4 Coversations while we raise $$$ for Homeless Ministry Matthew’s Light

All right, here we go.

Cool.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another live episode of The Homeowner Show. If it feels a little noisy in your ears, it's because it's a little noisy up in here at Deacon Baldy's. We are here with our friends from The Net and a couple other networking groups.

I had to make sure and turn the bump music off.

Um, Court, do you actually remember the name of the other 2 groups that were here? I know Spring Klein Business and then NIA, Networks in Action, right? So 3 networking groups coming together to help raise awareness about homelessness here in the area, to support Matthew's Light, doing a clothing drive, uh, to get some additional clothing as we get into the cold weather around here, because it's no fun being outside and being cold.

No.

Um, and a lot of these people, even if they got clothes last year, they're probably worn out by now. So anyway, dude, thank you so much for sitting down.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, dude, this is, this is, this is kind of fun. I've never— we've never done a show at Deacon's before. No. If you've never been to Deacon's, it is a bar with food trucks supporting it, and it is a super cool venue.

It's a very laid-back venue. Yeah, yeah, family-oriented.

I mean, it's like picnic tables and there's like toys for the kids to play with and nobody's out here being dumb.

Not yet.

Yeah, not yet.

It's early.

Is it give it time kind of a situation? Yeah, it's only 6. So anyway, let me, let me give a shout out to our sponsor for this episode. Sponsor for this episode is Lone Star Appliance Repair. We actually just had them out to fix an ice maker in our fridge. The ice maker went down, which is a no-go in our house. We got to have ice. We got to have some cold beverages. And they even told us, like, look, they don't even make the ice maker for your fridge anymore, but they found one that worked. They even had to come back a third time because the company that sent the part didn't send the right wire harness. They didn't make

excuses, they just made it happen. Great company to work with. Sarah over there does an incredible job. You can reach them at 936-647-2364, and they will get your appliances repaired and back up, and it's going to be a lot cheaper than if you went and bought a new one.

Well, I got something to add to that. They were also at my house about a month ago.

Oh, really?

And I went to go use the ice maker and water came out. So I thought my ice maker had, you know—

Kaput.

Kaput it on me.

Yeah.

And I tried everything I knew to try to fix it. I thought it was hung, messed around with it for a night and called Sarah and she sent out Francisco, which is absolutely amazing. He literally was there 30 seconds and he told me my compressor was dead. I'm like, how can it be dead? It's 2 and a half years old.

Right.

Well, it was dead, all right.

Oh gosh.

And, and that's the reason it wasn't freezing ice anymore, because it wasn't getting cold enough. But it was still cold enough in the fridge not to notify you that it was cold.

So it was just warm in the freezer, right?

Well, the freezer was still cold, but it had a lot to do with the compressor not going to top capacity.

Uh-huh.

It wasn't cold enough to freeze, but it was cold enough to still keep everything cold. So the stuff that was in the freezer was actually still frozen. So that was— it was a misconception concept. If you stick your hand in there, it's still like, oh, everything's working fine. Well, it took it a day and then everything started dropping rapidly. So thank God we had another fridge in the garage.

Right.

So smaller, but it's amazing what you can put in a smaller fridge if you have to. So, um, so anyway, uh, they had a compressor on, on hold for another, another client, and they were nice enough to put that compressor in my freezer because the other one wasn't under a time constraint like we were because we were fixing to lose everything. And he came out and it took about 3 hours and I had a new compressor. He dusted everything, vacuumed it all out, very professional, and it was a fraction of what it would have cost me to go buy a new refrigerator. So they, they literally saved all of my groceries plus me having to go get another fridge.

Well, yeah, so I mean like essentially thousands Yeah, I can't even thank them enough.

They're amazing.

Yeah, and they've told me that there's certain parts— a lot of people don't realize that on a refrigerator in particular, there's certain parts that are covered under the warranty.

Yes.

And like, a lot of people don't— like, some of them are like 10-year warranty parts. And so like, a lot of people, they break, and so they'll just go get a new one, not realizing that if they call a repair company, right, they can just get it fixed for for next to nothing.

Well, here's the funny thing about that is the compressor that kaputted on me, yeah, uh, was actually under warranty. And nowhere does it tell you that it's got a 10-year compressor warranty.

So, right, they don't want you to know that.

No, because I thought it was 2 years, you were done, and then you're on your own, right? This is, this is LG top-of-the-line side-by-side, you know, tap the glass, the light shows, you know.

Oh, that's cool.

Fancy, fancy deal, right? So I was like, okay, well, how much is a compressor? She said, well, we can get a warranty change out, you just got to pay labor. And I said, what do you mean warranty change out? She said, you're allowed one change out in 10 years on the compressor. And I was like, you got to be kidding me, nobody told me that. Yeah. So yeah, I, I would have never known if I hadn't called Lone Star Appliance Repair.

That's awesome. So, well, we're super happy to have them as a sponsor of this, this, this episode in particular, because this is the kind of stuff that we love, man. We love helping out people that help out the community.

Yeah, we're Montgomery County, build it up, surrounding areas. We're all about community, right?

And we did an event a few months ago. I mean, a lot of people that live in Montgomery County, I mean, like, let's, let's be honest, Montgomery County, it tends to be a pretty wealthy area.

Yes.

Affluent.

Yes.

You know, but like, there's still people living in poverty. Montgomery County.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, kids that go, you know, without meals, right? You know, and so like homelessness is a real issue. It's just not as prevalent because we don't have like a downtown area where like they wander the street. I mean, we have downtown Conroe and occasionally you'll see some stuff there, right? But it's just not as prevalent. No, it's still there.

Yeah.

But Matthew's Light, I mean, they're kind of all over there. They go serve the downtown Houston area. And I used to do work with homeless just in like the spring in Houston area. Let me tell you, man, it's not easy. No, I mean, You're dealing with a lot of mental illness, right? You're dealing with a lot of poverty mindset. You're dealing— I mean, there's a lot of issues that you come up against when you're just trying to be helpful.

Yeah.

And you feel like you're not.

Not to mention the kids that are in financial distress.

Right, right.

The ones that don't have a choice that kind of got left to the wayside.

Yep.

And all of Matthew's Light represents and supports a lot of our veterans end up on the streets. The homeless is a serious, serious thing. And 90% of them do suffer from some sort of mental illness. And unfortunately, the kids get involved in that because they have kids.

Right.

And they're there. We're all trying to donate. We're all trying to help. We're all trying to support. And they do a little bit of everything for the entire package.

Right. You know, um, it's, it's, I mean, it's even as simple as like just getting toothpaste and socks.

Socks. I brought, uh, 7 bags of socks tonight.

I mean, that's—

man, we're getting into winter. Yeah, you know.

Well, not only that, man, like, you— if you, if you ever have like a relationship with a homeless person, one of the things they'll tell you, man, is like socks, socks every time.

Well, you got to change your socks. If not, your feet get really bad.

They're going to get tore up.

Yeah. Well, ask any vet that's Been in combat, right?

Yeah.

You know, your feet are the first thing to go.

Oh yeah.

And if your feet aren't good, you're not good.

What was it? Jungle rot?

Jungle rot. Yeah, it's gangrene.

Is that what that is?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not good.

No, I mean, it's— I mean, like, it's not something that goes away quickly. I mean, you can't just put like fungus cream on it or something.

No, all your skin peels off.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not a— it's not a pretty sight.

So that was a pleasant conversation.

Yeah, I'm glad y'all could join because we're really going places tonight. Wait till our next segment.

Yeah, well, and okay, so you've been on the show a couple times now. Yeah, everybody kind of— you're in real estate. Yeah, right. So like this, and this is the Homeowner Show, so we're going to talk about some houses a little bit.

Here we go.

Yeah, but I want to tease a little bit because you and I are working on a special episode.

We are.

Yeah, yeah. So do you want to tell everybody a little bit about like— you want to give a little teaser?

Should we?

Can you tickle?

Yeah, tickle the ears.

Maybe a little A little bit.

I'll give you— I'll give y'all out there a little trivia. It happens to 50 to 60% of the population. So this segment is going to touch a lot of people that aren't thinking clearly, that need some guidance, that need some assurance and reassurance for what comes next. And we're going to address all of those things on that segment. I'm not going to tell you what it is. Y'all got to tune in.

