tuesday Coaching 10.8

a [Music] [Applause] [Music] Doing well? How about yourself?

Pretty good. Pretty good. Before we get—we're gonna give you guys, of course, a video update of the Melden Pro project. Um, before we get started, do anybody have any deal reviews?

All right. Well, can—can Jean Alor, can you cut your mic on for a second? Can you hear me?

Yeah, now I can.

Oh, sorry, my apologies. Technical difficulties. Technical difficulties. I'm a little tardy to the party. My apologies.

No worries. But we—we're gonna start this call off like we do with, um, a video of the Melden project that Jean and I shot earlier today. The other Jean. Okay. After that, that me and you will jump into it and, of course, answer everybody's questions about the project update and, um, then we'll get into it, talking about what you got going on and how far you've come.

Okay. Okay. Cool. From one to do, uh, fix and flips and West.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm down.

All right, Brian, are you on?

Yes, I am. And, uh, I just want to let everyone know, so this video is going to start off with a little bit of Jean speaking with, I believe, who was the electrician, so you're going to get a little bit of their discussion, and then we're going to move right into the walkthrough where Jean kind of starts out on the first floor and then KP kind of takes care of the rest, going through what's going on with the second floor.

All right. Sounds good. Um, can you share your screen?

Yes.

All right. Can everyone see that?

Yes.

All right. All right. You can go ahead.

In the future, to have a smart panel. Right. One thing I like about those panels is that you can see how much each appliance is. Right. Yeah. Understand more about, you know, the health that and kind of what's going on. Uh, send me any information you have on it. The biggest thing is call from timeframe. You know, I've done some research. I've seen 25, 3500 panel. Yeah, I just don't know the timeframe. The timeframe is going to be two to four months from now. It's probably not—not worth it, but at least I can start thinking about, you know, the car and other things. I—I didn't think about who—you know, who sets it up and if there a is, you know, in the future. So, um, yeah, those type of costs we would have to figure in if we were to, you know, do the maintenance or repair, troubleshooting. Have to kind of figure a cost for my standpoint if it's a new panel, and I don't know, you know, if there are some reviews where people had maintenance issues in the past. See what type of maintenance issues. Haven't come across any major concerns. The main that kind of popped out for me was that noise. I know, kind of homeowners, construction in general for noises. Yeah. So that's one of the things that kind of popped out of the mov for me and picking a location. The north spr—yeah. So we don't have the garage. So let's—let's move forward to regular panel on this house. I do want to get some more information. Okay. For the next house that, of course, maybe have a garage. So SP, then that's really going to be cost and timeframe and then potentially what are some of the issues that people are experiencing. Okay. So I'll work on getting some more information. Salesperson to deal with personally. Okay. And see if we can build a relationship with them. Okay. Uh, and for that information to you and see how we can integrate that with.

Okay. Now, outside of that, anything else we need to go over here? You know, I want to—we with Andy, not that I know—not that brought to my attention. Thing I did notice I was on this Steve here. Yeah, it's gonna be there. Something on the second here. Yeah, I want to do the same thing on the second tier, maybe just two on the second tier. Okay. Out. How do you want that switch? Um, probably that second one and maybe that just evenly on the second base, maybe that third base. I don't know, whatever even.

Yeah. Okay. Would you like that we switch along with these?

Y same. Same. Same switch.

Okay. All right. That way they all—

All right. Good. Like, take care.

All right, guys. Welcome back to today's class. There's a lot going on at Melden. Let's just do a quick walkthrough so I can just break everything down. From that, of course, we start all of our Mechanicals, as you can see, electrical going in. Um, it's important when do electrical, and this is more for—more so for the contractor. You see the label, the switches, so they kind of know where all H is. Also in, you can see the up work out here, and of course, we talk about importance of having or the benefit of having these eye Joys. You see exactly how D work can have it. Creates a situation where you don't need chasers in the ceilings. All that's important. One thing I want to point out, I did call my plumber because I was over here a couple days ago when they were doing the plumbing, and for the most part is they didn't do a very good job, and I'll show you why. We had to end up moving the valve. I'm sorry, we had to end up moving the toilet over. So of course, they cut the concrete, but before we put this tub down, all this should have been repaired. I believe the plumbing rough has already been called in, so what I'm going to do is let the plumbing rough pass, and then once we pass Plumbing rough, I'm going to have them remove this tub, come back, fix the floor, because yes, I can kind of cat this too, but the other issue, this side, you know, all that is not accept, and this is the plumber I've used for the last seven years, and I don't know if he even came out here. Mak his—his guys tell them or whatever, but stuff like this, you want to make sure that you address it, your subcontractor, so that the right way. They start cutting corners like this, who knows what corners they're going to be cutting, taking out, fixing that floor. That's definitely a—I know the property is dirty. We got live action right now. Once they're done, all stuff site, so H Stack's done. Plum done, and they're in the pocket. Do couple another note about—so one of the things that you're going to be responsible for when you're doing your plumbing rough are your fixtures and your tub. So make sure when you do your rough, you have your tubs on site, and also make sure you have the right tub, um, sub thigh and sub direction, because this is a right theet on the right side. This is a right hand to if theet would have been on side, this would have been left because the side that's open, of course, is going to butt against the wall. One of the things I'm gonna have to do here is because the sub is a little short, I'm gonna have to frame it BL in and go up. Uh, that's something that my frame here. Um, the other thing, Val that you use, make sure that know exactly what type of fixtures you're putting in up front so you get the correct Val. Either are un valves. I've used these a ton. They're Delta. They're about $42 a pop. I know that there's a whole line of Delta uh finishes that will fit these valves. Dela do have some other valves like the starter Valves and some—some valves that are cheaper. The problem sometimes with those, um, cheaper valves that are not Universal, they only fit certain faets. If you're doing like a nice of home, you may be—you may not be able to get the a nicer finish uh fixture on it. So it's either good to order your faucets that come with the valve or understand when you put these valves in what fos are going to uh fit you. A lot of times, um, we're doing like, you know, sing and stuff, we definitely will order the FES with the vals because all fixtures are not created equally, and sometimes when we're using a separ Bo, there a certain bow that kind of goes with that. So just kind of keep that in mind when you're watering your—your Val. The reason they have the tub filled up is to test the water pressure, and one of the things that the inspector will come out here and look at is with the sub filled up, you know, of course, you'll look at, you know, how to PL in brand, you know, make sure everything conly cold, but if there's issues with or leak in your—in your plumbing, this tub will drain out, so it's important that they have that in. Um, always pay attention to your shower heads because you don't want to cut sheetrock after. Just make sure they're at—at a good height. Or my master—I'm sorry for this bathroom. I think that's a good height. If I'm doing like rain showers and other stuff, I may raise them a little bit more, especially when I'm using, um, you know, 10 or 12 ft ceilings. The thing that they're going to have to do in here, and you have to know who's doing this, sometimes it's your electrician, sometimes it's your AG fat guy, but the pass inspection, you're going to have to have your—the—the—the duck, your—the uh exhaust fan. So having that exhaust fan is definitely a part of passing it. I think that's where my electricians to do that because the H is already—already done. I can't remember or not if we did the windows last time, but the windows are already in. I think we might have talked about them again. When window install, make sure you go around and make sure that you open all the windows. We'll talk about the installation of the windows and some of the other stuff when we get to that part. Let's just take a look around. Uh, two minutes left. Okay. So I decided not to do—I'm still going to do a bar here, so I'm not going to have any type of water feature. I'm just going to do a cabinet, keep it simple because it's a small space and it's—it's not going to make or break, but having a nice bar to—ing this wall up in a nice R rat, maybe even putting, um, some type of, um, know glass door here to be a cool feature as well. I don't think they've R it yet, but I'll definitely have LEDs in here for having that—that low voltage for your LED important, and—and again, you know, if you want to run your house for internet and cable, one those low voles up front, it's definitely—we're definitely going to be doing that in this home just to make it—e on the homeowner side of things. As far as the kitchen, know pretty sory Islands here. You got soul here. One of the things about doing my soul, I think it's—it's kind of—it's better to do it up front, you know, in the back end. I—in this house, I am doing electric, but I'm also putting the outlet and running gas L for gas. So if the homeowner wanted to change the gas, then everything is already here. They don't have to worry about, you know, doing additional work, taking our cabinet. So yeah, we built some temporary doors. Very easy to build, you know, you need two latches, uh, old piece of OSB and, you know, couple 2x4s. We were waiting on our fi doors, and they actually showed up today. This is what the sliding glass door is going to look like, and I actually have a bone to pick with the delivery. Like, we live in a—a world that's not perfect. None of us are perfect. Mistakes happen all the time. This is not all these fault, but let me show you this, and while I'm—because when I showed up to the site today, the door just L on the ground. Uh, they should have put the doors in the house and get ww or something, and all my other deliveries they've been really good about calling me. So I said it to say this happens time for time. I've had, you know, build a first SCE Le sheepwalk uncovered outside. So make sure, you know, when your deliveries are getting done and—and go check that it's got delivered the right way because this, for me, this—this ain't acceptable. Like, call me, let me make a decision on where I want you to be the doors, but the other glass door was laying right here on the ground. It wasn't even covered up. So I just called my guys and Clos the doors in here. Um, obviously, I'm not picking up this—this door too heavy for me, um, but I'm—I'mma cover it, and they're going to try to get here either this afternoon after they finish all the job or they gonna come first thing in the morning and it take them, you know, couple hours to hang the door, but this is the door right here. Very easy, and you know, now I can just lock it. I'mma keep the front door because I haven't ordered my front door yet, but before I start my side, I'm have to have my doors on or at least Lo the trim that's going to be on my door so they can but the S up against the door. We got a whole video on siding. We're going to be doing, um, sucko siding, and we're also going to—also do a group a VRP sighting, and James Hardy is gonna come to the site on the 22nd. So one thing I want just point out, we going there—like this latch is on wrong. I'm gonna tell you why. Even if you—all I need is a Filip screwdriver to get in here, right? So they need to flip this lat so that it covers when it locked. So all they got to do is turn it over. Don't have to move this or anything, but that bump it right out. One thing you—you notice about when you locking these doors, you want to use the star ke screws. CU most thieves may not have the—the Smart Ones Will, but a lot of them just have regular Philip head screw tips. So make sure you use the star keys and also flip that led. So that's a great point, especially if you having the doors on here for a long periods of time. One thing we always talk you guys about is of pra—my plumber actually came in first. I'm either get my hbac in first. Sometimes the pl in first. They normally don't bump heads against, you know, being the way, but you can see you put those ducks in first because those Ducks were not in first. It's a lot harder for your electric—a lot harder for your eight guy to work around electrical. So that's why our eight first. Other than that, that's it, man. Mechanical going in. Um, all that. He tell you guys what's going on on the outside schle right now is this. I'm focus on getting all the pass the beginning of next week. I want to do installation if I can over the weekend. I get everything past. Once I do installation, I leave the inspection and I have framing in. So my goal between now and next Friday is to pass all my MPS in installation and framing. So less than two weeks from now, I'll do in sheetrock. Once we do sheetrock, I don't have any other inspections to the final. So when I'm thinking about building a house, I compartmentalize it. Of course, you're thinking about plans and getting your permits. Then after you get your permits, you're thinking about foundation and framing. After that, I'm thinking about MVPs to get the sheet rock because I know that's the next p of points. On the outside, we'll definitely document and show you, but once—because now I have all the major stuff in, I'm gonna get the sight scen up really good. I'm gonna start doing my slow well on the outside so I can get that out the way, and I'm also start working on essentially doing the driveway, back filling, uh, grading the lot, get my sewer tap, all the plumbing connect to the house. Also, call the gas company. We've already set our account for the gas company because we're going to be running gas. Do all that stuff in the beginning because sometimes it can take 8, 10, 12 weeks to get a gas line out here. So if you wait to the back end to do it, then guess what, you don't have a house fin, you wait time for them to come run your gas line. Um, I noticed that my plumber didn't run the gas line. I shot him a message earlier to tell him go ahead run the gas line. So again, we're going to have gas for the stove, and then we also have a tankless water here. All my tankist always use gas because it—it, um, just power that tankless better. You know, you can use electrical. I—in past, I didn't like it, but that's the decision y'all have to make, but that's where we're at. We're in the MVP stage, and soon we're gonna be in the sheat boox. So I'm gonna turn over to KP, and he'll share with you guys what's going on up there. Let's take the trip upstairs.

