Log Cabins and Fishing

This is episode number 258 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another live episode of The Homeowner Show here in the studios. Homer Show Studios.

Finally.

That's right.

We're back.

We're back, baby. How you doing, Kev?

I am good.

Yeah?

Do you believe me?

No.

Okay. Well, I—

how you feel about my little friend here?

I hate your little friend right there. Your little friend pisses me off.

Little bobblehead.

No, I— he makes me more mad the longer you hold him.

We actually, we actually had somebody send that into the show after people started saying that I looked like him.

Oh, really?

Yeah. That's why it's here. Like, like, like, I'd go buy something sports.

That's a good point. That's a very good point. That's a very good point.

It was just, you know, it was—

Yeah. I know.

Doubly good because it just irritates you.

Because it makes me mad. That's right. You know what else makes me mad?

What's that?

And I, I'm gonna say something that is super cliché and stupid right now.

Mhmm.

But, like, it's freaking hot outside, man. Oh my gosh. It— this is on record.

Bring it up.

Like, the worst, the worst in, in history. Like, it's unbelievably hot and dry and weird. It is just weird outside, dude.

I got in my car the other day and it was like over 120 degrees on the thermostat.

That's—

now I realize that's not the temperature outside. No, but it's like the car is going like, this is how I feel.

Yeah, exactly. Like, the pavement feels like this. Yeah. And that's what I'm on. I'm on the pavement. You're making me drive on this thing. But yesterday, legitimately yesterday was 107 degrees. Yeah. That's outside temperature.

Yeah. And then like, it's gonna be like sustained 106. Yeah. For at least a week.

Right.

It's just like, we're all— I mean, like, not to make light of what's going on, but we're all kind of looking at California going, could you send a little bit that our way?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. California's going, oh, you want our weather but not our people?

Yeah. That's right. He's like, you got it.

Yep.

That's exactly right.

So you understand, you get it.

That's right.

So how are you doing, man?

I'm doing good. Yeah, man. I mean, the hot weather has made business really busy. Sure. Every bug in Houston is trying to get inside. They're just as hot as everybody else.

Yeah. I mean, I called you and I was like, dude, I'm starting to see roaches and stuff. Is it just that freaking hot? They're trying to find water. They're trying to find something that's cooler or what. And you told me something that made a lot of sense to me. I just didn't have— had never thought about it. That's the fact that the chemicals are breaking down in the hot weather. And so you're like, I can come out early, which I don't know if you'd wind up— I know you came out, but I don't know if it was early.

But you were right on time.

Yeah. And so it— but it was— I mean, it's a noticeable difference now that you've been there, but I'm just like, man, that I never realized how, and I'm sure that everybody knows that the heat's gonna break that down, but it's not something that's ever really been a problem probably.

Yeah, no, not really. I mean, because like it's not uncommon for it to get over 100 degrees in South Texas.

Sure, no.

Happens all the time.

Sure.

It's weird for it to be like 6 weeks in a row.

Sustained.

Yeah.

Over 100.

Yeah.

And no rain.

No rain.

Which I'm sure that has to do with—

That's what breaks up the monotony of the heat. I mean, like you get a downpour that allows the temperature to drop 80.

Exactly.

And it just hasn't happened.

Hasn't happened. And the only upside is that humidity does not live in high temperatures. It just can't, uh, because the humidity burns off.

Yeah.

Literally burns off at, at a higher temperature. So we've had like days that are in the 20% of humidity, which is nice, but man, I can't be outside very long.

Right. Yeah. No, we're gonna have to, we're gonna, we're gonna have to get creative. keep our humid status.

Yeah, exactly.

But the weird part, and we'll get into this because we're going to be talking about a house that actually the Rizzler and I went and stayed at.

Okay.

So for those of you that don't know, the Rizzler's back in the studio.

He's back, thank goodness.

Yeah, thank you.

We're all happy about that.

Did you hear, did you watch the episode where Sean was guest hosting in that mansion?

I watched most of it. Yes.

Did you hear what he did live on the show?

I don't know what you're referring to.

He registered therealrizzler.com. Oh, yes.

Oh, I'm so thankful that you did.

We got to work. We got some work to do on that site.

I know. Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll build it out. We got to get him a new hat, though.

That's right.

Yeah. We can only do so much with that Astros hat over there.

Well, except for win.

Well, you can't do that either.

So you're 2 to 1 in this studio. We got the Bregman. We got over here.

Bregman's bobbling head.

That's right.

He's still bobbling. Yeah, look at it. He just doesn't stop.

He's taunting you.

He doesn't stop.

That's right. He's too handsome.

That's right, I guess. Dude, we have had some fun recently.

Yeah.

We, we had some fun.

We took some— we had— we took some time off for some adventure.

It, it was necessary.

Uh-huh.

And it was hot up there too.

It was cooler than it was here.

It was cooler than it was. And honestly, Like, okay. So, what we did—

Let's see what happened was.

Let's see what happened was.

We—

Craig had to be out of his house for good reason. Great reason.

Yep.

He had to be out of his house.

Estrogen levels were astronomical.

Yes. Women were taking over the house. So he had to leave with his son. And he said, hey, let's go fishing. I said, okay, great. I don't really fish much. Mhmm. But he enticed me with this idea of we're gonna do a charter. And I'm like, I'm all in on charters. Yeah, like, I, I'm happy to do a charter. So we go up to Oklahoma to Broken Bow, the area Broken Bow, um, and in Hochatown, right?

