The Era of Easy Money Is Over: How to Adapt Your Investment Strategy

Dan Austin: [0:00] Tough thing right now is to go and find that buy and hold deal that everybody was talking about the last five years Mhmm. That you're gonna fully bury, you're gonna cash flow like a hog. Those are tougher to find, they still exist, but you're fundamentally buying the exact same deal, your exit's just probably different. And it doesn't have to necessarily be a flip, it might be more of a creative finance where you put some long term debt on it and wrap your equity and then sell it or you do some sort of lease to own or you know, maybe you do just flip it.

Mike DeHaan: [0:26] I think the realization expectation people have to have is you have to be parking capital in these deals. And like going back to when insurance were low, you you could refinance all your money, still have cash flow, those sort of things. Like the whole buying without cash or like no money down real estate is never been further from the truth than right now. What's going on guys? Welcome to today's episode of the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast. This is the show where we teach you to make massive income, not just passive income with your real estate investing business. If this is your first time here, I am Mike DeHaan, here with my cohost, Dan Austin. Hey. And on these Wednesday shows, we talk about real estate investing business and whatever else we feel like. So traditionally, our business, if you guys are kinda like not familiar with us at all, Dan and I have been running a full time off market business for four years and a bit now to working together.

Dan Austin: [1:29] We're going into our fifth year into business together. Fifth year into business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:32] Which is pretty crazy and

Dan Austin: [1:34] That is crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [1:35] You know, like basically the focus has always been on going direct to seller to find the best deals. Very popular strategy, know, we have our whole scale community where we teach this strategy. We have a billion other groups out there that teach the same sort of basic shit, same general model. Because if you wanna make a successful business that grows, there's something you have to do, you can't rely on realtors and stuff. And over that period of like building that out, you always try different things. Try wholesaling, try flipping. You know, people do it the creative thing, people get into like these weird novations and other bullshit that people do. But we've always sort of leaned on wholesaling because it's quicker money and currently Dan, we've had a really fun time because we are you know, selling off some of our properties. We have a few of them that we have space and equity in, we're trying to sell. We're also concerned about taxes, so we're doing some, you know, seller wraps and and different kinds of seller financing deals.

Dan Austin: [2:33] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [2:33] And let me tell you, it is making me so aware. It's really reminding me about why we stopped flipping homes, selling homes to freaking retail buyers. Oh. Because it's Yeah. Pay them ass off of the time. Just like the little things.

Dan Austin: [2:51] It's a lot of work.

Mike DeHaan: [2:52] It is so much work and like the problem is, is every retail buyer, they're looking for a reason to not buy your deal. Like it could be anything. It could be a screaming deal and they'll be like, know, I don't wanna buy this because I don't really like the the corner that we have here. I feel like it's not rounded enough for me.

Dan Austin: [3:09] Yeah. Especially like the retail investor buyer, which is kinda how we're trying to sell these things, right? Yeah. We're positioning them to be like a good equity player, cash flow play for somebody that wants to buy one of them as a fully furnished short term rental. Like, just move in. It's like a good price as is, but it's fully furnished and you can just literally buy it and start renting it out as a fully furnished rental. Mhmm. Good deal. We're trying to sell it on wrap, so you can have shitty credit if you wanted to, as long as you qualify underneath like what we want for a buyer. And yeah, it's just a pain to ask any people, because you're right, they they go into it and you open the conversation with them, and immediately you're like, ugh,

Mike DeHaan: [3:45] this is gonna be a waste of time.

Dan Austin: [3:46] You just know, right, right away.

Mike DeHaan: [3:48] Then you can tell, right away, yeah. And and I don't know if it's like the tone, like when it's investors that are kind of And maybe it's because like when you're dealing with a decent investor that's done a lot of deals, they kinda like know the stuff that you wanna hear, and they lead with that. When it's like a tire kicker, or like a recreational investor, or a retail buyer's even worse, they don't know anything.

Dan Austin: [4:09] Yeah. Or they'll ask like shit that should not even matter. They'll just ask questions that you're like, that doesn't even matter. Because they are to your point trying to find a reason not to

Mike DeHaan: [4:18] Yeah.

Dan Austin: [4:18] Not to buy it.

Mike DeHaan: [4:19] And it's even worse when they are, their agent is representing the uneducated Because Yes. More than likely, the agent has no idea what's going on either. Yep. And it's probably like their hairdresser's cousin, know? It's just like

Dan Austin: [4:36] Yep, investor friendly.

Mike DeHaan: [4:37] It's like the blind leading the blind, now not only are they having a bad conversation there, but you're playing a game of telephone, you have the uneducated person relaying incorrect information to the also uneducated person.

