Keen ON | Episode 005

- Welcome to Keen ON Real Estate, the official podcast of Keen Plus Company since 2002, keen Plus Company has been proud to serve in town Atlanta and the Atlanta metropolitan area with an expertise that rests in real estate consulting, property management, and long-term investment. This is information we are proud to share with you, the company we keep. Today's episode has a little background audio flavor, not because it was a good episode with some good conversation, and we could bear it apart

with it, even though there were some audio issues that we eventually ironed out. Oh, no. It's because we recorded this episode at the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California. Presidents and captains of industry usually hang out here in the summer. The late winter months are reserved for Titans of Atlanta real estate. And with that, here's your host, Joshua Keen, - Kitchen Manager by night at a Cheesecake Factory, at a kitchen manager at a Cheesecake Factory, which sounds like a euphemism. I thin

k it would be, I think it would've been easier just to be the Batman by night than to be a kitchen manager at a Cheesecake Factory. But hey, it was each their own man. - Yeah, it was, it was a, it was a different life. Being a kitchen manager at the Cheesecake Factory is, I, I equate it to being in the military. Cheesecake Factories are some of the busiest restaurants, individual restaurants in the world. Generally, there's two or three kitchens in a Cheesecake Factory location. The menu is lege

ndary or the number of items on the menu. And for our listeners, I just have to say this because a lot of people will say, oh, the Cheesecake Factory as a restaurant and as a bootcamp for Lion Cook, what are you talking about? What's fascinating about the Cheesecake Factory is because of how busy it is, the only frozen food that comes into a Cheesecake Factory is in fact the cheesecake. Everything else is fresh. No pre-chopped, a diced ham for the omelet on Mother's Day. Everything is prepared f

rom vegetables, brought in fresh to sauces, prepared from scratch by a recipe to marinades, to right down to fileting your own fish that comes in fresh on a daily, going into a restaurant that is nothing but freezers in the back Between that and something that's nothing but refrigerators. There's a huge difference between the quality of those two restaurants. I would have our listeners know - The difference between being a line cook at A TGI Fridays and being a line cook at a, at a Cheesecake Fa

ctory, is the difference between being a, a sous chef at Larry's Di Diner in Omaha, Nebraska at a sous chef at at Lair in New York. - Yeah. I think there is a huge difference. I would, I think you're spot on by that actually. Yeah. So it, yeah. So there was a point at which I had to make a decision whether or not I wanted to go full-time into real estate, or I wanted to stay in the world of restaurant and kitchen management, because that's a very seductive and enticing life, right? Yeah. It's ex

tremely physical and vibrant. Right. I, I don't have any other way to describe it. I loved working in kitchens - As well, and with your work ethic, with your work ethic too. I mean, imagine if you would've gone the restaurant that route, you'd basically be general manager of any restaurant in the country that you wanted to be, not to blow smoke up your ass or anything like that, but I mean, I think you could, general - Manager of a Cheesecake Factory, that that guy was easily pulling a million d

ollars a year because of the volume of those restaurants based on bonus and the way that they manage food costs and liquor costs and all of that. As far as profitability was concerned, there was a lot tied to the way that those restaurants were managed. - And it's notoriously well run company too. - Yes, extremely well run. In fact, there's a great New Yorker article totaled sidebar way in the weeds here, but there's a great, I think it's a New Yorker. I'll have to pull it up. It's been a while

since I've read this article, maybe 15 years ago. But it was talking about the US healthcare system and how the US healthcare system could learn a thing or two to how cheesecake factories are run. - Oh my God. - Yeah. And the - Hand, the hand, the, the hand of the free market is, is an interesting and, and the mysterious hand. - Yeah. And I think that maybe they were saying that it needed to, the, the healthcare needed to be more militaristic. I don't know. But those kitchens were militaristic,

more protocols in place, more protocols, more checklists, more countdown timers. Everything in that restaurant was a countdown timer that, that ticking red clock counting down from five minutes to zero or from three minutes to zero or 60 seconds to zero, it was - Constant. If table number 214 does not get its spinach artichoke dip in 45 seconds, you'll be drug out into the back. Yeah. - Well, you will - Be the ham on Mother's Day. - Hello, and welcome to Keen on Real Estate, the place where we k

