Operate Like a Recession Is Coming (Even When You're Winning) w/ Aaron Bihl

Aaron Bihl: [0:01] Okay. I don't have

Dan Austin: [0:03] the, intro song here, like Mike always does queued up. But what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Collective Keys Podcast. We don't have Mike here because Mike is on a rafting trip with his, with his bible study group, and he will be out for the rest of the the weekend. But he'll be back next week. Dilpill, you know what? Sent Dylan a few DMs because him and I rescheduled this podcast because I had to accommodate him because whatever Dylan does out there, I don't know what he does. And then I picked the time that he wanted to record, and then he just didn't show up and said he was walking your property, which is like code for I'm at the bar having fun with my buddies, and I don't wanna do work today. So Dylan's actually getting put on notice. We have my cohost today, Aaron Beale, friend of the show. You've been on the show many times.

Aaron Bihl: [0:46] How are

Dan Austin: [0:46] you doing, Aaron?

Aaron Bihl: [0:46] Doing well, man. Glad to, glad to fill in last minute for you.

Dan Austin: [0:50] I know. I literally text Aaron well, I so I text Aaron and Greg Helbeck in a group chat and said, are either of you guys ready to or can either of guys record? Aaron's like, I can. And then I was like, here's the link. You're like, right now? I'm like, yeah. Let's go.

Aaron Bihl: [1:03] Yeah. There was no warning. It was literally like, can you be on, like, in three seconds? I was like, well, I just walked in my house. But Yeah.

Dan Austin: [1:09] Yeah. Let's go. Hopefully hopefully, Greg will just hop in randomly. I always love to have Greg on the show too. But, Aaron, I do appreciate your willingness to hop in last minute. And we do have something to talk about, which, we were talking about prior to the show, which is you're on like the the number one most wanted list for Pace Morby now. You took over for Mike as the Pace Morby hater.

Aaron Bihl: [1:29] I don't know.

Dan Austin: [1:30] Don't know why Oh, I took you did.

Aaron Bihl: [1:32] He doesn't even hate people. He just can't be around people that aren't positive.

Dan Austin: [1:35] That's true. What was it? Positive toxicity? Is that what he's called it? Toxic. Toxic positivity. What?

Aaron Bihl: [1:41] I can't even talk. Toxic positivity? If you're not toxically positive, he can't be around you.

Dan Austin: [1:46] Okay. So those that that don't follow you or don't know, maybe they do follow you, they don't see your shit. So what what was the whole Pace Morby deal?

Aaron Bihl: [1:53] Yeah. So so he the whole Brandon Turner thing happened obviously, which like, I guess if you aren't involved in real estate or like live under a rock. So you guys posted about that. That went viral. Brandon eventually kind of came out, made a statement and, know, was in the comments like responding, like clearly, him responding to people, which I appreciated.

Dan Austin: [2:14] 100%.

Aaron Bihl: [2:14] A lot of it was just very, like, very honest, very transparent. I like Brandon a lot and thought it was thought it was good, but apparently he got, like, pretty lit up on Instagram and Twitter and all this stuff. But for some reason, I say for some reason, like Brandon did a call with Pace, which I'm like,

Dan Austin: [2:29] I feel like That was actually caught me off guard.

Aaron Bihl: [2:32] Did you watch it by chance?

Dan Austin: [2:33] No? I didn't. I got enough comments on it, but yeah.

Aaron Bihl: [2:36] It's an interesting watch. Cause like, yeah, I was kind of surprised by that one. It seemed like a, after that I would probably post that and crawl in a hole, but, that would be me personally. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [2:50] Yeah.

Aaron Bihl: [2:51] Like not like, I'm not saying it's bad that he was responding or, you know, willing to hop on a call. I just probably be like, let me hibernate for a week or so. Yeah. But, so immediately hopped on this call at pace. I'm like pace of all people who you want to like, get your voice out, like whatever. Yeah. But the whole, like, there's like five minutes opening up and pace is just like, absolutely like glazing Brandon. Like he's my best friend. I look up to him. He's amazing. Like I've learned so much from him and like, and he like does that. Someone said he's saying, you're like, cool. I'm kind of on board with that. Like, you know, about raising money and stuff, but then it like, it just feels so like disingenuous, like the whole thing, like, which I feel like that's the feeling I get with him on everything.

Dan Austin: [3:31] A 100%. Yeah, I agree.

Aaron Bihl: [3:33] It just feels like if this whole time I was just like telling you how great I thought you were, it'd be like, that's kind of weird.

Dan Austin: [3:38] Yeah. It'd make you feel uncomfortable.

Aaron Bihl: [3:39] So I feel like he does that. But anyway, so talked with Brandon. It's, it's interesting. Like it's a good call. And then I kind of just posted some thoughts on it. Cause so Pace keeps talking about the few things that kind of I touched on was like, he talks about how he is invested in some syndication with someone and they're about to lose $40,000,000 and he knows that because he's in it. But like that person, whoever this chick is, is still out raising money saying she's never lost money. And he's trying to like warn people without warning them, which I'm like, just say the name or like give a description.

Dan Austin: [4:16] What's the harm of saying the name too? Like, I mean, I guess depending on how you're framing something, there's two sides of that. It's like, you're framing it incorrectly and maybe like in a in a way that's not true, or you're trying to not share the information with people because you're trying to protect that person. Which one is it?

Aaron Bihl: [4:31] Yeah. Or you could just be like, I'm invested in this deal. Mhmm. You know, three sentences later. Cool. I didn't I didn't name the person, but said, hey, I know this investor who's raising money and lost money. Oh, I also invested with Dan. Like, the dots. I mean, who cares? Seriously. But so then he talks about how he raised money for this person, raised a million dollars to throw in their fund and how he, you know, threw in one fifty of his own and then eight fifty from friends and then talks about like, anytime I raise money from people, I personally guarantee it. So he's like, these people are gonna lose their money, but I'm gonna pay them back. And then within like twenty minutes, he gets into this, like, actually all my advisors said I I can't pay people back. So like

Dan Austin: [5:13] He personally guarantees. No, he doesn't. There's no way he does that.

