A (1:40)

Right. There's a lot of guys, like, I'm one of the guys that go out, try to take advantage of the situation. And whenever there's fear in the market, right. People that have a little bit of ability can go out there and spend money and, and get really good deals, but it could also bite you in the ass too, because the fear can continue and you may be stuck with that.

B (1:59)

Have you seen something like this in your history of doing this?

A (2:01)

No, of course not.

B (2:02)

So this market's like one of a.

A (2:03)

Kind right now, it's the only time I've ever seen that during the pandemic, it was pretty much like that was the biggest change we ever had in any market, in any. Every market across the earth was changing. Right. The pandemic changed everything. But right now, this particular thing is changing the minds of business owners and people that run businesses and are really big players in the game because their money is being affected. Right? The middle class, you know, I mean, I had a lot of businesses. I've had many restaurants, I've had car rental, I've had car dealership. And I don't care what business you're in. It's different today than it was six months ago.

B (2:39)

There's a lot of people saying the middle class won't exist in our lifetime.

A (2:41)

It's probably possible, like even faster than that, right? I mean, we see third world countries all over the globe have dictatorships and, you know, we call it communism or whatever, but I mean, in reality it's more so having an ultra wealthy and an ultra poor class and the absence of a middle class is, is kind of what sparks all that, you know, because there's no one, no one fights for anything if you don't have any. I mean, let me rephrase that. People don't fight for something if they have nothing to lose, right? But we as the middle class, like in America, a lot of people have a lot to lose. So we stand up for our stuff. We want our rights, we want our guns, we want our this, we want our cars and our private schools and all the, the luxuries that we have here. But, you know, we're willing to fight, right?

B (3:31)

Yeah.

A (3:31)

A lot of places aren't, you know.

B (3:33)

A lot of people aren't. I grew up middle class, you know, and I, I go back to that old neighborhood and the house I grew up in is like a million dollars now. Crazy.

A (3:41)

Like, think about, like my parents. It's actually really similar. In 1988, my parents bought a house for 112,000 here in Las Vegas. That house today is worth 850. Jeez. Right? 2,400 square foot house, you know, it. It's in a place called Desert Shores. So a little bit older community now, right? I was obviously born, you know, in the 80s, and the, the same people can't live there. Like, my mom worked in casinos, right? And my dad manufactured textiles. So, like, that. Those same exact people couldn't live in that same exact house, right? Like, what is our world coming to? You know, where are the people that are working at the casinos, like let's say here in Vegas, they're probably making, you know, dealers, I would say, make between 80 and 120,000 a year, depending on the properties they work at. Because it's a lot of its tips, right. And I think this new law where they don't tax tips is going to help them. Right? Because that's like a huge bonus and not paying tax on that. But at $120,000 a year, I mean, you really net like two grand a week. How could you pay a 4, 500 mortgage, you know?

B (4:45)

Yeah. When you break it down like that, it's pretty mind blowing.

A (4:47)

And where do you get the, like the $150,000 to put down? Like how could you as making 120 grand a year save $150,000 to put down, where's that coming from?

B (4:57)

It's impossible. Well, there was a new thing. I don't know if you saw this past today or yesterday. Bill Pulte, shout out to him. So now you can use your previous rent, your renting. So if you made on time payments for rent, you could use that towards a mortgage.

A (5:09)

Now I still feel like you need the actual money, right? And you got to earn that money, right? Because if you go 3.5% down, FHA, you're paying mortgage insurance, which raises your payment, you know, I don't know. I think the ultimate thing is that everybody's getting squeezed quick, right? Really quick. And so quick that it's, it's no substitute that the hedge funds are buying up all of the single family homes and turning them all into rentals.

B (5:38)

I've heard about that. Blackrock, right?

A (5:40)

Yeah. I mean, all the big hedge funds are. I mean, I would do it too, right. If you're in control of a bajillion dollars, right, what are you going to buy? Real estate. Because, you know, people have to pay, right? They have to live somewhere that can't go out of style. We can't evolve out of living, right? So at the end of the day, that's probably the safest investment. And the market won't go down if you don't sell. So if the hedge funds have 60% of the, you know, the standing inventory in Las Vegas, they don't have to sell it for less, right? And then people will just be like, well, I guess I'm never going to get a better deal, so I might as well buy now, right? So the market's stable.

B (6:18)

Is that true? They have 60% of Vegas?

A (6:20)

No, I'm just saying it's like an estimated thing for these people to, to buy out. They own a lot of Vegas, you know, they probably, probably own 6 to 8% of Vegas if I had to give it like an actual estimation. Right? But like if they're the ones selling or buying the homes, the amount of money that they control, they can control any market, right? Like they can control bitcoin. If they just buy up as much bitcoin as they want, it will never drop again. Because the retail investors, they're the ones that panic. BlackRock doesn't panic. Right.

B (6:49)

They control the stock market. That's already been proven correct.

A (6:52)

So what market's next?

B (6:54)

Cars.

A (6:55)

Really? Anything? Any tangible assets. Right. Homes. I mean, BTC is a big one that they're getting into. I mean, institutional investors are buying up bitcoin like crazy now. So that's definitely something that they're looking at at all times. Right.

B (7:09)

Damn. That's nuts. So are you optimistic about the real estate market in Vegas or. No?

A (7:14)

You know, I go back and forth, right? Like I've lived here my whole life and living in Vegas my whole life, I used to. Like I'll give you an example. My first house that I bought after I started my business was in Henderson. It was about 8,500 square feet in a guard gated neighborhood. Damn. And I paid 1.2 million for it. It was a pretty big stretch for me at the time. And I remember thinking like, man, this is going to be a good, you know, investment for me. It was built in the late 90s, so it wasn't too old, right? But it wasn't like brand new. That house today. They just transacted on that exact same house. So I bought the house in 2017. So it transacted in 2020 for 3.6 million. Whoa. It went up three times in value in seven years. Like, I don't know, man. I mean, could I. I don't see how that could happen. Right?

B (8:02)

That's nuts.

A (8:03)

It's just bananas.

B (8:04)

Did you upgrade it at all?

