Speaker 1: 0:22

All right guys, welcome to episode five of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast with the me, Kurt Vatten, andrew McKelvie, crazy Mike, and we're super happy to have our real estate attorney and friend here, brandon Berg. We appreciate you being here with us. Thanks, bud, absolutely so. We already got into some good conversation, but we always just like to kind of start out by asking you know what is your background? You know college to now, and what are you kind of focusing on right now and how did you get to where you are right now? That kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me here. This is going to be fun. So I grew up in Panama City. I went to FSU to law school, got my law degree. I got my undergrad law degree, mba, all from you did it all at FSU.

Speaker 1: 1:04

I did, I did, I was here for quite a while.

Speaker 2: 1:06

I was real involved with the capital while I was there and really enjoyed being in Tallahassee and FSU wasn't the best time to be there from a football standpoint, but it's a little bit better nowadays Met my wife, me and her moved down to Tampa, worked for a large firm down in Tampa doing real estate stuff there, eventually moved back to Panama City in 2012 and worked for a firm here in town and then in 2017, started my own law firm kind of community association real estate focused and I've had my own law firm since then merged with a friend of mine in two years ago and so now kind of running the operations of the firm and then handling mainly the real estate development community association side of things for the law firm Very cool, and but you do a lot of other stuff too, right.

Speaker 1: 1:50

You own, you do community association management and have a title company as well, right?

Speaker 2: 1:55

So we have a title company, I own a couple, we own the building that we're in downtown. I own a short term rental three unit place down over there in St Andrews. I'm a member of a boxing club, owner of that too, and then we own another rental property as well for that too. So yeah, we stay pretty busy with that stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:14

The boxing club. I didn't know you were a part owner in that. So what is that all about?

Speaker 2: 2:17

So that's, honestly, more of a vanity project that came about. We were looking for doors for the office downtown Panama City that if you've been to the office, the doors are phenomenal. And when we went to, we went to New Orleans to buy the doors. While we were there, we took our contractor with us, who happened to be a boxing professional who was affiliated with the New Orleans Boxing Club.

Speaker 2: 2:41

We stopped by saw the boxing club, we got this wild hair with some other friends of ours that how cool would it be if we had a boxing club in downtown Panama City? Very cool and so.

Speaker 1: 2:50

I wanted to go down there and check that place out. For the longest time that I didn't come on down, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:56

And so it was kind of tongue in cheek at first. And then another friend of mine, chris Stamps. He started looking at locations and doing proformas and he came back to us and he's like, hey, man, like this could kind of work and I go All right.

Speaker 2: 3:09

Well, I mean, I don't want to lose money on it, but I'm a big believer in the growth and development of downtown Panama City and my thought process was kind of it didn't take a huge capital investment to get it going and then, as long as it doesn't lose money which it doesn't doesn't make money either, frankly.

Speaker 3: 3:24

But it doesn't lose money.

Speaker 2: 3:26

And, but it draws people downtown. It's another reason to come downtown. So there's, this synergy between come down to the boxing club, go grab a beard history class, you know go shopping at some of the shops and so you've seen this real development of downtown and it's a. It's become a very grassroots type thing. And you had Alan Branch on here the other day that I saw, which was a great interview, and he's kind of the champion for downtown and so and he kind of changed my perception on the development of downtown.

Speaker 2: 3:56

I had always been under the impression that it needs some major catalyst, that you need some major event to kick everything off. And then he told me he's like no, you don't, you need grassroots, one building at a time, one storefront at a time, one window at a time, slowly improving. And that's what's happened down there. Yeah, you've seen one storefront change and another restaurant change and a brewery come in and then the taco stand come in and then an ice cream shop pops in, and then you get somebody like me who renovates a building and puts their law firm down there and next thing, you know, you know over time you don't see the changes. But if you think back to where we were a few years ago, it is night and day it's. You have pedestrians going down there and you have window shopping and stuff happening where decades ago, like when I grew up in this town, businesses went downtown to die it just was.

Speaker 1: 4:39

And now they're going cheap rent.

Speaker 2: 4:42

It's cheap rent and who cares? And I don't have any traffic and so it's seriously. It's like dilapidated buildings. There's no reason to go downtown.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Is that like? How different it is from like when you were a kid to now 100% yeah, 100% yeah, even from my perspective, I mean even I see that. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 4:55

I mean here for 18 years and I never had downtime experience growing up just the landscape, the streetscape, all the little changes that you expressed.

Speaker 1: 5:04

I mean, has made a vast difference. Utility boxes, it really is inviting.

Speaker 3: 5:10

But really on a joking side, if they have too many beers at the history class, do they get to go to the boxing event and hash out their differences?

Speaker 4: 5:17

We should do something like that. Are you all part of the social drinking club? Because?

Speaker 2: 5:21

that's a new thing. The boxing crew in on the social club, no, but what's been really fun is the word's not reciprocity, but we'll do events at the boxing club and then they'll get a free drink at history class.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And so there absolutely is bounce off of each other, exactly, exactly and so we know for a fact people have been at history class having a beer hanging out and heard people sparring at the boxing club and walked over to check it out. The vice versus. People have also gone and trained and then be like let's go grab a beer at history class.

Speaker 2: 5:50

That stuff all works together and when you start talking about, you're right. The utility boxes get painted, and then another, you know the streetscape gets done, which was a major improvement in the new clock they put in the middle, like all that stuff adds up.

Speaker 1: 6:02

And then the next thing you know, you look around and you go there's a lot of people down here, yeah, yeah, and I would even say, like my parents, who are definitely not from here, you know, whenever they visit us, we go down there and do stuff. Now, which I think, like even when I first moved here, you know, five, six years ago, that wouldn't have been the case.

Speaker 2: 6:17

Well, and I have two more examples. One was this was about two years ago I was over in Rosemary Beach and we went to one of those little gift shoppy things over there and there was a girl wearing a history class shirt and so I asked her. I was like hey, you know what? Do you have a history class shirt on? That's kind of cool. And she's like, yeah, she goes. Now. You know, she was like I live in Panama City Beach and we go downtown quite a bit to hang out where, like when.

Speaker 2: 6:39

I was growing up if you lived in Panama City Beach, you partied on Panama City Beach and or you went over to 30 a now this idea that you're going to go what? East? To go have a good time as a young adult that's what she was. I mean, probably early 20s there was that. And then the. The second part was had a friend of mine want to come over and grab coffee, so we went to the coffee shop downtown. He was from Fort Walton Beach, Destin area.

Speaker 4: 7:04

The press. Yeah, we went to the press.

Speaker 2: 7:07

He's walked in, he goes. Brandon, I've been downtown in 10 years. This is unbelievable.

Speaker 3: 7:11

And I'm like but wait a second you're from.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Destin. Destin's so cool and so amazing. Everybody wants to go to Destin. He goes. We don't have a downtown that nowhere like this. And he goes. And if you want to go to Fort Walton, Beach is downtown. It's scary because it's right there on that intersection of the highway and the bridge and everything he's like. You're terrified because the pedestrian walkway is about four feet wide and it's a major highway Coming right up yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Right, so, and I go wait a second. There's a guy from Destin who's jealous of our downtown. How crazy is this? And so it's been really cool to kind of see some of these pieces, especially when you kind of get these doubters like why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? This is never going to work. Well, it's worked.

Speaker 4: 7:44

And so like, let's see how it goes. And now there's like this move I mean I don't know, maybe you know more about it, but they're making that, trying to make the connection between St Andrews in downtown Beach.

