EXPERIENCE 138 | Luxury Real Estate as Income Property with Greg Roeder, Global Real Estate Advisor with LIV Sotheby’s International Realty

Greg Rader is a second time guest on The Loco Experience and was my guest with then partner and co founder Josh Guernsey of Waypoint Real Estate in episode 45. They were celebrating their fifth anniversary and had already grown to a staff of over 30 focused on commercial brokerage, market data, and property management. Greg, however, was increasingly focused on residential real estate and providing white glove service to a discerning clientele. In March of 2023, Greg made the decision to join Sotheby's so he could better focus on this segment and not be a distraction to Waypoint's commercial focus. So, after starting and quickly growing a company that became a force in Northern Colorado commercial real estate, Greg is back out largely on his own, and working to build an already strong reputation in luxury real estate. The Sotheby's Network is a big part of the value proposition, allowing access to a network and market data on a national and international scale. Greg's special passion is vacation property as income property, helping discerning buyers not only find a place for their family to spend a few weeks each year, but also to diversify their income sources and geographic holdings. In the time since recording this show, Greg has become a new member of local think tank builders chapter. This episode is full of great stories and learning from Greg's career in Northern Colorado real estate. So please join me and enjoy my most recent conversation with Greg Rader. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. My guest today is Greg Rader. And Greg is the a global real estate advisor with live Sotheby. International Realty. Sorry, that's a long title. It's tough, yeah. You must have a big business card just to print your whole title on there. Yeah, Live Sotheby's International Realty. So is Live Sotheby's like a part of Sotheby's overall international? Yeah. There's just different branches or districts or things like that that it's broken into? Yeah, that's right. There's different Sotheby's groups all over the globe. Live Sotheby's, LIV Sotheby's is the Colorado group. I see. And about 450 agents. Okay. Wow. That's a pretty good chunk. Where are they? I think about like high end properties when I think about Sotheby's. So is there a lot of them in Vail and Aspen and some in Denver, West Denver, especially Evergreen. All of those places really big in Vail, Beaver Creek, Telluride. Breckenridge, you know, think of all the ski resort areas in Colorado. They are there, but yeah, certainly in Denver, Cherry Creek, uh, more recently in Colorado Springs and now in Northern Colorado and Fort Collins. And in all those places, they're mostly a. premium properties, kind of a brokerage. Is that right? They don't, they're not starter home brokers or et cetera. Yeah. You know, we say luxury is an experience and not a price point. Okay. So there isn't a set price point that's up to each individual agent. Uh, but the same process, the same luxury experience applies, regardless of the price point. It is primarily higher price points that you see the Sotheby's agents listing cost more like you guys charge a higher. Uh, commission than other it's one of the more expensive places without question to list or yeah, because you get more because you get more from the photographers that are curated to the processes, the procedures, the talent. I mean, just a plus talent platform supporting the brokers. You need to be a broker. That's doing substantial volume. For the model to make sense without question. But, you know, if you look at my listings, I mean, I have one in old town right now on Cherry street. That's a, that's a 460, 000 listing. So it's just pretty entry level in old town. It's incredibly entry level. It's, you know, it's really, it's a great little property. It's probably one that's a rental property for somebody. And then, you know, maybe someday they will take that little house off of the lot. It's a pretty good size lot and build their old town dream home. Right, right. Yeah. That's a great example. Actually. Our former mutual neighbor, Moses Horner, you know, he's got that great property on the corner of Mountain and whatever street and same thing. It was a rental for him for 10 years, at least, I think, before he scraped and built his dream home downtown. Yeah, before he and Sarah did that. That's a great example. I think you're going to see a lot more of that. You know, Moses and Sarah, one of the first people that I know to really have. They've done that and they built that beautiful home on mountain Avenue. So more of that is, is coming to old town for sure. For sure. I mean, when I drive and walk around old town, which is my, where my home is on the West side there, I see that every, almost every opportunity to make properties bigger or better. Most of it's, a lot of it's been done, you know, in certain neighborhoods, especially there's, there's a lot of built out regions, right? Right. I think more projects. That's what you're going to see. Yeah, I really, I don't think we've seen anything yet. I to 10 years and we really haven't seen anything yet. Well, that really speaks to the, yeah. Uh, the part of the, the beating heart of your practice mm-hmm. or your, your, your office or, or whatever you wanna call it, is not just luxury homes and great properties and white glove experience, but also vacation rentals mm-hmm. And the opportunity of having income plus luxury Right. In your world. Right. You know, I think a lot of people want that vacation property, whether it's in Breckenridge or Steamboat, Vail, beaver Creek, or really, you know, maybe it's down in Florida. My uncle owns multiple properties in Naples, Florida. Right. They want it to make sense financially though, you know, it used to be, I remember we used to have a vacation home when I was growing up, it was in Montana, and I don't know how many weeks out of the year we were there, a few, you know, a few out of all the 52 weeks, we were there two or three weeks. And that's, it was empty the rest of the time, there just wasn't the, the capabilities, the model, the Airbnb, the VRBO, uh, platforms that are out there now. So with what exists out there now, not only the platforms, but the software, the boutique short term rental management companies, you can own your vacation home and it can actually make money for you. Right. It can, it can actually provide a really substantial return on investment, especially when you factor in appreciation. And. create more new jobs with these vacation rental management companies and the maid service agencies that are supported through that. Right. And the tax dollars that all those people staying in those vacation rentals spend when they go to McDonald's or the local adventure park. Yeah, or they're going out to the, you know, whatever local restaurant. Sure. You know, they're supporting whatever. local downtown, you know, maybe the, the university team, uh, university scene, if they're going to visit their son or daughter at a university. So these, you know, this, this model is helping someone buy their, their vacation home, their second home. And one of these places where it can, it can really work as a short term rental. Uh, that's one of my specialties as a guest on the local experience before last time was a episode 45, about. Almost two years ago, uh, and with your, uh, Then partner, uh, Josh Guernsey with Waypoint Real Estate. You had just turned five. And I remember that conversation. We kind of differentiated your role with Josh's and you were kind of the higher end residential realtor in a commercial brokerage and property management company. And uh, that mild misfitment of your passion with the rest of the company's operation, uh, led to this change to Sotheby's last year. Yeah. Yeah, actually about seven and a half months ago has been that officially happened. So it's recent, it's recent, but, you know, Waypoint is this phenomenal company. It's this amazing success story in Northern Colorado. And, you know, of course, Josh and his ability as a leader and as an architect of that company, but, you know, also have to mention other people, Tom Hall coming in and running property management, there's, there's, there's a lot of names there that, that built that and continue to build that, but, you know, it's really a commercial. Real estate brokerage and property management company. It's commercial real estate brokerage, property maintenance, property management. And what I was doing, you know, when we're growing and they're like, we love you, Greg, you can do what you want, but yeah. And I was doing commercial brokerage. And I think when. You're starting a company when you're building it. You know, I remember when that was a few people, it was Josh and I, a few other people, and, you know, we had Jake Arnold starting with us, Nick Norton. Sure. Great guys, great guys, great brokers. And we're, we're starting and we're going, we're kind of doing a little bit of everything. I mean, a little bit of everything and you're sort of just going, and then you get to a point where I think the company has an identity and that's when, what I enjoy doing. residential real estate and really where I kind of settled into this, this higher end luxury residential real estate and these short term rentals. It just didn't fit with that model. Yeah. So, well, you're interesting in that you moved. I mean, I know you started kind of in residential brokerage, but then you really made your name in town as a commercial brokerage guy. Uh, and then. back to residential that that's a somewhat sometimes unusual path. A lot of times people, you know, you might want to get from residential to commercial, but then they stay there cause there's, you know, big deals and this and that, but you find your passion really back in a different calling. Yeah. I really never left there. I was doing residential while you were doing commercial. I just wasn't, I wasn't advertising that while I was doing commercial because at least. In, in my own mind, it was important just to market the commercial. Well, I was a banker and I knew you as a commercial broker. Right, right. And people didn't know I was doing residential. I was, I was doing both. I was trying to build the brand as you know, just to gain traction, do more and more commercial and it went well. And you know, I was doing both, but really in doing both, it was clear to me which one I enjoyed more. And it's been exciting in Fort Collins seeing, you know, these projects you mentioned, like these, these amazing projects we see when you drive through Old Town, other parts of the city, new neighborhoods, you know, you know, but by the country club on the north side, there are so many exciting things going on. The residential scene on the higher end, specifically with special properties, has gotten a lot more interesting. Yeah, yeah. And it's been, that's, that's really where my passion lies. Well, we were both here in town when, like, uh, it's not Sentara, but what's the downtown with a, starts with a C? Uh, big condo project where Justin Crowley used to live on the penthouse there. Cortina. Cortina. Uh, you know, when that thing popped, it was like, oh boy, you know, Fort Collins is looking at different kinds of developments now. Yes. You know, and Magnolia Lofts and some of the library park stuff area and uh, just a lot of innovative high density residential coming in now too. Right. Not just the luxury, you know, Cobb Lakes and Harmony Clubs and. Things like that, but actually urban luxury. Yeah. I think luxury used to mean just, Hey, a huge mansion on a big lot, right. In a fancy neighborhood. Now, now it means, you know, it means convenience. It means access to amenities and yeah. Walkability, walkability. Yeah. And in 2006, 2007, you started seeing some of these buildings come into old town, Cortina lofts at Magnolia. And actually a little bit before that, you had the Pine Street lofts. Sure. Yeah. Uh, so we saw that start to take off then and just gradually build momentum until more recently, you know, front row on mountain, you have, uh, you know, confluence buildings where you have multiple units selling for over 700 per square foot. Earlier this year, I sold a unit, one of these buildings, and it's the record for sale on a price per square foot basis. It's about 1, 000 per square foot. Yikes. And That's a territory that's not long ago. It's not a cubic foot, right? It's just a square foot. I mean, this is, this place is, it's about 2, 500 square feet. Wow. And, you know, 1, 000 a square foot. So the, the type of buyer that's coming into the Fort Collins market for these types of properties is, is different. Yeah. And more plentiful. Yeah. These are 1, 000 square foot cash deals. Yes. A lot of them. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, this year I've had, uh, three out of state. Cash buyers that have set the records in their respective buildings that they've purchased in, in Old Town. One of those is that 1, 000 per square foot buyer. Yeah. Two others, all from three different areas outside of the market coming in here. Cash buyers. Well, interest rates don't matter as much if you're paying cash. They don't. Yeah, they don't and so they aren't sensitive to that So, you know, that's one of the reasons that the higher end market the luxury market specifically in Fort Collins Maybe particularly in Fort Collins relative to other parts of northern Colorado. Yeah has stayed really robust What am I I don't know why I thought of this but my one of my brother's good friends from from college Actually, his dad, uh, found himself sitting on a big oil well or a bunch of big oil wells. And so he's, you know, all of a sudden got a several hundred thousand dollars extra a year of royalty income off of these wells and stuff. And he's a Western North Dakota where he lived on 40, 000 farm income a year for years, probably. Uh, my dad was asking his dad, you know, how's, what's, what's really changed in the way that you live your life and things like that. And he said, well. Now when I go to the cattle auction, I buy the bull I want, you know, and your buyers are buying the property that they want. Right. I'll just buy that one. You know, I've choose that one as the one I choose. Yeah. It's, you know, and it's, it, you. You need to be a little bit more strategic to reach that buyer too. I think that's something that, you look at the Fort Collins market, for example, it's not unlike other markets across the country where a real estate agent would approach a listing. And, you know, primarily the same way from listing to listing, which is, okay, we're going to take pictures. We're going to get it in the MLS. It's going to look nice. If, you know, they'll do some extra services, some open houses, and they might have some extra ancillary services. If they're a good agent, there are a lot of good agents up in this market. However. In the higher price points, you're not searching for that buyer who has a need. You're really more searching for that buyer who has a want. What's the difference? Well, the difference is that buyer who has a need, they're probably on realtor. com, Zillow, whatever website, they're all sorts of platforms, but they're on that website every morning searching for that listing for that three bed, two bath in a certain area of town. It goes into a certain school district. That's not the buyer. In the luxury category. The luxury category is more the, you're, uh, trying to find that person who has a want. So for example, if it's a, if it's a luxury unit, I'm, I'm getting it on, uh, targeted ads on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, you know, using platforms like real force that use AI to target people who are just randomly searching properties and higher price points utilizing the Sotheby's platform. But you just want to get the property in front of that person. Hmm. You want to, you want to. Peak their interest when they're on wallstreetjournal. com, whatever website they're searching, looking at the sports on a Monday for the Sunday football games on espn. com. You want to get the digital ad in front of that person. When they're on social media, you get it in front of that person. They look at it, it takes them to a website, it takes them to the photos, and they get interested. So you are just working creatively, strategically, and spending money to pique the interest of this buyer. So that's your service, that's the special service in some ways to your sellers, right? Yeah. Because you've got listings, that's your job is to find these special buyers out there. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, you know, my, my two differentiators. I mean, I think that what I'm doing on the digital and the social media side, that's, that's one. The main one really, for me, is just the combination of being connected locally, having done this for a while, you know, helped build a company here, uh, just. For lack of a better way of putting it, knowing a lot of people, you know, those people and they might reach out to me and say, if you come across this, you know, again, they're not really looking, but if it come across something like this, this happened yesterday, I actually had someone, I live on Cottonwood point drive, and that's a street that people will target this, you know, if someone's moving Cottonwood point drive, would you let me know? And they had let me know that a while ago. Well, one of my neighbors, Up at the country club. He said, Hey, we're looking at doing this and they're moving. So I just, we set that up. It's an off market transaction. And, and so that's a big part of my value to being connected. And then also having the Sotheby's platform being connected locally, also, you know, regionally, nationally, globally via that Sotheby's platform. So I think having that Sotheby's. connected, you know, uh, presence, and then also the digital marketing and the social media stuff. That's, that's what I do to set myself apart. Yeah. Um, How did you choose Sotheby's? Like, was that a big process for you? Um, like investigate, I assume this wasn't just like a, you and Josh had a fight one day and you're like, I'm out of here. No. Or whatever. No, we didn't. Not at all. I mean, in fact, you know, Josh and Waypoint, they've probably been my best referral source the past seven months. And I think I've been a pretty good one for them too. In arriving at the decision to join Sotheby's, it was really just, well, who's established the best? reputation, the best brand and created the best platform to do the most, you know, do the most, uh, I guess, impressive job of marketing the higher end luxury properties. And they stood out without a question. Other really cool brands. Who else was close? Was there any other honorable mentions? Well, you know, my own curiosity, really, I don't know the marketplace. Yeah. And, and, and just to be fair, there are There are great local brands. There are some really great local brands that do a really good job I was looking for something one of my criteria was a global presence, right? You know, not just a national but a global presence. So you look at you know, someone like a compass real estate Christie's Mm hmm. The agency actually is a it's a it's a more of an a newer Luxury platform. Okay. Uh, they are, they're in Denver now. They put a good pitch on you anyway, even though they're newer. No, they, they, they actually, they didn't put a pitch on me. I just, they were someone I researched. They're not, I don't think they're up here yet. I think Sotheby's is, is just much more established in Colorado. For sure. Much more established in Colorado than any of those other groups. And when you look at the, you look at the presence in these places, like, you know, the Denver areas, Boulder, all the resort towns. Yeah. There's just no comparison. They're head and shoulders above the others. So I'm going to imagine your ideal client is either somebody looking for property in Fort Collins, a great property, or somebody in Fort Collins looking for a mountain property or something like that, a Florida property, even some, you know, an Italy property. Right. Really, truly a property anywhere on the globe. You know, it can be Florida. It can be at someone recently that was looking in the Midwest on the lake, uh, Minnesota. Yeah. So. Anywhere they're looking, I can find the best. You can help them look and find a great local agent. I can absolutely connect them with the best person. I think that's a, that's a challenge that's out there, right? You, you can look online, you can find some games. Everybody's amazing if you look online. Right. Every, that's a good way to put it, everybody's amazing if you look online. And then, you know, you can, if you want to really put boots in the ground, you can go there and look around and talk to some people, but really to find that person who is. Producing the most, doing the best job for people, has the real track record. It's, it's not public knowledge. I can find that in, you know, four to seven minutes, literally anywhere on the planet. Yeah. And four to seven minutes, I can find who, uh, the man or woman is. Who somebody should connect to in that region. Who they need to, who they need to connect with if they want to, to, to get the right property, you know, if they want the right representation. Yeah. Fair. Well, it's a, you know, it's an agency, right? It's not a transaction brokerage, uh, with all due, uh, respect to those transaction companies. But this is, you know, you work for my interests here, and let's figure out how you can earn your keep. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's absolutely it. You know, just the way I am in four columns of being, you know, connected to the people, you know, knowing the area, knowing where it's been, where it's at, where it's going, you know, helping people make those decisions so that they can, you know, have an asset that's going to really appreciate that's going to work out well for them, that there won't be any surprises and they're going to get it at the right price. All of these things that I can do here, there is someone like me, a man or woman like me in other markets all around the globe. And, um, I can get you connected to them. So I kind of jumped in the time machine with you and Josh. And so if you want to learn your like backstory and family history, you've got some really, uh, fun elements, but we're not going to really do kind of our traditional format in today's show. But one thing that I really wanted to be. Curious about is, is your own kind of real estate journey, like, uh, how did you get fascinated by, you mentioned some Airbnb opportunities and putting together kind of a, a deal some years ago and things. And I just love to, like, there's a lot of listeners probably out there that are like, I Airbnb, you know, and even if it isn't a luxury property, like talk to me about that marketplace. What people are looking for what works. Yeah, what works for an Airbnb. Yeah, maybe I mean you could start it with what has worked for you What have you seen? Things like that. Yeah, I think you know, it's different for every person in terms of what works for you for an Airbnb in a short term rental I think a lot of people are looking for something where hey, I want to use this property You know, however many weeks out of the year so You know, so, you know, where do you want to go? And then, you know, the property type will really differ from there in terms of what the best property type for you is. But, you know, I, I think just higher level, you know, maybe finding one of these places where it's, it's, it's not super obvious. And I'll give you an example back in 20, I guess it's 2017. That's when I found the property that I invested in with partners. Yeah, and it's six units It's almost adjacent to the University of Colorado Healthcare campus Lemay and Garfield. Okay is where that's at It's just right in the yellow zoning where you can have a non owner occupied. Okay short term rental Yeah, and if you would have seen this property at the time, I mean Just clumps of dirt, overgrown grasses, built in the early 60s. Yeah, last remodeled in the early 60s. Yeah, like just linoleum, I mean, just three ranch plans that are three duplexes. So six units total. Yep. And. You know, it just really did not look attractive at all. The outside didn't look attractive. The inside didn't look attractive. It didn't scream Airbnb to anybody. But, you know, you really start with when you're buying an Airbnb and you're for terminal, let's make sure that, you know, you have the right zoning. You know, start there and then look, then look at everything else. It did have the zoning. It wasn't in a gray area. Well, it's pretty close to the hospital though. So people have loved ones in the hospital and stuff even for that. Right. Yeah. So then I went to, okay, it's in the zoning. So, you know, and this is by the way, back when, you know, even in 2017, it was, it was