00:00
Who is Michael today is because of, you know, my mother, my homeschooling and my hockey. I think that really kind of like pulled everything together for me. Yeah. Then I got into college, dropped out, got my real estate license. My neighbor said, go get your real estate license. Yeah, I was talking to her. I was in college at the time and I was like, you know, I can't stand this. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

00:29
Here's your host, Ryan Alford.

00:34
Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Arford, your host here today. You know, we've talked real estate, but we're going down a little different path today. I'm excited about it because we're in interesting times. There's a lot going on, and I'm really excited to have Michael Newell, CEO of Standard Land Development. What's up, Michael? What's up, man? It's good to have you in the studio. I'm loving it, I love to be here. Yeah, man. It's a little cold, but you know. Yeah, I know, we pulled you out of Florida.

01:03
We got you out of the warm and bringing you into it's a little blustery here in South Carolina today. Blustery, that's a good word for it. I'm freezing my ass off. Yes, you know, we wanted to treat you to the true fall weather of the South, you know. You don't get it down in Florida. It's like what, two seasons? One and a half? One and a half. Yeah, yeah. So cool, man. Glad you could make it. We'll be getting more and more people in studio.

01:27
People get their head out of their ass and start moving around a little bit. You know, uh, tell it like it is here on the Radcast. But yeah, man, I, uh, talked with the team and was like, excited to have you on. I think it's really timely.

01:42
with what's kind of going on out there and recession and numbers and all this stuff, lots of fear-mongering. But at the end of the day, I think it's important for people to have and know and have knowledge around different streams of opportunity, both in and out of real estate. And so I thought you had a pretty fascinating story. I also liked just the good old family man, you know, having four boys, you have two boys I know, and so probably have a lot in common. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, boys are fun, man. Boys are fun. They keep you busy? Oh my God. You're kind of on that,

02:12
We talked pre-episode, you know, you got three and five two and five two and five. Yeah, yeah You're on the early and I'm kind of in the middle stage Yeah, so I got a lot to look forward to yeah what you're saying, right getting into sports Yeah, they it gets better and better and better I mean, you know, you love every phase but it's like you get to that stage where you get to I don't know They've got their wits about them. They've got their you know skill sets, you know at least physically a little more and in in tune so

02:41
You know, you're kind of in those early phases, it's a little tough, kind of.

02:44
Knowing how far to push. So did you force your guys into the sport of your choosing? You just kind of let them choose? How did you? We put everything in front of them. Kind of like a plate of vegetables, you know? You put it in front of them and try and push. Not push, but like give them the opportunity. And so like two of my kids are like really good in soccer. I didn't play fucking soccer. I mean, my wife and I were basketball players. And both college athletes. That makes sense. Yeah, college athletes and basketball.

03:14
But like yeah two of them are really good in soccer. I'm like and I did was not a soccer So like then there's two of them swim year-round and then basketball, of course, they all play basketball So they got that natural. Yeah, so they're still in that, you know a couple of them are start to even out into exactly what they would play but you know It's still in the testing phase. I guess trial phase of different things trying to push Michael my oldest into hockey He likes it. He likes it. I just want to keep that momentum going, you know

03:44
like a great sport. Like being in South Carolina, I don't know how you got into it, I want to hear this in Florida, but South Carolina, we just weren't exposed to it, you know, but as much as I see it's it's a physical sport.

03:57
but it's a lot of conditioning and then, I don't know, there's a good team aspect to it. I think there's a lot, from the outside, that seems great about hockey. Yeah, and some wonderful people built a hockey rink across the street from my house. I mean, that's how I got into it. Really? Yeah, the opportunity of having something like that in the backyard is amazing. Especially in Florida. Awesome, yeah, it was awesome. Any other situation would have put me into soccer, football, baseball, right? Something that's a Florida-bound sport. Yeah.

04:25
Well, let's set the stage for everybody. Let's get on that, you know, that early journey, you know, what made Michael Michael, you know, where your roots, your background and, you know, what some of that entrepreneurial journey. Sure. So I think, I think homeschooling had a lot to do with it. You know, you kind of like a, like a self-starter. I mean, you got, you know, I got my mother, you know, teaching me and things of that nature, but you know, she's teaching me and my sister. So at some point you've got to kind of take the reins and start learning. And, and, you know, she pushed me, but.

04:55
I had to push myself a lot of the times too. If I wanted to get it done, I had to get it done. And I think that self-starter mentality kind of came from the homeschooling aspect. And I did that all the way through. I did that from first grade all the way to 12th grade. And my only exposure to the public schooling system or education system was...

