The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Everyday Millionaire Show
How Politics Affect Real Estate in Maryland - State Delegate Mike Griffith (Full Podcast)
What really goes on behind the curtain of state politics, and how does it affect the real estate market? Maryland's own Mike Griffith, a seasoned state delegate, joins us to pull back the layers of state government and its complexities. With six years of experience under his belt, Mike offers insightful commentary on his legislative duties and his commitment to aiding constituents with governmental challenges. We promise that by the end of this episode, you'll have a newfound appreciation for the nuanced role of state delegates and the tangible impact they have on communities.
Our engaging discussion weaves through the intricacies of Maryland's legislative process, exploring how political decisions reverberate through industries like real estate, and the broader economic landscape. This episode is your ticket to understanding not just the headlines, but the undercurrents shaping state policy and how they directly affect everyday citizens and businesses.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalkas. Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We are here with Mike Griffith right.
Speaker 2:Did I say that right? That's right, Griffith, Griffith.
Speaker 1:Griffith. Mike is a state delegate. That's right, and I purposely today. We were talking at the gym this morning and then when Nick got here, none of us know what a state delegate is.
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's a great question.
Speaker 1:First question of the day what is a state delegate?
Speaker 2:State representative. So, just like you talk about DC, you have Congress, the House and the Senate. Well, the House of Delegates is the House for Maryland, right? So I'm like, uh, a congressman, but at the state level, right? So okay, so you have the house, delegates and then the senate, so it's the exact same form of government as you have in dc. So I'm a state representative, basically, right? So some states are college representatives.
Speaker 3:In maryland we're called delegates how many state delegates are there?
Speaker 2:so there are 141 of us representing the entire state. Uh, and then there's 47 senators and then house senate and the um executive branch was the governor.
Speaker 1:So so there's 141 state delegates. How are they picked? We're elected by the county, by by people in the county by people in our constituency, right, so it's not by county.
Speaker 2:It's carved up by same way, like with Congress, right, it's carved up based upon population. My district's based on population. I have about 85,000 people I represent and every four years I have to run for reelection and then hopefully my constituents decide to send me back and if they do, then I get to go back and duke it out in Annapolis for another four years.
Speaker 3:How many times can you run, is it? There's no term limits on the?
Speaker 2:legislature typically only on executive branch, like county executive mayor of like baltimore city, for example, um governor things of that nature is this.
Speaker 4:Is this something that people do for like lifetimes, like some do? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean there's one member. It's been there for 43 years. I don't intend to spend a lifetime in the legislature. Right, it takes a bit of a toll, but for as long as I feel like I can be effective and not burn out on it, I'm going to continue to try to, to, to to. How many years have you been in? Six years, six years. This is my six, six legislative session and it's four, four year terms, four year terms. I'm running for reelection in 26.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep. So what are some of the things that, like a state delegate, would do?
Speaker 2:I mean. So we're lawmakers just like you'd be in Washington DC, right, a little bit less political in Annapolis, because the closer you are to the people, the less political it is right. When you're, you know, in DC you can be very, very political. You don't really, you know, interact with your constituents as much, but on my level I could interact with every day. So passing laws, fighting laws, trying to stop laws or we call kill bad bills, and then also a lot of it's helping, uh, the people I represent navigate state government, everything from the easy pass fiasco making sure my folks could fix easy pass issues during covid, it was a lot of you with people getting easy pass stories.
Speaker 2:I got some easy pass stories. The Hayden Bridge is in my district, up in Tuscarora River. I heard a bunch of people saying they're having issues with their easy pass and being billed. I just post on Facebook. Hey, if you have any issues with easy pass, reach to my office, I'll try to help you out. Thinking it's going to be like my constituents. 3,000 emails in a day that I got from sharing that thing. That post got shared 1,000 times. 355,000 interactions on that Facebook post.
Speaker 4:Do you think there was a problem?
Speaker 2:It's one of those things like, hey, let me do a little nice thing for my constituents, like let me see if I can help them out through this, and then it just went nuts.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, easy pass. They're a bunch of scammers. I feel like I I got some of the bills I've gotten from them are like crazy, crazy bills and then you can't? It takes you three hours to fight with them on the phone and there have been some issues, but it's beyond that.
Speaker 2:It's everything from just navigating state government in any form and we don't always think about how often we interact with state government. Right, it could be MVA, it could be taxes, it could be I mean, you name it. So if my constituents have an issue navigating state government, that's where I can step in and intervene and get those problems right to the front of the line. That's where I can step in and intervene and get those problems right to the front of the line. So that's also probably the most useful thing we do is help people. What's?
Speaker 1:your background prior to politics? Sure.
Speaker 2:So I'm a former Marine or Marine, however you want to say it two tours in the Marine Corps as a military policeman. I've been in business development for 20 years, currently helped run a title company, but in a variety of different industries. I serve on the board of the Maryland Builder Association. Right now I'm also serving the board of the ARC, which is a special needs non-profit that supports special needs adults. I'm on the board of that um and uh also work. It's a law firm and a title company I work for as well.
Speaker 2:So, um, so, business development, uh, supporting the real estate industry and my investor myself. But I support the real estate industry in a variety of ways and then kind of fell into politics. It kind of you know there's people that plan their entire life to run for office. Those, the ones who don't get, get there. It's the people. It kind of you know there's people that plan their entire life to run for office. Those are the ones who don't get there. It's the people that kind of falls into it. And it was never an aspiration or a dream, it just kind of happened.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so can you explain a little bit of how it happened and, like, what made you become a state delegate?
Speaker 2:So I helped, I worked on kind of the helped Larry Hogan quite a bit and early on, in a very grassroots, low, low, low level. Nobody knows or cares who I am kind of way right, but that's where it starts right. Like you know, in politics there's a lot of people who say they're going to do the people that don't talk and actually do. People want workers, just like in our industry or whatever. You know, people want people. They're going to show up and work and showing up to half half the battle.
Speaker 2:And then I was working for a guy who ran for state delegate seat and I helped run the campaign and did a lot of legwork and a lot of people kind of took notice of that. So then I ran for a state party. The state party is the organization for the entire state, but each county has one. So I ran for the Republican Central Committee in Harvard County, got elected to that in 2018, and then became the chair of the committee in short order. And then right after that, my predecessor resigned and then Larry Hogan Governor Hogan appointed me to replace him. So I was originally appointed and then ran for re-election in 22.
Speaker 1:And then here I am so appointed for somebody that's an idiot like me means that somebody just put you in that position. Nobody voted you in yet Initially right.
Speaker 2:Right, because it was an open seat and we don't have special elections, for you know like when somebody vacates it right so I was appointed originally and then got re-elected in 22, but but the governor is the one who appoints you and the governor appointed me, so okay yeah, so you said there's 141 state delegates, and are they um?
Speaker 3:what do you refer to the? You said the 85,000 people.
Speaker 2:My constituents.
Speaker 3:Okay, so is that a specific area where they're?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's all based upon geography.
Speaker 3:Got it.
Speaker 2:So I have a large portion of Hartford County and a little bit of Cecil County and it's all population-based. And it's about when they draw the lines. They really start from the edges, they start from out edges, they start from, you know, you know out western maryland and then southeastern maryland, and then they kind of work inward. And when drawing the line, so because you have some like when you're drawing the lines for population, eastern shore, you don't, you can't cut across the bay bridge, you have to work up and around so and that's kind of the couple starting points and they work and eventually kind of descend upon, uh, prince george's montgomery county, things of that nature.
Speaker 2:So they kind of end up Prince George's Montgomery County, things of that nature. So they kind of end up at the end of the drawing of the line. So it's all population based.
Speaker 3:So then, those specific areas that each state delegate is in, are they? Do they have some sort of control of the rules and regulations that happen in that specific area, or is it more of a state basis where all of everyone gets together and votes on whatever law is going to pass?
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, so, so you're, you're in charge of, you're a state delegate of that area that you described. Do you have, like um, a way to create like a law or like a bill in that specific area, or is it based on, well, yes, the whole county?
Speaker 2:what everything that we do is has to be ultimately approved at the state level. For example, I introduced a bill a couple years ago to reform Harford County's Board of Education. Now I needed the delegation, so all the members who go to Annapolis, so the delegation is all the members of the General Assembly that represent Harford County. They had to first sign off on the bill and then it went for the full body of the General Assembly. Use this thing we call in eplis, called local control. So if my delegation supports a measure, the general assembly is typically going to sign off on it. So, yes, I do have the ability to write laws and pass measures and things that nature for harvard and season county specifically, and that is a piece of it, um, but it still needs a blessing of the full general assembly. So, but we do affect local issues quite a bit, especially around like liquor laws. Um, we do a lot of a lot. All alcohol matters are local issues that still have to be bubbled up to the general assembly as an example.
