SPEAKER_04: 0:00

Like if you think about the like HGTV stupid shows where like some person who shouldn't be buying a house, like they they like follow them around like Mary loves a house by the the beach and her budget's you know three hundred dollars a month. You're like Mary is drinking, you know like there's this doesn't exist, right?

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

You're listening to premeditated opinions because yes, we thought about it, and then we said it anyway. I'm Pamela.

SPEAKER_02: 0:34

And I'm Josh, and we are two people who somehow share a brain and decided to weaponize our brains with microphones. Each week we unpack anything from politics and religion to carpool dread and everything in between.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

You know, it would really help us a lot if you followed us on Instagram and YouTube. Giving us a like and a follow is probably the best thing your thumbs will do today.

SPEAKER_02: 0:56

We are not experts. We are just way too confident in our own opinions. With all that being said, let's get started. Well, welcome back to Premeditated Opinions. We are thrilled to be joined today by my good buddy Ashton Hines.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08

Thanks for having me. Hey man. What's up?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11

So Ashton is uh a longtime friend of mine. Uh, we actually met in church environments years ago. Um, and he is a uh real estate professional here in North Texas. You're gonna hear a lot about that. He also has a podcast called the Real Estate Heavyweights that he hosts with his uh podcast co-host uh Tavis Westbrook. Yep. And um uh we want to make sure that that gets on all of your radars as well. But uh yeah, man, we this is a a segment that we call people you should know. And so we're bringing in uh just folks within our community that are good humans, are a fun hang, are interesting to listen to, and ideally have something to offer um the community that we tend to try and talk to. Yeah. Um, and so one of the things that that's been sort of a common um thread for us, uh, we we tend to tackle a lot of stuff that is centered around the millennial experience because that's a category that both of us fall into, and and that's by and large the category of people that we end up speaking to. And so one of the things that is a common centerpiece of conversation for us is real estate stuff. And uh, you know, we really are not super well versed in the nuts and bolts uh of how all this stuff works. And there's also just a lot of stereotypes around real estate in general, and uh I I want to talk through a couple of those and see how real they actually are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:39

Um but well, and I think that real estate has changed a lot, even in the last couple of years, last five years, 10 years. I mean, from the time when we bought our first home to when we moved here, I mean, things had changed drastically. So definitely curious to hear thoughts on on kind of the current landscape and things like that.

SPEAKER_02: 3:00

Yeah, but why don't you give us a little bit of your background, just kind of introduce yourself and how you got into real estate in the first place and all that stuff, and then we'll we'll we'll take it from there.

SPEAKER_04: 3:07

Well, we skipped over how we met. I'll I'm gonna back up just a little bit because please do. I I know you've talked a little bit about your worship experience. So I for a while I sang in church. I never officially no, that's I did something in Louisiana. So I sang in Louisiana. We moved to town. Uh, we moved here, we've been here a little over, let's see, 12-ish, 13 years, something like that. Uh, we were going to a church up in Frisco, it was like super polished. I was like, I want to, I want to sing. Well, I I went and tried, I don't remember I ever told you this, but they had this like whole YouTube audition thing. I had to like record a video. What? Yeah. Wow. I had to record like this whole video, and I was like really nervous. This is like pre-me doing anything on YouTube or anything. I was not, this is not my thing. But I was recording and I did, I sent it in, I waited, I waited, I waited, never heard anything, right? So like I reach out. Then I got this weird response. Basically, it was like I think the Lord's calling me in a different direction. It was like, I was like, the Lord's calling me not to be here. Yeah, that's what that's the Lord's calling me to do. So I had some friends that were going to y'all's new contemporary service at St. Andrew's. So they're like, Oh, you need to go, you need to meet this guy, Josh. They just started contemporary. I'm like, okay, cool. So we went, I went there. Oh, this is neat. So I then I contacted you, and I'd come off this like elaborate, you know, first round of you know, American Idol type thing. And you're like, come up to my office at this point, at this time. I go there, I'm nervous because I'm like, Dallas is different. Like they're high level, right? You come in there, you have your guitar, you're like, hey, tell me about yourself. We talked a little bit. All right, well, just sing along with me on this one. You probably played, I don't know, like a chorus. And I sang along, you're like, You're good. All right, I'll I'll book you in. Yeah. And then I was like, really? And then I'm walking out, he's like, Oh, I don't know if I told you this, it's a paid position. I'm like, This is amazing. And I was like, So that was like how I got in on there, and of course, so it doesn't take much to impress Josh, is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00: 5:10

But this is what I've taken away from this.

SPEAKER_04: 5:11

No, that was that amazing. That's what you should take away. Yeah, okay. He heard the voice of an angel. He said, Hey, I have to have this guy.

SPEAKER_02: 5:18

It was like a mixture of Fergie and Visa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 5:20

Yeah. That was hard. That was my introduction. Of course, then you know, you have the green room and you hang at the church, and that's when you get to know people. Oh, totally. We had such a cool mix of people during that time. Oh, yeah. Super high-level professional musicians. I definitely felt out of place there. And you know, I would step on the stage every three weeks or so, and I did fine, but you would inevitably mess up. And those guys like can they can cover up everything, right? You know, like you would never know it because these guys are they're the best.

SPEAKER_02: 5:51

That's that's actually how I designed my whole career. I just surround myself with people who are all a lot better than me, yeah, that can pivot when I screw something up. Yeah, and that's that and that's how I have done everything professional in my life for the last 20 years.

SPEAKER_00: 6:04

That is definitely your amo.

SPEAKER_02: 6:06

Yeah. I don't I've if I'm the worst musician on stage, I've done it right. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 6:11

Well, if for me at work there, I had a great time. I always sort of knew my place, and I just enjoyed being around like really good, really good people. So I appreciate it. It was like a make-in-wish thing or something. I was like, I'm not really sure how it worked out, but like I never y'all never had a big reveal, like, oh, good job, buddy. But like I did have a good time.

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

There was not enough pumping circumstance for him. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:35

Well, you know, we tried to do Disney World and he didn't want to do that. So we were like, well, let's church.

SPEAKER_04: 6:39

Let's let him sing every once in a while. That'd be a cool thing.

SPEAKER_02: 6:41

But no, we we uh we became friends um th throughout that time. And then really one of the things that that really galvanized not just my friendship with you, but sort of that that whole group of musicians we were working with was COVID. Yeah, because there was a season during COVID where we were just some of the only people that we saw were these other musicians because what we were doing at the time, and I don't want to get us too far off track here, but what we were doing at the time was we were pre-recording uh church services and just releasing them online on Sundays. And so we would come up and we would social distance and we would mask and all of that. Um, and then we would record all the music for a service and we'd go change clothes, and we'd come back and record all the music for the two weeks from now, go change clothes, and we would do two or three weeks at a time. And so we'd end up spending like all day together, and outside of that, we're all pretty secluded, you know. And and so that became the centerpiece for a lot of these relationships that was really cool, and it it really I don't know, it just made us all pretty close. And then actually, I remember like you were one of the first people I knew who actually got COVID. I was I was early on. I was worried about you, man. I was worried about me. Yeah, I I remember getting that phone call. It was like it was because I had only seen him a few days prior, and um he he called me up. He's like, Man, I just tested positive. And I and he was the first person I knew who had tested positive.

SPEAKER_04: 8:10

I worked in the healthcare company, I was the first person in our company, in our big division. That so that was a weird time.

SPEAKER_02: 8:15

It was a weird time, it was bizarre, and I was just like, Man, I hope you live and stuff, yeah. Um, you know, which you know, obviously it worked out. It worked out, yeah, it worked out.

SPEAKER_04: 8:23

So um, but yeah, so you know, I've known you through there. So a little side note too. I've done I do I do a podcast, 123 episodes. I do my research for y'all. Okay, so I do come bearing gifts. Okay, okay, I I don't want to invite myself, you know, but I'm gonna invite myself. Okay, so here's you you tease this, you tease this on one of your recent oh no. Oh man. I knew nothing about this. So look, I'm a tequila person, right?

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

Yes, now it all makes sense.

SPEAKER_04: 8:56

Now I've cut back, I've cut back recently.

SPEAKER_00: 8:58

Okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_04: 8:59

Uh it's it's I'm I'm dropping weight, that's the only real reason. Uh and you know, Nate Bergazi, like he he tells everyone he used to weigh 400 pounds just so everyone's always proud of him, no matter what he weighs. So like that's kind of where I am. Like, like until recently I weighed 310, right? So I'm like, I'm on my way down. So I'm until I get that a little bit, but I'll be back. Okay. But so I want to contribute to your tequila tasting. Yeah. You're welcome to try it without me. You can do round one without me, whatever. But at some point, I'm inviting myself back. Oh, absolutely. Tequila tasting. All right. So wild commons a very good, very good tequila.