Speaker 3: 7:53

Drive. I mean they're trying to create kind of that way that you can get to both.

Speaker 4: 7:57

That's right, accessibly.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Yep, yeah, and so you know there is a bit of a vanity just knowing that you're a little bit of a part of that, like we're just one building and everything else, but it's a pretty building and we paint the windows when we can and we're happy to invite people down there.

Speaker 3: 8:10

That's cool. It's cool. But the success breeds success and it starts with one step, one entrepreneur, one building front, like you said. So it is exciting.

Speaker 4: 8:18

Well, it's kind of cliche, but it's like that show on HGTV over in Mississippi hometown or whatever it is. I mean, they kind of did the same thing with their downtown.

Speaker 2: 8:26

Yeah, you know obviously they did it on one little perspective, but they did the same thing.

Speaker 4: 8:29

Yeah, they hit their downtown one unit at a time, and now, five years later, Pensacola is the same way.

Speaker 3: 8:36

They went through a rejuvenation years ago and it's a great thing. It's really really changed the landscape.

Speaker 2: 8:39

You know people underestimate intention plus time. Yeah, like if you have a plan and it's almost not as important what the plan is like, just create a plan and then go execute and then give it more than like a week, you know, give it a year, give it two years, give it 10 years, and next thing, you know, you turn around and you go oh wow, this is actually made a big difference. Yeah, now, day over day it looks the same. It doesn't change. It's like going to the gym, you know. It's like it's almost like an unmoving object. Exactly, exactly. But when you reflect on things and you go, man, you know I remember what it looked like in October of 18. It was rough, right.

Speaker 3: 9:10

After the hurricane you know what is going to happen.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Yeah absolutely. Well, six years later or five years later, you know it's in a great spot. So there's a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So that's true intention. Plus time like a lot of, even if just like a small portion of that plan gets done over time, it's going to make a huge difference, not only has it physically changed a lot?

Speaker 4: 9:26

I mean it looks a lot different in five years, but there's a lot of future. I mean it's a big conversation now. The whole city talks about downtown 100%, 100%.

Speaker 1: 9:34

I mean, it's not just what do you feel like? What do you feel like? The next, like precipice of development that we need in this area to like move forward is then, you know, like outside of, like moving downtown forward, like what else do we need? Is it jobs?

Speaker 2: 9:51

That's a. That's a big question. I mean, you got a lot of people that are smarter than I am that are working on that through the EDA and the chamber and things like that, you know, and it becomes a chicken or the egg thing. You know the, the.

Speaker 2: 10:01

if we're going to talk local stuff, the big thing that holds back the local economy is the schools and that that's, you know, every major corporation, or especially the military, when they look at expansion, they look at school systems and the quality of education, and the reality is the Bay County District schools as an overall scores very poorly on that stuff and when you look at the numbers, the reading, the literacy rates, the poverty rate, all that other good stuff, like it's not good.

Speaker 4: 10:28

Now there's room for improvement and it sounds like we've got a new I was going to say do you think the new change is going to push that in the right direction?

Speaker 2: 10:34

Let's hope so. Yeah, couldn't be any worse right and there are. There are signs, like it's been done before, like this was done very successfully over in Okaloosa County with the Senate president. Do y'all know his name?

Speaker 1: 10:47

I can't think of it, but I do know what you're talking about. Oh, gait Don.

Speaker 2: 10:50

Gates, sorry, yes, yes, it's been done very successfully in the past. Over in Okaloosa County, don Gates turned their scores from very low to one of the leading counties in the state and so and it matters, because if you're looking for employees, you want quality, high education people, and so that's going to be the big thing and that, to me, that's kind of the linchpin that'll catalyze everything else. You still need affordable housing, you still need jobs to go to, but it kind of all starts and stops.

Speaker 4: 11:14

There's outside of restaurants and hospitality.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Yeah, hospitality stuff, which is great and the beach does really well with it and the tourism and that's kind of its own little ecosystem over there. But in town, in Panama City, it needs more career, more well-rounded, sustainable type things, as opposed to the other hospitality stuff.

Speaker 3: 11:32

You mentioned the EDA and they've done a good job of bringing new business into the area. But I believe one of the key draws to this market to be able to bring some of these manufacturing and distribution companies was our low wages and our lower costs of living. But that is transitioning.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Yeah, that is. It's tremendously, I mean, y'all are on the real estate side. It is much more than I am.

Speaker 2: 11:52

Yeah. You see, prices right now? Yeah, they haven't come down a ton. Yeah, they haven't come down a ton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 11:58

Rent prices, but it's always a transition and there's tremendous room for growth geographically with vacant land.

Speaker 1: 12:06

While it's gone up here, I mean, we're still way more affordable than where they were being housed, even California or the lot of other places where they were housed.

Speaker 3: 12:15

That's true, that's true, that's true. Yeah, that's right. So okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:21

So let's talk a little bit about real estate and your real estate attorney. Obviously. How did that end up being like the segment of the law that you got into and why was that like an area of interest for you? Did you kind of fall into it, or was it a decision Two?

Speaker 2: 12:34

things. One is I really liked the tangibility of it. I liked being able to has like an asset attached to it. It does. And so I learned very early on in my legal career there's just two styles of lawyers and they're not good or bad. There's just two styles. You've got transactional lawyers and you've got trial lawyers. You've got ones that they want to fight, they want to go to court, they want to win, and that's great. They like it, they like it and they want a winner and a loser. And I'm glad we have people like that.

Speaker 2: 13:02

And you may argue oh, I don't like personal injury lawyers, but there's a place in this world for them, believe me. But you also need transactional lawyers who know how to put deals together, who know how to make concessions in the right spot, who know how to grow the pie as opposed to just ripping it apart. And I found very early on in my legal career that's my mentality. I prefer the deal structuring. How can we maximize for your client? Don't get me wrong. But also my mentality is like when I'm representing clients, we're going to be doing transactions for a long time. If we kind of give everything we've got on one transaction, nobody's going to want to do business with you anymore because you've kind of screwed the other person. That doesn't breed well for long-term success.

Speaker 1: 13:36

So it's kind of like money today versus tomorrow's money. Yeah, building relationships. Yeah, building relationships.

Speaker 2: 13:42

And so I liked the tangibility of being able to drive past a project and tell my daughters hey, daddy worked on that condo project, daddy worked on the HOA development, daddy represents that building over there. It's just, I liked that. And then also, quite candidly, when I moved back to Panama City, the big law firm that I had worked for in Tampa, I got hired. So I graduated from law school in 2008 and I got hired. The way law school works is usually get hired after your second year summer. So you cooked for a law firm, they offer you a job. So that whole year of fall of 07 to spring of 08, I had a job lined up. Well, I'm going to go work for the real estate attorney at this big firm. Well, we all know what happens in 08. And I get there and I'm kind of grinding out work and then after about a year and a half they had hired me, the mayor's son and the cardiologist son of the largest hospital that they represent. So two local guys and me, guess you got laid off.

Speaker 3: 14:35

Brandon did, which is fine.

Speaker 2: 14:37

And at the time it stung like crazy. But what I realized was it's about relationships, and when I moved to Panama City I go. I will never be in a situation where I don't have my own book of business. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that I have the relationships that I need to be able to be successful, because if you have relationships, you can do a lot. And so I merged the real estate tangibility with it. But also I kind of looked around this market and I was trying to be realistic about what Panama City has as far as good legal clients and I was looking at these community associations and I'm like who's representing all these buildings? These are like little cities. I've got clients with multi, multi million dollar budgets bigger than Parker, bigger than Springfield, bigger than.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Callaway's budgets.

