Real Estate & Renovation: Insider Tips from Industry Expert - Lisa Houtman

Welcome back to another episode of Chicks in Construction! In this episode, hosts Mikki and Jess dive into smart renovation decisions with their guest expert, Lisa Houtman from Houtman Home Realty and Heights Construction. Learn how to avoid common homeowner pitfalls and get insider tips on making renovations that actually add value to your home. From spotting red flags in real estate advice to understanding what upgrades are worth your time and money, this episode is packed with practical advice you won't want to miss. Plus, enjoy some fun banter about personal experiences and unique home improvement stories. Don't miss out—subscribe for more insightful and entertaining episodes!

00:00 Introduction to Smart Renovation Decisions
00:55 Meet the Hosts and Special Guest
02:32 Special Trash and Personal Stories
05:57 Winning Raffles and College Memories
10:07 Real Estate and Construction Insights
16:38 Home Renovation Horror Stories
18:16 Tips for Increasing Home Value
23:19 Working Together in Construction
29:38 New Construction Insights
31:38 Crazy Construction Stories
38:37 Homeowner Tips and Advice
44:11 Fridge Scaping and Other Trends
50:11 Holiday Traditions and Tangents
53:15 Final Advice and Wrap-Up

Contact info for Lisa Houtman 

Lisa Houtman is the owner of Home Realty powered by Fathom Realty here in the Triangle and also part of her family company Heights Construction. Together they help homeowners looking to sell get their properties fixed up and sold. 

She came from a construction background has 10 years of experience in both commercial and residential combined, and when she moved to Raleigh 8 years ago, she started right in the residential trades in HVAC. From there, she worked her way up to Purchasing Manager for a local home builder before branching out into her own real estate and construction business. Today more than half of her business is new construction, so she has seen both sides: the builder’s perspective and the buyer’s perspective.

Real Estate Broker | Realtor®
[e-mail]
www.HoutmanHomeRealty.com
@HoutmanHomerealty

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www.chicksinconstruction.com

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Creators and Guests

Host

Jessica Abreu

As a social media expert, Jessica has a knack for identifying what makes each business unique and translating that into powerful, engaging content that resonates with clients and customers. From crafting tailored strategies and managing accounts to recording on-site content and boosting engagement, Jessica and her team handle it all so their clients can focus on what they do best.

Host

Mikki Paradis

President & CEO at PDI Drywall Inc. Mikki founded her first construction company, PDI Drywall Inc, in 2005 while she was still a student at NC State. After growing PDI into a multimillion dollar company, she has become an accomplished entrepreneur, speaker, and advocate for innovation in business and leadership. With a passion for empowering others, she has built a reputation as a forward-thinking professional dedicated to driving growth and fostering meaningful connections. Known for her dynamic energy and ability to inspire, Mikki is deeply committed to creating positive change in her industry and beyond. Whether through her entrepreneurial ventures or speaking engagements, she consistently challenges the status quo and encourages others to reach their full potential.

Guest

Lisa Houtman

Owner of Houtman Home Realty LLC powered by Fathom Realty, partnered with Heights Construction We fix up your home and get it sold

What is Chicks in Construction?

You plan your renovation with excitement, trust your contractor, and hope for the best...until things start going sideways. That’s when most homeowners realize they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

From permits that were never pulled to “contractors” who ghost after demo day, the construction world can feel like a maze of hidden costs and shady shortcuts. Too many homeowners end up confused, overwhelmed, and out of a lot of money.

The Chicks in Construction Podcast is here to change that. Hosted by Mikki Paradis, a licensed general contractor with 20+ years of experience, and Jess Aper, a homeowner turned construction content creator, this show breaks down real renovation horror stories and teaches you how to protect your time, money, and home

This isn’t just another DIY podcast or contractor interview show. Mikki and Jess pull back the curtain on what goes wrong in home projects, translating industry talk into plain English and giving you practical steps to avoid common (and costly) mistakes.

After building a multimillion-dollar drywall business and helping countless homeowners recover from construction nightmares, Mikki is on a mission to make sure you go into your next project informed, not blindsided. And Jess brings the perspective of someone who’s been in your shoes and now knows exactly what questions to ask.

Want to renovate smarter and spot red flags before they wreck your project? Hit follow and get ready for real talk, expert advice, and stories that will make you say, “Thank God I listened to this first.”

Submit Your Construction Horror Story: https://chicksinconstruction.com/

21 Chicks in Construction
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[00:00:00]

Mikki: Welcome back to Chickson Construction. Today we're digging into how homeowners can make smart renovation decisions without falling for all that so-called common knowledge.

Jess: Yeah, you know the kind like your neighbor's cousin's uncle who swear he can remodel a bathroom in a weekend with nothing but a butter knife and duct tape and duct tape.

Mikki: We'll break down how to ask the right questions, spot the red flags, and actually save money instead of creating an endless money pit

Jess: because of when it comes to the biggest investment, your home, you want more than guesswork and gossip

Mikki: stick around because learning the hard way is overrated.

Mikki: Well, hello and welcome back to another episode of Chicks in Construction. I'm your [00:01:00] host, Mickey Paradise, and this is my co-host. Hi, I am Jess, and today

Jess: we have a guest expert,

Mikki: illustrious guest, if you will.

Jess: Today we have Lisa Halman from Halman Home Realty, powered by Fathom, and she also owns Heights Construction.

Guest: Woo.

Mikki: We got a contractor in the house.

Guest: Love it. Thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I love the show. I'm so grateful to be here with you guys. We stalking you subscriber. We have subscriber on the show.

Mikki: Oh, you've been stalking us from day one. Day one, yes. Our first stalker came like watching it follow love a long time.

Jess: We have a stalker. We've made it. I love that. I, I, I

Mikki: really feel like we've accomplished something here. That's amazing. It is. You're doing a really great job as a human making eye contact with me.

Thank you. So, as an audience, I just wanna share this with you. We have to do a shitty chat, so I'm gonna start it off now. Uh, studio God, AKA, Joe came up to us earlier and he said, Jess, as a human, as a human, he started the conversation often. So I have to [00:02:00] be a human, not a robot as human. Try to make eye contact with Mickey from time to time.

And she was like, oh, it's gonna be tough.

Jess: It's not looking over the table this time. Now I can be like, now you're like, hello, hello. Are you. Somebody address you like this?

Mikki: Yes. It's so formal. I'm like, we're making very in intense eye contact.

Jess: We're not used to this.

Mikki: Usually we're not, the mics

Jess: are

Mikki: like blocking our, our view, see each other's faces and we're just talking into the microphone hoping that they're was paying attention

Jess: and now we're like this and now we're so close As a human, you're making great eye contact.

Thank you. But I feel like we need to bring out your special trash. Oh my God. So, okay, let me, lemme just tell you.

Mikki: You. I don't know if you saw the last episode, Joe did an amazing job, but highlighting, uh, we did a whole little chi chat about my husband's special trash collection and special trash is just anything that is like not.

Necessary. Necessary. So he, he's a collector of the special trash. He's a whole special trash community of just bros that are like helping him source special trash. They help [00:03:00] each other source special trash. My house is infested with special trash, but I'm here for it. Like I'm, we, we gave like hashtag marriage advice, like a happy, happy husband.

