Surviving the Recession: Life as an Agent

Welcome back to the podcast, The New and Experienced Investor Podcast, where we connect real estate investors from all walks of life. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy.

And I'm Joe Homs. I'm the experienced guy, or like they like to call me, the old guy.

Yeah. Today is a very special episode. We're calling it the Holiday Family Episode. Super excited. We have some in-studio guests with us today. Do you want to make the introduction?

I do. I want to introduce, full disclosure here, my daughter Melissa Mitchell.

Hello.

And my grandson Trenton.

Say hi.

Hi.

He sees me on YouTube and, you know, he's always saying, hey, that's Grandpa on YouTube. So we decided that we should have them both on our channel today on our Christmas special. And, uh, we're going to talk about when she got her license.

Yeah.

Right straight after, uh, college. She, uh, she came and said, I don't want to do what I graduated for. I want to sell real estate with you. And it was, uh, 2010, right after the crash and Uh, 2008. Wow. And, um, I needed the help and she was honestly amazing.

Uh, I think you're biased though.

Yeah, I am. I am. She was amazing. Uh, she got her license. She had a 4-year degree at the time. She could get her broker's license right away. So I told her, okay, turn around, go get your broker's license because we may need it one day. And she says, "I don't want to go back to school. I just got out." Yeah, it's true.

I said that.

Yeah, it is. So she did. She went back and got her broker's license. And about ten years ago, we opened up our own brokerage, which is where we're at today. H and M Realty Group. So tell me, okay? Tell us. Yeah. What what the journey was. Like, literally, I threw your feet in the fire. So tell me about that experience.

Yeah, so when I got into real estate, I got licensed, you know, passed my my test luckily the first time and everything. And I was just, you know, wanting to learn about the ins and outs. And I'm very like organized type person, a personality. So I wanted to know like what every you know verbiage in the contract was.

Hey, talk.

I just wanted to know every detail about the contracts.

And?

Hey, if you can't do that, you gotta go. Okay. And so I was very detail-oriented. So I asked a lot of questions. And real estate's kind of like that. I feel like you gotta ask a lot of questions in the beginning and you have to, you know, have a good mentor. And luckily my dad was there and willing to help me. But yeah, he took me on a lot of listing appointments. And I would just sit there and I was really nervous, I remember. And I was like, what do I say? And what if like they asked me something I don't know the response? So you just like do your homework upfront, learn about the property, comp it, neighborhood. And then if you don't know, you can always say, you know what, let me look into that for you.

Oh.

So I remember that was something I was always, you know, wanting to be really prepared. And of course, he always, you know, helped me get as prepared as I could. And he would kind of, I would just kind of like be, be there, but he would lead more on like the listing appointments and stuff. So, um, a lot of that. And yeah, just, he would have me do all the paperwork. I would put together the files and transactions, all that, you know.

Oh yeah, I didn't know that. It's high school.

Kind of like not fun, boring stuff, but like it's very important.

I think boring stuff.

Hey, this is my son and he's, um, participating. Um, but yeah, so just, you know, it's like—

I can't wait to have your Christmas ride. Shh.

Yeah, it was, it was, it is, it was interesting. Like I—

What?

Hey, okay, go sit with Daddy, okay?

No.

Okay, don't interrupt me. Anyways, it was before I had a kid too, so, you know, I could dedicate a lot of my time to real estate. And, um, yeah, I don't know, do you have any specific questions of what it was like? Like—

Sure, I do.

Yeah.

Um, what, uh, what was it, what was the hardest thing working for your dad?

Hmm. I don't know. There's a lot of respect there, and I didn't find it hard.

Nice. Good answer.

I felt like I was fine taking direction from him, and he could tell me what to do, and I'd be like, okay, sure, like, let's do it. That's fine. And I don't really think there was too much hard stuff, um, except he always liked to eat at 12 PM every day lunch.

Still do.

Wow.

Still do.

He's very particular too. So maybe we We're kind of, I think, similar. We're kind of alike. So that's probably why we work well together.

