Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - The HUGE Real Estate Investment Opportunity No One is Talking About with Michael Newell

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Ryan welcomes Michael Newell, Founder and CEO of Standard Land Development and MJ Newell Homes to The Radcast. Ryan talks with Michael about his entrepreneurial journey and path to success. Michael shares the real data behind the housing market and the golden opportunity for investors hiding in plain sight! Michael is super down-to-earth and approachable and this comes across in the interview. Listen and learn!Key points from this episode: Building a self-starter mentality plays a big role in your success just like how it played in Michael’s early entrepreneurial journey and in his dedication to his goals. (04:25) Real estate is one of the most stable industries out there, and if you play your cards right, it can be an incredible source of passive income. (08:38) Explore some of the key points that you need to take into account if you're thinking about getting into a business like a construction business, real estate investments, etc. Specifically, about the importance of due diligence, scaling, the value of mentorship, and using your successes (and failures) as stepping stones to reach your ultimate goals. (13:03) Inspect what you expect: Make sure whatever you are putting out there, there’s a need for it and you got the financial backing to continue to produce the product. (34:50) Whether you're just dipping your toe in the water or you're already waist-deep in the Real Estate game, or whether you want to create a business of your own or you just want a better take on life, this episode will help you see things clearly and evaluate how you perceive challenges, and turn them into great opportunities that can turn your life around. Thanks for listening! To keep up with Michael, follow him on Instagram https://instagram.com/michaeljnewellIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review! Learn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Who is Michael today is because of, you know, my mother, my homeschooling and my hockey. I think that really kind of like pulled everything together for me. Yeah. Then I got into college, dropped out, got my real estate license. My neighbor said, go get your real estate license. You know, I was talking to her. I was in college at the time. And I was like, you know, I can't stand this.

You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Arford, your host, here today. You know, we've talked to real estate, but we're going down a little different path today. I'm excited about it because we're in interesting times.

There's a lot going on, and I'm really excited to have Michael Newell, CEO of Standard Land Development. What's up, Michael? What's up, man? It's good to have you in studio. I'm loving it. I love to be here. Yeah, man. It's a little cold, but you know.

Yeah, I know. We pulled you out of Florida. Yeah. We got you out of the warm and bringing you into it. It's a little blustery here in South Carolina today. Blustry. That's a good word. I'm freezing my ass off.

Yes. You know, well, we wanted to treat you to the true fall weather of the South, you know. Yeah. You don't get it down in Florida. It's like, what, two seasons? One and a half. One and a half. Yeah.

Yeah. So, cool, man. Glad you could make it. We'd be getting more and more people in studio as people get their head out of their ass. start moving around a little bit. I love that. You know, tell it like it is here on the Radcast. But yeah, man, I talked with the team and was excited to have you on.

I think it's really timely with what's kind of going on out there. And recession and numbers and all this stuff, lots of fear-mongering. But at the end of the day, I think it's important for people to have and know and have knowledge around different streams of opportunity, both in and out of real estate. And so I thought you had a pretty fascinating story. I also like just a good old family man, you know, having four boys. You have two boys, I know. And so I probably have a lot in common. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, boys are fun, man. Boys are fun. They keep you busy. Oh, my God. You're kind of on that, I know we taught pre-episode. You know, you got three and five? Two and five.

Two and five. Yeah, two and five. Yeah, you're on the early end. I'm kind of in the middle stage. Yeah, so I got a lot to look forward to what you're saying, right? Getting into sports. Yeah, it gets better and better and better. I mean, you know, you love every phase, but it's like,

you get to that stage where you get to, I don't know, they've got their wits about them, they've got their, you know, skill sets, you know, at least physically a little more in tune. So, you know, you're kind of in those early phases. It's a little tough kind of knowing how far to push. So did you force your guys into the sport of your choosing? You just kind of let them choose. How did you? We put everything in front of them.

Yeah. Kind of like a plate of vegetables, you know, you put it in front of them and, you know, and try and push. Not in push, but, like, give them the opportunity. Sure. And so, like, two of mine kids are, like, really good in soccer. I didn't play fucking soccer. I mean, my wife and I were basketball players. That makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah, college athletes at basketball. But, like, yeah, two of them are really good in soccer. I'm like, and I was not a soccer. So, like, then there's two of them swimming year-round. And then basketball, of course, they all play basketball. So they got that natural. Yeah.

So they're still in that, you know, a couple of them are. start to even out into exactly what they would play. But, you know, it's still in the testing phase, I guess, trial phase of different things. Trying to push Michael, my oldest, into hockey. He likes it. He likes it. I just want to keep that momentum going, you know. Hockey seems like a great sport.

