EYL #46 Mama I Made It

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All right, guys, Welcome back, e y L. Hometown Heroes Edition, Shot Town, Shot Town. What's going on?

So?

Yeah, so you know, the first Hometown Heros that we did was in Houston.

Houston.

Shout out to Agetown, Shout out Totown, Shouts to Mike Brown and shout out to Chris Senegaud, those of our first hometown hero. So if you if you know Alesia, we're traveling around all our major markets and we were touching it to people and when we when we touched the town, we try to do a couple of interviews with people that are doing big things in the community.

Man, he had a big campaign and uh shout everybody that supported his Win Win foundation.

Man, that was dope. Yeah, for sure, that's a fact.

So so all right, we're in Chicago and we had to tap in with the good brothers of Downing Brothers South south Side right south to the world blow up for sure. So Anthony and Anton say that correctly, right, that's right. Okay, so just left out of h and a y here we go, first and foremost, thank you guys. Man, We appreciate the man.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

We listen to the podcast I Dream one day that Dreams come from.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're in Chicago. We were on the South Side, were in seventy nine, seventy ninth Street right right the elevendary seventy nice shout the chance to raff up, he said, setay nice setting nine. So yeah, we're out here. We out here, So all right, these guys are legends in the community. So they're firefighters by trade, and they are celebrities because now they are on HG TV. They have their own showing HG TV, and their real estate investors.

We have a very strong.

They get a pension and they only work like two days a week. I know, it is like you. They work like twenty four hour shifts, like two twenty four hour shifts. So what happens is now you have like five days where you're not working, which leaves a lot of time where you can do other things. Right, So is that how it is in Chicago? Yeah, that is a great synopsis.

It definitely is a work to our advantage to have that time all because I mean, yeah, essentially you worked eight eight to nine twenty four hour shifts a month, so we had like twenty two days off and the question is what are you gonna do with that in those twenty two days that you are free to do what you want?

And then eventually real estate enters the picture for us.

So all right, so come about the fire department because it's something that we especially in our community, it is not enough black firefighters, right, So what a what got you guys into the fire department? And like, what are the steps that people can take? Because I think even stuff like that is there.

He goes, We're not going anybody to leave?

Yeah, what what? Like what got you to the fire fighting? With some of the steps that somebody can take to become a firefighter, because, like I said, it is a good professional, an honorable profession as well.

Yeah, I mean so the origin story for the fire department, part of our story is back in two thousand and six. I was fresh fresh out of college. I was actually I was an educator. I started off in education and I was coming driving home and.

I still live at home. My mom, no shame in that, you know what I'm saying.

I was out of college and had my first job, and I was saving up money, and she said, hey, can you get a gallon of milk on the way home? So I stopped and I was at a red light and I saw this big CTA bus with a sign on the side of it said answer the call It's like and it had like the website and had a

And I was like, well, I need a plan B or something.

And when I saw that.

I was like, oh, that's interesting. Never thought about becoming a firefighter, but maybe I'll check it out. I'll look at the website. I go into the parking lot of the Jewels grocery store. I walk in and right on the on the door, the automatic door was the same sign. It was an eight by eleven on the door.

I took the answered the call.

So it was it was kind of like it was kind of biblical almost so so I was like, let me get this out of the milk, curR, be get home. I got home, I looked it up. I looked it up and I saw, you know, I saw the union contract. I saw the pay I saw to my you know, I'm you know, it looked like an adventure because I'm you know, I'm physically gifted. So I was just like, you know, it'll be, you know, something fun. But also, you know, I can pay the bills. And and on

Social Security numbers.

You know, I ain't even ask none of us.

I don't know about y'all. With most moms, he usually has everybody everybody. So mom, my mom came up with this little ten thing that had all our information in it, and I signed up all my brothers to take horry brothers. You got so's it's five down the brothers. I mean, all right, you guys are twins.

Yeah, we have an older brother and we have two younger brothers, Yeah, Tony and and.

No. So I was the only one that was too young to take the exam. So I signed everybody up to take the exam. Unfortunately, my twin brother and his wisdom look not show up to take this. Look look look, our dad was CPD. It was Chicago Police officers. So I was thinking, like, man, that's what we know. I'm gonna take police exams or I'm not gonna take no exam.

I was. I was up here waiving my degree, like I'm gonna use this degree. What was the degree in history? So you know it did not work that way.

I ended up working for the Illinois Lottery doing experienceial marketing for thirty two thousand dollars with no.

Health insurance degree. Man.

Needless to say, he should have took my advice and sat down next to me. Exam.

I took the exam, and I walked into McCormick place. It was twenty something thousand people there that takes his exam. How many people they're hiring they ended up hiring I would say about a thousd and people off of that particular list, you know.

And this is back in two thousand and six, and I had to sit on the list for two years.

But I was number five fifty four out of like seventeen thousand plus that actually passed the exam.

So I mean it was it was just a blessing, like I didn't I just didn't realize and I didn't know that I was that I hit.

A lot of who sat next to you at the exam?