Speaker 2: 15:18

HOA budget and it's like an HOA and it's a building and they've got hundreds and hundreds of shareholders, and then add the complexity of I'll tell you what. Let's make it more complex and we'll stack them on top of each other too. So things leak and people I mean. I wrote a letter this morning to a guy and it's not that big of a deal, but they didn't install the flooring correctly in their unit and it's causing noise to the unit below them. So it's a small thing, but there will be no technology, there will be no AI that outsources the issue of community associations that need to find a way to get along legally. There's no chat, gpt on how do you?

Speaker 2: 15:53

make it so that this thing doesn't leak anymore.

Speaker 3: 15:55

Who's responsible for fixing it? Yeah, 100% Real world scenarios.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Yeah, and so it became a. It was a good niche. Nobody else seemed to be doing it and doing it. Well, I jumped all over it and we grew that business, and so it stays very consistent when the economy's great, they're doing fine, when the economy's bad, they're doing fine, and so that's been. It's been a good, just kind of great way to grow the practice from there.

Speaker 3: 16:16

There's one thing that you said that instituted in me that you are absolutely in the right place of being a real estate attorney, because every single real estate agent when they drive through town they tell whoever's in the car I sold that house, I sold that house. I helped somebody buy that house Same thing you're doing as a real estate attorney.

Speaker 2: 16:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that. Yeah, yeah, for sure it's true.

Speaker 1: 16:36

Mike does that all the time, I do.

Speaker 4: 16:38

He did it yesterday while I was looking at another house on the computer. He was like oh, just roll up just a little bit, a little bit that one. Yeah, I sold that one.

Speaker 1: 16:45

I always sense my wife just being like yeah, whatever, yeah, good for you, good for you.

Speaker 2: 16:50

But it really comes back to again whether it doesn't matter who you have the relationships with. It's about those solid relationships and then delivering value to those folks. And that's why when I got here, I'm like I'm going to do this as aggressively as I possibly can and develop as many relationships as I can. Because then I knew at that point I had options. Yeah, and so when it became the opportunity to start my own firm and like I mean this in the nicest way possible I left the firm and the bar rules require that all the clients that you've worked with you have to send them a letter. And the bar rules say the letter says you know, dear clients, brandon's leaving the firm. You have three options Go with Brandon, stay with the firm or hire somebody else. And out of the 69 letters we sent out, 66 came back and said they wanted to go with me.

Speaker 2: 17:32

And so I was like it's but talk about putting yourself out there Like you want to see that relationship.

Speaker 1: 17:35

That's probably not the norm.

Speaker 2: 17:36

I would say I mean, I don't know, but you think you've got relationships. Tell them to sign their name that they're sticking with you and that's just a different level of commitment.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Yeah, I mean, I've gotten the letter like that before and we've never chosen to go with the person that was leaving. So I mean you know so yeah, I think that's not normal To a degree it says something for your level of service.

Speaker 4: 17:56

Yeah, I was going to say you believe in yourself, you believe in your service and you're confident in what you can do and you run with it. But it's kind of like we were talking about on our last episode with Chris. I mean you, just you got to have belief in the service you're providing for yourself because nobody else is going to do it, and you found a niche in this market that nobody else seemed to be doing, at a high level, it is.

Speaker 2: 18:17

And it's also kind of the grass is green where you water it. Yeah, I've seen people and I've been at it long enough now where I've seen people kind of come and go and they'll start showing up at some of the industry meetings and whatever, and they'll be, oh, I'm going to do this, and then six months later they're like oh, I'm not like yeah, but if you seriously it doesn't take 10 years. It probably takes two or 18 months or something and they just won't stick with it.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Yeah, that's a lot of things, though. That creates opportunity, though. The big thing for me here this is a question Obviously, hoas are not the easiest thing to deal with. I myself struggle with being part of an HOA sometimes, but sometimes you've got to be part of an HOA if you want to live somewhere, and then you're on the other side of it, right, you're almost like an added layer to that. What kind of complications or difficulties come with doing CAM management, because you guys manage some subdivisions and things like that too? Right?

Speaker 2: 19:09

So my father owned a business that did that. I've never been in the actual management industry myself. No, it's just dealing with the personalities and also having the confidence and perhaps the wisdom to keep people out of their own way and to talk them out of doing things that they really want to do because they're being emotional about it. And y'all may see this with real estate contracts, but it's a little different because with the Community Association, they're not as a director, they're not Directly spending their own money, and we're dealing with clients that are cutting checks from their own pocketbook or from a business that the owner is actually feels the consequence right.

Speaker 2: 19:50

They're much more discerning about their funds reminds me of government spending, it's very similar to government spending, so you can get some attorneys that go sure you want to sue them. By all means, give me a retainer and I'll do it right and you got to be like but I've got.

Speaker 2: 20:02

I haven't done that overtly, but there's been opportunity. There's been times where I've gotten drug into cases Because some director had an axe to grind and I probably should should have stood up and said this is your personal beef, this is not what's the best return on the investment for the owners out there, yeah, and then you find yourself in a situation where you're like you're kind of pot committed and you don't want to be so, it Is really hard because that director they go, I'm ready to go.

Speaker 2: 20:27

And sometimes it's also a tough position for the other directors to stand up to that person, say, hey, we're not going to spend the associations funds on this, because usually that person's so like go, it's like your neighbor or the person in the room exactly exactly, and so having the Confidence and the maturity to be like look, I know what's best for you guys this is my advisors, which I'll need to do. That's probably the biggest challenge.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Yeah, that makes sense. That's fair. You've given me some advice like that before.

Speaker 4: 20:54

Yeah, yeah, well.

Speaker 2: 20:56

I mean in general, like and I would tell anybody who's listening to this like Very rarely in fact, I would say for me and maybe it's just, maybe it's just anecdotal to me I have never had a client go toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow and at the very end of it be like I'm so glad I did that. That was such a great use of my time. I believe that I mean every instance, even if they win, they go. I so wish I rather would have spent all that time and money and resources on moving the ball forward, strategizing a new situation, hiring a new person going out and getting my clients you know, new clients or whatever else, rather than dumping tens of thousands of dollars or a hundred thousand dollars on. I mean, look, I fought, I defended an association Not far from here who spent three hundred thousand dollars over a driveway. I'm not kidding, I'm not.

Speaker 1: 21:41

I believe that I mean just knowing people.

Speaker 2: 21:43

I 100% believe yeah, and so you go.

Speaker 1: 21:46

I mean and then I do it. It's not their money, it's not their money.

Speaker 2: 21:49

It's a small association. It's like 36 doors, so 10 grand. 10 grand a door over a driveway that they ultimately ended up losing. Well, and so you're just like my gosh. So that's that type of stuff happens.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Yeah, yeah battles yeah, yeah, you think it's relatable. Yeah, definitely Also to a degree. It's kind of like I think that's what's valid or helpful about In a dispute having legal representation, though it's kind of like what I always tell people about why realtors are valuable too. It's like, yeah, can you do it, sure, but are you gonna make the most clear-headed, objective Database decision In this situation? Probably not.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Like even when I listed my own house on the beach last year, I had Andrew listed and I paid him some to do it because I knew that me interacting with the buyers and my emotions being involved in that like I didn't look at it like a subject property. I looked at it like, okay, I need to get X amount of it and it's worth this and that and I don't want to change this and that right. So like I think it's the same thing in this situation, like just having someone that can say, hey, no, that because we're emotional people, right, and if people's emotions get into the mix with things like that and they're gonna want to, you know, go all out, but on the tail end of it, having someone who said, hey, maybe that's not the best idea. When you do finally come to what the resolution was you're like okay, yeah, that was. That was probably for the better.