They let them have their special trash, so. We go to our event last night, come home, and normally when Hector gets a package, I open it because I post, man, be damned the rule that you're not supposed to open other people's trash or not trash. It's a you, it's a dress cases, it's, it's your dress. So, so I open his packages, but for the, for some reason when this one came, I didn't, so I get home from the event, I'm like, oh, you got a package?

And he's like, oh. And he opens it and he just starts laughing. He's like, giggling. And I'm like, MEC doesn't really giggle. So I'm like, this is gonna be good. He's like, so listen. He was like, I was on the talk and a a, an adverse meant came up. He did not say adverse meant, but um, that's what it was. And he says, I didn't even finish watching the video.

I [00:04:00] just bought it. So this is for you guys. Okay. This is amazing. I would like for you to see. My special trash in the form of a miniature violin. It comes with its own stand. It comes off the stand. This is the stand. And. A bow, and I'm gonna play you some tunes on my miniature violin. And why Hector got this for me is because I'm always, when we were like on a job site and somebody's acting, they're like, I'm like mini violin.

Lemme get out my miniature violin and play you some tunes. So I'm gonna do it for you right now. Hold on.

Yep. This is happening. Yep. So the next time I am on a job site. And somebody is complaining about something, I will, this will be. It. You wanna see my social show? Yeah. I need it to be like out front and center over here. I'm keeping that like in my back pocket and I, oh yeah. So the funny thing is, it's just a button, but listen's.

Still a delight. [00:05:00] So Hector kept reaching in my purse all night last night. 'cause I put it in the purse, ready to come to the pod tomorrow. I was like, or today. Um, so that happened and it was the best. And I've never felt more seen and heard and understood by another human being. Then him buying me a miniature violin so that I can play people a few tunes, and I just thought that was the best.

I was like, this is why Hector's best husband that there ever was. Mm-hmm. It's perfect. It really is. So watch out anybody that has to deal with me anywhere in the world, careful now because I have a miniature violin and I will fly you some tunes.

If that's not the best thing you've ever heard, I don't know what is. That is amazing. It's so good. So that was my fantastic evening. I got the best gift ever. I mean, I don't think you can talk that it's special trash, but it is so special.

Jess: I mean, it's amazing.

Mikki: Yeah, it really is. I can't top that.

Jess: I do not have any special, but I did [00:06:00] win.

Mikki: You did. Jess is the luckiest person ever. You guys, she wins every time at every event she goes to. If there's a freaking raffle, I'm gonna win. She's gonna win prize. I'm gonna win. Win a prize. It's like a mindset thing. She like, I had four tickets at one point. Did not win a Daggon thing. They called Jess's number and it was your lucky number, was it not?

Yes.

Jess: So my lucky number is 33. 33. It's actually my husband's lucky number, and I have adopted it as my own by proxy because every single time that my ticket ends in 33, you

Mikki: win.

Jess: I win. Well, you win

Mikki: all the

Jess: time. She do. I win other times too, but when it's at 33, I'm like, oh, I got this.

Mikki: Yeah, she and she got, she got herself a fancy Yeti cooler.

I did. It was amazing. And it's the prettiest blue. I, I know we're not as a state, as a state grad. I'm not supposed to support the, the Carolina Blue, but it's a pretty blue.

Jess: It is. It's a, as Carolina Blue and I don't have a Carolina, um. Issue. Issue. There's a conflict of interest. There's a conflict of interest because I didn't [00:07:00] go to, I'm not from here.

You're like, I don't care about football,

Mikki: basketball, baseball, lacrosse. Yeah. North. We didn't really

Jess: have college sports. Like I went to a little tiny school, so I was like, none. None of them rivals. None of, and it doesn't matter. You guys were a D three. No, we didn't even have Oh, you didn't have like a sports program?

No. So funny thing, I went to a college that was four. Teaching social work and child life specialists. So like people Oh, so you definitely didn't have a sports team team? Um, no. We, we first had some girl sports, so we had field hockey, soccer. Okay. Alright. But then when they changed the rule that if you have, it was supposed to be, if you have a male sport, you have to have the female.

Equivalent kind of tough. Oh. But I guess that goes both ways. It goes both ways. So if you had a female sport, you had to have a male sport. Well, let me tell you, there were like 20 males that went to that school total, and they weren't really the sports type. They're like, sorry, I don't wanna play field hockey.

They were more like the cheerleaders. So, [00:08:00] um, the school no longer exists as its own college. Oh. They had to, they had to. Stop that. So they got acquired by Boston University. Oh, cute. Now I'm a Boston University alum. I love that for you. And you did not pay Boston

Mikki: University alum prices, which is my favorite.

Yeah, that

Guest: opened up. That did. Yeah. The resources. Yeah. That's amazing. Is there a reunion? Have you done a reunion or gone back? No, I don't. Don't. I mean

Jess: same right now. Percent. Why there is now, I also graduated a half a semester. Early from all of my friends, so I could have this

Mikki: miserable late, I was like, I'm gonna take a minute here.

Jess: Yeah, no, I was early. I was like, I'm done with this. I'm done with

Mikki: this.

Jess: Done with you right now. Done. I really should have done a semester abroad. It's my one regret in my college because I didn't know. Yeah. I was just like, I'm gonna be done early. I'm gonna save myself some money.

Mikki: Yeah. Then you're all up the bends.

Benjamin's probably

Jess: about five, six years after that. I was like, damn it.

Mikki: Yeah, she Paris. I [00:09:00] shoulda have gone. I had a friend that studied abroad in France 'cause she was actually a French major and like I was like, wow, you're really living your best life. Yeah. Like I'm out here already hustling, making, making the drywall money.

And she's like, I'm in France drinking wine.

Jess: Yeah. I was like, I really missed out on that. That part of it. But I mean,

Mikki: it's fine. It's fine. You know what lessons for Lord? Listen guys, if you're, if you're, if you're a high school student or a college student, do a study abroad year. Listen, live your best life.

'cause once, once you're grown up, you just live in, regret it a lot. I don't know if it's your best life. You're, you're alive though, so you're living. There we go. We're doing

Jess: things. So Lisa, why don't you tell us a little bit about, I'm like. Lot Chi Chat.

Mikki: She was like, we're cutting the Chi chat off very abruptly and getting into the show.

We're gonna get into it and this is why Jess and I have to practice Chitty Chat

Jess: because it was so

Mikki: not normal. We're terrible at it.

Jess: It's just not our natural fault.

Mikki: We talk about this every episode. We was talk about [00:10:00] how bad we are at the chat. Yeah, we're, we're still talk small days. We get better some days.

Not too much. I mean, we'll, we'll figuring it out. Anyway, back to it. Dad, tell us, tell us about your business.

Guest: Yes. Tell us all the things. So I have a real estate firm and also a construction firm. Love it. So, what's great about that is I can bring those two worlds together for the same home seller, because real estate agents, I mean, we can advise and list, but we can't.

We're not GCs. Yeah. You know, that's where that service ends. Yeah. But now with my family company, Heights Construction, I can marry all that together. Oh wow. So I can really give, you know, the highest, uh, value possible, you know, for that home seller. In smart ways, you know where it counts. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mikki: So it's funny, it was funny when, when Jess mentioned her as a guest, I was like, oh my God, I have, I have a story for this.

So, uh, as, as we've discussed, possibly ad nauseam, I don't know if we're at the point of nauseam yet, [00:11:00] but we're borderline. I live in a neighborhood, I live in North Hills. And so it's, they don't have an HOA and all the lots are like over a half acre. And so the builders are coming in and they're buying the old houses, and then they're just clear cutting the lots and they're splitting the lots and building these mini mansions.