SPEAKER_00: 9:35

Oh, we do like the reposadas.

SPEAKER_02: 9:37

Yeah, yeah. So this is a wild common uh reposado tequila. Um this looks brilliant.

SPEAKER_04: 9:43

I don't really know a lot about this brand, but yeah, it's so I don't know a ton about tequila, but basically, this is the I'm gonna go get the glass high end. This is on the higher end of the oh wait, he said he can't drink it yet. Okay, um, you know, you have your single estate, you have blends, all this stuff. So this is not necessarily a single estate, but it's uh the way they prepare it and age it, it's like super well thought out and complicated. It comes from a distillery that's well known. So anyway, I think you'll enjoy it. I genius. I I definitely love it. It's uh it's kind of this this earthy, grassy tequila. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Yeah. Uh, these are the notes that you uh you know, you're supposed to be able to.

SPEAKER_02: 10:22

So we we have actually uh so for starters, thank you so much. How amazing setting the ticket with the rest of your guests. Exactly. If you want to be a guest on our podcast, this is your first class ticket. Like, yeah, that that's that actually, I I don't we could talk more about how we want to organize that, but I mean if someone wants to supply tequila for tequila Tuesday, then I think we can figure out a little bit of conversation. But but thank you very much. This this will certainly go to good use. Um, and yeah, we we will have you back on for sure. Yes, uh, and we can tell more music stories.

SPEAKER_05: 10:58

Yes, well, good.

SPEAKER_04: 11:00

Uh, but yeah, so um uh let me let me answer a few of the the basic real estate questions. So my background in real estate is I I kind of ish grew up in the the realm of real estate. I uh have a brother-in-law that's a broker down in Austin. I worked for him for a little while. I've been in the business a little over five years. I blended my career as a therapist, uh physical therapist assistant for four years, became an agent. I've been full-time for almost a year and a half, a little over a year. Um, I worked for Dustin for a while, I worked for Kelly Williams now. My parents and Austin flipped houses for several years, um, kind of down right before my dad passed. That's what they were doing. So I just knew that world. Dustin and Megan flip, he's a broker. And then way, way back when I was in college, I went to Pepperdine, and one of my best friends was in a real estate family. And I had read Rich Dad, Poor Dad one summer, and it was on my radar. Then we graduated and Lawrence is was doing some investing.

unknown: 12:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 12:03

And he invested in flips in Bakersfield and in Dallas from LA from a distance. And his boots on the ground guy in Dallas was this guy named Tavis Westbrook. I had no idea who it was, right? So I started following Tavis on on Facebook just because Lawrence knew him. We invested a very small amount of money into what he was doing. And I just kept track of this guy in Dallas. And so then when we moved here, and I knew I wanted to flip and I wanted to be involved, I started reaching out. It took me about three times of messaging him on Facebook until he finally said, like, yeah, let's grab lunch. And we became friends. I bought a flip from him. He helped me complete a couple flips that I was not doing great in. And our podcast was born out of that. It was sort of like this mentor mentee scenario of him teaching me how to flip homes, sell homes. He's been in the business 20 years, done a ton, right? Um, it's morphed into a little bit more peer to peer because I've I've grown my business some. I went full-time, I've had enough sales to feel good about what I'm doing. And, you know, we've completed four flips. We haven't done any in over a year. Uh, but you know, I sold y'all's house. We've we've interacted a lot over real estate. Um, and so you know, fast forward, now I'm going through a personal transition, recently divorced. Uh, I was recently the realtor for my now ex-wife buying a house in Bluisville. That's a weird experience. So, you know, if you want somebody who's cool, I wasn't gonna bring that up. No, listen, I haven't talked about it on our podcast yet. Oh, really? But um breaking news. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's been final for several months, and we just have been low-key about it. And I've been waiting to sell the house to kind of finalize things, but the house is taking forever to sell, and at some point you just kind of have to live life, you know. But if we're if we're gonna talk to other people about, you know, scenarios in life and uh working through problems, I mean, that they just come up, right?

SPEAKER_02: 13:57

Well, they they do, and just to not to distract us too bad, but like I've done so so Krista and I built our first home and then we sold that, and we've basically done three like buy and sell real estate transactions in the course of our marriage. And one of the thoughts that I've had multiple times is like it's kind of unavoidable to build a little bit of real relationship with this person who's helping you with such a major transaction in your life. Like, like from for the vast majority of people, the purchase of a home is the single largest financial commitment you are ever gonna make for the vast majority of people. And it involves substantial details about your personal life, including things you do not normally share with people. Like you're disclosing income, you're disclosing credit scores, you're disclosing things that like are windows into some pretty personal stuff. And so it really starts to matter who you're working with because you want to feel a little bit safe and not judged inside those circumstances, and and like you're working alongside somebody who is trustworthy, who is a good communicator, who, you know, is not going to look at your circumstances and be judgmental. And you know, because it's it's vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01: 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:17

And and so, like, how how has that been for you? Like, as you've navigated, especially some of those early transactions, you were kind of getting into the business. Like, did you have any experiences early on where you were just where you became aware of some of that vulnerability?

SPEAKER_04: 15:31

Yeah, I mean, very early on, I worked with a young, young guy, and he I didn't know much about him. And getting an insight into his finances actually is what taught me how to flip my second house. And this is one of the things I was gonna talk to you about. Is there's a lot of creative ways to get into houses. But when someone has to open up the books and say, like, this is how I'm gonna pay for this, and this is like it's not just a here's my check, like the bank wants to know where that check's coming from and you know, credit and all that stuff. And so getting to know him and getting the door open to some of the possibilities early on was amazing. And so we can talk about him dipping into this 401k and that sort of thing. But you know, a very vulnerable part of I've worked with several home health level clients, a few of them were my patients, but you know, families of friends and stuff like that that are in that phase of going to assisted living, that sort of thing. And there's a lot of emotion tied into mom not being able to, you know, open cans anymore at home, and they need she needs assistance, she's got to move over here, or the memory she's left the back door open three times, or like all those things. So not only are you dealing with this family that is having to come to grips with mom's not the same anymore, but now it's like, do we have the right paperwork signed so I can sign a title and all the lawyer stuff? And can we get the money that we need to pay for assisted living? And what do we do with all this stuff? Like it's a lot. And um, I had a family last year that sold five acres in a an original house in Keller, it was like 50 years old, they'd been there forever. And it was like they weren't hoarders necessarily, but they like to collect, you know, it's like they didn't collect they didn't collect like milk jugs and stuff, but I mean it was a lot of like a lot of stuff, and it took us months to work through just the emotions of okay, we need to get rid of this. Now what? Okay, now we we're gonna have an estate sale. Now they're gonna come the junk people are coming. You know, it's like we helped sell cars and stuff. It's like there's so much emotion that's and you realize one, you realize in real estate it's not always about the money. Sometimes it's about ease and just helping someone through the process. It's not how much is what's the most I can make out of this, or how's the fastest I can sell it. Those are factors. But a lot of times real estate transactions just have it's it's about solving problems. Maybe it's a money problem, maybe it's a time problem, maybe it's a you know convenience. They're you're answering all these questions. So yes, I think I bring a lot of value to situations, but also I completely understand the current market and where people are kind of on the sidelines wanting to get in, and it's emotional. It's like I want I think I want to own real estate, I'm supposed to own real estate. My financial advisor says it's a good idea. The American dream is to own real estate, like can I jump in or what's wrong with me if I can't figure it out? There's like social stigma if I don't own a house in some circles. Uh but so like working through some of that too and educating, I and I enjoy that because I don't have all the answers, but I think there are pathways to owning, but there's also you you told me something actually that no one's ever told me before. When you sold your house uh Cimarron Trail, yeah, yeah on Cimron and you y'all rented, you said we're at a place in life where we just need some control over the budget, we just need some predictability. And if you have a mortgage and you have a house, that mortgage-ish is the most or the least you're gonna spend that month. Okay, because you have maybe the air conditioner goes out, maybe then you need a new roof, maybe the pool, like it goes up from the mortgage. If you rent something, that's basically the most you're gonna spend that month on housing. It's very finite because if something goes wrong, you call someone. And so there is a freedom to that lifestyle. Um and I know for y'all it the conversation was we want to accomplish some things, we want to travel, we want to get an RV, we want to do some things, and this is how we're gonna accomplish it. And the sacrifice is going to a little bit of a smaller rental that we can't completely personalize, but it's going to accomplish some life goals that for now, those were more important.

