Producer Dan: 01:34

Hello, and welcome, my emerging expat. You're tuned in to Let's Move to Portugal. I'm producer Dan, and I have the distinct honor of bringing you YouTube travelers and our resident Portugal experts, expats everywhere Josh and Caitlin. Each week, they'll inspire, they'll educate, and they'll accompany you on your journey to Portuguese residents. This week on let's move to Portugal, Josh and Kaley unveiled their exciting new venture.

Producer Dan: 02:02

Let's get building with Josh and Kaley, a channel dedicated to their vertical community project. Tune in to

Josh: 02:11

reality. Hello, and welcome back to the Expats Everywhere presents Let's Move to Portugal podcast. Kaylee, how we doing?

Kalie: 02:35

I'm back. I was gone last week. Right? Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you could still hear that I'm not great, not a 100%, but I'm feeling much better.

Josh: 02:43

Well, I've heard it all week.

Kalie: 02:45

Yeah. Yeah. It was rough. It was rough. But doing a lot better, even though maybe I don't sound great, but but doing well.

Kalie: 02:52

Yeah. I've got my coffee here, which I think will help. I was 2 days without coffee. That's when you know something is wrong with me.

Josh: 02:59

That's when something's up. Well, we're excited to do this podcast because we finally have a, let's say, a way to unpack all that has happened with our real estate adventure here in Portugal. This place gives us the space. I think that was the word I was looking for. It gives us the space to breathe and to explain to you what we've done here in Portugal since we moved and where we're at now in our process, our real estate journey here.

Josh: 03:27

I'm excited to be able to have the space to unpack it because I feel like there's a lot to unpack and there may be gaps in some of the things that we have shared and learned about real estate here in Portugal that we need to fill

Kalie: 03:41

because gaps that we because we haven't put it out there

Josh: 03:44

either either gaps because we haven't put it out there or because there is there's a way you have to craft a YouTube video versus when you put out a podcast like we can just kind of free will, and talk to

Kalie: 03:56

it and just talk

Josh: 03:56

and just talk. Yeah. Just get your coffee and just talk. And I feel like on a YouTube video, you're you're pressed to kind of condense and distill an idea in a way that maybe you can't communicate everything that you would like to. Some things fall to the, to the cutting room floor and here we just don't have to do that.

Josh: 04:19

So buckle up, listener. We're gonna take you on a ride, and the ride does not end today. We'll continue to update. And most of the updates actually moving forward are going to happen on the new channel that we started. Let's get building with Josh and Kaylee.

Josh: 04:36

We're we'll talk more about that in a bit, but this is going to be a different weekly welcome. We've kind of already started, but I think we should just kind of jump into the content, or do you wanna do you wanna say anything to the to the people? I know we have some new new listeners because I imagine this is gonna bring in, some some new people who don't know who we are. So

Kalie: 04:54

Right. Normally, we just start off, explaining how the week has been, and I think I already did. Mine was deathly. So for me,

Josh: 05:02

I'm just not get much work

Kalie: 05:03

done. Didn't do much. So I I don't know if there's much much to report. So I think we we can just jump right in. I mean, obviously, in our normal YouTube channel, we've got an interview coming out with an American who started a cafe here

Josh: 05:17

Yes.

Kalie: 05:17

In Porto.

Josh: 05:18

Yes.

Kalie: 05:18

So that will be good. And then we've we're doing a little bit of Portugal versus Spain because we've done Portugal versus Italy. So you can be on the lookout for that. So that's the content coming out. But if you wanna jump right in, we can go for

Josh: 05:31

it. Well, yeah, actually, you you do kinda bring up a couple things that I wanna say. Okay. So on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and and the the podcast platforms, this episode goes out on Tuesdays. And so then the next day, tomorrow, I should say, for those of you listening on the day that this gets released, we're gonna be at Cafe Passaport to to meet up with Emily, the girl that we interviewed, the owner.

Josh: 06:01

So she'd love to meet you. We'd love to meet you if you wanna come out. You have the date on that? Wednesday

Kalie: 06:08

Wednesday. Josh looked at

Josh: 06:10

that too. April 17th. Yeah. So April 17th, we're gonna be there at Cafe Passaport from around noon. I'll probably be there around 2 hours.

Josh: 06:19

Grab some lunch and chat with, with whoever shows up. If nobody shows up, that's okay.

Kalie: 06:26

We're still getting bagels.

Josh: 06:27

Still getting bagels and coffee. And then what I wanted to say as well with that piece of content is that we have kind of a 3 episode run where we're talking about our trip to Southeast Asia. So we're we're going to Southeast Asia in September for a big conference. It's Nomad Capitalist Live. And, yeah, really excited about that.

Kalie: 06:51

Yeah. So that's not what the three pieces are about, but we will mention that in the next 3 coming up. Actually, as you listen to this, one's already come out. Right? So it would be

Josh: 07:01

This weekend. Yesterday. That's what that's what I mean. Yeah. Emily's interview.

Kalie: 07:04

Weekend was Emily's. Right. And then we've got the other 2 as well. But, yeah, heading to Kuala Lumpur. Oh.

Josh: 09:47

So in 2020, October 2020, we moved to Portugal and we had been living here for about 2 years and our desire to buy a a property, have our own house, have our own apartment started to grow.

Kalie: 10:04

Yeah. Which for us, that had never happened. No. We've lived in a lot of places, and we've never thought about actually buying a place, in any of those locations.

Josh: 10:13

Correct. Well yeah. I mean, we were definitely

Kalie: 10:16

hadn't. Had you?

Josh: 10:17

I had. Oh. Well, we were priced out of Singapore.

Kalie: 10:21

Oh, yeah. I didn't even consider it there. But where were you thinking you thought there?

Josh: 10:24

Singapore. Oh, because

Kalie: 10:25

we love Singapore so much. But, yeah, prices were

Josh: 10:28

so bad. We were just we were priced out, so it was a very fleeting thought.

Kalie: 10:31

Oh, okay. Yeah. So fleeting that you didn't even mention it to me.

Josh: 10:34

No. A 100%. That's why I didn't mention it because it just make any sense. We weren't earning the income levels and yeah. It just

Kalie: 10:40

didn't even thought about it. So this is the first place actually thinking about it, and I don't know. Maybe it's a different stage of life, obviously, with a child, and we have different jobs. So maybe there were a lot of factors. Europe, so we are at least closer to the US for family, so it makes a little more sense than something maybe in Asia that's pretty far.

Josh: 11:00

Yeah.

Kalie: 11:01

So, yeah, I guess it started to make sense.

Josh: 11:03

Yeah. And I would say in a way that this place, Portugal, has felt more like home than other places we've lived. Although we integrated really well and had a great community in Singapore, and it definitely felt like home every time we hit Changi. The the airport in Singapore.

Kalie: 11:21

The number one airport in the

Josh: 11:22

corner. Yeah.

Kalie: 11:23

Not just us. That's actually ranked. Yeah. It's great.