05:16
my very short tenure in college. I don't know that's such a bad thing. I mean, I don't know, the school system in Greenville is pretty good. So I'm not going to dog it, but like, I don't know if you've got your options. You probably had the right option. Yeah, no, I built out of that, dude. It was not for me. I took off. So yeah, I mean, like I said, I went all the way through. I went into college. But, you know, as I was going through my whole, you know, school phase, I was playing hockey.

05:45
And I think hockey kept me out of trouble, right? Because I grew up in a neighborhood that was, yeah, it was a good neighborhood. We all hung out, lots of kids, but a lot of my buddies kind of took the wrong path. And I had coaches in hockey that always pushed performance and dedication and kind of like drove that home for me. So I attribute a lot of my drive and just being on the straight and narrow to hockey.

06:12
So, you know, hockey kind of kept me there. Team sports does that. Yeah, man. I mean, it did for me, I played basketball year round from probably like seventh grade to 12th grade. And I was a good kid, I think I was, you know, but it keeps you out of trouble. It keeps you focused, because you're about the team and you've got to practice. So you go to practices and games. I would always say idle hands get you in trouble. Like, I think there's a more eloquent saying, but that's what I'd.

06:40
boil it down to you right? No doubt man and performance too right so you know you don't want to go out and get drunk even though you got practice at 5 a.m. Exactly. You're not solely focused on just hanging out and having fun you're focused on performing and you know and just being better all together so I think I think

06:57
who is Michael today is because of my mother, my homeschooling and my hockey. I think that really kinda like pulled everything together for me. Then I got into college, dropped out, got my real estate license. My neighbor said, go get your real estate license. I was talking to her, I was in college at the time and I was like, I can't stand this. Were you bored? Oh, I don't know, bored, just frustrated. It wasn't for me. I couldn't do well in college.

07:27
And she's like, go get your real estate license. And I was like, you know, it sounds like a great idea. I'll go do that. I did that and I wasn't very good at that.

07:36
That's terrible at that actually. He's walking through and showing people houses. Like that's not my cup of tea. Yeah. I get bored. Yeah, it was boring. Yeah. It was boring. I mean, I know it's, it's work. I mean, it's a, you're on your feet and you're going to have customer service, I'm not like knocking it, but. Yeah. The emotional side of things too. You know, dealing with a lot of emotions, people are making, you know, a big decision, one of the biggest decision of their lives and they just, you know, they come unraveled sometimes. And I just.

08:03
You know, that was not something I wanted to do. I owned a car dealership once, and there's two things in life that are the, what I call the hairiest of purchases that people make. What I mean by that, emotion, money, whatever, cars and houses. Yep. And people, it's just a hairy transaction. It's a big decision for them. Yeah. Big decision, and they, you know.

08:24
They put a lot of time, energy, and effort into being emotional about it. And they should, I guess on some levels, but I'm not emotional about money personally, but I was blessed with that, both good and bad. But lucky you, yeah. Yeah, so continuing down that journey, dropped out of college, got my real estate license, became the realtor, didn't do well with the realtor game.

08:46
got hooked up with some investors that were buying short sales, and that was awesome. I was watching those guys pick these things up from the banks for pennies on the dollar, turn them around, renovate them, give them back to me. I was listing them, and I was watching. I was seeing how much money these guys are making. I'm like, oh my God, this is what I need to be doing. This is my move. So I was saving up as much as I could commissions wise, got my first short sale, made some money with that. I was hooked. What's time frame here? What year are we talking about? So 2009, real estate agent.

09:15
all the way to 2013, 14, got my short sales together. I did that all the way to 15, like end of 15, and that dried up. So then I transitioned again, I did a lot of pivoting, right? I went from, you know, all these different areas of real estate, went from the short sales into distressed mortgages. That taught me a lot. And that was a great business, that was awesome. Yeah. And...

09:40
You know that that came to an end too. You know, I was buying distress mortgages. I was doing workouts I was doing across multiple states. I was doing uh, georgia Tennessee, oklahoma a little bit in the panhandle in florida. Were you sight unseen or would you go? Yeah, yeah, yeah sight unseen. I mean I was I was you know, google, you know warrior just you know Going to google earth and finding everything and yeah, it was fun that dried up just dried up like this The business itself. Yeah. Well, I mean I couldn't get couldn't get access to product

10:10
You know a lot of the big funds they were picking up big tranches of this stuff and a little guy like me I could pick up, you know, I could cherry pick some stuff I could get 10 15 notes at a time and then that you know All of a sudden they just started unloading huge tranches of it I don't I don't have hundreds of millions of dollars behind me at the moment So yeah, I you know, I was kind of pushed out of the way got it So up into this point right short sales just rest mortgages. I got plenty of investors behind me they got faith in me and

10:38
You know, they're looking at me like, what's the next thing? What are we doing now? No more, no more distressed mortgages. So where are we going from here? And I decided we're gonna build some houses. And that was it. It just took off from there. MJ. Yeah. Construction, right? Well, it's standard land development as a construction company. And MJ Newell Homes is the forward facing brand. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, like everything I could, everything I was like.