a new thing and there wasn't having a short term rental and Airbnb was not what it is. Sure. For sure. Yep. We had done probably a little bit of VRBO by that time, but that marketplace really shifted and VRBO kind of changed its model a lot in response to the Airbnb stuff, I suppose. Yeah, I think they have a little bit. I think they've really focused more on, hey, we have these, these houses where you have privacy. Right. You're the only person. It's not a carriage house. It's not a bedroom in somebody's house. Not even a duplex. It's not their basement. It's not a duplex. Yeah. It's freestanding privacy. So their model's a little bit different. Yeah. It was one in 2017 though. I had the zoning and then I thought the hospital's right there. And then I, I rode my bike to get into Old Town. I'm like, Oh, this is actually a really easy, easy ride. You know, look at it in the map. You're like, it's not that close to Old Town, but it's a quick bike ride. So all these things really just added up. I could envision the experience. I could envision the differentiators. And that brings me to the, you know, the second thing, you know, you, you got the zoning, right? Then, okay, let's take a look at, well. You know, what do you, what are you close to? Do you have constant traffic? Of course we have the hospital. Of course, in that case, in this case with the property I invested in, there was old town right there. So there was traffic drivers. And then the next thing is the experience. And what kind of an experience could I create? How could I differentiate from somewhere else? The guests could stay. And I thought, well, I could do all hard surfaces and I can allow pets. There's, there's, there's one different. You can't bring your pet to the hotel. It's most hotels you can't, right? I thought, well, I could have a clothes washer and clothes dryer in here if somebody is visiting a sick loved one or, you know, even, you know, an extended stay because, you know, you know, maybe their daughter is in the hospital for, you know, more than just a day with whatever's happening with the, the, the giving birth. They could, that could be a longer stay too. So I thought with the hospital, there could be longer stays. I thought parents visiting their son or daughter at CSU could be longer stay. So I'm going to have a clothes washer and a clothes dryer. It doesn't sound so, so earth shattering, but it was just part of my differentiating, you know, and then, and then I just thought, well, people want to relax to outside have outdoor living spaces. So chiminea that was currently at the time was, was in our backyard and it was a nice chimney. Honey, I'm taking the chimney over. And I only, I didn't even ask, which is a mistake in hindsight, just took it and stalled it. Yeah. And, you know, created this nice kind of outdoor space where you could hang out by the chimney, uh, have a half glass of wine or beer and, um, you know, put some sod back there so people could play beanbags. Not really complicated stuff here, but if you just that's the last piece the differentiators. I really had my a heart services We're gonna allow pets hypoallergenic bedding all these things so we can allow pets and The clothes washer the clothes dryer the outdoor amenities and it just you remodel all these things at the same time. I did Yep. Yeah, I did. I just have you know, I have a A list of contractors that I've grown to know and trust over the years from the painter to the handyman to the person who's putting the sod and the irrigation system in down to the person that was striping the driveway. I have a person, if anybody needs a contractor, I've got a guy or a girl who will help you. And I utilized all of those people, an IT person that, you know, figured out how to, he put this thing up on the wall to amplify. The wireless, you know, the internet. And so I just paid for one internet and it got amplified. Oh, nice for all, all six, all six units. And I got one Hulu account, you know, at the time for Hulu, you could have up to six different TVs. So I paid 54 a month and all six units had Hulu. So you learn all of these. These things, right. Instead of 150 bucks a month per unit for your Comcast bill. Yeah. Yeah. And there's all these, there's all these other factors, you know, who do you pull in for the, to select your furniture and design things, people will underestimate the amount of work that goes in, but there are people who do, uh, who really specialize in helping you. And if you can get introduced to those people, they'll, they'll get you set up. So my, my furniture selection, my design, the first step in good pictures is good design. Yeah. You have to have good design. Yeah. Of course you have to have good photos and everything. And you know, so all of these things came together. That project, you know, we ended up, uh, netting, and we had about a little over 900, 000 into that total, which doesn't sound like very much now. People would see it when That's how much cash you put into it, and then you have leverage. Yeah, that was In addition. Yeah, that was leverage. That was finance. So I think that Yeah, there was, I think we had like 30 percent equity into that. So 30 percent of almost a 3 million, yeah. Two point whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, um, no, I'm sorry. We get 900, 000 was like the total end. I mean, oh, for six units. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know. It seems, it seems nice. They were just, they were in rough shape. Okay. It was a really good buy. Yeah. It was a really good purchase. Um, but. They were in, I can't emphasize that enough. So you bought it for 900 and then you added? No, we bought it for... 600 and put 300 in it or something. We 780. Wow. And I, because I was, you know, utilizing, you know, below market rates on getting all of the work done. Sure. And again, there wasn't anything really fancy being done here. Yeah, paint, design, new furniture. LVP flooring, paint, you know. Coating the countertops. Not new countertops. It looks like new countertops. Yeah. But they're actually just coating, putting a commercial coating on the countertops, painting the cabinets, you know, some new, a few new appliances. Not, I mean, there were, there were appliances in there that were Okay. Yeah. So we didn't, I mean, we didn't go, I mean, my, I took a Chim Andea out of my own backyard. Right. So we were, this was, you were strapping. We were strapping this, yeah. We were just trying to keep expenses down. Yeah. Yeah.$120,000 later, you know, we were into it for a little over 900. Okay. Total. So, uh, and then, You know, had that for three years. It was, it was netting, you know, close to 13, 000 a month after expenses, every single month. So it was a, it turned out to be a phenomenal cashflow property. Uh, and then that property was sold the summer of last year for 1. 95 million. So it made you a bunch of money and doubled your money. More than that. I mean, as you think about it, I think we probably had. You know, we had leverage on it. So we might've had, uh, I'm trying to think of how much, probably a little over 300, 000, I think is what we had. Of your own actual equity. Of our own actual equity. So your return on equity was a stupid number. Yeah, I think, well, I guess as I'm doing the math, you know, out loud here, the, all of the extra expenses for, you know, the furniture and stuff, you know, when it comes in. So we had another, you know, call it 450, 000 total. Equity, if you include everything, all the fix up and the out of pocket expense around 450, 000. Um, but then, you know, we, yeah, we sold it for 1, 950, 000. So a fun success story. I think that illustrates some of the things that, you know, people can look for and. That's not indicative of future results. And that's not luxury Sotheby's necessarily. Like, that's not a property necessarily that somebody might necessarily find through Sotheby's. Yeah, well, it might be. I mean, I think, you know, I think it's, it's, it's a property. It's a, it's well located. It's comfortable. It now has nice finishes. It presents well. Yeah. I mean, I think about being a wealthy person sometimes when I'm, you know, using my imagination. And like finding a fourplex. In a great city in Florida mm-hmm. that I can stay in one of those units with my wife once in a while. Yeah. And the rest of the time it just sends me checks. Yeah. And I send checks to the property management company guy. Yeah. Or the Airbnb management guy. Right. Yeah, that's fair. And if you set these up the right way with really good management, you know, uh, a shout out to Mark Driscoll who owns Valentine Vacation Rentals. Yeah. Longtime local thing, tank, remember. Long time local think tank member. Uh, and he's incredible. He's grown his business a lot. He, he's grown his business a lot last five years. He does an outstanding job. He was a big part of the success of that project. Oh, really? Cool. You know, he consulted with me. He said, do this and Oh, right. You know, I had, I had my own ideas too. So we really collaborated, but. He was, you find, here's what I'm seeing, someone like a Mark Driscoll. Yeah. Wherever you are, that becomes a crucial member of your team with this property and look, is, is everyone gonna make, you know, a million dollar, you know? Right. More than that. You can't get a home run every hit in, in, in a few years or, you know, that's not something that someone should expect. But, I do think it is worth noting that the model now of owning a second home, a vacation home, Uh, it, it, it's different. Well, and even just having that for free. Yeah. You know, my wife and I are building, I don't know if we've talked about this, but I'm building a carriage house in the backyard. We did, yeah. So, you know, things are expensive right now. And, uh, you know, costs are high. And I think we'll, you know, make some positive cash flow in the high season and, and have maybe a little negative cash flow to absorb in the low season. Mm hmm. But over the long run, you know, I'm going to have a great value add to my property that, for the most part, other people have paid for. Right. You know, and so, similarly, if it's an investment property, you know, if you don't have to dig out of your pocket every month to help create that value, other people can do it. That's a great opportunity. And people see the cash flow on paper, you know, and that's great, but there's also the depreciation. There's also things you can talk to your CPA about. You're writing off. The mortgage interest, you're writing off, off the property expenses. Well, and if it's in Florida, you're writing off a trip to Florida because I gotta go look at my property and meet with my property manager. Yeah. You're, you're, you're writing off, you know, reasonable prop expenses for the travel to that property. Right, right. Um, but I mean, the depreciation's a really big one. I mean, they can still take advantage of some accelerated depreciation. Right. You know, on certain asset types. So things that talk, the, the tax benefits are, Absolutely. Well, if you buy furniture for your rental property, that's a, like a instant write off, right? Like you can just expense that. Right. Even though it might be a five year asset or a ten year asset. Right. But it's immediate tax benefit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's a whole nother, that's a whole nother... Talk to your CPA. I'm not a tax advisor. Just a little quick disclaimer. But it's, I guess, obvious to say that there are really substantial tax benefits there. Yeah. Really substantial tax benefits. You know, you can, you know, take those against, you know, hey, I'm, you're making this income of the property. Great. Well, you have these expenses that can offset that income. Right. So it looks like, you know, so for So you can have positive cash flow without feeling it. When you pay your taxes, yeah, you can, you can have positive tax flow with having negative income, negative, or, or, you know, some actually passive losses that can offset, you know, passive income and other categories. It's really, really interesting to look at it and again, we won't go down that rabbit hole, but it is one of the huge reasons that it makes sense. We were, uh, talking about your involvement with our current property and obviously are my landlord. Uh, Moses Horner and Horner Painting, the Airbnb that's upstairs from our podcast studio, must allow dogs. Yeah. Because we can hear a dog barking up there. Hopefully you won't hear it on the recording. Oh, funny. But, uh, that's