eep it real about all things Atlanta and this industry we love. I'm your host Joshua Keen, and with me in Good company, the UR of Realty, the Bard of Building Tales, the maestro of market myths, is the grim to my grim, narrating the origins and odyssey of this real estate adventure, sir Austin Holt. - You truly Joshua are the regent of rhythm. The apothecary of - Apotheosis - Apotheosis. Ooh, the apothecary of Apotheosis. - Wow. - A a - Apotheosis of apothecaries of alliteration. - A a medieval

sorcerer of magnificent swagger. Joshua Keen, how are you, my dear fellow? - I am good, glad to be here. - Excellent. And of course, we are joined as always by our diplomatic attache, the great, the one, the only, Lara Caruso. Lara, how are you? - Happy to be here, - Lara. - Totally worse. - Thanks for joining. - Josh, you never told me, and I only found this out recently. You at one point were a cabbage towner, a cabbage town, a cabbage town knight as well. At one point, we only discovered this

, I only discovered this recently about you, that you, you were a different generation of cabbage towner than I was, but you, you lived in the stacks back when the stacks were new, and people still didn't think that the idea of a converted industrial building was even gonna work. The stacks were completed, as I recall, in like 99. The developers who did it, everyone thought it was lunacy to do it back then. It was just such a novel, weird concept. - Yeah, massive piece of acreage in the middle o

f that time. When I moved into it in 2002, when I first moved to Atlanta, it was newly converted by every definition. I think that they were still, even some units that had not been rented, like they were still in the process. They might have finished the conversion in, I don't think they finished the conversion in 99. I think the building that I moved into, which was building age on the far end point being, I wouldn't be surprised if I was one of the first to move into that unit, like some of t

he units. It took them a while to rent that space out. It was a new concept, new idea. And at the time where a two bedroom, two bathroom, 1500 square foot loft, $1,200 a month. - But God, I was about to say, I hesitate to ask what the price was, but Cabbagetown back in the early two thousands was not really the, the most charming place, bordered only by a cemetery, a Marta track, memorial and Reynoldstown and the earth and the oceans and the skies. - Yes. And so it was, it - Was right - There on

the edge of that transition of Atlanta. Historically, Atlanta had quite a few housing projects and many of them lined Boulevard. When I first moved to Atlanta, that's what Boulevard consisted of, was housing projects. And slowly but surely, Atlanta was actually, as a city, was at the forefront of tearing down housing projects and moving to housing voucher, a housing voucher system for the underserved for people that needed housing assistance. Atlanta was revolutionizing the way that cities deal

t with that, and Boulevard Avenue was, or Boulevard was part of that. It wast Boulevard Avenue. It's just Boulevard. So yeah, it was a different time in Atlanta. Lots changed - 23 years. Your specialty has always been on the InTown market, which I guess is best defined as think of the Ponds Corridor from Midtown to the perimeter and then kind of draw like a, sort of an ellipses sort of a football shape around that area. And that's kind of what InTown typically is in, in, in your mind. - Yeah, in

my mind, when I think about it, InTown Atlanta, I specifically think about east, the east side of InTown Atlanta, so east of the connector, the Ponts Memorial, DeKalb Avenue corridors that run through from downtown or midtown, depending on whether you're on DeKalb or TS through your main state neighborhoods like Virginia Highlands, Inman Park, Candler Park, going east toward Avondale Estates, which is right on that border of the perimeter from the Avondale Estates to Midtown, along those major

surface road corridors of Memorial Drive, pond de Leone, and DeKalb Avenue. That's what I consider InTown Atlanta. - Yeah, - That area has expanded over time, and we call in town really anything inside the 2 85 perimeter at this point. But yeah, east side neighborhoods were the original. I guess we would have to use that very controversial term, gentrification, when we describe what happens with modern American cities, - Everything else I think would just kind of be euphemism. The G word is alwa

ys kind of lurking in the corner, I say just to use it. - Yeah. - Yeah. But I'm not afraid. I wonder. - I think it comes with its own set of baggage that is worth maybe a deep dive in a future episode, but yeah, - Sure. This is a very stupid question. What's the biggest difference between selling in town Atlanta property now versus selling Atlanta in town property back in 2004, 20 years ago? Well, the size of the commission - Check Austin, the size - Of the commission. Check Waka Waka, Wacka, Wa

