Philip Taldo: From Flipping Burgers to Buying Dirt. Developer, Builder, Broker, Landlord, and Community Advocate.

We sit down with Philip Taldo to trace how a Tontitown  upbringing turns into decades of Northwest Arkansas real estate deals, from selling homes to building subdivisions and rentals. We talk through the market crashes, the practical decisions that kept the lights on, and the habits that still matter if you want a long career. 
• Growing up local in Tontitown and learning work ethic early 
• Leaving the restaurant business and getting a real estate license in 1978 
• Starting at a brokerage and learning by doing 
• Buying a real estate company early and facing 18% to 20% interest rates 
• Prospecting the hard way and treating real estate as a people business 
• Building a niche by learning FHA and VA loans 
• Moving into subdivision development and finishing dozens of projects 
• Studying zoning and city standards to reduce mistakes and delays 
• Starting a construction operation to build through the 2008 crash 
• Buying rentals with a one-a-year goal and using assumable loans 
• Selling fourplexes and using a 1031 exchange to step into larger land plays 
• Merging companies in 2009 and choosing trust over fear 
• Taking on public leadership roles tied to growth and infrastructure 
• Advice for new agents on training, confidence, goals, and hard work

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Transcript

Philip Taldo: From Flipping Burgers to buying Dirt

PT 0:00

Let's do this.

Carter 0:05

Hey, welcome to uh NWA and Beyond, your real estate podcast. So we're lucky today have my good friend, business partner, mentor, all those things, Philip Taldo. So, Philip, welcome to the pod. Thanks for sitting down and doing this with us today. Thank you, guys. I needed a break. Well, perfect. Well, hey, PT. So, what we want to do is just kind of go through and visit about you, kind of talk about your story, about your before real estate life, your real estate life, your business interest, all that sort of thing. So let's start off and just kind of talk about where you're from, how you grew up, and then how you got the real estate business. So you're a you're you're one of the few locals in Northwest Arkansas.

Tontitown Roots And Early Jobs

PT 0:55

Well, that I am. Uh I was born in uh technically in Fayetteville at the Old City Hospital. That was the only hospital they had around here in 1950. But uh I actually grew up in Tontitown. Uh my mom and dad were both Tontitown people. My grandparents were all Tontitown people, and that just happens to be where I landed.

Carter 1:26

That's awesome. So you grew up in Tontitown, and then what did you do before you got in this real estate business?

PT 1:34

Well, um I went to Springdale High School, um had kind of a good time playing football there and and uh then o moved on to the University of Arkansas and not playing football. Yeah, that's right. And uh anyway, so um uh I just worked my way around doing labor stuff on the farm, on the worked for a gas station, pumping gas, changing tires, uh hauling hay at night. Uh you know, all that fun stuff.

Carter 2:19

Good life growing up in Tinetown.

Russell 2:21

Good life. You played under uh Coach Williams? Coach Gerald Williams, yes. Yeah, he was uh What was that like? You know what? It wasn't until the second half of my senior year that I ever saw him smile. That's the truth. Was he a disciplined guy? Oh man. Yeah. Yes, yes, he was. I mean, we you didn't you you didn't mess around with him. If you were if you lost, you were running lines at night, as well as it was.

PT 2:52

That's right, yeah, that's right. I've heard all the stories about that. So then how'd you get in the real estate business? So what got you to take off and uh getting your license and all that sort of thing?

Restaurant Owner To New Realtor

PT 3:04

Well, uh something got into me uh a couple years after I got married, and and I decided to uh get in the restaurant business. So that was about 1974, and I built a little kind of dairy queen type thing out at Tontitown.

Carter 3:24

Is it still there today?

