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Speaker 2: All right, guys, Welcome back, e y L. Hometown Heroes Edition,
Speaker 2: Shot Town, Shot Town. What's going on?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, the first Hometown Heros that we
Speaker 2: did was in Houston.
Speaker 4: Houston.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Agetown, Shout out Totown, Shouts to Mike
Speaker 2: Brown and shout out to Chris Senegaud, those of our
Speaker 2: first hometown hero. So if you if you know Alesia,
Speaker 2: we're traveling around all our major markets and we were
Speaker 2: touching it to people and when we when we touched
Speaker 2: the town, we try to do a couple of interviews
Speaker 2: with people that are doing big things in the community.
Speaker 5: Man, he had a big campaign and uh shout everybody
Speaker 5: that supported his Win Win foundation.
Speaker 4: Man, that was dope. Yeah, for sure, that's a fact.
Speaker 2: So so all right, we're in Chicago and we had
Speaker 2: to tap in with the good brothers of Downing Brothers
Speaker 2: South south Side right south to the world blow up
Speaker 2: for sure. So Anthony and Anton say that correctly, right,
Speaker 2: that's right. Okay, so just left out of h and
Speaker 2: a y here we go, first and foremost, thank you guys. Man,
Speaker 2: We appreciate the man.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: We listen to the podcast I Dream one day that
Speaker 3: Dreams come from.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're in Chicago. We were on the South Side,
Speaker 2: were in seventy nine, seventy ninth Street right right the
Speaker 2: elevendary seventy nice shout the chance to raff up, he said,
Speaker 2: setay nice setting nine. So yeah, we're out here. We
Speaker 2: out here, So all right, these guys are legends in
Speaker 2: the community. So they're firefighters by trade, and they are
Speaker 2: celebrities because now they are on HG TV. They have
Speaker 2: their own showing HG TV, and their real estate investors.
Speaker 2: They're very interesting than guys, and so we're gonna talk
Speaker 2: about a lot of different things with them. But before
Speaker 2: we start, well, the first segment I want to talk
Speaker 2: about is that a lot of times we talk about
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship and business business. A lot of times what stops
Speaker 2: people from being an entrepreneur being business owner is that
Speaker 2: they you know, it's kind of risky to just jump
Speaker 2: out there and you know, you have a nine to
Speaker 2: five job or a regular job. The thing that one
Speaker 2: of the things I like about you guys, is that
Speaker 2: you do both right. So you're firefighters and you're still firefighters, right,
Speaker 2: and then you're on TV and your real estate investors.
Speaker 2: So we haven't covered this is a very interesting job
Speaker 2: because I'm a financial advisor and I work with some
Speaker 2: firefighters in New York. And firefighters have it good. They
Speaker 2: make they make they make good money. They have strong unions,
Speaker 2: especially in New York.
Speaker 4: We have a very strong.
Speaker 2: They get a pension and they only work like two
Speaker 2: days a week. I know, it is like you. They
Speaker 2: work like twenty four hour shifts, like two twenty four
Speaker 2: hour shifts. So what happens is now you have like
Speaker 2: five days where you're not working, which leaves a lot
Speaker 2: of time where you can do other things. Right, So
Speaker 2: is that how it is in Chicago? Yeah, that is
Speaker 2: a great synopsis.
Speaker 3: It definitely is a work to our advantage to have
Speaker 3: that time all because I mean, yeah, essentially you worked
Speaker 3: eight eight to nine twenty four hour shifts a month,
Speaker 3: so we had like twenty two days off and the
Speaker 3: question is what are you gonna do with that in
Speaker 3: those twenty two days that you are free to do
Speaker 3: what you want?
Speaker 6: And then eventually real estate enters the picture for us.
Speaker 2: So all right, so come about the fire department because
Speaker 2: it's something that we especially in our community, it is
Speaker 2: not enough black firefighters, right, So what a what got
Speaker 2: you guys into the fire department? And like, what are
Speaker 2: the steps that people can take? Because I think even
Speaker 2: stuff like that is there.
Speaker 3: He goes, We're not going anybody to leave?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what what? Like what got you to the fire fighting?
Speaker 2: With some of the steps that somebody can take to
Speaker 2: become a firefighter, because, like I said, it is a
Speaker 2: good professional, an honorable profession as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean so the origin story for the fire department,
Speaker 3: part of our story is back in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: I was fresh fresh out of college. I was actually
Speaker 3: I was an educator. I started off in education and
Speaker 3: I was coming driving home and.
Speaker 2: I still live at home. My mom, no shame in that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I was out of college and had my first job,
Speaker 3: and I was saving up money, and she said, hey,
Speaker 3: can you get a gallon of milk on the way home?
Speaker 3: So I stopped and I was at a red light
Speaker 3: and I saw this big CTA bus with a sign
Speaker 3: on the side of it said answer the call It's
Speaker 3: like and it had like the website and had a
Speaker 3: firefighter on it. And you know, in education, at least
Speaker 3: especially during that period of time and even right now,
Speaker 3: you know, they do these like big layoffs, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, if I get if I lose my job,
Speaker 3: because you know, the youngest people on the job are
Speaker 3: the ones to go first, you know.
Speaker 6: And I was like, well, I need a plan B
Speaker 6: or something.
Speaker 2: And when I saw that.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's interesting. Never thought about becoming
Speaker 3: a firefighter, but maybe I'll check it out. I'll look
Speaker 3: at the website. I go into the parking lot of
Speaker 3: the Jewels grocery store. I walk in and right on
Speaker 3: the on the door, the automatic door was the same sign.
Speaker 3: It was an eight by eleven on the door.
Speaker 4: I took the answered the call.
Speaker 3: So it was it was kind of like it was
Speaker 3: kind of biblical almost so so I was like, let
Speaker 3: me get this out of the milk, curR, be get home.
Speaker 3: I got home, I looked it up. I looked it
Speaker 3: up and I saw, you know, I saw the union contract.
Speaker 3: I saw the pay I saw to my you know,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, it looked like an adventure because I'm
Speaker 3: you know, I'm physically gifted. So I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, it'll be, you know, something fun. But also,
Speaker 3: you know, I can pay the bills. And and on
Speaker 3: top of that, we talked about this. They got a
Speaker 3: strong union. You know, you never see you know, firefighters
Speaker 3: getting laid off or or whatever. So and I asked
Speaker 3: my mom, I said, Mom, let me just sign up
Speaker 3: all all my brothers, like, give me the.
Speaker 6: Social Security numbers.
Speaker 2: You know, I ain't even ask none of us.
Speaker 3: I don't know about y'all. With most moms, he usually
Speaker 3: has everybody everybody. So mom, my mom came up with
Speaker 3: this little ten thing that had all our information in it,
Speaker 3: and I signed up all my brothers to take horry brothers.
Speaker 3: You got so's it's five down the brothers. I mean,
Speaker 3: all right, you guys are twins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have an older brother and we have two
Speaker 2: younger brothers, Yeah, Tony and and.
Speaker 3: No. So I was the only one that was too
Speaker 3: young to take the exam. So I signed everybody up
Speaker 3: to take the exam. Unfortunately, my twin brother and his
Speaker 3: wisdom look not show up to take this. Look look look,
Speaker 3: our dad was CPD. It was Chicago Police officers. So
Speaker 3: I was thinking, like, man, that's what we know. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna take police exams or I'm not gonna take no exam.
Speaker 4: I was. I was up here waiving my degree, like
Speaker 4: I'm gonna use this degree. What was the degree in history?
Speaker 4: So you know it did not work that way.
Speaker 3: I ended up working for the Illinois Lottery doing experienceial
Speaker 3: marketing for thirty two thousand dollars with no.
Speaker 4: Health insurance degree. Man.
Speaker 2: Needless to say, he should have took my advice and
Speaker 2: sat down next to me. Exam.
Speaker 3: I took the exam, and I walked into McCormick place.
Speaker 3: It was twenty something thousand people there that takes his exam.
Speaker 3: How many people they're hiring they ended up hiring I
Speaker 3: would say about a thousd and people off of that
Speaker 3: particular list, you know.
Speaker 2: And this is back in two thousand and six, and
Speaker 2: I had to sit on the list for two years.
