Housing Expert: Do Not Buy A Home Until You’ve Watched This! | Jason Oppenheim

19:57I'll still speak on it. So example, when I, uh, when I built my Newport beach office, uh, we had to hire an ADA expert, you know, someone who comes and kind of guides you in terms of what you need to do to be ADA compliant, American with disabilities act, which we're all for helping disabled people. Right. But we want to do it in an, in an efficient manner. They, what they, what he told me is that you'll have attorneys that have no clients, like no, no, no one with a disability will ever go you know has gone on the property but they're allowed to just sue on behalf of the class so they'll write they'll come in they'll sneak into your office they'll pretend they're a client whatever they'll go in your bathroom they'll measure the distance between like the toilet and the wall or they'll in my case there was a uh they said that my back parking lot was like two degrees too sloped um and so they said i had to spend like forty $30 ,000 redoing my entire back.

20:54Uh, and then I, there wasn't this, there was a sidewalk and then there was an entrance to the parking lot. And so the wheelchair would have to go like 10 feet into, you know, and come back. And they said, no, you have to have a pathway right through. So I had to spend like another$15 ,000 cutting through like this retaining wall. Then I had to spend about$15 ,000 on an automated back door. You know, you're not allowed to go out and open the door. You have to have an automated door. So I spent about$70 ,000 to be ADA compliant because they'd said lawyers will come in and they'll measure the slopage and they'll do all this stuff and you'll get a, and then they'll sue you.

21:27I have not had anyone try to access my property in five years with a wheelchair. If they did, they would have been able to get on very easily, but I've spent$70 ,000. Now, I personally think I would have preferred to put$70 ,000 into an account to help people get wheelchairs, to get prosthetic limbs, like to actually help people with disabilities as opposed to repaving a parking lot that was fine in the first place. My landlord at Sunset Plaza had to spend$250 ,000 redoing his parking lot because of a slopage issue. That's not money well spent. That's just bureaucracy taking over. We're all for, I'm all for, and I think many people are for helping other people.

22:11I'm for taxation. You know, if it's done intelligently, I'm for helping. I mean, my mom's entire job was placing people with disabilities in job placement. I'm just for efficiency. we are doing there's another example there's a building um that one of my clients lives in on beverly and the city required them to put um middle income low income housing on you know in the building even though the building is a building for billionaires so it starts at five million dollars it goes up to 25 million dollars so the building has had a very difficult time selling units because a lot of people don't want to have low income in their building that they're spending $20 million on because they're paying an HOA of like$15 ,000 a month.

22:55And yet half the building's occupants, because a lot of these billionaires don't live there. So there may be 30 units for sale and maybe 10 units that are low income. But of those 30 units for sale, maybe only five or six people live there full time. So it's actually a building more predominantly lived in by low income than by billionaires. And their low income pays zero HOA. So it's the city that subsidizes it. And yet you've got the wealthy people paying$10 ,000,$15 ,000 a month for the pool and for the gym and for the valet. How do low-income people get in that building to begin with? Just you have to not make— Is there a lottery system?

23:27Yeah, you have to not make a certain amount of money for like 10 years. So if you ever make too much money, you get kicked off the list. So theoretically someone could be—

23:35Jason Oppenheim:So the incentive is you can be living with billionaires if you continually try to make less money. Well, and by the way, I'm not even—

23:39Graham Stephan:So they're getting like$30 ,000 to$50 ,000 a month in value of living in that building. Well, they're getting way more because they're not paying any HOA. So that's$50 ,000 to$100 ,000 just in free HOA amenities. And then they have valet. So, for example, all the building's amenities are accessible to everyone. So the low income obviously will have 24-hour valet and concierge and food brought up and pool gym. So how do they get that for free when the person working their ass off making$100 ,000 a year? The city requires the building to create, like, I think in this case it was 10 or 12 units that are low income.

24:16So listen, I'm not even theoretically against this. Here's the problem though. The problem is the building is having a very difficult time selling the luxury units. So the building lost maybe 30 to$40 million in value because they lost so many potential buyers. So I think it would have been better for the building just to put in, let's say a few million dollars into a fund for low-income housing. And then they'd go out and you buy a building that's for sale, you know, like an older building and you get with 150 units in it. And now you've housed 150 people instead of eight or 10 for$5 million instead of the building losing 30 or$40 million in sales.

24:56So it's just so inefficient. That's the problem with it. I don't mind the concept. I actually appreciate the concept. The problem is it's so unbelievably inefficient in how much money is lost and economic activity is lost and sales are lost to help 10 people when that money could be used.

25:13Graham Stephan:Speaking of that, I had a clip recently go somewhat viral where I said, and I made the argument that a lot of buildings in Los Angeles are actually more valuable empty than they are with tenants in them. And I know a lot of people who purposely keep their buildings completely empty because they don't want to deal with tenants. And if they want to sell at some point in the future, they can't. Well, rent control, not tenants. Correct. Because of rent control. But their building is more valuable empty. The problem with rent controls, and many studies show this, rent control does well in the short term.

25:42So rent control manages prices and keeps people in units in the short term. In the long term, it hurts. It hurts the very people that it's trying to help. It actually increases rents because it decreases supply and it decreases investment in the community. So as an example, nobody wants to buy multifamily in Los Angeles because of all the rent control problems. Nobody wants to build single family in Los Angeles because there's rent control problems because of the mansion tax. So it actually, in the long run, and just about every study bears this out, but it's really hard for people to change their ways.

26:18I mean, you think that California is just gonna all of a sudden admit, hey, rent control was a bad idea. No, they're just gonna keep doubling down like they do on everything. They're not gonna admit the mansion tax was a terrible idea. You won't get one proponent of that to ever admit that. So people are just very stuck in their ways and they're not willing to think critically. Even though I think all the intentions are great, The intentions behind rent control are great. The intentions behind the mansion tax were great. It's just the inefficient implementation.

26:44Jason Oppenheim:Do you think California is doomed? Do you think that it will just continue to get worse and worse and worse and worse? Or when will they realize how bad it is to actually reverse some of this, you know, bureaucratic layering they've done? Yeah, some of it's already happening. People are pretty hardheaded. I think the problem with people generally is that they'll put their own self-interested dogma in front of... a critically thought out answer. Most people like to be in camps, you know, like Democrats like to always do the same thing. Republicans like to always do the same thing. And they don't question it.

27:17They're just, many people are just blindly led down the path. And they just think that everything that one party does is accurate. When the truth is, both parties have really good ideas and the answer is generally in the middle. When any one party gets too much control, and it'd be the same thing for, I would say the same thing for a Republican led state that is just, you know, has too much dominance for too long. They veer off track. California's veered off track because it's been dominated too long by the same people that don't have any pushback. And there's really no debate. There's just simply no debate.

27:51Rent control is not debated in Los Angeles. It's not debated in California. Of course it should be, but it's just not. I think that, I don't think there's any doom. I think California will remain the best state in the nation. But it's continued to go downhill. Now, it has. I think that there was an awakening. I think what happened was California had a captive audience and Los Angeles had a captive audience before COVID. COVID, when people were able to not work in the office and more things are done online and people are just generally more mobile, I think they lost their audience. And so now California has to attract people because of its policies when you should just have to attract people because of its jobs and its weather.

28:33And now that jobs can be done anywhere, all we have left is weather. And that's just not enough for a lot of people to stay. So should you buy or rent in 2025? I mean, I think, I don't know, that's a difficult question because it's really location specific. I mean, that's a very difficult question. I think it depends on how much personal satisfaction. If you, just from a financial point of view, let's say you have no personal satisfaction in owning versus renting. You just want to make a great financial decision. I'd probably rent. you know, I'd probably rent for a while. I don't think real estate's probably going up, you know, maybe flatline for a little bit.

29:09If you can get a good rental, then rent. I don't know why people always think, oh, I don't want to throw my money away, you know, in rent. I mean, if you own, you're throwing your money away on interest at a bank. It's no different. I've never understood the argument why owning is inherently better than renting, unless you care about it, unless you factor appreciation. But if you can rent for, you know, $6 ,000 a month and it's going to cost you$9 ,000 a month to own, unless you think interest rates are going to go way down and you refinance, or you get a really good deal, I would probably just stay renting until things look like they're a little bit more optimistic or positive.

29:50And again, it's very location specific. I would not buy in all these areas that blew up, Miami, Austin, Las Vegas, Nashville. I wouldn't get near those places. I wouldn't get near those places right now. Those places have another 10 to 30 % downward trajectory before they flatline. And the other thing is there's no supply limitations in those cities. I mean, every 250 square feet of land in Miami, you can build 1 ,000 condos. Austin can be built out. Vegas can be built out. There's no limitation on land in these places. So that's where you get crushed in real estate. If you're going to buy real estate, that's why Newport Beach does so well.

30:32There's just no land. And so if you buy something with good land in a place where there's limited supply of land, you're going to do really well.

30:39Jason Oppenheim:So what's your investing philosophy for 2025 and 2026? What are you doing with your money? Oh, I'm glad you asked. I'm putting it in 30-year treasury bills. Okay. So we actually just talked about this, what was that, yesterday? You put how much into a 30-year treasury bill? Well, I put$2 million into an ETF called TMF, which is like a leveraged, it's like, so it'd be the equivalent of buying$6 million in treasury bills. It's three times leveraged. I'm just making a bet. Well, first of all, you get a 4.5 % to 5 % guaranteed return on your money. That's the yield because of the underlying asset, which is a treasury, so it pays you a yield.

