Dave:
Every week brings new data, and this week the housing market is full of signals that investors can’t afford to miss. I’m Dave Meyer, joined by Kathy Fettke, Henry Washington and James Dainard. And today we’re digging into those important stories that you all need to be paying attention to if you’re trying to make sense of the noise and find real opportunities in real estate. This episode is for you, you’re listening to On the Market. Let’s get into it. Hey everyone, how’s it going Henry? How you been?
James:
Fantastic man. Good to see you guys.
Dave:
Yeah, you
Too.
James. What’s up? Staying busy The last two weeks have ramped up. Good. Busy or bad, busy. Transitioning busy. It’s, you know, you’re adjusting some strategies and, um, a lot of deal flow out there though right now. Lot of deal flow, so
I’d like to hear that. Kathy, how are you?
Kathy:
I’m good. I, I’m sad that, uh, a partner that we were gonna do a storage deal on, um, lied. Oh,
Dave:
Oh, oh.
Kathy:
There’s this thing called the internet where you can find stuff super easily. So I don’t know why people lie.
Dave:
I’m happy you figured that out before you partnered with this person.
Kathy:
Yeah, we were just in a due diligence phase. It’s like, dude, seriously,
Henry:
You cannot lie in the day and age of Al Gore’s internet , you gotta be on your Ps and Qs. What
James:
Fact did they lie on? That’s just the one fact. We don’t need to know details. But what, what’s the one fact,
Kathy:
You know, one major question you ask someone if you’re gonna syndicate a deal is, are you currently in a lawsuit? And they said no. And then you know what? There’s this thing about lawsuits. They get recorded in their public information.
Dave:
One of those things that you can look up.
Kathy:
Yeah.
Dave:
Wow. Well I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m glad, I’m glad you figured it out.
Kathy:
It may be frivolous, but it doesn’t matter. You just need to be transparent. Just come on, just be transparent.
Dave:
Well, yeah, if it was frivolous, say yes I am. It’s frivolous. And explain the situation. It seems less frivolous if you’re lying about it.
Kathy:
Exactly.
Dave:
Well sorry to hear that Kathy. Let’s move on to our conversation of four headlines that every real estate investor should be paying attention to you today we’re gonna be talking about how sellers are outnumbering buyers for the first time in a long time, creating potential buying opportunities. We’ll also talk about the potential privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And of course we do need to talk about the fact that a court struck down Trump’s tariffs and is throwing the whole trade policy of the United States up into the air. Again, who wants to introduce this? ’cause Henry and James, you guys brought the same story, actually you we’re both so diligent about your homework. You brought the same exact story here about a seller’s markets. It’s not the same headline, but it’s the same data, it’s the same information. It matters a lot to you guys.
James:
Yes, this matters.
Dave:
All right, well James, you start. Tell us why it matters and then Henry, I’m gonna pick on you later.
James:
I don’t know which article Henry brought in, but you know, mine was, uh, from Redfin and it talks about how the imbalance, the US housing market has nearly 500,000 more sellers than buyers, which is the most on record since 2012. You know, supply and inventory, that’s really what moves the market, right? If there’s too many listings and not enough buyers, then that’s kind of where you see the market start to slow down and you start to see some depreciation and some changes in the economy of how people are buying you. You know, we’ve been watching this for the last 12 months that it’s been this slow turn and now it’s starting to come on with a lot more inventory, but also just in specific neighborhoods and cities too. And I think that’s really something to, to look at. And the reason I like this article is it breaks down the different cities with the most amount of listings, with the fewest amount of buyers.
Like Miami is one of those. They said there’s three listings to every one buyer that there is. But then in St Louis it’s a different story where, you know, there’s, there’s still quite a bit more buyers than than sellers. So, you know, I think it’s, it’s really important as you start to build out, you’re investing like what you wanna do in 2025 and 26, what lane you’re gonna plan in, whether you’re flipping, keeping, or you know, wholesaling. You gotta pick the right markets for what you’re trying to achieve. And it’s something to really keep your eye on because if inventory starts coming on too heavy, things start kind of coming backwards a little bit and can really compress your margins. And so as a flipper, I’m really, really looking at this right now because I gotta watch it and you have to make decisions in 12 months based on the data you’re seeing right now. I mean, and there’s a chance I might walk away from my very expensive flip in in Newport Beach because of what I’m seeing, but you gotta make the right decisions for what you’re forecasting.