Speaker 1:So so the republican and democrat thing. How does that fit into the state, are they? Do you have one of each or do you just vote for whoever they want?
Speaker 2:whatever, whoever they want, right. So you have, we have our primaries, right, so I have to become the, the nominee of my party, and then I go to the general election and have to win the general election versus a democrat from there. So for me as a republican and for Democrats it's vice versa. And then the general assembly makeup right now in the House of Delegates is 102 Democrats, 39 Republicans.
Speaker 3:So if you're on my side, we're outnumbered.
Speaker 2:But we punch above our pay grade and it's so important to be able to keep your voice right, like in Annapolis. I don't approach it like bomb throw, where you're trying to attack people or attack their motives right, but I fight on the issues. If you stay on the issues and you keep your voice, you can move the needle and get some stuff done. And we've had a lot of success in annapolis in spite of uh, some of the numbers there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so we live in a very obviously a blue state, um, and we are in kind of a red industry, I'll say, in the real estate development space. Sure, so how does what you're doing affect kind of what we do on the real estate side?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a big thing to consider. It affects everything we do, affects the industry, right? For example, if you pay attention, I'll talk about the budget crisis. We're facing a three billion dollar shortfall that could very easily escalate to six billion dollars this year. Right? Where's that money come from? Comes from everybody, and all these things eventually trickle down to, you know, the industry. Um, perfect example.
Speaker 2:So these energy policies we've passed over the last 10 years that are about to jack rates up, in some cases as high as I've heard, 800 right, because 40 of our power in maryland is imported from other states and some other states have some energy issues, right? So, with that being said, uh, with that being said, other states can kind of control what they're charging us and that could hurt us. And these are energy policies, they that they back to the 2000s, where we selected to eliminate our coal fire plants in western maryland, that decide to eliminate the brandon shores plant. The fact that we decided to go with with solar and wind farms off these off ocean city versus invest in things like nuclear and other clean energy like natural gas. So we've invested in things that don't give us a return, we've eliminated what works and now we're buying power from out of state, right? Those energy costs trickle down to you, to the folks, to your renters and the people that you support, you know. It affects us in every single way, right. And that's just energy policy, right. And talk about gas tax, you know, and how that's impacted the industry. So these are just little things, right. And then you talk about the big things like education costs. Well then, education costs, then the impact fees right. And then impact fees obviously affect things like housing. And then when you have a $3 billion shortfall, they're going to look everywhere to get revenue, right.
Speaker 2:So there's a bill before us right now. So I sit on the Ways and Means Committee and we deal with education, we deal with gaming and we also deal with all tax law. There's a bill right now that would authorize counties to significantly increase property taxes. Well, that hits you. Part of the one of the mechanisms to help pay for the education bill is a bill to eliminate the inheritance tax. Now you'd be like, oh, eliminate the inheritance tax, that's great.
Speaker 2:No, because what the inheritance tax is? It only taxes. Distant family, but direct descendants right? If you're passing something on to your kid, you don't pay an inheritance tax, right? So if you're looking to buy a property for an investment property, right, and you're buying it from this individual and it's being passed down from their mom or dad, right, there's no tax on it and that factors into your cost of buying the property to invest in the property and obviously the bottom line and financing and all those other things. But by eliminating the inheritance tax, then the whole thing moves over to the estate tax. Now, right now, the threshold for estate tax is five million dollars.
Speaker 1:All right what does that mean? Like you have a net worth of five million dollars, or that's what you're passing is the estate is five million, right.
Speaker 2:But in conjunction with eliminating the inheritance tax, which is really eliminating the direct descendant exemption, they're going to lower the estate tax to $2 million. Now think about that a $2 million estate. So life insurance? We can't tax life insurance. It's considered part of the estate.
Speaker 2:So if you have a $1 million life insurance policy, you're halfway there on the jump right. And if you have a property worth three hundred thousand dollars and a couple investments, you're very easily at that two million dollar threshold. So think so. And it's a 16 tax. So say, you're looking to buy this property, right, that this individual just received from their parents who may have passed away, and now they're looking to sell it to an investor. Right now, you got to figure a 16% tax on that property. In addition to all the other math you've done, that's going to price certain properties out of the pool for investors completely, and that's part of the legislation we're considering right now. But this is a ripple effect because of all the policies that we've put in place over the last 10, 12, 14 years on spending policies, and now they're coming to get the money. But why?
Speaker 1:would they tick down, like you think, with inflation and like people are worth more? Now, if you look at it, because of inflation and everything else, why would they move the number down rather than?
Speaker 2:Because they're trying to get more revenue. Right, If they lowered the threshold for a state tax to a million, that means more people are paying that 16% of state tax and because they've spent us out of control.
Speaker 2:our budget, you know, 10 years ago was 37 billion. This year it's 67 billion. Think about that In a state of 6 million people, our budget's 67 billion. So what that means is now we have $3 million. They got to find this year, right, because we're required to have a balanced budget. We can't borrow money. We have to have a balanced budget according to our constitution and they're going to come get it.
Speaker 2:So these policies that you know, that the, that you know the investor industry, have not been paying attention to. At the end of every single bill that has any spending attached to at the end of that is a tax, every single time, and those taxes ultimately bubble up to the industry, right, and the industry is going to feel the effects of this. And we're not even into landlord-tenant issues yet, which we're going to get into some, right. And the laws that are demonizing landlords? Right, are there bad landlords out there? Sure, right, right, but most people in this industry cannot be successful if they're a bad landlord, right, like that doesn't work that way. Um, but landlords are bad and we've passed legislation that's actually have funded the opposition against you, right, let's.
Speaker 2:I'll switch gears just briefly. We'll go back to the other thing. But while I'm on a roll, so a few years ago, while still of the bill, this money goes into a fund to pay for legal defense for evictees. Wow, so when you're going to court to evict somebody and you're going to go walk up to the front, you'll see a paralegal jump out of the back of the room out of nowhere like a ghost Poof, walk up, stand next to the person and say, hey, I'm going to represent you and you're funding the legal defense against yourself against somebody you're trying to legally evict and that we've created that fund.
Speaker 2:So you're actually, when you file an eviction fee, you're paying for the defense against you and that's why evictions have gone from 30 days, 90 days, now nine months, to a year and a half to evict somebody legally, because they have legal defense and legal counsel paid for by you. That's telling them exactly how to game the system. Like, for example, baltimore City right now. You can have somebody for three months and you go to make the eviction move and they pay one month. That buys them another three months, do it again and they can do it up to three times. So after nine months you've received three months' rent.
Speaker 3:We're going to have to cut this out of the episode so that the tenants can't hear that.
Speaker 1:I don't think many tenants are listening.
Speaker 2:A lot of tenants probably listen to this, but these are things that, frankly, the investor networks should be coming down to Annapolis and testifying on, and the only people that testified on it was the big major developers, but that's not the majority of people. They control the majority of units, but the volume is the guys that have two, three, four, five, ten, twenty individual units, right, and the people that you know. Your margins are very small. It doesn't take a lot for a property or your entire business to become upside down right, and a major shift in the market could hurt you, or a major policy shift at the state or county level could certainly hurt you as well, and you know your voices have not been heard in this process. Right, right, and it means coming down, being educated, knowing who your local and state elected officials are, being there, right, because you're just, you know, you know you're, you're faceless people that are landlords. Therefore you're bad, right, and you're predatory by nature. According to some people in annapolis, and we know that's not true.
Speaker 3:There are those people right, so does that mean that we have the opportunity, as landlords, to come down there? And voice our opinion 100 before the bills pass and to kind of give them in the bill hearing right.
Speaker 2:So it happens two ways right. So, certainly, when we have a bill hearing, you can sign up to testify before the committee. And also, if you know who your local electeds are, they'll meet with you, they'll sit down, they'll talk to you right, and hear your concerns and start affecting it. Right. So you have multiple opportunities to impact these policy decisions. But again, it's more than just the ones that directly affect you, it's the ones that indirectly affect you as well. Right, and energy policy, education policy, with big, what we call a physical note. So a physical note is the explanation of the financial impact of a piece of legislation, right? Anything with the fiscal note, anything that costs money, is ultimately going to come back to you because it's, you know, land, energy, property taxes, assessments, all these things Like.