31:17So you're already gonna get a 4.5 % to, you know, 4 % to 5 % return. Then if interest rates come down, which I'm very certain, you know, I'm quite confident that they are, and treasury yields come down. So like a 30-year right now pays about 4.8%. If that goes, let's say, next year it's at 3.8%, which I think it will be, then my$2 million will be worth like$3 million. So you can make a lot of money on reselling the bond because if the yield comes down, the value of the treasury goes up. so you're getting your guaranteed return and then you're making a it's a little so what i've shown

31:54Graham Stephan:jack is the day after you said that you bought into that it was up about four and a half percent yeah i made a hundred k on the first after the day after my investment from that because the job support came in a week yeah but i this is a long term for me so i understand i also like the stock market i also have a lot of money in the stock market i mean i invested on liberation day Remember when tariffs, when the market crashed, I put a ton of money in the stock market. So I'm not a generally, I mean, I like real estate. I'm more of an opportunistic investor. So when COVID hit the market, I put all my money in.

32:29So what's the most you ever lost on an investment?

32:35Well, I bought three soccer cards like a year ago. this gold well it's 2014 Panini Prism gold Messi and Ronaldo I paid 80 grand for these three cards and then like two months ago they'd gone up to like 275 grand and I sold them and had I held like another eight weeks now they're worth like 700 thousand dollars that doesn't count as you losing money in terms of like thought out investments

33:03Graham Stephan:I mean I've done pretty well on those how do you always make money it seems like any time you say oh I'm buying this I'm buying this it just it goes up in value. You know why? Because I don't listen to anyone else ever, really. I just think there's too many pundits, too much talk. And people overanalyze. I'm very simplistic. I take a very macro look at what's going on. Perfect example, my biggest investment ever. I put all my money into the stock market when it crashed and COVID. I thought this was an overreaction. The market's going to recover. No, of course it's going to recover. I doubled my money in 12 months.

33:37um that's common sense when that when the market crashed because of trump announced tariffs and it went down like i don't know 20 25 percent um i said that's obviously an overreaction people generally overreact so i put you know a ton of money into the market then um when netflix was down to like i don't know i forget what it was like two you know 200 a share i'm like this stock has crashed way too much. This is a massive company. It's going to rebound. So put some money in that. Interest rates. It's pretty common sense right now. You don't need to do a bunch of, you don't need to be a bond trader to figure out that the 30-year yield on an American treasury bill is 5%.

34:24You know what China pays? Their investors, if you buy a Chinese 30-year treasury bill, you get 2%. If you buy a German 30-year treasury bill, you get 3.3%. And yet America, the most safe investment on planet Earth, far safer than a Chinese 30-year bond, safer than a German bond, it's arguably considered the safest bond in the world, is paying 5%. It doesn't even make sense. I know that there are reasons for that, like currency exchanges and inflation risk and like that, but that's when you get too much in the weeds. It's Like, just shut up with all the details. Like, macro approach, it doesn't make sense that you could buy a risk-free government bond and get a guaranteed 5 % return.

35:05Graham Stephan:You don't think there's any chance that the 10 or 30-year treasury stays high because people say the United States is printing too much money. Maybe there's a bit of a risk here with tariffs. Maybe we're less bullish on the economy. We don't know what's going to happen. Do you think there's any chance it stays higher than expected? There's no way that it's 100 % guaranteed. I'd say it's an 80 % chance that the 30-year treasury is in the threes. The yield is in the threes within 12 to 18 months. And what do you think that's going to do to real estate prices? It'll increase prices, but it'll also increase supply.

35:37So I don't think it's going to be like a direct correlation like, oh, interest rates are down. I mean, if interest rates go back down to where they were, which they will not, we would see a massive increase in prices. Interest rates are not going to go back down to 2 % or even 3%. If you can go out and get a 30-year loan at 4.5%, that's probably where we should be at right now. And I think we'll get there in the next couple of years. But again, the problem is it's going to increase a lot of supply. So you're going to see more supply come to the market, and you're going to see more buyers able to afford those houses.

36:08So it's good for real estate agents because we work on volume. I think prices will go up, but 5%, 10%, not 25%.

36:17Graham Stephan:What about for the people who believe that AI could actually cause deflation? I believe AI. will cause deflation.

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37:19Graham Stephan:You could also check if you're eligible with no impact to your credit score. All you got to do to get started is go to Gemini.com slash iced or use the link down below in the description to apply and start earning instantly. See rates and fees in the description for more info. Thank you so much to Gemini for sponsoring this episode. What about for the people who believe that AI could actually cause deflation? I believe AI will cause deflation. Absolutely. Wouldn't that then result in even lower interest rates? Yes, it will. I think that AI is deflationary and puts pressure on, I will put pressure on the Fed to lower rates.

37:52I don't think we're there yet, but I think also it's going to create unemployment. And unemployment is going to put pressure on the Fed to lower the rates. I think we're going to, within five years, we'll probably have, you know, not, you probably won't have an Uber driver. There probably won't be truck drivers. And I think there'll probably be millions of other jobs. I mean, I think that Trump is bringing on a lot of, or at least he's trying to bring on a lot of onshore production manufacturing, because that's not going to be done by humans. I mean, I'm sure he'll say it's going to be done by humans and create jobs, but that'll be done by robots in five or 10 years.

38:24So now we'll actually be able to compete on a global scale in terms of production, because we're not having to pay, you know,$30 an hour. You have a robot that's going to work 24 hours a day. That's three shifts. That's like three human, it would take a human being three days to do what a robot does in 24 hours and the robot won't make mistakes, won't have to take a break, won't have to go pee, won't unionize, a lot of other things. So do you ever think that mortgages could get back down to 2 %? I mean, of course they could. I would be very surprised if in the next 20 years we see, if you can go out and get a 30-year fixed at 2%, 2.5%.

39:02That would surprise me if we see that. If I see that again in my lifetime, I'll be surprised.

39:06Jason Oppenheim:So if someone wants to have some exposure to real estate in their portfolio, what is the best way of even going about that right now? If they like commercial, is it like single family home residential? Would it be like, you know, investing in real estate oriented ETFs? Those are the most simple. The ETFs are the most simple, to be honest. But if you want to get, I mean, listen, it is not for the weary of heart to own a property, let's say in Los Angeles, you know, that has tenants. I mean, you're just asking for a nightmare problem. but I will say that this is probably the best market that I've seen for a buyer to come into LA and buy multifamily.

39:42I mean, I look at it myself just because it's so intriguing. You can buy, I mean, I saw a property on Lexington, which is in Hollywood, 20 unit building. This just shows you how big of a problem, you know, the, uh, tenant, the tenant restrictions are in LA, 20 unit building 11 000 square feet interior uh square footage um and i could have bought the building for 2.8 million it sold for two eight i wrote an offer of two five they didn't they sold it i mean rightfully good for them they got two eight for it that's insane i mean that's that's what is that per unit in hollywood it's 260 270 dollars a unit 270 000 a unit which is by the way this is what the government should be doing.

40:25If we're trying to, I don't think, I think the homeless problem is a lot more complicated than housing. The truth is we have more housing now per capita than ever before because we had 600 ,000 people leave LA. So it's actually the equivalent of building 600 ,000 homes, but yet homeless is worse. So it's not a, it's not a direct correlation to housing. I'd love to see the city go out and buy that property and house 20 people for$270 ,000 and say what they do is they hire, they have a deal with union where union supports the democratic, uh, politician. And then they run on some, some platform to build homeless housing with unions.

41:03And then those prod, then those condos cost about a million to a mil two to build. So, and they never even get built, but even if they did get built, it would cost the city a million dollars to house someone when you can, when I could have gone out and bought this 20 unit at$270 ,000 a unit. Does it ever work when the government funds housing for homeless people? the government is, doesn't do much right when it comes to the homeless. There's a lot of this. I'm, I'm a, uh, I mean, I've been working and volunteering for 15 years for food on foot. It's a private organization, which is, which I, I like, and there's so many good people that work there.

41:38So there, I also think that most of the people in the homeless industrial complex, which is just this huge monstrosity in LA are all good, well-intentioned people. But I think the problem is that they won't, they're not willing to take a step back and to try to figure out a new approach. People are just so stuck in their ways and they just double down and double down and just keep bulldozing through without pulling back and saying, hey, maybe there's another way to do this. It's a lack of critical thinking, I think. It's been a downfall of, you know, that sentence alone probably explains 90 % of the problems in the United States and the world.

42:16It's just a lack of critical thinking. So what do we do in terms of a housing shortage that they say were short like 6 million years? There's not a housing shortage. If you, and housing is not unaffordable any more than it was for the last 80 years. If you look at the actual facts, there's actually at least as much housing now per person in America as there has ever been. So people don't usually know what they're talking about when they throw these things out. They just read like a CNN headline. In terms of housing unaffordability, not true. If you look at what it costs to rent a 1 ,000 square foot two-bedroom apartment, as I'm just using as an example, from 1930 to today, and you look at wages from 1930 to today, it is almost a perfectly correlated, similar line for the last 95 years.

43:10in terms of how much it costs to rent a 1 ,000-square-foot two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles or in America. So there's always talk about it's more unaffordable than ever before. It's actually not. It's actually the exact same. It has pretty much followed. Wage inflation has followed rents. And by the way, people talk about, it's like a clickbait to say housing is so unaffordable. When interest rates are high, like they are now, of course, buying a house is, of of course, more unaffordable to the wage than it was five years ago. So if people say housing has gone up, you know, the cost of housing has gone up 60 % in the last five years.

43:49No, it hasn't. The value of, you know, a$500 ,000 condo five years ago in LA is worth$500 ,000 today. So it's gone up zero. The cost of buying it because interest rates are up means that it's going to cost more of your wages. That is a fake argument because when interest rates go down, Did we fix the affordability problem? No, that's just another way of saying interest rates are up. That's not fixing the problem. That's the problem with trying to fix most things in America. It's just talking points. People yelling about things that they have no idea, like affordability and cost of housing. They don't really, if you go on ChatGPT and you spend 30 minutes asking it to analyze these facts, you'll actually learn that housing is as unaffordable today as it was for your grandparents.

