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We welcome you to “Bare With Us,” the podcast where we Bare Out the latest economic and financial questions that matter to you. Mike Robinson, a Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) from Calgary, Scott Richardson, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) from Edmonton, and Finn McKay, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from Winnipeg, engage in an unstructured discussion, bringing you a wealth of knowledge and a diverse experience from the world of finance.
Each episode features an unstructured, unscripted and entertaining discussion where we pursue ideas and concepts as they arise naturally through our conversation. We tackle a broad range of timely topics, from economic or market trends and financial planning strategies.
Whether you’re one of our valued clients, or someone new to our insights, our goal is to provide you with valuable information, from diverse perspectives, that can help you navigate the complex world of finance.
We are experts in our field, but we are new to podcasting, so we invite you to Bare With Us, while we learn, grow and share! Please feel free to reach out to us with any feedback, to suggest any topics, or to learn how to work with us. You don’t have to, but you can!
Welcome, everybody. That's beautiful. Sure. You like that?
Finn McKay:Yeah. Do it again.
Scott Richardson:Okay. Yeah. Welcome, everybody. This is our inaugural podcast episode. Thank you for joining us.
Scott Richardson:My name is Scott Richardson. I'm a certified financial planner.
Mike Robinson:My name is Mike Robinson. I'm a chartered investment manager.
Finn McKay:And my name is Finn McKay, and I'm a portfolio manager.
Scott Richardson:And today we are going to tackle housing affordability and whether or not, young people can afford to buy a home.
Finn McKay:That was great. The welcome everyone was really good, actually. I feel like you wanna when you turn on a podcast, you wanna hear, like, a, you know, get you in kind of thing, you know, and I think you got that.
Scott Richardson:This is the the first episode.
Mike Robinson:Episode is our inaugural episode.
Scott Richardson:This is the first episode of
Mike Robinson:our episode of our
Scott Richardson:because it's our first time.
Finn McKay:When you said, when you said, it's our first podcast, bear with us, it might suck. It's our or it's our first time, bear with us, it might suck. I feel like I said something similar when I was 16. Well,
Mike Robinson:I still sometimes I'll say it.
Scott Richardson:I still
Mike Robinson:say it. Well, I do. I'll say it.
Scott Richardson:It's just not my first time.
Finn McKay:Bear with me. This might
Mike Robinson:sound like And if you let me do it, I wouldn't do that. I often do that joke. I'll say it's my first time, so please be gentle. Well, I mean, I well, let's just do it now. Like, I'm here because, you know, clients ask us a lot of questions, and I have a lot of opinions and I, you know, I read and I think I'm well versed and educated, but I don't know everything.
Mike Robinson:And so I think there's value in professionals like us sitting down and talking about these issues that people are asking us the same questions. Here's what I think. Doesn't make me right. What do you think? And what's the different perspective?
Mike Robinson:And there's great value in getting other people's opinion on the same topic because people see it from different ways. So I run a financial advisory practice. You know, I'm not one of those people that just tells clients what they wanna hear to make them happy. Like, I engage in in deep conversations with with people with some of those people, but you can't you can't get everyone at once. Like, when something topical is going on in the news yeah.
Mike Robinson:I have lunch with clients. I have meetings. But the only how topical can you be? You can send out a newsletter. Very few people actually read them.
Mike Robinson:And you have to go through compliance and it's scripted and you're worried about your grammar versus when you just have a conversation with somebody, you tell them what you think. This is my opinion, and that's why I think there's value in doing this.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. I agree. I think a lot of, clients come and ask us these questions, and it's because I think they know that we see things from a different perspective than they do. And, you know, if you think about it, our jobs, we talk to people every day about this stuff, and there's not a lot of people talking about money, talking about world events because a lot of the events you just don't talk about. You're busy in life, and so this is an opportunity to talk to, well, colleagues, but Yeah.
Scott Richardson:People who have very different opinions than I do. And and I wanna like, part of it too is I think of it as personal growth. You know, I I don't get an opportunity to sit down and talk to the two of you on a regular basis about this stuff, and and that's what I really want because that's my personal growth. Because I have my opinions, but I don't ever get to get them checked.
Mike Robinson:And when we do get a chance to do it, we have to have an agenda because we talk and talk and talk because there's a lot there's a lot to talk about.
Scott Richardson:There is.
Mike Robinson:Right? And it's like, any issue that is worth talking about is not simple. Mhmm. If it's simple, it's not really important. So real issues require real thought and real conversation, and it's hard to do over lunch.
Scott Richardson:Mhmm. Yeah. And I think there's so much information now. And I think that's one of the problems. Like, it's it's hard to digest all of this.
Scott Richardson:I think there is so much more information that you can take in, and it makes it so much more confusing. I I don't think the finance world is like that.
Mike Robinson:Well, I was I was
Finn McKay:gonna say, like, Scott, like, you you brought up a really good point last time we were talking about doing this, which was, like, there is so much information. And a a lot of the time, it's it's being skewed a lot because we wanna see dramatic headlines all the time. Right? And that's the way that it bring brings you in. Right?
Finn McKay:And a lot of the topics that, you know, you wanted to talk about, and I think they're really good topics, is just trying to go behind the headlines and actually see what's really happening in the world because, what draws you in in a newspaper article might not always be the the actual story going on. Right?
Mike Robinson:And it's getting worse.
Finn McKay:And it is getting worse.
Mike Robinson:It's getting worse.
Finn McKay:And it's and it's and it you know, it has nothing to do with people and the impacts that these things have on people and what actually is going on. So
Mike Robinson:Yeah. The the whole headline thing drives me crazy, and I'm victim to it too. I'll read a headline and go, I'm gonna read that story, and there's nothing in the story. Mhmm. It is all just confirmation bias of what is an important topic.
Finn McKay:Mhmm. Well
Scott Richardson:and if you go to one newspaper for that story and then you go try and check it three other places, it's the exact same story. It's like they should Word
Finn McKay:for word.
Scott Richardson:Word. And so how do you how do you get this information? How do you check it?
Mike Robinson:And I don't know. I don't know the answer, and I'm not suggesting that this podcast is the answer. Mhmm. I'm not saying that we know, and they they don't. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:But it's worthy of discussion.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Like, dig a little deeper on some of these things. Deeper. And and a lot of the a lot of the headlines are all about, like, fear. Right?
