CW 997 - Portfolio Makeovers & Protecting Others Against Bad Providers with Muthiah
7 Dec 2025 · 34 min
Podcast episode CW 997 (May 7, 2018) hosted by Jason Hartman. Contains two main segments: a client case-study interview with Doug about portfolio reviews and portfolio makeovers (emphasis on using return-on-equity thinking, active investing vs passive S&P holding, and emotional pitfalls), and a guest segment with Muthiah describing a real experience with a problematic property sale/management company. The episode covers practical investor actions: self-management vs hiring property managers, holding bad providers accountable via regulatory complaints and online court services (PeopleClaim, FreeCourt), recovering losses (company repurchased the property and reimbursed costs), and encouragement to be an active, empowered investor. Includes event promotion for portfolio makeovers at upcoming Creating Wealth conferences.
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Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Welcome listeners from 165 countries worldwide. This is your host, Jason hartman With episode 997. Episode 997. Yes, that's right. We're, we're only a couple episodes away from episode 1000. That'll be a 10th episode show. So we go off topic, discuss something of general interest and we will have Colby Calais, the famous singer and songwriter on that show. Episode 1000 coming up. Can't believe we're here already. And I can hardly wait till we get to episode 5000 and 7000. And we will get there, folks. By the way, that brings me to another point. We did have a little bit of a problem with our itunes feed. If you are listening to the podcast, we had a bit of a an issue with it last Friday. Thank you all the listeners who reached out to me on email and voxer and told us about that problem. We appreciate that. I think we've got it fixed now. But one of the fixes that we had to implement was to make it so not all of the episodes show up in the feed. Now know that you can always get all of our episodes and if an episode doesn't show up on Monday, Wednesday and Friday like clockwork. Hey, you know, Mussolini said at least the trains run on time, right?
To take it from a dictator. If it doesn't show up, you can always just go to Jason Hartman.com and find the show. But we always appreciate you letting us know if there's a an issue with our feed. We think we've got that pretty much fixed now but just wanted to inform you of that. So we are going to talk today with this is a two part show. We've got part two of our interview with Muthiah where we talk about solving problems and a client case study of moving from challenges to overcoming those challenges and getting them fixed. And speaking of overcoming and moving to a better scenario, something that I created many, many years ago was called the Portfolio Review. And then part two of that was the Portfolio Makeover. And we are going to bring this back in a much better version. We'll call it version 4.0. Maybe it's not 2.0. Version 4.0. And if you would like to meet with me in Philadelph on Sunday morning, the 20th after our event, we've got our conference there, the Creating wealth conference on May 19th. I will be doing personal individualized private portfolio makeovers and portfolio reviews. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today because our client and friend who you've heard on the show before, Doug, has taken and really, really improved these spreadsheets, the tools that we use to do this review and makeover dramatically. And he's going to talk to us about that today in the intro portion. Doug, welcome. How are you doing?
Good, Jason, good.
It's good to have you on. So just to give a little history, because you are a client case study in and of yourself, although we're not really talking about that today. But when did you first discover my podcast and start buying properties through us? It was quite a few, what, 10 years ago maybe?
So, yeah, I first discovered your podcast in 2008. I started buying properties in 2009. And then, you know, I got a couple properties going. And then I encountered just a few, just biblical disasters. I think I had a property management company that placed a tenant that just totally tore up my property.
Now, Doug, we're with Muthiah Today. We are talking about negativity and problems and overcoming them. So let's not overwhelm the listeners. Otherwise nobody will ever buy a property.
But yeah, folks, look at, like I always say, this is not a free ride. Okay? There's, there's, there is no. Folks, if someone is telling you that there is a passive investment, even if it's money in the bank, they are lying, lying, lying. Probably all I've heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, the outspoken business person, not talking about real estate, but he just totally rips into all these people out there selling these businesses that are supposed to produce passive income. And it is bs. There's no such thing as passive income, but there are things that are easier than others. And that's what we have. We have the most historically proven road to wealth. But Doug. Yes, Biblical disaster. Go ahead.
So, yeah, so what happened was, right, I started going pretty good and then I kind of sputtered for a while and now I'm really coming back. And so I think the portfolio review and portfolio makeover process is something that I'm running both academically and for myself and looking at how I want to redeploy some of the equity capital that I have in various places throughout my financial life. Yeah, so it's a very precious topic.
