The Roofer Aaron Christy with Indy Roof Company

Announcer: 0:01

Advisors Mortgage Group is proud to present in these real estate gurus hosted by Rick Ripma and Ian Arnold, the hard working mortgage guys, please contact Rick and Ian for all of your mortgage needs at HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com Now here's the hard working mortgage guys, Rick Ripma and Ian Arnold.

Rick Ripma: 0:25

Welcome to Indy's Real Estate Gurus. We're recording today from the advisors Mortgage Group studio located in downtown. I always want to say downtown almost downtown Carmel, Indiana, we're pretty darn clear pretty darn close. And I'm Rick Ripma, your hard work mortgage guy and I've been in real estate and mortgages for over 34 years, helping over 5200 folks finance their homes, my team and I believe in the belief we don't we believe in a custom tailored it's easy for me to say right? custom tailored loan is not a one size fits all approach. We believe that there is a best mortgage for you, and that we are the team to deliver it.

Ian Arnold: 0:59

And I'm Ian Arnold part of Rick's hard working mortgage team. I've worked in the financial industry for 15 years helping customers find the best possible financing. I'm an expert on working with you to build your credit and your overall wealth. I have a passion in helping people build their financial security and wealth for the future. And for the most

Rick Ripma: 1:18

up to date information on mortgages and Indy's Real Estate market go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 317-672-1938. That's 31767 to 1938.

Ian Arnold: 1:33

Now, we have a great guest with us today. He didn't want me to call him a bad guest. So I figured I call him a great guest. So, and it's a little different topic for Rick and I we have Aaron Christie with Indy Roof Company. And thank you for joining us.

Aaron Christy: 1:50

Thanks for having me. It was actually worked out perfect. I was already up in Carmel this morning. And then I got to swing right by here. I didn't even have to drive back south. So it worked out perfect. That's awesome.

Ian Arnold: 1:59

So let's start how'd you actually get into the roofing business?

Aaron Christy: 2:04

Um, it's through a friend. I had a friend of mine, I worked for a family business for 16 years. And then I left there was a lot of travel and I got married and had kids and, and we left that I started actually a furniture store. And while I was building out the furniture store, a friend of mine was like, Hey, man, you want to sell some roofs with me. And he didn't really know much about roofing a guy. That was an adjuster for an insurance company had a roofing company, and then he left town. He left town to go adjust claims in Virginia, and just kind of handed this off to my friend and he was like, Alright, I like selling stuff. So I was like, alright, we learned a bunch of stuff. We watched YouTube videos, you know, we started doing these different things trying to learn stuff. And then spring came around and I sold a couple roofs I think three or four and then the the gentleman that owned it came back in town. And then I ended up splitting off and just going back and running my furniture store for a little while. But what's funny is one of the things that I had focused on during that short time there was working with real estate agents, and you know, their need for roofing services and different things. And so I kept getting calls from real estate agents, like and they're like, hey, I need this roof done, hey, I need this roof done. I'm like, Hey, I don't diversity more click type of deal. Like sorry, like, obviously, I was nice about it. But like, you know, I'm not I'm not doing it, sorry, you know, and I'd refer them to somebody else that I knew. But finally, I was like, You know what? I was like, I like roofs more than I like sitting in a furniture store all day. Let me start a roofing company. And when I get these random calls, like I'll do the roofs. So I started a roofing company. And then this was 2018 in July, and then July, I think maybe like 20 or August, I'm sorry, August 18 or August 28. There was a hailstorm that came through and hit up here. It came down, hit Carmel fishers and then worked its way out across Saturday. And it was crazy. We just got slammed, I had so many real estate agents calling us because I had done a little bit of guerilla marketing, just sending them out my information, tell them they need anything type of deal. And we got so busy and I liked it so much more than I closed my furniture store and went full time into roofing. And then so for about two years, it was just me kind of learning the ins and outs and figuring everything out that I needed to do and what not to do. And, you know, you look, you do a couple of dumb things, you know, and you never forget it. You don't do it again. So I had a few hard lessons over the first couple years on just things I said and whatnot but then I got into a really good position. I got my groove. We had a really good system down especially with real estate agents. And I just started to expand and I hired some w two employees, we hired more more estimators, sales reps, and had another storm and another storm and the next two years, I think we had five or six hail storms. And they just continued to grow. And then at that time, that was 2020 was Corona, and you weren't allowed to go out and do anything. Roofing was an essential business so we could work. I was never locked down. But people could not door knock. And that's how a lot of roofing companies would get their leads. Well, I didn't Dornoch, I worked through relationships, and social media and things like that. So we ended up just killing it during these hail storms, because we were on social media, and how these relationships go in and everything and nobody was, you know, going around knocking doors, so they were actively looking for somebody. And so we popped up a lot. And we ended up like almost quadrupling in size in 2020. Wow. Yeah. And then we grew again in 2021. And yeah, just kind of springboard from there, you know, into where we are today. So

Rick Ripma: 6:12

fantastic. Yeah, thank

Aaron Christy: 6:13

you. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 6:14

It's amazing how the storms make a difference. I will say this, though, they are a negative to my insurance,

Aaron Christy: 6:20

I'm sure. Well, here's the thing. And so this is probably a common misconception with with insurance. So absolutely. As a whole, they're bad for your insurance. But people are gonna be like, oh, yeah, your roof. Of course, you're gonna say this, I promise you is true. Look it up. But if you file a claim for storm damage, right, your insurance is not necessarily going up. Right? It's, it is. And I'm losing the word here right now. But it's a comprehensive claim, meaning it's an act of God. Yeah. Right. So it's not like you were cooking and you burn your house down. That's your fault, right? Like you had nothing to do with this storm. What they do is they raise rates based on zip codes. So if you have a tornado say a tornado ran through Beech Grove a couple years ago, you have a tornado that runs through Beech Grove, a lot of claims filed, the insurance is going up. And that's in those zip codes and Beech Grove. So I always tell everybody, obviously, it helps me out. But it's totally true. If you have storm damage, and there's a bunch of storm damage, your rates are probably going up. So if you don't file a claim, then you have a roof with storm damage on it. That's not as good. And your rates go up anyway, right. So if you have that storm damage, file a claim and get it fixed, because it will affect you later on down the road.

