Transcription
Hey everybody, welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. This is the David Green Show. I'm David Green and I'm joined today by George McLeary, who is a real estate investor and a bit of a squatter expert, which is a topic near and dear to my heart as I've had kind of the whole system of dominoes of my financial picture knocked over by a person who learned how to excel in squatting and squattage has sort of made its way throughout my portfolio of properties across the United States and George is going to be teaching us today about how to avoid letting this happen to you and maybe what to do if you get a squatter and hopefully a little more. George, welcome to the show.
Thanks, David. And let me give you props right away for coining the new term squattage. That is a new one for me. Even as much as I talk about squatting, I'm going to have to send you some royalties on that one.
I made something up last night recording for Mortgage Monday. I'm trying to remember what it was, but I did the same thing where uh funny things come into my mind when I just start riffing.
Yeah, you know, I mean, what inventing a word, I feel like the Germans probably have a word for that, but yeah, no, it's squattage.
Funny story there. The Germans have words for things that we don't have words for that a lot of people don't realize. So like
But we rely them on them for that, for sure. Yeah.
But I don't think everyone knows that their brains work like that. Like, you know that feeling you get when you're half asleep and half awake? Like we have to take a whole sentence, but they're just like schloegen mast or something and
Yeah, they they they they compound the words. They have they don't have the word, they build a compound word that actually makes it. And so that's why the Germans are the engineers of the world and yeah, we we can learn a lot from each other.
Like they just take the German words for sleep, wake, dream and they just make it into one multi-syllable word.
Sleeping, waking, dreaming, yeah.
[laughter]
It's exactly right. I've always wondered why Germans constantly sound angry when they're talking. I feel like there's Mandarin can be that way as well. You're like, I don't know if they're mad or if they're just German.
Yeah, there's different dialects. I I in Switzerland last summer and uh the the variety of German they speak there is much more like soft, and I was like, "Okay, yeah, they sound less angry." But then you get into the cities, and then, you know, things harden up a little bit, kind of like being in New York City, maybe.
Yeah, you'll go to like a Chinese restaurant, and you'll hear the staff talk with each other, and you're like, "Oh, something juicy's happening. They're pissed." But they're probably just saying like, "I need more sweet and sour sauce on table five."
[laughter]
Yes, so that would be my table.
All right, so let's start off by just letting the audience know how did you get in touch with me? What occurred that brought our paths to cross?
Well, first of all, David, let me just say that I'm a fan. Um I've been uh stalking you, squatting on you, something like that. No, for for a while now, because and the reason for that, David, is because uh after this whole journey kicked off, and I'll get into how it kicked off in a second, uh everybody was saying, "Hey, well, that's that's this whole squatting thing, this whole title fraud thing, you know who that happened to." And I'm like, "David Greene." They're like, "Yeah, David Greene. I heard on a podcast. You guys should You guys should talk." And I'm like, "Yeah, man, the day will come." And today is that day. But anyway, to answer your question, David, what happened was um I live in Portland. I'm a real estate investor, and if you're if you got the those two things going for you, you're going to be subject to a number of policies that you're not going to love, because it's not the most landlord-friendly environment. And so, a couple of my friends in Portland and Seattle had been victims of squatters. So, it seemed to kind of follow the same playbook, which is, you know, occupy a house, and fool law enforcement into thinking, you know, giving a shadow of a doubt that you actually might have the right to be there, and then turning it into a civil case, rather than a criminal case. And in the meantime, sticking around for free, having a free place to live. And so, that playbook seemed to be getting repeated like nationwide. So, what I did is I made a video called I stole a house. Did Did you see that one, David?
No. No, I didn't.
Dis- Never meet your heroes.
Well, if I saw I stole a house, I probably would have not watched it cuz I wouldn't want to give criminals a click. I think your your title would have thrown me off.
Yeah, no, that's that's true. And actually and I I I will address that. The whole like, "Hey, you're giving the criminals the playbook" thing. But either way, I made a video saying, "Hey, this is how I stole a house in Portland." I just go through the whole playbook. You know, you get you occupy a house, you make it look like you live there, and you stick around until, you know, until eventually they throw you out a great time cost and expense of the owner. And the whole thing like exploded. Went up like a million views on Tik Tok, but then within like a day, it was take it was taken down for like you know, for inciting crime or like you know, basically giving being a how-to on crime. And then the same thing happened on Meta, but it took a whole lot longer. It took like weeks for that to happen. And where it really blew up was on X cuz it got reposted by a lot of conservative commentators. And unfortunately, it wasn't Yeah, it was really kind of the conservative contingent that ended up reposting it. And it actually wasn't originally posted by me on X. And so nobody knew who I was. It wasn't like there was no way to trace it back to my profile, which was George the real estate investor. So everybody thought that I was actually the guy that was going and you know, stealing houses. So of course, once people do figure out who I am, they start sending me like hate mail and like death threats saying like, you know, "Oh my god, you're such a piece of shit." I'm like, "Yo, yo, yo, look at my profile. I'm a real estate investor. I'm one of the good guys. I'm satirizing this whole thing. This is this is a simulation. This is what's happening to me, my friends." And the whole thing explodes. I go on the Dr. Phil show. I get on Fox News, on NewsNation. I go
you asked me if I heard about it.
Yeah, right. No, it was it was So I mean, and then uh BiggerPockets actually um ran a story about about the whole thing, as well. And they didn't didn't bother contacting me, but they still ran a story saying, like, "Hey, this is what this guy did." So, I wrote them. I was like, "Guys, I'm right here. Like, I'm really easy to find. Like, did did you not even look for a second to see that, like, I'm one of you, and that this video was tongue in cheek?" But, anyway, so, from there, what happens was, um you know, after a big, you know, my you know, open your phone, and I've got 80,000 notifications from like everybody that I've ever met texting, emailing, calling, saying, like, "Hey, I saw you on this. I saw that. Da da da. How's everything going? Is it Are you okay?" And uh from there, it just it it slowly kind of uh trickled down, but all along the way, I was taking notes, and I was talking with people about like, "What happened when uh you had a squatter?" Cuz the horror stories, David, that I heard were just insane. Um Between squatters and title fraud, I heard uh dozens of people's of li- like, their not just their financial lives, but their actual just full lives were just ruined by these uh by these scammers. So, uh I set out to change that. So, I created a course on how to deal with squatters. That's Squatter Defender. And uh made some title monitoring software uh called Title Fraud Defender. And that's what I've been doing.
I think we should rename, if we ever go into business together, your company to Squat Def. I like the ring of that. Like, Squat Def 2, Squat Def 3. I can see this like evolving.