Yeah, good stuff. You know what saddens me about your story a bit is that when you had this problem where you got discouraged about the tenant that beat up your property and you had the bad property manager. And by the way, folks, like I said on the last episode, disintermediation. Get rid of these property managers. Unless they're good ones, just get rid of them. Try self management. With our hybrid approach that we've talked about on many episodes, I am convinced that this is the way to go. You know, I just look at the way people self manage versus having the managers and it's just easier. So, you know, get the. Get the middleman out of the way and make your life easier. I really think that's the way to go. Unless that middleman is really good and really adding value, which some of them do. And they're great, but if they're not great, then just try it the other way. And many episodes on that I won't go into today. Doug, the thing that saddens me about your story is that when you have those challenges, it was just as the market was turning coming out of the Great Recession. And I know you sold one of those properties, and man, if you would have held on to that, even though you had that bad experience, you would have made a lot of money. So sorry to say about that.
You know, that's all right. You know, there's only two good times to plant a tree. You know, the best time is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now.
So, yeah, that's a great thing.
I can go back 20 years. You know, I was going to say, because, yeah, if I could go back to 2009, the first thing I do would be buy bitcoin. But then the second thing would probably be to pick up more properties.
But remember, remember when you and I, you were on stage with me at Meet the Masters in Irvine, California, many years ago, and we were talking about bitcoin, and people in the audience, I remember, asked, what is bitcoin? And I think the price back then was about 70 bucks. Now look at folks, you know, that I do not recommend cryptocurrencies or speculative investments. I mean, look Maybe, you know, if you want to take 5% of your net worth and gamble, I think that's an okay strategy because, you know, the risk reward ratio, if you've got a few bucks, it's just not a big deal. If you lose it, it's not going to affect your life. But if you win big, it could affect your life. Right. In a very positive way. So I think that's fine. But, yeah, I know. Should have, could have, would, as always, everything in life is that way. You know, it's the human condition. Should have, could, whatever, Right?
But, yeah, remember. Yeah. When I first heard about bitcoin, it was on an econ podcast, I think it was. It was trading at about $40, and people said it could grow to be like maybe 500.
Yeah, right, right. And here we are, it's 8,000 or something like that. Right. But we're down from almost 20,000. Right. So, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Well, one of the things that helps cure the human condition, if you will, a little bit here, is the portfolio review and the portfolio makeover. Because as we go.
We keep getting our emotions tilted, don't we, by things that happen to us. You know, if we have a bad tenant or a bad manager, you know, this upsets the apple cart. But one of the things that helps us keep on track is simply doing the math, right? And a lot of people with income, property, they're winning and they, they think they're losing simply because they don't know how to do the math, even when really bad things happen. Okay. Biblical disasters, if you will. Amazingly, you know, you add it all up at the end of the year and it can surprise you, you still won, you know, because the question is, compared to what? Compared to the S P, you know, if it's going to do maybe 8% a year or something like that. I mean, it's pretty easy to make 8% with income properties. You know, that things would have to go really, really bad to only make 8% all in with income properties. So. So we've got to look at what we have now and what we could have and how that affects our overall plan. Go ahead.
Oh, and I was just going to say, yeah, on the S and P side, say you even make 15% per year. But then two years. Yeah, but then two years before you retire, there's a 45% market correction. Well, all those gains don't mean anything to you now.
And so, yeah, I think that's one of the other things that's really important about a portfolio Review is it gets you to redistribute your equity, because then what that does is it distributes out your risk. Because whenever you get high concentrations of equity in one investment type or another, you end up having more and more risk there. And so the more you're able to dissipate your risk, the more you're able to insulate yourself when disruptions happen. Because the thing is, right, weird stuff is going to inevitably happen if you're playing the game to win, which means you're playing it actively, that means you'll have a lot of things that go okay. You'll have some biblical disasters and you'll have some great triumphs. And if you get too down whenever something goes terribly wrong, then you'll never be in long enough to win good points.
I agree. I couldn't agree more. And the interesting thing is our minds are predisposed toward negativity. So we could have a portfolio of say 10 or 20 properties, and if one or two that would be 10% in either case goes poorly, that like derails the whole plan where we've got these other nine or 18 properties that are, you know, maybe five or 10 of them. You know, I'll take that half. I probably should have just stuck with one number. Nine, 10 or 20, you know, are going pretty well and a few are going great. And then we've got this one that goes bad. But the interesting thing is that just part of the human condition, the one that goes bad, is the one that derails the whole plan because of the way our minds react emotionally to things. And that's why it's important to just do the math and look at the spreadsheet, right, and look at the Performa and know what's really going on. That grounds us. I would say it grounds us. Right. Is that a fair statement?
