The Blue Cup Podcast

From Tech to Real Estate: Harris and Paul's Journey

• The Blue Cup Podcast • Episode 6

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In this episode of the Blue Cup podcast, hosts Russ Scheider, Harris Jones, and Paul Santana delve into the world of co-living and real estate investment. They explore the journeys of Harris and Paul, who transitioned from technology careers to real estate, sharing their unique backgrounds and experiences. The conversation covers the concept of house hacking versus co-living, the challenges they faced in their real estate ventures, and valuable lessons learned along the way. The episode emphasizes the importance of community living and offers practical advice for aspiring real estate investors. In this engaging conversation, Russ Scheider, Paul, and Harris delve into the intricacies of short-term rentals, co-living spaces, and the importance of community building. They share personal anecdotes about their experiences with housemates, the lessons learned in compassionate landlording, and the significance of communication in maintaining harmonious living environments. The discussion also touches on personal growth through weight loss journeys, the value of masterminds and community support, and the power of partnerships in real estate. Finally, they explore dreams of tiny house communities and the journey towards achieving those aspirations.

Takeaways

Co-living is a modern approach to real estate investment.
Harris's background in technology helped him transition into real estate.
Paul's unique childhood shaped his perspective on success.
House hacking allows for reduced living expenses through renting.
Co-living fosters a sense of community among tenants.
Understanding the local market is crucial for real estate success.
Furnishing rental spaces can attract more tenants.
Vacancy is a significant challenge in rental properties.
Networking in real estate masterminds can lead to valuable connections.
Starting with lower rental prices can mitigate vacancy risks. Buy based on the worst scenario to ensure stability.
Building community is essential in co-living spaces.
Unique experiences with housemates can lead to lasting friendships.
Compassionate landlording can create a win-win situation for everyone.
Communication is key in maintaining a harmonious living environment.
Personal growth can come from unexpected journeys, like weight loss.
Masterminds provide valuable support and networking opportunities.
Partnerships can enhance success in real estate ventures.
Dreams of tiny house communities can be realized through careful planning.
Taking risks is essential for personal and professional growth.

SPEAKER_03

If you don't fire the shot, how would you ever know if your sights are right? It's an important technique for people to understand because it takes so little money out of your pocket. That'll be fifty bucks and you can stay here tonight.

SPEAKER_00

This is gonna be a little policy.

SPEAKER_03

I'm very excited to have Harris Jones and Paul Santana with us today. Two of my favorite people. We're gonna have some fun. As long as Paul can not overthink things, we're gonna be good, right?

SPEAKER_01

He's an engineer. That's what he's built to do.

SPEAKER_03

I know, I kid because I love. Yeah, definitely. I grew up with an engineer as a father, so I understand it completely. So we really want to talk about to begin. I want people to know who you are, and but but then I'm gonna I'm gonna set a little bait for what you're doing with the co-living real estate investment while working B-2 jobs, right? You both work W-2 jobs, and you've done a phenomenal job of acquiring property and creating passive income. It's not really passive, you know, other than your W-2 income. But it's very personal for you, too. So I think it's gonna be kind of a cool story and would love to get into it. So we'll start with Harris, talk about childhood and growing up and all that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, which is not too far from where we are now in the Charleston, South Carolina market. And I grew up in a divorced household. My mom's side of the family was a bunch of lesbians and assless chaps. Can I say ass on here?

SPEAKER_03

Yes, absolutely. You can say anything you want.

SPEAKER_01

At biker bars, and my dad's side of the family was very conservative. I wouldn't, they're religious, but I had very much a dichotomy of my family, right? Because parents were divorced, so I had this one wild side on my mom's side, and then my dad's side was a little bit more conservative. So that was an interesting childhood. And then as I grew up, I got into web development. So I started to like code my own MySpace when MySpace was cool back in the day. Oh, yeah. Um, make it really pretty, and then that led me into getting into computer science. So I went to Clemson University, studied computer science, and then I left, got a job, an internship at a marketing agency, and started web development. So I was in computer software for a really long time. And then I ended up moving to Charleston in 2020, right in the middle of COVID, when everybody was struggling. I loved 2020. 2020 was my year. Everybody else ha struggled in 2020, but I ended up moving to Charleston because my sister-in-law opened up a business, Rehab Wallet. Russ has their hat on. And that's Rehab Wallet. Thanks for having the swag. But we opened Rehab Wallet, and Kelly called me and said, Hey, would you be interested in joining our team and kind of kicking it off with us? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. Count me in. So I switched gears. 180 went from computer science into full-blown real estate. So it was interesting.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Well, I remember you were still kind of the go-to person for technology when when something broke. I remember those early days.

SPEAKER_01

Um It was funny too when I first came to real estate meetings, Kelly would all often say, you know, what do you have to offer? And I would say, I don't really have anything to offer. I don't I don't know anything about real estate. And Kelly's like, That's not true. You know tons about web development, technology, like you have plenty to offer. It's just a different it's just a different ballgame. It's not real estate, it's technology, which is still useful.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and my analogy of that is I only speak English and not very well. So if I need someone to speak Spanish, I'm gonna have to find somebody else. So if I need someone to speak computer code, I'm gonna have to go as I would for a Spanish speaker. I'm gonna have to go find somebody like Harris who can can can you just and it was like clickety-clicketity-click, okay, it's done. I was like, how what what? I remember several experiences like that with you a decade ago. Yeah. Five years ago, anyway. So I know that you enjoyed music festivals and hula hooping and some really fun stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01

I went through a I would call it a dark phase, but it really wasn't much of a dark phase. It was more of a wild phase. So I went through a wild phase, and I through that process started going to music festivals and I started to witness people hula hooping. And they would basically like roll staffs off their body. I don't know if you've ever seen anybody with a staff or fireballs, stuff like that. They just it was wild to watch. Um, aerial people in the air who would like swing on loops and hula hoops and stuff. I once witnessed somebody hula hooping in a festival, and then they let me borrow their hula hoop, and I bought my own after that. I came home, I practiced every day. So now I'm like an undercover hula hoop master because I'll go outside with my dogs and I'll just hula hoop while I'm out there. And it's a it's definitely a skill that is completely useless, but I love it, and it makes it makes me release all that energy that I need to release. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03

I'm gonna say that's far from useless. If it if it gives you catharsis like that, it it's better than drugs, right?

SPEAKER_01

I will say it gives me cat-like reflexes. So if I drop something, I can pretty much catch catch it.

SPEAKER_03

I love it. Absolutely love it. Um, I don't know if you remember, but we my mother and my sister and I were on a cruise in the Mediterranean a couple of years ago, and I sent you videos of a hula hooping act where she had LEDs in them, and she's standing on her head, twirling with her foot, and I was like, Caris, you can do this, you can do all of this.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe, maybe it's twirling. Stand no, not in the not have my foot in the air with a hula hoop on it.