I like that. Kind of like a military. Squat Def.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. And this reminded me of Batman. That you are the hero that Gotham needed, but didn't deserve. So, let's just start with breaking down what squatters do, how on earth we put up with this. Like, I won't go too far into it, but this is my massive pet peeve. If we had a semblance of common sense, you would just grab said squatter, kick them in rear, out of house they go, door is closed. If they try to come back in, that's now you're being attacked. Like this does not need to be what it is. So, if you don't mind just giving some of the background on why this is even a thing that we need someone like you to do, I think that would be helpful for the audience.
Totally. It's It's It's an exploitation of landlord-tenant law. Not just landlord-tenant law in like a blue state or a blue city like Portland. It's literally everywhere to where if you are a tenant in someone's house, that you have an interest in that property that affords you a set of rights. Um if you're a tenant, you can't just come in as a landlord in any state, maybe in the world, and just grab the person by the collar and hurl them out on the street. You have the right to be there. Um by way of contract and by way of um not just civil but also criminal law. You can't just do that. So, that's being exploited by the squatters. They get access to what's usually a vacant and not very well supervised property. And after they do that, what they do is uh cultivate a believable story that they actually have the right to be there and that they actually are tenants. So, by the time that you or the police or anybody shows up, it looks as there's a there's a you know, at least a shadow of a doubt that it looks like they have the right to be there and they are actually lawfully occupying the place. If you come upon a guy who's, you know, wide-eyed in living room with a smashed window right next to him, there's no furniture, there's no belongings, and the cops roll up on him and he says, "I'm a tenant here." Like, of course there's just no believable story. But, if the cop rolls up and they see a guy occupying a place, he's got a couple friends in there, you know, they're watching TV on the couch, you know, there's food, and you know, there's a there's a food in the oven. The cop is going to be like, "All right, I can't I can't decide right here whether or not this guy actually has the right to be here or not, and I can't haul him out by the collar."
Yes.
Because if I did that, you know, as a police officer, I would really be sticking my neck out here believing this guy over here. So, I can't litigate that right now here on the spot. So, you two guys, this is now a civil dispute. You guys need to go sort this out. And so, that
some commentary on that if you're not going to lose your place, cuz I think a lot of people they that's what they say is, "Why don't the cops do something?"
Mhm.
And I was a cop for 10 years, so I was often in this position where I wanted to drag said squatter out of that place or out of that scenario, and you're the good guy. You wash your hands, and you're done. The ability to use force as a police officer is given to us by the Fourth Amendment, which rules that people shall be free of unreasonable search and seizure. Force falls under searching and seizing somebody. So, you're given context of when you can use it and for what purposes you can. It's typically allowed in order to prevent arrest, uh uh sorry, effect an arrest, prevent escape, or overcome resistance to your lawful authority. So, if someone's doing one of those three things, you're allowed to use force. But, if they're not doing it, and you use force on them, your department can be sued, and you in certain circumstances can be sued because it would be the same as if a cop just walked around, saw a guy eating a jelly donut, and said, "I like glazed donuts." Took out his baton and whacked him. If you don't you can't just as a cop do whatever you want. Now, that is often the way it's portrayed on social media or on YouTube. It's cops do this thing for absolutely no reason. Uh so, then cops get afraid to do things even when they have a reason, and now we have this whole world of well, why don't the cops go do something? It's obviously the right thing to do. You typically know, well, this person looks like a homeowner. He's got title. He's got all of this information that proves it's his house. I see a picture with him and his kids on the wall. This guy looks like a homeless guy that just crawled in from the sewers. Like I don't think this guy would normally be in this house, but like you just said, if I cannot generate the evidence in that place that gives me the authority to arrest that guy and take him to jail, then I don't have authority to use force to affect the arrest. He's not trying to escape me and he's not overcoming resistance my authority because I can't use authority because like you said, I'm not a judge and I don't know. It is stupid. I totally agree. It It actually I'm more angry about it than I'm showing right now that we waste the money and the energy and the the the relationship capital with the public of just not doing what is obviously the right thing to do. But it It comes down to limiting police authority and government use of force and creating what we're about to talk about today.
Absolutely. Yeah, it's it's much It's actually It's a much broader issue like you say, which is removing in in so many cases the discretion that officers have on a day-to-day basis cuz you need to exercise discretion as a police officer to you know, to know what to do in every given situation. Sometimes that discretion needs to be made in a tenth of a second. Sometimes it needs to be made in a minute, 10 minutes, whatever. You're evaluating these situations and my heart goes out to these officers. I mean cuz we've all seen the videos online. The amount of patience that they have to exercise is otherworldly. It's not something that I could ever do like in any universe. And so in that situation an officer like may well think that's hey, you know, odds are like 90% that David actually does own this house and you know, this guy does look a little sketchy. Everything David's saying about like yeah, I just haven't been here for several weeks and looks like this guy moved in. He shouldn't be here. He's probably right. But that risk that you're describing about getting the department suit about yeah, you could be wrong. And what is the upside for that officer? What is the upside for that department? It's you know, it's enforcing what it's doing what they're setting out to do, but it but it but it what risk and what cost? And so for that reason, uh it's just it's getting exploited or it has been getting exploited and will continue until we are able to actually uh I guess re-empower officers to be able to you know, to to take action and make that sort of make that sort of mistake and not have it be utterly catastrophic.
Yeah, imagine if you're a referee and you're refereeing a game and if you make a call and it ends up being the wrong call. It wasn't a double dribble you thought it was. You were just honestly wrong, you saw it wrong. You're uh you lose your job, the NBA gets sued, there's going to be massive protests which are not really protests. They're just like destroying cars and burn Yeah, exactly. And you're going to be the guy that everybody puts on the news and says it's this referee's fault that the entire NBA is in this big jam and now everyone's on strike and there is no NBA. You'd get guys that were they're not going to make the call when it looks like 99% of the time. They're only going to do it 100% of the time. The game falls apart. Now guys are double dribbling all the time cuz as long as they think you're not going to see it, they're not going to get caught. And there's actually a cost to this economically where people stop working hard, people stop investing money in things. Every time they go burn down buildings, we have to go rebuild these buildings and then the insurance on all the people that actually pays it goes up. There's a lot of the reason we have inflation is is tied to crime. And people don't understand that. Now, you and I are talking about right now a specific type of what we're calling squatting which is more they're claiming to be a tenant. But there's another kind where someone just sneaks into your house and I've had this happen to me on properties before and then say, well this is an abandoned house even though it's like it's recently been cleaned, but they say it's abandoned and then the the cops show up and they're like, you can't kick me out. You have to actually go file with the court, get an eviction, get the sheriffs. There's a a writ of execution that has to be done. You got to come back. Do you have experience with these ones where they're taking advantage of like landlord laws from the 1600s or something?
