Squatting, BRICS, and Predictions

This is episode number 254 of The Homeowner Show. Well, 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 The Homeowner Show. We're so glad you could join us for another live episode here from the elusive Homeowner Show Studios.

Lucid.

That's right. How you doing, Kev?

Oh man, I'm good. I actually, uh, I just got back from a whole nother country.

Whole other country?

Whole nother country. We are—

Different homeowners in those countries.

You know what? It's, it's very different. We, uh, took a group down to Honduras to, uh, to do some mission work down there. And, uh, man, it is, uh, it's a different It's a different place, man. I, you know, it definitely, definitely gives you some perspective on where we live and, um, you know, some of the things that we're afforded each and every day. Like little things like electricity, like running water, you know, things that—

Yeah.

Seem like a, a no-brainer for us and things that are just a something else that we always have is a, is an absolute luxury. in areas down there. So, um, yeah, so that's—

Do you want to, uh, confess your illicit activity in said foreign country?

Well, I don't know what you're talking about.

There wasn't some, uh, some, some border shenanigans?

I don't— well, I mean, at this point it doesn't really matter, right?

I don't know. Is there a, uh, is there a consulate to the, uh, the Honduran government here in Houston?

I doubt it.

Okay.

And even if there is, I could tell you about some stuff we saw. But we had fun.

Oh, I just, I just want to, you know, draw a suspicious eye to the world of the internet right on you.

Well, I'll just put it this way. Like, there are certain places that it's pretty easy to get into other countries.

Okay.

All right.

Not that you would ever do any such thing.

Why would we?

Right. I mean, what's, what's the benefit?

I mean, unless you just need to have lunch in another place and just say that you did. Maybe.

So that's, that's your defense is like, why would I ever do such a thing, right, as that?

Right. What, what's the point?

You're like an actor. What's my motivation? Right. You tell me.

But, but I will say this, like, so we had a group with us and, uh, we were coming back in the country and, uh, going through customs. I was like, now if anybody asks, we've only been in one country. And this one kid that's with me, he goes, oh, except for that one time. Remember that one time whenever we did that one thing? And then—

No, no one remembers that. Exactly. If you say that, we're all gonna leave you here.

What I told him, I said, I said, look, here's the deal. We're still not in America. You think that we're in America. We are not.

Write your memoirs in 20 years, kid.

That's right. I said, we are still not in the United States of America. If, like, here's the deal. If you went to Nicaragua while on this trip, that's fine.

That's right.

I didn't.

We didn't do a thing.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I will straight up sell you out, kid.

Exactly. I'm like, look, you better call your mama or somebody because I'm not taking this for you.

So I think that's fair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How you doing?

I'm doing okay. I'll be doing a lot better once my water heater gets replaced.

Uh-oh.

Yeah.

What did it start leaking?

It started leaking.

That's typically like how you know your water heater is going out.

It just starts leaking. It just starts leaking. Yeah. So like, we— it's, in my opinion, it's like in the worst place. Like it's on the second floor.

Why do they— why in the world do they do that?

Why is anything the way it is in my house? I don't know.

Well, that's true. But like so many people, especially in the Houston area, have their water heater up in the attic.

The attic, that's the one that gets me. I don't get that. I have had, I'm not kidding, man, I have had 5 different customers now who have gone on vacation and come back home to their homes completely flooded.

Yeah.

And the water's just like, it just decided to start leaking the day they left, right? And it ran the whole time, destroyed the home, and they were out of their house for 6 months.

Yep.

And here's the deal, like every time it's because the water heater's in the attic.

Yeah. Yeah. And here's the deal. I mean, like, the problem is you don't know your water heater is gonna go bad. I mean, you don't. I mean, it's gonna happen. I mean, it's gonna rust out. It's gonna happen. So whenever it does, the smart thing to do is to put a, like a water detector on it.

One of those leak detector things? Yeah, one of those leak detector things.

But the problem is the majority of those are just a beep. That's all that happens. They start beeping. So that if you're in the house, you can be like, hey, what's that beeping? And you go explore where the beeping is. you find out, hey, I got water in the pan, right? Mhm. Unless you're going to spend the money to get a Wi-Fi one, don't waste your money.

Sure. Like, like, just gonna beep?

Just gonna— yeah, like, especially if you're going out of town, right? Like, I know that the leak detectors are still good, but even if you're going to be out of town for the weekend, like, I'm headed out, out to Dallas or something for the weekend, right? Like, something's gonna happen. So I don't understand putting it in the attic, man. I don't get it.

Me either. Like, and it, like, it freaks me out every time I go open one and I see like 3 of them.

Yeah.

Like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, you just—

I mean, like, how would you even know if it is leaking? You wouldn't know.

No.

You wouldn't know.

No.

Until it like just has destroyed your insulation.

Comes through your— comes through the roof.

Yeah. So anyway, the— so we, we caught it early.

Good.

And what I will, you know, not— I, I told you before, we're getting it replaced. We're having to have some— part of the reason it's, it's going to be the price that it is is because we're having to have some, uh, some work done to the plumbing adjacent to the water heater in order to make it work. Because like everything else that was done in our house prior to us getting here, it was done by a cockeyed drunk. And not done properly. Like, the guy, the guy was out here today and he's like, yeah, I haven't seen a gas connection like that in like over 30 years. And I'm like, oh, that sounds about right. He probably like tore it out of a house that had been demoed back in the '50s. I'm like, this will work.

This will work.

Yeah. So anyway, I asked him, I was like, hey, I mean, what if we were interested in going with tankless?

Oh yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the problem with that is you have to have a 3/4-inch line coming in.

That was the problem.

It's always the problem.

Yep.

He's got a half inch, right? He's got a half inch.

Yep.

Yep.

So couldn't do it.

Of course not.

But here's the thing, man. Like I told you how much the one that we're getting is gonna be.

Yeah, that was actually shocking. And I've talked about this for just a moment 'cause I was like, what, like $1,500?

I'm not mentioning the price just because our friends Paul the Plumber are taking care of it for us. I don't want people to think that that's gonna be the price. I don't know that that's their normal price.

It's more than I expected it to be. I'll put it there.

So sure. But I think that's because of all the additional work work on top of just installing the water heater.

Seems reasonable to me.

Um, and it— I, I would imagine it's going to be quite a bit of work.

Yeah.

Um, the tankless was going to be over $6,000.

Oh. If—

and that was like— and he was like, we can't do it, but it would be this much.

Because is that— is that to do like the, the kind that has the returns and everything to where it stays hot all the time?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, There's ways to just— I think they typically install the Rinnai.

Well, those are the best. So, I mean, those are, those are the best. They, they, they're the most reliable. They're the name brand, right? They, you know, everywhere you have a water source, they've got the hot water return so that you're constantly getting hot water immediately.

Have you, have you seen these tiny electric source water heaters? Yeah.

I mean, they just go like at the—

yeah, just like right underneath the sink.

Yeah. And they're like $30 apiece or something.

Ah, they're a little bit more than that.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, they're, they're, I mean, they're, they're like $100.

Okay.

But I mean—

But it gives you instant heat, right?

You don't have to run a second supply line.

Yeah.

You just have to have the one cold water supply line to the sink, and then it's— you can Y it off from there into hot and cold just underneath the sink.

I mean, that—

it makes a lot of sense, especially if you're doing like new construction add-ons and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it saves a lot of money.

Saves a lot of money because you're not having to trench new pipe, right?

You know?

Yeah.

And honestly, I mean, most of the time those are like little powder rooms and things like that that you're adding on.

Like, if you're trying to do like a shower, I don't obviously probably recommend it. Yeah. But like, if you're just trying to, you know, wash your face or whatever.

Yep. And that's typically where I've seen them, is a sink. Yeah. In like a, like a pool bathroom. Yeah, something like that. Absolutely. You know, and, uh, so super smart.

Sure.

Um, you know, obviously it's not going to be like a massive seller across the home market, But for those very specific situations like what you're talking about, work great.

Sure.

So anyway, we got a cool show for you guys tonight. We've, we've got some, some stories in the news, some old, some new, uh, that we want to get to. Which, which one you want to get to first, Kev?

Uh, let's—

you want to go in order?

Let's go in order.

What's— so what's, what's, what's first?

Oldest first, right?

Right. So this, this is an interesting one. This happened back in March, I believe, actually here in the Houston area. And Kevin and I were actually watching the video. So the headline on this, and this is from March 24th of this year, it says, woman claims trespassers moved into her Meyerland rental home and changed her locks.

Sorry, I don't know where to go with that. Where else to go with that other than start laughing? I'm sorry.

So the way the story goes is this this woman, Linda, I don't know how to pronounce the last name. I'm going to go Gyeong, own a home in Houston in South Braeswood, which is a fairly nice area of Houston.

Sure.

And the rent on the home is $3,600 a month. Right?

Jeez. That's so much money.

It's a lot of money. And honestly, like, that house isn't much bigger than mine.

No.

And I, I don't live in a very big house, y'all. Like, I, I opted for land more than I did house.

Sure.

So anyway, they were getting the house— well, the plan was they were getting the house ready to rent.

Right.

So she decided to show up on the property with the landscaping company to get it all straightened up and cleaned up. And she went to go inside the house, and she noticed that there were 5 people inside that she did not know.

Womp womp.

Went to the door, tried to use her key, which no longer worked.

Womp womp.

So she called the police.

Of course, as you do.

The police showed up and said, oh, it's a rental house. This is a civil matter. Sorry, we can't help.

Oh my gosh. Like, this, this is like a nightmare of a story, right? For a landlord.

Well, I think, and like, as I dug into the story a little bit more, I think it's actually a nightmare story for both of them. Yeah.

So we watched a video of, uh, the interview of this said trespasser. Of— it's an interview that was, uh, probably anonymously done. I don't even know who the person was.

Yeah, well, we can post a link up to it later.

Okay. Yeah, but basically this, this interviewer was going, hey, why are you living in someone else's house? Yeah. And she was like, I'm not. Like, I— this is the house that we put a lease on.

Yep.

We have a lease agreement. We paid $6,000 to get into this lease agreement.

Yep.

And the lady's going, where's the lease? And she was like, we gave it to the realtor. So who's the name of the realtor? She's like, you— it's on the lease. You can go find it yourself. And she's like, I'm telling you, the person that owns this home doesn't have a lease from you.

Yeah.

You know?

Well, she was even saying, she's like, I saw the lease. It's not a real lease.

It's not a real lease.

And the lady was trying to explain. She's like, look, we paid 6 grand. We, we moved here from California. I think, I think these people got taken as well.

Sure. Because what, what's interesting is like the lady goes, we have video of you changing the locks. And the lady's like, I'm done talking to you.

Jesus Christ.

It was like, she probably does because we changed the locks.

Yeah.

But it's because we thought we were supposed to, you know?

Yeah, it's crazy. So, and the whole, the whole thing ends, you know, like they, they have like a back and forth, you know, sort of confrontation on this. It's like, why are you trespassing? I'm not trespassing. I have a lease. I pay. And like, you could, you can imagine her frustration because like, one, like you have to imagine in her head she's realizing what's going on.

Yeah.

Like, I got taken, right? The only thing I can fall back on is I have a lease. Is, I have a lease and I paid somebody $6,000, right? Please don't make this worse than it already is, right? You know, I— and they're, and they're unwilling to go. And so like they had to go into, what do they call it, um, eviction.

Oh yeah, which, which, that's like, that's a, that's such a long process. That's the last thing that a, that a landlord wants to do is evict someone.

Like And so anyone reading this story that doesn't have a home just learned a lesson.

Yeah.

What do I need to do? I need to figure out a way to get inside and don't come out until I change the locks.

Yep.

And once I do that, I've probably bought myself 3 to 6 months worth of free housing.

Right.

I mean, like, it's ridiculous, man. And I understand why they have protections in place for renters. I really do. But this kind of stuff, is ridiculous.

I mean, this is like a whole different level of crime, right?

Well, I mean, like, and like, again, like, I'm not, I'm not convinced that these people are knowing— knowingly committed a crime.

But, well, but the— not the person living in the house, right? The person that sold them the lease.

Yeah, the one who probably was impersonating a real estate agent.

Yeah, going after $6,000 off of these people and just being like laughing all the way to the bank.

Yeah. Which, I mean, like, that's, that's not unheard of to get a deposit.

Sure.

No. For a property.

No, if it's $3,600 of rent a month, who knows?

Sure.

Maybe they're going, look, it's $3,000 a month, so you're gonna have to pay a deposit of $3,000 plus the first month up front.

Yep.

So you give me $6,000, and that's totally legitimate.

Yeah.

And, and oh, by the way, the first thing you need to do is you need to change the locks. That's per— and maybe the realtor paid them to, to— here's, here's money to the quote unquote realtor. Here's money. Go change the locks.

Right? Like, like, if you, if you act confidently with a, a locksmith.

Sure.

You're like, oh, yeah. This is our— I represent this property. I need you to change the locks.

Right.

Dude, real, real estate agents call and ask me to do stuff for them all the time for properties they have no vested interest in.

Interesting.

Other than that they represented an interested party.

Yeah.

And they have the authority to do that.

They're— that they— and they have protections in place to be able to do that too, you know?

Yeah.

Because you— it's, it's the whole inspection process, right? Like, you got to get it inspected, you got to do this, you got to do that. It's important.

And, and sometimes real estate agents will— I'll be like, hey, do we have permission from the homeowner to be here? And they're like, no, I'm paying for this myself. And I'm like, uh, that's not the same thing.

Yeah, yeah. No.

That's very different. So it's like, I understand who's paying.

Right.

I don't wanna be sued.

Right. The, the difference is I don't want your money. I want the homeowner's money. I still wanna get paid, but by the right legal party.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or at least, you know, or, or written consent.

Consent would be great.

That would be great.

Yeah.

I don't care who pays for it. Show me the homeowner's okay with it.

Yep.

You know? Yep. And, and as we all know, You're only a homeowner after you get the keys. That's right.

Because you cannot—

Up until that moment, do not bring a gas can onto my property.

Well, there's lots of things you can't do as a buyer.

No.

Even if, like, you— they have your offer accepted and all this kind of, like, you know, it, it gets, it gets—

But everything has to be done.

Buyers think they can do all kinds of stuff.

Oh, yeah.

And they can't.

No.

So but anyway, the, the way this, the way this ends, she makes it— she makes an interesting argument. She says, If somebody steals your vehicle, then the police would come out and catch them and say, you're the thief. We're going to put you in jail.

Yeah.

Why can't they do the same for the house? That's her question. And, and, and she's, she's right in that there's more laws protecting renters than there are owners.

Yeah.

Which, you know, I, it, you know, a lot of people understand sort of the, like, the American way of life to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yeah.

Which I, I want to say is Adam, uh, not, not Adam, uh, John Locke.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Is that John Locke? Um, or it could be, uh, Adam Smith. I can't remember which one. You looking it up?

I'm looking it up. Jefferson.

No, it's not Jefferson.

Jefferson's rough draft.

Wait, I know Jefferson's the one that said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yes, that's what I thought.

The original Phrasing of that was life, liberty, property.

Oh, and life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, or life, liberty, liberty, property only?

Life, liberty, and property. I think it's John Locke.

Keep talking. I'm gonna find this.

You're gonna find it. So anyway, the original phrasing was life, liberty, property. No, no, like the original philosophy was life, liberty, property.

John Locke. John Locke. Haha, you're right.

Anyway, the idea behind that was like, these, these are essential rights that everyone has inherently. Life, liberty, property. Jefferson added the pursuit of happiness, and that sort of became the American motif. But the original idea was that, like, property ownership, the ability to own property.

Yeah.

And part of that was because it wasn't a given at his time. No.

What I'm reading here is it says, you know, basically the idea of being equal and independent, that no one should be able to harm somebody else with, you know, regard to their life. their health, their liberty, their possessions.

Right.

And what really that comes down to is that there's this property of a person. Mm-hmm. And, and the idea of the things that it takes for me to be a, a person, you can't harm that.

Mm-hmm.

That's the whole idea.

Well, and the extensions of that, like, yeah, that this is, this is why back in the day people took horse and cattle thieves so seriously.

That's right.

You know, they would hang them.

Oh, yeah.

with haste.

Right. Well, because, I mean, that's their livelihood.

Their stuff. You—

yeah. You stole something that allowed that person to live.

Right. Right. So anyway, that's, that's what this person's essential complaint is. Like, look, this is my property, and, like, someone else is using it without my consent.

Right.

Without compensation. Like, what am I supposed to do?

Right.

And it's like, well, go through the proper legal channel. Well, the problem is, is that, you know, what if, what if this is, this is this person's first investment property.

Oh man.

You know, and someone squats on it and then sits there for 6 months. So they're paying the mortgage, right, on that property, right? You know, unless they paid cash somehow, but they're more than likely paying the note.

Yep.

Every month.

Every month.

Without—

Now, not only are you not getting paid to pay the mortgage, now you're having to go through the eviction process, which costs money. Costs money and not, you know, time, money, and all energy. I mean, all the things that you really need, um, time, money, and energy. Like, that's really kind of what you need to run a business, and you're spending all of it in order to—

Getting nothing in return.

Getting nothing, especially whenever you're doing things in good faith, you know?

Yep.

Like, that's the, that's the rough part of that, is like, look, I'm doing everything right. Why am I being the one punished by it?

Yeah.

So yeah. Yep.

So, well, and then in that same vein, we've, we've got this story coming out of Brazil, Russia, India, China, um, and South Africa.

Yeah.

Uh, that they are about to drop their own currency, their own collaborative currency.

Yeah.

Um, and the big, the reason, uh, I don't know, I don't know if you saw, you were out of the country, uh, but a lot of cryptocurrency shot up quite a bit after the announcement of this.

Ooh, I need to go look.

Not that much.

Oh, man.

Not that much.

Well, trust me, at this point, it's like, can I get my investment back? Just what I spent. Probably not.

You leave it in there long enough, it'll come back around.

It'll come back, surely.

But anyway, so they have decided to collaborate on a currency. The big hubbub about this one is that it's going to be gold-backed.

Yeah.

And for those of you that don't know, if you live in the United States, our currency for the longest time was actually based on a gold reserve. That was the whole point of Fort— was it Fort Knox?

Yeah.

Fort Knox.

Absolutely.

That's where America stored a large portion of their gold.

Yeah.

But I think it was like in '73 or '74, Nixon took the American currency off the gold standard.

Right.

and it became kind of a petro-reserve dollar. And so that's kind of how it's been operating ever since then.

And everybody— that's the thing that's weird about currency to me, man. Everybody just agrees on it.

Right.

That's really all currency really is. It's all it is. Unless even if it's backed by gold, it's still someone agreeing that that piece of paper or that coin is got a value to it. Right. I mean, even whenever we go— we were in Honduras, like, people love getting paid in dollars because over there, they're worth like a 1 to 23 ratio.

Right.

Right. So it's, it's worth a whole lot. But here, what we're talking about here is they're really trying— with all the things that they're trying to do, the biggest thing is they're trying to dethrone the dollar.

Right.

That's the biggest thing.

That is the biggest thing.

That's the biggest thing they're trying to do.

Yeah. So they're, they're trying to economically manipulate the United States.

That's it.

That's it.

Or economically take down United States. That's exactly right.

Um, without saying that's what they're doing.

And, and, and look, you get a currency that's backed by gold like that between these types of countries that are large, they're fairly influential, emerging economic powers.

Exactly.

Yeah, it could absolutely do, yeah, what they're hoping it could do.

Yeah, and we bring it up just because like it's— it has the potential to, you know, we just got done talking about John Locke and life, liberty, and property. It could devalue all of your property.

Sure.

Very quickly.

Yeah.

Um, you know, because if all of a sudden the American currency is not worth what it was, that means that the things that you have that you bought with said currency are no longer worth what they were when you bought them.

That's right.

So that, you know, $300,000 home or a condo that you bought could easily be worth $100,000.

Absolutely.

Overnight.

Absolutely.

Depending on how quickly this currency gets into the ecosystem and people begin to use it, people begin to trust it. And with it being backed by gold, it's more likely to have a high level of trust.

That's right.

Currencies used to be called promissory notes.

Yeah.

And it was the case at one point in time that you could take a promissory note to a bank and they would have to give you the gold or the silver certificates attached to that. To that. And they'd have to give you the physical gold.

That's right.

Or the physical silver attached to that coin or promissory note.

That's right.

Um, and you know, that was, that was a huge deal that happened back in the '70s.

Sure. Uh, and the other thing, like, what—

I don't, I don't know, do you know this, that like when he did that, that he also mandated that it was illegal to possess gold?

Oh, no, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

That's bizarre.

Well—

I mean, I get it. I understand why.

Yeah. It's because he wanted to force people to use the currency.

That's right.

And so it wasn't until pretty recently we were allowed to actually own physical gold again, other than jewelry.

Yeah, sure. By the way, just putting it out there, it's not just the dollar they're trying to dethrone. the euro too.

Yeah.

But that's just because those are the 2 biggest powers that there are. Um, but yeah, I mean, that— it's, it's a little bizarre that— I mean, when I, when I think about— and, and I'm sure most people in this part of the world that, that have good jobs and, you know, doing fine for themselves would probably say the same thing. All of my gold— I'm gold— all of my money is kind of theoretical. Yeah, because what— where the majority of my money is, is in somebody else's possession on a, like, on a computer drive. On a— yeah, on a hard drive somewhere that says you have this money in this money market, you have this money in a savings, you have this money in the checking account. You have this much money that you can put onto a piece of plastic. Like,

it's all, it's all pretty theoretical. And I would bet, again, just a guess here, I would bet that most people have less than $1,000 cash on them.

I would imagine that's— well, the, the number that they keep passing around is that most, most American families don't have access to $1,000.

Right. Month to month. Right. No, that's— yeah, that's, that's month to month to month. And, and, and that's not just because they don't have it liquid. That's because they just don't have it. They didn't have it.

Yeah.

But, but on top of that, I'm talking about like, like physical currency. Most people probably don't have $1,000 on them.

Right.

And, and when you start thinking about that, it's kind of To me, there's something a little unsettling about that.

Yeah.

About the fact that I have, I have money. I put money into IRAs. I put money into my savings. I put money into mutual funds, whatever. But at the end of the day, like, if, if someone wants to tell me I don't have that anymore.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know what would happen. I just know it would not be good. I would not be in a good place.

Yeah. So I, I just, I wanted to look this up because I noticed it right after the announcement. So gold and silver, they were both up today, but gold has gotten the closest it's gotten to crossing the $2,000 per ounce threshold.

Wow.

And this was the one that shocked me. Over the course of 2 days, silver went up over 5%. And it's, it's now comfortably resting over $25 an ounce.

Interesting.

Let me put that in perspective for everybody. I bought a ton of silver 5 or 6 years ago.

I remember that.

And I was, I was paying $14, $15, $16 an ounce.

Yeah.

And at the time I was like, it's a lot of money. This feels, this feels expensive.

Yeah.

And now I'm like really happy with myself. Sure. Wish I would have bought more, right? And it's almost doubled. Yeah, it's almost doubled. And I'm looking at it going, that may not be a bad price to buy.

Yeah.

Because if they keep doing this, it's probably just going to keep going up.

Going up. Yeah, well, it's going to. Yeah, we'll have to.

Well, I mean, in American dollar terms, it will absolutely have to because if our currency gets devalued, it's going to take more to buy. So necessarily the price will go up.

It'll have to. Yep. Um, interestingly enough, passed through some gold mines in Honduras.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, they can still find gold up there.

That's cool.

Yeah.

So, well, and then, so we, we have some, uh, Forbes released some, some housing predictions that's related to some of this kind of stuff. Um, so the, the average, uh, so in, in regards to home sales. Yeah, because all of this stuff affects that. And one of the things that actually drives the American economy is home sales. This is, this is why this subject is, for us at least, an interesting one because—

We keep coming back to real estate.

Right.

There's a reason we keep coming back to real estate, and it's not just because we're the Homeowner Show. Yeah. It's—

well, it is, it is at the core of what this show is about.

It is.

I mean, like, owning a home.

It's about owning the home, and it's like, what are you going to be able to do to own the home?

Right. So the— I mean, just— and this— these are just straight numbers from LendingTree, the— on the average, uh, mortgage. So the, the average, uh, fixed-rate 30-year loan right now is, is going for 6.3— 6.38%.

Okay.

On, on the rate, 15-year note is 5.75%. And then a 5/1 ARM is 6.5%. Um, so, and the average loan amount, this one, uh, is $225,000.

Really?

Yeah.

That, I mean, that actually seems a little high for—

high for a loan.

Yeah. I mean, when we talk about averages.

Yeah.

I mean, I think about the first house that I bought.

Well, and I think, I think you obviously, you have a lot of, uh, you know, diamonds out there.

Sure, of course.

That skew the numbers. Of course, you know. Uh, so that doesn't sound— that doesn't sound too far off for me. Um, for— I mean, for—

if you're—

if you're thinking in terms of like homes like being 3/2s, sure, I, I think across the US that's not a terrible average considering the market that we've been in.

And that's the point. Considering the market we've been in. Because I would say 5 years ago, a 3/2 that was maybe 1,800, 2,000 square feet.

Yeah. Average America, I would think $175,000.

That's kinda— yeah. And so I think that whenever you start looking at— and maybe that's why that number's at $225,000. Is it just because of the skewed numbers of the—

Sure.

$2.5 million homes or whatever.

Yeah.

Which, by the way, did you see the— did you see that motocross I don't know if it's motocross, but the, uh, the dirt bike track.

Oh, that's up for sale?

It's up for sale.

It's like $6.5 million or something?

$6.9 million.

Yeah. Okay.

$6.9 million.

It's a pretty good size, but like—

It is, but it's completely in a floodplain.

Oh yeah.

Like that thing, that thing—

I've seen that thing flood so many times. Oh yeah.

Um, it's only good for what it is. I mean, really.

Dirt bike track and skiing.

That's right.

Yeah, that's all it's good for.

Yeah. I mean, even, even the buildings that they have on there, they've all been flooded.

Absolutely. Uh, yeah.

Anyway, it's just I just wanted to— if you'd see, but I did see it went up for sale. Yeah, that's commercial, so that didn't count in what we're talking about.

It's commercial, it's highway frontage, it's a massive size of property.

It's 197 acres or something.

I mean, about the only other thing that you could do with it is a gun range. Yeah, and you could, you could do a pretty impressive like skeet shooting. Sure. Uh, clay, clay thing out there.

Yeah. Um, but we have those. Right, right. It'd have to be like really good.

Well, I mean, like, and you would have to completely redo everything to make it work for that. So you're not only talking about like this $6, almost $7 million to buy the property, you're probably gonna have to invest another $2 million.

Yeah.

To get it to rent, to do something like that. So it's almost, you know, clear. Here's the thing, man, is it— if the business was killing it for what it is, they wouldn't be selling it.

Sure.

So it clearly doesn't work, right? Like, very well. Unless the only— the only way—

There's also some stuff going on with the owner.

Is that what's going on?

From what I understand, there's a little bit of legal things going on with him.

But like, the only way I could see a property like that working really well is if you had a big name behind it.

Sure. You know, you start putting a name behind, like, a dirt bike, Right.

If you had like an X Games guy that came in and bought it.

Yeah.

It was like, hey, this is going to be—

Tony Hawk buys that thing or something, you know?

Yeah. Then it becomes a theme park. Sure it does. You know?

Yeah.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

I doubt it.

I mean, like nobody— everybody that—

if Dave Mirra comes in and buys it, like—

Who's that?

He's a BMX guy.

Okay.

But like a guy like that, that's their thing.

Yeah.

You know, I guess.

But like guys like that, I don't know that they necessarily want to be in Texas.

Probably.

Like, especially right now where it's like 104 degrees outside.

Today was brutal. It's the worst.

It's brutal.

Yeah. I don't know about yours, but like my dogs, like every time I see them, they're like— I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. Like, I'm so sorry. Like, I'm trying. We've got little pools for them to get in and stuff. Like, my Bernedoodle like hates the water. My Goldendoodle's like, give me all the water. I've heard of dudes where they have to put into a pool or something to cool her off every once in a while. Oh my gosh, it's so freaking hot. It's crazy. Crazy how hot it is.

So have you heard about splooting?

No, I don't think so.

No. So it's this phenomenon with squirrels. Oh, when it gets so hot, you'll actually see them on the ground, like, splayed out like this. And people, they're always like, anytime it gets this time of year and it gets up in the hundreds, there's always these reports that come out. It's like, That squirrel's not dead.

He's just splooting.

Leave him alone. He's trying to cool off. You haven't seen pictures of this?

No, but all I know is the people from Louisiana are just like, that's the best time to get them things. They ain't going nowhere. Sorry, people. You know I'm right.

Yeah. No, like, dude, my, my son is intent on going squirrel hunting.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Like, we, we just went out and kind of sighted in his .22. So we— hey, that's awesome. We bought Steve Ranella's new book.

Okay.

Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars. Have I shown it to you?

No.

I'll show it to you after that. It's an activity book for kids outdoors.

Oh, cool.

And so it's like all these things that you can do, and it's thick, man. It's like, really? Yeah. And it's like all pictures and instructions and stuff. And one of the things is skinning a squirrel.

Interesting.

And he's like— so I told all my kids, we bought the book, uh, shout out to Steve Rinella, fantastic book. Uh, my kids are huge fans. They watch Meat Eater and like, oh yeah, they love listening to the trivia show that they do. Um, and, uh, so I told all my kids, I was like, hey, I bought you this book. Uh, I, I want you to each pick out one thing that you want all of us to do together this summer. And so my son, he was like, well, I want to do this one or this one. And I was like, why? And he goes, because it'll gross out my sisters.

That's the best thing ever.

And it was skinning a squirrel or gutting a fish. And I was like, do you really want to do that? He goes, no, I just want to see them have to do it. I was like, you know you have to do this too, right? He's like, I know, it's worth it. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. He's not wrong.

And I don't know, your youngest, I think she'd probably be all about it.

Well, I don't know, man. Really? Oh, yeah. She fusses at me about my job all the time. She's like, you know, those are living creatures that God created. And I'm like, yes, I know that.

Right?

It's still my job.

And they're what?

Like, awful, Daddy. Like, that's the— like, you know, Daddy.

Oh, I see it.

Don't you know?

Gosh, like, I see the attitude. Like, as you're saying that, I, I see it visually in my head.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're like, yes, I know, they're horrible creatures.

Well, at the same time, the other day I watched her stalk a giant grasshopper.

Oh, speaking of giant grasshoppers, let me tell you, they got like, like wolf-eating grasshoppers in, in Honduras.

Oh really?

I'm not kidding you, dude. Like this big.

Those are the ones people are eating?

Oh, they're definitely— because they're— I mean, I'm not kidding you, they're 4 or 5 inches long.

Yeah. And they're huge.

They're huge. And they— when they start like flapping, like they have a hard time flying because they're so big. They have— they're so big.

Their wings that come out of those things.

Yeah. And they're like red. So like, like the grasshopper wings are red or the grasshoppers are red? Well, some of them are, or some of them, they're kind of either a green or a brown.

Uh-huh.

But it's kind of a reddish tint brown. And whenever the wings come out, the wings are red.

Interesting. And, uh, I need to go see this, man.

They are massive. Um, I've got a picture of one somewhere. The other thing I got a picture, have you seen those, um, They're like a leaf, a leaf bug. A leaf bug? But they're huge. They look and mimic— they, they look like and mimic a leaf. And so like the way, the way they move, they like, they like flutter just a little bit as if they were like blowing in the wind.

Okay.

It's pretty cool.

Huh.

Yeah, I'll show you a picture when we're done.

Interesting.

So, um, yeah, we're way off the topic.

No, that's fine. I mean, I think we, I think we kind of covered it. I mean, Forbes is basically saying like, hey, when's the bottom gonna drop out of this thing?

Yeah.

Like, something's been propping it up. We don't know what it is. Um, and a lot of people are still calling for, like, a commercial real estate bubble to pop.

Yeah.

Um, which I— who knows, man. Um, one, one of the things that they did say is that purchase applications have increased for the 3rd consecutive week, and it's talking about this month. Um, Or not, I think, I guess that was last month. Uh, purchase applications increased for the 3rd consecutive week to the highest level of activity since early May, but they're still 20% lower than a year ago.

Wow. Um, 20% is quite a bit.

Yeah. And, and so even though you've seen them week over week increase, and I think part of that is people are beginning to adjust to the idea like these are the interest rates. It's really not going to change.

Sure.

And so it's just become normalized. And so as people accept it, they're like, well, like you were saying before, I got to move anyway.

Got to move anyway.

I'm just going to have to bite the bullet.

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, at some point you got to go, well, I've just got to do it. I can't wait forever. Look, when we were looking to purchase the house that we purchased a year, a little over a year ago, we had, we had a lot of people that were like, man, you're crazy.

Sure.

You're crazy to sell right now because yes, you got a lot of money for your house, but what are you going to turn around and buy? And we're like, well, look, we're trying to figure it out. But the way we looked at it is like, our kids are not getting younger. That part of the reason we want to move where we want to move is we want to get our kids a little bit of space, a little bit of room.

Yeah.

We want to give them some, some things. We wanted them as well. It's like, at some point you've just got to make a move. You got to do it if you can. And if that means you have to buy less than what you really thought you could buy, you've got to— I mean, you said it, you would rather have the land than the house. Like, figure out what you want and something's going to be out there. It's just you may have to search for it.

But I, I, I will confess, I am odd in this regard. Like, I don't mind Like, buying a crap hole if I get the land that I want.

At the end of the day, the, the house is worth pennies in comparison to land, and it will always be.

This was, like, one of our first fights as, like, a married couple. Like, I, I literally tried to move us into a shack.

I believe that.

And she was like, I'm not living in that thing. I was like, I'll make it fine.

Yeah.

It'll be great. It was, it was, like, on 2.5 acres. It was, like, the most we could afford. Sure. I just wanted the land.

Right.

And she was like, I'm not living in that thing. Uh-huh. And I, you know, I, I—

She won.

She won.

Yeah.

But like, I told her, I was like, you win, but like, in— we made a deal. I was like, look, I will do this. I will buy this hellhole of a neighborhood property.

Yeah.

I'm not staying here longer than 5 years.

Right.

I'm building equity and I'm getting out.

Right.

And she's like, that's fine, that's fine, let's do that. She, she lived up to her word.

Yeah.

Um, and, and so, and like, it wasn't, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever had to do.

Sure.

I hated every minute of it. Um, yeah, yeah.

So, and here's the thing, once you've lived on land, it's like going back to a neighborhood.

Yeah. Like, I, and this, that is what she will tell you now, like, because she never did. Yeah. As a kid.

Yeah. My wife either.

And You know, and now she's like, she's like, look, we can't move.

Right.

She— the only way you're getting me to move is if I get more land.

More land.

And I'm like, I know.

Uh-huh.

I'm right there with you.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's, it, it is really funny. I mean, like, we were driving through a neighborhood, not too long. It's a really nice neighborhood. Mhmm. We were driving through this neighborhood, and I was going, I, I would hate living here. I would absolutely hate living here. And it was, it was a neighborhood Right. It was a neighborhood right next to my house. Uh-huh. And they've got multiple million-dollar homes in that neighborhood. But there is a section of it that is just house, house, house, house, house. And I'm like, I don't— I, I would hate that. Right. I would not want that.

I, I will—

but that's me.

I will say this. The, the— I, I grew up in both as a kid. Okay. I grew up in little tiny neighborhoods. And then I, as when I got to be a teenager, we, we had land.

Yeah.

Not a whole lot, but some land. Yeah. For my younger kids, land has been harder because there's not as many kids to, like, play in the street with.

And definitely changes that.

And, and all that kind of stuff. So we have to be a little bit more intentional about that kind of stuff. So that's been hard. And it, it's also like when I was, but like, you know, the thing is, when I was a kid, it wasn't a big deal for my parents to let me take my bicycle and then go around and down a few streets and go play in the woods.

Not at all.

I would never in a million years let my kids do that now.

Nope. Nope.

I got freaked out today when I lost sight of them in Academy.

Yeah. No, I get it.

And I'm not saying— I don't think that there's this big deal with the film that just came out, The Sound of Freedom. You know, and I, I don't think that the message that that film is portraying is a bad one at all.

Oh, sure.

You know, it's, it's bringing to light a truth.

Sure.

That's been existing in our country and in other countries for years.

Years.

And, you know, I— being aware of that kind of stuff, like I have for a long time, for some— because of some organizations that I work with, like, it freaks me out to not be near my children Yep. When I'm out in public.

Yep.

Um, just because I know bad stuff can happen so fast.

Yep.

Uh, but, you know, so property gives me that insulation, but it also—

and like, it isolates too.

But like, what I meant, what at the end of the, at the end of the day, even if I lived in a neighborhood where they were like, I would want to be outside watching my kids play.

Oh yeah.

And be where they— not to helicopter, But, you know, to like just to make sure that there's not any weirdos around.

No, I know. We— and we, we just came from a neighborhood like that.

Yeah.

And honestly, we loved the neighborhood that we were in. Mhm. But yeah, I felt like I had to be outside with them all the time. And now, um, I don't feel like that. Right. They can go outside. They know not to leave the property.

Yep.

And, and I'm happy. I just know they're— I know they're okay. The thing, the thing that I do agree with though, and I was talking to one of our friends today, they're, they're trying to sell their house and buy another one. And, and she was like, look, I just realized— she, she's, she stayed at our house before, and she's like, look, I, I just realized that I, as much as I like the idea of living out a little bit, and as much as I like the idea of having land, she said I like to be 5 minutes from the grocery store, and I like knowing that my kids can go next door and play with their friends. And I'm like, those are 2 valid things. And there are 2 things that I have

sacrificed in order to live where I live. You're exactly right.

I have this one valid thing. I mean, like, I'm sorry, 5-minute drive to the grocery store.

But that's, that's what she wants. Sure. Okay. So for her, that's a— for her, it's valid. Like, for me, I, I've come to grips with it. I don't care that much. But for her, that's a big deal. So, okay, great. To each their own, right?

Some people are just dumb. Like, look, I mean, like, okay, like, when, when we moved in the property that we're at now, people are like, what the— what's wrong with you? There's nothing close to you. I'm like, what, what's far away from me that I don't That I need.

Actually, y'all are way closer to stuff than we are.

I— that's what I'm saying. Yeah. You know? And so, like, if you position yourself properly, you can, you can get what you need. Sure. You know?

And stuff's gonna come to us.

Like, I'm, I'm sorry. You know, like, to, to trade a 12,000 square foot lot for a 4 acre lot.

Yeah.

For 5 minutes of grocery time. Worth it.

Nah. Because at the end of the day, guess how many grocery stores I have to pass every single day to do pretty much anything?

Yeah. I gotta pass all of them. And, and like, okay, so like, I actually like going to the grocery store.

I do too.

My wife hates going to the grocery store.

I like it.

She hasn't been to the grocery store, I bet you, in over 2 years.

Why does she need to?

She doesn't. She curbsides everything.

Exactly.

She's like, I don't want to go in.

Yeah.

She doesn't have to.

I don't think I told you a story. I had a lady not too long— this was probably— I say not too long, this is probably 5 or 6 years ago. And, uh, And, and she said something. I told her, I was like, yeah, we're going to do, uh, grocery pickup. And, uh, it's kind of a little bit newer. 5 or 6 years ago, I mean, people were doing it all over, but it was still somewhat new. And, uh, and she goes, I just don't like that grocery pickup for young families. And I said, what, for young families? Why? And she goes, well, you need to teach your kids the how to act whenever they're in a grocery store.

And I said, why? And she goes, well, because they need to understand that when there are other people around, they act a certain way. I said, what makes you think they're ever going to go to a grocery store? Like, why do they need to go to a grocery store ever?

It's a black tie event.

I'm sorry, I don't see your point.

Well, like, I, I understand, like, that your children need to understand how to behave In public.

In public. I agree with her on that. But her reasoning of the grocery store, like, I don't—

Yeah, the grocery store is not the line in the sand. No.

Like, the grocery store literally will come to me.

I don't take them to church.

Correct. I like— there are plenty of other places. This is—

And most of the people there are willing to correct your children for you.

That's right. And believe it or not, that's where I was when we were having the conversation.

He's right there. You wanna spank him?

That's right. He's your responsibility now.

He's probably thinking about something he shouldn't.

Right.

Go get him. Go get him. Knock yourself out.

Anyway, I just thought it was a, like, like you said, it was a funny, it was a funny way to come about it because the grocery store is where they need to learn how to behave in public. I'm like, lady, look, I, I hear what you're saying. I, I get it.

Yeah.

But I just don't think they're gonna go to the grocery store much.

That is really, that's not where I thought that was going. I really thought it was like they need to know how to pick out a good banana.

No, no.

Because again, to me, I'm like, okay, yeah, like I can, I can get behind that. Like, you need to know how to pick out produce.

That's fine. Well, yeah, because the people that are getting it for you in the pickup don't know what they're doing. They do not know what they're doing. They couldn't care less what they give you. Yeah. So, you know, listen, if you own a grocery store, H-E-B, I'm looking at you, um, because they're listening right now.

Oh yeah, of course.

Um, you need to hire— whenever you hire these pickers. I think that's what they're called.

I think so.

Pickers. Whenever you hire the pickers, please, I don't care what else you teach them, teach them how to pick good produce, and you will have a higher success rate.

Well, let me ask you this, because I think this is, this is an interesting one. Would you rather them be better at picking produce or meat? Or meat?

I mean, I— look, I think that— here's the thing. I think if you learn to become a good produce picker, then meat's gonna be pretty simple.

Really?

Yeah, I mean, because I think that there's so many nuances in all the different types of produce that's out there. I mean, between a lot— I mean, a lime, goodness gracious, it's hard to pick a lime if you don't know what you're doing. A watermelon, come on. Yeah, like, people don't know how to pick a watermelon. Um, like, even, even, I don't know, onions and different things. There's all different things. You come to meat and it's like, okay, learn the different cuts of meat and learn what makes one thing better than the other. Now here's, here's what would be the kicker for me is if we could like start making requests about the type of meat that I want.

Okay.

Like, pick me out a piece of meat that's this.

Okay.

Like this thickness or, you know, this color or whatever, like it, like this amount of marbling. You want to start going down that road? If you could do that and you could have people that would actually get you that type of thing. Oh, I think, well, like, game changer with beef and pork and chicken.

I don't know that it's all that complicated, but like, if you have somebody picking your seafood out, oh, like, seafood to me is a little bit more nuanced.

Yeah, you definitely got a point with seafood. Once you go seafood, you're— yeah, it becomes pretty tough.

I mean, especially with fish, there's no going back on a bad piece of fish.

No, like shellfish, you can kind of get away with. But fish, yeah, it's tough. It's really tough. Yeah, I would rather go catch it myself and eat it. Yeah, but no, I get it. Yeah, I totally get it. Yeah, I know that.

Well, and like, the thing a lot of people I don't think realize is these grocery stores, they really don't make money off the curbside stuff. No, I mean, they're actually— I from what I understand, they're still providing it because it's such a popular service. Yeah, but they're losing money.

Yeah, by doing this.

They're still making money, but they're not making as much money as they were before.

The prices are slightly higher. Yep. Uh, we all know that's the case, but slightly higher compared to the amount of money they're paying the pickers, I just don't see that— that, that's not going to even out very very quickly, you know.

So, all right, man, we've, we've, we've gone wide.

Yeah.

And narrow.

We sure have.

I think we covered it tonight. I think we have. All right.

All right, cool. Well, thank you guys for listening, for tuning in to today's episode. If you haven't already, go like and subscribe to all of our channels, uh, YouTube, Facebook, and over there on iTunes. Click us.

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