 Okay. So today's video is actually a really good conversation. Listen to this on one and a half speed, two times speed, whatever you do when you're working out, you know, doing your commute, whatever it is. But I dive into the market cycles, the yearly cycles, the tenure cycles, how you can take advantage of this, my experiences of going through these kind of cycles over and over again and building a business and a foundation that cannot be taken down by the market. I think that's what's really important here. We also talk about the advancement of technology in the industry and our agents getting left behind if they're not utilizing technology and social media. Then I break down a bunch of my investment deals, my real estate, you know, rental properties, flips, so on and so forth. It's just a really good conversation with a lot of great information. So anyway, enjoy, smash the like button, hit subscribe if you haven't already, and let's get into it. I was thinking about their 2023 and it's like, man, this is such an amazing opportunity to triple your business in 2026, 2027, because the ripple effects of what you do this year, if you can just keep your head above water right now and watch your database continue to grow. The biggest impact on their business is prospecting. Now that could mean a million different things. The game has really changed, man. When I started, you had to be a great deal maker and then in the early to mid 2000s, you had to be a great deal maker and know how to use some technology. I think the really great conversationalists around sales skills, asking the right questions and really understanding the objective, what process to really, you know, take and the direction of the conversation needs to go. I think those kind of agents can really crush it really under any circumstance. They don't have to do social media. I'm literally running this multi-million dollar business. No employees, but yet I'm partners with these companies that I use their employee like there's companies that have sales people. Welcome to the pre real podcast. So folks, you know, I'd like to bring value. You know, I'm a pretty straightforward deal maker. I love to connect with real folks. We've got Ricky Karuth today. It is an absolute treat to be able to have Ricky on the show. Talk about someone that's actually doing it has done it and is doing it at the highest level year after year after year. He brings an incredible level of intention and focus to real estate, but he didn't hit it out of the park straight away folks. He's a real guy with a real story with that. Ricky, thank you so much for joining us today. Oh man, my pleasure, bro. Let's bring some value today. Let's do it, baby. The world is going through another one of its turns, it feels like. And I know there's a lot of folks out there on the investment side and on the agent side that are looking for a footing trying to get a handle on what's happening. And I think it's super important for people to understand this is a cycle. People get lost in that, right? This is a cycle. And you're going to have ups and downs and for a guy that has had just off the charts success, eight years in a row, I think you were the top agent in the state. You've built a massive coaching business now. You have a significant investment portfolio. To me, your number one accomplishment, you travel with your wife and your kid everywhere you go. What a blessing. You're nailing it, but it wasn't always like that, right? And I figured if you could talk to the audience a little bit about your beginning and you're kind of hiccup along the way, because a lot of us have experienced that and it's real. Well, I mean, it goes like this. There's normally a really big cycle every 10 years or so. The last one was kind of a long one. It really lasted, like real estate started coming down on about 05 and didn't really bottom out till about 2011 or 2012 or so and started kind of rebounding as far as price goes. Transactions still were pretty high 2006 and 2007 and then they really crashed in 2008. So what year do you actually say this was the crash? I guess 2008. That was the worst year of transactions. So if you go by that, it's been a good 15 years this time. And really, if you count, let's see, this will probably go down as the crash year for this 10 year cycle, which is actually 15 years from 2008. So you don't really know exactly when these really big crashes are going to happen, but they're going to happen. And a lot of people are worried about prices, like where prices are going to go and everything. And they feel like we're there to be a crash. There has to be a price crash, but it's just not true. There's tons of recessions and recessionary periods where home prices did well, actually went up during a lot of them, flattened out during a lot of them and maybe tweaked down a tad and a couple. 2008 was the only one that really had like a price crash, but we're really in the crash. I mean, we're going to have about as many transactions as 2008 this year. I mean, that's a crash. The reason why prices haven't really followed it, when you look back and people try to compare this to 2008, by the time transactions did hit that low 4 million range, prices had already come down. Prices had already come down quite a bit before we had that. And we're still hitting all-time highs. Anyway, it's just completely different. But what I'm getting at is that, if you get into the business as an investor or an agent or whatever and you're in the middle of, you don't start during the 10-year cycle. You kind of started after the last one and you haven't really encountered one of these big shifts in the market, then it kind of catches you off guard. I think everybody has to go through one of those big shifts to realize that they kind of have to structure their business where it doesn't matter if a shift happens or not. You're kind of mentally prepared for it. You kind of know how it's going to go. And even though there's a lot of uncertainty with exactly how it's going to go, you have a good idea, like this crash, for example. We knew that there was going to be a period where transactions fell, but we really didn't know if prices would follow. Could have been another 2008 or it might have been a late 70s, where prices didn't have a significant crash. Back then, we had inflation that was comparable to what we saw this year. And then we saw interest rates go to the moon, just like we saw back then. So this crash seems to me very similar to to the late 70s, early 80s crash, with the way inflation went and mortgage rates went up. And the fact that prices are holding firm is the same problem back then. People wouldn't sell their homes because interest rates doubled and people were sitting on really low rates compared to what they were. I mean, they went up to 19%. And people were sitting on seven and 8%. They're like, well, I'm not going to sell and then buy something that's a 16, 17% mortgage rate. So it's real similar. There was really low inventory. It's just, it's really, really similar. But back to my point, if you've never been involved in one of these shifts, then you're kind of like, you're kind of discombobulated during the shift