But down here, um, it's a lot of noise. Got electrician doing what they do, running all the rough stairs being mentioned earlier about downstairs. All the MPS have been run. That is the—the Mechanicals, which is Electrical, Plumbing, and if you can tell by the way they ran the plumbing on this wall right here, they do have to insulate because this is an exterior wall. So you will see insulated pipes on all the exterior walls. If your plumber doesn't insulate the exterior wall pipes, you're probably going to have some issues when it comes to passing inspection. Down here, I'm going to jump to the electrical. Electrical engineer has put all the boxes in place right now. So this is the time that if you have any changes, want to add any lights or change the location of a box, now is the time. And when I mentioned changing the location because you think you got to think about which way your door is going to swing. Is it an in swing? Is it swinging towards this wall and swinging towards this? Obviously, this door will be swinging towards that wall because the outlet is right here. You never want to put the outlet or switch—switch panel behind the ins swing of the door. So keep that in mind. Also, I'm not sure if they run it yet, but when it comes to electrical, they're going to have to run electrical on all exterior entrances and exits for, of course, porch lights or scotes or whatever you choose to put out here. Being that this is the little Retreat that we talked about on a couple videos ago, we have electrical for those as well. Got can light electrical as well as ceiling fans. If you want to drop a couple ceing fans out and mention the importance of the flashing on a video or two ago. So make sure your—your siding gu is doing all that. Let go inside. You notice this wire hanging up here? This is for the illuminated um lighting that we were talking about that will illuminate this room in that—in the—in the drop tra. What else? And a lot of room, and I'm not going to get too technical about the HB. We're going to have a couple vents. These—both of these vents may not blow air. One may be a return, especially in larger rooms like this. The HVB guy can educate you guys on which ones are returns because there will be different registers that you're going to have to put on that. Like a register is the actual name for the actual great that you're putting on top of the AGB. We're going to use a course in large rooms, multidirectional, not just once—just point in one direction. Those are usually—

Let's—over here. Let show you how created the chase, run the duct work from the actual unit in. So in this closet here, we created a nice size Chase area that they could just easily close a whole access to it depending on if they need access to these in the future. They're all strapped down so they look great. They're not constricting where they're holding air flow. So that is done great. Right. So let's run over here and show you something. All right. So this is actually the drain for the sink that is going in this bathroom right here. Reason that this exhaust pipe is so tall is because when you're testing your water downstairs, you're going to fill that tub up and make sure that everything's sealed tight. So they have the put this on here so that no water overflow comes out of this actual drain when they're doing those tests. All right. Notice this is the only piece of Plumbing from this shower that has been installed right now. This is very important that you leave the valve for the plumber but take all the finishes with you when you leave the site because those finishes can be thrown away. Come up.

Missing or just damage, but you want to make sure that this is the only thing that you're leaving the valves for. Each valve, bathroom, and other wet areas that you're going to have. Val in here again is another large bedroom. You tell that one of the vents may be a supply, one may be a return. So, as you can see, the mechanicals are looking great, really punching them out. This was just three or four days worth of work that you were able to get the actual, um, MEPs complete. Like the electricians will be done today. Plumbing rough is done, the HVAC rough, of course, is done. Without, so there you have it. If you have any questions, fire away, but this is just a quick walk-through on all the MEPs going on at this price. We w up out some mistakes a lot of times when you walk in property, you may be walking in property with the head guy in charge. So, for me, I walk the property with Andy; he always does a pretty good job of relaying information. I walk with my plumber and my HVAC guy, and I did that intentionally, so we talk about—and sometimes what happens is they send their guys out, and they still get stuff wrong. So this dust is wrong on the plans; um, the deck is supposed to be in a different location. I definitely don't want to build a chap to my closet; it's already not a big house as it is, so me being able to maximize my closet space is very, very important. They were supposed to run this chase right here so that I could build this wall out a little bit and box it in, but you see right here we have it marked as a chase, but the HVAC tech that installed it missed it. So I do not want no chase in my—sal—this one's right. This is one of the reasons a little deeper, put sheetrock in front of it; you're not even going to know that's a chase behind that wall.

The other thing is my plumber made a mistake as well. I walked with him and laid out our bathroom; it's not like this. I was here today that they started; the first mistake they made was putting the plumbing to the floor. They changed it because we're doing floating vanities; you can't do floating vanities unless you have this plumbing, like, them. We're not doing a tub in here, so they put this in as if we were doing a tub. It's not going to be a tub; there shouldn't have been plumbing on this wall. Um, although you can do plumbing on an exterior wall, if you do plumbing on an exterior wall, I think you have to insulate, but you only can do it on a 2x6 wall. So even if it was a 2x4, you still have to do that wall out 2x6. The plumbing valve should have been here; I've already laid out where that linen closet is going to go, so the plumbing valve outside the linen closet, and it should have been a valve here and a shower here. So I'm here today, of course, to do the video for you guys, but to also make some notes to get back to the general contractor at this point. Um, got two options; I want to figure out when the inspections are going to be so that we can have everything inspected, so I can get everything inspected, so I can even make these changes before or after the inspection. Inspection of tomorrow, I'm just going to let it pass inspection, then I'll get it done. If not, then um, I'll just—I'll just go ahead and have them get it done now. So I'm still going to do a third-party inspection as well. The third party is scheduled right now for Thursday, but if they're going to make some changes, I'll wait till my third-party inspection. Um, I may still go ahead and get the county so that's out the way; I keep moving, but I'm still going to get that third-party inspection done just for my peace of mind and so I can all EAS on the third party to make sure they come out here and fix it or do it right, if that's the case. So appreciate you guys for tuning in. You have any questions, fire away, and let's start the Q&A class. All right, guys, so do any of you have any questions? Brian, you can stop sharing your screen.

Yes, I do. Uh, how could those plumbing issues been avoided? Which specific issue are you talking about? Um, the plumbing running through the floor, um, for the floating vanity, for one. Just clear communication. One, the vanity, the floating vanities are upstairs, so it's easier to move that plumbing rather than busting up the concrete as it were downstairs. Um, the reasons that they had to bust up the concrete downstairs is, of course, to move over the drains that were, you know, were never placed in the right area when they did the uh—because you got to remember that they're just roughing out supplies and drains before they pour the concrete, so you may have to move a drain or something. Seldomly you may have to move it, but in this case, the main issue that Jean had with the plumbing was they didn't repair; they just, you know, chiseled out all the concrete, moved the drain, but never poured more concrete and repaired that concrete and just set the tub on some, you know, some shoddy work, which was the chewed-up concrete. Now the mistakes upstairs, you know, they're very simple because all you're doing is drilling holes in OSB so you can put the drains on the wall, and um, but you can only put exterior valves and stuff on walls that are 2x6, not 2x4 walls. So it's a great thing that we framed upstairs with 2x6 so we could put um, plumbing on the exterior wall. You can't put them on exterior 2x4 walls. And one thing I want to chime in on is that if you get in this business and think that there's nothing that's going to go wrong on your house, you're probably in the wrong business. Like we—we—this is a management business; there are things that you can do to minimize your risk and speed up your project, but there's always going to be something that goes wrong um, on these houses. You just want to make sure that it's not a mistake that's going to cost you a lot of money. All the changes that I had to make, then none of it cost not one extra dime out of my pocket. Yeah, it may—it may be a delay here or there, but it's not moving that—cutting that concrete; that was not an extra cost um, because that was on the plumber. And we were like six or seven inches off upstairs. All that—all those change orders, they're going to come back and, you know, correct those change orders. One thing, you know, obviously you can sit on the site all day and babysit it. Um, I did give all of my main plumbers, my main HVAC guys, and my electrician the plans with the renderings, and they still, you know, got it wrong. Um, but again, it's an easy fix; it's not costing me any—any—any additional money, and um, all that stuff could probably be fixed in a matter of maybe two or three hours.

Jean, the bathroom downstairs, the bathtub, you—you went outside of the bathroom to the—to the um, front of the bathtub. I didn't hear what you said. I know you mentioned the floor, but did you mention something else? No, we just got to close that wall in a little bit, um, because the tub that was slated for that space, it—when I looked to price it out, it was like $900 and something dollars, and I'm like, I'm not about to spend $900; let me get this $300 tub and—and just close it up by what, six—six inches and call it a day. Four or six inches because the typical tub is 5 feet, so 60 inches, so that 900—that $900 tub is probably, you know, 65 inches, just five inches more. Now you just bump out that little wall with 2x4 and some insulation and sheetrock; make it do what it do. Um, do you think—think it would be a nice aesthetic if you did like a ledge instead of building out the wall? Um, it could be. Um, if I build that wall out, I'll put a niche in that wall to make it look cool, but I mean, either—either option is—is good, you know, at this point. You know, for me, it's just easier to build that wall out and throw a niche and call it a day, but if you want to get creative and do a ledge and all that stuff, by all means, it's—it's—it's not a bad idea, but I got so many other things that—that's going to be pretty dope in this house; it's—it's nothing that—um, you know, from a woman's perspective, my wife would probably want me to do that, but from my perspective, I'm probably just going to frame it up and keep going. Okay. Um, and then you talked about the third-party inspection; did you say that you're going to have the third-party inspection before he does the changes or after the—I'm having the third party after. Okay. Okay, but I'm—I'm going to have—um, I'm going to let the city come do their thing. Once the site is clean, I got somebody doing a site cleaning tomorrow, and I talked to my plumber, and I think the plumbing is set for Wednesday; the HVAC is set for Wednesday; electrical will probably be set for Thursday. So at this point, I'm just going to pass my inspection, make the changes, and then do my third party. Okay. And then lastly, you said something about a chase; I think you said that was in the hallway or something. I didn't quite get what you were saying. No, they put a chase inside of the master closet when the chase should have went—and the chase should have been put in the hallway. And what's a chase? A chase is just a pass-through for plumbing pipes, um, ductwork. I don't want that ductwork in the closet because it's going to cut away from the space of the closet. Okay, so there's a—there's a—there's right in front; there's um, about a foot and a half of space—put in half of space I could just put there and just box it in, and nobody never know it was a chase there. We're just going to build a wall in front of it, but if I left it in the actual um, closet, it's going to take up too much space. Okay, I didn't—I didn't know the name of it. Um, actually, I had that in my—in my closet, my master closet, and when I installed the um, a separate heater for the downstairs, I um, took the—the—the vent out—the duct out and squared out my—my closet, so um, I didn't—yeah, I didn't know that that's what it was called, a chase.

