The Iced Coffee Hour - Housing Expert: Do Not Buy A Home Until You’ve Watched This! | Jason Oppenheim

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

NetSuite: Download the CFO’s Guide to AI for FREE at https://netsuite.com/iced Gemini: Sign up for the Gemini Credit Card: https://Gemini.com/iced ZipRecruiter: Try ZipRecruiter for FREE at https://ziprecruiter.com/ICH ZocDoc: Go to https://www.zocdoc.com/ICED and download the Zocdoc App for FREE Follow Jason Oppenheim: On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jasonoppenheim/ Website - https://ogroup.com/ Special thanks to White Glove Estates Check them out here: https://whitegloveestates.com/ Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [e-mail] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. #GeminiCreditCard #CryptoRewards This video is sponsored by Gemini. All opinions expressed by the content creator are their own and not influenced or endorsed by Gemini. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Intro 00:01:08 – Real estate bubble debate 00:03:01 – LA policies & the mansion tax 00:07:17 – Jason’s background 00:08:19 – Why Jason won’t buy in LA 00:09:49 – Is LA still worth living in? 00:11:12 – Crime, policing & taxes 00:14:00 – ADU & bureaucracy nightmares 00:17:31 – Overregulation & lawsuits 00:20:10 – Low-income units & rent control 00:24:38 – Can California recover? 00:26:33 – Buy vs. rent in 2025 00:28:38 – Jason’s 2025 strategy 00:30:29 – Biggest investment wins 00:35:35 – AI, deflation & rates 00:37:13 – Best ways to invest in real estate 00:40:15 – Housing myths & affordability 00:44:40 – Strategy vs. timing 00:47:00 – Multifamily opportunities 00:48:25 – Tenant lawsuits & eviction laws 00:55:01 – Lawsuits as extortion 00:59:22 – Best opportunities now 01:03:20 – Spending philosophy & happiness 01:08:51 – Optimal wealth & private jets 01:11:42 – Biggest money lessons 01:15:11 – Using money to de-stress 01:20:17 – Selling Sunset impact 01:22:06 – Therapy & stress management 01:27:42 – Redefining success & happiness 01:30:27 – Are billionaires different? 01:39:02 – Wealth: right place, right time 01:40:00 – Being a better boss 01:42:55 – Why people stay 9-5 01:43:37 – Creative financing (Sub-to) 01:54:00 – Closing thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I started the Oppenheim Group real estate brokerage, done about $4 to $5 billion in transaction volume. So I feel like my experience helps me to see what comes next. People are arguing now that we're in a real estate bubble. We've had arguably the worst three years ever in real estate. Interest rates keep climbing. Volume is at a historic low. When I say historic low, I mean 50, 60 years. Do you think buying a home is worth it at today's prices?

All these areas that blew up, Miami, Austin, Las Vegas, Nashville. I wouldn't get near those places. Do you think California is doomed? When any one party gets too much control, they veer off track. California's veered off track because it's been dominated too long by people that don't have any pushback, and there's really no debate. We spent $24 billion over the last eight years, and the problem's gotten about 40 to 50 percent worse.

So what's your investing philosophy for 2025 and 26? What are you doing with your money? People overanalyze. It's pretty common sense right now. In terms of the real estate market, people are arguing now that we're in a real estate bubble. What are your thoughts on this? I vociferously disagree. Who the hell says that?

Everyone on Twitter. That's so dumb. There's a lot of dumb shit on Twitter. So you're saying that sales and everything, they're still continuing to trend? We're at, you made a real estate bubble like it's high? It's going to crash? Yes. I mean, that's the opposite.

We've been, we've been, we've been companies. down, prices have been coming down and volume's been coming down since late 2021, early 2022. We've had some of the three years in real estate. I've had some tough years. I mean, it's all relative, but now, the last three years have been really tough because industry rates have been high. Volume is at a historic low. When I say historic low, I'm in 50, 60 years since volume's been this low. So very historic in terms of the decrease in volume. Prices have come down. I mean, I don't want to speak I'm not an expert nationally, but nationally prices are not in a bubble. Big cities post-COVID have had a difficult time, L.A., New York. You know, some cities in like Miami and Austin and Las Vegas

and Scottsdale and, you know, the big kind of, I mean, it's not a political thing, but the big cities in the Democratic states have done terribly. And kind of the more, you know, red cities, so to speak, like Miami that you know that that's a in a red state they have a pretty moderate governance have done a lot better because they're low taxation tough on crime and a lot of people left the big cities during COVID and went to play like went to those kind of tertiary areas like in Texas, Miami. Do you think that that's here too? Do you think that's due to policy or do you think that's just due to the nature of a big city being already dense housing? No, it's due to policy. It's due to policy. So what big cities are doing? So the big, the big, the big, the big,

cities that had the most draconian COVID policies. I'll use Los Angeles in an example because I live there. They had arguably the most kind of, you know, draconian and tough policies in the country. They were the last place in the L-A-USD was the last school district in the United States to open back up. We restricted our economy so significantly and we let out so many people from jails that a lot of people left. That started it. That started the frustration. Then homelessness kind of blew up. COVID caused tremendous homelessness in Los Angeles. And there's no restrictions on that. It's not really enforced. It was just, it was a pretty difficult couple of years in LA. We've turned the corner. We're getting a little bit better. But it definitely

is policies. I'm not generally political. I consider myself pretty centrist. But I feel like I call a spade a spade. You know, I've been a Democrat most of my life. I'm really independent now. But the truth is, democratic policies have been extremely difficult for large cities. The mansion tax is another one. I mean, the mansion tax... Explain that for people unfamiliar with that. So, Los Angeles put a tax... And by the way, I can totally see how that tax passed.

It's a mansion tax on wealthy people, you know, charging 6% on any sale over $10 million or 5% on any sale over $5 million. You know, it sounds good. A few years ago, I would have voted for it, right? because I didn't, you know, ostensibly, it's like, oh, taxing the rich, you know, helping the homeless. Great. I mean, who's not going to vote for that? The problem is, is that it creates so much friction. Now we have sales down about 70% above $5 million. So it's decimated the sales volume, which restricts property taxes. UCLA just came out with a study, basically coming out. And by the way, UCLA public policy is one of the most liberal. They actually argued for the mansion tax.

And then they had to come out and say, we were wrong, essentially. The mansion tax has been terrible for the economy. Explain the mansion tax. What exactly is that? Sorry. So anytime a property sales, let's say you own a property,

you buy a property for $5 million, and you sell it for $5.5 million, you know, a few years later. You have to pay 5% of that to the city. So that's, you know, $2,000, whatever, $75,000. thousand dollars or something like that on the entire amount regardless of whether or not you make a profit so you could buy it five million hold it a few years sell it for five million well sell it for

five million and still have to pay the tax what's actually happening is yeah people are but people are bought a house for let's say six and a half million dollars three four years ago it's worth six today i i i had a client buy a house for seven point two million dollars sold it for six five he lost seven hundred thousand dollars then had to pay the city three hundred and then commission so he lost like a mill too. He'll never buy, he doesn't want to buy an L.A. again. He wants to move out. So the mansion tax was very difficult. Another study, I don't want to get too much into studies about the mansion tax, but it's costing the city and the state in terms of taxation from the economic loss, from property tax values not resetting, about $2 to $3 for every dollar that it raises. It also

has only raised 20% as much as it promised. It's been an absolute failure. So why do they not just reverse it then. Well, it may or may not be on the ballot. There have been a lot of lawsuits. The courts rejected it. It was on the ballot last year. The Supreme Court kicked it off the ballot. It's also really hard to put a ballot initiative on saying, let's repeal a mansion tax. When's the last time a liberal city voted to remove a tax? I don't know if it's ever happened in any city. It's not going to happen in L.A. Once the tax is in place, it's really, really, really hard to remove. What gives you the credentials to be able to talk about all of these stuff? If you were to list off your Acknowledes?

Honestly, this one's common sense. Anyone with common sense can see, it's true. I mean, you can read the studies. I mean, the L.A. Times has run a very liberal publication, has come out with numerous articles the last few months, just saying that it's been an abject failure. The mansion tax is common sense. I don't think anyone could argue that it did what it was supposed to do. Now, what about for real estate overall, though?

So my family's been in real estate for five generations in Los Angeles since the late 1800s. I have a background as an attorney. I went to Berkeley for undergrad and law school and then was an attorney in Los Angeles for many years. Started the Oppenheim Group Real Estate Brokerage. I have 100 agents now, three different offices, San Diego, Newport Beach and Los Angeles and Cabo, so four different offices. Done about $4 to $5 billion in transaction volume, probably five or 600 sales. And I'm, you know, consider myself someone who is critical thinking skills and common sense. So I like to apply that to what I talk about. And what do you say to people who say you have a bias pro real estate because of what you do and your income is tied to real estate doing well or high transaction volume?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair. I obviously want there to be high transaction volume. I'm pro-economic growth. I mean, who isn't? So I want real estate to succeed. I don't know who doesn't. But I'm also not a fluff guy. Anyone who's ever listened to me talk, you guys certainly probably know.

I just don't, I just tell it like it is. I don't have, I just like to be honest and direct. So when real estate's not going well, I wouldn't even buy, I mean, perfect example. I'm not even sure I would buy a luxury property in Los Angeles right now. And that's against my financial interest to say that. But yeah, until Los Angeles cleans up its policies, fixes its homeless problem, fixes its crime problem, fixes its taxation problem, you know, until I start seeing some positive signs, I wouldn't. be investing in Los Angeles. Why is the homeless problem getting so bad specifically for Los Angeles? So the homeless problem has gotten a little bit better the last couple of years. I mean, it probably

was at its worst in 2022, 2023. It's gotten a little bit better, not because of it, I don't think because of any policies, because I think our policies are terrible, but just because it got so bad, just like crime and homelessness got so bad after post-COVID that, of course it's going to be, it's going to, you know, revert, what is it regress to the mean, revert to the mean? And it has. But it's still significantly worse than it was in 2018, 2019. We're about 40, I think 40% more homeless now. We spent $24 billion trying to fix the problem over the last, I think, eight years, and the problem's gotten about 40 to 50% worse. So how much value in homes have you sold in the city of Los Angeles? Three billion, maybe? Maybe $5 billion in total and maybe $3 billion in L.A.

And how long have you lived in L.A.? 20 years? Do you think L.A. is still a good place to live? L.A. is still my favorite city in the world. I mean, and I've been to a lot of different cities. I think hands down, L.A. is the best city, mostly because of the weather. The frustration I have with L.A. is that it has so much more potential. L.A. was a better city five years ago. Significantly better city. Nightlife was exceptional.

Restaurants were exceptional. Businesses were coming in. There was a vibrance in the city. The movie industry was doing really well. The homeless problem was under control. Crime was not rampant. there was a sense of optimism in Los Angeles five years ago. Now a lot of that's gone.

It's still my favorite city, although I do honestly spend a lot more time in Newport Beach than I used to. And traveling. So I'm not as just optimistic on Los Angeles as I once was, but it still remains my favorite city. So what would you say are the main three things that caused Los Angeles to go from, you know, the great city that it once was five years ago to, in your opinion, it's still the best city, but much worse now? Yeah, good question. I pretty simple answer. A lack of crime enforcement. And that's through a myriad of different things.

Like they got rid of cash bail. They let criminals. I mean, I had my house broken into. I had my car broken into. Those guys get out like a day later. I mean, it's just now we have a new district attorney that is changing things. But let's see how that goes. We also have our lowest number of cops that I think we've had in decades per capita.