SPEAKER_03

I love that. Um, the vision of you enjoying yourself in your backyard. And I've been to your house, or at least the one you used to live in, you've got a six-foot-high fence, so nobody's gonna see you. I mean, you do what you want.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So I love it. So the technology, um, phasing into real estate, uh, hanging on to that um that vibe of the music festivals. You got a little little collar in your hair there. Yeah, so the vibe remains, and that's that's super cool. So I know you did you kind of stumbled into a flip deal.

SPEAKER_01

I did.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a really cool story. Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, of course. So when I first got into real estate, I was just working at rehab wallet, and I hadn't really been actively investing. I was just learning how to be a lender. So I saw on Facebook an old colleague of mine posted, I'm struggling to pay my mortgage, I'm in this situation, I need help. Can somebody connect me to a real estate agent that they that they like? And I reached out because I had been in these real estate groups with you Russ and other people in the Charleston area, and I said, Listen, I know tons of real estate investors. It may not be the best solution for you, but let me know if you're interested, and I'll be happy to connect you with some of these people. I had no intention of acquiring the property myself, but she ended up going to a real estate agent, and the agent said, I can't lift your house because there was so much stuff in it. She just did not get listed. Yep. The condition was bad, there was a leak. So ultimately she decided to reach back out to me. And Sunshine and Kelly, my sister and sister-in-law, they went to the property, looked at it, talked to her, and we ended up buying the property sub two from her. So we bought it subject to. We gave her a little cash to get out of the property and gave her some money when we first purchased it. And after about three months or so, we ended up listing that property on the market after flipping it, and we made $100,000 each, well, not each, but we split that. So I took $50, yeah. So that was total. So that was like a unicorn of a deal, and I had no idea what I was doing. And it was a win for the seller too. She she ended up getting in a much better situation, she ended up traveling the world, she became a digital nomad. So it was a really cool story between how it really benefited her, and then I was able to make some money on my very first deal. And then I had no idea. Yeah. I also learned through that deal, never change your own electrical boxes. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_03

Tell me about that. What happened?

SPEAKER_01

I I think Sunshine said we can do that ourselves. And Sunshine and I went through the whole house and changed. So Sunshine issues my sister, yep. So we changed all the light switches, all the outlet boxes, and I was like, I'm never doing this again. I'm just basing my own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So that was never again. That's funny. So those are the kind of lessons we learn in time. Like, I hate painting. I just hate it with a passion. Because I'm I'm really bad at it, and my ADD kicks in and I'm like, you know, people say everybody can paint. I was it, not me. I can frame a house, I can roof a house, I can lay masonry blocks, I can do tile. I can't paint. I mean, it seems like the simplest thing in the world, but I'm you know, you hire a painter and he just knocks it out, and it takes me 18 hours to clean up the mess I made.

SPEAKER_01

Just tell him it's abstract art.

SPEAKER_03

Picasso. So you mentioned something called sub two, and I want to address that just for a second, with a definition. So your associate, who was kind of in trouble with this house, had a loan, and you were able to make a purchase subject to the mortgage in place, which in the business we call sub two. Um and it's an important technique for people to understand because it takes so little money out of your pocket to get that deal done and to get the reward of a hundred thousand dollars split with a partner um who had 20 years experience beyond your experience and um money that that would be needed for the deal. So it makes perfect sense to put that kind of deal together. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds, but um that's a that's a really cool, you know. If y'all have questions, people who are watching or listening, make a comment, ask more questions about that. I'm not gonna go into it any deeper now. But just when you throw out the term we bought at Sub 2, you and I and Paul, and you know, a lot of people know exactly what that means, but some people don't. So that's fair. I'm not gonna give a study on it right now, but it's a great thing to comment on, people if you're interested.

SPEAKER_01

I'll add one more point, which is that the one cool thing about that deal is I didn't bring any money to that deal. All I brought was my time. So I was the one who managed the project, drove to Greenville, did manage the renovation, hired the contractors, and they brought the money. So I was able to get into my first deal without having any experience.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, me too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I guess that you don't get into a first deal with with having experience, but uh I was able to partner with somebody and just provide my time rather than expertise or money.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and it's that's a um that's a wonderful point and a wonderful example for people listening and watching is you can do that. You need zero money to get into real estate if not if when you connect with the right people. And rehab wallet is can be one of those people as a company, but individuals are really great at the beginning, and then kind of transition into doing your own thing and using a hard money lender like rehab wallet. So that's a cool story, and and I love the fact that you point out that the seller got what they needed to. Yeah, it's not why we're bandits, we're offering a lot to the seller as well. After the um you work with Rehab Wallet, and we'll give them a plug because it's a great company, and uh um hard money lender, and Harris is on that team, and then you and Paul started doing something pretty cool, um, which is co-living and renting by the room, and we're gonna talk about that later, but first we're gonna focus on Paul for a minute. And um wanna hear about you, man.

SPEAKER_00

Talk to me. Yeah, I'll say I I also have a very unique childhood, uh let's say for very, very different reasons. Both of my parents are first generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic. Okay, they both grew up in basically farming families, very poor, nine children on one side, ten children on the other side, because it was a time when you didn't know when all your children were gonna make it. Some of them didn't. Really? Okay. So my mom and my dad, they both got married, they came to the United States, first one ones in each of their families, and also first ones in each of their families to graduate from college. So that was kind of cool. They went to school in New York City, I forget exactly which one, but they both graduated with accounting degrees. And uh, my dad became an accountant, my mom, she actually became a real estate agent. So since they were both here in the United States, fresh from the Dominican Republic, freshly graduated, trying to start a career, and that's when my first brother came along, and my brother George, he is quite a bit older than me, he is 16 years older, and they were just trying to start their careers. He came along, and then they were like, wait, we we barely have any money, we don't know how to speak English barely. We should pause on a family. So that's why my brother George is 16 years older than I am.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so they slowed the role a little bit after the We don't want to end up with nine or ten kids. Nine or ten kids in um New York is a little different from on a farm. Yeah. My my grandparents, not my parents, but my grandparents were both farm families, and nine children on one side and eleven on the other. Because not everybody's gonna make it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um, which my family was pretty fortunate. There were a couple, but it was more hands. You know, it's more mouths to feed, but it's also more hands to work.

SPEAKER_00

That's also true.

SPEAKER_03

But you don't want to do that if you're college educated and living in New York necessarily. I mean, nine or ten kids would be a little rough. Yeah. So so they came to the United States, were they married before, or did they so they were married in the Dominican Republic, moved to the United States together, and took this journey together. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then they like you mentioned, they actually planned, they had the foresight to think, hey, this is a little bit rocky right now. Let's focus on our careers, let's focus on our son, and then we'll have children later. So that's my middle brother and I came much later, 14 and 16 years later.

SPEAKER_03

Do you have any other siblings? That was it. Just the two? Okay. They were gone.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So they they wanted two more kids, they had two more kids. So one of the big things that happened shortly after that is this is and this is why I mentioned that I had a very unique childhood, similar in different ways. My mom actually she came down with breast cancer, and uh unfortunately she passed when I was very young.

