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- [00:01]
David Green
Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate, the show where we cover how to build wealth in real estate with no fluff, no bs, and no sales pitches. I'm David Green, and I've been doing this for over 10 years. I've seen the ups, the downs, and everything in between. This is the show where we pull back the curtain and show it to you, too. So if you want to build wealth through real estate or you just love learning about it, you found your home. What's going on, everyone? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. This is the David Green Show. I'm David Green, and I'm joined by my good buddy Nick Lamana. As he says, like lasagna, but with an M. He is a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt. You'd never see it coming because he is happy and nice and friendly like a chipmunk, but he's like a murder chipmunk that will absolutely tie you up into a pretzel and leave you there begging for mercy. He's also a real estate investor out in the east coast, travels all over the place, and took me to my first UFC fight, which was actually a blast. Nick, how are you doing today?
- [00:55]
Nick Lamana
Doing good, man. I appreciate you having on. It's always, always good to get on and catch up with you, sir. And that was a really great time with the ufc, man. I didn't realize that was your first one, man. You handled it like a pro.
- [01:04]
David Green
Dude. It was a little shocking seeing our buddies, like, with that weight cut. I just was like, whoa, man. Like, that's an insane amount of weight to lose. They just. I mean, it's like, you see why people say this is not healthy when you see what your friends look like with that.
- [01:19]
Nick Lamana
I've never seen them that soon off the scale before, and I. I was blown away. Like, I almost. I didn't even want to hug Aljo. I, like. I was like, it. It's. It makes you really think about, like, what those guys go through that people don't see. It's. It's insane, dude.
- [01:34]
David Green
Yeah, I believe Ally Quinta was there, too, and we had him on a previous Seeing Green episode. So you guys can check that one out if you like. Today's show with Nick. Nick, before we get into it, give a little background on yourself. What's your investing experience? What do you do? And, like, what's the lens that you're looking at? Real estate investing through.
- [01:48]
Nick Lamana
Through, man. You know, I. I tell everybody I'm. I'm not great at anything. I got a lot of experience doing a Whole bunch of different stuff. And I go back and forth is sometimes my superpower is my lack of focus because it's allowed me to embrace a lot of different opportunities where I've done a bunch of stuff from, you know, burrs to residential fix and flips. Wholesales, wholesales. I've done your basic house next door to some luxury stuff. I've wholesale deals I made 1500 on. I've wholesale deals I made 141,000 on. I've sold land, I've done tax liens, tax deeds, multif family land development. And I started with a national model where really I was getting into remote real estate investing in 2008, 2007, before it was like a really popular thing, and we had all these amazing tools with technology like we had. Because I'm a New York guy, and trying to start out in New York City with no money, no credit, no experience is extremely challenging. So I was almost forced into this out of state model, which I had a ton of bumps and bruises along the way. I wasn't really happy that I was forced to invest out of state, but it allowed me to put a lot of processes, experience it together, that, you know, it comes to 2020, the pandemic comes around, everybody has to switch to online. And it wound up being something I was already a little ahead of the curve of. So, you know, I got into doing some bigger deals, doing some multifamily stuff, doing some land development stuff, which caused me to start wholesaling some bigger deals. So I started wholesaling some commercial stuff, which I realized it was almost the same amount of work for like a $1500 check as it was for $150,000 check. It's just. And the buyers were almost better to deal with. So I started getting into that a little bit. But, you know, it's been an evolving process where I've just. I feel like. No, I was just talking to Pete Jaguacella about this, where it's almost like jiu jitsu, where you have stuff that works for you really well and you get really good at it, and it becomes natural. And then guys evolve or the game evolves or your body gets injured, and now you have to change. And so I've been doing it for like 15, 16 years, but it. It feels like I. Every time I feel like I have a grasp on it, the market changes or my situation changes or a new strategy comes out or regulations come around. So I feel like I've done a tough. Done a ton of stuff, but I still Feel like I know nothing, man. It's crazy.
- [03:56]
David Green
I think that's the way that life's always going to work. And the world that we're sliding into right now, it's only getting worse. Whatever we think we knew, you're going to have to relearn it all over again as just the way it is. To exist as a human is going to be rapidly changing. So now is the time to have a flexible mind, not a rigid one. That's my advice for everybody here. All right, Nick, our first video today is going to be a philosophical one. Let's get your take on if rent should exist.
- [04:27]
Nick Lamana
She says that she doesn't want to pay rent. Not only that, rent shouldn't exist.
- [04:32]
David Green
Listen, in this day and age, rent should not exist. We have a surplus of housing. We have houses that are empty, but no, we have to worry about profiting off of it. Shut the up. You first. Shut the. Everyone deserves a house, and our government has the ability to give us that, and they won't. You need to be more angry.
- [04:57]
Nick Lamana
Rent should not exist.
- [04:59]
David Green
Here's what people in the comments are saying.
- [05:00]
Nick Lamana
Putting her should not.
- [05:01]
David Green
All right, we won't listen to the comments here because we want to get the comments from Nick Lamania. I'm sure you've heard these similar arguments that either no one should own a house they don't live in, government should put rent control so landlords can't raise rent. What's your thoughts on if we should have regulation, if we shouldn't, how this whole thing should work?
- [05:20]
Nick Lamana
I mean, where does that end? It's kind of like we were talking about earlier. If you start saying, well, people shouldn't have to pay for rent to live in a place, like, how does that affect the other side of it? It's almost like we were talking about earlier, where people make decisions that in a business that the employees don't understand, people that are cutting the red checks don't understand the side that that plays into taxes and jobs and property management and contractors and flow of money. And I think it provides a lot of opportunities that other people don't see. And at the end of the day, why does one person have to get up and bust their butt to work to make the money, and the other person just wants something given. So, I mean, I think it's like a. Should rent not exist? I mean, I totally disagree with that. Should it be so out of control everywhere that nobody can barely afford to live anywhere and they have to do shared housing? That's probably an extreme level too. So I feel like there's probably a happy medium there between putting some sort of cap to make living still affordable or finding ways to find more affordable housing and not just totally eliminating the fact that there shouldn't be rents. Because I think that's kind of a crazy notion.
- [06:21]
David Green
What's your thoughts on what we can do to make housing more affordable?
- [06:26]
Nick Lamana
Man, you know, it's, I, I like this stuff, like the Sam Wiggarts of the world that are doing, that are doing the shared housing model. But at the end, at the end of the day that also terrifies me. But you know, I'm, I'm finding myself being older where I think it's terrifying to have to like if something happened and then I had to like live in a house with six or seven other adults and live in a room like I did when I was in college. To me, that's the kind of stuff that motivates me to go out there and make money so I don't have to do that. But it seems like some people actually like that. And if there's a whole community of people out there, that's what I've heard, a younger generation and an older generation that actually likes kind of being in a home with other people they can have a community with, I think that's one really good thing as far as that stuff goes to, to come up with it. But I don't really know what else to do on it because the problem is everything I'm seeing is the stuff that would make us be able to provide affordable housing, at least on the single family side, to buy it, to hold it, to build it, like the cost of material, labors, money, everything is up. So you can't really drop it too much and still be profitable. And unfortunately, builders and investors aren't in this to lose money. So what do we do? Aside from maybe some sort of government grants or things like that. I, I wish I knew the answer.
- [07:37]
David Green
I think that's the key. I think what I would like to see, like if I was in the White House and they said we listen to the David Green show, we need you to fix the housing crisis. It would be something along the lines of why don't we give tax incentives to people that work blue collar jobs since we don't have enough people doing this. So you frame houses, you run electrical, you run plumbing, you do roofing, something like that. We'll give more visas to someone who's doing this kind of work. And we will say, hey, you get taxed at half the Rate of what someone else gets taxed at or something like that. So now the construction companies can hire these people and maybe they could be more compet, because instead of having to pay more money and pass that cost on to the person who's getting the project, they can come in at a lower bid. And the person doing the work doesn't have to get a raise, they just pay less in taxes. That's like one thing I'd like to see. And I think that you could create something where you give an incentive to a company for the number of houses built under the median price of whatever that area is. So it's going to be different in California, New York than it's going to be in Missouri. But if you can incentivize people to build lower in, not lower income, but like lower priced homes that are more affordable and you just figure out a way like they're not fancy, you just make this method or this process where you continue to turn them out as fast as you can and then just get that like entry level home buyer, enough inventory to stabilize that. Then you can turn your attention back towards the stuff that you mentioned before that actually can turn a profit. And the last piece is like just get rid of so much regulation. Have you had to deal with the city yourself and like a project you're doing or a rehab or something as.
