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Big capital gains tax bills are hitting more home sellers. Exemptions exist for up to $250K single, $500K married. Bad housing affordability means a low home ownership rate, hence, more renters. The homeownership rate has dropped from 66.0% to 65.6% in the last year. I have a hole in the roof of a rental single-family home, with about $10K in damage. Learn how I handle it. Two of the first three income properties that I bought performed poorly. VP of Market Economics at Auction.com, Daren Blomquist joins me. We learn why foreclosure activity is 10% to 20% below pre-pandemic levels. Learn about judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states.   From homeowners surveyed, the top concern about falling into delinquency are rising insurance and property taxes. Auction bidders are confident about the real estate market. They're willing to pay more, which is 60% of ARV nationally. You can bid on distressed properties with your phone via Auction.com. Opportunity Zones are generally working. Resources mentioned: Nation's Largest Online RE Auction Marketplace: Auction.com For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREmarketplace.com/Coach Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Keith's personal Instagram: @keithweinhold   Complete episode transcript:   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:00:00)) - - Welcome to GRE! I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, talking about a lot of housing market problems today. Capital gains taxes hitting more home sellers. Home affordability is still bad. The American homeownership rate is falling. I've got roof damage on one of my own properties. Then an update on American mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures. It's mostly bad real estate news today on Get Rich Education.   Speaker Syslo** ((00:00:29)) - - Since 2014, the powerful Get Rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate, investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show host Keith Reinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad Advisors, and delivers a new show every week. Since 2014, there's been millions of listeners downloads and 188 world nations. He has A-list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get Rich education can be heard on every podcast platform. Plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener. Phone apps build wealth on the go with the get Rich education podcast.   Speaker Syslo** ((00:01:06)) - - Sign up now for the Get Rich education podcast or visit GetRichEducation.com.   Speaker Coates** ((00:01:14)) - - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:01:30)) - - We're gonna go from Bavaria, Germany, to Batavia, New York, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to Get Rich education. There is a large online source of foreclosure and bank owned properties that you won't find on the MLS. In fact, they are the largest in the nation, and their VP of Market Economics will be here with us later today. Home price appreciation. That has been wonderful for the last several years. But one negative consequence is the fact that more home sellers now are getting hit with big capital gains tax bills. Now we'll discuss income property shortly, but when it comes to primary residences, you probably know that if you are single, you won't pay any capital gains tax on the first 250 K profit of your sale. That 250 K exemption. That is only half of what married couples enjoy.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:02:29)) - - They don't have to pay tax on the first 500 K of profit. Yes, a $500,000 exemption on capital gains for married couples. So basically, single people in high priced markets like you often find on the coasts, they get hit the hardest. Married couples in lower priced markets more toward the heartland and in the South. Those married couples, they're more likely to get away without paying any tax on the profit from their home sale. All right, well, just what proportion of homes are we talking about here? Well, last year, 8% of sales had capital gains of over 500 K. All right, well that potentially makes them exposed to the tax hit. Compare that to a couple decades ago. That share was just over 1%. So it's gone from 1% to 8%. These are exorbitant capital gains tax events. And you know what this does. People trying to avoid that it keeps even more homes off the market. Now it's not as pronounced as the well-documented interest rate lock in effect okay. Call this the capital gains tax lock.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:03:46)) - - In effect people avoid the tax by not selling. And it makes some older people age in place. That's part of what's going on here. Because if the homeowner keeps it until they die, then the heirs, they might be able to sell it tax free due to the tax laws and capital gains taxes. Like, what rate do you actually pay that can be as high as around 20% on you for selling your primary residence if the gain exceeds those thresholds? And yeah, those thresholds, they haven't moved with inflation in quite a long time. Now, understand that right now you are living in an era where many Americans, they can't afford to live in the home that they live in right now if they tried to repurchase it at today's prices. So again, it's not the mortgage rate lag in effect here. It's the purchase price paid lock in effect. Now look, yes, overall I am a real estate market optimist. You are too, when you understand how real estate pays you five ways. But as far as anyone saying something like, oh, there is never been a better time to buy, that doesn't make any sense.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:05:02)) - - Now. At the same time, I don't see any evidence that waiting is going to do you any favors, but there have obviously been some better times to buy. In fact, do you know the best year in modern history that I can think of for buying real estate? Any idea it was the year 2013? Yeah, 2013. That's when prices were low because they still hadn't bounced much off of the GFC lows and mortgage rates. They actually were in the absurdly low threes back in 2013. Now starting in 2021 you know I have been on record on this show. I've been on record on television and on our own YouTube channel here and in Forbes and elsewhere. Since then, I've said that home prices, they're not poised to fall, they're going to stay stable or they're going to keep going up. I was perhaps one of the earlier people to point that 3 or 4 years ago that the low housing supply and the government safety nets that won't let people lose their homes, those things keep the markets buoyant.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:06:16)) - - Now, today, I see more signs that prolonged bad affordability will slow down. Home price growth in that part is bad for investors, of course. Prolonged. Bad affordability. That means something good for income centric investors at the same time, sort of like David Stockman and I touched on last week here. Yes. Souring affordability. What that means is a falling homeownership rate that would make sense in the homeownership rate. That means that just what it sounds like, that is the proportion of American homes that are occupied by their owner in the past year. Yeah, the homeownership rate has fallen, but not too much yet because there are some lag effects and other factors to account for. Like, imagine if there are new zero money down loan programs that are made available. You can see how that would make homes more affordable, even if rates and prices and wages stayed the same. So there are X factors out there and lag effects out there. In the past year, the homeownership rate has fallen from 66% down to 65.6%.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:07:33)) - - Not too much of a slide, just 4/10 of 1%. That is a Fred stat sourced through the Census Bureau. All right. So what's that really mean if you're looking for income. Well, what that means is that there are now hundreds of thousands of additional renters today than there were just one year ago. And the number of renters, those that aren't homeowners, that looks to increase in both absolute and relative terms. There's a lot of people expect the homeownership rate to continue to drop from here. Now, no investor conditions are absolutely ideal everywhere you look. In fact, of the first three investment properties that I personally bought in my life, only one of those three went really well. It was that first ever fourplex I bought because it appreciated from 295 K to 425 K in just three and a half years, and it provided some cash flow and even a place for me to live. But the second property I bought, which was also a fourplex, it hardly cash flow because I bought it at 90% loan to value, and I also bought it in 2007.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:08:46)) - - Not great timing, so its value dropped. I was a pretty new real estate investor then, and when its value dropped, it didn't return to the 530 K value that I bought it for for about six years. And then I got wiser and I started buying across state lines, since that's where the best deals often are. Well, this was then my third investment property, a brick single family home that cost 153 K in the Dallas-Fort worth area. And the main reason I bought it is because it was cheap, which was a mistake. It was also in a growing area, but I couldn't keep it occupied, so I soon sold it for about the same price that I bought it for. All right. But even in those far less than ideal beginnings for me, two of my first three properties, they weren't disasters, but they weren't a great experience either. Yet I still got some leverage, a little cash flow. I got tenant made principal pay down all the while, tax benefits all the while, and that inflation profiting benefit.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:09:52)) - - And I did then find myself better off overall. Despite that the appreciation and the cash flow weren't all that great. If you blend those first three properties together and today, perhaps a lot like you or what you want to do. I own properties in multiple markets, and I remotely made as the property managers in those markets. And you know, just yesterday I got an email from one of my property managers about roof damage to one of my properties. It's a rental single family home. It's going to be about $10,000 worth of repair work. Some bad news and the way I'm hailing it is a way that you might think of handling a real estate problem. I sure don't just send off a $10,000 check right away and chalk it up as a loss, and ask myself how many months it's going to take me to make that up. The first thing that you can do in this situation is check to see if you have a home warranty that covers it in full or in part. Whether you bought your property new or renovated, a warranty might apply.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:10:58)) - - It actually does not in my case here. Well, if the warranty doesn't cover your issue, of course, check with your insurance provider and see what your deductible is there. Consider that when insurance premiums have risen sharply in a lot of markets, you need to get something back for that premium that you're paying in a lot of cases. All right. And if those things don't work, then don't just take the first quote that your property manager gives you that they got from the first contractor, which is. Ten K in my case. For a substantial work item, ask your property manager to obtain at least three quotes for you. That's reasonable. And then look at the most competitive of those three quotes. So to review here three ways to avoid paying. For example a full 10-K. In my case it's your warranty, it's your insurance. And if you feel like you must come out of pocket, then get three quotes in order to reduce your cost. And here's the thing you don't do these things yourself.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:12:03)) - - What you do is you ask your manager to do these things and make it easy for you. Your manager should check with your insurance policy and they should check on your warranty. And then you can back it up and take a look at it. If you don't like the answer, they should obtain the roofing contractor quotes for you to. You are paying your manager for this stuff, maybe 8 or 10% in a management fee, and that should not be for nothing. Have them do this stuff that's their job and ask them to do it. Because if you don't just watch, they'd be happy to have you do it for them. Don't. You don't have to. So we're talking about mitigating your out-of-pocket cost in your time expended when you have a real estate issue, like a hole in a roof of one of my single family rentals. Now sometimes you're going to get caught in some snafu. But again, our strategy here is that you're usually not even holding any one rental property for more than 7 to 10 years, because by that time, it's accumulated sufficient equity so that you can make a tax deferred exchange up to another property, keep leveraging that equity, because the rate of return from equity is always zero.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:13:16)) - - Now, that process, that 7 or 10 years, that might be on the slower end. Now though, since the property that you consider relinquishing is going to have a lower mortgage rate than your replacement property, it will. And one other thing to keep in mind here it's about providing America with that clean, safe, affordable, functional housing. What that means is that while roof quotes are being obtained here if needed, and it takes a few works until those roof repairs can begin, what you can do is have a cheap temporary repair done until the permanent roof fix starts. That's pretty common with roofing repairs, and that way not only is any interim damage avoided, but the tenant is not being negatively impacted here either. No slumlords around here. As we're discussing real estate problems today, we're about to delve into what happens when homeowners in real estate investors, when they can't make the mortgage payments on their property, and is that proportion of people going up or is that going down in this low affordability market? We'll also get some takeaways by looking at the bidder activity on foreclosure properties.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:14:33)) - - That can tell us quite a bit about the market and about buyer expectations for the future of the market. And I'll also tell you how you too, if you're interested, you can find opportunities and get a deep discount on a foreclosed upon property. That's all. Next with a great guest, I'm Keith Reinhold. You're listening to get Rich education. Your bank is getting rich off of you. The national average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings. If your money isn't making 4%, you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work with minimum risk. Your cash generates up to an 8% return with compound interest year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% sitting in your bank account, the minimum investment is just $25. You keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back there. Decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And I would know, because I'm an investor, to earn 8%.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:15:41)) - - Hundreds of others are. Text. Family 266866. Learn more about Freedom Family Investments Liquidity Fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text family to 66866. Role under the specific expert with income property you need Ridge Lending Group and MLS 42056 in grey history, from beginners to veterans. They provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four Plex's. Start your pre-qualification and chat with President Charlie Ridge personally. They'll even customize a plan tailored to you for growing your portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending group.com Ridge lending group.com. This is Rich dad advisor Tom Wheelwright. Listen to get Rich education with Keith Reinhold and don't quit your daydream. This week's guest is the VP of Market Economics at auction. Com they are the largest online source of foreclosure and bank owned properties that you won't find on the MLS. You can bid on properties from anywhere with your mobile device. We'll learn more about that later. First, we're covering a general real estate market update today, and then we're mostly going to discuss what's happening in the foreclosure market, including just what a foreclosure market even is.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:17:25)) - - Hey, it's been over a year since we've had you here. So a big gray welcome back to Darren Lundquist. Thank you so much. It's great to be back and.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:17:34)) - - Glad to see you, Keith.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:17:35)) - - For listeners in the audio only Blomquist is spelled with just one oh, despite being pronounced. Blomquist and Daren, as we talk about the state of these markets today, it also helps to mix in lessons for the follower and listener that's watching or consuming this. In ten years. And before we discuss foreclosures. Now, Darren, when I look at the residential real estate market today, there are a few ways that it appears rather normalized actually. For example, all price appreciation rates are normal rent growth levels. They're pretty close to historic norms. Interest rates are even near historic norms, which is a surprise to laypersons. But that's three huge measures that are actually normal, and no one else anywhere talks about that. But there are some aberrations in today's market, the most chronic and saddening of which is the lack of housing supply.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:18:28)) - - So with that backdrop, what are your thoughts on today's overall American housing market?   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:18:34)) - - It's really interesting. We have these normal metrics that we look at when we look at how home price appreciation. Now home sales I would say are abnormally low. Right. But home price appreciation is doing well. Some of the other metrics that we look at. But it's coming off of this abnormal what I would say an abnormal period over the last three years or so, mostly during the pandemic when the housing market went a little bit crazy and you saw home prices rise abnormally fast. I would argue too fast for such a short period of time. And so you'd almost expect after a period like that to see a correction in home prices. And we saw a slight correction in late 2022, early 23. Right. But now home prices are, as you mentioned, kind of back to normal actually maybe a little bit on the high side of normal, 5 to 7% home price appreciation that we're seeing annually. And so there is this sense that things look normal.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:19:32)) - - But below the surface there are, I believe I would argue and you may not agree with this, some underlying problems that I think could come back to bite us if, you know, depending on how things go over the next few years. But certainly the underlying fundamental biggest storyline, that's not necessarily maybe as accessible to a lot of people is this housing supply that you mentioned, Keith. And over the last the decade that ended in 2020, we saw, I would guess, based on my analysis, about 4 to 5 million housing units that were not built, that in a sense should have been built. But we were short 4 to 5 million housing units relative to the number of households that were being formed during that same time period. And so that is set us up for this market that we're in now in the 2020s, where we're seeing, despite the fact that home prices are going up and are out of whack with fundamental price to income ratios. In other words, affordability is a problem. Despite that fact, home prices continue to go up because you have this underlying lack of supply and so you have enough demand to fuel rising home prices, given the lack of supply, if that makes sense.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:20:48)) - - Yes. You mentioned the paltry volume of sales, which is really one consequence of this constrained supply. And there are so many ways to measure it. You threw some numbers out there just using Fred's active listing count. They have one and a half to 2 million homes normally available. Inventory bottomed out near a jaw dropping, just fantastically paltry 350,000 units in 2022. And then the latest figure is about 730 K. So really doubling off the bottom, but yet still far below what is needed there in in 2021 and 2022, I started informing our audience that the housing crash of this generation, it's already occurred. It was a supply crash, which hedges against a price crash even amidst a tripling of interest rates. I guess there. And from your vantage point, when will this low housing supply abate?   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:21:46)) - - But I think on the multifamily side, you're seeing signs that we've, in a sense, caught up with housing supply. You're seeing the multifamily sectors start in terms of the builders start to pull back. I think because of that.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:21:58)) - - And one piece of evidence of that is the slowdown in rent appreciation. But then on the Single-Family side, we're still seeing pretty robust increases in housing starts and builders starting housing units. And I was just looking at the latest numbers for April up 18% year over year. And we're at over a million housing starts in April on an annualized basis. You know, it's hard to predict what household formation will be doing over the next decade, but I believe that million number is enough to supply the new households that are being formed and are projected to be formed over the next few years. And so we're kind of at a place where at least we're treading water in terms of housing supply. And I do think there are some demographic trends that could by the year 2030, which may seem like a long ways off still, but by that time we would see this kind of reverse a little bit. And the demographic trends I'm talking about are slower population growth, the birth rates. There's a big article in the Wall Street Journal.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:22:58)) - - If you write, birth rates are surprisingly not really coming back. They dropped during the pandemic have not really come back. And in many areas, including the US or below replacement level in terms of replacing the population at 2.1. Yes. So not to get too deep into the demographics, I'm not a demographer, but I think that combined with these increases in housing starts that we're seeing, we will see that supply in the next five years. Maybe when I'm on next, I'm with you to see that it is a slow moving train. I think we're headed in a good direction in terms of that, that housing supply. And those are already, I would argue, some early signs at 2024 at least. It's still a low supply environment, but it's at least somewhat better, incrementally better than 2023 was in terms of inventory. And we're seeing some more inventory. Come on. One tip I would just say that's I think a long term thing to look for, no matter what environment you're in, is if you look at the inventory, inventory is a great and a barometer of market health.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:24:00)) - - And if you look at inventory numbers by market, which we do, you do see some markets all of a sudden inventory is starting to spike. And that to me is a signal that those markets could be softening in terms of prices and even in terms of sales. So you see some markets in Florida popping up like that. But whether or not we're talking about now or anytime, it's a great metric to look at. For anybody investing in real estate, especially at a market level, is that inventory of homes. You can look at month supply of inventory for sale. Six months supply is a great milestone. If there's six months supply, that's a balanced market. If it's below six months supply, it's a seller's market. And if it's above six months supply, it's a buyer's market. So just a general kind of rule of thumb to look for there.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:24:46)) - - Sure. We've seen months of supply three months or less in an awful lot of places. However, you alluded to coming potential problems for the housing market earlier.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:24:55)) - - Can you tell us more about that? Have you already done that with talking about a potential softening with some inventory coming on faster in some markets?   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:25:04)) - - I think you're a thesis about this. The housing crash has already happened and it was a supply crash is very interesting. When I look at price to income ratios over time, you know, home prices versus incomes, we've diverged from that long term mean of that price to income ratio right. In the last couple of years. We saw that during the the bubble of 2004 five six. But it's even more dramatic in the last couple of years where we saw at the peak of this, the actual home prices. We. Nationwide, we're about 30% above what we would expect the price to be based on incomes and that historic price to income ratio. And so I do expect a reversion to the mean at some point. Now, whether that could occur as a pretty sharp correction, although I can't point to a specific trigger that would cause that correction necessarily may could occur more of a stagnation over time, where home prices kind of flatten out and increase less than the median long term average.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:26:07)) - - I do believe that we will see a reversion to that mean eventually, especially as we see more supply coming onto the market. I think it's actually healthy for the housing market, but it could be experienced by many people as weakness in the housing market, because you could see home prices decline a little bit, especially in certain markets.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:26:25)) - - From your vantage point. Darren, you are an expert there in helping people find deals because you really keep a pulse on what's happening in the foreclosure market. Maybe some of our audience doesn't completely understand what the foreclosure market means. Now, Darren, I think of delinquency is that condition means that mortgage borrowers have been making some late payments. Tell us about how delinquency differs from foreclosure. And that will help if you go ahead and define just what the foreclosure market is.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:26:57)) - - Starting with the foreclosure market. I mean, when you can call it the distressed market or the foreclosure market. And that's really where auctions. Com operates. And is this foreclosure market, it's loans that the borrower cannot continue to make payments for a variety of reasons.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:27:12)) - - When you have a home that's financed and the borrower cannot continue to make payments, the recourse for the lender is foreclosure to take back that property by taking back that property and then selling it, recouping or trying to recoup as much of the losses on that property that they can in terms of the loan that was given on that property. Okay.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:27:34)) - - So let's talk about delinquencies here. We're looking at certain levels of severity being 30 days late on your payments, being 60 days late and being 90 days late. And interestingly, we see a big spike in FHA loan types that have had more delinquencies than conventional loan types.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:27:50)) - - That's right. Yeah. So delinquency is kind of the top of the funnel if you think of the distressed market or for leisure market as a funnel, the top of that funnel is someone can't make their payment one month. They miss their payment, mortgage payment one month. That's what this 30 or 30 day delinquency. And when you look at the chart that we're looking at, you do see those 30 day delinquencies rising over the especially on FHA loans, which are, I would argue, the most kind of risky loans in our current marketplace.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:28:19)) - - Yeah, the last ten years, over the last decade. And we see those even from 2021, rising steadily up back to really 2019 highs on the 30 day delinquencies, you also see a slight gradual increase in conventional loans, which are loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as VA loans. But those are the 30 day delinquencies. They're are not back to pre-pandemic levels even on that front. So that's the 30 day. Usually if someone misses a monthly payment, it's not super serious at that point. What really gets more into our marketplace is when we see a 90 day delinquency, or what's known as a seriously delinquent loan alone, that is past due by 90 plus days. And we have that chart here. What stands out to me on this chart is you actually see those 90 day delinquencies continuing for the most part to trend lower, even though the 30 day delinquencies are going up, 90 days are coming down, and there's a lot of reasons for that. But at the end of the day, that means people maybe are getting into trouble, but they're able to get out of trouble before they lose the home to foreclosure in many instances.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:29:29)) - - All right. So in summary, 30 and 60 day delinquencies have risen over the past two years. But over the past two years, serious delinquencies, 90 day delinquencies therefore, are lower over the past two years.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:29:43)) - - That's right. And then if we look at foreclosure starts, which is kind of the next step. So you missed three months worth of payments. That's when the bank starts to think about starting the official foreclosure process. And if you look at foreclosure starts, we are seeing those rise as well. And part of the reason that you see these rising, even though seriously delinquent loans are falling, is because there was a bit of a backlog from the pandemic still. Yeah, loans that were delinquent when the pandemic started that were delayed from going to foreclosure, that are now coming back. So we see this sharp drop off in 2020 when there was a foreclosure moratorium. Those numbers have reverted back, have bounced back. But there's we're still seeing about 60 to 70,000 foreclosure starts, a quarter nationwide just to put some numbers on this.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:30:31)) - - But back in the first quarter of 2020, before the foreclosure moratoriums, we were at 81,000. So we're still at about 80% of the pre-pandemic levels. But foreclosure starts have come back. We're just getting back to what I would consider kind of normal levels of foreclosure, and especially if you look at in the context of what we saw during in 2009, 2010, we were seeing over 500,000 foreclosure starts a quarter back then. Now we're seeing 68,000. So we're paling in comparison to those numbers.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:31:04)) - - As you, the investor, is thinking this through, we're talking about how many opportunities there will be for you here, basically to scoop up a distressed deal, a fixed and flip property. If you're looking to fix and flip one just in the general context, that's what we're talking about here.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:31:21)) - - Opportunities really foreclosure starts are for. Opportunities. If we look at where the opportunities are emerging in terms of those foreclosure starts, we do see a lot of increases in looking at March of 2024. Year over year, a lot of increases in Florida, and foreclosure starts and also Texas in California.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:31:42)) - - So it's interesting. I mean, these are markets that are doing pretty well, pretty healthy. But we are seeing some of those foreclosure starts come back in pretty big percentage wise in those areas. If we look at auction com data, specifically the state level, in the interest of time. But just to look through the lens of looking for opportunities. Auction com resides a step after the foreclosure start. Then eventually it goes to a foreclosure auction where the property either sells to an investor or it goes back to the bank is what's known as an REO. And where we're seeing on our platform the biggest kind of return to normal levels of foreclosure auction volume, where there's that property actually is sold, is mostly in the Rust Belt, Upper Midwest. That's where we're seeing volumes return to normal. And a place like Florida, we're only seeing foreclosure volumes are over 70% below normal, and Texas were 55% below normal. And when I say normal, I'm saying I'm comparing that to pre-pandemic levels. And then in California, we're at about 45% below those pre-pandemic levels.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:32:54)) - - So some of the big volume states, we're still waiting for the foreclosure volume to return. But if you look like at states like Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, places like that, Oklahoma, we are seeing that foreclosure auction volumes have returned to those pre-pandemic levels. So there are more opportunities in those areas, at least relative to their population and their their size of in terms of housing units.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:33:20)) - - So in general, in a lot of these upper Midwestern states, in northern Great Plains states, we see a greater foreclosure volume than we did pre-pandemic, because those levels are at over 100%, 100 being the pre-pandemic level. There is one aberration on your map, for one thing, Darren, and that is in Connecticut, where we have 306% of the foreclosure volume that we did pre-pandemic. That's over three x what's going on in Connecticut?   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:33:50)) - - I'm glad you pointed that out. I mean, that is part of the the issue with Connecticut is you do have relatively low foreclosure volumes there. So the 306% is coming off even pre-pandemic, some pretty low volumes of foreclosure.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:34:03)) - - We are seeing and I can't point to exactly what's happening there in terms of the economy, any other extra weakness in the economy or in the housing market there? But we are seeing definitely that's the top state in terms of where foreclosure volume is back way above, in fact, pre-pandemic levels. That was one of the areas, at least parts of Connecticut where the work from home trend maybe got a little bit out of control, and people were buying homes and willing to pay very high prices for homes that were who worked in New York City. And now we're thinking, well, I can work from Connecticut. In the country. There was probably more of a pandemic housing boom in Connecticut than some other areas of the country, and that may be part of the story that's going on there.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:34:54)) - - We're talking about the most densely populated part of the United States here, the tri state area, which is New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. And what's unusual is that one of those three states, new Jersey, is the antithesis of what's happening in Connecticut.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:35:09)) - - Connecticut has about three x the foreclosure volume than they did before the pandemic, and new Jersey is just 25%. They only have one quarter the foreclosure volume that they did before the pandemic. Are there any other tri state dynamics going on there with foreclosures there?   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:35:25)) - - That's a great observation. And one thing that becomes very important with foreclosures is the foreclosure process is governed by state law. It's not a federal national law that governs how the foreclosures work. And so you do see a lot of variation in the states based on how that foreclosure process works. And then also even how the the legislatures in those states have stepped in in some cases. And that's the case in new Jersey and created new laws even in the last couple of years to, for lack of a better word, stymie the foreclosure process and may put extra barriers in getting to foreclosure. And so, number one, new Jersey is what's called a judicial foreclosure state, where the foreclosure process is inherently longer than many states, including Connecticut. And then on top of that, the new Jersey legislature has enacted at least one law that took effect in January that even creates more barriers to foreclosure.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:36:22)) - - And we probably don't have time to get into the details of that law. But that's really, I think, what's it's less about that new Jersey is a much more healthy housing market than Connecticut. As to what you see there is the effects of the state governed foreclosure process with those numbers.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:36:40)) - - So just some great context for the listener and viewer here. The state jurisdiction in the judicial process has an awful lot to do with foreclosure volume. That's not necessarily indicative of the condition of its housing market.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:36:55)) - - That's right. And it does vary quite a bit. When we look at going forward at risk. We actually asked, so our clients are the banks, the mortgage servicers, the lenders who are foreclosing on these properties. And we ask them what they think is the highest risk of increasing foreclosures in the future. And the the top of their list was rising insurance and property taxes.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:37:22)) - - That's super interesting.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:37:23)) - - Yeah, and that's been a hot topic recently. I would put that at the top of my list of risks.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:37:29)) - - Going back to your question about why could the housing market experience weakness in the somewhat near future? I think this is the top of my list of as a catalyst that could potentially trigger weakness in the housing market, specifically home prices. Because of these variable costs of homeownership. You know, your mortgage is a fixed cost. You know what it's going to be every month, but your insurance and property taxes are variable costs. And there are in some states, those have skyrocketed. For some homeowners. This insurers are pulling out of states.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:38:02)) - - This is all such a great finding. Again, Darren's firm asked the survey question how much would you assign each of the following in terms of risk for higher delinquencies between now and the end of this year? And the number one answer is rising insurance and property taxes to Darren's point. That's because these are variable costs that everyone is subjected to. And we need to be mindful that more than 4 in 10 American homeowners are free and clear of their mortgage, so they don't have any payment.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:38:27)) - - So on a percentage basis, when you look at homeowners expenses, when they have rising insurance and property tax problems, you can see how this can increase foreclosures.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:38:38)) - - That's right. That's a great point. A couple other risks that ranked fairly high with our clients. We're rising consumer debt delinquencies so that we do see things like credit card debt and auto loan debt, specifically those two delinquencies on those types of more or loans, not mortgages, are rising quite quickly over the last few quarters. And so that's an area of risk that we're seeing. And then they put rising unemployment is third. But you know right. We're not seeing unemployment rise right now. And unemployment is very low. They put that a little bit lower on the list. Those two things to look out for are those rising insurance and property taxes. If we continue to see that be a problem, that could be a trigger that causes some fallout in the housing market, as well as if we continue to see those rising delinquencies on credit card and auto loan debt that could ripple out as well to the housing market.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:39:35)) - - It's really interesting. Higher property taxes are often a result of a homeowner's property having gone up in value. But if you own a paid off home and you're just going to continue to live there for the rest of your life, that rising property value that really doesn't help you so much, it actually might hurt you in a way, because you will have a commensurate increase in your property. Taxes, making it harder for you to live.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:39:57)) - - Yeah, that's right. It's a double edged sword there with the rising values. And usually it's, you know, property taxes is not an unbearable cost for most people. But when you're on the margins and you're just barely able to make your mortgage payment each month, and if you're in that situation, a fairly small rise in property taxes can make a big difference in whether you're able to continue to make those payments.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:40:21)) - - Yes. And then the rising insurance premiums, they've gone to X to three X on some homeowners in just a few years. It won't go up that much on a property taxes.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:40:30)) - - The insurance is there's been more of the problem recently, but property taxes are kind of layered on top of that. Moving on. I just wanted to land, I think really on getting back to that question of opportunity for investors out there and auction com buyers are typically fix and flip or you know, fix and rent investors. And so what they're doing is they're looking to buy these properties. And it usually takes maybe six months, 90 days to six months to renovate these properties and turn them around and sell them. And so one of the things we look at very carefully is, are the bidding behavior on our platform as an indicator of what's coming in the retail market, because our buyers are they're pretty good usually at anticipating what's going to be happening in their market over the next 3 to 6 months. Our buyers did pull back in their bidding behavior, they got more conservative and were willing to pay less. Back in 2022, when mortgage rates spiked. But it appears now that our buyers have gotten comfortable with this kind of higher for longer concept of interest rates.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:41:36)) - - Yeah, and our bidding behavior on our platform is mostly trending higher, meaning that our buyers are pretty confident that the housing market, despite, you know, I might have sounded a little doom and gloom, but our buyers are pretty confident that in their local market, they will continue to be able to buy these distressed homes at a discount. The metric we look at is what they're paying at auction, relative to the after repair value of the home, the estimated after repair value, and as of March of this year, that was at 59.8%. So they're buying at 60% of after repair value at 40. You could turn that around and call that a 40% discount. That number is, believe it or not, been trending up over the last few months. So they're willing to pay more, which indicates confidence in the housing market going forward. Historically, that's our bidders have been a good harbinger or indicator of what's to come in the retail market when they're more confident the retail market typically does well and vice versa.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:42:39)) - - You know, if we look at that by market, it's really interesting to see where our bidders are most confident about home prices going up in different markets. And we see a lot of confidence actually, the places where we see it's probably coincidental, but some of the places where we see higher foreclosure volume, as we talked about earlier, some of the upper Midwest Rust Belt areas are where we're seeing our buyers willing to pay more than they did a year ago relative to after repair value. So that's where they have a lot of confidence, actually, even out in California and most parts of Florida, they're still pretty confident. And Texas, there are some areas where our buyers are pulling back and and are paying less relative to after repair value. And there's kind of a cluster of markets in on the Gulf Coast, right? You know, in Mississippi, Alabama. And I don't know if that relates to insurance costs. I haven't made that connection solidly. That's an area where there has been rising insurance costs.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:43:39)) - - It varies quite a bit. There are some other markets mixed in across the country. Even though most of Florida, our buyers are pretty confident there is one area where they're they've become cautious, which is Cape Coral, Florida. They've pulled back in terms of what they're willing to bid.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:43:55)) - - Buyers for foreclosure properties still look overall quite confident in Florida. But yeah, like you touched on Darren, it's the lack of confidence to pay more for foreclosure properties in and around southern Louisiana. I know there's been some population loss there. And yes, like you touched on, they are more sensitive to insurance premium rises in Louisiana too.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:44:17)) - - That's right. So the takeaway is there's still the beauty of buying at that auction and distressed properties you are buying at a discount below after repair value. There's still a lot of risk involved because you may not know all that that's needed to renovate these properties, but you do have that. Rather than just counting on the housing market. Home price appreciation to increase to drive your profits, you have this component of added value.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:44:45)) - - So you're buying the property at a discount. And even at the housing, home prices don't go up in the next six months. By adding value to that property, you can still turn a profit because you're selling it for more than you bought it for. We have two types of auction on auction. Com there's the foreclosure auction, which we've talked a lot about, which comes at the end of the foreclosure process. And that's typically on the local courthouse steps. Although auction com in many counties allows you to bid remotely on your phone, we're we're pretty excited about that technology that we've introduced in the last couple of years. And then the second type of auction is if it doesn't sell at the courthouse steps foreclosure auction, it goes back to the bank as an REO. And we do the Ro auctions, which are mostly all online, and you can bid from anywhere. And it's pretty consistent between those two types of auctions. On average, at least over time, buyers are typically paying about 60% of after repair value, so about a 40% discount between after repair value.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:45:46)) - - Now, a lot of these homes need are in need of a lot of repair. But you have that type of discount available. And even though foreclosure volume has not come back to pre-pandemic levels, we're still seeing a consistent flow of that happening. There are certainly many markets, especially if you're willing to go off the beaten path a little bit in terms of markets where you can find inventory and also good discounts on these properties, especially if you're going to markets where maybe other investors aren't as aware of or aren't as interested in.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:46:18)) - - Therein. I wonder about local flavor. For those that bid through your platform on these distressed, foreclosed properties. Here we have a lot of investors that buy properties pretty passively where the property is already fixed up for you, maybe already held under management. And a lot of those investors, they go ahead and buy across state lines, because the best teals tend to be in the Midwest and Southeast and a few other pockets in places. So there are an awful lot of out of state investors.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:46:49)) - - On the passive side, what do you see for a breakdown of local investors in state investors and out-of-state investors through your platform for these distressed properties? I imagine it might be somewhat more localized than what I just described.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:47:01)) - - We do have some investors who are buying out of state, but actually the majority are buying in their backyard. Again, because these properties require their high touch, they require a lot of renovation. And so it's good to be local. It's definitely possible, especially with the REO properties where you can buy online. There is some more flexibility there if you have a crew, if you have boots on the ground in the market where you're buying, where you can do that, actually, the average distance between our buyers and the properties they buy is about 20 miles. I should say that's a median distance. So they're very local. There's definitely some exceptions to that you can buy across the country. But it is harder with these properties. These folks are very local. They know the markets they're operating in, and they know they have the resources in those markets to do the renovations.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:47:53)) - - Our buyers are probably a great resource for your students, Keith, to be able to tap into these types of local investors who have a supply of homes that they're creating, and sometimes they're selling back to owner occupants, you know, they're putting those properties on the market as renovated properties, and those might be good turnkey rental opportunities as well.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:48:17)) - - You know, that makes a lot of sense. And how your platform can help people not just find properties, but maybe network and find some like minded people that have tread where you're trying to go. Well, Darren, is there any last thing that you would like to tell us along with your online platform? Is there also perhaps an auction mobile app?   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:48:37)) - - Absolutely. We have an auction. Com app, and that's a great way to just either on on the website or on the app. You can go on and start searching. There's no subscription fee or anything like that to start looking and seeing where the opportunities are in the markets that you're interested in. You go to auction.com/in the news.   Speaker Wheelwright** ((00:48:57)) - - I actually end up talking to quite a few buyers of our buyers, and we've done some videos where we've gone and visited some of these buyers on location to see what they're doing, how they are operating on a human level. It's very interesting because these buyers are actually doing a lot of good in their communities. Many times by willing to take these down and out properties and down and out neighborhoods and renovate them, but also just on the level of understanding how this all works. That's a great resource. So that's auction.com/in the news and look for those videos featuring some of our buyers. I think that would be a great resource.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:49:33)) - - Well this has been great information to get an update on what's happening in the foreclosure market and where some of the local areas of opportunity might be as well, especially compared to pre-pandemic conditions. It's been valuable and it's been a pleasure having you here on the show. Thank you so much, Keith. Yeah. Good knowledge for foreclosure expert Darren Bloomquist today. It's when borrowers miss three months of mortgage payments.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:50:05)) - - That's that mark, where banks often begin foreclosure proceedings. Another thing that you learn is compared to pre-pandemic levels, national foreclosure levels are 10 to 20% lower today than they were then. And see with those that have a late mortgage payment or two, oftentimes that's not going all the way to foreclosure. They're getting caught up on their payments before it goes to foreclosure. And what's really going on here with that dynamic is that, see, today's homeowners, they are more motivated to stay caught up on their payments if they fall behind. And that's because they usually have a substantial positive equity position to protect. And the other factor is that if you lose your home today and you're locked in at a low pre 2022 mortgage rate, it's often going to cost you more per month to go out and rent somewhere else. So it's cheaper on a monthly basis to live in the home that you own. One piece that you might have learned is that high foreclosure activity in a state or city that is not necessarily indicative of that area's economic fortunes.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:51:10)) - - Instead, it might be tied to its judicial foreclosure process. Nationally, buyers are paying about 60% of after repair value for a foreclosure property. I just talked to Darren some more outside of today's interview, he discussed that foreclosure properties are often in opportunity zones, and if you don't know what they are, are designated distressed areas. That's where there are benefits given to you. If you invest specifically in that zone, you might remember that Opportunity Zones were part of Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. They have those zones in all 50 states. And Darren said that overall Opportunity zones are working next week here on the show. Properties are vanishing. Yeah, it is a real tweak to your investor mindset. Disappearing properties. Tune in next week as I cover. Properties are vanishing here on the show. If you haven't yet on your favorite pod catching app, be sure to subscribe or follow the show on your favorite app. Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Windle. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker Blomquist** ((00:52:23)) - - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice.   Speaker Voice** ((00:52:27)) - - Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of yet Rich education LLC exclusively.   Speaker Weinhold** ((00:52:51)) - - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.com.