Dave:
I have a lot to say about this, but Henry, you did also do your homework assignment and brought this, so let’s, let’s hear your perspective on this.
Henry:
Yeah, it’s also very intriguing to me because we are tracking it as well. And because I help so many people all over the country, like I get to see kind of how the timing is of the market in different markets in real time. And I’ve seen people list properties that go pending in days in certain areas of the country in the Midwest and up north. And then I’ve seen people who list their properties and they sit on the market for months. I’ve always been this proponent of northwest Arkansas, but it’s a whole lot slower here than in some other areas of the country. A whole lot slower than I would expect. And so I think James is right, this national trend yes is happening, but there are some hot spots in the country where this is a whole lot worse.
Dave:
Cold spots
Henry:
. Yes, exactly. Cold spots. And those cold spots, most of them happen to be centered around Florida, but there are other cold spots in the country as well. And so you really do need to pay attention. There’s factors playing into this like economic uncertainty with the tariffs, which we’re gonna talk about later, which makes people uncomfortable. But you also got the lock-in effect where people are just sitting on their uh, low interest rates that are playing into this as well. And so you really do have to pay attention to like what is happening in my market in real time. And then how do you make adjustments in your business? For us, we’re adjusting the underwriting, we’re offering less to give us that buffer, which means we have to make more offers to get more deals. And when we’re selling and listing our homes, we are not listing at the tippy top rv, even though we may have planned to list at that a RV price when we bought the property. As an example, I have a house that we put on the market just yesterday I underwrote the deal at a 350,000 a RV and we listed that house at 3 25 yesterday
Dave:
Getting showings yet
Henry:
Like so many showings. And that’s the strategy, like maybe we’ll get an offer at 3 25, maybe we’ll get an offer at more than 3 25. But I would rather take my price cut drop on the front end and just maximize the eyeballs I get into my property to try to get that offer sooner than later than the list at the tippy top and then have to drop your price five, $10,000 here and there to try to get there. So we’re aggressively pricing at a lower price to garner the eyeballs. Like I strategically sat down with my agent and we looked at houses, all the direct competition and we made sure that our entry price was priced under theirs so that if a buyer was going to be looking in that neighborhood, they’d have no reason not to look at mine.
Dave:
It’s really interesting to see what’s going on. ’cause uh, yeah, I think Seattle definitely seems to be slowing down Northwest Arkansas. I actually decide to sell a property in the Midwest, not because it’s not performing well, but I think there’s gonna be really good deals in the next like six to 12 months. And so I wanna just free up some cash and this market that I’m in is still really hot. I didn’t even have to list it. I just put out the word and I sold it for my asking price right away. These are markets that people probably think are not hot markets, but I looked at the data and I saw exactly what I could sell it for and uh, was able to achieve that. But it just shows what Henry’s talking about. Just going in with a strategy and knowing your market extremely well right now is, is more important than ever. I’m curious what you guys think of this. ’cause everyone interprets a buyer’s market different, right? People either they see this as validation that the market is crashing, even though they’ve probably said that for the last 12 years, they might see it as a reason to avoid real estate. There might be someone pouring into real estate because they see this as assets on sale. Kathy, how do you interpret the shift in the market we’re seeing?
Kathy:
Well, it is, I would say back to a healthier market. We talked about this before of course for us, you know, we are in the building industry, we have residential communities nationwide where we’re also trying to sell, I think it was James that said, boy, you’ve gotta be able to predict years in advance how the market’s gonna be and you just don’t know. So you gotta, you gotta figure it out. But every market is different. And that’s the important thing. I think that guys already said it. You need to know your market and pricing is everything. If you don’t price your property right, you are gonna be in a world of hurt. My neighbor did it, they priced too high, the property sat on the market. Now people think, ooh, there’s something wrong with it. So she brought in a new agent and they priced it properly, but there’s already a scar and then they wanna negotiate. Whereas if you price it right or a little bit under, then people get like freaked out and then there’s lines out the door and then there’s competition. If there’s a bunch of people that open house, they get nervous and panic. If there’s nobody there it, it’s not great, right?