Yeah, so I mean, there's adverse possession laws. Very state to state. It's basically like, hey, you know, I've been I've been living here. I have the right to it. But it's still it still falls under the umbrella like 90 some percent of the time of of tenancy. Like effective tenancy. They're not maybe claiming to be a tenant, but they're saying like, hey, I have the right to be here for whatever reason. And if the reason that they're citing is, you know, I've been here for long enough so that now I should be on title. Um these laws vary state to state, but it's really just intended for like like farmers, you know, back in like you're saying like the 1800s. If they've been farming this land and caring for it for years, then like, you know, they went over the property line by 10 ft. Like, yeah, it's been decades. So yeah, you can have it you can have it now. But what they're trying to what they're trying to do what the squatters are trying to do in that case is say is is to site adverse possession laws saying that they have been there long enough to basically have earned equitable title. And like 90 some percent of the time they're just they're just wrong. They haven't actually looked at the law because you've got to in most cases be there for like like years like a 10 years or something like that. And there are cases where people have been there in a house and no one's noticed for 10 years. The owners just haven't noticed and that does happen. But like it's extraordinarily rare. Like with the guys just coming in saying they have the right to it, it's still under that umbrella of like what technically qualifies as tenancy which is like the right to occupy property that you don't own.
Yeah, that I think the law was maybe like in the 1800s somebody built a a cabin in the woods somewhere. There was no food, they left, they were gone for 20 years, someone else found it and moved in, created farmland out of it, fixed it up, made it nice, grew dug a well, did all this work, and then the original owner comes and goes, "Well, hey, that was my house. Now that it's fixed up, I want it back." That's BS. That's what these laws I think were intended to prevent. But like you said, evil people have figured out the cops won't cop, and the judges have to actually get involved in this. By the time these guys figure this whole thing out, I could have been here for like 3 to 6 months in a lot of these cases.
Mhm.
Yeah, and and they're going to spend a ton of money.
Yeah. Oh, 3 to 6 months is on the low end of things. I've seen it go on for years. A lot of people that are especially in jurisdictions where getting people out, getting like a non-paying tenant. So, if you have like a non-paying tenant in Tennessee, uh you can get them out, you know, with relative ease depending on where you are. Uh whereas if you're in Seattle and you have a non-paying tenant, it could drag on forever because the rationale of there is that they will then, you know, be unhoused and then become like a burden to the state as like a street person. Whereas they can just put it on the on the homeowner instead. Yeah, it's your problem now, sucker. So, that's what you get for buying property here. But yeah, so they they basically just like shift the burden by way of just a really protracted eviction, which it really should be, you know, virtually instantaneous. The moment that you stop making your car payment, you know, they can haul it away. You can't haul away a house, and there's there's laws against
Well, let's say that that's a great example. Let's say I left my car unlocked and somebody got inside my car, and I showed up and said, "You're in my car." They don't have any laws that would say this is my car now, and you have to go get a judge to say that it's your car and get the sheriffs to come kick me out of this car. It though it's funny how many things in life become insane as soon as you take them out of the context that you view them and just put them in a different scenario where like wait a minute why why would that ever happen? He's still he's stealing your car. We should be beating this guy for trying to do it. But when it's a house we get like oh no, it's a civil matter and then all these things get triggered.
Yeah, cuz housing is like is sacred, you know, that's you know, it's the roof over your head whether you rent it or whether you own it. It's you know, it's just it's treated completely differently from and from and from anything else. But but in the same by the same token if you if a police officer you walk up to him and says like hey that guy stole my shirt that shirt that he has on over there. That's mine. I mean is the police officer going to go over and beat the out of the guy and arrest him? No, like you know, it's it's they're not there to you know, litigate he said she said stuff right there on the spot and if you got something of extremely high value nobody's running around stealing shirts cuz they're not worth a lot. But if it's a house a free rent for you know, like a year's time in a decent house is in the tens of thousands of dollars and that's and that's especially if the alternative is being homeless. Yeah, like a lot of people are going to do that. It's it's all about incentives.
That's a great point and we've allowed it to get to this point which means we need defenders like you to step in. So like what is it that your company or you do once this happens or to prevent this from happening?
So so Squatter Defender is about prevention, detection, and ejection. So everybody wants to talk about the ejection because you know, that's you know, everything's gone wrong, right? And you got to figure out what to do. And that's something that I definitely do talk about but I have to talk about it extremely carefully because there's the conventional route and there's the fully unconventional route, and then there's this gray area. So, uh fully unconventional is just like what you're saying, grabbed by the collar, uh point a gun, whatever, and kick him out.
Yeah.
You can't do that because bad things will happen, you know, violent altercations have killed homeowners. They've killed squatters. They've just, you know, it's it's happened many times, and none of it's good. So, if you come in there guns blazing, like, bad things can happen. But, if you just go the route of like, all right, someone's squatting my property, you call up a lawyer. The lawyer is going to say like, "Okay, yeah, David, you got two options. You can either do uh like, just a regular old eviction, or you can do ejectment. Ejectment is you have We're going to get rid of this person who never had the right to be there in the first place. But, the weird thing about that is you would think that it would be like an overnight thing. No, it's actually longer in most cases than a regular tenant eviction. So, what your lawyer is going to say is he's like, "Actually, if you want him out quicker, you just evict him like a non-paying tenant." It's like, "Wait, what? He's not a tenant, though." It's like, "Well, yeah, but if we pretend he is, um then we can kick him out a little bit quicker. So, that's what we should do." And it's like, what the Yeah. We're We're We're basically doing a tacit admission that this guy is a tenant. But, what's the point of this whole thing? It's get the guy out of there so that you can get your property back. So, you know, you could say that, you know, whatever law you want to hang it on, say, you know, anything you want. Whatever it's going to get them out the quickest. Turns out, that's just eviction evicting as a non-paying tenant. So, if you go that route, it's just going to take forever. So, why I say I have to be careful about the gray area is that it's kind of in between. You are not going in there guns blazing, but you are essentially um uh so, I get into this in much more detail on how you do this, and it's with the the caveat like, "Hey, um I'm not recommending you do this, but if you But, here's what some other people have done that has worked." And what it is is there's There's several methods to it, but it's essentially many different versions of making life very uncomfortable for the squatter.
I love it. This is getting good now.