Well, I actually to my right there was an empty seat with his name on it.

Alphabetical orner. So next to my left he was actually there. Oh y'all, y'all allys sitting next year.

We didn't show up all my brother's names on the table.

You know.

Look, thanks, So out of the four of us to signed up actually took the example, and I actually, you know, got got the score. So two years later, I got the letter saying if I was interested, right on the day of the bub Billican Parade, which is a big deal in Chicago. The bub Bublican Parade is the second largest parade in the country, and it's actually the largest

Got the job.

Well, I was sick.

I was sick when he got that letter. I was like, I can't believe I didn't take that test. Man, And my social Security number is like almost exactly the same as his, so I would have been in the same class with him.

So then I was like, Okay, it's time for me to start taking exams.

But that you're talking about the written exam, right, But people kind of overlook the physical exam because I know we have a lot of we have some friends in our town of Greenberg that have been volunteer firefighters for years and they just can't pass the physical How the man is that.

The example, It actually has changed in the last ten years because now they've gone to a national called the Seapad where everybody take me, but.

It was a different thing.

Candidate Canadate Physical Ability Test, right, and it actually is rigorous, like because I mean, you have you have to walk with a weighted vest, like a seventy fifty pounds seventy pounds weighed vest on a what am I thinking of right now?

Track?

No, not on a track on them on a traadmill.

And that's actually the hardest part because after you get done with that, with that no, no, no, it's the stair master, I mean the stair master, right, yeah, After you get done with that stair master with the weight in vest, you're so tired that even though the rest of the course is relatively simple as far as you've been able to raise a ladder and use a pipe pole and then crawl through a tunnel, all through a tunnel, all of that stuff is super hard after you've had that weighted.

Vest on and you've been on that on that for three straight minutes three minutes, right, yeah.

So, but so you I mean, every like everything else in life, though you go on YouTube is there so you can train for what you need to do. When it came to the written exam, they actually give you the source material so you can actually study for that.

So what's on what's on the written what's on like the written exam? Is it like science and stuff?

Well, that exam is not hard man.

Well look we're talking about your igo.

But each Chicago's exam is literally uh you know, uh, you read it and you answer the multiple choice questions you can if you can read, have a chance.

You have a chance that.

People that can barely graduate high school can definitely pass that exam if you can read a COMPREHENDI.

But that's not But that's not if you go into the suburbs.

If you go into the suburbs or you go to you know, other municipalities, they do have math questions on there, they have friction loss and things. And I feel that like the exams are a lot harder because that's what they ended up doing is taking the Dalton fire exam, and Dalton physically brought the Chicago to the South. So you know, that exam was way like crump centrifugal pump.

What they happened. It was nothing like this one on the Chicago exam into Anthony.

But but the blessing about it is when the list came out unlike Anthony being five thirty, I wasn't five thirty seven.

Then you won't keep.

Hitting my head.

I wasn't five thirty seven like this guy right here. And I wasn't one thirty eight. I wasn't fifty either.

I was numbers four, four out of ten thousand, and they were no, No, it was only like three hundred and fifty people.

There's like a suburban exam.

But then they were only hiring six and I was number four, And I was like, okay, God, you wanted me to answer the call?

Do you need six months later? Do you need a college degree to be a firefighter?

No, you need a high school di plumber or a ged.

So how much money can you make? Because in New York I think you make like one hundred over one hundred thousand dollars, like one hundred I.

Think, But a lot of money comes from overtime. Correct, Yeah? How's that? Yeah?

How much money can you expect to making it?

Well?

For Chicago?

Your starting salary today twenty nineteen as a candidate first day in the academy is fifty six thousand. Okay, so you start at fifty six thousand, you get a pay bump at twelve months.

Of ten thousand dollars.

Wow, so now you had sixty six after you made your probation, which is one year, you know what I'm saying, and then you get steps every year from that point. Well yeah, yeah, every year from that point. So basically I've gotten raised every year for ten years. So yeah, you hit the lottery. The thing is, though, as much as we were talking about money right now, and it's all about the downside, you actually do risk your life, so there's no guarantee of coming home. It's no guarantee

God bless God.

So I do want to say that, you know, it's a great job, great money, enjoying ourselves, we laugh, have fun, great food at the firehouse, all this, and that I had a similar experience because one of my actual classmates passed June tenth or twenty seventeen line of duty. So it is jarring sometimes in sobering as dope as the salary is or the people that patch you on the back when you at the grocery store and all that

Yeah, you said, in Chicago, y'all are like first responders right to any type of any type of that happens.

We're the first ones there. Somebody gets shot, a fire truck or fine is pulling up, you know, just a car accident.

We're pulling up.

Anything that happens in the city. Because we're medically trained. We're the first ones for everything. It's a hazmat incident, somebody spills oil all over the expressway, we're there. So, I mean, they call us the fire department, but we're really an all hazards department. All hazard Yeah, so we do everything.

So all right, So okay, so you guys are real estate investors, right, So what as I said, what thing with the firefighter is that you you work only two days. You know, you only work two days a week, so it leaves a couple like five days where you're not working, which leads a lot of time to be creative and

Man?

