← The David Greene Show
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- [00:00]
A
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.
- [00:21]
B
Hey.
- [00:21]
A
Hey. What's going on, everyone? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. I'm David Green. This is the David Green show, and I'm joined today by. By Josh Shriner and Oklahoman, who I recently met at. What would you call that, Josh? Like a cigar lounge?
- [00:33]
B
Yeah, just a cigar night. A meet and greet.
- [00:37]
A
Yeah, we meet it. We greeted. I didn't smoke anything, but I did leave smelling like cigar smoke. And it turned out that Josh recognized me when I was walking around. I guess a couple other guys did, too. And he started telling me about what he's up to in Oklahoma real estate, and I thought this would be a good story to come share in the show and inspire some people. I think you guys will really like that. Josh is involved in real estate, but he's not only doing a thing, he sells houses as a real estate agent. He flips houses, he buys rentals, he does Airbnbs. He sort of takes the deal and he converts it into whatever the best use for that deal would be. And this is something that I really like. I know for years people were given the advice, not always by me, that you need to pick a niche and stick with it. And I think that's good advice when the market supports that. When there's tons of fish to catch. Yeah, you can specialize in trout, but in today's market, we're trying to. We're trying to not die. We don't want to starve. So if you can find a deal, the more tools you have in your tool chest to make that deal work, the better your odds of survival so that you're around and your competition's not when the market picks back up and there's a lot of fish to catch. So Josh has been gracious enough to agree to come on and tell his story, and I'm appreciative of you being here, man. How are you this morning?
- [01:45]
B
Oh, I'm doing wonderful. Thank you for having me on. It's exciting. Yeah.
- [01:49]
A
Is that map behind you a map of the city of Tulsa?
- [01:52]
B
It is a map of Tulsa, and you can't really tell, but we have little pins for the houses that I've sold as a realtor and then the ones that we flipped. So it's a work in progress. Yeah. My wife did all that she does.
- [02:05]
A
I like that. I should have asked if a woman put that together, because men don't. We're not smart enough to think of ideas like that.
- [02:10]
B
Yeah. I'm in a little co working space, like a 4x6 closet right now, so she made it feel very cozy and cool.
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A
Did your wife also do your hair today? Because it's looking fantastic as well.
- [02:22]
B
I would now. That's the only thing that I can take credit for.
- [02:26]
A
That's how you got your wife in the first place.
- [02:28]
B
Yes, exactly. No, she's. She's. All my friends have said I've transformed over the last eight years of being with my wife, so I've come a long way.
- [02:38]
A
Dude. I love hearing that. It's one of the things I noticed when I moved to Oklahoma is that people get married and they have families and they have kids and they like kids. They don't treat them like an external tumor. They came out of themselves that they have to deal with. They. The women like men. They're respectful. They don't see you as an adversary. The men like women. They open doors for them. They compliment them. They're protective of these. Like, everyone gets along so good. And I visited because I'm from California. I know this has nothing to do with real estate. I just want to give some hope to some people out there that might be in a situation like mine.
- [03:11]
B
It's all connected.
- [03:12]
A
Yes. Yes. I was just so discouraged and didn't realize it because people don't get along. Where I was in the Bay Area, California, there's an adversarial relationship between men and women that's not really spoken about. It's just normalized. And you deal with this when you're dealing with real estate. There's little cutting remarks that come across. A lot of the time, kind of everyone sees each other as an enemy off the beginning. And then you have to learn to build trust and maybe get a friend. In Oklahoma, it's opposite. They treat you like a friend until you prove that you can't be trusted. And then word gets around really quick who's a snake and who's not, because there's not a lot of snakes. You couldn't do that in California because it's a land of snakes. Right?
- [03:49]
B
Right.
- [03:50]
A
We got the head snake of all, Gavin Newsome, running the show, and Then all of his little baby snakes that are running around. So it is just so nice when you're a full time real estate person that you have the opportunity like I did, that I could leave and I could go to a place where people seem to love God and love each other and that they're treating each other from the beginning like they would want to be treated. And it just makes business so much easier to deal with and life so much easier to deal with. So I'm glad I got to meet you and I look forward to get to knowing you better.
- [04:17]
B
I agree and I. This is kind of separate from the real estate stuff, but it's all connected because family and it all, it's all connected and intertwined. But we were in, in the Bay Area as well for a couple years and it just isn't for. Yeah, we were in Santa Cruz. So I don't know if you call that the Bay Area, but I'm labeling it that it wasn't set up very family friendly, especially just our work environment. If you don't come in with quite a bit of money or, you know, we're, we're leaving for work early in the morning whenever it was dark, and then coming home when it was dark and we're like, we can't. If we want to have a family, we can't. This isn't super sustainable. So we wanted to kind of figure out life, do the real estate thing. And we figured moving to Tulsa, we're like, well, you could worst case get a minimum wage job and probably be fine for a while if things don't work out in real estate. And that's nice because I started out as an agent and I'm kind of jumping in now, but didn't have a sale for six or seven months. So it was just also was a perfect environment where it's pretty cheap cost of living. At the time pre Covid, it was basically free. So we've loved it. Now it's, it's, it's an easy place to raise a family. It's a great environment, people are nice like you said. And, and the marriage part is more smiled upon than frowned upon.
- [05:39]
A
Yeah. And I mean marriage affects business to your happiness levels overall affect your productivity. And when you have a partner who wants to see you win, they're like, look, how can I motivate my husband? I'm going to put this map behind his head at the workspace station. And, and every time he sells a house, we're going to put one color pin. And every time he Buys a house, we're going to put another color pin. And as a man, our brains are kind of wired to respond to progress. We. We like when we know what the goal is and what the mission is, and we're reminded of it. It's going to keep you in the frame of mind to win. And she looks at it like, hey, the better he does, the better our family does. I'm on his team. It's not the adversarial. Well, if he's doing good, then I have to do good too. I have to do better. He sold a house. I need to get my license, and I need to sell, too. And no one ever says it out loud but you. I see you smiling. You sen that sort of undercurrent. That can happen in a lot of different cultural areas.
