Let's Talk Money

Have your a merry little Christmas. Good morning everyone. My name is Martin Shields. I'm the chief weld Advisor at Bruchet Financial Group, and I'm going to be your host today for Let's Talk Money. I actually felt bad interrupting. That song is one of my favorite Christmas songs. And you know, it doesn't matter what age you are, whenever you hear those Christmas songs, and that's one of them that you remember as a kid, it just brings

you back to those memories. And really, you know, I think we can all say that it's such a great time of year, you know, just to appreciate what we have in life. I think that's the most important thing, at least for myself, whether it be family or friends. I know myself appreciating my colleagues and our clients and even us listeners. It's the time to be grateful for what we have. And speaking of that gratefulness,

right, letting people know how much they mean to you. So it's great to be here with you to answer any questions you may have regarding your financial planning or investment management concerns, and I encourage you to call in with those questions. You can reach me at eight hundred talk WGY. That is eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Once again, it's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. And as I always say, there's

no dumb or silly question except for the one that you're not asking. And you may be doing your fellow listener a favor by asking that question that they have as well, especially as we come towards the end of the year. So you know, you got perhaps new Year's resolutions that you put together as we move into January, and hopefully you know in those along it with improving yourself, you're improving your financial situation. And there's it's never too late to

start. That is the thing to remember. It is never too late to make sure you're doing all the right things financially to make sure you're successful. And here's the thing that's important to know is that it is a long term game, right if you can go ahead and get those elements in place, whether it's managing your spending, whether it's making sure your portfolios managed properly, make sure that you're saving enough into your retirement accounts, getting an estate plan

in place, any of these things from a financial planning perspective. If you can get them in place and just put them on an autopilot, you will get yourself ninety percent of the way there. It really will, folks. So I encourage you as we move through twenty twenty three and into twenty twenty

four, that you make that a priority. Right, there's always something else you can do that takes precedence over some of these items, but I really would encourage you to make that a priority where whether it's budgeting or again having a financial plan in place that you know what retirement looks like, to say, you know what, I'm going to make sure that happens. Whether you're doing it your own or you're working with an advisor. It's so important and

it's a game changer. But again, it's great to be here with you to answer any questions today. Really looking forward to the show a lot to talk about. Certainly, it is great to come on the show when the market is just doing so well, hitting all time highs. I mean, this is a year and this is one of the things I want to talk about. This is a year when all the prognosticators and I've got a whole list of them, came out with negative news on where the market was going

to be this year, and in fact that did not happen. The market just said forget that, we're going to go higher. And you know, we've talked about it here on the show. There's been this avenue for this soft landing for the economy of the markets, and it could teams to look like we're going down that path it. You know, certainly as investors, we've talked about this as well, which is you really don't want to try

to be time in the markets. That is a losing proposition. And there are certain things you can do to add value to your portfolio from a portfolio management perspective, and there are things that you would call softball pitches that you're looking for to be successful and in our case with our clients, add value.

But to think that you're going to be smart enough to time the markets, or perhaps even to listen to all the experts prognosticating on what the markets or the economy are going to be doing for the year, it really is a waste of time and effort. I mean, right now, the S and P five hundred is up twenty six percent for the year, twenty six percent. The Nasdaq one hundred is up over fifty percent for the year,

folks, is amazing. And even now a number of the other indices, in particularly small mike out they have kind of been sitting it out for this year, right. You know, we've talked about the strong performance of the Magnificent Seven, which is the seven largest companies, and how well they've done here today and in particular in the tech space. All well that area's done.

But now some of these small MidCap that have not really been doing well in some cases for the year they've been negative, have come on very strongly. So to give you an example, the S and P since mid November is up around four percent, while the MidCap index IWM is up almost twelve right, So, really you're starting to see more and more in the market participate in this upside, which that's a great thing. That is, that's what you want to see is a market performance that has breadth, meaning that

it has you see that strength in a lot of areas. That's a very good and healthy stock market. And we've talked about this too, which is you really have had a situation where you've had a lot of cash sitting on the sideline, right, and people have been reluctant to put it in because again, but what the experts have been talking about with the economy and the market was more negative than positive. But that cash is sitting on the sidelines.

