Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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. 

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 Alford, your host here today. You know, we've talked 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 the 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's a little blustery here in south carolina today blustery that's a good word freezing my ass 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 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 uh people get their head out of their ass and uh start moving around a little bit you know uh tell it like it is here on the radcast but yeah man i uh talked with the team and was like 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 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 talked 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 so i got a lot to look forward to yeah 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 skill sets, 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 yeah 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 in front of them and you know and try and push not and push but like give them the opportunity sure and so like two of my kids are like really good in soccer i didn't

play fucking soccer i mean my wife and i were basketball players uh and that makes sense that makes yeah college athletes at basketball but like yeah two of them are really good in soccer i'm like and i did was not as hard so like then there's two of them swim year-round and then basketball of course they all play basketball So they got that natural. So they're still in that, you know, a couple of them are starting 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 just want to keep that momentum going. Hockey seems like a great sport. 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. But as much as I see it, it's a physical sport, 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. Some wonderful people built a hockey rink across the my house i mean that's you know that's how i got into it really yeah the opportunity of of having something like that in the backyard is it's amazing especially in florida yeah it was awesome you know any other 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 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 early journey, what made Michael Michael. Where your roots, your background, and some of that entrepreneurial journey. Sure. So I think homeschooling had a lot to do with it. You're kind of like a self-starter.

I got my mother 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, uh, I think that self-starter mentality kind of came from the homeschooling aspect. And I, and I did that all the way through. 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, you know, 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, so I'm not going to dog it. But I don't know if you've got your options. You probably had the right option. Yeah, no, I bailed out of that, dude. 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 as I was going through my whole school 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 narrow 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 12th 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 and games. I always say idle hands get you in trouble. Like, I think there's a more eloquent saying, but that's what I boil it down to, right? No doubt, man.

And performance, too, right? So, you know, you don't want to go out and get drunk every night. You got to practice at 5 a.m. Exactly. You're not solely focused on just hanging out and having fun. You're focused on performing and, you know, and just being better all together. So 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 of 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. I was talking to her. I was in college at the time. And I was like, I can't stand this.

Were you bored? I don't know, bored, just frustrated. It wasn't for me. I couldn't do well in college. Yeah. And she's like, go get your real estate license. And I was like, you know, that 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. Just walking through and showing people houses. That's not my cup of tea. Yeah. I'd get bored. Yeah, it was boring. Yeah. It was boring. I i know it's it's work i mean you have to be on your feet and you're gonna have customer service

i'm not like knocking it but yeah i don't know the emotional side of things too you know 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 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, they, they put a lot of time, energy and effort into being emotional. 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. Well, lucky you. Yeah. So I, I, 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. 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. I was seeing how much money these guys are making. I'm like, oh my God, this is what I need to be doing. This is my. This is my move. So I, 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 timeframe here? What year are we talking about? So 2009 real estate agent all the way to 2013, 14. Okay. 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 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 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 that came to an end too. 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, you know, Google, you know, warrior, just, you know, going to Google Earth and finding everything. And, yeah, it was fun. That dried up. Just dried up like the business itself? Well, I mean, I couldn't get access to product. 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, 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. And I don't have hundreds of millions of dollars behind me at the moment so yeah i you know i was kind of pushed out of the way got it so up until this point right short sales distressed mortgages i got plenty of uh investors behind me they got faith in me and you know they're looking at me like what's the next thing what are we doing now no more no more distressed mortgages so where are we going from here and uh i decided we're gonna build some houses and that was it just took off from there mj yeah construction right well it's standard land development is a construction company

and mj newell homes is the the forward facing brand okay yeah yeah like everything i can everything i was like researching how mj kept coming up yeah yeah they're i mean they're one they're one the same they're tied together just you know 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 retired semi-retired he cherry-p projects, but he's semi-retired. It's a different thing. Again, a little bit of that pivot, you know, dealing with building something, all the nuances of that.

