Unlocking the Secrets of Profitable Real Estate Investments!

Hey, we're back again, you guys. We're doing it. We're making podcasts every week, the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Alex Barnett. I'm the new guy.

And I'm Joe. I'm the experienced guy.

That's right. And with this podcast, we connect investors of all walks of life.

Everybody.

That's right. Whether you haven't done a deal yet to If you're doing $100 million in real estate, that's pretty much our audience. Did you know that?

I don't know. Do we have somebody with $100 million coming next week?

Not—they're not coming, but they're watching. Oh, okay.

Got it. Yeah, yeah. Got it.

So take that, mom. But we're really excited. We have an in guest or in studio guest. He's a residential realtor slash short-term rental buff, and we're gonna—we're gonna learn all about him in just a second. But before we do. Let's talk about our meetup that we have coming up on Monday.

Really?

Yeah.

That quick?

Yeah.

What's the forecast like?

It's sunny. It's gonna be 80 degrees out here in Orange County, California. No need to bring a jacket. No need to bring an umbrella.

Bring a jacket. Bring an umbrella.

Okay.

Just in case. You never can tell. This is California.

Yeah, it'll be fine.

Yeah, it'll be completely fine. Okay.

Um, but we're—

yeah, we're doing something really cool.

Um, it's at Hangar 24, and we're going to be going over our new course. It's a free course. It's the Wholesale Startup Club. Actually, it's more than a course. It's a club.

It's a club.

Yeah. So we take you from doing, uh, from knowing nothing about wholesaling to doing $100 million in real estate in 6 months.

Yeah.

That's the claim. Um, Yeah. Yeah. All rights reserved. And—

I mean, we're not charging anything, so it's free. So, you know, we're just gonna say, you know, exactly. It's not like we're, you know, charging $25,000 or whatever, and they can say, well, yeah, they didn't do what they said.

Yeah. You know, results not typical, or results may vary is what we say in the biz. So, um, yeah, make sure you show up. It's a really great event because you can meet people Doing pretty much everything. I'm always really surprised at who shows up. And then when you go around the room, you kind of say like why you're here and what you're doing and what everybody lists off. I'm just like, wow, there's a ton of people here.

Yeah. And by the way, they do charge you for parking, but you can get your ticket validated. Oh, so make sure that you buy something to eat or drink or whatever, and then right there is the ticket validation, and do it correctly as it has on the instructions. Because of the 70 or so, 80 people that showed up last month, I get one call, Joe, I had to pay for parking. I go, how much more information should I give out? You know, it's like I tell them, I email them the, you know, the night before. It's like, here's the process, here's what you need to do, and Joe Oh, I had to pay for parking. Sorry.

It's like, okay, sorry.

But I mean, if you have to, if you forget and you end up paying for parking, don't call Joe and complain, just for all of us.

Yeah, please call Alex.

Call Alex and call me and I'll be like, yeah, was it worth the value of $14?

There you go.

There you go.

I think you got more than $14 worth of value. I don't know. If not, then we're not delivering. But anywho, Meet us there. We're gonna have a blast.

What are we talking about?

We're talking about the Wholesaling Startup Club. Oh yeah, talk about wholesaling real estate. We are going to talk about— I'm backing you up on that. Okay, well, it'll be my first TED Talk, so— oh, please join us. Wow. I'll be doing, um— well, I went to the, the Deal Maker Weekend, so I know all about public speaking now. And how was that? It was amazing. We're gonna do, uh, we're gonna do a whole recap next week, I think. Oh, we are? Okay, so, okay, um, we'll save it. And how I went from $0 to $100 million in real estate and over the weekend. So make sure you tune in to that. And, uh, yeah, nice. Yeah, so anywho, let's stop messing around. Let's bring our guest into the studio. He's already here, so it makes it convenient.

He's sitting down right there.

All right, I was building him up. But anyway, um, let's go ahead and meet Mr. John Shefsky.

What's going on? Excited to be here, aside from the fee I paid for parking. And, uh, thanks for having me, guys.

We do charge. We own the lot now, so we just, we have to charge.

We'll validate. We'll validate. It's cash flow. Yeah. It's cash flow. It's gotta, you gotta do it.

Instant cash flow.

Ton of cash flow in parking prices for sure.

Exactly. Um, you're from LA, you get it. Um, so go ahead and, um, introduce yourself to the audience and let us know, um, kind of what you were doing before real estate and what got you into real estate.

Oh yeah.

Great.

Um, first of all, thanks for having me, guys. Uh, I, I was, uh, I was a comedian in, uh, Los Angeles, if you wanna call it that. A struggling artist is much more of a proper title. And, um, were you funny?

Huh? Were you funny?

Oh yeah, I was great. I was hilarious. I was hilarious. I was, I was, I was amazing. Uh, that's why I got my real estate license anyways. Uh, so, uh, I love when people ask you, how did comedy go? I was like, I got my real estate license. What do you think? But, uh, no, in all seriousness, I was just looking for ways to make— I started learning about like passive income. I didn't even know those things. Right. It's only in the past, I would say 5 to 10 years that it's become like normal for the middle class to like use that verbiage, passive income. So at the time it was like a newer thing and I was like on Reddit and I was like looking at stuff and I was like, I gotta figure out a way that I could be this like artist that I am and get some money coming in. 'Cause I'm, I don't think money's gonna come from art for me. For me, it happens for some people. Okay.

I've seen it.

Not for me. I was like, I'm just like scraping by. So, um, I started learning about real estate. start reading books. And then my brother and I decided— my brother's an engineer, he kind of chose the square path. And I was always the guy off to the side like, you idiot, like, they're gonna own you. Like, I'm an artist, I'm not letting them— like, they're not gonna have a square job. Meanwhile, my brother's got roof over his head, him and his buddies, all engineers, they have a ton of free time after they're done at work. They're riding motorcycles, buying sports cars. And I'm like, I think, I think I chose the wrong path. Like, it was like, it was like being a Mel Brooks character. Like, Constantly telling people like, you dummies taking on that square life, you're wasting it all. And I'm just like completely broke and struggling and miserable. So my brother and I were like, all right, my brother's got the credit, I got the, uh, the vision. And, uh, I educated myself and we decided to house hack for our first thing together. Um, we decided to turn my brother's, uh, house into our first rental to kind of proof of concept. And we bought our own house together, moved into that. And that kind of set me up on the real estate journey, um, of investing. And then I, yeah, I mean, and go ahead and interrupt if you wanna ask questions along the way or guide me into other parts of the story. No, you're good. Keep going. Good. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Uh, I could tell minute details. I can really get into it and I'm like, just stop me if it gets boring, folks. But, uh, so I started getting into real estate investing. That plan got put into place. It was really exciting. Side note, while we were negotiating for the house, I was not an agent or anything professional for real estate, but I was definitely like the one on the phone with the agent, like, tell 'em this. All right, now tell 'em this. Like, and I enjoyed the whole process of like, no, no, no, let's do it this way. And I really liked that. Fast forward a couple years, my wife got pregnant with our second son. Yeah. Way to go, dad.

And a little, a little backstory.

My first son, we needed, we needed help, not just from the good Lord, but from the science. And so, it was a challenge to have our first baby. And that was a, a whole, whole long non-real estate story that I won't put you through. But we didn't think we had to be careful. So, the second baby was a little bit of a surprise.

Oh.

So, we have a science baby and a tequila baby. And the tequila baby, the tequila baby, my wife wrote that. That's a bad joke, by the way. Um, but the tequila baby was my wake-up call of like, all right, I, uh, I gotta figure something out.

Yeah.

And my brother was just like, dude, just go be a realtor. You already know real estate. And I was like, no, dude, I'm a comedy writer. I'm not some freaking shill in a real estate, you know, I'm not gonna wear a sport coat. By the way, I have a great sport coat collection now. Yeah.

2 really great sport coats.

I bust 'em out for special occasions. It's a privilege. But yeah, my brother told me that and I was like, nah. And then I started studying like to get my exam, to get my license. And I had so much fun learning. I had to teach myself how to learn 'cause traditionally I'm a horrible test taker. I would write these like Frank Zappa style songs and like put like real estate, you know, an acre is, you know, 43,060 feet. And I'd like put the music to it. I'd mix it. I'd mix it on my computer. Oh, you actually made these songs?

Oh yeah, dude.

It's insane. I, they're on some hard drive somewhere, but we're not gonna look for that 'cause you don't wanna find that hard drive. Um, so I, and then I would put them on, on my, uh, in my phone or my iPad, whatever, iPod at that time. And then I would just go for bike rides and listen to all the stuff I was trying to memorize for real estate. And in that process, I like fell in love with like all that real estate stuff. Accidentally met my mentor. I went to the gym. This is a really long story, but it's fun still for me.

Keep going.

I went to the gym, um, and I was waiting for a fish burrito from this Mexican restaurant after the gym, right? That's so specific. Oh yeah. I love a good, dude, a good fried fish burrito. It's like, Dude, if you can make Mexican food fattier than it already is, you're like, let's make it more American and fry that fish. So I'm waiting for the fish burrito from Santana's and I look and there's a real estate office and I look at all the listings in the window and I'm just browsing, standing there. And this dude pops his head out the door and goes like, hey man, you, you looking to buy or sell some real estate? And I was just like, thanks man. I, I just got my house. Uh, but I'm thinking about getting into the business. And he gave me his card. He's like, let's, let's get coffee sometime. And I was like, Oh, sweet. Went out for lunch with him or whatever, talked about it, and was like, you know what? I'm gonna get my. I'm gonna go get my license. You know, like so yeah. Went got my license, did all the studying I told you about, called him on the way home, said, "Woo! Passed my test, dude. What's next?" He was just like, "Who is this? Like we haven't talked in six months. What?" And and and he's like, "Come on down to the office. I'll introduce you to people. We can we can figure this all out." And then Just started right then and there shadowing my buddy Chris, uh, who's still a great friend and mentor to me today. So I, uh, yeah, I just shadowed him nonstop. I mean, I literally would wait outside the door when he is in the restroom. Like, you know, like I was there, you know?

What are you doing there?

And I'm not like a 20-year-old kid getting into real estate. I'm already in my, like, what was I, late 30s? You know, like, but still I'm really good at just like being a little kid and being like, all right, what do I gotta do? So I just, uh, hung out with him and, uh, shadowed him. Did some deals with him and then, yeah, just that was it. And here I am loving it still years later. And yeah.

Awesome. So have you found your passive income yet?

No, not the way I would like.

Okay.

