How to Make Money with Midterm Rentals: Guy East’s Real Estate Journey

was building homes for the poor in Tijana and we were not making a lot of money doing that. My contractor started pulling up the floorboards. He's like, "This is really weird. There's four layers of floor here. I don't know what's going on." And he kept pulling it up and he called me and he said, "We have a problem. I just found a dead body underneath the floorboard." And you're talking through the rates. I'm like, "You're consistently getting 5 to 8,000 on like a three bedroom unit?" Yeah. Welcome back to the Roots Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Lingal alongside my co-founder and co-host Max Moore. We are here with Guy East, longtime friend and real estate afficionado. Guy grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was a professional cyclist for 8 years before stepping into real estate in an unconventional way by building homes for families in Tijana, Mexico. Over the course of 10 years, he helped build 250 homes for the poor. And that experience led the foundation for his passion for housing and community development. In 2018, he and his wife launched a short-term rental management company that eventually expanded to managing nearly 50 properties across the United States and Mexico with the focus on insurance housing. Today, they've shifted their focus to Indiana, where they own and manage 30 workforce housing units primarily through renovating distressed properties. Their business now includes motel conversions and small multifamily investments all aimed at providing quality midterm housing solutions in central. He and his wife work side by side leading their small company Mikasa to Casa where their mission is to serve with excellence and hospitality. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you. It's great to be here. Yeah, we're excited to have you on, man. You've gone from pro cycling to building houses in Mexico to short-term or mid-term rentals in Indie. How did you like when did you know that real estate was going to be the center of all of that? How did you stumble into real estate? Well, yeah. So, was building homes for the poor in Tijana and we were not making a lot of money doing that. We actually had to raise our own salaries in order to be down in Mexico doing that work. So we we raised our own income for about 10 years just through friends and churches and organizations and um I kind of got tired of doing that and we owned a house in Mexico and I turned it into an Airbnb and I said it's a lot easier to make money renting out a house uh than it is to ask somebody for money. So started doing that and we grew that particular house into the best Airbnb in the area. It was the number one ranked Airbnb in Rosarto border region, Tijana area. And I said, "This is this is what we're going to do." And so then we would then we grew our, you know, our our passion, excitement for it. We did house hacking. We did a lot of things. But it was uh it was a really it was a really great way to get started and uh really inspired me. And I was I was scrappy. I've always been scrappy and just trying to figure out how to make a dollar. and coming kind of from our background um I was really motivated to to do that and so it's really provided a pathway forward for us and uh we we've really loved it from a lot of different perspectives from the income uh but also just providing exceptional experiences for people traveling to new areas and um now it looks a lot different than it did back then but um it's been been fun but I would say being being involved uh at a very different level in Mexico. Uh, and serving the poor, building houses gave me a very unique perspective on on real estate in general and just what I wanted to do and how I want to shape my life and our family's life. And uh, we were meeting people's needs, you know, with in the short-term rental industry, we satisfy people's desires and and wants, but uh, it was it was a good way to get started. So, has that uh I know there's been a a transition from short-term towards like workforce housing insurance stays for midterm uh from the desires to needs perspective. Is that some of the direction on why it's gone to midterm or is it just simply like consolidation? Yeah. No, it is. I I got to the point where I didn't I didn't want to be taking housing units away from people. I mean, I think that there's a lot of houses out there to begin with, but it it definitely was a topic of discussion. we were having to fight city councils and and and kind of deal with um a lot of government issues out in California regarding like housing units and stuff and I I just thought we would take a different direction and I mean still we we kind of are fighting that a little bit. Was it more based out of the need in Indianapolis was more workforce housing so and there's more profit to be found in that? Like was it more not to say you're you're a bad guy if you're following. Was it more that's where the demand was and less in the short-term rentals in Indiana because I know you moved back to Indiana to be closer to family? Yeah. Right. I mean I definitely saw the opportunity. Yeah. And uh have transitioned kind of understanding the supply and demand and scope and and and not wanting to take housing units away from people because that's what we were doing. We were we in Indiana when we moved here we started buying small multif family properties converting them into furnished housing units and kicking the tenants out and that was really hard to do um because people have been there for a long time and you know you're taking somebody's house out from under them and they're totally happy and the only reason that you want to move them out is because you want to make more money. So I became kind of sensitive to that. I I I mean I'm totally all for that by the way. I was joking. But yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I I am but but also there's there's a there's a heart to it. Like I I I didn't want to be a bad guy in our tenants eyes. And so that's kind of why we transition to motel because motel are already built and not doing much for society anyways, right? Sitting there an eyesore. And if people are living in a motel, then it's probably it's probably not the type of person that you want to have as a tenant, right? So, rewinding back a second to short-term rentals because I don't want to like skip way over that. You were really good at this. I mean, I saw you did some airirstreams or at least one, right? Yeah. Yeah. We'll have AJ, but like these were really solid. Was it did There's people have questions like international Airbnb. I've heard a lot of some people are like there's crazy money in it. Some people are like this is terrible regulation. What was your experience putting up Airbnbs in Mexico? Was it is it easy? Was it hard? When we started there was a lot of money in it. It was really really good. And uh it was I mean it was fantastic. And we and we did my wife and I we we work as a team and we uh we were designing some exceptional Airbnbs. But then in 2022, Mexico in particular put a tax on Airbnbs and it ended up by the time the guests pay taxes and fees and Airbnb stuff. It was like 50% of what the guest paid went to taxes and fees and wow it became a huge headache. So somebody that sucked all the profit out of it. Um so we really had Did that just crush all the short-term rental operators? It totally crushed everybody in Mexico. Doesn't make any sense. And it was like it was a booming industry and we were hiring a lot of people and paying them very well and then we just said we just we can't do this anymore. Was there local resorts coming in to replace those units? I know in in India on a small scale we have like 17,000 furnish rentals in Indianapolis. We're dependent on like they include those numbers in when they're putting bids to host things like the Olympic trials or host things like the NBA All-Star weekend. like they we need those hotel rooms to be able to get it. So in Mexico, are they starting to transition more towards resorts or I don't think so. I think that there's a strong hotel lobby. It just works differently in Mexico. Corruption and lobbyists. Yeah. And I mean from Mexico's point of view, like there was a lot of money coming into the country and it wasn't being taxed. Like we never paid a single tax on on income for years. It was like illegal marijuana. I mean, there's a lot of money to be made in that. And now all the growers in California are gone. I mean, none of them are even around anymore because now it's regulated and taxed appropriately. So, it was kind of the wild west days of Airbnb in Mexico. Yeah. And we had got it at the right time. And how much money were you at your peak in Mexico? How much money per month were these cash flowing gross? Just curious. Oh man, I give me a frame of reference here. probably $50,000. I don't know$50 to $75,000 a month. I mean, it was it was it was good. Yeah. Yeah. For people here, that's like that's better than almost any Airbnb in Indiana per month. I can't think. Oh, like I'm talking about like multiple Airbnbs, not like one particular. Yeah. Okay. Like