Finn McKay:Trying to invoke some fear into you and trying to say, like, you know, here's something you need to read. You need to act on. And, you know, oftentimes, it requires a lot more thought than just, reading that.
Mike Robinson:Right.
Scott Richardson:Well and, you know, I I listen to a lot of podcasts, and a lot of the podcasts that especially with financial information or or economic information, let's say, it's run by people who their job is news. But they're not in this industry every day talking to people every day. And so, you know and we we talked about it the other day that some of the guests on some of these podcasts where they're going to, like, they may not have a big financial practice or anything. And so the information that they're getting might be a little more superficial or they I don't know. I just I think we've got some some good information that we can spread out.
Scott Richardson:So Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:There's an old Scott might be the only one who's old enough to remember this. Maybe, Ed. But there used to be a political talk show in The US. It was called Roundtable, and the host would go, okay. Issue number one.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. I think it was John McClough in his name.
Scott Richardson:So I'm
Mike Robinson:gonna do that. Issue number one. I live in Calgary. I'm I grew up in, Mississauga, Ontario. And my you know, I'm turning 49 years old this month, and so my friends are all in their late forties to to, you know, in their fifties.
Mike Robinson:And I'm constantly being told it's impossible for our kids, our young adult children, to buy homes in Calgary. And I'm like, I'm not sure that's true. I believe that it is more difficult now than then, but I am constantly told this told, not asked, told that it's impossible for 25 year olds or, you know, somewhere in that age range to buy homes anymore. I'm like, I don't I don't think that's true. I have some thoughts on that, but I think that's something we should we should dive into.
Mike Robinson:I think it's a complicated issue. I agree that it is more difficult in 2024, '20 '20 '5 than it was in 1995, but I do not think that it is impossible for 25 year olds to buy homes. In fact, they're probably sitting in a room with 25 to 30 year old people who do own homes as evidence of that. I have some thoughts, but I'll throw it to you guys first.
Scott Richardson:Do you wanna go? Or
Finn McKay:Yeah. I just thought, you know, also, you said roundtable. I mean, maybe that's the name of the, the podcast.
Mike Robinson:Actually, we've been talking about what what
Finn McKay:is the name of the podcast. So, yeah. So I I think that there's a few a few ways to look at it and to think about it. Like, we were talking about, I
Mike Robinson:think, like, what, two weeks ago when we were talking
Finn McKay:about this stuff, that a lot of people have aspirations in their life that, have seen a lot of lifestyle creep along with the rest of the world. And I think especially, like, social media's had a big impact on that, on what other people are doing. You know, we talked about how, you know, in the nineteen sixties, the median size home was about 800 square feet, new new build. And then in 1980, it was about 1,500 square feet. Now it's 2,000 square feet.
Mike Robinson:It's over 2,000 square feet.
Finn McKay:It's over 2,000 square feet. And so, you know, there's there is an expectation that, you know, you can buy a a big house too. Right? And and part of that is just how they've been building the houses. You get more margin when you get when you sell a bigger house.
Finn McKay:But, also, it's become really difficult for, you know, entrant homes. There's not a lot of, starter homes. But, you know, I I I bought a house when I was pretty young, and it was you know, I I decided to go with something that was a little bit smaller, and it's what has helped me with that. What's interesting is that, actually, if you if you look at the home builders in The US, for the first time in, like, thirty or forty years, they've actually started to decrease the size of the average house. And that's because there's no there's no, ability for a lot of people to to afford, like, the big, big houses.
Mike Robinson:Well, and the builds will be market demand. Yes. So when we say that the increase in square footage of new builds has been going up Mhmm. Those are businesses making business decisions because they're selling. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:People are buying those houses, so why wouldn't you build Mhmm. A bigger, more expensive house? The market is the one like, the people have the control ultimately on any of these decisions. Don't buy it. Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:But, you know, you say you bought a a starter house, which is great. Like, so did I. Like Mhmm. You know, I graduated from university in 1998. And the idea that a, you know, a 25 year old would buy a 2,000 square foot home in the GTA Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:Was not even a discussion. It was unthinkable. Mhmm. We bought starter homes. We bought townhouses.
Mike Robinson:We bought 1,100 square foot. My my house my first house was 950 square feet, and I actually still like that house and think fun. I don't live in it anymore. Mhmm. But I like that house, and I built equity, and I got a start.
Mike Robinson:In Calgary, I find that people are like, well, my kids can't buy a house. Well, no. They can't buy the house that you bought Mhmm. Because when you were 25, you could buy a 2,000 square foot house for, like, two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Now it's a million.
Mike Robinson:K? But when I had graduated university, nobody even thought of that. It wasn't it was unthinkable. And so I did some of the math too to say, well, when I graduate school, what did a house cost in Mississauga at the time? You have the rate of inflation, and it's the same it it is the same cost after inflation in Calgary as what it is now.
Mike Robinson:Mhmm. What it was then is what it is now. But the dynamics are different. The lifestyle creep, well, I want a house like I grew up in. Well, sorry.
Mike Robinson:Mhmm. You just can't do that. But where I grew up, we didn't even think about it. Of course of course you buy a star starter house. That's that was just par for the course.
Mike Robinson:It doesn't seem like that's the the thought anymore.
Scott Richardson:Well and I think the expectation too of when you look at if you're 25 and you've gone to university, you've lived at home the whole time, and then you're gonna jump right away into homeownership. Like, I I think change your expectation a little bit. Like, before even buying that house, we rented. We Yeah. We had roommates.
Scott Richardson:We had, you know, milk crate furniture and and stuff like that. And and we we learned what it was like to have to live with people and deal with landlords and and all this stuff. And the the expectation has almost changed too much where, you know, I graduate university, and I need to have that big house right away. And I think, you know, housing for me, I always think of it as, like, Maslow's hierarchy of needs that, like, number one, bottom of the pyramid, it's just shelter. It's it's a roof over your head.
Scott Richardson:It's safety. It's security. But after that, like, once you've accomplished that, now you're talking investment, and and it's it becomes more of, like, a forced savings than than anything else. And I think that's the thing that a lot of parents are trying to push these kids into is, well, this is your forced savings. Like, you have to have that, and I think you can accomplish that in very different ways.
