Podcasts about ask michael anything

It's been a while since we've done an "Ask Michael Anything" on TAXI TV, so that's exactly what we're going to do on today's show! Ask me anything about TAXI, engineering & production (from the mics and wires aspect), or the music licensing business, and I'll do my best to give straightforward and helpful answers. Want to know what production music libraries are looking for? I can tell you! Want to know why Hollywood studios won't use you to score their blockbuster films? I know the answer! Want to know why your mixes don't sound like hit records? I'll let you in on a little secret ;-) Want to know where the "sweet spot" is to place a mic on an acoustic guitar? You're going to find out! Want to know how to mic an electric guitar amp for the best sound? I'll fill you in! Want to know a sure-fire way to avoid popping "P's" when recording vocals? I'm going to show you. Want to know how to make publishers reach out to you time and time again? It's common sense, but many people don't do it! Want to know how to approach an industry pro at TAXI's convention? If you promise not to let them know who told you, I'll tell you the secret ;-) Want to know how to avoid headphone leakage when recording vocals? The answer is SO simple, yet almost always overlooked! Get Your Questions Answered!

It's been a while since we've done an "Ask Michael Anything" on TAXI TV, so that's exactly what we're going to do on today's show! Ask me anything about TAXI, engineering & production (from the mics and wires aspect), or the music licensing business, and I'll do my best to give straight ahead helpful answers. Want to know what production music libraries are looking for? I can tell you! Want to know why Hollywood studios won't use you to score their blockbuster films? I know the answer! Want to know why your mixes don't sound like hit records? I'll let you in on a little secret ;-)

In this very special On the Ground episode, we are Live at Michael's 50th birthday party! We asked all of you to Ask Michael Anything so he could share his 50 years of wisdom with all of you! We hope you enjoy learning all you could ever know about Michael! . Come laugh with us as we share our running experiences and talk about everything from our favorite beer runs to our chafing nightmares. Tell us what YOU run for... Email us or leave a voice memo at WillRunForPodcast@gmail.com Find us on Facebook and Instagram @WillRunForPodcast Tag your pictures and stories @WillRunForPodcast and help grow our community.

It's been a while since we've done an "Ask Michael Anything" on TAXI TV, so that's exactly what we're going to do on this show! Ask me anything about TAXI, engineering & production (from the mics and wires aspect), or the music licensing business, and I'll do my best to give straight ahead, helpful answers. Want to know what production music libraries are looking for? I can tell you! Want to know why Hollywood studios won't use you to score their blockbuster films? I know the answer! Want to know why your mixes don't sound like hit records? I'll let you in on a little secret ;-) Want to know where the "sweet spot" is to place a mic on an acoustic guitar? You're going to find out! Want to know how to mic an electric guitar amp for the best sound? I'll fill you in! Want to know a sure-fire way to avoid popping "P's" when recording vocals? I'm going to show you. Want to know how to make publishers reach out to you time and time again? It's common sense, but many people don't do it! Want to know how to approach an industry pro at TAXI's convention? If you promise not to let them know who told you, I'll tell you the secret ;-) Want to know how to avoid headphone leakage when recording vocals? The answer is SO simple, yet almost always overlooked!

it's been a while since we've done an "Ask Michael Anything" on TAXI TV, so that's exactly what we're going to do on Monday's show! Ask me anything about TAXI, engineering & production (from the mics and wires aspect), or the music licensing business, and I'll do my best to give straight ahead, helpful answers. Want to know what production music libraries are looking for? I can tell you! Want to know why Hollywood studios won't use you to score their blockbuster films? I know the answer! Want to know why your mixes don't sound like hit records? I'll let you in on a little secret ;-) Want to know where the "sweet spot" is to place a mic on an acoustic guitar? You're going to find out! Want to know how to mic an electric guitar amp for the best sound? I'll fill you in! Want to know a sure-fire way to avoid popping "P's" when recording vocals? I'm going to show you. Want to know how to make publishers reach out to you time and time again? It's common sense, but many people don't do it! Want to know how to approach an industry pro at TAXI's convention? If you promise not to let them know who told you, I'll tell you the secret ;-) Want to know how to avoid headphone leakage when recording vocals? The answer is SO simple, yet almost always overlooked!