It is. And I think one of the things that's really important too, even with bad experiences and losses, is that, you know, anytime you're doing something passive. So like say you're a buy and holder and you put your money in the S and P and it rockets up. Okay, that's great, but what have you learned that you can repeat in the future?
Nothing.
The answer is nothing.
Yeah. No, here's what you learned. You got lucky.
Yeah. Yeah. You learned that you got lucky. And one of the things that I think that's good about something a little more active, like an investment property, is that as you go through it, you'll start learning to make good decisions. And then those decisions are repeatable and they'll actually increase your performance in the future. The problem with being too passive is that you don't learn from your successes or failures. So you don't have the ability to get successively better as you gain experience. Right? Being a 10 year passive investor or a 50 year passive investor makes no difference because you're just riding the market. And if the market goes down at the wrong time, you have no recourse. There's nothing you can do about it.
Right? It just, it just happens. You're just a. It's. It's like playing a sport versus watching a spectator sport. Okay? You can't do anything. You know, either your team's going to win or lose. But if you're playing the sport, you can change your strategy, you can try harder, you can do things. You. You're actively involved and engaged, and you're becoming a better person by playing the game. You're not becoming a better person by watching the game. In fact, I would argue that you're becoming a much worse person by watching the game. You're probably getting a beer belly, number one, you know, and lots of bad things come out of that. Right? I think that metaphor of the spectator sport is probably pretty valid. And I know you are like spectator sports.
I was going to say yes now, reminding me of all the time I've spent yelling at the television for refs at basketball games when the Portland Trailblazers were losing in the fourth quarter.
Yeah. How did that work for you, by the way?
I swear there's a part of me that thinks they can hear me.
Yeah, absolutely. That's funny. Hey, we're going to have to wrap this up for this episode to get to our guest Muthiah and do part two of his interview from last week. So, Doug, thank you so much for sharing this on the next episode. What else are we going to cover on this? Because there are some really good takeaways here.
What we're going to cover is the whole idea of return on equity and how you can use some of the tools that the big corporate finance folks do to optimize your own portfolio. And then you're going to bring it back to how you'll be doing portfolio reviews with people who come to creating wealth in Philadelphia so that they can use these same techniques to make themselves wealthy instead of just making corporations wealthy.
Sounds good to me. Sounds good to everybody. Okay. Thank you so much, Doug, for joining us on this. We'll talk to you on the next episode with part two about portfolio reviews and portfolio makeovers. Go to jasonhartman.com click on events to join us in Philadelphia or the New York event the following week. Let's get to part two of Muthaya. And remember, when you hear about this negativity in real estate and the problems and overcoming them because there are problems, this is not a free ride. There's no such thing as a passive investment. Remember to always ask yourself, compared to what? That's the important question for everything in life. Compared to what? You'll feel the bumps in the road more in this investment because you're a direct investor, but at least you can do something about them and you can act and fix things and that's what we're talking about here today. So let's get to Mathia and his story is great. So let's go ahead and transition over to that and Doug will talk to you in the next episode.
Thank you, Jason.
I've got some property managers that like, I mean, literally years go by and there's not one deduction other than their management fee. I got others that, man, it's like every other month there's this, that, this piddly thing, that piddly thing. You know what? My mom, the do it yourselfer extraordinaire, you know, who's been on the show many times talking about her best practices, you know what she does, the tenants, she just gets the tenants to agree to fix stuff. When you're self managing as a direct investor, you can actually talk to the tenant and you can set expectations and you can say, look, you are not living in a big institutional apartment complex where you're crammed together with a hundred neighbors, okay? This is your own home. It's a single family home. So, you know, I know that you don't own it, but think more like an owner. You've got to do a little maintenance here. You know, this is not a big institutional apartment. We're not going to send an exterminator out, you know, every week. We're not going to change your light bulbs for you. This is a home. I expect you to take, take pride in it and you know, get involved and, and take care of things. I've heard, and this is what I'm about to say is probably not even legal, but I'm gonna say it anyway. But I've heard managers over the years, or not managers, but investors say to me things like, well, this is why I always ask them if they're handy, you know, if they like to fix things, you know. You know, like.
It should almost be a test you know, you give them a test. Well, do you know how to fix a sink? Do you know how to unclog a drain? You know.
Actually, I don't think, I don't think being unhandy or handy is actually a protected class yet under the fair housing rules, but it probably will be someday.
