Epic Real Estate Investing - Everyone Saw a Crash — They Missed the Real Danger | George Ellison

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

The internet won’t stop screaming “Housing crash! 2008 again! Get ready!” But what if the entire conversation is upside-down? In this episode, I sit down with George Ellison — the guy who sold a 15,000-home REIT for billions — to break down the truth behind today’s market. And trust me… this story is nothing like the doomsday crowd wants it to be. If you want to invest like the pros instead of guessing like the rest of the internet, check out George’s platform → https://www.propbee.com/They basically built the institutional toolkit for normal people. George walks me through the day his $2.5B deal collapsed in April 2020, why Wall Street predicted 80% of his tenants would stop paying rent, and how the real number ended up being 3%. Then he explains why the fundamentals today look nothing like 2008, why Warren Buffett is quietly loading up, and why high rates have actually created the best setup for buyers we’ve seen in years. If you want to understand the market instead of getting played by the headlines, this is the episode you listen to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They finally got the, you know, like the genie back in the bottle. So they're going to be very, very cautious in bringing them back down. But, Matt, are they going lower or are they going higher? And the answer is, this is the epic real estate podcast, contrarian takes on money, housing, and policy without the guru nonsense. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's go. And look, we need to talk about the housing market because every comment on, you know, on every video I post says the exact same thing.

Get ready for the crash. You're a fool, it's 2008 all over again. The entire internet is convinced the housing market is about to collapse, and they are dangerously wrong. And this creates two massive, wait, what contradictions? First, if the market is a guaranteed disaster, why did Warren Buffett just make

the largest real estate investment in his company's history? And second, how can this, How can this not be 2008 when it feels exactly the same? It's like seeing a shark fin in your swimming pool. It's terrifying. But what if this time it's just a guy with a snorkel and a very mean-spirited sense of humor? This crash hysteria, it's everywhere, and it's understandable.

Jerome Powell took interest rates and blasted them into the stratosphere. It was violent. It was fast. Everyone is shell-shocked, but here's the difference between thinking and knowing. What people think is happening is that 2008 is repeating, loose credit, overbuilding, a giant bubble. What is really happening is the literal exact 180 degree opposite. In 2008, we had loose credit. Today, we have the tightest credit and healthiest bank books in history. In 2008, we had a massive oversupply of homes.

Today, we have a massive deficit. We are millions of homes in the hole. This isn't a bubble. It's a shortage. And it gets worse. The other great villain everyone loves to blame? The institutions. Blackstone is buying every house.

Well, let's look at the numbers. There are 17 million single-family rental homes in the U.S. How many do all the big institutions owned combined? Less than 500,000. That's not a market takeover. That is a rounding error. 97% of the market is regular mom-and-pop investors. So if the banks are strong, the supply is low,

and the institutions aren't the boogeyman, Who is the real villain? It's your own fear. Welcome to the holy crap section. My guest today lived through the epicenter of this. His company, a public reed with 15,000 homes, was in the middle of being sold on April 30th, 2020. The worst possible month in human history to do this.

At 5.30 p.m. on closing day, the buyers just didn't show up. The deal collapsed. The stock collapsed. Wall Street predicted 80% of his tenants would stop paying rent. 80. But here's the holy crap moment. Do you know what the actual delinquency rate was? And went from one and a half percent to three percent. It barely moved. Everyone overreacted.

And then, because of COVID, people fled apartments and begged for single family homes. His company became more valuable. He ended up selling it for 50 percent more than the original price. It's like being on the Titanic, getting a Dear John letter from your fiance and then finding out she left you a winning lottery ticket. in the envelope. The timing is terrible, but the outcome is surprisingly good. This just brings us to the hidden mechanism for right now. Rates are high. Everyone is frozen, but my guest says this is the bottom. This is the cheapest housing you will ever see again. Because when the Fed does start to lower rates, this market is going to catch fire so fast that you're going to miss it. So how do you get in before the fire starts? A lack of capital has killed a lot of dreams.

but only for the people who don't know the loophole. If you have a 680 credit score or better and could use up to 150K at 0% to kickstart your next venture, get approval in 30 seconds or less, and you don't even have to talk to anyone at loophole lending.com. Okay, back to the show. All right, our guest today is the co-founder and CO of Prop B, a next generation real estate platform that combines smart analytics with end-to-end services. So please help me welcome to the show, Mr. George Ellison. George, welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing.

Matt, thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. You bet. You bet. I'm glad to have you. And I guess congratulations are in order. Prop B just officially launched in the Charlotte Market, a big milestone for you and the team.

Yes, sir. Awesome. I want to find out everything there is about Prop B and why you're so excited about it and what holes it fills in the marketplace and what problems it solves for its users. But I look through your. bio here a little bit. And I said, I think somewhere said you've had over a billion dollars of properties under management. Did I read that correctly? The company that we sold was, we had 15,000 properties and it sold for about two and a half billion dollars. Wow. Well, that would be a name that

we've heard of, right? What was the name of that company? Well, it's a single family rental reeds aren't a big, you know, hotbed of the reed market. It's kind of a, as you know, reeds can come in any flavor, you know, student housing, warehouses, office retail. So there's probably a handful of single-family rental reeds, so standalone homes. And there was probably after the crash, I think maybe 10 or 12 public companies, and now that's down to, I think, maybe two or three. So Blackstone, for example, started Invitation Homes, if you've heard of that. And so there's blackstone's out of it, but they're still around. American Home for Rent was started by the public storage guys, Wayne Hughes. They're still around. We were public,

but we were bought by a big private concern, a private equity firm called Pretium. Their flag is called Progress. And they're actually probably the biggest of the institutional. So some of the notes you sent, we can talk about this institutional versus retail thing is probably a little bit overhyped, but it's an interesting topic if we get to that. Yeah, I've covered that a lot. And I've kind of waffled back and forth on my opinion. opinion on it and my perspective on it, I think it's overhight on how much they're actually acquiring. That's correct.

But the other side of that is where they're actually acquiring it, right? Yep. That could present a problem in certain areas, but national market is not a huge problem. Right. But to get to that many, how does that story start for you? So I guess the concept of moving single family rental reeds or single family rental homes, into REITs was probably, I don't know if it existed before 12, but that's when everybody started buying homes on the courthouse stairs. And the view was that you could buy nice homes

cheaply and institutionally manage them. So that's kind of when that market started. But back to your point about, you know, we try to manage by fact. So the numbers are at a real high level and you know these but they're the good sound bites if you don't have them there's probably 125 to 130 million households mortgage versus rent is kind of 6040 probably a little bit higher than 6040 so let's move out people who own so now let's go to 40% of that number so you're talking about 45 to 50 million families rent in this country that's always a good number to know particularly in your business and then how many of that number are in

garden apartments, high rises, regular apartments, multifamily things versus stand-alone buildings that people live in with fences and garages and yards. And that split is two-thirds, one-third, two apartments. And that leaves you with 16 to probably 18 million families rent single-family homes. So for you, you know, and I've watched a lot and listened to a lot of not just your educational side, but your actual investing side. So that's kind of who are those people, who are those people who live in those homes, but more importantly for us and the business we're starting and why I think it's going to

help people who listen to you. It was the line you said pretty soon there'll be those who pay rent and those who collect. A famous man, a famous man once said. So on his own podcast. But I think that's true. And so if that's where it's going, let's start with a real, fact, which is 17 million families are renting homes. That's interesting. So how much of that is the institutional guys? When you add up everything those guys started, you know, and we were

one of the smallest mad at 15. So the, as I said, the guy who bought us, I think is up to probably around progress that probably is close to 100. But when you add all of them up, all the publics and all the privates, it's not even 500,000. So back to your, you said you kind of had views on both sites on that side of the aisle, and I know you know this, half a million out of 17 million to your, you know, and you hit on this, that's not really, that shouldn't scare anybody. When you double click on it and you said, but there could be places where that could be problematic. So places like Atlanta, which is a, we were one of the smallest, Matt. We had 4,000 homes in Atlanta. It's just a great market, very, very friendly for landlords. It's a great