Aaron Bihl: [5:16] Yeah. So it just became this like, oh, I'm gonna pay everyone back. And then it was like, well, I really want to, but like

Dan Austin: [5:21] But I can't.

Aaron Bihl: [5:21] Everyone's saying I can't. Yeah. Whatever. But then there are other, like, random things of, like like that chick, I'm like, if you really do have this huge community, there were literally, like, 1,100 people on this call.

Dan Austin: [5:31] Like, it was like That's crazy. It was a lot. That's impressive.

Aaron Bihl: [5:35] Yeah. Very much so. I'm like, if you are really trying to protect people, even like, if you potentially gonna get sued, like, I feel like you should have enough money to like deal with that. Yeah. Because people will be like, oh, well, know, he's doesn't wanna get sued and whatever. I'm like, if you have a community of 20,000 people, you should be making enough money that like, that shouldn't matter. You can fight off a lawsuit for the good of humanity or whatever. Totally. Anyway, but then there's like another, like, just like random, like, someone during the call asked him if it's recorded, he's like, no. I'm not recording this. And I'm like, I'm listening to the recording. Like Why he says it? Yeah. There's just, like, there's just,

Dan Austin: [6:11] like, all the weird.

Aaron Bihl: [6:12] Dude, that's crazy. Lies in there. Like, immediately shares the recording, but, like, why would you

Dan Austin: [6:17] Why would you lie about that?

Aaron Bihl: [6:18] Yeah. Like of all and then you're like, it's just one of those things to me. I'm like, if

Dan Austin: [6:21] you lie about little stuff, like what else do lie right now? It's so blatantly obviously lying too. Right? Like that's the crazy thing. That's what makes me question. It's like a, like a politician. Right? Like at this point, like our politicians like lie to our faces and then still like, they don't care. There's like no remorse. It kind of feels like that a little bit. Like, why would you do that?

Aaron Bihl: [6:38] Yeah. Like you can't even like keep up with anything you say.

Dan Austin: [6:40] Yeah, exactly.

Aaron Bihl: [6:41] Yeah. Anyway, so I like, I just like shared like a few like thoughts on it and it went somewhat viral. And

Dan Austin: [6:47] I thought they were insightful. Right? Like, it wasn't like you're going after him specifically. Like, you shared a balanced opinion on it.

Aaron Bihl: [6:53] Well, then I think what actually got him to block me was me talking about the Morby method.

Dan Austin: [6:57] Oh, yeah. That was that was good. That was a great explanation, though.

Aaron Bihl: [7:00] It was also, like, I've thought fairly objective. Yeah. But I'm like, if you're gonna freaking name something, a financing method after yourself, like, you shouldn't be upset if someone explains it Yeah. Or talks about it. Like

Dan Austin: [7:12] Especially when there's mortgage fraud, that's potentially part of it, which there is.

Aaron Bihl: [7:16] And even aside from that, just the being, like, fully levered on stuff is like It's bad. Not ideal.

Dan Austin: [7:22] Yeah. I got this place for $1 down, and I overpaid for it because that's okay.

Aaron Bihl: [7:27] One one of my favorite things, which is someone you know, but I won't mention them, An agent who says if someone wants to make Morby method deal offers with them, they charge them $500 upfront. I love that.

Dan Austin: [7:40] I'll do that all day long.

Aaron Bihl: [7:42] Like, Like, if you want me to make stupid offers, like, I'll do it, but like pay me up front. I was like, that's amazing. I love it.

Dan Austin: [7:48] Well, so, yeah, you're you're blocked from pace. I don't know if Mike is blocked. Mike is probably blocked. I'm not blocked. I had a brief exchange with him over DMs and it was it was about I don't even remember what it was about. Might've been about the insurance issues about getting like insurance. I was like, well, don't you explain this to me? Because we were going through a sub two deal with the insurance. And when you do insurance on sub two deals, there's a few different ways to do it. But what most people say is like, okay, keep the sellers insurance in place. And then once it closes, swap it out with your insurance, which I don't think the timing-

Aaron Bihl: [8:20] But then it has like additionally insured or

Dan Austin: [8:22] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, and like the house we ended up selling, we sold one of our houses sub two to an investor, like one of our Airbnb's. Yep. And what I did was I was like, here's my insurance agent's information. I want you just to put the exact same policy in place. Keep me as additionally insured and then you basically put your name as the main insured and it worked fine. We haven't ever been questioned on that. But like the reason why you're doing that is because you don't want your lender to know that you changed.

Aaron Bihl: [8:46] Yeah. You don't want it to like trigger anything. The thing is even like, I've always wondered about that too. Like what happens if you actually have a claim?

Dan Austin: [8:54] An insurance claim? Yeah. Yeah. That's where it gets messy.

Aaron Bihl: [8:57] I just imagine there's like most insurance don't like love paying claims.

Dan Austin: [9:02] Exactly.

Aaron Bihl: [9:02] So like, it'd be like, oh, well, you know, you did this wrong or Mhmm. You're not the name on the loan. You know? Like, we're not gonna cover that. Like I just feel like there, that would be a really easy like thing to potentially fight

Dan Austin: [9:13] on it too. A 100%. Yeah. Insurance is like crazy too. Like just like the little things that they'll pick apart to not pay you. So something big like that.

Aaron Bihl: [9:20] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [9:21] Every time I've had to deal with insurance, it has not gone my way. Let's put it that way. You're almost getting insurance only because the mortgage companies requires you to get insurance. Right? That's basically it. It's not really for protecting yourself in this sub two situation because you're right. Like if they just pulled it up and they're like, what's going on here? Wouldn't it be hard for them to see that?