Yeah.

Because we both like doing the same type of things and we're both really organized. Um, like our email inbox is very organized and everything's filed away. So, you know, he, he taught me a lot of that stuff when I got into real estate, how to stay organized.

Of course, Mommy had a baby.

How to stay organized. And, um, but yeah, I don't know. I don't think there was anything too difficult. Like, I don't—

That's amazing.

Was there something difficult about working with me?

No, no, not at all. Uh, let's see, when you were 7 or 8, uh, I've been flipping for 40 years. So when you were 7 or 8, we used to take you and your brothers to, you know, paint a room or whatever. And, um, I, you know, I'd give you a paintbrush and she'd be in the room, and then you come back 15 minutes later and she's asleep on the floor. Um, but that honestly, that wasn't any different than when she started working with me. And we got to the point, and I know she felt really comfortable with what we were doing. And then we started flipping properties. And one day, I'm driving to either a listing appointment or to see a property to flip, and she gets a call from her mom. It was a listing appointment. She gets a call from her mom. I don't know if you remember this, but she's—I could hear on the phone. She says. Yeah, we're gonna go look at this ugly house. I don't do ugly houses. I just do the cute ones. Yeah, I just handle the cute ones.

Sounds about right.

Well, the cute ones are easy to sell. So yeah, it's kind of my style.

She was in charge of handling all our flips from beginning to end, the decorating, Really all that stuff, the marketing and putting it on the market and holding open houses and doing all that stuff that normal agents do. Yeah. Normal agents don't.

I'm an agent. Oh yeah. And now we're creating the third generation here. We're trying.

He wants to be a real estate agent, police officer. Policeman, fireman.

Is that what you want to be? Yeah.

Yeah. It can happen. Yeah.

I told him it can happen. Definitely.

That's great. And so I think you mentioned this before, this was a time where there was another flipper that gave you a bunch of properties to sell. Is that that same time? Yeah, same time.

And so we were listing 10 to 15 properties a month and I, quite frankly, I needed the help. And she was here. My middle son was also here helping during that process.

Awesome.

Uh, so yeah, it, it, and it was a great time working with her and she got her real estate license. She got her broker's license. We were working for another broker at the time. And then, uh, he fell ill, had to close his shop about 10 years ago. And that's when I told, uh, Melissa and her husband, uh, Ryan, it's time to open up our own shop. And so we've been here in this office for close to 10 years. Around there.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I know we don't have cameras or whatever all the way around, but, um, all this decoration that you see, everything around here is her. It has nothing to do with me. She decorated the whole place, and, uh, that's what she does.

Thank you.

That's what she does when she flips properties.

Yes. I love interior design. Definitely. I probably would've done that as like a, you know, like, you know, a side job. I have a passion for—

Of course.

Designing and, um, interior design. Hey, One thing that was really fun when we were—

I'm gonna go have a baby.

Okay, go. You need to go to— go, go, go. Yeah, this is how it is with a live show with a child.

Yeah, yeah. They say you shouldn't record TV with children or animals. This is the reason.

But what I was going to say, working with a big investor when we first got— when I first got into real estate, that really trained me on like writing contracts, putting out offers, It just made me super efficient. Super efficient. And of course, I was really good at working with investors at that point. And that's kind of at that point, you know, we went. Mommy loves me. We went into investing on our own. So I was really prepared because I had worked with him. But fully prepared with me. I think there was probably a time where we all had almost like about ten listings each just from that investor. So and I would I didn't have a transaction corner. I would just do everything myself and. Yeah, it was, it was a great experience. It was really fun. It was really, you know, fast moving and, um, a really good opportunity to work with someone like that. So a lot of, a lot of good, good learning.

Old school stuff, you know, do everything yourself, learn from the ground up. Um, and, and I would say, you know, and, you know, it, it gave you the experience to be a broker at the end of the day because you pretty much knew everything about all the paperwork transactions, what goes on, good, bad, and ugly. Yep. There's not one transaction that doesn't have issues. They all do. Yeah. You know, and part of being an agent is to learn how to deal with that.