- [06:33]
B
Right. And it can naturally happen, especially with a wife or husband who's very motivated. She's very motivated. She loves having something to do. So that's why the flips are perfect, because she. It takes the best of her strengths and then my strengths, and we clash sometimes, but we figured out over a couple years how to. How to balance that out, how we work well together, what she does well, what I do well, what we each do poorly. And it's. It's worked really well. So I love it. And I think that's why it's intertwined with the family. Now our daughter can get involved, or at least she can't do much now she's three, but she can go on the work side and see what mom and dad are doing. So it's. It's all connected.
- [07:16]
A
I love that. I've often thought about someday, hopefully. I have a kid, and I have this image in my mind of sitting him or her on my lap and showing her the computer and walking her through. This is the program I use for this. This is a spreadsheet. This is why we use spreadsheets. This is what organization is. Here's an example of when you're disorganized and you forget to pay the person that cut your grass and your grass gets too long. And so these are ways we don't forget things. And taking them with me on appointments, like when they're old enough. Right. I think at 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, there's kids that can understand. I'm walking in this house and I'm looking to make sure that there's a space that it could be added onto. Where did you see a space in here that you think we could build it out and letting them say the wrong thing and then showing them, well that won't work because of this reason. But where else might you see? And then kind of teaching their brains how to look at the world. For years, I think that is how people pass information onto their kids. And we shifted out of that into the culture that you and I are familiar with. And everyone listening where we drop our kids off at some somewhere else called school, we let that person tell our kid how to think. We pick them up and bring them back in our world. And we hope that by osmosis they learn to think how we think. And we get very frustrated when that kid hits high school and develops independence and doesn't make good choices. But they never had our frame downloaded into their brain. They never learned to see the world the way we do. We didn't really give them the confidence about how to have conversations. I feel like my kids should hear me on the phone with other real estate agents or other people and watch the way that I hold my ground on some things and I, I give in on other things. And the way you do it, like people pick this stuff up. So there's a lot of just. I see with parents anger and frustration that their kids aren't pocking the path they want them to walk in. But I look at the parents behavior, I'm like, why would they? You didn't really show them anything. It's terrifying to them. This is not what they're used to. With your own childhood, did you have parents that kind of like introduce you to real estate or is this something that you walked into on your own?
- [09:20]
B
This is something I walked into with the help of more. More. My father in law, my dad was great. He had kind of more of a normal job, somewhat flexible. But I didn't come from a very entrepreneurial family. But my wife's family was very entrepreneurial. So my father in law was the one that was, was kind of put the bug in my ear to become the real estate agent. He's like, you're great with people, this could be a good one. And I was like, I didn't even know you were allowed to be self employed unless you came from that. I thought it was illegal. I just had no concept of just going out and figuring out on your own 100% commission, you eat what you kill. So that's whenever we were moving to Tulsa and I was like, I don't know how this is going to work. Hopefully I can make a sale in 12 months. Otherwise we're gonna have to figure something out. And so we did that. And our goal coming to Tulsa was to be able to get a lot of rentals. We were listening to podcasts like yours and through 2017, 2018, 2019, I was like, that sounds cool. That sounds cool. I want to do that. And then we were like, let's, let's actually commit and do this. And Tulsa seemed like a great environment for that. And my father in law's been, he's been in all different forms of real estate. So I was constantly like just checking in with him, hey, do you think this is a good idea? This sounds smart. He lived through 08, so he lived through a lot of that stuff. So he's less leverage friendly. And I think that's good balance to have.
- [10:49]
A
Yeah.
- [10:50]
B
Is growing quickly, but also wisely. So hopefully that answers that question.
- [10:57]
A
So when you, you're at this precipice of do I want to go all in, eat what you kill, or do I want to stick to the W2 job? I find this fascinating because I sort of live in a world where we're encouraging people to get into real estate more. And what usually tethers people back is either their spouse is not interested, they don't want to, or they can't leave the handcuffs of their W2 job. So this comes up frequently in my world. How do you help people with this transition where they want the freedom of a 1099 World and no ceiling. They can go as high as they can go, but they also want the security and stability of a W2 job with a nice stable floor where, where they can't fall. How did you navigate that emotionally to get to the point you're in now where you're 100% in real estate, but you're just doing it in a lot of different ways to kind of mitigate risk.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, some people don't hate their job enough or don't dislike it, and that's great. Some people love the security of, hey, I go in, I get a paycheck, they tell me what to do and that's great. I have benefits and they enjoy their job. I just didn't and I hated it. And I felt like no matter how hard I work or how little I work, it doesn't really change anything. And that was just a weird, purposeless feeling like I'm basically just. There's not much point to what I'm doing. And I was even doing sales and it still felt like that. So I think what I tell people, because everyone sees flipping and they see it as kind of the sexy, fun Thing and, or they see rentals and they're like, it sounds like a good idea. Should I try that? And I tell people just to go for it. I walk them through, hey, I'll send you a house. If there's something that doesn't work for me, I'll send it over to you. You don't need to go make a million dollars on it because you already have another source of income. So it's a really good setup for people that already have W2 to kind of get their feet wet, especially if they enjoy their job. Uh, maybe they start out with a rental, maybe they go do it on weekends. Uh, you gotta put in the extra time the, the weekend work. W2 people aren't used to that typically. Um, so you just gotta put those extra hours in if you actually want to commit and go for it. And that's the weirdest part about transitioning from W2 to self employed is that you're gonna work a lot of random hours. And that's, that's tough for people to wrap their minds around. Cause they like just being done at 5 and having the weekends to themselves. And that's not, that's not how my job is. Mine is the most and the least flexible it's ever been because I, I can pick any of the 20 hours a day that I want to work, but I still am working constantly.
- [13:37]
A
That's, Is that a quote you came up with yourself? Is that a job?
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B
Yeah, I think some people say 24, but I'll leave in four hours for sleep. But I mean people that know me, it's like I'm, I, I, I'm answering calls all the time. If a lead comes in, you're not gonna not answer that. So it could be 7, 8pm so that's just how it works. And I enjoy every second of, for the most part, every second of it. And I love it.
