SPEAKER_01 0:00

But I will say the biggest thing that really stopped us from like doing it in Jersey was just like the sheer fear. Like we didn't like we we were just like afraid, you know? Like young guys, we were afraid of being judged because of our skin color, because of like our education, all like you guys think like you can come in here and just like arbitrage or whatever. Like it it honestly was just fear. Because if I go back right now, I get an arbitrage in a week. I promise you.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Hello, hello, hello.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Through.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Micah's back. What's up, Micah?

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah. What's up, man? It's been a while since we recorded. Been what a couple weeks since we all got on.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

It's been a little bit, a little bit. How you been? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Man, I've been good. Been busy, but I've been good. Um working on arbitrages, turning regular long-term rentals into Airbnbs, so I've been good. But uh, we got a special guest coming today. What episode are we on, Steve?

SPEAKER_03 1:10

63. 63.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

63, and our guest is Norman Hamilton. You may know that we interviewed his partner Josh. He's the other half of Comfy Living LLC, uh, a Airbnb business that runs out of Dallas and Houston. Uh, welcome Norman onto the show, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Hey guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

What's up, man? How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Doing good, man. Um, like I said, man, thanks for the invitation. I'm just happy to be here, happy to share like my thoughts on everything. It's ready to get the business.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Heck yeah. So um one thing we do know about you, Norman, because um I I I reckon you're a fan of the show. And um cool, cool. We appreciate that. And um and we and I I see you uh I see you posting a lot of stuff on Facebook. Kind of ch challenging people to talk smack about um about cryptocurrencies. Oh right. So you're big into it. You're big into the crypto game, huh?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, I'm pretty I'm pretty deep into cryptocurrency. Definitely like just um like Bitcoin in general, cryptocurrencies, crypto assets, whatever you want to call it, it's probably changed my life for the better. It's encouraged me to like be harder, to work harder. Uh like it's encouraged me to like never stop learning, figuring out what's going on, and just like take everything more seriously than I used to.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Nice, nice. So, how did you get into crypto?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Uh I got into crypto in around like uh 2016 when I used to work uh when I was interning at an investment bank. I was interning at Goldman Sachs around the time. And um, I had heard about it in 2012, but I dismissed it because I was in high school and I saw an article or I saw like a video on CNN, and they were essentially just talking about like, yeah, Bitcoin, drug, Silk Road, and I was like, Yeah, I'm not trying to go to jail. Um so I kind of just like dismissed it in 2012 and in 2016 because I used to run track, I used to uh run track with a friend. My friend was on like one of our like rival high schools. Um he had actually like reintroduced me to it because um like he found out I was going to New York and he lived in New York and he was basically like, yeah, we should link up. So we uh like we long story short, we exchanged messages. Um he told me he was into Bitcoin, he put me on essentially to like different websites or articles I can read to kind of like explain things to me. And I kind of understood it right off the top because I have a background in computer science, so I was a tech guy. So like I, you know, I understood like the technical implications of Bitcoin, how it worked, like I understood it quickly, and because like I was a millennial, I kind of grew up in that like digital realm where it's like I understand that like things that aren't physical can have value, can accrue value. Like, you know, you play MMO games and stuff like you know that like items in the game are rarer than other items for a reason and stuff like that. So like for me it it it was kind of like a no-brainer the potential of uh just Bitcoin because or just like crypto assets, just because like I had you know, I grew up, I grew up in um like like I said, I grew up playing games and stuff, so I understood digital things have value. I had a tech background, and then also like I was in finance at the time. So like I had I kind of had like a financial background too. And then like on top of that, like I was I also got heavy into economics as well, so I started reading about Austrian economics. I just spent like months, months on end just studying economics, studying finance, and I wasn't even like a finance major, I had a minor, but like it wasn't even my thing. But that that's basically essentially what got me into it. And so 2016 I invested in Ethereum, and uh, I don't want to disclose how much how much money I made from that, but I made I made a good sum of money in Ethereum in um 2016. It was like $10, I think. Um so had I sold the peak, I would have made a good fortune of money, but I ended up selling before the peak because I had to uh pay for school, and uh some people call it a dumb investment. Um some people would um well like selling it to pay for school, I'm saying. But um I was trying to finish my education, and y'all know I'm African, so my parents weren't having that whole like I'm dropping out to do whatever. So like that's that that's kind of my story. But um to speak about my friend a little bit more, um, he got in in I think like 2011 and he started uh one of like the first like mining operations in uh Jersey, in uh central Jersey. So uh essentially him and his partner made uh a large sum of money from um from just mining cryptocurrencies. And so when he put me on, he was already he made enough money to the point where he had his own startup going. So um I actually met him like I actually met him when like he basically he was like in the beginning stages of his startup, and I think uh this year they actually raised around like $1.5 million and are still raising. So like there's potential in this market.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Wow, that's amazing, man.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:03

Um Wow. So why did you choose Ethereum over uh Bitcoin back then?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

I I didn't I didn't choose Ethereum over I didn't necessarily choose Ethereum over Bitcoin, but like I I believe in like placing, I believe I don't want to say placing bets, but essentially what I what I basically was doing was I wasn't just going all into one thing at the time. I was just placing bets, seeing what was happening because I was young and I was trying to get a grasp of what was happening in the market before like I just come up with some kind of like crazy investment thesis. I was kind of just playing in the markets at the time, figuring out what was going on, understanding how things work, understanding how charts worked, understanding how like just like the crypto asset markets works, like what affects the market, what what doesn't affect the market kind of thing. So at the time I was put I put my money in those two because they uh at the time they were the biggest two, and like I knew that Bitcoin had been around for some time, but like Ethereum had um came out, and if it could mimic Bitcoin in terms of like the upside in terms of the growth, I would make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Cool, cool. Real quick, um, for our fans out there, and we're gonna get into we're gonna get into um crypto and Bitcoin quite a bit. And um Norman also does some Airbnb and so hold hold study, hold tight. Um one quick thing, real quickly, I don't I know it's not so simple to explain it, but like in the in the most layman's turns you can do, and the in the shortest uh possible amount of time you could do, could you explain w what the hell is crypto and blockchain and and and all that, and how is it how is it gonna change the future, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So alright, in one word, a blockchain is a database. And in one word, a cr a crypto like currency or whatever is just some like means of value. Well, that's not one word, but in one sentence, a cryptocurrency is just a means of value exchange that's just built on top of a blockchain, which I told y'all was a database. So, like, like in a database, what do we do? We um like we make entries in a database, right? Like we make transactions in the database. Um, and so essentially like the transactions that are recorded in this blockchain, aka database are like buys or not necessarily not necessarily buys and sells, but like just like the value transfer. Like I give you like one Bitcoin, that's recorded, that transaction, me sending Steve one Bitcoin is recorded on Bitcoin blockchain, Steve sending Micah that one Bitcoin is recorded on Bitcoin's blockchain. So that that that's kind of what it is, like cash a way to like record that value transfer. And then like the asset that lives in that blockchain is like, for example, like Bitcoin.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

