EXPERIENCE 65 | Aaron Everitt, Real Estate Expert, Entrepreneur, and Philosopher

Curt: 0:00

My guest on today's episode was Aaron Everett, a long time friend of mine, a realtor in Northern Colorado, as well as the founder of InMotion and the owner of a delivery service provider here regionally. And so this is Aaron's third time on the podcast and it's because we just enjoy each other's company and conversation and having philosophical discussions. And so we talk about. About a lot of things. We talk about literature, the evolving world of education. Uh, we talk about the legacy project, which is a project that his father initiated that he supported, um, really teaching civics in a different way, kinda to local leaders. Um, we talk about real estate, of course, um, particularly the difference between. Developing and doing business in Wyoming, particularly Sarah did Wyoming versus Fort Collins. And, uh, we also talk about interest rates and catching up to the home market. If you're a first time buyer or somebody just getting qualified in a hot market like today, um, we spend some time on the misinformation board that had been announced at that time and not yet shut down, uh, as well as talking about. But could that he released a couple of years ago, um, careless in the care of God. And so it's a wide ranging conversation. Um, it's a long conversation and we, uh, enjoy each other's company as well as some fine bourbon. So hope you enjoy and tune in. Thanks. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. This is your host Curt Baer, and I'm here again with Aaron Everett, my friend, and a local real estate guy and a business owner and kind of a Renaissance man, if I must say so.

Aaron: 2:51

Well, thanks. That's what I say. If you like whiskey. Yes. And good to be here again. I enjoy this every time we do it.

Curt: 2:57

Well, it's been fun. And, uh, your, your episodes are some of our most listened to, I think people consider you properly an expert on Northern Colorado real estate. And so that's one of the topics we'll get to. Um, we've just got a whole smorgasbord. We can't really tell your story anymore. We've done that really over the last two podcasts. So, um, why don't you just give us a family update, uh, and even to include maybe reflections on. Passing you're sharing about your uncle passing

Aaron: 3:25

recently. Yeah, for sure. Um, so yeah, family is still doing well. We're we're right at the end of we homeschool. So we, we have been and have the whole time. So we really are kind of, I've always, I think Anna and I consider ourselves REL relatively counter-cultural people for any number of reasons, but one of them is because we homeschool. So we're at the getting towards the end of our semester. We've been doing, um, this, this semester is the last couple of semesters. We've been doing some really interesting stuff with schooling in terms of, um, just how we're pivoting and what we've been doing, you know, up until this point, we've kind of always had to put the curriculum in front of

Curt: 4:00

our kids standard template kind

Aaron: 4:01

of. Yeah. And you know, that's really part of the deal in homeschooling is that you are doing this really counter-cultural thing, but you're still regulated and you still

Curt: 4:10

got to teach them. Math is still have to do all the things that no home economics, because that doesn't really fit

Aaron: 4:16

something like that. Right. So w but we're nearing the end of that. We've been doing a really cool. Great friend of mine. Who's got his doctorate. Um, and we've been doing reading. Uh, we, it's kind of been a broad spectrum. He's called it the marathon and the sprint. So last semester we did all epics, um, did a bunch of Homer and we talked about the Gilgamesh and that stuff. This semester, we've been doing poetry. So did E Cummings, um, Walt Whitman, and now we're into Emily Dickinson right now. So my kids are really kind of getting this really great perspective on writing and I would call it a writing class, but pretty much all we do is read and discuss, which is great. Cause I think it, um, naturally what I've seen from my kids is that their outflowing has been to write, which has been kind of cool,

Curt: 5:00

beautiful. When you can write as a young person, because it makes you so much stronger a communicator throughout

Aaron: 5:05

your life. Yeah, I think so. And I I've always loved writing. I really liked my really enjoy writing, do a bunch of different things. I've written for different, I don't know, online things over the years, just because I want to try to do it. Not because anybody wants to pay me, but yeah. Have you

Curt: 5:19

heard of the, um, university of Austin, Texas? The it's a liberal arts plus tech university. It's a startup university doing it, different, doing it better. Um, the, I think the dark horse, uh, podcasts couple million are going to be a part of it. And there's a whole bunch of kind of counter-cultural professors that have kind of interested there. They have left the industry like academia and discussed kind of, or they're ready to yeah. And come and fund and develop a new kind of school that, that matches that kind of, what can we learn from Shakespeare? Hello. Play-Doh and you know, some of these classic grandmasters of, of thought and which I

Aaron: 5:59

think is so much, I mean, it's so it's so interesting to me that, you know, this there's like. Sacred subjects. Right. You know, and you have to do them all and you have to, and then it's really, um, on one level, I understand why on the second level, what, what we've hoped for as an outcome and education ultimately has just been kind of obliterate. Like we don't have what we want. Our students aren't as educated as we would hope are our kind of

Curt: 6:29

teachers aren't as engaged.

Aaron: 6:31

And it's tough. I mean, I, I think this whole idea that you have to, that there really can't be any competition in, in education. Um, while I understand why people get sort of anxious about that and in the teaching industry, I think that the end of the day, if, if people go into the education system, I think their initial intent is always that they want to help people become educated than they have a passion for it. And they really love it. And I think the system ultimately just sort of. Pushes everybody into like a meat, like a sausage grinder. Right. And everybody that comes out

Curt: 7:06

standardized tests. Yeah. And I think all of that, so you are and how good you are and what you're worth. Yeah. And I

Aaron: 7:11

don't think any of that's healthy or makes us any better as, I don't think we're any more educated because of it. Yeah. And so that's been this really interesting transitions. My kids are all teenagers now going from here's sort of the self, our directive in curriculum to you being, become willing to learn about. Yeah, they have the date. I keep bringing this example up in conversation, but the other day, one of our kids was just fascinated by Japanese subways. I don't know why don't have any idea why that was, what that was, what the subject was for the morning, but that's what he wanted to learn about. So he spent the morning exploring that I don't have any problem with that in education, because I think that's part of how you, as a person now that I don't go to school, the only way to learn about something is to get curious about it. Yeah. And I think most people should have be more curious in general.

Curt: 7:57

Do you know, did you, did you get curious at all or how are they different from, uh, American subways? Well,

Aaron: 8:03

so according, I didn't dive in with him on this thing, but according to him, it's, it's a much more orderly system in terms of how they, how they process people on the. The trains themselves, how people behave socially on the trains, very regimented and quiet, and let's grab us very much. So a lot, a lot, a lot less kind of, I don't know, uh, there's a lot of ill manner to stuff in an American subway and compared to them, they seem to have, in order to get that many people on the train, they have to, well,

Curt: 8:33

Japanese are much smaller nation, you know, got a little tiny little land mass and a whole bunch of people.

Aaron: 8:38

Yeah. So anyway, that kind of stuff I think has just been really fun to watch my. Break out of there's a great scene in river runs through it, where the dad's teaching them to fly fish and they're all in a line, you know? And then at one point the older, the youngest brother just breaks away. And I think that's kind of where my kids are at at the moment. So it's been pretty cool to see that. And it's been really cool to see that exploration happen through literature because that's my, I really love, I love reading. I love writing and my kids are starting to find some similarities around that. And I think that's been pretty cool. So family's good. We did have a really wonderful uncle. Who's a business kind of business hero in my life is, uh, uh, an uncle from Texas who was in the dog food industry. And unfortunately ended up passing in, in March of COVID. Um, yeah, with COVID with a long battle, um, of it actually in the hospital. Um, so 80 days of being in the hospital and the end, it just didn't, he just kinda gave up his body gave up on it. Um, wonderful man, wonderful life, four great kids, um, who are all just, uh, Kind of precious people to me, so hard to watch people go through that stuff, especially when it was unexpected. I think, um, they had, you know, they'd done what they could follow protocols that they could, that was, that were recommended in what they were supposed to be doing is to try their best to do what they could to get through it. But it just didn't, uh, it just didn't work out. And I think that's been really interesting to watch with COVID. I don't know. It seems very randomized in terms of then how old was he? He was 75, so older elderly person, but you know, very healthy guy was they worked out all the time and were in good shape and delete. Yeah. So just kind of all the, it doesn't necessarily make sense on the surface as to why I had a couple

Curt: 10:22

of those last year and you know, a chills mom and, and then my friend, Adam, and then, uh, different than that, her grandma passed in March as well. A month shy of a hundred and third birthday. Right. And she had 102 and a half good years and really the last five months or so were pretty challenging and such a different experience when it's a release from suffering than when it's a surprise. And yes, he was suffering, but you didn't expect him to be yet.

Aaron: 10:53

No. And, and honestly, just one of the sharpest, most brilliant people I've ever met in my life. And then super influential on my thinking about business, just entered super encouraging guy, always one of those guys that you could he'd come to town, it might, you know, keep his, his wife is from here. So she she's one of those people that, um, is part of my mom's side of the family has been here since the, I think my, they came in 1914 or so the Colorado, Brendan. Yeah. So he, he. Here often. And every time he would come, he'd always have time for us. And so he would, he would make time anyway, at least to ride around and look at our businesses stuff that we were doing. He was kind of in the same manufacturing space in the dog food space, as we were with the wood business. Your name was always just super encouraging. He would tell us when we were kind of screwing up and he would tell us about, you know, you got, you got the result resilience to do it, and you've got the resolve to get it done. So go, here's what you

Curt: 11:46

need to do. Yeah. Or at least part of what I can see anyway. So I had a lot more to give to the world potentially.

Aaron: 11:52

That's how it feels for sure. It certainly feels that way. And I think most people standing around the grave felt that way, which was just like, gosh, that just feels like this was out of order. Um, you know, my mom's side of the family there, that everyone is kind of moving into that age where we're, we're getting there. Like my mom and dad are in their seventies. And so we're certainly getting to where their siblings are starting to age and they're starting to age. And so it's, it doesn't feel like sometimes that catches you by surprise, but it really catches you by surprise when it feels out of order, you know? And so my grandma's still alive. But, you know, so that there was some things there that just felt like that this didn't belong in one of these things is not like the other. And that was certainly what happened in how it feels. And so well, I know and genuinely know that as a man of faith and I know where he is nowhere and he knows where he was going. So it wasn't like there was a fear in that, but it just certainly was, um, you know, just one of those things that you just feel some sorrow around, I guess, and more that for us than for him, for sure.

Curt: 12:49

May, uh, his children and his legacy be, um, you know, profound, I guess is my hope. I think

Aaron: 12:57

they, I think it will be, I think it it's, you already see it in these kids and you see their, their kind of compassion for others and they're just, they're good nurse towards others. They're they're good folks. So,

Curt: 13:06

so we started on the topic of kind of literature and things and touched on it, but I'm not sure we've like, it seems like you're a student of education of sorts. And I don't know if that's why your kids are homeschooled or, you know, when I was young, I, I remember really having. And appreciation for literature and encouragement from, from the system to, to spend a lot of time chasing dalliances, we got pizza hut, we got personal pan pizza. Yeah. And I crushed it. I, I read war and peace when I was in sixth grade. And that was where so many points

Aaron: 13:40

I love reading. So like, I always have a goal every year to try to read as many, you know, certain number of books. Um, and I like audio books. Of course, I used to just love to get a book out and read it. And that's my favorite. But honestly, with schedules in life, it just audio books become really, especially if

Curt: 13:56

you're driving around a lot and I didn't really study things that always have a book on it, or you listen to the local experience podcasts. I do listen to this one too. I do like this one too,

Aaron: 14:06

but yeah, I D I, I have always appreciated literature. Cause I think it gives, it gives some insight into things, um, that you wouldn't otherwise, like most people who are writing are writing because they have something to say. So there's something coming out of them that they want to try to express and they want. Contribute to the world that we're in. Yeah. And so I feel like that's the best part about literature is that you just get, you get a really wide spectrum of stuff. And I am happy to read a wide spectrum of stuff too. So I don't like to just find myself reading politics. I don't find myself just reading, you know, one of the books I wanted to read this this year was Anna Karina. So yeah. That's like one of the, that was on the list. The idiot,

Curt: 14:44

no dusty. That's one of my favorites. Isn't you would love it.