SPEAKER_03

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00

So that's probably also why they they might have had more children, but it was just us. Um she left a good legacy though. She was she worked for Century 21 back in the back in the 80s, and she was she was like number one in her agency. She was awesome. She won the it was the annual contest. She won a big screen TV back when they were like 150 pounds. She was pretty decent. So I probably had that real estate uh blood in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_03

Did she have the gold jacket?

SPEAKER_00

She did actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I remember the gold jacket. Yeah, so she was there's a real estate legacy there.

SPEAKER_00

I think so.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so it was it was it was in your squirrel cage back here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Churning, right? I'm familiar with that.

SPEAKER_00

I think I got that intellect from them. Yeah. Fast forwarding a little bit. That led me to go to we moved to California and I went to school at University of California, Santa Barbara. So computer engineering. So a mix of computer science and electric engineering. So that's the the engineering brain, I guess, got mixed in there with the accounting. Fun side tangent. My dad, as an accountant, he was like, son, don't get into this. Do something else. Don't do accounting. I'm sure you'll be great at it, but there's better things to do. So that's why I chose computer science, electrical engineering.

SPEAKER_03

It's funny because my father was dying for me to be an accountant. And I was like, I'm gonna jump off the bridge if I have to be an accountant. I took it, I went to business school and I took accounting one, accounting two, and managerial accounting, and I'm like, I'm out, I'm gonna be a marketing major because I prefer talking to people than looking at my desk.

SPEAKER_04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03

I think he was like, You have to understand accounting. I said, I think I've you know, I think I've got it, but I don't want to do it every day.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think his thing was that one, you can make decent money, but the the ceiling is only so high. If you're doing marketing or real estate or anything else, like you know, obviously the ceiling is way higher. But also, as he found out, sometimes, depending on your role, you can do your job very well, but that means people hate you. Yeah, because you're finding where the money inefficiencies are and stuff like that. So it's like that kind of sucks, right?

SPEAKER_03

It feels feels critical. People feel criticized by exactly, and you're solving problems. Correct me if I'm wrong, but then I loved when I lived in the corporate world, I loved the IT guy, and he he would always say, Did you turn it off and back on again? It's like no.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

We know that statement all too well. Did you turn it back?

SPEAKER_03

And now Ryan, Ryan is um Ryan tells me that all the time now. It's like, did you turn it off and back on again? And let's start there and call me back in five minutes. I got things to do.

SPEAKER_00

I tell I tell my that my dad that sometimes too. Still uh asking me for IT. Yeah. So and then so I was in California, went to school for computer engineering and UCSB, and it was about 2016. That's when I moved to Charleston, cross-country.

SPEAKER_03

What brought you to Charleston?

SPEAKER_00

A job here, a job at a local tech company called Blackbot. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, I knew that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, that's that's that's the job that I got here. I'm not at Blackbot anymore. I'm at a uh different a government contractor now, still doing software engineering and and doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there's a lot of good companies in Charleston for that. Blackbot's a good company.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Of course. So it was about, I guess, two and a half years now ago now that was a small real estate mastermind. Thank you, Russ, where we met for the first time.

SPEAKER_01

Russ is running this mastermind group, and I'm there, and Paul walks in the door. I'm like, hey, he's cute. You brought us together, Russ.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you're you're welcome. I it was unintentional, but um it's a happy accident.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I will say that uh, you know, real estate masterminds can be life-changing in many, many ways.

SPEAKER_03

This this wasn't the one on the boat, it was before that, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, the one at the tides.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, we did one on a yacht, which was pretty fun. Yeah. So yeah, the masterminds, I mean, I look forward to the masterminds, and not for building relationships like yours, but for building other types of relationships. But I'm I'm glad it worked out for you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of funny. Sometimes our we'll get into this later, but our housemates, the people that we live with, they'll they'll be younger guys typically, and they're like, I can't find a good girl, I don't know where to look. And we're like, well, where are you going to look? And where are you going out to find these women? And they'll say, I'm at the bar, or you know, someplace that they shouldn't be looking for women. And we're like, go to a real estate.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Go somewhere that is like where you'll find a woman who or a man in my case who's actually like striving to do something, not going to the bar and drinking, which is fine too, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know you'll find better people in groups where people are striving to be better.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I like that. And you connected over finding each other personally attractive, but also the mental part of it. Like, yeah, we're kind of on the same page with goals and lifestyle and you know what we want to do with ourselves. And you both have great jobs. And you have um I want to kind of dip into the real estate but not get too deep. But I want people to hear about this because I think it's pretty exciting what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

With a you're both fairly young and no children. So that allows for a lot of flexibility. Okay. Um I have I have enough kids for all of us. So just you're you've done you've done well, but choosing a way another way. I love my kids, all of them. But with the flexibility you have with no children, you're able to do something called co-living. Yeah. It's also called used to be called house hacking. House hacking's slightly different.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So you want to talk about that? House hacking versus co versus co-living? Do you have a way to describe that?

SPEAKER_00

It was I'll say a little bit of backstory. I I don't think it was the first one, maybe it was the second or third mastermind that you had. That was when we were both there with a young gentleman named Scott, Mr. Scott Stamps. He was giving a presentation about how he had, I think he had six, seven, eight houses where he rented everything by the room. And he gave a little presentation. And over the course of three, four, five, six months, we were just talking, just you know, back and forth, uh Harris, me, and Scott. And he's he was he's great, Scott is a great guy. He's very willing to share, very nice guy, very open and honest. And after a while, Harris was like, Hey, you don't have a house, you're just renting an apartment on Daniel Island. You should do that. And I was like, No way, that sounds too risky. But uh Harris convinced me, and and that's I was like, you know what? I think you're right. I think we should do that. So bought a house, and that's actually where we are right now. Bought a house. We did something called a conventional renovation loan. I had no idea that this was this was a thing. Huge, huge thanks to my agent, Mr. Jake Adam Zak. He told us about this, and I was like, hey, you should check this out. This is a fantastic way to buy a house. They give you money for the mortgage to buy the house, but also up to $50,000 or $75,000 to renovate the house.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00

You could take that money, add bedrooms, add bathrooms, do whatever else you want, which we did, like expanding the driveway, a new fence, changing the water tank for a tankless water heater, a bunch of stuff. So bought the house, did that, and then Harris and I moved in and we started house hacking. To answer your question, the way we think of house hacking is house hacking is when you live in part of a house and rent out another part, whether it's units or a detached garage, or like in our case, rooms. And then co-living is the same, co-living is the same thing, but you just don't live there. So you just do something.

SPEAKER_01

I would probably define co-living as room rentals. You're renting by the room. So people are living in more of a community, which is kind of where the word co-living comes from. It's like community style living, right?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So you so you can house hack and do co-living. You can do house hacking.

SPEAKER_03

I got it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You can so you can basically do house hacking and co-living, which means you live in a room and other people live in the other rooms in your house.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And then you can do just pure house hacking with that's not co-living, where you might live in a unit, and then somebody else lives in your garage or another unit.

SPEAKER_03

So you're not really sharing space there on your property in the where you live, but in a separate unit.