Nah, it was a challenge for my mom.

I remember I got my first paycheck and I came home, came home happy, and I think about this, this is that first paycheck. It was eight hundred and fifty four dollars. I thought I was a bawler because, like, you know, a month ago, I was college. I was at the Universal Illinois getting one hundred and fifty dollars every two weeks from my little student student job. So I got this first paycheck and I think my mother felt that energy and was like, nah, nah, no, no, you need

I was a career council at job Corps. That was the first job, the job court.

I was there for ten months before I started with the public schools, but you know, you have to be there for twelve months to get to start a four on one k And she was like, well, I want you to start, you know, an investment.

So she was like, you know, I want you to start with met Life.

I want you to take one hundred dollars a paycheck and put it into this retirement account.

And I'm like, one hundred dollars the only mane eight hundred and fifty four.

And she was like, no, one hundred dollars has created this, and she pulled she pulled out all of it. She was really transparent, first time in my life. You know, I'm twenty two. She put all of her papers for each one of her retirement accounts out. One of them had one hundred and hundred and sixty thousand, and another one had like fifty grand, and another one had like twenty five grand.

So she had she had four different accounts, and she showed me.

The statements and the balances, and she said, one hundred dollars a month from every job I've had since I moved to the United States has gone into it. And no matter what job, when I transferred the job, I continue paying one hundred dollars into that one, and now I had one hundred dollars into this one and this one and this one. So like, you know, four hundred dollars a check over the course of your entire life since you've been here, has gotten me to this point.

She gave it a number.

I called it set up my first, you know, retirement account. But then in that same conversation, she said, hear them here come you not a real man, ooh, until you own the floors you walk on.

I said.

To say that, I'm like, I'm not a real man. Bill got one either, Bro, I'm telling you.

I felt some type of way, bro. And then from that point on, I said so much, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show you. So I started.

Not only did I start that at a retirement account.

I started putting money away because you know, I'm living at home, and she only asked me to for like the utility bill, you know, whatever, the electric bill and the rest of it. I was able to just put away. I put that money away, and over the course of eighteen months, I said, up six thousand dollars and I had I got my credit score to like six sixty six eighty something like that before I left and got my first apartment, you know, just because I needed my

That's powerful. So, I mean, y'all are born and raised in Chicago, but mom's from the Bahamas, right, and Nasaw Bahamas. So I mean mom saund like she's she's been on the point, right with your mom.

Like when you have an immigrant parent, man, you realize that they're gonna tell you stories like we had to walk all the way to school, tell me about it and walk back. We had to help with what, you know, Grace's store. You know, we didn't get to go do whatever. Yeah, the beach was right there, and we saw the beach. We didn't go to the beach until Saturday, you know.

Like stuff like that. But that did y'all have land out there as well?

Yeah, but we do they have they'll do Okay, we're building new construction right now we'll shout out to the Bahamas too. We know that they you know, they're recovering from from the hurricane.

Absolute last event that we had, we were able to put together a palette and together with other Bahamians from yeah, the Obamas Association of Chicago, we were able to put eight thousand, eight hundred pounds worth of water, nonperishable food, and clothes and send it to Grand Bahamas.

Yeah, so if you are listening, please they still need your help, for sure.

Stilled for sure, God bless God bless. So all right, so now in the second segment, we're going to go into your your star level show. We're gonna talk about that and how that came about. All right, So now we're going to go into you know, your your local celebrity status and shout out to my guy, Jamal Jefferies.

That was good?

When we were at the event, and everybody's like yo, man, like them gym shoes you got on.

They're like them Jim shoes. I'm like the kicks, they're like the jym shoes.

Man, I'm like, I got definitely call them the guys. The guybody like the guys. Yeah, me and the guys.

So yeah, shout the shot town.

But but yeah, so all right, so you're firefighters, right, and then you start your goal to state investors career. But then how did you get picked up to do a TV show?

Like? How does that work out? Man?

Let me tell you it didn't happen on purpose. We were helping our cousin rehab this six unit of the department building when we got a call from Troy Prior, who who runs the Creative Cipher here in Chicago and we went to college with him, and he said, yeah, I got this director that wants to do the his torture scene and we need like like a basement or something like that.

Y'all working on any properties where y'all haven't.

Finished the basement yet?

He was like, yeah, man, come on over to this building that we're working on right now, you know over here in yeah, in South Shore. And so when he comes and they look at both of the basements because you know, it's six you in the building, so they kind of had like separated basements. And as he's getting ready to leave, he turns to us and he's like, man, have y'all ever thought about doing a show on ag TV?

This is a side house? Right, not at all?

But he was being deak, he.

Was seriously and then he pulled he literally pulled out his phone and said, no, man, I want you to talk to Craig Harris Man. That's one of my five brothers. And you know, he's really serious in this in this TV industry, and he has he has a show out now and this, that and the other. And he actually put us on speakerphone, like he didn't give us a choice. He put us on speakerphone.

