John Schaub has prospered during three recessions, four tax law changes and interest rates ranging from 6-16% in his 35 years as a real estate investor. His 2016 best-selling book Building Wealth One House at a Time, 2nd edition, assisted more than 100,000 real estate enthusiasts on their way to successful investÂing.
John recommends buying better, well-located houses rather than cheaper houses and other management-intensive properties. Better houses are more profitable and far less trouble. He advocates paying off debt, owning properties free and clear, and renting only to long term, high quality tenants. John buys, sells and manages his own properties, and enjoys providing quality housing at fair prices for working families in his community.
He teaches one seminar each year where students learn how to identify the best investment property in their town, how to buy it at below-market prices, and how to negotiate terms that guarantee a profit.
John, a Florida native, is a proud graduate of the University of Florida, where he earned his B.A. from the College of Business Administration in 1970. He is an accomplished boat captain (power and sail), fisherman, skier (snow and water) and an instrument-rated pilot. John loves to travel, especially with his wife Valerie and their young adult children.
Episode Notes:
Narrator  This is The Norris Group’s real estate investor radio show the award-winning show dedicated to thought leaders shaping the real estate industry and local experts revealing their insider tips to succeed in an ever -changing real estate market hosted by author, investor and hard money lender, Bruce Norris.
Joey Romero  Hi and welcome to The Norris Group real estate radio show and podcast. We had little trouble with the guest intro this week. So, I’m going to go ahead and record that and then throw it to Bruce, right after please enjoy the show. Today we have a very special guest John Schaub, in his 35 years as an investor John has seen his fair share of recessions, tax law changes, crazy interest rates, and as prospered through it all his 2016 best selling book, Building Wealth One House At A Time, Second Edition assisted more than 100,000 Real Estate enthusiast on their way to successful investing. John recommends buying better well located houses rather than cheaper houses that and other management intensive properties, better houses and more profitable and far less trouble. He advocates paying off debt owning properties free and clear and renting them to long term high quality tenants. John buys, sells and manages his own properties and enjoys providing quality housing at fair prices for working families in his community. He teaches one seminar a year where students can learn how to identify the best investment property in their own town, how to buy at below market prices, and how to negotiate terms that guarantee a profit. John, a Florida native is a proud graduate of the University of Florida, where he earned his BA from the College of Business Administration in 1970. He’s an accomplished boat captain, both power and sail fisherman skier, both snow and water and an instrument rated pilot. John loves to travel especially with his wife, Valerie and the young adult children. Now here’s Bruce.
Bruce Norris  I’m just curious, because I’ve asked this question, as I started learning more about people’s backgrounds. Did you have like a you were a kid growing up in school? Did you have some kind of an entrepreneurial bent where you could say, well, yeah, I’m different than other people.
John Schaub  Well, you know, I had a paper route, I rake leaves, I mowed grass. So yeah, I was always out trying to collect a buck doing something. And I’d rather work to watch television. I played sports. I enjoyed sports, but I did like to work. So, maybe so maybe so.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, well, I love stories that I, you know, I’ve, I’ve started asking because, because of some of those signs you go, ‘Wow’, and so I’m always fascinated when you have like some five year old doing something, you go, Oh my God. Where did that come from? And sometimes, it’s the first person in their family. That’s what’s pretty fun is when everyone else does has a 9-5 job. And then you have this entrepreneurial six year old who’s doing stuff just out of the blue. So, I’m always fascinated by that. When did you start being interested in real estate?
John Schaub  I started while I was working summer jobs, while I was still in high school. I worked for our fellow who was a real estate developer and I was doing things like painting fences, and digging ditches and then washing dishes at night at all comfortable operation. But I watched him and how he made his money. He had a nice airplane. He had a nice farm. Yeah. Pretty wife. He had a lot of things that looked good to do 17 or 18 year old, you know, so I paid attention. And long story short, you know, he had a Beech Bonanza, which is the same thing I’ve been flying now for 25 years, he had an airplane and I wanted one just like it. So, he inspired me to take chances and do things a lot of other people wouldn’t do. I think that to get to get where he was and where I am today.