Rick Ripma: 7:44

So it affects it affects you because of the whole area. But your exact your claim that if you claim or don't claim your insurance going up no matter what

Aaron Christy: 7:51

it's going up no matter you one person is not going to affect it. It goes up by zip code based on the amount of claims in that in that area. And

Rick Ripma: 7:57

that's kind of what I've seen. Same with hurricanes and all that is Yeah, exactly. It's, it's it's not your claim. It's the all the claims come in. And then yeah, they're higher costs for insurance companies, they raise your right, yep,

Aaron Christy: 8:09

yep. Disclaimer, I am not an insurance agent and this advice?

Ian Arnold: 8:14

No, he said, he said it. So let me ask this. So you're talking about why would a real estate agent want to work directly with a roofing company.

Aaron Christy: 8:24

Um, I feel like we've actually changed the game on this. And it. So I've always tried to figure out the easiest way to do things right now you can just kind of like in my, in my soul of how I want to do stuff. And it's like, I don't want to work harder if I don't have to. And like I don't want to like I want to figure out the best ways to do things. And I've just kind of applied it here before and what almost every other roofing company in the country that I've heard of does is what real estate agents go. You get a you get an offer. And then you go in and you're doing the inspection. And then you find out on the inspection, over 50% of homes, by the way, in Indianapolis have some sort of roof damage. Like just last not last year, the year before June 18. There was a large hail storm. If you guys remember this at all, it hit over 700,000 homes just in Central Indiana, right. That's just homes, think about businesses, you know, everything else that goes along with it. There was six hail storms before that one, they weren't as big, but they've begun to do really happy. So a lot of roofs, like you have at least a 50% chance if if roofs over you know, four or five years old of having some sort of hail damage at least. So what happens normally is they'll have an offer and then they'll it'll go to inspection and then the inspector will go either they'll look at the roof or they'll say have a licensed roofer look at the roof like they always put that in there. You know, they don't want to be on the hook for the roof or anything and they normally have somebody look at it. If there's damage What do you got two to three weeks till closing right? You know, maybe a little bit more if you're lucky. So now It's storm damage. Nobody wants to pay 10,000 12,000 $15,000 out of pocket for something that's owed by a covered peril from an insurance company, right? So now you got to call the adjuster, hopefully they can get out in a week or two, then you have to agree on the damages, then you have to get the scope back out, then you have to get the insurance checks in out, like you're probably not making closing at this point, right. And I understand, like, all in all, like we're salespeople, right, like, so we're real estate agents, like they want to help people and they want to do stuff in real estate, but you know, their, their job is to get that closed, period. Like, that's how they get paid. So you don't want delays on that. And the roof is probably one of the number one causes that I've seen personally on those things that comes up the most. And so, what we started doing, and I credit my friend, Kelly Huff for this. She's a real estate agent with FC Tucker, she used to call me not so much to avoid those issues. But she was just she would sell a house. And it would be an ugly roof right old, you know, maybe green or something like that. And she was like, hey, Operation ugly roof, come over here and look at this thing. See if there's any storm damage, and most of the time there was. So we did a house for her on Bancroft Street. They're doing a lot of renovations rentals on Bancroft downtown. And she called me out, we looked at it, we ended up getting new roof, new gutters in new siting. And they paid for a couple of the things that we used to end up like painting, some of the bricks, White made it look real nice. And I think they were originally going to list it. And this was, you know, maybe four years ago or something like that. They were originally going to list it for maybe like 120 or 130,000. And then they ended up listing it for 30,000 more than the original asking price. And it cost her $1,000 deductible to get all this stuff done. So she made 29 grand on it. Right? So the homeowner was stoked. Kelly's commission would have went up, you know, both sides, the Commission's are gonna go up for that. But the kicker is, if they would have called me when they found that out afterwards, then they're already locked into a price. Right? They've already agreed, hey, 120 was the selling price I don't, I don't care that you guys are adding all this stuff on. And so now this seller loses $1,000 Instead of gaining $29,000, because they called us out beforehand, right. And so I was like, oh, that's when like the light bulb went off on that particular deal. And I was like, we should be checking out every single listing before it goes on the market. Otherwise, people are stuck with the results that they get, whether there's damage or not damage, and then we just started to improve it. And now if there isn't damage, we give them a full photo report, we give them a full written report that says hey, there's no damage, because somebody's gonna say later, have the roof checked out. And they go actually I already have he didn't go done speeds up the process. No issues in the middle, you get full asking price, based on everything. The last couple years was a little weird, because like, people could just sell it with a pilot dogshit to be perfectly honest with you. And like they would just take it. So people like the last couple years, people haven't cared that much. But now that it's getting a little more competitive, you know, you see listings that are staying on longer. And there's price reductions. This is important, again, getting the new roofs and getting these things done. So

Ian Arnold: 13:28

all right, and now I know we're coming up on the break, what is the best way somebody get a hold of you.

Aaron Christy: 13:33

Um, you can call indie Roof Company, you can get it on our website, depending on who it is we have an inspection scheduler, just on for just if somebody wants the roof inspected, we actually have a real estate scheduler as well if there's a real estate agent that wants to set up a relationship or we'll start working with one of our agents to get pre listing inspections by the webs I'm talking about pre listings, but we do buyer inspections as well. So if somebody doesn't have somebody like us will come out and try to get your buyer all of all of that equity and find the damages and then the seller will have to pay for the claim. So websites good because the website indie roof company.com ind why Roof Company is spelled out.com You can Google this we should be one of the first companies that pop up and what's your company phone number? 317-281-5672 is the direct line

Ian Arnold: 14:23

317-281-5672 That is it. That is awesome. See, I can remember stuff. Actually I can read it. All right, and Rick, how would somebody

Rick Ripma: 14:34

get a hold of us? Go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com 4317 And I can never remember our number six seven to 1938 31767 to 1930 Nobody remembers numbers anymore.