been a great asset investment for him. Yeah, I mean, what a great buy. He's, he's a, he's an owner of Shorts from Rentals. Just a, just a great person. Yeah, yeah. And he's, he's, he's someone to talk to about it as well. He's done really well. Yeah, for sure. Um, What, uh, like, what are you seeing out there in that? Luxury properties trends like sometimes like in past recessions Some of the higher value properties have been the first to fall and the fastest to fall Mm hmm. I haven't really heard that necessarily. I mean, I know the market's really Strong in the you know around here under 700, 000. It's still just about hard to find anything. Yeah. Yeah, I think You know, there's any area there's, there's, there's kind of three different markets, I would say right now there's entry level. And I think that's, that's still pretty, that's still pretty, uh. Robust everybody needs to live somewhere. Everybody needs to live somewhere. And when you look at that price category was like, geez, there are even with higher interest rates are, you know, if assuming you can make a down payment, right? Your monthly expenses because rents are stupid, too. Yeah, your rents, rents have gone up so much that your monthly payment is still on par. Right. With what it would be to rent something that's probably not as desirable. Probably doesn't have a backyard or a garage. So... Or opportunity to appreciate. Or opportunity to appreciate, sure. So that, there's that, that category. You know, that, you know, that first house entry level category. That's really robust. The higher end, I... I would tell you is still quite robust. It is it's it's a strong market if you have special if you have a property that's In a neighborhood that people want to be in like old town if you have a property that's on a lake Right has mountain views right or both, right? You have something that's special if you have the penthouse at one of the nice condo buildings in old town, you have something that's special. So, you know, a lot of these homes that are priced over a million over 1. 5, they're special. And there's only so many of those, right? We've talked about the buyers that have come to this market from outside of the market, outside of the state. There isn't as much supply. And that's what people aren't talking about when people talk about comparing this to past markets and, you know, real estate markets that have gone bad. That's the huge difference. I got into this business in 2006, 2007, towards the end of 2006, 2007, I got going, and then by the time I actually knew what I was doing, the market was terrible, was, was the worst market ever. And I, you know, I'll tell you, you look at the stats and you can, sorry, it's not funny. It wasn't funny at the time, but if you look back, I mean, we had months where it was, you know, we're kind of like, you know, 17 to 20 months of housing inventory on the market. That's a lot of inventory. A balanced market is six months, meaning it takes six months for all the listings to be absorbed. If there weren't any listings coming to the market. Three times too much product combined with, you know, all these people that were getting, you know, frankly, fraudulent loans. Right. And just, you know, they didn't, they were just letting the homes go into foreclosure. It was, it was a. bad situation in that, you know, that was, that was kind of on a national scale. We were somewhat insulated from it here, but it wasn't, but it wasn't good. I mean, we had a, we had a spec house on Boyd Lake that the bank had 402 and we sold it for 275 and uh, you know, the builder didn't make any money and we lost a fair chunk. Yeah. Um, so yeah, there was definitely some of those. Some of those markets. I was just thinking that in that one million plus, uh, value demographic, the national builders don't really play there that much. These are still mostly custom homes that are created according to an architect's plans and you know, and those builders, there's not as many of them as there used to be independent builders that can build that kind of thing. And so I suppose that's a supply constraint unless the national building companies start popping out McMansions. I don't really see that changing. I mean, the national builders are generally in the business of building for the masses. Right. Exactly. So to your point, I mean, some markets are a little bit different. You might have smaller communities where there are, you know, new builds that are semi custom homes. Sure. A million dollars plus, but, you know, you go back to the inventory thing, and that's, that's the huge difference between, you know, then and now. I mean, we talked about back when it was, you know, it was. It was a really, really tough market, 2008, 2009, 2010, 17, 20 months of inventory. I mean, even in the high, higher end million dollar plus, I mean, in Fort Collins were, you know, we're still under five months of inventory. So we're in. We're in seller's market territory, like still, so the demand side on that segment is a preventative of sorts of the supply side of both. Yeah, I mean the demand side continues to grow. And the supply isn't growing. Yeah. Very fast. Supply is not growing very fast. And, you know, new inventory, you know, it's just not really being built. I mean, you were going to define a third segment there. Is that the... Third segment's the middle. Yeah, and they're struggling more. Yeah, we defined the kind of entry level, the luxury high end side. And let's talk about the middle because, you know, that... That, you know, 550 to, you know, the high sixes range, you know, roughly in there, that is what I am seeing soften a little bit more in my soften. If you bought three, four years ago, you're more than fine. Right. But you know, if you bought a year ago, if you bought. 18 months ago, you might be down 10 percent or something. I don't know if you're down that much. I mean, you might be down, you know, you might be down 4%. Right. But it's just, but you're not up, which is unusual for us around here. Yeah. And you're just seeing properties that would have sold for a bit more when there was that perfect storm of low interest rates, low inventory, high demand. Well, that perfect storm isn't there anymore. So that Buyer pool, instead of being, you know, this big is now this big. And, and that, that's what I've seen. Just, you know, homes are staying on the market longer really across the board. Cause I would need to mention homes are staying on the market longer. The market isn't as active, but if you're looking at where homes are selling at, I think you could point to, you know, certain streets, certain neighborhoods, certain areas of Northern Colorado, particularly in Fort Collins and say, well, there's this house, even though. Even though it's, it's kind of similar to this one. Maybe take, take a neighborhood like, I don't know, Linden lakes, you know, Lindenwood, those up North, um, Codwood point drive, uh, up by the country club. These, these places, homes are, they're, they're selling for more than they would have sold for even, you know, back when that perfect storm did exist. They're selling for more special as. It's just in especially high demand and, and, you know, there's just not much of it. Yeah. There ain't that much special out there. Yeah. There isn't. I mean, if you, and that's just a basic rule of real estate. If you can, if you can find a special market, I know I'm biased to Fort Collins. I know there are other special markets, but if you can find a special market and then buy special within that market, whether that's your, your home where you're going to live forever, or that's your, your vacation property that you're going to. Short term rent every time, you know, for all the months you aren't there, find a special market, buy a special property within that market. Yeah, well, that makes me feel good because I'm Old Town Westside and I've got a 10, 070 square foot parcel six blocks from the center of downtown. Seems like a special property in a special market. You're, you're, you're nailing it. I should be okay. You're going to be more than okay. So, um, I guess, where else do you want to make sure we, we cover in this conversation from a business front? I mean, we reconnected recently, I guess we could talk about loco think tank a little bit since you just got the commercial and, uh, you know, your partner, former partner, Josh has been a member now since probably six podcast. I think that sparked his interest a little bit. And frankly, your interest. In loco think tank helped to engage Josh's interest was my impression. Mm hmm Talk to me about that either from from either front or yours or you know, whatever Yeah I think just wanting the community the community that you've built with loco is Really impressive and one thing that I'll I'll I'll mention too, is that it's really been fun watching you build this organically from the ground up, you know, watching you, I'm sure there were times it was, is this, is this going to go, is this going to go be a banker for more money. I don't know if anybody would hire me. But the, the, the, it just, it just takes time. It takes patience. It takes pouring into it, you know, and, and, and I've seen you do it. And I think that's really, that's, that's kind of been, um, You know contagious with people that have gotten in the loco, you know, they see that too And then that it snowballs it builds and there's this energy. There's this community. There's this tribe here that you have. Yeah, and Well, thank you Of course. Yeah, and i've i've heard so many good things from other people. I You know, of just, you know, no, like, and trust and respect you so much that it just felt like a good time for me, especially just wanting to, I'm just curious about other people's business and kind of what they're doing and how I can maybe, you know, learn from them and be better and just try to do things differently. I think in any business, we maybe don't learn as much. from the outside world as we could or should. Yeah. You know, they're everyone's doing things different ways. We just tend to think, well, okay. How are the best realtors doing it? Yeah. And then I'll just listen to, you know, 17 different real estate podcasts and come away with that. Well, I really wanted to broaden the horizons. And I have done that in the past a little bit with podcasts, but not in an in person community setting and actually giving live feedback and putting myself on the spot and trying to be of value to other people too. And so excited to start that process. Cool. Well, we're looking forward to that and, you know, disclaimer to most of the realtors out there. Uh, we. We're pretty selective, you know, we, we don't let every realtor or mortgage lender in because we don't want them to be like here for the sale, but if they're looking to build a brand, build a team, uh, and they've got that process well started, then, then we might be the place for you. Yeah. So anyway, know that, uh, you know, from my talent perspective and, you know, will this person bring. Valuable things to a chapter both for them and with them. Uh, I think they passed that test for me. Thank you So well, yeah, thanks for that endorsement and you know, that's what we're all doing ultimately kind of is like what are you here for? Mm hmm. What's what is your personal brand and mission? Yeah an intent. I like that you go even deeper What are you here for? Like what what were you made? To do like, why, you know, I think all of us were really made to do something kind of finding what that is and then then maximizing that I think, you know, I feel like I found what that is. I feel like you have to with loco and we're all working to maximize that. So what is it? About that kind of white glove experience, did you have like early experiences going to the Broadmoor or something like, what is it that, that intrigues you about providing that level of service for, uh, we'll say discretionary buyers and sellers? That's a good question. I think, you know, we're all maybe born with certain things that we just gravitate towards. I, I can think back to one of my earliest memories and it's of my mom who was a dentist growing up. She's retired now, but she always started her own dental practice. We moved around quite a bit. My dad was a surgeon, ear, nose and throat doctor and a surgeon. And, you know, he. Just kept getting different offers from different hospitals and different states for more money. Start this department, do this thing. We had to, we had to move and, and, and follow those opportunities. But every place my mom would, she would start up a new, a dental practice. And, you know, she started a handful of these dental practices and she's also, she also really liked real estate. And that's what I'm, what I'm getting at here. She didn't, she didn't need to do that. She didn't need to do the real estate thing, but there's one of my earliest memory. And this was in Clinton, Iowa. She bought. An apartment building that just happened to have commercial space in the main floor. So she built out her dental practice in that commercial space. But there were, I want to say three or four apartments and, you know, Monday through Friday, she's working, she's a dentist. I mean, you know, sun up to sun down, especially building the practice. She's working. And then on weekends and then on weekends she would go, you know, a lot of carpet from the vacant apartment. Yeah. I mean, a lot in, in, in. And, and oddly, I, I felt like I knew this at a young age, she didn't need to do that. Not only from an income standpoint, she didn't need to do that from a landlord standpoint. When you look at the landlords out there, they were not above expectations a hundred times above expectations. If she, she wanted these people to have a comfortable place to live. You know, they have sons, they have daughters, some of them are maybe single moms or. They're working hard. They're just trying to make their way in this apartment. And she wanted them to have a refinished hardwood floor and not some, you know, kind of shaggy raggy, like old, you know, smelly carpet. 