Things are back to normal-ish but we look back at two very weird years. Then, a look at the Idaho Vandals and what might be going on with Beasley Coliseum. As always, we end with the Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Things are back to normal-ish but we look back at two very weird years. Then, a look at the Idaho Vandals and what might be going on with Beasley Coliseum. As always, we end with the Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's episode, we take on listener-submitted questions. We'll discuss calculating cash flow, risk-adjusted returns, getting started without large sums of capital with partnerships, and Michael's personal thoughts on the current housing market. We love hearing from you all and taking on your questions, so please keep them coming. Whether it is through reviews or YouTube comments, we will do our best to get to all relevant questions you all send our way. --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Pierre: Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Remote Real Estate Investor. My name is Pierre Carrillo and today I'm with…   Michael: Michael Albaum   Pierre: and today we're going to go over some more listener submitted questions. So let's jump into it.   Good morning, Michael. How are you today?   Michael: I'm good. I'm good man woke up in Washington State this morning on our way up to the San Juan Islands so couldn't be more excited. How about you? I know it's a big day, couple days coming up for you too.   Pierre: I'm doing good man. It's hard to sleep so excited for the weekend…   Michael: Do you want to give our listeners any insights into why it might be hard for you to sleep?   Pierre: Yeah, keep on having dreams that the day is something that can go wrong on the day. I'm getting married this weekend, so…   Michael: Nice man super excited for you and it's gonna go flawlessly.   Pierre: I'm sure I'm just having these weird dreams that are very, very unlikely about like, completely impossible case scenarios, but…   Michael: Pterodactyls are gonna crash your wedding and…     Pierre: Pterodactyls are gonna come down on the altar and knock over the tables. Oh, man, well, it's really stupid.   Michael: It's gonna be an amazing event, really, congratulations and I can't wait to see pictures after.   Pierre: Thank you, Mike. Cool, so we got a bunch of questions here. Let's see how many we can get through. We're kind of in a rush today. So let's, let's knock out what we can. Alright, let's knock out some of these easier ones real quick. First, is cashflow accounting for all the costs for owning a property?   Michael: Yes, I think it should. You'll get different definitions from different people. Some might say, hey, your cash flow is you take your rent, and you subtract out your PI TI, because that's your principal interest, taxes and insurance. Those are the expenses that they're accounted for everything leftover as cashflow. I'm quite a bit more conservative and I say, hey, yeah, that's a big chunk of what you got to subtract out from the rent but there's also prepared maintenance Property Management expenses, if using a manager capex reserves, things that could go sideways and so you want to have money set aside and earmarked for those expenses for not if but when they show up and then anything above and beyond that is your true, free and clear cash flow is what I would say.   Pierre: Agreed, yeah, should operate on its own as its own business. Next question here, thinking about generating cash flow faster? Does it make sense to purchase a portfolio of single family homes versus one unit generating the same income?   Michael: Hmm, that's a really good question. So I think it comes down to personal risk tolerance and personal investment thesis and strategy. So we could absolutely make the argument that hey, that person that has 10 single family homes, has less risk, from an occupancy standpoint than the person that owns one big single family home that generates the same revenue, let's say, because if one person leaves the person, the guy who are the person who has the portfolio, if one person leaves, they're still 90% occupied, they've only got a 10% vacancy, because they've got 10 folks living there. If, on the other hand, are single portfolio or single house person, if they have that tenant leaves or 100% vacant. Now, we could also make the argument that the person with 10 homes has 10 roofs to maintain, and 10 h facts to worry about and 10 sewer systems to keep track of, versus the person with the one property only has one of each of those things, the knife kind of cuts both ways. What I personally have experienced is that's the reason I went to multifamily is because you get the occupancy and vacancy robustness of having multiple properties but you only have one roof, I still might have 10 H facts if it's 10 unit property or 10, whatever 10 systems to maintain.   But geographically speaking, it's all in one place and so it's a little bit easier to manage. Now, multifamily apartments are going to be very different than a single family from an asset class and you're likely tenant base and the stickiness of a tenant. So that's a whole another conversation for another time. But again, I think the knife cuts both ways, so it's tough to say definitively one or the other.   Pierre: Wouldn't speak to the quality of a property if 10 of them are cash flowing or generating as much revenue as one property, we would be talking about 10 lower quality or lower tier properties, comparing that to one higher tier property.   Michael: Yeah, you probably could get there with logic but I think it's really tough to do in the sense of that's a very unlikely scenario unless you were in two totally separate mark gets in once you kind of leave the bounds of the market, a lot of bets are off anyhow. Yes, real estate is contiguous in the sense of how it's built in a lot of instances and the fundamentals and the mathematics. But the specifics is the specifics is the specifics and the nuances of operating a single family rental in New York is gonna be very different than operating one in California, or in any city that you go into in between. So yeah, it's just it's an unlikely scenario that you would have 10 equaling the gross revenue of one unless that one was like a really big Airbnb or something but again, that's a whole different animal unto itself.   Pierre: All right, what is a risk adjusted cash on cash return?   Michael: That's a really good question. So a risk adjusted cash on cash return is basically taking what institutions it's implementing what institutions do and how they rate properties, and how they think about risk tolerance. So if you can imagine, here, if your buy box is targeting a three, two single family home and a three star neighborhood, and you're targeting an 8% cash on cash return, I'm making up numbers here, right? If you found a property that was in a four star neighborhood was in a better neighborhood, you should be okay accepting a lower return than your targeted 8%. Maybe you're okay with a six and a half percent cash on cash because there's a trade off, right? You were targeting this property for 300, you got something that was better than what you were looking for in one category and so there's this sliding scale and we can see I'm a very visual person, right.   So there's this balance the seesaw, if you will, of usually cashflow versus neighborhood score and so that tends to slide or cash flow and appreciation tends to slide and so we are sliding a little bit more onto the appreciation side, because we're in a better neighborhood, therefore, we should be okay giving up a little bit in terms of our cash flow. Now, that scale should absolutely slide the other way. If you found a property that was in a two star neighborhood, let's say and you were targeting again, three and eight, well, hey, you're giving up a little bit on the potential appreciation, or at least we will expect you to because of the neighborhood rating, as compared to the three therefore you should be demanding a better cash on cash return. It's a way to be dynamic with your Buy Box and adjust to the situation that you find yourself in with regard to the physical properties themselves, as opposed saying, okay, I'm only taking a three star 8% cash on cash like, yeah, you're totally welcome to do that but this gives you a little bit of a wider scope, so to speak.   Pierre: Okay, is there a way to what's Is there a formula to use to calculate what your risk adjusted return should be based on different neighborhood ratings or property ratings?   Michael: There is and so yes, and no. So we built that into the Roofstock Academy calculators that we helped give folks to help evaluate them, help them evaluate properties. So we built that in for some folks, if you're doing it on your own, it just really comes down to what your risk tolerance looks like and so you and I keep looking at the same we can have the same Buy Box three star neighborhood 8% cash on cash and if we both find a property, that's four star neighborhood, I might be okay, accepting a six and a half percent cash on cash, you might only be okay at 7% because of what your investment thesis is, and risk tolerance looks like I might be putting more eggs in the appreciation basket, so to speak, where you might be saying that I don't know if it's gonna appreciate that much. So it's more of a concept than a than a true like mathematical formula. So I think it's just important to be thinking about and be aware of as folks looking at properties in, you know, in neighborhoods in areas and markets outside of their direct scope.   Pierre: Let's stick with the cash on cash topic. Mike, in this question here asks, is 8% a reasonable cash on cash return to seek in this market today?   Michael: So you're using my own number against…   Pierre: …a just happened to be just 8%?...   Michael: Our last example? Yeah, it just happened to screenshare. So it all depends, I think is so often the answer, unfortunately, and it depends on a number of different factors. I just underwrote a property that I purchased as a short term rental, where the projected cash on cash was like 15 16%. So is 8% reasonable, totally doubling that. So it really comes down to what's your strategy is cashflow, and long term rentals what we're talking about here, and I'm gonna assume for a minute that it is. Yeah, I think it's still totally possible. We just have to engineer the return correctly, which is something I think a lot of people aren't familiar with or don't know how to do or aren't willing to do from the standpoint of, I think so many of us are trained to go purchase rentals with 20% down and that's it. That's the deal. Well, that is one way to purchase rentals. But if the returns don't work at that threshold, maybe we tweak it, maybe we need to put 20% down maybe had to put 30 40% down and I think people are listening to this and if they're really familiar with the mathematical equation for cash on cash might be thinking, Michael, that's going to drive your cash on cash down, because we're using less leverage and in a lot of instances, it will, but not all of them and so there are very certain types of properties based on the characteristics of purchase price, what they rent for their expense profiles, and what your what kind of leverage you're using, that all goes into this recipe, so to speak, to bake the end result, which is often cash on cash and cap rate and so we can unequivocally say, less leveraged bad in terms of cash on cash return. So we want to run the numbers and look at putting a larger percent down, because that will often give you a break on the interest rate and the larger the property purchase in terms of purchase price, the more impactful that additional breaking interest rate becomes and so if we're looking at an $80,000 property, for example, we're going to finance it, the difference between a 4% interest rate or a 6% interest rate doesn't move the needle a lot. Of course, 4% is better than 6%, because we're paying less in interest over the life of that loan, our monthly payments are smaller. But if we're purchasing a $250,000 property, the difference between a four and six can be quite significant in terms of actual dollars that you're spending on that monthly payment. So I think we just need to be a little more creative on how we engineer properties in terms of the purchase, are we purchasing them, right? Using the proper amount of leverage? That can that can be all that's needed to dictate what our return looks like.   Pierre: Cool and we did a video on this specifically, using a pro forma template and running the numbers and comparing what kind of property would do better with an all cash offer and what one would do better with leverage. So check that link right above here for seeing like break that all down into detail. Like what is the lowest cash on cash return that you would accept all other factors considered?   Michael: Oh, that's a really good question. For me, personally, I'll probably be in the 5% range because I know that that's a that's a point in time. I think we're all thinking about this point in time right now as kind of the whole picture, and as the movie. But I think if we think about, again, my visual brain coming into play here, if we think about a movie, like a movie reel, it's snippets of pictures, right? That's where we get our motion picture from and so right now we're seeing one of those snippets, tomorrow is going to be different, the day after is going to be different in every moment, every day, going forward is going to be different and so I'm not looking at this point in time as the whole movie and so if I'm getting a 5% cash on cash today, I know at some point down the road, the rents will probably go up, interest rates may come down. They may not but they may and if I'm okay with 5% today, and the interest rates don't ever go down. Well, okay, I bought a deal that I was okay with earning 5% and again, my rent should go up over time. So my return should get better with time and if the interest rates do go down, well just refinance, and get likely better cash on cash. So you know, I was probably 10%. Last year, if you'd asked me that question. This year, I'm probably at 5% for long term, very traditional rentals. But I've also pivoted my strategy quite a bit to be more short term focused and so the returns there tend to be quite a bit better than your traditional long term, at, at whatever percentage you're okay, accepting today.   Pierre: All right, Mike, this next one? Is it better to save cash and buy a home every two years cash or by using loans? I find using cash, I automatically save about $5,000 in closing costs?   