So I have like, it's this random smattering of like mini mansions split level from the fifties. And so I'm at this split level from the fifties. Uh, and then my neighbors are, are mini mansion dwellers. And then so at one point. The house directly across the street from me. They put it on the market and we were, we, we were actually friends with that neighbor.

Shocking. I know. Uh, and so one of the neighbors at the front of the street, like a block away. Okay. Made an offer on this mini mansion. 'cause she put it up for sale and it was like $1.6 million. And so they put an offer on it and they put $20,000 of [00:12:00] due diligence money down. And so when it came time to go to closing, they came to her and they were like, listen.

We can't close because our realtor talked us into doing a whole house renovation so we could get more for our house and like basically their, their ability to buy this $1.6 million house was based on selling that house for twice as much as they could actually get for it in the condition that it was in.

So the realtor kind of talks them into this whole house renovation while actively being under contract. With a $20,000 due diligence down payment on this house. And then obviously they were not able to close on a whole house renovation within a month. And so he had to come and they came to my across the street neighbor and were like, oh, can we have.

Our due diligence money back. And she was like, absolutely not. Like, like the, it was like the end of the summer. So like, like the prime time to sell was like the [00:13:00] window had closed. And so like it was, it was harder for her to sell the house. It took longer for her to find another buyer, and she's like, absolutely not.

So this realtor not only cost them the purchase of that house, but another $20,000. Um, because she was not giving back that due diligence money. And so I was like, that is a great topic for people to, to like what? To know what to, you know, what to know to avoid. Mm-hmm. Like what's good advice, what's bad advice?

Because obviously that realtor set them up to fail. Um, and what's crazy is they just, that was probably five or six years ago, they renovated the house. It took forever. We actually knew the drywaller that did their drywall work, and he was like, they're horrible. And I was like, of course, they're, they're my neighbors.

Um, so, but they just moved like, it, it took them that long to pay off, oh my God. Their renovation to be able to move. So I was like, the Lord knows. Goodness, what that house looks like on

Guest: see where to caution. I wonder what [00:14:00] data that realtor brought, if they did bring any data, did they bring in an appraiser, a state licensed appraiser, because that's what I do.

A state

Mikki: licensed appraiser. State licensed appraiser. Okay. I bring her in. What's the difference between a state licensed and a non-state licensed?

Guest: Oh, well,

Mikki: you're like, I'm not an appraiser. I don't know. It's all about like,

Guest: well, I know like it takes like. 60, 90 days to be a licensed real estate agent. But for appraisals it could take, an appraiser could take up to two years.

Wow. Outta schooling. It's extensive. Wow. And they're held to a much higher standard for determining value on a home. A real estate agent can't say, this is the value of your home. This, we could just say, this is around market range. Right. What we think we can get. An appraiser can say value. Ooh. So I like to bring the science into it.

Yeah. I'm like, don't take my word for it. Let's bring in an expert. Yeah.

Mikki: A

Guest: big part of what I try to do is bring in all the experts and try to get the highest and best value out of the home. Like for example, um, I have a [00:15:00] client right now that we're coming up to sell soon, and they have a three bedroom home with a septic.

That it was permitted up to four bedroom. Mm. And that home plan had a fourth bedroom option. Nice. And most of the neighborhood is a four bedroom home community. Yeah. So. Analysis wise, their, their value is gonna be a little bit lower mm-hmm. Than the rest of the home. 'cause it's not matching the rest of the houses.

Right. Oh, okay. And also, the reason why they did a three bedroom home when they built that house was because the builder wanted to charge 'em like 12,000 more dollars just to add a wall and a closet. Wow. Which is crazy. Yeah. That is nuts. It's so much money for a wall in a closet. It is. So we, I. And he is a builder, the owner.

Oh, that's wild. So he was like, screw, screw

Mikki: 12,000. I'll do that myself. That's not happening. He

Guest: do that on himself and he did and which is great. That's awesome. I walked him through the process on how to pull permits. And so it's an [00:16:00] alteration permit. Okay. And then you know, you get it fully inspected so it can count good for you.

You see that

Mikki: at

Guest: the inspections and permits people, okay, me those. And then now you have this smaller three bedroom house. It's now matching more of the equivalent of the neighborhood and can match the comps better in that neighborhood. Oh, smart. So this probably cost them about 2000, $2,300 to do this project, not 12,000.

Right. That's amazing. But the equity gain. Of what he's gonna get to sell it at a four bedroom is now exponentially higher than that.

Mikki: That's amazing. So you come in and you're like, listen, let's do, let's talk like about realistic things that you can do in the timeframe that you have. And that's, I think that's a really important piece to understand is Justin and I got a real interesting ho uh, homeowner horror story that came in.

And it was funny 'cause it wasn't really a horror story at all. The lady just didn't like the timeframe that it took. And it wasn't even like the general contractor's fault. It just rained for like days upon days. And it was like an outdoor project. And so she was like, and I [00:17:00] cried and I cried and I cried.

And I was like, but it's nuts. It's, it's rained. Like, like I can't wait till

Jess: we go through that one. 'cause it was gonna be like,

Mikki: Jess and I are gonna be throwing shade, like Halloween candy. We're just gonna be like, what? Oh no. So, but I think people don't understand like. The importance of knowing all, having all that information of like, okay, this is something that you can do in a reasonable amount of time.

Like if you need to get this house sold in in three months, then these are the things you can do in like before we actually put the house on the market to get it sold in three months. Whereas like this other realtor in my neighborhood was like, yeah, do a whole house renovation. I think they like literally had structural elements, like they moved walls.

Jess: Oh my God. And they

Mikki: thought that was gonna be in a month. I, I honestly, I need, I could do my own research and find out, but I don't wanna talk to that neighbor. I don't wanna find out. Um. If, if my drywall friend said that he was horrible, I'd trust him. 'cause he, my drywall friend is a really nice [00:18:00] guy and I was like, if Oscar says then that they were horrible then, then

Guest: we don't wanna deal with them.

We don't wanna, I love that about the construction industry, so everyone we talk knows everyone. We be chat, we talk.

Mikki: Yeah. Like listen out, we talk about you. We are talking about you. We talk about you to our friends.

Jess: Yeah. So what are some things that you might suggest for a homeowner to do? To help raise that price that they can get for their home if they were going to wanna sell in the next 12 to.

I dunno, 20 weeks.

Guest: Oh, that's a good question. So, you know, not everyone, like I mentioned that previous home, you know, he was a builder, so he had, you know, the connections. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And the insight. So a lot of it is skill level. Like what are you willing to take on? I'm, the biggest thing I encounter all the time is unfinished projects.

Mikki: Oh God. Finish those

Guest: unfinished projects. Yeah. Like get 'em done. And you'd be surprised, like if you need help, like call me, I can get connections to help you get it [00:19:00] done. I had a home this summer. That, uh, a microwave was hung by a, a two by four and it was plugged into an outlet down below, like, wonderful.

Mikki: Just not, it's very sexy, not

Guest: great things, but it's like one phone call. Yeah, that's gonna show really good on the pictures, and I got it fixed. That's awesome. Nice. Yeah, and just like little things like that, like. What's easy for us isn't easy for other people. True. Every situation's different. So I really come in and try to hone in like, you know, what's their scalability?