and you kind of don't want to know which way it's up. Maybe it takes you out of the business completely, which is what happened to me during the 2008 shift. But then after you go through that and you kind of learn your lessons and take your lumps from experiencing it, then you kind of formulate a new business model that puts you in a position where it doesn't matter if it crashes or not. And some people kind of, especially in today's world with all the podcasts and just like this one, for example, maybe somebody listens to this and says, okay, that's not a big deal. We just have to kind of structure a business. Then they started thinking about and visualizing. You can do it a lot better nowadays because how much information is shared. But back then there wasn't any podcast and you just kind of had to go through a lot of experience. There's books you can read and different things like that, but listening to podcasts and things like that, it's a totally different world now. People are far more educated, I would say, in real life, common sensible type of situations. But yeah, man, I got into 2002 and made a bunch of money mostly as an agent and I flipped a bunch of houses and got caught when the market crashed and realized it was going to happen. And I thought I was on top of the world and you kind of have that, you know, miss sense of reality. And then boom, you know, rug got snatched out from under me and lost it all, you know, really quickly. And that was fine. I went back to roofing houses. I was still in my mid 20s. I was thinking, thank God, because, you know, I was going to learn all these lessons in my mid 20s instead of 40s, 50s and 60s like some of my buddies who were right next to me doing the same thing. And, you know, just kind of like took a couple years, roofed houses, worked on the oil rig, served some tables, got laid off from the oil rig and kind of forced back into real estate. By then I'd kind of figured out where I went wrong and started to kind of build my business the right way. And then once you kind of get that down where it's more of a snowball, I was kind of a stick and move, you know, agent, wasn't really building any relationships. And, but once you realize it's more of a snowball, you know, you build your business model more on, you know, accumulation of people who know who you are and never forget who you are. And once you do that, nothing can really take you out. Your business can fluctuate through these large cycles, but really then you kind of start to realize you need the cycles, you need the market to retract, to really see that massive growth on the back side of a retraction because it always explodes. And then you kind of set yourself up for the ebbs and flows of the yearly cycles that happen. And also the 10 year cycles. And that's kind of how you stir up your income. And then these really big market shifts kind of set you up if you realize all this. And too many people are short term minded. And they're just, you know, like a lot of agents right now, they're thinking about their 2023. And it's like, man, this is such an amazing opportunity to triple your business in 2026 and 2027. Because the ripple effects of what you do this year, if you can just keep your head above water right now and watch your database continue to grow. I mean, it's just a no brainer that your business is going to triple 5x, 10x, whatever over the next three to five years. And without the market retraction, you wouldn't really see that. I mean, your business will, it can fluctuate down with the market retracting a little bit. It can come down 20%, let's say. But your business can literally triple quadruple 5x in a resurgence, in a market resurgence. So you just have to understand this and use it to your ability. And most people like myself have to kind of learn that from experience and go through it before you really understand how to take advantage of the cycles. But if you've never been in a cycle and you feel miscombobulated right now, great. Learn your lessons of this one and get ready for the next one. Keep your head above water. There's a lot of things happening in the market now. And I tend to agree with you. This is a lot more akin to the 70s crash than the 2008 crash. I've been doing this for, I don't know, 25, 30 years at this point. And since 2000, it was 2000, summer of 2006, I'll never forget it. When me and my business partner, we looked at each other as we get together and kind of round out what happened during the week in one of our meetings. And we both looked at each other and said, it's over. Like this is it. It's changed. We see it. We feel it. We know it. One of the great advantages of being a dealmaker and an agent is if you're involved and you've got boots on the ground, you really do have your finger on the pulse. And it does allow you to position yourself to be ahead of these things. You're the first person since it's happened that said 2005, 2006, by the way. Everybody always goes to 2008, but that's not when the music stopped. Music stopped a full, at least we felt it a full two years earlier. Oh yeah. It was like a data. The last property I sold was January or February of 2005. And then it just, it was just crashed. I mean, it was, it really kind of happened towards the end of 2004 and things started changing. And then by early 2005, my business kind of dwindled. I had a couple of little things that kind of just closed out. And my last one was like February or so of 05. I didn't sell a single thing between 05, January, February 05 to May of 2008. And yeah, 2005, really at the end of 2004, September-ish of 2004 was really when things really, in my local market, of course, back then I wasn't studying or analyzing national data or really even cared. I can only really speak on my local market, which my local market was mostly secondary homes, vacation properties, beach, front, investment type stuff, which is a really interesting market. But we were feeling in the single family home market here as well, South Alabama. But yeah, I mean, all you have to do is look at data. You can see prices kind of topped out and started coming down. And but you're right. A lot of people say, oh, it's the 2008 crash. And that's when the start market crashed. And that's when we had the least amount of transactions in real estate. So yeah, there's some legitimacy to saying that. But prices started coming down to 05 and didn't stop coming down to like 2011. So I think the principles stay the same. And I think what you're talking about is when you're you're in these difficult markets, a few things are going to happen. There's going to be attrition with the competition, folks are just not going to do this anymore, right? We'll probably see in our local market, 20% plus of the agents won't come through the other side of it. So that's one segment of the market that just no longer is there from a pure numbers perspective and competition. And when you're slow, there's an opportunity to build on the prospecting. I think probably the single thing that agents could be doing and don't do correctly that would have the biggest impact on their business is prospecting. Now that could mean a million different things. But the game