Is Affordable Housing a Thing of the Past?

So the Washington Post an interesting article about housing this past week. Yeah, I saw that. It's really nuts how people can't afford houses anymore. Yeah, I mean, it's completely become well, you know, it's interesting because it's like people that don't own houses can't afford houses anymore. But those people that already owned a house before, you know, all the property price increases, you know, they're benefiting from that because they can either downsize or maybe they can sell their home even buy something a little bit bigger because they have that additional equity. They were in the game, yep, they were, and of course they have the equity now too. Right, So we've got housing prices are up and interest rates are up. So even though however, they've been technically down a little bit. The fence cut a little bit, but I don't think it's been that meaningful because it's still really out of the price point for most people. I mean, I think that articles that the average home buyer for a primary residence was in their fifties. Yeah, fifty six, so up from so in twenty twenty, when this all kind of started, the average age of a home buyer was primary was forty seven. But now it's up to fifty six, So that just shows that basically. To me, what it shows is it shows that anybody under those ages aren't moving because they're locked into low rates or they just can't afford to buy a house, and those that are kind of downsizing are the ones buying a house. So let's put that in perspective. Though. If in twenty twenty, let's just call it pandemic, right it and it was forty seven and twenty twenty four it's fifty six, So that means it went up ten years in four years. So it went up the average is ten ten more years. But if you go back to twenty seven, it was thirty nine, so it went up basically eight years in thirteen years. Then I went up on another ten in four So that's primarily there's so many, so many factors, but interest rates, obviously, the cost of housing, inflation, all that stuff is just I can assure you one thing, the real big issue that's kind of unset in all of this is affordable housing's gone. And the other thing is that these people their wage growth has not kept up. So you know, no matter what you're making, that's a significant jump. It is it is and I think it tells an even more interesting story. You know, I think back in seven, in twenty twenty, these are people buying homes, you know, to live in, to move into, to expand their family. But yeah, like I said in twenty twenty four, it just feels like at fifty six, if you're buying a primary residence, you're probably downsizing. You know, most people at that age are downsizing. So it's like, you know, nobody else is moving in the housing market, like those in their thirties and forties that do own a home, Like most families that would be buying to you know, get a bigger home are just not because they're trapped in that low interest rate. And I think the other interesting. So this is obviously the average home buyer for a primary resist, but the average age for a first time home buyer is also up. It's thirty eight years old, right, So that's also not good because I I remember people, gosh, when I was growing up. It's a while ago, but still it was in the twenties. You would save, you would go to work, You actually work while you were in high school. Most of us worked while we're in college. Most of us, I certainly did and then I had a little bit of savings, and then I was trying to figure out how, you know, I lost a little bit from my credit card. I would say, hangover from you know, right when you get out of college. And I fixed that. But then I started paying off my student loans and I actually started in my twenties. Really my goal was to buy house for thirty years old. So and I did. But I think that was the dream back then, and it took some you know, it took some discipline when I was just. Looking out of curiosity. It looks like the average age of our first time home buyer in twenty nineteen, before all this started, was thirty three. Yeah, and you know now we're at thirty eight. And for those of you thinking, wow, that's only five years difference whatever, you know, this is continuing to go up year after year. And if you start pushing this into your forties, you're going to see people just pissed, right because you know, people right now, you know, at thirty three, like, I know, it's only five years, but the thirties is such a big important decade, right cause you're kind of like getting married, you're starting a family. Most people you're moving up in your career. So at thirty three you have time to kind of get that house and start paying down that mortgage. At thirty eight, doing a thirty year mortgage, that thing's not going to be paid off to you're sixty eight years old. And if you see these ages start to push into the forties, I mean, people are just going to be livid because at that point, you know, you're only ten or fifteen years away from retirement. People, right, I mean, guys, as you as you know, we talk a lot about investment in real estate. I think there's other factors here that pushed us up. The one thing that did not happen you know, let's call it in the early two thousands. So we didn't have the big companies investing, right, So you didn't have those big companies buying these single family homes, and you know, you didn't have a lot of these online platforms as well. Plus all the cheap money that kind of blew it up. So all that and then of course all these gurus that were online saying buy a house, buy a house rented, buy house, buy a house rented, you know, turned into an Airbnb. All that kind of stuff is kind of the craze that we just got done through. So that does take housing out of the market that, you know, because what we're focusing on and when we're talking about really is primary housing. We're talking about houses that people would want to move into, right, We're not talking about houses that people want to rent and use as an investment. And I think there's I think that's a fair distinction to make because before two thousand and seven, a lot of that wasn't really going on, and there was you know here and there, right, I mean, I was doing it, you were doing it. But the reality was is is that that that piece really took off and so that actually made it worse, I guess is another thing. So you know, here we are an affordability crisis. We have people that are being forced into rentals, and this is primarily why we keep talking about this. I'm sure some of you are frustrated with this. I'm sure some of you are really pretty upset. But the reality is is that that's not going to change for a while. You're still going to have You're still going to have the people that are going to be forced at least up to almost forty years old into rentals. Well, and I think what's interesting too is, you know, a lot of times we'd like to talk about boomers, millennials and gen Z, and you and I talk about a lot about how it's been tougher millennials, and it's even tougher for gen Z. But