By Michael and Stephen Szakos / Guest contributors
To the morning radio audience along California’s Central Coast, Michael and Stephen Szakos of TEAM SZAKOS Real Estate are fast becoming the Batman and Robin of the continuing home mortgage crisis, as the duo has come to be known on the popular David Cruz Show, with their segment airing on Wednesday during the 6 to 9 a.m. time slot on KOXR 910AM and heard online at www.misiglo21.com
“Miguel and Esteban, as my Spanish-speaking listeners call them, are now the most-trusted real estate professionals on-air answering questions, providing valuable referrals and offering hope to tens of thousands of homeowners caught in the confusion of this housing crisis,” said David Cruz, moderator of the daily news talk bilingual program.”Our listeners now know and understand a great deal more because of Michael and Stephen and the fact that they do this pro-bono makes them all the more credible and trustworthy.”
Several months ago TEAM SZAKOS was seeking an effective way to reach one of the hardest hit segments of the market and knew running ads was not the solution.
“We wanted something new that would enable us to speak directly to the community and allow them to speak with us,” said Michael Szakos, owner of TEAM SZAKOS. “This is when we met David and shared our concern about the extent of fraud and misinformation we were seeing.”
Cruz and TEAM SZAKOS launched a series of weekly program segments designed to engage, educate and empower the bilingual audience tuned in to the radio program daily. At first, listeners were hesitant. Callers asked questions but it took awhile for them to be willing to share their personal stories.
“There is a great deal of pride in the Latino community and people are also afraid because they’ve been burned so many times,” Stephen Szakos said. “Even we were surprised to learn the depth and breadth of the problem.”
After several weeks of being on the David Cruz Show, Michael and Stephen decided to do something bold. They began offering to meet with homeowners one-on-one at a once-a-week workshop held at Café on A, a downtown Oxnard community center. The consultations are free and TEAM SZAKOS provides any homeowner who attends a chance to have their individual situation reviewed and all the information is provided to them in Spanish as well as English.
“Our goal is to provide families with accurate, timely, relevant facts,” Michael Szakos said. “Often we are going into databases we can access and seeing information about pending foreclosures and in some cases even the sale of their homes — information not even their lender is providing. It is truly sad to see how many people are being lied to and misled while paying tens of thousands of dollars to unscrupulous agents, attorneys and scam artists who give them false hope.”
TEAM SZAKOS is also offering a 24/7 Szakos Helpline for their radio listeners, 1.888.700.9658 where they have received hundreds of calls from homeowners seeking advice and assistance.
“All the signs point to this situation continuing in the housing market and TEAM SZAKOS is just glad we’ve been able to do our part to try and help people save their homes where possible but in every case, make sure their family’s well-being is the priority,” Stephen Szakos said.
On Oct. 20, TEAM SZAKOS participated in California’s first Town Hall Meeting on the housing crisis where elected officials, law enforcement and real estate professionals came together with residents to exchange information and tips on how to prevent the on-going fraud associated with the current foreclosures.
“We see this as a start and look forward to working with communities in other parts of Southern California to educate homeowners about legitimate options they have,” Michael Szakos said. “Now, we are about to enter the Los Angeles market where the foreclosures are ten times as many and so is the fraud so that hopefully, TEAM SZAKOS can help people there also.”
— This guest commentary is contributed by Michael and Stephen Szakos of Cobalt Realty, 940 E. Santa Clara St., Suite 100, Ventura. They can also be heard live each Wednesday morning on the David Cruz bilingual radio program on KOXR AM-910. The show is aired from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call (888) 700.9658, visit http://www.teamszakos.com/ or send an email to michaelszakosandassociates@gmail.com