No, if you do, drop it in the comments. I want to know if you, you picked up the clues that Corey— the breadcrumbs that Corey was leaving there.

Yeah, yeah. I'd be curious to see what those are. Happens to 50 to 60% of the population. So unfortunately.

So, so I was— are you familiar with the Biz Doc?

Biz Doc?

He's part of like the Valuetainment Network?

Not really.

Patrick Bet-David, do you know who that is?

I know the name.

Okay, so, so Biz Doc is part of his network, and he does it— he does a whole separate business show. But on, on Patrick's show, I think it was yesterday, he was talking about how, uh, the real estate— not the real estate market, but the commercial real estate market— the people who have become, uh, delinquent in payments on the mortgages for commercial real estate from last year has now doubled, right? It has for 2023, and it's doubled without even having 4th quarter numbers, right, in there yet.

Well, here's another problem we're seeing also, is we're starting to see hints of foreclosures, pre-foreclosures.

Yeah, well, and like, we just had the first domino that got kicked over, which was student loans, right? That now— okay, now you can't be delinquent on that anymore. We're going to make you start paying that again.

Correct.

So people that have been living beyond their means without paying their student loans, right, that just got thrown into the mix as well, right?

So plus we hit an all-time high of credit card debt. I don't know if everybody's—

oh yeah, I saw that too. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, put all that together as a nation, we're living on debt.

Yeah. which does not bode well for if one slip on the banana peel and you're without a house or with a job. Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's just a devastating life event. And my fear is not so much that people slip on the banana peel, right, but that like some of these people who are holding these loans, right, are going to call them in, right? You know, and that's when I think a lot of things just going to go sideways. Because if they freak out and start calling in home loans, right, it's bad. I mean, are you, are you paying attention to this kind of stuff? I mean, what do you think about all that?

All right, so we watched the foreclosure list pretty, pretty currently. I mean, sure, yeah, yeah, just simply because we want to see what the market's doing, because that's a good gauge on where we're heading, right?

We haven't seen this many pre-foreclosures Well, and for people listening that may not know, what is it? What is a pre-foreclosure?

All right, so that's where people have gotten about 3 months behind on their mortgages and they're trying to catch back up again, but they have started the foreclosure process through the bank to determine whether they're going to be able to continue with a foreclosure if they can catch up, or it's, it's almost like a signal that sets off off a database when you get so far behind, typically 90 days or more, that sets off a chain reaction to these people might be in trouble.

Right.

So that kind of starts the first signal. So that's DEF CON 3.

Right. Right?

So it's kind of like, we're under warning. We're not under attack yet, but it's coming. Most of the time, that's the road to a foreclosure if you can't get it sold before it does become a foreclosure. So we try to help people that do end up in a pre-foreclosure situation, Uh-huh. that if we can get the house sold fast enough, get it staged, get the right buyer, we can actually get them with their equity in the house and get it sold without it affecting their credit anymore and try to get them with some money coming out of the deal.

Okay.

So we try to be saviors if we can be.

Yeah.

But we got to catch it early enough and we got to work fast enough.

Well, and I know one of the other numbers that they're seeing right now is a growth in HELOC.

Yes.

You know, where people are kind of freaking out and like, this is like my last-ditch effort. Yes. I mean, for people who don't know, home equity line of credit, right?

Yes.

You know, and so like, that's like your last gasp of breath because like the interest rate on those is Not great.

No, and a lot of times it doubles down with the mortgage. So you, you could end up possibly compounding yourself, right?

Yeah.

And then all you're doing most of the time with that is buying time. Now, some of the HELOC things are great if you've got the money and the asset and your credit's good. Sometimes it makes sense to pay off a 28% credit card, right, and get your credit card debt down, whereas you're paying $4,000 or $5,000 in credit card debt Or maybe less, but let's use extreme circumstances.

Sure.

And then you go take a $30,000 or $40,000 home equity HELOC out and cash the money out. You might be at 10%, you might be at 8%, you might be at 12%, but it's better than 28%.

Yeah.

So there are situations that it does make sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, man. It's— I mean, like, it's just, it's such a crazy crazy set of circumstances that seem literally to have compounded on top of one another.

Absolutely.

You know, and I don't, I don't even know what the answer is other than to just like stay the course.

Yeah.

The one thing I don't want to see is, you know, a lot of people are saying, well, let's just drop the interest rates. I think that would be catastrophic.

All right. So we get this a lot, right? Yeah. All the buyers, I say all The smart ones out there are buying right now. And the only reason I say that—

With cash?

Well, no, loans aren't bad, right? And I'll say— and I'm gonna tell you why. Everybody that's listening that's on the fence about buying that dream home, buy it now. Your price is going to be a better price now than it's going to be when the interest rates drop. Because what's going to end up happening is all the people that are on the fence waiting to buy are all going to come out of hiding once the interest rates drop, right? And then you're going to have overpriced scenarios where you have a bidding war, where everybody's going for those houses. And it's going to be a— it's going to look a lot like COVID did, where that $310,000 house or $350,000 house is

going to be going for $400,000 because people are overpaying.

Yeah.

The appraisal might not come in, but you're going to pull out of pocket. So if you're, if you're in that situation, what's going to happen is that appraisal is going to catch up. You can refinance the interest rate. You can't refinance the sale price you paid for the house.

Oh yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

So if you buy now, pay a little bit more for that interest rate, wait a year or two, let it drop back down, which it's going to. It's, uh, they're predicting probably end of the year, next year, 5.5%, give or take. Yeah, which is pretty industry standard. We've been at 6% for years. Sure, 7 to 8 is not catastrophic. Um, it's a little more than people want to pay.

Obviously, yeah.

But if you wait a year or two and you can, you can weather that storm, you're going to get a lot better deal on a house. You're going to pay fair market value for a house and you're not going to overpay for a house. And then you can refinance an interest rate. And instead of paying $400 more a month, you're gonna be paying $800 less if you take in that interest rate with a fair market value.

Yeah, that was one of the things that I saw coming out was like, look, if you buy a house, some of the houses that you're buying now, if you buy them now at like an 8.5%, which some people are having to pay, sure, you know, versus like— anyway, it was, it was like you're, you're almost paying double what you would have paid 2 years ago.

Oh, absolutely.

Just be— just because of like the way that real estate values have gone up, right, with the interest rates that have gone up.

Correct.

Well, they're both going up together, right? And what we tell everybody is the interest rate's never going rise faster than the, than the homes in value. So what's happening is the home value is actually rising faster than the interest rate. So it still makes sense to buy because you're still making all that equity. You refinance that interest rate, you even gain more equity by refinancing, buying now than waiting till later.

Yeah.

Because if you break it down, if you pay on a $350,000 house, you pay $400,000 When the value goes up, interest rates drop down to about 5.5%. The difference between that could be $300 or $400 a month because you overpaid for the house as the, as the property values go up. Yeah. Now it's going to be a fair market value then. But if you get it now, you could actually save yourself $500, $600 a month by doing that.

So yeah. Yeah, for sure. That was my daughter just making faces.

She's cute.

She's like, y'all are talking about that boring stuff. Yeah, yeah, that life stuff. To be young again, you know.

So let me ask you this. Are you— have you kept up with the class action suit over commissions?

Uh, yeah, yeah. I don't know if I want to touch this one.

All right, so I mean, like, is it, is it something you're pretty familiar with?

Oh, very. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Have you, have you, have you experienced this at all?

Um, starting to.

Uh-huh.

But, all right, so I'm gonna break it down in layman's terms.

Sure.

Commercial real estate has always been this way.

Uh-huh.

When you're buying and you're selling commercial property, the buyer's agent's paid by the buyer, listing agent's paid by the listing agent, by the seller.

By the seller, yeah.

Right? So, The way it's been for a gazillion years is the seller paid both commissions, right?

Sure.

Okay.

Are you talking about a residential property?

Yeah. Okay. On residential. But where they made the mistake is people kept saying it was the industry standard. That's the standard. That's the standard. Well, there is no standard. There is no preset. There is no, you have to charge 6%. You have to pay 3% on each side. We negotiate deals all the time for sale-by-owners, people that are wanting more money out of their house. But we have gone about it a different way than a lot of other real estate groups have. We have an à la carte listing procedure, which means if you want to list for 1%, these are the steps, these are the things that we are going to do for you for

1%. Because obviously marketing costs a ton of money.