So so if I if I could try, because I've I've heard it explained a few times, and if I could try to break it down with like what not even computers involved, and go back to like um the blockchain kind of represents, let's say it's uh some caveman, right? Back in the caveman days, you know, and one caveman says, Alright, man, um I'm gonna give you my my club to go borrow, you know, for for a week to go hunting and stuff. Right. And then he tells, he goes, everybody in the tribe, you see that I'm giving him this to borrow, right? It's gonna give it back to me. And everybody sees it. I guess they record it in their mind, and he borrows it for a week and he comes back, he has to give it back. Everybody knows that he borrowed it from that guy, right? And so is that kind of I know it's um it's a weird way to explain it.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

No, no, no, no. That's that's actually a perfect analogy because when you study the history of money, um like things like that actually happen. So if you read about the um the island called Yap, there were these things called rhice stones, and essentially what you just described is what people did with the rhice stones. The villagers would get together, and basically the rhystones were essentially these like two-ton stones that were very difficult for people to like, it was very difficult to acquire, it was very difficult to like replicate these things, so people used it as a form of money. And so essentially what happens, what happened was what you just described. The villagers would get together, and when somebody was giving ownership of a rhistone to somebody else, they would announce it to everybody in the village, so everybody knew. So that's how people would keep records back then.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Ah, interesting, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So what you just described is a perfect analogy. Cool, cool.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

And so if you don't give it back, everybody knows he stole it from that dude.

SPEAKER_05 10:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

So that's um and the the blockchain is pretty much uh a computer way of telling the whole internet, hey, you know, this guy gave me a bitcoin, and um, you know, I owe him something for it, and then the the whole internet knows that that transaction took place.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, yeah, m I wouldn't say internet, I would say network, but more or less.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Okay, cool. You you understand it now, Micah? Oh, yeah, I must have been over here.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

So you said you said not internet, but you said network, meaning like Yeah, so so an an internet an internet is a network of networks, but like each each blockchain is essentially like each blockchain is essentially its own network. Uh like you know, big like Bitcoin's blockchain is is is its own network, you know, just like you got your net you have your computer network in your house, right? Like if you if you were not connected through like some like Comcast or Xfinity or whatever to the internet, you would still have that intranet inside your house. Like you would still have that network. So like like in the case of blockchain, in the case of Bitcoin, like blockchains themselves are like individual networks. Like Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a network, like it's a network of different computers that are connected to the Bitcoin network. Like Ethereum is a network, it's a network of different computers, aka nodes that are connected to like the Ethereum blockchain one way or another.

SPEAKER_05 11:40

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

So there's like thousands of coins in existence. Is that a good estimate? Thousands? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

I would I would say I would say over 2,000, but like we I'll tell you how I feel about that too.

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Okay. Well, real quick, real quick question. What makes one coin more valuable than another coin?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Uh so like to dive into the to dive into the theory behind it, the things that basically that um like monetary uh economists and people like are trying to argue is that the things that actually make these um things valuable than other things are actually let me let me show you guys right now because I was actually I was actually going over it too. But uh things such as like security, uh transaction speed, uh got it right here. So security, aka like the cost of the attack, security in the form of like the quality of the code, the quality of the team, how decentralized is it, how resistant to censorship is it, like is it immutable? What's the monetary policy behind it? Is it like inflationary or is it disinflationary, fixed supply? Um, how credible is it? What does the distribution look like in terms of like how decentralized is actual ownership or actual custody? Does one person own 80% of the supply, or do seven billion people own eighty percent of the supply? How scalable is it? What is the throughput? Like what is the governance behind that thing look like? How easy is it for people to use? Um, like what is the extent to the pro programmability? Like, what can we build on top of it? Um, like what is the extent of that? Um, like what is the infrastructure look like? What is the develop what is it what does it look like on the development side? Um like what does the community look like? What's the ecosystem look like? What is the financial sustainability of development? And also like what is the depth of like financialization?

SPEAKER_04 13:27

Oh wow. That's pretty um simple explanation. I'm just kidding. Sorry about that. It's uh you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm trying to understand it all. So uh in other words, everybody's got a smartphone, right?

SPEAKER_05 13:42

Right.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

So I guess uh why is an iPhone cost a thousand when a Nokia cost a couple a hundred bucks, you know what I'm saying? Is that is that's kind of because of the technology's better, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty pretty like b basically. But like there's like there's there's so much economics behind it besides like technology. Technology is just like one aspect behind it. Like, like I just like we were talking about technology, but at the same time, we spoke about monetary policy. So that there's there's there's more to it than like just than just the technology.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Wow. This is this is this is awesome. This is interesting, man. You got any questions, Micah?

SPEAKER_02 14:17

So I yeah, I have a question because I'm actually while you're talking, I'm actually sitting here on crypto B B. I was what when do you think crypto is going to be used for like certified transactions? Like when do you when could you see that happening? So define certified transactions like a personal, like a crypto BNB, right? Like you want to stand somebody's crib, you just pay them in cryptocurrency. Because I noticed they stopped it, they stopped it. Uh the crypto, the crypto DNA people, they stopped it. When do you think that'll be like in full-blown effect?

SPEAKER_01 14:47

So I think services like services like that will like start taking effect when like I'm I'm gonna speak specifically about Bitcoin because that's that's what I know, but services like that will take effect when we when Bitcoin like becomes like I want to say like becomes a medium of it becomes like a stable medium of exchange. And like I and like if I were to give you a like a personal timeline, I would say I would say within 20 years, 25 years, but I can't I can't be like, okay, it's gonna happen in 25 years, but personally, I I could see it happening within 25 years just just because of like the progress that's been made, just because of like the recent developments that we're seeing. But like if I could give you, if I could give you like a number, I I would say maybe like I I speak with my friends about this all the time, and like we're thinking maybe 10 trillion, like 10 at a 10 trillion market cap specifically for Bitcoin. I'm not talking about crypto in general, but we think at 10 trillion, like that's when we might start, that's when we think like the volatility will be so low that like we'll be able to start using it as a medium of exchange to conduct those kind of transactions that you spoke about. And another thing too is like once it becomes that stable, those things just naturally happen because now it's like so many people have it that like people naturally will just want to exchange it for other things, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

It it has value at that point, and it has barter bartering value, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like like in in in terms of money, like long story short, money money is essentially like uh like store a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. And like like um the mental model behind that is kind of kind of like picture a pyramid where the bottom pyramid is a store of value, the medium, like the middle of the pyramid is that medium of exchange, and then the top of the pyramid, like the pinnacle is like the unit of account, and then kind of picture like like a pool of money just populating each layer, and like it's not as fluid as I'm describing it, but essentially, like in order for something to become a unit of account, it need that layer that's a medium of exchange, needs to be saturated with a certain amount of like liquidity, a certain amount of money, and then like even before that, like a store of value layer has to be saturated, and it and it kind of makes sense when you think about it when you kind of look at like the history behind gold. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Exactly. I mean, what what gives gold its value?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

But are you are you are you asking me?