has really changed, man. When I started, you had to be a great deal maker. And and then in the early to mid 2000s, you had to be a great deal maker and know how to use some technology. Now you've got to be a great deal maker and a straight digital marketer or have professionals that you rely on that are digital marketers. Are you seeing that kind of any kind of the deal makers and the digital marketers, typically the ones at least that are most seasoned, it doesn't align. They're the most resistant to change. They're really not adapting technology at the rate that the industry is saying they should. I think this next generation of agents, if they can be intentional and focused, they literally have the world in the palm of their hands. They could be super agents. But we're seeing that the the the agents currently are having a tough time with it. Has that been your experience? Having a tough time with adapting to social media and stuff, you mean? Yeah, all of the tools, geo fencing, social media, SEM, there's so many different things that you have to make like the older agents. Yeah, more seasoned ones. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of those seasoned agents, they're going to have their systems in place. They're going to have their database, they're going to have their clientele, their loyal people. They're going to be fine. You know, even moving forward, you can skin a cat. That's the thing about this business is there's so many different ways to do it and every single way wins. It just comes down to what wins for you. I think there's a lot to be said for people who go into a listing appointment with data on their profiles. Hey, I get this many impressions a day or a week or a month and I'm going to be pushing your property on my platforms. This is something no other agent has. This is my profile. I think that goes a long way. I've got a couple of different agents that do that and they crush it. I think that if you, two things, if you become really great at just vocal, just voice to voice communication, asking the right questions, understand what the real intentions are, the objective is around conversation because you're going to have to talk to them either way. You can get the lead online, but then you still got to talk to them. I think the really great conversationalists around sell skills, asking the right questions or really understanding the objective and what process to really take and the direction of the conversation needs to go, I think those agents can really crush it really under any circumstance. They don't have to do social media per se. However, if they take that skill and add social media on top of it, now they're the most dangerous agent out there. Right? Yeah. So that's kind of what I've been preaching, make calls all morning regardless of who you're calling, cold call, warm call, social media leads, whatever. But if you're not talking to anybody, no deals are going to happen. You can't just post videos and then deals magically happen. When you get the lead, you got to talk to them and figure out what it is they want to do and go through the process. But if you can focus the mornings on making your calls and then focus afternoon on creating content, then you're going to be dangerous. So it just depends on what's working for you. I think some of the social media guys will lose deals to the guys that are really great at communicating, that the social media people aren't. I think vice versa. But I think as time goes on, it's just going to lean more and more into, okay, who's got the most views? Who's going to be able to get my property in front of the most people? And that's the differentiator because everybody can put the property on MLS. Right? So yeah, the world's changing. The world's changing awfully fast. And the cool thing is you don't have to be in front of the video. There's a lot of these videos where it's just the house. It's just clips of the house with really great music that's getting millions of views. There's a lot of stuff like that. There's a ton of different ways to utilize social media too, written, just podcasting, writing blogs, pictures. There's a lot of different things you can do. Yeah. So your passion now, having gone through a few cycles, and I tend to, I think what you were saying is you have to go through it to understand it and you do. This is now my third cycle. Going on my fourth cycle. There's no swapping out that experience. Although today, as you said, you're able to access information like instantly. You can see what's happening with other people. You can rely on tips, tricks, information you're getting from other folks in real time. In the past, we didn't have that. The business has changed so much. From when I started, we had the books and the prospecting cards. There was not even any modems. There was nothing. To where we are today, it's mind blowing. Yeah. Is your passion now with the speaking engagements, the consulting, investing? Where's your heart now? It's still with agents. Just trying to help them succeed, reduce that failure rate. I'm just focused on making great content and trying to get better there. Writing, speaking, all plays into that. Traveling and speaking makes great content. Also, I get to see people in person and let them feel the energy and all that stuff. Writing books and blogs and emails and just content creation. It's an entire media company. I'm a one man media company pushing out on every platform every day and things of that nature. Through that, I have a lot of affiliated deals with companies that I make a lot of money. It's great because my passion is to help agents succeed and to reduce that failure rate. It's the most beautiful thing in the world when you find something that you're passionate about that you make a ton of money doing. I realized it pretty early on that the personal brand was the vehicle. Just putting everything I can to try to build the brand. And just look at opportunities that pop up. I'm buying as many rental properties as I can. I'm buying something every month. I just did this morning a blue tape walkthrough on two of five new construction homes I'm buying. I've already closed on three. These two are closing in the next couple weeks. I just bought a commercial building. I've got a really older two bedroom house that I'm going to buy. It's actually a fix and flip. I'm just going to buy my partners out on it and keep it because it kind of fits my will house and my criteria. I'm sitting back and looking at this rental property opportunity. I'm really kind of in position. I can buy one a month or so on average. If I do that for five years I'll have about 100 properties. If they're worth 500 a piece that's 50 mil. If I take 20 years to pay them all off and they more than double on that 20 years it's 100 to 200 million worth of properties free and clear. Lord knows how much rental money per month I'll have coming in. I feel like that's a sure fire way to grow my net worth to 100 to 100 mil kind of on the side. Not counting any business ventures or equity or anything like that over here. Just kind of like a sure fire way on the side to kind of try to build that. So I'm really focused on that finding really