The Truth About America’s Housing Shortage | Doug French, Stylecraft Builders CEO

Speaker A: I love locally owned, family operated, a little bit more entrepreneurial type companies. And so it's been a pleasure and been so much fun to be involved and part of that legacy that my family's had for a number of years.

Speaker B: What are your thoughts on the housing shortage? I don't think it's even possible to really say that housing is overbuilt or underbuilt. As a nation, most people, as they

Speaker A: start aging, they start slowing down, they start thinking about legacy, they start thinking about having a family either get married or they have a significant other. They may have children, they want to be where their friends are and ah, I don't think that's changed because of that. I'm just a big believer that housing is here to stay. It's a great way to build generational wealth. I'm also a big believer in that. That's why I'm so pro housing. I'm not saying it is the only way, but what I am saying is it's a great way to make that monthly mortgage payment.

Speaker B: It can't be easy to start working in your dad's business. Was it as difficult as you thought it was going to be?

Speaker A: I was really handicapping really our company and that was a thousand percent my fault. It's still something that I'm learning and tweaking and trying to get better at. Uh, because it's a challenge, but it's one that I'm seeing already kind of paid dividends. I've got to outwork everybody here. I've got to be here all the time. And I remember that first year we had a policy like your first year, you didn't get a vacation until after you worked a year. Then you got one week. I could have called my dad and said, hey, dad, you know, I got my mba, I'm an executive here, I'm a VP or whatever, right? And I deserve vacation. He said, yeah, Doug, that's great. Like, I didn't do that. I wanted to make sure that I was going to have the same process and go through the same thing everybody else was. And I think that's kind of what helped me earn some respect.

Speaker B: Would you ever go into business with family? Have you ever imagined what it must be like to take over a business that was started by your father? On today's episode, I sit down with Doug French, who did just that. Doug took over the family home building company from his father and turned it into one of the largest home building operations in the entire country. Doug and I have a fascinating discussion about Everything that was involved in building his business, the complexities of being in business with families. What's going on in Texas, what's going on with the housing market in general and the construction of data centers across the U.S. i enjoyed the discussion. I think you guys are as well. Boundary breakers is brought to you by Carter and Clark. Tell us about where you were born and family and sort of where it all started for you.

Speaker A: So I'm a Texan by birth. So born in Bryan, College Station, home of Texas A and M in the early 80s. I'm 43 years old. So 1983 is when I was born and I really was born into an entrepreneurial family. If you look at it from my mom's side of the family and my dad's side of the family both had, you know, businesses in their, in their past. My great, great grandfather actually owned and ran a, uh, men's clothing store in downtown Bryan like in the early 1920s and like lost that in the depression. And then her father did a lot of oil and gas in kind of gas stations and then some distribution of oil and gas. And then my grandmother, who we affectionately call Big Mama, was like bigger than life. And she started a daycare center in her living room, grew it to five or six commercial daycare centers. Brandon. And then sold it to Kenner care in the mid-80s. And then my father took that money and started the real estate kind of home building enterprise and company that he did. So we have a lot of family legacy of just entrepreneur and in business. And that's something I take a ton of pride in. I, uh, try to talk to my kids a lot about as well because, you know, just owning a business, it's a lot of fun, but it's also a big responsibility. And I just believe that businesses can be a force for the good. And I love, you know, locally owned, family operated, kind of, you know, a little bit more entrele type companies. And so it's, it's been a pleasure and been so much fun to be involved and part of that legacy Devon family's had for a number of years.

Speaker B: I love it. I love it. So gosh, the f. That's. Those are some deep roots in Brian, College Station. So I take it that you, you grew up there, went to high school there, went to college at A and M, is that right?

Speaker A: I did, I did, yeah. So went to.

Speaker B: Go ahead.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I went to Texas A and M, studied actually psychology, which as, you know, being a business owner and being in business, there's a Lot of psychology involved. And then I went to Baylor University, just right around, right down the road, Highway 6, about an hour and a half outside of Bryan, and got my MBA there. And what was funny, Brandon, is I really like psychology, but business just came so naturally. I studied that, uh, I got a business minor at A and M. And I just breezed through it. And I think, you know, in high school and grade school, you, uh, know, my grades weren't great. I didn't love to learn. But when I got to college and I was able to say, hey, these are things that I really enjoy. And I really realized that I did, I kind of fell in love with learning even things like history and government and things that I probably wouldn't have liked before. All of a sudden I did, I started to really like, like to learn. But then what I realized is there was some things that just came so much more naturally and business was that it didn't matter if it was B law or marketing or operations or accounting or finance. Like, I loved it all. So there wasn't one necessarily specific domain that I really fell in love with. And that's why I got my mba, because it was more general. I did focus on finance and so I have more of a finance accounting background, more uh, analytical mind. But in general, like I loved, I loved operations just as much as I loved the finance classes. So really just a, uh, student and have always loved business.

Speaker B: When did you think or know that you were going to, that you wanted to be an entrepreneur or to run a business or to go into the family business? Did you know all along or did you kind of have to taste some things or get it figured out?

Speaker A: Great question. I was the kid that, when I was in third grade, talking my mom into taking me to Sam's Club, buying airheads in bulk and then going and selling to my, my friends for a quarter. Like that's. I always just had that entrepreneurial bend. I was always trying to make money either by having a, a neighborhood car wash or whatever it was. And then as I got older, I, I think I just continue to kind of lean in, into that. But yes, I always knew I wanted to run, uh, my own company. I did not always want to go work for my father.

Speaker B: Tell the story. How, how did you, like, what happened after college? What happened after your MBA in order for you to get to where you are now?