Aaron Bihl: [9:40] Yeah. I guess like my, I mean, honestly, my thought of any of the like sub two creative finance, like whatever, like do it fine. Like, who cares? As long as you're in a position to deal with it when something goes wrong.

Dan Austin: [9:53] Correct.

Aaron Bihl: [9:54] Yes. I'm like, cool. If you can do your Morby method thing, but like you have the money to deal with it if you call loan due or Yeah. You whatever that looks like. I'm like, cool, then do it. Like, who cares? I mean, other than like the whole crowd part, but, but like some two is like, I'll still do them. I use it more like hard money and like temporary because also no one talks about like, do you really want to have like an ongoing relationship with the crackhead who you're buying the house from who isn't in a situation where they have to sell you the house in a weird way?

Dan Austin: [10:23] I can tell you firsthand, you 100% do not. We have a we didn't buy a house from Akraken, but with our old business partners here in Spokane, we did a subdue deal. Well, I didn't do it. I was just part of it. Bought a subdue deal from somebody, sold it to another investor's daughter. And I can tell you right now, it's basically your problem forever as the wholesaler. Because guess who the seller and the buyer call when they have an issue? Yeah. Because you're the person that they know.

Aaron Bihl: [10:49] Yeah. Wholesaling sub twos are like

Dan Austin: [10:51] So bad, dude. It's not even cool.

Aaron Bihl: [10:53] Like, and I would do it to I mean, we would occasionally, but it'd be someone I like really know and trust. Yes. And even then like, cool. I made five or ten ks with the knowledge that this could still come back to me. Whereas like, Hey, I signed a cash deal. It is like clean. It is done. No one's ever doing anything ever again. Like I saw one of these in the San Antonio group recently of like some agent trying to figure out stuff because you know, she, her clients sold their house sub two and they wholesaled it and they've not made a payment three months. So it's like, Hey, how do we find these people? You know, it's like, what do they do? And it's like, and people are like, Oh, well they should just log in and make payments. She's like, they can't even log in anymore. Like they can't even like make payments anymore.

Dan Austin: [11:37] Yep. That's the issue.

Aaron Bihl: [11:38] They call the bank and like try to sort it out, but Yeah.

Dan Austin: [11:41] But I mean, still it's like that to me is so stressful, right? To have to deal with that. Especially for some folks that they're making, like according to Pace, this is his sole way he does things. It's like, imagine doing a 100 of these and you're carrying that like liability on you. It's coming back to you at some point in time, even if you're just wholesaling. Yeah. Maybe you don't have any real liability. You have some ethical liability to help these people when the buyer stops making their payments or something weird happens with like, cause here's the other thing is like weird things happen. Like the mortgage payment changes when the taxes and insurance go up. Yep. You know, people swap their insurance out. Sometimes they need to log into the account to get the statement because they're gonna do refinance it or and they don't have the correct login information. You know, there's all sorts of stuff. It's like

Aaron Bihl: [12:24] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [12:24] It's so weird.

Aaron Bihl: [12:26] Well, I've been on the side of like on two occasions where we bought really botched sub two deals that just left everyone in a bad spot. That sucks. Like an investor stopped paying, kept like, collected all the rent and never made a payment. Nice. You know, she seller sued him to get the house back. He countersued her. It was tied up in a lawsuit for two and a half years. No one's making payments. Equity is like just It's just like

Dan Austin: [12:50] Think about that for a second. I actually never, I never thought about it in the way of like, there's malicious people out there. So you got 20,000 people in the sub two group. Most of them are trying to do these Gator lending things where they don't they have no money. Right? And, and we've seen kind of the group of people that they cater to, and it's usually that no money down type investor. Right? Yeah. Because they don't have any money. The people that are trying to like sub two cars and stuff. Maliciously going out and buying sub twos so that you could collect the rent and never pay the mortgage because what do you care?

Aaron Bihl: [13:20] Well, and the thing that sucked though, is like, in this whole situation, the only way it was ever resolved was with a mutual release. Cause he countersued her for it and then was like, I'll agree to this settlement, but you have to like release your claims against me.

Dan Austin: [13:34] Right.

Aaron Bihl: [13:35] Or we'll just, you know, we'll just keep going and we'll all just burn up money.

Dan Austin: [13:39] Seriously.

Aaron Bihl: [13:40] It was just stupid. And then we had another one that was like real weird of it was like a wrap and it was called Deuce and then they deeded it back. And then it like ballooned in five years or whatever. So somehow during that period, they were supposed to have an unrecorded deed where like, hey, you still own it. We all know that, but this is making the bank happy. That never happened. And then it ballooned, or in theory ballooned. So like both sides were wrong. Didn't make a payment for over a year, but then they were like, Oh, they're trying to take our house. And then it was funny too, because it was like the servicing company, the chick who sold it to them was trying to foreclose on them, but already had it deeded back to her. She didn't need to foreclose on them.

Dan Austin: [14:28] Oh, damn.

Aaron Bihl: [14:29] We were like calling the attorney and we're like, what are you foreclosing on? And they're like, we don't know. It's like, she already owns it. Like, what are you foreclosing? So like Yeah. But then we ended up, like, buying it from the previous owner who's now the owner on record, giving the people that lived there who kinda bought it, but kinda hadn't paid paid for anything in like eighteen months, like some money. Like it was this whole, like, just weird mess of a deal.

Dan Austin: [14:55] That's kind of crazy. Honestly, good for you guys to help resolve it. I mean, most people aren't going do that.

Aaron Bihl: [15:02] I mean, we we made good money on it. It was like, let's get but a it was just a whole, like mess of a situation. And of course, like both sides were like, everyone was wrong. Like, you haven't, like, tried to make a payment in eighteen months, but also like, they didn't do anything when was supposed to balloon either. So, it was just like a weird That is weird. Weird dynamic. I think we've

Dan Austin: [15:23] beat the, Sub2 to death, but I do want you to know that you have I'm gonna give you the employee of the month award first, the Appreciate that. Pace Pace Morby Lawton.