Aaron Christy: 14:48

Now number now when you got phonebooks RB I mean sorry, phones that phonebooks you aren't your I just aged myself.

Ian Arnold: 14:56

Alright, and after the break, we'll find out what is Aaron supercar

Unknown: 15:00

That's interesting. Advisors, mortgage brokers licensed by Indiana Department of Financial Institution equal housing opportunity. NMLS 33041 Rick Ripma NMLS 664589 Hi, I'm Rick

Rick Ripma: 15:13

Ripma with the hard work and mortgage guys and advisors Mortgage Group where we believe delivering the best mortgage for you is why we exist, and it's how we all succeed. We believe

Unknown: 15:22

honesty, kindness and hard work are how we honor each client at hardworking

Ian Arnold: 15:27

mortgage guys, we believe in custom tailored loans, not the one size fits all approach.

Unknown: 15:31

We believe in always presenting you with all your options. So you get the loan you want the way he wants it. We believe in continually monitoring the rules, rates and market trends. So you don't have to we believe in working hard to meet your closing date so that your entire plan isn't upended. We believe in offering the same quick online process that the bookstore mortgage companies brag about whether you're refinancing or buying your first home,

Rick Ripma: 15:55

we believe there is the best mortgage for you and we believe we are the team to deliver it find us online at hardworking mortgage guys.com.

Announcer: 16:08

Brought to you by advisors Mortgage Group, where we believe the more you know about financing a home the less stressful buying and refinancing will be

Ian Arnold: 16:22

Alright, welcome back from the break. And so we do have Aaron with us he did not run out the door, which he's probably the first one to starting to run out the door. But before we get into what is his superpower, it is time for question of the week.

Unknown: 16:37

Now it's time for questions with the Guru's.

Ian Arnold: 16:47

The question week is sponsored by Hey, Rick and I the hard working mortgage guys, where we believe in helping, helping is important you and your realtor by sending constant updates on your loan process. Contact us today at hardworking mortgage guys.com All right. So the question we asked everybody, what was your first car?

Aaron Christy: 17:06

What was my first car? It was a Camaro. Well, yeah, it was a 1998 Camaro. Nice. Yeah. And I think it was in like 2000. So a couple years old. Love that car. The problem is, this is so sad. Why do you have to bring this up because it's memorable. Yeah, I was working at Meijer pushing carts and I saved up $1,000 For the downpayment for this car. My dad was nice enough to cosign for me. Got a good payment on and it wasn't the VA it was a six cylinder. So it was affordable for me. And I had it for 52 hours and the bad rain. Didn't Know About hydro planing. I started hydro planning, I Slammed on my brakes, which is what you're not supposed to do. spun out, smoked a telephone pole and kill it. Two hours. 52 hours. That's quick. Yeah, I know. So second

Rick Ripma: 18:05

person, we've asked that hydroplaned into an accident. Yeah. And their first car,

Aaron Christy: 18:09

I knocked myself out. And then when I woke up, my friend was over here. And the engine had it was it was still running. It was it was stuck on the accelerator was stuck. And so I got out and I didn't know if it's gonna blow up for some reason. I didn't think to go click and turn the key off. I don't know. There's a lot. There's a lot going on. I was young. So I get out and I run around the car to get my friend out. Well, when I run around the back, I told you the accelerator stuck. It's spinning. It's literally throwing rubber. I had shorts on. I had hot rubber on. I pull him out the engine blows and that's the end of the story. So yeah, man, that was a tough one

Ian Arnold: 18:45

in your defense and all movies as soon as a car wreck the car explodes. Yeah, in your defense. I'm all for you.

Aaron Christy: 18:52

I watched a lot of action movies. I knew it was going to explode at any time. It didn't. But in my head I thought for sure it was a motor did though. Yeah, the motor Sure did. That's what that's what total did out if I would have just been smart enough to click it would have probably been saved.

Rick Ripma: 19:07

Yes, that's that's a tough one. Yeah, well, let's I my favorite question. In alluded to it is what are your superpowers or superpower?

Aaron Christy: 19:18

Um, you know, AI, in general, I think it kind of goes back to what I already I talked about a little bit which is just finding the best and easiest ways to do things that that work out like when I worked for my family's business. Like I would always figure out the best ways to get in front of people and back then it was we would go to seminars and you'd stand in front of a group of people you fly. I would I would do for seminars here that I drive three hours to do for seminars here and then drive three hours to do for someone like all week driving all through Texas and doing these different things and then then they came out with better technology and you remember GoTo Meeting when they came out with GoToWebinar so I started doing go to webinars with These people were I was seeing people from home. And then I was like, You know what? Let me just record one, instead of sitting there doing it. We got it. It's

Ian Arnold: 20:11

really Yeah. Like, this is our first show and you're going on, come on.

Rick Ripma: 20:18

It's not supposed to work. I don't know

Aaron Christy: 20:20

why that might have kicked off your video. No, you're good. No, you're good. Okay, it's

Rick Ripma: 20:24

supposed to be controlled by that it's not supposed to be doing Gotcha.

Aaron Christy: 20:27

So anyway, like, I recorded one of those webinars, and then I just played that and then just sat there. And like, answered the questions that people had. And then that vault that evolved into I recorded it, I put it on YouTube, and then I would send it out to everybody. So for going to spending an hour talking to one person, I ended up on taking the same exact information, and texting it out to our database, which is hitting three to 4000 people. And by the end of that, whereas, you know, some some reps were getting, you know, eight to 10 deals a month, I was getting, you know, 60 to 80 deals a month, and it was just all from, I wasn't a better sales rep than them. It was just that I was getting stuff in front of more people and using my time wiser. And I've kind of done that, in every aspect that I've done, I was figured out the best way to get in front of people, the best use of my time. And so I always like to think that's what I'm really good at.

Rick Ripma: 21:25

That's awesome. You know, it's, it's, I think that's a huge superpower. Because it's always been something. I'm similar in that way. I've always been able to look at something and kind of figure out how to do it right now. Like there'll be a deal that will come through and it's like, I'll be told no, you can't do this deal. This can't happen. You can't do this. It's like well, wait a second. Let's let's try this. Let's do this. And not always, but most of the time you figure out a way or another, you know, impossible, but that's the time I can figure it out.