Speaker A: It's interesting. And a lot of it honestly had to do with M. The timing. It was the 0809 timing. The job market sucked, you know, and so if I had, like, uh, a lot of different options, I may have. I may have gone a different direction. And like, in my mind, Brandon, what was going to happen was I was going to go off to school. My dad kind of suggested I get an mba, so that was part of it as well. He thought it'd be a great idea, especially since I love business. So I go get this degree and I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to go away, I'm going to work, and then dad's going to call me home. He's going to give me a phone call one day and say, doug, like, you know, the business is too much for me to handle. It's grown to this certain point, like, I really want you to come home and help me operate and run this thing. I think in my mind, like, I just didn't want to be known as, like, Randy's son my whole entire life, if, if that makes sense. My dad's a very big personality, very charismatic, huge sales guy, very well known in the community. He has a big shadow, right? And so, but the more I thought about that, Brown thought, like, that's more about me and kind of ego. And so again, it was kind of a combination of me being able to get over that and then also the job market kind of pushed me over the edge there to make that phone call and say, hey, dad, like, what do you think about me coming back and joining you at the home building company? And when I made that phone call, he was over the moon. He was so excited and so gracious. And again, that had nothing to do with my dad or anything I thought about him. It was more about kind of my ego. And I was like, that's a dumb reason. And I knew that I wanted to start something. I knew that I wanted to own my own company. And, like, what better way to, like, go in and build a platform that's already really been laid down for you? And that's what I've been able to do. And it's been a ton of fun. And honestly, as I look back, Brandon and my dad may or may not agree with this, but, like, I don't think I could have done what he did, but I don't think he could have done what I've done, if that makes sense. Like, he, uh, throws caution to the wind a lot quicker than I do. He's less analytical, he's more. Less cautious. He makes decisions almost impulsively and kind of quickly. And so I think for him to be able to start up a company, take A lot of risk. I mean, they tell stories about, you know, meeting payroll basically on a credit card, you know, and like for me, like, uh, I can't live that way. Like that's just not, like, I'm not wired that way. That, that would, like, I just wouldn't sleep good. And like, I love to sleep. And so I'm just not sure I could have gone through all that, you know. But he got through a lot of those really tough times, especially the first years where you're super under capitalized, you're just trying to claw and scratch your way and every cell is how you meet payroll. And it's so important. And he, um, was able to really go through those very, very lean times. And then when I was able to come and step in, I was really just optimizing things. And I think that's where he struggled a little bit more and where I was a little bit more well suited to get in there and say, okay, we have a really good platform. How do we now blow this up? How do we optimize it? How do we really increase our bottom line? And I think he was always more focused. That's probably a good analogy. Like he was focused on the top line. I'm more focused on the bottom line, if that makes sense. So obviously I like to grow the business and have more sales and top line growth is exciting, but top line growth is not as exciting as if, if your bottom line's not growing either faster or at least at the same pace as your top line.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, so that's. It's interesting. You know, there's a lot involved with family business. And it sounds like in your mind, which I totally understand, the desire to, you know, be your own person and not just not be in your dad's shadow. Right. But it sounds like you were hoping that he was going to call you and ask you. Right. But he maybe was hoping that it would be your decision to come work for the family business and he didn't want to make you work. Right. So because you said he was over the moon when he got, when you called him, I do think it's important talk a little bit about the dynamics. I mean, it can't be easy to start working in your dad's business. Tell us about like how that went. Was it as difficult as you thought it was going to be or what was it a breeze? Because, you know, I'm sure a lot of our listeners might be at a similar, similar place.

Speaker A: I probably learned more than I realized and I know that I did I think that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but I think that it was harder than I thought it would be as well. I think it's one of those things. I'm actually doing a remodel project right now, and I told somebody last week, like, if I knew all the challenges and the hurdles and the hoops we'd have to jump through to get this historical building remodeled, I never would have done it. Now it's a labor of love, and now I love it. I'm so glad I have. But if I'd have known then what I know now, and probably the same thing, but, you know, my dad is just a very gracious, humble man, and he's by far not faultless and has a lot of his own things, just like we all do, right? So I did step in to some baggage, and I did step in to a culture and kind of a business that was very, very reliant on him. And so I don't know if you've read the book Good to Great, but it talks about. And I don't mean this not in a realistic view. There were certainly some very strong people around him that did amazing things, but he was the genius with a thousand helpers. If you took him out of the company, there was no company. Now, there were some people that were very good at their functional area, but, like, you take him out in six months, it's not operating anymore. I mean, he was over land development. He was in the. He was running the sales meetings. He was running the start speedings. He was actually requesting every interim loan on every new construction home when I joined the company. And so everything ran through him. He loved it. I remember Brandon very early on in my career when I joined the company, a realtor called and said, hey, Mr. French, looking at a home in Creek Meadows, can you please come walk this house with us? I got a question for you. He takes me along just to kind of show me the ropes. We get there. We go up the second story. The realtor points to a closet and says, hey, can you change this closet to a bathroom? And we're like, at mep Rough in. And, like, I, uh, mean, we wouldn't do that in a bazillion years. But my father, like, this is just the kind of person he was, and he, like, he thrived on that kind of thing. It's like, oh, yeah, for sure. And so he got all creative, and he called the project manager, and then he got them over there. And of course, you know, I think they. I'm sure, they pulled a rabbit out of the hat, but I guarantee we probably end up losing money on that deal. Probably wasn't very communicated very well or very smooth. And so what I always said we would say yes to things to where the customer wasn't happy at the end, our team members weren't happy at the end, and we probably lost money. It was like a lose, lose, lose, if that makes sense. And so. But that was just kind of my dad's way. And Mo and I think he started the company, you know, with building one house one year, then two houses the next year and four houses the following. And he loved that interaction, and he never kind of quite got out of it. And so as I entered the company, I had to kind of instill some of that discipline. And I think the thing that I did really well, Brandon, was come in with an attitude of, hey, number one, I've got to outwork everybody here. Like, I've got to be here all the time. And I remember that first year we had a policy. Like, your first year, you didn't get a vacation. Like, there was no vacation until after you worked a year. You. Then you got one week. And I know I could have called my dad and said, hey, dad, like, you know, I got my mba. Like, I'm an executive here, I'm a VP or whatever, right? And I deserve vacation. He said, yeah, Doug, that's great. But I didn't do that. I wanted to make sure that I was going to have the same process and go through the same thing that everybody else was. And I think that's kind of what helped me earn some respect. And I didn't come in thinking, hey, I got this shining new degree. Like, uh, y' all listen up and let me teach you something. I was like, no, like, I'm m here and I'm here to help. What balls are being dropped? What things are slipping through the cracks? How can I add a value? And I think it's really hard to be upset at somebody when they had that kind of attitude, even if you can be a little bit perceived threat to maybe some people that have been at the company a little bit longer. And I was talking about this with somebody yesterday, actually. But there were people in our organization that I was running around as a little kid, and they called me Slim. That's Bob Anderson, great human being. Just retired like 30 days ago. One of our very, very best, and did so many great things for this organization, and we owe him so much. But he called me Slim as a kid, so. And again, Because. And I still am slim to this day, if I would stand up, you'd believe me. But. And so now, all of a sudden, sooner, uh, or later, I became Bob's boss, you know, and so it's just. That was kind of a tricky situation. And I'm sure even as I first came in, he probably kind of saw that writing on the wall. Now, what happened? And if I'm talking too much. You want to interject, please do. But my father ended up having some health complications about three years into my tenure at Stylecraft. And so this is like 2013. And I can remember walking into dinner one night, and I was always, uh. I was already kind of concerned because he was having some. Some lapses and some stuff going on, and it was becoming pretty obvious that he just could not kind of manage the business. And like I said, he was over everything. He couldn't do that anymore.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And just some things I'm so.