Aaron Bihl: [15:32] Can I do one more?

Dan Austin: [15:33] Yeah. Do one yes. Please do one more.

Aaron Bihl: [15:34] Also on that call, Pace briefly mentioned this deal from, like, three or four years ago that he was, like, all over the Internet about. Mhmm. An apartment complex he bought in San Angelo, Texas with you know, he paid nothing down, a fifty year mortgage, overpaid for it, and, know, like, told this story on, like, anything you can think. Like, you can literally Google, like, Pace Morby San Angelo apartment, and it's like, there's LinkedIn posts. There's podcasts. But then on that, he, like, talks like, just kinda briefly mentioned, like, I have this deal in San Angelo I never should have bought, it's a horrible deal, and I hate it. And I was like, that's interesting.

Dan Austin: [16:07] Yeah. That's an easily Googleable one too.

Aaron Bihl: [16:09] Oh, for sure. It was just kind of funny because he was like, yeah, like But I mean, he was like, oh, it's fine because I have a fifty year mortgage on it, but it's a horrible deal and I hate the asset and like, I never should have bought it. And I'm like, oh, maybe like overpaying for things just because it's owner finance.

Dan Austin: [16:22] Yeah, exactly. Going back to that. But That's kind of funny how that comes. But he probably forgot because this is how most like, I don't know, liars like that are. I don't what kind of liar that would be like a like a sociopath. I don't I don't know where they lie. Like they just don't even remember that everything they'd told before was like a half lie anyways. And so they just act like that didn't exist. Like all all that content I posted on the internet doesn't exist about me talking about how this is an awesome method. And then I'm gonna talk about it being a terrible asset and not tying the two lies together.

Aaron Bihl: [16:51] Not like realizing that in my now, like, I'm so transparent. People are gonna be like, oh, you like sold that forever.

Dan Austin: [16:58] Right.

Aaron Bihl: [16:59] Right.

Dan Austin: [16:59] Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And now there's a bunch of people that think that that's still the thing. And if you asked him, he probably would tell you that that's the way to do it, even though it's not. Because he has proof in his own use case or, you know, case study that it's not a good idea. Whatever.

Aaron Bihl: [17:12] Yeah. And I assume like in that same scenario, you probably can't sell it because if you're on a fifty year amortization, you probably still owe more than it's actually worth. Yes. Exactly. Whether cash flows or not, you probably, you know, four years in, you you still owe way too much on it.

Dan Austin: [17:25] Exactly. I think the you know what? This is actually a good slight pivot that we could talk about too. So like, this is a living example of why you need to invest and like be a solid operator through the good times. And don't do a bunch of dumb things like stack up sub twos or do these weird creative finance deals or overpay for assets because, oh man, you're gonna refinance in the future. The whole like date the rate, marry the house type mentality, because we're living through it right now in this economy where it's like, we're making money, like you're making money, you're doing good. You've had to adjust the business. Mike and I are figuring it out. Everybody's kind of figuring it out. But if you are sitting on assets that are upside down right now because of how you bought them, you're in big trouble because you don't have a way out. Right? Because inevitably, like you're gonna have something, something strange happen when you have this like weird, rocky economic time. Like one thing goes bad, you're hurting. Two things go bad, you're in real trouble. Three things go bad, you're bankrupt and you have to sell everything at a loss. And could you imagine that if you had a whole portfolio, ten, twelve, 15 of these things of houses where you're upside down on them, because you overpaid, but you got a fifty year amortization and the cash flow is great, but then the tenant moves out and they fricking played hammer darts in the house. And now you gotta come up with a bunch of money just to fix it up to re rent it at a lower rate, mind you, because rents are going down. Like that is exactly why even during the good times you have to operate like a sound business.

Aaron Bihl: [18:53] I mean, I think that's just the importance of, like, getting a good deal and getting, like, something that's actually discounted. Right. Because cool. If rates are 10%, fine. I'm still buying something at a 20 to 40% discount.

Dan Austin: [19:05] Yes.

Aaron Bihl: [19:06] Like there's still equity. Like it may be harder to sell it, but you know, at the end of the day, if you're buying something that has equity built in, you should be able to get rid of it.

Dan Austin: [19:15] Right. You may not make a bunch of money. Your paper wet net worth goes down maybe because the market's depressed, but it's not. You're not selling it at a loss. Yeah. That's the idea or that's the hope. There's a lot of people right now. I mean, we just talked about Brandon Turner earlier, like the decisions that they're making and some of these are actually pretty good operators, but the decisions they're making were too monumental for this market. And I don't even think that we're in like a a crazy upside down market. Like it's weird. It's different. Like none of us as operators, at least me in particular, like I've never operated a business or investments through this, you know. The stock market keeps going up, Bitcoin's going down, real estate's like this kind of.

Aaron Bihl: [19:53] Yeah. A lot of that stuff doesn't seem like correlated the way it should be. Right. I don't know. I kind of don't look into a bunch of that stuff too. Like Yeah. Dylan's always on here with like all of his like, Yeah. This correlates with this and you know, the this rate's doing it. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I just buy trailers. Like, what do I know?

Dan Austin: [20:10] I know. Yeah. Dylan, he's much smarter than me. Mike has the he's got a doomer mentality on a lot of stuff right now. And my thing is is like, I also don't look too deeply into it, but I'm like, this is the first time we've lived through this situation. So I'm not gonna compare it to the previous situation. Like it's really hard. Like, because people keep saying that, you know, I'll say this, like a couple years ago, we've, know, obviously on the podcast talking about things of like, oh, where's the economy going? And this, that and the other. And if you would have listened to, and I don't know who on the pod would have said it, but like, I know at least one of us was like, oh, the market's gonna go down. It's like we're in trouble. If you would have listened to that and not invested in anything, like you would have lost out a pile of money. Know, you could have just put money in the S and P 500 and it would have gone up.

