The Norris Group Real Estate Podcast

I Survived Real Estate Part 5: Legends Investor Panel #939

• The Norris Group, Craig Evans

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I SURVIVED REAL ESTATE 2025

The Norris Group Presents: The 18th Annual I Survived Real Estate – LIVE at the Nixon Presidential Library

The Norris Group’s award-winning black-tie gala, I Survived Real Estate, returns for its 18th year.  Since 2008, I Survived Real Estate has supported Make-A-Wish OC & IE—and thanks to your generosity, we’ve now raised over $1.2 million for children in need 

This year’s backdrop?


A California housing market still starved for inventory, mortgage rates hovering above comfort zones, affordability hitting generational lows, inflation and tariffs. Add in global uncertainty, sticky inflation, and the ever-watchful eye of the Federal Reserve—and you’ve got a landscape full of questions.

  • Inventory Drought: California’s housing supply remains critically low
  • Rate Pressure: Mortgage rates linger well above buyer comfort zones
  • Priced Out: Affordability has collapsed to generational lows
  • Global Tensions: War, tariffs, and instability rattle investor confidence
  • Inflation’s Grip: Costs remain stubbornly high, squeezing margins
  • Tariff Troubles: Rising import costs could ripple through construction and development
  • All Eyes on the Fed: Every rate hint could send shockwaves through the market

 Our expert panel brings top minds in economics, investing, and housing to help us prepare for what’s next. I Survived Real Estate was born from crisis, with a mission to unite thought leaders, give back, and guide our industry forward. 


In this episode:

  • Bruce Norris, Tony Alvarez, and Peter Fortunato bring decades of experience and distinct investment philosophies.
  • Why low rates don’t always translate to market growth?
  • Market Outlook: Cautious optimism from Bruce Norris backed by historical trends suggesting a potential flat cycle.
  • Creative Financing with Peter Fortunato: How long-term relationships and deal structure create lasting opportunity.
  • Market Confidence with Tony Alvarez: The importance of hyper-local focus and truly understanding value.
  • Relationship Capital: How business deals can become foundations for lifelong partnerships.
  • Advice for New Investors: Mindset, strategy, and connection over quick wins.


The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669.  For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.


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Narrator:

Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we'll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here's your host, Craig Evans.

Joey Romero:

The Norris Group is proud to present our 18th annual gala. I Survived Real Estate at The Nixon Presidential Library on Friday, September 12. Since 2008, our event has raised well over a million dollars. This year, we'll be raising funds again from Make-A-Wish OC and IE. Individual Tickets are available now. To get your tickets, go to isurviverealestate.com click the link here in the card. We would like to thank the following platinum sponsors, uDirectIRA Services, The San Diego Creative Investors Association, DouglasBrooke Homes, MVT Productions, Realty411, and DBL Capital.

Craig Evans:

All right. Everybody ready for the, I guess the second half of the show? We'll see how long I talk before everybody starts listening, right? Feel like I'm with a fifth grade class that we're trying to herd cats in here. Is everybody having a good time tonight? Come on, that's the best you got. Is everybody having a good time tonight? How was the first panel? Doug Duncan and Oscar Wei and Dan Wallach. That was incredible to hear their insights and to hear their their passion for what they do. So listen, here we go. We're going to start out with a second, the second half of it, and what we're going to be talking are, the people on this panel are people that when Joey and I began to talk about things, was putting together the best of the best. I wanted to see 50 years of investors on stage, and I wanted to hear their insights, right? Because, listen, here's the thing I want you to hear. I just met a gentleman that's 18 years old and has been in real estate investing three months. I know Al Womble that used to play with Jesus, and he's been in real estate forever, right? So we've got both ends of the spectrum here, and that's no disres-. Listen, that's what this room is about. You've got people that are just starting, and you've got people that have been in it for decades, and we're here to learn from each other. So tonight, for the next panel, again, we're going to bring someone that needs no introduction, Bruce, which is already trying to sneak to the stage. So come on out. You're already sneaking up here. So we got Bruce Norris, again. Give him a hand. Then I've got someone that I met through Bruce first year that has become a good friend, Tony Alvarez. Tony made his fortune in one of Southern California's toughest markets, buying, rehabbing and selling hundreds of properties, from land to commercial buildings. Tony has turned distressed deals into remarkable success stories, and continues to share his lessons with investors nationwide. Tony Alvarez, or as I call him, Uncle Tony.

Tony Alvarez:

You guys think that we own the stage?