Aaron: 14:48

Yeah. I just think there's just so much there. That's important to understand. And I think when people write something down, when we were studying, we're studying Dickinson right now in one of her poems we read yesterday was, or her letters actually to was that she preferred to write letters because they, they had, it was a chance to have the soul be outside of, um, yeah. Had a chance for the soul to be outside of, uh, there the body. And so it can last forever sort of lasting. Long way. And I think that's kind of a cool way to think about literature is that it's this it's a voice that has a longevity that other things don't have.

Curt: 15:28

Yeah. I listened to somebody talking about that recently in regards to art, like art generally, like even pictures, but also words like in books and proper literature, like digital stuff will probably be gone if we blow ourselves up or whatever. But a lot of our old art will still be around kind of, and it's like little windows at the time that was at that time. You're part of that. Yup. Kind of marker. There.

Aaron: 15:54

We, I, we talked about this yesterday in our little class. Like we do every Monday, we'd go down to a library and Firestone and talk this through with this, this a friend of mine, who's got his doctorate and. We, I played Louis Armstrong yesterday and didn't tell, you know, has asked my kids, okay, so who's playing trumpet and from the first two or three notes, you know right. Which is sort of an out of body experience, he's gone long gone. Um, but his music is with us and his notes are with us. Millions of

Curt: 16:21

people have played the trumpet.

Aaron: 16:22

Yeah. But you know, it's him. Right. So I think that's partially, what's attractive to me about literature is that there's voices that come through and soul like an, a soul expression that comes through in writing and reading that you don't get otherwise. Um, just from, I mean, certainly in a conversation, you can get that. And certainly in these formats, they'll be here for what we think

Curt: 16:42

is a wild, hopefully, you know, Spotify hangs on.

Aaron: 16:45

Um, but I think you, you definitely get to that place where you, um, yeah, you just, you. You find yourself hearing those voices and being able to read them. And then I think it makes you think. And I think it makes you try to understand the world a little bit better from a different perspective. So that's partially why I'm attracted to it. I just think it's a great,

Curt: 17:07

I like to consider myself a fairly humble guy. Uh, but the other day I was reading my own blog and I was like, you know, who's writing my writing reminds me of Jill. As mark Twain. And then I was immediately embarrassed that I would even consider comparing myself to mark Twain, but, but

Aaron: 17:28

do you know, Hey, each of us have read something or we've, we've found a particular voice I got, I'm just, I F I find myself reading, gravitating to different people at different times in my life where I think their voice says more about how I'm thinking or feeling, or I think that's partly, I think that's partially why we read literature as it want to resonate with something. And

Curt: 17:47

for a while, yeah, for an extended engagement, I just finished listening to a Middlemarch, which is a George Elliott, which is a pen name for a lady from like the early 19 hundreds. Uh, but she wrote about like the 1860s in Britain. And she was like part of the Arista Cressey or the, she was writing about that kind of thing. And the railroads were just coming into the region and it was a 31 hour audio book. No, And so it's a tome and there's all these characters so well developed. It's not super unlike, um, what's that, uh, game of Thrones book, because there's so many characters developed over so much time and evolution that it's just you're in it,

Aaron: 18:30

which is fun, right? Like it's a little bit of escapism, but it's also a little bit of a glimpse into something. It took

18:36

me

Curt: 18:36

a month. I've got, I think three credits built up on audible right now because I've been listening to Middlemarch for a long time and that was free and it was great. So book review.

Aaron: 18:45

I definitely think that that's partially what makes me, who I am is that I, I don't, I'm not much, I was never much for the education as this might come full circle circle here, but I was never much for education myself. So I struggled with, I struggled to go school. I mean, you could go through it. Most, anybody, who's got a decent personality. B's in school. Yeah.

Curt: 19:07

I don't think it has anything to do. Puts the teacher off too much.

Aaron: 19:09

You constantly turn your homework in and whatever. So I, that's how I kind of operated all the way through schooling and that carried on into university and, and all sorts of stuff. So I just never really resonated with that. Yeah. I never really resonated with the academic side of things, but I wanted to always be interested. I like, I didn't, I never tuned out.

Curt: 19:31

Oh, you just tuned into your own thing more than you.

Aaron: 19:35

Yeah. So I, I would find

Curt: 19:37

it that was put in front of you. I'd

Aaron: 19:39

yeah, I'd be in a, I'd be in a class and I, and a professor would be talking, this was in our religious studies stuff and he would be talking about a particular book that we were reading in class. And then there would be this sidebar conversation about a small book, a different book. And I would go find that book and read that book, because that was more intriguing to me than having the discussions in the class about the book we were reading. Or I felt like that book might inform the conversations we were reading about. One

Curt: 20:06

of my friends once told me that, uh, when he was, when he complimented my writing and he was like, well, writing is thinking. And I think that's one point that I would bring out is like, what's the utility of writing in today's world when we can read anything we want to. Yeah. You know, but, but to try to think about what you think sometimes writing it down is an important element of that.

Aaron: 20:30

Well, I think it refines. You know, there's a lot of, there's plenty of. Word salad or just verbosity in the world. And so I feel like when you write it down, you have to distill it. You have to refine it. You have to make it into something that every word should matter. And when you read these great authors, whether it's E Cummings or. Uh, you know, randomly Dickinson's, you know, that there there's a precision in what they're doing, particularly the poets, they become really precise about how they're handling things. And so, yeah, I've very much appreciated this last semester on poetry. It's been really fun. I appreciate my, my friend who is, we knew we met each other in Bible college and he went down the academic road. He was always a guy that loved that. So ended up getting his doctorate and his ability to teach is, you know, kind of one in a million. He's just one of those guys that really stands out. And I really appreciate his approach to things. Cause I think one of the things that's gotten lost, I generally, and I, you know, this is probably a little bit strange to talk about, but I feel like the activism of our society or the social activism is what we try to read back into things. We try to find our way backwards towards. What today's issue is, and see if we can find it in the characters of the 17 hundreds or the 18 hundreds, or, you know, so it's more interesting now, an Apple's got a thing on Emily Dickinson, right. But they're more interested in her sexuality than they are her dog. And if you don't know that her dog was more important than her sexuality, then you don't know Emily Dickinson. Right. And so that's a big deal, but we want to try to find our way towards that conversation, which is really at the top of mind and everybody's world right now is how do we handle sexuality? And so it becomes very contemporized and it becomes your almost lose its transcendentalism. You, you just becomes kind of just another thing in the mush ball.

Curt: 22:29

Well, and Jill and I have been watching the Viking series. Have you seen that before? I've seen pieces of it. Yeah. It's the history channel programming. So it's kind of loosely based on the real for real Vikings. And when you watch something like that with these people from, I think the seven fifties or something, yeah. Th th the challenges of power and people and relationships and trust and betrayal and sexuality, it's old shit. Like it, ain't no different now than it was in Jesus' day. In Moses day in Vikings times, you know, in 17th century

Aaron: 23:06

America, you're still finding those things. And I think different cultures have mitigated those differently, right? I mean, I think different arrows of culture have mitigated that differently or had different taboos around those different things, but for the most part we're humans. So if from my own philosophical perspective, we're a damn mess and we need, you know, there's redemption that needs, and it's

Curt: 23:28

worth celebrating in this same voice, how much. More easily women are valued in today's society than maybe they were in 17 hundreds, America or, or whatever, other than the Vikings. Like some of those checks are awesome. Yeah. Well, and I evaluated

Aaron: 23:44

know. Yeah. And so I think it's just unfortunate that in education, the idea is like in order to make it interesting or make it compelling for people to read, we have to contemporize it.

Curt: 23:55

The education click baby. Yeah. Because it's taken over our whole world. Why would you spend time learning it? Um, I enjoyed your little book and I actually meant to text you to see if you'd bring me a couple more copies. Oh, good. Well, I'll grab a couple of, or buy them from you. Um, but talk to me about your book.

Aaron: 24:13

Yeah. Um, so I always wanted to write a book. I just love writing. So this is, again, this is like no one paid me to do this and I probably won't ever get paid to write. It was a good little book, but it was, it was something I wanted, I wanted to write a book. I had a goal in my life writing a hundred page. Okay. So I wrote, I wrote a book about faith and it's kind of an autobiographical story about me and my life. And why does faith matter? And then my thoughts on faith, thoughts on the church, thoughts on kind of, why does any of this matter in terms of, is there, is there a relationship between humanity and God and the world and their neighbor, and that's kind of the story that it's

Curt: 24:58

that relationship? I think, why do we fight as churches and church people about what the nature of that relationship is? Yeah, I

Aaron: 25:06

think, and that's really a conversation that was, that was part of the book. I've, I've, you know, I came to faith a little bit later in life as in high school. So it wasn't like, it's not my part of my family experience necessarily. So I wanted to write about what does that look like? And I wrote it, I did write it for my kids. Um, so that they could know what my story was at this stage in my life. So that at some point down the road, if they want to, you know, recollect it or re understand it, or they're maybe find themselves in those different stages of life, that there's some wisdom that I could have given to them, or at least just an anecdotal story about it. Well, it

Curt: 25:38

took a hundred pages too, so you don't want to just sit them down for two hours. So,

Aaron: 25:44

yeah. So anyway, it was a really fun, you can structure your thoughts. Yeah. Again, and it's, it's a refinement, it's a distillation of what I think and how to say it in a way that someone would maybe be compelled enough to read it. And so, yeah, it's been fun. It's been a really interesting thing. It's fun to write something like that. It's fun to put it out in the world. Um, whether or not anyone, you know, really resonates with it. I've heard some good comments from people, you know, it's sold copies around it's on Amazon and stuff. And so it's called careless in the care of God, careless in the care of God. And it's a short read. I think it takes a couple of hours, you know, to sit down and read through it. Um, and it's. It's nine chapters, Ray chapters, nine or eight, whatever. And it's just, just little different snippets of windows in my life that allowed me to kind of express how I was thinking about faith at different, at different seasons of my, of my life and

Curt: 26:35

understand.

Aaron: 26:36

Yeah. Yeah. And I'd hope that my kids would have the chance to understand that that's really all it's, that's really, all it was about was like trying to give them a gift of knowing who their dad was without having to, you know, that if someday I'm not around or they're in college or whatever, I'm not readily available for them, that they would have the chance to know who their dad is and what's going on in

Curt: 26:59

their life. Yeah. That's an interesting thing. If I had kids, this podcast, I suppose, was part of my legacy. They might even listen to half of them. They were bored and missing me sometime, but last, um, Uh, exchange youth from past years or listening to my podcast though, I've seen, seen some, some likes and some people listening and other countries that I wouldn't normally expect listeners that's

Aaron: 27:23

I think that's what is we all sort of, it's why literature is really valuable, right? To me is that those people were trying to say something certainly for the time that they were in. They were trying to write it down, maybe trying to leave something behind for a society so that there, there might be a marker or something in it

Curt: 27:40

that here's a guidepost of some sort of leads at least gives

Aaron: 27:43

us some con contextualization. Right. It's great to read Whitman's poems about the civil war, because you can read everything you want about the history and the battles and Robert Lee and general grants and all the rest of it. You can, you can read all of that stuff. And it's interesting information, but when you read Whitman's poetry about being a nurse in the civil war or reading his letters to someone about that experience, it humanizes it and it makes it something that you go, yeah. I don't think we really want to do this. You

Curt: 28:11

know, what's interesting is like, I was just reflecting on how many good books and books that added value to the world and to the brain of the thinker who read it or whatever. Yeah. And then when you think of bad books, like it's like mine comp and whatever Karl Marx's books are, like, I can't even hardly think about very few others in some respects. Well,

Aaron: 28:33

and even those I think are worth reading for sure. 'cause uh, we talked about this last time speech is this thing that has become something that you only have to, you have to say the right thing all the time. And I. If you don't, if you don't have space to read these terrible books that have been so destructive to society, then it's not, you're not doing yourself any justice, you know?