you know, the reports coming out, you know, some places show from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty four, millennials have had over one hundred percent increase in their net worth on some reports. So that puts the gap really largely between millennials and gen Z. And a lot of this millennial wealth is coming from their boomer parents, you know, having money to help them put down payments on homes, being able to transfer some of that wealth to them, but they don't necessarily have the wealth to then transfer to the next generation. So because the boomers hold most of the wealth in the country, so you know, Gen Z is really the one that's going to feel the impact of this because they're going to have less home ownership than any generation before them. Right, And that's the one that was kind of focused on. Right. I think the median age of a renter right now is thirty nine years old, right, so that's really high, yep, Right, and as you guys know, I talk about renternation, rentonation, and this is what I have been seeing, is the trend keeps going this way. What's supposed to happen is you're supposed to rent, you know, probably with roommates in college and all that kind of stuff in the beginning, and save money and scrap it out and you know, get that spare room or whatever it is. That that is kind of the right of passage, I guess. And then you're supposed to learn how to manage your money, and you're supposed to learn how to budget, and you're supposed to learn that you don't need a new car every year and all those kinds of things, and that's all part of the process. Then hopefully you get some kind of down payment and and then there's programs out there to where you can do that. But everything up that at that point was discipline and a bit of a risk, and you're you're just trying to get ahead. And so what's going to happen is if these people don't buy a house SELLAR forty, you realize how much how much lower their net worth is going to be from from not having that equity in that tenure from that ten year period, it's just going to be a significant change. And so what you're going to have is you're going to have a bunch of people that are just working and paying rent and paying expenses and barely chugging along. And that's, uh, that's not what's supposed to happen. What's supposed to happen is they're supposed to build credit and all that kind of stuff, and they're supposed to stare step. The rental market is supposed to be a stare step to home ownership, right and and it's broken right now. Well, and it's hard to think about, you know, trying to buy your first home in your forties. I mean. At that point, I mean you're basically how are you going to retire if you still have a mortgage payment? Correct, you're not right? And and you know this, this potentially could push people out further to for retirement and for them working. And there's there's a whole bunch of things here, but I think you nailed it with the millennial generation is getting there are the recipients of a lot of wealth from the baby boomers, right, and and so they're they're getting houses and they're getting wealth and they're getting money and all that kind of stuff. Right, but after that, it really drops off a cliff, right, So you know, we we I mean, I think we have a real issue here because we're heading toward a renter nation and it's not healthy. Uh. What what we really need is we need we need a good balance. And if you get if you take a look at countries, you know, let's say, let's just pick on Europe or Asia or you know some of these other countries, they're very high proportion of renters, right, like, like you know, you know, I've been you and I have been all over Europe. Right, so when you go to the UK, or you go to Italy, or you go to Spain or you go to these places, home ownership is not even in the cards. And so you got to wonder, is that where we are? I mean, because this could be it, right, Like, this could be it. We could be really heading into a disproportionate amount of renters. And the only thing that will change if the administration changes they relaxed owning, which is I know some of the things that the Trump and his folks are talking about, but we still have you have to see if that'll that'll come to pass. Yeah, And I think for the next administration, the Trump administration, housing has to be a big one because I would say, anybody that's in their thirties or forties that doesn't own a home, that has to be somewhere on the top of their list of things that they want from an administration more affordable housing. Now, if you take a look at the state itself, you know, as you know we I've been introduced to and know lots of different governors from all over the place. You think about the state, the state of a business. So if you're trying to attract a company like the Taiwan Semiconductor, let's say, and they're taking a look at your state, they're looking at home prices for their employees, They're looking at wages, they're looking at cost of living, they're looking at all of the things that all the people because they know that whatever they develop and build and employ, it's going to help the local economy. But and so the governors have to be looking at this. They have to be looking at affordability. Yeah, I mean, I know it's being looked at at a federal level, but it's also it's being looked at at a state level, not to mention the wholessness and all the other stuff, but that's a different issue. But I do think that affordability is going to drive largely where big manufacturing business and all that kind of stuff, because you know Trump's really pro manufacturing. Well, right now, what where's that lookal that's that's the middle of the country. That's that's that's it. I mean, I'm generalizing, but you get the point, like where are they going to It's certainly not along the coasts, Like what manufacturing company big one is going to move along the coast, even though they might need the ports. You know, they're going to take a look at those kinds of things because they're looking at affordability. That's that's what they have to look at. Well, they care because you know, if their workers aren't making top dollar, they need people to be able to afford to live there. So that's why they would go to a more It has to be desirable where people want to live and affordable where they can afford to live both. Yeah, right, and and I think you know that, I know you and I got into a little debate the other day about tariffs, and that is also going to play into this, right, so you know, because that that could move jobs here, and and of course what that you know, that could disrupt the employment rate and uh, either way, go either way. Actually, but I think as as uh as as these companies move around, uh, they look for those kinds of things. These these cities they bid for they bid for these big companies to move, uh, and they give all kinds of incentive for them to move. So the Taiwan Semiconductor, which is the big one that's just landed out here in Phoenix, that that was years of negotiation and