Speaker 2:Here's a big one. There's a bill. It's going to be a tax bill. It's going to be put in, rolled into another bill that's going to tax an LLC at the full amount, at the gross, right? So think about, think about that for a second how it impacts you. Not the net, you're going to be taxed at the gross for your LLC, your S course.
Speaker 3:Wait, is that that's crazy? So you make a million dollars and you're going to be, and if that's your gross and you only net a hundred thousand, you're going to be taxed at a million. But then how is that possible?
Speaker 2:that's the bill that is a bill that's insane.
Speaker 3:That's something they're looking to actively pass and when that comes down how would you even afford that right?
Speaker 2:right and because that's that. But that's 100 part of the plan right now for this legislative session. So so when that bill comes down, everyone in your network, all your people listening to watch, need to be down testifying on that bill, saying how this will destroy you.
Speaker 1:So how do we?
Speaker 3:get access to-.
Speaker 2:De-incentivize us to reinvest or do anything besides, save money to pay taxes essentially.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't hire more people. We couldn't hire more people, couldn't do that Right right.
Speaker 3:So how do you find out about these bills that are getting ready to be passed or that are in the works to go down there?
Speaker 2:you go to the general assembly website you can look up legislation. There's a mechanism to search for legislation by topic, so you can search real estate tax, whatever the case may be, and then you can look up the bills that are being introduced. Right, or you can contact me, you know, you know, uh, my email is mikegriffith at housestatemdus. Feel free to contact me. I'm happy to help walk you through the process on. It's a hell of an email in two weeks.
Speaker 3:It is a mouthful. In two weeks I it's gonna be impossible for you to open those 10 000 emails that you're gonna get. Let's go, I mean let's go.
Speaker 2:I'm happy, you know, only contact me if you actually want to come testify, but, you know, because I don't want 100 people saying oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. But, like you know, if you want to come testify, I will help. I will, I can help walk, uh, your viewers and your listeners through the process of where to sign up, how to sign up, and then that's not just for your constituents, that's anybody in the state. Anybody in the state who's affected by this legislation.
Speaker 4:And what does that do Like if we just got 10,000 people to come testify, like what would that do? Would that change?
Speaker 2:some stuff? Yes, it would, but is that?
Speaker 3:just from the volume of the people that would come down there.
Speaker 2:Like how would that change what they already had already planned to? Because when there's mass opposition to something, it gets people's attention. Because if you have a thousand people down there, how many of those are this person's constituents, that person's constituents?
Speaker 3:right, okay, I mean, that really matters. So who's who's it come down to the passing the bill?
Speaker 2:I mean the general assembly. If you have the majority of the General Assembly the bill's going to pass, but it starts in the committee. So the first line of defense is me in my committee that handles the taxes, and if it passes from there then it goes to the General Assembly and then it has to go to the Senate and then to the governor.
Speaker 3:How many people are in the General Assembly? I mean it's 141 delegates and then 47 senators oh, so that's part of the General Assembly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the General Assembly is the two houses, the House and Senate.
Speaker 1:Yep. So who's introducing a bill like that? Is it somebody like you on the other side? Basically?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, or even on my side, somebody could. So I'm introducing a dozen bills this year on a variety of topics, none of them real estate related. But yeah, other members introduce the legislation, then you try to get co-sponsors and then you have the bill hearing where you're presented before the committee, and then you've got to work the bill and try to get to the committee and try to get support from various organizations and there are people opposed. But a perfect example is in 2020. It was a bill introduced which was reintroduced last year which we were able to kill again A services tax, which this bill would absolutely crush the investor industry.
Speaker 2:So it put a tax on every single service. To define a service right Title insurance, title companies service, lawyers service, any home inspectors service right, plumbers service, electricians service. You go down the line Everybody that you guys hire that touches your properties to rehab, renovate, maintain, make sure they're good to go. Realtors would be taxed on this right. Mortgage services taxed right. We estimate for a new home it would increase the cost of a new home by $14,000 alone, just in taxes. Right, much less in investment property. And when you're talking about these small margins, you know and you're looking for the right property, right price, with enough meat on the bone to be able to make the investment. Right, all these things start eating those margins, these taxes, estate taxes, energy costs that are going to affect. Right, because as energy costs go up, right, you start losing people that you can rent to. Right, because that's another piece of the pie. Can they even afford the energy costs to live in that home anymore?
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, I was just getting hounded the other day by some solar guys and they were talking about that. That's basically their pitch. They have the clean energy bill that's coming out and you know you got to go solar. It's a race to solar. So I mean, what is this clean energy thing, and can you kind of touch on that?
Speaker 2:Sure, so the state wants to be carbon net zero by 2035, which will not happen. That's forced electrification of a lot of buildings of a certain I think it's 30,000 square foot or higher, have to be fully electric. Of a lot of buildings of a certain I think it's 30,000 square foot or higher, have to be fully electric. Obviously, the EV mandate electric vehicles mandating that be 100% by 2034, and a threshold of being at 43% by 2026, which is impossible because the mandate it's not vehicles sold in Maryland. Each individual car maker has to have 43 of their cars sold in maryland 43, right? Which is impossible and we're like at one percent right now.
Speaker 2:Like, so that's not happening, right? Um, and then they're going to raise more taxes because one of our big revenue streams is the gas tax to pay for highways and roads and stuff. So the more electric vehicles you have, less people you have driving gas uh, gas power vehicles, which means less people you have driving gas uh, gas powered vehicles, which means less revenue. So they got to find other revenue streams, other places, right? So everything is a house of cards, right? It really is so, and these are the things that you, you and your listeners should be paying attention to, because all this is going to have a direct impact on the industry so when are mayors able to make their own bill, and if so, does it still have to go through the General Assembly?
Speaker 2:So you have three levels of government Municipalities, which is like towns, towns and cities. Then you have the counties and you have the state. The state has the ultimate authority. So we can pass a bill that forces the hand of the county or the municipality, but the towns make their own laws. But if they need something done at the state level, then they'll come to us and we'll introduce a bill on behalf of the city of Habit, of Grace or Hartford County government, things of that nature, if it needs state approval. But each, like Baltimore City, passes their own laws. Cities like Aberdeen pass their own laws. Counties pass their own laws. Counties pass their own laws, but ultimately, but also, the state has the ability to preempt local laws. So if I, if the state passes a bill that says the entire state does this, then the counties and the towns have to get in line. Now they're going to fight like hell to stop those bills because nobody wants their authority taken away and I respect that.
Speaker 2:But that's you know so do the the city have have delegates or they just, yeah, they I mean, they have their city government, they have the mayor and the city council, but they have delegates and senators. Every, every member, every person in state of maryland has a delegate or a senator, no matter where you live okay, so to go on to this energy thing real quick.
Speaker 1:The energy that we're getting, where is it coming from?
Speaker 2:so 60 right now is produced in maryland, like honda wingo dam, uh uh. Covered cliffs, the nuclear plant there. Uh, brandon shores, the coal fire plant that they're trying to shut down. But they're delaying because if they shut down brandon shores right now, as was the original plan, we would have rolling brownouts throughout the state. I had a briefing about this this morning.
Speaker 2:So right now 40% of our power we're importing from other states because we have had terrible policies on producing our own. We've avoided nuclear, which is the cleanest form of energy. Out there is nuclear, right, there's a stigma to it. The cleanest form of energy out there is nuclear, right, there's a stigma to it. But cleanest form Clean coal, natural gas is a clean form of energy because it has gas on there. You know some people think it's, you know, dangerous.
Speaker 2:And then we've poured a bunch of money into trying to get offshore wind, which is now probably dead with the Trump administration coming in. We have a bunch of money in solar, but even with solar right, you can't even fully realize what solar can produce because you have to have enough opportunity on the grid. So right now there are farmers in the eastern shore fighting to get more solar farms. But that part of the grid is full, so it doesn't make any sense, right? And because we are buying a lot of our energy from pennsylvania, for example.
Speaker 2:And the dirty secret is we shut down a lot of our power production in maryland for, for um, the sake of the environment, um, because we didn't want coal fire plants here in maryland. But we're buying energy from the coal, we're buying coal fire plant energy from pennsylvania, so we're doing the exact same thing, just we're not doing in maryland. So it makes everybody feel better, but it's not. It's a net zero, uh, a net neutral carbon impact, because we're still buying the same types of energy other places so it's someone like bg.