James:
Well then you see it on the seller side where the the the, they push the price and then they start cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting. It’s like, what are you doing?
Kathy:
Oh, it’s awful. Yeah,
James:
You’re putting up your white flag going, I’m super desperate right now,
Kathy:
Dave. And an answer to your question, again, it’s like every area is different. And I think I’ve mentioned before, we have a huge development in, in Tampa, well I call it Tampa, but it’s really like an hour north sort of inland from there. And it’s a really special property. There’s, there’s cool amenities and features and we have sold, uh, 299 properties this year.
Dave:
You’re just counting for that 300. You haven’t got that 300 yet.
Kathy:
Just may in the beginning of May 32 homes sold. So you know, you keep hearing, oh Florida, nothing selling, there’s all this inventory, but ours is, and it’s the the top eight fastest selling subdivisions in the country. So why is that? Well, it’s, it’s more inland. It’s not near the hurricanes. People in hurricane areas are, are like the heck with this, I’m gonna move more inland. Insurance rates are lower. So you can’t even just blanket, say Florida’s not a good market. You have to really zoom into the specific market.
Henry:
Also on top of that, you have to have and understand what your exit strategies are because I am in both of these buckets right now. I have this property that we have priced well and we’re getting a ton of showings because it looks like we’ve underpriced it. And I have a property that we priced too high and it’s been sitting on the market for almost 90 days now. And because it’s been sitting on the market for 90 days and we’ve done several price cuts, we are that person waving the white flag saying, I’m desperate. And so I have to now use my secondary exit strategy, which is I’m gonna go ahead and refinance this property because I still have a ton of equity in it and I’m gonna put a tenant in it and I’m gonna rent it out and I’m gonna sit on it and see what the market does and maybe I’ll sell it later, but it’s going to at least break even if not cashflow a little bit as a rental property, I’m able to pay off the fix and flip loan that I used and still able to use that asset for tax purposes should I choose.
So, and I’m able to do that because A, I bought it at a great price and b, I bought it where I knew if things went south I could change a strategy and use a secondary exit to get out of that property. And those are the things you need to be thinking about as an investor. You wanna be conservative in your investment so that if you need to pivot, you have an option.
James:
Wait and it’s about like what Dave said was really important. He sold a property because he thought that there’s good opportunities coming up. That’s the strategy you wanna think about as we’re going through this transition right now. You know, for example, like when we are talking about the inventory, I’m watching this across the board, I’m seeing that Seattle’s starting to get a little bit, it’s still fairly healthy, it’s still about 50 50 on the seller buyer side, but there’s a different feel and there’s some opportunity where I’m going, okay, I can buy some really good deals and as I’m looking at doing this expensive luxury flip in Newport Beach, I’m looking at the overall return that I can make cash on cash and Newport Beach is still fairly balanced from what I’ve been reading, but the return is less than I can get up in Seattle or some other markets because it is turning into a buyer’s market where you can buy some extra deep deals As an investor, you wanna really weigh like what are you buying?
Do you need to pivot it? And it’s okay to switch that strategy up. Like if I walk from Newport Beach, it’s gonna hurt, I’m gonna lose a quarter million bucks in earnest money, but the return I can make can be triple on the other asset classes. And I’m like, okay, well if I lose this here, that’s okay because I can actually make three times as much doing this. And so it’s like this thing I’m thinking about right now, I don’t like walking from a deal, but it might be the right call because of what I’m forecasting out in Seattle.
Henry:
Said it before. Everybody needs James Dainard problems. ,
James:
I will happily give you that problem right now. It is yours
Henry:
. If leaving a quarter million dollars is on the table like I need, I need that James Dainard problem in my life.
Kathy:
It’s not fun. I mean we spent a lot of money on the storage one too. It’s like sometimes it’s a better investment to not do a deal than to do it. You guys know like how much could James lose more than 250,000 if the market turns substantially? I don’t know. But we’re, when we’re talking multimillion dollar properties, it can be millions
James:
And I don’t even think I’m gonna lose money on that deal. I just think that return is gonna get compressed where like this is so much time, effort, and money going into this deal. If I focus it on a different asset class and a different market by doing the research that we’re talking about, I can five exit. You gotta let your ego and everything assign go what is the logical strategy?