How was that transition? Trial by fire, dude. There's 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 uh you know how'd you pull that magic trick let me use his general contractor's license for my first few bills he signed off for me i i used his his license i used his uh 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 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 they're not horrible they weren't great but they weren't horrible yeah i sold them i made a profit right so i learned i learned and made money yeah it was wonderful yeah that wonderful. It usually goes the other way. It usually goes the other way. 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. It's getting better you know as the days go on and in my opinion so that's that started 17 ish am i hearing yeah 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 gonna 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 uh oh man is there an asterisk on that yeah yeah definitely some some disclaimer at the bottom there. 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 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 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 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. I mean, you have to start at the foundation. You can't just walk into this and expect to 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's, 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 I lost a bunch of money. And then I started an ad agency. What I'd done for 17 years, I knew the ins and outs from

the ground floor basement yeah all the way to the top all the way to ceo and you know in five years fast-growing agency in the southeast top 25 podcast stick with what you know baby but but it's exact example i'm sitting here listening you 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, learn that position and then hire, you know, what you would expect in that position as you scale up. that position as you scale up what's the most complicated like my dad always jokes being a gc that the last 10 of any project or house is the you know it's the hardest but like you know if you got a customer for sure yeah yeah the whether it was a 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, yeah. 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 our way a little bit, but that's the way it's supposed to be. So, you know, like, what maybe something that 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 you know what you're buying yeah turtles right who would have thought six thousand dollars a piece dude to remove a turtle so i get in

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 the agency uh in the area you got turtles i'm like okay yeah let's uh go feed them is this rafael uh leonardo is this the mighty ninja turtles what the hell are we talking about here so you know uh to the tune of twelve thousand dollars later a little over twelve thousand dollars right there you got two turtles yeah just a god we're not talking about little lake turtles like this are we no they're they're tortoises okay they're i don't know big around it's a five gallon bucket or so all right yeah there's ones that scare you at the zoo yeah yeah yeah so turtles right i got you

there's a nugget pay attention to what you're purchasing yeah walk the lot look at it i i think on the 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. 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. You land in something that seems to have stuck in the real estate business and found a real good niche. I think it's stuck because of the need. I think this country has

a huge need for workforce housing. I mean, people that make $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 a year joint incomes, what are they buying right now? They're getting hammered. And now we got 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, I know. We were talking when I was coming into this interview.

I'm glad you went there because I heard you say that there's a lot of need. And I'm like, man, there's conflicting data out there about that, right? Tons of it. Tons of it. But I think I would pay attention to the data that's done by professionals. Yeah. I always refer back to the Harvard study, State of the Nation's Housing. They got 3.8.

The head or president of the National Association of Home Builders says a million. Freddie Mac agrees with Harvard, 3.8. And every day this is growing because more families are becoming eligible to purchase a home or needing housing. you know, needing housing. Yeah. So I think, 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're they don't have they don't have an option so what do they do you know they they rent what the hedge fund purchased and, you know, lease back to them. Yeah. Or China's selling to them. Yeah, right. That's not the American dream, dude. Like, you know, 30 year mortgages 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 has your construction company always been in that?

It's always been workforce housing. Workforce. That's always been what we do. What's the difference between workforce housing and first home? Same thing. Same thing? Same thing. Different word, same thing.

It's so interesting because, especially these metros, we're in Greenville, South Carolina here. We're the agency and 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. I mean, it's doubled, you know, and so do you go about like identifying maybe growing cities and then 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 a 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, we'll do a little over 400 this year. Wow. Yeah. Holy shit, dude. We're a little over 400 this year. Wow. Yeah. Holy shit, dude. That's a lot of houses. We're rocking and rolling, man. I bet. Yeah.

Are you leveraging teams and resources across all four or five states you're in? I mean, is it, or do you have, like, networks set up? I've got networks set up, but the vast majority of our stuff is run out of our Southwest Florida office. That's where the heart of our operation is. Yeah. Are you souped in nuts, or do you just purely construction end? So that's good. So I'll go all the way from land acquisition to CO.

Now, as far as personnel goes, we only have high-level personnel. We have superintendents, which supervise all of the subcontractors. We have our 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 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 of punch out crews, right? Doing the punch me in the face list. Yep. You like that. 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 a bad asset of subcontractors in all the markets we deal in. Yeah, that's smart, though. Not that 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 or the station yeah yeah keeping everybody organized I mean you know you 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 finance, like the developments?