Absolutely. Yeah. Unless you work with me though. My slogan back then was smooth sailing with Melissa because I had very smooth transactions. So I liked it to be— I like to be stress-free. And I actually got compliments from other agents like, oh, you were just so easy to work with. You're just— I'm like, well, that's how it should be. It should just be smooth and You know, not a headache, but there's always headache deals.

There is. Yeah. Yeah. What was one of the bigger headache deals that you can remember from that time?

Mostly just when there would be big requests for repairs, like big issues, you know, foundation issues, things like that that we had to deal with. But I'm trying to remember. It's been a long time now.

That's okay. And it was all smooth. So that's why.

Yeah, like trying to deal with the request for repairs, that always stressed me out. And then my— it's kind of like where my husband came in because he was really good at the contracting side of things, like figuring out how much things would cost and getting handymen out there so we could get quotes on repairs for our clients. And so Ryan always— my husband Ryan would always help me with that. And, you know, just trying to make it as smooth as possible.

But let's talk about buying property at the courthouse steps. I know one of your favorite things. We put you one day to actually bid on properties. Tell me that experience.

Did I actually bid?

Yes, you were there.

Well, Ryan bid.

No, first time I put you to bid. And you were so stressed out.

I'm pretty sure I said I didn't want to.

Yeah, you're so stressed out that you said, I don't ever want to do this again. Yeah. And then we put Ryan in there and he loved it. He just, he just loved it. Yeah.

Yeah. You have to be really quick with like, you have to be paying attention and the numbers and that stressed me out with like the prices going up and, you know, having a, like, you know, you have a top value where you want to go to and if you, you know, you don't want to go over that and it's like, well, what did they just say? What number are we at? So it was just, it's just a lot in the moment. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. For me, I was like, I don't like it. We were there. She was looking at us. So we would be telling her, keep going up or whatever, cut it. But it is stressful. It is stressful. If you've never done it before, it's really— and you can get caught up in the moment and overbid.

Right. Of course. Yeah. I think it's like any auction that fosters that sort of competition.

My best friend back in the '80s, we were at an auction, government auction, and we were bidding on some properties. And he's bidding on this particular property in Lake Forest. And he keeps raising his hand bidding. And the guy that's running the bidding process says, stop. He looks at him kind of shocked. He goes, what? He goes, You're the top bidder. You're bidding against yourself. Stop bidding. Yeah. So it can get stressed. I never let him live that down. It was so funny. That's funny. It was hilarious. Yeah.

Man, I wish I could have been there. Yeah.

Yeah. The process is fun. Those are different days. And even, you know, 2008 and 2010, those were exciting times. They really were. They're absolutely exciting. If you were a brand new agent, Those are times where you really, really knew what to do at the end of the day. If you were experienced enough or connected with, you know, having a lot of transactions like we did, that, you know, that was a great school for both my kids. Great school.

Yeah, that's great. And, you know, then you moved into flipping like your own properties and then Like you said, you really latched onto the design part of it. Is that self-taught or, you know, how can somebody get into interior design and start applying that to their own investments?

Yeah, I think you can definitely, you know, look at some of the trends and, you know, when we would do a design for flips, we would try to find something that, you know, it would apply to a lot of people and we're not going to do something super, you know, out of the ordinary, um, unless that's kind of like more of a trend. So we would, we would kind of do trends.

Mm-hmm.

I know people are like, I don't like trendy houses, but our demographic of what, you know, people would want to buy is more, more trendy and, um, kind of neutral. And so we would just, you know, kind of pick, pick those, um, assortments and then sometimes mix it up with pattern tile or, you know, something like that. So yeah, it's just basically self-taught, I would say, but also like exposure to seeing different properties, I love to go to model homes. I would always go to model homes and especially with, you know, the interior decor and things, see how things mix and go. And then we had a professional stager as well. So I didn't do any of the staging, but we used a lot of different stagers. And, you know, there can be high-end stagers, there could be more cost-effective stagers. So they all have different stuff too. So when we would flip, we would try to find something that was kind of like in between that would appeal to, you know, like it feels like a nice home that someone can You know, like a great starter home with nice furniture and not like over the top, you know, glam everything. So, right. Um, but yeah, pretty much self-taught, but exposing myself to things. And I just have always loved, you know, going to model homes. I like looking at magazines, things like that. So.