Scott Richardson:And so I I think the homeownership discussion becomes a bit of a separation between, well, what are you trying to accomplish with homeownership? Is it you need shelter, or are you trying to find a way to put money away and save?
Mike Robinson:Or is it status to your point about social media? Mhmm. Is it a is it is it a status thing? I rented and had built crate furniture. I had empty beer cases with towels over them as end tables in my room.
Mike Robinson:But but that was actually almost a source of pride. Like, we would laugh about that then and go, yeah. Me too. Like, we're doing our our bit. Now it's with so and I'm not saying this is true.
Mike Robinson:I'm asking the question, is it true? Now with social media, people posting pictures of where they live, are you has it switched from pride in, yes, I have milk crate furniture to status symbol of, oh, look where I live now, and you can post pictures to everybody about where where you live.
Finn McKay:You know? And and and, Scott, you made a really good point when we were talking about this before, like, that people take all of the different things that you see on social media, all the different people. Some people are traveling, you know, to these beautiful places. Some Some people are buying these incredible cars. Some people are living in these incredible homes.
Finn McKay:And then in your mind, you kind of aggregate that altogether, and then you just think that you're missing all these things. And you think that you should get all of them.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. I call that the fictitious Jones.
Finn McKay:Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:You amalgamate you say that's what everyone's doing. Yeah. But it's really, like, eight different people that you've amalgamated into one person that you're comparing yourself to.
Finn McKay:Right. Right. And, yeah, that totally goes to your point. Like, it is like, it's a status thing. Right?
Finn McKay:You you feel like you need to be showing Yeah.
Mike Robinson:That. No. Legitimately, I think it I think it is actually more difficult now than it was then. I just don't think it's impossible. It's this impossible dream.
Mike Robinson:And so, again, I don't know the answer to this, but it's a question. Like, we used to rent and then save. Can you rent now and and save?
Scott Richardson:Yes. And I I did the math on it two weeks ago with with clients, and they had brought their two daughters in to to have a meeting about and I we showed them right there in the meeting. I went through we we actually brought it up on the screen. We looked up, like, realtor.ca, and and we found a house in the West End Of Edmonton. And, like, it wasn't the best neighborhood.
Scott Richardson:It was Mhmm. But it was a $350,000 house. And I said, okay. Let's say you're able to get $25,000 down. You've got a $325,000 mortgage.
Scott Richardson:Here's what and I I can't remember what the number was exactly that it worked out to. But then we looked up, okay. What's your property tax? We looked up, like, $13,000 in CMHC fees that they're gonna have added to that mortgage. We looked at, what they'll have to spend in terms of insuring it, And we came up with, like, a monthly cost of 2,800 to $3,000.
Scott Richardson:And then we went and looked and found a rental place in the same area, and it was a house. It had the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and they could rent it for 1,600 a month plus utilities. And so I I said to them, like, here's the math, and we draw we drew it all out. And it was like, you should be able to save $800 a month. And if you save that difference and you save that $800 a month, in the short run, you will build more equity than you would owning that house because transaction costs on a house like, if you're not settled and and sorted in your life, if like, I always tell people, the worst decision you can make is a short term decision with a long term asset.
Scott Richardson:Like, if you have to buy and sell houses in the short run because you're moving, you're not settled, you don't like this,
Mike Robinson:You're gonna make mistakes.
Scott Richardson:You're gonna make mistakes, and and your transaction cost is huge. And and you don't get to control the price. You're a price taker because, you know, the market value of a house is not what the realtor says. It's whatever somebody's willing to pay.
Finn McKay:Yeah.
Scott Richardson:And so unless you're settled and like, again, the reason in my mind that a mortgage is twenty five years is, one, that's how long it's gonna take you to pay it off, but, two, it's because, like, you're meant to stay there for a long time. And so I I think, like, when we did that comparison, it it's really easy in the short run to build a lot of equity and and save so that you're not paying like, 13,000 in CMHC is a lot.
Mike Robinson:I'm glad you did that math because I haven't, but I did I did check another math because the other thing that people tell me is, well, earnings haven't kept up. So, yes, inflation is up or house prices are up, or I'll use my argument of that's what it cost me when I was 25 in Toronto area to buy a home. Like, yeah, but incomes went further. Inghams haven't kept up. Actually, yes, they have.
Mike Robinson:I I checked. I checked average weekly earnings in Alberta have kept pace with the rate of inflation. It's ahead of inflation. It's perhaps not ahead of housing inflation, but the general rate of inflation, incomes are above the rate of inflation so that on a net basis, like real basis, it has kept pace. And I thought, well, me, that's just Alberta because it's young and there's, you know, oil and gas and it's entrepreneurial.
Mike Robinson:And so I went Canada wide, and it's the variance between Alberta and all of Canada is negligible.
Finn McKay:You know, you you you may you brought up a really interesting point on, like, you know, renting for a few years and and you can build equity and stuff like that. The other thing too, I think, when a lot of young people can make mistakes is when they make a short term decision on a long term asset, which also actually reminds me of the regional banking crisis that happened, you know, just over a year ago where all these banks were making short term decisions based off, you know, their long term government bonds and stuff like that, and it totally blow up in their face. But, anyway, that's beside the point. The the, the thing that I think, like, when you're young, like, you wanna preserve flexibility because you don't know what's gonna happen. You're gonna have a whole bunch of opportunities, and you're not settled down.
Finn McKay:And when you buy a house, if you're not gonna live in that house for five years, you know, you're gonna have all these transaction costs. You don't know what the housing market does in the short term. Housing market doesn't always go up. There's a whole period in ninety nine years go up. When yeah.
Finn McKay:When it went goes down. I remember my one of my profs in university telling me about how he was looking at buying a house on Wellington Crescent here in the city. And he, and and he went in he he made, like, a really low ball bid. This this house was on the market for, like, two years, and he made this super like, he was, like he offered them half the price that it was listed at. Like, you do not hear about that stuff anymore.
Finn McKay:Right? And then they said no, and they were horrified. And they actually sent, like, a really angry letter at it. Like, how dare you? And then and then, the fall after the winter, after this owner had to pay the heating costs on an old, huge welling Inefficient.