44:39Graham Stephan:Is this what ChatGPT told you? Actually, my brother and I did a full analysis on Chat about 30 minutes about this very issue because we wanted to learn. Nobody does that, unfortunately, but they just watch CNN and see a headline about unaffordability. They don't even know what it means. CNN doesn't even say, is this buying a place? Is it renting a place? You have no idea?

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45:31Graham Stephan:Here's how they compare it is that they say it used to take two to three years worth of wages to purchase the average house. And now it takes six years to 10 years worth of wages to purchase the average house. And that's how they calculate the cost of living and the affordability. Well, first of all, the affordability index should be that that is when you're talking about buying, that's interest rate dependent. So, for example, then according to that logic, you could say cost of housing has doubled in the last five years. But that's nonsense. Some of it is. That's interest rates have doubled. Throughout the 70s and 80s, though, interest rates were 15%, but the cost of the house itself was like$150.

46:06Graham Stephan:Well, that's why you should use rental. That's why you should – because rents are not as tied to interest rates. So the real – to me, I think the real question is, how much of the average person's wages does it take to rent a two-bedroom, 1 ,000-square-foot apartment in X city? That seems to be the more logical way to do it. And actually, there are arguments now that there are two people working in households, whereas one generation ago, two generations ago, it was just one, usually the man. So there's only one income. So there's an argument to say they actually cost more of someone's wages back then than it does today because there's usually two earners.

46:49But again, it gets very, that's the thing. It gets so complicated and no one likes talking about complication. But the bottom line is there's not an affordability crisis. It is housing, renting a condo or a renting apartment is just as unaffordable today as it was for your parents, as it was for their parents, as it was for their parents. That's how similar it's been for four generations.

47:12Graham Stephan:What about for the people who say that they should have a right to be able to buy something? Well, I don't even get me started on entitlement. I mean, everyone's entitled to everyone isn't thinks that they are entitled to the American dream when you're entitled to an opportunity to work hard and achieve the American dream. That's much different than just being entitled to the American dream. So I don't. You know, my response to people who even use the word entitled is no, you're not. None of us are. I mean, you're entitled to equal opportunity. I think that's a fair statement. So how much success in real estate right now when it comes to buying is due to strategy versus timing?

47:51Graham Stephan:It depends on if you're going to hold long term. If you're going to buy long term, I don't think timing is important. Same with stocks. I don't think it matters. Like I am an opportunistic buyer in real estate. I'm an opportunistic buyer in the stock market. So I'll buy in a crash. And by the way, if you want to buy real estate and you're not going to hold it for 30 years necessarily, buy in a crash. Buy stock and I crash. Everyone always overreacts. So just wait for the next wave of lemmings to overreact. Yeah. Speaking of being a contrarian investor to a certain degree, as I was speaking with a guy who was a prominent investor in San Francisco for the last 30 plus years, who said he believes now has never been a better time to buy in San Francisco.

48:37Graham Stephan:And he's actually making a ton of offers and he's getting properties for 30 to 50 percent less than he could buy them for in 2018. Commercial or residential? Both. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. properties and he's like this is the best opportunity for me even though a lot of people are moving out businesses are moving out but like this is the time you want to buy and i almost look at this in la because i've seen some of these deals that you were talking about like there was a seven unit in santa monica that i saw for three and a half and i thought it was worth three and a half and it had sold years ago for like 3.8 you're taking a loss on it it's a great deal it didn't sell after six months.

49:16Graham Stephan:I was thinking, man, at 2.8, if they take that, it's a killer deal. But they just didn't sell. So maybe now is a good time to buy into these places because everyone like us is overlooking it to a certain degree. I know you're still making offers, but I would look at this and think, I don't want the hassle anymore. But it's a pretty attractive price, all things considered, today. I agree with when people are not doing something, it's usually the time to do it. I don't disagree with that investor in San Francisco. I don't think it's a bad idea for the only thing that I, that concerns me is I don't want to be dealing with the problems.

49:51I don't want to deal with the losses. I don't want to deal with the, you know, the phone calls. I don't want to deal with all the risks and insurance and, you know, tenant that goes on in a, in owning a property. So for me, it's personally, it's not worth it. 15 years ago, you know, I had the hustle for that. Yeah, that's great for like a young person, you know, at 23 years old, it has some money or 28 years old has some money. wants to invest in multifamily, I would buy it. I would go buy it. Right now in LA, it's probably the best time to buy multifamily. It's telling Jack about this. And by the way, don't look at the returns right now.

50:25Look at the appreciation. Because when interest rates go down, that$2 million 10plex will be worth 2.5. So that's how you make money in multifamily because you raise rents, but more importantly, the cap rate will be affected by interest rates.

50:39Graham Stephan:Speaking of that, I was telling Jack the other night about a new legal scheme that seems to be going on throughout California. It's a tenant habitability issue. So they could basically claim my unit's not habitable because of insects, mold, whatever it might be. And then they claim a code violation with the city and they try to settle with the owner. And this is usually common on like larger apartment buildings, like 12, 20 units plus. They settle with the owner because the owner knows they're going to spend 20 to 50 grand defending themselves. So let's settle for 20. done. Now the lawyer on that case could send a mailer to every other tenant in that building saying that this owner was found to settle this case.

51:24Graham Stephan:You might be entitled to money. And now every single tenant can now file a claim against that owner. Yeah. Potentially bankrupting the owner. We've gotten far too litigious. I think the problem is that these lawyer organizations, They just fund these Democratic politicians. And so the politicians keep laws in place to allow all these lawsuits. So this is something that Jack actually brought up because he said, who's lobbying for this? And there is a new ordinance that came throughout Los Angeles recently where now you have to put a you have to put it in a common area of any rent controlled property that said the tenant is entitled to free legal services.

52:05Graham Stephan:Here's the number. And it needs to be displayed at all times. And if it's not properly displayed and the tenant falls behind on their rent, you can't evict them because that whole eviction case is going to be thrown out because they didn't know that they had an entitlement for those legal services. And Jackson, who comes up with that? When you go too far in one direction, tenants will abuse the system. And I know that it's like, you know, you're not supposed to say anything negative about tenants. Oh, and here's the other thing, too. So LA, in all of its wisdom, just passed a new law saying that I, renting out this house as an example, I have about half a million dollars with the furniture and art in the house.

52:44And so I charge$33 ,000 a month in it, and I charge a two-month security deposit,$66 ,000 and a half a million dollars. city of LA says, no, I can only charge one month security deposit. Even if the house is furnished, I cannot charge any more money for a furnished house versus an unfurnished house. That's LA in all their brilliance because they were trying to protect, you know, ostensibly trying to protect someone in like the thousand, you know, to$2 ,000 a month, uh, price point and didn't want them. They wanted them to be able to afford their, their security deposit. So now they're limiting people that have$10 million homes from getting a two month security deposit from another million like it's it's so illogical and there's another problem too i now can't sell that house up until a year ago i could tell the tenant hey your lease expires in february um when you move out i'm going to put the house on the market for sale and i'm going to sell my house now i cannot get rid of that tenant that tenant can now live there forever indefinitely indefinitely yeah i cannot you cannot get a tenant out just because you want to sell a property that's no longer just cause eviction So how can you get a tenant out?

53:48You can never get a tenant out in California. I was telling. You're not, you cannot, but you have to move, you have to, I'd have to personally move back into that house. For two years. For two years. But I don't want to live in that house. That's the only way to get, otherwise that tenant can live there forever. Even though he's paying$30 ,000 a month, LA thinks that they need to protect that tenant and not allow me to sell my own property because that tenant's lease expired and yet he's allowed to continue to live in my house and pay$30 ,000 a month.

54:14Jason Oppenheim:You literally can't say, here's a 90-day notice. You can't say. Nope. In fact, what happens is the tenant will go, oh, you want to sell your house? Give me 200 grand. And then maybe I'll move out. That's what happens because they have all the power now. I was telling Jackie. It's so stupid.

54:32Graham Stephan:If you make too many offers to the tenant, a cash for keys, they could now sue you for harassment. Yeah. And also now, if you enter into a deal for cash for keys and you pay a tenant, let's say,$20 ,000 to move out and he moves out, he can move back in the next month. He can say, I changed my mind and move back in. He has to give you your money back. So you can't even actually conduct business. You can't even move along with the understanding that this signed contract is enforceable. The tenant can change their mind. There should be an exemption for luxury property. Of course there should be. Well, you should just be able to kick someone out of your own property.

55:10Well, it's just common. That's what I'm saying. They've lost common sense. So as an example, if someone's paying over$10 ,000 a month in rent, they don't need the city to be managing security deposits. They don't need the city to tell them that they don't have to move out at the end of their lease. I don't know why the city is promulgating codes, protecting millionaires. They don't pass these things to purposely harm economic activity. They just aren't smart enough to figure out all the damage they're causing.

55:39Jason Oppenheim:It does appear as though that's probably something that's just lobbied by lawyers. Because the more regulations, the more loopholes, the more layers of paint that they put on this mound of regulation is just another thing that they can exercise to get more profit, basically. They're just like, oh, this one code. Oh, this code. If there's a million codes, they have a million choices to be able to try to, you know. Well, I think it's different. I think it's tenants' rights groups. well-intentioned, say, hey, there's a problem. Oh, here's another example that LA did. You can no longer discriminate on tenants based on criminal history.

56:16So I don't even think you can even look up criminal history now. I don't think you can. So if someone committed like a crime and you find that out, you cannot say, oh, I don't want to lease it to you because you burglarized a house or something like that. No, you have to lease it to them. That doesn't make sense. That's not helping anyone. That's just creating inefficiencies in the market.

56:36Jason Oppenheim:What if they committed a crime of fraud? Like, there's no crime.

56:41Graham Stephan:By the way, Jason, I do want to correct you on something. Yeah. The term now is justice involved. What is it? Oh, yeah. It's not a criminal.

56:49Jason Oppenheim:It's a justice-involved individual. Shut up.