PT 3:26

Uh well, yes and no. Uh there's still the building's still there uh, but it's now Mama's. Oh yeah. So if you know where Mama Z's is, that's the place. And um, you know, I uh I learned how to fry hamburgers and make milkshakes and chili dogs and all that good stuff, but after three or four years, I I got bored staying inside all the time. And I thought, man, I need to find something that I'm not dependent on somebody walking through that door over there to whether I make a living or not. You know, I need something where I can go out and get the people. So um I kept my eyes open. About that time, my wife decided that we needed a new house, and and uh she was out looking. She called me one day and said, Here, I want you to look at this house. And so um I took off and went and looked at it with a real estate agent, and we were coming back, and I said, How do you how do you get in this business? I think I'd like to do this. You know, this looks like something I want to do. And she said, Well, I've got some books at the office, and we'll just I'll give them to you, and then you read them up and and take the test. So that's kind of what I did. And uh um gotten the business. That was about 1978. It's good.

Carter 5:02

So, where did you start your career at? So, where did you hang your license and get going? And what was the I I think something that's always interesting to people when they when they hear about people that have been in real estate for a long time, they're like, how did you start like what was your first year like? What was your first couple of years getting off the ground and and figuring it out, knowing that, all right, I got this restaurant, now I'm gonna get my license. Now, how do you how do you get to where you're the Philip Tauto of today?

PT 5:30

Well, you know, I I I got my license because I knew I had to have that, and uh within a couple of months, uh this uh fella came in, one of my customers, and said, are you ever interested in selling this? He said, My I got my son that lives in Fort Smith, and I'd like to get him, he run the pizza hut down there, and I'd like to get him up here close to home. And are you interested in selling it? And I said, Come on back here, buddy. And uh let me introduce you to this uh fry machine. Yeah, so anyway, we've uh within within a couple of weeks we had the deal made, and within a month, uh he took it over, and uh so my license, you know that agent I was telling you about that uh gave me the books. Well, she's the only real estate agent I knew then. I didn't know any others, you know. So I'd I asked her, I said, where do I go to work at? And she said, Well, you come over to my place, or it wasn't her place, where she worked. Right. And I felt comfortable with her, and and that's what I did. And, you know, that was the right thing to do. It was a smooth takeoff.

Carter 6:54

Absolutely. So then when did you and Gary get together, and when did y'all become business partners? And how did all that stuff work?

Owning A Brokerage During High Rates

PT 7:02

Well, I've been in the business a couple of years, and um things were um I was always kind of an adventurer, and I'll and I'll say I I got in the business uh and worked at Sunset Realty for a year and a half or two years, and then I knew this uh I ran into this old guy that had a real estate company and uh he was gonna retire and I said would you sell it to me and carry it? And he said, sure, and he did. And uh so I bought it. And uh so I did that for a year or so, and that's when we had the big uh interest rate crash deal when Jimmy Carter was president and it was rates were 18, 20, yeah, yeah, 20 percent. And uh there I was. I'd only been in the business two or three years, and I owned a real estate company. I thought, what am I doing? Hey, I feel you.

Carter 8:16

I I didn't even have my license, you know, I own one. Kind of the same path.

PT 8:21

Yeah. What am I doing? So uh, you know, I thought, well, so uh this this agent came in, Gary Carnes, matter of fact, and uh I told him, man, I said, I'm sweating at this deal. He said, Why don't you come over and talk to Gary Griffin? That's where he was working, and I said, Really? And he said, Yeah, come on over. And so I called him and set up an appointment, went over, talked to Gary Griffin. He had about an 800 square foot freestanding office building with about four people, four agents in it. And um we talked a little bit, and um he said, You go home and think about it, and I'll think about it, and then we'll get together. I said, Okay. So we we both were okay with that, so I went to work over there. That's awesome. And what year was that? That was probably 81.

Carter 9:30

All right.

PT 9:32

That's awesome. 81, and then and and I mean to tell you, there was like four or five of us in that whole office, and and um we just did things the hard way. We we'd go out up and down knocking on doors and handing out cards and stuff that I'd never even heard of before.

Carter 9:56

Right. I'll just this so what's interesting is the prospecting activities aren't that much different. They're just a little bit a little bit tweaked. You're still it's still a people business. It's still a people business.

PT 10:12

So I I I got to think, I thought, I gotta figure out how to get my niche in this business somehow.