17 year old shag carpet. Yeah. I mean, she would be in there. I mean, not only ripping out the carpets, but refinishing the hardwood floors herself, doing all the work herself, painting, making it nice, creating a better living experience. I mean, the outside was impeccable. Everything was impeccable. And it just, it was because she cared. It was because she wanted to serve. It was because she, she just, she clearly got fulfillment out of improving these people's lives and situations through real estate. That's quite an example. It was quite the example. I mean, in two ways, one, just how to serve, how to care, but, but also like how to work, you know, how to work. I mean, you see it and, and, and, well, she didn't have to, she didn't have to, you know, that was the key thing. And I think that's, you know, from a business principle standpoint, whether it comes to hiring or to sit, you know, people that do things that they don't have to, uh, really stand out in communities and businesses and societies. Right. And, and even, um, In your space, right? Like, that's part of, I assume, what a great client experience would be is that they would say of you, you know, he did things that he didn't have to. Yeah, I hope so. That's really what I, that's really what I go for. I think if, you know, I would hope that somebody would go on it. They really, I don't know if people really read. The testimonials, the reviews that are online. I hope they do. But I, I like to think if they would read mine on my Google business page or the Zillow page, and they would read, you know, there's all sorts of, you know, good agents and brokers out there. I, I like to think that they would notice something. Yeah. And just what you said, doing the things he didn't have to do, not just doing a good job, but, but answering the questions that they didn't, they didn't know they have, but they were going to have, you know, two or three weeks after closing or, you know, getting them set up. If there was even the slightest bit of uncertainty, you know, filling that uncertainty and just Really treating them like they're family. And that's the goal every time. Yeah, I dig it. I dig it. Um, we got reacquainted this summer. Uh, I played uh... Pickleball. Yeah. For the very first time and you collected a smattering of men from around the region here for regular pickleball engagements and, uh, what's that all about? Is that a passion project? Is that networking for you? Is it, you know, a little both? What? Tell me about pickleball in your life. Yeah. I mean, good, good question. I, I haven't thought about, you know, the why of it too much other than other than this. I mean, I, I was, I'm 42 now I'll be 43 and yeah, February, which isn't that far away. I Loco's going to be 10 in February. Okay. We'll share a birthday. We'll share a birthday. And, you know, when I was 40, right around 40, that's when I'm just laying in bed and in, in, in, in a cold sweat. I can't fall asleep. And, and I'm just, I'm feeling all of this anxiety and I couldn't really figure out what it was. And then it just hit me what it was like a ton of bricks. And I. Got up and I paced around I was talking to my wife and it's like it's like I don't think I, what I said, I think almost verbatim was, I, I don't know if I have any friends. That's what I said. And this is, this is from somebody that's, you know, very social out, hanging out with people. Uh, something happened between 30 and 40, maybe more between 35 and 40 having kids doing these things and, and, and really going all in on business where I think we all give up something. Sure. And what I gave up was time. Kind of the pure social. Yeah, pouring into relationships, you know, being a good friend for somebody else. Yeah, you poured into your family and your business is my sense, but the, the friendships bucket kind of got left empty. Yeah. The friendship, you know, I just felt like I was, I hadn't been pouring into that. So I wasn't feeling closeness. I wasn't feeling. And so starting that group, starting that, uh, pickleball, you know, Smattering of, you know, the guys that's, that's what that was just inviting people to hang out and, and, and kind of just, you know, rekindling friendships, you know, forming new connections and just, and for lack of better way of putting it, just, just, just having some time. Well, for what it's worth, I mean, I, I, I watched you a little bit and there's a ton of. Like really strong relationships that were around there and and to some extent you were only partially because you're serving the group You know, you're getting speak it out and you're getting the the beer cooler moved around and stuff and you know Really deferring your space on the court a lot to others that might want to play. So, uh, kudos to you in that, uh, the culture and community that I witnessed during the one time I've played. Uh, and I was glad we got to play in the same court there at the end too. That was fun. That was fun. I look forward to the next and, and I'm, I'm glad you did because I haven't been doing, I used to play intramural basketball pretty regularly and, and things. And it's those kinds of, it doesn't have to always be sports, right? But those intentional engagements with. Not my wife, not my kids, not my clients, but just people. Yes. You know. Yeah, and then, you know, getting out for a drink afterwards, you know, we did that a few times. Sure. Just. Time to pour into relationships. I think, you know, one thing I've heard from a lot of guys that are a little older than us Has been that's that's a regret they have. Hmm. And yeah, you know looking at the context if you can't do everything But I don't want to be 60, 65, 70 and look around and say, I wish I had somebody to go fishing with And if you do, but they're not, I think close relationships, you know, and it's just one of the things that's probably the key to happiness and fulfillment in the last few years, having that group paddle battles is what we call it. Uh, that's it's helped. It's helped really, really do that. Yeah. That's cool. Um, We're going to take a short break here shortly, uh, and we'll come back to do the kind of classic segments and do a little bit more, uh, random question generator. Awesome. Anything else in the real estate vein you want to make sure you mention while we're still, uh, on this segment? You know, I'd love for people to connect with me on social media. Sure. Maybe put that in the notes in the, in the podcast. For sure. Um. What's the, what's your handle? Uh, at Greg underscore Raider, and Raider's spelled R O E. D E R, that's Instagram, and then LinkedIn and Facebook is just my name. Okay. It's first name and last name. And, and again, last name spelled like Roder, R O E D E R, and also my website, gregroder. com. Nice. Um, that's just something we put up that has some videos, some of those testimonials. Oh, cool. And then a little bit more information about what I do, how I differentiate myself. Very cool. And like a... I'm imagining like they can click your thing and it takes you to your Sotheby's page kind of two or whatever. It's connected, I believe, to my Sotheby's page as well. But this is really is kind of a stand alone place for people to, you know, when you open up and you go to, go to the website and you're going to see a video of me. I kind of just try, I try to talk about, you know, how I do things and, and then there's some other, other information and content in there. And then the testimonial videos, that's what I'm most proud of. Yeah. Just the testimonial videos of people that I've worked with. Very cool. I've been paying 18 a year, 12 a year or something for curtbear. com for a while. I don't want anybody else to put it, to buy it, but I, you know, I haven't put anything up there yet. Uh, you should. I probably should. Well, I don't have any testimonials. I guess I do have some testimonials. I've got a bunch of blog content. I probably should put it together sometime. Yeah, I, I, I know a lot of people that are part of your local group that'd be happy to give testimonials. I should probably, uh, maybe I could have my new intern, I'm working on hiring an intern around here. I can have her work on that or him. Yeah, there's, I mean, there's always so much to do. Right, there's, exactly. So, uh, yeah, let's call that break, and we'll come back and, uh, do some fun stuff. Okay, sounds good. And we are back. So, um, You know, after the break we typically talk about faith, family, and politics. Usually we're meeting people for the first time. But, uh, let's, uh, let's talk about your family just a little bit as a refresher for those that haven't met you before, uh, through episode 45 of the Loco Experience podcast. Go listen now. Uh, what, uh, remind me of your wife's name? Sarah. Sarah, yes. With an H or no H? With an H. Good, that's the best way. It is the best. Sorry to all of you Sarahs with no H out there. And, uh, so it sounds like she helps you with the real estate business already. Is that a side hustle for her? Is she children minding mostly with her days? You know, she's, she's probably working 20, 25 hours a week. Okay. That's pretty substantial. On the business. It depends. Maybe a little, a little, a little less or a little more sometimes. But, you know, really want the focus on, on the kids and that's. That's a huge job with just five, six year old, my six year old Nolan is his first year of kindergarten. Okay, and so she's got some fresh new free space in some ways. Yeah, yeah, in some, in some ways, you know, but he has to get to kindergarten. Our daughter Ada has to get to daycare, right? And you know, there's dance, there's running club, there's lacrosse, there's All of these other things, play dates, birthday parties, Oh yeah. It just, no. Being a parent's a full-time job, it creates for sure. It creates a, yeah, it creates, it creates a, it creates a lot of work and, and, and it's fun work, but it's really the, they're, they're both of our priority and she's, she's really, I think I heard you bragging about your social media talents and then I also think, I heard you saying that your wife. She gets all the credit. So, so really it's her social media talents that makes you look good online. 