- [14:01]
A
What you're describing is how human beings, my subjective opinion, are wired biologically to be. It is a happier state of being to work all day long. But work is kind of like subjective, right? I think about the 9 to 5 OSHA regulation, government intervention, creating this workflow of you work five days, you get two off, you only work these hours. If you do more, you get overtime pay. You have to be locked in this place. That's a relatively new way of doing stuff. Now for us, we think this is normal. So there's some people listening that for feel like this is heresy. You're, you're advocating for like hustle porn or you Want people to be slaves. I don't think that someone who hasn't lived this understands. You feel less like a slave when you're doing it yourself. Like, I've noticed this first when I would look at ranchers when I was like a teenager. I'm like, man, these guys just work all day long. All they do is, like, work. But I would also notice that part of work would be like taking the kids fishing. Part of work was like taking dirt bikes out to do stuff or riding horses around. Maybe they go hunting and they shoot the coyotes or maybe they shoot birds that they eat that day. They are technically, depending on how you define it, working. But they're not like shoeing horses or bailing hay or just like, physically exhausting things the entire time. There's a mix here of relationship stuff where they're helping the neighbor with their field and it has nothing to do with them. But now there's relationship capital. So when they need work on their house, the neighbor comes over to help them. And I swear, they just seemed like happier people. They were healthier people. There's way less arguing, there's way less fighting, there's way less blaming in these houses. Everyone sort of thinks about, our job is to survive. And when you're in this humble state of, we don't want to die, you're happier. And then you contrast that with what we've moved into, where you're only working 40 hours a week. You get to say, that's not my job. That person has to do it. Wrong department, Send it somewhere else. You would think these would be the happiest people there is, but they're not. They go to work every day and they're frustrated and irritated with anything that has to be done. Their mind is wired to make that someone else's responsibility, someone else's job. 4:59 is on the clock, and they're waiting to sprint out the door at 5 o' clock to go home and do what? Like sit there and watch TV or something? I get that people who are in that framework hear us talking. I think what we're talking about is bad. I would ask people to maybe take a step back and think about if the 9 to 5 is actually making you happy or if it's teaching you to be unhappy. Unless someone else does something, destroying your own credibility, taking away your ability to learn new things, which I think you can agree, a lot of joy comes from when you take on a new challenge, a new obstacle. You figure out that thing, it feels good, you feel more confident. As a man, there's another thing. You know how to do that that's missing when you're like, this is my job. All I do is a transaction coordination. I don't touch anything else. Man, that's got to be scary. If you're like, what happens if our leads dry up? And I can't do that anymore. And I don't know how to fill out a purchase contract. I don't know how to work with the client. I don't know how to use the mls. I don't know how to flip a house. There's all these scary things in the world that terrify us. Until we learn how to overcome them, then life feels better. Can you just talk a little bit about, like, the peace of mind or maybe in your experience, the opposite of doing a whole lot of different things versus when you had a W2 job and what your experience was like there?
- [17:37]
B
The peace of mind of the security of having other stuff, having other options to make income. Is that what you mean?
- [17:43]
A
Yeah. And kind of being the captain of your own ship.
- [17:46]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [17:46]
A
Is it better knowing that you control your destiny and there's things that will have to be challenged and you'll figure them out? Or were you happier in a W2 job where somebody else figured it out and you just showed up and did what you were told?
- [18:00]
B
No, I was not happy. I felt like I. There's times where I didn't know what I was doing, but there were. Most of the time I'm like, I could do this way better and I have to rely. Even if I got a sale and I passed it off to the back end team, they'd sometimes screw something up. And I'm like, well, why am I even running around making all these calls if I can't? Even if people behind me I can't even trust? And so now doing it all on my own, for the most part, I mean, there is a good time to get employees and people you can train, but for the most part, it's myself and my wife. And it's so satisfying knowing that everything runs through me for the most part. And it's, for the most part, in my control. There's obviously outside circumstances, but it's just a huge. Having that ownership is huge. And I think it's something that people don't realize till they're in it working for someone else. You just don't have much ownership over anything. And I think ownership is like, what makes us human. And it's so exciting. It's kind of like whenever you see someone else's kids and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't know how they stand that. They're acting crazy, they're doing this and that. I just couldn't ever do that. And then you have your own kid and you're like, this is the best thing in the world. They're acting maybe sometimes just as crazy as the other ones, but it's your child and it's a completely different feeling. It's the same with business, with work. My father in law always says kind of a cheesy phrase, but he'll say, I get to work, you get to work. Instead of like, oh, I have to go work. It's like, we get to work. And it is, it is such a difference maker. Whenever you're excited about what you're doing and you're excited about work, because I don't think work's meant to just be grueling. Even though it is hard, it's, it's not meant to be frowned upon either.
- [19:49]
A
Well, if you accept that it is going to be hard in one way or the other, it's going to be hard because you have to do it and you don't have security. Or it's going to be hard because a communist dictator has taken over and is forcing you to do it. Hard has to happen because in order to get food, labor has to be done. In order to have a place to live, labor has to be done of some kind. Right. The system we have now affords people the freedom to choose their hard. The danger I see now we're kind of getting into politics here. Is there is this little, or maybe it's not little, it's loud message that it shouldn't be hard, that it should be easy, that someone should provide it for you, that it will come from they or them, whoever they are, we don't know. But like there's all this money somewhere and they should share it with you who isn't working. And if you're given the option of it could be harder, it could be easy. You're going to pick easy. Most people are going to, unless they're smart and they see through that. They're going to like that. Now what happens is you become disenfranchised with the freedom that you had that at one point you were thrilled with. You're like, freedom to what? Have a hard life. I want the easy life. And then everyone starts to move to the easy side. There's not enough people doing the work that's hard to support the People on the easy side, you end up in poverty. Then you have a dictator that has to come in and say, you have to work. Boom. You have a communist dictatorship. It seems like this is the danger. And I don't know that everybody has had it explained this way to understand that it's going to be hard, right? There's maybe a short period in the middle where it can be easy for you. That leads to the bad. Hard. But embracing the hard, looking at it like, you get to work, you'll be in a good mood all day while you're doing the work. Kind of like the rancher that I brought up. And I think this is the right way to look at real estate. Right. I had problems when I had a real estate team and I'd have people say, it's my job to open the door. I'm the showing assistant. I shouldn't have to talk to the client. I shouldn't have to answer that. I shouldn't be looking this up on the MLS. That's their job. Well, that person's trying to close 12 deals. So you have doors to open. It would be in your best interest to help them out and find something out on the MLS and tell the client rather than complaining, it's not your job. Because when they have to do it, that's one less door, one less client for you to work for, because that's a whole less paycheck to have. But you get this like virus in your head of, I'm being taken advantage of, I'm not being compensated. This isn't fair to me, and at least a disaster. So what I really liked about your story is that you're doing a little bit of everything, however it comes. You don't look at it like, this isn't my job. That's not what I do. You look at it like, this is real estate. I do real estate. I'm going to figure this real estate thing out. So let's get into some of the specifics now of kind of all the different things that you're working on and then we'll ask you about some of these deals.
- [22:36]
B
Cool. So currently we're working on about. We try to do flips are just a way for us to get capital for our long term buy and hold. So we're working on about 50% flips and then a few long term rentals and then a few Airbnbs right now. So we have 11 or 12 going on currently. That's the most we've ever had. So this year's been kind of nuts. And we're figuring out some of the systems in place to make it a little bit smoother. We have a few different general contractors right now that, that handle our properties, so. So I'm not having to run around quite as frequently picking up stuff at Home Depot, but. But it's good. And then, so I manage the general contractors and some of the subs and then the acquisition side. So as far as leads that come in, I, I handle all that. I handle all the people stuff. And then Kate, my wife, handles the, the design and all the aesthetics of our flips and, and rentals. So she's amazing at that. And she comes, she was. She grew up in the west coast, so she has an eye for the cool. That kind of the. I don't want to use the word trendy, even though I'm saying that well, like what's fashionable ahead of the time, what people are going to like. Yeah, yeah, yep, exactly. So she always, she's always a few steps forward of whatever's cool around here. So that's really nice having her. And then, you know, at the, at the beginning, whenever we started flips, it's hard. And I, and I'm sure males and females, like husbands and wives, will relate to this quite a bit, but she wanted to buy the more expensive stuff, make these houses amazing. And I'm like, Kate, this house can only, no matter how amazingly we make it, it's only worth 200,000 at the end of the day or 220. I'm like, let's. So we got to be, we got to be conscious of that final value and we got to still be within budget. And so she's got amazing at actually staying in budget and picking stuff that's still cool, but not high end or not having to knock down this wall or that wall, but realizing like, okay, the neighborhood can only support this value. So we got to be careful of how much we're putting into it. And that's one of those areas where we could have gone different directions and she could have just been fed up with it. Like, hey, I don't want to work on this house unless we're making it amazing. And I'm like, hey, we can still make it really good for the person that can buy this price point, but we just got to figure out how to make it cool and budget. And so that's something that she's got really good at. And now I can basically trust her with everything. And she typically uses kind of the same fixtures and finishes we'll use Some of the same granites. And so it's made it a little easier to be able to handle 12 rehabs at once. So that's the specifics right now I've heard from others.
- [25:33]
A
Tulsa is a bad market for Airbnbs. I don't know this for sure. How come to ra you sharing what the challenges have been, what is working, if it's a good market or not. Just kind of educate me on what.
- [25:46]
B
It'S like owning them cool goods, probably relative. And a lot of people are like, what's going on in Tulsa? Or our other market, broken arrow that. Why are people coming around? I never know why people are coming to these houses. I don't ask each person, but we've, we've had two for the last five months or so and they've been booked up pretty non stop. We're probably not making the same profit on them as maybe some other markets. It's probably not making the same as it did three to eight years ago. It may not be as amazing, but it's. That doesn't mean that it's not working and that it's not really good for our needs. I basically just try to find the, the really good locations the house is in, in good spots and cool areas, maybe walkable to restaurants or shopping. And those are the houses that I'm going to hold whether it's a long term rental or a short term rental. So I'm like, let's furnish it, make it a, make it Airbnb and see how it goes and just go all out. I think what a lot of people do is these are probably the secrets, but a lot of people do is they'll go, the people that say it's not working, they'll maybe have it in a not great area or not prime that aren't very walkable or whatnot. And they'll go buy furniture at Walmart or Target the same as every single other Airbnb because they're just trying to cheap out and just buy the most basic stuff. They'll paint the house white and gray and then they'll say, oh, it's not working. And you know, they're not trying, they're just halfway doing it. And that's what my wife's really good at, is making it just amazing. Some people do themes, we don't really do themes, we just make ours really cool. And so you gotta make it stand out. And then I feel like 90% of our messages within the first hour of someone walking in as well. This house is so Much cuter than even what we imagined on the pictures. So that's just a really cool feeling. And it just showcases, like, if you make a really good design, you make the house feel cozy whenever they come in, and then you just respond and you communicate well, then you can have a profitable Airbnb. It doesn't. Yeah.
- [28:01]
A
So you're saying, if I'm hearing you right, it's not so much the area or the property or the deal it's in more. So did you design it well?
- [28:10]
B
I think that's a huge aspect of it, is, did you design it well? And the area is pretty big, too. That's a big part of it. But I think if you design it well, so that their expectations aren't high and they get there and it's like, oh, this is all cheap stuff. That's not comfy.
- [28:26]
A
Well, the area, of course, is going to be a big piece of it, but that's one of the easier things to get figured out. Word of mouth. You can kind of tell what areas to avoid, what areas people want to visit. But the design part is not as easy. It's kind of like a skill you got to develop or even maybe like a talent. You have it or you don't. That's never been my strong suit in real estate. I was more of a number guy. A deal guy.
- [28:49]
B
Yeah.
- [28:49]
A
A creative person, but making it look pretty. I would always go to someone else, be like, what tile should I use? You know, like, I'll go find the cheaper price on the tile, but I'm not the guy that can pick it out. And I'm sort of in the middle of getting better at this right now with some of the properties that I have in the Smoky Mountains in Florida, where the market is tough. Your competition is crazy right now, and the only way you get the booking is you have the most appealing thing. So what are some design ideas you can share that you have found are working for yours, like, at a high level that you think would benefit other people in different markets?
- [29:26]
B
I think just taking a step back from some of the cheaper stores that everyone's buying, I like to go to. I don't like to. But a good example we always use is Target. I feel like most people just go to Target because they assume it's trendy and it's cute and it's safe, so they'll do that. Or Costco, and those are fine if you're. They're going to be the same as everyone else's furniture. They're not that comfy. So we go to some of the hiring stuff, and sometimes we'll use Facebook Marketplace to find some more antique or like vintage style furniture that's a little better quality but pops a little bit more. So I know recently what's been working, and it's not going to stay the same forever. But the dark colors, the moody vibes. A lot of people were doing white and gray. That's really stark white and then gray, obviously. Get away from that stuff. And the stark whites. I think that's what males typically do. Apologies for stereotyping, but I know I would do it if it weren't for my wife. I walk in these, I'm like, we need to do a little creamy off white. We need to do some dark. You can do some dark, like moody vibes is what is what we call it. Some dark greens, maybe dark blues. And then there's like rust. We do rust on our tile for showers. So some things like that. And then I know a lot of people use gold that maybe don't go super bright on the gold, but do like more of a brushed brass is where things are headed, at least in Tulsa. So not the super bright stuff, but the stuff that's. I don't know, I think they're called more earth tones.
- [31:09]
A
Yeah.
- [31:10]
B
A little more subsequent. Yes.
- [31:12]
A
Yeah. There's like a classiness to it. It doesn't scream, look at me, look at me, look at me. Like the really bright stuff. It's funny you say this. I've noticed, like, specifically with the Smoky Mountains, where I'm always looking at cabins. What'll happen is someone will stumble upon something that works. Other people will see it, be like, oh, I like that. They will start to do it over a couple years. Everyone does the same thing. Now. It doesn't work anymore because my brain is being inundated with that thing. Someone does something a little bit different, it catches the eye, and everyone goes to that. So it will always be a moving target because the person looking to book the property is being inundated by all of these different things. Like, I'll give you an example. When I first got into it, it was like wood paneling every. All wood. It was like someone threw up wood all over the insides. It was wood siding, wood roofs, this wood. And bears, wooden bears, pretty much everything that you saw. But people wanted this. They wanted to feel like they were going to a cabin 10 years ago.
- [32:16]
B
Yeah.
- [32:16]
A
And then some people started to figure out, okay, let's take the trim and do it. A different stain than the. The normal siding it kind of popped. Looks newer, looks nicer. Looks like they put more effort into it. That's what people would go for. And then people started to say, you know, maybe we don't need to do all wood. Let's add a little bit of drywall, a little bit of wood. Let's mix it together. We can get some color schemes. It catches your attention. You're like, oh, that doesn't look like just wood. Puke. There's a little bit of thought that went into that. And then people started painting the wood paneling. I'm seeing that a lot of the time. Then people started to take their first picture and do this, like, Thomas Kincaid looking twilight shot, right? With like, it looks like that glowing cottage with the lights. You know, I can't describe, right?
- [32:58]
B
Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.
- [33:00]
A
Yeah. And that was like, oh, wow, that's your initial shot. Click on it. Boom. I want to see that. Now everyone's doing that. It's everybody's first shot, right? You gotta. You're constantly trying to get something that the buyer or the tenant isn't seeing. When they get on Airbnb or VRBO and they're hammered with the same stuff all the time, whites and grays just became the de facto that looks good. And as men, we. We go to the restaurant, get the same thing every single time. We like that consistency. We like that predictability. We. We like to systemize it. And it. We're lazy, frankly, is where that comes from. And so now you're starting to notice thoughtful design, which is not my favorite trend in real estate, because it's not. My strong suit is winning. And I just wanted to highlight. I'm having to adapt. I'm having to look for patterns I didn't look for. I'm having to try to figure out how would I get a rug that would match this and that. Oh, I'm asking people questions all the time, like, or I'm looking at other pictures and I'll send someone a screenshot and say, where would I get that thing right there? How would I tie this together? So I love that you mentioned it. And it's also kind of cool that you got your wife on your team who is good at this, that can make up for areas where people like me would suffer, right?
- [34:11]
B
Yeah, it's huge. And we aren't. Most of our flips, we like to sell them quickly. So our price points are 200 to 275. So that's. That's basically what we're dealing with we're not doing the high end stuff. So that's also a little different. Is getting very thoughtful and creative on a budget friendly or being budget friendly.
- [34:33]
A
You're getting squeezed on every side. It's not enough to just be like, yeah, blow it out, make it nice. Well, there's not much to do that buyers don't have money.
- [34:40]
B
Yeah. So it's fun. And it's kind of easy to set yourself apart because at that price point, there's so many flippers doing the same old stuff. So that's fun. People, people notice ours and it's been really cool. That's the key.
- [34:52]
A
That's what I wanted to highlight. If you're on Zillow, you're looking at houses. You're a home buyer and you know you can only afford $250,000. You're looking at all the 250,000 three bedroom, two bathroom houses in the area and you're looking at white and gray, white and gray, white and gray. Right. Every house looks like Eeyore bought it and made it into his own thing.
- [35:11]
B
Right.
- [35:11]
A
And then you find one that's like, wait a minute, blues and greens. Right. Or a black and white checker pattern or something like, oh, they broke up the wall by putting this type of thing in. Or like wallpaper is sort of made a bit of a comeback because the wallpapers aren't as they used to be. It catch buy. And you're like, and you don't. No buyers thinking like we're talking. It's just your subconscious says that one, go look at it. I'll schedule it with my, my agent. And then they go there and they don't know that they're looking at a 200 set of wallpaper on a wall. They just know it looks better than the other ones and they think it's their best option. That's all. Buyers are looking for their perceived best option. When a tenant is staying in your Airbnb, what is my perceived best option? So I frequently said this when teaching agents, learning to look at the deal from the perspective of the other side is the best thing you can can do. You're selling your house, make it appeal to a buyer. You're buying a house, make your offer appeal to the seller. Stop expecting the world to look at it from your perspective, which is side note, kind of a disease I think we have in America right now of, you need to know how I feel. You need to listen to me. This is how I see things. And you, I demand to be heard when no one really cares what other people. Right. We all care about what we think. So that's some good stuff. Now what about these flips that you're doing? Are you using the same designs as your short term rentals or you kind of have a different strategy for, for these?
- [36:31]
B
Our flips and short term rentals are pretty similar. We do get a little more crazy with our short term rentals just because there are some can and you can go people, people are more comfortable with staying in a house for a week. That's, that's out of their comfort zone and it's a little wild looking than they are like committing to buying one. So we go a little bit crazier typically on our, on our short terms and then our long terms we go a little more simple in the stuff that can maybe last for 10 years in terms of a style. And then on our flips we've realized that typically wife's have more of an opinion on the style. Of course we all probably know that. But they're also more comfortable in the guest bath. Let's say we have a three bed, two bath. They're more comfortable in the guest bath having a crazy, poppier, louder color, something more fun in the guest bath tile than they are in the master shower or the primary bath shower. That's something my wife caught on to. Is like hey, that they're, they like the idea of it but they don't like to commit to it in their primary bathroom. So we go a little more subtle, a little more normal, maybe slightly more subdued color in the, in the primary shower. That's one of the things we've noticed that's, that's worked really well. But then we can get fun. They get their taste and their pop of color in the, in the guest bath.
- [38:07]
A
That's a great piece of advice there. We need to clip this and make sure we air it that you don't want to roll the dice and be too pushy with something as big as the master bathroom. That's gotta be a hit. It's gonna sell. The house kitchens and master baths are I would think probably like the two biggest pieces that you need to get right when someone's buying it. But if you want to do something that's kind of the scroll stopper like oh wow, that sets you apart and you're gonna roll the dice. The guest bathroom you can. Because if someone doesn't love it, that's okay. They're not going to be using it. Yeah, it's not a big deal. That's a great. I've never heard anyone say that. That's awesome.
- [38:39]
B
Yeah, that was, that was my wife, Kate. So she, she caught on to that and I was like, that's super interesting.
- [38:45]
A
Shout out, Kate. The great way to go, Kate. That's awesome. Where are you finding some of these deals? Either flips or short term rentals?
- [38:53]
B
I have a website, so one of those. I mean, I'm not a we buy houses, but I have a website and I work with some guys that do the SEO for that website. So basically whenever you type in the keyword sell my house fast or something like that in Tulsa, I'll pop up there and I get some leads through that. Every once in a while I get them through other realtors or as a realtor, people that have called to maybe list their house. I've got a couple through them. Like I walk through them and I say, hey, I could, I could buy this. This really isn't in the state to list it, so I could buy this. And then there's wholesalers throughout Tulsa that I work with that have brought me deals. So it's a little of everywhere.
- [39:40]
A
Any advice for if people should get a website? Who should get a website? Is there a level of commitment that someone should have before they spend the money on it or is it it relatively simple?
- [39:49]
B
I would say it's not relatively simple. I would say it's kind of like the Airbnb is. Don't go cheap and don't try to just do the thing that a million other people are doing because it won't work and Google won't care about it. And you need Google to like you. So work with the people, try to find people that are actually delivering value, not the ones just trying to sell you on. And whenever I say delivering value, there's the SEO or the Google Ads, the Google pay per click. Try to find the guys that do that day in and day out for real estate and have them set up a website for you to help you rank so that Google's algorithm will like you, because that's where everyone's searching. So if you try to do that on yourself, you could spend so much time and it doesn't really go anywhere. I know, I tried that for a while and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know anything about SEO. So find people that do know it. It'll save you a ton of time.
- [40:51]
A
Now you mentioned you're getting some from the website, some from word of mouth. Are you doing anything off the mls?
- [40:57]
B
No, I've done one. We call it our Zillow flip because we saw it on a Sunday on Zillow and I was like, we gotta go see this. And we bought that. I don't do anything off the mls, though. I don't. It's. As of right now, I have enough going on that I think it would be a waste of time. But I think it.
- [41:17]
A
People, maybe a local wholesaler, a person you've known for a long time, someone's grandma died, like, you just, you have roots in the area, so you're getting kind of organic, people bringing stuff your way.
- [41:27]
B
Yeah. A lot of probate, a lot of parents have passed away, and so they're calling, you know, two or three different, as is home buyers, things like that. Yeah. Or they're just, you know, their house has fallen apart and they don't want to throw it on the market because it's. They. They can't move out until they sell it.
- [41:46]
A
So I'm a proponent of this strategy for agents, for flippers, for everyone. I just have a hard time getting it to pick up traction, but I think it's the best one. Everyone goes to the conference or takes the course to learn. The hack is how I look at it. Like, what's the right website, what's the right lead source? How do I make this easy and systemized? Right. I want to put out something that gets automatic leads, and then I want AI to talk to the person so I don't have to answer my phone. And I want a voice to go and negotiate the deal and get it this close. And I don't want to be involved until the seller's ready to sell for this price. Then I'll just show up to close the deal and sign it. And then I want to just auto decorate it with grays and whites. You see what I'm getting at? It's. It's really that W2 virus sneaking into this 1099 world of I want passive income, I want it automated. I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to have to do it. I want to play League of Legends. I want to be left alone. I want to do my own thing. Right, Right. But the people that I see doing well, I will say, how did you get that deal? A wholesaler brought it to me. Okay, tell me more. Well, there's a wholesaler. He's this young 23 year old that really hustles and he doesn't know anything. So he comes to me for mentorship. I'VE been talking to him for nine months. He brought the deal to me. Because you know what to do with it. Oh, then that's not a wholesaler. That is a relationship you built. Investing in a human, caring about them, putting in work ahead of time, organically. That caused you to jump to the front of the line in their head. When they got a fish on the hook, you're the first person they thought of. Right. How'd you get that lead? Oh, it was a referral. What does that mean? Well, I met this guy at a pickleball tournament three years ago. We hit it off. He knows I do real estate. I know he does taxes. I send him a couple people for his CPA business. And then when his neighbor wanted to sell their house, he told his neighbor about me. Oh, that's not a referral. This is a intentional effort that you put in to getting to the front of this person's mind, and you benefited them before you asked for something back. Human beings like this, we tend to scratch the backs that scratch ours. We tend to work with people that we trust. Being a human of good character is the best business model I've seen. It's better than the. I want the website and the AI and all these pieces to be put in place. As a guy doing this reasonably successfully that doesn't have to work at W2 and is supporting a family. And as you know, you're only getting better. Right. I think I talked to you. In three years, you're gonna be doing even more. What advice do you have on the character side of things for someone who may be struggling because they're avoiding taking a bite out of this apple?
- [44:24]
B
Yeah. And what you touched on a minute ago was huge because it is all relationships. I called one of the guys a wholesaler, but for I was an agent. I've been an agent for five years. For those first two and a half years, I didn't do a flip, but I. I worked with this one guy who would always ask me to write them offers at like, you know, 50% under ask price or asked me to do all this extra work, asked me to look up tax records, all this stuff that didn't amount to any amount of money for me. $0. As soon as I had done my first flip with someone else, I realized, wow, this guy's the biggest asset because he's been working for two or three years. We've been working together. I've been doing all this grunt work for free, and now he's actually sending me all these leads that he's getting. And so we were able to basically partner. So really it wasn't so much a wholesaler, but it was a long term relationship. And I always treated him fairly and kindly, took his calls even whenever I knew it wasn't going to make any money for me because I saw the long term future. And I think a lot of people are so short sighted that they don't realize that hey, if you care about someone and you give them attention and you care about what they're doing, you try to make them successful, it could actually benefit you. It may or may not benefit you in the future, but it could. So I think that's a huge part of character if you do what you say you're gonna do and more. So I think that's a big part. I've never went under contract with someone and then had to back out for any reason other than unless it's like a seller's issue. But anytime I say, hey, this is the price I'm doing, or hey, whatever I say I'm gonna do, that's how I do it. And I think that's huge because there's so many flaky people and people are working with people that'll just back out or. So it's huge.
- [46:22]
A
And maybe the first time someone meets you, they don't know that you're different than others, but after that transaction they do. And if you do this for a year, you might not see a big result. In fact, in many cases, if you're shady, in a year you'll do better than the person that's honest, right? And then people figure it out. But in 10 years, in 20 years, in 30 years, if you plan on doing this for a long time, that reputation is what causes all the other people to bring their deals to Josh instead of someone else. He said he'll close, he'll close. He said he won't close. He didn't waste my time. He told me right off the bat, this isn't a deal for me. Now I feel safe going him with the next one because he won't waste my time. He's not going to keep me on the hook and at the last minute come retrade or try to screw me over here. We all know that that's what we like from other people. I don't know why it doesn't occur to us that we need to become that person. But that's the key. Like you said that the technology, artificial intelligence websites, they can help, but they are only going to amplify what you already are. And you got to have skills, you got to be diverse, you got to look at stuff. So I really appreciate you coming on today, sharing some of the specific tactics that you're using to make the Airbnbs work, to make the house flipping work, and to make business work within real estate. Is there any last minute advice you want to give to listeners who are wanting to be full time revenue?
- [47:37]
B
Just go for it. I, I know I, I could be contradictory with a lot of people in that on your first one, whether you want to do a flip or rental, it's okay to lose money. That's my motto, especially if you have another income source, is it's okay to lose. What if you, worst case, lose $5,000, maybe even $10,000 on your first flip? I know that's not the goal. Most likely you won't do that because most people are analysis paralysis. But work with someone that's doing it. Ask them for, hey, if a deal doesn't work for them, because just for whatever reason, see if it works for you because you don't need to make that high margin on your first flip. You just need to learn something. So that's what I normally say to other people is like, hey, this is my only source of income. I got to make quite a bit of money to make this worth it. But you don't need to make that much because you have other sources of income. So maybe this is a good opportunity for you to learn something without, you know, diving into a mess. So that's my thing, is just go for it on the first one, keep it low price point and try to keep it as simple as possible with no major structural issues, anything like that, but just go for it.
- [48:48]
A
All right, this is a question I've been throwing at guests and not preparing them for. So get ready. You met me, you were not expecting to meet me that night. You'd listen to podcasts I'd done, maybe read a book or something. What's something about me that surprised you?
- [49:04]
B
When we met, I was thinking that actually before I didn't realize how tall you were. I was shocked. I was like, I think this is the same David Green, but he's way, he's way taller than I expected. I think you need to start standing for some of your podcasts.
- [49:22]
A
So this is like a running joke in my companies that I hear this every time I go in public. I'll get what you said. I thought it was you, but I thought, no way. That guy's too tall all the time. It's like the angle I think of the camera, and I even noticed when you and I jumped on, I look like I'm shorter than you because of the way the camera set up. Right. So your head is higher than mine, which would lead someone to believe that I'm kind of like a gnome. And you're. You're a regular size. Right. You're actually very tall yourself. How tall are you?
- [49:51]
B
Six two ish. Yeah.
- [49:52]
A
So you're. You're tall. That's. I'm. I am, too. But that's funny that that's what you said. Okay, next question. What's something that you have either always wanted to ask me or would like to ask me now that you never thought you get a chance to?