SPEAKER_01

It's more shared, you're right. Shared living, I like that that definition. Shared living, community living.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah. So so for any anyone watching or listening to this, if if you just want to get into real estate, I mean, one of the the best methods is to buy a duplex or a quadruplex. And let's say you can find a quadruplex, probably not on our direct market, but a lot of places, and live in one unit, get a loan for the whole thing. And as Paul said, was that a 503K?

SPEAKER_00

It was uh at the time we did a conventional renovation loan called a Fannie Mae Home Style. We are we are doing one right now that's an FHA 203k. It's a Federal Housing Administration 203K. Same thing for 203k, same thing, just uh it's a government loan available to literally everybody, every single American.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so either way, the principle is the same. You get a conventional mortgage, then you get a renovation mortgage on top of that. Live in one unit and rent the other three out is classic house hacking.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Or buy a duplex and live on one side and rent the other out. This is a little different.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What you're doing because it's by the room in what I consider, and I I haven't really seen any of your properties, but I've seen Scott's, and they are very conventional suburban houses with a big driveway because you have to park a lot of cars.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so what does yours look like? What do yours look like?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh both of our houses actually it's it's kind of similar. This house that we're in right now is started off as a three-bedroom, one bathroom, and it had just recently been renovated, just recently been flipped. I bought it directly from the flipper, which was great. And then we came in, added bedrooms, added bathrooms, changed it out, some plumbing, electrical stuff, fence, driveway, and a few other things. And now it's a 5'1, fairly small house. I think it's about 1700 square feet. And my one stipulation for doing this, which I think was a great idea, is I wanted to buy a house within five minutes of Harris's house. And then we did. That was the fantastic idea because shortly after we started living here and house hacking, then we started renovating Harris's house and just going back and forth between both houses like every night, whether it's my house renovating or Harris's house renovating, we could see like what did they do today without having to like fight traffic or you know, travel hours on end. It's it's right there, it's very convenient. Right. That was a brilliant idea, especially for your first one. You can do remote investing later, but I think for the first one, cutting down your commute is is very critical. I think that's awesome. But I think two things I'll say is yeah, house hacking and it is probably very common in most parts of the country doing multi-family. I think in Charleston there is not much. A lot of houses are older, which means like brick ranches. There's not too much multifamily, and so that's why it's a little bit more common here to buy a house and then rent by the room, which is what Scott's doing. So that's kind of why we had to do it there. If you're if you're in another part of the country, then great, you know, buy buy a multifamily. And the nice thing is about FHA 203K, Fanime Home Style, all of these loans you can go up to duplex, triplex, quadplex. It doesn't matter, they're all considered residential. But literally anybody can do this: get that loan, renovate a house, rent it, rent out some stuff, and now you're living with part of your housing expenses covered, maybe for free, maybe making a profit, depending on how you're doing it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. Anybody can do it because, as you said, anything under five units, so four or fewer, is residential, and you can get a regular old loan and a renovation loan. So it makes it pretty easy, as you said. Thank you for saying anybody can do it because it's true.

SPEAKER_00

I'll say I wish I had done this a lot. I wish I when I graduated school, I wish I had bought a house and started renting rooms immediately. Or even like I'm just thinking now, for anybody that maybe can't qualify for a loan or something like that, just rent an apartment and then rent out some rooms. You're probably doing the same thing. You're cutting your expenses down, depending if it's a three or four or four bedroom apartment. Maybe you're still like living almost for free.

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, you know. Yeah, it's um do you know why Airbnb is called air? Wasn't it the originally air mattresses? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because it was it was the ultimate house hacking or co-living, because literally you throw an air mattress on the floor and say, that'll be 50 bucks, and you can stay here tonight. And that's where Airbnb came from. Of course, it's evolved very differently now, but it's not a new concept. I mean, I think about medieval taverns and get a room and it's furnished. What about furnishing and how do you handle common areas and private areas? And you're saying you have a five-bedroom, one-bathroom?

SPEAKER_00

Uh three. Yeah, so I I maybe I don't think I finished. We it was a three-one, now it's a five-three, and then after we started living here, we started then renovating Harris's house, and then we did something very similar. It was a 3-1, and now it's a 5-3. So all in both are 5.3s now.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01

And when it comes to furnishing and common spaces, uh, most people who are in the co-living model, they don't like common spaces because they feel like it breeds conflict because people pass each other and then see each other in the living room, and then it just breeds conflict. We don't feel that way. We actually like the community style of living. So we like having common spaces. We like sitting in the in the kitchen or at the dining table and talking to our people while they're cooking dinner or something like that, right? So we enjoy that. We have learned that in our market specifically, this isn't every market, our market specifically attracts people who want furnishings because they're transients. So they're like, they're coming here, they don't live locally, maybe they're moving from out of state because they found a job, or maybe they got a contract to work at one of the hospitals here. So we don't have a lot of people moving into our homes that have their own furniture. So we started out not having the rooms furnished, and then we ended up getting so many requests for furnished rooms, we just ended up furnishing them. And we've done that ever since.

SPEAKER_00

That was probably our our one of our rock bottom moments, I would say, is we s we renovated the house and then we moved in and we were trying to look for people to rent rooms. We originally had the price set for quite high and it was not furnished. We thought because it had a private bathroom and a private entrance, somebody might be willing to pay, you know, 1200, 1300, something like that. That was not realistic, and uh we tried for quite a while and failed miserably. And that was that was one day I remember we were at Harris's house, and I remember saying to her, I was like, Do you remember when we used to live here and we were we were happy?

SPEAKER_01

We were happy, we didn't have all the stress. If that was our rock bottom moment, I think we're doing pretty good.

SPEAKER_00

I was at one of so we had uh you know now we have two mortgages that we have to carry by ourselves, and we we did this to be able to share the mortgage with other people, and we can't get anybody. So now what are we gonna do? So we pivoted. One of the things is that I had ads available, and people kept reaching out and saying, Hey, is this room furnished? No. Hey, is this room furnished? No, hey, is this room furnished? No. And then we're like, all right, maybe we should do this. So we decided to furnish and drop the price quite a bit, and then we started getting people, and and then after a few weeks, then we we did finally rent the room, so that was that was a good big load-off. But uh, I would say that was a rock bottom because I was like, we didn't know.

SPEAKER_03

So did you end up furnishing furnishing it and getting the higher rent? No, we dropping the rent.

SPEAKER_00

We furnished and dropped the rent.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, yeah. So that sounds like reality.