cka, Wacka. No, he'll be here all week, folks. Don't forget to tip your waitress. How about, how about this? If you were to go back and you had 30 seconds to talk to yourself 20 years ago, - Yeah. - What would you say? What would you say to yourself? - Oh, I wouldn't even need 30 seconds. I would just need three word, four words, buy more real estate. - So the Siren song, the Siren song of Real Estate drew you away from the restaurant biz. - Yes. The Siren song of real estate. And you know, bein

g completely honest, as a young 22-year-old, 23-year-old at the time, it was, the siren song was called Cash Money. I had to pay the bills, you know, so it was initially very much about this sort of allure chasing the shiny object of, of the big commission check, and I think that's what attracts a lot of people into this business initially. - Did you ever kind of have it in your head, I'm gonna be doing this full time, I should probably get some real estate of my own. Like, was that important to

you? Did you think like, in order to be a real estate agent, like I gotta own a house, is that like kind of on the point, or is that, does that even have a, a place in the conversation like, I'm, you know what? Curious about that. - I would say at first it did not, my attraction to the business was not necessarily through the lens of being a homeowner or even the investment aspect of it. It was very much to give the full sort of picture of that. I came into the business in 2003, and if you thin

k about that as a point in time and what was happening in the world of technology, real estate was just coming online. And the attraction for me was really this idea that real estate was in a transformational phase. Because when I first got licensed in Atlanta, for a very brief period of time, maybe three or four months, maybe six months, we were still passing out MLS books, black and White magazine, where there were literally real estate listings. It was a catalog of homes that were for sale th

at you could pick up at your local grocery store and were distributed far and wide. There was a public version, and there was a real estate agent version of the MLS book. It's like the - Different, the one picture and like the 50 words, unless you wanted to buy more space. And it was usually location, location, location, - Exactly. Yeah. And it was classified ads for real estate. Yeah. But it was within, I don't know, six months and of, of being in the business where I really started to feel lik

e, okay, I'm out here wanting to sell houses, but I don't, I'm not a homeowner myself. And there was a little bit of a, almost like an imposter syndrome feeling where that that became an itch that I wanted to scratch. And so, to your point, yes, it was not right then, but really early on in my career that I felt the desire to want to own my own property and buy real estate, - Being a chef who, who, who, who enhances his palate, if you will. - Yeah. You know, sell real estate without owning real

estates, like being a chef with no taste buds. Yeah. - At that point, you're guiding people through the process, but you also hadn't gone through the process yourself, which is, yeah. I, I think a bit of a trial by fire for any, for any first time home buyer, you kind of, I imagine you'd need to go through that process just to kind of go into the crucible to go ahead and figure out what it kind of, what it kind of feels like so you can more accurately guide people on that journey themselves. - I

stopped just short of saying, don't trust a real estate agent that doesn't own his own home. I stopped just short - Of that. Don't, don't trust a skinny chef in, in other words, like guess. Right? Like I, something like - That. I stopped just short of that because - Okay, I - Have to have empathy for the young people in this business that desire that. But I would definitely say don't trust a real estate agent that isn't on the path towards home ownership. For sure. If they're young in this busi

ness like I was, you know, in my early twenties, and that is not an aspiration and something that they're scratching and clawing to make a reality for themselves, because I think there is a certain quality that comes with that mentality as well, that could make for a very good real estate consultant. But if they don't have that, then they just might be a snake oil salesperson. - Fair enough. What, what, what was your first foray for yourself into, - Yeah, so - The first, what popped your, what p

opped your home? Buyership cherry, if you will. We'll edit that out. What? Keep that in. Okay. Sounds good. I like, good. - That's a good headline for first time home buyers. Let's pop your home buying Cherry. - Yeah. So what popped your, what, what, what popped your home buying cherry? - There were certain things that I did look for in a neighborhood, and Hurst had a lot of those things. It was adjacent to a, an established neighborhood with much higher values already. In that case, it was Wino