And now we're just like, oh, hey, how you doing now?

So we started talking to create ask us all these questions about what we do, where we're from, so on and so forth, you know, what properties we're working on, and I guess it gets get to know our background and our personality.

And then after that he was.

Like, hey, well you know what, I need you to send me some pictures in a bio. We did it that same night. Then it got it got real because they were.

Being so serious. We will be serious.

So ey L is the educational platform and we kind of like dig deep, and I think this is a good segment to talk about as far as like people that might be in a situation, right, what does it look like?

Like?

What is an offer? Do they come with a first offer? Do you counter offer? Do they just say, okay, this is like the flat rate we give people? Like how does that look? How do you know you're getting a good deal? Like you have a lawyer, Like, how does that work out? So we had to go get a lawyer right away. Yeah, we got an entertainment lawyer. And then he explained to us what the industry standard is.

And but it was a unique situation for us because we weren't just getting.

Paid for for being talent in front of the camera.

We're also getting paid that actual, realistic right, and then all the resources that they give.

You when you're explain that. Explain that. So they're giving you deals.

No, no, we had we had to find the property ourselves, okay, and plus plus they we didn't have one hundred percent of like everything that the at TV you know, gives their talent because it was a pightlet Yeah, because you don't get all of that stuff until you go to series.

Then they give you a much bigger budget. So like the Property Brothers, their budget is out the wall.

Yeah, that's as big as it gets.

So like, all right, but what do you mean a budget? Like, well, they have a budget for how.

Much they will help to pay for the contractors, they material oials that they can contribute to if through this, sponsors and things of that.

Nation.

So like let's say that they all right, so they give a salary, let's say one hundred thousand dollars, and they give a budget of two hundred thousand. The two hundred thousand dollars budget, you find the properties, They give you a budget two hundred thousand, and you use that two hundred thousand and actually fix up the home.

Right now, you got to secure the property yourself, though it's still on you. You have to secure the properties.

One of the things I like about what y'all were doing.

It was like opposed to that other show, was like they were Every time I watch it, it's like they find a property, it's seven hundred thousand, it's gonna one hundred and fifty to renovates eight hundred and fifty.

And when y'all looked at it, y'all like, listen, man, we don't do that.

Like one, we wanted to do properties in our own neighborhood, right, and we wanted to be authentic.

Yeah, so you would. And I read that.

I was just like, look, man, y'all you were looking for properties obviously in your neighborhoods, right, And it was like the properties are going for like two hund thousand, two hundred fifty thousand. That's more relative, like we can reach that. Having had a property that's a million dollars is not attainable for us at this moment. It was more people can do the two hundred thousand, the one hundred and fifty thousand.

Yeah, I think you know, I'm listening to like you know, they all have callers, Like we've been on radio shows, callers call in and I think or we've had people you know who jump on and make comments on social media.

So a TV deal is it like one year or is it like per season? How do they how do they how do they gauge? Like, Okay, this is we're going to renew this for a second season, Like.

How did that work?

The TV deals are much like the NBA, or more and more like the NFL.

Right, the pilot was the only part that was guaranteed, even though we signed a contract for the full season.

But it is they have the option. Yeah, how many episodes is the season? Generally either ten or twelve.

So but you got paid for the whole season, even if they didn't know.

We only I paid for the for the pilot episode. Right, pilot was one episode, one episode.

So after after the pilot, depending on the ratings of the pilot, they will say, we're going to.

Pick this up for a season, right, the ratings and the politics.

Okay, it's more politics because our ratings now something Else'll y'all do that? That is are very intentional, Right, you'll hire people that look like us, right, and not just us, but I saw like women specifically women that look like.

Yeah, man, I mean all of that was intentional because we knew we only had one shot.

Like you really feel that way.

So we've been watching HGTV since you know, forever, you know, since we were in college and things like that. We wanted everyone to see that we really actually work with people that look like.

Us, that the neighborhood was our neighborhood.

Things like that, like, you know, you know, it.

Was super important and we even as people were riding past, whenever they saw.

All of those TV cameras in front of our.

In front of the house we're working on, they would stop and say, hey, what's going on, guys, what y'all doing here?

Dah da da da. We spoke to them.

We weren't trying to act all high and mighty and nothing like that.

We let him know what's going.

On with them, know what's going on while we're doing it, so on and so forth.

So I mean it's like, so we can have that positive social impact and people feel included and they understand, like, yo, what we're doing is actually gonna make the neighborhood better. And on top of that, we're like we're not pushing, you know, taking us to one thousand dollars house and making it into a five hundred thousand and one and now nobody can afford to live in the neighborhood like overnight, you know.

You know, So, I don't know, it's just common sense type of things.

You know.

Even with the orderman, the city council member, you know, we got her involved and let her know what was going on and be inclusive of everybody. So I mean that's why our journey, it's kind of different.

So even all right, so we talked about the publishers right with that part of HGTV packaging or that.

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The brand our own publicist. So what made you What made you decide you wanted to get a publicist?