Curt: 28:56

Yeah. Capitalism is kind of a piece of crap until you see what socialism taken to its full measure looks like. Yeah. What's the

Aaron: 29:02

line. One of those, I don't know. Somebody famous said at once, which is like, yeah, of all the terrible things. That's the best of the terrible things. Right. And so it's an imperfect system, but so are lots of things. We should have a product

Curt: 29:15

placement here. This is this a, yeah. The Centennial limited edition Canadian rye whiskey. We had Canada on his mind, his last podcast and then the glitter. Uh, spirits from somewhere west and list west spirits and both good, nice tasty as well. So if you guys are hearing this out there, some whiskey and glyph, you can, can product placement free, free, free advertising. Yeah. There you go. Sorry. Cited squirrel chaser. So you've done a number of things in regards to creation. We've we've talked about your music a little bit in the past, but also the legacy project. Um, yeah, I thought it would be interesting for people that might listen out there that might want a deeper understanding even of, of our American history and capitalism and what, what the Republic versus a democracy and stuff. Yeah. Uh, can you give me the, like, give me the lead up to what, what created the legacy project and, and what is it now and how could you get engaged if you were listening to this?

Aaron: 30:16

Yeah, well, it's really my dad's deal. I mean, he, um, but you're the narrator, so I

Curt: 30:20

am

Aaron: 30:20

the pretty face. I'm the narrator. Yeah. Yeah, my dad and a friend, a really good lawyer, an attorney at town, uh, Jim Rittenberg, if you're listening to this listening, um, they were, they they've been friends for a long time. They were kind of probably your, our age. Honestly, they were probably in this, that late forties, early fifties kind of era. They considered

Curt: 30:45

themselves grumpy old guys already, and

Aaron: 30:47

they'd come to me. And I find myself saying that about myself too sometimes. Um, but they were kind of saying, you know, Hey, we complained about a lot of things all the time, but we don't really ever do anything about it. And that kind of went on a long time. I mean, they would get together for coffee and complain about local politics. They would complain about American politics or whatever, you know, just different things that they were. And at one point I think my dad just pulled Jim aside and said, what are we going to do about this? And so they, they formulated this really cool, uh, program, which is, um, you can't find it anywhere. There's no website. And this is an intentional by my dad who is. Uh, a unique individual on his own. I love my dad to death, but he's just, you know, he's just got his, his ways. And so one of them is that he doesn't, he doesn't advertise this anywhere. It's all word of mouth. Um, but basically it's, he gets 80 guys together every year and you get in small groups and once a month you get together and you go through a lesson and it's a small, short lesson. It's it's an hour. Um, and it's on different things. So we th he talks about, um, yeah, he talks about the, the birth of America. He talks about capitalism. He talks about Alex, that Tocqueville talks about the differences in economic systems. What do those look like? And then sort of also brings it back to sort of some, some activism within your own community. So his whole deal is do something kind for somebody. Yeah. And he'd tell stories about. Doing a generous tip at a, at a restaurant or buying somebody's breakfast that you don't know or whatever,

Curt: 32:19

opening your door and smiling at people more. It's not necessarily that, but yeah, but that's

Aaron: 32:24

part of it. Right? How do you, how do you physically like actively engage in doing something good for your community? Um, it doesn't have to be monetary. Always. It can be, it can be those kinds of things shoveling your neighbor's driveway or, or whatever, to just try to be, um, involved with other people's lives. Cause we, we live in a very isolated. Even though we like to talk on the field, like on the surface, we're very community driven. Reality is, is we're on our phone all the time. Right.

Curt: 32:49

Even within families, everybody's isolated sadly or

Aaron: 32:51

not, the strange, there's a strange isolationism that's happened. And certainly even got exacerbated over the last couple of years. And so his whole deals get together with people that you that are, that you don't know

Curt: 33:03

generationally different to like each group might have like a 20 something, a 30 something or 40 something, 50 something.

Aaron: 33:10

And then, and then, so there's kind of three legs to it. One is doing that community activism piece. There's the piece of getting the education, but then there's also sort of one-on-one with people in your group just to get to know them and kind of a mentorship type of thing. So the older guys are paired up with the younger guys to try to find out, you know, how can we help you in life? It's not a networking thing. It's not like rotary club or right. Or whatever. Right. It's not, it's not a, it's not a business masterminds or anything like that. It's just truly like guys that are in the community that are trying. B make this place better. We we've talked about this a ton, but I feel so fortunate that I live here. Right. And I think my dad on a large measure feels the same. Like we are as fortunate as we could ever be to be in the right place at the right time in the right business,

Curt: 33:53

rather than intentionality keeping it that way.

Aaron: 33:55

Yeah. And how do we make this place as special as it's always been? And so you do that by engaging.

Curt: 34:01

Yeah. I've just reflecting on, uh, cause I, I, I think I really got connected to you. I don't know, around the earliest days, maybe the second or third year, and you introduced me to your dad and what I was having breakfast with your dad, I was like, this sounds just like the kind of stuff that Jim ringer Berg would talk about when me and him would go to lunch back in the day, things like that. So, yeah. It's funny how. That residents can show through.

Aaron: 34:30

And it's still what I do still love about here. And even though it is just become a much larger place than I ever could have imagined it becoming. Um, I do resonate with the fact that most people still feel like this is a small town and most people feel and interact as if it's a small town. And so you do run into people wherever you go. That's um, and then I think if we can do things for people in that to pass along that genuineness of community that we always have seemed to have here, I don't know. Well, and I

Curt: 35:01

think that's maybe an encouragement where like, when I first moved to. I'd never been in a more welcoming place. It was like, welcome to Fort Collins. Hope you love it here. How can I help you connect? You know, and I think for, we have a lot of people moving here again. Now this is like another wave. Like there was a big wave back when I came here in the late nineties, early two thousands and it tapered off for a while. And then actually a lot of the people that came back to Fort Collins were some of the townies that grew up here and went off to go do other stuff for a while. Absolutely. And, and then when they started coming back, it was like obvious to everybody else that oh, that's supposed to be.

Aaron: 35:40

Yeah. There's you. And you hear that story often. I see, good friends are like, yeah, we left, we left town. I couldn't do it anymore. And you know, then they, they find themselves back here and you go, well, why, what brought you back? I'm like, well, there was no better place to live. We

Curt: 35:54

lived three places.

Aaron: 35:55

We didn't like it as much as we liked it here. And I think that, so the legacy piece is I think that project is really cool. I think it's a really, he's done that now. Gosh, I'm trying to think. I think he's on, this'll be year 10 when she's done this. And he's had anywhere from, you know, the first year was, I think there were 12 or 15 of us that did it. And then every year since it's probably been in 80 to a hundred guys, Yeah. And, um, he's always, yeah. So if anybody's interested in doing that project, I certainly can help get, and I have

Curt: 36:23

to go look up, uh, Aaron Everett, uh, the LinkedIn or the

Aaron: 36:28

state page. Yep. You can, you can email me or whatever. Find me I'm out there. You can, you can find if you can't

36:33

find

Curt: 36:34

me, you're not trying harder. That's right. I'm

Aaron: 36:35

available to be found so you can find me and I would be happy to connect you to my dad. Cause it really is a cool program. And I'd recommend it for anybody, honestly. Like,

Curt: 36:43

well, but it's boys

Aaron: 36:44

only. Well actually he started a family thing too. Oh, did. Yeah, he did. So he did, he does a couple of thing

Curt: 36:49

now. We're always part of the, but now you can actually go as a couple.

Aaron: 36:52

So he's got couples, ones that he does, and then he's got the men's group piece that he does as well. So,

Curt: 36:59

um, but not, it's perfectly appropriate for some groups to just be men, especially if they're talking about how to behave as a man. Yep. And

Aaron: 37:07

things, I totally agree with it. And that's certainly how he's approached it. I mean, that's been kind of like, Hey, you have a, you have a role in your community. Um, and yeah, well that might not be very, uh, yeah, it may not be very gender friendly, um, in our world. Well, but you know,

Curt: 37:24

like, but he always invited the spouses to come for the banquet at the end and certainly women are celebrated it through. Um, yeah, absolutely. So when you're calling men to the carpet for being a better husband and father,

Aaron: 37:37

it's probably going to do that to men better when their wife isn't there. So it's a great program. Honestly. I love it to death. I've taught now. I think of the 10 years, I've probably taught seven of them do at least something last year, I was just like a substitute for the program, but it's a great program and honestly, great it's stuff that most people walk away from and go, I didn't know that either didn't know that about our country. I didn't know that about capitalism. I didn't know that about economic systems and understand the words and the terminology. My dad's I've probably got some of the literature stuff, honestly from my dad. Not that he was a huge reader, but he always was very, um, he was, he was an, that words meant things. So like when I'd have a date over, my dad would ask him what the difference was between freedom and Liberty. You know, like the date is like, I dunno, can we just go like

Curt: 38:30

your dad's

Aaron: 38:30

weird man, super weird. Why are we doing this? But I think that was a real. It showed me early on that there was there, there was a different sexually there's. There is a difference between those two words and what they mean, right. And that there's there's responsibility implied by one. And one is just sort of, you know, anything goes, and those are two different outcomes, totally in a society. And so when people talk about freedom and not Liberty, then they're talking about something different, even though they seem synonymous, whether you hear it on the news, or you hear it in conversation, there are different things.

Curt: 39:03

I wonder how the new ministry of truth will contrast, uh, exercise of freedom of speech versus Liberty

Aaron: 39:11

of speech. I don't know. I don't know. And I think it's, this is, these are, these are very unique times.

Curt: 39:18

We are living, sorry, the department of misinformation and disinformation. Did you see that? I woke

Aaron: 39:27

up and it was 1980.

Curt: 39:28

Did you see the quote from the lady? That's the boss of it that said that the executive branch should never have the power over speech when Trump was president. Yes. And now she's the new bus of this thing

Aaron: 39:40

as the speech. Yeah. Honestly, the free speech thing is such a thing we have to do.

Curt: 39:43

We actually, everybody has to push back against that. Like even hard blue Democrats have to fight back because maybe you're right. Maybe some of your ideas and principles are right. You know, Aaron and I are kind of weird libertarian cynics about Republicans and Democrats, but we have to have free speech if we're going to try to navigate without war, uh,

Aaron: 40:04

a hundred percent. I don't think there's any, there's nothing more. To uh, to Liberty oriented society than to speak well. And to, and to have the ability to say something that your neighbor doesn't agree with. That's so critical because that's a refining process. That's the distillation process that makes a society better. And if you don't have that, then what you end up with is just meant

Curt: 40:30

to not pressure cookers than to me.

Aaron: 40:32

Yes and no. No one knows how to handle themselves when they hear something they don't like. So then you just get rage and rage

Curt: 40:42

tackling Dave Chappelle

Aaron: 40:46

it's silliness, honestly, like there is a, there's a. I'm, uh, I'm certainly a person that would believe more heavily in the idea that you do no harm to people, but that is like physical harm. Yeah. That's, that's the confiscation of their property. That's the confiscation of their right to work. That's a confiscation of their ability to be in, in the arena of ideas. Yeah. This is nuts. This stuff. I mean, let's just totally,

Curt: 41:15

especially over what we've seen. Yeah.

Aaron: 41:18

I get it. You didn't like mean tweets. I totally understand it. I actually didn't like them either. So it's, it's nuts to think though that what, what comes of that?