rental market. It's just everything about it fits. It's one of the best markets. It's one of the best markets. So you could maybe argue that in certain pockets, certain markets, they can move, the institutional guys can move so fast because they have cash and they can put it down and they have big financing lines with the street and so on and so on. Maybe they could pinch some people and it could hurt. But as a macro issue, half a million divided by 17, not a big problem. So we bought in bulk. When we got there in 15, the company had started, they tried a strategy that wasn't working they were trying to buy non-performing loans and again you know the distress area very well they were trying to buy the actual loans from the banks and work them into rio and then turn them

into rentals wow i mean that's you know really cool concept really hard you know more than most people that that that's not an easy journey somebody came to you and said like hey what do you think of that idea or should i just buy the house on the courthouse stairs you'd say you can do the npl route But boy, that's a lot of heavy lifting to get to REO, to get the people out. And particularly, as you remember, the government was working very, very hard to not let people get evicted and not let people thrown out. And even though people weren't paying their mortgages, the government was protecting people because it became a very emotional issue, as you remember. So you're trying to go after REO when the government's going the other way. That's probably not a good strategy.

So when I got there, when we got there, they had about 300 homes. Just a second, George. So for you to get in a position, like, you're going to go buy it in bulk, like, kind of what is the journey that got you that spot to where, like, I'm just going to buy a bunch of houses? Right. The institutional guys frequently trade with each other. You get a call and say, hey, we're not making any money in Oklahoma City.

George, we got 4,000 homes in Oklahoma City. Would you be interested in buying? There's brokerage firms that broker packages. There's regional guys that sell packages. There's a lot of people that got into the business at that time that I talked about, a big insurance company on the West Coast, for example, everybody wanted to get into it because you remember how cheap housing was. So everybody was like, one of the themes you sent was like mistakes people make

or myths about real estate. Everybody in their brother thought, I can buy homes and I can institutionally manage them. It's not going to be that hard, Matt. And you're like, well, so there are a lot of guys, there are a lot of dead bodies somewhere around 3,000 to 8,000, which is not enough to make it work. We were at 15. And Matt, that was one of the smallest out there. You got to get to 20, 25,000 homes to really generate the capital to afford the people that you have to have to run it. So there's a real, you know, gravitational pull you have to break through. And we were just getting there at 15.

So, so anyway, packages are constantly. Property management really. Like you need a bunch of houses for that 10% collected rent. add up to something that's exactly right that's exactly right so so the so the field was strewned with guys that had 2,000 3,000 4,000 and they just couldn't make the numbers work so all of us all you know the big eight still standing we would all bid on them and then it got into um so for example not that you know not to name names but but the the invitation homes invitation homes when they were owned by blackstone were one of the biggest and they bought very, very quickly, and then they went through the portfolio and started to call out things they didn't want. And they really want, it's run by a guy named Dallas Tanner, who's

a fantastic guy, if you haven't met, a very, very bright guy. They like a little bit price here of a home. I was trying to get a high yield dividend to my people. So I was more, these numbers, you probably have to add 50 to 85,000 to it. I was kind of in the 145 to maybe 225 price point, they were probably more 300 to 450. They like West Coast. They like anything near the oceans. They're a really pricier, cooler home, still a rental, but probably 100 to 150 higher than me. So there were guys at all of the gradations of like every 50,000. I was probably closer to the bottom, more workforce housing. And so Blackstone was the first trade we did. They were very, very good to us and helped us get, I call them up and say, you've got to help us get started. And we've known

those guys forever from banking. And so we had to bid competitively for a big package they wanted to get out of. We don't want to be in this workforce stuff. We want to clean it up. So guys are constantly peeling off cities, price points. Sometimes, and again, you understand this more than most. I bought a big portfolio in Miami. Someone says it's made a bunch of capital appreciation. I want to get out of it now. And so I was like, you know, I'll buy it. So there were packages, you know probably once a quarter a decent size package so we went from 300 to 15,000 over a few years wow wild time yeah yeah so that was when you hit 15,000 what year was that so we got to 15 000 so we started in 15 2015 and we had to change the strategy to loans to homes and again you've

seen a lot of stuff when you're a CEO of a public company and you have the bright idea that you want to change the strategy when shareholders bought the stock because of the other strategy, that can be a little bumpy. But they weren't making any money and they were an enormous amount of distress. So we changed that strategy probably took a year or so. But I would say within a year we started buying packages. So the first one was probably in 16. And so 16 through probably 19, we bought it. And then public companies, you know, again, you see this in the paper every day. When you see in the headlines on the journal that some activist is going after a company, just lower your head and say a prayer for that guy. I mean, it is just a, you know, activists are good. They're pushing

the stock. They need to be out there. You know, there are times where they really have to push people to be, you know, they're too sleepy and they've got to get going. But a lot of times they're just going after people for some, you know, reasons that aren't totally clear or great. And so we were constantly, because we had gone through so much trouble, the stock price went up, but it wasn't getting to where people wanted. And so eventually the board decided in 19, when we reached 15,000, that we should, they call it strategic alternatives, which is, AKA, we should try to sell a company. So we started that in 19.

That moved through the fall. We picked a winner. And I don't know if you remember this time, Matt, but the spring of 2020. Oh, my God. And so we were to close on April 30th, and I know it won't shock you. That deal fell through. I was going to say that. The worst month in history to try to try to do.

do that. So you're a public CEO. You've announced the deal. You've announced the price. So in public markets, the price just goes to that acquisition price, which has been announced, you know, I don't know, January or something. And so it sits there every day because no one's going to, you know, sell less or more. So 1250 is where we're going to do it. So it's trading at 1250. And everybody knows it's going to close on April 30th. And the morning of May 1st, which is a Friday. Not that I remember, Matt, the time of day. But, But they didn't show up to closing at 5.30 in New York. And the stock went to like, I don't know, like six or five.

I mean, it was just, it was, you want to see battle scars. I can show you the marks from that one. So that was, so you're right in the heart of 2020. And people are thinking, and again, you know this, people are thinking defaults and delinquencies, renters are not going to pay. They're just not going to pay. And they're going to give up their homes. And delinquencies are going to go to.

80%, one of the smartest guys in the industry, is like, George, you're going to, 80% people aren't going to pay. Matt, it went from like one and a half to like maybe three. It wasn't that amazing? Everybody overreacted. Everybody went crazy, as you remember. Everybody locked their minds. And we went back and looked at 0708 to see in the worst of times what did defaults and

delinquencies really do. The guy who was my chief financial officer went through it with his team, Matt, it didn't move much beyond 5%. So this, it's going to go to 80, hysteria, hair on fire, never happened. And then what happened, COVID, I don't want to lose a single family home where I live alone with my family. No, that's exactly what I want. I don't want to be in apartments. So all of a sudden, you know, where I'm literally on the guillotine, the blades getting sharpened on, you know, the night of April 30th. And so May, June. And then in July, people are like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, they're not leaving the homes and you know turnover low turnover is great and they don't want you

coming in to fix anything mad so your expenses are like no no no no we'll pay at the dining room please don't come in so nobody wants any work done on their homes so expenses start going down and you can start to press rent because people won't leave and they're like i'm not leaving like you know what is it the wolf of wall street i'm not leaving you know so it's like all of a sudden they're not leaving and the whole dynamic switches and a guy shows up and says, you know, we're trading like, I don't know, six or seven. What would you think about 10 public company? We're like, you know, I'm still like wiping the blood off and I'm like, I'm sure that. So we start talking to them and then another guy shows up, wait a minute, you're going to trade at 1250. I'll buy it for

$12.50. And then another guy and then boom, boom, boom. We ended up selling it for like 50% more than we originally sold. So, you know, there's a lot in that story. But that's kind of how we went from zero to 15,000, sold it, and then it closed in beginning of 21, and that turned out to be, you know, God has a funny, funny sense of human. Yeah, that could have been very, very funny sense of human. Pretty close to the best time to have sold it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, actually it was.