Aaron Bihl: [20:51] Yeah. I think like, I don't know. I feel like there's just been so many changes in the time that me and you have been doing this of like crazy, like high market, crazy low market. And it's all just like comes back to like, good decisions, like with the information you have at the time. And if you, you know, try to sit down and wait for this thing, you might be waiting forever. Or if, you know, you try to go too fast and over leveraged, like you may be in trouble too. It's kinda like, I don't know. Just a matter of like, yeah, do deals. Just like make sound decisions with what information. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [21:23] Well, to your point, and that's, I guess, kind of what I would have said is like, you were sitting out and you're waiting for something to happen, you've been waiting for a few years now. Depending on when you decided that, you know, you generally, when people decide that I'm gonna wait for the market to crash or I'm gonna wait for this opportunity. I'm just too up and down for me. The market's going down. You gotta be waiting. You just don't know because like there's like, to your point, all the data, like it doesn't feel like it's correlating anything. And no matter what's happening, things are going. And I have some beliefs why. I don't think it's like the systems I don't believe that the system's completely rigged and fake and all that. I think there is probably a good chunk of that. But I also think that we're in an unprecedented time where a new technology, literally a world changing technology, life changing technology just like came out with AI. Like we don't know what that's gonna do. I don't know. There's so much going into that.

Aaron Bihl: [22:14] Yeah. And it's like changing so much week to week and all that crap too.

Dan Austin: [22:18] There's just like a ton with that. And I think with that, there's some optimism around it. And I think that, you know, America is continuing to lead the way in that, which is great. I don't think that was the thing that people were talking about even six to eight months ago. There's a little bit more worry about China taking ahead, taking the lead. And you could argue like, why does it matter? I think from like an economic standpoint, it probably matters. Right? To have like the biggest, baddest shit ever, including the best bombs because that's usually a good defense mechanism.

Aaron Bihl: [22:46] But like, you know, like, I think my point

Dan Austin: [22:49] is is like American exceptionalism, although it feels weird, is on display currently with AI and how big our companies are and what they're doing. It may not People may not agree with it. Like there's a bunch of people that are like anti AI, anti data center, all that sort of stuff. But if someone's doing it, America's gonna do it and we're we're doing it better than other people.

Aaron Bihl: [23:09] The some of the really funny stuff I've seen around AI is like the wokeness around it of like Oh, yeah. Which I didn't even know was a thing. You know, people post whatever on Instagram and they're like, we shouldn't use AI generated images. Like, like, that's like the new, like, left thing. Like, it. I'm like, oh, you're wasting the water. Like, hope you felt good about making your, you know, AI generated whatever.

Dan Austin: [23:34] Seriously, like, and it's also ill informed because most of that most of the anti AI arguments are actually completely false. Like, they're just not true. Like, why they're saying anti AI?

Aaron Bihl: [23:44] Well, a lot of stuff with all the, like, data center stuff is they're making them provide their own energy for it, which Mhmm. Net net is a I would say is a better thing to have like people providing their own energy source so they can, you know, potentially dump back into the grid. It's not like they're pulling from it or they're like, it's just like a thing I'm like, I don't know. I lived through Texas not having power. Right. It seems like companies coming in and you forcing them to like power their own stuff isn't a horrible solution. And then it's like the places they're building data centers, who gives a shit? Like they're doing it like Southern Ohio where I live or I'm from. And it's like, people there complaining about it. I'm like, you guys need jobs. Like, you have no money. Like

Dan Austin: [24:23] Yes.

Aaron Bihl: [24:24] You're upset that someone's buying like, you know, 4,000 acres for like $500 an acre so they can

Dan Austin: [24:30] build a data center. None of you guys wanted it.

Aaron Bihl: [24:32] Well, it's like, of course, they're like building these where land's cheap, but Yeah. That also should be jobs for people that probably need jobs. Yeah. It almost seems like wild.

Dan Austin: [24:42] Yeah. I would say too, just from a because my background is like electric grid stuff. And like, so I understand it quite a bit. It's like, they're bringing more resiliency to the local grid if they do it right. And I think most states where like power and stuff is regulated, that they're going to do it right. We're good enough. I would say it's not, I guess, compared to what most people are saying it's going to be. But if somebody comes in and builds a giant data center, like there's there's one kind of coming in town here where we're at in Eastern Washington. Yep. And everybody's like, oh my god, there goes all of our all of our water. See you guys. There goes all of our, you know, we're gonna pay so much more for power. But if you look at it, and mind you, the government has to approve these things, right? When you bring in in a regulated environment, and Washington's one of those regulated states where we have our power grids regulated.

Aaron Bihl: [25:26] Yep.

Dan Austin: [25:26] Is they have to the state has to approve it. But also like in the filing, it's like, yes, whoever's building this is going to build all of their own electrical infrastructure so nobody has to pay for it, but the customer that's actually building it all. And then on top of that, if they are building, bringing their own generation on-site, you know damn well they're gonna have additional generation capacity with that. Because if you're smart, you're going to do that. You're gonna have the ability to grow your generation capacity, which then just Yeah.

Aaron Bihl: [25:50] And then you sell off for cheaper and make Exactly. Potentially make power cheaper.

Dan Austin: [25:54] Yes. And in general, customers, if there's generation that if you built a generating plant, the customer has to pay for that whether it's getting used or not. And so if Microsoft comes in and says we're building an AI data center, and by the way, at our own shareholder expense, we're gonna build generators that we could sell back into the grid for cheaper. That's a freaking win win. Right. That's a great deal. It's not that bad of a deal. So, yeah. I don't know. But I am wearing my Meta AI glasses right now.