11:03
Researching how the MJ kept coming up. Yeah. Yeah there. I mean they're one they're one the same They're tied together just just the forward-facing brand for the development Sure separated because of you know licensing insurance and things like that that makes sense. How was that transition to?

11:19
My dad's a general contractor and retired, semi-retired. He cherry picks projects, but he's semi-retired. It's a different thing. Again, a little bit of that pivot, dealing with building something, all the nuances of that. How was that transition? Trial by fire, dude. I can't even. I bet. It was just so many things that go into it, right? It was nuts. And I still to this day do not have a general contractor's license.

11:47
So I convinced, you know, how'd you pull that magic trick? I convinced the guy to let me use his general contractor's license for my first few builds he signed off for me. I used his, his license. I used his, uh, his insurance and I was a general contractor at that point, right? Yeah. I'm the general contractor. I'm running the job site and, and I didn't know my head from my ass as far as, you know, construction goes. My first house has turned out pretty good. They're not, they're not horrible. They weren't great, but they weren't horrible.

12:16
I sold them, I made a profit. All right, so I learned, I learned and made money.

12:22
Yeah, it was wonderful. It is wonderful. Usually it goes the other way. You pay for that for that lesson. But I think that's a testament to how much margin is in the construction business. Yeah. There's a there's a lot of money we made in the construction business, especially today. Yeah. Yeah. So that had that has not dried up, I assume. No, no. I know we're gonna go further down that road. But it's getting better, you know, as the days go on, in my opinion. So that's that

12:52
That's end of 16 like very end of 16 beginning 17. Yeah, and We've been on that road since yep, and I know we're gonna go down some paths, but talk to me about Running a could like it's one thing figuring out how to do it What's it been like learning how to scale a construction business? That's fun

13:15
That's a lot of fun. Is there an asterisk on that? Yeah. Yeah, definitely some disclaimer at the bottom there. All right. So, I mean, it's blue collar. It's a little different, right? The only way to truly scale a construction business is to fully understand it yourself. So if you try to go from, you know, real estate agent to CEO of a land development company, and the only thing you want to do is sit at the top and make decisions.

13:42
It's not going to go well for you because you're going to trust everyone below you to understand and do what they're supposed to do and most of the times they don't. If you want to scale in the construction business, you need to start from the bottom. You need to be the one man band. You need to be the superintendent, the finance department, the permitting department, the purchasing department. You need to do it all.

14:05
And if you can do it all successfully, then you just start plugging and playing people into those positions and you train them on what you want them to do. I mean, you have to start at the foundation. You can't just walk into this and expect to scale to 30, 40, 50 people right out of the gate.

14:24
It's difficult. I got a good example for you, man. So I spent a lot of people with, you know, entrepreneurisms, you know, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, right? Yeah. You know, sexy, everybody. I...

14:37
My path is a lot like what you described. I spent 17 years in the ad agency business, learning, watching, observing, and growing at some of the biggest agencies in the world. And to that exact point, I did that, and then I bought a car dealership, where I had no shit, except that I liked cars. It fucking failed miserably. And I lost a bunch of money.

15:01
And then I started an ad agency. What I'd done for 17 years and knew the ins and outs from the ground floor basement. Yeah. All the way to the top. All the way to the CEO. And you know, in five years, fastest growing agency in the southeast, top 25 podcast. Stick with what you know, baby. Stick with what you know. But it's the exact example. I'm sitting here listening to you talk and I'm going, you're right. Because I know how to do every job here. I'm not.

15:25
better than all my people. I've hired better people, it's skills than me. But I know exactly how to build it. I know what every position's supposed to do so that you can fairly grade it and make decisions based on what you know is supposed to happen, right? Yeah, you can measure it, right? Yeah, that's fascinating. That's spot on, it's so true. But I mean, I'm all about encouraging people to get into the construction business. But. Yeah.

15:53
You know, learn it. Don't, if you're going to get in, don't be afraid to roll up your sleeves and swing a hammer, like, you know, learn the business. I'm not saying understand how to do the concrete work, but I'm saying understand what the concrete guy is supposed to be doing and understand how to measure his success, understand what the inspector is going to be looking for, right? Like be a good superintendent, learn that position.

16:17
and then hire what you would expect in that position as you scale up. What's the most complicated?