Speaker 2:Need bottom of gas and electric, just a service that yes, gets that energy from one place to the other place, that's right I mean bg is getting beat up for some of their rate hikes and some of the things they're doing. Right now. There's a lot of people being blamed for the policies of the General Assembly. Bg is just the person, the individual providing the power and figuring the whole thing out, but these are policy decisions we've made at the General Assembly.
Speaker 3:So does BG&E buy the power from these other locations that you mentioned, like other states, and then sell it to us?
Speaker 2:Well, they produce power, but they're the ones kind of negotiating, bringing this power in from out of state. And there's different and that's just Baltimore, right, there's. You know you have other power companies on the eastern shore, and you know you have. Pepco exactly. They'll marvel at power.
Speaker 3:Is BG&E just? Are they paying more for energy now or are they just trying to like increase the rate because it's been pretty reckless lately?
Speaker 2:They're doing a $24, $20 rate hike because they have to do some improvements tied to some of these energy policies and getting more power from the state. But when we're buying power from Pennsylvania, they're marketing it up to sell to us. Because when they sell power to us, that's less power for them, right? And because we're not self-sufficient with our energy production, that cost gets put on to us, which gets put on to you and your tenants and all the, everything that you do from day to day, from running your business to, uh, um, the, even the, the, the, the power saw to to do improvements in in your properties, right? All those costs so slowly started to trickle up and God forbid. Now if we pass a services tax, right, if you hire somebody to do it. Now, you're paying 6% on top of everything else on every single service you hire. That's appraisals, that's everything.
Speaker 1:So this services tax because that's something as a general contractor and property manager I imagine would really affect.
Speaker 2:It'll have a crushing effect.
Speaker 1:So let's just say how are they taxing that? Like, is it on my gross revenue that I bring in? Yeah, they're gonna say well, it depends, right.
Speaker 2:I mean. So all these bills in conjunction, if it's an llc and they also, they pass service tax and then they also pass uh, the uh, the llc adjustment that you get taxed on the gross, then you'll be taxed on the gross right. And oh, here's another thing they want to eliminate itemized deductions too. That's also a bill. Wow.
Speaker 2:So we, as I'm saying, like you guys and your listeners, should be paying attention to what we're doing in annapolis, because when you start stacking, any one of these is bad. But when you add our energy policies and what we're trying to do to raise property taxes, and then eliminating the inheritance tax right and lowering the threshold for state taxes, so more of the properties you're trying to buy are gonna be taxed at 16% on top of whatever else you're doing. And then the services tax is gonna tax all the services right, and then changing the LLCs, that going to tax all the services right, and then the changing the locs that you get taxed to the grow. When you start stacking all these things up and up and up and eliminate idaia's deductions, I mean, yeah, it almost makes no sense to run the business and then do they not?
Speaker 2:I don't laugh because it's funny, it's like, oh my god, what are you gonna do? And but that's, that's me, me and my and the Ways and Means Committee are the folks. We're the wall fighting this thing back.
Speaker 3:And I guess, in a general sense, do they not think about how it's going to affect landlords and their opportunity to help people who need a place to rent. Well, that's where I come in.
Speaker 2:Me and my colleagues on my side of the aisle. We come in and we talk about this is going to have these net effects. Right, and there is some juice this year and the last couple of years because Governor Moore, one of his big initiatives is to create more housing and things of that nature. Right, Because we have a huge housing crisis. I mean, I've heard estimates anywhere from 90,000 to 150,000 units upside down in Maryland. Right, Lack of units and that has a ripple effect. Right, and so even some citizens who want to buy their first home.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the reasons housing prices have skyrocketed is because of lack of inventory. Right, and an example we talked about today is like somebody looking to go from the $300,000 home to a $500,000 home. Right, Like that's a good thing, because if, if I go to my second home, that's $500,000, that creates a brand new first time home buyer home at 300 grand. Right, so it helps create more inventory. Um, and what?
Speaker 2:And what you guys do is you create new inventory? Because you take properties that in some cases, are completely unlivable and, without developing any new land, without buying a farm and turning into a whole bunch of houses, you're taking a property that is considered useless and making it someone's home right. You're creating new inventory and that takes pressure off of overall housing prices. It takes pressure off the lack of housing. It gives people to live. What's the three most important things that people need? They need shelter, they need food and they need security. I mean, go back to cavemen Club security, food, hunter-gatherer, shelter, cave those are our three most basic needs and you guys provide one of those three right so why would somebody want to, like governor moore, want to de-incentivize people like us to do what we're doing?
Speaker 2:well, and that's the conversation, and that's where folks like me come into play is to to carry that banner and have that conversation, explain hey, the housing's supposed to be very important to you, but these things have this net negative effect on what you're trying to accomplish and they're competing with each other. And so that's where the bill hearings, that's where you guys coming down to NAPLAS and testify to tell your story, to explain how these things would hurt other initiatives right, like more housing. That's where me and you all telling your story, that's where the rubber hits the road.
Speaker 1:So are all these crazy policies coming out because we had a shift in governor?
Speaker 2:No, I mean these policies have been going on for a long, long time, and some of these policies go back to the O'Malley administration, right, so there's nothing new under the sun. It gets more and more momentum. Sometimes it's and some of these things are not bad intentioned right, somebody has a constituent, somebody sees a problem, somebody hits half the story, right, but they don't hear the other side of the story. Sometimes they want to help the constituent. That's where. That's where testimony what testimony really is. When someone comes to testify, you're not opposing a bill, you're trying to educate the legislators on your side of the story and the bigger picture, it's an education piece. Right now, if everybody comes down and tells the and says the exact same thing, it gets boring. But if people come down there and have their own stories and talk about what's happening, it has a ripple effect, right, and it's just. And if your industry is not represented down there, then you're on the sideline.
Speaker 1:So for people that are like people like you, listening to their constituents with, with problems that they have, is it really heavily like? So? You have areas, obviously, that are more lower on the socioeconomic status and some that are higher. Do I guess somebody do they represent, you know, if they represent more people on the low end of that spectrum?
Speaker 2:They're probably going to be more on the side of um renters rights and things of that nature right now if we came down there, would that even make them swaying in a different direction?
Speaker 3:well, I mean not pests. What depends?
Speaker 2:are you guys doing the right thing and do you guys take care of you know your tenants and you guys provide good, clean housing? And are you guys doing the right thing? Yeah yeah, but then, and if that's the case, then your story's gonna matter, but how?
Speaker 1:does that? How do we even like prove that? Because I I do feel sometimes like people demonize and even just I don't even get involved. But sometimes you see on facebook and some of these like neighborhood groups, uh, that I'm in in the city, especially where they're literally calling us rich, white, whatever name they want to put behind that. They're really coming after people Anybody with money, it seems like, or anybody that has any kind of. But here's the thing there's a lot of investors that aren't well-off.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of investors that they're clawing and scratching and trying to make a way.
Speaker 2:That's why a lot of investors that they're clawing and scratching and trying to make a way. That's why a lot of veterans get into investing, because a lot of veterans come out of the military without a lot of skills. But here's a path where I can and there's a lot of veterans who have a hard time working for somebody. You get out of the Marine Corps, Like for me. You get out of the Marine Corps. It took me a while to learn how to work for somebody in the civilian world, for a variety of reasons. Maybe PTSD who knows? Definitely PTSD and you can think we rattle off 10 names right now of people you know that are veterans that are investors now Chase.
Speaker 1:Alex.
Speaker 2:Van Brooklyn, tyler Banks, we can go on and on and on. So and that's part of telling the story, you know what I mean and they get skewed because, to their credit, the people that do have the big apartment buildings and the big, you know that have a large volume of units, they're the ones who typically testify. But the little guys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 units, individual units that you've rehabbed and turned into something that's sitting there dead, into something that's viable, help in the community, right? That's a story that you all need to tell I see how this is pretty important then yeah something that we had no idea about before.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so we have. Uh, we talked about the energy. I did have a couple other things that I wanted to get to, sure, um, one was the landlord, tenant stuff, oh yeah what's going on? Oh yeah can we touch on some of that stuff that you mentioned?