Like being in South Carolina, I don't know how you got into it. I want to hear this in Florida. But South Carolina, we just weren't exposed to it, you know. But as much as I see, it's a physical sports, but it's a lot of conditioning. and then, I don't know, there's a good team aspect to it. I think there's a lot from the outside that seems great about hockey. Yeah. There's some wonderful people built a hockey rink across the street from my house.

I mean, that's how I got into it. Really? Yeah, the opportunity of having something like that in the backyard is amazing. Especially in Florida. Yeah, it was awesome. You know, any other situation would have put me into soccer, football, baseball, right? Something that's a Florida-bound sport. Yeah.

Well, let's set the stage for everybody. Let's go down that, you know, that early journey. you know what made Michael Michael you know where your roots your background and you know what some of that entrepreneurial journey sure so I think I think homeschooling had a lot to do with it you know you kind of like a like a self-starter I mean you got you know I got my mother you know teaching me and things of that nature but you know she's teaching me and my sister so at some point you've got to kind of take the reins and start learning and and you know she pushed me but I had to push myself a lot of the times too if I wanted to get it done I had to get it done

And I think that self-starter mentality kind of came from the homeschooling aspect. And I did that all the way through. I did that from first grade all the way to 12th grade. My only exposure to the public schooling system or education system was my very short tenure in college. I don't know that's such a bad thing. I mean, I don't know. The school system in Greenville is pretty good. I'm not going to dog it.

but like, I don't know if you got your options. You probably had the right option. Yeah, no, I billed out of that, dude. No, it was not for me. I took off. So, yeah, I mean, like I said, I went all the way through. I went into college. But, you know, as I was going through my whole, you know, school phase, I was playing hockey.

And I think hockey kept me out of trouble, right? Because I grew up in a neighborhood that was, yeah, it was a good neighborhood. We all hung out, lots of kids. But, you know, a lot of my buddies, you know, kind of took the wrong path. And, you know, I had coaches in hockey that always pushed performance and dedication and kind of, like, drove that home for me. So I attribute a lot of my, you know, drive and just being on the straight and arrow to hockey. So, you know, hockey kind of kept me there. Team sports does that.

Yeah, man. I mean, it did for me. I played basketball, you know, year-round from probably like seventh grade to twelfth grade. And I was a good kid. I think I was, you know, like, but it keeps you out of trouble. It keeps you focused because you're about the team and you've got to practice. So you go to practices in games. I always say idle hands get you in trouble.

Like there's, I think there's a more eloquent saying, but that's what I'd boil it down to you, right? No doubt, man. And performance too, right? So, you know, you don't want to go out and get drunk. You know, you've got to practice at 5 a.m. Exactly. You're not, you're not solely focused on just hanging out and having fun. You're focused on performing and, you know, and just being better altogether.

So I think, I think, you know, who is Michael today is because of, you know, my mother, my homeschooling and my hockey. I think that really kind of like pulled everything together for me. Yeah. And I got into college, dropped out, got my real estate license. My neighbor said, go get your real estate license. You know, I was talking to her. I was in college at the time. And I was like, you know, I can't stand this.

Were you bored? I don't know. Bored just, you know, frustrated. Like, it wasn't for me. I couldn't. I couldn't do well in college. Yeah. And she's like, go get your real estate license.

And I was like, you know, it sounds like a great idea. I'll go do that. I did that. And I wasn't very good at that. I was terrible at that, actually. He's walking through and showing people houses. Like, that's not my cup of tea. Yeah.

I get bored. Yeah, it was boring. Yeah. It was boring. I mean, I know it's work. I mean, you have to be on your feet and you're going to have customer service. I'm not like knocking it, but I don't know. The emotional side.

of things too. They're dealing with a lot of emotions. People are making, you know, a big decision, one of the biggest decision of their lives. And they just, you know, they come unraveled sometimes. And I just, you know, that was not something I wanted to. I owned a car dealership once. And there's two things in life that are the, what I call the hairiest of purchases that people make. What I mean by that, emotion, money, whatever, cars and houses.

Yep. And people, it's just a hairy transaction. So it's a big decision for them. Yeah. Big decision. And they, you know, they put a lot of time, energy, and effort to being emotional about it. And they should, I guess, on some levels, but I'm not emotional about money personally. But that's, I was blessed with that, both good and bad.

But lucky you, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, continuing down that journey, dropped out of college, got my real estate license, became the realtor, didn't do well with the realtor game, got hooked up with some investors that were buying short sales. And that was awesome. You know, I was watching those guys pick these things up from the banks for pennies on the dollar, turn them around, renovate them, give them back to me. I was listing them. And I was watching, you know, seeing how much money these guys are making. I'm like, oh, my God, this is what I need to be doing.

Yeah. Yeah, this is my move. So, you know, I was saving up as much as I could commissions-wise, got my first short sale. Made some money with that. I was hooked. What's time frame here? What year are we talking about? So 2009, real estate agent all the way to 2013-14, got my short sales together.