We have our lowest number of times of decades. Is that due to the defund the police initiative? Yeah, that and just a general difficulty in recruitment because there's been such a negative, you know, negative connotation towards police officers that I think they have a very difficult time. So they have a lot of retirement and they're not replacing them. And we have a huge budget crisis. So we don't have the money to be paying new officers. So, yeah, we've been mismanaged. I mean, financially mismanaged.

I mean, we have a billion dollar deficit, which for a city's massive. How does the city of Los Angeles have a billion dollar deficit when you guys have like the, the highest taxes across the entire country. Well, it's because most wealthy people, a lot of wealthy people have left. And so L.A.'s answer, unfortunately, to every problem is an additional tax, like the mansion tax.

Instead of learning how to solve problems, they just tax more. And the problem is that used to work. For a hundred years, that worked. California was able to tax, L.A. was able to tax and continue to increase taxes because people did not vote with their feet. They couldn't really leave.

We were not as mobile as we, as we are now. After COVID, everything changed. Now, people are, I can't, I mean, so many people are leaving. I've got so, I've got more clients that have left Los Angeles over just taxes alone in the last five years than in my entire, probably five times has been in the last five years, then my entire career before that combined. And it's a big problem. So you don't get tax revenue. A mansion tax is a perfect example. They thought it was going to raise a billion dollars a year. it raised about $300 million a year. So not even a third of what they expected

because they assume that nothing's going to change except for the tax getting paid. That's not what happens. What happens is people leave developers are not building in Los Angeles. You don't see any multifamily construction, which kind of is counterintuitive to solving the homeless problem.

You don't see any investment. So you don't see people hiring plumbers and electricians and you don't see properties trading. So that creates an economic disincentive and less revenue for the city and the state. So until they can figure out how to solve their problems without just trying to additionally tax. And I'm not philosophically against taxing the wealthy at all. But you can't tax someone a dollar and lose a $1.50 in economic activity. That just doesn't make sense.

What I find interesting is they have this initiative to try to make it really easy to get expedited permits to add an ADU to a property in Los Angeles. And so guess who sees that? And they calculate, I'm going to get a great ROI if I go through this new thing that they just created because they're finally doing a right thing to solve the homeless crisis, to solve the affordable housing crisis is none other than the man sitting to the left of me, Graham. This episode is brought to you by Tell us online security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms.

But I've got Tell us online security. helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season. Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at talus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. Yeah, you did an ADU. Yeah.

Not a lot of people have done ADUs. Oh, my gosh. It has been a nightmare. You working with the city, you mean? Yes. It has been an absolute night. So when I looked at this, I thought the cash-on-cash ROI was incredible. And it is.

Going through the city of Los Angeles has been an absolute nightmare. Getting the city inspector, they don't want to inspect. It goes straight to voicemail for days. And then on Fridays, when a tenant's supposed to move it on the Monday, they say, well, actually, you know, I'm running late. We're going to cancel this. They don't want to work on the Fridays anymore. And so then they reschedule it.

And then they swap inspectors. They get a new inspector. He finds other new problems. Yeah, we need sewer line CCTV. And you have to schedule it with one of our approved vendors. And the weight on that is one to two weeks. We already did the work. Here's a C.

No, no, we need from one of our inspectors. Oh, we did this months ago. Oh, you need a new one now. I did an ADU in one of my houses. And I was getting past final. They sent a new inspector for the same reason. And he measured the tread difference in my spiral staircase. And he measured like six and a half, maybe seven inches.

And it was supposed to be like a max of six and a half. And he told me I have to redo like my $10,000. spiral staircase and it delayed everything like a month. And then now I've got another client, north of Los Angeles, he wants to do a movie, get a movie theater permitted. And they're saying that because he's doing work, he's too far away from a fire hydrant, so he has to bring in a fire hydrant, $120,000 to bring in this fire hydrant to do a movie theater. Like, no one's going to do that. Like there's no discretion, there's no common sense. It's too bureaucratic. When you build a new house now, they are requiring like this drainage system where you collect this water because, you know, I don't know,

we need water conservation or something, even though it's just a bucket basically. And it costs like $35,000 to install this. And so, you know, you're trying to build something. And an additional $35 grand, and then there's several of these requirements, people like, why don't want to build in L.A. anymore. Now, before we go into that, you got to ask yourself, what does the future hold for business? Because if you ask nine different experts, you're going to get 10 different answers from a bull market, a bare market, things are great, things are tombed forever. Be very helpful at this point to have a crystal ball. But until that happens, over 42,000 businesses have already future-proofed their business

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biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunity, right now you could download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning for free at NetSuite.com slash iced with the link also down below in the description. Again, that guide is completely free to you at NetSuite.com slash iced. Again, netsuite.com the link down below in the description. Thank you again to NetSuite for sponsoring this episode, and now let's get back to the podcast. So does this seem like mostly a policy issue? Is it a culture issue where people just don't, the culture is you can't punish people. You know what I mean? Like if someone does a bad job, you can't say, oh, you're fired because if you fire someone, then it's, you know, for some discrimination. That's just a problem with government. Or is it a legal

issue? Because you have so much, so many people lawyering up in the state of California and lawyers can just basically siphon the funds from anybody and just sue for anything. There is so many. I mean, I'm an attorney. I've been an attorney for 20 years. Actually, I don't know if my license is still active, but who cares? I'll still speak on it. So, example, when I built my Newport Beach office, we had to hire an ADA expert.

You know, someone who comes and kind of guides you in terms of what you need to do to be ADA compliant, American with Disabilities Act, which we're all for helping disabled people, right? but we want to do it in an efficient manner. What he told me is that you'll have attorneys that have no clients. Like no one within a disability will ever go, you know, has gone on the property. But they're allowed to just sue on behalf of the class. So they'll come in, they'll sneak into your office. They'll pretend they're a client, whatever.

They'll go in your bathroom. They'll measure the distance between like the toilet and the wall. Or they'll, in my case, there was a, they said that my back parking lot was like, like two degrees too sloped. And so they said, I had to spend like $40,000 redoing my entire back. And then I did, there wasn't, there was a sidewalk and then there was an entrance to the parking lot. And so the wheelchair would have to go like 10 feet into, you know, and come back. And they said, no, you have to have a pathway right through. So I had to spend like another $15,000, cutting through like this retaining wall. Then I had to spend about $15,000 on an automated back door.

You know, you're not allowed to go out and open the door. You have to have an automated door. I spent about $70,000 to be a compliant because they'd said lawyers will come in and they'll measure the slopeage and they'll do all the stuff and you'll get a, and then they'll sue you. I have not had anyone try to access my property in five years with a wheelchair. If they did, they would have been able to get on very easily. But I've spent $70,000. Now, I personally think I would have preferred to put $70,000 into an account to help people get wheelchair. to get prosthetic limbs, like to actually help people with disabilities, as opposed to repaving a parking lot that was fine in the first place.

My landlord at Sunset Plaza had to spend $250,000 redoing his parking lot because of a slopage issue. That's not money well spent. That's just bureaucracy taking over. I'm all for, and I think many people are, for helping other people. I'm for taxation, you know, if it's unintelligently, I'm for helping. I mean, my mom's entire job was placing people with disabilities in job placement. I'm just for efficiency.

There's another example. There's a building that one of my clients lives in on Beverly, and the city required them to put middle income, low-income housing in the building. Even though the building is a building for billionaire. So it starts at $5 million, it goes up to $25 million. So the building has had a very difficult time selling, units because a lot of people don't want to have low income in their building that they're spending $20 million on because they're paying an HOA of like $15,000 a month. And yet half the

building's occupants, because a lot of these billionaires don't live there. So there may be 30 units for sale and maybe 10 units that are low income. But of those 30 units for sale, maybe only five or six people live there full time. So it's actually a building more predominantly lived in by low income than by billionaires. And their low income pays zero HOA. So it's the city that subsidize it. And yet you've got the bill, you know, they're wealthy people paying $10,000, $15,000 a month for the pool and for the gym and for a ballet. How do low-income people get in that building to begin with?

Is there a lottery system? Yeah, you have to not make a certain amount of money for like 10 years. So if you ever make too much money, you get kicked off the list. So theoretically, someone could be. So the incentive is you can be living with billionaires if you continually try to make less money. Well, and by the way, I'm not even. So they're getting like $30,000 to $50,000 a month in value of living in that building. Well, they're getting way more because there's,

not paying any HOA. So that's $50 to $100,000 just in free HOA amenities. And then they have valet. So for example, you know, the building, all the, all the buildings amenities are accessible to everyone. So the low income obviously will have 24-hour valet and concierge and food brought up and pool gym. So how do they get that for free when the person working their ass off making a hundred grand a year? The city requires the building to create like, I think in this case, it was 10 or 12 units that are low-income. So, listen, I'm not even theoretically against this. Here's the problem, though. The problem is the building is having a very difficult time selling the luxury units. So the building lost maybe $30 to $40 million in value because they lost so many potential buyers. So I think it would have been better for the building just to put in, let's say, a few million dollars into a fund for low-income housing, and then they go out and you buy a building that's for sale. You know, like an older building, and you get with 150 units in it. And now you've housed 150 people instead of eight or ten for five million dollars instead of the building losing 30 or 40 million dollars in sales. So it's just so inefficient. That's the problem with it. I don't mind the concept. I actually appreciate the concept. The problem is it's so unbelievably inefficient in how much money is lost and economic activity is lost and sales are lost to help, you know, 10 people when that money could be used. Speaking of that, I had a clip recently goes somewhat viral where I said, and I made the argument, that a lot of buildings in Los Angeles are actually more valuable empty than they are with tenants in them. And I know a lot of people who purposely keep their buildings completely empty because they don't want to deal with tenants. And if they want to sell at some point in the future, they can't. Correct, because of rent control.

But the building is more valuable empty. The problem with rent controls and many studies show this, rent control does well in the short term. So rent control manages prices and keeps people in units in the short term. In the long term, it hurts. It hurts the very people that it's trying to help. It actually increases rents because it decreases supply. And it decreases investment in the community. So as an example, nobody wants to buy multifamily in Los Angeles because of all the rent control problems.

Nobody wants to build single family in Los Angeles because of the rent control problems because of the mansion tax. So it actually in the long run, and just about every study bears this out, but it's really hard for people to change their ways. I mean, you think that California is just going to all of a sudden admit, hey, rent control was a bad idea. No, they're just going to keep doubling down like they do on everything. They're not going to admit that the mansion tax was a terrible idea. You won't get one proponent of that to ever admit that. So people are just very stuck in their ways, and they're not willing to think critically. Even though I think all the intentions are great.

The intentions behind rent control are great. The intentions behind the mansion tax were great. It's just the inefficient implementation. Do you think California is doomed? Do you think that it will just continue to get worse and worse and worse and worse? When will they realize how bad it is to actually reverse some of this, you know, bureaucratic layering they've done? Yeah, some of it's already happening. People are pretty hard-headed.

I think the problem with people generally is that they'll put their own self-interested dogma in front of a critically thought-out answer. Most people like to be in camps, you know, like Democrats like to always do the same thing. Republicans like to always do the same thing. And they don't question it. They're just, many people are just blindly led down the path and they just think that everything that one party does is accurate. When the truth is both parties have really good ideas and the answer is generally in the middle, when any one party gets too much control and it would be the same thing for, I would say the same thing for a Republican-led state that is just, you know, has too much dominance for too long. they veer off track. California is veered off track

because it's been dominated too long by the same people that don't have any pushback and there's really no debate. There's just simply no debate. Rent control is not debated in Los Angeles. It's not debated in California. Of course it should be, but it's just not.

