10 Hacks to Better Your Real Estate Investing Skills | Ep 10

James: Tensies! Tensies. TENZI. That is a pretty fun game, actually. It is fun. Yeah. I like it cause it forces the kids to do some math on the fly. And I like to play it with them where we're not just trying to match one dice, but it might be like, Hey, make sets of seven or eight. And so they got to do the combinations.

Combining things. Yeah. I think that's just, I like it. Cause

Jessi: there's just like. ton of ways to play. Oh, so it's never the same. Yeah. Yeah.

James: That's fair. That's fair. Fits my personality. Yeah. So now we've got a podcast to do podcast. So welcome to the Furlo Capital Real Estate Podcast, where we dive into the intricacies of passive real estate investing.

And our mission is to equip people to invest wisely, both in properties and in people so that together we can build our wealth while improving housing. My name is James and this is my wife, Jessi. Hey. Hey. Still here. Still here. Still good. And so this is episode 10. Woo! Woo! Yeah, we made it. Super exciting.

And so as we kind of, like, we got the ramp up to it last episode, we're doing it this one. These are what I'm calling my top 10 hacks. Top 10 hacks. Yeah, which is probably most helpful if you are an active investor and especially managing your own units. These, you'll find these especially helpful if you're a passive investor.

This will be your like, oh yeah, I don't want to invest in real estate. I want someone else to do it for me. , that's, that's my secret hope that you go, oh, yes, James has figured this out. Let's let him do it. But that's so helpful,

Jessi: you know? Yeah. To, for them to know, oh, this is what that person is taking care of and doing.

James: Yeah. Yeah. And so last episode, they were kind of like high level kind of concepts. These are going to be a little bit more like highly practical, highly tactical, almost minuscule. Okay. Nitty gritty. Yeah. And you're going to notice them in the very first one. Very first one. Don't waste your time with yard signs in the age of the internet.

You don't need to. Plus. They know nothing. This is probably the most annoying part to me. They know nothing. And so you have to verbally tell them your ad every single time. Yeah. Cause very first time we had a yard sign put it out. Cause like that's what you do. And I can always tell who it was. Cause they'd be like, so it's for rent.

What is it? Like, all right, it's a three bedroom, one bath, a large fenced in backyard and a two car garage, laundry hookups. We're asking, you know, whatever it was with this, such as deposit, pets allowed, no smoking. Like, I was just, I was regurgitating the ad and I got super annoyed by it. And so I was like, this is dumb, never doing it again.

And so we got rid of that sign and just posted online. And I also looked at it as a form of screening where I only want to run to people who have internet access because I want them to pay online anyways. Well, that was the other thing that

Jessi: we experienced is like, with the yard sign, there would be just random people who would walk by.

Yeah. And they wouldn't know anything either. And so it was like, okay, you're not even pre screening yourself

James: at all. Maybe today, like I put out a yard sign with a QR code that then went to the listing.

Jessi: Okay, sure. That could make sense. Maybe. But just don't do it. It's a waste of time. Yeah,

James: people find it.

Alright, number two. Landlordlocks. com is awesome because it lets you use a master key system, where switching up locks is crazy easy. And I also don't carry around a bunch of extra doorknobs or keys or locks with me. I just have the one. And it's super nice. And there's like this control key where you can just kind of punch it in, rotate a little bit and you can pull out the core.

of it so the knob stays but the actual lock part comes out and you can easily swap out another one. It's super easy, a little bit more expensive, okay, they're a lot more expensive than just grabbing a random Kwiks Kwiki set at Home Depot, but man, they're so easy to turn and change. Well and once

Jessi: you hit that scale of however many properties, it's like, oh yeah, this is actually worth it and probably saving you a ton of time.

James: Yeah, which I would put that scale at like more than two . . It's really nice for you. You're like, it's really, really nice. Yeah. Totally worth it. . Yeah, that's, so that's probably one of my, like, dude, just do it. That's funny. Like I, I have one key and that's what I carry around. Like, it gets me in everywhere.

Jessi: Okay. I can see why that would be like or something. No, no. I, I could see why you would really love that as a hack. For me, it may not be as important because I have like 12 keys on my key ring. That's horrible. I have like key chains and all the things, so. Yeah. I, I don't know, like, as a landlord, isn't that just like a, like a, in your head, something you envision is like a big old key ring?

No. You're like,

James: no. No. No. No, dude. If I could figure out a way to get rid of keys altogether, I would. You could! You could have like No, because you still gotta have the keys. I actually looked into this. It's to see if Landlord Locks had a, like a keypad thing and they actually do. Yeah. And that one is like crazy expensive.

