Welcome to NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Development podcast. I’m Monica Neubauer, your host. How many of you would like some more help getting buyers into homes? Um… I think everybody’s hand would be raised right now.

 

Even my guest is saying that, and he’s going to teach us how to do that! Our guest today, Skyler Lemons, is known as Chicago’s Down Payment Grant King. He is one of NAR’s 2025 Class of 30 Under 30 award recipients. Skyler is helping people buy real estate who didn’t think they could buy real estate or didn’t know that they had the money to buy real estate. Welcome Skyler!

 

[1:03 ] Skyler Lemons is an NAR 2025 30 Under 30 Award recipient. He is helping people buy real estate who didn’t think they could buy real estate or didn’t know that they had the money to buy real estate. Welcome Skyler!

[1:27 ] Skyler thinks that every agent should know and have in their arsenal what Skyler has discovered in the world of down payment assistance. He’s on a mission to empower more agents to do this.

[1:53 ] Skyler is known as Chicago’s Down Payment Grant King. He’s a real estate broker with Exit Strategy REALTOR®, and he’s helping first-time and low-to-moderate-income buyers access home ownership with minimal up-front costs. In 2024, Skyler helped secure over $250K in financial assistance.

[2:20 ] Born and raised in Chicago, with a financial degree from Howard University, Skyler combines data-driven strategy, branding expertise, and a deep knowledge of the city to empower buyers and agents alike. He has 18K Instagram followers and 1,700 leads generated this year.

[2:43 ] Skyler’s mission is simple: bridge the home ownership gap through education, strategy, and community impact.

[3:17 ] Skyler was licensed on December 26th, 2020. He was 24 years old. He started to work his sphere of influence. All his friends of his age told him, “Skyler, you know this sounds good, but show me some apartments. I’m ready to rent an apartment.”

[3:42 ] Skyler realized that the biggest barrier for himself and a lot of his peers wasn’t the job or the credit score; it was the down payment. Most did not have the capital to buy, and it was also the middle of a pandemic.

[4:09 ] Interest rates were low, and banks did not have any incentive to have these types of programs because of low interest rates. Initially, Skyler did not sell a lot of real estate. He did not know how to bridge that gap.

[4:23 ] Once interest rates started to rise, Skyler saw that banks started to come out with different programs. The main problem between the programs and Skyler’s community was the information gap. A lot of people don’t know that these things exist.

[4:44 ] Skyler shows people where the money is. He explains to people that if they buy a $250K property, they’ll need about 6% to close, including down payment and closing costs. He suggests talking to a lender who will give $5K toward a down payment and $7 or $8K toward closing costs.

[5:08 ] He goes out with buyers already figuring out a huge piece of the financial puzzle.

[5:13 ] Skyler believes a lot of agents are afraid of the numbers. He reminds his clients that they need to call the lender, but he helps them paint that picture of what they are going to try to accomplish. That gets them excited.

[5:32 ] Once they have pre-approval and secure the $5K for the down payment, and the $7 to $8K toward the closing cost, it solves a big piece of the puzzle for them.

[6:17 ] The first opportunity fell into Skyler’s lap. An agent had connected him to a lender that had this product. At the closing table, he realized that his client was getting a check back. Skyler started talking to different lenders and learning their requirements for credit score and income.

[6:59 ] Skyler talked to clients about which lenders might work best for them in their circumstances and why. Cook County has a $25K grant program, but after running the numbers, sometimes a lender can do better for the client without the Cook County grant.

[9:07 ] Skyler is always painting that picture. If an agent starts painting the picture for people, the agent will get a lot more callbacks because people will feel that the agent can take them to the next step. Skyler is an educator for his clients, right off the bat.

[9:44 ] Skyler is an introvert, so he had to learn how to sell as an introvert.

[10:42 ] Skyler always asks his clients how they found him, and nine times out of 10, it’s on Instagram or TikTok. He uses Instagram as his digital business card, and he’s always posting.