Speaker 2: 23:07

You know, having the maturity to realize that is really important. And I'll say I'm in the exact same boat as your court, because I've had situations and they don't happen much. We've had an employment issue where I was so rotted up about this thing. I was like we got a higher counsel, I'm not Thinking well on behalf of the organization because it's so personal to me and you'd be like, well, but as an attorney I'm super logical. I'm usually very even, keeled, very steady, very strong foundation, like I'm not gonna get rotted up over something. But when that guy emailed me, it would piss me off so much I had to take a step back and hire my own attorney, like, but I knew the law, I can read this actually just as well as this guy Did yeah, but it was worth hiring somebody just to deflect and give you you know. And then you can say like, is this cool? Do I need to settle? What do I need to do here? And and this is the best money we've ever- let's let somebody spend money on basically buying logic.

Speaker 1: 23:50

That's the way I see it Time-to-time, need a voice third party logic uninvolved logic.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Yeah, but having that maturity to know even though it's my industry like you guys should be able to sell your own Props. You guys should be able to sell your own properties with no problem whatsoever. Obviously, you know how to do a listing agreement. You know how to put on the MLS that's not an issue. But having that person there to help be your advocate isn't is incredibly important.

Speaker 1: 24:09

It's such more of like and that you know People ask us all the time and I think it's just a common question that people want to know, like what makes you different? You know, and I just tell people a lot of time, like you know, nothing really makes us that different. Like the truth of the matter is and you know this, like you know, taking pictures, putting something on the MLS, running comps like if you can't do that, like you're almost invalid, right, like you have to be able to take a picture. Or hire a photographer, run a comp, like over time learning industry. So it's like relatively basic things.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Pricing, right, it really comes down to like the intangibles. It's like you know when those people come. Do you collect the proper feedback? Do you know what to do with the feedback? Do you know how to adjust the price based on the feedback? Do you know how to have a conversation with Another realtor or a potential buyer without giving away the farm, while still being honest, right? Do you know how to handle a negotiation? Do you know how one it's under contract when things blow up to keep it under contract and get it from beginning to finish? That's really what you're hiring a realtor for that like to a degree. The rest is sticks and bricks right and knowing how to analyze it. Take a photo, market it properly, which everyone can figure out, but you know that's. That's the truth of it. Is like it. You're really hiring some of those intangible things and taking away some of the emotion for the Transaction, for people effective communication.

Speaker 2: 25:24

Yeah, so you are. I guess where I push back on that is I Don't think, whether it's law or real estate or being an agent, I don't think the clients care. I don't think the clients care because they don't know, and the reason why I say that is because you know the whole, like they don't know how the sausage is made. They, you're selling them a feeling, you're selling them a confidence and a comfort that you're going to represent them well and you're going to get them the best deal. They don't know what you say to the other agent. They don't know how you, if you, if you strong arm them, or if you're nice or you're kind or whatever, and they assume your pictures look great and they, they assume you're describing the stuff on the MLS well too, like I Guaranty I'm put you guys on the spot here. How many of your clients have ever proofread what you put on the MLS?

Speaker 1: 26:03

Maybe one yeah right, really difficult one right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 26:07

So all these things that you do to add value and your proofreads.

Speaker 1: 26:11

All of them, though, because I'm terrible with grammar.

Speaker 4: 26:15

But like checks and balances. I.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Can tell you. My clients have no clue what I do, and I don't mean that a bad way. I just like they trust me. It's a feeling that relationship.

Speaker 4: 26:23

You've given them that feeling. They have confidence and believing that behind closed doors. You're doing what you said you're gonna do you answer your phone. That's the big one, are you?

Speaker 2: 26:31

responsive? Do you seem to care about their concerns? Are you able to solve problems for them? Do you appear to be moving them all forward, like if I'm handling a litigation case? I'm, and I love my clients to death. They have no clue if the next step needs to be a request for production or a deposition.

Speaker 3: 26:45

They don't try that. Or should we move to suck or whatever?

Speaker 2: 26:47

No idea. They just want to know. Like, does Brandon seem like he has a handle? Is he updating me? Does you know, as you told me, about what's going on lately? Like, does he seem prepared when he shows up for things and I would imagine that's pretty similar for your agents Like, do they show up for listings or show it for appointments prepared? Do they know what they're talking about? That that's a type of stuff.

Speaker 4: 27:04

And the answer in your phone part to me. Honestly, I know that's crazy in today's world. Do you answer your phone super inaccessible and do you communicate, like to your point, the feedback, the hey, we have this showing. I mean those two right there, I think are huge in today's world, fortunately. It's sad to say that, but I don't have any clients tell us man, you know when we're calling the expireds. I didn't even know my listing did expire. I called an expired listing yesterday.

Speaker 1: 27:31

Yeah in reference that and I said you know, hey, this is Kurt van with the exp real Te. I was calling because you probably touch, touch and she's like, wait, it's expired. I said yes, ma'am, it's expired three days on it, on, you know the exact date and you know all that stuff.

Speaker 1: 27:45

You know, I had no idea and I, my agent, never reached out to me and she's like, honestly, I was gonna renew with them, but he didn't even give me an option. So if you you want to come take a look at it, I do need to get it sold still and we're going there. Tomorrow no as an ad lib. Yeah, we are yeah and as an ad lib for that, though, like that was like 200 calls deep and being told to go f myself a couple times too.

Speaker 1: 28:04

So that's not like you don't just get on the phone and find those right, but it is crazy, there's a lack of communication out there, but in this digital world it's still all about that personal connection and that'll pursue to any camera, anything else that you can connect with your client, that's gonna win the day time and time again.

Speaker 2: 28:21

I feel like, whether it's law or business or real estate or whatever, there appears to be this desire to find some new quick hits or some Newt's tactic or whatever, and they won't do the fundamentals. Yeah, the fundamentals are still the fundamentals, like I know, and we're doing this podcast now to get increased reach and whatever else, and that's great and it's super fun. I'm happy to do it, but this does not replace picking up the phone and calling somebody and establishing a personal relationship with them and getting them to know Mike or you know occur, getting them to know you guys and trusting you guys and feeling like that's you know. This is more of a validation rather than a discovery. It's an icing.

Speaker 2: 28:54

It is an icing on the cake exactly, and why and that's a cross it seems to be across industries where it's just this Constant look for well, there must be a new social media tactic. Well, if I posted it 3 pm Instead of 2 pm, I'm gonna get more. You can call the damn person and see how they're doing today. It's their birthday. Send them a text instead of one of 85 happy birthday messages on Facebook. Hey, andrew, good to see you, bud. Hope you have a great day today.

Speaker 2: 29:16

That to me, means infinitely more than the 97th like on my Facebook post that I don't pay it when it's all prescripted.

Speaker 4: 29:23

You didn't even type it, all you did was click.

Speaker 2: 29:25

Happy birthday and everybody hits happy birthday Congratulations with three balloons afterwards.