Yep.

And so we're specifically staying in Hochatown. We're on Broken Bow Lake and, uh, and the river area around that.

Mountain Fork River, Beavers Bend State Park, Beaver Bend National Forest.

There you go, you got it all in there. So we loved our guide, by the way. He was awesome. And but one of the reasons you take a guide is because they know where to go.

They know where to go.

They know where the fish are going to bite. Mhm.

And they know what they're biting on.

They know what they're biting on to. Like, I— it's just a great, great experience to, to hire, uh, a guide. And honestly, this one was pretty inexpensive.

Oh yeah.

I mean, I think we paid $80 a head.

Yep, that's it.

And I think we were there for like 4 and a half hours.

We were there longer than that.

It was a long time.

Yeah, because we got there at 6:30 in the morning and we stayed till almost noon.

It was awesome. And it was slow going to begin with.

Yeah.

Um, but we were in the shade the whole time. I was like, this guy is my favorite friend. Yeah.

But, and like, you know, even though it was like 95 degrees outside, water was cold.

It was cold and I was in the water a couple of times.

That helped, didn't it?

Oh, it was wonderful.

Yeah.

It was wonderful.

Yeah, so I like, this is, this is to me, like, I hate even talking about this place because it's been blowing up so much over the past few years.

You don't wanna just like tell everybody about it.

It's, you know, there's a reason that hunters and fishers don't tell their places.

Right.

You know, but like it's inevitable at this point. Like everyone's starting to find out about—

Well, there's a casino going in that is gonna be huge in Hochatown. Yeah, it, it, I mean, it's not finished yet, but that place looks amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you like casinos, like that place is gonna draw in crowds. I'm not a casino guy, but there's a massive hotel connected to it. Let me tell you this. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of good food there.

There is a lot of good food.

Holy cow.

Yeah.

I mean, just if you wanna feast on pizza alone, that's— there's multiple pizza places.

Yep.

Burger places. There's a distillery there.

There's 2 breweries.

2 breweries.

And, ah, like, you took that Sneaky Snake home, didn't you?

I did.

It's good.

It is good. I took it home.

Shout out to the Mountain Fork Brewery.

That's right. I still have some of it. Um, but like, the food's great. Dude, I'm really disappointed that we did not go to that, that miniature golf place. That looks so—

Oh, the giant maze and—

Yeah, but the miniature golf place was like not just like your standard, like, hit it through the windmill.

Oh, they had like whirlpools and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, kind of like sand, water and sand and all kinds of stuff. Anyway, um, it looked fun. But this place, you're right, it's blowing up, man.

Yeah, yeah. So hot tip for, you know, all you fishermen out there, uh, Broken Bow is one of the only places in the US where you can trout fish year-round.

That's awesome.

And it, like, it's, it's not I mean, it's really good trout fishing.

Yeah.

Um, and there's— I think there's like 5 or 6 different species of trout. Um, the one, you know, they stock it. Well, yeah, yeah, but like, we— there's, there's even like the golden trout, which is apparently pretty rare.

Yeah.

Um, we really wanted to catch one, but that didn't happen. We caught nothing but rainbows.

Yep.

The whole time. And then I caught like a baby gar.

Oh really? I didn't even see that.

Yeah, I didn't know that. It was like— well, it was I, I saw him in the water and I was just, I was reeling in and I was like, what's that thing? Um, no, no, no, it wasn't, it wasn't a baby gar. That's what I thought it was initially. It was a walleye.

Ah.

It's a walleye. It was a baby walleye. Um, it just had that long snout on it.

Okay.

Um, but anyway, uh, yeah, so like you're, you're on— so you can go there in December and you'll catch fish. Um, but the, the limit is much smaller than like over in Arkansas, because I think the limit's 3.

3 per person. Yeah.

Um, which is more than enough.

Well, okay, so there was you, me, both of our sons, and your dad.

And my dad.

Yeah. There's 5 people. That's 15 fish.

Yeah, if we, if we all limited out. And we didn't.

And we didn't, but that's a lot of fish.

Yeah. Now, okay, and I want to, I want to stress this. We threw back a bunch.

Sure, we had to. Yeah, because I mean, there were some that were just like, that, that sucker's a joke. Yeah, I'm— that's cute.

Yeah, so still, still fun to catch.

Absolutely.

So, and, and here's the other thing, if you are one of those people that's like, look man, I've been fishing for 30 years, I don't need a guide, right? Here's, here's what I'm going to say to that. I don't necessarily need a guide either. I got my own gear.

Sure.

I know how to fish.

Yeah.

I think one of the worst things you could ever do in order to get your kids interested in the outdoors is to take them out to an uneventful thing. Yeah. And the— I don't mind going out to an uneventful thing. I just like being outside. Sure. I got that way by having a lot of success early on because my dad took me out and we, we had a lot of fun outside.

Sure.

Catching and shooting stuff.

Sure.

but he made sure that I was successful at it.

Right.

And I think that's one of the, you know, like, it's not always gonna work out that way, but one of the best ways you can ensure that is, you know, you hire an expert that knows the area, that brings the right gear, that brings the right bait, is showing you how to do it.

Sure.

It's patient with your kids.

Right.

And I, I think for you and I, that was one of the best things. It's like, yeah, he was so good with our kids.

And my, my son's 8.

Right.