And, um, what happened to everything being gray?

Yeah, gray went out. Oh, okay. I remember the transition when it was like everything was like beigey gold. Right. And everyone wanted beige, beige, everything. And then like gray came in and it was so different and it was like so many different tones of gray, but it became so big where everyone was doing like gray washed floors and gray walls. And we did gray for a long time. We did like a really muted silver gray on the walls. And then we would do, what else would we do? Mostly just wall color, grays and a lot of gray tiles.

Right.

But it just went out. I mean, there's always a transition. So now it's more, you know, neutral everything. And it's kind of back to like the creams and the whites and, you know, things like that. So yeah, it's kind of not in. I mean, you can definitely use gray. But I wouldn't like do like, you know, gray walls in the whole house.

Yeah, it became like a meme for flippers that every flipper house was gray. Yep. But it looked cool at the time.

Yeah, and especially on the exterior. Yeah, gray and white was like our go-to colors. We— a darker gray with white trim. It was so easy and it— people liked it. But we don't really do that anymore. Now it's more like white and black. And right, so yeah, that's just design. I know, always go out.

When we first started, um, you know, remember I've been flipping for a long time, so, um, and what we started doing when she came on board was, you know, way higher end stuff. not just small 2-bedroom condos and stuff. We were, you know, reaching out and doing single-family residences. We actually did one in Dana Point, and she introduced some blues down there because obviously we're close to the ocean. And that was during the gray period. And that was like, whoa, wait a second.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it was a big hit.

Awesome.

But where I was going with this is the first flip that we looked at. And I walk in and there's, uh, you know, gold fixtures and there's shag carpet. And I'm, I'm, you know, I'm bringing myself back to the '70s and going, hey, Elvis would live here. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Let's, uh, let's just throw some paint on here, put it back on the market. And she kind of went ballistic, says, okay, you're never, you're never ever going to be able to pick anything. Yeah. I will take over that responsibility, which she has. Okay. Which she has.

Yeah. Well, it comes down to, you know, it's, if it's gonna cost you X amount and you can get away with leaving the shag carpet, but that, I don't think that was a good call.

That's what I thought, but no, she said no. She says no way.

That's gonna be the first thing people pick out.

At least gotta make it like a clean slate.

Right.

Have it be inviting and clean and fresh and new. Like we've done flips where we just have done flooring and paint. That's like his favorite style of flip. Yeah. He likes to see a house and be like, it's just flooring and paint. We're like, no. We're like, no, it's the whole kitchen. It's everything.

Yeah.

Like even the toilets, like gotta go.

I know. Yeah. Even the toilets. I mean, it's working.

But like we used to do things on a budget. We had a flip.

Just paint the toilet.

I think it was in Anaheim and it had, it was original. It was really bad. I think it was on Crone, but it had pink sinks. Like, yes. vintage pink sinks.

Oh, we sold those.

We ripped those out and sold them. Like, we would do things to save money all the time. That is one thing that my parents taught me is, you know, how to stretch a dollar. And yeah, we would like do a lot of work ourselves and, um, yeah, sell things that like people would leave in the house.

Yeah. Yeah. And when she says self-taught, honestly, it was self-taught. I had nothing to do with it. Uh, I don't think her mother really had anything to do. We were just shocked when she was growing up. She was, you know, 7 or 8 going to school and she'd lay out her clothes on the floor for the next day. That's how organized she was.

Wow.

Yeah. And so—

I liked it.

When she, you know, when she grew up and stuff and it was all of, what was those stores? Forever 21. And, you know, all these stores that, you know, she'd drag me out to 'cause—

What other stores?

I had the money.