Well, one, we wanted to take control of our own narrative and take control of the direction and opportunities right, because you know, when you get an opportunity like this and you're on national TV, not just local TV, but national TV, you know you have to start thinking about.

Like, you know, how much exposure you can get, how many.

Opportunities you can you know, basically create out of that, like partnerships, endorsements, business deals. Because the other thing, too is you got what happens on TV and you got what's happening in real life. And you know, we want to continue to grow and create more actual transactions for you know, our real estate business because we want to flip as many houses.

We want to scale. Scale is a big word, Like scaling.

Means you go from doing just one house at a time to doing two or three houses, to go into commercial properties. And you know, now once we were made aware because awareness is like the biggest thing. That's why this podcast is so awesome because it's like it may raise our awareness available to us so we can.

Start pursuing those those yeah for real appreciation.

You know, I mean I think about assets of aliabilities, Like we were like what assets can we create and what partnerships can we create? And that's why the publichers getting us all that exposure open all of these doors.

That we currently have.

And a publicists understood that we wanted to be on black platforms just as much as we were going to be on ABC or WGN those things. Of course, you want to be on those two, but we need We wanted to be on WGCI, you know, a black radio station. We wanted to be on WVO in to reach parts of our community. Like WV WAYN kind of caters to like the like middle aged you know, African Americans and whatnot, So we wanted our publicists was able to get us into those spaces as well as like the big stations.

Yeah, it's crazy because like what y'all doing.

And my man Mike shout out to Mike, like he always has a word that he sticks with, so narrative was like usually his word. He's like, yo, y'all changed in the narrative because when we think, especially from New York, when we hear the South Side of Chicago, we think violence. But y'all are changing the narrative, Like y'all seeing the impact that people are trying to continue, like down your path as well.

Speaking to that, the neighborhood we picked, pill Hill, was one is one of the best black neighborhoods in Chicago. So like when people got to see that, they got again you're right for the first time, I got to see, Wow, they didn't go to Inglewood or was where the people are shooting this stuff.

I thought black folks lived in bad neighborhoods. Nah, we have good neighborhoods too.

And then.

Seminars right, we are in a position now.

Shout out to to Jered Greer and guaranteed rate making it available for us to have seminars to educate people about home ownership and how to get financing and how to buy properties and do everything that they see us doing, and that that's the thing making.

It available to people.

Yeah, because with corporate sponsorship, we're able to get so many more people on opportunity to get in on real estate.

The way we're getting in on real estate, it's a big need for people are super excited.

I mean just think about I mean just last night we were at the networking social how many people came out because they're really serious about starting to bid as an owning property. Like there's a big niche that it needs to be filled, there's a there's a problem that needs to be answered.

How did you get how did you get the corporate sponsorship?

That actually kind of felt by accident because so so Jared Right happens to be having a business meeting now you know how you say you're Jamaican Right restaurant. We were at jog Grill High Park on the side Cargo A and it was just like the second time our show was coming on TV. And we didn't want to be at home and this wasn't you know, any of that type of stuff. We wanted to sit and eat,

Exactly?

And the crazy thing about it is, it's not like we did business immediately, like we exchanged information and it was like five four, five six months or something like that before we actually reconnected. And then we you know, kind of exchanged ideas.

This is what we want to do.

We want to start having these live seminars to kate people about what we're doing.

And I think that it would benefit you know, his business and guarantee rate and so on and so forth. And it's just it naturally, it was a natural fit.

So when you when you all right, So as far as this is an interesting conversation because when the day and age now where TV's kind of dying. We talked about this off camera, and it's streaming but even not YouTube, right, So it's like for you, you're on you're still on your you're on TV, right, but you have a podcast

Really you got to start somewhere, I mean starting your own Like a lot of people are becoming famous now. You think about like little nas X he was on TikTok and blew up because he started his own content. You got to create your own content and create your own exposure and create your own opportunities. We our story was different because we weren't trying to do this and we kind of felt backwards into it and everything that even now we're continuing to just like be ourselves and

Yeah.

Help that's the biggest part with whatever you're doing.

Don't tear people down, be of service and try to be helpful and bring joy into this world. So I think, create your own content and then start networking, go to the conferences and start meeting people who work in the industry, publicists, people who work in n PR. There are people who are already doing the things and already working in the spaces, and you just gotta figure out how you can develop relationships, because relationships are everything everything that's happening in our lives.

In, or all of that type of stuff.

But until your conversation is about how you're gonna tell other people how they can get what you got, you know.

It's stalls.

Like our biggest thing that we're doing right now is telling people how to get the multi unit buildings that we have. That translated into flipping the cash flow and cash flow and all those type of things and showing people the numbers and saying you can do this as well. This is not about us trying to floss on y'all right, you know, I mean, I'm looking at how you got

Because you're helping people.

What is like, it's the it's like, what is it? What's in it for me? And if you can answer what's in it for me?

For the person who's sitting across from you, or who's on the other side of the TV screen or or phone, that's how you get where you want to be as far as if you're trying to land the TV show, be on radio, or whatever your dream.