Josh: 11:27

So Singapore did have an element of feeling like home, but but Portugal has that feeling as well. It feels like a place that we could we could be for a while. How long a while is is very much up in the air.

Kalie: 11:43

Notice we don't stay forever.

Josh: 11:45

No. No.

Kalie: 11:45

We can't do that. That's

Josh: 11:47

weird. But we we look at Portugal as a place that we believe in. We want to kind of invest our time and energy in and and then also, yeah, have a a home that we can make our own, that when we wanna hang a sign, we don't have to, get approval from anybody. Although, Antonio, thank you very much. Yeah.

Josh: 12:06

Our landlord is amazing. But, yeah, so we made this decision to buy after about 2 years living here, and we, we looked at several apartments kind of in our price range, across kind of that time period. We were about a year here, and we started looking at stuff. But we hadn't really made the decision to buy. We weren't in a financial position to buy.

Josh: 12:30

We had a lot of money tied up in real estate in the U. S. And, things at that point, we're talking about 2021. Things at that point were not ballooning Yeah. The way they did during 2022 and 2023.

Kalie: 12:46

But prices were still quite reasonable. But we when we looked at apartments, we had our budget in mind. And it's funny. We looked at some really nice apartments that were right at our budget, maybe a little bit above. Yeah.

Kalie: 12:59

And now those would be so much more expensive thinking about it.

Josh: 13:03

Some of them double.

Kalie: 13:04

I mean Crazy.

Josh: 13:05

Yeah.

Kalie: 13:06

But they weren't I mean, I think if they were for us and, like, if we felt like this is it, we would've bought it. So it's not like we feel like an opportunity lost. But I think what ended up happening is we started seeing these, renovated apartments

Josh: 13:20

Mhmm.

Kalie: 13:20

That were maybe were in older buildings. The apartments would be beautiful. Or what's in the roof or what's above me, below me? Like, have they renovated recently? The plumbing.

Josh: 13:36

The electrical.

Kalie: 13:37

Yeah. So that really got us thinking, about how good of an idea is this or or now what? Right? What are the reasons?

Josh: 13:44

I think I think a lot of things that were done to the apartments that we saw were cosmetic, And it came down to the fact that someone had bought the unit in a building and they were like, well, I want to make this more presentable, more marketable. How can I do that? And it's like, well, I can paint the walls. I can put new cabinetry in. I can do this thing to give it an aesthetic upgrade, but the structural part of of a house is really important as well.

Josh: 14:12

So we were nervous about that. And then we started to really explore and get feedback from other people that we know that bought apartments like that. And they said, yeah. Everything was good until about, you know, 1 to 6 months in, and then they start finding the problems that existed behind the walls. So we started to think like, how can we mitigate these risks?

Josh: 14:35

How can we mitigate the risk of buying a unit and then the whole building itself turns into, Airbnb? And

Kalie: 14:44

because that was before the law.

Josh: 14:46

Yeah. And I was gonna say the government kind of took care of that issue, but that was one of the motivating factors for us to pursue pursue the vertical community venture.

Kalie: 14:54

Right. Because also too, we weren't super interested in a new build because that obviously would be completely new. We really wanted to find a building that had been renovated, restored. Right. There's so much beauty in Porto and there are so many older homes that, need some loving and need restoration, and we want to be part of that.

Kalie: 15:16

We want to live in something like that. Not necessarily live in something that had old an old look, but maybe the facade was an older look and the inside was updated. So we were looking for something a bit more like that. So we didn't really pursue new builds either.

Josh: 15:30

No. No. Not at all. I mean, I think one of the things that was a big impression on me is that the further we got into content creation, here in Portugal and, like, realtors reaching out to us wanting to film and having developments they wanted to show us and stuff to possibly get on videos. We started to see new developments, not not new builds, but developments in old buildings, like historic buildings where the facade was phenomenal.

Josh: 16:01

And then inside, once you step in, there was elegance, modernity, luxury, charm, like older world charm with some of the details and features. Very well blended all together and it made you feel like, oh, man, this is like kind of the high life here. Like living in the city in this old in this old historic building with the modernity that that you kind of look for.

Kalie: 16:28

Nowadays.

Josh: 16:29

Nowadays, yeah.

Kalie: 16:30

Right.

Josh: 16:31

So, all of these things kind of had a big impression on us in terms of what we wanted to look for, and then it was just a matter of, like, well, how do we how do we pull this off? And the the thing that kept coming to mind was to just kind of do it as a social experiment and a collective. Like, can we can we bring people together to harness the power of, like, cash and kind of throw at this project? So that's really how vertical community venture started, whereby we reached out to our YouTube community.

Kalie: 17:05

Wait. Wait. Wait. No. Before that, I think the idea started at a a guys' night.

Kalie: 17:09

I think you came home one day after having a guys' night, and you you came you had come up with this idea. You all thought it was a great idea. And, initially, didn't you say, we should all do it together?

Josh: 17:20

Well, I mean, I think that this idea had the the idea of a vertical community had had not just been here in Portugal that we had talked about it because we had talked about it with our friends that had, you know, been from other places. Right? Zach and Sam, shout out to you guys.

Kalie: 17:37

Live like other, expats we've met along the way.

Josh: 17:40

Yeah.

Kalie: 17:40

Yeah. Yeah. But I think that, that idea really came up. You did come home one night and talk about it.

Josh: 17:47

Yes. So there there is an element of that for sure, but I very much lead these kind of crazy wild ideas, in our relationship.

Kalie: 17:57

This is true.

Josh: 17:58

I'm the I'm the the visionary, if you will, and Kaley's the integrator. So there was a conversation at a at a dude's night, and and I don't know how serious the guys were. I mean, I guess now we know how serious the guys were. Not very serious.

Kalie: 18:13

None of them are that one. Yeah.

Josh: 18:15

But I think that the kind of the the feedback that I heard from them is it was interesting and they were into it, but I didn't necessarily think that it was gonna happen with them. It's just too difficult. That's just too difficult. So we reached out to our YouTube community and did all that.

Kalie: 18:32

Who is really interested? Right?

Josh: 18:34

Yeah. So, yeah, it's I mean, it started out as this idea, and then we started the search process in 2022, like, really in earnest. We got some really good initial traction with the properties that we were finding on the market. Certainly the prices of the properties at that time made sense Those very same properties now, like, in the same condition they are back then, now price now wouldn't make sense because of the way prices have gone both on the purchasing side and the rehab side. But we also partnered with with Savvy Cat Realty who helped us with the search and helped us with the acquisition.

Josh: 19:16

We did use eD Alishta like many people out there that search for homes. Just what's out there? Okay. I'm gonna go on Elishta. That's the main site we use.

Josh: 19:25

There are a couple other sites, but basically, all real estate tends to get dumped onto that site. And it's the Wild West on there.

