon right and yeah I I want to thank you all for coming on and uh being my guest you have imparted a lot of information you are entertaining and uh I think you put uh some ideas in a lot of people’s minds really honestly honestly uh about airbnb because a couple of people said you know they would they they want a bed and breakfast but now they know it’s the difference between bed and breakfast and air b and b and to see that you all are are are really just excelling in it I I think it’s wonderful I think it’s wonderful so I want to thank you all again for coming on I look forward to your show on Sunday everybody Sunday June what is that June 6 8 pm central daylight time actually oh you and the name of your show is contemporary living
Melissa Farmer Hill
Yes contemporary living
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay all righty so um I’ll see you all up the next time actually I’m gonna talk to you all about uh convincing my husband uh for us to have an airbnb so and have a blessed rest of your day
Melissa Farmer Hill
All right thank you
Andre Farmer Hill
Okay
Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
This has been a very pleasant show and a very informative show and I’d like to thank my viewers for tuning in because I could not have this show without you and I want you to remember relationships matter and there are all kinds of relationship matters so I will see you g in June next month and I have four sun for Thursday so I’m talking about their Sundays four Thursdays and guests that you that will inspire you motivate you and you will see how relationships matter so till then bye bye have a blessed rest of your day [Music] do [Music] you