I did that all the way to 15, like end of 15, and that dried up. So then I transitioned again, I did a lot of pivoting, right? I went from, you know, all these different areas of real estate, went from the short sales into distressed mortgages. That taught me a lot. And that was a great business. That was awesome. Yeah. And, you know, that came to an end, too.

You know, I was buying distressed mortgages. I was doing workouts. I was doing across multiple states. I was doing Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma. a little bit in the panhandle in Florida. Were you sight unseen or would you go? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sight unseen. I mean, I was the, you know, Google, you know, warrior just, you know, going to Google Earth and finding everything.

And, yeah, that was fun. That dried up. Just dried up like the business itself? Well, I mean, I couldn't get access to product. You know, a lot of the big funds, they were picking up big tranches of this stuff. And a little guy like me, I could pick up, you know, I could cherry pick some stuff. I could get 10, 15 notes at a time. and then all of a sudden they just started unloading huge tranches of it.

I don't have hundreds of millions of dollars behind me at the moment. So I was kind of pushed out of the way. Got it. So up into this point, right, short sales, distressed mortgages, I got plenty of investors behind me. They got faith in me. And they're looking at me like, what's the next thing? What are we doing now?

No more distressed mortgages. So where are we going from here? And I decided we're going to build some houses. That was it. It just took off from there. MJ construction, right? Well, it's standard land

development is a construction company and MJ Newell Holmes is the forward-facing brand. Okay. Yeah, like everything I was like researching and how MJ kept coming up.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're one the same. They're tied together. Just the forward-facing brand for the development. Sure. Separated because of, you know, licensing insurance and things like that.

That makes sense. How was that transition to my dad's, a general contractor and semi-retired. He cherry-picked projects, but he's semi-retired. It's a different thing. Again, a little bit, that pivot,

you know, dealing with building something, all the nuances of that. How was that transition? Trial by fire, dude. It was just so many things that go into it, right? It was nuts. And I still, to this day, do not have a general contractor's license. So I convinced

the, you know, How'd you pull that magic trick? I thought he missed the guy to let me use his general contractor's license for my first few bills. He signed off for him. I used his license. I used his insurance. And I was a general contractor at that point, right? Yeah.

I'm the general contractor. I'm running the job site. And I didn't know my head from my ass as far as, you know, construction goes. My first house has turned out pretty good. Okay. They're not horrible. They weren't great, but they weren't horrible. Yeah.

I sold them. I made a profit. it. So I learned, I learned and made money. Yeah. It was wonderful. Yeah, that is wonderful. Usually it goes the other way. Yeah, you pay for that lesson. But I think that's a testament to how much margin is in the construction business. Yeah.

There's a lot of money we made in the construction business, especially today. Yeah. Yeah. So that has not dried up, I assume. No, I know we're going to go further down that road, but it's getting better, you know, as the days go on, in my opinion. So that started 17-ish. I'm not hearing the timeline. That's end of 16, like very end of 16, beginning 17. Yeah.

And we've been on that road since. Yep. And I know we're going to go down some paths. But talk to me about running a, like, it's one thing figuring out how to do it. What's it been like learning how to scale a construction business? That's fun. That's a lot of fun. Oh, man.

or an asternastic on that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely some disclaimer at the bottom there. Yeah. All right. I mean, it's blue collar. It's a little different, right? The only way to truly scale a construction business is to fully understand it yourself.

So if you try to go from, you know, real estate agent to CEO of a land development company and the only thing you want to do is sit at the top and make decisions, it's not going to go well for you because you're going to trust everyone below you to understand and, you know, do what they're something. supposed to do and most of the times they don't. So if you want to scale in the construction business, you need to start from the bottom. You need to be the one-man band. You need to be the superintendent, the finance department, the permitting department, the purchasing department. You need to do it all. And if you can, if you can do it all successfully, then you just start plugging and playing people into those positions and you train them on what you want them to do. Yeah. I mean, you have to start at the foundation. You can't just walk into. to this and expect to, you know, scale to 30, 40, 50 people right out of the gate.

It's difficult. I got a good example for you, man. So I spent a lot of people with, you know, entrepreneurisms, you know, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, right? Yeah. You know, it's sexy. Everybody. My path is a lot like what you described.

I spent 17 years in the ad agency business, learning, watching, observing, and growing at some of the biggest agencies in the world. And to that exact point, I did that. And then I bought a car dealership where I had no shit, except that I like cars. It fucking failed miserably. And, you know, I lost a bunch of money. And then I started an ad agency. What I'd done for 17 years and knew the ins and outs from the ground floor basement.

Yeah. All the way to the top. All the way to see. And, you know, in five years, fast-growing agency in the Southeast, top 25 podcasts. Love it. Stick with what you know, baby. But it's the exact example. I'm sitting here listening to talk and I'm going, you're right.