100%. Well, that's a good clarification. That's accurate. Very good. Well, Sarah, keep up the good work. Uh, and, uh, so you have, uh, A kindergartner and one younger and an older two or just those two? Just those two. Okay. Yeah. And our youngest is five and. Okay. So he's going up to kindergarten next year probably too. She is. Yeah. She is. Yeah. So we got a boy and a girl and, uh, they're only 15 months apart. Oh wow. So they're best friends and. Oh, that's so fun. We're just at the fun stage. It's, uh, you know, it's always, it's always a circus, but a fun circus. I don't remember, uh. If you gave them one word descriptions, or if we even did that back then, but uh, No. Do you have a one word description for Ada? Boy, spunky. Yeah? She's just got that energy. How about for your son? Insightful. Wow, that's a pretty big word for a six year old. Yeah, he's, he's very empathetic. He's, he's very insightful. He's, he, he, he feels and, and picks up on a lot of things. Yeah. It's fun to watch. How's that interaction between them? You mentioned that they're best friends. Uh, do those two components of one another really complement? Yeah, sometimes conflict, you know, I think they they compliment the majority of time other times they conflict It's it's really just depends. I would say 85 percent of the time it's really good and then 15 percent Yeah, you know, like any brother and sister they get on each other's nerves But it's it's it's a fun energy to watch. She's You know, she's spunky, she's leading, she's, you know, guiding and he'll sometimes, you know, kind of come in and say, well, you know, Ada, have you, have you thought about this? And it kind of, kind of, well, no, as a matter of fact, yeah, bring a different, like, you know, um, cerebral dimension to it. No, they're both, they're both really smart kids, really, really just, it's a joy. That's cool. I think I remember from our previous conversation that, like, somehow, like, some of your extended family, like, your parents or uncles or something, like, all moved to your neighborhood, almost? Almost. So... Or something from out east or wherever, I forget. So my parents are right next door on Conwood Point Drive and, um, my brother and his wife are just a three minute drive to the north. So, you know, the north side of Fort Collins and my one cousin and her husband and their kids that are just a few minutes to the south. I have another aunt and uncle who's, you know, just a few minutes to the, to the south. And then you go, you go north, there's another aunt and uncle south. My, my grandma is, is down in a, in a facility in the south side of town. And you came out here and planted the flag though, and then these people mostly kind of gathered around you. Is that what I recall? My sister was going to vet school at CSU. Oh, okay. So she was the initial magnet. She was the, yeah, the initial magnet. And then I moved here. You know, really, I just, the first time I was in Fort Collins, I thought it was amazing. Right. I think a lot of people have that same reaction to it. I had been in Fargo, which is like, kind of like the Fort Collins of the North, but not the same. I just thought, I thought, wow, this place is great. And I had no career prospects at the time, but I just, just went for it and, you know, following her. So I was the first. Yeah. And then cousins and aunts and uncles and my parents and my brother, my grandma, I mean, really, you know, my grandfather at the time, he's since passed, but really we, we have a, we have an incredible. Like, just, just almost our entire family. My sister isn't here, she's out in Texas. Okay. And then I have, uh, one cousin who's not here, but I talked to him yesterday. Actually, two cousins who aren't here, but planning to move here. So, yeah. That's a wild thing. Yeah. Was that, like, is that because of that kind of, uh, intergenerational significance of family? Uh, or is that something that's, they just, they're smart enough to see that you're in a cooler place where they had been before? Ha ha. I think it's just, it snowballs, right? I think one of the most important things that drives people to, to be where they're really, really going to live is I think they like people want to be around family. I think grandparents especially want to be around, you know, maybe their kids to some degree, but their grandkids, the grandkids, grandkids, you know, I've, I've seen this across just multiple clients. There's, there's not a greater attractor to a market and grandchildren. I'm in the Rotary Club and that's half the people that come to the Rotary Club is people that moved here to be around their grandkids. Yeah. That's really, that doesn't surprise me, it's, and it makes sense. You should have a social media ad, did you move to Fort Collins to be around your grandkids? Then we've got a club for you, it's called Rotary. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's, that's like, probably a high percentage of people in town, they wanted to, you know, in fact my last two clients I've sold properties to. Really? To be, it was really, you know, it was to be, You know, closer to the family, their kids, but the grandkids, Oh, when it's, when, when, when their children, when their daughter's having a baby, uh, it's just, they're, they're here. Well, yeah, nobody really moves to be closer to their kids if they don't have kids yet. Mm hmm. You know, then it's, then you're just like stalking or something like that. Weird. Right. But if they have grandkids, then it's like. Obviously you should do that. It's funny how that flip switches. Or sometimes it's even, you know, I have clients who have moved to be closer to, you know, nieces and nephews. Sure. And kind of extended family. It's just, it's, it's, you know, I think for us it wasn't planned, but just the combination of it kind of snowballing and Fort Collins. Yeah. You go to Fort Collins and, you know, it's just the downtown, the college vibe, being close to the trails. It's, there's so There's so much. Great place. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, you know, 300 days. It's all the things. 300 days of sunshine a year. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, I really, I know I'm biased, but I just don't think there's a better place to live. Yeah. I like it. Um, do you want to talk about faith at all and what context I, I don't really remember what, uh, What your background is in that. Yeah. You know, I, I don't know if we talked about that in episode 45. Yeah. We kind of skimmed over it. If I remember, we might've skimmed over that. If faith that I love that you bring all this stuff up on a podcast, I think it's fun things like that. Well, I like that you bring up the things that nobody else brings up. And I think it's, I think it's great to talk about that. So yeah, I think we're a faith where I'm at. I. Believe in God. And, and I, I have grown, I guess, as comfortable maybe as I'm going to be with not having a lot of the answers outside of that. But I believe we're here for a reason. I believe, um, you know, things happen for a reason. And that's, uh, You know, really, really, really being attuned to that, there's a higher power. Yeah. There is a higher power. I think that's the most important thing in some ways, uh, whether it's, you know, Jesus for you or the Hindu or whatever, that there's something bigger than you and bigger than the state, the government. Yeah. That, that gives you your value. Sure. Gives you your right. Sure, believing that it's all not just coincidence. Right. You know, that the Earth, you know, it's, it's just, you know, it just happens to be in this perfect place. It was just a, a, a, a little teeny bit closer to the sun. we wouldn't have life here. It's all, it's all too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. Right. Is my feeling, and I feel like there's a higher power, and I just... And so, you know, I believe in praying. I believe in these things. I, I have just struggled having friends, good friends across different faiths to, to feel confident in, in all of the, uh, In choosing a, choosing a team. In choosing a, choosing a team. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. I've struggled to do that. Yeah. Because, you know, in growing up, I think, you know, a lot of us that grow up in this culture, you know, we choose a team. Sure. But, um, other cultures, they, they don't, they don't even have exposure to that team. So they have, but Right. Just so I've really settled on there is a higher power. We're here for a reason. All I'm a big Yeah. I don't quite know what that is yet. Right. I feel that I, when I was a. I'm a few years older than you, six years, seven years older than you are. And look, when I went to college, it was right coming off of like the, the Irish bombings of the Catholics and the Protestants overseas. And I was like, you know, if this is the way Christians are like, I don't want any part of it. And, you know, eventually I came around and studied and there's so many different teams. Even within the Christian tent, right? And so, you know, for me, I ultimately kind of settled on the small church, limited dogma, no power structures that can be grossly corrupted into some of the things we've seen. And, uh, so anyway, we can have a long beer and talk about that sometime. Yeah, I would like to hear more about that. Yeah. As much as you're willing to share, that sounds interesting. Oh yeah, no, it was quite a journey for me of, uh, You know, a lot of cynicism, uh, to overcome, a lot of guilt, uh, I carried a lot of guilt around being kind of significantly blessed. But not being, you know, I wasn't blessed because I did good, you know, I had been blessed. And so I had to do something with all that guilt. You too. I mean, you're a gorgeous man. You're smart. You're athletic. Uh, you know, for me, that was a source of guilt, not pride. And, uh... Anyway, I digress. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. I think having a church set up where that's explored, and you're talking about things, and maybe not in such a dogmatic way, that's um, it's, it's, there's just a little bit more room to draw and be outside the lines with some of the discussions, I think is fascinating. Well, and I actually, shortly after coming to faith, I signed up for a, uh, organization called Bible Study Fellowship. Hmm. Uh, and they take a whole year to go through, like, one chapter of the Bible. Okay. And talk about it together, learn about it together, and it's just the Bible. No outside sources, no commentaries, no opinions, no my pastor said. Mm hmm. What's the Bible say? And, uh, It just happened to be that that first year was the history of Israel and the minor prophets. So it was all these prophets that called for the appearance of this Messiah figure that would change the game, nature of the game, kind of, uh, which, you know, most Christians believe is Jesus. Right. Or all Christians believe is Jesus. That's a qualifying statement. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Uh, and so it was like, I had this heart decision to come to faith. From an emotional standpoint especially, but I didn't really have any backing to it. And then I got all the You know the the prophecy stuff to kind of feed in why should I actually believe this? Well, it was predicted for a long time in advance by a lot of different people, right? That's one reason you might believe and continue to believe. Yeah, so anyway, that was my journey And, uh, yeah, it was, it was an interesting, like, I'm not, I'm all, actually I'm usually led by emotion and then figure out why I believe what I believe afterwards, uh, you know, even in regards to my stances on how the government should be and et cetera, et cetera, right? So, um, Yeah, we'll have a, we could fill a bunch of time with me, uh, uh, talking about that but I don't want to because it's your podcast. No, I find, I do find it fascinating. But we will do a long coffee sometime and happy to have you over at 10 o'clock on Sunday mornings at The Crossing if you want to come visit. I would, I would like to. Okay, alright, we'll text about it. Okay. Then, uh, politics, uh, there's a push right now. We just vacated the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House was just, uh, you're fired. Yeah. Uh, there's some people talking about, uh, nominating Donald Trump to be the Speaker of the House. Is that a good idea? No. No, it isn't. I agree. You win the answer to that question. No. Yeah. I mean, it, I mean, it's all been said, but I mean, so much divisiveness, you know, my best friend growing up, uh, he, he, he did a really good job. He played college football at Iowa state and ended up being one of their, their best players. Oh, you were telling me about him, a walk on. Yeah. That, that ended up, you know, being a, he's just, he's, he's a legend there and kind of. Parlayed that name recognition into politics, not because he was necessarily trying to do it. It helps. It helps. Yeah, he's incredibly smart. I mean, he's incredibly smart and he's a, he's a Republican senator in Iowa and like a state senator or like a state senator. He's president of the, uh, president of the Senate. Wow. Could be the governor someday. Could be. Yeah, he actually works very closely with the governor, Kim Reynolds. Okay. And they were just highlighted in the