Speaker B: But so when you got there, right, uh, around this time, how big was the company? Just give us an idea about, like.

Speaker A: Great question. Yeah, yeah. We were about 30 to 40 team members.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: And then I think we were doing about $30 million in revenue at the time. And that was right around 200 closings. And so, yeah, that's. That's kind of what I walked into, which was. Which. Which is an amazing setup. Right. He did a very, very good job of growing a company from one house to 200. That's. That's a heavy lift. And he did an awesome job at doing that, but he had some health complications. And so I walk into this restaurant, and I'll never forget, like, his friend comes up to me, goes, Doug. Like, you realize you're gonna have to. You're gonna have to run this thing. Right? And, like, I think in the back of my mind, like, I already was thinking that, but that was, like, the moment where it clicked. And I thought, okay, like, this is it. Like, I've got to pick up the ball and start running with it. And I did. And, like, it was. It's interesting. Like, I remember that moment so vividly and so clear. It was terrifying, exciting. All the things all kind of rolled into one. But, yeah, that's really how I stepped into leadership. If you ask my dad how I did, he just kind of says, well, you know, one day I went on vacation and I came back and Doug was running things, you know, and so he remembers it a little bit differently than I do. But I vividly remember one of his very best friends, you know, kind of Telling me that, and then me, really. And I'd already kind of, you know, started kind of stepping up and taking on additional responsibility after three years. And my dad was. Was great at kind of taking me along, and he really enjoyed the land development side. And so. And the good thing, too, is, like, he still was there, and so he may not have been able to run it like he did previously, and it required more of me interjecting things, but he still was there. He still was coming to the office. I mean, he loved and he ate, breathed, and would die for this company. And he just really, really enjoyed it. And so he still came in. And so I still had, you know, if I had an issue or had something I need to bounce off somebody, he still was there for me, which was super helpful. And, you know, and even looking back at some of the decisions we made, again, I probably would have overthought it and maybe not have pulled the trigger, but dad was more like, no, let's go for it, and gave me that confidence. And then we pulled the trigger together where, if he hadn't been there, not sure that would have happened. And looking back, those are some of the best decisions we made.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's so cool. So, you know, you touched on this a little bit, and I. The approach that you took coming in is admirable. I think leadership, obviously, is all about influencing people, uh, to help everybody get, you know, row and go in the same direction. You know, you. You start, there's 30 or 40 team members. How do you. What. What did it take to get to the point where people were. Were listening to and following you because of the leader that you were, that you had established, as opposed to, like, well, this is Doug's. Randy's son. So we got. I got to say what. What I got to do what he says. And did you run into any of that, or at least internally, were you thinking that? And if so, sort of. How did you navigate to. To. To stand on your own two feet as a leader?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure I had some insecurity, Brandon. I'm sure I second guessed myself quite a bit. But, you know, I was just number one, I was really fortunate. Like I mentioned Bob Anderson earlier, and he just is such a kind, genuine, genuine guy. I will also say, I think that a lot of people appreciated the way that I approach things. And I think like a Bob Anderson, for example, he craved discipline, he craved structure, he craved process. That was like the opposite of my father. And so then when I came in and understood the value, there and quit going and meeting and meeting Mr. Mr. Mrs. Or Mrs. Realtor at the house and adding the bathroom, you know, way after the job has been released to construction. And when he saw that, I think he understood like, okay, this is the, this is the vision I'm getting behind this. I understand this now. He still respected my father at time, but I think that he saw that and then, and then there were some people that just were problems if I'm being dishonest. There was some, some people on the team that just didn't live out our values and they really were causing a lot of chaos and a lot of a uh, lot of issues and they weren't getting along with one another. And I quickly realized like, I'm going to start taking care of some of this. But for me and kind of my personality, those are difficult, hard conversations for me to have. And I'm just not one to go in there and you know, you know, uh, guns a blazing I guess would be the right term for that. I took it a lot more methodically and I kind of dealt with probably about one a year, if that makes sense. And so I went in and pretty quickly realized like, we needed some help in one of the functional areas of our company. The leader there was not doing a great job. And so I ended up shifting some stuff around, got a new functional leader in there who is much younger. And not because they were younger, of course, but they were more my age. And so I was there when they hired on and so now I'm promoting them and, and then eventually the person that uh, kind of job that they were kind of replacing, we ended up letting them go just for some, like I said, they just were not behaving. And so, and I want to be respectful, so I will, I will leave it at that. But you know, it said when the new function leader kind of, kind of stepped in and she took charge of that, now all of a sudden all like, you know, you, you've kind of established that as well. So now I have, you know, construction and pre construction and then like with accounting again, like I have an accounting mind. And so I, I hit it off really quickly with our controller at the time who worked for us for 30 years. And so that was a really good kind of easy relationship. Our sales manager was one that ended up, kind of ended up again, kind of didn't end up working out long term because I was able to replace that probably a year later. And so just slowly but surely. And I guess that's probably the answer. Brandon. It just Took time for me. And I think that's one thing that I would advise anybody and that's what I advise any new leader that steps in to anything. Like if you go in with this, like with this attitude of like, hey, I know it all, you are here to do as I say and I'm this genius and I'm just going to start pointing and then you're going to start running and jumping. Like you're not going to have much success. Like maybe at some companies that works. But like here that's not really our culture and that's not what we aspire to be and that's not who we are. And so I just never really had that attitude. So it just took time to kind of instill my own group. And what's interesting is like I don't think that stopped. Like I still think that's considered. It's just constantly being refined. You know, we're constantly continue to kind of raise that cultural bar of what we will tolerate.

Speaker B: No, it's great. I mean it is not an easy thing to do. And so to summarize it sounds like, I mean you, you came into the business with, you know, humility and authenticity, with a servant leadership mindset, but you also started to improve things and it demonstrated that you knew what was going on and that you could benefit the business. And so that sort of, that encourage the buy in of all those around you and then, and especially uh, improving that one functional area that you mentioned. And then once you get there, you know, how could you not be on your side, right? Like, look at all the stuff that Doug has done for us. He's never been a jerk about it. All he wants to do is help. So yeah, I'm on, I'm on Team Doug. So that, that makes a ton of sense. And I could not agree more with your suggestion about new leaders, you know, and the, and the, the attitude or the approach to take when walking in. I mean, you know, I think anybody that, that has a little bit of empathy could understand how it would be difficult for somebody that maybe was working at that company for, you know, 15, 20 years work, trying to work their way up and then all of a sudden somebody new comes in and if you, if that person has even a sort of modicum of a, of a, you know, arrogant attitude, they'd be really easy to not like. Right.