what would one do? Well, one would do I mean, we could easily take a home that was worth $150,000 and make between roughly $6,000 a month off of it. Yeah. Talk about the 1% rule. You got the right whatever 6% 6% rule. No, it was wild. It was really insane, dude. It was awesome. Um, and so we had a vision of of building out uh an Airstream village on the water and um, you know, making it really cool experience for people. But as soon as motel Now we're doing the motel, but as soon as they put that tax on there, we just stopped investing in our Was that part of what led you back to Indiana or not? No, not at all. Not at all. Yeah. And then you had a phase of owning in the United States, right? in other markets. Yeah. In San Diego. And we were um we had some there. And we we actually when we started we would Airbnb our our primary residence. And so I just because I was like when I first got started I said this is really amazing, you know, like this is this is cool. This is a great way to make money. And so I just kept our primary residence that we had just purchased on Airbnb that anybody could rent for a week at a time. And sometimes it would rent and it'd be a couple thousand bucks a month and we would just pour that money back to the house. We'd live with my in-laws for a couple days and it was a it was tough. But talk to me about uh your short-term rental operations. Were you cleaning it yourselves? Did you always hire a cleaner? Like were you always setting up the furnishings yourselves? Like how involved were you in the operations of this? My wife and I uh learned to work together really well and we would furnish them together. She would do the design. As far as the cleaning and whatnot, we would always hire that out. And as far as guest relations, we hired that out as well. So, we had some people that were for were managing that. And I mean, we were really involved uh still. We wanted to make sure that everything uh was was going well. And I was spending a lot of time on this. So, I was really involved, but I wasn't, you know, cleaning and whatnot. And it's not like you've totally abandoned short-term rentals. I mean, you still have some, right? Do you have any I have totally abandoned short-term abandoned them? Okay, take that back. I'll shut up. So, it's become very saturated, right? And in at least the past few years, I think co blew the lid off of STRs ex especially in the fact that it's not nearly as lucrative and it's more costly. Like I look at your portfolio. You have short-term rentals. I have two. And there's one specific one that I always challenge you on and go, you could get more long-term than you could short-term. What are you doing? Medium-term, and we'll get into medium-term. We're going to talk at length about that. Is probably more worth the squeeze. Yeah. For term is it's hard for me to justify the squeeze other than I'm giving someone a job because I have a manager. I call them just my ops manager and they also clean both of them. Two different people for two different neighborhoods. And they run it. I mean, they're making approximately 25% of the revenue of the unit when I factor in the cleaning revenue and their percentage. So, it's really good cash flow for them, but they put time into it. Um, for me, once I pay my mortgage and repairs, you know, I'm happy with 200 bucks to the bottom line. I mean, a month and it's like, is that really worth even looking at it on a day-to-day basis? No. So, I try to put it pretty out of sight, out of mind until it blows up in my face when the sewer breaks. That's a story for another day. But, I've tried to just make it really, really passive and just a long-term thing. And I don't mind giving someone, you know, some cash flow that some lady that is an operator that wants to do that. And if I get more units, give them more. Cuz you would have to think the booking revenue will still continue to climb, you know, as inflation goes up. like it's going to continue to climb. So, I'm seeing it like in 10 years, am I going to be sad that I had the short-term? No. I mean, I'll be probably thrilled I had it, you know? That's kind of my perspective on short my two short rentals at least. Yeah. I mean, it's tough to make it and it's a lot of work, but if you have somebody All right. Sell them, guys. What are you telling me? You don't have to sell them, but like I was just rationaliz it might just be, hey, medium-term rental, put them in, forget them on for three months. I mean, I do do that in the winter months when it's slower. And those checks are really nice. Let's see. Let's talk about it. I mean, I said 17,000 furnish rentals right now. 17,000, no, 1,700 furnish rentals in Indie currently. The average rate for long-term is what? Say 1,000 to 1,600 bucks for a standard unit. Mhm. These like midterm rentals are getting I've seen 3,800 on the high end. Now, conservatively, like we'll call it 3,500 a month from whether it be travel nurses, insurance, uh workforce. I I don't see how that wouldn't be more profitable for you. Well, I'm not getting 3,800 for mine. Really? Not a chance. What are you getting? What What is it? Nurses. 2,000 on a twobedroom, one bath. Okay. And then the other one I put up for 2,700 and didn't get anyone. So I just continued to do short-term rental because it was making that much at least a month in short-term rental revenue. H So I mean these are in more u upand cominging areas of indie. I mean you buy a house in Marian Castler, furnish it, you're going to spend 500k on the house, but yeah, you're going to get 5,000 a month. So the neighborhood is everything. Yeah, that's fair. And I think if you can get, this is my perspective on Indianapolis, when he starts talking about Cookamo and Muny, I won't I won't know a thing. But in Indianapolis, you really do want to get into the good neighborhoods because your rent rate is you furnish that thing, like you're going to be cash flowing even if your mortgage is really high, right? It's all about the neighborhood. Yeah, that's fair. Um I still would challenge you on the 2,700. I've seen people in Hallville get 3,800 for a 21. It it's about the demand and like the surge and I think that I and they're constantly on Furnishfinder for midterm. I think maybe the challenge that you have is you flex, right? I don't think I gave it enough time cuz I noticed people book late. They book like a week before. Well, it depends on the demographic. If it's nurses, they don't know where they're going. Like they maybe didn't know that they were going to be working in Indie a week before. I know you don't even touch any nursing, right? We do a little bit of nursing now, but we talk about the booking window and whatnot. Like I don't accept anything more than a week out because I know that most of our reservations come day of or a couple days out. That tip alone would has increased my revenue because you want somebody that is already planning and knows a structure around their income because I mean Yeah. I I think that that that's huge, right? If if the person's booking the week of, they're like, "Oh, just an indie. We're going to get a gonna get a house now that I know where I'm working." Right. Yeah. So, that's what we do. So, we we don't take any bookings far out. But, but one of the issues that I saw with the short-term rental industry was that there was no cap on the supply. And even with the midterm rental, there's no cap on the supply unless the city has passed some regulation that limits that limits it. And so, anybody that owns a house or wants to arbitrage a house can take one and rent it out. And so, that that really changes the economics of the short-term rental industry and what we're doing. And I I saw that as a big red flag because you just saw this huge uptick of of supply in the short-term rental industry and prices just got compressed. Um and it became far less attractive for the amount of work that you had to put into it. I mean, if you you know, 200 bucks a month, no, there's no way I would do that, you know, off of a off of an investment. There's too much liability. And then the other thing that is factored in is it's I guess often times not factored in is just the wear and tear on the house. You know, as a short-term people are just coming in there and trashing things. They don't care about it. But midterm rental totally different because they're practically not even in the house. They're not working. They're working a lot, but it's also their home for the next few months, so they can't trash it. Yeah. M so we have a lot less wear and tear um and a lot less headaches like I don't have to replace people's you know toilet paper and you know so walk us through the medium-term rental strategy that you've employed. What properties are you looking for and um what is your your who are you trying to rent them to? Like walk us through the strategy there. Yeah, so there's a couple of um clients that you can appeal to. nurses being one of them. And a lot of times those nurses travel in ones and twos um and they're looking for one-bedroom, two bathroom places um close to hospitals. There's insurance housing which is uh we saw a lot of opportunity in that when we first