I mean, your son's 9, 10. So 10. So even still, like, they're young, man. Like, like, they're young enough that you gotta have someone that's patient.

Yeah.

And, and both of our kids are good, but like, I think that— I think you, you make a good point here because at the end of the day, it's one of those deals where it's like, I can go out and I can work— I mean, work— I can fish from 8 to noon, which is basically kind of what we did. I think we're out there maybe earlier than that, 7:30 maybe. Um, so 4, 4 and a half hours, and I can catch one, maybe two things, go home with a couple of fish.

Yeah.

Or I can spend, what, $160 for two people?

Yeah.

And come home with enough fish to cook.

Yeah.

And eat and, and have fun. That $180, again, I'm not made of money, neither are you, but at $180, you're right, it's worth the amount of money to go out and go, look, we're— our kids are having fun.

Yeah.

And I, and I didn't have to just be like attending to them the whole time.

Yeah.

Like, he, he was baiting other rods and going, hey, look, if something happens, this one's ready to go.

Yep.

That is the type of guide you want. So Yeah.

And, well, and, you know, like, what kind of stories do you want your kids telling when they go back to school? Right. It's like, yeah, and my dad took me fishing, we caught nothing. Or you wouldn't believe the amount of fish me and my dad caught. Right. You know, right. Like, that's, that's a story they're going to remember and they're going to want to tell over and over and over again.

Exactly. And, and for us, it was about the experience more than it was about the fish. However, the fish is part of the experience. So, I mean, we had a good drive. I mean, I told— I don't know about you, but like, I had a lot of family members especially that were like, hey, you know, there's a place to fish around Houston. And I was like, not this kind of trout fishing.

No, it's the same. Well, and not this pretty.

Not this pretty.

Uh-uh.

I mean, you got—

well, it's, it's southeastern Oklahoma, right? And like, what a lot of people don't realize, that's where the mountains are still coming through from the Ozarks.

Yeah. And, and, and most— so I grew up, I, I'll just put it out there. Mm-hmm. As, as Texas folks, we were brought up and raised to believe that Texas is this most superior state. Right. We're not wrong.

We're not wrong.

But we were also told that, um, Oklahoma sucks. Uh-huh. That's the only reason it's still connected to Texas. And that Arkansas is the armpit of the United States.

Uh-huh.

Then we lived in Arkansas for 10 years.

Mhmm.

And let me tell you, Arkansas is gorgeous.

Yeah.

Like, 4 distinct seasons. The, the leaves are changing. There's rivers. There's some of the most, like, clear, pristine lakes in all the, all the United States. Like, people come from all over the US to dive in Arkansas because how clear their lakes are.

Yeah.

It is called the Natural State, and it is that for a reason. Beautiful. And you're right, the southeast tip of Oklahoma, which is where we were, is an extension of that.

Yep.

It's beautiful up there. Yeah.

I just, yeah, I love, like, even my dad who grew up just west of there was blown away by how much it's grown and expanded and become just kind of this attraction, right, for people to go and spend their vacations. I'm craving that pizza. It's good pizza.

I'm also on a diet right now, so good pizza sounds great.

Yeah, I did eat that one in front of you the other day. You did.

It's okay.

I regret nothing.

No, I had barbecue. Barbecue is fine. I love barbecue. Anyway, so we stayed. Like, you picked out the place.

Yeah. So I did, not intentionally.

We had another place.

Well, yeah, that's maybe another story. I'm going back in November. That's probably the short version of telling that story.

Right.

But also, I mean, like, the place that I originally picked out, right, looked cool as well.

It looked great. I was not going to be disappointed in that place at all. Yeah.

But the place we ended up staying, yeah, was incredible.

It really was.

So, and, and we're gonna, we're gonna talk about 2 properties because I stayed in one that weekend, and then the Rizzler and I stayed at one in Seguin the weekend after that, right? Um, and so we're gonna talk about both of those. And, uh, because Airbnb, VRBO homes, they are just different.

Sure.

And, and you, I think you can learn about a lot about a home by going and staying in these short-term rentals.

Right.

Which this is— I think this is a strategy that a lot of— that maybe new home buyers ought to adopt.

That's a good point. That's a really good point because we, we walk in this place.

Mhmm.

And, and first of all, I— you walked in first, and I, I came in next, and, and you, you met me at the door, and you said, prepare yourself.

And I was like, okay.

And they walk in and it's gorgeous. I mean, this place is gorgeous. It's a log cabin on the outside.

Yeah.

On the inside, it's kind of a hybrid. It's mostly sheetrock walls.

Yep.

But it's got like wood ceilings and it's huge and expansive and open windows.

And— I mean, it's like a modern rustic. It is.

That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. And it's like, you might not— you might think log cabin, dark on the inside.

Yeah.

This is not the case.

No, because there's windows everywhere.

Everywhere.

And sheetrock.

It's not just wood on the inside. There's, there's both. And, um, not only that, there's 2 master suites in this thing.

Uh-huh.

And one of them was wonderful. It's where your dad stayed.

Yep.

The other one was more wonderful.

This is mine. Because it had a I had a sauna in the bathroom.

A sauna. There's a sauna in the bathroom.

Yeah.

And so, like, I think that that's one of the things that—

Which I had to use.

Of course.

Like, I mean, I would've been disappointed in myself if I hadn't at least turned it on and tried it out.

Exactly. I mean, it was warm.