Over time, as the market continues to move higher, they have FOMO. Right. What we talk about from a social perspective, fomo fear of missing out. It also exists from a financial perspective. And this is true not only of individuals retail we call retail investors, so individual investors, but even professional portfolio managers who have been too conservative. They over time they have to start getting that cash into the market. And so if they've had the

portfolios conservatively positioned, they have to get it in. And that's what you're seeing now there's an element where the money's flowing in. It's moving stocks higher. Now could they take a step back? Absolutely? I mean that's always the thing to remember, is you know after big market run ups like this, you can always get a step, you know, a pullback, and it could be five percent, could even be ten percent. Uh. That that's just common practice on that. But you know you don't want to try

to time it because it may not happen. Uh. And you know there was what's called the Santa Claus rally, which is in the last week or two of December. Quite often stocks do well again. Portfolio managers, institutional managers are getting themselves positioned for the beginning of the year, and that there's you look at the data, it shows that, uh, this last week and and even this past week are usually two of the strongest for the markets.

And so this this rally can continue for the yester, the rest of the year, and even into next year. And you know, I think it's also important to remember, which is, you know, there is the possibility we could go in nervous session. I mean that that that exists, you know, I think you know, if you look at the data, two of the elements that still kind of pretend that are the inverted yal curve.

You know, we've had it inverted YO curve where your short term rates have been higher than long term rates, and historically speaking, that's a very

strong indicator that they could go to a recession. The other thing, too, is when you look at unemployment rates and where they have been, which is in the mid mid threes three percent range, and they've stayed there for so long that quite often after unemployment rates are at that level, it is not It is possible that you can have a recession at that point, and that's where unapployment moves up to higher levels. So again they're all possible.

But the thing to remember, and we've talked about this all the time, the economy is not the markets, and the markets are not the economy. And you know, we saw that in twenty twenty where the economy was really struggling. But the markets are forward looking, and they could be forward looking as much as six to twelve months or more. So it is not the case that just because we go into recession that you are going to see a

significant market decline. Again five ten percent, That could happen in any given time period, even in very strong pull markets in are strong economic times. But you know, you look back, even from a historical perspective, nineteen ninety one was a recession that occurred. I remember I was graduated from college and there were not a lot of jobs. There were not a lot of jobs in ninety one and ninety two, and so it was an economic recession.

But the market pulled back in nineteen ninety It was about a twenty percent decline in nineteen ninety really before the recession started, and that could be an example or a illustration of what we've seen now. Even if we do go in to recession, which is we could see that the economy decline, but the market decline would have occurred last year when we went into a bear market.

So that is not out of the realm of possibility that even if we go into a recession, that you don't see a significant decline in the markets. But again, more and more it looks like we may be going in for that soft landing piece where all that entails is that you have inflation heading to the FEDS two percent target, and that you still have the general economy being strong. And you know, we've talked about this, one of the

drivers behind that scenario is technology. Right, So as you have more investments in alternative energies, as you have more investments in electric vehicles and investments in AI in technologies to improve productivity, it is that those investments alone can really

continue to move this market higher. I talked about the scenario of the mid nineteen nineties where you know, there was a pausing in interest rates with a FED during that time period, and that was where you had all the investments in the Internet and in telecom, and for the next five years from nineteen ninety five all the way up into two thousand, the markets move much higher.

And so it is a real possibility that with investments in technology and with improvements and productivity from AI, that you will continue to have increase cash flow and profitability from corporations and that can continue to have this market move higher. So it's always just having the mindset of what is your time horizon right, and for most people, their investment time horizon is very long, and what

is your risk tolerance and making sure you have the right risk tolerance. Now, what I will tell you is this, this is a good time that either if you are needing cash in the next year or two, if you are moving more into retirement so a different time of your life and your earnings, or if you just found yourself over the last few years with the volatility

you found yourself not comfortable with that volatility with your portfolio. This is a good time now that markets are back at all time highs to make those adjustments, right, So you want to become more conservative. If you're going to make that move to be more conservative, you want to do it when the markets are higher, not what people sometimes do, which is they do it when the markets are lower and they're panicking. Right, that is the worst

thing you could be doing. You really want to make those more conservative adjustments when the markets are higher. And also the thing to remember is that you have higher interest rates for your more conservative investments, so your bond portfolio, if you're to move more money into that. Right now, yields have come down from their highs, but they are still, relatively speaking, versus what they've been over the last ten to fifteen years, they are still very good.