Aaron Bihl: [26:19] I like that.

Dan Austin: [26:20] I just want everybody to know we are not yet sponsored by Ray Ban, but we're coming soon. Hopefully Ray Ban out there. But, these, I read an article on just this morning that Meta Wired Magazine, I think it's Wired Magazine or wired.com or whatever they are now, found that facial recognition software was secretly embedded in these. So when people are walking around like me who bought these after a couple of margaritas and their neighbor showing them to them, me, I was splurged, bought these. I'm now just walking around at collecting data for the government. Very nice. Public service announcements. I wanna put that out there.

Aaron Bihl: [26:53] I saw a TikTok the other day of a guy who hacks your, your meta glasses so the light doesn't turn on so you can record people and them not see. So now that's, that's an option for you too. It's like

Dan Austin: [27:05] I didn't forget. So how

Aaron Bihl: [27:06] do you even know that? In his car and he like, you know, does whatever to make the light not turn on. I'm like, this just seems creepy. Like, whatever.

Dan Austin: [27:13] Yeah. That is super weird. No. I okay. So again, full disclosure, like I bought these, like I said, I was drinking some alcohol, splurge bottom. I do like All

Aaron Bihl: [27:20] I'm saying is if you see Dan in the bathroom, be careful.

Dan Austin: [27:23] Seriously though. I didn't know that. I so there's a lot. I don't know. I haven't recorded anything with you. So is there there's a light

Aaron Bihl: [27:28] And then you like hit a button and and a light comes on of like, you

Dan Austin: [27:31] Oh, man.

Aaron Bihl: [27:31] To tell people you're recording. Oh. But if you take it to the sketchy dude, he'll he'll hack it so you can secretly record.

Dan Austin: [27:38] Yeah. See, that's messed up. See, okay, that's shitty. I'm gonna have to get rid of these. So I really have an issue with all the cameras out there because like people like me walking around with these things, everything's getting filmed all the time. So you can't even do anything. And the government's gonna get them because you know, Mark Zuckerberg, he'll give the government whatever they want. He's already proven that. He's like, oh, you guys want all of our made of glass data? Cool. Just kind of just send that to you guys over here. Put it underneath the Epstein files, nobody will ever find them out there.

Aaron Bihl: [28:05] I mean, of that kind of exists anyway. Was listening to, Marc Andreessen on Joe Rogan a few weeks ago, and they have some sort of, like I don't know if it's surveillance system or whatever, but all these cities have it where like something happens. They immediately like run data recognition on all the like surveillance cameras everywhere to get license plates and like track people down immediately, which is like Yeah. A good safety thing till it's, like, hacked. But they were talking about, like, it was maybe Austin. It was somewhere like, some city that was like, oh, we don't want that anymore. I think it was Austin because they had that shooter or whatever on 6th Street, and they completely turned it off. And then they, like, couldn't find him, which would have instantly been done or whatever with this like system.

Dan Austin: [28:49] Oh shit.

Aaron Bihl: [28:50] But then like whatever city was like, hey, we're not gonna do it. So I don't know. It's kinda crazy.

Dan Austin: [28:56] That's a tough thing because like when you could save somebody's life, you have technology that could save somebody's life and it's right there and you're choosing not to use it. It's a travesty in that moment. But then all of the other like personal infringements that happen because of a technology, you're like, that kind of sucks, dude. Like, I feel like, yes, I wish that we could have saved that person's life or caught that bad guy. But man, there's all the other negative things Privacy that you issues, privacy issues. Right? I mean, that's what it is, but I don't know. Dylan sent me a message yesterday when before he bailed on the podcast and was just being a complete loser about the whole thing. He, I I need you to decipher this quote that he sent. Oh, man. It's from Charlie Munger. It says, where do people go broke? Ladies, liquor, and leverage. Charlie Munger.

Aaron Bihl: [29:44] That's all? That's it?

Dan Austin: [29:45] What do you think? Does Dylan have a problem with the ladies and the liquor? That's all he that's all he said. I don't know. Just I mean

Aaron Bihl: [29:53] Or is it a leopard? Are those all does it have to be all three?

Dan Austin: [29:56] It's a cry for help, think. Oh, I'm gonna hammer Dylan. Dylan, Dylan's gonna love this. Oh, I do I do have to speak up for Dylan because and I know you probably don't care, but Bitcoin. Since Dylan's not here, he's my Bitcoin expert. Can you provide me an analysis on what's going on with Bitcoin? Because I'm not an expert. I am a gambler. I know. I think it's down ish maybe. It's down a lot. It's down a lot. Let me check out what it is right now.

Aaron Bihl: [30:22] Yeah. Don't even know. I feel like Yeah.

Dan Austin: [30:24] So uninformed. Bro, you're so into trailers right now. Like that's I get it, dude. You're good for you. That's kind of how I am with the lending business. I'm so into lending right now. Okay. So before the pod, looked at it, it was at 59,700, which is low. I think that's the lowest it's dipped in

Aaron Bihl: [30:37] I'm the gonna say, I thought it was like 60, but like-

Dan Austin: [30:40] It's 60,900 now. I need Dylan to tell me if I should buy more. And of course he's gonna be like, well, you should always be buying.

Aaron Bihl: [30:46] He's gonna tell you you should be dollar cost averaging and buying Yes. Bitcoin always. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [30:52] You know what? I did that because that's what Dylan told me. And I've been losing money ever since.

Aaron Bihl: [30:58] See? Could have been buying meme coins.

Dan Austin: [31:01] I mean, I should have bought meme coins. That would be better right now than BTC.

Aaron Bihl: [31:04] You know, it'd be a lot more fun.