started and it's still there. But insurance housing, so somebody's house burns or floods, the insurance company will reach out in a couple of different ways. And there was a big announcement a couple weeks last week that uh CRS, which is a big insurance housing provider, has just partnered with Airbnb to help their clients find housing. So, a lot of those leads come through Airbnb. Um, but some of these house burns are floods and they need temporary housing. So, if you've got a three-bedroom house, you know, you can you can get good money um if it's in the right area. A lot of times the clients have very specific criteria coming to you on Airbnb. They'll come on Airbnb. They'll come through relationships with insurance adjusters. They'll come through furnish finders. They'll come through Verbbo. Um who books them and who pays for it? Um who books it? It really depends. Sometimes ultimately it's the policy holder that needs to give the approval. Um it's the insurance company that's paying for it. Gotcha. I think I asked that because I'm like, okay, so how do you advertise the direction, right? Because if you have a unit and you're saying, I want insurance housing for this unit, it has to and it's the policy holder. They have to have already had the house burn down or flood, right? Yeah. And be looking for it. So, it's it's opportunistic. Um I have two clients that were affected by the tornadoes in Brownsburg. They became clients after um their roofs were blown off and they're living in hotels right now and I'm struggling to get them in a unit because there's so many people that were affected that anything in Brownsburg or on the west side uh has already been taken. And to your point, it's like very specific criteria. They want to live near where they already were. They don't want to go downtown and live in Tyler's house, right? They want to be out in the donut counties and live the same lifestyle. And they're paying they're going to pay like 20 grand right now to stay in a hotel. 20 grand a month because that's where the nightly rate is because there was a neighbor a whole neighborhood affected and there's only two or three hotels to go to. So they all went to two or three hotels and guess what happens? Nightly rate goes up because they have occupancy uh the Hilton or whatever just naturally and they're not, you know, they don't have a checkout date right now because they don't know where they're going to go. So I'm like trying to get them into at least a long-term rental to like transfer some furniture over or something. Um, and it made me think of the strategy that you have and like Yeah. how impactful it is cuz those conversations are tough, right? I mean, they're just going to bed one night and all of a sudden now they're living in a hotel. Yeah. You're really helping somebody find a house. Uh, and you're really helping them a lot. I mean, in California after the fires, houses were renting for $250,000 a month. Yep. I can't even comment. And those have to be houses owned by billionaires, you know? I mean, people were just gouging. Uh, that's tough and that that's just the way that it works. But yeah, alternatively, they're going to stay in a hotel and the insurance company's going to have to pay a lot of money. So, if you take a single family house or or whatever it might be, you got the right property, you could charge a lot more than you would as a long-term rental, and they're going to be happy and you're going to be really happy. So, when you started with medium-term, were you just getting single family homes or did you go right into big buying buildings? No, single family homes. Single homes. And what did the average one rent for? Well, so like uh so California, uh the most I ever got um was $20,000 a month for fivebedroom. So on average, uh we're looking about $8,000 a month for a threebedroom. So in California, in California, it's not dissimilar here. 8,000. Uh maybe more like maybe between five and eight. I mean, it it kind of depends on the the the finishings. Yeah. The what I'm look looking at in Brownsburg right now for these two clients, we've walked a rental that's 12 grand a month and the other one was n grand a month. And I'm not so convinced that this isn't like, you know, like the the Smiths just picked up and moved themselves and went to the M house. Yeah, that's saw the news. And literally like when I was walking around the house, I'm like, "All right, either these are some really good stock images that they've picked or like this is still just a family that just went, you know, to a siblings house to stay. Yeah, it's wild. And I never I'd never seen it. You've talked about it." And honestly, I've done exactly what he's doing and been in like disbelief when we've been in masterminds and you're talking through the rates. I'm like, consistently getting 5 to 8,000 on like a three-bedroom unit basically. Yeah. Yeah. And you can even do that unfernished. And these are even the nurses. What? Even the nurses? No, not the nurses. Okay. Yeah, definitely not. These are the insurance. And I But I think that's the benefit, right? Because you're not you're not within the 465 loop with anything, right? Everything's in a Yeah. Everything's outside of it. Um everything's outside of 465. And I think that is the cheat code. When you're inside 465, who do you have to rent to? You have your I mean, they're either working in a hospital or working on a huge construction project. And even that I still I still think that you are taking a discount on that uh that demographic of tenant. They're probably getting much more on their paycheck would be my guess to be able to go up to like that 354,000. Well, the difference in these tertiary markets that he's in, the supply is really low. There's not as many people doing it. We get all the we're the lucky ones in Indie that get all the out of state investors. And when I look on furnish finder at the purple dots available, it's like so many. It's the whole screen's purple because there's a million furnish rentals downtown. So like I'm just battling the the market sets the rate, right? Yeah. I would think in Cookamo maybe it's happening, but like these out of state investors from New York or Florida, they don't even know what Cookamo is. Never heard. They do. They do. They're finding it. They found it. No, they have. They've definitely I've talked to some and and they know what's going on. Hush. Well, Lebanon is a huge one. Lebanon uh PY Homes was building an entire neighborhood and one investor wrote a like millions of millions of dollars check to buy the entire neighborhood. The whole neighborhood of row houses. It doesn't surprise me he's going to make more than a million, you know, on the sale with uh Lily and Meta coming in the 14 billion development there. Are you doing anything in Lebanon? Yeah, we have uh some units in Lebanon. Midterm rental units. Now is a great time to be buying that uh that I don't know. I think they're late. If you're buying, you're not late yet. You're not late. I mean, it's just there's nothing to buy. Like it's not like you can There's nothing to buy. Do you remember the triplex that we looked at like in 2023? What? Why did we not buy that? I thought I thought about I looked at it that listing for so long and I was like I know I'm gonna like you could rent those for 5,000 a month those units and it was on the market for 300. I I know you could I know it was right on the town you could walk to I just was meeting with a buddy who said there's 10 breweries in downtown Lebanon. I was like he said 10. I was like there's no way there's 10. He said yeah there's 10. Like go he's like we hang out there all the time. I was like what is going on limited right? We just had the we just had the mayor of Lebanon at our brokerage uh monthly Asia meeting and he was talking through just the massive amount of money that Lily is putting in to just simply get water to their facility and just the amount of change that's happening there. I don't know how it it survives and and last long term. How long have you been what last long term? Uh just a town in general. It's they the locals were having an uproar over the Walmart being constructed like 10 years ago. Well, it's not Nobody's going to stop it now. Well, yeah, but still, I'm just mean long term as in like uh Lily moves out and it c like Well, Lebanon also has the advantage of being the the first stop to the third largest city in the nation, Chicago. So, getting a lot of transplants right and logistic hub. Rex Fisher, our mentor, talks about this all the time. That line from uh Lebanon through Brownsburg, Avon plane airport and they're putting a road there, too. Crazy just the amount of money there with the logistics. Avon, every farm possible has been sold and now you have a huge warehouse there and all that real estate is going to be affected and is being affected which is why we're going to Danville. But investors don't go. Well, 11 is a great spot just because it's proximity to Lafayette, Chicago, 30 minutes to the airport, and it's good. It's just and the town is is totally going to change. I mean, there's no there's no stopping it. I mean, I think it's mostly going