Today's guest is Logan Swanson.    Logan is a husband, father, and land investor.   Show summary: In this episode, Logan Swanson shares his journey from starting a land investing business with a $2000 loan to running a successful funding company. He highlights his strategy of buying cheap desert squares in Texas and Nevada and selling them at a profit. Swanson also discusses his approach to real estate development, focusing on adding value through subdivision and entitlement projects.    -------------------------------------------------------------- Developing Properties and Funding Land Investment Deals (00:01:10)   Pivoting to Financing Land Acquisitions and Sales (00:05:29)   Different Ways of Investing in Land: Subdivision Plays (00:10:15)   The subdivision strategy (00:10:57)   Entitlement projects (00:12:13)   The funding approach (00:18:12)   The goals for the company (00:22:04)   Strategic growth and lifestyle balance (00:23:28)   Compartmentalizing and scalability (00:24:12) -------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Logan: Social: @primelandexchange Web: www.thelandfixer.com   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Logan Swanson (00:00:00) - The idea is instead of going and extending a ton of capital to buy properties, you can actually just partner with landowners and have a skill set to find the best and highest use for that property. And then through maybe a little bit of civil engineering, rezoning, subdivision, any number of ways in which you can force appreciation onto a property, you can actually give that landowner above market value for their property, and you can make a substantial profit with much smaller investment, much less risk.   Intro (00:00:33) - Welcome to the how to Scale Commercial Real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:46) - Logan Swanson is a husband, father and also a land investor. Logan, welcome to the show.   Logan Swanson (00:00:51) - Hey, thanks for having me.   Sam Wilson (00:00:53) - Absolutely, Logan, the pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?   Logan Swanson (00:01:02) - Well, I started with a $2,000 loan in 2018 to go buy some vacant desert squares in the middle of nowhere in Texas.   Logan Swanson (00:01:10) - Nevada. Um, we've moved that now. Grown it from just flipping vacant land to developing properties, funding other land investment deals. And now our main focus is trying to combine all the pieces together into something that's driving a little bit more purpose in my life.   Sam Wilson (00:01:30) - That is really cool, I love that. I know for those of you that are listening to this show and I know I've mentioned this, I think only one other time out of the 800 and something episodes is that I always ask guest a fun fact or a surprising view. Sometimes we incorporate those here into the show. For those of you who are listening. Logan, I think it was in 2018. Your fun fact or surprising views says you started like you said there were the $2,000 loan, but when you when you started, you were a construction project manager by day in a high end restaurant, server by night. And, you know, through just sounds like grit and perseverance, you have really built your business to where it is today.   Logan Swanson (00:02:09) - Yeah. And with my wife, she's my business partner. And as much as I was burning the midnight oil, she was to.   Sam Wilson (00:02:15) - Man, that's really cool, I love it. So you took that $2,000 loan you were buying desert squares, which, from what I understand, correct me why I'm wrong in the land investing space. That's kind of like that's that's the riskier way of investing in land. No. Or tell me about it.   Logan Swanson (00:02:32) - Yeah. So I mean, effectively it's investment. Like anything else you buy as cheap as possible and then you resell it. It's not. There are risks to every investment. Right. But it's the least risky because they're so cheap. When I was started, you know, I started I was buying five acre properties in West Texas for $500, $700 and selling them for $5,000, $7,000.   Sam Wilson (00:02:56) - Who wants those? I mean, what's the like if you're buying five acres for 500? I mean, that's astounding. Like, what is it? It's got to be high desert.   Sam Wilson (00:03:08) - Just. No.   Logan Swanson (00:03:10) - Yeah, yeah, it is rough. It is rough. But there's a buyer for every piece of land. Don't think I've. Nothing has said on my inventory longer than a year. Um, so you might have to get creative with how you sell it, but, you know, there's there's this there's this American intuition that says, I want to own a piece of America. And actually it exists out of this country as well. They want to own a piece of America. And for folks that don't have a lot of money, you know, $5,000, we owner financed a lot of land back then. So it was like $100 down $100 a month, and you could start owning a piece of America and shoot, if you went out there once a year and drove ATVs around, it'd be worth it.   Sam Wilson (00:03:48) - Oh, for sure, for sure. Undoubtedly. That's that's really crazy. So obviously you're not buying five acre desert squares anymore for 500 bucks and flipping it for five grand, which is not a bad return on investment, by the way.   Sam Wilson (00:04:02) - Mean. Now, if it didn't take any time, I'd do that once a month and still be happy about it. But sure. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye, but either way, what is your business look like today?   Logan Swanson (00:04:15) - So today, this year we launched our funding company which has been the main focus. So I've done a lot of flips kind of all over the country. And what that's given me is a skill set to underwrite land flips, which is a pretty, you know, small demographic of people who can underwrite land deals anywhere in the country and quickly evaluate risks and resale value. So our funding company was just really new to me. It's a fine it's it's strictly financial. Whereas before, you know, there's a little bit more of a I don't know, it's just it's very different. I'm not I'm not like a button up suit and tie guy. So getting into something that's like much more banking than it is investing was a big change of pace for me.   Logan Swanson (00:04:59) - So we spent the year kind of building and developing that. Um, and my goal is to try to, you know, five x or ten x at this year. And we're we're well underway. You know, you're in Tennessee. We just funded a $1.9 million development in Tennessee. Gotcha.   Sam Wilson (00:05:15) - Y is now a strategic time to pivot your business out of buying and reselling land. And now into the financing of land acquisitions and sales.   Logan Swanson (00:05:29) - Well, it's beautiful because we are actually still kind of just doing the same thing. You know, when we fund a deal, we actually take title, and then we're signing a marketing agreement with the person that brought us the deal. So they effectively get a marketing agreement with either a profit share or a fixed rate payout to us once the property is sold. Um, I love it now because it's just allows me to own more land all over the place and have someone else do the selling for me and find the deals. So where my business was stymied in the past was how do I regularly find and buy five, ten, 15 undervalued properties a month when I could just, you know, have access to the funding and the structure to do it myself? And we make less money per deal, but mean it's still nothing to sneeze at.   Logan Swanson (00:06:15) - Well, for.   Sam Wilson (00:06:16) - Sure, but you. So unlike traditional funding, this is not a strictly debt play. It sounds like you guys are both debt and taking and JV, right? Right. It's more of a like you said, it's a joint venture. Okay, okay, that's really cool. And so have you shut down your marketing arm of your own land deals to really focus on growing the side of the business? You're doing both still.   Logan Swanson (00:06:37) - Yeah. So it's actually one of the benefits of my company is since I have kind of this huge buyers list and the strong marketing force, when people work with me to fund their deals, they also get the benefits of all that stuff. And, you know, we're pretty well established in certain areas, so it's kind of operate on a calendar. I go back to the same areas again and again and scoop deals and sell them, and I just don't I my second year went nuts. You know, I was buying land all over the country and it just became this train wreck.   Logan Swanson (00:07:05) - So now it's like I only work in Texas, I only work in these few counties, and it's much more repeatable and delegated. So that's that's what we do. Right.   Sam Wilson (00:07:14) - And it sounds like those were those were some of the mistakes. Maybe in the early years that you made was was kind of going too broad.   Logan Swanson (00:07:21) - Yeah. So I mean when we started 2018, we had a lot of success just doing these desert squares. And then the next year we were like, let's move closer to home. So we started going to markets, um, outside of DFW, Dallas-Fort worth. That's where I'm from. And it there was not a lot of competition in our industry. So we were buying we were kind of sweeping through neighborhoods. We were buying properties for, you know, a home like a Lakeview lot for a thousand $2,000 and selling it for 15 to $20,000 cash, you know, within weeks. Right. Um, and, you know, my head just blew up. I thought I was a genius.   Logan Swanson (00:07:58) - It was really just circumstantial. And I was kind of first to the party in a lot of ways. But. So my head got full of all these crazy ideas. And for some reason, my second year, my goal became to own land in every state. And I just went nuts. Um, and yeah, it's easy to operate efficiently in one market. It's almost impossible to operate efficiently in 15, 20, 30 markets.   Sam Wilson (00:08:18) - Man, there's there is a lot of wisdom packed into packed into that. And I think that's also funny, the point you made there about how you can mistake your success for, oh, I'm a genius. And it's really just market forces that for whatever reason, you're at the right place at the right time. And having the insight to spot the difference is, I think what a lot of people are experiencing right now in commercial real estate. Yeah.   Logan Swanson (00:08:46) - Insight or my head was slammed against the wall. It's like hard to miss, you know.   Sam Wilson (00:08:50) - Right. Well there's that too.   Sam Wilson (00:08:52) - But I mean I think it's also, you know, being able to go, hey, you know what? We just hit a home run because we were just in the right spot at the right time. Or you're like, man, this is the undiscovered new way to do everything. And then you go all in and you find out that, like, no, actually it was just the right place at the right time. And yeah, now your your hat is in your hand going, what did I do wrong again. So. Right. That's. We're seeing that. I mean, we're seeing that in multifamily. We're seeing that in some overbought asset classes where it's like, oh, you know, people thought they were just, you know, geniuses in the in the commercial real estate space. And it's like, no, you just had a ten year run of incredibly cheap debt in an appetite a buyer's appetite that was just, you know, suppressed.   Logan Swanson (00:09:35) - So, um.   Sam Wilson (00:09:36) - And then that's slowing down.   Sam Wilson (00:09:38) - So it's an interesting time to be. Well, let's talk a little bit about the different ways you are investing in land. We've had maybe. I don't know, 5 or 7 people over the course of this life of this show. Come on and talk about land. We've talked about, you know, buying desert squares a little bit. We've talked a little bit about just the buy it and resell it, the flipping land process. We've talked about people that have come on and all they do is infill lots. And I think that's probably by and large it, but it sounds like you've got a new spin or a different way that you're approaching the land investing business. So I'd love to hear about that.   Logan Swanson (00:10:15) - Yeah. So I'll preface it by saying I did not invent any of these strategies. You know, I feel like in most industries there's this natural progression, sometimes stupidly, to just keep moving on to the next thing, shiny object syndrome. And, you know, the lesson learned from working all over the place back in 2019 was like, how can I do the exact opposite, you know, shrink and work in a small area? So one of the strategies we've done is development plays or really just subdivision plays where you in Texas and a lot of other areas that have a lot of private land, there's very few restrictions or even processes built around subdividing land up to ten acres.   Logan Swanson (00:10:57) - So we would go through and buy, you know, 130, 150 acres worth of land, maybe a little below retail, not even shopping for a huge discount. But then you, you know, you bring in some civil engineers, you design a little bit of a subdivision, maybe do a little road and power work, and you can double the value of that property just in the subdivision. And then instead of marketing all over the country, you're just marketing a bunch of properties in the exact same location. You know, you're working with one broker or one title company, all that sort of stuff. So we really like those. We're actively pursuing those. We have another wing that's kind of focused on entitlement projects, which is unique to me, and something I'm still dipping my toes in here. But the idea is instead of going and extending a ton of capital to buy properties, you can actually just partner with landowners and have a skill set to find the best and highest use for that property. And then through maybe a little bit of civil engineering, rezoning, subdivision, any number of ways in which you can force appreciation onto a property, you can actually give that landowner above market value for their property, and you can make a substantial profit with much smaller investment, much less risk.   Logan Swanson (00:12:13) - Um, so like kind of an example of that would be say, you know, we like Tyler, Texas. That's where we're shopping right now. There's people who have, you know, a ten acre tract of land that's there's three apartment complexes in the vicinity nearby. This has all the right utilities and everything running to it. But right now it's just a big square with a bunch of trees on it. So, you know, we partner with them and say, hey, we'll establish a buy price on this of $1.1 million. And here's what we're going to do. You're going to give a six months. We're going to get our engineers and surveyors out here. We're going to design the best and highest layout for an apartment complex that, you know, it jives with the city. They get all their approvals, and then we bring it to market as this package for an apartment complex. But we haven't picked up a shovel. All we've done is the paperwork, maybe some surveyors in the field, and we could maybe spend $50,000 doing that entitlement work and add maybe 300 to $400,000 worth of value.   Logan Swanson (00:13:16) - So the landowner is happy they get 1.1 million when they might have gotten $900,000 as is. And we can walk away with a $250,000 profit with $50,000 invested. Um, those are kind of the strategies and there's endless sorts of opportunities like that from subdivision. It's there's all sorts of ways to do it, but the beauty is just seeing the property doing some analysis. You know, you can do this in the commercial space. Rezone a residential property to a commercial property at a ton of value. That way. Um, and then all you do is bring it to market. So the idea is like, I don't want anyone with shovels out there. I just want paperwork and I want to add value.   Sam Wilson (00:13:56) - Right? Right. In that business plan is incumbent upon there being a healthy construction market or, you know, construction, you know, people still looking for things to build, construction, you know, subdivisions, multifamily complexes, things like that. Is that a risk that you try to calculate when looking at that? I mean.   Logan Swanson (00:14:18) - Yeah. You do your homework, you know, you get on the phone with brokers and agents in the area. Um, really? We tried. We actually have sort of a process behind it. Okay, I'm going to get my acquisition manager on the phone. She's going to call 10 to 15 brokers. She's going to ask them all the same questions and weigh their opinions. So what we're going to be asking is like, what's the demand right now? You know, who what out-of-state money is trying to come into this market and what are they pursuing? Things like that. And they'll kind of tell us, they'll give us a roadmap and say, hey, this is the need. If you brought this sort of development to market or this sort of entitled property to market, there is a buyer pool waiting. So you do that homework ahead of time and then, yeah, obviously you just try to focus on a fast growing area. And DFW is just really like there's a triangle in Texas between Houston, Dallas and Austin where you can't miss.   Sam Wilson (00:15:07) - Right? Right. Understood. Have you have you gotten all the way through that process on any property and found out that you couldn't move it?   Logan Swanson (00:15:15) - No. Not yet. So this is, like I said, something we're dipping our toes into. This is more of a new learned skill set. We're in our third month of trying to put one of these deals together. We're much more familiar with kind of the standard subdivision, which, you know, those are the ones that we like to do on a regular basis. But yeah, this is a whole new thing for us. But we are in a community where we've seen it done many times, so I'm confident that it will work. What?   Sam Wilson (00:15:39) - Why do you think that? Developers don't just go out and do this on their own.   Logan Swanson (00:15:46) - Well mean. Developers are usually the ones that benefit from it. So if you think about like there's certain size companies, right? So there's the huge companies that have their own internal organization, you know, Lennar Homes and things like that.   Logan Swanson (00:16:01) - They're just they it's all in house right. But most of the time they're actually a little smaller than that. So if you have some development company that say is good at building 2 or 3 apartment complexes a year or 2 or 3 strip malls or something like that a year, they may be really good on the construction side, but they don't have the wing or the arm that's going to source the deals. They just wait for the market. They wait for a broker or realtor to call them and say they have a deal. So what we're doing is we're filling that initial step we're bringing to market the deal that makes it very easy for them. Like the idea is to be shovel ready, right? So a lot of that works. Done. The city's already approved the plans. They can just start building.   Sam Wilson (00:16:39) - How often do once the plans are approved, does that developer want to come in and make changes?   Logan Swanson (00:16:46) - Yeah. Mean it's regular. Right. So there is a process with the city that's going to allow them to amend the plans, but a really well executed entitlement deal.   Logan Swanson (00:16:56) - You know, if you're developing an apartment complex, for example, the city is going to give you restrictions. So they're going to say, okay, well you need ingress and egress here. You're going to need this much green space. You can only build this high, um, once you add all those variables in, it's more of a math equation than it is like a stylistic design application, because most builders are going to be like, I just want as many units as I can get. So then you kind of build a site plan that's optimized for the number of units, and then, yeah, maybe they say, hey, I want different cladding or whatever, but that's that's not even what we do. We're just getting the site plan. So this is going to be the layout of the development. And then all your architectural decisions can be done from there.   Sam Wilson (00:17:33) - That's cool man I like that. That's it is a different a different approach. Yes. To the and of course, obviously it's not a not a new approach by any stretch, but is certainly a different approach to what we see.   Sam Wilson (00:17:43) - A lot of land investors doing. Let's talk about the finances side of what you are doing and inside of your funding arm. I'll call it that. Or maybe it's a separate funding company. You guys are going in both. It sounds like you're providing all of the capital to close the deal. And of course, you're, you know, in exchange for that, it's a joint venture. You guys have both the debt and the kind of the equity positions inside of it. How are you doing that? Are you bringing investors in? Are you self-funding all of this? What's that look like?   Logan Swanson (00:18:12) - Yeah. So right now my business partner is the funding. He's got some really nice lines of credit that he's got a decent rate. I mean, as good as you can get today. And we've built the company actually we designed for outside capital. We've just put him in as the outside capital for now until we got to a point where, you know, we're either overextended with how much he can supply, um, or we just get really ambitious and say, we need to hold some funds on hand or we have so many applications.   Logan Swanson (00:18:42) - He's not going to keep digging into his own account for it, but it's it's actually very easy to understand from an outside lender's perspective. We do not take like large chunks of capital and then deploy them at later dates. Anytime money would come into our business, it's going to be put into a specific deal. So an outside investor could even do a little bit of the risk analysis with us. We can show them why we like the deal, why we're funding it, why we agreed to the retail value. And then internally, it's really simple. It starts at 6% return on investment, and that goes up 1% each month that the property's not sold. So it's not a bad deal. Most of our deals are going to sell between 3 and 6 months, and that money can get put back in. So the we've actually been tracking the annualized return of my business partner just from putting his money in. And it's pretty wild. Um, and for us, it's honestly it's it's considered pretty easy money.   Logan Swanson (00:19:39) - Ah, that's one of the reasons I'm talking to a lot of folks that are outside of our space is there is way more opportunity than capital. So the people that are inside providing capital, such as myself, even though I've kind of the best rates for what we do, it's still really expensive. Um, so like whether it be working through my funding company or another person's, there's like way more deals than there is capital right now.   Sam Wilson (00:20:03) - Right? That's really awesome. Love, love what you're doing. Let's talk here. The last few minutes we have let's talk a little bit about team, because it sounds like you've you have gone from again just rewind a few short years ago. Bust in your bust in your backside serving food at a high end restaurant at night to now having a pretty good sized team working with you. Tell me the secrets to how you've built out that team and kind of what the various roles are.   Logan Swanson (00:20:32) - Yeah, so the beautiful part is small team. Okay, so I have kind of these different ventures, but they all effectively do the same thing.   Logan Swanson (00:20:43) - It's all just looking at land deals, underwriting it and then managing transactions. The rest of it is kind of automated. It's like Excel spreadsheet formulas. Um, so for me, in lieu of having like secretaries and things like that, I just have a really well built system. You know, I have CRMs, I have people that book on my calendars. Um, right now most of what I do is just underwriting, which this year I'm hoping to hire an underwriter, but my team is really small. You know, I have a couple VA's that are operating for me. I have a marketing company that's third party that I employ. Um, then I have my contractors, right. So I just have people who are going to do work for me, but they're not employees. And then I have one acquisition manager, and based off of the volume of deals that we're currently doing, she's plenty. And she's not even full time with us. You know, we're managing, say, ten, 15, 20 transactions a month.   Logan Swanson (00:21:38) - That's like four hours a day for her. So the beauty of like, these different businesses or entities is they all just kind of stack. And I've found the right people who can just fill in the holes and don't you know, I have myself, my business partner and my wife, who's also my business partner, and that's pretty much the team.   Sam Wilson (00:21:55) - Wow. That's cool. What about goals for the company? Like what's what's your next? Big thing and why?   Logan Swanson (00:22:04) - Yeah. So, you know, I have a few different companies and the goals are all kind of outlined in each one. One of them, my flipping company wanted on a calendar, and I want that be effectively delegated entirely. Um, right now it isn't. It was kind of paused. It was bigger than it was then. I shrunk it down while I focused on other ventures. So getting that right is pretty big. I have this marketing company where I just market and sell land for other investors and same thing. I want that to be relatively autonomous, and I've done a lot of that.   Logan Swanson (00:22:36) - You know, we paid for a lot of automation to get most of the processes done for us. And then my marketing company carries the heavy lifting in that for my funding company. You know, we did, you know, well over a million last year and our first year. But, you know, we're already 3 million in this year. And we're trying to get like maybe 5 or 10 million there, which would be pretty big for us. And then I just want to do 1 or 2 developments a year. And I think that would keep me pretty busy. Right?   Sam Wilson (00:23:02) - No. That's cool. One thing I love that that that I feel like I'm putting words in your mouth here, but that and and this comes out of a thought from a book I just read called prophet. First, you know where he says one of the mistakes that people make is they just get big for big sake. Like, there's this, there's this, there's this kind of visceral inclination that entrepreneurs have where it's like, well, dude, we did 10 million last year.   Sam Wilson (00:23:28) - We should do 100 million next year. He's like, yeah, but are you happy with 10 million this year? And is your lifestyle good? And like does that balance. And so I think what I hear you saying is like, hey, you know what? We're going to we're going to be strategic about the way we grow. And it sounds like it's going to fit your guys's lifestyle as much is is your monetary and kind of income goals?   Logan Swanson (00:23:48) - Yeah, exactly. You know, if the flipping business, for example, forever, we were like, how can we grow this? How can we grow this? And we just found that the more we grew it, the less we loved it, the more burdensome it would get. Um, so I actually outlined I was like, I want to do five flips a month. You know, I really just want to have five properties and standing inventory, but I want them to fit the following criteria. You know, I have to make, you know, a triple digit profit on each one.   Logan Swanson (00:24:12) - Um, and I need it to be in an area where it'll move within six months and I need it to be sold and marketed by either my automated systems or my broker, so that it's just not no weight on me. So really, it's like, how do I take each each of these things and compartmentalize them in such a way that. I don't really want to work more than a couple hours a day. I know that I want to do other things that are productive, but as far as like land industry, business, you know, don't want to be dedicating my whole life to it. And that's why the funding company is the best one to focus on, because it's so scalable, really, it's a transaction manager, eventually a full time underwriter. And then, you know, I'll probably be just shaking hands and getting the deals funded.   Sam Wilson (00:24:51) - That's awesome. Logan, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. I certainly appreciate it. I always love talking, talking land and land development.   Sam Wilson (00:24:59) - Everything you've talked about today is something I really just it's a topic I enjoyed. So thank you very much for taking the time to share with us. All of your insights has been great. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?   Logan Swanson (00:25:12) - Yeah, so thanks for asking. I did create a little page that people can visit if they want to. Just explore the various retail ways you can invest in real estate without or land. Excuse me, without having to like start a flipping company or something crazy like that. So if you go to the land fixer.com. There's just a few videos of my ugly mug explaining the various different types of ways that you can, from a retail standpoint, just get money in a booming, small sliver of the real estate investing industry.   Sam Wilson (00:25:43) - That's cool. The land fixer. We will make sure we include that there in the show, notes. Logan. Thank you again for taking the time to come on today.   Sam Wilson (00:25:50) - I do appreciate it.   Logan Swanson (00:25:51) - My pleasure. Have a good one.   Sam Wilson (00:25:52) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

Today's guest is Grant Pruitt.   Grant has over 18 years of experience in commercial real estate brokerages and has collaborated with top global brands like CapitalOne, UBS, NEC and was able to transact worth $800 Million of real estate transactions.   Show summary:  In this episode Grant Pruitt, co-founder and president of Whitebox Real Estate, discusses the growth of his company and the future of commercial real estate. He shares his insights on the changing dynamics of office and industrial real estate markets, attributing the company's success to their clients and dedicated team. Pruitt also discusses the overbuilding of office space and consolidation in the multifamily sector. He provides valuable advice on staying in tune with market trends and sticking to fundamental principles in real estate investing.   -------------------------------------------------------------- Intro [00:00:00]   The growth of Whitebox Real Estate [00:01:01]   Opportunity in the commercial real estate market [00:02:50]   The state of the office space market [00:07:03]   The boom in population and headquarters relocations [00:11:24]   The potential for repurposing class B suburban assets [00:13:34]   The growth of industrial real estate due to e-commerce [00:16:30]   The overbuilt office space [00:22:27]   Sticking to fundamentals [00:23:06]   Closing [00:23:42] --------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Grant:  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whitebox-real-estate-llc/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantpruitt/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteboxRealEstate/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/WhiteboxRE  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whiteboxre/   Connect with Sam: I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/ Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com   SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f -------------------------------------------------------------- Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: Grant Pruitt (00:00:00) - Five years ago, all the headlines were retail is dead. There is no retail. Shopping malls are going by the wayside, and we're never going to have shopping malls ever again. And there's all these dead malls that nobody wants. But you know what? People have figured out ways to repurpose them, to knock them down and build industrial on them, to renovate them, to build experiential retail. And that is completely changed. The, the, the, the talking points. And that's what's going to happen with office. I just don't know what it's going to look like.   Intro (00:00:34) - Welcome to the how to scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.   Sam Wilson (00:00:47) - Grant Pruitt, who is the co-founder and president of Whitebox Real Estate, has over 18 years of experience in commercial real estate brokerage. He's also transacted on over $1 billion worth of real estate transactions. Grant, welcome to the show.   Grant Pruitt (00:01:01) - Thank you for having me.   Sam Wilson (00:01:02) - Absolutely. The pleasure is mine. Grant. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?   Grant Pruitt (00:01:13) - That's not 90s, but I'll keep it to that. I started working for my father in San Antonio, who's also in commercial real estate. Broker, developer, owner. I never wanted to get into commercial real estate, but it was literally the only thing I was good at when I went to college. I, um, I thought it was a good way to make money on the side. Turned out that it ended up being a career. I saw an opportunity in in the markets, and I ended up starting Whitebox Real Estate seven and a half years ago. So that's where I am. That's where I got to be. And in the future, I want to continue to grow it and we want to be in, in, you know, at least by the year 2030.   Grant Pruitt (00:01:55) - I want to be in the in seven markets around the United States.   Sam Wilson (00:01:59) - That is amazing. Seven and a half years ago, you launched this firm of yours. And if I, if I got this right off, off air, you said you guys are in Dallas, you're in Fort Worth, you're in Houston and you're in DC and Austin.   Grant Pruitt (00:02:13) - We got a little office in Austin, too, in Austin.   Sam Wilson (00:02:15) - I mean, that's that's a lot of growth in a very short period of time.   Grant Pruitt (00:02:21) - We've been very fortunate. We made the Inc 5000 list this year. You know, it's can't do it without our clients. And so I really owe it to them and the people of this company for sure.   Sam Wilson (00:02:32) - No, absolutely. Though I think it also takes some vision and some stuff on the leadership side to even see the opportunity, which is one of the things that you mentioned. You said you saw an opportunity. I guess it's seven and a half years ago. What what was the opportunity and why was that the time to take advantage of it?   Grant Pruitt (00:02:50) - Well, in the commercial real estate world, there was a lot of consolidation and there was a real change in the business model as I saw it, and that the consolidation ultimately was to take many of these companies public, say ten, 12 years ago, you had a limited number of publicly traded real estate companies, specifically on the the office in the industrial side.   Grant Pruitt (00:03:17) - On the brokerage side, Wall Street doesn't jive with the brokerage business as well as as as privately held companies do, or people that that are involved in privately held companies. And they started getting out of the idea of working with middle market clients, some fortune 200 clients, some institutional clients. And while there was and still continues to be a great appetite to work with very large institutional groups, everybody who wasn't that they couldn't sell 4 or 5 different service lines was kind of left out there hanging. So I saw that as an opportunity for us to go out and take and seize that niche.   Sam Wilson (00:04:10) - Right. So if I'm hearing you right, there's Wall Street and you're saying that that if they weren't of a certain size, Wall Street wasn't interested in it. I said, look, you know, I see an opportunity to start our own brokerage that really is going to serve us the things that maybe they aren't interested in, and there's plenty there for us to take.   Grant Pruitt (00:04:26) - Yeah, all my clients were in in still continue to be I mean, some of them are publicly traded, but for the most part they're going to be some fortune 200, some fortune 500.   Grant Pruitt (00:04:37) - You know, they're going to be good large middle market businesses. And if you look at what is defined as a middle market business, you know, you can talk to any M&A guy and they're talking about five, six, $7 billion businesses being in that middle market space. Because when you look at the, you know, the big guys, you know, you're talking about at this point, $1 trillion valuation on Google and Amazon and Tesla. And there's a lot there's a lot to be serviced that feeds a lot of mouths. It's a lot of bulk. It's a lot of volume that, you know, a boutique like us, we're not really cut out to handle. But if they have 300 locations across the United States or if they're looking to deploy, you know, capital into real estate assets, we're a great conduit for that. That's a great client for us. And, you know, we don't have to have all their business. We just need a little bit of it.   Sam Wilson (00:05:33) - Got it.   Sam Wilson (00:05:33) - That yeah absolutely. Absolutely. And when you're when you're of that size a little bit goes certainly a long way. That's so what was what was the first asset class you really focused on. And how did you present and get your kind of foot in the door to present that then? To those. Uh, companies.   Grant Pruitt (00:05:51) - Uh, I laugh because when you start a business and you start it from scratch, you're looking for anybody that will work with you. Sure. If if, if if they'll work with you. That's the ideal client. And fortunately, it happened to be in the industrial space. So it was a warehouse user. That was the first client that I worked with. But quite frankly, if it would have been, you know, if it would have been triple net lease buildings or retail or multifamily or just about anything that we could have transacted on, that probably would have been our first client and we probably would have been focused on that. But fortunately, it landed in my sweet spot in the office in the industrial space.   Sam Wilson (00:06:37) - Man, that's that's really cool. Yeah, I love that. But let's talk about office space. I mean, that's kind of one of those things right now. That is it's the dog everybody's kicking and I bet you've got some insights that would say one while it's while it's still why may be a good investment now and then maybe if you can give us a little insight into where you think office is heading. Obviously it's local. I would love to hear kind of what you're seeing in your corner of the market.   Grant Pruitt (00:07:03) - Absolutely. So it's it's a really it's it's funny because we see it on two fronts. You know, we're working with the, the the tenant and the user. We're also working with the buyer and the investor and the. Tin it, and the user market is much more active than what people think it is. And I understand why they, they, they feel that way. And then when we talk about that from an investor standpoint, um, there's always a little bit of a credibility check when, when we're saying that we're seeing that activity.   Grant Pruitt (00:07:47) - Um, what we really see, and I think you see this across a lot of markets in the country for the office space, is you have a tale of two cities. You have your class A, class A, um, you know, very well located, highly amenities, desirable product that does exceptionally well. And the vacancy rates are very often sub 10%. And then you have your class B and under assets that are 2,530% vacant, sometimes more than that. And so it's it changes my market. And I'll, I'll point that out as well. And that, you know, I was talking to a buddy of mine in Chicago. And in Chicago he said, well, you know, it's all the class that's in the suburban environment that people are considering and want to be in. I said, well, it's really what I feel is the opposite of the market that I'm in. It's the class B urban assets that have the ability to be reconfigured, that have some sort of, you know, re adaptive use that you can retrofit the building as that are more desirable.   Grant Pruitt (00:09:01) - You know, in this particular market, if you're 3 or 4 straight, 3 or 4 streets off the main drag. And in this market we have a lot of freeways. So if you're 3 or 4 streets off an interstate or a freeway and you know, it's a 1980s, three story, two story atrium building, that's surface parking, that's probably brown brick. That's a really, really, really tough building to own. And that's going to be a difficult building to to operate. And I think that's the great unknown as to what that looks like moving forward and how we work with those assets moving forward. If you have the class B asset that's in an urban environment, we do see a lot of change in use to hotels, multifamily, mixed use development. You know, I've even been seeing people have been talking about I haven't seen in this market, but probably will as soon as we get done here. You know, even doing urban farming in some of these class B assets that are out there.   Grant Pruitt (00:10:08) - So I think that you're going to see a lot of redemptive. Reuse type projects. But, you know, as as long as it's well located, it's a class asset. It's doing exceptionally well. And I'll tell you the driver for that, we've had a lot of, you know, historically speaking, and this really is buck the norm. Historically speaking, the class B asset has been the safest asset to invest in. The idea was that when the market went down, the businesses were looking at ways to cut costs. So the people that were or the tenants that were using class A space would go to a class B asset to save money. So it stayed full. When the market did well, they moved out to a class asset, and the people that were in a class C asset wanted to upgrade their space, and so they moved into a class B asset. So it more or less was recession proof and it always stayed leased. Fast forward to today. The tastes have change, the workweeks have changed, and what we see is if they have 30,000ft in a class B asset that has, you know, 40% utilization, 50% utilization, and on Mondays and on Fridays it's not being used.   Grant Pruitt (00:11:24) - They just say, forget it. We're going to go to a class asset. We're going to take 10,000ft². The people that want to come work here, great. They can work here. The people that don't want to work here and want to work from home, great. That's fine. And by going from 30,000 to 10,000, they're going to a nicer building. But they're cutting their rent. And so it keeps those class A class assets filled. The other thing to keep in mind, and I speak to this from a local standpoint, is in-migration and and headquarters relocations. So one of the the guy that runs my industrial group here in Dallas has a great analogy for for In-migration to DFW. And he says, look, every day a 747 comes in lands at DFW airport and all the people get off, but they never leave. And that happens 365 days a year where you keep having these 747 land and they get off, but they never, ever leave. And so that's how much of a population boom we're seeing.   Grant Pruitt (00:12:30) - And in addition to that, we're still seeing very significant headquarters relocating to this particular market. So I always talk about Toyota. Toyota moved here from Torrance, California. They announced it in 2014. They moved in 2016. They bought 4000 jobs. But it wasn't the 4000 jobs that Toyota brought. It was all the other jobs that came with Toyota to service Toyota. If you go to Plano and Frisco on the northern end of the metroplex, not so far north at this point, but at that point very far north, they built that market. They built a city with all the companies that went there to service them. And I tell people that that was 4000 jobs. I can look out my window and I can see Goldman Sachs new headquarters going in. They're bringing 5000 new jobs. And if I look maybe with binoculars, not too far in Irving is Wells Fargo. That's 3000 new jobs. So that's 8000 new jobs. That's twice what we saw with Toyota that have yet to come and and and take residence here.   Grant Pruitt (00:13:34) - And that completely is going to continue to change the dynamic. So, you know, from an investor standpoint, you always talk about location, location, location. Well where's the population growth? Where are the companies moving to, what businesses are going to need other businesses to come service them? And then what are the asset classes that are still desirable? Now I'll back up a little bit and I will I'll tell you and everybody else that I talked to had this conversation with an institutional family office that does real estate investing last night. I don't know what's going to happen with these class B suburban assets. Something will I don't know what's going to make the most sense. Whoever figures it out is going to make a lot of money. I just don't know what it is. And from a historical context, I'll give you an example of that. It doesn't take that it's not that hard to think. Back five years ago, all the headlines were retail is dead. There is no retail. Shopping malls are going by the wayside, and we're never going to have shopping malls ever again.   Grant Pruitt (00:14:36) - And there's all these dead malls that nobody wants. But you know what? People have figured out ways to repurpose them, to knock them down and build industrial on them, to renovate them, to build experiential retail. And that is completely changed. The, the, the, the talking points. And that's what's going to happen with office. I just don't know what it's going to look like.   Sam Wilson (00:15:02) - Yeah, I think that's a great point. And that's um, it is interesting to see, I mean, shoot here and here in the Memphis market. I was just and again, I'm not in the office space. I don't have any investments in office. But even just here in the Memphis market, talking about that class B kind of asset, that was I was taking one of my daughters to the doctor here a couple of weeks ago, and I was driving by, and it's a class B late 80s build, that same brick build. You're talking about nobody. I mean, this entire campus completely vacant, like, I mean, if I used to be in the single family foreclosure space, I'm like, this just looks like one massive 50 acre foreclosure.   Sam Wilson (00:15:40) - Like, what in the world is. It looked like a nice building. Like if it were maintained and taken care of at some point, the investor probably just said, city. You can have it. I mean, I don't know what happened, what is happening with that, but there is a gold mine sitting there when someone figures out what to do with it. That's right. That's that's really, really wild. I love and thank you for taking the time to break that down, because I've had, you know, several different people talk about office and it is either, you know, you'll look down upon, but you've given some real clear insight into what makes still a very compelling office investment. And it sounds like a couple of things. One is market dependent, obviously, but then type of asset within that market that, you know, people are still looking for. So, you know, come to you and check out check out what you guys have going on there in the Dallas Fort in Fort Worth markets to see what what opportunities still are out there in the office space.   Sam Wilson (00:16:30) - I think that's really, really fascinating. We've seen kind of that on the on the inverse of that though, you know, and you said you cut your teeth on the industrial side. I mean, industrial has just been off the chain for an untold amount of time. Where has that going?   Grant Pruitt (00:16:45) - So I also think that some of that has to do with being market specific. And we are seeing, you know, we saw unprecedented demand for three years and it is quelling okay, I think it's going to continue to be strong. But take a market like Charlotte, they were seeing 13 to 15% annual rent growth that it's it's unsustainable to have that. And our market we've been seeing 10% rent growth. And when I tell people that it's quelling I go, well we're going to see 3 to 4% rent growth, which is extremely good for us because this is a market that, you know, there's some markets like east, east, east of Dallas, the Garland market. You know, I have an uncle that's a developer as well.   Grant Pruitt (00:17:33) - And he was given this talk and he said, you know, in the 1970s we were developing warehouses in Garland and lease them at two bucks a foot. And he said, you know what? Rents are now, this was about 2008, 2009. He goes two bucks a foot. And so it took really 35, 40 years for us to see rental appreciation in some of these markets because we just built so much product here in Dallas Fort Worth. You're seeing the inverse, the industrial demand, even starting prior to Covid, Covid accelerated e-commerce, which, you know, everybody talks about e-commerce last mile. But even prior to that, the the drivers of industrial demand were on shoring of manufacturing. An e-commerce. We we, you know, the third driver of demand that we've seen has been increased inventory levels, which is typically about 30% increase inventory levels. I call it the toilet paper effect that you don't want to run out of toilet paper. So you stock up on 30% more toilet paper than you need in your warehouses.   Grant Pruitt (00:18:36) - Um, it's it's the the increased inventory levels more or less is played out through the system. What is continuing to play out is on touring or manufacturing and even more so, e-commerce, because only about 17% of our retail sales are e-commerce. And I don't know about you, but my home has more Amazon boxes that show up than every day. There are more Amazon boxes that show up at my house than the day before, because we're we're embracing the idea of e-commerce in our household. And I think that's only going to continue to accelerate. You know, the last mile is going to get more and more and more complex because that speed to the rooftop speed to market is going to become more and more important, and technology is going to enable us to be able to do that. So when I say it's market specific, you know, we're in Dallas-Fort worth, you can reach any the majority of the country within a thousand miles. So that's a two day drive for a truck driver. One day. If you have two truck drivers, what changes? That is automated trucking, which is here.   Grant Pruitt (00:19:43) - We're going to continue to see an acceleration of different markets that grow because of what technology is inspiring. And so your question about seeing the inverse. Yes, we are seeing the inverse. We're seeing spaces that were functionally obsolete that didn't lease for 30 years, that were in markets that were in the doldrums, that are now some of the hottest markets in the country. Great example is the valid market here in DFW. We were doing $3 gross deals on buildings that now are probably going to get 10 to $10 net, and that market went from a very undesirable market because it was smaller, smaller products, shallower bays, older product, functionally obsolete class for sprinklers and. When people started trying to identify what was close to rooftops. Well, I'll be darned. It is right there by all the rooftops. And you know, Amazon has completely disrupted the distribution model. You know, if you remember ten, 15 years ago, they started with million square foot facilities in in most metropolitan areas, you know, in DFW they built 2 million square footers.   Grant Pruitt (00:21:06) - And if you the idea of e-commerce was that you weren't going to have as much need for industrial space because it was literally going to come in and out and you weren't going to have to warehouse anything. And what happened was it did the opposite. So it grew the inventory levels and it grew the need and demand for industrial space. So then Amazon went for 1,000,000ft, and then they started leasing 500,000 square foot. And then it went to 250. And I'll never forget they at least 70,000ft in a like a 14 clear, completely functionally obsolete building in central Dallas. And it was like everybody that was real estate professionals had exploded and said, why on earth are they doing that? What are they thinking? And it was because they needed a presence to be able to quickly deliver goods and, well, goods to households. And it broke the model. It absolutely broke the model. So you're going to continue to see that. But I do caution people and that everything in real estate is a pendulum. It swings this way, it swings this way, it swings this way, it swings this way.   Grant Pruitt (00:22:09) - And I don't see a reason at this point in time. But there will come a day when we overbuild and we don't have a need for as much industrial space. And we're going to having we're going to be having the same conversation we're having about office that but it's going to be about industrial because I had that conversation 15 years ago.   Sam Wilson (00:22:27) - Isn't that the way it is, though? I mean, this is something I was on a panel here a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about just being opportunistic in that it is the way real estate runs. Like you're saying, we were overbuilt maybe on office space right now. We went through an incredible run in the last decade on the multifamily consolidation on just, you know, like you said, increasing increasing rents, prices just cap rates compressing, prices, skyrocketing. And now we're seeing that seeing that cool off to a certain degree and again in certain markets. But I think it's one of those things where it's just it's stay in front of that, being in tune with what's happening in the market and really staying true to fundamentals.   Sam Wilson (00:23:06) - And I'm sure it's one of the things you guys preach to your investors is really stick to your fundamentals, because not everything lasts forever on the bad side or the good side. So I.   Grant Pruitt (00:23:14) - Think that.   Sam Wilson (00:23:15) - Yeah, that's really, really cool. Grant, this has been awesome having you come on the show today. You've broken down really two really key asset classes that many people are interested in, both probably on the sidelines watching office and then actively investing in on the industrial side, giving some great insight, both what's happening in your market and then also around the country. This has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for your time. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and or your firm, what is the best way to do that?   Grant Pruitt (00:23:42) - You can go to? You can go to Whitebox Real Estate, or you can send us an email at contact at whitebox.   Sam Wilson (00:23:50) - Real estate.com Whitebox Real estate.com. We'll make sure we include that there in the show, notes. Grant. Thank you again for coming on the show today.   Sam Wilson (00:23:57) - It was certainly a pleasure to have you.   Grant Pruitt (00:23:58) - Thank you for having me.   Sam Wilson (00:23:59) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.  

I have to say, Wow! I invited my listeners and readers to submit anonymous questions to me, and I've been blown away by the response. You have all asked some great questions! So this episode will be another session answering some of those questions that you've asked. Each day, the questions accumulate, and I don't think I'll ever be able to answer all of them on this podcast or my email newsletter, though I will do my best to be consistent on all those platforms. However, I would recommend that if you really desire to get your marriage and sex questions answered and get some help moving forward to moving that needle in your relationship, that you give my next level coaching program a try. In this episode we discuss the following: What a husband should do to help his wife who hasn't been able to orgasm What a wife can do to help herself orgasm more often and enjoy the sexual experience with her husband more. A husband struggles with his self esteem because of his premature ejaculation. Different definitions of sex and getting over the idea that women "should" climax with penetration. How to deal with the affects of antidepressants on a sexual relationship. Why it's hard to be a higher desire spouse (but not necessarily a bad thing) Other things to know: In Next Level, which is a coaching program, not only are your questions answered, but we're there with you every step of the way to help you build a more intimate and joyful marriage.  If you'd like to experience coaching, to see how it works, I'm offering a free coaching session on September 1st. Sign up here! On August 16, I'll be hosting a workshop all about navigating differences in sexual desire. This is probably the most common issue couples have in their sexual relationship. So we'll be diving deep into how and why sexual differences happen and solutions for couples to overcome those differences and create greater connection and intimacy in the relationship. We recently published a new digital product called the Ultimate Guide to Pleasing Your Husband, which is a companion to our previously published Ultimate Guide to Pleasing Your Wife. We also have several other guides and products on our website. Lastly, as you make plans for the fall, why not schedule a weekend away for just the two of you? Better yet, why not make your getaway even more meaningful by attending our marriage retreat coming up in October in the Dallas Fort worth Texas area? These retreats are in depth and designed to challenge you as a couple while balancing it with fun and romance.