Michael: Yes, so I would say the answer can be a little bit of both. You don't have to do one or the other exclusively and so what I've done in the past that I've seen work really well and can be a very powerful tool is to buy the property, all cash, and then turn around and get your refinance and cash out 75% of the dollars that you put into the deal and so yes, you save cash, when you save dollars by going the all cash out because your closing costs, depending on the size of your deal, those closing costs might be negligible, or they might be significant and so if you determine that they're significant for you, maybe you do just hold the thing in cash for two years and then go buy something else. But I like the all cash purchase because you get the benefits of quick close, aggressive offers, you can often get the purchase price lower, and they just turn around and refi and for you at the end of the day, it's like an all cash it was a finance purchase to begin with, except for that hold period and you might only be able to cash out 75% as opposed to the 80% that you can often get financed when you go to purchase the property which that I still don't understand. By the way, why you can only get 70% on the cash out after you already own the thing versus you can get 80% leverage on the purchase but I aggress. So I think you can do both and I think you have to run the numbers and figure out what makes sense for you and also think about the risk tolerance that that you have as an individual. Are you okay? Parking money in a real estate asset and leaving it there? Where if the value changes overnight, like your cash evaporates or would you rather put leverage on it and so if the value changes, you're only getting impacted what your equity is in the property, you're 20% and the bank kind of shares in the pain, so to speak with you. Now, if you let the property go, when you're underwater, you're gonna feel the most pain the bank's gonna make you pay for that. But there's, there's again, there's risks associated with doing it either way and so I think it's important to evaluate and determine and just decide for yourself what makes the most sense.   Pierre: What options exist for first time investors, if saving cash alone will not suffice 20% down?   Michael: Another super good question. I would say you got to figure out who has what it is that you don't and, and partner up. So or think about partnering up, if you don't have the cash, but you've got the deal and you've got the know how or the drive to do the deal. Go find someone that wants to be involved in real estate, but either doesn't know how, or doesn't have the time or the will to get involved but has money. Conversely, if you've got money, and you're looking to get involved in real estate, but don't have the time or don't know how to find someone that has those things and so those kind of two personality types are three character traits of having one of the three things you need to do a deal, you either need the deal, or you need the drive, or you need the money, they'll find he'll have what you're missing and start piecing it together for yourselves and I think you'll be surprised at how many people have like one or two of these three things, but not are missing the third and are looking for that kind of unlock, if you will and so feels like oh, well how am I going to find some of money, post about it on Bigger Pockets comm join the Roofstock Academy and network with our investors around the world who are doing the same exact things and I think you might be pleasantly surprised to see what you find.   Pierre: Yep and I was at the Bigger Pockets conference in Denver earlier this year and one of the activities they did at the very beginning was like who has cash but no time, and that those people stood up and then they asked who has time but no cash and everyone sit up and just go into those meetings like that. It's like they facilitate these meetings between people who have to could have a symbiotic relationship. So go to conferences, sometimes they may seem like a lot of money, you might pay five $600 to go to one of these things, but it could open up a lot of doors for you. So that was a cool part that I saw there.   Michael: That's great. That's great. Yeah, I think that's perfect.   Pierre: That's how I got my start. I didn't have any money to invest. But I've consumed all of the Roofstock Academy hundreds of podcasts by now. So I had a little bit and so I teamed up with my brother and that's how we got started.   Michael: Perfect, love it love it.   Pierre: All right, how much money should I have saved up before I decide to get my first rental property?   Michael: A million billion dollars, I think you want to have your down payment plus several months of expenses bank will often require six months of PTI in cash. It really depends on the property, if you're buying a brand new property, like brand new construction, a lot of this stuff is going to be warranted by the seller or builder hopefully and then the appliances are going to gonna likely come with a one year warranty or a manufacturer's warranty at some point. So I'm less concerned about a brand new property than it would be 1950s built, everything's still original. So you have to evaluate, okay, what's my, what's my risk here and the way that you would quantify risk, which I think a lot of people don't look at is, first and foremost, what's your insurance deductible, if you've got a $5,000 deductible, you should never have less than five grand in your pocket ready to go tomorrow because if a snowstorm caves in your roof, you're on the hook for the first five grand to replace that roof.   Similarly, if you have a home warranty in place, for all the major appliances, you need your trade coffee, which can be 50 to 100 bucks, whatever and then hopefully, they're going to cover the appliance, but just kind of look around the house and say, Okay, what's likely to fail, you know, walls just don't fall down on themselves. Garages don't just collapse usually on their own, unless you're in a sinkhole or earthquake zone, whatever. So there has to be something to cause this stuff to fail, versus like your electronic components or your appliances. One day, they might just stop working, you got to turn on the stove, and it just doesn't work and you gotta go replace that thing. So I think it's important to look around your specific property and figure out okay, well, what's old and what is my what is my risk profile and where do I have the cash or cash equivalents? You know, some people would argue that a Roth IRA that you put a bunch of money into could be considered a cash equivalent because you always could pull out your, your additional contributions. I think it's up to like five years or something. So like, oh, Well, that's access to money that I didn't maybe know I had. So if you're okay with that, think about what that looks like if that's going to be treated as your cash equivalent, but I would say at least several months of reserves, above and beyond the PITI that the bank is going to require you to have.   Pierre: Cool, let's dig down on this a little bit more like going to like a personal finance perspective. At what point, you know, before getting into real estate, should someone have their financial house in order? What is a good place to be financially before you know that is starting to save up this first chunk of money to get into real estate?   Michael: Yeah, I'd say someone should have a pretty good handle on what their spend in terms of income and expenses looks like and so they know how much on an average month they're spending, they know how much they're saving and they are cognizant of, like just where their dollars go, because you're gonna want to do that with real estate investing, you want to keep track of okay, where are the dollars coming in? Where are they going and you want to make sure that you can A) run the numbers, right, I find that to be a big thing for folks, if you can, if you're already doing that, if you're already tracking and budgeting, basically what we built ourselves a pro forma in life, right is what a budget is same thing for real estate investing. So that skill already translates but if you're constantly trying to figure out where am I dollars going, and you know, I'm spending a bunch more than I'm trying, real estate investing could be tough, because now you're adding an additional expense and we're hoping that there's income coming in if you do your homework there should be and if you operate correctly, there should be. But I'd say you want to feel comfortable because there are big expenses that pop up with real estate investing, anyone who's been in this business long enough will tell you that and so if that makes you uneasy or on shaky, or you're not in a financially sound position to be able to absorb those hits or those blows, that can be really scary and I would definitely encourage everyone to think long and hard before getting involved in this business. Are you willing to stomach that and are you in a financially sound position that you can absorb those blows, and those can come in all different sizes and forms and so again, that's why I think it's so important to understand what your risk exposure looks like because the exposure on a $80,000 house, run of the mill 1950s, build whatever is going to be very different than a $500,000 house in Manhattan or condo, whatever. So it's really important to get clear on okay, where is my exposure coming from and then quantify it? How bad could it get if it's gonna go bad?   Pierre: Alright, next question here, Mike, when I previously own property, I hit a limit, because my debt to income ratio, how do I get around this to own 36 houses in 10 years?   Michael: So I think my guess is that question is coming from someone who purchased their primary residence and then went to purchase investment property. So investment property, in theory should actually better your debt to income because if you can imagine you've got debt now in the form of your mortgage payment, but and then your taxes and insurance. But then you also have income and so the income if we're cashflow positive, outweighs the debt and so we often see debt to income ratios decrease with time and so, I mean, there's your answer, if you're if you're buying cash flowing real estate, your debt to income is gonna be better than it was before you own it. Now, a lot of banks might not consider or give you credit for that, until you've owned the property for X amount of time, this has happened to me, I just had a lender tell me, hey, we're not going to consider the cash flow on your primary residence because it hasn't shown up on your tax returns yet. I'm like, yeah, but look, here's the lease, and here's all the deposit into my account and like, we don't care, whatever. So that could be a scenario but that's a very short term problem and I think, too, by the time someone is looking to purchase, I get the question too, hey, I can only have 10 loans. How do I buy 36 properties or how do I buy more than 10 properties. And what I found just personally, is that by the time someone owns, close to 10 properties, they they're finding out a different way to finance the properties anyhow, whether that's going commercial or going hard money or private money, whatever or you just bundle up a bunch of the single families into a portfolio note, put it on a commercial loan. Now you've just freed up a bunch of more conventional conforming loans. You're back in the game. So I think there's a number of different ways to approach it but I think to the original question of the debt to income issue, again, if you're buying cash flowing rental properties, your debt to income is likely going to be getting better with time.   Pierre: What are your thoughts about the upcoming housing correction crash? Is it best to wait for a few months to see how the market behaves to possible recession and interest rates hike interest rate hikes later in the year?   Michael: That's another really good question. So without having a crystal with a very hot topic, so it's interesting because interest rates have already gone up over the past six months drastically and yet demand still seems to be at an all-time high with purchasing rates at an all-time high. So if you're someone that is feeling more calm, trouble to kind of sit and pause and take a break and just see what happens, knowing full well that interest rates may continue to climb, and prices might not drop. That's totally cool. I think it's the person that's like, hey, I want to wait and see what's going on, figure out where this is going, rates continue to go up, prices continue to go up and that's not something we've seen before other than the last six months and then you're gonna be pissed that you missed out. That's where I think I want to encourage you all to think differently. I think you have to understand full stop, what are the implications of me doing nothing today? What could happen, and be okay with that?   So I think just, again, getting straight with yourself getting clear with yourself around, hey, interest rates might continue to go up. That doesn't necessarily mean prices are going to come down as much as maybe we think they are, or necessarily at all, because again, this past six months, they haven't really come down much and again, it's market specific. So in some markets, you might listen to like, yeah, I've seen it come down 10-50%. That's totally fine in your market, I think it's important to understand your market. So that was a kind of roundabout way of saying, get clear on what could happen, the likely the possible scenarios, and then decide and also like, if you go back to fundamentals, and you're looking at a deal today, and it makes sense and hits your Buy Box, like I'm, I'm all for it. I just bought a deal back in May and prices were more expensive than they were a year ago but I was like, you know what the deal still make sense? The numbers don't make sense. So I'm going to proceed and getting back to like we were talking about previously, interest rates change with time and so if it makes sense today, and it rates go down, you only got a better deal down the road and if they don't well, then okay, then you're okay with the deal that you bought today and again, the income should go up with time.   Pierre: And it does seem like we are seeing a drop in prices in markets where the tech industry is most concentrated. But you're right. It is not global, that it doesn't happen everywhere all at once but it's happening and anecdotally, I'm we're looking at homes right now and see price cuts on so many houses. So it's not a statistic, but I'm seeing it happen…   Michael: But you're seeing it.   Pierre: Yeah. Have you been looking at all Mike for you? You've been in an acquisition mode at all lately?   Michael: No, not since that last one in May. We've been just trying to get the short term rentals humming along nicely and smoothly. So we've just been focused on that and then also my development project getting that over the finish line, which I am so so close, which I'm very excited about.   Pierre: Awesome. Well, that is it for the questions today. Thanks, Mike for sharing.   Michael: You got it.   Pierre: It's got to go.   Michael: Sweet.   Pierre: Thanks, everyone for tuning into the podcast. Please leave us your questions as YouTube comments or on the podcast app. We love hearing from you all. We will catch you on the next episode. Thanks so much for listening.   Michael: Happy investing…