Finn McKay:Inefficient house all winter in cold, frigid Winnipeg, they reached out to him and said, okay. We'll take your your your offer. And then he offered them even less than he got the rest. Of course. Because, you know, that's what you do.
Finn McKay:Because he was Well,
Mike Robinson:because he was astute.
Finn McKay:Yes. So, you know, housing prices don't always go up. You know, that's something to remember. And and, you know, it definitely feels like that, though, and especially recently. And, you know, we've we've had fifty years of interest rates declining.
Finn McKay:That's been a huge tailwind on housing prices. We don't know what interest rates are gonna do in the future. But when you're young, you wanna have preserve the ability to move if you have an opportunity. You don't wanna also, the last thing you wanna do is, you know, move into a neighborhood that is really, really rough. And, you know, just because you you wanna just make it work, and you found a nice house, but the neighborhood sucks.
Finn McKay:You can change your house. You can't change your neighborhood. Right? And that kind of stuff. Right?
Finn McKay:And, so preserving flexibility is really important when you're young, and you you get that when you rent.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. The whole housing prices always go up thing. It it's an interesting point. They don't always go up. And this is why so this is one of the reasons why I think this discussion is a good idea.
Mike Robinson:And one of the reasons that people ask us for our opinion on things is because we have the experience of so many other people. So we have our own life experience. I've never owned a house that didn't go up in value, but we sit day to day with people. And so we have, like, the amalgamation of all these people's different experiences. And so I can tell you with certainty, the houses prices don't always go up.
Mike Robinson:Because every time we have a hot real estate market, anybody thinks they know what they're doing, and they go buy houses and try and rent them out or do it as an investment. And then a financial crisis happens. Or in Alberta, an oil crisis happens, and they don't go up. And now the new assessed value of the house is less than what they mortgaged, and they're in trouble.
Finn McKay:Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:Has that ever happened to me? No. It didn't happen to my dad either, but I've had this conversation so many times because I know people that that has happened to. Mhmm. Well, you also so, again, they're maybe getting off the price topic, but you talked about that house on Wellington Crescent and how inefficient it is to heat it or or contain it
Finn McKay:and stuff. Well, I
Mike Robinson:think that's another interesting point about housing prices. Like, new builds get bigger and bigger and bigger. We don't actually build houses in Canada overly efficient.
Finn McKay:Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:And so the number of people per family continually drops Mhmm. To the point of we are an unsustainable nation in terms of our own reproductive rate Mhmm. Why are our houses getting bigger?
Finn McKay:Well and, you know, this is an interesting point that actually, like like okay. So, you know, the the median house in 1960 was 800 square feet as of that before, and now it's over 2,000 square feet for new builds, and the family sizes are smaller.
Mike Robinson:Right. The family sizes are a lot smaller.
Finn McKay:Yeah.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. A lot smaller. Mhmm. Like, in the sixties like, I'm born in the seventies, and that was sort of the heyday of two, you know, two parents, two kids. Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:In the sixties and fifties, it was like, four kids was the norm. Mhmm. And now people often struggle to have one. And not by choice maybe, but but it can be a challenge. Like, most having more than two kids in your family today is rare for our generation or yours.
Mike Robinson:Like, you're what? You're about 30, early thirties. It's rare that people have more than two kids. Why are our houses getting bigger? Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:I grew up in a 1,300 square foot semi detached house and wanted for nothing.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. Life is built for a family of four. Yeah. It's easy with a car. You don't have to get an extra cot.
Scott Richardson:Bags in the back. Yeah. And you don't have to get an extra cot in the hotel room
Mike Robinson:that they don't even allow anymore. Weren't as big in the seventies as they are now.
Finn McKay:It actually just reminds me.
Mike Robinson:And they're inefficient. Sorry.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:And the inefficiency, like, supposedly, you know, gen y or gen zed are all about making things more efficient and more sustainable, which I think is a good idea. Like, I agree with that concept. Well, 2,000 square foot houses aren't very sustainable or efficient. Like, you're burning heating oil and or natural gas hugely to do that. So on one hand, you're telling me you are all about the environment.
Mike Robinson:I wanna be sustainable. Oh, but I want a 2,300 square foot up.
Scott Richardson:My family is free. All of us have our iPads and four TVs. Yeah. Everything's plugged in. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:And I'm fine
Mike Robinson:with the I like, I have the iPads, and I I'm okay. But I also don't speak out of both sides of my mouth on the issue. Right? Yeah. So are you thinking about the fact that your 2,300 square foot house is very environmentally unfriendly.
Mike Robinson:You're burning natural gas from, you know, what, mid October, early October to mid May. Do you need that space? Do you really need to burn that much natural gas to heat your home for your family of three?
Finn McKay:You know, when you when you said, you know, inefficient, I actually thought you were gonna go in the direction of, like, how it's just it's a it's a nightmare if you wanna build a house. Like, the Or
Mike Robinson:there's that too. Too. For sure.
Finn McKay:I mean, we can talk about that for a bit, but, like, you know, I mean, you know, we were talking with Rob Barfus about the permitting cost for his house, and it's, like, into the tens of thousand dollar. And it slows down the like, that's the monetary cost, but then it also gets slowed down, the process of building it. And, you know, I I have a friend down in, Texas whose parents, they built their house down there. And, how many how many permits do you think are on the house?
Mike Robinson:Well, I don't know, but I'm gonna say it's way less than here.
Scott Richardson:Is this gonna say I was gonna say nothing.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Natural gas line, everything. There's no permits. And, yeah, you can you can throw up houses a lot cheaper. And houses in Texas are actually quite, quite inexpensive.
Mike Robinson:So the other part of this topic that I think is important again, I don't have the answers. Mhmm. But one of the things that we all know is supply and demand. And I still think about two thousand and eight financial crisis as being like yesterday. Well, it well, it wasn't.
Mike Robinson:That was a long time ago now. But in 02/2008, interest rates interest rates were actually already fairly low Yep. In 02/1967. They weren't low, low, but they weren't high. And since 02/2008, interest rates have been extremely low.
Mike Robinson:Well, what does that do? It makes borrowing easy. Right? Like, people can make monthly obligations because I'm exaggerating, but debt is free. Well, what does that do to houses or other luxury goods, vehicles and houses?