Speaker 3: But I was number five fifty four out of like
Speaker 3: seventeen thousand plus that actually passed the exam.
Speaker 6: So I mean it was it was just a blessing,
Speaker 6: like I didn't I just didn't realize and I didn't
Speaker 6: know that I was that I hit.
Speaker 2: A lot of who sat next to you at the exam?
Speaker 6: Well, I actually to my right there was an empty
Speaker 6: seat with his name on it.
Speaker 2: Alphabetical orner. So next to my left he was actually there.
Speaker 2: Oh y'all, y'all allys sitting next year.
Speaker 6: We didn't show up all my brother's names on the table.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Look, thanks, So out of the four of us to
Speaker 3: signed up actually took the example, and I actually, you know,
Speaker 3: got got the score. So two years later, I got
Speaker 3: the letter saying if I was interested, right on the
Speaker 3: day of the bub Billican Parade, which is a big
Speaker 3: deal in Chicago. The bub Bublican Parade is the second
Speaker 3: largest parade in the country, and it's actually the largest
Speaker 3: African American parade in the country. So I was actually
Speaker 3: doing a little sidehustle driving and there, and when I
Speaker 3: went out to the mailbox, I saw the letters saying
Speaker 3: that I got that I.
Speaker 2: Got the job.
Speaker 4: Well, I was sick.
Speaker 3: I was sick when he got that letter. I was like,
Speaker 3: I can't believe I didn't take that test. Man, And
Speaker 3: my social Security number is like almost exactly the same
Speaker 3: as his, so I would have been in the same
Speaker 3: class with him.
Speaker 2: So then I was like, Okay, it's time for me
Speaker 2: to start taking exams.
Speaker 5: But that you're talking about the written exam, right, But
Speaker 5: people kind of overlook the physical exam because I know
Speaker 5: we have a lot of we have some friends in
Speaker 5: our town of Greenberg that have been volunteer firefighters for
Speaker 5: years and they just can't pass the physical How the
Speaker 5: man is that.
Speaker 3: The example, It actually has changed in the last ten
Speaker 3: years because now they've gone to a national called the
Speaker 3: Seapad where everybody take me, but.
Speaker 4: It was a different thing.
Speaker 3: Candidate Canadate Physical Ability Test, right, and it actually is rigorous,
Speaker 3: like because I mean, you have you have to walk
Speaker 3: with a weighted vest, like a seventy fifty pounds seventy
Speaker 3: pounds weighed vest on a what am I thinking of
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 4: Track?
Speaker 6: No, not on a track on them on a traadmill.
Speaker 3: And that's actually the hardest part because after you get
Speaker 3: done with that, with that no, no, no, it's the
Speaker 3: stair master, I mean the stair master, right, yeah, After
Speaker 3: you get done with that stair master with the weight
Speaker 3: in vest, you're so tired that even though the rest
Speaker 3: of the course is relatively simple as far as you've
Speaker 3: been able to raise a ladder and use a pipe
Speaker 3: pole and then crawl through a tunnel, all through a tunnel,
Speaker 3: all of that stuff is super hard after you've had
Speaker 3: that weighted.
Speaker 2: Vest on and you've been on that on that for
Speaker 2: three straight minutes three minutes, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: So, but so you I mean, every like everything else
Speaker 3: in life, though you go on YouTube is there so
Speaker 3: you can train for what you need to do. When
Speaker 3: it came to the written exam, they actually give you
Speaker 3: the source material so you can actually study for that.
Speaker 2: So what's on what's on the written what's on like
Speaker 2: the written exam? Is it like science and stuff?
Speaker 4: Well, that exam is not hard man.
Speaker 2: Well look we're talking about your igo.
Speaker 3: But each Chicago's exam is literally uh you know, uh,
Speaker 3: you read it and you answer the multiple choice questions
Speaker 3: you can if you can read, have a chance.
Speaker 4: You have a chance that.
Speaker 3: People that can barely graduate high school can definitely pass
Speaker 3: that exam if you can read a COMPREHENDI.
Speaker 2: But that's not But that's not if you go into
Speaker 2: the suburbs.
Speaker 3: If you go into the suburbs or you go to
Speaker 3: you know, other municipalities, they do have math questions on there,
Speaker 3: they have friction loss and things. And I feel that
Speaker 3: like the exams are a lot harder because that's what
Speaker 3: they ended up doing is taking the Dalton fire exam,
Speaker 3: and Dalton physically brought the Chicago to the South. So
Speaker 3: you know, that exam was way like crump centrifugal pump.
Speaker 2: What they happened. It was nothing like this one on
Speaker 2: the Chicago exam into Anthony.
Speaker 3: But but the blessing about it is when the list
Speaker 3: came out unlike Anthony being five thirty, I wasn't five
Speaker 3: thirty seven.
Speaker 6: Then you won't keep.
Speaker 2: Hitting my head.
Speaker 3: I wasn't five thirty seven like this guy right here.
Speaker 3: And I wasn't one thirty eight. I wasn't fifty either.
Speaker 2: I was numbers four, four out of ten thousand, and
Speaker 2: they were no, No, it was only like three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty people.
Speaker 4: There's like a suburban exam.
Speaker 3: But then they were only hiring six and I was
Speaker 3: number four, And I was like, okay, God, you wanted
Speaker 3: me to answer the call?
Speaker 4: Do you need six months later? Do you need a
Speaker 4: college degree to be a firefighter?
Speaker 6: No, you need a high school di plumber or a ged.
Speaker 2: So how much money can you make? Because in New
Speaker 2: York I think you make like one hundred over one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, like one hundred I.
Speaker 4: Think, But a lot of money comes from overtime. Correct, Yeah?
Speaker 4: How's that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How much money can you expect to making it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: For Chicago?
Speaker 3: Your starting salary today twenty nineteen as a candidate first
Speaker 3: day in the academy is fifty six thousand. Okay, so
Speaker 3: you start at fifty six thousand, you get a pay
Speaker 3: bump at twelve months.
Speaker 6: Of ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Wow, so now you had sixty six after you made
Speaker 3: your probation, which is one year, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: and then you get steps every year from that point.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, every year from that point. So basically
Speaker 3: I've gotten raised every year for ten years. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you hit the lottery. The thing is, though, as much
Speaker 3: as we were talking about money right now, and it's
Speaker 3: all about the downside, you actually do risk your life,
Speaker 3: so there's no guarantee of coming home. It's no guarantee
Speaker 3: of coming home. My firehouse is literally just right down
Speaker 3: the block. It's ten blocks down right here on Sunday
Speaker 3: ninth Street. And two men that I have worked with
Speaker 3: died in the line of duty and I carried their cast.
Speaker 4: God bless God.
Speaker 3: So I do want to say that, you know, it's
Speaker 3: a great job, great money, enjoying ourselves, we laugh, have fun,
Speaker 3: great food at the firehouse, all this, and that I
Speaker 3: had a similar experience because one of my actual classmates
Speaker 3: passed June tenth or twenty seventeen line of duty. So
Speaker 3: it is jarring sometimes in sobering as dope as the
Speaker 3: salary is or the people that patch you on the
Speaker 3: back when you at the grocery store and all that
Speaker 3: type of stuff. But at the same time, we have
Speaker 3: to deal with that reality every time we go to
Speaker 3: work we might not come home.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you said, in Chicago, y'all are like first responders
Speaker 5: right to any type of any type of that happens.
Speaker 3: We're the first ones there. Somebody gets shot, a fire
Speaker 3: truck or fine is pulling up, you know, just a
Speaker 3: car accident.
Speaker 4: We're pulling up.
Speaker 3: Anything that happens in the city. Because we're medically trained.
Speaker 3: We're the first ones for everything. It's a hazmat incident,
Speaker 3: somebody spills oil all over the expressway, we're there. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, they call us the fire department, but we're
Speaker 3: really an all hazards department. All hazard Yeah, so we
Speaker 3: do everything.
Speaker 2: So all right, So okay, so you guys are real
Speaker 2: estate investors, right, So what as I said, what thing
Speaker 2: with the firefighter is that you you work only two days.