It turned out to be a great time. And it's all I mean, you know, we can talk about rates forever, but, you know, the whole rate thing just, I was out trying to raise money to do another big concept. And Jerome Powell is just like burying me. I mean, just wiping me out. Every time I make a phone call, see somebody, like, we're up another 25 or 50. And as you know, you understand leverage more than most, all of a sudden, you were on a podcast the other day, you're like, why would a guy with a three mortgage sell to get into a seven?

Like, who the hell's going to do that? You know, so all of a sudden, you know, real estate runs on leverage. You know, it's the gas and the engine, and all of a sudden, the price of it just goes crazy. I'm in rooms with really big real estate investors in New York saying, and my idea, our idea of a reed, Matt, it's really heavy capital. you know like we were talking about you got 15,000 homes which is a small company you know you're talking to three billion dollars so when you're sitting across from the money guys you're like dude i need like five seven eight billion dollars and they're in the other room marking down their position and having withdrawals all day long and so they're saying can i have five billion and they're like george we're trying to raise five billion it was just and you know timing is everything so 21 22 23 not the time for a capital heavy idea so that that kind of more into Prop B. Got it. You know, I'm curious,

and I've never really had the opportunity to talk to somebody like you that has been so close to the institutional elements of everything. And this was just kind of my layman's almost in respect to your position in this whole thing. I mean, we sell 10, 15 turnkey homes here a month, right? So it's like very different world

than what you're living in. But I think we pay attention to a lot of the same stuff. And, you know, I really saw at the beginning where it crashed. I was like, this is not going to last long just because that we had this huge deficit of building for so long. And the population didn't stop. And the population got to a point where it gobbled up all of the excess from 2007, eight, and nine. And all of a sudden, and then all the builders were kind of gun shy. Now they're still looking their wounds. They're like, oh, we don't want to go overbuild again because we know how that turned out last time. And so they

kind of went the opposite direction. And now, you know, it's a. roof it's one of the basic human needs like people aren't going to start living under the stars and so i just saw the demand going up and up and up and there's nothing absolutely nothing that has changed my mind since you know we can talk about rates and what rates has done to us but the underlying fundamentals that you just said they're as bad if not worse it's it's just the population keeps going up um you know it's they're not building enough and there's all kind of reasons why that is you know we actually tried to build some stuff. It was still during supply chain mayhem. So I just, I couldn't make the square footage work for the price I was paying for it. I don't know if you ever dabbled in building,

but, you know, so that, that I think is starting to work for some people. But, you know, when the rate thing changes, it's so powerful. It just changes everything. And so, you know, when we talk about, again, some of the thoughts you sent to me beforehand, I think right now, and you know I know you know this so rates are high they just lowered I think I was watching

you were interviewing a woman and it was right before they lowered there was a woman you did like a 22 minute thing with her and she's like like you know we think in September

they're going to lower so they lower 25 basis points but they're being very very cautious although you know there's always these odds of when are they going to lower

in I think next one's November or December or October I think it's later this month maybe November I don't know when all my F-O-I-C meetings are. So everybody's betting on, you know, are there going to be two more, one more zero, whatever. I'm not going to play that game.

But where I think the opportunity is right now, and we can talk about how Prop B is going to help the people you speak to, because if you do believe, you know, there's going to be people who collect rent and people who pay it, we're going to make it, and we can obviously dig into this, but we're going to make it much easier, much faster, much less intimidating for the people that you talk to, that your gospel is like, guys, we've got to get out there and do a deal. You know, the 40 times or 80 times, we've got to do a deal. You've got to buy some stuff.

We're going to make it so easy for them to buy. That's one of the reasons our people, you don't want to speak with you. The people that you're talking to, we're going to give them a tool to make it much, much easier to do, you know, to follow what you're telling them to do. So you're like, guys, you need to do this, and I got a friend who's going to help you do it. George is going to help you. George is going to drive, just sit next to him, and he'll help you get through it. But we can get into that later.

Back on the opportunities, you know, one of the questions, like, what would you tell somebody right now? I think, I grew up on a trading floor in New York in the 80s and at a great firm, and they always tell us, you can't pick the top and you can't pick the bottom. But you should be, you know, every day when I come onto the trading floor and I say to Matt, are rates going up, staying the same or going down, you need to have an opinion. that you need to know just tell me where you stand

and then we can figure out what we're going to do next and so you know they have been they went straight up probably faster than I've ever seen in my career although I caught the tail end of Volker

which they went pretty high then much higher I can't remember the speed of which he did it but they were brutally high and they stayed really high and so that's another thing people are like

you know they raise rates 12 times I have tons of friends in real estate like you and they're like well they're going to come down I'm like just hang on they don't come down as fast as they go up and you see all this jawboning

and fighting and politics they don't come down easily because they don't want inflation to get back out of the bag you were on some I think you were on a 22 show you were talking about it when the inflation was

you were talking about how horrible inflation was and what it just it kills people and it kills everybody in every business so they finally got the you know like the genie back in the bottle so they're going to be very very cautious in bringing them back down.

But, Matt, are they going lower or are they going higher? And the answer is they're going lower. When are they going lower, Matt? How the hell do I know? I don't know. But I'm telling you, as you step back, as a person who's done this for a long time, are they going to go higher again?

It would be shocking if they started raising them again. It would be shocking. Are they going to stay the same? Possibly. Are they going to be lower six months from now than they are now? Yes. Are they going to be lower a year from now? Yes.

How many times he's going to lower? I don't know, but they're coming down. And what people are missing, they're so shell shock from rates going up. And it is terrible when they raised them for a reason. They're slammed on the brakes to slow things down. And that's okay. I mean, they had to do what they had to do. We could talk about too late, too fast.

You know, I'm not here to play that game. But they have stopped raising them, and now they're going to start lowering. And Matt, when they do, this thing's going to catch fire. And there's not enough inventory. and people are going to start selling and this thing's going to start up all over again. None of them look the same. You know that. All these rallies look a little bit different.

But I'm telling you, rates are the most powerful. There's all kind of factors, but it is the most powerful factor. And when they start coming down, this thing, you're going to start, you're going to, you know, 15 that you're doing a month is going to go to 20 or 30. It's just going to, things are going to catch fire. So what I would say to people, when we're out trying to do small VC raises, I'm like, guys, when it turns, it's going to turn. fast that you're going to miss it. You're going to miss it. And so people need to get on it and be prepared now. Like you said in one of your, like do your homework now, get ready to figure out where do you want to buy, what do you want to buy, what's your goal, what are you looking

for, but they're coming down. And they're going to be lower in six to nine months and this thing will turn and all of a sudden Matt, everybody's going to be chasing. You've seen this before. You know what's going to happen. Yep. I couldn't. I mean, I just, you know, preaching to the choir and all you can ever hear what one thing the youtube channel the podcast was has always been popular over here so we started in 2009 so that's always been you know where we get to interact with our people mostly uh the youtube channel just in the last 12 to 18 months has it really taken off and one thing that that this gives me an insight on is i get to really look at public sentiment more because of the comments because you don't really see the comments on the

podcasts and there's just a ton of people convinced that this time or it's going to collapse it always collapses get ready for the crash you're a fool you're a jerk you're an idiot for recommending people to buy real estate and you know and i'm also have enough self-awareness to say or to understand that anytime you say this time is different as like some of the most dangerous words you could ever like word right and so i'm like kind of cautious on there and I understand what they're saying, but I'm looking at the supply and demand imbalance. This is not a precondition for a bubble. Right. Right. Like, it was at one of the firms, you know, you can check my bio. We bought Countrywide. Okay. We've talked about that some night.