[laughter]
Start cooking. [gasps]
So, um, the stories I heard, man, uh, there is one guy who filled his house with snakes. So, I'll know how he got them in there. I don't know where he got the snakes. Uh, but he he just He filled the house with snakes. And so, the squatter comes back, the house is full of snakes. Doesn't want to be there anymore. So, then once he's gone, you know, he moves his stuff back in, hurls the squatter's stuff in the garbage, and reclaims his place. Another guy, um, uh, broke every single window and every single door, uh, on on the property of his own house. And just essentially rendered it uninhabitable. Um, you know, it wasn't him. It I don't know how it how the house got that way. You know, at least that's, you know, what he tells people. Uh, and what he told me is like, "It was the weirdest thing. All the doors and windows just disappeared on the house overnight. Like, and suddenly it solved my problem." Uh, another guy used rats. Another guy, um, uh, what else? Uh, And the But, the one that's the classic one, we were actually, I think, talking about this beforehand off camera. There are, uh, there are people now that will go in and essentially, uh, live with your squatter. They squat on the squatter.
sign a lease with that person cuz it's your house. This The squatter's claiming that they have a legal right to be there. Now, you give legal right to be there, to which, ironically, you can't get rid of the person who's not there, but you can give someone else the right to be there, right? So, now you have a a contestation of two people that both claim that they they a legal right to be there. And
Precisely.
Yeah. No, that's that's exactly it, David. You you give someone the right to be there. So, then they just come in and sit on the couch, they set up cameras, and play whatever variety of music they feel like playing at maximum volume, and uh the squatter is, of course, beside himself saying like, "Hey, you know, get the heck out of here." And I don't recommend that people do this themselves, and instead leave this to professionals because, as you might imagine, you know, squatters are very desperate desperate people, and a lot of times they're really not loving this. But, more often than more often than not, David, these are people that are just looking for like an an easy kill, an easy basket. If they're actually met with any sort of like resistance, like actual resistance, not getting letters in the mail saying like, "Hey, you haven't paid your rent." Not that, but like actual people in their house, setting up cameras, like, you know, eating the food out of their fridge, taking a dump on their living room floor, like, just making life a complete hell for them, they're going to leave. There's easier pickings than living in a in a house that's now being occupied by, you know, one, two, or five huge dudes that are making your life a living hell in that house. So, what ends up happening is they just leave on their own volition. And other times, when they don't leave, um those people those guys that move in, um they end up disappearing a lot of the possessions and things of the of their roommates. Then, you know, if roommates are stealing from each other, I got nothing to do with that. Like, you know, I'm I'm just the landlord.
Yeah.
And hey, this guy stole my TV. He threw it off the balcony. Like, oh, all right. Well, I don't know. Did you do that? No, I don't know what he's talking about. Suddenly, you're just you're you're turning the tables on them. You're
You're using the same technique of the cops like, "Well, I didn't see him do it. I it's a civil matter. I I didn't see a crime occur. Yep.
Yeah, exactly. I see the smashed TV. I see you guys are arguing with each other, but like
Is there any footage of this happening? Yeah, that's exactly you If a misdemeanor occurs and it's not in the cops' present, he can't do anything, which is why we have this Whenever you hear a cop say, "Well, do you want to press charges?" What they're actually saying is "Do you want to commit a citizen's arrest? I can't do it. I didn't see it happen. It doesn't matter if I have probable cause of it happening. That only counts if it's a felony."
Mhm.
So, anything that's misdemeanor, if the TV's worth less than $950, some guy throws it over the balcony, the cop didn't see it, the squatter would have to put the other guy under arrest. They'd have to end up both going to civil court. Squatter's got to figure out how he's going to do that. I don't know, maybe he's not in the house. The owner goes in there and
Cuz you That's another question I want to ask you. If I own the house and someone's squatting in it, I can't get him out, but that doesn't pre- prevent me from going in, right?
Yeah. Yeah, so
creates the potential for conflict.
It creates the potential for conflict. And so, if you go in uh guns blazing, then yeah, there could be potential for conflict. Um but with that said, um I've had a couple of not full-blown squatter situations, but I've had We'll just call it unauthorized occupants in my places. And in in all cases, I've uh you know, sort of assessed like who it is that I'm dealing with. If there's guys that you can just tell are dangerous and you just do not want to to do anything with them. But then there's other guys where if you go in there and they, you know, um figure out that you're strapped and that you mean business, there's a pretty good chance that they are going to, you know, sort of think the same thing that the guys or have the terrible roommates are going to be thinking like, "Uh there's easier There's easier fights to fight than this guy right here." So, yeah, I mean, I'm I still advocate against people, you know, uh solving these problems, you know, with weapons and violence and and intimidation, but it's um but it it's it's short of that, but not by a ton. You are still using the same methods that they're using. You're just You're just using it against them instead.
Yeah, I had a couple situations when I was the agent selling a house for someone else where during the escrow period a squatter came in. Just
Mhm.
seller moved out, they're selling their house, you're on the market for 30 days, another 30 days of escrow happens, squatter sees the house, doesn't seem to have any cars in there, sees the for sale sign, checks it out. Oh, there's no beds, there's no clothes here, it's vacant. And then when I went to go get it ready to give the keys to the homeowner, guess who's inside the house. And it was exactly like you said, there's a All right, well, what am I dealing with, right? Is this person on PCP? Are they insane? Are they strong? Are they violent? Or are they just gambling on the fact that everybody lets them get away with this in the Bay Area, and I'm going to be one of those guys, too. So, Yeah. I think that that's like practical to give people that advice. Like, you're not allowed to not go in your house. The fear is, if you get into a violent altercation with them, and you get hurt, that's obviously bad. If they get hurt, and then they come back and they say, I had a right to be there, he had no right to be doing this, and the judges use their ridiculous logic of squatter laws, you've now used force on someone that technically had a legal right to be there cuz the eviction wasn't issued yet. You're not protected in any of the ways the cops are not protected if you are found with an unfounded use of force.
Mhm. Yeah, no, it applies to cops, it applies to people. If you you know, if there is an altercation, then yeah, that's just something you want to avoid altogether because again, these are very desperate people, and there's also very desperate lawyers out there that will represent them at all stages of this. Squatting, assault, you know, just making stuff up. And so, if you want if you really want to play it the ultra safest way, like, yeah, hire a lawyer, it will take months, you know, spend the money. But, what I always say is that because I've seen the costs on this run into the tens of thousands up up into the six figures in one if per incident, that there is, I think, a balance to be struck on how you how you deal with these situations, how you know, what sort of risks you're willing to take, not necessarily to life and limb, but, you know, uh using the type of techniques that, uh you know, that I talked about that operate in that gray area. Because if you're just willing not willing to operate at all in that area, then, unfortunately, as a real estate investor, it's it's just going to cost you in the situation.
Okay, so, I got a squatter in my house. I listened to the David Greene Show. I saw George McLeary on there. I called George. How's this conversation going to go? What are the options this person has?