Kalie: 19:33

Dumped. That's a really good, way

Josh: 19:34

to put it. That's the way to put it. And then we, in the whole process of this, we just continue to learn about the real estate here in Portugal, whether it be through reading stuff, talking to realtors, talking to real estate experts, just digging deeper into kind of what all the messes and complex ities there were in real estate here.

Kalie: 19:55

Right. So I'll just say we had a really good and have had I mean, they've helped along the way, a really good relationship with Savvy Cat Realty. Good experience. So if anyone's interested in seeing how they can help you, then you can contact us, and we can introduce you. Yeah.

Kalie: 20:08

They've been good.

Josh: 20:10

Savvy Cat was an excellent resource for us, and it wasn't completely flawless. There were problems. And I think it's it's fair to say, like, some of the problems we ran into with them had to do with with staffing. We certainly had an issue that arose with, with with one of the, with one of the employees that was basically our case manager. Case manager, would we call it that?

Kalie: 20:34

I guess our go to person. I don't know.

Josh: 20:36

Yes. Our main contact point here in Porto, he he suffered an injury in a motorcycle accident. So then, we kind of, like, lost that contact point. We were given a new person. That person was then having to deal with 2 workloads, and then they were having to onboard this other person to take over our initial person's workload and it just became like, okay, who do we talk to?

Josh: 21:00

So that happened for a couple of months, but it all got sorted out. And obviously, like, these things happen.

Kalie: 21:05

Yeah.

Josh: 21:05

It is life. But we had a close enough relationship with Anna, who's the CEO from Savvy Cat, where she very much kept us in the loop to the best of her abilities. And, yeah, overall, I would definitely recommend Savvy Cat.

Kalie: 21:19

Yes. Yeah.

Josh: 21:20

Do recommend Savvy Cat.

Kalie: 21:21

Yep. They they were great, helping us with the search. I mean so the the first person we had, and he's okay, from the from the motorcycle accident, but what was nice is a lot of stuff wasn't listed. You'd find things on Idelisto or sometimes we'd walk around because we were very specific, the neighborhood we wanted.

Josh: 21:37

So

Kalie: 21:38

Yeah. So he would actually walk around, and he'd see buildings that didn't have a for sale sign but weren't going anywhere. Right? And he would knock on doors and try to find out, like, how can I contact whoever owns this?

Josh: 21:50

Yes.

Kalie: 21:50

So that having that type of resource and they still do that. I mean, obviously, he he stepped away, and then they brought someone else in, who she followed us through the rest of the way was there at the signing and everything. Mhmm. She did that stuff too. She was you know?

Kalie: 22:04

So it's great that they have, you know, locals who are able to just chat with, like, the neighbors and stuff and try to figure out what's going on because some stuff a lot of stuff is not on.

Josh: 22:15

Yeah. I mean,

Kalie: 22:15

there is a lot that is, but there's a lot that's not.

Josh: 22:17

There'll just be a for sale sign on the outside of a property with a contact number, and that's it. Like, you you don't know what it is that's being sold. It's just like this building. It could be the building. It could be an apartment in the building.

Kalie: 22:28

And how many times did you call one of those numbers and no one picked up? No one picked up.

Josh: 22:33

So There's a there's a great piece of land in combatant.

Kalie: 22:37

And no one picked up? No one picked up. Anyway, so so they've been great. So then moving on, are we getting to where we signed or not yet?

Josh: 22:46

No. No. No. No. Not yet.

Josh: 22:47

I mean, we we ran into some issues during the search because the search criteria that we had was so tight, due to one of the people that wanted to invest with us, wanted to invest in this collective. Initially, the idea was we collectively invest together. We didn't know whether or not we were gonna have to form a company or how that was gonna work. But we felt like it was gonna be okay to, cross that bridge when we got to it instead of, like, going ahead and forming a company and formalizing the partnership among the people who were interested in investing. And we had, 4 3 other families that wanted to invest with us.

Josh: 23:33

And, one of them one family had a very, very difficult search criteria, like, box to to tick off, which was they they needed their apartment to be all on the same floor and at least a 100 square meters. And if you know anything about Porto, the city center, a lot of the buildings are long and narrow and the footprints are not a 100, meters. So that was that was our our most challenging thing in our search criteria and inventory was low period like in the neighborhood we wanted to buy in, near the street we wanted to be on, or on the street we wanted to be on, search criteria was low. Prices were continuing to rise during this time period. But then in early 2023, we finally identified a place actually, revisited a place that we saw earlier, and we revisited it because the family that couldn't be in a place that was less than a 100 square meters dropped out.

Kalie: 24:39

Yeah. And, actually, in the meantime, I think, we picked up a new one Yep. And then a cup couple others dropped out too.

Josh: 24:46

Yeah. So end of the day

Kalie: 24:47

dropping and changing.

Josh: 24:48

Yeah. In the end of the day, we we basically had us and another family that was willing to, to kind of move forward together.

Kalie: 24:56

Right. And I think once

Josh: 24:58

they got important for later in this story.

Kalie: 25:01

Once it got real and we were, like, okay. We have the place, that's when I think some people were wavering, I guess you could say.

Josh: 25:10

Right? A 100%. I think I think that's a very accurate way to to put what happened. It was like I revisited this place. We felt like being on the ground, it was the right place based on availability, based on what it was going to cost to acquire it and rehab it, and the permits that were already on the property.

Josh: 25:31

So, like, the projected timeline from purchasing to to to finalizing or moving in was good enough to where it was like, this is the place. And if this isn't the place, guys, there's no place right now.

Kalie: 25:46

Yeah. I mean, it had been, what, 2 years that we had been looking? Year and a half or so?

Josh: 25:51

Year and a half. Yeah.

Kalie: 25:52

And while the location wasn't on our favorite street, it's still in our favorite neighborhood, and it's in a really good location. So while that we had to say, okay. Do we wanna give that up? It made sense with all the other boxes, I guess, being ticked. Everything else looked good.

Josh: 26:10

Yeah.

Kalie: 26:10

So we're like, alright. We're ready to do this. Yeah. And so people dropped out.

Josh: 26:15

Yeah. Exactly. But we we felt confident enough because of the the price, the the, like, initial price that was being offered that we could actually at least acquire it ourselves. We didn't have to go through the the kind of partnership agreement, form a company, or form an LLC or LLDA, I believe is what it is here, to then move forward to acquire the property using a company. We could do it personally under our names and then move forward with financing the rest of it.

Josh: 26:49

So financing the rest of it looked, as it would be a mortgage plus cash from people buying the units.

Kalie: 26:59

Right. So we went ahead and got preapproved.

Josh: 27:01

Yes.

Kalie: 27:02

So we saw what we were working with.

Josh: 27:04

Yes.

Kalie: 27:04

And It's

Josh: 27:06

It's when things it's when things been started to get complicated. So we put an offer in on the place. We went lower than the list price because we felt like there were there were gonna be some hurdles and some things that could justify why the price should be lower, and I feel like we were well within our right to lower the price. The offer was accepted. The ball got rolling pretty quickly after that.