But so, so I was at the epicenter of, and a lot of things went wrong. A lot of people, there's a lot of blame to go around. But the real, like an eighth grader asks you what happened in the crash, you would say that credit got too loose. And when credit gets loose, everybody gets on the, you know, gets on board. And then asset prices go up. You know, it's like, you read about, you know, colleges and how low the student lending money was. And then the colleges raised tuition and kids got in debt. You know, when you lower the price of going to college, so I'm going to give you a 1% loan, well, then I'm going to go to college. And the university was like, I'm going to raise tuition.

And the whole thing is, we're watching it unwind now after you're in my lifetime where everybody got on that bus. And now we got millions of kids who have college educations that maybe that's not exactly the right fit for them. So when you make money cheap, bad things happen. And everybody starts borrowing. And so the asset, you know, like the student, the college, the tuition, the asset here was a home. And now people are buying, you know, particularly, you know, you know the West Coast. I mean, stuff was going up, was doubling in a year or two in Southern California. And so people doing cash out refines and the whole thing's gone crazy.

And then all of a sudden, what if the underlying asset prices went backwards? And like, you know, you hit the wall. Well, then all second liens were underwater because, you know, the home was worth 600 and I had a 200 on top of that. Now the home's worth 550. So what happens to all the second liens? They just stop paying them. They just stopped paying them. And then some of the first liens they stopped paying.

And then you had this big emotional issue and foreclosure and all that. And the whole thing collapses. So I don't see anything. You know, I saw what the regulators did to us. I saw the changes. I saw the capital requirements change for the banks and what they have to hold. The banks are enormously more powerful in terms of their balance sheets than they were. I thought they were okay pre-crash.

I don't think it was quite as bad as Paulson, who was Treasury Secretary at the time. But he did the right thing in terms of capital infusion to calm things down. But the capital requirements for the banks now is, I think it's triple what it was before the crash. So the banks are in great shape. And trust me, you know, you can see my bio. That crowd, Wells, Chase, B of A, you know, some others, they're not going to make that mistake again. because they got torched over that. They got sued for it.

Their securitizations got sued for it. All kind of regulatory hell was brought down on them. So for someone to say it's going to crash again, I can't see having lived through that one. I mean, it could, but I can't see the cracks that, you know, when things are so overvalue, you know, that's when you have to worry. It's sort of like tech right now. Tech's gone so high.

It just keeps going up. every day that's all you see on the bottom is tech going to be above it's going to be the late 90s again is it going to burst is it going to burst i don't know you know i don't know check their earnings they're making money i guess the price is okay but so i i can't see you know with the as you said there's so much demand and there's not enough supply and the banks are much more disciplined about lending money i think it's i think it's going to recover it might not recover blazingly fast i think people have time to get in, but I think you just saw the first ease of a potential string of them, and that's good for you and me. Yep, I agree. Yeah, the last 10, 15 years is probably

the best book of business banks have ever written, right? Yep. And so there's no chance of the default. I mean, as far as the supply, I mean, we're underbuilt now in 2008. Yes. Overbuilt. Yeah. So those are the two things right now are the exact opposite. Correct. And so the commercial book, the commercial book, which I don't know how much you see of that, that's, that's in trouble. That's in trouble because those are big, big bets that the banks made, you know, multi-billion dollar loans and all of a sudden, and you said it on that one podcast. So these guys borrowed money in the securities market, the CNBS market, at three and a half for five years or seven years or ten years. well, you know, those chickens are coming home to Roots and three, you know, three and a half

money is not around anymore. And so those guys, so then they say to the bank, well, I, you know, I can't pay you at 8%. And that's when people start flipping you the keys, which you don't want. And so, you know, so all of a sudden the workout guys at the banks are very, very busy. So they're, you know, they're reconstructing the loan. You know, how about we push out this? How about we raise the rate just a little bit? So that book, the commercial book, you still still keep your eye on. But the residential book, I think, is A, very healthy, and B, it's much more secure and conservative than it was pre-070A. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, the commercial thing, which I don't follow very closely,

I really don't follow it at all. I'll tell you the truth. So I'm not even going to pretend. But through, you know, one thing that's cool about my YouTube channel is it forces me to learn, right? And I do a lot of deep dives and pull stats and data. data and quotes and what the experts are saying, and I try to get both sides of what they're saying and everything. And one thing that just came up this week or last week is that, you know, the office vacancies are at an all-time high now. I think 40% of office spaces sitting now vacant. Yeah. Yeah, that's not good. See, that's the supply and demand in the opposite direction. Yes, yes. And I don't want to lapse into, you know, what you and I can discuss over

cocktails but now that starts pulling in another topic which is work from home and and so every day in the journal there's an article about people trying to force young people back to work and there's a huge resistance to it because everybody all of a sudden got to walk their dog and you know do their workouts and get their work done but kind of on their own flexible schedule so there was I was reading about a place the other day they've Matt everybody had to come back to work so Everybody came back to work. They didn't have enough space, desks or offices. It was like, so to me, you know, I always keep an eye on that story because I think it will slowly get back in the line.

But, you know, and it's different cultural things. And like in New York, it's like, you know, Jamie Diamond was like, you have to come back to work. And, you know, so I think it's pockets of the country, but you're on the west side of the country. You know, I bet you it's way mellower out there than it is, you know, back in the Northeast, particularly in some of the big. financial centers. It's like, you know, you have to be back of work. You know, I know people with Coca-Cola are working, you know, like three days a week, you know, and that's a big, big, big company. So it's, you know, I don't know what's going on at Google and Nike, but I guarantee you they're not stuffing, you know, a no life work balance down down on those young people. So I

think that's something to keep an eye on that's going to change the dynamic of, you know, where office goes. For sure. For sure. But that's another. It's funny how people totally understand supply and demand when you're talking about Pokemon cards, right? But when it comes to houses, like, oh, just throw all those, all that logic and reasoning, just throw that out the window. It doesn't apply here. Yeah.

Bad move. Bad idea. Yeah. But, yeah, so I've been saying this for a while. It's like, I think right now, and you kind of hit on it where you said, you know, you can never pick the top, you can never pick the bottom. You know, I think we might be flat for a minute.

But I do believe that this is probably the cheapest that you're going to see housing again. It is. It is. On our site, you can do, so you can filter, if you have looked at it, you can go on to pick a house and then you can pull a filter down and pick whatever yields you want, what cap rate you want, you know, positive cash flow. You talk about that a lot. you can pick whatever you want and it'll just boom pick all those houses and filter them in all the MLS for Charlotte we're just starting playing around all that in Charlotte we're getting ready to go live in Atlanta which will really be the launch of the real big launch so we're just making

sure the plumbing works here so so you're not going to see these high cap rates when when rates start coming down they're going to go away you know the you I totally agree with you and when I'm trying to raise money I tell people that I'm like guys I know you're nervous about this but once it turns you'll be chasing it you'll be chasing it so you know think you know sort of like we said what are some of the myths some of the myths are you know people just get the timing wrong you know yeah buy high sell low like no no no no no no no that's not how it works that's not a good strategy I also look at you know and I've really paid more attention to this and taking it more seriously the older I've gotten what is the old

money the smart money doing and there's a couple things i'm watching is that uh you know i'm heeding ray dollio's warning so i would love to hear what you're thinking is he thinks like we're like you know 16 to 24 months like everything's going to be very very different you're not in a good way but then i look at someone like warren buffett who just made his largest real estate investment ever in the history of berkshire and he's making his biggest investment period ever, I think on the oxy, something like that, some sort of pharmaceutical thing. I think that just came out yesterday. It's like, okay, this is the guy that went cash deep about, what, 12, 18 months ago. And now he's starting to kind of look at places to spend it. I'm looking

like, okay, does he think we're at a bottom? And then you have another, you know, brilliant guy like Adaglio and he's controversial. But hey, he's accomplished things. So he knows something. And he's having had a different opinion where do you stand on that um i am uh probably a a flaw and you know this um when you're uh when you're in charge you're kind of paid to always be optimistic right you know you just so so i probably err on the side of being optimistic and i think what we just went through uh with that interest rate story it was so violent so so large and so fast i just I understand I'm not an equity guy. I'm not an evaluation guy.