Speaker 2: You know, you only work two days a week, so
Speaker 2: it leaves a couple like five days where you're not working,
Speaker 2: which leads a lot of time to be creative and
Speaker 2: do different things. Right, So what made you was that
Speaker 2: one of the things that encouraged you to become real
Speaker 2: estate investors being that you had free time on your hands,
Speaker 2: or like what got you into that?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 6: Nah, it was a challenge for my mom.
Speaker 3: I remember I got my first paycheck and I came home,
Speaker 3: came home happy, and I think about this, this is
Speaker 3: that first paycheck. It was eight hundred and fifty four dollars.
Speaker 3: I thought I was a bawler because, like, you know,
Speaker 3: a month ago, I was college. I was at the
Speaker 3: Universal Illinois getting one hundred and fifty dollars every two
Speaker 3: weeks from my little student student job. So I got
Speaker 3: this first paycheck and I think my mother felt that
Speaker 3: energy and was like, nah, nah, no, no, you need
Speaker 3: to pull that back. And she said that, she said,
Speaker 3: sit at the table, don't move from that spot. I'm like,
Speaker 3: he got his first paycheck. Momentous case. She was like,
Speaker 3: She's like, well, do you have a four on one
Speaker 3: K I was like, well, we can't start at four
Speaker 3: on one k until because actually I was at I
Speaker 3: was working at a job Corps.
Speaker 2: I was a career council at job Corps. That was
Speaker 2: the first job, the job court.
Speaker 3: I was there for ten months before I started with
Speaker 3: the public schools, but you know, you have to be
Speaker 3: there for twelve months to get to start a four
Speaker 3: on one k And she was like, well, I want
Speaker 3: you to start, you know, an investment.
Speaker 2: So she was like, you know, I want you to
Speaker 2: start with met Life.
Speaker 3: I want you to take one hundred dollars a paycheck
Speaker 3: and put it into this retirement account.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, one hundred dollars the only mane eight
Speaker 6: hundred and fifty four.
Speaker 3: And she was like, no, one hundred dollars has created this,
Speaker 3: and she pulled she pulled out all of it. She
Speaker 3: was really transparent, first time in my life. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm twenty two. She put all of her papers for
Speaker 3: each one of her retirement accounts out. One of them
Speaker 3: had one hundred and hundred and sixty thousand, and another
Speaker 3: one had like fifty grand, and another one had like
Speaker 3: twenty five grand.
Speaker 6: So she had she had four different accounts, and she
Speaker 6: showed me.
Speaker 3: The statements and the balances, and she said, one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a month from every job I've had since I
Speaker 3: moved to the United States has gone into it. And
Speaker 3: no matter what job, when I transferred the job, I
Speaker 3: continue paying one hundred dollars into that one, and now
Speaker 3: I had one hundred dollars into this one and this
Speaker 3: one and this one. So like, you know, four hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a check over the course of your entire life
Speaker 3: since you've been here, has gotten me to this point.
Speaker 3: So what I'm asking you to do is only what
Speaker 3: I've already done. I was like, okay, Mom, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: She gave it a number.
Speaker 3: I called it set up my first, you know, retirement account.
Speaker 3: But then in that same conversation, she said, hear them
Speaker 3: here come you not a real man, ooh, until you
Speaker 3: own the floors you walk on.
Speaker 4: I said.
Speaker 2: To say that, I'm like, I'm not a real man.
Speaker 2: Bill got one either, Bro, I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: I felt some type of way, bro. And then from
Speaker 3: that point on, I said so much, I'm gonna show you.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna show you. So I started.
Speaker 2: Not only did I start that at a retirement account.
Speaker 3: I started putting money away because you know, I'm living
Speaker 3: at home, and she only asked me to for like
Speaker 3: the utility bill, you know, whatever, the electric bill and
Speaker 3: the rest of it. I was able to just put away.
Speaker 3: I put that money away, and over the course of
Speaker 3: eighteen months, I said, up six thousand dollars and I
Speaker 3: had I got my credit score to like six sixty
Speaker 3: six eighty something like that before I left and got
Speaker 3: my first apartment, you know, just because I needed my
Speaker 3: own privacy, my home space, whatever. But because of that conversation,
Speaker 3: it put us put me on track to have the
Speaker 3: ability to buy my first crib, which I did at
Speaker 3: the age of twenty five.
Speaker 4: That's powerful. So, I mean, y'all are born and raised
Speaker 4: in Chicago, but mom's from the Bahamas, right, and Nasaw Bahamas.
Speaker 4: So I mean mom saund like she's she's been on
Speaker 4: the point, right with your mom.
Speaker 3: Like when you have an immigrant parent, man, you realize
Speaker 3: that they're gonna tell you stories like we had to
Speaker 3: walk all the way to school, tell me about it
Speaker 3: and walk back. We had to help with what, you know,
Speaker 3: Grace's store. You know, we didn't get to go do whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the beach was right there, and we saw the beach.
Speaker 3: We didn't go to the beach until Saturday, you know.
Speaker 4: Like stuff like that. But that did y'all have land
Speaker 4: out there as well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we do they have they'll do Okay, we're
Speaker 2: building new construction right now we'll shout out to the
Speaker 2: Bahamas too. We know that they you know, they're recovering
Speaker 2: from from the hurricane.
Speaker 3: Absolute last event that we had, we were able to
Speaker 3: put together a palette and together with other Bahamians from yeah,
Speaker 3: the Obamas Association of Chicago, we were able to put
Speaker 3: eight thousand, eight hundred pounds worth of water, nonperishable food,
Speaker 3: and clothes and send it to Grand Bahamas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so if you are listening, please they still need
Speaker 6: your help, for sure.
Speaker 2: Stilled for sure, God bless God bless. So all right,
Speaker 2: so now in the second segment, we're going to go
Speaker 2: into your your star level show. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 2: that and how that came about. All right, So now
Speaker 2: we're going to go into you know, your your local
Speaker 2: celebrity status and shout out to my guy, Jamal Jefferies.
Speaker 2: He's from Chicago and he's a friend of ours. And
Speaker 2: when we got before we got in, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 2: you know these guys are downing brothers, Like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: the guys they from the South Side, the guys from
Speaker 2: the south Side. How was that Chicago impression?
Speaker 4: That was good?
Speaker 5: When we were at the event, and everybody's like yo, man,
Speaker 5: like them gym shoes you got on.
Speaker 4: They're like them Jim shoes. I'm like the kicks, they're
Speaker 4: like the jym shoes.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm like, I got definitely call them the guys.
Speaker 2: The guybody like the guys. Yeah, me and the guys.
Speaker 4: So yeah, shout the shot town.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, so all right, so you're firefighters, right,
Speaker 2: and then you start your goal to state investors career.
Speaker 2: But then how did you get picked up to do
Speaker 2: a TV show?
Speaker 4: Like? How does that work out? Man?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you it didn't happen on purpose. We
Speaker 3: were helping our cousin rehab this six unit of the
Speaker 3: department building when we got a call from Troy Prior,
Speaker 3: who who runs the Creative Cipher here in Chicago and
Speaker 3: we went to college with him, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 3: I got this director that wants to do the his
Speaker 3: torture scene and we need like like a basement or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 4: Y'all working on any properties where y'all haven't.
Speaker 2: Finished the basement yet?
Speaker 3: He was like, yeah, man, come on over to this
Speaker 3: building that we're working on right now, you know over
Speaker 3: here in yeah, in South Shore. And so when he
Speaker 3: comes and they look at both of the basements because
Speaker 3: you know, it's six you in the building, so they
Speaker 3: kind of had like separated basements. And as he's getting
Speaker 3: ready to leave, he turns to us and he's like, man,
Speaker 3: have y'all ever thought about doing a show on ag TV?
Speaker 4: This is a side house? Right, not at all?
Speaker 2: But he was being deak, he.
Speaker 3: Was seriously and then he pulled he literally pulled out
Speaker 3: his phone and said, no, man, I want you to
Speaker 3: talk to Craig Harris Man. That's one of my five brothers.
Speaker 3: And you know, he's really serious in this in this
Speaker 3: TV industry, and he has he has a show out
Speaker 3: now and this, that and the other. And he actually
Speaker 3: put us on speakerphone, like he didn't give us a choice.
Speaker 3: He put us on speakerphone.