Bruce Norris  You know, I’d have to say that what sets you apart from people that I know in the industry is that you have definitely taken time for a lifestyle. You’re not a workaholic, you have a, you have a very processed way of approaching this business that lands you on time to do whatever you want.
John Schaub  Yeah, I think that’s true. I think that and I my kids certainly inherited that they, they passed up big buck jobs for jobs that give them a better lifestyle, which I think is the right thing to do probably in the long run. But you’re right. I work because I like to play and not because I love to work.
Bruce Norris  That’s interesting. Okay. Well, I do said I think it sets you apart. Did you have a real estate trainer that you, you liked more than others when you were growing into the business?
John Schaub  Well, the the first class I took was a class that you took to take get your real estate license and the fellow who taught it was a real entrepreneur. He taught classes all over Florida and I could see he was making a ton of money doing it. So, I went to work for him. My first job out of college wasn’t really a job and I was only teaching you know, one class a week for six weeks, but it was for teaching for him and watching what he was doing and how we put it together. And that’s where I learned how to teach. I was not a teacher before that I was not a public speaker before that. My day job was selling real estate. I had a real estate license right out of college and I started selling property. And I sold one property while I was in college, I made about a $5,000. commission. This is back in the 70s, early 70s, or 1969, I guess. So, you know, early on, I saw about the potential of real estate, I didn’t have a plan of how to make money. So, I started off as a broker and a salesman and hired a bunch of people to work for me and learn that I didn’t like that part of the business. But I did like buying things. So, I started buying stuff early on, and I still have property I bought 1973.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, when we talk about you having a 35 year career as it closes in on 50 years,
John Schaub  35 plus we call it. And after 4 recession thing you’re talking about, I think we’re up to seven now.
Bruce Norris  Okay, yeah, I thought I think that introduction’s…
John Schaub  Okay, I use the same picture in the same file it works.
Bruce Norris  Well, I can say you haven’t changed. I’m curious. See it, I love that we have, you’ve taken definitely a different path. Because I didn’t know anything about real estate. I never was a real estate agent. I never even had an entrepreneurial, you know, example. So, it’s just interesting. Everybody has a different path.
John Schaub  My father, he worked for one company his entire life. Yeah. But he made some decisions like I made and like my children have made to forego the big paycheck, the he had, he had a chance to move to Tampa and run the company and then move to New York and run a great big company, he decided not to do that. He decided to stay here in a sleepy little town to Sarasota and enjoy life and play golf and fish and do all the things he liked to do. And he made a good living. But he didn’t, you know, he didn’t go on to be a rockstar, which he could have done. So, I noticed that, you know, you hear what your parents say, but you really pay attention to what they do. And I’ve seen that with my kids. I mean, you know, I probably, you know, I write things down, I write books, and I write things for really for my children. So, when I’m gone, they can read this and understand why I did what I did. But they noticed that I had a freedom, I flew down to Miami and back yesterday, my plane, taking my son in law down here for a job, I can do things and most people can do, because I’m not tied down to, I have the obligation to be here all the time. I can work when I want to work
Bruce Norris  It’s interesting that you landed on the square, that instead of let’s say, if you’re trying to sell seminar seats, oh, you know, buy something and half price, flip it, you know, make a fortune, blah, blah, blah, yours is very different. It’s buy one house at a time. And that’s, that doesn’t sound very exciting until you do that for about 25 years.