Mike is a successful real estate investor, experienced Supply Chain executive, coach, and entrepreneur. Mike has over 30 years of experience running international Supply Chain organizations in Fortune 50 companies. He has successfully transitioned into business entrepreneurship, owning and operating 3 successful companies with his wife Ligia. Ligia spent the early years of her career contributing to multinational companies of various sizes, where she learned the importance of building strong networks with a diversity of people and having a keen attention to detail. Since she and her husband began their own business in 2017, her interest in creating wealth through real estate investments has continued to grow. She now sees multifamily investment opportunities as one of the best ways to deliver substantial, recession-resistant returns. They founded Deaton Equity Partners to help investors achieve their financial and lifestyle goals by investing in and improving multifamily community properties Let's hear more from them! So with no further ado Let's Dive In!    Highlights: [00:11 - 05:29] How these Couple of Entrepreneurs from Dallas-Fort Worth turned To Real Estate to Create passive income for life. In 2016, Ligia and Mike escaped the corporate world and went all into real estate. They've since scaled their business to amazing Heights and serve thousands of investors that manifest the life of their wildest dreams through generating passive income for life.   [05:29 - 10:37] Volatile Market: How Deals Fall as Prices Rise  They Share how the land investing business is doing, but they are looking to scale up and invest in other assets to gain more cashflow They feel that the competition in the multifamily space is intense, but they are still finding deals. There has been a shift in the dynamics of the market where some sellers are putting their properties up for sale at high prices, which is causing competition among buyers.   [10:37 - 15:49] How to Nurture Relationships with Property Managers to Acquire Multifamily Properties There is a shift in the market where people are starting to become more cautious about buying property. There are several factors contributing to this, including inflation, interest rates, and the current market psychology. One way that people are trying to make money in the market is by buying properties that are already for sale. One way to approach this is to talk to property managers and brokers about potential deals. It is important to have a team in place to help take down a property, invest in it, and grow it. [15:50 - 20:30] Closing Segment Reach out to Mike and Ligia Links Below Final Words   Tweetable Quotes “I think we had to work on our mental game because I felt like we were asking money from people until I had to have that paradigm shift that we're actually offering people an opportunity.” - Ligia Deaton   “The returns are just on a percentage basis. Returns are lower now on a net basis. We may be making more. Actual revenue coming in. You can scale, but you just have to do it through quantity. You have to ramp up your operations by bringing on team members, and automating things and you have to do a lot of smaller deals. Then say, in a commercial where you just deploy a large amount of capital and get your returns.” - Mike Deaton    -   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connect with Mike and Liga Deaton by visiting their website deatonequitypartners.com/freedom Connect with me:   Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on. Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below: [00:00:00] Sam Wilson: In 2016, Ligia and Mike escaped a corporate world and went all into real estate. They've since scaled their business to amazing Heights. They've served thousands of investors that manifest the life of their wildest dreams through generating passive income for life. Mike and Lidia. [00:00:24] Sam Wilson: Welcome to the show.  [00:00:26] Mike Deaton: Thanks so much, Sam, we're happy to be here.  [00:00:28] Sam Wilson: Thank you, pleasures mind. There are three questions. I ask every guest who comes in the show and maybe one of you can take this one for us. Where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there? And you have to tell me in 90 seconds or. [00:00:38] Mike Deaton: All right, I'll go. So where did we start? We started in corporate America, both got laid off in 2016 and figured out we wanted to do something different than work for somebody. So we started a real estate business. We started out doing land investing. Basically we were buying and selling vacant land. [00:00:56] Mike Deaton: So you buy low, sell high. We do a lot of owner financing. So we, we do promissory notes with our clients and build up a passive income book that way. And then about two and a half years ago we looked to diversify as well as get some tax benefits. So we were looking for commercial real estate options and went into multifamily and. [00:01:14] Mike Deaton: We, after doing some research, we figured out that almost everybody was going from single family or smaller multifamily into bigger multifamily. So we said, let's just go right for bigger multifamily. And we got into the world of syndication. So you know where we are now. We're actually living up in the mountains off of our passive income stream and, still running both businesses and just loving. [00:01:35] Sam Wilson: That's really cool. So both of you were laid off at about and, or at the same time in 2016?  [00:01:40] Mike Deaton: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We were working for different companies and I, we were both in the Plano, Texas area, Dallas Fort worth, and I was working for Microsoft and, they went through a restructuring and a ramp layoff. [00:01:51] Mike Deaton: And I was not really looking to move to Seattle. So, found myself on the. And about the same time Lidio was working in a healthcare company and they were consolidating their operations and closed down a bunch of offices moved everything to their headquarters in, Northwest Arkansas. [00:02:07] Mike Deaton: And we were, we didn't really wanna move to Northwest Arkansas either. So we were both looking for work. Same time looking  [00:02:13] Sam Wilson: for work at the same time. Lidia, how did you guys decide to get into land investing? I mean, that's pretty nuance.  [00:02:19] Ligia Deaton: Well, I can start a little bit, but Mike knows the story way better. [00:02:22] Ligia Deaton: We, Mike listened to a podcast about passive income and heard about this, this niche that investing in land in raw land and, the guy that we actually, Went and mentor under had a program and a toolkit that Mike bought and we kind of, left it for a while. I think it's set on the shelf for six months before we really jumped into it. [00:02:47] Ligia Deaton: And after we got, we both got laid off we just decided to give it a try.  [00:02:51] Sam Wilson: That's really cool. Did you have any apprehension if it sounds like this was more Mike's idea than yours, was there any apprehension for you when you're like, Hey I wanna go buy some land. You going? What in the world are we getting into? [00:03:02] Ligia Deaton: Well, definitely it was initially Mike's idea. And then when I heard about it I agreed, we wanted to give it a try and I thought, okay, what's the worst for me? It was important to face the worst case scenario. What's the worst that can happen. If we buy land and it's not working, maybe we can just buy a trailer and live, live off the grid on one of the properties that we have until we figure it out. [00:03:25] Mike Deaton: Yeah, it's nice. You have an asset, yeah. So you can do something with it, I guess, worst case. Beyond that, the worst case or what we considered that could be a fallback, our worst case would be we just go get jobs again. if things don't work so right. It was definitely an anxiety filled time shifting out of a w two just for 25 years, I've been somebody else's employee into running your own business. [00:03:45] Mike Deaton: It was definitely a little  [00:03:46] Sam Wilson: nervewracking. Right. But you guys, to this day, even though you've gone larger, gone into bigger deals in multifamily, which I do wanna spend, the larger part of this conversation, kind of talking about that transition, how you got into it and how you've scaled your business on that front. [00:03:58] Sam Wilson: But you guys still, like you said, invest even still today in land. Is that right?  [00:04:03] Mike Deaton: We do. Yeah. It's a great business. I mean, the returns on land are pretty crazy. Like we get triple digit annual returns on our land, right? So we buy a piece of property. And as they say in real estate, you make the money on the buy. [00:04:16] Mike Deaton: And that's exactly the concept here is, we do like a lot of single family flippers or other people. We do a lot of direct mailing out to landowners and we make low ball offers and maybe 3% of the people will accept them. But on that 3%. We'll buy a piece of property for, let's say $5,000. We can sell it for 30 on the market. [00:04:34] Mike Deaton: And so, we try to go in at an entry point, that's 25% of the market value for a cash type sale. And then if somebody wants to buy on terms, we'll mark it up a little bit more just to, because they're paying out over five years or so. So we usually get our money back in 10 to 12 months and then everything beyond that's. [00:04:51] Mike Deaton: Just profit. The downside is it's a little harder to scale, large amounts of capital. And so, once you start buying properties that are worth 50 or a hundred or plus thousand dollars, well, people aren't really given those away. I mean, if you have a one acre five acre piece of property that. [00:05:07] Mike Deaton: That you inherited from somebody or your husband passed away and she's not gonna do anything with it. Then people are a lot more open to just getting it off their plate, stop paying taxes and doing things like that. But once you get a little bit bigger, so, that's where commercial real estate and larger scale we can deploy larger amounts of capital in that way. [00:05:24] Mike Deaton: The returns are just on a percentage basis. Returns are lower now on a net basis, we may be making more. Actual revenue coming in, but  [00:05:31] Sam Wilson: yeah. And that was gonna be my question about it is how do you scale a land investing business like that? And I think you've made a really clear differentiation there in that, once you get into a hundred thousand half a million, even a million dollar parcel of land, at that point, you're dealing with a sophisticated owner, a sophisticated seller, right? [00:05:47] Sam Wilson: You're not dealing with again, the one to five acre. Okay. We just don't know what to do with it. And we just wanted to get it off  [00:05:52] Mike Deaton: our plate. Yeah. Now we know people and we do try also as well. I mean, we, you can scale, but you just have to do it through quantity. You have to ramp up, really your operations through bringing on, team members, automating things and just, you have to do a lot more smaller deals than say in a commercial where you. [00:06:08] Mike Deaton: Just deploy a large amount of capital and get your returns,  [00:06:11] Sam Wilson: right? Yeah. And I like what you said on a net basis, your commercial real estate holdings are gonna do a lot more for you maybe on a percentage basis, a percentage return basis might be lower, but on a net basis it's far. [00:06:22] Sam Wilson: Yeah. And it sounded like that was one of the motivating reasons for you to then. Go straight into multifamily. You just said, Hey, there's opportunity here. Let's go capitalize on that. Where we can really get more of a return on our time investment probably. And maybe then necessarily your return on your dollar investment. [00:06:37] Mike Deaton: Yeah. A little bit of both. I mean, like I said we really wanted so I mean, our land business makes a lot of money. We have good six-figure income and revenue coming in, but we pay a lot of taxes because it's just straight up, capital returns basically. Right. What's there to write off. [00:06:51] Mike Deaton: Yeah. And so, we have some business expenses that we can write down, but those only go so far. And so we started looking for depreciable. Assets to invest in. And we were looking at mobile homes, storage units, multifamily, and, there really wasn't anything that said, this is the way to go. [00:07:04] Mike Deaton: So we just took a decision and said, let's go multifamily. And then, we'll go in for a bit. And if we wanna expand into storage units or diversify or things like that, we can do that down the road. But for now, we're we're traditionally, and typically looking at value, add multi-family deals where we can control the appreciation as much as possible. [00:07:20] Mike Deaton: Make a big difference in people's lives, by the way, while we're upgrading facilities and units and providing a better place to live than some of these that are more run down and generate a lot of returns for investors. So we saw it as a win-win to go into the space there and, and help a lot of people. [00:07:36] Sam Wilson: There is a lot of competition in the multifamily space to say the least that is a, it is a hypercompetitive market right now. So what are you guys doing to really get an edge and even find assets that you can buy that pencil that makes sense. And that yet still provide a return. [00:07:53] Mike Deaton: What are you doing? [00:07:54] Mike Deaton: no, I, I, so the way we've, so since starting a couple years ago li has kind of taken the CEO hat on the land business, and I've been starting up the multi-family business. So, a little more in depth there, but you know, what we really did was just started building our network. As soon as we got into the space, we started looking for mentors and coaches and groups. [00:08:13] Mike Deaton: We started. Really building, out our contacts in the brokerage world, as well as in the property management world. And so, I think a lot of us thought in the COVID era that it was gonna be a 2008 repeat where, property values were just gonna drop. We were gonna find a bunch of bargains and that didn't happen. [00:08:29] Mike Deaton: Fortunately we. Surrounded by a group of individuals that had a growth mindset and did not stop investing during COVID, it's just a matter of finding those deals and making sure they pencil out to your point. And so, right now, yes, there, there has been a lot of competition for deals. Cap rates are compressing values are going up. [00:08:50] Mike Deaton: It's just, it is been a bit more challenging, I will say, in the last. Two months, one to two months, it's really flipped, with the market uncertainty. I think a lot of people are hitting pause. The buying pool has shrunk and I'm in the situation now where my broker contacts are reaching out to me about deals and saying, Hey, take a look at this one. [00:09:10] Mike Deaton: Properties are starting to trade at a five to 10% discount. And so, you can feel a little bit of a tipping in the marketplace. You still have to be really sharp in your underwriting though, right? Because interest rates are fluctuating up and down to buy protection on your rate is super expensive. [00:09:26] Mike Deaton: Once you get into these, six figures to protect yourself 2% on the upside. And so, you really just have to be a lot more cautious. There's still deals out there. There's people that are needing to get out of properties. And so I think now we're starting to see a little bit of that deal making potential that's coming into the market. [00:09:42] Mike Deaton: Do you  [00:09:42] Sam Wilson: feel like the deal making potential we'll call it that cause you use that term deal, making potential coming into the market. Is an avalanche thing where, it's just taking a few extra sellers that all of a sudden are experiencing FOMO. They're going, oh my gosh, we're gonna miss out on the peak. [00:09:57] Sam Wilson: And so they start putting a few properties out there and then other sellers start seeing their properties going out there. And it's like the dog file effect. And all of a sudden, you just have this breakaway pricing. Is it that happening or is there a fundamental shift in the dynamics that can be bringing some of these prices down? [00:10:13] Mike Deaton: I think there's a little bit of both. I definitely have felt over the last, let's say six to 12 months that a lot of owners are really throwing some high prices out there. And just like in the housing market, I think sellers were just like, Hey, let's see if we can get it. And they have been, and that's the problem. [00:10:32] Mike Deaton: And now we're starting to see because there is some external market force striving geopolitical issues. You've got inflation running, you've got interest rates popping. And so yeah, a lot of people that are throwing those high prices out there the buyers are now kind of saying, Ooh, wait a minute. [00:10:47] Mike Deaton: We, we sense a top. But I also think there is a lot of this market psychology. If you will, where you start looking around and saying, holy cow, they got what for their property. Well, I'm gonna put it out as well. And there' some FOMO probably out there, but I think it's, I think it is really starting to tip I have brokers, like I said, that are reaching out that. [00:11:06] Mike Deaton: Properties are getting no offers and they're like, this seller has to sell and he'll take really, whatever you put a number out there and see if he bites. So I think there is, a shift starting to happen.  [00:11:16] Sam Wilson: We've spent quite a bit of time on this show and you wouldn't know this, but here the last few recent episodes talking about strategic ways to forge relationships with brokers, one of the things that you mentioned though, that I don't think we've talked about much is how people are establishing relationships with their property management companies. [00:11:32] Sam Wilson: you said that's two of the ways that you guys are finding opportunities by, working with brokers and with property managers. What does that conversation sound like when you go and talk to a property manager, it's like, Hey, by the way, I'm Mike and li and we wanna buy Origio excuse me. [00:11:45] Sam Wilson: And we want to buy multifamily properties. I mean, where talk to us about how you even begin that conversation and how you nurture those relationships.  [00:11:51] Mike Deaton: Yeah, that's a great point. But it's a really critical one. I think what I understand and the way I approach property management is really just forging relationships. [00:12:00] Mike Deaton: Potential business in the future. So, we own several properties and. We try to assess, who are the strong players in a given market. And while we may have a relationship with one property management company running our properties, it's always nice to have some in your back pocket. [00:12:17] Mike Deaton: We're continually looking at deals and anytime we do, we go out to. Various property managers to get their performer look at, what they would do. And so most of them are very open about wanting to help out and, they're trying to win business as well. And so, I find that it's pretty easy to strike up these conversations and most of them are very willing to talk about our current properties. [00:12:38] Mike Deaton: Any that we're looking at. And even this week I was having a conversation with one and they happened to be managing the property right next door to ours and knew that it was on the market. And so, we're able to get in the mix on a property and hopefully find some efficiencies across that. [00:12:52] Mike Deaton: I mean, it's really nice when you have some properties nearby one another, and you can share labor resources or marketing efforts or things like that to really amplify and cut down on expense.  [00:13:04] Sam Wilson: What have you done on the building team front? I mean, multifamily, especially maybe on the land investing front, that's something like you said, you could probably run that inhouse and keep that fairly small. [00:13:14] Sam Wilson: It's not small and tight, but multifamily is a team sport. Mm-hmm how built out your team to surround you when you guys are taking down? I, my gosh, what do you have? 1500 units at this point in just a couple short years. That's a lot of units in a short period of time. Yeah. How'd you do it?  [00:13:26] Mike Deaton: So both in our land, business and multifamily. [00:13:29] Mike Deaton: When we went in we knew that we wanted to do this full time. And we decided in order to do that, we needed to find a mentor, a coach, and a community that we can join to help accelerate the learning and offset or mitigate any potential missteps. And so specific to multifamily, we spent about six months doing research on what type of groups are out there. [00:13:50] Mike Deaton: There's a lot of syndication groups with gurus as they call 'em Michael Blas and rod clefs and you name it. And so we spent a lot of time. We went to a few events, we networked with people and we just tried to get a feel for. What does that community look like? And until we found one that resonated with us and signed up to be a part of a group called think multifamily. [00:14:09] Mike Deaton: It's run by mark in toil, Kenny out of Dallas. And it's a lot more intimate family oriented type feel to it. And so there was a lot of flexibility within the group. Some of the groups. There's more of a pecking order in terms of, you gotta start out as an LP, then you gotta bring a deal to me and then we'll walk you through. [00:14:25] Mike Deaton: And so, that structure felt a little restrictive for us. And this was a lot more flexible as well as any deals we're dealing directly with mark versus some of these other programs have a hierarchy and a tiered structure of coaches and coaches under coaches. And and so. [00:14:39] Mike Deaton: We signed up for that after about six months of research and that enabled us to really immediately plug into a network of owner operators, as well as legal experts, mortgage brokers people that can go out and find good lenders just a whole ecosystem of insurance brokers, people ready, made system of support that could help us without having to grow and find all these people on our own. [00:15:04] Mike Deaton: And so, that has really leapfrogged our journey. Within that structure, we did it fairly. We started out as LPs on a few deals that gave us an understanding of the deal flow, how things work. And then we joined as general partners where we were able to take a more active role in. [00:15:21] Mike Deaton: helping close a property, put up some risk capital invest as well. Bring in investors until we stepped into finding our own deal and pulling our own team together. And so, it was a very calculated. Process of scaling up to that number that we were able to, we also had some capital at our disposal, which always helps. [00:15:38] Mike Deaton: Right. Anytime you're able to bring capital into a deal doors open a little more than other things. But yeah, it's been, having that team around us has been essential, as you say, it's a team sport and we couldn't have done it without all of those, or we couldn't have done it as quickly. [00:15:50] Mike Deaton: Right.  [00:15:50] Sam Wilson: No, and I that's great. I mean, of course, we hear that quite a bit, but I don't think anybody's quite said it as, clearly as you have as to how that mentorship group worked for you and what it did to help you scale so quickly. One of the things that commonly people struggle with, especially starting out is raising capital for bigger deals. [00:16:09] Sam Wilson: Tell me about your capital raise process, are there things that you've learned in raising capital that you would say, Hey, this is something that either is worth repeating or here's a mistake I made that I would recommend maybe that you can avoid.  [00:16:21] Mike Deaton: Yeah. You wanna talk about the early days of capital raising [00:16:24] Ligia Deaton: Yes. I mean the, in the early days we thought we will definitely start with the friends and family and I think we had to work on our mental game because I felt like we were asking money from people, until I had to have that paradigm shift that we're actually offering people an opportunity. [00:16:45] Ligia Deaton: We're not asking money. So that was a big change. And it took us. It took us a little bit. We realized that our pool of friends and family got shrinked really soon. And we had to really start building processes and do something to reach out to to more people outside of that group. [00:17:06] Mike Deaton: Yeah. Where, I think there's a saying in, I don't know that it's specific to multi-family, but. People have to know, like, and trust you essentially. Right. And so with our friends and family, we have the know like, and even the trust in some areas, but then once it gets into financial areas, it's a little more like, okay. [00:17:20] Mike Deaton: And especially when you start talking about multi-family syndications, while when you're in it, it feels like everybody knows about it, but really not. A whole lot of people know about that as an investment class. And so there's a lot of education that has to go into building up that investor BA investor pool. [00:17:36] Mike Deaton: And it definitely, we started out, I think with high aspirations and quickly figured out like, oh, this is gonna take a different approach. So we had to pivot and start cultivating some on our friends and family side, but also bringing out outside investors. And so it was a bit of a different animal than we thought at the. [00:17:52] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. And it certainly is. I liked your word there of cultivation. I mean, that's what it is. It is it's a cultivation of those relationships and that just, and it takes time. Certainly certainly takes time, but definitely uh, that's really cool. That you guys, you figured out how to do it. [00:18:07] Sam Wilson: I mean, that's the short we're growing.  [00:18:09] Mean,  [00:18:09] Mike Deaton: We're not where we wanna be. And so, we're closing on a deal right now and we're in the middle of raising our. And so, I deal with we have a small team that are helping take down this asset, and there's some people that bring in millions of dollars, right. [00:18:23] Mike Deaton: I mean, they just, within a matter of a week, they have that. And we're just not to that level yet, but we have aspirations of getting there. But yeah. And we try to look at it as a long game. I mean, this show about scale is great and we. Or most of us wanna scale up and grow. But we're not looking for a quick fix. [00:18:40] Mike Deaton: I mean, we definitely are trying to do this a little more methodically, put good systems in place, build automation and a team and system so that we're in this for the long haul. And we don't have any delusions that we're gonna get there tomorrow. So, it's a learning game. [00:18:53] Sam Wilson: Awesome. Mike Andia. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today and talk about your experience thus far. It's been fun to learn about the land investing business, the way you guys have taken down 1500 units here in the last couple years, how you're building team and just lessons learned along the capital. [00:19:08] Sam Wilson: Raise process. Certainly appreciate it. And thank you for your insight also, talked about how to relate to and how to grow relationships with property managers. So, lots of good information here. Certainly appreciate it. If our listeners wanna get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that? [00:19:22] Mike Deaton: We put together a landing page on our website, so you can go to Deaton equity partners.com/freedom, and it's like a one stop shop. We have contact information, phone numbers a couple of eBooks. If you're interested in getting started in land, there's a primer there. If you're in, interested in multifamily, got a little thing there. [00:19:38] Mike Deaton: So that's probably the best place. And then you can get in contact with this in whatever method is convenient for you. Awesome.  [00:19:45] Sam Wilson: We'll make sure to put that link there in the show. Again, appreciate you taking the time to come on today. Thank you so much. Likewise.  [00:19:52] Mike Deaton: Thanks. Thank you for  [00:19:52] Ligia Deaton: having us.  

Hello, and welcome to Beauty and the Biz where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery and how Bradford Bader, MD went from recon to retail surgery. I'm your host, Catherine Maley, author of Your Aesthetic Practice – What your patients, are saying as well as consultant to plastic surgeons, to get them more patients and more profits. Now, today's episode is called “Recon to Retail Surgery - with Bradford Bader, MD”. A new surgeon coming out of fellowship will oftentimes do anything and everything to perform more surgery to hone their craft.  So, they do call at nearby hospitals, take recon cases referred by other surgeons, and/or contract with other practices to handle their overflow. They need that experience to figure out what they really want to do….and NOT do.  Dr. Bradford Bader had been on his own journey and is now very satisfied with where he is going, but it wasn't a straight line (it never is). This week's Beauty and the Biz Podcast is the interview I did with Bradford Bader, MD, a facial plastic surgeon running his own private practice in Plano, TX. He talks about his journey from 95% reconstructive to 95% aesthetic surgery and how he had to think and act to make that shift. Dr. Bader also talked about: How important location is to be visible and accessible to the patients you want to attract How culture plays a big part in his success (now that he understands what that means) How his amazing shoe collection helps build his brand A radical new approach to building a practice with smaller staff and office but bigger profits and much more…. I love hearing how the younger surgeons are making their way through the challenges of staffing, marketing and competing in today's marketplace and you will too. Visit Dr. Bader's website at: www.BaderFacialPlastics.com Enjoy!

Joseph Biasi spends his Days Analysing Economic Trends and their Relationship with Commercial Real Estate for CoStar – the Leading Real Estate Data Analytics and Aggregator in the US.  In this episode we talked about: Joseph's Bio & Activity Commercial Real Estate Market Outlook Retail Property Analysis Industrial Real Estate Overview Interest Rates Government Policy Single Family VS Multifamily Real Estate The Effect of Inflation on Real Estate Investors Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: https://www.costar.com Transcriptions: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to working capital the real estate podcast. My special guest today is Joseph Biassi. Joseph spends his days analyzing economic trends and the relationship with the commercial real estate sector. And he works for CoStar advisory services. For those of you that don't know what CoStar is, they're the leading real estate data analytics and aggregator in the us. And I'm not sure if Canada as well, but I wouldn't be surprised we use them pretty much every day. They're our go-to for analytics, for properties, for research and a part of our underwriting process. Joseph, how's it going? Great. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Do I have that right, Joseph, in terms of CoStar where they're at today, maybe you could, you could let the audience know a little bit about your position there and CoStar in general and what you guys do. Sure. Yeah. Joseph(1m 10s): CoStar is a data analytics platform and a data vendor. We, we track pretty much every commercial building that we can at least get research on across the United States. We are moving into Canada as well, more and more. We're getting better coverage in Canada and as well as Europe, my job in particular is I sit on top of that data as a consultant. I'm a senior consultant with advisory services. And my job in particular is to advise client both developers as well as investors on macro economic and commercial real estate trends Jesse (1m 45s): Right on. Yeah. What I've noticed is we have, I think 84, 85 offices now, and we've, we've pretty much switched over completely to CoStar and that goes for Canadian and, and us markets, but it's definitely come a long way in terms of the coverage that we have at least, you know, in our major markets, you pretty much, you've got everything covered there. Speaker 1 (2m 7s): Yeah. I mean, we've been really pushing research recently. Speaker 0 (2m 11s): So this was, this was something we were at, we were at this panel and in new Orleans this past, I guess two weekends ago now, and we were talking about, you know, where, where people can find information, those people looking for deals in the market and a lot of, a lot of what we do on the investing side and not just in brokerage, but we'll, you know, when we tried to track down owners, a lot of times we're looking at properties on CoStar trying to find the beneficial, the true owners and reach out to them directly for off market deals. Speaker 1 (2m 38s): Yeah. So I, I, before actually, before I worked at CoStar, worked in brokerage. And so I was, I I've been a user, it's a fantastic site for anybody who wants to do any kind of real estate deals, right. On a little biased, but Speaker 0 (2m 52s): Yeah, a little biased. So in terms of the, the actual market, I thought what would be, will be just that would be useful and educational for our listeners is talking a little bit about what's been going on in the market over the last year or two and the outlook for the next, let's call it a mid to mid to longterm. And by longterm for me, I think five years, I don't think longer than that, but yeah. You know, let's talk a little bit about the commercial real estate market in general, over the last two years, how have things changed in terms of the data that you're seeing in terms of the way you approach the market and, and your analysis? Speaker 1 (3m 31s): Great question. Yeah. So, you know, when the pandemic hit, I think there was a lot of fear going around and that translated into a lot less commercial real estate deals, particularly in the office sector. Everybody began to work from home. We knew, we noticed a pretty steep drop off in transaction activity, which has since returned. And that's, that's pretty much been the story is we had this initial 20, 20 decline, a couple of, a couple of quarters of, you know, pretty severe transaction volume decline. And it's all become back effectively, but it's come back in a very different way. And that's the actual story behind what's happening in the commercial real estate market is if you look at the macro macro numbers, you know, total amount of transaction, the total transaction volume is back. But if you look at where that's happening, it's very different. For example, the Dallas Fort worth had more transaction activity in 2020, the first half of 2021 than New York. That's not normal. We're seeing, we're seeing those rooms moved down to, if you're talking about retailer, multi-family, we're seeing them move down to the south, the study United States, as opposed to, you know, the new York's and the San Francisco's of the world. Phoenix is another market we've seen, which is, I suppose, as a Western market, those, those Sunbelt markets are where we're seeing the most demographic growth. We're seeing the most transaction activity. And we're seeing the biggest pricing gains across all four, four major property types Speaker 0 (4m 55s): In terms of the, to go from geographic to the property types, if, you know, starting with retail, I guess. Cause that's, that's the one where when the pandemic first started, there was the big question of retail, which I think for, for the most part has been overbuilt. I don't think it's a surprise in the U S Canada. Canada's pretty. Yeah. I mean, we are as well, but I think we're somewhere in between the U S and in most European countries on a per square foot basis. But talk about retail, you know, how has that analysis been over the last, you know, call it a year to two years? Speaker 1 (5m 29s): I think retail, it, at least in my opinion is one of the most fascinating property types. Like, yeah, you're absolutely right. There needs to be some level of rationalization. If the landscape has changed, it is no longer the place where people go deep. The only place people go shopping to buy goods, that doesn't mean it's going away and there's still, I would argue opportunities. And I think that's the way we've been trying to, to talk about retail, which is look, you know, you're not, if you're looking at a class B or class seem, all those are going to struggle, but if you're looking at, you know, there's still good opportunities and you just, there's a lot more nuance and a lot more detail that you need to look into for a retail building the tenants matter so much in a retail building, even more than an office or an industrial building, because if you have a good grocery anchor, a neighborhood center in a well-populated area, that's still a good asset. And that, that I think has kind of been, under-reported just due to the fear around retail during the pandemic and the fear around retail because of e-commerce. Speaker 0 (6m 36s): Yeah. It's a, it's one of those things that we've always talked about that, you know, good grocery store, anchored retail. I can't imagine in a lot of these markets, if anything, they were a bit, some of those properties were buoyed by the fact that the only places that were open were the Walmarts or, you know, these grocery stores that were anchored. Speaker 1 (6m 54s): Exactly. And we're, you know, we are seeing, you know, returns to normal leasing patterns in the Southern states where, you know, where retail really does follow rooftops. And in those Southern states, we've seen pretty much a full recovery, and we've seen a pretty much a full recovery in terms of pricing as well. Whereas if you talk about, you know, these, these tertiary markets in the Midwest, or some of these coastal gateway markets that have really struggled during the pandemic, there's still, there's still losing people. They're still struggling to kind of recover. Speaker 0 (7m 25s): So have you seen, I know you, you track a lease terms and different differently structures. Have you seen a difference in the way that retailers are approaching their leases? You know, where you could have some retailers in the past doing 5, 10, 15, 20 year leases, has that, has that shifted or is it, is it too early to tell Speaker 1 (7m 43s): It's a, it's a little early to tell, just because we're, we're finally kind of getting back at least down south, but the, the tenants that they're looking for at certainly become far more focused on either, you know, necessity based retail, certain tenants like dollar stores. So these, these discount stores are doing really well. And then experience-based tenants have done are something that landlords are really looking into as a long-term longer-term play. At some point, this pandemic will become less and less, have less and less of an effect on the economy. And a lot of landlords believe that the future of real estate of retail is experiential. That you're drawing people there for something more than just a shopping experience. Speaker 0 (8m 28s): Does CoStar track the rezoning or reclassification of buildings in terms of, for example, one of the, one of the, the guesses that, you know, that we have is that retail and, and certain types of office buildings may be converted, maybe switch the use might be switched even in hospitality, potentially hospitality going to multi-family. But if do you track that type of thing? Speaker 1 (8m 54s): Yeah. It hasn't occurred as much as you would think, given the amount of airtime, not an ink that's been spilled on it. It really hasn't happened. It does happen, you know, so I went to college in Worcester and the Greendale mall in Worcester got turned into an Amazon distribution center, but that isn't really the rural quite yet. They're still working on that because, you know, it's, a lot of people think that a mall is going to turn into an industrial center, like a distribution center, and it's more likely to be knocked down and turned into multi-family center because it's still the highest and best use is, is multifamily for a dense urban area. We're, we're, we're starting to see some of these malls really struggle. Speaker 0 (9m 36s): Yeah. I think you're absolutely right with the amount of ink that's been spelled as a that's been spilled on it because it is one of those things, I guess, more of an academic thing. It's logical to think that okay. But I think the reality is you get in transaction costs the actual time it takes to convert these things. There's a little bit more that goes on with it. If you, if you kind of slide from retail, move into the, the office space. So my partner and I on the brokerage on predominantly work in office investment sales, as well as leasing, they, I don't, you know, despite some of, you know, what, what has been said last year, that markets haven't been affected. I just think a lot of people were saying certain things were, what we saw was a large, large drop-off in office. And not surprisingly, I'm assuming that's, that's what you S what you've seen. And if not, maybe you could provide some insight there. Speaker 1 (10m 26s): All right. No, absolutely. I, I, if you look at where most of the transaction activity has fallen off, it's been an office and it really has a lot to do with uncertainty. Right. It's, you know, what will work from home look like in five years from now, because if you, and you know, this probably better than I do, if you're buying an office for your leasing office, it's, it's a five to 10 year lease or three to 10 years typically. So you're, you're really guessing what's going to happen down the road. So when you're buying office, it's, it's a little scary right now. And I, I understand that the shop view for CoStar advisory services, and I do not speak for all of CoStar district health, say for CoStar advisory services, is that, you know, the office, there will be less demand for office because I work from home, but we don't believe this is the death of office everybody's going to be working remotely. And we also don't believe that. And I personally don't believe that, you know, these downtown offices are going to, you know, go away anytime soon. I I've in that downtown, these downtown clusters are going to severely struggle. I think the actual concern for office, if we want to think about where, where we might see struggle is those class B offices in urban areas that have less, that don't have as good a commutability score that aren't dark, aren't able to draw. Don't have the same amount of amenities. Those, I think are the ones that well, we think are going to struggle a little bit more. Yeah. It's funny. You Speaker 0 (11m 53s): Mentioned that I was having a conversation with a, with a colleague of mine. And I was, we were talking about that specific thing where a lot of suburban markets actually, haven't been doing particularly poorly with office and then these downtown connected, but there's, these Midtown markets are like these markets that are tertiary markets, that if, unless they have good connectivity, it's a really, you know, there's a question mark about how they'll do well, we've also seen though, is that the, the office side, like you were saying before, the underwriting has changed to the extent that, you know, we, they want to see is what type of tenant, what, you know, where are they in the lease? What are their rights? And, and it's funny too, that you mentioned five-year and then kind of went back to three-year because what we've seen is that, you know, when I started in brokerage, really, it was rare to find even three-year head leases. It was typically a five-year minimum. Where now, if one thing has happened from COVID, we've seen all kinds of different lease lease terms. Speaker 1 (12m 47s): Yeah. I mean, if you, if you think about going to selling a building, occupancy matters more than anything else, even, you know, that's the, that's the first and only thing I, if you have to take some rent losses, you'd rather take some rent losses and lose occupancy. So peop landlords are for office buildings are, you know, it is definitely a tenants market right now, but we, in terms of the, the urban areas, I think the reason they lose out is because the downtown offices have that commutability and then the suburban offices have that advantage of being able to drive to them. If I'm in, I'm in Boston, which is a famously difficult Metro to drive in. And there's no way I'm going to go drive to, let's say Brighton, which is just outside the main city to go to an office there, but I'd be willing to go to suburban office and I'd be willing to take the T down to than the downtown crossing, for example. Speaker 0 (13m 37s): Yeah, for sure. And you, you know, one thing too, is like we've had, what we've seen is that the CFO or COO, depending on, or the real estate, you know, facilities manager, whoever's dealing with the company's real estate. It has been a lot of like kicking the can down the road, because like you said, it's, it's, you're making a decision. That's going to impact five, 10 years. Whereas if you're buying an investment, one thing you can say is that interest rates are where they're at right now. You can, you can, you know, logically pursue maybe a little bit more risky investment, but for the people that work at a company, they're like, I'm not going to make a decision where in a year from now I could look like this was the terrible, the worst thing I did for the company. Speaker 1 (14m 12s): Right. Right. Exactly. Speaker 0 (14m 14s): So if we, okay, so that's retail office. If we switch now to, to industrial, because one thing that was really a cool stat that I saw when, when COVID just happened was the fact that retail sales did not decrease. It's just where the sales happen changed. Right. There was a pivot to online sales, total sales didn't D decrease, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, the data that I was looking at. So I'm curious, I mean, I think it's no surprise industrial's doing pretty well today. Speaker 1 (14m 48s): Yeah, no, it's not. It's no surprise. And it continued to do well. The pandemic, you are somehow seeing cap rate declines, which I think if you said two years ago, most people would be like, there's no way, but I just given how quickly we begun to really shift into e-commerce and the, you know, the room to run in terms of e-commerce. If you look at Europe, Europe uses e-commerce far more than the United States does still, but kind of going back to your point about retail sales it's, I've been tracking it very closely for that specific reason. If you look at retail sales, and this is because, you know, the government stepped in and enacted a lot of stimulus by, by June of 2020 retail sales had more sales than you would expect, given what you would expect pre pandemic. So if you forecast it out pre pandemic, but retail sales should be, and it's a fairly linear trend, you would expect them to have, you know, X amount of retail sales. And we're, we've seen exceed that basically since June of 2020, and about 35% of that is e-commerce, which is impressive when only 16% of retail sales is e-commerce right now. So e-commerce is pushing along, is pushing along retail sales. And realistically there's only, only it can only go up in terms of e-commerce. I want to be careful in saying that, because I know that's gotten people in trouble before. It can only go up in terms of e-commerce industrial is starting to become, starting to see a lot of construction. If you want to talk about the property type in particular, we're starting to see more speculative construction, but on the, at the, at the, at the other end of it, you can make the argument that it's pretty easy to turn off the industrial tap. If you it's just, you're building a big slab of concrete and yeah, exactly. It's a slab of concrete. Got you build a box and you're good to go. And there's a lot of reasons to believe that structural shifts from retail, from onsite retail to e-commerce means strong sales, and that's not even getting into three PLS and manufacturing tenants that we do also expect to do quite well. Amazon alone accounts was one, a hundred million square feet of absorption in 2020. And I, I don't know if they're going to do that again, but they are already, they're already in the, you know, they continue to be the player in the market and continue to push industrial. So do you think, Speaker 0 (17m 20s): Look at the, on the topic, the three PL or third, third party logistics and last mile delivery, like, do you, do you, do, do you break down industrial into these sub categories for your analysis? Speaker 1 (17m 31s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you almost have to, right, because that's how, that's how tenants think about it. You have these big distribution centers and then you have these last miles and, you know, these last miles tend to be these, these crappy frankly buildings that are in well better located areas. And the great thing, if you're looking from an standpoint about these last miles, they're not usually the highest and best use. So there isn't a ton of new construction in the last mile, despite the huge amount of demand for the last mile, at least according to what we're seeing. Speaker 0 (18m 5s): So in terms of the, the actual investment sales side of the industrial coin, when, you know, we see in our market, which I think pre pandemic, we were at 2%, I know Toronto is, I know LA and Toronto you'd know better than I would, but I know that we were at the top and north America with the, in terms of how lower vacancy rates were and continue to be on the industrial side. And what we've seen on the investment sales side is there's only so much product that, you know, you've seen, oh my God, that thing's traded again, that's traded three times in the last year. Are you seeing that same stuff in these really hot markets where properties have, basically, I'm assuming it's a constraint on the, on supply right now. Speaker 1 (18m 45s): Yeah. I mean, I, you know, everybody is out for industrial and they're continuing to increase their allocation. It's it's, you know, when we talk to clients, it's the first thing they always say is don't worry, we're going to increase our allocation to industrial really? Usually at the cost of office and retail. Well, not usually, always at the cost. No. Yeah. It, it, you know, that's, that's the other side of the coin, right? Is we saw 6% rent growth so far in 2021, we can be concerned about construction and market specific. If you look at like, you know, inland empire, for example. Yeah. There's a lot of construction or, you know, Las Vegas, for example, there's a decent amount of construction, but at the same time, the amount of demand that we're seeing come in and given it's a structural shifts, it means that you could, you should expect continued demand. That being said, we're getting to a point where cap rates are going to struggle. Maybe a little bit to continue to decline. Speaker 0 (19m 45s): I was going to say, it's for reminds me like economics 1 0 1. We're like, no, that the shift it's the whole demand curve moving, not just going up along, right? Like there's a, there's an innovation here. There's, there's a structural shift to less retail and more, more industrial distribution. Speaker 1 (20m 0s): I was actually trying to the other day to think of a, a good comparison. And I think we landed on radio for retail retail's radio where it it's still gonna have a use, but it's not the same use that it used to have an industrials TV now, the television. Cool. That's the entertainment. Yeah. Speaker 0 (20m 22s): So where does, where does vaulty Rez line up with that? If we, if we go to multi Rez, which you have to think that, you know, prior to the pandemic, we were like, can cap rates keep going down? And then they kept going down. And even right now, buoyed by I'm sure interest rates are multi-res team. I think, did their, did their had a banner year for 2020, like a record year for them? Speaker 1 (20m 46s): Yeah, we we've hearing that a lot is that, you know, 20, 20 and now 2021 in particular, it's been a great year. 2021 saw the largest increase in rent we've ever seen quarters for Q3. So we just finished up two, three, we're still finalizing the results, but shaping up that Q2 Q3 and Q1 of 2021 are the top three years in terms of demand for multi-family. And it, you know, that's across the board. However, if you start breaking it down by markets, the south in particular is really, really very strong. I mean, I'm going to keep harping on myself just because it is as strong as it is, but you know, multi-family is price per unit has gone up by 30% compared to pre-recession averages in Sunbelt markets rents in, like, for example, Austin increased by 15%, six months, you get, you kind of become to begin to become worried more about affordability than anything else, which is at some point, this becomes a economic macro economic problem, which of course then comes back to haunt investors. You know, a lot of that gain has already happened and really have seen a deceleration, which you would expect given seasonal trends in multi-family. And, you know, in some of these markets, you really are beginning to hit the, the affordability limit. And that's where you can start making a great argument for like, for manufactured homes or for mobile home parks. For example, particularly in the south, the Southern states, they don't work as well in the Northern states. I would argue at least mobile home parks. Speaker 0 (22m 27s): Yeah. Neither up here. Speaker 1 (22m 30s): It gets a little chilly. I know, but it's, multi-family has done, has probably been the outperformer, which, you know, given all the news around how well single-family pricing has done is isn't that surprising. And if you, if you look at single family, a single family price growth compared to multi-family rent growth, single family price growth in almost every single market has grown faster. So it's not like your, your other options is getting any easier to, to afford. Speaker 0 (23m 8s): Yeah. And in terms of like your outlook on this, in terms of the actual properties themselves, like, are we finding that in these markets that there are underperforming assets that are now being utilized to their, to their, you know, market rents, you know, value, add deals. Do you think that is what's happening in a lot of these markets? Or do you think that the pressure of lower interest rates is, is what's fueling most of, most of the acquisition in, in multifamily being an asset class that's pretty much being subsidized or was subsidized for the last year, year and a half by the government in most in countries. Speaker 1 (23m 46s): Yeah. I mean, that's a huge part of it. And then on top of that, I think lower interest rates is extremely helpful for multi-family acquisitions. You know, part of it is it, some of it has to be just the inflation hedge that you'd get for multi-family. If, if you were to all concerned about inflation and you want to look in real estate multi-family is probably your best bet just given. And we can talk about this at some point, just given the short lease term is, but the, the eviction moratorium also, at least in our opinion, has had a pretty big effect on multifamily demand because on one end, you're, you know, you are seeing a huge spike in terms of demand, but then we kind of scratch our heads at it for a while. But then if you think about it, we weren't evicting anybody. There's 800,000 evictions in the U S per year. I don't know what it is for Canada. That's 800,000 units that aren't going, that aren't in negative demand. We aren't, we aren't building, you know, these, these class C units were, if we're building anything, it's, it's a class, a, a, that's the only thing you can really afford to build right now that will, that will pencil. So, you know, people are, people are basically sitting in their home, sitting on their apartments, they're unwilling to move. So we aren't seeing that, that negative demand. And on the other, the other side, we're seeing a huge uptick in people separating how tools, if you're, let's say you're a 22 year old kid and you you're living with four roommates, we're seeing people decouple those households and begin to move out into their own places. All of that kind of leads to these, this huge spike in, in multi-family. Speaker 0 (25m 36s): Yeah, I guess the real question, like you said before, it's, it's the affordability aspect you have, like you said, 30% increase, I think in evaluation, but 15% increase in rental rates. And there is, there is a certain level where, you know, you, you just hit a, you hit a wall in terms of affordability from the, from the consumer point of view. Speaker 1 (25m 56s): Yeah. I think it's, it's going to have, it was a concern even before the pandemic was, you know, a home affordability shelter affordability, and it certainly did not get better. Speaker 0 (26m 8s): And on the construction end, you, you, you mentioned class a, are you seen quite a bit of construction on the multi-family side? Generally, Speaker 1 (26m 14s): It's pretty, it's pretty much in line with the last couple of years, to be honest with you, which was pretty significant. But on the other end, we saw a huge amounts of construction delays even before the pandemic. And it, it kind of acted as this filter for, for supply being added, frankly, especially, especially down south where there's huge amounts of demand, there's huge amounts of supply waiting to be added. But at th at the same time, they just can't get it out. Whether it be supply costs, labor is certainly a problem. Anybody and anybody who's trying to build multi-family right now has told me that labor is almost impossible to find at this point. Yeah. Speaker 0 (26m 51s): I mean, just even on the small scale or we're doing projects in our area, it's, it is extremely slow. And, you know, you talk to anybody in the construction industry. They'll, they'll tell you the same thing right now. Not just supplies, but labor as well. If we shift over to, to that piece on inflation, it's been a hot topic in terms of ink spilled. I'm sure it was one of those things that, yeah, the over the last little while there's been enough fuss bulled over on, on the inflation side, what's your view from the data that you guys are seeing? Speaker 1 (27m 25s): Yeah. I, I take the view that I am in agreement with the bond market and the fed that it is transitory. I think the definition of transitory has been changing pretty significantly because at first I think it was six months and now it's probably going to be a little bit longer than that. Kind of where I begin to split a little bit from the fed at least, is that it's inflation is likely to be higher for longer. I don't think it's going to be quite as high as it has been. A lot of that. A lot of the reasons it's been high currently, it has a lot more to do with the pandemic and kind of short-term factors. You know, you can think about shortages and chips. You can think about shortages and car parts, for example, or appliances, as well as transportation demand, which should burn itself off and on top of the stimulus. But the fed changed how it does it targets inflation. And I think it really went under reported. I think a lot, it, it didn't really make as much noise as it should have because what they're essentially doing now is they're saying, okay, we need to make up for really chronically low inflation in the, the last cycle. So we're going to allow inflation to run hot, to get the labor market gains that we saw at the end of the last cycle. Because if you look at between 2018 and 2020, the federal site statistics around minority wage gains, for example, it didn't really begin to appear until the economy was basically at full employment. What that three, 3.5, 3.4% unemployment rate. They want to see that again, that's Jerome Powell has basically explicitly stated that that's what they're looking for. That being said, the fed has begun to sound a little bit more hawkish. Cause I think they, I know they were taken by surprise by the how high inflation got, and they're, they're likely going to raise rates by the end of next year. All of that said, I, I still believe the fed is willing to let inflation run above that 2% mark for the next couple of years. Speaker 0 (29m 30s): So for those that don't know what you're referring to in terms of the under-reporting is the fact that they've, they've broken off of the, the, what they used to be the 2% target, is that right? Speaker 1 (29m 40s): Yeah, I, yeah. I mean, I was in colleges, every continent was, you know, they target 2%, they adjust rates based off of that. That's obviously a little more complicated than that, but now they're targeting a longer term inflation average of 2%. And because inflation from 2010 to 2019 ran between, you know, according to their measure of inflation PC around between 1.5 and 1.8% for most of that, they view allowing it to run from two to 3% as making up for some of that loss, those loss pricing increases over the last cycle. Speaker 0 (30m 15s): So in terms of, from the investor perspective, if your outlook as to how that informs your decisions from a real estate point of view, you know, what does, what does that leave us with in terms of the discussion that we've had even today in terms of the different asset classes and how you view economic decisions and investment decisions? Speaker 1 (30m 35s): Yeah, I mean, look, inflation is here to stay at, which is actually fair, especially since it's not, you know, hyperinflation I, where the fed is going to be forced to raise rates quickly. Hopefully, you know, it's actually good news for real estate. Real estate is a real asset, you know, I'm sure, you know, everybody, every economist has said this at some point, you know, real estate is a real asset. It, it benefits from a real value gains and holding real value, which means that in an inflationary environment, commercial real estate itself is a good play within those property types. There are some that are better than others, especially if you're unsure of how stable and the inflation rate is going to be the shorter, the lease term, especially in a higher demand property types that, you know, you can think about industrial or especially multi-family, it means you can adjust your, your rent increases to match inflation. If you look at, and we've seen this actually in the market, if you look at NOI gains real NOI gains from Nate grieve since 1990, there was only two real periods of actual real NOI gains from the nineties to the, from early nineties to the late nineties and from 2010 to 2015. Other than that, if you deflate real and alive for multi-family, it's basically flat, which, which essentially means that NOI is just, is, is working as an inflation hedge. You get the same real return year after year. That that makes multi-family really attractive. Industrial actually has not done that well, based on that same measure up until very recently. Speaker 0 (32m 12s): Yeah. I liked the idea. I was always told by a mentor of mine there where, you know, real estate is one of those few industries investment that you can download inflation to your, to your customer, you know, pretty much one for one. Speaker 1 (32m 27s): Yeah, you can, it, it is extremely easy to just pass on that inflation to the investor, unlike pretty much any other asset class. I mean, if you think about bonds, for example, you can't do that for the most part. You just, you know, if you invest in a bond, you you're losing real value every, every coupon payment. Speaker 0 (32m 44s): Yeah. And I th and I think to your point earlier where you have those shorter terms with multifamily, it's obviously easier to do, but I was just reading a lease yesterday that was kind of the old school lease where the, it was over 10 years, but the, the bump ups, the step-ups and rent were basically the CP attached to a CPI inflator. So we haven't seen those as much, usually landlords, if anything, at least prior to the pandemic, they would just say, okay, it's, you know, 10 bucks a square foot now 12 bucks 14. And usually that would be more than inflation, but they have some mechanism in there. Speaker 1 (33m 17s): Yeah. Well, I was going to say, the other thing landlords might want to start thinking about is, is indexing it to inflation and that's, that's actually the great part. I mean, that's why we target a specific inflation rate is because then you can make these easy decisions. I know inflation is going to be 2%, it's a very stiff assumption. So, you know, we can, we can just assume a 2% going forward. Now you have to start thinking about, okay, is it, you know, is it going to go, you're making a bet. Is inflation going to be long-term? Is this higher inflation could be long-term or is it going to come back down? How much is it going to come back down? It's really difficult. And while it does sound really nice to indexed, to inflation, if you're an office, a landlord right now, I think you struggle a little bit because you don't have the negotiating power necessarily that you did two years ago. Speaker 0 (34m 5s): Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of, so in terms of that, how that view informs the interest rate discussion, the way that, you know, the fed will respond, if, you know, if employment is higher than, or full employment, or if changes in inflation that, that they're measuring, how, how do you see that impacting the interest rate decisions? Speaker 1 (34m 27s): Yeah, so I, I I'm, I think I'm in the minority here, at least in terms of the broader economics where I really don't see interest rates increasing significantly. And I know that's a really economist answer to touching it a little bit, but I don't see interest rates hedging or increasing significantly because one of what the feds, the fed said about how they're going to react to inflation, they said, they're willing to let inflation run hot. They care more about the labor market gains right now on that needs us more liquidity in the system for longer, which, you know, can go only a few places. It can, it can drive. And we have seen equity increase by multiples. And then the only other place we can go really is bonds for, you know, those multi-trillion dollar that multi-trillion dollar liquidity pool we have right now. I mean, it's at the point where the banks just basically don't know where to put the money. All of that, to me suggests a, you know, short, you know, lower interest rates on top of that. If you think about the demographic factors that are affecting the United States, you know, slower demographic growth going forward, that's not going to change. That's baked in effectively. Unless people begin to move here in a mass on top of technological change, you know, you would expect to see more automation going forward. I think it's coming faster than a lot of people like to acknowledge that pushes down prices, which then pushes down interest rates. And I know globalization is no longer it, maybe isn't moving forward as quickly or as moving forward at all. But globalization still means a lower interest rate environment. You know, the fed in 2018, tried to push interest rates to 2.5% and ran into huge liquidity problems in the market. There isn't there, they don't and they view, and this is their view. They don't view the neutral interest rate as much higher than rate where they're no longer stimulating nor creating drag on the economy is much higher than two or two and a half percent. So all of that, to me suggests maybe slightly higher interest rates from what was the tenure at. At one point I, you know, 50, 50 basis points, but maybe not, it's probably gonna be lower than it was before, before the pandemic. Speaker 0 (36m 45s): Would there be something that would change that view for you or, or a few factors that would change that view for you in terms of where interest rates could go? Cause, I mean, that's usually the big thing where a lot of people say, oh, if inflation is going in this direction, interest rates have to, you know, come up to that, you know, come up as a result of that. But yeah, what are, what are, what are some factors that may, may kind of give you pause to, to think it might go the other way or at least increase over what you're, what you're talking about? Speaker 1 (37m 13s): That's a great question. And, you know, as inflation has continued to stay high, it's been something I've been thinking more and more about, but the, you know, inflation first and foremost above all else, if inflation gets out of hand, it, it becomes a inflation spiral. That's when I think, you know, you'll begin to see interest rates really start to hike. The other, the other concern would be the fed. It depends on who Biden dominates next year for the fed. If we get someone who's hawkish, if we see you're going to see some more hawkish fed governors, I think that in a more hawkish fed chairman that could change my view on interest rates. And finally, we begin, we begin to S you know, removing chewy really begins to drain liquidity faster than I thought it would. No we're right now, we are still buying billions of dollars of bonds every month. I don't expect removing QV would do that, but that could drive interest rates higher if the, if the market begins to react to, or begins to become concerned about liquidity in the us, into global bond markets. Right. I, I sh I should mention real quick that also there are wars and pandemics that I can't predict. I learned that last year. Speaker 0 (38m 40s): Yeah. That was a, it was, I remember two, two or three years ago. And I won't say who the company was, but, you know, I remember it was couched almost as a joke, you know, barring any geopolitical disputes or a global pandemic. And I was like, oh my God. But yeah, those are always the things you're like, you know, there's these extra exogenous factors that you're not going to be able to, to forecast these black swans. So I guess the, you know, from the real estate perspective, that's a good overview of where we're at today in terms of the different asset classes. And we're, you know, the view of the economy is just want to be mindful of your time. Joseph, we have four questions. We ask everybody before we, we end the episode. So if you're okay with that, we'll kick it off. Speaker 1 (39m 25s): Absolutely. Speaker 0 (39m 26s): What's something, you know, now in your career, you wish you knew when you started. Speaker 1 (39m 32s): That's a great question that it's okay to be wrong and it's okay to make a mistake. I think I was, at least at the beginning of my career was a little more concerned about mistakes and being wrong. If you're, if you're an economist, if you work in economics, you know, if you work in real estate and you're trying to forecast trends, you're, you're going to be wrong and that's okay. It's just, just, don't be wrong. You just learn from the mistake. Don't make the same mistake twice, twice, I think is what I needed to learn as opposed to you have to be right the first time. Speaker 0 (40m 1s): Yeah. It's all always lies. I camera it was like Truman or something that said, ah, give me a one-handed economist. Everyone says on the, on one hand, on the other hand, but yeah. I Speaker 1 (40m 11s): Mean, I'm certainly, I'm certainly guilty of that Speaker 0 (40m 15s): While you want to be precise with your answers in terms of mentorship, what would you tell younger people coming into the industry or your views of mentorship in general? Speaker 1 (40m 25s): Oh, I would not be where I am without mentors. I think it's so important to talk to people who that are in a place that you want to be, or are doing things that you want to do. I've had some fantastic mentors for both in real estate and in, in economics before, before I worked in commercial real estate, I was working in banking regulation. I was thinking regulation research, I suppose I worked with some fantastic economists that taught me everything I knew, including, you know, my, my advisor in college. I, I, you know, like find someone that you think is worthwhile to talk to and then just bug them. I think I was my first job. I was in the chief economist office, every opportunity I could just asking questions, being curious, trying to learn as much as I could cause that, and it's, it's paid dividends for me. Speaker 0 (41m 25s): Awesome. Are there any recommendations you could give a book recommendations, podcasts, I guess, with the spirit of this conversation, maybe in real estate or economics? Yeah. Speaker 1 (41m 34s): There's, that's not a good question. There's two, there's two, there's two that I, one that I love just for all time, which is thinking fast and slow by data economy, which, you know, I, I like to think that I don't necessarily subscribe to the, the basic, the, what a lot of mainstream economists think about in terms of models. I think there's more to it than that. And David Kahneman does a really good job of breaking down how people think and how that relates to economics. Fantastic book. It's a really interesting read, even if you're not an economist and the other one is the rise and fall of economic of us economic growth. I believe it's, I'm reading it right now. So I should know the name. Speaker 0 (42m 17s): Yeah. We'll put a link. I think I know the one, the one you're talking about, Speaker 1 (42m 23s): I, you know, the first economist I worked under was an economic historian. So he instilled that interest in me. And it basically shows that, you know, the century from 1870 to 1970 was a period of unbelievable technological change and economic growth. And I it's really fascinating and it informs a lot of what I think will happen going forward in terms of slower, you know, slower but steady economic growth. We're not going to see those four to 5% GDP gains without, you know, huge amounts of stimulus anymore. And it was good. Speaker 0 (42m 54s): Yeah. I have a, if it's Robert Gordon, is that a that's right? Yep. Okay. We'll put it. Speaker 1 (43m 0s): I think it's a fantastic book. I really like it. If you liked economics, I would suggest that it's. Speaker 0 (43m 6s): Yeah, no, it's, it's one of those things where I w was interested in reading, but unless you get like a recommendation, sometimes you go down a rabbit hole, but the Conaman that's I think, correct me if I'm wrong. I think Conaman was the first non economist to win the Nobel prize in economics. Speaker 1 (43m 23s): Yeah. He was a psychologist and I it's, it's a lot about how the brain thinks and makes decisions and you know, it really attacks that idea of rationality and really looks at why people actually make decisions. It's, it's a great book. It really changed how I thought about, you know, economic modeling and where I work, how we, how markets work. Speaker 0 (43m 45s): Very cool. We'll put a link to both last question. First car, make and model. Speaker 1 (43m 51s): Oh, I had a 2004, a Honda accord, which is it. And it was, it had a bigger engine than it was supposed to have, which was great because if you've ever driven in Massachusetts, all of the on-ramps are about five feet long, so you have to really gun it. And so that was a fantastic car. I missed that car still. I would rather drive that than when I'm driving now. Speaker 0 (44m 20s): Right on. I feel like a lot of engines were stuffed into those older Accords and civics, Joseph, for people to connect with you or a, you know, anything related to the information or data you do with CoStar work and they reach out, Speaker 1 (44m 34s): Yeah, we have a website, I'll send it to you for blankets, CoStar advisory. You know, you can always find me. I write a lot of articles for the website, so you'll see me on CoStar, if you have it, which I would suggest otherwise, you know, just I'm on LinkedIn. Speaker 0 (44m 54s): My guest today has been Joseph Biassi Joseph. Thanks for being part of working capital. Speaker 1 (44m 59s): Thank you for having me. Speaker 0 (45m 10s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse, for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five-star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.