Yeah, so we have our own 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 more or less the entire process from start to finish. So you're profiting from sale to mortgage? Construction, sale, mortgage, title.

That's about everything. Yeah, we've got it wrapped up. Yeah. We've got it wrapped up. $400 a year. All right, I'm doing the math. 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. 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. She keeps everything rolling. Yeah. Yeah, because I got tough days. I don't want to deal with too much nonsense afterwards. So I get home. Kids are happy. House is on point.

Got great food. She's just there backing me you know backing me up yeah yeah i love her she's awesome that's great so without her you know without her none of this is possible what's the process for okay someone's listening to all this they're going oh wow this sounds amazing but you know i'm a banker i'm a executive you know uh I'm paying attention. I've dabbled in things in real estate. Maybe I own 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 for our fund. So if swinging a hammer is not your thing, We'll put your money to work building workforce housing. Yeah, so they can literally get involved without getting involved. Correct. We'll swing the hammer.

Yeah, I know. What are your ambitions, man? Where's the company headed? You're into the scene with politics and other things, but what are your beliefs? What do you see happening out there? So I'll kind of, I 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 and they want a house. They want to, they want somewhere to want somewhere to live so you know my sole uh focus right now is

is continually putting out these workforce single-family homes for workforce america and that that's what kind of you know fulfills me and i'm doing well with it don't let me fool you right 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 taken 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, and I'm like, I'm seeing, like, the movie, you know, 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 well it's it's i think it could be you know it could be a good show right it's not bullshit like no we're we're doing this like we're we're you ever interview like the

people that are talked to like the people that you end up getting in houses extremely grateful grateful grateful for the opportunity to own a home i mean don't you know some of them are pricks right some of our 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 that's right that's easy for me to say 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 it the house

just feels so much bigger right it's taller it's 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 like nobody nobody wants nobody wants carpet lvp through the whole home tile and in the in the showers so instead of you know what our competitors use that that plastic bullshit that's like you know you feel like you're living in a mobile home yeah tile the whole thing in addition to that we put rain shower heads you seen those oh yeah yeah we put those in kind of like a new you know new, new flair on things. Yeah. That 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 closed 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. We build a superior home to the rest of 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.

Find that quality. Everything you just said, I'm like, where do you find that? It's tough. Yeah, and you're making money. So, damn, 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 this you buy your own product you use you know you got volume going on right we we control a lot of that too yeah exactly with that volume like you know it sucked during covid right we were we were still buying volume but we're getting hammered on on pricing but that pricing's coming

down so i i think it's important to note you know as people are listening to this they're like you We were still buying bond, but we're getting hammered on pricing. But that pricing is coming down. So I think it's important to note, as people are listening to this, they're like, what about the interest rate? Fine, the interest rate is 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 $1,800 a month. We can still make that work. As long as these construction prices keep coming down, we'll be in a good spot. We were paying $70 a sheet for plywood in 2020. Today we're paying $16. In 2019, we're paying like $9. But we're coming back down.

Getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. Yeah. I was going to ask you, where do you see some of these macroeconomic stuff like are you a crystal ball kind of guy like are you just are you doing 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,

whatever you want to call it. I don't know what you call it. It's definitely a party. It's something. It's a party. They're partying. Yeah. But anyways. You can find Gavin Newsom at any local party.

Right? Yeah. So anyways, they are, I think, pushing the envelope. I think they overcorrected. And I think that you'll start to see that interest rate come back down, 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. And I'm not smart enough to know every economic outcome of this out of the other but i know when i'm being uh pulled the wrong direction so i kind of ignore it but you know i think uh i to answer that question are we in a recession there's people in in my communities that are still buying homes yeah can still afford homes and they're still making the same money that they made last year and the year before that. So did anything change for them? No. Are they still wanting to buy a home? Absolutely. Did that home go up in price? Yes. Do they still qualify? Barely. I'm

going to have to start bringing 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 and 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 uh no doubt you know i asked the uh flight attendant we were coming back from la uh 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 full to the she said every seat on every plane so yeah i don't know man yeah recession i don't know yeah i don't know something like that it's i i 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 yeah it's like you feel like everything has a spin on it. Everything has an opinion on it.