I think that, I don't think there's any doom. I think California will remain the best state in the nation. But it's continued to go downhill. It has, I think, that there was an awakening I think what happened was California had a captive audience, and Los Angeles had a captive audience before COVID. COVID, when people were able to not work in the office and more things are done online,

and people are just generally more mobile, I think they lost their audience. And so now California has to attract people because of its policies, when you should just have to attract people because of its jobs and its weather. And now that jobs can be done anywhere, all we have left is weather. And that's just not enough for a lot of,

of people to stay. So should you buy or rent in 2025? I mean, I think, I don't know, that's a difficult question because it's really location specific. I mean, that's a very difficult question. I think it depends on how much personal satisfaction. If you, just from a financial point of view, let's say you have no personal satisfaction in owning versus renting. You just want to make a great financial decision. I'd probably rent, you know, I'd probably rent for a while. I don't think real estate's probably going up, you know, maybe flatline. for a little bit. If you can get a good rental, then rent. I don't know why people always think, oh, I don't want to throw my money away, you know, in rent. I mean, if you own, you're throwing

your money away on interest at a bank. It's no different. I have never understood the argument why owning is inherently better than renting, unless you care about it, unless you factor appreciation. But if you can rent for, you know, $6,000 a month and it's going to cost you $9,000 a month to own, unless you think interest rates are going to go way down and you refinance, or you get a really good deal, I would probably just stay renting until things look like they're a little bit more optimistic or positive. And again, it's very location specific. I would not buy in all these areas that blew up, Miami, Austin, Las Vegas, Nashville.

I wouldn't get near those places. I wouldn't get near those places right now. Those places have another 10 to 30 percent downward. trajectory before they flatline. And the other thing is there's no supply limitations in those cities. I mean, every 250 square feet of land in Miami can, you can build a thousand, you know, condos. Austin can be built out. Vegas can be built out. There's no limitation on land in these places. So that's where you get crushed in real estate. If you're going to buy real estate, that's why Newport Beach does so well. There's just no land. And so if you buy something with good

land in a place where there's limited supply of land, you're going to do really well. So what's your investing philosophy for 2025 and 2026? What are you doing with your money? Oh, I'm glad you asked. I'm putting it in 30-year treasury bills. Okay, so we actually just talked about this. What was that yesterday? You put how much into a 30-year treasury bill? Well, I put $2 million into an ETF called TMF, which is like a leveraged. It's like, it's like, so it'd be the equivalent of buying $6 million in treasury bills. It's three times leveraged. I'm just making a bet. Well, first of all, you get a four and a half percent to five percent guaranteed returning your money. That's the yield because of the underlying asset,

which is a treasury, so it pays you a yield. So you're already going to get a four and a half to, four to five percent return. Then if interest rates come down, which I'm very certain, you know, I'm quite confident that they are, and treasury yields come down. So like a 30 year right now pays about 4.8 percent. If that goes, let's say next year, it's at three point. which I think it will be, then my $2 million will be worth like $3 million. So you can make a million,

you can make a lot of money on reselling the bond because the yield comes down, the value of the treasury goes up. So you're getting your guaranteed return and then you're making a, it's a little... So what I've shown Jack is the day after you said

that you bought into that, it was up about 4.5%. Yeah. I made 100K on the first, the day after my investment from that, because the jobs report came in a week. Yeah, but this is a long term for me.

I understand. I also like the stock market. I also have a lot of money in the stock market. I mean, I invested on Liberation Day. Remember when the market crashed, I put a ton of money in the stock market. So I'm not a generally, I mean, I like real estate. I'm more of an opportunistic investor.

So when COVID hit the market, I put all my money in. So what's the most you ever lost on an investment? Well, I buy. bought three soccer cards, like a year ago. This gold, well, it's 2014 Panini Prism gold, Messi, and Ronaldo. I paid 80 grand for these three cards. And then, like, two months ago, they'd gone up to, like, 275 grand, and I sold them. And had I held, like, another eight weeks.

Now they're worth, like, 700,000 dollars. That doesn't count is you losing money. In terms of, like, thought-out investments, I mean, I've done pretty well on those. How do you always make money? It seems like any time you say, oh, I'm buying this. I'm buying this. It just goes up in value. You know why?

Because I don't listen to anyone else ever, really. I just think there's too many pundits, too much talk. And people overanalyze. I'm very simplistic. I take a very macro look at what's going on. Perfect example. My biggest investment ever. I put all my money into the stock market when it crashed in COVID.

I thought this was an overreaction. The market's going to recover. No shit. Of course it's going to recover. I doubled my money in 12 months. That's common sense. When the market crashed because of Trump announced tariffs, and I went down like, I don't know, 20, 25%.

I said, that's obviously an overreaction. People generally overreact. So I put, you know, a ton of money into the market then. When Netflix was down to like, I don't know, I forget what I was, like, $200 a share. I'm like, this stock has crashed way too much. This is a massive company. it's going to rebound. So put some money in that. Interest rates. It's common, it's pretty common sense

right now. You don't need to like do a bunch of, you don't need to be a bond trader to figure out that the 30 year yield on an American treasury bill is 5%. You know what China pays? They're investors. If you buy a Chinese 30 year treasury bill, you get 2%. If you buy a German 30 year treasury bill, you get 3.3%. And yet America, the most safe investment on planet Earth, far safer than a Chinese 30-year bond, safer than a German bond, it's arguably considered the safest bond in the world, is paying 5%. It doesn't even make sense. I know that there are reasons for that, like, currency exchanges and inflation risk and like that, but that's when you get too much in the weeds. It's like to shut up with all the details. Like macro approach, it doesn't make sense that you could buy a risk-free government

bond and get a guaranteed 5% return. You don't think there's any chance that the 10 or 30 year treasury stays high because people say the United States is printing too much money. Maybe there's a bit of a risk here with tariffs. Maybe we're less bullish on the economy. We don't know what's going to do you think there's any chance it stays? There's always a chance. There's no way that it's 100% guarantee.

I'd say it's an 80% chance that the 30-year treasury is in the threes. The yield is in the threes within 12 to 18 months. And what do you think that's going to do to real estate prices? It'll increase prices, but it'll also increase supply. So I don't think it's going to be like a direct correlation like, oh, interest rates are down. I mean, if interest rates go back down to where they were, which they will not, we would see a massive increase in prices. Interest rates are not going to go back down to 2% or even 3%. If you can go out and get a 30-year loan at 4.5%, that's probably the right where we should be at right now.

And I think we'll get there in the next couple of years. But again, the problem is it's going to increase a lot of supply. So you're going to see more supply come in the market, and you're going to see more buyers able to afford those houses. So it's good for real estate agents because we work on volume. I don't think, I think prices will go up, but 5, 10%, not 25%. What about for the people who believe that AI could actually cause deflation? That we get so efficient. I believe AI will cause deflation. Absolutely. Think of all the things you buy every week. Coffee, gas, groceries. What if all of those credit card swipes actually helped you earn Bitcoin? That's exactly why today we've partnered with Gemini to showcase the Bitcoin credit card, the only instant Bitcoin rewards credit card. With this, every purchase you make earns Bitcoin back. That is up to 4% back on transportation, 3% on dining, 2% on groceries, and 1% on everything else. It's really one of the easiest ways to gain some exposure to Bitcoin because you just make purchases like normal.

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I think that AI is deflationary and puts pressure on, I will put pressure on the Fed to lower rates. I don't think we're there yet. But I think also it's going to create unemployment. And when unemployment is going to put pressure on the Fed to lower rates, lower the rates. I think we're going to, within five years, we'll probably have, you know, not, you probably won't have an Uber driver. There probably won't be truck drivers. And I think there'll probably be millions of other jobs. I mean, I think that Trump is bringing on a lot of, or at least he's trying to bring on a lot of onshore production manufacturing, because that's not going to be done

by humans. I mean, I'm sure he'll say it's going to be done by humans and create jobs, but that'll be done by robots in five or 10 years. So now we'll actually be able to compete on a global scale in terms of production because we're not having to pay, you know, $30 an hour. You have a robot that's going to work 24 hours a day. That's three shifts. That's like three human, it would take a human being three days to do what a robot does in 24 hours, and the robot won't make mistakes. It won't have to take a break, won't have to go pee, won't unionize, a lot of other things. So do you ever think that mortgages could get back down to 2%? I mean, of course they could. I would be very surprised if in the next 20 years we see if you can go out and get a 30-year fixed at two, two and a half percent.

That would surprise me if we see that. If I see that I get in my lifetime, I'll be surprised. So if someone wants to have some exposure to real estate in their portfolio, what is the best way of even going about that right now? If they, like, commercial, is it like single-family home residential? Would it be like, you know, investing in real estate-oriented ETFs? Those are the most simple. The ETFs are the most simple, to be honest. But if you want to get, I mean, listen, it is not for the wary of heart to own a property, let's say in Los Angeles, you know, that has tenants. I mean, you're just asking for a nightmare problem. But I will say that this is probably the best market that I've seen for a buyer to come into L.A. and buy multifamily. I mean, I look at it

myself just because it's so intriguing. You can buy, I mean, I saw a property on Lexington, which is in Hollywood, 20-unit building. This just shows you how big of a problem, you know, the tenant restrictions are in LA. 20 unit building, 11,000 square feet interior square footage. And I could have bought the building for $2.8 million. It sold for $2.8. I wrote an offer of $2.5. They didn't.

They sold it. I mean, rightfully, good for them. They got $2.8 for it. That's insane. I mean, that's... What is that per unit in Hollywood? It's $260, $270,000 a unit. $270,000 a unit.

Which is, by the way, this... This is what the government should be doing. If we're trying to, I don't think, I think the homeless problem is a lot more complicated than housing. The truth is, we have more housing now per capita than ever before, because we had 600,000 people leave LA. So it's actually the equivalent of building 600,000 homes. But yet, homeless is worse.

So it's not a direct correlation to housing. I'd love to see the city go out and buy that property and house 20 people for $270,000. And say what they do is they, hire, they have a deal with union where union supports the Democratic politician, and then they run on some platform to build homeless housing with unions, and then those condos cost about a million to a mill two to build. So, and they never even get built. But even if they did get built, it would cost the city a million dollars to house someone when you can, when I could have gone out and bought

this 20 unit at $270,000 a unit. Does it ever work when the government funds housing for homeless people. The government doesn't do much right when it comes to the homeless. There's a lot, listen, I'm a, I mean, I've been working and volunteering for 15 years for food on foot. It's a private organization, which is, which I like. And there's so many good people that work there. So I also think that most of the people in the homeless industrial complex, which is just this huge monstrosity in L.A. are all goodwill intentioned people. But I think the problem is that they, they won't, they're not willing to take a step back and to try to figure out a new approach. People are just so stuck in their ways and they just double down and double down and just keep bulldozing through without

pulling back and saying, hey, maybe there's another way to do this. It's a lack of critical thinking, I think. It's been a downfall of, you know, that sentence alone probably explains 90% of the problems in the United States and the world. It's just a lack of critical thinking. So what do we do in terms of a housing shortage that they say were short like six million. There's not a housing shortage. If you, and housing is not unaffordable any more than it was

for the last 80 years. If you look at the actual facts, there's actually at least as much housing now per person in America as there has ever been. So people don't usually know what they're talking about when they throw these things out. They just read like a CNN headline. In terms of housing unaffordability,

not true. If you look at, if you look at, If you look at what it costs to rent a 1,000 square foot two-bedroom apartment, as I'm just using as an example, from 1930 to today, and you look at wages from 1930 to today, it is almost a perfectly correlated similar line for the last 95 years in terms of how much it costs to rent a 1,000 square foot two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles or in America. So there's always talk about it's more unaffordable than ever before. It's actually not. It's actually the exact same. It has pretty much followed. Wage inflation has followed rents. And by the way, people talk about, you know, it's like a clickbait to say housing is so unaffordable. When interest rates are high like they are now, of course, buying a house is of course more unaffordable to the wage than it was five years ago. So if people say housing has gone up six, you know, cost.

of housing has gone up 60% in the last five years. No, it hasn't. The value of the, you know, a $500,000 condo five years ago in L.A. is worth $500,000 today. So it's going to up zero. The cost of buying it because interest rates are up means that it's going to cost more of your wages. That is a fake argument. Because when interest rates go down, did we fix the affordability problem? No. That's just another way of saying interest rates are up. That's not fixing the problem. That's the problem with trying to fix most things in America. It's just talking points. People yelling about things that they have no idea, like affordability and cost of housing.

They don't really, if you go on chat GPT and you spend 30 minutes asking it to analyze these facts, you'll actually learn that housing is as unaffordable today as it was and for your grandparents. Is this what chat GPT told you? Actually, my brother and I did a full analysis. on chat about 30 minutes about this very issue because we wanted to learn. Nobody does that, unfortunately, but they just watch like, you know, CNN and see a headline about unaffordable they don't even know what it means. They're like, if you, CNN doesn't even say, is this buying a place? Is it renting a place? You have no idea?

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and now it takes six years to ten years worth of wages to purchase the average house. And that's how they calculate the cost of living and the affordability index. Well, first of all, the affordability index should be that that is into, when you're talking about buying, that's interest rate dependent. So, for example, then according to that logic, you could say cost of housing is doubled in the last five years. Some of that's nonsense. Some of it is. Throughout the 70s and 80s, though, interest rates were 15%. But the cost of the house itself is like 150 grand.

Well, that's why you should use rental. That's why you should, because rents are not as tied to interest rates. So the real, to me, I think the real question is, how much of the average person's wages does it take to rent a two-bedroom 1,000 square foot apartment in X city? That seems to be the more logical way to do it. And actually, there are arguments now that there are two people working in households. Whereas, you know, one generation ago, two generations ago, it was just one, usually the man. So it's only one income. So it actually, there's an argument to say they actually cost more of someone's wages back then than it does today because there's usually two earners.

But again, it gets very, that's a thing. It gets so complicated and no one likes talking about complication. But the bottom line is there's not an affordability crisis. It is housing, renting a condos or renting apartment is just as unaffordable as today as it was for your parents, as it was for their parents. as it was for their parents. That's how similar it's been for four generations. What about for the people who say that they should have a right

to be able to buy something? Well, I don't even get me started on entitlement. I mean, everyone's entitled. Everyone thinks that they are entitled to the American dream when you're entitled to an opportunity to work hard and achieve the American dream. That's much different than just being entitled

to the American dream. So I don't, you know, my response to people who even use the word, entitled is no you're not. None of us are. I mean, you're entitled to equal opportunity. I think that's a fair statement. So how much success in real estate right now when it comes to buying is due to strategy versus timing? It depends on if you're going to hold long term. If you're going to buy long term, I don't think timing is important. Same with stocks. I don't think it matters. Like I am an opportunistic buyer in real estate. I'm an opportunistic

buyer in the stock market. So I'll buy in a crash. By the way, if you want to buy real estate and you don't, and you're not going to hold it for 30 years necessarily, buy in a crash, buy stock and a crash. Wait, everyone always overreacts. So just wait for the next wave of lemmings to overreact. Yeah. Speaking of being a contrarian investor to a certain degree, is I was speaking with a guy who was a prominent investor in San Francisco for the last 30 plus years who said he believes now has never been a better time to buy in San Francisco. And he's actually making a ton of offers. And he's getting properties for 30 to 50% less than he could buy them for in 2018.

Commercial or residential? Both. I don't just, I don't disagree. I don't disagree. And he's like, this is the best opportunity for me, even though a lot of people are moving out, businesses are moving out. But like, this is the time you want to buy. And I almost look at this in L.A. because I've seen some of these deals that you were talking about.

Like, there was a seven unit in Santa Monica that I saw for three and a half, and I thought it was worth three and a half. And it had sold years ago for like 3.8. You're taking a loss on it. It's a great deal. It didn't sell after six months. Yeah. And I was thinking, man, at 2.8, if they take that, it's a killer deal.

But they just didn't sell. So maybe now is a good time to buy into these places because everyone like us is overlooking it to a certain degree. I know you're still making offers, but like I would look at this and think, I don't want to hassle anymore, but it's a pretty attractive price all things considered today. I agree with when people are not doing something is usually the time to do it. I don't disagree with that investor in San Francisco. I don't think it's a bad idea for the only thing that concerns me is I don't want to be dealing with the problems. I don't want to deal with the lawsuits.

I don't want to deal with the phone calls. I don't want to deal with all the risks and insurance and, you know, tenant that goes on in owning it. property. So for me, it's personally, it's not worth it. Fifteen years ago, you know, I had the hustle for that. Yeah, it's great. For like a young person, you know, at 23 years old, it has some money or 28 years old has some money, wants to invest in multifamily. I would buy it. I would go by, right now in LA, it's probably the best time to buy multifamily. It's telling Jack about this. And by the way, don't look at, don't look at the returns right now. Look at the appreciation. Because when interest rates go down, that $2 million $10plex will be worth $2.5. So that's how you make money in multifamily,

because you raise rents, but more importantly, the cap rate will be affected by interest rates. Speaking of that, though, I was telling Jack the other night about a new legal scheme that seems to be going on throughout California. It's a tenant habitability issue, so they could basically claim my unit's not habitable because of insects, mold, whatever it might be, and then they claim a code violation with the city and they try to settle with the owner and this is usually common on like larger apartment buildings like 12 20 units plus they settle with the owner because the owner knows you're going to spend 20 to 50 grand defending themselves so let's settle for 20 done now the lawyer on that case could send a mailer to every other tenant in that building saying

that this owner was found to settle this case you might be entitled to money and now Every single tenant can now file a claim against that owner. Yeah. Potentially bankrupting the owner. We're far too, we've gotten far too litigious. I don't, I think the problem is that these lawyer organizations, they just fund these democratic politicians. And so the politicians keep laws in place to allow all these lawsuits. So this is something that Jack actually brought up because he said, who's lobbying for this?

And there's a new ordinance that came throughout Los Angeles recently where now you have to put a, you have to put it in a common area of any rent-controlled property that said the tenant is entitled to free legal services, here's the number, and it needs to be displayed at all times. And if it's not properly displayed and the tenant falls behind on their rent, you can't evict them because that whole eviction case is going to be thrown out because they didn't know that they had an entitlement for those legal services. And Jack said, who comes up with that? when you go too far in one direction, tenants will abuse the system. And I know that it's like, you know, you're not supposed to say anything negative about tenants.

Oh, and here's the other thing, too. So L.A. in all of its wisdom, just passed a new law saying that I, renting out this house as an example, I have about half a million dollars with a furniture and art in the house. And so I charge $33,000 a month and I charge a two-month security deposit,

$66,000 and a half of my dollars. City of Lale says, no, I can only charge one month security deposit. Even if the house is furnished, I cannot charge any more money for a furnished house versus an unfurnished house. That's L.A. and all their brilliance because they were trying to protect, you know, ostensibly trying to protect someone in like the thousand, you know, to $2,000 a month price point and didn't want them, they wanted them to be able to afford their security deposit. So now they're limiting people that have $10 million homes from getting a two-month security deposit from another millionaire. Like it's so illogical. And there's another price. problem too. I now can't sell that house up until a year ago. I could tell the tenant, hey, your lease expires in February. When you move out, I'm going to put the house on the market for sale and I'm going to sell my house. Now I cannot get rid of that tenant. That tenant can now live there forever. Indefinitely. Indefinitely. Yeah. You cannot get a tenant out just because you want to sell a property. That's no longer just cause of fiction. So even how can you get a tenant out? You can never get a tenant

out in California. I was telling you're not, you cannot, but what, you have. You have, you have to move, you have to, I'd have to personally move back into that house for two years. For two years, but I don't want to live in that house. That's the only way to get, otherwise that tenant can live there forever. Even though he's paying $30,000 a month, LA thinks that they need to protect that tenant and not allow me to sell my own property because that tenant's lease expired, and yet he's allowed to continue to live in my house and pay $30,000 a month. You literally can't say, here's a, you know, 90 day notice. You can't say, there's, nope. In fact, what happens is the tenant will go, oh, you want to sell your house, give me $200 grand,

and then maybe I'll move out. That's what happens, because they have all the power now. I was telling Jackie. It's so stupid. If you make too many offers to the tenant, a cash for keys, they could now sue you for harassment. Yeah. And also now, if you enter into a deal for cash for keys

and you pay a tenant, let's say $20,000 to move out and he moves out, he can move back in the next month. He can say, I change my mind and move back in. It has to give you your money back. So you can't even actually conduct business. You can't even move along with the understanding that the signed contract is enforceable. There should be an exemption for luxury properties. Of course there should be.

If you have... Well, you should just be able to kick someone out of your own property. Well, it's just common... So I'm saying, they've lost common sense. So as an example, if someone's paying over $10,000 a month in rent, they don't need the city to be managing security deposits. They don't need the city to tell them that they don't have to move out at the end of their lease. I don't know why the city is promulgating codes, protecting millionaires.

They don't pass these things to purposely harm economic activity. They just aren't smart enough to figure out all the damage they're causing. It does appear as though that's probably something that's just lobbied by lawyers. Because the more regulations, the more loopholes, the more layers of paint that they put on this mound of regulation, is just another thing that they can exercise to get more profit, basically. They just like, oh, this one code, oh, this code. If there's a million codes, they have a million choices to be able to try to, you know. Well, I think it's-execute.

I think it's different. I think it's tenants' rights groups, well-intentioned, say, hey, there's a problem. Here's another example that L.A. did. You can no longer discriminate on tenants based on criminal history. So I don't think you can even look up criminal history. history now. I don't think you can. So if someone committed like a crime and you find that out, you cannot say, oh, I don't want to lease it to you because you burglarize a house or something like that. No, you have to lease it to them. That doesn't make sense. That's not helping anyone. That's just

creating inefficiencies in the market. What if they committed a crime of fraud? There's no carve-outs? By the way, Jason, I do want to correct you on something. Yeah. The term now is justice involved. It's not a criminal. It's a justice-involved. It's not a criminal. It's a justice-involved. involved individual. Shut up. Jason, look it up. I don't care. I'm being, I'm being 100% serious.

You're going to be canceled. I'll be canceled then. I'm not using justice. I'm being serious, though. I'm being serious. You cannot call them a criminal. It's a justice involved individual. Well, you can, you can, what I'll do is else a criminal and then my mouth will go,

justice involved. If I know that a tenant committed a violent and burglarized someone and committed fraud, I can't be like, oh, I don't want to lease my apartment to you. The city requires, says, I'll get sued. I'll get sued for discrimination if I don't lease out an apartment to a violent felon who has committed a violent crime or a fraud. So how, what about a, what about a sex offender? Let's say that he lived in another apartment building and burglarized the other tenants

and committed fraud on the landlord and then beat up one of the other tenants. I cannot discriminate against those acts. I have to let him lease my property. What can you choose? If you put a listing out for rent and you get 15 applicants, how are you able to choose which one you rent? Well, based on their job, I think just based on their employment and their credit score maybe. But what if you have 10 people that apply that all qualified?

Then you'll get sued. We have a case right now where a client is getting, had a bunch of applications. picked the best one, and there was another person that applied for the property in a protected class that was losing their job, and he literally stated that they were being unemployed in 60 days, and they didn't choose that person because of that. So this person, they basically put out this listing, they got a bunch of applicants, and then they went with the most qualified individual. And now they're getting sued. And now they're getting sued by someone. In a protected class, yes. Even though that person said they were losing

their job. Now, isn't that just a money grab, though? I don't think it's an actual... 95% of lawsuits are a money grab. I'd say 95%. Um, because they know it's usually suing a wealthy individual or landlord or company or whatever. And they know that that person is going to spend $50 to $75,000 in legal fees and a year and a half of their life defending it. Um, and so the person thinks, oh, I can get a quick 20 or 30 grand. I mean, that's 90 plus percent of lawsuits. That's a problem with how litigious we are, is that it's so easy to make a claim

and it's so costly to defend it. So you just see, that's why I think 98% of cases are settled. Yeah, it's basically legal extortion. What could be done about this? I mean, I think higher bars for lawsuits

for sure. I mean, I'm not exactly sure. But you know what? You know what I think would probably be the easiest way to solve this? If you lose a case, if you bring claim and you lose, you should be responsible for the other person's attorney's. That alone, that law alone. But they're going to say that low income people who justifiably should have a lawsuit against someone and win who don't have the resources to do that might be less likely to file. Okay, well, then you can do it this way. You can still take a case on contingency if you don't

have money, but that that contingent lawyer, that lawyer then has to be responsible, take it the risk, not just the risk of his time and energy and money that he spends on the case, but also the risk of having to pay the other side's attorney's fees. That will, because the problem is this, too. Lawyers will take any case because they know that they can settle out for 20 or 30K. And then, so they should be responsible. So I should, you know, let's say you get sued, Graham. You should be able to say, you know what?

I'm not going to settle for 20 grand because I'm 100% right here. I'm going to spend the $50,000 to defend this. And then you're going to have to pay me back. That lawyer should be responsible. So if that lawyer thinks that that case is a case, he's not going to take it. Now a lawyer will take a case because he's like, oh, I can shake this wealthy guy down and he'll settle for, you know, 30 or 40 grand. I know he's not going to go to trial.

But if there's a risk of having to pay that other side's attorney's fees, then they wouldn't do it. Then lawyers would only take good cases because they don't want to take that risk. Do you think that's ever going to happen? No, because I think that attorneys lobby so much to make sure that doesn't happen, because they love all this litigiousness. And what's going to be the result of that? Just no one buys real estate. People are afraid to put themselves out there.

Yeah, it creates a disincentive for legitimate action. You know, I mean, it's an economic disincentive. But you want people to be able to act freely in a capitalist manner, right? You don't want to create friction costs. That's a friction cost like insurance. Let's say insurance was 10 times higher than it should be. That's a friction. cost. This is essentially an insurance policy. I mean, because every time, every time you do something,

you're thinking I could get shaken down, I could get sued, and I'd have to spend $100,000 to defend it. I mean, there are a lot of problems in California. I can't solve them all, but that is probably the way to solve how litigious we are. And what do you think of the best opportunities going forward right now? In terms of the market, investment, real estate? You know, so I was buying real estate every year. But mostly I was buying real estate because interest rates were so low. And now that's gone. So I'm not really buying real estate right now. So I don't know if I'm going to sit here and just recommend, you know, buying real estate as an investment.

I mean, I think it's a fine investment in the long term. You know, it's going to go up 5, 8, 7% a year. Truthfully, though, I think the market right now is probably going to go up 5% to 10% a year for the next few years. And you don't have to deal with tenants, you know, maintenance. So I'm I think I'm probably going to leave my money in the stock market. and put my money in 30-year treasuries and just hang right there for a little while until I see another opportunity.

I will say if you are glutton for punishment, you should go buy multifamily in San Francisco or Los Angeles because it's so low right now. You can get, you go spend $5 million in multifamily right now and you're intelligently buying. That'll be worth $7 million probably in three years. Hiring always sounds so simple. That is, until you actually actually,

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I'm just talking about the 4GT and I'm like, Jason, you might be overpaying by 20, 30, plus sales tax on top of that. If you just wait and you're like, dude, I don't give a shit. I'm not going to waste my, I just bought the car. I totally. So I have always been, I had a lot of, what's the word? Risk tolerance. Tolerance. Yeah, thank you. I've always had a lot of tolerance for risk in my investments. I'm okay losing money. I think in order to make money, you have to be pretty risky. If you are going to be, if you're too careful, if you have a million dollars today and you are a careful investor, you'll have three million dollars. in 20 years and at best, honestly, not even that.

You probably have $2 million in 20 years. And on a more aggressive investor would probably have $5 million in 20 years. So it's a big difference. I'm a believer in taking risk investments. Not stupid investments, but like, again, this, a lot of people told me not to invest in TMF

because it's three times leverage And it's like, who gives a shit? So I'm taking, I believe strongly that the treasury yield is going to come down. I mean, I think that's an intelligent risk. I put a ton of money into the market on, you know, when Trump announced a terrorist and the market crashed. I think it's very intelligent to believe the market's going to recover. I think that's a, I mean, I guess you're taking a big risk, but I think those are calculated.

It's not just that, though. I think it's overall from what I've seen, you spend a lot of money. I mean, at least compared to what I'm used to. the dinners and the experiences and the cars and the houses and the, you know, the trinkets and the watches and the going out and the entertainment. It's like I remember seeing some of this. I don't want to, I don't have kids and I don't need to die with money. I mean, I worked hard and continued to work hard to have fun. I think money is not, doesn't do anything sitting in my bank.

I am all about spending my money. As you well know, I am not shy about it. Do you think that's giving you more opportunity than, let's just say me on the other hand? I don't think it's giving me more happiness. I don't think it's giving me more opportunity. You don't think that you've met. I just bought a Rose Roy's for 500 grand. I don't think that's giving me opportunity.

Do you think that's fun as shit? But the abundance of living that life, I do think I'm a pretty firm believer that it does end up somehow coming back to you. Maybe in the way of like someone sees you know Rose Roy, so you get a connection because you're wearing a watch or you go to a fancy dinner. And so instead of staying at home, you meet someone and you do deals with them, you develop a relationship, you enter that web of people. Or it could be in such a watch.

way of just like, like, what you put out is kind of like, you know, what you get. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to go there because I think there are too many people that that shouldn't be doing that, that pretend that they're wealthy and they're running out there and like, you know, buying bottle service and dumb shit. Um, so I wouldn't encourage that behavior unless you can afford it within your means. Um, also, if you have a family and a wife or whatever, you know, then probably not the best idea. I purposely don't have kids because I want to. I want to go around, and I want to go, I want to buy a Ford GT and a Rolls Royce, and I want to go fly first class to wherever with my girlfriend. I mean, that's to me, I don't understand how people work hard and have money and don't do that. I really don't get it. I think they're fun, they're fun coupons. That's what money is. They're fun coupons. Why are you leaving fun coupons on the bank? Go use them to have fun. If you're rich, what's the best thing to spend money on? I, there's not one thing.

I think clothes. Really? I think people say that's the lowest. Yeah. No, I love clothes. I love cars. I love travel. Food, but you can't spend that much money on food.

Let's be honest. I mean, you know, you can't, you can't go out and buy a $500,000 dinner. You can buy a $500,000 car. So I'll just, I'll say travel. Definitely travel. You're going to spend 100 grand on a European vacation. And I, but I will say the, arguably the most fun that I have with my money, best ROI is, spending it on other people.

I love being able to do things with my friends. I think it's great that I can provide, you know, opportunities for my friends traveling or dinners or whatever that they wouldn't otherwise do. I also don't understand why people who have money, to me, if you're at a dinner, the person who's least affected by paying the bill should pay the bill.

That's that simple. If you're out traveling, it should be based on who's least affecting. It's a utilitarian argument. We picked up the bill just a couple days ago. Oh, from Mexican food? The ice coffee hour picked up the bill for the Mexican food. To be fair, I told my staff to pay it and then they said, oh, hey, Graham paid it.

You did. And by the way, does not count. Don't bring up the fact that you finally bought lunch. 15 years of me buying lunches. And I got to hear about the one Mexican restaurant, you guys. I'm never going to live that down. And Pinchase tacos, by the way, does not count as dinner. What does it count as?

That's like a cheap lunch. That counts as like a half a lunch. Okay, so it's mostly spending the money on other people. That's the highest fund for RU.I. I say that's probably the best ROI. Yeah. I mean, because two people get the enjoyment. I get, you know, I do something nice for my girlfriend and my brother or a friend.

I get the enjoyment of it. And they get the enjoyment of it, you know? I think it's a great thing. If you can afford to do nice things with your friends, I think that's awesome. What do you think is the optimal amount of money to have? That's an interesting question. you don't want to have so much money that everyone's angling at you, you know, and you can't even have a normal conversation with someone.

Maybe 100 million, maybe. The other thing, too, is once you have so much money that you can, you know, total fuck you money, you can do whatever you want, I don't know if you appreciate it as much. So I don't, I'm not going to say a dollar amount. This is what I'm going to say. I think the goal is to continually increase your net worth so that you can continually get nicer and nicer things. And so you can continually appreciate those nicer and nicer things. The last thing you want to do is one, I have so much money that you

stop appreciating things. Or two, you have a lifestyle and that you have to come down. So I've always found that like a perfect example is my, I now drive a Rolls-Royce-Cullin. But I didn't just go out, you know, and that wasn't my first car. That would suck. You start out with a Rolls-Royce Cullin on SUV. There's no better car out there. So there's no, I started with I don't know, I forget what, you know, who cares what my first cars were, but up until, you know, finally I was able to get a Bentley, you know, like five years ago. And then five years later, I got a role. So when I got into my Bentley, I'm like, oh, my God, this thing is amazing. And now I'm in my roles.

I'm like, oh, my God, this thing is even better. So you just want to keep living to where you can continually increase your quality of life. And then you will appreciate it every time. I never just, I never want to come down. And also, I guess you don't, if you have, if I had $50 billion, I mean, I don't know, then you can do anything. So then nothing's fun. You know what I mean?

I like to be able to, I like there to be things I can't do. I cannot go out and buy a private jet. So I like, you know, it's nice to be able to not do everything. I don't know. I feel like theoretically you could buy like a $6 million private jet. Oh, yeah, but then you're stressed out about the costs and the use. You know what I mean? That's stressful.

That would be stressful for financial. So how much money do you need to buy a private jet? A hundred million. minimum 100 million, probably 200 million, to even start thinking about a private jet. Okay. Yeah, I'm not there. What if you traveled a lot?

You used it like a few times a week. First of all, I'm not even, if you travel a lot like to Europe and what you're talking about, those private jets cost like $30, $40 million. You've got to be worth like $400 million before you're stepping up like that. And I don't even like, I'm not even a huge fan of flying private because I get nervous. Turbulence and then, you know, the pilot's not going to be probably as good as like a, you know, a commercial pilot.

And the bigger the plane, the safer it is, the less turbulence. I mean, more crashes on private planes than commercial planes. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about money that nobody teaches you? I mean, I would say that money does buy happiness. People tell you that it doesn't. I think it does. It doesn't guarantee happiness. I think that's what the saying should be.

Money doesn't guarantee happiness because that's true. Money definitely buys happiness, though. And I think that maybe people don't realize that money is meant to be spent, you know? I mean, I think you're on this planet for only so many years. I don't understand how people are wealthy and don't spend it. And then the other thing is, I guess, circling back on this, spend it on your friends. I encourage my mom. Yeah, Jack.

My mom has, I beg my mom to spend money. She's buying a Porsche right now. I mean, she's never had an ice car. She hasn't in a car, you know, over $100,000. Well, probably I bought her a Mercedes for $100K. But before that, probably, you know, she has a pickup truck. And she's got money now. I'm like, mom, like, she doesn't spend money.

I like, I beg her to spend money. I actually, like, have long conversation with her. I think that some people need to be encouraged to open up and enjoy other foods of their labor. I don't know why so many people have money and don't spend it. So what's your advice to me? Yeah. Because here's how I look at it. What are you going to do with your money?

Are you having kids? One day. Here's how I look at it. I see the amount that I have invested and I just think I could spend three percent of it a year and not run out. So that's kind of what I base everything off of. But then I think if the market falls 50 percent, I don't want to go down in lifestyle. So that 3% now turns to one and a half. And I spend that.

That's it. One and a half. But does that assume that you're not making any money? Yes. So everything. You are making money. Yeah, so that adds to the top, and then I could spend one and a half percent of what's invested. Well, but then you have to figure out how many, you also have to minus how many years you have left, right?

Yeah, 50 plus years, but I don't want to run out. So one and a half percent over 50 plus years, assuming my expenses keep going up a year. Assuming a return of how much a year, five percent. I do five to six percent. To me, this sounds borderline mental disorder. No. No, I don't think that's... I think one and a half percent, if the market falls 50 percent,

I don't want to be affected by it. I don't even want to think about it. I want to be like... I think what you should do is be diversified enough that that doesn't happen. Oh, I am, but you could still be... Let me give you a perfect example

of how you can hedge that. I'm really pitching 30-year treasuries. The inverse, 3x leveraged. No, buy a 30-year treasury. Why? Because if we go into recession, what's the Fed do? Lowers rates.

So you could put in... I'm just going to say you have... $20 million. You don't have to tell me what you have. Let's say you have $20 million. If you put 10 of it into 30-year treasuries, then you're guaranteed a 5% return, which is pretty solid.

And you're also investing that to some degree because if rates go down. But it's a hedge against inflation. No, sorry, it's not a hedge against inflation. That was stupid. Against the market gone down. It's a hedge against a recession. Right.

So if the market goes down and we're, and we got unemployment, we're hitting the fan, rates are going to go down. So have a balanced portfolio. And then you don't have, there's no way you're going to lose 50% of your money. But I still, yeah. Then you could do 25%.

But I still think there could be a small chance we turn out like Japan. It just goes down for like 30 years. Well, then rates go down in Japan? Yeah, they went to like zero. But the market's going down at the same time. I know, but my point is you can hedge. That is a perfect hedge. I spend money to remove stress.

I'm overstaffed, you know, personal assistant. I have a stylist. You know, I have, I don't do anything anymore. I love that. I think there's no better way for me to spend money than to have somebody packed for me. You know, why do I want to, or go to the grocery store for me or get my, you know, dry cleaning or my shoes clean? Why do I want to be driving to drop off my shoes to get cleaned? You know, it's a dumb argument.

Now I'm sounding like a dushy guy, but, but I mean, why do I want to be doing anything? And that's the best thing for the same thing to. Graham will lose sleep over a quote that he gets from. from a contractor that's like $700 more than what he thinks. Like he will literally lose sleep. And then he'll have a podcast the next day and he'll be like groggy and people will comment. Graham looks tired. One of the things that I've done to change, Graham, is I used to be so difficult about contractors.

And I always used to think I was getting. And I would negotiate them and get a second bit and a third bit. And guess what? You are getting like 90% of the time. I have now, it was less about money. For me, it was more about, uh, psychology. You know what I mean? I was, I was feeling like someone was getting went over on me and I was being treated unfairly. And now I'm like, you know what, I'm wealthy enough that I, who care? What's the

worst case scenario? This is the way I think about it. The worst case scenario is this contractor who's working hard is charging me $1,400 for a $900 job. So, okay, so I'm giving this dude $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more than $500 more. It's more than $500 more. It's going to increase my quality of Just look at it as like a tip, just a massive tip for hardworking dude. And I'm just way happier when I look at it like that. I just don't mind getting as much. How I look at it is that I don't spend that extra 500 bucks. And I think when I spend that here, I could have done all these other things that he purposely didn't do because I'd rather just save the money. And then it just poofs go just goes away.

Think about it like from a utilitarian perspective. Who's going to have more happiness from that $500? You or that dude? That dude. That dude. So worst case scenario when you leave this planet, you have just made other people happy. That's the worst case scenario for you. That's a good way of looking at it.

I don't, I mean, I really don't negotiate as much as I used to. I'm not as, I don't get, you know, second and third bids. I tip like crazy. Tip 100 bucks to everybody. I mean, what is, so the bathroom attendant or the valet is going to get 100 bucks, do you know what he's going to do with that? He's going to take his girlfriend to dinner and have a whole. good night. What am I going to do with a hundred bucks? I don't even know what I would, I mean,

nothing. I don't know what you can do with a hundred bucks. So, by tacos. Yeah, exactly. By Graham lunch. So that, I think you have to look at it. Like, that's the same reason why I, by dinner, I've never, I mean, in 10 years, I don't think I've never not picked up a tab unless, you know, someone's adamant about it. Um, because it doesn't affect me in an effect of other people. I would always look at it like that from a utilitarian perspective. And it feels good. Yeah. It feels good to be generous. The main thing that I see is like, sure, Graham could be spending money to increase the quality of his life, but at the same point, the thing that it sucks to see is when he's stressed out over these money issues. And he's like, and he's on the phone with contractors

trying to negotiate something down and on hold for an hour. And he's like clearly stressed out. And he gets anxious and he gets angry. And he gets all these negative things. What about hiring a personal assistant that does that just does all that for you? Just a person a hundred grand a year. The thing is it just, it comes up so infrequently. And it's so like last minute where today, I have nothing. But then it could be one phone call at 4 p.m. That just comes out of the clue. And now it's like, I really want someone to come over, like, have to deal with someone.

It's more important than money. If you can, if you have the money to not have to worry about that, then, and you're still worrying about it, then you're not using your fun coupons appropriately, Graham. They're really meant to be like to de-stress. I have very little stress in my life. I use money to de-stress my life. That's the best thing you can use it for me. I'm still rooted to like how much I feel like $1,000 is.

Because I remember like a $1,000 commission early on would be like, oh, wow, I could do this and this and this and make this last and invest it here. That just having it go away in seconds feels like it's irresponsible. I know you have a problem because I went gambling with you and you lost like $30 and he got so upset. And I was like, dude, you don't, it's not fun. I'm like losing like $7 and I don't even give a shit and Graham lost $30. And he's like, I'm done. I'm so done with this. He's so upset. I don't know, bro. We're cut from a different cloth. Also, the other thing, too, is I think that you would be just as happy with half as much money.

I don't think you would really... So, I don't think, I think you should spend the shit out of it, bro. And the other thing, too, is, like, I bought that $450,000 for GT. That is not spending $450,000. Just like, or my Rolls-Royce, or, you know, I buy a baseball cards, or, you know, I buy a baseball card, or whiskey, like, whatever the f f f*** it is I'm buying, or artwork. It's not like I can't sell it in the future or a watch. Let's say I buy a $30,000 Rolex. Someone's like, oh, my God, you spent $30,000. No, I spent $5,000 because I'll probably be able to sell that thing in a few years for 25K. So who cares? So I only look at it as spending 5K. All I do is look at how much money I'm losing. When I bought that Ford GT, maybe I'll lose 50 or 70, maybe I'll lose $100,000 max,

you know, with taxes and maintenance and I'll have it for, let's say, 10 years. I look at that as spending $100 grand. I don't look at it as spending $500 grand. How has the show selling Sunset changed your perspective on everything? I wouldn't say it's changed my perspective that much now. I mean, I think it's made me wealthier, you know, and more of a public figure. I don't think it's changed my perspective on things. But has anything changed when you go out now that you're recognized all the time?

Yeah, but I don't think that changes my perspective. I mean, it changes my life in as much as I'm taking, you know, photos with people when I'm out. But other than that, it's pretty similar. If you took away me taking photos, 99% similar as my old life, you know. Although also, I think it's helped me build my business and my career, so I'm wealthier because of that. But no, I don't think I'm a different person. I mean, shit, you've known Mason's way before the show. You've mellowed out, though, a lot.

That's not from the show. Okay. The show stresses me out. Melloing out, I think, is therapy, years of therapy. and, which I probably credit more than anything, but then learning not to stress out over things. I think a perfect example, like if I got a contractor bid of $1,400,

I would immediately get a rush of cortisol. This is, you know, I'm getting, this is probably only $800. Show me the labor, you know, show me the parts. Let me get a second bid. And all of that would be anxiety and stress and cortisol. And I have in my phone. I literally have on my phone. Don't sweat the small things.

I know that's kind of cliche. Where do you have that? Look, I just opened up my phone. It's on my notes. You know it's so funny you do that? I'm going to show you this. For every decision I make, I go through that. Return on hassle.

Ah, yeah. Like how to spend money. Oh, good for you. That's very, very, I'll read like four or five for the people watching here. Well, some of it's about me being a boss, so I'll skip that.

Be a positive personality, and then I put like my dogs, like Nico, Zelda, Thor, because my dogs have the best personalities. Don't be too hard on yourself. Set an example. Compliment, appreciate, and validate people more.

Be more serious. Sorry, be more serious. Be less serious. More lighthearted, humorous, easygoing. Be more present, patient. these are the most important one is don't take things personally. I now try not to personalize so many things, you know,

like other people's actions are a reflection of them, my therapist told me, you know, and so many people like, you know, someone gets angry or someone's driving and they cut you off and flip you off. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us,

because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. It's not about you. Maybe they're having a bad day. Like, it doesn't need to get you so upset. So I now don't let other people affect me as much. I now also, this one is the most important one is don't sweat the small things because I used to think everything was a big deal and I always have to react immediately and get my cortisol up and solve it. And I now realize that everything resolves itself. Everything, 99% of things resolve themselves. 99% of things when you look back on them six months later were not nearly the big deal that you thought they were. So I just take that approach to everything, that everything is small. And I remind myself every day that every issue I'm going to

deal with is small. And it is. It ends up that they're small. And I have a lot of issues I'm dealing with. I probably have more issues today with 100 agents and four offices than I've ever had. And I'm the least stressed because I've kind of turned, you know, I look through things from a different prism. Were you addicted to cortisol in the past? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah, I used to think that I needed cortisol to have the energy to work hard. Yeah. You know, I used to think that that was my motivating force, and I had to have this reactive, aggressive, you know, cortisol-infused kind of approach to things.

And I realized that I'm calmer, happier, more relaxed, less reactive, more, you know, I think arguably more thoughtful, and happier. And I handled just as many things. think the people around me appreciate all that more as well. What led you to go to therapy in the first place? Me and my brother were fighting a lot. So I said, let's go like, you know, brothers therapy, kind of like couples therapy, but for brothers. And I thought it was helpful.

And then I said, I want to continue to see you, you know, individually. And it got, it worked. When I, she almost quit on me. Brett and I would fight so much in therapy. And I was so difficult. What were you guys fighting about just silly? I can fight over anything. Honestly, we can, we can trigger each other and just really get after it.

Because you guys know what buttons to press. Yeah, exactly. It's like 40 years of skill. We're both lawyers, you know, we just go at it. Yeah, I used to be very just, if there's one thing, is that I was very reactive. I would just get that cortisol rush and I would follow it. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And, yeah, I just don't anymore. I feel it now and I'm like, oh, you know, I don't need that, you know? And I'm just so happy. I'm so much happy. And everyone that knows me tells me how much, like, you know, more chill I am. How long did that take? Five years, probably. Five years, but that's me trying.

I mean, it's me reading my list every day. That's me going to therapy every week. That's me thinking about it and wanting to improve on these things. You know, it's not, you can't be lazy about it. For me, it's like the gym for my mind. You know, I've been going to the gym for 30 years. I go five times a week. same, you know, you gotta have that same approach to therapy.

Why do you think it took you so long to finally make that decision to try to actively work on it? Because I think it's really easy just to kind of, well, first of all, I thought that I needed this reactive cortisol, you know, aggression to kind of continue to succeed in business. But something may change your mind that you don't. I think for everyone it's different. You know, I definitely don't think it's other people. telling you that you need to change. That's not going to change it. You really have to want to change. And I don't know if there's anything other than that.

People just have to wait for that moment for themselves. I'm not sure there's anything you can do or say to kind of make yourself ready. You just have to get to a point where you... And I'm just someone who wants to improve. And for so much of my life, improvement for me was getting good grades, getting into law school, opening up a business, making more money, growing that... You know, I mean, there's all these markers that we have, especially in a capitalist society, of what success means.

And it wasn't until I kind of viewed success as, you know, my happiness and my ability to kind of create, you know, happiness among people. Like when I started realizing that that's actually what success is, then I'm like, oh, well, in order to be successful under this new definition of success, I need to see a therapist. How do you know if a therapist is good or not? If you're getting better. You know, for me, I probably could have no disrespect to my therapist,

but I could probably talk to a brick wall to some degree because it's really about me telling my therapist what my problems are, what situations I got in where I did not handle myself in the way that I wanted to, and then how I wish I would have handled it. So it's almost me like talking to myself. And now you got chat. I mean, I think everyone should be using therapy apps now. How is ChatGAPT in terms of therapy?

Having used it. Relative. I've used it for certain situations, and it's fantastic. I've used it. I use it for conflict resolution. I say, like, give me a script to follow, and it's really good. I believe that chat, or when I say chat, I mean AI. I believe that AI will be 50 times better than the best therapy.

on the planet. AI will have been able to read and take, essentially AI will have 500 PhDs, you know, or more, whatever. It will know you far better than your therapist knows you. It could probably hears you you all day long.

It probably hears, instead of having to go to your therapist and tell them about a situation, it will probably have heard your situation. It will probably have heard Graham on the phone talking to the contractor, you know, or whatever, raising his voice or, you know, whatever it was. So I think, I mean, that's the answer.

The answer for therapy is going to be AI. I feel like the problem, though, with that is people assume because it has the 500 plus PhDs, that it's the smartest thing that they can possibly talk to, that they'll start treating it as though anything that it says is completely without question true. And you say, hey, I handled a situation like this. And then Chad GPT says, oh, well, maybe it's because, you know, five years ago this happened. And then you're like, it has to be that. There's no way it's not. Well, people already do that with a therapist.

I mean, people always already give too much credit. I mean, chat right now is not that great, right? AI is still, and it's beginning phases. In five years, it will be probably 99.9% right. And it will probably give you the best therapeutic answer you could possibly have ever received. You know, do I believe everything I read in chat now? No. It's got, I mean, it literally, we did a, Graham and I did a thing on it yesterday where I literally prompted it to push it in a different direction and it gave me a totally different answer. But in five years, I think, you know, this will be the answer to people that can't think critically, you know, and people that need therapy.

I'm curious, I'm sure you spend a lot of time with billionaires or ultra high net worth individuals. What differences do you notice in those sorts of people as opposed to your everyday person? Very little. Very, very little. I don't think there's much difference between a billionaire and, you know. Really? Yeah. I imagine to be a billionaire, you have to have an outside the bell curve person out. No, I think, well, first of all, let's call it somebody with $100 million or more, you know, because it's, I don't, it's all relative.

I mean, I don't know if there's a cutoff, but no, I'd say they're successful, but I think there are millions of people that I think that you are arguably, more intelligent and a better critical thinker than most billionaires, at least half of them, and you're not a billionaire. Most of it is being in the right place at the right time. Really? Really?

Really? Yeah, I'm not saying they're not smart. You have to be smart, you know, and you have to be hardworking, and you have to be in the right place at the right time. That's how, I'd say, 75% of billionaires. But I tend to believe that it's not like a switch,

like a light switch, and it's like, okay, I made this one correct decision. I was in the right place at the right time and I became a billionaire. It's more so like you got an opportunity and that opportunity let you do another one. You made the right decision there and you made the right decision there.

You failed and you learn from it. And it's a series of great decisions. I would disagree. I'd say it's usually right place at the right time. So you think most people, if given that exact right place, right time opportunity, not most people, but like a lot of people. Yeah.

I think you could replace top 1,000 wealthiest people in America with, probably a million other people and nobody would know. So you said intelligent... There's... I truly don't think that that... I think arguably you...

If you were put in the... If you personally were put in the position of half the billionaires in this planet, you would have done equaled or greater. But you said intelligent and hardworking. Thank you, yeah. If you said intelligent and hardworking,

so you think those are very important characteristics for someone that is going to achieve that level of success. Yeah, I think those are the two. I think someone generally a very successful person is a generally a problem solver, and a problem solver requires critical thinking skills and a certain level of intelligence, and I think all of that also needs hard work.

But those are not skills that are super rare. I mean, I'd say 5% of people have all those skills. That's 15 million people in America that have those skills. There's probably only a few hundred, a couple thousand billionaires. So I don't think there's a big difference. I mean, I don't think there's a big difference between a lot of the wealthy people that I know and a lot of just the hardworking, intelligent people that I know. I've got a lot of friends that are no less hardworking or intelligent than billionaires, and they're worth, you know, nothing. That is a really interesting thing to point out because now I'm thinking about

people we've had on the podcast or just people I've met. And you take the archetype, the type of human that wants to achieve billionaire status and they chase it and they chase it and they chase it. Those are never the billionaires that I met. They're like, I always wanted to be a billionaire. Every billionaire that I've met has been someone like Papa John. It's been someone who's achieved this ultra wealthy status, not because they wanted to be a billionaire, but because it just kind of happened to the fall on them. I don't think that wanting to be a billionaire, listen, does everyone want to be wealthy to some degree. I'm sure that, you know, everyone thinks about that. Like, but there's a difference between wealthy and a hundred million plus. I think people, I mean,

there's nothing that turns me off more than someone telling me what they're going to be. You know, I think there's too much of that today. You know, another thing about most billionaires that I think I should address? They're not entitled. I mean, maybe they're entitled now, you know, because they're billionaires. They have everything. But they didn't get to being billionaires by being entitled. I don't think that a lot of these billionaires felt like they were a victim. And I'm not saying there aren't victims out there.

I'm just saying that mentality does not push you into billionaire status. And having entitlement does not either. I think, as a personal example, I never felt, I always felt like I could do something if I kept at it. I never felt entitled. You know, I just felt like I had opportunity,

and I would just keep working hard. I never had aspirations of being a billionaire. I thought if I could make $10,000 a month, I could live a great life. That was my goal. That was my goals, $10,000 a month. I mean, that was my goal up to not long ago. That's a healthy goal.

I don't think anyone who has these annoyingly high aspirations is just that annoying. I tend to agree, and I also think another thing to note, is I think that the people that make it to that ultra-wealthy status are able, they have an, accurate grasp on reality. And then you have these other people that are somewhat delusional, which are the people that have a victim mindset or the people that have an entitlement mindset, they fall into that category because both of those are under the premise that they are the center

of everything. If you're a victim, it's because the world is trying to keep you down. If you're entitled, it's that you are owed everything. The world is there to cater and serve to your needs. You want something and it will just manifest. It will follow you. And so the other people are like, no, the reality exists in the same way that just the reality exists. Like, I'm here, I'm placed here, and I need to do my best to see reality for what it is. Play my cards right, you know, and basically have an accurate prediction engine of do I see reality for what it is? Do I predict if I make this action, will this outcome occur?

And it's not just one action. You have an accurate grasp on reality. I think you, that was super well said. And I also think that some people think that it's just one decision or one big bet or whatever that's going to make them wealthy. That's a terrible approach. I mean, go in and say, I want to be successful in this career. My goal is to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or whatever it is.

Like baby steps. Don't just, otherwise, if you're trying to get wealthy super quick, you're going to be making dumb, risky decisions. And I think what you said, it's just one intelligent decision after another. And then 800 intelligent decisions and a lot of hard work later, you're a billionaire. But yeah, I still don't think, I know a lot of dumb, rich people. You know, I don't think that intelligence is a requisite to being rich. I think it's more likely that you're intelligent and hardworking

and have critical thinking skills if you're very wealthy. But I think it's probably more right place, right time than anything else. So I would just encourage people to, I don't know if, I also don't know why people always listen to billionaires. Like, give me a break. The guy invested in oil in Texas in the 80s. No, he's a billionaire. You know what I mean?

You could be an idiot and invest in oil, you know. What was it? I saw this, no offense. Well, I hate the Cowboys, so I'm just going to use this example. Jerry Jones invested in, you know, finding oil in Texas in like the 80s or whatever. Made, you know, $50 million. It does not mean that he's a genius. Or that he's got some exception.

So it doesn't mean that we should sit down and listen to what Jerry Jones has to say about politics. Yeah. Because, I mean, that's being at the right place at the right time. He probably has a modicum of intelligence and critical thinking skills and hard work. I give him all that. But there's no difference between Jerry Jones, the billionaire and probably, you know, 15 million other people. That's a really interesting point you made right there. Well, I'm not saying there's no difference to him and a blue color person.

But there's no difference. if that blue-collar person is hardworking and intelligent and is a critical thinker and is working hard, yeah, there's really probably no difference. I'm a decent example. I mean, it was right place at right time for me. I mean, would I still be successful? Yes, but would I be this successful? No. I mean, I happen to have some beautiful women working for me on the sunset trip and I had a producer come up and want to create a show that ended up being a hit. That's what am I going to sit here. Should everyone listen to me now because I have, you know, some success and some money? Not necessarily. I mean, listen to me if you think I'm intelligent and a critical thinker and I've got, but don't just listen because I have money. I was at the, a lot of my money, at least a decent amount of my money, has to do with the fact that I was at the right place at the right time. I mean, I'm not going to take credit for that.

What about being a good boss? You said you had other notes on your phone. Positive reinforcement at the office, compliment everyone and be specific. And don't criticize mistakes, make them teachable moments. those are two that I try. I mean, I fail at that every day. You know, you can't be perfect. But I try to remind myself,

I do better with positive reinforcement. You know, when I was an attorney or something and someone says, hey, great work on this. You know, let's focus next time on, I think you can do even better on this part. You know, like that kind of positive reason as opposed to saying, dude, what the, you know, why'd you give me this?

You know, look at all these misspill. Like, don't, if, I don't think people really react so well to being criticized. I know I don't. So how do you motivate someone if you find them falling behind? Or you think they're maybe just not doing as much as they could be.

I mean, listen, I guess there's something called like a, I think like a positive, like a sandwich. You're supposed to sandwich it? Yeah. So you say something? Yeah. Yeah. Either way.