Curt: 41:29

Well, and Facebook and Twitter can't even keep all the craziest speech off of their platforms. Now how in the world is a government agency without burning up trillions of dollars in resources going to even think that they could even like, even to think that they could be altruistic. How could they ever be like the concentration of power? It would just be too much to actually stay that way. But just the, the amount of work it was just like,

Aaron: 41:57

and I think history shows you that the less capable you are of controlling a situation, the more you result in force, the more that results, the use of force. Totally. And I, I just think that's over and over with

Curt: 42:09

the whole truth. Doesn't mind being challenged, but lies, hate being called out. Yeah. You know,

Aaron: 42:16

so however that looks, it ends up in a forceful situation. I just don't know how you can do it.

Curt: 42:21

Otherwise. I think it'd be interesting to touch back to Canada because in our last podcast, just three months ago, yeah. We were kind of celebrating that the truckers were going to win. And Trudeau was like washed up. And, but then he like clamped the shit down and it was an awful thing to locked, froze a lot of bank accounts and hurt a lot of people and apparently situation normal, all left up in Canada.

Aaron: 42:50

It's that was really hard to watch. There are a lot of tears at our house actually about that deal nuts. It well it's it's okay. I mean, it was, it was hard to watch something in a free society, which we would consider Canada. I mean, year after year,

Curt: 43:06

the U S military

Aaron: 43:08

here, you would see those studies about the freest countries in the world. Canada's always at the top, right? To watch that go down with unmarked troopers, with tanks and armored vehicle accountabilities and no chance for, and no one doing anything other than trying to stand there and say like this, where. Yeah, we're here peacefully. We're here.

Curt: 43:33

Next time. They'll bring their rocket launchers too well, but you can't, you can't resist the power of the state when it turns its full

Aaron: 43:40

power on you. I think that was what was most disheartening in that deal was to look at it and go, you know what? This is a really powerful entity. Yeah. This is like Canada, right? We joke about Canada and its power in the world. This, they turn on their citizens quickly. And um, and I think that's what we have to really try to reconcile with in this deal is like, yeah, it might, I get it. There were, there are people that have a very different opinion than me. There are people that have a very, um, that may have even been hurt by opinions that have kept them from doing things in their life that they want to do. But that doesn't mean that we can't exercise that conversation. You can't just show us you can't just shut it. Bars. You have to have the conversation. And if you're going to do it through force, then, then you know what, you really you've lost the whole spirit of, of being free people.

Curt: 44:36

This is all about COVID, you know? And so like, there would be some listening to this and be like, well, if Texas wasn't so open for business and stuff, your uncle wouldn't have got COVID and he wouldn't be dead right now.

Aaron: 44:49

Yeah. There's, there's probably people that would have that sentiment. But the reality was is that the thing was random. You know, he was a healthy guy. That was, and I th I think I don't, I can't speak specifically for him, but I think knowing him, he would say take the risk. Yeah. Uh, the society has to take the risk that we, as people have to continue to live, we have to keep moving. We have to keep on keeping on, right. You can't insulate yourself from all pain, right. We are

Curt: 45:20

humans oil and not to stay on COVID. Cause we think we can bounce off if you want to. But that Dutch study that's been coming out and other studies that basically shows that the AstraZeneca and the Johnson and Johnson pretty good deal generally so far, as far as what we can tell, but the fancy pants, new MRI and stuff, actually, more people in all cause mortality have died since other than, beyond on vaccinated. So you're more likely to die from COVID if you're unvaccinated, but you're more likely to die overall with the vaccine now, which most people haven't listened to that yet. If you're listening out there and you're like, I've never heard of this. Well, it's because you haven't, it's not available. You have to be like a weird conspiracy theorist kind of guy and poke around. And there was a weird shit in to find this kind of stuff, but it's real. It's a Dutch study from highly respected scientists. It's not, not measurable. It's like all cause mortality. What are the statistics in our huge nation?

Aaron: 46:20

Well, This is the stuff that if you can't say stuff out loud, then all you end up with is one narrative. And when that one narrative has issue, or maybe it's even, let's go to the, all the way extreme that it's wrong. Right. Then what happens when that happens? Right? What are the outcomes of that? Who is responsible then? If everything is who do you hold accountable, right? Yeah. I mean, part of the biggest frustration with COVID is that there was an absolutely no one to hold accountable in the conversation. You can't hold anyone

Curt: 46:52

accountable to. I went running with my friend, Matt this morning and he's, uh, uh, he was a CDC scientist guy. He's a virologist he's, you know, smarter than most everybody I know about this. And he's like, well, what I've learned so far is that there's definitely an age area where the risk of becoming vaccinated was much higher than the risk of infection and consequence. So at least everybody. 20, but for sure everybody got, or at least everybody there in a 30 even, or for sure, 120, like you shouldn't ought to take in that thing, frankly, you shouldn't have given it to your kids. And if you're listening and you're mad at me right now, cause you've struggled with this or if you didn't and you just went along with the hurt, I'm sorry. But the data will show you, especially over time that you should not give that shit to your kids. I'm

Aaron: 47:41

sorry. It's um, it's really, it's really tough to, it's really tough to think about what the consequences are of like a free society. Absolutely has to have dissenting. If you don't have it, then there's no temperance. And so there's no chance for then things just go quickly. They just get out of control quickly spirals. And there's no chance for anybody to say, hang on. I mean, there are, there are countries in this world that reacted differently to COVID than the United States did. Sweden would be one of them and, and they look at it and they look at their numbers and they look at their data and they go, you know what? Well, let's protect the vulnerable. And you know, people get mad about Florida, but the reality was that that guy said, look, we're going to protect the vulnerable in a very elderly state, right? We're going to protect the vulnerable. We're going to do what we can to do that stuff. We're gonna encourage people to get the medicine they need when they need it. The rest of us are going to go back to living, right. And people get mad about it. They certainly got frustrated about it. And I think, but I think it does go to show that descending opinion has to be a part of the conversation because maybe Florida was wrong and maybe we handled it. Maybe Sweden

Curt: 48:52

learned next year,

Aaron: 48:53

but the next time, but these things that happen in our world, you have to have,

Curt: 48:56

you have to have a decentralized world. You have, we have to have a decentralized nation in order to maintain it. Like we have to go to a Republic that, and we might as well talk about Roe vs. Wade while we're here. Like there's a panties on fire, kind of a state right now doesn't make

Aaron: 49:13

abortion illegal. No, it just says if I read the opinion, so. Again, I'd like to read. So I don't like news. I, cause I think it's all got its own thing. I don't, I don't like there's a spin. Everybody's got a deal. So I read the opinion. It's a hundred pages. It's it's length. The

Curt: 49:31

same length as your book. Yeah, I bet it was way more boring to read in your

Aaron: 49:34

book though. Well, actually it was really well done. I mean, I think from a legal standpoint, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg said RO doesn't have any standing legally. Yeah. The most liberal justice that I have of our lifetime said road didn't have any standing. It doesn't have legal standing cause it wasn't codified

Curt: 49:53

in law. Um, by the way, if you're, uh, a music fan, my friend Mary merit has a band that's called the ruthless Ginsburg's and they're playing the afternoon. I think of it's a Sunday afternoon and may check their website. That'd be fun. It is. And it's a, it's a. Punk band with like standup bass in a mandolin and different things like that. Yeah. You should come. We'll ride our bikes there for me. Okay. So anyway, ruthless Ginsburg, some Sunday in may at the swing station, Mary, you could pay me later if anybody says that you are there because you heard this on the local experience podcast, I will pay your admins. There you go. Um, but this will probably come out after that show,

Aaron: 50:42

I think back to row, sorry. I think it's how it should be. Every place should have. We should probably have to have to make this decision through the legislature. And if all, if honestly, if, if all 50 states said just like Ireland did, if all 50 states said, you know what? We think that this is the right thing for women to be able to do sure. Have the vote, do it, get

Curt: 51:06

your legislature 32 of them or whatever it takes to document. Do I suppose, right.

Aaron: 51:11

Do it make it happen because that's the process how Roe happened. Doesn't have any legality other than what someone made up. And so this is the, this is the problem that people are gonna find all throughout issues with the, the lack of performance by a legislature in the United States, which has happened for the last, as long as I've been alive, maybe for a longer, honestly, the legislature stopped being willing, the

Curt: 51:37

EPA, like the legislature, maybe like planted the seed or something that became the AP EPA. But it's grown into this.

Aaron: 51:45

It's an act by Nixon. I mean, honestly it was, it was a presidential instead of order

Curt: 51:49

executive order. And now it's like the thing that makes a lot of projects cost four times as much and go half as slow and still happen because it makes.

Aaron: 52:00

I think we're woefully underrepresented as a, as a people. So one of my arguments all along has been that look with technology, you should be represented more in line with the constitution set, which was one representative for 20 to 30,000 people. We're currently at one to 750,000 people. We have senators that are representative. They represent the fifth, like a hundred people represent it's like 3 million people are. Right, right. I

Curt: 52:29

mean, it's a good luck getting that guy's attention. But if there was 20,000 people, that's like a big neighborhood. Yeah. And that person has to live in your community. Absolutely. That would mean that. And you can do big

Aaron: 52:39

zoom meetings. You should have more people represent four. We have the same number of people that represent four concepts. We do city council people.

Curt: 52:45

Right. And that should be, I think it's a brilliant idea. Like, is there a website or anybody else that is supporting this notion of like technology has allowed us to have. Representation. That's closer to the people. It wouldn't be nearly as lucrative for the no people, you know, especially if you're dirty.

Aaron: 53:07

So there's one, there's one guy I've kind of listened to over the years. He has, I think his is called 30 thousand.org and he got a little off the reservation the last little while, just because of just everyone's gotten off the reservation. Unbelievable. Anyway, 30 thousand.org has been a pretty good advocate for the idea that you sh that we should be represented by one, one person should be represented, not

Curt: 53:33

435 or whatever we have.

Aaron: 53:35

So it's literally the limitation of the building. I mean, that's what is going on. Yeah. There's no

Curt: 53:40

reason for that greasy pockets

Aaron: 53:43

that may, you know, that may mean that there's 10,000 whatever representatives and that might be cumbersome, but good. I would prefer cumbersome government over, over something that is effective. I mean, anybody who routes for effective government probably needs to really examine what they think about their why. Right. I would tell you that the Soviet union was fairly effective government. Right. And also tell you that POL pot was fairly effective. I can tell you that like

Curt: 54:11

many people that fast without an effective,

Aaron: 54:13

like to root for effective government is kind of, I don't think I'm going to ever root for effective. I want to root for a, a robust dialogue about how to advance our. Yeah, how do we get better? Some of those ideas are going to be progressive. Some of those ideas are going to be conservative. Some of those ideas are going to be off Dick

Curt: 54:35

recycled, totally crappy ideas from 50 years ago. Yeah.

Aaron: 54:38

We should be having a robust dialogue about that. And that requires more people to do that. It requires more people than 430 5:00 PM. Yeah, for sure.

Curt: 54:47

So I have like, it I'm, I'm all in. Yeah. It would be

Aaron: 54:51

if I could, if I could wave a magic wand and fix government say that would be more important if

Curt: 54:56

we had a convention of states, which I think would be useful. Um, and it might even be possible before too long. Like there, there may be a time not too far away where only kind of the super population centers resistant. Um, but everybody else is like no way, man. These super population centers. They are bending us all over and we need to talk about some things and we're going to do it according to the way the constitution lays it out. And I'm

Aaron: 55:24

still, I still haven't heard anyone make a cohesive argument to me as to why a purse I need. Why someone in Lusk, Wyoming needs to get along with somebody in San Francisco. I haven't had that argument come across the table that I'm like, no, there's a rationale for it. I understand that. There's things that we do should do collectively as a community. Defense would be one of them that I think is good. Although I think that needs its own. I think it needs its own restraint because I don't think we need to be in 130 countries around the world, right. Basis, some of that stuff. Right. But I haven't, I've never heard anyone articulate to me why the guy in San Francisco should have more say than the guy in Lusk, Wyoming, or why, even though what happens

Curt: 56:10

in Wyoming,

Aaron: 56:11

especially why those things even, why do we have to make those two people.