Because I know how to do every job here. I'm not better than all my people. I've hired better people. It's skills than me. But I know exactly how to build it. I know what every position is supposed to do so that you can fairly grade it and make decisions based on what you know is supposed to happen, right? Yeah. You can measure it, right?

Yeah. That's fascinating. It's spot on. It's so true. But I mean, that's, you know, I'm all about encouraging people to get into the construction business. But, you know, learn it. Don't, if you're going to get in, don't be afraid to roll up your sleeves and swing a hammer. Like, you know, learn the business.

I'm not saying, understand how to do the concrete work. But I'm saying, understand what the concrete guy is supposed to be doing and understand how to measure his success. Understand what the inspector is going to be looking for, right? Like, be a good superintendent. and learn that position and then hire, you know, what you would expect in that position as you scale up. What's the most complicated, like my dad always chose being a GC that the last 10% of any project or house is, you know, it's the hardest. But like, you know, it's like, if you got a customer for sure. Yeah.

Whether it was it punch list or whatever, you know. It's a good name. You get punched in the face list. Right? That's a good way to put it in. But what's like, give me like a nugget here of like something people just don't expect or like that you didn't expect. I mean, you know it'd be hard. I mean, look, anything worth having is hard work, right?

I mean, I know that that's supposed to be the American way. We've lost their way a little bit, but that's the way it's supposed to be. So, you know, like what, maybe something you didn't expect. Tons of gotchas, right? Like the first one that comes to my mind is going to be, you know, purchasing land, right? You know, if you're going to be building houses, you're going to be buying lots. Yeah. Pay attention to what you're buying.

Get on the site, look around, make sure what you're buying is actually, you know, what you're buying. Yeah. Turtles, right? Who would have thought? $6,000 a piece, dude, to remove a turtle. So I get in. Holy shit. I buy this lot.

I don't realize it has freaking turtles on it, okay? I get a stop work order from, you know, the agency in the area. You got turtles. I'm like, okay. Let's go feed them in. Is this some Raphael, Leonardo, is this the mighty ninja turtles? What the hell are we talking about here? You know, to the tune to $12,000 later, a little over $12,000 right there.

You've got two turtles. Yeah. Just a got-you-in. We're not talking about little lake turtles like this, are we? No, they're tortoises. Okay. They're, I don't know. Big around is a five-gallon bucket or so.

Yeah, there's ones that scare you at the zoo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So turtles, right? Gotcha. There's a nugget. Pay attention to what you're purchasing.

Yeah. Walk the lot. Look at it. I think on the construction side, you know, just don't pay subs up front. Never pay a sub up front, you know. Understand who you're working with. Don't pull your sub off of Craigslist. I would rather go, you know, hunt job sites and find people that are doing it, you know, successfully on other builders' job sites.

You know, pay attention to who you're working with. Mm-hmm. You know, that's, you know, just little tidbits that are extremely important and will save you a lot of money. So how's this growth been? I know you're doing all right. Like, you know, like, you know, like, what's that? What, you know, you land in something that seems to have stuck, you know, in the real estate business and found a real good niche. I think, I think it's, I think it's stuck because of the need. Yeah. I think this country has a huge need for, for workforce housing. I mean, you know, people that. People that make 60, 70, 80,000 dollars a year join incomes. Like, what are they buying right now?

Yeah. They're getting hammered. And now we got, you know, 8% interest rates. I mean, that's tough. So I think I'm doing well because there's such a need. I think if we looked at it collectively, like, you know, if you just Google search, how many homes are we in a deficit in the U.S.? You're going to get tons of different opinions and numbers.

Yeah, no. We were talking when I was coming into this interview. I was going to, I'm glad you went there because I heard you say that. You know, there's a lot of need. Then I'm like, man, there's just like conflicting data out there about that, right? Tons of it. Tons of it. But I think, you know, I think I would pay attention to the data that that's done by professionals.

Yeah. I always refer back to the Harvard study, the state of the nation's housing. They got 3.8. You know, the head or president of the National Association of Home Builders says a million, right? Freddie Mac agrees with Harvard 3.8. And every day this is growing because more families are becoming eligible to purchase a home or, you know, needing housing. Yeah. So I think if you take the most, you know, optimistic opinion and look at it, I think it's still, you know, they still agree that there's a need for housing.

I can tell you in the markets that I'm in, you know, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, we're getting into Texas. There's not enough houses. And I know this because of market research. We put ads out before we go into any market. And we collect the data and we collect, you know, how many leads come in and do these people need housing. What do they actually qualify for? You know what I mean? Yeah.

And what these people qualify for is not what's being built. Yeah. They don't have an option. So what do they do? You know, they rent what the hedge fund purchased and, you know, lease back to them. Yeah. Or China's stolen to them. Yeah, right. That's not the American dream, dude.