Speaker 4: 29:29

Wow, really random Feels, very personal.

Speaker 3: 29:34

Yeah, I don't even check the extra mile to to customize my background for my happy birthday.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Yes, Point I didn't care. Yeah, that is sure.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Do you recall lately how many people texted you on your birthday? Not many yet Not many. My birthday was last month and I probably.

Speaker 4: 29:57

I mean, you know you got your close friends, but I was out of that right exactly your close friends? Nobody close friends.

Speaker 2: 30:02

So just that little. It doesn't take much to distinguish yourself anymore either. Yeah, really doesn't. That's so true.

Speaker 1: 30:08

Yeah, and I think, listen, I learned this the hard way Working in corporate for a long time corporate sales and like leadership and management, you always had this structure on you and like other departments, so like if you didn't quite get something done or you just focused on this, or like you pulled this and pulled that, you could Still get some pretty like incredible results. Right, because you had this huge infrastructure. But you don't realize when you're in the middle of it, like how much all that cost. Right, you're like, okay, my job is actually pretty simple at the time, because I was really just pulling strings and directing people. And then you kind of work for yourself and you're like, oh Wow, you know, if I don't do it, no one does it, there is nobody to lean on.

Speaker 1: 30:45

And I fell victim at times. Like I came out of the gate very hot with real estate and I, you know, got listings and a couple buyers and then, you know, I got distracted with the restaurant and other things but I lost sight of, you know, making a call to people saying, hey, I'm a real estate agent. I saw you were trying to sell your house. It's not sold anymore. How can I help? Right, and some people don't want to have that conversation, but a lot of people do.

Speaker 1: 31:05

I had a lady yesterday say man, I'm so glad you called me, my husband's in the hospital, we need to get this sold. We had to cancel it back then. You know we need help Figuring out the windows and this, that and the other. I'm like great we renovate houses, we can come out, we can refer you people. You know she was glad I called and you're finding that one or two people that is glad you called not that you know the 30 that are irritated with you and don't want to talk to you, but it is a fundamental thing. You know. Just getting in front of people, building relationships, being willing to make a call it, no amount of sitting here, coming up with a marketing Campaign for Facebook or sending a direct mail or anything, is gonna have the same results. Just remembering talk to people.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Yeah, and being Consistent and being focused. You know you mentioned about the, the restaurant and kind of getting. You didn't say this, but kind of distracted by.

Speaker 1: 31:51

That is definitely the word I would use. Yeah with.

Speaker 2: 31:55

With the way things are going economically right now, as I talk to other business owners, everybody's really buckling down and focusing hard on what they do and like, really honing it on their core competencies and and the days of the, the free money whether you like it or not the PPP money and the ERC money or whatever. All that stuff's dried up. And so now all of a sudden, all this kind of like fake play money is gone and people are having to really look at their balance sheet and look at their P&L's and make sure that it makes sense. And so to to have this delusion and I'm not trying to cast dispersions here, but to have this delusion that you're going to be able to do something on a part-time basis that somebody else is having a hard time doing on A full-time basis. Like, who do you think you are?

Speaker 2: 32:30

And this is this has happened to me too I go oh, I can go run this, I can go run that. Like I'm Brandon Burke, like if I, as long as I own it, it'll be successful. That is not the truth. I'm only one person right. And how and how, how audacious is it of me to think that I can't spend 50% of the time on something and out compete somebody who's doing it a hundred percent of the time. That is ridiculous, yeah, and so, like I better stick with what I can do and do it really really well. Otherwise I'm going to get my ass kicked, and rightfully so that I and then listen, that is 100% accurate.

Speaker 1: 32:58

And we, we tried that. We, yeah, we tried that. We tried to do a restaurant and be real estate people and we realized, well, sexy, right, it's cool, it's talking about, yeah, I got.

Speaker 2: 33:07

I got 13k ones and it's awesome and I got all these side hustles and whatever else. Look, I Talked to and I was really had the pleasure here when I was sitting on the side and talking, to listen to chris talk about kind of creating your group of I don't know if he's generally talking about men but sort of like a Group, a tribe, so to speak. And I have been very, very intentional about that, especially over the last couple of years, because as you start getting more of a leadership role and start doing things, you start realizing I mean I would be very candid with you guys it starts getting very lonely.

Speaker 2: 33:37

Oh yeah, you start looking around you go.

Speaker 1: 33:39

That's not relatable to me, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:42

Yeah, um, you know, not very many people are even trying it. Not very many people are being successful at it, and so, as I've talked to these people and talked to other men that are fathers and husbands and business owners and things like that, like you have to hone in on something. They're all just really knows to the grindstone on one single thing and trying to do as best they can. Now I have other friends that have been. You know, they're 10, 20 years ahead of me. They've had their exits. Now they've diversified and they want to keep their money. That is a different stage of the game, and there's this comparison where it's like the diversification didn't get you there. The sole focus on making something successful is what got them there.

Speaker 4: 34:18

It's diversification keeps them there they got to the point where they can make it a residual and and branch out focuses yeah, which is good for them but that means to your point, they spent a lot of time focusing on that right before.

Speaker 1: 34:28

Right there focuses like is huge. That's, like, I would say, my biggest takeaway from last year. Honestly, and getting I'm gonna use the word distracted with with the restaurant is like I fooled myself thinking that I could be a full-time professional slash salesperson, slash advisor, like while running this whole other.

Speaker 3: 34:48

Marketing and people management and all this stuff, and it was just a total, total delusion.

Speaker 1: 34:53

But you know now you know we have. We have created everything here in such a focus that, like we, almost Some there, some days we don't even see each other. You know, like Andrew's at a flip projects managing flip projects, I'm at a listing appointment, meeting with you know our real retail clients and Mike's. You know meeting with a you know wholesale client or a potential property that we're gonna buy to flip and we have our meetings and get back together and stay coins, coinsert and we have a structure that pays us all on all of it. But we just work on our sections. We're hyper focused. We know which thing we're focusing on. We come in and that result has been extremely different from from the result of what happened at the restaurant.

Speaker 2: 35:29

That's exciting. I'm happy for you guys. That's really cool.

Speaker 1: 35:32

Yeah, so that's been interesting. But yeah, and so you guys renovated some houses too, right, you guys have some. You and your wife have some air BMWs. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 35:41

Yeah, we, um you, we kind of stumbled into that after the hurricane. I wish I could tell you guys, oh, it was all about design and we had this great timing and whatever else it's. It kind of just shows that like just playing the game is important. Yeah, I used to think you could time things pretty well. Now, now I don't, now I think it's more so just long term sticking with things. And so I wish the story was sexier.

Speaker 2: 36:04

But what it was was as a law firm because I do represent community associations when the hurricane hits we helped a lot of associations with their insurance claims. So we actually did fairly well financially with that and we had accumulated some money. And I remember driving around the Cove, the neighborhood that I live in, and there was still a bunch of blue tarps on roofs and while right after the hurricane rightfully so there's a ton of sympathy, like, oh, you know, we'll help you out. Well, that sympathy wears off after a certain period of time and I know it sounds callous, but like after you see blue tarps on roofs for months and perhaps a year or something, you're like maybe kind of get going here a little bit. And so literally me and my wife, jennifer, I think we said, quote I wish somebody would do something with that house and then we kind of looked at you sort of like who the hell is they? Who the hell is somebody?

