A Podcast | David Greene

Pete Neubig: [00:00:12] Welcome back, everybody. And as promised, David Greene is, uh, is here. He's one of the main speakers at NARPM National in Dallas on October 21. David, I know you're super busy guy, so thank you so much for taking time to be on a NARPM podcast.

David Greene: [00:00:28] Yeah, man, it's my pleasure. I had such a good time. The last NARPM event that I did that, I ended up like staying for a couple more days longer than I thought I would make it. A bunch of new friends, uh, met some property managers out there that I ended up buying some properties to have them manage. And I'm probably going to be relocating just to get to know some of those people better. So I was incredibly impressed with the group of people that you got out there, and I'm happy to be coming back. I'm going to be talking about psychological tips to help you land the client.

Pete Neubig: [00:00:59] Oh, wow. Okay, so, um, along those lines, I'm going to ask you, um, because of interest rates the way they are, do you think that as a property management company would, should I spend more money on advertising or marketing to investors, or should I be spending more money marketing to those, um, reluctant landlords? What's your take with with the way the the environment is right now?

David Greene: [00:01:31] I guess when I think about that, I think about which one would you rather have as your client if you have a reluctant landlord? See, as a real estate agent, which which I am, we sell houses for people. Your version of the reluctant client, the one that wants to manage it themselves because they don't want to pay a property manager, is like the for sale by owner. They think they can sell the house on their own. They don't want to pay the commission. So they're trying to do it themselves and they don't realize they're almost always losing money. Like I don't know of a for sale by owner that doesn't lose money because they get way less offers. They don't know how to negotiate them, they don't know how the contracts work. They don't know what they don't know. They just know they don't want to pay a commission.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:08] Right.

David Greene: [00:02:09] So I think I've ever come across a person that sold their house on their on their own, that made more money than they would have paying a commission with the professional.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:15] Interesting.

David Greene: [00:02:16] I would imagine the reluctant landlord's got to be a similar situation.

Pete Neubig: [00:02:20] So, uh, in in our world, the reluctant landlord is somebody that has to that that has to lease their property because of a life event potentially. So maybe they got, you know, moved to overseas or maybe they got divorced and they can't sell the house. Now, I would say that in this market they can still sell the house. Huh. Even with the interest rates being that high, are you still are you seeing sales slow down in your real estate business?

David Greene: [00:02:45] I don't I don't see houses sitting on the market for a lot longer. I just see less houses hitting the market to be sold. We have such an inventory problem that most people can sell their house unless they bought it six months ago. If you bought it a couple of years ago, you've got so much equity they can absolutely sell their house in most markets. But what I like about the person you described. They don't want to be a landlord, and they're probably not going to shop to go find three, four, five different people and shop them against each other. If you're the one that has a relationship with that person that accidentally becomes a landlord. They're probably just going to give you the business. They're going to sign the contract with you. They're going to turn it over to you if they trust you. Going for an investor is not bad, especially if it's an investor like me, because I rely on my property managers for more than just managing the property. I use them as a scout. I want to know what part of town to buy in, what part of town to avoid in what I can expect to get from rent. Do you have contractors that can go put LVP flooring down that's cheaper than somewhere else? Like a lot of them own properties, so I kind of use them as consultants, I guess you could say. But if you're just getting a one off that buys a house every couple of years, they're going to expect you as the property manager to do a lot of heavy lifting that an experienced landlord knows property managers don't do. So those are my two options. I'd prefer to go after the person who accidentally became a landlord. They're probably an easier client to keep in your portfolio.

Pete Neubig: [00:04:05] So interesting. Um, you know, obviously interest rates are up. Um, I wouldn't say at an all time high because I remember buying stuff in 2000. Um, and it was about what we are today, so it's kind of gone back up. Um, are you you're on the investor side, right? So you you invest in tons of properties, you work with a lot of investors. And also you're you own a huge team and you work with lots of investors. Are you seeing investors still buying with the rates being up and the prices being inflated a little bit, or are you starting to see some of that kind of drawdown?