56:51Graham Stephan:Jason, look it up. I don't care. I'm being 100 % serious. You're going to be canceled. I'll be canceled then. I'm not saying justice involved. I'm being serious, though. I'm being serious. You cannot call them a criminal. It's a justice-involved individual. Well, you can, what I'll do is also a criminal, and then my mouth will go, justice-involved. If I know that a tenant committed a violent and burglarized someone and committed fraud, I can't be like, oh, I don't want to lease my apartment to you. The city says, I'll get sued. I'll get sued for discrimination if I don't lease out an apartment to a violent felon who has committed a violent crime or a fraud or a burglar.

57:38Graham Stephan:What about a sex offender? Let's say that he lived in another apartment building and burglarized the other tenants and committed fraud on the landlord and then beat up one of the other tenants. I cannot discriminate against those acts. I have to let him lease my property.

57:54Jason Oppenheim:What can you choose? If you put a listing out for rent and you get 15 applicants, how are you able to choose which one you rent? Well, based on their job, I think just based on their employment and their credit score maybe. But what if you have 10 people that apply that all qualify? Yeah, then you'll get sued. We have a case right now where a client is getting, had a bunch of applications, picked the best one, and there was another person that applied for the property in a protected class that was losing their job and he literally stated that they would be unemployed in 60 days and they didn't choose that person because of that.

58:36So this person,

58:36Jason Oppenheim:they basically put out this listing, they got a bunch of applicants and then they went with the most qualified individual. And now they're getting sued. And now they're getting sued by someone. In a protected class, yes. Even though that person said they were losing their job. Now, isn't that just a money grab though? I don't think it's an actual... 95 % of lawsuits are a money grab. I'd say 95%. Because they know it's usually suing a wealthy individual or landlord or company or whatever. And they know that that person is going to spend $50 ,000 to$75 ,000 in legal fees and a year and a half of their life defending it.

59:12And so the person thinks, oh, I can get a quick 20 or 30 grand. I mean, that's 90 plus percent of lawsuits. That's a problem with how litigious we are is that it's so easy to make a claim and it's so costly to defend it. So you just see, that's why I think 98 % of cases are settled. Yeah, it's basically legal extortion.

59:33Graham Stephan:What could be done about this? I mean, I think higher bars for lawsuits for sure. I mean, I'm not exactly sure, but you know what I think would probably be the easiest way to solve this? If you lose a case, if you bring a claim and you lose, you should be responsible for the other person's attorney's fees. that alone that law alone but they're going to say that low-income people who justifiably should have a lawsuit against someone and win who don't have the resources to do that might well then okay well then you can do it this way you can still take a case on contingency if you don't have money but that that contingent lawyer that lawyer then has to be responsible taking the risk not just the risk of his time and energy and money that he spends on the case but also the risk of having to pay the other side's attorney's fees that will because the problem is this too.

1:00:22Lawyers will take any case because they know that they can settle out for 20 or 30 K. So they should be, so I should, you know, let's say you get sued, Graham. You should be able to say, you know what? I'm not going to settle for 20 grand because I'm a hundred percent right here. I'm going to spend the$50 ,000 to defend this. And then you're going to have to pay me back. That, that lawyer should be responsible. So if that lawyer wants, thinks that that case is a case, he's not going to take it. Now a lawyer will take a case. He's like, oh, I can shake this wealthy guy down and he'll settle for 30 or 40 grand.

1:00:53I know he's not going to go to trial. But if there's a risk of having to pay that other side's attorney's fees, then they wouldn't do it. Then lawyers would only take good cases because they don't want to take that risk of losing.

1:01:04Graham Stephan:Do you think it's ever going to happen? No, because I think that attorneys lobby so much to make sure that doesn't happen because they love all this litigiousness. And what's going to be the result of that? Just no one buys real estate. People are afraid to put themselves out there. It creates a disincentive for legitimate action. You know, I mean, it's an economic disincentive. But you want people to be able to... to act freely in a capitalist manner, right? You don't want to create friction costs. That's a friction cost like insurance. Let's say insurance was 10 times higher than it should be.

1:01:40That's a friction cost. This is essentially an insurance policy. I mean, because every time you do something, you're thinking, I could get shaken down, I could get sued, and I'd have to spend$100 ,000 to defend it. I mean, there are a lot of problems in California. I can't solve them all. But that is probably the way to solve how litigious we are.

1:01:59Graham Stephan:And what do you think are the best opportunities going forward right now? In terms of market, investment, real estate? You know, so I was buying real estate every year. But mostly I was buying real estate because interest rates were so low. And now that's gone. So I'm not really buying real estate right now. So I don't know if I'm going to sit here and just recommend, you know, buying real estate as an investment. I mean, I think it's a fine investment in the long term. You know, it's going to go up 5%, 8%, 7 % a year. Truthfully, though, I think the market right now is probably going to go up 5 % to 10 % a year for the next few years.

1:02:32And you don't have to deal with tenants, you know, and maintenance. So I think I'm probably going to leave my money in the stock market and put my money in 30-year treasuries and just hang right there for a little while until I see another opportunity. opportunity. I will say if you are glutton for punishment, you should go buy multifamily in San Francisco or Los Angeles because it's so low right now. You can spend$5 million in multifamily right now and you're intelligently buying. That'll be worth$7 million probably in three years.

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1:06:07Jason Oppenheim:Do you think that there's anything to the philosophy that people that are really tight with their money have less opportunity just coming to them because they have more of a scarcity mindset as opposed to those who have more of an abundance mentality? I know Graham was telling me that you are totally fine overpaying for whatever.

1:06:23Graham Stephan:Like you don't even really consider it. I was talking about the 4GT and I'm like, Jason, you might be overpaying by 2030. Plus sales tax on top of that. If you just wait and you're like, dude, I don't give a. I'm not going to waste my car. I totally. So I have always been, I had a lot of, what's the word? Risk tolerance. Tolerance. Yeah, thank you. I've always had a lot of tolerance for risk in my investments. I'm okay losing money. I think in order to make money, you have to be pretty risky. If you are going to be, if you're too careful, if you have a million dollars today and you are a careful investor, you'll have$3 million in 20 years.

1:07:07And at best, maybe honestly, not even that you probably have$2 million in 20 years. And on a more aggressive investor, we'd probably have$5 million in 20 years. So it's a big difference. I'm a believer in taking risky investments, not stupid investments, but like, again, this, uh, a lot of people told me not to invest in TMF because it's three times leverage. And that's like, it's like, who gives a shit? So I'm taking, uh, I believe strongly that the treasury yield is going to come down. I mean, I think that's an intelligent risk. I put a, I put a ton of money into the market on, you know, when Trump announced the tariffs and the market crashed, I think it's very intelligent to believe the market's going to recover.

1:07:53I think that's a great, I mean, I guess that's, you're taking a big risk, but I think those are calculated. It's not just that though.

1:07:58Graham Stephan:I think it's overall from what I've seen, you spend a lot of money. I mean, at least compared to what I'm used to, the dinners and the experiences and the cars and the houses and the trinkets and the watches and the going out and the entertainment. It's like, I remember seeing some of this. I don't have kids and I don't need to die with money. I mean, I worked hard and continue to work hard to have fun. I think money doesn't do anything sitting in my bank. I am all about spending my money, as you well know. I am not shy about it. Do you think that's giving you more opportunity than, let's just say, me on the other hand?

1:08:34Graham Stephan:No, I think it's giving me more happiness. I don't think it's giving me more opportunity. You don't think that you've met? I don't think going out and buying a—I just bought a Rolls Royce for 500 grand. I don't think that's giving me opportunity. I think it's fun as shit.

1:08:44Jason Oppenheim:But the abundance of living that life, I do think, I'm a pretty firm believer that it does end up somehow coming back to you. Maybe in the way of like someone sees you in a Rolls Royce, you get a connection because you're wearing a watch or you go to a fancy dinner. And so instead of staying at home, you meet someone and you do deals with them and you develop a relationship. You enter that web of people. Or it could be in such a way of just like what you put out is kind of like what you get. It's coming back. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to go there because I think there are too many people that shouldn't be doing that.

1:09:14that pretend that they're wealthy and they're running out there and like, you know, buying bottle service and dumb. Um, so I wouldn't encourage that behavior unless you can afford it within your means. Um, also if you have a family and a wife or whatever, you know, then probably not the best idea. I've purposely don't have kids because I want to go around and I want to go, I want to buy a Ford GT and a Rolls Royce. Um, and I want to go fly first class to wherever with my girlfriend. I mean, that's to me, I don't understand how people work hard and have money and don't do that. I really don't get it.

1:09:48I think they're fun coupons. That's what money is. They're fun coupons. Why are you leaving fun coupons in the bank? Go use them to have fun. If you're rich,

1:10:00Jason Oppenheim:what's the best thing to spend money on? There's not one thing. I think clothes. Really?

1:10:08Graham Stephan:I think people say that's the lowest. Yeah. No, I love clothes. I love cars. I love travel, food, but you can't spend that much money on food. Let's be honest. I mean, you know, you can't, you can't go out and buy a$500 ,000 dinner. You can buy a$500 ,000 car. So I'll just, I'll say travel, definitely travel, you know, spend a hundred grand on a European vacation. And I, but I will say the, arguably the most fun that I have with, with my money, best ROI is spending it on other people. I love being able to do things with my friends. I think it's great that I can provide, you know, opportunities for my friends traveling or dinners or whatever that they wouldn't otherwise do.

1:10:43I also don't understand why people who have money, to me, if you're at a dinner, the person who's least affected by paying the bill should pay the bill. It's that simple. If you're out traveling, it should be based on who's least affecting. It's a utilitarian argument. We picked up the bill just a couple

1:11:02Jason Oppenheim:days ago. Oh, for Mexican food? The iced coffee hour picked up the bill for the Mexican food. To be fair, I told my staff to pay it, and then they said, oh, hey, Graham paid it. You did. And by the way, does that count? Don't bring up the fact that you finally bought lunch. 15 years of me buying lunches, and I got to hear about the one Mexican restaurant you guys? I'm never going to live that down. And Pinche's tacos, by the way, does not count as dinner. What does it count as? That's like a cheap lunch. That counts as like a half a lunch. Okay, so it's mostly spending the money on other people.