Yeah.

While we were there.

Yeah. It was warm.

But it's like, let me use the amenities because they're here.

Yeah.

But you look at those kind of stuff, and, and there's a couple of things that you think, Number one, I've never thought of this before. Yeah.

Just the way the house was laid out.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because not only that, there were 2 bedrooms in the house.

Yeah. Just, just real quick, we're gonna, we're gonna link up both these properties in the, in the show notes afterwards. So if you guys are interested in checking these places out, you, you can go and see exactly what we're talking about.

So this first one had 2 master suites on kind of on either end of the living area and the massive kitchen.

Yeah. I mean, I, I think probably a good way to describe it might be if you took the kitchen and the living room.

Yeah.

And envision them. So, like, the— so, like, the kitchen, living room, and then back porch, which also had a cathedral ceiling.

Yeah.

And think of them as a giant breezeway that had bedrooms and auxiliary rooms on either side.

Right.

That's probably a good way to think of it because it was, it was just, it was just like a giant breezeway cathedral right through the middle with windows on either side. So you could pretty much see all the way through the house.

Right.

You know, and then the master suites were on either side of that.

Right.

Um, yeah.

And off of that, so there's a massive deck, but off of that was more deck that went to a whole nother building. That building had a huge living, like, big living area, little, like, a kitchenette. Kitchenette. Massive. The bathroom was huge.

Yep.

Like, the, the shower in that thing could have fit, like, 4 people, which is weird, but it could have.

We never encourage that kind of behavior.

No, but it could have. Yeah. And, and then a, a really cool bunk room.

Yeah.

It had, like, 4 beds. It had 2 queen beds And then it had 2, twin beds and a loft.

Uh-huh.

So, I mean, you could sleep 6 people.

6 people in there. And, you could probably sleep, like, 8 people in that whole building.

Yes.

Because of the 2 couches.

Exactly. And off of that building, it kind of between the main house and that building, was a, like, a gazebo area that had a, a hot tub in it.

A hot tub.

Yeah.

So, like, there was probably, like, 2,000 square feet of nothing but decking.

Oh yeah, at least.

I mean, like, because it all had walkways going in between each one and then down to that, and then there was like a little sitting area down by the jacuzzi, right? And then the jacuzzi was on a deck, and then the back porch alone was probably 500 or 600 square feet.

It was massive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was massive. And so I think that, um, I don't know, like what we paid for this thing and the amount of people that you, you could actually put in it. Mm-hmm. It was very nice. I, I, the, the price was reasonable. Um, probably coming off of a busy season, you know, kind of on a downturn because, because school's starting, right?

Right. So in a place where, like where we stayed, that is becoming more and more of a tourist attraction, A good strategy to use on some of these short-term rentals that I realized inadvertently, um, is if you— the longer you wait, people will dip the price.

Yeah.

On their properties just to get them rented.

Yeah. Well, you need to.

And, and so that's what happened on this one. We, we got it a lot cheaper than it— I think it would usually go for.

I, I'm sure.

Um, but even, even then, it was like, we— so we even started researching, like, okay, so what does one of these even cost? That was disturbing.

They were not something I could have afforded.

No, no. Um, but like, you know, you start, you start crunching the numbers as to what they're making, you know, every week.

It makes sense.

It makes, it makes sense.

The, the, yeah, the investment value is there, but if you were just trying to buy that sucker, couldn't do it.

Yeah.

Hey, I mean, I'm, I'm guessing, uh-huh, let's just— I'm guessing that the place we stayed at, $1.6, $1.7. Oh, easily, easily.

Yeah, easily. Um, which, I mean, which is a lot anywhere in Oklahoma.

That's a lot of— well, it's a lot of money even here. Like, yeah, it, it's, it's a big, it's a big property. It's a big—

it was probably sitting on 2, 2.5 acres.

Yeah, and then, and then on top of that, you've got what, probably 4,000 square foot of living space?

Um, yeah, I mean, if you include both buildings, that's probably, that's probably right.

Right.

Yeah, it's a lot. So, oh, so, okay, I— how long have we been doing this show?

Almost 5 years.

Yeah, coming up on 5. Yeah, right, like in September. Yeah, so I learned something the other day. that I'd never even considered.

Okay.

Never even thought of in regards to buying houses. Did you know that FHAs have a cap?

Like, like a, like the, like an amount that you can't go over?

Yeah.

What? Yeah.

Now it's different for every state.

What is it in Texas?

I think it's $750,000.

Really?

Yeah.

I had no idea.

I, I didn't either.

Why? Well, you think that they, they assume that people that are going for FDA loans— Anybody. So anybody that can afford a home that's over $750,000, they don't need an FDA loan.

They don't.

Yeah. They don't.

FHA.

I said FDA. Yeah. FHA. Yeah.

And I'm, I'm— we can talk to the Food and Drug Administration. I don't, I don't know what they're gonna be. They, they, you know, the government's giving money left and right. I had an old— they might be lending that.

I hold that. I had an old fashioned, so that was what it was. That's why I went FDA. No.

I, I, I didn't know that either. And we've been doing this show for 5 years. How many brokers have we talked to? How many lenders have we talked to?

Half a dozen. I mean, like, more than that, probably a dozen total.

Never even occurred to me to go like, hey, does this thing have a limit at the top end?

Well, okay, well, why do you know that?