great properties just in my local market. It doesn't have to be all over the place. This is my will house. I grew up here. I know every little inch of this county. So it's easier for me to really look and evaluate properties here. We're really close to the beach. I live about five miles from the beach. So like the five new constructions are literally like one mile that way. So they're building a new school. So yeah I mean focusing on the brand. Building business on top of the brand. Taking the income from the businesses and buying rental properties you know that's kind of the layout of my current you know game plan. So I tend to agree and where we're buying everything we can get our hands on out west. We've shifted almost all of the holdings we have out west. There's certain things that we like to keep an eye on and you know when state street and vanguard and black rock are buying up massive percentages of the single family market and I think there's more money. More money was raised in this last quarter for the build to rent model. Yeah. The big funds are raising these built around models you just bought three new construction right. Yeah. Then any other market sector and there's a presidential cycle next year and there is a 40 year mortgages now that little nugget dropped in a couple of months ago. I believe that when when rates drop and it's not an if it's not an if at all. Okay. I mean inflation went from nine to three. Yeah. Okay. And it dropped like a rock. So I mean it's not a matter of if we've topped out as far as mortgages go. I mean unless we see another wave of inflation which a lot of people think that's going to happen but unless we see another wave of inflation I don't see that because if that starts to get away like the Fed's not scared to raise interest rates. So you know I just feel like they'll raise it until we get a handle on it but yeah it's there's no doubt. For the moment from the data we are there's no way it can go higher in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. See it dropping from here. Yeah. We had pinned it when we did our forecasting two three years ago. We had pinned it for next year is when we will we'll see rates start to drop now. You never know though right. I mean a lot of people said that a lot of people said that and I was one of them. I looked at the data and I tended to agree that we would be around five right now and this was you know six eight ten months ago. A lot of people said you know we'll be down because what they were doing was they were looking at inflation and they knew inflation would come down with as aggressive as they've been on raising rates and they just people assume that mortgage rates would follow but they didn't right. And there's this spread that between the senior treasury and mortgage rates is just abnormally high but they have to base that on the future outlook of what the feds are going to do. And right now you don't know what they're going to do like you literally don't know if they're going to hang firm or raise just like in the balance. So that's why rates I think are staying higher because until the Fed actually stays even for a couple months I don't think we'll see rates really move much. And if we see a cut then I then I think we'll see a dramatic drop with the mortgage rates because then they're like okay it's heading in a different direction it's heading in the other direction. So not only can we you know come down but we can also kind of loosen up on this spread between the senior treasury and the 30 year fixed. But yeah no I'm with you. But either way right we're talking micro for a minute now but either way rates are coming down and the cycle is going to turn over and the big so I mean it takes like two or three years right who cares you know like somebody locked in a 7.2 or something on their house and then Ricky you know do you really think rates are going to come down next year and I was like I don't know but even if it takes two or three years and you refinance it at five and two or three years who cares because the way I'm looking at rental properties right now is if I find something that cash flows now with rates being so high then that's a huge winner because over time rents will go up you know maybe they only go up two or three percent instead of you know 10 but rents are going to increase maybe they'll level out for a second they went up so fast maybe they level out maybe they go down just a tad right but they're going to level out somewhere where they are and then they'll continue to go up just a little bit two three percent that's what I think and if rent increases and rates decrease right over the next three years say rents go up say five six seven percent over the three years and then rates come down even a point is a lot of money I refinance for a point less which I wouldn't do I'd wait till it got a little lower to make the refi worth it but even a point less you know so if it's cash flow and now later you're just going to have a lower payment and higher rent and that cash flow is just going to get better and better so not of course not every every property's cash flowing right now and you really got to work hard to find the cash flowing properties but they are out there and you know if you put the work in to find them then they're just true winners you know so that's that's kind of my outlook is that even if it takes two three years okay you know I'm cash flowing until then and then the cash flows just going to get better yeah so I preached I just tweeted about it earlier you buy value you don't buy payment and good lord is this an unbelievable time to stack value when you say you're buying a deal a month plus or minus can you share with the audience a little bit about what is Ricky looking for as far as either cash on cash or let's keep it simple you know based on your payment or what metric is it that that says yeah that's that's a deal for me let's pull the trigger oh no 10 cash on cash is great for me right now um I'm probably getting 8 to 10 percent on these new construction homes just cash on cash um I think I think one of them is five because we put a little bit less down and it wasn't the best house on the road but the other ones are 8 to 10 cash on cash and that's just going to get better now what's cool about the new constructions are and the reason I'm actually I went that route because I'd rather buy something fix it up and then keep it and refi it and then keep it but which is what I'm doing on that two-bedroom but these new constructions I'm financing through the builders I'm getting 5.9 interest on an investment loan they pay 5000 closing costs there's no maintenance for five years they're really nice homes they're right across the street from a brand new school that they're building um they're just winners and the cash on those are seven eight hundred a month cash flow on top of my payment um it's ridiculous you know so I'm on two of them actually sold it I bought a condo for 68 back in 2011 it was worth 200 I sold it 1031 that into two of these homes and put a hundred down on both of them the homes were like three to 350 depending on what where they were and stuff like that so cheap right so like when