1:11:33Jason Oppenheim:That's the highest fund on ROI. I'd say that's probably the best ROI. Yeah, I mean, because two people get the enjoyment. I do something nice for my girlfriend and my brother or a friend. I get the enjoyment of it, and they get the enjoyment of it. I think it's a great thing. If you can afford to do nice things with your friends, I think that's awesome. What do you think is the optimal amount of money to have? That's an interesting question. You don't want to have so much money that everyone's angling at you. you know and you can't even have a normal conversation with someone uh maybe a hundred million maybe the other thing too is once you have so much money that you can you know total fuck you money you can do whatever you want i don't know if you appreciate it as much so i don't i'm not going to say a dollar amount this is what i'm going to say i think the goal is to continually increase your net worth so that you can continually get nicer and nicer things and so you can continually appreciate those nicer and nicer things.

1:12:35The last thing you want to do is one, have so much money that you stop appreciating things or two, you have a lifestyle and that you have to, that you have to come down. So I've always found that like perfect example is my, I now drive a Rolls Royce Cullinan, but I didn't just go out, you know, and that wasn't my first car. That would suck. You start out with a Rolls Royce Cullinan SUV. You're never, there's no better car out there. So there's no, I started with, I don't know, I forget what, you know, who cares what my first cars were but up until you know finally I was able to get a Bentley you know like five years ago and then five years later I got a Rolls like so I when I got into my Bentley I'm like oh my god this thing is amazing and now I'm in my Rolls I'm like oh my god this thing is even better so you just want to keep living to where you can continually increase your quality of life and then you will appreciate it every time I never just I never want to come down and also I guess you don't if you have if I had 50 billion dollars I mean it I don't know, then you can do anything.

1:13:34So then nothing's fun. You know what I mean? I like to be able to, I like there to be things I can't do. I cannot go out and buy a private jet. So I like, you know, it's nice to be able to not do everything. I don't know. I feel like theoretically you could buy like a$6 million private jet. Oh yeah, but then you're stressed out about the costs and the use. You know what I mean? That's stressful. That would be stressful. So how much money do you need?

1:13:55Graham Stephan:How much money do you need to buy a private jet? A hundred million. Minimum a hundred million. Probably 200 million. To even start thinking about a private jet. Okay. Yeah. I'm not there. What if you traveled a lot? You used it like a few times a week. First of all, I'm not even... If you travel a lot like to Europe and what you're talking about, those private jets cost like$30,$40 million. You've got to be worth like$400 million before you're stepping up like that. And I don't even like... I'm not even a huge fan of flying private because I get nervous. turbulence. And then, you know, the pilot's not as going to be as probably as good as like a, you know, a commercial pilot.

1:14:36And the bigger the plane, the safer it is, the less turbulence. I mean, more, more crashes on private planes and commercial planes.

1:14:43Graham Stephan:What's the biggest lesson you've learned about money that nobody teaches you? I mean, I would say that money does buy happiness. People tell you that it doesn't, but I think it does. Um, doesn't guarantee happiness. I think that's what the saying should be money doesn't guarantee happiness because that's true money definitely buys happiness though um and i think that maybe people don't realize that money is meant to be spent you know i mean i think you're on this planet for only so many years i don't i don't understand how people are wealthy and don't spend it and then the other thing is i guess circling back on this spend it on your friends i encourage my mom yeah jack my mom has uh i beg my mom to spend money she's buying a porsche right now i mean she's never had a nice car she hasn't had a car you know over a hundred thousand well not probably i bought her a mercedes for 100k but before that probably you know she has a pickup truck and she's got money now i'm like mom like she you know she doesn't spend money i like i beg her to spend money i actually like have long conversation with her.

1:15:49I think that some people need to be encouraged to open up and enjoy the fruits of their labor. I don't know why so many people have money and don't spend it. So what's your advice to me? Yeah.

1:16:01Graham Stephan:Because here's how I look at it. What are you going to do with your money? Are you going to have kids? One day. Here's how I look at it. I see the amount that I have invested and I just think I could spend 3 % of it a year and not run out. So that's kind of what I base everything off of. But then I think if the market falls 50%, I don't want to go down in lifestyle. So that 3 % now turns to one and a half. And I spend that. That's it. One and a half. But does that assume that you're not making any money? Yes. You are making money. Yeah. So that adds to the top. And then I could spend one and a half percent of what's invested.

1:16:33Graham Stephan:Well, but then you have to figure out how many. You also have to minus how many years you have left. Right? Yeah. 50 plus years. But I don't want to run out. So one and a half percent over 50 plus years. Assuming my expenses keep going up a year. Assuming a return of how much a year?

1:16:47Jason Oppenheim:5 %? I do 5 % to 6%. To me, this sounds borderline mental disorder. No.

1:16:53Graham Stephan:No, I don't think that's...

1:16:54Jason Oppenheim:I think 1.5%.

1:16:55Graham Stephan:If the market falls 50%, I don't want to be affected by it. I don't even want to think about it. I want to be like... I think what you should do is be diversified enough that that doesn't happen. Oh, I am, but it could still be... Let me give you a perfect example of how you can hedge that. I'm really pitching 30-year treasuries. The inverse. 3X leveraged. Buy a 30-year treasury. Why? Because if we go into recession, what's the Fed do? Lowers rates. So you could put in, I'm just going to say you have$20 million. You don't have to tell me what you have. Let's say you have$20 million. If you put 10 of it into 30-year treasuries, then you're guaranteed a 5 % return, which is pretty solid.

1:17:38And you're also investing that to some degree because if rates go down. But it's a hedge against inflation. No, sorry, it's not a hedge against inflation. That is stupid. Against the market going down. It's a hedge against a recession. Right. So if the market goes down and we got unemployment and we're hitting the fan, rates are going to go down. So have a balanced portfolio. And then you don't have, there's no way you're going to lose 50 % of your money. But I still feel... Then you could do 25%.

1:18:02Graham Stephan:But I still think there could be a small chance we turn out like Japan that just goes down for like 30 years. Well, didn't rates go down in Japan? Yeah, they went to like zero. Correct. But the market's going down at the same time. I know, but my point is you can hedge. That is a perfect hedge. I spend money to remove stress. I'm overstaffed, you know, personal assistant. I have a stylist. What, you know, I have, I don't do anything anymore. I love that. I think there's no better way for me to spend money than to have somebody pack for me. You know, why do I want to, or go to the grocery store for me or get my, you know, dry cleaning or my shoes clean?

1:18:38Why do I want to be driving to drop off my shoes to get cleaned? You know, it's a dumb argument. I know I'm sounding like a douchey guy, but I mean, why do I want to be doing anything? I mean, that's the best thing for...

1:18:51Jason Oppenheim:Graham will lose sleep over a quote that he gets from a contractor that's like$700 more than what he thinks. Like he will literally lose sleep for it. And then we'll have a podcast the next day and he'll be like groggy and people will comment, Graham looks tired. One of the things that I've done to change Graham is I used to be so difficult about contractors and I always used to think I was getting... and I would negotiate them and get a second bid and a third bid. And guess what? You are getting like 90 % of the time. I have now, it's less about money. For me, it was more about psychology. You know what I mean?

1:19:26I was feeling like someone was getting one over on me and I was being treated unfairly. And now I'm like, you know what? I'm wealthy enough that I, who cares? What's the worst case scenario? This is the way I think about it. The worst case scenario is this contractor who's working hard is charging me$1 ,400 for a$900 job. So, okay, so I'm giving this dude$500 more than I should. Is that the end of the world? It's going to that guy and his family, and it's increasing his quality of life a hell of a lot more than$500 is going to increase my quality of life. Just look at it as like a tip, just a massive tip for a hardworking dude.

1:19:59And I'm just way happier when I look at it like that. I just don't mind getting this much.

1:20:03Graham Stephan:How I look at it is that I don't spend that extra$500, and I think when I spend that here, I could have done all these other things that I purposely didn't do because I'd rather just save the money. And then it just poofs go, just goes. Think about it like from a utilitarian perspective, who's going to have more happiness from that$500 you or that dude, that dude, that dude. So worst case scenario, when you leave this planet, you have just made other people happy. That's the worst case scenario for you. That's a good way of looking at it. I, I don't, I mean, I really don't negotiate as much as I used to.

1:20:38I'm not as, I don't get, you know, second and third bids. I tip like crazy tip a hundred bucks to everybody. I mean, what is, so the bathroom attendant or the, or the valet is going to get a hundred bucks. Do you know what he's going to do with that? He's going to take his girlfriend to dinner and have a whole good night. What am I going to do with a hundred bucks? I don't even know what I would, I mean, I nothing. I don't know what you can do with a hundred bucks so buy tacos yeah exactly buy gram lunch so that i think you have to look at it like that's the same reason why i buy dinner i i've never i mean in 10 years i don't think i've never not picked up a tab unless you know someone's adamant about it um because it doesn't affect me and it affects other people i would always look at it like that from a utilitarian perspective and it feels good and it feels good to be generous the main thing that i

1:21:26Jason Oppenheim:see is like sure gram could be spending money to increase the quality of his life but at the same point the thing that it sucks to see is when he's stressed out over these money issues and he's like and he's on the phone with contractors trying to negotiate something down and on hold for an hour and he's like clearly stressed out and he gets anxious and he gets angry and he gets all these what about hiring a personal assistant that does that just does all that for you just pay a person

1:21:49Graham Stephan:100 grand a year the thing is it just it comes up so infrequently and it's so like last minute where today i have nothing but then it could be one phone call at 4 p.m that just comes out of the clue and now it's like i really wanted someone to come over like quality of life is more important than money if you can if you have the money to not have to worry about that then and and you're still worrying about it then you're not using your fun coupons appropriately graham they're really meant to be like to de-stress i have very little stress in my life i use money to de-stress my life that's the best thing it can you can use it for i'm still rooted to like how much I feel like a thousand dollars is for example because I remember like a thousand dollar commission early on would be like oh wow I could do this and this and this and make this last and invest it here that just having it go away in seconds feels like it's irresponsible you have a problem because I went gambling with you and you lost like thirty dollars and he got so upset I was like dude you don't it's not fun I'm like losing like seven grand and I don't even give a and Graham lost $30 and he's like he's like I'm done I'm so done with this he's so upset I don't know bro we're cut from a different cloth um also the other thing too is I think that you would be just as happy with half as much money I don't think you really so it I don't think I think you should spend the out of it bro and the other thing too is like I bought that the$450 ,000 Ford GT that is not spending$450 ,000.