SPEAKER_00

So big lesson learned. Uh, if anybody is willing going to get into this, yes, do your underwriting and all this kind of stuff and aim for lower than you think you can rent for, just in case. Especially at the beginning. Now we know we know at the beginning that when you're starting to rent and you have an empty house, the biggest thing that kills you is vacancy. So if if you're gonna rent a room for 50% of what you think you can get, it's better than an empty room. Try renting it for 50% the first month and then go on from there.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's a gold nugget, Ryan Tug tagged up. That's super important. One of the things that I I get coaching students who come in or gung-ho, gung-ho about Airbnb and VRBO, and we're gonna short-term rent, and it'll cash flow $37.50 a month. And I said, but okay, that's great, and it it probably will, but what if they change the municipal recommendation um regulations or something happens? Let's make sure, let's see what the long-term rent would be. Well, it's $1,500. So don't buy it based on the best scenario, buy it based on the worst scenario, and then you're always gonna be okay. And you can do a lot better than okay. But I've seen a lot of people crash and burn, not really, you know, immediate friends and coaching students and that sort of thing, but people in some of the national groups that I'm in have just hyper-extended themselves thinking that just what you experienced, you're gonna get so much per room, and it ends up being a little over half that. So be prepared for disappointment. Yeah, it's still you're building something wonderful. So it's you know, if that's your rock bottom, you're doing okay so far.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, it's it's it's a tough leap of faith to jump into becoming essentially a landlord and never having any tenants and like, hey, I built this thing, it's supposed to come, right? Right. Build it and they will come.

SPEAKER_03

And then they don't have the that's not how capitalism works.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So I've heard that y'all do game nights and really interact with your co-living family. I don't want to call them tenants or occupants, but we call them housemates. Yeah, you're housemates. Housemates, it's perfect. So tell tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we so a little bit of backstory there. I used to run a meetup group for board games. Yes. Friday nights. I started that back in COVID, actually. Kind of crazy. And that, you know, started in my apartment with three or four people, and over the many years, I think now there's over 500 people in that group, and that group grew like wildfire. So that was fantastic. We met every single Friday night, and uh a lot of good friends, good memories made. And I think that's partially what gave us the passion to want to get into this, kind of seeing what a virtual community comes, how you can grow a virtual community, and we're like, could we make that physical? Right.

SPEAKER_01

We actually started hosting another group called Deep Talk. So we would get together for a potluck with friends on a Sunday at lunchtime, and everybody would bring some food, we'd sit around a table, and then we would answer questions that were not your surface level questions. So that really helped us learn how to build community and get vulnerable with people, even strangers, right? So those are two groups that kind of led us onto this path.

SPEAKER_03

So with the Deep Talk, we have um little boxes of cards that ask questions that I don't want to answer.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly those.

SPEAKER_03

I know it's good. So we we do that. I do that with friends and family a little bit. Did did you have prompts like that?

SPEAKER_01

Or we have a secret box of questions and we would have people submit questions. Sometimes we would have a deck of cards that people would pull from, but for the most part it was submitted questions that people would then draw anonymously from from the box.

SPEAKER_03

Interesting. So board game nights, deep talk afternoons, any crazy story, any crazy housemate stories that we need to hear? Come on.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'll say talking about community a little bit. We didn't know how this was gonna go. And so we rented the first room here in this house, and we pick up this guy from the airport, or or his name's Aziz. Young guy, he's about 20, he just graduated from college with computer science, moved all the way across the country. We pick him pick him up from the airport. He was like, No, don't pick me up, Dopey. We're like, we insist, you know, we we we would love to. So we did, and he comes home, we're like, alright, go unpack, and then we didn't see him for like two or three days. We're like, oh cool. So we didn't know are people gonna be friendly, are they gonna want to interact, are they wanna spend time with us, or are they gonna keep themselves? And we're like, well, right, I guess that answers that question. That's fine. But on the it was like the third or fourth day, he comes out. Uh we're just eating dinner, cooking, and he's like, Hey, I see you have a chess box here. You want to play? I'm like, sure, I guess let's play some chess. Yeah. And we start playing, and all of a sudden I realize this guy is like a chess grandmaster. He starts taking a piece like almost every turn. He's doing some crazy moves. He's like, empasse! I'm like, what is that? He's like, it's a I was like, what? He destroys me. I'm like, okay, this is gonna be interesting. So right away we become good friends, and um, I think the the next night he he's cooking some chicken, and he starts, he's like, hey, Harris Paul. You guys want some chicken? And then uh the go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

So we started sharing meals with this guy, and then over time we learned a lot about him. He's he's Muslim, so we learned a lot about his different culture and religion. We asked him about his family, so we became really good friends with this guy. And eventually he decided that he wanted to do what we were doing. So he asked us for help to buy his own house and start house hacking. So that was this isn't like a crazy wild tenant story, but it was one of the best things that I've done.

SPEAKER_03

No, it's an inspirational story. But it's all big stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because he he bought his own house, Paul helped him source tenants, so now he's doing exactly what we we were doing, and he lives he lives three minutes up the road, so we go eat Chipotle every like two weeks.

SPEAKER_03

He came from the other side of the country, has a different culture, a different religion from you know, Southern Baptists where we live. Yeah, and other other things, but mostly that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So to be a Muslim here and come from another part of the country and take that leap to do what you're doing is especially impressive.

SPEAKER_00

I'll say he he taught me perhaps one of the biggest lessons that I've learned during this whole process, and that is that he even when he came from Seattle, that's where he was before, okay, he was specifically looking for places around where he works. He works close to the airport, so he was like, Hey, I see your house is close to the airport and I'd love to stay. The rent, as he as I was mentioning before, it was a little bit high. He's like, that's that's a little bit high for me right now, but I I need a place. I have a I have an Airbnb that I rented for a few weeks, and your place is less than that, so I canceled my Airbnb. I want to stay at your place. But at the end of September, I'm just gonna stay for one month, then I'm gonna find something else. So he came, he stayed with us for a few weeks, and then he was like, Okay, I got an apartment with a friend, it's a little bit less money, and I told you I was gonna move out, so then I am. And we're like, okay, that's that's too bad. And we we started to become pretty good friends with him so far. But he told me that he was gonna move out, so that was fine. Throughout those few weeks, he did mention he was like, you know, I'm a fresh college graduate, I'm not making too much. I would love to stay with you guys. I love you guys, Harrison Paul, but um, you know, it's it's a little bit stretching my budget. Right. You can kind of tell he was stressed out a little bit about it. Like, how am I gonna pay for all these bills? You know, he shipped his car, he had to redo his registration and all this kind of stuff, and he was stressed out. So, anyway, he was gonna move in with his friend at this apartment. And a few days go by, and he his friend was the one that went into the apartment to sign the application, and then a few days later, he said, I don't know what happened, but I went to actually sign the lease and they just raised the rent by like 400 bucks.

SPEAKER_03

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00

What the heck? And so I was like, went to Harris and I was like, you know what? I really like Aziz, he's a cool guy. Um and I I I think I think I want to keep him here. And we talked about it, and so one day I said, Hey Tuzies, I I know that you you were planning to move in with your friend to get cheaper rent, and now they raised it. So, you know, I I I really like you. And if you wouldn't mind, I texted, I was texting him with him during the work day, and I said, if you wouldn't mind, I'll I will lower the rent for you if you decide to stay. And he was like, Okay, cool. And when he came home that day, he came home and he was like, Hey Paul, and I was in the office. He came, he found me, and he gave me the biggest hug that I've ever had in my life.

SPEAKER_01

It was super awkward as a as a woman just like standing there watching your your boy. Boyfriend like hugged this man for a really long time.