So this is still a good time if that is your mindset, right, that you need to be more conservative, but also very important not to go to two extremes. Right, Just because you're retiring doesn't mean that you

don't need growth in your portfolio. If you're going to be retiring, let's say you're sixty five, unless you have some health issues, there's a very reasonable chance statistically speaking, that you're going to live to your late eighties, early nineties, mid nineties, and so you think about that, that's a long time horizon, so you need to make sure you have least fifty to sixty percent of your portfolio in more growth her asset classes like stocks, and

then you can have the other elements in a more conservative allocation like bonds, or it can be money market funds. But you really want to make sure that you have that right allocation and that you don't become overly conservative at any given point. Right, Like anything in life, it's about moderation, moderation,

and that approach to moderation is the right thing. As they say, it's you know, when people are your fork, it's never quite as good as they think it may be, and when people are pessimistic, it's never quite as bad as they think it's going to be on both edges. So having a moderate view can be very valuable. My colleague Steven Bouchet, who of course you listened to on the show here, he sent out an interesting graph the other day, and I love a graph. It gives a good

visual what's going on. But what it said was seventy percent of time stocks go up seventy percent of the time. You think about this if you're any business, whether it be a casino or whatever, where you wanted to know how often are you going to win? And as particular strategy, if you had the odds seventy percent of time something was going to happen. That is a huge understanding, right meaning, and that's a huge, let's say risk

in your face. Those odds are very strong that you really want to be betting the market's going to go up over time, not the alternative that there's going to go down. And again, from a conceito perspective, I don't know exactly what the odds are, but it's probably something around fifty five percent of the time the house wins, maybe sixty at most, but this is seventy percent of the time the house wins seventy percent of the time stocks go

up. So that is something you do not want to be betting against. So you think about that, if you're going to make a bet that stack's going to go down, you got the odds stacked against you. And with the graph that he sent out was just over the last five years, the market is up one hundred and seven percent, one hundred and seven percent over

the last five years. And this graph will probably put it out in a blog at some point here, but it highlights all the challenges that we've seen, including the pandemic and including the Ukrainian evasion, invasion and nine percent in flat, the banking crisis of this year. We has all these challenges that at any point you can say, hey, with this going on, I just want to become more conservative. And even with that, market moved higher.

And I always like to quote Warren Buffett, you know, he says, if you're gout, you know, if you're an investor, you're betting in favor of the US economy. That's really well comes down to you think that the US economy will grow over time, companies will become more profitable. If that's your mindset, then you should be an equity investor. If you are that pessimistic one, I feel sorry for you because that means you're probably

pessimistic in all elements of your life. But if you're that pessimistic, then it is hard to become an investor or a stock investor, because there's always a reason why you're thinking the market's going to fall. We're gonna go to the callers. We have Rick from half Moon. Ricky there, Yes, I am, How are you doing today? Okay? Fine? Good?

Good? Do you think you think that turbulence of the upcoming presidential election in twenty twenty four, and the mounting federal deficit will impact the market in twenty

four. Your thoughts, please, sure, great questions. I'm gonna take the rising federal deficit, I would say, and I've said this for a number of years, that from a long term perspective, right, So I'm not talking next year per se. I'm talking about a period of time I let's say, over the next ten plus years, where we could have a real challenge, right, And I don't know exactly how that's going to play

out. I have, you know, some thoughts, but you know, there is a piece with any entity, and the US government is unique in this regard. It's one of the only unique entities in the world where you can run deficits as large as we have and still get away with it. But it doesn't mean that at some point it doesn't become a problem. And you know, the way that manifests itself is that you get a much weaker dollar and that borrowers are requiring a much higher interest rate to do that,

and both those elements could cause much higher inflation. So yes, I do think that if we do not change course at some point here, we have a problem. I don't know about twenty twenty four. Again, in the short term it's tough to make these type of statements, but I do think in the long term it is in regards to the voting issues in the national election for president, this is a risk. I mean there are you know, it could be a very challenging election after what we saw happen in twenty

twenty. So you know, along those lines, if you want to, you know, adjust your portfolio risk from you know, a sixty to forty to a fifty to fifty to account for that, so that you can go through that and you know, make sure you have enough cash for your expenses. That's fine. But what I will tell you is, you know, no different than any given year I or any others consid here and tell you

what those risks are and how they could play out. Almost all the at least half the time, those risks are not the risks you have to worry about. Is the other risks. They're not even that on our radar. That are the ones that we don't think are that big that actually come through and become most problematic. So anything, when it comes to portfolio management, you can take adjustments and adjust accordingly. But to make wholesale changes. I