Speaker 2:yeah, I gotta bust out my notes because there's a lot going on and so so, so, and I'm just gonna give a 50,000 foot view. I mean, some of these get very technical and very in the weeds, but one of them is a good cause for not renewing someone's lease, right? So it's going to require landlords to have a to prove, and it gets very delineated and gets very technical and very in the weeds. But you won't be able to like I'm not going to renew your lease. You're going to have to be able to justify, if this bill passes, why you're not really renewing the lease and having to buy. And this is the bill. I mean, you know it's, there's a lot to it, right, it's a big bill. Um, there's all kinds of things that you have to meet, requirements you have to meet and prove to not renew somebody's lease, like one of them is if you don't renew somebody's lease, you have to prove that that property will not be on the market for at least a year.
Speaker 1:But what if the reason that you're not renewing the lease is because you need to sell the property?
Speaker 2:Well, I would assume that would qualify under you're not putting it back on the market for a year? Oh, market as renting? Yes, okay, but again, that's part of the conversation that needs to happen, right, because you guys need to come down and talk about that. Well, what if I sell the property? Testify on that and then we get to ask questions of the witnesses and help augment those stories. So that's the first question I thought of. What if someone's selling the property? Is selling the property a good cause? Because sometimes you need to sell the property to extract the right, the equity. To go to the next thing good cause is very subjective.
Speaker 4:Who determines what good cause is?
Speaker 2:the maryland general assembly, though, yeah, and if you don't have a voice in the matter, they'll do it without you. Yeah, so what?
Speaker 3:what date? Like what date is that? So? When a bill is getting ready to be passed, the first question is when a bill is getting ready to be thought about, how long question is when a bill is getting ready to be thought about, how long does it take from that thought to being passed?
Speaker 2:I mean, it takes sometimes years, sometimes months, sometimes weeks, sometimes days.
Speaker 3:And then this bill in particular here that you're discussing. Is that coming up towards the end of it?
Speaker 2:I don't have the bill hearing dates for each of these. You can certainly reach out to my office and I can get information, or you can look it up on the General Assembly website. So that bill is House Bill 709. So if you go to the Maryland General Assembly website, look up HB 709, it will have all the details, the final point of the bill bill hearing date, committee things of that nature.
Speaker 1:Sounds like a lot of work just for somebody like us to keep up with all the bills yeah.
Speaker 2:Listen, I have two full-time jobs. I have my my day job in the, in this industry, and then my job doing this, and it's hard for me to keep up. So and I'm, you know, I'm basically living down there for three months, so yeah, yeah, and I get just to sidetrack a little bit.
Speaker 1:You mentioned on a text that we were texting back and forth that you were in season Session Session. So what does that?
Speaker 2:mean. So we only meet in Annapolis to make laws for three months a year, from the second Tuesday in January to the first Monday at midnight in April. So we write all the laws in that 90-day period. So when I'm there I have to. Basically most of the time I'm spending 20% of the time doing legislative duties and 80% doing my regular job. This time of year I'm doing 80% legislative duties in Annapolis and 20% my day job, Because this is supposed to be a citizen legislature. So we only make so much money being legislators so we have to have regular jobs that feed our families. So I'm both all the time. Now I'm not a martyr about it. Like I was clear-eyed, I knew what I was getting into. So I'm not feeling so hard for myself or no, nor is anybody else, but it is so, if you don't mind me asking how much does somebody like you make doing politics?
Speaker 2:well, it's it. No, it's, it's public record. Um we're. They passed a bill a couple years ago I voted against it but to increase the pay from 50 grand a year to 56 000 a year over four years. So by 26, this job would pay uh 56 000 a year. But and I can say that because it's public record, like anything public official, it's all disclosed and all that, so damn, that's not a not a lot of money, not for uh more than 40 hour week job in addition to the regular job. But listen, if you're doing this for the money, it's the wrong reason. I'm just telling you like this is. This is not. This is a labor of love, uh, or or self-loathing it almost seems worse than teaching being a teacher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that that does. It sounds like uh brutal. So, um, do you have ambitions to go into the next level of politics at all?
Speaker 2:I mean it's what they say luck is. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. I mean that's kind of. Well, you know, if things break a certain way, sure. If they don't, so be it. You know, I mean, like I have a great career, you know, I have a great career, I have a great situation, but you don't get in these positions without a little bit of ambition. So we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:So somebody like Larry Hogan for example who is a Republican in a very Democratic state. How does something like that shake out? How does he get in so?
Speaker 2:part of it's the environment, right. 2014 was a year where people were really frustrated with Democrat policies Halfway to the second term of Obama. People were tired of taxes. People were just tired of a lot of things, right. So there was a mood. There was also, because of that, a lack of enthusiasm on the Democrat side, which means they weren't going to turn out. Drill down to Maryland. You're coming off the O'Malley administration where you just had 42 straight tax hikes right, including the rain tax and a couple of things that really stuck with people. So Democrats generally were not showing up. There were a lot of blue dog Dems, moderate Democrats, who were tired of some of the policy positions made.
Speaker 2:And Larry Hogan didn't have a voting record. We're like I would never run for governor, right, because I voted on some things that I believe in that would be very unpopular for me to run statewide, which would be used against me. Larry Hogan was never in office. He was running and is, as a business person, right, so they couldn't stick him on all these other issues they can nail him on because he voted this way or that way. He was voting. He ran against the policies that hurt the entire state financially and the conditions were right. Now, to his credit, he capitalized on it and partly that to a second term which nobody thought was possible either time. And he won that handily because of how he handled his first term. But some of it's environmental circumstances, the mood of the people.
Speaker 1:So then, I guess we switch gears to Wes Moore, which is like he's on the total opposite end of the spectrum. Is that because people weren't happy with how Larry Hogan finished up his thing, or?
Speaker 2:no, it was um uh. There was high enthusiasm on the democrat side, not only against trump but against the republican nominee, dan cox. So there was high enthusiasm by the democrats nationally in maryland and against Stan Cox, and I mean that was a big part of it. Right Again, environmental factors affecting local elections.
Speaker 1:So you think that part of that issue was like the political climate, I guess from a national level, with Trump?
Speaker 2:That does have an effect, right, um, which is fascinating, like right now, because you know, you look at, you know trump's popularity sky high, you know. I mean his popularity this time in his second term is higher than it was at this time his first term. So there's a real mood shift even happening, and I'm not trying to be partisan, because I know you have plenty of listeners that are Democrats and independents, so I'm not trying to be partisan. I'm just talking about from my point of view, right, and what my experience is.
Speaker 2:But you look at voter registration in different states, like in Pennsylvania, democrats had there was a million more Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans in 2012. Now the number's cut down to 100,000, right, that's Pennsylvania. And that doesn't include people that may be Democrats, that are voting Republican and just haven't got around to switching to registration. That's hard registrations, right. So Pennsylvania went from a relatively blue state to now a solid swing 100,000 voter registration. In a state like Pennsylvania, that's a swing state now, right, and that wasn't in play forever. Florida is now a safe red state and they had a million-plus advantage in Democrats and a million-plus advantage in Florida, and now that's a safe red state. It's completely reversed. You know Maryland stayed about flat.
Speaker 1:That's for a variety of reasons, um do you think, because we're the proximity to DC? Definitely?
Speaker 2:proximity to DC, the size of the state. I mean, we're a very small state that houses two major cities, um, and people in cities are typically more Democrat for a variety of reasons. Um, so that's had a major impact on us that's interesting, so okay, so we had.
Speaker 1:We talked about the energy stuff.
Speaker 4:I gotta, I gotta you gotta touch on the, the landlord tenant laws, just a little, yeah. Well, yeah, I'll get back.
Speaker 2:Let's dive back into that. So I talked about good calls, right, and I did talk about the policy we passed a couple years ago that raised the eviction filing fee, and now you're funding uh, you're the legal defense against yourself. Yeah, yeah, it's like literally paying a lawyer to sue you rent control is on my list.
Speaker 1:Rent control is that a thing that's coming down the well, rent control, uh, that's something I know.
Speaker 2:I think montgomery county has a bill talking about rent control. There's actually a bill, that kind of deal, and I'm going to get to that. Deals with um, late fee caps and things of that nature as well, but rent control is something that's very popular right now from some of the particularly very far left and you see some of the counties trying to move in that direction. Uh, so that's where you know that. You know if your listeners that that that live in like howard county and or Montgomery County, need to contact their legislators, need to contact their county council folks and have those conversations.