I looked at the median home price in my county it was actually higher than I'm buying these homes for so I'm just like man and they're four bedroom right and that's what everybody's kind of leaning towards really great layouts um there was a duplex that I put under contract for 348 it was a one bedroom on one side three bedroom on the other I was going to make about three grand a month on that total the payment all in was going to be like 23 2400 um I was excited about that duplex it was in a great spot in my wheelhouse I've got other properties close by and uh the foundation was was messed up it was a 60s that had been remodeled and the foundation was kind of it wasn't on a slab it was on peers and it was rotten and stuff so I had to walk but man I love those numbers big time because I knew that rent would increase payments would come down over the next three years I was like man that was a winner right there but I think a lot of people look at rental properties and they think it's going to make me 200 a month you know what they do but the thing is is number one it's paying itself off right it's going to appreciate um and rents increase that like one of my best ones I bought it it was a hundred thousand duplex um in 2012 or so for a hundred grand and it was written for like 500 or something a month on each side and the payment was like 530 or something like that and so one side basically paid the mortgage and I'm like this is great and like yeah I tried to sell it to a guy and he was like oh I don't want that or whatever and I was like well buy it right and so I bought it and uh since then like now I get 1200 a side it's just bringing 2400 a month in I paid it down I owe like 30 on it and it's worth like 350 now you know and I'm like dude it's 2400 a month coming in worth 350 you know that little investment back then was killer oh yeah um another was a fourplex my lender tried to talk me out of it you know it was 200 grand it was a real dump 200 grand was bringing like 500 per unit and he was like what are you doing man why are you buying this you know and I'm like I don't know he's like what are you going to try to make 50 grand over the next 30 years and I'm thinking bro you don't even know and now that was just three years ago maybe three it knows like four years ago I think I bought that it's worth like 500 now number one right bought it for 200 put about 120 in it's worth like 500 but I've got those units up to 1250 a piece it's five grand a month coming in five G's a month you know what I mean it's like man that was a killer and so like a lot of these that aren't real sexy investments it's like give us some like buy it and give it a little time take care of the property you know raise the rents like you're supposed to a lot of people don't raise the rents and then the market for rents is there's such a gap between what they're charging and what it's actually worth in the market and then it's like well you can't just raise it up that much you know you've got to kind of do it in increments and you can't get behind on that you know it's also a false sense of security for the tenant because say you're renting for 750 and now it's 1300 and you've been letting them stay there at 750 for like eight years and you just never raised it well now if you kick them out or if they leave they're they're going to have a shell shock that they can't find anything under 1300 they've been paying 750 it's kind of a false sense of security you know you're hitting on on a real critical point ricky i want to drill down on a little bit more in this this world we're in it seems like everyone is focused on adding doors adding doors adding doors and some of the sharpest investors i've come across talk about what you just talked about you you grow your portfolio from within first always you take care of your housekeeping first the best way to add to your bottom line and to drive revenue is not to add a door it's to run your properties the right way and we do fall into these patterns especially uh for for us at least it was when we were first starting you have a personal connection you're kind of doing everything on your own you know the tenant you know you feel bad about raising rents and and it next thing you know you're seven years down the road like you said the city passes some wacky new law that you know the red that it is is now protected under good cause eviction or whatever the nonsense they pass and now you're locked in and all that good will goes out the window and then when it does leave like you said they're slapped in the face with this oh my gosh you know i didn't realize rents were now up at 11 or 12 or 1300 yeah so important folks to to the to first place you should look to add to your cash flow and add to your value is within your management practices how tight are you really running that ship and yeah you know not that not that you're getting to a point of aggression in your portfolio where you're you're creating vacancies and and losses on that side but there's a balance that if you find that balance you could really smash it you you talked ricky about this eight to ten percent cash on cash and and the new construction seller financing 5.9 percent no-brainer the the ones that are not new construction are they also seller finance or are you going and getting traditional financing or what are what are those deals i just look at each deal you know i may do i still got a couple of conventionals i can take out you can have 10 total i think um i still have a couple of those i can use i can actually pay off those i got a couple properties that oh like 30 on i could just pay off and just open up another mortgage if i wanted a conventional 30 year fix i don't like the five year you know balloons personally i just don't like that but you know if if i have to a will i just kind of look at all options um when i find the property you know do i want to do uh you know uh no dock loan do i want to do a commercial type loan do i want to do uh you know seller finance it just depends you know i don't really have a go to it just kind of depends on the deal and you know what the payment is going to be what the cash flow is going to be what i feel like the uh what i feel like the value could be at some a lot of people look real linear when they look at these values you know i look at them like i look at them you know just based on experience i just i look at them more on like the dollar's not going to be as worth much later you know um you know like these new construction homes you know i'm buying one with a partner and i'm like i think this is where it's like 600,000 you know in the next say 10 years and he's like what are you talking about and i was like well the thing is is inflation bro i mean 600 is not going to be like 600 is going to be like what 450 is today in 10 years you know i said do you think it'll appreciate the 450 sure because he's thinking linear he's thinking today yep and i'm like you know and if you keep your money in the bank you know if we kept that 100,000 in the bank it's worth like 70 in 10 years versus we put it in the house and now it turned into 200 or 300 you know because you own assets instead of cash so i think cash