Aaron Christy: 21:56

I'll tell you what. Somebody that tells me I can't do something I always work a little bit harder on Yes. Yeah, you tell me I can't do it. I'm gonna spend a little extra time figuring out what I can to do it.

Rick Ripma: 22:08

Yeah. proven that they're wrong. You're right. Yeah, exactly.

Ian Arnold: 22:12

You can't replace my roof for free. Yeah,

Aaron Christy: 22:15

that one, we wouldn't be able to actually there is a way.

Ian Arnold: 22:20

So how do you I know some of these houses are my house was pretty easy. But yeah, do you actually measure the roofs and stuff?

Aaron Christy: 22:27

I'll tell you a band. There's it's technology these days. I used to be, you know, roping tennis balls back in the day and measure measuring tapes. But now you could literally buy a roof report. This company that we use is called roof AR. It's $10. And they have a min typically three hours. And it tells you how many eaves how many rakes? How many valleys, how much step flashing? How much wall flashing total amount of squares, like it tells you everything on this report, and does it all for you. And you'd be like, use Google Earth sometimes, like if it was just like a simple gable roof that wasn't cut up. When I started before I started buying those reports. I was measured on my hands. Right? And then on some that were like a little bit longer. I was like somebody told me about Google Earth if you wanted to measure them, like from where you're at not going there. Right, right. And from somewhere else. And I'm like, I don't trust that. So I was on a roof. I'm 10 measured one. And then I used Google Earth and I dropped the points on there. Man, you that's crazy accurate. It was within like an inch. Wow. I was like, Oh my gosh, like that's a little scary. I'd probably me honestly. So yeah, I mean, it's all technology these days, man. They've they've they've made it a lot easier.

Ian Arnold: 23:47

That's awesome.

Rick Ripma: 23:48

There's so much of that. It's just like, just like the weather. Yeah, it's so amazing to me, because when I talked to my insurance company, they go well, when was your roof damaged? Why don't those a few years ago? Well, there was a storm that came through on May 22. At 30 in the afternoon. Was that the one? Yeah. I guess so. I

Aaron Christy: 24:05

don't know. So you can actually we have the same software. There's a couple different ones that do it. CoreLogic is one and then there's another one. But like we could put in your address, like I can do it from my phone right now. Pull it up, it'll tell me every storm that's hit that property for the last 12 years. What direction the wind or hail was coming from how fast the wind was how big the hailstones are, like, it's called a weather forensics report. Wow. I mean, like you could break it down to literally everything. So the technology, just like you said, is crazy. Because we'll do the same thing because the insurance companies always want to know what's the date. So we'll have to pull a weather forensics report, we'll pull it up and go, Okay, well, the last storm that you had was, you know, march 28th of whatever and then boom.

Rick Ripma: 24:50

And then you can measure the house on Google Earth, but this company actually gives you

Aaron Christy: 24:54

Yeah, I don't think because I mean, you think of a kid just a general house that's got two sides. Right, like like your kid would draw. Yeah. Right. Those are easy to measure. And yeah, I would measure that from Google Earth. But like you get into some of these homes that are cut up with dormers, and valleys and hips, and I call it like, you don't want to med like, you'll be wrong. So you hire a company, because then you got to take the pitch into effect, how steep it is, you know, all of these different things. But these guys have it down to a science, like I can have a massive home that we would cuts everywhere we measure it, we ordered the exact amount of bundles, you have to order what's called waist, because not every single fits perfect. You got to cut them. Right, right, you got to cut one to fit. Chuck that piece. So they tell you hey, you should you get 12% Waste 15% Waste 18% Waste, they tell you how much waste to get. And then you show up. And like it's pretty spot on. You hardly have to go back and get new shingles.

Rick Ripma: 25:46

That's awesome. Yeah, it also should save the customer money, because you're much more accurate.

Aaron Christy: 25:51

Yeah, for sure. Waste for sure. Absolutely. You know, awesome. You know where you're gonna be at.

Rick Ripma: 25:55

So it saves everybody. It makes your job a lot easier. And it's only $10. Yep. Yeah, some of

Ian Arnold: 26:01

the expensive goodness. The cheapest. Yeah,

Aaron Christy: 26:05

there's companies that they're 50 to $90 is actually who we originally started with. And then I was like, Man, these bigger homes, 90 bucks. And then like, you know, if it doesn't end up being a roof that we get, like, that's a lot of money to spend on a report. Yeah. But Did the roofer came out the company that we use now 10 bucks,

Rick Ripma: 26:26

done. And they do it all, like through Google Earth or that type of

Aaron Christy: 26:30

day? They have different software? I think they use a couple of different satellite platforms, not an expert, but I know they use a few different things to combine.

Rick Ripma: 26:37

It's just incredible. Yeah, they even measure the pitch and everything else. Yeah, it's just

Aaron Christy: 26:41

it's data man, what the things that they can do with data and the math that they put it together. I mean, I'm sure that they have some awesome algorithm. And like, you could actually make them yourself and not pay the $10. But you got to get on and drop the waypoints and put the pitches. Now for 10 bucks or 10 bucks. I'll save 15 minutes. Yeah, you know what I mean? So plus, there's less chance of them messing up versus me. So, so I'll let them do it.

Ian Arnold: 27:07

So what would if somebody's looking to get a new roof or something? Whether what what's the step by step process they would go through?

Aaron Christy: 27:16

I mean, they just need to call a roofer. somebody that they trust, I would highly recommend us, but have you

Rick Ripma: 27:22

recommended any roof competent? Oh, yeah.

Ian Arnold: 27:27

A little biased?

Rick Ripma: 27:29

That's not him. That's me. Yeah.