What are they willing to take on, what do they trust me to take on and my team?

Jess: Mm-hmm.

Guest: But I'm, what's their budget? What's their budget? What's their timeline? Mm-hmm. You know? No home is alike. Yeah. So I work with what's best, like if someone has a tight timeline, we don't have a lot of time. Yeah. So it's like we're talking fresh meat, fresh carpet, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Change. Your carpets change your carpets. Change your carpets.

Mikki: I can't tell you, I cannot

Guest: recommend enough that you change your carpet. Nobody wants your

Jess: carpet. Oh, [00:20:00] absolutely holds. No matter, absolutely not matter. Even if you steam them, it still holds the smell of the home. Oh God,

Mikki: I, I honestly couldn't even listen.

Let's just be real. I'm never gonna be able to sell my house. I'm gonna have to burn it down and I'm gonna have to build a new house and then sell that. That's the only way that house is getting sold. Like I have four dogs. One of them's a 222 pound. He's on the down take, uh, English mastiff, and he is.

Stinky. Slimy. Like there's no, it's disgusting. He's huge. He's, and he, he's a monster. He's the sweetest dog in the world. He doesn't like other humans other than me and my husband. He's scared. Yeah, he sees Justin. He's like, whoa, whoa. Why are you here? Why are you here? And can you please, please? He's like, get out.

I need to come in the house, but I won't come in the house. When you're inside and he's too kind. Oh, I can't look at him.

Jess: When if he's outside and he wants to come in your eye contact, I have to turn away so that he can walk in and go up the stairs. He's like, eye contact is so aggressive. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not looking at you.

You can,

Mikki: it's true. [00:21:00] You're like, Nope, nope. You may proceed. Yeah, but so like our carpets. To back to the point circling landing the plane. Chi chat. Chi chat. We worked it in. Perfect. Um, I like, I don't even wanna know, like if I were even to change my own carpets, I would just burn the old carpet. Like, I'm just like, oh God.

It's the cheapest

Guest: floor you can replace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so just do it. Yeah. I also have this like, it's my own little personal thing, but I call it the single sink theory. The single stink theory. Tell us more. The the single sink theories. Like everyone wants that beautiful, big, open sink. Oh, and I noticed like homes with the big open sink.

Sell faster. You're

Mikki: not wrongly. I, we have discussed this actually. Yes. My dream of washing all my dogs minus prime in the sink. Yes. People want, want a tub in their kitchen. Yes. I They do put the do all three dogs that could be washed in a sink in there, and I could wash 'em all three at the same time.

That's a dream of mine.

Guest: And you can buy 'em for like $300. Really?

Mikki: I should myself. They're very

Guest: inexpensive. And again, it takes skill to like swap it out. Yeah. [00:22:00] Connect all the plumbing again. Yeah. And easier. You're going from like two basins. Yep. One, that's what I have into one. So you have to, why the guts?

Why did I pick that? I don't

Mikki: know.

Guest: Yeah, but it's not, that's my favorite. Like upgrade. That's inexpensive. That Wow. No. What about the counter? It depends on the counter. If you have a over mount, you can get another drop in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Single sink. Or they have the under mounts too. Mm-hmm. The under mounts though, you have to, like, if there's granite, you have to cut that out.

You do. And then you have to like, yeah. Mm-hmm. Remount it back. That one's a little bit trickier, but that's, yeah. But I would, and fixtures, fixtures are so inexpensive. Light fixtures. Mm-hmm. You can get a bougie chandelier for like $140. Yeah.

Mikki: Yeah. And then, you know, I've noticed too is door handles. Like upgrading your door handles.

Mm-hmm. It's the stupidest thing. You're like, why does this matter? But it gives this whole like, like I have a friend who went through a renovation and she changed out all of her door handles, and despite the fact that she had like this beautiful new kitchen, I was like, but your door handles right? Yeah.

That's my

Guest: husband's [00:23:00] favorite too. That's his thing. And he's like the devil's in the details. He's always whispering

Mikki: that with the door hand looking. You wake up in the morning, he's like, the devil's in the details. Good morning,

Jess: here's your coffee. Baby Devil's in the details. I feel like that's gonna be a hashtag on this episode.

Hashtag devil's

Mikki: in the

Jess: details. Devil's in the details. I love it. So now you and your husband work together, so tell us a little bit more about like how that all came to be. So we.

Guest: It all started with our Airbnb studio that we built on our own property. Smart, smart, smart. And we did it in nine months part-time.

So we both worked full-time and we not only accomplished it, we stayed married. Woo. Nice.

Mikki: Congrats.

Guest: I can't. Renovations make breaker relationship that's fast. And we learned so much about each other. But there were times, there was moments I didn't wanna breathe the same air in the same room as him. I had to leave.

But that only [00:24:00] happened like two or three times. Impressive. And then we learned what we're not good at. Because we took on a lot of ourselves to say cost. Yeah. I'm terrible at drywall. I'm not the goddess of dry drywall. Like, like you facts you are. I'm the

Mikki: goddess of the queen, if you will, of drywall. You have the the crown to prove it, to make you feel better.

I do have the crown Joe Joe's gonna insert a picture of me and my crown right now. Um, to, to make you feel better though. Like I tell this to everybody literally. Drywall is like watching Tiger Woods play golf. Like you watch Tiger Woods play golf, and you're like, I could do that. And then you swing and miss and you're like, wait, wait a second.

Is there like some real skill to that? You just have to keep your eye on the ball. Turns out it's a real skill, like it looks like, oh, it's no big deal. Slap the mud on and then next thing you know, you've sanded through the drywall paper and you're like, I need to call somebody. Like, this is bad. So you're not alone.

Drywall is genuinely a

Guest: skilled trade. That's the key. And we [00:25:00] made it through and, and we loved it and we love what it became. And I'm like, okay, let's scale this and. We now, we purchased a duplex in Raleigh and that's what we're fixing up right now. And it's been fun doing that. And I post videos every week and, oh, that's fun.

I just did a fire. We're gonna post where

Mikki: they, people can follow you so they can watch your little videos. 'cause everybody loves a video. Like a, like a to follow a series of like, yep. Yes, I'm here for it. She did a whole crawl.

Guest: Oh yeah. So we like did the whole vapor barrier. Mm-hmm. Like improved that, so this, it's like two town homes put together and it is almost like a walkout basement kind of crawl space.

It's tall. Interesting. It's, so we turned it into a workshop essentially, like we have a dehumidifier down there and we did the vapor barrier and it's all insulated, so it's almost awesome. Like an additional space. He hangs out down there and does like projects. Can, he's building a record, record table right now.

You can curse. I can, I can. Yeah, we have,

Mikki: we haven't clicked on YouTube though. We that it's not for kids. Yes. [00:26:00]

Guest: Alright. Yes. Is everyone in construction curses? Yeah. Way more than, listen, I said, I

Mikki: said a word yesterday at the event and there was a gasp and I was like, wow, if I have offended contractors, I'm really doing something right.

And it continued. Sorry,

Guest: sorry. So then, uh, my husband's career went into the direction where he happened, had an opportunity to take the general contractor's licensure and he passed the first time.

Jess: Nice.

Guest: Yeah. The five hour test, he amazing.

Mikki: Same, like, I can't believe I passed. When they, when she gave me the, the paper that said I passed, I.