na Park, which was just east of - Where Home Road located, located Scott. Yeah. - Home of, - Yeah. - Yeah. Homes in, at that point in time, in the early two thousands, homes in one Winona Park would be selling for on average maybe 50 to 60% higher for the exact same house in Winona Park versus Oakhurst. But we're really talking about literally being able to throw a stone from one neighborhood to the other. At that point in time, I could throw a baseball pretty hard and I could hit a home in Wino

na Park from standing in my backyard. So the other thing that I considered was, were there geographic boundaries or something that would prevent that spillover effect of those values from that neighborhood to this neighborhood? And in this case, the answer is no. We were in the exact same zip code, exact same school district, and most people driving around o Kirsten, Winona Park at the time, didn't know the boundaries between the two neighborhoods. They weren't aware of the boundaries. - What ki

nd of boundaries, in short, are there usually to prevent such things? Well, there's just zip codes and city planning. Well, zip code. - Well, yeah, geographics, zip code boundaries, municipality boundaries, school district boundaries, street thoroughfares that become boundaries and, or things like railroad tracks. Right? Oakhurst is south of the railroad tracks in City of Decatur, as an example. So you have the railroad tracks that run down College Avenue run from east to west, and we were south

of the tracks. That is a boundary, right? As a result, real estate developed differently in the way that the transition of the neighborhood was different. But in looking at the neighborhood, I was looking for these factors because the one thing that I could say is that early in my career, I had the right people in my corner, even though I had not, I was a relatively green real estate agent. Right. I didn't know, and I hadn't lived in Atlanta that long. I had my older brother who had been licens

ed in this city for several years as a partner. He was my consultant during that period of time, and I was able to look to him and be, okay, what should I be looking for? And we collaborated on that. - When it came to actually buying your first place, did you, I think hairdressers are kind of on the fence about cutting their own hair, or a surgeon knows how to cut out their, you cut out an appendix, but they're not gonna cut out their own appendix. How does it work in real estate? Did you buy yo

ur own place? You knew all the steps, you knew the contracts to fill out, you know, which inspections need to be done, you know what to look for, you know where to kick the tires to make sure that a house is gonna work out well, and you can kind of get it without a hitch. Did you buy your own place, or did you kind of rely on the, on, on, on the people around you who had more experience or different experience? What, what's the what? What, what was that? What was that process like for you? - Yea

h. And in my case, I wouldn't say that I relied on somebody that had more experience or even different experience who I relied on as somebody that wasn't as close to the transaction as I was. - So you did rely on somebody else? - Absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah. And to your question, no, I didn't trust myself to make the right decision being that close to the transaction. I needed somebody that could see the forest for the trees. Right? It was something that I, I needed somebody who could ha

ve a bird's eye view and have my back and help me manage my emotions through the process. I needed a period of time to adjust my champagne taste to a beer budget. When you're out shopping for your first house, it's very easy to be attracted to shiny objects, whether that's the promise of potential when it comes to a certain neighborhood, or it's literally a shiny object, like a really nice faucet in a house that you fall in love with and you're like, I've gotta have that faucet. That faucet. - B

ut you can have that faucet in another house, Josh, right? You could, no, no. It's not gonna look better in it. Yeah, it needs to be in this house. In this - House, yes. - Yeah. But no. Yeah, yeah. Managing those expectations and kind of figuring out what, - Yeah, and I really did lean on, my older brother at that time, who was a disinterested third party who had experience in the business, was a very good real estate consultant himself, had lived in Atlanta longer than I had, understood the dyn

amics of neighborhoods where I could test my theories against his well of wisdom and just be able to talk through the decision making process with somebody that I trusted, somebody that I really knew had my back in the process that was putting my interests ahead of their own interest. In this case, he wasn't even getting paid in the transaction. So, you know, there was, that didn't even matter. Right? - Family discount. - Yes, family discount. But, you know, I think that's really a very importan

t point that you bring up. Should a surgeon perform their own surgery? No. Should a real estate agent trust themselves to buy their own house? No, I don't think so. When - Do, do you, I know it was a couple of decades ago, but do you remember, like, I don't know, you and he were kind of just poking around different houses and stuff like that. Do you remember a moment when he was like, not so much? Don't, don't. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. No. Here's what you actually want. Not because I'm your big