SPEAKER_04 17:15

It's kind of a rhetorical question, because I mean someone's starving, hey I got a brick of gold. That brick of gold ain't gonna feed my family, you know what I'm saying? I mean, if if if there's no more um system set up to to accept it, stuff like that. It's all like an agreed upon thing. Everybody in the world agrees, hey, gold's worth something, so it's worth something, right? Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

And so um if everybody agrees Bitcoin's worth something, then it's gonna be worth something. It is worth something, apparently, right now.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Right. Um But like sorry, sorry, I just I just want to interject really quick. But in the case of like 2,000 like different cryptocurrencies, the the fact of the matter is, um like factors include factors including, but not limited to like just sheer competition will result in most most of these coins dying. Like um essentially, like there they're gonna be there are gonna be a couple good ones that like you know have niche use cases, but most of these projects are gonna die, and most of them like were just raised by people who took advantage of other people, to be completely honest. But like projects like Bitcoin that are aiming to be that I personally believe that are aiming to be like sound money, like uh, like I said, store value, medium of exchange, unit of account, like I I think those those projects will like um be fine. And also, we also have to factor in that like it might like the bloodbath might be worse than like even like currency now, because currencies now are enforced by state, by the state. So like, for example, like you're required by the law to like accept like US dollars in the United States. If you go to Mexico, you need to take pesos. If I go, if I go to like Brazil, I need to take real. But like essentially in the digital realm, those forms of money, like there is no like law saying that like you know, I I need to take Bitcoin or whatever. So essentially what we're gonna see is like hyper competition, which kills a whole bunch of these currencies because people only want to use the best currency. And like in the real world, this is supported by the fact that like when you look at Zimbabwe, when their economy collapsed because of like hyperinflation, the next thing they went to was the US dollar. Like they're using US dollars in Zimbabwe and not their own currency. You go to Venezuela, people are buying US dollars on the black market, you go to Argentina, people are buying US dollars on the black market, and they're also buying Bitcoin.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Now, is it true that there's a finite number of actual Bitcoins out there?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, yeah. So there's it's programmed, it's like basically programmed into like Bitcoin that like the the max that they're all that that there will ever that there will ever be is like uh 21 million ever.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

And and no one can ever change that in the future.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah, babe. Nobody, nobody, nobody can change it. Like to to make things simple, pretty much pretty much nobody can change it.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

But I mean you'd have to, I mean, for everybody in the world to use a bit, you know, Bitcoin, they'd have to break it off to like uh uh bit pennies and bit nickels and bit di right to so it's divisible up to like each bitcoin can be divided a hundred million times.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Multiply that by a hundred million, and like we're talking like like four quadrillion like Bitcoin, something some something dumb high, something crazy high.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Oh, okay. Okay, I get it.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And and in terms of like in in terms of like how do you like what is the unit of account, like if we were to just not use like one Bitcoin for things, because it's you know that like a lot of people like to compare it to like the price in terms of USD, like we have something called the metric system. We're like, you know, I I'm not calling something I'm not calling something like ten million, like I mean I'm not I don't have to call something like a thousand meters. We we call it a kilometer, you know what I mean? Like I'm not gonna call it like what like zero point one hundred zero point like zero zero one meters, I'll call it a centimeter, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 21:05

Yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying. And real quickly, explain to us what I I saw you mention it on Facebook. What's a what is a shit coin?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Like, so if I were if I were to if I were to describe a shit coin, if I were to tell you what a shit coin is, like projects that virtually have like I'm not gonna say zero, but I'll say a very low like non-zero chance of succeeding, like scams, like I'm sure you heard of like bit connect, like like proof of week hands, just just like non utter utter nonsense that people have created to like take money from other people.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Yeah, I have some friends that got mixed up in some of those. Right pretty much set up like Ponzi schemes.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

B ba basically, basically. So like if if you were to talk to me, I'd say most projects are shit coins, but they're also they're also very, very good projects run by like honest people. Cool. Cool.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Alright, let's jump into uh if you don't mind, Micah, you want to jump into a little bit of some Airbnb talk for the for the fans out there. So you do Airbnb also, huh? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay, how'd you uh how'd you start Airbnb and what is that what exactly do you do in Airbnb?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Uh so we started, we officially got started in like 2017, but I I want to say like the idea and like like just like us trying was that happened in like 2016 when uh Josh, Josh and I, my co- the co-founder, we're both co-founders technically, um, when we were in college. Um, and so we we basically started like comfy living while we were in college with the purpose of like trying to like Airbnb corporate housing, do all that jazz while we were in uh New Jersey. And so like um what was the question so I know I'm on track?

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Like, you know, how did you s I was asking how you started and what exactly do you do in the Airbnb world?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So so yeah, so we got started in 2016 for like the purpose of just like Airbnb, so we could just have money on the side and stuff. Um the inspiration came from one of our one of our friends named uh Shatamal Kwame. Uh Kwame Bowler was kind of doing it while he was in Seattle. Um and he kind of like introduced me to like the whole entrepreneurship kind of deal. I always knew I wanted to do something, but I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do. And when I saw what he was doing, I really was like inspired to kind of do my own thing because I liked it, and it seemed like he was very independent and like out there just doing this thing and killing it. So when we came, when I came back to uh Jersey, I wanted to do it, and then uh Josh lived in Seattle too, and Kwame and Josh connected, and so Josh came back with like the idea of like yo, let's like partner up and let's really do this thing. So in 2016, while I was working at Goldman in um in New York City, that's kind of when like that idea got birthed. Ironically, it was around the same time I got into crypto as well. But um, so that that there's the inspiration behind it. Fast forward to like uh 2017, uh, when I moved out to uh Houston and Josh moved to Dallas. Um I I I I want to say that there were tons of factors which prevented us from actually getting our first arbitrage, including but not limited, limited to education. But I will say the biggest thing that really stopped us from like doing it in Jersey was just like the sheer fear. Like we didn't like we we were just like afraid, you know, like young guys, we were afraid of being judged because of our skin color, because of like our education, all like you guys think like you can come in here and just like arbitrage or whatever. Like it it honestly was just fear. Because if I go back right now, I'll get an arbitrage in a week, I promise you. But um, but um, like yeah, fast forward to like 2017. Uh like we were basically going through like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, just like you know, networking, putting our names out there online to try to figure out like how we could get an arbitrage. And uh Josh struck gold in uh Dallas with uh our f our very first client. And so um like the the communication and the work between that has been like we'll plan everything out on a calendar, um I'll make that drive up to Dallas and we'll um you know we'll we'll get everything and we'll set up the unit. So we we set up that first unit, I want to say in like November of um 2017. And uh we we've been operating out of that. Basically, our business model is like corporate housing. So we're trying to get people in here, like traveling nurses, um, just like corporate clients, whoever wants to get in for like a month plus, and we'll run like background checks and on, and then we also do like traditional like Airbnb on the side, but like we're very strict with who we let in because we're trying to minimize like the damage that's done to our units, because at the end of the day we're a business, and like we have we have like we potentially have investors and we also have like our clients that we're working with. They they you know there's an expectation that we're keeping their units like like um as good as good as possible. And then also we we just we we're partnered with somebody in Houston with one of his with one of his units as well, and then we have another arbitrage in Houston as well.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

So so y'all primarily do arbitrages then?