think you're you're going to be fooling yourself. And in general, you know, when you know, talking about presidential elections, you know, it really does not matter to the economy. Now, it may manage to particular sectors, whereas you know, if you get a Republican president, you know, the defense sector might do a little bit better, or the green energy sector may struggle a little bit, But in general, for the market economy, it does not matter. And there's there's you know, one hundred years of

data to prove this. But this election could be challenging and you don't know how it plays out, so you can make that adjustment. But you know what I always say, Rick, is that we live in the world of global risk, and I don't care if it's this presidential election, what's going on in Ukraine or Israel, or what could happen in China. You have to appreciate those risks exist out there and they could spring up in any moment. So your portfolio should be set up in a way that you are comfortable

in anything that happens. Right when you know the unfortunate situation happened in Israel, that should not change your portfolio allocation because that your portfoliocation is built with that in mind. So again, I would not be advocating to change your allocation. It'd be more important where do you stand in your life? And let's face it, let's say we do have volatility. You know, that would be to me a buying opportunity, right, It's that that would be

an opportunity if the market did drop ten, fifteen, twenty percent. I don't want to be a buyer, not a seller, but I've just got a big fan of adjusting your portfolio based on what you think might happen in a given year, whether it be politics or whatever. Than I appreciate it. I appreciate your thoughts. You got it, you got it. Happy

holidays. So yep, so great question there by Rick, And really again, folks, you know I will say, uh, you have to have a portfolio that is an all weather portfolio that you know that there's risk out there. The risk that we can talk about in the beginning year. It's just amazing how often those risks don't really come and actually become the impactors of

the market. It's something else that we haven't even talked about. Those end up being the real risk that you have to be aware of, and so you have to make sure your portfolio is allocated in a way that is you're gonna be comfortable if we have a big year like this year, You're gonna be like, wow, look at this, this is great. You know, my portfolio is positioned in a way that I'm good with this, and

vice versa. You have a year like last year where you're down twenty percent, I mean, it does shows you, right, which is nobody was also forecasting, really the market being down twenty plus percent last year. It just wasn't in the cards, no different than they were forecasting the market being

up this much this year. It just wasn't in the cards. So that's why your portfolio needs to make sure that you have the right asset classes, the right holdings that in both these types of markets you're going to be well positioned. And you know, from our firm perspective, the best thing we could do with our clients again is identifying those asset classes, those investments, and you know, there's a lot of investments that we use that just add

a great deal of value to our client portfolios. But really, from a portfolio changes perspective, we're looking for what's called a softball page, right, which is when you see when you see interest rates as low as they were, you know at some point that it's the inflation was looking like it was not going to be transient. You know, at some point the fen's going to need to start raising rates and that's going to be a negative for bonds.

So you know, that's where it just becomes so important that if you're going to make any portfolio changes, that they're on the margin, they're not wholesale changes, and that you're going to be able to live with those changes in in good markets or bad markets. Well, folks, come back and join us. We got one of our clients, and actually a friend of mine, coming on. His name is Brian Green. He has a real

estate investment company. He's done a great job growing it, and he's going to be on the line to talk up a little bit of how he works with our firm and the value with that, and then he's also going to be talking about his company and what he does and you know what it means to be in the real estate market and be an investor in that space. So come back and join us as we continue to take your questions. You listen to Let's Talk Money on w g Y lots of people. Welcome back,

folks. For those of you just joining us. My name is Martin Shields and I'm your host for Let's Talk Money and Boy Again, I do like that Christmas music. It's a lot. We use that all year round. It's a great way to start each segment of the show. So I hope you're doing well on this holiday weekend. Whether you're getting prepared to go out or maybe you're out driving around. I hope that you're doing well, that you're gonna get together with your family and friends and enjoy some good quality

time together. That's what this time of year is great for. But as always, is great to be here with you to answer any questions you may have regarding your financial planning or investment manager concerns, and I encourage you call in with those questions. You can reach me at eight hundred Talk WI. That is eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Once again,

it's eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. So whatever questions you may have, give me a call and we can give you some insight. As I mentioned to you, we're going to have Brian Green be on the show here. Brian is the founder of Green Spring Holdings and he is a client of our firm and also a friend of mine. I will say that Brian is just we come across these individuals that are just top notch. Brian's

one of those guys. I appreciate him personally. He does an amazing job running his business, which is real estate investment, and he'll talk a little bit about that and what you need to be aware of if you're going to be in that space. And as I mentioned, he's also a client of our firm and he'll chat a little bit about what that looks like. Brian, are you there, I'm here. How you doing, Marty good? How are you good? Good? Excellent? Thanks for having me on the