16:24
Like my dad always jokes, because you see that the last 10% of any project or house is the hardest, but like, you know. If you got a customer for sure, yeah. Yeah, was it Punch List or whatever? It's a good name, you get punched in the face list. Yeah. Right? That's a good way to put it, yeah. But what's like, give me like a nugget here of like something people just don't expect or like that you didn't expect.

16:54
I mean, look.

16:55
anything worth having is hard work, right? I mean, I know that that's supposed to be the American way, we've lost our way a little bit, but that's the way it's supposed to be. So, you know, like what, maybe something you didn't expect. Tons of gotchas, right? Like the first one that comes to my mind is gonna be purchasing land, right? You know, if you're gonna be building houses, you're gonna be buying lots. Pay attention to what you're buying. Get on the site, look around, make sure what you're buying is actually, you know, what you're buying.

17:25
Right? Who would have thought? Six thousand dollars a piece, dude, to remove a turtle. So I get in. Holy shit. I buy this lot. I don't realize it has freaking turtles on it. Okay? I get a stop work order from, you know, the agency in the area. You got turtles. I'm like, okay. Let's go feed them and type this in somewhere else. Is this Rafael, Leonardo? Is this the mighty

17:55
Yeah to the tune of twelve thousand dollars later a little over twelve thousand dollars right there. You got two turtles Yeah, just I got you. We're not talking about little lake turtles like this. Are we? No, they're they're tortoises. Okay They're I don't know a big around. It's a five gallon bucket or so. All right. Yeah, those ones are scary at the zoo Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so Turtles, right? I got you. There's a nugget pay attention to what you're purchasing. Yeah walked a lot. Look at it I I think on the on the construction side, you know, just don't pay subs up front

18:25
Never pay a sub upfront, you know, understand who you're working with. Don't pull your sub off of Craigslist. I would rather go, you know, hunt job sites and find people that are doing it, you know, successfully on other builders' job sites. You know, pay attention to who you're working with. You know, that's, you know, just little tidbits that are extremely important and will save you a lot of money. So how's this growth been? I know you're doing all right.

18:51
Like, you know, like, what's that? What, you know, you land in something that seems to have stuck, you know, in the real estate business and found a real good niche. I think it's stuck because of the need. Yeah. I think this country has a huge need for workforce housing. I mean, you know, people that make 60, 70, 80 thousand dollars a year join incomes like...

19:16
what are they buying right now? They're getting hammered. And now we got 8% interest rates. I mean, that's tough. So I think I'm doing well because there's such a need. I think if we looked at it collectively, like if you just Google search, how many homes are we in a deficit in the US, you're gonna get tons of different opinions and numbers. Yeah, I know. We were talking, when I was coming into this interview, I was gonna, I'm glad you went there, because I...

19:43
I heard you say that, there's a lot of need, then I'm like, man, there's just like conflicting data out there about that, right? Tons of it, tons of it. But I think I would pay attention to the data that's done by professionals. I always refer back to the Harvard study, state of the nation's housing. They got 3.8. The head or president of the National Association of Home Builders has a million.

20:09
Right. Freddie Mac agrees with Harvard 3.8. And every day this is growing because more families are becoming eligible to purchase a home or needing housing. Yeah. So I think if you take the most optimistic opinion and look at it, I think it's still, they still agree that there's a need for housing. I can tell you in the markets that I'm in, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida.

20:37
we're getting into Texas, there's not enough houses. And I know this because of market research. We put ads out before we go into any market and we collect the data and we collect, you know, how many leads come in and do these people need housing? What do they actually qualify for? You know what I mean? And what these people qualify for is not what's being built.

20:58
Yeah, they're they don't have they don't have an option. So what do they do? You know, they they rent rent what the hedge fund purchased and and you know lease back to them Yeah, or china's selling to them. Yeah, right. That's not the american dream dude, like, you know 30 year mortgage is is important for our society as a whole. I mean we need you know, we need housing for more than just

21:19
housing we need it for you know investment and retirement purposes too. Yeah. House, we've kind of gone down that road but is your construction company always been in that? It's always been Workforce Housing. Workforce? That's always been what we do. Is it what's different between Workforce Housing and like First Home? Same thing. Same thing? Same thing. Different word, same thing. It's so interesting because you know especially these Metro's like we're in Griegville, South Carolina here where the agency we're doing this podcast and you know in

21:49
downtown's booming and all this, but you can't afford, I mean, workforce can't afford to live downtown Greenville. Not even close. And probably couldn't afford it 10 years ago, they definitely can't now. I mean, it's doubled, you know? And so, do you go about like identifying maybe growing cities and then like the outer suburbs or something? I'm wondering the strategies and kind of identifying these markets. So we throw lead generators out there and we wanna see, you know,

22:19
shopping for a house. And as we see who's shopping for a house, we understand what they qualify for. And then we tailor our product based on, you know, based on that. But our product will never be more than workforce housing. You know, yes, I built some commercial, I built some industrial, you know, I built some large homes for friends. But at the end of the day, my core focus is workforce housing. And those are the people that I serve. And, you know, I can tell you without a doubt.