Those—the LED tray up in the upstairs back bedroom, are those designed—in a framing plan—that they're not done after the fact? Yeah, you do them up front; it's just way easier. Um, they just did a reverse tray with a ledge so that after sheetrock, my guys can go run the LED lights up there; it'll be—it'll be tucked behind that—that ledge that's up there. Um, you can do it after the fact, but it's just easier to do it up front because after the fact, now you're trying to figure out how to frame on top of sheetrock and more sheetrock; it's just way easier to do everything you can in the pre-framing stage. Okay. And with the electricians, it's usually about a couple of guys that's doing electrical work on these projects; it just depends, man. Um, he had a two-man crew out there; I mean, they—they started on—I think they put the boxes in on Friday; they worked some on Saturday; they're working today. So yeah, this house is like 2,000 square feet, but again, you know, it just depends on the subcontractor. You know, sometimes they may have four or five guys out there and knock it out in two days; sometimes, you know, Andy might have six jobs going on where he has two people at each job. You know, my thing is, I don't care if you have one person out there or 15, you know, just meet my deadline and meet my price and meet my quality of work; the job's yours. So I don't get into how many people they got out there; I just—I focus on when can you start, when can you finish. But every—every subcontractor is different, man. Okay. Yeah, the reason I asked that because uh, my brother-in-law is an electrician, and it's just him by himself, though, but he does excellent work; that's why I was just asking if I did a project with him, it would be him by himself, but like you say, he will have to be able to, you know, meet the deadlines and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah, if he's saving you money and takes a week and a half, then that's—that's a call you got to make. But um, some guys—so I will say this: a lot of guys that work by themselves, and I don't know your brother-in-law, but a lot of guys that work by themselves, they may be used to doing smaller jobs and may be used to doing repair jobs, and from my experience, I found that they're not the best ones to—to do new construction on a new house because the guys that do new construction, they pretty much specialize in new construction, and it's a totally different animal when you're doing a whole new house by yourself versus you—you know, running, you know, some wires and changing some fixtures out. Um, he may need at least a helper to kind of get him through—through some of that stuff, but that's—that's just going to be—that's going to have to be your call. But from my experience, a one-man—it's kind of—it's kind of hard to run an operation when just one person; it's just working. You got two people, and that's all they do every day, like a lot of these guys; that's all they do, in and out every day, like they don't—the electricians, they don't paint; they don't do nothing; every day these guys are wiring houses. And I've been seeing—because Andy has several subs—these guys I've been seeing their face for the last six or seven years. So when you got somebody that's all they do for 10, 15 years, they're going to get good at it, so it's not going to take them a long time. But just make sure, like if you hire your—your brother-in-law, whoever he is, man, that you know he can just meet your time frame and—um, you know, get it done professionally in—in—in a timely manner. But I haven't personally had success with just a one-man show, okay, unless—unless he's just—I take that back; we had this one guy named Miguel—Kelly—no, Miguel; that's the only—that's the only subcontractor that I know that can do it all. M-H—he—he's a one-man—this guy did roof, tile, electrical, paint, floors, and he was just good, but he—he was a—he was a special dude, man. Yeah, he did it in church shoes—church shoes on the roof. Yeah, I was just wondering; I know he used to rehab back home when he stayed in Detroit too; he used to uh, rewire whole—whole houses back over in certain areas of Detroit, you know, by himself and stuff; I was just asking; there's something to think about. Yeah, but typically you want—you want a crew out there, man, a two- or three-man crew to get through, you know, because you know, one—sometimes, man, you—you need somebody to hold that ladder or you just need assistance when you're running some of that stuff, so you definitely can get it done a lot faster with a team. Not to say he can't do it by himself, but—but that's just from personal experience, man. When I used to hire people that say they can do it all, I always lost money because maybe they can do one or two things pretty good, but the other things they're trying to do it to make the money, but the job never comes out the way you see it fit because that's just not their skill set. So try to find people that's all they do; you're going to have a better—a better project uh, and less headaches.

Got a questions, KP? Um, just one thought: lesson learned, as I looked at what you were doing, no matter how many years you work with your contractor, you still have to check on them; that's a—that's a lesson learned that I saw and that I do remember too. Um, the—the second question I have is do you have to have a third-party inspection, or is that just something you personally wanted? You know, you definitely do not have to have a third party, but in this business, it would not be wise to not have a third party, you know, because for one, you can look at and think you know what's right, and even if you knew what's right, why not have a second set of eyes to check this stuff? I'm not a licensed electrician; I'm not a licensed plumber; I'm not a framer; I'm at—at—at—at the core, I'm a real estate developer. You know, you hire the people to do the jobs you don't necessarily know how to do; you may not necessarily know like everything that goes into that job; that's why you need to hire that engineer to double-check that stuff. Codes change all the time; I just found out the code for the island changed um, a couple of months ago, but it changed in 2023. I'm not keeping up with every single code; that's why I hire somebody to be my eyes and ears for me to make sure everything's up to code and also make sure everything's working properly. I had a situation, and I've shared this story a few times; I got real cool with the inspectors in the Cobb County because I used to do a lot of properties out there. Inspector pulled up to the house: "What's up, Jean? How you doing?" "Oh, man, I already know you do great work. Um, go get your permit card; I'm going to sign it." He signed my permit card and then even walked into my house for me. Okay, that was cool, and I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah," you know, that was great, not realizing that was the worst decision that I could have—I ain't going to say I made because he made it—but that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Come to find out, we turned the water on; my whole upstairs flooded; cost me 7 or $8,000 because my inspector didn't do his job. So a lot of times you're dealing with these cities; some inspectors are very thorough, and they're going to do their job; some of these inspectors are not very thorough; you know, you just never know what people got going on in their personal life; uh, they—I've been at houses where inspectors are talking on the phone; they're talking about football or what they did over the weekend, and they quite frankly half-ass walk through your—your house. You want to pass inspection, but not at the expense of things being wrong. So that third party is going to help mitigate your risk and help ensure that everything that you can possibly catch is caught. Sometimes the third party might even miss stuff, but at the same time, you want to have them. If I would have had a third-party inspection, it would have saved me $7,000, and it would have probably saved me two or three weeks of work, and it saved me a lot of pain, a lot of headache. So do those third parties for your own satisfaction and—and safety. You know, it's just like if you go buy a used car; yeah, the dealer's going to tell you anything you need to know to get you to sign that paperwork, and that's all cool, and you can talk to the dealer's mechanic, but take it to another mechanic and see what—if—if they don't find something that they didn't disclose, to tell you about it. You want that third party for your own satisfaction. Um, if you don't do the third party, that's on you, but I'm telling you it's a big mistake, especially when you're new because what happens is if you don't do that third party and you don't know what you're looking at and you're just going by what the—what they say, and the inspector comes out there and finds 20 or 30 things wrong, he's going to ride your ass the whole project because he's going—he knows you—he knows you don't know what you're doing; he's going to make your life a living hell. If that inspector comes out there and finds one or two things and is satisfied with your work, then it's going to make your life easier. So if you don't know what you're doing, it's foolish not to even have a third party; it's foolish to—

Think that you shouldn't get a third party? It's another $122 to $1,500. So I don't recommend anybody not doing a third party. I'm 500 houses in; I'm still doing third-party inspections. Okay, so good, that was good information.

So for a newbie, when do you bring in the third party, like inspection? Like after the sheepprocking is done? Just, just when? No, you need to do the third party on all everything that you got to get inspected. Your foundation, as soon as your contractor finishes doing the foundation, you need to have a third party inspect it. After your electrical, after your plumbing, after your HVAC, you need to have a third-party inspection before I put my sheetrock in. In addition to my third-party inspection, I do a building inspection. So I'mma call my other engineer, who was also a home inspector; he's gonna come check my flashing; he's going to check my roof; he's gonna make sure my siding is put on right; he's going to check, you know, to make sure my steps are the right height; he's going to check any codes; he's going to check everything in that house before I put sheetrock in. That's a final opportunity for me to correct stuff before I go to sheetrock, because once you put up that sheetrock, it's hard to make those changes, you know, in certain instances. So before any of your mechanicals and your foundation, you definitely want to make sure you have that third-party inspection. Whether you, and if you're new, you want to make sure you have it before you call a city for melding. I can do my stuff now because I know, for the most part, my GU is going to be pretty tight. You know, maybe it's one or two things that they may have missed and I missed, and the inspector called out, but I'm pretty confident that the inspector's not going to go out there and have a 20-item checklist for my guys to do. If I wasn't comfortable with my guys, I would definitely take my time, even if it cost me an extra week to do my third party first and then do the county. But at this stage in the game, I'm comfortable doing the county, but I am going to do that third party before I close up any walls on this house.

Now, it's the third-party inspection skill, then most of the subs, or is that just looking at, uh, one or two of the subs? Foundation, framing, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. That's what I use my third party for. Outside of that, you can do a home, a building inspection for your framing and all your pre- your pre-stuff before sheetrock. After the house is finished, you definitely want to have a complete home inspection where they're testing everything. So third party is just only on those upfront upfront items to sheetrock.

So do you use one third-party inspector, or do you use different ones for each phase? They're all different ones. Some companies offer all the services; some companies may just offer structural and foundation; other companies will offer structural, foundation, and MEPs; some companies may just offer MEPs. MEPs are your electrical, but the inspectors that come out, they're either going to be engineers or they're going to be trained in in in mechanicals, HVAC, or electrical for codes. So it just depends on the company as to which services they offer for third party. Third party can range anywhere from, you know, $150 to $225 per trade, depends on location where you're at. You know, obviously, size of house, that type of stuff can make a difference. Foundation can range anywhere from, you know, $400 to $600, $700, depending on how big your foundation is. On average, I set aside anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 just for all my inspections for the entire house.

And the last point I'll make, um, with your third parties and even with the county, some counties do inspections individually. So like on melding, I can do my plumbing, my HVAC, my electrical, all individually. If I was building a house in MCD, there they do what they call a combo inspection; they're going to come out and inspect your electrical, HVAC, plumbing, your framing, all at one time. So know where you're at and know what the county's going to make you do, whether it's a combo, individual, and then understand if your third party can do a combo, cuz sometimes it may be $225 to do each inspection, but you may can do a combo inspection, even with your third party, whether the county is doing a third party or not. It's easier for him to come out there and do everything at one time and pay one fee. That's why I had my inspection set up for Thursday because I knew everything was going to be finished. So instead of me paying, you know, a couple hundred dollars per trade, I end up paying like $395, and he'll do all the mechanicals for me.

Well, all great questions, guys. I'mma turn it back over to KP. KP, I'mma hop off here, man. If you need me, just hit me, but um, I know we got Jean, Jean, other Jean, li'l Jean, little Jean on the phone. Appreciate you for being on, man. It's good that, um, a lot of the students can hear from other students like yourself that's building. You know, we're super proud of you of what what what you're doing, you know, we me and him, me and me and Jean actually partnered on some other deals in Atlanta. He may fill you in on the Donley streets, how he's catching hell and why I don't want to build in Atlanta no more, but uh, fill you in on Darwish. But appreciate you being on the call, bro. We're proud of you, um, but it's good for other other future, it's good for future builders. I, we gonna call y'all students, y'all future build, it's good for future builders to to hear from other current builders versus just me hearing from me and KP. And it's good for us too, because sometimes we all learn from each other. So thank you for being a part of this call today.