Grabbed that thing out of her hand so fast and ran because I was like, clearly she has made a mistake. I'm not giving her time to think about it. I am. I have the pass in my hat. Little hands. I'm out. I couldn't believe it. She didn't change your mind. Yeah. I'm just like, oh my God, no fun behind you. Real.

There was fire on that carpet

Guest: and there are so many situations where it's like, just gimme the [00:27:00] keys and let me make this house right and let's get it sold. And now with our family company, we can now do that. I love that because we now have the licensure, the bonding, the insurance. So that's what we're here to do.

That is, that's awesome.

Mikki: So aren't there a lot, like, is that a very niche? Because I haven't talked to any realtors that also have a general contracting company and I just feel like that is such a good combo because so many realtors. Have great ideas. It's kinda like designers, designers come up with great ideas, but when, when you take a designer's idea to a contractor, they're like, but did you factor gravity?

And they're like, they're like, just make it happen. Could you factor? So like I feel like realtors kind of like from a coming from a good place, place kind of fall into that category of like giving people these suggestions, not realizing that they're very big asks or they're a much bigger, you know, project.

To take on, um, than, than they are. So you're asking the homeowner

Guest: to do all [00:28:00] that in their own timeline? Yeah. As they're trying to move their lives, right? Mm-hmm. Like it's a lot. Yeah. And then they have to pay this person, pay this person schedule this person, this person didn't show up. Yeah. You're asking them to run the show.

Yeah. That's a lot of stress.

Mikki: Yeah. It it for real. And I, I can only imagine. So I love the idea of you being able to be like, listen, here's, here's, here's the facts on like, I'm bringing you details. We're bringing a state. Licensed appraiser didn't even know that was a thing now, but we're gonna, but that's awesome.

I love that. And so to come in and be like, Hey, if we had these things, this would bring the value of your home up. So you come in with like the numbers and then you're also like, and I'm not saying now go find somebody because I actually can help you with that. Like I love, I think that's great. I think people, yeah,

Guest: depends on the skill.

Like if they want us to come and. Take on all that we can if they wanna take that on, you know, they can, like I mentioned, the, the builder who's adding the wall, like he's doing that himself. Right. I just give him the guidance to how pull permits, if he needed a trade here or there, like, oh, I recommend this guy.

[00:29:00] Mm-hmm. That's awesome. And we'll list a few weeks, so. That. That is amazing. Yeah.

Jess: And now you also help homeowners that are doing new builds too, because even if it's new construction, I'm sure that there are still things that someone that has the GC license and has gone through projects before and has an idea of like what's happening in construction.

'cause I believe. You used to work for a builder too? I did. Names we're not naming names. We're not gonna say names.

Mikki: We're not naming names. She told us the name off camera. We can't tell you

Jess: sworn to secrecy. I'll tell you

Mikki: later.

Jess: Just kidding. I won't, I'm not

Mikki: gonna, just won't let me. I won't

Guest: we ask you like, to this day, new construction is still half my business.

Really? 'cause a lot of times people who are selling their home, it's to go buy new construction. Oh. They want a brand new, they want a brand new house, but now we have to sell their old house. Mm-hmm. I get that. But that was built, you know, 30 years ago with 30-year-old designs. Yeah. So we have to bring it up and then they're gonna go move into something new.

Mm-hmm. [00:30:00] That's still half my job. Oh wow. Okay. That's amazing that it is. That's wild. So it's great. I love that. I've been on both sides of the fence. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's great having that. Uh, working for a builder and being on that side. And because there's, because you

Mikki: know the insides, you know what's going on.

You're like, I'm making eye contact with you, purchasing manager. I know the drama that your life is. Mm-hmm. But also we want it for less.

Guest: And there's so much drama. You don't No. There's so much that happens behind the scenes. That homeowners never find out about even other real estate agents like Yeah, crazy stories.

Mikki: I'm telling you. That's why I thrive in construction, because I am a high. Hi shenanigans lady. I love to shena. Once. I love to shenanigan, I'm here for it. So that's why I love construction 'cause we are always playing stupid games and win winning stupid prizes. Like's here for, it's always happening. Like, I'm just like, I, I'll go on a job site.

I'm like, what are we getting into today, guys? Like, [00:31:00] who are we yelling at? Who needs my

Jess: little violin here? I'm like, I love this. I'm gonna play with it.

Mikki: Do it. You gotta press the button.

Yes.

Guest: Yes. If only we were also dere like that to play violins. I know. I mean, this is just, I'm either mind

Mikki: nor demure, but I do have a mini violin and it's the best thing ever. Just is like, oh shit, I, I got it off, but I can't reach over the microphone, the

Jess: microphone. There we go. Where do I go? Um, so you said there's a lot of things that happen on Nutri.

Do you do any spicy stories? Do you have a, I feel like you have a story to tell us. Can you give

Guest: us

Mikki: some, some of the tea

Guest: a little bit? I have a few. So my favorite, one of my favorite ones is there was. Everything team where there was some sort of lovers' qua love triangle. Okay. Ooh, I love a love triangle.

Love triangle. I mean, not when

Jess: it's

Guest: happening to me. That's right. Or to, [00:32:00] and it wasn't happening on site, but it ended with one guy chasing another guy with a hatchet and the police had to get called

Mikki: and intervene. A hatchet. Was it like down the street style like Michael Myers? That's what I heard. Did somebody have it on murder?

Like the guy was running for his life? Oh my God. Contractors were here for it. So we had the hatchet story. Anything, anything

Guest: else? There was a homeless guy jumping from crawlspace to crawlspace. Oh, in new builds, and that's where he would stay night after night and he would hop to a different one and he'd get discovered and, oh, you are

Mikki: not the first person to tell me that.

I've actually heard this. Like somebody was telling me a story that like they moved into a house. And there was an occupant in, in their attic space. I'm not here for that at all. Um, but so like, he did [00:33:00] not move out. He, he, he was like, oh, you're gonna live here.

I'm gonna live here too. And I think they found him in the inspection process. Like, um, excuse manager came in to like check the attic space. Why is there couch in here? Like, oh, he had like set up, he had like brought his own special trash, uh, like, and it was like living in this attic. It was like, I live here now, fight me.

And it was a whole thing. And so the inspector, like the home inspector comes in and is like, I literally can't finish your home inspection because there's a human being living in the attic space. And he is like, I don't even know what to do about that. And so. That's wild. How did nobody know? It's somebody putting a couch into, I'm assuming, under the

Jess: cloak of night.

Like

Mikki: that's when all,

Guest: that's when everything happens on a job site is in the cloak of darkness. There's so much theft that happens at night night so much. Well, that was the craziest story I encountered when I worked for a home builder, [00:34:00] was there was someone going around robbing. Multiple builders and then using all the materials to build his own house.

Stop it. What? His own full house. So the police finally figured out where this guy lives like, and it was like half brick by brick baby, a shack of a house. I saw the walkthrough video when they went to go like, claim our stuff back because home builders have their stamp Yeah. On multiple different materials, but then there's some stuff that isn't stamped.

Mm-hmm. So there were multiple builders. We all had to come together and like divvy up the pieces. And this guy had like, how's this guy's house? Two by four taking, taking like we cost

Mikki: 80 a sheet is coming home with

Guest: me. Rolls of house wraps, stacks of lumber. There was like. Areas where there was subfloor and not subfloor.