brother, but - Because, funny you bring this up. My decision factor for the first house that I bought was actually between a shotgun bungalow in Cabbagetown and a three bedroom, two bath, less than desirable renovation in Opers that were priced the exact same point, right? One was a one bedroom, one bath, loft style, shotgun bungalow, gutted out in Cabbagetown. I loved the location. I could imagine myself turning that into a bachelor's pad as a young 20-year-old and thinking about it in terms o

f, for all the things, it was actually $20,000 more than the house that I ended up buying in Oakhurst. And the truth is, in that conversation, there was a lot of talking me down from the emotional side of what I could imagine my life to be, to live in that neighborhood, and thinking about the practicality of my first home being, not my forever home, but a forever investment. And frankly, I'm glad that I had that conversation because although that house in Cabbagetown would've been a good investm

ent as well, if I put them into a spreadsheet today, the house in Oakhurst outperformed the house in Cabbagetown by a significant factor. Do - You still have the house in Oakhurst? I do. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah. - How many houses, homes, apartments, condos, lofts, enclaves underneath the freeway overpass holes in the ground, or, or or corner suites in otherwise bordellos of sin. How many properties, Josh, do you think you've sold in the course of your, of your career since you broke free of the surly

bonds of restaurateur? - It's funny you ask that question because I actually tried to come up with an exact number of poems that I've sold about a year ago, and the number that I arrived at, and I, I arrived this number because records only go back so far within the MLS. So I was able to download transaction history dating back to 2007. So I was able to piece together all of the properties that I had sold from January of 2007 to now. So the number that I arrived at was 1,122, - 1,122. So if we

take, let's just say, let, let's be nice and conservative. 20 years, a thousand homes, that's 200, that's, that's 50 homes a year. Yeah. A little more than a home a week. - Okay. Sold on average about a home a week. That would be a, that's a nice way to wrap. What - Is the one constant that you encounter with folks who are not, maybe not even their first time buyers? 'cause a lot of your folks stick around for buying additional homes, selling and then buying a new home with you either upgrading,

downgrading, making a lateral move. Maybe they want to go ahead and use their old home as an investment property and all that kind of stuff, but with every home purchase, does the cycle start again? I know we did it one time before and, and it went fine, but the market's different this time. You know, the last time I worked with you, Josh, it was like, you know, it was 2006, now it's like 2011, and we all have PTSD from the, from the recession and all that kinda stuff, right? D does it ever get

easier to buy a house, do you think? From a buyer's perspective? Yeah. I - Mean, you could follow the recipe, right? The recipe is the same and or somebody who's done it before, they know the roadmap. But every time you do it, there are different variables. People are at different life stages, have different expectations of the outcome. Buying real estate has a different flavor every time you do it, whether it's the nature of the economy that you're transacting, or the context of the economy th

at you're dealing with, whether it's the expectations or the life stages of the client. You know, I've had clients that have bought and sold their first home with me, bought and sold their second home with me, bought and sold their third home with me, and maybe even on their fourth property. And at every point there are different variables, expectations, completely different value systems that are driving the big why of why they're making that move. - So I wanna know a little bit more about the

actual services that you provide, but before that, I guess what I'm really curious about is how do you find out what it is they want if they don't even know whether what it is they're looking for? - First off, that's my role in being a consultant or the client, is to help clarify that, or them asking thought provoking questions that allow people to really take A moment to deeply consider the reasons why or what's most important to them about the decision they're making. Most people intuitively a

rrive at, okay, I need to make a move. I use that language purposefully, meaning that most people don't say, I wanna buy another house. They say, I want to make a move. I want to make a transition from where I am right now to where I want to be at some point in the future. And different people approach that process on different timelines. So I enter the conversation, I enter the relationship with people at completely different times, and I really honor the role that I play in that in try not to

make assumptions about where they are in the decision making process, right? Because I could have a telephone conversation with you Austin, saying, Hey, I'm thinking about selling my house. Would love to talk to you about it. I'm thinking about putting it on the market in the spring, and you could tell me all the reasons why you would be, do you, you had arrived at that. But it's not until I really have a deeper conversation, a more thought provoking conversation with you that we can really expl