Speaker 4: And now we're just like, oh, hey, how you doing now?
Speaker 3: So we started talking to create ask us all these
Speaker 3: questions about what we do, where we're from, so on
Speaker 3: and so forth, you know, what properties we're working on,
Speaker 3: and I guess it gets get to know our background
Speaker 3: and our personality.
Speaker 4: And then after that he was.
Speaker 3: Like, hey, well you know what, I need you to
Speaker 3: send me some pictures in a bio. We did it
Speaker 3: that same night. Then it got it got real because
Speaker 3: they were.
Speaker 4: Being so serious. We will be serious.
Speaker 2: So ey L is the educational platform and we kind
Speaker 2: of like dig deep, and I think this is a
Speaker 2: good segment to talk about as far as like people
Speaker 2: that might be in a situation, right, what does it
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What is an offer? Do they come with a first offer?
Speaker 2: Do you counter offer? Do they just say, okay, this
Speaker 2: is like the flat rate we give people? Like how
Speaker 2: does that look? How do you know you're getting a
Speaker 2: good deal? Like you have a lawyer, Like, how does
Speaker 2: that work out? So we had to go get a
Speaker 2: lawyer right away. Yeah, we got an entertainment lawyer. And
Speaker 2: then he explained to us what the industry standard is.
Speaker 2: That's like a keyword industry standard from when you get
Speaker 2: paid for someone who's in your exact position, someone who's
Speaker 2: for us, no TV experience, never done any of this
Speaker 2: stuff before, and he actually was able to tell us
Speaker 2: exactly how much people people get paid.
Speaker 6: And but it was a unique situation for us because
Speaker 6: we weren't just getting.
Speaker 4: Paid for for being talent in front of the camera.
Speaker 3: We're also getting paid that actual, realistic right, and then
Speaker 3: all the resources that they give.
Speaker 2: You when you're explain that. Explain that. So they're giving
Speaker 2: you deals.
Speaker 3: No, no, we had we had to find the property ourselves, okay,
Speaker 3: and plus plus they we didn't have one hundred percent
Speaker 3: of like everything that the at TV you know, gives
Speaker 3: their talent because it was a pightlet Yeah, because you
Speaker 3: don't get all of that stuff until you go to series.
Speaker 4: Then they give you a much bigger budget. So like
Speaker 4: the Property Brothers, their budget is out the wall.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's as big as it gets.
Speaker 2: So like, all right, but what do you mean a budget? Like, well,
Speaker 2: they have a budget for how.
Speaker 3: Much they will help to pay for the contractors, they
Speaker 3: material oials that they can contribute to if through this,
Speaker 3: sponsors and things of that.
Speaker 4: Nation.
Speaker 2: So like let's say that they all right, so they
Speaker 2: give a salary, let's say one hundred thousand dollars, and
Speaker 2: they give a budget of two hundred thousand. The two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars budget, you find the properties, They give
Speaker 2: you a budget two hundred thousand, and you use that
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand and actually fix up the home.
Speaker 3: Right now, you got to secure the property yourself, though
Speaker 3: it's still on you. You have to secure the properties.
Speaker 4: One of the things I like about what y'all were doing.
Speaker 5: It was like opposed to that other show, was like
Speaker 5: they were Every time I watch it, it's like they
Speaker 5: find a property, it's seven hundred thousand, it's gonna one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty to renovates eight hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4: And when y'all looked at it, y'all like, listen, man,
Speaker 4: we don't do that.
Speaker 3: Like one, we wanted to do properties in our own neighborhood, right,
Speaker 3: and we wanted to be authentic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you would. And I read that.
Speaker 5: I was just like, look, man, y'all you were looking
Speaker 5: for properties obviously in your neighborhoods, right, And it was
Speaker 5: like the properties are going for like two hund thousand,
Speaker 5: two hundred fifty thousand. That's more relative, like we can
Speaker 5: reach that. Having had a property that's a million dollars
Speaker 5: is not attainable for us at this moment. It was
Speaker 5: more people can do the two hundred thousand, the one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, I'm listening to like you know,
Speaker 3: they all have callers, Like we've been on radio shows,
Speaker 3: callers call in and I think or we've had people
Speaker 3: you know who jump on and make comments on social media.
Speaker 3: And I think the thing that they appreciated the most
Speaker 3: is like, man, just being everyday people, being sincere, being
Speaker 3: honest about what we're doing, where we're doing it and why,
Speaker 3: you know, and it not just being transactional, but being transformative,
Speaker 3: like you got to be like we have to actually
Speaker 3: care about our neighborhoods and not just try to get over,
Speaker 3: you know. And then on top of that, you know,
Speaker 3: if anybody listens to you know, listen to our podcast
Speaker 3: or or sees us at a seminar, we actually tell
Speaker 3: the actual numbers. This is how much the property costs.
Speaker 3: This is how much we have to bring the clothes
Speaker 3: and cash. This was the interest rate, you know, all
Speaker 3: of those different things, because we want people to learn
Speaker 3: from our experiences. So it's not just oh, it's not
Speaker 3: just entertainment, but we want to educate.
Speaker 2: So a TV deal is it like one year or
Speaker 2: is it like per season? How do they how do
Speaker 2: they how do they gauge? Like, Okay, this is we're
Speaker 2: going to renew this for a second season, Like.
Speaker 4: How did that work?
Speaker 2: The TV deals are much like the NBA, or more
Speaker 2: and more like the NFL.
Speaker 3: Right, the pilot was the only part that was guaranteed,
Speaker 3: even though we signed a contract for the full season.
Speaker 4: But it is they have the option. Yeah, how many
Speaker 4: episodes is the season? Generally either ten or twelve.
Speaker 2: So but you got paid for the whole season, even
Speaker 2: if they didn't know.
Speaker 3: We only I paid for the for the pilot episode. Right,
Speaker 3: pilot was one episode, one episode.
Speaker 5: So after after the pilot, depending on the ratings of
Speaker 5: the pilot, they will say, we're going to.
Speaker 4: Pick this up for a season, right, the ratings and
Speaker 4: the politics.
Speaker 5: Okay, it's more politics because our ratings now something Else'll
Speaker 5: y'all do that? That is are very intentional, Right, you'll
Speaker 5: hire people that look like us, right, and not just us,
Speaker 5: but I saw like women specifically women that look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I mean all of that was intentional because
Speaker 3: we knew we only had one shot.
Speaker 2: Like you really feel that way.
Speaker 3: So we've been watching HGTV since you know, forever, you know,
Speaker 3: since we were in college and things like that. We
Speaker 3: wanted everyone to see that we really actually work with
Speaker 3: people that look like.
Speaker 2: Us, that the neighborhood was our neighborhood.
Speaker 4: Things like that, like, you know, you know, it.
Speaker 3: Was super important and we even as people were riding past,
Speaker 3: whenever they saw.
Speaker 4: All of those TV cameras in front of our.
Speaker 3: In front of the house we're working on, they would
Speaker 3: stop and say, hey, what's going on, guys, what y'all
Speaker 3: doing here?
Speaker 4: Dah da da da. We spoke to them.
Speaker 2: We weren't trying to act all high and mighty and
Speaker 2: nothing like that.
Speaker 4: We let him know what's going.
Speaker 2: On with them, know what's going on while we're doing it,
Speaker 2: so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: So I mean it's like, so we can have that
Speaker 3: positive social impact and people feel included and they understand, like, yo,
Speaker 3: what we're doing is actually gonna make the neighborhood better.
Speaker 3: And on top of that, we're like we're not pushing,
Speaker 3: you know, taking us to one thousand dollars house and
Speaker 3: making it into a five hundred thousand and one and
Speaker 3: now nobody can afford to live in the neighborhood like overnight,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: You know, So, I don't know, it's just common sense
Speaker 6: type of things.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Even with the orderman, the city council member, you know,
Speaker 3: we got her involved and let her know what was
Speaker 3: going on and be inclusive of everybody. So I mean
Speaker 3: that's why our journey, it's kind of different.
Speaker 2: So even all right, so we talked about the publishers
Speaker 2: right with that part of HGTV packaging or that.
Speaker 4: Earners what's up.