In this episode, we cover questions submitted by attendees of a recent webinar. We talk about using 401K loans for investing in real estate, how to choose strong rental markets, inspections on remote properties, property management, and how disclosures work in different states.   We love hearing from you, and taking on topics that you are curious about. Feel free to submit your questions as comments on YouTube, in a review on the podcast, or tweet at us: @RemoteEstate.   --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals. Hey, everyone, welcome to the remote real estate investor.     My name is Pierre Carrillo and today I am with     Michael Albaum.     And today we are going to be going through some listener submitted questions. So let's get right into it.   Alright, Mike's up for this first question here. This one came off of a YouTube comment. Jeremy asked, how do you use a 401 k loan for a down payment on a rental or an S short term rental? Do they have lower interest rates so that you can pay yourself back especially now that the market is down? What do you have to say about that?     Yeah, it's a super good question, Jeremy. So this is something that I've actually done in the past on my second rental ever I did this, and it's all dependent on your 401k administrator. And so who holds your 401k what the company is, and so mine at the time happened to be through Fidelity. And at that time, they say you can take a loan up to $50,000 or 50% of your balance in your accounts, whichever is less. I think that was how it worked. And then the interest rate at the time was four and a half percent.   Now this is back in like 2014 2015, something like that. So it's been a while. And so every interest in, the interest rate is going to be set by the Accommodator or by the facilitator. And the cool thing about it is that interest is actually paid back to yourself on a monthly basis. And so you can actually choose and again, this is specific for Fidelity and for my situation at the time, but I was able to choose the period in which I wanted to pay back the loan. So I can pick one year through five years in one year increments. So once you have 1 2 3 4 5, and so I chose the longest period possible because I wanted the payment to be as small as possible. So that way I could cash flow as maximum ly as possible. And the lender had no problem with this whatsoever, because they saw that the cash was coming from my 401k, they will often count that treat it as a cash equivalent, because we have access to them through these 401k loans and through other vehicles as well. So I made monthly payments to myself, it got automatically deducted from my paycheck on a, again on a monthly basis. So they took out half, I was paid every two weeks, I took out half the payment, and it went back into my 401k.   And so it's your again, you're paying yourself back the interest. So it's a really cool way to be able to get actually more dollars into your 401k account. Now the tax implications of this definitely not going to get into you're definitely gonna want to talk to a tax professional to understand how it's gonna affect you. But again, I would definitely look into your 401k Accommodator and see what the rules are around 401k loans because they can be a great, great, great tool to access.   Now keep in mind, the one thing that I think is super important to highlight is that if you end up leaving that company or that job, the entire loan balances due back. And so you just want to keep that in mind. That's uh, that can be kind of a sticky catch all. So that you don't want to get caught off guard with but again, every every Accommodator is going to have likely a little bit of a different way that they handle it. So reach out there, there's probably someone in their loan department that you could call and just start asking around these questions. But again, really great question, Jeremy, and a super, super powerful way to gain access to cash and quickly.     So follow up on that a little bit more, are interest rates on these type of loans the same as what's going on in the market? Or are these calculated differently?     It's a really good question. You know, I really haven't looked into it in a while since I haven't needed one. But you could very easily like, again, mine through fidelity, you could go online today and walk through this exercise and see what the interest rate you're quoted is. Yeah, I mean, it varies at the time, I think mine was like four and a half percent. And I think I got a four and a half percent loan on the investment property. So if that's an indicator of of kind of par for the course, I would I would say that yes, I would, I would think we could we could extrapolate that and say yes, that the loan you'll see on your 401k is likely going to be what you're seeing in the market. But again, remember this interest gets paid back to yourself so that the true like quote unquote, cost of it becomes a lot more tolerable. It just has to look at what your cash flows look like.     Okay. And are there any property types that are best for this strategy, or is it does it not matter?     You know, I really don't think it matters. Most 401 k loan accommodators will tell you you can take a loan for really any number of reasons, I don't, I don't know, if you have to specify you might. But I think if you wanted like a new TV, you could go take a 401k loan and do that. I don't recommend that. Because that is not an asset, that's a liability. And so I would say any type of cash flowing asset is going to make sense or could make sense for a 401k loan. And I know some of you listening are out there thinking, well, the stock market is a cash flowing asset, or a dividend stock is a cash flowing asset. And so I would just be very cautious around investing those funds in the stock market, because they're very correlated.   And so if you see your, if you see a stock market dip, now your balance in your 401k has dipped, and the amount that you have invested in the stock market, because you use loan proceeds to go invest in the stock market has taken a dip and so your proceeds to pay off the loan that you took is taking a dip, so it can just get very dirty very quickly. And so that's why I think real estate is a great investment to use those funds for because they are, I would say pretty uncorrelated, if just because the stock market dips doesn't mean the real estate markets taking a dip the next day.     All right, Mike, I know we've seen this question before. But let's hit it again. Because it's a really common question that people have is what advice do you have for selecting a strong investment market?     Yeah, it's another super great question, Pierre. So I think that it needs to come down to a couple of things. And I think people need to get really clear on what's important in a market for them, and what makes them believe in a market? For me, it's like five things. It's is there population growth? So are people moving to that market? Is there job growth, so the people that are moving there are have jobs to work, so they can pay rent and pay their mortgages? There it is, as their wage or salary growth, people that are moving there that are now working there are getting paid more to do so. And then is it diversification of employment? So are there multiple sectors supporting the local economy? Or is it exclusively manufacturing or exclusively entertainment? I like to see that it's it's diverse, so that if we do you have a pandemic-like occurrence, the entire market doesn't evaporate. And then last, but not least, for me, I like to see a plethora of deals that I would invest in, I want to see several deals on the market, you know, through the MLS through Zillow, wherever you're getting your deals from, that you could say, Yes, I would be happy investing in all of them. And they all make sense.   And for me, that's because I like to go deep into a market, I used to go wide, I used to buy one or two properties in multiple markets, and then it got really overwhelming and cumbersome. And so I like to go deep into a particular market. And so I don't want to go buy the one good deal in Atlanta, Georgia, I wanted the process to be repeatable. And so that's what I look for. And so I'd say people should get clear on what it is that's important to them. That is an indicator that the market is going to be around and healthy for a long time for the duration of their investment, and then some.   And so if you can find markets, and I can almost guarantee you, you will find multiple markets that check all of your boxes. I know for me, I have. And then it's just about picking one and picking one could be I interview property managers in four of the markets that I found that work for me, and who do I have the best working relationship with? Who am I getting the best vibe from? Where am I finding the best lenders? And so now that we found kind of the macro high level things, and we've also found the micro deal, let's start expanding and say, Okay, who are we going to utilize, who's going to be part of our team on the ground, because you can find a great market with great deals. And if you can't find a good property manager, you can't find a good lender. It's tough to transact there. And it's tough to own in that market.   So I think once you find the market and the deals now we got to start building up a team and seeing who makes sense to work with Who do you like working with? And then I would execute based on that.     When you say look for these deals, where are you looking?     You can look all kinds of places. So you can work with a local real estate agent. You could look on roof stock on the marketplace, you can look on Zillow, you could look on you know, any housing, like website that lists properties for sale, it's just pulling information from the local MLS. And so every every major metro is going to have multiple MLS is that are local to that Metro. And so that's where the listings agents are posting listings. And that's where they're showing you listings from, maybe you get off market stuff, you know, there's there's all kinds of ways to source deals, and so many different places to look, try all of them and see what you come up with.   And if you're working with an agent, I would say make sure you're working with an investor friendly agent and investor focused agent and make sure they understand when you say cash on cash return and cash flow, that they know what you're talking about. A lot of agents out there are residential agents that are used to working with owner occupants, not knocking them, but they just may not know and be familiar with the terms and key financial metrics that we as investors are interested in and looking for. And if that's the case, it's not necessarily your job to educate them. And so I would, I would maybe shift gears and look to go find an agent that understands our lingo. And the things that we're trying to accomplish.     What are some questions you can ask a potential agent to? I'm sure they like to say like, oh, yeah, I'm investor friendly. Let's do a deal together. What are some questions you can ask to kind of get to the bottom of it and see if that real they really are?     Yeah, totally kind of put them through their paces a little bit? What's the typical cap rate in your market? How long? You know, what's typical cash on cash return? In your market? What's the average monthly cash flow? In your market? What kind of value add projects? Are you seeing people doing? And are you an investor yourself? Do you invest in rental real estate? And if they say yes, well, I mean, there, you can kind of skip all the other stuff, if they if they tell yes? Or how many investors have you worked with? And can I get some recommendations? Can I get some references from you from some of your investor clients?     When you're buying a property remotely? How does the inspection process work? Do I know you get an inspection from a third party inspector? But can you also get a video walkthrough? Like how do you get all the information that you need to feel comfortable moving forward?     Yeah, it's another great question. And so for most people, if they are buying a property locally, I would be interested to know if they go and walk the property with the inspector. If they do great, it's, it's a good way to put eyes on and be able to really talk through what you're seeing with the inspector, when you're doing it remotely. I always have my agent go first and do a video walkthrough before I go ahead with the inspection, because it burned me once where I had the inspector go in and be like, this place is a mess. It's terrible, yada, yada, yada. And then my agent was like, oh, yeah, you don't want anything to do with this. And I said, Why don't we reverse that process and save me the couple hundred bucks that I just spent on the inspection.   Because all this stuff you could call out, you could see it doesn't take an inspector to recognize, hey, there's a massive crack in his foundation. Anybody who has who has site can be able to see that. And so I always get my agent, give me a video walkthrough. First, give me their opinion, then we'll schedule the inspection. After I get the inspection report, I usually call the inspector and say, Hey, what scares you about this property, if their inspection looks pretty clean, they'll tell me they'll be honest with you, they often don't have a dog in this fight, so to speak. And so they their job is to be honest. And their job is to find all of the stuff that's wrong with the property. And so sometimes we get an inspection report back, and it sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. Because that's their job, they have to find all of the stuff that's wrong or not working, or it could be a potential safety hazard.   And so it's something like some things could be like a missing light switch cover, right, that's going to be called out as a safety safety issue. But like, the reality is as a 75 cent repair, it's really not a big deal. But when you start seeing a lot of these things stack up as a laundry list. And maybe you're not familiar with the light switch cover, and that it isn't 75 cent repairs, you're like, oh my gosh, look at all these things I have to fix, it's gonna be so expensive.   So I think understanding and really talking through with the inspector, hey, what was actually scary, and what's just, you know, some stuff I need to take care of down the road or immediately, and really having a conversation, because a picture's worth 1000 words, but also getting the words. But the backstory behind the picture, I think is also really important and really valuable. And so most of these inspectors are very happy to talk to you. So have your agent, walk through the property, get pictures, if you can't get a video walkthrough, and then get the inspection and then have a conversation, and then make your decision. Don't let yourself get all hot and bothered and really bent out of shape over the inspection without first having a conversation with the inspector or with a property manager or a contractor. Someone who really knows. Okay, what is this going to take to correct? Or is it even needing correction right now, maybe this is a problem for down the road.     Okay, and say like in this inspection, certain repairs are noted. And you want to get a quote from local contractors for fixing it is there like a Kelley Blue Book of what certain services cost for real estate? Or, you know, I kind of have to know?     I wish there was you after doing this two or three or four times, you'll get a fairly good ballpark idea of what costs are in your market. And it's important to recognize that it's market specific. So a plumber in San Francisco charges, I'm going to bet more than a plumber in Topeka, Kansas, right? Just cost of living is different trades get priced differently. Materials even cost slightly different amounts. And so understanding Okay, there is going to be a difference for maybe what I'm used to in my market where I live. And so let's go get quotes for those things.   A lot of property managers have in house personnel that can do a lot of those repairs for you. And so they can be kind of your one stop shop for Hey, go get this inspection report. You can give it to them. And which I think you absolutely should, like hey, give me your thoughts and then give me quotes to get this stuff repaired. And they might have a plumber or electrician or a handy person in house that they can say, Okay, this is going to be $300 It's gonna be $200 It's gonna be $2,000 Whatever the cost is, if they don't, they might be able to put you in touch with some contractors or go get those quotes on your behalf with outside vendors.   Depending on the size of the job, I always like to go get three quotes. If it's you know, more than 1000 bucks, go get a couple additional quotes just to see where things are coming out. For anything under 1000 bucks, I've just found that, you know, it might not be worth someone's time to delay the repair, or to send a property manager chasing around trying to get quotes from people for, you know, a $75 repair or $100 repair, the savings that you get in dollars don't necessarily equate or are equivalent to the time savings that you put that you ask that person to do something. And so they might start to get a little bit annoyed with you.     Okay.     But I would definitely do that before your inspection period ends, like go get hard numbers, because that way you can you can use that to negotiate with the seller on the price or to make the repairs themselves or what have you can decide what makes the most sense.     Okay, so what should people know about managing the property themselves? So they don't want to skip professional property management and keep that extra cash? What should they know?     They should know that you shouldn't do it? No, just kidding. I think I think self management makes sense for a lot of people. It's just not for me. So Coach Dean over at Roofstock Academy with me, he self manages all of his properties, and he lives in a different country. So it's absolutely possible. And that works really well for him. It's just not something that's worked really well for me in the past. So I manage I self manage a short term rental that I own on the central coast of California. And then I self manage my my house hack, the upstairs unit and the house that I live in. And so I think if you're going to be self managing, you need to have a really good team around you, just like you would if you were using professional property managers.   If you're using property managers, they likely have those plumbers, electricians, handy people, like we were just talking about. And if they don't, they know who they can call in the event of an emergency repairs needed. Because you're not using those property managers, you kind of need to put yourself in that role and say, Okay, well, they're not going to call the plumbers, electricians handy people for me, I need to do that. And so having a network of service professionals to be able to call on a moment's notice, I think is really important.   Also, having someone that can be a go check on the property on kind of a moment's notice. And just put eyes on is also important. Because you can imagine if the tenant pays, doesn't pay rent on the first of the month, and they skip town on the second, you might have no idea that your property is vacant for quite some time. If you can't get a hold of the tenant not returning phone calls. Like there's just like you want to have eyes on physically, if not yourself than someone who represents you if you're not using a property manager. So again, building out your team is so so so hypercritical, even more critical if you're self managing.     Okay, so next question here is if you're buying a property that is currently tenanted, is there a way to get in touch with the current property manager, before, you know to find out more information about it before making a decision?     Yeah, it's a really good question. Sometimes, if you can find out who the property is managed by, of course, then you can just give them a call and start asking them questions. I don't know if property managers have a legal fiduciary responsibility to anyone. If they do, my guess is that it's going to be with their, their owner. And so you might, you know, if I, if you own a property that has a tenant in place, and I call your property manager and say, hey, you know, I know that there's probably 123 Main Street, do you guys manage that? Yes, we do. Tell me about all the problems that you've had with that property? Well, we probably can't do that, because we know it's trying to get sold.   So yes, you might be able to find out that information, but you might not be able to find out all of the warts, if you will, all of the kind of nitty gritty associated with that property. That's really what the inspection is for. And that's what you your due diligence period is for you get to ask the questions, you get to get answers to those questions. And if you're not satisfied with the answers, you get to walk away for free.   Yes, it can be helpful sometimes, but it's it might not be the silver bullet that I think a lot of people think it might be, because they might just refuse to answer your questions and say, you need to talk to the seller, you need to get that information from the agent, the selling agent.     Alright, Mike. So the next question here is on disclosures. Every state seems to have different requirements around what needs to be disclosed. How do you handle that in states that don't require disclosures?     Yeah, it's another really great question fear. And it's tough. Like if the state's not going to require the seller to tell you everything they know about the property, we have to go find that information out for ourselves. And the best way to do that is by piecing together kind of you have to make this story for yourself with pieces of information that you can get access to. So first and foremost, I would say look at the seller's taxes if you can get a hold of them for the last two years for that particular property. I'm interested to see, okay, you've told me you're getting this much in rent you've told me that the property performs like this? Now let's see what you told the IRS and make sure that those two things are the same. Oh, there's a discrepancy. Let's go ahead and reconcile that either in terms of price or figuring out what what it is that you weren't telling me before.   Also with the inspection, I mean, the physical inspection is going to show up, turn up a lot of stuff if there's water leaks, if there's foundation issues and so I think that's also important not to skimp out on or not to skip, unless it's a full teardown or a full gut renovation anyhow, there's not a whole lot to be gained from knowing that, hey, the roof leaks if you're planning on replacing it entirely anyhow.   But I think you start to have to gain different pieces of information and piece it together for yourself to have the story come to light, as opposed to the seller saying, oh, yeah, there's a leak in the roof. Well, if there's water stained, and the leak hasn't been replaced, you'll see that from a physical inspection. The other thing to keep in mind is that in a state like California, where disclosures are required, like the seller just says, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, it's every single answer. And that's a totally valid response. And so am I any better off than if I didn't have the disclosures to begin with? In my opinion, not really.   And so of course, we are relying that this person is being honest and telling us about the things that they do know. And I have seen sellers be super honest and super transparent about the things that they do know, which is wonderful, because now you're armed with some additional pieces of information to help you make your decision, both around whether to proceed with the purchase, or the purchase price itself. But when a seller says yeah, I don't know, like you figure it out. I genuinely don't know, because it's been a rental for 10 years, I you know, live there for a year. And that was, you know, there's all kinds of things that sellers can say that muddy the waters that don't really give us any insight into what the answers are, the true answers are, and so we have to go find that out for ourselves.     All right, Mike. So like a state like Alabama, where it's a, they don't have to disclose something, if you ask them? Are they legally required to tell you? Or is? I don't know, good enough for in that case as well?      It's a really good question. I think legally, they have to tell you, I think don't quote me, I'm definitely no no legal experts. So I would definitely get a hold of a legal expert in the state in which you're transacting and ask that question. I think it comes down to if you ask them a question, and they lie, and you can prove it, there could be ramifications for the seller. And so I think it all comes down to proving that they knew about what you're asking about was not the truth. That I think is always the hard part. So there, it's very easy for someone to say, Yep, I don't know. And then how are we going to prove that they knew that they actually did know and that the thing was an issue for their property? So it gets kind of murky pretty quickly, as you can see. But yeah, just understanding what your state requirements are in the state you're transacting is really important.     Okay, cool. I think we will leave it at that we have a bunch more questions, but we're running out of time today. So want to leave us with any final words Mike?     No, keep the questions coming. These are great. We love to see how engaged our members are in community are and we love getting answers out to your questions as best we can. So please keep them coming.     Alright, everyone, we're gonna leave it at that. Leave your questions as comments on YouTube or comment on the podcast. Leave us a review. Give us a rating that helps us out a lot. And we will catch you on the next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Happy investing.