So, I'm going to basically tell them what I told you, but I do know people around the country that do this now. There's the famous guys, and then there's the there's the less famous guys. But, at the end of the day, there are guys that are willing to go in and squat on the squatter for you. Um it's not cheap. It's going to run you in the thousands of dollars because, you know, for obvious reasons. These guys are, you know, doing something. Yeah, they're taking they're taking some risk. But, as you can imagine, these are these do It's not these dudes' first rodeo. These guys uh get paid well to perform a very valuable service that takes you from spending tens of thousands of dollars and months and months and months of your time, and and lost rent for that matter, uh down to, you know, a matter of a few days, a week or two, and you've reclaimed your property. You know, you're out several thousand dollars paying these guys, and these people have probably, you know, smashed up your property but that was going to be a problem anyway. It's probably going to be worse if they stuck around. So yeah, you're going to be out of pocket several thousand dollars no matter what. There's no there's no zero there's no zero cost option here except for the one where you do it all yourself and yeah again I I don't recommend that.
Well once they're in there and they've done damage you can't undo the damage so you've got that cost. Now it's do I go through the legal system and spend six months nine months of lost rent and future damage and legal fees or do I call these guys in and it's a shorter period of time hopefully and I get the place cleaned up and rent it out. It seems like obviously cheaper. It's just insane that we're having this conversation. If you were a Martian and you came to Earth they said that's his house but that guy snuck in you're like oh that sounds like it's a bad day for that guy. Actually no, right? Like we need to we need Have you seen the Nate Bargatze SNL skit where he's George Washington?
Which one's that? I I know Nate Bargatze.
he's like pretending to be George Washington coming over in America and they're talking about things like so in America we're going to have hot dogs and they're going to be made of dogs, right? They will not. We don't know what they'll be made of. Like he just goes over all the ridiculous things that make no sense about how America ended up why we have miles and everyone else has kilometers why our system is 12 inches instead of 10 somethings. Like this sounds like something that should not be
yeah, it's on it's in line with that skit obviously. Yeah. And it's going to stuff like this will continue to happen as long as we have laws that can be exploited and this law can be exploited and and it's not just laws though. It's policies and that's actually kind of gets into sort of the next phase of what happened with this whole uh journey that I went on after the after the squatting video. Um one guy I talked to said that he was a victim of title fraud. And I had never even heard of that. And so he's like, "Well, yeah, it's basically like squatting, but even worse. He stole the title to the property and just moved in." And I'm like, "Wait, he What do you mean he stole the title? He just put the title in his name and then moved in?" He's like, "Yeah." And getting getting that fixed was damn near impossible. And so he walked me through the whole thing and it was it was it was just pure hell. And then I come to find out that people had been altering people's titles and uh essentially just when I say stealing it, all it is is just filing a document with the county. Yeah. And you know all about this. But the combination of the squatting and title change, I thought it was particularly insidious and that's why it kind of got me down the road of learning about title fraud. And that's how And that's how I saw what happened to you.
So when you sell your home, there's a lot of things that happen during the escrow period. The escrow company makes sure that you are indeed the owner of the home, that you have title to the home, that there was a Usually there's a deed that was recorded under your name when you bought it. So they go to the county records, they go, "Yep, sure thing. George McCleary there, he owns 123 Main Street." And then the title company or the escrow company is usually the same thing where where I'm at, but in some places they're different. They verify all this and then they have a buyer sign documents that says, "I am giving title to those people in exchange for this money under these terms." And then the buyers say, "I am taking title to this property and I'm going to be paying them this money under these terms." And then the sellers wire their money in, sorry, the buyers wire their money into this escrow and then the lender wires the money in and then the sellers sign a paper that goes, "Yep, it's theirs. They can have it." And then the escrow company he "Okay, you get the money." And then they go they literally have a person that goes to the county office and says, "We are now recording 123 Main Street as belonging to Bob and Mary Smith instead of George McCleary." And that is how title is tracked. It's actually pretty easy, all things considered, to forge documents saying you sold me or you granted me title to your property, and nobody at the county recorder's office is checking to make sure that when they get that recording document, and they record it, that the correct steps were taken. So, do you want her to just explain a little bit of like what a judge has to do or what this looks like if there's a dispute over who owns the home?
Yeah, so so first off, the everything that you described with like the title company, 100% correct. You know, we both bought a lot of real estate, and we've been through it a bunch of times. And every time I was signing documents, signed the deed, I'm like, you know, you're with the lender or with the title lady, and she says, "Okay, hey, you know, this Here's your deed. Here's what transfers title." I'm like, "Huh? Piece of paper." She's like, "Yep, that's right." And I'm like, "All right. Buyer, seller, grantor, grantee, legal description." And of all the times I was buying properties, I was just like, "This seems like this seems kind of unsecure. This seems like And uh you know, it's much easier to do than like making a fake ID. Like, you know, you don't need a whole lot of Photoshop here, I don't think. So." And she's And what So, what's to prevent this? And I remember a title lady years ago saying like, "Oh, well, right here. This is my notary stamp." And I'm like, "You got You got to be kidding me."
That's my line of defense?
[laughter]
Your Your rubber stamp?
A rubber stamp? That's like Is there a hologram? Is it like [laughter] Is it tracked with like like like on the
blockchain?
Yeah. No. No, it's just ink It's ink and paper. And so, everything that you described before with like the title company thing, that's you know, how it how it happens most of the time with transferring title. But as far as the recording office, that's who's who's got all the deeds for every property in the county on record. All they do is just get paper in the mail or handed to them it says, "David is selling his property to George." And as long as it's notarized, as long as I've got somebody with a notary stamp that has said, you know, grantor grantee legal description of this property is David selling it to George. It's it's a dollar, it's a million dollars, whatever. All right, cool. This everything looks in place here. Ka-chunk. All right. And uh Owen return this to whatever it says on the document. It could say return it to Timbuktu if it if if you wanted to. But essentially that's all it takes to transfer title. So So then if that happens and David says, "Wait a second, I didn't sell George a
"house for a dollar. That This is This isn't right." And even if I just, you know, was squatting, taking out loans, trying to sell it, whatever. Like my name's on title and I'm, you know, if it's even really me. It might just be like a stolen identity. But uh regardless, what you would have to do is not just call the recorder's office and say, "Hey, uh this title is I mean, this is mine. That I didn't I didn't authorize this. That signature was forged." And the recorder's office is like, uh "Well, that sucks. But we can't just unilateral unilaterally just like change this."