Dan Austin: [4:48] Yeah. Imagine trying to teach how seller rap works to a quote, investor friendly agent to their client, like you know, you're like, okay, know you don't get it, I know this is not going to communicate to your client at all. This doesn't translate.

Mike DeHaan: [5:01] I

Dan Austin: [5:01] know. You come back with a complex like, here's what you gotta do, blah blah blah, and they're like, does the owner of the property next door own that Jeep? Why? Doesn't matter.

Mike DeHaan: [5:12] Yeah. Who cares? Well, you see, because if they own a Jeep, means they're a Pisces and my my freaking buyer will not live next to a Pisces.

Dan Austin: [5:22] Yeah. It's like you're in Spokane, half the people drive around with weird two a stickers to represent that there's some gun carrying weirdo. Oh god,

Mike DeHaan: [5:29] I know. It's okay. I had one in particular, I posted on several different Facebook groups, one of the ones that we're looking to sell. And I had this exchange with this person for like Okay. So much information. Like everything that I we could think of, know, we're going into the payments, we're going into the Yeah. Stuff about the neighborhood. And at the very end she goes, okay, this has all been very helpful. Thank you. In In order to really move forward, my buyers really need to know the address. It was like the third fucking line.

Dan Austin: [5:56] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've had that one before. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [5:59] And my post was the address, and I'm like, why are you asking me these questions? Don't even know where it is.

Dan Austin: [6:04] Totally. Yeah. It's a whole it's a whole thing, dude. I it's like, so what are the numbers on this thing? I'm like, it's right. It's all right there. It's all laid out.

Mike DeHaan: [6:12] It's literally.

Dan Austin: [6:14] Because I know, as an investor, all the shit you need to know to run your analysis. So it is right there in the posting. Do it with it what you will, I gave you the address, if you wanna go burn it down, I don't care. Like, just frickin' buy it.

Mike DeHaan: [6:26] Yeah. It's just it's so frustrating. This is why you know, you wholesale, like our whole model has always been you wholesale these properties, You have your list of like preferred buyers, you try to sell every single thing to them, even if it means you make a little bit less money, because you know it'll be easy, you won't have to deal with the transaction nonsense, you can just get things moving forward, then you can't sell it to them for some reason or you have one that's like extra juicy, then you go out to the larger market and you let all the people sort of fight over it. Like focusing specifically on the retail buyers, no. I can't do it. Like it just, this drives me insane.

Dan Austin: [7:01] There's a great question too when you're talking about buyers in our scale community coaching call today. One of the folks had asked like, how do you vet out a buyer if you've never Like worked with that is exactly why you just said like we go to our top few buyers that we sell everything to because we don't wanna have to vet it. The real question is, is how do you get to that point? And part of it, you should do everything you can to not get screwed over, but part of it is is testing the water sometimes and learning Mhmm. The lesson the hard way, or learning, hey, that person is gonna do deal with. Because when you haven't ever done a deal, everybody's new to you. So you have to kind of like investigate their track record, asking them what kind of deals they've done, what are they planning to do with this property, what does their financing look like, and if they have a shaky answer on any of those, they're definitely gonna be new. Doesn't mean you can't do a deal with them, but you better expect them to not close with it. Because more often than not, people that say they're a buyer aren't a buyer when you ask them to actually come to the table to check.

Mike DeHaan: [7:53] For sure, totally. Everyone's a buyer until you ask for money. Everyone wants to invest in a property until they have to sign the dotted line. And then at that point, every single reason is a reason for them not to leave the deal. And it's just so God, dude.

Dan Austin: [8:08] So many stupid reasons. I just think about all the ones over the years like, there looked to be a crack in the concrete on the foundation. It's like, yeah, it's concrete. There's cracks all the time. And everything. And everything. Like, where it's like, I'm selling this as is, so it's priced appropriately. If it's not for you, it's good, so stop asking me questions about the carpet pad. Yeah. Like the thing that doesn't matter.

Mike DeHaan: [8:29] Carpet pad's always a good one. It's literally the least important thing and the easiest thing to change. Yes. You can swap out all your carpet in your in the entire empty house in like a day and it'll cost you a few thousand bucks and it'll be good as new. Nothing. But anyway, that's been our current grievance. But aside from that, I mean on the wholesale side things have been going well. Yeah. You know, transactions move in, we've even had a couple challenging different seller situations that have been getting done Mhmm. Getting figured out. And we have this one right now and this is how you earn your money. Right? So we have this seller that she has this condo, we're wholesaling it, and everything was looking good. And then on title they found that she has four other siblings that have right to the property. And she reached out to all of them and there was one in particular who decided to be a little bit bitchy and was like, nope. I want nothing to do with it, I'm not signing anything. Right? So at this point you basically can't buy the deal, because she won't write off on it, title won't insure it. 99.9% of people would just be like, Well,

Dan Austin: [9:35] that sucks.