Mike Robinson:Well, it creates a supply shortage.
Scott Richardson:Well, I hope not only were not only were interest rates low, but qualification was easy.
Mike Robinson:Qualification, like, very low.
Scott Richardson:It was very easy to get Yes. To get debt.
Mike Robinson:Yes.
Scott Richardson:I remember I had a a client who was, an RV sales guy or whatever, and he said the amount of people that would come off of a plane from Fort Mac with a pay stub Yeah. And would drive across to Nisku and walk out of there with a truck, a trailer pulling a boat just based off of a pay stub.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. And But that so yeah. So I I remember that too. Like, especially RVs in Alberta, like, is a big thing. I don't think it's as big in other parts of the country.
Mike Robinson:But but, yeah, I moved from Winnipeg to Calgary in 02/2006, and I quit my job. Like, I worked for Great West Life, and I quit my job to go become a financial adviser and start from from scratch. My wife's a teacher. So in 02/2006, she made about, I don't know, $65,000 a year, $70,000 a year. So I go to a mortgage broker who I knew from our industry, like, and he's like, yeah.
Mike Robinson:You're you're preapproved to take a mortgage of up to $500,000. I'm like, are you crazy? First of all, I don't even have a job. I don't have clients. I don't have an asset.
Mike Robinson:Like, I have no income whatsoever. And, again, for context, in those days, that like, you could buy it. Like, I bought my that house the house that I currently not that I live in now, but the house that I bought in 02/2006, I paid $280,000 for it. K? But I'm like, who is gonna go and borrow $500,000 to buy a house when they don't even have a job?
Mike Robinson:It's what people did. And you said did. They weren't making prudent decisions. I made a prudent decision. I'm like, are you are you out of your mind?
Mike Robinson:I said to the mortgage broker, are you crazy? You're gonna offer me $500,000 of debt, and I don't have a job?
Finn McKay:And, sorry, that was 02/2006? Two thousand '6. But, you know, and and it took another, like, two and a half years before that actually kind of blew up in their face. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. Exactly.
Finn McKay:Marketing can right
Mike Robinson:Now mine didn't blow up in their face, but I bet many of them did. And it was a subprime. Mine was not, but that offer was a subprime mortgage loan, which is different in Canada than they are in The US. But so I didn't accept that. I did a a standard mortgage, and I had equity in Winnipeg, so I didn't have to do CMHC and all that stuff.
Mike Robinson:But still but to your point, like, first of all, credit was super available, and people were doing it. Mhmm. Yeah. Like, just because people are doing it doesn't make it a good idea.
Finn McKay:Yeah. And and and so, you know, there's the demand side on that interest rates fell and and that before, you know, they were very easy on, you know, letting people take on mortgages and stuff like that. But the thing that was kind of interesting too is following the financial crisis. All the home builders hold back so much. So we've been building about, about half the amount of homes every year since the financial cry for good reason.
Finn McKay:And, also, maybe maybe the period right before the financial crisis isn't a great reference point for how many homes we should be building every year, of course, when you're selling them.
Mike Robinson:Well, and I don't know. I can only speak from an Alberta perspective, but in those days, Alberta was booming. Like, oil was a hundred and $48 a barrel. Yeah. Like, you couldn't build homes fast enough Yeah.
Mike Robinson:To to keep people
Scott Richardson:Well, yeah.
Mike Robinson:Housed in Alberta. But that changed
Scott Richardson:the Alberta advantage.
Mike Robinson:Real fast. The Alberta advantage.
Finn McKay:Yeah.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. Like, lowest tax
Mike Robinson:rates. Rates.
Scott Richardson:Super low,
Mike Robinson:and now they're the same everywhere.
Scott Richardson:Coming to Alberta. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. Yeah. No PST.
Scott Richardson:Yes. And that changes the demand for sure. Mhmm. Right.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. So, I mean, I guess my but my original point is is that when you make it easy for people to buy homes by having interest, like, mortgage rates at 2%, well, obviously, you're gonna have a supply problem. I mean, sorry, but that's just basic economics.
Finn McKay:Like Like, I I have friends who bought a house during '20 I think it was 2020 January 2021. They nailed the bottom on interest rates. I think they got under it's, like, one point nine percent five year fixed. And, of course, you know, they they paid up for it, though. Every house that they were looking at was getting bidded up, like, fifty, sixty thousand dollars.
Finn McKay:And at one point, they were just like, okay. Like, we gotta put the money down.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. I think Well, that's a good rate.
Finn McKay:Killer rate.
Mike Robinson:Hopefully, they're
Finn McKay:walking it in. Yeah. Yeah. Well well and, you know, for five years. And then after that five years
Mike Robinson:That's right.
Finn McKay:You know, it goes from under 2 per I think it was, like, $1.09 or something like that. But it it goes up from, you know, $1.09 to 5. And what happens to your monthly payment? I mean, that that is one of the issues that we're struggling with here in Canada is that there is so much more leverage in the system because we have to roll over our, mortgages. In The States, you can you can sign, like, a twenty five, thirty year fix, and it just it just stays at that rate.
Finn McKay:And, you know, they talk about it like it's
Mike Robinson:a goal. Here too. No one does, though. I don't know about twenty five years, but you can lock in ten to fifteen years. You can.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. You can. Oh, wow. Absolutely. But no one does.
Mike Robinson:Five for some reason, five years is the term of choice.
Scott Richardson:Well and do you wanna know like, I talked to a mortgage broker about it, and he said, like, the five year fixed is what everyone takes, but it's not what they should be taking. And it's because, like, he I think he said to me, six out of ten marriages right now end in divorce. Yeah. And a five year fix like, if you take a ten year fixed and and you get a rate that's discounted and everything, like, your payout penalty if you have to break that
Mike Robinson:Is he
Scott Richardson:is unbelievably big. And I think that's the piece that a lot of people miss with homeownership and why I talk about that flexibility and and don't make a decision with a short term ask or short term decision with a long term asset because the cost is huge. Like, if you look at that five year fix, like, I I looked at it, I can't remember what the client had. But, anyway, like, the cost to break it was $13,000.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. Pure pure fee.