Oh my God. Because he shack, he was still trying

Mikki: to collect the subfloor. He was like, listen, I can only take

Guest: two pieces at a time. Piece by piece. This guy was building his own house. [00:35:00] That is

Mikki: God, that's crazy. Horrible. But also hilarious. Like I can't believe they caught him one. I can't believe the builders noticed it.

Like, 'cause like builders are so wasteful. Especially like new construction home builders. Mm-hmm. I don't know if it's every new construction home builder, but in our neighborhood, Hector and I will drive by the construction of these houses and there's so much lumber just literally everywhere and just materials everywhere.

And Hector's like, oh man, I. If I was younger, I would go take all, all, all that special trash. And I'm like, and put it where you don't break it to my house. I don't want it. We don't need that lumber hugger. We got no projects going on. He's like, thought I, I could build

Jess: a, um,

Mikki: a shed shed for my special dress.

He actually has a shed for his special trash. It's already full. Full. Yeah. So we don't, I won't, I won't allow him to build a second, a second special trash shed. So, yeah, he's like, that's fine, I'll just put it on the side of the house. And I'm like, as long as I can't make eye contact with it, that's fine.[00:36:00]

So, oh my God. They, yeah. So he built, so they, they like, so they deconstructed his house and gave you guys all the materials back. Like, what are you gonna do? It's like used materials.

Guest: I mean, some of it obviously like, could not be saved. Yeah. But what could be saved? You know, we sort of like got in a circle and kind of bid on it and then, oh, that's called it.

Oh my god. Like stacks of like throw and arrested in trouble for this, I'm

Jess: assuming.

Guest: Oh yeah, he was arrested. That's

Jess: wild. Now his, now his house is a jail now. His house, he gets three hots

Mikki: in a cot. As As, as Eric Paradise would say. That was his favorite, his favorite phrase. Three hots and a cot. And I was like, I think they just feed you twice now.

Budget cuts. We get, get the idea, get a sandwich. A breakfast and dinner. Breakfast and a dinner. There we go. Now that I know how prison works, I just, I may have researched it a time or two just to see if I was willing. You know, because like if you're gonna do the time, you might have to do the crime or wait, no.

If you're gonna do the crime, you might have to do the time. I got it. I got there eventually you made it. Uh, so I always like to research. Mm-hmm. Like, would I survive in jail? No. [00:37:00] And the answer's absolute not. And I don't look good in orange. I look terrible in orange. But you know what? Some days when I know that I'm gonna have a particular day, a particular day, and I'm gonna be dealing with particular person, I'll start the day off by holding up an orange T-shirt and looking in the mirror.

And I'm like, Mickey, we don't look good in orange. Don't kill anybody today. And I just sit there and I look at it and I'm like, Ugh. My palate does not support orange, and then I don't kill anybody that day. You

Guest: reward yourself at the end of the day. You're like, good job. Yeah. I'm like,

Mikki: wow, you did it, the devil.

Jess: And your detail is, and I did not

Mikki: commit a murder. I details not the streets think it's pretty nice. But I am in these streets and of these streets and people don't realize that. They don't know. They dunno that the, you can take the girl out of the hood, but you can never take the hood out of the girl, ever.

And I will get scrappy in a minute, which is why I belong in construction [00:38:00] and not dealing with homeowners because people, 'cause I have, I'm a licensed GC as well, but I don't, I call it, I don't practice like I'm a lawyer, but I don't practice. I'm a gc, but I don't practice because I got my license. I did one renovation and I was like, absolutely not.

Absolutely not. I cannot with homeowners. Um, but that's why we started the show because it's like, Hey, homeowners, we see you. We need to help you to have better experiences so that you don't drive more general contractors outta business or at least back to their other businesses. Right? So, okay. So that's, those are great stories.

What do you have, like any. I know like you don't have like horror stories, but do you have like stories, like what can we offer the audience mm-hmm. In the sense of like when they're going to sell their home and a realtor comes with like, what do you see other realtors saying, Hey you, these are the changes you should make, that you're like, absolutely don't do that.[00:39:00]

Guest: Well ask him for the data, like where does this value come from? Because there's a misconception that you can put a return value on something to the dollar. Mm-hmm. Where it's like, oh, if I renovate this kitchen for $10,000. I could get 20,000 back. That's a fallacy. That doesn't make sense. Do you know where that

Mikki: comes from?

Where? Hg TV. Hgtv. Do you know who the biggest cult, sorry. I, I, I, we talked about, I was gonna knock my teeth out with this microphone, and then on my, we came this close, almost chip. From, from freaking Chip and jojo, if you ever watch that show at the very end, he sits you down and he tells the homeowner, oh, because we did this, this, and this, it increased the value of your home by this much.

Do many dollars. And I'm just like, lies, lies. You're lying on TV and we have it. We have it. We're gonna use it against time. I'm kidding. Chip, we're not coming for you time.

Guest: That is [00:40:00] the biggest thing I get where it's like, oh, should I remodel this? How much money will I get back out of it? It's like, well, what is your neighborhood doing?

Where do you lie? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because it's all about comps. Yeah, comparables. Yeah. Like if you're, like, if every

Mikki: house in your neighborhood is garbage, listen, just leave your house garbage. Sell it and get out. You don't wanna be the most expensive house in the neighborhood

Guest: you don't like This past summer, I did a budget upgrade that, you know, the home was built in the eighties and it had, you know, the original.

You know, laminate countertops everywhere. Ooh. So great. So

Mikki: Micas, very sexy.

Guest: We didn't put in, you know, the flashiest Taj Mahal. Yeah. You know, we put in, you know, fresher laminate, excuse me. Um, countertop. Okay. Yeah. And then of course the single sink. Yeah. Sink theory. Sink theory. Just very budget conscious upgrades.

Yeah. But they could still be tasteful, you know, modern day upgrades. Mm-hmm. And it had to be very budget conscious so they can get the most out of it possible. So they can move on to their next home. Yeah, that's important. And then we did it. So you have to be really smart about it. [00:41:00] Cost it all out up front.

How much is this gonna cost? You know, how much around do we think we could sell the home for? And then we talked to again, like an appraiser, like, does this make sense or does it not? So ask, oh, I love that the data, ask for the numbers upfront. Don't go in blind. Yeah. That, that's such good advice. Mm-hmm.

Especially '

Mikki: cause I, I think, I think everybody, I, what are they saying? Like kitchens and bath. Kitchens and bath, like upgrade your kitchens and bath. Mm-hmm. And your house

Jess: will sell like a hotcake. I know what the new one I heard was your garage door. What? Yes. Somebody told me that if you upgrade your garage door, because it is, makes it aesthetically pleasing to the outside of the house, you'll get a higher dollar.

And I was like. I am not changing my garage door now that I'm selling my home. She's not, she's not going anywhere. Don't worry guys. I did

Guest: buy, I bought those like little magnet, like gate looking accents for garage doors before, so it looks fancier. I'm here for that 30 bucks. Yeah. It's like cute little hardware.

Like you could dress it up Yeah. But without buying like a new door. Yeah. Think [00:42:00] that's idea. I would say

Mikki: if you've never seen the price of a, a higher end gr uh, garage door. You should go look because it's slap your mama prices. It's like, I'm sorry, you want how many dollars for a garage like door that I've, I'm paying no attention to?