Yes, sir. So do we have any more questions about the property we just viewed, the update? If not, then we'll get Regan to go ahead. Yeah, KP, I did have one question. What's the difference between a a flow well and a rain garden? Is there a difference, or is it the same thing? Pretty much the same thing; it's just retaining water on your premises, just different styles of the water retention. On the flow well is actually the well that you connect all your your gutters to, and so is the rain garden. I think it's just different names for the same thing. Yeah, they are the same thing. Um, here, I remember it, uh, Eric, a flow well is like a a plastic barrel that you put in the ground and connect the drain to. Um, they also have a dry pit and a rain garden. All the dry pit in a rain garden is is a hole back-filled with gravel; that's all it is. Dig a hole, they check the depth, you put gravel in it, and then you run your your um your gutter in your gutter, you put a pipe and just run into the run into the hole.

Yeah. Okay. The reason I'm asking is we're catching a little bit of an issue with the city of Atlanta tree; um, they basically don't want us to cut down this tree for whatever reason, and we have our rain garden next to it. So if we don't get it deemed as um dead, dying, or hazardous, then we're going to probably either pivot to a uh flow well or just pay the fine and cut the tree. Yeah, just pivot to the flow well. It's going to be the biggest cost, cuz it's not like those flow wells cost a hundred bucks. You still got to dig the same hole as a rain garden; you still got to use the same 57 gravel; you still got to use the same pipes that go to it. Flow well might cost you three grand; rain garden might cost you three, four grand; it's gonna be the same cost. I I would recommend not dealing with the tree; it just can extend your project longer. Like at Meldon, it took us nine months to get our permits for the city because of this tree. If I didn't have these tree issues, I could have probably got the permits a lot faster, and we weren't in a rush rush. Um, if I was in a rush and needed to kind of get out alone and get get rolling, I probably wouldn't have went the tree route; I probably would have just told him I wasn't cutting the tree down and just built the house. But because we really want to cut it down, I had to meet in front of the tree commission, and that took another three months. So if time is an issue, I would say just go to the to the flow well and not have to deal with the trees, because that that can really slow your project down. And right now is a good time to be building, to have something on the market for the for the spring, in my opinion.

Yeah, okay. All right. So we don't have any more questions. I'm gonna welcome Jean out to, to the call. For those that don't know, this is Jean; he's been in our program, I guess about a year and a half, and um, he's completed a couple projects as well as almost to the finish line on what's your second new construction, Jean? I think you're muted, or can you hear me now? Yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah. So I'm on on the second project, on the last on the last leg, last punch-outs, 5%. Yeah, the last 5%, the longest; that's where all the anxiety kicks in because it's like, you know, your baby's about to hit the market, you're putting all the the the final touches where you you're finding all the little errors that you missed out on, or people aren't moving as fast as you want them to move, because you realize you're on your last bit of that draw money. Yeah, so yeah, so get less motivated, man, when they get to the finish line, because you know they don't have but 30% of their money left, so really motivated, right? Right, and they're like, hey, where where when are you gonna put on the market? When are you going to put on the market? Put they're putting your project, you know, on the back burner because they just started another project; they're getting 70%. So right, right, wrapping this punch-out for 30%, and you just started a rough-in for 70%; you can be out of that in two days. Facts, facts, facts, facts. Okay, so uh, with all this, I'd rather you um shotgun me some questions, or did okay, we're going to take questions from everybody on the call who have questions as well as some questions for you. So what was one of the most important things you learned by being in this program today?

Oh, man, so I think the on day one, well, the most important thing, of course, is understanding patience, um, understanding your role in the building process and understanding that I know we can't curse on here, but um, why you can't, all right, really bad curse words, but in in this realm of work, you're going to be frustrated a lot. So if you dwell on the frustration, you're never going to get complete. So you gotta realize that in this field of work, you're a problem solver; you got to flip on the switch and figure out and say, while the house is on fire, not literally, but in terms of everything around you, you still have to be the one to stand up on top of all of it and say, okay, we got to do this, then this, then this, and they would be fine. That's on phase one, that's on phase two, that's on phase three. So understanding the different assets you have to wear, wear at the very beginning, because you don't have that full-out team; you don't have an accounting team; you don't have a social media team; you don't have a a for and a project manager; you got to be the developer, the accountant, the the marketing, like understanding, understanding all avenues of real estate, not to a a master level, but understanding of that I have to leverage these people's mindsets to get this one project off the ground. So that's the parts that's like the biggest learning parts, and then just communication and communication and expectations, because I when you have a miscommunication expectation, that's not how typically flows from an entrepreneurial development cycle, because every people are people, not machines.

That's a great point. I'm glad you you pointed both of those things out, because because um, understanding when we say this is a people management business, right? This is not a machine management business; you're not oil in this machine, and it's gonna run perfect every way every day that you use it. Understanding that people around you, you know, it's like the butterfly effect, and I always use this when I think about certain things, like I don't know what this person is going through to have them get to to this point, the way that they got to this point. For instance, if someone wakes up and gets some bad news and they bring that energy to the job site and they miss a couple things on the job, I can't, you know, force them to feel how I feel, because I don't know what they encountered before arriving to this position. And understanding that this is a people management business, like you just stated, it's very important to take in consideration that this house is going to get done, but you have to be willing to work with people. Yeah, right. Nobody knows what we go through; nobody knows what they go through; all we know is if we got open communication and a clear direction, then we could all get to where we need to go a lot quicker.

When people first start out in in um new construction development, like when I started, Jean started, we're just, you know, overwhelmed with anxiety because there are so many moving parts. You find the LI, is it buildable? No, it's not. Dang, strike! Now you're feeling your crush because I've done paid for this; I've done survey, and I can't do nothing with this LI; I'm losing money; I'm losing time; I need to do this; I need to do that. And you just have to slow down and think, like, listen, what Gan and KP created was a formula to expedite the process. So what are some things that they have done in situations like this when people start out and don't have anybody such as G and myself that have been through a lot of these similar situations? They go berserk, or they quit, and they just move on to something else. The reason that so many of our students, like yourself, have been able to excel is because we've helped you through each situation; we've showed you, all right, let's just do this; don't worry about that. If the driveway's too long to pave, put some asphalt; if it's too much to do this, do this right here; if you don't if you want a different look, the HOA requiring you to do three-sided brick, okay, hey, do it this way; use this color brick to stand out from whatever. So it's certain things that we have encountered that help propel a lot of you guys a lot quicker; you just have to use the information. So I'm glad you said that. Having that clear, all right. So compared to project number one, was project number two easier? I know you did it with less activity from Gan and I coming to the job site, because you know, first Dar was over there quite often, but me personally speaking, before you answer this question, I'm thoroughly impressed with you; uh, the house is a beautiful house; I can't believe you did that on your second house, because the magnitude it is, you ordered the whole house from China; we never did that; you you jumped out there; you did that, and I was impressed with the finishes that you selected, especially the type of windows and and other stuff that you have in this house. So kudos to that. So being that you you you completed and sold, she's saying, can we see it? You got some pictures you can show? No, I don't have any. Oh, I can uh oh, go to my Instagram, Gan, like denim; I posted a few things on there. Um, yeah, Gan like denim, literally J aan like denim, one word; I posted a few visuals of the outside. Yeah, just some rough parts, some some clean parts. Yeah, I think you might be able to get a good visual of that. Yeah, and then next week, um, I'm doing another video of the interior finishes. Can we get into Stager on the 17th? But sorry, sorry to cut you off. Continue.

No, that was my question, like, compare it to project number one, this process being, I know a lot more is on your shoulders, but still, you got the experience from project one. So I'll compare project one and two the same way as like somebody in your family teaching you how to drive a car. So they they in the driver's seat, like, all right, this how you do it, you and you in the passenger seat, like, oh yeah, I can do that; that's easy. Then the then the seat switched, it just so I I can say, of course, the magical, when I when I seen Jean um um yes, I already showed the Stager um when I seen Jean do it, there are big moments or milestones that he hit so seamlessly that I didn't see a lot of things behind the scenes, because the most important, well, the most the thing that most don't realize that I still I still work the 9-to-5. So while he's managing some of the day-to-days and the communications, I'm distracted by my 9-to-5. So I'm missing some of those interconnected communications, but I'm seeing the highlights; I'm seeing the achievements; I'm seeing the milestones; I'm seeing the big execution conversations when we're at the site with the inspector or the trades, whatever. So it's the the thing that I missed was those finite details of communication, saying, hey, this is wrong; this is wrong; this is wrong, because I I couldn't I couldn't, you know, predict those things. But in this part, I I know it was tougher because I did everything from A to Z, um, whereas once I of course, you want to do it from A to Z at the beginning, because you want to be able to understand what looks right, what looks wrong, and then as you understand the the capital stack in your business, you understand, okay, cool, instead of me taking home six figures, let me go pay a Stager to take off 5K to do this; let me pay a designer to do this; let me pay somebody to help me bring this this project to um project um to the finish line. So it was tough, and of course, I added another variable to the mix by ordering everything from China, so that added a bigger task of of comprehension and understanding, because now we have to understand the logistics of communication with somebody who's who doesn't speak proper English, understanding the lead time on ordering a whole house and aligning that lead time from delivery to the from China to the port to your to to your home and aligning it with the with the build process as well as the logistics of unloading, delivering, figuring out how you gonna put those materials in a safe location and not overload the site. So that's that was like it was tough, but I'm glad I went through it, because it it it made me understand, oh, okay, if I was to do this the same exact process over again, I know I can do it this way through and through a lot easier than anybody doing it like started tomorrow. So it was cool, but it was it was definitely a lot tougher.

Yeah, I mean, that sums it up, man, pretty much um how a lot of people get, you know, get them training wheels snatched off, because while we're having these calls every week, these training wheels that we're on right now, oh uh-huh uh-huh, when you get out here and you lock up that land and have to call these subs and surveys and engineers and everyone else, that's when them training wheels come off, right? You definitely don't want to get hurt, so what you want to do is remember everything we went through, go back and watch some videos, bring some questions up when we have these calls every week to make sure that you don't fall, right? And and you being one of the few people on here that that that I know personally, it's been just great to watch you overcome, you know, everything that you was fac- like I said earlier on in the call, when first time you you you tapped in, you was like, man, I wanna I want to grab this property over on the West End; I got a fix-and-flip, and all this and all that. And back then we were still doing a lot of renovations. Yeah, and just people who who want information genuinely, like, not just want it because they see doing something; they want because they want to know, and they really want what what

You have to say to take it into account to help them propel themselves to the next level. So I want to take some questions. I want Jean to take some questions from some of the students on the call. So I really only had like three questions. Okay, yeah. So if you got any questions, a great time to ask. Uh, I, I will say I'm after going through all this, I'm very passionate about this, so I'm gonna try to be very organic and authentic. So if I say anything um offensive, I apologize; it's just because I, I love it. Right? It's, it's something that I started because I have a 10-year and a five-year plan of what I want to do from my philanthropy side, from my personal side with my family, with my friends, even with potentially with some of y'all. Like I'm dreaming very big, and I'm not there yet, so I'm just really passionate about where this is going to go. And it's all based upon or all because of that one conversation that I had with KP, literally a year and a half ago. I was saying, "Hey KP, I'm about to go flip two more houses. Can you help me?" The man said, "No, come build a new construction." I said, "I don't understand what that means." He said, "Bro, you got the credit, you got me. What are you waiting for?" And I only had one question: Where is this money gonna come from to build a $400, $500,000 home? He invited me to one class; the hard money lender broke it down to me, and I was like, "Oh snap, I got it." And that was all, that was it, and I was off to the races. As soon as I joined the course, I'm in Gan and KP's uh inbox like, "Hey, I need something right now. I got, I'm hot, I got the money." And then that's, that was it.