finally they landed it because it's such a huge economic impact to the state. But think of the metrics. If you're going to move a business somewhere, what are you going to look for? You're going to look for, Number one, what's the cost of housing for the eight to ten thousand people that are gonna that are gonna work here. What is the cost of housing? Is it three hundred and fifty thousand or is it six hundred and fifty thousand. That's a significant difference, right do you think that? Uh? You know, is it it's a good time for people to look to buy who haven't bought a house to live in, or do you think that they should kind of wait and see what happens with the market next year exp for seeing a little bit. I always I always, you know, I look at the primary residents. Is very different, as you know, than I do for investment. I always think people should buy a home because one, it's your home, and you know, there's something about you know, having your own space in your own place and not having a lease, and and and if you can afford it, obviously, and you can build a life there and a family and all those kinds of things, and then you could always remodel it, you can always refinance it. You know. There's so many things, like my mom and dad still have the home I grew up in. I literally they still have it the same home, So it's not like you have to jump around. My mom and dad paid off our house years ago and they were proud of that, you know, and that was the way the generation was prior to that. So you know, not everything has to be a stare step or a ladder, you know, But I so I always believe that. And I also think the reason why that is it always seems expensive the time you're doing it, But go out ten years, you know, And and I went through that. I built a house, the one one that we're in, and I built it in two thousand and eight. Well guess what happened after two thousand and eight? Prices went down. But I didn't care because it was my home and I lived in it. And I wasn't like measuring up how much equity do I have in my home or don't I have it in my home. I wasn't looking at that. I don't care. It's my home. So and I still am. I'm in it fifteen sixteen years right later, right, still have the house. Now it's way up, you know. So again, but it's you know, think of all the great things we've been able to do there. I wasn't jumping around. I wasn't doing one year Lisa's for fifteen years. I wasn't doing any of that. So, so, yes, I always believe you should if you can afford to get your home the where you want to be, and and you should be a homeowner because you get all the tax advantages for that. If of course that's going to stay. And then when prices go up, great, when they go down, it doesn't matter because if you have a fixed rate. That doesn't matter. If interestrates go down, then you refinance on the way down, you know, and you try to capture that low rate like you did on that two point eight percent loan that you have. That was luck. I mean, it wasn't luck, But what I mean is there was you didn't know the rate's going to go that low. But now that now that loan is an asset for you and you have an extremely low payment, and so it puts you in a in a very good position. Yeah, and I would agree with that. And I was, you know, just thinking out loud. You know, people get so hung up and like, oh if I'm going to buy this house for five hundred grand, and what if it goes to four hundred and sixty grand and I could have bought it for forty thousand cheaper. But you always say you can't time the real estate market. And I think that that's a good way to look at it. If it's a long term play, it's going to go up, it's going to go down. I know one of my rentals, you know, it's worth a little less than I pay for it in twenty twenty two. But that's fine. Like, I'm not worried about that. I'm not kicking myself that I didn't wait, you know what I mean, because it works, and so I would agree with you and say, you know, just if you can afford it, bye, But don't assume it's going to go down and rates are going to go down and you're going to refinance out of it. Don't assume that. Just assume you're okay with the payment. And if you're okay with the payment, then buy the house and. Do you like it? If you if you're going into this thinking it's like a stock and you're worried about it, you know, you're gonna watch it month to month, and don't buy a house like that, seriously, Like it doesn't make it. When I built that house, it was the house I wanted and I've been in it fifteen years. The prices have been all over the map, right, Like, sometimes it's a lot for sale in the neighborhood, sometimes there's none some you know, sometimes the interest rates are low, sometimes they're high. It doesn't matter. I raised my family in the house and it was a great house. And that's kind of the point. So, you know, could could housing prices go down a little bit? Yeah? They could all right, But you know, do you have to really worry about Well, I'm on a time and at the bottom, it's more of an excuse and you know, and you'll drive yourself nuts. I mean, I'm in the real estate game, and I could not have built or bought that house at the wrong time, you know more. I was seriously like it went down right, and I built the house. I think it was a couple of million bucks or something. I built it like in twenty oh seven or eight or something, and it went down and uh, you know, now it's worth way more. But the point is is I didn't care. You know, I raised my kids in there and life is good. Yeah. So well, we want to give you guys an update. It's pretty interesting, but we'll keep watching that for you and you know, seeing where we're at. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and then kind of pick your brain on businesses, right, because a lot of times, you know, we see businesses succeeding or failing, and you know, you have a lot of business experience, and you tell me a lot of the time when we have a friend or know someone that's business isn't doing well, you know, there are some reasons. Yeah, there's usually a lot of reasons. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty obvious. Honestly for me to it drives me nuts right now, to be honest, because I'll walk into a business and I know that it's not going to last very long. I mean seriously, I never say anything because I usually I don't know who they are. But I can tell the minute I walk through a door, whether it's a hardware store or a jiu jitsu studio, or a water an ice store, or a flower store or a massage place, or it doesn't matter, like I'm just telling you, you can tell. I can tell completely, and you know they're all the exact same things. And I think what happens is people by the way, I respect the courage that it takes to actually go get a space and throw a sign up. I do and and and to put you know, but in some cases what could be the life savings. The problem is is they don't realize that most people, I should say, I don't want to generalize that just that is not enough. You know, like people need to know who you are, they need to know what you do. You need to have social media, you know, you need to take care of your customers. You need to have a program for customers that you have, and you need to have a program for customers that you're trying to attract, and you need to you need to go over and above and just make make it so that they feel like they're getting such tremendous value, because, let's face it, people forget that the people who pay the bills are the customers. Even my my apartments, you know, guys, I see some of my real estate guys. You know, they're driving around all these nice cars and having all kinds of cool stuff, which is totally fine. But what they do is they're they're horrible managers. They don't they forget that the residents are one who pay everything. The people, the people that are on the leases that rolls up the people that are renting from us, pay all the expenses. They pay all the property taxes, the insurance, the utilities, everything, all the salaries, the management fees that rolls all the way up to the ownership. That so so it's always you should always be customer focused. And so when I walk into a into a business, I always see that. Now the ones that the ones that I think I see where they are customer focused and they're not they're not doing well. It's honestly, sometimes it has it's because let's say that they you know, they opened a submarine sandwich shop, you know, next to two others, you know, in the same block. Right, Well, that's just common sense. Or we saw that with with CrossFit gyms, right, we have friends that own those CrossFit gyms, and those CITs were going up everywhere. Well, how many personal training studios can you have in a block? Right? So that is something that people just don't look at. I think that's something that people don't always look at is actually the cash flow. And I know that this sounds weird, but even when I started my bartending company, I had very inconsistent cash flow. But when you start a business, you don't realize how bad that can be. That's normal. Inconsistent cash flow in the beginning is normal. I mean, when you're trying to find clients. You might have a month where you make money in another two months where you don't. But it's hard to run. Life on that way because some months I would kill it and make a bunch of money, have a bunch of jobs, and then like. The next month not as many or you know, so you're constantly living in. A state of anxiety because you don't know how much money is really coming in. And it was hard to ever grow that kind of business because it's not really worth that much money because you don't know when your next contract is coming in. And something that you. Know, being around a lot of business owners now that I'm realizing is you kind of want that recurring revenue and that's really way more valuable than just bringing in business here and there not knowing, because at least with recurring revenue, you actually have something of value. Well let's talk about what that is. So reoccurring revenue would be like Netflix. You know Netflix, you have a monthly fee you pay to have access to all this their stuff. Well, a Blockbuster was not reoccurring revenue. Blockbuster you would drive if For those of you who don't remember what Blockbuster is it, it's a store that used to have a whole bunch of DVD taped and you would drive there and you check them out and they woul due back in a week. That that's what I mean. So two very different models. And in fact, I think there's a story where Blockbuster could have bought Netflix. That's some serious irony there, But now that's the recurring revenue. So once you get that reoccurring revenue, then you all of a sudden have something like my friend Todd Davis who started LifeLock. He had reoccurring revenue. People were paying monthly for identity protection. So you know, those businesses are worth a lot, right, Like a gym membership is another one. Now, gym memberships are hard, as we know. We have friends in the business, and you know, whether it's ninety ninety nine or nineteen ninety nine or one hundred and ninety nine a month, the reality is that's a reoccurring revenue. You're trying to keep your client there, and there are people moving and dropping out and kind of afforded all that kind of stuff. So the gym memberships are a little harder, there's higher turnover, and of course there's more sales to try to capture that. But the reality is is once you get over that threshold of reoccurring revenue, then it sure does take a lot of pressure off. And that's what I've developed here with MC companies. So our reoccurring revenue or the management agreement, so I own the buildings and I own the manager company, and there's a contract between my residential management company and the ownership for a management fee. So every single month, my ownership pays my management company a contractual fee to manage the property. And that's reoccurring revenue. You know, the client is me all the way up and down. So when you can get to that point, then you there's a lot more freedom. And the you know, what your business was was very difficult because you're always out trying to find new clients, and then sometimes they didn't pay, and sometimes they were cheap, sometimes they were needy, and all those kinds of things, and you're trying to run all the overhead and all the expenses and everything, and and your margins were tight. You didn't have the volume of revenue to cover all your margins because you you know, and you learned, you can't. You can't even have a people working for you. They had to be contract right, right, because of the revenue. If the revenue is temperamental, then the revenue. But how much work there was available week to week, I mean I needed a lot more people certain weeks than other weeks. Yeah, yeah, so it made it really hard. So in that business, you can't have somebody sitting around and you're paying them and they're not working, so you know, so there's all these kinds of things that are going But you're right, the reoccurring revenue model is the model that is definitely what you want. But I think a lot of businesses can have recurring revenue and they don't even realize it. I mean I was just you know, at a hair place earlier today and I saw they were doing, you know, monthly subscriptions for haircuts. So I mean there's really most businesses, I think if you think outside of the box, you can create some kind of recurring revenue for yourself. Yeah. People seen it with car washes, so that's another great one. I mean back in the day, I remember you used to pull up to a car washing and you pay them twenty bucks or whatever. Now it's like nine, you know, and you get unlimited because they you know, and they figured out that model, and that's reoccurring revenue. And then that also makes you go there, that's the other piece, and you know, we saw it with the joint Chyapractic is another very good model where although I know there's been issues inside of that model, but you know, what's corporate owned or what's locally owned and all that kind of stuff. At the end of the day, it's a monthly