SPEAKER_02: 19:51

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the for us, it was everything you just said, and plus, you know, Krista was wanting to make a little bit of a professional transition on top of all of that. I mean, there were there were so many factors that were playing a role in us wanting to make a move. And we were in a home that was built in the mid-70s that had just been non-stop work. I mean, we had just every single month it felt like we were just dumping money into this house. And we loved the home. You'd been there loads of times. I mean, it was a gorgeous place. Um, and it was very well appointed for what our specific needs were. But at the end of the day, you know, some of what we um, some of what we we really wanted to accomplish as a family was kind of being stalled by the fact that we were continuing to dump money into this thing that just we couldn't seem to break free from. And so yeah, um, and it was honestly, it was one of those situations where one day I just kind of caved and texted you and I was like, hey man, can you pull comps on on our house and and just like let's just see what's even possible? Yeah. Um, and then you did a killer job of of getting it listed and and sold and worked with a pretty difficult realtor on the other side of that. That was an interesting one. Yeah, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_04: 21:06

Um, but it makes you grow. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:10

It was it was funny. It was so I will tell this story because I I've always enjoyed this. So the home that we sold had um had keyless entry on every door. So every door had a keypad. And I have been extremely upfront about this from day one that that all of the entries are just keyed entries. I'm sorry, are are they have no physical keys? It was just a number pad. And so um we end up getting to a point where like we we have a buyer, everything is going great. It it's the day of closing. And I've told him, I don't know how many times, that there we don't have physical keys, we just never had them made. We've always only used the number pads. Even when I showed up to the title company to do the closing, they asked for a physical key, and I and I told them, Oh, it's there is no physical key, it's just a number pad, and I gave them the code. And even the title company didn't bat an eye.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

They're like, okay, cool, yeah, no worries.

SPEAKER_02: 22:08

And and then later that same day, I get a phone call from Ashton, and he's like, Hey, your buyer's freaking out that there's no physical key, and and they're worried that like someone's just gonna break into the home and that they can't lock the doors and all that. I was like, dude, I've lived there for all these years, it's never been an issue, and and all this. And so I tell him, I was like, look, because my frustration is pretty high. You're over it at this point, yeah. Uh, because they hadn't been the easiest buyer. And so finally I was like, fine, I'll call a locksmith right now. Like, I'll get somebody out there, like, just tell them I'm sending help in action. And he just goes, No. And I was like, and I remember I'm standing in Kroger while we're having this conversation. I just kind of stopped in the middle of the eye. I was like, what do you mean, no? And then and he goes, I'm not gonna let you do that. I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 23:04

He's like my responsibility was just to have this conversation with you and to double check. And that's it. If there's no key, there's no key. Like there's nothing else that can be done here.

SPEAKER_04: 23:14

We're done, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 23:15

Yeah, yeah. But it was so funny to me because I was like, man, okay. I didn't even have a conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00: 23:22

Like, I didn't even think about that. But like our house now is I don't think we have a key.

SPEAKER_04: 23:26

And I didn't bat and I uh and maybe it's part of the newer contract that basically digital stuff is written in to where there's so much digital now that you have to agree to pass on passwords and the ability to, you know. So more and more people, that's the reality. And they were it was just more of an old school, there was just a lot, you know. There were there were there were a lot, and it was like, look, if we cave to this, then they're calling in a week about this, and another week, and I think they may have even tried that. Like they did sprinklers this and blah blah blah. It's like no, they tried some other stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 23:56

Well, and then we also had a pool at that house, and I had left like oh hundreds of dollars, maybe a thousand dollars worth of pool chemicals there because like I didn't have a need for them anymore. Like, here's all the chemicals, I'm just trying to be a good person, whatever. Yeah, and but there were still all these nitpicky things that would come up, and I was like, guys, I'm about to come get all those pool chemicals.

SPEAKER_01: 24:17

Like I'm about to use my code seriously and get into that house, right?

SPEAKER_04: 24:23

Oh my god, yeah, but it can be like that, right? So, I mean, look, I I I know it can be frustrating the buy and sell and all that. I know when we originally talked about kind of this whole idea in the conversation, is like people our age, you know, I'm I'm about to be 46. He's like a lot of people have experienced maybe some sort of homeownership, you know, you've you've been in and out of the market. A lot has changed since we've been of a homeowner age, you know, in um like the last 18 years or so. I mean, the the interest rate market has fluctuated. Now, when we were, you know, in 1979, everyone I, you know, every oldie I talked to, it's like, oh, it was 13% when we bought our first house in Wisconsin. It's like, oh, that's that sucks for you. However, I can't afford this house now, and that's what I'm frustrated at. They want it like somehow that makes you feel like amazing, you know, like, oh, I paid 13% my first home. But so it it kind of fluctuated. So you know, uh when we went into the crash of 08, the rates just dropped because they needed people to come back into the market. Um, it was just uh it completely flooded the the inventory and they had to incentivize people to get out there and buy. And so they dropped the rates. And so then we had this long run. I mean, even before that, we were in the fives and sixes after 9-11. We were in the fives and sixes. So that's about what we are now. And then 08 dips, and then we come back, and we get a lot of us when our first-time home buyer experiences or second or third home, we're in the three to four percent uh range, and that's what you got used to. Then COVID happens, and uh we have a lot of the uh shutdowns, the economy goes crazy, uh, we have war, you know, wars overseas that uh impact the energy markets. We have a lot of payments going to people that can sort of like falsely look like it's going well, but then it doesn't, you know, the the core of the economy is not going well, and inflation happens. So now we have this inflation and rates are going up. And so that's the reaction to that. They're slowly bringing them down with just recently our rate cuts. You know, we were close to 8% for a while, and they've crept down naturally. Then we just did rate cuts. And they anticipate two more this year. The thing that's a little bit of a misnomer, everyone waits for the rate cuts. Whenever the Fed cuts their rate, it doesn't directly impact mortgage mortgage price and mortgage cost, but the the markets do go off of that. And so a lot of the anticipation of those rate cuts have already been baked in. So it's not like in two months or let's say six weeks, the rate hat cut happens and all of a sudden, oh, three quarters of a point, we're all good. It's already sort of creeping down with anticipation of that. So I would say by next year, if I had to guess, I'm not an economist, like we'll probably float into the fives, mid-fives, something like that. Everything that I've heard from, you know, there's definitely people who spend way more time on this than me. But the government and most, you know, Fannie Mae, Freddie May, Freddie Mac, all that stuff, five and a half, mid-fives, probably target type stuff. So I don't think if we go back into the threes, something is like severely wrong with the global economy. There's other things that have gone really poorly. That's not a target rate, you know. Um, like I said, after 9-11, we were in like the fives and sixes, and it was going okay. Um so if we go back to that, there's just bigger problems.

SPEAKER_05: 27:52

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 27:52

Um, but you know, supply and demand is is an issue. The nice thing is right now, like let's say you're coming from a rental situation, you don't have a house to sell. I'm I'm trying to sell my personal house because of personal problems. And there's more inventory in DFW now than the last 10 years. So when we first started our podcast two years ago, inventory in DFW was roughly 34,000 units. Now it's over 52, 53,000 units significantly changed.

SPEAKER_00: 28:22

Um is that because of the construction of new homes? Like how like what are the percentages there?

SPEAKER_04: 28:29

Cost of money. So the basically there's just more people on the sidelines that aren't your first-time home buyers, your young, you know, younger folks that are trying to get in, your people coming in from rentals is not happening as much because it's just expensive. The mortgages are expensive. Yes. Um the builders, the United States is they they they fluctuate between four million and six million units short of inventory. So overall, we still actually don't have enough inventory for there to be enough houses. But right now, we in like in order to an acute state, we have more out there than is being able to be absorbed by the people who can afford it. So inventory just keeps stacking up, stacking up, stacking up. Now, the nice thing is that rates are dipping a little bit. And there is a point right now that I think is actually a great time to buy because as a buyer, you have way more leverage than you have had in years. I mean, if you go back to the hyper hot market that everyone seemed to love of 3% mortgages, well, you might have to offer on 10 houses to get the house you want.