Mike DeHaan: [9:36] Guess we can't do this one, that sucks, I guess we have to go somebody else. No, instead, we got on the phone with this lady, and turns out she just hates the seller. She's more than happy to talk to us, she just wants to stick it to her. And so when she finds out that she's selling somebody else, she's like, oh, that's fine, don't care. Done. Earn our money, weird conversation, you have to like convince her it's not a scam. Right, I'm like explain like the whole deal. Super simple. All getting sorted out and we're moving forward with it now.

Dan Austin: [10:02] People have complex family situations and you have to know how to navigate it. Because that's not the first time we've had to connect with I know. An estranged person that refused. Remember the deaf lady Yes. That we had to do that with? It's like, well you don't even have to talk to her because she can't hear you. So I mean, just sign the paperwork.

Mike DeHaan: [10:18] We've had that a lot like divorced couples too, where they're like four or five that they're gonna have to go to closing at the same time, and it's like, no.

Dan Austin: [10:24] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [10:25] We can set it up differently, we can have you like, not even be in the same vicinity at the same time, it really doesn't matter.

Dan Austin: [10:32] More often than not when you get to that estranged person, like they're super easy to work with. Yeah. Like they're not as bad as that person is just however they're communicating with each other, they're not that bad with normal people.

Mike DeHaan: [10:43] No. And as soon as they sort of realize that you're Switzerland, know you're neutral

Dan Austin: [10:48] Yes.

Mike DeHaan: [10:48] It's generally pretty simple 99.9% of the time. Not always.

Dan Austin: [10:52] I don't care that like your wife left you to go and marry a transitioning woman that's named Chase.

Mike DeHaan: [10:58] Awkwardly specific.

Dan Austin: [11:00] I know that you're offended by it, but I don't care. I really don't. God.

Mike DeHaan: [11:05] Yeah, that one sticks best, that such a weird, that was like Jerry Springer, like in real life.

Dan Austin: [11:11] Yeah. That was Jerry Springer in real life. That one has like, I don't know why the birds in the house, the smell. Yeah. It's one of our best performing houses, had we not been able to get ahold of the husband that refused to sign the paperwork. And it turns out, the reason why he refused to sign the paperwork is because he was trying to protect his ex wife, he was worried that she was making a bad decision.

Mike DeHaan: [11:28] Yeah, I know. He was always sympathetic and then, I mean, it worked out just fine. But Yeah. Yeah. We had to do an anime adventure about that one. If you guys haven't been seeing us on Instagram, mike underscore invest and Dan's at investment man, Dan. We are releasing a new little series of content to go along with the show that'll be the Collecting Keys animated adventures. Go and subscribe to us on YouTube. You should look up Collecting Keys on YouTube, and you'll be able to see those. But basically Yeah. We have the capacity to release about once a month with the animator that we have. We're gonna take some of the craziest stories that are coming from guests or from ourselves and turn them into these little like two to five minute cartoons. They're kinda like South Park style. They're super over the top.

Dan Austin: [12:07] They're awesome. And it'll

Mike DeHaan: [12:08] just be something a little bit different that I've wanted to do for years ever since we started dealing with some of these insane situations.

Dan Austin: [12:17] I must have I can't remember like a few years ago you're like, you could really make a TV show about this and then they kind of like, well I'll like, it would be so cool if we had these little cartoons and guess what now? Now we do.

Mike DeHaan: [12:26] That's because you have to approach it the right way, right? Because we can retell the story, you can make light of like some of the tragic nature of it, you can turn it into a cartoon, that's obviously satire, that's fine. But then there's people like, you know, that go and try to make a TV show out of it and they're going and knocking on the door of the

Dan Austin: [12:45] I know.

Mike DeHaan: [12:45] Lady that has no idea that her home just gotten sold and you're like, hey, you gotta get out of here you trashy person. Like that's not good TV. That's that's not good TV at all. No one wants to see that.

Dan Austin: [12:55] No. That is not good TV. Yeah. No. But we're able to pluck out, so if you haven't listened to all how many episodes, we got a couple 100, two, three hundred coming Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [13:03] So this one's one ninety two officially, but we also have like, what, 85 of the Friday focuses, so we're pushing about almost 300.

Dan Austin: [13:10] Almost 300. So we can pluck out. You don't have to go back and listen to all of the the crazy stories. We're gonna be able to pluck out the best ones that are even cartoon appropriate because some of them get pretty wild.