Like, you know, 30-year mortgage is important for our society as a whole. I mean, we need, you know, we need housing for more than just housing. We need it for, you know, investment and retirement purposes, too. Yeah. How's, we've kind of gone down that road, but is your construction company always been in that? It's always been workforce housing. That's always been what we do. What's different workforce housing and, like, first home?

Same thing. Same thing. Same thing. Different, different word. Same thing. It's so interesting because, you know, especially these metro areas, like we're in Greenville, South Carolina here, we're the agency, we're doing this podcast, and, you know, downtown's booming and all this, but you can't afford, I mean, workforce can't afford to live downtown Greenville. No, they can't.

Not even close. And probably couldn't afford it 10 years ago. They definitely can't now. I mean, it's doubled, you know. And so do you go about, like, identifying, maybe growing cities and then, like, like the outer suburbs or something, I'm wondering the strategies and kind of identifying these markets. So we throw lead generators out there and we want to see, you know, who's shopping for a house. And as we see who's shopping for house, we understand what they qualify for.

And then we tailor our product based on, you know, based on that. But our product will never be more than workforce housing. You know, yes, I built some commercial. I built some industrial. You know, I built some large homes for friends. But at the end of the day, my core focus is workforce housing. And those are the people that I serve. And, you know, I can tell you, without a doubt, we do not have enough.

In the markets that I'm playing in, we do not have enough. Yeah. That's fact. That's data. That's not, you know, that's not me Google searching stuff. That's me actually putting, you know, ad dollars out there to figure out this information. How many houses are you building a year? We'll do a little over 400 this year.

Wow. Yeah. Holy shit. dude. We're rocking and rolling, man. I bet. Are you leveraging teams and resources across all four or five states you're in? I mean, is it, or do you have, like, network set up? I've got network set up, but the vast majority of our stuff is run out of our Southwest Florida office. Yeah.

That's where the, you know, that's where the heart of our operation is. Yeah. Do you have, like, are you soup to nuts or do you just purely construction end? So that's, that's good. So I'll, I'll go all the way. from land acquisition to CO. Okay. Now, as far as like personnel goes, we only have high level personnel. We have superintendents,

which, you know, supervise all of the subcontractors. We have our, you know, in-house finance, in-house purchasing. We don't let any of our subs purchase material. We purchase our own material. We have our own in-house permitting department. We have our own in-house engineers. We do everything at a high level. Now, as far as, like, executing actual work,

we don't have a whole lot of, you know, actual physical people in the field swinging a hammer. We have a couple punchout crews, right? Doing the punch me in the face list. Yep. You like that. Yeah, I like that. You could use that. Trademark.

But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the vast majority of our stuff is subbed out to subcontractors. We got, you know, we got a badass set of subcontractors and all the markets we deal in. Yeah. That's smart, though. It sounds like you've, not that it's, the labor is a commodity or anything, but it sounds like you've got the real core of what kind of makes or probably breaks the deal. The organization. Yeah. Yeah.

Keeping everybody organized. I mean, you know, yeah, it takes a lot of different subs to build a single house. You know, keeping them flowing is the trick. You know, keeping them from working on top of each other is the trick. Now, are you then marketing, selling finance? like the developments? Yeah, so we have our in-house marketing team that markets all of our homes,

takes in the leads, and then as we get these leads in, we push them over to our joint venture mortgage company. Our joint venture mortgage company will qualify these leads, get these individuals into homes, and prior to closing the home, we have our own joint venture title company. So we close everything in-house as well.

So we control, you know, more or less the entire process from start to finish. So you're profiting from sale to mortgage? Construction, sale, mortgage, title. It's about everything. Yeah, we got it wrapped up. Yeah. We got it wrapped up. 400 a year. All right, I'm doing the math. It's working out for you. How's it been, you've been raising a family through all this, young kids, wife, like, how's it been, what's been the work-life balance there? Without my wife, I could not do this. She keeps everything on point.

She's involved in the business. She's not involved in the business, but she keeps... She's the CEO of the home. The home. Keeps everything rolling. Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, I got tough days. I don't want to deal with too much nonsense afterwards.

So I get home, you know, kids are happy. Houses on point, you know, got great food. She's just there, you know, backing me up. Yeah. Yeah, I love her. She's awesome. That's great. So without her, you know, without her, now this is possible.

What's the process for, okay, someone's listening to all this, and they're going, oh, wow, this sounds amazing. But, you know, I'm a banker. I'm a executive, you know, I'm paying attention. I've dabbled in things in real estate. Maybe I've been a rental home. How the hell do I get involved in new construction? Invest, invest in a fund.

We have a fund. We are soliciting, you know, for our fund. So if swinging a hammer is not your thing. And we'll put your money to work, building workforce housing. Yeah. So they can literally get involved without getting involved. Correct. Yeah.