Speaker A: So it's tough. And one thing I didn't mention too Brandon, to make it a little more complicated is my uncle and my aunt all of a sudden were also reporting reporting to me. And so. But they were great, you know, and they really were. They were great. And we had a lot of really, really, really good team members that stayed. Stayed around quite some time and really helped me figure it out. And I owe so much to them.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. And I. Look, I'm not harping on this for any other reason than to highlight that, look, it's hard enough to run and grow a business right at the fact I could. I mean, the fact that you guys are still a company and doing well is a testament that you've been, you know, is. Is evidence that you've obviously been successful at what you're doing. It is exponentially more difficult when there are family dynamics involved and you have to. So it's not only like, how do I make this decision about what's best for the company, but if it's a family business, it's like, well, okay, how do I do this? What's in it best? What's the best interest of the company? And then you got to go through all of the other family dynamics and be like, well, what is this going to impact this person or that person? Or how's, you know, my uncle or dad or what? How are they going to feel? Or what are they going to say? Are they going to chop my legs out? Are they going to be supportive? So I look tip of the cap to navigating that stuff. A lot of people, I think initially, at least on the surface, will just say, oh, well, it's a family business. And, and he or she was given that business. But, uh, I've been in business long enough, and I've been involved in family business enough to know that it is almost a restriction on the ability to run and grow a business when it's. When it's, uh, going to the next generation. It is not like somebody just says, oh, here's a business, and then you can just stink at it. And it just keeps running and growing. I mean, so kudos to you for navigating the complexities.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, and I appreciate that, Brandon, and a thousand percent. Now, uh, one thing I will say is there's not much family that works at this company any, any longer. And primarily because I don't want Thanksgiving to be awkward. You know what I mean? And it's like, even it can. It can go well or it can go really, really badly, and it's just not. It just, to me, just doesn't feel like it's worth it, you know, but my father was just this relationship and so he hired everybody he knew. You know, it's really what he kind of did. And so we had uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews and best friends from college and just all kinds of people that were kind of interwoven into the company. And you're right, it can get very difficult to unwind. And you know, another thing that you hit on, when I joined the company, I did not think of being Randy's son as an asset. I thought of, uh, it as being a liability, which is kind of what you hit. And I think you have to, when you go into it with that mindset of like, look, I actually have to work twice as hard to earn, you know, half the respect. I think that's the right mindset, really. Probably going to any situation, family or not. But I think that served me well.

Speaker B: Well, that's, that's great. I think that's really helpful, particularly if there's, if, if our audience is either in a family business or going into a family business to, to hear the story of somebody that has done it successfully. So, so your dad started having health problems and, and you realize you're gonna have to step up. So walk us through sort of like, you know, where the business was back then, what you've explained, and then what's happened since then in the last or, uh, in the next 13 years, I guess.