David Greene: [00:04:40] You're seeing less overall transactions. That includes investors. I don't think that investors are not buying. I think that it is harder to buy something that's going to cash flow because rates went up and prices didn't really adjust. There was this big, uh, wave of belief in our market that if rates went up, prices had to come down. And that's because people assume that supply and demand operate out of equilibrium. So if rates go up, that causes demand to go down. So in that case prices would have to come down to match it. But because we already had way more demand than we had supply when rates went up, demand did go down. But it didn't go down to the point that supply was at. It's still there's more demand than supply in our market. So what that means is prices don't go down, they just don't go up as fast. And investors are not able to get cash flow as easily, especially if they're putting 5%, 10%, even 20% down. Most properties are not cash flowing right now, which means houses are being sold to people that are going to live in them, that are comparing it to what the rents would be. And that's kind of what we see in most markets across the country now. There are still transactions taking place from investors. It's more flips and it's more people that did a 1031, or they got to move a big chunk of money from somewhere to somewhere else. Because if you're putting 50% down, 60% down, that property will cash flow for you where it won't for somebody at 20% down.

Pete Neubig: [00:06:04] So when I, when I was buying property, I was buying the 1% rule. Right. So properties 120 I'd get $1,200 in rent and typically I would capture some equity. Maybe the property was worth 140, 150. Um, those those deals seem to be far and few between doesn't exist, at least in my market in Houston. Um, is real estate still a good investment vehicle?

David Greene: [00:06:31] It's not as good as it was. You know, when we were when we came up with things like the 1% rule, for anyone that doesn't know, that just means it's a it rents for about 1% every month of what you paid for it. So you pay 100 grand. It rents for about $1,000 a month. And that rule is helpful because it helps you write off something that you shouldn't even analyze, right? If it's not close to 1%. Uh, if it's not close to 1% rule, you don't even bother running it through your calculator because it's probably not going to work. So you would have the 1% rule properties. Then you look for a deal on a 1% rule property. Then after that you'd say, now where can I add value to it? Where can I force some equity? And you had all these things working together. And so we established a baseline understanding of what a good deal was. That was crazy amazing. And we just thought that was normal because that's what the market was providing. And then podcasts and books and YouTube and social media exploded and everyone started talking about real estate investing and how anybody could do it. And it brought too many people into this market, which is where all that demand comes from that I'm talking about. And supply has not kept up. Builders are not building enough homes. There's I don't know of any incentives that are that the government is offering almost anywhere to get people to build more homes. Building homes is becoming more expensive than it was before, because there's less manual labor available to do it. No kid today wants to go learn how to frame a house or run HVAC venting, or run electricity or plumbing. Everybody wants to be the internet influencer or some something to do with the computer. They want to find a way to make money and get attention at the same time. Right? So the young girls want to be an OnlyFans. The young guys want to be streaming on Twitch, playing video games or or on Instagram with a lot of followers, because that gives them clout within their age range. And the impact on real estate is that our labor that used to be, hey, you can find cheap manual labor because that was the easiest job to get. It's almost turned on its head. Manual labor is expensive. Now, if you're a landlord, you're like, I can't find anyone to come fix my flooring to come give me a quote on something. And the quotes are astronomically high. So we haven't built to keep. We haven't built new houses to add supply, to keep up with demand, with the demand that we have had. And that's my take on why we are so confused as to where there's no 1% deals. There's too many people trying to buy these things. And the last point, Pete, is even though real estate investments are not as good as they were, they are still better than all your other options. You're still going to get a way better return on real estate than you could get. Opening a certificate of deposit investing in stocks I mean, you go buy bonds right now, which used to be the safest investment a person could make. You're just guaranteed to get beat by inflation. Bonds are one of the easiest investments that you could make. As crazy as that sounds. So inflation is out of hand now you got to beat that. What options do you have outside of real estate investing to have a chance.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:16] Yeah. So a lot to a lot to chew on there. So my personal opinion is if you can understand business and know business, investing in a business I think could be it's a little bit more riskier. But I think it could be a better vehicle than than real estate. That's just me spitballing. Um, but when you talked about the labor, did you know the average age of a AC, plumber electrician is in their 50s?

David Greene: [00:09:44] That I mean, that should blow your mind because they're not in the physical shape to be doing the work. But it makes logical sense that no one new is getting into it, the only people doing it are the been doing it forever.