One of the most important aspects of owning and managing real estate is good property management. Though it is not a glamorous work, property maintenance can make or break your business, as it is where occupancy and revenue heavily rely upon. Thus it is important to look at the realities of your property and work effectively and systematically on them with of course a credible and truly experienced property manager… just like Alex Martinez. Join John Brackett in today's episode as he and Alex discuss the importance of a good property management and shed some light on the most common mistakes that property owners commit. Tips on wise capital expenditures, priority maintenance areas and some golden nuggets are as well ready for you to pick up along the conversation! Episode Highlights: Why is maintenance so important for an operator Importance of having a good maintenance expert to help you Adding value to a property through great maintenance Strategies to wisely manage your property The role of studying capital expenditure for property management Putting a plan in place to deal with maintenance and have it go as planned Alex's secret to being a property management expert Golden Nugget: “It's Not What You Expect, It's What You Inspect” Connect With Alex: Email  469-688-1553 About Our Guest: Alex Martinez an expert in maintenance and operations in apartments with more than 12 years of experience in the industry whose goal is to save money and increase the review in the daily operations of any asset, with a long story in Dallas-Fort worth working in all kinds of properties from A to D, ensuring problems get to solve and cash flow stay healthy. ---   Did you enjoy today's episode? Please click here to leave a review for The We Build Great Apartment Communities. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get notified when a new episode comes out! Do you know someone who might enjoy this episode? Share this episode to inspire and empower! Connect with John Brackett and We Build Great Apartment Communities Instagram @webuildgreatcommunities Facebook @buildingreatcommunities LinkedIn @brackettjohn Website www.fidelitybps.com Subscribe to The We Build Great Apartment Communities Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Do you think you would be a great fit for the show? Apply to be a guest by clicking . Fidelity Business Partners, Inc. 6965 El Camino Real Suite 105-190 Carlsbad, CA 92009 D: 760-301-5311 F: 760-987-6065

This episode features the voice of struggling bless but not alone. Not the host but the announcer. Why not check out this episode. And learn more about blazing Blake in blind for a purpose. Blake Lindsay is the Manager of Communications and Outreach with Envision Dallas. Totally blind since infancy, Blake offers a unique perspective on all aspects of the Envision Dallas employment, education and programs. Blake Lindsay is a well-known voice talent on Dallas Fort worth radio stations such as KISS-FM and KLUV and manages his own production company Blazin' Blake Productions in his free time. He produces nationwide radio and TV commercials, and specialized audio branding for businesses. He has also authored two books. Out of Sight Living: A Sightless Person with Pure Vision, as well as Blind for a Purpose, Turning Life Challenges into Purpose in Life. Prior to joining Envision Dallas, Lindsay worked with Zig Ziglar Corporation, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit and Bank of America. He attended Brookhaven Community College in Farmers Branch/North Dallas. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/teresa-guffanti/support

Tony (00:00):I couldn't imagine how far I had fallen. The truth be told, like, I couldn't imagine it was happening to me. I thought this has gotta be some kind of a weird dream, but, it was no dream that's for sure. You know, in one of the jobs in there too was, was scrubbing the latrines in individual cells. And as I was doing that, you know, scrubbing out a stainless steel toilet. I was sitting there thinking, man, three months ago, I was flying a triple seven, Captain, eating cheese and fruit on a tray. And now I'm, on my knees scrubbing a toilet out so that maybe I can get back and go flying again.. (00:42):You are listening to flying straight, and aviators guide to navigating through a life of sobriety. People in the flying industry, and other walks of life, will share their experiences of living a life free of alcohol and other drugs. You will also hear from experts in the world of addiction and self-improvement join Andrew O'Meally, airline, pilot, and non-practicing alcoholic, as he takes you on a journey discovering how a sober life can lead to a deeper level of happiness.Andrew (01:20):Hi everyone. My guest today is retired. Airline Captain Tony Driza talking to us all the way from West Olive, Michigan in the United States. Tiny grew up in Muskegon. I hope I've pronounced that right. It's 25 miles or so down the road from where he is right now. And other than a stint in new England, he's always called Michigan home. Throughout his amazing career, Tony flew some pretty nice airplanes, including a range of Boeing's, the seven O seven, the seven two seven, the seven five seven and the seven six, seven. He also operated the DC 10 and the MD80 before getting an airline. He flew a whole lot of light aircraft as well. He completed his career in command of a Boeing triple seven - big wide body operating between Tokyo and Dallas Fort worth. It was a classically beautiful ending to his career. As he taxiied in towards the terminal. You can just imagine on either side of the taxiway, the fire trucks shooting their water cannons in the air and forming an arch for Tony to maneuver past. This is a tradition in aviation to salute, farewell and thank retiring airline captains for a job well done. So it is a big deal and it's something that is earned when he got off the aircraft, his family were waiting for him to celebrate a perfect end to a perfect career. You might think. Well, the perfect end part that's pretty accurate, but as Tony will tell you shortly, the journey was far from perfect. He didn't just start with a company and fly for a few years then walk away. There were a few interesting events along the way. His career path was not one you'd probably expect from such an experienced pilot. You see Tony had a problem with alcohol so much so that when he drank, he would break out in handcuffs, a direct quote from him. Welcome, Tony.Tony (03:23):Thanks, Andrew. Good to be here.Andrew (03:25):Good to see you. How's life in, Michigan sunny, MichiganTony (03:30):Sunny today was sunny. It was just cold, uh, is very cold right now, but not cold enough for ice on the lakes. , just about good weather for, we've got a little snow on the ground, good weather for riding a fat tire bicycle through the woods. dealing with the COVID stuff. Pretty much like everybody around the world is, and our governor is starting to relax things a little bit. Uh, we haven't been able to eat inrestaurants forever and hurting in another 10 days. We're actually going to be able to do limited, um, dining inside and in restaurants with some restrictions, but we're moving in the right direction. So that's a good thing.Andrew (04:07):Yeah, that, that sounds like a really good thing. So a Michigan, all your life. And , you got an interest inaviation as a young guy.Tony (04:18):Yeah, I really did. We, I lived pretty close under the flight path for Muskegon County airport. So pretty much from the time I can remember wandering around outside, you know, I'd see aircraft flying overhead and my dad would occasionally take us out to the airport. We'd watch, watch airplanes take off and land. And then when I was about 13 years old, I got my first plane ride with a friend of mine who had just got his private pilot license. And I'll tell you what, that was just pure magic. There was nothing like it. I could not imagine how cool that was to see the earth from that perspective, you know, just watching that shadow of the aircraft get tiny as we, as we took off pure magic. And I knew right then right there that, that was going to be the career for me, for sure.Andrew (05:06):Alright, great. So first solo, how old were you when you, when you flew an airplane on your own?Tony (05:12):I soloed when I was 16, I didn't have a driver's license yet. I rode my bicycle to the airport to actually,, do my first solo. So I, I, I soloed early as early as I could, 16 in the States, got my private license when I was 17. And then I think they felt sorry for me because I was spending so much money on flying lessons. I actually hired me to pump gas at the airport. I started pumping gas and washing airplanes and, you know, whatever they needed doing. I did that. And then by the time I was 18 and graduated from high school, I had my commercial, my, all my ground instructor ratings, instrument instructor, and, uh, basic CFI as well. So had pretty much everything except the ATP, the time I got out of high school.Andrew (05:59):Wow. Oh, that's amazing. And then, uh, high school, what happened then?Tony (06:03):Well, after high school, I went, I spent a couple of years in a community college,, and I was still, I at that time, , I graduated from pumping gas. I actually flight instructing and flying some single engine charter. I didn't have a multi-engine rating yet. So I flew some single engine charters., then I continued college in Lansing. Michigan went to Michigan state university, picked up my multi-engine ATP when I was there. And then started flying, multi-engine charters, um, Beech eighteens, Baron, Cessna, three tens, that sort of stuff. When I was working there, when I got hired by American airlines when I was 24.Andrew (06:40):Well, okay. So, flying has definitely been in your blood for the vast majority of your life. And, one would think that that would, create a pretty sort of stable and motivating type life, but that isn't exactly thecase, How about you wind the clock back a few years and if you can just paint a picture of how your life was, back a number of years ago?Tony (07:08):Well, I, you know, I really thought it was, it was going along pretty well. Um, you know, I got married when I was pretty young children from my first wife. I was actually married three times over the course of my life so far, but three great kids from my first life or wife first life's wife. and, you know, I thought things were going along. Okay. ,I thought I drank pretty normally at that point, but relationships for me were never as easy as, flying an aircraft that seemed to come naturally, anything to do with relationships with spouses that was kind of tough, and you know, the tougher the relationship got, I think the more I tried to solve it by, you know, maybe having another drink, you know, I seemed like that kind of took all of the sting out of things made.Tony (08:00):I thought it made everything great. And in fact, it's, even early on as early as maybe 30 years ago, I could kind of tell that that was my coping mechanism. When a relationship, especially with my partner was starting to go sideways, that I would usually, you know, turn towards alcohol to try and solve it. And it just progressively got worse. I...

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“More From Da Berry and Beyond” Terry Delahoussaye and Teresa Gilcrease Following the cold case of Nelson Landry Jr., comes another cold case from “Da Berry.”  Terry Delahoussaye, nicknamed “Sniff”, was celebrating his 62nd birthday at the seafood connection in his hometown of New Iberia, Louisiana.  On that night of December 5, 2015, Mr. Delahoussaye was murdered. He was found slumped over in his vehicle where he suffered a gunshot wound to the head on the 300 block of Field Street.  Those who had seen him last noted that his gold jewelry and money were missing from his person when police found him.  Mr. Delahoussaye was an active member and volunteer in his community. His murder remains unsolved and is an ongoing investigation. 44-year-old Teresa Marie Wren Gilcrease was back in her hometown of Alexandria, Louisiana to attend her daughter’s high school graduation in 2002 where she would go missing. She and her husband had moved to Baker City, Oregon where he worked as a pharmacist.   At this time, Mrs. Gilcrease was staying in Boyce, Louisiana.  Her last known movements were leaving the bar called The Stick Pool on MacArthur Dr. in Alexandria in the wee hours with an unknown male on June 10th, 2002. A sketch of the suspect was circulated, and her rental car was found in the parking lot. Ms. Gilcrease’s body was found not long after by a farmer in the Alexandria area. She had been runover by a car and stabbed.  The Rapides Sheriff’s department ruled out 50 suspects, including a Louisiana State Trooper.  Crime Stoppers featured the case in 2013, however, her murder remains unsolved and is an and is an ongoing investigation. See Full Transcrit Below Roy (00:03): Hello, and welcome to another episode of mysteries of the Bayou. I'm Roy I'm Scarlet. We got a couple of great cases to bring you today. Uh, the first one we're going to talk about is, again, out of new Iberia. It is, uh, uh, Mr. Terry Delahoussaye. He was, um, he was nicknamed sniff and on, uh, December 5th, 2015, he was found deceased in his car at the age of 62. And, uh, upon further investigation, the, um, police found that he had been shot in the head and, uh, the way I read this, it was like, um, it was like the driver's side door may have been locked, but the passenger door was open. And as I kind of what you got. Yeah, Scarlett (00:57): Yeah. That's, that's what I read. Um, we were able to get a police report and, um, uh, you know, some of the details are a little sparse, but that was, um, definitely laid out for us. Okay. Roy (01:08): Yeah. So, uh, the other thing, I think this was his birthday or right around his birthday. They had been out that night having a celebration. They had been over at the, uh, seafood connection. And then, um, after the party broke up, he left and, uh, was later found in the 300 block of field street. Now the, um, they say that once he left the seafood connection, after the celebration that his, uh, that he did have cash and jewelry on him that were not found after the police found his body. Now, the, the other thing that was a little bit strange is that, um, the, the way that the police report and the way that some other reports, uh, talk about this, it was almost like his car was in, still in the middle of the road running when they found him. And, uh, uh, somebody called in and said, Hey, there's a guy slumped over in the car. Roy (02:15): And the police came out, of course, found that he had been shot. So it's almost like he either stopped in the street for somebody he knew, or some people stopped him, you know, in order to, uh, to Rob him. But, um, yeah, that was, um, it's terrible. At 62, he had had my understanding worked at the same company for about 30 years. So he sounded like a, you know, a stable individual and, uh, just happened to run into, um, some gun violence. Probably like I said, it sounds like probably for robbery of the cash and jewelry, uh, really were not found on his person. Did you have any other, uh, any other details? Scarlett (03:02): No, it's, it's just, you know, it's, it's super tragic. Um, this man seemed like a lovely person and it was just so sad. It was, you know, his 62nd birthday, he was out celebrating and, um, that this happened to him and you know, that his family still doesn't unfortunately have any answers. This is still an ongoing investigation. Roy (03:21): Yeah. And if we can backtrack on our time, I know we talked a little bit about this. In our last episode, we had a, another person out of new Iberia. Uh, but, um, at this timeframe he was found December 5th, 2015. If my math is right, this is at a point when the new Iberia police department had been disbanded. And so, uh, I think that was from 2004 to 2018. Is that correct? Yep, that's correct. Okay. So this was a point when the new Iberia police department had been disbanded. And so the, um, new, the, excuse me, the Iberia parish Sheriff's office is the one that's been handling the investigation. Of course, w while we did get a police report that had minimal details of the do's site, that it says being, uh, an ongoing investigation is why they could not provide us more details, but there seem to be quite a few unsolved homicides during this time period. And even though that after 2008 18, the new Iberia police department has been reinstated and is up and running again, these investigations that happened during this time period still remain with the Sheriff's office. So that is, um, unless you have something else to add, that is really all, again, this is one of those, Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Scarlett (04:56): Oh, you know, uh, you know, I'm sure that certain information is obviously as, as, as being withheld because it is ongoing. Um, you know, I would like to know, you know, maybe the car was fingerprinted if any neighbors were questioned, if they had seen anything that were on that block, um, all of these kinds of, you know, basic things, but again, there's most, most likely a lot of this information is probably being withheld. Roy (05:20): Yeah. And it's also, um, you know, was this on his way home? I, you know, um, you're more familiar with the area, so I don't know a field is close to the seafood connection, but, you know, was this on his way home? Did he go over there for a reason? Um, you know, just a lot of, a lot of questions like that, that still remain. And, um, the other thing is like, again, just want to reiterate this as exactly why we started this podcast is because people like mr. DeLuise, they just have not gotten a lot of coverage. Now. I'm not, not faulting law that maybe they didn't have a lot to go on with the, um, clues or, you know, during the investigation turning stuff up. But there just, hasn't been a lot of media coverage. And so, you know, it just makes you wonder really what has happened since the time of his death. Roy (06:16): And, uh, anyway, we just want to be sure to put all of this out there on the off chance that may be, somebody will come forward. Either they may have been on this block at that time. They may have seen him leave in the seafood connection. Cause, uh, you know, we don't know, maybe somebody jumped in the car with them when he got in the parking lot and, you know, forced him to drive over there until they finally got what they wanted. You know, those are the things that, um, I think a lot of times as witnesses, we don't realize the power of the information that we may have where we may not have seen the actual crime committed, but we may have seen some things that led up to it. That would be very helpful to law enforcement. So again, if, um, if anybody knows anything, please contact the Iberia parish Sheriff's department with anything. All right. Anything else before we move on? Speaker 3 (07:13): Nope. Nope. Moving on, moving along. All right. Roy (07:15): Well, we'll talk about, uh, next. We're gonna talk about, uh, Theresa Marie Ren Gilchrist, and I do apologize for the jets flying over the S the sound of freedom. We love it. We live not far from an air force base and also a Lockheed plant. So they're always though sometimes flying and testing every now and then we do get a little, a little tree top buzz come through. So if you hear it, that's what it is, but Speaker 3 (07:45): Is it just insert the top gun soundtrack? How was Roy (07:53): Actually re reciting a line from that show? And I show up, and I don't know, 30 something years ago now, but still, still recite reciting the line. Oh, I know what it was. I was telling somebody the other day, you know, do you have that number for that truck? Speaker 3 (08:08): That's fine. Uh, Roy (08:11): Anyway, uh, so yeah, this is Theresa Marie Rin Gilchrist's. Um, she was actually found in repeats parish, Louisiana, which is the, the, uh, Alexandria area, but, um, mrs. Gill crease born on February 14th, 1958. She was, uh, found in 2002. So she would have been around 44 at the time of her death. She was a native of Boyce. Um, just again, let me just kind of drop back for a little bit on, uh, before we move too much further off of Terry DeLuise. Uh, first off we did reach out to the Iberia Sheriff's Parris department. See if they would provide somebody to come on and talk to us, they declined. And we also did look for some relatives of mr. DeLuise and were unable to make contact with them. So as we go through these cases, if you know of, uh, relatives, we would still like to talk to them to get clarity, and we would even record, um, you know, another episode kind of a follow up with a family member or just whatever information we could gain. Roy (09:25): So please always keep that in mind, if you know of any information personally, or if he know somebody connected with the family, uh, it would be awesome for you to pass this information along to them and just let them know we would still like to talk to them. And the reason I brought that up is because I had, uh, on ms. Gill crease, I had reached out to her sister who still is in the area. And I had also, uh, extended invitation to the repeats parish Sheriff's office to provide somebody and they declined. So, uh, anyway, she was about 44 at the time of her death. She's a native of Boyce and she, um, she was living in Baker, Baker, city, Oregon at the time she had, uh, returned to Alexandria to attend her daughter's high school graduation. So, um, I don't know if you have any more details leading up to that. Scarlett (10:27): Yeah. Um, and then, you know, we do know that her, um, I guess she had moved or relocated, uh, to Oregon because her husband is, uh, was a pharmacist and got a job out there. And it looks like, um, Theresa was maybe a social worker. She got her master's in social work at LSU. So again, just your everyday working professionals. Roy (10:47): Yeah. Yeah. So she was last seen on June 10th, 2002, she was leaving the stick pool and billiards, which is on MacArthur drive there in Alexandria. She was last seen about 1:30 AM with an unknown male. And, uh, there, there is actually a composite that we will provide it's, um, it's on the, um, it's been in the newspapers and maybe on the internet, you can find it, but, uh, there was some people that saw him and what's, what's odd is that, um, I want to think that there were over 50 people that were interviewed that were in or around this stick at that time of not that, you know, still hasn't really provided enough answers as we go through this. Uh, you know, you'll see that there, there have been some, uh, movement in the investigation, but just no, nothing concrete enough to bring somebody to trial. Um, she had a rental car, which, um, she had into Dallas and then took a rental car and it was found in the bar's parking lot. Roy (12:00): And, um, her body was actually found by a farm worker at one 32 Jenkins road, R I think it's also called sand and gravel there in Alexandria, uh, East of highway one 67, pretty close to the campus of LX LSU, Alexandria. Uh, she had been stabbed at least five times and run over by a vehicle. And the family feels that one of the people that have been interviewed is the actual killer, but again, not enough evidence, this one 32 Jenkins, if you look it up, it's, uh, it's still a fairly rule or it is rule, uh, part of the County. So there wasn't a lot of probably, you know, after one 30 in the morning, there probably wasn't a lot of traffic on this road. And I don't think there were any houses or other establishment clothes that somebody would have seen something. Um, also, uh, not only was she stabbed five times, but she was run over by vehicles. Roy (13:07): So, uh, again, not a lot of details in, you know, if it was a high speed or something that lower speed, but could be some damage to a vehicle. So if he knows somebody that, that, uh, back at this timeframe that had damage that was unexplainable, or, you know, if you worked in a body shop and fix somebody's car, you know, those are all things that would be very helpful, um, you know, to come forward. So there, um, because they have, they don't have the vehicle. There were no, there was no DNA that was left at the scene. Um, they have conducted numerous lineups, uh, throughout time. The, uh, like I said, the family feels that the, that the, there was a person who was interviewed that was responsible and the, uh, 2003 associated press article report, you know, there were over 50 suspects and in her death, including a Louisiana state trooper and this particular trooper and other associated press article also said that this trooper was cleared of serial killing of five young women in Southwest Louisiana, which started in about 2001, the, um, which it's, Scarlett (14:29): Um, I know that part was interesting as well because, um, Derrick Todd Lee was a serial killer that many people were familiar with. Um, he was active from 1992 to 2003. So that certainly would have been on everyone's mind, you know, as a possibility. So I think that was kind of an interesting overlay. Roy (14:51): Yeah. The, um, the other thing that was kind of strange that I found it, it wasn't mentioned everywhere, but, um, I'm trying to get down here to, in my notes that the, um, this state trooper may have been a nephew of the sheriff at the time of repeats parish. Uh, I don't have anything that really, uh, corroborated that I saw it in one place. So again, not, you know, not for sure, just trying to, I'm just trying to report what we have, what we have uncovered, uh, mrs. Gilchrist sister believes again, that, uh, the suspect was interviewed about a year after her killing. And then, um, it said that the, uh, Sheriff's department had spoken with her father again in 2013 about a suspect. And, um, that was about the time it was featured on a, uh, through the crime stopper. So I'm not sure if that was related, maybe a tip came through crime stoppers, um, that put them on to somebody else. Roy (16:05): And, uh, you know, of course her sister described her as a loving mother, sister great-granddaughter and, uh, and, um, excuse me, a great daughter. And that was a, you know, part of the family was part of the reason that she came back, like you said, uh, her and her husband had recently moved to Oregon, but she came back to Alexandria to go to her daughter's, um, um, high school graduation. And, uh, I think she decided to stay around for a little bit. She didn't go, um, uh, just flying in and then immediately home. So she was, you know, kind of hanging around the area some, and, um, it's just sad that, um, you know, somebody going out to have a, have a good, uh, have some fun one evening, and this happens to them. She had been, I was just going to one more thing. I was just going to mention that she had been staying at, um, the, uh, in her parents. She'd been staying with her parents in their boys' home. And she had spent a few days there at an Alexandria hotel as well. So Scarlett (17:20): Yeah. You know, um, I guess what's interesting also about, you know, this case. It was 2002. And, um, I think we had talked a little bit pre-show um, if, if it was possible that, you know, any surveillance footage within the bar, um, on the streets, gas station banks, I know it was in the, it was early in the morning at 1:30 AM, but maybe there was some sort of, kind of, uh, surrounding footage that caught the vehicle or caught her getting in vehicle, you know, just something that kind of tracked her movement. Roy (17:52): Yeah. I, I didn't see anything that had to do with video, and I know that, uh, you know, it's become a lot more prevalent nowadays than it was back then, but like you said, ATM's have had, uh, cameras for years and then also gas stations and things like that. So I'm not sure, uh, what kind of effort, you know, like I said, they, at one time had a pool of 50 suspects, so I guess they might, maybe they thought they had, uh, all they needed. And, you know, then because of th the other thing that was a lot more prevalent in the early two thousands versus today is the storage of video. I mean, it's become much more compact. We have bigger and better storage devices, but a lot of times back in those days, they may be running on a 24 hour loop. So if somebody didn't get to that tape within a certain time period, it would have been recorded over and moved on. We're now, you know, I think a lot of these businesses and, um, public cameras, wherever they think they do a lot better job at storing for longer periods of time, just because of the, you know, the advancements in technology. Scarlett (19:04): Yeah. Uh, certainly, and, you know, and then the other thing, you know, it's unfortunate that, you know, we don't have any information on the vehicle and that there was no DNA at the crime scene, but, you know, I was wondering if, if we even know where the, at, where he at, you know, where she was run over on the road, if there was any track marks, uh, was her body moved after it was hit, you know, a lot of these kinds of details, right? Roy (19:29): Yeah, no. And you would think, I assume that the 50 suspects were probably 50 people who were in this pool hall at the time that she walked out and you would, you know, unless this guy was a stranger in town that just happened to walk into the right place at the right time, you would expect that he would have acquaintances that were probably in there, you know, who he was with and playing pool with as well. So it, again, maybe one of those people, conscience will finally get the better of them and they'll come forward and, you know, provide some details. It's just hard for me to, uh, you know, I've been to those places and every now and then, you know, somebody off the street wanders in that doesn't really know anybody, but typically it's a place where friends go to, you know, maybe have a drink, shoot some pool talk and do things like that. So I would suspect strongly that somebody within this establishment, uh, knew who she left with. Scarlett (20:26): Right. I would agree. Yeah. Roy (20:30): All right. Well that is, um, of course that's all the details I have. Just kind of a recap. If you have any information, uh, on Terry DeLuise out of, uh, new Iberia, if you know, you know anything about his death at all, please call the Iberia Sheriff's department. If you know, any of his family or friends that would be able to provide us more information on, you know, him as an individual and also on the events that may be led up to this evening. Uh, you know, please reach out to us. Uh, our emails areRoy@mysteriesofthebayou.com and scarlet@mysteriesofthebayou.com. We'd be glad to, you know, interact and have a chat and see what further information we could find. And, uh, again, on the second case to Marie ran Gil Chris out of, um, repeats parish, Alexandria was where she was last seen. So if you have any information on her, uh, her investigation is with the, uh, repeats pare Sheriff's office and, uh, be sure and give them, or crime stoppers a call and provide any information that you may have, or if, if you know, family members or friends that could maybe provide more information on, you know, the, the events leading up to her death, uh, you know, prior to that night, that would be great to have them reach out to us as well. Roy (22:04): So on our last episode, we, um, you know, we found a, uh, made us a new friend there in Lafayette, Louisiana, the bookstore, the Beausoleil bookstore. You want to tell us a little bit more about that Scarlet? Scarlett (22:19): Yeah. Uh, so if you haven't already, there's a great independent bookstore in downtown Lafayette there, uh, located on Jefferson street, uh, recently went, uh, about a weekend ago and, um, bought, you know, purchased a bunch of new books. Um, they have a great, uh, French section. So if you are a Francophile and you like to read in French, or you know, that the holidays are coming up and you need a gift, there's a great little, uh, kind of unique French book section as well as a local section. So definitely go in and check it out, sit on one of their couches, uh, enjoy reading. And, uh, the atmosphere is great Beausoleil books. They're located on Jefferson street in downtown Lafayette. Roy (23:00): Yeah. And I posted on our last episode, uh, you know, we've talked a little bit about them and I posted a picture of the books, their logo in, of course of their reading room, but it looks like an awesome place to go sit down, pick your favorite book out and, uh, you know, just kinda enjoy some relaxing time in their reading. Uh, course I love books. And that's why I was so excited to, uh, that you found them is because it's very difficult now with, uh, you know, a lot of bookstores closed down and, um, you know, even here in the Dallas Fort worth area, you have there's maybe one or two, uh, spread all over town. It's not like it used to be where they were on the corner. So that's exciting. We wished them a lot of luck and, you know, one thing that we can do to help them succeed is to patronize them. Roy (23:50): Uh, you know, if you're, if you're in the area of course, drop by the store, pick up your favorite title or, uh, you know, look for something new. If you want to look through the crime genre. I think last time we, I was, uh, actually I don't have it with me. We had a picture of the, um, uh, Louisiana sheriffs that have gone arrive at that. That's been a good read, so a bunch of good, uh, crimes genres to pick from as well, but also we, you can reach out to them online and I'm pretty sure that they have a curb service. I think even if you know what you want, if you're near, you could call them, uh, they'll bring it out to the car. And, uh, if not, you can order it online and have it shipped to you. So, Scarlett (24:34): And it was pretty great too. It's like fast food delivery for books. That's awesome. It's great. Roy (24:40): So anyway, give them a call. Uh, like I said, we, uh, you know, if you are a new business in the Southwest Louisiana area or new or old, it doesn't matter. You know, what we want to do is, um, you know, this, this show is kind of a one way that we can give back. We're trying to give back to the victims and their families by publicizing these, uh, unsolved crimes of homicides, missing people. So we want to do that for them, try and get as much publication or as much, uh, you know, traction for them, putting it back out there, keeping it in front of people as we possibly can. Well, we also decided that, you know, we'll try to give some of the local businesses plugs too. This has been a tough time on businesses of all kinds. So, you know, if you have a business that you'd like for us to give you a short plug, uh, you know, please reach out to us on the website and we'll, uh, you know, we've got limited space available, but we will certainly try to work everybody in at some point in time. All right. Well, that's all I've got for today. Uh, I appreciate you looking into these with me and, uh, I think we've, we've got a couple more, I'm trying to turn on to remember it's been a whirlwind of a week, uh, but I'm trying to remember, I think next week we have, uh, another case out of Rapids parish and, um, the other one is going to be out of, uh, Lafayette, Lafayette parish itself there. Scarlett (26:18): Yeah. And, uh, just a reminder, um, you guys listen to us, please, uh, please leave us a review. Um, we would greatly appreciate it. Uh, so we continue what we're doing. Uh, we are on iTunes and Google play and Stitcher, and, um, I guess Roy we're, uh, also on, you could probably fill us in there with where they can find them Roy (26:42): A tune, Stitcher, Google play Spotify. And I just got a notification this morning that Pandora finally, uh, goddess approved and put us on there. So Pandora, there's a couple of more, uh, tune in. And I, to be honest, I can't even remember all the names of them now, but, uh, w did apply or send in the RSS feed for Amazon as well. So I think really most of the big providers, uh, should have us if they don't, if you can't find us on your favorite podcast platform, uh, be sure and write us an email and we'd be glad to, uh, you know, send it to them as well. You can always go to our website@wwwdotmysteriesofthebayou.com. We upload the episodes. There's a player on there with a little bit more, uh, short synopsis of the, uh, cases that we're talking about. And then, um, the dialogue, the transcript is there, it is a machine transcript, so not gonna be perfect with my accent. It just can't hardly figure that out. So it does come out a little bit messed up, but you can go through there and read, um, if you'd rather do that as well. Roy (27:56): All right, well, thanks a lot, everybody. Uh, y'all have a good rest of your week and we look forward to seeing you next week with the, um, the other cases they're out of, uh, Alexandria and Lafayette until next time. Um, Roy with mysteries of the Bayou Speaker 4 (28:14): And I'm Scarlet take care. Thanks.  