Mike DeHaan: [13:21] Pretty wild. I know this one's sort funny. He has yeah. Just he gets it. The the one that's coming out or I guess that came out last week at time of this episode is about this big slumlord that had this commercial property that he rented out to all these crazy people. And it's Either way, that's a great story. Go check out Like The Keys on YouTube. Subscribe over there and you'll be learning as they come out. It'll be fun, some additional stuff we're working on. Mhmm. Yeah. Besides that, I mean, it's funny just like the real estate space as a whole, I don't know if there's ever been where we've been in business that there's been so little talk about real estate media. This is because like it's an election year? I think

Dan Austin: [14:00] that's a big part of it, yeah. It has to be, right? And I think the market's kinda flat because I think everybody's realizing we might extend these high rates into the late latter part of this year. And so I think people are kinda like, well, what do I do? Everybody's gonna make this wait and see mode it feels like, and then they're like, but Donald Trump's in the news, so that's gonna that's make a way better story.

Mike DeHaan: [14:19] Totally, yeah I mean it just, it got draws more eyes right now. Interest rates that people are kind of sick of. I mean the unaffordability of the real estate market, people already know that. People used to lean on like the hedge funds and the anti landlord use People for a are kinda like, I'm over that, know. I mean you had your little post that went viral, people were going after you. But like the reality is is

Dan Austin: [14:41] Oh yeah, forgot about that.

Mike DeHaan: [14:42] Everyone that is upset about landlords, they'd be a landlord in five seconds, they could figure it out.

Dan Austin: [14:48] Absolutely. If you have, they could figure it out. If they wanna deal with the headaches of owning properties, they would do it in a heartbeat.

Mike DeHaan: [14:54] No, dude. There's no headaches. You're just I know. A greedy rich person living off the hard work of other people. Go get a real job.

Dan Austin: [15:01] Very true. Very true.

Mike DeHaan: [15:03] So I know it's just I have no idea what to expect over the next little bit. And there's has been so little. And the big news that just keeps coming back around is the slow collapse of the commercial market. But Yeah. Even then just because there's so much money behind that it's happening kind of in slow motion.

Dan Austin: [15:21] I think like the niche you gotta figure out in that is like at what levels? Because the media talks about these big office towers, right, that are the billions of dollars. Like that's kind of out of our network, like out of most people's network, right, other than like a few people. So then what's like that next layer, and then what's that next layer deeper too? And so how can you get the data and understand when like those notes are coming due and when is it a prime opportunity to to buy those things Totally. At a good discount while rates are high, while their notes are coming up and they're not able to perform on them. But the caveat to that is you gotta be able to get lending on it too, so your commercial space has to be performing at some level, you gotta figure that piece out.

Mike DeHaan: [16:01] I mean, yeah. And like you said though, it's so far removed from like most people. We are already a niche of a niche in real estate. Right, like the direct to seller, full time investor, doing high volume, that is already an extremely small population. I would say that like that group of people that is buying like skyscrapers is an even smaller population. That's like five companies, period.

Dan Austin: [16:26] That's just a handful of people that know how to do that.

Mike DeHaan: [16:29] Totally. And so like you hear about those sort of things, and to everyone else it's like, I don't know hearing that Microsoft is down on their Q2 projections. It's like okay what does that mean? Why should I care?

Dan Austin: [16:41] Yeah, how does that affect me right now? Probably doesn't.

Mike DeHaan: [16:43] It probably doesn't at all. I think over the, if that happened at a massive scale all at once it would affect people because banks would collapse and a whole bunch of other things would get really weird very quickly. But even then for the average person, if the banks collapse what does that mean for you? Unless they steal all your money and you have money above the FDIC insured amount that you lose, which most people don't have, it's kinda like Yeah. I don't know.

Dan Austin: [17:06] Not a big deal. Not a big deal at all. It's not gonna not gonna affect me. And like that stuff even being in the news is somewhat far removed and decoupled from residential real estate.

Mike DeHaan: [17:14] So Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [17:14] The tough thing that when you're running into just the the run of the mill folks or the people you're talking about, they're always trying to find a reason to not buy your property. Trying to correlate the stock the stock market performance or what they're hearing on what is that guy that yells all the time on on TV? The stock guy.

Mike DeHaan: [17:31] The stock guy, Kramer? Kramer. Yeah.

Dan Austin: [17:34] Yeah. They're taking that guy's input on stocks and correlating that to why they shouldn't buy real estate in the residential space right now. But as you and I know, like we do this all over the country, like there's deals to be had and there's buyers to buy those and properties to flip.

Mike DeHaan: [17:48] Yeah. Like all over the place.

Dan Austin: [17:50] The tough thing right now is to go and find that buy and hold deal that everybody was talking about the last five years Mhmm. Because you're gonna fully bury, you're gonna cash flow like a hog. Those are tougher to find, they still exist, but you're fundamentally buying the exact same deal, your exit's just probably different. And it doesn't have to necessarily be a flip, it might be more of a creative finance where you put some long term debt on it and wrap your equity and then sell it or you do some sort of lease to own or maybe you do just flip it.