Kathy:
What’s the business decision and non-emotional decision.
Henry:
I want to clarify too what James is saying for a lot of people, because a lot of people look at a flip and they look at the dollars, right? Like what is the dollars that I can make? And what James is doing is he is looking at the percentage, right? What’s the cash on cash return regardless of the dollars, what’s the percent return I’m gonna get on my money and can I get a better percent return in another market? And yeah, you might have to do three, four deals that equal the same dollar amount to what you might get on the Newport deal, but your percentage in return is higher, which is a better way to like arbitrage your money.
Dave:
A couple good points I wanted to follow up. First and foremost, like Kathy said, walking away from a deal, I think it’s so important. This is like the hardest thing for people to understand about economics and finance is like the idea of a sunk cost. James has spent the $250,000 either way, right? It’s gone. So the question is like what do you do going forward? Do you want to compound a potential mistake or do you wanna walk away because there’s no going back? Same thing with Kathy’s deal, right? You’ve put money into due diligence, that’s the cost of doing business. So spent 10 grand so now you’re gonna make a bad a hundred grand investment. It makes no sense. Like you, you just have to walk away and it stinks. But over the long run you’re gonna do way better because you make those tough decisions than you will if you just throw good money after bad.
The second thing, I don’t know if this is getting lost in the thread here, but like the reason I’m selling this property is I think there’s gonna be good deals. Like as a buy and hold investor, I’m pretty excited right now like I am selling this property because it’s done well. I stabilized it, I’m gonna get the price I want. This market is still doing well and I’m like, you know, things could change. I’m gonna, I, I actually think we’re gonna move further into a buyer’s market and prices are gonna get softer in more markets personally. So I’m like, if I could get this money now, I could take it out and just sit on it for a little bit a while. I think there’s gonna be a lot of good stuff to buy and uh, I’m generally kind of excited right now and I’m looking at more buy and hold deals now than I have in like two or three years to be honest. I don’t know if you guys are seeing the same thing.
James:
I think there’s a lot of buys out there right now, like very good potential deals. You know, like in my scenario, like you just said it, I don’t think of this as losing the money. It’s more like I wanna do the project, but that doesn’t matter. It’s am I going to make more by just walking away and, and reloading money elsewhere
Dave:
Because there’s other opportunity
James:
And it doesn’t feel good when you have to do things like this. But you, you really gotta be logical. That’s what we are. We’re investors. This isn’t an emotional business. This is data comps stats. And I agree with you Dave. There’s a lot of good potential buys out there where you can maybe five XA deal rather than make an average return.
Kathy:
So Dave, you sold your property and didn’t. 10 31
Dave:
I guess I still have time. It’s under contract. I could still decide to do it, but I don’t think I’m going to, they’re very stressful. I’ve done it successfully in the past, but I kind of wanna wait and see Henry and I are going on a road trip. We’re gonna go find some new markets. I’m interested in that. I’m interested in learn. I’m learning more about my new home market in Seattle and I don’t feel fully ready to like pull the trigger on something right now. And I’m not gonna rush it. I’m just gonna wait. I’ll pay the taxes. I do think I’ll redeploy it this year, but I don’t know if I can identify a property in 45 days.
Kathy:
If you don’t, you just pay the money that you had to pay to set up the 10 31, right?
Dave:
That’s
James:
True.
Dave:
Yeah, I could
James:
Just do that if he eats the tax. But he gets a much better deal in six months. The tax is irrelevant.
Henry:
It’s irrelevant.
James:
Everyone’s so obsessed with not paying taxes. It’s like, you know what? You just, sometimes you just gotta eat the tax.
Henry:
I agree.
James:
I made
Dave:
Money, it’s great.
Henry:
And like too many people, 10 31 into a bad deal to save on taxes and then they should have just paid the taxes anyway ’cause they’re paying more. ’cause of the bad deal they bought.
Dave:
I’ve done the 10 31 into like an okay deal when it was like, you know, 2020 and everything was going up and I was like, you know, it’ll be okay, but I don’t feel that way anymore. You know, I wanna be a little bit more precise with this one. Um, so I’m willing to do it.