Finding Edge With FHA VA Loans

PT 10:20

So um I started um, we had just started a multi-list, and we had a little thin book. There was one hundred thousand dollar house and nothing any higher than that one uh in Springdale and the whole get up. And uh anyway, so I looked to see what kind of what was selling. I got a sold book, and I thought, well, that's where I need to go. What's selling, you know, get in that market. Yeah. And uh then I decided I'd uh learned how to do uh uh FHA and VA loans, and uh nobody here who did them. One little office here in Springdale would actually do uh FHA or a VA. So what were most of the loans at that time?

Carter 11:14

Was it just conventional budget? Conventional consumables at that time, too, wasn't there? Was that a thing yet? Or was that a little down the road?

PT 11:23

It was just starting about that time. And it was the FHA and VA and uh what they call bond money, um, which what they were were secondary market loans guaranteed by uh FHA VA or a bond. Right. So that was a big that that was kind of a big deal.

Russell 11:47

Yeah, it's interesting to see it's still on the contract as a financing option. Oh, really? Assumable loan? Yeah. Yeah. Loan to be assumed by and all the details, but I think a lot of people just don't ever need it, you know, that so they don't ever use it.

PT 11:59

Well, uh, you know, they just they they backed out of uh doing that because whenever you assume a loan, uh you don't assume the liability on it. It stays with the first owner, maker of that note. And everybody was pretty naive back then, didn't realize that was the chasing rates, they weren't chasing the actual technicalities of it. That's right.

Starting Subdivisions From Ten Acres

Carter 12:24

So you got you and Gary took off, and then as you grow the Griffin Company, I mean, where we merged was in 2009. So between between 1980 and 2009, the Griffin Company was growing. You were adding great people, a lot of them that are still here today or recently retired. Yes. You also got in the development business. So so how did you go into that avenue of I think Russell, I'll tell you something. You can ride around in the car with PT and he can look at a piece of dirt and imagine the houses out there. He can picture them. So how did how did you get into the development piece of it? Because you've done a bunch of developments over that time too.

PT 13:05

Well, you know, the first the first six or eight years, we were still fighting that interest rate, and nobody was building houses, all the builders were shut down, there was uh a lot of inventory setting everywhere, and then about in in uh 86, 87, business started picking up and then because interest was going down. Right. And uh then it started picking up more, and I was watching the inventory out there on lots, and I said, man, we're getting low on inventory. And nobody was really fired up about doing a subdivision because of what they had just been through. And I said, there was a uh a fella, older fellow, builder, developer, and I kind of sold his houses. He kind of took me under his wing, you know, and uh he said, you need to buy that 10 acres next to me over here and and do a subdivision. I thought, well, he thinks I can do a subdivision. And uh uh sure enough, he said, I'll hold your hand. And uh so I went and bought the 10 acres. Um it was owned by Fidel Biory. Have you ever heard of that guy? Yeah, Foddle. Yes, I bought the 10 acres from him and put a street down the middle of it, made 30 lots, and uh I thought I had died and gone to heaven, man. I tell you what, it just uh it was interesting, it was different than just selling, you know, because you can kind of you can really just create something. Right. And you learn more about the ins and outs of uh the engineering part and the building part, and and that's what got me started. So we're have most of them been in Springdale and how many have you done? Uh yeah, most of them have been in Springdale. Um I've done about probably 35 subdivisions. That's awesome. Probably the bit the one no doubt about it. The the biggest one was one in in Rogers. It was 120 acres, and it was um I I got that one finished just in time for the next crash. Oh, the Lord had his hand on you on that one. Lord holding your hand if you use that one right in time. That's right. But uh anyway, that but I I got to where I just really enjoyed the the process.

Carter 16:00

It's pretty amazing being able to put that product on the ground and then see homes on it, see families out in the subdivision, see see kind of what it creates. It creates lifestyle, and that's that's totally different part of just selling a home or uh selling like a multifamily or an investment or whatever. You get to see the end result where you get kids riding around on their bikes or families in their house barbecuing on the backyard. It's a whole different deal.