show, and Merry Christmas to you and your listeners. Oh, thank you, thank you. Why do you spend a few minutes and just talk about how you ended up starting Green Springs Holdings. I think it's an interesting story and that gives our listeners a little flavor as to how you got established and why. Absolutely. Yeah. So I originally started in real estate in twenty

fifteen following the sale of my first career, which was in retail. I used to own a chain of Bryzon wireless stores and sold the last fifteen of those I had in the end of twenty fourteen. So then once we got to twenty fifteen, I was kind of searching for my next business venture, and real estate started making a lot of sense to me as I started reading

books and educating myself. So I started buying small, multi family properties in and around Taratoga County and then kind of started stacking one on top of another and kind of built up a small portfolio of twenty four apartments across six different properties in the first couple of years. And then from there I partnered with my brother who came on and joined the team, and we just started kind

of multiplying the efforts that both of us put forth. And you know, fast forward to today, we've got, you know, a portfolio of about

twenty five million dollars in real estate. You know, we have a whole team of support staff and property management professionals, and we're kind of actively managing and developing real estate in and around the Saratoga Okay, great, great, great, And you know what I like about your business model, As we've talked about it is that you know, you're basically run the numbers, right,

It's pretty straightforward. You run the numbers, you'll look at what the economics look like for buying the buildings, and then you look at what does it look like if you're investing X amount of dollars and you know what that means as far as being able to buy the property invest that money and the value of that property going forward, along with the rents that you can potentially sustain going forward. Yeah. Absolutely. So what I love most about real

estate is it all comes down basically the math. Just like you know, investing in your world, you know, in stocks and bonds and then next funds, you know, you can kind of calculate out, you know, different portfolio ratios and such, and in real estate you can kind of project based on what you said, you know, rents and the market that property is in, you know, and implementing whatever business plan you come up with for that property. You can kind of predict what it's going to be worth

at some point in the future and what your returns might be. You know. So there's there's a lot of math involved in it and calculus and kind of I'm do to the point now where I won't even look at a piece

of property unless the math makes sense to kind of keep yourself objective. You know, sometimes you go look at that piece of property and you start, uh, you know, getting a little bit emotionally attached to it, and you start bending numbers and you kind of play like that spreadsheet gym mass spreadsheet gymnastics that you know, where you're kind of moving numbers around to make the numbers work on a real estate deal versus you know, just solve the numbers

and if they make sense and you like property, then then maybe it's an

asset you want to go forward with. Yeah, And that's no different than our world, right we say that you got to remove the emotions from investing, and as soon as you have that, and that's where individual investors struggle so much, is they get influenced by headlines and you know, whatever they see going around the world, and they make adjustments based on those emotions versus the reality what a hard, cold, cold numbers telling you to do.

And as I mentioned on our show at the show earlier, you know, stats go up seventy percent of time right there, that those odds are tough to beat. When you talk about it from a long term perspective, So that makes sense. So talk a little bit about we work with a lot of small business owners like you, and talk about just you know, working with our firm, kind of what your thoughts are and kind of, uh, you know, anything you tell for for listeners about that relationship. Yeah.

Absolutely, So, you know, when we first started working together, I don't know how many years it was. I think I was. I was coming over from another, you know, national brand firm, and you know, I had some proceeds from the sale of my original company still at that point, you know, so I was kind of looking for something that

was a little bit more of a personal connection. You know. Obviously, with you and I being friends and neighbors, you know that we kind of have that connection to start off, and you have that that trust level. But I feel like when I moved over to Bouchet Financial from that national firm, there was just a greater level of attentiveness and they kind of, you know, it wasn't cookie cutter like some of the the uh again, the

national firms might be. It's just a more of a one on one kind of a personal relationship, which is what I liked, you know, and we were able to cater kind of the portfolio that we set up to meet my specific needs. So I think I remember back from at that point, I was already in real estate, but you know, we were able to set up some interesting accounts that allowed me to kind of finance some of my real estate investments while still keeping a kind of a divers sided portfolio in stocks

and bonds. So that's something you know, you know, using that account in that way is not something I would have thought of without the help of your firm. So you know, even me with a lot of experience in investing, you know, I still was able to kind of get tremendous value

from that relationship. Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things that you and I talked about is this concept of family wealth, right, and you know that's working with our firm like ours, whether it be your small business, you know, and maybe it's building that business or maybe there's a liquidation element of it, but you know, really you're building this wealth for yourself and you know, your retirement and you know, what