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Yeah, our arbit arbitrage, but like we we have a preference toward corporate housing. Like if I had a choice between arbitrage and corporate housing, I would most likely do corporate housing, but if we can't get corporate housing, we'll most likely do arbitrage traditional.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Now how how many uh how many units do you guys have?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Uh three, one of them is a partnership, two of them is ours, are ours.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

So you okay, three total. That's good. Yes, that's good. You guys are growing quick, man. You guys got that hustle going and the Bitcoin hustle, it can't be stopped. So exactly so what how is the how is the corporate because you you obviously you have a unit in Dallas and you have a unit in Houston. Which which one do you see the more corporate travelers coming into? Is it Houston or Dallas? Um I've always been interested in.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

As a as of now, um and it off the off top, I would I would probably say I would probably say Houston. Because the amount of time that it took for us to get a corporate person inside of Houston was less than Dallas. But I will say that over time, like I'll have an accurate measurement of that. But as of now, like if I were to just say off top in terms of effort, definitely it seems easier in Houston. But like people people were people like I'm pretty sure you saw that Facebook post. Oh, people people were not so nice about like pricing and stuff, but like, hey man, it's a business.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah, those old school, uh old school people, yeah. They're they're they're kind of the the corporate housing model, it's a bit it's a bit new. And but people see the pricing on it. Like, I when I I used to tell people, like when I tell people how I price my units, they're like, you're crazy, no one'll rent that. And it's crazy, like every time somebody tells me nope, someone won't rent it, I usually get a someone book in the unit the next day or so. Like people will pay, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Right, exactly. So I'm thinking I should start those arguments on purpose because like when that argument happened, like I got a late, I got somebody the next day. So I might make it my business to just to like get people pissed off at me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

The trolling game. Mike is Mike is good at that.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

I'm very I'm very good at that internet trolling thing. I don't do that whole passive aggressive thing. If I see you coming crazy, I will check it.

SPEAKER_04 28:19

Oh, snap. I love it. I love it. Hey, um, real quick, for for listeners that don't exactly know what an arbitrage is, could you tell them could you tell them what it is, what it means to you, and how do you and and the number one question they ask after Micah tries to explain it to people is how do you get people to agree to an arbitrage? How do you how do you approach them? Show me like like a scenario.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Uh so I mean uh I mean a typical scenario for us is like we'll go on, I'll go on Craigslist and I'll just Craigslist, Facebook, or like I'll set up just like a whole bunch of tours, or like I'll go on Zillow and like we'll just literally like literally like I'll just have an Excel sheet just full of like places I'm interested in, and I'll just like call the owners, I'll ask them out for like lunch, or I'll be like, hey, like, you know, can we schedule some time to like discuss this? I'll basically just introduce myself and like what we're essentially what we're you know, what our company does, what we're doing. Um, like, you know, I'll show them our social media. Like Micah really helped us out. Like, we have a packet now of like what we do. Like, we have literally business documents that tell people what we do. We operate under an LLC. So essentially what I'm doing to essentially what I'm trying to pitch to these guys is going with us is better than going with a traditional um traditional rental for reason X, Y, and Z. Like traditional people may not take care of your place as good as we'll we're gonna take care of it because we have a financial obligation to make sure that everything inside of your place is like tip in tip top shape. Like, you know, if you have someone in there for like a year, if something breaks, they may not tell you about it until like they move out. And then like now you have to spend money to get that fixed. But with us, like we we are making sure that like everything in there is good. Like, like in some cases, like we'll get in we'll get travel insurance, like for a guy in Dallas, like we have travel insurance for all the people that come in there, like our corporate travelers. Um and like we even take security like to the next level. Like, like, like we even have our own security like cameras, like we have smart locks. So like we're keeping track of everything. Like I said, like I'm a tech guy, like I love making decisions based off of data, and like I just love throwing like accurate, not to like you know, like gloat or anything, but I love like throwing like just like data in people's faces because like you know, it's one thing if I'm telling you it, but it's one it's another thing if the numbers are telling you it, because numbers don't lie.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

You sound like a LeBron James fan.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Um I am a LeBron fan.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I know I can tell because you're a numbers guy. Uh how did so you said you do uh insurance, trap travel insurance. How does that work for your corporate clients?

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Uh so I mean like like like with the background checks and travel insurance, like we use software called Cozy for like the background checks. Um for travel insurance, um, there's actually like a website that we have. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but essentially like we just we literally have a policy for like short term and like like it like it's it's essentially arbitrage to the person who's coming in. Nice, nice. So like so from like like business wise, like we try to like arbitrage those extra expenses onto like it sounds kind of messed up, but like it's you know it's business. We arbitrage it like to the person to the person staying, or like we'll structure the price, we'll like do our like price strategy in a way that it doesn't really like affect us like that much. Kind of like with the whole like um like timeshares thing as well.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Also, so since you guys are arbitraging, do you guys do plan on hopping into the real estate game and actually buying property in the future?

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So me and Josh actually talked about that, and like that we think we think the next level is like we want to we want to scale to like 20 units. Like we have milestones set like 10, 15, 20, and we kind of want to like evaluate what's going on with us from a personal standpoint, but like it is we are 100% gonna get like personal like units, or like even not personal units, but we might just like say like yo, like now let's let's diversify what we're doing, because like the first step is a business, or we think our first step is kind of like just going all in and like establishing like that main revenue. Then it's like okay, now once you have that main revenue established, the next thing you need to do is diversify into different things so that you are basically set as a business so that so that like okay, if one portion of your business fails, you have like three other pillars still holding your business up. So we are 100% gonna go into like getting units next because like we have to diversify eventually to make sure that like we sweep we have a solid foundation as business.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Assets, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yeah, so I mean I could talk about that too if you want me to. Yeah, yeah. Go into that. I mean, I mean, like a couple couple things like we want to diversify into like in terms of real estate, is like, okay, one, like education, mentoring, um, like obviously we're doing like the arbitrage and the corporate housing. Uh the fourth, the fourth thing is um, the fourth thing could be timeshares. The fifth thing is now like actual like real estate units. So now we have like five different, I guess that's five different streams of income in one business. So if one thing is bad, we got four other things holding us up.

SPEAKER_05 33:13

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 33:15

That's smart. That's real smart. Yeah. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah, yeah. Every everything you know is an asset. There you go. Sell your intellectual property, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

That's yeah, smart stuff. And oh, and and the sixth thing, the sixth thing I didn't need which I didn't even say was like I can go deeper. The sixth thing is consulting now. So like you can go on once you once you once you once you like, for example, you guys have a podcast, the next thing you can do is you can sell your individual time on like I think it's called Clarity.fm, and you can charge people you can charge people about a minute. You can either do it as an individual or you can do it as a business, but that's a sixth stream of income for your business that you can essentially use to like make that you know that foundation more sound, more solid. The seventh thing you can do is you could start your own cleaning company and you can either arbitrage your cleaners through like turnover B, or you can just have like you know, you can outsource your cleaners to other Airbnbers or other arbitragers and just charge them a premium off of what you're paying your current um like cleaner.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Wow. There you there you go. That's that's the that's the easiest way to make money, man. Play the middleman.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

So as uh as a wise man once said, I'm not a businessman, I'm a business. Business man. Hey, okay. So y'all are okay. How old are you guys, first of all, you and Josh?