A (8:06)

Yeah, a little bit. Okay. Right. When I sold the house to the, the people, I sold it for 2 million. So we, we bought it for 1.2 and then I put about 300 grand into it in the time I sold it in 2021. So I lived there for four years, right? And then the person who bought it in 2021 sold it in 2024. So they made the craziest money, right? Because they didn't really upgrade it. They got it for 2 million and sold it for 3 6.

B (8:32)

Right.

A (8:32)

Really didn't do anything. And they only owned it for three years.

B (8:35)

Crazy.

A (8:36)

For almost five. Right. And I put in a few hundred thousand dollars to upgrade it. Right. So my profit on the house was like few hundred thousand dollars, you know, And I needed every bit of that to go to my next house, whereas they could probably pay cash for their next house, you know.

B (8:53)

Yeah.

A (8:53)

So that hyperinflation just really changed our city.

B (8:57)

It's not sustainable. Right.

A (9:00)

Unless they find a new way for us to all make money, I guess. I don't know, dude. Because, I mean, I feel like I had a lot of restaurants. Right. When we first started the restaurant business, it was, it was doing really well. We had a very good margin. It was healthy. And now I talk to restaurant owners. I exited the restaurant business in 23, but now I talk to restaurant owners and their sales are still good, but their margins are nothing.

B (9:24)

Right.

A (9:24)

Because, you know, food costs more. Right. The war in the Ukraine is making the chicken feed cost more. Like, it's just so many little things that no one thinks about. Right. Like, all that little stuff adds up behind scenes and we get, you know, squeezed out.

B (9:39)

I don't think I'd ever get in.

A (9:40)

The restaurant industry when I think I did it because, you know, I use my YouTube popularity to like, leverage to get customers and to build like a cool thing.

B (9:49)

Yeah.

A (9:49)

So it was a little unique. Right. I didn't like, have like a really good recipe and like, I was like a chef. I really made like, kind of like I was just like good at marketing. So I used my marketing ability to create a restaurant concept that was like very centered on cars and, and just really cool, like events and, and car shows and stuff. So it was a little unique. Right, Right. But opening up a restaurant is probably the hardest business in, in the world.

B (10:16)

It's gotta be. I mean, the margins are single digit percentages.

A (10:18)

I hear you also don't have control. Right. Like, especially in Vegas, you have to think like, let's just say there's a shortage on chicken wings and you sell wings, who do you think is going to get the chicken wings that are actually available? Not you.

B (10:30)

Mgm.

A (10:31)

Mgm, exactly. They have the allocation for everything. So you're always third tier. Right. As an independent restaurant, you're third tier because first it goes to the biggest buyers, which is going to be the casinos. Right. Second is going to be the corporate stores. Like, you know, most of those guys have distribution agreements. Right. Like Chili's and, you know, Applebee's and whatnot. But chicken wings are chicken wings. They all come from the same place, Right. So first it's mgm, then it's Chili's, and then it's you. And most likely you won't get any of the leftovers because there won't be any.

B (11:02)

Wow.

A (11:02)

So you could just be facing a shortage of food as a normal restaurant. Right. And it doesn't matter. Screw you. That's what they say. Right. Because they don't really have to take care of you.

B (11:13)

I didn't know they dealt with that. Wow, that's good to know here.

A (11:15)

Locally we do like California be different, right? Because they don't have like global, you know, corporations like the MGM that have. They feed 400, 000 people a day. Right. I mean, think about how many people come to Vegas every weekend, right? Like the, the statistics are, I mean, 50 or 60 million people travel here a year. So what is there, 52 weeks in a year? So more than a million people a week come here. And every single person that's coming here is eating a few meals a day. And usually when you're on vacation, you eat more. Right. So just the logistics of obviously eating are crazy in the city.

B (11:49)

Yeah. I heard the casinos make more now of the dining than the gambling, I think. I don't know if that's true, but.

A (11:56)

It'S probably not true. I mean, I don't know. Have you ever lost like money gambling?

B (12:00)

Not as much as you, but I'm.

A (12:02)

Not, I'm not trying to compete on our losses here. But typically, you know, if you go in and gamble, you could lose a few hundred dollars a lot faster than you can eat a few hundred dollars.

B (12:12)

That's a good point. When you break it like that, you.

A (12:14)

Know, I think the revenues are probably changing a lot. Right. And you can see it in the casinos. Right. My first business here in 2015 was car rental. And we used to work hand in hand with the casinos. They would love to send us people. We would random, you know, Ferraris and Lamborghinis and it was all great relationship post pandemic. The casinos wouldn't even take our phone calls. Well, they were just, nope, no one's leaving. Everybody stays in here. They started buying up all of the little independent experiences, all the little stores that were gift shops, they bought them all. They went full blown corporate everything and did everything in their power to keep the people traveling to Las Vegas inside the building to maximize the revenue. Right. They laid off, you know, 30% of their support staff. There's no concierge anymore at most of the Hotels, some of the really expensive hotels still have the service, but your basic property, you know, Luxor, and, you know, Luxor, Excalibur, Manley Bay. They don't have concierge services. They don't have guest services. It's no different than walking into the Hilton now. Just fancier. And have gaming.

B (13:17)

Yeah.

A (13:17)

Right. And so they've done a really good job of cutting all those people out to keep people inside the casino.

B (13:23)

Is that because private equity came in during the pandemic?

A (13:26)

Well, I think that the margins for everybody changed. Right. And the casino margins, they have, obviously, shareholders, they want to make people richer than they are. Right. Why would you buy MGM stock if it's not going to go up? The only way to make it go up is to show a better P L. Right. Or to show vision. So the better P L is lay off the people that you know, aren't required. Right. And so that's going to be the Most of the support staff. You know, they. They do interim housekeeping now at some resorts. So, like, if you stay for three days to only clean your room once.

B (13:58)

Wow.

A (13:59)

Right. And. And you have to request it. Right. Like, that's a big thing, you know, so they. They've laid off so many people that, that do housekeeping and all the cleanliness, like, Vegas is not the service city anymore. Vegas is like the do it yourself, go have fun city. That's. That's the change.

B (14:17)

And we were just talking about how you want to move now. Is that, Is that why it used.

