My family has finally outgrown this bed. There are 3 beds here, there is a pull out trundle bed, drawers built in.
Is is out together with additional bolts and screws. You’ll have to disassemble and move it and I’m not participating at all.
This is free.
This will be thrown into the lake if no one takes it.
Pic related
Everyone is trying to make this business more efficient with MORE automation and AI to make it “scalable”. Then they wonder why nobody trusts them.
I know that I can feel it when someone is just running a process. I think at this point, most of us feel when you’re just another name on a list.
The more this world gets automated, the more people crave, or dare I say YEARN, for real human interaction.
You don’t win in this business by removing emotion. You win by understanding it without getting controlled by it.
His dad was 15. Lied about his age, so he could start fighting communists in Vietnam.
Captured. Thrown into a re-education camp. Escaped.
Got caught. Tortured. Escaped again.
Got caught again. Tortured again. Almost died.
Third time? He made it out for good.
Then he walked through the Killing Fields. Made it to Thailand. Survived a refugee camp in the Philippines.
Landed in Texas with nothing.
Now his son Jesse never complains about anything being "too hard."
Because how could he? His Dad did all of that before he could even drive.
This isn't a movie. This isn't ancient history. This is literally just one generation ago.
Somewhere deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, a 15-year-old kid decided he'd rather DIE FREE than live & beg in Captivity.
He made it out. 🗺🛖
He made it here. 🇺🇸
And now his son never forgets what "hard" actually looks like. ❤️🔥🏆
#vietnam #vietcong #anticommunist #freedom #norulersnoslaves
People believe certain things end your life.
Bankruptcy.
Foreclosure.
Failure.
I can tell you they don’t.
My bankruptcy and foreclosures are almost 15 years old now.
At the time it felt like the end of everything. The shame. The feeling that you blew it and everyone knows it.
Most people give up there but a few keep going anyway. And they don’t stop. Ever.
Years later people call that same person “lucky” or an “overnight success.”
But the truth is simpler than that.
They just refused to stop when everyone else would have… and maybe even should have.
Most people don’t lose because they failed. They lose because they decided the story was over.
I don’t know who needs to hear this right now but don’t give up. You’re about to break through and you probably don’t even know it.
Do not quit
I used to lean into being the villain. Not accidentally. On purpose. I figured if I was going to be painted as the evil greedy landlord anyway, I might as well wear it. It was clean. It was sharp. It created instant clarity of us vs them.
And in the short term it worked well.
It rallied people who already agreed with me, it repelled the ones who didn’t. It made me look unapologetic and domineering.
Heres what I learned.
When you accept the villain role, even ironically, you give the other side ownership of the narrative. You stop being seen as a legitimate operator and become a symbol.
The symbol they can point at and say “see, this is why we need rent control.” Symbols dont get judged on facts or data. They get judged with emotion. They get reacted to, not understood or heard.
There’s a difference between dominance and positioning. Dominance says, “I don’t care what you think.” Positioning says, “I understand exactly what you think but this is why I need to do it this way.”
Dominance wins arguments at best but usually just silences them. Positioning wins influence. I had to unlearn the impulse to spike the ball publicly just because I could.
It’s easy to dominate a room. It’s much harder to shape one but shaping the room is how we create balance and better outcomes.
Control feels like competence and for a long time I thought if I wasn’t involved in everything, the quality would drop. If I didn’t touch it, review it, push it, etc, then everything would slip.
That mindset built this business in the beginning. When you’re starting, you are everything. Acquisitions, Project manager, Leasing agent, Collections, Maintenance.�
At that stage control isn’t about ego It’s just survival.
The problem with that is survival wiring doesn’t shut off just because the business grows.
I don’t even like remodels. I don’t wake up thinking about tile. I don’t get excited about cabinet hardware.
To me, remodels have always been a means to an end.�
Get it rentable. Get it sold. Move on.
For some reason I insisted on spearheading them.
Why?
Because control feels like strength and involvement feels like standards and if something went wrong, at least it was my fault.
Recently I handed remodel oversight to someone who actually enjoys it and who sees it as craft and skill instead of chore.
The projects got smoother and cleaner, most importantly I was forced to confront something I didn’t want to admit.
I wasn’t protecting quality, I was protecting my own identity.
If everything doesn’t fall apart without me hovering then what exactly is my role?