Speaker A: I love it. That's a great question. We're involved with a peer group called Builder 20 is through the National association of Home Builders. There's 20 builders, and I promise I'm going to land the plane. There's a point for me telling this story. There's 20 builders that come together, you know, twice a year. And one of those meetings is about financials. And I can distinctly remember going to those meetings and it's kind of like they line you up not based on revenue, they somewhat do, but really the marker's net margin. And I can remember going to those, those meetings and being kind of like, oh my gosh, like, and like, I'm, um, like almost like a wake up call. Like, yeah, we're growing our top line, but our bottom line is either shrinking or staying the same. And Brandon, what I realized really quickly is like every year we always ran out of houses. There was always a period of the year, may have been April or May or whatever in the spring selling season, where if you walked in and you wanted a home. And for us we're kind of more cyclical on the school calendar. You know, we're living a college Town. And so it's really kind of August to August and every year somebody say, hey, I gotta move in by August. What do you have? We're like, sorry, like come back next year type deal. Hey, we can build you something, we'll get you in by January or maybe by December. Like, oh no, sorry, I can't, I'm going to go buy resale because I have to be in by August. And so I quickly realized, like, there's a supply demand imbalance here and I'm not trying to take advantage of anybody or profit gouge. But like the amount of risk we're taking for the return we are getting is not equal. And so I realized really quickly we had a lot more pricing power than we thought we did. And so I remember going to that builder 20 club the next year and our top line actually grown year over year and our bottom line had shrunk and I just was like, oh my gosh, like what are we doing? And so I think that was a wake up call. And that's when I was really able to get in. And the reality is this is such a capital intensive business and this is such a risky business if you cannot manage that risk and ah, the only way to manage that risk is to continue to invest capital back in the company or well, if you're not making a healthy profit, there's no capital to reinvest. And so to me, I didn't think we were making a, ah, healthy profit. And so I did a number of things. One of the first things I did, Brandon, was I went in and said, hey, we're have a sales contest. And almost every, I think every sales executive we had, they had some back pocket money. They had 1200 bucks or 1500 or 1% or whatever it was at the time, right. That they can give away really, no questions asked. I said, hey, if you keep that back pocket money to zero, you'll be basically whoever. If you sell 20 houses and 10 of them, you gave away no dollars, that's 50%. Well, you will be given basically like whoever had the highest ratio of homes they did not give away money on got a free trip to, I don't know, New Mexico or wherever it was. It gave somebody like a $35 trip. That was back when 3500 bucks was a whole, whole lot of money 10, 15 years ago, right? Can do a whole lot of, a whole lot of trip for that. And our giveaways in our percentage of concessions went down like 98% overnight. I mean so just all of a Sudden boom, you got another 1% to the bottom line, right? Which is significant. And then you start thinking about, okay, like, how much pricing power do we have here? We're selling out things too quickly. There's situations where there's some communities that we had that were kind of lock constrained. We only had 30 opportunities in this community. We sold out of it in two months. Like 15 houses a month. Like, we sold out of that way too quickly. We should have slow played it some more and done some price increases. So I'm just sort of kind of looking at things a little bit more thoughtically about that. And then all of a sudden we were able to turn around our numbers. Another thing that I did that not many builders have done, but I went and we changed to a C corp. And I know this is probably hotly contested, not everybody can do this, but we were able to do it. And so our tax rate was 21%. So my father was running the company. Not only was our profit margin much more narrow, but the tax rate was 43%. So now our after tax, if you can imagine, like, yeah, our net profit doubled as a percentage, but then our tax rate got cut in half from 43% to 21%. Now all of a sudden, you can start building, you can start building a war chest. You can start building that capital. And as you build that capital, as you have equity reinvested back in the company, I'm, uh, not buying a private jet with this. I'm buying more land, we're buying more lots. We're reinvesting back in the company. We're building up our balance sheet. We're building up our war chest for any opportunity that may happen around the corner. That allowed us to expand our footprint. And if we were not able to ever become more profitable, that never would have been able to happen because we just wouldn't have been able to take the risk. The banks would not have banked us. And today, you know, we are, we are very, very de risked. We're less risky than we've ever been as far as like our balance sheet metrics. Debt to equity, risk, assets, capital, cash value. I, um, mean, we watch that stuff like a hawk. Those some of the top metrics that I watch. And again, my dad just wasn't really wired that way. And again, he was building the company probably at different times. That may not be fair of me to say, but just with my finance background and my accounting background, I was really able to kind of come in and optimize things. And so that's really been the fuel that has allowed us to grow. Now the other things we really kind of doubled down on was process. And so we're very big on process and procedures. And what does this look like? We rolled out a new ERP system. We got all of our estimates at the time. We basically anytime a home was built, we started from scratch and to re estimate it. So we built these. We built master estimates. This is all very kind of. I don't know if we'll say elementary. I don't want to diminish it, but not like, you know, really hard to figure out if you're in production home building. But we cleaned all that up and we became a what I would consider a true production home builder. And we're able to kind of gain those efficiencies, gain that scale, and really kind of grow the company that way. And in the most recent probably iteration of this is we've implemented eos, which I'm sure. Are you familiar with on for. Yeah. Gino Wickman, the book traction and entrepreneurial operating system. Kind of a mouthful there. And do you really. Yeah, it's. It's amazing. I. I run, I. I run actually in the. The two larger companies that we have. And it's been for me, so freeing and it's given me so much. I, uh, don't know, just really kind of my life back. I'm able to enjoy my children like I should and and then also just really build up a new level of leadership in the company. So that's really been like kind of the last iteration of what I've been working on here more recently, number one, just establishing that leadership team. And so I had me and I was the integrator and the visionary to kind of use EOS language. And then three or four years ago, I promoted Jesse Kelly to coo, and so now she's the integrator of style craft and she's kind of running the day to day. And now I'm kind of more free to run, you know, like kind of, I guess operate in my natural ability, which is more of that visionary role. And that's been a ton of fun. And then even here, more recently, Brandon, we probably do a whole episode on this. I've really been trying to learn about, like, how do I let the team. I think they've been very successful and very good at running the day to day. But operationally, strategically, looking out, going into, let's say, a new community or a new town, and thinking about it strategically, how do we position ourselves? What is too Much. What is too little? How do we roll this out operationally? What type of infrastructure management team do we need? Been looking at all that. Like, I kind of solved all those problems for us for a long, long time. And then I looked up one day and I thought, like, why can't the team do this? Like, what are the. What are we missing here? And I kind of was almost like, pointing the finger at them. And then what I quickly realized is the finger needed to be pointed right back at me because they weren't doing something that I've been doing all along. Why would they do something that I've been doing for them for so long? It doesn't. It wouldn't make any sense. Right. So I had to then kind of create that space. And so now, like, when there's a question or there's a problem, as opposed to just trying to jump in and solve, I try to jump in and ask questions and kind of more mentor and kind of help lead a discussion around it. And of course, like it. Sometimes it'd be easier for me just to jump in and solve it really quickly. That's really kind of one of my superpowers. What I'm actually really talented at is being able to, like, make connections and see the root cause of something really quickly. But by me doing that, I was really handicapping, really, our company, and that was a thousand percent my fault. And so that's kind of been my next iteration of my next kind of growth journey is learning how to do that. That's been the last couple of years, and it's still something that I'm learning and tweaking and trying to get better at. Uh, because it's. It's a challenge, but it's one that I'm seeing already kind of paid dividends.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. I love it. You know, I think eos or, um, you know, there are several different, you know, operating systems. But I like us as well. You know, I found that sort of the tyranny of the. Of the urgent. Right. The tyranny of the urgent. Of. Of what's the problem right now? Or this. The fires that come up during the day end up taking everybody's time, takes the whole team's. Next thing. You know, it's, you know, end of the day, time to go home. And if you aren't intentional about setting aside certain and. And identifying certain rocks or certain goals for, you know, where you're headed in three years and then where you want to head this year and then break it down quarterly that you look, you, uh, know, I look up in a year's past and it's like, oh, gosh, what. What did we get accomplished? Nothing. All we did was fight every day's fire, and then a year just goes by. But we didn't ever go where, you know, we all decided we wanted to go. And I think that to me, for me, that's the. One of the most valuable things is, you know, with the weekly. With the weekly meetings that everyone is held accountable to themselves and in front of the team about progress on rocks. And it forces everybody to, you know, make time for the more strategic projects and decisions that, that, that otherwise always get sort of shoved to the back of the desk because there's some other problem that came up today. You know, that's one of the reasons that I, I love it. But, and I totally agree. I, uh, think we could, we could do a whole episode just on sort of eos and its benefits. And then, you know, the, The. The delicate balance that is like leading a business, but, you know, not having too much control or, or not getting involved too much tactically because, like, exactly like you said, if the, if the leader is going to do it, then why. Why would the team ever need to do it? And, you know, but at the same time, you know, you, you get. You still have to set the direction and the vision. The leader. I don't mean you, you like the proverbial. You, you know, it still has a. Set the direction. And so it's, it is, It's. It's an interesting balance. But. But once you get to the place where it feels like your team is making the same decision that you would have made had you been in the room and, or, uh, you know, everything is moving in the right direction, it's a very satisfying place to be. It's. It's sort of like golf. You know, you can never. It's never like, you just say, okay, I'm done now. I'm good at golf. Or, or, you know, it's a constant. It's something that requires constant learning and attention that never stops. We recently read. There's a book called 10x is easier than 2x. Have you ever heard of.

Speaker A: Yeah, I've read it. Yeah. Uh, so Ben and Hardy or Benjamin Hardy.

Speaker B: Yep. Ben Hardy.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: One of the things we've been working on is, you know, how to take bigger steps instead of just becoming a little, you know, 10% better this year versus last year. And, uh, my team's gotten a lot out of that, out of that book. In fact, we, we had our quarterly US meeting on Tuesday, if we talked a lot about it. So.

Speaker A: And that is, that's such a good book.