Yes.

Open houses, time, there's a whole lot of other factors. Ads, Facebook runs, social media, email blasts, all that's money generated marketing ad campaigns, right, for a home. So depending on what level you want your home marketed, how much traction you want to get, and what steps you want to do, we've built an à la carte listing procedure, and the seller can actually pick which one they want. So we leave it in their hands.

Okay.

So that way we stay out of the commission thing. This is what we charge for this package. This is how much it costs.

Right.

Right? Just like you'd go buy a refrigerator.

Sure.

Or you'd go buy a car. This is how much the car is. Well, I want that car. Well, that car costs 20 grand more. Why? Because they have more options.

Right.

And what options do you want? Yeah, that makes total sense.

So we don't have a standard. Standard is this is our 6% package, this is our 5% package, this is our 4% package. We split the commissions on both sides, and that's the way we work.

Yeah.

So we play fair.

So in that scenario, are you— you're setting the terms based off the seller, and so any buyer's agent that comes in is going to know what the terms are that you've set.

Correct.

Or that the seller has set.

It's gonna be on the MLS listing. It's gonna show what the commission rate is gonna be paid at. Yeah, it is advertised.

It is—

it's there black and white plastered all over the listing.

Yeah, and so the idea that there is— like right now, the idea that there is an industry standard is a myth.

Right, there is no industry standard.

Right.

Suggested standard.

Right. And so, like, I actually talked about this with Kevin last week. I was— because we were— he was telling me about it, and there was a lot of real estate agents that are very upset about this, right? Because they're like, oh my gosh, my commissions are getting cut, right? And, and my perspective on it was, this is, this is the same argument that you get from the people that are opposed to any sort of minimum wage, right? Right. if you're not a good real estate agent but you're wanting to get into real estate, right, the only competitive edge that you have is your price, right? You know, your ability to set commissions, right? So like, if you're new and you don't know what you're doing, like, look, like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll sell that house at half a percent, right? You know, like,

and that should be your prerogative to set your own price, right? Because that's the market, right? Now, he may— he or she may end up being a terrible agent.

Well, you're not going to stay in business very long selling it.

You're not.

No, but you're, you're, you're essentially— it's, it's still cheaper than paying to go to school.

Yes.

You know, and so like you're paying for the opportunity of experience. But like, I, I get it though, because like people that want— people like, if you get a new job and you're like, I'm in Houston, I gotta go to Dayton, Ohio, right? And the house has got to be gone in 2 weeks.

Right.

Like, the commission to me is not going to matter, right? It's the speed at which that person can accomplish the task, right? And so, like, I don't care if I'm paying 3%, right? Can you get the job done?

Well, it's, um, it's all that. You get what you pay for.

Yeah, every time, man.

All right, so if you are dealing with a top-notch real estate agent that has all the marketing, has all the CRMs, has all of the ad pays, has their website, has the SEO traffic coming, has a book of business, right, has contacts, has a large brokerage. All of that costs money and a lot of it, right? So when you are powered by all of that, Uh-huh. We got to pay for it somehow. So Who benefits from that? The sellers do, right? Because you get to sell your home faster and typically for more money.

Yes.

So if you take discounts, your price is gonna— 90% of the time, I'm not gonna say every time, but 90% of the time, you're not gonna sell it for as much as it's worth.

Yeah, yeah.

You got to deal with somebody that's top-notch, knows what they're doing.

Absolutely.

And I will go point to a lot of real estate agents out in our industry out here in Montgomery that do a very good job of that.

Yeah.

So the ones that are charging a half percent, I don't run into very often.

No, you won't. I mean, like, because they're just not gonna survive very long, right? Like, I'm all in favor of it if it's just like, like, look, right, I'm just gonna be competitive on this one because that guy made me mad, right? And I'm gonna take it away from him. Like, but I, I don't want to take the ability ability of somebody to do that away, right? Like, I'm, I'm, I'm all for everybody making as much money as possible. Like, let's, let's, let's, let's make it, you know? Yeah, yeah. But like, I don't want to take— any, any time you set a minimum, like, what I think ends up happening is now we have to create an agency, right, a

government entity in order to monitor that.

Sure.

And that's just going to inflate prices from the bottom anyway.

Right.

So like, just let people like make their own decisions. Like, I'm sorry, like, like you can say I want to protect the consumer all you want, like it's— but it's just not the truth.

Well, there's gonna be a lot of changeover in our industry predicted. Sure, 50 to 60% of the agents that are in their first or second year are gonna be probably leaving.

Oh really?

Yeah.

Well, that was the— I was talking to Zeke a minute ago and I was telling about the stat, like, this is the first time in a really long time that we've had more agents drop out than sign up, right? And so we're actually at a deficit right now, which is— I mean, it's great for guys like you.

Well, we're in it for the long haul, right? Family-owned business. This is our income. We don't— we're not playing part-time agent, right? Right.

Which is what we've had for the last 2 years, correct?

Because everybody— we call them COVID agents. So, um, you put a Put a sign on the yard and stick it on the MLS, and within an hour you got 20 offers and, you know, $50 grand over list price.

Yeah.

Those days are gone. We're back to when you used to do open houses and network and knock on doors and cold call and—

Actually work.

And actually work.

Yeah.

Right? So there's no day off.

It's—

we try to have Sundays if we can. Hours, I laugh at hours. Right.

scheduled.

We're up at 5, and a lot of times we're going to bed at 11, right? You know, between networking, which is what we're doing right now, you know, the events, the brokerages, the open houses, the showing customers. I mean, the list goes on, right? So the exiting of the part-time agents is not a bad thing because—

No, not at all.

Because that's gonna let the professionals that do it every day, all day, shine. shine. And it's gonna, it's gonna build the book of business, and ultimately the public wins because you're gonna be dealing with somebody that's seasoned, that knows what they're doing. Mm-hmm.

So that's fantastic. So man, I, we could talk all night about— I enjoyed talking about it. We need to get somebody else up here though. But for people that are looking for a good real estate agent in the Houston area, yeah, like how do they get a hold of you?

Reeves Realty Group, and I'm Corey Reeves, and we are a husband and wife wife team. The website is Reeves Realty Group on Google. And then we are also at 281-932-2423. You find me on Facebook, Corey Reeves, Instagram, and YouTube.

Fantastic, dude. Thank you so much for sitting down. Hey, Craig, always good to see you, man.

Pleasure. Thank you.

You're gonna send me somebody?

I am. David McDuffie.

David's coming.

Come on, Dave. All right, man. You're hot.

Oh wow, that's quick.

Bear with me. Oh, you're good, man. Come on, come on in. Y'all, y'all, Dave is a brave soul. He has a— he's suffering from a back injury.

Oh yeah, so not fun, man.

No, no, I've had a couple of those myself. It is, it is unpleasant.

Yeah, well Herniated a disc 9 years ago.

Oh, really?

Still gives me problems. Oh my gosh. About once, about once a year, every 18 months it'll do this.

Pull that just a little bit closer.

How's that?

I know you got a big voice, but I don't want you right up on it, but I want to make sure everybody hears you. Well, dude, tell everybody who you are and what you do, man.

Okay, well, my name is David McGuffin. I own Space City Payments. We are a local merchant services broker. I have 9 companies that I can place businesses with, you know, to match them with the right technology at the most competitive rates. And we also do point-of-sale systems. I also do, you know, consumer financing for the large-ticket, you know, guys like auto repair, heating and air, roofing, attorneys, digital marketing agencies, anybody that's got a really large, really high ticket.

So yeah, and so like And I know you do POS systems as well.

Yeah.

And earlier we were talking about like Toast or something like that.

Exactly.

So, and one of the things that you were saying to me is that like those companies, they're really good at marketing.

Exactly.

So, but like, why, why is it that what you do for like restaurants and, and, and brick-and-mortar places, why is it what you do work better?

Uh, one, local service. You know, you've always got, you know, all my clients have my cell phone number. They can get in touch with me. I know, you know, if there's an issue, I know who to call and where to call, you know, to help them resolve an issue immediately. You know, and plus I have different platforms other than Toast.

I was gonna say, like, you don't just have, like, you're not a one-trick pony.