Aaron Christy: 27:32

Listen to Rick. So No, but seriously, though, all jokes aside, have somebody that is, you know, is going to be around, right? There's a lot of you don't know how many times I've talked to people that are like, Well, my cousin's brother does roofing and, you know, he could do this for this amount or this down. I'm like, Cool. You know, if there's a way that it's cheaper, trust me, he's still making a profit. What he's doing to get it lower is he's not replacing products, roofs don't leak at the shingles 99% of the time. It's at the penetrations, it's the flashings, and the people that come in, and you know, somebody's cousin or whatever that does the roofing, they normally do overlays, and then they don't change the flashings, and those are what leak, it's not the shingles? And then is he going to be around a warranty the work? Does he have insurance, if something falls through your house, or if it leaks and water gets into your home? And like, you know, so is it worth, you know, 10 to 15% more to go with somebody to use the right materials and, and do these things, right? And that, you know, that's going to be there. So the second thing I'll say is, with every we have, again, it's back to technology, right? We have this really cool app called company cam. And we go around and take a full report of the property. So we'll take photos of outside of because hail doesn't just take your roof, right, right. It's gutters, such a window seals, hit your fences, hit your AC units hits your deck, you know all of these different things. So we take a full photo report around the entire property, then we get on the roof, take a photo report of the roof. And then we give that photo report to the customer so they can see what we see from the safety of their porch or their living room. And we can explain what we're seeing and why. And then they can make an educated decision on if they want to file a claim if it's worth it for them looking at the damages. What I don't recommend is somebody just going yeah, you need a roof and then you go okay, because they're just like in any industry, there are people that will push you that maybe you don't need it because they just need a sale. So you got to be very careful on that. Look for photos look for a company that is respected and just take all that information and make the decision based on

Ian Arnold: 29:38

now we got about 30 seconds for an end of the radio show for switch podcast. What's the easiest way so might get a hold?

Aaron Christy: 29:45

It is again in the roof company.com ind why roof company.com or 317-281-5672?

Ian Arnold: 29:52

Alright, and Rick, how would they get ahold of us?

Rick Ripma: 29:54

the HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com So That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 31767292. 38 that's 31767 to 1938. And

Ian Arnold: 30:04

if you want to continue listening, go to India's real estate gurus on our podcast and you can finish up.

Announcer: 30:12

Your listening to these real estate gurus with Rick Ripma and Ian Arnold, to hear the conclusion of this interview, go to hardworking mortgage guys.com and hit the podcast tab. Branch NMLS. Number 33041. Rick Ripma is NMLS. Number 664589. Ian Arnold's NMLS number is 1995469. Equal Housing opportunity, some restrictions apply?

Unknown: 30:34

Well, first off, thank you for joining us, Danielle. I appreciate it. And I just was curious, how did you come to find out about Rick Ripma and advisors mortgage? Well, I was looking for a mortgage for myself for a brand new home that I was building. And I wasn't sure the direction to go, I didn't have anybody in mind. So I kind of just spoke to whoever I could speak to, I got their number. And everything seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. So I went with them. The thing I liked the most about Rick and his advisors mortgage is that I could go and upload things online. And I didn't have to always be on the phone with them or sending them documents or trying to look for certain things that I needed to get the process going. Which was really great for me, I had a processor named Mark Coleman, who really helped me out in making sure I had everything I needed. Because I I didn't know the first thing about having a mortgage. So it was awesome to have so much help. I think probably what I've benefited from the most is really just the understanding that sometimes I would get busy. And maybe I forgot to upload a document or I forgot to do a certain part of the process in a timely manner. And they would get right back with me and it wasn't like a, hey, we really need this right now. It was always Hey, just wanted to make sure you still remember that we need this. Well, you don't get that too much. In this day and age, it seems like most people are either, you know, very demanding of something they need from you. And they need it right now. And, and I agree. I've seen that in Rick's attitude with us over over the last 10 years that he's very patient, but also helpful to get the right things he needs. So exactly. In conclusion is Rick Ripma and advisors mortgage, somebody that you would use in the future and or tell your friends and family about. Absolutely. And I just want to thank them for all the effort they put in to help me find my dream home.

Announcer: 32:25

Ranch NMLS number 33041 Recruitment NMLS number is 664589 equal housing opportunity. Some restrictions apply.

Rick Ripma: 32:31

I'm Rick Ripma You can go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com

Ian Arnold: 32:34

Hey, welcome back the Indys Real Estate Gurus and if you selected right here from the on the podcast, you just selected the right chapter. So you get a gold star today. We still got Aaron here again, he has not ran out this twice in a row, man through two breaks. He's still here. I'm impressed. All right. So we were going through the step by step process and everything. So do you guys try to make it easy for people or are hard? We

Aaron Christy: 33:01

tried to make it as hard as if you go into our office, that's our company. Make it hard to ship for these guys like, No man, we try to make it a pretty seamless process. We deal with the insurance agents we I'm sorry, yeah, the insurance adjusters, not the agents. We deal with the insurance adjusters we meet them on site. We walk through everything we try we we try to help some adjusters don't want our help, just because I know there's contractors that can have been a little overbearing, and you know, rude in the past, like, look here, someone's like, Hey, if you want our help, cool. And then most of the time, they're like, just, you know, point out what you see. If they're if they don't want our help, I just let them do their own thing. And as long as they're finding the right stuff, it's cool. If they're if they're not finding it, we're just like, hey, what do you think about this and ask questions to keep them not defensive. You know what I mean? It's like, hey, what do you think this is over here? What, you know, Hey, I saw that I was just curious about it. That way they could maintain that they're the expert and tell us what it is and, and this and that. And then most of the time, that works out pretty well. And then after that, it's just picking colors and getting some paperwork signed. And then we actually, I think we're one of the few companies in Indianapolis that uses we use to set types of shingles, Owens Corning, which everybody knows we're a certified contractor with own Corning Owens, Corning, they back all of our belts, but we also use another shingle, which is different most people haven't heard of. It's called Malarkey, which is a funny name. A bunch of malarkey. Yeah, exactly. So that's the owners last name and I guess he said with the name like Malarkey, we got to make them good, right? But they are actually instead of oxidized asphalt which is your normal shingles. They're a polymer modified but the easiest way to put it to be not boring is the rubber inside, okay? And so because of the rubber, it gives it more bounce. And these are made for roofing in Alaska. So you can't roof in winter, right because that asphalt gets brittle and breaks. While these rubber ones he can They were made for roofing and Alaska, so they can put them on year round. But a secondary portion of that was it gave it bounce because of that rubber, and they can be impact resistant on up to two inches of hail. Oh, wow. And they're not much more expensive than at oxidized asphalt. So we have oxidized asphalt, which is our baseline and it has a lot more colors. To be perfectly frank Owens Corning has tons of colors, beautiful, beautiful colors. malarkey has the winter capabilities, and they hail resistance. But there's less colors, you know, maybe eight, they've got all your base colors. They just don't have the crazy, you know, champagne, bourbon, you know, whatever, that they, you know, they may have over here, but they got your grays and your blacks and your browns and tans and stuff like that.