is good to have on hand so you can buy assets you know and and have that cushion whenever makes you feel comfortable but you know owning the assets that's going to appreciate with inflation as opposed to depreciate you know it's kind of how all these people got rich no doubt and i think that that's the one factor that brings us in line with the 70s market as opposed to the 2008 market while we went through this cycle just by extension because we had such inflation prices held and and i believe that you know tertiary markets became secondary secondary became primary there's a decentralization of the big cities everywhere there's uh literal treasure troves and in some of these tertiary and secondary markets and and when this next shoe drops and the market takes its next step i believe that you're not going to see those massive deltas and price drops and that new paradigm that's been created within a certain reasonable percentage is the new paradigm and then we go into these 40 year mortgages and a low inventory climate plus dropping rates and so i love the strategy and that's just another fear you know is that there's so much demand underlying and there's so little inventory there's really nowhere there's no path to more inventory right it's just going to kind of be a gradual thing that happens over the over you know a lot of time and so prices really have nowhere to go but up unless we get into like some really big rate increases right unless it goes to you know eight nine and ten percent mortgage rates um you know that that's kind of like it's all going to depend on rates but nobody really sees that happening right now nothing in the data shows mortgage rates are going to go that high could they sure who knows but the theory is is that as rates ease down this just this beast of inventory hits the market i mean i mean of demand hits the market yeah and prices shoot up well that's like the definition of inflation you know um i mean if you've got just people buying houses left and right more than asking price and then more than asking price means everybody has more equity now they're taking out equity lines of credit um especially the people who are buying at these higher interest rates they're going to refinance at lower rates and take some equity out of prices are shooting up um then they're going to have more money to spend so they're going to be buying more stuff more goods and services you know all this is the is the definition of inflation right which you know we're kind of teetering in this conversation you know that we're basically saying to so many words inflation is going to come back and going to come back well but at that point in the cycle it's called the full market all right they don't call it inflation well it depends it depends on yeah but it the thing is is you know if it comes back and you know it's hanging around three or four whatever right whatever but if we see another 2021 type year which is what i think is going to happen we've got more demand in my opinion more demand right now for people that want to buy homes than we had in 2021 way more demand yeah we've got all these people that want to move but can't because they feel locked into their homes they want to you got all these first-time home buyers that we didn't have in 2021 and they just spend they're just they're just accumulating they're just piling up piling up piling up and when the lever you know flips and rates come down a little and all this demand just hits the market i just it's going to look similar in my opinion to 2021 what's going to happen is is the trade up seller they're going to put their hell home on the market but they're also going to buy one and take one off so it's going to be a net even for active listings then the first time home buyer is going to come in with no home to put on the market they're just going to go and take one off the market which is going to be a net negative for active listings so we're going to see this jump in new listings we're going to see this decrease in active listings but we're going to see a real spike in overall transactions. So we're going to see active listings drop, new listings spike and transaction spike. It's going to be a hell of a year. But the problem is, is that also, the question is, okay, does that mean inflation? Does that mean inflation, right? And do we go back to a scary inflation number of, I mean, let's face it, if we went from nine to two, back to six, that's scary. Yeah. The feds are going to come out and do some stuff. So, you know, we're getting into the weeds here of what might happen this, that and the other. And when I say scary, I don't mean scary in a bad way. I just say that we could go through this all over again, which wouldn't be a bad thing. It doesn't matter what happens. Right. And I mean, in that message, in that scenario, prices went up. If you're buying properties now, you're a winner. Yeah. Right. And that means rent's going to be higher too. Yeah. You know, that's why I'm trying to tell people buy properties now. You know, don't wait for rates to come down because that's when prices are going to shoot up. That's right. You know, that's right. So I think to your point, we could see inflation or talk of inflation sooner in the cycle than we would like to, but I think we would have to account for this last rip here. So much of the inflation was caused in part to these logistics issues and legitimate shortage of goods. And, you know, hopefully they stay away from the COVID talk and hopefully, you know, we can keep this on the level here and we stay away from the shutdowns because the damage done there is tough to quantify. But that's a big part of I think why we jumped into such an inflation or recycle this time. If we're giving folks the ability to stretch out the value and take these 40-year mortgages, which, you know, that's a whole, like a tough two hours on that. Well, the 40-year mortgage thing is just going to be another lever that could be pulled to make prices go higher. I mean, if you're just making the payment lower, you know, then people can pay more. And I think the, I think what they're trying to do is make things affordable for people who can afford it. And I can appreciate that. But what you're also doing is you're making the people who can already afford it be able to afford more. Yep. Right? Yeah. And when you see the big funds I touched on earlier, State Street Vanguard, Black Rock, there's a number of them scooping up these one family homes like this. Yeah. Well, those guys own about 300,000 homes, right? Yeah, I think it's more at this point, but yeah. Yeah. I mean, say they own a half a million homes, you know, I think there's 15 million rental properties in the U.S. There's over 100 million households. So right now, they don't own a significant amount at all. We see the writing on the wall. What do you think the possibility is that the government steps in and says, hey, here's a new tax code. Here's a new rule for businesses that own X amount of homes or whatnot that makes it disadvantageous, but then we go and do this. I think you'll see that, but the die is cast. When we started to see the amount of money going into single-family home