Not worth it. Yeah. So I bought one that I put on the main door at the apartment building so people could have that. Mostly because So they don't have to have two keys? Well, they didn't have to have two keys no matter what because it was what they call a mezzanine lock. So their key got them in. Oh, that's cool.

Every key worked on that front door, every key within that building. And then their own key worked only on their own unit. The problem is for packages. And we're friends. Oh, that's right. And so, I eventually had enough tenants to ask me. And I actually did like a survey. I was like, hey, this will reduce security significantly if I do this.

Do you want me to? And everyone was like, yes please. Oh, alright. Interesting. Cool. Convenience over privacy and security. I'm in. I don't care. So, that's what we did. Number three. Pre record your onboarding speech and send that to new tenants. So instead of talking to them for like an hour or half hour, whatever, while they're signing, when they're actually thinking about moving in, they can watch it ahead of time.

And then you could also have them e sign the lease ahead of time. I, I think you remember this when we first got started. Yeah. Like, it was, Okay, we're going to talk to you about all the things and all the rules. And like, and it was like, and we would use the lease agreement as kind of the I don't know what you call it.

Like almost like an outline for the talking points. And we would go through it and then we would sign each page. And we were doing it that way. And when we first got started we were signing everything by hand. And we had a scanner and we were like scanning them on the spot. I remember that was like a little portable scanner.

Actually I think the first time they had carbon copies. And we were like tearing those off, handing them to them. And then we would scan them at home. And then we started scanning them on the spot and we would email it to them. And then, I had an iPad, and then I got an Apple Pencil, and we were signing it digitally, but I was still giving the speech, and it was still just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, and you could just tell.

Their eyes would

Jessi: glaze over,

James: this is so boring. And so, by switching to where like, I created just a quick, easy PowerPoint. And I recorded it, and the very first time I did it was just, I just recorded my voice and walked through it. I'm now a little more advanced, where I actually have myself, and it's picture in picture, and it's still PowerPoint, so it looks cooler.

But, like, just create a PowerPoint, record yourself reading through the stuff, and then put it on YouTube, unlist it, and just send it to them. Ours is a little more advanced, now we've got it where it's actually like an online class, and we can ask them questions, and make sure that they went through it, whatever.

If you're not worried about that, you just have an additional document that says, I watched it, and they sign it. Whatever. And, you know, if you're really worried about them, actually I've done it. And so that's something that I, like, that has saved me a ton of time. I think it's just a better experience overall for people.

And then they can go through the sign and just like do the massive clicks because you've already gone through it all. Yeah. And one of my videos is actually like walking through the rental agreement and saying, okay, it says this here. It says this here. Yeah. So anyways, pre record your stuff. Put it online.

Let them watch it. That's number three. Number four. When I have to work really hard to put a deal together, it's usually not a good deal. And that's mostly because they're not motivated enough to meet my strict criteria. Mm-Hmm. . And we've seen this over and over where we've tried to get stuff. Mm-Hmm. I remember the very first storage facility we tried to get.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And it was like, man, we worked. Yeah. We were just

Jessi: working it and trying to look at it different ways and weeks and weeks. Had a bunch of conversations. Yeah. It

James: was just like, and it seemed like we had a deal and then it fell through at the last minute and it was just like, ah, yeah.

That, that other 11 unit place in Albany, it was that same thing where it just was like. Yeah. It was just so much work. I ended up driving to Portland, spent a day doing negotiations and it was like this high pressure situation. Like, Oh, just so much. Yeah. And so yeah, I've just, my observation has been the ones that just come together easy is because they're motivated or the value is there.

It's just super obvious for everybody and it just works. I think about the 15 unit place that we bought yeah, technically there was a couple of months in between it, but it was like, I'm in an offer, they rejected it. They came back to me later, I made another offer, they accepted it, like, yeah, it was easy.

Yeah. And so that's just been my experience is if I have to work really hard to make it work, it probably doesn't actually work. Yeah. So makes you a little nervous about when I'm looking at right now, cause I'm having to work a little harder to get it, so I'm like, all right, we'll see, but I'm, I'm, I can't help it.

I'm going to keep trying. I think it's worth it. All right. Number five. And this is by far going to be your favorite rule. I already know it. And there's five sub bullets to go with this one. I know. I know. So really you came up with 25. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They just go with it. It's all, it all, I just had to break it out.