Scott Richardson:Pure fee. Yeah. And it's because when you like, a lot of people don't look at that formula on page eight of the mortgage dollar. Can you
Finn McKay:can you imagine if they bought the house in 2021? So they're you know, the housing prices, you know, may have come down a bit. And then also you have to pay your real estate agent. Right? And then you have to pay this this break fee, and then you also have to pay you know, there's probably some legal fees, transfer tax, all that kind of stuff.
Finn McKay:And it's like, you know, if you had to leave, you know, three, four years later.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. That sucks.
Mike Robinson:Remind me to come back to the term thing because I'll tell you what I did. Timing probably worked out for me. But on the fee thing, you know, do you know why there's a fee? Do you know why there's a break fee?
Scott Richardson:No. Well, I meant that. Well, I know the form I know the formula, but I don't know the why. Right. Do you?
Finn McKay:Well, I would imagine it's an interest rate duration matching issue.
Mike Robinson:Yes. Sort of. So just like the whole financial crisis in The US, we still do it in Canada. So all of our mortgages get turned into fixed income products. Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:So they're selling like, the banks are selling our mortgages as a yield product. If you break it, it swear word come. It up the interest the income stream.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Finn McKay:No. Like, imagine So
Mike Robinson:that's why there's a fee is that if you go and break your mortgage, it doesn't it's not a default or anything, but it screws up the the, income stream that comes from the product that they have created
Finn McKay:You have to pay that difference.
Mike Robinson:So you have to pay the difference. And that's why there's a that's why there's a breakage fee.
Scott Richardson:Well and do you know why it's so big? Because one of the things with like, we just had a mortgage renewal, in September, and the bank sent me my my statement, my my offer for renewal, and it was, like, 9.8%. Like, that was the the renewal. That's the renewal offer.
Mike Robinson:Oh my goodness.
Scott Richardson:And I was just like, That's funny.
Mike Robinson:I'm I'm not taking this. Good one.
Scott Richardson:But a good joke. Yeah. And when you phone the bank and say, like, I'm not taking this. These are horrible rates. And they're like, no.
Scott Richardson:No. No. No. We'll give you a rate at four point something. The difference between that post, that nine, and the five is a discount rate that gets added back to your penalty if you break it.
Mike Robinson:Oh, okay.
Scott Richardson:So that's why that's that's some of the math is that that they call that their posted rate or whatever is that nine point whatever. The the four is what they actually give you, but that's a discounted rate.
Mike Robinson:So
Scott Richardson:And Okay.
Mike Robinson:Go ahead.
Scott Richardson:And so that difference gets added back when you break it. And that's how you get math at $13,000 for breaking it.
Mike Robinson:So what you should consider I mean, timing worked out in my favor, but we're in the same business. We do the same thing. So what I did with my mortgage on my current home is I did a Manulife one product, like, with a a HELOC, but I did a ladder. So instead of taking the five year term, I did a a five year term, a four year term, a three year term, and a two year term and broke it out into different pieces so that every March, I have a piece that comes due. And the reason I did that is because our incomes can be lumpy.
Mike Robinson:Right? Some some months, like, if for example, like, our investment business is a fairly consistent stream of of income. But if then suddenly, well, someone needs buy, sell insurance and it's it's fairly sizable and we write an insurance policy, I'll get paid, like, $30,000. Well, that goes against my mortgage. But then every March, I have a piece coming due.
Mike Robinson:And if I have $30,000 in the bank, like, you just clean it off. Mhmm. So Giving yourself flexibility. Giving yourself flexibility. So my mortgage is, like, this close to being finished, and a big part of it is because I just build surplus in my bank account.
Mike Robinson:And then every March, that piece comes due, and I'll either wipe it all out or I'll go, okay. Well, I'll wipe most of it out, but I'll restart another five year term, but on 40% less Mhmm. Of what it was, and it has worked out very, very, very favorable. I still only I have one little piece left of mortgage. It's, like, $35,000 at 1.89%.
Mike Robinson:And now you go, well, why would I pay it off? Yeah. I can invest in money market Mhmm. And get a better return than my interest rate. Now that wasn't the case, though, of course, since 02/2008.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. You know, yields on fixed income has been zero or negative. But that strategy, just as an aside, has worked out extremely well for me to to ladder the mortgage into different pieces so that I can lock lump off a whole whack of it in one shot if we have a good year. And if we don't have a good year Yep. Or market goes down 30% and our incomes drop by 30%, well, then then roll it over.
Mike Robinson:Then lock in another five return, but you still have one coming due every March just like a bond ladder.
Scott Richardson:That's cool. I don't do that, because I'm more of a, like, simplistic. I just Yeah. I don't I don't want the effort, but You should I
Mike Robinson:you should really but consider doing or or anyone else who's considering getting a mortgage. Again, timing worked out for me and that since 02/2008, interest rates have mostly come down. So when it comes due, it was easy to say, well, I'll just roll it in this piece into another five year because it was at a lower rate than it was before. That might not always be the case. But you have the option.
Mike Robinson:You have flexibility to either pay it off without a fee, without a break. It just comes due in March. I had $30,000 in the bank.
Scott Richardson:No fee. So I've always gone variable, almost always, with, like, a prime minus mortgage. But the thing and and the reason I do that is because variable, the penalty to get out of a variable rate mortgage is just three months interest. Right.
Mike Robinson:Because they can't Exactly. A variable rate mortgage as a fixed income product when they don't know what the income stream's gonna be. That's why the break fee
Scott Richardson:is low. Exactly. But it gives me the most amount of flexibility if I ever have to make changes or whatever. Yeah. But the other thing that I look at is not I don't focus on the rate as much as I focus on all of the features of the contract.
Scott Richardson:And, again, because we have businesses and and they can be lumpy and stuff like that, I need access. Like Yeah. Again, your your debt is a tool. It's a tool that I can use. I want it there in case I need it.
Scott Richardson:So my mortgage that I always pick, as I pay it down, it increases my available line of credit. And so I always have the global debt available on my house.
Mike Robinson:As does mine. That's why you use a, like, a mini like, one type product, whether it's theirs or not. It's not relevant.