we call is the same financial independence. But at the end of the day, you know, you've got three daughters. You're building it to pass on for multiple generations and and so you know, I think that important element that's as a firm we focus on, uh with our clients, that concept of family wealth. And you know what's interesting is, you know these days, you could be a blue collar worker and you know, if you're saving for retirement, you're most people don't have pensions, right, so that's how you

would normally fund your retirement. You're gonna be building an asset in your retirement accounts, which you know move on to become family wealth, and it needs to be handled properly. Uh. And I know the one things we did was sit down with your daughters who are you know, young, but talk to about what it means to be an investor and making sure you think about you want them to learn at a young age all the right things to do

financially as far as not spending too much. This concept of investing, uh that that becomes so important to them. Yeah. Absolutely, And yes, now that you bring that up, that was that was one of the one of the uh you know, other great moments had so far with our relationships. So we uh, yeah, we brought my three daughters into the office and you kind of give them a presentation about investing and rant through some uh

some numbers, you know, just very loose. My daughters are are still fairly young, so you know, they don't you know, it was very high level, but it did get them engaged in investing. Uh. And

it was kind of their first foray into the field. Uh. And what it means to kind of put money aside and let it grow for you, you know, over time, you know, and that I always have very transparent conversations with my daughters, so you know, we openly talked about, uh, you know, how much I'm spending on investments and what we're you know, what one building uh, you know, might put off in rents and then like you know, how how buildings are financed, and you know,

you know, some of that stuff maybe above their head, but I feel like enough of it sticks where you know, meetings you know, such as you and I had with my daughters in their office, or or my conversations with them kind of building their investments education over time so they can get a flavor for it. I feel like many people don't spend enough time educating themselves on investment, you know, whether it's in real estate or in your

world. And I feel like, you know, they're kind of doing themselves as the service because you know, to your point, it doesn't really matter what profession you're in and what occupation you're doing. You know, everyone has the capacity to invest and to save and to kind of create their own little, you know wealth, you know that they can pass on to the family

and time. Yeah, and as far as that generational wealth, I mean, one of the worst things you can do is build generational wealth and not have that next generation be prepared to handle it and not doing the right things themselves. And I do believe that you start that young, you get them thinking about it. You know, now are my kids, they're all teenagers, they're working, you know, you get them understanding of what it means

to be saving money for investments, how much you can spend. And now with my oldest daughter, she's at UVM, she's got a credit card, and so what does that mean to have that credit card and paying that off every month? All these things are just they're they're baby stepping stones to get them in the right spot. Let's let's move out a little bit more to

your business. So you know, we will quite often have clients that you know, there's one thing to buy a home, to buy a second home and maybe even a third home that you use for your own your own time and your family and whatnot. And you know, many of our clients do that. But there are some of these clients too that either have some real estate portfolios, buildings, and or that they've thought about doing it. And I always counsel them, especially if they if they're not even in there,

but I hear this when they're in there. It's a tough business, right And you know, you get this idea because there's so many of these, you know, house flipping shows and you're like, oh, okay, this sounds great, you know, and now these days you see the value of what your house has gone up and you're like, wow, I should be

putting a lot more money in this. And I always tell them, listen, there's a reason why you could potentially make more money in real estate that you can in the general market investing, because there is a lot more time, effort and risk that is involved in getting yourself there. And you know, you many people and I've seen this that they don't realize that until they get themselves in that space and they start saying, okay, this is a

lot of work. And what I see is with many of our people, clients who have already had real estate rental real estate, so investment real estate really what they're looking as as they move in and retire, they want to sell those pieces because they just can't handle all the maintenance and upkeep and staying

on top of everything that is entailed with those properties. And we've had situations where you know, we're fiduciary, so we're going to give you a guidance as to what you want to do and how to do it, and what's the best approach. We'll share with the pros and the cons. But you know, you know, if you go down that path, I've seen it where you know, people buy a building or to or an apartment and after a few years they sell it because it just ends up being too much of

a challenge. But unlike yourself, I mean, you, this is your business, this is what you do all the time, and so you know how to handle those challenges. And actually those challenges for other people become opportunities for you because you know how to handle them. Right. You have processes

and technology in place to overcome some of those challenges. Why don't you talk a little bit about that, like what if you've done do you think that when you you manage your business, your real estate business, what have you done to make sure that you're successful and those those challenges that face most individual investors, you're very able to overcome. Yeah, it's a great point,