Partially buried skeletal remains were uncovered while on an organized search for a missing boy back in December of 2018.  Evangeline Jane Doe was found in a rural, grassy area in Ville Platte, Louisiana. The identity of this woman remains unknown. Forensic experts at LSU FACES were able to determine a few key points of her identity. However, no sketch for Evangeline Jane Doe has been made available thus far. Authorities have very little to go off, and the case has since gone cold.  Further testing is available through public funding at the 501(c)3 non-profit, DNA Doe Project. After a night of bingo, grandmother and mother Carolyn Riggins disappeared.  70-year-old Carolyn Riggins was last seen on July 11th, 2020 at the Watauga Road Bingo in the Fort Worth, Texas area.  Carolyn had reportedly been on a winning streak that week and had scored a few winning pots the night she went missing.  Authorities were able to establish a partial timeline. Her 2002 tan Lincoln Town Car was caught on camera on I35 driving north of her home and was time stamped for 5:30 AM on July 12th.  Her family have created a Facebook page called “Finding Carolyn” for anyone that might have further information. www.mysteriesofthebayou.com   Scarlett (00:03): Yeah. Roy (00:03): Hey, hello, and welcome to the mysteries of the by you podcast, where you are a true pod, true crime podcast. We're going to be focusing on, uh, cases that come out of Southwest Louisiana, Louisiana as a whole. And of course beyond we don't, we're not going to be totally locked into the area, but my name is Roy and this is Scarlet. Hello, Scarlet. How's it going? Pretty good. How about you? I'm good. Good. You know, I'm based in the Dallas Fort worth area. The reason for my passion for this is not only for the true crime part, but for the area is spent a lot of time down there and it's kinda my adopted hometown area. Uh, I love the people, the food, the culture. Um, there's nothing about it that I don't like. So I like to spend as much time down there as I can. And Scarlet is based in the, uh, you're out of the Lafayette area, correct? Scarlett (00:59): Correct. Yeah. I, um, uh, I, I grew up here and I'm back here and I second everything you just said, except for, I don't like the hurricanes, the mosquitoes and the audio, but you guys have a little bit of that yourselves too, so we're all kind of in the same boat. Roy (01:14): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had the, an extra dose of the hurricanes this year. It seems like I know that you've, uh, you've had two of them that you've dodged in the last month or so. Scarlett (01:23): Yeah. And guess what? We have some, I think there's a tropical storm, uh, midweek this week and we're almost in November, so Roy (01:31): Gosh. Yeah. They said it's been a while. I know we made it through our alphabet and then they started working on this, the Greek alphabet or some other kind of alphabet, but anyway. Scarlett (01:43): Yeah. Roy (01:43): Right, right. So I'm going to tell, you know, we'll both kind of tell our story on this episode. We want to, um, you know, why we got into this, why it's important for us. Uh, first a couple of things. Number one, you can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google play, and Spotify. We have a website www dot mysteries of the, by you. We're on a Facebook Facebook page and a Facebook group. Eventually we hope to, you know, have enough followers and enough interest that we want to get into some group discussions. We also want you to reach out to us if you have a case submission ideas or especially if you have any information on something that we're talking about, um, you can, all, you can reach out to info at mysteries of the, by you or Roy or Scarlet, either1@mysteriesofthebayou.com. We'll be glad to answer you. Roy (02:40): Or, um, you know, on Facebook you can send us some meshes, whatever, whatever works best. But I got into this true crime. Um, w when I was a kid, there were three girls that went missing from a mall here in the Fort worth, in, in Fort worth and no trace of them ever. So there were some renewed interest. Um, probably, uh, two, three, four years ago, local guy did a podcast. And I thought it was really interesting because, you know, this is something that's been around with not much activity on it for the last 40 years. So there was another girl who unfortunately, a little bit older than me that was murdered in, uh, the same timeframe about 1974. And, uh, he also covered her case, brought a lot of renewed interest. And then lo and behold, about a month ago, um, the police actually, uh, saw, well, they think they solved the case. Roy (03:40): They arrested a guy, processed him. It was a new form of DNA that they were able to extract some, uh, uh, use a smaller amount of DNA and get more out of it. So it was unbelievable, but, uh, I think what, what I didn't understand at the time is that how it, especially in 2020, but how could people just fall off the face of the earth and never find a trace of them, never hear from them. It's unbelievable. And in some instances, um, it's people, the people and their vehicle both just disappear, never to be seen again. So really piqued my interest. And then the next thing, I started listening to a lot of different podcasts and it's like, Oh my gosh, this is so widespread across the U S it's it's rampant. I mean, people just go missing every day, never to be heard. Roy (04:34): So anyway, just peak my interest, not only from that investigative side, that, how does this happen, but also, you know, of thinking about how, how, how do families live with that? And so, you know, we want to be very, uh, family and victim focused. We aren't gonna victim shame, or we don't care about what their lifestyle was. It, uh, matters that they were a person and that there have either been killed or that they are missing. So we want to help as much as we can bring more information, there's never closure. So it's not like we're going to find closure for the family. Cause I don't think that happens, but, uh, you know, at least having the information to solve the mystery about what happened. And so that's kind of how I got into it and why I'm interested. Uh, Scarlet, what about yourself? What, what peaked your interest in true crime? Scarlett (05:30): Oh, well, that's a really great question. Um, you know, I know a lot of people that are involved in true crime, they have some kind of tacit, uh, connectional almost in a way that you do where you knew of someone or it happened in your hometown. And it, it kind of in a way, whether you were cognizant of, but not, it kind of shaped your life going forward, especially like you said, for these families that just don't have the closure. Um, but you know, it's, it's interesting. I read somewhere that, you know, um, there's a lot of interest in true crime cause it, it almost makes us feel a little bit safe in our own lives. It kind of gives us some control, you know, knowing what else, you know, these horrible things happen. Um, and it's out there and it gives us some kind of understanding, but again, like, you know, kind of second what you said, uh, I just so much sympathy for these families and, you know, especially doing something like this and you sit at your computer and you start to Google things, uh, you just see the, the frequency with which this happens and, you know, in your own town even. Scarlett (06:28): Um, so it just kind of broadens that, understanding that this really does happen to people. And then, you know, they have to figure out how logistically, you know, w what life is like and how to, you know, the aftermath and just the day-to-day and how challenging that could be. Roy (06:42): Yeah. And I like these, uh, the three girls that went missing, you know, their families have pushed this with the police. You know, the police can only go so far. There's, um, you know, they're clues and they run them down. But after a while, it's like, you know, where do we go from here? So the families have been really involved with keeping these investigations moving and then family and friends, and, um, you know, in the three girls that went missing, they actually, uh, last year, 2018, maybe they actually pulled some cars up from the bottom of a Lake thinking that they may have some something to do with it. Yeah. So it was a big undertaking, but one of the, uh, girls brothers, uh, you know, he's instrumental in keeping the Facebook page alive and keeping the stuff out there. So, you know, that's great. Roy (07:31): I hope that we can bring, uh, you know, a little bit of help to a family, you know, we're, we're starting out. So I'm gonna, you know, ask or beg mercy from the, you know, people that may see the show we're trying taping, um, on, uh, on zoom. So we can put it up on YouTube for you. But, um, we're gonna start with some fairly, uh, small cases that don't have a lot of information we're doing that just so we can find our footing on how we're going to be able to communicate and talk back and forth about these and make it interesting. We will try to keep these, um, you know, we'd like to do about a 30 to 45 minute episode, those tend to work best. And, uh, you know, just present the facts. We're not going to add a lot of color. Roy (08:19): Uh, w you know, we just want to present what we know as the facts. We don't want to speculate on what may or may not have happened. I don't think that's fair to families, especially of the missing, to speculate on all the bad things that could have happened to the individual, because, um, you know, I view it as my family, that somebody was missing. Uh, you know, we're going to hold out hope, even though at some point you have to give in to the realization, they may not come back alive, but you always want to hold out the hope until, you know, for sure. So, you know, we don't want to speculate on all the bad things that may have happened. We just want present the facts and say, Hey, if you've seen these people, or if you saw something, you know, reach out to law enforcement, get them involved. And, um, even if you think it's something tiny or, um, have no, you know, of no value, let them make that determination because they may be able to put it together with another clue, uh, you know, one in one equal two, and it may, it may, uh, you know, it could be the thing that turns an investigation. You just never know. Scarlett (09:26): Yeah. And I'm so glad that we're doing this, uh, you know, via video, because I'm hoping that, you know, we go to Walmart or something, eventually enough people, you know, we'll see our faces and maybe they'll, uh, when that'd be great, if they just, you know, you're in the shopping line at Walmart and says, Hey, I watched your book. I listened to your podcast. And I got, you know, got this, you know, case or this information or this family member, how cool would that be? Right. Roy (09:49): Right. Yeah. That's the best, the best thing that could happen is we find out that somebody listened to the show and what it was able to, you know, help solve something. Uh, you just never know, uh, part of it is the, it's a game of numbers. It's the more people that put the message out to the bigger audience, the, that it gets to the better chance of, uh, you know, having a break in a case that that's the great thing about this day in time is, you know, used to, you saw you had a local newspaper and, um, the story ran there. And if you didn't read that, or if you weren't in that area, you may not really know. But today, um, you know, this show has been, uh, you know, we've been trying to get the show off the ground for about a year and just been some setbacks here and there. Roy (10:37): But even over that time, we've had visitors to our website, into the podcast from all over the world. So it's such, it's such an awesome thing to have that kind of a reach. So, you know, we're excited and, uh, what we're going to do. I think at least the first couple episodes, like I said, we've got a, we're going to go over two cases, each one, uh, they're sparse details. So we're not going to be long and in-depth into each one, but this way, uh, you know, it just, uh, gives a chance to, to families, to maybe, uh, to get some answers. So unless you have anything else, you just want to jump right in. Scarlett (11:18): I miss, I wish I had a better icebreaker. I, um, you know, just encouraging me. I, I, I do have a, not to sensationalize it in any way. Um, but you know, you mentioned the seventies, you know, a case, you know, that this kind of inspired your true crime. Um, my mom had a Ted Bundy's story around mid seventies. Yeah. And it shouldn't, we shouldn't lead with that. The, and the hook or something really short stories. She went to school in, uh, Pocatello, Idaho. And, uh, he happened, he had the cast and he was at this kind of a local watering hole bar. It was just college kids. It's a real small town. Everybody knew each other. And he said, hi, I'm Ted. And he was kind of strange. And he had a cast and everybody remembered him because it was just, he struck out he wasn't a part of the college crowd. So how crazy is that? Six degrees everyone's I think he started talking to enough people. They might have one of these crazy stories. It's like six degrees of Ted or something in that time period. Roy (12:14): Yeah. Yeah. That's for sure about the six degrees. Uh, you know, that's one thing I always, uh, talking to new people, you always try to find that connection and it, it's always amazing that, uh, there's always something, maybe an event or a person, but usually you can find some kind of common ground there. All right. Well, let's jump into this one. Um, this is one that's been kind of bugging me for probably the better part of a year. Now. It is the, um, it comes out of evangelism parish in Louisiana, and it it's basically called the, uh, evangelism parish, Jane DOE. And what happened was in 2018, December, 2018, there were some remains found of a young lady and they still haven't been identified. And kind of the backstory we'll get into is that, um, the way that this, uh, the skeletal remains were found, what are that? Um, there was a missing child in the area. And, um, so the police over in Ville Platte, or called out to search for this child, and as they're searching, they, um, come across these bones and you, you know, a little bit more about the, uh, the, um, the child they were searching for. You have a little information on that, don't you? Scarlett (13:38): Yeah. Um, you know, it's always horrible when a child goes missing. So naturally, uh, this was an all man on board. You know, they had four wheelers, they had people on horses. They even the Cajun Navy, uh, even came out to lend a hand in the search and rescue, but the child was found, uh, it was, it looked like a runaway case. And so child was found safe. So that that's good. And unfortunately, this, they happened to stumble upon these remains of this, you know, person, unfortunately. Roy (14:10): Yeah. And while you brought them up, it's probably good that we'll just stop for a minute and, uh, say, well, why would the Navy be involved in a search that was that far in, but, uh, if you've never been to, yeah, yeah. Now they're, they're great. They help out a lot. And even through these last hurricanes, they were a big help evacuating and looking for people. But in this particular area, there are a bunch of rice fields that are flooded rice fields, crawfish farms. So anyway, there is a lot of water around as well. So if I'm also, so they found these remains, they were partially buried. They were in a green space by a barn. It it's from I've read. It said it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but it was basically, there were some, uh, another house close to it. And they said that the neighbor that lived there at the time was known to have interaction with high risk women. And, you know, I think that's important because Speaker 3 (15:12): Especially Roy (15:13): In a small area, like evangelism parish, it was all over the news. So I feel very strongly that had this young lady been missing from that area. It would have been solved immediately, but it just makes you believe that maybe she was from a different area and whether she was in this area voluntarily, or whether she had been trafficked to the area. We don't know. But again, the impetus for us wanting to do this show is because if this young lady came from outside of the evangelism parish, or, you know, even the South, what that region of Southwest Louisiana, this is where we're hoping if you have someone that, you know, of friend or family that's missing, that kind of fits into this age group or a range that, you know, you may, um, be a good thing to check with the authorities, just to see if it happens to be that Speaker 3 (16:11): Okay. Roy (16:11): She, um, uh, so the, the, some of the other information, she was about 20, uh, she had been there, they think for about five to 10 years and, uh, they speculate that her age was 25 to 35 at the time of discovery. So kind of applying a little bit of simplistic math to that. You would think that her current age today would have been probably in the 32 to 47 range. So if, if you know, somebody who was missing that may be in that, you know, 32 to 47 that went missing, uh, when would that have been, you know, maybe 2008 to 2013, that kind of fits that timeframe? Um, Speaker 3 (17:02): She was, uh, Roy (17:05): They, uh, speculate that she was of mixed descent, probably of, uh African-American and, uh, French Cajun, uh, origin, if I'm not mistaken, when I was going to put this up, sorry about that. I was gonna, uh, I'm gonna put up a little, we're gonna try this and see what it comes out like on our recording. But, um, this is some of the information that we found here on the evangelism parish, Jane DOE, uh, yeah, she was of mixed Cajun French and African descent, female in, um, Speaker 3 (17:46): So one Roy (17:47): Thing else we did, we reached to the Louisiana state police, uh, of course it's an ongoing investigation, so they were not willing to either provide us with more information or, you know, we did offer them a chance to come on and talk with this. And again, uh, because it's an ongoing investigation and I think that's something that we have both, uh, come to terms with a few of the other cases that we've been investigating, basically the same thing. So a lot of times we're going to be able to provide to you information that we found, um, doing internet searches, just because of the, uh, thirties, uh, you know, they need to hold some of this information close just in case they, uh, do make an arrest that, uh, it, it makes it a little more difficult when some information is out in the public. They like to hold it and that way they can use it in interrogation. Scarlett (18:48): Yeah. And, um, I know that we had talked about this pre show. Um, you know, and I'm just so curious that, so it looks like, you know, they, they reported that they found a skull with possibly some teeth. And then, um, you made the, you know, you brought up the thought that if it's she's, you know, they were able to tell that she was female, possibly they found other remains the pelvis, uh, and whatnot. Um, you know, I wish we, you know, too bad. We're not, we don't have any forensic knowledge. I I'm just so curious, you know, how much is needed to do, um, one of these facial reconstructions, you know, how, how much DNA, how much, how much goes into that originally, we don't have those answers. Um, but unfortunately with this case, uh, they weren't able, or they haven't been able to, or they're working or they're backlog, but there there's no image to match this report. Roy (19:38): Yeah. And I had read that they have sent the remains to LSU and, uh, LSU has an awesome program where they do some facial reconstruction. I'm sure that they are, you know, trying, uh, the other thing that's really popular now is, uh, looking at DNA and going backwards is because if I'm just like myself, if something happened to me, they looked at my DNA. Um, if I don't have any in the system and it can get that way, you can get in the system a lot of ways, either through a criminal convictions, it can get there through, um, I think some military police school districts. So there's a lot of ways that your DNA can get in the system, but when somebody is found, they can't do, they can't match their DNA. So what they can do now is they will kind of start working it backwards to see if they can find some relatives and then narrow it down that way. Roy (20:36): And kind of how that works is, uh, like myself, I've gone through, uh, uh, Google 23 and me, but people cannot access, uh, DNA there to do a comparison. So there are a couple of other services. One of them that I'm aware of is it's Jed match GED match. And basically if you upload your DNA there, you're given the authorities the, uh, permission to, you know, try to match it against these unknown cases in that way. It may even if it, you know, if it wasn't me, it may be, uh, you know, they may find somebody that it links close to me. And then, you know, they start the conversation. Is it, you know, brother, sister, father, mother, child, or, you know, they can, our cousin, you know, they start seeing how far away you are, uh, uh, I guess, of a match to this particular DNA. Roy (21:32): And then they can kind of start down that path of figuring out who it may have been. And it's funny because that's actually how the, uh, the 46 year old case that they just solved here in Fort worth. That was part of how that happened was, you know, they found a way to work with this, uh, smaller bit of DNA. And, uh, they matched it to the guy's brother actually. So, you know, they got a match through the, uh, through Jed match, I think. And then they said, well, um, it come up, it comes up as one of these three brothers, we just don't know who, so then they started taking their DNA into, got a positive match on it. So very interesting. The technology that we have today. Scarlett (22:19): Yeah. W I was just going to say, since you brought up Jed match, that was also, you know, gained a lot of notoriety for the golden state killer Joseph Dangelo was, um, they used family DNA and were able to place him, you know, bring him his DNA to the crime scene as well. So it's just interesting. Roy (22:37): So anyway, um, if you have, you know, if you have a loved one that's missing, if you have any more information, uh, you know, if you were in the area at the time and maybe know more about this person, uh, you know, this, uh, young lady who she may have been, where she might've been from, please reach out to either, uh, the veal plat, um, police department. You can reach out to the Vangelis parish Sheriff's department, or the Louisiana state police is involved. So, uh, just reach out to one of those and, uh, you know, please let them know what, you know, it may be able to help solve this and at least give, uh, give her a name. Roy (23:18): All right. If nothing else we'll move on to the next one, this one here. Uh, actually we just paired it, uh, with this other shorter case, it's really not out of, uh, Southwest Louisiana, but it is very current. And that's why, it's why we felt the need to go ahead and put it out. This, this lady is actually missing from the, uh, Fort worth Texas area. Her name is Carolyn Riggins, and she is age 70, about five, nine, and about 200 pounds. So, um, basically she was, uh, at a bingo hall playing bingo at the, and then just turned up missing. And they, this, she eventually, she went missing from on July 11th. So it's been, um, we're going on big, going on three months now. Speaker 4 (24:17): Yeah, Roy (24:17): Yeah. She, uh, let's see, she was last seen July 11th, around 10:30 PM at the Watauga road. Bingo, for those familiar, with the area that's at, uh, mid cities Boulevard and, um, roof, snow area think they caught her. She was on camera at the bingo parlor. And then also they saw her car driving by the convenience store that was up on the corner. They really didn't see that she was the one driving, but they did. Uh, they did see the car go by. So, uh, by, you know, accounts from people there that she had one, uh, several jackpots that night and, uh, on the days leading up to that, that she had won, uh, some, some other smaller pots. So they feel like that she may have had a lot of cash on her, or if somebody had been watching her, they felt like that she had a, um, had a lot of cash with her. Uh, she was last, seen her car is a tan Speaker 4 (25:19): Or pewter. I've read both, Roy (25:22): Uh, on this flyer. It says tan 2002 Lincoln town car, Texas license plate, C Speaker 4 (25:27): E G B one four five three C G B one four five three. Roy (25:34): Uh, this poster is off of the, uh, find Carolyn, uh, Facebook page. There's also an Instagram page. And then, uh, finding Carolyn at, um, Twitter as well. They also have a website set up so you can send, uh, if you have any information, send it to info@findingcarolyn.com. There is a $5,000 reward for, uh, tips leading to find her, you know, this is kind of a kind of strange number one. I know the area of very well. Um, so, you know, I, I can place exactly where this bingo place is while she may have come out of there. Uh, what's bizarre though, is that, that I have read that she was there, like at 10 30 at night and left, and her car was seen early the next morning, about 30 miles North of there, uh, on our 35 in Denton, Texas at the highway three 80 interchange. Roy (26:36): So, um, again, it was just picked up on a license scan, so there's no picture who was driving the car, but, um, yeah, it's just, uh, it's certainly sad for the family again, uh, uh, us had messaged, uh, one of the family members. They were, um, at the time we had talked, they were still setting up, uh, they were a new search for some wooded areas that were behind this, uh, being go parlor. So they were kind of involved in that and I don't think they really had the time to give us, so, uh, hopefully we'll try to catch back up with them because, uh, it was her sister. I would love to have her on as a guest and talk to her more about this. Um, there were really not much else there have been no transactions on any of her cards, our credit report. Roy (27:32): Um, she did have her purse, but she didn't have her cell phone as for some reason she'd left it at home. So, uh, the, she does take medication that she does not have. So, um, then, you know, that's another reason why the family is desperately trying to find her because it's been so long. The, um, that's really about all I know, but because it was timely, you know, we felt like that, uh, from looking at the distribution of listeners that we've had in the past, you know, we do have a pretty good crowd out of the DFW area. So we felt like it would be, uh, you know, worth, at least mentioning this, to see if we can generate some information for the family. Scarlett (28:23): Yeah. Um, I guess just one thing to add, and again, um, this is possible. So on the Facebook page, someone had, uh, you know, maybe it could be a lead, maybe not a lead, maybe just something to think about in the background. Uh, if anyone's thought of maybe checking, uh, WinStar casino, it's, uh, North of Denton, if she had been, you know, if the bingo parlor had closed or her maybe not even her or whoever maybe was driving that vehicle that they pinged at 10:30 PM, or I'm sorry, 5:30 AM on July 12th the next day. Possibly it was on its way to the casino. Roy (28:59): Yeah. That casino is just across the red river in Oklahoma. So yeah, that, that is definitely a possibility. And you know, this is, uh, one of the cases, again, you know, as we said, I said in the beginning, don't want to speculate because there there's so many things that could have happened. And, uh, you know, what we're hoping is that they can still bring her home alive, but the, um, this is kind of the, kind of, one of those interesting parts is that, uh, they have not found the car either. So how does the, you know, how does Carolyn and the car go missing and not be seen for three months? Because, um, you know, generally even if the car had been abandoned, you know, the, they run the plates, they figure out, at least we have that. So another thing that I know that the family has been doing is looking along, uh, you know, 35 going towards that casino to see, uh, you know, if there's ditches that a car could have run off in that you couldn't see them or bodies of water that it might have gone into as well. Roy (30:04): Um, and that happens, um, again, you would think in a huge metropolitan area like this, that that's an impossibility, but I'll tell you it's not actually a ride out here, uh, close to my house about, uh, well, it's been a few months ago. It was back during the summertime. There was a car, two people in it. They had just run off of, um, a major interstate, but they hit down into a ditch and a culvert at just the right angle that you could not see them from the road bed. So about two, three days later, there's a guy has a flat tire running down the road, pulls over and just happens to pull over right on top of this vehicle. And, um, you know, he looked down and saw him and unfortunately one of the gentlemen passed away. The other was saved. But, uh, you know, again, it's stranger things have happened that you can run off the road in a huge metropolitan on the major highway that, you know, has thousands of cars going over to every day and still not be seen. Scarlett (31:16): Right. And I just so much sympathy for her family. You know, I can't imagine something like this, you know, she was a mother and a grandmother and just not really having the answers of, you know, what happened that night. Roy (31:29): Exactly. Exactly. So if you have any information, uh, we'll just kind of recap if you have any information on Carolyn K Riggins, again, she's missing out of Fort worth, Texas since, uh, July 11th of this year, 2020. And then, um, the other case that we covered is the oops, the evangelists and Jane DOE, uh, she was found in, uh, evangelism parish. I'm sorry. Yeah. Ville Platte. Yeah. Veal plaid in evangelism parish, uh, Louisiana, uh, she was found in 2018, but they suspect again that she had been there for, uh, five to 10 years and they, uh, estimated her age to be about 25 to 35 when she went missing. So, um, if you have any information on that, please again, reach out to the proper authorities and let's see if we can, uh, help solve one of these two cases. That's really all I've got. Um, again, uh, we're going to kind of find our way through this been interesting, uh, also using new technology, like I said, uh, we had, uh, anticipated doing the audio for the podcast for sure. But then we, uh, decided to try to couple it with the recording and, uh, try to put it up on YouTube as well. We'll see, uh, see how that goes. And if you have, uh, something nice to say, please reach out and let us know. Don't, don't be mean we're still, Scarlett (33:04): We're trying, we're gonna figure it out. Roy (33:07): But, uh, yeah, if you have some, uh, positive critiquing, please let us know. Uh, you know, we want to make the show interesting where people want to listen. Uh, and we also want to, you know, try to help help these families as much as we possibly can to so anything we can do along those realms, if you have any case submissions, please reach out to one of us. Uh, um, roy@mysteriesofthebayou.com or scarlet@mysteriesofthebayou.com, or you can hit us on either Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, um, uh, yeah, we will be up on LinkedIn, uh, but also, um, Instagram be sure and reach out. Scarlett (33:50): Yes, we do dove Nido wing doves as well. We take down and smoke, so smoke mail as well or anything we're connected on everything. Roy (33:57): Exactly. Yeah. And, uh, Scarlet just met awesome, uh, technology. She just messaged me like, Hey, you forgot something here. Definitely. Uh, you know, we're just starting out. And so w we want to have a mission to help other businesses as they're starting out. We've. Um, the first one again, is up here in the Dallas Fort worth area. It just happened to be going to another place to eat last weekend, drove by an old, uh, farmer's market. And lo and behold, they had turned it into the Cajun, a Cajun market in Colleyville, Texas. So, um, went in, talked to the Phil and Debra, really nice people there got me some Bhutan and some cracklin. So it was, uh, it was really good. Uh, he had some good product and, uh, that's one thing I miss about not living in Louisiana. And the Southwestern part is the, uh, the Bhutan. Roy (34:57): I could, I could eat that stuff every day. So it was nice to find a place. And, uh, yeah, if you're a new business that has anything to do with the Southwest Louisiana area, also reach out to us. We'd love to drop a plug in for you and, uh, you know, try to help try to help these new businesses has gotta be tough with the COVID and everything that's going on. Starting a new business is tough any day of the week, but with the COVID on top of that and everything that's going on, I'm sure that it's even more difficult. So we want to get out patronize them and, uh, you know, show a little love for, for these guys for sure. Scarlett (35:34): Okay. Roy (35:38): All right. So before we go, Scarlet, do you have anything else? Scarlett (35:43): Uh, no. Just, I want to thank everybody for listening and, you know, think our family, I hope they're listening as well as the whole movie. You know, few fan base are already at least. Hi dad. Roy (35:56): We got our, we got our two followers already. Yup. All right. Well until next time I'm Roy I'm Scarlet. Y'all be careful. Be careful out there.  

