Real Estate Market Update w/ Christi Finnell & Scott Finnell

This is episode 201 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire— well, I don't remember the rest of it 'cause Kevin's not here. And that's okay 'cause we got a great new series of hundreds of episodes for you guys here on The Homeowner Show. Thank you for joining this livestream. You're on The Homeowner Show. Yeah, it is. This is, this is gonna be, this is gonna be an interesting one because I am having to push all the buttons tonight because Kevin is out. I think it's like the rhinoceros flu or something like that. Um, yep, the volume's up. See, I told you.

No, I turned it down. I don't follow directions well.

We had a pre-show meeting So far, Christie is failing. That's right. So we, we, we have, we have a returning guest, uh, Christie Fennell, uh, real estate agent to the stars, uh, here in the studio. We're gonna be talking all things real estate market tonight, giving the updates. And, uh, she, she brought a guest with her. You wanna, you wanna introduce yourself there?

I'm Scott Fennell.

You're Scott Fennell.

Yep.

The, the man with the plan.

The, the man behind the woman.

That's it. That's exactly what I was gonna say.

Well, and, and do you wanna let everybody know what you do? Or do you, do you not want to? That's just— I don't let people know what I do.

Really?

Yeah.

It's a secret?

It is. It's— well, I mean, a lot of people know. We just don't talk about it on the show.

Oh, okay.

So, but you— I mean, like, do you, do you want to, or you wanna, you wanna keep that a secret?

We'll keep it a secret.

Keep it a secret. That's fine. Yeah. But, Christy, you wanna remind everybody what you do?

So—

The whole reason we're here.

Right. So, I am a real estate agent out here in Lake Conroe area, The Woodlands area. onthemovetexas.com. So yeah, if you need any help with real estate, I'm your girl.

Yeah, and you've, you've recently launched a YouTube page.

I have. Yeah, I have. I do not have enough subscribers to actually get my own name on the URL.

Oh, is that what you have to have?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, like how many do you have to have? 1,000.

1,000. So we can do that. You know, now is the time. Everybody out there, just go find it.

It's real easy, right? You just search— what do you— what do you— what would you search for in order to get that?

On the Move Texas, possibly. Although you tried that, didn't you, Scott?

And onthemovetexas.com. On the Move Texas.

On the Move Texas. Yeah. Okay.

On the Move Texas. Just search that in YouTube.

In YouTube.

Which should you put— should they put your name too?

Actually, if you search 4th of July fireworks, okay, Lake Conroe 2022.

Yeah.

My video will come up. Okay, so you can, you can subscribe from there. For whatever reason, that is the number one video that I've done so far, and evidently that's what people wanted to know over the 4th of July is where are the fireworks.

Okay, that was a really good show.

Yeah, did you guys— you guys went to one?

We were on the boat.

Oh, you were on the boat watching them? Nice.

Watching fireworks on Lake Conroe is amazing.

That's fantastic. So we get spoiled here in our neighborhood. Did you guys see the lake when you came in?

We did.

Okay. So if you follow the road down, there's like a little loop and there's an island out in the middle of the lake. And the Saturday before 4th of July, they have to spend $2,000 or $3,000 on fireworks. I mean, the whole neighborhood turns out, people open up their lake backyards, so that people can go out there and watch. And it's like, I don't know why I'd go watch anything else. Right.

That is— that's a beautiful little lake. It's private. What is that? Gosh, is that— yeah, 50 acres?

Yeah, it's, it's 90.

Is it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a pretty good-sized lake.

Yeah, I mean, you can, you can ski on it if you really want to, right? I mean, like, if anybody does, there's like one boat because you, you, you don't even have to have a Texas, like, boat license in order to keep your boat out here. It's private.

Yep.

Yeah. I mean, you have to have this. This is, this is where it gets a little convoluted. You, you have to have a neighborhood tag on the boat. And it can't be your dad's.

Did we learn from experience?

Or— It was, it was one of those things when we moved in, they're like, hey, just so you know, if you want a lake tag, you got to like show the title that it's in your name and not like your grandma's or like your uncle's or anybody. It has to be yours. So like, if your dad wants you to use his boat, he's got to give it to you. Title exchange. So it's one of— but like, you know, keeps less trash on the lake for sure.

Absolutely.

So, well, so we're, we're here, we want to talk about real estate. Yep, for sure. Um, and the— do you primarily focus just in Conroe? Are you Conroe, Montgomery, Willis? Where, like, what are your boundaries, or do you have any other than Texas?

Right. Um, I mean, I have done The Heights, um, but really I prefer and know the most about Montgomery, Magnolia, Willis, and The Woodlands area. So kind of West Montgomery County.

Okay. Okay. And has, has that been— I mean, from, from your observation, has that been sort of insulated from everything else that's happened over the last 2 years? Um, I mean, I'm speaking comparatively, you know.

Like, in what capacity? Like, in comp—

in comparison to Well, so, I mean, you know, even like, I, I would say, like, even though we've seen people in the mass exodus from, like, California, New York, right, prices there have skyrocketed despite the fact that there's not a whole lot of demand. The price has still gone up. So in, in comparison to, like, what— and I would imagine you've had a lot of clients come from those states, you know, coming here, and what their comments are about the prices Would you say that the way that the prices have inflated here have been in step with the places that they left, or could you even tell?

So our prices obviously have gone up considerably, and that has a lot to do with people coming here from other states. It ate up a lot of our inventory.

For sure.

Um, the other issue is that because people in California can sell their house for a substantial amount of money and come down here and buy something that is a fraction of the price and it's twice as big, so they come with their suitcase of money, they're making cash deals, they don't necessarily look at what the comps are. They'll pay $50,000 more than asking price at a blink of an eye.

Yeah.

And so it really has driven the prices up substantially, um, in the market.

Yeah. So, I, I mean, I think it's just a real— I mean, and, and part of the reason I wanted to, to talk to you specifically, I mean, like, I don't know if you know, you— I think you have like the number 3 or 4 episode all time from this show.

Really?

Oh yeah. Um, and I think because there's a lot of people who— I mean, because we did a whole episode on first-time homebuyers, and I know that's kind of a thing that you really like to focus on is, is the first-time homebuyer. I imagine that has to be a frustrated group of people right now.

Yeah. So first-time homebuyers, and it is really unfortunate because I had probably 10 people that were priced out between the increase in prices and the increase in interest rates. There, I mean, that was it for them.

Now, the interest rate one, that's pretty recent though. I mean, that That didn't happen until like the last 3 or 4 months, right?

Correct. However, when the interest rates were substantially lower, they were still able to get into those houses, into the houses at the higher price points. So that really didn't slow people down. The interest rates was, that was the nail in the coffin. Now they say, I was reading an article the other day that a a buyer, somebody who's financing, will pay 50% more on their mortgage note now with these interest rates. I mean, and that's huge, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, I had people that just, and honestly, I mean, myself included, we were looking at buying an investment property and it just, it was really tough to get around The increase. Now, you know, unfortunately, we kind of got spoiled, right, with those really low interest rates. But the reality is, if you look over the last 30 years, the average interest rate's 6%. So we still actually are lower than the average. Now you try and tell somebody, oh, the interest rates really aren't that high. They're lower than normal. Yeah.

They're lower than the average.

And they'll look at you like you're crazy.

Yeah, because it doesn't feel that way if you're a first-time home buyer, because all you've ever heard is how low interest rates are. And now you're in it, it's like, well, I got— now they're up, right? So like, that's not normal to me.

That's right, exactly. Because when you're looking at buying your home and you're seeing interest rates that are in the 3s, yeah, um, and then all of a sudden now they're pushing 5 to 6, yeah, it's double. So for them, that's crazy. And all they ever knew were the 3s.

Yeah. Well, and I can remember when I was a kid, I mean, it wasn't unheard of to hear of interest rates like 15%, 17%, 20% for a home purchase. And everyone was just like, oh, that's what you do.

'76, I think they were like 18%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's crazy.

Yeah, it's nuts.

Oh wait, and I think it, I think it, I think it went down in the early '80s and then it had like another bubble. Um, I forget when it like went down so far. I don't know.

So, um, '08, the prices came down quite a bit, you know, because the, you know, the burst of the bubble there, right? Um, and so they lowered those interest rates just to try and give a jump start, um, to the home And it's just kind of hung out there ever since, right? Yeah. I mean, and, you know, they, they're always going to sort of go up and down. They just are. I think that the issue is that coupled with the increase of home prices, that's where it's kind of a hard pill to swallow.

Yeah. Yeah. That's no fun. Well, let me ask you about, because you mentioned that you guys have investment properties as well. Have you guys had to increase the rent on those? Like, I know that's not something any landlord ever— like, I know landlords want to do it because they want to make more money, but like, I know you never want to do it when you have good tenants and things like that. Like, you don't want to do it, but you— I know a lot of them get forced into a situation where you're like, I have to raise the rent. Have you guys had to do that?

So, um, our investment properties are in the, uh, vacation rentals.

So like short-term rentals?

Short-term rentals. So, you know, those prices We've gone up slightly.

I also have to imagine, like, it's easier to raise rates on short-term rentals. Like, people aren't going to notice as much because they're short-term.

Correct. Now, that being said, you're also in competition with sort of everybody around you, right?

Right.

So you got to, you have to kind of keep it in check with everybody else. But there aren't a whole lot of places on Lake Conroe that you can rent short-term. So, you know, in the summertime, we stay pretty booked. Very booked, actually. However, the rent prices for long term—I mean—they have gone up. They're you know if you go back a year, if you go back to last summer, it was it was chaos. People were selling their houses; they had no place to go. They had to try and find a rental, and I know. Kevin kind of went through that on the back end. So it was hard. It was hard for people to find

rentals. In fact, it was hard. People had gotten to a point where it was like, okay, we're going to get an RV, right? We're going to stay in an RV park. You couldn't find spaces in RV parks last summer.

Yep. Wasn't happening. So I also have to imagine— oh man, look at this. Being unprofessional here. I also have to imagine that there's like this weird quandary amongst short-term rentals where, you know, you, you've had yours for a while. How long, how long have you, have you guys had yours?

6.

6 years.

6 years. So you guys have had yours for 6 years, so predating all the nonsense from COVID by 4 years. So you probably got it at a pretty good price, and now you're hanging out with other people who might be getting into the market in the middle of COVID who are buying their short-term rentals at a much higher price than you guys probably and are having to adjust their rent based off the purchase price. And I know I— because I do this when I do— because I, I use short-term rentals all the time. Um, and I think you do quite a bit.

I think their, their ROI— ROI is their return on investment, right? For short-term is a lot smaller. Yes. And, and they're accepting of that, right? So they're, they're looking at a long-term return on investment based on a much smaller profit margin. Right. And which is fine because it still looks good to them on paper. Yeah. They're basically, um, someone else is paying the mortgage. You know, that's, that's when it starts costing you out-of-pocket money, then the investment is like, ah, this isn't very— yeah, this is no good. But it's still, it's above the line, and so it makes sense.

Yeah. Well, when I, when I was, when I was kinda driving at is these people that are purchasing at a much higher price are probably having to adjust their rents to it to, to affect that. And what I do when I look at VRBOs, I never look at the lowest priced one.

No.

You know, because I wanna, I wanna actually stay in a nice place. And so, like, I assume the one that's the least priced is, like, you know, probably gonna have, like, a dead rat in the back or something. You know, it's like, it just is. And so, like, I'm, I don't want the lowest priced one. I kinda want the one in the middle.

Right.

And so everyone's kinda, like, me, I would imagine most people are fighting for that middle ground. And, like, if everybody else's price is kind of bringing everybody else up, you kinda get left at the bottom, and you don't wanna be at the bottom. Like, you— because now you're the rat people. And you never— you're perceived as the rat people.

You never go skydiving in that and bring a coupon. Right?

Right. That's right.

If you're on vacation, you want everything to be perfect. And, and most people At least we have the, the mindset of thinking is that, look, this is our vacation. It's, it's, it's, it's going to cost like a vacation, right? Right. And so, uh, we want to make— we, when we're traveling, uh, we'll make the right investment. And I think some people think the same way too. Yeah. If you're shopping for your vacation and you're looking for a discount, it's not really a vacation. I don't think so.

Yeah, me either. Yeah, I'm with you. Like, that's not one I will enjoy, right?

I think, um, to your question, some of these— I, I don't know how they make money, if I'm perfectly honest. I mean, we're fortunate enough— I, I bought that property 10 years ago, so, um, you know, we're fortunate enough that We do really well. And I mean, even in the winter, in the off months, yeah, it's— it still pays for itself.

Um, because yours actually makes sense as like a vacation place. I mean, it's on the lake, right? You know, it's near a resort. Like, it makes sense, right?

But I was surprised she was selling properties last year in The Woodlands that were just in a regular neighborhood, nothing fancy, and people were buying up those properties and turned them into a VRBO, and they stayed booked Year round in The Woodlands, not in a fancy neighborhood. Right? They're just constantly booked. Nothing fancy about the house. Not an elaborate backyard or anything. Just a place in The Woodlands.

Yeah. I mean, do, do you guys have any insight as to why? I mean, like, I know that's happening a lot. A lot. Do you guys have any ideas to, like, in The Woodlands? I mean, like, if you're close maybe to, like, the mall area, if you, like, there's, like, a concert you wanna go see, or maybe there's a conference at the Marriott or I mean, I don't know, but I mean, like, I mean, do you guys have any, any insight as to why that's happening?

As far as, like, who's, who's coming? Um, so people either coming for work. Um, okay. A lot of people. So my teammate actually has, I think, 6 Airbnbs in The Woodlands. Wow. Um, she's got 3 that she owns, and then she's got, I think, 3 that she manages. And, um, I asked her that same question, you know, what is, what what's bringing your business. Mine is the lake, right?

Yeah.

So people remodeling their home, where you're out of— you can't be in your house because you're redoing the kitchen or whatever. And so that can be a couple of months, especially during COVID where you couldn't get material.

Oh, and you didn't wanna be in your home while people were there.

Yeah, right. Down to— and although she did mention this last week, actually, that it had slowed down a little bit, but during COVID she was booked every day.

That's insane. Wow.

And we noticed actually kind of an upswing in our rentals during COVID because people weren't traveling, they weren't going you know, they really wanted to kind of stay just with the family and kind of a, you know, not a big hotel. They didn't want to get on an airplane. They wanted somewhere they could get to in a car.

Yeah, they just want it out of their house.

Of course, when we saw the upswing, we started investing in these air purifiers to scrub the air and all these things that, that made it look a little bit more attractive. Yeah, I don't think it hindered— had we not put it in, I don't think it would have hindered our business at all because we're on the lake. Most people are Most people are outside.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, like, and, you know, one of the things that I, that I had read that happened during COVID is that once, like, all the national parks and stuff like that, like, the state parks opened back up, they were flooded. Flooded with people.

RV sales went, went up.

Yes.

Boats, boat that the Malibu dealership the Aeronautique dealership in Conroe out of inventory still to this day. Yeah.

Yeah. It's— I mean, like, yeah. And I think that's— I think that's actually one of the good things that happened out of all that nonsense was like people got outside more because it was a safe— it was the safe place to go, which is weird.

Right. I mean, the kids are like, what is this? What is this space out here?

In a time where kids, most of your kids, young kids or teenagers, spending their entire universe on their phone. They're just staring at that phone. And it's like, and you look over at your kid and going, man, we should have never bought you that phone. Yeah. I remember having a bicycle and staying out until— and my parents saying, be home when the streetlights come on. Right? Yeah. My parents— my kids have never experienced that. Never.

Yeah. Well, so one of the, um, I'm, I'm in the middle of reading a book right now by Stephen Rinella. Do you guys know who that is?

I do.

You do? Do you know So he's got— for those of you that don't know, he's got a show on Netflix called Meat Eater. He's a big hunter.

Oh, I know exactly who that is.

Yeah, my kids love his show. So he wrote what I think is a very timely book called Raising Outdoor Kids in an Inside World. And it's just his philosophy on parenting and how he's, you know, enticed his kids into outdoor activities. And he— I mean, he starts real basic with like camping and foraging. He hasn't even gotten to hunting yet. I mean, it's like, it's like way towards the end of the book. Um, and he's, he's talking about like how he would do those kinds of things even when his family was living in New York City. Um, and so how he would like, you know, and so like one of the things we've started doing with our

kids is there's a, there's a couple of apps that you can get that do like plant identification, bug identification, all this kind of stuff. And so like, I'll, if I have to leave for the day, sometimes I'll leave my kids with like a list And one of the lists I'll, I'll leave them is like, go identify 8 plants on the property and tell me what they do. And like, they love it. They absolutely love it. And, and like, they'll come back like, did you know that we had plants from Mexico on our property? I did not.

Wow.

I didn't know that. Tell me about that plant. And it's really cool how like, I mean, like, and it's, it's, it's a way that they can engage with technology that's actually productive rather than like some stupid game about I don't know, whatever it is they're into.

Right. That is— that's awesome. And how ingenious to bring the phones in because I find when you tell them, all right, go put it away, go set it on the counter, do whatever you have to do, no phone time whatsoever. Right now, all of a sudden, you're like the bad guy. You're the mean parent, right? You're like, you're so—

I wear the moniker proudly.

Right. So uncool. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. Oh, and like, here's the thing is like, they're not going away. Like, the phone— the phones are here to stay. They're not— I mean, like, and so like, if there's any way that we can encourage them to use them in a productive way, that's, that's only going to help them.

I think it's going to take a whole nother generation to figure that out.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

It— that's, that's not it this time.

Right. Yeah, probably, probably not. I, I heard, um, I heard an interview recently with, uh, Elon Musk It was not recently. It was a while ago. But anyway, he— someone was— he was— he was making the argument, you know, he's talking about putting chips in people's heads.

Yeah.

Like, that's his next big thing is he wants to— he basically wants to install an interface in your brain so that you can communicate with technology wirelessly. And this guy was like, what are you talking about? You're turning us into cyborgs. And he's like, what? You don't think that we're cyborgs now? He's like, leave your house without your phone. Tell me you can do it. And he's like, you can't. Like, you are, you are connected to technology in a fundamental way that you can't exist without it at this point. Like, you can't.

Mm-hmm.

If you, if, I mean, if you wanna live in, in any sort of community or society, I mean, if you wanna be the mountain man, yeah, you can probably get away with it. But like, if you want to function, you're gonna have something with you when you step outside the door. It's gonna be attached to you. I mean, like, you know, even, even right now, like, I got this watch on. Like, I can't, I can't imagine myself walking out the door right now without it. Because it gives me, for me, like it gives me haptic directions when I drive, like it buzzes on my wrist to tell me left or right. And it even buzzes differently between left and right. And so like, yeah, I can't, like at this point, like my brain

has been programmed to receive those signals and function more effectively throughout my day. Um, and it's crazy to think about, like, what would happen if I just set it down and tried to do everything that I do every single day without my watch and my phone and my iPad and everything else? Like, it almost gives me an anxiety attack even thinking about it. I mean, it's true. I mean, are you guys— I imagine you guys are the same way in your business.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you come to rely upon it for everything. Yeah, it's a, it's a tool. can, can also be habit-forming in many negative ways. Yeah, robbing your time management, right?

Uh, it is an effective thief.

Yeah, yeah. Biggest struggle I have is, is time management. Not anyone else's but my own. And, uh, you've got to come to a point to where you either continue to find yourself falling behind on a regular basis, and if you go back and review your day, okay, where did I lose time today? Where did I get distracted? Which is real easy for me to do.

do?

Yeah. Um, and then, and then can I use the same tool that continued to distract me all day long to get me back on track? And unfortunately, I am reliant upon that tool.

Yeah, I'm with you. I— it's just kind of the way of the world at this point. Like, it's, it's, it's not a truth that I want to be a truth, right? Yeah.

It is nice to escape it occasionally, right?

Yeah.

You know, just to kind of go off the grid a little bit, um, get past that anxiety.

I went to a leadership conference a few weeks ago that my company sent me to, and the whole point— the vice president of my company told me, he said, look, I need you to be engaged at this function, which means you need to turn your phone off. And so it was in the mountains up in Colorado, and I was expecting, oh, we're going to lose signal. it'll be great, right? Someone will turn the switch off for me on purpose. And then I get up there and I notice driving into the compound there's these repeater towers all over the compound. And I'm like, we have internet up here. And I'm like, I'm not turning it on. I

went up there with the mindset that it was going— that I was going to be completely disconnected.

Yeah.

And my thinking was leading up to that moment is that Nothing will get done. I'm going to fall further and further behind. And the truth is, is that the sun still came up tomorrow.

Yeah.

And, and the job still got done. It needed some preparation. There was some work that you can't just throw it up in the air and go, okay, I'm out, right? There was some preparation leading up to that time, but everything was fine. It continued to work just perfectly without me. A lot of that is self-inflicted.

Yeah. We think we're more important than we really are.

Absolutely. Yeah. Go to Colorado for a week and turn your phone off, and you'll find out how important you are. Yeah.

Well, I mean, right, right before the show, Christie and I were talking about, we were, we were talking about, like, you know, what would happen if I ever sold this place and where would I go? I was talking, I, I probably won't ever because I'm just shopping for property in Arkansas. One of the biggest appeals of where we go in Arkansas is there is no cell signal. And, like, I, because, and it, it works so well for me because We can go there. And if I did have it, I would turn it on and I would work the whole time I'm there. And I wouldn't enjoy everything that I'm there to see and enjoy and experience with my family. I would just be on my

phone working.

It's true.

I would. So it's— I mean, it's a sad reality, but, like, I love that there's places like that that still exist where I can actually go and, you know, there's physical things that make me shut down.

And I've learned to take the practice at home now. Oh yeah, around 6 o'clock, I'll, I'll, I won't turn it off, but I'll set it on the charger in the kitchen. It won't be on my hip, it won't be in my hand anymore, because it's important for me to be present for her and be present for the kids. Because if our children see us continue to live with our face in the phone, guess what our children—

You're modeling that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And they'll do it much better, much longer Much more or less efficient than I will.

I'm still learning.

Oh, you're seeing— you're still trying to figure it out?

Yep. I'm in real estate. It's a little more difficult to set it down.

Well, I mean, that is the expectation, is that you're always available, right? And when you're not, they get mad and frustrated, and, you know, what are you gonna do?

You know, and then we have that anxiety, like, I'm gonna miss that next big phone call.

Well, like, and when you're— when you're in a market that's moving as fast as we've been moving, I mean, you almost have to, like, be at like a heightened state of awareness to like act quickly.

Yeah, I mean, you really do. Yeah.

And is— do you feel like them— do you feel like it's still that way right now?

Uh, no, the market's definitely leveling out, I think is the best way to put it. Um, I, I don't think that it has turned to a buyer's market. I think that there's a lot more opportunity at this point to negotiate, right, on prices. Sellers are realizing that they can't just come up with some pie-in-the-sky price and throw it out there, and, you know, you're gonna have 20 offers on it.

Right.

You know, it's gotta— you've really gotta look at the comparables. You really have to price it right. I mean, and I, I think that that should have always been the case, honestly. But again, when you've got people that are coming from other states where they're willing to throw big money out there at it, it did skew things. Um, but it's— it is leveling. I mean, if, if you look at the houses, they're staying on the market for a lot longer than they were. Um, I mean, I've seen some even— Do you have—

do you have any numbers on that? I mean, like how long Based off, I mean, like, I guess like a year ago, how long they were staying on versus how long the average is right now? Do you know any of those off the top of your head?

So a year ago it was 24 hours. I mean, nothing was staying on the market.

That sounds about right.

Yeah, nothing was staying on the market and it was multiple offers. And I mean, if you were, you know, everybody saw the meme where if you're the listing agent, you know, you're at home with your a little glass of wine, just kind of going through, you know, you've got your stack of offers and it's like cash and then there's trash, right? Those are your 2 piles. And that's not really the case. I don't know specifically how long they're staying on the market. I think the average is closer. It's moved up to like a couple weeks ago, it was like 5 days.

Which is still not bad.

Which is not bad. I mean, it's still a seller's market.

If you're a seller though, I mean, do you agree to, and this is a question I'm asking you, do you agree to, okay, we're going to put it up on the market and we're going to leave it there for 7 days, and after 7 days we're going to see what the best offer is?

So that was happening. I don't see it as often. So if we go back, say, 6 months, People were putting— they would put it in coming soon, right? Right. And it's like, okay, I'm gonna put it in coming soon on Monday. We're gonna do an open house.

Real quick, what does that even mean? Like, coming soon?

So come—

It's a teaser.

It is.

It's like a teaser at a movie theater.

Right. It's like, look what I have. It's going to be going live. Now, the general public can't see coming soon. Only real estate agents can see coming soon.

Okay. That's, that's what I wanted to know. Yeah. But they'll usually put like a sign out front that says like coming soon. But it's no one can like go on HAR or Zillow or Trulia or any of that kind of stuff and see it.

Correct. Now, if you're working with a real estate agent, they can set you up on a query where it'll send you a message if something's coming soon, right? And so they get it out there to get, you know, everybody all excited about it and, you know, no showings until our open house on Saturday. And then Scott and I, when we were looking for an investment property in The Woodlands, We show up to this open house and it is like a 3-ring circus. It's ridiculous. There are cars.

I thought it was a really large garage sale.

Like, are you kidding me right now?

We had to park down the street a couple hundred yards away. I'm like, really? We're gonna walk up to the house at this point? Because at this point we're pulling up, I'm getting out of the car. Why are we even trying?

This is a den of hyenas is what this is.

It's crazy. You couldn't even get— like, you'd go into the master bedroom and the, you know, the— this is an older house in The Woodlands, right? So the Halls are super narrow. You're stuck in the bedroom. You're like, excuse me, can you guys just like don't come down the hall? Because if you come down, we can't get out.

Like finding your seat on an airplane.

That's exactly what it was. That's exactly what it was.

I'm sorry, sir, you're gonna have to sit down so the rest of the people can leave.

It was ridiculous. So I'm not seeing that as often. Okay. You know, the reality is people are having to listen. If you Price the house— if you price it right, you're still— it's still going to sell. Yeah. Um, we're just— we're not necessarily in a market right now where you can go over.

So I mean, I guess what I'm hearing is that like sellers are going to be a little bit more negotiable.

Correct.

Yeah. What, what are, what are some areas that you're seeing where they are more responsive to the negotiation?

Like areas of, like, in the contract or in—

On the buying price? Like, what, like, what are some things that sellers are going, okay, like, yeah, that's reasonable, we can, we can back off on that, or, you know, no, no, I mean, I'm not paying for that.

So, you know, if we, if we go back 6 months, um, If I'm putting a contract on a house for a client, for a buyer, and they're like, okay, you know, typically we would ask for a home warranty, right?

Mm-hmm.

The seller would pay for the title. In some situations, you know, a first-time home buyer might ask for $1,000 towards their closing costs, that type of thing. In previous, in this, you know, what's 2021 for sure, you ask for nothing. No, you're not— you want the home warranty? Yeah, that'd be great. You're gonna have to pay for that on your own. We're not— we can't ask the seller. Um, by the way, are you open to paying for that title? Because if you could pay for title, that would really make this look a whole lot better. Um, so now you're paying for the seller's title that they would normally pay for. That could be a couple thousand dollars, right?

Yeah.

Um, I mean, really, it is— you have to make that offer look as sweet as possible. At the end of the day, that listing agent more than likely is kind of going through, and it does come down to a dollar amount at the end. So they're putting it on a spreadsheet with all the other 20 offers, and it comes down to what's the net sales price? How much is the seller going to walk away with?

Yeah.

Um, so you have to take out all that little stuff.

Yeah.

You don't get that.

Yeah. And one of the other ones that I, I heard a lot is, I'm getting, you know, I'm getting $40,000 over asking price, right? What I, what I don't think a lot of people realize, and, and you might, you might be able to speak into this a little bit, is that's, that's fine and dandy if you have cash. Right? So how is this playing out? I mean, because this is a strategy people were using, right?

So, you know, you can offer anything you want over the asking price, right? But if you're financing that home, chances are, well, chances are you're gonna have to have an appraisal. I mean, unless you're— there are some situations where, you know, if you're putting 20% down and you're in a certain area or the house is sold relatively you know, within the last, I don't know, 2 years, the lender won't ask for an appraisal. Right. But if you have to have the house appraised and it doesn't meet appraisal, then now you've got to come up with that difference of wherever the appraisal was and your offer. So, you know, I mean, that can be an issue as well. And I mean—

I can imagine even a year ago, if someone were to pull that, Like where they, they're like, oh yeah, I'll pay $40,000 over asking price. And then they have to do an appraisal. The appraisal comes back at like, you know, $20,000 less than whatever it is. And they're like, oh well, I'll only pay that. And they're like, well, go pound sand, I'll find the next guy, right? You know, whereas now someone might be like, well, is this going to be worth the, the hassle of finding another buyer that has good credit?

And I mean, you're getting a lot of stuff back now that During the offer period, they're wanting, if it doesn't appraise, you're going to pay this anyway regardless. So they don't lose—

Oh, they put that in the contract?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I don't blame them.

You have to do an appraisal waiver. And if you do that appraisal waiver, if you don't have the funds to make up that difference, you're going to lose your earnest money. So it's kind of a big deal. Something else that I saw some agents doing, by the way, I would never do this. I think it's very risky, and I personally wouldn't advise a client to do this, but people were waiving their inspections, which, I mean, listen, a lot can be hidden.

You don't know how risky it is.

A lot can be hidden behind those walls. And, you know, but it was happening. I mean, people were zero option period. Yeah, you know, which again, I think, um, I, I personally think it's risky. But you know, I, I will say, of all of— I didn't have any homes not meet appraisal over the last 2 years.

Um, which is— it was crazy.

Which, you know, I, I mean, I'm really big on You know what? We don't need to pay more than what this house is worth. And you don't. There's always another house. Yeah. You know, because we don't have a crystal ball, right? So what happens if, you know, you get transferred and you have to sell that house? What happens if you lose your job and you have to sell that house?

And you're upside down.

And you're upside down. And, you know, hello 2008.

That was me. I mean, I bought, I bought a house in 2007. And, and just rode it out. Right. And that was all we could do. Yeah. I mean, like, we, we bought a house in 2007, and then it dropped by like 40% in value. Wow.

I got, I got lucky during that time. I bought it in 2003 and sold it in 2007. Oh, you did get lucky.

Right. So, well, so here's, here was, I mean, here's the sunshine at the end of that story is we held on to the house long enough We were— that, that house was 2 miles from what would be the Exxon campus. And—

Oh, wow.

We held on to it till the month before it opened and then sold it because it was blowing up right then. I mean, it was just that area because so many people were wanting to move in close to that campus. And we were like, now's the time, now's the time, let's, let's unload this. Because we had felt the gut punch of All that money that we— and like, honestly, like, looking back on it, it's like, looking back on it now, it's not that much money. I think we paid like $135,000 for that house. Wow. When we bought it. And like, but like, you lose 40% of your first home that's like $135,000, like, oh, right, take my lung.

Exactly, exactly. Um, uh, I, I, I really do think that a lot of people spent probably way too much on their Oh yeah, on their homes.

I think, I think, I think they're— we're gonna see— I think, I think we're gonna see the backlash from the last 2 years in the next 5. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I don't know that people are— I don't think it's going to be like a 2008 situation, um, but I think people are going to see their investment sort of like it's not going to be worth as much as it was when they bought it at the height of this thing, right? But I also think some people don't care.

No.

So, I mean, if you're not going anywhere, right? Right. I mean, and, and the beauty about real estate is that for the most part, it's going to be an investment, right? It's going, it's going to increase over time. So, um, you know, if you hang on to it long enough.

Yeah, I mean, you'll eventually get your money back for sure. I mean, like, I mean, it's the, uh, the famous Lex Luthor line from, uh, Superman, you know, the, the good Lex Luthor, Gene Hackman, right? He's like, the one thing they're not making more of— real estate.

That's true.

That is true.

So I used to have that philosophy about lakefront properties, but then, um, as I was going through all of the lakefronts, because that was kind of my, um, YouTube this last week, they actually are making more lakefront properties. And so we were driving through the lake, and, and we'll On the weekends, we go through on the boat and, you know, we take clients out to look at houses from the lakeside.

Right. Which is a phenomenal way to see a possible new home.

I imagine.

Yeah.

Because you pull up—

That's the side you care about.

You pull up from the dock and you don't— you could care if the grass is dead in the front yard. You're like looking at that boat docking like, I'm going to live on this plank right here forever.

Well, so—

We just recently did this with, uh, with a couple of guys from California that came out and they said, hey, we're gonna go— she— they made an appointment with Christie to go look at houses. And I'm like, let's take them from the boat. And so our objective was to go see this one property, had no idea that we were all gonna like it as much as we did. And we pulled up to the dock and we're measuring the dock to make sure the boat will fit inside of it. And, and I think within 30 minutes before we left the property, she was drawing up paperwork.

Oh wow.

Um, so a couple of things about that, but as far as like making more lakefront property, so what they're doing, um, over kind of Grand Harbor area is they're bringing in these canals. So they're, you know, dredging out these—

Oh, I've seen this. Yeah, these canals, which This is on like the north side of Lake Conroe, right?

It's the south, it's the south side. It's over, um, it's on the other side of Walden. So on the other, other side of Walden Road. Yeah. Um, so yeah, back in through there, over off Lone Star Parkway. Um, there's an area which, you know, I'll just leave it nameless. But, um, so these people spent quite a bit of money Over half a million on a home. It's lakefront property, right?

Right.

It's got a boat dock, comes with the boat dock. Well, there has yet to be any water in their canal.

Oh, they haven't opened it yet?

Well—

Or is the water not high enough?

The water never got high enough because the developer was never able to fully get the water to go through the canal to reach the people's homes. So like, this is a big problem, right? Because you've paid for lakefront.

Is there, is there litigation happening on this?

There might just be a little bit.

I was wondering why we didn't say the name.

There might be a little litigation there. Um, so, you know, the whole point of having lakefront property is to be able to pull your boat up, right?

Right, yeah.

Um, when we went to go look at this property, I was kind of surprised because if this particular piece of property was in a canal, it's, you know, it's 5 feet deep and we haven't had rain in A minute. Um, so if you, if you, if you still— and this was over 4th of July weekend, so at that point we really hadn't had any rain. So if, if you've got 5 feet, you're good, right?

Right.

Um, but if you go further back into the canal where this house was, there's, you know, million-dollar-plus homes. And the people were going down through there with our boat and people are like, no, no, no, don't come, you know, don't come down here. I pull it up on the map. Well, it's just, it's filled with stumps. So like, you bought a lakefront property. I— we see the boat slips, right? But you can't get a boat in there.

Oh my gosh.

That would be disappointing for me.

That would be massively disappointing.

So do your research, people. Do your research.

And can they, can they list that on the— as lakefront?

Yeah, it's lakefront.

I mean, you're marshfront, but maybe not.

Well, this one in particular, I mean, it looks It looks pretty. You just— there's stumps in through there, so you can't get your boat in it. What was it, 2 feet deep?

Yeah, at one point popped up 2 feet deep in that area. And there, I mean, everyone— yeah, pull that up so people— everyone had a really nice boat, nice wakeboard boat in there. And like, in those props, those aren't shallow. You can't pull the hull up on it. So yeah, pretty interesting. I was one— I thought he was telling us to get out of his canal because we were in there kind of searching around. He was like, no, no, no, this is a private area.

Like, this is a lake, it's not private.

I actually, I heard a story about that recently. Um, do you guys know the joke about Florida Man? Like, if you— I guess it's like a funny meme that you can look up on the internet, like where you type in Florida Man into like Google search and you'll always get like some crazy recent news article that somebody's done like something horrible. But it's always Florida Man, Florida Man, Florida Man. So this, this guy, he He owns the property on either side of a public waterway, and it's a canal. And it's supposedly, like, some of the best, like, bass fishing in the state of Florida. Like, anglers just know. And he just got tired of having fishermen, like, near his

property where they could get on his property. So he built a drawbridge over the canal to connect his 2 pieces of property.

Wow.

So, like, there's local newspapers running stories on it, and fishermen are hoping that, like, the state's gonna come in and make him take it down. Because it's restricting access. Right. And I think his argument's going to be, it's a drawbridge. I can bring it up. I can bring it down. They just have to call and ask. And I'm like, oh, that guy's sneaky. Yeah. I mean, what are you gonna do?

I don't know that there's anything that they could do.

Yeah. I mean, like, he's not technically restricting access. Right. He's just making them ask.

Right. You know, it's kind of smart. It's kind of brilliant.

It is. You know, we'll see what happens.

Yeah, I have to Google that for sure.

So I, I do, I do, I, I had a question about the boat, and, and you can, you can tell me you don't want to answer. Um, are— because you're taking clients on the boat to look at houses, are you able to write this boat off now?

We will be.

So yes, according to my, according to my CPA, um, You know, you can write off a portion of it. I mean, the reality is, you know, do you use it 100% of the time for clients? I think we can all agree that that probably is not true.

So sounds like you need to get like a magnetic sticker for the side of this thing.

It's getting wrapped.

It's getting wrapped.

Yes. On the Move Texas. When you see it out there on Lake Conroe, you'll know. I will be honest though.

Lake Conroe real estate professionals.

I mean, we do Use it quite a bit for clients.

Hey, I mean, if it's working, write the booger off.

It's, it's a marketing plan. And now that we're broadcasting our marketing plan, we're showing you what the house looks like from the lakeside, right? And I don't— and I think, um, that's a, that's a different outlook. That's what you're selling. You're selling that lake lifestyle. Lake Travis has no more shoreline left, right?

Right.

And it's a very unstable lake. We both grew up on Lake Travis. Our dream was to live on Lake Travis.

It's a great lake.

It's priced out of our—

And it has water.

Yeah, it's priced out of our pocket right now.

Oh, really?

So Lake Conroe is perfect. It's just perfect. You're here north of the 4th largest city in the nation, which puts us close to the food cultural capital of the world, right? Concert venues, hospitals. We've got everything right here. Yeah.

Um, did you guys know that we are the number 3 for theater?

Really?

I did not know that.

Yeah, like it's New York, London, Houston.

I did not know that at all.

Like we beat LA.

That's crazy.

Isn't it? Yeah, like, like Chicago? No, us, number 3.

That's awesome.

Interesting.

Yeah. And like, if you ever go—

that's one more thing that tells me that, that, that's probably something that's lacking in our lives is the theater. When's the last time you were at the theater? Yeah, Disneyland?

3 months ago. Speak for yourself.

What'd you go see? Um, oh, you were at Hamilton? Yeah. Was it here? Cool. Yeah, I didn't know that.

Well, I mean, it was in Houston.

Well, that's what I meant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it was an amazing show.

Which, which theater was it at?

Hobby.

Okay, that's a good one. Wow. There's like Hobby, Theater Under the Stars. I'm trying to think some of the other ones. There's a bunch of them down there.

That was a good one. And then we saw Tootsie also a couple months before that.

Is that like the Dustin Hoffman movie from back in the day?

Yeah. Also a good one.

Yeah, that is a good one.

I was a little nervous about it. Were you? Well, first of all, it has been a little while since that movie came out. I couldn't even remember what it was about. I was like, I I hope this is good. But yeah, it was really good.

Cool. What are some other— are you seeing any other interesting trends happening in the market right now?

Interesting trends.

I'll tell you something I saw the other day that was surprising was I was seeing some of the angular modular home styles coming back in new construction. Have you seen that?

Oh, really? Yeah.

Because I'm in a lot of these new neighborhoods where, you know, like new people are moving in, they want service, all this kind of stuff. Right. But like, I was driving through one the other day and I was like, that thing is brand new, but it looks like it was built in like 1973 because, you know, you know what I mean? It's got like—

Yeah, like the square, the A-frame. Where was— no, I haven't seen— well—

The ones I've seen are Foster's Ridge.

Okay.

Um, is where I've seen some of them. And then I want to say I've seen some in the new Howard Hughes development on— in Willis.

I love that.

Woodland Hills.

Woodland Hills.

Yeah, I love that neighborhood.

It's a good one, isn't it?

That— so you look at that neighborhood right now, right? It's in— it's in inception. It's beautiful. The trees are still growing up around it, you know, because you don't see any of the bigger trees in that yard. What's that neighborhood? What's the value of that property in 10 years?

Oh, man. I mean, it's going to be another Woodlands.

For sure.

Which is the whole point of it.

You look at— so there's a new H-E-B getting built up on, uh, just off of 45 up there. I mean, that community is booming big time. And so Willis is in this, uh, process of, of going through a big growth stage right now. So you'll see the community, lots of money being funneled in the community. You got big corporations like H-E-B that are, that are stepping up on that, on that big parcel up there, sitting on 12, 14 acres.

Yeah.

So that's, that will be the furthest north H-E-B for them in, out of the Houston area. So that gives them a much better presence where Kroger's been kind of controlling the market up here for the most part.

Yeah.

Um, you'll see more corporations start moving up north of that 45 corridor because The Woodlands is packed right now. So there's only one way to go, and that's up north. Willis is still 45, 51 minutes away from Intercontinental, which makes it really, really nice to live in. One of, you know, our client that, or her client that was looking on the lake right there, one of the, while we were standing in home, how far from the airport am I? You know, on a Saturday, 41 minutes.

Well, yeah, like what, 2 things there. One, like how weird is it that like H-E-B can change a community overnight.

100%.

Oh, big time.

I mean, that's nuts.

H-E-B is a— I mean, the home— that's a hometown, home state company right there. And if you are an H-E-B supporter, right, because they're from Texas, I mean, you're gonna get Texas-shaped tortilla chips in H-E-B. You're not gonna find those anywhere else.

No. Well, and then the other thing is, like, I don't think it's gonna be that much longer until the other airport that we have nearby actually becomes a major player. It's actually a much bigger airport than people give it credit for. I mean, the National Guard's there. They keep all their helicopters and stuff there. It's a big airport.

You're talking about ours?

Conroe Airport.

Conroe?

Yeah. It's a nice airport.

Have you ever had lunch or breakfast over there?

At Black Walnut?

At the bottom? Oh my gosh. That's a good spot.

That's all you need to know is they have a nice restaurant.

Right. They have good food. Yeah.

I keep telling— like, so this is, this is the game I'm playing with my wife right now. I was like, look, like, I'm 41 years old. Like, my eyesight's not getting any better. I need to get my pilot's license now.

Right.

And she and her thought process on that is, is it's expensive.

Yeah. Yeah. So, but I mean, do you have enough space here to put yourself down? Can't put a runway on the property. No.

So But a helipad.

But I actually have a client that I take care of their helipad. Right. But it's in downtown Houston. But they— so there actually is a private airport not far from here that I think is for sale right now. Do you know Bonanza Lakes? It's just down 2854.

Wow. You know a lot of secret places back here that most people don't.

He does a lot of driving. Right. That is true.

I drive all over. That's all I do is I drive. So I get to see a lot. So, but yeah, there's— trying to get my bearings. Where am I? I never know.

You're at home.

Well, I know I'm at home, but I'm trying to figure which way is north. Hang on. So that's north. So if that's north, then the private airport is right over there. And you can pull it up on a map. I mean, it's listed. Wow. But the problem is the houses that are around it are just I'm not gonna say this because somebody's gonna be listening. They're not nice houses, right? Um, so it's kind of like a— and it's like a grass runway. So, but I'm like, when it's a runway, right?

Give it time. Yeah, they'll get bought out, maybe.

Well, we'll see. But that's, that's, that's the plan. I wanna, I wanna be able to get out of town quickly if I have to.

That would be the way to do it.

Yeah, yeah, that would. I was, I was telling somebody the other day, I remember And I think it was like Hurricane Irene or something like that where I got stuck on 45 pulling a 3-horse slant trailer trying to get horses out of town. And I'm stuck in, like, when they opened up the highway on both sides for everybody to go north.

That wasn't Irene. What was that? Rita? Or maybe it was Rita. It was right before Ike, remember? Because then Ike came in and everybody's like, I'm not going anywhere.

Exactly.

Staying right here. And then we didn't have electricity for like a month. It was like, this was a horrible decision. Yeah. Why did we stay again? Oh, yeah. Because everybody else got stuck. I mean, people died on the freeway.

Yes. Running out of gas. It was so hot. And they ran out of water. And they just— yeah, they just wasted away right there on the highway.

I feel like we had more deaths during that. Like, and by the way, it didn't hit us. It went to Beaumont.

Right?

Yeah. And we had more deaths because people got stuck on the freeways.

Yeah.

So thank you, government. But let me— okay, so that you said power went out, and that actually triggered something in my brain. Have you guys seen or heard about this surcharge that they're putting on the power bills now? And I forget, it's like a— there's like an acronym, it's like MCAD or something like that. Like, it was always— it's always something that's been there. My wife was just like, before we started the show, my wife was telling me about it, and it's like It's the cost of producing the power, and it's an added part of your bill. And like in the past, it's been like $30. Well, this month it was $300.

You're kidding.

Yeah. So like our power usage was exactly the same and everything else, but our bill was 3, like almost $250 more because of this fee that they've put on.

So does this have anything to do, because I noticed for myself, Our utility bill went up substantially after the February freeze, right? So, sure, um, it started in the winter. I remember like, this is really odd that our, you know, usually in the winter your electric bill—

Yeah, I mean, for us, we don't, um, you guys on natural gas? Yeah, that's us too. I mean, like, our power bill is always really low, right?

And, and I'm like, this, this bill is like a like a summertime bill. This is super odd. I can't wait to see what it looks like in the summer. And of course, I mean, it's gone up substantially.

Um, well, I do know, like, I do know during the freeze a lot of people experienced higher power bills, not because they were using like natural gas heat, but they— most people used additional heaters, like, right, ceramic ones or whatever. And so like those things can draw a lot of power. And so if you've got like 2 or 3 of them plugged in throughout the house trying to keep pipes from freezing and different things like that, then yeah, you're going to have a substantially higher power bill. Right. So I don't know if it was from that, but—

No, because this is— we're a year later. Okay. Right? Because the freeze was not this— well, not the big last year, but the year before.

Yeah, the big snow freeze was February before, but we had another freeze this past year and everybody kind of freaked out and was like, is it going to snow again?

Right, right. So yeah, I don't know. I haven't— I guess I haven't looked at an itemized bill. It just sends you a little Email, you know. Yeah, this is how much you owe.

And like, I'm part of quite a few like neighborhood like Facebook groups, and I've been seeing this information trickle in over the last couple of months. Like, hey, have you guys seen this? Have you guys seen this? Have you guys seen— and like, I'm gonna be honest, like, I don't, I don't do the bills at our house. Like, my wife manages all that. She's way better with money than I am. I do all the other things, right? Um, but this was the first one that came in, and she was like, This is not, this is not normal. And I was like, oh, that's the thing I've been seeing, like, come in on all the other neighborhoods. And she's like, I know, I've been hearing about it. I just didn't think it was gonna happen to us.

Right.

Right.

That's, that, that happens to everyone else.

Yeah. Not me.

The other people.

That's right. Well, and, and so, well, and I was wondering if that's something that, like, like, hey, this is something you might need to communicate to, like, your clients and be like, hey, you need to be aware, like, this is something they can do to you that's going to affect the month to month of whether or not you can afford that mortgage. Like, you need to keep that in mind because these things, obviously now they can change at a pretty rapid rate.

So that, um, speaking of things that could change, yeah, and things that you need to be aware of, right, um, when you buy your house. So because of all the increase in property values, of course the appraisal district was like, all right, Taxes are going up. Yeah, we're increasing the appraised value of all these homes. So pretty much everybody, I mean, I doubt that anybody was left out. Everybody's home values went up, right? I have had quite a few people call like, why did my mortgage note go up? I had one client call where his mortgage note went up $700 a month. Oh my gosh. That's pretty substantial if you're on a budget, right? Yeah. Especially, you know, if your mortgage note starts off at,

let's say $2,000 and it goes up to $2,700, that's a big chunk of change on a monthly basis. And it's due to, number one, your home insurance went up for everybody because the prices went up. But then on top of that, if your taxes went up, and now if you're homestead, it can only go up 10%. For those of them that purchased the home this last year, They could raise it. They can raise it as much as they want until you— until that homestead goes into effect the following year.

And don't think they don't know that.

And they did it. Um, now, you know, for my clients, we all went through— we— everybody protested, everybody got it— did get it dropped a bit. Yeah, but if you come up short at the end of the year, they'll tack that additional amount onto your, as you know, onto your bill and divvy it out over the next 12 months on top of your increased taxes, it can raise your bill. So, yeah, note to self.

Yeah, and there's, there's not— I mean, like, other than protesting, there's—

what are you gonna do? Taxes.

Yeah, you're gonna have to pay them. Yep. I mean, if— unless you want to sell it. I mean, right? So, which— good luck talking the next sucker into doing that.

But definitely always get those utility bills.

I, I know we've got Is that something they still do? I mean, like you can ask.

Yeah. We have City of Conroe water. So for those of you out there that are listening that have City of Conroe water, you know what I'm talking about. What's what?

Is there something wrong with it?

So the fine folks at the the fine folks at the San Jacinto River Authority have a nice little fee tacked onto that bill.

So our San Jacinto River Authority transfer fee, which is— let me tell you what this is.

Okay.

This is every time Conroe, uh, every kind— every time Conroe puts a lawsuit on them, they throw a little bit more onto this transfer fee. So originally, this transfer fee is, is a fee that is passed down to those of us who have City of Conroe water to send water to The Woodlands.

Okay.

It doesn't really make sense to me that we're paying that, but that's okay. All right, um, at one point it was fine. It wasn't really too noticeable. If I get a $200 water bill, I'll get a $300 transfer fee on top of my $200 water bill.

So a $500 water bill.

Um, yeah, I mean, last year I think our most expensive water bill was $600.

Holy cow.

Yeah.

So, uh, I thought we had a leak in the sprinkler system. That's what I would think.

I would think there's, there's, there's a leak.

Or we're watering someone else's lawn.

Somebody's got a hose tied in.

Someone's tapping into our water. Yeah, it is definitely a thing. And, um, so it is important to look at the utilities All of them. You know, because really a water bill, I mean, what does it average, $50 a month?

Yeah. I mean, I can remember buying my first home and getting close to closing and going, okay, I need to know every expense. I need a copy of the electric bill. I need a copy of the water bill, trash, bring me everything to the table. And I remember my first home was $83,000. I think the monthly payment was like $675 at 19% interest. And like, it was Great. Should have kept that home.

Those were the days.

Was there anything we hadn't talked about tonight that you guys want to make?

I think we've kind of covered a lot of stuff. I think we got off the real estate discussion.

We were really all over the board. Yeah, which is fine.

That's what the people want. We give the people what they want. That's it. So you good? Yeah. So we need to move on to everybody's favorite part of the show, right? Which is the final 4. Wait, that's— there it is. Final 4 is the same 4 questions that we ask all of our guests. Oh, hang on. We actually had somebody just, just chime in here and said, oh, this is somebody from Austin. It says our water is tiered billing. So if you have a pool or use a lot of water, the bill in the summer can be upwards of $800. Oh, wow. That's crazy.

Thank you so much. I feel so much better right now.

You just lowered the tension in the room. It's like, well, I'm not paying $800.

You're right.

Hey, if that person from Austin's interested in a lakefront property and you guys will take them out on the bay, I'd like to talk to them.

The water in Conroe is a little bit cheaper.

Right. That's right.

All right. So do you, do you remember the Final Four?

I don't.

Okay, good. So it'll be—

This was gonna come and I couldn't remember what it was. It's been a minute. I think it was pre-COVID when I was here.

It was. It was. I mean, like, well, you got to think we've been doing the show a little more than almost 4 years now.

Yeah.

And you came on pretty early.

Pretty early.

Um, that was a great show.

I remember I was on the job site in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and I was listening to that show. I had a rental car, I had both doors open, and we're opening up this gas station, and I can remember I was listening to all of you.

Awesome.

On that show.

So even back then, the audio was— even though we didn't have all this great gear, the audio was still pretty good.

Oh, it's fantastic. People walked in, they go, what are you listening to? Is that sports radio? No, it's my wife. She's on the phone. She's on the radio.

She's famous.

That's right. That's right. All right. So let's go with the first one. Who wants to go first? You both have to answer. And then Scott does. Scott, he's gonna go first. All right. Gotta be brave.

Volunteered for that.

Be brave for your wife. Yeah. All right. Voluntold. What is the must-have tool you won't leave home without?

The phone.

The phone. All right, so here's the thing. That's the number one answer, but we're gonna, we're gonna play a game now. Um, you can't give the same answer.

Yeah, I knew that was coming.

So, Christy, what's a must-have tool you won't leave home without?

Uh, flashlight.

Flashlight. That's a good one, actually. I like that. I have one in my pocket right now.

You carry a flashlight in your purse?

I mean, technically, it's on my phone, but I have 3 of them. Listen.

My brother will be so proud of me.

I know he will.

Yeah. I have—

Did he give you the flashlight?

No, but I kind of collect them. Like, if you go through my car in the center console, I've probably got 3 flashlights in there.

There you go. It's good to have a flashlight.

So, well, I will tell you, you know, like when you're looking at houses, you need a flashlight. You need to be able to shoot light up into the ceiling and you can see a whole lot more with a flashlight.

Heck yeah.

I'm impressed.

So, all right, so a follow-up question since it was, since it was phone and I know you wanted it to be phone. Number one used app, which, what's, what's the app you use the most?

Google Maps.

Google Maps. What about you?

Oh, Facebook.

Facebook? Yeah. All right. That's, that's honest. That's fair. I use— man, I'm on there all the time. So, um, all right. Number 2, what is a project you walked away from? So, uh, here's how we meant the question. Got a project at the house, um, couldn't do it, had to call in a pro. Or the way we originally wrote the question was, what was a job you walked away from? So you could go like, well, there was this job I used to have. I didn't like it, so I quit and I told the boss to shove it. But we really intended it as, what's a project you walked away from at the house?

I could name one for him.

Oh, she can turn you in. You can— you could do this for each other. How about that? What, what's— what's— what is it?

Um, well, he walked away from the sprinkler system. I know that's not working 100% right now.

Wow, you do that to me now?

I throw him under the bus right now.

Right there. Guess what I bought last week?

What?

Sprinklers.

Oh.

Yeah, the kind you put at the end of your hose.

Hey, everybody's using them right now. That could be contributing to the water usage. It could be. You found the—

Yeah, because guess what happens? You forget about them.

Heck yeah. And then you get like— wake up with like a mud puddle.

And when your water bill runs up to $600, like, you die a little bit inside when you forget about that water.

All right, hang on. I'm gonna— I'm gonna show you this real quick. Hang on. That right there, if you guys have not heard our episode on the Beehive—

Oh yes.

This thing is amazing. I love it.

I just saw that.

So it, uh, I can control it with my phone. You can set it with a timer. It connects to the weather app so it won't run the sprinkler.

So is this the sprinkler?

We have that. It connects to the hose and then you connect the hose to that So you can run your manual sprinkler.

Right.

How— and I, and I can just turn it on and I can set it for how long I want it to run. I can run it for 5 minutes. I can run it for 2 hours if I wanted to. So cool. I love this thing.

You've been to our place. So, I mean, our sprinkler system is a little older. And so we have those trees that kind of grown in there and move.

Oh, yeah.

Lines around. So we're at that point now where we got certain zones that are cutting off and— Yeah. It's just a process that we go through.

Well, he was out.

Are you trying to DIY this thing?

He tried. I mean, I see him out there and it's like you only see half of his body. You're like, what are you, what are you doing? And he's, he's digging and he's trying to find this, this hole. I mean, this leak in the sprinkler, which could be wires.

So I didn't, I didn't— I was gonna invest some of my Saturday into fixing the sprinkler system.

Where it all starts.

At some point in time you go, okay, Let's call a professional.

Exactly.

A guy who does. I can build a gas station with my eyes closed, with my hands tied behind my back, right? In, in the raunchiest weather in the nation. Sprinkler systems, yeah, I'm gonna need a month to prepare.

I need a book.

Because, because I don't wanna make 17 trips to Home Depot.

Yes.

And if I go there, I'm gonna go down the sprinkler aisle, and I'm gonna take 2 5-gallon buckets and fill up all the parts that I may need or may not need for the next year and a half.

Yeah. Yeah. So this, this is the conversation I constantly have. It's not a conversation. My wife walks up on a project that I'm doing, and she's like, what is your time worth? Yes. Like, this is not worth your time. Thank you. And it's like, yeah, but I can do it. It's like, no, it's not an issue of whether or not you can.

I'm a little older than you, and there are things that I'm going to let go now because of time. Right? There's, there's somebody else that That does this for a living. Yeah. And he does it better than I ever could and can knock it out in an afternoon. So I need to spend some time on my phone and find him.

So, so we probably have a different thought process on that because I'm probably the one that's standing over him going, I know you've got to be able to fix— you know what, let me try. I think I could probably do it. Yeah. Um, because I am— I, I like DIY. I Yeah. During COVID I had all my projects. I like— they were lined up, they were ready to go. I was, I was gonna reupholster the bed. I was gonna paint all the walls in the house. Um, probably that paint job was the one that, that got me.

Okay.

Um, so, uh, um, the really tough—

I didn't answer for her.

They're really tall ceilings.

I want to be able to sleep in the house tonight.

That's, that's, that's wisdom speaking right there.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Y'all ready for number 3?

Yep.

All right. How do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Oh, wow. Uh, you've seen our new porch on the back?

I have. That thing's awesome.

I love standing there and looking at, um, looking at our backyard and watching the sunset. If I had my choice, if I had an extra 15 minutes, I'd go get the boat out and probably sit on the lake while it's calm and watch, and watch the sun go down. Because I'm traveling a lot during the week.

Yeah.

Usually when I'm on a plane and headed home to Houston and I land, I've, I've already pictured it in my mind that, that we're going to get on the boat tonight. We'll eat, we'll eat somewhere on the lake, and then we'll watch the sunset.

Okay.

And, and sometimes we're out there till 1 o'clock in the morning.

Hmm.

Just the two of us.

That's nice.

And it's, it's magical. It is magical. There is no one else out on the lake, but you get over there where all the restaurants are and all that neon. When you look at that area from the lake, the reflection bounces off the water. It's incredible. It is incredible. And only a handful of people get to see that because they're out there at that night.

Yeah.

But I want to take— we've got a drone that we photograph these homes with, and I want to go out there and fly it at night sometime and grab a few pictures.

Oh yeah.

And when the moon is out, like it's been out this last week, it's hypnotizing on the water. It's incredible.

So where— I mean, you said eat on the lake. Where are some places you guys really like to dine on the lake there?

So there's a place called The Wave, which is a kind of a hidden gem. It's up, uh, you have to access it off of 830. Okay. And the food is amazing at The Wave. It's just hard to dock over at The Wave.

It's impossible.

It's okay, um, because it's really rough out there. Um, Guadalajara's is a favorite. Margaritaville's probably got the best cheeseburger in paradise. Hey, on the lake. Um, We go to Crust now as kind of our new go-to on Friday nights. Crust Pizza. And then—

oh, because they just opened that up at the marina, right? Yeah. Have you been there? Yeah. I haven't been. I've been to a Crust Pizza. I haven't been to that one. Yeah. Really good.

We, we keep going back and eating the same pizza. We probably need to sample some of the other ones.

It's hard.

Well, yeah. You get, you get a favorite.

Right. Fajita Jack's and then what's Monty's? Monty's House. Yeah. Monty's. It's it's like a great mixture. I know there are some other places that we haven't been to or seen yet, but we want to experience all of them. Yeah. All right.

Wind down at the end of a long day.

Hmm. This is gonna be good. Yeah.

He says that because it it is. I'm not gonna lie. It is really difficult for me to wind down. Mm hmm. Um, and I probably don't do it well. Yeah. Uh, or at all.

Um, there needs to be some alcohol.

Is that what it— yeah. Okay. I mean, I tried, I tried to help then. Yeah.

You know, I'm not gonna— I mean, a glass of wine at the end of the day. I do, I do love sitting out on the back deck as long as, you know, the mosquitoes don't carry you away, which You know, you know, there's— you can't fight the mosquitoes in our backyard. I don't care what you have because with all the trees and the, you know, it's just, um, that would be my favorite thing, right? Yeah, it's just to kind of sit out there and listen to music.

And did you guys put a PA out there?

We've got, um, uh, are you familiar with Sonos?

Oh yeah.

So we have, uh, uh, an addiction. Yeah. So, uh, a good friend of mine from California invited me over to his house and he had this Sonos Move. And so I'm listening, I go, that is the best speaker. Goes, oh, that's nothing, let me turn on the rest of the house. And I'm like, yeah, they're incredible. I told Christy about it. And so we were walking through Costco one day and they had the Sonos sample and it was not even the fancy one in the Costco. And we listened to that. And so I got her hooked on it. Then 2 weeks later, during COVID we outfit the entire house in Sonos speakers. Nice. And we've got that

Sonos Move, which is like the greatest speaker on the planet.

Yeah, they're really, really good. Yeah.

And now they have the, the Roam.

Yeah, so we have these little pocket speakers about the size of your phone that you can stick in your pocket.

That's great.

So you can anchor, you know, so you've got— you can do like the Roam on the corners and then the Move in the middle.

Yeah, it's super cool. I love that stuff.

So you sit out there, watch the sun go down, listen to some smooth jazz and—

Okay. Are we talking like Kenny Loggins? Are we talking like actual jazz?

Actual jazz.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Peter White.

Yeah, Peter White. Some blues. Buddy Guy.

Now you're talking.

He's actually a red dirt Kind of guy. Hey, don't let him fool you with smooth jazz.

Listen, I specifically went to Chicago to see Buddy Guy.

Oh, really?

Oh, heck yeah. I went and ate at his restaurant.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah. I took a cab.

One in Chicago?

In Chicago on the South Side. Yeah. And just crazy.

We went one time and we didn't get in. I think it was either his 70th or his 75th birthday. And there was like a small chance we were going to be able to get into the club. Oh, wow. And he was like celebrating and I was like, this would be amazing. But we didn't make it. Didn't happen. Didn't happen. That's all right.

That is the blistering blues player on the planet.

He really is. He's so good. It's amazing he's still playing too.

I know. I want to take my my parents to go see him.

Yeah. All right, last one. Y'all ready? All right. Best piece of wisdom or advice you've ever received? What you guys got? Oh my gosh. Are you going first?

I am. I'm still thinking.

You're still thinking? Okay.

If you've got something, go ahead.

Oh, I think here recently I've become more willing to listen to great wisdom. Yeah, I think that happens with age now. Um, I don't know, my dad comes up with some really good stuff, and for the moment I just can't think of anything right now.

Listen more than you speak.

Yeah, that's a, that's a good one.

Go ahead. I threw one out there because, I mean, like, you jogged my memory a little bit. I'm like, oh, I'll just throw this out there. Probably not the first one I would have.

So same guy that told me about the Sonos speaker, um, was, was teaching me a lesson about, about, um, addressing confrontation with someone. And he goes, sometimes you got to let the sting sink in. and not fix everything. And so that was a lesson that we were talking about here recently with the— with, uh, something that Christy was going through. And we talked about the sting, about addressing confrontation. Yeah. And, uh, let it sink in and walk away. And there's something marvelous about the sting when someone says something to you or calls you out because it's true, right?

Right.

And the sting is the part where you sit and think about that and then— and, and are enlightened with your behavior that's either good or bad. And, and then you get, um, you change that behavior, right? And so it's, wow, I shouldn't do that anymore. Wow, I should have addressed that this way, or I should have came at it with a different tone in my voice. Um, And I think you only learn that from getting stung. Yeah, many times. And it's usually a conversation, it's like talking to your grandmother, right? Your grandmother's not going to hit you, but she'll say something, it'll cut you to the core, right?

Yeah, right.

And it'll end with, bless your heart.

Yeah, I mean, just, just letting the experience teach you something about it, right? I mean, like, what— and many times when it's been a painful situation for me, it's like, what did I do to cause this? What was my contributing factor to this moment? And how could I avoid that in the future and not have this happen again? Because even though pain sucks, it's one of those things. Okay. What can I take away from it? Right.

It's an amazing teacher for people like me.

Me too. Yeah. So, Craig, what is the best piece of advice that you have received?

No one's ever actually asked, thrown it back at me, right? Man.

See, it's not easy.

It's not. I mean, honestly, you have so much, I bet. I was going to say, like, pick one. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings and be like, well, it was, you know, that's the process that goes through my head. It's like, who did I hear it from and who do I actually want to say? I honestly think, like, the Golden Rule is one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that anyone could ever see. It's like, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I think, I think so many people take that and twist that into something that it's not.

Right.

You know, and it's, it's, it's really just be decent to, to everyone that you meet. And it's so many people go, do unto others that agree with you. Do unto others, you know, you know what I mean? And, like, that's exactly the way that most people behave. Whereas if I can sacrificially treat you the way I would wanna be treated despite the fact that you have been horrible to me.

That's right.

And a nasty human being, then I'm, then I'm living in a different state of mind. Um, and I, I don't do it, um, and I try to, but it's, it's one of, it's one of the ways that I think most people could change the trajectory of their life if they would just be decent to everyone else regardless of their background, regardless of their current state. Just treat them the way— I mean, and like, I don't know, I don't know, it seems I think for some people it feels weird to say it that way because it almost feels like you're being selfish. Treat people the way you want to be treated. I almost try and think of it, okay, like, how would I want somebody to treat my, my

grandmother? That's the way I should try and treat everybody.

Right.

You know, like, when I'm, when I'm doing a job for somebody, like, if I was a stranger and this was my grandmother, like, how would I want that person who's doing that work to do that work for her?

Mm-hmm.

Um, so that's, that's— I'll tell you that I'm telling you that one because that's the one that I probably struggle with. Because I, like, in my, in my, uh, my carnal being, I want to treat everyone the way that they deserve to be treated, right? And the problem with that is I don't deserve to be treated all that great. So anytime somebody treats me kind, it's, it's always a blessing. Right. So that's awesome. Yeah. Nice. Did you actually give one?

She didn't. She spun it around.

Oh no, it was, it was your dad's that she, she speak with that. Listen more than you speak. That's no, they're all stolen. None of us came up with them on our own.

You know, my, my kind of theme this year was be comfortable being uncomfortable, which You know, for this year, it was about, you know, like the whole YouTube thing is just not up my alley. I am not that person, right? I'm not that person that I don't want to be on an HGTV show.

Sure.

I— so I just kind of doing things that are outside of your comfort zone. Mm-hmm.

You're nailing it. You are nailing it.

Yeah, it's a work in progress. Affirmation from the hubs. There you go. Yeah, I mean, again, he wants to sleep inside tonight, so it's still a little—

you're walking the good path, brother. Well, um, so there's, there's a secret, secret last question that we, we have to ask all of our guests, and this really pertains more to you, but I mean, if you know it, that actually might be impressive. If people want to find you, how do they get a hold of you?

OnTheMoveTexas.com is really the easiest way to get in touch with me.

Okay. And they can find you on social media?

On social media, also OnTheMoveTexas.com.

Okay. Texas— is it Facebook, Instagram?

Facebook, Instagram.

Anything else?

LinkedIn.

Okay.

Email address, you want to share that? Is christy.fennell@cbunited.com.

All right, we'll share all that up in the, in the show notes then. Anything else? I think that's it.

Thank you so much for having us. It was— it's always a good time, you know.

Oh yeah, it's always a good time. We need to do this again. We need to— we were supposed to have a roundtable tonight. We're gonna, we're gonna see if we can do that again, get some of these real estate agents that are scared to be in our presence. So, but thank you guys for, uh, for joining us tonight. We appreciate it. If you haven't hit the subscribe button yet, hit the subscribe button, the like button, the love button, all the buttons. Share the episode. Uh, get in contact with Christie if you want to get that lakefront tour and get the dream home. Uh, we'll see you next week.

Bye.