22:46
we do not have enough. In the markets that I'm playing in, we do not have enough.

22:50
That's fact, that's data. That's not me Google searching stuff. That's me actually putting ad dollars out there to figure out this information. How many houses are you building a year? We'll do a little over 400 this year. Wow. Yeah. Holy shit, dude. That's a lot of houses. We're rocking and rolling, man. I bet. Are you leveraging teams and resources across all four or five states you're in? I mean, is it, or do you have networks set up? I've got networks set up,

23:20
of our stuff is run out of our Southwest Florida office. That's where the heart of our operation is. Yeah, do you have like, are you souped to nuts or do you just purely construction end? So that's good. So I'll go all the way from land acquisition to CO. Okay. Now as far as like personnel goes, we only have high level personnel. We have superintendents which supervise all of the subcontractors.

23:49
We have our in-house finance, in-house purchasing. We don't let any of our subs purchase material. We purchase our own material. We have our own in-house permitting department. We have our own in-house engineers. We do everything at a high level. Now as far as like executing actual work, we don't have a whole lot of actual physical people in the field swinging a hammer. We have a couple punch-out crews, right?

24:12
doing the punch me in the face list. Right? Yeah, you like that. I like that. You could use that trademark. But you know, at the end of the day, the vast majority of our stuff is subbed out to subcontractors. We got a bad ass set of subcontractors in all the markets we deal in. Yeah, that's smart though. It sounds like you've, not that it's.

24:36
the labor is a commodity or anything, but it sounds like you've got the real core of what kind of makes or probably breaks the deal. The organization. Yeah. Yeah, keeping everybody organized. I mean, you know, yeah. It takes a lot of different subs to build a single house. You know, keeping them flowing is the trick. You know, keeping them from working on top of each other is the trick. Now, are you then marketing, selling, finance, like the developments?

25:05
Yeah, so we have our own in-house marketing team that markets all of our homes, takes in the leads, and then as we get these leads in, we push them over to our joint venture mortgage company. Our joint venture mortgage company will qualify these leads, get these individuals into homes, and prior to closing the home, we have our own joint venture title company. So we close everything in-house as well. So we control...

25:30
more or less the entire process from start to finish. So you're profiting from...

25:36
sale to mortgage. Construction, sale, mortgage, title. About everything. Yeah, we got it wrapped up. Yeah. We got it wrapped up. $400 a year. All right, I'm doing the math. It's working out for you. How's it been? You've been raising a family through all this. Young kids, wife, like, how's it been? What's been the work-life balance there? Without my wife, I could not do this. She keeps everything on point.

26:03
She's involved in the business. She's not involved in the business, but she keeps she's the CEO Keeps everything rolling. Yeah. Yeah, cuz you know, I got tough days I don't want to deal with too much nonsense afterwards so I get home, you know kids are happy Houses on point, you know got great food. She's just there, you know, you know backing me up. Yeah. Yeah, I love her She's awesome

26:28
So without her, you know, without her none of this is possible. What's the process for, okay, someone's listening to all this and they're going, oh wow, this sounds amazing. But you know, I'm a banker. I'm a executive, you know, I'm paying attention. I've dabbled in things in real estate. Maybe I own a rental home.

26:50
How the hell do I get involved in new construction? Invest, invest in a fund. We have a fund. We are soliciting for our fund. So if swinging a hammer is not your thing. And we'll put your money to work building workforce housing. Yeah, so they can literally get involved without getting involved. Correct. You know what I mean? We'll swing the hammer. Yeah, I know. What are your ambitions, man? Where's the company, you know, like...

27:19
headed, you know, you're into the scene with politics and other things, but like, you know, what are your beliefs? Like, what do you see happening out there? So I'll kind of, I kind of like revert back to the data, right? Like, there is a need for workforce housing. And regardless of what Google says, I personally know people that can't afford houses. Yeah. And they want a house. They want somewhere to live. So, you know, my sole focus right now is continually putting out...

27:47
these work force single family homes for work force America. And that's what kinda fulfills me. And I'm doing well with it, don't let me fool you. We're making money, it's great. Sure. But more than that, it's pretty fulfilling to be able to do something and get back to my country. I'd much rather be here building houses and filling that need than running around in the desert with an AR-15. If I have to, I'll go do that. But.