Connect with Michael and BobThe Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/Connect with Greg Gordon and Richie GrethWebsite: https://www.gordonhighlander.com/Greg Gordon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-gordon-aa55945/Richie Greth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-greth-992b9a3/[00:00:00] Greg Gordon: I felt the temptation to make kind of a monolithic statement. I just feel like I'm trying to like, be right about my statement and put it in a way that it works, you know? And I'm like, Oh wait, this is just, this is just really complicated. Brian Thompson is one of my project managers. He's the guy that I feel.Fortunate to get to work with he's wise and kind he's a deep spiritually. And so instead of making a statement, we just had a conversation and I want to grow. I feel like. I have biases and I don't really know where they are and sometimes I don't even want to see him. And when they're revealed, they're usually pretty ugly and I try to cover them up with the good deeds I do.Brian has just made it real safe for me to kind of open up. Yeah, we just had a wonderful conversation. I know that, I shared with him first, you know, I, I went in this whole thing, got started and it was years ago. I just, I just felt like all lives mattered. You know, that, that was part of my calling, but I just didn't really understand the context and what you mean.It was being shared and it had to be revealed to me. I had to learn. But it took me kind of realizing that I didn't get something about it. And I wanted to avoid the temptation of being right about my opinion. And I just was actively seeking and asking Michael Moore: on this episode of the climb, we tell the story of Gordon Highlander, which has become the largest industrial finish out contractor in the metroplex.We're joined by Greg Gordon and Richard Greth. Two really good friends of mine. This episode goes deep. We laugh a lot. We talk about golf, family, politics. This is one you're going to listen to more than once. Enjoy the climb.[00:02:00] welcome to the climb. I'm your cohost, Michael Moore joined by my Partner in crime, Bob Wierema and we couldn't be more excited today. You're going to get two for the price of one. As we've got two really good friends of mine, great business minds, and Greg Gordon and Richard Greth. Richie and I have known each other since 1995.When I was on my way up to the university of Colorado, I stopped off in Lubbock. And he was my best friend from high school, his roommate. And it's been a unbelievable friendship since then. And then through Richie, I got to meet Greg Gordon, founder of Gordon Highlander. And so gentlemen, thank you for joining us, Bob.Thanks for coming back from Mexico for this and with that, Greg, I'll turn it over to you. Give us a little background on yourself and then Richie, you can follow him. Greg Gordon: I think just the quick disclaimer for the audience. you know, when, when, when guys like us know each other this well, there's, there's just going to be a lot of inside jokes, probably that people won't get. but, happy to be here. Thanks for the wonderful introduction. You guys, Gordon Highlander is a commercial construction company. We started in 2007 with a passion for serving other people and a commitment to excellence. And so I am humbled to be a founder and leader. And, we have had a lot of success in growing our business and, and I'm sure we will get to talk about that a little bit more in the, in the webinar, or, Podcast, what are we calling it? Bob Wierema: Podcast, too many webinars these days. Richie Greth: Yeah. Greg Gordon: What's the future state of the office. Bob Wierema: Yeah, exactly. [00:04:00] Richard. Richie Greth: Yes. Well, my name is Richard Greth and, yeah, I'm, I'm very fortunate to know Michael and, in Gordo for. For quite some time, they've both been great fans to great friends and trusted advocates throughout this crazy journey of law.But yes, on my, I grew up in Midland, Texas. I've been living in Dallas since about 2000 graduate of The Texas tech university, you know, been in construction. My dad was a general contractor, so grew up around it swore I would never do it to the log cabin from awful after a college and got into it. It just never turned back and really blessed to be in.Such a great industry. And, one that I never thought would be considered an essential service. So, but it's been one hell of a ride and I'm just blessed and, sound like a victory speech at the Oscars, but I just, you know, so many people have helped me along the way. So she's very blessed. Michael Moore: Well, Bob, why I wanted to bring these two guys on.Hey, cause it's going to be a whole lot of fun. But when we think about our mission in telling stories and defining moments and crossroads, they get you somewhere. I just found it incredible that there can be this, this friendship that it can be thicker than blood. And these two guys. Knew each other, they were clients of each other.And then eventually over time as things play out, now they're working together. I want to highlight that. And maybe guys, you can talk about how that all came together. Richie Greth: Yeah, I can take the first part of that. It was, probably mid 2001 of mutual friend of ours named Meredith. Gladys basically had introduced us.I was a young project manager at Trammell Crow and Gordo was a project manager at commercial interior space guy was doing industrial TEI and that [00:06:00] was kind of Gordo's forte for the business he was working with. We started working together and doing a lot of jobs and quickly found out that, that we enjoyed each other's company and a shared like ideals and, you know, more than anything knew how to kind of execute some of the promises that were being made on the brokerage.And I mean, one of my favorite quotes from a mutual friend of ours, Chris Jackson, he, my first started Trammell Crow. He, I asked him what the. Internal relationship was with between the project manager and the broker. And he says, it's very simple. I sell the dream and you live the nightmare and, and no truer words were ever spoken and Gordo helped live that nightmare with me.And, it's been a great. Greg Gordon: Kind Richie Greth: of partnership ever since we've done tons of work together over the years, our lives have paralleled each other and some of the ups and downs and ins and outs, so to speak. And we could probably spend a podcast on those parallels, but at the end of the day, we, we've always kind of had the same focus and the same mindset, which has kept.Kind of our planets in orbit, so to speak and campus together. And, it's really been a great partnership. And, you know, when Gordo went out on his own, I was fortunate enough. a bunch of his good friends were kind of racing to be the first one to give. Gordon Highlander, their first job and Gordo finally admitted during a recent round to another person who was trying to claim that, that, that I truly was the one who gave Gordon Highlander, their first job, you know, I've been invested in when Gordon Highlander since day one, just because of my love for my friend, Greg.And, you know, I've been to parties, you know, I mean, a bunch of the guys are probably new 50% of the staff before I even started, just because of my involvement and, just through different activities, et cetera. So Greg Gordon: that's a little bit Richie Greth: of a brief synopsis of how Greg and I came together and, you know, it's funny.He had, he had mentioned a few [00:08:00] times and I had mentioned about. You know, working with Gordo and it's funny, I think over a couple rounds ago and planets aligning and, it just worked out right. It's funny. I was at a point working for myself that the Greg, we were talking about needing, wanting to grow his business.And I'm probably a better promise or the executioner or executor's excuse me. So maybe that's 40 and slipped there. Anyway, Greg Gordon: Richie, don't take out all our competition. Richie Greth: Exactly. But anyway, so it's just been a blessing. I mean, getting to work with one of your best friends and, and for an organization like that, it's just been an incredible Greg Gordon: blessing.I love what you guys are doing. there's this famous quote, Eugene Peterson wrote, an interpretation of the Bible called the message and Eugene says. That storytelling is the language of the heart Richie. And I have shared our lives together in a, in a lot of different ways and friendship and, and the client contractor relationship and the partner relationship, and really just in brotherhood and, and, I will tell you that.I knew I had Richie support before I started Gordon Highlander. And there was this story that was being formed and it wasn't just mine. It was all the people that really were the ambassadors for the, for the business. And for me, And I think there's real mad. I think that people intellectually can wrap their mind around that, but really leaders actually do it.And we just have been really lucky with attracting the greatest people to the organization. I will tell you professionally, I think Richie joining Gordon Highlander is probably one of the [00:10:00] fastest. Literally, I can tell you it was G Oh seven one Oh one was the number of the first job that Gordon Islander over dead and Richie gave it to us.And then for us to figure out how he could become a part of our story, any RD was just in a different way, how to weave those together and how rich. How incredibly rich that story is it's, it's really unique. I think what Michael didn't say is that Richie is a unicorn. That's my term for someone that's really hard to find the key, go do anything they wanted to in the world.He could go do anything he wanted to. And the fact that he came to join Gordon Highlander is just, it's incredible. Bob Wierema: What I love is that you two actually like each other, unlike Michael and I Michael Moore: sure. Never spoken Bob Wierema: it's so cool to hear. I mean, you can see it in your guys, you know, inheriting your voices and the friendship that you have.And that's, it's so great to see. So maybe, maybe to one of the things I was thinking about when you were talking was, so you started the company in 2007, at what point? Richie, did you join the business? And like, how did that all kind of come about? At what point were you guys ready to start together? Richie Greth: Well, you know, it's funny.My, my official relationship with Gordon Highlander has just been a little over a year. my unofficial relationship with Gordon Highlander, like I said, has been from the, from the beginning, always trying to promote his brand, from the positions that, that I was in, et cetera. And then I'm trying to.You know, just different things. Like I said, going to his different functions, et cetera, but really, I think it's kind of a funny anniversary, but very appropriate for April 1st, 2019 is when I started, Michael Moore: I thought you would have said April [00:12:00] 20th. Richie Greth: Yeah. Well that was the end of my probation. Greg Gordon: You know, I think we probably remember it differently.I will tell you that. W I remember us Cedar crest golf course. I was really struggling and I was just dealing with some personal issues and I had some pain and I was unpacking that for Richie. And then Richie kind of said, you know, I'm struggling a little bit too. Like, I don't really love my home office.I've always been an athlete. I've always been a part of the team and I really. And then all of what Gordon Highlanders done. And I was like, dude, let's just get a business card, then we'll put your name on it. Like, well, fuck, we'll figure this out. You know, like, I don't know, like let's go on business, you know, and really we didn't know.And I will tell you that I have seen this theme in my life a lot, where in a way, God kind of puts things together. Or provides, I think I'm supposed to go a certain way and I get real focused on doing my part, but then God takes me in the other way. And then I ended up in a better spot than I ever thought I was going to be at, to begin with.And the funniest thing happened. I was pursuing a big tenant rep broker in JLL. The next week. And I was in the early stages of learning my relationship and he said, Gordo, I don't know, man. I just love you enough that I want to tell you. So, and I go what's that? He goes, dude, you need to, I have a business development person.If you're going to continue to grow Gordon Highlander. I like teed my ball up. I hit it and I just thought, thank you, man. I put a sign, you know, and I go, Hey, actually, I've been talking to this guy. I got somebody. And he [00:14:00] goes, no, I have the person that you need to talk to. I go once. And so he's like, yeah, you should talk to Emily.And so well, I started talking to Emily at the same time. I'm telling Emily about Richie and Emily's real confused about what the hell? yeah. It's, it's crazy. I have two sets of twins. You guys have two sets of twin boys. I managed to do that with two different women. And I refer to Richie and Emily is my third sentence wins.They started on the same day. Michael Moore: That's amazing. Greg Gordon: Yeah. Michael Moore: You know that, that defines it right there. I mean, that doesn't happen by accident and Gordo. I appreciate your. Your thoughts around your faith in that, and that, you know, we're all on a path. It's just our job to stay on it and pay attention to those signs along the way.And it's all gonna work out just because I'm a huge history guy backing up a little bit. Give us kind of the four, one, one on the name. You know, you being a third generation builder, like give us the background on Gordon Highlander. Cause it's a good one. Greg Gordon: Yeah, thank you so much for that. There's a, so I'm originally from the East coast, Baltimore, Maryland.my dad was the history teacher and ended up getting, his architecture degree. He worked for his father and my grandmother worked at the Maryland historical society and she had done a lot of research about our family lineage. So this would have been you guys in the seventies. Before the internet and probably a harder search to navigate than it is now.And so I was just born into this historical perspective when I was a little kid, I thought. I had an army in my family, [00:16:00] in the Gordon, Highlanders are regimented of the Scottish army. They were formed in the late 17 hundreds. And they're like the special forces to the United States army, a Winston Churchill, his famous quote about the Gordon Highlanders is that they're the greatest regiment that there ever was.And so they have. Rich history. I just learned about it as a kid. I thought there was an army in my family somehow. I didn't know how I was connected to it. And so this really cool thing happened when I felt the calling to step up my own. My dad was, is always been kind of Homebase and my strategic advisor and he was saying, son, we already have a brand.We were born into it. It's our family name and it has a tartan and it has its battle cry. Yeah. Yeah. It's all these things that a lot of, a lot of other companies, without a story or a history are trying to event, they're trying to invent it from scratch. And so it was just really cool. We, we pulled a lot of the principles of the army.Sayings end of the business. We pulled the Gordon tartan down onto the business and we brought all those things that had proceeded me into the business naming. And so the other thing is I, I, I did choose to put my name on the business too, and I think that that's important. Bob Wierema: And you, you mentioned you had this calling to step out on your own and I can't pass that one up in the theme of this.So what was the calling? How did that come to you? What made you make that leap and say, okay, I'm ready to do this. Greg Gordon: Yeah, just this, this hunch, this real instinct, I was just young and learning. The business was really about relationships. And I work for someone that I have a lot of respect for. They were a great technician at what they did, but.The relationship management part of that business, I felt like I [00:18:00] was doing most of it and that people weren't really attached to the business or the brand. They were attached to my relationship and the trust that I had formed. And so I wanted ownership and I was tired of being an employee. I thought I knew what that meant, putting my money back into the business somehow to get equity.But I, I really didn't know. What that was all about. That was just kind of over my head at the time. And, and, and so I asked for ownership, but I felt like I knew that the answer would be no. And I was prepared to go at, already set up my company. And, it happened very fast. It happened faster than I even thought it was going to.We, we had an incredible first year and really, we haven't looked back. We've had a couple of years where. Revenue was flat, but profits were up and we just have continued to reinvest in the business. And, we're actually believe it or not. I hate to sound tone deaf because I know things are rough in the world right now, but we're, we could have as much as 400% growth in 2020 with less people.Michael Moore: And one really good to really good twin business development people. Greg Gordon: Wow. Exactly. Well, I will tell you, I'm a whoop on the, at the top of the chart. Woo. When it comes to Strength Finders, I'm like all influence and Richie's woo. Number two, number one. He's positivity. It's he's just such a wonderful guy to be around.I don't know how to explain it. It's just Richie brings out the best in everybody. He's just. He is amazing. And so there's no doubt that he is a key part of our success. Richie Greth: I'm going to give you about five minutes to stop that.No, I appreciate it. Gordo, man, you know, it's a, [00:20:00] you know, all the love goes right back to you. I mean, what you've been able to do over the last, you know, 13 or so years is, is unbelievable. And, and, and Gordo hit the key there. I mean, really understanding relationship and understanding that it's not about the job.It, it, you know, it's, it's not about what's in front of you. It's, what's down the road more than anything and, you know, thinking, and that's one of the things I've always been so impressed with Greg Gordon: him is. Richie Greth: Taking long term, more than, than short term. We're really trying to invest back into his business, bringing in experts to help strengthen his leadership team, et cetera.I mean, he's just the way he's approached his businesses has been ferocious and directed and the results are results are obvious. Michael Moore: Through friendship. I mean, especially spanning as long as all of ours does together. If you add them all up, I mean, I've known Bob for 14 years. You just get to really know the true people.Couple of things to reflect on that. One of my first fondest memories of Gordo and there were, there were other ones, but this one is just sticking out right now. Maybe it's cause I'm looking at him was, At Richie's wedding and we're at the reception and I look over and the only white boy dancing, harder, white boy and sweating more than me is Gordo.And I'm like, That guy's awesome. And my wife is going who's that guy, he is having a better time than we are. Like, let's go hang out with him. And it's just been this, this triangle of friendship, you know, that comes in and out. Everybody gets busy, people have kids and, but you can always come back to it.And then, you know, shortly after. I started at Lockton was in when Richie decided to join up with you. So we were due for a big catch up and it didn't even have to be in person. I could just tell in his tone of voice, like he was reenergized, [00:22:00] he was fired up. He was, he was missing that culture that you've created at Gordon Highlander.So I think it was just, it was just a matter of time before y'all joined up and it's going to be so much fun to see where it heads next. I Bob Wierema: will say, Michael, the first memory I can think about you is in Nashville, Texas, and I'm pretty sure you were drinking and had a few too many cocktails when we were down at that training program down there.Michael Moore: Oh yeah. Nashville, Tennessee. Get your geography. Right. But Greg Gordon: what Richie Greth: did I say, Nashville? Michael Moore: I Bob Wierema: don't know. It's all, it's all South Illinois, South of Chicago. What's it's all the same. Michael Moore: Kind of transitioned into something I want to hit on next. Cause you know, Bob's got a perspective being in Chicago, he works with a lot of construction firms and real estate.You know, I see a wide breadth of business from oil and gas to real estate to construction to you name it. We're a little more insulated maybe in, in North, Texas than say our. East coast brethren or West coast, but Bob and I have spent a lot of time on our podcast. Kind of talking about this concept of what's occurred in the last 90 to a hundred days has created an old economy and a new economy.And so from y'alls perspective in the construction world and finish out and, and just in life in faith and family, like maybe take a few minutes to comment on that. Richie Greth: I'll add more to expand on the business side, the one kind of life side that, you know, I love how kids do the things that they can say sometimes can really just cut through some of the BS.And I remember my, my daughter, Georgia, she asked me, she said, dad, what, Greg Gordon: what Richie Greth: was Krone like when you were a kid? You know, something about that just resonated with me where I just looked at and I said, [00:24:00] baby, this, this is all new to all of us. I mean, we are all learning on the fly here. We didn't have this kids.So, you know, I think it's, it's great perspective. Think that, you know, never before have we felt maybe more connected to. More people globally, because we're all going through kind of one thing at the same time, but yeah, this is, this is something, I mean, I remember as a kid, the trivia question was who won the 1918 Stanley cup, you know, and it was no one because they shut it down for the Spanish flu.I mean, it was such kind of a little weird snapshot in time and we're right in the middle of this weird snapshot in time. And, to kind of get with your. You know what you were talking about. Faith early. One of my favorite kind of anecdotes is, you know, how do you make God laugh? You tell him your plans.You know? I mean it's, and I think no time has ever been sure than right now, but I'll let go to take the other part Greg Gordon: of that. There's something crazy about being a builder where you take other people's vision and. Make it come to life. So I think we're training really well to deal with obstacles. And these are just really big obstacles that we're going to figure out.Fortunately for us, there's been this wonderful confluence of the way we've built our business and how the market has come together. And so those two are crossing each other right now. And that's, it's kinda like a double up, Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank on the. It's everyone does surfing now.Wakeboarding, sorry. Whoa. Double up. It's when they cross the boat back and they make the wave go twice as high as it normally does. Right. Right. So just right away, I was fortunate enough to get plugged into some. [00:26:00] Calls where there was 15,000 people around the world through CBRS global investment platform.And those guys have economists and people that are way smarter than me that surround their business. And the industrial asset class has been growing and doing really well. And there's just a lot of data. Now that points towards. Continued expansion because of crown of IRS and industry. True Buddhist. No, that, inventory used to be a bad word.You know, everything was always Justin. And so everyone personally got to see how that got interrupted. And no one wants to deal with that again. And so they're saying 3% more inventory equals 500 million square feet speed of additional industrial development. And, the onboarding of manufacturing, you know, Trump's been talking about it for a while about getting it back from China.And I don't know how well he's been doing with it, but coronavirus really adds to his cause I think people can really now realize and see like, Hey, I don't want my coronavirus tests to come. From China. I want it to be made right here in my backyard. And people were actually kind of getting their mind around why having manufacturing near the business hubs make sense.And then you multiply that with eCommerce. And so the most fascinating part of it is e-commerce for whatever groups that it didn't reach prior to coronavirus, I'm telling everyone it doesn't matter what sex would. What color, what ethnicity, what socioeconomic group e-commerce is now like the United States postal service it's here to stay and some economists are suggesting 2 billion square feet, 2 billion, B billion square feet.Dallas Fort [00:28:00] worth is 850 million. And so we're just in this. Cross hairs where we've built our business in Dallas, Fort worth Dallas is the largest industrial development community in the country. Gordon Highlander is the biggest interior finished out contractor and industrial finish out. And so that gives us a lot of credibility.We've had a lot of swings. We've got great people and great processes. And the Mark is just producing a ton of work for us right now. So we just feel super-duper fortunate. Bob Wierema: You see Michael Moore: looking outside of Bob Wierema: the Dallas Fort worth area. Are you looking Michael Moore: at Bob Wierema: geography? You think there's a good focus there to continue and grow in that area and expand.Greg Gordon: We have been talking about that for a long time. And I will tell you that for me, when I experience a lot of growth, my temptation that I watch my hands, it's like, Oh, a lot of money that this snow on my hands. If I don't direct them the right way, they're going to want to put their hands on things. And I want to live my life with my hands open, like this.And when you have extra profits, I think that creates clarity on how you would go attack other markets. And so we're in the early stages of considering where the needs are greatest, where are the various barriers of entry are the easiest and how we could focus on really profitable offerings that match up with what we feel like is the value that we bring.Richie Greth: And at the end of the day, we felt very blessed to be an industrial construction in Dallas, Fort worth. Greg Gordon: He had it. The other thing with growth is we want to continue to grow at all water, the garden. That's already planning and plant more gardens and other places not get my OPIC or get too [00:30:00] proud. We want to be humble servants.And we just feel like we have a lot to offer people. I will tell you too, on the personal side, I'm predicting kind of this collision where we've been highly effective with being able to run our business without opening our office. You guys that's on the backs. It's clearly on the backs of the subs and the superintendents that work for Warren Highlander.So we're kind of a house divided where. You know, more than half of our company is learning this wonderful efficiency from being able to work at home while the other half is on the frontline, actually doing all the work. Not that we're not doing the work too, but you know what I mean? You see what I'm trying to illustrate.It's very different. Richie Greth: It is going to be fascinating to come out the other side of this and almost to have the Freakonomics mindset, to see some of the changes that will happen. I mean, you know, it's a great question to ask people how they work from home and you, you know, I've talked out. You know, architect, friends of mine, who said, man, I've never had so much uninterrupted time in my life.And then other people that have said I'm going absolutely stir crazy. I, I, I just, can't, I'm missing talking to people. So, you know, the, the different opportunities and the asterisk that is going to be over this year, you know, that people can put, you know, in, in some instances is. That's going to be fascinating to look at 2022, 2023 and just see mindsets, attitudes, behavior, and just some of the data that comes out of this and see what changes that's.That's what I'm really curious about Greg Gordon: too. I think about how we started the business Richie about relationships and know how powerful the human connection is. And I think the [00:32:00] efficiencies are great because they're a way to deal with the obstacles, but I don't see them as being long lasting. Yeah. And I also, I worry, you know what?I'm kind of in my beautiful mind state and we're drawing on the board and the EEQ and the conversation is real high and we're really grinding and getting vulnerable and really challenging each other around strategy. I think you gotta have that and you can't, you can't do that. Quite the same over a zoom call.Richie Greth: Yeah. Greg Gordon: So I'm, I'm just real curious to see, I know the pressure is building around me. I just am ready for coronavirus to be over. I'm starting to feel like, well, the serious, like baby Greg is showing up in the marriage, like he's just tired of wearing a mask. Michael Moore: Yeah. Amen, Richie Greth: man. What an incredible time though, to have grown of our story, have the abilities to have this one on one interaction and our, our kids aren't stuck with, you know, three rocks and a stick, you know, I mean, it's, it's pretty incredible.The time and the opportunity that we have in the outlets. I mean, it's a, I was watching the original total recall the other day and seeing people and faces and, you know, the video conference calls. And it was just kind of funny seeing some of those older movies trying to project the future, but it is interesting that, you know, Greg Gordon: Thank Richie Greth: goodness for technology thanking us for still able to see, I mean, you've experienced in some of our meetings.I mean, having this tool to be able to see your client's reactions, to be able to, to have that conversation. I mean, over a phone is almost like email. You can interpret it, thought four or five different ways. Being able to see someone's face is an incredible [00:34:00] advantage. So I mean, the four of us getting to sit here and have a conversation almost like we're sitting around the same table together, not to get too prophetic, but you know, it's just, it's amazing.Bob Wierema: Michael. And I have noticed that too, with doing, doing even this podcast and some of the other connections we've made throughout doing this is, you know, the, a bit like what I've met. Yeah. The opportunity to have the conversation with, with you guys without kind of this opportunity. Well, maybe, maybe not, you know, would mix, I have pursued this that we've talked about doing for a year now.Yeah. I don't know. It's cool. Richie Greth: It's all right. Ma you know, necessity is the mother of all invention, right? Michael Moore: Exactly. You know, I think it's probably a common theme that we all share that. You know, whether it's, it's being the old bull sitting on the Hill now instead of the young one, Richie Greth: are Michael Moore: we see a, you know, you, you, you just, you, you get a, as you get a little bit older too, to analyze things and, you know, Greg, a conversation we were having a week or so ago, kind of leading up to this podcast, if you feel like sharing, I just, I loved how you.You saw this movement of, of, you know, civil unrest going on and hashtag black lives matter, just popping up everywhere. And you're like, you know what? I need to understand this better. So can you, can you share a little bit about how you went about diving into that? Greg Gordon: Yeah. You know, it's funny, we've been trying to build the brand during the coronavirus with webinars and podcasts, getting out there.I just want say, man, I just felt this temptation to make it and no, not that there's anything wrong with statements, but. When you make them on the social media outlets, you just get ripped apart. [00:36:00] And I felt the temptation to make kind of a monolithic statement. I just feel like I'm trying to like, be right about my statement and put it in a way that it works, you know?And I'm like, Oh wait, this is just. This is just really complicated. And so I don't know if you've seen it that went out last week, but, Brian Thompson is one of my project managers is the guy that I feel fortunate to get to work with he's wise and kind he's a deep spiritually. And so instead of making a statement, we just had a conversation.And I want to grow. I feel like I have biases and I don't really know where they are and sometimes I don't even want to see them. And when they're revealed, they're usually pretty ugly and I try to cover them up with the good deeds I do. Brian has just made it real safe for me to kind of open up and, yeah, we just had a wonderful conversation.I know that, I shared with him first, you know, I, I, when this whole thing got started and it was years ago, I just, I just felt like all lives mattered. You know, that, that was part of my calling, but I just didn't really understand the context and what you was being shared. And it had to be revealed to me.I had to learn, but it took me kind of realizing that I didn't get something about it. And I wanted to avoid the temptation of being right about my opinion. And I just was actively seeking and asking, and my wife helped me out. You know, she just said, babe, could you imagine if we were struggling? I know we've been there before and I came to you and I said, babe, you know, do you love me?Can you tell me that you love me? And you said, Oh babe, I love everybody. And so there wasn't until I humanized it, that I could understand it a little bit more, but [00:38:00] also too, I'm not, I don't know anything really about the organization and I'm not trying to make a global statement about protests or any of that stuff.Just the very simple concept in which it was formed and how to be allied out there and just reveal my ignorance and love my friend, Brian. Well, Michael Moore: And so, after the conversation, I mean, are there things now that you're routinely working on or thinking about, did it fundamentally change or did it just shed light on kind of an idea and a, an ideology that you already had, or give us a little more insight?Greg Gordon: One of the questions that I asked Brian is I said, where do you think our biases come from? And he just paused and he goes, Wow, because I don't really know it. I will tell you that. I want to be captivated by the wow. And not the, how I always want to jump to the how, but I never stay right there. You know, I've never, I never stay on the wow.And I go, I think it's the really good questions that get you stimulated that are the things that form you and that matter. And. It's not so much about the answers I don't know about you, but coronavirus has been one of the most humbling things for me because every time I think I could get it figured out, it sets me back two steps.It's like one step forward, two steps back. It feels like it's the most disorienting thing. And then there's this imaginary line where everyone kind of draws in judges. And Richie Greth: it's a great point. It's like our, a mutual friend Dan lap and said right. Asking the right questions. That's a great question. What are those biases come from?Bob Wierema: Oh, boy, you got, how did you guys know? [00:40:00] Richie Greth: Gordo introduced us to them. Greg Gordon: Richie dated him in high school.Okay. Richie Greth: And then Gordo's stolen from me. Michael Moore: Dan, Dan was doing one of his workshops, in, in Dallas. And I just thought, yeah, Gordon Highlanders, doing so much work around, expanding in their brand and knew that. That the twins and the BD department were really ramping up, getting out there and, and. Shaking the trees.And so I thought they would benefit from knowing Dan. Now, if there's a side romance going on, we'll have to ask Nan about that. But Richie Greth: yeah. You know, and I will tell you that's another great thing. you know, being in that workshop and getting to do that was a lot of fun. And I think, A great thing of Gordo's character is he's never afraid to ask questions.And I remember, Dan and it was great, you know, it was great presentation and I thought he had some excellent things to say, and we were actually had him signed up to come down here, but. Chronic kind of sideline that, but, you know, he had a deal called the elite mindset, which you're aware of. I remember Gordo questioning the word elite and I, you know, at first I kind of crawled my toes a little bit and I was like, Oh no.And then I was like, I love it. You know, I go, the guy's just, he's not taking status quo. And I think that's a great example of Gordo. Just always asking questions and from whether it's. You know, getting involved in an investment deal and want to know exactly how, you know, what a cap rate is to, what do you mean by elite mindset?And it's been a great, it's been a great example for me to follow, to always ask questions and not just, you know, if something ruffles your feathers a little bit or makes you pause, poke at it for it. Greg Gordon: I Michael Moore: think, Bob Wierema: I think what's great about that is one of the things that's always resonated with me that actually [00:42:00] by executive yeah.Coach tells me all the time he's he says seek to understand, not to be understood. So ask more questions, do more listening than trying to make your point and like the Gordo's point of earlier and just having that ability to. Ask the questions and understand and put your bias aside or what you may have been taught in the past.And just ask questions to understand, instead of stating your point and sticking from there. It's, it's interesting how the conversations go and the relationships get built. Richie Greth: Right, man, Michael Moore: you know, along that same go, go ahead and go to. Greg Gordon: It's like a God gave you two ears and one mouth Bob Wierema: exactly. Michael Moore: To, to echo that Gordo.I mean my executive coach, we talk a lot about identity and reputation, and I think in our twenties and thirties, you know, where we're real focused and maybe even a little bit worried about our reputation, like that's what you're trying to build, but in reality, It's your identity. I mean, that's been there the whole time.And so if you just truly focus on. You and who you are and being the best you, your reputation, and you don't worry about it. It's going to be there because you're being yourself. Bob Wierema: Michael. I just do want to point out real quick that I am still in my thirties just to rub that in with you a little bit. Greg Gordon: Well, Michael Moore: we'll always be older than you, Bob.Greg Gordon: Really early Michael Moore: two sets of twins will do that Greg Gordon: to you. Richie Greth: I have a car that's in its thirties.Greg Gordon: we, I would love to share our mission statement with you guys. Michael Moore: Please do, Greg Gordon: to build a legacy of helping others reach their God, given potential. You know, I'm doing coaching right now to, Zig Ziglar coaching. And Zig, you [00:44:00] know, he's got, he's got all these nuggets, man. He's just got tons and tons of nuggets, but he.I just think very few people map actually can take all those beautiful things in their mind and disability Strait them in ways that are really easy to understand. And Zig says that legacy is where success and significance come together. And so, I don't know, Michael, your years were identity and reputation.And I feel like I I'm experiencing success. I want to be able to navigate that without becoming a part of it. I'm really interested in significance now. And I think that's part of what happens as you age or you're humbled that wisdom sets in and you realize you don't know it all. Yeah. I just think the, the why or the significance to that's the thing that I think Richie and I get to live out for everybody, just this idea of how important relationships are and what they mean, what they look like.I Richie Greth: do have a funny story real quick about Zig Ziglar. And, it pops in my head when, and Gordo talking about it. But one time we were playing golf in Dallas and we happened to run into leach. Ravinia. And Lee was he's a, if you've ever run into him or ever had a one on Greg Gordon: one, he, he Richie Greth: loves to talk and he loves to tell stories and he just started, he just pulled up and started talking about someone's stock socks and went into a couple stories and was just talking and Gordo interjected with a funny story about Zig Ziglar, talking about, cooking in a pan and, And it was really funny and leach Ravinia looked at Gordon and he says, yeah, I sit next to her on a plane one time.And a Zig Ziglar told me it helped me with my golf game. And I says, well, what do you shoot? He says, well, high eighties. I go, you can't help me with my golf [00:46:00] game.Greg Gordon: Okay. Richie Greth: So I thought that was pretty funny. I'm a huge fan of Zig Ziglar, but I thought that was. Funny how different people take different advice. Michael Moore: Well, you just never know who you're going to walk up on the tee box and play with. Remember when we played with Mark Cuban's mom. Richie Greth: That's right. And we, we, we didn't even believe her.Michael and I, this would have been 2002, maybe. 2002, 2000 2003, the great Stevens park and Kessler Dallas area. Michael and I are on number one T and it's just a twosome about three o'clock and we're ready for the fairway to clear. And we see this little old lady pushing a push cart, like, Oh God, please hurry, please.Fairly clear. And she comes hobbling up and says your mom. And we're like, yeah, sure. So. That's the third hole. She starts, she goes, you boys basketball fans. And we says, yes, we are. She's a little, my son is Mark. And I started thinking, what basketball player his name was? Mark. And it was Mark Cuban's mom.And, it was pretty funny at Steven's park right there. And we didn't believe her until she hopped in the Cadillac at the turn. Then we thought, well, maybe it is her. I'll be darn sure it was her. Michael Moore: And I'm pretty sure her, her nine whole front was a better score than ours, but Greg Gordon: we had more fun, way more. Bob Wierema: I'm just trying to understand how much golf you've been playing.I think most of the stories have been surrounded with golf so far, Richie Greth: man. Greg Gordon: know Richie Greth: not to tell another one, but another one of my favorites is, early on in Gordo and I's friendship. Gordo's dad who he referred to. Incredible guy. He was a leader, Trammell Crow when I was there and he had come down to visit a friend of his and we played at a golf course.It's not even there anymore. Great Southwest. And, in Arlington and about the third [00:48:00] hole Gordo's dad looked at me and said, boy, I will fire your ass. If you worked for me, the way you play golf, you obviously don't work.Greg Gordon: That was actually, my dad was coming down from Chicago. He ran the Midwest for Trammell Crow, then. Oh, okay. I love Chicago, man. It's one of my favorite cities Bob Wierema: we just want, we just want it to get back to normal here. I, I love it as well. And it's, it's hard scene with everything that you don't talking about when we were talking earlier to seeing the way the city is right now, everything's shut down.It's sad. Greg Gordon: Yeah. Michael Moore: It's a tough spot. We're in one other, a theme we like to hit on in this podcast guys is, you know, there's, we're kind of talking, this almost sounds like a. Something Zig Ziglar would say, it's, it's not what you know, it's who, you know, but I heard another one the other day that it's, it's not what you know, it's who knows you.And so, as you think about our audience of this podcast and letting people know who you are and what you stand for and what Gordon Highlander is and where it's headed, what would you want to tell him? Greg Gordon: That's a softball, right? Michael Moore: Lobbing Greg Gordon: it up, baby lob that went up to us, huh? Well, I will tell you, you know, the dress for success.I like to tell people now dress from success. Words Michael Moore: matter Greg Gordon: words matter, man. And what order you put them in? Do you know? Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. Well, hopefully the audience has listened if you haven't, you should go back because there's a lot of good nuggets in here, but if you're just catching this part, keep it up as out for Gordon Highlander.I don't know. I think there's big things on the horizon for us. I think we can be a national force. I'm excited about having a growth mindset. Just trying to help everyone in the organization, get to where they're supposed to be and [00:50:00] get the organization where it's supposed to be. So if you're in Dallas, Fort worth, we love you.We're not going anywhere. If you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you need a good general contractor really close by. If there's a lot of industrial development in your future. We're more than just contractors. We understand the whole constellation around the deal, what it, what it, what it means to buy the land and build the building.We just think that because we know. What our customer goes through. That really helps us be the best general contractor out there. Who, again, if you want to play golf at Dallas national, you call RichieMichael Moore: that's Greg Gordon: perfect. Richie Greth: It's amazing to play golf and call it air quotes work Michael Moore: well with, with, with Jeff Bezos being one of our. Biggest podcast supporters will tell them to keep sending the work to Gordo. Greg Gordon: Yeah. Yeah. We signed an NDA, but we're not building his $10 billion clock or watch in the middle of the mountain over there or whatever the hell he's doing.But Richie Greth: thousand year clock, Greg Gordon: someone told me about that today. I don't even understand, but we'll build the warehouse all day long.What about you guys? How would you, how would you want your audience to know what you provide? How would you tell Gordon Highlander Michael Moore: from the standpoint of our podcast or how we make a living doing the podcast? Greg Gordon: Does the podcast point to your business or Michael Moore: no, that's not why we're doing this. I mean, it going back to.You know, the world essentially stopping for a minute and everybody resetting that's when Bob and I really started spending a lot of time on the phone, just looking for a creative outlet [00:52:00] and realizing that in our very own neighborhoods, whether it's in Chicago or Fort worth families, we're getting together again in the backyards and telling stories.And it was like, where did that go? I mean, Richie's been down to. My family's ranches. I don't even know how many times in the amount of stories that he's heard from my dad and my grandfather and times that I've spent with his dad. I mean, it's just that passage of knowledge is something that that's going away and we felt just motivated.Just say, no, stop that we're not letting it go away. We're going to get great people on our podcast with really interesting backgrounds. Defining moments and crossroads, and just bring those stories to life again. Greg Gordon: Do you know Donald Miller or D do you follow Story Brand at all? Michael Moore: I'm familiar with it, but I don't know it.Greg Gordon: I think we should invite him to Dallas national. All right. Let's all get our, our, desires together and let's, let's get someone on this podcast. It's out of our reach. Bob Wierema: Michael. And I've been talking about that. That's the goal. There's a couple, there's a couple ones out there that, you know, you, you think about it, it's like trying to get that reach out.And I said, I joked around with my buddies the other day about, they said, well, what are you going to do with this? Like, who are you trying to get on? I said, well, we've been wanting to hear all these. Stories, but we always kind of joke about, like I love talking to people like you guys cause it's relatable people.Right. And I said, but like at the end of the day, I said, the guy who like I've always loved and followed is Joe Rogan. I said, I'll hang it up. When I get Joe Rogan on the podcast, this he's the master of this. Right. Richie Greth: But that would be great. That would be great. Greg Gordon: Well, would it be cheating? We paid him. Bob Wierema: I don't think, I don't think we could do it enough after that big Spotify contract.Richie Greth: Right. Is he on cameo, Virginia?[00:54:00] Michael Moore: It needs a little pro bono work in his life now, you know, to give back, Bob Wierema: I mean, he's a big outdoors man. Like me. Maybe you can talk a little bow hunting on there, you know, just the Chicago boy that likes to bow hunt. I mean, come on. Greg Gordon: Wow. Michael Moore: Elk meat recipes. I mean, the guy's just, he's a Greg Gordon: beast. Dude. And he doesn't, Richie Greth: that's gotta be a narrow demographic from Chicago.Bob Wierema: There, there are not a lot. And, you know, you talk about, you know, these like funny stories. So when I met, when I met my now fiancé, if you could have only seen the face, the look on her face when I said yes, so I like to go hunting. She's like, well, what does that mean? I said, well, I. I bow hunt. She's like, well, what do you shoot?Michael Moore: It's Greg Gordon: like Bob Wierema: elk and deer. And she was just like, who is sky? Like what, what event is this in Chicago? I mean, you just don't have it here at all. There's, there's not a lot of people that are outdoors men here. And I live six blocks from my office right in the smack, a middle of downtown. And it's just been a huge passion of mine since I was a little kid.And you know, it's always be a part of my life. Richie Greth: Well, you need to get down to a, when the Miguelito's ranches, Sandy or Cedar Creek and go, go do some pig hunting nits. There there's some special places down there. Bob Wierema: And that's always interesting. I always look out for those invites and my phone never seems to fricking ring Michael Moore: well, you know, she's going to kind of see how this podcast goes and if it's successful, you know, we'll have a reunion down there.No, you never go. The invite is always out there. You know that, but go back to your question. I mean, I think, you know, what we want people to know is that this is just something we're doing from our hearts and we believe in it, it's important to us. We're having so much fun doing it, you know, and as it relates to what we do, I mean, a big part of, of Bob and I's job is, is the InsureTech [00:56:00] movement out there.I mean, you see the lemonade stock. Flying through the roof. You know, there's a lot of, of things that are trying to commoditize the insurance market. And, you know, our strong belief is that it's still a relationship people business. And so we're all about relationships we care Greg Gordon: and Michael Moore: this podcast, I mean, you've, you've gotta be in the moment for, you know, we're going on an hour plus now of really listening and being able to find that next question and to keep.The conversation going and taking it to maybe, you know, we've had several that have, we had one guy that got all teared up. I mean, you just don't know where the conversation's going to go, but if you're in the moment paying attention and giving a shit, it produces some amazing content. Richie Greth: For the record. I'm, I'm impressed.Gordo. Hasn't teared up. And I know he, I know he mentioned that, but that's part of his, you know, what tendencies, but, you know, I just gotta say, I love what you guys are doing. I love the storytelling aspect ever since you told me about it and hearing what you sent over. I think it's awesome. I mean, you know, storytellers and that.It's becoming a little bit of a loss brand then, and, and the lost touch with, with connecting with people. I mean, many years ago, I mean the most revered people in the tribe or the storytellers, you know, I mean, the people who gave the oral history and were able to relate, you know, the old, moral, the stories, et cetera.I think it's great what you guys were doing and very thankful to be a part of it. Michael Moore: I'm laughing because Bob Wierema: you talk about storytelling. Might this tell my dad the other day he goes, Oh yeah, that makes sense for you to go. He's like, you've been full of shit your whole life. Of course, you're going to do a plot.Yes. He's like, you got plenty of stories to share. Greg Gordon: Right? The other, the other connection that Richie and I [00:58:00] have is we love, I think one of the things that just marks really high up there. Our ability to laugh, learn our sense of humor and just having a good time together. And I see this connection, man. I don't know I'm going to do a good job my case here, but I think of joke telling is storytelling in a way.Absolutely. We kind of set up this story and then you like the way it are pulling the tablecloth out from underneath the table, you just let it, everyone know that it was actually rearranged a different way, and then you let them realize it, you know, And so Richie and I, I mean, dude, the other day, he, I think my dad called him to tell him a joke or he called my dad to tell my dad a joke.And then my dad told Richie that I never answer his phone calls anymore. So we made Richie call in on a three-way from Richie's phone and I answered the phone. And then I see my dad and tell him this.And then he was just like, I'll just leave it right there. Click you, hang out. Hey, hangs up the phone. And so, Yeah. I think our love of storytelling is it seems like it might be genetic. I haven't met Michael's dad, but I've heard lots and lots of stories. I think it's cool. If your dad can pants, you say that you were full of shit.That means. And he's probably a good storyteller too. Bob Wierema: He is, Greg Gordon: he definitely is. Richie's dad is a little bit like Lee Trevino. Like he comes right out with the story too. He's got them flying out. No Richie Greth: filter, no filter. The Bob Wierema: funny thing is I said to my dad the other day, I said, man, if you've gotten older though, like there's some stories here that were here and I'm not sure if they're real anymore.And he's telling one the other day and my [01:00:00] mom's looking at him. And she's like, I've never heard this story in 30 something years, you know? And she's like, I don't know where this is coming from. Richie Greth: You know, one thing my dad has a, has a propensity to do now is to merge like two or three Greg Gordon: stores. Richie Greth: And so it's like a hodgepodge it's like, you can just put it in my cocktail and hit the blender button.It's hilarious. Michael Moore: Well, I think that's just a sign of having so many good times. They just start all blending together. You Greg Gordon: know, Michael Moore: he's lived an amazing life. Well guys, you know, we're, we're coming on up over a little bit of an hour here. I can't. Thank you guys enough. And. We'd love to have you guys on again, see where Gordon Highlander creates total global domination.You know, again, Gordo, thank you for sharing the, the quote about storytelling is the language of the heart. Cause that's what this is all about, and we appreciate y'all telling your story today. Richie Greth: So is this first intermission or is this over? Michael Moore: We got Bob Wierema: to fill up our drinks. Greg Gordon: Yeah, it's actually my second set of twins an all day long Waterslide birthday party today.Wow. And so I am going to go change into my bathing suit. Well, Bob Wierema: there you go. Greg Gordon: I'll show you guys. I think this is the modern work attire, right? It's a dress shirt. Bob Wierema: Oh yeah. Greg Gordon: It was shorts. Bob Wierema: I thought you were going to show us the bathing suit. Greg Gordon: Yeah. Richie Greth: I just have dental flaws below the waist. There Michael Moore: you go.Newscasters have been doing it for years. Greg Gordon: Well, we appreciate you guys. I dunno, Michael, I'm happy for your success and. Great to meet you. Rich. Absolute love you [01:02:00] Richie Greth: guys. That was a blast. Michael Moore: Absolutely. Bob Wierema: Ton of fun. I'll hit you guys up for that Dallas Nashville invite. Don't worry. Probably coming here in August.Richie Greth: Okay, come on. Second half of August. We're shut down. First half and second half Bob Wierema: I'll play it. I'll plan it. I'll plan it a mic. Richie Greth: Yeah, you get to watch Bryson hit 400 yard drives on the practice. Tee. It's kind of fun. Bob Wierema: We'll make it happenfor sure.Michael Moore: We're all in. Thank you guys so much. Bob Wierema: You guys take care.Michael Moore: Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the climb. If you enjoyed the episode. Please consider subscribing. And if you know someone who you would think would enjoy the podcast, feel free to share this with them. Thanks again. And we'll see you on the next episode. . 

We’re at the end of a school year profoundly disrupted by a pandemic that has forced children out of the classroom and into quarantine at home. And this already difficult situation is even more complicated for children of divorce, who have more than one home. Parents who put their children first and co-parent amicably can help kids make the best of this scary situation. Unfortunately - for parents involved in ugly custody battles - the quarantine can be seen as an opportunity: to distance their children even further away from the other parent. If it takes a village to raise a child, the well-being of the child affects the whole village, so tonight we’re talking about co-parenting and covid-19 with co-parenting advocate Wendy Perry. Wendy Perry is Co-founder of Parental Alienation Awareness USA, and Chair of Dallas-Fort worth Parental Alienation Awareness Day. Wendy also hosts monthly support groups and meets with legislators in Washington on Family Law Reform. Wendy Perry

With separation of church and state, can churches actually be legally allowed to open their doors to people during the quarantine?Seasoned Dallas Personal Injury Attorney Quentin Brogdon from Crain Brogdon LLP on Newsradio 570 KLIF broadcasting in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.Connect with Quentin Brogdon