number, right, right, And that's what you're trying to do. And that just takes so much pressure off because if you don't have that, then to your point, every day is survival, right. Right, yep, absolutely, And like you were saying before, you also have to have a market for your business. I mean, you know some of these businesses that we see were like, is there even a market for that? And sure enough they're empty all the time. Right. Well, of course we know friends that have the ups stores, right, Like your friend had that UPS store and the margins are tight, right. I remember sitting down with her talking to her about it. Well, there was it did not no matter what she did, it did she could never get out of there, right, Like she she didn't have enough money to replace herself. Right, And that's a big one for a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included on my initial business, right, you. Don't have enough money to pay something. I remember you telling me, like, why don't you pay someone. To manage your company? I'm like, what, there's not enough money then for me? If I you know, have to pay someone to manage this and that's how she. Was too in the ups store. They're just you're basically, you know, like Robert Kyosaki says, you're just buying yourself a job. Yeah, he said, it's not a business, it's a busyness. That's so. Now, however, it is one more step, so it's not the wrong step, right, So I want to if you guys, it is part of the education process, and it is part of the lateral move. If you're trying to get away from a W two income and a you know, and you're and you're worried about that next paycheck, there is some serious power in being able to eat what you kill is what you know, we'd call it, to be able to go out and get business. And and it also makes you reality hits you in the face, right you realize it's not easy. There's a lot of people looking for business. There is, and you know, but that recurring revenue strategy. I wanted to bring it up just because I feel like that's just the key to being able to expand and grow your business. Yeah. Well, I mean you and I talked about it when you were doing your esthetician stuff, you know, and I said, you need to create a reoccurring revenue product with with the lotions and potions or whatever the women want, you know, a private label deal. And I don't think you did it, but regardless that, if you would have, you know, and you've got something that's being sent to them each and every month, then now, of course, I don't know how many clients you've had, hundreds, you know, maybe you get thirty, forty or fifty of them to do that. Now you've got, you know, some kind of product being made and some kind of product they're paying each and every month for your credit card. That's important. It just RelA it relaxes the you know, the ability to actually have to physically do something. I think one of the one of the things that people need to think about when they're opening a business is doesn't need to go through you. And you know, there's a like once I once I write a book and I crank it out. I have systems. I have systems with Amazon and Ingram for for audiobook and ebook and all that kind of stuff, and we have obviously, uh online strategies to market it. That's just all reoccurring revenue, right, Like people buy books, they buy audios by this and the and the checks. The sales just keep racking up and the and the checks's coming in. Once you do a product that's uh versus like the ups store, where you actually physically have a bricks and mortar you're sitting behind a desk and you're waiting for people to come in. It's a very very different scenario. And both both are businesses, right, but one's much harder than the other, right. And so if you can create a product or a service that people get and they pay for online, especially with the power of the Internet, I mean, you know, I really believe that the brick and mortar store is a dinosaur. Yeah these days, yeah, you don't necessarily need it. And you know sometimes we see places like, you know, a little boutique open or something, and it's cute, but it's like, man, like somebody can just go online. And buy clothes, Like it's just harder. Like growing out, my dad owned a retail store and that was his livelihood and it did really well. But then probably ten years ago it started not doing well because the Amazon, I mean, you're competing against online. Bricks and mortar is an old model, right, I mean, you think about money that we make just on YouTube and selling stuff, you know, through social media and all that kind of stuff. That's the new model totally. And I think you know, with that model, what people don't understand too is some of your online reviews and the strategy for online reviews. Right, this is another one, Like it's just so obvious, like if you're going to sell something, you just can't you know how many websites are on the internet. Like and so you I laugh because people like, I need a logo, Yeah you do, but that should be thirty seconds. I need a you know, I need I need this website perfect, I need this, I need that, I need this, And so they're all happy about it, and they're the only ones that go there. They're like, check this out, you know, and nobody knows it even exists. And so there's a whole strategy to be able to drive people to your website and buy things unlet's you know. And also what's the whole point of a website. It's it's an online brochure, that's all it is, so nothing more, and it's supposed to it's supposed to help the consumer or the client or the vendor or employee or whoever. It is, so you know that's what it's for. Well, and I think that people don't take online reviews seriously enough, right because you know, I'll go to small businesses and they'll have either bad reviews or hardly any reviews, and nobody responds to them, and they kind of just blow them off. Yeah, that's a good point. Like when we look for airbnbs and there's no reviews, we pass. Yeah. Period, it's just they don't they do not get our attention. If they have one or two, they probably still don't write. And and we just booked a place in Florence and had like four hundred reviews or something, and I was like great that, you know, we went there and they're all really really good. And of course you can game that a little bit. But the point is is it just like you guys do this. If you're going to go to a restaurant. Let's say you fly in somewhere and go to a sports game and you're going to look for hotel, You're gonna look for the star rating, You're gonna look for food, You're gonna look for all the things that you might want, and you know the online rating system is is a real deal. Well, my friend Lewis, you know, he owns a pretty big company out here, and he always had a motto that if somebody wasn't unhappy, just fix it, have him take their review down, give them whatever they want. So basically, you know, they they would get a service from him. Unhappy, come back in for a free service, We're so sorry, whatever. And I didn't take that advice when I owned my company. So I had this couple. We bent