28:15
Right now, I think the need is, you know, workforce housing. Let's, let's do our part on the, on the home front.

28:22
you know, make sure our people are taken care of here. I mean, those guys gotta have somewhere to live when they come back. Very true. Have you done much storytelling around that? You know, as the marketer and the brand guy, like I'm sitting here telling this, I'm like, I'm seeing like the movie, you know, at least the business movie, like, you know, because there's a great story there with like the work, you know, we work for the workforce, you know, like. Yeah, well, I think it could be a good show, right? Cause it's not bullshit. No.

28:52
doing this, like we're helping. You ever interview like the people that are talked to, like the people that you end up getting in houses and stuff? Extremely grateful.

29:00
Grateful grateful for the opportunity to own a home I mean don't you know some of them are pricks right some of our entitled and assholes and whatever but you know the vast majority Of people that we provide housing to are extremely grateful for the opportunity What's like the signature of your homes like what's the quality and that that's right? That's easy for me to say that's what everybody says quality if you walk into one of my homes Versus one of my competitors the things that you will notice is we put an extra course of block So instead of eight foot ceilings

29:30
The house just feels so much bigger, right? It's taller. It's more grandiose as soon as you walk in. We put LVP flooring throughout the entire house. No carpet. Carpet is, that's the thing in the past, dude. Like nobody wants carpet. LVP through the whole home. Tile in the showers. So instead of what our competitors use, that plastic bullshit that's like, you feel like you're living in a mobile home.

29:54
Yeah, tile the whole thing in addition to that. We put rain shower heads. You seen those? Oh, yeah Yeah, we put those in kind of like a new, you know a new flare on. Yeah That's luxury feel to it. Yeah, all of our countertops and uh kitchen cabinets are are, you know Grade b as opposed to like grade d so we've got Uh, like the the smooth finish modern white cabinets soft closed drawers granite countertops We build a superior home to the rest of you know

30:23
the competitors we deal with. Do you have an average sale price? Yeah, it's about 299,000 bucks. Damn dude. I mean, find some 300, you know. Find that quality. Everything you just said, I'm like.

30:37
You know, where do you find that? Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. Yeah, and you're making money. So damn, I need to find your contractors, you know? But you guys are probably, it sounds like you got it figured out with all the, you buy your own product, you got volume going on, right? We control a lot of that too, yeah, exactly, with that volume. Like, you know, it sucked during COVID, right? We were still buying volume, but we're getting hammered on pricing. But that pricing's coming down.

31:05
So I think it's important to note, you know, as people are listening to this, they're like, you know, what about the interest rate? Fine, the interest rate is going up, but the cost of building the house is coming down, which means we can lower the purchase price of that home, which means we can still keep that workforce borrower that only qualifies for, you know, $1,800 a month. We can still make that work. Yeah. You know, as long as these construction prices keep coming down, we'll be in a good spot. And we're paying $70 a sheet for plywood in 2020.

31:34
Today we're paying 16. In 2019 we're paying like nine, but you know, we're coming back down. We're getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. Yeah, I was gonna ask you, like, where do you see some of these macro economic stuff? Like, are you a crystal ball kind of guy? Like, are you just, you do in the moment?

31:50
Like, you know. A little bit of both. Right. A little bit of both. Where do you see all this shit going? Like, I mean. I really think, I really think that we overcorrected. We as, as, you know, the current administration. I don't even like to associate myself with that party. Yeah. Whatever you want to call it.

32:06
I don't know what you call it. It's definitely a party. It's something. It's a party. They're partying. But anyways. You can find Gavin Newsome at any local party. So, anyways, they are, I think, you know, pushing the envelope. I think they overcorrected.

32:25
And I think that you'll start to see that interest rate come back down, you know, hopefully in the second, third quarter next year, I think we'll be in a good spot. Yeah. I mean, cause we're getting set up pretty good because is as the business, the construction costs, like you said, the hard costs come down if, and if the, that percentage rate starts to get back.

32:47
Normalized a really good spot, right? Yeah, it's hard to know like are we in a recession or not? I think if you went on Instagram, you know, the answer is yes. Oh, I know that's what I don't I don't look I don't buy it like I just think there's so everybody trying to control the narrative like it and I'm not smart enough to know every economic

33:04
outcome of this out of the other. But I know when I'm being pulled the wrong direction, so I kind of ignore it. But you know. I think to answer that question, are we in a recession? There's people in my communities that are still buying homes.

33:20
can still afford homes. And they're still making the same money that they made last year and the year before that. Sure. So did anything change for them? No. Or are they still wanting to buy a home? Absolutely. Did that home go up in price? Yes. Do they still qualify? Barely. I'm gonna have to start bringing, you know, actual prices of homes down.