Marty. So the you know, the biggest thing is people refer to it as real estate investing, but really what it is is real the business of

real estate. So you know, my advice would be that if you're going to buy, uh, you know, a rental property of whatever kind, it may be a duplex or you know, even something larger, you need to go into it with the idea that like, all right, are you prepared, like completely prepared to run a business, because if you don't run a business to your point, you know, you're going to end up buying a property, and whatever numbers you thought you were going to make as a

return, you know, those are kind of fool's goal because you know you're going to miss a couple of rental payments, you're not going to know how to screen tenants, you're not going to know how to maintain a property and limit its operational expenses so you can maximize your returns. I mean, it

truly is in the trust sense. It's a business. So if you're not going to run it that way, you know, you're probably going to end up as an example like you mentioned Marty, where you know, a year or two in you're going to be exhausted, disflated a little bit, and

you're going to sell the property. It's something like us, probably at a discount, and you're going to move on and kind of, you know, be you know, one of those people that just like you know, you know, think, you know, I try to real estate, it doesn't work for me, and you kind of move on. So I think the important point is like educate yourself on the front end, like do as much education as possible to figure out first like am I capable and do I want

to put the time into this to do this? Because if you don't, then you're much better off, to your point, investing in you know, the broad market, you know, with a firm like Bluche, or if you still want to be in real estate, you're better off investing with companies like Green Springs Capital or other operators that are professionals that do this all the

time. You know that have put their ten thousand hours in, they're experts in the field, and you can invest alongside them as kind of a limited partner where you get the upside of their expertise, but you don't have the responsibility of running the day to day of the business side of real estate. I think that's a very important point to kind of choose your investments and your strategy based on the time and commitment you're willing to put into it now.

And one of the guys I learned as I've gotten older is, you know, to focus on the areas where I am an expert, and those areas where I'm not is dowsource And that really is what you're saying, is that is to make sure that if you're going to go down this path, you've got to become an expert. And like you said, it really is. It's a job, it's a business that you've got to take that approach. So I think I think it's very much Marty. One one more point to

that. It's just like you know, I would get for somebody somebody that's interested in investing in the market, right, you wouldn't say, Okay, yeah, I'm going to invest in the market and tomorrow you open up an online account and start day trading right like like you would you would never suggest

that to somebody. So like in real estate, if you have zero experience rent running, you know, apartment buildings or self storage or mobile home parks or whatever it is, you would never just go out and buy one and like kind of say, all right, I'll just figure this out once I

get it. You know, you're going to go out and find a professional like your firm or professionals that are in real estate and kind of lean on them as the experts in the field so you can kind of protect your investment versus you know, just doing something that's way too risky that you shouldn't be

involved. Yeah. Well, I always say, you know, I was in corporate finance and telecom space, and I've got my undergraduate graduates degree in economics, and you know, I was an expert in corporate finance, and you know, for the first ten years fifteen years, I managed my own investments and I did my own financial planning, and relatively speaking, I was not great at it because I knew very complex corporate finance in the telecom space,

I didn't know investment management really and I didn't know financial planning until you know, I went to Georgetown and got my degree in financial planning, became a CFP and worked in this field. And I just can't not stress that enough that you know, you've got to be that expert to be successful, and when you dabble in something quite often doesn't work out the way you might

want it to. Yeah, completely agree with that. Yeah, Well, any last thoughts you want to share, either on the markets or anything else

before we wrap up here, I don't think so. I do think, you know, I would offer my expertise in this fields maybe a service to your listeners that if they're if they're one of those people that are thinking about going out and investing in real estate themselves, you know, they want to run you know, I'm always willing to talk real estate, and and if they're they're wanting to kind of run their business plan or their thoughts through somebody

that's in the space before making that investment, maybe we can kind of protect them from getting into something that that that they may otherwise be better off avoiding.