In today's episode, we pulled together a list of questions that we were unable to answer in a recent webinar. The questions range from rising interest rates, market selection, the trade-off between cash-flow and appreciation, property management, cap-ex assumptions, and short-term rentals. --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by…   Pierre: Pierre Carrillo…   Michael: …and we're going to be tackling some of the questions that you all asked from our AMA webinar the other night that we hosted as part of the Roofstock Academy. So we're going to be taking all or some of the questions we didn't get to, and answering them here. So these are all questions that your peers and fellow investors threw out to us, so let's jump right into it.   So Pierre, we had a bunch of really great questions come in from the AMA webinar we did the other night and for anyone not familiar, AMA is an acronym it stands for, it stands for ask me anything and we kind of spun it because my name starts with the first my name starts with an M, so it would be titled the webinar Ask Michael anything. So it was just a webinar where we had tons of folks come on and ask all their real estate questions that they've been dying to ask since and we just went through and answer them and had a really great conversation. Unfortunately, since we had so many great questions, we weren't able to get to all of them. So everything from today's episode comes to us from that webinar. So you want to just start tossing some out, Pierre.   Pierre: Sounds good. All right. So we have one here that says, with the increasing interest rates, increasing the cost of borrowing money, is it a good time to invest in real estate, what do you think, Mike?   Michael: It's such a good question and traditional finance and economics tells us that with an increase in interest rate, we tend to see a decrease in purchase price, or in list price, which in many markets around the country, I just don't think that we've seen yet and I think that the interest rate is often a leading measure and price can be a lag measure for those lead lag measures. So I have said, and I will continue to say that if the fundamentals make sense, i.e. the numbers that you're calculating makes sense, providing you an acceptable return, interest rate and purchase price are not really prevalent in that equation and what I mean by that is if interest rate hits 10%, but I'm still able to make these properties, cash flow out of cash on cash return, that's acceptable to me, I'm going to move forward with the deal and so I think that if we, if everybody listening, if everyone, all the investors out there continuing to do the same thing, and stop paying attention to the interest rate that as a number, but rather look at kind of the whole picture as the whole pie, it starts to become a little bit easier to digest. Now, if the interest rates are throwing your buy box out of spec, and you can't hit the returns that you're targeting, yeah, maybe that maybe that means let's press pause for a minute, take some time, retool, go get educated, go save up some cash for your next down payment for if and when interest rates do come back into check. But we don't know when that's gonna happen and so if in a year from now, interest rates are at 7,8,9 percent, a lot of us are probably gonna be looking backward and say, man, 5,6,7 percent, maybe wasn't such a bad deal. So I would say don't count on things changing. But you have to get back to fundamentals and do what makes sense for you as an investor.   Pierre: Yeah and if you look at interest rates, historically, 5-6% is still pretty dang low compared to you know, when some of the big dogs made their way in the in this industry.   Michael: Yes, very much, so.   Pierre: Another thing that you brought up, I believe in a past episode was that if you're an all cash buyer, it could be advantageous to you because it's kind of eliminating some of the competition that's coming in with borrowed money. So yes, another thing to think about.   Michael: Absolutely and suddenly, I always talked about it in the academy is like leveraging your primary, your primary residence, in terms of cashing out refi or getting a HELOC on the property. The owner occupant money is always cheaper than investor money and so if you can get a great rate on a primary residence, and then use that money to go invest, that can be a really strong a strong tool to happier to wealth as well.   Pierre: Nice. Alright, let's dig out another one. Okay, this next question here says I'm totally lost. How do I find a good market these days and how do you invest in properties with no cash flow? Do you put money in every month looking for appreciation down the road?   Michael: It's a really good question. I think a lot of folks who are just getting started probably feel similarly to us. So getting started in identifying a market you can you can approach is one of two ways and you can let the deal dictate the market or you can let the market dictate the deal and one of those is probably going to feel easier and what I mean by that is you can go pick a market, let's say you are really interested in Tampa, Florida, because you've heard great things about Tampa, Florida or you have family that lives there or you maybe have visited there, wherever you reasoning justification. Start at the market level and go do some research into Tampa, Florida as a market and decide if that's summer that you want to invest. Do the economics make sense to you? Do you believe in the market as a whole are things trending in a positive direction? Let's say all those things, check out now let's go look at the deals, let's go get granular and look at what types of deals exist in the Tampa market and you might find the Tampa market has deals that support your investment by blocks your investment thesis, and the market does too. So that's going to be a go for you versus letting the deal dictate the market. Let's say you pull up Zillow, or you go on roof stock, and you're looking at properties all over the country and you just try to find something that it was within your budget from a bed bath count that fits your buy box as well, you're gonna find properties all over the country that fit your buy box and make sense as an investment for you. Well, now we need to zoom out a little bit and find out if Chattanooga Tennessee is a market that you're interested in investing in and whichever way you approach it, if you approach it from the deal level first or from the market level.   First, you're going to find great deals and terrible markets, you're going to find great markets that have terrible deals. So it's an iterative process, whichever way you approach it. But as someone that's very numbers driven, I was always letting the deal dictate the market and I was purchasing properties throughout the country, knowing what I know, now I maybe wouldn't have purchased some of those deals because they're in markets that I don't think really appreciated much over time and they haven't appreciated much over time and so while I was focused on cash flow, that wasn't a big issue for me, again, now I'm in kind of the second part of my career, I would be putting more of an emphasis on appreciation and so I would make decisions a little bit differently. But so think about what it is you're trying to accomplish. Are you trying to accomplish appreciation? Or is that really what your main driver is? Are you really looking for cash flow? Is that your main driver, and that's going to help direct you as to what markets to participate in and again, pick whichever one is more fun for you. Do you want to approach it from the deal level first? Do the numbers get into the nitty gritty and then zoom out or do you want to look at do you like looking at demographic information, population economic information from the macro level, and then zooming in to property specific stuff? One of those is probably going to feel easier, I would start there and then to the second part of that question of how are you investing in properties that don't cash flow? Are you, are you sinking money to them every month? My answer is no, I don't invest in properties that don't cashflow and like I was just mentioning cash flow is the main focus for me back when I first started investing. Now that shifted a little bit to definitely more of a balanced approach, I want there to be at the appreciation potential as well as the cash flow, and you tend to have a tradeoff, if you're going to take some appreciation, you're likely going to give up a little bit of cash flow, and vice versa. So depending on what's important to you, if you are someone that's looking for a cash flow property, I would say don't go buy properties that don't cash flow and if you are looking for someone, if you are someone looking for appreciation, that's a very realistic possibility. In today's market, you might have to put money into this property every single month just to make your mortgage payment. That's not something that I'm comfortable doing. A lot of investors would tell you to shy away from that, because that could be considered speculation. You're hoping your property appreciates and if it doesn't, if it goes the other way, well, now you've just got a property that is worth less than you paid for it and you're putting money into it every single month. So I see cashflow as your defense for a lot of folks appreciation as your offense. So just think about what's important to you and if the market turns are you okay, putting money into an asset every single month that is worth less than you bought it for and that often it gives you your answer.   Pierre: So kind of I want to expand on this one a little bit. Given that, you know, there's like the slider there where the house that appreciates more might cash flow a little bit less and high cash flowing property might appreciate less. Given that you're later on in your career of investing in real estate and you're looking more to appreciation, how much cashflow are you willing to sacrifice to make that appreciation play?   Michael: Yuuh, such a good question. If you're looking for the secret sauce or yeah… , you know, I think it really depends on everyone's personal preference, my kind of minimum cash flow that I was targeting back in the day, it was like 100 to 150 bucks a month per door and when I was buying multifamily properties, that's kind of still around where I am, but I'm willing to look to fudge the numbers a little bit less to make the numbers work. So I would probably be okay with 75 to 100 bucks a month, maybe even 60 bucks a month for multifamily stuff, because of the appreciation potential that that is there. But it really it has to be there. It can't just be speculation, it really has to be these properties are under market value or there's some capex that I could do to improve the value of the property. I'm really now focusing more on short term rentals and getting involved in that space and so that's a totally sort of different calculation. As far as like cash flow goes, you're looking at a gross annual number as opposed goes to a monthly cashflow number. And so I'm willing to take less in terms of cash on cash return in those instances, because the purchase prices are higher, and so the actual cash flow dollars that I'm ending up with each month tend to be higher, but on a percentage basis as a percentage of how much money I'm putting into the deal, they are not as attractive as they used to be, or as I used to demand that I that I hid. And part of that is because I am just no longer in growth mode. I don't need to grow as aggressively as I have in the past. And so I'm okay taking a not as attractive return. Because it's easier or because I think it's a good deal. I don't need to hit 7,8,9, 10, 11 13%, you know, 6,7,8 percent. That's kind of good in my book at this stage in the game.   Pierre: Cool. Thanks for that.   Michael: Yeah, totally.   Pierre: Got a quick one here. How do I get a pre-approval letter from the financial institutions for commercial multifamily as a foreign investor?   Michael: That's a really good question. It's all going to be lender specific lender dependent and so some lenders are going to say, hey, send me your bank statements send me your PFS, your personal financial statement, send me Just some background information around who you are as an individual and what your financial picture looks like and they'll write your letter on the spot that day sort of a thing, other lenders are going to be a lot more tedious about it, they're going to want to pull credit and do a bit more of a full cavity search, as I like to call it into your financial background to see how you qualify as a borrower. Because remember, commercial lenders are more so looking to the property to carry the debt as opposed to you as the borrower. But until they have the property to underwrite and to work with, it's tough to give you that letter, because they don't know what the property looks like. So they have to default to looking to you as the borrower. So it's kind of like chicken or the egg situation. If you're looking to get involved in your first commercial multifamily deal, your first commercial deal, I'm assuming you're using recourse debt, because you're under that, just assuming you're using recourse that the lender is going to look to you as the borrower, and they are still going to underwrite you as the guarantor and they'll probably make you sign a personal guarantee and so you can usually get a letter from those institutions from those lenders, if you have a strong enough financial background. So I would just chat with them and the fact that you're a foreign investor, I mean, there might be some complications are hurdles to get through there. But as long as you've got assets here locally in the States, I would imagine that they're going to be a lot more comfortable with that, as opposed to having all of your assets somewhere else overseas, that they might not be able to claw back, because you could sign a personal guarantee. But if none of your stuff is here, then they're probably going to make that's probably going to make them uncomfortable. So think about that. But have those conversations with lenders with different lenders, and ask what is it that they need from you.   Pierre: I can't add anything there. So sounds good. Also can verify if anything you said was right.   Michael: Neither can I, oh, man, this is just you know, off the cuff.   Pierre: So the next one here: What all does a property manager? Do? I have been thinking I want to self-manage, but I don't have all the contacts?   Michael: Yeah, so it's another really good question. I mean, all these really good questions. So property manager is responsible for really the day to day management of the property. So from placing a tenant to managing the tenant relationship to collecting rents or handling all the repairs for that property, they're going to handle the day to day stuff, they might even handle bigger projects, bigger capex stuff, if you're doing a remodel, they might be willing to participate in that. But that usually is a little bit outside the scope of a general property management agreement. So if you're thinking about self-managing, I think it can make sense for a lot of people it can also really not make sense for others and so I think it's important to get your head around what is involved in managing a property day to day, how much time is involved, what are the typical repair calls that come in what is your Rolodex need to look like in order for you to self-manage, if you've got a good handy person, a good plumber, or a good electrician that you can call on a whim and they can get out there within a couple of days, that's probably a good place to start. As terms in terms of what you'll likely need, having a home warranty can also actually be a pretty good way to go if you're self-managing or also, if you're not self-managing. I'm a big proponent and believer in home warranties. I just had them replace the furnace in my primary residence, which was several $1,000. So a good home warranty company can definitely be worth its weight in gold, but they often have their own vendors and so if you call them up, and you're like, hey, I've got this leak. They might have a network that you get to plug into they might send someone out there and so you might not necessarily need your own Rolodex or your own contact list for folks. Now if you'd like now, Michael, I'm not into home warranties. But I still do want to self-manage, figuring out what are like the parts of the home that tend to have the biggest issues and for my variance has been plumbing and electrical and so if you have those folks on hand, you can call them up, they can come take care of you, that's great. Versus a property manager, they're likely going to have their own folks as well, their own team, they might even have handy folk, in house on staff and so you might be getting, they might be getting better rates than you as an individual and so it's kind of like the Costco affects your property managers buying in bulk, so to speak, in terms of repair and maintenance, versus you as an individual might just be a loan shopper.   