Rick Ripma: 35:45

The oranges that yeah, like, yeah, exactly. They don't

Aaron Christy: 35:49

have those, you know. So there's a lot of options that we have. So you would pick one of those. And then we have typically on any house, unless it's massive or wood shake, like you said yours was, we will have it done in a day. larger homes that may be 100 150 squares or wood Shaco, maybe two, sometimes three days.

Rick Ripma: 36:09

We you know, in wanted to know, you know, could you do like Rock City ahead on his roof?

Aaron Christy: 36:13

Right? Just just put it right on there. You know how they think we can make that happen for you.

Ian Arnold: 36:17

I think it'd be kind of cool. Yeah, I would stand out. I don't care what anybody else says. My house would stand, they would

Aaron Christy: 36:23

know. I'm talking about you. I don't know how

Rick Ripma: 36:27

they see you from Google Earth.

Ian Arnold: 36:30

You can see a dime.

Rick Ripma: 36:34

You know, one of the things you said is, you know about hiring a good solid contractor, not just my buddy Joe over here, right? And you know, the worst thing you can have happen to a home is water, get into it,

Aaron Christy: 36:48

for sure. That's way more damage and way more costly. Yes. And it's like

Rick Ripma: 36:53

you have to what's the number one way to protect your house? From water?

Aaron Christy: 36:57

Yeah, it's your roof. And then, and then not only water, but if you don't notice it as quickly, then you got mold, then you got interior damage. And then if it was, you know, your cousin Joe Azar, even though he's your cousin, Joe is probably not going to pay $15,000 to fix all of that. So that's why you need people with insurance and right and doing things the right way. Because that does happen. Like, roofs are not easy to do. They're complicated. There's a lot of systems, you have to have the right materials. People think of roofs and they go, Oh, well, this roofs, this guy's charging 8000. And this guy is charging 9500. But look at him side by side, because you're not looking at apples and apples, right? You're like, this guy doesn't have ice and water shield, he doesn't have step flashing, I've started to drill like he doesn't have any of this stuff. The $1,500 that you're saving is going to knock those materials. So yeah, absolutely.

Rick Ripma: 37:47

Which is important. Last time I did it, I had two or three bids. And that was I did not take the cheapest one, I made sure that I got the one that included everything. Because if you don't, you're just replacing it again later and you have problems and who wants that

Aaron Christy: 38:01

the most expensive thing you can do is replace the battery, because then you're paying for it twice. But ya know, to your point, what you always want to do is get an itemized list of what's being replaced. So if you're getting three estimates, get an itemized list and say what's going to be replaced and then look at those and make sure they are make sure that you have flashings on there, make sure that you have ice and water shield on there, make sure that you have starter strip on there. These are the things that get left off a lot. And then those are the issues those are the problem areas. That's when you get ice damming and these problems in the valleys and and the leaks around the chimney. It's all because of those three things are what is ice damming. So you know, you have water that backs up and freezes in a gutter. And it's typically because it backs up because it's clogged people didn't clean the gutters up right when they don't, it's a bunch of leaves clogged up, the water doesn't drain, and then it freezes while your roofline is right at the edge of your gutter. So as water freezes, it expands right, so it'll push back up under the shingles into like the OSB and all that stuff there. So you'll see it come in like right where your ceiling meets your wall on a gutter line, you'll see water that runs through there and it's that it'll when it drains or dry or when it unfreezes it'll go away. But now you got a big ugly stain on the inside of your house and water damage possibly in your attic or wherever that is. So the number one number one thing that you can do to avoid that is one have ice and water shield, which is like a three foot rubber membrane on the edge of that board and then that'll stop it even if it does have drip edge there. But clean your gutters out that's the first line of defense. The water can't freeze and get up there if there's running out of the out of the house.

Rick Ripma: 39:45

So when you drive down the street and you see a tree growing out of the gutter that is that a sign of them not cleaning.

Aaron Christy: 39:50

Well. I mean, they will need extra extra oxygen for their yards. But yeah, that's that's a horrible. That's a horrible sign for cleaning your gutters out. Funny stuff. worry actually though speaking of trees on your roof, the malarkey shingle is made from recycled products. And it's it has smog reducing granule. And it's like a normal 30 Square house is actually the same smog reducing granules as planting three trees. Really? Yeah, it's pretty wild, a little made from recycled materials can't beat it. That's awesome.

Rick Ripma: 40:22

Yeah.

Ian Arnold: 40:22

So how long does a normal roof I mean, barring God coming down and destroying the roof, how long does the roof last?

Aaron Christy: 40:31

It depends one on the material that you put on your roof. What direction you know how much sun exposure is on your roof? How much wind hits the roof. So there's a lot of different things in Indiana, on average, 15 to 25 years. Every shingle has the pitch, you know, limited lifetime, you know, or 30 or c I don't think they do yours anymore on any of them. It's it's all limited lifetime now they used to call them 30 year shingles. But most of the time, it's 15 to 25 years. And so some shingles, black shingles like Jet Black looks very pretty. It's going to get hotter, they're going to they're going to degrade a little quicker than maybe something that's lighter than that. So there's a lot of things that roll into that.

Rick Ripma: 41:18

So color matters.

Aaron Christy: 41:19

I'm yeah, how

Rick Ripma: 41:20

long they last?