Yeah, so if you got the questions, you know, raise your hand, or I don't know how the process goes. I haven't been here in a while because of I've been locked up with his, with his property. And then yeah, you been working, you been working, working; you had no time for working, working. But I'm here now, I'm talk, I'm ready to talk. Look like Tyrone might have a question. Tyrone, go ahead.

Tyrone: Hey, what's going on, Jean? Just want to say, you know, big up to you, brother, for making it through your first one. Now you're on your second one. As far as your first one, where did you build that first one at?

So the first one is MCD, MCD Georgia, and the second one is literally eight houses up the street.

Eight houses up the street. Okay. Now when you was in search of the lot process, how many lots did you actually go through before you found that perfect lot, or did you find it on the first one?

So luckily I wasn't even looking for a lot, right? In my mind, I wanted to get to a point where I felt comfortable. And why we, once when I was, when I went to the lot for another visit with Jean, Jean was driving home and he said, "Hey, there's another lot that just opened up up the street," and there was still some new construction in the area. So in my mind, I thought there was like everything got like was purchased up. So he, he, he, he showed me a lot. He said, "Hey, this is a good deal. I know the realtor." This, this started conv… So once I got the numbers on the lot and I bought the lot for 50K, um, I was like, "Oh yeah, this is it," because in my mind, I'mma build the almost same, either the same exact house that Jean bu, built that we built up the street, but a little bit different in terms of layout, style, whatever. But I was like, "I have the basis. I know I can build me a 3,000, a 4,000-foot home." He, I know what we bought the first lot for; I bought it for cheaper here. Okay, boom. So now I got to go through the process of, okay, doing my, my DD. I already watched a lot of the videos while we're going through the, the first house, so I felt confident that I had at least the basis of information, foundation to start. That makes sense?

Yeah. The reason I asked is I have a lot that's locked up in East Point, but oh lord, it's, yeah, it's outside of the building criteria, and you know, we talk with the asent, and but they, they, it don't seem like they're handling business the way they need to handle it. So, mhm. Due diligence is up on the 17th. We was trying to get uh them to change the contract to where we would work with the builder, well, not the Builder, excuse me, with the owner to uh do all the variant stuff, get her to do the variant and everything, but she would have to, the seller of the uh buying of the lot would be contingent upon, upon getting approval, but we haven't really heard anything back. So I think we probably just gonna go ahead and just walk away. I, I would, I, I'll say in this game right now, based upon the BS that I'm going through with Atlanta, you want to find a lot that's like not super easy, because everything will have its own little like complex, but at this phase, the name of the game is getting, getting one done right. You want to find something that's a somewhat easy that you can kind of coast through just to get your feet wet. When it, when it's too complex from like variances and all this extra stuff that wasn't even in the, in the, in the learning lessons and in the actual the course, I'm not saying that you should be afraid of it, because of course if you're, if you like the challenge and you, that's a thrill to you, take it. But the reason why I partnered on my first deal was because I wanted to accelerate my learning. I wasn't chasing the dollar. I'm not, I'm not rushing to say that I'm in real estate, because that's me having the clout of being in real estate isn't the satisfaction that I need. I want to know that I understand what I'm doing, because the money, the opportunity, experience, the all the, the, the gold medals or whatever of doing real estate are going to come, but you got to get that foundation of learning. And that's finding a good lot that can give you, that can make you happy on the education side and on the money side, because if you're managing a 9-to-5 and doing this, it, it, it's going to be tough; it's gonna be a lot of things, a lot of pain points. But it's just, you want to get something that's somewhat, somewhat easier to like to build upon. Like that's why partnership is important, because if somebody's already doing it, they already did all, all the legwork, all the heavy lifting and, and identifying a great land with the opportunity to partner and do a profit split; that's where you can benefit on like, okay, you know what, I may not make 200,000 on this one project, but I'm gonna get $200,000 worth of game, and that's gonna, that momentum and trajectory is going to guide you to build to whatever your goal of building per, per year to get that, whatever your goal is, right? So yeah. And one thing, Tyrone, I know you asked him about his first lot, and he briefly spoke about his second lot; the first lot that Jean bought was built on, Jean and I had the other je, we had owned two lots side by side on Darwi, which is the street. Y'all, Jean sold his lot, I sold my lot, um, and they went both to students. So and I realize like early on that a lot of our student success came because we had lots, yeah, and gave them opportunities to partner with us; if not partner with other students on these lots that we had acquired already, and they were able to, you know, hit the ground rolling and running. In what Jean and I had a talk about, um, week or so ago was about having some students who may not have the time to be out here hunting for lots to actually start partnering with us. We, um, when it comes to securing lots, like we can find a lot, help you come up with plans, etc., and that, that'll help you, like Jean said, expedite the process when we're already assessing these pieces of parcels of land or whatever and coming to you guys with our input and expertise and telling you, "I think it's a good lot. If we do this, we can demand this," and you're not really going to have that early on outside of these Tuesday calls. I bring you a deal, then it's a deal; facts, already done our due diligence at East Point lot. If I were you and I had do D, my DD was up on the 17th and they didn't fire back by today, oh, I'm, I'm out tomorrow. Don't waste your money, because I'm not g to waste my time and let you think that because you don't want to communicate with me, I don't communicate like that. That's like having a stubborn mate or a stubborn husband or wife; like if you don't want to talk, don't talk, but we got to figure something out: either we gonna be done or not, right? So that's the same thing with this business relationship: if you don't want to talk to me, I don't want to talk to you; let's cancel the contract right now, and maybe they'll come back and they see how serious you are. Don't wait until the 16th to pull your money out; let them know now. Okay, I sent this request; it's contingent upon you get these variances, you pay for all that, and then I'll be happy to close once you get all that approved. Then what are we talking about? What am I waiting for, right? These are, these are my terms. See, real estate is, is a great field to be in because everything is legal if both parties agree on. If you can't agree on doing this for me, then let's not do it; let me move on, let me go put my mind and my energy on something else. So yeah, for all you guys on the call, you can definitely start back, um, partner with other students, partnering with Gan and myself. We're going to give you guys some more opportunities starting next week, um, to come in and partner with us, but I just wanted to put that out there since you mentioned partnership.

Yeah, yeah. Cool, cool, cool. Great question, by the way. Anybody else got a question?

Yeah, I got a question. Um, can you talk a little bit about the material that you sourced from China and just kind of the experience that you went through as it relates to that? And then my second question is if you can elaborate on the BS that you're going through with the city of Atlanta.

Okay, all right. So first question. So I ordered literally the whole house from, from China. I ordered the exterior windows, I ex, I ordered the exterior doors and I ordered interior doors, cabinets, countertops, sinks, uh, countertop, uh, handles, barn doors, um, what else, uh, shelving systems, entertainment, um, wall systems, um, it came with a, what else? It came with, I basically ordered the, the whole interior house, well, well basically, I found, I went to a house that where another individual ordered all their exterior stuff, and I like, okay, cool, let me try that process. And for some odd reason, I had a great idea of this, like, let me order the whole house; let me order everything. So but it's very similar to like shopping on Amazon; they give you a catalog of like, okay, what they specialize in. So I chose interior; I basically went through the catalog, say I want this, I want this, I want this. I give them my plans, and once you give them your plans, they create these, um, very similar to the, to the US stat side, they give you these, these drawings to confirm the, the measurements to what you want based upon the drawings, right? So luckily my drawings are very exact because I, I paid a designer who gave me a lot more information than a more, um, um, than more, um, than the traditional designer. Like typically they don't give you cabinet sizes and all that. So they, they built everything to size. So once I got, once they gave me the drawings, I approved all the measurements, and they, I put a um deposit down, and then that started the process of them, um, what do they, what do they call it? It goes to two phases, produ… Oh yeah, produ… Then it goes to um delivery. So delivery, production is like six weeks or three to four weeks. Yeah, six weeks probably; it might be shorter depending on how, how packed they are. And then delivery is um four to four to six weeks or three to four weeks. So the lead time can be at least a month and a half, or let's say this, two months to be safe, or, or maybe a little bit more. It's all contingent on how fast you can answer to answer their questions, also you being up because they're in a different, different time zone. And then, of course, deliveries are all contingent on the docks, the weather, because it's coming on a boat. And then you organizing the logistics of the delivery from, um, from where they drop it off at, at in California or Savannah to your site. If that makes sense?

Answer that question, right? It, it does. Yeah. So obviously there were some cost savings in that. What would you say was the rough percentage of cost savings that you realize from sourcing your, your entire house from China versus buying it locally?

So I, I, I'll lead by saying you got to choose your cost saving versus time-based saving versus uh you just feeling comfortable, right? So cost savings, for what I paid for what I would have got here in the states, I'm gonna give you an example: my, I ordered two pivot doors for my front door, right, front and back door. In the state side, those pivot doors would probably charge, cost me $4,500 each, but I only paid $1,200 per pivot door. The windows that I got ordered from them, if I would to order them state side, those probably would been $350 to $400 per, per window, um, so but you know, so I, I saved in that aspect, but if I would have looked back, instead of me buying these aluminum windows for this, it's a, it's a, it's a high, it's a, we're trying to sell it for 750, so that's, that's a high-ticket sale, but it's not like a million-dollar home. I could have got away with getting probably vinyl windows and painted in black and have the same look and have the same assurance of having to be in state side. So there are some cost savings. So I'll say this, there's, I'll say I probably say, let's say I don't have the exact, I probably saved like, probably 10 to 12K, right? But that time frame of going through that process of communication, that communicating at night, managing logistics of, of delivery, um, to the site, unloading, reloading, putting into a container, that part may not have been worth the, the, the headache opposed to me just scheduling it for it to get delivered state side at different phases and not have to worry about the, the little nuances I wasn't prepared for. So I saved money, but that money that I save, I probably could have saved a little headache by spending a little bit more state side, right?

Yeah. Okay. And then you mention your, your experience with the city of Atlanta with another project, right?