Kalie: 27:33

Right. And then the I guess the biggest issue for us is a lot of stuff hit when we were on our cruise back from so we went to the US for a visit, of course. So we've got, like, footage of me sitting on the phone with Millennium trying to transfer over the money for the CPCV because you either have to do that in person because it's such a large amount or you have to get off the phone.

Josh: 27:58

Yeah.

Kalie: 27:58

So that was fun because we were back in the states. So we did that, and then a lot of stuff needed to happen when we happened beyond that 2 week cruise across the Atlantic where, you know, Internet's not great.

Josh: 28:10

Yeah.

Kalie: 28:10

So Josh was freaking out.

Josh: 28:12

And it was it was a massive timing issue and, like, order operation issue. And I I wanna say this kind of as a as a warning if you're looking at purchasing a property. What happened for us is we used our I believe it was our 2021 taxes tax returns to get preapproved. So they were looking at our finances from 2021, but we were around the filing period for filing for 2022. So, because of that, we probably should not have put in the offer without actually getting our, like, current paperwork because there was a bit of a lag.

Josh: 28:50

Like, we're talking about a several month lag between knowing that preapproval number and then actually putting our deposit down and everything or let's say putting in the offer and then having to put the deposit down so because there was that lag we now needed to supply our 2022 taxes tax returns to secure the money from the bank. And that's when it got a bit crazy because it meant that we needed to file our taxes while in the middle of the Atlantic with horrible Internet and just being in a massive massive time crunch. Being a foreigner, being an an American that lives abroad, you can file for an extension on, filing your taxes. You you're not beholden to the April 15th date. You get until June, I believe it is, if you file for an extension.

Josh: 29:41

And the guy that we do our taxes with

Kalie: 29:45

We always do an extension.

Josh: 29:46

For years, I mean, he just he just goes ahead. Automatically. Yeah. The extension, gives a bit, you know, bit extra time. But the but

Kalie: 29:53

the thing was is we were in the ocean, like, soon after April 15th. So for them here in Portugal, they were like, well, you should have already filed, so you should have your new tax returns.

Josh: 30:03

Yep.

Kalie: 30:04

And we're like, but we haven't filed yet. We don't need to. But they're like, but we wanna see your new tax returns.

Josh: 30:09

Like Yeah. They were not going to move forward with our with our mortgage paperwork.

Kalie: 30:15

Yeah. Because you you get preapproved. I think you're good for, like, 3 months, and so we were really close to that time frame. But I think because we had passed another tax period where we could file in the US, they wanted to see the new ones. Yeah.

Kalie: 30:29

So that was stressful. So then here we are not having fun, but sitting there trying to file our taxes. I mean, our and our tax guy was great.

Josh: 30:37

He's like

Kalie: 30:38

Amazing. You know, we put stuff in a platform for him, and then he files, and he's like, give it to me, you know, and I'll do it. I'll do it. So He

Josh: 30:45

he, yeah, he really pulled in a favor for us. So we appreciate it, Steven. Okay. So after all of that was done, there was there was definitely some back and forth on not necessarily, like, negotiating what was happening with the purchase, but the supplying of documents, it got very, very messy because the buyers sorry. The sellers did not have an attorney that was representing them at that time, so it was our representatives being Joao, who's our lawyer, and Tadeza, who was our point person with Savvy Cat, who essentially was like an agent in this yeah they were the ones going back and forth with the owners and I would foolishly interject myself just trying to speed things up and, yeah, just essentially trying to get things done faster.

Josh: 31:38

It got very messy, needless to say, but we do end up getting to our closing date, which is June 2023.

Kalie: 31:45

Well, that got pushed as well because It did. Some of it as well as the bank's fault because they'd be like, you know, we need this document. And we'd be like, we already gave you that document. Here's proof that we gave you that document. And they'd be like, oh, yeah.

Josh: 32:00

We do have that

Kalie: 32:01

document. Yeah.

Josh: 32:01

And then

Kalie: 32:02

they'd be like, well, we need this one. And we'd be like You already have it. No. They'd be like, yeah. You need this.

Kalie: 32:08

And we'd be like, you never told us you needed that though. Oh, we need it now. You know? And it's like, don't you have, like, again, a platform that you can submit all this stuff with, like, a list of everything? So it it felt very disorganized for a bank to be doing this.

Josh: 32:22

Yeah.

Kalie: 32:23

So there was a little bit of that as well. So just strap yourselves in. Watch for that stuff if you're looking to buy.

Josh: 32:29

Yeah. Which isn't uncommon.

Kalie: 32:31

Yeah. I know. It's very normal.

Josh: 32:33

And this is where, you know, this is where it goes back to, like, well, should I just make a cash purchase or should I purchase with a mortgage? And I would say it very much depends. I mean, there are positives to using a bank and getting a mortgage, not just monetary, but also, on the the kind of checks and balances side of of things whereby a bank will do a lot of due diligence and want a lot of due diligence done, whereas we heard about people making cash purchases and the correct due diligence wasn't done. And they they didn't actually buy what they thought they were gonna buy or there was, you know, a lien on something or there was there were problems.

Kalie: 33:09

Like an inspection. Right? I mean, like, the bank goes in

Josh: 33:12

and then just inspects. And appraisal.

Kalie: 33:13

Yeah. Yeah. So you do have that stuff that the bank does. Yeah. Pros and cons for sure.

Josh: 33:18

Yeah. Okay. So we end up closing in June 2023.

Kalie: 33:23

Oh, it's.

Josh: 33:24

So that was

Kalie: 33:25

either gonna be a very happy or a very sad Sao Joao because the day had been pushed several times. Yeah. And so we're like, can we please just get to closing? I remember telling our lawyer, please get us to closing before I strangle Josh because he it was it was a rough few weeks, like, with all the delays and and stuff. But we made it, and it was a very happy Sauge Rausch Forest.

Josh: 33:46

It was a happy Sauge Rausch And and thus really began kind of the next phase of our real estate journey because now we were property owners here in Portugal, and we kind of had to work on the the next yeah next phase the next group of actions and activities that we had to do to now prepare this building for, for being 6 units. So we bought a property that had it's a main building on a main street, and then there's this kind of annex to the property that's on a side street. And the main building is is gonna be made into 5 units. That's what it was approved for. We bought a property that already had plans on it.

Josh: 34:30

It's called a PIP, and you can have a PIP, and then you can have something that's even higher than that where you have a, like, a full project approval.

Kalie: 34:38

And, well, let me just say this. The PIP is something that a lot of people, when they buy a place and that they want they wanna make renovations and they say, oh, but it takes years to even get started. The PIP is the thing that you need.

Josh: 34:48

Yes.

Kalie: 34:49

So that's the approval through city hall. Right? Yeah. So if you buy a place that already has it, then you can bypass those couple of years and you are allowed to make changes to the PIP, which doesn't take as long. Right?

Josh: 35:01

It doesn't take as long.

Kalie: 35:02

As long to to get approved.

Josh: 35:04

That's key.