the development is happening on the west side of 65. Um, and they're having a lot of problems with utilities, and I think they have partially solved some of the water issues. They were the town of 11 uses 3 million gallons of water a day. um they needed to get like 50 million gallons a day for a microchip factory that was going to move in, but I I I don't think that they solved that problem. I don't know what they're going to do. Yeah, they have a issue where the water the water level or water levy is too low to be able to like add natural supply, so it has to come in from elsewhere, right? But I'm pretty sure Lily is like running millions of dollars worth of piping to make it happen. Yeah. Well, they were they bought like tons of houses that are demolished by it. Typically, they're taking the W bash 40 or 50 million gallons a day from the Waw Bash, but I don't that hasn't passed. I don't think so. They're maybe going to bring some up from Eagle Creek or or something. But did you know Indian sorry Indianapolis's water supply is Eagle Creek? The the city. Wow. That's where they pull it from. I didn't know that. It's crazy. Yeah. Small creek can provide a lot of drinking. Well, I think also from the White River, which bleeds into I think it's most creek. Our supply, the White River, don't quote me on this, I think was like too dirty and not not good enough. Eagle Creek was I think they figured that they figured it out. I'm pretty sure the only reason I say that is because the citiz the CEO of citizens was at the opening day for Olympic trials and the pool had been filled from the white river to which took drinking water away and like they were talking about just running sprink sprinklers how much there he was talking about that there is a water problem in Indie and like you don't need to water your grass every single day basically is what he was saying water it once a week and it'll be scary if we're having water problems in Indiana where we're we literally border a great lake and have multiple rivers and just had a massive flood. Can only imagine in California what they're feeling. Yeah, they've got a lot more water problems out there. Yeah. Have you Have you seen the the plans to pipe the water from Lake Superior? No. Oh, yeah. They LA wanted to do it. They're going to pay for Superior. Huge pipe. Lake Superior. Huge pipe. Tons of across the country. They have unlimited water in that. I mean, that is a large body of water. It's the largest freshwater lake in the world. Yeah. How does that That's like two days to drive, right? Yeah. It's a big pipe. A lot of water. Yeah. They're going to die if they don't. Well, we're not going to solve water problems. We're not. No, it's talking about water in and San Diego and and Mexico and stuff. There's there's this this is totally random, but there's a uh a river in Tijana that runs along the border called the Tijana River Valley and it it it's all sewage water. It's open sewage water and it's been draining into the United States for like 30 years and it's this massive problem. And and basically what the president said was they've been the US sends a lot of of water to Mexico. So we're going to stop sending you guys water. um you guys got to fix this issue. So, they've got all kinds of problems out there and our water bills in San Diego are atrocious. I don't think Indiana's gonna have any water problems for a long time except for, you know, trying to solve the problems for these huge manufacturers because if you're bringing a microchip factory, um what was it called? Yeah, microchip. It's like they need 30 to 40 million gallons a day to produce their product. It's an enormous amount of water. So if they want to attract these 50 million50 billion dollar projects, then they're gonna have to figure that out. But which the like from from what I've heard, the resolve was literally just putting it back on the person that's building. It's like you've got to figure it out and like here's the resource that you can go to, but here's the cost implication, which is it's wild that that is that they're I don't know. Lebanon just seems like such a interesting place for meta specifically. I'm shocked that like why the Midwest doesn't make sense. I want to tell you a story real quick about this Lebanon property. We bought this Lebanon property and uh we were converting it into a a five unit and my contractor started pulling up the floorboards and uh he was like, "This is really weird. There's four layers of floor here. I don't know what's going on." And he kept pulling it up and he he called me and he said, "We have a problem. I just found a dead body underneath the floorboards. What? It was wild. Okay, this is a 1910 house. It was built in 1910. And he found a dead body underneath the floorboards. I was like, I don't know what to do. What do I do? Call the cops and halt the project for potentially a long time. I I did. I called the cops and they came out and they shut the place down. It was an active crime scene. and they took the bones and it was a pretty wild experience. Um, you never know what you're going to get in some of these small towns, especially with these old houses. They found everything except the head and it was a child, they think. But I was terrified. I was petrified and my wife and I were like, "What are we going to do?" Like, I don't know. So, did you end up finishing the renovation? We just went ahead. They they released the house back to us and they said, "You can do whatever you want. It's going to take us a couple of months to to get some background on on the bones and and the body. Um, we might have to open up the house again and get in there. And we just took the risk and we said we we can't afford to not do anything for 6 months. So, we're just going to, you know, finish the project. And we never heard back from the police. But, uh, that was that was the wildest real estate experience I've I've been a part of. And the the other tenants were like, there's 15 police officers there for a long time. dogs, everything, cameras. And uh the the other tenants were like, "What? What's going on? Like, we don't understand why there's so many police." I said, "Don't worry about it. It's just they found some ancient artifacts, so they don't know." It was Well, I'm surprised there wasn't press release on that that they Yeah. Um thankfully there wasn't. It wasn't. Yeah. So, but yeah, Lebanon's a good spot. I I think one of the one of the one of the challenges with the tertiary markets is that the demand may not be as strong as it's going to be in the United in in in Indianapolis. So you can you can come across that especially if you're focused on insurance rentals then you know well somebody's house in Martinsville they might have one fire or one flood every six months or something. I don't know. It's it's it's not a very dense population down there. Where in a place like Indianapolis, you're going to have with a more density, you're going to have a lot more activity if you're doing it. You could do very well at it. Same thing in San Diego. I mean, it's every day that somebody has a major issue and needs to rent a house and the insurance company is just they're begging to get in to a house because they're paying double for the for the hotel. So, and the hotel amenities aren't even like it doesn't suffice a house, right? Much different than living imagine living in a hotel for a month. Like what that does to diet to life's cycle if you have kids, you've got one hotel room, two beds, like just all the things layer and stack on top of each other of just how unhealthy it is. Um, I know that there's of course hotels that offer monthlong stays that probably have kitchenets and there's ways around what I'm bringing up, but I I just think the the houses are important and and can be very impactful. You mentioned something earlier that I wanted to latch on to and come back. Um, rental arbitrage. Have you ever went for a long-term rental and furnished it? I No. What I used to do? Yes, I have done this. So, what I used to do was I'd get these leads from the insurance companies. I wouldn't have a house available. So, I'd go on Zillow and find one, contact the owner, say, "Hey, somebody wants to pay X amount of dollars a month in rent, you know, can we figure this out?" And we would come to a deal, and I would take a spread and get somebody in there. Um, so I used to do that, and I I would then be totally hands off. I say, "I'm going to process the payment for you. You take care of everything else." M it's totally changed. I mean, some people still do that. And I know some guys that are making like like pretty good money doing that, but it's not as easy as it used to be. Well, I think that's the challenge, right, is finding the here's how everybody thinks about rental arbitrage, at least since midterm rentals blew up. And I would say really when I got interested in investing, which is like 17, 18, 19, mowing the grass, listen to Bigger Pockets, MTR just everybody non-stop started talking about it. And it was because of the the nurses traveling mostly is why people started. And then it went to oh well you can arbitrage these short-term rentals and you can start to uh write a long-term lease for,000 bucks a month and start cash flowing or you know whatever Tyler's getting on his short-term rental is 200 bucks margin and you know furnish the place out and and do it that way. And people still do. I think the challenge uh becomes is the leads like that is nobody knows how to get those insurance leads that you get and is it it's probably just connections through other units that you've had. Yeah, it's connections. It's insurance adjusters. It's I mean they do come through Airbnb. Um well I think meaning like uh so people will go and take the risk. They'll rent the 123 Main Street for 1,500 bucks a month. They'll go put $10,000 into the unit and then they go and like try to look. But you're so far down the rabbit hole at that point having it the direction that you were. You're like, "Well, I've got the tenant. I've got to find the house now." Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a cheat code. Yeah. That's what Addison does as well. He went on to borrow Well, he does that with long-term long-term rental rentals, which I think is much easier than Well, the trick that you were doing was you didn't furnish it, so you don't have this collateral and this like liability there, right? Because you'd have to have you were just a middleman to be able to overcome that. Like I don't understand how rental arbitrage works in the first place. If you're putting 10 to 15,000 into furnishing a place. How do you where's the money? Yeah. I don't know how people make that work. I don't work. I don't know anyone who does it for a very long amount of time. In the insurance space, the insurance companies like you can find a non-furnished home and then rent furniture. That's what they do a lot now. Gotcha. So you could do that or or you just look for a furnished I guess. I didn't know that you could rent furniture. Yeah. So, so they'll rent the furniture. Um, and the they're gonna adjust for that in the price, but um I wouldn't recommend that strategy. It's it's a we have no equity. It's a hustle. I mean, you can you could theoretically cash flow very well. Um, but it's really hard to to to find the landlords who are willing to accept a lease that is maybe going to be three months or six months or they don't know, but it's not going to be a year. and a lot of questions. I mean, ultimately, the ones that do take you up on that like the money. They're not going to, you know, they're getting two to three times the amount of rent. If I had somebody call me on one of my units, cuz I'm only longterm, and they said, "Hey, Max, I'm going to sublet this out as either an STR or an MTR. I'm going to furnish your place and sublet it out. Will you let me sign a lease for 1500?" I would hang up and say, "Kick rocks." Like, no. If they called me and said 2500 and I didn't have to do anything, now we might be talking. But it bes back to like how are they making money? There's a lot of people that do this strategy though. And I think it's the wholesaling method. How do you get into house flipping? Well, you go and wholesale. You cold the call and you get the lead and you sell the house and make the the 1k margin and then you keep doing that over and over again and it starts to pile up. I just don't understand why people want to own houses without owning houses all the time. I don't think you can't, right? The whole wealth in it is the equity. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. I uh I had a guy the other day call me about doing just that and I was like, "What are you doing right now?" He's like, "I'm renting." I was like, "Go buy a duplex. 3. 5% down." Like, "Don't waste your money on furniture for this like, you know, rat race type of a thing." It's more of a rat race type of a strategy. Can you even tax depreciate that strategy? Like if you owned, you can you have deductions, but no, there's no depreciation. You don't have a property. Yeah. No. Yeah. Depreciation whatsoever. That's for property owners only. Yeah. When you're talking about doing what I was doing. Yeah. You were being like a service provider, right? Kind of. I mean, like a leasing agent in a way with they didn't call you to be a leasing agent, but you're you're bringing opportunity. But I wasn't doing it to get to get equity or I you know, obviously I knew that I didn't have any equity in these deals, but it was great cash flow. Like, man, if you get, you know, 25 of these going at any single time, you're doing pretty good because you could take a $2,000 a month spread and everybody's happy. Um, and then you could go go buy a house with that, you know? Right. But if you were if you had the furnishing in there, the spread's gone. No, that that you don't do that in this. You would never be able to do that. So, I'm curious the transition into buying uh larger buildings. How hard was that to switch from I I see single family homes, you know, get good single family homes, renovate them, uh put furniture in them, rent them out. I'm sure you refinance them or whatever, take the capital and keep doing the bigger buildings. Um what what price points are you in? What are you getting these buildings at? And what is that what does that investment look like? Yeah, they're not not as much as you'd think. We we started slow and we still kind of go really slow. We don't do a whole lot of debt and we slow walk into a market just to feel what it's going to be like. Um, so started with duplexes and forplexes and and and now the motel and they don't cost that much money. I mean, they're really not like you can get a motel for 300 that that would have 10 rooms, 30,000 bucks a door. They're really hard to find. there. I mean, I'm talking about old motel that need a lot of work. By the time you're done renovating them, you might be in 50 grand a door. But it's it's an interesting strategy. It's a completely different animal. Uh the management, the reputation within the city, um has a lot to do with with the success of the project. I mean, we've had some pretty interesting stories and situations. Um, so yeah, we're not we're not buying like multi-million dollar properties. Yeah. You're not going on Loopnet and just buying the sticker price multif family. No, you're getting the ones that are beat down and nobody really wants them. Nobody wants them except Yeah. I mean, a lot of a lot of Indian like they call the the Patels own the motel. Um I Patels own the motel. Patel Patel motel. And so there's a lot of a lot of foreigners in this game. Um, it's interesting. It's interesting and I don't know if I'll stay in it, but um, at the same time I I think there's a lot of opportunity to convert motel into workforce housing units and to to market to that um, you know, market. Uh, depending on where you're at. Um, but yeah, I'd say, you know, less in some cases less than a single family house, you can buy 10 units. And so, have you bought like is it all cash? That's what I was about to ask. Uh, no. Uh, the motel with with financing from a bank. Yeah. Is that through like commercial lending or commercial lending? Yeah. Yeah. Do they do any help on the Cuz the conversion can't be cheap. It's a lot more expensive than I anticipated. Um, I'm just cash flowing it right now. I I could have gotten a loan for the renovations, but I'm just figuring out how to make it work. And you'll be able to refinance on it. I'm sure it's going to appraise for much more. Would it not appraise in a different class category because you're buying it as a motel, but kind of making it an apartment building? Yeah. So, you can convert them into apartments. I don't know how to do that, but I know that you can. There's actually one for an actual zoning. I mean, I don't know what they would require to to call it an apartment. Yeah. I mean, I know people successfully convert these, you know, like bigger hotels into apartments and I don't know if you have to have a kitchen, you know, what are you putting in them? We're we're we're putting uh kitchenetses when possible and refrigerators, air fryers, microwaves, coffee makers. I can't imagine that that doesn't classify in a residential like probably just depends on your appraiser to be honest, right? These appraiser there's so much Yeah, depending on just their bias and what they feel like judging it as that day. Well, there's so many different checks, right? And the appraisal uh as you dig deep into what actually goes into an appraisal packet. There are a lot of item lines that they're looking at and having the kitchenet appraises for much more value than not having the kitchen. Um, yeah. I can't imagine that you wouldn't be able to refinance that for like quite a bit more than what you bought it for. Like a 5x feels like. Yeah. I don't I don't know. Maybe. But we'll see. I mean, we're almost done with the renovations of one up in uh up north north of Cookamo. And uh we'll see. What's the draw in Cookamo? The draw um the Stellantis Samsung factory which may have grown to a halt. I'm not sure. Um there's uh big factories up there and and I think I think there'll be more factories moving in. If this one doesn't work, then there'll be other ones coming into town. So, and it's the construction as well. Construction workers and yeah, union workers. Uh a lot of the trades will write the checks, right? So, your like welders and your electricians, those unions will pay the bills. the individuals will pay. The individuals get in for housing. Got it. Got it. On a motel. I mean, we're talking about, you know, essentially a glorified bedroom, right? I mean, maybe there's a kitchenette. Is there? Uh, some of them have kitchenets. They're very small. 