This is Part 2 to the previous podcast on Covid-19 and what Majona and I are doing here as far as natural preventives. Transcription [00:00:00] And welcome back to part two. We are going to roll right on in about talking about moving our feet. I loved on, this is the part two of the last podcast that we were talking about, the spiritual and energetic things that you can do to navigate through these ominous times. We are in some stuff that, I mean, the astrological chart says that boys and girls.[00:00:27] This, uh, whatever is going on is going to go on for quite a while because we're talking about energetic shifts. We're talking about challenging structures that don't work anymore, and we're talking about rebuilding them with a lot of social changes. So if we wanted to look at a parallel of something that happened in history last time, the last time this energy was even halfway, they're not fully there.[00:00:54] Was when a bunch of rebels told George that they weren't going to do it his way anymore and they were willing to die for it and from that America was born. Now, if that wasn't a shakeup of conventionality, I don't know. What was the time before that? A little rebel Italian dude by the name of Martin Luther told the Pope that he wasn't going to do it like that anymore.[00:01:21] And I think a, and then we go to the time back before that, and there were viruses and plagues as the dark ages exited, the bubonic plague came along with a Saturn Pluto conjunction. It was a couple of decades later, but it was attached in the whole process. So, you know, I don't know how all this plays out.[00:01:42] I just look back at history and I go, wow, respecting whatever this is, and Fasten the seatbelt because I don't know what the ride fully is. Now we're dealing with a very highly contagious virus. I'm doing a radio program in the DFW area. It's [00:02:00] actually online, and you can hear it if you want to. It's a podcast is called the human side of healthcare, and it's basically a show that is sponsored on a radio station by all of the hospitals in the Dallas Fort worth area.[00:02:15] So if you listen, I wouldn't go back to previous episodes, but the one that we're going to be doing is on Sunday, will be episode number 11 and you could pick up from there and I would imagine that we're going to be talking about this quite a bit going forward. So I've been inundated, I've been in a conversation with a lot of top hospital people and a very much ingrained in this conversation.[00:02:36] That's why everything that Majona talked about in part one really applies to me because I have to shake this stuff off and. Really counteract it with the opposite side of the energy. One of the tasks that I'm taking on, this is one of observer and not so getting caught up in it. Whatever happens is going to happen, and yes, I think you had some brilliant points in part one on what we can do mentally, cognitively in our thoughts with our aura to protect this.[00:03:07] So I think that was super solid. Now, as Bob Proctor said. Thank your thoughts and move your feet because if you sit around and sing koombaya all the time, and I want $1 million, I want $1 million, it's not going to float down the chimney. So there are things that we can do to be prudent and I think we should be.[00:03:31] So yes, you've heard all the others. We're not going to go into all that mom wash her hand, so there won't be a vaccine out for this for anytime soon. Forget about that. What else can we do? It's basically preventing something from like from catching a cold is the foundation of this or from catching the flu.[00:03:53] Both viruses, however, flu can be, can also be bacterial. Now look, here's the setup. When I [00:04:00] was a kid between the ages of, I don't know, I can't remember until about 12 I had walking pneumonia probably five or six times. I would catch it almost every year and it would be four weeks that I wasn't in school.[00:04:14] As an adult, I would very be very susceptible to viral infections. In fact, I remember back in the day when I was going to church, here's how your mind works. Back in the church days. I would sit down in a particular seat on the row and subconsciously or go to a movie or anything like this, and subconsciously I'm thinking, I don't want to be around somebody who is coughing.[00:04:40] Wow. Guess who would sit behind me every single time? Thoughts are things[00:04:50] uncovered. Cough. Right. Right there. But I have to say, has that changed? I don't know anybody more aware of other people coughing, then you, Oh, I'm telling you I'm a radar. But the thing is I would get whatever they had, and yes, thoughts are very powerful things and reflected in that very way. It's really crescendoed for me in Colorado when I just got sick after one time after another, after another.[00:05:19] And it did happen to me again here in Dallas before I went to Colorado, which is during the flu season. I could not be out of a respiratory infection for more than just a couple of days, and then it would come right back. So I started looking around for alternatives and I found something, and this is, I want to put all kinds of disclaimers on this.[00:05:40] Vagina. Are we physicians and not by a long shot. We are not doctors. Have we ever been a doctor? Not in this lifetime. Am I trying to play one on radio or television? No. For those of you who grew up in the sixties and seventies you'll know what I'm talking about. Um, what else could I say to disclaim this [00:06:00] properly?[00:06:00] We are not giving medical advice. We're not giving health advice. We are telling you what we are doing. And I'm not even going to do it from any kind of a position of, Oh, you should do this too. This is what we're doing to put feet to everything that we talked about in part one, and I'm doing this from personal experience because I had to find something that might work and I found colloidal silver.[00:06:27] Now that's been in the news just in this past week because Jim Baker, you remember the televangelist, Jim Bakker, Jim and Tammy Faye from North Carolina. Well, Jim has moved from Charlotte, which was, you know, Christian Mecca, one to Branson, which we just came through Branson about a month ago and found that they call it a jokingly, the Christian Vegas visitor's casinos all over the place.[00:06:56] So you Christians can get on a bus and go to Branson and gamble, and you can go to the Jim Baker show because he's still at it and he just got slapped for it. The worms just move on down the road. And he did get slapped for it because what was he doing? He was selling colloidal silver. He was selling three 16 ounce bottles and two tubes of gel on his website for $125[00:07:23] Now, let me tell you how you make colloidal. Yes. So Thomas has wearing a new hat these days. He's, you know, one of his hats is astrologer, and one of them is subconscious mind master. And he is also now Thomas the Alchemist. Well, you know, when you get looking at these things and you go to the store, you go to vitamin Shoppe or whole foods, one of these places, you're going to pay about 30 bucks for 20 to 30 bucks for some colonial silver.[00:07:49] That's, you know, so he was selling two or three of those two, three, three, I guess, of those jars. So, you know, I mean, it might not have been too out of line with other retail prices, [00:08:00] but here's what's in it. Distilled water.[00:08:06] Yes. What you do is you go on Amazon in there and you search up colloidal silver kit or maker or whatever, and there are a couple of things and basically all you need is a source of electricity. So there's, there are a couple of things on Amazon that will give you the right power that you need, and it's on alligator clips.[00:08:25] And then you go to Etsy or a shop like that and you buy. As pure silver rods as you can and Google all this. There's bouquets of articles and YouTube videos on how to make colonial silver and you basically stick those rods in that a water. I've got a little. Jar that I use and I poked holes in the plastic top.[00:08:47] It's a little milk bottle is what it is, and I poked holes in the top, so the little silver rods just fit right down in there. You clip it to alligator clips. I did buy a better power source for it because I wanted consistent power and it works beautifully and he let it sit for about overnight. And when you get up in the morning, you filter it out.[00:09:07] Into a jar and you've got colonial silver. Well, that's worth 125 bucks right there. Whopping cost after parts of basically a 16 ounces or 12 ounces of distilled water. So that's what I've been doing. And found that when I would take that, when I started to feel the symptoms of the respiratory infection, that it would knock it out.[00:09:31] It would really slow it down. Well, while I was on the search of finding how to do it myself, I came across an Amazon product that I didn't buy because I thought it was overpriced, but it mentioned nebulizing it. Now this is getting really, really dicey folks, and this is where I'm saying I, we are not advocating that anybody do this.[00:09:52] And I would, if you even explore this, explore the other side of it, because a lot of people talk about, don't ever [00:10:00] put it into your lungs directly. But I have a Phillips nebulizer that I got and I inhale the colloidal silver just a little bit, just for a little while, not very long. And the last time that I started to get a little infection, which was at the beginning of this falls season, I felt the tenge.[00:10:21] I did all of my little treatments and it was gone within a matter of about four or five hours. It's amazing. Being proactive I think is very important. So what I have found personally is that used very discreetly and in moderation. It can knock it out because folks, I'm telling you from personal experience that would have gotten a hold of my throat and I would have been sick, coughing stuff up for three weeks, not narrating audio books, not doing podcasts, not doing any of this stuff.[00:10:52] And that's, that was one of the things that, uh, that fit, that really helped fix that problem. And one of the things that, that Thomas and I are convinced of is medicine is for the masses, right? They tend, there's like a bell curve. And so they go for the who, who does this most currently treat, or most often, and, but that there's outliers, right?[00:11:15] So what works for some people won't work for others. And that's where we're coming from. That's why we look at some alternative things and we prefer not chemicals. Yeah, just, yeah, exactly. I try to do it naturally. You do too. Yeah, so my other thing, Thomas will consume the colonial where I prefer not to do that because when it hits your stomach acid, what I read was it immediately turns to sodium, a form of sodium, and so.[00:11:43] I just, I ran with it. I put it in my mouth and swish it around. Gargo rinse with it and spit it out. And I've had great results as well, but that's us and she does the nebulizer as well. I would suggest that if you are at all thinking about doing this, do [00:12:00] your research first. There's another thing that you'll find and I'll warn you what it is.[00:12:05] That you can turn purple, that literally there are some pictures of a guy in particular who did way too much with way high of a parts per million. So you've got to know how many parts per million. You've got to figure all this stuff out of what you're going to do. I'm doing about 12 parts per million, which is a rather modest amount.[00:12:29] And evidently this guy was doing like a Brown 60 or some crazy number and taking way too much of it and all of that. Just doing everything wrong and it can change the pigmentation of your skin. Moderation is always key, so you have to respect it and I just know that I use it when symptoms present. I don't do it all the time.[00:12:49] And I know that it has worked incredibly well. Now, will it work for this stuff that's being talked about now that's among us? I have no idea, but that's one of my tools. Another one is elderberry syrup. Again, something that if you buy is pretty pricey, but if you go on Amazon and you get some organic elderberries.[00:13:10] And you basically boil them for about an hour. You just get a little pot, bring it up to boiling, simmer it, and then take it down to simmer. And then you can put some other things in there too. Whatever you'd like. You can put Shoppe up some ginger, some fresh ginger, and put it in there. Uh, some cloves would be nice.[00:13:27] Cinnamon sticks. This is all part of our Yogi tea recipe that we've been giving out to people. Uh, let's see. Uh, the cinnamon sticks. Oh, I do put a little cardamom in there. Any. Herbs that have healing properties that you know you really need, that gives you a little boost, I think would be appropriate to put in there.[00:13:46] Yeah, it's totally, totally doable. The water does cook down a little bit and then you're left with the berries and some water that you basically mash or extract or use some cheesecloth or a a a [00:14:00] nutbag is what we use and squeeze it out. And that's your syrup. Now it will be a little bit strong. So you might want to sweeten it with either some Stevia or some honey.[00:14:11] Put honey in there. And I just put a little splash of red, uh, Apple cider vinegar. It's my mind a little full these days. You know what? And I would add with the sweetener. For me, that's not an option. I need it. This is some very interesting flavored staff. Full of sugar helps the medicine go down. That's my sweetener of choice.[00:14:34] Yeah, but that is super good. Especially once symptoms begin. You can do that now. This is number three of three. The third thing that I do every day is a sorbic acid. AKA, that sounds scary, doesn't it? I'm doing acid folks. That explains a lot. Yeah. Open your spiritual senses by doing a sorbic acid every day or better known as vitamin C.[00:15:06] take a lot of that Wu out of there. It's vitamin C in powder form. And when you get it, usually it's more milligrams than a tablet. So like a teaspoon of the stuff that I use is 5,000 milligrams for that teaspoon where you know, normally a pill that you would get at the vitamin Shoppe is 500 or a thousand so a thousand is actually not bad.[00:15:29] 2000 is pretty therapeutic. 3000 is good. You don't really have to go up to 5,000 it's not that. Not that necessary, but the powder form is. Definitely more absorptive for one, and I think there's been a lot of stuff, and I know it's going around now, the government is shooting down both of the things that I just mentioned, colloidal silver and, and a vitamin C, but it's like, look, it's one of those things of.[00:15:56] What have you have to lose? You know, let the government [00:16:00] tell you, let the pharmaceutical industry tell you that this stuff doesn't work for me. That means go get it. Follow the money. So, and majora had a good point too, is, you know, even if you get something and this stuff doesn't prevent it, it might lessen it or it may not even work.[00:16:20] All again, I'm saying is what we're doing. It may not work for you at all. Zero. Yeah. But you know, the power of the placebo, and even if these are nothing but placebos for us, my approach is we're doing what we can and Oh, you didn't tell him about the hand sanitizer. Oh, I made some hand sanitizer to best ever serious.[00:16:43] You know, one of the things is it's questionable in science, whether those hand sanitizers work. So basically they are a petroleum based gel. That they put a little bit of aloe in, and then it's about three parts. Alcohol, rubbing alcohol to two parts of this gel. And that's, that's what you get. Sucks the moisture right out of your skin.[00:17:06] Yeah. So you're putting this rubbing alcohol on and all of this. So what I did is did a little research and just made sure that these were mixable and they are. If you take, okay, so take your third and we're doing all almond oil. Okay. Just happen to find it at the store and thought, eh, let's try that.[00:17:24] It's working. It's working okay. With a caveat. Almond oil is the third, and then for that other two thirds, I'm dividing that by three. And doing a third of that colloidal silver, a third rubbing alcohol and a third hydrogen peroxide, and then putting a little bit of frankincense essential oil in there with it too.[00:17:46] Now, can you imagine what that's going to do with that almond oil? Is it going to blend nicely? And this is where the, there are no emulsifiers included, comes in, it's separates and that, I mean, it's separates in [00:18:00] a matter of split seconds really fast, how much you shake it up and then you really have to get on it.[00:18:06] But. Tell him about how you like it. Oh my gosh, I love it. I have dry skin anyway, and it's like you would think all our lemon, what's, what'd you use? Almond oil would be greasy. It's not, your skin just absorbs it. It smells great. I'm like, Ooh, we got to market this, except he just told the world our formula.[00:18:27] I don't have time. Yeah. I mean, anyway. And we don't have a microscope to tech. Yeah. We're not going down. We're not going down that road. But, uh, but it, again, to me, you're taking all of the natural, purest, best agents to kill that virus that are known. Because one of the things that is said is that that stuff doesn't work.[00:18:50] There are schools of thought. Some people say, yes, it does. It's okay, go ahead and use it. And then some people say it's just as non-effective wash your hands. Well, when you put all three together, and I know, I firmly believe that the colloidal silver does kill on contact, and if it happens in your body, it might as well happen out in front of you.[00:19:09] So I've been using that. I think it's a good plan. So that is how we are moving our feet now. Also, we're moving our feet in doing other podcasts. So if you link all of the podcasts that magenta and I are doing, so there's fun astrology and I've been talking about that every day this week, and those are shorter episodes.[00:19:30] And then we're also doing one on Magenta's life after life. So in addition to these two episodes, if you want more, we've got it on fun. Astrology. For this week of basically ending March 12th 13th 2020 and then magenta is releasing one in the next day or two on life after life. All right. I have some great interviews coming up.[00:19:52] Steve forest will be out just momentarily and also Trisha Carr is going to be, we're going to talk to Tricia [00:20:00] Carr, a great new friend from Los Angeles, so a lot of good stuff coming up. All right. Take care and enjoy the journey. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

7. In this episode we're joined by Paige Shipp, Paige is the regional director for Metrostudy in the Dallas/Fort worth market, she is a sought after speaker, and she's an expert advisor for new home builders, developers, and financial institutions, and is instrumental in  guiding them on how to best navigate the current housing and economic market conditions.On the show, we're going to be talking about the real estate market as we look ahead into 2020, and recap 2019.We discuss everything related to housing including how an election impacts the market, if there's a looming recession, changes in buyer expectations, and more!If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review!Key Points in this episode:[15:13] Land Costs[21:57] Buyer Expectations[22:53] Community Amenities[24:16] Impact of an Election Year[30:23] One Story vs Two Story[36:39] Stay In Your Lane / Do What You Do Best[39:59] Incentives[43:32] Inventory Levels[45:10] Renters & Myths Renters Believe[49:04] Mcmansions on the Horizon[50:22] Looming Recession[53:22] Slowdown in Appreciation[54:22] Resetting Buyer and Seller Expectations[56:24] Home is Not a Piggy Bank

7:53 PM Eastern, to be exact. I sometimes like to reflect differently on Mercury Retrograde, especially at the beginning!! LOL. This is my take on this first MR of 2020 -which isn't what a lot of others may claim gloom and doom around communications and technology! Feb 16 - Transcription [00:00:00] It's mercury retrograde day. I'm going to debunk some mercury retrograde here, so Fasten your seatbelt. It's time for a Sunday coffee talk. If you're catching this on Sunday, February 16th hi. Welcome to the fun astrology podcast, your unconventional purveyor of astrology here. Thomas Miller. Let's talk about mercury retrograde.[00:00:26] First of all, it goes retrograde at 7:53 PM tonight Eastern time. Now let's talk about what it is first. Mercury retrograde is when mercury passes the orbit of the earth relative to the sun. The earth, of course, takes 365 days to go around the sun. One time mercury does it in 88. Now, the astrological chart is simply a replication of what's going on in the sky from Earth's perspective.[00:01:01] So have you ever noticed if you're passing a car and you're both doing about, you're doing about 62 and the other cars doing about 57 and when you get up close to each other, it appears as though the other car is going backward. Or you could use the analogy of two trains. If you've ever written a passenger train and have been in a position where that train was running parallel with another train, but going a little faster, it looks like the other train is going backwards.[00:01:31] Or maybe you've seen that in a movie. That's the idea of mercury retrograde. It's a perception. Mercury itself is not going backward, nor is any other planet in retrograde. But the Marvel of the skies is so amazing. It is so amazing because it appears to us on earth that it is, and that's reflected in the astrological chart.[00:01:55] So it's technically that mercury is between the earth and the [00:02:00] sun. Now, this last time, last fall in 2019 during mercury retrograde, you could actually see mercury up against the sun. That only happens every so often, but technically mercury is between the earth and the sun at that point. Now with the earth at 365 days orbit and with mercury at 88 one would think that mercury would cross 4.1 times per year if you do the math.[00:02:27] But to factor the times that it is in retrograde, so it retraces steps on the astrological wheel and you have to consider the also almost two or three weeks that it takes to get back to where it was when it started appearing to go backwards. So factoring that time in is why we only have three per year.[00:02:51] Now. What about all the trauma and drama about it disrupting everything in our lives, particularly the things that mercury rules, communication, transportation, flights canceled. Hey, I'm following somebody on. Astro Twitter, the Twitter community of astrology, who was going to get married in Vietnam, I believe sometime this summer.[00:03:15] I can't remember the details, but had to cancel the wedding because of the coronavirus and canceled the trip during the shadow period while mercury was slowing down. And that's just another little brief parentheses. If you're new to astrology. The planets do not move in any kind of symmetric speed or order around the chart.[00:03:37] They speed up and slow down. So that's another study into itself. But just realize that it's not all just symmetric, like things are moving at the same speed all the time. They're not. And that's again, the reflection of what's going on in the sky. Now, science doesn't like anything about the conversation and mercury retrograde.[00:03:57] They science would just debunk the whole [00:04:00] thing is nonsense. I hope that in their debunking, they don't try to write their antagonistic report during a mercury retrograde. It probably will get screwed up somehow. I mean, if you're a mirror, even casual observer of life, you will see that there is amped up stuff around these areas.[00:04:21] Here's how I like to look at it here. First of all, I think in the duality of the universe that we are given this amazing ability called we are creators. We are, we are absolutely able to create our path. We are not the ponds and puppets of shadow energy from planets up in the sky 100% of the time all the time.[00:04:47] How I think this energy affects us is exactly like I've said on here so many times already, is it's almost like a weather forecast. You're going to do what you're going to do tomorrow. Do you bring sunscreen or a raincoat jacket or shorts? Is the wind going to blow or is it going to be a beautiful day to be outside and do something where the wind wouldn't bother you.[00:05:11] And that's why you have a gazillion apps on your phone that you are one button push away from knowing the forecast at any time, and that's why they call the astrology placements of the day. Astrology, weather. I guess I should start calling this show the astrology weather show or something. It's like your daily forecast of energy.[00:05:32] It's an energetic weather forecast. So for the next three weeks, the winds of mercury retrograde are going to blow. Well, is that going to affect you? Well, let's use another weather analogy. Back last fall in 2019 we had a series of literally one night, 10 tornadoes passed through the Dallas Fort worth area.[00:05:58] The whole place was under [00:06:00] tornado warnings. Sirens were going off all over. But those tornadoes were not a string of those really big, massive, wide one or two mile wide tornadoes. These were little funnel clouds that just came down and dipped into certain areas. Now where they dip down, they did a ton of damage, but they only dipped down here.[00:06:22] So literally you could have a house on one side of the street with the roof completely sucked off of it and no damage, not even a branch on the house across the street. Do you get the analogy? See, it can happen here and not here. How does energy work? I don't know. I don't have a full explanation of that, but I do know that it doesn't have to necessarily affect you if you don't want to focus on it.[00:06:47] Don't get all wrapped up in it. Don't get absorbed in it. Just be aware of it. And I think that we can all set intentions. Do our manifesting, creating work. And we can do that under Annie astrological weather condition. I've narrated, I'm just about to finish number 27 so, so far, 26 audio books for Fred Dodson.[00:07:14] So I've been absorbed deeply in his material since 2013 narrating these audio books. And the one thing that Fred has taught me unequivocably and you cannot argue with his success. Is that we can, through this inner work that is described in all of those books, that we can indeed set our own course and steer our own ship of reality.[00:07:41] I think too often we get into the mode of wanting to blame external things for us not doing what we're supposed to be doing with our own lives, and mercury retrograde is probably one of the easiest astrological crutches for us to rely on. Now, if you are one of [00:08:00] those who the tornado winds are blowing more on your side of the street during this Pisces mercury retrograde, here's the way that I look at how to basically handle this energy.[00:08:13] There are a lot of, especially natural science type folks who think that fasting. On a somewhat frequent basis, one day a week, one day a month. but a point where you go without food for a 24 hour period is very healthy for your body. It's a reset. It's a way for your digestive system to cleanse and clear itself and kind of reset.[00:08:40] That's a really good way to think about how to handle mercury retrograde. Just let it be a three week period where you kind of take a step back. Maybe you're not sending as much or putting as much stuff out there. But you're bringing things in. You're being more reflective, you're doing inner work, you're doing more close in work.[00:09:01] If you have that ability and that luxury, and I know that life continues to happen and maybe the demands of work are such that you have to put material out and. And go for it. I mean, do the work, but if you can use some of that time to just pull things back in and do a little bit of energetic or soul type fasting, that person who, planned their wedding during mercury retrograde.[00:09:29] Yeah. You know, maybe a unawareness of this would cause one to check, where's the moon? You know, if you're planning a wedding, where's the moon? Where's mercury? You know, these things could be a factor in the initial planning, so I just think it's a time of rest. It's a time of reset. It's a time of reflection.[00:09:48] You know, the communication that they talk about being scrambled isn't going to get scrambled if you, if your main. Type of communication or a lot of your communication or the work that you're doing for [00:10:00] yourself is in your own journal? No. Okay, so what, right. Like, you know, don't send as many emails. Maybe during this time.[00:10:09] Don't text as much. Throttle it back. Get off your phone. Turn that dang thing off and turn it over and just get away from it. Then you don't have to worry about that piece of technology. Right. As long as this audio board and this music plays, I'll keep doing these podcasts through mercury retrograde. We won't worry about that either.[00:10:31] Hopefully they get posted and I just think it's a time to, you know, to just take a pause and bring it in. All right. That's my take on it. I'll stay with it. It works for me, and if that gives you a couple of ideas of how to deal with it and just don't amplify it, don't make a big deal out of it. All right.[00:10:50] Have a great one. Thanks for listening. Hope your Sunday is marvelous. See you tomorrow. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James: Hi, audience and listeners. This is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth at Real Estate Investing podcasts. Last week, we had Jake and Gino from Wheelbarrow Profits. You know, Jake and Gino have tons and tons of deals on their own and you know, recently have moved into syndication space as well. And their story is just very interesting in terms of knowing how did they get started, how did they refinance their first deal to launch their multifamily investing career.   Today I have Rich Fishman from Dallas, and Rich has almost 8,000 units right now across 23 complexes and he has been buying in Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Mississippi, and South Carolina. So Rich is going to be giving us a lot of valuable insights into how he had bought so many apartment units. And imagine half of that 8,000 units is fundamentally owned by Rich itself and the other half of it is more of a partnership and syndication. Hey Rich, welcome to the show.   Rich: Well, thank you, James. Glad to be here.   James: Good, good. So, Rich, it's going to be a very interesting podcast because, and I'm going to be learning so much from you and I'm sure my listeners is going to be learning so much from you. How did you get started? I mean, you have like 8,000 units right now. You started almost 20 years ago. So walk back, how did you get started in multifamily immediately when you get started in real estate?   Rich: Well, actually, I was the owner of a mortgage company in the San Francisco Bay area in Berkeley, California and I financed mostly half homes, but I also financed apartment complexes. And I had a deal to finance, it was a six-plex in Alameda, California, and it was a foreclosure. Back then, there were a lot of foreclosures and the realtor gave me the deal, I got the loan, and then the buyer fell out of escrow; they didn't like the deal. And then there was another buyer; same thing happens. And I said to the realtor, I said, “What's wrong with this deal? It looks like it makes money.”  And she says “Nothing's wrong with the deal.”  And I said, “Well, I don't know how to manage anything like this.”  She says, “Well, I know management company, don't worry about it.” So I went to the property, then I dragged my wife there.   And it's a funny story because my wife is from Scandinavia and they don't do very well there. And so we went to the property and we had one of those, you know those long screwdrivers that the termite guys have because we are poking around, seeing if it was well-built. And the screwdriver went right through the wood into the drywall. And my wife says, "No, I can't buy this with you.”  I said, "No, we're buying this.”  And she looked at me and she said, “Okay.”  And so we bought this six-plex. And the six-plex was the beginning of us starting to buy real estate in earnest. So that's the story is we cut aside. There was a sidebar from the mortgage business.   James: Got it, got it, yeah. I always wonder, like whenever I meet brokers, mortgage brokers, and even brokers, I always ask them, why not you guys buy these deals, right? Why are you just doing transaction? And a lot of times, I mean not a lot of times I think once I talk to someone who went from a mortgage broker to become an investor. I'm sure you know him; it's like Michael Becker, right? Yeah. I think he's a big buyer in Dallas. I asked him this question because he used to be working in Wells Fargo and he told me not everybody likes to take risks like a business owner.   Rich: It's not only about the risk. The main reason that people get into the investment side is because, when you're doing transactions as a broker, you're making income and you're only as good as your last deal. You have to keep churning and closing deals to make a living, and every broker is off to the next listing, or the mortgage person is off the next loan and you'd live and die by the transaction. So eventually, most people either say, I've got to own this stuff; build wealth rather than income. Or I'm not interested; I really don't want to own anything. It takes the risk and the responsibility of owning property. So that's the thing, I had to make a decision to own it, take care of it, use my free time because I was still a mortgage broker. I had to use my weekends to run the real estate with my wife. We want to get started because we couldn't just go into multifamily; we needed the income from the mortgages. So it takes a lot of sacrifice for the first couple of years to get into something like this.   James: Got it, got it. So you must know the industry; working as well in the mortgage and to really successfully become owner and take advantage of that knowledge as well. So after how many years or after how many unit count that you, you said, okay, I'm going to give up this mortgage business, I'm going to be just a fulltime, a real estate investor?   Rich: I think we hit about a thousand apartments. And at that point, I let go of my duties in the mortgage company and concentrated on just buying and selling apartments.   James: Got it, got it. So, 20 years ago you started buying the six-plex, when did you see your fastest acceleration of purchase or acquisitions?   Rich: Well, we hit about 4,000 units and then the recession came 2009 to 14, 12, 13 as on the area of the country, and that was really hard. So we didn't really grow during that period. We were selling off as fast as we were buying, just kind of trying to keep our head above water. We got to about 5,000 units, about two or three years ago, and then we've grown a lot more. I could probably have 50,000 apartments today if I wanted them. I would have to basically align myself with someone on Wall Street or some investment banking for like a Goldman Sachs or something like that. And they would be happy to raise the money and give me all that money and I could then own five or 10% or 15% or whatever it is that is bought, BUT I'm not that going to ho for that strategy.   So the growth at this point is really about organic growth for me and our company, and also quality of life because when you have institutional mining, you have to take care of it in a way that suits the institutions. And they have requirements that family and friends and other people don't have. For example, they might want audited books every year. That doesn't sound like a lot because we don't; we have books [inaudible 08:46] and everything, but that just takes a lot of time to get an audit done. And if you multiply that by 15 or 20 EO, now you have to have a whole audit department, and CPAs work who for you and things like that. So it's been really about opportunity and raising money mostly from either my own, resources or family and friends and other methods.   James: Got it, got it. So, Rich, I think you bring a really good perspective in terms of economic cycle because you have went through, I mean, you started 20 years ago, you went through that 2008 and everybody said 2008 multi-family, you know, fat better than any other asset classes, they are very, very low. What you call, you know, who went into a receivership or bankruptcy; multifamily, so is that true?   Rich: That's not true at all. Most of the people who are in multifamily today, we're not even involved in the business.   James: Exactly, that's what I'm asking because everyone is sort of newbies--   Rich: A lot of people were wiped out in that recession and a lot of other people were underwater. I mean, there were thousands of apartment complexes that were foreclosed on. Now was it as bad as office buildings or retail? Maybe not, I really don't know, but it was bad. Now they say anybody who lasted eight years, they could come out the other side feeling good. But most people don't have the capital to take five or six or seven years of losses, and large losses. If you're not making debt coverage, if you're not able to pay your loan and you're coming out of pocket, that might be okay for one deal. But if you have 20 deals like that, yeah, that's a whole different story. So it's quite a different thing than when people say. Now, the multifamily was hitting extremely hard, and I think the default ratio was up to about 8%.   James: 8%. Okay.   Rich: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That doesn't sound that bad compared to student loans. But if you think about it 8% is, you know, you're talking about housing that touches the lives of millions of people.   James: Got it. Yeah. It's very interesting data because you are giving me true data. I mean, sometimes we read in the news and they say low delinquency rate and it was not a hard hit and we don't have real, true story. Right, because a lot of it depends on the sub-marker, depends on which class we are talking about, and you know, depends on the operator as well. So how did you survive the 2008 crash?   Rich: Well, I have some properties that cash barge really well and I had others that really couldn't survive and I got rid of them. I sold them off or actually, I had you cut my portfolio down in order to survive and retrench a little bit, but I only had a few deals that were like that, the rest, I didn't have the leverage. If you were totally leveraged up in a bad market, then you cannot save yourself because, and if you're a partnership, you can't save yourself either. Because, if you own 10 or 20% of the deal and the loan is negative, then you would actually have to make a capital call every month on your partners in order to make those payments, and if you raise money. You know that there are two words that should never be spoken ‘capital costs’.   James: Exactly.   Rich: And so it's hard to really get money out of people to feed something that's losing money. So, there are a lot of people who gave; I know one fellow in the Houston market, he had property all over Houston, Atlanta, I think he gave up about 40 yields back. And there were other people like that who had just a tremendous amount of deals that they gave back to the banks.   James: So was this deal when they give back did Fannie and Freddie was giving non-recourse loan at that time?   Rich: Yeah, non-recourse loans, they just won't; if you give them deals back, they don't want to lend to you again unless you pay a heavy penalty to offset their losses because they take losses, themselves or the service or takes the loss. And in Fannie Mae's case, the loan originator slash servicer usually takes about five to 10% of the risk of the loan. So, you know, that could be pretty substantial too, to them because they're usually own companies by either large wealthy individuals or by banks. They don't like taking losses at all.   James: Got it, so they--   Rich: Hopefully we won't be there again.   James: Yeah, absolutely, we didn't want to be there again. So it was non-recourse and the owners were able to just give up their property, they lose their equity and the service that takes some loss and they gave it back to Fannie Mae and that's it.   Rich: Fanny Mae never own; one of the problems with the way the system was set up, is that Fannie may never really own the loan. People don't realize this, but Fannie Mae is just a broker.   James: Really? Okay.   Rich: There's really like nobody, you know, there's not like someone in Mumbai who owns or in Shanghai who owns all these loans. I mean, they basically securitize the loans and they sell the loan as a bond in the world financial markets. And so there's a special servicer who represents the interests of the bondholders and that person is delegated decision making, but they're not able to cut deals on Fannie Mae loan. So, they don't generally go and say, we see that you're negative, and why don't we go from 5% to 3% and you can owe us the money later? Things like that; they're not flexible. So, actually, Freddie Mac is, is more flexible, they act more like a bank, and so they can do workouts in a much better way than Fannie Mae can. It's just one of the things people don't know.   James: Got it. Wow, that's interesting. That's a lot of information out there. Yeah, I mean, Fannie Mae does a, securitize the loan and they sell it to the investor who buys it as a bond and they get certain percentage out of it. And in the middle there's servicer, there's Fannie Mae, everybody makes a few percent like this one [inaudible 15:59].   Rich: Everybody is making money, and at the end, the only people who generally lose money are the bondholders.   James: Okay, are the bondholders. But if the deal is given back, I mean the equity holder, whoever, the owner also lose the money as well, right? So there are two people, the buyer, and the seller, right?   Rich: The borrower absolutely loses a whole lot of their entire investment. And then the lender, if the lender can't be made whole by the sale of the real estate, they may lose money too. Things can get pretty bad in that cycle, that the value of the property often sunk below the outstanding balance of the loan. There're a lot of negative things to talk about, but let's talk about more positive things.   James: Got it. So you talked about people who are highly leveraged, right? So let's say you're buying a deal at 75% leverage. Do you think that's high level, I mean, can you define highly leverage? What is the highest leverage that you think?   Rich: Well, in today's world, you can leverage up to, Oh, even 90% for the first and second or preferred equity. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that you don't want to leverage that high on a stabilized property. It's one thing if you buy a property that's a value add and that you're going to add value and renovate a property, increased rents, increased value, and you're looking on a stabilized basis that okay, you went high leverage, but within a year or two you're going to be catching up and the leverage point will be at 60%, 65 or 75% or something. But if you're basically highly leveraged in stabilized properties without any value add then. If the rents go down five or 10%, then you're underwater, you want to have some protection; you want to certainly have 20% or debt coverage or something like that.   James: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, that's the reason where I'm going with the question because we buy deals, we buy deals or value at deals even at 80% leverage, but in one to two years, that 80% leverage is going to be, 70 to 65% leveraged. So basically it's not leveraged at the start of the loan, it's basically, where are you going to be once you're stabilized; that's the more important thing. Sometimes people get confused that you shouldn't be highly leveraged? Why highly leverage and you don't understand that we are looking for buffer for DSCR? We want to be as further up from the debt service coverage ratio. That's the fundamental discussion about what highly leverage and costing higher risk.   Rich: Right, leverage is your friend, if you're using the leverage to invest capital, if you're using leverage to service debt or to pay out dividends, then you're making a huge mistake.   James: Okay, absolute point, that's an awesome point. That's well-said. I couldn't have said it better. So what about the guys who have done breach loans at that time in 2008 what happened to them and what would you give advice to that kind of people who are doing--   Rich: You mean the answer 2007 or 2008 with a value add deal, and then they had a bridge situation. While those people probably suffered, I mean they didn't execute. If they executed, that's fine. It was hard to push rents back then, everything is based on increase in rent. Fundamental multifamily strategy is how can I increase the rent? What value can I give the tenant so they'll pay more? Now, between 2008 and 2012, the only value add strategy that I know that worked was the fixed deferred maintenance to make sure you kept the lights on, for the most part. So beyond that, I didn't see people putting granite countertops in and all this other stuff because everyone was just trying to supply.   So those people, many of those people who got in at the cycle; at the end of the cycle, didn't make money unless they stayed all the way through 2015-16, so there were about seven years. But you would have to stay in that deal in order to make it. Now I did buy a property in the Midwest that I bought for about 15,000 units. You can get things that way back then. And I bought it in 2006 and I did do really well on it, but it was unusual because I got it so cheap; my basis lever was very high. But at the time it seemed like I had really jumped the shark as they say because the economy wasn't very good, and it wasn't easy to rent up any apartments for a while.   James: So coming back to Midwest, which I believe is MAVA secondary or tertiary market, right? So like right now in 2019 right now, market is so hard and people can't buy in the hot cities like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, people are, I mean, I'm just looking at Texas, right? I mean, we're in Florida, we have Orlando, Tampa, and what Jacksonville, and I mean a lot of people have started going to other States and tertiary market or States which is like supposedly supposed to be upcoming. So, what would you give advice to them?   Rich: Well, I think my advice on the States like South Carolina or those kinds of places, is that to study the local market and make sure that it's vibrant, that there are good jobs there. There are a lot of great secondary and tertiary markets. Huntsville, Alabama or Hoover, Alabama or you know, Greenville, Columbia, South Carolina, I mean there's just, you know, Asheville, North Carolina, there's a lot of great secondary markets. I think the biggest problem that people have in these markets, one is they think they can increase rents more than they can. Because if you go to some of these markets and you think you can get $200 for putting in a new kitchen, you might find out you can only get $35 and 20 cents because there's a limit to what a lot of these people were willing to pay in these markets.   And if you go too high, they just want [inaudible 22:56], but there are still some markets that are small that people are really surprised at. I mean if you've been to Indiana and you know, there is Columbus, Indiana, well that sounds like a real nothing place, but Commons is located there, it's a very large company, and it's a pristine town with really high rents. Bloomington is also a great town in Indiana; it's got the college there. So there's a lot of college towns and there are capitals and there are places where there's a lot of manufacturing that's particularly in the Southeast that they didn't have manufacturing before. Some of these places have become very desirable for retirement and for our businesses like Charleston, South Carolina, nothing was going on there except history about 20 years ago. If you've been they are now, they are building homes like crazy. People are moving there to retire. There's a huge tourism business, I think ranked the number one wedding venue one year recently. And then they have they're making small planes there; just tremendous amount of activity going on.   James: What happened to this kind of tertiary market? I'm sure you had similar tertiary market during 2008 where you thought, okay, this is really good to go in and invest in. Looking at some of the cities that you're looking at it right now, what happened to that kind of market in 2008 how did they do compared to the major cities that are well known for--?   Rich: I own the property, and the answer is different. Every tertiary market was different, just like every major market. For example, if you look at the major markets or the secondary major markets take Tucson. Tucson was wiped out in the recession, now people say it's a good investment. Phoenix was wiped out, Vegas was wiped out, Reno was wiped out. Today Reno; people think Reno is part of California. It's hard to buy something under 150 a door in Reno now. So back then it was 50 a thousand a door was a great retirement exit. So I own property in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and there is an army base there. Now, I will never buy another property next to an army base. I don't care what the numbers look like because the politics of the army base are things that I cannot control.   And they decided that army base that they didn't need hardly anymore. So they cut the enrollment at the army base there by about half. And it was the town that depended upon the army base almost completely, not just the army people, but the people who were feeding and the vendors, and everybody else. And so the town really; rents went down about 30-40% in the town, but then there are other locations. I owned a property in Davenport, Iowa and it got hit, but it didn't get hit that bad. And agriculture, which was a real feeder for Iowa, stayed pretty good. And you know, they had the ethanol and that was pretty good. We never got below in general 90% occupancy in the properties that we own there, so it just really depends, you've got to do your research. Just how you can't make a blanket and say tertiary market, secondary market; core markets; it wasn't long ago that people considered Baltimore to be almost a core market.   Because of its proximity to DC on the Amtrak corroder from New York, the new Harbor that they had built there with the aquarium and today, a lot of people don't think of Baltimore as a core market and back then people didn't see DC as a core market. They thought it was crime, wedding blah, blah, blah, you know, stay away from DC. And now today, I mean, you're talking about very expensive real estate all over DC.   James: Awesome, awesome. That is a lot of insights there. So Rich, which market have you been focusing on, I mean, you bought in a lot of markets before these and you probably own some of it over there, but what has your strategy has been at this hot--?   Rich: Right now my strategy is really to buy more in DFW.   James: Okay.   Rich: Our office is here. This is probably the best multifamily market in the country. The cranes are all over the skyline. The jobs are coming in like crazy every day or week there is another multinational company that's relocating from California generally to Dallas Fort worth. There's a lot of vibrancy here. Rents keep tricking up. I like DFW. I've liked Houston a lot in the past; Houston is very squatty though, and there's a lot, I can't just tell you that Houston's going to do well because every part of Houston is so different and there's no zoning, so it doesn't have a character. Neighborhoods don't have as much character that they do here. But Houston is great Austin is great, it's just the real question, isn't what do I like, the real question is, is there an upside? Where is the upside in multifamily today?   And the answer is that there isn't the kind of upside today that there was until a couple of years ago because we were still basically catching up from the recession; a lack of housing, deferred maintenance and household formation. During the people said to me, "aren't there going to be more renters?" Because people were foreclosed, I don't know if you remember that. They will say, "You're in a great business". All these foreclosures, they have to rent now. No, they didn't have to rent. They moved in with their families, they hold up; whatever they had to do. People are much more flexible and adaptable than statisticians and university professors. So people didn't create households, kids stayed in the basement, and so here we are 2012 wondering where are all the renters? Well, it turns out that they were hiding out.   So when the economy got good and they got jobs, they all came out and that created a lot of household formation, a lot more renters. And that created a boom in multifamily. So, either more and more people who need rental housing, absolutely, and particularly in areas like Dallas, Fort Worth where they're coming in for the jobs, they need housing; Austin, they need housing. That puts pressure on rents and they usually start building a lot more too. The areas that have a declining population, I wouldn't invest.   So if a deal's in a city that has a declining population, I automatically say no, I'm not interested in, even if I could fix it up and make some money, to me that's; I'm going against the tide. I'm just one guy, I can't make an ocean. I have to get in my little boat, and I have to have the-- I want the ocean to work for me and not against me. I don't want to fight that. Same or crime; if I'm in an area that has just tremendous amount of crime, it's still, crime is [inaudible31:42], but if it has a lot of crime, I don't want to own it because I can't do all the things necessary to stop crime in my neighbor. I'm not a police department. I'm just one person owning one complex or two in a neighborhood and I've got to have an ability to deliver safe housing to the people who rent from us.   James: Got it, got it. Just want to add one thing to the listeners and audience. If you want to find a city where there's declining on appreciating one free resource, which is very quick to check, it is called bestplaces.net. Bestplaces.Net, and you can go and enter the city information and you can go to a household. I believe it's a real estate statistics and it shows you whether there's a declining population or increasing population. I mean in general, I think Texas is increasing in general. Everybody's moving to Texas and I believe Florida as well, so--   Rich: I mean, if you're looking in Texas and you say, well, why don't I buy in Amarillo or Abilene or these kinds of places, I don't have anything to say. I don't know those markets, but those are not vibrant places generally.   James: It makes sense; vibrant. Okay, got it. But I think the major cities in Texas are pretty vibrant.   Rich: The major cities are really San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Then you have cities like El Paso, Lubbock, Tyler, you know, places like that that are in the second tier. Corpus Christi is another one that is in between the second and third-tier cities. Aon, actually in Corpus Christi real estate, and that's on a lot of people's radar because they are putting along money to the ports and the petroleum industry, but it's not as vibrant as it San Antonio or Austin.   James: Got it. Got it, got it, very interesting. So but Dallas, I mean, I know you're focusing on Dallas, but Dallas prices have appreciated from what 50,000 a door. I mean, I think all over Texas it's like this, right? For the past five years, $50,000 a door to almost a hundred thousand a dollar for a C-class property. So how are you planning to buy deals? I mean since, don't you think at some point the price per door is just going to be limited by the rent wage growth of the--?   Rich: Well, I think that it's a mistake to really focus on price per door. I think it's a better thing to focus on cap rates.   James: Cap rates, okay.   Rich: And if you could buy something over a five cap rate and put loan on it for under 4%, then you have positive arbitrage, and you're going to make money. So a lot of properties are expensive, but property in San Francisco is 350,000 a door. Now, I was a mortgage broker there when they were going for 100,000 a door, and I thought people were crazy. Who would ever pay that? So, we can't let a number and you shouldn't let a number per door impact your buying decision. What your buying decision should be based on is what return on your investment you're going to get. Now, it's true that you want to make sure there's an exit there, meaning that there's somebody else who would buy a property at more per door if that's a problem.   Now there are some markets where maybe that is an issue still, but they're generally very depressed; places like Detroit or things like that or Cleveland. But even those places are not any more per door oriented. So I've seen deals recently that are 120,130 a door. They were bought for 80 a door just three, four years ago. And before that, they had one for 55 a door. And I don't really care what people bought them for in the past, I just care what can I do? What's my return going to be? If I could hit my numbers and I don't really care. Now the question is, can I hit my numbers? Am I chasing a dream that's-- is the ship already sailed? Is there really any more room in this property to enhance value? And the answer has to be yes. And a lot of the areas in Dallas are improving. The income levels are going up in some of these places. The number of jobs in the area is going up, so they're not static environments. Today, a suburb of Dallas is not the same place as it was 20 years ago because now there are four times as many people living in the area, shopping in the area, working in the area, and those people are all competing for housing.   James: Wow, that's interesting. Okay, so how do you underwrite your deals? I mean I'm sure you're looking for upside, right? That's what you talk about in any deals and whether you can make a return on your investment, right?   Rich: I'll tell you my tricks of the trade, which is nothing unusual; first of all, we go into the numbers and make sure we understand the expenses. And we also increase the property taxes based on what we think the assessor will increase the taxes too. Yeah, that's a really big thing; people don't realize they come from out of the outside Texas that your property is assessed every year a new bag. So you can't look at a tax that your seller's paying and think that you're going to have the same tax. So we get the real expenses, and then if we're going to do a value add, we want to find a property that's very similar, same vintage and everything that's already done the value add and see what rent they're achieving, what they've done, and we're not going to go past that.   In other words, I'm not going to be a pioneer and decide that I need golden faucets or Berber carpets or whatever it is; I'm going to make a nice value-add, the same as everybody else. Maybe you are a little better, but I'm not going to a guest that I can get more rent, so that's where I get my revenue, just estimating how many of this was going to renovate? What rents can we get today, today in the marketplace, not tomorrow? And then use those numbers, and if those numbers show that I can get a great return based on what it costs and what the money we put into the property, then it's a go. If the numbers, there's nothing here, I can't get a return from doing this or the rents are tapped out, that kind of thing. Then I pass. And we use a model. I think we use the CRM model. We bought the model because it got too complicated for Excel for us. And so we use a model that we bought to program the IRR and all that stuff.   James: What about the rent growth assumption? How do you usually predict that?   Rich: We don't put more than two or 3% a year in there? We're not looking to create false expectations. 5% rent growth sounds nice, but that doesn't happen all the time. In fact studies in Houston show that there's been virtually no rent growth in two or three years in Houston. And every year they say that they had four or 5% rent growth. And I asked the realtors, is the four or 5% rent growth that these reports say? And nobody seems to know where the data's coming from.   James: Yeah, absolutely. But do you think we can get that 3% rank growth moving forward from now on the next five years? I mean, do you think it's real estate?   Rich: I think we can get the two to 3% rent growth just by doing nothing; if you're in a market that is strong.   James: So it depends on the market as well.   Rich: It all depends on one thing and one thing only, which is wage growth in the market you own.   James: Correct.   Rich: I own a lot of property in San Antonio and there was virtually no wage growth in San Antonio. And I have property that I've owned there now six years, seven years. And the last two or three years there's been virtually no increase in wage growth or rents in none of these markets. The cap rates keep going down, so people keep paying more for these properties. They expect wage growth and rent growth, so everyone has a different expectation.   James: Got it, got it. So what about the, I mean, you mentioned that I mean, you did this for 20 years, own like 8,000 units, you could have multiplied 10 X your holdings by going with private equity money which some people have done. And some people have gone to private equity and came back to be a [inaudible41:31]. Some people are trying to get into working with private equity because it's easier to rent and raising money from retail investors which is like family and friends. I know you mentioned some perspective, but can you give a full perspective on why you didn't choose that route at all?   Rich: Well, we do have family and friends, and private equity, and some family offices in our deals. I have three deals that I have is tuition in, and I just prefer the flexibility that-- I prefer working with individuals and with people I know because multifamily is not a straight line. You buy something a lot of times prizes after you close, you don't know, some problems that you run into. Sometimes you have to replace staff. A lot of times you have a staffing issue. It could take a year or two longer to execute your business plan. And still, it's very good. When you execute your business plan, you make a lot of money, but instead of taking one or two years, it could take five years or four years. And when you have institutional money, they're not very patient and they are very willing after; if you don't make your numbers for one to two years, they're very willing to take the management away or threaten you with your cramming, taking away your investment. Actually, you're cramming down; they call it crammed down; to make the return.   It can be pretty nasty, so that's one of the reasons. It's getting easier to raise money from family offices privately. There are a number of crowd-sourcing platforms; we've done some crowd-sourcing rising for a couple million dollars as infill, you know, to fill in a partnership after a family or friends invest, and we still have a couple million left. Well, we've been successful at raising that money there. We've also used preferred equity, which is kind of a hybrid deal. It's not secondary financing, like mezzanine financing, but it's similar. What they do is there is a pay, they want a pay rate of around four to 6%, and then they want a complete return of let's say nine to 11% or 12%. They'll take the difference when you sell the property well when you refinance. So, it gives you more leverage, you might say, but it's not partnership money, so it reduces the money that you have to raise as a partnership.   James: Got it, got it. And what would you give advice to people who are saying that you know, when the market turns, I mean, they will not be any more private investors anymore, I mean, you have to go back to private equity? Do you think that's the true case?   Rich: You mean institutional equity? You have to go back to-- that's all private equity. I think the reality is when the market turns, everyone goes back into their little clamshell, so what you call it and money is money. And if people don't feel that they can make a return, then they won't invest. Now, what happens is that if the market turns and people are not making return, some deals will go south and will go sour, and then you'll start a new cycle of this trust real estate. And then there'll be opportunity funds or vulture capital guys who are trying to invest in those deals and they'll be looking to invest. So every part of the cycle has a different kind of investor. Right now the profile of the average investor is looking to clip coupons. Most people know that the glory days of making two, 300% on their money is over and they're very happy with what they'd done and now they really don't want to lose their principal. There have gotten more conservative as wealthier people do, and then they say, well, can I get a seven or an 8% or 6% coupon clip every month when you send me a check? And there are a lot more of those people today. There is virtually none of those people in 2008, nine, 10, 11, 12. Yeah, but today, most people have the profile as investors of wanting to have lower risk and are willing to take less reward.   James: So what you're saying is in 2008, everybody disappeared; nobody invests retail, right? And then after that, there is some vulture capital and then now people are looking more into stabilized assets with lower risk.   Rich: The people who appeared in 2008 were the people who worked at Goldman Sachs or Blackstone or these other Carlisle group and these other large accumulators of capital. And what they saw is a tremendous amount of blood on the street as they say. They saw just a lot of financial suffering and they were looking at enabling because of their massive amounts of capital to scoop up troubled assets for pennies on the dollar. So a lot of the mortgages that went bad were sold off for 20, 30, 50% of their mortgage value to these conglomerate; these large companies. And then they went through the process of foreclosing on individual assets. Some of them actually created management companies themselves, and they got the properties back. A bunch of then they put them back on the market and made a lot of money. So there was a lot of business, a lot of wealth created in that time frame, but it wasn't created by people like you and I, it was created in Goldman Sachs, and in Blackstone, and these kinds of places.   James: Got it, got it. So where do you think we are heading in the next two or three years or five years? Are we going to have a slowdown bump or it's going to be a crash into like 2008 or there is just going to be a coupon rolling in multifamily?   Rich: I don't think that we're going to have a crash. I see it more that it's just a steady market and I just think it's going to go up and down a little bit here and there, and I don't see much change from where we are for a couple of more years. I can't see out too far into the future. Sometimes politics and things like that intercede, and we don't know if someone politically comes in and starts changing the tax code like they did in 1986 or something like that. But the way I see it is that America is fundamentally becoming a retro society. People are living a lot longer, and the longer people live the less they want to own a house. A lot of people will own houses and raise families there, but they will exit houses more and more frequently to live in places like central cities or small main street America so they can be near services and doctors and entertainment and [inaudible 49:41].   And I don't think that we're going to go back to the white picket fence for everybody's environment. Now, that doesn't mean people won't buy houses, but when people are not raising children, they will prefer generally to live in smaller environments, more like Europeans do, and I think that pertains, well, for multifamily. There are so many good trends that are feeding into the multifamily trough that I can't imagine right now that in general, multifamily would have a crash.   James: Got it, got it. And so we're coming almost to the end of the show. Can you give us one advice to people who are thinking of becoming like you owning thousands of units and they're just getting started?   Rich: Sure. So this is my main piece of advice is that if you want to be in this realm, then you must make it a full-time job. This is not an investment, multifamily is not a stock that you-- it's not putting money on Microsoft and watching it go up and down. It's an active business, and if we're going to try to be somebody who owns several apartment complexes, then you just really can't buy the complexes and hand away the keys to the management company and expect great results. You have to be very actively involved, visit your properties, know the rents in the market, walk vacant apartments, and make sure you hire good people. It really is a business, and if you're not prepared because of your lifestyle, your other job or something like that to devote most of your time to this business, then my recommendation is become a limited partner in a deal or two, try to make money that way. But don't think that you could become a principal and own five or 10,000 apartments that way, no, it's not going to happen.   James: Got it. I mean, this is one of the requests from our listeners. Is there anyone advice that you want to give to a passive investor who is investing in this deal? What they should look for [inaudible 52:14]?   Rich: Well, the big issue for passive investors is that they should really understand what they're investing in, like any other investment, and not take the offering that they get from the company or the operator at its face value because it could be too optimistic. You want to make sure you agree with the assumptions. So you would probably at the very least get on the computer and look at how much are units really renting for in that area. If they're going to renovate, well, what does a renovated unit look for? Is this an achievable rent that they're projecting and are their expenses realistic? Are they in line with what expenses really shouldn't be? So do a little homework; that's my main thing, and don't just trust that, just because somebody sent you something that said that there's a 30% return, that that's a real thing.   James: Yeah, I have many, many times some passive investors just look at the final return numbers and decide whether they want to invest or not, but they forgot that we are making thousands of assumptions in that spreadsheet. So you rather check the assumptions rather than just the final numbers.   Rich: Absolutely.   James: Right, so Rich we're really happy to have you here. How can the listeners and audience reach out to you?   Rich: Well, they could, we have a website, alcapgroup.com and they can send me an email through there. If they want to know about our upcoming deals, we'd be happy to put them on their list and work with them, talk to them, and see if we can do some business together.   James: Awesome, awesome. Thank you very much Rich for coming onto the show.   Rich: Thanks James, been a pleasure.   James: Pleasure to have you. Thank you.