Dan Austin: [31:06] Yes. Absolutely. Well, actually, there there is a a lot of people talking about it's a bunch of liquidity because people are trying to invest. They wanna get liquid so they can invest in, SpaceX. Yeah. That's SpaceX is the the new Bitcoin right now. That's where all those Bitcoiners are going is to SpaceX to invest their one at IPOs.

Aaron Bihl: [31:25] I know nothing.

Dan Austin: [31:26] Are you invested in SpaceX?

Aaron Bihl: [31:28] I'm not.

Dan Austin: [31:28] Oh my gosh. Me neither. I'm just trying to keep

Aaron Bihl: [31:31] my time. I mean, I assume it will do well because, like, I just wouldn't bet against Elon. But Yeah. I don't I also don't understand, like, all of the, like, combining Twitter with SpaceX and XA, like Bro,

Dan Austin: [31:45] you don't gotta understand any of that.

Aaron Bihl: [31:47] I don't understand I any of just, like, feel like if he's gonna do it, he's probably like it'll probably go up.

Dan Austin: [31:52] Yeah. Totally.

Aaron Bihl: [31:53] And if it doesn't, he'll just, tweet some random shit to, like, make it go up.

Dan Austin: [31:56] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a lot of that.

Aaron Bihl: [31:58] Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna take it private again at x price.

Dan Austin: [32:02] Yeah. There's definitely some of that. I do have a strong belief that part of these IPOs so they did change some rules, which are interesting to some of our listeners or maybe interesting is like, so the Nasdaq changed its rules to allow people, retail buyers to start buying SpaceX shares after IPOs. I think it's like, is it two weeks after Or or maybe thirty days after? Where typically when an IPO goes, the the Nasdaq Nasdaq's an exchange, it's private. It's not don't believe it has anything to with the government as far as these rules go. Could be wrong. Typically, it's like eight months or something like that. And what that does is that makes sure that the private investors who basically once they go public have the opportunity to get liquid, don't essentially take, sell out all of their shares to these private investors and then it just or these public investors.

Aaron Bihl: [32:50] It just kinda like levels out or whatever.

Dan Austin: [32:52] Right. Basically what happens theoretically is everybody has all this excitement around an IPO. Boom. All these like private investors, private funds and people that that invested through funds, they're coming out of this high, high valuation. And then all these retail people in and gobble that up. And then it just fucking tanks because there's a huge liquidity event. Then it goes down and all these people lose their money. So that rule, the NASDAQ for this IPO, not because of this IPO, but before this IPO takes place, they've changed that rule to where, yes, the retail investors can come and start buying the shares after the IPO right away. So that'll be an interesting The other thing that that does is if you think about this, if you are an index investor like NASDAQ, so like you have a four zero one k that invests in the NASDAQ, Essentially now, because that NASDAQ is gonna, you know, come out there, not Tesla, SpaceX is going to IPO and it's going to clearly be in the top 100 tech companies. Right? So the NASDAQ's gonna grab it. So then what that does is I think it's like last week on the pod, we looked it up. It was like, I think 37% or something like that, maybe more of the it's like basically stock market is four zero one k money now because everybody invests in their four zero one k. The four zero one k invests in these. So now if your four zero one k has Nasdaq as an index fund that it's investing in, which is all that's all these four zero one k's do is really pretty Now much invest in that your four zero one k's gonna be forced to buy Tesla shares because it's gonna have to buy like, say it's like, oh, I'm gonna buy one share of Tesla or keeps saying Tesla, one share of SpaceX.

Dan Austin: [34:20] Well, SpaceX at 1,500,000,000,000 is like 80% of the Nasdaq or whatever it is. I don't know. 50% of the Nasdaq. Well, now you gotta buy shares up to balance sell off shares and buy up to so that you're buying the Nasdaq index fund. Kinda crazy. So

Aaron Bihl: [34:34] I'm like a little I mean, I don't actually know nothing about it, but I'm a little surprised that because Texas is starting their own, like, stock exchange. I'm a little surprised that Elon wasn't like, hey. I'm gonna move it there.

Dan Austin: [34:44] But That honestly does not surprise me, but I'm also kinda like, what? Their own stock exchange?

Aaron Bihl: [34:49] Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it was they've been talking about it for a few years, which I I know nothing that,

Dan Austin: [34:53] like, goes into all that other than,

Aaron Bihl: [34:55] like, I've heard it's a thing. Yeah. But it seems like he would be like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna do this over here. But

Dan Austin: [35:03] Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff just, you know, people talking about it. Know, I think it's because there's Elon has been politicized by joining forces with Trump early on in the with the whole whatever they did. Doge. So I think everything he does is a little more politicized. So now it's like harder to get like true information from people, but whatever. The only other thing I wanted to ask you, and I I think your answer is gonna be no, but have you noticed an increase in day trading influencers on Instagram?

Aaron Bihl: [35:32] I haven't. But I will tell you the the type of influencer I have seen, which I will almost guarantee you've also seen. Everyone's selling peptides. Everyone's a peptide business. That's like the new Amazon store.

Dan Austin: [35:47] Yeah. Peptides. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that. Okay. I got three bones to pick. One, you're gonna start seeing now, like, increase all these, like, dorks who are like, sign up for my whatever trading trades. It's 3.99 a month. Everybody wants because the stock market is going up, right? Everything's going crazy around the world and the S and P 500 is just ticking up. Everybody's a stock trader. Everyone's genius. Exactly. Right? It was the height of the real estate influencer. We're seeing that. They're like, look at my little green and red rectangles that are going up and down. That means you don't know what that means, dude. And you have zero control over to some dork in his basement. First bone to pick. So don't listen to any of those guys. The second bone I have to pick is yes, there's all these like peptides and all these like body optimizers and things like that. Dudes, I don't know what you're putting in your body. Like I'm for peptides. Like, I think that's a great thing, but like most of the stuff you're buying and the stuff you're getting is like, I don't know where it's from. China, India. What are you poking in your body?

Aaron Bihl: [36:42] No one knows.