Alright, you ready for this? Use love and logic principles with tenants. It's true. Am I right? I already know you're going to love it. So if you're not, if you're not familiar with love and logic, it's actually a parenting class but I find that it works with tenants by the way. It also works with spouses, coworkers, all sorts of stuff.

If you get a chance to take a love and logic class, even if you don't have kids, totally worth it. So here are some of the main rules that I've kind of, I've made them work for tenants. That makes sense. Sure. So first one is you want to set firm enforceable limits without anger, lectures, or threats. So an example of an enforceable limit means something that I have control over, something that I can do.

And so it might, you might say something like, We only rent to tenants who pay their rent on time and in full. Which, by the way, is something I tell them. And I actually, I'm straight up, I tell them, We only rent to responsible tenants. And I define those as people who pay their rent on time and in full, and who communicate appropriately with myself and with others.

And then third, They take care of the properties if it's their own. Like, you do all three of those things, I will let you live there as long as you want. But that's the only people who we rent to. And so, which I can enforce, I get to evaluate. That kind of stuff. So, set. Firm. And firm means you don't give.

Yeah. Whatever limit you set, stick with it. That's what it is, yeah. Pick a reasonable one. Stick with one that you know you can enforce. That you can take care of. Alright. Number two. And this says, Four sub points to it. Are you kidding? I gotta explain it. I gotta explain it. It's one of, it's part of that five.

Don't worry. When a tenant causes a problem, hand it back to them empathetically. Okay? So, again, use empathy. So you might say, Oh, that's a bummer that you don't have the rent. Like, oh, that's a shame. Like you, like, and the way I've tried to think about it in my head is, They're breaking the system that you've created.

Like, that's what they have the problem with. It's with the system. It's with furlough family homes, furlough capital, whatever we call ourselves. To our standards, we're called furlough family homes. And, like, that's the thing that they've broken. I just go, ah, man, that's a shame that you're not able to pay your rent to the company.

Like, it's not You don't make it personal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you just have empathy. Ah, man. Yeah, you know what? We, unfortunately, we only rent to tenants who pay their own time and that's not you. So, start off with some empathy. Just like really like, ah, that's a shame. Do not get angry at them. Don't yell at them.

Don't send me text messages saying, pay me your money! That kind of thing. Number two, and again, you want to use an enforceable statement. Okay, you want to remind them of them. Unfortunately, we'll have to deliver The non payment paperwork tomorrow. Again, that's something, so the unfortunately there, right?

There's some more empathy. Ah, man, this is a shame. But we have to do this. We're going to deliver it. I'm explicitly telling them something that I can do, which is deliver the non payment paperwork. I'm not telling them, Man, unfortunately, you have to pay your rent tomorrow. No, they don't. I can't make them do that, but I can deliver the paperwork.

Number three. Share some ideas to give them ownership. So you could ask them, Hey, do you want to hear what some other tenants have done? And maybe they say yes, and you go, Yeah, well, at first, like, maybe they moved in with a friend. What do you think of that? Or, well, they asked their family for some money.

What do you think of that? Or they call, I wrote CSE, which is one of our local charities here, and, and then you say, what do you think of that idea? And they go, I just don't know. And I should go, all right, well, I know you'll come up with something reasonable. And then you're done. You go, let me know what you think.

And so it's the, you're just helping them get out of the fight or flight. Mindset and into problem solving by giving them some potential ideas to work with but you want to not solving it for them Yeah, you want to give them permission you want to give us some ideas and then ultimately hand it back to him Go you got this which is like a classic love and logic principle that we do with kids and it works really good here and then then finally and I think this is just kind of, this is kind of important.

You don't need to have an answer right away. It is totally okay to say, well, let me think about it and I'll get back to you tomorrow or next week or wherever it is. I think that's something where I felt pressure initially to like always have an answer, always have a response. If a tenant came to me and said, Hey man, I'm not gonna be able to pay my rent.

Can you take a partial payment? Yeah. It's like, okay, I gotta have an answer for this. And obviously over time we built systems, so now I do have answers to that kind of stuff. But when we first got started, I would get hit with something where I'm like, Oh, I don't know. I'll be like, man, I don't know the answer to that.

And, and I learned to go like, let me think about that and I'll get back to you. And most, like, not most, every single time they're like, yeah, yeah, cool. Like they appreciated, like, I wasn't just a gut, it wasn't just a straight up no. And you know, sometimes it was a no, oftentimes I'd come back with some sort of other proposal, something like that.