So I'm not going to, just like you said, I'm not going to dab on something. I mean, I know enough about it to be dangerous. To me, you can say things are overvalued. But if the tech companies are making money, you know, that's what drives it, right? So then you do a multiple of that earning. And he'd say, you know, Ray would say that the multiples are getting too high. You know, Buffett would tell you to bring up.

you know, to use the two examples you use, and I, he was a big shareholder of ours, so we would have small group meetings with him. He would, he always says this, the stock, the stock market in 1900 was like at 122 points. In the Dow's, like 122 points. And then at, you know, at the turn of 2000, a hundred years later, it was something like, you know, a 2,000 or 3,000, you know, and now it's like 45,000 or 46,000. So he would say, I mean, he would say to Ray, if it crashes, I'm going to move in and buy everything. That's his whole strategy, right? There's blood in the streets going and buy.

But, as you said, he's just put some big bets on and spent a lot of money, not that he still doesn't have a lot of cash. What Buffett would tell you is it's going higher. I don't know when it's going higher, but, like, you know, call me in 10 years, and I guarantee you it will be higher. So yes, yes, Ray, there could be this in between, but what we've also learned over time is when it plummets, don't do anything. Don't panic. You know, if you have capital, buy more. But, you know, it's like housing. Housing got decimated. Just take it easy. You have to have capital. You know, you can't get cash out of the table. But if you can stay at the table and ride it out, housing's better than it ever was. So I think what the two of them, you know, again, they're way smarter than I am. But I think we're also talking about. about. One guy has a timing difference than the other guy. Buffett has this, you know, 25-year view. Like, he rarely lets stuff go. He's on Coke and I think America Express for like 30 or 40 years. And there's some of the biggest holdings. So it's, he's a big fan of if you like it, buy it and sit on it. And it goes up. So I think there could be some volatility. And

Ray could be right. But I'm a long-term investor like you. And if I have the capital and things go down, I'll buy more. If they go down, like, if stocks go down, I, like, you know, I'm not going to do anything. You know, it's like, so Ray might be right. The issue you and I care about is real estate prices. And those just got, you know, a rate increase that like we've never seen, you know, in the last 20 years or 30 years. So, so I think that in real estate is a good opportunity. Ray could be right that there's a stock market, you know, 10%, 20% correction coming.

I don't know. God bless. Yeah. I just kind of look at it as if you own stuff, right, stuff that the government can't print, right? The government can't take away from you, stuff that has intrinsic value. Right, right. I think that we're in a monetary system that you can only win if that's your approach. Sorry to throw your stuff back at you, but you were talking about it on when I was watching the other day.

You were like, guys, this is a hard asset. This is an inflation hedge. This has tax benefits. This has depreciation. If you put it in an LLC, you can write off the interest. If you borrow the money, it's like, and you're like, and you own something. Exactly. You know, like, and I'm not going to opine on crypto or anything like that, but like I don't understand that.

So I'm not going to plan that. Real estate, think about it this way. If we get Prop B to work and people use the site to buy real estate, imagine being a foreign investor. And we've talked to hundreds of them when we're trying to raise money for the, for the, for the bigger idea, they want to get their money out of Latin America. They want to get their money out of some countries in Europe and, you know, southern Europe. They want to get the money out. Well, where would you put it? United States, safe government, might be kooky, safe government, safe monetary system, inflation hedge, and I own residential real estate

on a street in Las Vegas. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Go play crypto. Go play crypto. God bless. I don't understand it. I'm sure you're going to make it in video or whatever. Like, God bless. But, like, you own real estate. You set it on that one. Like, guys, if you buy this and sit on it and just manage it, it's going to make you a lot of money. Mm-hmm.

That's the Luke Bryan song that came out of last year. Buy dirt. It's like, that whole message is perfect. Yes, yes. I didn't think of that as an investment thesis, but he's right. I was like, this is the ultimate real estate song. But anyway, so what does your real estate exposure look like right now? Because you sold the 15,000 homes.

Are you in real estate or you just made this transition over to software? Well, we sold that company. We tried to recreate that company. That wasn't possible. So we thought when we looked at going back to the beginning of our conversation, if 97% of those 16 to 18 million families at rent, If 97% of that is not institutional money, who, we were like, wait a minute, we're like appealing to the wrong side of this equation.

We're trying to get back into the 3% institutional. Why don't we turn around and see is the bigger market is the 16.5 million landlords renting homes. And you know there are some regionals, but you know, obviously yourself, tons of people and students of yours, people own two, three, four homes. When it gets larger than that, if you're doing it by yourself and you don't have a professional property manager or a rehab crew, like around the clock, there's a natural cap to just the work that goes into it.

And forgetting the investment thesis where you talk about one of your calls, like you've got to do your work and focus on the right people and approach the right people on the sell side. You're talking about the work that goes into that. Like when you find the right person, that's how you met you, Matt, make your money. You find the right person in the right situation. And they've got to get out and you get the home and you get it a good price and then you can turn to profit. So to me, it's a you can't, if you're, if you're, you know, if you have a day job, if you have a W2 job, you don't have the time to manage more than two or three. It's just too much work.

Collecting rent, fixing the house and all that stuff. You know, it's pain in the ass. So, so we said, well, if the bulk of that market is mom and pop, why don't we first go after the people who already own two, three, four homes and say, to them, we can add to your portfolio with almost no work. We'll help you buy it. We'll help you finance it. Never have to leave the site. We'll help you inspect it. The inspection is more of a scope inspection. So it's connected to the guys who are going to do the work so you don't have a little mix up there. Did I say 15,000? I meant 50,000. Like that's not going to happen. Then we help you get your insurance. Then you close. You're using a human being. You said

to someone your calls. You don't want to use technology, but we have to have a human being involved. So the brokerage firm, we're going to have a partnership. A woman calls you as soon as you hit click the button, I want to buy this house. You get a text from Alan Tate, part of Howard Hanna here in Charlotte. And a woman reaches out to you and says, hey, Matt, are you interested in buying this house? Are you represented by anybody? And a person is with you the whole way through using all our site and our technology. You're getting a dashboard every day.

Then you close on the house. Do you want rehabilitation? Yes. Click. Boom. They come in. And then we do property management. So everything's in one place.

So our view was, why don't we try to serve the people who are doing this and help them add to their portfolio or even take their homes from them and we'll do it for you. We'll do the whole thing for you. No more calls, middle of night, no more collecting rent, we'll do it for you. So that's sort of one group we thought would need help. But then there's another group, and these are people who tune in and listen to you, they want to get involved, but they don't have the time or they're intimidated by it. You know, Matt, it sounds awesome. I don't know how the hell will do this. And so we're there to help them.

We think it could be used for fix and flippers. So I just used it here in Charlotte to make sure it work. Bought a house in a closed, I think beginning of August. We did about $30,000 worth of work on a $315,000 house, and we're listing it today. So where are we? Beginning of October. So it's August, September. You know, I think we can sell it.

It's a beautiful little house we fixed up. Let's say we sell it by the end of the month. I don't know. I probably have $3.50 into it. I think we can probably sell it for $4, $4.10, $4. you're talking about making $50,000 in three months. You know, do that four times a year. Yeah.

You know, that helps the W-2, you know, your day job. So that's why Fix and Flip guys who you know well. You know, that's why they do what they do, which can have risk to it as well. But I just want to make sure it worked, and I don't need to rent the house, although I'll probably buy a couple more just to make sure it works. So to me, Fix and Flippers can use it. And then my son bought a house up in Westchester and said, I wish I'd had this up in Westchester because I,

I wasn't, you know, young couples are like, it's very, very intimidating. You know this. You said it again on one of your calls. It's like the most expensive thing you'll ever buy, right? So it's intimidating. And, you know, how much money do I have to have down? And how do I get the right rate? And who do I call for an inspection?