SPEAKER_00

He was he was very that was probably I will probably never forget that moment. Like he was very genuinely grateful the heavens had opened up. I've been worrying about money for weeks, and now I don't have to worry about that, they're gonna lower the rent. And that's I learned this lesson. I forget where I heard it, but it's like in real estate, when you're a landlord, whatever, like you can make good money, but you don't have to make a killing. And I've heard that before, and when it connected me with this moment, now I've also thought, too, is like even if you're trying getting the amount of money you think you can get the maximum, you're the people that are renting from you, they might be stressed out. Especially in co-living, renting rooms, they might not be good to live with. And if you charge less, well, now they'll be happier, they'll be less stressed, they'll be more grateful.

SPEAKER_03

And they'll make you chicken.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. And it's a win-win all around. That's a that's a valuable lesson to anybody who's thinking about renting anything. Keep in mind that the mental well-being of people you're renting to is worth something, and they'll probably be better tenants too if you charge less.

SPEAKER_01

He does make good chicken, too.

SPEAKER_00

He does make really good chicken.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, the first rule of hugs is never be the first to let go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I tried. He kept going. He is a good guy.

SPEAKER_03

I'm telling you, Harris knows I give her a hug, and she's always the first to let go. So I make sure I'm never the first to let go.

SPEAKER_01

That's funny.

SPEAKER_03

Because you don't know how much the other person needs that hug.

SPEAKER_01

That's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So you hang in there until they say, okay, bud, that's enough. We'll break this up.

SPEAKER_01

I get the point. We're cool.

SPEAKER_03

So it is, is it I I love the point you made. I haven't done co-living, owning a place and having housemates, but I have um some university tenants in Colombia, and uh we we charge top dollar. And they I got a notice from the property manager who's a good friend of mine, you know, the microwave is broken. It's like the microwave's a year old. How it, you know, it's over the range, it's not a cheap microwave. I said it's not broken, they broke it. And I said, just just replace it. I mean, I'm not gonna go to war with anybody over something like that. You know, if they do legitimate damage to the property, of course, but I'm not gonna go to war over something that's just irritating. Like the ice maker doesn't work. Well, did you push the on button? Okay. Just push that button that says on and it'll make ice. So little things like that. Um you just you know my temper, Harris. Can't let those things get to me.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

I will say that we we have to label a lot of things in the house.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And there's a whole different reason for some of the labels. Some of the labels are just this is your cabinet and this is your refrigerator. We've learned your refrigerator shelf, rather, but we have learned that people just don't know simple household things. For example, we now have to label the dishwasher detergent because people will put dish soap in the dishwasher and then it will get soap and water like all over the place.

SPEAKER_00

People don't know that.

SPEAKER_01

People don't know that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, people don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, another funny little story. We now have a similar label on the drying machine that says, before you put clothes in the dryer, check your clothes for chapstick.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, chewing gum.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I have one of my favorite shirts. I left one stick of gum in the pocket, and I have now have this big, like nasty through the wash with one stick of gum. It didn't hurt the washing machine, but oh god, chapstick would be a disaster.

SPEAKER_01

I was the victim of that one. I was washing my clothes and it just happened to be all white clothes, and I I typically check the dryer and the washer to make sure nothing's in it, but I must have missed it. I don't know if it was tucked away behind one of the blades, and I put my clothes in the dryer, pulled it out, and there was red cherry chapstick all over my clothes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, all right, yeah, great.

SPEAKER_00

So now we have a little note that says, please check for chapstick. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Yeah, well, that's that's life, right? It's life with the with the co-loving. So, Paul, I'm interested in um, and you have alluded to it, but I haven't really heard a lot about. Um, you had a pretty good weight loss journey at some time in your life.

SPEAKER_00

I did actually. That was I'm not entirely sure what happened because when my middle brother and I were very young, we we couldn't keep anything down. Just whatever we ate just came back up. We had a pretty bad eating disorder. To this day, we were sent to my grandma's house for summer, one year when I was very young. I don't remember what happened. My middle brother Mark, he doesn't remember what happened. My dad doesn't remember, and my grandma is is past now. But somehow, that summer she cured us. And now we were able to actually eat and keep food down, so then what's gonna happen? We start eating and eating and eating, and my dad was so overjoyed he let us eat whatever we want, whether it's you know, candy, sure, right, sugary cereal, all this kind of chips, all this stuff. And we started gaining weight, gaining weight, and gaining weight, and unfortunately that we were overweight literally our entire childhood. Thank goodness for our oldest brother, George. We moved, I we moved from New York to California in about eighth grade. Right. He was very much into fitness, you know, the California lifestyle, eating right, working out, all this kind of stuff. So he tried to teach us about how to eat right. Sadly, of course, it was a lot of low fat in the 90s, which as we now know is is kind of garbage, but that's a whole nother point. But we tried low fat, low calorie, vegetarian, vegan, paleo, all the just Mediterranean, just you know, working out a lot, exercise, and nothing really worked for me until probably my mid to late 20s is when I discovered the keto diet. Yes, low carb, low sugar, and that's what finally worked for me. Um, so now I avoid pretty much all carbs except for green vegetables and a lot of protein and stuff like that. And uh just I've been doing low carb since probably over 10 years at this point. And that that's what finally I don't know what happened, but like I started doing that, and I I over the period of like six months, I weighed myself every day, and I was like, is my scale broken? Because it was my weight was just like melting off like over a period of months, and I was like, wow, this is incredible. And so now I I will never stop doing keto, even though people say it's like unsustainable, quote unquote unsustainable, but because like you know, I lost 60 pounds and I can't unsee that, and I have no reason to to you know go off of it. It makes me feel good. I look better than I've ever looked in my life, and and um so you know, I I I will tell everybody about keto, but obviously everybody's body is different. But I'll say if you haven't tried it, give it a try. I think the one thing that almost every single diet on the face of the planet is common is like everyone is against sugar, like lower your sugar intake, so uh keto is just the more extreme one, it's not just sugar, but like other carbs, you know.

SPEAKER_03

So I see the mental clarity, and you're obviously very physically fit, but the mental clarity is part of it. It's not like that that diet's destroying your brain. I mean, I think you're yeah, you're doing well. My my father was type 2 diabetic and he's completely off medication now. Right with the keto, and um, he and my mother do it pretty religiously. I mean, there's there's a cheat now and then, but yeah. She tried making keto cookies and they were like eating sand. So I was like, you know, just let's just eat vegetables.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that works.

SPEAKER_01

I'll make some great keto cookies so I can send you the recipe.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, okay. Well, what whatever she was using for flour was like Yeah, yeah, this is terrible.

SPEAKER_01

The first time I made keto cookies, they look like wet pancakes. And eventually, eventually I got the recipe down. So I have some good recipes. A lot of trial and error.

SPEAKER_00

She did not let me try the first few batches. She was like, No, I can't even. I was like, I'll probably eat it anyway, but she didn't.