James:
That’s actually part of the reason I’m thinking about walking away from this deal. I’m like, wait, no, if I factor the extra 13% on top of this income too, the margin really looks bad and I’m like, you know what? Sometimes you you gotta look at it all. I’m glad you said that though, Dave. Eat the tax, buy the better deal.
Dave:
Exactly. Well, we do have two more stories. We’re gonna take a quick break, but we’ll be right back. Welcome back to On the Market. We had a great conversation about a potential buyer’s market, what to do in it, but Kathy, you have a different story for us. What do you got?
Kathy:
I’ve got one that I really am not an expert in, so don’t, uh, ask me too many questions, but people keep asking me about the privatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It’s headline news. Trump keeps bringing it up. He just quoted recently that on truth social, he said, I am working on taking these amazing companies public, the US government will keep its implicit guarantees and I will stay strong in my position on overseeing them as president. It’s kind of like Fannie and Freddie, this is how it was before, which is sort of a private company, but also sort of not because the government still backs the loans. You know, is it really privatization? And I don’t know if you guys know, but I sort of dove into this to be prepared today and wow, does Freddie Mac have a a history?
Dave:
Really? I don’t think I know it. Like pre 2008.
Kathy:
Yeah, it’s called the Freddie Mac scandal. And in 2003 it had understated earnings by five bi, BBB billion, one of the largest corporate restatements in US history. The SEC charged Freddie Mac with securities fraud. This is AI man, so not me saying this, go look it up yourself, but fraud, improper valuation, like it goes on and on manipulation. So hopefully that’s all been fixed, but the questions really comes down to even besides all of that, should the US government and essentially taxpayers be subsidizing loans? You know, and that’s kind of what it is, a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. No other country has that because it kind of doesn’t make sense. And you know, the, the government is backing these loans basically. Freddie Mac, they don’t, they don’t issue loans, they just insure them so that once they’re securitized, if they fail, the US government backs it up and sure it keeps rates low and it’s good for the housing market. Is it the right thing? And I, I, so I don’t know,
Dave:
It’s a big question and I, I think so just a little history for everyone. I don’t know the full history either, but yeah. Uh, in 2008 in the, in the crisis, I think the word is the government put Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac under conservatorship. So they’re basically overseen by the government. And that in my opinion, really helped stabilize the housing market.
Kathy:
But a great example, right? Because before 2008 there were just ridiculous loans being made and the US taxpayer was backing that. And when they all fell apart, we had to bail out those bad loans. So then it went under the watchful eye of the government. And now it sounds like it still would, but it would go public.
Dave:
But, so then we would just be going back to the pre 2008 issue, right? Because in my opinion, if the government is going to back and insure the loans, then they should have oversight of the loans that they’re giving out. To your point, like right, they, you don’t want to just say, we’re gonna back the loans of a private company, but we’re gonna let the private company do anything they want. That’s what led to 2008. So it’s like you either gotta do it all or do neither, in my opinion. This is just kind of how I feel about it. It’s like either the government should not back the mortgages and then they can privatize or they could back the loans and keep the conservative ship. I guess like my question is like, what’s wrong with the system right now?
Kathy:
I mean, it, it would be bad loans, right? Going back to a 2005, 2006 scenario where they’re just stupid loans.
Dave:
No, but that’s what I mean. Like why change what’s happening right now? The credit quality of mortgages is super good. So like, I guess what benefit is there to privatize
Kathy:
It? Well, you’d have to ask the stakeholders. I think they’re gonna benefit really well. Bill Ackerman I think is one of ’em who keeps coming up in the news.
Dave:
Oh, I’m sure private investors will. But I’m talking about the average investor, you know, like a normal buy and hold investor or a homeowner. I don’t know if they’re gonna benefit.
Henry:
I mean it could be part of them trying to cut federal spending, which has been a big ticket item, but I don’t really see what else.
Dave:
But
Kathy:
I think it’s profitable.
Dave:
Yeah, that’s just my only question. I’m usually for not the government regulating all these types of things, but I guess it wasn’t good when they were not regulated. Now I think it’s pretty good. So like what’s the problem?