construction being, multi-family is the thing of the past already in that world, to me that locked in, this is the run. And after these big funds cash out at the rip that we're talking about, then you'll see that type of legislation and then it'll be on to the next product. Yeah. I think that, man, if you can stack assets now, boy, oh boy, you're in for a really great run. There's just too much smart money and there's too many factors that are lined up that tell us the folks that have been through this two, three, four times that the other side of this thing is going to be a historic run and we're doing everything we can to get this kind of information out to folks that makes a big difference. Hopefully we're inspiring people to get off their couches and go pull those stritters, man. For sure. Why do you think they switched from multi-family to single-family? I think the multi-family market got way, way oversaturated when the syndications went from some sound metrics to in a market where the syndicator had no experience. We were seeing this every day. We were seeing that they were going to come in and cut management expenses by 30% in an inflationary period. They were going to raise rents by 20%. There was a loss to lease because if you added a washer dryer, some sort of amenity, there was another 10% there. It got so wonky and so crazy that they ran to the short-term bridge debt and you're starting to see the beginning of that collapse, but the bottom is going to fall out on that market. These banks that provided the bridge lending, the investors didn't give themselves time to get to the other side of the rainbow because the delta between a three and a five or a five and a seven and a seven and a 10, it broke the deal. There really does the bullet. Yeah, smart. I get it. That's why I say I don't like the five-year balloons. You got to get to the other side of the rainbow with your debt. That's the trick. So much of what you preach about in your books, in your videos, on your platforms is about not thinking about today or tomorrow or next year. It's about two years, three years down the road. That's how you make it in this business in every aspect. I think that when that market in particular, they just got a little Goo Goo Gaga and when you're looking at those things and a quarter of a percent is what breaks the deal, you shouldn't be doing those deals. At least in our minds, you shouldn't have been doing those deals. Can you spend a couple of minutes talking about zero to diamond and your CRM? I know you guys are working on a CRM. Did that drop? Yeah, so it's in beta right now. We've picked up a bunch of clients and we're just working now to work out all the bugs and make everybody super happy. It's so cool because today you can build businesses. You don't actually have to build all the back end. I don't know. Not even like 15 years ago, you had to actually hire developers and stuff like that. You don't have to do that anymore to create a product and stuff. So that's what's really cool. But no, zero to diamond is still going strong. It's the first completely free real estate coaching program and we're still going hard. The best place to find everything about it, next training. I'm doing a three hour prospecting workshop this Thursday. Of course, this podcast will be out after that. But the best place to keep up with all the trainings and scripts and what I'm doing and events. I'm going to be in Sarasota next week and then Miami late October, Vegas early October. I'm doing three a month just traveling around, speaking and stuff a little less this time of year. But just Instagram, my Instagram account, the link in my bio, that's really kind of takes you everywhere and anywhere you need to go to get the training, connect with me, whatever. So again, it's in preparation of this. One of the things I had tweeted the other day was that there are so many experts out there that are charging for the education piece. And if they were really as good as they say they are at that piece, they wouldn't have to charge for it, right? Because we understand the value on the real estate side. And coaching is a separate thing altogether. And providing a service is a separate thing altogether, because we do the same thing, but you're imparting knowledge for free. And that's the only platform I've seen where the actual know how it's all there. And if take the time to do the work, you lay it all out, man. It's pretty remarkable. I think there's something to be said. I see both sides of it. I know a lot of these guys that charge and have these coaching programs that are really super successful. I know a guy that makes a million a month. I know a guy that makes five million a month selling courses and stuff. And they're actually great guys. And their thing is they believe so much. And I get it that they believe that if somebody's not paying for something, they're just not really going to take it serious. And I've seen the power of that. I've seen the power of that through some of these coaches when they do events. The type of people that show up to these events are serious. And so there's a lot of validity to that. And it just so happens that their philosophy makes them a lot of money. Coaching is different, though, right? Coaching, I think, is a different level. I have a number of coaches. I believe in it wholeheartedly. But the core basic information I think is something... Like I say, there's a lot of different philosophies on it. And I've looked at all of them. And I totally... Like I get all of them. But I have a different business model. My business model is everybody know who I am, right? And then build businesses on the back of that. Try to create the most influence. And like some of these guys that charge for coaching, they have massive influences too. But I wasn't born with the ability to do that for whatever reason. So you kind of have to figure out where you fit in the world. Like I thought for a long time, let me do a course. Let me build a company. Let me do a different bunch of different things. And it drove me crazy because I'm like, I'm leaving all this money on the table. But then I just realized one day, wait a minute, my place in the world is not to like build the company and run the employees and do all that. But more so to be partners with companies that do that. And use there. And so it's interesting because my place in the world of influence is being a great partner, being a great affiliate. And it's cool because I get a cut right off the top of revenue. And I have zero expenses, zero liability. We're not zero liability, but very little. I'm not the company. I'm not running the employees. I don't have payroll. I don't have insurance. I don't have any of that stuff. I'm just a guy right here in my house. That's it. I don't have a company full of people. It's just me. I've got a full time assistant that mostly runs the real estate sales business, which my dad runs the day to day of. She's been with us for a decade, but she more like just runs the like local real estate sales business part of it. And so it's really cool because like I'm literally running this multi-million dollar business with no employees. But yet I'm partners with