Uh So, certainly, you know, they're feel free to reach out to me on our website or Marty you can provide my contact information if nothing else, is a sounding board to kind of tell you what you don't know before you get involved in real estate investing yourself, or to you know, say, hey, listen, it sounds like you're on the right path and you should go ahead and do it. But you know, think of this

A, B and C and just make sure you're protected. But you know, sometimes it's good to find find somebody that's in the field that's an expert, let them hear your plan before you had to just just jump in, you know, with both feet. That's great, that's great. I know you. You know, as an individual, you're always willing to give your time to other individuals. So I appreciate that. So his website is Green Springs Capitalgroup dot com. Uh and is that the best way they could get

ahold of you? Yeah? Or I mean, I mean, I'm kind of old school. They could just call me if they wanted to five from zero, two eight nine to five. You know, let's wait until after the holiday maybe, but uh, again, it's five one eight eight one zero to eight nine five. I'm available whenever to talk real estate. You know, I'm happy to give you five or ten minutes. Okay, Wall before you go. We got a caller. I don't know if this is

about real estate or investing. We got Jim from Albany. Jimmy there, Yes, I am, and yeah, it is a question about real estate. Just I'll try to make it short because I know you're short on time here. I acquired a property. I purchased it. I wasn't planning I'm purchasing it. I had, you know, a sizeable asset base in the stock market, and I had some reafs and those types of things, so

I was fairly well diversified. But the opportunity presented itself, and you said that you were a numbers person and running some numbers, so I just wanted to throw some numbers at you and tell me, you know, if you had the classify good bad, not good, you know, just very broad. So the purchase price of the property was around two hundred and twenty five thousand, and I ended up basically paying cash for it because that's what the

seller wanted. I have been able to get about twenty six thousand dollars a year in rent in it. It's a single family dwelling, and i'd pay about five to six thousand dollars in taxes in that, So just would be listening. Just pretty curious as to with that. I haven't it's been in. It's in good shape, you know, it doesn't really you know, there's gonna be minor things faucets and things like that, but nothing that's been like, I didn't need to put a new roof on or anything like that.

So just curious of your thoughts on something like that. Just again, I do agree that it's taken a little bit of effort more I don't want to say more than I had envisioned, but getting good tenants in and some of that taken a little bit more effort than I maybe anticipated. But I've been gutting my way through it. So I appreciate your time and happy holidays. Right, let me do it this party? Yeah, yeah, you go ahead. Okay, So, you know, thanks for the call.

I would say this, you know, just I mean, I don't know the numbers exactly, but you mentioned that what the taxes are and what have you. I would just say that in many of these circumstances, you should really dive into what your total expense are. You know, you mentioned, you know, a few little repairs and maintenance items. But those things can

definitely add up, especially on a single family house. You know, so if you if you're making twenty six thousand dollars a year gross on a you know, two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars house, you know, that's you know what, eleven or twelve percent if you don't have any other expenses, but of course you do, so you have you know, I don't know if your tenants are paying for like trash and water and sewer, and

if they're taking care of the lawn and the snow. So I guess it would depend on if you're paying those expenses or the tentatives also important, you know, so you can calculate your return based on you know, what that looks like as well. You know, one other thing to consider. She said, you didn't have to replace anything major, but there comes a day

where you will have to write. So if you hold that house for ten years, and you're good for nine straight years, and maybe you're making you know, five or ten thousand dollars a year, but you know, at some point in that ten years, you got to replace the furnace. You know, that might be five thousand dollars right there, and then you're going to replace the roof maybe at some point that might be another ten or fifteen.

So I feel like a lot of times, especially in a single family house, the returns you think you're getting are kind of you know, it's a little bit kind of like a mirage, right because at some point you could get you could make three four thousand dollars a year, but at some point if you pay a fifteen thousand dollars roof, you just lost three or four years with the profit. So I think it's you know, single family homes are very difficult to make a solid predictable return on for that reason.

So I think I would just make sure you dive into the numbers and do your due diligence on what you're actually spending and what that looks like over maybe a ten year old period, and see what your actual returns are. And that's a great point, right, which is you know, without a doubt, you can imagine somebody who's not this is not their business. They look at that and they think on the service that it's going to be making money.

But you start digging down, the reality is you're like, well it gets a lot harder play Plus the other thing I always say too is think of your time right, which is your time is worth something. And I mean if you're really going to think about it like you should be putting in those hours because when you put out of those hours, that's you could be working at your other job ors doing something else instead of that. So well, Brian, we're going to wrap up here, but thank you for coming

on the show and really appreciate it. And Merry Christmas. All right, Mary Christmas, thanks for having me. Marty. You got it well, folks, I hope you enjoyed this hour. Is great to be here with you as always to give you some insight and take your questions. Have a great Christmas and holiday season with your loved ones and families, and remember gratitude. It's the most important thing you can do. And let those people know

that you have gratitude, that you have that gratitude for them. You'll listen to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet Finance Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life.