No.

So you like multiple systems?

You know, each company that I write for, I've got 9 of them, they all have something different. Some other good, better options to me other than Toast would be like Hot Sauce, Déjà Pay Pros actually are really, really good if you want a tablet-based system.

Yeah.

Really responsive, fast processing, and you know, when you come with somebody like me, we lock your rate in as well.

Right.

These other companies, you know, they may give you free equipment, but read the fine print. You know, they're, they're, you know, you're locked into their processing and they will raise rates on you for sure.

Yeah.

So yeah, and I know like for us, like we work with you.

Yes.

On some of our big ticket items and like you can offer a way lower interest rate than what people are going to be able to afford on their credit cards.

Exactly. I mean, if you look at the, you know, Credit card rates are at an all-time historical high now. Gone are the days of—

Not just rates, man. I mean, like delinquency payments on credit cards.

They're up as well.

Because interest rates are so high, people can't afford the payments on them.

Yeah.

I mean, like there's so much stuff happening right now, but I'm sorry, go ahead.

Well, I mean, you know, what's the lowest interest rate on a credit card you've seen lately? I think the lowest I've seen right now is 16%.

Oh, that's nuts.

And that's for somebody that's got, you know, what we call super prime credit.

Right.

You know, that's an 800 or above, and they're getting 16% rates now. Right.

Unless they're getting like an introductory rate or something, like a promotional rate to get you into the door.

And that's what that— that's all that is. That's what, you know, back to the point-of-sale systems, that's what they do. They give you a great introductory rate, and then it goes up.

Yeah.

You know, back to the credit cards, if you want to compare that to financing, the only reason somebody would really want to use that credit card is if they're getting points or miles or cash back on it.

Sure, that they can pay off at the end of every month.

And they have the wherewithal to be able to pay it off every month. If you don't have the ability to do that, then financing large projects, not everybody wants to spend their cash that they have on hand.

Right.

And for the high-ticket people, by offering flexible financing options, you're getting paid, your customer's getting the job they want done, you can actually probably sell more than what they would normally have by offering financing, right? And they'd get a lower interest rate than what their credit card is normally, unless they're at a, you know, a 600 credit score or lower and they're paying, you know, 22 or 24% on it, right?

You know, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, because like even with us, I mean, like on some of our big ticket items, some people are getting like 0%.

Yeah, yeah, we have, we have 0% financing. Now when, when we do that, it does It comes at a premium. It comes at a premium. The merchant is going to pay a certain amount of points on that, right? You know, because, you know, we're all in it to make a profit. Sure. You know, the contractor is in it to make a profit. The financing company's in it to make a profit. You know, as the rep, I need to make something off of it as well.

Yeah.

You know, so it's a balancing act.

It is. But like, I think a lot of people believe that like the days of 0% are gone. And like, we're out there like, hey, like we have it. It's available to you. You know, and guys like you are providing it. But like, it's just, it's not in, it's not out there in the ether because everyone's grown accustomed to them because interest rates on homes have gone up so much. They just assume that everything's going to be like 17%, 20%, 25%.

Well, as I tell everybody, you know, especially the business owners, yeah, you shop your commercial insurance to get the best rate, right?

Right.

You know, as a homeowner, you're shopping, you know, your insurance carrier to get your best homeowner's rate. You're looking at mortgage rates. Why are you not, as a business owner, comparing your credit card processing rates? Why do you just accept that this is what it's going to be.

Right.

There are platforms out there, you know, and, you know, I'm going to use Square as a perfect example. Square works for some people, and, you know, for what it is, it can be a great platform. You know, if you're doing low volume, low transactions, you know, less than $2,000 a month, by all means use Square. That's a perfect platform for you. But if you're doing over $5,000 a month and you're using Square, you need to reevaluate. Unless they have something that you absolutely cannot live with, because usually I can find something that will replace Square or Stripe or PayPal that is 10 times better.

Right.

And you have somebody that you can call, you know, a local, you know, a local representative. You know, what happens when you get a chargeback back on Square. You have to go online, you have to file it. You don't have anybody that you can actually talk to. It's all done online by email and by their little chat feature.

What's the turnaround time on something like that for people that are using Square or Toast or something like that?

I was reading today that several people that had their chargebacks, you know, fighting the chargeback, they got denied. So the consumer won, and, you know, the consumers will always say, oh, I didn't do that, it must be a mistake.

Right.

No, you did that on purpose. That's the only way that that can happen.

See, this is what I think a lot of people don't understand is time, like time literally equals money. And so it's not that people don't want to do business, it's that like when the exchange of money takes so long, It raises the cost of the goods being provided. And I'll give you a perfect example. We have a vendor that we work with that decided that they were going to say, okay, we're going to do a turnaround time on all of our billable goods by 45 days, but we're also going to give ourselves a grace period of 90 days.

So that comes out to 135 days.

And so, we ended up being one of the only people that would answer the phone. And so, what I told my people, I was like, look, when they call, say yes, but triple the price. And you know what happened? They said yes, and then they increased the speed of their payments.

Yeah.

And like this, but like, I don't think a lot of people realize that this is what ends up happening as you end up dealing with companies that drag their feet to provide the services that they've said that they're going to do for their vendors.

Yeah.

You know, and so it just ends up costing the customer in the long run because, I mean, like, people want to do their job.

They do.

You want to do your job, but like, it seems like some of these companies just don't want to do their job and they want want to take advantage of the naivete of operators.

That, and they want to take advantage of their own name, you know.

Yeah, and it could be because they will, they'll come back around like, well, who are you gonna go to? Yeah, like, we're the only— we're the only game in town.

That's none of your business. Yeah, it's my business. Yeah, so it's definitely none of your business now. You know, I tell, you know, all my clients that I am not successful unless you are successful.

For sure.

So it's in my best interest to make sure that, you know, people like you, Greg, are successful.

Yeah.

You know, I call, I check on my people. I, you know, I drop by and say, hey, how's it going?

Yeah.

You know, is there anything you need? What can I do to help you out here? Yeah, you know, what can I do to help you bring business in if you're slow? You know, so I, you know, I've focused a lot of attention on social media marketing. Yeah, every Friday I feature, you know, one of my clients, you know, just to, just to, you know, out just to help them, right? If they get one extra customer because of something I featured, then it was well worth it.

What was that? It's like a really low-flying plane. Did you hear that?

Yeah, it sounded like one of those old biplanes.

I did, yeah. Maybe it's just these mics. Well, man, anything else going on in your world?

No, um, you know, consumer financing is hot right now, so, you know, if you know anybody that needs to offer financing to their clients, you know, I'm the guy to call. I've got 2 companies there that I represent, and both of them have 35+ direct lenders. Matter of fact, I've got you guys with both of them.

Yeah, you do.

You know, because of the different programs and platforms they offer you, you know. So, and you're not the only client that I have that does that. You know, the difference is that—

Well, there's different benefits, but yeah, yeah. I mean—

And what sets us apart on that is, you know, everybody's heard of Hirth.

Uh-huh.

You know, Hirth will charge you $1,200 to $1,500 a year, right? $300 setup fee, we get you set up. If you're not using it, you're not paying anything.

Right.

You know, so to me, it's, it's a no-brainer. Why pay, you know, somebody $1,200 or $1,500 a year or pay a big monthly fee every month, even if it's only $100 a month? Why pay that if you don't have anybody that's financing that month?

Yeah.

You know, um, I've got programs, you know, just like I've got programs for credit card processing. So, so we'll find, find out what works best for you as a business owner.

For sure.

For sure.

Do you keep up with current events at all?

Somewhat.

Somewhat. Did you hear about the fistfight that almost broke out in the Senate hearing?

Was this the one over George Santos or the one over—

Bernie Sanders was involved. Did you not hear about this?

I did not hear about this one.

So this was a Senate hearing over jobs with the Teamsters president, and Bernie Sanders was chairing the meeting, and there was a senator from Oklahoma who apparently had had run-ins with the president of the Teamsters in the past, and the Teamsters president had on Twitter called him out and said, name the place and time, you know where I'm at.

Ooh.

So, what he didn't realize was that senator, like, he— one, he was like, this guy's a fake and a fraud. He tries to pretend like he built his own business. Like, this guy had like started his plumbing business from like the ground up. And, you know, it's kind of a self-made dude. And not only that, but he had been an Undefeated MMA fighter.

