[laughs]

She says, "If I need a bag, I tell somebody to get them, get me one." You know what she does? She comes to me and says, "Can I have a bag?"

[laughs]

Believe me, [laughs] she knows where her source is.

[laughs]

But, uh, in picking a market being important, how do you decide on what the best markets are to invest in? I ask different people this question, I get slightly different answers, and I always find it very interesting as to what they are-- how are they underwriting their markets? So I wanna ask you this question.

Great question.

Uh, and, and totally agreed on the importance of, of finding and identifying markets.

And, uh, even what you said about neighborhoods is, is definitely more important if you look at data or information on a metro, uh, like in the MSA level.

There's so many different little pockets of, uh, performance that, um, doesn't really tell you what you need to know.

For me, I, I, again, I, I agree with your idea of a top-down.

I think the most important things are, uh, market fundamentals, um, in a, in a macro sense.

Yeah.

And?

I said, I said, "It's, it's the shirt you approved, not the shirt I approved."

Mm-hmm

... because the word of God reveals your position in a marriage, and you can't succumb to a person controlling you, because if you do, you're actually hurting yourself and that person.

But how do you help investors think about what im- what markets make sense to invest in and what markets maybe to avoid?

Generally speaking, you can invest in almost any market, even Austin, while it was correcting.

It really depends on your strategy.

I think that, th- you know, the basics are look for strong economic fundamentals.

Markets where there is good job growth and where there is something called household formation are the number one and number two things that I personally look for.

Economic growth tends to bring people to an area.

That increases demand.

Okay

So do you think that with rates staying at, you know, 6% or 7% for a longer period of time, how do you feel like that's changing the investment strategy of the average investor?

I think it's made deals not worse, but a little bit less obvious.

I think what I talk about a lot in BiggerPockets show is we have a problem not necessarily with the market right now.

We have a problem with expectations.

And we went through this period from 2012 to 2023 where it was just so easy.

It was like it was shooting fish in the barrel.

If you could drop the perfect investing climate, we had it.

So what's your buy box that you look for right now?

What would you say to the folks that are investing for appreciation? And is that a mistake? Is that something that should not be looked at? Should they be running the numbers to cash flow? What do you say for people on appreciation versus cash flow?

I love this debate, by the way.

It never ends in real estate investors.

It's probably the most common debate that we have.

I will say that in today's market, I would not invest for appreciation alone.

I don't think that makes sense.

There are going to be markets that appreciate.

If you were in a more expensive area where you couldn't find deals in your local area, What would a good deal look like and would you look out of state if you were new or was this something that you would go local if you're new and then go out of state later on?