1:23:20Just like, or my Rolls Royce, or, you know, I buy a baseball cards or a whiskey, like whatever the it is I'm buying or artwork. It's not like I can't sell it in the future or a watch. Let's say I buy a$30 ,000 Rolex. Someone's like, oh my God, you spent 30 ,000. No, I spent$5 ,000 because I'll probably be able to sell that thing in a few years for 25 K. So who cares? So I, so I only look at it as spending 5K. All I do is look at how much money i'm losing when i bought that ford gt maybe i'll lose 50 or 70 maybe i'll lose 100 grand max you know with taxes and maintenance and i'll have it for let's say 10 years so i look at that as

1:23:54Graham Stephan:spending 100 grand i don't look at it as spending 500 grand how is the show selling sunset changed your perspective on everything uh i wouldn't say it's changed my perspective that much no i mean i think it's made me wealthier you know i'm more more of a public figure i don't think it's change my perspective on things. But has anything changed when you go out now that you're recognized all the time? Yeah, but I don't think that changes my perspective. I mean, it changes my life in as much as I'm taking, you know, photos with people when I'm out. But other than that, it's pretty similar. If you took away me taking photos, 99 % similar is my old life, you know?

1:24:32Although also, I think it's helped me build my business and my career, so I'm wealthier because of that. Yeah, but no, I don't think I'm a different person. I mean, shit, you've known me since way before the show. You've mellowed out, though, a lot. That's not from the show. Okay. The show stresses me out. Mellowing out, I think, is therapy, years of therapy, which I probably credit more than anything. But then learning not to stress out over things. I think a perfect example, like if I got a contractor bid of$1 ,400, I would immediately get a rush of cortisol. I would be, this is, you know, I'm getting, this is probably only$800.

1:25:14Show me the labor, you know, show me the parts. Let me get a second bid. And all of that would be anxiety and stress and cortisol. And I have in my phone, I literally have in my phone, don't sweat the small things. I know that's kind of cliche. Where do you have that? Look, I just opened up my phone. It's on my notes. So it's my favorite.

1:25:33Graham Stephan:You know what's so funny you do that? I'm going to show you this. for every decision i make i i go through that return on hassle ah yeah like how to spend good for you yeah that's very very um i'll read like four or five for the for the people watching here well some of it's you know about me being a boss so i'll skip that uh be a positive personality and then i put like my dogs like nico zelda thor because my dogs have the best personalities please. Don't be too hard on yourself. Set an example. Compliment, appreciate, and validate people more. Be more serious. Sorry, be more serious. Be less serious, more lighthearted, humorous, easygoing.

1:26:17Be more present, patient. The most important one is don't take things personally. I now try not to personalize so many things. Other people's actions are a reflection of them, my therapist told me. And so many people, someone gets angry, or someone's driving and they cut you off and flip you off.

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1:27:06Jason Oppenheim:Potential savings will vary. It's not about you. Maybe they're having a bad day. Like, it doesn't need to get you so upset. So I now don't let other people affect me as much. I now also, this one is the most important one is don't sweat the small things. because I used to think everything was a big deal and I always have to react immediately and get my cortisol up and solve it. And I now realize that everything resolves itself. Everything, 99 % of things resolve themselves. 99 % of things, when you look back on them six months later, were not nearly the big deal that you thought they were. So I just take that approach to everything, that everything is small.

1:27:44And I remind myself every day that every issue I'm gonna deal with is small. small and it is it ends up that they're small and I have a lot of issues I'm dealing with I probably have more issues today with a hundred agents and four offices than I've ever had and I'm the least stressed because I've just you know I've kind of turned you know I I look through things from a different prism or were you addicted to cortisol in the past yeah I think so I think so yeah I I used to think that I needed cortisol to have the energy to work hard. You know, I used to think that that was my motivating force.

1:28:20And I had to have this reactive, aggressive, you know, cortisol infused kind of approach to things. And I realized that I'm calmer, happier, more relaxed, less reactive, more, you know, I think arguably more thoughtful and happier. and I handled just as many things. And I think the people around me appreciate all that more as well. What led you to go to therapy in the first place? Me and my brother were fighting a lot. So I said, let's go like, you know, brother's therapy, kind of like couples therapy, but for brothers. And I thought it was helpful. And then I said, I want to continue to see you, you know, individually.

1:29:04And it got, it worked. When I, she almost quit on me. I was so, Brett and I would fight so much in therapy and I was so difficult. What were you guys fighting about? Just silly life? I didn't fight over anything. Honestly, we can trigger each other and just really get after it. Because you guys know what buttons to press. Yeah, exactly. It's like 40 years of skill. We're both lawyers, you know? We just go at it. Yeah, I used to be very, if there's one thing is that I was very reactive. I would just get that cortisol rush and I would follow at it, you know what I mean? And yeah, I just don't anymore.

1:29:36I feel it now and I'm like, oh, you know, I don't need that. you know and i'm just so happy i'm so much happier and everyone that knows me tells me how much like you know more chill i am how long did that take five years probably five years but that's me trying i mean it's me reading my list every day that's me going to therapy every week that's me thinking about it and wanting to improve on these things you know it's not you can't be lazy about it for me it's like the gym for my mind you know i i've been going to the gym for 30 years I go five times a week. Same, you know, you gotta have that same approach to therapy.

1:30:14Jason Oppenheim:Why do you think it took you so long to finally make that decision to try to actively work on it? Because I think it's really easy just to kind of, well, first of all, I thought that I needed this reactive cortisol, you know, aggression to kind of continue to succeed in business. But something made you change your mind that you don't. I think for everyone, it's different. I definitely don't think it's other people telling you that you need to change. That's not going to change it. You really have to want to change. And I don't know if there's anything other than that. People just have to wait for that moment for themselves.

1:30:49I'm not sure there's anything you can do or say to kind of make yourself ready. You just have to get to a point where you... And I'm just someone who wants to improve. And for so much of my life, improvement for me was getting good grades, getting into law school, opening up a business, making more money, growing that, you know, I mean, there's all these markers that we have, especially in a capitalist society of what success means. And it wasn't until I kind of viewed success as, you know, my happiness and my ability to kind of create, you know, happiness among people. Like when I started realizing that that's actually what success is, then I'm like, oh, well, in order to be successful under this new definition of success, I need to see a therapist.

1:31:38How do you know if a therapist is good or not? If you're getting better. You know, for me, I probably could have, no disrespect to my therapist, but I could probably talk to a brick wall to some degree because it's really about me telling my therapist what my problems are, what situations I got in where I did not handle myself in the way that I wanted to, and then how I wish I would have handled it. So it's almost me like talking to myself. And now you got chat. I mean, I think everyone should be using therapy apps now. How is Chachipiti in terms of therapy?

1:32:14Jason Oppenheim:Having used it. Relative.

1:32:17Graham Stephan:I've used it for certain situations, and it's fantastic. I've used it. I use it for conflict resolution. I say, like, give me a script to follow, and it's really good. I believe that chat, or when I say chat, I mean AI. I believe that AI will be 50 times better than the best therapists on the planet. AI will have been able to read and take, essentially AI will have 500 PhDs, you know, or more, whatever. It will know you far better than your therapist knows you. It probably hears you all day long. It probably hears, instead of having to go to your therapist and tell them about a situation, it will probably have heard your situation.

1:32:59It will probably have heard Graham on the phone talking to the contractor, you know, or whatever, raising his voice or, you know, whatever it was. So I think, I mean, that's the answer. The answer for therapy is going to be AI.

1:33:13Jason Oppenheim:I feel like the problem, though, with that is people assume because it has the 500 plus PhDs that it's the smartest thing that they can possibly talk to, that they'll start treating it as though anything that it says is completely without question true. And you say, hey, I handled the situation like this. And then Chad G.P.T. says, oh, well, maybe it's because, you know, five years ago this happened. And then you're like, it has to be that. There's no way it's not. Well, people already do that with their therapist. I mean, people always already give too much credit. I mean, chat right now is not that great, right?

1:33:45AI is still in its beginning phases. In five years, it will be probably 99.9 % right. And it will probably give you the best therapeutic answer you could possibly have ever received. You know, do I believe everything I read in chat now? No, it's got, I mean, it literally, we did a, Graham and I did a thing on it yesterday where I literally prompted it to push it in a different direction. And it gave me a totally different answer. But in five years, I think, you know, this will be the answer to people that can't think critically, you know, and people that need therapy.

1:34:20Jason Oppenheim:I'm curious. I'm sure you spend a lot of time with billionaires or ultra high net worth individuals. What differences do you notice in those sorts of people as opposed to your everyday person? Very little. Very, very little. I don't think there's much difference between a billionaire and, you know. Really? Yeah. I imagine to be a billionaire, you have to have an outside the bell curve personality. No, I think, well, first of all, let's call it somebody with$100 million or more, you know, because it's all relative. I mean, I don't know if there's a cutoff, but no, I'd say they're successful, but I think there are millions of people that I think that you are arguably more intelligent and a better critical thinker than most billionaires, at least half of them.