You have other stores that you—

Like when I was really young, Limited Too.

Limited Too.

Yeah. My dad would buy me Limited Too. My mom's like, it's too expensive.

Yeah. Nana, bring dad.

Oh, daddy's little girl.

I couldn't say no, right? I couldn't say no. So yeah, it's, you know, pull your wallet out. And she is very frugal, 'cause literally we went to a store and she comes out, she says, can I buy this? I go, yeah. And she goes back and she buys it. And I'm thinking, that's it? That's all you're gonna buy? I mean, I'm here with my credit card.

Wow.

It's like she didn't take advantage of that.

I'm not like that anymore, but yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Phones are a different story.

She needed the most up-to-date phone.

Of course.

The flip phone, the Motorola flip phone.

Yeah.

Yeah, she was very popular.

The Razr.

Yeah, that's what she had.

The Razr.

The Razr, yes. Yeah. So yeah, and it was funny 'cause when she got married to Ryan, I told him, I says, it's your turn. It's your turn. He's been taking really good care of her.

Oh, that's good.

He has. Yes, he—

Yeah, he has.

And you guys are all still working together at that time?

Yes.

Very cool. Wow. A whole flipping family.

Yes.

I love that.

I know. It's very common. Yeah. Everyone's in real estate. All my brothers have their license.

Yeah, they all do now. Yes. Yes.

We just can't stay away. Yeah.

Well, they grew up in it, you know. Like I said, I was doing flips when they were, you know, in diapers practically. And it was like, what are we going to do with the kids? We're going to bring them along, you know.

What else are you going to do with them? Put them on the counter in the little thing.

Kind of like here, you know, she brought him along too. Right. You know, so he's in— how much is he going to get paid for that? You know, a little short stint on TV here. How much are you guys paying him? I don't know.

This is a marketing budget.

I didn't ask my accountant. I'm not sure. We've got bookkeepers and accountants now. So, you know.

Whatever the write-off needs to be.

Yeah, exactly. It's up to them.

So what's kind of your future in real estate, do you think? I know you guys are buying a bunch of properties in Alabama, turning those into some rentals, some passive income now, taking the active income, turning it into passive income. What's kind of your vision?

Yeah, I mean, Ryan's, you know, we're still flipping, we're still doing that. Obviously, that's very like tedious and time-consuming just with like the project management stuff. So Ryan really was looking at something, you know, more passive that we can do. And so that's when he started looking at Section 8, out of state, buying like portfolios. And it, the numbers made sense. And it's a long-term investment and we have time to invest long-term. So, okay, go ask Daddy for help. So definitely we're going to do that. And then we also actually joined another real estate company as well, eXp Realty. So we're doing that as well, which is, you know, growing a team and it's like kind of a new thing. So my role in it is, you know, trying to recruit and grow our team underneath us. So we're going to be getting into that a little bit. But we'll always probably do flipping because we just are, it's like our bread and butter. We're really good at that. Right.

Right.

And we like it. And then, like I said, we're kind of just looking at passive incomes. We do have 2 Airbnbs and, you know, those are doing decent. It's just there's a lot of overhead with Airbnbs. So I don't know, they got really popular, but, you know, we have 2 great ones. But again, they're— it's expensive to run them. The cleaners get paid a lot, the managers. So I don't think we'll probably buy anymore. But okay. Yeah, that's kind of what we're doing. And I think we're just going to continue on that path.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, kind of diversified everything, you know. You got to try it, you got to see what you like. Yeah. Um, yep. So do you think you're gonna always like be flipping? Like, it sounds like it's kind of in your blood.

Oh yeah, you have to. Yeah, for sure.

That's fun.

It is.

It's fun. That, that— I mean, that's, that's good. That's why I flip. It's good money, but it's also fun. It's not passive. I mean, passive is literally just sitting there waiting for the check to come in. You know, which again, I mean, don't get me wrong. It's nice when it comes in, but then what do you do? You know, when people ask me to retire and I go, retire? What does that mean? I go to the beach. I lay there for 15 minutes and then I do what?