Speaker B: It is, yes. I love it. So, uh, I don't. You don't have to. I don't want you to reveal anything sensitive or whatever you don't want to, but. So when you started, you had 20 or 30 to 40 employees or team members. Excuse me, I don't like the word employee, but 30 to 40 folks. And you were, you were selling about 200 houses a year. Give us an idea of where you guys are now.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, Brandon, we, we closed 143 houses just last month. And so that, that's a little bit of a. Of a. Yeah. But we, we hope to close. And again, that's hats off for the team. That's not me bragging on Doug. That's hats off to the team. They're the ones out there every day doing the hard work and they've done some really, really cool stuff and they're taking this company now to a level that I never did once. Now I got to, I got it to a thousand closings kind of when I was visionary and integrator. And since I've kind of handed that off, gotten back up that level last year and then we feel like we're going to surpass it this year. We're hopeful to hit about 1100 houses this year. That should be, you know, about three, probably just shy of 400 million on top line. So we're excited about that. And yeah, I think that's going to put us, you know, top 50 builder in the country, which is really neat, especially as we're thinking about there's so many public builders and those guys, to me don't count. Right. Like, I'm not, I'm not judged on the same metrics they are. So you start, you know, weeding them out and you start looking at the Japanese owned and you. All of a sudden you realize, I think I'm number one actually, you know, once you start weeding all that out. But, uh, you know, they, yeah, there's really not. There's a lot of people that are private equity backed or Japanese backed or, you know, publicly traded, which is great, you know, and they have their purpose in the market. They do great things. And hats off for those guys as well. But yes. And then we have about 190 employees. We have a land development company. We, uh, have Stylecraft, of course, which is our production home building company. We have a mortgage operation. It's called Kangaroo Home Loans. And then we have south six Construction that does some really light commercial primarily just for us. If we have like, um, I'm doing a re. Redoing an office building in downtown Bryan right now. I mentioned that earlier. That was the one that like, if I knew what I knew, like, I would never have done it. So they're in the middle of kind of learning to learning the ropes there and redoing that. And they also build rental projects for us. We have another company called Tenant first, which is a property management company and they own and manage about 450 rental houses really around central Texas. And that's a company that I started. So that's been a lot of fun and something that we're trying to aggressively grow that's been just kind of more of that, that wealth generating kind of vehicle that's been really kind of cool to, to grow and to see that would grow up as well.

Speaker B: That's incredible. I mean, you're almost building as many houses in a month as you guys did in a year when you took over. So I mean, that's pretty remarkable. We don't have that much time left. But, but I'd love to get your thoughts on the residential home building, single family residential market as a whole. You know, there's a lot of talk about the housing shortage in the U.S. right, that all the media loves to talk about how there, we, we don't have, we haven't built enough homes. And depending upon who you talk to, you know, we're a million or two or three million houses short of where we should be as a, as a country. So first of all, what are your thoughts on that? Do you believe, I mean, what are your thoughts on the, on the, the housing shortage?

Speaker A: You know, Brandon, I, uh, think where the pundits get this wrong so often is housing is local. It's local. So you cannot have a national perspective and try to apply it to every single market. There are markets that are oversupplied right now that if you gave me the lot for free, I wouldn't go build a house there. There are markets that I would love to be able to jump in right now, even though the market and interest rates are high. Right. And so what I look at primarily is how much competition's in that market, however heated is that market. And then what is the lot supply in markets that are lot constrained are very, very healthy right now. And we're having a lot of success in those markets. Markets that have a ton of lots on the ground and a lot of competition and a lot of lots that are already entitled and in the pipeline at some, you know, in some stage of that process, they're going to struggle and they're going to have to work through that. And some of those builders that enter those markets are going to have to exit. And I think they all went in with this assumption of, hey, you know, during 2020 kind of housing run up, this market did 2000 permits, but historically did 800. And now all of a sudden there's 4000 lots in the ground or whatever. With 800 now you have, you know, five years with the lots in the ground, where at 2000 you had two years. And so that was healthy. But like now all of a sudden the demand in that market has gone down, it's returned to normal, which is 800 what it should have been doing all along. And as you know, you see that in business everywhere. I mean, you can think the same thing, like with yogurt. I don't know if they did that in yogurt in your town as well. But you know, yogurt all of a sudden was a big deal. These soft, soft serve yogurt shops and you know, you see one has some success and then all of a sudden 15 open up like in the next six months, there's not enough demand. There's enough demand to support one. And it was really well run, did a great job. All of a sudden you have 15 and it tanks the market. What does it mean that like that yogurt sucks or the yogurt market's bad? That just means we flooded the market. And I think as home builders and developers unfortunately were greedy. And we've seen it time and time and time again. I've seen small markets like we're in some pretty rural small markets like say population 6,000. We go in there, we'll do a small kind of boutique development, we'll build 30 or 40 houses. Next thing we look up and there's three or four other guys chasing us there. They now open up their deal. And that market was great at 30 or 40 houses, but now they're trying to get 30 or 40 houses. There's three or four of us and just it can't support it. And they're coming to us saying, oh my gosh, the market's so bad you want to buy our lots? I'm like, no, the market actually wasn't bad until you guys showed up. And again, I'm not anti competition. Competition is good and it makes us better. But when people make bad decisions and they look at the statistics and say, hey, you know, if Stylecraft can do that, then we can too. They flood the market. It's not just one person, but three people all do it all at one time. Just a recipe for disaster. So I think that's some stuff that we're seeing. I do think there are some markets that are severely underbuilt in our country and I think, you know, California, New York, some of those places where it's just really, really difficult. Washington D.C. trying to think of some other areas like Montana, I mean you look at all those, like Jackson Hole, I mean you can't build there, you know, so there's all these areas that are really, really expensive primarily because the local government there is not pro housing and they're not getting things entitled. This is not happening. And so it's driving up cost because demand is high and supply is just so constrained. And when that happens, it's going to become unattainable. And of course, Jackson Hole, you could go build 500 more houses there probably tomorrow. Not maybe I'm just making that up, but you can build a lot of houses there and they all would get absorbed. We go do that in some of the suburbs outside of Austin, Texas right now and they're going to sit there for three years. And so again, housing is so local. I will say this. I'm a believer in housing long term. I think the trend is going to continue to go up into the right. And I just, I just, I'm a big believer in that. I think that people, you know, I remember the narrative of everybody was like fleeing to the downtown. So if you remember that about 10 years ago, that was a big narrative, like, you know, the suburbs are dying, everybody's going downtown. And I think that, you know, I think that proved false. Right. But there's a lot of these narratives that we, that we see and we kind of jump on that aren't necessarily true. I think typically when people, and uh, this is my belief, most people, when they, as they start aging, they start slowing down, they start thinking about legacy, they start thinking about having a family, they either get married or they get, or they have a significant other, they may have children. And if you have children and you want to be in a good school district, where are the good school districts? You want to be where their friends are. And so you start. And I don't think that's changed. And I just think that's almost like a human something that's innate inside of us. And so I don't know how that stops. And so because of that, I'm just a big believer that Houston is here to stay. It's a great way to build generational wealth. I'm also a big believer in that. That's why I'm so pro housing. I'm not saying it is the only way or it's if you want to optimize every percentage point that that's the best use of your dollar. But what I am saying is it's a great way for most Americans to force discipline to make that monthly mortgage payment and ideally. Historically, history has shown us that housing appreciates year over year. Certainly been the case the last 15 years. Right now there's some blips in that. And that may not happen, I don't know. But in general it has. And that's where I'm putting my money. So I'm building a lot of housing. I own a lot of housing. I'm, um, building a lot of housing, developing a lot of housing. And I'm just. And I'm also a big believer in Texas. I think Texas is so pro business. Additional companies are moving here. We're having more and more deals, you know, announced just in our backyard. Elon Musk, I think, bought 6,000 acres for SpaceX, that big tariff app facility that's going to bring a ton of jobs to this area. We're seeing people flee. Some of the highly regulated areas come to Texas. The financial industry now is going to Dallas. It's been a boom town. Oil and gas, like love it or hate it, I think it's here to stay. We have too much infrastructure. Houston's going to do very, very well. Got the tech industry in Houston, got the 5,000 pound gorilla here in Bryant College Station, which is Texas A and M, one of the largest and most attainable affordable colleges in the country. That does a great job of educating our future generation. And so as I, uh, look at all of our markets, I can say something very, very similar about why I feel like they're here to stay. And so for us, we're selectively choosing where to grow, selectively choosing markets and kind of continue to build the business. And I'm just a big believer, I know that housing has got some, some hate, especially by the pundits here recently. And I think, though, when you look at the headlines, like what were they saying in 2020, they weren't talking so negatively about housing. But if you look back at it, that honestly was probably when some of the worst decisions were made for people who did buy a house. They were Rushed. They felt like they had to, uh, put in a bidding, uh, war or I was going to miss this house. But interest rates were going up, costs were through the roof. You had no leverage at all. If you're a buyer, the seller had all the leverage. And no one at that time at all was saying how bad of a time it was to buy a house. And honestly it was like if you look back, that was a bad time to buy a house. And builders were not delivering a great product at that time. It was so difficult as far as supply chain and to get things done and it just was a mess. But, uh, no one will say it was a bad time then. Now all of a sudden when actually the tables have turned, the buyer has much more leverage, the builder's prices are going down, they're offering more incentives. And now all of a sudden the national narrative is housing's in the dumps, you shouldn't buy a house. The people who did regret it. And again, I know that not every case is the exact same, but, you know, so there may be some individual cases where that is true and we're buying a house as a whole. A horrible idea. And I wouldn't advise it. But in general I feel like for the majority of people it is still a very wise decision. I do think there's some markets that are overbuilt, but there's some markets that are underbuilt as you're alluding to. And I think those are the markets that are, that have been underinvested in for sure. So I know that was a long, long answer to your question, so probably overshared there, but you hit a nerve because something I'm passionate about and so something that I really spent a lot of time studying.