1:35:08and you're not a billionaire, most of it is being in the right place at the right time. Most wealthy people are in the right place at the right time. Yeah, I'm not saying they're not smart. You have to be smart, and you have to be hardworking, and you have to be in the right place at the right time. That's how I'd say 75 % of billionaires.

1:35:27Jason Oppenheim:But I tend to believe that it's not like a switch, like a light switch, and it's like, okay, I made this one correct decision. I was in the right place at the right time, and I became a billionaire. It's more so like you got an opportunity, and that opportunity will let you another one. and you made the right decision there, and you made the right decision there. You failed, and you learned from it. And it's a series of great decisions. It's a series of good decisions. I would disagree. I'd say it's usually right place at the right time. So you think most people, if given that exact right place, right time opportunity, not most people, but like a lot of people.

1:35:53Most intelligent, hardworking people, yeah. I think you could replace top 1 ,000 wealthiest people in America with probably a million other people, and nobody would know. So you said intelligent. Three million other people. I truly don't think that, I think arguably, if you personally were put in the position of half the billionaires in this planet, you would have done equal or greater. But you said intelligent and hardworking. Thank you.

1:36:23Jason Oppenheim:If you said intelligent and hardworking, so you think those are very important characteristics for someone that is going to achieve that level of success? Yeah, I think those are the two. I think someone generally, a very successful person, is generally a problem solver. And a problem solver requires critical thinking skills and a certain level of intelligence. And I think all of that also needs hard work. But those are not skills that are super rare. I mean, I'd say 5 % of people have all those skills. that's 15 million people in america that have those skills there's probably only a few hundred couple thousand billionaires so i don't think there's a big difference i mean i don't think there's a big difference between a lot of the wealthy people that i know and a lot of the just the hard-working intelligent people that i know i've got a lot of friends that are no less hard working or intelligent than billionaires and they're worth you know nothing that is a really interesting thing to point out because now i'm thinking about people we've had on the podcast or just people I've met, and you take the archetype, the type of human that wants to achieve billionaire status and they chase it and they chase it and they chase it, those are never the billionaires that I met.

1:37:40Jason Oppenheim:They're like, I always wanted to be a billionaire. Every billionaire that I've met has been someone like Papa John. It's been someone who's achieved this ultra wealthy status, not because they wanted to be a billionaire, but because it just kind of happened to befall on them. I don't think that wanting to be a billionaire, listen, does everyone want to be wealthy to some degree? I'm sure that, you know, everyone thinks about that. Like going on. But there's a difference between wealthy and 100 million plus. I think people, I mean, there's nothing that turns me off more than someone telling me what they're going to be.

1:38:13You know, I think there's too much of that. You know, another thing about most billionaires that I think I should address, they're not entitled. I mean, maybe they're entitled now, you know, because they're billionaires. They have everything. But they didn't get to being billionaires by being entitled. I don't think that a lot of these billionaires felt like they were a victim or, and I'm not saying there aren't victims out there. I'm just saying that mentality does not push you into, you know, billionaire status. And having entitlement does not either. I think like I, as a personal example, I never felt, I always felt like I could do something if I kept at it.

1:38:52I never felt entitled. You know, I just felt like I had opportunity and I would just, keep working hard. I never had aspirations of being a billionaire. I thought if I could make $10 ,000 a month, I could live a great life. And that was my goal. That was my goals. $10 ,000 a month. I mean, that was my goal up to not long ago. Um, that's a healthy goal. I don't think anyone has these, anyone who has these annoyingly high aspirations is just that annoying.

1:39:19Jason Oppenheim:I tend to agree. And I also think another thing to, to note is I think that the people that make it to that ultra wealthy status are able, they have an accurate grasp on reality. And then you have these other people that are somewhat delusional, which are the people that have a victim mindset or the people that have an entitlement mindset, they fall into that category because both of those are under the premise that they are the center of everything. If you're a victim, it's because the world is trying to keep you down. If you're entitled, it's that you are owed everything that the world is, is there to cater and serve to your needs.

1:39:52Jason Oppenheim:You want something and it will just manifest. It will follow you. And so the other people are like, no, the reality exists in the same way that just the reality exists. Like I'm here, I'm placed here and I need to do my best to see reality for what it is. Play my cards right, you know, and basically have an accurate prediction engine of do I see reality for what it is? Do I predict if I make this action, will this outcome occur? And if you're able to do that, you have an accurate grasp on reality. I think that was super well said. And I also think that some people think that it's just one decision or one big bet or whatever that's going to make them wealthy.

1:40:26That's a terrible approach. I mean, go in and say, I want to be successful in this career. My goal is to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or whatever it is, like baby steps. Otherwise, if you're trying to get wealthy super quick, you're going to be making dumb, risky decisions. And I think what you said, it's just one intelligent decision after another, And then 800 intelligent decisions and a lot of hard work later, you're a billionaire. But yeah, I still don't think, I know a lot of dumb rich people. You know, I don't think that intelligence is a requisite to being rich. I think it's more likely that you're intelligent and hardworking and have critical thinking skills if you're very wealthy.

1:41:13but I think it's probably more right place, right time than anything else. So I would just encourage people to, I don't know if, I also don't know why people always listen to billionaires. Give me a break. The guy invested in oil in Texas in the eighties, no, he's a billionaire. You know what I mean? He could be an idiot and invest in oil. You know, what is it? I saw, I saw this, no offense, I hate the cowboy, so I'm just going to use this example. Jerry Jones invested in, you know, finding oil in Texas in like the 80s or whatever, made, you know, $50 million. It does not mean that he's a genius or that he's got some exception.

1:41:55So it doesn't mean that we should sit down and listen to what Jerry Jones has to say about politics. X. Because, I mean, that's being at the, he was at the right place at the right time. He's probably has a modicum of intelligence and critical thinking skills and hard work. I give him all that, But there's no difference between Jerry Jones, the billionaire, and probably, you know, 15 million other people. Like a blue-collar person. That's a really interesting point you made right there. Well, I'm not saying there's no difference between him and a blue-collar person, but there's no difference. If that blue-collar person is hardworking and intelligent and is a critical thinker and is working hard, yeah, there's really probably no difference.

1:42:29I'm a decent example. I mean, it was right place at right time for me. I mean, would I still be successful? Yes. But would I be this successful? No. I mean, I happen to have some beautiful women working for me on the Sunset Strip and I had a producer come up and want to create a show that ended up being a hit. That's, when am I going to sit here? Should everyone listen to me now because I have, you know, some success and some money? Not necessarily. I mean, listen to me if you think I'm intelligent and a critical thinker and I've got, but don't just listen because I have money. I was at the, a lot of my money, at least a decent amount of my money has to do with the fact that I was at the right place at the right time.

1:43:06I mean, I'm not going to take credit for that. What about being a good boss? You said you had other notes on your phone. Positive reinforcement at the office. Compliment everyone and be specific. And don't criticize mistakes. Make them teachable moments. Those are two that I try. I mean, I fail at that every day. You know, you can't be perfect. But I try to remind myself, I do better with positive reinforcement. You know, when I was an attorney or something and someone says, hey, great work on this. You know, let's focus next time on I think you can do even better on this part. You know, that like that kind of positive as opposed to saying, dude, what the you know, why'd you give me this?

1:43:44You know, look at all these misspelled. I don't think people really react so well to being criticized.

1:43:50Graham Stephan:I know I don't. So how do you how do you motivate someone if you find them falling behind? or you think they're maybe just not doing as much as they could i mean listen i guess there's something called like a i think like a positive like a sandwich you're supposed to sandwich it yeah so you say something sandwich yeah criticism sandwich or whatever yeah either way i mean there are i don't like all these rules and i don't actually have never used that in my life even though my therapist told me to it's too like i don't like you know fake but just put yourself in their position like i mean i get you know things that i think could be done better all the time.

1:44:27I just don't think you can just, you can't just rip on somebody. I just, you have to think about what is going to make them want to do a better job. You getting upset at them is not going to be, they're not going to walk away and be like, oh, I definitely am going to do a better job next time. They're going to walk away and be like, oh, you know? So it's kind of common sense. I mean, you just have to be motivating and you have to have, I think you actually have to care. Like I truly care about the people that work for me. I care about their quality of life. I care about their happiness. So, you know, you take the time to kind of nurture that and develop that.

1:45:02I'm not excellent at it. I'm a hell of a lot better than I used to be. I mean, I think it was probably hard to work for me 10 years ago, probably even five years ago. You know, I was really tough, aggressive, negative, terse, reactive, you know, very demanding, very detail-oriented, but not in a constructive way, in like a critical way. So, you know, I think you have to create a culture of do people want i and i always ask you know the people in my office like what's going to make you happier working here uh i think if you create a culture where people want to come to work i look forward to monday morning as much as i look forward to saturday morning it's so funny we just talked about this last night i i went to a doctor's

1:45:44Graham Stephan:appointment and they're closed from 12 to 1 for lunch and i show up there at like 12 55 they open the door and the doctors are walking in and they say, oh man, it's almost 5 p.m. We can almost go home three more hours until I'm out. And they're like, what are your plans for Friday nights? Oh man, it's almost there. And I remember I briefly had an experience where I would think to myself, okay, only two more hours until lunchtime. And then after lunch, I was like, okay, only three more hours until I go home. And then after one more day, it's Friday. And then it's the weekend. And then Sunday, I just remember that dread of like, man, I got to be up at 7 a.m.