Pete Neubig: [00:09:55] Yeah.

David Greene: [00:09:56] And, you know, they probably can't retire because food is so expensive and all their costs of living are going up.

Pete Neubig: [00:10:01] Yeah. Um, so I'm going to give a shout. I'm going to give a plug to the Live Life Jet Foundation. My everybody knows my business partner, Steve Rosenberg, all my my old business partner, Steve Rosenberg in, uh, Empire Industries. Obviously, his son passed away about a year ago. They started a foundation called Live Life Jet. And the premise of the foundation is that they donate money to, uh, to to kids that can't afford college, that want to go to trade school. So they're helping solve this potential, this I think it's a pandemic of of a void of talent going into the AC, the plumbing mechanic, electricians, things of that nature. So, uh, great stuff there. So you still believe in real estate as the number one vehicle then?

David Greene: [00:10:46] Yeah. I haven't seen anything even close to comparing to real estate, but I have a book that I'm finishing up editing. I'm going to try to figure out who's going to publish it, and it's about the ten ways you make money in real estate. Because I, today's investor needs to look at real estate holistically and not just from the lens of I want cash flow. So for years we've taught people how to analyze for cash flow, like the 1% rule was a is a tool you would have used for that purpose. And then we've said, hey, if you get some appreciation, if you get some value add, if you pay off the loan, that's just icing on the cake. But you can't depend on that. Well, with the way that our country has destroyed our currency, that's really the only thing that you could depend on the cash flow that a lot of people thought was super reliable. I think most investors have have come to find out a is not because during Covid the tenants decided not to pay and there's nothing you could do. You get one bad tenant that decides that they need to be evicted and they trash your house, and you might have had a year and a half of cash flow evaporated right there. It wasn't reliable, and that's not something you can control.

Pete Neubig: [00:11:46] AC unit goes out. That's a year of cash flow.

David Greene: [00:12:07] And even for those that set aside money for capital expenditures that say, nope, I got a budget for that. What do you do when your insurance doubles or triples? What do you do when property taxes go up? Because we're running at a deficit, this is the only time in my career that I've seen that, that rents are going up slower right now than expenses like insurance. I mean, my insurance is doubling or tripling in some of my California properties. And when you get an expensive house, I mean, I got a quote on one house you and I were talking about before we recorded cheapest insurance quote I could find for this short term rental was $26,000 a year, right? That was the cheapest one. And now you have insurance companies literally leaving some of these states, saying the state won't let us raise our rates to where they need to be. So we're just done. So what I'm saying all this to say that cash flow is not the reliable bedrock that people have been sold by so many influencers to get you to pay for their course. You need to look at real estate holistically. You got four main categories that you make money. Cash flow is one, equity is another, taxes are another, and loan paydown is the fourth. And then you got four ways within equity and cash flow that you should analyze a property. You have natural cash flow. That's what everybody already knows how to analyze. If I bought the property today, how much money would it make? Then you've got forced cash flow. Then you've got forced cash flow. Forced cash flow is when you add a unit to a property, you convert it from a regular rental to a medium term rental. You do something to make the rents go up, right. You buy an apartment complex? So you've got you've got forced cash flow and then you've got market appreciation cash flow. That's where you buy in a market where rents go up faster than the national average, because you got the supply and the demand curve in your favor. And then you could buy cash flow. That's where you just invest in a syndication or something where money comes back to you. Then you got four different equity things to look at. You've got natural equity that just happens when there's inflation. So the government prints too much money. Your property goes up. I think we can all expect that's going to continue to happen with the way that they debase the currency. Then you've got forced equity. You can literally plan that if I fix this property up, if I make it bigger, if I make it better, it's going to be worth more. Then you've got market appreciation equity. That's what happens when you buy in an area where the property values go up more than the national average, because there's more people moving into the area than you actually have supply of. And then you can buy equity. So when you're buying a property, you can actually pay less than what it is worth at that moment by making prudent decisions. Then you've got loan pay down and then you've got tax savings which is also depreciation there. So if you're looking at the ten ways that a property is going to be making you money every single month over a long period of time, it blows away any other options that you've got.