The senator?

The senator.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, he's a senator from Oklahoma. Like, you can look up the video. It's insane. The senator pulls up the tweets of the Teamster president and says, here's all the stuff you said about me. You said, name the place and time. Well, this is a place and time. You want to go right now? And the guy goes, I'd love to go right now. And he goes, well, then stand up. And he goes, well, you stand up. So he stood up and Bernie Sanders is like, whoa, hold up. This is not about to be a bar brawl in here. And like, the dude was ready to go, man.

I would have loved to have been there and watched that, right?

I would just love to let it happen.

You just know, you know, you know, some of these self-righteous— I won't even say what I'm thinking.

Need a good—

need a good beatdown. keyboard warriors.

Well, yeah, yes. And so many people were like, well, this is so disgraceful, and this is like— this is not the decorum of the Senate. And I'm like, no, it's not. But like, I'm tired of people just being able to say whatever they want online without any consequences.

Yeah.

And like, who was it? Mike Tyson, I think, was the one that said like, some of y'all just—

Yeah, yeah. Some of y'all run your mouth till you get punched in the nose.

You haven't been punched in the mouth or something like that yet. Like, you run your mouth, but like you've never been punched in the mouth, I think is the way. There's a version of it out there. You can find it.

Or had an ear bitten off.

But I mean, like, I was watching it just going like, let him go. Let this be the deciding factor.

Yeah.

You know, like, not that I'm rooting for the Oklahoma guy, but like almost kind of funny because he had no idea the snake pit that he just kicked open.

Yeah.

You know, I'm looking at the other guy, I was like, that guy's never been in a fight. Probably not.

Yeah.

So it was, it was, it was a, it was a big news story of the week.

Yeah.

I try, I try to avoid the news unless I'm reading about what's going on in the fintech world.

Uh-huh.

You know, it's just, it's too depressing. It's all one-sided on one side or one side or the other.

Depending on who you're watching it from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, they're—

I mean, where are the days of Walter Cronkite?

They're gone.

Tom Brokaw?

Gone.

You know, when the news actually was the news. Yeah.

So, so let me ask you this. As someone who's kind of cynical about the news, I mean, that's what I'm gathering.

Oh, yeah.

Like, where, where do you go to get information about stuff that you actually care about?

I do read Fox News.

Okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Occasionally. I'm not there every day. Once or twice a week, I'll just see what's going on in the world.

Sure.

You know, I just don't like all the partisan, the far-right partisanship of it.

Sure.

You know, this country, believe it or not, 80% of this country is a lot closer together than most people think.

I think you're probably right.

You know, and it's the 10% on either side, and they're the ones that are screaming the loudest.

Oh man, I think 10% is generous.

Okay, 5% on either side.

No, I'm—

that's just my personal opinion.

I mean— Screaming the loudest on each side, and it's, you know, stoking those, you know, flames of dividedness.

Right.

You know, if we could just— if both parties could actually just, you know, learn to give a little, uh-huh, we would be so much better off as a country.

For sure.

So I don't think there's many people that could disagree with that sentiment.

Yeah.

So, well, man, it's always good to talk with you. If people are looking for financing for their, their large-ticket items, or they're looking for like a POS system, For their brick-and-mortar or their restaurant, how do they get a hold of you?

Well, you can reach me, and this is my cell phone number, 737-932-2160. You can email me at david@spacecitypayments.com, or you can find me on Facebook at Space City Payments, on Instagram at Space City Payments, and Twitter at Space City Pay.

Okay, awesome. Well, if you're, if you're looking for somebody like that, please reach out to him because this guy's fantastic. He helps our business. Um, yeah, dude, thanks for sitting down.

Hey man, pleasure.

Dude, could you, could you send somebody my way? Sure will, dude.

I got you.

Thank you, bud. So, all right guys, thank you so much, uh, for joining us for this, this live broadcast. We got it. We got a much bigger crowd now than when we got started, I guess. I guess the internet works when it comes to getting people to show up. And if you have not yet, we want to thank you— big thank you to our sponsor Lone Star Appliance Repair. As I was telling you guys earlier in the show, we just had them out to our house to fix the ice maker, and they did a fantastic job. Just, just such a great company to work with because they just came out and did such an incredible

job. job fixing our ice maker. My, my drinks and beverages are cool again. And if you need to get a hold of them, you can reach them at 936-647-2364, and that's Lone Star Appliance Repair. Our good friend Sarah owns that company, and man, what a fantastic company to work with. Anyway, give them a call for all your appliance repair needs. How you doing, man?

I'm doing well. How are you?

Good. Tell everybody who you are and what you do.

My name is Pastor Ed Reynolds, and I am president of Matthew's Light. We are a homeless outreach. We deal with drug addiction. We deal with food insecurity. We're just— we're based off from Matthew 25:35-40, what you do for the least of these. And that's That's our basis, man. We just want to help people.

That's fantastic. Scoot up just a little bit to the mic. I want to make sure people can hear you. All right, Ed, how long have you guys been doing this now?

Um, Matthew's Light has been in existence a little over 2 years. My wife and I have been doing outreach work like this for close to 10 years now. Yeah, we started up in New York, Pennsylvania area up there, and then we moved down here. It was just the natural extension of What we did up there bigger, I guess, is the way to put it, because everything's bigger in Texas.

I think that's probably one of those we wish wasn't bigger.

Exactly.

For sure, for sure, man. So what, what actually prompted you guys to kind of make the move down here and, and start doing what you guys are doing?

Um, well, some medical issues with my wife was the reason we actually moved down here. Her daughter had already moved here.

Okay.

Um, At the time, my wife was diagnosed with a neurological disorder that really gave her 4 to 5 years to live.

Oh, wow.

So it was our intention to move down here. Her daughter, only daughter, is here, so I wanted her to be closer. In doing that, submitting to God's will, he's actually, actually started healing some of that neurological disorder.

That's incredible.

Death sentence is off the table.

Really? Like completely off the table?

It's— I mean, at this point we're looking at some other things, but yeah, she's going to live a long, long life. Maybe not as healthy as we would like, but she's going to be around for a while.

Praise God.

Amen.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yes, it is. It definitely is, for sure.

Well, and so One, like, we're all here for you guys tonight, you know. So like, tell everybody like what we're doing. I mean, for one, I mean, like, we're here to support you guys.

Yeah, I mean—

I mean, raise awareness and get some clothes.

We're trying— exactly, we're trying to raise awareness, bringing clothes down here to donate. So obviously it's wintertime in Texas and they need warm clothes, socks, blankets, coats, jackets, anything like that is great.

Um, which, I mean, real quick, I mean, a lot of people— we're South Texas, right? And they think, okay, South Texas, that's, that's kind of like Florida, like, but like, we can have some vicious cold snaps, you know, and we're entering the season.

We moved here in, uh, 2020, so I moved down here September of 2020. We closed on our house December 30th of 2020, and February 14th was when we had the big freeze. And I'm like, I'm back home. I was out scooping up snow. I just put in a gas range the week before, so I was melting snow and making tomato soup and grilled cheese, and we were good. I'm like, I, I'm made for this.

Yeah, so, but that was, that was a crazy—

That was crazy.

I mean, like, I think somewhere between like 5 and 7 inches of snow.

Yeah, yeah, at least. I mean, I woke up and I'm like, what is What is this?

What's going on? So I mean, like, that can happen here.

Yes, it can happen here.

And then there's, there's people living on the streets having to endure that.

Absolutely.

And absolutely there's shelters, but like, if you got, if you got no clothes—

Exactly, you're gonna freeze. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's cold out there no matter what.

Yeah.

Um, and we got people— I mean, there's people living in tents that are working full-time jobs and have to deal with the cold. That's So can you imagine having to sleep all night and it's 32 degrees out and you don't have any heat, and then get up in the morning, get yourself clean so you can go to your job and work a full job, and then come back home and hopefully your tent is still there?

Well, and I even— even with what you said right there, I think is a massive misconception when it comes to homelessness.

Absolutely.

Is people think that because you're homeless, you're jobless.

Yeah, no, we've known at least 30% of the people that we see down there on a regular basis have jobs of some sort, whatever they're doing. And they have to keep them, well, you have to maintain. We're not gonna go to a job filthy and dirty. So, I mean, that's where we come in. We bring them down hygiene products and things like that to keep them clean.