PT 16:26

I love that part of it, and I love whenever people uh after you get it fit finished and people brag about where they live and and the pride of ownership created this. They love it, and uh I think, yeah, good. That's uh that's what I was going for.

Carter 16:46

That's awesome. It's interesting to me now, like there's a lot of people that think they want to be a developer until they start the process.

Knowing City Rules Better Than Most

Carter 16:53

And a lot of times right now, it's a lot of the municipality challenges of putting the putting the subdivision in. It's either going through the city process or even if it's in the county, what was the process like for you when you started doing it compared to what it's like today when you go through it with the city and all that sort of thing? I know there's a lot more red tape, I'm sure, but what is it what's the biggest difference?

PT 17:15

At that point in time, you know, there they're it wasn't on fire like it is now, of course. And I decided that uh uh I was gonna learn everything that the city engineers and planners knew. And I got their big old thick black book, and I um focused on um the zoning and and what the requirements were and how thick asphalt you need and uh how wide does the street need to be, and and I carried that book, and I as far as I know, I was the only one outside of the city that had one of them. And um I I just I I I knew what I learned what I needed to do.

Russell 18:09

I guess that's kind of what Yeah, you were kind of addicted to the process, so to speak. Yeah, I was. Yeah. I was.

Speaker 18:14

Yeah.

Russell 18:14

I've heard stories that you knew more than some of the city directors did on the book.

PT 18:19

Well, um, yeah, it's uh I've been accused of that a couple of times.

Carter 18:26

Hey, it's a good it's a good spot to be in it. It's just knowing your business, right? Like knowing your business. You you had you were the one that had the money online, the bank note, all that sort of thing. Uh you're the responsible party at the end of the day to make sure it's right.

PT 18:40

There's no doubt about it. And uh it made me uh it made me feel good to be able to uh show them where section 3B is in the book there.

Carter 18:55

And uh how you're following following it to the T.

Speaker 18:58

Yeah.

Carter 18:59

So in addition to that, you uh you've got a construction business, so you build homes with partners

Building Houses To Survive 2008

Carter 19:08

construction. Tell us a little bit about how that got going and what are y'all doing as far as how many homes you're building a year and all that sort of thing.

PT 19:15

That uh that all that all really started in about 08, um whenever the crash hit and everybody shut down, all the builders shut down. I was sitting there with 200 lots on the ground, finished, and owed money on every one of them.

Speaker 2 19:40

Yes, sir.

PT 19:42

And uh, you know, and part of them were that big subdivision and Rogers that I was talking about a while ago. And uh, you know, I I really didn't we had been pretty conservative, so we had paid a lot of stuff off as we went along, you know. Um and so we were lucky there, and we had some equity in other properties. So um I sat down with Gary Griffin one day. I said, there's only one way we're gonna get out of this. Nobody's gonna buy these lots, we're gonna have to build on them ourselves. And uh so I hired a guy. Um to start building your way out of them? That's right. That we just started building our way through it. And uh and just the the key was to make enough to pay interest. Right. It was a survival, it was almost a survival mode to get in there. That's right. We weren't trying to pay it off, we were just trying to make enough to pay interest.

Speaker 2 20:54

Gotcha.

PT 20:54

And and I'm telling you, I put up a sign out there at Tuscany Subdivision, and that's a pretty nice subdivision. Beautiful. $99 a square foot for those houses, what we sold them for.

Carter 21:07

You'd have people beating it, beating down the doors today just the market transformation from 08-09 when we merged to where it is today and just the difference in the way it feels and all that sort of thing. So what are y'all built? How many do y'all do today?

PT 21:22

Oh, it it just depends on uh uh, you know, we'll probably do 15 or 20. Oh, nice. Y'all built my house. I love it. Yeah.

Carter 21:33

Well, it's a wonderful home and build a great property.

