On Friday, October 24, the Norris Group proudly presented its 7th annual award-winning black-tie event I Survived Real Estate. An incredible lineup of industry experts joined Bruce Norris to discuss perplexing industry trends, head-scratching legislation, and opportunities emerging for real estate professionals. Proceeds for the event benefit Make a Wish and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This event could not have been possible without the generous help of the following platinum partners: Auction.com, HousingWire, PropertyRadar, the Apartment Owners Association, the San Diego Creative Real Estate Investors Association and President Bill Tan, The North San Diego Real Estate Investors Association, InvestClub for Women and Iris Veneracion, Wholesale Capital Corp, New Western Acquisition, MVT Productions, and White House Catering. For event video and information, visit isurvivedrealestate.com.
Aaron Norris of the Norris Group kicked off the event by thanking everyone who came to the event, including the TNG team. Diana seated over 400 people. It is hard to believe I Survived Real Estate turned 7 years old on this night. Despite the many who had to call in sick, the event still brought in close to what it had brought in the year prior. They raised over $90,000 this year, bringing the total to over half a million dollars in seven years. The Norris Group underwrites the event, so 100% of the money raised actually goes toward charity. This was made possible through the awesome sponsors and others in the audience who raised money to attend. Some people don’t have a dime out of pocket expect for their formal wear, so they joined the fundraising team run by Make a Wish. They asked friends, family, and co-workers to donate $10 at a time on whatever they raised. Their top fundraiser Bruce May, who unfortunately was unable to attend, raised over $2700. The top two fundraising teams, who were almost neck-in-neck were InvestClub for Women and the San Diego Creative Investors Association.
The efforts that night benefited two very important charities that benefit children with life-threatening illnesses. Patty Gutiérrez from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital came up to speak about the organization. She spoke about a video shown about Eli, who tragically recently lost his fight with cancer. Patty said that no child should die in the dawn of life, the words of St. Jude’s founder Danny Thomas. Looking at the video of Eli and seeing his sweet smile, Patty thinks we can all agree with Danny that this is one of the reasons we are here today. On behalf of the patients, the families, and doctors at St. Jude Children’s research hospital, Patty gave a big thanks to the Norris Group and to everyone for their generosity and support in the fight against childhood cancer.
While St. Jude sees and treats some of the toughest cases like Eli’s, St. Jude is a place of hope and a leader in the research of childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Treatments invented at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% when it first opened in 1962 to more than 80% today. What is even more amazing is St. Jude is working to drive the overall childhood cancer survival rate to 90% in the next decade. She strongly believes St. Jude will accomplish this because of the way the hospital approaches and freely shares its research discoveries. While St. Jude treats children from California to across the states and across the world, the hospital also has an international outreach program that transfers the progress achieved in the treatment of childhood cancer in developed countries to those with limited resources. St. Jude is able to impact the global fight against childhood cancer through 21 partner sites in 15 different countries.
Another unique thing about St. Jude is that families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing, or food since all the families should worry about is helping their child live. Thanks to everyone’s generosity, St. Jude is able to do this and so much more. It was amazing to see everyone’s support for St. Jude and the beautiful mission of Make a Wish as well in brining hope to families in the darkest and toughest fights of their life. Danny Thomas quoted, “All of us are born for a reason, but all of us don’t discover why.” Patty believed this spoke for everyone in the room there that night. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in your life or accomplish for yourself, but rather what you do for others.
Aaron asked anyone who had dealt with cancer, were currently dealing with it, or knew somebody dealing with it to stand. Afterwards Rebecca Quaid of the Make a Wish Foundation came up to speak. They have been an incredible partner for the last several years. People raise money, and at the Norris Group they get updates every day of who is donating and raising money. They have been such an incredible partner and another great cause with whom they are so proud to raise money. Rebecca said that at Make a Wish they grant wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich a human experience with hope, strength, and joy. It does seem obvious that granting a wish would give our Wish kids hope, strength, and joy. However, the surprising part is how that mission extends well beyond the mission themselves.
A couple months ago, they met a five-year old battling acute acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her medical treatment has included numerous tests and procedures including weekly chemotherapy and monthly spinal taps. With a huge love for animals, her wish was to be a veterinarian. Finally, it her turn to be the doctor. The video showed her wish come true. Her mother put it in perfect perspective. Her daughter wanted to treat her beloved pets with the same care and compassion that she received. From examining cats and dogs to assisting with an ultra sound and even helping to remove stitches, she was truly a vet like no other.
However, she was not the only one to receive a wish that day. The veterinarians and the staff helped put everything together, and the volunteers, film crew, photographers, and even the cats, dogs, and other furry patients as well as her family and friends. So many were affected in just one afternoon. Her wish left everyone filled with hope, strength, and joy. This is the power of Make a Wish. This year they will grant 347 wishes for children in Orange County and the Inland Empire. This is one every 25 hours. They will also assist with more than 600 kids coming in from around the world to see sites like Disneyland or meet their favorite celebrity. Unfortunately, according to the Center for Disease Control, they are only reaching about half the eligible children in the territory. However, thanks to everyone’s support they will help them reach the goal of granting every child’s eligible wish and make sure they have the opportunity to live their truest dream.