I feel like it's very elusive. I feel like by the time you learn about certain things that are broadcast through our bigger groups, that market's already emerged. So you read the book on like the emerging market and you're like, oh, sweet. And you're like, that market's emerging. It's like, no, no, no, they already published the book, dude. The emerging market now is that that author made this really cool book about that emerging market, and now he's making a good living, or he or she are making a good living off that book that you're reading about it. Go find an emerging market, which is a whole nother great experience as an investor, right?

Yeah.

Like it's a lesson.

Yeah.

To find that, to say, Oh, like there's more risk. That author took a lot of risk getting involved in that, that emerging market that now I'm not necessarily having to do, but the cash flow's not gonna be there as much. Right. Um, so yeah, the learning experience for passive income is like, I thought like, I'll just get one short-term rental and then I don't have to follow up on all these leads for real estate. There you go. 'Cause anyone in the real estate profession knows like, it's kind of exhausting, right? Open houses are fun. Yeah. But they can be exhausting. Sure. So yeah, I guess, does that answer your question for passive?

I'm, I'm, it does. Yeah.

Still on the hunt and I'm hungry AF.

Exactly.

When when you took your real estate exam, what what did you score?

They don't tell you what you scored.

No, see, that's not the right answer. Hundred percent. Hundred percent because nobody can prove it. You know? Hey, Joe, I scored a hundred percent.

Yeah. Man, you're really smart. Joe, you've got me here being honest, and I didn't remember to be witty above honest. No, you're a comedian. Yeah. I actually got extra credit. They said you're the best realtor we've ever seen. There you go. There you go. You scored. You you wrote the test, John. Absolutely. Yeah. Good.

Good job.

I, let me get, be honest with you, Joe. I remember you could hear the gasps in the room of people like not knowing what's going on.

Oh yeah.

Oh, you're like sitting there. Yeah. Oh, and, and I'm sitting there and like I said, I'm traditionally not a good test taker. I'm a total hippie. I'm an artist. I'm a flunk out, like autodidactic kind of guy that's like, don't test me. Life will be a good test, you know?

Yeah.

So I'm in there going, and I studied like crazy for this thing for 6 months. I'm thinking as I take in the test, I'm like, John, you, you might have to take this thing again. Like it was, it was so like, there's always that doubt. Yeah. 'Cause it's, it's a, it's weird test, you know?

I know.

Yeah. And there's stuff on it that you're like, they're trying to weed people out.

Yeah.

You know, it's like real estate, they don't do a good enough job though, Joe. I'm pretty sure the bar, yeah, true. I deal with a lot of knuckle draggers. Yeah. But the diamonds shine through. But I am amazed.

Yeah.

I mean, the ability to memorize things and take tests doesn't mean anything with actual intelligence, but holy shit. It's, uh, that's real estate's a hilarious world.

Yeah. And, and how much of, The real estate exam that you learn, do you actually use today?

I actually, like, joke about the acreage and I still forget the exact amount of an acreage. Like, when I look at, when I'm looking at a property for a client, I'm like, if I see it around 40,000 feet, square feet, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an acre. Right. And like, that was one of the easiest things to memorize. And I'm still just like, what is it? 43,000? Is it 42? Does anyone remember it offhand? Is it 42?

I'll Google it. It was 43 years ago for me.

So 43.

Well, 1,000 square feet for every year, Joe. That's how you remember this kind of stuff.

That's true. That could be.

Yeah. I remember that.

Yeah, thank you.

So do you think that they should make the test more relevant to the— I mean, this goes for all education, right? For colleges and schools and whatever else. Do you think it should be more relevant to the actual thing that we're doing that's not in school? Or do you think it needs to be based on other stuff just to weed out people's ability to memorize and have the, I guess, the intelligence to just pass any test that they're given? Do you know what I'm saying? Is that a straightforward—

I don't know. I thought we were interviewing him, but he's asking questions.

He's flipping it around.

Yeah.

He's Joe Rogan-ing you.

No, Joe, I agree with you. It's really trying to weed out the really low bar.

Yeah.

Because like you said, and I'm sorry, but yeah, I'm going to get in trouble here if I keep going.

Don't get in trouble for me, Joe. Let me take this one.

I'm going to keep getting in trouble here if I don't. So you pass. Okay. Yeah. So then you said you had a mentor. So what, what did the mentor teach you?

Well, it was about the agency. Because this is important. What did the mentor teach me?

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, one day you woke up and you said, I'm gonna take the real estate exam. The, the, you know, after you pass it, you have to wake up and say, well, what the hell am I gonna do with this? You know? Yeah. What was that for you? Well, I mean, are you still searching for it?

No, I thank God. I mean, I didn't find it. This is the thing, and I always joke about this in entertainment. It's like I wanted to have mentors that I felt were the caliber, and I guess maybe not even the caliber, that sounds pretentious, but linked up in a way that like I learn and wanna interact and spend a lot of time with a human being, right? Entertainment's a very different world than real estate. That's what a wife is for, by the way. That's right. That's right. That sounds like a great song.

What a wife is for.

As my wife listens to this, that is what a wife is for. Behind every good man is a woman who has her shit together. He's been married for a while, I can tell. Oh yeah. Babe, you know that you're the boss. Whatever Joe says is not— I do not— I'm not agreeing necessarily unless he praises you. You are the king of the house, lady. I think I was ready for a good mentor, and I was looking for it in comedy. I worked under Ralphie May for quite a while, and he was an amazing mentor. But also, at the same time, we're dealing with artists. So Ralphie, who was brilliant, very giving, wonderful person, and he literally gave me the money for my engagement ring for my wife. Uh, he's also an artist. So like there are things, uh, and you can confirm with some of my other friends who also are like my buddy Gary, who opened for him for years. There's a lot of stuff where it's like you just want people that like show up when you say like, hey, be there Thursday at 3:00 PM. And they're just there and they're focused. And you don't want people that are like, oh, I'm on a flight to Albuquerque. And you're like, what do you mean, dude? Like, you know, it's like, The world of— this is why it's so good in real estate. Uh, the world of working with artists most of my life, I'm able to communicate with contractors all right now because I'm like, oh, I get it, I see where you're coming from. Because there's this, uh, this thing. And I feel like I got that when my buddy Chris handed out his hand with the card and, and welcomed me on and said, yeah dude, like, you're welcome to shadow. And that happens in stand-up and in LA, and you know, that's how everyone's careers go, right? But it never happened for me there. And I think I was at the right point in real estate where I was mature enough and also just kind of knew like it's about showing up, not just talking and not spending time with your head in the books. It's about physically waking up, being there in person and being okay with like, I don't know when I'm going home tonight. When my boss, my, my, when my master, whatever you wanna call the apprenticer, what is the word for it? It is a master in the old days, but right.

Yeah. That's probably a bad word.

It's bad, right? Yeah. That's, I'm thinking of Chris Rock. What you my master?

Yeah. We, we changed, we changed the master. master bedroom to a primary bedroom.

I still say— no, I still say master bedroom, and I look people in the eye like, it's a master bedroom, and I'm sending you a picture of the couple that wants to buy this house, and I hope you judge them based on the photo. Oh my God, I can't keep up with culture. I'm too old. Um, I still call it a master bedroom because I do the Metallica thing when I walk into a master bedroom. If I'm showing, I always go, master bedroom! So if I had to change it, what would I say? Main bedroom! Like, James Hetfield would be like, kid, like, get out of here, you little weakling. Like, no, it's a master bedroom, dude. Right? Like, what do they do in a recording studio? Who did the master mix? It's not called a master mix.

Oh, that's true.

Who mastered that album? You mean who did the primary of the album? Like, there's so many syllables. But in all seriousness, yeah, just knowing like when your master that you're working under is like, it's okay. Like I told my wife, like, I'm gonna be doing this like whatever he says to do. So some nights it's gonna be like a lawyer's schedule where I'm coming home at 10 o'clock because That's how long the day takes. So knowing how to—

yeah.

10 o'clock?

Yeah. What are you doing? My buddy, my buddy Chris, who is still a great friend of mine and I still call him for things, uh, all the time. Amazing realtor. This dude works like a lawyer. Like he works like a dog for his clients. He's ethical and wants to like give the best service he can. And like, he really does like have these long— I mean, they do exist. He, he does that. Which by the way, I don't work under him because I cannot keep up with that. And both, both Ralphie and I go home at 3, dude. I learned 'Cause both Ralphie and my—

Banker's hours.

Oh yeah, dude. Oh, hey, banker's hours guaranteed. I don't work on anything. What day is it? I gotta go. I'll be at shul if you need me. I can't. Yeah, I can't do that because yeah, like Ralphie passed away early, you know, died in his hotel room. What else is new? And then my other mentor, Kamel, uh, my best friend's dad was a mentor, died on a hunting trip, you know, pulled the trigger, killed a deer. Dead. And it's like these people work their butts off. They're working to achieve these crazy, crazy goals. They're working to support their community, their family. These are, by the way, very charitable people that are constantly giving. And, but at the end of the day, it's like, well, if you're not here, like, that's what we all need. I don't need your money. I don't need you to like work hard to set an example. Be here, be alive.

Remind me not to mentor him. He's got too many deaths in his life.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a very dangerous—

I see the pattern.

Joe, they're actually making an indie horror film based on my mentorship.

The Black Widow Mentorship.

Yeah, that's not good.

The twist, I killed them!

And he admitted it. Wow.

It was really fun, and it's— I like the taste of blood, and I don't like to cook meat, so I just eat them. They were eaten, if you didn't hear about the stories. It's still a mystery. How would a guy with this much hair— could they not have found me by now, right? We found pubes or beard hair or something from him. Um, there's ranch dressing from this place in Joshua Tree in it. I think we found a lead. Um, best ranch in Joshua Tree, by the way, Joshua Tree Saloon. Second best ranch, Ground Squirrel. All right. Oh, let's go on with the story. Huge ranch.

He knows a lot about Joshua Tree.

I thought you were gonna say ranch. Yeah.

He knows a lot about Joshua Tree, which we, we learned firsthand. Um, yeah.

And we don't talk about— that's right. We don't talk about it.

We don't talk about Bruno. We don't talk about it.

First rule of Joshua Tree.

No. Yeah. We don't talk about it.

But yeah, John's opened my eyes to the wonders and the splendors of Joshua Tree, but I'll never go back there.

Was he the first one we went out there?

No. No. Okay, good.

Yeah, it was little Joe.

So you guys went out there for—

We did a flip. The flip you were doing?

Yeah. Yep. It was late 2021.

Wrong time.

Yeah. No, actually it was the right time. It was somebody wasn't watching the ball.