- [09:18]
Nick Lamana
Far as them regulating like with the, the tenants of the building and things like that?
- [09:21]
David Green
No, like you trying to improve a property. It's, it's maddening. Anytime you have to go through any form of government gatekeeping, you don't get a worker who cares about making this efficient or being helpful to you. Even though you're paying them your taxes, pay that salary. They, they make it as hard as possible for you to get anything done to make it as easy as possible for them. They bounce you around from department to apartment. They say we can't do that. And then you go do the research and say yes you can. They go, oh, I guess we can. And then they look for something else to tell, you know, about. Like I don't think people realize that the reason housing is unaffordable in a lot of areas is because that local jurisdiction makes it impossibly difficult to build more homes. And everyone that works in those areas, the contractors, the home builders, they know the cities and that do this. But when people are voting for their politicians, like I don't think any of us really understand how efficient do you run an organization? Are you making this easy for people? Now you get A capitalistic business and they want to make it as, as efficient as possible. We want less drag, we want to get more things done in a day. And I would just love to see someone come in and say, hey, stop making more rules that don't make sense. We need to have like construction guys in these positions of code enforcement or code making uppers like, hey, these codes make sense. These are ridiculously unnecessary. And then when somebody like buys a property, you just have inspectors that can look at the job and make sure it was done well as opposed to an insane amount of rules. And then you got to wait months and months before someone gets out there to look at the work that was done. And it's like you said, everyone throws their hands up and says, forget it, we're not going to build these houses, we'll just build the expensive ones. And housing has slowly become more unaffordable. And then you get videos like this where people are angry. I don't think that anyone actually that pays attention to this could say, yeah, you shouldn't be able to own a rental house. But that's just someone who doesn't know what else to do. And they're just complaining, hoping that somebody will rush in and, and fix this problem.
- [11:16]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, it's funny too because on top of the, the building, the permits, the HOAs around us are, are a big problem too. Where I was just trying to buy houses in the meantime to, to figure out where I was going to live and then I was going to move out and keep them as a rental. And, and it would have been a perfectly good rental at a good price point at a good neighborhood. And all the ways are restricting that. So now because of that there's like no supply. And because there's no supply and the demand still high, it's making the rent skyrocket. And it's like if you would have made it easier for a bunch of like mom and pop investors to just hold middle income homes, make them safe, clean and functional, I could have rented that house out for you for $2,100. But now, because you wouldn't let me do that, their only option is to go to the, to the high end multifamily development that just owned this $3,600 for a two bedroom, one bath. And now people are pissed and it's like you kind of created this problem.
- [12:02]
David Green
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And then I wonder how much of those big multifamily apartment complexes that they, they're building where people Go live because they can't afford a single family home. How much of that is grease in the pockets of these guys that are making the decisions? Because those big developers have a lot of cash and they can take care of the city decision makers that your regular mom and pop investor that just wants to buy a house as a primary, fix it up, move out, make it a rental. Just kind of doing this at a grassroots level. They can't compete. They don't have deep pockets like that. They can't fund this person's nonprofit or whatever they have going on like a big developer can do. Because you sure see a lot of apartments getting built in big cities still. You see a lot of that stuff going on, but you don't see any single family houses in most areas.
- [12:44]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, man, that's why I'm big. I like single family right now for that reason. Because I think that's going to become a commodity that most people don't see anymore. And if you got a bunch of those and people that they're going to kick back. Like, I'm not wanting to live in these little spaces all tied up together. You know, we still have a little bit of that scarring from the pandemic of, you know, when something else happens. I don't want to be in a building with a thousand other people. I want to have my own little privacy and my own little backyard and absolutely for that.
- [13:08]
David Green
Yeah. And you don't want to get hit with rising HOA fees in that building and special assessments. Special assessments. Because something broke and you didn't the way didn't have enough money to fix it. Because I mean, those guys just throw money at everything. Whatever landscaping company they can get to show up, they'll pay them whatever they have to pay them. None of them are stewards of the money that are coming in. They don't keep money in reserves. If they have a little bit of cash, they just throw it at whatever they have. And then when something breaks, they got to go collect money from all the people. And so even though condos can be easier to get into, they're often more expensive over the long term than actually having a single family house. Because you can control the expenses on your own house much easier than you can in a big unit like that. All right, our next question comes from JG Tech. 773. Hey, David, I have two short rentals in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What do you think about acquiring more short term rentals there or buying more long term rentals near Chicago? So this is interesting. Like I haven't heard anyone talk about buying anything in Chicago or short term rentals in Puerto Rico. Two very different options. What are your thoughts? You mentioned a little bit earlier that you tried the out of state thing. It didn't work. Well, is there a person that should do this? And if so, which areas are you bullish on right now?
- [14:23]
Nick Lamana
You know, I, I think it's always like a, an interesting question where people are like, where's the good market, where's the bad market? Because I think it's, it's almost like saying hey man, where can I get good food? It realize like so many other variables that you can ask, what do you want? Do you want lunch, breakfast, dinner, Chinese, pizza? Like what are you into? So I think like where you invest also has a lot to do with the strategy because there's good market for rentals, there's good market for flips, there's good market for multifamily. Some markets are not good. So I have, after doing this all over the country for a long time, I've learned that pretty much in every county in the entire country there's an area that you can make money in, an area you can lose money. You just really need to do your homework on what those are and if those fit your strategy for what you want. And you'll generally, as long as you plug into the right people, find maybe not the exact neighborhood or, or maybe not the exact zip code that you wanted to do that in. But once you start putting out those feelers, you can get directed by the right people to somewhere within an hour of where you are that you could probably find that working. And as far as the remote investing thing, I think short term rentals as a whole is another game that really has become something you have to really do extra due diligence on because it's not as easy as it used to be where everybody could just come in, get a vacation rental. Now Puerto Rico obviously is a place where people still take vacations and I think the key to it is understanding your market. On, is there a backup strategy? Is there regulations coming like we've been talking about for that? Because people buy these and they don't realize that in three, six months they might have to make them long term rentals. So if they're looking to do short term, I always tell everybody now run your numbers, that if you were forced to now keep it as a long term rental, could you still at least break even or is it going to kill you? Because to me I don't like that risk tolerance. The second thing would be people. What I've learned from investing remotely all over the country is you can't be an expert on everywhere, but you need to be managing the people that are there. So if you're going to do it remotely, you can't just hand it over to a property manager, hand it over to a contractor realtor and expect it to get done. You still need to be plugged in and getting reports and pictures and videos and conversations every day and every week to make sure that things don't go off track. Otherwise you buy something and then six months later you go, oh my goodness, this didn't work. And, and it's because it was remote. It wasn't because it was remote, it's because you didn't manage it correctly. Whether it's next door or across the country. I think that that's like a huge thing is making sure you understand the risks of what could happen in the market that could change it and making sure you have the right people and the right communication processes in place to manage that remotely.
- [16:51]
David Green
Do you have any parts of the country that you feel are safer or a better bet right now or any that you think, hey, this is not a place to buy? I'd avoid this one for now.
- [17:03]
Nick Lamana
For me, I feel like the most risky thing right now is high end stuff. So the high end stuff I feel like, I mean literally again to the point we just had, yet somebody emailing in going, rent shouldn't even be a thing anymore. So if you have people that are literally losing their mind because they can't even afford like basic middle income rents, when the market starts to adjust and interest rates start to go up, the higher price stuff I think is where you're going to start to see the biggest fluctuation. So I wouldn't be picking up. And again, this is just totally my risk tolerance because you got the guys out there, like the James Danish that are doing multi million dollar flips and having no, no problems with it. But I feel like that's his specialty. If that's not your specialty, don't just go into higher price homes expecting that. If it's a higher price and you're making a 15% return now you're getting a 15% return of $4 million. Who's better than you? And I also think the flip side of that, where people go, I'm going to go into a cheaper market. I still don't believe that cheaper is better because I tried the thing where you buy a $5,000 home in Detroit, and it's like, well, that doesn't really work either. So I think the key for me would be finding out through the FHA price points what are some of the median incomes in some of these markets and finding those ones that really hit that, like maybe 200 to $400,000 price point that's still affordable and that have low days on market that are under 60 days and they still have investor activity. I think. Not that it means that there's no risk, but I feel like that's where you're taking less risk, that you're not getting slaughtered by the prices coming down because you had a high expensive property at the hold and you also don't have something so cheap that you're having turnover and you can't put somebody in it and they're selling the pipes every single week. So those median income places right now, I think are really probably the most solid places that I would be looking.