Wall Street Journal for, uh, just the amazing things they've done with the state budget. Nice. You know, I mean, they're just... Oh, they have budgets at states? I thought they gave that shit up. I mean, they run it like a, they run it like a, like a successful business there. I mean, you have... Huh. Well, Colorado doesn't do it that way. I don't think a lot of states do it that way. I don't, I don't think, I don't think a lot of states. So that, you know, they were highlighted. He's done, he's done great things there. So it's been, it's been interesting hearing some of the back story, just how things work and how things talk and how people talk and interact. And it's, it's, it's very fascinating. I think, you know, suffice to say the divisiveness, the theatrics, you know, if you, it seems that the definition of winning a debate is who can talk over. Everyone else. Right, interrupt the other person, give the best one liner zingers. Just, just be the most obnoxious. Yeah, the biggest asshole wins. The biggest, yeah. Yeah. Pardon my French. No, that's okay. I think that's, that's kind of where we're at. That shouldn't be no, I don't think anybody really wants it to be there. No. And I think we just, you know, everyone needs to kind of call for better instead of, instead of contributing to the, you know, I'll just, I'll just look at my phone the next morning. Oh, so and so won the debate. Let's demanding better and demanding a more constructive conversation really to make it what kindness, you know, empathy, openness, you know, it's really. It's, it's incredibly unfortunate to me that that's just completely fallen by the wayside. So my sense is that you're, uh, a moderate independent and, uh, and not a Trump lover. Uh, but let me ask you the question. Do you think that the rampant arraignments and investigations and things of Trump are a political attack meant to keep him from succeeding in his run for the presidency? Would he be having, would he be facing all these things if he wasn't running for president is a good question for you. That's a good question. You know, maybe the only answer is I don't know. Yeah, like I I don't know I I guess I I wouldn't be overly surprised either way, right? You know if the answer that question was it was it's all just contrived or the answer is that it's true I don't know if I would be overly, you know, I think I think Just what I've observed is, um, the moral compass has been waterlogged for a very long time. Right. Across the board. For a very long time, and so, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised either way, and I don't know, and it's, it's, it's almost like I also, I don't care, you know? I think when I look at that, I think, well, I'm, I'm, I'm Um, certainly there, there should be, you know, if there's, if there's wrongdoing, it should be looked into, but it's amazing that the conversation is so, you know, we're, we're talking about, you hear people talking about, you know, whatever news show, you know, this and the indictments and then, you know, well, I heard somebody bring up, well, what about Hillary Clinton? It's, you know, it's, it's like, it's like two kids hitting each other in the backseat of a car on a family vacation to Yellowstone, you know, and it's like a 13 hour drive and the kids just can't stop hitting each other. Rather than Mm hmm. For sure. And rather than just focusing the conversation on where are we going. Right. You know, like where are we going? I think there are real things that need to be talked about and they, they just get drowned out. You know, with that, with that, with that type of, with that type of, you know, vitriol. Yeah. What do you think about the, uh, Robert F. Kennedy, uh, stuff? I wish I knew. So we stopped, we don't have a TV. We haven't had a TV. So you don't know much about what's going on. I shouldn't say we don't have a TV. We have a TV. It just, it's, you know, Netflix and kids shows in the basement where we don't see it. It's down in the main floor. So we never, so you're not too attached. You don't know too much. So I'll give you a quick snippet. He's been running. ish, 15 to 20 percent in most polls. So climbing on the Democrat ticket though. So, you know, he's running for the Democratic nomination against, uh, the superpower, Joe Biden. Um, and apparently, uh, arguably faced an assassination attempt. Whoa, like three weeks ago, and he's been asking for, for security for the last. Four months or something since he came in. But Biden has basically pretended that he doesn't exist or this, but secret service, like they gave Obama protection way before he was even on the polls and things like that. And Interesting. So there's this, and it's always historically been done, but the Democrats are basically saying there's nobody else running for the Democratic Party ticket, even though they've got a 20% ish challenger, which is surprising to me. Yeah. Well, you one would hope. But yeah, there's, there's definitely a fence around the, the old guy right now. Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting, you look at the, I just try to put myself in, like, how do you win? And if I was a Democrat, I would say, how do you convince Michelle Obama to run? Mm hmm. I think that's what, I mean, Gavin Newsom is positioning for it lately. Yeah. But I think Michelle Obama would clearly win. Like, Gavin Newsom is a... It's a tough suit that a lot of people will have almost as much vitriol for as people do for Trump. Well, as little as your actual record seems to matter, right? Right, totally. It still matters. Yeah. And California is not an uptrend, not, not exactly the picture of success by any metric. So I would think that would serve, you know, that would work against him. But I think you're right. I think you, I think there's a, a 30 percent chance that Michelle Obama is our next president. Really? I would say a higher percent chance that she's that than Biden is. It's interesting talking to you as somebody who hasn't watched any network news in seven years. Yeah. And coming in here and like authentically telling you that. Well, I come up with I didn't even know that was a possibility. Well, cause the major networks have started going against Biden just lately. Interesting. With some of the new Hunter stuff, and they're calling him out on some of his, Oh, falling off the stage and dumb stuff. And he's clearly. And, and he's, you know, they're talking about impeachment and stuff, even though the house is a mess. Mm hmm. But there's like through the, all of his presidency up till about three months ago, there was never a negative word. And now CNN has been asking some tough questions and stuff. They're trying to get their legitimacy back kind of. Mm hmm. And. To me, that's an early warning sign that there's people in high places that don't prefer to have Biden be the candidate, uh, on the turn. And who replaces, I have no idea. Certainly not Kamala. I mean, she's unelectable for a student senate or a student council. I think, um, you know, there's like, every, every candidate is flawed in some way. For sure. Right? Like, I think what people have to, it's, I'd almost make the, Maybe it's an odd analogy, but the comparison to real estate, there's like a fatal flaw, real estate, you know, like if you like, don't develop an office building and put like a teeny parking lot, right? Like it's a fatal flaw. Like you're in big trouble with a president and how old is Joe Biden going to be 80? Well, he's 81, maybe now or 82 or something. So we're talking about three years younger or something like that. So he'll be 85, 86 when he gets out of office, that's too old for sure, for sure. Well, I've met some 86 year olds that I would trust in that role because they're vibrant. He's not, I would say that I've, I've met some extremely impressive, 85, 86 year olds also. But I would, I would also say that, um, that turns on a dime at that age. And there's just a, there's a big, true that it becomes a liability. to the American people that, that, at that stage. And that's, that's just too old. So everyone has a flaw. I would call that, you know, kind of a, a, a very serious, you know, flaw with, with, with my wife's grandmother lived until she was like a hundred and. One or two, I forget, but, or three, I don't know. Anyway, like, literally up until she was 95, I would have trusted her more than any of our current candidates, or our, our current president or our most recent one. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but I digress. Yeah, so yeah, it's an interesting well, and we've had you know, what's his name like froze Mitch McConnell. Have you seen that? I saw that I did see that On my phone like that was scary, right? You know, he's a senator. Yeah, right. That's scary. Yeah, you know and then Yeah, I mean, everyone's flawed though, right? For sure. I mean, everyone's flawed. Yeah. I think with, you know, what I see with Trump running is there were some, you know, there's some things people are hanging on to from, from years ago that worked and went well for, for people. And, um. Well, he relied on the social media machine to spread his message and win his 2016 election and then he was banned from social media in 2020. Yeah. You know, so that's, like for those that, Let's say, well, Biden beat Trump fair and square. Well, fair and square, but with the full weight and force of most of the media apparatus. Without, without question, everything was teed up in a way, but you know, his success, I mean, his, his, so, I mean, it was, it was seven, eight years ago now, right? Trump. So I think, I wish he would just go away. I think looking at looking at fresh candidates, like I would love to hear more and you know, I do, I do read news on my phone. I don't want to make it sound like I don't follow the news at all. I like Vivek. Have you listened to him at all? Uh, I just thought he was too, cause I watched him on my phone, like the debate, I just felt like it was, he was too much for me. Yeah. Like, it was just like with the one liners. He's on pretty thick, yeah. And, you know, I felt like he was, you know, um. I've listened to his podcast a fair bit. He's done, he's a hardworking guy. He's done like, maybe 50, 60 podcast episodes since he announced in April. Some just him, some interviewing others and stuff. That's a better forum for getting to know somebody, I think, but yes, there's better forums. I think he was probably just trying to stand out, which is, he's, to be fair, that seems to be how you play the game and he's trying to be the Trump lovers candidate if Trump doesn't make it. Yeah, or the VP maybe if he does. He was trying, he was trying to stand out with, you know, but talking over people. Yeah, like really kind of leveraging that rule. If someone mentions your name, then you get 30 seconds. And to me, he just came off a little bit like, uh, you know, somebody who, you know, this happened maybe years ago, not, not as much recently, but that person that shows up at your door selling Kirby and won't go like loud and kind of bombastic and trying, trying to bump, trying to get through the door. It just felt like I get why he was pressing, but to me it was, it was. That's fair. It wasn't done. So is there anybody in the current slate on the Republican side that you think would be a good nominee for, to go up against Michelle Obama? Three that are interesting to me, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and DeSantis, those three are interesting to me. Yeah. You know, being, being. more moderate independent. You know, my view is I'm very, I'm fiscally conservative. I really believe in, you know, supporting the small business owner. And I look at someone like Tim Scott, he has a really impressive story. You know, really impressive story. Yeah. Um, you know, I also believe in, I don't think he's going to catch traction. It doesn't seem like. It doesn't seem like it. It's been sad with DeSantis too. Like he really failed to catch traction like I thought. Well, you need to have the theatrics, you need to have the ability to sell and that's, and that's what they're, you know, that, that, but, you know, the Santa seems to have a track record to me in Florida, you know, I don't. No, I think, like I said before, I think everyone's flawed. I think if you can find a candidate that you can agree with on 80 percent of the things, you're probably ahead of most, you know, on the, on the social, you know, spectrum, I'm fiscally conservative, but socially, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm really an advocate for, you