33:42
if this interest rate keeps going up, which I think it's going to. So, you know, I don't know, man. I think maybe if you go, like, you know, a couple layers down, like, are people still buying cars at the rate they were buying, or people still buying, you know, watches and going on vacations? You know, I think that answer is probably you've seen a lot of pullback. Right. But on the housing side, people still need houses and they're still trying to buy them.

34:04
I've been flying more lately here and every damn plane's full. So I don't know if that means there's fewer flights or if there's a... No doubt. You know? I asked the flight attendant, we were coming back from LA.

34:19
two nights ago, three nights ago, I don't know, we were out there for a big event, and I asked flight attendant, like, is every plane full to the, she said every seat on every plane. Yeah, I don't know, man. Yeah. Recession, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know, something like that. That's what's so hard, like, you don't know, like, I don't, you don't know who to trust in the business and world news, like, it's like, you feel like everything has a spin on it. There's no, like,

34:48
Everything has an opinion on it. That's why I constantly harp on, let's just look at the data. Let's do our own data research. Don't listen to any outside sources. Don't jump on social media where everyone seems to get their news from lately.

35:03
Do your own research. If you're gonna go into a market and start building houses, you should probably figure out if people want the product that you're gonna put out. Spend some money. Let's give some nitty gritty entrepreneurial advice. I know we talked about some of the things you've done, but as you've grown businesses, as you've done things, what's a nugget or two for people listening that might be starting their own company, might be looking for other investments, but just maybe a little entrepreneurial, what's some of your biggest learning?

35:33
I think that goes back to what I just said make sure whatever you're putting out there There's a need for it. Yeah, and more than that make sure you got the financial backing to to continue to produce this product Yeah, right because you don't want to get in a situation where you know You're you're you're producing something and all of a sudden you run out of funding, but there's still demand or the reverse effect You're producing something you've got a lot of other people's money out there and all of a sudden. There's no demand for that product

36:02
That's a problem. Yeah. Now I think scaling, if you're looking at the scaling aspect.

36:09
know the positions before you hire and try to put somebody into those positions. Understand how to measure those positions. Now, if you can't measure that position, you probably shouldn't hire for it. You should learn it yourself. Understand it and then try to scale it. You know, I have one of my favorite sayings and I don't know. I think you're going to win the guest or 300 guests now. I think you're going to win the award for the person that personifies one of my favorite sayings.

36:39
what you expect. Oh, that's good. I say that sometimes. I think you are like the personification of that, at least by the way you talk. Absolutely, absolutely. And it's so true, you know, like I say that to people, they're like.

36:53
At first it sounds really simple, but you gotta think about it. You know. One of my competitors actually gave that to me. He's a veteran builder, been building since, I don't know, probably 25, 30 years. Awesome guy. And I asked him for advice. I said, hey, what can you tell me? And he said that exact thing. He said, inspect what you expect. And I was like, that works. That makes sense. Said another way.

37:22
Trust but verify. Trust but verify, yeah. You know, when it's with people. Sure, sure. Inspection with an expert could be broad, you know, doing the research with the market, you know, getting your ducks in a row, you know, trust but verifies, kind of with people, you know. I think you trust people, I trust people, but I verify. Yeah, I check. Just look behind once or twice, make sure they're doing what they're supposed to do. Yeah, I know. What are you doing when you're not working? I like...

37:49
I go to the beach. Okay. I hang out at the beach. I love the beach. Like paddle boarding, you know. Boat guy? No, I don't go boat.

37:58
I got a paddle board. It's kind of a boat. It floats. Oh yeah. I like to go air boating. Yeah. Yeah, I'm big out in the Everglades. Nice. I love hanging out in nature. Yeah, I love being outside. Not in Greenville. It's too cold. Yeah, there's a calming demeanor about you. I don't see you being lots of ups and lots of downs. I see you being very kind of...

38:23
stable, but maybe it's like, I don't know. I try to stay consistent. I try to stay, you know, pretty, pretty. Consistent's important. We all have hot and cold, but you know. I try to stay stable. Yeah, right. Yeah. Sometimes I lose it, man. I don't get, you know, don't wait for it. What makes you lose it? You know, I don't, it takes a lot.

38:45
It takes a lot. You know, I gotta really be hurt to go off the deep end, but it's happened. Yeah. I don't really, I don't know how I lose it, it's like when I'm someone that really disappoints me. You know, like, not because I had an unfair expectation, but it's like, it's just true disappointment. Like, you know, it lets me down. Yeah. You know, we all have that happen, but, where, I mean, where can everybody stay abreast of everything you got going on? Where can they learn more about?