Kathy:
Yeah. Why does it keep coming up? We just need to have some kind of expert come on and, and school us on it.
Dave:
Maybe we should, I I did look it up. I think people said like maybe there would be more innovative loan types was the only thing I’ve seen.
James:
Oh, I got an innovative loan for you. Just sign here. It’s like, all right. I don’t want an innovative loan. No, I don’t either. I want the most basic
Dave:
Loan
James:
Possible.
Henry:
That’s what the mob called their loans. . .
Dave:
We have the innovative collection techniques
Henry:
Too. . Oh,
Kathy:
I, I lived through the Innovative Loan. Boy do we have some good ones? The, the Ninja? No income, no assets.
James:
Oh the ninjas. I forgot about the Ninja loans.
Kathy:
The pick a pay. Hmm. I don’t feel like making the full payment. I’ll just make a tiny portion of it and let the loan just grow.
Henry:
Do you think we could get Trump on to explain it? Do you think he’s taking interviews? He
Dave:
Hasn’t responded to our inquiries, unfortunately. That’d be awesome. I guess I should also mention I did look into this a little bit and the consensus is that if this does happen, it will send interest rates up a half to 1% in the short term. So we’re at, you know, what near seven today, so go up back up to seven point a half or 8%. That’s why I honestly just don’t think this is gonna happen in the short term, just ’cause Trump has stated very plainly he wants lower mortgage rates. And the research I did is that this could lead to lower mortgage rates like eventually, but in the short term it would prop up mortgage rates. I guess I don’t see why you would do it now when rates are already high. If like you wanted to do this, wouldn’t you sort of wait till rates were like in a better place where you could absorb a half point increase a little better than you might be able to right now.
Henry:
And I think this hurts affordability, right? Because if it goes private then it’s gonna be all about profits and not about programs that help people get into homes.
Dave:
I guess the real question to me is like Trump said they would implicitly still offer the US government support. What does that mean? Yeah, it’s gonna tell you how much rates might go up because if there is still a really good guarantee that the US is gonna back this stuff, then rates might not go up that much. But if it’s just like, hey, this is fully private now, you know, 1% does seem like a reasonable amount for, for the increased risk that investors would take on by buying and selling mortgage-backed securities. Anyway, that’s our second story. We’re gonna move on to our third story, but we do have to take a quick break. We’ll be right back.
Welcome back to On the Market. I’m here with James, Henry and Kathy. We’ve talked about the potential for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go public, the buyer’s market and we gotta do it. I’m sorry guys, we gotta talk about tariffs. I know it’s, no one wants to do this anymore, but we’re doing it. A panel of three judges actually, uh, blocked Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs right now. They’re on hold. I personally think that this is now just means it’s gonna be litigated indefinitely. You know, I’m sure they’re going to appeal from what I’ve read, it seems that the Trump administration has a lot of other avenues they might pursue to try and advance their trade priorities, even if it’s not through tariffs. Like there are other ways that they’re gonna try and impact trade policy throughout the country. So I do think, this is not the end of the question, but I’m just curious from a real estate perspective, uh, what you guys are thinking. You know, I was worried about all these material costs for renovation. I’m doing, I’m feeling a little better today. I don’t I don’t know.
Kathy:
Well probably gonna be changed by the, by the time people listen to this because already it was appealed and reinstated, so
Dave:
Oh, it’s reinstated already.
Kathy:
Yeah, but giving Trump time. But it probably needs congressional approval because, uh, you, you have to remember, we’re a nation that kind of was created and formed because we rejected burdensome taxes. And so there’s a really clear part of the constitution saying that any taxes need to be approved by Congress. So that’s probably where it’s gonna end up. Will he have congress on his side? Who knows? But for now, yeah, it already was appealed.
Dave:
This is what’s so troubling is like I study this stuff. I’m sitting here on Friday, May 30th and I have no idea if there are tariffs or not. I don’t know.
Kathy:
This was literally 22 hours ago. So yeah, you gotta check every every hour.
Dave:
But I know they appealed it, but does that mean that they were reinstated? ’cause appeal doesn’t mean reinstated.
Kathy:
Well, according to CNBC. Yes.