SPEAKER_05: 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 29:42

Because you and everyone else is going after the same thing. So it had its own frustration. Well, what happens when there's more people looking for a smaller amount of things and prices go up? So that price jump of like 30% in some neighborhoods, 40% in some neighborhoods around time, that's not sustainable. Like everyone loves to own a house and now all of a sudden, holy, we're geniuses. Three years later, we have 200 grand equity in our house. Like, no, this was a that was a hyper like like inflation in the moment bubble of prices. Now it's coming back a little bit. So if you look at like a 10-year run, DFW overall, like you're looking at 60 to 80 percent increase in value. Yeah, which is crazy. It's insane. Yeah, insane. Over 10 years, now over the last year, we've pulled back like ish 6%, like from zero to six, depending on the pocket, depending on the price points. Now, in my neighborhood right now, I just sent a report out. Things are selling within 14 days of 99% of original asking, and they may have pulled back a little bit from a few years ago. They're not way, way more, but it's still sellable. Um, but if you're a buyer coming into the market, you can if you are like, hey, I don't need to have the house that just came on last week. If you're like, I'll wait, and I'm I only want to look at the stuff that's been on for a month, two, three, four months. Now you have tremendous leverage. Because uh, I talked to my guy, Thomas Ross, local mortgage guy. I work with another another one, David Kakish, have some great mortgage people, very creative. Thomas is local, he did my uh last deal that I did. He ran numbers, and one of the strategies that you can do is let's say you go into a house and he used the$600,000 house. Average house here is$430,000.$600,000. If you're gonna ask for a discount, instead of saying, hey, I I I only want I want you to come off the price$25,000 and I only want to finance$575,000. Your overall mortgage payment, I think his numbers, it came down like$150-ish, something like that. If you instead say, I want to use that 20 same$25,000, but I want to buy, it's called buying down your rate, you can send that to the lender and they use that to front load interest payments. And it's called buying down the rate. There's different programs, two-one buy downs, where it's like, and if it's six now, it's gonna be four for a year, five for a year, then six. Or it's just they they do it differently. But if you can pay that off early, the five-year delta, the difference in doing those two is about 30 grand. Wow. That's a big difference. It's a big difference. Yeah, so now your monthly payment is, you know, if you do the buy down, you're gonna get an extra 150 or 200. So you're you're reducing your monthly payment more, but the the magic is in as you go further down the road because you that interest rate is lower. And so it, you know, for people that are struggling to afford it, that's one way to get your overall mortgage down and your long-term payments down. So that that the first thing I would do, instead of thinking, hey, I have a house that I really want, let's see if they would come down 30 grand in price. I would talk to your mortgage person and say, hey, what's my best option here? Should I ask for maybe, maybe it's 15 grand off the price and 15 grand towards closing cost or the rate. You can also really reduce the amount that you're bringing to closing because they can say, hey, I'm gonna contribute 10, 15 grand towards your closing cost. So you're able to, you know, get into this house with not a whole lot out of pocket. Uh, I just sold a house over in Carrollton, first-time home buyers. This doesn't count for everybody, but this specific house was in this economic zone that qualified for this specific loan that they were zero down. Like they, I mean, they were like first time, first-time people, and they came in and we had to sign off on something that basically said they are financing 100% of this deal. And it closed and it was great. So those programs.

SPEAKER_02: 33:58

I mean, what kind of credit score do you have to have or something like that?

SPEAKER_04: 34:00

I don't know their credit score. I would imagine that it's not horrible, but also they were young. I mean, this is a young couple, and I don't even know that they were married. I mean, it was like so, all that to be said is I would encourage people to not get married to like one bank, you know. Oh, I go to Frost, I'm gonna use Frost. They're great, but there's mortgage brokers out there, there's there's creative people that they see it's just like car dealerships every day. They have a management meeting and they're like, look, we're low this month, we're gonna drop this fee, we're gonna drop the rate, we're gonna offer this. And they see all of that and they can say, Hey, today with your credit score, you're a veteran, you're this nationality, whatever your situation is, you qualify for this one, this is a good deal. I'll lock you in right now, and then you can go with that. So if you're flexible on that part, I would the other thing you can do, and I would highly encourage, I had a buyer that really got into it. I actually had to back away at one point because I know I knew the lender. But my buyer was obsessed with getting two lenders to fight with each other over rate, and he saved a ton of money. A ton. I'm talking thousands.

unknown: 35:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 35:21

Because these two lenders, I could do this. Oh, well, I'll match that. Well, I could do this, I'll match it. And they went down until one of them's like, I'm not doing any more. Because even you know, real estate agents have certain commissions that they make, but lenders have their own commission structure. They have their own fee structure and it's negotiable. And so if you're not negotiating on your rate between two lenders, you're definitely losing out on your down payment, your fees that you're paying at closing, and you can literally come off the rate. They may say today our rate's 6.2, but they could negotiate down to let's say 5.8 or something, like 585. And then they the people buy you down another point. So now you're into like 475. Like it's doable.

SPEAKER_05: 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 36:08

So that those are kind of the some of the basics. I would say, like, yes, it's hard, but it's doable in that sense, outside of getting to like buying a cheaper house, you know, like going way out. Like I showed a piece of property that's$250,000, like in crumb. You know, it's like if you want to live out there, you can find stuff, you know, or if you want like a complete project that you're gonna have like to really do a bunch of work to, you can find those cheap. But there's ways to kind of around it as well. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:41

We should be charging money for this episode. This is like this is this is good stuff. This is horrible. We could pay wallets. This is the premium. This is the premium. Yeah, seriously, this is great. Like I I'm learning tons. Um, so what do you think are you you've tackled a lot of the the some of the common misconceptions around, well, there's no way I could get into anything and afford it. And and I think that's extremely helpful at the outset. What do you think are some of the common mistakes that people make when when they're buying a home, even if they're experienced buyers? What do you what do you try and steer people away from, you know, as they're engaging with these transactions?

SPEAKER_04: 37:19

Yeah. And I side note, there's other creative ways to finance that. I didn't get it to, they're more complicated. Hit me up. I'm happy to have a conversation. There's things called subject two, um, which is and then there's taking over, sort of uh assuming a loan. Where if someone has a 3% loan, some some loans will allow you to take over their payments legally. There's a gray area called subject two, which is basically you're taking it over without technically telling the bank. Um, it's it's doable and a lot of people do it. I mean, there's whole groups of investors that that's how they acquire properties. And that's kind of like an owner finance version of things, and you make up your own rules. Like, hey, what is your down payment? What is it? You want the payment? You want a 40-year loan? 50. Like, that's what we should have done when we moved here.

SPEAKER_00: 38:06

We had we let we walked away back home, some from Louisville. It was a$300,000 house. We had it at 15 years at 2.1%.

SPEAKER_04: 38:15

Oh wow. Yeah. You could have someone would have assumed that. And you the nice thing about that is a lot of times they'll actually pay top dollar because they know they're gonna get their money back, they're holding it for a while, they want it as a rental, and they're like, Look, our you know, your mortgage is let's let's say at that level, your mortgage is$1,600. But I know that we could rent this for$2,000 all day. Well, they're delta$400 plus the appreciation, like, we're fine. We'll pay you top dollar, and you're like, great, top dollar. All you hear is I just sold my house for what I wanted. And they pay you a small down payment, and it all works. Those things are possible. You know, there's it's called creative financing, not to mention um you create which is not creative accounting, which is illegal, not creative accounting, not the stuff that got us in trouble in 2008. But if you're interested in that subject to assemble mortgage, it's all out there, right? Um, you could also there's the thing called house hacking, which where there's this whole typically not for families, but if if you're cool with a roommate or someone living in the garage apartment or you have a pool house, or maybe you specifically buy something that can be segmented that hey, they can come in the garage in the back door, we can come in the front door. We rarely rarely see each other, and they're gonna give us this rent to subsidize our payments. That's a another great way to do things. That's not for everybody, you know. Obviously, families and but if you're in a situation, it's like, okay, yeah, I don't mind having roommates. I can be the like Daniel does, he can be the landlord and he rents the three of his buddies and he pays for his mortgage that way. Um, and then after a while, you can go do another one and another one. Um, so there's just there's ways um to do all that. What was I? I I got sidetracked.

SPEAKER_02: 40:03

No, you're fine. I was uh just about the if there's common mistakes that people make.