But some of these property managers, you know, I know that the ones in Quad Cities, I think they actually put out a video. They want these tenants to watch the video on what they need to do so they don't come back and say, well, I didn't know I turned the main water off when I left, or this and that. Some basic things is they actually had them watch a video. So. And then they have them sign off on it as well. So if there's any issues that comes up as a result of them not having watched the video or not not having followed what the video instructed them to do, then they're held responsible. You know, getting back to your mother, I love your mother. You know, I spoke to her, you know, during the last meet the masters. You know, she sets the expectations at the very beginning and there's no fooling around with her, you know, you, she lets them know, hey, if I don't get the rent by the first, then I'm gonna send you the, you know, the three day notice. So they don't fool around with somebody like that that sets the standards up. The very, very first time that, you know, they don't pay the rent, then she sends them a notice, you know, and then, so then from that point on, they take her very seriously. So that's why I'm you with the property managers. You know, you just set the expectation. Look, I'm watching my account, you know, I, I want to make sure that, you know, if you're going to deduct something, I need to know what it is.
I agree. No, you, you need to do that. But I tell you, it just, the more and more I do this and you know, we've done thousands of deals. Okay. I've been doing this a long, long time now. Okay. You know, just in the nationwide turnkey business. What, what is it? Is it going to. Well, it's almost 14 years, I think now. Right. And. Or Maybe it is 14 years in talking to the thousands and thousands of investors. Just the more I think about it, the more I see it, the more I think that you just have this inherent conflict of interest with property managers. You just self management more and more is the way to go. But you know, if you have a Good manager, it's great. But few managers are great, you know, I mean some of them, you know, there's a continuum, right? Some are okay, some are great, some are terrible. Okay, so Muthaya, now just out of curiosity on the self management thing, have you ever done it? Considered it? How many properties do you have from us now?
Well, I have about, I think I have 20 properties right now.
Hey listeners, don't you love that? Muthiah doesn't even know how many properties he has. That's cool. You got so many you don't even know.
How many do I have?
I got about 20, I sold one, so I have 20 right now.
Okay, okay, you had 21. Okay, got it. Okay. So Muthaya, did you self manage any of them ever?
No, no, no, I did. You know what? Not these, but you know, before I started investing I owned a condo and I self managed at that point. That was many years ago, but you know, I did that on my own and it wasn't that great, you know, the tenant would come up to my work and start screaming, you know, just one of those things.
Yeah, but, but see, see with this self, look at I, I self managed when I was a local investor, you know, I self managed everything. Okay. And then I self managed long distance as I've told on the show before, you know, but I never had any tenants coming in screaming. I never had any calls at 1 in the morning. All of this folklore you hear, it just never happened to me. Okay? I did have this one guy, he was the funniest guy ever in the 90s. His name was Hugo and he lived at my property in Rancho Santa Margarita and he used to come in almost every month. He had his members only jacket on. The guy was just, he was just funny. And he'd come in every month and. Hey, Jason, is Hugo. I'm sorry, the rent is late this month. He was late almost every month. Almost every month, you know, he come in, it's Hugo and he always had an excuse and he was just, the guy was just so funny. My assistants Karen and Denise used to see Hugo come into the office. You know, like it was always the fifth of the month, it was never the first. And you know, he always hand me a check. But you know, it was ultimately it was fine, it's no big deal. Anyway, I'd consider self management But Mathia, we want to get to the thing. Of course, and it's my fault because I'm blabbering here. Let's talk about holding these people accountable. When you Get a truly bad actor. And look at folks. I don't want you to think this happens all the time. It doesn't. Out of thousands and thousands of transactions, you only get a few of these, okay? But it's just the law of large numbers. You're gonna get a few, okay? There's. There are bad people out there. There are bad actors. There are people that will be good for a while, and then they become bad. They sort of take the relationship for granted. They. You know, the Napoleon. I always try to remind myself and humble myself with this great quote by Napoleon. You know, Napoleon finally met his Waterloo, right? That's the story. That's how history tells it. And Napoleon used to say, the most dangerous moment comes with victory. The most dangerous moment comes with victory. Because we become complacent, we become arrogant, and we start missing things. And, you know, as humans, we must never do that. We're gonna have victories in our life, and that's great, but we never, ever want to become complacent, okay? And that's what happens with these property managers. You know, they get busy and they get successful, and, you know, they just forget to appreciate it. And it's just part of human nature. It's not a good thing, but it's a real thing, you know? And sometimes there are just some downright crooks out there, just some real scum, okay? And you got to hold them accountable. So what I did is I sent you my hall of Shame resource list, which, by the way, any of you can get by going to Jason hartman.com and reaching out to your investment counselor. If you don't have an investment counselor, just fill