Yeah.

We really focus on unscented baby wipes because a lot of the time they don't have access to running water, right? So an unscented baby wipe, at least they can wipe themselves and get themselves clean.

You know, wipe the dirt off. Exactly.

Yeah.

So there's a, there's a lot of people out there that try and put together care packages that they can keep in their car.

Yep. Blessing bag.

Blessing bag.

Yeah.

How do you feel about those? They're good.

I mean, If you're meeting the need now, I mean—

Well, that's why I'm asking.

And then that's the problem. I mean, I see a lot of things that, like, again, we get back to the wipes. People want to put shampoo in there, and I get it. It's great. You can get shampoo cheap. But if you don't have running water, you can't really use the shampoo.

Right.

So the wipes are better. Deodorant, definitely. Any deodorant is great. and a toothbrush and toothpaste. That's what we put in our hygiene packs. It costs us $5 to make a hygiene pack, and then if we get chapstick or stuff like that, we'll put it in. We don't usually put cash in. Like, I know a lot of people have a blessing bag and they want to put cash in there, right? And that's not to say that everybody that's out there is going to use it wrongly or buy drugs or alcohol, but—

Sure.

We just, if it's not there, then we don't have to worry about that. You know, packaged snacks are the best way to go. So the Ritz crackers that are sealed, you don't want to give them anything open. You don't want to make a sandwich and give it to them because if something's bad in there, you could end up doing them more harm than good.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean, like a long, long time ago, We actually, we had a little bit of a homeless ministry for like the 2920-45 area. We specifically focused on that area. And one of the things we quickly, quickly realized is getting food to them was way more difficult than we thought.

Okay.

I mean, for the very— for the reason because like we wanted to make it in our home and take it to them. And then we were like, okay, that's not safe. It's not prepared in a commercial kitchen. Like we're making sandwiches or we're Or, you know, whatever. And so we're like, okay, like, what do we do? And like, maybe we're like, maybe we buy a food truck.

I thought about that too, you know, and then just take it to them.

Yeah, well, that's crazy expensive. Exactly, you know. And so like, it becomes like, we ended up just like partnering with local restaurants, like, hey, like, look, we're gonna buy a ton of food. Yep. Can you package it up so we can just hand it out? That ended up being the best strategy.

That's a good strategy. Um, We've been lucky and blessed. We actually partner with Lone Star Cowboy Church, their Three Cross Meat Ministry. They donate 100 pounds of meat to us a month.

There you go.

We have another ministry called Trap Village. They actually go to our sister church over in Humble who does all of our cooking. They have a big kitchen. They can cook everything that we bring them. We just call them up a week before and say, hey, this is what they gave us. It's either chicken or ground beef or pork butt or whatever, right? And they make it into something and it's always good. It's always good. And that's the whole big thing. As long as it's done safe and done in a regular kitchen, and we have our— Diane and I have our food safe license so we can go down there and serve. It's been fine. We've never had any problems and the food has been great.

Yeah, I, I bring that up just because I don't think a lot of people realize that there's steps you have to go through in order to even serve these people safely.

Yep, and really, the city of Houston doesn't require anything for you to serve them, but we figured, well, they have a food serve-safe certificate out there, why not take it? Why not go through it?

Go the extra mile.

We're covered, you know.

So what has been You know, as far as like getting support, like what has been the biggest struggle for you guys to make sure that this, this thing keeps going?

Um, really it's, it's, it's funds. And I say that and it's like we have 2 storage units right now full of clothes and that we still have to go through and sort out. And but getting the money to keep the vehicles going, to keep doing what we're doing, it's take it to the next step, because we do have another step that we want to go other than just handing out. We actually want to acquire a piece of property that's on a bus route and put sleep pods on it.

Okay.

So what this is, is just a single-person place where they can get in, bring their stuff, lock the door, and they're safe for the night.

Yeah.

We'll put 50 or 60 of those on the property and Have a community bathroom, community kitchen, and studies have shown that now once those people are safe, we can start working with the drug addict. We can start getting him off his drugs. We can start bringing them back into society because now they're in a societal commune.

Right.

But it's just getting the funding and getting in front of the people that can help us do that.

Right.

And that's the toughest part.

Yeah.

And it's sad to say, especially in front of churches.

No.

Yeah, you got to get in front of the gate, get past the gatekeeper to get to the pastor to, to get anything done, and it never happens.

Yeah.

So how much, how much money do you guys need in order to— I mean, like, what are you guys looking for monthly? I mean, because I think, I think a lot of people need to know, like, like, what does it take to actually operate something like this?

So just what we do now, going downtown So I'll put it in this perspective. We are serving somewhere around 250 to 350 people a month.

Okay.

So let's just round that into 300. A hygiene pack costs us $5 to make.

Right.

That's $1,500 just on hygiene packs.

Just on, yeah.

And then, like I said, the meat's donated, but all the extra that comes with it has to be paid for.

Right.

So that's another $400 or $500. Gas to get down there, and that's not just gas to get down there, it's gas to get to the storage, it's gas to go here, get the supplies, do what we all need. I mean, we're somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500 to $3,000 a month just in one outreach.

Right.

And we also do other outreaches. We go to an addiction facility for women and we do a dinner for them. Kids Meal. My wife volunteers with Kids Meal, going around with them, helping them hand out food to the kids. So we do more than just go down and deal with the homeless people down there. Yeah. And we're increasing. We're trying to start a food pantry up in the Pinehurst, Tomball area, up in that area.

Massive need there.

Yes.

Oh yeah, that is— that— it's almost third world in some of the little communities off from 249 or 1774. It's if you get back in there, because you don't see it when you're driving up 1774.

Oh yeah, that's— Corey and I were just talking about that, the guy I interviewed 2 segments ago. I mean, it's like, we like— because we did that event up there. Yep. With the shoes and everything like that. And like, we were both talking about like how most people just don't even realize what's back.

Yeah, what's there, because you don't drive back there. You're so focused on getting to where you're going, it's like Nobody sees it.

Right.

But that's actually— our church is right down 249, just where 1774 comes down through and meets 249.

Yeah.

Grace Tomball's right down there. So we've seen it, and we're actually doing a Hope for Christmas at our church, through our church, not Matthew's Light, but—

Right.

Um, just for those kids that are in that area. It's been very targeted on just the kids that need it, you know. So, man, yeah.

So, I mean, so people know where you're coming from. What's— how did you end up like— I mean, I don't necessarily give like your testimony, but like, yeah, like, how did you come to be a person of faith to even want to do this kind of stuff?

Well, I can tell you, I grew up— let me give you my testimony because that's the easiest way to do it— is I grew up in a Christian home, went to church every Sunday. I actually thought I was becoming a pastor when I was like 13. There was a younger pastor that had come in and was mentoring me, and then all of a sudden he disappeared out of the church. Then I got into the Army, and it was like, oh, the world, this is fun. I walked away from church for 30-plus years.

Wow.

Until I met my wife. We started— she had her own issues with her estranged husband who I'd actually committed suicide. So she was going back to church, and she asked me to go with her. And I'm like, you know what, second marriage failed, it can't hurt. So I started going to church. And literally, I'm being honest, it can't hurt.

Yeah.

Went to church, and then like about the third week, I'm sitting in church, and the pastor who I had said hi to, he doesn't know my story, doesn't know anything, he was telling me, or he was telling the congregation about a trip he took to Florida and a kid he was ministering to down there that grew up in a Christian home, thought he was going to be a pastor at 13, walked away from everything when he was older for 30-plus years. And I'm like, you're telling me my story.

Yeah.

And you don't know me. And that's when I gave my life back over.

Was that the same guy?

No.

No, it was just totally— I mean, like, that's crazy.

It's crazy. It was crazy. And I was like, yeah, I hear you talking to me, Lord. Yeah. So yeah, and it went from there. The homeless part we just started doing. My dad has always worked with a food bank up in Maine where he— where I'm from originally.

Okay.

So I've always seen that. We've always had cousins and people living with us and So it's always been in our DNA to take care of other people.

Right.

We met a couple when we moved down here at our previous church who were going down to feed the homeless every week, but they were only going down and feeding 50 or 60 people.

