The Chicago Journal

Colin McDowell on What the Future of Real Estate Looks Like

For the majority of the year 2020, the world has felt the brunt effects of COVID-19. Economies have slowed down, and industries severely hit. However the real estate industry is booming. Experts like real estate and mortgage coach Colin Daugherty McDowell, believe there are still plenty of reasons to remain optimistic.

When asked what his recommendations are for avid investors and real estate professionals, Colin believes nothing should change. “I think you should be doing exactly what you would do if COVID never hit,” the industry leader suggests. “But you need to do it with eyes wide open.”

Colin McDowell is one of the top mentors for mortgage brokers and real estate brokers in the United States. He’s young, but he’s dominated the field of real estate. The founder of many real estate and mortgage corporations, from top tier mortgage originations, to consulting and processing, has built a name and legacy for himself in financing and real estate investing. When he was only twenty-four years old, he led an OCC project for Bank of America. His project oversaw more than $4 billion in mortgage assets facing foreclosure and aided over 25,000 homeowners. 

In recent times, Colin shared his insights about where the real estate industry will be like in the coming days as COVID-19 comes to its tail end. There is more than enough reason to believe that real estate will not be affected by the crisis for mortgage and real estate professionals. “There is no reason to believe that people won’t continue buying homes,” Colin shares. “The Northeast is strong. And with the real estate market improving. It is still better than where things were before the Great Recession.”

Colin is also quick to point out the favor people have in lower mortgage rates. Bank interests have dropped to record lows with the economy hit by lockdowns and business closures. This trend makes real estate more affordable, and these unprecedented times a great time to maximize and buy if families or individuals have the capacity. The more significant opportunity comes for millennial families who now need the extra room to work from home on a more permanent basis.

Colin McDowell also shares the many technological advances in real estate that have risen in usage and popularity with the new normal on top of market outlooks. COVID-19 has streamlined and pushed industries into greater digitization, making software, online platforms, and digital marketing practices more widespread across the industry. This advancement in technology, Colin adds, will cause real estate professionals to innovate more and bring more outstanding progress in the way people buy, sell, and invest in property.

In recent times, Colin McDowell has spent more time educating investor professionals on leveraging mortgage backed securities and getting the best results on dollar for dollar yield spread. On the home front, he shares his best practices and tips through coaching and consulting, helping more people attain their dream homes or win as investors. Colin also takes time to consult for businesses in other industries and inject some of his invaluable insights from his corporate and entrepreneurial backgrounds. 

To learn more about Colin McDowell, or to ask him a question you may have, he has asked us to direct you to his LinkedIn account.  

Los Angeles Teen Takes on the Literacy Gap to Break the Cycle of Homelessness and Poverty with Her Philanthropic Organization

This has been a trying year for people all over the country, but California and the Los Angeles area have been hit especially hard by the effects of the pandemic, which has exacerbated the gravest problems the state already faces. Literacy, poverty, and homelessness rates in Los Angeles are staggering, and these three factors are very closely correlated. To worsen these existing problems, school shutdowns in California have left children in underserved communities at risk for falling further behind and perpetuating this unfortunate cycle. Alana Weisberg, a local Los Angeles resident and high school student, has decided to do something about it rather than to sit idly by and watch as the less fortunate in her community succumb to unfair circumstances out of their control.

After completing a summer business-building extracurricular program, Alana was motivated to start an organization or independent project of her own, but she was particularly passionate about helping out the less fortunate in her local community, and so Bookworm Global was born. Bookworm Global is Alana’s answer to local and national literacy-focused community service, and her philanthropic organization’s mission is to narrow the literacy and education gap by making books available to those in at-risk communities and ensuring that students don’t fall further behind at this difficult time. When Alana began Bookworm Global, her initial mission was simply to donate books to those in need and to provide books for other literacy-related nonprofits to distribute directly to the children they serve. However, Alana has since grown Bookworm Global into a much larger organization that serves children in a variety of ways. To date, Bookworm Global has donated over 16,200 books and trained over 230 volunteers, including Girl Scout troops and student volunteers in both Southern and Northern California. Bookworm Global builds lending libraries, partners with schools and nonprofits in low-income areas, and organizes school book fairs and contactless book donation drives. In addition, this year, Bookworm Global is donating over 400 wrapped books as Christmas presents to children living in poverty, for whom a book will likely be their only present, and this will likely be the first and only book these students have ever owned.

While Alana’s contribution through Bookworm Global is impressive on its own, the mission behind Bookworm Global comes at a much-needed time in communities that are grappling with the side-effects of the pandemic and specifically the education inequity that has been heightened by school closures. The greatest predictor of literacy for children and students living in poverty is the quality of their school library and the access or lack thereof to engaging quality reading material. Alana has helped build lending libraries for children in affected areas to offer students high-interest books specifically curated for each community, which they can bring home and share with their families. One recent lending library project Alana and Bookworm Global completed was in partnership with Braddock Drive Elementary.

Bookworm Global works directly with organizations that serve at-risk children in lower-income communities but don’t otherwise have the means or the manpower to make these literacy-focused contributions and donations. Bookworm Global is currently collecting books for Watts Learning Center, where 95% of the children served are living below the poverty line. Through donating used books, building lending libraries, recruiting volunteers, and spreading awareness about the importance of addressing the education and literacy inequity problem, Alana and Bookworm Global are attempting to make California better for the current and future generations and to break the cycle of low literacy and related homelessness and poverty.

To learn more about Bookworm Global, their founder Alana Weisberg, and how you or your student can get involved, you can visit their website here and inquire about volunteer opportunities. Alana is excited to expand Bookworm Global beyond just the Los Angeles and Bay Area, and in the future, she hopes to attack the nationwide issue of subpar education for those in socioeconomically-disadvantaged areas.