And, you know, your real is like, well, I know this guy. And, you know, so like, what inspection do I get? We give you all those choices. We do it all for you. We send the inspector. You know, how do I get insurance? We give you a quote online. If you don't like it, you can go get another one.

You don't have to use our services, but they're all there if you want. So he's like, even as a new home buyer, I would have loved to have this tool. So we built it because we think, you know, just, again, I'm not being facetious, but, you know, you said it. You know, there's going to be people that rent and that people that collect rent. And so we're trying to help the people who collect rent to grow, just like you are. And so I think that, you know, someone like you who talks to a lot of people in this world are like, guys, we've got to make this easier for them. Just like you have educational courses to educate them to do it, I'm going to literally hold their hand and walk them through it. And so it's very similar.

It's not educational like what you're doing, but it's like we're going to take you on the journey together and we're going to be right there with you. Every day, just sit at your kitchen table at night, have a glass and wine, open your site and see where your mortgage is moving. Here's what my inspection is coming out tomorrow or here's my inspection report. Oh, wow, $15,000 and I can, okay, that's cool. you know and so I'm going to do that and then I'm going to get my insurance there's my quote and closing is next week and like I don't even have to be there I bought the house now now the guys are coming out from the company lesson L-E-S-S-E-N nationwide rehab company they're showing up in two days they do the work they send you pictures everything's

automated everything's automated so that's what we thought we thought rather than I mean obviously if we could we could have raised $10 billion we probably would have restart of the institutional thing. But again, you know, life's funny. I think the challenge here, which is why we're talking to you and people like yourself, the challenge is, you know, it's a new thing. It's an intimidating process and you have to get out and educate people that this can make it really easy. And you can become a landlord, which you're always pushing people to do. Guys, you got to get involved. You got to buy something. And, you know, and they're like, I'm afraid. I'm not sure how to do this. And your line is, well,

I got a guy. I got a guy in Charlotte that's going to help you. Got it. All right. So I understand the general concept. Can we kind of break down the mechanics a little bit? So myself who, let's say I own nothing and I listened to this episode and I was like, okay, George said he's going to make it easy on me.

I'm going to go and go to Prop B and create an account of some sort. Is there any fee or anything for that part? No? Okay, so then I got a profile on your platform. And so now to get my first property, do I just start going shopping on some sort of database or something like that? It's the exact same MLS database that you would see if you went on Zillow or Redfin. So it's every home that's for sale listed on the MLS,

about 22,000 homes every day in Charlotte. So you'll see every house that's there. But the second part of what you were saying is it depends. And again, we're testing in Charlotte. So let's say you were either somebody in Las Vegas or California who for some reason knew Charlotte. But let's say you're an investor in North Carolina. So you would say there's a certain part of Charlotte I like or there's a certain price point I like or there's a certain yield I want. So on YouTube, we have a whole probably 10 or 15, like do one a week where I walk you through how to choose a home and how to use that tool.

So the videos open up with, I've already picked a home. In your hypo, the guy starts from zero. So he would say, like, here's the kind of house I want. So you would cruise through it just like you would have MLS, but you can filter for things that you might be looking for. Got it. So you're like, I don't want a five, three. I think Workforce 3-2 is kind of my sweet spot. And that's a mistake.

You asked one of those questions, what's the mistake people make? People make a mistake of not understanding the sweet spot of the market they're in. I was trying to get a partnership with the group in Atlanta the other day. And one of the reasons I think the deal got killed was because this woman who was very, very senior was like, I don't like this market, George. I don't like this single family rental stuff. I don't like it. I'm like, why don't you like it? Well, I have two houses and I can never rent them.

And I'm like, what's your price point? She's like, $750,000. I'm like, okay, well, that's not a good realm. You know, it's like people don't know, you know, and like you talk about this. You don't know what you're doing. So here's an aid. I said, look, sell those houses. We're coming to Atlanta and get on the site and we'll get you into exactly what you're looking

for. So back to your hypo. The guy sits down. Let's say he has some views about what he wants, just to make it simpler. and he would filter through and say, I don't want to pay more than $400. I want a 3-2. I don't want multifamily. Like a side-by-side.

I want a stand-alone house. I want this kind of square footage. And bang. Let's say it was you and you're like, George. I'm like, I'm playing for the, you know, I'm swinging for the fences. I want 10% levers IR or higher. Okay. I'd be like, Matt, that's a little aggressive, but okay, fine, 10.

So now when you hit the button 10,000 homes, right but you're going to see 37 and now you're going to start playing around and all of those homes have all the calcs done all the cash flows done to show you that if you buy this house at this price and you use the a i determined rent you're going to make 12% or 10% whatever it is okay so that's the big difference because zillow has a bunch of those filters also but what you have different is are the investor filters you have the numbers yeah it's for something like you or people you talk to You'd be like, okay, George, this is what I want to see. This is the kind of stuff I want to see.

And Matt, it's on, you can say, like, okay, I don't want that house. Look at another. All the math is done immediately. And all of them have sliders. So you can say, like, George, I don't want to pay $350 for that house. There's a map feature. So Zillow has, you can see what's for sale, you know, around your house. So there's a pin drop, and it shows you everything for sale.

Other people have that technology. And then you can see everything that has sold. I think most of them have that technology. So you can see kind of where this house you're looking at fits in and you're starting to look around saying, wait a minute, this house actually looks, this house actually looks pretty cheap. This looks like it's 50,000 too cheap. I like this.

Or you're looking at the map and saying this looks like it's 50,000 too high. So that's up to you. So then we go to another feature and we give you the rent. We calculate the rent for you, although you can change it. And so now you go to the map, clean those filters out. You can see everything that's listed for rent. And then this, Matt, no one has. We keep track of every single house.

I think we started two and a half years ago. We keep track of every house and where it rented. So you can see where the rent we're suggesting fits in with everything around it. These are institutional tools that guys like me used every day. And all the big guys have this. And the people you talk to, they can't even get this information, Matt. They can't get it. And so we're going to take the risk out of what you pay and what you rent it for, too.

the biggest, you know, one of the, your questions was one of the two of the biggest mistakes people make. They pay too much. And when they're a landlord, they price it too high and then it sits empty. You know, you price it too low. You can't cover your expenses. So we're going to give them two of the most valuable things they need that I used every day. We're just giving away what should I pay and what should I rent it for? Yeah, I think what most people don't realize until you've had a few homes and made a few mistakes, you start to realize that, you know, the purchase price is not nearly as important

as what the rent's going to be. And the purchase price is actually a much easier number. I mean, you can go to Zillow or Redfin or Realtor.com, Trulia, and you're going to get a range. They're not going to all match, right? Yeah, you can triangulate. But if you go to check out the rents, you're going to find a huge range.

Yes. And that is death if you get, that one wrong as an income investor. I feel like you and I are talking to ourselves. No, that's the whole game. That's the whole game. You have one revenue stream, one. I mean, you could have some ancillary bullshit, you know, like pet fees and all

stuff. But there's one R and like 10 E's to get to net income. R minus E equals profit. And there's like 10 ease. And so like you got to watch that. Like, you know, I would watch how many houses. were being painted in Florida versus Birmingham. And I was like, why are we painting so many houses in Florida?