So it's important to think about what you know, what is that worth to you and also think about how much time you're actually going to spend managing the property versus what you have to pay someone else to do it. So a lot of people will say, oh, I don't want to pay someone 10%. That's, you know, I can be paying that to myself, well, if your property rents are 1500 bucks a month, that's $150 a month you're paying someone else to manage the property. If you spend 10 hours managing that property yourself doing whatever, coordinating repairs, handling maintenance requests, you're essentially valued your time at $15 an hour. Now, if that's true for you, awesome, that's a great use of your time and that's valuable and money well spent. If you're someone that you think your time is worth more than $50 an hour, it might make sense to actually just go pay someone that property management fee to do that for you on your behalf. So really varies, but that's kind of my take on it, I've always found it more efficient. Because I'm not a property manager to have someone else go and manage the property. I self-manage two properties. One is a central coast rental, that was my primary, I have a long term tenant in there, he's super easy, he's great to work with. So there's nothing that has to get done on any kind of regular basis and as part of a condo association, by the way, so the exterior maintenance, roof, painting, all that kind of stuff is taken care of. I don't have to coordinate anything. And then the other one is my private residence. It's a house hack duplex upstairs, downstairs. So we're here. So it makes sense for us to manage that as well.   Pierre: Mike, have any of your properties ever costed you 10 hours a month?   Michael: Yeah, I mean, no not those specifically not the ones I self-manage. But in terms of the ones that have it or management? You better believe it like…   Pierre: Oh, not during a rehab, but just kind of in regular maintaining your property.   Michael: A lot of the multifamily stuff. Yeah, I would say there's definitely someone is spending more than 10 people hours, you know, per property, and gets a little bit different because the rents are tend to be quite a bit higher on those multifamily because you get the economies of scale. But it's just, it's just like truth be told that worth my time, because I have to go get good at all of the stuff that they do and I'm frankly just not willing to do that at this stage. In my life and career, I have so many other priorities, and places where my time is better spent, that it just doesn't make sense for me to do that. Now, if I were just starting out, maybe a different story and I think that there is some merit to self-managing, because you learn what it takes to manage and so then you can really be scrupulous as you're talking to other property managers and evaluating other property managers and it's kind of testing them that what their systems are, as opposed to me I kind of just have taken them at their word after interviewing multiple and seeing which ones I work well with. So it really depends on who you are, as an individual, what it is you're looking to accomplish. How do you value your time and what are your other priorities? For me, it's always just made sense to give that to a manager and let me focus on other things.   Pierre: Do you think there's different tiers of property that would lend better to self-management?   Michael: A 1,000% and that's a super great question. To kind of clarify, so my property down on Central Coast, it's a long term rental, I was managing it myself as a short term rental, but it was 30 Day minimums. So it's kind of midterm and then I had a tenant asked if they can move in full time for a year, that's been super easy and so they pay a significant amount in rent. It's an easy property, it's a new word of property. 1990s build, so not a ton of old stuff and I know it, I know the property I used to live there. So I have contacts there locally. If you're talking about a rougher property, that's an older property that constantly is in need of repair and maintenance, you know, all those calls, you could get a call to have a $10 repair, you could get a call to have a $10,000 repair, but the time it takes to coordinate could be the exact same and so I think for those little kind of death by 1000 cuts type of stuff. Those are much easier to give to a property manager. Also in areas that you have high evictions or high tenant turnover. That can be easier to get to property manager because chasing down these folks to deal with the court system, which is a local court system which will be different than from that watch where you live. Figuring out all these nuances could just be too much hassle more hassle than it's worth. That being said, I mean coach Dean as part of the Research Academy, he lives in South Africa. He used to live in the States but he invests In the Midwest, he, he manages himself, he manages everything himself remotely from South Africa and systems and teams in place to help him do that. So that worked really well for him. So it's not that you can't do it, you just have to really figure out, where's your time best spent? What do you enjoy doing? I mean, he seems to enjoy that kind of stuff, so that's great. You know if that's if that's your kind of personality, more power to you.   Pierre: Yeah. So ironically, the short term rental, which has the highest turnover, and much like an elevated level of maintenance seems like a lot of the people in that short term rental space are doing their own management. Are you self-managing your short term rental or do you have a property management company for working for you?   Michael: So the ones out in Tennessee?   Pierre: Yeah.     Michael: Yeah, so we've got a management company handling those, we're debating taking over management of one of them. If we do it, probably one of the one. Again, it's just something that our time, when I say arts, collective art, my wife and I, our time is spent out better elsewhere in our opinions, we find that our time is gets us a halt a higher return elsewhere. But you're right, a lot of the short term owners are self-managing and I think it's because a big part of it is so much of it is centralized and when I say it, like the management of these things, so many, like, when you get a new tenant from a long term rental, that 10, it could come from them walking into the property manager's office, from Zillow, it could come from hot pads, there are so many other there are so many different locales in which an inbound lead can come in from, and you've got to handle that inbound, lead and talk to them and screen them, and then give them a tour of the property. So there's a lot involve a lot of steps involved with getting a new tenant physically placed into a property with a short term space. I mean, they're coming through on a couple of different channels, Airbnb, VRBO, maybe direct, but all of that communication is handled centrally, there is no touring of the property, everything is listed online, there's no background check, what are those should be background check, but not in the same capacity as that of a long term tenant and there are just a little bit more protections in place through these channel managers and through these sites, versus that of I have to go understand the lease the state lease that's used in Kentucky, and I have to understand how an eviction works in Kentucky, like oh, that mostly goes out the window when you're using shorter midterm because there is no lease there is no courts involved, it just becomes a lot more transactional and when you have transactions that's just easier to manage, I think is what most people are finding and then there are companies that are built around supporting these types of businesses, they short term rental businesses, so channel managers, and cleaning companies and maintenance companies that you can kind of farm a lot of this stuff out to. So you don't have to be the one picking up the phone every time calling to handle these repair items. So I think that's why that's the case. That's my thesis.   Pierre: Yeah, there's a lot of tech enabled, you know, with Airbnb and with VRBO. Is that what it is?   Michael: Yeah.   Pierre: Yeah, there's a bunch of plugins that are apps that connect to both of them and just kind of handled the booking process and they rely heavily on their cleaner as the boots on the ground and eyes on the property. So, it's pretty cool. Yeah, save, I mean, saves a pretty big chunk. I think 25% is common for the management on short term.   Michael: It can range from 25 to like, 20 to 30% of gross rent collected and so we had Avery Carl on the show a while back, and she was like, yeah, if I was paying someone 20 30% That's like 200 grand. So I'm gonna pay myself that and so in that instance, you know, it's kind of a no brainer. But what for folks just getting started out, you know, I think everyone has to weigh, weigh their options and figure out what is their time worth and what are they willing to give up for that peace of mind and not having to worry about stuff.   Pierre: Cool. I think we hit that one.   Michael: I hope so.   Pierre: Let's All right, next question. Within three months after closing on our new property, we had to purchase an HVAC, roof, furnace, all which were not anticipated. How do we improve our process for see these unknown issues?   Michael: Yeah, it's welcome to the club. First and foremost, it's a it's a bummer of a club to be in, but we've all got some good worse stories like that. So I think you're first off approaching it from the right way and saying, okay, how do I do better the next time and I think it all comes down to your due diligence and your inspections and so I'm hoping that you had an inspection looking at the roof looking at the mechanicals and the systems of the home and there are also like specialized inspections that you can get for those type of things. You can have a specific roofing inspection you can have a specific, HVAC inspection and you've got to pay for those. But I think that that's often money well spent and it's something that I've done on a lot of properties. I just got burned by this on a short term rental I bought, it has this was a short terminal that has a hot tub in it and the jets apparently aren't working properly by and I closed on the property right and so that's on me for not having known to go turn on the jets, we had turn on the heater and the heater works. So I, you know, it's new for me. So I didn't know to do that, so I think as you get further along in your career, and you talk to other investors about the different systems in place in a home, you just organically learn about different inspections you can do on a home and so just physically inspecting the H back with a qualified technician who can look at the inner workings of an H vac system, and hopefully identify issues before they become issues or as they have arisen before you purchase the property and then you can go back to the seller negotiate and say, Look, there's this issue with the H factor. It's x many years old. I mean, the other thing to do is just look at the age of these systems and hopefully that gives you a little bit of insight into the remaining useful life. Roof isn't a pretty good one, if they someone at the general inspector goes is yeah, the roof looks like in good shape. But you know that it was built in 2000? Well, you know, that roof is 22 years old roofs tend to have a life anywhere from 20 to 30 years, depending on the condition and kind of physical climate that they're in and so think to yourself, okay, I've got eight years left on this roof. What does that mean, how much is the cost to replace? Do I want to negotiate even though the roofs in okay shape right now do I want to negotiate with the seller, hey, it's gonna have come time to replace this thing in eight years. Those are discussions that you want to have with your agent and you want to be thinking about what those costs in terms of replacement or repair. The other thing you can do is investigate a home warranty. I mean, this really came full circle the home warranty conversation, I should like go work for home warranty companies like I could get Commission's or something. But these are like the devils in the details in terms of these companies and for your H vac your furnace and your condenser. If you had a home warranty in place, they usually have a 30 day waiting period, after that 30 day waiting period is up, you can make claims for anything that that's covering. And they tend to run excuse me like three to 600 bucks a year and on older properties with older mechanicals, they can be a really great investment and for at 400 bucks a year, you go 10 years, that's four grand to replace my furnace was 5700 and they covered 4200 of it and it happened like four months after I bought the property. So you got a pretty long runway in terms of your print your annual premium payments, still being worth it to in order to make a claim and so I would investigate that and you can often request that from the seller, have the seller pay for a home warranty for a home warranty and if they balk at it, just buy it yourself or ask your agent to pay for it depending on the price of the property. But it is often a great investment and so long answer short, I would say due diligence, look at the different types of inspections you can get on a property coupled with a home warranty to reduce your exposure and then thirdly, negotiate with the seller and look at the age of the systems of the home.   Pierre: Nice. Mike, is there anywhere that people can go to learn all these things to be a successful real estate investor?   Michael: Yeah, I would say come check out the Roofstock Academy. This this is all information that we talked about, we've there was really developed for investors by investors by all the mistakes we made over time and we put it together and said, hey, what's all that stuff we wish we had known when it first got started in investing, how to avoid pitfalls, what are things that are important to be thinking about years down the road that weren't even on our radar as we got started investing, we bundled up everyone for everyone and put it together and look don't get me wrong, like all this stuff is available online for free. You could go find it yourself. I spent two years doing self-education because we've talked wasn't around. At the time I started investing Roofstock Academy was not around, Bigger pockets wasn't around, like this stuff is out there. It's not like we're selling the secret sauce or teaching anyone the secret sauce of investing. But what we have done is we put it together in one digestible place and then we pair it with one on one coaching and that I think is one of the biggest keys to success in this space is having someone in your corner alongside you figuring out helping you figure out what makes sense for you. Because I don't know what it was about me personally, but like I did a lot of classroom training at my last job and that was having a really hard time applying that in the real world because I was like, yeah, well, that situation I read about or I learned about isn't exactly the same here and so I was having difficulty applying the logic or the knowledge. Same thing goes for investing, like you can read about stuff and you can hear about stuff. But when it's your own personal dollars, it maybe becomes a little bit scarier the situation you find yourself in might not be exactly the same as what you learned about and so having someone that's seen over the that mountain that can help you help, you know, let you stand on their shoulders, so to speak, to use a metaphor here can be really helpful and so that's I think we're some of the best value and biggest wins come from is that one on one coaching that folks can get as part of the Roofstock Academy. So yeah, I'd highly encourage him to come check us out.   Pierre: Excellent. Well, we got a ton of other questions here, but I don't know if we'll have time for them today. So I think the Roofstock Academy plug is a good place to call it up.   Michael: Well, we will be sure to get to the rest of those ama questions on a future episode. Thanks, everyone for sending those in. Thanks for hanging with us through this episode. Hopefully you enjoyed it got some value. We love hearing from you all we love these ama questions, so feel free to leave us a comment with any questions. Leave us a comment with a review, leave us a comment with things that you'd like to hear more of and we will work to deliver that for you all as always, we look forward to seeing on the next one and happy investing.   Pierre: Happy investing.