I forget who I was talking to, um, and I, I, I think I'd brought up— I think I was talking about these VRBO properties and how much they cost, and I was like, well, it's not like you could probably use an FHA to buy that, uh, for a—

for an investment.

And he goes, well, you couldn't do it anyway because it's over the limit. And I was like, the limit?

Over the limit?

And I was like, what's— what do you mean there's a limit? And he's like, yeah, there— the FHAs only have so much that they're allowed to lend.

I mean, I assume that they just— I, I— that there's a point where they go, a person that needs an FHA can't afford more than $750,000.

Probably.

Which is, I mean, that's reasonable. I mean, in today's market, you know how much $750,000 is gonna be on a monthly mortgage on a 30-year note?

Oh, it's nuts.

Probably $4,800, $5,200 maybe.

Yeah. It's getting—

yeah.

Because, like, a million right now, I think, is, like, almost somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000 a month.

Yeah. That's a lot of money.

It's a lot of money.

Per month.

Per month.

I mean, I, I don't know a lot of people that make that much money in their paycheck, let alone having to buy gas, right? Our gas is, you know, on the cheap end right now. We're in— there's a place nearby where we live, it's $3.19, and that's really good right now.

Yeah.

Per gallon. Everyone's like, ooh. Yeah. And then, you know, a loaf of bread's freaking expensive. So like, I, I, how do you live? I mean, you're— in order to live, you probably need $11,000 a month to have a million-dollar home.

That you're bringing in a month?

That's just one person. If you probably need more than that.

Oh, you need way more than that.

I'm just saying a second person's got to be working. You know, you, you probably need to bring in $14,000 total to have an $8,000 mortgage.

I mean, I wouldn't be comfortable unless I was bringing in $20,000.

Yeah, because you've got— I mean, Just alone.

And that's half your money going towards your mortgage.

Exactly. That's a lot of money.

That's— yeah. I, I, you know, mm-mm. Nope.

Don't do it. I mean, you're bring— you're bringing in half mil a year.

Mhmm.

Just to be able to do that.

Yeah.

A quarter mil. You could do it a quarter mil.

I could, I could squeeze it out.

I could do it a quarter mil. But, but it's like, like, oh, you're driving that Excursion, aren't you? That's what it's like. Well, keep driving it. Yes, I am, sir.

Forever.

Forever. And it's the gas version. Can't afford a diesel.

But, yeah. So I, I learned that FHAs have a cap, and I learned that, what, what, what's the, what's the one on— I always rail on?

Oh, the VA loans.

VA loans.

Yeah.

Have no cap.

Those have no cap? Yeah.

Those— somebody, somebody— I mean, this was what this person told me. I have no reason to, like, not believe them.

I mean, there's, there's 2 ways that can go. VAs typically are either gonna have a lot of money. I said that very nicely. A lot of money because they've learned something that can pay them a lot of money.

Yeah.

Right? Or they really just don't have much.

Yeah.

Because they're maybe disabled or who knows. But they have no cap.

Right. That's interesting.

Yeah.

So what you need to do is, like, put in 4 years and then just go be a—

No doubt, dude.

I mean, come on. Why not?

Take advantage of it. Exactly.

Ride the wave.

I had a— I'm friends with someone right now that wants to do something with their life that I'm like, you need to be in the military. Because they're gonna teach you how to do that.

Yeah.

The, the downside is there's, there's other, there's other things that come with that. However, you wanna talk about learning something?

Oh, yeah.

And being, being given some, some opportunities. The military is a great way to go in America.

Yeah.

We have something going with the, with the military. It's great.

Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot, there's a lot going for that. I mean, like, just, just—

Except the VA loans. I'm sorry for y'all.

And, like, I, I get why they use them.

I do too.

I mean, like, it makes a lot of sense for them. From, from my perspective, it just ends up screwing them in the long run.

I— so we, we've sold 2 houses in our lives. One of them was a VA loan, and that VA loan was—

The nightmare of your life.

It was.

Yeah. I don't know. Every, every—

I don't know if it was worse than the lady.

She was pretty bad. Some people just take the cake.

Yeah. But, but no, I, I felt bad for the guy because, I mean, they're, they're like going through stuff and I'm just like, holy cow, like, when are you gonna stop?

Yeah.

And they didn't.

Because they couldn't.

They couldn't. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's, that's the trouble is, especially if it's a VA buyer.

Yeah.

And you're the seller.

That's what I was.

And like, you know, you eventually get down the road so far with these things that you're like, okay. Like, what, what's one more thing? What's one more thing? What's one more thing?

Yeah.

And that's how they keep coming at you is like, and it's not them.

No.

It's the bank.

Look, and, and here's the thing. Like, if you don't understand VA loans, and I still don't, don't understand them. So I'm in this, you know, same boat as you. But the point of a VA loan is to give a veteran a home that is in great shape.

Yeah.

Because they want to protect them.

Yeah.

The, the goal is for, look, you've put in a great amount of service. You deserve a home that you don't then have to turn around and, like, take a loss on. So we're gonna protect you through that.

Well, okay.

Like, that's the, that's the reason. Now the problem is They, they almost make it to where you can't find a home.

So I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back on you.

Okay. Do it.

Because I think, I think that's the way that the banks promote these loans. Like, oh, look, we're protect— we're protecting the veterans.

Sure.

So that they have an asset that's maintained.

Yeah.

And is updated. And so they're not buying a lemon.

Right.