So just that was a lot, actually my

Jessi: favorite love and

James: logic principle. Boom. I like that. So it's, so the idea again, number five is to use love and logic and that's. Don't get angry, don't get crazy. Just what you have control over is yourself. And so only make statements that you can control. So you start with those types of enforceable limits.

And you're straight up front. Be very upfront about them. Don't try to make them a surprise. Yeah. Which is the whole point of the onboarding process and recording the video. That's why we do all that. And it kind

Jessi: of goes back to the last week. Like if you zoom out to that bigger picture. Yeah. It's like communicate and be respectful.

Yeah. Like it boils down to that. These are some different ways to do that. But yeah,

James: that's what it's, that's it. That's what it's based on. So again, like, so when they cause a problem because I'm not paying the rent, they cause damage, whatever, they're disturbing another tenant. You start out with empathy.

That's really important. You don't lose your cool. Use enforceable statements. Tell them what you are going to do, what you have control over. Give them some ideas and that gives them ownership. You let them solve it. And then just remember, you don't have to have any answer right away. You can always say, I'll come back to it.

Yeah. When they cause a problem. Ooh, that is great. Boom! That's good. Love and logic with tenants. There you go. That's number five. We're halfway there. Number six! You might appreciate this one, too. If you're married, which we are, only invest in places where you are both on board. And as a corollary, this might require presenting it visually to your spouse, and you can push a little bit, but don't push too hard.

And I just think, I think you could Is that a hack? Oh yeah, totally. Huh. That's how I think about it. Well, I think oftentimes, like, guys, we'll get ourselves into trouble, because I, like, I'll get myself, I'll say it this way. I will get myself into trouble with you, because I will look at a property.

I'll look at all the pictures. I'll look at the listing. I'll then throw the numbers into my underwriting spreadsheet, and I'll spend a ton of time looking at it. Yeah. And then I'll come to you and go, Hey, I think I found a great deal. Let me tell you about it. And you have to verbally process. Very quickly, what I just spent 15, 30 minutes looking at, taking in, and just kind of soaking in, in like two to three minutes, I was like, yeah, here you go.

You're welcome. What? And you're like okay. I don't know. Like, it's just super hard for you to process. Yeah. And so what I found that works. Here's the hack. Yeah. Is to, to slow it down and go, let me show it to you. And some cases, a lot of cases, it's taking you to a spreadsheet. It's actually walking you through letting you see the pictures, letting you look at the Google map, kind of walking you through an abbreviated, but still that same process that I did.

Here's how I came to decide that this was a good deal. Yeah. Here's what I'm looking at and get you there. And I've created like, and I'd be totally cool with, you know, just a. Ugly, I wouldn't be cool with an ugly spreadsheet, but just a spreadsheet with numbers like no, I don't need any charts or graphs or whatever's green lights, red lights, but I found that that's helpful for you.

And, and I have a hunch that's true for a lot of spouses cause it's just the people who are interested in investing tend to be a little bit more analytical has been my observation. Sure. So that would be my hack. If you've got someone who you're married with and if your spouse isn't on board. I don't care.

Don't do it. I don't care how great of a deal it is. Don't do it. It's not worth the stress on the marriage. Even if it's, I think about like our apartment deal. You know, had you come back and said, No, I feel really uncomfortable. It's 11 units. It's scary. I would have worked harder on you. I probably wouldn't have given up.

But I would have waited until you said yes. I think at the time you were like, you could tell how brain dead obvious it was a good deal. But yeah. And I think we've definitely had that. And it's been a little bit harder now that you've got a full time job somewhere else. Yeah, I've kind of stepped out of that a little bit.

And I'm doing it, like, I find I really have to, like, reinsert you into the process, like, more intentionally. So, anyways, that's number six. Number seven 99 percent of my problems come from inherited tenants. And I think it's because, number one, they wouldn't actually pass my screening criteria that I brought them in, but then B, it's just really, really, really hard to reset expectations after they've lived there for a while.

And like, and my example is like, even just getting some of those tenants to pay online has been crazy tricky. And it's like, I've got some, okay, I've got one tenant who, this is our fault, we put a Dropbox in the lobby of the apartment building and she still pays that way. And I'm like, ah, fine, whatever. That's our fault.

But the only other people who pay like via check are People who I've inherited. I was like, alright, whatever, it's annoying. It's fine. Well, people don't like to change. But that's just like, yeah, that idea of, that's where most of my problems come from. Now, so the hack isn't kick everybody out.