Craig Evans:

All right, just so you know, there's no telling of what's coming out of Tony's mouth tonight. So, all right, last, and definitely not least, a gentleman that I just got to meet this weekend, it has been a pleasure and an honor to meet and talk and to hear how he views things in life, especially from real estate. Peter Fortunato, for nearly five decades, Peter has been structuring, that's right. I don't know if I even need to say anything. Six decades, he's correcting. He's like, don't steal that last decade from me. Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Fortunato. These guys are going to take a few minutes longer to sit down, because they're, they got a little more age on them there. All right, I want to get started, Bruce. I want to start with you. I'm going to sit on the edge of this chair this time, so hopefully I don't fall backwards in the kitty chair here.

Bruce Norris:

It might be your weight. I don't know. I'm messing with you, because I was afraid to sit in that chair too. Like, what's gonna happen?

Craig Evans:

Alright, Bruce, you've nailed some of the most important calls in California real estate over the last couple decades. What signals are you watching right now that the investors in this room should be paying attention to?

Bruce Norris:

I think most people think that when interest rates go down, you're going to have a good reaction in the real estate market. Problem with that is that if you look over the last 50 years, you have that replicated three other times where you had an end of a cycle and then you had interest rates go down, and actually nothing really good happens in the next two years, because people's mood is not excited about real estate and the affordability number is very low. And you're if you're expecting things to turn around and prices to accelerate, that means the Mood-O-Meter is going to accelerate when it's almost at its peak all time. And I just don't think, since that's never occurred. I mean, that's how I think, has that ever occurred? The answer is no, not in 50 years. So the mood of the participant is going to rule, and you're probably going to have a pretty flat market, because you still have all those people that have 3% mortgages are going to go nowhere. But I don't think the outcome is going to be super and I wish it was. I've got some new houses for sale, so I, gosh, I hope prices go up by 10% but there's no history of that.

Craig Evans:

So Pete, everybody knows you're the master of creative financing and creative deals. So you built your career on structuring creative deals. What's one strategy that, as you corrected me, that you've been in this for six decades now. What's one strategy that you used six decades ago that is still that you view is still relevant today?

Pete Fortunato:

The season, you're. All right.

Craig Evans:

You gotta. Now, you know this, you got to talk into those...

Pete Fortunato:

Anyway. It's, the strategy I use. Is I care about the person I'm talking to. I find out what's going on in their life, and I help solve problems. I ease the trouble that people are facing. I always like to tell people. I say to somebody, 'Why would you sell a nice house like this?' And I discover something's changed in their life. There's some uncomfortable circumstance, and I am going to fix it. I am going to give them alternatives. And there's no such thing as an impossible deal, but there are impossible people, so that sometimes when you just have to walk away. But that's not my goal, and I will continue to try to fix it, and sometimes they have no idea what I'm trying to do, but I will never stop trying. I'm going to try to make a deal where somebody is better off because of me, and because capitalism works. Every time you do business with somebody else, you make a friend because you give them something they like better, and they give you something you like better. And so capitalism works. That's why, when you talk about any kind of government program, it's always evil. We had that...

Craig Evans:

I think this is probably relevant now. Tony, you know, you built your wealth, and I've listened to you over the last five years of knowing you. You built your wealth in one of the toughest markets in Antelope Valley. What gave you the confidence to buy? Because, you know, we've got people right now say, 'Do we buy now? Do we sit on the sidelines and wait? Do we sell? Do we hope?' You know, what gave you the confidence at that time when you're buying in Antelope Valley, and everything that was going on, then, what gave you the confidence to buy when everyone else was running the opposite direction?

Tony Alvarez:

Well, I think the foundation of the answer to that question is understanding value within a given market. You know, you don't have to know the whole United States. You don't have to know, it's important to know what's going on nationally, obviously. But when it comes to buying, I've always worked in very small geographic markets, what I call it, my target market, right? But understanding the values, I figured out early on that if I knew what real value was in the real estate market that I was working in, quickly, if I could identify that, then I could move with confidence. I didn't have to think about it. I didn't have to think, do I really know what I'm doing? Or, you know I wasn't, there was no fear involved. Because fear disappears, when you know something and you know it, like Bruce would know his numbers. Or when Peter sits down to talk to somebody and he knows what he's setting, what his intention is, in other words, he's going to solve a problem in. All he has to do is hear it, right? So when I went out to the Antelope Valley, it wasn't that difficult, okay, because houses that were costing, at that point in time, I know most of you will think this is nuts, but you know, it would cost to build a house $100,000 at that point in that market, and I was looking at a purchase price of $35,000 and no one wanted it. So it didn't take a genius, because I could rent that house out, and I knew the rental market at 850 bucks. So it wasn't a question of whether I should buy it or not. It was how quickly I was going to buy it and how many I was going to get, right? So so that's a conversation you have with yourself. You don't have to talk to anybody else. I didn't have to call an agent and ask them. Agent and ask them they were already in the market, frustrated because nobody wanted these houses. So I just went, you know, and I can make the numbers work even with hard money lenders, with their rates and stuff like that. So it was really understanding the value within my target market. But over time, I kind of synthesize as a result of Bruce asking me later, many years later, to speak about this. He said, you know, 'What did you do? How did you get this done?' And I really hadn't thought about it, but I sat down and I kind of synthesized this, the steps that I took, and it boiled down to basically what I labeled 'the GPS', having a specific Goal, having Systems, you know, having a Plan. So GPS, Goal, Plan Systems. Systems were the daily actions I had to take, regardless of whether I was in the mood or not. So, you know, it just, it's, it's not a difficult thing, but understanding the values in my target market is at the head of the game. That's at the bottom of everything. If you don't know that, you got to go do something else, you know, if you're not willing to commit to really understanding, that's the basic thing. So that would be probably the number one thing that gave me the confidence to then talk to somebody about financing, you know, pull the trigger on a price that I was willing to pay and not care about what somebody else is in, you know, the counter offer and this and that. And, you know, that became just a game that I would move, you know, I would change my number to whatever I thought was worth doing. There were ridiculous numbers at that time, though, you know, I mean, oh, he wants, I would offer 30,000 on it, and then they would come back and say, no, 32. So I'm going to argue about this. I want you to know there were times where I did argue about that, and I lost the deal, believe it or not. And Sabrina, my assistant, has never stopped reminding me of all those houses. You know, $400,000 and we drive by, remember that one when you screwed up because, the $5,000 that you argued about with the guy? No. So anyways, I hope I answered your question.

Bruce Norris:

it's not going to come up. What Tony does is bring build lifelong team partners by observing something. So he just told me a story today while we're in the same van. But you know what it is. He observed that the guy that owned the company was trying to sell chocolate bars for his kid, and he noticed that the employees were complaining about having to buy them, and so Tony, on his own, said, how many do you have? And he bought them all without ever meeting the owner yet, and then he gave them all to the people that worked for the company. Then he meets the owner, and while he's into the first meeting with the owner, people keep coming to the door and saying, opening door, saying'Thanks for the chocolate bar'. That happened five times. And he's like, 'What the heck happened?' So he calls the girl at the front and says, 'The guy with you bought four dozen of them and gave them away'. And the guy tears up when he hangs up the phone. And Tony Alvarez has a source of properties for the rest of his life. He's still friends with him, by the way.

Tony Alvarez:

Yeah, that's Don Anderson, in case you guys want to check it out. Okay, he moved to Idaho, but we're still friends. I danced at his daughter's wedding, and she named me. She's the one who named me, Uncle Tony. For those of you who've been around with me for a long time to know that little tagline. His daughter and his son named me Uncle Tony because they all saw, you know how kids sell those chocolate bars to go to some trip, wherever the heck it is, and, yeah, Bruce is right. We were just discussing this today, but I was saying that sometimes opportunities presented themselves like that. Now we're not talking about some secret weapon tactic that you're going to use to find deals or AI or something, you know, right? So Peter's talking about relationships with people, and that's true. I overlook those things a lot of times, because it's such a natural course of events for me, like it is for Peter, right?

Bruce Norris:

You care, you care for people. Well, of course, yeah.

Tony Alvarez:

Well, look, I don't care when the robots are going to start coming. But if you lose your ability to connect with other human beings, you're at a huge disadvantage, because you, in my opinion, you work, you try to find the most difficult way to make things happen. Now I know that there's some people out there that are on the internet. Hear about it all the time, some young guys out on Facebook selling the new fangled, you know, way to buy property all the way across the United States. You don't know anybody, and you can rent them out Section 8. And you could do it on some website. And I've read, I don't know if you guys, I've had 100 Section 8 units, believe you me, that ain't happening. Okay, I don't care what anybody else says, but yeah, relationships, you got one life you're going to live right as far as I know, haven't heard anything different. So I'm going to live it the way I think it's going to be the most rewarding for me and for someone else. So that's every relationship, every contact that I make, I try to, I try to make that happen.

Bruce Norris:

That's the secret to Tony.

Tony Alvarez:

But you've been talking about that since before I was born. I think because I'm a lot like younger than you, yeah.

Pete Fortunato:

But indeed, the allies you make when you make a deal are the most valuable thing you take from that closing. And that's why it's so foolish to see people, it's so sad to see people who bought something and never talked to the seller again, have sold something, never talked to the buyer again. Have borrowed money, never gone back, rented to a tenant. I have people get shocked that when I bought my fourth house, I borrowed the 10,000 cash I needed from my tenant my second house, they can't believe that I had that really, that I talked to her I knew she had money in the bank. I said I'd rather have wealthy tenants than poor tenants. You should get 9% not 3% and she lent me the money to buy my fourth property, my tenant, my second house.