Can I tell you what's confusing about that without— so that you can take the blame off of yourself? your shoulders and just realize, no, no, do it to her. Do it to her. Do it. Come on.

Do it. Take the blame off. It's not our fault.

Can't watch your apprentice get another crow's foot because of this. I have to help. No. Here's the thing. It, it, it's, you know, we talk about these markets and we go like, you should have known. We should have known this. We should have known that. But this is why it's so essential to have people, whether it's an agent or just real estate professionals that know a certain market really well, almost street by street. Because during the pandy, what happened with those prices is everything in Joshua Tree was booked up nonstop.

Mm-hmm.

Things were selling nonstop.

Mm-hmm.

When the pandemic ended and we went back to regular Joshua Tree market, prices were still elevated in areas where it's like, well, those aren't like actual really booked rentals in Joshua Tree. So for a good example for you, there's areas of like downtown Joshua Tree where houses are going for $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, that the average daily rate that you're going to get there is just not going to equate to that at all. So you're going to have a few buyers that are like just wanting to live out there. You're going to have a few buyers like that are just, I mean, that's basically it. But the investors that are looking for a return on a short-term rental, there's areas there where it's like, oh, you can spend the same amount of money and look at all the numbers and tick off your buy box and say, oh, this square footage makes sense. And it's right in the center of town. It's a lot different than having something like Laguna Beach on the main street. So it's easy to get blindsided by where things are street by street there until after the dust settles and you're like, all right, here's the more, I should say permanent, but that's a pretty absolutist word, but here's the more realistic market that is before and after the pandemic. It's different. It's changed. And that, that blip was really hard. And in fact, I still get people that'll be like, oh, these numbers look great over here. And I'm like, did you find out? Like a client will tell me like, oh, I really like this. Can you gimme this info? And I'll show it to 'em and I say like, be careful with these dates that this person just showed you.

Hmm.

And they're proving, they're trying to prove their case by how much their property is valued at, right? The net operating income of this property. And you're like, that was during an anomaly year. Let's see what they got before that. Oh, they didn't own it before that. Okay. Now we have to just, like, wipe all their pro formas away and say, let's just look at the data because it's— and it's so easy to get tricked in any market. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in any market. I was just asking you about, uh, Nevada. Mm-hmm. Was it Henderson? Mm-hmm. Area in the Hendersons? Yeah. Henderson. I was like, I don't know about it. Yeah. And now from what I've learned, it's like, no, you gotta know a little. I gotta know more. Yeah. Than just like, looks good, let's do it. I'm like, yeah, I gotta know. I gotta talk to 10 people. 3 of 'em gotta be someone I know, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

I gotta, like, make some lists and write on some napkins. So, Don't hate yourself for going to a spot and being like, I should have known better. It's really hard.

What is your market now?

Joshua Tree. I mean, I mostly— so no, I'm like a realtor torn between 2 lands. Don't tell my wife, but I have a family in Joshua Tree. My redhead wife is in Joshua Tree.

That's not funny.

The ranch is out there and so is Ron I'm just joking, babe. I'm joking. I'm never gonna be able to spend the night out there again.

Yeah.

We've been very cool.

Get the couch ready.

Yeah. Get the— well, that's the beauty of owning property is I don't sleep on the couch. I sleep in my short-term rental. Yeah. You wanna fight with me? Yeah. I'll go sleep in the short-term rental.

That's a good idea. That's a good idea.

That's right. I don't have a hot tub at my regular house. I'm going to the short-term rental.

Play pinball.

That's right. I got my Terminator game. But Joshua Tree's my— it's become more of a main market for me, and I don't mind it, 'cause I road dog back and forth, and I love being there. But I'm a residential realtor in SoCal, so I still have a ton of clients in LA and Orange County. It's just— and I don't mind it, 'cause my aesthetic need as a person is like, I gotta be having a different sensory experience, or I start to go insane. So if I'm in the same, like I used to work in tattoo shops and like, or in a writer's room and you're just like, all right, dude, like, can we go for a walk? Like, what are we doing here? Like, I gotta come back here tomorrow? Like, is this some sort of weird, like cosmic prison sentence? It's like, I gotta be somewhere different. So I like that one day I'm in Redondo, another day I'm in Burbank. Like I find my favorite sushi restaurants, my favorite Spanish food, my favorite ranch dressing, for example. So I do like it. It's heavy on the pocketbook. For gas, get a Tesla. I have a Honda, and I it's got really good auto. What are they called? Cruise control. It's not as good as Tesla, but it's nice. I can't get a Tesla after what Elon's been spouting about. I saw a bumper sticker on Tesla that said, "I bought this before Elon went crazy," and made me laugh. I don't keep up with him anymore. I saw him on a Joe Rogan interview like ten years ago. He seemed cool, and then now everyone's like, "He's the worst." I'm like, "He is." I just what did he do? He's got that. Starlink and he won't let everyone use it or something. I can't keep up with society and the news anymore.

Wow. Well, I think it's good that you kind of became a connoisseur of Joshua Tree because it's still— because I definitely noticed a lot of people went out there like you said, and then a lot of people got burned. You know, it's like we've even tried to work on somewhere we couldn't even make it with creative terms. Like we tried so hard and it was just like she just bought it too high.

Yeah.

And anything that we offer her, it just, it won't make sense.

So that, that deal was difficult cuz we were so close and I was so excited and it was gonna work out. They had a great interest rate, they had a lot of equity in it. We were working on the balloon payment, but there's just simple stuff where I'm like, hey dude, not only do I know about this neighborhood, but like I literally, so this is something I would just say, a recommendation for anybody listening. If you're doing a deal, part of my underwriting process, which is an art, everyone has their own style, But if you take like I started with like Tony Robinson and Omid, like I took their underwriting style for short-term rentals. And part of my process though is not just to sit alone and do that. Like I love to interview friends that are in that market. I love to just send them a deal because I like it when someone does it to me too. I love to send them a deal and say, "What do you think about this property? Here's my plan with it. Here's what I'm expecting. Do you think I'm am I missing something?" Because one of the benefits of me having a million jobs and failing it. entertainment and all that stuff throughout my entire life. But one of the benefits is working in production and being around all these other departments and realizing, dude, there are these common patterns of teamwork and how to get something done, who to consult with, how to make certain decisions. And it's a privilege to be able to know somebody that knows what they're talking about. And if you know 3 or— I like 3 or 4 people, like my buddy Travis, I send him stuff, my buddy Omid, I'm like, what do you think? Am I missing something? Which is great for Navy SEALs. Like Jocko talks about that kind of stuff. Like, hey, did I forget something about this plan before we go in there?

Right.

And dude, like that, on that deal, like Travis, I remember him saying like, you know, in Travis's voice, what are the grosses in that area? And I'm like, well, that's a good question, man. Like I took her word for it. I was busy on all this other stuff. Let me go look at the gross income. And I found that what I want to achieve, my meager goals there, they were nothing out of this world, just decent cash flow there. I was like, oh, I'd have to be the Michael Jordan of this area. There's like 2 other properties grossing that much. And I was like, that's one red flag. I'm willing to take that risk. Then I went farther. Let's do a full deal breakdown. So no, this is exciting cuz I love this deal and I was so excited about it. And it was the closest I've been to a creative finance. Yeah. And I've been getting into creative finance, uh, opportunities with you. Like Alex is, is my dude for this stuff and he's presenting me with stuff. I send him my buy box. He's presenting me with these awesome, awesome deals. And this one was so close and the negotiations was fun. I love the dance. Mm-hmm. I love like bonding. You heard me on the phone with her. Yeah. I love like asking the questions and, What is it? Uh, who is it?

Uh, you talked, you talked for 20 minutes about hummus on one of the, on one of the—

well, she's, she's, she's, uh, her, she's Israeli. So of course we start going like, oh, what kind of hummus are you gonna do? Uh, we talked a lot of stuff, dude, but I just remember I was sitting there for like 20 minutes and you guys are going back and forth about hummus.

I'm like, I don't know where to interject on this, but I'm just gonna wait till the numbers start going.

What were you— same thing. Don't let him fool you. Yeah. He does the same. He's talking to an old man, 110 years old. And in there they're going over, hey, yeah, I used to golf over here, whatever. It's like, what does that have to do with buying a house?

You know, I'm like this, like you're, you're in the background. Hey, don't like this. You might take a wrong turn. I mean, and it does sometimes. And, and it's a risk that I take cuz I like to walk that line. And there's some pleasure in like getting to know another human being. Yeah. And, and most of the time it does make the deals better and it builds, it builds trust between 2 people. True. That's true. It's most things in life are like good sex, right? You want to, have it and whatever the terms are that you both agreed on initially, you're at the end, you're like, hey, that was, that's pretty good, right? And then the other person isn't like, I don't know, that wasn't what I wanted. You're like, oh crap. But when the other person's like, hey, let's like go get some Thai food, you know? And like, and like maybe you're having a relationship or maybe you're like, I'll call you next time in town, whatever it is, you want that good feeling. And real estate and most other things are the same way where it's like, I want it to be like we agree on something, we meet that thing together, And then like later on you're still friends. Like I love to like, you know, like yeah, I love to be able to be like 2 years later, not necessarily for sex. It sounds really bad. My wife's like, I still, I'm still friends with like ex-girlfriends and friends and like, cuz it's like, well, it was a good thing. Like we didn't, we didn't make it last forever, but it was nice. And I think the same thing with real estate. You wanna be able to call them up a year later and be like, I got another deal. Or hey, what do you think about this?

Or you ready to sell?

Yeah. Or, or just, How you doing? Yeah, you know, I don't know. It's nice to just be on good terms with other people. I guess that's the Jew in me. Wait, I gotta leave this country. You got a place I can stay? Anyone got an attic? You know, you just want to be friends with everyone. It's nice. It's just a security thing, right? Everybody good? No one wants to kill me? Okay, great. Can I hide in your place? So the bonding of hummus— I mean, that's the ranch. It's the ranch of the Middle East. We're just talking about ranch, right? You gotta have hummus. And we had a lot of stuff that we talked about. You know, she started talking about crystals and I was like, oh dude, I like crystals. They're pretty rad. And she's like, we started talking about all this stuff. Yep. We ended up hanging up the phone like, look, I am, look, I am. Um, but, uh, the deal just didn't work out. So here's what happened. She has this property, sunk a bunch of money into it. It's in the wrong neighborhood for the amount of money she sunk into it. And she sunk all the money into the interior of the house, which is beautiful. And it made the house nice. And I walked the house, I did a preview of it. Great house. She did great work. Her family, of course, they've done other real estate. They're Israeli, right, bro? What do you think I do with my time and my money? Why do I have this old T-1000 pickup truck? Every Israeli does, uh, uh, does, uh, real estate in Southern California. Um, where else do you think they get the money for that hummus, bro? So we, we had great conversations, great connections, but she comes from a long-term rental background and a house flipping background. Great. Does not apply nearly as much to— you don't just know this other niche of real estate. Mm-hmm. You guys all know that. We all know this. Anyone listening probably knows this. or is learning this right now, just because you know one form of real estate, that means nothing, right? So she did a lot of this stuff, but the opportunity cost that she spent $100,000 or $200,000 fixing this house up is like this yard. It's on a, I think it was on a half acre, which I don't know how many square feet that is.