know, gay marriage, having friends who are, uh, sure. Who have just, you know, really had to deal with a lot. Well, we, we witnessed people struggling for a long time. Yeah. Uh, with like, not on each other's insurance and things like that. You know. Exactly. Like just, you know, for me, it's just, I mean, these are, these are just some of the best people and they, they've deserved better than they've gotten for so long. And, and just really just, I'm a, I'm an advocate for that. I do, I do think the, you know. environment in, you know, I think if you're, if you're somebody who was like, you know, I think global warming might be real. I really am an advocate for gay marriage. I'm also super fiscally conservative. I believe small businesses should be, uh, supported. I think that whoever's president should maybe have some experience in the real world. Like, where do you land? It seems like these days you are. If you were gay, you would be a log cabin Republican. Interesting. Oh, but you're presumably not gay, so... No, no, but, where do you, where, I mean, it's just interesting, you could, I, because I would call that, and I wonder how many people out there would, I think I'm a pretty reasonable, prudent, open minded person that is just like, you know, looking at the... Well, you're a closet libertarian, just like about 75 percent of my guests, yeah. Perhaps. They don't want to admit it, you know, because everybody hates libertarian more than they even hate the Democrats or Republicans. It's You know, that libertarian movement in some of those instances, it's not. Perhaps fair, but I have seen those candidates and then they're just like, you know, do away with everything, do away with government. It's like, you know, you go up to Wyoming and that's, you know, you have, you know, some of those folks up there and it's like, well, there's, Hey, there's potholes everywhere. And like, uh, you know, you do need. You do need some government. These things come across the ballot for schools. Right, without government there would be a bunch of kids that never got educated at all. Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure the Department of Education has been a positive force in the nation over the last 50 you could certainly say they're... They're, you know, kind of like the, like the post office or something, all these government entities, they're definitely not efficient, you could definitely do it better, but if they just went away, would it be done better? Right, that's a good question. You know, that's, that's, that's, that's the question. I think people understanding that, look, perfect doesn't exist. Yeah. It certainly, clearly doesn't exist in the, in the government sector. Look at the post office. Yeah. You know, look at the, you know, the, the, all the, what you just mentioned. That's the Libertarian Party slogan is, uh, better not perfect. I like that. Maybe I, maybe, maybe. Re examine. We can talk about Christianity and Libertarianism, uh, in a long coffee sometime. Yeah, I might be a Libertarian. Or tequila, maybe. I should learn more about that. It's a big tent. Um, the loco experience. I don't even remember if we were doing that consistently when we, uh, had our first episode, but the loco experience is the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share. Ooh, the craziest. Ever had a near death, anything crazy like that? I'll give you two. Okay. And, and, and one's more, I don't know if you call it, I just, it was, it was more like a wow moment. Yeah. But I'll give you the crazy one first. The crazy one was I was, I was in the Middle East, I was traveling and, and I went to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Amman, Jordan, you know, then I was kind of ended up the trip in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and I was flying out of Tel Aviv to come back and, you know, we were out the night before and it was, it was, it was, you know, and I was just tired and it was, it was, you know, a 10 day trip and somebody was chatting me up in line. And it was a. clothes and just sort of like a, a, a very chatty person. And of course, I did not want to be rude, but I was getting shorter answers and I was just trying to do those things to communicate like, I'm ready to be done with this conversation. Well, I'm just trying to stand in the security line and, and, and go through, you have to get to the airport like six hours early there. And so, you know, it's a process and, and, and the next thing I knew I was, I was, I had to go into this. What was an interrogation room? It was of somebody and they, their security, they ask people questions and why you're here, you know, how long have you been here, you know, what do you, what do you, what do you, what are you doing here? And, and that's part of that, at least at the time was part of the security protocol. Right. And it was, it was somebody in plain clothes because they didn't want to come across as somebody. Oh, they thought you were being evasive a little bit or something. So they snatched you out of the line. My short answers were interpreted as being evasive. Yeah. Uh, not cooperative and then I found myself in a windowless room and wasn't sure how long I was... Did you take a beating? No. Nothing like that. I didn't. They were, they were super nice. Yeah. But... Still made your flight? Still made my flight. Super nice. Uh, I don't know about super nice, but not, not, not... Not super mean. Yeah. Not super mean. It was just, I think there's just something about being in a different country and my passport wasn't, it wasn't in there with me. Wow. So you're all of a sudden you're in a room that doesn't have any windows and you don't have your passport. It, it was strange. I have a... slightly similar loco experience that I haven't thought about in a long time, but I, my grandmother died just a few months after 9 11. And when I came, when I flew back to Colorado from North Dakota for the, for the services, my mom sent me with my childhood. I had like effectively a piggy bank. It was like this ceramic little train with a lamb on it. And in that piggy bank was. Uh, you know, a significant, you know, a hundred bucks worth of change, loose change and stuff, but also, uh, two rifle shells, fifteen, twenty two, it was whatever was in my pockets for five years during high school. And so I'm taking this thing through the metal detector, not think, not remembering even that I got this piggy bank full of change in my... Carry on. And like, they're like, what's with all the screws? I mean, there's bullets, there's the shotgun shell. You had enough there that they're like, okay, this guy clearly just forgot. Right. Exactly. He's not trying to sneak anything by us. Yeah. But I was like, I had to go into the little separate room and answer why I was trying to smuggle all this. through and I had, I lost all my rifle shells, all my 22 shells and I digress. I don't, I've never told that story in 25 years probably. But, uh, so tell me, tell me about, yeah, it was very similar. You had a second, uh, a second, it was more of a, more of a wow thing. Okay. And I don't know if people realize how many. Like famous people have been to Fort Collins or, you know, here spent this spent time here But this was several years ago. This is I guess this is probably five six years ago It was Christmastime and okay. Yeah, that's that Sierra Trading Post had just opened up in Midtown. Yeah So that was six years ago, whatever it was, but it's funny that that's Midtown nowadays. Yeah. No. Yeah, that's another story So it just opened, it just opened. And I went in and my mom and my wife went in and, you know, the, the, at the time, the women's I was to the right, the guys, that was the left. So I go to the left. I'm like only people in the, all of this huge Sierra trading post store. And I'm, I'm just looking at the, you know, coats and stuff. I'm looking at the courts and the coats, and I hear a voice just to the right of me, like as close as we are. And I didn't know anyone was standing there first off, which was a little startling, but the thing that was mostly startling was it was the voice, the one voice on the entire planet, literally the entire planet. You hear this voice and it can only belong to one person. I think it's Snoop Dogg. Nope, it can only belong to one person. And then what was happening in my brain was it can only belong to one person. And then the brain was, how could that possibly? Be the case and turn to my. Right, slowly, and it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's a recognizable voice. And he's, and he's talking to his... It's not a tumor. That's pretty good. And he's talking to his, you know, his girlfriend who's helping him pick out, uh, you know, I guess like snow pants or something. Because they're going to go skiing. He's got his, you know, he certainly wasn't as tall as I thought, but the barrel chest, super tan, crazy eyebrows. I love it. And, um... And I just say, hi, I did. I shook his hand. I was, I said, hi, Mr. Schwarzenegger. So, so nice to meet you. And he was just, he's kind of nodded. Then I asked if I could take my picture with him. Yeah. And he said, no. So then I went and I hid behind, uh, I guess I did hide behind like a, a pillar thing. Right. Right. And I just like, like, kind of like covert, you know, popped out and took some, some selfies with you in the background too. No, I just like took photos cause I'm like, no one's going to believe me. Right. You know, no one's going to believe me. And anyway, so that was, that was just more of like a, wow, that's pretty cool, you know. I wouldn't have expected Arnold to be the man. Yeah, yeah. Any idea why he was here? Like, did you, like, learn about it later or anything? Yeah, he was dating a woman who was a resident of, Oh, really? Loveland. Oh, interesting. At the time. Yeah, yeah. So, presumably why he was, why he was in Fort Collins. At the Sierra Trading Post looking for some, uh, clearance discount winter clothes. Yeah, I mean, there's a list of people who there's been sightings, you know, David and last several years David Letterman's been in town Yeah, Emilio Estevez, Kevin Bacon. Oh, I heard that one, too. Yeah, you know, those are those are the ones it's a cool town Catherine Heigl, I think she was on you know, she was in like a movie with Seth Rogen. She was on ER So there's a group. Yeah It's a cool town. Yeah, so all you celebrities out there listening to the Loco Experience podcast You are welcome here and Most people won't ask you to take a picture. That's true. That's true. If you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, I mean, you're not going to You should get a picture taken everywhere. You're not going to not get asked. For sure. If you're Arnold Schwarzenegger. You gotta be expecting that. And, uh, but if you say no, we understand. It's cool. Yeah. It's cool. It's fly. I'll just hide and take a picture of you. Well, thanks for spending time. Great to, to be here with you again, Greg. Yeah. And, uh, again, if you wanna, I guess, uh, Uh, you want to re spell your name for those who want to snoop you on the social channels? Yeah, first name's Greg, just G R E G. Last name is pronounced Raider, but it's spelled like R O E D as in Delta. E R. Go to gregraider. com. Check out my LinkedIn is my, just my name. Facebook's my name. And then Instagram is at Greg underscore Raider. Is your at Greg Raider Instagram channel, is there like? All just like real estate y things, or you have food pics, and dog pics, and kid pics. You know, there's some, there's definitely some personal stuff in there. Like, this last weekend we went up to, you know, I really just, like, so, my mission. Like, my, my little mission is just, just a personal, is just to kind of inspire and, and empower people to live the life they love. And, I, maybe that sounds corny, saying it out loud, but. I, I really try to structure these posts around that. It's just not, so it's not just real estate stuff. I think, you know, that's, that's one of the things I do to help people do that, help, help buy and sell real estate. And so there's some, I think some pretty cool real estate stuff in there, some educational things, you know, but there's also a lot of community stuff. You know, it's, you gotta get up to Mishawaka and see a show. For sure. I see this post from last weekend, the show we were at. That's just one example. Things to do, experiences locally here. That's what I try to fill up the social media channels with. I dig it. Thanks, Greg. Thank you. Appreciate it. See ya.