Diving Thoughts - EP 6 - Gas Prices Hit An All-Time High

Driving Thoughts - EP 7 - Rules Of The Road Pt 1

Since I am sure someone will undoubtedly do something stupid on the road while I am driving or I will want to share about actual rules of the road when it comes to touring, I decided to make this fun little episode PART 1. It all started when for the 2nd straight day, I watched someone struggle to understand how roundabouts work. Silly I know, but amusing and disturbing at the same time. All right guys. So it's been a minute since I've done this today is Thursday. I don't even know March 16th, 17th, something like that. So this is driving thoughts. I thought I would share a thought that I had, that's probably not a very popular opinion and that opinion is we should make it much more difficult to get a freaking driver's license. I mean, this is the second day in a row. I witnessed someone not understand how a roundabout works. They live. The opposite direction, because they were trying to make a left-hand turn both times, two days in a row. And I'm going to like looking at these people going like, do you not know how a roundabout works? And the answer is no, they don't, they don't know. So they don't know how roundabout works then chances are, they don't know very much about much of anything when it comes to driving. Uh, and it's pretty apparent with how many accidents are on the road every single day. I've even been in part of those accidents. I'm not the best driver in the world, although I'd say I'm a pretty good one out there doing well over a million miles over the decade, working for all these brands and traveling to all these festivals and sporting events, people make mistakes. I get it, but not knowing how to drive properly is the number one reason why you would make a mistake in the first place, and that can cost your life. But somebody else's. And again, I'm gonna get off my soapbox here, because I know this as being a little bit childish and a little bit ridiculous, but I'm sure if you're anything like me, your blood just boils anytime you're around someone who just can't drive. So that's it for me. We need to up our standards on driving tests and make sure that everyone is aware of the rules and the laws of the road. Not only just for your safety before you're protected. In case, you know, maybe you're pulled over if you know the rules and the law and you know, it like the back of your hand, you can't let you won't let a police officer have used his power. So anyway, that's going to be it for me. That's all I've got for today's driving. Thoughts. Get off the freaking phones, stay out of the vroom vroom lane. If you ain't going room vroom and learn how to drive people. Good day.

Diving Thoughts - EP 6 - Gas Prices Hit An All-Time High

Well, we knew it was coming. At least it's been reported on for the last week. I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone unless you're driving a Tesla, that gas prices are out of control at the moment and aren't expected to slow down anytime soon. I remember, pretty vividly, the chaos those prices caused in 2008. This affects everything and everyone, no matter how insulated or wealthy you may be. We are already paying record-high prices due to record-breaking demand, and inflation. Now throw in $5+ a gallon for gas and $6+ a gallon for diesel and the costs of those goods and materials will only continue to soar. I was not even investing, or really having to spend money on fuel in 2008 due to the fact that my employer paid for all of my travel expenses, but I know it affected their bottom line tremendously. So much so that they had to go back to the client and ask for a budget increase. Wages for my position were really good up until the recession in 08. After 08, companies expected more for less from their employees. At least mine did. We were still making great money, but the responsibilities and requirements grew. I don't have a crystal ball. No one does. But this is giving me PTSD of a time when things became really tough for a lot of people. Including people who were presumably doing very well for themselves. Will I stop investing? NO Am I waiting for a correction? NO I am just going to keep putting enough chips in to stay in the game and reduce my liabilities. I think any sane person should be doing the same thing. I am also trying to build up enough reserves to buy as much opportunity as possible when the bubble bursts. Assuming that burst isn't caused by nuclear warfare, which at that point, nothing but safety is of importance. I don't say all this to try and scare or intimidate. I say all this to say, some things are out of our control. Like gas prices and war. I try to focus on only things I can control and not let much else phase me. That doesn't mean I don't pay attention and I'm not concerned. It just means I can only control so much and that it's better for me mentally, financially, and personally, to keep pushing forward and keep making sound decisions. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the markets right now and what your predictions are. Shoot me an email back @ Brent@BizBrews.com

Driving Thoughts - EP 5 - OpenDoor Loses Over $600 Million!