SPEAKER_01 34:36

I think I think uh I'm 24. I just turned 24. Wow. Um I think I think Josh is 25. No, no, Josh, no, no, no, no, Josh, Josh is 24 also. Josh is 24. Josh turns 25 in September.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

Y'all got it figured out, man. Hey, um real real quick. Okay. Okay, that's cool. Y'all y'all seem like uh real real tight-knit, you know, uh some partners, partners going on here. But one of you lives in Houston, the other one, uh you live in Houston, Josh lives in Dallas, we know Josh real good. How do you keep that partnership together with that distance going on?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Well, I'm a workaholic, so like, for example, like sometimes you just gotta be like there's a mutual understanding. Like sometimes like you're just gonna have to take the L. Like, for example, one of our cleaners couldn't make it, and like I wasn't gonna leave my homie out there just strained it, cleaning the cleaning it by itself. So I got up at like, it was like eight, like eight or nine o'clock, um, like in Houston, got in my car, got my stuff together, you know, I packed my bags. Um, I worked remote at my job, so like I had the luxury of just working anywhere I want in the world. Um, so I packed my bags, I got in my car at eight o'clock, and I drove to Dallas. I got there at midnight, um, and we started cleaning from midnight to from midnight to like three or four in the morning, and we just like we had to take the L. So um Josh, you know, Josh got one hour of sleep or two hours of sleep, and he went to work. And like, you know, I fortunately, like I work on Pacific time, so I, you know, I'm able to work later in the day than other people. So I got like five hours of sleep. I just got up and I worked, but that week I I was in Dallas for like three or four days, um, just like hanging out, you know, making sure things were stabilized, but like, you know, getting work done. I had to sleep on the couch, but you know, it is what it is. You know, we're trying to build the business, so sometimes you just gotta take the L, you just gotta sacrifice.

SPEAKER_04 36:22

Damn, that's dedication. That's real talk, man.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

Real, man. That's real talk.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

That's that's that's sweet.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

So and like I'm not even sorry about that. My next question is like, okay, so you you drove up there. So have you have you guys put like a system in place where you can have a backup cleaner on turnover B and D?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

That's what I'm saying. Uh so so we so in that particular so we have it's kind of weird. So in Houston, we have like we have two cleaners in Houston. In Dallas, I don't think that was I don't think that was set up, and that was our mistake. And that's like that's a learning experience for us. So, you know, Ella's a law saying it's also a learning experience as well. So that that that was our mistake. That was definitely but but I had to go up there but I had to go up there anyway though, because because we we upgraded our unit. Like we we installed security cameras and we also added a a Nest thermostat. So like that that's something that I had to do as well. And then also like the learning experience behind that is like I'm not you gotta learn how to be a handyman sometimes because you can't afford the handyman, you know what I mean? So hey.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Real talk, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

See it automatically reminded me of uh of that old um I guess it was a joke, right? Because I'm 40, dude. I'm not gonna I'm I'm myself, I'm not gonna hop in in a car and drive all the way from Houston to Dallas. I don't be calling everybody and their uncle, you know, I'll pay 200, 300. I'll tell them to get over there clean. I'll hook you up, don't worry. And um, but you yeah, you're young and eager. You're the you're the young bull in that story that I that you've probably heard before. The the young bull. Yeah, he's out there up on the hill and he's talking to his dad. Hey dad, look at all those cows. Let's go down there and um, I'll say, make love to one. And and his dad, and his dad says, No, son, let's walk down there and make love to a mall. That's uh so I'm the old bull, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Nah, nah, I know, I I know that saying, I know that saying.

SPEAKER_04 38:20

So that reminded me of that. I was like, man, back in the day, maybe, but uh, I'm gonna make some phone calls. I'm gonna pay for it.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Yeah, speaking of that, because so speaking of that, man, yeah, always like how you said, Steve, you'd be making phone calls and you hook somebody up. I had a similar situation to that. Like, uh I'm real big on take care of your employees, man. Because like my corporate client destroyed one of my units. Not really destroyed it, but just left a bunch of Amazon. He had like Amazon boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling. Everything was left out. She sent a picture to me, but she she went and cleaned it, but she she didn't get done until like one in the morning. So I just I sent her an extra 50 bucks. Like, I was like, oh dang, you know, I sent her an extra 50 bucks to take care of your um, man.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

That's that's a really important thing, man. That's a really important thing.

SPEAKER_04 39:07

Yes, sir. So what um real quick, what percentage do you make off of these arbitrages? Uh like what's our margin?

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah. Uh so I I I want to say, like, I think for the one in Houston, I think Micah dropped off, but um for for the one in Houston, uh he we're rent is like 1400. It's actually 1398, but we're charging like 2217. Um for the one in Dallas, I think we were charging 2200 and rent was I think uh rent was 1400.

SPEAKER_04 39:42

Okay, so that's your oh okay. Okay, that's what I was saying. Because when I was thinking arbitrage too, uh I I guess I was thinking co-hosting, but that's not that's I I don't know why I was thinking that. Like co-host charge what 20%, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

So yeah, we're we're doing 20%, we're doing 20 20%.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

So you so you do co-host also.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. When I so when I say partnered, I mean like I mean like co-host. So like someone has a unit, they give it to us, we we run it, we do 80, 20 split.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

Oh, okay. That's pretty standard.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

And then we also like the next thing we're moving into is like investor contracts now. Like investors, if investors want to partner with us, we'll I think uh I think one of the things we're we're looking at is like, okay, we'll do I think 70, 70, 30 for X amount of years, and after X amount of years, it's like 80 us, 20 them, or something like that. It's like the contracts are negotiable, but that's like that's the next step too, for whatever reason, if we would want to like, you know, take an investor money because sometimes you you don't want to use your own money for various reasons.

SPEAKER_04 40:39

Oh, okay. So how would that work? So I uh say I want to be an investor, and and how I I'll come to you. Hey, hey man, um I just want to be the money man. I just want to I'll I'll give you the money to do your thing, and how how much of a return how much of a return do I get?

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Uh so I mean we um I don't for the return.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

Um I mean I don't know. You can ballpark it.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

So so I I can't necessarily say return, but what I what I can basically say is like if if we have a unit, right, and I'm charging like a hundred dollars, like say rent for the unit is like ten dollars, and we're charging a hundred dollars, uh of the ninety dollars we'll do like okay, you get seventy, we get thirty, and like say you finance that entire one hundred one hundred dollars. Um like we'll we'll the contract will be like it's a very extensive contract, but long story short, like the contract, the contract could be this, like, okay, you're financing, you're giving us this money and for the lifetime of the property. So um, like if anything happens, like you, you're like you're guaranteed your ret you're guaranteed your return back. Or you're guaranteed minimum, you're guaranteed what you put in back. Like we'll have that in a contract. And then like after you get what you put in back, like for X amount of years, this this is gonna be what you're getting. You're gonna get um you're gonna you're gonna get um how do I say it? Uh like you're you're gonna you're guaranteed like 30% of the monthly profit if there's a monthly profit. But like return wise, maybe if it like if you're guaranteed your money back return wise, it's over 100%. So maybe like 150. 150 over like X over a time period.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

Is that does that sound like so it's kinda like I guess it's kind of like a hard money loan in a way for you to get started on the arbitrage? Is that what it is, and then you pay me out and then I'm gone? Is that is that kind of kind of what uh what it is?

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Kinda, kinda, but it's not like necessarily like okay, we pay you back and you're gone. It's literally like you have like I guess the closest thing I could like this compare it to is like equity. Like you have 30% of like you initially have 80% of the project because like we have to pay you back, but once we pay you back, we're switching to you have 30%, we have 70%, because now like okay, you're paid back, here are your dividends, you know, because we want to make sure they at least get their money back, right?