Control feels like competence but sometimes it’s just fear of being unnecessary.
Being everywhere might feel like leadership but usually it’s just insecurity disguised as work ethic.
You don’t get paid to prove you can do everything. You get paid to decide what only you should be doing.
For me, it’s not standing in the electrical aisle at Lowe’s trying too decide what the difference is between decorum vs toggle switches. It’s talking to and meeting with sellers and structuring deals everyone is happy with.
The goal shouldn’t be having to be everywhere, it should be to become irreplaceable with what you’re best at.
This one a stark contrast to the other house the other day. That one was cheap. On paper it made sense. But the street felt industrial. The bedrooms were tiny. The kitchen wasn’t salvageable no matter how much lipstick you put on it. The location was just not desirable regardless of who would be living there.
Cheap doesn’t make up for lack of marketability and desirability. Especially not anymore. We cannot get away with the things we got away with a couple years ago in that crazy market.
This house was not cheap. I paid seven figures for this house. Buy it has flow. More importantly, this wasn’t a year long project with permits where I had to get the house and rearrange everything. This was a simple cosmetic upgrades, kind of house that did not take very long to complete but went a long way on the finished product.
As many buyers as possible need to pull up to this house and before they even open the car door, they’re already picturing their life here.
Buyers that fall in love the second day arrive in the driveway don’t care about square footage or the comps. They care that they see their lives. Their kids hopping out with backpacks. Bikes laying in the grass. Holiday lights on the porch. A dog running from the front yard to the greenbelt out back. The things that really matter at the end of the day.
That’s not just a house. That’s a future someone can see themselves inside and when buyers can see their future so clearly, they no longer negotiate from logic. They compete from emotion.
Residential real estate is emotional. That’s how you create multiple offers. Not always by being the cheapest but by showing the buyer the dream the second they pull up to the house.
That is THE difference between buying a deal and buying demand and demand is what pays you back.
I used to buy houses just because they were cheap. Low price felt like less risk. Low price felt like I was being smart.
What I was really buying was bad locations that attracted bad tenants, and ever worse bad exit options.
Being cheap isn’t a strategy.
Now I prefer to buy options, not prices. Can the debt move? Can the rent scale without hassle? Can I exit without praying the market will save me?
If the only reason a deal works is “it’s cheap,” you’re just renting hope and you can’t count on that bitch showing up.
Yes price matters and we can’t over pay but structure, location, and time horizon matter more.
Cheap houses taught me a lot.
Mostly what not to buy.
If you can’t keep your deal and you only have one exit strategy, you don’t own it. You’re just borrowing time.
Dont confuse motion with control.
Real ownership is boring. It cash flows and gives you the option to do nothing.
If you’re forced to sell, forced to refi, or forced to time the market, the deal owns you.
Appreciation is a bonus.
Optionality is the goal.
If you can sit still, you own it.
If you can’t, you’re just hoping time saves you.
Appreciation makes us sloppy.
I don’t mean appreciation over time, I’m talking about what we’ve had in our market here for several years now. Rapid and ridiculous appreciation.
When we start counting on appreciation, they stop earning it.
We overpay because “it’ll go up”, take lower margins because “the market’s strong”, tolerate bad terms because “it’s fine long-term.” Most importantly we let discipline slide because the market has been forgiving.
Appreciation covers sins all the way until it doesn’t. That’s when you find out who actually knew how to buy and who was just riding a tailwind.
Good operators assume appreciation is a bonus, not a plan. They buy deals that work without luck, cash flow without hope, prayers and unreasonable expectation of fast rent increases.
Exits without perfect timing.
That feeling where it seems like everything is slipping… like you’re falling behind while everyone else is moving forward. When you feel like you’re making all the right moves and doing all the right things but nothing goes right.
That doesnt necessarily mean failure.
The tension you’re feeling is being pulled back because there’s force building. Like how a slingshot works. Nothing launches forward without building that resistance and tension first.
The mistake people make is quitting during the pullback.
They interpret friction as a signal to change course, when it’s actually proof they’re on one.
If you’re showing up.
If you’re doing the boring things consistently.
If your decisions are sound, even if the results are delayed
The move isn’t panic and stop .
The move is patience. Most momentum is invisible right before it shows up.
Stay the course and keep going.