You gotta learn how to relax.

You turn the 15 minutes into 4 hours and 3 Mai Tais.

Yep. I don't drink. Oh, that's your problem. I don't drink.

That's your problem right there.

You could read a book. You could listen to a podcast.

You could read the new Elon biography.

I can go to sleep too.

You could.

Come on.

You could take a nap.

Yeah, I know. I'll take a nap when I need to take the nap, the final nap. You know, it's like, yeah, that's it. I don't want to take a nap now.

Yeah, I got you.

I want to be engaged. I learned about, uh, what are they— what are they called— Air Force One shoes today.

Yes. Yeah.

You know, I never knew about that. There's so much stuff to learn. For some reason, everybody Everybody's picking on my shoes. I told them I have like 300,000 miles on these and they're good. Still going strong. One pair. I don't need it. Yeah, one pair. I don't need anything else.

That's it. Yeah, simple man. Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Do you like my shirt? I do.

It's very festive. I do like it. Santa dabbing. Yep. Yeah, yeah, that's incredible.

It's Christmas. It is.

The world we live in these days is amazing.

A little bit of joy, you know, spread joy with that shirt.

A little bit. Yeah. You get—

this is the first time you're wearing it? Yes. Okay. You should wear it at the meetup. So then took the tag because it's kind of like hard to tell at first what it is, and then you got to get up close. Get close. That's true. Squint at your shirt.

I don't want people getting close to me.

Oh, that's the perfect shirt for it. So, um, how do we pass this knowledge on to the next generation?

Get into real estate, get licensed, and have a mentor.

Okay.

Yeah, just, it's going to be a lot at first. But I think if you have an interest in real estate, whether it's selling and doing open houses, that traditional stuff, or maybe it's investing of any type, you know, just start getting, you know, gaining knowledge where you can. I mean, as much free knowledge is great because I think there's, you know, a lot of people that will do that. But I guess if you have to pay for it, make sure it's worth it too.

True.

There's a lot of programs out there.

You know, that's actually, that's actually a great question because I've never ever pushed my kids to do anything that, you know, they didn't want to do, or I wanted them to head in this direction. So, um, that's a great question for you. Why, why did you start wanting to sell real estate? What, what— you had just graduated with a degree.

I know why.

Okay, so tell the world. You haven't told me.

Well, I have a degree in psychology. When I got my degree, I did an internship at a great company. It was for HR, and I just was so like bored that it just didn't stimulate me. I had there was like no creative juices, and I was like, "I'm not using my my gift of you know design," and just you know I like change, and I like I wanted my days to be different every day. And obviously working at a corporate job is very like a little bit mundane. Some people love it; it just wasn't for me. So. After I did my internship, I remember I was talking to Ryan, my husband, and I was like, I don't think I could do that. What should I do? I'm like, maybe I'd be good at selling houses. And he's like, your dad's in real estate. I think that's a really good idea. I think you'd be really good at selling houses. And I'm like, I'm going to ask my dad if he could train me. And basically, I think I had a conversation with you. I told you I think I want to do real estate.

Yeah.

And that was, I think that was also the time some of the real estate shows were coming out. What's that one? Montalongo? Maybe the other one with Tark and Christina. Flip or Flop. There you go.

Wow. No, that was way later. Really? Okay. Yeah, it was Montalongo. Someone was like, shows are coming out.

Texas. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I was like, I could totally do that. So talked to him, got my license right after I graduated, and just went full force into it. And I really wanted to work for myself too. I thought I didn't, but then once I did the internship, I was like, yeah, I want to work for myself. So that's great. Yeah. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. I got to be creative. I got to do something new all the time. Yeah. Challenge myself. It wasn't boring.

Yeah. So, and so now you're bringing up new agents under you. Um, what sort of, is it like a hands-on training sort of experience or is it mostly online or how does that work?

Yeah. eXp is mostly online. Everything for any new agents would be It could be online, but they do have offices. I wouldn't be in charge of training unless I really wanted to mentor someone. I could.