It's got to be.

20,000. 20,000 square feet. Yeah, 20,000 something. It's not 20,000 even. I would remember that. But she spent all this money and time on that, and this whole backyard needs another $80,000 to $120,000 worth of amenities. Because as we're talking about with Joshua Tree, it's like people are coming out there to hang out in the sauna, to do the sun deck thing, to take pictures by Joshua trees, to take pictures by rocks, to be in a luxury pool, all those things. And so—

Clothing optional.

Clothing. Oh, that's another thing I always tell my clients too. Like, well, they'll be like, this place is on 4 acres. And I'll go look at it for 'em, or I'll already know the property and I'll be like, yeah, but it's like, it's 4 acres and it's like surrounded by like Hills Have Eyes and Winnebagos from Breaking Bad. That's not the same as like 4 acres with rocky stuff around it. People do. I mean, we— speaking of Rogan, we know you want to get some sun on your nads. That's where the vitamin D— it's— you got to do that, right?

Okay.

Am I talking to a pink nad group? I mean, guys, it's actually good for you. Trust me, it's great. It doesn't— you can— I have a horrible body, it looks like a big blob, and it's still— I'm like, it's worth the shame to get some, some light on these guys. And when it heats up, it feels Smells great, by the way. So I totally understand the avatar, which by the way, I've been going to Joshua Tree since I was a kid. So I love it out there before I was ever into real estate. So I understand who's going there. Like what is the guest that's staying in your place? So she spent all that money fixing it up beautiful and got, has a great rate on this house. Beautiful. It's in a neighborhood that's okay. And again, with consulting with friends, uh, my buddy Omid has a properties in there. My buddy Casey has properties in there. I mean, the list goes on. I know the neighborhood down to a T. So I'm like, okay, I should either be yay or nay on this property. I'm excited because my friends own property here and they're all happy with them. But the thing with short-term rentals, or I guess any real estate, margins are so thin that if you make a couple little mistakes, you go like, that was everything. Oh, that propane's going to be $700 every 6 months instead of $100? That's cutting into it. Oh, like the washing machine needs to, like, there's these little things that if you just don't calculate them right, or what's my cleaner gonna charge to go clean that place every time? Every turn's gonna cost this much. And before you know it, you're like, that eats into a, you know, $1,000, $2,000 a month if you're even gonna get that for cash flow. Right? Mm-hmm. So we're pretty far along on the deal. She agrees to something. Stop me if I'm boring you guys too. No, I'm so, so worried that I've just like hijacked the podcast and you're like, fuck. We don't wanna hear your stupid deal, John. This is our deals. I don't know. So we've had negotiations. We've had 3 or 4 really good, successful phone calls, a lot of bonding over the hummus, like I said, which is important to some of us. Chris Voss would say that's a really good way to negotiate. We're making this headway. And after I go and consult with a couple of my buddies, that's the thing that comes up is that one red flag. I was like, OK, we're going to have to Michael Jordan this thing to get the gross we want. I'm like, OK. And I have a little thing. a little pact with myself, for my business partner, and just in general, it's— I'm okay with one red flag because life is risky. But if you add on a second red flag to it, to anything, right? The restaurant seems a little weird. That's one red flag. But then it seems a little weird and then someone walks outta the bathroom and they're like, or it's got a C written up there and it seems kind of weird and smells funny. These two red flags, I'm like, I don't want to get to the pattern, the Orion's Belt of— of red flags. I don't want 3. If I, if I'm past 1, I'm like, all right, turn back.

Yeah.

So 1's cool. 2, I'm like, I don't have room for 3. I'm a conservative underwriter. You know what I mean? So the gross was a problem, but what we negotiated for their balloon payment was they want this like $100 and some odd grand back in 7 years. And I'm like, cool. And she's talking to me when we're going, and I'm taking it at face value that like, I'm like, it's California, this stuff's going up. Mm-hmm. But in that neighborhood for that kind of property, I'm like, let me just go back and do my napkin. You know, I'm a grade school.

Yeah.

Just, just writing down a couple numbers. I'm like, let me just go back and just look at what the appreciation and depreciation looks like. It's depreciating, like in that neighborhood, it's going down.

Yeah.

It's not like the rest of SoCal, which is mostly residential. This is kind of a residential area that turned into a vacation market. Mm-hmm. So it's completely unique. So in order to pay her back in 7 years with that balloon payment, the plan was, is that we're going to refinance the property. So we're going to pull out the money because this property's going up in value. She keeps telling me that through the deal and I'm taking it at face value. I believe in her. Well, if it's going down in value, no bueno. Also the purchase price, because it's a creative finance deal, I'm going to pay more than what this thing is worth.

Right.

And she's telling me on the phone, it's worth this much. And I'm like, I totally respect your opinion here, but I'm a residential realtor and this is my market and this place is worth about $80,000 less than what we're gonna go under contract for.

Yeah.

But I'm okay to pay that if you give me that contingency plan of like, if I can't refinance it and pull all that money out, that we push it off every year.

Yeah.

And what she came up with was $40K a year to write her a check for $40K a year, right?

Yeah.

So at first my partner and I were like, okay with that. And then when I started seeing like depreciation, I'm like, this isn't a contingency plan. Yeah. We're just gonna be writing a check for 40 grand a year. And, you know, Lord willing, in 7 years I'm like, 40 grand, here you go. Just break off a little bite of that Bitcoin. Take it. I don't even notice it. But, but I don't wanna put myself and my partner in that risk of like, ah, it's been a real tough 7 years. Yeah. And, uh, I owe 40 grand or I'm gonna lose this house that I put all this money into and all this time into. And yeah, being that it's a short-term rental and not a long-term rental, it's like, this is not a passive investment. This is like, I'm buying myself a little business.

Yeah.

A little hotel.

Yeah.

I don't wanna work hard. I'm already working hard on my own place. I don't wanna work hard on my second place and be like, oh, that money's not mine. It's like waste of opportunity costs for my brain and my waking hours.

Yeah.

So we had to pass it up. It was really emotional on the phone with her. I felt really bad 'cause we had gone so far.

I know.

And she kind of kept pressing this like, that's not fair for us. And I was just like, hey, like you're asking me to buy a bad deal and you guys don't wanna budge on this stuff. And like, I'm telling you all this data in good faith. I wanna buy this, but you gotta work with me.

And at the end of the day, She wouldn't do it.

Just wouldn't do it. And, um, yeah. And I haven't, I haven't reached out to her since then.

I think it's still there. That's a, that's a good lead for a listing, don't you think?

It won't, no, it was listed forever.

It's still listed. She kept telling me on the phone, she's like, she's like, well, we're just gonna put it back on the market. I'm like, honey, it's on the freaking market. Let me just tell you something in SoCal, if it's on the market. Yeah. And no one, you're, I, I kept telling her, I was like, your agent would call you right now and be like, I've got 3 offers. Yeah. Like, it's on the market. Yeah. It's on Zillow, it's on Redfin, it's on the MLS. Like, she's like, well, no, no, our agent told us, it's like, I'm looking at it right now, baby. Yeah. He's going, look, I just want you to know, like, I'm, I'm being honest with you. Like, I was like, it's a hot commodity real estate in this spot. If it was priced right, you'd have people calling your agent and your agent would be calling you like, yeah. Hey, the prop, like, I got offers. Yeah. Yeah. So let's do this. I was like, so it, it's, and I, I get where she's coming from an emotional level. She spent a couple hundred grand fixing it up. It was a bad call. She didn't consult with the right people to do it. Right. But I was like, I can't buy that deal and then take on your bad burden. Yeah. I can help you out and make this work for both of us, but I can't just buy your bad deal. Exactly. And so I'm gonna call her tonight when this podcast is over.

Well, yeah. And I heard something over, did you guys know I went to DealMaker Weekend? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So you told me 7 times.

I was excited.

So at DealMaker Weekend, no, they just broke it down, which is like real simple. It's a, and we all know it. It's like, The way that these creative deals work is someone names the price and someone names the terms, and then it can work like that. But it can't be, I name the price and I name the terms. It's just, it's never gonna go to the closing table that way. So— That's great.

That's the way to look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Because what, over time, like theoretically, if someone's naming the price and the terms, it's not gonna be fair. It's not gonna be balanced.

Oh yeah, exactly. Because you could be like, I'll pay way over what it's worth, but I'll pay you something where I'm still cash flowing a bunch and then we both win.

But there's a balance to it. Again, I was riffing on Chris Voss, but I love this. We bought the masterclass, right, at the brokerage. And so I watched his whole thing, and he was talking about, like, it's about, like, coming to an agreement. Kind of like I was talking about with sex. Like, it's about you both are— you're both excited. I am excited. I love sex. I always think about it too. I'm like, what is better, like, reverse cowgirl or, like, just seeing my children smile? And I'm just like, I don't know, man. They're both so great. I love you both. boys, and I love my wife. Hi. But it is a great example, because I feel like it is so much about, like, you both have to come to the table and say, like, how do we get to the end together, not just for me winning and you losing? Like, the true art of the deal is, like, we're both stoked on what happened there.

Exactly.

And I kept telling her, I was like, if I got to take some risks on, so do you guys. And they were like, we won't. We can't, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, it's just not going anywhere.

Yeah. So now it's vacant.

So at DealMaker— was it called DealMaker?

DealMaker Weekend.

DealMaker Weekend. What was like the number one thing? Was that the number one thing you took away from it? Was that you can't have one person set the terms of the post or something else?

I can't tell you the number one thing. I'm not allowed to tell you.

This is like your Burning Man. There's so much going on. You're still processing, bro.

Still processing.

Still processing.

Yeah. No, it's just— no, that was just one of the things that kind of fit into this thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. So—

Was it muddy out there or something?

No.

I mean, he brought up Burning Man.