SPEAKER_03

You don't want that memory stuck in your head.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I love it. So you guys are very involved in masterminds. I've I've noticed on social media. Tell us about some of the most recent ones that you've attended.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, so we have attended yours, of course.

SPEAKER_01

Um the wanna give them a plug?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, uh clear vision. Yes. Clear vision.

SPEAKER_03

Uh that's where you met. Was it one of our clear vision masterminds?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, definitely kind of funny. I would that was that was a leap for me. I'm very very frugal. So even that kind of thing, I was like, do I really want to do this? But I just remember. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um let later, let's come back to a story that is the difference between me and him. But we'll come back to that.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. Alright, let me forget. I won't I need to hear this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh so right now, actually, the main one we're in, it's a co-living mastermind we joined last December. Um, sure, I'll give a plug for Mr. Sam Wiegert, co-living uh mastermind. We joined that and it's been pretty good. It's it is kind of this was also a leap for me. Harris can attest. I was probably thinking about it for months, and Harris was like, let's just do it, just freaking do it. And um I think there's a lot of power in a spending money to be around people that are trying to achieve a difficult thing. Right. Everybody's struggling through it. Some people are a little bit farther than you, so they can help you. Maybe you're a little bit farther than somebody else, so you can help them. Right, right. We'll probably join other masterminds in the future for sure. But this has been a very good experience. And I actually, actually, uh, we had no idea this was gonna happen, but because of what we what we house hacking, co-living, having a few houses now, we've actually started coaching now too. So pretty cool. We are coaches within the group to help other people. So it's been it's been an interesting journey.

SPEAKER_01

We didn't we didn't plan for that, but they they kind of asked us because we were very active in the group. So as long as you join a group and you're very active, you'll get the value out of it. So we joined the group, we started posting a lot, started asking a lot of questions, having calls with people, and eventually they realized we scaled to the point that we are now in one year, less than one year, really. So they recognized that and they said, Hey, would you guys be interested in helping some of the new people who are joining the group so that they're not left behind? Like no one left behind is what our our call is dubbed.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that the coaching gets criticized a lot, but to me it's a natural evolution of what we do. It is once you get good at something, then you know, helping other people is just natural, and and getting paid for it is not is not a crime. I mean, I paid a fortune for coaching, and I'm glad I did.

SPEAKER_00

So it is it is an interesting feeling now because this is the first time in my life that I've ever really made any money outside of my job.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And it's interesting because other people are like, especially in our mastermind and outside, they're like, How did you do that? And it's like, wait, this is valuable information, so it's interesting. So we're getting ready to join another mastermind. We're thinking of a few other things. The next one might be something like commercial real estate. That's something that's also in my mind, especially since you guys are talking about it in the REI groups and stuff like that. It's like maybe we should do that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So tell us about that difference between the two. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So we were at my house before we launched the property. We decided that we were going to install a Eufy deadbolt on the front door. And so we had to go and take the old deadbolt off. So Paul did that. I went over, he went over, and he sat at the door and started taking the old deadbolt off. And later on, I come back over there and he still hasn't installed it yet. And I'm like, what's going on, Paul? And he said, It won't fit. I'm like, what do you mean it won't fit? It's it's a deadbolt, it's the their standard sizes. And he said, Well, this old door, the the part that slides into the side of the door, the actual deadbolt part, it wouldn't slide in.

SPEAKER_00

It just won't fit.

SPEAKER_01

It just won't fit. And I said, He said, I guess I'll just have to send it back.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so start boxing it up. You know, it doesn't fit, whatever.

SPEAKER_01

I was like, no, no, no, we're not doing that. So I went to grab uh I well, I didn't have a rubber mallet with me, so I grabbed a puffy jacket because it was the middle of winter, and I grabbed my hammer and I just started like hammering it. Hammering the dead bulb into the into the door. And he was like, Okay, I guess that's how Harris gets things done.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. So you just need a bigger hammer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that's the perfect description of the difference between Harris and I. I'm very measured. I want to be very careful about everything, and if it doesn't fit, that's okay. And Harris is just like, I'm gonna I'm gonna force this square peg into the round hole.

SPEAKER_03

Paul said this will never work, and Harris said it will if you hit it with a hammer.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Yeah. Which I think is probably the best partnership you can probably ask for.

SPEAKER_03

So I grew up in construction, and um there was always a job site turned the BFH. The big fucking hammer. Give me the big fucking hammer. We'll hit it with the BFH. Yeah. See what happens.

SPEAKER_01

I don't feel so bad for saying ass earlier.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Language is fine. Apparently, hand gestures are a problem, but yeah, language is fine. YouTube doesn't mind language.

SPEAKER_00

Great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Within within reason.

SPEAKER_00

So here's something I've also noticed, especially in our co-living group. Only something I've noticed in myself that I've now noticed noticing in other people, is I'm very much a person that's analysis paralysis. You know, I used to think I was an aim, aim, aim, aim, fire person. Now I realize I'm much more of an aim, aim, aim, aim.

SPEAKER_03

And that's it. Never fire.

SPEAKER_00

And now I'm seeing I'm seeing that pattern in other people in our co-living group. And thank God for Harris, because I'm realizing there are some personalities like me that are probably just never gonna do anything, and you need, you need to partner with somebody who's going to push you over the edge.

SPEAKER_01

Or get a couple of things.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, you could like beat yourself over the head and say, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, but it's just easier. Just find somebody else, you know, just partner with them. It's just a million times easier, especially real estate. You need somebody else, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, it's a good team. It's interesting, you being an engineer, my father's an engineer, he's also a champion marksman from the army in the 60s to uh I guess his eyes he's 81, so his eyesight's not quite there anymore, but long-range bench rest rifle shooting. And so what you do there is you ready, fire, and then aim. Because you don't know what you're doing wrong. You can't correct. If you don't fire the shot, how would you ever know if your sights are right? So I said to that to him jokingly, like, like ready, fire, aim. He was like, No, it's ready, aim, fire. And then I said, No, think about what you do. You aim, you ready, aim, and fire, but you really don't know what's going to happen until you fire.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You can you can aim all day, but you take that shot and you have another round, and you say, I was low, I was high, I was left, I was right, and you zero in. My brother and my father and my sister are fantastic shots, and I'm not. I have a personality flaw where I can't pay attention that closely. But that that to me is a great analogy is you you gotta fire a shot, and it's like that was way off, but now we can dial it in. How do you dial it in if you don't you don't take a shot?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I like that's kind of brilliant. I mean, that's that's kind of what we did. You know, we built this house.

SPEAKER_03

Uh well that's what made me what made me think of it is it it's very much what you did. Is well that wasn't, and it's what we all do. It's like, well, that didn't work out the way I planned, but it was only off by, and it was off in this direction. Yeah, but if you never pull the trigger, it's like the thing we talk about in the masterminds, you can't steer a parked car.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You can turn the wheel all you want, but you're you're not steering a parked car. And if you're firing a rifle, you're gonna have to take a shot and see where it lands.

SPEAKER_01

100%.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm I'm talking about shooting targets, not people, by the way.