SPEAKER_04 43:00

Yeah, that's awesome. And you talking about uh an investor buying like buying a whole house or buying a whole condo or or just buying the startup buying buying an arbitrage, borrowing it, buying an arbitrage. Oh, buying a okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

When you say buying an So we have identified an arbitrage and the landlord says yes, would would they finance this arbitrage for us and we operate it?

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Oh, I see. So they go buy all the furniture and all that stuff and set it up.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

So they yeah, they give us the money, we'll do all the setting up.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

Oh, okay. Now I get it. Now I get it. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yeah, so they don't ideally they don't have to lift a finger, they're just signing the contract. We'll get our CPA involved because we need to um obviously, like, you know, there are tax implications with that. Like, you know, the interest and stuff is deductible from your uh income. So like we get our we we get our CPA involved and make sure like we're right from a tax standpoint, but that that's that's that's the first part. The second part is the discussion with a CPA.

SPEAKER_04 43:57

So so have do you have any of those yet? Yeah, we have a C we have a CPA. I mean do you have any of the investor arbitrage things get?

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Yeah, yeah, because of because of social media, we have like several people that we're like like that we're in discussions with and we're actually right now we're ironing out things with our CPA from a tax standpoint to make sure that we're doing everything, we're compliant with the IRS when we're doing this stuff, because I don't want to get smacked in the face with like a violation or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 44:23

Dude, if you want to start like a little investment group, let me know. I want to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like that's like and and and once we become more mature, like that's one of the things that we were thinking about. And like so social media too, like that's something that that's been really, really helpful with um just like all of this. Like social media has helped so much.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Oh yeah, big time. Micah, you there? Micah? I see his picture. I don't see Micah. Anyways. Yeah, well, we'll keep going. We'll keep going. So um So what do you see what else do you see branching out to in the future? You got the you got the crypto, you got the arbitrar the Airbnb arbitrages. What other stuff interests you, man? I mean, you seem like you can you want to you can do anything if you put your mind to it.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Thanks, thanks, man. I mean, like what in what interests me is just um like you know, crypto interests me. I'm really interested into like, you know, how the finance, the economics, like the future and stuff behind that, like real estate really interests me. Like and investing in general, just like it it's it's just like a really interesting thing to me. So I could see myself like diversifying, I guess, I guess, my investments into other asset classes, kind of kind of just doing the whole full-time investment thing. But I'm also very interested in like you know, that whole idea of like financial freedom. Like, like, you know, like I'm sure you watch like bigger pockets and stuff, like you hear all these people talk about financial freedom. Oh, like, you know, because I got I got this many properties, you know. I'm I'm going to like like Mauritius or something like that. You know, stuff like stuff like that. So like I'm really interested in traveling, the whole financial freedom. I definitely want to explore that for a bit, but I don't think I could ever just stop working just because like I've become such a workaholic, like I could never see myself just not working. But like another thing I want to get into is just like mentoring too, because like part of part of my goals too is to kind of just like wake up as many of my close friends, family, as I can to just like the endless possibilities. Like I said, with crypto, crypto's kind of just like open my eyes to the flaws in our current financial system and just like the flaws to like to like to like life in general in terms of like finance. So like I've just been I've kind of changed my my life goal from like monetary goals to kind of just like accomplishment goals, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 46:47

Oh yeah, that's awesome. Hey, can we bring it back? Because earlier in the show, you had mentioned um something about Austrian economics. Yeah. And and that automatically makes me think of my man Ron Paul. Do you know you know Ron Paul?

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Yeah, a lot a lot of Austrians, a lot of Austrians like they're they're they're really like big Ron Paul supporters. You know, a lot of Austrians are like libertarians by nature. Like they're really like they they they tend to like like those guys.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

So you so you get in, um so so you studied it some Austrian economics. Uh could you explain real quick uh what what that is exactly or how I mean it's essentially sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

You said what it is and what else.

SPEAKER_04 47:24

Yeah, and how it's implemented or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

So I mean it there like in economics, like I I'm not an expert, like, but like I just I just really like the idea. But essentially, like economics, there are like two schools of thought. There is um like the Keynesian school of thought, which is basically what's practiced today in modern economics, it's taught in m modern universities, it's taught to you in high school, um and like there's the Austrian economics school of thought, which is like essentially different. And like they're they're basically different on different principles. Like Austrians are in love with like like with like concepts of like concepts like money having like a fixed supply. Um uh, you know, Keynesians believe in things such as like, you know, we need inflation, inflation is a good thing. Um, like, you know, ideas such as like, you know, the federal having a federal reserve. Um like we need we need we need government in terms of like we need the government or the federal reserve to like control the money supply and um the things like that. So essentially it just boils down to a school of thought. But like if I could if I could really just like for like the average person, like I guess I could use crypto as a perfect example. Keynesians think that like you know, Bitcoin is bad because it has a fixed supply, Austrians think it's good because it has a fixed supply, and it's just basically like their approach to economics in general. Hey, y'all hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Hey, my mic went out. Uh-huh. But um, hey, what I was gonna say, because I was trying to chime in when you were talking about the investors, um, the model you were explaining, uh, that's really a good model for like people just wanting to get into the arbitrage business. If you can set up a deal with an investor where he gets 70% of the profit until he gets his money back, and then it flips to where you get 70% and he gets 30, right? That's yeah, that's the perfect arbitrage that you want right there.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

And then and then also like like that's not just limited to like, okay, we're taking money. Like the eighth stream of income, which I forgot to mention before, is actually that. So now we're we're we're networked with other Airbnbs potentially in the future, or people who just want to get started through like mentoring, and now like you know, we can charge you for mentoring, and like okay, we'll give you a loan as well, and here's the contract for the loan. Yeah. Am I echoing?

SPEAKER_04 49:46

A little bit. You're good, man. Okay, yeah, a little bit. You sound like you sound like the voice of God.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Good, good. Good, yeah. But but yeah, that's what I wanted to touch on, because yeah, that that that's a if if you're an arbitrager and you just need capital, that's the perfect arbitrage to get into.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

Right. Arbitrage, the arbitrager, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

Well, we're getting into some libertarian libertarianism talk, Micah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

Oh yeah, I was with them.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Yeah. But like like I was saying with that though, like I'm I'm not an expert by many, by, by many means, but it's just essentially like two different schools of thought. They fundamentally approach like the theory of economics completely different. It basically boils down to like, should should we have a fixed monetary supply or should like we constantly have like inflation? Um, and then also it gets deeper, like Austrians believe like like um, for example, like inflation and manipulation of the money supply leads to things such as like malinvestment, which can cause things like the 2008 financial crisis.