Pete Neubig: [00:14:56] And cash flow is like the weakest one out of all those ten ways. Like if you had to rank them as like, okay, cash flow might be number eight. And in that deal. Yeah. So you know, what's interesting and interesting is most property management company owners, most of them don't own more than 1 or 2 properties, which I find find amazing because, um, you know, you're managing a bunch of properties. You have an owner that might be distressed, needs to sell you can you might be able to have a great deal without putting it on the market and having to go after, you know, having to um, compete with the open market. So, um, I was one of those guys. I owned property before Empire, and I bought property after Empire. And when I ran Empire, um, I was so busy managing my property management firm that deals would go right past me. Didn't even see them. And so if you're listening to this and that's that's you slow down to speed up and make sure that you have time and effort to build wealth, because, look, we all know it. You buy a property, you make two, $300 a month in cash flow on a good month. That's not changing your life, but you buy a property and that that property goes up in value. It's a it's a it's a it's a long term play. Would you still say it's a long term play David. Yeah.

David Greene: [00:16:12] You got so this is why I wrote the book, because I saw so many investors that were wanting cash flow to quit their job. There's this obsession with we hate working in America, which is crazy because 40, 50 years ago we were known as the hardest working, most industrious nation that made us this juggernaut. Now we have this ethos that if you're working, you're dumb, you screwed up. You should be retired by 28 and on the beach because you bought a couple of duplexes and the. And the way that dream gets sold is through cash flow. If you get enough cash flow, you quit your job. If you get enough cash flow, you can get a girlfriend. If you get enough cash flow, the cat will pick your lap to sit on, not somebody else's. Cash flow is a magic pill for every problem you had. I just in my experience, it's wildly unreliable. Like you said, the roof goes out, there's a hailstorm, your insurance goes up, the HVAC goes out, the furnace goes out. All kinds of things happen that cannot be predicted in a home, whether it's a rental property or whether you own the house. Even homeowners have to deal with unexpected maintenance stuff that pops up and boom, now your cash flow is gone. And if you look at it from a 20 year perspective, a 30 year perspective, you don't need the cash flow. You just pour the cash flow back into improvements or new properties, and you let the equity grow. You force equity, you buy the property, right? So you bought equity. You buy in the right market so that it goes up more than other markets. Well, you just make smart financial choices and wait. You're guaranteed to build big wealth. You're guaranteed to have a ton of wealth waiting for you when you get to retirement. And you can't.

Pete Neubig: [00:17:36] But it's a long play and no. And we want instant. We're the microwave generation. Like I know the microwave generation. I don't even know what these Gen Zers are. They're like the the the the micro microwave generation, right? Like, why I don't want I don't want to wait one minute. I want to do it in 13 seconds. Yeah. And so yeah, it's a problem there. So I'm going to tell you a quick story. Um, so I'm in Houston, we're recording this in July, and Hurricane Beryl just came through and I have insurance on all my properties. Still, even though some of them are paid for, I still have, like, catastrophic insurance. I have insurance, and my deductible for my roof is $10,000. Guess how much my roof replacement. I had to do two roofs on two of my properties after Beryl. The one was 7500, new one was 8500. My deductible is 10,000. Oh, man, you're paying for all that. Paying for all of that. So, like, even when you have insurance, it's sometimes it's like useless man. I mean, and in my case, it was so. So. Yeah. So your costs go up on insurance and it doesn't cover anything. And you have to, you know, and of course, you know, that roof five years ago probably would have been, you know, a third of the cost or half the cost, right. Because, uh, because, um, you know, people need money because of inflation. All right.

David Greene: [00:18:53] So all of your expenses are going up at crazy high rates because inflation, the cost of materials, the cost of the labor, and the regulation that the city provides makes everything more expensive. But your tenants are not making three times as much money, so you can't charge them three times as much rent. There are too many variables that you cannot control when it comes to real estate investing. That's the message that I send people, which is why you need a healthy amount of money in reserves. You need to play the long game like what you said every time you need. It's kind of like your fitness. You can't try to get fit in two weeks. It's about establishing the right kind of diet, making exercise a normal thing that you do all the time. It's about habits.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:28] Changing your habits

David Greene: [00:19:29] To a healthy body, which we all understand. It's just when it comes to finances, we tend to think that there's a different set of rules to play by, and there's really not.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:38] All right, I'm going to pivot on you. I'm going to have you put on your your realtor hat because, um, you're, uh, you're you run a big team. Um, let's talk about this. NAR ruling the what is it, the Sitzer-Burnett.