Right.

And that's all they wanted to do, feed 50 or 60, go back home. We got down there and it was like, no, we can bring clothes, we can, we can do so much more. more, but they and the church weren't really on board with it. So that's when we founded Matthew's Light. We went down the first time and we had 5 or 6 people and we served 50 or 60. Our last outreach, we went down with 50 volunteers and we served over 350. We actually had to turn people away because we ran out of food and clothes.

Wow.

We were out. So, I mean, And that's how big it's gotten.

Okay, like if you had had unlimited resources for that last outing, how many people do you think you would have served?

At least 400, maybe 450.

I mean, it's insane.

Yeah, and I keep saying—

And that's not even all of them.

No, and that's just the ones who decided to walk over. Yeah, and if you go look at my Facebook page, I do a video when I'm down there, and I'm always saying, yep, It's more and more and more. And I keep hearing the powers that be tell us that homelessness is decreasing. And I'm like, where?

Because even if it is, like, on average, that's 350 people is still larger than most churches.

Thank you. I know, right?

It's crazy.

But it just keeps going up and up and up. It's nuts. I mean, I don't know know why, if they're moving from another area over here or something, but it's just more and more people.

So, well, and like, I, I, I'm— I genuinely believe— I, I don't know, and I don't think that there's a solution to this that the state can provide. I think they can be of assistance, but I don't think they are the ones that can solve it. I think the only ones that can solve it are churches and local organizations.

Thank you. I, I totally agree with you.

But like, I also think That most churches and local organizations don't have the stomach for.

Exactly, because it's not a cute ministry.

It's not.

You deal with a lot of mental health, you deal with a lot of people down there, but you know what, when you get a breakthrough, it's the greatest thing in the world. We have a gentleman down there named Grant. We have been ministering to him since we started. We see him come, We see him get his stuff for the first year, get his stuff, head down, and he would leave.

Right.

About, well, I guess it was about May of last year, he saw a purple blanket that we had down there, and he's like, can I have that blanket? My wife is like, yeah, here, here. And he's like, do you got any Bibles? And my wife is, She got all excited, so she came around the table, and he's like, no, no, don't touch me, don't touch me. She's like, no, no, I'm not going to touch you, I'm going to get you the Bibles. He's like, oh, okay. And one for him too. There's nobody standing there. Hmm, okay. We got him 2 Bibles. I was able to then get his name. That's when we learned his name was Grant.

Right.

And we talked with him, we got him a Bible, and I prayed with him, and Ever since then, he comes back, he talks. Sometimes he's in a good mood, sometimes he's not in such a good mood, but we've learned we've got a breakthrough with him. I mean, he knows we're going to be there. He knows we're coming down, and he always gets 2 Bibles. And it's okay.

Him and his friend.

Exactly. But I mean, things like that are encouraging to us. I mean, at least we're now talking to him.

He's engaging.

He's engaging. So that's community. Community is important.

For sure. You know, and like, I think, I think there's a lot of times where people use fringe cases to blanket everyone else that's in that community. You know, I can think of a guy that we used to work with, and he, anytime we were serving food, he would ride up on his bicycle and he would be like, hey, Craig, can you help me get one of those communist driver's licenses? I was just like, like, you know, the first time it happened, you don't even know how to respond.

I know.

It's like, what are you even talking about?

My wife has, has a lady down there that has been coming down for the last 5 or 6 months. So keep saying, yeah, I know you, I know you. Tell my wife she knows her, and I know how you got here illegally. My wife is from born and raised in New York City.

Yes.

It's like, I don't know you. Yeah, it's like— but yeah, that's what we deal with. But you know what, I— we've never had an incident where anybody tried to attack anybody, right? We do have gentlemen that go with us that are providing overwatch. Yeah, though you don't know it, they're engaging with people, but they're seeing what's going on, just making sure everybody's safe. My 9-year-old grandchild is running around here somewhere. He goes down there with us every time we go down to serve.

Well, he hit me up for a couple of raffle tickets.

Oh yeah, we taught him well.

Yeah, that's right. What, what am I potentially winning, by the way?

I don't know what it's up to yet. It's a 50/50.

What's a 50/50?

So whatever money we get, Matthews Light keeps half and you get the other half. Now if you want it to donate that back to Matthew's Light.

There's no problem there, right? Well, man, I've really enjoyed talking to you. We visited before, and I visited with Diane before. I love y'all's ministry.

Appreciate you.

But if people want to get more involved, how do they get a hold of you guys?

matthewslight.org, or they can find us on Facebook. We're all over Facebook. Um, yeah, just hit us up. We have an email address on our email you can reach us on, on Matthew's Light, and we answer that. We try to keep up on everything. Diane is usually on, on boat with that, on board with that. Um, yeah, I mean, you can donate on our page.

Awesome.

You can check out what we're doing. If you want to really get involved, go to our page, put your email address in. I do a newsletter. once a month where I just share what we're doing, what's going on in our lives, um, um, what has happened. Um, like last month we had, uh, so last month we were down to like $270 in our bank account. $200 of that had to go to storage unit.

Oh gosh.

We didn't know where it was coming. We walked into church and someone said there was a package in the back, and I'm thinking, okay, someone brought some clothes. I'll get it after church. My wife went out to go to the bathroom and they said, told her, hey, there's a package in the back, you better get it. So she went and got it and she walked back into the sanctuary and she's just like dumbfounded. I'm like, what? Somebody had given us a donation, a very substantial donation.

Oh, wow.

I mean, enough that we could put the down payment on the new ministry vehicle out there. plus have funds for the next 3 or 4 months.

That's incredible.

It was. I mean, it was unexpected. We didn't know where it was coming from. We had had a kind of a rough month because I just flew my dad down here from Maine. He's got dementia. Diane was in the hospital. Dad was in the hospital. It was kind of a rough month. Yeah, it was very unexpected and, and a great blessing, let me tell you.

That's incredible.

So yeah, so I put that in the newsletter. Let people know what's going on, man. It's like—

Well, so, so if I can, if I can sum it up then, what you need: prayers, prayers, money, money, physical presence.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and we don't turn down clothes.

Oh yeah. I mean, like, yeah, we're doing a building drive tonight.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. And I think, I mean, we've got like 3 boxes. I mean, like, there's— I mean, not to brag, but I think my, my team is winning.

You're with the net.

Oh yeah. Yeah, your team's winning.

Your team's winning. I mean, the rest of you guys are losers.

Come on.

I don't know what we get for winning, but like, other than just bragging rights. Thank you. That's what, that's what I wanted. That's all I ever wanted.

You're blessed.

Dude, really, really good to talk to you.

Appreciate you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

I mean, if you see somebody, actually tap, tap this guy right here. Tell him he needs to come talk to me.

All right.

His name is Josh. So guys, if you're not inspired by that, I don't know what you are, but we're going to have a new guest here in just a minute. Just want to remind everybody to thank you. Hey, bud. How are you? Good, man. Just want to thank everyone, thank our sponsor for this episode, Lone Star Appliance Repair. If you can give them a call at 936-647-2364 and incredible company. Like I said, they just repaired our ice maker and knocked it out of the park, saved us a ton of money. Didn't have to buy a new ice maker. I mean, didn't have to buy a new fridge. Yeah, we just got to replace that ice maker, which was way cheaper. So again, give them a call,

936-647-2364, and they'll get you set up.

I just heard about them from the president of NAD.

Oh really?

And he said that he actually got his compressor replaced on his fridge or deep freeze or something.

Yeah.

And it was—

tell me about that. Yeah.

And it's under warranty. And he was thinking he's gonna have to come out of pocket to get this fixed. And the whole— the way they catered to him, it was an awesome deal.

Okay. This is the crazy thing about appliance, like specifically refrigerators, is there's parts on the refrigerator that are warrantied for up to like 10 years.

Yes.

But they don't tell you.

Yep.

Because they want you to just buy a new fridge. But like if you call a company like Lone Star are, like, they'll tell you, like, okay, like, this part's under warranty, that part's not under warranty. Our ice maker wasn't under warranty.

Sounds about right.

But I mean, like, it was— it wasn't that expensive to replace it. And like, you know, like, it's an ice maker. I mean, like, that's why we have fridges, because we want the convenience of ice.