over backwards for them, did everything great. They were super upset over something that had nothing to do with us, and they told me, we're going to leave you a bad review unless you refund us. And I said, no, I'm not doing that because my company wasn't in the wrong. But that lost me so much business, like so much because people would call and even though I had, you know, fifty good reviews, I had this horrific review, and you know they were like, you know, we're concerned because you know so and so's I saw on your review, and you know so at the end of the day, I'm not saying you need to forget, you know, need to refund everybody, but just keep in mind about her view really does hurt you. As a business owner. And there are people out there that that is their whole angle and want your service, and they're going to give you a review, and it could be that you messed up too, But the reality is lowis is right. You just refund that this is north Strum built their entire model on this. Yeah, and you get let your ego get in the way, right because like for me, I knew we didn't do anything wrong. So it made me so mad to give them their money back, right, But it really kicked my butt. And in the end, because like I said, I lost more money than I would have had to refund them. So I I grew up in Seattle and north from started there. So the I had friends that worked for the norths rooms and and they they had a policy you could bring back anything at anytime, no questions asked. And so I got to know some of the people that you started there early and worked there and for Bruce Nortstum and so others. And I said, is how is that policy? And they said, you know, it's surprisingly not abused. Yeah, Like most people don't abuse it, they use it. There are people that will, but they're the minority. But the overwhelming majority of people that know that they can it just they flood into their and it creates amazing consumer loyalty. So it's true. Yeah, And something else I see with businesses and I know you and I we always I don't know if laugh is the right word, but you know it's hiring the wrong people right, especially in customer service positions. This drives me nuts. I mean, well I always this again, like I said, I'm cursed. I walk into these build these properties or restaurants, let's say, and you know there's a millennial looking down at their phone, barely acknowledging that you're walking in and you're feel inconvenience to even ask them for a table. That part just dry screen nuts. And I'm but that's not their fault. That's actually the ownership fault. That's the manager's fault for allowing that to happen, you know. And they might be really nice people, but again it's behavior. The stuff from the minute you come through the door is important. Everything's important. And that that's again I see that over and over and over. Yeah, and I mean that's your customer facing people make or break your business. And I had to laugh because we were up in Sedona for Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago, and I was with my parents and my dad didn't want cheese on his salad, so he asked the guy taking our order. He goes, hey, so can I get the salad without cheese? And he goes, I doubt it, but I'll ask. And I had to laugh because it was like, you know, it's just such a bad representation of your business. And actually the kitchen did do it, but it's such a bad representation of it puts a bad taste in your mouth, you know. And so we see it all the time, especially with the younger generations because they spend more time on. Their phone, they're not as good with people. So you just need to really make sure whoever is answering the phone at your business, whoever is taking orders at your business, whoever's interacting with your customer in any kind of way through email, anything, is the right person, because you can't train somebody this like, if they don't have people skills and they don't have a good attitude, that is not trainable. So don't try to, you know, break yourself trying to train them like that's you need to find someone that just intrinsically has those abilities. Yeah, And you know that. And if if you continue to have problems in your business and you keep hiring knuckleheads, you know whoever they are, it's probably you. Well we even we even had this remember at our apartment buildings when you know our agents weren't answering the phone. Remember that I do, and that affected our business of course. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can do it all you want from marketing standpoint, but if nobody's answering the phone and help with the customers, then doesn't matter. Now, thankfully we have the technology in there to be able to see that. Yes, so we were like, okay, how many unanswered phone calls and you know, and are are these customers being handled in my own company? They weren't, and that was a couple of years ago. We end up fixing that and actually identified quite a few things that needed to be fixed. And so that's all. That's why I mean about active management. You shouldn't just assume things are going well, and if a customer complains, you shouldn't just assume that the customer's wrong. You know, you need to at least take it into Customers can be wrong, but your people may be wrong too, and you may have them in the wrong positions. Yeah, my experience is there are some customers that are highly agitated all the time. They just are, but they're part few. Most people are really, really nice. Most people just want to have a good value for whatever they're paying, right, and they just want to be treated nice. And so I would say it's probably more on the business than it is on the customer. In other words, sometimes the business sets the tone for negative experience for the customer, and then the customer gets agitated and they carry that through. If you just had somebody really really good at the front or on the phone on this, you know. And and of course when people call, most people are especially on customer service. We have a full time customer service here. God bless them. I mean, you know, because who calls there. They don't call to say you guys are amazing. They call and say we're pissed. So it takes the right kind of person to turn that chip around. And you know, that's all part of it. I had to laugh because I was just thinking, remember when we were at that restaurant in Scottsdale a few weeks ago, in that waitress you were like, do you what's your WiFi coach. She goes, we don't have Wi Fi. Yeah, that was awesome. I go, what's your WiFi? We don't have Wi Fi. We've been there so many times, court, I've been. There a lot, and so I saw another waitress walk by, Hey, watch your Wi Fi. We reeled it off immediately, and then I had my WiFi and then there was something to do. Yeah, you wanted some dressing. Yeah, I wanted dressing with my wings and honey mustard. And she goes, we don't have honey mustard. And I go, well, we come here a lot and like, I've gotten honey mustard. She was like, we don't have honey mustard. Yeah. So then I said, then I go, hey, to somebody