A (14:21)

To be, like, when I bought my house for 1.2 million, that same house in California or any other big city. Right. Coastal city was three to four to five times more. Well, now a lot of people left California and came to Vegas. So the prices in Vegas went up. And I argue that the prices in California have kind of come down. So they're. They're really meeting to where they're almost at the same level. Right. So if that same $3.6 million house in Vegas is 3.6 to maybe even 4 or 5 million, right. It's kind of negligible at that level. Why would we live in this city? It's 111 degrees today. Right. It's dry, there's dust everywhere. It's not really enjoyable for the traffic. Our city was Never built for 2,3 million people. It was built for 800,000 people. So now when you go anywhere, there's just lines and there's just a lot of people.

B (15:13)

Right.

A (15:14)

So why pay the same as living in a beautiful Place like California. Sure, politics suck, but politics kind of suck everywhere, right? I mean, no one agrees on anything anymore. Yeah, everybody's polarizing, everybody's talking shit. So what does it really matter? Just be healthy and keep to yourself. And if you can afford to live in California, Right. At least you kind of feel better.

B (15:36)

Every day, weather wise. There's no debate. It's the best state in the country.

A (15:39)

Yeah, I mean, but weather is probably what, like 50 of your mood? You wake up in Seattle and it's gloomy every day, you're kind of going to be pissed off. Right. If you wake up in Vegas and it's hot every day, like, I mean, my shirt's like soaking wet right now.

B (15:51)

You're not leaving them, you're not happy.

A (15:53)

Right. You wake up in California and the sun's out at 70 degrees and you're eating, you know, brunch at a small mom and pop cafe, supporting some local business. Like, I don't know, for me, I would feel better in that scenario. Can I move? Probably not. Right. I built too much infrastructure here, you know, so maybe my only opportunity to get out would be to have like a vacation home or a second home, but I don't think that's in the cards right now.

B (16:18)

Yeah, you probably wouldn't want the primary residence there anyways because of the state tax.

A (16:21)

Correct. Yeah, I mean, the, the state tax would, would really suck. I mean, if you had to move to California, it would definitely cost more for everything else. Like the single real estate purchase might be more affordable, but your everyday grind is definitely going to be higher.

B (16:38)

Yeah.

A (16:38)

Right. So as a person making median to middle class income, the Vegas sacrifice is probably warranted. Right. But like, if you're in the super high net worth, like I question why people like Mark Wahlberg are moving to Las Vegas and he's spending 25, 30 million dollars on a house in, if not more. Right. Does the state income tax really help him? Does it bother him that he has to pay a little extra? I don't know. I question those people moving here.

B (17:11)

I think didn't the city give a bunch of funding to Hollywood production or something like that?

A (17:16)

It didn't pass.

B (17:16)

Oh, it didn't pass?

A (17:17)

No, they, they didn't vote on it in the Senate heating. So now in either one year or two years, they're going to look at it again.

B (17:23)

Whoa.

A (17:23)

Right. So yeah, obviously Mark's going to move here if his entire business operations move here. You know, if there's opportunity, I definitely think there's way less opportunity. In California now because there's just so much red tape. I mean, I feel so sorry for those people that their house is burned down because it's going to be so hard to rebuild one. Right. They're going to have to choose to move somewhere else. Right. We don't have those problems here in Vegas. You want to build a new house, file the permits. Takes a couple of months, you build your house, right? If you want to start a business, go into the city, you file some paperwork. Pretty much a business owner in a week. Right. Like, we have a lot of benefits to live in Vegas. But when it comes to people that are like huge businesses, like, let's say the owner of a multinational corporation, why would he move here? You know, like, houses in a neighborhood here called the Summit are like $30 million.

B (18:15)

I heard that's apparently the.

A (18:18)

It's kind of crazy.

B (18:18)

No, that's nuts. Apparently the Panda Express founder lives.

A (18:21)

Yeah, yeah, he lives in McDonald Highlands. I've been to Andrew's house.

B (18:24)

He's multi billionaire, Right?

A (18:25)

Crazy. I mean, there's a lot of billionaires that live here. Andrew lives in a house that is super cool, right? But I think he has some. Some roots here. He owns the Waldorf Astoria down on the Strip and he owns a lot of big businesses. Obviously he owns all the Panda expresses. Right. And he has roots in Hawaii, I think, as well. But he moved here much before the pandemic. He's been here for a long time.

B (18:53)

Okay, so he was just here already?

A (18:54)

Yeah, he's been here a while, but he's a really nice guy.

B (18:58)

Yeah, yeah. What a legendary Panda Express.

A (19:00)

Biggest come up in history. Crushed.

B (19:03)

It's fire. Even though I'm super healthy now, like, I'll crave it once in a while.

A (19:07)

He told me the last time I talked, and this is probably five years ago, we were talking cars and I drove one of my Bugatti's to his neighbor's house. I wasn't at his house. And he was just walking by the neighborhood. And he was like, oh, tell me about your car. And he was like, oh, I have a Prius, but you know, I like art. And I'm like, oh, it's cool. He's like, I have a wind chime that costs more than your car.

B (19:29)

What a flex.

A (19:30)

Like, that's a flex.

B (19:31)

That's real humbling.

A (19:32)

He's like, yeah, that was $3 million. Just like a. Holy crap.

B (19:37)

There's levels to wealth.

A (19:38)

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool when you're worth, like, I don't know, what is he worth? Like $10 billion? Some crazy. And you drive a Prius. Yeah, right. I think that's like even bigger flex than having like a fleet of hypercars, you know?

B (19:49)

Warren Buffett? Yeah.

A (19:51)

I mean, Warren Buffett's like old school, right? Like you expect him to have cool but like old school attitude, you know? Like Andrew's kind of probably, like, if I had a guess, he's probably in his like 50s or 60s. Yeah, right. Like different generation, you know, he grew up in the 70s.

B (20:06)

Yeah.

A (20:06)

Like the 70s is all about flexing, right? Miami Vice and the white, the reds, the big cars, the Ferraris, Lambos. That was a big era, right. So you think that he might want to be like a little bit more out in the open, but whatever, respect, he's a cool guy.

B (20:20)

I'm somewhere in the middle. Like, I don't want to over flex, but I don't want to not have fun.

A (20:23)

I agree.

B (20:24)

Like, we're young once. Like spend some money.

A (20:26)

It, it does kind of get at you if you work all the time and you're putting in a lot of worth, you know, a lot of like, like just effort into creating something special when if you don't live this better life than the person who does very minimal work, right? There's a guy that goes to work every day nine to five, chills, works with someone else, and if he has the same house as you, in the same vacation schedule as you, and the same lifestyle as you, kind of makes you feel like maybe you're wasting your skill set, right? Because you put in a lot of effort to be like that, you know, And I had that argument with, with Graham actually a few times, saying like, you know, you kind of crushed it here, dude. Like you've earned, you know, multiple millions of dollars. Why are you living the life of someone who doesn't have that ability, right? You know, what's the point of having all the money and working to get it?

B (21:16)

He's the most frugal guy I've ever met. I think it's.

A (21:19)

There is something so insane, it's like almost like a skill set, right? Like you can argue that there's equal skill set in a professional NFL player and the frugal ness of Stefan, okay? Because it takes this. It takes someone so dedicated to being cheap that is out of control.

B (21:41)

When I first moved here four years ago, I was broke. Like I spent all the money I had on my six month deposit because I had shit credit and I would run into grandma at Sushi Neko like every week it's like a $20 all you can eat sushi buffet. I'm like, why is he here? Yeah.

A (21:53)

And like you want to. I want to argue with him saying that like, don't you know that all you can eat Sushi is like 60% this and farm raised and very unhealthy and all this stuff. Like if you can afford to eat at Nobu every night, like, don't you want the highest quality fish? Yeah, right. Don't you want like the best food for your body? Right. Aren't you doing like the opposite for yourself, being able to afford the quiet quality food in the world and then eating junk instead by choice? Yeah, right. Like, but there's just no getting through to him.

B (22:21)

He just had Bill Perkins on. I was watching it. And that guy's like the opposite to his. Yes. Thesis of a lifestyle. So we'll see if he changes from that one. I don't know it.

A (22:29)

I don't think he'll change for anything. Right. What is crazy though is that like there's some people out there in the world like Graham that will buy anything if it's a good deal. Right. Like Graham bought a 2005 Ford GT. Right. And I don't think Graham drives his 2005 Ford GT. Right. But I think he bought that car because he knew like real estate, it was going to go up in value like quite a bit. And so, you know, I don't know exactly what he paid, but when he did buy that car, the market was in the mid-200 for that car. And that was probably about five, four or five years ago. Now the market for that car is about 500,000. Damn right. But I honestly have never seen Graham sit in that car. And I've, I mean I've known him since he's on the car, so I don't think he's ever driven it.

B (23:17)

I can't picture him driving that.

A (23:18)

He has. But to think like he eats $20 all you can eat sushi, he has a half a million dollar car sitting in the garage. Make any sense?

B (23:27)

Shout out to Graham though. One of a kind. One of a kind. When you're flipping cars at this point, is it all just gut feeling like how are you? Or do you have a process for, I guess, picking the cars and everything?

A (23:36)

Well, I'll give you a story. Recently I bought Canelo Alvarez's Bugatti Chiron. It was on the market for a little while that gone through a few auctions and it didn't transact at the Market rate. Right. I contacted the guy that was running the sale for him, and he had it listed for a really high number and it was listed for a while. And when I bought that car, I would say arguably that I bought it about 12 to 15ish percent back of wholesale, right? So the day I bought the car, I could have called a dealer that specialized in those cars and sold the car directly to them as a profit.

B (24:16)

Wow.

A (24:16)

Right. About two weeks after I bought the car, the tariff situation started to kind of like come into the mix. Now that car is worth about 25% less than I paid for it.

B (24:30)

Damn.

A (24:30)

Right. And it, you know, it's like a roller coaster, right? So now, and I think this is the case with majority of car dealers, they're not willing to invest their personal money or take any liability on these cars unless they have them pre sold to somebody else. Right? And I think it's like a daisy chain of pre sold, like only to the end user. Like one dealer will sell to another dealer only because the dealer has a retail buyer on it over here.

B (24:56)

It's like drop shipping almost.

A (24:57)

It's very similar to drop shipping, right? And you got to think like there's a dealership here locally in town that has an inventory of like 300 cars.

B (25:04)

Vegas Auto G. Right?

A (25:05)

And so let's say you walk in there and just do simple math, right? Like 300 cars, let's say you, you floor them, right? The average car costs like $200,000. How much is that? You know, I mean, do the math. Like that's probably what, 60 million, something like that, right? At least $30 million. Right? Because let's just average everything out a little bit less. Someone's paying interest on $30 million. Okay? So let's just call it the standard 6% rate, which is like the federal funds basically rate, right? 6% on 60, $30 million is what, 1.7, $1.8 million a month? Geez. Just the interest on those cars.

B (25:47)

Holy.

A (25:47)

Let's just say the building is, I don't know, 30,000 square feet, right. The power bill there is probably what, four or five grand a month. I mean, we can add up all the, all the fees, right? All the cost to doing business, and you can come up with like an overall nut of probably about 200 grand a month, right. That you could just estimate that that business has. They have to sell like three cars every single day. She's just to pay their overhead. How could they do that? I don't, I don't know. Like, how could you, that's not employees. That's not payroll. That's all these other factors, right? That's just taking simple math. Inventory to, like, cost ratio. How are you selling? How could you sell this many cars? You know, back when I followed the other markets, I remember thinking. I remember looking into it, and CarMax average sales were about 600 to a thousand cars a month. What CarMax did in. In a store, right? And. But CarMax's average profit per car was around 2 to $3,000 net, right? So that's really not that much money. Right. CarMax selling that many cars was only making around 1.5 to $2 million a year. Or, sorry, $2 million a month. In the supercar world, the profit, let's say it's 10 times that. But you're not selling 600 cars a month. How many could you sell? 31 a day to a day, Right? Like, I don't know. My point is, is I don't see how anybody in this industry that's holding crazy inventory is staying afloat right now unless they're going into massive debt or they have other sources of income.

B (27:23)

It's too risky. Right? Because all the money tied up in inventory. And like you said, you took a 25% hit on one vehicle. So you times that by 100. That's like a huge hit. Correct?

A (27:31)

And not only that, you have, like, recurring cost, right? Like your rent stays the same or your mortgage stays the same, your insurance stays the same, your power bill stays the same. So that's depreciating your fleet at all times. Right? Because ultimately you have X number of cars to sell, x potential profit. Right? And so your overhead consistently is taking away from your profit every single day. And so the more days you don't sell cars, the more days you lose all of your potential money. And then if the market shifts. We haven't even talked about that part. What if the market shifts 10% now you have no profit in the cars. Now you're just eating up all of your money. I don't know, man. The car business is wild.

B (28:14)

Yeah. That's scary. It doesn't sound like something I'd want to partake in.

A (28:16)

During the pandemic, there was a lot of big dealerships that went bankrupt.

B (28:19)

Really a lot.

A (28:20)

Right. And because they didn't have the power of the oem, right, the manufacturers helped a lot of the big dealerships stay afloat during the pandemic. And then we had the big boom because obviously we had chip shortages and everything. And so pretty much every single Person across the country that was in the car business was making record month after record month after record month. But they were adding all these market adjustments to the cars. You remember that, right?

B (28:47)

Yeah.

A (28:47)

Like $100,000 car was like, actually like 120 by the time you bought it because there was only five of them available and you had to pay 20 extra. But now that car is only worth like 60, and so people who finance those cars. Oh, like 90.

B (29:01)

So I got wrecked on my G Wagon. Yeah.

A (29:03)

Like, did you have to come out of pocket to sell it?

B (29:04)

Yeah, I put down 80 and then financed 80.

A (29:07)

So did you sell it?

B (29:08)

No, I still have it, but I'm getting wrecked because it's only worth like 110 now, 20, 19G wagon.

A (29:12)

So you lost, like, literally like $50,000.

B (29:14)

An hour and 10% interest on the financing in that.

A (29:17)

Crazy, crazy. So if you wanted to get out of that car. Right. You'd have to forfeit all of that money, plus you'd have to come out of pocket to go into the new one. Right. So most people, they. The banks have tightened up so much, the banks won't lend you 100% of the value anymore. They only want to lend you 80% of the value. Wow. Right. And that's kind of standard. That's really how it should be. Right. You should be buying a G Wagon unless you can put 20% of the price down.

B (29:44)

Right.

A (29:44)

Like you should be buying something less expensive if you don't have 20%. Right. So during the pandemic, they were financing 120%.

B (29:52)

Jeez.

A (29:53)

So people could walk in zero down by the G wagon plus tax with no. No money out of pocket. So let's pretend that you did that. Right. And you paid 200 grand for your car and now you owed 180 and it's only worth 110. What do you do? You're screwed. There's no way you've got 70 grand to just write a check to get out of it. It goes to repo. We have the highest repossession rate currently right now in the country than we've had since 2008. Jeez. So. And I think the numbers are actually higher than 2008. Holy crap.

B (30:23)

So we're pretty much in a recession. If you indicated on that, I think.

A (30:27)

There'S no question that we're in a recession. Like, there's nobody out there that's going to tell you we're not in a recession.

B (30:32)

The government.

A (30:33)

Yeah, right. The government's the only one that does good. Because Maybe they vote every few months or every few years to raise their debt ceiling and they figure it out, right?

B (30:40)

Yeah.

A (30:41)

But I'm pretty sure that since we've been alive, our debt has gone up every single year by a lot.

B (30:48)

By a lot.

A (30:48)

So is the government even doing well? Probably not.

B (30:51)

Hell no.

A (30:52)

I don't think anybody's doing well.

B (30:54)

Not at all. You know, so when cars get repoed, can you, can you buy those? Like how does that process work?

A (30:59)

Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the main focus I think of a lot of people right now is especially people like me that are, I would say like I'm just like, it's like a small hobby for me to do like car sales. Right. Like I kind of just like buy and sell cars like as like a little bit of a pastime. You know, I. Before this whole transition I was really involved because I had a rental car business and I needed to get the right inventory that didn't depreciate a lot. But the repossessions is where you really get the deals that you need. Because that's like post cost, right? That's be pre auction car that didn't have to go through like a reconditioning process or a, a lot of legal fees. You know, these guys missing the payments, they voluntarily give up the car. I can't do it. The bank says, okay, well wholesale is really only worth X number. We'll give it to you for dead nuts wholesale. Right. And not charge you anything on top. But if you buy a car from like Mannheim, there's fees on top of that. There's obviously transport, there's a whole bunch of stuff and then they got to go into recondition it. And then. So if you're buying wholesale from a dealership, that number is really greater. Right. And so there's this valuation system called mmr and that used to be the wholesale number. Like you went to CarMax and you said, okay, cool, I'm going to trade my car in. You can pretty much factor that they were going to give you this number of MMR. Now 10, 15% back of MMR.

B (32:23)

Damn.

A (32:24)

Because MMR is really not a good indicator because it's a three month average of the market, of the, of the sales through the dealer auctions. And so three months of numbers is totally inaccurate now because today that car is selling for large percentages less than three months ago. So the market is too skewed to understand it.

B (32:43)

You still doing a lot of auctions too?

A (32:44)

No, I mean, like I said, it's just really hard, Right, because people are only buying stuff that they have pre sold, right? So like people are willing to pay up for things that they already know that they have it sold when they get it and they're willing to pay nothing. Right. And the dealers are not willing to sell for nothing. So it's kind of like a stalemate.

B (33:04)

Limbo.

A (33:04)

Yeah.

B (33:05)

Same with the real estate market too. With the interest rates here, 8%.

A (33:07)

Would you buy a new house right now?

B (33:09)

Not right now. Not like I bought mine at 8%. But I, I, I, looking back, I would have waited probably until it dropped because 8% is pretty nuts on $2 million house. Like that's a lot of money every month just going to interest. I rent my house, I rented the first three years.

A (33:23)

I don't want to buy a house anymore, right. I mean I, I had, I've owned homes in the past, but currently the house that I rent is, if I were to buy the house, the 20% down that I would need to put down to, to, to be able to do the loan, my mortgage would be 50% greater, including putting down 20% if I were to buy the house that I live in.

B (33:46)

Wow.

A (33:47)

So I rent it for 50% less than the mortgage without putting the money down. So that money that I have, the 20%, it could go to work for me in the stock market and earn basically what my rent is. So in my theory, I live for free, right?

B (34:02)

It makes sense when you put it.

A (34:03)

That way, you know, but if my house was back to normal and we had, I'm cool, 5% interest, right. I think when we went to threes and the low fours, I think that was like really low. Right. And I think five is like a decent number. Seven, eight is impossible. Right.

B (34:18)

It's uncomfortable.

A (34:19)

Whatever your mortgage is, let's say your mortgage is 20,000amonth at 7%, you're probably paying like $1500 a month of principal and like 17 and a half thousand interest.

B (34:29)

That's actually crazy.

A (34:30)

Just do go on amortization calculator and just do it. You're renting your house from yourself, right?

B (34:36)

Geez, I need to refi asap.

A (34:38)

But even if you refi like, it's going to cost you one point, right? And what are you going to save a half a point? Pretty much 7.5%. Because it's not like you get like, let's say the natural mortgage rate is 6.35, right. You can't get that on a jumbo loan. Not only, not to mention you're definitely not getting on a super jumbo. Right. And what you're in is super jumbo. Anything over 1.5, I think in Vegas or I don't know exactly what the number is today, but it used to be 1.5 was super jumbo and then anything over 800 was jumbo. So there was. There's a point bump in every tier you go up. So if you're under 800,000, you can get it at like the natural interest rate that you see advertised on the market, 6.3. But if you're over 8, 800 grand, you're probably 7.25. 7.5. And then if you're over a 1.5, you're at 8 nuts, you know.

B (35:24)

Yeah. When Grant Cardone came on, he said, we're becoming a renters nation. And that was two years ago, he called it. Mm.

A (35:29)

I called it. I actually said. I agreed with him. We had this podcast and I agreed with Graham and, and I said that the real estate market is just. People don't care enough anymore. Right. Because they're willing to just pay. Right. They're willing to pay to rent. You know, they just. The American dream has just been ripped away from us. Our generation in indefinitely.

B (35:52)

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A (36:44)

I don't how people say it's going to come back, but at what path are we working towards to get it to come back? Right. I, I think actually right now we're working against the American dream more so than working for it. Right. Like what could possibly come from tariffs? Just more frustration. More. More fighting between the parties. Right. More I told you so, more this and more that. Like how do you pick a side?

B (37:13)

You know, it's tough, man. Our kids are going to have a tough time, I think.

A (37:18)

Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think we could accurately predict what's going to happen in general on a basic level, three to five years out, let alone 15, 20.

B (37:30)

That's true. Yeah. Stuff changes so frequently, I guess.

A (37:33)

I think with the adoption of technology into our daily lives, we have rapidly started to increase in technology. So like our technology from 20 years ago is, you know, was maintained at a certain level. Right. We increased the ability to use it and adopt it at a slow rate. But now that we've like adopted technology, I mean, just in six months we've transitioned AI onto our cell phones from not being on there. And now like everyday tasks are completely different from six months ago. So what's going to happen six months from now and six months from then? We could consistently rapidly change again and have no idea like what, what we're doing. You know, I don't know, it's hard to explain because like, it's like a really big brain question. Right. Like, how do we adopt technology and not let it oversaturate us?

B (38:19)

Yeah. It is a deep question. How do you use it but not replace everyone?

A (38:23)

Yeah. I mean, you know, self checkouts was like a normal thing. Right. Like that was slowly inputted into every grocery store. But now we don't even go to the grocery store.

B (38:33)

I just order.

A (38:33)

We just order everything on our phone and it just shows up at our house.

B (38:36)

Instacart.

A (38:36)

Yeah, yeah. Like we've eliminated the brick and mortar business almost altogether. Like in reality, if you're a real estate developer, what real estate would you choose to develop? Not a commercial plaza. Right. Because there's no brick and mortar restaurants that can survive. There's no grocery store anchor that's going to go in there. I mean, look around. There's more empty grocery stores and empty Walgreens buildings than anything else because no one's going there. Right. I see like the future being like these like massive Costco style warehouses where we just order everything on the phone.

B (39:09)

I could see that.

A (39:10)

And it just delivers to us. I think everybody would probably prefer that.

B (39:13)

It's easier, you save time and the.

A (39:16)

People delivering it have a job. Right. Like, I feel like it works for everybody.

B (39:21)

Yeah.

A (39:21)

You know, but like think about food like that too. I mean, we started to see a little Bit of it in the food hall era. But I mean, I think that there's like a way that this is going to become something more. Right. Like kind of like the Instacart and you know, Uber and Yelp and all these companies, they are all based on, on delivery platforms now. Right. Like when we had our restaurant, 40% of our sales came through the delivery platforms.

B (39:48)

Wow.

A (39:49)

And that was before 2023. I can only imagine what it's going to be in five years.

B (39:54)

That's not right.

A (39:55)

So do you need a brick and mortar location anymore? Or do you just go into this big Costco sized building and rent your 500 square feet and just wait for the orders to come in and you just have your little kitchen and then the people just pick it up and you run your restaurant as a faceless thing.

B (40:09)

Ghost kitchen.

A (40:10)

But like on a massive scale, right? Not like a small little scale, you know, because I think the ghost kitchen thing kind of wasn't really developed properly.

B (40:18)

It was too early, I think.

A (40:19)

Very early. But also people were like, like Mr. Beast was like basically just selling like frozen junk food right out of a ghost kitchen and just making it pretty on Instagram or on Uber Eats, you know, Like, I don't think that was the right way to do it. But if you're like favorite restaurant, you know, on the strip corner was like making good food delivered to you that you could trust, right. Maybe it would make more sense.

B (40:42)

I mean, dude, I order Postmates twice a day. Like, yeah, shit's so easy and convenient.

A (40:46)

It's basically like an extra 10%. But I feel like you save that money and time, oh, 100. And you save that money in fuel.

B (40:55)

If anything, you make money because if you factor in the time driving and to get gas, like your hourly rate rate is probably like thousands of dollars, you know, so you're making money in.

A (41:05)

My eyes and you're supporting people. Right? I mean, like, I think that the, the next generation of these jobs, like the Uber drivers and, and the people that help us, that's like the new service industry, right? Like prior to this, like the valet attendant was like a respected job in Vegas. Right Now I don't really feel like it's that respected.

B (41:26)

No.

A (41:26)

Right. But like, I feel like anybody can go get a side gig at Uber and Lyft and yeah, they have all these discrepancies between pay and union and all this stuff, but you're not going to disrespect someone if they work as a service industry person. Right? Because it's not A bad job. Right. It makes a good wage there. It's a, you know, a good service. They're helping you. Right. And so I kind of feel like it's a very good transition. Like it's not a demeaning or a downgrade from someone that is working, you know, let's just say they're working in an office. Right. 9 to 5 for 25 bucks an hour at a call center or something like that. I think that working as an Uber driver or Uber Eats driver is a better job.

B (42:08)

I agree. You got free credom, like free, like creative control. You can listen to podcasts, listen to whatever you want in the car.

A (42:13)

Like it's kind of like a, a 24 hour opportunity. Yeah.

B (42:17)

You know, Yeah, I don't mind it at all. Do you think cars are going to get to the point where people are.

A (42:21)

Just ordering them to their house? You know, I think so, but I feel like in the car rental business, I was in the car rental business for, you know, more than 10 years. I feel like the, the, the ride sharing and some of the automated platforms have some room to grow because they're, they're not as convenient as they need to be. Right. But I really feel like the next generation should be public transit, you know, Like, I feel like Tesla's onto something with like the Tesla Loop and the trains, you know, all over the world they have way better public transit than we do here in America. And we're like investing money into these little automated, like, I don't know what, they look like golf carts on the road over here. Oh yeah, I've seen those Waymo and all these other companies that are building that kind of stuff. Like, I don't know, I feel like we, we would be better off building like a, a more of an efficient, eco friendly transit system than these individual car sharing services.

B (43:12)

Weren't they building something to la? Did that go through?

A (43:14)

Yeah, I mean, Bright Line's building it, but you know, I don't know. I mean that's very controversial because how many people live in Rancho Cucamonga, right? I mean, yeah, sure, probably a lot, but like you're parking your car, like if you live in la, you'd have to take the actual LA train to Rancho Cucamonga, which is probably not going to happen if you're like a normal person. Right. Like it's kind of dangerous. And then you get on this fancy Bright Line train that would take you from Rancho Hook Among Us to where the outlet mall is on Warm Springs and then from there you Would Uber to your hotel. Right. I don't think the train station by Warm Springs and Las Vegas Boulevard is a bad idea. But I do feel like there probably should be a more in depth into la. Something like a little bit more than Rancho Cucamonga.

B (44:04)

Yeah.

A (44:04)

Plus it's going to be like $200 a person. I think it's like probably.

B (44:08)

It's actually a lot.

A (44:09)

I think it's a lot because you.

B (44:10)

Could jsx for 250.

A (44:11)

I was going to say, I think JSX is like 250 and I think it's like 40 minutes on JSX versus two hours on a train. I don't know. I mean, even Southwest is probably cheaper. JSX is probably the best way to get from Vegas to la because you don't really have a. A lot of like before, you know, it's 15, 20 minutes and you're in and out. Right. But like Southwest, it's like an hour and there's gates and running and airports are huge and parking is super expensive. So typical air travel probably is a lot less viable than jsx. But then the train probably sits in the middle somewhere, you know, that makes sense.

B (44:48)

I wish JSX was on the East Coast.

A (44:50)

They are.

B (44:50)

Oh, they are.

A (44:51)

Yeah, they do. Like Florida to. I think it's like Florida to Nantucket or Florida to somewhere like New Jersey or something.

B (44:57)

Okay.

A (44:57)

They just started launching all those little flights.

B (44:59)

Oh, dope.

A (44:59)

But jsx, I was on a JSX flight yesterday and they now have an X ray machine where you put your bag through.

B (45:05)

Really?

A (45:06)

They're adopting a little bit of TSA there.

B (45:08)

Damn.

A (45:09)

I mean, I knew it was going to happen. I've been flying JSX probably for like 10 years. Eight years. Right. Since they were like in this hole in the wall over here on Reno in Vegas. But they, they've been. They're gonna need to adopt some security features eventually. Right.

B (45:24)

Because it was too easy before.

A (45:26)

Yeah, I mean a lot of people fly on JSX now.

B (45:29)

You could have flown with a gun before.

A (45:31)

Anything you wanted.

B (45:32)

Yeah, you.

A (45:33)

I mean that was like probably drug dealers heaven. Moving drugs to and from different cities on JSX, you know, for 199. Get your drugs from LA to Vegas.

B (45:43)

Yeah, they probably got a phone call or something.

A (45:45)

They probably got more than a phone.

B (45:47)

Call shout out to JSX though.

A (45:49)

I mean, they're crushing it, dude. Great, great service.

B (45:52)

I don't know if they make money, but thank you for providing a easy flight to burbank Yeah. I don't like flying to lax. Screw that.

A (45:59)

No. Have you flown to LAX on JSX though?

B (46:01)

Is it as bad as the airport?

A (46:03)

No, they fly into like Hawthorne. Oh, okay, right, so it's like, it's. Technically you could see the LAX airport from their terminal, but they only do it like two times a week. I think it's on like Fridays and Mondays or something. Fridays and Sundays, yeah. It's not, it's not too frequent. But I fly to John Wayne, Orange county and they just moved from like ACI jet to like the new. Their own little terminal. And it's on the other side of the airport now. No traffic. Super easy to get in and out.

B (46:27)

Damn.

A (46:27)

Their new Burbank or, sorry, their new John Wayne setup is sick.

B (46:31)

That's lit.

A (46:31)

It's super sick. And it's. It's really nice. It's like way easier to get there. They have parking, so definitely a come up for them. Fire.

B (46:38)

Let's end off with some rapid fire for clips. Which supercar purchase disappointed you the most?

A (46:46)

Pagani.

B (46:47)

Why?

A (46:47)

It's just. I mean, I say it all the time, but it's kind of like a kit car, right? They strapped a Mercedes power plant into a art piece of art and everything rattles, creeks and makes noises and it barely gets down the road. Half the time. It doesn't start. It's. It's just they have a lot of work to do.

B (47:04)

Best exotic car brand in your opinion?

A (47:06)

My favorites, Koenigsegg. But they're no different than some of the other ones. They're a little less reliable, you know, than. Than most, but most extreme experience for sure.

B (47:16)

Did you see Tates broke down in like a day?

A (47:18)

Correct. Less reliable.

B (47:20)

Is that common?