So I'm, I'm starting two more, two more projects in Atlanta, uh, near the West End Mall. I don't know if you guys saw that the new breaking ground construction or develop mixed commercial use project they're doing. So literally like it's like five minutes away. Like I got wind of it, uh, probably like at the beginning of, of or in the middle of this year, but I didn't know if it's gonna, um, come to fruition ultimately because it's in the city in Atlanta. I found out, and I could have pulled out but wanted to press through it. It's in the city of Atlanta, which is a level of, of, of, of complexity, and also it's in the historical district. So I added another level of, of complexity. So for those who are building in a historical district, before you get your building permit, you have to make sure you can't build nothing modern; it has to look exactly like any neighboring properties, right? So now the floor plan could be very modern, but the exterior has to be very traditional, right? So that was like a bummer because I wanted to build a KP and Jean type of house in, in Atlanta, but they said no. So, so I had to go through a process of finding a specialized architect, um, a person to, to give me the details of the, of the, of the neighboring lots and submit all this documentation to the city. That's, I'm supposed to have a, a meeting tomorrow. I submitted it in August; it went through two people's eyes and it said, "Oh yeah, you're good. Oh yeah, you're good." Then somebody emailed me on Monday and said, "Hey, you need to," no, on Wednesday of last week said, "Hey, you need to," no, Tuesday, need, need to tweak this. I asked them a question; my, they wrote me Tuesday at 8:00 a.m., I respond to them on, on, on Wednesday, and they said uh, they email, the email said, "I, I'll be out of office until next week Monday." So I did all the, I did whatever they told me to do, got everything back yet last night, emailed me today saying, "This is not going to work; we're going to push it back a month because of different levels of one, the, the arborist, two, the, the, the design had a few, a few modifications that need to be changed that weren't indicated a month and a half ago." So going through that little hoopla or circus trick of trying to figure out how to make the historical district happy, then once them, make them happy, going into the, and to the city and get building permits. So I'm basically fighting two battles of, through pits, communication from the city and these individuals. So, and also I just found out that, so my thought was, okay, let me build the same exact house right next to each other with the same exact plans but different interior floor plans, because I'm think, in my mind I'm thinking, "Oh yeah, they, if, if they approve this one, they're going to love this one." So yeah, let's do it. Kind of find out that the homes next to each other can't be identical. So now I could keep the floor plan, but I got to go back and change the exterior elevation on one of the, the houses just to make them not identical, but then I have to ask them to what degree can they not be identical? Do you mean, do you want me to shift the window around? Do I, can I shift the front porch around? Like, what does that mean? What does that look like? So that's a, that's a, I wouldn't say it's a headache; it's a very strong learning lesson, but um, hey, you know, you live and you learn, you go through it, and you progress. So now once I'm done and I get my permits, I can say I'm a historical district and a city of Atlanta specialist, right? So yeah.

So Jean, I have a couple of questions, um, couple. Okay. With, with dealing with them, are you dealing with them like individually or as a group? I mean, as far as communication.

So I, I took my time to go to the city, the city steps and talk and go straight to the, the horse's mouth probably two months before I submitted the applications in, because I, before I close on the lots, I want to get as much details. So I'm literally talking to, to two people; they're telling me, "Hey, this is what I need," right? And then when I submitted it, I'm, I got introduced to two more people who I've never seen or nor heard from before because, you know, people sit in the back of the offices. So I, I don't know. So it's just uh a level of comm… It just seems like nobody's on the, even though they're in the same office, they're not on the same page. Like if you go to the city of Atlanta and they go to the, the planning zoning, there's, I think the building departments across the street, I mean across the way, but I think planning and zoning and historical district is across the way. So I'm thinking like, why, why can't just be together? Because, because y'all, y'all the same people; there's no point, there's no point of y'all being in separate rooms, because when I submit my stuff to here, it's going to go to you. So and to be honest, that's what every ipity, right? There's going to be a different, what the pending some do combos; there's when you submit your, I know specifically in Atlanta when you submit…

Your, your build a permit; they get shot out to different departments at one time, or sometimes it's individually, like at a time. They take the documents; they'll go here, then go here. So in the city of Atlanta, they go—it goes to like probably nine or 10 departments before it gets approved. You got the arborist, you got Planning and Zoning, you got historical district, you got Foundation, you got um, engineering from a sewer situation, water—all these people get involved to give you—to give you one yes. But it's just that the historical district is my first blocker; that they—to me—they dropped the ball of communication. Because it—how did they get past the first two people? When—and then you—and you had a mind—you. I submitted in August; sorry, I'm getting on a tangent. I submitted in August, and they had a whole month of September to tell me to fix these things, but it waited until Wednesday of last week—or two—their last week, and I have to submit them eight days prior to the meeting for them to get—if I have any changes that they—they request. But you—you talked to me on—on Wednesday, so on Tuesday at 8—8 o'clock, how could I have fixed everything in eight days? But yeah, sorry, continue.

And then lastly, um, have you thought about looking for a consultant who's experienced with um, historical homes? So when I was talking directly to the rep, and that's the thing—so I don't mind talking to a consultant, and I found—I found—I had the opportunity to talk to a consultant. But when I was talking to the city directly, because Gan and KP always um, stress going to the city and talk to these people because you can't get in contact with them on the phone. So in my mind, I did all my due diligence at the very beginning: "Hey, what do I need to have? What are the details? Cool, I'm doing my checks and balances. I needed my compatibility survey. I need to find an architect who did X, Y, Z. I need to do this. Okay, cool." So if you tell me that these are my five big checks, that's what I'm running with. So now if I submit all my documentation into this portal, they should have caught all of this a month and a half ago. So maybe I—I probably could have—but maybe I—I'll say this—I'll do it in the future because I didn't—I don't think I could have—I don't know if I would have avoided this by just—because maybe they could have missed—missed something. I don't know.

Well, I was just thinking a consultant that's got experience dealing with the city of Atlanta itself, you know, who's already—you might be right. Yeah, if—if you got a recommendation, send it to me. The thing about expediters in the city of Atlanta is you can call them a consultant; we use them; they call expediters, and they have the relationship—ship with the people because they're always up there running permits for a bunch of different Builders. Yeah, that—that—that used to work. That used to work, but the communication breakdown is in-house; it's internal; it's not the person handing the papers in; it's the people on the inside of the Departments that aren't communicating with each other. So the consultant can speak to the one window, but this person over here across the hall, like Gan and, may not even know what they're talking about because that communication is just broke—broken down. Now it used to be a lot faster; like we've been using expediters the last—since I've been in Atlanta eight years, and it used to be good before Covid, when people had to go home and start working from home, and they shut down departments, and then they brought back departments and still didn't bring back all the staff because the staff went to other positions or, you know, just stopped working there. They tried to go digital, but it's like they have two different systems: you got Safari internet and then you Google Chrome; it's like they're—they're not merging. I mean, you can carry the tabs, you can copy and paste, but they're not just openly communicating with each other, like the Departments and a lot of these cities—uh—counties, like Fulton and DeKalb, and we're not gonna talk about East Point; that's a whole another thing, and especially South Fulton. Now, um, these departments aren't—the communication is broken on the inside. So yeah, getting an expediter—yeah, they can show you what to submit really quickly and take it up there really quickly, but what are they going to do when—when it gets beyond them? They can't do anything, right? They can't do anything. "Oh, hey, yeah, I'm just following up on 123 Main Street; did it go over to the—the Planning and Zoning yet? Uh, let me check. Can you hold? Now we still have it; I'm gonna send it back to you; I just saw something wrong with—" Well, I wasn't—yeah, and not—I was more speaking to someone who has experience with historical homes, not necessarily someone who um, like expedites stuff, like who has specifically worked on a historical home in that area, cuz I'm sure there's other homes that are—are new that have been built um, who have—go through the same process um, that may have um, dealt with someone who's—whose expertise is in historical homes, not necessarily getting a permit, but knows the specifications and things that Atlanta is looking for.

That's the thing; we've all—Jean and I have all built in historical areas; they change yearly; they change on the month. So it's not—what—what I worked on this house in 2017, that means nothing right now because it's so many new codes that—that come about. Or—okay, Tyler Perry dropped a studio here; everything over here got to change now because now we know it's a lot more people coming over here looking for properties, want to get closed, and so now we got to make them retain the importance of this look of Avon Avenue—the same street that my Deal's house is on. We can't change anything; no, we can't do new construction; this one new construction we let go back in 2017; that was the last one we let over here; else now has to be just renovated or has to look like it was built in 1920. So it's—it's—it's staying abreast of the codes is one thing, but it's always going to go back to who on the inside is helping you get the permits to expedite the process of getting these plans approved because it's all—it's all ever changed, especially in—in—in the city; it doesn't change as swiftly on the outskirts, but City of Atlanta—that thing can change by monthly, facts. Same thing for East Point; it just—it just—that frustration point is just—things move so quickly over there, like—or—or so slow; it's like it's kind of deflating to a point.

Yeah, yeah, back as far as East Point, like you say, the things changing because the—the young lady that helped us out a little bit, she did say that they were trying to move to a Suburban landscape over there at East Point, but like I say, who knows when—how long that's really gonna take and how—for Covid and different things to change and all that, and maybe building it get much easier or could get even tougher; who knows, you know what I'm saying, right? But yes, she did say they were supposed to be trying to change to a Suburban landscape as far as that stuff; it might be in the pipeline, but it just—I got a question for you from inside the chat. Okay, for your subcontractors, what is the scheduled percentage of funds that you paid out? I'm getting contractors that are asking for 80% up front.

All right, so I'll lead by saying this: there's multiple ways to protect you—protect yourself from paying these subs, right? Um, but I've never paid anybody more than they needed to do the job, right? So the ultimate thing is I—I think who—who has—yeah, I've never paid anybody—I've never paid anybody to start work; anybody who asked me to start work, if they did, I'm giving them a small percentage; I need to see that you're gonna show up the day—the day of; that makes sense. So the most I'll probably give is between five to 10% because at the end of the day I still have to protect my budget allocated to my project because if I give them 80% and they don't do the work, the bank isn't going to refund you the money because you haven't done the work; because you got to protect yourself first. So you got to ask the questions of: "Why am I giving you 80%? Why am I giving you 50%? Oh, you need material? Okay, I buy the material. So when can you start—your day of work?" So identifying—you should come up with a way of how you want to pay your sub so that they—they understand how you do business because you control the project; they're just—you're the asset in this process; they don't get paid without you finding the asset and—and get all the entitlements and saying, "I'm going to build this project." So they can't tell you how they want to get paid when you're the one who's hiring them. So when you confidently walk like that and talk like that, they won't—they won't treat you like—like a sucker, right? So they say, "Hey, I'm gonna—" say, "Hey, this is how—this is how I pay out; you start on your—your first day; I give you five to 10 percent; do you want me to buy material? You can buy material. Who—who—who's playing the role?" Because to me, if I'm giving you more money, you're doing a lot more things for me, and I'm like, "Why are you doing more for me than—" like, "Do I need you to do all this stuff? Like, what—what's your magic trick?" Because I was just talking to my friend Tony, and Tony can do the same exact job. The reason why you're here is because Tony's busy until next week. So why do I—one—what subcontractors are requesting percent? What—what trade is that? That's a great question; who is asking for 80%?