150 ft. What do you rent this one in Cookamo out for? Per month. Uh, per month? We do per week. So, per week. Starts at 400 bucks a week. Yeah. Yeah, cuz there I mean whenever you get down into the trades like the welders might not need to be there a week later. I have a a friend who just recently uh started traveling for welding doing traveling welding and he's like getting three grand for a couple weeks to be in Texas and then he comes home he like he'll share that with four guys and they'll just stay in one unit together and then they come back home and he's just got all this money. Yeah, I can see how there's a lot of money in this. Is this not a management nightmare? I mean, weekly checks you're collecting, tons of turnover. How do you manage all that? Is it all through Airbnb? No, it's not through Airbnb. Uh, I don't It is complicated. We have an on-site manager who lives there. Oh, wow. Um, and in return for managing it all, they they live for free. Um, so it's a lot to keep up with. And when we bought it, it was a very challenging tenant class. Ped files, felons, people that had nowhere else to go, absolutely horrific conditions that the owner, there's people that buy these things, they just run them to the ground, get charge as much rent as they can, and don't do any upgrades or any updates. And and I mean, they make a lot of money, but it is a hard game to play. And so, um, yeah, it's tough to manage. And everybody was paying up when we first bought, everybody was paying in cashier checks. And I would get weekly checks from weekly envelopes from USPS from the manager and it oftentimes delivered to the wrong I mean, we're talking, you know, $3,000 a week or whatever and delivered to the wrong house and, you know, loss in the mail. I'm like, these are cashier checks. Like, I can't replace these. And there was no other they didn't have email addresses. They had no other way to pay. They could pay with cash. You know, it was just a total nightmare. So, it I mean, you got to kind of step in and and and bring a different level of professionalism to this, which we're still in the process of of of doing for this particular one, but um but yeah, it's it's it's a different animal. And uh I don't need to go back and harp on Lebanon constantly. Lebanon's also midterm. Yeah, Lebanon's midterm. And that one, but is that one managed through B&B on the 5 unit or is that uh Airbnb? Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. And I just as you're talking about it, thinking about Planefield. If you drive up US40, there's a ton of these motel that are, you know, surface lot parking. You pull up. Uh I just saw one go through a renovation. I was thinking of like what the demo is there. How did you buy that? How did you buy the the unit in Cooko? Was it Loopnet? Where did you find the property? It was on Lubnet and actually there was three of them for sale for 1. 5 million and uh I was I was going to buy all three of them and I'm really thankful I didn't I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Um just bought the one in Peru and right before closing I I I bailed on the other two. Um but they were they were on LubNet and I I still look you know you rarely find these things for sale. There's just so few of them. You rarely find them. I felt like I saw you one day and you said, "I'm going to buy a motel." And I was like, "That's super cool. I want to hear more about it." And then the next time you're like, "I might have three under contract." And you were asking for a inspector recommendation. And then it like came full circle and you're like, "Oh, I only ended up getting one of them." Cuz then I'm just thinking about the demographic in like Planefield, Indiana, for example, and all the warehouses that could be very lucrative as this. I would think tons of workers. I mean, the airport right there, right, right back door for them to need housing. I can't imagine that they wouldn't be commuting into the city. But I'm wondering if all of the point I'm getting to though is on US 40. I'm wondering if it all got developed because of all the warehouses that are now finished. There's no more land. You also got the strip club over there. But yeah. Yeah, that is true. That that's probably it. It's dancers on 40 for sure. Yeah, that's what the draw is. So you said they go rarely I know we're going really in deep, but I think this is interesting to a lot of people. They rarely go for sale, yet a lot of owners run them to the ground. I would think they would be kind of like trashier assets that people wouldn't want, but it's not the case. Yeah. I mean, a lot of them are trashy that they don't want. Um, and they just don't go for sale often. That we should be buying. I mean, if you try to buy them, you you know, you go in there, it's families running them. They've raised their kids there. They're internationals. They, you know, it's how they provide for their family. I've tried to buy several of these and you just never find them. Like you go knock on the door and they're like, "We're not selling." They Nobody I Yeah, it's So yeah. And was it do you think the reason why the three popped up near Cooko was because of the the plant? They knew that it had uh appreciated so much they were exiting or just situational. These guys didn't have anything any any clue about the factory. They're from Michigan and they they own a lot of them. Yeah. They're just like, "That's a great number from where they bought it for 100k." Yeah. Like two years later. And then they were hiding all this stuff from us and uh um they were happy. We we were not ultimately. But um there are Yeah. Hopefully there there are some people that are out there doing this um that are not living there on site and managing it. But I I think the best model honestly honestly like to buy one of these and if you're willing to to to live there to house hack you will never have to work another day in your life like that. Why you buy out your W2 job by buying a motel and living there? Yeah. Yeah. No, seriously. Well, that's what these foreigners have done. Yeah. Exactly. You know, that's why they don't want to sell them. If you could buy a laundry room in the same parking lot, too. Now we're talking. Yeah. Or I was even thinking um you know same day lending type of a thing. I don't you know like you could you could do you could do really well with a lot of different variations of this but but yeah and there was another one I was going to buy in Nashville, Indiana and it was a really good deal. Found it off market and then I found out that it was on a septic and the septic was going to cost as much as the building that I was purchasing to replace. So, the septic was going to cost as much as the building. And so, no way. That's the that's the that's the thing, the caveat with these is that if you um if you do not do your due diligence, you could potentially be really in trouble because there's massive capex on some of these projects, on some of these buildings. Yeah, it's a different What would you budget percentage-wise of income? percentage of income or per unit maybe per year capex like say back uh well I just did this I I'd say 10% yeah it's a healthy amount it is so something I'm hyper curious and we're going to transition out of the super heavy real estate talk but we're like salivating to go get a motel yeah no no joke I'm sure a lot of listeners will be eyes opened here but is man you have a lot of cash flow coming in. I know it's pretty variable. Managing cash flow. What have you learned from mistakes? How do you manage cash flow? Do you take a salary? Do you re how much do you reinvest? Where do you s how much do you save for each property? Do you split it by property? Just talk to me what you've learned there. I think the background is huge on this. Tyler's asking this because we're service providers still at the end of the day, right? The way that we feed our families is by selling real estate, listing, and helping people buy property. We have rental portfolios, neither of which are like cash flow heavy. And when we talk to somebody like you that has the cash flow and is able to do this full-time, there's some envy there and some like we need we need your wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. I I do use the money for personal use when needed. Um but I also reinvest a lot of it uh because I don't like carrying a lot of debt. Um, and so I'm not afraid to use it. I I do reinvest I I take, oh, it's hard to say a percentage, but between five and 10% of the income and save it for capex expenditures, put it into a uh what do you call index fund. So see that grow and then otherwise just um the money's in there when we need it. um sometimes more than others obviously and like