Speaker B: Yes. No, no, that was a, that was fantastic. I ate it all up. Gosh, there's a lot there. First of all, I totally agree. I don't think, I think there are few better long term investments than tal your primary residence. I also firsthand can tell you that Texas is a great place to build. Far different than some of the other states where we do business. And. But I think most importantly, it was the very first sentence out of your mouth was housing is, is local. It drives me crazy when I hear national pundits talking about the housing market. Housing starts or upper housing starts are down. I mean, is, is. It's just crazy because, you know, somebody in, you know, we. I'm in Atlanta, right? So the market in north Atlanta can be far different than the, the market in South Atlanta and then within north Atlanta, the market in Buckhead can be very differently different than the market in Dunwoody. And so I don't think that, I don't think it's even possible to really say that housing is overbuilt or underbuilt as a nation. I just think that's very difficult. There's also been a lot of pundits talking about the overall regulatory burden of building a home with regulatory cost, which I certainly agree with is it's far higher than, than it should be. But I think that the point there too is also missed that it isn't as much that there's a high regulatory burden or that there, there's a lot of red tape in one particular area. I think the bigger problem is that there is inconsistency from one area to the next to the next. So even within uh, one market there could be 10 different municipalities that all have different rules. And so particularly for a production home builder trying to put systems and processes in place or do, or consistency when you may be building in one market that requires totally uh, have totally different requirements for the plot plan than, than the, the market right next door. But sorry, I'm getting on my soapbox now, but I think if, if, if they would fight or we would look at, try to look at consistency more than sort of overall regulatory burden, I think that would go a long way. Even if, even if, God forbid, every jurisdiction in the country was as bad as Jackson Hole, right, In order to build a house, at least we would know what it is and could plan for it and could, you know, price it in everything would cost 3 million bucks. But it's when you know, it's like hey what about there's some land out here, what about this jurisdiction? And come to find out that getting it entitled is 18 month process and you know, $60,000 a lot but two streets over or maybe there's not streets out there, but you know, two minutes over you can get a uh, property that, that is, you can get, it's already entitled or you know, you can get it in 30 days and half as much it the law. That's a long winded way of saying, I think that all the pundits do is damage when they talk about these, when they, when they grab these narratives and talk about things on a national level. Because it's all very different from as you said, housing is local. It's not that the way you build a house like you guys, I know you guys build like out in San Antonio with Post Tension foundations. And people around here don't even really know what that is. But we have crawl spaces and basements and sometimes that's for, I mean, different materials. There's no frost. Right. Like, but if you build a house in Minneapolis, you gotta have insulated concrete forms. I mean, just very different. Right. From, from one place to the, to the next. But man, if I could go anywhere and do it, it would be Texas, that's for sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, you're, yeah, you're preaching the choir. Definitely. And I think the point you made about that and what's even crazier is even within the same municipality, a different inspector interprets the code differently. And so it's. And you're right, like when you're ever, when you're trying to do something, operations like any kind of inconsistency is friction for the system. Right. And so I think that home building probably fairly has gotten some flak about not being so forward and progressive in terms of adopting technology and adopting systems. But it's not as easy as a factory that builds TVs or computers or cars. It's. It is, there's a lot of nuance to it. And I think that again, some of it is deserved. I agree. I think a lot of it's not that. The people that say, oh, we, we have not evolved how we build a house in 100 years and we're so inefficient and uh, I think the profit motive is so strong to solve that issue. If we could have solved it, if there was a way to solve it, I know people are working on it now, we would have solved it. And unfortunately, factory built homes, that's not new, that's not technology. You could order a Sears catalog house 100 years ago and they would deliver it to you on the back of a train. Right? So this isn't new. Like they've been doing this. So let's not act like that's some new innovation technology. Now they are doing some cool stuff with that. I'm not knocking that industry at all. But what I guess I'm saying is like, I think we got to give the, the home builders out there a break as well, because we are evolving, we are using new methods, but there's a lot of challenges and we don't like it more than anybody else does, but every municipality is different. And then you start, you start layering in architectural review committees and you know, neighbors and HOAs and it just, it gets very, very complicated very, very quickly bring it in. And again, it's up and down the whole entire value stream. It starts with development and entitlement. And then you have the specs that you have to put the sewer in and the storm water and the detention and the roads and all that. And then it goes to building the house. And you just said it just, it kind of goes on and on. And every municipality is different. Everybody interprets the code differently and just adds friction to the process.