SPEAKER_04 50:49

Yeah, causing bubbles left and right.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Yeah, essentially, like they they basically believe like, you know, can like centralized, I believe I think they believe that centralized control of the monetary supply is basically what caused like the boom bust cycle that we that we basically see, and they kind of and Keynesians kind of teach that like, oh, it's a natural part of economics kind of thing. And Austrians like the idea of sound money, like Austrians love gold, like they love like you know the economics behind gold because gold was very hard to like, it's very hard to like duplicate gold, gold is very hard to mind, so gold was like virtually the closest thing to like a fixed supply that they had. Like a lot of Austrians will basically always reference the bell, it's I think it's called La Belle Epoque, and that's b basically like a time in Europe when there was basically barely any war, um, everybody was under the gold standard, and like things were just so much better from a European standpoint, everything was basically being invented. Austrians will often cite like that the best inventions happened during like the period of the gold standard, such as like mod like electricity, um well, not necessarily electricity being invented, but like the wiring of like you know, electricity to like the light bulb and all that stuff. Like some of the most important inventions in human history happened during the gold standard. And like, you know, that's why they're in love with like um things such as like a gold standard. Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

It's interesting, man. I don't I don't know exactly if I follow one or the other more, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Um most people most people are Keynesians by nature, and like also like another thing that like a lot of people don't understand is like the concept of like time preference, high time preference versus low time preference. So essentially, like Austrians will argue that like key this the Keynesian school of thought has basically encouraged people to have a high time preference. And essentially, a high time preference is in a nutshell, is kind of like like how do you allocate your time? Like, are you future oriented? Are you oriented like in the now? Like, for example, like can you like in people who invest are typically typically have a low time preference because they're concerned with the future, right? We're investing because we're trying to get that future value. But people with a high time preference, all they care about is just buying useless trinkets and stuff like that. Huh. So they believe that like high time pref I mean high time preference is bad because like it because it encourages people to just like invest poorly, but Keynesians believe that no high time preference is good because we need to constantly circulate money. So a school of a school of thought.

SPEAKER_04 53:19

Different school of thought. And what and I I got into a little um, I guess, Facebook disagreement, you know. I wasn't trying to troll, but you know, I accidentally stepped in a whole pile of troll. And um I was going back and forth with these people with these people, Facebook friends. I I commented on a friend's thing. He was kind of complaining about how he um how rent's going up again, you know, 50 bucks, and he has to fact, you know, do this and that and and inflation. Yeah, and uh inflation. And I told him, you know, that's I I kind of tried to explain too he's asking like ways, you know, you know, this isn't fair, blah, blah, blah. And going off on a little tangent to, well, you know, one way, here's one solution. I'm not saying you have to do it. Just um think about buying a house, real estate. I mean, it kind of locks in that um, you know, it locks in that payment. I know taxes go up, this and that, but you get to write off taxes, you get to write off things, blah, blah, blah. And um, I was just trying to explain it, and oh man, I got piled on. Oh, not everybody can buy houses like you, and it's you're part of the problem because you own more than one house, and this is this.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Right, right. And then and then like you you could also argue that like that like like like like we like I said before, like the the Keynesian school of thought, like you know, modern day economics, that that basically encourages that kind of thinking that you see from like your friends or your peers. Like essentially, like they complain about the fact that we have inflation and that everything goes up every single year, but they don't understand that the way to offset inflation is by investing in something that gives you a greater return than the actual inflation, so that you're always ahead of the game. Exactly. They rely, they rely on their wages increasing when like your wages aren't guaranteed to increase because you don't control that. But if you're investing, you control there are more things you control than like if you were working at a corporation, and that's why like investing is so important. Like you have to invest. You have to invest if you're you you need some type of investment if you're in like like an in like this kind of society, like with this inflation, where you know the money supply increases by six percent a year, two to three percent inflation, like you like you need to invest and you need to earn higher than inflation, or like virtually every dollar you're saving is going to be worthless in like 30 years or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Yeah, that that was my point. I mean, like I said, I'm not sure if I'm one way or the other Keynesian or Austrian, whatever leaning, but the it's the way the game is set up, like you said, is Keynesian. So you gotta play the game by the game's rules, right? So yeah, that's what I was saying. I was suggesting real estate, you know, maybe you get a one or two rentals, and then you know, you you pile up your some, you know, pile up some uh what's it called, equity and um and stave off inflation. And man, they went at me like I'm part of the problem, you know. I'm just trying to play the game, trying to keep my money.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

You're not part of the problem. You're just being smart.

SPEAKER_04 56:04

That's that's what I was trying to explain, but they uh they they piled up the problem.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

The problem is you gave them a solution.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

I gave them a solution.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

People don't want solutions. They just want to bitch and complain.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yeah, straight up nobody has a solution.

SPEAKER_02 56:17

That's the first way to start a fight.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Right, right. Most of these like trivial arguments, like the people, the person who's complaining, normally like their solution is in what they're complaining about. Yeah. Oh, prices, prices are going up, price every the prices are going up. Rent's going up.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

Like don't be a renter then.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Yeah. Don't I'm renting and my rent's going up every year. Don't rent. Own. Don't don't rent. How about don't rent? Own and rent. Yeah, that's that's easy for you to say because you got enough money to buy a house. Nah, no. Well, all you need is 3.5% if you're a first-time homeowner of like whatever you're getting. And if you live in the Midwest or if you live in the South, compared to the Northeast, compared to San Francisco, that's nothing.

SPEAKER_04 57:07

Unless you're they rent.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

I don't know how. I don't know how. We have there's something called Google. I don't have internet. We have books.

SPEAKER_04 57:20

Like I said, I don't know how to read. You have friends. Exactly, exactly. So yeah, yeah. So I mean there's people like to complain. They like like you said, people that usually go out there on Facebook and complain, they just want to be, oh, I'm feel yeah, I I feel bad for you. Yeah, the system sucks, blah blah blah. They want to hear that. They don't want to hear away.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

Yeah, I like Norman's personality, man. He's a fireball.

SPEAKER_04 57:46

Man, I I love reading his his posts, man. He's going at it. Yeah. But um, that's great, man.

SPEAKER_01 57:54

Arguments too. The thing with I'll get into those arguments too, and like the troll, the troll in me is like, I'll start the argument, I'll get them riled up, and I just won't respond after that. So like they'll either like call me on Facebook or like you know, they'll call me on my cell phone, and like it it's just it's just like it's just funny, man. It's just funny. They'll call you on your phone? Like, it's some of sometimes it's my friends, because they're like some of my friends are like they they think the opposite of me, and so like they'll try to convince me so hard to think their to think their way, and it's like I used to think their way, and obviously it changed the way I think for a reason. So like I'm not gonna go back to that if after I changed my whole thought process of just life in general, I've been so much better off.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

Right, right. That makes sense. So you plan on being a digital nomad one day?

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Um, I'll I'll I'll do it. Like, I'm I'm not gonna lie, like the whole the whole me going to Dallas thing, part of that was I wanted to like experiment with like the whole digital nomad like you know thing, just being able to go anywhere. Like I'm going to San Francisco in a couple weeks. Like, even though technically I still work at a nine to five, because you know, I'm basically a hundred percent remote. Like I can I have the perks of like doing the whole digital nomad thing. Like, I'm even going to like North Carolina as well, too. But um, like I I do plan on being a digital nomad, but not in a sense of like I'm just earning passive income while I'm traveling the world. Nah, like I'm I used to be one of those like passive income, like you know, like I'm not gonna say passive income freaks, but like I was in love with the idea, but then like I I just I just I kind of just changed. I don't know if it was the work or if it was just like I just I I guess I sat on my ass for a day and I was like, man, this is boring.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Man, I've hit that spot. I know what you mean. Like, no, I'm serious. It comes a spot where okay, the money's just gonna come, right? So you're trying to find something else. Me and Mahogany were just talking about that. Me and my wife. I was like, man, I'm I'm trying to figure out what's next right now. Like, you know, a little bit of excitement came yesterday when I heard the little news about the time chairs, but I fixed it. So it was just like, well, dang, I need you, I need another challenge. That's really what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