SPEAKER_04: 40:08

Okay, so the I would say the one of the big mistakes is getting dug in on certain aspects of what you want. Now, of course, there's there's non-negotiables, like maybe it's like I I do not want a pool, or I have to have, you know, a bedroom downstairs because my mom lives with us and she can't climb the stairs. Like there's those things, right? But like if you think about the like HGTV stupid shows where like some person who shouldn't be buying a house, like they they like follow them around like Mary loves a house by the the beach and her budget's you know$300 a month. You're like Mary is drinking, you know, like there's this doesn't exist, right? And she walks in like she owns a place. She goes, I just don't think this is gonna work for me. Like at some point, some of those features and I I just kind of need it this way. If you can be flexible on that part, like you're gonna open your your mind up and your options up to a lot of things. School zones, another thing. Like if your kids are, let's say they're in private school, like, you know, hey, you can go to a lot of less expensive places and still go to this school. You know, Garland is a great example. Choose your school. So you can live in different parts of Garland and go to any of the schools you want. And so you could live in a slightly less expensive boot, maybe put in for a really nice school. So there's ways to kind of manipulate that. Of course, if you're not dealing with schools, and you know, I would take advantage of that. There's there's parts of town that are less expensive because of the school side.

SPEAKER_05: 41:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 41:36

Uh, there's parts of town we made uh South Lake made a national list recently as the most inflated homes as a contribution to the school zone. So people are willing to pay more, like 1.7 times more than a normal to be in that school zone. Uh and then we had so DFW had several others that were on the list. I'm sure Highland Park is up there. They're they're willing to pay more, but that the opposite is true. Where you can get really good neighborhoods that happen to be in bad school zones, but you're like, I don't care. I'm, you know, I don't have kids. I'm gonna be living here for a while. It's close to this part of town I really like. I'm gonna take advantage of this. Yeah, and so if you can be flexible and not get too dug in there, I would that to me, that's the biggest thing because you're just gonna open up your options a ton.

SPEAKER_00: 42:27

Kids are such a drag.

SPEAKER_02: 42:29

It's really just a problem. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:32

But the nice thing is, is there are we we go to Louisville ISD, Hebron High School. I love it. It's not on the top of any list, it's not on the bottom of any list. It's kind of one of those things you it is what you make of it. It's it's good enough to where if you want to apply yourself and you want to do a band or whatever, you can be really high level. If you want to not do all that and completely get lost, I'm sure there's arguments to be like this is horrible. You know, um, yeah, so there's a lot of those in DFW, kind of the decent middle ground areas that you can go to that you're not gonna hyper overpay for the best. There's some people out there that just want the best. That's they start with school. Yeah, they start with this elementary district, they start with this high school, that's what they want. And you know, it does inflate those prices. Um, I just did I grew up in Round Rock at public school. I was fine, you know, my kids are gonna be fine, you know, they'll be good. They do their best and they've turned out okay so far. It's like, we're good. You know, I'm not I'm not gonna like sacrifice everything to go live in Highland Park just so you can go to a public school that's like the highest level of whatever. It was just what that sacrifice that wasn't for us, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 43:42

So you've also been involved in some home flip transactions. I know that you've got relationships with people. I mean, you mentioned our friend Daniel, who who is kind of in the rental property game and stuff like that. What what have you learned from flipping homes? What do you do you feel like that market is still kind of out there and available? I I feel like there was a huge trend around that a handful of years ago. And at least from my perspective, it seemed to kind of taper off as far as like people who are really active in that home flip environment. But I know you've done some of that. I've been to some of your home flips. There's one not far from where we're sitting right now. Um and what did you learn from that? And and you know, if you were talking to somebody who is interested in learning more about that, how does somebody even break into something like that?

SPEAKER_04: 44:29

So you can flip the the long and short is you can invest in real estate in any market. The math is simple. You buy something for way less than you can sell it for, and you have the budget in the middle that allows you to fix it up. And the key is you have to have the ability to find them in the first place. Now, that is the skill set that ebbs and flows, I think. You have now I think the popularity for a while, one like you had the you just the proliferation of your HGTVs and chip and Joannas and all that, where it's just like super cool. And also, you had this that period of time that everything was going up over two or three years, 30% a year, 20%, 15%. And you could completely screw up and buy the house wrong and not budget properly, and oh, I love this tile, and I it all that stuff, and still sell it and make money or not lose money, and you felt like a genius. It was not true, and so then people start getting caught, and their their skill set is not there to buy properly and run on a budget, and then they go to try to sell and they lose a ton of money. And that transition is I almost got caught right there. That's my last flip. Was I was over budget, Tavis helped me kind of get through that. I made money on my last one, but it was I was close. I lost a little bit of money in the Richardson one, but I was just like it was scary enough to be like, okay, I need to make sure the next time I do this, I'm good. Because my first two were slam dunks. I could have written a book. Like my first flip, no joke. I got it. I I did my rehab was five dollars because I bought it, it was distressed, it was in East Plano. This is the first time I ever did it. I borrowed against my 401k, which is what I learned from my first buyer that I was telling you about. You can borrow against your 401k for certain, it's a loan against yourself. I did that to get into my hard money loan. It was a it's a bridge loan, it's like in the weeds. But basically, I used my 401k to get a loan to buy a house. I was gonna rehab it and sell it. That was the intent. In the meantime, they moved out. The refrigerator line was leaking a little bit. I went to Home Depot, got that little screw-on cap, five bucks. When did that? I was waiting to get my rehab started like an idiot. I didn't have everything lined up. I was gonna be like, Oh, I'm gonna get my guys now. My brother-in-law, who flipped in Austin, said, Hey, there's a lot of home buyers, like we'll buy your home, you know, like those guys. There's a lot of home buyers, and they work with these hedge funds that buy just dozens and dozens of rentals at a time. Um and at the time they were buying everything. And he's like, just pitch it to them and see what they would give you. Okay, I wanted to do the flip. I was really excited. This is my first time, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I'll check it out. Pitched it to this guy, and I was gonna net in the realm of I I think it ended up being somewhere between 40 and$50,000 for five dollars. And and I was like, Yeah, I'll do that. I mean, that was what I was like, I had written that into some ROI right there, buddy. Yeah, I had written that, I was like, that's what I wanted to do through the rehab. Like, why would I wait three months, go through all this, and maybe make it wherein like this guy's looking at me right now. And so I was out of town when I signed that deal. I was like, man, this is great. My next one went similarly well. I was like, this is the best. And then I got into like my big ones, my two big ones. They were real, real renovations, and I made all the mistakes hiring wrong people, not stacking people properly, overdesigning all the stuff. And the market was just good enough to where it saved me. But the people that went in a little after me in the last few years that don't have that skill set, they will lose their shirt. And so you have people like Tabis, who I do the podcast with, who's done over 200 flips at this point over the course of 20 years, hundreds of transactions. I've seen him walk away from a deal. Every deal he does, he writes in 50 grand. He would tell you that. Like that's his that's his baseline profit. If I've seen him walk away from a deal that we were gonna make 45, that was like a pencil at 45. It's like no. And I'm like, what? Yeah, I was like, I will do, I'll do it, you know. But I didn't have the the the guys on he's just very disciplined about what works and what doesn't. And he has his budget and he knows what things are gonna cost and it runs on budget. And very rarely, like we have one right now, that he's there was a mold issue that took a lot more when we peeled things back. It was like, okay, this is one of those things you see on TV. It's like, oh well, shoot, we got 20 grand we didn't account for. Like that happened, you know. And so this one, he'll make a little bit, but he may not kill it. But in general, it he's a professional. And so the the amateurs, the hobbyists got washed out of the market. The professionals are more or less doing it, but there's a lot of inventory because think about there's like I said, there's over 50,000 units just sitting there. Someone who's been sitting there six months, someone comes along, is like, look, I can't pay you full price. This is my price. And they're like, I'll go for it.

SPEAKER_00: 49:55

Well, and too, I wonder, you know, COVID hit and you know, the price of lumber went through the roof.

SPEAKER_04: 50:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:01

Um, and then you have um well, no one can work on job sites, you know, like everything was well, yeah, true. And then they they made it harder to flip, like especially with financing, and then the um the interest rates went through the roof. So it's just like for people who were probably those amateurs you're talking about. I mean, you just got priced right out of the market because you're like, I don't have, I can't afford triple the price of lumber. And I mean, I know you're not building from scratch, but I mean, you're taking walls down and doing things like that. I mean, and then I don't want to bring up tariffs, but I'm sure that that also is contributing to tile prices and certain things that I'm sure are getting imported. And then, you know, even just the cost of homes inflating. Like when we sold our house, I mean, like I said, we bought it for 300, sold it at um 422. Um, now that home, we're we're stuck in a place right now where um we don't know if we can afford to go back. Like the home that we had is probably now$200,000 more. Um, and this has only been a handful of years.

SPEAKER_05: 51:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:10

But with the market going up, and then yeah, I'm like, there's no way. Like, we can't afford the same house for more than twice the interest rate plus$200,000 on top of it.

SPEAKER_04: 51:21

Like I very difficult.