On this episode Kaiju Weekly host, Michael answers questions from our listeners. -----------------------------------------------Kaiju Ramen Volumen One Kickstarterhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1396772755/kaiju-ramen-volume-1----------------------------------------------Read Elijah's Article on Upcoming Filmes in 2022https://kaijuramenmedia.com/news/2hm3jh98pfz9f0yva6wdjs7kiy31tp----------------------------------------------Listen to Us on Finding Monster Right Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/return-to-sender-an-open-letter-to-the-pacific/id1518614618?i=1000546881766----------------------------------------------KAIJU RAMEN MAGAZINE:https://www.kaijuramenmedia.com/-----------------------------------------------CONTACT KAIJU WEEKLY:kaijuweekly@gmail.comFOLLOW ALL THINGS KAIJU WEEKLY:Follow us on TwitterFollow us on InstagramSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelBecome a PatreonKaiju Weekly MerchFOLLOW MICHAEL, THE KAIJU GROUPIE:https://linktr.ee/adminMusic for the Podcast provided by Kweer Kaiju**All film, audio clips, and graphics belong to their respective copyright holders with no infringement being intended or implied.**

Hour 4: Biden is proud of lowering grocery and gas prices by pennies. Taxpayer relief shots and Ask Michael Anything.

Here's your chance to ask me something I might have missed in the chat during a recent episode! Throw anything at me, and I'll do my best to give you a great answer. Ask me about anything – from TAXI-specific questions, to engineering or production questions, to music business questions, to music industry business etiquette queries, to questions about TAXI's screening/A&R process, to film/TV music questions (songs and instrumentals), to TAXI Road Rally questions, to just about anything else you can think of! There's no reasonable question that I won't answer – even at the risk of embarrassing myself!

Hour 4: This week's Taxpayer Relief Shots. Ask Michael Anything with keylime pies, electricity legislation.

Hour 4: Angie got a new oven. Michael answers listeners' questions about the proposed spending bill.

Biden's tax plan includes the IRS tracking your bank account. Michael offends listeners during Ask Michael Anything.

You first heard him talk about it, now he will SHOW you! Good Friend Michael Santos comes back to feature some of his best trash-to-treasure work! Come in, come in! Let's chat!

Here's your chance to ask me something I might have missed in the chat during a recent episode! Throw anything at me, and I'll do my best to give you a great answer. Ask me about anything – from TAXI-specific questions, to engineering or production questions, to music business questions, to music industry business etiquette queries, to questions about TAXI's screening/A&R process, to film/TV music questions (songs and instrumentals), to TAXI Road Rally questions, to just about anything else you can think of! There’s no reasonable question that I won’t answer – even at the risk of embarrassing myself!

Interesting discussions with my nieces & Anissa. Ask Michael Anything. 