Aaron Christy: 41:21

See, I've still point to a point Black is typically the worst one, but everything else is probably pretty close. But yeah, there's a lot of factors in it. So

Ian Arnold: 41:32

this happened with my wife and I when we had to replace ours, the you come out and say, Hey, I need both you guys there to check colors, because I'm glad he did. Because I don't know what color I want to chose. But I don't think my wife would have been too happy.

Aaron Christy: 41:44

We put it in, we put it in the contract, when we have it in there that everybody chooses it and puts it and checks off on it before before they sign on the dotted line. So we did have speaking of that we had a husband or wife one of the two, one of the two that chose the shingle color. And then I mean we got it they picked the color we put it in the contract we're putting the roof on and a neighbor's walking down the street. Just say what's up guys. How's it going, buddy? We're just putting this real funny that yeah, I see that said you notice anything? And I was like I looked around every single house had a brown roof. This one was black that we were putting on? It was the HOA required brown roofs. Oh, I was like man you got to talk to the homeowners on this one the roofs 95% done. So I don't know whatever ended up coming about of that I never heard anything about it. They said that they were going to deal with it. And apparently they have the only black roof in that neighborhood now.

Rick Ripma: 42:39

Yeah, you know, it's it's I like consistency to a point but man, every single house looking the same is a little much I'd rather have

Aaron Christy: 42:49

seems a little mundane, right? Like you're just pulling in every everything's the same. That's the neighborhoods that probably won't let you have anything that's different. Like I want a little pizzazz. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Yeah, just something that you can find my house it doesn't look like 432 other house.

Rick Ripma: 43:06

Exactly. Yeah, I think that's important to me. That is anyway, I spent a lot of time with the bill the storage companies 11 years with them. And you know, we even there, you know, we were homeless, you know, Hoa and all that. But we had 10 or 12 different roof. You know, colors. We had different house colors, because it doesn't look good when everything looks identical,

Aaron Christy: 43:25

though. 100% agree? Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 43:27

It's just it's a little a little old. So you've been in business since 2018. Correct. And how I mean, how many roofs did do you do a year? I'm just

Aaron Christy: 43:39

curious on on average. Now we're close to 1000 roofs here.

Rick Ripma: 43:44

No kidding. That's unbelievable. Yeah, I guess there's when you look around, there's a lot of roofs.

Aaron Christy: 43:49

Well, not only does every home have a roof, every business has a roof. Everything has a roof. It's crazy. We couldn't do all the roofs if we wanted to. That's why like I said, I'm friends with a lot of different roofing companies. And it's like there was a Google you're gonna come to like, I'm not in competition with them. We all get roofs. roofs, like there's so many if everybody came in with the roofs, I'd go out of business because there's no way I could do it.

Rick Ripma: 44:11

Right. It's amazing because I think that's the way top people always look at it. That there's plenty of business out there for all of it for sure. Is there's plenty of business for the good solid companies to do business. Right?

Aaron Christy: 44:23

Absolutely. There's been and there are a lot of really good roofing companies here. You know, there's there's a five or six main ones that have been around for a while they're established they do a good job. And you know, we're coming in and we obviously want our bar piece of the market share. And we feel that we do a really good job just as good and we offer the best products but I'm gonna say there's others other good companies, but there are way more companies that are not good and they're the they're the guy in that we call them Chuck into trucks. So just always be be cautious on that because they pop up you know then they disappear and then you're left holding the bag if anything goes wrong, which typically does because they do some subpar work.

Rick Ripma: 45:06

Yep. You know, you've said that, you know, during the pandemic, people couldn't go knock on doors. One of the one of the things I look at somebody like a roofer knocking on my door. Yeah, I look at that, and I would say, just like getting spam mail. Yeah, okay. I'm not gonna believe that spam mail or that person knocking on my door. I'm gonna check it out. For sure. So for sure the

Aaron Christy: 45:28

easiest we are guys do a little bit of knocking now, but what they typically do is around our builds, and there's nothing to believe it. Like seeing right? That's different. So if we're, if we're putting on a roof and we go down that street, you come out and you go, Oh, well, John is getting a roof down there. And so when I go, Hey, there is hail damage in the area. It's probably a little more believable when you're healing here and nail guns go.

Rick Ripma: 45:52

accompany the trucks in front of the roof. That's that to me? That would be okay. That would be comforting. Yes. But to have just some guy like I had just some guy walked up and he goes, you know, and I'm like, You guys aren't gonna get my roof replaced aren't talked to my insurance company. Oh, yeah, we can do it. And I couldn't do it. Of course. Yeah. But those just tend to feel like more of a not just Yes, I'd be leery as all I'm saying. have that happen?

Aaron Christy: 46:17

They should. And this goes back to what I told you with checking them out. Like if if the fedora comes out. And if you do want your roof looked at when the guy comes along? Cool. Just do a little research. Yes, you know, way what's your company name? Pull him up, check up BBB check out Google. Make sure that they're an established company.

Rick Ripma: 46:34

Right? Yep. Good reviews,

Ian Arnold: 46:37

call Aaron asked him and then

Aaron Christy: 46:40

call me directly. I'll send somebody else to double check.

Rick Ripma: 46:43

Or you can just go to Indy roof. The roof company.com You can go there are two Yes. Here like a great website and easy to get a hold

Aaron Christy: 46:51

of Yeah, got our own skate. We call ourselves the Uber of roofs because it's got a scheduler on there. You go on you pick a date, you pick a time we show up. So you're like, hey, I want you here Thursday at four o'clock. We show up Thursday at four o'clock.

Rick Ripma: 47:02

I'm impressed. You show up? Because I hear that's a problem. Oh my goodness. That's really good.

Ian Arnold: 47:13

So you said you do about do about 1000? Year? Yeah. So does any weather play? Like can you not do it? Do you do them during the wintertime? Do you?