PT 21:36

Well, thank you. We uh I mean, don't tell anybody this, but I'm not really a builder. You got some good people that building. I got good people that are building and and and I trust 'em and they've been working for me for a long time. I say I'm not a builder. I'm kind of the typical builder today, I guess. Right. And I handle all the paper. And um so I tell him, I said, I want you to build this like you're building it for yourself. And I meant it then, and we didn't and that's the way we build it.

Carter 22:17

Still that today, right?

Speaker 22:18

Yes.

Carter 22:18

Yes, sir. So uh something that a lot of people that'll probably be listening to this, I hope, are realtors and and the public and all that sort of thing.

Rental Strategy And One A Year Goal

Carter 22:30

And so one of the things that you've done over the years that's really helped you in downturns and all those different things is you've had an opportunity to buy investment properties and grow your your rentals. Um, and I think one thing a lot of people that are in this business or even Joe Public just thinks I want to I want to buy some rental properties and they pay for themselves, which everybody that has them knows that that's not necessarily the case. But how did you get into um starting buying rental properties and and when was that? Like how how far into your career were you when you bought your first rental property?

PT 23:08

Probably a couple years. And I did it just what you had mentioned there, assumable loan. It had a FHA assumable loan on it, and there was he the it was uh I paid like 33 or 34,000, and I put like $3,000 down and assumed the loan. Yeah. And it was 7.25%. I even still remember that.

Carter 23:36

And uh you don't forget the first one though.

PT 23:39

Two uh it rented it for $275 a month, and my my goal was what motivated me was I had a couple of yeah, real young kids at home, and I thought, you know, I'm not making enough to put one through college right now. I better start saving a little bit for that. And so that's what I'll my goal was with buying a house and and renting it and paying for it and having money when the it was time for them to go to college, then I'd have some money to sell it and pay their pay their college. That's awesome. And so when did you what year was it when you bought your first one? Do you remember? Um I started in 78, so it was about 1980. Gotcha. So in 80 you bought your first one, and then did you start, oh well, that kind of worked a little bit. Let me go try to find another one, and then another one, and then another one, or how did that go? Uh yes. Um I bought that one and then and then the next thing I know, the next year, uh another one uh I bought another one, assumed the loan, paid a little down on it, and then uh I thought, I'm gonna just set a goal to buy one thing every year. You know, I've done it two years in a row, now I can keep doing this. Yeah, we got a trend keeping it. Yeah, a trend. So I bought a duplex and the next year, and then another duplex, and and then Gary and myself went in partners and bought this three fourplexes. Uh that's another story. But anyway, I I tell you it's uh it's one of those things. We we kept that three fourplex. That that was that's my prize right there in investing in real estate. Tell us about it.

Fourplexes And A First 1031 Exchange

PT 25:40

You we bought uh we bought three fourplexes uh and paid sixty thousand dollars a piece for them. And we kept them for several years. Hold on, think about that right now. Fifteen thousand dollars a door. Yeah. Think about that today. That's right. And they were right in a row, and uh we kept them, kept them rented, paid for them, and then in the early uh I can't remember what it was now. Yeah. Anyway, the w the market was good and and we had an opportunity to sell them and we sold them, and I and I did a uh my first 1031 exchange with that money. And I bought 40 acres over on Watkins Avenue. What's at Watkins Avenue now, for those that don't know? Well, there's our vest ballpark there now and and uh the um community college there. There's soon gonna be a big apartment complex over there. And uh it all started with those four. That's right.

Carter 27:05

That's amazing, isn't it?

Speaker 27:06

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:07

That is absolutely amazing.

PT 27:08

And it's the best deal I ever got into.

Carter 27:11

That's great. That's so awesome. So what do you think? Um so when you got into starting buying them, did you ever have to sell one of them whenever the kids went off to college? Or by that time they were paying for themselves and you you'd added one a year.

PT 27:28

Yes. Uh well, actually, after a few, we decided we'll we'll start building some. And so we built some apartments, the Cambridge apartments over there.

Carter 27:40

Oh, yeah, right by Tyson.

PT 27:41

Yeah, we we built those, built some duplexes around, and uh then built those orchard apartments, and the you know that that kind of gets you in the game real quick.