It's insane. And so our neighborhood, I feel like it's the garage door, like. They're all trying to one up each other. If it's not the garage door, it's the entry door. So we are in a phase of the world's largest entry doors, and I'm like, first of all, what are you point

Jess: in

Mikki: that

Jess: door? What

Mikki: kind of elephants are you bringing into your home on a daily basis that you need a door that like has its own track system because it itself is so heavy.

That it has to be opened and closed on a track system. I'm like, first of all, if you have that much money, I have a bridge in Alaska. I'd like to talk to you about if you'd like to buy into it, but. [00:43:00] For reals though, it's like a battle of the doors. So you're not wrong though. I've never heard it. Now that you say it, I'm thinking about the garage doors on the min mini mansions in the neighborhood, and I'm like, between the daggone garage doors and the entry doors, I'm like, what is happening?

This one house, they waited like, there was so much anticipation for what these garage doors were gonna look like because it took like nine months. My God. So they put 'em temporary garage doors and we knew they were temporary. 'cause they were like the cheap ones. Yeah. Like, and they did not fit the aesthetic of the house at all.

So like every time we drove by we're like, whoa, I cannot wait to see what these garage doors are gonna be. Then they went in and we were like. That was not worth the weight. Mm-hmm. It was so disappointing. We were, wow. We were expecting something like, you know, like those glass that like mm-hmm. They fold up as they, we were, I mean, it was like, oh, it's gonna be so

Jess: good.

And that's the thing, glass garage doors. Like, it's like, again on the, my, I can't, I want everything hidden. [00:44:00] Although the other day I did see this little tiny. Magnet that I was like, oh, I could put this in my fridge for some fridge scaping

Mikki: fridge scaping. Oh God. But we talked about on, on, I don't think it's coming.

It's the next one that's coming out. We talked about fridge Scaping and Jess. Jess messed up her entire Instagram algorithm by search, like looking it up. And Have you heard of Fridge Scaping? No. Oh, lemme tell you. Lemme just, lemme, lemme hear this. Okay,

Jess: so people are putting. People. Rich humans. Humans, they're being humans.

Humans. They're not being human. Human. I don't care. Who's human. It's not human. They, they don't eat so they can't be human. Instead of having food in your refrigerator and like your drinks in the containers that you buy them from the market and you, your

Mikki: leftover food, if you're Mickey or you know, an onion, anything that

Jess: got lost, they would have like this vase.

Yes, this vase. Inside

Guest: the fridge. Inside the fridge Books. [00:45:00] Literally pictures. Photos. I need to rethink my staging techniques, I think. Yeah.

Jess: So when they open up the fridge, it looks, it looks stunning. It looks like you would have it on like the cabinets in your living room. Yeah. And it like, um,

Mikki: shelf decor, almost fridge all of the drinks in the fridge pour

Jess: into another container.

So like your orange juice is in a beautiful glass container with a little top on it instead of the carton that you, you can't, you can the

Mikki: fridge. Escaping with some Tropicana in there. Oh no. You're gonna have your milk, Venetian glass, your milk, like put your own dioramas

Guest: in there. Yes. It's literally gotta, you gotta check it out like this little

Mikki: violin.

It's wild. Would perfect my, my miniature violin would gonna be amazing in the fridge. And then they

Jess: put little, little tiny. Picture frames of like wild Victorian people. And then they had what? They have these little figurines and they put little tiny bows on them and they have them all. Oh see

Mikki: we, so that was the fridger tin.

It was a like a knockoff of Bridger. Like Bridgeton? Yes. Oh my God. So it was all Victorian. 'cause it was the Fridger [00:46:00] tin edition of Fridge Scaping. And I'm just like, literally. Yeah, who has this time?

Jess: So what I feel like clearly you don't have a podcast. No, we've spent all the time here, but now they're probably gonna have garage scaping because they have glass garage doors.

So now your garage, I feel like that isn't a

Mikki: rich person's like their wheelhouse. Like a rich person's like they want you to see their car. They have a trust fund, they don't really work. They're like, what am I gonna do with my day to day? Hmm. I know. Let's, let's garage scape. The garage.

Jess: Yeah. Well make it fancy so when people drive by, they can see how beautiful all of our fancy rich stuff is.

Guest: I want a corda thorns and roses like set up in the garage, like make a VIIs inside the garage.

Jess: I love starry nights. Yeah. No. My garage is filled with not special trash.

Mikki: No. Mine

Jess: is all sporting equipment for my children. Mm. All of the things that they need to ride on, we have. Scooters, little kids, all their mobile devices, bikes, and then all of my decorations for all the seasons take up an entire wall.

Mikki: [00:47:00] She already decorated for freaking Halloween skis. I did. I'm like, she's, she's h winkys ready? I'm ready for it for it. I'm listen cold green. And it

Jess: was, I was like, oh, it's like fall now. Oh, you got,

Mikki: you got fooled by false fall. So Jess is not. A Southerner. Mm-hmm. So she don't know about all these seasons.

She don't know about the first false fall, the second false fall, the sixth false fall, and then actual fall. She doesn't know. Yeah. Because like right now it's 90 degrees outside. It is. But last week it was what? It was cold. I had a sweater. Sweater. It was around. Jess was like, she was like all bundled up.

She's like coughing. She's, my lungs are cold. And I was like, oh God. The false falls getting you, it got her, it got me good. So she was already decorated for, for Halloween. Yep. It was false. I don't decorate for things because, uh. I don't take the decorations down. So I've learned over the years to not be that neighbor that has their Christmas lights up all year.

Mm-hmm. And the key is don't put them up in the first place. There you go. Yeah. If you, that's a hot tip. Hot tip for you if you struggle, uh, with taking decorations [00:48:00] down. Put up to avoid that problem. Just don't put them up. Mm-hmm. And then you don't have to worry about it. And the problem is solved. Like if you are the person who leaves your Christmas tree up, which I know you're absolutely not.

No. I have a real trace, so it has to come down. But there people are here, there are pe my people are here. There's people watching that are like, girl, get you. Um, if you leave your Christmas tree up until, I don't know, February, let's just be generous, March and say February. It's probably March, could be April, but I'm not judging.

The trick is don't put it up. Okay. Like, just listen, I don't do it. And, and people are like, you don't decorate for, for Christmas. And I'm like, but I'm a real gr like that. Dogs be

Jess: like, my God. I feel like with all the dogs that you have in your house, they're gonna be like, is this a real tree? Is this I use this?

Would never, no,

Mikki: no. That is one thing that, like on the training side of things, I don't play like they're house trained in, in 2.5 seconds and then they understand that. Either they are sick or deaf, like those are their options. Mm-hmm. So there's no going to the bathroom and that, I will say the one [00:49:00] thing.

So primes, uh, this microphone Joe, uh, primes the devil's in the details. The devil's in the details. Prime's tale. It's thicker than your arm. It is. And when he gets a wagon, he can knock things and he is tall, so his tail is like He's likeer. Yeah. So his tail comes off to like the table and so he'll knock stuff off the table with his tail.

So he, we have to keep like the prime tail region on the tree. Uh, or ornament list? Yes, because Prime becoming like a helicopter. Just like pop and on. Although the, the, our, our plastic ornaments are like hitting us in the face and they're like flying across the room and it's like, so we have like the prime zone, but hence why I don't decorat for Christmas.

Mm-hmm. We have to leave a whole like three foot section with no decorations on it. 'cause prime's gonna be. Swinging 'em across the room, which gives you how much

Guest: leftover.