Mike DeHaan: [18:16] I think the real estate expectation people have to have is you have to be parking capital in these deals. Mhmm. Right? And like going back to when insurance were low, you you could refinance all your money, still have cash flow those sort of things. Like the whole buying without cash or like no money down real estate is never been further from the truth than right now.

Dan Austin: [18:38] Yeah, that's a good point.

Mike DeHaan: [18:39] Because you have to have some sort of equity spread to keep, if you're use banks at all, to keep your payment in a position where it's gonna cash flow anything. And even if you go and you raise money, there still money has to go and be part of the deal, it just might not be your money, it could be somebody else's, but like don't pretend like it's gonna be in and out of there in a really quick couple of months because it's not.

Dan Austin: [19:00] It's not, it's unlikely to happen and yeah, I think it's a great look back to say how influential 0% interest rates were because money was super easy to get and it was free to the bank so whatever they were loaning out, were basically making a margin on, so they were able to lend it out at super cheap rates. And that, with that they were able to take on risk because their whole thing was like, hey, we gotta, we gotta loan this money. It's such a great deal for everybody involved and now without that, you're realizing like that, the economy slows down because there's just not as much movement because people don't wanna park capital in real estate. If you wanna stay liquid, you probably shouldn't be because real estate is the most illiquid thing you can do.

Mike DeHaan: [19:39] Yeah. For sure.

Dan Austin: [19:40] It's not easy to sell and not easy to move quickly overnight.

Mike DeHaan: [19:43] Yeah. I mean like at all and I think a lot of people tend to forget that. It's also why being in a position that a lot of real estate investors get into where they are extremely equity rich and extremely cash poor is a really Who bad place to was it that said this? I don't know it was Cardell. Maybe it was like Chris Crown or one of oh no. In fact, I think it was Pace. He would say this because he's a fucking idiot. But he he was like, I refuse to hold any cash.

Dan Austin: [20:09] He did say that. He did say it.

Mike DeHaan: [20:11] Yeah. And he and he's like, I park all of my money immediately into properties.

Dan Austin: [20:15] No it doesn't.

Mike DeHaan: [20:16] Because basically any money that's sitting is like dead. And then he said also too, by having all of your money placed, it forces you to work harder because you don't have a choice. Yeah, he's a liar. And that's the worst advice that I've ever heard anybody give.

Dan Austin: [20:30] Terrible advice. That's almost as bad as like the idea of gator lending where you have to like borrow money for earnest money. Yeah. That's a terrible idea.

Mike DeHaan: [20:40] It just doesn't make any sense. People spin that as like it's a position of using leverage effectively. It's like no. Basically discontinuing to keep your chips on the table and never taking any off, you know, to pay your mortgage. And then in fact, when they run out of your chips, right, you go and you pull out of your HELOC, and you put those on the table too.

Dan Austin: [20:58] Yeah. Don't leave those chips in your house, yeah, put them somewhere else.

Mike DeHaan: [21:01] It's gonna make you work harder. Just keep going for it.

Dan Austin: [21:04] Yeah, definitely. It's definitely gonna make you work harder because you're gonna be broke. You're gonna have to go back to work at McDonald's.

Mike DeHaan: [21:09] Dumbest thing. So I don't know, it's just hard to know what's gonna happen. What do you think? I've seen this trend recently, like in the last week. A certain demographic guys that are posting this, it's always what I would call like the I'm trying to be I'm trying to think about how to phrase it so people don't blow me up. It's like the dad age, like older than you, like forties to fifties, like the people that vote for Trump, but not because they're Republicans, it's because they're racist and they like kinda like that vibe. Right?

Dan Austin: [21:44] Okay. I don't know if I have this avatar on my Instagram, so keep going.

Mike DeHaan: [21:47] You do, it's like half your neighbors, Okay. We live in Spokane.

Dan Austin: [21:51] But I'm trying to figure it out, okay, where are you going with this? Let's spin this just Christmas.

Mike DeHaan: [21:54] They like it because like they like the outrage of it. Right? It's not because they're into the Republican Party of the message, they like the outrage that comes with being involved with that side of the political sphere.

Dan Austin: [22:04] With the extreme side?

Mike DeHaan: [22:05] With the extreme side of everything sucks, what's now swung that's almost anti American. They're the ones that think about the Roman Empire every two minutes or whatever because they're always thinking about how The United States is collapsing. That's what they focus on. But the current trend I am seeing them repost and post is around the fact that if you look past the last twenty five, thirty years or whatever where property was x amount, and now it's 20 times more than that. A lot of them are very boldly making the argument that real estate has not appreciated at all, and in fact the US dollar has just lost that much value. Right? The property's actually worth exactly the same. I've seen two people post this just today, not even the past few days. What's your opinion on that?