>> Yeah, that's what they told me. >> Chain of title is like this sacred thing. >> Mhm. >> And so what you have to do is you have to file a lawsuit. It's called an action to quiet title. And you got to get an attorney, you got to go through all the motions, and sometimes it's lickety-split. Sometimes it's super easy because you catch it quick, no, and and and you got a criminal that's uh you know, obviously hasn't like no equitable rights equitable rights to the property whatsoever. Like, yeah, it's relatively open and shut. You can get it done for like a few grand. Um maybe less. Maybe I've I've heard about times when they like, you know, it's like overnight practically.
But, uh, if it's been a while and if they like occupy the property, if they've, uh, you know, taken out loans or there's, you know, tried to sell it and there's other parties involved, like suddenly, like, oh boy, this whole thing gets really complicated and messy because, say I, you know, buy your house for a dollar, quote unquote, and then I sell it to a guy. Uh, that guy, so I run off into the distance with, you know, all your home equity. That guy who I sold it to, he's going to be like, uh, what, David? Sorry, dude, like, this is my house. I paid good money for it. So, nah, this is mine now. >> Yep. >> So, and that's where, uh, and that's where the stuff hits the fan.
>> So, I had to go to a judge. Now, it it worked out in my favor. Still took a year because I had the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office on my side that was investigating this guy for a crime. So, it made it much easier to get the judge to make a decision that I never sold him the property. I never met the guy. >> was a known criminal. >> Uh-huh, absolutely. And he was under investigation for this. They were bringing charges against him. So, I sort of had the District Attorney's Office and the Sheriff's Office as my advocates in court. I wondered if that wasn't the case, if the if the Sheriff's Office was like, yeah, man, I don't know about this. Like, I just I can't tell. It's not my thing. Or they didn't want to press charges and the District Attorney's Office said, like, yeah, we don't know how to investigate this or we don't care about this right now. And it was just me and that guy and he claimed, no, I paid David this money and this notary did it. And the notary went in there and said, yeah, I watched David sign the paperwork. And I'm like, I don't know these people. I How would a judge rule on this? It'd be really tricky and it'd probably take a long time if you got him back at all.
>> So, with your case, David, um, I know you're the podcaster asking me the questions, but I'm dying to know cuz when I heard your case, I I it was like a glitch in the Florida articles, our secretary of state, where the articles of incorporation could be edited. And it just like he was essentially added as a member to your LLC as far as the state was concerned. Is that right? >> Which yeah, that's it. And that gave him the right to go to a notary and say, "Hey, as a manager of this LLC, I have the right to transfer title. So, I'm going to transfer them from this LLC that I am a manager of to this other one that he owned and I didn't." >> Mhm. >> And then the notary said, "Okay." And it happened. And then I only >> the notary. Got it. Okay. >> Either maybe he paid her a little extra to shut her up. I don't know how hard it is to pay off a mobile notary. It's not like they're making tons of I think 20 grand probably goes really far to steal 40 title or 50 different houses the titles to these things. And then he was running out of meetups in Florida saying, "Hey, do you want to buy three houses for $70,000?"
>> What was the actual value? Like was 70k was like that like a $300,000 discount or like >> were each about $200,000 homes. So, someone was buying a $600,000 real estate for 70, 80,000. >> 40 cents on the dollar. >> Which which probably is what screwed him because I started getting random messages on Messenger from people saying, "This deal seems too good to be true. It looks like you recently owned these homes a month ago or 2 months ago. Did you really sell them to this guy for this price?" And I said, "Who's this?" I would have not known this was even happening if it wasn't for those people that saw it and looked me up. And I'm easy to find because I'm a podcaster and reached out to me.
>> Wow. Yeah, I mean, that's wild. And going up to going to real real estate meetups and selling it for 40 cents on the dollar on the dollar is pretty wild. What a lot of times these guys do is instead of like going into a crowded room full of people that know a lot about real estate, they just will they'll go on title a lot of a lot of times with a fake with a fake name and identity they stole off the dark web or got from a thief off the off the dark web. And they'll just call up one guy. They'll just call up a wholesaler, and they'll be like, "All right, well, what will you give to me?" And typical wholesalers are, you know, about whatever, 60 cents on the dollar, something like that. And and as soon as the guy says, uh yeah, whatever, that sounds good, I'll take it. Um they're thinking, okay, great, this is fabulous, and nobody else knows about it, and wholesaler's going to make sure of that because it's uh >> Yeah. >> But and so clearing title uh can get can be an issue if there's any sort of liens or like a loan or something like that, like that could >> this happens so easily is these were all paid off properties. >> That's an interesting point. >> sell them for so cheap, and he did and there was no second like, hey, what's up with this? The lender saying David's on record, not this guy. That's exactly right, which is funny because for years we were taught if your properties are paid off, you're safer. >> Yeah. >> But that just put a big target on my back.
>> Finally, people getting punished for being under-leveraged, David. I think it's Hopefully hopefully you you learned your lesson. >> Got [laughter] a big old target walking around on my back for being too under-leveraged. Yeah. And that triggered a big problem because then he did more than just that. So before he went to sell them, he would go to the tenant and say, "Pay me your rent, not the management company." And the tenant's like, "Why?" And he showed him the paperwork and he said cuz I own this house now, it's my house. It was sold to me. The tenant goes to the management company and says, "I signed an agreement with you, this guy's telling me to pay the money." The management company contacts me and says, "I'm not getting involved, I'm holding the money in escrow." So I'm not getting the money, and he's thankfully not getting the money, but the tenants leave because he went there with like goons that were armed to go threaten them, okay? So now he sees the house is vacant. Now he's leasing it to drug dealers and and pimps, and my houses are trap houses, like 20, 30 of them, and they're being run into the ground. The ACs are being stolen, the copper is being stolen, they're being like destroyed and when I finally get them back, they're like just destroyed. Absolutely. So, I now don't You don't get compensated for that. You're just out of luck. So, I had to sell them all because I couldn't do anything with them to someone else that like that bought the whole package to go fix them up and he was going to like burn them or something. Which forced me into a 1031. The 1031, like this is the part of the story people haven't heard, went bad when I had I got ripped off by a property management company that was referred to me by someone else and then many of the properties I bought were like multi-million dollar places in really nice neighborhoods that I thought were the safest bet ever.