right now I have some great guys that I love working with and trying to give them as much work as possible. So we're going and updating all of our properties and we have the doesn't necessarily make financial sense to do that but I want to keep these guys employed so we're doing it. You know what I mean? So we've got a little bit of flexibility and my wife also works and so we've got her income and um it at this point it it's not that variable. pretty steady and I I don't know if it will as we go through the winter season um if that's going to continue, but I think it will. I think once you get these projects stabilized, you can you can live off the cash flow. Have you ever read the book Profit First? Yeah. Is that something you would put into practice, have put into practice? I'm just curious. Not not in the way that he lays it out in that book, but in theory, yes. Cuz that's what I would love to do with investments. I like the 1% like uh basically every check that comes in just stick 1% in a check or in a savings account that you just never look at and then like stumble upon it eventually. The problem is I stumbled Honey date night finally made enough 50 bucks checks. I was going to say the problem is I I stumble upon it when March or April comes around and taxes are due and I'm like here we go. Got to feed the kid this month. Um, yeah, it's it's a challenge. And uh, everybody that we've had on here that owns rentals does not live off the cash flow. We've yet to have one. Yeah, we've yet to have one. Had Rex, Nick Giuliani, everybody's I want to find someone that's literally going to pay groceries with their tenants checks they wrote them and like just see how they manage that. I think it's fascinating and it's challenging. Yeah. I mean, I I I am all for it actually. I mean, the the reason why I love real estate and I love this um approach is because it does throw off enough cash for you to potentially live on if you want to. And I've got like if you lost your job, you could, you know, you change some things, but yeah, you said the word stabilize. What year or timeline do you think stabilization comes into a unit? Uh or month. It's honestly I can't answer that question. It's it's really that's really complicated because it depends on the market. Like I feel like like Lebanon is stabilized like our property in Lebanon probably like minute one probably going to be be good. It actually No, it started off really slow. Um now I've got a waiting list of like 50 people that need to need a Yeah, there's not enough housing. Um and so I think that'll be fine as long as the project goes. If the projects stop, all stabilization is gone, right? Because they flee and and move out because who's going to pay what we try? Nobody, right? So, it's a it's it's a challenge in that regard thinking about that. But I think it's a Well, there's been some healthy bets on some residential units that that won't stop. So, I think the guy that bought the PY neighborhood would be pretty sad if those Yeah. Well, I mean then again, I mean, Cooko, somebody just announced a $150 million project in Cookamo and then shortly after Stalantis is saying that they're going to halt the project for maybe another year. Huh. Wow. That's a lot of people that are not going to be in town that I'm sure this project was anticipating. I don't know the details about it. I'm just speculating, but I imagine, you know, they're thinking about it. I'm that I think that has always been my curiosity of I love that you're early on the areas uh because that's how you have to be right to be able to get in but the I've always gone wait what happens whenever the construction stops but the answer is the hope is workforce travel never stops right like in Lebanon Lily will have people traveling in that need housing and they'll stay right around the corner yeah I mean or just their employees or you buy it low before people know about it this is true right you do the work Yeah, we probably have like five offers for your 11 in house by the end of this episode. And you sell it high after all the projects are done and appreciation has occurred and yeah, I mean it's it's kind of a good way to do it. It is. No, you move on to the next and you move on to the next one. But I don't think these projects I I mean Indiana is a great place to do business. So people just want to do business here. They love it. So yeah, it's they're not going anywhere. Yeah, the Midwest charm. Um, yeah, we have some rapid fire questions that we can wrap up the episode with. Um, you want to kick us off? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you live in Westfield. Yeah. What is a hidden gem place to eat in Westfield? Okay. Um, Nyla's Nyla's Yeah, nice spot. Um, been there one time. I'm not big we don't go out to eat a whole lot but uh it's downtown Westfield and it's uh I don't know I don't know what kind of food it is how you define good food. I do have I do have a another thing though that I about Westfield is Westfield uh Boom County maybe. My favorite thing to do in Westfield is in the summertime is go to the Hickory Polo Club matches. Have you guys been to those? No. Oh, best thing ever. Okay. Starts up in May and goes through o September. Every Friday night they do a polo match in the middle of a cornfield. At halftime, the kids get around the field. An airplane flies over the field and drops bags of candy in parachutes. And the kids go bananas and get the candy. And the dads are also out there running and running over the kids because you're nobody's looking down, they're all looking up. And then the airplane comes back around. So that's my favorite thing to do in Westfield. Um, restaurantwise, uh, well, we tailgate there, so that would be that's a pretty fun thing to do. You got to take your kids there. Yeah. Polo matches every Friday night. Yeah, that does sound like a Westfield thing. Yeah. Yeah. Northwestfield or like the rural part borderline boon. Yeah. Interesting. Um, I've never heard of that. We're gonna have to go. Um, what's the what's one habit that changed your life? Oh, good one. Sabbath. Sabbath has changed. Shabbat. Every Friday night, we do uh Sabbath and uh turn off our phones, don't talk about work, don't think about work, no TV. We're just with our kids and with our family. We do a big dinner. Tyler's been a family over and we celebrate. The week is done. The work is done. So, huge. It's hard for a lot of people. It's hard in our culture and and and people can't quite comprehend how you would stop work for what is the for a Friday night. Let's dig into this because I know that you're really passionate about this. What is the the best part of doing the Shabbat um routine rhythm and what's the hardest part? So, the best part is is just being with family and having a day set apart. Yeah. Like it is pure joy to be with my wife, to be with my kids, and to have zero interruptions and to not be stressed out at all, you know, like to say we just say no to everything. Like no, we're not going to do it. No, we can't do it. It's like how do you get to that uh the joy? Uh, I was I was listening to our podcast with Aaron Ler and you were talking about I I don't know whose episode that you had just watched of some famous person talking about the different versions of themselves and you're talking about the guy that just takes mushrooms and goes and plays pickle ball. That's like the happiest version of him. Serotonin version. Serotonin version. There's three types of people. There's the your your dopamine self, which is like more got to get work done like to-do list. There's the serotonin self, which is at peace on a hammock with a book. Uh, and then there's like I don't even remember if it was cortisol or depressed. It was like terrible. Like Yeah. But he was saying how in his early 20s he was like 90% dopamine. Like and it was like that's what America's telling you to do. Get [ __ ] done, you know? And how he's like no, actually serotonin self is where really the true joy is found is like everything's going to be okay. like you don't have to hurry, rush, right? Just be here now and getting in that. And obviously, you're a very spiritual guy. I think that's where you can hear the Lord's voice, too, is in those times of like silence and peace. Well, it's a reward, right? My wife and I set out this year and we wanted to do something similar on Sundays. Have the whole family over. We have a newborn. That hasn't happened. And actually, this is so random. Last week, we talked about doing Friday nights cuz we were like, "Sday's not working. Saturday's too busy. What night can we like just open the doors to any friends and family to come over? And it's happening this Friday. We're just going to do it. Um I love doing it with community, too. It's one thing to do it alone with your family, but inviting others into that. You've expressed to me there's something different over a meal, breaking bread that people open up versus um so the phones like have to go in the basket whenever you walk. Well, we don't do that. I mean, people like Yeah. I mean, ideally people aren't on their phones, but I think people take the cues. Like, we we we don't use our phones, you