Curt: 56:15

Do you know, I know you've been doing some stuff and we should probably get a real estate update here soon. But, um, I know you've been doing some stuff in Wyoming. I wonder if you've heard of Eric Trowbridge? I have not. So Eric, uh, when I was trying to start a chapter in Cheyenne, Eric and I became friends and I think we were more LinkedIn friends than anything now, but we, we hung out a few times and, and enjoy each other. I think, um, he started the erase school of development in Cheyenne, downtown Cheyenne, which is like a tech training school. And he's like the leading person getting like Bitcoin and crypto kind of things, uh, advanced and whelming. And he's meeting with Microsoft, uh, this week to talk about Wyoming's tech future. And he came from apple and open apple stores. And Eric's from Cheyenne, lived in Seattle forever. He's an openly, at least was, I assume, still is openly bisexual, man. Like this notion that like we hang people from fences in Wyoming. Okay, uh, is kind of trashed by Eric becoming he's on lots of boards, like six of them or something like that. Cheyenne has embraced him and the tech speak that he's bringing in. And frankly, he's doing really great work. I really am proud of him and I, and I used to bust him smoking cigarettes outside before he, you know, he's counter cultural, whatever. And women's like, dude, you're cool. Get in here and do some

57:46

good

Aaron: 57:47

stuff. So we've been doing business as a company in Wyoming. Um, well, it's a long story, but I lived in Sheridan when I was a kid, Sheridan, Wyoming, when I was a young kid. So my dad, we were, it was still kind of a proxy business of the Everett companies here. Yeah. My dad was building houses in Sheridan, Wyoming because my dad couldn't handle living here. So we moved to Wyoming and it was awesome place to be a young boy. I mean, it was fishing and skiing and all sorts of just like outdoor pheasant hunting and all sorts of

Curt: 58:57

stories. We've talked about this. Semi-famous ish like in Fort Collins and whatever pressures that came

Aaron: 59:03

with it. My dad certainly loved it and I didn't know any different, but I, I definitely resonated with living in Sheridan, such a wonderful spot. Um, we we've through the course of just kind of doing business the right way. I think that's the best way I could. It's a short way to do the story. But, um, my dad, the economy crashed in 1984, terribly like in Wyoming so that the coal mines had left. And it was just this total. So we went from a bunch of building permits to the only building permit in 1984 that was pulled was for offense. So like we weren't building houses and that's how we were making money and that wasn't working. And so my dad, I had a great fourth grade teacher and in order like my dad, I'll never be able to say, thanks enough for this. But he with was fabulous. Fourth grade. He knew that was coming up. And he was like, we need to go back to Fort Collins because that's really where we need to be. But he, he knew that if I could go through that year, that it would be really beneficial to be sacrificed. So he stayed in like he did odd jobs and I didn't know this. And I had no idea around, around that. This is what happened. My dad was doing odd jobs around this town. So he was like paint. He tells this story about painting the ceiling of the Stevens Fryberger, which was a as like a department store. And he's like in the women's lingerie department painting the ceiling and, you know, that's what he did for us. And it's what he did for me particularly. I mean, he knew that that was, it wasn't so much for my sister at that time, because she was still young, but it was for me to stay in this year and have this incredible experience with this teacher who really ultimately was probably the most influential teacher in my whole education. Gives us teacher a shout out. Yeah. Kelly Young. I don't even know if he's alive. I don't know if he's around. I don't know where he is, but he was fabulous. He was like the best, I mean, we did stuff that, again, a guy that was pretty. Counter-cultural he was taking us over to Cody to do the wild west museum, and we were going to Yellowstone and we were explaining to the teacher totally amazing guy. Great. Made us read a bunch and had this great, just great system of getting us to be interested in education. He was awesome. So we stayed around for that. But in that process, we actually ended up in dad, ended up in some trouble with the owner of the land in terms of what he owed and money. So w and the guy was so gracious and he was like, look, I'm not gonna tell you, you don't owe me the money, but go do what you need to do in order to figure this out. So over the course of however many years, dad paid him back. And then 20 years later, he called and said, Hey, I've got this huge ranch owner in Wyoming and Sheridan. So they owned a ranch. It was, I think it was 14 miles long by seven miles wide. It's like,

Curt: 1:01:38

what the hell should I do with this ranch? Yeah.

Aaron: 1:01:39

So he called dad and said, Hey, would you be willing to help? We, you know, we could have parceled this off into 35 acres and whatever, but it doesn't seem like this is a fit. We need to make Sheridan a better place and do some things. And so he called dad and said, would you help us do this? And so I was still working at the company. This was early on in the company, probably 2003 or four when I was there. And he said, yeah, let's go up. So we would drive up and go to city council meetings on like a Monday and then drive home Monday night. I mean, it was crazy stuff that we were doing again, it's five hours up and back. And so dad loved to do it. So we would go do this thing. And I was learning a lot about that community as an, as an adult, not just as a kid and just totally loved Sheraton. I mean, it's one of the, I don't, you know, Harvard won't even give it away. It's such an incredible

Curt: 1:02:21

place. Yeah. Uh, only go there if you really want to be Wyoming, but the business in Wyoming is so easy

Aaron: 1:02:27

to do. Yeah. That I'm, that we've started to do more business there now as a kind of, my dad's really wanted to do business there. I've kind of gravitated to doing business there because it's, it is a much

Curt: 1:02:37

easier, um, it's working hard to, they can't get rid of the wind. No, the camp is pretty,

Aaron: 1:02:44

we're just a little valley. It's really beautiful spot. Might my best friend from high school who grew up here, we were on swim team together is now the aquatics director insurance. So when I go up and see Brant. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's really great. So we've been doing a lot more business up there, but the difference is stark. So we did a, uh, what's called a PUD, a planned unit development here. They don't even allow them anymore. Some communities still allow them, but for the most part, they're totally toast here. But if you could equate it to a process here, it would be like a change of zone and a change of use and a plat all at the same time. And so it's this really complicated,

Curt: 1:03:22

right? This wasn't agricultural property. Do we want to turn it into three lots,

Aaron: 1:03:27

plus some commercial plus some other things, and maybe we want to have a daycare and we want to have all these different uses on this property. We can't just carte blanche is own it. We have to have this unique zoning. Right? So we did that process. We started that, uh, we submitted the documents in November, so, and we got a fully approved plat by March that here would take, well, if you could do. It would take you three to five 10. I don't know how many years it would take

Curt: 1:03:57

you five years plus probably three years. If you were like, if you're like, if you're a grease in the right pockets and you were working

Aaron: 1:04:02

in Pierce. Right.

Curt: 1:04:04

But in Fort Collins or, and it just wouldn't even happen.

Aaron: 1:04:07

Right. You just, so the distance, the difference is distinct. It's easier to do business. And, and

Curt: 1:04:14

my hopes for America honestly, is that like, realizing that so much business can be done remotely. And what the value of having a local experience, a community oriented experience. Yeah. Like Sheridan's what 20,000 people or something. Yeah, 40 maybe. And it's not that big, right. If you're in Sheridan and you're a 15 year old bad kid, Like a lot of the other parents know that you're a bad,

Aaron: 1:04:40

well, it's so good because Brent, Brent and Lee, Liz, his wife, and they went to CSU and now they live there and we have dinner together. Every time we go up. Cause I just, I mean, he's, Smith's best friend in high school, you know, we were just great, great, great friends. We still are great friends. Um, we go out and have dinner with them and she's like, yeah. If somebody asks me to give a reference for this kid who I know has trouble, he doesn't get a job in town. And I'm like, wow, that's crazy. You know, like that doesn't happen here. Nobody even checks. Right. So, so it's really cool to see a small town kind of functioning and, and it's really fun to do business there. I will absolutely drive the five hours to go do it.

Curt: 1:05:19

And then where do you work though? If you want to move to Sheridan? Well, there's in your

Aaron: 1:05:23

business with you. Yeah. That's kind of a thing, right? I mean, that's, what's interesting about COVID in the realignment in real estate is that people are going well, look, companies realize that they don't have to do what they're doing. So in shared and there's like. Uh, Loveland has, what's called a desk chair. I actually office chair, coworking space. Um, we work as a kind of international famous one or whatever. Sheridan has one that you can go and post up in and do your work there if you want. But you put, you can do

Curt: 1:05:50

anything. You can upgrade to the free conference space through whatever,

Aaron: 1:05:54

but all of that's available there and people are bringing their businesses there because they go well, like I just want a quality of life. Yeah. I actually want a small town and I want a small place to live and I wanted to place it is good and friendly towards business. And I want to try to do something. So, um, a really interesting one is whether it be gun, whether it be ammunition and guns. Oh, they were California company, Southern California company. Wow. And it just got so onerous to do business in Southern California. They moved to Sheridan. Nice. And they opened their factory in Sheridan. They be able to build a great shotgun, right. By haunt with one. It's awesome. So that kind

Curt: 1:06:26

of stuff has happened. Most of those places that have those small towns and those small schools and those, like not only would they support a local employer of note, but you can also grow a garden.

Aaron: 1:06:41

Yeah. And you can actually get a lot that isn't like, here's your sugar, you know, out the window, you can actually do something that is reasonable, right? Yeah. Like the, the prescriptiveness of what happens here in order to make sure that growth is managed to someone who is, it's an esoteric management of their opinion. Right. In Fort Collins, there's been a few guys that are just like in advanced planning that had been there forever. And we're all living by their doctrine, but we'd like, no one even knows their names. Right. That doesn't happen in some of these other places who are more from it and say, Hey, like we need, you know, we, we wanted to do a storage unit facility up there cause it's necessary. It's needed. Right, right. We're bringing a bunch of people up there to live. They need

Curt: 1:07:29

too much stuff, or at least they have a two month need. Yeah. Yeah. They need to put their

Aaron: 1:07:33

stuff in a deal. Right. So this, that is like super controversial, controversial to do a storage unit here is you want to talk about that's the

Curt: 1:07:42

storage units by a Sweetwater brewing and on the way to O'Dell's the other day, I was like, oh shit. They would never, ever, ever let that

Aaron: 1:07:51

happen. Yeah. The long knives come out, right. Like, oh, it's just going to be, and it's always the fear-mongering that's like anti-growth stuff is always a fear-mongering deal in real estate. It's always like, everybody's going to tell you that it's, you know, the next thing you know, we're going to have all this, you know, X, right. Which is just, and storage units bring the worst on people. We didn't have a single public company. Yeah. People are like, yeah, we need done. And the city, the building department was like, how do we help you

Curt: 1:08:16

get the council's? Like, I I've been looking for a story. Like, how do I get on the lizard? Right. Um, one of the things actually let's take a short break and then we'll do the real estate update. It sounds great. All right. Local and we're back. Great. Um, so real estate update, uh, you mentioned as we were chatting earlier that you work with a lot of first time home buyers, they're trying to buy, they're trying to catch up to the market. Yep. Some of them are barely qualified, but they want to get something as soon as they can. So it doesn't get more expensive because guess what inflation is here. Yeah. Uh,

Aaron: 1:08:52

so this is just, yeah. The dynamics in real estate right now are just so, so interesting. I don't think I've ever seen this. And I, you know, again, I, I, haven't been a broker as, as a portion of my career. It's been a smaller portion of my career. I haven't seen this in my whole career where you have such a, you have no inventory. I mean, April's statistics, there were 156 houses on the market in Fort Collins,

Curt: 1:09:21

in Fort Collins. So was one per thousand. Yeah.