Is hashtag big Facts. This is a public announcement.

Yeah, you guys are good because that's a perfect segment to our next time. An example, what you're gonna talk about what you guys are doing, and we're gonna break down some numbers hopefully, So we gotta talk about that

There are a lot of opportunities in Chicago. Man, we have one of the hottest markets in the country.

Right.

The question is, you know, it's just how are you starting? I mean, if you do have your your credit and your and your money saved up.

You know what I'm saying.

As a first time home buyer, there's an enormous amount of opportunities, and we advise people that are starting off to go for cash flow, go get that three or four unit of property, or go get a two or three K renovation loan or some kind of Fanny made construction loan so that you can get properties below market value.

Because there's thousands I'm not talking about hundreds of property.

There's thousands of properties in the Chicago land area.

Yes, that you can get below market value and renovate and then turn that into a cash flowing property or a property that you used to live in for a couple of years.

You know people talking about house hacking.

Now you know, living for a couple of years and then you know, sell it after two years and now you got this check.

And now you got capital to start a business or get another property or.

Do multiple things. So when you say below market value, what are we talking about as far as numbers, It's like some what's an example of like a home that you just recently flipped though, something that you can like expect like okay, this is something that is typical men tell him.

About the one over at the Bronxville house.

You said the last property.

To be the last one you could be what Anya right?

So what I do? Use this example a lot?

So, so I got a three thousand square foot greystone single family home, greystone, greystone.

What is that like? A brownstone? Brownstone? Right?

So I got a square foot graystone in Bronsville, which is a neighborhood on the south side, got that for two hundred thousand. Got it below market value because the recession was going on and the guy was trying to sell it because he was in pre foreclosure. So got it for two hundred thousand. And I used a two O three K renovation loan for that property. So that allowed me to have the money to purchased the property for two hundred thousand. And I also rolled in thirty

Made all of those things look brand new. Didn't touch any of the drywall throughout the house.

None of that type of stuff. This is not a fixer upper.

So yeah, so this was just updating a great opportunity, and you only put three percent down, three and a half percent.

So I came to that closing with seventy seven hundred dollars, so seven thousand, seve hundred dollars. And the reason why is because I couldn't negotiate because it was the bank and it was a foreclosure.

I want to, I want to, I want that, the Gold people said, because we talked about two or three K loan actually with Jay Morrison, but we didn't go through a real world example.

So this is good.

So you got a two hundred thousand dollars property and then you had thirty thousand for renovation courts, so it's two hundred.

And thirty thousands the full loan.

The two three K loan allowed you to put three to three point five percent down, but the thirty k gets wrapped into the mortgage. So three percent of two thirty is like seven thousand, seven seven something. So you got the renovation and the home for not including closing costs, but out seven thousand dollars is how much the down payment was, right, we're closing costs?

How much was it with closing cost?

I mean I came to closing total all in for seventy seven hundred.

How did you roll that into the market.

Yeah, because it was all rolled in. Okay, he rolled it in, all right, that's good to know. Actually actually rolled in three of the first month's payments into the into the loan also, so I didn't have to make my first payment.

And so I was actually moving into the property, which was ninety days later.

That's because you were there, was gonna you were updating the bathrooms, right because.

All the update Okay, I'm sorry, I got you off sor right, So now speed it up. So all right, you got the property for seventy seven hundred. Now you have it. Now what now?

Now I have it, renovation needs to start, all right, just about immediately. So in that process, I had already got three different contractors to give scope of work so that I can decide which one I wanted to work with as far as you know, just completing the work and how much still the materials would cost and things. And you make the contractors very honest when they know that they're one of three in the competing.

What was that process like dealing with contracts because a lot of times people going to these deals and they say that's the toughest part is dealing with contractors.

We always push doing these these two or three K renovation loans because when you do a renovation loan, there is an inspector who comes behind the contractors on each draw or phase of the project. The money comes each draw, let's say thirty thousand, you get ten thousand and three times the money comes to the homeowner.

That ten thousand dollars to pay the contractor.

The contractor for the first draw has to do that ten thousand dollars worth of work out of its own pocket. The contractor has to put his ow own money up and has an inspector who comes to make sure that he's done the work up the code before the money is released to the homeowner to give to them for the next phase. So they don't make their profit until they finished all of the work because they had to go to do the first phase out of pocket.

So now the homeowner's protected.

So now that there's no contract to getting over on you or trying to convince you that the work is good enough.

Quick question now, because I'm thinking like you guys are firefighters and obviously you guys must know cold right that did your experience at being firefighters?

Hope you during that process, yes, because I mean as firefighters too, I mean learn we learn about building construction and we see a whole lot because we in the process of being firefighter, you see houses that are like burned down and destroyed, so you see everything, and we tear out a lot of walls and ceilings and things like that.

So we're kind of on the other side of it.

Yeah, and then we also work with a lot of firefighters happened to be in the trades, so we you know, you learn a lot through that process also. So I mean the thing is it removed all the fear because you actually had this this inspector who comes and make sure that the work is done complete.