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. Like, I know we talked about some of the things you've done, but like, as you've grown businesses, as you've done things, what's a nugget or two for people listening that might be starting their own company, might be looking for other investments, but just maybe a little entrepreneurial.

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've got the financial backing to continue to produce this product. And more than that, make sure you've got the financial backing to continue to produce this product. Yeah. Right? Because you don't want to get in a situation where, you know, you're producing something and all of a sudden you run out of funding, but there's still 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. no demand for that product. That's a problem. Now, I think scaling, if you're looking at the scaling aspect, know the positions before 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. 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 I 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, they're like, at first it sounds really simple, but you 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 building since, I don't know, probably 25, 30 years. Awesome guy. And I asked him for advice. I said, hey, 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 yeah 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 are you trust people i trust people but i verify yeah i check just look once or twice. Make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. Yeah, I know.

What do you do when you're not working? I go to the beach. Okay. I hang out at the beach. I love the beach. Like paddle boarding, you know. Boat guy? No, I don't go boat.

I go paddle boarding. It's kind of a boat. It floats. Oh, yeah. I like to go air boating. Yeah? Yeah, I'm big on the Everglades.boating yeah yeah i'm big out in the everglades yeah you know hanging out in nature yeah yeah i love being outside not not in 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 but maybe it's like, I don't know. I try to stay consistent. I try to stay, you know, pretty. Consistence is 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 it takes a lot you know i gotta really be hurt to to to go off the deep end but it's happened yeah i don't really i don't know how to lose it

it's like when someone just really disappoints me you know like not because i had an unfair expectation but it's like it's just true disappointment like you know it lets me down yeah you know we all have that happen but uh where i mean where can everybody stay abreast 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 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 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 gonna 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, you know, a lot of people have, you know, success with scaling a flipping business, but to scale a construction company is a lot more long term, in my opinion. And you're, you know, you're adding a lot more value to the marketplace. You're bringing something that didn't exist in it into, you know,

into reality. And then you're offering that to a, to a family that's, you know, in my opinion, more, 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 we had a great response a lot of 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, it, you know, that makes me feel good. I like that. I like to be able to, to, to help and give back. So I'm going to do another one of those in Fort Myers and, and I'm going to try to make it pretty big. And, uh, you know, this last event we did was free. We're going to charge for this one. It's gonna be a thousand bucks, but you know, in, in hindsight, you know, a thousand bucks to, to set yourself up to be the next 1% of America is pretty cheap. But 100% of the proceeds from this event obviously will pay for the event, but the rest goes into building a hockey rink in Southwest Florida.

to building a hockey rink in Southwest Florida. So just like I had the opportunity to play hockey, because somebody, some wonderful couple built a hockey rink across the street from my house, I'm going to do that for the kids where I'm building and 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,

sticks and gear and just, it gets expensive. So we're going to offer programs because hockey can get expensive, you know, sticks and gear and, you know, just it gets expensive. 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 at there. Make some money and make an impact. 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 kids that 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?

We're keeping it really simple. We've got an email address. All right. I like it. And everything just goes to this email address. It's Andorra's email. So it's awilsonatstandardlanddevelopment.com. So awilsonatstandardlanddevelopment.com, all spelled out. That's where people are emailing stuff.

Now, if you want to just go sign up for the uh the event i have it in my instagram i've got instagram now it's wonderful congratulations moving into the future here yes and uh i got a link in the bio it's called a link tree yeah just go on there and fill it out what's your handle on instagram it's michael j newell and fill it out. What's your handle on Instagram? It's Michael J. Newell. Perfect.

Michael J. Newell. And awilson at standardlanddevelopment.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 spiel right it's been great having you man yeah i appreciate you letting me on this pretty cool and uh you know great spot you have here i love it

except for the cold i know hey well we gotta you gotta uh try a little bit everything you know yeah so uh 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, and we'll have all the info for Michael and everything he's doing all around the Southeast. And it sounds like growing from there. Appreciate you coming on, Michael. Thanks. Appreciate it, man. Hey, guys, you know where to find us, theradcast.com.

You'll find all of today's show notes. Hey, look up Michael Newell's. You'll find all the highlight clips from today at theradcast.com. I'm Matt Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms, including Instagram and on TikTok where I'm blowing up. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.