James: Let's get started. One, two, three... Hi, audience, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Investment Group. Today we are going to be having JC Castello from our Achieve Wealth True Value-add Real Estate Investing Podcast. And I would like to welcome JC to the podcast. Hey JC, welcome. JC: Hey, thanks, James. Thanks for having me. James: So JC has what? Right now, around 725 units worth around 70 million and he has bought and sold like 1000 over units. And he primarily focuses on DFW and he's in the Bay area. So, did I get all your facts right, JC? JC: Yeah. You got in just about right. That's right. James: So, do you want to tell our audience about, how did you get started? How is your company structured? Because your company structure, it's very interesting for me. So go ahead and do that. JC: Yeah, I mean, how I got started in the multifamily business. I have an engineering degree and I've been working in the technology sector in a past life for about 15 to 20 years in semiconductors. And somewhere along the way, I always had a big passion for real estate. Pretty early on in my semiconductor career, I started buying single-family rentals in the Silicon Valley area and realized that I needed to be able to scale it a lot better because I was so busy with work that managing single-families wasn't all that easy. So I started just going to a lot of networking events, real estate clubs and whatnot, asking a lot of questions of people and I found out about apartments and found out that they were a lot more scalable. And so, I read everything I could. I got my hands in all kinds of books and went to lots of different seminars and training and networked with a bunch of the local investors here in Silicon Valley. I had sold a couple of my single-family homes originally wanted to buy an apartment complex here in San Jose. And I did all the numbers and it was negative cash flow, pretty much from the beginning. And I thought, well if I'm gonna buy for equity because there's no cash flow, I'd rather just keep buying homes because I think homes in Silicon Valley are better equity drivers than an apartment complex. So that led me to really look outside of California for cash flowing apartment investments. And I did a lot of research and everything was telling me that Texas was a great area to go. I mean, this was back in like 2004/5. And so, after a little bit of research and some time passed about 2006/7, I was ready to kinda go and take my money out to Texas and get it going. And so kind of, that's how I got started and that's kind of how my company was born. James: Awesome. Awesome. So, yeah, I was in the Bay area a couple of days back and I'm meeting some of my investors. It's just so crazy, the prices there. And I mean, one of the investors asked me, 'You know, why don't you buy in this area?" I said, "I like to make money from thin air." Then he asked, "How is that?" I said, "I like my tenants to pay for my mortgage." So which means I want it to be cash flowing and I still get cashflow on top of it. So pay the mortgage and get cash flow. So if you buy in the Bay area or even in LA, I mean, a lot of coastal cities, just the cap rate is so low, you know, you basically, appreciation play, which means you buy the deal and you pray that it's going to go up. Right? So, JC: Yeah. And look, I'm not here to tell you or tell anybody that investing in real estate in California is not a good thing. It's actually a very, very good thing. I mean, I own personal homes here in California and various places and they've been great investments for me, but they're not cash flow investments; they're equity plays. And so over the 10, 20, 30 years, absolutely; it's been phenomenally great, including any of the single family rentals that I had in the past. But I like to buy single family homes here in an equity state and I like to buy cash flowing properties for apartments in other more cashflow yielding places like Texas. So that's kind of my investment philosophy. James: Got it, got it. So you started like in 2006, 2007. So at what point of your life was that, were you working at that time and how did you get that aha moment, okay, I need to invest in real estate? JC: Yeah. Well you know, in 2001 and you would know this, James, I think you're an ex tech guy, there was the whole technology bubble burst. And I was several years out of college in a professional working environment, got laid off from an engineering job and that really caused me to do a little bit of reflection in 2001 after September 11 hit. And that's kind of where I had my aha moment, if you will. And right around that time, I read Rich Dad/ Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, which changed my perspective on things as did I know a lot of other people. And it taught me about assets and liabilities first and foremost. Assets put money in your pocket, liabilities take money out of your pocket. And I realized that even though I had been a young guy that had been successful and, and bought my own single-family home, really, it wasn't putting money into my pocket because it was a liability. I had to pay the mortgage every month. So long story short, I decided that I was going to start investing in rental real estate as I got back into my next technology job, once the sort of 2001 recovery happened and that's what I did. Ever since then, I was like, look, real estate rentals are going to be what the thing that I'm going to do is and I'm pretty passionate about it anyways. I always liked real estate, so that's exactly kind of how I got started on my path. And I worked all the way up at my job until 2011 which is when I effectively left my W2 semiconductor job. I actually also helped start another company up with a couple of my other buddies from my ex-technology company. And so we did a startup company that was successful as well. And we did that from about 2012 to 2018. Actually the company's still going, but I'm no longer part of it. So I like to work really hard. James, I'll tell you that much. James: That's crazy. So, I mean, you are a tech guy. I mean, I didn't know until we talk a few months back on how many similarities we have. I used to be in the semiconductor industry as well. So I mean, why not you looked at stock at that time? I mean a stock used to be like, I mean a lot of engineers, like for me, I was like intrigued with stocks. I was always saying, let me solve the worldwide puzzle here of the stock market. So did you try that as well? JC: Yeah, definitely in my younger years. I mean, I drank the Koolaid like everybody else, you know, I was in love with the stock market. And I saw tech stocks, every day going up like gangbusters. So it was like, okay, let's pick Broadcom, let's pick Cisco, let's pick all these other tech stocks that were going to make us all multi-millionaires. And it was kind of a wild ride because there would be some big ups and then there would be some big downs. And so, it just got really frustrating because I find myself thinking about how our stocks were doing every day and sort of checking in on E-Trade accountants and seeing whether I had made money or lost money. And I just said, look, it's not worth it. I don't want to live like that. So, I think what I've learned since then is, look, I'm not here to say that the stock market isn't a great investment. I think what I'm here to say is that a financial advisor that's worth his salt is going to tell you that you should definitely have a good healthy mix of stocks, bonds, money market, and alternative assets, which real estate certainly fits the bill. And I think that 10 to 20% is about what people recommend that are financial experts in terms of how much you should be allocated to things like real estate. So I'm a big believer that people should never swing too much any one way. Make sure and be a little bit diversified, but certainly, 10 to 20% at least in real estate is a good healthy number. James: Got it. Yeah, I mean, I was intrigued with stocks as well and you know, it's all technical analysis. I did a lot of book reading and trying to solve and you know, Japanese candlesticks books and all that. But I think it works with a lot of fear and emotion. I mean, fear is great, it works with a lot of emotions. Which is, you can say numbers don't lie but in the stock market, the numbers can be manipulated using fear and greed by big institutions and that's where I got caught. Every time I go to stock markets, I lose money. JC: And the other thing too, I think the other thing that's important to understand is, it's not just about how much you're making before tax. One of the things that I think I'd made the mistake of as a younger person was not fully understanding how to invest with maximum tax sheltering and maximum tax advantage. And one of the things that I've seen with real estate investing is that there are huge tax incentives out there. Everything legal that encourages you as a real estate investor to keep doing it. And there are extremely, especially now with the tax cuts and jobs act that was passed and that went into effect in November of 2017. The benefits of the tax sheltering piece of real estate investing is extremely phenomenal. And so I think that the real aha moment is not just that you can invest in real estate and make good cash flow, but it's that you can invest in real estate, make good cash flow, and not pay taxes on that cash flow that you're putting in your pocket. That's really amazing. James: Got it, got it. So, coming back to your transition from a W2 job to a full-time real estate entrepreneur. So you said you started in 2006, but only after quite a number of years. When did you become a full-time person? JC: 2012. James: Okay. So what were you thinking in 2012, beginning January of 2012, what were you thinking and when did you resign and what was that trigger that allowed you...? JC: Well, you know, the trigger was, as I told you, I'm a 'slow and steady wins the race' type of person. My investment philosophy is 'go long, not short'. I always like to take the long route cause I believe in taking as little risk as possible to get where you want to get. So, I stayed with my company and my job for a long time and maybe even longer than I needed to because I also did another company with a couple of other buddies. But what that did was that gave me a real stable base so that I was never taking any risk. And so my route in real estate has never been to take big risks and I apply that same philosophy to our company in the way that we buy properties and the way that we look to partner with investors. We are always going to take the lower risk path. We're not just looking at yields and looking for the highest yields. We're looking for the highest mix of risk-adjusted returns. That's what we're looking for. And so that is I think a fundamental piece of why my journey took a little bit longer, in terms of transitioning away from a W2 job. James: So did you have a goal of a certain income level, a certain percentage of your W2? I mean, you don't have, tell me the percentage, but was that goal that you decided if I hit this much income in real estate, okay, I'm going to go full time into this. I'm okay to let go of my...? JC: Yeah. I mean, I definitely had some numbers in mind and they were, obviously, based on my costs of living. So as soon as I was able to bring in enough free cash flow that was greater than or equal to my cost of living with some margin, then I was comfortable exiting. And so, I think that's an important consideration for anybody that's doing this stuff. And you want to make sure, you know, you don't need to be necessarily significantly positive, but your costs of living, whatever it is, you should really be able to at least cover that. And I'm not talking about with like, you know, I'm talking about just with money coming in from rentals and whatnot, not talking about, you know all the other fees and whatnot that you generate. James: Yeah. Yeah. Correct. I mean, just advice to whoever listening. Sometimes you go for the weekend boot camp and you think that there's no point of working a W2 job. I mean, there's no such thing, right? I mean, real estate is awesome but it takes time to get to a certain level of income. And especially if you have [13:22unintelligible] in life, just don't give up on your work and go into real estate; take it slow and steady and you will get there. I mean, there's a lot of learnings to be done in real estate anyway that you can't learn in a weekend boot camp. JC: It's very, very wise words. And I hope that anybody out there would listen to that. James: Yeah, absolutely. So now you're in California, right? I mean, I don't know which year was this. So now you look at Dallas. Why did Dallas flash in front of your eyes? Why not Phoenix or Austin or Orlando, Tampa? JC: Well, Texas, as a whole. When I was doing my research, one of the big stats that jumped out to me was that I believe it was in 2008...I think it was 2008, Texas became the number two state in terms of the number of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state. It actually surpassed California. And before that, I had seen a lot of data that was telling me that this transition was happening from a corporate side. And from a corporate side, as we all know, Texas has a very business-friendly state. And I also saw a lot of migration patterns that were happening that were driving people away from the coastal areas, specifically California, and driving them to Texas. Also to Pheonix but not in the sheer magnitude that they were going to Texas. So really for me, what convinced me to go to Texas was the data and it was the job growth, the population growth. And the other thing that really convinced me was the quality of life that could be had in Texas for a relatively low amount of money. Back in 2006, when I first started buying out there, you could buy a pretty decent home for 150 to $200,000 in Dallas, Fort worth. Now, of course, you know, I had to decide, you know, it wasn't just Texas, it's where you're going to go in Texas. There are basically four major areas you can go; you can go to Houston, you can go to San Antonio, you can go to Austin or you can go to DFW. I chose DFW because Houston, to me, was a little bit more of an oil-based economy so I didn't like being dependent on oil. If the oil was good, everything's good in Houston. If oil goes bad, it can be a little bit difficult. And Austin, I really, really liked; I continue to love Austin. However, I always knew that Austin was like Silicon Valley. The dirt is very expensive, so the cap rates are a little bit lower so they don't cash flow quite as well. But I still do like Austin if I had to say, the second market in Texas. San Antonio is just sort of a little bit slow and steady. There's really no significant job growth, at least not significant, you know, amazingly. And there's slow and steady population growth. So everything in San Antonio is hunky-dory for a long time, but there's no real like superstar momentum there. DFW, on the other hand to me, had a lot of the characteristics that I felt was perfect for an investment home for me. I wanted to be there for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. They've got a very diverse economy, lots of different jobs sectors and they are tops in the nation for job growth, population growth, consistently. And the quality of life there is very, very good. There are 8 million people, 4th largest metroplex in the nation behind New York, one; LA, two and Chicago three. And actually, of those top three, they're all sort of negative population. So meaning, they're losing people in Texas; Dallas Fort worth is gaining. So for all those reasons, I thought back then that this would be a great place for us to go set up shop and I haven't been disappointed. It's been a great run, to be honest with ya. James: Got it. So now you decided on Dallas. What was the first step? I mean, who did you first establish contact with and how did you build your team? JC: Yeah, you know I was a big believer in shadowing people. So I had a couple of friends that I had met and gotten to know in the local Silicon Valley real estate circles who were buying apartments in Dallas. And so, I would shadow them. I would get on a plane and go with them when they would go check on their properties. And because they saw that I was willing to do that, they took me around to the local brokerage shops, Marcus & Millichap and all the other shops and they introduced me to all the brokers. And because these guys were already doing deals and established when the brokers met me, I had a little bit of credibility, not much, but I had more than just if I had come in on my own without them saying that I was a good guy. So that's the way that I got my start in the apartment world in Dallas, coming from California. James: Got it. So, I mean, if I understand your business, you own the asset management, but you also own your own property management company. JC: That's correct. Yeah. We opened up shop in 2013. We integrated the third party operations in house and we formed our own management company and we've been managing our own properties since then. James: So that's really unique because I mean, even for me, we have our own property management company, but we are here in Austin, San Antonio, so we are locals. But how did you do it from California and then you establish a property management company and why did you decide to do that rather than a third-party property management company? JC: Well, the how and the why. The why, I sometimes ask myself why multiple times. But I know after getting through all the hard times and now that we've got a model that works really, really well, I know that it was worth it for us. Because we have a large degree of predictability by having operations in house. I never throw stones at third party management companies because I've walked a mile in their shoes now. And I think it's a difficult business even when you control it yourself. And I think that third party managers, for the most part, are extremely good. I'm not here to say that we have built a significantly better mousetrap, but what we do have is we have a mousetrap that we built. And so, we know the process of how we go to market with it and we know what the numbers are and so, we have a high degree of predictability for our investors. At the end of the day, it's all about making sure that we deliver what we said we're going to do for our investors. And so the predictability piece that we have by having the operations in-house for us is key. How did I do it? You know, it wasn't easy. I think that you have to look for a superstar person that you can find that has enough talent to be able to sort of get this off the ground in the local market that you've built your portfolio in. And I was fortunate enough to find that person through a lot of hard work and some luck. And once I found that person, I knew that it was going to work and that was the big difference for me. James: And when you started in 2013, how many units did you have that you were convinced that you can have your own property management company? JC: It wasn't that many. I think we had maybe four properties, maybe five properties, something like that. James: Like a few hundred units. JC: Yeah. A few hundred units. Yeah, that's right. James: So who was this first person, what was that person's role? I mean, you don't have to name names, but I want to know the role of that person. JC: I mean, they were the VP of Operations. That's what they did. Everything related to operations was what they were responsible for. James: So you hired VP of Operations and from VP of Operation, the other person hired the rest of the crew? JC: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, look, we're only 725 units currently, so we don't necessarily have a bunch of regional managers working for our company and we're set up a little bit differently than sort of your traditional management companies. But what I will say is that you really need that foundational person, that foundational piece if you want to have a successful operation in any one given market. James: Okay. Okay. Got it. But what was that aha moment in 2012 that you said, okay, I can't do this anymore 2013, I'm going to do my own property management? What was that push over the cliff moment that you said, okay, I'm giving up on this? JC: You know, I can't say that there was any one particular thing. I think that it was always our strategy to open up our own shop because we wanted to make sure that we had a high degree of predictability within the operations piece. And that's a very valuable component for our investment partners. Being fully integrated doesn't mean much unless it provides good predictability for returns. And what we've seen is that we've enjoyed a very, very high degree of predictability with having our own operations piece. So we're going to continue to have that as part of our model, but at the same time, we're never completely committed to any one particular thing. So meaning that we have a fiduciary duty to do what's best for our investors. If at any given time we understood that our operations or our management piece wasn't the best strategy, then we would certainly look at divesting that piece. I don't see that happening, but we're always open to making sure that we're doing the best thing for our investors. James: So how frequently do you travel from California to Dallas to manage this operation? JC: Well, I tried to get out there, my wife will say I'm out there all the time and I sometimes look back at my calendar and go, yeah, I think she might be right. But usually, it works out to be about six to eight weeks time, is how long I'm out there. And I'm usually out there for a couple of days and I get back to the home base. James: So six to eight weeks through it the year? JC: Right. James: Got it. Got it. So you've tried maybe like once a month or less than once a month, depends on...? JC: Yeah. And it's really as needed too because I have a pretty good system. So I mean, I can jump on a plane tomorrow morning and so it just depends. I get out there as needed, you know, immediately when needed. James: Okay. So let's go into the operational aspects. So you're in California, your operation management, the whole company is here. You have a VP of Operations, you are sitting that you're not coming to Dallas. So tell me like in a week, how would you manage this operation? Is it through Zoom calls, through weekly meetings, through properties or how do you do your asset management? JC: Well, first of all, asset management is handled by a separate person at our company, at multifamily property group. So we do have an asset management person. And in terms of operations, I think as you rightly pointed out, there's a lot of things that we do with technology these days to make it pretty efficient to be managing from another state; Zoom meeting, like what we're doing here is a great one. Lots of phone calls, lots of emails. And also I'm a big believer in driving the company by key performance indices or indicators. And so KPIs, for us, are a big deal because we pretty much keep on top of the numbers from a day to day basis and we manage according to how the numbers are telling us to manage and we go deep where we see that we're having issues with any one particular area. And so, we have a pretty structured way about how we monitor what's happening on the operations piece. And everybody's got a pretty strict lead defined set of roles and responsibilities, which kind of helps to keep everything in motion even though I'm not in the Dallas area. James: Got it. So how frequent do you look at your financials? JC: How frequently do we look at it? I mean, almost every day. James: Okay, good. So when you look at it everyday, what are the KPIs that you look for to see whether the properties are in the right direction or not? JC: Yeah. The big ones we're going to track are income to budget. We're gonna track expenses to budget, especially repairs and maintenance and CAPEX. A CAPEX, the budget, we're going to track, we're going to track current vacancy and we're going to track future vacancy. We're also going to pay strict attention to resident retention; how many people are actually renewing their leases? One of the things on the operational piece that we've learned along the way is that you have basically with the property, you've got a front door and you've got a back door. The front door is where you lease the new units and you bring the new residents in. And the back door is where you have people either renewing their leases after they've been there for a year or you have them leaving your property. And we like to talk about closing the back door because if we can get people to renew their leases, that is worth literally thousands of dollars in expenses and vacancy and marketing to our profitability. So, I think as operators and as investors, we always want to think about buying a property and renovating it and filling it up with people. But we should more care about keeping the people happy and butts in the seats because that's where we're really going to save our money once the property has been stabilized. It takes about 18 months to 24 months to stabilize a property once you buy it and create the value. But then if you're a longterm holder, like we are, you're holding the property for a long period of time. And that's really dependent on how well you operate, how well you provide customer service and how well you can keep the people renewing their leases. So for us, we really like to focus on resident retention. That's a really big deal for us. James: So that's one of the biggest KPI that you look for, resident retention? JC: Absolutely. James: Making sure that back doors close. So can you tell us like one to two things that you do to keep residents renewing? JC: You know, it's really simple, right? You don't want to get too caught up in a lot of complicated stuff so one of the biggest things that you need to do is follow up with people after work orders. Make sure that they're happy. Make sure that the work order was completed.; first of all, completed. Second of all, was it done right? And third of all was the customer happy with the experience? James: So, I think the resident retention is one of the most important things that you guys look at, especially closing the back door. And can you tell us one to two things that you and your company do to make sure that people keep on renewing or motivated to renew? JC: Yeah, I mean, it's important to focus on from a very high level, really the most what should be obviously simple strategies and have a process in place to make sure that it gets followed through. Like, for example, if there's a worker that's placed, following up with the person with a phone call, the customer, and saying, "Hey, was the work order done to your satisfaction? Did you have a good experience, how did you feel about it?" And that's a big deal because a lot of people that don't have work orders completed the right way are the ones that are gonna end up leaving the property with a bad taste in their mouth. And then a lot of people are actually surprised when we call them and they basically are just happy that we chose to call them and follow up. And that actually makes them so much happier, to begin with. So I think following up on work orders. The other thing is following up after a move in and making sure that the unit was fully functional; if there was something that was missed, making sure that you take care of it. And then the other thing that I think is really important is when it comes time to renew, you need to give the resident enough runway, to listen to them when you want to call them to renew. Because they're always going to have some concerns, either if the rent's going up or something. But normally it's actually, a lot of times it's just, "Hey, you know, I've got a couple of things wrong with my unit and I need you to fix them." And so, you've gotta be able to actually talk to them and understand why they're frustrated and fix those things and then they're willing to renew. So I think basic follow up is really the key. Following up with the resident on some sort of a documented frequency that enables you to keep a pulse on how they're feeling about their experience. James: Got it. Got it. So I presume that most of the deals that you buy, you try to do value add on the apartment, right? I mean, you guys do renovation, you've put in good management and all the smaller things in the interior and exterior, is that right? JC: Yeah, I mean basically you got it right. So number one is, acquire the deal at the right numbers. Number two is, renovate; which includes exterior amenities and unit upgrades. And then number three is, put a great operations team in place. And so those are sort of the three pillars of a successful investment and a successful life cycle of an investment for us at least. James: Got it. So what is the most valuable value add that you think in your mind that gives you the biggest bang for the buck? JC: You know, I really couldn't point to any one thing. What I would say is that your upgrades to your units are really important. Because a lot of people get sort of jaded by the exterior pops, like, you know, put some paint on the walls and stuff. But I've found that unit upgrades are really at the core of what you want to give in terms of your experience to the customers when they're walking through. And then the other thing that's really important is that there's a cohesive feel to the renovations that you do from the exterior; be it the painting or the amenities improvements. One of the things that I think people miss a lot is that they put money into exterior items, but there doesn't seem to be a cohesive feel. It doesn't feel like a clean, unified vision for what you wanted to present to the customer. And I think that's a big deal. It goes all the way down to the color schemes and it goes down to the signage and how that matches with the colors and how it matches with the amenities and also how it flows into the leasing office. You know, do the colors and the vision and what you're portraying with the signage and the exterior, does it match to what somebody is walking into the front door to lease a unit? Furthermore, do the units, sort of, match to the vision of what the exterior is saying? So, I think that it's not just one of these things, it's basically having a holistic approach to how you tie it all together so that it feels like a common vision when you drive to the front door all the way till when you go into the model unit. James: Got it. Interesting. Because you are looking at more of cohesiveness of the whole units and how they feel than a specific item. So let's go to your personal side of it. So I mean, you started in 2006 and then now it's 2019, you bought and sold like thousand units. So you must have a good write on the apartment cycles. So why do you do what you do? JC: Why do I do what I do? That's a good question. I think that ultimately what we're doing here is we're basically building a business that is focused on providing a great value to the community, to the customers, to the people that we rent our units to. I think it sounds cliche, but actually I think not enough people to do what we do actually talk about it. You know, when we come into a property and we invest multiple millions of dollars in the renovations and do the transformation of the property, really what we're doing is we're improving the lives of the community that lives there. And it makes a big difference in, we get told all the time how much they care to see all the stuff that we're doing. And so the first thing is making a difference in the community, I think is what's really, really cool. And we've done that over many, many properties now. So we've gotten to see that time and time again. I think the second thing is, partners. So we work with a lot of amazing partners, contractors, vendors, lenders, lawyers; there's so many that I can go on and on with. But what's really special about what we're doing is that we've developed really close relationships with a lot of these people that have been with us for many years. And so, we've become somewhat of friends with them as well as business associates. So it's really great to kind of see how much our success has impacted their success as well. And sort of a 'rising tide floats all boats things' mentality is where I get a lot of joy, personal satisfaction out of what we've done here. And I think the third thing is really is it's about our investors. I mean, I can tell you personal stories of many people that I'm very good friends with that have come along the ride for us, that we have literally changed their lives because of these great investments that we've been able to do over the years. And so I think that this business is about touching people's lives. Touching people's lives in every single aspect of what we're doing. For me, that's what really makes it fun for me every day. James: Would you do this same role for the next 20 years? JC: Yeah, of course, man. I'm not retiring. I mean, this is great. You know, we've got a great team, we've got a great company. And real estate investing to me it's more of a lifestyle thing too. So to be honest with you, this is something that I believe in doing irrespective of my company. This is sort of a personal belief that real estate investing is a very, very good way to take the money that you're making from whatever method that you're generating it and pump it into something that's going to give you a longterm return. James: Got it. Got it. Was there a proud moment in real estate that you think you will never forget that you can ride it on your tombstone? JC: Yeah. Well, I don't think I'm gonna put anything real estate related on my tombstone. James: Of course not. But if there was something that when you are at a very old age, you're going to think I'm really, really proud that I did that, can you describe that moment? JC: No, I don't think I've gotten there yet, man. I think there's still so much more to be done. You know, any proud moments, I think they're all stepping stones. I'm telling you, every day I wake up and I'm excited about where we're taking the company, things that we're doing to grow the company, new ideas that we've got. And I don't think we've reached our full potential in any way, shape, form, or fashion. James: Okay. no, what I mean is like, did you touch any employee in a certain way that, in terms of changing their life, any tenants, any property that you think that we really did a good job and that I'm really, really proud of that. JC: Yeah. I mean, you know, nothing particular comes to mind. I mean, look, I can give you a million examples, right? But the very last property, for example, that we renovated, I thought that it was the best one we've ever done. And I thought that just seeing the people that have been writing reviews on our property, coming online reviews and whatnot and hearing the feedback that we get from our management or our onsite staff has been so happy that we've made the change with the property. So yeah, that's very rewarding to us for sure. James: Got it. Got it. Top three things that you want to advice newbies who wanna walk your path. JC: I'm only going to give you one. I think it's the most important one. It is 'go long, not short.' Take the long road, do it slow and steady. Don't take unnecessary risks and make sure that you build the foundation and spend your time building a foundation solidly before you try to go too fast. I think that that's a mistake that a lot of people make. And I think that doing it slow and steady is there's a lot of benefits to that. And that's the way that we built our company. James: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I see so many craze out there on people want to do so many big things very quickly in real estate now because it is how the market is right now. So what's your strategy right now in this market cycle? JC: I don't think we really changed our strategy. We remain and always have been. We are opportunistic buyers and we're strategic sellers. I've talked about that before, I did a blog post on that. And the way that we've always seen it is, strategically speaking, if it's the right time to exit an asset, we're going to do it. It's been a great time lately to sell properties. It's also been a great time to keep properties, be a net keeper. We talk about that too. Opportunistically buying simply means that if we find a great deal, we don't care whether it's a hot market or a down market or a sideways market. If it's a great deal and the numbers work, we're going to pull the trigger. We know exactly what we're looking for. We've been around long enough to know that when we see that type of a deal and we've got the right relationships in place with the brokerage shop to do it. We're gonna make it happen because what we've seen is we've had some of our best acquisitions in what some people would call a seller's market or on a hot market, an upmarket. And so I think being an opportunistic buyer and always being ready to strike if the right numbers present themselves is where you need to be positioned. James: Got it. Got it. Before we end, I've asked you this question, which is completely different from what other questions I asked and normally it's not in my mind. But you are from California, investing in Dallas so you know a lot about these two markets. So do you think when recession hits...I mean, that's already a lot of people moving to Texas and Florida and maybe Phoenix. Do you think when the recession happened, there's going to be a lot more people moving... JC: Moving to Texas? James: Yes. I mean all this Texas and Florida and other markets. JC: Well, I don't know the answer to that question per se. But what I can tell you is this; it's becoming increasingly difficult to be a very smart college graduate in Silicon Valley and be able to see yourself making a life out here. And so even now with the job market being pretty decent, people are still leaving. And they're leaving because they just can't see themselves being willing to spend so much money to buy a house here, on top of the student loans that they've got and on top of the cost of living that they've got with high rents and whatnot, how do you save to buy a home here? And so, I don't think that that's going to change and I don't think that it matters whether we have a blip on the radar with the recession. The fundamentals are such that it's creating a very big incentive for people to move out, to go to other states where they can look to buy a home with a little bit more ease, can actually afford to pay rent with a little bit more ease. And so it's naturally speaking, we, as a company, believe that there's going to be continual growth. And in markets like Dallas Fortworth right now where rents are still, even as they'd gone up are still below the median affordability across the nation. Obviously, Silicon Valley is on the opposite end of that spectrum with San Francisco and San Jose, you got some of the highest rents in the nation. It's very unaffordable for how much people make here. So I personally think that the migration away from the coastal communities is going to continue. I don't see that trend stopping anytime soon. James: Yeah. No, I'm not saying it's going to stop. I think it's going to double or triple because when the recession happens, I mean, people are gonna lose jobs. And where your house mortgage is fixed, the house mortgage not gonna reduce. But if you are losing your job, people are gonna take that equity and at least move to cheapo States, like where they can pay less in mortgage and buy better houses and lead a better life, I guess, in terms of house expenses. Because I read some article that on average in the US, somebody's paying like, 60% of their pay going to mortgage. I think it's much higher in the Silicon Valley and Bay area. So what's the point of living and paying 80% to the house? There's a lot of other things you want to enjoy. JC: I agree. I agree. I mean, that's exactly why we're moving our investments out there to places like Texas for sure. I completely agree with that. James: Got it. Got it. Alright. JC, tell our audience how to get hold of you and if you want to give your contact information. JC: Yeah. If anybody out there wants to check us out, they can go to our website, multifamilypropertygroup.com. But more importantly, I actually host a video podcast with one of my buddies, Paul Peoples. It's a weekly show, it's called the Apartment Investors Show. So if you wanna actually see us in action, talking about how to make smart investments in multifamily, you can go to YouTube and search for the Apartment Investors Show. And we've got a whole host of great curated videos where we bring in experts in many different facets of multifamily investing. And you might learn a thing or two if you go to that, to our show. James: I'm sure that everybody's going to learn a lot of things because I've seen some of the videos. It was really good. JC: Thank you. James: Awesome, JC. That's it. Thanks for coming on the show. And happy that you add a lot of value to our audience and listeners. JC: Yeah, thanks a lot for hosting. I really appreciate it. I had a good time. James: Thank you. Bye. JC: All right, bye-bye.

William Owens is a composer and music educator with over 200 works for band and 30 years of teaching experience. Topics: Willie’s background growing up in Gary, Indiana and the high school band teacher who changed his life. The story of how Willie ended up moving from Chicago to Brownsville, Texas and how that ended up shaping his entire career. How Willie got his start as a composer through arranging marching band music for a friend and how that grew into his terrific success as a composer. Willie’s association with TRN Music and the difficult decision to move over to FJH Music as his primary publisher. His process and procedure for writing a piece of music and what to expect if you wanted to commission Willie to write a piece of music for your band. Some wonderful advice for young composers or others who might want to write music for band. Links: William Owens, Composer Barnes: Symphony no. 3 Vaughn Williams: The Lark Ascending Owens: Tudor Sketches Owens: Carpathia Biography: William Owens (b. 1963) is a native of Gary, Indiana.  He is a seasoned music educator and very active as a composer, clinician and conductor throughout the United States and Canada.  His compositional style for young ensembles displays a keen, practical approach which has firmly established him as a leader in the field. Since 1993, Mr. Owens has written over 200 commissioned and published works for concert band, string orchestra and small ensemble.  His music is performed and appears on required music lists nationally and abroad.  Principal commissions include those from the California Band Directors Association, the Iowa Bandmasters Association, the South Plains College (TX) Department of Fine Arts, the College of Charleston (SC) and Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters Fraternity.  Several of his works including The Blue Orchid and Maesong have been recorded and analyzed in educational text by the GIA series Teaching Music Through Performance in Band.  Other works such as Carpathia, Summit Fanfare, The Tahoka Galop and Tudor Sketches have become staples of the young band repertoire.  William is a 1985 graduate of Chicago's VanderCook College of Music and the recipient of numerous awards and grants for composition.  In 2014, he was recognized by the Texas Bandmasters Association as the Feature Composer and named Distinguished Alumnus by his Alma Mater.  Professional memberships include the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB) and Phi Beta Mu International Bandmasters Fraternity. In January 2014, William formally retired from duty as a band director in Texas after 30 years.  His spare time interests include sightseeing and reading, particularly motivational material and Presidential biography.  A proud Chevrolet Corvette owner/enthusiast, he holds membership with Cowtown Vettes, a non-profit service organization in the Dallas/Fort area. William resides in Fort Worth, TX with his wife and best friend, Georgia.  ---- I am thrilled to announce a new partnership between the Everything Band podcast and Kaleidoscope Adventures, a full service tour company specializing in student group travel. With a former educator as its CEO, Kaleidoscope Adventures is dedicated to changing student lives through travel to over 40 destinations. They offer high quality service and an attention to detail that comes from more than 25 years of student travel experience. Trust Kaleidoscope’s outstanding staff to focus on your group’s one-of-a-kind adventure, so that you can focus on everything else! 

Listen in on jack Freeman a local Dallas Fort worth comic, as we talk early comedy life, climate control and other slightly hostile topics.. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/support

This time we have local Dallas Fort worth comic John Browne, hes been traveling around the U.S. recently doing shows, Also we have local radio personality from the John Clay Wolfe show on Saturday mornings on 92.5.. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/support

This episode we sit down and talk mma with local Dallas/Fort worth comic Anthony Fink!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/support

This episode features Dallas Fort worth comic Ronnie "Raw" Banks --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rudy-nomicspodcast/support

In this episode, Tony interviews Oren Salomon of Dallas Fort Work, who reflected on his experience at the Rio Olympics as well as the community-building implications of Pokémon Go.

Christian Isquierdo founder of LeftFoot Coaching Academy. LeftFoot Coaching Academy is a soccer coaching facility in Minneapolis that focuses on guiding the individual player through the journey of youth soccer. They are the only company the nation that give their clients such personalized and flexible soccer training. Recently, Christian was a finalist for the Small Business ICON award from Infusionsoft software. Christian went to Arizona in April and presented LeftFoot's story to the ICON conference of almost 4,000 attendees Cyndie Gawain has been a realtor in the Dallas Fort worth area for almost 13 years. She has an MBA and because of her education and work experience in marketing, she has a unique ability to understand the finances of a real estate transaction and is as well  a marketing guru.  She loves what she does and her enthusiasm shows.  She has closed 31 transactions in the last 12 months Ken Bennett Arizona's Secretary of State and acting Governor when the Governor leaves the state. He has nearly 30 years of private sector experience running a fuel distribution business in Arizona Two decades of public service, including 4 years serving as Senate President in the state legislature

Christian Isquierdo founder of LeftFoot Coaching Academy. LeftFoot Coaching Academy is a soccer coaching facility in Minneapolis that focuses on guiding the individual player through the journey of youth soccer. They are the only company the nation that give their clients such personalized and flexible soccer training. Recently, Christian was a finalist for the Small Business ICON award from Infusionsoft software. Christian went to Arizona in April and presented LeftFoot's story to the ICON conference of almost 4,000 attendees Cyndie Gawain has been a realtor in the Dallas Fort worth area for almost 13 years. She has an MBA and because of her education and work experience in marketing, she has a unique ability to understand the finances of a real estate transaction and is as well  a marketing guru.  She loves what she does and her enthusiasm shows.  She has closed 31 transactions in the last 12 months Ken Bennett Arizona's Secretary of State and acting Governor when the Governor leaves the state. He has nearly 30 years of private sector experience running a fuel distribution business in Arizona Two decades of public service, including 4 years serving as Senate President in the state legislature

Welcome to another episode of Mind the Head Space! Bringing you the best in the weirder, more cerebral side of electronic (dance) music, with a focus on Dallas/Fort worth area DJs and producers. The podcast has been on hiatus for a bit, and i'm still gearing up to start churning out new content again on a regular basis.  In the meantime, please enjoy this live recording of mine from when i played at Andy's on 6/3/14 ! It's a fun mix up of wonky and somewhat hard techno, electro, and tech house. Please rate (in Itunes!), comment, share, SUBSCRIBE, and most of all, enjoy!