SPEAKER_00: 51:23

It is.

SPEAKER_04: 51:24

It depends on what you're wanting to get out of real estate, and that's what you have to ask yourself. Are you doing real estate because you think it's a good investment and you want a return on your dollar? Or do you want it for a lifestyle, or do you want kind of this blend? Maybe it's a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_05: 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 51:40

If you're using, it's like, hey, I just want the appreciation and I want, I know real estate's a good investment because there's ways to get involved in real estate investing that don't involve owning a house. There's there's mutual funds that are tied to the market, there's investors out there who will utilize your money. Like I borrowed against my 401k. I've also had private lenders that gave me their 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 so I could get into a loan. There's ways to get involved in the market to allow your money to work that could give you a return and still benefit from the market. The other thing, too, is like, you know, this is an out there idea, but you could look at something like, hey, Sherman Denison, is a great example. I love Sherman Denison right now. It's blowing up because of the semiconductors. You have Lake Texoma right north of there. There's billions of dollars going into Lake Texoma right now. That whole corridor going to Oklahoma is like exploding. But the values, they have gone up, but it's still very approachable to buy a house in that corridor, you know, north of Melissa, all the way up to let's say Denison. And if you like like look, I can't afford a$600,000 house right now, but I can rent here, I can afford a$250,000 house. Maybe the play is let's buy a rental house, get the appreciation that you would normally get with you know, owning real estate, get some tax benefits. They're paying for the mortgage. Maybe they make you an extra three, four hundred dollars a month that you can use for lifestyle. And then whenever you're ready to do your own thing, it's like, hey, let's sell this or let's take a loan out against that, and you get some of the benefits of real estate, but it's more of a an approachable price point, you can go to the periphery and find that. I mean, like I said, I've crumb, Aubrey, Pilot Point, all that up there is still relatively approachable. And so if you're like, look, we've got 50 grand, we want to be in real estate, we can't afford a down payment on a$600,000 house that we love, but we can do what we're doing for a while. Let's do it this way. Like, that's another way to create some equity in real estate that you might be able to use now. Again, I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not an economist. Talk to your people, but that's kind of what I would, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 53:52

Well, and I imagine that that same concept holds up. I mean, you're talking about areas that are all sort of on the the outskirts of the the DFW metroplex. And so for anyone who doesn't know, like sorry, yeah, y'all aren't just DFW.

SPEAKER_04: 54:06

My podcast is only DFW.

SPEAKER_02: 54:07

So no, no, no, you're totally fine. But like I I think the concept holds true, though. I'm sure it does to some degree, where whatever major metropolitan area you're in, you know, if if you decide to kind of look on the outskirts of that to try and jump into a rental property that just gets you into the game and allows some entry in it, and then you leverage that in three, four, five years as you know, you're you build some equity and the market shifts and all that, I think that's really, really smart. And and it's kind of a a natural path into that that desire we were talking about earlier, where it's like, I do want to be a homeowner, I want to feel like I'm I'm sort of planted and have some roots. And I I think I think that's the thing that I for me, like so. Chris and I built our first home and we actually owned it for about nine years, and then and it for three years within those nine years, we were using it as a rental property. And that didn't go great. Um, now it mostly didn't go great because I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, and I've been there, yeah. And so I just I wish that I could talk to me um, you know, all those years ago and be like, hey, how about you involve some professionals in this because you are making this up as you go, and that's not how to do this. And and I was trying to cross the T's and dot the I's as much as I could, and I was doing the background checks, and I was I I thought that I was vetting people well, and I just wasn't. That was really what it came down to. And then I wasn't paying attention to the red flags that were happening even after those people were in the home. And so it really turned into quite a disaster. Um, we ended up moving back into the home after the runners were gone, and it took us 18 months to rehabilitate the home to the point where we felt like we could sell it. And we had to strip flooring, we had to strip sheetrock in some areas, we every appliance, we had to replace the whole air conditioning system. We and you know, at the time we were in a place of some financial stability at the time, but but those are huge ticket items when you start stacking them all against each other. And so I just yeah, I remember just being completely overwhelmed by that.

SPEAKER_04: 56:16

And and at the same time, it's not for everybody, it's not rental, it's not for everybody, but also like so many things in what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02: 56:23

I I think that you just have to find a professional you trust. Yeah, and and that's really so much of what you were talking about, even around the lending side of things, because the lending side is that that's the barrier to entry for a lot of people, is they are so intimidated by that. They think, oh, I exactly yeah, I have to have 20% down, yeah, and I have to be able to shoulder this. But from a lot of what you described, that's not really the case at all. There, there's plenty of options out there. Now, if you want to be that buyer, that's available too. You can just bring that 20% cash, and here you go. But you know, it sounds like what a lot of people are missing is hey, how about we try and find a trusted professional looking guidance?

SPEAKER_00: 57:03

Yeah, so so I my question uh for you was gonna be if you know, we've got these young 20s who are just feeling hopeless when it comes to owning real estate, like everyone, you know, we still have that mentality of like making it is owning a home and and you know, a nice neighborhood and all those things. What would you say to someone if you haven't already? What would you say to someone in that phase of life that wants to that is looking? You know, maybe that they're stable, maybe they have one or two kids, they're renting, they they really wanna to make that leap. What would you say to that person and how would you advise them about finding someone that they can trust?

SPEAKER_04: 57:53

Yeah, that's a great question. So I'll answer the the second one. There's a lot of great mortgage lenders out there, there's a lot of good real estate agents, you know. Um I would look for people that have a track record, have experience, have reviews. You know, I don't have hundreds of reviews, you know, but I have a presence. I always tell, you know, tablets.

SPEAKER_00: 58:15

Hopefully you'll get like four more. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 58:17

Look, hey, look, find me, whatever. You know, but you know, I always say find people that are on social media they because they can't hide. These are people that are answering questions and reviews, and they're gonna probably treat you right because they they they're out there. You know, if you have someone you have you can't find them anywhere online, it's a in my opinion, a little bit of a problem, you know. Now, finding there's great people out there that don't have a presence, but I would probably start there. Find someone that you you know, like, and trust. There's all sorts of meetups. There's you know, ask someone a coffee, like there's no dumb questions. And so I would go to open houses and find people. I would, you know, just try to test out. I would probably not go with like my coworker's cousin that just started because I want to help him out a little bit. Now we all start and that's fine, but there's there's people out there that have track records and all that. Lenders the same way. You know, I would find, get some recommendations of someone that you trust, like, hey, this went great, go with this person. I wouldn't go off of like, oh, I I heard a guy and he's you know, my coworker, this coffee guy, he's really trying to get in the mortgage industry. It's just there's so much at stake right now that I would at least go with someone with a track record there. And don't be, don't be afraid to interview people, but also if you're new, don't come at it like you're here to impress me. You know, I that kind of drives me crazy a little bit. I work with some newer investors and they're like, hey, I'm interviewing agents right now. Like, bro, I'm interviewing you. I am not wasting my time on another investor who wants to act like they know what they're doing because I've worked with enough of them that do. And it's like night and day, you know? And so always go in with a little bit of humility and say, look, I don't quite. Know what this is? Can you teach me? Find someone who's willing to like spend time with you and answer those questions because when it gets stressful, like you want to be able to call this person and like have them walk you through. A lot of people have these like large teams and you're working with three different people. I would personally want to work with one or two people that are willing to like take your call. So that's where I would.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:20

Oh, I'll be honest. I have used my real estate agent as a therapist before. Like talk me off the ledge. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:28

It can be very, very stressful. Yes. But again, I'll go back to I've been in some stressful situations when it comes to real estate. I'm fine with it, right?