39:13
new construction opportunities, like what are those points and how to get in contact with you and I know you've got meetings and groups and different things you're putting on. Talk about some of those opportunities and things like that. So I'm really...

39:31
I'm really putting a lot into education right now, like helping other guys that are maybe doing real estate in some form or fashion, flipping or whatever, transition into something that's going to be more lucrative for them. There's more margin in building new construction. There's more availability of land. There's more ability to scale. It becomes a real business. I mean, a lot of people have success with scaling a flipping business, but...

39:59
to scale a construction company is a lot more long term, in my opinion, and you're adding a lot more value to the marketplace, you're bringing something that didn't exist into reality, and then you're offering that to a family that's, in my opinion, more fulfilling. So I'm putting a lot of emphasis on education, and I did my first event last weekend, actually, this weekend that just passed. Yeah, congrats on that. Thank you, we had a great response, a lot of...

40:28
good people showed up from all over the country. I mean, we had like three or four guys that were actually from Florida. Everybody else was from, you know, all over the country. Some people came from California. We had a couple of guys from overseas, one guy from the UK, one guy from Germany. So yeah, yeah, people flew in from out of the country for this. And I laid it out for him. I gave him everything.

40:49
I took my entire blueprint, I put it together with the help of my VP of Operations and put it into flow charts and handed it out to these guys. And in addition to that, I teach them, you know, how to purchase land, what to look for when you're purchasing land, how to negotiate when you're purchasing land. I taught them, you know, exactly step by step what it takes to build a single family home, start to finish.

41:18
what it takes to permit a house, start to finish. I laid it all out, gave it all to them. And for that, they were really grateful. I mean, I'm getting a lot of really good feedback and that makes me feel good. I like that. I like to be able to help and give back. So I'm gonna do another one of those in Fort Myers and I'm gonna try to make it pretty big. And this last event we did was free. We're gonna charge for this one. It's gonna be a thousand bucks, but in hindsight, a thousand bucks to set yourself up to be the next 1% of the...

41:47
of America is pretty cheap. Pretty cheap. Yeah. But 100% of the proceeds from this event obviously will pay for the event, but the rest goes into building a hockey rink in Southwest Florida. So just like I had the opportunity to play hockey, because somebody, some wonderful couple built a hockey rink across the street from my house, I'm gonna do that for the kids where I'm building.

42:15
and make sure they have the opportunity to do that. And in addition to building this hockey rink, we're gonna offer programs, because hockey can get expensive, you know, sticks and gear and, you know, just, it gets expensive. So we're gonna offer programs to help kids that want to play hockey. We're gonna.

42:31
you know, make sure they got that opportunity. Great, man. Hey, looky there. Make some money and make an impact. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So anybody that wants to come and learn how to build and set themselves up for, you know, creating wealth in the future will also be contributing to, you know, kids that, you know, would otherwise not have the opportunity to play a pretty bad-ass sport.

42:52
Where can people find details on your next events or keep up with any things you guys might put out around that? So we're keeping it like really simple. We've got an email address. All right. Yeah, I like it. And everything just goes to this email address. It's Andorra's email. So it's A. Wilson.

43:12
at standard land development dot com so a wilson at standard land development dot com all spelled out that's you know that's where people are emailing stuff now if you want to just go sign up for the uh

43:27
The event, I have it in my Instagram. I've got an Instagram now, it's wonderful. Congratulations. Moving into the future here. Yes. And I got a link in the bio, it's called a Linktree. Yeah. And you just go on there and fill it out. What's your handle on Instagram? It's Michael J. Newell. Perfect.

43:45
Michael J. Newell and A Wilson at standardlanddevelopment.com is the email. So we'll have that in all our show notes as well. So we'll make sure that's there. And so you don't have to remember it if you didn't have a pen, we'll have it in the show notes. Anything else, Michael, or any other way to keep up with you or is that all for today? That's it, man. That's my spiel, right? It's been great having you, man. Yeah, I appreciate you letting me on this. Pretty cool and great spot you have here. I love it, except for the cold. Hey, well we had...

44:15
You gotta try a little bit of everything, you know? So we appreciate you coming on and we'll have all the info for Michael and everything he's doing all around the Southeast and sounds like growing from there. Appreciate you coming on, Michael. Thanks, appreciate it, man. Hey guys, you know where to find us? Theradcast.com. You'll find all of today's show notes. You'll also, hey, look up Michael Dooles. You'll find all the highlight clips from today at theradcast.com. I'm at Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms, including Instagram.

44:45
and on TikTok where I'm blowing up. We'll see you next time. All right, cast.