It's like, no, no, it's just that you get, you download so much, you get poured into so much that you have to, yeah, you take like at least like 4 weeks to really—

Like a good process. Yeah. Like a good book or experience it. Like it's gonna pop up, like you're gonna have epiphanies later. Like, oh yeah, this is what they were talking about. Right. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. This is good. Good stuff. Sounds good. Yeah.

Um, but, uh, you did just close on a property that you were, uh, agent On, um, out in Joshua Tree. Amazing property. And like you mentioned, this is one of those properties where this is the Joshua Tree property. This is the one where it's gonna, it's gonna get, you know, people in there. It's gonna get booked up. I don't know if they're using it as an investment. They are. Okay. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's absolutely beautiful. And, um, maybe you can—

Yeah. Was it, was it like that when they bought it or did they rehab it?

No, they, they, they bought a, a brand new, like turnkey.

Okay.

And it ticks off a lot of the boxes, the area, the lot size, what they can do with the property. I mean, you wanna look for a couple things when you're looking out there. Modern builds are huge for the renter. Now, breaking away from like the market of the pandemic and getting to like what is the longevity market of Joshua Tree where it's cash flowing and it's still great even when you see the headlines of like, oh, Joshua, Airbnbs are done, or whatever they, you know, whatever they say. I don't watch the news. I don't know what's going on. But I, I see these things.

Yeah.

I see 'em when I'm walking by and I hear people talk about 'em on their Instagram stories. So, uh, the longevity, the, the, the general market out there, you want these things that are, uh, properties that have great Instagrammable features and modern stuff, like modern builds, like do really well out there. And if you can get everything on your buy box found, I mean, that's like just top-notch where you're like, oh, this is gonna be great. So this property is just, it's just gorgeous. It's got a lot of space. Uh, it's gonna be, you know, knowing your markets there, you've got the, uh, you've got the downtown market, you've got residential market there, and you've got the deep desert. And this is a deep desert property, which is just, I think it's the best you can get. I mean, my buddy Patrick jokes that like when he first started going to Joshua Tree to invest, he's, uh, he's like, oh, it's on a dirt road. And now like, he's like, oh, it's on a dirt road. Like this might be a good one.

Yeah.

There's a lot of romanticism for us going out there, especially since a huge A huge part of the Airbnb guests, the vacation rental guests out there, are LA people trying to escape the madness of LA to just go somewhere where it's like, oh, it's like peace and quiet and like far from things and there's not as much light pollution and stuff like that. So this property's like down a dirt road. The avatar for the guests that you're gonna have there are gonna be some of the nude sunbathers. It's definitely gonna be like the stargazing people that don't mind that it's far away and they know ahead of time like, oh, I'm driving, it's gonna be a dirt road and it's gonna be like hard to find at night. That romantic thing is what they're looking for if you market that property, right? Also, it comes with an in-ground hot tub.

Ooh, there we go.

Yeah. So I think they do need to do an in-ground pool to really like bring it up to like top, like add value level of it.

Wow.

So it's like, it's turnkey officially, but like you definitely wanna put a pool in there at some point. But yeah, other than that, it's just like gorgeous little house. I know I feel good about it for my client when I'm like, I want this house. Yeah. Like, I call my business partner, I'm like, hey, Kamil, this is it. I fucking want this house, dude. Like, can we get it before I sell it to my client? Like, can we jump in there? I, I wrote a treatment for a, for a, a comedy where Will Forte is a billionaire, uh, real estate agent. And like, he just gets back at people, revenges people in his life by like outbidding them for properties. But he's the agent and it's just Will Forte going around like, hey, hey, I got it. Like just grabbing it. Like, so I joke about that with Kamil, but I'm like, yeah, dude, I, I feel it when I'm showing a client a property. I'm like, Like, ah, this is a good one, dude. Yeah. Yeah. So I felt that one with this one. I still feel it. In fact, I made a video about it and got a call from someone who's, who's now a client and I'm, I'm helping them find something. But they were like, uh, I actually just wanna buy that place. And I was like, oh dude, I'm sorry. It's already sold. I sold it. I helped my client buy it.

Did you see the video?

I hate to say I sold it cuz I feel like I'm not a salesperson, damn it. But I, I helped my client get it. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty exciting. Pretty exciting.

So, and that's like where they, they were looking for something in Joshua Tree. So how do you, how do you kind of find the ones that's perfect for your clients?

So we have like, uh, I've got like, you know, like a map layout where I know like, oh, that's, that spot's cool, that area is cool, that's not cool, that's not cool. Oh, that's cool right there. Um, I work with my buddy Patrick too, who also like knows the exact spots that he likes where his, uh, are all located, where he's like, those do really well, those don't. So you just kind of start knowing the magic sauce. And then, like anything in life, you just know what the property needs, and you go, hey, if we can have a Venn diagram that gets most of these things in the middle, we're good. And if we can get all of them in the middle, we're like, dude, this is just such— I mean, it's investing, so it's all risky at some level, but you're like, overall, you're like, this is just gonna be rock and roll show. I don't know if that answers the question.

Yeah.

I love it though. It's so exciting, like wielding the sword when you're like, oh, this is good. That's so freaking fun. I need more money. I need more money, 'cause I'm just like, I wanna buy that.

I wanna buy that. For sure.

I, uh, God, use other people's money. I had a guy, uh, I, on the phone, an agent let me call his client directly cuz I was trying to negotiate with this guy. And he is like, the client's just got their, in their head, they want something else. And I was like, let me just talk to this guy. I told this guy why I wanted to buy the property, what I was gonna do with it. He takes it, uh, he raised the price first, eventually took it off the market. I just talked to the agent today. This is like 6 months ago. Just talked to the agent today asking him some questions about another property he has. And I was like, hey, what ended up happening? He's like, yeah, he's putting in a pool and blah, blah, blah. And I just, I just literally, what do they call it when they spray the, Uh, starts with a G, right? When they do, when they spray the pool, the cement in there. Oh, after they've dug it.

Granite. Granite.

Is it granite? Granite? No, there's a different name for it. Great. Gro—

Gunite.

Groping.

Gunite.

Groping.

God.

He groped it. Gunite.

Gunite.

Yeah. Gunite. He just did the gunite. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I'm glad he took notes from me and kept the property. He's doing every value add that I planned on. Yeah. Um, good luck to you, sir. If you're watching this, I'm still gonna end up buying that. You're going to fail with that property. I'm just joking.

Mazel tov. I wish you the best.

Yes.

But I forgot where I was. I was so excited about that property. You get crushes on properties if you're into aesthetics. And I feel things when I walk in properties. I'm like, oh, I like the way this thing feels. And I'm like, I have a crush on that one. I still—

You sound very much like my wife. I got a call from— not female, guys.

OK. I was going to say, I'll kiss you for the right amount. I need to buy some property.

I'll get there. So I have a longtime investor. I've been— he's been investing with me for, geez, 10, 15 years now. Yeah. Um, and he called me, he said, hey, go look at this property in San Clemente. And so I went, I took my wife with me. Yeah, that was the first mistake, I guess, took her with me. She goes, how much they want for this property? Uh, $525,000 at the time, I think it was. Oh gosh, I think we should ought to keep this one for ourselves. I go, well, how do I do that? You know, call the guy back and say, yeah, my wife wants us to keep this for ourselves. So like, you're out. You know?

So anyway, that sounds like you. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I mean, well, what I was saying was like, what kind of like one of my litmus tests, the coal mine canary for me to know like when I'm doing right by my client is to know like, hey, I got that feeling for the property. Yeah. So I know when I'm advising my client, like, Because if I get the other feeling for the property, I'm like, there's something about it, I don't like it. I've told clients like, hey, um, you can do what you want, but I think we should move on.

So you have feelings?

Yeah.

You see dead people too?

No.

Well, I don't know.

Yeah, isn't that the whole thing about that movie? He doesn't know until the end. Like, wait a second, what? So maybe I do and I don't know it. That's right. I talk to a lot of inanimate objects. Yeah. Okay. My cats have great conversation skills.

Good feelings.

Mostly good feelings. Yeah. I try to, try to not stress about the bad vibes when I get them, you know, just move on quick, right?

Yeah.

Swim past it. But—

That works.

Yeah.

That's it.

I would love to buy some properties with your wife and just hold them and not, not, uh, not, not turn them in.

I'm sure she'd be happy too.

Yeah.

Well, there you go. Maybe there's a partnership forming here.

I, I do love the idea of holding properties though. Like, I mean, you and I've talked, I'm always just like, I just want to hold properties. I don't want to sell them and make a profit. I want to keep them. Like, it's— I like to— I like them.

Yeah.

I'm a Lego building kid. Like, I see the property, I'm like, oh, it's like a tangible, beautiful Yeah.

It's a real-life Monopoly.

Yeah. As long as they make dollars and cents, it's fine.

Yep. Yeah. That is the thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. We've been looking in different markets, possibly doing midterms, long terms, but it seems like, yeah, every time we kind of come up with an idea, then we find somebody who's like, midterm rentals are done.

That was like, I think— You know what I think is happening, Alex, which is frustrating, is kind of what we were riffing about earlier. It was like, Okay, the person advertising and selling the book on it, they're already there as an emerging market. And instead of looking at like the local real estate on the map as an emerging market, looking at a niche in real estate being an emerging niche, it's like by the time I'm reading the book about 30 Day Stay, which I love, that's a great book, it's like, oh, that niche has already kind of been like, it's started. Not to say it's done, but it's like, all this stuff involves work. And I was really excited to just have passive income. Where is that? Where is that? Am I out by the car wash from Breaking Bad? Just gimme something. I just wanna chill a little bit. And just know I got my bills paid.

It's good business.

Right? Car wash?

Good business, yes.

Yeah.

Good business.

Yeah.

All right. If I find a car wash, can we go in on one?

Coin-op laundry.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dude, when I lived in Mammoth, one of the professional snowboarders owned a coin-op and people used to talk about it. Like, he owns this coin-op. And I was like, what?

He's rich off of it.

Yeah.

Swimming in quarters.

Yeah, I was not paying much attention. I was like, that's so smart. This is, you know, 20-something years ago.

You go to his house and he's got a closet full of quarters in there, you know?

He's like, how much do we need to go out tonight?

It's almost like that politician that had Had gold bars in his jacket sewn in, and it's like, what the hell? What is all that about? Yeah, that's crazy. You gotta ask that.

It's weird. Yeah. Cling, cling, cling, cling. It's weird. Strange. Where do you get his jacket at? Brooks Brothers? I'll be there in a second.

Yeah. So, I mean, what what do you think the most truly passive thing in real estate is? If you had to guess, I know you know, but sleep. No, but like you can make money. Did you say sleep, Joe?