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Speaker 2: The brand our own publicist. So what made you What
Speaker 2: made you decide you wanted to get a publicist?
Speaker 3: Well, one, we wanted to take control of our own
Speaker 3: narrative and take control of the direction and opportunities right,
Speaker 3: because you know, when you get an opportunity like this
Speaker 3: and you're on national TV, not just local TV, but
Speaker 3: national TV, you know you have to start thinking about.
Speaker 6: Like, you know, how much exposure you can get, how many.
Speaker 3: Opportunities you can you know, basically create out of that,
Speaker 3: like partnerships, endorsements, business deals. Because the other thing, too
Speaker 3: is you got what happens on TV and you got
Speaker 3: what's happening in real life. And you know, we want
Speaker 3: to continue to grow and create more actual transactions for
Speaker 3: you know, our real estate business because we want to
Speaker 3: flip as many houses.
Speaker 6: We want to scale. Scale is a big word, Like scaling.
Speaker 3: Means you go from doing just one house at a
Speaker 3: time to doing two or three houses, to go into
Speaker 3: commercial properties. And you know, now once we were made
Speaker 3: aware because awareness is like the biggest thing. That's why
Speaker 3: this podcast is so awesome because it's like it may
Speaker 3: raise our awareness available to us so we can.
Speaker 2: Start pursuing those those yeah for real appreciation.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean I think about assets of aliabilities,
Speaker 3: Like we were like what assets can we create and
Speaker 3: what partnerships can we create? And that's why the publichers
Speaker 3: getting us all that exposure open all of these doors.
Speaker 2: That we currently have.
Speaker 3: And a publicists understood that we wanted to be on
Speaker 3: black platforms just as much as we were going to
Speaker 3: be on ABC or WGN those things. Of course, you
Speaker 3: want to be on those two, but we need We
Speaker 3: wanted to be on WGCI, you know, a black radio station.
Speaker 3: We wanted to be on WVO in to reach parts
Speaker 3: of our community. Like WV WAYN kind of caters to
Speaker 3: like the like middle aged you know, African Americans and whatnot,
Speaker 3: So we wanted our publicists was able to get us
Speaker 3: into those spaces as well as like the big stations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's crazy because like what y'all doing.
Speaker 5: And my man Mike shout out to Mike, like he
Speaker 5: always has a word that he sticks with, so narrative
Speaker 5: was like usually his word. He's like, yo, y'all changed
Speaker 5: in the narrative because when we think, especially from New York,
Speaker 5: when we hear the South Side of Chicago, we think violence.
Speaker 5: But y'all are changing the narrative, Like y'all seeing the
Speaker 5: impact that people are trying to continue, like down your
Speaker 5: path as well.
Speaker 3: Speaking to that, the neighborhood we picked, pill Hill, was
Speaker 3: one is one of the best black neighborhoods in Chicago.
Speaker 3: So like when people got to see that, they got
Speaker 3: again you're right for the first time, I got to see, Wow,
Speaker 3: they didn't go to Inglewood or was where the people
Speaker 3: are shooting this stuff.
Speaker 2: I thought black folks lived in bad neighborhoods. Nah, we
Speaker 2: have good neighborhoods too.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: Seminars right, we are in a position now.
Speaker 3: Shout out to to Jered Greer and guaranteed rate making
Speaker 3: it available for us to have seminars to educate people
Speaker 3: about home ownership and how to get financing and how
Speaker 3: to buy properties and do everything that they see us doing,
Speaker 3: and that that's the thing making.
Speaker 4: It available to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because with corporate sponsorship, we're able to get so
Speaker 3: many more people on opportunity to get in on real estate.
Speaker 2: The way we're getting in on real estate, it's a
Speaker 2: big need for people are super excited.
Speaker 3: I mean just think about I mean just last night
Speaker 3: we were at the networking social how many people came
Speaker 3: out because they're really serious about starting to bid as
Speaker 3: an owning property. Like there's a big niche that it
Speaker 3: needs to be filled, there's a there's a problem that
Speaker 3: needs to be answered.
Speaker 2: How did you get how did you get the corporate sponsorship?
Speaker 3: That actually kind of felt by accident because so so
Speaker 3: Jared Right happens to be having a business meeting now
Speaker 3: you know how you say you're Jamaican Right restaurant. We
Speaker 3: were at jog Grill High Park on the side Cargo
Speaker 3: A and it was just like the second time our
Speaker 3: show was coming on TV. And we didn't want to
Speaker 3: be at home and this wasn't you know, any of
Speaker 3: that type of stuff. We wanted to sit and eat,
Speaker 3: you know, some West Indian food. We're behaving. We wanted
Speaker 3: to eat some West Indian food and watch ourselves on TV.
Speaker 3: And Thenarer and one of his coworkers or colleagues, they
Speaker 3: were there for some type of lunch business, lunch whatever,
Speaker 3: and he walks up to the bar because we were
Speaker 3: eating at the bar, and he looks up at the
Speaker 3: screen and he looks at us like, is that y'all.
Speaker 4: Exactly?
Speaker 3: And the crazy thing about it is, it's not like
Speaker 3: we did business immediately, like we exchanged information and it
Speaker 3: was like five four, five six months or something like
Speaker 3: that before we actually reconnected. And then we you know,
Speaker 3: kind of exchanged ideas.
Speaker 6: This is what we want to do.
Speaker 3: We want to start having these live seminars to kate
Speaker 3: people about what we're doing.
Speaker 6: And I think that it would benefit you know, his
Speaker 6: business and guarantee rate and so on and so forth.
Speaker 6: And it's just it naturally, it was a natural fit.
Speaker 2: So when you when you all right, So as far
Speaker 2: as this is an interesting conversation because when the day
Speaker 2: and age now where TV's kind of dying. We talked
Speaker 2: about this off camera, and it's streaming but even not YouTube, right,
Speaker 2: So it's like for you, you're on you're still on
Speaker 2: your you're on TV, right, but you have a podcast
Speaker 2: and you do stuff outside of that as well. So
Speaker 2: for somebody that may want to follow your footsteps, right,
Speaker 2: is it more beneficial to be on a network or
Speaker 2: is it more beneficial to start your own thing through
Speaker 2: independent on YouTube or is streaming? Like what's what's the
Speaker 2: differences and what's your what's your personal take on it?
Speaker 2: Because you actually have a TV show on a network,
Speaker 2: So I think.
Speaker 3: Really you got to start somewhere, I mean starting your
Speaker 3: own Like a lot of people are becoming famous now.
Speaker 3: You think about like little nas X he was on
Speaker 3: TikTok and blew up because he started his own content.
Speaker 3: You got to create your own content and create your
Speaker 3: own exposure and create your own opportunities. We our story
Speaker 3: was different because we weren't trying to do this and
Speaker 3: we kind of felt backwards into it and everything that
Speaker 3: even now we're continuing to just like be ourselves and
Speaker 3: then opportunities come to us. And that's the other thing too,
Speaker 3: be true to yourself, don't try to be anybody else,
Speaker 3: and create your content and be good and be of
Speaker 3: service to people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Help that's the biggest part with whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3: Don't tear people down, be of service and try to
Speaker 3: be helpful and bring joy into this world. So I think,
Speaker 3: create your own content and then start networking, go to
Speaker 3: the conferences and start meeting people who work in the industry, publicists,
Speaker 3: people who work in n PR. There are people who
Speaker 3: are already doing the things and already working in the spaces,
Speaker 3: and you just gotta figure out how you can develop relationships,
Speaker 3: because relationships are everything everything that's happening in our lives.
Speaker 3: Because if you have a conversation with us a year
Speaker 3: from now, I don't think we're really prepared to talk
Speaker 3: about what we're doing right now, but a year from now,
Speaker 3: you're going to see it. And it's all because of
Speaker 3: the relationships that we have that now are creating an
Speaker 3: opportunity for us to move from residentials to I think
Speaker 3: the big thing is is that oftentimes when you look
Speaker 3: at at hip hop, or if you look at black
Speaker 3: folks and other aspects of entertainment, we're big upping ourselves
Speaker 3: constantly look at this crystal, look at this mansion I'm living.
Speaker 4: In, or all of that type of stuff.
Speaker 3: But until your conversation is about how you're gonna tell
Speaker 3: other people how they can get what you got, you know.