Carter 27:54

That's awesome. It's interesting because that's how me and Brandon really had started back in 2000, I guess, 2002. We started buying rental properties together. And for us, when the downturn hit in 08, that's what kept us in business. Like that was we we wound up having to sell some of them just to keep the doors open in the real estate business at the time, and it was like it was unbelievable the the difference that that made at the time, but we were the ones that were taking the chance to buy them early on and kind of pushed them along.

PT 28:26

Well, uh uh and and the same thing happened uh whenever uh in 08, you know, uh, and I I mainly I had land, vacant land, that's the first thing I sold because there wasn't any income coming in on

The 2009 Merger And Franchise Bet

Speaker 28:44

that.

Carter 28:44

So when we merged in 2009, let's talk a little bit about that. So uh I talked about this the other day when Russell and I were visiting about kind of our story and my story about how I got in the business and all that, but I was joking that there's uh uh some ships that don't float, and a lot of times it's a partnership. And our and our partnership has just kind of been a gift for for us and a real blessing for me personally. And I know Brandon would say the same thing that whenever we merged in 09, it was four very different personalities coming kind of coming together. So, what do you remember about when we all sat down at the table up at R Vest, the four of us, and and where we are from 2008, I guess, when that conversation started to where we are now in 2026?

PT 29:36

Well, uh you know we were unlikely candidates to be a a partner, I'll be honest with you, because you know, we we never we never considered uh franchise. You know, we were independent and we were proud of it, and we thought this is the only way to go, blah, blah, blah. We just uh and uh then um when uh the opportunity came up with you guys, uh, and it was a franchise. Uh it wasn't so much the franchise that we were sold on, it was you and Brandon that we were sold on. And we trusted you and your uh opinion on that and thought if these guys believe in it and they put their money on the line, you already had a franchise, we didn't have one. Oh, yeah. And uh so I'm willing to go with that. It took a while, but probably the smartest thing I did, or we did, I shouldn't say.

Carter 30:59

I remember we were sitting at the table the first time, I think, and and I said, uh Russell, I said, uh Philip, I think he asked me, he said, Well, how are you gonna get out of this franchise? I said, we're not, and he pushed his chair back, stood up, I said, Hold on a second, hold on just one second. Let's let's talk about this. And then we went through it all, and then you went and saw it, and you're like, oh, well, we can't recreate all this. Yeah. And that's and that's kind of the benefit of it. Once you get down the road, once you kind of open your eyes to the opportunity a little bit, well, it's just a different, it's a it's a different mindset shift.

PT 31:33

I remember that day like it was yesterday. And and I did, and I thought, I'm gonna test them and see if there's really a way that we can get out out of doing this. And I I had that plan from day one. Watch this. Does this look good? That's right. And uh and and I and I remember there wasn't a lot of discussion between me and Gary. Really? Uh believe it or not.

Carter 32:08

Well, I I remember Brent and I were talking about this the other day. A lot of the conversations, we had a couple conversations, all of us, then a lot of it was I'd be over at Gary's house and then we'd all get together once and then kind of work through the details. But it's been the it's been the biggest blessing for us just because we were at a time right at the backside of the crash. We were both at an opportunity, we both knew we needed something, and we all came together kind of the right time where it was just uh unifying of different different deals. Like y'all y'all had lived through a bunch of different markets. Uh always joke, Gary used to always joke with us that we were ready fire aim and he would move aim until the target moved. Yeah. And so like putting that together really was was good because it gave us an opportunity to grow, gave us an opportunity to learn from both of our past experiences, but then kind of mesh ideas and all that stuff, and it's taken us really to where we are today. It's been it's been an awesome blessing.

PT 33:05

It has been for us too.

Russell 33:07

That's interesting from a you know uh manager slash agent third party to see you know the the four of y'all kind of come together, and I no offense, but it's almost like the two old guys with all the experience and the two new guys with all the technology. Well, that's exactly what it was. But to see y'all, you know, individually is like I know in this area, uh I'll go to one guy or the other, you know. But uh and nobody gets offended that I didn't ask them, you know.