David Greene: [00:19:53] Burnett.

Pete Neubig: [00:19:54] Sitzer-Burnett. Um, class action lawsuit and the ruling. How, uh, how is that going to affect property managers? Right. That's our that's our audience. So instead of, like, let's talk about the realtor side, but let's talk about the property management aspect of it. So for those that are just not really sure about what you know, about what we're talking about, can you just kind of give an overview of what that Sitzer-Burnett ruling was, what the class action was. And then give me your your thoughts and ideas on how that affects property managers.

David Greene: [00:20:24] Well, first off, I'm not a huge National Association of Realtors. NAR, I'm not a big fan. I've never really understood.

Pete Neubig: [00:20:31] I don't think any of us are.

David Greene: [00:20:33] Yeah. So, like, this is not me defending NAR just because I am a realtor. I've never met a realtor that really likes them. I still don't to this day really understand what they do other than lobby for us. And I don't understand why we need lobbyists if we're doing a good job. The problem with the industry is there's too many dang realtors, and that's because the bar is too low. It should be a much higher bar to get your real estate license. It should be more like being an attorney. It would eliminate a lot of the bad agents, which would eliminate a lot of the need for regulation. The market would just work itself out if we would like. You don't need a whole lot of regulation on Navy Seals. For the most part, they've self-selected out. If they were not meant to be a Navy Seal, a couple bad ones are going to squeak through, but not that much. Right? But you need a lot of regulation just to get a regular human into the military. You got to eliminate a lot of those guys because they shouldn't be there when it comes to the situation with NAR uh, the government didn't like that. If you wanted to sell your house on the MLS as a seller, you were forced to pay a buyer's agents compensation, but that was negotiable. You could agree to pay only a penny. But NAR said, look, if you want to sell your house on the MLS, which is where all of the buyer's agents bring our buyer clients, you can't market it in our database but not pay our agents. That's not fair. If you're going to sell your house and you're going to say, I will not pay a buyer's agent anything, but I get to put it in the MLS where the buyers all bring their agents, the client falls in love with the house, and then the buyer's agent gets no money. Because what? Who wants to go to their clients, say, well, you better pay me. The clients just say, no, I'm not going to pay you. I'll just buy it directly through there. So it was a way to protect the buyer's agents so that they would continue to bring their buyers to the MLS so that sellers would get more people looking at houses. It was the smoothest way and the best way in a capitalistic understanding to get as many eyeballs on a house as you could, which is ultimately what makes the seller money. Well, the sellers wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted to be allowed to put their house in the MLS, and they didn't want to have to pay a buyer's agent. What that means, practically, is I can put my house on the MLS and it shows up on Zillow, so all the buyers see it, but I don't have to pay a buyer's agent. Well, the ruling said you can't do that. They're allowed to put their house in the MLS and they're allowed to offer zero, even though they could have just offered a penny before. And before you even show a house to a buyer, you have to have an agreement with that buyer of how much they are going to pay the buyer's agent. However, the seller can still choose to pay the buyer's agent, in which case whatever agreement was there can be null. So I may agree, if you're my agent Pete, that I'm going to pay you 2.5% of the price of the house, but then the seller is offering a 2.5% commission. So now I'm off the hook, which is probably how this is going to shake out in most cases anyways. It's a huge lawsuit that made a lawyers a ton of money that I feel like NAR argued horribly just when I was watching their arguments, I just thought, this is why we lost, because they made it. I've already explained it better than what NAR did in front of the the grand jury or the judge there. The way that I think this is going to affect the industry is that it shifted the the difficult conversation of how does a buyer's agent get paid. It used to happen with a listing agent talking to the seller. You're going to pay me this much, you're going to pay the buyer's agent this much. Okay. Now the burden of that difficult conversation shifts to the buyer's agent and their client. You got to pay me this much money, okay? Most agents do not like difficult conversations. They're people-persons. They like to be friendly and nice. And that's why the old system works so well. Because you could just have a big smile, get someone in your car, show them homes, never talk about money, and you just got paid from the seller, so it never even had to be discussed. Now that it does, you're going to see a lot of agents that don't know how to negotiate, do not know how to articulate what they're going to do for a client. You're going to have confused clients that don't know what to do. Agents are going to make less money. And my prediction is they're going to have a lot of them move into property management. They're going to get desperate. They're going to say, I can't sell enough houses. I can't buy leads anymore. Like nobody wants to buy a lead off of Zillow. If you got to have a conversation with a stranger about what they're going to pay you, they don't want to pay you. They just want to see the damn house. You're just the key that turns the door right now. Uh, it used to be that you were protected by laws that like procuring cause that you got paid a commission if you showed a person a house. So you never had to have that convo. Now that you do, you're going to see agents that don't sell as many houses, don't make as much money. And they're going to say, well, I got to manage properties. How hard can it be?