Speaker 2: It's stalls.
Speaker 3: Like our biggest thing that we're doing right now is
Speaker 3: telling people how to get the multi unit buildings that
Speaker 3: we have. That translated into flipping the cash flow and
Speaker 3: cash flow and all those type of things and showing
Speaker 3: people the numbers and saying you can do this as well.
Speaker 3: This is not about us trying to floss on y'all right,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I'm looking at how you got
Speaker 3: shot to the top. My observation of what's happening with
Speaker 3: UNR Leisure is that you are providing a service and
Speaker 3: education to people, and people become supporters of you and
Speaker 3: they reshare reposts and share everything that you got going on,
Speaker 3: but big facts.
Speaker 4: Because you're helping people.
Speaker 2: What is like, it's the it's like, what is it?
Speaker 2: What's in it for me? And if you can answer
Speaker 2: what's in it for me?
Speaker 3: For the person who's sitting across from you, or who's
Speaker 3: on the other side of the TV screen or or phone,
Speaker 3: that's how you get where you want to be as
Speaker 3: far as if you're trying to land the TV show,
Speaker 3: be on radio, or whatever your dream.
Speaker 4: Is hashtag big Facts. This is a public announcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys are good because that's a perfect segment
Speaker 2: to our next time. An example, what you're gonna talk
Speaker 2: about what you guys are doing, and we're gonna break
Speaker 2: down some numbers hopefully, So we gotta talk about that
Speaker 2: for sure. All right, So now we're going to go
Speaker 2: into what you guys actually are on TV for as
Speaker 2: far as you know, fixing up homes and flipping homes
Speaker 2: in Chicago, specifically in southside Chicago, right, that's your area
Speaker 2: you focus on, all right, So okay, so what's the
Speaker 2: real estate opportunities because in Chicago with in Chicago, So
Speaker 2: I think it's important to talk about how like that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: before we start anything. What's how is the what's Chicago
Speaker 2: real estate looking like? And what's the real estate opportunities
Speaker 2: in Chicago?
Speaker 3: There are a lot of opportunities in Chicago. Man, we
Speaker 3: have one of the hottest markets in the country.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The question is, you know, it's just how are you starting?
Speaker 3: I mean, if you do have your your credit and
Speaker 3: your and your money saved up.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: As a first time home buyer, there's an enormous amount
Speaker 3: of opportunities, and we advise people that are starting off
Speaker 3: to go for cash flow, go get that three or
Speaker 3: four unit of property, or go get a two or
Speaker 3: three K renovation loan or some kind of Fanny made
Speaker 3: construction loan so that you can get properties below market value.
Speaker 2: Because there's thousands I'm not talking about hundreds of property.
Speaker 6: There's thousands of properties in the Chicago land area.
Speaker 3: Yes, that you can get below market value and renovate
Speaker 3: and then turn that into a cash flowing property or
Speaker 3: a property that you used to live in for a
Speaker 3: couple of years.
Speaker 4: You know people talking about house hacking.
Speaker 3: Now you know, living for a couple of years and
Speaker 3: then you know, sell it after two years and now
Speaker 3: you got this check.
Speaker 6: And now you got capital to start a business or
Speaker 6: get another property or.
Speaker 2: Do multiple things. So when you say below market value,
Speaker 2: what are we talking about as far as numbers, It's
Speaker 2: like some what's an example of like a home that
Speaker 2: you just recently flipped though, something that you can like
Speaker 2: expect like okay, this is something that is typical men
Speaker 2: tell him.
Speaker 4: About the one over at the Bronxville house.
Speaker 6: You said the last property.
Speaker 2: To be the last one you could be what Anya right?
Speaker 4: So what I do? Use this example a lot?
Speaker 3: So, so I got a three thousand square foot greystone
Speaker 3: single family home, greystone, greystone.
Speaker 4: What is that like? A brownstone? Brownstone? Right?
Speaker 3: So I got a square foot graystone in Bronsville, which
Speaker 3: is a neighborhood on the south side, got that for
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand. Got it below market value because the
Speaker 3: recession was going on and the guy was trying to
Speaker 3: sell it because he was in pre foreclosure. So got
Speaker 3: it for two hundred thousand. And I used a two
Speaker 3: O three K renovation loan for that property. So that
Speaker 3: allowed me to have the money to purchased the property
Speaker 3: for two hundred thousand. And I also rolled in thirty
Speaker 3: thousand in renovation. Now this property didn't require a gut rehab.
Speaker 3: I mean thirty thousand. I did a couple of the bathrooms,
Speaker 3: redid the porch and the kitchen, and that's what I
Speaker 3: initially did.
Speaker 2: Made all of those things look brand new. Didn't touch
Speaker 2: any of the drywall throughout the house.
Speaker 4: None of that type of stuff. This is not a
Speaker 4: fixer upper.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so this was just updating a great opportunity,
Speaker 2: and you only put three percent down, three and a
Speaker 2: half percent.
Speaker 3: So I came to that closing with seventy seven hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: so seven thousand, seve hundred dollars. And the reason why
Speaker 3: is because I couldn't negotiate because it was the bank
Speaker 3: and it was a foreclosure.
Speaker 2: I want to, I want to, I want that, the
Speaker 2: Gold people said, because we talked about two or three
Speaker 2: K loan actually with Jay Morrison, but we didn't go
Speaker 2: through a real world example.
Speaker 4: So this is good.
Speaker 2: So you got a two hundred thousand dollars property and
Speaker 2: then you had thirty thousand for renovation courts, so it's
Speaker 2: two hundred.
Speaker 4: And thirty thousands the full loan.
Speaker 2: The two three K loan allowed you to put three
Speaker 2: to three point five percent down, but the thirty k
Speaker 2: gets wrapped into the mortgage. So three percent of two
Speaker 2: thirty is like seven thousand, seven seven something. So you
Speaker 2: got the renovation and the home for not including closing costs,
Speaker 2: but out seven thousand dollars is how much the down
Speaker 2: payment was, right, we're closing costs?
Speaker 4: How much was it with closing cost?
Speaker 6: I mean I came to closing total all in for
Speaker 6: seventy seven hundred.
Speaker 4: How did you roll that into the market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was all rolled in. Okay, he rolled
Speaker 3: it in, all right, that's good to know. Actually actually
Speaker 3: rolled in three of the first month's payments into the
Speaker 3: into the loan also, so I didn't have to make
Speaker 3: my first payment.
Speaker 6: And so I was actually moving into the property, which
Speaker 6: was ninety days later.
Speaker 5: That's because you were there, was gonna you were updating
Speaker 5: the bathrooms, right because.
Speaker 2: All the update Okay, I'm sorry, I got you off
Speaker 2: sor right, So now speed it up. So all right,
Speaker 2: you got the property for seventy seven hundred. Now you
Speaker 2: have it. Now what now?
Speaker 3: Now I have it, renovation needs to start, all right,
Speaker 3: just about immediately. So in that process, I had already
Speaker 3: got three different contractors to give scope of work so
Speaker 3: that I can decide which one I wanted to work
Speaker 3: with as far as you know, just completing the work
Speaker 3: and how much still the materials would cost and things.
Speaker 3: And you make the contractors very honest when they know
Speaker 3: that they're one of three in the competing.
Speaker 5: What was that process like dealing with contracts because a
Speaker 5: lot of times people going to these deals and they
Speaker 5: say that's the toughest part is dealing with contractors.
Speaker 3: We always push doing these these two or three K
Speaker 3: renovation loans because when you do a renovation loan, there
Speaker 3: is an inspector who comes behind the contractors on each
Speaker 3: draw or phase of the project. The money comes each draw,
Speaker 3: let's say thirty thousand, you get ten thousand and three
Speaker 3: times the money comes to the homeowner.
Speaker 2: That ten thousand dollars to pay the contractor.
Speaker 3: The contractor for the first draw has to do that
Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars worth of work out of its own pocket.
Speaker 3: The contractor has to put his ow own money up
Speaker 3: and has an inspector who comes to make sure that
Speaker 3: he's done the work up the code before the money
Speaker 3: is released to the homeowner to give to them for
Speaker 3: the next phase. So they don't make their profit until
Speaker 3: they finished all of the work because they had to
Speaker 3: go to do the first phase out of pocket.