Oh, that's genius.

But like what what vehicle can you get into to where you're just straight collecting a check and not doing anything?

Well, you always have to do something. You have to generate something to get something passive back. Well, you— but there's different things, you know, like you were talking about rentals and stuff. Yeah, rental, you get passive income, but, you know, when something breaks, it's not passive anymore. You have to go out there and fix it, you know. Um, note investing, I would say. You know, you buy a note for $100,000 and you get the money coming in every month. You don't care what happens. Yeah, nothing's gonna happen. They're gonna keep paying you. If they don't pay you, then yeah, then you have to get up off your, you know, behind and go do something about it. But I can't think of anything else that would be like super, super passive.

I have money in a syndication.

That's boring to me though.

I have money in a syndication passively. Oh, there you go. So you just, you just sit there and watch.

Yeah. That's boring. It's like, you know what, put your money in the stock market. Same thing.

It's true. But I mean, at least it's in housing and not in the stock market. I don't know. I feel like it is more, uh, more valuable for society in real estate. And I, I am learning from being in somebody else's syndication as they're the operator. I like, like getting their emails and keeping up with it. My buddy's close with the, the, uh, you know, active partners. So I get kind of like little inside stuff. And so it, it's fun, But I guess that answers like passively, like that's a way to do it, but—

Is Bernie Madoff involved?

It's actually a Bernie Sanders fund. I'm once again asking for a cash call.

It's like early on my career, I was involved in a lot of syndication type stuff.

Yeah.

'Cause that's what we did back then, 40 years ago.

Yeah.

And now we get the same emails, you know, not, I didn't get emails 'cause we didn't have any emails, but I get the same, you know, like—

Pigeon dropping off little scrolls.

Yeah, monthly newsletters and stuff. Oh, we're doing great, we're doing great, it's going up, it's going up, you know. And then all of a sudden the next one is like, oh yeah, we've imploded, it's just not going good, you know.

But that's the market.

Okay, 1980, you know, I don't know if you're old enough to remember Jimmy Carter.

I was a little baby at the time, but I was alive.

Yeah, but if you like—

Jim Morrison was my mentor, actually.

If you remember back Jimmy Carter days, it's like déjà vu today.

Yeah.

You know, I bought my first— not my first house, my third house, 16% interest I was paying.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Inflation was out of control. You know, it's just like he couldn't send some people over to Iran to kick their butts and they got killed and then there was a lot of hostages. But anyway, that's a different subject.

Welcome back to the Joe Rogan Podcast again.

You look now and it's like, yeah, we've We got inflation, interest rates are at 7, 7.5, 8% around there, and we're in 2 wars now.

Dude.

So, it's like, what to say?

That's why I don't watch the news. It ain't happening. I don't know what you're talking about. 2 wars?

You haven't seen what's happening in your homeland?

Well, I'm American.

Wow.

I see, I have seen, and, you know, if you want to start getting into philosophy, I don't like— if it's not a tangible thing in front of me, I'm like, I don't know who to believe. believe about anything anymore.

Yeah.

I don't trust, like, I'm not a part of any political party. I don't trust, like, alternative news has turned into what people used to say about mainstream news.

Mm-hmm.

When they were like conspiracy theorists would be like, it's just a couple corporations running everything.

Yeah.

It's like, do you ever, like, read about asteroids? Have you ever watched some of the movies about asteroids where they're like, if we blow it up wrong, it'll just be 1,000 little asteroids. It's kinda like what happened to the media. Like, media was bad when it was just a couple corporate entities, like, telling us what the corporate masters wanted us to hear. And then they're like, now with YouTube, it's finally free media. And people can just— and then now I'm like, yeah, but a lot of them are just idiots spouting off stuff they don't really know about. And now we're just like misinformed by more people and not corporations. It's like, I don't know what to believe. So I, I don't know. Yeah, I don't keep up with it. I'm just like, pray to God that everybody gets through the portal that they're going through for pain and peace, my brother. I just want peace for humans to just thrive. That's it.

Off topic again, but I was on a Zoom call yesterday and, and the only reason I was on there is cuz this guy booked it. He wanted me to evaluate this software that he was developing. And it said Israeli time on it. And I go, whoa, that's interesting. So he pops up on the Zoom call and I go, are you really calling from Israel? He goes, oh yeah. I go, like, am I going to hear some bombs in the background? He goes, well, the last Zoom call I was on, yeah, there were some bombs. But I'm in Tel Aviv, which I mean, I couldn't tell you on the map where that was, but It's a little bit safer area. We only get bombs every once in a while. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Great. By the way, your software. Yeah, not so good. Moving on.

He's all, you dropped two bombs on me. So are you buying the software or not? No, no. That's it. That's his sales pitch. He's like, I'm dealing with so much over here. You gotta just buy a subscription. It's $29.99 a month, bro. Oh man. Yeah. Didn't work. That's so funny. Don't let him down. That's so funny. Well. Oh my God. Well, as far as you know, the you paying 16% interest back in the day. Uh, what's going on now? What, what, what's your, I mean, I, I know that people ask us, non-real estate professionals ask us all the time, like, uh, what do you think's gonna happen? And we go, yeah, let me look at my crystal ball, bro. But real estate agent to real estate agent, just candidly without anybody watching us except for the live footage. What do you, what do you, what's your prediction for like the next 6 months of real estate? And what do you think we should be doing to position ourselves?

If, if I told you that, I would have to charge you $25,000 for my course. That I don't have yet, but I'm writing, by the way.

Can I do a spit take? Does anyone mind if I do a spit take? I know this is really nice equipment.

I've been, I've been through 3 up and downs.

Yeah.

Okay. And they were like clockwork. Every 10 to 11 years, they were like here, you know? And it was like, first one, it was like, what the hell happened? I bought this condo for $50,000 subject to, by the way. I bought this condo 40 years ago, and I still have it. 40 years ago, subject to, $50,000, went up $125,000. Boom. First one went back down to $50,000. Oh shit, I should have sold it. You know, you think like you're in the stock market or something.

Yep.

But, you know, no. So I kept on, I held on to it. It went up to like $250,000 the next time and boom, went back down again. What the hell is going on with this real estate market? This last one, 2008, it was up to $500,000. Boom. It went back down to $100,000 this time. I'm going, whoa.

Really?

I go, whoa. Yes. Yes.

That was '08.

So what do you think I did when it went back down to $100,000? What would you do?

What would I do? I don't know if this is gonna— if there's a right or wrong answer. Personally, like, I do what I was taught to do when I read books about investing, is you just forget about it and you go, okay, cool. Like, I'll let I'll let it sit and come back up.

Would you do anything else if you had money?

You have— this is the caveat—

if you have money, you had 3 times you've experienced this. Oh, I would buy, buy, buy.

Everything's on sale. Things are on sale. That's what I did. I thought you meant with that property, like, would I get rid of it?

No, property's gonna stay, and, you know, my kids are gonna inherit that property, not me.

Or maybe me. I mean, I'm like your wife, right? We're really close. Yeah, that's true. Like, I would love to inherit it. Is it in the beach city in OC? Yeah.

No, no, back to your question, and to To answer your question, it's a different market right now. It really is. It's totally different. I thought when we got up to the 7 or 8% interest rates that the market was just gonna hit bottom again and was gonna fall apart. But here we are.

Yeah.

Okay. The, the 3 things that drive a market are interest rates. Yeah, we're up there again. You know, employment's also a big one.

Yeah.

But like, if you want a job nowadays, you, you can still have a job. It may, it may not be the, you know, being a comedian. Okay. But yeah, you roll right, you roll right into that real estate job.

Yeah.

And, you know, and the next thing is the banks. If the banks don't get crazy like they did in 2008 and they had all the warm body loans and yeah, we'll give you a loan on this property. How much do I need to put down? Nothing. 100%. You know, it's like, if they get crazy like that, that's the only thing that's going to bring the market down. But nothing's crazy other than the interest rates. That's the only thing crazy. So I don't see the market falling.

Yeah.

Like it did in 2008. And you see a lot of people, because I watch a lot of YouTube, you see a lot of people, and, and Alex says it's clickbait, it's gonna fall tomorrow.

Oh my God. Oh yeah.

It's like the end of the world, you know.

I don't see it.

Do you see it?

Oh, I don't see that. I mean, I try not to catastrophize after I made a promise to my therapist years ago. But I think that like the— I know multiple, I have multiple clients, I call 'em clients, but they're friends and family that I've been helping for years, try to move them along. Certain people are not motivated and you're just like, you back off. Some people you've known, they've come to you and you're trying to help them. I have a nice little, more than I can count, little handful of like friends that are either conspiracy theorists or just down that YouTube rabbit hole that have missed out on the market for the past 5 or 6 years. And they just keep telling me now, even now, I mean, I know people with incredible access to money that have seen inflation ravage their money and still say, I'm just, I'm waiting, it's about to crash. And I'm just like, okay, you just kind of look at like any conspiracy theorist, you're like, all right, man, like just go outside and see that that's the world. It's not in this little, the boob tube or whatever they call it now. So I, could they be right? The broken clock right twice a day thing? Sure. Like at some point markets crash, but I just look at it numerically again, like with my grade school math.

Yeah.

You go, here's this little area, right? Like I'm over in Glendora or, or La Verne, right? This little, little town, little city in the foothills. And there's 5 houses available in this neighborhood for less than $1 million, right? And I go, all right, we are in, one of the places in the world where people immigrate to from all over the world, where people invest from all over the world, not even immigrating, just coming over here and investing money for safety and security from their weird governments or whatever else. I don't see how, like, when you have 5 houses available, even if that goes to 10, how you're gonna drive prices so far down because it's just supply and demand.

Yeah.

Barring something catastrophic with employment and the dollar and, you know, the Zimbabwe effect or whatever, runaway inflation or deflation or whatever. I'm like, I don't see that and I don't wanna bet on that. I also, like, I, the other thing is from a spiritual sense, I have these people that are like, I'm just praying for a market crash. I'm like, you asshole. You're getting down on your knees and begging your God or whatever it is for everyone to have a catastrophic failure of the economy, for people to lose their life support physically and financially so you can get a discount on a house? Little bitch. Fucking find a friend and figure out how you guys can go in together and buy your expensive house. Don't be praying for a crash. That's the Bruce Lee thing, like, pray for the strength. Don't pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to get through a tough one. It's like, I mean, who doesn't want an easy life? I mean, sure, but who's gonna sit there and put that energy out there like, I just hope the market crashes so bad that a house in Costa Mesa is only $300 grand? It's like, do you realize that you will have to have way more bullets and skills with your sidearm If it gets that bad? Like, I don't want to barbecue human meat. Like, I, you know, like, just save up and get a good house and pray for it to go good.