- [18:45]
David Green
What are your thoughts about New York with the possible new mayor coming in who acknowledges that he's a communist and has said some of the first things that he wants to do is to massive rent control across the board and even have government subsidize grocery stores. Do you think this is all talk? Do you think this is something New Yorkers and New York investors should be concerned about?
- [19:04]
Nick Lamana
Man, you know, I. I think it's. People say things that they're going to get attention and move the needle to get elected. And then it's almost like the blowback you see now where everybody all of a sudden is turning on Trump because he said he was going to do all these things. Now they're upset. He's not. Gordon Ryan doesn't want them to be there because they're not releasing the Epstein files and things like that. So I always wonder, like, how much power do they have to really do that when they get in there? Because obviously, especially in a place like, you know, New York, you're in those five boroughs, it's like you were saying earlier, where people are trying to get permits for projects and they're trying to grease the builders because the greasers are building back the city. I feel like that is exponentially deeper in a place like New York where the amount of money that's on the line there, I feel like there's going to be people that are going to make sure that that doesn't happen. But, you know, it's a fun thing to bark about, to get eyes on you, to get people, you know, if right now you're saying I'm going to control that. One of the biggest crisis thing I think we have is affordable housing. And in a place like New York City, where housing is so expensive and it's so hard and rent's even so expensive, if you're looking to win people over on your side, I think he's got a great angle for it. I mean, whether he does it or not, who knows? But I think it's a great conversation topic to bring light to because it can't keep doing that because then people won't have a place to live. I, I, I'm always blown away when I go to places like, you know, LA or New York and you look at what the price is to live on and then you see what people have in their accounts that they're living off of one of like one broken appliance, one car breaking down, like they're one disaster financially away from being in a really bad spot that they can't afford that rent or that mortgage anymore. So, you know, I, I hope that they do something to regulate it a little bit. But now we're back to how does that affect the real estate investor? How does it affect the business owner? And I think maybe it's time to stomp out some of this stuff that's a little bit excessive and greedy. So maybe that's a good thing. He can come in and regulate in New York, but I think past that, it's probably going to fade out once he gets in there. But, you know, hey, what do I know? New York.
- [21:05]
David Green
So you think it may be talk to get elected, but when he gets in there, you think may be able to put the kibosh on that?
- [21:11]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, I think it's going to be a lot easier to talk about it than it is to do it, you know, because why haven't people done it since it's, it's been like that quite some time. And I'm sure he's not the first guy that tried to come in and make things affordable.
- [21:21]
David Green
All right, these questions come directly off of my Instagram stories. So guys, make sure you follow me @David Green, 24 on Instagram and when I post a question, you can ask it on there and it might be featured on the podcast. First off, from Freedom Driven, where are you investing and what type of investment style, burrs, flips, etc. Nick, let's start with you. How do you want to answer that one?
- [21:45]
Nick Lamana
So I have gone from a national model to more of a local model. So right now I'm investing in the Chicago Suburbs. Funny enough that the guy that just called up and asked about Chicago. I am not a big, I'm not really a big fan of the city right now. I like investing in suburbs outside the cities. I feel like they are a little bit more affordable, a little bit less competitive, a little bit less regulated. So I like a lot of that. You know, as far as strategies right now, I, I try, I'm trying to pick up more stuff, especially with creative finance type deals. But I really like the idea of collecting as many single family homes as I can over the next 12 to 24 months for all the reasons we were just talking about it, where I really feel, I see a lot of similarities between what's happening right now with the multifamily and all these big townhomes and condos that there's like everywhere across the country where I go, there's these massive, massive, massive construction projects. And all the ones that I see for the most part are multifamily. And it reminds me of 2006, 2007 when you saw these subdivisions going up for single family and it was all investor driven. And then all of a sudden the market adjusted and then all these houses were stuck there and there was too much inventory. Then they had to drop the prices, then they had to drop the rent. And I feel like there's all these syndications that came over the last few years that raise money on deals that I don't think were really great deals that aren't going to pan out. And I think they're going to get in a point where they go, crap, maybe I can't refinance, maybe I can't sell at the cab. Right. I planned on. And I think that that market's going to take a little bit of a dip. And I think the more that that starts to get overbuilt, the commodity of a single family home is going to be even more valuable. And so I really feel like holding more of them is going to play off in the next three to five years longer term. Especially like we just talked about with share housing, it sounds like a lot of the other world has a lot of shared housing things. So when somebody says the ability to say, look, look, I own that home and that's something that maybe people really can't even buy anymore, I, I think that that's going to increase your rent and increase your values. Like we haven't seen the skyrocket in quite some time.
- [23:45]
David Green
You know what I love about that perspective? You hit a really good point. That doesn't get talked about Often most investors listen to something on YouTube or social media about where are people buying right now? And then they go follow the trend and they go buy right now. And you don't know if you're buying at the peak or the valley. You just hope that you didn't get in too late. And a lot of people do. But what you're saying is, hey, I'm buying where it's going to get better in the future. I'm not worried about what the hot market is right now. I think this asset class is going to be very valuable when the market turns around. So I'm going to stock up on these or hey, we got all these people in co living because it's unaffordable. What if the economy turns around? Well, they're going to want to go buy a house or go rent something. Where would they go? What if you go get in now and you have it when they come? I think that that's a much better investment strategy overall and it's similar to how I would answer this question. I'm not investing right now. I'm selling some stuff that I have that we're waiting for it to sell. It's rough out there for in a lot of these markets before I go buy anything new right now. But I am thinking about where is there a low cost of living? I think that'll be the next wave is going to be people that say, hey, I can't afford to live in this big city. I don't get all the amenities. I'm not going to get the great weather. I'll have to deal with that. But where is gas cheap? Where is food cheap, where is housing cheap, where is energy cheap? Where can I go that everything is just kind of more affordable and cheap will be the new cool as opposed to the last 10 years where I want to be on a yacht in Miami, I want to be in Austin, Texas where all the best restaurants are. It was cool. Was sort of the best. If $120 sushi, I'm there. That must be the best sushi there is. And now I think it's going to be like, man, gas is only $202.60 a gallon. I'm in. I mean there's talk in California it's, it's going to pass $8 a gallon. They just passed another gas tax over there in one of the worst economies that the state has had. And so as people have been leaving there, they're going to keep leaving. And you may if, if new York changes the way we talked about. That's more New Yorkers with more money that are leaving New York and saying, where can I go? That it's going to be cheaper and a little more sane. That's the places I think people should be looking to invest.
- [25:55]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, I think that's a great answer. I agree, too. I think a big shift in my perspective over the last 12 months has been, you know, almost like a person is an apartment building. If you want to increase the net worth, you increase the income or you decrease the expenses. I have never been a big believer in like, you know, because all these guys spend all their money flexing on Instagram to get followers and get people to join their courses. And now I think it's to the point where like, well, yeah, but if that didn't pan out, you have to get a quality of life back by just living below your means. And I think being able to comfortably do that in a place where all of your money is not going to where other people think you're living a cool lifestyle now people are more kind of like, I don't want to look like it, I want to actually do it. So who cares what the zip code is? I'm going to go live somewhere that my money goes a lot further and I'm happy and I'm comfortable, I feel safe.
- [26:39]
David Green
You know, I love that I give people advice a lot of the time. Sometimes you can't make money there just. There isn't a lot of opportunity in certain environments to do it. So shift what makes you happy from spending money on different things to finding ways to be happy that don't cost money. How better, really? I mean, how much does it cost to get a Jiu Jitsu membership at your average gym and where your area is a month?
- [27:00]
Nick Lamana
100 to 150amonth?
- [27:02]
David Green
Yeah. That's like the best money you are ever going to spend. You know, like, it's. That is so cheap for what you're going to learn and the exercise you're going to get and the relationships you're going to build. But nothing in life will build a stronger bond with somebody than being challenged by them. Like, there's this phrase going around in psychology right now called trauma bonding. Like, oh, you don't actually love that person. You're just trauma bonded to them. And I was thinking every bond I've ever had was formed through trauma. The police academy, the sports that I played, like the. The terrible, scary things I went through as a cop, all of that formed a bond with me and Those other people, and we're very solid friends to this day. Like, sometimes we need to seek out a little bit more. Maybe don't call it trauma, but just some challenge in life and find ways to be happy that don't involve 120 sushi.
- [27:48]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, man. It's a good character building exercise. You want to be around people, you know, that aren't gonna just fold when things get tough.
- [27:55]
David Green
All right, from Tara Bird. What's the most unhinged advice for couples to be on the same money page? Deeper than just talking about it? Nick, you're not a marriage counselor. I don't believe you're married. But sometimes the people on the outside looking in have the best perspective because their emotions are not clouded. They can see objectively. What advice do you have for couples who need to get on the same page financially?
- [28:16]
Nick Lamana
You know, I think that there's a few factors to that, but one of them I always go back to is communication. And I think people sometimes communicate worse with the people that they're the closest to. It's almost like when you feel like, you know, I remember I had David Faustino on my podcast, and he was like, man, my goal for this year is to be as patient and as nice to strangers or to my family as I am to strangers. And it's like, you know, you go home sometimes and you feel like you don't really need to give that same attention to your loved ones as you do to the people at work or the people on social media. And I think sometimes somebody wants something and the wife or the husband just kind of tunes them out, or the person's not really communicating on why it's important for them to get into a better financial position or to get control of the finances. So sometimes it's not about what they're saying, it's about the way that they're saying it. And that would be the first thing I say, is look at the way you're communicating. Because if you feel like you're not on the same page, maybe you're not explaining something the right way, maybe you're not sharing it the right way. Maybe you're not picking the right time. Like, you know, I give the. The analogy sometimes where people take in information different ways. So let's say we were in Japan and I said to you, hey, where's the bathroom? And you would be like, I don't speak English. And I would say, where is that? Like, just because they say it's slower and louder doesn't mean you understand that you're not communicating the way that I understand things. And I think a lot of the times, like a marriage counselor, all they're doing is sitting down and saying, you're both interpreting the same way, but you're saying it to me and I'm interpreting it a different way. I would say communicating, not being defensive and making sure you're finding the right time, the right place to really express yourself in a place that that person can listen and understand. And the second thing I would say is, are you also the type of person who brings up all these ideas all the time and they never follows through with anything? Because that's sometimes where I see the person will come in and I'll say, well, my wife doesn't support me investing in real estate. I'm like, well, let me talk to her. And she's like, dude, he's bought 80 things in the last three months. He spent 100 grand on this. He bought this gym equipment that literally became a sock draw. You know what I mean? So it's like those types of. I think if you haven't proven to them what they're worried about is you're going to get us involved in something that you're not going to follow through with. And now it's going to become my responsibility and my problem, and I'm not willing to take that on. So communicate and also let them know that this is something you're going to commit to and take care of and they're not going to be stuck in that alone.
- [30:40]
David Green
Once you started, that isn't fantastic advice. I mean, I was expecting it to be pretty good, but you exceeded. That is really good. And that one of the things you mentioned there that I. That is a constant problem in communication is we know what we mean in our head and so we say the words out loud that make sense to us and we don't think about if that makes sense to the other person. And then often they will do what you just did. Like, I don't understand that. And we'll just say it again the very same way. And you'll see the person who's communicating getting frustrated that the person doesn't understand them, but they're getting frustrated with the person they're talking to when they could be getting frustrated with themselves. There's an element of humility that you need to recognize. It is my responsibility to convey what I'm trying to say to in the language of the person I'm speaking to. If I need to use the bathroom, I need to learn how to say that in Japanese, not in English. It is not their job to try to understand what I'm saying. And in our culture today, this comes up a lot where people don't think it's their responsibility to have to adapt to the person who's listening to them. This is why, like, podcasting is difficult, because you got to find an analogy or a way of explaining a concept to someone who's listening that isn't me. They didn't go through the same things in life I went through. I mean, I remember the first time I heard someone say, I just need you to hold space for me right now. And I was like, what. What does that mean? Like. And they just said it again. And I still was like, I don't think any man knows what that means. I still don't quite understand what hold space means. And they couldn't explain to me what they were trying to say by saying that because it made sense to them. And this comes up a lot with couples, I think when, like, a woman says, I want a guy to be vulnerable, that word does not mean the same thing to a man that it means to a woman. Like, to me, if you say, I want to be vulnerable, you want to tell me about all the things you're insecure and scared about, like, don't judge me. I. I want to tell you about, like, my biggest weaknesses or flaws. And usually what a woman means is, I want you to show that you really like me without being afraid to admit it's very, very different things there. Right? And these happen in relationships, but they happen to business all the time, too. You'll have a client that's selling their house or buying a house, or you'll have a tenant that's telling you something, and you're looking at what they are saying directly. I make this mistake more than anybody, and I forget to look at what the meaning was behind the word. That's. That's the trick when you're trying to communicate with your spouse. Like, they have some reason that they don't trust you to go invest in real estate. It could be what you just said. They don't make good financial decisions. They don't follow through with anything. Maybe they're afraid that this is going to suck you out of their life, that you're just be gonna become obsessed with getting the next house and going to the next meetup, and you're going to tell yourself, I'm doing this for my family. I'm doing this for my family. Meanwhile, your family's growing up, and you're not Seeing anything that's going on. So your spouse doesn't think that you're doing this for your family. They think you're doing it for yourself. And sometimes we got to admit there's a piece of that. Sometimes we see what other people have on social media. We see the picture of them at the title company signing and another 14 units under contract. I'm so cool. Look at me. And it makes everyone else get that fomo. They want to get in and do it. And you know what we don't see, Nick? We don't see the foreclosures. We don't see the investors money in the syndications. We don't see that. That 14 units you bought, you bought with somebody else's cash. And when the property went bad, they lost their money. That part doesn't get posted. So I've been saying this for years, that some of that FOMO people have is not real. There's people, I mean, I know a lot of people that raise money that are just getting kicked in the teeth right now. And there's not much you can do. When cap rates went from four to eight almost overnight and you can't refinance it and insurance went up, like, just the whole market turned against the investors. That stuff isn't getting talked about on most real estate podcasts. And it's hard for me to get someone on here who wants to come in and talk about deals that went bad. And I'll add this. I don't think my listeners like hearing about deals that went bad. I get complaints sometimes. Like, you used to be so positive and encouraging, and now all you do is talk about deals that went poorly. I don't want to listen to this. I want to go listen to the person that tells says the deals that worked. And I understand that. I don't know what to do with it, though, because they're fluffing things up to look better than they are. When the market was great, I had a lot of great stories to tell. Everything was going up. Rents were going up, valuations were going up, information was going up, software was getting better, making it easier to do this. Information was getting spread around. Everyone did good. It's sort of not. It hasn't like completely stopped, but it has slowed down a lot and there are a lot of people losing. So let me know if you're listening to this. Do you hate when I share the nightmare deals and stuff that went wrong? Do you guys just want me to figure out a way to get back to, like the one deal out There that someone bought that did work. And then we just pray that they weren't lying because I think that there's a lot of that that goes on too. They give you numbers and then you dig into it, you're like, oh, wait, that's gross, not net. You're not actually making 80k. Like you're saying that's just the total rents that get collected. Good stuff, though. What advice would you just give overall to somebody who's like maybe two, three, four years into this? They bought a couple houses. It started good and now they're struggling. Do you see a lot of that? Do you think that there's too many people in our space or do you think people just need to stick with it?
- [35:55]
Nick Lamana
Man, I think sticking with it is the key. You know, anytime that I've been struggling in real estate or the market has been challenging and I wound up going, you know what? I got to sell some properties within three to four years later. Those properties all did really well. Like, if you can find a way, you know, obviously in the. It's different. If somebody got in, like, way over their head, they have negative cash flow, they can't pay their bills, and by all means, like, survival is always number one. You know, you got to get that hand off your neck. You got to survive. The challenge showed before you can go on the attack. But if it's something that's maybe it's not performing as well as you had hoped because you had an unrealistic expectation in the market turn, but maybe you're breaking even, you can handle a little bit of that loss. I still think long term, with the exception of maybe like Airbnbs and short term rentals, because that is a little bit different. But the values of homes like historically have never not bounced back and been in your favor through 2008, through the pandemic. I mean, look how much volatility there was. And generally, if you're patient, real estate tends to be very, very forgiving.
- [36:54]
David Green
It's a great point. Very good point. Thanks for that really good insight. We're gonna have to have you back on here more often, especially if you promise to wear that yellow shirt. I mean, right now. All right, moving on to the next segment of the show, this is the comment section where I share comments directly off of YouTube and other videos from Trent Barga. I'm a Realtor and an investor here in Dayton, Ohio. You won't lose if you invest in the right areas. Like all investing. You'll get cash flow and appreciation. But don't Expect massive appreciation. Things are relatively stable currently, and we are seeing some price declines for homes that need improvement. If a home is updated, it will sell fast. Now, this was in response to people saying that the market is crashing. What's your perspective on what you're seeing out there? You're in New York, right?
- [37:40]
Nick Lamana
I'm in the Chicago suburbs.
- [37:42]
David Green
Why do I always think you're from New York?
- [37:44]
Nick Lamana
I. I am.
- [37:46]
David Green
You move from New York to Chicago.
- [37:47]
Nick Lamana
I'm in New York. I'm just currently in the Chicago subros, but I'm definitely still claiming New York.
- [37:51]
David Green
I mean, you can. You can beat up pretty much anyone that you want and you just move from New York to Chicago. You sound like I brought a kingpin from the underworld onto my show with just like a smile that glistens. Do you have a criminal background that we need to be concerned about?
- [38:07]
Nick Lamana
No. Thankfully, no. Maybe, you know, my younger years, a couple of, you know, Park After Dark tickets, things like that, but nothing crazy.
- [38:13]
David Green
All right. From net worth zero at 23 minutes and 50 seconds. Spot on. Airbnb could implement a policy that if a guest goes in and throws a proper A party, they will be banned from booking again. This is from an episode that I did on, like, short term rental chaos. I advocated, Nick, that Airbnb needs to police the tenants way more. They are very hard on landlords. And tenants have sort of figured out if I go in and just start making complaints, I can hold these guys hostage. I can get a big refund for normal things that any property could have wrong with it. And the people who want to keep their five star reviews tend to just give them whatever they want. So you think you're booking a five star property? You're probably not. You're just booking a property that that owner has fought to protect that five star review by giving away money. And I think Airbnb needs to do a better job of like, if there's a party in the house, all the people that registered it on their account shouldn't be allowed to do it or they should get a bad review and they should not be able to book houses, like, because landlords can see it. And that was in opposition to banning actual short term rentals in neighborhoods. I hate that idea that we're going to say you can't have a short term rental in a city near the beach, so that family has to go rent a hotel when it could be just a husband, a wife and two little kids that want to go walk in their floaties down to the beach. But Because a couple people throw parties, it ruins it for everybody. What do you think about my advice and do you have a different idea for how we fix this? Like airbnb bad name.
- [39:47]
Nick Lamana
I 100 agree with you. I think it's like, you know, it's, it's a problem where, you know, I, I recently rented a few Airbnbs and it blew me away because you really lose do live and die by those reviews. And there was a couple of houses that I was like, man, these look like great houses, but I don't see enough stars and reviews that I don't feel confident. And I didn't rent it because of that. And the fact that that system holds so much weight and the system seems to be rigged in the hands of the consumer who is taking advantage of it, I think is a massive problem. Like, even when, like, you know, we've all been there where you, you rent an Airbnb, you're trying to have a relaxing time, and next to you there's 18 people in the backyard drinking and going crazy up to three or four o' clock in the morning. And it ruins your trip as well. And now you're going like, that's not the owner's fault. They do screening. Like, they call me. I've had trouble renting Airbnb because they're like, well, your credit card statement doesn't match this and how do I know? And I'm like, where is that policing for the 18 people in the house next door to me? So I think there definitely needs to be some standards and some consistency between that, because I'm all for protecting your investment, not only for the house you're in, but the consideration of all the people around you. And the brand is an Airbnb in a whole. I think if you can police that and get it a better reputation, you won't be seeing all these crazy regulations as much.
- [41:05]
David Green
Yeah. And this is going to be triggering to some people. I think that the short term rental hosts are going to love it. But some of the people that are not hosts that maybe stay, they're going to think I'm being negative. But, bro, if we're going to start sharing on this show examples of things that guests complained about so you can see what it's like to be in my world. When I open that app, I will sometimes see a complaint, always from a Karen nine things that they were able to find wrong with this cabin or this beach house. And it's like the picture on the wall of the hallway was tilted a little bit to the side, there was a hair on the rug in the kitchen. Like the little like memory foam mat you stand on before you get into the free fridge. God, what are some other ones? Like the, the, the shower curtain wasn't completely even. Like the cleaner had left it more lopsided on one side than the others. And it was a bad first impression. Like you're in Hawaii or you're in the mountains on vacation. Why are you looking for things that you could possibly find wrong? One of them was about like the condition of inside the washing machine. That's like very new. It's like a couple months old. They like open it up and like the seal where it would normally close had like a little bit of gunk from whatever comes off the clothes. Like, the cleaner hasn't cleaned the seal of the. And they like took three pictures and I. And I'm pretty sure what they're doing is they're hoping that you'll throw them a discount because they could find something wrong. But this is like worst human beings ever that want to figure out a way to get something cheap, cheap by just ruining their own vacation and the host life because everybody has something wrong and somehow. So we're going to start sharing some of those stories so people can see, like, well, how this has gotten out of hand. And I think that like Airbnb needs to have some kind of way of tracking this. Guest asks for a discount this percentage of the time, you know, like 75 of the time, this guest will come back and ask for a discount on something so that the host can start saying no, or they can start adjusting like who they're letting in. Because if you're an amazing person that shows up and you take great care of the property, you clean it up, you don't get rewarded at all. That's the problem with this. Like, I have a cleaner who shows up and they're like, oh, it's only 20 minutes and I can be in and out or whatever the case may be versus the person that trashes it. Well, my cleaner doesn't say, david, I'm not going to charge you as much because it was a light clean. So I can't go back to that guest and say, hey, I want to give you a discount because you are amazing and you kept it clean. But if airbnb would change the way that they do this and you could be like, wow, this person left took incredible care of my property. And they're like a five star guest, maybe you offer a 10, 15% discount to the guests that Have a certain review that don't ask for things that are ridiculous. So I would love to see that. I don't work at Airbnb. Maybe somebody listening to this will consider that from accounting. La Vida Laguna. My neighbors have a short term rental next door and it's a pain, but the landlord has it in their listing that if the police are called, they lose their security deposit. That's interesting. Have you heard of this?
- [44:09]
Nick Lamana
I have not heard of that. I like it, though.
- [44:12]
David Green
I wonder how long that'll be legal. It just sounds like something that they'll never let people keep doing. But that's a really good idea. You lose your deposit if the police have to be called. I mean, yeah.
- [44:21]
Nick Lamana
Why isn't it like Uber? In Uber, we get rated and, and the drivers can refuse to pay. Pick you up if you're a problem. I'm blown away that, and that's a short car ride. Somebody's going to stay in your house for days and days and days. Like you should have the right to. You paid hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for this asset and you're just forced to, like, have no say in whether or not these people come in. That could potentially trash your expensive asset. That's your, literally your business. You know what I mean? Like, a restaurant's allowed to not let people in if they're rude customers or they didn't pay the bills or they're disruptive. Like, you can get banned from restaurants. Like, why can't you get banned from VRBOs and Airbnbs? Like, I think there absolutely should be a customer rating system. And getting the cops call Genu, that's, that's a pretty big one. Where it should be like, hey, you get the cops calling you three times. The problem is not the hose. The problem is you. You better go get a Marriott.
- [45:11]
David Green
Well, if you guys like this conversation, you should go check out this video. It's on my YouTube page. David Green show. My point here was that because we don't let police be police, we don't let them take care of the situation. What happens is the neighbors all get mad at the owner for what the the guest did, right? Like, nobody wants to confront the person causing the problem. So we're like, look, let's just get rid of the fact that it is an Airbnb. Let's go after the person that bought the house, fixed it up, invested in it, made it worth more, made the neighborhood better, and is trying to run a business. Let's punish them as opposed to the people that show up at the business and trash it. That it's mind blowing to me that that's the road that we've taken. But this is what happens when you won't address the thing that's actually the problem. And who's getting police called to their house every day. If it's that serious that has to happen, there should be very significant consequences. And if you are the one renting the house and you let people in that act like fools, it's your responsibility to get them out. You, if you can't blame, hey, I didn't know that they were going to show up. That doesn't work anywhere else. No restaurant's gonna let you have a whole bunch of hooligans show up and start breaking stuff in the restaurant and throwing things around. It's these houses that we act like they have immunity and they could do whatever they want. And then it just, like we said, it hurts the entire industry. All right. From 3L JOANI12 keep up the good work, David. You do much more for us than what you think. Respect from Quinn Alford. Thank you for speaking the truth. I appreciate you. And from Sharp Home Solutions, David, can you connect me with your faith based mastermind? Thanks, brother. Yep, you guys can find out about that at Instagram on Spartan underscore faith or you can DM me on Instagram faith and you'll get the information about the group that I lead weekly from LH Dev. When interest rates fall, it definitely causes increase in prices because more houses go for sale. Yes, but that means the same people selling houses are entering the market to buy houses. And that causes bidding wars like what happened during COVID The only people who really win when the market is like that is those with cash. And who has cash most of the time? The investors, landlords and flippers. So everyone has their opinions for what's going to happen, but nobody knows. But to say the rates will drive the prices down or stay the same is foolish considering that's how we got in this mess. This was from a video where I was sharing an opinion of somebody else and what they believe, Nick, was if rates go down. Let me see if I can get this correctly. It's gonna. It's not gonna cause prices to go up because if rates go down according to their opinion, more people will put their house on the market to move, which will increase supply, which will either drop the price or keep it steady. It's a logic I haven't heard. And my argument was, well, even though more people will put their house on the market, they will have to go buy a house. And so that's sort of like a moot point. But do you think there's anything. I'm like, do you see a world where rates go down and prices of real estate doesn't go back up again?
- [48:10]
Nick Lamana
No, man. Like, I 1,000% agree. I mean, and history has kind of taught us when the people are sitting on the sidelines waiting to get in for when the rates go down. And I think when the rates go down, prices and competition go up. I think the, it'll benefit you if you have a loan that you can burr and then refinance into a lower rate. But I, I think it'll be good in that sense. But to get in at that time, is it. I think it's going to be tough. I, I don't see prices. I mean, I would be shocked if lowering interest rates made prices come down.
- [48:41]
David Green
I. The thing that I don't think anyone's taken into consideration when we look at housing, and it makes sense why they wouldn't be, because for the last 10 years, maybe longer, we haven't had to worry about this is the labor market. You could drop rates to 3%, but if everyone is not working or they're afraid they're not going to have a job, you don't have a lot of people looking to buy homes if tenants can't pay their rent because they all got laid off. You don't have any way that landlords can make money from these deals if people aren't visiting vacation rentals. You see where I'm going? They. There's this, like, one Achilles heel in all of real estate investing, and it's that we only really have one way to make money from our businesses, and it's rent. And I am concerned about this. And I've been playing a lot of videos on YouTube Live about, like, what's going on with the economy, what's going on with the big beautiful bill, President Trump's sort of like, approaches of fixing the economy. Because I am so concerned about the labor market, I want us to prioritize over everything right now. How do we make sure people have jobs? How do we make sure there's something for people to freaking do? Because if AI comes in and just washes out a bunch of jobs at the same time, and then companies start laying people off because we go into a depression at the same time the AI is laying people off. Your tenants can't pay rent, you can't make your mortgage, a whole bunch of foreclosures hit the market and now it doesn't matter what interest rates are, it doesn't matter what the tax code is. None of those things matter if you don't have a floor put in place to protect. And I have been getting some people that are irritated that so many of my videos have Trump in them because obviously he's a polarizing figure. I just can't help that he happens to be the sitting president. Like if it was a different president talking about the economy, I'd be covering what he's going for. And I want to sound the alarm that more people need to be paying attention to the fact that we can't take it for granted that we've had jobs the last 10 years. It could go away. We've outsourced a lot of those jobs and we may need to be bringing them back and we may need to get people that are younger that are like, hey, I'm willing to enter the labor market at the bottom. I can't be graduating college and expecting to be coding a computer for 160 grand a year like we had in Silicon Valley when I was living over there. Otherwise all of this talk about real estate that we say might be sort of a moot point if people can't pay their mortgages from Ga Joe. Great video. I like how you bounce off the daily news programs that does come off the YouTube lives on the David Green show on YouTube and Art of Realty Group says technology is great, but at what cost? I'm with you David. What's going to happen? You wouldn't catch me in a self driving vehicle ever. I'll drive myself. Thanks. This was me saying that I am bummed about these like waymos and stuff that everyone's all like, oh, the car drives itself. It's like I, I have a form of add, man, I need stuff to do. My brain's got to be thinking about things. I like driving cars. I like controlling the accelerator. I like using the turn signal. I like moving the steering wheel. I like driving. It is relaxing to me. What is your thoughts on if we all just have self driving vehicles and we never get to drive cars again?
- [51:37]
Nick Lamana
Man, I, I think that with the issue of control, I think people like to be in control of things. I think that we're getting too much to the point like where does it again, where does it end? Where AI is doing a job for you, the car's driving the car for you. Like at what point do we start to, over thousands of years, start to evolve the wrong way as humans now because we're not using our brains, we're not using our speed senses. So it definitely concerns me that everything's leading towards automation because I feel like this is part of where people don't want to take accountability for stuff. They don't want to have responsibility for stuff. They don't want to pay rent, they don't want to get a job they don't like. All this stuff keeps going down to. We're in a generation where people can push a button and have everything done for them. And I, I don't really like that long term. You know, I think that there needs to be something. The only counter to that I would say is as efficient as that might be. What are you using that time for? So the only time I see it making sense is if there's guys that are like, man, I'm so busy. I have all these things going on. I decided to get one of these self driving cars. But it's so I could work on my app, I could work on my business, I could take on more clients where I think most people are trying to do less so they can scroll on Instagram more, which is not productive. And I think that's leading us towards the movie idiocracy. So I'm all for efficiencies. If you're going to be using that time productively to help yourself evolve as a better person or a better businessman.
- [52:59]
David Green
Well, who's doing that, Nick? It's just more dare you, sir. You're doing it. You went and got yourself a black belt, right? You're, you're out there working hard every day. I don't think that's a majority of people that are like, oh, I don't have to drive. I could study thermonuclear dynamics. Now I think they're like, oh, I can scroll Instagram and TikTok with less guilt. I don't have to wait for a red light anymore. That's what I'm. There was a study that's, that was just done about. They did these control groups and this is amazing to me. And it was like three groups. I think I remember two of them were people that use Chat GPT and people that don't. And they found that people that have been using Chat GP for the last couple months have already seen a decrease in the part of their brain that uses critical thinking.
- [53:44]
Nick Lamana
Already.
- [53:45]
David Green
Atrophy. Yeah. It's like everyone is so excited about this. I remember reading there was like a Facebook post going around of a person that submitted an application for a job with terrible spelling and sounded really stupid and using like modern day slang. And everyone was critical that they were too lazy to have Jet Chat GPT make their resume. And I, I was thinking, am I the only one that doesn't want that? I want this person to submit a resume that looks like that because I don't want to hire them thinking that they're not that way and then have them work in my company and figure out that they are like this. What's happening is like a lot of kids in school are having Chat GPT write their essays and they're being given questions about critical thinking that they don't want to do the exercise for. So they just have a large language model, write an opinion paper and they read it and they submit it. Well, if you're in that like formative years where you're learning not what you're supposed to think, but just how thinking works, how logic works, how to look at things differently, you're letting this muscle atrophy when it's supposed to be developing. It's kind of scary. Like, do you have any concerns about this reliance that we have on. Oh, it did it for me. Leading to human beings that do sort of spin into idiocracy like you mentioned?
- [55:00]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, big time, man. It's kind of like we were talking earlier, like the, the trauma bond, like that comes from something where people bond about being able to find solutions to problems. I mean, like in jiu jitsu, if every time I was put in a choker in a bad situation, I was able to hit a button, just get out of it. Where am I exercising my muscle of working through tough situations or problem solving? And you know, I think that that's the art that most people. That's where that experience comes in. Like, if you're not getting the experience by learning about how to solve a problem problem, how are you getting better? How are you evolving? How do you even know? Like, and how, how does the good even feel so good if you didn't work to get that win? You know what I mean? I just, I think you're cheating yourself of a really good human response and emotion that should be earned, that really sticks with you and forms who you are as a person, as a personality. And I feel like it trickles into everything, even now, like outside, even from the critical thinking. The fact that people like my, my friend's kid, I was going to take him to jiu jitsu and I was like, what are you doing this week? He's like, I'm hanging out with my friends. I go, cool, where you guys go? And he's like going, we all log on to the computers at home for the same time when we all play games together from our own homes. And I was like, you guys don't even go outside and meet each other. Like, you're not hanging out. You're like, like, so they don't have that personal skill. They don't have that interaction. And I feel like now you're talking about also losing like critical thinking and account. Like I, I think it's making us a mold more dull version of who we were meant to be as people.
- [56:31]
David Green
It's a great way to put it. Yeah, you're. You're blunting the edge of the knife that you see get sharpened.
- [56:35]
Nick Lamana
Yes, yes.
- [56:37]
David Green
Which will ultimately be sad for everybody, which is why I'm not a huge fan of it. And I keep saying that. And the people that are excited about it get mad at me, but I don't think they're gonna be mad when everyone's rocking around like a dull, boring knife and we're like, what happened? And I'll point it back to the David Green the Green show when we had Nick yellow shirt this is the real news report. The first article is about some good news going on in real estate. Comes out of Market Watch the one thing that's driving home sellers bananas right now and making buyers happy? Falling mortgage rates aren't the only reason that buyers are celebrating. Aside alongside falling mortgage rates, the number of homes for sale in the US has increased significantly over the last year, giving buyers way more options and a reprieve from an overheated housing market. But sellers are growing increasingly frustrated. Homes are taking longer to sell than a few years ago and sellers are compelled to cut prices in the hopes of getting an offer on their home. About one in five sellers cut their asking price in May. That's the highest share in at least nine years. This is when the site first began tracking the data. The stat showcased the housing market's u turn over the last few months as the pandemic era home buying frenzy faded away. The market has largely been frozen over the last few years as homeowners clung to their ultra low mortgage rates and decided not to sell. But even that phenomenon, known as the lock in effect, has begun to ease. Housing supply has surged in many parts of the US in pandemic boom towns like Denver and Austin, housing supply has exceeded pre pandemic levels, meaning there are more homes for sale today than there were on average between 2017 and 2019. In Denver, the housing inventory has doubled from before the pandemic. The company's chief economist, Danielle Hale said the rebound in inventory provided a clear sign of a housing market realignment. For buyers, the flip has been a boon. Sentimental home sentiment among buyers has improved considerably with 26% of respondents, but to a May survey by Fannie Mae saying it was a good time to buy a house, the highest share in three years. Nick, are we in a seller's market, a buyer's market, or some kind of transition?
- [58:36]
Nick Lamana
I still think we're in a seller's market as far as if you price your house the right way. You know, I still deal with it all the time where I talk to sellers and they use some unrealistic number and they talk to a real estate agent who's promising them a price that they really can't get and they're still living in the glory days. And I think people are getting frustrated, but it's an unwarranted frustration because I think the stats that they're sharing. I just had a great conversation with Eric Brewer about this, this where people were like, oh my God, the market's tumbling. And he goes, well, why? What's going on? Like, have you seen days on market? It's like, no, no, tell me what's going on. They've doubled, they've tripled. Well, from what? Well, I mean last year, 18 months ago, it was seven days, now it's 21. It's a, you know, so it's like we were in this fairy tale and I think people that haven't been around for 10, 15, 20 years and we're used to 90 days on market and still pulling out things and used to having to actually work to get your offers and have to actually improve your house to make it a little bit nicer and actually get a buyer in there. That's what a normal real estate market is. But the people that were only looking at fairy tale, you're not going to be able to keep comparing it to the fairy tale we lived in for a few years where you could basically do nothing and sell your house over asking in three days. And the fact that they're not getting that, they're not spoiled anymore, they're saying that the market's going down. I don't think it is. I think it's getting normal. But you know, if you price it right, especially if you're looking at your basic middle income homes are in middle income areas and it's not like a terribly rehabbed home Most of them I'm still seeing sell with like very minimal price drops and pretty average time frames.
- [60:10]
David Green
Yeah, I have found there is a very. And I didn't notice this as much when I was buying and holding real estate. I noticed it more when I was working as an agent and helping represent buyers and sellers. There's a ph balance to the market that has to be right for transactions to to occur. Obviously if you have way too many buyers and not enough sellers, you get a crazy overheated market. But you're still going to have houses that sell. If you have way too many sellers and not enough buyers, then nothing really sells. That's. We don't need to cover that because that sort of speaks for itself. You want a form of equilibrium, but there needs to be a little more demand for homes than there is supply. Apply. Just ideally you have a slightly more people that want to buy a house than there are houses for sale. And the reason you need that is when you're buying a house, it's scary. We're not talking about investors, we're talking about just people. That's the majority of people who buy houses. They're going to live in it. And if you think that the market's not going to keep getting a little better, it's hard for you to face your fear of buying a house. You got to have some upside and you're not going to have prices increase unless you have a little bit less supply than there is demand. My fear is when that goes the other way, even if it just dips down a little too far below, it starts to keep going. It slides like demand continues to drop. And then everyone starts to think, oh, like I don't want to buy a house right now because it's going to be cheaper next month. And where does that end it? You create a self fulfilling prophecy of a market crash because buyers all move at the same time. They're like a flock of birds that goes in or they come out. And if that does start to happen, it slips from a seller's market into not only a buyer's market, but like a nothing market. And now just regular people who needed to move and sell their house, they're stuck. They can't. You start having people say, hey, I don't want to own a house anymore. If I can't sell it, it's losing value, I'll just let it go. And everyone else sees people at their houses go. And this is what triggered the 2010 crash. Now that was related to mortgages. This one's not as like I said earlier, I just hope that this isn't a crash that's triggered by the job market and the rush of AI before we're able to adapt and figure out ways for human beings to work. It could just be way too many people hitting the market looking for a job at the same time when there are no jobs. And it might trigger that scenario that I'm worried about. Let's pray that that doesn't happen. All right, and our last article here comes from MPA Mag. Real estate investors are taking over the US Housing market. Investors are scared scooping up homes before buyers even have a chance as housing affordability worsens. This is a way that the person who writes this article can get people who want to buy a house and can't afford it to just hate real estate investors. Which leads to videos like the one that we saw in the very beginning of people saying you shouldn't be able to own a house and rent it out because they read these articles. Affordability challenges are continuing to weigh against home buying activity across the US with home prices remaining stubbornly high and mortgage rates showing little sign of of a protracted slide so far this year. While that means plenty of would be buyers are sitting on the sidelines as they wait out the current volatility, one potential client type for mortgage brokers is remaining a potent force in the market. Real estate investors. They are continuing to snap up properties and expand their market share. Between 2020 and 2023, investors accounted for 18 and a half percent of all home purchases, according to batch Data. But in 2025, that jumped to well over 26%, spurred by strong activity at the beginning of the year. What's more, a turbulent political environment across the US in the first half of the year, foreign investors in the real estate market are remaining largely undeterred. That's because US real estate alongside gold, is a hard asset that's proven especially robust even amid wider economic volatility. So there are people that are still buying houses in our country that don't live in our country because they see US real estate as more valuable. Does that change your opinion? Nick of when we get hyper focused on what prices are doing this month compared to last month, that maybe we're losing sight of the big picture that other people see.
- [64:12]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, it's exactly what I was saying about like long term, even if you have some dips here, like real estate is very forgiving overall. And I think that like this, this is a great example I gave of when people talk about, you know, Miami or some of these markets that are, that are going to go down short term because of insurance and stuff. I just went to Orlando. I spent like almost a week there for my niece's volleyball tournament. And as I was walking around, I started looking at, you know, I'm at Jiu Jitsu, I'm at the coffee shop, I'm at the convention center. And I'm listening to conversations. And the conversations are not just in one language. They're in like 15. And then you go to the theme parks and there's 20 different languages and there's all these different cultures. And then you remember that the United States housing market is not just run by people that are here. It brings in money and people in tourism from all, all over the world. You know, I see it with tax liens and stuff. You watch these people that default on tax liens. You look at their address. Half of them live in other countries, you know, and I think that that is a. A big piece. You go to California tax deed auctions. The bidders are all like international bidders. So this is where I think long term, we're good. And it's another reason why I don't think we have to worry that much about things getting too crazy with the market not doing well. Because even if rates drop down, even if the average home buyer gets six scared or hesitates about that, they're talking about investors in that article. But people forget, like, it's just not the mom and top investors, those big funds that are buying everything, like, they'll buy stuff like a higher cap rate and come in and they'll buy blocks. I remember in 2008 when the market was crumbling and they came in and they bought like they beat me out on everything. So rates come down, they're going to pick up that buying anyway. And now people are going to be forced to write because they can't get the holds.