Speaker 2: 36:51

You're waiting on somebody else Like somebody like waiting on somebody else and we were in a position where we could pay cash for a house. It was like a hundred thousand dollar house. We paid cash for a house. I said, jen, worst case scenario, we'll fix it up. We won't make any money. We'll have less than a hundred thousand dollars when we sell it. But I don't know, let's give it a shot. And so we fixed up one and we got lucky because this was also in like the 1920 timeframe. Prices were going up. Also didn't had no appreciation for how much prices were depressed after the hurricane. So we did well with some of the fixes and the flips. We took some of that. We ultimately did a project at a historical house over in St Andrew's.

Speaker 1: 37:24

I've seen the pictures, yeah fix that up.

Speaker 2: 37:26

The design elements are all my wife. It's beautiful and that's been working out really well at this point. But even that's a matter of sticking with it, because we bought it probably right at the beginning when all the Airbnb stuff was just really taking off.

Speaker 1: 37:39

We're taking it to Boomtown, yeah, and so it cooled off a lot since then.

Speaker 2: 37:41

It has cooled off a lot since then, but what we're seeing is and people can obviously push back on this what I hear is like once you stick with it for a year or two, you start getting better placement on that.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Yeah, huh, it's very true. Yeah, yeah, you start getting the algorithm improves.

Speaker 2: 37:56

My wife's worked very hard at being a super host so she's got all that credibility on there. We've got a bajillion five-star reviews on there. So now, like, while everybody else is having struggles and I see the the air DNA rates going down and things like that we're not seeing that.

Speaker 2: 38:09

But it's also been a lot of work and so you know people say you know your returns are so great on the short term rental, so is the time commitment. Yeah, you know, I've got another rental property that we just happen to hold on to because I've got an amazing tenant there who my involvement with that is just texting once a month saying, hey man, like just don't forget about your rent, and it's easy. But that one and I'll share some numbers like that one castles about $700 a month, which is great, but it's like one text a month and so it's not that much work. The other one castles a lot more than that. But I mean, last year, do you remember when the Christmas Eve at Froze?

Speaker 1: 38:42

Remember we had ice and people like out freezing stuff on purpose.

Speaker 2: 38:46

We had, we had we had pipes breaking, we had heaters that couldn't keep up with things. We had owners can or not. We had guests complaining it's freezing. Yeah, I bet it is freezing in there. We weren't.

Speaker 3: 38:55

It wasn't designed to be 29 degrees out, yeah Right, and so is Florida.

Speaker 2: 38:59

Yeah, so literally Christmas Eve, my wife is running around dealing with this stuff while you know, we're wrapping up Presents, your Santa Claus Right Exactly. Exactly, and so you know. As far as your return on time, I don't know that it's a lot different, but I mean we.

Speaker 1: 39:13

I say the same thing all the time. I have, you know, one Airbnb to me and my dad own and manage on the beach, and it's, like you know, there's always something happening over there and it was renovated Like when we bought it and moved stuff into it, but it's just, it's a constant project. And then, like you don't account for all the R and M cost on a thing like that Like it's just constant. Just bought a new dryer for it.

Speaker 4: 39:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:32

Yeah, exactly. So like those things are always popping up and then you're kind of like doing the spreadsheet at the end of the month and you're like man, that wasn't that great. You know, I was over there quite a bit. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 39:42

So you know, but it is about getting good at something I think you can do really, really well. If you build a long term rental portfolio, you know it's going to be 500 bucks a month at a time and even in now's market and you all would know this better than I would I don't know that you're going to buy turnkey rentals that are going to cash flow 500 bucks a month right In today's market. You're probably going to buy them and they might break even. Yeah, so your play is to hold on to that for a while and hopefully, as appreciation happens or rates go down, you can refi in and all of a sudden create that cash flow. True.

Speaker 1: 40:10

Unless you're buying fully cash and finding a pretty decent deal, which you can right now and you don't have a note, then then yeah, you can find a cash flowing short term rental. But if you're doing any financing at all even like you know, 4060 or something like that on the beach we always, I tell people right now that call and are interested before we even go look, these are lifestyle properties, Like it's for like a, you know, an eight to 10 year. If you want to try to make money off of it, If you want to like break even and pay for it or only pay a little bit to have it and come here as much as possible, Then yeah, it makes sense. But if your expectation is to make money off of it right now, prices have gone up too much and interest rates have gone up too much for the net numbers on a short term rental.

Speaker 2: 40:47

We'll couple that too and we're getting a little inside baseball here. But, like the condominium market in Florida is seeing some enormous headwinds. Oh yeah, with all these things that are going on with the structural integrity reserve studies and my also inspection reports and insurance rates going up and things like that. I mean it is a struggle out there.

Speaker 4: 41:01

Ajo A's or Ajo A's the special assessments are crazy on condos.

Speaker 2: 41:05

I mean tens of thousands of dollars for certain condominiums that this. They have deferred maintenance for so long that it's finally starting to catch up with them in the way this new legislation works is they're no longer going to be allowed to do that. So it's all going to come to a head in the next year.

Speaker 4: 41:18

You have to start dealing with it at the appropriate time.

Speaker 2: 41:22

Right and the legislature has said the appropriate time is now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would even for like new buildings like if a new building is built now.

Speaker 4: 41:28

You can't wait 10 years to do maintenance.

Speaker 2: 41:29

You know, then maybe there's a five, you're going to have a five.

Speaker 4: 41:31

at five years you have to do X, y and Z.

Speaker 2: 41:33

Yeah, the issue will work itself out over time, but right now, you have a lot of buildings that have been just solely focused on cash flow and return on investment. Well, how do you? How do you increase your return on investment? You reduce, you reduce expenses, right and so. But you reduce expenses, the roof still wears out at the same time frame.

Speaker 4: 41:49

Even if you don't say that, appreciate it, it's still a thing.

Speaker 2: 41:51

Exactly, exactly. So now, all these things where they've been punting and punting and punting and putting lipstick and band-aids and things on these things, they're just not allowed to do it anymore. Yeah, couple that with also the insurance premiums that are going sky high, and so it's just An economy collapsing in Miami.

Speaker 4: 42:06

Well, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the catalyst for the whole thing.

Speaker 2: 42:08

Yeah, Exactly so you know. You know, when you start pending out a pro forma on a condominium, on on really any anywhere in the state of Florida, it's really hard to make it work right now, but also for this market particular.

Speaker 3: 42:19

we've seen an influx of new hotels.

Speaker 4: 42:21

Yeah, that's that change in the last three years. Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 3: 42:24

Yes, which we were isolated for quite some time. There was structure improvements, not all the gas stations, but an influx of people buying houses and townhouses.

Speaker 1: 42:32

Yeah, I mean they're B and B's, which takes away from, like my townhouse. I don't pay each a way, it's right and I get pretty close to the same rate as the condos nearby to a degree. So, yeah, that just makes a lot more sense. Less hassle.

Speaker 2: 42:43

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 42:46

So yeah, kind of similarly on something we were just talking about. We're talking about, like cashflow on the rental property, something we've been really focusing on recently and I'm not sure like if you have any particular thoughts on it or something that's been on your radar, but we're kind of getting into doing creative finance and we've been kind of taking training courses and reading up on it as well. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff out there right now for sub tune. I know you and I have talked to it a little bit about it. But basically what we've started to figure out is there's a lot of people out there that are are dying under a payment and don't necessarily have a lot of equity, and so they they're stuck in a situation where, whether it be wholesaling or like a realtor or really just like any traditional method that's out there, they almost can't sell it right because they'd have to price it too high and they just don't have the means. They have to have a way to live Right. And so what you can do is you can go and offer sub to financing where the mortgage stays in their name Totally legal way to do it and you set up kind of like an assignment company that pays that mortgage every month, but you get the deed and you assume the property and you can even go in there and do renovation work and rent it out.