Rebecca ended by talking about another child, specifically a child they adopted that night. Six-year old Jacob was suffering from an immune system disorder. He wished to meet and spend the day with the Amazing Spiderman. He wanted to shake his hero’s hand, become best friends, and fight the mean guys with him. Before long, Jacob received a phone call from the chief of police that the city was in peril and Spiderman needed Jacob’s help. Jacob and Spiderman had an incredible crime-fighting adventure capturing the mad scientist and capturing Spiderman’s main nemesis Venom. At the end of an exhausting day, Jacob was awarded a special medal of bravery from the police department. His courage helped him save the city that day, and it also helped him through the obstacles of his illness. On behalf of everyone at Make a Wish, including the staff, volunteers, board of directors, and Wish kids, Rebecca thanked every single person attending the event. Make a Wish was so proud to present Aaron with Adopt a Wish plaque commemorating Jacob’s wish to fight with the amazing Spiderman. With friends like The Norris Group and everyone there, Make a Wish can turn life-threatening illnesses into life-affirming triumphs.
Aaron thanked everyone with the organizations for all their work over the last four months. He also thanked White House Catering and George and MVT Productions for their work that night at the event. Following this, Aaron brought up the host for the evening: Bruce Norris. He has been an investor for over thirty years and parts of thousands of transactions as investor, builder, and hard money lender. He hosts the award-winning weekly radio show and spends much of his time researching really nerdy things like bills and bailouts as well as economic trends. This was more than an affirmation for Bruce Norris. It was an affirmation for a company’s intent and a lot of great people he gets to call co-workers at the Norris Group. Aaron thanked everybody, but there was one remaining person to thank that night: Aaron Norris himself. He is an amazing young man he is very proud to call his son. At the very core, he learned a long time ago that what made his day bright was making someone else’s day better. He gets to watch him do this for a living. He is so involved in charity with the purest of intent, and this is exciting to see.
Bruce said he has interviewed everyone on the panel in the past on his radio show. More times than once it is a challenge to interview people who are smarter than you. That night they had a whole string of them in front of him, so that was going to be fun. Aaron mentioned that occasionally he gets a little nerdy and goes off to study things. This was something he was going to do the following week. He was going to take a week off and take with him about 50 pounds of writing. He was going to read it all with a yellow marker to try and figure out what is going to happen in 2015. This is something about which he is passionate and is pleased to be able to do.
Aaron said this was the seventh year for the event, which is hard to imagine. Bruce had a feeling the audience makeup has changed. The first year they did it they were 100% investors and were wondering what it was they were attending. They showed up faithfully anyway, and all of a sudden they not only got it themselves but saw an extension to all other kinds of other pieces of the industry. The original intent was to first introduce the other facets of the industry to the real estate investor in a really healthy way. They wanted to say this was who they were and what they were about. Over the years they have gotten to see that they can be team partners with the Norris Group. Bruce asked everyone there what area they were involved, beginning with realtors. He then went down the list, including escrow and title, appraisers, property managers, city government, information website owners, news media, home stagers, builders, lenders, and investors. Bruce thanked everyone for coming out and hoped it be a memorable night.
One of the effects of not looking at your industry as a standalone piece is if you work together with the entire group, you accomplish something. Just this past week, after three years of combined effort from the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors, and the Builders Association, they came up with a definition of qualified residential mortgage with which we can live. Without a lot of effort from people who are on the panel and predecessors of these people, this would not have happened. This is a big deal to investors who buy and sell properties. They may have an easier time selling properties if somebody has to put 3% down rather than 20%. We are really in this all together. Leslie Appleton-Young said at one point during the worst section of time, “God bless investors.” Bruce’s hope was that the rest of the industry remembers this going forward. There is a tendency that once they are not of use, they are forgotten. He just read they are about to implement the 90-day hold rule again at the end of the year. The article said the investors served their purpose, and now we are going back to normal.
Bruce hopes somebody on the panel will take this up and say it is not necessary because these guys are team players. They cannot assume investors will do something wrong just because they have the ability to buy a house, fix it up, and turn it inside of 30 days instead of three months. It is not as much fun owning a vacant house for 90 days. This does not help a cause or an area, so Bruce hopes that maybe this can get fought on their behalf. Some investors take the other pieces of the industry very seriously and respect others a great deal. During 2012 and 2013, almost every property they bought and fixed and put in the MLS made an offer by one or twenty hedge funds all cash. They never took one of those offers intentionally because it would have skirted somebody in the industry getting a loan or escrow. This is why this was never done. Bruce said they intentionally said no to every one of them. This is important to understand that they are team players with everyone. It costs money to do this, but they did it anyway.
The Norris Group would like to thank its gold sponsors for supporting I Survived Real Estate: Adrenaline Athletics, Coachella Valley Real Estate Investors Association, Coldwell Banker Town and Country, Costa Mesa Marriot, Council of Multiple Listing Services, Elite Auctions, In A Day Development, Inland Valley Association of Realtors, Investor Experts, IRA Services Trust Company, Jennifer Buys Houses, Keystone CPA, Las Brisas Escrow, LA South REIA, Leivas Tax Wealth Management, Personal Real Estate Magazine, Pilot Limousine, Primary Residential Mortgage, Northern California Real Estate Investors Association, Real Wealth Network, Realty 411 Magazine, Resonant Lens Photography, Rick and LeAnne Rossiter, SJREI, SONOCA Corporation, Southpointe Companies, Spinnaker Loans, Tony Alvarez, uDirect IRA Services. See isurvivedrealestate.com for video of the live event and more on our sponsors.
For more information about The Norris Group’s California hard money loans or our California Trust Deed investments, visit the website or call our office at 951-780-5856 for more information. For upcoming California real estate investor training and events, visit The Norris Group website and our California investor calendar. You’ll also find our award-winning real estate radio show on KTIE 590am at 6pm on Saturdays or you can listen to over 170 podcasts in our free investor radio archive.