And I could see the price of what a paint job cost in Birmingham and Florida. Okay, I get that. Florida's more expensive. But why are we painting 60% of the houses in Birmingham and 110% of the houses in Florida? And how could that be? How can we be painting more houses than term? So you've got to watch everything. You know, one of the things, you know, people always talk about is like real estate's, you know,

You said in one of your podcast, you know, make sure you get your passive income above what your expenses are. Okay, well, you and I just need to make sure people understand when you and I say passive, you know, there's gradations of passive, you know, so if you want to go be a landlord of two or three homes on your own, that income, I guess, is technically passive, but you've got to do a lot of stuff to make sure that continues. And that's where we're trying to relieve a lot of that. We really think that the second way will be people who you talk to.

who want to get involved. And you're telling them, guys, you've got to do, you're like, step up, get a project, do something. You know, that's your, that's sort of your gospel. Okay, well, like, I'm behind you saying, and I'll help you, I'll help you. So you're a, you know, you have this job by day and you don't, you know, everybody's working like a dog

and not making enough money and you talked to all about inflation on one of your calls. You know, so it's like everybody's struggling, everybody needs more money. You and I, you're going to tell them to do it, and I'm going to help them do it. The, I like know what I'm going to ask you next, but then I start actually listening to you. Imagine that.

And then I forget what I was going to ask next. I think that's a good thing. It is a good thing. But when you're, when the recording's running, then you're like, okay, what's next? Usually I'd have a sip of my drink right now as I collect my thoughts for the next thing. But, okay, so my big question was when I initially brought that up was it's to figure out the value of a property, it's pretty easy. Like, okay, what did the similar house like itself for recently? Yeah.

When it comes to the rents, what is your method for dialing in a more accurate rent so an investor can make a better decision? It's really, this is where a one of your pre-questions was, like, what's the big change that's coming? And you and I know, particularly you're on the left coast. So it's, I mean, most of us are on the team are engineers. So we actually know what AI is and what it isn't. But, you know, people are just, you know, like I was building a pitch book. I was talking to another entrepreneur and he was like, George, just put AI on every page. Just put AI on every page.

I'm like, well, we're not really using AI for that. George, shut up, listen to me. Just put it on every page. So it's getting a little overdone. Some fatigue out for sure. Yeah. And some of it's real, but some of it's just, you know, like dot-com.

People are just saying stuff. I don't know what the hell they're saying. So right. This topic is where AI is starting to creep in. So we use currently large data. So as I said, if you're on the site, go to the map and you'll click on what's for rent around this house that I like. And you'll see three or four things that are listed.

That's kind of helpful. But knowing where, when you hit what is rented, Matt, the page just literally blows up. And you can see everything around you. And no one has that. So we're using that, one, I'm showing that to you, but I'm using all that math and calculating that every day we track all these houses. We track how long they're on the market. We track where they were asking for the rent, and then we see them lower the rent, and then the house is gone. It's rented.

So we know how long houses sit on the market. So you can be in this cul-de-sac, and you don't know that 20 houses within a quarter of a mile of your house are rentals. and we give you all that information. Plus, that's what's going into my math to tell you that's 1750 or whatever is the right price for this house. And where we're bringing AI in is we're starting to use,

there's so much photography and so much drone work now that we're starting to teach the machine to judge gradations of quality home. So the machine will start to tell you this house is better than that house because we'll teach it, these are the things you need to look for and so AI is going to probably in the next so that that's the big project we're doing AI on to to have AI tell you what's the best house Matt this is the best house and AI is creeping into I'm going to shift from just large data to have AI start doing this rental grind for us which is what AI is really for to do stuff for you so so those are the two places you know let's cut through all the you know the nonsense those are the and you can

You understand, we all understand enough about it. It makes sense that it should get into the rent business because that's where you need the machine to tell you this is the one. So we're doing it right now, which is massive data accumulation, but AI is creeping into that exercise. And then actual visual home, I mean, Matt, the whole visual, you know, optical thing is going to be such a big part of this and what they're doing.

So we're going to teach the machine to start judging this home is better than that home. By things you and I teach it, that real estate guys teach it. So it would be like, Matt, what do you look for in a house? You're going to teach the machine to like what you like, and you'll constantly keep tweaking it, and the machine will eventually go find a house while you're playing golf. Got it. Okay. So I've created a profile.

I've adjusted my filters. I got five houses that have come up that match my criteria. I go okay George I want this one what's next up in the corner is buy this house okay so you hit buy and literally you'll get a text from so we'll have a realtor when we expand so we're working right now to negotiate with a partnership with a real estate broker in Atlanta we already have one here as I mentioned in Charlotte this is so um when you you were speaking to this woman I think was early in September and you said your words where we can't turn it all over to technology we have to have a person involved there has to be a person so we we knew that we

hear you and so Denise texts you and says Matt are you represented by anybody and you say no I'm not and she said well my name is Denise and I'm here to help you and you sign the documents and you set up your agency agreement with her and you two just start the journey just as you would on your own there it works as just a traditional real estate transaction exactly except that with her but but what where you're always you know like where my son was lost was and realtors try to help you with who they know and whatever that's part of their job but you'll say I have to get an inspection so she's now working on your agreement well you actually probably would see if you pre-qualify for a mortgage which happens instantly online but you know the mortgage piece wasn't hard to plug in there's a lot of automation

mortgages. So we just found a DSCR company. So somebody who's given a loan to an investor versus somebody who's going to give a loan to if you're going to live in it. You know those are two types of loans. So we have those two vendors plugged right into our machine. So you say you want a mortgage. Matt are you an investor or you a home buyer? I like for yourself. You say I'm an investor. Churchill mortgage reaches out to you. You get a text from them and then say let's start the process. So now your mortgage is rolling. And you see that just like when you just say when you order a package, you know, it's leaving the factory, it's going to the FedEx center, it's on the plane, it's on the truck, it's out for delivery, it's at your house.

So that sort of journey line, that starts for you in each of your processes. So every day you can watch to see where they are. So you're, you know, now you're setting up, you know, if you're in Charlotte, you know, you and Denise are going to go look at the house or she'll give you the code and you can go look at it wherever you want. So that's starting simultaneously, your mortgage is starting. Simultaneously, you're going to have to get in there and inspect it, so you open up the inspection page, and all these are laid out for you, just a nice little journey.

I want inspection. It gives you all the inspections you can possibly think of. The house I bought, I just did a general one. I actually did one in June. You'll like this one, and the inspectors got out there. It was like a $300,000 house. I think that's kind of the sweet spot around here, three to $400. And the guy came back and said, George's house is in bad shape.

And you might want to have the, I think you need like $300,000. $52,000 with the work. I was like, whoa, on a $300,000 purchase. And then he said, and you need a foundation guy. And I think you ought to check for mold. So we clicked on two more inspections. We got mold. We got foundation. He was right on both. And they found asbestos. Okay. I'm out. I'm out. Just send in a note. Like, you know, we're not buying that house. Denise, tell them we're out. We want to do diligence money back. It was over. So the machine actually helps you not make a mistake. You know that. You know how to do. do that. You know, you know what to look for. Your team knows what to look for. You're an

investor. But if you don't, I just gave it to you. Don't, Matt, don't buy this house. This is a, this isn't going to be a money pit. So you walk away. And I've saved you your money and you get to do diligence back. So, so that worked. Then the second one I found, the guy said, the inspector said you need about $15,000 on a $350,000 house. And so we went ahead with that. Then you, do you want insurance? Yes. You get a quote from the insurance company for that house. and then you and Denise start going to close. Got it. And we went to closing.

We closed, I think August, I said, August the 8th or 9th. And then the people who did the inspection, as I said earlier, are connected to the people who do the work. So their pricing comes from the guy that does the work. So there's no disconnect. So the guys show up. The team showed up to start working on the house. And it was two days after we closed. And they start doing the work.

And they actually called me and said, Look, 15,000 is cool, but if you really want to make this really cute, like really appeal to people, you really ought to change out the appliances, which we didn't put in the original quote, because they all worked. So I got rid of appliances were perfectly good, but, you know, particularly people who like to be in the kitchen were like, you got to kill them on the kitchen. You got to knock them out on the kitchen. And, you know, if she doesn't like that, like, you're not going to get anywhere. But if she walks in and sees that kitchen, you know, or a guy who likes to cook, it's going to be like, ooh, I like this kid. And so we did extra work in the kitchen. We did some re-carpeting that was in the original quote.