Pete Neubig: [00:24:54] Do you think the legislation I'm going to go on another tangent here, but do you think the legislation that's happening does more and more legislation happening for property managers and landlords? Do you think that would create, uh, some obstacles for those agents to get into property management? Or do you think that they don't even know about it. So they're just going to get into property management.

David Greene: [00:25:15] They're too ignorant to know about the obstacles being created. That's what agents right now already don't know about the laws they're supposed to be operating underneath. And so their broker has to come in and clean up their mess. It'll be the same thing with property management. They're not going to understand fair housing laws. They're not going to understand the nuances of all these regulations. Property managers, like brokers, tend to be more detail oriented. I don't want to say that they're more intelligent, but they're more intelligent about remembering nuance. Agents are...

Pete Neubig: [00:25:42] Well, they worry about liability, so they're intelligent about protecting themselves.

David Greene: [00:25:46] Yeah. And they're drawn to that world if they're good at that. But if you're good at those things as an agent, you don't make money. You make money as an agent by being likable and making your phone ring. So the skill set that agents have developed, like an emotional intelligence, will not translate well into the world of property management. And that's where my concerns are that our industry is going to get an even blacker eye after this ruling, because it's going to take all these people that have a skill set that's based on just being likable, smiling, getting a good headshot. Being nice to you. Getting you to feel comfortable. And now they're going to move into the world of actual needing some kind of technical prowess. You're going to have to be aware of legal changes. You're going to have to have skills at how you talk to an angry tenant and smooth things out with them. And I don't think that these buyer's agents are going to have any clue how to do that.

Pete Neubig: [00:26:29] Do you see this ruling as affecting sales? Do you see this rule coming down on leasing as well?

David Greene: [00:26:39] I don't know how it's going to happen with leasing. I don't think it will because the reason they didn't like when I say they, I'm saying it wasn't just the judge that ruled this. Like the Department of Justice got involved and said, we want more transparency in the way that commissions are designed. They didn't like that the clients, the buyers or the sellers claim that they didn't understand how agents were being paid. I don't know that there's as much of a problem with that when it comes to leasing of units, because the commissions are so small, I think it's generally understood, like the person who's going to lease a unit, they're not going to have to pay their agent. The sellers are still going to pay when it comes to rents. I don't think that was affected by Sitzer-Burnett.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:21] Okay. All right. Well, we're up against it. We're going to take a quick commercial break. And then David Greene, you will be on the hot seat, the lightning round. We'll be right back after this, everybody.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:38] All right. Welcome back. We got we got David on the hot seat. You ready brother?

David Greene: [00:27:44] Let's do it, man. My buns are getting warm.

Pete Neubig: [00:27:47] All right. What is one piece of advice you'd give someone just starting out in the PM business?