We'll swing the hammer. Yeah, I know. What are your ambitious, man? Like, where's the company, you know, like, headed, you know, you're into the scene with politics and other things. But, like, you know, what are your beliefs? Like, what do you see happening out there? So I'll kind of like revert back to the data, right?

Like there is a need for workforce housing. And regardless of what Google says, I personally know people that can't afford houses. Yeah. And they want a house. They want somewhere to live. So, you know, my sole focus right now is is continually putting out these workforce, single family homes for workforce America. And that's what kind of, you know, fulfills me. And I'm doing well with it.

Don't let me fully. Like, we're making money. Yeah. It's great. Sure. But more than that, it's pretty fulfilling to be able to do something and get back to my country. Like, I'd much rather be, you know, here building houses and filling that need than, you know, running around in the desert with an AR-15. You know, if I have to, I'll go do that.

But right now, I think the need is, you know, workforce housing. Let's do our part on the home front and, you know, make sure our people are taking care of here. I mean, those guys got to have somewhere to live when they come back. Very true. Have you done much storytelling around that? You know, as the marketer and the brand guy, like, I'm sitting here telling this. I'm like, I'm seeing, like, the movie, you know, the, at least the business movie. Like, you know, because there's a great story there with, like, the work, you know, we work for the workforce.

You know, like. Yeah. I think it could be, you know, it could be a good show, right? It's not bullshit. Like, we're doing this. Like, we're helping. You ever interview, like, the people that are talked to, like, the people that are, you know, the people that you end up getting in houses and stuff?

Extremely grateful. Grateful for the opportunity to own homes. I mean, some of them are pricks, right? Some of are entitled and assholes and whatever. But, you know, the vast majority of people that we provide housing to are extremely grateful for the opportunity. What's like the signature of your homes? Like, what's the...

Quality. And that's right, that's easy for me to say, oh, that's what everybody says, quality. If you walk into one of my homes versus one of my competitors, the things that you will notice is we put an extra course of block. So instead of eight foot ceilings, we got nine foot four ceilings. And the house just feels so much bigger, right? It's taller.

It's more grandiose as soon as you walk in. We put LVP flooring throughout the entire house. No carpet. Carpet is, that's the thing in the past, dude. Nobody wants carpet. LVP through the whole home. Tile in the showers. So instead of what our competitors use, that plastic bullshit that's like, you know,

you feel like you're living in a mobile home, tile the whole thing. In addition to that, we put rain showerheads. You seen those? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we put those in. Kind of like a new, you know, a new flare on things. Yeah.

That has a luxury feel to it. Yeah. All of our countertops and kitchen cabinets are, you know, grade B as opposed to like grade D. So we've got like the smooth finish, modern white cabinets, soft clothes drawers, granite countertops. We build a superior home to the rest of, you know, the competitors we deal with. Do you have an average sale price? Yeah, it's about $299,000. Damn, dude.

I mean, find sub-300, you know. Find that quality. Everything you just said, like, I'm like, you know, where do you find that? Yeah. It's tough. Yeah, and you're making money. So, damn, honey, I need to find your contractors, you know. But you guys are probably, it sounds like you got to figure it out with all the, you buy your own product.

You know, you got volume going on, right? we control a lot of that too. Yeah, exactly with that volume. Like, you know, it sucked during COVID, right? We were still buying volume, but we're getting hammered on pricing. But that pricing is coming down. So I think it's important to note, you know, as people are listening to this, they're like, you know, what about the interest rate? Fine, the interest rate's going up. But the cost of building the house is coming down, which means we can lower the purchase price of that home, which means we can still keep that workforce borrower that only qualifies for, you know, $1,800 a month. We can still make that work. Yeah.

As long as these construction prices keep coming down, we'll be in a good spot. We're paying $70 a sheet for plywood in 2020. Today we're paying 16. At 2019, we're paying like nine. But, you know, we're coming back down. Getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. Yeah.

I was going to ask you, like, where do you see some of these macroeconomic stuff? Like, are you a crystal ball kind of guy? Like, are you just, you dealing the moment? Like, you know. A little bit of both. Right. A little bit of both. Where do you see all this shit?

going like i i really think i really think that we over corrected we as as you know the current administration i don't even like to associate myself with that party yeah whatever you want to call it i don't know what you call it's definitely a party it's something they're doing they're yeah yeah but anyways i find gabin newsom in any local party yeah so anyways they are i think you know pushing the envelope i think they over over corrected and I think that you'll start to see that interest rate come back down, you know, hopefully in the second, third quarter next year. I think we'll be in a good spot. Yeah.

I mean, because we're getting set up pretty good because as the business, the construction costs, like you said, the hard costs come down. And if that percentage rate starts to get back normalized in a really good spot, right? Yeah. It's hard to know. Like, are we in a recession or not? I think if you went on Instagram, you know, the answer is yes. Oh, I know. That's why I don't, look, I don't buy it. Like, I just think there's so everybody trying to control the narrative.

Like, and I'm not smarter enough to know every economic outcome of this out of the other. But I know when I'm being pulled the wrong direction. So I kind of ignore it. But, you know. I think, to answer that question, are we in a recession? There's people in, in my communities that are still buying homes. Yeah. You can still afford homes.

And they're still making the same money that they made last year. in the year before that. Sure. So did anything change for them? No. Or are they still wanting to buy a home? Absolutely. Yeah.

Did that home go up in price? Yes. Do they still qualify? Barely. I'm going to have to start bringing, you know, actual prices of homes down if this interest rate keeps going up, which I think it's going to. So, you know, I don't know, man.

I think maybe if you go, like, you know, a couple layers down, like are people still buying cars at the rate they were buying? Are people still buying? you know, watches and going on vacations. You know, I think that answer is probably you've seen a lot of pullback. Right. But on the housing side, people still need houses and they're still trying to buy them. I've been flying more lately here in every damn plane's full.

So I don't know if that's, I don't know if that means there's fewer flights or if there's, you know. I asked the flight attendant, we were coming back from L.A. Two nights ago, three nights ago, I don't know, we were out there for a big event. And I asked flight attendant, like, is every plane? plane full to the, and she said every seat on every plane. Yeah, I don't know, man. Recession, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, something like that.

That's what's so hard. Like, you don't know, like, I don't, you don't know who to trust in, in the business and world news. Like, it's like, you feel like everything has a spin on it. There's no, like, everything has an opinion on it, you know. That's why I constantly harp on. Let's just look at the data. Let's do our own data research.

Don't listen to any outside sources. Don't jump on social media where everyone seems to get their news from lately. Do your own research. If you're going to go into a market and start building houses, you should probably figure out if people want the product that you're going to put out. Spend some money. Let's give some nitty-gritty entrepreneurial advice. I know we talked about some of the things you've done,

but as you've grown businesses, as you've done things, what's a nugget or two for people listening that might be starting our company, might be looking for other investments, but just maybe a little entrepreneurial, like what's some of your biggest learning lessons? I think that goes back to what I just said. Make sure whatever you're putting out there,

there's a need for it. And more than that, make sure you got the financial backing to continue to produce this product. Yeah. Right? Because you don't want to get into a situation where you're producing something

and all of a sudden you run out of funding, but there's still a demand. Or the reverse effect. You're producing something. You've got a lot of other people's money out there, and all of a sudden there's no demand for that product. That's a problem. Yeah.

Now, I think scaling, you know, if you're looking at the scaling aspect, know the positions before, you know, you hire and try to put somebody into those positions, understand how to measure those positions. Now, if you can't measure that position, you probably shouldn't hire for it. You should learn it yourself.

Yeah. I understand it. and then try to scale it. You know, I have one of my favorite sayings, and I don't know, I think you're going to win the guest, or 300 guests now, I think you're going to win the award for the person that person that person, it personifies one of my favorite sayings, inspect what you expect. Oh, that's good. I say that sometimes.

I think you are like the personification of that, at least by the way you talk. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's so true, you know, like I say that to people. Like, at first day, it sounds really simple, but you've got to kind of think about it. Like, you know. One of my competitors actually gave that to me. He's a veteran builder, been building, you know, since, I don't know, probably 25, 30 years, awesome guy. And I asked him for advice.

I said, hey, you know, what can you tell me? And he said that exact thing. He said, inspect what you expect. And I was like, that works. That makes sense. said another way trust but verify trust but verify

you know what it's with people you know inspect what expect could be broad you know doing the research with the market

you know getting your ducks in a row you know trust but verifies kind of with people you know I trust people I trust people

but I verify yeah I check just look behind once or twice make sure they're doing what they're doing you're not working I like

I go to beach. I hang out at the beach. I love the beach. Like paddleboarding, you know. Boat guy? No, I don't know a boat. I got a paddleboard. It's kind of a boat. It floats. Oh, yeah. I like to go airboating. Yeah. Yeah, I'm big out in the Everglades. Yeah, I love, you know, hanging out in nature. Yeah. Yeah, I love being outside. Not in Greenville. It's too cold. Yeah, there's a calming demeanor about you. Like, I don't see you being lots of ups and

lots of downs. I see you being very kind of stable, but maybe it's like, I don't know. I try to stay consistent. I try to stay, you know, pretty. Consistent's important. We all have hot and cold. Yeah. I try to stay stable. Yeah, right. Yeah. Sometimes I lose it, man. Don't get, you know, what makes you lose it? You know, I don't, it takes a lot. It takes a lot. You know, I got to really be hurt to go off the deep end, but this happened. Yeah. I don't really, I don't know how the loser is like when I'm someone who really disappoints me, you know, like, not because I had an unfair expectation, but it's just true disappointment. Like, you know, it lets me down.