It's just like, you just gotta understand that it's gonna be different. You can set enforceable limits if you wanted to. I will only accept rent if paid online. And if you send me a paper check, I will send it back to you. I mean, I guess that's an option. I have not exercised that option. I've decided not to enforce that one.

Well,

Jessi: it would cause some turnover, which that would also

James: solve your problem. I have this for a recent one. So I had a tenant. He mails me a a money order every single month. Didn't come in. He sent it right before the ice storm hit. Oh. And I never got it. Weird. Yeah, and he was like, oh, I got the receipt.

I'm buying it. I'm like, awesome. Huh. I did not receive it. Not here. And so, thankfully, we've got a pretty good rapport, so it's fine, and we're just gonna wait until the time expires, and then he'll just, he'll get a refund and resend it to me. We gotta wait until March to do it but, yeah, but one of those, like, if you pay online, This wouldn't be an issue.

So. Anyways. It's all good. But yeah, those are where my, that's where most of my problems come from. So it's just recognizing that that's the case. And if a turnover happens, especially an existing tenant, like, cool! I know it's a lot of work because you probably gotta do work on the unit, but

Jessi: it's all good.

You get to reset and establish your standards and enforceable statements

James: from the get go. Alright, number eight. I would say If you have more than four units, and maybe even like, or more than two properties, I would say, you want to use some sort of accounting software that automatically integrates the tenant payments and polls and bank transactions.

Yes, you can absolutely do it all in Excel, and I did it up until 16 units. Then I finally went, alright, this is a lot of work. And then we did some software that allows you to take payments, but didn't integrate with any sort of accounting system. Mm hmm. That was lame because then you still had to track all the transactions.

And then we did one. Reconcile everything. Yeah, and then we did one that did the opposite. It, it pulled everything in, but then didn't integrate with, didn't pull in a checking account stuff. And it was still, ah, cause you know, like there was like, like two separate things. And so there's a lot of options that are out there.

For example, I know that if you pay for QuickBooks, there's this like a portal plug in so you can send your customers a portal so they can see all their payments and make payments from there. Super nice. Yeah. Or we use door loop is ours. There's a whole bunch of others, but I like it cause it's all integrated.

Door loop is technically geared towards property managers. So there's a few things I've had to do in there to kind of trick the system. Like for example, I have a. I have a fake property that is my general business stuff because there's just certain things like, for example, our vehicle. I charge that to the entire company, then at the end of the year we apportion it out to the properties.

So, but I have a fake property that captures all of those things. Because that's how it's expensive. It's all tracked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So there's things I got to do to make it work, but having it all integrated. Yeah. It's really, really nice. Mm-Hmm. . It's really nice. . That's my hack. Pay for it.

It's worth it. Alright, number nine, which I think kind of relates to rule number one from last week is the 1% rule is hard to find. And that is that the net, the, the monthly rent should be 1% of the purchase price. Mm-Hmm. . So if you buy a building for a hundred thousand dollars, you want it to rent for at least a thousand mm-Hmm.

So. The 1 percent rule is hard to find, but those deals tend to generate fantastic ROIs. So I have some examples. Oh, they also tend to be lower class properties like the C class. So they require more work. But targeting those types of properties has massively, and I did not spell that right at all, accelerated our wealth.

It wrote exacerbated our wealth, accelerated our wealth. So. Alright, you ready for some numbers on this, just to have your mind blown here? Alright, so we earn, on average, a 30 percent return per year. Okay? And that's without selling our assets. Okay? Which is a fantastic return. So the stock market, on average, throughout time, earns you somewhere between 7 and 10%.

Some might even argue 15, but let's say 7 to 10%. And so let's say 10%. So what that means is you can safely withdraw 4% mm-Hmm. from it. And not lose, relatively speaking, lose your assets to inflation. Mm-Hmm. , right? Because if you take it all 10%, now you're having to sell your assets essentially. Yeah. To do it.

So that's not good. So if you do 4% inflation will keep you going and you essentially keep your assets the same. So all I'm trying to say is our 30% is equivalent to a 4% withdraw from the stock market. 'cause in both cases you don't have to sell your assets. And 'cause we sold our properties, our ROI would be like.

Through the roof. Okay, so here's what this means. You would need to invest seven and a half times as much money into the stock market to earn what we get. Which

Jessi: is a way to do it,

James: but that sounds really hard. Yeah, and, and so again this is kind of related to this like the 1 percent rule. That's a, that's a heuristic that we've used.