Dan Austin: [22:53] So here is my uneducated opinion. First of all, I don't like to make big claims out loud about macroeconomic shit that doesn't, that I don't even understand. Yeah. So I don't like to repeat what other people say, is most of what shit goes on the internet. I don't have any basis for that, like I mean, yes we've all gone through inflation, so we've experienced it, like, I legit, like, last year and the year before, like I felt it, but it wasn't like, oh, but like this year, I'm like, oh, okay, things did get more expensive, right? And now that's just the new norm. But that doesn't mean that you can't go and buy shit in like another country because the dollar's so weak.

Mike DeHaan: [23:30] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [23:31] I don't buy that, and I don't buy that the American economy's collapsing, that the dollar's going away. Like I don't know anybody that can make that statement and honestly know with fact.

Mike DeHaan: [23:39] They all just read it on some bot Twitter account that's run by a Russian guy Yeah. That's trying to stir shit.

Dan Austin: [23:45] Right. I think that all that like anti American or like, you know, we're we're not the same we are. I think, partially, that's like a generational thing as people get older, they see the world through a different set of lenses and I think that's okay. The difference is is like a lot of baby boomers are on TikTok and Instagram now. They they they're at that age too where we all get there, where you're more loose with your opinions. Like you just let them rip, and so I just, I think there's some of that going on, but I don't see that there's any proof to that. I just can't see it.

Mike DeHaan: [24:18] Sure. So my general opinion on this, I'm thinking about this most of the day, is they're trying to make this statement about how everything's bad, know, and you kinda should just like, I don't know, give up on The US or whatever because there's been this inflation, they're not being honest with us about, know, this property's like way too expensive and all this sort of stuff. Here's how I view it. It should not matter. It should not affect anything, right? Because if all of a sudden the $400,000 house now was worth $20,000 forty years ago, and you instead of viewing it as like, oh man that's due to inflation, who cares? You still have a lot of money relative to right now. If anything that should be building more of a use case about why you should be looking to hold real estate long term, and how the kind of thesis around real estate in general has been around how it's like a hedge against inflation. If what they're saying is actually true, which it's not, if it is actually true, then you should be holding every property, right? And like why are you trying to make it like a negative thing, instead you should be using that as a reason to go out and buy more and invest more, be more proactive around the assets

Dan Austin: [25:29] that Yeah, you're that's a good point, you're right, that's like a good argument for inflation and that you should, I guess I was looking at the spin, the spin on it is that because the American dollar is weaker, that we wouldn't have the same buying power in the world marketplace.

Mike DeHaan: [25:43] Which is not true at all. I can tell you that from experience. As someone who has traveled a lot of places in the world over the last two years, we kick ass everywhere right now. You can afford a lot of things, places.

Dan Austin: [25:56] Well that's the other thing that, the point I would bring up too, is it's super easy to have like the self fulfilling prophecy where like the world's coming to an end. Like look at America, like we're not doing like how we used to be. Well in reality, go to a country that's not a world power, that is not known for their economy and is maybe even in decline a little bit, like maybe they're in, you know, because like the world, we all kinda go into recession similar times, right? So go to another, whether it's a European country, an Asian country, I bet you you'll find some happy people there, and I bet you things will be buzzing down the road just like they were the day before.

Mike DeHaan: [26:27] Yeah, you'll find more happy people, right? Like honestly.

Dan Austin: [26:30] Yeah, because they're not so worried about being the world past. Like when you're on top, you know, it's, there's a lot of weight on your shoulders and so I think that we get kinda wrapped up in that, like maybe as like a country, like the people that are posting this, like this egocentric mentality around who we are as Americans, and what it needs to look like, what it needs to be. If it's not always the bull market, then it's like end of the world, I just don't

Mike DeHaan: [26:51] Luckily.

Dan Austin: [26:51] In reality, yeah, I love a bull market, man. It feels way better. It's like, this is awesome, I'm making more money every day and everybody's talking good. Yeah. But that's just not reality.

Mike DeHaan: [27:01] You know, it goes back to the saying, I don't know if he originally said it, I've heard Conor McGregor say it, I mean, UFC fighter. And it's like, they say losers focus on winners and winners focus on winning. Right? Know, winning's kind of relative, but you could say that like a lot of these countries that are the world powers, in their world, they are winning because things are getting a little bit better every day. You know, they're now like constantly worried about losing first place, which also to you I hate to break everybody, China's already won. We just haven't realized it yet.

Dan Austin: [27:29] Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Don't say that.

Mike DeHaan: [27:32] Have. There's so many things that they're forcing us to make changes.

Dan Austin: [27:34] Great. We're gonna get censored now. We're not getting on true social anymore. Probably a little serious.