ore together, whether that's the right thing for you to do, and for me to hold the space for you to be able to figure out whether that's the right thing for you to do on your own. And that's my role as a consultant. - As a consultant, you, there's an emotionality that has to come with a lot of these things. Let's go ahead and take the empty daer type of situation that 20 years have gone by and stuff like that. You know, couples kind of bummed out about the fact that on one hand we wanted our dau

ghter to have her old childhood bedroom, so when she comes back, but is she gonna do that anymore? And there's gotta be a bit of a therapist element. And I know you're not, I know you're not a licensed clinical therapist or anything, but No, - You bring up that conversation. I had that, I've had that conversation twice just in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. I've met with friends of mine who were past clients of mine. We both have daughters the same age going into college. They're at the point w

here they're looking to make a transition. The house is too big for them. They were a small family to begin with. They live in a large house. And there is that conversation about what is it gonna be like? We want our daughter to be able to come back on her first Christmas visit back from college, and be able to come back to her bedroom, come back to the house that she grew in. There's a lot of emotionality to real estate. And my role in that conversation, and in any conversation related to those

larger, very human deep psychic overtones of this business is really just to play the role, allowing the conversation to unfold. And it's more of a clarification of values, defining what's most important to them so that then they can make a decision that's easy from there. And when I left that conversation, it, what I helped them do was clarify values, arrive at what was most important to them, was to keep the house for at least another year through this transition, through this life phase, and

then revisit this conversation a year from now to see if those values had changed, if there was a shift in that, and if what was important to them. It might be different a year from now. - Give everyone a bit more of a transition. Do you think in your role of a consultant, you are maybe less of a, less of a therapist in that regard and more of a a home ownership doctor? - Yeah. The way that I look at my role as a real estate agent and a real estate consultant, and I really define it in three ro

les, or really four that I play in the life cycle of my client's relationship with their home. And it's first and foremost, I consider myself a consultant. And as a consultant, I consider my job what I just described, which is really holding space and asking thoughtful questions and clarifying values. Because what I know as a consultant is that when my client's values are clear to them, their decisions are much easier. And what I want for them is to be able to make easy decisions. This is not ab

out buying real estate or selling real estate. It's about moving. It's about making a transition from one place to another place. And oftentimes, transitions have a deep psychological weight to them, right? Meaning that if somebody wants to be in a place that's different one than where they are now, there's a lot that has to happen in order for that to occur. And it's not about moving from two bedrooms to three bedrooms. It's about, I, I'm planning on potentially having another child, and I live

in a two bedroom house, and I'm realizing that I, that two bedrooms doesn't fit my lifestyle because I want to be able to live in a house where my children have the independence and autonomy to have their own bedrooms. And you get to much deeper reasons behind the, the, the motivation to make a move from one place to another place to where we can arrive at that place together. And I can, for lack of a better way to say it, really walk a mile in their shoes and then help them achieve what they w

ant to achieve. Get again, from where they are to where they want to be in that transition ler to their specific situation. - The price of a house is pretty much fixed in stone with a wiggle room of only about two or 3% or something like that, give or take. I suppose you can go ahead and talk somebody down a little bit. Like for example, I'm thinking of a friend of mine who, who was buying a house recently, and he was just this close to after dumping some money into it was about to dump just a l

ittle bit more money into it. And then the inspection that was supposed to take place a few weeks before finally took place, and there was an issue with the septic system that would've cost somebody about 25,000 bucks to fix. And he ended up just kind of just dropping out of the deal. It didn't work out. They just didn't have the time or the money to go ahead and want to even take care of that. Does that come under the negotiator role or does that come under the role of more sort of like contrac

t to closing transaction guy? - Yeah, I mean, I think that in your, in your friend situation, it definitely comes under the, the role of negotiation, right? Like I really consider my role in negotiation, not just structuring an offer and putting together an offer that represents my client's best interest. And at any point that we're making an offer my client's best interests is, is to secure the house that they want. Because we've gone through a process at that point where we've surveyed the mar

ket, we understand what's available to them, what's most important to them, and at the point that we arrive at making an offer on a house, then our goal is to secure it under contract and to secure it under a contract that, a price that makes the most sense for them and their situation. But generally that means they want it. So moving beyond just structuring a contract and negotiating the initial terms, the initial purchase price or the initial like seller concessions in the making the offer, th