Speaker 2: So now the homeowner's protected.
Speaker 3: So now that there's no contract to getting over on
Speaker 3: you or trying to convince you that the work is
Speaker 3: good enough.
Speaker 5: Quick question now, because I'm thinking like you guys are
Speaker 5: firefighters and obviously you guys must know cold right that
Speaker 5: did your experience at being firefighters?
Speaker 3: Hope you during that process, yes, because I mean as
Speaker 3: firefighters too, I mean learn we learn about building construction
Speaker 3: and we see a whole lot because we in the
Speaker 3: process of being firefighter, you see houses that are like
Speaker 3: burned down and destroyed, so you see everything, and we
Speaker 3: tear out a lot of walls and ceilings and things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: So we're kind of on the other side of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we also work with a lot of
Speaker 3: firefighters happened to be in the trades, so we you know,
Speaker 3: you learn a lot through that process also. So I
Speaker 3: mean the thing is it removed all the fear because
Speaker 3: you actually had this this inspector who comes and make
Speaker 3: sure that the work is done complete.
Speaker 2: So all right, So okay, so now you started the
Speaker 2: bringing the contractors in. What's the next steps after that?
Speaker 2: Like how long did it take to fully renovate it?
Speaker 2: When we were able to get tenants in, Like what's
Speaker 2: the deal?
Speaker 4: Well, well, this was a.
Speaker 3: Single family home, so I wasn't I didn't have to
Speaker 3: deal with tennants. But I had ninety days to get
Speaker 3: the work, to get the work done, and it actually
Speaker 3: it got done in a short period than that. I
Speaker 3: think we were done in like, you know, sixty five
Speaker 3: seventy days or whatever. So by the time I had
Speaker 3: to make my first payment more dis payment, I was
Speaker 3: able to move in, move my front frontiture in and
Speaker 3: it started.
Speaker 4: You was living there? Yeah, I live there? How long
Speaker 4: did you live there?
Speaker 3: I was there for three a little about three and
Speaker 3: a half years. My attention was to be there for
Speaker 3: two years because I knew that, you know, after two years,
Speaker 3: I would be able to.
Speaker 6: Sell the property no capital games.
Speaker 3: And also I knew that my credit would go back
Speaker 3: up because I did short I did a short selle.
Speaker 3: See we didn't include that the condo that I had,
Speaker 3: I did a short sell on that. After two years,
Speaker 3: my credit went back up, and it coincided with my
Speaker 3: ability to sell this property with no capital gains. Now
Speaker 3: I was enjoying myself so much that I actually ended
Speaker 3: up staying for a little bit longer than I anticipated.
Speaker 3: We had so many parts, said Toga parties, and so
Speaker 3: you guys were both living boils.
Speaker 4: You guys are both living in the promy.
Speaker 2: So can you talk about that capital gains? You said
Speaker 2: that in two years. You allowed you not to play
Speaker 2: capital game, right, so you haven't been there twenty four months.
Speaker 4: That's the rule. What is capital gains?
Speaker 3: Capital gains is the profit that you make on a property,
Speaker 3: the difference between how much you paid for it and
Speaker 3: how much you actually sold the property for it. So
Speaker 3: the profit is the capital game, and so the tax
Speaker 3: on the capital game happens on properties that are not
Speaker 3: your primary residents or you haven't lived in as your
Speaker 3: primary residence for at least twenty four months.
Speaker 6: So that's why I knew I needed to be there
Speaker 6: for at least.
Speaker 3: Twenty four months in order to be able to collect
Speaker 3: those capital gains, which in this instance was eighty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars cash, and then be able to then have the
Speaker 3: capital to move on to buy a multi unit property
Speaker 3: and then start flipping home was and then partnering with
Speaker 3: my brother to.
Speaker 2: Really, you know, start to do more than we had
Speaker 2: ever anticipated. So if you don't live in a property
Speaker 2: for more than a year and you sell it, but
Speaker 2: you use their proceeds to buy another home, you still
Speaker 2: have to pick capital games.
Speaker 4: Joe.
Speaker 3: You can do what they call ten thirty five yeah exchange, Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, he knew he knew.
Speaker 2: What you want to Well, there's different waces. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I answered my own question.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: So Okay, in the whole time that he was doing that,
Speaker 3: mind you, I'm also buying out to the unit buildings
Speaker 3: while he's doing that. Right, So by the time he
Speaker 3: sold that property three and a half years later, I
Speaker 3: already had two three unit buildings.
Speaker 4: And a cash flow.
Speaker 3: So it's like the two of us are like one,
Speaker 3: like one person, right, because I'm implying one strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and when his condo went from worth of one fifty
Speaker 3: to being upside down to thirty thousand, I looked at that.
Speaker 3: I was like, ain't never buying a condo. In fact,
Speaker 3: I ain't buying a house neither. You know, I'm going
Speaker 3: straight for the multi unit apartment buildings.
Speaker 4: Thanks for making that mistake, bro, Yeah, somebody.
Speaker 2: Has to jump out there first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, bus over.
Speaker 3: But the thing is what we did learn, though, is
Speaker 3: we learned about the power of cash flow, and we
Speaker 3: learned about the power of buying properties below market value.
Speaker 2: And being able to get that cash and that leverage
Speaker 2: for us to then be able to go.
Speaker 3: Now, now I got this lump summer money and now
Speaker 3: it's like, okay, now let's buy another multi unit property.
Speaker 2: So we for cash flow. Now let's go.
Speaker 3: You know, we went hard money, you know, did a
Speaker 3: flip that way and then and then you know from there,
Speaker 3: now the wheels are turning and now you're the next deal.
Speaker 4: And the next deal.
Speaker 3: More confidence, more confidence things you know, things go wrong
Speaker 3: and and those when you get burned when you touch
Speaker 3: that stove, we don't ever touch it again. So like,
Speaker 3: you know, different things that we learned about how we
Speaker 3: deal with contracts and stuff like that. You know, everything
Speaker 3: didn't just you know, shoot perfectly, but it's still was
Speaker 3: you know, enabled us to make it to the point
Speaker 3: where we ended up on TV. How did you how
Speaker 3: much did you sell that property for? I ended up
Speaker 3: selling that property for three fifteen six three fifteen and
Speaker 3: well you want to give the exact three thousand and
Speaker 3: sixteen thousand and five hundred or whatever it was.
Speaker 4: But yeah, in two years, you held two years, three.
Speaker 2: Bad so one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars profit that
Speaker 2: you made right for three years and you got it
Speaker 2: for seventy seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: How much was your monthly mortgage?
Speaker 6: My monthly mortgage was like I think it was like
Speaker 6: fourteen hundred.
Speaker 4: That's powerful.
Speaker 2: That's actually really powerful because especially in New York, we're
Speaker 2: paying rent for nineteen hundred, twenty one hundred, twenty two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a month.
Speaker 4: Where is that at? It's like, right, what the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one? That is? What room? Okay? Not three thousand
Speaker 4: square feet?
Speaker 2: No way, Maybe it wasn't three bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Speaker 4: Maybe nine hundred square feet, no.
Speaker 2: Man, seven seven hundred square feet one bedroom, one bathroom,
Speaker 2: rough man, And you got to the parking so you
Speaker 2: got you got a property for seven thousand dollars, paying
Speaker 2: under two thousand dollars a month, and you held it
Speaker 2: for a couple of years and made one hundred and
Speaker 2: summi thousand dollars profits. I say that to say a
Speaker 2: lot of times people don't fully understand how attainable buying
Speaker 2: a home really is. Ken it's different programs and there's
Speaker 2: different ways you have to educate yourself. That's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons of the podcast. But it's it's not as
Speaker 2: far fetched as.
Speaker 4: It may seem. You know, it's not.
Speaker 5: I think I mean people, I think people live in
Speaker 5: fair right because they've never seen it like we Like
Speaker 5: I said earlier, it's like we're first generation, so like
Speaker 5: we don't know what we don't know, Like people don't
Speaker 5: know that these these these opportunities are out there. I
Speaker 5: had a question for you guys because I was driving
Speaker 5: in on in the Uber and I was looking around
Speaker 5: in the cab. Driver I'm like, oh, it's the south side.