So all right, So okay, so now you started the bringing the contractors in. What's the next steps after that? Like how long did it take to fully renovate it? When we were able to get tenants in, Like what's the deal?

Well, well, this was a.

Single family home, so I wasn't I didn't have to deal with tennants. But I had ninety days to get the work, to get the work done, and it actually it got done in a short period than that. I think we were done in like, you know, sixty five seventy days or whatever. So by the time I had to make my first payment more dis payment, I was able to move in, move my front frontiture in and it started.

You was living there? Yeah, I live there? How long did you live there?

I was there for three a little about three and a half years. My attention was to be there for two years because I knew that, you know, after two years, I would be able to.

Sell the property no capital games.

And also I knew that my credit would go back up because I did short I did a short selle. See we didn't include that the condo that I had, I did a short sell on that. After two years, my credit went back up, and it coincided with my ability to sell this property with no capital gains. Now I was enjoying myself so much that I actually ended up staying for a little bit longer than I anticipated. We had so many parts, said Toga parties, and so you guys were both living boils.

You guys are both living in the promy.

So can you talk about that capital gains? You said that in two years. You allowed you not to play capital game, right, so you haven't been there twenty four months.

That's the rule. What is capital gains?

Capital gains is the profit that you make on a property, the difference between how much you paid for it and how much you actually sold the property for it. So the profit is the capital game, and so the tax on the capital game happens on properties that are not your primary residents or you haven't lived in as your primary residence for at least twenty four months.

So that's why I knew I needed to be there for at least.

Twenty four months in order to be able to collect those capital gains, which in this instance was eighty thousand dollars cash, and then be able to then have the capital to move on to buy a multi unit property and then start flipping home was and then partnering with my brother to.

Really, you know, start to do more than we had ever anticipated. So if you don't live in a property for more than a year and you sell it, but you use their proceeds to buy another home, you still have to pick capital games.

Joe.

You can do what they call ten thirty five yeah exchange, Yeah, oh yeah, he knew he knew.

What you want to Well, there's different waces. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I answered my own question.

All right.

So Okay, in the whole time that he was doing that, mind you, I'm also buying out to the unit buildings while he's doing that. Right, So by the time he sold that property three and a half years later, I already had two three unit buildings.

And a cash flow.

So it's like the two of us are like one, like one person, right, because I'm implying one strategy. Yeah, and when his condo went from worth of one fifty to being upside down to thirty thousand, I looked at that. I was like, ain't never buying a condo. In fact, I ain't buying a house neither. You know, I'm going straight for the multi unit apartment buildings.

Thanks for making that mistake, bro, Yeah, somebody.

Has to jump out there first.

Yeah, bus over.

But the thing is what we did learn, though, is we learned about the power of cash flow, and we learned about the power of buying properties below market value.

And being able to get that cash and that leverage for us to then be able to go.

Now, now I got this lump summer money and now it's like, okay, now let's buy another multi unit property.

So we for cash flow. Now let's go.

You know, we went hard money, you know, did a flip that way and then and then you know from there, now the wheels are turning and now you're the next deal.

And the next deal.

More confidence, more confidence things you know, things go wrong and and those when you get burned when you touch that stove, we don't ever touch it again. So like, you know, different things that we learned about how we deal with contracts and stuff like that. You know, everything didn't just you know, shoot perfectly, but it's still was you know, enabled us to make it to the point where we ended up on TV. How did you how

But yeah, in two years, you held two years, three.

Bad so one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars profit that you made right for three years and you got it for seventy seven hundred dollars.

How much was your monthly mortgage?

My monthly mortgage was like I think it was like fourteen hundred.

That's powerful.

That's actually really powerful because especially in New York, we're paying rent for nineteen hundred, twenty one hundred, twenty two hundred dollars a month.

Where is that at? It's like, right, what the twenty twenty one? That is? What room? Okay? Not three thousand square feet?

No way, Maybe it wasn't three bedrooms and four bathrooms.

Maybe nine hundred square feet, no.

Man, seven seven hundred square feet one bedroom, one bathroom, rough man, And you got to the parking so you got you got a property for seven thousand dollars, paying under two thousand dollars a month, and you held it for a couple of years and made one hundred and summi thousand dollars profits. I say that to say a lot of times people don't fully understand how attainable buying a home really is. Ken it's different programs and there's different ways you have to educate yourself. That's one of

It may seem. You know, it's not.

I think I mean people, I think people live in fair right because they've never seen it like we Like I said earlier, it's like we're first generation, so like we don't know what we don't know, Like people don't know that these these these opportunities are out there. I had a question for you guys because I was driving in on in the Uber and I was looking around in the cab. Driver I'm like, oh, it's the south side. He's like, yeah, same thing it looked like twenty years ago.

So what is the future for entrepreneurs.

Are these opportunities out there for them to buy these spaces, like what does it look like?