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:36

Um, advice to younger, uh, younger folk. Well, that sounds so stupid. Young folks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:43

Well, young whoopersnappers.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:45

No, so those, those, uh, those Gen Z, those young millennials who are literally just feeling like I'm never gonna be able to do this.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:53

So on the mortgage front, you know, you have someone like Thomas, he puts out a lot of content for first-time homebuyers. He does webinars, he does meetups for first-time homebuyers to educate. What's his podcast? Thomas Ross, he doesn't have one. Thomas Ross, put the link in the uh show notes. Yeah, yeah, got it. Um but yes, he's great. And he uh he can definitely educate you on on and he really specializes in first-time folks. So I would say be again be open to options. New home builders on the periphery of wherever you're living, new home builders are offering crazy incentives right now. A lot of incentives with uh with rates, with you know, putting blinds in and all the stuff, right? Now, if you want to live in the trendy part of uptown in Dallas or wherever that is where you're living, that may not happen for you. But if you're willing to drive a little further out in order to get a home, then that's an option. If you want to live closer in, I would highly suggest looking at condos or townhomes. I would highly suggest being okay with teaming up with someone or having you know, you be the person getting into it, but then you have roommates. Like get creative in that front. But you'd be shocked with what you could get a condo, buy a condo for right here. They don't appreciate as much long term, yeah, but you can buy one and you could keep it long term for a rental, and they actually rent for pretty good. Yeah, um, you know, you have to be careful on some of your condos and townhomes on the HOA. There, they the monthly HOA can be up there. Um but I so there's there's two levers on buying a home. You have the cost and you have what you're bringing to the table. So either be okay with working extra, saving, maybe cutting back on certain things to say, like, I know I want to live in this neighborhood, and I know my mortgage guy says I have to bring whatever 40 grand to the table. And so maybe you're asking mom and dad for a little bit, maybe you're selling some stuff, or maybe you're okay with a roommate or moving a little further out. So if you I would just say the general concept is like just be a little flexible. If you want to get into the game, open your mind to what's possible and not just get sold on, like, I want a townhome in this neighborhood, and I only have five percent, and I'm gonna be really bitter because I just can't do that right now. It's just that's not gonna get you anywhere, you know. So there's options out there, and there's people every day that are buying houses, there's people every day that are investing in real estate. I mean, trans hundreds and hundreds of transactions are happening, not just here, but everywhere. And that's usually kind of like the reality check for folks. Talk with an agent, how many houses sold, like went pending last week? 1300 or whatever. Like people are making things happen. How do I become one of those people? And that's that would be my advice. I think it's doable, there's programs out there, but it may take some sacrifice in either what you're looking for or maybe the money you're bringing to the table. A lot of people I deal with, especially on the young side, are having some sort of contribution from somewhere, you know, family, and I know not everybody has that. Yeah, the downside of the people that I've worked with that are first-time home buyers that drives me insane as a as an agent are the people that they somehow think that they're never gonna have to go to Home Depot. I'm like, look, I can't help you. You know, like I can't. You're buying a 1978 house that's been renovated, we've done the best we could, but you may have to go to Lowe's every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:21

And I would say learn to love Lowe's.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:26

I I used to love going, like, I liked tinkering with my house.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:29

Yeah, I really did. I I enjoyed it. You'd be amazed with how many like I'm shocked when I go walking and I look in the garage and there's like nothing in there. I'm like, who are you? Like, how is this even possible? You don't have tools, you know, like you don't have a table saw with wood hanging from the ceiling. Okay, what is going on? So, like, but there is a whole generation that just I would say become comfortable with a little bit of home maintenance. So you can buy something that cheaper that needs a little bit of fixing up. Okay, I'm gonna take on this. Now you've bought you've built some equity into the house because you bought it cheaper, you fixed it up, now you could sell it. Like, there's just there's ways to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:02

Two houses ago, Kristen and I were in a home right when COVID hit, and uh it was our Plano house, which I'm pretty sure you were at at least once because we we were already working in the Plano area then. And um we just found ourselves with all this time on our hands. Now, I don't pr I don't think of myself as an extraordinarily handy guy, but I'm not bad. Like I'm I'm not like, oh, I'm gonna be a MacGyver. Right, yeah. I I I can figure stuff out. And so we had all this time on our hands, and and Krista looked at me one day. I remember it was Easter Sunday of 2020, it was that evening, and she she's just kind of staring at something over my head. We were sitting at the kitchen table and she just staring off into space, and I kind of looked behind me, and it's this like cabinet area that we had in one part of our kitchen. It was sort of this built-in cabinets with a shelf and and all this. And she just goes, I want to paint that. I was like, Okay, let's go. And we had painted tons of stuff. This is not foreign territory, but what that started was us renovating our entire kitchen. Oh, yeah. And and so, and because of COVID, we had time on our hands, and I just got on YouTube. Yeah, I went to YouTube university, and like I I wasn't intimidated by all of this, but I had never like hung cabinet doors before. Well, turns out there's some methodology to it, and if you'll take the time to learn that methodology, it's not that hard. But you know, we refinished our entire cabinets. I put new, I put soft closed hinges on. And so I had to learn how to then remount those doors with the different hinges, drew drill new holes. But you know, cabinet doors have to line up, everything has to match. And I actually enjoyed learning all of that stuff. I bought a couple of tools to help me do it and and leaned into that whole process. I learned some electrical stuff. We actually rewired a couple of electrical parts of our kitchen that I did myself, and and that was the most intimidating part to me. I don't really like messing with electrical, but um, but it was small enough to where I felt like I can take this on and figure it out. And so, you know, I I think that that's that's so available to young buyers as well. It's like if you're buying a property that needs a little bit of that attention, it's you know, it's not like you just are gonna wander the aisles of Home Depot and hope that you figure out how to do whatever you're trying to do. There are plenty of resources online now, including resources offered by places like Home Depot and Lowe's that have full tutorials. That's how I learned to replace our dishwasher. I watched a Home Depot tutorial on it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:34

And well, a lot of the manufacturers now too are also providing troubleshooting and videos and things like that. So yeah, I mean, it is possible. You just have to do it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:45

You just have to be willing to do that. And that's why be flexible, be willing to learn, get your hands dirty a little bit, and then you'll work yourself into the market and you'll either think, like, I'm fine with doing that again. You trade every two years where you're not being taxed as much, and you can just, hey, I'm gonna sell and go to another one. So you use that to another down payment, you move up, you move up. You house hack, you have roommate sign. I'm fine with this, I'm gonna do this again. Or you're like, I'm never doing that again. And I don't I want to rent because I don't care to deal with any of this. And I'm willing to make that sacrifice. But all that to be said is like there are there are options. I know it sucks, I know the rates are not ideal for our lifetime. Yeah, historically they're okay. Yeah, I know most people don't want to hear this, but actually affordability has gone uh is is improved for the first time in the last two and a half years. So things are systemically improving to where and that was due to the rate cuts. So if those can come down a little bit more, certain things are gonna happen to where the affordability is improving. Um you just have to be willing to like get out there and try. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:57

Yeah. I didn't know when we launched into having a podcast that we would give like actual applicable consumer advice, but I think that is exactly what we have done today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:08

It was not part of our premeditated opinion.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:11

So here's I I will change subjects because when I was listening to some of y'all's stuff, I was like, okay, they go on tangents, right? We love a tangent. So here's advice. I'm gonna give some advice. Oh god. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:22

No, no, he's excited. I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:26

I'm like, I'm about to open the tequila you brought.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:29

Yeah, here's what I am for a different reason.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:32

Chili's needs to be careful. They are changing their skillet queso recipe. Did you know this? No. Did you grow up going to Chili's? Is that like an acceptable restaurant for you? I still like going to Chili's and I get scoffed at because I like chips and queso and cold blue moon beer. Like, that's like that is my idea of like a great night. You know, like like I'm pretty simple. I like all sips on a road tourney.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:57

You can find Ashton at your local chili.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:00

Yes, like something that says ask me about real estate.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:04

Yeah, and ask me why I'm 310 pounds. But it's like, that's why I have to like cut back on that, but yeah, they're changing their recipe. And it's like they're going like fresh chilies and all this stuff, and like all this fresh onions and I'm like, this is the download.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:18

I like how you want to give us feedback on tangents.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:20

Yeah, yeah. No, no, so to that point though, that's a terrible idea. Yes, there's this is one of those stalwart like restaurants that like I grew up going to that's still like we live in Dallas, so we have like 90 different options to eat. And so, but but there's still parts of the country, like large parts of the country, that out back in Chili's are like some of the nicer places to go. And I'm like, they started messing with this, like, please don't. Right. Like, I just want certain things in my life to remain the same. And don't change the don't take blue moon off a tap and don't change how thick your chips are, and don't change the queso.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:54

Oh, when tumbleweed, did you all ever have tumbleweed?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:57

We don't have tumbleweed here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:58

No, okay. Well, when tumbleweed changed their queso, I was like, that's it. Like, let's just it's a bridge too far. It is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:04

It's like and look, especially, especially in the south, but specifically and then they went under and I was like, ha ha. I mean, especially in the south, but specifically in Texas, queso is its own food group.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:15

Yeah, well, yeah, there's a lot of places are like that's their main appetizer where they're known, like they have great queso.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:22

Oh, that's why I didn't go to Chipotle for a long time because they didn't have taste water.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:25

Yeah, yeah, and then when they first did it was just cheese water. It's really weird.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:29