Like, look, they are selling a low-financed loan that the government forces them to do. And so they're doing everything they can to protect themselves because they own that property.

Yeah. Because, well, they, of course, they do until it gets paid off.

Until it gets paid off. And so what are they doing? They're, they're hedging themselves, wanting that property to be in as good a condition as possible so that no matter what that person does while they're taking the home, there's less chance that they're gonna have a negative asset. if they have to seize it back or if they somehow end up with it, whatever it is, they're protecting themselves. Like, I'm sorry. I, you know, I'm just being cynical.

Well, they're, they're a what?

They're in it to make money.

They're a bank. They're still there. That's the thing. At the end of the day, I, I don't care what— at the end of the day, we're drinking, right?

Somewhere Steve Spoon is drunk. Yeah.

Uh, it's because I'm talking. So it's one of those things where you have to recognize that I don't, I don't care who you are. You have to know that every business is out to make money.

Yeah.

They are. They have to.

Yeah.

And a bank is no different than that. They're out to make money. And now they're good at it.

Yeah.

Most of the time. Otherwise, they, they, they fail. But, oh, by the way, I haven't told you this. So I just found out that, you know, one of our friends who sold a major bank recently, Uh, one of my other friends is the CEO of that bank that bought them.

Oh, that bought them?

I had no idea.

Oh, man.

Until a couple of weeks ago. I have to tell you this story.

Okay.

Uh, anyway, I, I, I don't know. I— the VA loans are frustrating.

Yes.

They just are. Yeah. Um, but so circling back around, Back to the other property that you stayed at.

Well, yeah. So, well, no. I mean, the, the property we stayed at.

Yeah.

It was great.

It was great.

It's in close proximity to stuff that we wanted to do.

I was right there, man.

It was by the brewery. It was by the distillery. It was by the park.

By the grocery store that's way too expensive.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Did you ever eat that cucumber salad yet?

I ate all of it.

Oh.

$30 a cucumber salad. I'm eating every bit of it.

2 pints of it. $30.

It better be good.

It was good.

It was good.

But it better be good.

I had no idea how much it was gonna be when I bought that thing. So, like, they, they get you in. They, they know this. Oh, so there was a grocery store right there by neighborhood grocer.

And when I say neighborhood grocer, it's like this smaller than a Walgreens. Right?

Yeah. But they had, they had everything you needed.

They know what people want. Yeah.

And It was— I did the math and I was like, well, it's 5 minutes from the cabin, or I can do a 2-hour drive.

Right.

Meaning I'm gonna drive there, go shopping, pick up the stuff that we need, and then drive back and it'll be 2 hours later. Or I can drive 5 minutes, spend 15 minutes, and be back, and it'll be a 20-30 minute trip altogether.

Sure.

I don't care how much it costs.

They know that.

And they know that. And so I paid every bit of it.

Yes. You could have bought pizza cheaper.

Oh, easily. Easily. Was that the night we were eating the fish? Yes, of course. Yeah, it was the most expensive trout I ever had in my life.

That's right. So, no.

That's right.

I don't even want to talk about it. No, I think I paid you for that, didn't I?

Anyway, I'd recommend staying at this house.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, or any of the other ones in the neighborhood. On the same street in the neighborhood. All of them were just gorgeous.

We were driving by and going, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. I mean, and they're all different sizes. This one really worked for us. Everyone kind of got their own room, right? We had enough space. The only real complaint was the hot— the water heater went out.

Didn't we ever talk to them about that? Did you ever, like, get any money back?

I did. I did.

Okay.

Good. I got some money back from it.

Good.

I mean, it wasn't like a whole lot, but still, I got something. Yeah.

To make you go, okay.

Thanks. We—

what's weird is the building. I slept in the other building with the 2 boys, and we had hot water.

Yeah. Well, and I— let me— let me just say that I don't wanna put a sour taste in anybody's mouth about this property.

It was just— it was a weird thing.

It happened. We didn't have hot water in the main house the whole time we were there.

Right.

It wasn't their fault.

No.

They sent out 3 repairmen.

Right.

While we were there, and we were only there 2 days.

No. They did everything they could.

And, and they, you know, gave us some money back. But, like, there was just nothing.

It, it was, it was a tankless water heater.

Yep.

It needed a part that wasn't readily available.

Yeah.

So what are you gonna do? They did everything they could.

Yeah.

And we did have hot water available for a shower. Just meant that you had to do the one where 4 people could fit in.

That's right. It's just we didn't do it all at once. No.

We didn't.

So that's very clear. Even though, even though we had that experience, still would highly recommend all day that, that place.

Right.

So, and like I said, we'll link it up.

Yep.

The other one was a totally different experience.

You told me about this. I can't wait to talk about it.

So Up front, it was— we were taking a group from church to go float the Camal.

Sure.

Which, if you haven't ever done, it is a must-do in Texas.

Okay.

And you, you can knock it, the whole thing out, floating the river in— I mean, including like driving there, getting your tube, getting in the river, floating, getting out, getting back. You can knock the whole thing out in 3 and a half hours.

That's from Houston.

No, no, no. I mean, like, the experience floating the river.

Once you get there.

Once you get there.

Yeah, 3 and a half hours. You can get to the river, get your tube, float it, be back to your vehicle. 3 and a half hours.

Right.

That's a— that's not very long.

It's not. I mean, if, if you've ever floated any of the other rivers, uh, yeah, it's, it's really not that long.