out any web form@jason hartman.com and they'll get it to you. And, you know, this is the list of agencies that you can simply file a complaint with for free, whether it be the real estate commission, you know, the contractor's license board, different agencies, okay? And it's certainly by no means a comprehensive list, but it's a good start. And, you know, this is what you pay taxes for, folks. You've got these free government resources, these regulatory agencies, and I want you to use them. I want you to use them to file complaints against bad actors so that at the very least, maybe you won't get justice out of it, but you probably will. You probably will, because they'll send them a letter, say, hey, look, a complaint's been filed against you. Fix it. That's what usually happens. And then when they don't fix it, they take the next step. They might Suspend their license, they might sanction them. You know, the government has, you know, has unlimited power virtually. Right. You know, maybe they won't pay attention to your complaint. You know, maybe it's the first one that came in about this bad actor and maybe they got to accumulate a couple of complaints. But as that file grows and there's three complaints, four complaints, five complaints, you know, this regulatory agency is probably going to come down on them and that's a good thing. And you know what, Even if it didn't help you directly, it helps the next person. Okay? So really, you know, become the empowered investor. Don't be a victim. And then the other thing you can do is an online court system. Like I referred you, Mathia, to People Claim. I had them on the show, not on this show, but on my free court show. And I've got a similar passion project startup that I'm working on called freecourt. That's freecourt.com. you go check it out. It's an online court system and People Claim has been operational for quite a while now. You filed a complaint on People Claim and that's what did the trick. You did the administrative complaint with the regulatory agency also, right? Tell us about what you did and what happened.
Well, I mean, I filed you based on your recommendation. I filed a complaint with the Alabama Real Estate Commission and I for you. Yeah, yeah, I know. They told me that they investigated it and then they said that they already shut down the property management company, that this is affiliated with this particular company, but they couldn't do anything to this company that sold me the property because they were operating under a different entity. Was not a real estate. It was not under the, under the guise of a real estate company. And so they didn't have jurisdiction over them. And so that's why they couldn't do anything. But they did tell me, you know.
What we've got to do in this country, Muthaya. And look at folks. You're not going to like this because a lot of you ask about asset protection and you've heard Garrett Sutton on the show talking about that and all that stuff. But I'll tell you something, we really need to in this country re examine the way people are allowed to use entities to screw people over because especially in the big corporate world with, you know, with these big wigs, I mean, it's just disgusting what they do. But anyway, that's a sort of another tangent, obviously.
No, no, this is a very valid point because you know what it is right after even though they got twined and they got suspended. The property management company got suspended. These guys went back, changed the name of the company and incorporated somewhere in some other state and they continue to do business. And even in Alabama. They're still selling property in Alabama, but under another name. I mean, you know, they. This is unbelievable.
I know. Yeah, no, I know. It's a sad state of affairs. But anyway, it is what it is. Okay, so. But the thing that did work for you though, you got some justice. And they actually, folks, the story ends with they actually bought the house back. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. Okay, they actually took it back and gave you your money back. Muthaya. So, so I'm being a spoiler there, but so Muthaya, what happened? So you went to people claim.com per my recommendation, and you've. You basically filed a case, right, in the online court, right? Yeah.
And there were people that are offering to help me even through the people court. They kept saying, hey, how can we help you? Have you, have you heard anything? And they have, they settled with you and so on. And so I kept updating the complaint online saying this is what's happening. They have not responded. And I think from there. And they kept posting negative reviews on them and I think eventually it got to them and they said, okay, look, we'll buy you back. And then I saw, then at that point when they said, I said, I need to be made whole now, whatever I paid, I want you to pay me back. Plus I need you to pay back the foundational damages that will cause around $8,000.
Right.
Plus the closing cost on the buyback. So I mean, after all of that, I think, okay, I made pretty much the whole. And I got out of it. So that was good.
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah, good. So it worked through people claim, but it might have worked through the regulatory agency. They did respond to you and they did, on a separate matter, shut down their property management company. That wasn't because of your complaint, but it was because of someone else's complaint.
Right, exactly.
Good. Good folks.
And then they knew about this company. They knew about the reputation of this company. So they said, we were familiar with this company. We shut them down because they had unlicensed agents leasing properties and making false promises. Exactly. Everything I said happened to me. So, yeah, like, like you said, it adds, you know, even though I didn't, you know, somebody else came in front of me and filed a complaint, I came after them. And it just, just put more pressure on them to change their ways.