Aaron: 1:09:24

And I mean, you know that more people are driving here tomorrow off the interstate to look at houses. I mean, it's crazy. So that's for the whole month of April, that's really low. Um, and I think the hardest part for me to observe, and this is probably this moves into a little bit of philosophical stuff. I'm really struggling with the fact that our community has always been a very, uh, economically wide open community. It can be. I don't have a lot to offer in terms of, of their monetary economic value. Exactly. And then there's a super, you know, there's moments where you're, you wouldn't know if you were standing in line next to a billionaire at target, right? I mean, there's, there's this kind of dynamic, that's always been part of a community. I don't think we're going to keep that. And I, and I think that there's a lot of factors to that. We've talked about it before. I think politics plays a huge role in it. I think local, I went to a

Curt: 1:10:19

youth plus two meeting the other day that chamber facilitated big deal, huge deal. Right. There's so much under utilized property. There was a gal and her husband, their fiance, they're not married yet, but they bought their first home. They anticipate having children. Yep. They have a four bedroom, two bath home. Um, and that what they would like is for another couple friend of theirs to move in, but that's illegal. Even though they would, there would be two empty bedrooms or everybody could have their own individual bedroom if they weren't couples. But why would they do that?

Aaron: 1:10:55

Well, it would be illegal in what's so crazy about all of that stuff is it's nonsense, right? I mean, there's like a seven second way around that by just putting them on title. Right. Right. And then they both own the house and no one cares. Right. That's a dumbest, like that's just a dumb nonsense policy, right. That doesn't make anything, any, it doesn't make

Curt: 1:11:15

anybody, but then you can put them on title, but then there's risk there potentially. I suppose there's a quick claim that you have on site at the same time, I suppose, or whatever. But you have to play games. You have to take the rules. That means the rules are stupid. Like reasonable people.

Aaron: 1:11:29

You could, you could, in theory, you could take something and you could say, well, look, we'll do a tendency in common. Instead of joint tendency, we'll do tendency in common and we'll have, we'll have a buyout strategy with each other. We'll have an agreement that says one person is going to do this. And one, person's going to do this. And then we'll have a shotgun clause.

Curt: 1:11:44

The one couple already. I mean, they just want roommates to help them pay the rent. I totally understand. So they have the deed, their title over to these other couple.

Aaron: 1:11:53

You could literally do a 1% ownership of the deal and it would be, you know, it's the dumbest thing, this same thing.

Curt: 1:11:58

But if you've got to do those gyrations to do that, like that's dumb,

Aaron: 1:12:01

right. And it also adds costs, right? So there's now there's an attorney and now this is a double, whatever is it's really silly stuff. And honestly, you, these are the policies of this place that have made housing, absolutely unaffordable for the, for the best part of our demographic. Yeah. The people who we want here, young vigorating

1:12:25

part

Curt: 1:12:25

of what the city council wants. I don't know why they wouldn't pick it up and take it.

Aaron: 1:12:30

cause they say that I'm going to really mean that I'm going to get into seven trouble here. They say that they do not mean that they don't want it. Actually, they would love to see the town be more like them. Yeah. Every city council person that's ever been elected wants to see the town look more like them. It's just a Portland

Curt: 1:12:46

that's in every city. You brought up how the U plus two was basically a racist policy set up to keep the Hispanics out of Fort Collins.

Aaron: 1:12:56

I'm making a really squingy face. Cause I actually probably agree with that. Yeah. So, um, I don't, I

Curt: 1:13:03

and the city council that's serving us right now, wouldn't want that to be the case and they come out of

Aaron: 1:13:09

their mouth. Right. But the policy stuff that, that people implement. And

Curt: 1:13:13

I wouldn't say that our current city council would say they want a Hispanics out of town, but, but they neither would. They acknowledge that the original policy was designed for that. And I, at least it was that like, based in everything I heard, I met some people there that were around when it first came out, they were like, it was obvious that the. It's tough.

Aaron: 1:13:31

It's tough to say it out loud and it's hard. Cause I don't, I don't want to be disparaging of people who are put in those positions, but honestly, I feel like the decisions that God made over the course of time here were really about isolationism. They were truly about making this place look like the people that were already here.

Curt: 1:13:51

I just had a conversation. It just came out this week with the Matthew's house staff. And each of them has a really interesting multiracial background as well as multi, um, social capital or economic disadvantage and things like that. Yeah. And it was amazing to me, frankly, how their heart was different than frankly what I see, uh, in these kinds of policies. Well,

Aaron: 1:14:25

I had a conversation with somebody to do. Decisions. Right. And even if this is an undone, like even if this is an unintended consequence and everybody had the most altruistic wonderful you, plus two

Curt: 1:14:38

is just all about college kids and not having noisy parties,

Aaron: 1:14:41

we'll have to keep our neighborhoods quiet and that kind of stuff. If even if you give it all the benefit of the doubt, the reality is a non-decision is a decision. It absolutely is a decision. And so in this case, what happened at policy-wise contributes to our head? Yes. And it contributes to our inability to attract young people to come here and live here and be able to afford it. Totally.

Curt: 1:15:05

I've met so many people from other cities across the country that have chosen Fort Collins after researching and reading articles and stuff like that. And they're like, we'd love it. And oh my God, is it not diverse at all? And I

Aaron: 1:15:19

miss that and where can we? Yeah. And we couldn't live here. Right.

Curt: 1:15:25

And we can't afford it.

Aaron: 1:15:28

Yeah. So yeah. Real estate is an interesting thing. I tend to go there because I probably have the, I probably have the luxury of thinking about it more than others, because I think most people in the brokerage business are interested in just trying to find out, you know, how do I get my next deal? Yeah. I, you know, I, I probably, I'm very unique.

Curt: 1:15:46

You'd rather have five deals 10 years from now than one deal today. Yeah. And

Aaron: 1:15:51

I probably, I sat down with some friends of mine the other night that are brokers and they were like, you know, I, they were all buddies from the group and I let you know, I had, I moved my license this year to resident Realty just for a number of reasons. But they were like, you know, you're probably the only guy at this table that could do that. Right.

Curt: 1:16:08

Because everybody else needed that support that network.

Aaron: 1:16:11

Yeah. You're you might be unique in this setting. And so part of that is that I think. I just really want to see, like, Larry Kendall has always said list to last and I hate listings. Like, I shouldn't say that out loud, but I don't want to fuck around with that. I don't love listings because it's, it's a, it's a different business. I really love the education that comes with buyers. Right? Yeah. Like buying and selling and transitioning land and doing something and getting, I love that. Like, that's just so much fun to me. Yeah. Um, I will, I'll certainly do listings, but I, I don't, that's not,

Curt: 1:16:46

and he sell yours for more than you thought, but he won't buy your listing. We have an education moment here. What does buying your listing mean?

Aaron: 1:16:58

So it's a trick a little bit, but basically it means that somebody is going to come in and pay you under what they think it is because the support in the con the support around it economically isn't there. So let's say you're, you're trying to sell your house. Oh, right. But it looks. From a market value perspective. Oh, see, you're

Curt: 1:17:19

such a rookie in real estate. You're defining it wrong. At least maybe I'm defining it wrong to me buying your listing is like blowing smoke up your skirt. Like, oh, your property is worth 400,000, even though it's really only worth three 50, but I get your list. You were saying if somebody that you're not interested in listing. So, so,

Aaron: 1:17:38

but he will not buy a great realtor.

Curt: 1:17:41

I'm sorry. That was terrible to do in live conversation. But that's

Aaron: 1:17:44

what I did. You know what you're talking about? So yeah. Some people will do that for sure. Some people will come along and say, Hey, y'all I can make sure we get this much money for your house. Yeah. And then three months

Curt: 1:17:52

later, you're like, I'll take anything. Well,

Aaron: 1:17:56

And it's unique in this market because I think that's part of what's so troublesome about low inventory. No one wants to sell their house cause they don't know where to go. Yeah. There's new construction is always the replacement for that. It's always been the replacement. You say I'm leaving this house to go buy something better, newer, more updated. You know,

Curt: 1:18:17

there's

Aaron: 1:18:17

not enough. There's not even close. I mean, if you added up everything that's available, add the water moratorium, severances listings. So F severances sales over in the month of April, we're down 64%, 64% over the month over, but that's not, this is the fastest growing community in Northern Colorado. It's down, it's down 64% because you can't get us. You can't get a building permit. Right. That's not helping anything, you know, in the whole. In the whole scope of how to get a place that's affordable for people to live in order to bring into this community, the things that you need in order to be a healthy, vibrant community. If you're, if you want to talk about demographics, we're an aging community and we're not getting younger because we aren't importing people that need that are here that are young and willing because they can't live

Curt: 1:19:03

here. Clearly we need more COVID to knock out some of those old people so we can have pupils. Don't just kidding. That's terrible. Um, let's talk about catching up to the market because literally I just had a conversation with somebody the other day and they were like, you know, we tried to try to buy and we couldn't quite, I was self-employed it took me a couple of years because I bought this business and then we did good, but we just, it's just been a little bit out of our reach.

Aaron: 1:19:31

Yeah. So this is, this is another piece that's kind of, what's the

Curt: 1:19:34

bottom of the market now.

Aaron: 1:19:36

Uh, I don't think you can get it into for cons. I like you could get a townhome or an apartment or condo or something like that under. Still

Curt: 1:19:44

for, uh, for, uh, a small house, uh, uh, 1500 square foot, three bedroom, one and a half bath in an undesirable neighborhood.

Aaron: 1:19:55

Uh, 4 75. Yeah. Okay. I think even the worst of the worst is probably four 50 to 4 75. Oh my goodness. If you're in a, if you have anything. Oh, so I watched a house that I, that I was kind of had some influence on. I was designed the floor plan, the lady that built it, I, they were clients of mine. They built it with my cousin grant. Um, the, they had sold a house that was probably my favorite house I ever designed. They sold that and kind of took their cash out of that a few years ago. This is probably, I don't know, maybe this is five years ago. They took their cash out of that house. Moved it over to another neighborhood, built a floor plan that I had designed super cool floor plan. Um, had a little courtyard inside the house. I mean, it's like innovative design, really fun. Um, an outdoor courtyard inside your house. Um, my cousin grant built it. They lived in it for a few years. They sold it. Um, I think they sold it maybe two years ago. Okay. I think it hit the market at, at what I thought was a really crazy number, Nate hundreds, they sold it. It just hit the market again and sold in four days for another a hundred thousand over that. Right. You know, so that if you're in a good location with good house yeah.

Curt: 1:21:20

As the kind

Aaron: 1:21:20

of weirdly sky's

Curt: 1:21:22

the limit like we considered, uh, the only time we considered new builds was actually one of your projects before we really got fairly acquainted was westbound bungalows. Yeah. And we kind of liked that project. And I want to say there was, there was like some stuff. At the 2 75, we

Aaron: 1:21:40

were back in 2009 and walk out lots back. There's like the best premium lots. We were in 2 95, right? 2 85.

Curt: 1:21:49

So what are those worth today? Do you think,

Aaron: 1:21:50

man, if I were listing in there, I sold one in there two and a half years ago, we sold it for 6 25. So that was not on a desirable law. Yeah. At least 17% appreciation last year. Well, in one year.

Curt: 1:22:05

So to get back to the question, if you're, if you're on the sidelines, you've saved up 50 grand or something, something real, you know, something more than 10. Yeah. And you have good jobs. You've got no kids. You've got discretionary income. You're playing you're the live in the Fort Collins lifestyle, but you're tired of renting an apartment. Yeah. Like what's your, what's your game? What do you play?