Mikki: Yeah, I mean, nothing. It's not, I have an eight foot ceiling. We're not working with much here. So Do you do a fake tree or a real tree? I do do a fake tree.

Why do a fake tree? I am [00:50:00] terrible. I like Jess is like, how dare you? You're also like epic

Jess: mom. I'm also a northerner and like we, yeah, we really love our smell. Have you done the go of the tree to

Mikki: the like pick your own Christmas tree experience yet? Not yet. Because that's the thing in North

Jess: KY No. Here we um, we found our first year here that we were actually getting a Christmas tree.

We found a gentleman who has a farm out in. The, uh, Western part of North Carolina. Okay. And he brings the trees to his home. Oh. In the Fuqua area. Oh. And so we went there and we, we got a tree and then he had a pig picking that you could, you could. That's awesome. Enjoy. And some. Hot apple cider and some other things make, so those are

Mikki: Christmas vibes.

Those are like, oh, let me rephrase. Those are Southern Christmas vibes. The pig picking that you probably have when people up north. They're like, what? I had never, I had never heard of a pig picking do into a pig when he's

Jess: like, oh, and you can go enjoy yourself some pig picking. I was like, oh, that was [00:51:00] just as attempted.

A southern accent. Yeah, that, that's as good. It's gonna get, it was like a little southern, northern mix. I mean, we're trying, um, but yeah, I was like, I whispered to my husband. What's a pig picking? We don't need a pig.

Mikki: Like we don't wanna

Jess: pick

Mikki: a pig. We're not coming home. We're taking a baby pig home. We don't have dogs.

Jess: Like, I'm not even a cat person either. Um, what, what are we picking a pig for? He's like, it's a barbecue. I was like.

Mikki: Oh yeah, man. Oh, okay. Where did we get on this topic? I have no idea. You're not capable of anything? We're all over the place, the end of

Guest: the coast of me, so I grew up Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

Okay. Minutes outside New Orleans. Oh man. So we always did bake trees because you have Christmas, but then you have Mardi Gras. Oh, we would do a Mardi Gras tree. So after the new year, all the Christmas decorations come down. Do you guys do? Do the baby Jesus in

Mikki: the cake, the king's cake? Yes. Oh man. When I tell my Northern friends about J Baby Jesus in the cake, they're like, come again.

I'm sorry. What? [00:52:00] So

Guest: there's this cake. It doesn't make sense. Okay? So don't judge me. I didn't make the rules. This is just what, she didn't invent it, but it's culturally part of her life. Imagine a cake. The shape of a donut. Okay? And there's Mardi Gras colors on it with little sugary sprinkles. Yeah, sounds delicious.

And then you, but you have to be careful about how you eat it. 'cause there's a plastic baby Jesus hidden inside of it. And if you get the baby Jesus, it's like blessings, abundance. What happens if you're cutting the cake? And you. And you cut, cut the head off, baby Jesus. When you're going straight to hell, Jess, that has happened.

So usually whoever cuts it, they kind of just shove it back in there with their finger. They're like, the next piece is all lucky piece. Gotta you gotta watch em carefully, whoever's cutting the cake. 'cause if they see it, then they know where it is and then they target whoever they want. So have the blessing.

Luck. Is it good luck to have, yeah. To Jesus. I mean, and then you have to bring like. The cake next year, have the next party. Everyone has different rules, but usually you throw the next party if you get the baby J. See, I would be, I would get out

Jess: of it because I can't eat cake. So you'd be like, sorry. [00:53:00] No blessings for me.

Mikki: Is the gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, joy free? If it's, then I'm all for it. Then I'm like, God, I'll have it. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So listen, we run way off topic. Sorry about that. Um, Joe, like, wrap it up. You're over time. Sorry, bill. All

Jess: right. So Lisa, please, um, tell us. Like three pieces of advice for the homeowners.

Real quick takeaways to make sure that they don't fall into any of these traps when they're trying to. Bad advice from realtors Sell their home.

Guest: So on both sides of it, if you're gonna go put your home up for sale and you have a real estate agent, you know, promising you X amount of value, ask for the data.

Ask for a broker opinion. You know, ask for an appraisal. I mean, I personally include the cost of an appraisal. I mean, not everyone does, but I include it as part of my service, okay? Mm-hmm. So I'm like, don't take my word for it. I'm just one person. You know, take also this person's advice and bring our data together.

And then also for new construction, you know, get your third party [00:54:00] inspections. Don't rely on just the builder saying, oh yeah, this is fine. And then also have a buyer agent. You know, represent you through the builds.

Mikki: Mm.

Guest: And the builder, you know, nine tens outta 10 will pay for that. Yeah. So you're not paying for that.

So just get, get a good one to. Advocate for you through the process. Yeah. Represent

Mikki: your best interests.

Guest: There's so many times where there are horror stories because they didn't have an expert in their corner. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So go get 'em.

Mikki: You know what, that's the second time we've heard that advice is don't use the builders, uh, realtor.

That's like there, like get your, bring your own realtor. Mm-hmm. Even if you're buying new construction, like we've heard that multiple times. So that's. That's solid advice when you've heard it twice, you know it's good advice. Yes. Oh my god, that rhymed. That was amazing. We should, we should hashtag that, hashtag that when you heard it twice, you know, it's good advice.

Hashtag Um, anyway, that was probably a really long hashtag. Joe's probably not gonna hashtag that, but, uh, cut that right out. I come. Good ideas, [00:55:00] so. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on this. You've been a delight. Thanks for just listening to, to our chit chat. Really, it's been mostly just talking about ridiculous shenanigans.

But we're here for that. For that. This is the chicks in construction. We do the best we can and make sure that, how can we find you? Can you like share with us like your Instagram or like should we just put it down below because you're not sure. Also say it

Guest: all. My socials are at Houtman Home Realty. Okay.

And wanna spell that for us real quick? Spell it. Spell it. H-O-U-T-M-A-N. There we go. Halman Home Realty. You can find it. And the construction company too. What is it? Heights Construction. I like

Jess: that. That's great.

Mikki: Yep. So. If you have a story of where a realtor told you to do a renovation, um, please, if you're my neighbor and you know who I am, because everybody knows who I am on that street, uh, don't write in, but if you're not my neighbor, do write in.

We wanna hear your stories of like how a realtor told you to do an upgrade and you didn't get that kind of money that they said. Like, we'd love to know about that because again. Learning the [00:56:00] hard way is overrated. So when you share stories about your experience, it helps us to educate everybody that's watching, which, you know, help, help assist her out.

That's what we're doing here. So check us out on chicks in construction.com. That's where you can submit your homeowner horror stories. Uh, please like and subscribe. This subscribing part is very important and, um, I think this. Is silly, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's also free to subscribe, so please just go down and click that subscribe button so that we can be famous one day.

Because really it's all about me wanting to be famous and quit my job. So where else

Jess: can they like the socials? Yes. So LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Do we have a TikTok? Yes. But all those we're working on are at Chicks and Construction Podcast. And then on TikTok, it's at Chickson Construction. Okay, so

Mikki: there, those are all the places.

Find, find us. Follow us, like us. Comment. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll comment right back. We'll go back with you. I mean, we're here for it. We're here for a little shitty chat as you've seen. We're getting so good. So we're getting so good [00:57:00] at it. It's almost a problem. With that said, we'll see you guys on the next one.

Goodbye. Bye.