Yeah, uh, it's—it's a few of them; they—they, you know, they just ask for 80%, and I'm wondering if I should have like a male speak for me. What—what—what are they doing? Like, what—what—what type of trade? And I'm gonna tell you what to say to them. What type of trade? Well, I was remodeling or—or building out my mom's garage um, to start off with, and so um, but we have some, you know, of course the project in Alabama that we had started on, and um, but um, just to build out, you know, some walls, you know, um, uh, is a lot different than new construction. Yeah, a lot of these guys that you use to do those type of build-outs, they—they are handymen; they have no business accounts; they can't go get material; they gotta hire help, which is their cousins and friends. So a build-out for a garage requesting 80% up front is still a huge—no, you're the wrong person; you're the—"Can you get me a material list that I could go get? Fact P—you—once each phase has been completed and installed to my liking. Example: if I go to Walmart and say, 'Oh yeah, I pay $15 an hour, say 40 hours a week,' so what—that's not $600 a week. All right, I can start today for $500. No, you can't. So you got to treat these people like you're the employer; I can't—you—to start working; nobody gets paid to start working; 80%—not even athletes unless they sign some crazy deal, right? So just ask for a list, or you guys come up with a list of—have someone close to you create a list that does this type of work and may not be able to do it, so you would know what you're paying for and how much you expect to pay for as the material is concerned. Now the labor price is negotiable based on um, a lot of different things like what they got to take out, what they got to put back, etc. So just create a list of what you guys want with—with examples that you want to do on this build-out in the garage and then get some bids, but stay away from anybody that wants money on top of material cost; just let them know, "I can give you like, say five or 10% of what we agree on our B—the material, and then I'll pay you another 70% when you're done, and then if I really like it—not saying 'really like it'—I'm gonna give you that—as little as 20, 30% or whatever I owe you when everything has been set in place, like the sheetrock has dried, the mud, the paint—after all that roughing, you can come back and get—get the rest of your money. But I'm—I'm not giving you 80% on anything, especially if you never worked with them before." Yeah, like again, you still got to protect yourself. Like to me—like for me, I don't—I pay all my subs with credit cards, and I have like actual contractual agreements with all my subs, cuz just in case they—they run to—to—to—to wherever they want to go, I have a contract I can send to my um, credit card company, say, "Hey, this company, they voided this contract; I need you to return these funds back to me." I'm not giving you cash; I'm not walking around with—with—with checks; I'm—I'm gonna lose a check. So this is how I pay; this is on my terms; if you want the job, I would love to do work with you; if you cannot meet these terms, I'm sorry, then I'm going to find somebody else and let them—let them feel comfortable because you got to feel comfortable too; it's a two-way street in a relationship; you work hard for your money, so don't give it up like that. I'm working everything, and so I—I lowered how much I was going to give him and how it was going to get—get paid out, and so he never called back again, so I was like, "Okay, go ahead."

Alabama—say again what city are you doing this build-out in? Well, the build-out is in um, Dallas, Georgia, um, but I have like those acreages in Alexander City. Okay, what's your budget on that build-out? I was hoping that it'll be less than $20,000. Okay, I'm—a—that's not far; I got some subs that you can use, and they ain't going to charge you no 80%; I'm going to put his number in the chat right now for you; is my—my guy; I've been—I used him on my first renovation after I moved to Atlanta, and I still use him to this day, so that's how good he is; it's my guy, name Louis. You're welcome. So take Louis's number; anybody who has Louis's number, tell him Kelly, don't tell him KP; he doesn't know KP; he knows Kelly Parker. So I'm gonna put Louis's number in here; if you guys have any punch-out work or stuff like that, this is my guy; very trustworthy and does great work. So give him a call tomorrow; he'll—he'll—he'll go take a look at it for you and give you an honest PR. Awesome, thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, this is in the chat. Cool. We got any questions? Did you have a contingency plan for anything that you didn't receive from China, in case you didn't receive anything from China?

You know what, to be honest, no. Um, I just knew that—so I'll say this—did I—I'll say yes; I—I have access to like—uh, I have access to business credit, so just in case it didn't work, I was ready to buy stuff stateside, but it's going to be like maybe a little—like lower in quality, but give them more in terms of like um, like upgrades, like maybe do more smart material, maybe not get this high-end window, but so I—so yeah, the answer—answer is yes, I have some money stored to the side just in case, plus they have contingency built into my—my budget, so just in case things either didn't do right. But yeah, I had a plan in my mind just to give everybody—like in my mind, I'm very—I'm very hard-headed; in extreme, if this house ends up looking horrible, I'm just gonna buy it and move in—move in like that; that—that—that's how aggressively—aggressively thinking I was, like, "If push comes to shove, I'm just gonna buy myself and move in." Am I gonna like it? Yeah, because this is my house; I built it. But is it the best situation? No. But in order for me to keep pushing forward and saying I'm—I'm building—I'm bringing this project to life, if—if push comes to shove, if it's on the market for six months plus because of whatever, I'm gonna buy it; you're gonna give yourself a discount? 100%; I'm gonna sell it to myself for 750 for a profit; I can't sell it to myself for a profit, right? I can't do—I can't do a pass-through because somebody said a pass-through; I can't do a rental because of the HOA—very—very extreme in that area. Yeah, um, so I'm living in there for at least a year; it's a beautiful location, man. Yeah, it's a nice location. Hey J, one other question—um, what city do you stay in? I stay in Theodore. Oh, you're in Theodore, and you had the projects in McDonald? Oh, I was asking—I stay in Point Springs; I did look at something in McDonald, but that was like an hour and a half drive from here. Yeah, I was just—just worried about that; if I had a project out there, you know, I guess you probably have to go to the project every day; was you going to the project every day? How did that work out?

So—so it was a lot of—you don't really have to go every day because it's all about communicating with your subs, right? If you hire—these are—they're supposed to be professionals; these are grown adults. If you hire them for a task, there's two ways you can do it: you can hire them in—this dude spot checks, right? Because you—you're always going to have an inspector to come behind and spot check them because you don't really know what it's supposed to look like outside of what you see in terms of the videos that Gan and KP provide. So at the very forefront—at the very beginning, I was going there more often because I wanted to learn; I wanted to meet the trade out there at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, at 5 o'clock, so I can ask him as many questions because he's about to give me free game—this information that if I have to sit down with somebody else, they're gonna charge me. Said the very beginning, I was—I was there more frequently, then I commute to work, and then once I got comfortable in terms of the schedule and who—that—who that trade was, I—I started like requesting, "Hey, send me a picture"—more—more like over-the-phone communication. And then when I got to a certain phase, when I knew I was ready to start another project, I hired um, a project manager, and I trained them to be uh, 70% of me, and I wanted them to work on their communication with the trade, so I sent them my—my contacts, and they started a conversation; I had—I set my expectation with them. But the very for—at the very beginning, if it's your first project, you kind of want to be there—not every day, but as often as your schedule will allow, just to get enough information for you to feel comfortable because at the end of the day, this is you—you leverage the bank's money to bring this project to a certain phase—a clean exit; you still got to protect your money; you can't be too lazy with it. So is it—my commute is probably 45 minutes to McDonald; do I love it? No, right? But I got to do it; like if I don't—if I don't go there at least once a week or twice a week or have communications with either a trade via FaceTime, via WhatsApp, I need to understand what's going on so I can be accurately on my schedule. Yeah, and one of the most important things, Tyrone, about doing projects that, you know, take some time—an hour or so to get to—once you figure out like what you're going to build, then you can schedule everything out, facts, so you won't have to go every day; you can go every day to think you're gonna get educated, but you're not really gonna learn, but you're not—these guys ain't teaching; they're working; they're working. So you can go there every day to be like, "Oh, that's how you put sheetrock up." Yeah, we're not gonna put no sheetrock up. Right, right. Um, so the—the most important times to be out there, of course, is when you acquire the lane; figure out when they're going to stay off the—four—

Corners, so you know exactly where your house will be located. Come out there, but you sending—um, you going to be sending your out there, the the the inspectors when you're doing your foundation plan, to make sure that you know all the plumbing is everywhere it needs to be if you're doing a slab, etc. So it's so many people that can be your eyes and ears. When you want to get to the point is when the inspections are done right, everything has passed inspections up to the MEPS; that's when you want to make your presence more known. Because now you're working with the people who are going to be performing the finishes, which are always the first thing people see, but it's the last thing that gets done, and it's the most—one of the most important things—is the finishes.

So after that framing has been passed inspection, you're going to want to go out to make sure that they fire C and did the insulation. Then you may want to go back when they're doing sheetrock to make sure that all the walls have been, you know, sanded properly. But you don't want to start calling stuff out prematurely. What I mean by that is, and there's some people that that aggravate subs by coming on the job so much because they're pointing stuff out that the sub hasn't intentionally done yet.

Yeah, right. They're calling, "Hey, what you gonna do with this?" "I'm gonna finish it, if you stop talking to me." Right. So they want to make sure that all the sheetrock and everything has been mudded and prepped. Like me and Jean, we go to a job site with a light. We gonna shine it on the wall. When they say they're done, they want their money—or, "You done? Cool. Now I go ahead and inspect it before you get your money." Especially sheetrock—make sure that is sanded properly. Okay, the painter's done? "You done? You sure? All right, I'mma go check it out. If it ain't, you're not getting paid." And that's you have to do all these phases up to the flooring, the doors being hung, the tile being done, the grout lines right—everything. That's when you pay attention to those things, and that's what we all can do because we know what a door looks like and if it's crooked or not, if it shuts properly or not, if the tile lines are straight. So we can go in and and and do that, and that's where we hold the money to make sure that—right—if you mess this tile up, guess who's paying for it?

Exactly. If you mess these doors up and trim them too short, guess who's paying for it? You. So that's where it comes into play about making that commute. Because when you come, you like, "Okay, my sheetrock's done. Okay, I'mma have my painter spray the prime on it so I can go in and put this light on, right?" My painter is a good painter; he gonna know if the wall ain't prepped properly. Yeah, "Hey, man, they ain't sanding these walls; I can still see tape; I can still see this; I can see that." So they're going to let you know, and you can tell them, "Listen, let me know when you get there to paint that has been sanded, because if it ain't sanded and you paint it, I'm not paying you, no, because you knew it wasn't ready to be painted when you painted." Yep, yep. So it's just those type of conversations that you have with your guys, and if they do this for real, they're going to respect your mind and understand that.

And also, it's just sometimes it's good to keep your your construction site at a at a certain level of cleanliness, because you never know who's coming to visit, right? It could be the potential buyer; it could be the city; it could be it could be your your your loan officer. You never know. Like, you want to have a presentation, because that sets the tone. Because the more lack you get on your construction site, the more you gotta pay for somebody else to um to clean up. Like, if you don't have—like something I learned—if I don't have a a a dumpster at the site, more often they're gonna throw trash everywhere, so then I gotta I I gotta go out there myself with a trash can and pick up behind grown men, or I gotta hire somebody to go pick up trash, and that's extra money to come out of my bottom line. So you want to have an idea of like, okay, I need to understand what the site is going to look like while people are there and how to prevent certain things. Like, hey, I gotta put a sign—case in point—I learned from a a builder here on the call, Nam Brooke. She puts a sign that says, "Hey, if you dump trash, that's a fee per day. Here's a dumpster; dump whatever you want in this in this area; I don't care." If if if you dump trash, I'm taking some money out your thing—like stuff like that. You want to see the flaws in people's craft and how they work so that you can mitigate how how you can be better on the next build, and on the next build, next thing you know you have 16 signs up saying, "Hey, you can't do this," and everyone respects you even more because you take it away from their bottom line.