SPEAKER_01

We've definitely done that through this process. Um, I I don't think it doesn't matter how much you research, I don't think you can really ever understand the process of doing something until you actually get get your hands dirty and start doing it.

SPEAKER_03

When a key from the beginning of our conversation here. Sorry, Ryan, I smacked the mic again. Uh get my hands going. From near the beginning of our conversation, you didn't understand how to flip a house, you didn't understand how to help your friend, you really didn't understand, you couldn't be expected to, but you partnered, and you were very fortunate that your sister and her wife are brilliant and have done it for many, many years. But you were smart enough to say, Let's partner on this. You took on the role, and typically, as the new partner, you're gonna do most of the work. But I mean, the reward was sweet.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and the reward for just doing it was sweet, right?

SPEAKER_03

Because then I got to learn to learn, and in that case, you made a pretty good profit, and and you got to learn things. And I also think that that built up the your your um your go-for-it muscle. You know what I mean? Like now you're not afraid to take the shot because that one worked out pretty damn well. So don't be afraid to take that next shot. And then, you know, speaking personally, I'm having to make a lot of corrections right now because things are different. Yeah, you can't keep doing the same thing. You have to really but you don't know until you take the shot.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think I'm a little bit different from Paul in this regard simply because I came, I went through a really rough time in my life where I didn't have anything. Like I didn't have nickels to rub together. I lived with a with an addict for about five years. So I didn't have anything during that time period. So at this point in my life, I'm like, if if I am completely broke, I'll be in a better situation than I was then. So there is nothing to lose.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Take the risk and see what happens. And if it doesn't turn out well, that's fine. I'll be okay. I'll brush it up off, I'll get up, and I'll do it again. I'll try something else.

SPEAKER_03

Man, I'm about to tear up here. I love that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, see. To me, that's that's to me that's it's crazy because like I I've I saw my dad, uh especially after my mom passed, with struggling his whole life trying to raise kids on his own. So going to zero is like terrifying. That that is terrifying. I don't I I could not even imagine.

SPEAKER_03

Right. But when you've been there, you know, now at least you have an emotionally stable, physically healthy partner that you can you can both right, you can both cry in your coffee in the morning.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But at least you're not you're not alone or worse than that, being dragged down by something. So that that's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.

SPEAKER_04

Of course.

SPEAKER_03

What else do we have? Looking at my notes now. Paul, we had years ago, we connected over tiny houses.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Have you explored that any further?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, kind of fun little side tangent is is I ever since like I don't know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I started watching YouTube videos about tiny houses on wheels, and I just I fell in love with it. I became obsessed with tiny houses on wheels. I love how every single one is like different. People customize it to their personalities and their activities. And you know, if you want to move, you take your house with you. It's it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01

And the fact that it's engineered in a way that you can like fit so many things in one little spot.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's pretty cool. In like one car size or one truck size, whatever it is. And so I've always had the dream of owning a tiny house on wheels community at some point. And I even funny, I even had a meetup group where we met once a month to talk about how we can do this. And I think we met for like six months or something like that, or maybe longer. And a lot of people were interested in it in it. Pretty cool. Yeah, I I very quickly realized like I didn't really know what I was doing. And as the leader of the group, people were like, hey, so what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? And I was like, you know what, maybe I'm gonna take a step back. Uh but um, so I definitely want to visit revisit that at some point, but however, uh take keeping that in mind, what is something that is kind of like a tiny house? Uh something. Very small, a room. So it's like, wait a minute, we're we're kind of doing that already. By renting rooms, we are creating a little community of tiny, tiny rooms.

SPEAKER_03

You are just like a tiny house community, but all under one roof.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. So I do eventually want to get there, but and I'm seeing I'm building the path in my mind. Like we're learning now, okay, buying real estate, renovating a house, advertising for tenants, dealing with any pre people issues, house issues, things like that. And then from there, the next step is go bigger, maybe multifamily, maybe commercial, eventually buying land and and having this come to fruition. So it's kind of a ladder stair step. So I'm still on the path, but um I think the way we're doing now is a little bit more measured and uh you know learning the critical pieces of buying, renovating, becoming a landlord, that kind of stuff. And I definitely do have a still have a spot in my heart for building building one of those.

SPEAKER_01

So we'll probably get old and we'll be living on like some little lake area with like tiny homes around it. That's probably what's gonna happen. Yeah. I I and and Paul will have a 20-foot cinder block fence around the whole place, so it'll be like a compound.

SPEAKER_00

That's right, yeah. I love I love fences. Uh one of the best things that I think we did.

SPEAKER_03

If I'd been to your house, I'd see how much you love fences.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, fence, I'd love fence. And uh there's a house in Harris's neighborhood that has a cinder block fence, and it's it's got like stucco, so it looks nice. You don't just see the cinder block. And I was like, I want that. I want to I want like a stockade.

SPEAKER_03

We need a stockade.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we definitely yeah, so I want my little like kingdom.

SPEAKER_03

Gotta keep the zombies out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Keep the people out.

SPEAKER_03

I wish you had seen the tiny house I built in 2016-2017. Um, that was fun. I mean, I had the trailer custom made. I bought a set of plans, even though I had drawn house plans my whole career. But this guy, Andrew, from Portland, or not Portland, but Oregon, had like that. I mean, that I looked at it and went, if I had designed a tiny house, I couldn't have done better than those. So I bought his plans. And I still have the plans in my office. And they're covered in like paint and glue and all kinds of stuff, because they were, you know, I had them on the job site, but I held on to them. So it's a very cool concept, and it's it's not terribly kid friendly. It's either younger single people or I found like single women over 50 were hot trot for them.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um, and single people, actually, the guy who bought it from me was a single man over 50, so I shouldn't be sexist. But the um at the tiny house festivals, it was like, my god, there's you know, it's like 80% women with thinking about an empty nest situation. So it is interesting you made the analogy to the roams because it's pretty similar. Um because the way that tiny house village thing works is pretty cool. I've been to three or four of them. Yeah, and it it's a community, so pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We took a trip to the upstate of South Carolina one one weekend, and I just like booked different Airbnbs that were all tiny houses, and we did experience it. It was it was fun.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that was a big surprise. That was probably one of our first dates. I think that was the first trip we took, and she she blew me away. I was like, wow, that's cool. I've never stayed in a tiny house on wheels.

SPEAKER_03

So she knew you were interested in it. She paying attention.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Love it. Well, I think we'll wrap up for today. See if I've missed anything. I think we did really well. So I really appreciate Paul and Harris being on today. This has been great. And for those of you who are still listening and watching, thank you for joining us. Make a comment below about something else we should talk about in the future, or something you disagree with that you heard today, or you know, encouragement, whatever you'd like to do. We really appreciate the comments. You can find us all over the web on YouTube, Instagram, our private websites, Twitter, and probably elsewhere. Brian will put all the links below because he's the detail guy, and I'm the broad strokes. So thank you so much for joining us. This has been the Blue Cup Podcast. Harris, you interrupted me. This has been the Blue Cup Podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, Russ. We appreciate it. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03

Enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02

You went to a bar.