Scott Richardson:And then the biggest thing was focusing on all the features. So, like, I have the ability to do a 20 plus 20, like, 20% extra payments plus 20% lump sums. Yeah. And so I have a lot more flexibility. And and the idea again, even when I just renewed, one of the things that I did was I renewed and extended.
Scott Richardson:And the reason is is because I want my half due payment as low as possible. I'll pay way more, but I want that flexibility because if we have a 2,008 and everyone's accounts go down and our income comes down
Mike Robinson:by 40%.
Scott Richardson:Exactly. Then I need to be ready to protect myself.
Mike Robinson:And
Scott Richardson:I think that's one of the things that people miss with homeownership is, like, they they wanna get into it, but they're not ever thinking of the protection side. And and it's it's a big decision to own. Everybody has very short memories, and this is perhaps not on topic.
Mike Robinson:But right now, everyone's pretty happy. Like, incomes are good. Lifestyles are good. Wait till the market drops 40%.
Finn McKay:Well and and
Mike Robinson:this is because it's gonna.
Finn McKay:This is such an important point.
Mike Robinson:Like And in our industry, like, all three of we're compensated in different ways, but it's it's all related to that. Like, just you wait to see how high attendance will be for an LA trip when when the mark's down 40%. Like, your attendance is gonna fall in half because people forget. People are not doing exactly what you're doing and being prudent going, this day is coming when our income we're not salaried. Like, it's gonna drop hard and, like, fast.
Mike Robinson:And and
Finn McKay:this is, like, like, such so this is such an important point. Like, you know, you need to optimize I think you need to optimize your life and your financials for durability. Yes. And and because you need to be able to survive. You need to optimize for survival.
Finn McKay:You know, if you look over the last hundred years, The US stock market is up, I think, 800000%, But I don't think a single person has gotten that because at some point, they have
Mike Robinson:to drop out. Yeah.
Finn McKay:Because not by choice. Right? Fear, you know, like and and that's the thing. Like, when you're on the edge, the fear will be that much the pressure will be that much more. I think Morgan Housel said it best.
Finn McKay:He's like, you need to you don't need to optimize for the highest return in any given year. You need to optimize for the best return that you can get over the longest period of time. Like, Warren Buffett's track record is incredible, but what is underappreciated about it is that he's just done it for so long. Yeah. There's a lot of people who have gotten put up really good returns over a short period of time and were complete successes and then, you know, marched off into the moonlight or whatever.
Finn McKay:And but you don't you don't see the other side of, like, you know, in the next few years, they could have blown up. Or, you know, or someone who overmortghed their house
Mike Robinson:blow up.
Finn McKay:Or did blow up. Or, you know, someone who, like, they they bought the biggest house they could afford and or they kind of, like, overextended a little bit on the mortgage. And then when the markets were tanking, they had to take all their money out because they lost their job and they couldn't afford. Right. And that's where, you know, optimizing for durability for the long term will always be the best decision.
Mike Robinson:And and so that comes back also to the housing prices don't always rise Yeah. Is what what happens to some people, and I've seen it, is they buy the house that they can just afford because they want the best that they can get. But then the economy goes down or we're in a recession or whatever the case may be, and their five year term that they chose comes due Yeah. And you have to refinance. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. And now your value, your market value of your home is down. Now it's not down if they hold it, which they do, but now they have to eat, you know, a 30% increase in their mortgage payment Yeah. Because they can't they can't sell it.
Scott Richardson:Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:So they say housing prices don't go down. Well, the retail market value of that house is down. Mhmm. But they don't liquidate it, but they're paying 40% now more on their mortgage because they can't sell it. You can't actually go to market and sell it because they'll be underwater.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. They'll be insolvent. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. But, like, kind of to build on what you were saying before too and that is, like, the reason they do that is housing, after that Maslow hierarchy needs shelter thing, it's your ability to lever up. And so there you know, and we talked about the the 02/2008 and and all of those great, like, people who have made money like you in your on your house and me. Yeah. It the house is your ability to lever up and and your ability to get a growth percentage on a really large dollar.
Scott Richardson:And I think people think of it as not being risky because you can put your hand on the house. You can feel it. You can see it. You know, I don't have a lot of people that come to me and say, you know, I'm gonna borrow 400 k and throw it in the market for me.
Mike Robinson:And we would advise them not to.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. Exactly. If they did
Mike Robinson:say that, we would say not only do you know that.
Finn McKay:No. And and real estate is not, real estate historically is a bad asset class relative to other asset classes. Like, if you look over the last hundred years, it's actually underperformed. It's underperformed. Yeah.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Yeah. Before leverage. Because everyone every Everyone's levered. Everyone's levered.
Finn McKay:Everyone's levered. Yeah. You put $30 down. You buy, you know, $400,000 house or whatever it is, and you're getting the return on $400,000 on the upside Yes. And also on the downside.
Finn McKay:You know, that if it goes down 10%, you've lost all your money. But, you know, over the last hundred years, real estate has underperformed gold. It's underperformed, long term government bonds and long term corporate bonds. And also Really?
Mike Robinson:That I'm Yeah. And also I'm surprised.
Scott Richardson:Under
Finn McKay:But that is unlevered. Right?
Mike Robinson:Unlevered. Right.
Finn McKay:Unlevered. Yeah. But it's the only asset class you can lever against
Mike Robinson:Yeah.
Finn McKay:That when in meaning. Yeah. So anyone who's made money in real estate has really made money on on on leverage and a long term horizon, which is something that you obviously
Mike Robinson:can't do Right. Okay. That makes sense now. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Robinson:And everyone is levered. And even Yeah. Yeah. You know, so you're right. So even real estate speculators, for lack of a better word, or people in the real estate development business, yes, they make their money because they're levered.
Finn McKay:Yeah. And in the last and in the last levering up.
Mike Robinson:Yeah.
Finn McKay:And in the last fifty years, and, you know, that that return being below gold and all these other asset classes, that is also with the impact of interest rates falling. I mean, not that that doesn't have an impact on other asset classes, but when you're levering up for the asset class, obviously, it'll be a bigger deal. But that's with interest rates falling for the last fifty years. What is what is real estate do if interest rates go up meaningfully over the next, you know, decade or so?
Mike Robinson:Right.
Finn McKay:You you would be probably it it would it would be the worst asset class.