It's a Compounding thing, folks. Do not be a victim. Be the empowered investor and do your duty. You know, Muthaya, you spent a lot of time on this, but I want to tell everybody, you do not need to spend a lot of time on it, okay? You can do this stuff. You can file a complaint with any one of these agencies on my list. Again, you want that list? Jason hartman.com. if you already have an investment counselor, just ask them for it. They'll get it to you. And, you know, do something, hold these people accountable. I don't want to say it's just for you, this is your duty as a citizen. Okay? You know, it's like making a citizen's arrest when you see someone doing something bad, right? Or it's like that Seinfeld episode about the. What do they call it? The Good Samaritan law.
They went to jail on the last Seinfeld episode because you. You have to be a Good Samaritan. You know, I think it's our duty. You got to do it, okay? You got to try and hold these people accountable and make them do what's right. So anything else people should know before we wrap it up? Mathias?
I think that people should just not sit passively. Whether it's, you know, when they're buying the property or whether the property manager or, you know, seller, they just got to be actively involved at all times. I don't think it's, you know, you should sit back and just think, everything's going to be fine. I think it's important to be an active participant.
It. Yep. Yep. I couldn't agree with you more. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm glad you got justice. And, folks, if you've been taken advantage of, this is what we're here for. Tell us so we can help you. So we can fight for you. We'll fight for you. Is that commercial used to say, with that lawyer, I'll fight for you? That's in la. See, it's where. Where I grew up. You live, Matthias. So I'll fight for you. Larry Parker got me 2.1 million. Do you know that guy supposedly has no legs? That's. I don't think I'd sell my legs for 2.1 million, but adjusted for inflation, maybe it's better now. Anyway. I used to see that commercial when I was a kid. But, folks, do not be a victim. Let us help you. We can provide resources. We can put pressure on these people. If someone's done you wrong, this is what we're here for. We're here to help you. And that's, you know, one of the things we provide ongoing support for life. So reach out to us. If you have an investment counselor, jasonartman.com if not, jasonartman.com will get in touch with you there. And if you do have an investment counselor, just reach out directly. Muthaya, we've talked a lot about a lot of negative things today. Can we end with anything positive? How do you like real estate investing? Is it good?
Absolutely good. No. There are a lot of good property managers out there, a lot of good fellows out there. Just a few bad apples you got to filter out, that's all. You know, I mean, there's a lot of good people out there. Otherwise, how would you, you know, people continue to invest in these properties? There are some good people out there. You just need to find them, that's all. I mean, on your own podcast, people try to, you know, make it look like they're really good. You know, remember you said earlier that, hey, you know what, when people are hungry, they'll really do everything that they can to, to provide you the best quality service and everything else. But what happens is when they get nice and fat, they forget about you.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's. The most dangerous moment comes with victory. So keep them on their toes and don't let them get too fat. You know, this is actually one of the informal things that we do, okay. Is that when we start to notice a provider becoming too busy or if they do something bad, like we, we had another bad apple recently, and I don't know if he's a, you know, sometimes you gotta judge it, like on a deal by deal basis. Some things can go wrong, right? It's not as important of, of what happens. It's more important like how they handle it and what their attitude is about it. You know, and so when something happens, like, you know, it sort of reveals a person. Okay? There's an old saying, people are like tea bags. You don't know how strong they are until you put them in some hot water. Right? And, and so sometimes, you know, we, we notice that and some of these people, you know, a thing goes wrong and it's like we will just sever the relationship or we will just punish them and stop referring business for a while and put them in the penalty box. And, you know, this is what we are constantly evaluating and this is why it really does take a human component. You know, you cannot do this with a website, okay? This is a high touch, high service business. That's just what's required because we got to be engaged with these people, make sure that we're holding them accountable. So anyway, you know, I. I really thank you for sharing your story. There are a lot of good people. This is the most historically proven asset class in the entire world. It is a great thing, buy more properties, but, you know, when you have a problem now and then you got to do something about it. And the goal of this talk with Muthiah was to empower you. So, Muthaya, I thank you so much for sharing your story and coming on and helping other investors. That's really great of you. And you know, so many people listening have met you at our live events and they'll continue to do so and we hope to see you at some future live events. Okay. So thanks for joining us.
Thanks for your support, Jason. I appreciate yours and Carrie's support and your whole network. It's really been very beneficial to me and a whole lot of others. I encourage everyone to use your resources that you have. But thanks, Jason.
Well, thank you and happy investing, everyone. We'll talk to you on the next episode.
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