Kalie: 35:05

Yeah. So, just, I guess, thinking about that, the PIP is the thing that expedites some of that Yeah. Sitting around waiting time before you can do anything.

Josh: 35:13

Yeah. So our next step after purchasing the property was to get with the architect and figure out, okay, what are we actually gonna do with this building? How are we gonna get plans or, like, you know, project blueprints? Because we need those more or less as marketing to sell the units that we have that will then fund the project itself.

Kalie: 35:38

Right. And, obviously, before we bought the place, we had already had our architect and engineer go in

Josh: 35:43

Yeah.

Kalie: 35:44

Talk to us about it.

Josh: 35:46

We got quotes. Quotes. Yeah. Quotes from several actually.

Kalie: 35:48

Right. So we we didn't just go into that blindly as far as, like, how much stuff should cost for materials and price per square meter and everything.

Josh: 35:56

Yeah.

Kalie: 35:56

So we had done all that, which is how we knew that pricing would be good for the purchase of it.

Josh: 36:01

And to give you an indication of, like, what those prices were, this was 2023. Yeah.

Kalie: 36:09

Yeah. Beginning. Yeah.

Josh: 36:10

Beginning of 2023 when we received the quotes, and the quotes, range from €800 per square meter to €1800 per square meter from the different companies. And the the companies had different levels of service, and the low end excuse me. The low end did not provide plans. They were they were just on the construction side. They could build the preapproved plan that the architects before had placed.

Josh: 36:42

Or if we wanted new architectural plans, we could get those, pass them off to the builder, and then the builder would build at €800 per square meter.

Kalie: 36:51

Right. So, anyway, we went with

Josh: 36:53

a company.

Kalie: 36:55

No. Well, we didn't really like the plans anyway of, what was originally the original PIP. We wanted to get those changed. So we went with a company that did everything in house. Because that's another thing that we've heard is that when you have different companies doing different things, the this this is where you get a lot of delays because they can't control, okay.

Kalie: 37:13

Now we need to lay the concrete, so we have to hire this concrete team. Oh, well, they're not ready for another month. So then you just sit there and wait till they get there. And what?

Josh: 37:22

You're sounding really congested. So if you wanna take care of that, I can I can keep us moving forward?

Kalie: 37:27

Alright. I'm gonna go blow my nose to you guys.

Josh: 37:31

So the the company that we use, the name is Pedro Likida, and it's a company that we found out about because we hosted an event at one of their properties. They have a couple of hotels and developments here in Porto, as well as other parts of Portugal, but they're based here in Porto. And one of their properties is Tipo Gropia DuPont. It's an amazing boutique hotel award winning design, just phenomenal spot. And when I walked into this place, it got me very curious about who built this, who's the architect, the designer.

Josh: 38:08

Lo and behold, it's the, the owner of the hotel is an architect Pedar Lykita. So we end up contracting with them and they basically say, our contract says we're gonna do all of these things in a turnkey way, meaning that we'll do the architectural plans and the actual work and have it returned to you June 2025, so 2 years.

Kalie: 38:39

I'm back, by the way. Now Yeah. I was just Yeah.

Josh: 38:42

Go ahead.

Kalie: 38:43

I was just gonna say the the nice thing about this is so she has all the the well, the company itself has all the different teams. So they can time the different projects that they're working on. It's all their stuff, obviously, for different clients, but they can time certain things of when when like concrete, for example, needs to be laid. So that team will be ready to go as opposed to waiting a month or something to get a concrete team in, something like that. So that's where stuff can go a little faster.

Josh: 39:10

Yes.

Kalie: 39:11

What were you gonna say?

Josh: 39:12

I was gonna say is the the confusion that happened with me when we were having these meetings with Alchandra was all along the way, she kept saying this was before we signed with them, because we did need, like, to have a lawyer involved. We were we were absolutely recommended by Savvycat to have a lawyer involved between the contract with us and the company we were gonna use. And I would recommend that to you if you're gonna do that as well. If you're gonna have any contractor work on a property of yours, get a contract and get a lawyer involved to do that contract. So, all along the way, Al Shondra, full confidence is like it's going to take 14 months to to do these works, maximum 16, but she's like, it'll take 14.

Josh: 40:03

I mean, it was like rock hard confidence, but then we get to the very date that we actually sign. And on the contract that we've made with Pedra Lykida, and mind you, this is around, like, June time 2023, she says, or puts in the contract that it's June 2025. And I'm like, wait a second. That's 24 months. Like, what the heck yeah little did I

Kalie: 40:29

know how she's been around the block she knows

Josh: 40:32

how intelligent that was Basically, 10 months were built in due to kind of bureaucratic and administrative problems that

Kalie: 40:42

She knew would happen.

Josh: 40:42

That she knew would happen.

Kalie: 40:44

Yeah.

Josh: 40:44

And, boy, was she right. The great the very, very great thing about her proposing this date of June 2024 2025, sorry, June 2025 was that we then had a date that we could tell potential buyers of units when the completion was. So instead of, like, really, I don't know, cutting our time and making contracts with people for 14 months, it was no, okay. It's gonna be June 2025. Date.

Josh: 41:18

Yeah. Now those of you who've already done real estate here in Portugal and done properties, projects, you're probably like freaking out right now because you're like, no way. It's gonna run over. Like, it's gonna be you're gonna have disaster after disaster. You could be right.

Josh: 41:34

We don't know. Like, this story isn't over yet, but the next phase for us became selling the selling the units. Right? We're like we didn't have any funding.

Kalie: 41:45

Yeah. We need needed money

Josh: 41:47

to own cash. We had the cash from the other, the other family that was investing with us, but we needed more money.

Kalie: 41:55

Well, yeah, of course, we needed to sell the units to help fund the construction

Josh: 41:59

Yeah.

Kalie: 42:00

Which we did.

Josh: 42:02

Yeah. I mean, we we started we had Pedrileki to start on the redesign, not using the the the plans that we already had in place, but you creating new plans and then taking those and letting our community know this is now more or less what we have, available. These are the t ones. These are the t twos, the 1 bedrooms, the 2 bedrooms.

Kalie: 42:24

Right. So we were able to sell those, and that was a process as well because, you know, we recommend that the the buyer has a lawyer and then we had our lawyer, and then they'd go back and forth on certain negotiations within the contracts. And, that stuff just takes time.

Josh: 42:42

You know,

Kalie: 42:42

time time. But but, yeah, they're they're all sold. So we well, yeah, they're all the ones that we wanna sell are sold, and, then we could get going, so we thought.

Josh: 42:54

Well, I I wouldn't even say that. I do wanna just back up and and mention that Kaylee and I have talked about this turnkey project with Pedralikide. And, essentially, what that means is it means that they're doing both the architectural component and the Project Works component. But because they're selling it as this package, it means for a lower EVA or, what do we call it, VAT, value added tax

Kalie: 43:19

Tax.