So I probably did 30,000, not 15. And so as I said, I probably have 3.50 into it. But I think now we can list it over 400. We'll see what we get. I'll keep you posted. But so now that inspection step led to your rehab step. And now that finished last week. And I called up Alan Tate and said, I'm ready to list.

And we, I understand my team. I understand my team is probably listing it today or tomorrow, and you're done. That's if you want to sell. If you want to move, the house is done now. So at that point, you can move into it or you can flip it like I'm doing. Or you can move to the next step and say, I'd like to rent it. And, you know, you recommend to this rent, George, whatever it was, you know, when we looked at it three months ago.

And I'd like to go for that rent or maybe we'll push it a little bit higher. And we have a vendor that does that as well. Got it. And then you get to go to the property manager. And then it's like, Matt, where do you want to send the check? Cool. Well, you said, you've been mentioning Charlotte in Atlanta. Like, what part of development are you at right now?

So everything is built and up and running for Charlotte. So what the team has been doing, the coding guys have been doing, is pulling, there's two major MLSs in Charlotte. I think there's two or three in Atlanta because there's probably four times the homes for sale in Atlanta. so that's that's taking some time but that's ready to go so now we're negotiating with a realtor to be the denise of charlotte so we're talking to two or three different firms there and and so we're working on that so i think Atlanta will go live probably in two weeks okay and we think that we think that again we're starting you know we want to make sure this works so we're starting very very small so we have started in quotes but you know the only person that's used it is me because in case it didn't

work, you know, I was the guinea pig. So, so Charlotte could, of course, now start to be used. And Atlanta will be online in a couple of weeks. And then we'll start looking at Florida and some other places. But the thing, I don't know how much of this side of the business you see, but so, so what do you need to feed the machine from a capital standpoint? Marketing, as you know, is just, you know, it can just, there's no amount of money that you can't. spend on marketing it's just you can just you know there's no shortage of places that we're willing to take your money for marketing exactly and marketing is just like you know the two women who run PR and and marketing Amanda and Kate are just like you know how about this George how about that

George how about this so and you know if you want to start getting a big time like I think you had Grant Cardone or whatever early on one of your shows you mentioned you know if you want to get him to be your spokesman you know those guys aren't cheap you know so so but if you get Grant to say like these guys are good, just like if you say it's good, you know, it's, it helps. So, so, so whether you get influencers, that can start getting into some significant money, you know, do you go get Sir Haunt, you know, to say like, this is the greatest thing since pockets, you know, you got to figure out what you want to do. So marketing will be a big pull. When you talk to the venture capitalist crowd, I don't know how much you dabble in that side,

but, but being a money guy. So when I talk to them, Matt, they would rather see successful subscriptions in Charlotte, maybe Atlanta, and don't expand across the country because if I'm going to give you money to expand across the country, I want to make sure you have subscribers in one place and it works and it's repeatable. So, you know, when you're trying to raise money, you and I may want to do one thing, but, you know, I know this won't shock you. The people with the money make the rules. So what they would rather see is I don't want to give you you know, $20 million to go to 17 MSAs. I want you to spend my money on marketing and getting it robust in one place because Charlotte and Atlanta are so close. You get it to work in the

southeast in those two cities. I'll give you more money and then we'll expand to, you know, we go to Florida next and then all the big MSAs. We had a ton of success in Tennessee. Really good price point, you know, great tenants. You know, you, you have to look for it you know this you got to you know you i think i heard you say you left california um you know probably one of those hostile landlord states uh along the northeast the northeast is just that's why you don't say professional people playing up there uh or they play in you know very sketchy areas because of um you know rent subsidies or rent you know you can't raise rents in those cities and you know what happens when you can't raise rent so that's a whole

another story. So we look for in our other company, but we'll do the same thing now. You want to be in regimes that are very friendly to landlords. And fair to renters as well, but you can't have hostile states that really

change your IRA. That doesn't work. But again, we're going to go wherever people want to go. We'll sell your houses wherever we want. We're not doing it. You're doing it. We're just helping you do it. So if you want to go to Massachusetts, someday we'll be in Massachusetts.

We'll go wherever you want to go. Got it. Yeah, I'm just, I'm tinkering around on your site right now. And so can people... This is where you say, George, this is really hot. No, it's a beautiful site. The functionality and the user interface is great. The speed is what you can go for house to house to house, change whatever you want,

and all the metrics. We were talking to a guy the other day to a VC. When the real estate guy goes to see the VC guys, They're like, I don't believe that assumption. Change that assumption. He goes, then we have to go back to the office, run all the numbers. Like, I don't think HPA is going to be 5% every year. I think it's going to be 7.

I'm really bullish on real estate. Okay. Well, on our site, we tell you, it's 5. You want to change it to 7? Just hit the 7. So all the math is right there. That's a pretty sophisticated thing, but, you know, they asked. So I said, we already have that functionality.

No, I like it. I like it. So even though you're just in the one market about, to get into your second. Can people still go create a profile and play with all of the, at least the analytical tools? Only in those cities. In those cities right now. Because you have to pull in, and again, you would appreciate this. You have to do all the work. Like, you have to figure out the tax projection for every single house. You know, when are they going to be raising taxes? In Charlotte, it's usually every eight years. You know, where was that house before? Matt wants

to buy it. Does Matt know that next year is the year that they're going to increase it or whatever it is? You've got to go through to enormous meticulous. It's like one of the things you always talk about is like you've got to do your homework. So the math that goes into the projection of how much the house is going to go up. How long do you want to own it? Here's what the expenses are going to grow at. You know, here's what rent's going to grow at. What I use to invest as a professional buying, you know, 15,000 homes, you're going to see for one, every single house what the projections are going to be. So you're going to look through and say, what's the taxes look like?

You can click on below that one section. You can click on cash flow and the whole cash flow page opens up for five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, how long you want to own it? You set on one of your podcasts, you're going to own it forever. Okay, I'll show you 30 years. So all that work is done for you, and there's just no way people could do that on their own. They would be guessing. Got it.

So we're really early then, right, George? Yeah. Yeah. Well, super. Let's stay in touch and monitor the progress because I like the idea. I think it would be very helpful to a lot of people. And that website is propb.com, like the bumble bee. Exactly.

B-E-E-E-com. Love the logo, by the way. Yeah, the marketing people, and I'm sure you go through this, I'm sure that E on your hat, like somebody designed it. They were like, George, bees test positively. And I'm like, what? And they're like bees. People like bees.

They're like saving the world. You got to have honeybees. I'm like, what? Like, I'm too old to understand this. They're like, you know, no, you got to have bees. Somehow you got to get a bee around here. People just like bees. I was like, okay, fine.

Property, B, prop B, sure, whatever. Whatever you guys like. I like it. You like it. I love it. It feels very friendly. I can see how it would test. well that's funny um yeah and everyone thinks this e on my hat is a worm and i'm just like uh no

yeah well i kind of knew what it was i figured that out it bothers a lot of people uh but hey we pay a lot of money for it and it tested well initially yes but anyway well if they want to get in touch with you george just go to propb.com or another alternative place to go ahead No, that's it. I mean, the ladies maybe get a LinkedIn. So I have a LinkedIn page you can find me. But propit.com is where you want to go, and you can contact us through that. Fantastic.

Well, it was a pleasure, sir. And when I say, let's stay in touch, I absolutely mean it. And come back and then, you know, we'll monitor the progress and keep the word going. All right. I love watching your stuff. And I appreciate what you do. And as I said, we're trying to come in by. behind you and support the people that you're trying to empower, and we hope that the tool like

this can do it. So I very much appreciate you in the time you gave me. Awesome. All right, buddy. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. If you've been grinding for deals and coming up empty, you're not alone. That's why we created a way for frustrated investors to finally get cash flowing income property without the hassle. Go to frustrated investor.com. is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.