Mike DeHaan: [27:38] I'm gonna go and update my file on the Republican dating app, the right stuff, you know.

Dan Austin: [27:47] I mean from an economic standpoint, you're not wrong. China is definitely crushing it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:52] Yeah. But either way, I

Dan Austin: [27:53] mean They're a larger economy.

Mike DeHaan: [27:55] It's just interesting for me to see this like viewpoint that's come out that's so almost like anti real estate and almost anti do everything. Because it's like a Yeah. Loser's mentality. Take

Dan Austin: [28:08] all of your money, take all your investments, here's what you should do. Take all your investments and buy gold.

Mike DeHaan: [28:13] You know what the worst one is right now? I see this a lot too, and this is like the same sort of demographic of people. In fact, somebody just fucking did this, in like, I don't even know, I think they were from the East Coast, they moved to Russia because they were under the guise that it was going to be like a better lifestyle. This was on this, I saw this on Reddit. So it may or may not be Not such

Dan Austin: [28:34] big deal.

Mike DeHaan: [28:34] But it was a family of 10 that moved to Russia because they wanted to escape our corrupt government, and then they were now like stuck there because they wouldn't let them leave. Yeah. Because they didn't have the appropriate documentation.

Dan Austin: [28:47] Yeah bro, like don't go to Russia.

Mike DeHaan: [28:48] But like so this, I've seen this other trend constantly on Instagram, most people that are like, here's why I make all my money in The United States, and instead of living there I live in Dubai. And it's like this weird thing that I guarantee you is like some Saudi, not Saudi, some like Dubai prince that is like paying these influencers to try and like sell Dubai to people with money to try and get them to move there. Because it's marketing, right? Especially it's always like this like good looking couple, they have like young kids, they're talking about their super successful business, now Dubai they don't have taxes, and gas is so cheap, and this is the apartment that they own, and you know they have like Slave labor, that's how they build it all. Slave labor. They say like they're protected from like all these different like kinda like crimes and stuff that you can commit in other countries. Like there's like witches that they're trying to do and like I guarantee you that there is some 28 year old friends that lives there that's like, I'm just gonna get all all the the Instagrammers to bring rich people here.

Dan Austin: [29:51] Yeah, absolutely. Then they

Mike DeHaan: [29:53] all have companies too, it's like, hey do you wanna start a trust so that you can hold your real estate assets in Western countries but also live here? Here's the law firm that we use to do it for you. Right? It's just such a wrath

Dan Austin: [30:04] Dude, you go down deep, bro. I am basic on that on my phone. I know.

Mike DeHaan: [30:08] This is what I get in my three minutes of reels every day.

Dan Austin: [30:12] I don't dude, I I don't get any of that. Wait, what do get? People moving to Russia?

Mike DeHaan: [30:19] Oh, man.

Dan Austin: [30:20] I don't even get the old dudes talking about how you should, you know, sell everything and go into a bunker.

Mike DeHaan: [30:26] Oh, yeah, you do. We're mutual friends with a lot of these people.

Dan Austin: [30:28] You think I would get that.

Mike DeHaan: [30:30] Yeah. We're mutual friends. You just have to scroll this.

Dan Austin: [30:32] I know but I don't see them. I don't see them on the Yeah. Don't Yeah. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [30:36] I think point being with all this though is it's never been more important than right now to be in control of your own stuff. Right? Choose your own destiny and really just be intentional about like looking out for yourself. Right? And not expecting other people to do it for you.

Dan Austin: [30:57] Yeah. Take action. Do some shit.

Mike DeHaan: [30:59] Take action.

Dan Austin: [30:59] I mean, that's really what it comes down to. Like if you're if you're out there and you're kinda like debating on what you should do next, you know, just take some action one step at a time. I mean, I know it's easy to say, but that's how we all got started at some point in time. Mean, going back to when I bought my first rental property, I mean, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I didn't know anything. Figured it out I went, spent a bunch of money, figured it out. I didn't have nearly as much as I thought I would. Mhmm. But you know, just kept buying real estate and it kept working and it kept working and that's the other thing too about like real estate and investing. Like there's two things on this investing point I would make. Everybody knows if you put money in the S and P 500 it will grow.

Mike DeHaan: [31:40] No. Quote unquote, you don't know anything. Right? They assume.

Dan Austin: [31:43] They assume, but you can go and put in there if you here here, I'm a numbers person, so if you look back however many years, it's always grown. However, I'm sure somebody could come on here and tell us what the average like return on the S and P 500 is like seven, eight, 9%, something like that.

Mike DeHaan: [31:57] And that number will fluctuate depending if they work for a four zero one k company or not.