Okay.

The great thing about them is that they already have all these programs. They do Zoom calls every day. So there's a lot of training for them. And it would kind of be up to them. Again, you have to have a passion. You have to be motivated. You have to want to work and teach yourself. There's a lot of people there with this new real estate company that I'm working with that they can get help. So.

Do you see a difference in, I guess, the technology that you had when you first started versus what is available now? Are people more lazy?

Like real estate agents?

Yeah, real estate agents. It's just like they just want to like, you know.

Yeah, kind of.

And then they don't really get the experience.

Yeah, things are so easy. Yeah, I think it made it a little bit maybe too convenient. So a lot of agents don't really even know about the contracts. They have TCs and they have assistants that, you know, maybe do all that stuff. But at the end of the day, if you can close deals, you can sell someone, you can get the listing, it doesn't even matter if you don't know the paperwork. That's it. But I'm more old school that I like to know the ins and outs of how to do a transaction. I think it's very useful and important.

Gotcha.

But you could be whatever you want these days. I mean, with technology, you know?

Yeah. Okay.

It has definitely made it a lot easier to be an agent. I mean, literally press a button and it'll walk you through writing an offer. That's how easy it is. I mean, when I first started, we were literally writing out offers on paper.

Yeah. You know? And sending them to escrow, like driving the papers to escrow.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah, that's— I didn't even do that.

Meeting with clients. Oh, you know, face to face.

For a wet signature. Like, no one even knows what that is. We didn't have DocuSign.

No, no. Yeah, it had to be a wet signature. Yes. And then, and then, like she said, taking all the documents to the proper location, you know, it's taking it to escrow, um, you know, whatever it is that you needed to do, taking all the disclosures out to the seller, uh, you know, then, then from there it had to go to the other agent to take it to the buyer. It was a big process, you know, not, not like it is nowadays.

Now you can do that all in your underwear.

Yeah, you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're on a Zoom call, you're pretty good. Yeah, you're fine. You know, you can kind of wear whatever, wear your shirt and your boxers, unless a small child runs in there. Have you ever seen that video? Yeah, small child runs in the room and, you know, he's like in his underwear and he's shooing him out. The, the maid is grabbing the kid. Yeah. So, you never can tell when small children are going to come into the frame.

That's true.

The frame.

Are you getting hungry?

He's always hungry.

Yeah.

He's a growing boy.

They're just constant grazers, children, toddlers. They just snacks all day.

Looks pretty yummy.

Right? Yep.

Oh, now he's quiet. Now he's quiet.

So, how do you juggle it? How do you juggle being Like a mom and this, like, businesswoman and flipper.

Well, I have a really supportive husband because he does a lot, pretty much everything. And I'm not working as much as I was. Oh, nice.

So there you go.

I don't know. I don't think there's anything— there's no secret. There's no balance. It's just you just got to do it. You got to take care of yourself and do it.

He cooks too.

Yeah, my husband does cook.

Wow. He's amazing.

He's dreamy.

He's amazing cook. Yeah. Absolutely amazing.

Yes, I'm actually— I haven't— yeah, I haven't tasted— I haven't tasted the cooking, but I've heard— I've heard things. Yeah, careful, careful.

No more.

You're on YouTube, man. You finally got it. You got your wish. Yeah. So what's, um, what's like— what's like top on the Christmas list for this year? What are we going for?

What do you want for Christmas? Transformers!

Wow, still around.

It's still around. Transformers are big. It's like 30, 40 years.

Yeah, that's amazing. They're cool.

Yeah, I mean, I like them too.

I like them too because Mommy loves them too. I thought if I start crying, Mommy starts crying. Yeah, of course.

If you start crying right now, I will start crying.

And what do you do On Saturdays with Lala, who is grandma, what do you guys do on Saturdays?

We try to shop for trend floors and we buy them if we see one.

Okay. And that's for what? Like garage sales, right? She takes you garage sales. Nice. Yeah. And then you get out and everybody goes, oh my God, how cute. Here, take it. Don't worry about it. You know, it's yours. That's good.