[11:09 ] Skyler came up with a homebuying guide. On the back of it were over 30 down-payment assistance programs in the state of Illinois. He leveraged that value to get people to download the guide. A hundred people downloaded it.

[11:31 ] Only ten of those people were very serious at that point. That only led to making three deals. Skyler came to learn that he had to nurture clients.

[11:42 ] If you go to Skyler’s Instagram and comment the word home on any of his posts, an AI assistant will respond to your comment and DM you with a link to join Skyler’s down payment grant newsletter.

[12:01 ] Once you opt into his newsletter, you get an email with Skyler’s guide on buying a property with little-to-no money down. From there, you get on a 36-touch email nurture campaign. That keeps a lot of people on his Calendly. People can make appointments with him at any time.
[12:24 ] The email newsletter overcomes clients’ fear and objections. For most people, buying a house is new. It’s one of the biggest purchases people are going to make in their lives. There are some fears with that. After some emails and the buying guide, people call Skyler ready to buy.

[12:53 ] They become a client when they call Skyler, ready for the first step. That’s Skyler’s funnel. At the top of the funnel, he provides value by email. At the bottom of every email, there’s a call to action to make an appointment.

[13:40 ] Skyler doesn’t just say, “Let me help you in real estate.” He has a niche. “Let me help you with your down payment.” If down payment assistance is not your niche as an agent, Skyler suggests pulling up your MLS sheet and looking at your deals.

[14:05 ] Your deals tell a story. You’ve built a skillset in one area versus another. Start thinking about what the pain point of your client was when they bought that multi-family, or when looking for that apartment, or buying a luxury home.

[14:24 ] The services you’re going to provide in that space may look a little bit different. Maybe you have some concierge services. Maybe you call the moving company and schedule the move. Whatever it is that you offer, speak directly to that pain point and how you solve it.

[14:45 ] On Instagram, you only have five seconds to capture somebody’s attention. If you capture that attention, you may have 30 seconds more. Get to the point. They don’t care about fluff. Get to the house and tell people how they can get it today if they give you a call.

[15:29 ] In Skyler’s market area, a lot of state and government money is available for homebuyers. IHDA has downpayment assistance programs. Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. It’s easy to map where the low-to-moderate income people are.

[16:09 ] A lot of areas in the South and West corridors in the city are low-to-moderate income areas. Most of Skyler’s business is on the South Side. A lot of the properties he showcases on Instagram are on the South Side. He is attracting a buyer who usually qualifies for a program.

[16:42 ] When Skyler doesn’t use a state program because of its stipulations, he likes to use Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) lenders. To do more lending in low-to-moderate income areas, they have in-house down payment assistance programs without as many stipulations. 

[17:19 ] The closing costs go to the client at the time of close. If rates drop and they want to refinance, they can do so.

[18:02 ] Skyler also works with the VA program, but often the CRA program works better for his clients.

[19:26 ] Skyler says there are about five ways to get real estate clients: content marketing, referrals, paid ads, affiliates, and face-to-face events. Look up areas where there are more renters than buyers. Run an every-door direct mail campaign.

[20:36 ] A lot of Skyler’s programs specify that a buyer is qualified for a program based on the address being in the low-to-moderate income area. That’s how it’s done in Chicago. In other markets that may not be as segregated, they may have different qualification requirements.

[20:58 ] If you are in a market similar to Chicago, you probably could go after renters with direct mail or local events.  

[21:12 ] Monica suggests becoming known for a weekly meeting at the library, offering education.

[21:39 ] In Chicago, there are a lot of triplexes and quadplexes. Skyler tells clients that in those cases, down payment assistance doesn’t apply.

[21:53 ] For three- and four-unit properties, lenders require the buyer to have either a three-month or a six-month reserve in the bank account at the time of close. The reserve may be a 401(k) or a savings account.

[22:35 ] If you don’t have the reserve money, you may hone in on a two-unit because you can still access the down payment ass