You know, we have a Frive brother with Nel Saligne. Him and his wife have a nels A line and it's a mixed use space. They have a section eight tenant upstairs that pays the mortgage for the entire property. So what they make is pure profit. And I think that that's that's the future there. We need us to buy those mixed use buildings, whether there's two or three or four apartments.

Above and then like two like storefronts in the bottom. What we need to grab all of those.

Yeah, And the thing is there are city programs that you can get assistance for buying homes the city, county, and state.

So I mean the thing is, wherever you live, you have to look and see.

What kind of homeowner assistance programs they are. That the facismen I had to come with that seventy seven hundred dollars in down payment. There may have been some kind of assistance program, but you got to do your own research that he would have paid that seventy you know, that seven thousand dollars.

There are tons of those programs.

And then for business owners right here in Chicago, they I can't remember the name of the program. Chicago Neighborhood is something or on another program that actually helps with well they'll match how much money you need in order to renovate a property for your business, right you know. So there are these programs out there due to research, because there are there's money out there from the government to help you create your business and buy your property.

So when we talked about Chicago, unfortunately, you know a lot of times we people think about Chicago, they had about like the violence right especially on the South Side West Side. So, but we was driving in the Uber and I was telling the Uber driver like where we was going, and he's like, you know where you're going?

Like you know where we go?

So I'm like, nah, I don't know where I'm going. He's like he started laughing. So but I mean to me, it looks just like the Bronx. Every neighborhood is similar. So, like, what's one of the things that you can tell of people as far as like Chicago, Because you know, when we come to these cities, we just don't want to

I mean, I think about the building that we're sitting here to do this podcast right we're in the Woodline right now. Yeah, so you know, shout out to the owner spot. I mean, he used his money to buy this property. He actually had a city of assistance program to help fund this. And he's an example and he's not the only one. The thing is, once you start to get it, you got to think about what circles

On the South Side.

There are these pockets. Think about when you walk in here. It's really nice and it's not the only one. There's a podcast studio in this facility. There's a cafe downstairs, and they do like pop up restaurants in there. And all of the pop up restaurants owners are black, you know, like that's what's coming now.

And this is just one of them.

I could think of several.

I mean, shoot, Lighthouse, Mickey's Grill, they have multiple locations. Soul Shack is a like soul food restaurant bureau. Yeah, yeah, a fly Fly apparel. So I mean they have these the sirtain madam you know what I'm saying. You know, go to the clothing store. So actually their clothing is on two K twenty the basketball. Yeah, they their clothes has made it in there. You can like the character you can create. You can put the sir and madam clothing on your character.

Yeah.

So Brian Adam shout out to y'all for doing what you're doing. So, yeah, the entrepreneurs can succeed in Chicago. There are great stories happening in Chicago. And when you look at the people they show up for U all's networking, social and different seminars that we're holding, there's a lot to be inspired and to think that great things are coming.

That's powerful, man. So we want to thank you guys first and foremost for joining us. Can you tell the people how to contact you, how to watch your show, any any initiatives that you have going on.

Yeah.

Our Instagram is the Downing Brothers, you know, all one word, the d O W N I n G Brothers and the same thing with our websites, the Downingbrothers dot com. And you can catch us on you know, Instagram, Facebook, and our podcast Homecoming with the Downer Brothers can a TV show Double Down, Double Down and so and and be looking for where we end up next year because we will be moving around.

Free agents perhaps agency uh Troy.

Yeah, shout to everybody on Patreon dot com, back Slash and your Leisure. That's our proud to pay program. Y'all know how this works.

Man.

Y'all have been supporting it so amazingly. Every time we come on, I'm saying a new person's name, So shout out to y'all. It allows the podcast the show. I should really say to travel to come to cities like Chicago and get to go around the city and interview some hometown heroes.

Man.

Shout everybody in Houston who showed us love, La showed us love. Obviously, Brooklyn that's home base. They showed love. Atlanta show love. So we want to go to your city, man, so keep supporting that. I just want to give a big shout out to David who just joined at Tier five, So shout out to him and Broderick who actually joined uh last night and we met him at.

The event, so he was like, Yo, that's me. I was like, I just type to man. Yeah, So shout out to Broderick and everybody that's been some port in that.

That's that's how probably the pay per program once again, and shout everybody that's been supporting the merchisia dot com.

We have everything on.

There, our tours, t shirts are on there, so the Chicago tour that's up there.

People like yo, how y'a picking the colors?

So we usually we tried like we said we you know, we did with sports and entertainment in the business side. So what we've been trying to do is match up with the football team or the basketball team's colors. So we try to get both the best colors in there. But we had a slightly technical difficulty. But shout out to everybody that that's been supporting on dot com and getting the merch.

Yeah, I need to get that ascess overliability.

You know what we got you, We got you man, We brought.

Got in fact and yes, yes, So thank you guys for rocking with us. We will see you next week. Shout out to Chicago Peace, Peace, appreciate it. Coach.

The energy out there felt different. What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratches from the California Lottery players everything. Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off field play that made the difference on the field.

Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made the game. That's AWFU now, coach one more question.

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