Yeah, some of them are all day, could keep going.

Right. And I, I will say this about the, the Kamal, um, it's I mean, the water was nice and cold because it's a spring-fed river.

Sure.

So we weren't hot in the water ever.

Beautiful. Shaded.

It's shaded.

Yep.

And there's a couple of chutes, so it's kind of fun.

Okay.

But most of the time you're just gently floating down the river.

Yeah.

And if you don't know about it, you've just never experienced it, it's a Texas experience that you just have to have.

Sure.

If you've been here any amount of time.

Yeah.

That's what we did. We took a group from church. We were floating the river.

Okay.

We had a rather large group, and we had guys and gals, and so we needed to keep everybody separated, keep things above board. And so the house that we stayed in had at or over 16 beds.

That's incredible in and of itself.

Yeah.

That's a lot of beds.

And they weren't all like— no queen, I mean no twin beds.

Oh.

All doubles, queens, and kings.

Wow.

So most beds could easily sleep 2 people.

So theoretically 36 people could have slept in this place.

Yes.

If you didn't put anybody on the floor or a couch.

Or couch.

Wow.

Yeah, so, um, that's impressive. That being said, The house was on the Guadalupe, which is one of the more well-known rivers in Texas, which is also at historic lows right now.

Crazy.

And, and has been low for a long time. Yeah, I think it's starting to, like, freak some people out how low it is.

I'm sure it is.

Which frustrated us because we stayed at this house based off the pictures. And they must have been really old pictures.

Why, Craig?

Because one, the water was up.

Yeah.

And when you went down to see the river where you saw the pictures where the water was, there are now trees.

Oh man.

And that's how long the water's been down. So I don't know when these pictures were taken. Um, the, the house, we, we had all kinds of issues with the house. Like, it served its purpose. We needed a place to sleep and we needed a place to sleep a lot of people.

Yeah.

We did that.

That it will do.

It did that.

Yeah.

But, like, every room had its own window unit.

Oh, like a— like a— like a—

Like a small window unit.

And not even a mini split.

No.

So there's no central heat and air.

It had central heat and air.

It just didn't work well.

It didn't work, period.

Dude, whenever you have to— look, okay. Let me just say this. When you have to supplement your AC with window units.

With inefficient window units.

Then one of two things has happened.

Yeah.

Either you have severely neglected your home or you have chosen to install a unit that is just— I'm sorry. If you have a home that needs a 5-ton unit, put a 5-ton unit in it.

Right.

Don't put a 3-ton unit and just assume that it's gonna work.

Right.

And then supplement it with window units.

Like 6 or 7 window units in this place.

Gee whiz. Do you know how much power those things consume?

And like, as hot as it's been here, running them on high all day long just to keep the temperature down. I mean, it was—

Dude, have I told you that we put a portable AC in our garage?

No. Well, I saw it when I was at your house the other day.

Oh, did you?

Yeah.

Okay. So we put a portable AC in our garage and it's a, it's a legit AC.

Mm-hmm.

It's not, it's, it, but it's one of those portable, it's on, it's on wheels or whatever. But we put insulation above our, our garage in the, in the roof and our door, garage door has foam board insulation in it.

Okay.

It already had it whenever we moved there. I assume there's no insulation in the walls. but we at least have that much insulation in it. It's been so hot that I have not felt comfortable leaving our dogs out. And so in the heat of the day, about 2 or 3 o'clock, we're bringing our dogs in, putting them in the kennel. They're happy to go in.

Right.

And they'll stay there till about 6. So 3, 4 hours. Um, and we're, we're only setting that one at like 80 degrees. So it's still warm in there, but it's not hot because I— they need a break, man.

Yeah.

Like, I feel so bad. I don't, I don't have anywhere for my dog. Now, they, they're smart. They're gonna go find the shade. They're, they're like, they're, they've dug massive holes underneath my camper right now. Like, they're finding ways to stay cool, but it's bad.

Yeah.

So I, I went out and bought a portable AC. I bought it from a friend, actually. Um, just to keep my garage cool.

So do they have a way to get in and out of the garage?

What? No. No. I have to open the garage door and put them in. But, like, we're keeping our, our vehicle outside of the garage except at, you know, the end of the night. And then, you know, we'll open it long enough to shoot that thing in the garage and close it right back. And, like, we're— it's, it's nuts, dude. But I, I just—

I don't— So the dog kennels are in the garage?

They're in the garage.

Okay. I missed that part. We—

sorry. We keep the dog kennels in the garage always.

Okay.

And at night, we've always— since they were born, we've brought them into the garage at night.

Okay.

And the only reason we've done that is because we want them to like a kennel. And the reason we want them to like a kennel is because when we go on trips with them, we want them to be okay being in a kennel. So we kennel them regularly. So when I, when I say kennel, they run straight to their kennel. They have no problem being in there, right? They're crate trained. So they're happy to be in there and just kind of take a break during the day. So anyway, but yeah, we're air conditioning our garage right now just to have a cool place.

Oh, wow. I did see that when I was at the house the other day.

I was like, it works. It works really well.

Because it's one of those that you just slide into the window and it—

yeah.

But not the unit, but there's like an exhaust. There's a vent. Yeah.

There's an exhaust vent and it pulls out all the hot air, blows super cold air in there. I mean, it does a great job. But back to your point, like, I— when you're having to individually cool, if you're putting mini splits in there, I got no issue with that.