Mike Robinson:It's yeah. And it's interesting. Everyone is levered. It's the one asset class that you can and should lever. Mhmm.
Mike Robinson:But it's also illiquid.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Right.
Mike Robinson:Right. And that's maybe and maybe that's why you could because it's not mark to market.
Scott Richardson:Yeah. Mhmm.
Finn McKay:Yeah. So no one's no one's margin calling you up. No one's not. Exactly. Yeah.
Finn McKay:Exactly. As long as you make the payment.
Mike Robinson:And back to my point of the
Finn McKay:When you saw me get payment, they might be
Mike Robinson:is more volatile than people realize, but but they don't sell because they can't. Mhmm. It becomes an illiquid asset because if you sell it, you owe the bank more than what you borrowed, and so you don't sell it and you pay a 40% more mortgage in your house port.
Scott Richardson:Well and you don't sell it because But
Mike Robinson:it has an impact on the market because when you don't mark to market, you don't report what it's worth. Mhmm. You're only reporting buys. Right. That's ultimately what's happening.
Mike Robinson:Right? Mhmm. Is the real estate the quote is a buy side only. Mhmm. Because there is no sell side unless you are in a positive position.
Finn McKay:Right. Right. Well and and it was it was funny. I think it was 2022. I believe it was Blackstone in their annual report.
Finn McKay:This was 2022 when the markets were down tremendously, and they said, you know, our actively managed public portfolios were down, you know, 20% or whatever. The market was down about the same. And they said all of our private assets, which, of course, they mark to market was down point 2% or something like that. I can't remember the exact numbers. But, it was like well, they just didn't market to market.
Mike Robinson:Well, exactly. So this might be a tangent that but that's okay. That's what this is all about. Right? Is the whole discussion about private equity or private debt in investing is, yeah, but you're not really reporting what it's what it's worth.
Finn McKay:Yeah. And and how they and it's interesting. Like, a lot of the time, you're buying it based off of trailing valuations, if that makes sense. Like Yes. Because they they will they will tell you what it's worth based off, usually, off some sort of Excel discounted cash flow model, which is making some sort of projection into the future as to what the what the the the asset will do, whatever it is, if it's a business or or a debt thing of some sort.
Finn McKay:And then they've got some sort of plug, variable where they put in the interest rate that you wanna discount it at. And, you know, if you ask them, like, have you changed the discount rate because interest rates are higher than they were, you know, three, four years ago, they'll say, well, no.
Mike Robinson:Which is finance one zero one is you use the
Finn McKay:Yeah.
Mike Robinson:The risk free rate.
Finn McKay:Yes. Yeah. And and yeah. And Or weighted average cost of capital. Yeah.
Finn McKay:So so you're basically buying it, on these incredibly inflated valuations, and they will what what will happen likely for a lot of these is that you just won't see good returns over a certain period of time. I mean, it also depends on the asset class and the manager and all these other
Mike Robinson:Yeah.
Finn McKay:Types of things.
Mike Robinson:But for
Finn McKay:a lot of folks, you're you don't see that, like, you know, implosion of any sort. They just say, like, okay. Well, you know, we'll just slowly work our way down into, into lower returns because But
Mike Robinson:you're not seeing the implosion because it's not liquid. You can't
Finn McKay:sell it. Because well, exactly.
Mike Robinson:And it's not mark to market. Yeah. So the implosion's there.
Finn McKay:Well, and it's great. Reported. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:How do Yeah. How do most people tell you the value of their house? Like, when you ask Neighbors, sale Property tax. Property tax. That's it.
Scott Richardson:Right. That's everything that I get from people is, oh, well, property tax assessed value is this.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:And sometimes that goes down. And people are angry, and I'm like, well, it's okay. Don't worry about it because your property tax is less if they're calculated. I actually value. Do say
Mike Robinson:assessed value. Right? That's the most common answer. But the other one is, well, my assessed value is 700,000, but a neighbor down the street just sold for 9. Yeah.
Finn McKay:Well and and and, you know, like, when I moved into my place, they I got a letter saying your assessed value is $60,000 more than what you bought it for. And my parents actually argued down their assessed value because they don't wanna pay the tax.
Mike Robinson:Well, I have clients that own commercial real estate
Finn McKay:Yeah.
Mike Robinson:And they argue every year.
Finn McKay:Yeah. So I I called them and I
Mike Robinson:like a full time job.
Finn McKay:Yeah. Well, because you can save so much money. And, also, if I mean, if you think about it like you should, which is the value of the house is what somebody's willing to pay for it, not what some assessed value says
Mike Robinson:That's right.
Finn McKay:Then and, also, what somebody is willing to pay for it is related to what they can afford. If you can lower the property tax on it, you've increased the value of the house. And they can afford more. They can afford more. So so, like, I I argued it down, well, I mean, they they had quoted up 50.
Finn McKay:I argued it down $80,000, from that that amount. And, I mean, yeah, it saves me, you know, hundreds of dollars every every year. Yeah. Thousands of dollars over
Scott Richardson:the course of the year.
Mike Robinson:Yeah. I have clients that argue every year because they own multiple bays in commercial real estate. Right. And so it is thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars a year in savings. So it is worth it for them to argue.
Mike Robinson:And it's almost become a running joke because the same people at Citi work. Like they haven't left their jobs. So it's like, okay, here here she comes again. But Yeah. But, yeah.
Mike Robinson:It's it's worth it. And then it affects the sale price.
Finn McKay:Yes. Cool. Yeah.
Scott Richardson:I think
Finn McKay:That was like we
Mike Robinson:nailed we might have exhausted that topic. I think
Scott Richardson:we nailed the housing. I think we got a lot through that. Everything in this podcast is meant for entertainment and educational purposes only. It is not financial advice. And all the opinions that we express in this podcast are not necessarily the opinions of the companies that we work with or affiliated with.
Scott Richardson:So bear with us while we discuss these topics and remember that financial and investing decisions are different for everyone, and you should consult a financial professional or do your own research before doing anything for yourself. Well said. Thank you. I also like to say, trust
Mike Robinson:me, when I'm giving you financial advice, you will know it. It will be one on one and in person, and it will be clear that this is financial advice. This is not.
Scott Richardson:You will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Mike Robinson:Yeah.