>> Yeah. >> Well, I would I had to run them as short-term rentals and then when the city saw that I applied for a short-term rental permit, they didn't want short-term rentals in their city, but there was no law that prevented me from doing it. That's why I bought there. So, I went to the landlord-friendly places, which is the other thing you hear everybody say and the city said, "Well, we can't stop you from running a short-term rental. So, instead we're going to send an inspector there." And on six different properties maybe seven, but six for sure >> on permanent work. >> Yep, and it wasn't work I did. It was work done sometimes 50 years before I ever bought the house. There's no permits on record. So, I go, "Great. What do I got to do?" They give you an insane list of stuff. Well, they I'm This is one of them and I'm not exaggerating. The hot water heater Sorry, two bathrooms were added to this house in the 40s. It was built in like 1911 or something. The two bathrooms were added a long time ago. This house didn't even have a garage when it was built cuz I don't think that they had like cars at that time. It was in a historic district of Hollywood, Florida. Beautiful area, a block and a half from the beach. It It had the house and then it had a garage that had been built that had been converted into two more units. It was beautiful. You need [clears throat] to get a a bigger hot water heater in order for us to permit the bathrooms. But, your electrical panel doesn't have room for another the the level of wattage that would be Yes. >> Now, you already are pulling as much electricity as you can possibly pull from the wire that is running to the house. So, we're going to have to take out the one that runs from the city to the house and you're going to have to run one underground from all the way over there at your own expense to do this.
>> In order to do that, I had to go through my neighbor's backyard. There was a thing in the city of Hollywood that says if your neighbor doesn't want that, they don't have to let you do it. The neighbor hated me because it was a short-term rental and the person that had owned it before me had had horrible people in and out of that place. So, they said no, he can't run the electrical wire. The city goes, all right, well, nothing you can do. Meanwhile, I've got a $1.2 million property that I'm making a mortgage on that the city refuses to issue permits for, which they know they're doing. Bleeding me out. I can't sell it because nobody else can use the house. They turn off the power to the house. They cut the electrical to it. So, now mold is growing. >> off the power? >> They shut the power down. >> god. >> The absolute My my buddy I should I shouldn't say his name, but he's a person that is involved in my business endeavors calls and he says, it's funny, I'm supposed to record with me. He's calling me right now. He says, uh hey, why are you guys Oh, and I didn't even mention that garage that had been turned into two units done without not without permits, but without the the correct up-to-date permits in like the '60s. Okay? He goes, every house on this whole alley has the same thing. Everyone converted their detached garages into ADUs because we're right by the beach and they all want a little beach house. They go, "Yeah, but none of the other people applied for short-term rental permits." >> Mhm. Yeah. >> Right? That makes you the bad guy.
>> This happened in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This happened in Pompano Beach, Florida. This happened in some California cities. This happened in many different areas where I bought very expensive real estate because the city did not want medium-term and short-term rental properties and there was nothing they could do to tell me no. So, they hammered me. I mean, one of them they said, "Hey, your garage was converted from a carport to a garage without permits." And I said, "There's not a house on this street. I think I paid like $750,000 for this place. There's not a house that doesn't have a garage. Everybody from the time they were built at some point converted it. You get hurricanes in Florida. You're not going to have a carport. Yeah, we know." But they don't they don't apply for the short-term rental permit. Yeah, you're going to have to spend $35,000 to raise the floor, uh have us rip out the wall and look at the rebar of how they did the thing. You're going to have to pay an engineer and architect to look at the work that was done on your one-car garage. It was insane, George. And then this happened over bathroom remodels that I never did. Uh one of them they said, "You have a I bought this property. It had a big, beautiful like pergola in the backyard by the pool." It was another like nice backyard in the short-term rental. Made me rip out the entire pergola because it was uh it was 18 in from the neighbor's fence and it needed to be 24 in by today's standards. >> Yeah, 6 in. They wouldn't even let me just pick it up and move it. Whole thing had to be ripped out. Wasn't going to be allowed to have a permit. That same property had an ADU in the backyard. The ADU was too close to the fence. So, they they shut off the valves. They shut the whole thing down. I'm not allowed to use the ADU. They boarded it all up like they basically said, "You can't use this thing as a structure." Every other house in that whole neighborhood is fine. It's only because of Now, this never would have happened if it wouldn't have been for for title thing. So, this all happened to me right around the time that Powell raises interest rates >> Oh my god. >> all my businesses, we don't sell houses cuz no one's buying houses anymore, nobody's refinancing loans, no one's able to get a loan. Uh the the work that like I was trying to get done, the interest rates are super high, I can't refinance. It was a unmitigated disaster that was triggered from this one dude that wanted to steal the title of those houses. And now, fast forward, it's like real bad. I'm I have There's nothing you can do. The market's really, really bad. The These houses, you just I meant 2 and 1/2 years making payments on them, begging the city to get the permits, paying the city to get the permits. >> still going? >> I had to just give up. Like, I just realized they're never going to give me the permits. It's been almost 3 years. You guys won't even answer emails. They don't want me to have them. And sometimes the employees would make references, "Oh yeah, we Googled your boss. We know who he is." They'd make those smug little comments, but you can't sell it, you can't rent it out. The power got shut down almost all of them. And then Oh, this is the other thing I didn't mention. The city will start fining you for like having too many coconuts in the yard. Um One house, for whatever reason, kept getting bees that were getting into the drywall of the outside, and like they would fine me cuz I took too long before I'd go pay the bee guy to take the bees out and take them somewhere else. The yard would be overgrown or like hazards that would happen because they wouldn't let me do anything with the property. >> an expert in bee transfer, David? Is that not in your >> to learn that, too. You can't just go get bees out. They have to be like moved to somewhere safe because >> 101, man. >> I I mean, it's that. We treat bees I wish we treat squatters better than we treat bees some of the time.
>> Holy cow, dude. I had no idea this was like even still going on. I've been on the wrong end of like, you know, permitting and unpermitted work before in Portland, and it's good to know that like, you know, in Florida, land of the free, that you're still, you know, getting treated like a criminal and getting the rug pulled out from under you down uh, down in Florida. It's not just in Oregon cuz I went through something similar on a couple different, uh, plexes that I had which were, um, you know, quote unquote unpermitted. And in a in in every case it was because, you know, work was done before people ever even did that. Like, you know, back in like the '40s or something like that. It's like, "Oh, yeah, we're not finding a historical permit." It's like, "Well, yeah, because they didn't do anything like that back then." >> And then if you're in a historical district, they won't let you do the work that is unpermitted. >> Yeah. >> So, like in one of them, I had that, um, that ADU garage thing and they said, um, "You have to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it because the mold overrun the property when they shut down the air conditioning for like a year and a half." But, that now meant 40% of the structure was having to be fixed, which that triggered some rule that now you can't you can't be grandfathered in to having these two units if you have to do work that's like substantial improvement or something that was more than 40%. So, they're like, "You have to tear down the whole structure. You have to make your property worth less and spend money to do it." Right? And then I was like, "Well, maybe I can sell it to some investor at a massive loss who has a bunch of capital who will come in and he'll try to like he'll take it over and fix it up." But, no, the city said there's it was like $550,000 of fines from all of those little like the grass not being cut and Yes, be and it was they caused it and they don't do anything. Like I guess moral story is you will not beat Uncle Sam. >> Oh, yeah. >> You can be as smart as you want to be, as capitalized as you want to be. It has been devastating for like my entire businesses, my portfolio, my retirement plans, everything. Never would have happened if it wouldn't have been for that 1031 exchange. So, I got a lot.