else, you got any honey mustard? And it was over and on our table in less than a minute. But it was funny because when she would respond, we thought we were getting punked because she was not smiling, blank blank faced, like. We don't have Wi Fi, we don't have honey mustard. Hopefully. This is a place near where we live. So we had been there many times a sports bar, and we were there watching a football game, and so we knew better. But and but the point was remember no attitude from me, are you no? No? No. We was like we almost thought it was sister. We were laughing. I go, okay, well I'll just figure out another way, uh, you know. But she finally she came over. She saw the WiFi, she saw it on the honeymustard, and she just shaking her head, you know. But we end up. But that's the kind of person you don't really want customer facing because it's not a great experience, right. I know, I would have said how long have you worked here? Not counting tomorrow? But and then something else I wanted to bring up. And this is interesting because I'm you know, I'm Christmas shopping right now. So I am getting some gift cards to some barber shops and salons and everything. And I call to get a gift card and they both tell me I have to come in and get it. That's crazy. You can't buy one online. Can't buy it online. And I actually bought another gift card for a medspa and they couldn't send it to me. They have to physically mail it to the. Girl I bought it for. So it's going to get there before Christmas. So hell, so how much harder can you make it for a customer that's trying to do business with you? That's actually the real message, right Like, it should be so simple. I mean, this is why, this is why McDonald's went to Kiosks, right like, because what's the biggest issue McDonald's has the people bringing up the order. That's it. The people you know, And again they have credible training systems, so I'm not bashing on them, But what's easier pushing a button and the order going through to the kitchen and just cranking it out. That's easier. Well, I have to left because it's almost like these old school businesses just aren't keeping up with technology, right. So, you know, for one thing, when I went to their website, it was super hard to even be able to find where I could purchase the gift card to the MEDSPA that's going to mail her the gift card. So then I buy it, and then I don't I write it down because I don't know how I'm supposed to get this thing. Because I buy it, it says your purchase went through and I got nothing in my email. So they had called me the next day saying they're going to physically mail the card out and then the salons, like. They said, they don't even sell them. But it's like it should be. It's Christmas time, Like you should go to a website and it should say buy your gift card here. As soon as you buy it, it should just email straight to somebody's email address so I can print it or forward it or whatever I want to do. That's how the bigger companies do it. You know, I've got another gift cards from large companies that's in your inbox. You forward it on, you're done, so I don't you know, it's a small business. You always have to wrap your head around like technology. Like you know, I'm a millennial. I'm an older millennial, and I'm starting to do a lot of things online. This next generation they do everything online. Like they are not driving to a salon to pick up a gift card from you. They are not trying to find your website to see where they can buy something. Like they'll just click away and go somewhere else. I mean, what is our little millennial Josh or little gen Z. Or Josh from YouTube. He goes. You have like five seconds for you know, to capture their attention and then they're gone. It's true. I remember my son was over and my landscape landscaper came over and I wrote them a check and he goes, what's that. He's like, I've never written a check. Yeah, my son has never written a check. I'm like, I just had to wrap my header on that. What you know. So we came from paper, handwritten check to you know, Kyle is, uh, let's see what is your twenty eight now? So he's never written a check. I mean, think about that, okay, and now he's considered old and Josh is mind right right, Josh is twenty two years old. The world has moved a lot from twenty eight to twenty two. So from a business standpoint, but can. You imagine Kyle going to calling a place that a he wouldn't even call if he didn't see you could buy it online. He wouldn't even bother calling. But if he called and they said you have to drive down here, pay us, buy credit card, then we'll give you a physical gift. Card that he just would never do that. No, No, he would have to stop his movie on his laptop, like you know, I mean, because that's what they got. They got the laptop going and the phone, you know in the other hand, and they're shopping, you know, while they're multitasking. This is what you do. It drives me nuts. She's got the TV going, laptop going, the phone going, and then she wants to have a conversation. I'm like, what is this even? What? Well when I want to bring this up because it's not. It's also like properties too, Like you know, Orchard Canyon, you purchased a resort in Macedona. There was no way to book online. You literally had to call. A telephone and then hopefully they answered. And I know they had an answer machine first of all. Or you guys don't know what that is. It's a machine that you call, leave a message on it. When you come home, you push a button and it's it's says, oh Bill called. That doesn't exist anymore. So it's like old school voicemail. It was the original voicemail. But we've even had apartment buildings that we've bought that are make it super hard to you know, renting a cabin. Right, yeah, we have well right now, we go online, we know the property has like ten to twelve percent vacancy. Online it says no vacancy and I've I've got over there twice and I can't get in. It's gated, there's no nobody in the office. I'm like, how do you guys even do business? Now, that's a huge opportunity for somebody once you plug it into a system and you have tech and all that kind of stuff. But that's what Orchard Canyon was our property up at Soedona. I said, Well, wouldn't it be nice if somebody is like having dinner with their wife or their significant other and they go you want to go to Sodona and you go on their phone and they can book a room. Well, that would be nice. But you know what we're you know, we're home eating dinner. So I'm like, yeah, I see that, you know. So it's it's just tech, you know, bringing tech into businesses. It is a it's really really cool because old old people won't change, right, most of them, So so the young this is the time where millennials and Gen zs can come in and and revolutionize businesses where old people are, you know, just setting their ways. Man. Well, and if you're thinking about buying a business too, especially if you understand technology, dive into that, dive into you know, these little small businesses that are for sale and what you could do to increase business