Aaron Christy: 47:23

Yeah, because of the Malarkey Shingles that we use the polymer modified rubber shingles we can rip all the way through winter. So that's why we don't slow down a lot. Now, when it gets down past like 20 We don't remove just for our guys sake. Like we don't want them out there in that weather. You know, all day and whatnot. But from most roofing companies stop because you can't do oxidize asphalt below, like 4045 degrees. So they stop there. You have a lot of days between 20 and 40. This year, especially Yeah, exactly. So so we can roof in that timeframe. So we can we can roof pretty much all year round. And if we needed to, we could roof low or you can roof down to zero. I just we choose not to but if there was an emergency? Absolutely we could. So we're roofing all year round. And, yeah, just unless it's raining, that's the problem. Obviously, you can't rip the roof off with rain gum. And so that's a problem. Doesn't have to be as long as you want a swimming pool in your living room.

Ian Arnold: 48:24

indoor pool.

Aaron Christy: 48:26

You gotta sign here before I press hard

Rick Ripma: 48:30

for the deal.

Ian Arnold: 48:32

He's good at that, hey, got two young kids. They didn't join.

Aaron Christy: 48:35

They didn't join they'd enjoy the resale value might be a problem. And his wife

Rick Ripma: 48:39

might be a problem.

Ian Arnold: 48:42

So what does your company all do?

Aaron Christy: 48:45

So actually, it's funny if I could go back and rebrand I would in fact we're actually thinking about a rebrand to Indy roof in restoration instead of any roof company because be coming along with doing so much storm restoration. You have to do other stuff. So roof, we do gutters. We do siding. We do interior work, like we don't do custom like cabinets or, or tile floors, but like a lot of drywall a lot of painting things like fix water damage, insulation. You know, we do exterior painting. So that's probably the brunt of of what we do most of the time. But obviously, I mean, there's five or six trades in there that you have to do to get these things brought back to pre storm condition for clients. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 49:34

It's amazing that so much easier if you have one company you can go to and say, here's what we need you. You take the picture, say this what you need, you get it done. And then one one company comes in one company takes care of that is much much better than trying to deal with 100.

Aaron Christy: 49:49

While otherwise you're coordinating basically it would be making the homeowner, the general contractor right now you're coordinating five different trades between five different countries. tractors and you're doing all these different things like, that's tough to do. And they're busy, they're working, they got stuff going on, they got kid, they got their own problems, right, you know? So yeah, we like to kind of take that off with their

Ian Arnold: 50:10

hands. Oh, trust me, Rick knows I heard about it for almost a year straight when he had a kitchen and stuff. He goes, so last time I ever do that, hire a contractor.

Rick Ripma: 50:21

And then when I did my upstairs, I hired a contractor. I had a decorator that ran the crews to deal with. Makes it a lot easier. Yeah, makes it 100%. If you have somebody who knows what they're doing this Yeah, you know, for me, it was like, I have one person to talk to get one person if I don't like something one person to go to. And I don't know why. But it's a little. It's a little difficult. Sometimes you get kind of a relationship with somebody, and then you have to tell them you don't like the work they did. As opposed to go into the contractors ahead and say, Listen, you know, is that right?

Aaron Christy: 50:56

Your guy? Your guy sucks. Now you Yeah, you're great. But your guy sucks. Yeah,

Rick Ripma: 51:01

it's just an easier thing to do. So it's a little easier to complain if there's something wrong. And the reality is, is there are things that are gonna happen. It's really whether the people fix it or not, right?

Aaron Christy: 51:11

That is the biggest thing like, nobody is perfect by any means. No company on this planet is perfect. But it is how you deal with it. And they talk about that, like, you earn some of your biggest fans as a company, by the way that you deal with problems. If everything goes smooth, and there's never any issues. Sometimes it's like, oh, that's what was supposed to happen. But sometimes when there's issues, and you fix them and go above and beyond to make sure that it's taken care of those people will care more than the people that it went perfect for yes.

Rick Ripma: 51:40

I read about a company. This was back when cell phones were so new. They were sticking them in cars. Yeah, I remember that. This company would one out of every 10 they would intentionally do something wrong knew exactly what they did. Okay, so they knew that that person would be calling to come in, right, right. When they call they said get it in here right away. They zipped it in, they got it in immediately. That took them five minutes to fix it because I knew exactly what it was boop, boop, there you go. Tons of referrals because of that, because they Wow, they really took care of Yes,

Aaron Christy: 52:16

yeah. Yeah, bet, man. I mean, it's crazy the marketing that they come up with, but yeah, I mean, it's true. Like just I was shocked when I got into roofing because before my family's business, like we just showed up where we said we were going to show up and you know, did what you say you're going to do and you know these things that you would think is normal, right? You would think you would think is normal. And then I got into roofing and people were like, Oh my God, you're the fifth or Eric roofer. I called you're the only one that's called me back. And I'm like, Why is it my mission about not having work? They're not calling anybody. Pick up the phone call them back. It's pretty basic. Yeah, it seems it seems like that seems like the no brainers that we were talking about earlier. But absolutely.

Rick Ripma: 52:53

We are running out of time. If somebody needs to get ahold of you for roofing I know in the roof. company.com But what is there another way to get a hold of your company?

Aaron Christy: 53:02

Um, yeah, I mean, you can call him directly on the phone. 317-281-5672 If anybody wants to reach out to me, my email is Aaron Aaro n at Indie roof company.com I N dy Roof Company is spelled out.com

Rick Ripma: 53:18

I had a feeling it was in the roof. company.com

Aaron Christy: 53:21

I've had a lot of people ask too, though. Like, is that company spelled out? It's no, it's just the CEOs. Most people don't yeah, they put the CEO so that's

Rick Ripma: 53:28

why I just clarify now. Yeah, that's smart. And if you need to get a hold of the inner eye, it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com and please follow us on our I guess any of the sites that

Ian Arnold: 53:41

I'm trying to see if you can get it in these real estate gurus on any of our podcasts it subscribe and you'll get notifications right away. As soon as a new one gets up. I knew he knew.

Aaron Christy: 53:53

I like that's a good that's a good form right there.

Ian Arnold: 53:55

Hey, and just a reminder, if you know any friends, family or coworkers looking to buy, sell or refinance, please contact Rick or Ian HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com And we'll be more than happy to help you.

Rick Ripma: 54:05

Thanks a lot and have a great day.