Aaron: 1:22:28

Well, so I do a first-time home buyers class every month and that's part of what I like. It's part of how I build my business, but it's also partially. Uh, I just talked to a guy from Cambodia today who was like, how do I even get into this thing? Right. And my answer to that is, um, you have to kind of understand that there is a game going on to some degree in, in the, in the sense that inflation is real, it's tangible. It's definitely something that people feel when they go to the grocery store. And when you know that you feel it in cars and your groceries, you know, something's amiss, right? So I think what I tell people in my classes are that the only real hedge against inflation. The only hedge that anybody's kind of handed to you is the opportunity to buy a house. Yeah. There isn't anything else that like you can live in and destroy and do terrible things to, and still make money on. Right. That's like that doesn't happen. That's that's housing in Northern Colorado certainly has been traditionally. Yeah. So what I tell people is, look, there's all sorts of programs. There's there's first time home buyer programs that are like chaff as a great program. Um, there's a new thing called Metro DPA, which is like a grant for first time. Home buyers really do whatever you can to try to

Curt: 1:23:48

figure it out. Ask your parents, ask your wife's parents, whatever, and

Aaron: 1:23:53

also expand your sphere. Like I get it. Fort Collins is the most desirable place in the world to live. But there's lots of other great surrounding communities that will allow you to get on the train, still build a reasonable amount of equity. So you can work your way towards something that might come on in the next time that it comes, you know, that it softens

Curt: 1:24:11

the Windsor was like so affordable compared to Fort Collins. When I first moved here and it's not now

Aaron: 1:24:17

we used to laugh about it. It was like drive till you qualify. Right. Right. That was kind of the thing, but that's not

Curt: 1:24:21

gas prices that don't work no more. Well, so if you were looking for a little bit lower prices in Northern Colorado still, like what would you be looking at? I'd be looking at Eaton. Yeah. Love eating. Actually.

Aaron: 1:24:35

Even I like all, it was pretty cool. I think

Curt: 1:24:38

all in Eaton, not cheap anymore. No. And

Aaron: 1:24:41

there's still some new construction stuff. Theater is eating. No, nothing super cheap, but I would, and I would also look at Greeley. Yeah. Honestly, I think F I, for the best value proposition in Northern Colorado, Greeley has it. Yeah. They have. Okay. Wisely,

Curt: 1:24:56

Texas over there in Greeley. It is,

Aaron: 1:24:58

but wisely years ago, I think they, they solve their water problem. They're the, they're the largest water holder in the United, in, uh, in, uh, Northern Colorado state. They own the most sheriffs. They have the best infrastructure. They can solve all of their future growth problems because they own the water. Right. And they did that a long time ago. You know, I think they built a bunch of reservoirs. Most of the reservoirs that are on the pooter are actually Greeley water. Right. So even

Curt: 1:25:26

the, the new one that would be built up here, it's mostly Greeley water, right? Yeah. It would be,

Aaron: 1:25:31

be solving a lot of Greeley's issues, uh, Glade, Glade. Yeah. But you have

Curt: 1:25:35

big because that bumper sticker, you know, the one which one save the pooter. Yeah. Starting

Aaron: 1:25:41

late. That's the story? Uh, uh,

Curt: 1:25:47

touch that. That's okay. It's

Aaron: 1:25:48

all right. It's just, there's such a, there's such a misunderstanding about water. I, I. This partially what I touch on in my classes. Right. Which is just, I want people to understand why

Curt: 1:25:59

things cost. If water's, if a water permit is worth $60,000 in Windsor or Fort Collins or whatever, and it's, and it costs $20,000 in Greeley, frankly, it's still worth $60,000 in 20 years from now land when water is more important than ever.

Aaron: 1:26:17

Yeah. So I think Greeley is a great value proposition in Northern Colorado. I do think that if you're willing to expand your horizons a little bit and look at it more regionally than we used to, you know, it was sort of like there was, there was always an invisible boundary to cross I 25, um, because Windsor got cool Windsor got cool. And actually severance is a great place to live. Yeah. Timnath is a great place to live. All these little communities kind of got their own little legs. So I think the value proposition now is now 85 is. So 25 was the boundary. Now I think 85, the boundary, right? Cause I think people can work from home. Most days, my assistant lives in Eaton, she works at home, you know, out of the month of 30, if we had 20 days of work, 19 of them, she works from home know and it's fine. It works. And I think for most people it works like that. And if you have to drive in once a week even to go do something right, most people can solve their problems with technology. And I think real estate is realigning

1:27:11

because

Curt: 1:27:11

of it. Yeah. Very cool. Um, anything else in the real estate update side that's worthy? Well,

Aaron: 1:27:18

everybody wants to ask, always ask me what's when when's the bubble going to pop, right. That's an

Curt: 1:27:22

interesting question. Okay. Sure thing. With interest rates rising. So the buying power is down, you know, I remember my dad saying whatever. Nine or something that the cure for high prices is high prices and the cure for low prices is low prices, you know?

Aaron: 1:27:39

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I do think that, so I don't know, I'm not going to say unequivocally that this is the end of the, of the deal. I don't, I don't think that it may be actually, but I think the softening may come. I don't think that, you know, statistically in real estate, because the dollar is decoupled from anything solvent. Right. The reality is as the prices continue to go on, it just goes up. Right? So the number goes up, the value proposition may be different, whatever, but the V the number continues to go up. So even statistically through recessions and interest rate stuff, I just did a video

Curt: 1:28:16

on people want to live here. Yeah. Right. So don't expect, don't wait for prices to come down a month, a bunch in Northern Colorado. I mean,

Aaron: 1:28:23

statistically, you know, eight, four cones came down 1% really? That's it? Oh, wow. You know, ain't no nine prices were down 1% over the year before. Well,

Curt: 1:28:34

that's not a lie things slowed down a lot for sure. When we, we had some bank owned properties and stuff, construction projects that didn't shell. And for

Aaron: 1:28:43

sure there were deals. I'm not going to say that they didn't, but on the whole and, and mass you're talking, you have to, you have to be empirical about real estate or I've, I've always told everybody real estate is a math problem period, but there's nothing, there's nothing else to real estate other than math. Well,

Curt: 1:28:58

there's some social science in there too.

Aaron: 1:29:00

Well, if you want to do it as an, as an investment is only a math problem. Yeah. And yes, we all need a place to live and yes, we all need it. We want to have great things for our kids and I understand all this. Esoteric ideas out here on real estate. But generally if you're talking about how do I make money in real estate, it's a math problem. It's point a to point B. How long do I hold it? How much? Yeah,

Curt: 1:29:23

if I'm charging rent. Yep. How much rent do I need to charge?

Aaron: 1:29:27

Just putting a spreadsheet together and figuring that out. I think what's really interesting about where we're going to find what we're going to find over the next course of any kind of bubble breaking or bursting or doing anything like that is that statistically prices don't actually dip. They just stay on an upward trajectory because the dollar, most people unders

Curt: 1:29:47

smaller and smaller dollar. Yeah.

Aaron: 1:29:49

So the number has

Curt: 1:29:50

to go up right. Measured in dollar

Aaron: 1:29:51

terms. No, one's paying less for gas than they did. Five years ago, and I don't care who's in office or whatever. Like you could look at the highest,

Curt: 1:30:01

there was occasionally some lows and the highs, but it's always trending up.

Aaron: 1:30:04

Most everything is moving up because the value of what your dollar buys is trending down, that's inflation. That's that? And we've as a society, agreed that we can live with one or 2% inflation a year starts to get into this weird place where you're talking about eight and 9% a year. And now all of a sudden people feel funny about it. It feels awkward and weird. And so how do we handle that? And that's really what is why the pressure feels what it is. Yeah. So I would just say that. Yeah. Is it going to bust? Yeah, of course it does. It always does.

Curt: 1:30:33

Everything can go of at 17% each year forever.

Aaron: 1:30:36

No, not at all. I will say the inventory inventory constraint is something that I'm really watching that I think is just totally different than any other place that I've seen. I just, haven't seen this before, where you have sort of rampant. Interest rates rising, but the supply is so dramatically that there's no like there's no,

Curt: 1:30:56

it's probably these big national home builders that have taken over the economy in Northern Colorado and most other places, like they can't find people. Good jobs executed. Like they would like to have supply

Aaron: 1:31:07

chain issues. We have a bunch of things that are going on so that, so things just stay kind of, I think the prices will stay up.

Curt: 1:31:12

Why are there actually more? Was there a baby boom in the COVID crisis? Did people pumped out, but that shouldn't have taken, like, why do we need so many more houses than we have

Aaron: 1:31:21

right now? No, I actually don't know. I think some of it has to do, I do think some of it has to do with immigration. I think we have, I think we have a lot of, I think a lot of people coming, I think people want to be here. And I do think that that America in general, sustains its population it's demographically compared to Europe or compared to other places we're still keeping pace. Right. We're still 2.1 kids per family, which is ahead of pace or whatever for replacement. So I do think some of that's just part of it. I think we're just naturally a growing society. I think immigration is a part of it. Not disparaging that actually at all. I think immigration is really positive for the United States. And I think it's a really good thing. I just think that that's part of what happens.

Curt: 1:32:00

So we've talked about family already. We've talked about faith a little bit with your book and things. Yeah. Politics. We haven't talked too much about, uh, let's talk about, let's take a quick dip toe in the water with immigration policy because that's current events right now. Um, what should we do? Should it be open borders? Should it be restricted? Should it be like, like Costa Rica and New Zealand are a couple of places that I think about and they're like, yeah, you can come. If you got like a great education or a bunch of money or a business you can bring here or whatever, otherwise piss off. Um, and it feels like to me that I hate to be that elitist because I do want America, you know, I think there has to be both. Yeah. But pretty much everybody that's coming in right now. Isn't. People that want to create their new existence in America. Maybe not everybody, but there's too many people that want to be here for the free education for their children and the opportunities ahead. And they, they probably don't even have a high school education themselves in many cases. Yeah. I would say almost two out of three.

Aaron: 1:33:06

Yeah. And I, so, so I have a unique perspective on this because my wife's an immigrant. Yeah. So,

Curt: 1:33:11

um, well Canadian, Canadian, but,

Aaron: 1:33:14

uh, but I do think the process is hard to get her over. It was really hard to do, right. So the process is really hard to do so again, I think this speaks to the idea that we don't, we aren't really representative, we aren't re represented by, by our government where we're represented by a bureaucracy. And so the, the objective of, of a bureaucracy is always to perpetuate itself. So I don't care if that's at city government or that's at the ins. Right. The idea is we perpetuate. Their existence and the, the immigration policy could be solved. It could be solved so quickly, right? I mean, I think a logical perspective would be to say, look, great, come be a part of it. Here's what we need you to do. Fill out a single piece of paper that tells me who you are. What's your name is where you're going. What kind of job you have, where you, what your plans are. And here's our other stipulation for the next five years, you can't vote and you can't, and you also here

Curt: 1:34:15

just study American history and you have to listen to, and you

Aaron: 1:34:17

also can't take any public assistance. And if you still want to come, because you think America offers you that opportunity, we're really glad. And immigration could be probably solved overnight with a single page document and a few little

Curt: 1:34:31

ad-ops. I love that policy actually. And if you could

Aaron: 1:34:35

do that, then immigration would be

Curt: 1:34:37

something that would, yeah. And that isn't keeping out the poor people that want to build a better life.

Aaron: 1:34:41

It actually makes it easier. Right? You can fill out a single patient piece of paper, put it in Spanish. I don't care, whatever. Put it, make it all the languages, whatever language you need. Put it in that language. We can do this. We can get you here. We can have you be a part of it. We understand that America is an awesome place with great opportunity and you should be here and we're comfortable with that. We would like you to be a part of America. We also think you should, you know, maybe understand why we, why it is what it is. Yeah. And in that process, restrain from a couple of things, you don't have the chance to immediately engage in our civic institutions and you don't automatically engage in our chance for you to have public assistance. Yeah. If you want to come, you want to be part of this. Be a part of

Curt: 1:35:22

it. I was just imagining, uh, DeSantis sending like unused cruise ships down to Cuba and like load them up. Let's grade them over. Let's go. We need restaurant workers, baby.