>> it's actually worse down downstream. I mean, heck, that's I mean, this is this is definitely the worst story that I've heard, I guess, financially that I've heard. And that's dude, that's saying a lot. I don't know if there's anybody, maybe on Earth, that's heard more like title fraud stories than I have and having the downstream effect on that be I mean cuz that just it was out of necessity that you had to uh that you had to do all this and so and it was and that desperation was brought on directly by that guy stealing your titles. >> That's exactly right. >> Oof. Damn, dude. Well, that's I mean keep fighting the good fight. I mean that's >> What's odd is I was kind of known as the most conservative of all the investors. I was like I don't like borrowing money from other people. I don't use OPM. Make your money, save your money, be extra careful, have a million backup plans. I never accounted for if the government shuts you down. You can't sell it to anybody else. You can't have power to it. They won't approve your permits. I wasted, I'm not exaggerating, probably $700,000 in engineer and architectural fees playing the games of these six different properties, submitting it to fire and then fire says yes, but zoning says no. Zoning says yes, and building says no. Building says yes, and planning says no. And then planning says yes, but then fire goes, "Well, then no." And you do this forever. You never get out of that hell.
>> I did it once and that was enough to know that I never wanted to do it again. So when it happened to me the second time and the third time, uh I cut my losses. I mean at the end of the day, David, like we've only got so much time here on this planet and I I can't >> You're not wrong. >> I can't express how much I hate like that. So like I can't like, you know, go through my work day dealing with, you know, you know, the fire man and the fire code and then the other department not knowing what the left hand or the right hand is doing. So uh I cut my losses on the on on those and >> I wish I'd cut them 3 years earlier. I would have saved $3 million and all the money I'd spent saving over that period of time. Like when I say devastating, I'm not exaggerating. >> Oh, yeah. >> I wish I'd cut mine sooner. >> Yeah, man. The most important real estate is the real estate between our ears. And if that's occupied with stuff that's just bumming you the heck out, like, dude, that's that's that's no way to go through your work day. And that's kind of how I thought about and how I honestly justified, you know, taking a bath for several hundred thousand dollars with my situation. And it didn't feel good. It feels lousy even talking about it, but like at same time, I will take that over it still being in my life and having to have managed that day to day to day to day week to month to month to month to month.
>> More people need to hear this. I think people are going to listen to this be like, is that okay? I can take a loss and it's still a win as long as I get my sanity back? Absolutely. >> Yeah, dude. Preserve your sanity. Sometimes preserving your sanity costs an absolute ass ton of money, but that's just how it is. >> Yeah. The The only thing is I've learned a ton about life. I've learned about people's motives. I've learned a lot and I'm going to be starting a new YouTube channel called the green pill. It's kind of a play on words with the red pill and the blue pill like >> I like it. I like it. >> where I'm bringing in like spiritual matters into dating, relationships, money, the purpose of why we're on Earth, what motivates us to do what we do. Good questions people don't like to ask. So if you guys are listening to this, go look it up on YouTube. It's the green pill spelled like my name. And uh that's how I've survived mentally is like asking tough questions. Like, I don't get why this is happening. You can't help it. Like, why? Why would you guys be making my life worse? Why are we allowing squatters into someone else's house? How did we get to this point? Why isn't it just grab the guy and kick him out? Or go in with a couple of your buddies and do it to be safe, but like this is a nothing burger that shouldn't even have to be discussed. But based on like the way that people vote and the religious values that we have as a country, you get these weird interpretations of right and wrong that lead to a lot of the conversations we've had to have today.
>> Yeah, unfortunately, that's true. Yeah, and why not check with those parties who are transferring title to a piece of real estate worth worth several hundred thousand or millions of dollars just to make sure that that little document that's very easily forged, is legit. We're having to show a more legit document to to buy a beer. >> Um >> Yeah. >> Maybe for the transfer of real estate, maybe there should be something in place that's a little bit more secure than a notary stamp. But until then, until then, there's Title Fraud Defender, yours your trusted source in title protection. >> I like it, man. You also got a great voice for podcasting. >> Yeah, whenever I fake it, actually, I come across as a good news news anchorman, but uh yeah, I know how to how to how to fit a plug in there sooner or later, right? >> Yeah, well, why don't you give us your contact info for people that hear it that want to stay armed and up to speed in case they find themselves in a situation where they need you.
>> Totally, man. So, if you want to find me online, George McClary, I'm really easy to find. Um mrd_portland on Instagram. Um I'm on the the TikTok and the the book face and all that all that stuff. Just uh look up George McClary. And um if you're interested in title protection, go to titlefrauddefender.com. You'll see a little video from me explaining, you know, why this is a thing, why you should uh why you should protect your property. Just ask David. And then, um actually, and oh, um and for your subscribers, uh David, I'm going to do a uh David 20 discount code. David 20 will get you a 20% off on a subscription to uh Title Fraud Defender and uh Squatter Defender. That is a uh 3-hour course uh that'll teach you everything you need to know about squatting, squatters, uh squattage, if you will. >> I was hoping you'd say that. >> Uh squatter prevention, detection, and ejection. We didn't really talk much about uh you know, prevention or um or detection, but those are two probably of the most important things. Like, an ounce of prevention, as they say, is worth a pound of cure. And it doesn't take a whole lot. So, um yeah, um David 20 will get you a 20% discount at squatterdefender.com or titlefrauddefender.com. And uh if you just want to reach out to say hi to me, would love to hear from you. I get messages in my DMs. I always respond to them. So, um any questions, comments, crazy stories, I'd love to hear them.
>> Well, thank you, George. We'll have to have you back again to talk about the rest of the story. This was really good. >> Yeah, man. I loved hearing about your story, too, man. Um big fan. Appreciate you having me. >> like to tell people that this was the feel-good story of the the decade because after you hear this, you will feel very good about your own self. >> Yep. Yep, man. I mean, at least I mean, your story could have ended with, "And that's why I now live in a tent." And that's how some stories I heard ended. So, yours didn't end it like that. So, yeah, there's that. >> That's There's that, and then there's the green pill. Two good things that are going to be coming out of it. So, we can do it. >> Green pill. Yes, sir. >> Thank you, George. We'll have you back again. And everyone, thank you for listening and sticking with me during the trying times of real estate. It's not all sunshine and roses, but it does get better. We'll see you guys next week on the David Green Show.