because the current owners just they don't get it. They don't get it. I'm telling you, guys, they're setting their ways. You know, they're still opening the Yellow Pages and I'm telling you, you know, they're they're hoping to you know, Triple A. By the way, back then, we used to have the the in the neighbor of the business was Triple A because you wanted to be the first one under the category of like landscaping. Well, those days are long gone. You remember that, Jerry, I don't even remember. Jerry's laughing. I don't I remember. We used to. I used to put ads in the newspaper to around apartments, you know. Then it went to the online stuff like Apartment Guide and for It magazine and they were all sitting in like the circle k's and stuff. That was crazy, you know, And then it went online. Everyone's like, oh, I'll never work safely with books. You know. When books went to ebook. I was in the middle of that and they were like, oh books E books won't last right that same with travel agents. So you guys have to adapt, yep. Absolutely, you want to make it nice and easy. The last thing I want to touch based on is partnerships, because I can't tell you how many times people tell me they're going to start a business and tell me they're going to start it with a partner, and I about cringe every single time, because other than you and Ross, I truly don't know any partnerships that go smoothly. There are some I know plenty, But to your point, what happens is there's there's a complexity with both people. So I I know lots of partners and what happens is I call it, you're either in exchange or out of exchange. So what does that mean? I am always cognizant. Am I pulling more than Ross? Or is Ross pulling more from me? Usually I'm thinking the other way. I always think, oh shit, I need to step out my game because Ross is just craking it right now. And so we have this really good balance of the two of us and we have a high degree of respect. But what I found is where the problems are. You know, and I won't name names, but we have friends that where you have one partner doing almost all the work and another one kind of coming in sporadically, and they want they want to take cash out of the businesses and those kinds of things, So that stuff really has to be really thought through, right, And also, you know, what do they what do they bring? Well, I think that's the questions. I think a lot of times people just want to partner so they're not having to do it on their own. They're like a little scared to do it on their own. But then the problem is is like you said, like what do they bring? What do they bring? And then also is this going to be in exchange or do you have all the experience and you. Have all the Mostly people don't have the capacity or I would say the kahonas to actually sit down and have a confrontational It doesn't have to be confrontational, but a face to face meeting and face the brutal facts and put put the stuff on the table and say, listen, you know this. The only way for this partnership to work is if we're both doing this and and to be able to talk openly like that. Most people don't do that in their relationships or their marriage or anything else. So I can't imagine that, you know, if they're they're trying to go into a partnership with the with the you know, the passive aggressive bs you know that goes on. You can't do that in a business. You have to you have to literally, I mean I I talked to Ross multiple times a day, and and it's always you know, just just communication, communication, communication, communication about what's going on. We have two lanes, we're going down, we're not crossing each other, and and and then we we kind of report to each other about, you know, what we're both doing. That's why our partnership works. And and so when I see partnerships that don't work, it's almost always based on expectations that could have been set, the table could have been set before they started in the partnership themselves. Well, the problem is, once they're in the partnership, it's like a divorce. Like you can't just kick the other partner out in most circumstances, you know, you either have to sell the company or you have to buy them out. And there's just a lot of hard feelings around that. And if they even want to be bought out. If there's even an agreement, Yeah, I mean that's the other thing. But yes, you're right, and that's why I think, you know, you're almost better off in the beginning, having two individual entities that are just doing business to business like in the first year, to see who's going to step up. Because you can do everything on a contract basis or you know, one off base you have fifty kind of thing. Absolutely, you could do that very easily. You could do one transaction, one partnership, you know, and and unwinding partnerships are the hardest part, right, And that's all. And I think there's just there's so many things that that it it. It does. It takes a tremendous amount of communication and both people have to be dedicated to the overall mission and vision of the company. Yeah, I mean, and we just see it a lot. And I wanted to bring it up also, you know, what do you do with the money? Right? Like some people want to invest money back in the business. Other people want to go on vacation and buy a new house. I just had dinner last night with a guy at Chicago that flew out here that we're talking to. That's exactly what happened. He was in a partnership with two other people, and he said one of the guys was really wealthy and the other one was just living in a like a one bedroom condo, trying to save as much money as he could, and I'm trying to raise a family with two kids, and you know, we all had different views on the money and the way it was flowing in and out of the company. And so he laughed because he's like, you know, they wanted to roll all the money back into the company, and he goes, I needed to live on. So, yeah, those are real things. Well a lot of. Times too, these businesses start out as nothing right. It's kind of like, okay, cool, yeah, let's start this kind of company. It doesn't have any income, and you know, so you don't to put together a partnership agreement. You don't think to have two separate entities. You just kind of do it, and all of a sudden business are so explode and you're doing really well, and then now you have the problem. Yeah, you you definitely do. And again it just boils down to communicator. If you're bringing in all the sales or you don't bring in any and you're getting half the income, you are the person. You are the problem. Don't jump into partnerships, you know, try to do them together, as in consulting in the beginning to see if somebody's going to do what the said. They're going to do with some kind of, you know, longer term vision of pulling it together. Because the only reason you really want a partnership is to is to free up your time and to grow faster. So I always say one plus one should equal three. Well we'll leave on that note. I know you're a very successful entrepreneur, so I know people take that advice to heart.