Speaker B: Right. And everybody wants a whole lot of houses built as long as it's not in their area.

Speaker A: Thousand percent. Yep. Yep, you're right.

Speaker B: Which.

Speaker A: Not. Not in my backyard. I want, I want attainable housing. Just not near me. Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. And it's funny, I think we're sort of seeing like, uh, an interesting sort of case study or microcosm with this data center stuff.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Look, I, I don't pretend, I'm not going to pretend to know or, or comment on, you know, the electricity it uses, the water, all the, all that stuff. But it's, it's, you know, you ask people, well, hey, would you rather be us or China? Right. Like us, of course. Let's do it. Let's do it. It's like, why we got to build these data centers? Like that's. That sounds great. Somewhere else. This. Don't. Don't do it here.

Speaker A: Yep. Just not in my backyard. Yeah.

Speaker B: Y. The nimby. Right.

Speaker A: I think that. And it'll be interesting. You know, so much of that is just the, uh, the unknown. Like you're almost scared of what you just don't know. And, and maybe I'll may, maybe that'll be proven untrue, but I don't know. I just got to think that those. I don't know. I'm sure if those in my backyard. I feel completely different about this, but it'll be interesting to see how disruptive those really are. Long term.

Speaker B: That's a whole separate topic, but I've actually seen a bunch of commentary about that, about how wrong some of the conclusions are. Right. That the actual amount of water used in one of those is less than a golf course. And then some other thing. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if that's true, but I just find it interesting and I think you're right. And, and to be fair, uh, we don't know. I suppose we don't really truly know. You know, you mentioned the, the terraform, the terrafab or terrafactory or whatever was that was. That's going. The amount of jobs and prosperity and wealth that those things bring to communities is almost immeasurable.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's unreal. The school district just, I think they're, I think it's like a hundred billion dollar facility. So the amount of tax revenue the school district's going to get from this is just, it's, it's really like at a whole nother level. And, uh, you mentioned the fee or

Speaker B: like the sewer tap fee for that.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's going to be a boon for those counties. What's also interesting when you, when you read about it, like, there's this Jedi program, and I think I'm pronouncing that right in Texas where you get a tax break. Right. And so it's on. Property taxes are a huge deal in Texas. No, it's not the same in every, every state, but it's a big deal here. And so it's very, very expensive. And sort of even the playing field, they have these programs where you can get tax abatements. Uh, and so it's like for, like, I think for five years they get 100%, I think, and then for five additional years they get 50% or something like that. But they do get quite a bit of money. And that's only on like half of it. I can't really remember. Um, but either way, they're much better off after this thing gets built. They are right now, significantly, it adds no additional strain to the school district at all. But what's funny is you read the news article and the word it used was that the school district is giving this company money, basically. And I'm like, the school district is not giving them money. Like what? They're not giving them money back. This is a company that's coming in and investing and actually they're giving you money long term. And after 10 years, you're going to have $110 billion facility on your tax rolls, like one of the largest industrial projects in the country. And you get like, close to like, I think 0.7% of that every year. So, I mean, it's a, it's a crazy amount of tax revenue these things are going to generate. But again, the narrative is the school district is giving them money. And I'm like, I, I don't know, I just, I just don't see it that way. Brandon? Yeah, I'm also in Texas, so, you know.

Speaker B: Well, but that, that stuff happens all the time with. So like, the economic authorities are trying to attract businesses or trying to attract. It even happens with sports teams when they're trying to figure out where to build a stadium, the local jurisdictions will, Will offer certain incentives. If you do it here, we will not charge you to. Like you said, we. You won't have to pay taxes for X, and then you can only pay 50. And then, then you can start paying taxes. And the state. The exact same thing happens is, oh, you know, Cobb county put together a three billion dollar package to woo, you know, some Kia, uh, manufacturing plant or whatever. And you know, like, good gracious, it's. Yeah, it reads like it's some kickback scheme where somebody wrote a check and gave it to somebody so that they would build it in their backyard or build it in their jurisdiction. But. Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker A: And if you, and if you read that not being in real estate and not understanding property taxes, you would, you would think that the school district just wrote this company a check. And I'm like, right, yeah. So, yeah, it's critically misleading. Yeah, you would. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. They probably went to the school of communication out of Washington, D.C. where they just, they figure out how to communicate things in a way that is divorced from the truth, but. Sounds excellent.

Speaker A: Yes, sir. A thousand percent. Now I think, I think journalism is, is very, very good at that.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Doug, we already, we've already run over 13 minutes over, but man, I could talk for another hour or so. And I, I just, um. I'm so appreciative and thankful that you were willing to take the time to share your wisdom with us this afternoon. Unbelievable job with the business, with the several businesses, not just Stylecraft, but the other businesses you started as well. And I think the, my, both myself and the audience learned a lot hearing your story.

Speaker A: Well, Brandon, I really appreciate the time. It's been, uh, an absolute pleasure and I've been very, very fortunate. Got a great team, great market. So my huge benefactor of being in Texas and being in real estate and having a great platform that my dad, you know, kind of planted so many years ago to be able to build on has been just so much fun and really been an honor last, I guess, 15 years now, which is hard to believe.

Speaker B: Yeah, crazy. Don't forget, everybody, you can find boundary breakers in a lot of places. You can watch our episodes on The Boundary Breakers YouTube channel, where you can listen to each podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any of the other major podcasting platforms. Thanks for listening.