I mean, there are, I don't like all these rules and I don't actually have never used that in my life even though my therapist told me to. It's too like, I don't like, you know, fake. But just put, yourself in their position. Like, I mean, I get, you know, things that I think could be done better all the time. I just don't think you can just, you can't just rip on somebody. I just, you have to think about what is going to make them want to do a better job. You getting upset at them is not going to be,

they're not going to walk away and be like, oh, I definitely am going to do a better job next time. They're going to walk away and be like, you know, so it's kind of common sense. I mean, you just have to be motivating. And you have to have, I think you actually have to care. Like, truly care about the people that work for me. I care about their quality of life. I care about their happiness. So, you know, you take the time to kind of nurture that and develop that. I'm not excellent at it. I'm a hell of a lot better than I used to be. I mean, I think it was probably hard to work for me 10 years ago, probably even five years ago. You know, I was really tough, aggressive, negative, terse, reactive, you know, very demanding, very detail-oriented, but not in a

constructive way in like a critical way. So, you know, I think you have to create a culture of do people want, and I always ask, you know, the people in my office, like, what's going to make you happier working here? I think if you create a culture where people want to come to work, I look forward to Monday morning, as much as I look forward to Saturday morning. It's so funny, we just talked about this last night. I went to a doctor's appointment, and they're closed from 12 to 1 for lunch. And I show up there at like 12, 55. They open the door, and the doctors are walking in, and they say, oh, man, it's all, it's almost 5 p.m. We could almost go home three more hours until I'm out.

And they're like, what are your plans for Friday nights? Oh, man, it's almost there. And I remember I briefly had an experience where I would think to myself, okay, only two more hours until lunchtime. And then after lunch, I was like, okay, only three more hours until I go home. And then after one more day, it's Friday. And then it's the weekend. And then Sunday, I just remember that dread of like, man, I got to be up at 7 a.m. that next morning.

I haven't felt that way in like 20 years. Same. It's so foreign. It's so foreign. Since I was a lawyer. Yeah. But just thinking through that of hating what you do all day just to be able to get on. I wouldn't say it's hating.

I'd say it's not enjoying. Sure. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, that's most of America. And listen, most people are, you know, most people are probably cut out for that, right? I mean, not everyone's going to be an entrepreneur. You can't have that.

Society wouldn't function. So, you know, I think for a lot of people, that's probably fine and acceptable. I think for the people that it's not fine and acceptable for it, they go off and do things like you and me. I do not like nine to five, you know, I'm not cut out for it. We got a question about creative finance deals.

Do you get a lot of seller finance? Have you heard of sub two? what do you think about any non-conventional way? I don't like any of it. I honestly, anytime anyone even says the word creative financing, I'm like, shut the fuck out. But doesn't it make sense if that's the thing that can push a deal through? For example, if someone buys a house three, four years ago and they got a two and a half

percent interest rate and now rates are five and a half, six percent, doesn't it make sense to try to just seller finance the equity that's there or pay someone money to be able to take over the loan? You can't do it. There's really no great way to keep a loan and transfer an asset. Trust me, I would do it if I could. I have been in this business for 15 years, done billions of dollars in deals, not a single deal. A single deal have I been able to have the original loan kept.

So we've spoke to this guy, Pace Morby, and this is like his whole big thing. He's got like a couple thousand units or something. He talks about it. He's like the guy on YouTube that talks about creative financing, specifically also sub two, which is basically you go in, you take over the mortgage payment,

so you just send the money. And then I think what he does is he puts the deed in a trust or something. And it doesn't count for a sale. And then, you know, you have the due on sale clause of the loan.

Yeah, and that's when it transfers. Which he's only ever, he's only ever been called on once out of his thousands of deals that he's done for this. But he doesn't he remain? liable for the asset, liable for insurance, liable in litigation.

So you're saying he's the owner? How is that any different? How is that really substantively any different than a lease with an option to buy? It's similar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's not a transfer of an asset. I'm not saying it's dumb.

You know, I think a lease option can make sense, but it's just, my understanding is that he would still be liable for anything and everything. Maybe in commercial real estate, you know, you can isolate that risk a little bit. Maybe it's a little bit different. But in residential real estate, there's really no great way to do it. So you're saying the seller in this instance, if you are selling a house sub two to someone else. So sub two is like when you just take over the payments basically. Then as the seller, you're still liable for anything that could go wrong with that house.

Yeah, because you probably created some type of joint venture or trust or whatever it is. Also, the other thing, too, is you have to remain the sole owner. If there's any other ownership, then the bank can call the loan. But he's been called by the bank once, but he said most of the time, the bank just want to ignore it because this is just one small thing that's been sold off and sold off and sold off. I'm not going to risk my loan. As long as they're performing, then that's all that matters. I agree that you're right. And there's also, I will say, there is benefit.

There's added benefit to the seller that we haven't even considered, which is, you know, if you're selling a house at a two and a half percent interest rate, based. basically when you take over the loan, then the person can overpay, whoever's buying the house. Or what you also see. Wait, let me ask you a question. I own a $10 million house, right? I have, let's say, I have $5 million of equity. And I have a $5 million loan at 2.5%. And I structure this.

Does this guy give me cash up front? So you could, yeah, yeah. How much? So let's say I've, it'd be similar to a lease option. But that, but that cash up front is going to be treated as income. whereas on sale it's treated as long-term capital gains. So now I'm paying 50% tax on the money that he gives me when I could be paying 28% tax.

Or what you could do is just increase the sale price of the home, right? No, I'm not sure that how's that solved? Well, you could, wouldn't it solve it if you just sold the house at a premium? So for something it's not technically worse? But we can't sell it, remember? You can't sell it. Because if you sell it, then the bank calls the, loan. You can't transfer the asset.

They haven't. No, he was, he's not transferring the asset. He's still, he's still untitle. Otherwise, of course they're going to call a loan. Even when Pace is describing it, I'm like, I mean, I'm not a big real estate guy. So I'm so sure I, I, I, there's no way for me to transfer this house to another person without the loan being potentially called. No, I mean, it would be called if I transferred it to him. Now, could I put it into an LLC, let's say, and then have him buy 50 percent of the LLC or something like that.

Technically, the bank can still call the loan. And then he'd have to buy the LLC by giving me money. So, I mean, the whole point of a sale is I want to get my $5 million of equity, right? But if he gives me $5 million, then it's income. And now I've got to report $5 million of income and pay 50% tax on it. There's just no way to get my equity out on this. There's just no way. I mean, I've thought about it.

Even on a long term lease with an option, you're still going to get an upfront payment. That's being treated as income. income. It's tax at 55%. That's crazy. Whereas when you sell it, it's long-term capital gain. So you can't mess with that structure. There's no way to get your equity out except taking out a line of credit, you know, if you want cash. I'm just telling you, there's no good way to do this. I wouldn't be happy to argue with that guy because I just, I don't buy. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the community. Ooh. Then it's the, it's the business. I want to pay.

The vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. He says for the seller, the benefit is that if you're trying to sell your place from a million, you're not getting it.

Now you could sell it for 1.1. Yeah, but you're not getting one. I mean, so it's just a number on a piece of paper. You're really continuing to take all the liability. You're getting your, you're getting your monthly nut covered, but you'd be getting that covered by rent anyway. So, and you don't get any equity, because if you're getting any equity,

you're paying massive tax on it. So where's the seller benefiting from this? I don't get it. I mean, you could argue for the people that aren't in a rough financial position. It's more like an annuity. And then you could argue for the people that are in a rough financial position, a lot of people if they...

Hold on a second. Let's say my example. This $10 million a house, right? And it's only costing me $20,000 a month because I've got such a great loan on it in low property tax basis. So this guy is paying me

what, $20,000, $25,000 a month? I mean, he's just paying... Maybe he's paying $30,000 a month. Fine, but presumably I can rent it for $30,000 a month. So maybe he's paying... So how is this guy, I mean, he's getting all the benefit. Yes, but also there's the situations

because he doesn't do this typically with like... I didn't sell it at all. Well, he's not doing this with like massive million-dollar homes. The example would still be in the key. But no, because a lot of the people, they're getting in a position of bankruptcy and they don't want to file for bankruptcy if they're underwater in the home. And then he's basically able to take and monetize the home more effectively than they would be. How is he able to monetize it more effectively?

Well, if they've never been a landlord before and they're not actually... Oh, that's a totally different argument. You're saying he's a better property manager. I don't buy that. That's a different argument. I don't buy it. It is a different argument. I'm just saying that that makes this option a little bit more violent from both sides of

Then the seller is not a good commercial actor. I mean, if he's buying properties off of idiots, then, sure. But if you have an intelligent seller, why would an intelligent, and I don't even mean that intelligent, I mean, an average seller who just has a modicum of understanding of his asset, why would he want to enter into this transaction? I get why that guy wants to. I totally get why people would want to buy like that. I've had a dozen buyers try to buy my properties for my clients like that, and I tell them to fuck off.

Why would the seller want to do it is the question? It's a fake sale. It's not a real sale. You think you sold it for a million 50, but you didn't. You got $20,000. You got whatever you rented. You probably could get more money just renting it out. You're never going to get your equity.

When are you going to get your equity? I guess with renting, you would be responsible, though, for repairs. You still are. Well, you could You could find a tenant Why don't just get a property manager And just say, hey, you got Because then the buyer would be responsible for anything

And if the buyer defaults on that, you would take their down payment, let's just say. How is this any different than a good property manager? Why is this guy? The buyer is going to be responsible for the issues. So the property manager. Let's say you hire property manager. You still have to pay the property manager

and you still have to pay for. Well, but at the end of the day, if the dollar amount's the same, The dollar amount is saying. Like, let's say a roof repair. Like you saw, let's say you get a profit. Let's see, listen, let's say you have an asset that's only costing you $20,000 a month. You know, obviously it's going to, it could rent for more.

And you get a good property manager to say, hey, this property manager says, hey, I'll guarantee you. I'll rent it for 10 years and I will pay $20,000 a month and I'll handle all the, everything. It's like a triple net. Why don't we look at commercial? Sure. How is this guy any different than a triple net tenant? except that he has a right to take the asset. He's just a really bad triple net tenant.

I get why he wants to do it. I would love to be, hey, I'm going to offer you. Here's a triple net lease. I'm a tenant. Also, I have a right to buy it at this price. By the way, if I want to, or, you know, recession. Recession, I can, yeah. If it's ever not in my financial interest, I'm not going to buy it.

If it is in my financial interest, I will buy it. By the way, guys, clearly we are filming currently in our. studio, but recently you may have noticed we're on the road for a lot of these podcasts, and it's very, very difficult to lock down a studio space. However, White Glove Estates, we were there in Los Angeles. We filmed an episode with Miz Kiff and with Stable Rinaldo and Mike Malek. He was also there. They were so generous to let us stay there, film our podcast. They give us the entire space for nothing, just because they're very friendly people. So they're also, they're also right next door to the Oppenheim Group. They're my best friends. And they do all my personal properties and

probably 90% of my clients work so I love them as well. Yeah. Check them out the link down below in the description because they've seriously helped us out a lot. So highly recommend. We should say what they do too. They do like home remodels, you know, AV, uh, pretty much design, everything. The best of the best.

Like the highest end stuff you could imagine, they do it all. So again, if that's you, the link is down there. Oh, they actually built out all of the Oppenheim Group offices as well. So if you like those, yeah, they did all of them. Looks great in there. Thanks. Yeah. Cool. Thanks so much. Jason, your info will be listed down below. Thanks so much.

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