Josh: 43:19

Yeah. In English. So because it's that lower tax, it's a massive, massive savings. And when you're talking about, like, sales prices of 100 of 1,000 of dollars or euros and a percentage point means that you're talking about 1,000. Right?

Josh: 43:40

The savings were in the 1,000, tens of 1,000 of of euros.

Kalie: 43:45

Yes. Yeah. So that was definitely a perk to do in the turnkey.

Josh: 43:49

It's the difference between I think it's 6% 6 or 7%. I believe it's 6% on this service versus 23%.

Kalie: 43:56

Yes.

Josh: 43:56

Yeah. So when we were offered the turnkey, we knew that we would need to have more cash upfront to pay the deposits on this turnkey, offer, but it was gonna save a lot of my 17% in the long run.

Kalie: 44:11

Right. Okay. So

Josh: 44:12

then math. Right?

Kalie: 44:14

Yeah. Sounds like. So then so the units have been sold, and now we're, you know, getting permits and stuff because of changes with the with the PIP and going through that process. I mean, Pedro Likudow is the one doing all that stuff. So it's a lot of back and forth with city hall and everything, getting approval.

Kalie: 44:33

You've gotta get all sorts of approvals, you know, for a demo to block the roads. They can bring the machines in. Set up the crane. There's just all sorts of paperwork. Yeah.

Kalie: 44:44

And that stuff takes time.

Josh: 44:46

Oh, it it takes a ton of time. It's it's a long and multistep approval process, and I think what happened for me, my my kind of most neurotic moment was during the purchase side for us. I was very anxious about it. We actually made a video about it. We'll link it in the description section, but or show notes.

Josh: 45:10

But the process that we've been going through over the past several months about getting new approvals has been much less Yeah. Like, much less stress. I just I have a lot of trust and and faith in Alshandra.

Kalie: 45:23

She keeps saying we're still on target date.

Josh: 45:25

So the crazy thing is, like, every month that goes by and we haven't started demolition, or demolition hasn't started, I'm like, Ashandra, is are we okay? Are we still gonna make the the June deadline date? Because we have contracts with other people. And if we don't meet that date, there could be repercussions. So she just continues to say yes.

Josh: 45:46

She's like, look. I've built all this in, and and that's when it dawned on me. That's why that's why you said 24 months, but you said it'll take 14 to actually get the works and everything done.

Kalie: 45:58

Right. So then we hit it's around November time. Alright. We can get going. But then we we discovered this this thing ARU.

Kalie: 46:08

Right? You wanna explain what that is?

Josh: 46:10

ARU is a let me let me see how to put this in a way that will make sense easily. ADO is an acronym in Portuguese and it's it's basically talking about a rehabilitation urban area whereby if you rehab a project, in this area, there are tax incentives. And the tax incentives can be getting a tax refund on some of the taxes you paid when you purchased the property, and those transfer taxes in Portugal are no joke. Like, in the States, we pay transfer taxes. We pay taxes when we first purchase a property, and then you have your annual taxes, your property taxes, that are are generally high, I would say, depending on what city or county you're in or state.

Josh: 47:01

In Portugal. It's it's very front loaded. You pay a ton of taxes upfront, but then after you own the property, the annual property taxes are, by American standards, like, ridiculously low. I mean, I'm talking, like, a couple 100 a year. So for this reason, we wanted to pursue this auto process because it meant that if we were approved and our building did fit the criteria, but you have to go through a couple stages of approval.

Josh: 47:30

But if we are approved, we're talking about getting back a couple 100, sorry, a couple tens of 1,000 of dollars. And not only that, but the first person that you sell the unit to is also able to get either that money back or discounted whatever, or it's it's not at all. The the tax is not applied at all. Yeah. So because of this, we kind of reached out and let the buyers know, hey, this is the process we're going through.

Josh: 48:03

We're gonna have to delay starting demolition, but it could save you 10, 15, maybe 20 grand.

Kalie: 48:09

Right. It definitely seemed worth it. One of the big things is they're backed up with they have to send someone out to take a look at it, because you have to prove that you lift it up to a certain level.

Josh: 48:20

The energy efficiency is raised. Yeah.

Kalie: 48:22

So they said, you know, a lot of people take pictures and videos, but they could you're not technically supposed to do that, so they could be like, this isn't valid even though there have been cases that it's already gone through with that. So we didn't wanna risk it because, honestly, we have loads of videos and and pictures of it so we could show, how much better it got. Right? But, we just decided we should wait for somebody to go out there. It made more sense.

Kalie: 48:50

So that was just more waiting because you have to schedule that. They're they're backed up

Josh: 48:54

so not only not only they backed up but it's also the time of year we're coming into like the massive holiday period when we're applying for all this stuff so you know business days get shorter and shorter the number of business days during December and beginning of January are cut like crazy.

Kalie: 49:14

And then the person who was assigned to us got sick. Remember? And they had to reschedule for, like, weeks later.

Josh: 49:20

Yeah. We had a date, and then that person got sick, so it got pushed another two and a half weeks. That's when I started to get really annoyed, and I freak out maybe a little too strong, but I got Yeah. Yeah.

Kalie: 49:31

But I didn't know.

Josh: 49:32

I didn't freak out.

Kalie: 49:33

It was just that was with the purchase. That was a freak out. This wasn't as bad

Josh: 49:37

as it said. So demo finally started in February of 2024, but then we found asbestos.

Kalie: 49:45

Which we knew that that was a high possibility that it would be found. Better looking to do that. And it was a small amount, but still there's more paperwork.

Josh: 49:55

Yeah. But the the problem is is, like, you have to get an official approval to have the asbestos removed, like a safety removal, approval. And that was another, like, several week process to have that done.

Kalie: 50:09

Because also too, they have to set a specific date because a police officer comes out to, like, facilitate and monitor. Yeah. And right now, the, the police officers are on strike.

Josh: 50:19

Yeah. So there's

Kalie: 50:20

So there's less working.

Josh: 50:21

There's less working, less availability. It's just an absolute mess.

Kalie: 50:25

Slow down.

Josh: 50:26

And and kind of the last hurdle we've run into is that we we we lost our position to have the crane raised. So, like, you have to have an approval essentially

Kalie: 50:38

And a police officer for that too. Yeah.

Josh: 50:40

To have the crane built. Right? They don't just rock up with this, like, 100 meter crane and just, you know, just boom.

Kalie: 50:46

So it straight up.

Josh: 50:48

You know, they they have to to build it, and we lost our we lost our position to have that built, and and we won't be able to get that approval until I think it's April 18th.

Kalie: 51:01

So in a in a couple of days approval. No. Like, it actually goes up. It's been approved, I thought.

Josh: 51:08

Well, I think I think it just got approved, and that's the thing that we just paid €1700 for.

Kalie: 51:14

So it's been approved, and it's supposed to go up soon.

Josh: 51:17

Yes.