I had a client— Now back to Joe with a little bit of a square perspective. It wasn't a client. It was a guy who booked an appointment to have lunch with me. And we sat down, we started to talk, really nice guy. And he says, Joe, I've been stalking you for 10 years.

Yeah.

I go, what do you mean? What are you talking about? Oh, I've been following you on LinkedIn for 10 years.

That's how old Joe is, guys. He's been on LinkedIn for 10 years. But anyways, I go, thank God.

I didn't feel you stalking me. But why were you stalking me? Well, you know, I was gonna buy some stuff and then I changed my mind and I, you know, left California and I bought something over there and came back and Like, look what happened. And I go, you know, I have people like you tell me that all the time. It's like, yeah, Joe, I'm calling you again. You remember we talked like 3 years ago and you told me to invest? And yeah, I think I'm gonna start thinking about it. You know, it's like, and I get a lot of those calls right before tax season in April.

Oh.

Because people meet with their accountant and the accountant goes, oh shit, you're like, you better Like, invest in something here, you know, to get some depreciation. Because if not, Uncle Sam's gonna grab all your money, you know. And like, so I do— I still get a lot of those calls that you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and what do you— what do you do when someone tells you that? Do you say, all right, let's do it, and test out their motivation to be like, are you— oh, absolutely, put the work in if you're ready.

I know they're not gonna do anything. Yeah, you know. Yeah, but you know, they just call me to tell me that they're ready now.

Yeah. Right. I just, yeah. You don't feed those that aren't hungry. You just go like, all right, cool. Like, let me know. I'm out here working. Like, if you need it, I'm here in the fields. But, uh, the ones who are actually motivated to call you and say, hey, I talked to my accountant. I wanna do a cost segregation this year. Um, how can you help me out? Oh, I, I can get you something in this market. What kind of cash flow are you looking for? Oh yeah, there's something here. Like, let's get your preapproval. Let me get your preapproval on file. Your, your proof of funds, you know, screenshot's good. I have a whole thing. I'll tell 'em, get that on file, set you up with a search. I'll validate everything that you say you like from my search.

Totally.

to handpick things. If you can't go, I'll go out there and film it for you, give you my honest opinion. Or if you can go, I'll set up showings. And before you know it, it's just like shopping. You'll be like, this meets all the criteria. You're pre-approved, you got your money, let's go do it. And they do it. Oh, I need to sell this first. All right, let's sell your property first. We'll do it this way and this way and this way. Here's what we can get for it. And the people that want to do it, it's like, okay. They, they go, yes, cool, let's team up together. And I That's all you can ask for in this, uh, in real estate. It's like people that like are smart and want to team up, have their own ideas, but also flexible in the right spots. And just, and then everybody else, you're like, all right, man, but I just know you're going to complain about the way the world works in a couple years. Just because you're like, why do you guys do— it's like, well, we tried to get you to take the risks with us and you wouldn't. And now you're mad. Like, bro.

Yeah.

You know, like, you want to play, pick up a stick and shoot the puck with us. But if you're going to sit over there, like, what are you doing? It's frustrating. I mean, it's tough. I mean, money's tough for a lot of people. I get it. You know, I was brought up with like a, like a clenching, you know, like the immigrant, like, oh God, don't— they're gonna, they're gonna rip you off. If you lose that money, you'll never get money again. And like, so I had to like break away from that eventually. And like, I try to get some of my artist friends to do it, and some of them do. Some of them buy a brand new BMW, and you're like, okay, that's, that's a depreciating liability. I taught you about that.

Yeah.

You can't buy the Okay, that's fine. Then you just move on to this person, be like, you, would you like to invest and do something for your future? How about you get a Honda and buy some property like me? The inflated ego. I'm doing it right, even though I don't know if I'm doing it right. It's a quick journey, just riding the wave.

Oh God, I've got a, uh, a real estate question for you. Oh God, because I know we're running like over on time. I thought this was a philosophy. Do we have Do we have anybody on, uh, asking any questions or anything, or are we just like dark here sleeping? Anyways, uh, let me ask you this.

Yes.

You've heard of the NAR lawsuit?

Yeah.

Okay.

I, I know as much of that as I do about the, uh, conflict in the Middle East. I'm like, yeah, they'll figure it out.

Okay. So my, my question is, I'm a seller of a property. I'm gonna list my property. I'm gonna hire you. Yeah, and I'm gonna say I'm gonna pay you 3%, but I'm not gonna pay a buyer's agent 3%. I want you to list my property for zero. Yep. To the buyer's agent.

Okay. Yep. Tell me. Tell you why that's a hilarious idea? No, tell me.

Tell me what you would tell them or what your feelings are. I would ask them.

I'd say, hey, like, is your bottom line important to you? Like, or is it knowing that you're getting a leg up on someone by not paying a buyer's agent? Like, is it an emotional thing where you're like, I don't want to be ripped off more than I have to, and agents make more than they want? Or is it your bottom line?

It— can you tell me—

Are we role-playing right now?

No. Can you tell me that I'm going to get less buyers? Okay. I remember we're in 2023, we're not in 1980.

I won't talk in absolutes cuz I'm just not an absolutist. So I'm not gonna say you won't get, but I would say it's highly likely that you're gonna leave money on the table and subconsciously a lot of real estate gets done. And what I mean by that is, um, officially, yeah, you're gonna get, you're still gonna get a buyer and you're still gonna get top dollar. And no agent's supposed to deny their client that because we take an oath like, hey, my client found the 3-bedroom, 2-bath that they want on the corner of 123 Main Street. I gotta go get it for 'em even if there's no payment for me. But you bet your sweet little tuchus, That when I'm going through and I have 5 people calling me that day and I have appointments to make and one of them says 0% commission, I'm like, what kind of weird deal is that? Like, I get immediately suspicious when it's less than 2% of like, who's listing this? Because like, just out of like the general like stature of an adult, just being like, what? I wouldn't take a client's listing that said offer 1.5% as a commission for a small— if you're luxury, sure. But like for regular— people's houses. So I'm gonna tell them that. I'm gonna give them that spiel and say, like, you have to understand that even though an agent's supposed to, if they have 5 people they need to help that day and everyone else is paying them commission, they're probably just by matter of priority gonna be like, I'll get to that later.

But don't you think that buyer's just gonna go around you?

It's possible.

And go to the listing agent directly?

It's possible. And here's where I'm not as good as people that are hardcore salesperson. Like, I'm much more excited and look in the mirror at myself, like, as a happy person being Like, I'm a consultant that like teams up with my clients and helps them buy or sell stuff, but I'm, I'm not good at that. Like, and I, and maybe that's a fault, you know, maybe it was a fault for me. You know, we're doing a therapy session now. Maybe it was a fault for me when I was in entertainment too. But like, if the door gets slammed on me like that, I'm just like, oh, okay, I'll just go where the door's gonna get open.

Wouldn't you like ask the buyer, hey, they're offering nothing. Are you able to pay me 2%?

Yeah. I mean, I, if, if I have to go to that, I, I guess we will in the future because what I do see happening, my prediction is that while the middle class is being sold this whole, like, it's easy, click a button and it's done, right? For everything, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like Purplebricks was trying to do and, uh, Opendoor and all these companies. Middle class is gonna eat that up. And I actually lost a deal a couple years ago to someone who was like, we went with Redfin. And I was like, really? Like, because they're, they don't, they're just not trained to, like, think about this stuff, right? And they're just gonna be like, oh, that's way easier. It's like when Saab said that they weren't gonna let you negotiate on the price. It's like, that's not to your benefit. That's for you to walk in and pay their sticker price on things. But people be like, it's easier, you know?

Yeah.

So I think the middle class is going to eventually be like, oh, my AI negotiated it for me, or whatever else. And they, you know, whatever they do, pay however they pay. And I think upper class luxury people are gonna just continue to hire, like human beings to do things for them that like only human beings can do until AI can outdo that. But like, I think that like luxury buyers and sellers and people that make good money or work with humans regularly face to face are gonna be like, yeah, of course I want an agent to do that. Like, what am I, a broke loser? Like, and then middle class and poor people, and that's probably gonna be the same thing at some point, right? Are gonna be like, oh dude, I just pressed the button. I got this house. I'm so happy. Oh, I gotta go to bed. I have to be up at 4 'cause I have to commute 6 hours.

I mean, so you think the people that it's supposed to help—

No offense to anyone watching too.

Yeah, you think the people that it's supposed to help, it's gonna hurt?

I think it usually does. But, but I also think with progress, some things that I'm saying are like, oh, it's not going to be a thing to worry about because there's also like hidden miracles in it too. So it's like, is it bad? Is it good? I, I think I'll just hopefully, you know, if I, if I'm blessed enough to be working with people that are still looking for an actual Agent with you know one brain and two balls, but you know that just makes you more. It's just like regulation in the short-term rental world. It just makes you more valuable when you're like, "Oh, I'm a professional, so I can play by those rules." And they're suntanned as well. And they're suntanned, right? One brain and two tan nuts. Don't ask my wife. She's not that tan. I appreciate your comment. Yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate the question.

It hasn't changed my mind, but I appreciate your comment.

What what is your feeling on it?

No, no, I'm not gonna say.

No, I'm excited here. No, I'm not gonna say. But you've got the wisdom. I'm just a A, a, a dipshit. Can I cuss? I'm just a dipshit that spouts ideas.

I think the writing on the wall, and you kind of alluded to it, the buyer's agent is going to be a thing of the past.

You think so?

Yeah, it's going to go dinosaur. I think we're going to go—

I don't like being a dinosaur.

Especially to, you know, like you said, to this AI stuff. You know, you see, you actually see it today. You know, when you write an offer, you go on the MLS because I'm sure we have the same one.

Yeah.

There's a little button there. It says, submit an offer.

Yeah.

You, you walk through that, it takes you to Glide, and you just put the basic stuff in.

Yeah.

The contract, the legal contract.

Yeah.

Okay. It's gonna be the same thing for the public.

Yeah.

You know, it's gonna be listed out there. They're gonna go, hey, put an offer here. Just push this button.

Oh, it's gonna be easier than that. Like, you're not gonna have to— okay. You ever go to like a sightseeing or go to a museum, like in, like you go to New York and you go to MoCA or whatever, and they give you the little headphones and you can listen to it.

It tells you what— Alcatraz. I was just—

Alcatraz, right? Yeah. It's, uh, Joe's like, that's my art museum. Alcatraz. He's like, paintings I don't understand. Yeah. This is where Al Capone took a dump. I'll take it. Yeah.