ere's also the process of due diligence and understanding the complexity of a real estate transaction that unfolds once you're under contract on the property that you want to buy. And there's so many things that happen at that point that I become responsible for, and that my clients rely on me to not just oversee, but to negotiate. And there is a clear distinction between those two roles. The third role that I play on behalf of my clients is overseeing the details of the transaction and really b

ecoming a quarterback that helps manage the complexity as more and more people get involved. And more and more things can go wrong in that process. But my role as a negotiator also includes the inspection process, which is most real estate transactions go to die. And my role in that process is really about bringing 20 years of wisdom, having seen, let's call it at this point, three to 4,000 inspection reports and having reviewed that, understanding the mechanics of a home, understanding the, the

nuances of how a home works and like in your friend's situation where maybe he walks away from a transaction because a septic tank issue, I bring a network of septic tank people to the process, right? I have a septic tank guy that I rely on to help my clients evaluate a septic tank scenario and really make smart decisions around whether or not it's, it makes sense to walk away from a transaction over an issue that's discovered or go back to the table and ask the seller to participate in a negot

iation that corrects that issue and gets us to the track that we're on and allows my client to buy that property because that's what we wanted to do in the first place. - Joshua, it does occur to me that there is so much in this topic to talk about and stuff that we could fill out multiple, multiple episodes with, and I'm sure we will. But one thing that I think any conversation about home buying would be remiss to go without is today's current home buyers in the market that we live in. I speak

as a millennial myself, but my question is for you, having seen the market shift from when you bought your first home in Oakhurst 20 years ago to to to, to the way things are right now, do you think it's a valuable notion for the youngins, as it were to, to, to consider purchasing a home if they have the opportunity to even in the slightest? Wow. Or is it too late? - That's a leading question, isn't it, Austin? - I, I think, I think it's too fucking late. I think we're all screwed. - So I can to

tally relate to how you might feel that way, because you are by definition a millennial. - I am indeed. I am the eldest of millennials. I gather the Gen Zs around the campfire and tell them stories about before the boom boom times. Yeah. - And I just so happened to be turning 45 this Thursday, so Indeed. Yeah. So I'm a - MBS - Millennials, gen X cusp known as the Zals. - Yes, indeed. - You actually introduced me to that term. I did not that term act that existed until Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bei

ng serious of what you're saying. I I think that you bring up a really, very important, very serious point, and that is that there is the potential. Now, one thing I want to speak to is that I've been in the business now for 22 years. I lived through the Great Recession as a young real estate consultant who experienced a marketplace that only went up. That was my experience of the market. I also experienced a lot of things that I was either naive or didn't know any better, or that was just the w

ay things were. Or the subprime mortgage movement, consumers and people that didn't know any better to over-leverage themself with real estate debt in a way that was predatory and frankly criminal. And I participated in that marketplace not knowing any better, and not even questioning it during that rise up from 2003 to in Atlanta, wasn't until September 15th, 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. That reality hit me like a ton of bricks. And I really had to take the next few years of my picking

up the pieces of the business that I was involved in and really questioning the ways that I had participated in that market that caused this devastation that was all around me during the Great Recession. So I, I say all of that to say that I'm not so naive to think that real estate markets only go up, but what I do know is that we're at this point, some 15 years after that event in 2008, that led to a serious reconsideration of how I go about being in this business. I, I'm also much more thought

ful about the, the economies that I exist in, and really try to pay attention to what's going on around me. And I have a perspective on what you're speaking to. There's dynamics within this city that exists where affordability is becoming a concern, where people are being priced out of the market. Where if you're a first time buyer and you want to buy your first home, you're getting into situations where you're further and further away from the city core where you work, the commute becomes a pro

blem, the lifestyle benefits become a problem. You're living in a neighborhood that you don't really desire to live in, and that might pigeonhole you or force you to make a decision based on the lifestyle that you wanna live, to rent a place versus buy a place. I'm also aware that there are different decisions that are taking place that because of the pandemic, we've pulled forward this work from home environment where we're on the precipice of this digital transformation, this AI transformation