- [50:06]
B
Oh, that's good. I haven't thought that far. Oh, that's a really good one. Thank. Maybe what's the. What has. What has been advantageous being on the show or being in the podcasting world for 10 years that maybe some of us haven't. That don't have access to? Like, some of us just normal listeners haven't had opportunities for. Don't have access to that you feel like you have an inside or advantage with.
- [50:50]
A
When we talked earlier about. Yeah, I know what you're asking. We talked earlier about somebody we all want to do business with, people that we trust. So you've got to try to build trust with a person you don't know. That might take nine months of your time and effort with this wholesaler that's going to call you, talk to you, ask questions. You got to be there to support them. I can build that same trust over nine months of time from people listening to my podcast, and I could do it at a bigger amount of scale. I think that's the benefit when you have something like this is it creates this. Like, when you and I met, you weren't like, I don't know about this guy. Who is he? Why'd he show up? Why isn't he smoking a cigar like everyone else there was already like, oh, I know you. I like you. You're not going to stab me. Like, we could be friends because you'd been listening to me for a while and you've gotten to know my personality. I could be a little bit abrasive at first. I'm. I'm just kind of wired like that where I don't trust people right off the bat. Bat. But if you've been listening to my show for a couple years, that isn't going to deter you. You're like, no, I know where his heart's at. I've heard this guy talk. I've heard him try to save people. So the. My ability to influence more people and share who I am will help me in business at times. And I think that's like, the benefit of having a podcast, or you can build your reputation without having to talk to the people individually, if that makes sense.
- [52:07]
B
Yeah, that's huge. That's good.
- [52:09]
A
Yeah, that was a good question.
- [52:11]
B
Any disadvantages? Am I allowed to ask, too?
- [52:14]
A
A lot of time doing it, you're constantly having to, like, get new producers, and you're always having to work on editing, and then you fall behind about stuff. Like, travel's really hard for me because I'm trying to put out three shows a week. So if I'm in the Smoky Mountains, learning the stuff I come talk about, I can't be making the shows. And then the algorithms punish you in this space for not putting out content. This is a. That's a really good question. Something I hate about the podcasting, YouTube, social media world. Those who are in it know this. Those who are not don't realize the more you post, the more they will reward you. Like the. The social media sites and YouTube wants you addicted to their platform. They want you watching it. Like how people used to have the TV on. Now you're just checking it all the time. So if I post once a week on Instagram, it maybe shows it to, like, 200 people out of the 180,000 that follow me. But if I post three times a day, it starts showing it to 25,000 people. And then you get this o, I got likes, I got exposure, I got comments. It's going to lead to leads. So now you feel this pressure both on YouTube and on social media. Post, post, post, post. But you don't have three things worth saying every day. Yeah, right. You just start coming up with stuff you pull out of your butt. You're just like, let me find something to say because I have to get in front of people. And then that hurts the listener or the viewer because they're looking at you and they're like, what are you talking about? Buy a house with a garage. Yeah, it's Babel. That's exactly what it is. And that. That's what I feel. I watch people's YouTube channels that I support. I'm like, why did you make this video? This was an absolute way. You've said the same thing 17 other times. Why did I have to listen to you say it? Now they are pressured to do this. And so that's the downside. I don't like that. I prefer to only talk if I have something to say. I don't put every single guest on the show that wants to be on here. I want it to be people that I got a good feeling about that have something of value to offer that are not just selling themselves, but you run out of people. Interview.
- [54:09]
B
Right.
- [54:10]
A
Or the time you got to take to screen them before you put them on is a lot. And then you don't get a reward for it because nobody sees it. So.
- [54:16]
B
Right.
- [54:16]
A
There's this like addiction to people that don't like working and they don't want to bring real value. They just want to be famous and they can put out content non stop. Maybe they're really good looking, maybe they're silly, maybe they just, they're willing to put in the work to edit something, to have a good thumbnail that you click on. But it's complete garbage, garbage there. There's no nutrition in it. So I think that's the downside and that's what frustrates me.
- [54:36]
B
That's horrible. Yeah, that's hard.
- [54:38]
A
That's our world, though. That's where everybody's eyeballs are. And if you, if you play the game with integrity, you'll lose in a lot of ways. And if you want to win, you have to sacrifice integrity. So just keep that in mind. Everybody, as you're listening to different YouTubers and Instagrammers and podcasters, they are pressured to tell you things that are going to go viral or going to make you feel good. Not pressured to tell you the truth. And so you kind of got to chew the meat and spit out the bones.
- [55:04]
B
Right.
- [55:05]
A
I love that. All right, thanks, Josh. If anybody wants to reach out to you, learn more about design, pick your brain, give you a compliment on your amazing hair. Where can they go?
- [55:16]
B
Probably easiest thing would be Instagram. Josh Schreiner. Josh S H R I N E R. Yeah, you can look me up, you can call me.
- [55:28]
A
So make sure you guys go follow Josh Shriner. Follow me at David Green 24 and let me know in the comments. Two things. One, do you love Josh's hair, yes or no? Two, should I change my Instagram handle from David Green 24 to David Green Show? I'm kind of like back and forth on this, but my website is David Green 24. All my other handles are this. My emails are David Green 24 and I can't change it on everything. So would it make sense to do it or do I leave it there. And actually, Josh, let's leave with this. What do you think I should do with this dilemma?
- [56:00]
B
Is your Instagram just for personal or is it personal and business work?
- [56:05]
A
Yeah.
- [56:06]
B
Show sounds better. Way better if it were me. Yeah. I like the idea of not having numbers because there's 23 other Davids before you that could do the same thing.
- [56:16]
A
That's a great that.
- [56:17]
B
I'm looking for David Greens.
- [56:21]
A
All right, Josh, thanks for being here, man. We'll have to do this again. I appreciate it.
- [56:24]
B
Cool. Thanks so much, David. See you.
- [56:26]
A
All right, everybody, thank you for being here. Please make sure you subscribe to the show if you haven't already done so leave me a comment letting me know what you thought and reach out to Josh and let him know you heard him and you appreciate it. I'll see you guys next week on the David Green Show.