Good morning, everybody. Today is Friday, March 4th. And today I want to talk about I Buyers. Most of you know that I've been in real estate investing for five years now, been doing this, started off wholesaling, still doing a little bit of that, but mostly fixed and flips buying whole short-term rental and stuff like that. I know people who have been selling to I buyers, a lot of wholesalers who've been selling to I buyers for quite a while now. And the reports coming back, they're buying anywhere from 90 to 105% of the ARV. ARV stands for after repair value. That means what the house would sell for retail after everything's repaired. So if these companies are paying 90 to 105%, which means they're paying 5% over retail price to get into homes, they're competing with actual end home buyers. Last year alone they bought over 70,000 homes, over 70,000 homes. They were competing against mostly in buyers. So with that being said, they doubled from 2019, but Zillow has backed out. We all know that Zillow lost a ton of money and decided to back out. And they said their algorithm was wrong, which I find hilarious. Most of us find that funny because everyone banked on their Zestimate. But Monday, the report came out of OpenDoors earnings, and they lost even more money, almost three quarters of a billion, let that sink in, billion, three quarters of a billion dollars, over $600 million. That's what OpenDoor lost in 2021, which makes me wonder, where is all this money coming from? Obviously they're valued at over a billion dollars. They've had a ton of VC money pumped into it, and they're supposed to be the Silicon valley of superstars. I mean, they've got staff from. Amazon. They've got staff from Lyft. They've got staff from Google. They've got staff from Netflix. Everybody and their mom from Silicon valley is a part of this open door project. And you've got people that are saying, Hey, you can 20 X your return with open door. They just lost 23% of their value overnight from their earnings report. How are these businesses staying in business? I have no idea other than the fact that there's just too much money involved for them to lose at this point. So. I wonder, am I playing too small? Should I go raise a bunch of money? Because I understand how to buy real estate. The money is made on the buy. I don't care what you believe when it comes to appreciation. Appreciation is speculation to me. You can't always bank on appreciation. So if you're buying high appreciation markets, be careful. That's all I'm going to say. If you buy right, it doesn't really matter. I'm buying at, you know, 60, 70, and 80 cents on the dollar. I mean, I do pay full retail for things sometimes, but that's when I get it on my terms and it can still cashflow, but you know, again, it makes me wonder, am I playing too small?

Driving Thoughts - EP 4 - Deal Bell Hits a Milestone!

Good morning, everybody. Today is Fat Tuesday. It's the last day of Mardi Gras. I'm headed into the office. Now I may break away and do a, do a parade at two o'clock this afternoon, but that's beside the point. Today's a good day because yesterday I found out in my business deal bell. For those you don't know, I own a software business called deal bell that helps agents and real estate investors, so it's a skip tracing service list, stacking service, and as 47 a month or four 50 for the year, it's a great product, but I'm very proud because, at this moment, it is fully self-sustaining itself. I mean, the developer's being paid for everything's being paid for, from the number of memberships and users that we have. So we're actually making money now. And this has been a long time coming. It's been over a year. And almost $200,000 in expense. And a lot of, a lot of times where I had to put things on the sidelines and on the back burner with my dad and partnerships and everything else that was going on. And, in 2021 that, you know, caused me to kind of take a little bit of a break, but my head's been bad. Since I moved down here to orange beach, Gulf shores in September, we've been working really hard. I'm working all the kinks out of the system, making sure we fix everything. Now, I feel really proud about what it's capable of now. And we now have enough users that it supports itself and we'll pay for marketing. So that's a big accomplishment. I wanted to let everybody know that like, you know, where I'm at on, on that business, because the whole goal of this is for me to share what's going on in my world and my businesses.

Driving Thoughts - EP 3 - I Failed Early This Morning

Today is Monday, February the 28th, man. Tomorrow is March. This year is just going by already. It seems like, you know, the old saying is that I heard as a kid was like, you know, the older you get the faster time goes by. Well, I know that's not actually true. It does feel that way because I'm running a lot of different businesses. And next thing you know, I feel like I keep my head down and I'm buried and I'm working on grinding and like the year just disappears. So I want to get better at that. And I want to find ways to better utilize my time. So, I'm actually systemizing a lot of the things that I do on a daily basis. Like my email. They will always be personal, but I'm going to write most of those on the weekends. And then as far as like what I'm putting in as little blurbs and the things that I'm reading, I'm learning that I find interesting on the bottom, I'm just going to start putting those into a group form to where my VA can then take those and post them into the correct slots every single time. So, then you have like a curated feed of what I'm reading, what I'm learning, and what I find interesting because what I'll do is. Take the link posted down there and my VA can then take it and put it into the newsletter. And I've just got to video record, screen record, how I'm doing my emails, and then she can go and do and copy and paste what I'm finding. And then all I have to do is write the content every day. So what I'll probably do is be writing content two or three days a week to cover the five days a week that I'm doing it. which is still a lot of content. It's a lot of time. But I enjoy doing it because it allows me to kind of express my thoughts and allows me to share what I am learning and finding. This allows me to show you that like I do, in fact, fail. I failed this morning and the fact that I didn't get my daily at 12 done, I did not get my weekly three done this morning in the timeframes I normally get them done. So my week is already out. I'm going in the office now to go, try to get those done before we start heading out and go and do our, tasks.