- [65:49]
David Green
That's my concern for the people. They're saying, well, if the, if the housing market crashes and everything forecloses, that's good for me, I'll go buy it cheap. You might. If it goes like IT did in 2010, where the banks took the assets back, they listed it on their balance sheets as real estate owned. They went and listed it with the real estate agent as reo. That would be good for all of the regular people that are shopping for houses on the mls. That'll be good for all the real estate agents out there that want to make their mortgage payments. I don't know that that would happen. I Think what would probably happen is these huge, huge, huge private equity companies would just buy them all right off the bank in one big go. That's like what they're looking for. They don't want to analyze a bunch of houses individually. They're like, yeah, we'll buy 4,000 of them. And they grade them like a class B class. They're not looking at inspection reports like us. They're like, I don't want to take the time. How many of them can I get and what price can I pay for the whole bunch? Because they can raise money cheaper than us. And that's now inventory that no one will ever touch again because they'll probably hold it forever. So I am not rooting for this big wave of foreclosures. Like you see. Some of the people are that are hoping for another 2010. They're like, hey, I'm flush with cash. I'm waiting. It's going to crash. Might not. It might not ever make its way to people like us. And now that just becomes corporations that own housing stock. All right, before we move on from the real news report, just a reminder to everybody, please keep your thoughts and prayers for those that were in the deadly flash flood flood in Central Texas along the Guadalupe River. Horrible tragedy just happened out there. A bunch of young women lost their lives as well as some of the camp counselors. Crazy how that comes out of nowhere. But if you've got some time today, take a little time out of your day to hug your loved ones, to tell them you love them and to pray for those that were affected by this, that they would not give in to despair. All right, moving on to the next member of the show. This is some clips that I want to share from one of the short term rentals that I manage in the Smoky Mountains. And we had a bear attack, a hot tub, which I wish I could say was the first time that it happened. And I wish I could say it was the first time that it happened on this cabin. Unfortunately, it is the third time that this exact same hot tub has been attacked or the COVID at least from a bear. And I'm wondering if it is the same bear. It's like one of those things where it just. They. I think maybe they smell the chlorine. I have no idea why these bears are doing this or what. Maybe I can put out here. If you guys are listening to this and you have some bear deterrent ideas. I wonder if there's like a thing that makes a sound if they cross it or something that they don't like. So that's one of the pictures of what they just tear up in the middle of the night. And then I got another one here. But you can see that they just like ripped right through the COVID there. And you've got all that insulation that's shown. And we're starting to have bear appearances on the David Green show every single time in different cabins where these guys are showing up and in this case causing a little bit of. Of havoc. All right, we're going to finish up here with some before and after photos of another one of the cabins that we manage in the Smoky Mountain mountains. This one's a 8, 000 square foot cabin that can sleep up to 26 people. I'm gonna see if I can share the pictures here. So if you guys are watching this and you can't see the photos, I would just advise you to go to YouTube where you can skip ahead in the show to this section. And you can see. Oh, that isn't. There we go. This is what it looked like before we had some of the work done. That's like a little man cave in the back. That's a garage that was converted. This is the kitchen before. Before I did any decorating to it. That's the front of the house. It's really nice looking property. It's got this like Brazilian cherry wood all throughout. Lots of bedrooms, big house, sleeps a lot of people. One of the nicer ones, it comes with access to a fishing pond and a swimming pool. One of my favorite ones to stay in. It's just so big. This is what the game room used to look like. I recently did a lot of work to fix this one up. This is like Silver Strike and Golden Tea. So I had these video games that. They're expensive games that go with it. But it did not look very good the way that I bought it. Just this whole room is just white and boring. And we had a couple bunk beds in here. Let's see if I can find another picture of that game room. There's a close up of it. So it's like it's a nice amenity to have in a house. But I don't think that picture is getting anybody's blood pumping. It just was sort of not marketed very well. That's the movie room. This is what it looked like before. So it's a big movie theater. I think you can seat 1585 inch TV screen. Screen. Like really nice area. But all that drywall just made it look boring to me. I didn't like it. This is the parlor where you've got pool table and poker and some bookshelves. And so we went in there, and I was actually there a couple months ago working on this sucker. And now I've got some newer photos that we just had taken. I don't think that these are professional yet. I think that these are just ones that we took with. With a camera of our own. Now we have. I'm going to hire a photographer to go in there and do it. This is, like, the outdoor kitchen area. These are what the bedrooms look like now. So hung some stuff on the walls to try to break up some of that white drywall. New bedding, new pictures, or I mean, new blankets, as well as some new pictures on the wall. I got all this on at Hobby Lobby. Like, almost everything that you're seeing here stuck with the ranch style, because we call this one burning tree ranch. All right, so this is a fire pit that we had built in the backyard. It used to just be, like, this little guy sitting right here in a couple chairs. So now we've got, like, cafe lights and these oak wood barrels that we put the posts in. And you can't really see because this is in the middle of the day. But this was only, like, a couple thousand bucks. It actually was a lot cheaper to do than I would think, and it made that space a lot nicer. This is what the movie theater looks like now. So we painted it black, painted the ceiling black, added these LED lights around here, and I didn't even change hardly anything else. So then I put some, like, black face paints or face plates on. Big difference to me. Like, these aren't even professional. These are just shots that we took with our phone. But I think that when you're looking at the photos, it's going to make a big difference when it comes to booking the property. With these, like, different lights and a little bit of decor that you can see up here at just the black room looks way better for a movie theater. There's also some curtains that will hang over these lights here. I don't know if I have a picture that shows those, do I? I don't think so. Here. And this is what the game room now looks like. So I went in there and I added that. We painted it, picked out those colors, added these pictures that we all got on sale at Hobby Lobby. I go on Facebook marketplace, and you just find people that, like, have old stuff that they need to get rid of. And I was able to buy these arcade games, and then, like, the rugs. I got that foosball table. I just basically moved it from the man cave that was downstairs. Brought it up here. But like, it's a crazy difference with just some paint and a little bit of like decor. You can see like the stuff on the walls there. Much more appealing to kids. This little area where the chairs are is where I move those two arcade games that I described to you earlier. I don't know if I got a picture of those. I'll see if I can find one. But that's like a whole different section with its own picture now. And then I added new bedding to these bunk beds instead of just the white beds. And then I got two more bunk beds added. I don't know if I have a picture of those though. I don't think I grabbed them. But we increased the sleep count. Yeah, there's one of them. Put that in this. And then I added another bunk bed on the other side there. I'll see if I can get a picture to share that. But it looks very different with just this little difference. And the bookings like pretty much started coming in pretty quickly after having these added. Have you ever done the short term rental thing, Nick?
- [73:48]
Nick Lamana
No, that's one thing I never jumped into.
- [73:51]
David Green
Well, I don't think that you're going to regret that right now because it's a very difficult market. People that people that have had them for a while, they're doing okay, they're not doing as well as they were. But I think a lot of the people that got in and bought them recently, the problem is when you're running the numbers, you're running numbers of like what they've done, but you just don't know what they're going to continue to do. And that's what makes the short term rental market so tricky, is like you don't know where rents are going. You just know what they are or what they've been. And that's hurt a lot of investors. They got into a space that they were kind of new to or even if they were just doing really good with short term rentals once they got them, then they had this really big shift where the rents that are coming in are not what they were when they were buying them. I. You kind of got to look for where you can improve your property without spending a whole bunch of money. So like, my eye tends to look for that. Like, hey, we could just paint this thing and it will look a whole lot better than if we do nothing. As opposed to like maybe building a completely brand new movie theater room that may not make sense in today's market, but if you could do something to improve the efficiencies of what you've got, that'll make a big difference. Nick, thank you for joining me today. Appreciate your insight, appreciate your personality and your time. You want to tell people where they can go to follow you if they want to follow the AAME podcast or get a hold of you?
- [75:13]
Nick Lamana
Yeah, I appreciate that man. Thanks. And I always appreciate the time to connect with you and hang out, man. So thank you for having me on. But if you want to go to nicknicknick.com Links L I N K S you can basically see all the ways to connect with me. The podcast, I'd say right now, YouTube, Instagram, those are probably the most active right there. But yeah, Nick, nicknicknicknick.com is my email if anybody wants to reach out to me there. And if you're looking for any deals, you can text me at 5165-4057-3351-6540, 5733.
- [75:41]
David Green
There you go. Let us know in the comments what you thought of Nick today, what you appreciated about him being here. If you would like to rent out that cabin or one of the other ones, you can go to Instagram and just look up, see CTC getaways like coast to Coast Getaways and you can reach out there, tell us that you're a fan of the show and we'll work on getting you the David Green show discount. And you will have a blast in the Smoky Mountains. Love that area. A lot of fun, especially if you've got kids. Go stay in a cabin, make some memories, have a good time and listen to my podcast while you're there. We appreciate you guys for listening. I know you could be getting your information anywhere and I'm so grateful that you're getting it here. Please remember to pray for the victims in Central Texas and we'll see you guys next week on the David Green Show.