Speaker 2:Like this is going to make it because, like you have a market right, you charge what the market allows you to charge, right until external factors force you to raise rents. Right, because you work off a margin. Right, this has to make sense. This is not charity for you. You wish it was, but it's not charity. You have to. There's got to be some, yeah, some meat on the bone, right for this to make sense for your, for your labor, right, uh, and your time. And when these environmental factors come in, like increased private tax assessments, increased energy, energy costs, increased taxes, all these factors. Now you're forced to raise rents, and if rent controls don't accommodate those environmental factors, then you're upside down and you're out.
Speaker 4:Aren't a lot of those rent control bills, though, like you have to own five houses or more?
Speaker 2:Typically it's six, Six.
Speaker 4:But how many people? Right, you know, I mean you would, you'd be screwed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, six is I'm just saying but like right that many, there's somebody that's a full-time investor, isn't that money?
Speaker 2:yeah, and then, and, and somebody who's a full-time investor with six properties you're not wealthy, right? Right, I mean how much you're making on. I mean you get some of these problems. You're making 15, 20 grand a year, right, and if you know six properties, you know, if you're you know netting 100 grand a year. I mean you're making a. It's a good wage, right, but you're working your tail off and you're one bad policy decision from that 100 becoming 40, right so there's a law that happened.
Speaker 1:That was in dc I don't know if it's still there, but requiring landlords to offer to sell the property to the tenants before they could sell it on the market. I heard yep, some somewhere they're trying to sneak that into maryland as well oh yeah, they've had that bill's been before us before.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's already that's a, that's a baltimore city thing for sure, yeah, yeah so so can we talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 1:sure um I think it's county, yeah, county by county, yeah. So yeah, like does I mean? Is that something that is happening right now, or is it?
Speaker 2:something, I mean something fighting. It's something you should be fighting, you know. I mean, if you want to right and thing is juice versus squeeze is a bad thing for you to give your tenant first right.
Speaker 1:Refusal by the home no, and I don't mind that part of it, but what happened? And and I could be wrong, but there was a lot of issues when they did it in dc, where there was like opportunistic lawyers that were basically like strongholding landlords into not selling the property or they were getting like the buy rights. They were buying the buy rights from the tenants to and I have to dig more into this, maybe we'll talk about this?
Speaker 2:No, I understand what you're saying. They were basically going to the tenant, like you know.
Speaker 3:Here's a way that we can make some money, yeah. And I think that was for multifamily.
Speaker 2:Like I don, here's a way that we make some money, yeah, and I think that was for multi-family.
Speaker 3:Like I don't think a multi-family maybe applies in one one area or another, but I couldn't imagine. I think dc.
Speaker 1:That's what I think I read something that it was. You know it was. If it was a multi family, it was multi-family, which makes it crazier, and that's when. That's when the lawyers came in. Like these opportunistic lawyers came into the to the tenants and were buying their rights to buy the property and so that's where you can affect legislation and get amendment on the bill preventing that practice, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, again, we're lawmakers like you're like, how do we change this? Well, we introduce a bill and we change the law. We put an amendment on a bill and change, like, literally, we're the ones who literally make the laws. How you change, you change it, pass a bill. Who do you know? You know me and you're going to know others, and the more you guys get activated and engage your legislators, you're going to know the people that actually can do this. Right, yeah, it's, it's, it's really that close. People think it's as far off, magical, mystical. No, I mean, like, your legislator lives in your community. They have to live in the district where they represent. You know who's the person here in the Severn Park? I'd have to look it up. I'm not sure offhand. I mean, probably know him or her very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just not something that's talked about a lot, like where would I even find that information?
Speaker 2:Or like is it public?
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously it's public. That was a bad joke. Obviously it's public. Everything you do is public, but it's not on TV, right, it's not?
Speaker 2:on commercials. No, it's a Maryland General Assembly website. Just search Maryland General Assembly and I forget the name.
Speaker 1:So you have to physically really be looking.
Speaker 2:You have to dive into this. It's not this ton of work, right? It's not this again?
Speaker 3:well, you have to know somebody that's going to tell you the website because, like otherwise, how would we know where to look?
Speaker 2:that's what we're going to do right now let me look at the website uh, dummy, this is this is.
Speaker 2:This is why you invited me on, so we can have this conversation. Listen, they don't teach civics in schools the way they used to right like I. You know people don't. The questions you ask are very, very, very typical questions like, um, and that's why it's so much fun to be on here, because I can actually, you know, we can have this real conversation. So the website is, uh, hold on a sec like you think, are you guys allowed to advertise?
Speaker 1:Can you get a TV commercial or something? Yeah, I campaign.
Speaker 2:I have a campaign account. I run for re-election, I buy ads and billboards and mailers and the whole thing. That's how we get re-elected. And people can donate to that. We're not allowed. So just so you know, this is during legislative session. We have a blackout period, so I'm not even allowed to talk about fundraising during this time.
Speaker 2:So I can't even bring it up. So the website is mgalegmarylandgov and that's the Maryland General Assembly website. And to find your legislator there's actually a link that says find my legislator. There's actually a link it says find my legislator, and then you put your your address in and it'll tell you who represents you you say that's m g a l l e g dot maryland dot gov okay that's interesting so, okay, that's where you can look up all the bills.
Speaker 2:you can find all the information about the bills that we're introducing and passing or not passing this year. That's where you sign up to testify on bills. That's where you can look up the legislation, details and legislation, and that's also where you can find out who your legislator is and their contact information, and then you can contact them and tell them how you feel.
Speaker 1:Okay, so would you suggest, like if we see for somebody like us that in real estate investing full-time, we contact our person, whoever our legislator is, and say, hey, this is the bill that we're just made aware of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we're opposed to this bill and this is how it's going to hurt me. This is how it's going to hurt your constituents, who are my tenants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like we should probably pay more attention to this yeah there's a lot that we could write in about.
Speaker 4:I mean, the first one being right. Like we have some rental listings that go up on the the ether whether that's zillow, mls or whatever and there's professional tenants. Just like you said, that'll sit, you know, they'll rent from you for three months and they'll make a payment. And they'll rent from you for three months and they'll make a payment, and then they'll rent from you again.
Speaker 1:A lot of people that are just coming in squat because they know that. Yeah, that's what I was getting to.
Speaker 4:The biggest thing is like people will see these listings that are vacant on Zillow and they know they're rentals and they'll go break into them and then they squat. And then it's like, as a landlord, you're like, now I have to who has absolutely no right to be here.
Speaker 3:So they commit a crime by breaking in, but then all of a sudden, if they break in with no one seeing them, they're scot-free, which doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:Agreed and they could just create a fake lease and the cops can't do it. I don't want to say won't, but they can't do anything about it. That sounds like a bill, because the police just say every time that spoken to the police, they're like they, they want to, they don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole.
Speaker 1:It sounds like a bill and hey, you know a guy who writes laws, so just saying, yeah, yeah, the, the squatting, the squatting laws are absolutely insane. Yeah, they are so. So we have a house in florida and I was tough.
Speaker 1:I learned some of the uh laws down there. Like you could, if somebody squats in your house, you could just go in there with a shotgun and remove them. Like it's, it's like that. It's so far the other way. But here, if somebody breaks into your home, has a fake lease, they have all of the. They automatically have all of these rights, yep.
Speaker 3:How do we find out the history of those type of laws Like, for example? I would love to learn about when and how squatters laws have become a thing.
Speaker 2:I mean for practical purposes. You know, and this is gonna sound dismissive, I don't mean to sound, but for practical purposes the history doesn't matter. All that matters is what's in front of us and how we fix it. You know I mean because all of our biggest commodity is time, and you know I need to invest all my time making.
Speaker 4:So, like introducing a bill like that, where we get rid of squatter rights, like that sounds like like a big feat. I mean, how does, how does one go about introducing a bill where there's you have you're going up against what is it?
Speaker 2:132 democrats, that's what I get paid for, right, but but it's also, you know, can you pass it who knows right? But you have the conversation. And if you can't pass the bill the way you want, maybe you can. You know, can you pass it who knows right? But you have the conversation. And if you can't pass the bill the way you want, maybe you can, you know, change things some to make it more fair, right but a bit like that, like how is that?
Speaker 3:even like there's morally right, there's morally wrong, like if anyone sees or hears that how could they side with somebody agreeing with that bill?