where, where people choose to live and how they choose to live has a lot different, a lot of different factors that come into play. There's so many dynamics at play. But what I will say is that after really considering all of that, I do think that we're at a point where if you're a young person and you're looking forward in your life and you're thinking about owning real estate, buying your first home, whether it's as an investment or whether it's for a lifestyle choice, if they have the means

to do it, and, and if they have the resources to do it, yes, - If, if the means are easily available to them, or would they have to - Borrow and steal to do it, I would say do that. Right? It's absent the stealing part. But if you are in a situation where you have access to resources where you could borrow money from friends or family or extended family, or you have to choose to live a more, a austere life for a period of time in order to save up the down payment, to have the resources available

to go and put a down payment on your first home, what I would recommend is let's have a conversation about that. Really get clear on your values, really get clear on what's important to you, and really get clear on what it, what that could mean for you in the long run. And I do think that what we would arrive at is that something very smart to do. - So begging and borrowing is okay, stealing not so much, but then we have to go ahead and bring into the equation is art theft. It's a victimless cr

ime. So if you were to steal a painting right from a museum, then that would be okay, because who's, who's really being - Heard? I mean, if we, if you, if you wanna plan a heist of the Mona Lisa, you need some help, I'm happy to help map that out, get lasers involved. - Nah, - The great thing about your plan is that if you don't get caught, you know what you can do with that extra art. Hang it in the new house that you bought. - Hang it in the new house that you bought, boom. Done. So bottom lin

e is - Buy now. - Buy now forever. Hold - Your peace or - Forever hold your, or forever hold your piece. And if there has ever been a sign off line like that one, I ain't heard it yet until just now, because hooey buy now or forever hold your peace, Josh, wonderful conversation. We have covered the gamut of buying real estate in this here economy and in this here market before we leave, as is customary for a great many of our episodes. And this is our fifth anniversary of Keen on Real Estate. Fi

fth episode. Fifth. Fifth episode. Fifth episode. But it's our fifth anniversary, as is customary. Josh, if somebody is looking into buying their very first house, what's a good, what's a good book you can recommend to 'em? Good resource aside, of course. From, from, from, from emailing joshua@keenplus.com. Yeah. A good - Book for a first time home buyer. You know, you can't go wrong with the Home Buying for Dummies - Straight up from, from from The Four Dummies series. Yeah, - From the Four Dum

mies series. Surprisingly good resource for a lot of topics. I have to say, the Home Buying for Dummies book is not for dummies, it's for smart people looking to buy their first piece of real estate. - I believe it is the smartest people who are the most wise to admit that they in fact know nothing mind blown. I'm the first one to ever say that. Isn't that right? Joshua? Literally a person who has a degree in philosophy and psychology and Laura a an actual literal classist. I'm the first one to

ever say that, right? - Yes, you are. That's the first, yep, - That's the first - I've - Heard of it. Yep. Oh, perfect. Excellent. In that case, you heard it here first, folks, that bit of wisdom, courtesy of yours truly. Alright, Joshua, sign us out, baby. - That's a wrap for today's episode of Keen ON Real Estate. Thanks for joining, and remember, whether you're buying, selling, investing, or just dreaming, we're here to keep it real. Until next time, Be well. Take care. And keep good company.

- Keen on real estate has been brought to you by Keen Plus Company. This is the February 27th, 2024 episode. Your host, who actually reads articles in the New Yorker, would like to remind you that the article he cited at the beginning of this episode was titled, what Big Medicine Can Learn From The Cheesecake Factory originally published in the August 6th, 2012 issue, your co-host, who also has a subscription to the New Yorker, but only because he keeps them in that little magazine stand next t

o his toilet. So house guests will think he's an intellectual. Is Austin Holt, our executive producer who learned about that article through Harvard Health? And who doesn't subscribe to the New Yorker because the cartoons are derivative at best and vapid at worst is Laura Caru Ho. The announcer is Casey Brighton. Our theme song was produced by Andy Warner. Our editor is Donte de Lamancha. Thanks for tuning in and see you next week. - Podcast. - Alright, red leather yellow leather - Red yellow le

ather. Yellow leather - Red. Red leather. Yellow leather red leather yellow leather leather, yellow leather. Amidst the mist and fiercest frost. - Frost. Joshua found a murder.