Correct, correct. Yeah, we have one out at our office, and, uh, we don't have a water hookup for it, so having to bag ice and bring it in. Okay, we got to get this fixed. I can't continue this path.

All right, so I wanted to make sure you got up because it's like we've been going back and forth for a while. Yeah, so we need to put it out on the air that we're going to do a full episode, correct, at some point in time when you and I can actually communicate.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I want to introduce some new members of our company too. We got a new CFO. Okay, great acumen. So I'll kind of save that for the You're gonna bring them all in? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. It's— he's, he's a big, uh, uh, you know, pivotal thing that we're doing to move into the commercial sector and the government sector. So he's bringing a lot to the table.

Okay. You guys been staying busy?

Uh, yeah, yeah. It was— we just looking at, you know, year over year what we did last year around this time, we're doubled.

So that's fantastic.

Count the blessings. It's just been awesome. We've got a steady trickle. We're already booked out December last year, you know, December, January, we were like, man, we're gonna have to lay some people off, you know, so tight. So this is an incredible year for us to finish out this strong.

That's awesome, man. When you— I've been seeing you guys have been sponsoring a bunch of events.

We are.

That's awesome, man.

We're, we're really— we're community-driven, we're family-owned and operated. Yeah. So as much as we can give back, and, and, you know, we do a lot with sports and high schools and churches, you know, we're involved in a lot of that Real quick, tell everybody what you do because I don't even think we did.

I know you've been on before, but I want to make sure everybody knows what you do.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm Josh Juarez. I'm the CEO of True Texas Solar. Uh, we're a family-owned and operated, uh, solar business based out of Conroe, Texas. We have a brick-and-mortar store. We actually carry electrical contractor license, so we install what we sell you, we service what we sell you. It's a turnkey operation. So that's a Yeah, and that show who we are.

Yeah, and I think the last event that we did together was that open house. Yeah, do you know if that thing sold or not?

I know I've seen a price reduction maybe around September or so. Okay, hadn't followed up from there.

That was a crazy house.

It was awesome.

I mean, it was, yeah, it was awesome, but it was just like, this has got to go to the right person.

Yeah, it's got to have somebody that can appreciate all the effort put into each individual.

Well, like one of the things they told me on that one, it was like, Sorry, I'm gonna go on all kinds of tangents.

No, that's why I did it.

Because we're gonna do a— we're gonna do a big episode.

Yeah.

But like, even the rockwork in the back porch and in the tub in the master bath, I think he said it took him like 3 years just to complete that.

And I was just like, how?

That is dedication to like what you want for your house. Like, you've got to really like it so much that you're willing to wait 3 years for it to be done. I couldn't— I'm like most of us, it's like if you remodel the bathroom, you better be out of there in a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My wife might trigger that on to 3 months, but that's the limit. 90 days, that's it. We better be done.

That's the top of what I'm willing to wait. Well, let me, let me tell you, and I haven't, I haven't talked about this tonight because I've been saving this story.

Okay.

So on Tuesday night, this is at my house. Yep. My son comes running into the kitchen and he's like, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad. And like, you know, sometimes he can be hyped up and I'm just like, okay, now I need to ignore him because he's just, you know, hitting it 100 miles an hour.

Yeah.

He's like, Dad, no, no, there's, there's somebody in the front yard. Which, I mean, we're on a big piece of property. Sometimes there's just people in the front yard. And I was like, okay, like, what do you mean? He goes, no, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, there's, there's somebody in the front yard and he's dumping stuff in the front yard. And I was like, what are you talking about? He goes, Grandma told me to come get you because there's somebody dumping stuff in our front yard. And I was like, wow, okay. So I, I go downstairs and I gather my things and I head to the front of the property. And sure enough, there's a 3/4-ton truck with a

trailer and they're out there and like the front of my property is just pure brown.

Oh my gosh.

ground, and they're dumping— I don't know what it is.

Wow.

Just all over the place. And it's like a 3-man crew. I don't know, I've never seen the truck before in my life. And so I just walk out there and I was like, what's going on, fellas?

What are y'all doing?

Yeah. And they're like, oh, we're dumping. And I said, what are you dumping? And they go, it's just water. The hell it's water.

I mean, this is Water with a little copper in there?

Yeah, I was like, I don't know what it is, but you need to turn it off right now.

Wow.

And they're like, why? I was like, one, you're on private property and you're trespassing, so just go ahead and turn it off. I've already called the police, they're on their way, but go ahead and turn it off.

Yeah.

And they're like, oh, I'm so sorry, we didn't realize this was private property.

Why are you dumping anyway?

I was like, what did you think it was, a park?

It's like a state building, right?

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Like, that was, that was their spiel. It was like, wow. So, and like, they didn't speak English so great. So they got on the phone and they got me in touch with the foreman. And I'm like, who's this? He gives me his name. And I said, what company you're with? He gives me the company name. And I'm like, do you realize that your guys are on private property dumping what I don't even know is? And what they didn't realize is the front of my property, which is where they were dumping, is a spillway for the community lake.

Oh, so now all the fish could be affected.

Yeah.

Wildlife.

Yeah. And so, like, it just— I ended up being out there for like an hour and a half with the police because the guy was like, oh, you know, like, hey, look, we're gonna fix it. Because not only did they like dump a bunch of stuff, but like they tore up my entire front property because their truck and their trailer sunk into the ground and just tore everything up.

Did y'all identify what they were spilling?

They—

I mean, like, what they said was that it was mud.

Okay.

And they had been digging holes for, uh, uh, utility poles.

Okay.

At a storage facility. And that was the other thing that was weird, man. It's like anytime you ask him a question, he's like, well, so who are you working for? He's like, the storage facility. Which one? The one on 105. I was like, there's only like 10 of those. And then the cop asked him like, hey, where are you? Where are you? Where are you supposed to be dumping this? And he's like, oh, a construction site. He goes, which one? Down on 1488. Like, it was just very evasive, you know? And it was like, okay, so like, this is, this is, this is not good. Like, and so, but like the cops, I don't even think he arrested anybody.

Nothing.

And never asked me if I wanted to press charges. The only thing that they asked is like, hey, do you have his contact information? Because I heard him agree to pay to repair everything. So that went into the case report. And do we need to wrap up?

Okay.

Okay. So we're coming up against the main event of this thing.

Okay.

So anyway, crazy event, man. I still don't have it resolved. Like, it's going to be weeks to come to find out even what, what, what came of that, man.

So that's an adventure.

It's like, but like, what do you do?

What do you— yeah, how do you approach that? How do you, you know, remain civil?

Yeah, yeah. Like, so I mean, frustrating. The, the police were not civil about it. They were not happy.

That's good. That's their duty. Yeah, yeah. And it keeps you from having to go to that, that level, right?

Yeah. But like, we even, like, we even ended up having to have like a board member from the homeowners association come out because they needed the report in order to give it back to the EPA, back to the Army Corps of Engineers.

I mean, it's like what was going to happen, come test the water, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, because I mean, like, we don't know what was in all that stuff. So, wow, that's strange. Anyway, so I guess we, I guess we better wrap it up. So we teased, yes, that we're gonna get together.

Yes.

And do it, do an actual episode with the new CFO. Correct.

All right. Correct. And we'll go over—

We don't know when that's going to happen, but it'll, it'll happen soon. Yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, we can cover demystifying a lot of the solar myths and also bringing some solar truth because that's, that's really needed in this industry right now.

Well, I'd imagine a lot of stuff's changing in your industry too.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot with incentives and, you know, product and a lot of stuff switching to American brands. So it's all working well.

Yeah.

So, well, listen guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. We've had a lot of good guests for you tonight. We got to see Josh again, and we'll get a more in-depth solar episode dialed up for you guys.

Yeah.

But if you haven't yet, please go ahead and hit the subscribe button, the like button, the share button, all the buttons on the platform that you're sitting on, because we love it when you share. our content, um, and we'll see you on the next one. It'll probably be back in the studio, uh, but go ahead and subscribe to the show. Thank you guys for joining us on this one. We'll see you next time.

All right, thanks, bud. Yeah, yeah, every second counts.

I—

yeah, I don't know, I didn't know when we were gonna have to shut this thing down, so Yeah.

Well, that's fine. Maybe after, uh, Thanksgiving dust settles.