Sure.

I, I see so much value in mini splits. Window ACs tell me 2 things. Cheap and not well maintained.

Yep. Yep. So, and, like, I, I ended up talking to the lady that owned this, and I got the impression that she's an older lady. that doesn't go to this property anymore. And so she's just not there to see what's going on.

Right.

And there's a property management company that is completely unresponsive. I mean, we sent them a message, one, because we didn't— when my wife got there before me and we had the instructions on how to get in the house and it said, go to the lockbox, get the key out of the lock to open the back door. Well, there was no code. To the lockbox. There was also no lockbox. And when she got there, there was just a key in the back door. And she's like, well, there's a key in the back door, but if somebody's here, I don't want to bother them. But we're supposed to be here.

I don't know.

What should I do? And I was like, well, knock on the door, see if anybody's home. And if nobody comes to the door, unlock the door.

We'll just squat.

Yeah.

Which we'll come back to.

We'll come back to that in a minute. Okay.

Yeah.

And so when I talked to the lady at the end of the weekend, I was telling her about some of the issues that we had with the property. One, the refrigerator smelled really bad. And so we had to spend quite a bit of time cleaning that up. A lot of the furniture on it had a really pretty deck that looked out over the river that was nonexistent. And all the furniture was pretty much broken.

Oh my goodness. Really?

And so we couldn't even use most of it. And then the house was just hot.

And even with the window units?

Well, they hadn't been on.

Oh.

And so we were instructed when we got to the house to be sure and go around and turn all the window units on. And that was also part of the checkout is make sure you turn all the window units off. It's like, so you just want to fill the house with mildew and mold?

Right. You need those on.

Right.

Yeah.

So it— I mean, like, just, I, I— one, I feel bad for this lady because she's, she's obviously got a property management company that's trying to save a lot of money by turning the power off. But they shouldn't have put the cheap window units in in the first place.

Yeah.

They should have just spent the money and, and fixed the place up.

Right.

That being said, it's a very unique place. It's a very interesting place if you need an affordable place to have a lot of people sleep at night.

Right.

Once we had the AC units on, all day. Once the sun went down, it actually kind of cooled off.

Okay.

And people were able to sleep pretty comfortably. It has one main room. Well, I take that back. There's a main living room downstairs that has furniture, none of which faces each other at any point in time.

That reminds me of a Friends episode. Did you ever watch Friends?

No.

So there's an episode of Friends where Joey's dating this girl, and she tells him that she doesn't have a TV. And his response is, you don't have a TV? What's all your furniture pointed at? Great question.

Fair question.

Fair question. But none of the furniture, you can talk to anybody.

No, it's like, no, it was like they were all facing their own direction. And then the ones that were facing each other were way across the room. from one another. And so, like, it was unreasonable to have a conversation from 12 feet away.

Yeah.

You know, and so it was just, it was weird and janky. Um, and, and then the upstairs was just nothing but a kitchen and then 2 really long dining room tables.

Okay.

That you couldn't see each other when you were sitting at.

Oh.

And, and so it was, it was just weird. It was just a weird, weird, weird house.

Huh.

And it even had, like, a 3rd floor bunk tower that had 2 beds in it that had windows all around the edge of it. And so, and was completely unbearable to be in in the middle of the day.

Oh my goodness.

I mean, it was, it was, it was, well, I got my sauna again is what it was.

But no lava rocks.

Yeah, no lava rocks. Just misery.

Man.

So, and then the, like, the, it had, it had an air vent in there. But the air vent was like a 6-inch duct coming into there. And it was like right on the bed. And so it had to have been 55 degrees if you're trying to sleep in that bed at night.

But, but 85 outside of that area.

Well, yeah, any— you move out of that perimeter and you're toast. Yeah.

Man.

So just, I mean, just, just a weird, bizarre house. I can imagine it being way better if the river was up.

Right.

But like, man, the river has been down for so long that like people— so like you go down and you're on a dock where like boats usually pull in and tie up right there.

Sure.

It's like 7 feet down from there.

Oh my goodness. to—

and that's to the ground, right? Then you go out to the river, and it's been down for so long that people along the riverbank have now started landscaping up to the riverbank, but below their docks, because their docks are just worthless now.

Um, that's an observation deck.

It's all it is. Um, so anyway, it's, you know, I can imagine it being back in the day when the river was up and flowing, like it'd be in a really cool spot.

Sure.

Because I mean, I was hyped up from the weekend before.

I brought my pole.

I was like, yeah, I'm gonna, you know, throw— cast a line out, man. I couldn't cast a line out to anything. It was like a 2-mile walk from the back of the house all the way out to the river.

That's not a river. That's a place to like wade.

That's right.

It was—

anyway, wow. There was some guy kayaking out there. I don't know what he was doing.

He probably walked half the time.

Lost.

Yeah.

But anyway, so we— it's a place you can stay.

Yeah.

If you need to sleep a lot of people. Well, okay, this was the other reason that it worked out for us. It has a huge garage out by the street and it has room for 10 cars.

What?

Yeah, that was another big reason we ended up renting it. It has a lot of parking space.

Okay.

And so that worked out really well for us because we had a lot of people coming in at different times.

Sure.

And we just needed that space because we knew we were going to have like at least 6 cars.

Yeah.

And sometimes places on the river, like parking is tight.

Yeah.

And people get frustrated if you start parking on the street.