Speaker 2:But again it's all about. The General Assembly is 188 people, but in the House Delegates it's 141 people. Everybody has a different constituency, a different life experience and different points of view, and the General Assembly really is about expanding the members of the General Assembly's point of view right, giving different perspectives they don't have. And that's where testimony comes into play, because they may only have this one experience and what they're doing, they're doing it for what they feel is the right reason and it may be completely actually the right reason, but all of us, me included, sometimes don't understand the other side or the ripple effects or what I talk about, the unintended consequences, right, and if people don't show up to talk about how this could hurt them, even if it's helping this other person, then they never hear that perspective and shame on the people for not showing up yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's some wild stuff. So if you're listening to this and you are a landlord, that's been affected by squatters which I think most people I feel like, if you've done to this and you are a landlord that's been affected by squatters which I think most people I feel like if you've done this enough and you have enough houses, you've had squatters, or even really.
Speaker 4:I mean I had one of my listings get broken into because they know it was, and then I had to go explain to my seller that hey, your listing just got broken into, now we have to evict them and my seller obviously was not too happy and it's like I mean, who's to blame here? Right?
Speaker 2:The law that allows for it. Yeah, just saying yeah. If people are allowed to do things they shouldn't be able to do. That's the law's fault and it falls on us for those laws, because we can affect those laws.
Speaker 1:I have one about so short-term rentals, something that, oh yeah about. So short-term rentals something oh yeah, there's a lot of bills around that, yeah, something that we don't do too much of. But, um, I know in baltimore city, where most of our properties are, you can't do airbnb or short-term rentals right. Um, my, you know less than 90 days or 60 days, whatever it is. Um, who is the one fighting is like I heard that's like the hotel lobbyists that are fighting for those I mean everybody has different.
Speaker 2:I mean the hotel lobby has been, uh, um, fighting to affect the short-term rental uh industry. So that's, that's a thing, yeah, so are you pro or against short-term rentals? I mean, I'm into property rights, right? So somebody wants to run around. If somebody wants to rent their property out, um, you know, for short term rental and take on a liability, that's, that's on them. I, I really don't care, right, okay?
Speaker 1:like I'm a little bit like that.
Speaker 3:Take on, I'm a little bit libertarian on these things, right right yeah, I mean, I personally it would take away from hotels like you mentioned. I'm not against it and I'm not like Because I don't have any.
Speaker 1:But it's like a fair market right. That's what the free market allows for. Similar to.
Speaker 3:Uber and Lyft how they're taking away business from taxis, which I don't mind that at all. I think it's mainly the next door neighbor homeowner who, most of Baltimore City is, a lot of townhouse row houses and it's the fact of, you know, having new neighbors, you know, every so often.
Speaker 2:And some of the conversations that are starting to get. Some attractions around the party houses, like there's people that have party houses for rental and short term rental sites right, that people know they can go and party and lose their minds and affect some of the neighbors and all that right. So there is some self-regulation that needs to happen in that space for some of those reasons, right. And anytime you have a big party house, people lose their minds in a quiet little suburban neighborhood. That gives the industry a bad name, right. And then the folks who want to stop short-term rentals will wave that flag and wave that banner because it gets a lot of publicity, you know. So the bad actor is always on either side of any issue, or the ones always get the most attention when trying to move the needle in any direction yep, okay, I have one more on my list here.
Speaker 1:So in florida we're seeing a big issue with this, and obviously now in california as well property insurance, homeowners insurance and here it has gone up a lot like I used to be paying 350 dollars florida's wind florida's wind damage right wind and flood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's you know california's fire obviously right.
Speaker 1:So, um, which is causing, especially in Florida and California I know Florida more because I'm in that market but people, especially older people on fixed incomes, are losing their homes because they can't afford to pay the insurance or they're going without insurance and then the next storm comes and wipes them out and remember the insurance is also driven by costs to repair, which is driven by policy decisions, right, all these taxes, all these things we've done to affect the cost of goods and services, right, makes it less likely to get insured because the cost to replace rises because of legislative policy decisions.
Speaker 2:So all these little things we do have ripple effects all the way down the line. So I'm sorry. I got off my soapbox. Continue your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so basically I've seen my homeowner's insurance on an average go from about $350 to $500 to $1,200 or more in the last couple years. Have you noticed the same? So are there bills or things that we could pass that limit or affect the price of the insurance?
Speaker 2:Well, so do you support price controls or no? Do you support rent controls? Slippery, slope, right? You can't support it here and not support it over here. Yeah, that's the conversation, right? Because if I stand on my soapbox here and say we cannot have rent controls on landlords with one or two little properties, but here we need to have controls over here, right, that would be used against me. So you got to always think about the domino effect of every single position we take on different policy.
Speaker 1:So I guess, and like I'm'm for, like I'm pro stating like you can't like price fix right like I, I think that's a good rule for contractors, or for somebody, the market, the market will, will suss it out right, right, but these big insurance companies that are obviously just pounding people over the head with these rates, even if, like the price of, let's just say the the price of repair for something has not tripled, like the price of the insurance policy, over the last let's just call it four years. So I guess that that's, that goes back to the same thing. I'm not for controlling the price.
Speaker 3:I mean, I see your point of view. If they're increasing it three times and the construction costs haven't gone up three times, then maybe it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4:But that's like somebody telling Ryan he can't increase his contracting prices because the price to build a house hasn't increased.
Speaker 2:I also feel like they all work together though the insurance companies Well and see, I'm a classic Republican, conservative, free market capitalist. You know what I mean, like, do I like some of the things? No, do some of these things need to be reined in in some capacity? Yes, you know, if there's collusion where these insurance companies are working together to slowly raise their prices, in conjunction, they should be fighting to lower them, to be more competitive, right, um, but also I, but it's tough situation in florida, right, like, because you have a lot of.
Speaker 2:Some of this is affected by the cost of things, right, the cost to replace, and some of that's policy decisions. Some of that's inflation, you know, like, so the fact that, for example, we have no, we have a huge shortage in housing stock in Maryland, which forces housing pricing up, and if housing pricing goes up, the cost to replace it goes up, which means insurance goes up organically, and how it relates to that, right, and some of these are policy decisions, right, you know, and you guys, what you guys do. You take pressure off the whole ecosystem and these are the things you guys got to think about sometimes. I'm not trying to preach to you, this is your industry, right, but what you guys do taking vacant properties that are unlivable and making them livable takes one more family off the housing market into a home, which takes pressure off the entire ecosystem, right. So you guys are doing a good service and you guys really should start being proud of what you guys do, because you guys do help everyone.
Speaker 2:Every unit you guys rehab, right takes pressure off that $5,000 home, $500,000 home, and if you do enough of them, it turns into 490, right, which pressure off that $5,000 home, $500,000 home, and if you do enough of them, it turns into $490,000, right, which now makes it a little bit less expensive to replace, and then insurance comes down a little bit. So it all works in conjunction up and down the line. So you guys should have a little more pride. Not that you don't, but when somebody says that you're an evil monster for rehabbing homes and renting them, you're like well, you're doing a service.
Speaker 2:You're providing shelter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. I'm out of my list of questions here, Nick Chase, do you guys have anything?
Speaker 2:Well, let me run through these bills real fast, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're running short on time. I will just give you the heads up on them. Uh, one bill is uh, um, uh s sb, which stands for senate bill, or hb for house bill, senate bill 514. This would uh prevent um criminal history record checks for your tenants. So good luck with that. Uh, I don't want to go too much detail, but uh, there's another bill.
Speaker 3:You said end record. Would that include prior evictions and prior failure of pays?
Speaker 2:Well, that gets into House Bill 242 that will let you check credit history, that's the other bill.
Speaker 3:There's no point in even screening anyone, so look up these bills for yourself.
Speaker 2:I know you don't have time for me to go into detail, but you should look at these bills and understand what you're allowed not allowed to do if these bills have to pass. But these are bills y'all should be showing up and testifying on right, I mean, what do they want us to do?
Speaker 4:just ask them their name and that's it. What's your name?
Speaker 2:uh, here's one um house bill 273 um3, that this bill prohibits a landlord from charging a penalty for a late payment of rent that exceeds 5% of the amount of unpaid rent due.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's always been 5% as long as I've known.
Speaker 1:Well, this puts a cap on, so it's 5% of yeah, so it puts more of a cap on it. Here's an of yeah, so it puts a more of a cap on.