Aaron: 1:35:37

Well, I don't, here's the thing. I don't think it's all that. I don't think it's ever bad. I had to have people who are like interested in being here and they want to be here for reasons that make their life better. We've always said that that's a part of who we are. Yeah. We want that for people. We w my family came here because of that. So I understand that. I just think part of what's happened is that the, the bureaucratic state has taken over this wing of this is the right thing. The reality is, is okay. So our immigration paperwork was just, the application was 14 pages, right? Full of questions that are ambiguous and weird to answer. We had an $800 fee. I had to hire an attorney to do it because if we didn't answer it right, then the 800 bucks we don't get, we don't get a credit for that

Curt: 1:36:29

box. The next time it was more we got at. Right.

Aaron: 1:36:34

And, and then add onto that, that, that process takes a human, a humongous amount of time. And there's no just straight line through it. There's no chance for you to go. I want to be here. And by being, as my

Curt: 1:36:47

husband

Aaron: 1:36:48

yeah, by me being here. I'm planning on being an American. And I believe in the ideals of what, what the Republic stands for. Right. I believe in those things. And so instead of offering that opportunity out for my wife, it's, here's this thing, bring, bring all your tax returns, bring pictures of yourself, married, bring pictures, like, prove yourself to be

Curt: 1:37:09

what you are. Right. Let's see a kiss it's

Aaron: 1:37:13

dumb. Right? Like why does that even matter? Why does her cedis status change simply because she married me. If she wanted to come to America and be a part of this a hundred percent, it's put on a process, let's just fill out a piece of paper, single page, a single page of paper with a $50 fee to process that deal and that anybody could afford. And then here's your stipulations for the next five years. Yeah. I want you to be part of this and learn what it means to be an American. And if you do that, there's

Curt: 1:37:39

two hours once a week. It's not forever. Yeah.

Aaron: 1:37:42

At this hand, and then at this point, right, you

Curt: 1:37:46

could vote, we can do that under the misinformation disinformation board, they can provide education to all of our immigrants. How great would that be?

Aaron: 1:37:57

Oh, I will

Curt: 1:37:58

not touch that. I'm playing by the way. Do you know what a Chicana is? I don't a Chicana is a first-generation American born of typically Mexican, but at least Hispanic parents. Uh, my helper Alma is a Chicana. Okay. And, uh, we got called out for having a Cinco de Mayo Freethink last week. Uh, cause somebody, because it was Alma misbilled cerveza. She put an S in there instead of a Z and she's like, I don't like that somebody like called us out and said, you culturally misappropriated, almost like, well, it was me. I went to kata and we try not to culturally misappropriate things that look a think take, because we're not that kind of organization. It's

Aaron: 1:38:43

so crazy. Here's the other piece of this whole thing of getting people to behave in manners in which you look like me, right? Like I need you to be, I need you to be sympathetic to all of my psychosis. Right. I can't do it. I just can't do it. Like I can't participate in that because it does, I have my own psychosis. I'm busy

Curt: 1:39:06

enough, we unsubscribed. But that, that, that person that would sign that one page application that you talked about. Yeah. That's almost parents, you know, they're non high school, even finishing his Mexican citizens from Mexico city. They came here for a better life. They've got three kids and they're smart as a whip. They've worked hard. Her, mom's got a small business. Her dad's a barber. Painter. And like,

Aaron: 1:39:35

my dad has a guy that works for him. Who's just awesome. This is the one on the he's American. He finally, he's got a citizenship. He's a wonderful guy. And he just, the process was brutal. Yeah. And it's dehumanizing. Right? So that, that's another piece that is always so hard to watch governments do to people which has turned them into numbers, turn them into a process, turn them into

Curt: 1:40:02

color. I only do unspecified anymore on my race, sex, all that kind of stuff. I either, I prefer not to answer or unspecified. I'm like, I'm not going to play your game. Yeah. What's the

Aaron: 1:40:12

point, right? Why, why do you need to, so I think on a ton of levels, there are so many situations within the United States, either even geopolitically or down to the city government, that could be. More succinctly and quicker with just the idea that look, the bureaucracy, that's a part of, this is the problem. It isn't, it isn't even the politicians that are the problem. It's the bureaucracy behind it. That causes the problem that continues to perpetuate the problem that doesn't allow people to actually

Curt: 1:40:47

really have a country, a hundred

Aaron: 1:40:49

percent. Those people that run behind the scenes, you know, it's on one level, it's partially why Fort Collins is as stable as it is, as it is 50% of the people in this city worked for the government on some form in some form or fashion. What? Yeah, CSU pooter Arwan county, government USDA for service.

Curt: 1:41:09

It should be it's basically, it basically

Aaron: 1:41:11

is. I don't, I'm not even counting them in that, but if you add up people that are

Curt: 1:41:16

in, so it's hard to even really argue, we're a capitalistic Natarajan and not only Colorado, especially we certainly have an engine like a little mini Washington DC

Aaron: 1:41:26

kind of is. I mean, it really is. There's a lot of bureaucratic stuff that happens here. City of Fort Collins, Larimer county, you know, kind of name it. There's a lot of people that live here and they worked for the government. And so I don't necessarily want to say that their jobs don't count, but I do think that there's, there's inefficiencies naturally built in that. Cause the average person to have to work doubly as hard in order to get through that system in order to make things, make good things happen, good things happen or a vibrant

Curt: 1:41:51

society. Yeah. Um, we might as well close with a local experience. Okay. You you're pretty old, not as old as me, but you're living in a life, uh, any, uh, crazy experiences that you would like to describe to our listeners.

Aaron: 1:42:08

Yeah, I think, uh, should we keep it related to Northern Colorado? Okay. Um, yeah, I think I would probably bring this back to, um, we've talked, uh, touched around this a little bit before, but I think one of the interesting things for me in my life has been living here and having watched our community. Become what it's become. And on one hand, I'm super proud of everything that it is that it is like, it's great here. It's a beautiful city. It's a lovely place to live. It has

Curt: 1:42:49

because of all the government gravy, baby, it's all the things

Aaron: 1:42:53

ever want. It really is. It's a, it's a wonderful place. And I really do appreciate the people that live here. I really appreciate the community that we, that it has been, you know, there's been

Curt: 1:43:03

creative. I couldn't hardly believe it. How like welcomed I was when I moved here 20

Aaron: 1:43:08

years ago. Plus it's fantastic for that stuff. I think what one of the pieces that's most interesting about that is to watch that change over the last 47 this summer. And granted there some windows in which I wasn't here, whether that was college or when we were living in Sheridan, but for the most part, I've lived here and been around this place for those 47 years and to watch it change. Um, I think my personal experience in that has been. Um, I've wrestled with this really interesting thing, which is that my family got wealthy because these people came and I haven't necessarily loved every minute of what's happened. Yeah. Right. So you have this interesting conflict in your life between I get to live an affluent life because all these people came here. Yeah. And yet I miss my community of what it was when I was in high school or what I was, you know, and I think that that dynamic in Northern Colorado is probably something that a lot of people feel I can never get it back and you're not going back. Right. And on one hand, I, I would defend growth to the, you know, Uh, defendant. Right. Because I don't think, I think our life is the alternative is worse, perpetually better because growth exists because we just have so much more opportunity at things that would have never been here. Totally. If people weren't here. Right. Yeah. I mean, even just, let's just, I mean, just go back to the foothills mall, which is, again, a family industry. The best thing that we had was orange Julius and the magic shop, right. Which were locally owned businesses that went away when we got the gap and Eddie Bauer and Victoria secret and all this stuff that was like, wow, these are at Benetton was in the mall for a minute. Right? All these things that happened were because there were more rooftops here that enabled those kinds of cool things to come to our community. Um, and I'm not disparaging ZOS. It was a cool shot, a great little magic shop. That was fun. But the reality was is like things got better. They got better over time. But I miss ZOS. Yeah. And so I th I have probably for my whole life wrestled with that interesting dynamic that I've benefited from us being here first. Yeah. And we got to, we get to kind of lay the groundwork for how people were going to live here and how life was going to be laid out here. I mean, we,

Curt: 1:45:36

the stream sounding factor in many neighborhoods and many

Aaron: 1:45:39

kind of is named after my. Granddad and may Tylee, right? Like Les Everett and may Tylee is how LeMay is named. So, um, yeah, cause it was called hospital road and my granddad, the city planner came and said, we can't so boring. We cannot call this hospital. And so they changed the name and they said, well, what should we call it? And my granddad, we were in partnership with the Tylese bill Tylee and his mother was named Mae and Bob's dad was named less. And so we just called it Limaye and um, pretty interesting stuff to have grown up here to be a part of that, to know that you'd benefit from it, but also like, what are you, what do you give up when that happens?

Curt: 1:46:23

This is a weird connecting point, but one of my good friends is dating a guy that's kind of into gambling and they had like a Derby party and they've gone to Blackhawk and stuff. I I've gambled. I don't judge it necessarily, but I'm not really a fan. And what I shared with her the other day was that, you know what I gambled and I lose that just kinda sucks, which is kind of like what a shrinking economy looks like. Like when the economy is bad in Wyoming and things like that, and your dad had to take odd jobs. And, but if I win in gambling, well, that kind of sucks too, because I didn't. Yup. You know, and I just like have this semi-skilled we gotten gained, and I suppose there's a little bit of relief, but so there's, there's painful elements of growth, you know? And I don't use to take me only 15 minutes to get places in Fort Collins. Now, sometimes it takes me 20, but it's still pretty awesome. You know?

Aaron: 1:47:19

And we, people made fun of this. Like Donald Trump was like, well, I just got a million dollar loan from my dad. Right. To get my start. Right. Which I, which people look at it. And they're like, you got a million dollar loan from your, your dad, like what shut up, you know? Um, but I think that's partially what I resonate with that is like, Hey, I don't know that I fully earned everything that I got in my life. Um, and that, you know, you gotta reconcile that all the time. I think you have to, as a person that's in that position, you have to reconcile against that all the time. Like, Hey, these people that might my granddad and my dad, and there's other people all around this city that are like second or third generation people carried along by the

Curt: 1:47:58

wave.

Aaron: 1:48:00

We were the right place, right. Time, awesome spot. Right business, all this stuff was really great. Um, I think we all have to live with that a little bit that like, we were the beneficiaries of being in the right place, the right time in the right business, you know? And so yeah, that's probably my Loco experience or NOCO experience, uh, is

Curt: 1:48:21

just that fascination with yeah. Different place. Yeah. Yeah. And it's still awesome.

Aaron: 1:48:27

Awesome spot. Wonderful place. My family's done super well because of it. I miss what we had. Are you guys going to

Curt: 1:48:35

move to Sheridan?

Aaron: 1:48:37

Oh, I don't know. You know, we we're going to do business there a lot. And I think it's for my future in terms of the ability to do development, that's where we'll be doing development. It won't be here, not

Curt: 1:48:48

just shared and maybe, but

Aaron: 1:48:49

there's other places all around. Right? I mean, Glenwood Springs has great opportunity. There's just, there's other places in this world that are really good opportunity. I feel like I have a Harvard education in terms of how to do development

Curt: 1:49:00

because I grew up in makes it easier. All these other places you go to these other places

Aaron: 1:49:03

and you're like, don't tell anybody, you know, I mean, you walked out of the last one of the last city meetings and they're like, how can we help you? What, what, who are you, why are you sitting across the table from me asking me if you can help me? No, you're supposed to be my adversary anyway. Yeah. That's, that's what I would say. Very

Curt: 1:49:22

good. Um, let's close it up. Sounds good, Eric. Thanks

Aaron: 1:49:26

for being here. Thanks Kurt. Great, great time. Bye for now.