Yeah. We all have that happen. But, I mean, where can everybody stay abreast or everything you got going on? Where can they learn more about new construction opportunities? like what are those you know points and how to get in contact with you and you know I know you've got meetings and groups and different things you're putting on talk about you know some of those opportunities and things like that so I'm really I'm really putting a lot into education right now like helping other guys that are maybe you know doing real estate in some form or fashion you know

flipping or whatever yeah transition into something that's going to be more lucrative for them there's more margin in building new construction. There's more availability of land. There's more ability to scale. It becomes a real business. I mean, a lot of people have success with scaling a flipping business, but to scale a construction company is a lot more long-term, in my opinion. And you're adding a lot more value to the marketplace.

You're bringing something that didn't exist into reality, and then you're offering that to a family. That's, in my opinion, more fulfilling. Yeah. So I'm putting a lot of emphasis on education. And I did my first event last weekend, actually, you know, this weekend that just passed. Yeah, congrats on that. Thank you. We had a great response. A lot of good people showed up from all over the country. I mean, we had like three or four guys that were actually from Florida. Everybody else was from, you know, all over the country. Some people came from California. We had a couple guys from overseas, one guy from the UK, one guy from Germany. So yeah, yeah, people flew in from out of the country. for this. And I laid it out for them. I gave them everything. I took my entire blueprint. I put it together

with the help of my VP of operations and put it into flow charts and handed it out to these guys. And in addition to that, I teach them how to purchase land, what to look for when you're purchasing land, how to negotiate when you're purchasing land. I taught them, you know, exactly step by step what it takes to build a single family home, start to finish, what it takes to permit a house, start to finish. I laid it all out, gave it all to them. And for that, they were really grateful. I mean, I'm getting a lot of really good feedback. And that makes me feel good. I like that. I like to be able to help and give back. So I'm going to do another one of those in Fort Myers, and I'm going to try to make it pretty big. And, you know, this last event we did was free.

We're going to charge for this one. It's going to be a thousand bucks. But, you know, in, in hindsight, you know, $1,000 to set yourself up to be the next 1% of the, you know, of America is pretty cheap. Pretty cheap. Yeah. But 100% of the proceeds from this event, obviously, we'll pay for the event, but the rest goes into building a hockey rink in Southwest Florida. So just like I had the opportunity to play hockey, you know, because somebody, some

wonderful couple built a hockey rink across the street from my house, I'm going to to do that for the kids, you know, where I'm building, make sure they have the opportunity to do that. And in addition to building this hockey rink, we're going to offer programs because hockey can get expensive, you know, sticks and gear and, you know, just, it gets expensive. Yeah. So we're going to offer programs to help kids that want to play hockey. We're going to, you know, make sure they got that opportunity. Great, man.

Hey, look it there. Make some money and make an impact. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So anybody that wants to come and learn how to build and set themselves, up for, you know, creating wealth in the future will also be contributing to, you know, kids that, you know, would otherwise not have the opportunity to play a pretty badass sport. Where can people find details on your next events or keep up with any things you guys might put out around that? So we, we're keeping it like really simple. We've got an email address.

All right. I like it. And everything just goes to this email address. And it's, it's, Andorra's email. So it's A. Wilson at standard landdevelopment.com. So A. Wilson at standard landdevelopment. com, all spelled out. That's where people are email and stuff.

Now, if you want to just go sign up for the event, I have it in my Instagram. I've got Instagram now. It's wonderful. Congratulations. Moving into the future here. Yes. And I got a link in the bio.

It's called a link tree. And you just go on there and fill it out. What's your handle on Instagram? It's Michael J. Newell. Perfect. Michael J. Newell. And A. Wilson at standard landdevelopment.com is the email. So we'll have that in all our show notes as well.

So we'll make sure that's there. And so you don't have to remember it if you didn't have a pen, we'll have it in the show notes. Anything else, Michael, or any other way to keep up with you? Or is that all for today? That's it, man. That's my spiel, right? It's been great having you, man. Yeah, I appreciate you let me on this.

Pretty cool. And, you know, a great spot you have here. I love it, except for the cold. I know. Hey, well, you got to try a little bit of everything, you know. Yeah. So we appreciate you coming on. And we'll have all the info for Michael and everything he's doing all around the southeast.

And sounds like growing from there. Appreciate you coming on, Michael. Thanks. Appreciate it, man. Hey, guys, you know where to find us, the radcast.com. You'll find all of today's show notes. You'll also, hey, look up Michael Duell. You'll find it all the highlight clips from today at the radcast.com.

I'm at Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms, including Instagram, and on TikTok where I'm blowing up. We'll see you next time, the Radcast.