Yeah. Kind of reflects like an 8 percent cap rate if you're in the commercial world. And yeah, my experience has just been like, the cash flow is really nice, the properties tend to make a lot, and as a result, you don't have to invest and save as much, which is pretty convenient. And honestly, that's how I was able to quit my job so fast.

Initially,

Jessi: when we were first investing, I relied on that one a lot. Cause I, I wasn't as confident with num, with the numbers and like thinking through all the implications of things. I was just like, okay, what's a quick way that I can think about this? And that, that was what I relied on and it made sense to me.

So, yeah. And most of those properties were profitable day one. Yeah. I was like, good.

James: And, and so I'll usually get the pushback. Well, then there's nothing to buy in Corvallis. Yeah, I know. Which is why we never bought a place in Corvallis. Yeah. Until last year. When, guess what? It turned out it was a 1 percent deal.

It wasn't what I was specifically going for, but it turned out, in retrospect, that's what it was. And, yeah, so we make money off of it, and it's great. And so yeah, I think that means, like, there's a bunch of markets where you wouldn't buy. And, like, yeah, exactly. And so, I don't explicitly look for that anymore, but my observation has been, as a general rule, the deals that I like that work out.

Also match this 1 percent rule. So that's just kind of a back of the envelope kind of thing that I've discovered. Alright, number 10. This is it. Number 10 for episode 10. Treat it like a business. You don't need to form an LLC, but you probably should have a separate checking account and a separate email and phone and address don't hurt either.

But most importantly, you want to act professionally. And you do want to schedule regular times during the week to work on it. And I get it. If you only got one rental. It's not that much time, but it is at the very least, let's look at the bookkeeping. Let's review some laws. Let's review what's going on with the market.

Like there's these things that you should do and you should treat it as such, not just this hands off, I don't touch it. I would even argue if you are a passive investor in a syndication, you may not need to set time, set side, set time aside weekly, but at least monthly and definitely quarterly. Like when a report comes in.

Read it, try to understand it, follow up with it. I think that that's important to do. Just and act professionally towards your tenants, all that stuff. I mean, I will, depending on where we're at, and who I'm talking to in the situation, I'll lean into the like, no, I'm a professional, treat me as a professional, here's how we're doing.

Or I'll lean into the like, oh, I'm just a local landlord, making it work, kind of depends on the situation. And obviously I don't I don't own this so I don't like go around, you know, like a brand new series seven BMW or a totally tricked out Model S Tesla. Like I don't do that. Just drive that up to your But, you know, but like when I say I'm going to call someone, I do.

I arrive on time to appointments. If for whatever reason something comes up and I'm not going to make it on time, I let them know. Like do the professional stuff. Yeah. Treat it like a professional business. And I think that which again is probably the whole respect thing. Yep. We talked about last week I think is important.

That's what I got, man. Those are my awesome. Those are my 10 hacks. And yeah, I think if you do this, I

Jessi: have a good hack. Yeah. Let me hear it. Don't refinish cabinets. Just buy new

James: ones. Just buy. I've got the scar from doing that one. Yeah, it's awful. Oh yeah, especially when you have to do it on your own.

Because your husband is on the couch on pain meds. Because he hurt himself like in the first few hours of starting the project. Here's a,

Jessi: there's a disclaimer. Maybe it's okay to refinish like newer cabinets, but if they have like 12 layers of paint on them, no. Just, just. You're done. Take those to the dump.

James: That actually, that would have been a huge project. To take the cabinets out and install new ones. Because then you would have had to redo drywall and like It would have been easier than swiping off all that paint. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. Or just hire help, I guess. That's the other. Buy property that has enough profit.

Save for it. So that when the time comes, you don't have to do it yourself. I

Jessi: will say, we did learn a lot. From doing things ourselves, initially.

James: Yeah, yeah. That was worth it. Doing cabinets, replacing windows, redoing flooring. This could be

Jessi: another, you know, future lesson. Okay. Don't use broken tools because you hurt yourself.

That's right. That was the same project, so. Yeah.

James: Yeah, exactly. Just popped into my head. Oh, right tool makes the job much easier. That's for certain. That's, that is good. Which I think in some ways is what I was talking about like with the accounting stuff. I just don't think we were using the right tool and it made life hard.

Mm hmm. But I think initially like Excel is a totally fine tool, but eventually like, nah, it's So there you go. Those are my 10 hacks. Hopefully you found those valuable. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we would appreciate it. If you left just a quick rating, wherever it is that you listen to your podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and have a great day.