Carter 33:34

What's the right person for the right job, right?

Planning Transit Airport And Growth

Speaker 2 33:36

Yeah, yeah.

Russell 33:36

No, it's but you know, something else, uh it's interesting to because you've you've got some pretty top-tier titles in the state. You know, I'm I'm gonna pick on you know your developer, you're uh you know, you know, a small business owner or large business owner, I would argue. Uh, you know, the the Springdale revitalization, uh commissioner at Arkansas Department of Transportation. Uh I'm leaving something else off. Airport commissioner. X and A. X and A. I mean, like how number one, how do all those kind of breed together? And then like, you know, how how do you do all of it?

PT 34:09

You know, it it really did. Uh I just worked into it. I got in the real estate business, and then uh the next step was getting in the development business. Well, what do you do when you develop? You you work with engineers, you scrape the ground, you put down streets and and sidewalks and uh and pipes, sewer and water and all that. And then the uh the next step up is you know, you learn about the zonings and and all of that, and then pretty soon the guys, people around town at the city find out that you know quite a bit about it, you know, and then a position comes up on the regional planning commission. The mayor calls me, Philip, you want to serve on that spring down? Yeah, and sure, I'll do that. And then I do that for a while and keep doing the development, and then one day in 1992, Bobby Hopper calls me. You know, the tunnel man. Oh, yeah, yeah. The tunnel man. He called me. I knew him, he was a friend of my dad's, and he said, Hey, uh, they got they got uh a new uh way of uh funding these transit Razorback Transit, Ozark Transit, and we're gonna have to have a uh kind of a committee set up. And do you want to serve on that? And I said, Well, yeah, I'll do that, you know. And so that was a step up from the regional planning, you know, because we managed the money for Arkansas from Ozark Transit and and Razorback Transit. And then after a few years they streamlined it and started sending the money directly to them. And then um a position came up they uh on X and A in 1999. And uh the mayor um Van Hoos asked me if I'd be interested in serving on that. Each one of the cities, the big five, had two members and each county had two. So there's 14 of us on there, and uh I've been on there ever since. Yeah, you've been on there since day one of X and A, right?

Carter 36:36

Well, actually when they started the board piece.

PT 36:39

Well, actually it was uh it had been operating a couple of years, but it wasn't long after it started.

Carter 36:46

Well, I would love for us to have another sit-down in the future and talk about Airport and Highway Commission, because I think that's something that's super interesting that ties right into kind of what me and Russell have an idea for where this podcast can go because what's what all has changed with between where X and A started, where X and A is today, where where the highways and all the infrastructure is today and where it's going, I think that's something that everybody's really interesting.

PT 37:12

It was really interesting and to learn how things get done.

Carter 37:19

Yeah, I'd love to sit down and have another conversation about that. I'd love to do that. We'll do it. Let me ask you this.

Advice For New Agents

Carter 37:25

So, in closing, so I appreciate you taking the time to sit with us. If there's somebody out there that's thinking about getting the business, thinking about getting in the real estate world, what advice would you give somebody to get going to be successful long term in this career?

PT 37:44

Well, I I just say you you have to uh be confident, you need to uh go somewhere where where they can you get trained, you know. Uh going to a real estate school is is only about ten percent of the job. Uh it gets your license, but then you're just dangerous. But you gotta you need to uh that's good you need to uh learn how to sell. That's the that's the main thing. And and um so I'd say and be ready to work hard. Set goals, set goals and and start early and work late.

Carter 38:35

Yep. This business is dressed in uh overalls and drives a truck, it's not in the it's not in a suit driving Mercedes, right? And I think that's the misconception a lot of people have that, oh, I'm just gonna go sell my house to my aunt, you know, but really it's the it's the people business, it's a relationship business, and I'd say that that's the part of it that you're world class at, and you model it well at being a good good people person and a good representative for us and for our company, and I can't thank you enough. So I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us and and share a little bit about your story and look forward to having another conversation soon. Let's keep doing this. I like it.