Dan Austin: [32:01] Yes, that's exactly true. But in general, you should, it should go up, whatever that percentage is. It's Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [32:06] I don't

Dan Austin: [32:07] think it's the best investment, like I don't think, I think you can make more money doing other things, but the other point on investing though is is like, okay, so if you know that to be true, or you feel that that's true, the same thing is true in real estate. So you could go and buy and invest in real estate or replace that with whatever asset that's alternative to the S and P 500. And if you see other people doing it and it's working for them, like you could probably just mimic them and do the same thing.

Mike DeHaan: [32:31] For sure.

Dan Austin: [32:32] That's what I did. Right? I just copied other people.

Mike DeHaan: [32:34] Yeah. And I think also too a thing to keep in mind is that success and growth and value is relative to each other or to the global marketplace, not to the past. Right? There's this really weird thing that people do where they like to look at the value of things now versus in the past. It doesn't freaking matter at all.

Dan Austin: [32:54] What do you mean by that? I'm kinda, what do you what do you mean? I'm trying to.

Mike DeHaan: [32:57] Going back to the real estate thing I said before, right? Where people are like, wow, this house used to be $20,000, and now it's $400,000. Like that's crazy, that shows there's like a problem. It's like, no.

Dan Austin: [33:07] Prue, it doesn't show anything on face value, it means nothing.

Mike DeHaan: [33:09] It means nothing, but then when you look at that $400,000 relative to the world economy, it's a lot of money, so that's great. So you should own that property, right? Right. You know, instead people use that as like a position to show devaluation, but you should because they're looking at it from a currency perspective, but instead you should look like, okay cool, well that gives us the ability to you know live a decent life, to you know travel, to you know be able to spend a lot of money other places. So that's a good thing. Right? And I don't know, just we're getting that in the weeds a lot but it's Yeah. Sorry guys. Yeah. Sorry. Just the the challenge of

Dan Austin: [33:44] It's a great thought exercise that started off with us complaining about retail buyers and then getting into global economics and like why people say stuff. I mean, I'll just sum it up with like, just don't like people that make those, I don't know what I'd call those like backhanded comments or whatever that they say about things where it's just like, it's not, there's no fact in that. So don't No. Don't use that to make your decision on anything.

Mike DeHaan: [34:07] Sure. I will say that we definitely get a unique perspective to the real estate market in general, because you know, we do a couple 100 deals a year and we're active across The United States. So we have a little peek outside of like the local bubble that most people live their entire lives in. Like most people, especially in The United States that don't travel, right? I mean, a lot of people only travel within The US, most people they go to like their vacation spots that are within a driving distance of where they live. Catskills. Yeah. The Catskills, right? The Keys, whatever it is. Yeah. Their world view is based off of a very very very small geographic area and demographic population that's all the same. Mhmm. And it doesn't make sense. Right? They use that to make very very bold statements and proclamations around the world and the country as a whole. And I can tell you that if anyone ever says something that seems like an extreme statement, it is incorrect. Right? And the best thing that you can do is to figure out how to take control of your own money, your own finances, invest for yourself, and also don't ever expect anything to be passive. Right? Things can be like passive ish, there's always going to have to be an active reevaluation.

Dan Austin: [35:21] Some legwork.

Mike DeHaan: [35:22] Yeah, yep. Whether it's an evaluation at the start, a reevaluation as you go year over year, and some kind of management. Because setting your money and forgetting it, be that in stocks, in houses, whatever, it's just eventually going to lead to some sort of issues if you don't look things around.

Dan Austin: [35:38] You have to actively manage it and you can't rely just on people that tell you things. You know, if you're relying on a single source of information to grow your retirement savings or whatever that is, you're probably not going to make as much money as you could as

Mike DeHaan: [35:51] if you actively managed it. Exactly. That's why they say building wealth is a skill. It's because it is something that you need to actively be growing and improving upon. And if you're not, you're not gonna be wealthy regardless of what the economy and the US dollar and inflation and the world.

Dan Austin: [36:05] Fair. Fair point.

Mike DeHaan: [36:07] So there's your your ramblings from two not yet baby boomers, but people who talk like they're old, maybe? I don't know. Feel like just throwing out weird conspiracy.

Dan Austin: [36:15] And we haven't had like a true conspiracy episode in a while.

Mike DeHaan: [36:18] Well, I mean, it's not a conspiracy though. That's just like basic economic analysis in a world where everyone just throws out whatever headline that they read over and over and never thinks about things critically. Yeah. Anyways, we appreciate you guys listening. Choose a follow on Instagram, I'm at mike underscore invest, Dan's at investor man. Dan, we are posting all sorts of stuff on there these days, They're going into all sorts of different ways that we build out our business, you know, how we build out different systems, how we hire, what our real estate business actually looks like. So check out on those. We would appreciate it. And thanks for listening everybody. Talk to you next week.

Dan Austin: [36:51] See you.