That's good sales right there.

And even sometimes, um, and even for the rest of the days, we just shop and buy toys.

Yes.

And buy puzzles.

Cool.

It's true. We do shop a lot.

Wow.

Buy things, right? We're so fortunate.

With Lala too.

With Lala.

Yeah.

Sometimes a bunk bed.

Oh, cool. You got your own room already too.

Also sometimes we candy out on Halloween.

He's actually sleeping in Melissa's room.

Oh.

Yeah. But don't you have your own room?

Yeah.

Well, yeah, at his house. But when he spends a night at mine, he's got his own room. And that's where Melissa used to sleep.

Oh.

Yeah.

Full circle.

Isn't that cute? Gotta have it. I think it's awesome.

Yeah, it is awesome.

Do we have anybody waiting? Any questions?

Liz says hi.

Hi, Liz. Nice. Okay, and that's it. Oh, okay, gotcha.

Nice. Had a big turnout today. There you go. Everybody must be shopping, Christmas shopping or something.

Oh yeah, it is.

It's getting busy out there. Yeah, I was doing that earlier.

So I need to do that for sure. Do you guys have any like family traditions that you do for The holidays.

My turn.

Hello, I love y'all, Mommy.

Oh, we love to do white elephant at Christmas Eve. We always do Christmas Eve at my parents' house, white elephant. Sometimes we get Santa's helper to come, and Santa's helper comes and—

I love Mommy, she's the best mommy ever.

That's so sweet, thank you. Um, but mostly just white elephant and just getting together with family, dinner, and Just having a party. Yeah. Who cooks? Who cooks? Usually my mom, and then we usually bring some dishes.

Why is that light too bright?

And then I'm like, I'm trying to think what we're— she said we were doing this year.

Why cockroaches always bite me? What?

I don't know what you said. Um, I don't think we're doing traditional like turkey or anything like that this year. We're doing something different this year.

Turkey we are. Honey baked beans.

No more. Go.

I even went on the cruise for 10 days.

What's on the menu?

You're asking me? I don't cook. My name's not Ryan. Ryan cooks.

Ryan cooks. Yeah.

Ryan cooks.

But you do eat, right?

I do. Yeah. 12 o'clock is a good time to eat.

12 o'clock on the dot.

On the dot.

Nice.

Yeah.

Cool. Amazing. Well, um, thank you for joining us today. Of course, it's great to get an insight, um, you know, to working with Joe. Seems to be like pretty much on par, pretty much on par with whatever I, I've experienced.

Yeah, so yeah, he's easy to work with. He likes to have fun.

Okay, there are 12 years in 1 month.

Close, almost 12 months. 12 months and 1 year.

There you go. 12 months and 1 year.

So it's close.

You got it backwards.

Yeah. Very good. But yes, my dad's very easy to work with. He has got a lot of knowledge. He's really, you know, passionate about real estate. So many, you know, different assets as far as like investing or traditional real estate. So, um, yeah, I was really lucky that I had someone like that to, to get me into it. Yeah, gave me the confidence because it's scary sometimes being a new agent, you know, getting into things.

So this is scary. It is. It's intimidating.

Yeah, for sure.

You've seen Lauren's face when you ask her to do anything. That's why it's Nicole. Anybody?

Yeah, that was me. So Lauren, you can call me. Okay, last time because we're going to turn it off.

Welcome joining us.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us.

Bye-bye. Perfect. That's a perfect sign-off. Yes, we will be here next week. Um, we'll let you guys know what—

who the guest will be.

Um, and, uh, you know, we'll kind of just carry us into the new year. I'm excited. Um, on the 18th, which is Monday, this coming Monday, we're gonna be doing a meetup at Hangar 24.

Oh my God.

So please come out to that. We're gonna do all the 2024 predictions, uh, recap of 2023. Joe's gonna be dropping some knowledge, so you don't want to miss that one. Alrighty. We'll see you guys on the next one.

See you later. Bye. Bye. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.