Dave:
What, oh my
Henry:
God. Live late breaking news.
James:
And I think this is the point. There’s a lot of economic policy getting moved around right now and there’s gonna be this push pull, push pull and there’s gonna cause confusion. And when there’s confusion, people get very nervous about the market, right? It, it just in general across the board. And there’s always gonna be this time when the buyers and consumers and sellers are all nervous. The market gets a little squirrely. That’s why as an investor you gotta be levelheaded. Tariffs go one way, they go the other way. We, it just, everything is all over the board and the headlines are everywhere. And that’s why it’s really important to listen to our podcast. ’cause at least we’ll break the stuff down.
Dave:
Well, we don’t even know , but
James:
You know what I do know, keep your level head. Like do not react all the time. Like look at what you’re doing, set what your buy box is. What is your expected returns? If you’re buying a rental property, what cash on cash return or what thing does it need for you to buy that? If you’re gonna flip a house, what is the return that you need to do to buy that property to make you feel comfortable? Stick to the logic. Stop sticking to the headlines half the time. And that’s what’s important. ’cause we got a lot of weird stuff going on and it’s just causing confusion.
Henry:
This feels like a live, you know, somebody saying, bugs Bunny action playwright. Oh no you don’t. . Yes, I am. Like, it’s just back and forth every day. To answer your question, man, I am doing my first new construction this year. I’m probably gonna do two or three of them. I don’t think the tariffs are gonna impact the supply prices enough to hurt my margins to the point where I’m gonna go negative because I’m, I’m on a small scale. I’m doing smaller projects now. If I was a nationwide builder, right, that’s a, that’s a different thing if you’re a, you know, Dr. Horton, Roush Coleman, those kinds of people, yeah, this is scary for you. But I think that actually might help me because if there’s less people building because they’re on the sidelines waiting for some sort of stability, well then I can produce a product that there are less of right now. So I’m hopeful.
James:
Well the problem with like construction in general, once tariffs get thrown out into the universe, every supplier, every trade is like, oh, tariff costing. Dude. It is just higher. It’s not even true half the time.
Dave:
Yeah. Like it doesn’t even matter if they’re on or off right now ’cause they’re gonna charge 10% higher anyway.
James:
So be diligent you guys on what your actual costs are. ’cause I mean that was happening during inflation too. They’re like, ah, many splits, they’re high. I’m like, they’ve dropped 35% now finally. So let’s cut the price back. Like it’s like, you know, you have to know this stuff or you’re gonna overpay.
Henry:
Yeah, but I’m trying to sell you one I’ve got in my inventory that I paid an extra. Yeah.
Kathy:
Or other people are paying this price, so I’ll just keep it going. Yeah. Gotta stay diligent. How do you do that? How do you do that? James,
James:
Google, thanks. Honestly, it is so people are like, you just know the cost of things. I’m like, no, I really just get on Google and I start shopping. I’m like, oh look, these appliances are this much, I’ll spend hours late night just geeking out on weird material. I’m like,
Henry:
Look, I believe you. I 100% believe you.
James:
But that matters. That’s profit, right? Like, and if, if things are getting compressed on the buying the sell side and the financing side, then make it up in the middle
Henry:
And it’s so easy to do it and you can literally drop your spec sheet from your contractor with your pricing on it into chat GPT and have it confirm pricing for you. You can have it tell you if that is an average price in your part of the country. Like it’s, it’s so much easier now.
Kathy:
I was literally just gonna ask you guys if you use ai,
James:
You know what though? Can we have a competition? Me versus chat GPT on who will find the best sheep items? I think I could beat it. I would vote with you.
Kathy:
Yeah, I’m going with you.
Dave:
I’ve used chat GPT for recency stuff and it doesn’t always work. I use it a lot, but I am skeptical about it beating James. Alright, well I think that’s the, we’ve reached a, uh, good conclusion to our show today. Thank you all so much for being here, Henry, James, and Kathy. It was a blast as always.
Kathy:
So fun.
Henry:
That was a great time. Thank you guys.
Dave:
And thank you all so much for listening. If you haven’t already, make sure to follow on the market wherever, get your podcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel where we share a lot of exclusive content and analysis. I’m Dave Meyer, thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.
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