John Schaub  You have to have a long vision, I think you know, but no, most people don’t ever accumulate any assets, even the people to flip a lot, they don’t lay they make a lot of money, but they don’t accumulate things. So, they have to keep doing it. And my goal was to get out of the obligation to work every day, you know, to have as much passive income as I had. And it’s amazing how fast you can build that passive income up, it doesn’t take 25 years, you know, 25 years is certainly enough to make a lot of money and pay a lot of things off. But you can develop quite a bit of passive income in four or five years.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, you know, that’s interesting that that was the route you took Jack Fullerton, obviously was in your circle, along with Jack Miller and all that. And he was, he was the one person in California that kept on bugging me about that. I was flipping a lot of houses, and I was keeping pretty much nothing. And, and the the attraction, partially it’s what you get. When I was introduced to real estate, that was the model that I saw. And I think that’s an influential, you know, he didn’t keep anything. And so when I would buy a house, let’s say I buy a Fourplex for 40 grand, and it was worth 130 after we fixed it. I did that all the time. And it wasn’t until Jack Fullerton is you know, 10th speech about “You got to keep some of this stuff.” I finally started to do that. And, you know, once you get in the habit of doing that, then there’s part of it. It’s kind of cool when you’re surrounded with people that are accomplishing something. You know, you find out their goals don’t… in free color houses. Wildside you kind of got to do that too. Right? So there, it’s not so much competition, but it seems like okay, that if that’s smarter that guy, maybe that’s a smart thing. And it kind of goes on. You just methodically clip that off. And then by the time you get to 10, they’re at 18 You’re going oh shoot, I would say one of the things that probably gives you the greatest joy is to watch students over the years that you’ve taught change their entire life.
John Schaub  It’s true. That’s true. And I’ve been fortunate because I, early on my friend Jack Miller and I taught a lot of classes back in the 70s Early 80s. And then when I was married and started having children in 1982, I got way back on my teaching. I’ve only been teaching once or twice a year since then. And I haven’t thought two years now I enjoy it. And Peter Fortunato and I are gonna try to do something this year. But you know, it’s been a strange two years. But I have a lot of other things I do, you know, teaching and buying real estate, managing real estate, or, you know, probably 5% of my life. There’s another 95% involves a lot of other things, so.
Bruce Norris  Do you, like when you teach a class and probably have a lot of repetitive students. But what is it that you look for it? Okay, that that person is going to knock it out of the park? What is it that you? What is it that you sense?
John Schaub  Looking for somebody to light up, you know, people fight you in class, sometimes I had just one lady who just fought me tooth and nail, she didn’t buy what I was selling. You didn’t believe you could do any of this stuff with owner financing people actually, let’s talk to you and and then she went out and did it. You know, we have people actually go out and knock on doors, talk to people. And she came back just amazed that people would tell her all the stuff, they told her and amazed that they would sell their house. And so it when people light up like that, it’s just a lot of fun. And everybody has their own path. I mean, some people go out and buy a lot of property, some people just buy a few. And I hear more from people that have just bought a few bought five or 10 or 15 and haven’t paid for and now they write me a letter and say, ‘We’re so happy we went down this path because it wasn’t complicated. It wasn’t scary. It just took a little time.’ And that’s probably the right path for most people, you know, not to set a goal for 100 properties, but just half a dozen or a dozen.
Bruce Norris  Anytime the monthly income surpasses your monthly nut. You know, that’s the day that you can open up a glass of champagne and go, that’s a big deal.
John Schaub  Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
Bruce Norris  Mike Cantu and I were having, 2009. So ,the whole real estate world’s crashing. And we’re ate lunch and we were talking about some of the experiences that we were having with people that sort of surrounded us, you know, that hadn’t done the right thing or hadn’t prepared for that day. And, and then we just realized he and I weren’t in that situation. We weren’t in desperate times, we were the opposite end of that. Going What’s for lunch? You know, we, weren’t we weren’t in 2009 the same way a lot of other people.
John Schaub  Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, you shouldn’t have been you’ve been doing for a long time. You know, somebody came up to me in classes that you act like you have a lot of money. I said I supposed to act like I have a lot of money. I’ve been doing this for a long time. You know, if you’re not successful for a long time, you shouldn’t be teaching.
Bruce Norris  That’s a very good point by the way, do you have a favorite market to buy in?
John Schaub  I like it when you can’t sell, when nobody can sell, you know, when interest rates are high. And when the banks aren’t lending. That’s what I do most my mind and…
Bruce Norris  Yeah.
John Schaub  So, it’s cyclical. You know, I buy a little bit all the time I bought one a couple years ago, I didn’t buy anything last year that I’m aware of, I don’t think I did. But you know, I’m also at the end of my, not the end of my career, hopefully. But you know, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I don’t need to go out and buy 20 more houses, and I won’t, but I certainly will buy some because I like helping people. And when people walk in here and are in trouble and I need to get rid of something, I’ll buy it from them. And may, may hand it off to one of my kids or another investor here in town. But you know, I’ll put together the deal. Solve a problem.
Bruce Norris  You have a physical office where people walk in because…
John Schaub  I’m sitting in a right now.
Bruce Norris  Okay. All right. Yeah, that I didn’t think about, normally, you know, when you’re buying properties, you’re attracting, you know, you’re generating leads and stuff like that. So, I guess that’s yeah, you don’t need to do that.
John Schaub  Well, most of my business is referral business. Somebody else, ‘you need to talk to John because he will buy your house today and solve your problem.’ And you know, so I had the reputation of course, you know, I bought property from a lot of different brokers here in town, I buy a lot of my properties through brokers, and they just know that I’ll buy and close in a hurry. So, most people can’t do that. Yeah.
Bruce Norris  Well, reputation. That’s a very important thing in investing.
Joey Romero  Bruce, before we get past the education piece a little bit more can ask a question?
Bruce Norris  Sure.
John Schaub  Sure.
Joey Romero  John, you know, Aaron, here credits you a lot for having him actually jump into the business, you know, he is the son of Bruce Norris, who’s, you know, his earliest memories are, you know, lifting carpet and you know, seeing the cockroaches, you know, scurry about when they’re doing rehabs you know, but yet it took really your philosophy for him to jump in the business. So, I’m sure that you’ve seen a ton of people who were you know, look like they’re willing to go and, and just itching to get but you know, they still don’t jump in? What do you, what do you think is that moment that, you know, finally gets to people and, and just go do it? You know, because there’s a lot of hesitation, you know, in sales and buying and things like that, you know, what do you think, really drives people to just finally say, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do it!’
John Schaub  Well, when I teach my class, I get people to go out, and go face to face with people and talk to them. And a lot of folks are scared to do that, you know, that’s not a comfortable thing for a lot of people. So, being able to actually talk to somebody about money and about their house is a big breakthrough for folks. And the other thing is, I think, to recognize that overcome the fear that something really bad is going to happen to you. You know, fear is what keeps people from making good decisions. And if, if you think about it rationally and say, you know, I don’t have any money today, I don’t have much to lose, you know, I’ve got everything to gain. And people put that in perspective. And that’s why I tell people who are just starting who don’t have much, I said, you have a major advantage over the person sitting next to you who may have $300,000 in the bank, who was afraid to lose it. You know, if you don’t have anything to lose you, you’ll sign anything, you’ll buy anything, so you’ll take chances that the person who has something to lose won’t take. And that’s the difference between people getting started and people who’ve been in business for a while who have a lot of assets, you know, I won’t take the risk that I would when I was first starting, you know, my first starting, I buy something and nothing down the lost money and try to try to figure out how to make it work well. Today, I want to make sure that 100% sure that it will work. So, you know, I pay cash for things right, but large down payments down to make sure they have positive cash flow from day one. So, so part of it is is overcoming a fear of loss. And the other part I think, is actually doing some business, which means you have to talk to somebody you can’t, I guess you could do it all over the internet and never see a person and never see a house. But to me that takes all the fun out, I want to see the house, I want to meet the people. I want to find out what their problem is and make them an offer that solves their problem.
Joey Romero  And I really didn’t work for Zillow. They’re out now.
John Schaub  They didn’t go talk to anybody. That’s, that’s, that’s an interesting way to do business. And that, you know, the stock market guys have been trying to do this for years, you know, quantitative analysis, trying to make it work just with the numbers. There’s more to it than just numbers
Bruce Norris  You know, it was really interesting. We had a we had a seminar years ago, we’re back for two years. And why he was part of it. And he you know, did exactly what you just said he would go door to door, he would park in an area we wanted to buy a house. I mean, and then go door knock. And sure enough he buy one. Well, no one, no one did that. So, that was one teacher. And then there was another person that did another thing and so forth and so on. And it was kind of neat, because like, would you just saying like, Mike Cantu’s bought 1500 houses doesn’t want to meet an owner at all. So, there’s different different ways that people do it. Now he talks to them all on the phone. No, he physically doesn’t want to meet them. You have other guys just want to buy REOs and talk with the agents, things like that.
Joey Romero  I like asking a lot of sports related questions because I’m a coach and things like that. And what did what did you know been involved with sports teach you that you, you used in, in business?
John Schaub  That’s a good question. I don’t think anybody that ever asked me that, you know, you can you, can win by cheating. But as at the end of the day, it’s not nearly as much fun is winning with, with fair play. And in real estate busines is same thing. You know, you can you can, you can cheat people. And you know, if you can live with that, you can make a lot of money doing that. But at the end of the day, you didn’t play fair. So, you know what you won, you didn’t really win, he cheated to get it. So, I think the idea of fair play and then the idea of you know, in anything, anything that any skill you want to master you know, if you’re learning how to hit a baseball or tennis ball or a golf ball, it takes a lot of time, it’s not a 15 minute you don’t read a book for 15 minutes and go out and play golf, you know, it just doesn’t happen. So, it’s a matter of knowing that this is going to take some time to develop the skills to be successful and you won’t, you won’t pick them up the first day. And you know, I continue to make mistakes to this day but it’s okay to make mistakes on my favorite sports coaches with John Wooden and I read all of his books and one of my favorite quotes of Coach Wooden was the team that makes the most mistakes for when you have to take chances you can’t play safe you can’t play defense the whole time, you have to play offense and I just wrote a newsletter on playing either offense or defensive you know it’s a lot more fun play offensive, this defense and but you need a little bit of both, you know you need to be smart enough to not lose everything. That’s the defensive side but you have to keep making deals you have to keep moving forward.
Bruce Norris  John Wooden was work ethic man.
John Schaub  He was.
Bruce Norris  That was you played for him, man, it was, it was on because he was an athlete. And it he trained himself to be in super shape. And I love that he had so much principle. Do you pay attention to cycles and so is 2022 reminding you of when…
John Schaub  I do believe in cycles, Bruce, I, you know, I, not everybody does interesting, I know something some people just live for the day, I guess. But you know, I see trends, you know, and I go, I manage my own properties. And because I’m the fellow making offers, and people are trying to buy my property all the time, I, you know, I have a real feel for what the market is doing at one time. And right now, of course, the markets been hot for the last couple years, many years, actually. And some people think it will be hot forever, I don’t believe that I believe there’ll be a cycle. And the reason we’ll have cycles is people. First of all, compare the amount of rent, they’re paying to how much it costs to buy a house. Right now, if you have good credit, you can actually buy a house and have payments that will be lower than your rent. But you have to have good credit, you have to have good income. And that leaves out about I would guess more than half of the world. You know, I don’t have a statistic here. But there’s an awful lot of people that don’t have good credit don’t, have good income, and don’t have a down payment to buy a house. So, that’s why about half the people rent and just around fingers. Now don’t, don’t get hung up on percentages. But so and those people that rent when the economy is good, can pay the rent, when economy is bad, they struggle to pay their rent, they have a hard time paying rent. Oh, right now, and there’s, there’s a, there’s a big market out there in Build for rent market and they published statistics showing that 96, 97, 98% of their people are paying on time. And that’s probably true this year. But that won’t be true universally. There’ll be years where a lot of people won’t be paying on time. And so we track, you know, rationally how long it takes us a rent a house and, and you know how much our rents are increasing. And you know, in the last couple of years, it’s been wonderful because people move in our town and rents have gone up dramatically. But you can’t just put that on the chart and say this is going to be the trend for the next 10 years. Things will change over the next 10 years. I don’t know exactly how or why but I guarantee you we’re not going to have 27% increase in prices and 40% increases in rents for 10 years. It just can’t happen.
Joey Romero  Yes, speaking of that, we’ve seen that you know in the stuff that we’re building in southwest Florida, but it how surprised have you been on how this market has exploded in through the last two years.
John Schaub  Very surprised. We sat around I’ve been putting together a group of guys who are some of my sharpest students we get together and Aspen, Colorado and we’ll be out here and a couple weeks again in February and two years ago we were together and nobody saw this coming and these are all guys that have a lot of property and a lot of money been doing this for a long time. Nobody saw this coming and we all thought it was going to be a downturn in the market. Not a 30% uptick in the market and rents going up 40% So, we’re all fooled. So, you know, we can certainly all be fooled again. Just because you know everything looks pretty solid, maybe there’s wildcards in the world and then the economy they turn things around but, but what I have common sense to me is that prices cannot go up 25 or 30% a year, year after year after year after year there has to be a flattening or a downturn in the market. And because the major driver of this is demand and supply something could happen to our demand down here and in Florida you’re told by Southwest Florida has been hot but something could happen you know had a good hurricane or something like that might might turn, turn people back and say we don’t want to be in southwest Florida for a while. So, things happen, things happen you just have to roll with the punches but I’m a believer in cycle I like to buy into down cycles I’ve been doing it for a long long time. We, I bought a 16 houses in 1981 You know I buy groups of houses typically when we have a really slow year go you get a huge deal and not literally stealing but you can buy him at wholesale prices. And I buy from builders mostly, I’m buying from builders or bankers, those are two people to get in trouble.
Joey Romero  Yeah, and you know, when Bruce does a lot of his market forecasting in California, that was part of what, you know what got, got them in trouble in the past in the past cycles is, you know the overbuilding but there’s a couple things that haven’t happened in the last you know, 10 years right there hasn’t been any funny money you know, the you know those crazy loans and builders for the most part, haven’t overbuilt, at least not in California, we’re short, a lot of the building that has happened, you know, so that, that’s probably not going to be, you’re not gonna be able to buy, you know, that model house that they can get rid of anymore. Right, because they’re, they’re building, you know, like our builder isn’t, as soon as he buys a lot, it’s the, essentially the house is sold. You know, when we started in 2019, you know, building in Florida, Southwest Florida, you know, we’re expecting rents of 1415, maybe 1600, Aaron just rented his house, in Cape Coral for 2495. It’s a, it’s a four, two. And it’s, it’s just amazing what the rents have done in the last two years.
John Schaub  I agree is really unprecedented. The I just rented a house last week, for $2,300 a month, there was rent as the previous tenant for $1,500 a month, and the previous tenant was with me for 16 years. And so now that’s, that’s a big jump, $800 a month, a big jump in rent. So, it is pretty much it is unprecedented in my life, I’ve never seen rents jump that fast. And there’s demand and supply. I mean, that’s supposed to causing this and then of course, part of US inflation, you go, you know, you go buy chicken now, it’s it’s a little more expensive than it was a couple years ago to so they knew the value of the dollar definitely is changing right now. But I still anticipate a change in the market. So, I’m, you know, I’m not afraid to hold on some cash right now. Because I think it’d be opportunity. So.
Joey Romero So, you know, a lot of the A lot of times, you know, I used to go with Bruce, to, to all of his speaking engagements, and you know, people would, you know, love the presentation, and then essentially, they would catch him before he left and said, Hey, and they would just say, basically, their situation, you know, what would you do? You know, so, so picture, I’m that that new guy at your, you know, your seminar, and, and I got the situation, what, what would be your best advice to somebody getting into the market at this point in this economy?