1:46:25Graham Stephan:that next morning. I haven't felt that way in like 20 years. Same. It's so foreign to it. Since I was a lawyer. Yeah. That is rough. But just thinking through that of hating what you do all day just to be able to get off. I wouldn't say it's hating. I'd say it's not enjoying. Sure. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, that's most of America. and listen most people are you know i'll be most people are probably cut out for that right i mean not everyone's going to be an entrepreneur you can't have that a society wouldn't function um so you know i think for a lot of people that's probably fine and acceptable i think for the people that it's not fine and acceptable for it they go off and do things like you and me and i do not like nine to five you know i'm not cut out for it we got a question

1:47:11Jason Oppenheim:about creative finance deals. Do you get a lot of seller finance? Have you heard of sub two? What do you think about any non-conventional way? I don't like any of it. I honestly, anytime anyone even says the word creative financing, I'm like, shut the f*** up, get out of here. But doesn't it make sense if that's the thing that can push a deal through? For example, if someone buys a house three, four years ago and they got a two and a half percent interest rate and now rates are five and a half, six percent, doesn't it make sense to try to just seller finance the equity that's there? or pay someone money to be able to take over the loan.

1:47:43You can't do it. There's really no great way to keep a loan and transfer an asset. Trust me, I would do it if I could. I have been in this business for 15 years, done billions of dollars in deals, not a single deal. A single deal have I been able to have the original loan kept.

1:48:06Jason Oppenheim:So we've spoke to this guy, Pace Morby, And this is like his whole big thing. He's got like a couple thousand units or something. He talks about it. He's like the guy on YouTube that talks about creative financing, specifically also sub two, which is basically you go in, you take over the mortgage payment. So you just send the money. And then I think what he does is he puts the deed in a trust or something and it doesn't count for a sale. And then, you know, you have the do on sale clause of the, of the loan. Yeah. And that's when it transfers. I think it's like a lease option. He's only ever been called on once out of his thousands of deals that he's done for this.

1:48:41But doesn't he remain liable for the asset, liable for insurance, liable in litigation? So you're saying if he's buying? He's the owner. How is that any different? How is that really substantively any different than a lease with an option to buy? It's similar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's not a transfer of an asset. I'm not saying it's dumb. you know i think a lease option can make sense but it's just i my understanding is that he would still be liable for anything and everything maybe in commercial real estate you know you can isolate that risk a little bit maybe it's a little bit different but in residential real estate

1:49:20Jason Oppenheim:there's really no great way to do it so you're saying the seller in this instance if you are selling a house sub two to someone else so sub two is like when you just take over the payments basically then as the seller you're still liable for anything that could go wrong with that yeah because you probably created some type of joint venture or trust or whatever it is so his also the other thing too is um you have to remain the sole owner if there's any other ownership then the bank can call the loan but he's he's been called by the bank once but he said most of the time the banks just want to ignore it because this is just one small thing that's been sold off and sold off and sold off i mean i'm not in actuality as long as i'm not going to risk my loan as long as they're performing, then that's all that matters.

1:50:00Jason Oppenheim:I agree that you're right. And there's also, I will say there is benefit. There's added benefit to the seller that we haven't even considered, which is, you know, if you're selling a house at a two and a half percent interest rate, basically, when you take over the loan, then the person can overpay whoever's buying the house or what you also see. Wait, let me ask you a question. I own a$10 million house, right i have let's say i have five million dollars of equity and i have a five million dollar loan at two and a half percent and i structure this does this guy give me cash so you could yeah yeah how much so let's say it'd be similar to lease option but that but that cash up front is going to be treated as as income whereas on sale it's treated as long-term capital gains so now i'm paying 50 tax on the i do wonder on the on the money that he gives me when i could be paying 28 percent or Or what you could do is just increase the sale price of the home, right?

1:50:55Jason Oppenheim:No, I'm not sure that, how's that solved? Well, you could, wouldn't it solve it? If you just sold the house at a premium? So for something, it's not technically worse. But we can't sell it, remember? You can't sell it. Because if you sell it, then the bank calls the loan. You can't transfer the asset. They haven't. No, he's not transferring the asset. He's still on title. Otherwise, of course, they're going to call the loan.

1:51:18Graham Stephan:Yeah, even when Pace is describing it, I'm not a big real estate guy. There's no way for me to transfer this house to another person without the loan being potentially called. No, I mean, it would be called if I transferred it to him. Now, could I put it into an LLC, let's say, and then have him buy 50 % of the LLC or something like that? Technically, the bank can still call the loan. And then he'd have to buy the LLC by giving me money. So I mean, the whole point of a sale is I want to get my$5 million of equity, right? But if he gives me$5 million, then it's income. And now I got to report$5 million of income and pay 50 % tax on it.

1:51:58There's just no way to get my equity out on this. There's just no way. I mean, I've thought about it. Even on a long-term lease with an option, you're still going to get an upfront payment. That's being treated as income. It's taxed at 55%. That's crazy. Whereas when you sell it, it's long-term capital gain. So you can't mess with that structure. There's no way to get your equity out except taking out a line of credit, you know, if you want cash. I'm just telling you, there's no good way to do this. I wouldn't be happy to argue with that guy because I just, I don't buy. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day.

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1:53:24Graham Stephan:Start your free trial today at aura.com slash remove. Protect yourself now at aura.com slash remove. He says for the seller, the benefit is that if you're trying to sell your place for a million, you're not getting it. Now you could sell it for 1.1. Yeah, but you're not getting 1.1. I mean, so it's just a number on a piece of paper. You're really getting, you're really continuing to take all the liability. You're getting your monthly nut covered, but you'd be getting that covered by rent anyway. And you don't get any equity because if you're getting any equity, you're paying massive tax on it.

1:54:00So where's the seller benefiting from this? I don't get it.

1:54:03Jason Oppenheim:I mean, you could argue for the people that aren't in a rough financial position, it's more like an annuity. And then you could argue for the people that are in a rough financial position, a lot of people, if something happens. Let's say my example, this$10 million house, right? And it's only costing me$20 ,000 a month because I've got such a great loan on it in a low property tax basis. So this guy is paying me, what,$20 ,000,$25 ,000 a month? I mean, he's just paying -

1:54:28Graham Stephan:Maybe he's paying you$30 ,000 a month. Fine, but presumably I can rent it for$30 ,000 a month. So maybe he's paying - So how's this guy, I mean, he's getting all the benefit.

1:54:37Jason Oppenheim:Yes, but also there's the situations because he doesn't do this typically with - I didn't sell it at all. Well, he's not doing this with like massive million dollar homes. But the example would still be - Who cares? But no, because a lot of the people, they're getting in a position of bankruptcy and they don't want to file for bankruptcy if they're underwater in the home. And then he's basically able to take and monetize the home more effectively than they would be able to - How? How's he able to monetize it more effectively? Well, if they've never been a landlord before and they don't know how to actually - Oh, that's a totally different argument.

1:55:00You're saying he's a better property manager. I don't buy that. That's a different argument. I don't buy it.

1:55:05Jason Oppenheim:It is a different argument. I'm just saying that that makes this option a little bit more viable. Well, then he's taking it. Then the seller is not a good commercial actor. I mean, if he's buying properties off of idiots, then sure. But if you have an intelligent seller, why would an intelligent, and I don't even mean that intelligent. I mean, an average seller who just has a modicum of understanding of his asset. Why would he want to enter into this transaction? I get why that guy wants to. I totally get why people would want to buy like that. I've had a dozen buyers try to buy properties for my clients like that, and I tell them to fuck off.

1:55:45Why would the seller want to do it is the question. It's a fake sale. It's not a real sale. You think you sold it for$1 ,000 ,000, but you didn't. You got$20 ,000. You got whatever you rented. You probably could get more money just renting it out. You're never going to get your equity.

1:56:02Graham Stephan:When are you going to get your equity? I guess with renting, you would be responsible, though, for repairs. You still are. Well, you could find a tenant. Why not just get a property manager and just say, hey, I'm going to give you— Because then the buyer would be responsible for anything. And if the buyer defaults on that, you would take their down payment. Let's just say. How is this any different than a good property manager? How is this guy offering— The buyer is going to be responsible for the issues. With the property manager— So it's a property manager. Let's say you hire a property manager.

1:56:31Graham Stephan:You still have to pay the property manager and you still have to pay for... Well, but at the end of the day, if the dollar amount's the same, the dollar amount's the same. Let's say a roof repair. You still have to pay the 20 grand. Let's say you get a property... Listen, let's say you have an asset that's only costing you$20 ,000 a month. Obviously, it could rent for more. And you get a good property manager to say, hey, this property manager says, hey, I'll guarantee you, I'll rent it for 10 years and I will pay$20 ,000 a month and I'll handle everything. property it's like a triple triple net why don't we look at commercial sure it's how is this guy any different than a triple net tenant except that he has a right to take the asset he's just a really bad triple net tenant i get why he wants to do it i love would love to be hey i'm gonna offer you here's a triple net lease i'm a tenant also i have a right to buy it at this price if i by the way if i want to or i can or you know or recession forfeit recession i can yeah if it's ever not in my financial interest, I'm not going to buy it.

1:57:30If it is in my financial interest, I will buy it.

1:57:32Jason Oppenheim:By the way, guys, clearly we are filming currently in our studio, but recently you may have noticed we're on the road for a lot of these podcasts and it's very, very difficult to lock down a studio space. However, White Glove Estates, we were there in Los Angeles. We filmed an episode with Mizkif and with Stable Ronaldo and Mike Malak. He was also there. They were so generous to let us stay there, film our podcast. They gave us the entire space for nothing just because they're very friendly people. So they're also right next door to the Oppenheim group. They're my best friends and they do all of my personal properties and probably 90 % of my clients work.

1:58:05So I love them as well.

1:58:06Graham Stephan:Yeah. Check them out. The link down below in the description, because they've seriously helped us out a lot. So we should say what they do too. They do like home, home remodels, you know, AV, uh, pretty much design, everything. The best of the best, like the highest end stuff you could imagine. They do it all. So again, if that's you, the link is down below. They actually built out all of the Oppenheim Group offices as well. So if you like those, yeah, they did all of them.

1:58:28Jason Oppenheim:Looks great in there.

1:58:29Graham Stephan:Thanks. Yeah. Cool. Thanks so much, Jason. Your info will be listed down below. Thanks so much. Thanks, guys. Until next time.

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