Oh yes, we're going to talk about the Apple Cup. We'll move on quickly to interview Todd Shulenberger, head coach of the women's soccer team ahead of their historic College Cup appearance on Friday. Then, some bowl game talk and we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh yes, we're going to talk about the Apple Cup. We'll move on quickly to interview Todd Shulenberger, head coach of the women's soccer team ahead of their historic College Cup appearance on Friday. Then, some bowl game talk and we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh yes, we're going to talk about the Apple Cup. We'll move on quickly to interview Todd Shulenberger, head coach of the women's soccer team ahead of their historic College Cup appearance on Friday. Then, some bowl game talk and we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you know, multiple sunrises and sunsets since and we are still really unhappy!  Welcome to another edition of The CougCenter Hour. We will revisit the game against UCLA before moving on to the Utah Utes and giving our thoughts on the new California player-likeness law. Plus, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you know, multiple sunrises and sunsets since and we are still really unhappy!  Welcome to another edition of The CougCenter Hour. We will revisit the game against UCLA before moving on to the Utah Utes and giving our thoughts on the new California player-likeness law. Plus, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do you know, multiple sunrises and sunsets since and we are still really unhappy!  Welcome to another edition of The CougCenter Hour. We will revisit the game against UCLA before moving on to the Utah Utes and giving our thoughts on the new California player-likeness law. Plus, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are into the doldrums of fall camp and even we would like to hit someone else at this point. Theo Lawson from the Spokesman Review joins us to go over position battles the Cougs are currently trying to sort out, including the biggie. It's also the first week on campus for freshman! We impart some "decent" advise. As always, we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are into the doldrums of fall camp and even we would like to hit someone else at this point. Theo Lawson from the Spokesman Review joins us to go over position battles the Cougs are currently trying to sort out, including the biggie. It's also the first week on campus for freshman! We impart some "decent" advise. As always, we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are into the doldrums of fall camp and even we would like to hit someone else at this point. Theo Lawson from the Spokesman Review joins us to go over position battles the Cougs are currently trying to sort out, including the biggie. It's also the first week on campus for freshman! We impart some "decent" advise. As always, we end with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael is back with his thoughts on the outlook for the Cougs in 2019, including on Gage Gubrud and expectations for the EWU transfer. Craig Powers of Podcast vs. Everyone also joins us to talk fall camp. Then the Dunderhead of the Week and a very special edition of Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael is back with his thoughts on the outlook for the Cougs in 2019, including on Gage Gubrud and expectations for the EWU transfer. Craig Powers of Podcast vs. Everyone also joins us to talk fall camp. Then the Dunderhead of the Week and a very special edition of Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael is back with his thoughts on the outlook for the Cougs in 2019, including on Gage Gubrud and expectations for the EWU transfer. Craig Powers of Podcast vs. Everyone also joins us to talk fall camp. Then the Dunderhead of the Week and a very special edition of Ask Michael Anything.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've ever wanted to shift your energy, and get your mind in the positive, then do we have the show for you! Today we're airing our recent Ask Michael Anything event from YouTube. In this event Michael covers 20 plus easy-to-implement tools to help you shift your life, your mind, and energy to the positive!  Shift Your Mind To the Positive Self-Improvement & Self-Help Topics Include:  What's the importance of asking “what's the importance of the situation”? What's it mean to bring as much energy to a situation as possible? How you can reframe virtually anything? Why what we think is the “worst thing in the world” may turn out to be the best??? Why we're so quick to shoot ourselves down when we think we made a “bad” decision? Why Michael and Jessica never met Dr. Wayne Dyer? What does it mean that everything is here to support you? What does it mean that the Universe is happening for you and through you, not to you? What does it mean to ask “how is that here to serve me”? What does it mean to look for the positive possibilities? How do we mind-map the positives? What's it mean to change our labels? What's it mean to change our internal languaging? Why do we want to surround ourselves with obscenely positive people? What's it mean to change our environment – and why is this so important? What does it mean to declutter the scripts of our mind? What's the harm with social media and comparison? What's the importance with stretching ourselves, getting uncomfortable, and risking “failure”? What's it mean to fail forward? What's it mean to “watch what we ingest” and how does it affect our subconscious? To Find Out More Visit: InspireNationShow.com And for free meditations, weekly tips, stories and similar shows visit: www.InspireNationShow.com

Hi everyone, welcome back I'm Michael Sandler your host on inspire nation, along with my ever growing stronger on the mic, Wifey Jessica Lee. So if you've ever wanted to create magic in your relationships, or at least make them better, then do we have the show for you! Today we have a special treat for you, an airing of last week's YouTube Live, Ask Michael Anything event on Relationships, you'lll get in it all live, unscripted, unadulterated, oft-hilarious, and sometimes sacrilege format…with any technical bloopers included. Relationship Magic Self-Improvement & Self-Help Topics Include: How Guy Finley inspired us to talk about relationships What Michael and Jessica were like in their early years together? What were the challenges they had in their relationships? What were the challenges Michael had that he brought to the relationship? What it means to find the areas you get to work on? How Michael helped Jessica to find her voice? Why Jessica was required to “scream her head off” and “throw things” Why the experiences were exceptionally beneficial for the long run? What's the real meaning of patience and what does it have to do with relationships? What we can learn from our greatest partners? What it means that difficult relationships can be for our highest good and the highest good of all? Why pushing our buttons is actually a good thing? What's the importance of your partner finding the wounds in you? What it means to go to a place of gratitude for what buttons have been pushed? Why you don't want to ever, ever win a fight in a relationship? What it means that a relationship is three people? Why our buttons get bigger when we're tired or intoxicated? What it means that nobody wants to attack you? How do recognize when your partner's in a place of pain or fear? Why Jessica wanted emotion code so much? What it means to be an empathetic pillar in a relationship? What it means to make the relationship a top priority? What it means to look through your partner's eyes? What it means to teach your child how to come back from a challenge or heal a wound in a relationship? Why you never want to fight back in a relationship? What it really means that whatever you resist in a relationship has some truth in it.  To find out more visit: www.InspireNationShow.com Jessica Lee & Michael Sandler on How to Overcome Relationship Challenges & Attract the Greatness Into Your Life!!! Law of Attraction | Motivation | Fitness | Spiritual | Spirituality | Inspirational | Motivational | Self-Improvement | Self-Help | Love For More Info Visit: www.InspireNationShow.com 

If you've ever wanted to witness a miracle, or be a part of something special, then do we have the We're Having a Baby show for you! This week we filmed a live, off-the-cuff, outrageously funny YouTube Live, Ask Michael Anything event where we shared from the heart what's happening in our lives. And we decided to share it with you. So here it is, in all of it's impromptu, YouTube Live Glory, our We're Having a Baby Episode. We hope you enjoy, find inspiration, and incredible motivation, from this raucous, somewhat embarrassingly good time. We're Having a Baby Self-Improvement & Self-Help Topics Include: How Jessica broke the news to Michael What it means that Michael's persistent What Jessica said that completely embarrassed Michael Why it took so long to them. What happened along the way – and brought them here today. Why Jessica is superwoman What it means that “It is baby time” Why a volcanic fire delayed conception…quite literally! How Michael tried to plan beforehand. How Michael became “superman” as soon as he found out they were pregnant. What in the world is the “Michael gear”. How does Jessica plan to give birth? What are the fair godmothers – and what's the team Jessica is calling in? What is the manifestation work Jessica has been doing? Why are they sharing this news with the world? Why is Jessica sharing so early – and how does she hope it helps others? How they're sharing the journey publicly, and with their future child? What happened during Michael's automatic writing and heart-coherence work? What it means to share the journey with people? What is the law attraction work Michael and Jessica are doing? What is the positive energy that comes from sharing with the world? For More Info Visit: InspireNationShow.com Jessica Lee & Michael Sandler on Their New Pregnancy, What It Means & How it Came About! Law of Attraction | Fitness | Parenting | Motivation | Spiritual | Spirituality | Meditation | Inspirational | Motivational | Self-Improvement | Self-Help | Inspire For More Info Visit: www.InspireNationShow.com

Watch this Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/axk8IJu0iWI Problem: Michael always feels badly when he sees questions flying by in the live show chat room and he doesn’t answer them if they aren’t relevant to the topic for that day’s show! Solution: Every so often, Michael does a show that’s dedicated to answering any and all questions about the music industry, TAXI, the screening process, film/TV music, building a career, avoiding procrastination, and just about any other topic you can think of! This is your big chance to Ask Michael Anything! There’s no reasonable question that he won’t answer––even at the risk of embarrassing himself! Your Best Chance to Get Your Question Answered: Post it on our Facebook Page or send us a Tweet no later than 2pm PDT on Monday, April 23rd, 2018. ------------------------------------ Learn More About TAXI: http://bit.ly/2mPVGYh Rub Elbows with Music Industry Pros at Our FREE Yearly Convention: http://bit.ly/2a9mwlp View Our Current Music Industry Opportunities: http://bit.ly/28JPUyd Listen on the Go with the TAXI TV Podcast: Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/2afebwW Google Play: http://bit.ly/2a7cCQX Stitcher: http://bit.ly/2FuSTJQ Soundcloud: http://bit.ly/2icUDe0 TuneIn: http://bit.ly/2DCzKrd Connect With Us On... Facebook: http://bit.ly/2931C7x Twitter: http://bit.ly/2jJ0EnQ Instagram: http://bit.ly/2jcg7we

We preview the opener of the WSU season with Greg Rachac of 406mtsports.com, plus our thoughts on the college football opening weekend. As usual, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We preview the opener of the WSU season with Greg Rachac of 406mtsports.com, plus our thoughts on the college football opening weekend. As usual, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We preview the opener of the WSU season with Greg Rachac of 406mtsports.com, plus our thoughts on the college football opening weekend. As usual, our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask Michael Anything! by TAXI Independent A&R

Fall camp is underway and friend of the show Vince Grippi of the Spokesman Review is here to talk Cougs. Plus, new Sound of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fall camp is underway and friend of the show Vince Grippi of the Spokesman Review is here to talk Cougs. Plus, new Sound of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fall camp is underway and friend of the show Vince Grippi of the Spokesman Review is here to talk Cougs. Plus, new Sound of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discuss Shalom Luani's arrest and WSU's preseason ranking in the AP poll with Vince Grippi. Then, we go in depth on Luke Falk's continued improvements at the quarterback position with out own guru Brian Anderson. As always, we close with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discuss Shalom Luani's arrest and WSU's preseason ranking in the AP poll with Vince Grippi. Then, we go in depth on Luke Falk's continued improvements at the quarterback position with out own guru Brian Anderson. As always, we close with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discuss Shalom Luani's arrest and WSU's preseason ranking in the AP poll with Vince Grippi. Then, we go in depth on Luke Falk's continued improvements at the quarterback position with out own guru Brian Anderson. As always, we close with our Dunderhead of the Week and Ask Michael Anything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices