The Contractors Network Event LIVE Part II

All right, and we're back, and I couldn't hear a thing, so I'm gonna let John take over for this part because I— What's that? I couldn't hear. I don't know. Oh, I'm supposed to know something? Absolutely, yeah. Oh no. You're not just a pretty face. I'm going to pretend here. So tell us about yourself and tell us about your company a little bit.

Okay. So I'm Zelina Escobedo. I'm with Everson Equity. The owner of the company is only 24 years old. And what he did, he graduated from Harvard, has a psychology degree, doesn't use it in what we do, but he does business, creative business funding. So what happens is in business, he owns a business and he saw the hardships where the banks ask for too much because they want super safe, guaranteed, you're going to make it. But we know that a lot of successful businesses you've had to take a risk. And that's when he comes in and he kind of knows the models where we can be creative in getting you money. And that's what we do. So a lot of people that normally would not get funded, we fund them. Now,

there is stipulations, and that's where we would come in and have a conversation with you. A lot of times you may be off by just a little bit to get a line of credit. And the great thing we wanted to come here for contractors is because contractors, sometimes you want to bid a bigger job, But you're like, if I get the job now, I have to go through financing. How am I gonna get that money? So what we do is we get you the money, have the line of credit ready, so if you get the job, it's there already and you start using it right away. One thing I forgot to say is that most of our programs, you have no

interest for the first 12 to 24 months.

Oh wow.

You use it, no interest, zero interest.

How does that— I mean, even if the project is going to wrap up previous to that timeline?

Well, we have very, very good relationships with banks. We're not even going with private money. A lot of people think we're going with, you know, certain— I don't want to say creative because we are creative, but things that are normally very unusual. We're not. We're actually going with banks.

Okay.

But we know how to get you through that. We know the loopholes. We know that sometimes it's one little thing and that's the reason you didn't get approved because, you know, the bank's very broad. I used to be a mortgage lender, very broad, you know, on why you didn't get approved. And you're like, what does that mean? Well, we don't— we know why you're not getting approved, and it's one little issue that maybe your credit card was over 25% in use, you know, and you need to be under 20. We know all those. Now, not me, but the owner, right? I do more of the marketing side and tell you about the products, and he comes in and he breaks it down. This is what your problem is.

That's cool.

And he's a little— I tell people I'm 47, he's 24. He's like one of those kids, obviously he went to Harvard, but you know, that's a whiz kid. That's who he is.

Doogie Howser of lending.

Yes, like that, pretty much.

Yes. So what size projects do y'all go after? Like, is there a minimum? Is there a maximum?

Most of the time we're open to everything, and we're also open to individuals, but we specialize in commercial. That's what we specialize in because we're really trying to get higher amounts. But normally our commercials start off at $150,000 and they max out at $2 million.

Okay.

My brother actually— let me give you a perfect example— went to the credit union. They got him a $40,000 line of credit. He's a contractor. He only got that a month ago. So I told him, let us see what we can get you. This week we got him half a million dollars.

Oh wow.

Half a million.

That's such a big step up from $40,000.

Same document. Same documents. Credit union is easier than a bank. Right? Everyone knows that. Sure, they gave them $40,000, we gave them half a million.

Well, that's, that's, that's incredibly important, especially for some of these contractors, like a lot of the folks we have here that are scaling so quickly. Exactly. So rapidly. Yes. You have to have the financial backing to support that growth.

Yes.

It sounds like you guys are good about thinking outside of the box to create that availability.

So we're the solution to a lot of the growth, you know, that people are stuck. I've talked to contractors and they're like, I want to grow, but They're not seeing my project when we present it differently.

Yeah. So, I mean, for people who are kind of just getting into business, what would— how would you describe the difference between like a line of credit and a loan?

Well, a line of credit is open. You can have it there, not use it until you need it. And then on top, the 12 to 24 months no interest versus you have, you know, if you get a loan, you have to start paying interest on it right away.

Right. And you have to take ownership of that lump sum of money, right? Exactly. Once you receive that, you're paying interest, you know, immediately compounded.

So make sure you do something with it right away, right? Versus a line of credit. What if you don't get the job, right? If you don't and it's sitting there— now normally a bank won't do that. Normally a bank wants you to have— I want the contract, all these underwriting, because they're super safe. That's what they're trying to do. With us, we see the potential. We put it together in a package where it makes sense to the underwriter. That's our specialty.

within your time at the company, what was the most— if you can tell us, I know there's non-disclosure agreements and legal stuff that I don't get, but, uh, of your time with the company, what's the most interesting job you guys have funded?

Um, I think my brother's, just because I can prove to you the $40,000. Yeah, you know, being super safe.

That is really cool.

To half a million. I think that one, that's personal, and I got to see it. I got to see both sides of it, how the bank was You know, I understand they have their guidelines, but they're almost— and again, I used to be a mortgage lender— it's almost like find a reason to not approve. On ours, it's backwards. Find a reason to approve.

Well, yeah, that's something that I think about all the time is that, you know, banks and, you know, they're not in the business— they're not necessarily in the people business. They're in the business of taking money and making more, right? And so they have a box that they have to fill and everything has to fit perfectly. And when it doesn't, that's when people get denied, right? And so you have the flexibility to look outside of that box and say, okay, on paper maybe it doesn't look great, but they have the opportunity to do this incredible project. We've seen their, you know, their history. We know they're smart people. They're gonna succeed.

And that's what they saw. What they saw, how we got him approved, is he went back and we got to present all his projects that he's done. He's done projects in Cancun. He's done projects locally, small, big. he's bought and sold, and they saw and say, wow, everything he's done is profitable. Yeah, you know, so yeah, we can take a bigger risk. We'll take a half a million risk. And there you go.

Very cool, very cool. Awesome. All right, so how do people find you?

Well, I'm gonna give them my cell number because, uh, yeah, my cell number— I don't know if this is gonna be on— it's 409-549-4919. Okay, Everest Equity.

And then, are you guys on social media? Do you guys have a website?

You know, we don't market because what we do is we do this more one-on-one.

Oh wow.

So that's pretty much how we, how we do it, and then we get referral-based. You can see how people refer people to us.

They're jealous.

Yeah, so we don't even— we don't really need to do it, and we're a small company. There's only, um, on staff there's 3 of us. It's the owner, myself, and Mindy, and that's it. And that's all we need because He has a process of reviewing and being very fast, working late at night. I mean, we're 10 o'clock at night, like tonight we're gonna leave, drive 2 hours, and on the way there Mindy's gonna be sending him all the information of all the leads that we have, and tomorrow they're all gonna get called. So we work very fast on top of that.

All right, give us that cell phone number one more time.

409-549-4919.

Awesome, awesome. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Have a good night.

Thank you. All right, guys, we'll be right back. All right, all right, all right, and we are back. Would you tell us your name and the name of your business?

My name is Natalie Larson. I'm with Investor Loan Source.

Scoot up a little bit there so that everyone can hear. Scoot up a little bit so they can get you a mic.

There you go.

Yeah, that chair scoots terribly.

All right.

Must want it to like shock your chin whiskers is what it's doing. Gotcha. So, so tell us a little bit about your business.

So our business, we are based here out of Houston. The original owner of the company, him and his business partner originally started buying rental properties and apartments. They grew their business to an amount they opened up a lending company. So that is what we do.

Awesome. So it's mainly focusing on residential properties?

We focus on residential and commercial.

We do commercial though.

Okay, absolutely.

So is it any kind of loan?

Any type of investment loan.

Any type of investment loan?

Yes.

Does— do USDA loans fall into that category?

I'm sorry?

USDA loans?

So we do not do USDA loans or any conventional loans.

Is that considered a conventional?

So it's conventional. We are 100% private. We don't do any FHA, no VA. We are 100% private.

You're not helping anybody get a mortgage on their house. You're trying to help them build their portfolio.

Absolutely. We're here for the people. So say you have a mortgage on your current house, you're getting ready to move, can't sell it, you want to rent it, get a rental loan on it. That way we can take care of it that way. We also offer— so I know it's a really interesting time in the market. I mentioned that we're 100% privately financed. We're privately financed because we investment products. We have funds available where you can place your money. your money as well. So we have different aspects of our business that basically help on both sides, and we keep everything in-house.

You said something that absolutely fascinated me because of where we're at in the real estate market right now. You said you're trying to sell, you know, you talk about the rental loan.

Yes. So I hear it every day. We finished the rehab. And we can't sell it. It's just sitting. It's like, I don't know what to do with it. It's like, well, what does your rental look like? Can you do it as a rental? Can you do it as a vacation rental? How does that work for you? Did you think of an extra exit strategy when you thought about this? But no, our rental loans, we actually offer 5, 20, and 30-year options, 100% DSCR-based. So we're going to make sure it cash flows for you as well.

Well, so, and with you guys being private, are you guys able to be a little more competitive on the interest rates that everybody's freaking out about right now?

So our interest rates, um, we are 100% private capital. Our investors do like being paid, so sure, they may be on the higher end. But here's the thing, we can review your deal 100% and tell you if it's a good deal. And since we are 100% private money, our rates aren't as volatile, right? We've raised our rates twice in the entirety of our company.

Yeah. Well, I would imagine your process is not as lengthy and overwhelming.

So we're 100% asset-based. We're going to look at the property. We do obviously care a little bit more about the borrower, but at the end of the day, is the property good? Is the asset good?

And is the advantage that you guys bring to the table, is it more speed of being able to move funds on a property? Why would someone choose you over going to a bank is what I'm asking?

So a lot of people come to us, especially newer investors come to us because we have the knowledge base back of being able to review a deal, tell you if it's good or not, and making sure that you're not getting into a bad situation. The other people that come to us are people that have already used their 10 conventional mortgages or they want to portfolio them because we have portfolio loans. So they'll come to us when they run out of the bank money. Or when the hedge funds dry up.

Okay. So, and what are you guys— I mean, like, there's, there's a lot of weird stuff happening in the market right now. The last episode, I was reporting on a story out of the UK. People are starting to— they're having to take 3% below asking price in the UK right now. And so, like, and, you know, Redfin and Zillow, they're laying off like over 10% of their staff. Like, they're seeing some stuff. What do you guys see happening in the market right now?

Oh, that's, that's a long drawn-out answer. So as far as the market's concerned, I mean, we're still not even at average. If you look back over the last several decades, going back to like 1972, right, average market interest rates were about 6%. Yeah, we haven't capped it, we won't cap it. I do foresee them going lower. I do foresee them dropping about a point But it's going to take some time. Sure. Um, the biggest thing— I had a conversation with a lady earlier, a realtor earlier, that a lot of buyers need to understand, and home buyers too, is when you're looking at a property, it may be worth $450,000 2 years ago and may have got

$500,000 for sale.

Doesn't mean you're going to sell it for that now.

So here's the thing. Now, now you're probably selling it for $400,000, right? So you're looking at that margin, whether that interest rate is going to be higher. Even though the interest rate's higher, your product's lower, you're paying the same amount.

Paying the same amount. Yeah, true.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a very interesting thing. Is that us as homeowners and average Joe, we got used to seeing that, you know, 3.25 or 3, and now we're looking at 6.75, right? And it's going to be interesting to see what the market does with that. Some of us are old enough to remember when it was in the double digits.

I say we've had 2 generations of fantastic interest rates that we got spoiled on.

Yeah, we're just gonna keep that spoiling going on. We're not gonna bring it back up to the '70s and '80s. We don't need to do that. Yeah, let's just— nobody wants that.

I foresee it going back down, so it'll be okay, guys. I promise.

Well, if people want to get a hold of you, they want to check out the products that you guys use on these investments, how do they get a hold of you?

So best way to get a hold of me, or actually just visit our website, it's www.ils.cash. So that is where all of our products are. We are an extremely transparent company. Or you feel free to give me a call at 713-904-3431.

Awesome. And you guys on social media at all?

Sorry?

On social media at all?

Oh, we are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we on LinkedIn, you name it. I'm Investor Loan Source.

No funky TikToks?

No TikToks.

Okay, good. Oh, come on. They're kind of fun. I like you better already. What do you have against TikTok? Everything. Well, yeah, I mean, besides the obvious, they can be pretty fun. They can be pretty fun. Let's not go there. Let's get back to the show. Thank you so much for sitting down with us. It was really good to meet you.

Thank you guys for having me.

Have a good night. All right, man. Have you learned anything tonight? I've learned a lot. Yeah? Yeah. Anything that stands out in particular? Uh, huh? No, this is great. This is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I didn't realize— one, like, I did not realize there was like a community of Hispanic contractors. Like, that was super cool to find out that. Absolutely. I did not know about How private money worked in a lot of ways. I learned a lot about that tonight. And then how someone can go from having a $40,000 line of credit to just changing who they're working with rather than a— it wasn't a bank, it was a private equity. But it was a

credit union.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, he had $40 grand with the credit union. And then he started working with her and He was able to get half a million dollars.

It's crazy.

I mean, that's life-changing. And the fact also getting the, you know, one thing I've never really stopped and thought about, the line of credit versus the loan. That's huge. Yeah, because like I said, you take a loan, that money you're responsible for taking ownership right away. Yeah, and you're paying on it from day one. Line of credit, you could have a half a million dollar line of credit and say you only use $10,000. Well, you're paying interest on that $10,000 a Yeah, but 0% for 12 months up to 24 months on a line of credit? Can I— yeah, I mean, that's awesome. Where do I sign? I'm gonna buy a house with that. I'm about to teach the Homeowner Show a thing or two. That's right, we could expand the show quite

quickly. I don't know if we have anybody else tonight. I don't know, I'm looking around, there's a lot of people in here. A lot of people have wandered off too. You got anybody else for us, bud? 2 more? Come on. All right, guys, we'll be back in a second with our next guest. All right, and we are back with Chris Turner, Southern Lux. Hello, hello. And if we ever find that SOB that took your trailer, we're just gonna have a public lynching. Hey, the, the reward is, is bumped up to $2,000 if you find it. Is it 2 grand now? It is now. Guys, you can find the picture of his stolen trailer online. His $2,000 reward. You need to get it to—

Reward hunting.

Right, right. Get the pictures to Grizzy Hood News, man. She won't post it. We've already tried. I talked to her. She said that when she posts stolen items, she's got to— Oh yeah, yeah. There's liability. It actually got crazy on her. I understand that. What we need is we need like an in search of ad. Exactly. Exactly. I've been searching the marketplace and OfferUp and Letgo trying to find it. I'm so sorry that happened. But anyway, so we— you've been on the show many times now. Yes, sir. So what's new? Same old, same, still building barndoos, still doing some custom homes, some remodels. We've been doing a lot of attic build-outs. Oh, really? Yeah, we've had an influx of those here lately for whatever reason. Uh, what do they call them, like Texas attics with the staircase

that goes up to them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're typically a little weird looking because it's an afterthought. So to get to them is like a random doorway that looks like a closet. Texas basements. Texas basements. Okay. Yeah. Texas attics? They go up. We should call them Louisiana basements as well. Right. So I'm actually curious because I know, I know you've been doing this for a long time. What in the last 2 years have you seen the prices change the most on as far as like material? Uh, lumber. Lumber. Lumber's gone up, up, up, up, and then now it has come way back down. Okay. Is it, is it back to pre-pandemic levels? Almost. Almost. It's close. It's close. It's still, I'd say like, like on a 2x4, we're still

60, 70 cents higher than pre-pandemic, but it's come down a lot. But every other material has went up. So that's the issue. Yeah, everybody's prices are rising. How's the availability of products? Has that improved? Definitely, 100% has improved. We struggled for a while with some of our suppliers. Windows. Windows was a huge deal for a long time. Big delays with windows. We've since kind of worked through that, found some new suppliers. But just everything's went up. I mean, wires went up, switches. I mean, every last aspect of the build. An 8-foot piece of sheetrock right now is around $11, where pre-pandemic we were at like $750-ish. Yeah. So like I say, some stuff went up, some stuff came back down, but the majority of items that go into a build have went, went

up and stayed up. Is there, is there something in the build where your clients are going, okay, are taking a cut on something where traditionally they wouldn't? I'm like thinking sheetrock. Are there other like wall materials that they could be using that are a better price? Are they opting for, you know, less quality insulation? Or like, what— how are they dealing with this? Are they just paying the price or are they just making adjustments? They're typically just paying the price. Really? I mean, we try to work with everybody as much as we can, but it's one of those things, you know, our price is our price at the end of the day. If that's the

way that you want to do it, then unfortunately that's where the price is going to fall. Typically, you know, Most people will be motivated buyers in the first place. Well, they'll come up with the extra money. Right. When you're building custom homes, your clients are typically going to be building something to last a lifetime, a legacy-type home. Absolutely. So this isn't, you know, regular production, you know, builder-grade homes. No, no, we're not going to Home Depot and picking up your cabinets and whatnot. I'm not going to knock any specific builders tonight, but I could. But if you guys want to sponsor the show, we will hawk that stuff like none other. Right. So, I mean, like, I'm thinking like insulation. I mean,

are you guys using foam insulation typically? Are you guys— Yeah, yeah, we do foam insulation on basically 100% of our new builds. Really? Unless it's a conventional home. Now, conventional homes, we don't typically spray foam, but all of our barndominiums are spray foam. Some will opt to upgrade and go closed cell, some will stick with the open cell. It just really depends on budget. There's a pretty big price difference between the two. Yes, it's about double. Yeah. There's an open cell spray foam? Yes. I'm learning. Okay. If you go to Home Depot and look at the spray foam cans, The ones that say window and door, that's going to be your closed-cell stuff. Gotcha. Basically, your closed cell is going to create a moisture barrier, right, where an open cell is just

like a sponge. If it gets wet, it's going to absorb the moisture. Closed cell, it's just going to repel right off of it. Yeah, potential mildew farm. Exactly. There's no means to dry it out. Once it's wet, it's wet forever. Yeah, once it's wet, you have no choice but to rip it out. There's no drying it out. That's the worst.

Yep.

Trying to think what else has been happening in the, in the building world recently I've been hearing about. So I've never had a chance to meet you before. Tell me one of the most unique features you feel like you've ever put into a home. Hmm, that's a tough one. I'll be honest, we, we don't really get a lot of people doing a lot of really Cool things, um, we've been doing a lot of really cool doors and stuff lately. Um, obviously we've, we've doubled our business year over year, so we're getting— we're, we're just now getting to the point where we have the kind of clientele that wants to do the cool stuff. Extremely custom stuff. Yeah,

exactly, exactly. We're just now getting to that point, so we're doing a lot of like really cool big like sliding doors and garage doors in the living room type thing. I was gonna ask about that. Have you done some of those big glass ones that are like— Yes, we have one. Well, actually we have 2, 2 that are currently being built right now that have big huge doors in them. I mean, because I've looked into these, should I expect to pay, you know, between $10,000 and $15,000 to get something like that installed? Absolutely, absolutely. You can expect to pay Somewhere between $9,000 and $12,000 just for the doors. Just for the material, yeah. And then, you know, another $3,000,

$4,000 for install. Do you want one? Do I want one? Yeah. Absolutely. It'd be cool. It'd be really cool. I'd love to have one. I've seen them. I've even seen them where they're— it's like a half one that they put over the kitchen counter. Yeah. So you can open up your kitchen counter to the outside. So cool. But at the same time, where we live, that's good for like 17 days a year. Yeah, true, true, very true. I'll take them, but I want it. I want it, don't get me wrong. I want it. I want it. Well, and you guys, you guys just opened up your, your office with the new showroom and everything, right? Yeah, yeah. So we, we rebranded. Yeah, we kind of gave the, the company a

little facelift, new logo, new colors, things like that. And we did a ribbon cutting with the, uh, uh, was it Lake Conroe? Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce. Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce. We're in 2 of them, so I can confuse. What's the other one? Conroe. It's like Lake Conroe and then Montgomery. Yeah, we're in Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce and then Montgomery Chamber of Commerce as well. Gotcha. Okay. I have trouble differentiating the 2. It's hard to remember all the— you want to make sure you get people's brand right, right? Exactly. Anything else you want everybody to know? No, no, I don't— nothing special. Um, you can contact us online, visit our website, www.southernluxhomeinnovations.com. Uh,

936-205-1617 is the phone number. You can tell you're not the office manager. You don't call it all that often. I feel like my 7-year-old trying to remember her mom's phone number right now. Well, good deal, man. Dude, it's always good to see you. What was that? It's always good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you too, man. Yeah, you too, Mr. Cowboy Jack. Thank you, sir. We see you on our TV every now and then. Oh, your kids tune in? You'll have to take a photo and tell your kids. Exactly. The Texans episode. We just got done filming with the Houston Texans. It was awesome.

Cool.

Cool. We'll definitely check it out. So you got a fan right there. I know, it's— yeah, somebody knows who you are. I could see it in his eyes. You facilitate some quiet time at their house. I could see it in his eyes. There's a couple people like, who's the guy in the middle? I said, man, that's Cowboy Jack. That's awesome. You ready? Let's do it. All right, appreciate you guys. Absolutely. See you, bud. Alright, and we're back with Crystal from Rogell Gutters. So are you guys an installation company? No, we do gutters. What do you mean? Install, yeah. You install the gutters? Yeah. Okay, yeah. So is it mostly new construction or are you replacing old ones for the most part? We do both. Sometimes people don't have any gutters

and they want to get some to protect their foundation, their fascia, their soffit, everything they need to protect from water. We'll install that, and some people have a very old gutter system that they need replaced because it's not functioning anymore. Yeah, what is the biggest issue with people's gutters, like when they're older? Is it just like they get filled with gunk, or is it just like they're worn down and bent? The biggest issue people have is their very old gutters, and the installation process is quite a bit different now, and it's a better system. It's installed with brackets instead of like the giant nails, if you've ever seen an old gutter system. Right, yeah. And those, it's just like a nail hole. Once it's there, you can just slide that nail in

and out, and once it slides out, you can pop it in all day long and it's just going to keep popping out. So those are the systems that you have to replace because there's just no quick fix for that. You have to replace it. And there's nothing worse than a gutter that doesn't work. I myself have been the victim of self-installation on some plastic gutters. Not a good idea. It was not a good idea. It did not go well. My wife wasn't happy. I wasn't happy then. You did more damage than you did good. You know, I have a builder, you know, a tract builder home, you know, nothing fancy. They did gutters all the way around when we built,

and one of our biggest problems is I can tell you the downspouts are not accurately sized. When we get a really good rain, it cannot handle all the rain that's coming. So I'm sure that's a big part of y'all's business as well. It is. There's math that has to go into this. It's, there's, you know, it's not as easy as just what Craig did. Yeah, no, you have to have the right system that's gonna be good for your house. Some people have really crazy steep roofs with a lot of valleys, and when you have that, you need a bigger gutter. Yeah, because you have a lot of water that pours down all at once and your gutter will not

handle it. And then you'll see the water just pouring over the gutter. So you're essentially— your gutters aren't doing anything. They're doing nothing. Yeah. And actually with mine, I'm lucky enough to where it goes over the edge and then back up underneath. It's really special. Well, and sometimes you really want to get up on a ladder and take a look at that because some roofing companies will just give you like an extra-long shingle that hangs over, and if your shingle hangs over too far, you're only getting about 2 to 3 inches of your gutter on a 5-inch gutter. No, I guarantee when they built my house, they didn't give us anything extra. So what's the best product out there right now to help with, you know, like leaf guard, you know, keeping leaves and

debris out of them? We use the brand Leaf Blaster Pro. We use that one because it keeps out everything— pine needles, Which are really notorious around here. That's the worst ones. It's the worst. Yeah, and it also is so fine that it keeps out the soot that comes down from your shingles. Really? The little granules, they won't get in your gutters. So you don't get like that muddy sediment in the bottom? Nothing. You will have nothing in your gutters except water by design. What's the maintenance process like on those? Well, any guard system that you put on really only requires some maintenance, and that's in your corners. Like, if you have a gutter system, you have the splash guard that's set in the corners, right? So when you have a guard on that, anything that comes down in that

corner is going to sit on top of that because it's blocked by that splash guard. So that's really the only maintenance that it requires, and that's just occasionally clean out that corner. I'm willing to do that. I'm in. That's easy. That's nothing. That's nothing. That's absolutely— yeah, and that's it. They're like— What percentage of your installs would you say are using the The leaf system? About 60%. 60%? That's good. And so on top of like the regular cost of just installing the gutters, how much more is it to get that extra guard put on there? It's considerably more. The guards are actually more than the gutters. They cost more than the gutters? They are, yeah. Can you retrofit with the

guard, or does it need— do you need the new style gutters? All the gutters are basically the same style. They're K-style, so they're gonna fit because the guards are designed to fit a K-style, whether it's old or new. It's all the same style, so the guard will fit no matter how old your gutters are. That's cool. Yeah, they won't fit on like the plastic ones that are like 3 and 4 inches. They won't fit on that. See how she was looking at me? Yeah, I saw. So there was a look there. There was a look like, that guy, I know that guy. Mainly residential or residential commercial? We do all of it. We do a

lot of work for home builders, so we have a lot of communities and a lot of new home communities. Yeah, there's not a lot of those around right now. No, no, you never see them. Every square inch available. I know, there's a lot. It keeps us busy, so we're very fortunate that we got the opportunity to do that. So cool. Have you guys ever done any of the pipe gutters? No, that's a Different kind of gutter, like you're talking about the half-pipe gutters? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And those aren't very functioning. They look nice, they're really pretty. Yeah, they are pretty. Yeah, no, I see them on really pretty homes. Yeah, I assume that they

work, but you're telling me they don't? Um, they serve their purpose, but they're more for aesthetics than function, but they will function. Yeah, okay, I'm okay with that. I mean, like, if people— that's how they want to spend their money, right? But you got— you guys don't put those in? No, because those require a different kind of machine. Because when you're doing seamless aluminum— Because you guys have the machine. It has a machine. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, but you know, know what you do. Know what you do, be good at it. Yeah, yeah. Well, cool. If people want to get some gutters, how do they get a hold of you? Um, we are on Facebook and of course on Google. We're on HomeAdvisor,

so any search engine you can use, you'll find us. Fantastic. Yeah. Is there a website, phone number? I'm sorry, is there a website or a phone number? I do have a website, rogailgutters.net, and my phone number is listed on the website. It's on Facebook, it's on Google, you can find it anywhere. Just look up Rogail Gutters. Reach out to her. All right, good to meet you. All right, thank you, it's nice to meet you. No, I didn't know so much about— I've never talked that long about gutters. About gutters? Yeah, yeah, without having my mind in the gutter. Thank you so much. All right, and we are back with Top Notch Garage Doors. And I want to talk about garage doors, but I

want to talk about what we were just talking about here on the stage with this scholarship program. Yes. So is it specifically for females going into the trades? Not just trades, anything to do with construction. So, yeah, so the organization is for women in construction, so we help women of all sorts. But I have a friend who owns a trade school, and she has a young lady who's trying to go through the school right now. And most of her students are on government funding, so they have scholarships, and they're put through for free. Right. But there's a young lady who we can't get her approved for a scholarship, and she's really, really trying to get through the program. She went through some hard times in her past relationship. It's like a domestic abuse

situation, and she's really trying to make a new name for herself. And for whatever reason, we cannot get her approved. It's something to do with like the income in her past relationship.

It is what it is.

So I partnered with a nonprofit. I myself am not a nonprofit, so I can't give you that write-off.

Right.

But if a business owner wants to donate, they can send it to that nonprofit. They'll put it's for the women in construction, and they'll get to write it off on their taxes at the end of the year. So how do folks contribute to this? How do they get in touch with you? Like anyone? Yeah. I mean, we're here, but we're also here. Yeah, so I can share with the link— I can share the link with you guys, and they'll be able to go up on there. It's on our website. And so the other— the nonprofit is actually called 12 Basketfuls Outreach, and they focus on education, not just women in construction, but really anywhere, all kinds of fields. So it's our way to give you that write-off as a

business on like the legal sense, if that makes sense. And how much do we need to raise? $3,500 will put her through the 8-week program and she will graduate as an electrician. That's not much. I mean, like— That's attainable. I feel like we ought to be able to do that here tonight. I would think so. Yeah, and that $3,500, that includes her tuition, her tools, all the hands-on training, literally everything. Awesome. I think that's awesome. I mean, the more women in the industry, the better. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about some garage doors. So I have a garage door company. We repair and replace garage doors on houses and commercial buildings. I've been in the industry for 7 years. I've had the company for

5. I do mostly new construction, so I work a lot with builders. I would say about 90% of the business is new construction. And then, you know, if individual homeowners call me, I'm still I'm still able to service it, but it's not like, I guess, my target market, if you were to say. So you put— whenever you build, you're doing new construction, you put your information on the back of the door, and whenever they need you, they call you. But you do such a good job the first time out. It never happens. Yeah, so we put our stickers out there. Builders have a 1-year contract or 1-year warranty, so if anything happens within the 1 year, you know, obviously they'll

call us out. But after that time, you know, our stickers are there, our cards are there. We make sure to leave some type of an imprint, and then, you know, for future reference, they'll be able to call us. You know what they say about the garage door business though, right? No. It has its ups and downs. That's a good one. I don't think I've ever heard of that. Okay. I hope it has its ups and downs. Yeah. He's been waiting for you all night. I have. I've been holding on to that joke. I've got this one. This is gonna be great. No, that's a good one. Okay. So what's new in the garage door industry? Like, has there been any advancements in the insulation

materials, maybe the garage door openers? I mean— Openers, definitely. So first, insulation, it's kind of cool, but it's not— unless you're like living or you have something going on in the garage, maybe like a gym or something, it's really not like that significant. So if you have an at-home garage, then maybe get the 2 inches of insulation. insulation and it'll help cold temperatures, but really insulation isn't the biggest thing here. Now when you go to places where it gets very, very cold like Alaska, that's where you see like the really high-tech insulation there. Yeah, they're like, they're inserting all these chemicals into it to help maintain certain temperatures. It's much beyond— Don't I call heating

a garage door? But as far as openers go, In the last 5 years or so, we've seen some pretty crazy advances. So now, well, a lot of newer homeowners, they know there's a MyQ technology, so you can control your garage door opener from your phone. If anything, you can open and close it from anywhere in the world. The coolest thing now is Amazon can control it too. So if you opt— it is kind of cool. You can put a camera in there. I'm with you. Like, they can open the door and put the value of it, but it's still creepy. Yeah, yeah. Well, so you can get— Well, it stops the porch pirates.

What was that?

Stops the porch pirates, right? Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I see the value. I see the value. And you can put a camera on the actual opener, or, you know, there's a feature where the opener itself comes with a camera, so you can literally watch them. And then if, let's say— it doesn't really happen because Amazon is pretty good— but like, let's say they throw your package in and it breaks, whatever it is, then you have footage of them breaking your package, and it's pretty cool. I definitely see the value in that. Yeah, and it's pretty cool. So me myself, I order a lot of things to be shipped to my house. It's just simple, and especially in the garage door world. So it's

nice to know that it's not gonna get stolen off my porch, and I don't have to like go on my neighborhood page and be like, does anybody know who this is? Like, yeah, if somebody happened to walk off with— well, it's the the holidays right now and everybody's got a ton of packages coming in and the porch pirates is a real concern. So that's a great resource, a great, great— I mean, I made a funny face, but at the same time it is a great advancement in that world. Yeah, it's been— I mean, like, they've been promoting that for a while. Are you guys mainly installing metal doors? Are you guys doing any wooden ones or glass? So I do all kinds of different styles. So mostly

aluminum, that's the most popular, that's the most economical.

Right.

Now I work with a couple of custom home builders. There was actually a gentleman from one of the builders that I work with, he sent his representative tonight, she was here. They do wood overlay. So there's levels to like the cost efficiency. So there's aluminum, then there's wood stained where it's like an aluminum door where they paint it to look like Yeah, and they look pretty good. And it looks fantastic. Then there's like aluminum with wood overlays. So they take the regular door, they glue wood on the outside of it. Or like laminate almost. So it's like real wood, but it's not— the door isn't completely wood. The door isn't wood, it's just the fascia. Yep. And then there's real wood doors, which I personally just don't recommend because

it rains so much here that real wood doors absorb, absorb that moisture. It's so humid as well. And in 7 to 8 years, your very expensive door is trashed. And wood doors, like, I don't know, before I got into the garage door world, when I thought of wood doors, I never realized like how expensive they are. Because you think wood and you're like, ah, it can't be that bad. But then you see the price tag and you're like, what? Yeah. You see like a $20,000 door and you're like, Yeah, no, like $20,000. Okay. And you're like, what? I mean, I love a good garage door, but I don't know. Yeah, not $20 grand love. Yeah, so, you know, we always— one of our like slogans is like, make a great

first impression. So the wood door, yes, it's nice, but there are so many other ways you can get around that style. You can do the aluminum that's painted to look like wood. Now they even on Amazon, they have all these like do-it-yourself painting kits where you can paint your own regular door to look like it's wood stained. Yeah, I'll leave that up to the experts. Yeah, that's a good— that's a good statement because we see so many people who are like, well, I can fix it myself, and then they end up in a bigger mess than they originally were. And you're like, well, you should have just called me ahead. I'm actually the anti-handyman. It's not good. And I, I've accepted— I'm at peace with it. Well, it's

important that you've accepted accepted it. That's, that's the first step, right? Yeah. Have you seen the, the shift in some of the garage door openers where instead of being on the ceiling they're now like on the side? Yeah, so those are called jackshaft garage door openers and they're wall-mounted instead of ceiling-mounted. They're very nice, they're very quiet, they're very good for people who want that overhead storage space, but with all great things there's great cost. So are they really more, a lot more expensive? They're probably like double. So like, okay, just like rough numbers, don't hold me to anything. Like, you could probably get like a regular door for anywhere from like $400 to $600. And when you start talking about those openers that are wall-mounted, you're looking at $1,000 to $1,200

to $1,400 depending on— When you say wall-mounted, are we talking about just, just the opener? So, okay, so when you have a regular garage door opener, it has a 7 or 8 foot rail and it picks the door up from the middle of the door, right? When you have a wall-mounted opener, it hangs on the side where that torsion tube is, and instead of pulling your door open, it turns the, the torsion tube and it raises it, but there's no rail. It's like Batman stuff. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, no, they're pretty cool.

All right.

And they're like silent because there's no belt jingling, there's no chain. I have the loudest garage door opener. Yeah, yeah. And so like, in your opinion, like, worth it? Yeah, 100%. If it's in the budget, and I have a lot of custom— Yeah, I'll install those all day long. I have a lot of custom home builders, and I tell them, I'm like, listen, this is a selling point. Like, if it's within your budget, when you're selling a million-dollar house, your $1,200 opener is nothing to you, but it is a very big selling point to people with children, because think about it, if your baby is asleep and somebody comes home and opens that garage door and it just sounds like the whole

world is going up in flames. Oh yeah, yep, that's me, that's me. I have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, and if my wife gets home late, like say she's got girls' night or something, she gets home late, the whole house sounds like we're dropping Thor's hammer on the house. Yeah, it's intense. Yeah, and the kids' room is always by the garage. Absolutely. Or if you have a 2-story home, all the kids' rooms are on top of the garage. So it's like, it's a selling point, honestly, when you think about the luxury of never hearing somebody come into the house. Yeah, that's money well spent. Yeah, money well spent. And we're not talking about a significant investment. I mean, we're not talking like crazy. I'm not saying it's nothing, but at the same time, if you're gonna do it, do it the way

you want it. Yeah. And then you're happy with it every day, day in, day out. Yeah, the way you're gonna enjoy it for a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah, the other thing about those openers is they do tend to last longer. There's less parts involved, there's less things that could possibly break. So when you have a regular opener with like an 8-foot rail, 7-foot rail, there's so many things that make it revolve, and you could have a little sprocket that breaks. Okay, well now you gotta send somebody out, they gotta pull your opener down, they gotta fix it. When you just have something on the wall that's just turning a tube, so much easier, so so much less issues. So many, like— I've seen some pretty, uh, pretty dangerous videos with those springs popping. They're very dangerous. Yeah, it's crazy. Kill people. No, they do. So there was, there was probably my worst ever garage door experience. Um,

it was right around the time I got into the industry. There was a gentleman who was like a very old school, I can fix anything, I can do it myself, and he tried Fixing, putting tension onto the spring. So the springs are mounted to a center plate, then you turn them with like metal tubes, and that's how you add tension to the springs. But what people don't understand is there's so much power behind those springs. So like the average eye has no idea, but that guy was trying to like mess with it himself, and he actually like cut his hand like, like in half. Like his Oh my gosh, wrist was dangling, and then he was stuck in the garage,

so he had to Uber to the hospital because he couldn't get his car out. And I'm like, listen, like, oh my gosh, you should have just called me from the beginning. Why would you mess with that? I'm surprised the Uber didn't cancel on him. Like, hey, you ain't getting in here, it's— you're all bloody and stuff. Yeah, and they're like, there are safety stickers and stuff, especially in new construction. We're required to put stickers and hang things to let people know, like, This is not something to like mess around with. When the door lasts 20, 25 years, you've got the second or third generation owner of that home coming through. They don't care. They don't care. They think they can fix

that. I mean, like I said, I recognize that I can't fix anything, so I don't. But there are people that try. No, there are a lot of people, and I always tell them, I'm like, listen, like, do it yourself if that's what you feel safe, but make sure you have good insurance. because it's gonna be worse when you have to make an insurance claim in the long run. Awesome. Well, if people want to get their door replaced or worked on, how do they get a hold of you? Yeah, what was the last part? How do they get a hold of you? Oh, so I'm on social media, Jazz the Garage Door Girl. I have this, my Top Notch Garage Door page.

We have a website. The best form of contact is always just call me, text me. I get a lot of things on social media, so direct cell phone is good. For the Women in Construction, same thing. We have a website, we have social media platforms, all of those. Awesome. Thank you so much for sitting down. Yeah, thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. And if anybody is interested in donating in the future, that link will still be available. We're gonna be taking donations up until the end of December for this young lady, and hopefully we can come up with the $3,500. Right. Okay, awesome. If you get the chance, put it in the comments on the, on the video. That's a good way for people to see it.

Perfect. Um, people— I assume it's clickable? Yep, it's all digital. Awesome.

Fantastic.

All right, thank you guys so much. Yeah, thank you guys. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. This is our last guest. We're gonna shut down for the evening. We're gonna come out and visit with you guys. Thank you so much for, uh, going on this journey with us. Anything you want to add at the end here? It was, it was a cool journey, right? Yeah. Do you want to, you want to jump on the mic real quick there? Is that what you're Yeah, man, I'll jump on just a quick sec, man. What you want to say? Thank you to you guys for being here, you know, first off. Uh, I know, uh, we changed some things up last minute and we made it work. We made it work. And I really appreciate both of

you and your time that you spent up here interviewing everybody and the content that we'll be able to create from this, splitting up all the clips and getting them out to them so they can promote themselves and use the, uh, interviews as content. I think that's gonna be great. So, man, can't thank you guys enough. I think some of the, some of the in-depth details that we got from some of these contractors tonight were just absolutely incredible. Yeah, you know, sometimes people don't realize they have the information in them until somebody who's completely oblivious— me right here— starts asking them the questions, and then they're all of a sudden, they've been talking 10 minutes about an aspect of garage

doors that they didn't even realize they had so much knowledge. Yeah, I think this is a great addition to the event. And, uh, like I said, man, I just really appreciate you guys being here, and I look forward to bringing you out on the next one. Well, obviously, uh, we'll, uh, we'll talk about it and see if we want to do it the way we did it here, if we want to do it a different way. But man, I think it went great tonight. Can't thank you guys enough for being here. And thanks for everybody who, you know, watches The Homeowner Show. I hope you guys, uh, got some value from all of our awesome sponsors tonight.

Yeah, putting a spotlight on them. So— Absolutely. That's the whole point, man. We want to— we want to— we want to— we want homeowners to have access to these people. We We want them to get to know who they are so that they know what an expert looks like in their field, right? So that they can find— like, even so, even if they're not here in the Spring area, the Montgomery County area, if they're in Pennsylvania, that's what a garage door professional looks like. That's what a, you know, a real estate investor looks like. That's what an electrician looks like. That's how they talk. You know, they're going to be an expert in their field. They're not just going to be a salesperson that's trying to get me to buy something.

Absolutely.

I think I can speak for every single one of the guests that came up to today, and you can absolutely feel the passion they have for their field when they're talking about it. Yeah. There's nobody that was sitting in your chair right now that was faking it tonight. Yeah. This is their passion, their drive, their everything. Man, it was great. And, uh, great turnout. I know we had some terrible wrecks out there. My brother just got here. He was supposed to be here at 6. 2-hour delay to get here. Seriously? From Conroe. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, man. So we, but we had a great turnout. I mean, we had a good turn-through all night and, uh, next one's gonna be bigger and better. And we got some amazing things that we're gonna do with this group. that

is exactly right up your alley to help, you know, homeowners choose the right contractor. So we're going to be doing a— we have an online directory at thecontractornetwork.cc. We're going to be doing a thorough vetting process, making sure they have the right licenses, making sure they have their LLCs, their business insurance, making sure they don't have a bunch of 1-star reviews on Google, right? That's a pretty good way to weed the bad ones out. So we got a lot of cool things going. I think the crowd's kind of winding down and they're ready for these raffles. So appreciate you guys being here. Absolutely. Thanks for having us. And, uh, can't wait to have you guys out on the next one. So thank you. All right, see you guys later.