know? Yeah. If you're not on it, then Yeah. And the reason why we do Friday is and and Friday to Saturday night is because going to church on Sunday is not restful at all. It's like going to war with our kids. So, so that's just the way that it works for us. I mean, every minute's planned out. We got to get So, American church, you walk in with the rock band and the smoke machine. Yeah. So, so Saturday is Shabbat, which means to stop. So stopping everything and then Sunday for us is a day off. So we don't really you know do any work on the weekends. So and finish the question. What is the the hardest part of doing that? The hardest part is I mean your fish swimming upstream. So continuing with the rhythm and battling the cultural challenges, you know, like the constant invitations, the things that's that's a challenge, but that's just keeping it as a rhythm. But we've been doing it for 5 years. It's absolutely 100% the best thing that we have adopted as a family and shaped our family. Cuz I don't want my kids to grow up and to not know who I was cuz I was working all the time. I want them to be I want everything that we're doing to be a family. Like we're a family on a mission, you know? So, what does that mean? How does that look like? Like, I don't go off to work on my own. I'm going to bring my kids when I can and include them on everything cuz we're managing assets, right? We we want to be asset managers and and they can eventually manage those if they want to later on and have free time in their life, you know, and do ministry hopefully and do do other things but not sell their time to work for somebody else. So that that's just my approach and to become a multigenerational family on mission. Close the book. I just got the word. I mean it's like uh what you just what I heard was financial freedom. your watch W2 still working and but you guys have that freedom, right? I think a lot of people get stuck in the rat race of chasing a cash flow or a freedom number, right? Like there's a way to calculate a freedom number of what debt you have to income ratio like uh I don't even remember what the equation is because it's irrelevant because you if you set that that goal right if it's 6 million liquid is your freedom number you're going to chase that for your entire life. Yeah. Well, here this was telling. So, at our church a couple weeks ago, they were talking about retirement and USA Today did this study on went through retirement homes and uh they asked, "How much do you have for retirement and how much do you want?" Ideally, every single person from the ones that had 500,000 to the ones that had 10 million, they all wanted more. Every single one wanted more. So, it's not how much you have at all. It's whether or not you choose to be content, right? So, I'm I'm all about just like being content, you know? I don't try to compare compare myself to other people. And I you're never going to be content if you do, you know? Like just be content here and now. The world today teaches us to only compare. It's hard to not compare. You open up your phone, comparison all over the place. Yeah. Uh go outside, you look at who's driving what. Comparison all over the place. I do think Sabbath helps with that. It's a once grounding. It's a very grounding like everything can be still and you don't have to chase after something and it teaches you something in that pausing. Absolutely. You know, about the deeper things. It's And I'll use the clip when I send it out to my extended family to Yeah. We need to make this into medium form. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll I'll just say this. I know I've said this to you, but it's it's in our nature to want to produce. It's what we want to do. Like, if you look back at the people of Israel, they were slaves in Egypt for 430 years. Their existence was based on what they produced, how many bricks they made as slaves. That was it. If they didn't make enough, what what do they do? What did the Egyptian Empire do? They take their their children, they take their wives, and they do unspeakable things with them. They're not making enough, right? You got to make you got to continue to produce. Otherwise, you don't have any value. We live in modern day Egypt. How much can you produce? Mhm. Right. So, what did God do to the people of of Israel? He said, "Don't work one day a week." Right? You're going to be totally different. Your life is not about consumption. What you don't complete, I will complete for you. I will bring to completion. And so, you know, it's an act of resistance. take doing the Sabbath foundational. I've heard uh every successful person I know has some sort of pause within their week and that's huge. I think Tyler and I often challenge daily, right? And like 5:00 p. m. shut down. That is the hardest thing to do. We're never going to hit the acumen. What we will hit is like a specific day and time. No, absolutely. And a rhythm. I do try to have many Sabbaths, but they're not the same thing as a whole day. A whole day is an act of resistance. I fail at it almost every week because I will turn in household things into productivity which I can feel my bones is like giving into the resistance or giving not fighting you know the right battle is like oh now how many uh lawn beds can I mulch today it's like you're missing the point of the Sabbath I I fall into that a lot unfortunately uh productivity is definitely a vice of mine yeah it's an easy thing to give into um sorry that was a really long answer. But no, I I think it's the most value piece. Um, right. This was at the beginning of the podcast. I was going to say hopefully it's not just Granny watching by now. Hopefully my mom's still here and the rest of the fam. Um, what's an area of life that you're currently focused on growing? Oh, just being present, just being content, being with my kids. It's not the next commercial building. No, I don't care about that. Actually, I I I do love it. I I mean, I love working with my wife. I love all of that. Um I just don't want to be worried about the next thing. Actually, probably not being worried. That's not being worried. Not being worried. Yeah. How do you do that? Um I I I think having having faith in a God that provides who promises that he will. And so just, you know, standing firm on that promise, which is easier said than done. I'm curious to both of you, what state or status in a week do you feel like the the most at peace? What action, what activity? Like for me, I mean, obviously gym, working out, getting the blood flowing is like huge. uh or being with your kid. But like it's it's hard to find that like that solitude in uh and not being concerned about the next thing or the next to-do. I find at least. Yeah. Um probably I love riding my ebike. Tyler's been on an ebike ride with me. So fun. And I'd say just being on my bike. Yeah. Being around just forces you to go slow and just to enjoy the moment and to be present and, you know, not rush off to the next thing. So, I try to ride my ebike as much as I possibly can. We try to have intentional um meal times with others. I think I think when I have felt the most peace, it's been around other people and there's no agenda. So, like I would struggle to do this on a work day. You know, it's like relaxing. You know, when it's like I have 10 to do items is really really hard. But when it's like PM, the laptop's closed, the phone's off, there's nothing to do. Having a family over for dinner, I find a lot of peace. It's very restorative for me. Getting into like their stories. Um, and just encouraging them, you know, approaching it from a like we're building each other up lens, right? So like building others up in community, I think is quite restorative. It puts me at peace. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. I think it's right here on the roots podcast for me. It is on the roots podcast at home on the roots pod. Yeah. You know, just getting to to have conversations with great people like you. We always end the best part of for those still with us the best part is the end. Yeah. We always get into the best these little tidbits of every guest have been like revoly. Yeah. At the end. The midterminals are fun, but knowing knowing your life is is the best part. Knowing knowing the the nooks and the crannies. call back to the to the course. There is about a billion and one different ways to get lending on a property. Let's get into the nuts and crannies of not nuts. [Laughter] We got to live that secret. I almost fell out. Oh goodness. No, I was like, let's say bolts. Nooks and crannies. Nooks and crannies. I think it's nooks and crannies. Let's not say nooks and crannies. All right, cool. Anyways, oh goodness, that's awesome. Yeah, this has been another episode of the Roots Podcast. Make sure to like, subscribe, follow if you're on Spotify. Where can people find you, guy? Uh, they can't find me online. Nowhere. Nowhere. That's it. You can you can come to our roots master class and you might bump into guy. You can text me and have a coffee with you. But yeah, through I'm not online. Yeah, through Tyler. That's great. All right, guys. Cheers. Until the next one. Peace.