Speaker 5: He's like, yeah, same thing it looked like twenty years ago.
Speaker 5: And I was like, all right, Well, I see a
Speaker 5: lot of mom and pop stores. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 5: so this there's been entrepreneurism in the community and in
Speaker 5: retail space and commercial types of space.
Speaker 4: So what is the future for entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5: Are these opportunities out there for them to buy these spaces,
Speaker 5: like what does it look like?
Speaker 3: You know, we have a Frive brother with Nel Saligne.
Speaker 3: Him and his wife have a nels A line and
Speaker 3: it's a mixed use space. They have a section eight
Speaker 3: tenant upstairs that pays the mortgage for the entire property.
Speaker 3: So what they make is pure profit. And I think
Speaker 3: that that's that's the future there. We need us to
Speaker 3: buy those mixed use buildings, whether there's two or three
Speaker 3: or four apartments.
Speaker 4: Above and then like two like storefronts in the bottom.
Speaker 4: What we need to grab all of those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the thing is there are city programs that
Speaker 3: you can get assistance for buying homes the city, county,
Speaker 3: and state.
Speaker 2: So I mean the thing is, wherever you live, you
Speaker 2: have to look and see.
Speaker 3: What kind of homeowner assistance programs they are. That the
Speaker 3: facismen I had to come with that seventy seven hundred
Speaker 3: dollars in down payment. There may have been some kind
Speaker 3: of assistance program, but you got to do your own
Speaker 3: research that he would have paid that seventy you know,
Speaker 3: that seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: There are tons of those programs.
Speaker 3: And then for business owners right here in Chicago, they
Speaker 3: I can't remember the name of the program. Chicago Neighborhood
Speaker 3: is something or on another program that actually helps with
Speaker 3: well they'll match how much money you need in order
Speaker 3: to renovate a property for your business, right you know.
Speaker 3: So there are these programs out there due to research,
Speaker 3: because there are there's money out there from the government
Speaker 3: to help you create your business and buy your property.
Speaker 2: So when we talked about Chicago, unfortunately, you know a
Speaker 2: lot of times we people think about Chicago, they had
Speaker 2: about like the violence right especially on the South Side
Speaker 2: West Side. So, but we was driving in the Uber
Speaker 2: and I was telling the Uber driver like where we
Speaker 2: was going, and he's like, you know where you're going?
Speaker 4: Like you know where we go?
Speaker 2: So I'm like, nah, I don't know where I'm going.
Speaker 2: He's like he started laughing. So but I mean to me,
Speaker 2: it looks just like the Bronx. Every neighborhood is similar. So, like,
Speaker 2: what's one of the things that you can tell of
Speaker 2: people as far as like Chicago, Because you know, when
Speaker 2: we come to these cities, we just don't want to
Speaker 2: stay in downtown. We want to touch like the real
Speaker 2: parts of the city, and we want to we want
Speaker 2: to give encouragement too, Like we had negative stuff, but
Speaker 2: obviously this you're a perfect example of positive stuff that's
Speaker 2: coming out of Chicago. So like, what is what is
Speaker 2: the hopes to change the narrative of Chicago specifically, and
Speaker 2: what is the direction that you see, like as far
Speaker 2: as entrepreneurship or investing, Like, is it something that is
Speaker 2: encouraging at the moment? I think it is encouraging.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think about the building that we're sitting
Speaker 3: here to do this podcast right we're in the Woodline
Speaker 3: right now. Yeah, so you know, shout out to the
Speaker 3: owner spot. I mean, he used his money to buy
Speaker 3: this property. He actually had a city of assistance program
Speaker 3: to help fund this. And he's an example and he's
Speaker 3: not the only one. The thing is, once you start
Speaker 3: to get it, you got to think about what circles
Speaker 3: you're in. We're we're always in these circles where we're
Speaker 3: talking to other people who are creating businesses in real
Speaker 3: estate and it's happening all around you. And we do
Speaker 3: see people popping up with these businesses.
Speaker 4: On the South Side.
Speaker 3: There are these pockets. Think about when you walk in here.
Speaker 3: It's really nice and it's not the only one. There's
Speaker 3: a podcast studio in this facility. There's a cafe downstairs,
Speaker 3: and they do like pop up restaurants in there. And
Speaker 3: all of the pop up restaurants owners are black, you know,
Speaker 3: like that's what's coming now.
Speaker 4: And this is just one of them.
Speaker 2: I could think of several.
Speaker 3: I mean, shoot, Lighthouse, Mickey's Grill, they have multiple locations.
Speaker 3: Soul Shack is a like soul food restaurant bureau. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: a fly Fly apparel. So I mean they have these
Speaker 3: the sirtain madam you know what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 3: go to the clothing store. So actually their clothing is
Speaker 3: on two K twenty the basketball. Yeah, they their clothes
Speaker 3: has made it in there. You can like the character
Speaker 3: you can create. You can put the sir and madam
Speaker 3: clothing on your character.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Brian Adam shout out to y'all for doing what
Speaker 3: you're doing. So, yeah, the entrepreneurs can succeed in Chicago.
Speaker 3: There are great stories happening in Chicago. And when you
Speaker 3: look at the people they show up for U all's networking,
Speaker 3: social and different seminars that we're holding, there's a lot
Speaker 3: to be inspired and to think that great things are coming.
Speaker 2: That's powerful, man. So we want to thank you guys
Speaker 2: first and foremost for joining us. Can you tell the
Speaker 2: people how to contact you, how to watch your show,
Speaker 2: any any initiatives that you have going on.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Our Instagram is the Downing Brothers, you know, all one word,
Speaker 3: the d O W N I n G Brothers and
Speaker 3: the same thing with our websites, the Downingbrothers dot com.
Speaker 3: And you can catch us on you know, Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 3: and our podcast Homecoming with the Downer Brothers can a
Speaker 3: TV show Double Down, Double Down and so and and
Speaker 3: be looking for where we end up next year because
Speaker 3: we will be moving around.
Speaker 2: Free agents perhaps agency uh Troy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, shout to everybody on Patreon dot com, back Slash
Speaker 5: and your Leisure. That's our proud to pay program. Y'all
Speaker 5: know how this works.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: Y'all have been supporting it so amazingly. Every time we
Speaker 5: come on, I'm saying a new person's name, So shout
Speaker 5: out to y'all. It allows the podcast the show. I
Speaker 5: should really say to travel to come to cities like
Speaker 5: Chicago and get to go around the city and interview
Speaker 5: some hometown heroes.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: Shout everybody in Houston who showed us love, La showed
Speaker 5: us love. Obviously, Brooklyn that's home base. They showed love.
Speaker 5: Atlanta show love. So we want to go to your city, man,
Speaker 5: so keep supporting that. I just want to give a
Speaker 5: big shout out to David who just joined at Tier five,
Speaker 5: So shout out to him and Broderick who actually joined
Speaker 5: uh last night and we met him at.
Speaker 4: The event, so he was like, Yo, that's me. I
Speaker 4: was like, I just type to man. Yeah, So shout
Speaker 4: out to Broderick and everybody that's been some port in that.
Speaker 5: That's that's how probably the pay per program once again,
Speaker 5: and shout everybody that's been supporting the merchisia dot com.
Speaker 4: We have everything on.
Speaker 5: There, our tours, t shirts are on there, so the
Speaker 5: Chicago tour that's up there.
Speaker 4: People like yo, how y'a picking the colors?
Speaker 5: So we usually we tried like we said we you know,
Speaker 5: we did with sports and entertainment in the business side.
Speaker 5: So what we've been trying to do is match up
Speaker 5: with the football team or the basketball team's colors. So
Speaker 5: we try to get both the best colors in there.
Speaker 5: But we had a slightly technical difficulty. But shout out
Speaker 5: to everybody that that's been supporting on dot com and
Speaker 5: getting the merch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to get that ascess overliability.
Speaker 4: You know what we got you, We got you man,
Speaker 4: We brought.
Speaker 2: Got in fact and yes, yes, So thank you guys
Speaker 2: for rocking with us. We will see you next week.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Chicago Peace, Peace, appreciate it. Coach.
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