Speaker 1: 43:59

And so really the main goal is just to make sure that the pity right is less than the rent right and you can buy any deal, even if it doesn't have equity or a small amount of equity, and you can give them a little bit of money to walk away from the situation. Help it helps them out. And then now you have a cash flowing property. Maybe you only put out 10 grand, you know, five grand, two grand Right, and there's lots of people out there that want to do this. And so it's kind of an interesting thing because it opens up rental game to people who may not have the capital to get into real estate in the same way that other people in the rental game. And now you don't have to burn necessarily either. You don't have to go through that whole process of submitting paperwork and getting credit approved, and all you have to do is have enough cash to maybe do a little rehab and get a renter in there and give someone enough cash to exit and make the payment.

Speaker 2: 44:46

Yeah, I mean, for the right person it works out really really well. I mean, you got to have a willing sell on a willing buy, which is obviously you know in any case is finding the right, the right transaction.

Speaker 2: 44:53

But there are situations out there for sure, where you've got somebody that's struggling to make that payment, where it would rent out just fine. Banks are becoming more privy to sub to. Yeah, and keep in mind, most of these mortgages are held by large institutional investors and they move very slowly and so, for the longest time, this idea of taking something subject to which is not an option out there. The banks didn't have the mechanism for it, they didn't know how to vet these things, they didn't know what would happen. And if you did it and the bank found out and they hadn't given you prior approval, they'd probably call the loan in default because they say, hey, you sold the house without talking to me, which is almost always a non monetary default on the loan and they just they wouldn't have a box to put you.

Speaker 2: 45:31

And keep in mind, like these large institutions, whether it's Fannie or Freddie or whatever, like you got to fit into a box. That's just how they work. They wouldn't be able to work otherwise because you can't, they're not local banks. They you know local banks are usually great because they can analyze a deal and they kind of more traditional banking models like I want to lend money to you, mike, because I know you and I trust you and you know, I know you're going to pay me back. Well, if you're Fannie Mae, like you're not doing that yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:54

You got to show me your income level, show me your debt to equity ratio or debt to income ratio, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so now they're starting to see this model and that it has to work. And so now there's forms and procedures and there's way to bet these types of things, and so I do tell clients you really should make sure that the mortgagee is on board with this, because I think you're taking kind of a risk to go ahead and do it and not tell the mortgagee that it's happening, because if they do call the loan, it kind of blows everything up.

Speaker 1: 46:20

Yeah, and so what would happen in that? Instance, they'd foreclose and they'd have they'd have every right to and you don't necessarily have a right to to resell at that point You'd have to refinance it.

Speaker 2: 46:30

I mean you'd have a right to resell it and go pay them off.

Speaker 1: 46:32

You would, but you'd have to come up with one quick, then and then if you bought a deal with no equity, you're kind of stuck.

Speaker 2: 46:37

If you bought a deal with no equity, or you bought a deal and you got it because they had a mortgage that perhaps had a little bit of a lower rate on it, and now it's higher. Now you're just looking at a situation that doesn't look good. Plus, you're going to be named in a foreclosure lawsuit. So it's not the end of the world, but it's a situation that, if you ask the right questions, you could probably avoid it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 46:54

No, that totally makes sense, yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:56

But yeah, there's all kinds of creative, creative financing options that are going on right now.

Speaker 3: 46:59

I still think a lot of seller financing.

Speaker 2: 47:01

The one instance is that Kareel is going with us. A lot of people do have equity in their houses. Don't really have another place to put it. You know that's just changing a little bit now that CD rates are going a lot higher than they were probably a year or so ago. But some people are saying, hey, give me eight 9%, which isn't that crazy. And I'll sell or finance it for you.

Speaker 1: 47:18

Here's something that people are doing too. We were just talking about this earlier this week, so there's actually like kind of like a hybrid going on that people are starting to do. Oh really they will sub to the existing mortgage balance and they will sell or finance the equity that they agree on the contract. And they're doing like a hybrid, subject to seller finance deal and like the payment gets, like that makes sense and get the numbers pan out.

Speaker 2: 47:42

Yeah, go for it. Yeah, all very interesting, though.

Speaker 1: 47:45

And then we were talking this is total theoretical. I probably wouldn't want to do it, but we've done some crazy things with assignments and stuff before. But in theory I guess what would happen. If someone's subject to a subject to Like, then you like. Could you assign the subject to deal that you bought to someone else?

Speaker 2: 48:03

Yeah to somebody else for sure. It's like you know how arbitrage almost possibly.

Speaker 1: 48:07

Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2: 48:08

You're more. It's not so much subject to a subject to, because then you'd have to have another mortgage on top. Yeah, it's more like assigning a subject to. I like what you're saying, but you probably could arbitrage that somehow.

Speaker 3: 48:22

I'll take guilt for that thought.

Speaker 1: 48:28

The other thing you said earlier which is a little known fact about Mike, is that blue tarps are actually his guiding post.

Speaker 2: 48:39

There you go. It's like a calling card. Yeah, yeah, let's get the number. I like that.

Speaker 3: 48:43

Well, we're all in the business of helping people, yeah, and you know people argue or complain sometimes that you know Some people are compensated more than others. And I'm getting a little political here. But I've always taken on the the mindset and well, not always. When I matured, I took on the mindset that we should be compensated To the degree in which we help somebody. Now, doctors and lawyers are always put into a pot together.

Speaker 3: 49:12

Why they're compensated in such a high degree, or should be compensated in such a high degree, is because you're helping somebody at arguably the most difficult portion of time in their life, a pinnacle, you know, element that can create, you know, push your life in one direction or other. You know A doctor obviously, if he doesn't perform effectively, you could die, you know. And lawyers help you Navigate the legal elements of our, our culture, of our structure. You know it's, it's, and they've spent so much time Learning all the elements and aspects of their profession. You know, as realtors, you know you're dealing with the most important asset that an individual or couple or, you know for most people the most expensive asset yeah, so there's a lot of, you know, similarities, but it's all really, at the end of the day, of helping people.

Speaker 3: 50:11

At least that's my focus. You know lawyers, doctors, realtors Help people navigate the landscape in the most challenging, difficult times of their life, potentially. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely help somebody make some money.

Speaker 2: 50:27

I like that a lot.

Speaker 1: 50:28

What would you say?

Speaker 2: 50:30

your least favorite and your favorite part of being an attorney is so my favorite part is doing the development work and dealing with the tangibility of it. I mean when you, when you've gone from a raw piece of land and help them through the platting and the development and help them through Some of the construction issues that always end up coming up or some sub issue or whatever, and then Get the governing documents together and then finally go to the closing table and like literally hand somebody keys to a house. That's really cool, that's that's that's super fun.

Speaker 2: 50:57

It's a long process. Yeah, it is. I do enjoy that. The the the least fun part of it is Kind of touchdown earlier is having the, the ford to just stand up to your client at times and tell him hey, what you're doing is not good for you. Not good for your, yeah, not, that's, that's the part, because, because, it can cost you a client because the client they'll go and they'll say hey, well, I'll find another attorney happy to listen to me.