Kalie: 51:18

So, I mean, demo is fully

Josh: 51:21

Demo has started, and and that's where, I guess, I wanna tell you that our first video on the the new channel that's gonna be documenting this rehab process, let's get building with Josh and Kaylee. That is going to take a look at kind of our first days of demo, and I'll catch people up to date on on this story in the condensed way and kind of what we were experiencing in the moment because we filmed all of that stuff. Showing up to the property, thinking things were gonna get done. Nothing happened. There.

Kalie: 51:52

Like, wait a second.

Josh: 51:54

Yeah. So we're we're actually moving forward. Like, we are we are building well, breaking things down to

Kalie: 52:02

that. Right.

Josh: 52:03

Build up. So that's where we're at now. Kaylee, what have you learned in this process?

Kalie: 52:09

Patience? No. I don't know. I'm not really freaked out the way that you have. I've been very calm through it.

Kalie: 52:15

Mhmm. And I think it's because Alshonda has been very confident. So I really just said, okay. She should know what she's doing. She's been doing it for over 20 years here in Porto as well.

Kalie: 52:25

So

Josh: 52:25

Yeah.

Kalie: 52:26

She should know what she's doing. I think she knows what she's doing. And so she's been calm. So I've been calm. So I guess the learning process for me would be it is really important to have a lawyer, to have people in the industry.

Kalie: 52:40

It's worth the money to hire that. I think doing it yourself just will lead to disaster because it's a new you know, if you're not from here, you don't know exactly how it works. But there's just always someone you have to talk to, something you have to do. So if you don't speak the language fluently, then you're gonna have difficulties there. There's all these little appointments you have to go to, so having someone there with you is much nicer than trying to navigate it yourself.

Josh: 53:08

So I think, for me, what I've learned is to to let the professionals take the lead, ask a bunch of questions, ask not not in a a a way that you're questioning what they're doing, but you're asking for clarification because I I want, as a developer now, I guess we're quasi developers, I wanna be able to let the people that have invested and believed in me know what's happening and know that, you know, to the best of our abilities, the situation is under control. And really it's the government side of thing that just slows everything down. It's not for a lack of like effort on the side of the businesses, the Portuguese businesses that are involved in real estate, but it's really the dang government.

Kalie: 54:02

Yeah. And I don't want

Josh: 54:03

to slag the government off too much. I don't know their inner workings and I don't know their checks and balances, but I just wish they would speed things up a bit faster.

Kalie: 54:10

Some things seem quite inefficient.

Josh: 54:13

Yeah. So I always find out what governments That's true. With with administrative bureaucratic stuff. What's been the most challenging thing that you've noticed in all of this?

Kalie: 54:23

The government.

Josh: 54:25

The government?

Kalie: 54:25

Yeah. Just the some of the steps you have to do, you're like, why?

Josh: 54:30

You

Kalie: 54:30

know, just inefficiencies and then not communicating with different government entities, I guess, that have to do certain things. It's like, can't they just share this information with each other rather than having to submit it on all these platforms or go to these different appointments that seem the same?

Josh: 54:47

Mhmm. So some

Kalie: 54:47

of that stuff seems a little silly, but I think that's just normal everywhere. Right?

Josh: 54:51

Yeah.

Kalie: 54:52

Little hoops you have to jump through.

Josh: 54:54

Yeah. I think for me, the biggest challenge has been I get irritated when people set fixed dates, and then they reschedule, like, you know, 48 hours out or 24 hours out. It's happened so

Kalie: 55:08

well. Growing experience.

Josh: 55:09

No. I don't wanna grow like that. Honestly, like, I don't wanna grow like that. Like, if you say a date, just meet the date. Just show up.

Josh: 55:14

Just show up. Like, cancel your other things. Don't cancel on me because every time it gets canceled on me, it just pushes things further further back. It irritates me so

Kalie: 55:23

bad. Obviously.

Josh: 55:24

So bad.

Kalie: 55:25

Alright. Moving on. What's been the most stressful thing for you?

Josh: 55:28

I mean, in the whole process, easily was at the at the purchase side of things.

Kalie: 55:33

Yeah.

Josh: 55:33

I I made You were a little mistakes that, yeah, that just stress stress me out because I don't like to be the guy to set a date and then have to push things back because I know how much it bothers me. Yeah. You? Stressful? You haven't been stressed really at all?

Kalie: 55:47

No. I don't I feel that you don't understand

Josh: 55:50

the weight of like, the the heaviness, the weight of this, not the w a I t weight.

Kalie: 55:56

No. I just the confidence okay. So also throughout this, which is why I think it's important to have a lawyer, who's Portuguese, he was very comfortable and confident as well. So the fact that he was like, it's okay. This is normal

Josh: 56:12

He's not made

Kalie: 56:13

me feel okay.

Josh: 56:14

But but but, also, he's not confident about the the completion date.

Kalie: 56:18

Well, that. But I'm talking about, like, the purchase. Throughout the purchase, he was like

Josh: 56:22

You're right.

Kalie: 56:22

This is normal. This happens all the time. And he's like, it it shouldn't happen all the time, but we're virtual. This happens all the time. So this is the standard.

Josh: 56:31

It irritates him that that's the standard. Like, he hates he hates when the excuse and and Anna with Savvy Cat hates when the excuse of, like, well, this is Portugal Portugal. Yeah. Is made. Like, they both get irritated by that because they they expect more out of their country, which is cool.

Josh: 56:47

I think things will things will change when that happens. When more people kind of take that mentality

Kalie: 56:53

Definitely.

Josh: 56:53

Then things will change. So, who's helped us the most in this process? I think we have to give a couple shout outs.

Kalie: 57:01

Yeah. Oh, yes. So I would say Rafael for the mortgage.

Josh: 57:05

Amazing. Working working with him was so easy. So And and he was the one, really, during the whole process of getting paperwork to the bank. He didn't need to kind of be in and amongst it, but he just put himself in and amongst it and was like, guys, we need this, this, and this. We've already sent this.

Josh: 57:25

Let's go. Let's go. He was pushing it.

Kalie: 57:26

Yes. He was pushing the bank as well. So if you like an introduction with him, you could email me. I'll introduce you. He was good.

Kalie: 57:34

Joao, our lawyer. Also, Also, if you wanna introduce actually, anyone we talk about, if you're interested, then just email us so we can introduce you.

Josh: 57:41

Yeah.

Kalie: 57:42

He was great as well.

Josh: 57:45

I really liked Walnut Construction as well. It's a company that we didn't use, but we got a quote from them. Pedro was really easy to talk to, get on with.

Kalie: 57:55

I think the big thing with them was they're based in Lisbon as well. So

Josh: 58:00

They have an office here, but I think it was I think it was also price. Because for us, one of the the things that we wanted to do was to keep the price per square meter as as low as we reasonably could, and it was just a price thing.

Kalie: 58:17

So that we could sell the units at a reasonable and not inflated price like we we were seeing.

Josh: 58:22

Yeah. We wanna fight against this kind of inflated price. And granted, we wanted to try to keep it around 3,000 is what we were looking to do, it became very difficult. I mean the current market is like 4,000 plus. I mean, 45, I think, is kind of the new norm.