There you go. There you go.

So you get the little thing on, on your side, right? Yeah. And you, you listen to it and you're like, oh, it's like kind of guiding me through it. I'm like, AI is like right around the corner from that. Yeah. It's like the movie Her, you know, with Joaquin Phoenix, but it'll be realtors doing that and lawyers and all the other stuff. I, I mean, I honestly, yeah, no more buyer's agent. It's like, I kind of like the excuse of like, I can't help you with that. I get, get fucked. You wanna buy something? Good. Have fun. Let me know when you wanna sell it. Cool. I just take that off my to-do list and like, I'm gonna go for a bike ride. Maybe I'm making less money. Maybe I'm making more from just helping sellers. I don't know. Uh, I think maybe you could make a business out of like, did you get burned by your AI buying a crappy building and you're caught up in a 200-year contract? Like, hire me. I don't know. Maybe I'll get my, my lawyer degree or whatever they call it. I don't know.

The AI's going to tell them everything. It's going to say, here, this is a great buy and this is why, because we've done all the calculations and everything for you. This is a no-brainer. Do it. Either do it or we're going to find somebody else that's going to press that button.

I think when we get to that point though, Joe, I'm like, I mean, getting back out of the real estate and just getting back to my favorite thing to do is talk philosophy or just life or whatever. It's going to be unrecognizable in a lot of ways, like life. So I don't know. like if it's sooner than later, but I know that the, the actors, uh, with their, their union lately, one of the big gripes was like that the studios were like, no, we will not guarantee that we won't like use AI and copy your image and do it. And it's like, I thought it was like humans like trying to work together so we could all have jobs. And now we already have humans in corporate like master positions going, yeah, I don't, I'm not worried about my fellow humans. And you're like, um, dude, the robots are gonna win so fast.

Yeah.

But maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. Maybe they'll cure cancer and like there won't be real estate jobs to have and I could I just want to go to the beach for once, you know? Right? We're so close to it.

I just want to go to the beach. Maybe you'll get to the point where you don't have to work at all.

Yeah, I think you still want to be of service. I think, you know, I think humans are—

It's kind of like retirement for me. It's like, if I retire, what the hell do I do? You know, I go to the beach, sit there for 15 minutes in the sand and go, okay, what do I do next?

I mean, yeah, maybe we're all just like going to be like Buddhists, like meditating and be like pros just sitting everywhere like this. Like, oh wow, dude, I'm in the moment.

I'm in the moment, man.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Better totally be so proud of us.

Don't disturb him.

He's in the moment.

That's Joe's nightmare.

That's Joe's nightmare. The moment. Yeah, I'm going back to Alcatraz.

Yeah.

But, but Joe, I think, I think like there's so many changes on the horizon of that, that I just have faith that overall humanity's got like tunnels to go through, but we'll be all right because we generally are. And then I, no matter where people are on their political spectrum or whatever else, you know, you interact with people and it's like humans generally, at least of a certain class of people, look out for each other and want to keep the tribes, you know, going in a positive, supportive way. So hopefully there'll be jobs for us still with real estate, or we'll be working alongside like real estate AI, and we'll just— they won't just be the bosses, but we'll, you know, work with them or whatnot.

Or like I said, if this makes any sense, so they're complaining about the 6%.

Yeah.

But the attorneys who won the case, oh, I think it's 30%.

I saw there was like a billion-dollar thing that they were trying to—

yeah, like maybe It's like, how are you complaining about 6% if your attorney's getting 30% out of this deal?

I mean, I don't know when it happened, but expecting any more from a large group of people being fed stuff from the media, what do you expect them to do but act exactly like how they're predicted by the masters that put that stuff out there? Masters, master bedrooms, or master media. I don't know. Yeah, I don't expect people to react much Like, like they do as individuals as a group. So I'm just like, of course.

Well, I'm gonna try it. That's what, to answer your question, I'm gonna try it.

Yeah.

Yeah. How much bad feedback you think I'm gonna get? From, from agents. From agents by saying like, hey, zero on the buy side. But then it goes zero.

I mean, I just honestly—

Would you call? Like, huh?

Would you call me if it's—

I'm sorry. Well, I mean, now we know each other, so you may call me.

No, because I don't look, when I see a lower than 2%, on a regular priced list. If you, if you're looking at a $3 million or a $5 million listing or whatever, and you're like, okay, like they're still breaking off a large chunk for fees and okay, they're— but if I'm looking at, uh, a $900,000 condo and it's 1.75%, I'm like, who's this agent? They're gonna be a nightmare to do a deal with. Like immediately I'm thinking like, who's this part-timer that's like, I'm helping my family. You, we all know that guy. And if you're watching this and you're a part-timer helping your family, no, you're You're not. You're a jerk. not, you're not gonna show up then.

Is that what you're saying?

If, I mean, thank God I'm busy right now. So no, I'm just gonna be like, oh dude, yeah, that looks like it's gonna be a nightmare. I don't trust it. There's something fishy. The same way when they show you a property, when a client sends you a property that other things are red flags and you're like, this isn't good. I'll call the agent to find out. But yeah, am I, am I gonna have time to call an agent that's listing something at 1%? I'm gonna be like, this is kooky.

I think you alluded to before, do you set people up on drip emails?

Yeah.

Okay. Have you ever set 'em up on a drip email that says, do not send anything less than 2%?

No.

No?

No.

Seriously?

No. I mean, if a client wants to see something, I mean, ethically, like I thought that, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I just assumed since I've always been a naughty boy that gets in trouble, I'm like, we probably have to show 'em no matter what. So like, if they see something, I'm gonna look into it for 'em. But like, I'm just busy. So it's like a, what do you call it? A utilitarian decision to just be like, yeah, I don't have time for that one. I don't know what's gonna go on. Like real estate is a freaking amazing dream job when you're dealing with great agents and great clients. When you're dealing with nightmare clients and nightmare agents, it's a nightmare. Mm-hmm. And it's like, dude, you work so hard for so no pay so often. They're like, if it looks like a nightmare, I'm just like, nah, it's cool. You guys have fun. I'm too, I'm too old for this.

I'm gonna put you on the spot again. Yeah, dude.

Sorry. Put me on the spot. I like this. I'm sorry. On the spot with John Chesky and Joe.

The most difficult transactions do you have? And I'm sorry for this question, but no, dude, the most difficult—

tell me I'm a young whippersnapper out there.

Transaction you've had, is it with a male on the other side or a female?

Oh, man. He's trying to trick me. This is cancel culture. It was a trans person, actually. No, that's a great question. My very first deal, I had an agent that knew I was new, and she was so abusive to me that my mentor would put it on speakerphone and mute it and just be like, it's all good, dude. It's all good, dude. And I was like, okay. And I'd be like, what do I tell her? So I've been brutalized here or there, but I mean, even doing deal right now with an agent that I'm like, is, is very exhibiting signs of paranoid personality disorder. And like, I'm just like, what are you trying to make this so difficult for? Like, my client's super cool, did everything you asked, we released contingencies. Like, what are you doing? I mean, it doesn't matter, you know, if they got an innie or an outie, they're just— people are trouble, you know? And you know, when you start to— when you get far enough into the deal too and you didn't know it was going to be that way, you're like, you seem cool. And then now you're like, he's not cool. He's like, abort, abort. But you're just Like your client wants this property and you're gonna get there. And, and you, so, uh, yeah, I can't, I can't say who's, who's been better or worse. I definitely can say this, that different areas, because I, I'm a road dog realtor going to different spots, you get used to like when you call an agent in Glendale, how they answer the phone versus when you call an agent in Redondo.

Like, do they actually answer the phone?

Oh dude, it's the best. You can just see the Affliction shirt in the background.

95 outta 100 agents that I call don't even answer the phone.

Dude, Glendale, like you literally will have agents that go like, what? And you're like, really? Hi, is this the right number? I'm calling about the condo on by the Grand or whatever this is, the Brand place. And they're like, oh yeah, what? And you're like, how did you get a listing? Like, that's what, that's what I always say. Whenever a listing agent's kooky, I'm like, how'd you get the listing? Like, I can't imagine like walking into a listing. Maybe that's their technique. Yeah. I want an agent who's gonna represent my property that is just so cutthroat and mean. They're gonna get me the most How many pictures did they have posted?

Yeah, cell phone pictures.

Yeah. I didn't care when I saw the 3% buyer's agent commission. I was like, they're legit. This one's going to close. I like that.

Oh, it's good stuff, man. I love it, dude. Right on. Well, that was a hoot like I knew it was going to be. So much fun. Yeah. So if you guys have any residential real estate questions, you need a property listed, or John was joking, he does represent buyers. Give him a call for now. And especially with Joshua Tree, even if you're, you know, you're thinking of buying, you know, like some sort of investment, or you're gonna— I don't know, people do live out there.

So, you know, like Tatooine, the Tusken Raiders, the sand people are in the hills there. There's a lot of bantha riding and meat out there. It's good. It's hot during the summer.

Give him a call. What's the best way for people to reach out to you?

Uh, there's a, uh, should I, should I give 'em the, my, uh, wherever you want, Calendly link on my YouTube channel? Yeah. Go to my YouTube. It's, uh, Chef Real Estate, S-H-E-F-R-E-A-L-E-S-T-A-T, Chef Real Estate at YouTube. I got a Calendly link in there. Book a free consult with me, find out if we're a good fit, and if we are, let's rock and roll, baby. Let's do it.

Heck yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

Thanks for having me, guys. This is so much fun.

Absolutely.

What a, yeah. What a pleasure.

Yeah. Hey, and, and before we go, let me know what you guys think. I'm gonna do a 0% listing to a buyer's agent, so I want you to give me in the comments down there what your opinion is on that. So clickbait this. Yeah, 0% listing.

We're gonna do it. We're gonna do—

we're gonna make some content out of it and see, see what kind of calls we get.

See what, see what happens.

In fact, if you're watching this right now and you want to put me through some pain, hire me as your buyer's agent and let me do the deal with Joe for 0% and we'll film the whole damn thing.

Ooh, there's that. That's, that's good.

I like that. That is good. Oh my God. That's good. That's good content. I mean, it'll be worth it right now.

That's good content. And we'll let you know when the property is, uh, coming live and, uh, you know, maybe we'll feature it on the show. So nice. Yeah. Um, but, uh, we'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much. And, um, it's been a real blast. Make sure you share this far and wide with your friends, new or experienced investors. See you next time.

Take care. Thanks, guys. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.