Dan Austin: [36:43] No one even knows what it is, dude.

Aaron Bihl: [36:44] Like the, like, the new, like, get rich quick, like, start your own, like, e commerce business.

Dan Austin: [36:49] Yes. A 100%.

Aaron Bihl: [36:51] You know, it was the Airbnb thing for a while. It was Amazon stores. It was, you know, credit repair. And what else have we But I haven't seen the day trading stuff as much.

Dan Austin: [37:02] Yeah. You'll start seeing it. You'll start there for a minute, there was all the, like, the Bitcoin traders and, like, all, like, the the crypto guys. And they're like, historically, when Bitcoin's done this and Jerome Powell said this, I'm like, historically, dude, people haven't been trading Bitcoin like they have for more than ten years, dude. Like, what do you mean historically? There's no. Every day is new for Bitcoin. Like Yeah. It's a new day. Right? And also, isn't it weird that the person who created Bitcoin is unknown and we're investing in it as if it's like a thing that was like built by society as a known entity and a known it's no. Like, we don't know. The CIA probably built. That's who I think created Bitcoin, honestly. Whatever. But, yeah, start paying attention. You're gonna start getting stock trading tips on Instagram, and you should not listen to them.

Aaron Bihl: [37:50] I should join their Discord and buy their tips or whatever. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [37:54] $3.99 a week, and they'll send you their, all their trades before they put them on their Instagram publicly. So you'll get the benefit of that. I like that. Yeah. So it's very reminiscent of the, GameStop, time. You remember that little short period of time when all the people were like, I've been trading options forever. It's like, shut up, dude.

Aaron Bihl: [38:11] I love the dude, which maybe you guys talked about this, who bet on the Venezuela raid on Cauchy or Cauchy.

Dan Austin: [38:18] Yeah. Absolutely.

Aaron Bihl: [38:20] That stuff's amazing to me.

Dan Austin: [38:22] That's yes. And don't think he did anything totally wrong because hear me out here, and this will be the last point because we do have to get out of here so Max can get this thing sealed up and sent out for everybody. He was not the commander that made the decision to go on that exact day. He just happened to be on the team.

Aaron Bihl: [38:40] He was just confident. Yeah. He was just confident in The US doing that Yes.

Dan Austin: [38:46] Yeah. He was like,

Aaron Bihl: [38:46] This this is is the day know everyone in Congress is about various stocks.

Dan Austin: [38:50] Right. And to prosecute him, which sure, there's a great argument to prosecute him. I get it. We gotta start prosecuting these people in congress that have been doing this for decades and decades and decades. Like, I mean, we can't see an American hero go down for this for $400. Come on. There's people I mean, let's let's be honest.

Aaron Bihl: [39:10] You know what feel like you could have just, like, kept it, like, couchy could have been like, hey. Like, you guys might wanna look at this guy. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [39:16] Keep it secret maybe. Yeah. Do you wanna know why? Because they need a scapegoat because regulations coming and politicians are gonna be excluded from that regulation, but they've got a scapegoat. Here we go. If you guys wanna see another scapegoat, go follow Aaron. What's your Instagram? Aaron Bihl, b I b I h l?

Aaron Bihl: [39:33] Aaron dot Beal.

Dan Austin: [39:35] Yep. Aaron dot Beal. Go follow him and, you can learn more about Pace Morby's antics out there. Although Aaron won't be able to get it fresh off the, press because he's blocked by Pace Morby. But if you wanna see the guy

Aaron Bihl: [39:45] You need a mole now.

Dan Austin: [39:46] Yeah. You need a mole. Go be Aaron's mole.

Aaron Bihl: [39:49] Meet someone on the inside. What what is, like, wild now that we're gonna talk about Pace again, but, like, anytime I, like probably you guys have seen this too. You, like, say anything critical of Pace and all of his, like, lackeys come to

Dan Austin: [40:01] his rescue in

Aaron Bihl: [40:02] your cock. Yeah. The case on this stuff. Like there's been a lot of people like, Hey, I'm glad you're like, people are actually talking about it. I was like, Oh, because normally it's like, Sub two, like, that's my boy, you know, whatever. But there's been like several people like, oh, he like kinda sucks. But

Dan Austin: [40:18] Yeah. I think it's all coming

Aaron Bihl: [40:19] to I

Dan Austin: [40:21] mean, if Brandon Turner is kinda getting a little fractured in the eye of his, you know, followers, Pace Morby's gotta be right next to him. Right? So alright, guys. Have a good week. Good chatting with you, Aaron.

Aaron Bihl: [40:31] Good to see

Dan Austin: [40:32] you as usual. Man. Thanks for hopping on.

Aaron Bihl: [40:33] It's my pleasure.

Dan Austin: [40:34] See y'all. Bye.

Mike DeHaan: [40:36] This episode is sponsored by Sir Lenzelot LLC, also known as SLA Capital, which if you didn't know, is Dan and I's private lending company. So, yes, we are sponsoring our own show, but what you're do about it? It is our private lending company that offers hard money and DSCR loans to real estate investors of all types. So you can be a new investor and experienced investor. You can be buying flips. You can be buying rentals, whatever. We can do everything. And not only that, but the rates that we offer are just as competitive, if not cheaper than pretty much every other company out there. So whatever big company you've been working with, bring us their term sheets, and I guarantee that we can probably beat it. We have the same connections they do. We just don't have all the overhead and middlemen. So if you wanna come and check us out, go to slacapital.com/keys, and I will know that you came from the show. And by seeing that you came from here, when you get the closing, you will save $500 on your first loan with us. So slacapital.com/keys, we would love to fund your next deal. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you want more from us, you can shoot us a follow on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore Invest. Dan is at investor man. Dan and Dylan is at Dylan underscore does underscore deals. Choose to follow and send us a DM to let us know what you think of the show.