Speaker 4: 51:23

Yeah, exactly, I pay you. You listen, right, right, and then I.

Speaker 2: 51:28

Had this thing lately, where I feel like people have been watching suits too much and I mean just go read the contract harder. I'm like it's not a matter of reading it harder. There's not a loophole to every contract. Yeah, there's just not. Like. Sometimes you're just screwed like I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just not how it works.

Speaker 1: 51:45

Yeah, you gotta be Harvey Specter, I know right and so yeah my wife gives me a hard

Speaker 2: 51:49

time she's like come on, brandon, look at a harder.

Speaker 1: 51:52

Well, in the show they they hand them a contract and they're like, oh my god, yeah closing. I'm like, how did they figure that out? Yeah well, they'll tell what's is a Mike?

Speaker 2: 51:59

go back and look at it again, find a loophole. Okay, well, I can it, just so yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:09

Well, listen, we want to end with our favorite question to ask people. You know, if you had to leave all of our listeners with a Sentiment of any kind professional advice, personal advice, whatever it is what would be the one thing off the top of your head that you would want to leave with people at the end of a show that might be Encouraging to them or a good tidbit for them? That that one nugget.

Speaker 2: 52:35

Well, I'll give you a very my, I'll give you a very non lawyer answer, because I was thinking about this with you guys talking to Chris, you know, I think I think the big thing would be when the game that you want to play like yeah, y'all were talking about that before. As far as, like, I think people tend to Play games Unintentionally and when I say games, I mean like life games or parenting games or work games or whatever it is and they'll find themselves in a situation where it's like, why am I even doing this? Why am I buying this stuff? Why am I doing this? Why am I in this job? Why am I with this person? What am I doing? And and so it's like there's two parts of that. To find what it is like.

Speaker 2: 53:17

What are you trying to do? Like are you know? And not everybody wants the same thing and I've become Much better about understanding that. Like, everybody has different goals and that's really really okay. Yeah, um, like I want to grow my business. I've been working very hard at that, being very intentional about that. That also means my golf game isn't as good as it could be, right, and that's okay. Like that's there's there's a season in my life. I'm sure I'll be much more focused on getting my handicap down to scratch and maybe my business will suffer a little bit. Um, but you know, I also turn around and I talk to people. I'm like why aren't you, you know, why aren't you trying to grow your business? And some people are like because I'm super content where I'm at and that doesn't make that, yeah, and that's super okay and I've really been.

Speaker 2: 53:53

Now that also means that I'm trying to find other like-minded people. Yeah, it's easier for me to get in a group and sit and sit down with a group of guys like y'all that are trying to do those things, trying to grow their business, trying to do more. But so it's like define what you want, be really intentional, what you want, and then go after it. Like, if you're, if your goal is, I want to hunt and fish as much as I possibly can, I'm gonna work till I I can afford my hunting habit, which there's plenty of people around here that do that too. Oh, yeah, then great, then I hope you get the biggest buck you can get this year.

Speaker 4: 54:20

I got you know. So yeah, so that's where I leave it. I got some subcontractors that disappear for about four months every year.

Speaker 2: 54:26

Yeah, and you know my joke around here is like I can find all kinds of people to have Boat, motor and hunt and lease conversations with yeah, there is no shortage of those conversations being had. But when you start talking about like, how do you be a good father, how do you be a good husband, how do you be a good member of the community, how do you run a good organization, those are the types of conversations are much more challenging. Yeah, yeah, having a strong faith for sure.

Speaker 1: 54:46

Yeah, I, all those things. I couldn't agree with more. And I Myself, I would say for all of us here do a degree. But I myself, over the last like year and a half, you know, it was always that cliche thing that you like reading a book or something like that. It's like your circle, your, your, your, your circles, your net worth, that kind of thing, and I I didn't really take it seriously for a long time but, um, you know, lately we just hang out with each other and a few other like-minded people. We have Chris, our business coach, and some people he's introduced me to that. We spend our free time with. You know, we enjoy spending our time with people like you having this conversation, and it doesn't mean I'm not so friends with other people, but I definitely spend my time differently and try to be in rooms. I have a different conversation.

Speaker 4: 55:24

Yeah, I mean still got a lot of love for a lot of people. I mean, whatever, I've lived here for 20 years, I know a lot of people here locally High school, middle school, professionally, college, whatever. Don't talk to him, I mean on a continual basis. It's, it's not a every day thing, it's it's intentionality and believing your why, your what, you're where and your when, and really focusing on Making sure that you take those actions together.

Speaker 2: 55:49

Yeah, I mean I'm in that same camp, like I don't Reach out to any of the high school friends I had around here and I wish them the best. I really do.

Speaker 4: 55:57

We see each other at the gym and I was going hope the kids are good and I'm gonna like and follow your Facebook page for your new business. I'm gonna support you and all those things, but on a daily basis I'm focused on what I need to do. You get to a point.

Speaker 1: 56:09

My family and crit We've talked about this with Chris a lot like our team coaching sessions, even individual sessions is like you get to a point where you realize you know life is a do-it-yourself project. No one's waiting around the corner to like, hey, come, do this deal, or I want to bring you into this business that I built and make a lot of money for you. That that's. That's not reality, right? And also your, your friends although you're your friends on like a friendly basis, like going out and and I'm just using this as a Random example but going out like you know being at the bar or Spending your money every weekend going on a vacation somewhere, or you know being unfocused, that's great and it's fun for a time.

Speaker 1: 56:47

But there also comes a time when only you are gonna do what's necessary for your family and your business to get where it needs to be, and you know all those things come in due time. But you have to make a sacrifice at some degree to to get to that point, and I think it took me a long time to realize that not everyone has my best intentions for my family and my business in mind, even if they're a really fun person, they like hanging out with me and you have to make that decision for yourself. Hey, we can still be friends, but I might not be intentional with spending my time with you. I need to be intentional about putting my time to my family and my business.

Speaker 2: 57:15

Yeah, I mean I'm really getting big on this. Maybe it's an age thing, like I just turned 41 and my girls are Once about to be 10 and 6. Like everything you say yes to, you're saying no to something else. And and there's a phase in your life where it's like oh, there's an event, I'll be there. Oh, there's a meeting, I'll be there.

Speaker 2: 57:29

Oh, there's a coffee, I'll be there, because you kind of don't have a choice Like you have a lot of supply of time and not a lot of things to do and then but that switches at a certain point and Every meeting that I go to in the evening is me telling my daughters I can't be home for dinner so you know every time they're doing this podcast means I'm not doing something at work and that's okay and I'm happy to do it.

Speaker 2: 57:45

but it's also when you start thinking of things that way, where you know I'm gonna get up early to go to the gym means I'm not gonna sleep in today, which is that's okay, and it it's not always good or bad, it's just intentional like okay, cool, I'm good with that trade-off at this point, given what I want to do and what my goals are 100%.

Speaker 1: 58:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with that. That's huge. Well, we appreciate you taking the time. We know you're a really busy guy. You know to come on, talk to us. It was a great, great conversation and we appreciate you being on. This has been super fun I appreciate it guys.

Speaker 4: 58:14

We'll satisfy our invoice when you send it.

Speaker 3: 58:18

I'll divide it in the three hours 15 minutes Come back anytime.

Speaker 4: 58:23

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 1: 58:25

All right, guys. That's episode five of its personal podcast, and we can't wait to be back for episode six.