David Greene: [00:27:55] That. Oh, that's such a good question. Just starting out, I would say that they need to understand that it is a business, and the lifeblood of every business is sales. People tend to think when they're a property manager, their job is to put out fires. When they're a loan processor, a loan officer. Their job is to put out fires. When they're an agent, they think their job is to fill out forms. It's not. That should just happen on its own. It's not your job. It's just a thing you have to do at work every day. Your job is to land new clients. You land new clients by making people feel like they're in good hands and you know more than they do. And it's in their best interest to give power over to you. Power over how decisions get made, power over who collects the rent. Whatever the issue is, you do well in life. When you convince people that they are better off handing power to you than they are to keep it to themselves. I really think in relationships it works the same way. If you give your partner the feeling that you cannot be trusted and you are not reliable and you won't make good decisions, they're going to want to hold on to the power. They're not going to let you do your thing. They're not going to let you lead. And then there's going to be a struggle over who is in charge. And that creates disharmony. So the better, the more competent we can all become at what we do, and the better we can articulate how good we are to other people in a way that affects them emotionally, the easier they will turn over properties to us, the more that they will, um, refer business to us in the future when they come across people. Your business will grow exponentially when your reputation is out there, that you are a good manager of the resources, and that you can be trusted with that power.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:24] What was your first job?

David Greene: [00:29:27] I grew up my my dad and my grandfather were painters. My first first job was like sanding door frames and putting down drop cloths. My first job that I paid taxes on was, uh, Baskin-Robbins ice cream, actually...

Pete Neubig: [00:29:41] 31 flavors.

David Greene: [00:29:42] 40 places in town. And I couldn't get a job anywhere. And I finally was just telling my friend, man, this is, so hard to get a job. I've been applying everywhere he goes. Oh, I'll just tell my boss we're hiring. And I had a job in two days scooping ice cream. And that was my first lesson, that it's not what you know. It's who you know.

Pete Neubig: [00:29:58] There you go. Um, what is your ideal vacation?

David Greene: [00:30:04] Oh. That's good. You know, when I'm on vacation, I actually like to work out. So if I fall out of my workout routine, if I go on vacation, like, it'll get me back on track again. Whatever it is. Like not having work on my mind all the time, free something up or I want to be in the gym lifting weights, or I want to be running with the sun on my body or something. So it's got to be somewhere that I can run. Uh, there's a spot in Cabo San Lucas called, uh, Pueblo Bonito. It's like a really nice resort. You can see the ocean from everywhere in the resort. They have a great gym, on site restaurants with really good food, perfect weather, nice pools, and, like, you can bring your friends there. And I'm more of a people person than I am. I don't want to go on vacation and do 17 things. I'm more like, well, who's coming with us? Who? Who am I going to become closer with? Who am I going to learn more about? So my ideal vacation probably involves like places to work out, places to hike, good weather and the right people.

Pete Neubig: [00:30:58] Man, I'm in on that. Uh, I want to be invited to your next vacation for sure. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

David Greene: [00:31:05] I grew up eating Canadian bacon and pineapple. I did not know that people didn't like it. I was shocked when this whole pineapple on pizzas fruit belong on a pizza thing came to be, because I thought tomatoes were a fruit. Maybe they're not, but they're on pizza. Nobody ever says anything about it. I was a little surprised that so many people had such a strong opinion about it, but I'm probably biased because if you grew up eating something, it seems normal to you. You know my mom, she's from Scotland. She was born there and moved here when she was a kid. They eat ketchup on pancakes over there.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:37] Yeah, that's. That's more weird than a pineapple on pizza, for sure.

David Greene: [00:31:41] How come it's not a debate over that?

Pete Neubig: [00:31:42] Yeah, well, think about it. If you have a sandwich, sometimes a hamburger, you put ketchup on it, and it's like bread. Isn't pancake like bread? I mean, I haven't had a pancake in years,

David Greene: [00:31:50] Or a hotdog. I know.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:50] All right.

David Greene: [00:31:52] It's not as gross as you would think it would be. It sounds disgusting, but when you actually eat it, it's not that weird.

Pete Neubig: [00:31:58] I'm guessing you. I'm guessing she made that for you when you were a kid.

David Greene: [00:32:02] As a kid, occasionally that would happen. It's not that much different than when you got, like. Like some hash browns that you put ketchup on, and then there's a pancake on the plate. The pancake touches the ketchup. I'm sure that's how some Scotsmen figured this thing out.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:15] What is a book you're currently reading, or one that you have read that has impacted your business or life?