But like Torchies is a great restaurant because they have great queso. They really you know, like there's just certain places that have it, but probably one of my first, you know, I grew up in Round Rock, but you know, a lot of places would have queso. But my I just there's something about that stupid skillet that they bring out at Chili's, and they have like cheap meat meat chunks in there. Oh, yeah. I'm like, I like it's liquid cheese with like processed meat. Oh, the most processed. Nobody has ever gone in. This is a corporate decision because no one has ever walked in to order liquid cheese with processed meat and thought, I wish this was fresher. Like it just doesn't, like it's never happened. Like someone from corporate's like, I think we need to advance and like no, we don't This is why Taco Bell has never changed. Right, exactly. They know they're they know their audience.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:15

Yeah, and if they do change, there's a mutiny. You know, it it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:22

I need the cracker barrel mob to to go to Chili's now. They need to please stop, please stop this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:27

Uh I think it's gonna start with this podcast when this podcast drops. Like you usually does.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:31

So sorry about sorry the food tangent.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:34

No, we love a food tangent, but that that that's and we're such a cultural monolith at this point that we're certainly gonna have an influence on Chili's and the I mean we've already changed the flow of traffic. We did, yeah, single-handedly. So and I'm pretty sure that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got engaged because we talked about that. Oh yeah, okay. So what's next? Yeah, we're gonna save Chili's queso. Um save chilies, and yeah, and save chilies, and then we'll fund NASA or something. But the so that is genuinely a terrible decision. I have eaten a lot of chilies. So when I um there was a season in my life when I was quite a bit younger where I would do some traveling and work as a musician, um, and I always looked for chilies because at that season of my life I was not well funded, you know. I had to be a little bit mindful of the budget, and chilies was just consistent. Yeah, like everywhere I went, it was gonna be the same. And I could get the chicken crispers with the whatever I wanted to be like changed those years ago.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:30

I know. Yeah, it's a terrible idea. So now they might as well just completely rebrand.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:34

Right. Yeah, exactly. It'll just be a health food, it'll be like the next, it'll be the next kava or whatever. It's like we have whole chilies, hummus instead of queso. Like, no. No, give the people what they want.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:46

Okay, what's your feedback? What's your feedback?

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:49

I think I I've would you have feedback for us on whether or not we should go on tangents?

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:53

Oh, I love your tangents.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:54

Oh yeah, no, no, I do like endorsing the tangents.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:56

Yeah, I endorse the tangents. Okay. Yeah, no, I think it's that's what you know, it's endearing, and I think it's what people want to. I mean, the the reality is like people are normal people and they have conversations. And it's it's find, you know, in their I the podcast I enjoy, and I do like you know y'all's style, is the one that's just available to open, you know, talk about randomness. Now finding the it's like the Seinfeld thing, like finding the randomness that resonates is sometimes difficult. You know, it's like because it whatever resonates for you may not for other people. That was the magic of that show. It's like the show about nothing was the best show ever. And because all the nothingness was like so common, I mean there's a lot of like comedy that's built around that, like just observational humor and stuff like that. So, yes, no, I think it's I think it's great. I think y'all should keep going.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:45

We go in with a plan and then we just see where it goes, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:49

Yeah, we normally have a piece of paper taped to one of our camera tripods that we sharpie onto it what we're talking about that day, yeah, and then we just sort of riff on those things until we feel like we've actually done something productive. And and honestly, like what the way I've started describing this podcast is we're sort of a millennial morning drive show.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:10

Like we're we're what you're gonna throw on in the car when you're on the way to work, and we're gonna keep things reasonably lighthearted. Sometimes we dive into some little heavier, deeper stuff, but but for the most part, you know, we try and talk about applicable things that are important to us that seem to have cultural resonate like that resonate culturally, like Taylor Swift. Exactly. That's low-hanging fruit. Um, but we, you know, we do try and do that. But at the same time, like I love the idea that we also can bring on subject matter experts and and talk to you about things that are applicable to our actual lives and the lives of an awful lot of people. And honestly, like listening to a lot of what you've said gives me personally, even a lot of hope. Um, you know, and there's some things that that you know, I mean, obviously, you know, we're we're not gonna stay in in the home that we're in forever. And I certainly plan to enter back into the real estate ownership market, but there's even a couple of things that you've mentioned in the course of our recording where I've gone, oh, maybe I need to talk to you a little more about that. I know, me too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:15

I'm like, oh, well, maybe we can make something work.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:18

All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:18

And so I mean, I've literally for the last several months just kind of thought like we're stuck.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:23

I felt stuck.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:24

Yeah. And a lot of people have. The good thing is I think it is shifting. I think rates are coming back. There's the the window you have, I think, is fairly short. Because if rates keep coming back, more buyers get into the market, it absorbs some of the inventory, prices start going up. So your net payment, your net mortgage payment will actually be the same or go up because you're even though you're lower finance, you're you're financing higher. So I think you have a window. I'm saying all this. I think you do have a special window right now as a buyer. Now, if you're selling a house as well, then you got to navigate that. But as a buyer, you do have a special window where the rates are becoming more reasonable than they have in the last few years, and there's a ton of inventory, and you can take advantage of it for sure. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:10

Well, thank you for joining us for this consumer advice.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:15

Public not everyone's asleep at their wheel.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:17

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I I think I think this is actually applicable for a tremendous amount of people. And we also gave folks a helpful heads up about Chili's case though. So now we can all collectively ride them. I know I love that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:30

I have this public form. I need to say something.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:32

Speaking of chilies and case though.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:34

We have the perfect complex time next time uh Chicago Tasting Day. So well, and what's gonna be the format on that? Are y'all just oh wheels off?

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:43

Yes, taste and talk.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:44

We've already started.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:46

We did. We we've recorded one, it hasn't been released yet as of mid-October. Um, but it's it's been recorded, and um, we actually ended up recording with a friend of ours who lives over on Pamela's side of town um named Madeline, who we are gonna end up blending some of those episodes um because Madeline's life is hilarious all by itself. And then you add in a little tequila, and it was hilarious. And so that really that organically just kind of turned into something on the fly. Yeah. Um, but I honestly think having some guests around for tequila Tuesday is a great idea. Oh, yeah. And you know, we really kind of go into it with not a tremendous amount of plan, and it we just sort of find our way. But um, those will be coming uh once we actually get uh our Substack Premium stuff set up, all uh a lot of that stuff will end up living behind that Substack paywall. Um, and so yeah, we've got some renewed motivation now to get that get that going. We've got a fresh bottle of tequila that's just it's not gonna drink itself.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:44

Nope.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:45

So um, but thank you for joining us. Uh thank you, Ashton, man. Um so uh finally, um tell the people all the places they can find you um because let's let's embarrass this guy with how much real estate business he gets from this podcast. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:00

I'd be glad to be embarrassed in that way.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:02

Yeah, so where can the people reach?

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:04

Yeah, so we have a podcast that comes out every week. It's a DFW-based podcast, the real estate heavyweights. We do talk about uh some national news, we talk about flipping in general, um, but we do talk about Dallas news, you know, restaurants that have opened and closed, things like that. So uh we talk about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:21

Restaurants who've discontinued their cases.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:22

Well, we talk a lot about it. I mean, hey, look, I I love Tavis, he's a big dude, I'm a big dude. I boxed, I did one amateur boxing match, and so that's kind of where the blend of the heavyweights and Tavis has been in for a long time. So it was just kind of like a natural name, the real estate heavyweights. Um, but we talk a lot about we do talk a lot about food. But um, that's okay. Um but I on Instagram, I'm Dallas Real Estate Guy. I uh I'm on Facebook as well, Ashton Hines, Dallas Real Estate Guy. I'm with Keller Williams, Dallas Preston Road. So if you Google Ashton Hines Realtor, I I should pop up. If I don't, I've gone horribly wrong. But no, but I should pop up. Uh phone number 469-442-8458. Those are the best ways.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:08

Nice. Awesome. Well, thanks, man. Yeah, I appreciate you hanging out and I learned some stuff. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I'm gonna have a drink in your honor. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:16

Well, that's it for premeditated opinions, where the thoughts were fully baked and only mildly regrettable. If you enjoyed today's episode, congrats on having truly excellent taste and podcasting opinions. Following us on YouTube and Instagram is a quick and easy way to support us. So if you liked literally anything about today's episode, please like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:39

Also, send this to someone who needs to feel seen, dragged, or both. We'll be back next week with more unsolicited insight and emotionally responsible spiraling. And until then, please stay hydrated and behave yourself in the comments. But if you don't, at least make us laugh.