A (47:21)

Yeah, I mean, I think I've had four Koenigseggs and they've been. It's kind of like that 10 out of 10 girlfriend you have. That's crazy as, right? Yeah, she's just like, she's worth it, but she also breaks down a lot. You know what I mean? That's a Koenigsegg, you know, so if you want a really nice, reliable hypercar, Bugatti is the way to go. They never break. They're like super on point. They look nice, but they're not as exciting.

B (47:45)

They're.

A (47:45)

They're like the. They're like the one you marry.

B (47:48)

Okay. Best city in America to own an exotic car.

A (47:52)

Vegas isn't a bad place. There's a lot. No potholes a lot. There's very little potholes A lot of good driving cops here, Pretty cool. You know, they don't, they don't go wild on you. You know, they respect the cars too.

B (48:03)

What's the fastest you got clocked in at?

A (48:05)

250. Holy.

B (48:07)

Yeah, I thought you were gonna say like 150.

A (48:09)

No, no, I, I've, I, I did a 254 run. Well, I mean, you mean fastest speeding ticket.

B (48:15)

The, like actually clocked in on the, on the gun.

A (48:18)

Oh, 202.

B (48:19)

That's still pretty high too.

A (48:20)

I've gone 254. But they, we did like a radar test out on a closed road, and yeah, it was pretty cool. Jeez. But yeah, I actually was. I got physically radar by a police officer at 202.

B (48:32)

And he caught you?

A (48:33)

He caught up to you eventually. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know. Right. I was out in the middle of nowhere, just jamming, right. Nobody in sight, Right. And I guess he must have his lights off because it was kind of like towards the night. I didn't see him just, just jamming as fast as I possibly could to see how fast the car would go. It was in a Bugatti, and I just after we hit the, the 200 plus mark, right, I slowed down and just. We're going. We were just normal. And then like probably five, ten minutes later, boom, he lights me up, he's. How fast were you going? I got you at 2:02. I'm screaming at me. I'm like, oh, that was like an hour ago, dude. Like, it took you that long to get there.

B (49:09)

A casual 202. I'm surprised he didn't arrest you.

A (49:12)

He wanted to, but, you know, you get lucky sometimes when you're in the middle of nowhere because it's harder to take you to jail when jail's like an hour away.

B (49:19)

Right.

A (49:20)

So the cops kind of just give you these fat tickets. I got a criminal reckless driving ticket for that one.

B (49:24)

Damn.

A (49:24)

Yeah, it was wild. But. But I went in front of the judge and pleaded it out and I still have my driver's license.

B (49:30)

Yeah, I got hit with 97, which is not that fast, I guess, but it was on the way from Sedona to Vegas that, that drive is so boring. Like, if you're not speeding, like, what are you doing?

A (49:39)

That road should have 125 mile speed limit.

B (49:41)

Oh, no one's there.

A (49:42)

It's crazy.

B (49:42)

Like, there should be a law where if, if it's empty, you could go like a little faster than the speed limit.

A (49:47)

I agree. I, I Definitely think that we need to also re evaluate the speed limits in America because they were designed for cars in the 1960s. And I. If you took a 1960s Chevy car today to the speed limit, you'd probably be scared. You'd be shaking like you're like oh my God, we're going 70 in this thing. You know, it's like shaking like crazy. But today, I mean a Hyundai with 300 horsepower, it can do 130 on cruise control and it's ultra safe and it's super chill and it's very stable. We definitely need to reevaluate speed limit. Yeah.

B (50:17)

Cuz the fastest in America is what, 75.

A (50:19)

Probably 70. Maybe 85.

B (50:20)

85 in Texas probably somewhere.

A (50:22)

Yep.

B (50:22)

Yeah. They need to make them I think.

A (50:23)

100, I think 100 would be reasonable. Even like 125. Right. On some of those long stretches. Because like I said, I mean these cars today like are so stable and they're so safe.

B (50:34)

Yeah.

A (50:35)

But with the increase in autonomous driving there probably is going to be increase in speed. Right. Because if computers are driving us and why not just go faster? You know like they know what to do. Right. You know there's less human error in that situation.

B (50:48)

Do you trust the self driving yourself?

A (50:50)

Yeah.

B (50:50)

You do?

A (50:50)

That's pretty good.

B (50:51)

Really?

A (50:51)

Yeah.

B (50:52)

Wow.

A (50:53)

Yeah. I mean I've been in a Tesla that has, you know, full self driving. Does it scare you? Because it doesn't drive like you would, right? Yeah. So you're always like oh shit. I mean it does get you to where you want to go and you don't crash. I mean at least I didn't.

B (51:07)

Yeah. Well now they track your eyes though. I feel like it was cool when you could fall asleep a little bit. Now it's like they're tracking every movement.

A (51:13)

Yeah. I mean there's. I think there's going to be a stage where we don't have the like a front driver's seat or a steering wheel.

B (51:20)

That'd be nuts.

A (51:21)

There's going to be the next generation of self driving cars. Probably won't have a steering wheel. Wow.

B (51:25)

The Waymo was pretty trippy. The one I took in San Fran. I couldn't believe that. Seamless.

A (51:30)

Yeah. I mean there's those like things that I don't know what they're called but they have like these doors that open up this way like a, like a city bus almost. And you get in and there's like four seats that oppose each other and I don't know if you can get in them. I just see them on the streets, driving around.

B (51:43)

Is that the one with the cameras on the outside?

A (51:45)

Yeah.

B (51:45)

Okay.

A (51:45)

But it's like a glass, like almost box. And then the doors, like, come out like this. And then you get in, there's like, you know, four, two benches on each side. Kind of looks like you're getting on the monorail. Wow. Right? It's a weird thing, but I haven't seen people in them yet. I'm not sure if people can go in them. But those don't have steering wheels or anything.

B (52:01)

Jeez.

A (52:02)

At least I haven't seen them.

B (52:03)

That is nuts. Future technology, man. Well, dude, it's been cool. Where can people find you and support you and everything?

A (52:09)

Dude, I don't really trying to be a ghost on the Internet, you know what I'm saying? But I do still have a YouTube channel. My name, Houston Costa. Eventually there'll be a YouTube video posted back there again.

B (52:18)

Okay, we'll link it below. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, check them out, guys. Peace. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.