Josh: 58:41

€45100 per square meter on a project kind of similar to ours. But you can also find projects that are 55, 100, 6000.

Producer Dan: 58:53

If it's

Josh: 58:53

a small unit, it might be 6 1,000 to €65100 per square meter. It's bonkers.

Kalie: 58:58

It's too much.

Josh: 58:59

Like, at

Kalie: 58:59

the end

Josh: 58:59

of the day, like, I love Porto, but this is Porto. I mean Yeah. Those prices don't match up with kind of the the street level economics of what's happening in the city.

Kalie: 59:10

Right. So Walnut was good. They were they were really good. We really liked them, but just with pricing and then I mean, for us, Pedralikita, since they've been here doing it here for, like, 20 plus years, they had made no people. Connections in city hall.

Kalie: 59:25

So I think that that helped, you know, sway it a little bit as well. But Walnut was a good option too.

Josh: 59:32

Yeah. So if we're at this point in the process where we're just kind of starting demolition and develop, development moving forward. If you could, would you do it over again? The whole thing? Like Would you do another project?

Kalie: 59:46

Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, obviously, if the prices checked out Yeah. That would

Josh: 59:52

be a

Kalie: 59:52

big thing.

Josh: 59:53

That's the thing that concerns me right now

Kalie: 59:55

is that still on the rise.

Josh: 59:56

They're they're still on the rise. I mean, so my answer is yes. I would do it again. And I've started to look for other buildings, but the problem we just had we just had a building priced out in terms of the the project and renovation side, and it was, like, 33% higher, than the quotes that we got a year ago in terms of what what the construction price per square meter is. That's scary.

Josh: 01:00:22

So, it does actually make sense in a way that we're seeing the final product's price being now 45100 to 5,000

Kalie: 01:00:31

Yeah.

Josh: 01:00:32

Euros per square meter.

Kalie: 01:00:33

So good investment.

Josh: 01:00:33

Because it's, like, 33% has been added on. What what's kind of changed in you during this process? Is there have has there been any, like, big kind of transformation either in thought or

Kalie: 01:00:49

I don't think so. No? No. I mean, I guess what's the only thing that seems to have changed is pricing of things and just you I mean, obviously, since we're in it, we're tracking that stuff a lot more. I think if we weren't doing anything housing related, then, we'd have to be more intentional on seeing, like, what realistic prices are because sometimes you go if you go on a deletion, for example, you'll see all sorts of ranges of prices, and you're just like, what is going on?

Kalie: 01:01:13

But now that we're we've been in it for years, we know what's going on.

Josh: 01:01:17

Yeah.

Kalie: 01:01:17

So I think that seeing the craziness of that, I don't know, has maybe changed my view on on housing and how it works because we're in it a lot more. Yes. So knowing about the supply and demand and prices going up and why they're going up and why they're not going up. You know? Because, obviously, media talks a lot about certain things of why they think or pushing something, why it's going up.

Kalie: 01:01:40

But,

Josh: 01:01:41

I don't even know if it's media then. I think it's as as much the government.

Kalie: 01:01:46

As well. Like, they're doing doing different they have different policies that

Josh: 01:01:50

You're you're

Kalie: 01:01:51

think will work.

Josh: 01:01:52

You're you're talking about, like, the golden visa by by real real estate investment.

Kalie: 01:01:55

Well, I mean, some policies that they're doing, it's hard because it's like, for example, with the taxes. So for the longest time, it was it made more sense, to have a short term, like, rental Yeah. Than it did a long term rental because the taxes were lower on a short term rental. Yeah. That's crazy because you can charge more on a short term rental rather than long term.

Kalie: 01:02:16

So then all of a sudden, there's no long term rentals because why, of course, why would a

Josh: 01:02:20

A landlord can make more money and be taxed less, be more tax efficient.

Kalie: 01:02:23

Right. For so little things like that, but that was a government implementation. Well, now they've they've realized that. Yeah. So now they're trying to, you know, incentivize to go to long term.

Kalie: 01:02:33

So little things like that that it's like the government kinda made the problem, and maybe now they're trying to fix it

Josh: 01:02:38

Yeah.

Kalie: 01:02:39

Which is good. But then it's, like, more policies and legislation that you wonder, you know, if they're doing it for the right reasons, of course, just like a lot of governments. But so I don't know. I think you we're in we're in this that a lot more than I would be if we weren't doing our own housing project at this point. Yeah.

Kalie: 01:02:59

You?

Josh: 01:03:00

Well, the the biggest thing that has changed for me is because I've now been looking at things from a developer's perspective and looking at other developments and kind of tracking what's going on with that, I see why prices are the way the way they are. I I mean, yo, guys, it is getting expensive to do developments. And the amount of risk that a developer takes on, I mean, I've heard several kind of people in the industry talk about when the developer actually makes money because it tends to be on the the last units that they sell, right, Because the first ones that get sold are are funding the actual cost of the project and then they don't end up making a return until they sell kind of, let's say, the back maybe 20% of the units. And what happens if you get stuck with those or what happens if there's an economic shift because there's there's a lag between when you start a project, when the project is finished and you can turn keys over to to, buyers. So I understand why prices have gone up.

Kalie: 01:04:08

It's a big risk. It's a big up front mess.

Josh: 01:04:10

Massive risk. And we've taken a massive risk, that maybe I'm a little anxious to obviously see how it turns out and whether or not we have You

Kalie: 01:04:18

have doubts if it if it will be successful?

Josh: 01:04:21

Yeah. I no. I think I do. I have I have confidence in Petr Likita. I don't have confidence in the bureaucratic side of things that could strike unknowingly, so that worries me.

Josh: 01:04:33

I have confidence in the people that have bought that if certain things, let's say, don't go in our favor, that are out of our control, that they won't use litigation to, to strike us. Because, like like, legit, we aren't making money on this project. We're we're trying to solve a problem that we saw and meet a need by kind of doing something out of the box, which is why, like, we we call people on our new channel rehab rebels because, like, we're rebelling against what is kind of the norm the normal approach, to kind of rehab or whatever. So wrapping up, will we hit our target date? What do you think?

Kalie: 01:05:17

I'm gonna go with a bit of a hesitation. Yes. I think we will. I think we will. And if not, it's gonna be very close.

Kalie: 01:05:26

I don't think it'll be like it was supposed to be June 2025, and now it's December 2025, or I don't think it'll be like that. I think it will be yes. Either the target date or very, very close off by, like, 1 month.

Josh: 01:05:39

Okay.

Kalie: 01:05:40

What do you think?

Josh: 01:05:41

I think that we'll be finished, but we will not have the habitation license in time.

Kalie: 01:05:46

Oh, because they'll just take forever to get us that.

Josh: 01:05:48

I think so. I I think we've seen too many issues with having a habitation license issued. What that means for the buyers and and when they can move in, I have no idea, but that's just kind of where I see things. And I have