I definitely like I definitely want to see the data on that because like that's that's gonna be interesting for like it when we decide to do that as well. Like I would love to see like the data on like well not you don't have to show me, but like just a general idea of like okay, before like they did the whole 99 guest pass thing and then after. I would I would love to see that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:20

Oh yeah, I'll definitely post it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:22

And y'all are talking about written out your timeshares, right? And now Wyndham has decided to chart if you give the timeshare to someone else, a $99 fee, which that cuts into the profits a little.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you just throw a hundred dollar cleaning fee on there and then probably bump it up to like $130, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

Right. See, you always find a solution out of every problem, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

Pricing pricing strategy. Yeah, it's just strategy.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:48

And go and going back to the Houston thing again, real quick. That's see that changed that changed it for me. Because I I just said, okay, you went out there to help out a buddy clean, but in the back of your mind, you're like, let's experiment with this digital nomad thing too while I'm at it. Yeah. That's that's pretty neat. There's always, yeah, there's always a there's always a what's it called? A byproduct, a good byproduct from every problem, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

There there's there's a good byproduct. But the thing with me though is like I'm so like, and I I and I think it's because of like, you know, what I'm trying to get accomplished, like I'm doing something at a very young age, and like the return, the upside on it in the future is gonna be so high that I think that like I I've mentally convinced myself that I just need to like sit down and just like just work, work, like just literally work, work, work, work, work. No, like no Rihanna pun intended, but like just work. Um and so like just like even like the idea of just like going out with my friends, like I'll be in a club and I'll just be like, bro, why am I here? I could be like making money.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:46

Dang.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Or like or like we'll just be like hanging out, and I'm just like, yo, why am I here? Like I've completely like buried myself in a hustle. Like those things just like completely like you know turn me off. But like I need to, like, I know like once I get things established, like I'm gonna yearn for that stuff, you know what I'm saying? Like, I can do this because I'm a single guy, but like if I had a wife, like my wife would probably smack me in my face.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Dang, man. Gotta have a wife that's on board with you. Yeah. But man, you guys have really inspired me. I'm probably gonna go get another arbitrage tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:21

Let's start let's start that fund, man. Um real quick, I mean, you know a lot about you know the financial world, oh just you know, financial world, bitcoin, all that stuff, crypto. I don't know a lot. I don't know a lot, bro. You know more than us. And investing. So, do you think a crash is coming anytime soon?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

For what, Bitcoin, or just like in general?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

Uh the stock market crash, everything, crash, housing, boom, boom.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Well, yeah, we're we're always gonna have like boom bus cycle, we're always gonna have crashes. Do I think one is coming soon? I think so. I don't know, I don't know when. I don't know when it's coming, but I th we're overdue for one. And every day, every day that we don't have one, the likelihood increases.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

Well, our next one that I predict is gonna be, hold on. Plus 18. Uh, after 2026, eight years. It's every 18 years it crashes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

Right. So, like I said, if it's if it's 2026 and we don't have one, I'll be scared. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, you really want what you're doing is good though. Arbitrage until the crash.

unknown 1:03:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

So when it crashes, you know, or just get a little piece of property just to have, you know, just don't overpay.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:35

That's what I was suggesting. I made a status about that as well. I was like, look, I can't wait until the next crash happens because the second the next crash happens, I'm buying all these properties for pennies on the dollar. Exactly. That's what you have to prepare for. I'm buying so like like even that go even even with what we're doing with Comfy, like me and Josh, like we got our savings account open so we could just capture all our profits. And so like I need to talk to Josh because I think like, yo, like long term, like we should have like a set amount of money just like allocated, like we just call it like crash money, like recession money. Pull that out. It's like, all right, yo, it's time to drive for dollars, time to hit the streets. For real. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

He said the crash money.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

Man, it's been a great conversation. We've learned a lot, and um, I'm gonna I'm gonna sit back and listen to this one a few times. Is there anything else you want to tell uh our fans or listeners out there?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Like like uh social media, man. Like social media as a marketing tool is just highly underpriced. Like if you're if you're an arbitrager in any type of real estate and you're not on social media, like I don't care if you're like 90 years old, because I know you guys like sending out your your you know your what is it, the telegrams, what is what is that? Like the direct mail, like get on get on social media, man. Like social media has helped us grow so quick as a business. It's also helped us like tell our story as well. Because I think like because I think what we're trying, what we're essentially constructing with Comfy from a social media side, or me personally with my own personal blog, is that like like for the people who say, Oh, like I don't know how to do it, or like I don't know where to get started, I'll tell them, yo, go to our blog, go to the first post where we literally, where I literally I literally label it day one, see what I did every single day, look at day 365, that's where I'm at.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

That's what's up. Hey, tell them about your blog and where they can find you, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

So I got I got I got two blogs. I got like a personal blog that I basically call like today I learned, where it's like the purpose of it is to like hold myself accountable for just like absorbing as much information as possible and just executing on this information that I have. That's on my Instagram. My Instagram is just at norm. And then my second one is my YouTube channel, and that is just um that that one that one is called your daily hash. So literally just go on YouTube, type in your daily hash, or you can just type in my name, norm, norm space b, and like you'll see, you'll see me on YouTube. Um, my profile picture is like my actual picture. So um you'll be able to see me, and then like like I said, find us on Facebook, Facebook.com slash comfy livingforall, Instagram.com slash comfy livingforall, um, twitter.com slash uh at stay with comfy.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:26

That um title, your daily hash, that um that's a cool title. It reminds me of time I spent in Amsterdam.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

Hashing every hashing every day. Reminding me of the month I spent in Cali. That's why I don't go back.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

That stuff's too strong. Um yeah, it's crazy out there. Well, thanks, Norman. Thanks for hopping on. You you're an awesome guest, and um, you just dropped the mic on everybody out there. I can't wait to see how much more trolling you got going on out there. I like I like following you on the on the social network.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:59

Like Takashi 6ix9ine of real estate.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:06

Well, cool, man. Well, you can hop on anytime. It'd be cool to get you and Josh on the show one day.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Well, we got that's gonna be that's gonna be that's gonna be us like we're gonna sell out.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:17

It'll be a two-hour or two-part episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

That's gonna be special. That has to be pay-per-view.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:23

Yeah, I know. If you if you're good at something, why do it for free, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:28

Well, all right, man. We appreciate it. Uh, you want to tell everybody where you can find us, Micah?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

Yeah, man. You can find us at Livelet Thrive.com. You can find us on Facebook at Livelet Thrive. Um, if you're signing up a new property, remember to go to our website and click one of the links and sign up under us. We'll give you a free consultation. And if you're in the DFW area, we will personally come to your unit and consult you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

Definitely do that, guys. Like, these guys are fantastic. I'm happy to be here. I hope you guys like got some kind of value from uh this podcast. But like, like support these guys, man, please. Because they like just support them.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

Thanks, Norman. That means a lot to us. Yeah, man, no problem. Well, thank all you fans out there for listen to keep listening to Live Let Thrive and keep spreading the word. And uh, what's up, Jerome? All right, y'all. We'll see y'all next week. All right. Later.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:23

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye bye.