John Schaub  Yeah, yeah, I say, you know, don’t worry about where you think the market is, go out and make offers on a house in an area there where you want to buy something, and there’s got to be a reason you want to buy in that area, maybe cash flow, it may be you think there’s gonna be growth, it may be as close to your house, and you don’t want to manage something far away, but you know, buy something on purpose, but buy something, even if you paid a wrong price, the first house I bought, that I bought 1973, I paid too much for a bit too much down, I paid too high an interest rate, I still have it, that house has made me more money and any other house I’ve ever owned, because I still have it, you know, I still own it almost 50 years later. So, you know, even if you buy a house in this market, and the market goes down a little bit or interest rates go up, or rents drop a little bit a cycle affect the long term viability of that investment. If you buy a house, is a good house in a good neighborhood close to where you live, you know, some, something you can manage, and something that that’s likely to go up in value. And, you know, I think two things will happen, I think real estate will continue to go up in value, because people are going to continue to move to the good towns. Then the other hand, I think real bad dollar will continue to follow value, because the government’s gonna continue to print more of them. Just, just the state of affairs that hadn’t changed in 70 years, probably not going to change the next seven years.
Joey Romero  Bruce I was just asking him one last question, you got one last question, and we’ll wrap it up?
Bruce Norris  We’ve already talked about cycles, because I hear your conversation. Do you have any concerns that we end like we did last time?
John Schaub  No, I think it’s gonna be different this time. Because first of all, there’s not that many bad loans out there. Almost everybody who has borrowed money in the last four or five years has a good loan, you know, they have a 3% loan or 4% loan or even a five or 6% loan, but there’s no reason for them to walk away from those houses, because like them, all the houses are worth more than what they paid for. So so I don’t, I don’t see a crash in the market. I do see builders getting stolen a crack and there’s a lot of, a lot of people that are new to the builder business last couple years, because the guy they worked for was making 50 grand every time you sold a house and they wanted some of that. So, that are more now in ability business, even though they were just good carpenters last year. And just because you’re a good carpenter doesn’t mean you’ve got the skill set to be a successful builder, you’ve got to buy a lot of the right price, you’ve got to buy the right lot, you got to build the right house and you’ve got a market. So, there’s a lot more to it than just building a house. So, some of those folks are gonna get their toe in a crack. And you know, honestly, I’m looking, I’m seeing prices drop a little bit right now, which is interesting, because these are, these are houses that have been sitting on the market for maybe two, three months now, which is a long time right now. Yeah, I sold one house last year, and I listed it sold in two days. Well, that’s kind of the average and that’s what everybody thinks you’re supposed to do now. Oh, you’re so close in 30 days, all cash and that’s what I did. And I said that’s lovely, but it is the first time in my life I’ve ever done that, ever. So, I don’t think that’s gonna be the new normal. I just think that’s, we’re, we’re in one of the hottest markets ever, because there’s still credit available. And there’s a lot of people that want to buy. And the guy who bought this house paid cash, he’s retired guy who’s got a bunch of money, you just wrote a check vacationed in finance a diamond. So, there’s a lot of people that have a lot of cash and are moving to places like Southwest Florida, probably a different market, if you go to Memphis or you know, Kansas City or someplace is not quite as pretty or attractive is where we are. So, So, you have to be careful in those markets. And, and you have to be careful in this market, I think. I think there’ll be opportunity when people over build, and it won’t be the whole market, being overbuilt, it’ll be is more personal, that it’ll be the one builder who has built five spec houses, and now we can’t make a payment, and he needs to get rid of one of those spec houses. That’s where the opportunity will be correct.
Joey Romero  That’s one of those things that that our builder came, came across, you know, some of the local builders that were a little smaller, weren’t able to finish contracts. And he ended up you know, being asked to finish some of these builds and, and he just couldn’t, you know, like he’s too busy with his own and he wasn’t able to, to help the whole ones out. And they just stopped building. You know, some of these guys…
John Schaub  They add reps for those houses? Those are the ones I like to buy. You get somebody who’s 90% done with a house either runs out of money or runs out a creditor can’t get anybody to finish, you know, and now the bank ends up with that house. The bank is not happy to the bank as a house, they can’t sell, you know, because it’s not done. That’s where the opportunity is. And we we’ve seen that happen over and over again. So I’m ready. Hand me those address.
Joey Romero  Right.
Bruce Norris Thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bye bye.
Narrator  For more information on hard money, loans and upcoming events with The Norris Group, check out thenorrisgroup.com. For information on passive investing with trust deeds, visit tngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris  The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.