Craig Evans:

So, all right, so I'm gonna turn into Dr Phil here for a second. I'm going completely off script here. So, and this is why it's interesting to me. You know, I've got my daughter here tonight, Addison, I just met a young man that's 18 years old. He's been in real estate investing for three months, and said this is the career I want. Yep, stand up for me. Stand up. If everybody in the room can pour into that young man. That's the thing we got to do. But here's the thing I want to, you know, like, I literally, I watch guys at this age, right? My daughter's age, I'm sorry, tell her your name again? Glenn, at their age, I'm watching them to literally text the person next door to them.'Hey, do you want to go get something to eat?' Texting back,'Yes'. We've got Gen Z, and now we're in the Gen, alpha and beta and whatever, right, all the generations that are coming. This is exactly why I wanted this. I don't care the questions I wrote. I want to know, how do we teach people coming behind us? You know, you know my faith and the Bible tells me that I'm supposed to pour into people that are younger than me, the older is supposed to teach the younger so and we'll get into strategies and all that. If each of you could have one legitimate thing that you would encourage younger people to do, to build relationships. They can't. You can't take the cheat sheet and say, 'Get off your cell phone'. That's that's way too easy, right? What would the one thing you would encourage a young investor getting into real estate to do? How can we get them out of a data world and into, 'I know this man'.

Bruce Norris:

Okay, can I go first on that?

Craig Evans:

Absolutely.

Bruce Norris:

It'll take a minute. But I worked for a company for three months, and I didn't enjoy it because he didn't treat people well. So I went out on my own, and I had a life changing experience three months into me being on my own, I sat across from somebody that had called on my ad, and I made him an offer, and he was like, so not there, so distant. And it bothered me. And actually, you know that, like the hair on your neck goes up, that actually happened. I said, you know, 'I don't want to talk to about your house anymore. Are you okay?' And he looked at me, really surprised that I asked that. And he said, 'No, I'm not'. I said,'Okay, I don't want to talk to you about your house anymore'. And I went to my car, and I had bought 10 books, same book, Greatest Miracle In The World, written by Og Mandino. And I had read the book, and I loved it. And so I came back and I gave him the book. I said, 'I don't want to talk to you about your house anymore, today, I want you to read this book. If you won't read the whole book, read the chapter nine. It's called the God memorandum. And in that chapter, God says to you, you may have forgot this, but you're the greatest thing since sliced bread. So let me remind you about that'. So the next morning, I knock on the door and he opens it up, and he says, 'I want you to know that the book you gave me saved my life. I was going to sell you my house and kill myself'. And then he gave me the best gift you could give to a guy that was 28 and just starting, he said, 'I still want to sell you my house. Because what I realized, what I need, is a fresh start'. And I went in, I went from thinking I got to steal somebody's house to me realizing I could look to across the table and see if there was a fresh start that was needed, and it changed everything. Because I wasn't nervous, I wasn't stressed. I was just sort of like Pete I was looking for, and there was plenty of times as 'I don't understand why you're selling? Why are you doing that?' Now I'd get pushed back. I even had, I did have a guy actually, 'You run an ad that you're buying properties. You're trying not to do it. Why are you doing that?' Anyway, that's the thing that I think when you care about it, and you look across the table, and if you have a little experience, it helps, where you can actually benefit the person, and it's almost like you don't care if you buy it or not, and you'll probably get people to tell you the truth. I think that's what happens. I have had so many sellers say I don't know why I'm telling you this. I've told no one this is because they felt they could trust me, and they gave me the information that I could use to say I can solve this.

Craig Evans:

Okay, anybody next?

Pete Fortunato:

All right.

Joey Romero:

Don't forget to visit I survive real estate for tickets to the event on Friday, September 12. The Norris group would like to thank the following gold sponsors, Keystone CPA, the inland valleys Association of Realtors, Pasadena Phoebe, the North San Diego real estate investors Association, la southea, NorCal Rhea, The Wizard of the wobbly box, Andy Teasley, shepherd's finance, the Thompson group, property radar and White House catering. The dinner wine is provided with a generous contribution by Rick and Lee. Ann Rossiter, hope see you all there

Narrator:

for more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing and upcoming events with the Norris group. Check out the Norris group.com for more information on passive investing through the DBL capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit DBL capital.com

Joey Romero:

the Norris group originates in services loans in California and Florida under the California Dre license 01219911, Florida mortgage lender license 1577, and NMLS license 1623669, for more information on hard money lending, go to the Norris group com and click the hard money tab.