these companies that I use their employee. Like there's companies that have salespeople, right? And like they're my salespeople, you know, their customer service, their marketing departments and stuff like that. They treat me just as if I'm their boss, you know, a lot of these companies, but I'm not paying their wages. I'm not training them. I'm not having meetings with them, you know what I mean? I'm just utilizing what the company built. And some people might say, well, you don't get any equity that way. Well, the thing is, some of these companies give me equity, right? For this, there's a lot of different ways you can do this. Plus I take the money that I make and buy assets, building equity, you know what I mean? And I knock off at five o'clock, I'm off on the weekends, I travel and do what I want to do. All this money coming in, it's passive. You know, it's just a snowball I continue to build because it's fun. But yeah, I do it a little nontraditional because some people say make your first hire, then build on your team and have your organization and build out a company. And I'm like, nah, I'd rather just chill, make 25% off the top of any top line revenue without any of that stuff. You know what I mean? But the power, the reason that I have that option is because I decided to do free coaching and build a brand. And it took me a good couple years to build it up to a point and now I've been doing it for six years. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I mean, I lost 100,000 for two years in a row that I invested into building the brand. Then I finally made some money. Then I made a half a million, then I made a million. And I just kind of keep building it out. So yeah, I understand both sides of it though. I used to really hate on the paid coaches. I used to just go hard. And I still kind of go hard on a lot of them. I look at a lot of them. I'm like, that is one of the guys that I was talking about in the beginning when I used to hate on paid coaches. I'm like, there's one of them right there. But then I've come to know some of these other guys and not even in the real estate space, other spaces as well. And I'm like, you know what? They don't really have something, but it doesn't change my opinion on wanting to continue to be a free coach. Because, I mean, did you see what Alex Ramosy just did? Did you see the book launch? Oh my God. That validated everything that I'm doing. Gary V kind of was the original OG of validating the free coaching thing for me. But now Alex Ramosy has come in and tripled down on it. And I'm like, okay, I'm not crazy. I'm not nuts here for what I'm doing. Well, you're certainly not nuts. And I think you're right. To be fair, it's not a one size fits all. I guess what the stuff that bothers me is when you see more and more and more and more people talking about, you don't own multi, you don't own multi-families. By my course, now I'm going to show you how in five steps, you're going to, and it's like five steps to owning multi-families. There's 5,000 things you need to be aware of, especially if you're going to syndicate and take people's money. I've been looking at multi-families for probably two years now, really hard studying that market and studying the business and syndication and all. I was pretty set on doing syndications there for a little while. But then through the smoke, I was like, I can just go buy little properties around here and build up a couple hundred million dollars worth of worth just buying little houses around where I live. I'm like, why do I want to go take other people's money? Not to say that I won't ever do it, because I probably will do a few deals where I go out and raise some money. There's no doubt. I just made an offer this morning on three acres right down the road for me. Really great corner piece, great corner piece, but you can build apartments there and you could probably get 30 or 40 and it would be a great piece. If I do that deal, I'll have to go out and raise some money to do it, and it'll be a great deal for everyone. That's it, but there's nothing wrong with raising money. Nothing wrong with it at all. It's when you don't have the experience and you're trying to pitch this as something that it's not a five-step deal and now you can go run a 300-unit building seven states away, that's the stuff that gets under my skin. This one that I'm going to build is literally like two miles away from my house. You've been doing this for a very long time. You know the game. You obviously have a profound understanding of the market's internal and external factors. It's that stuff that bothers me. I know a lot of people over the years that have gotten hurt putting money into these deals. I think for the most part people are well intended and people get caught up in the hype and in the cycle, but real estate's a tricky game, man. This isn't a joke. It really can be. If you're not buying with a long-term game plan, you know it's like these duplexes. I bought them with intention to keep them forever, or like that condo I sold and flip it into two DR Horton homes. My intention was to keep it forever, but then now here we are, you know, 11 years later or whatever, and I sold it and flip it into two houses. The point I'm making is is my game plan was very long term. The plan may change, but as long as your game plan protects you over the long term, then you can do whatever you want to do in the interim, like if something comes up or you know it shoots up in price and you want to sell it and buy some other things or whatever, but for me I'm like let me buy stuff with the long-term in mind, you know, and then we'll see what happens. It's like these new construction homes. I'm like I'll just keep them forever, but in five or seven years they may be worth 500 and I want to flip them into two other properties somewhere, you know. That's I love 1031s. I mean, you know, you know, buying a whole for five to seven years, you know, that little two-bedroom I'm buying, you know, for like 190. It's probably going to be worth like 350, you know, and eight years. I'm not buying that to keep it forever. I'm buying that I will keep it forever because rent's going to be crazy good on it, but if it goes up to 350, I can sell it and flip all that money into two other properties, you know, now I'll make an appreciation on two properties instead of one. No doubt the 1031 exchange, the QoZBs, there's a lot of great ways to defer the tax and be super smart in your approach and scale. You know, Ricky, this has been an absolute pleasure. I really do appreciate the candor and I've been doing this for a while and it's seldom you come across someone that has your level of experience and this is just honest and open and willing to kind of free float chat. You dropped some amazing bits of information that I'm excited to share with the audience. Folks, if you want to learn more, as Ricky had said, his Instagram is a great place to look, but all of the links will be below. Ricky Kruth, this has been an absolute pleasure, man. Thank you so much for the time today. Appreciate it, bro. As always, yeah, man, this was great. Everyone out there, please always stay safe. Hey, man, this was a great chat.