David Greene: [00:32:22] You know, it's funny you ask that because the topic I'll be talking about at NARPM is has concepts that come out of this book called Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. It's about the psychology of how people make decisions and how you get them to like you and feel comfortable. There's actually a science to it, and if you respect how the mind of your audience works and you operate according to that, they're way more likely to be receptive to your message.

Pete Neubig: [00:32:46] What is something that most people don't know about you?

David Greene: [00:32:50] I speak Spanish. Taught myself Spanish, and, uh, I'm a believer, so I love God. I've read the Bible from cover to cover, probably like 12, 13 times.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:01] In Spanish or in English?

David Greene: [00:33:03] No, I can't do that. My Spanish is like talking to a second grader. So you send your kids to talk to me? I'll sound like I'm fluent as long as you don't speak. So I just don't talk about that as often, because typically people want to hear about real estate. They don't want to hear about topics like God. So just out of respect for the people that are around me, I'll talk about if they want to talk about it, but I'm not out there beating people over the head with it.

Pete Neubig: [00:33:23] Got it. Um, what is one challenge you're currently facing in your business?

David Greene: [00:33:29] There's a lot of challenges, man. I think most of my businesses were built around real estate transactions. And as rates went up and real estate transactions have gone down, it doesn't matter how good you are if there's less houses that are being sold, that's where almost all of the revenue comes from. For my mortgage company, my real estate transaction Corp company, my real estate investing is heavily in short term rentals and Airbnbs, and there's less people traveling right now. So the recession itself is a pretty big challenge for me, is just how do you keep all your employees productive and, um, fed when the economy is down and when things are going great, everybody's really busy. So they don't really need as much management because they're usually overwhelmed. Right. You're just like, are you working as fast as you could be? But when things are not busy, people need more attention to keep them busy. And then the lack of leadership in your company will start to show. Because most employees don't want to be leaders, they just want to do their job and get paid. So that's another challenge that I'm facing is I this this company was or my companies were constructed to be efficient in times of feasting. And now that we've moved into famine, I'm having to try to readjust with like, how do you keep all these people hired when there's not a lot of work for them to do, and they don't like doing work different than what they were hired for? And I don't have a lot of people in these companies that like having to manage others.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:45] Wow. And I and we thought we had challenges in in the property management industry. Uh, last question, prefer dogs or cats?

David Greene: [00:34:54] Dogs.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:55] Dog guy, huh?

David Greene: [00:34:55] Dogs are some of the best things God ever made.

Pete Neubig: [00:34:58] It is so true, man. They just. They're just full of love. Uh. All right. Uh, David, if somebody is, uh, they they compelled to hear, uh. Well, for one, if you want to hear more from David, then you should be in Dallas in October. Go to NARPM.org. And, uh, go ahead and sign up for the for the convention, the conference. You can also go to NARPM.org or call them at (800) 782-3452 to to become a member. David, how do they get in touch with you if they're compelled to, to, uh, to want to reach out to you?

David Greene: [00:35:32] Yeah. My email everybody should write this down. Is my name david@davidgreene24.com. There's an E at the end of green in both the email address and, uh, my website davidgreene24.com. They can also send me a DM on either Facebook Messenger or Instagram. I check those pretty regularly.

Pete Neubig: [00:35:51] Any chance your book is out by October for the conference.

David Greene: [00:35:55] Actually, you know, because I've been running around, I haven't been in my office, but there is a chance that it could be out, especially if I self-publish. I would think that there's a good chance it'll be out by October, and I'll be able to talk about it then. That's a great point.

Pete Neubig: [00:36:07] Excellent. And if you are, if you're thinking about hiring a virtual team member, I recommend you go to VPMsolutions.com. We now offer a Gold Glove service where we will find the person, interview them, vet them, and use our ten point scoring system to find the best candidate for for your for your company. Give us a call. Um, actually, don't give us a call because I don't know our phone number. Never mind. Shoot us an email, pete@vpmsolutions.com or just go to vpmsolutions.com. David, thank you so much for being here. Thank you everybody, and we'll see you or hear or you'll hear me next week. Thanks, everybody. Later.

David Greene: [00:36:52] All right.