So I was with Jean a couple days ago; he totally sub straight up, "Listen, every piece of trash I pick up, it's $5, so make sure you guys clean up." Facts. Taking this from you. Facts. Somebody used my toilet, took away 250. "What you doing?" "Who who gonna clean it? Me or you?" "Don't worry about it; 250, don't worry about it." Yeah, it's a whole port-a-potty on the on the lot. "What you using my my toilet for?" "250, I don't care." Got it, got it. Any more questions? And I know some students down in McDonough looking for lots and stuff, so it may be an opportunity for you guys to team up, especially you come in the site, go check out Jean's property on Darwish, around the corner from him. So yeah, do you have any deal reviews? I know we've been chopping it up with Jean. I want to thank you, Jean, man. Nobody have any more questions from me; we gonna go on the deal reviews if we have any; if not, we'll be wrapping this thing on up.

I do. Who is that? Jay, what's going on, Jay? Hi. So what you—um, do you want the address or do you want me to send a picture of what I sent you? Can you share your screen, or you on the phone? I'm on my phone. Let me um get the address. Um, 1107 Edward Drive, and this is down McDonough, M—yeah, but it's more so I want to talk about the what I sent you as far as the um from Daryl in the stream. Oh yeah, yeah. It is—is it's—I think we looked at this. Let me um pull it up on my—did anyone on this call bring us 1107 Atwood Drive? Think we may have—share my screen if you want to, Jean. Co—if y'all want to meet up at this at my address, should I put it in the school? Should I put it in the school? Is everybody here in the school? Put it in the school. Yeah, I'mma put it in the school so that it'll be—because if if you miss it, you gonna forget about it. Let me put it in the school. All right, so this is the address that we're talking about. This is not Jean's address; this is the one Jay is questioning about. This is it, right? Uhu. All right, is that a is that a golf—or that's a pool with a clubhouse? It's a golf course behind it. Yeah, yeah, I'm talking about right here in the middle of it; that's that's the neighbor's house; it's a pool; they have a pool. So this is in the same neighborhood that Jean's property is in, or is the one next to it? It's in the it's in the other subdivision. Okay. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Day, wow, that's a good HOA, dude. Great HOA. Way dollar a day. All right, they already got the—so test in the survey. Yes, they don't have a survey; I have the so test, but the question is, at this point, do I spend money on getting the the survey done based on the information that Daryl gave me um in regards to the stream? I see. I just went to Zillow and clicked on flood; it's in a major flood. Okay. A whole lot, a whole lot. Yeah, so that's how you guys could really just go—you go to Zillow, put the address in, you click on that—do that again, please. It's just—I'm on Zillow, right? So you scroll down to the map of the house, the aerial shot; you click that little arrow in the corner. Let me just go back. So can you see my little mouse now? Yeah. So we click on that, and then right here—oh, okay—click flood, and it shows in my room—see? 74% chance of flood in the next 30 years. Got it. It's gonna be high, hella high. So hella high. So yeah, I can answer your question right now: this is not something you want to take take down because the insurance—okay. 74% chance of flooding over the next next 30 years. It's gonna be hard to sell that house; that's almost 100% chance. All right, thank you. You're welcome. Do we have any more or any questions? I think it was a really great call, Gan. I really appreciate you coming in and and helping everyone um with some of their questions, especially from your perspective—this different—coming from a student's perspective because he doesn't have what Jean and I have as far as the experience, but along with what he was able to gain by joining our program, he was able to to face every problem, and I really appreciate you coming on and talking. No problem.

Oh, what I would say—um—uh, let's make sure if if you're going to do this for real, like, try to leverage as much—not you don't have to take technology—at least create a certain system, right? You have to audit yourself to make sure that you hold yourself accountable and keeping track of your receipts and keeping track of of communication in terms of who you borrow the money from, who you're going to like um pay out when you sell, um the schedule—use something to help you to stay on track. Because the most important part is, at the end of the day, like when you finished, you want to understand what you spent and what you made so that you can confidently say on the next project, "I want to bring my neighbor on; I want to bring my cousin on as an investor." They want to be able to understand how can how can they make make uh money on this deal. You can say, "Well, I can give you—I know that I can give you X because of I did X, Y, and Z." So using technology such as like maybe Rehab Valuator or a project management system like Monday or ClickUp or an Excel sheet—something simple in notes—so that you can actually say, "Here are my checklists; here are my things that I need to get done; here's how much I spent versus what I what I budgeted," to keep track of like—because when the project is done, you want to go back and say, "I need to audit what I went wrong; what went wrong; what I could do better; where did I overspend and where did I underspend?" Because the end of the day, this is a very emotional um uh career, because you are creating something that someone's going to fall in love with and living with a minimum of like five years. So you want to think about those different avenues of of and materials of what you spent on the project to bring it to to life. Because there's some places where you can be cheap because they don't care about it, but there's some places you have to spend because this is the the the epitome of the home—like the kitchen, the island, the primary bath—those things you can't really go too cheap on, or you gotta be very creative and give them some type of feel that they say, "Oh, I gotta I gotta have this house." And the number one thing that GK told me: "This ain't your house; this is somebody else's house." So all that stuff you see on HGTV, all these custom stuff you see on YouTube, they don't care about it; they care about the house. If you put all these smart things in here, because you don't—you hate walking to your light switch and turning it off—most people don't care; they want to get up. So don't make your house too smart for for a home that's not over a million dollars, or you're not building it specifically for someone that's worth a game, right? You're not building for your own living unless it's your custom home, right? You like black; they like they like white, so paint it white.

I got one last question before we jump off. I know Pam, you got a question for Jean, and then I'm gonna follow up with one one more question for you. I see your hands up. Yes, thank you. You know, I used to be a teacher, so you gotta put your hand up, you know what I mean? Okay, anyway, so I work a nine-to-five, and I do find it hard—um, I'm trying to figure out how did you balance working a nine-to-five—I mean, I don't have a TV, so that was one thing; I sleep a little less, so that's one thing—how did you balance a nine-to-five and also did you were you an investor before you you started investing in these properties? Great question. Oh, okay. So the second—I'll answer the second part. So I already had two rental properties, but I bought them wrong—well, one I house-hacked; I lived in it for a while, then I moved out, put a renter in. The second one I I bought it too high, and I have to keep it because there's no equity. So I can say I I was a a not a savvy investor; I was like a by-luck investor, but I knew that I had to collect real estate because of the you know uh what do they say? What's what's the new gimmick thing? Um, generational wealth—you gotta have all that gimmicky stuff—whatever. So to that—to—I won't talk about it too much because it's not that thing of a thing. So the nine-to-five question—great question. Luckily enough, my nine-to-five is like a hybrid model, and I I work in tech, so I can—at the time I was three days on, three days in office, two days off, and then they're kind of flexible, so sometimes I I'll call—I'll say, "Hey, I'm a little I'm a little sick; you know, I gotta I gotta do the I gotta do the thing." I I I just kind of made time, and at the end of the day, with the trades, you schedule what time you can be there with them, so you kind of figure it out. If you know that you clock in at 10 or nine o'clock, "Hey, Trey, can you meet me at eight? What is my commute look like after I meet with you for 30 minutes from here and there?" And before that meeting, you have these little milestones: "Hey, I need—you know, what are you doing today? What's not today? What are you doing? What are you doing in general? The timelines, because that determines how I need to continue the conversation and when you get paid and call an inspection." So just figuring out what works for you, and also again, leverage—there's people in here who are waiting to to partner because they're still—I wouldn't say afraid—they're still a little hesitant because it's a big leap leap of faith, but you're here now, right? So leverage these conversations, these people, because there's people in here who are very like-minded with you who are probably willing to help you out because they want to learn either through you or with you, and shoot, you may—you never know—if you were building MCD, you may be able to call me, say, "Hey, Jean, you MCD? Do you mind hopping by my site here and there?" I may charge you because my time is precious, but at least now you can understand the value of time, the value of scheduling, and value of like how can I make this work? The end of the day, your go—your—well, it depends on your goal. Some people say, "I want to get to a certain point of understanding real estate so I can leave my nine-to-five and make my hobby the main thing." So if I start a project and I take out this loan money, that's low-key on the same level as my job; the only difference is I haven't got paid from it yet, but I still have to make it a priority. So if you do it, look at your schedule, talk to your train—inter—when can you meet them? You may have to miss lunch at at work, commute to the to the site, come back, have a few sick days, PTO days, and yeah. Great point, man. Um, you got something else?

Yeah, I just want to know what he does in tech because I work in tech. Oh, I'm a software engineer; I still work there as a software engineer; I just make buttons blue and build cool apps. Nice. I think she dropped, but one thing I want to touch on before I ask you one more question, Jean, is how you said the gimmicky stuff, right? And I've always—I mean, I use the term generational wealth because when generational wealth—I think of what it is for real; it's not being left a lot of money, right? It's not—it's it's providing wealth to your kids so their kids can, you know, be wealthy as well, but the only way you can really provide wealth is education, fact. Because we can look at it like this: if I leave my kids $10 million, that ain't—they're not wealthy because if they lose that 10, they can't get it back because they don't know how I got it; they weren't educated, so they don't understand the real wealth. Think about this: we all watched the Cosby Show; we all knew Bill was the gynecologist and his wife was a lawyer—what them kids do? We don't know. So you think these kids gonna be wealthy one generation from there? If that was a real family, probably not, because their wealth isn't created by leaving somebody something; wealth is created by showing somebody how to get something. So it's up to us to continue educating everybody on, especially our kids and, you know, family and stuff, on how to really get money, because that's how we create generational wealth for real; it's not being left—"Oh, my dad left me five million." You gonna blow that five million before his body gets cold in six months, I'm telling you. So at the end of the day, man, we just gotta keep educating everybody around us so that we all grow as a unit. Um, speaking of units, Jean, how was your experience by partnering with us? I think—to to be honest—that was a saving grace, because like when you're when you don't have the educational experience—I can't say the educational because you got the the you got the the school—when you don't have the experience of how to pivot in situations, you're gonna feel scared; you're going to feel alone; you're going to feel lost. So being able to hop in the group chat—where it used to be the Facebook—to be able to get um get one of the guys on on on the phone call or get another student who's already ahead of you or going through the same process, being able to pick somebody's brain to understand either, "Hey, I've been there; hey, this is how you how you answer; how you solve it"—like that was like a breath of fresh air, because I know there are points—there are pain points—there are points where I felt like I wasn't getting any sleep because I was just so overthinking things and so worried that, "Oh, man, I messed up the whole project because I chose the wrong color of tile." Like, bro, just add an accent or just change the fixture hardware—instead of making it gold, make it black, and it looks perfectly fine—like little things that you you look at it from a from a micro lens that it feels so big, and then you look at or you talk to someone who has more experience and they say, "I understand, but here's the solution." So that's why I was like I said at the very beginning: you're in a in a in a realm where you're surrounded by a lot of people who are in the same place that you want to go where you currently are, so leverage that, as well as like you're always solving—you're always solving problems—so like you're never going to—

Get to a point you're a master of everything, but you got to get to a point where you're you're levelheaded enough to say, "Okay, I can tackle any small problem step by step." So that was a major thing, being able to call y'all here and there. It's like, "Hey, I ain't see this in the video, can you can you help me out?"

Yeah, I know in the first project you did, you actually partnered with Jean, yeah, on that one. And it was more of an "earn while you learn" situation.

Yeah, yeah. You made money, you know, selling that house and and and stuff like that, as well as learning on how to build on there. And that is the type of um education that we're going to be bringing back. And we're going to be proposing some some new opportunities for you guys really soon here, where we, you know, get the land and you guys come in and earn while you learn, because we're all here and we want people to get good buildable lots and learn the process for real.

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