Speaker 2:Here's an interesting one that's the cap and this one you may understand it's recurring five percent okay, oh, gotcha here's one that you may understand more than me, and I just saw this one today. I thought it was interesting. I think I understand it conceptually. Uh, senate bill 609 that this this bill would prohibit a landlord from using an algorithmic device that uses non-public competitive data to set the amount of rent charged for the lease of a property or charge in rent. So this will prevent you from using AI. From this is how I read it. I may be wrong from allowing you to use data of off-market properties to calculate what you're going to charge for rent. I may be wrong, maybe you're wrong, but that's how I interpret it Because it says non-public, which most of us you know what that means, because most rentals aren't taken to public like the MLS is.
Speaker 3:So when you get an appraisal done, let's say for a front of property, they obviously praise the value, the full value of the house. And then the market rent. They pull the market rent from the mls where I would. I would guess and this is just a guess maybe 15 of actual data is on the mls.
Speaker 2:The rest is literally off off the off the market and I would say I would use ai or algorithms as the best tool to assess what an appropriate rent would be. That's market value. This bill prevents that.
Speaker 4:So that's interesting because that's kind of like what you guys do down in Florida with your Airbnb. I was talking to Christian. They have an algorithm that basically with Airbnb, adjusts the rate by day or week or whatever the other competitive houses are. So it would make your house more competitive and probably less cheap in some cases.
Speaker 2:So for some reason there's a bill in to prevent that. So that's again senate bill 609. I would look that up. Um, here's short-term rentals and home amenity rentals, health and safety requirements. This bill would establish all kinds of health and safety and it may be a good thing, right. Like I'm not as familiar with the short-term rental market that's not really, you know my bailiwick but it establishes you can't have cameras in there and surveillance inside the home, and I think that's really fair.
Speaker 1:I actually super agree with that.
Speaker 4:I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I don't want somebody putting a camera in my hotel room. I don't want somebody putting a camera in my area.
Speaker 1:I'm surprised that's not already a law, not that cameras outside like a ring camera which I think is okay, but inside that's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's invading privacy a little bit and this requires a short-term rental owners to submit an annual report. The comptroller includes short-term rental units and platforms in the definition of hotel for local hotel rental tax purposes, so it would apply the hotel tax depending on your jurisdiction, you know do you guys have control over like state licenses too, and like the contractor license, like in florida?
Speaker 4:that falls in our system yeah, florida, it's really hard to get your contract license.
Speaker 2:Me and ron were talking about that the other day, so uh I, I put a bill in two years ago specifically around, uh, veterans. Um, it turned into a study that we're still waiting for the results back. Because west virginia if you have a trade in the military and you go to West Virginia and you take a test basically a competency test you get to pass everything by and go right to work. So I'm trying to do that here in Maryland for for the trades, our laws are so wonky and so convoluted that it went into a study. So they're studying what our laws are and how to do this and once I get the results back, I'm going to put a series of bills in that allows veterans to go, if they've done that type of work in the military, to be able to take a test and go right to work here in Maryland.
Speaker 4:So that would affect that. That's one piece of it. But yeah, I have another question, just because you're talking about veterans, what else are you pushing along for veterans? Because I mean, in this area there's a ton right Like half the people I meet one in five are veterans.
Speaker 2:So I'm really blessed. So I'm vice chair of the House Veterans Caucus. I was the Maryland Military Coalition, which is the organization that all the other military organizations that makes up the VFW and American Legion and all the officer association all make up the Maryland Military Coalition. I was their legislator the year last year for my work on veterans. I'm really, really proud of that. Um, I've passed a variety of bills. I passed a bill last year that reduces the threshold for the veterans disability tag to 50%. So if you're 50% disabled as of right now because of my bill, you can now get a disabled veterans tag.
Speaker 4:I'm missing that right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can now get a disabled veterans tag. I'm missing that right now. Yeah, you know, right now um I, uh, I'm. I passed a bill last year that gives free um hunting and fishing licenses to uh unemployed veterans rated unemployable, which is different than 100 disabled um. I would build this year the same thing for free vehicle registrations for unemployable veterans that I think is going to pass as well. The bill is looking at and assessing how we can get veterans in the trades right to work here in Maryland. It fills a lot of needs and a lot of holes there.
Speaker 4:Where can veterans find the stuff that you're passing On?
Speaker 2:the website I just gave.
Speaker 2:The General Assembly website, the General Assembly website, and you can contact me as well. I've introduced another bill this year to remove the age restriction on the exemption on military retirement tax from 55 to no minimums Because you can retire at 38. Right, you know what I mean. If I stay now, I'll retire at 38. So I probably have several other bills. I have a bill right now that will counter uh military retirement your, your military years in military uh bill I just introduced today. Um, your military years will count towards your state pension if you're a state, state or county employee that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's one of my bills this year.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's a host, I mean a couple dozen federally bills that I've introduced've introduced and I've passed some. So, no, I fight my tail off. For others.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely, Definitely going to be reaching out to you. I mean, there's a lot of stuff on the Internet that I looked up and I always thought it was 100% to get your disability tax.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 3:Now it's 50% of october 1 of last year because of my bill. That's awesome. I got a question a little off the topic of, uh, what we have been discussing, but do you know the rules or laws around opening a dispensary?
Speaker 2:uh, that's not my uh um strong suit cup of tea, because, because general assembly is a bit of, uh, divide and conquer, right, like there's a lot of, we're gonna have 3 500 bills, probably in general, some of this year, 3 500 last year and so on, right, so that's not something that I'm super involved in, so I can't really gotcha the reason he's asking?
Speaker 1:because one of our buddies said that in order to get one here, you have to be connected to like some sort of politician.
Speaker 2:Essentially, I can't help you with that. I don't I know the answer to that, so gotcha, I can tell you I can't help you with that all right, this is my last question.
Speaker 4:How many bills get passed each year?
Speaker 2:uh, some usually between eight, nine hundred question.
Speaker 4:Think about that to nine hundred jesus, I don't know, I can't read that much is there a limit that doesn't include?
Speaker 2:no, there's no limit and that doesn't include the budget, which is a huge, huge, 67 billion dollar piece of legislation. Right, yeah?
Speaker 1:to go back to the budget real quick you just said. You said before um, we as a state have to have a balanced budget, as as required by the state constitution. So, but the federal government doesn't, no, because we just keep borrowing, correct. So when they say like states, like New York, right, new York, I feel like they have a problem with affordability. I'm from New York originally. Most people that worked as a blue collar middle income type of person does not retire in new york, right?
Speaker 1:so somebody in maryland right in new york, I think, is even a more of the case, because it's just so crazy, crazy expensive. Yeah, but somebody like, uh, my parents who retired to del, delaware to pay less taxes or people that go to Florida now.
Speaker 1:My dad worked for the state, for the railroad. He collected, you know, and still is collecting pension from New York, sure, but spending it in Delaware where people are spending it in Florida, those states cannot be net positive or even net zero. Like. How are they like? New York is famously like spent. I feel like spending more than they.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's why they tax more, right, because states like Maryland think we can tax our way out of our financial problems. Right, so we give more entitlements, we give more services, right, so we tax people's retirements. We tax people at a higher rate. They leave, but instead of making cuts, they just tax the people that remain at a higher rate. And that's what happens over and over and over again. And there's a bit of a dependency on federal employees that are kind of stuck here to some extent.
Speaker 2:But we had, I think what was the number? It was either 20 or 40,000, 20,000 Marylanders moved to Virginia last year. Right, those are federal employees, those are people that live in a DC area. That are people that should be living in Maryland, paying taxes in Maryland, spending, you know, going to our restaurants, using our hospitality, right? They're going to Virginia because it's a lot cheaper to live there, right? So Virginia is cleaning our clock right now, and that's just for people actively working Retirees.
Speaker 2:We have no hope to keep these folks, right? I mean, we taxed military retirement in Maryland, right? Think about that. So, oh, and here's another bill. This is a good one. So right now, the residency requirement is six months, right? So if you live in another state for six months and a day, you pay their taxes. There's a bill in front of us we heard and had the bill here the other day That'll increase in Maryland to nine months. So you have to live in another state for nine months not to pay Maryland taxes. So buckle up for that. I assume you might be one of those people that might spend half the year in Florida.
Speaker 1:No, not half. I'm here. Shame on you. I'm the winter. Shame on you. I winter away.
Speaker 2:Listen, if I could afford it, I'd have a place in Florida. Now I have to be a Maryland residentland resident, obviously too, so I couldn't do that. But when I'm done, this, you know, you know political stuff. I mean, like I love maryland, I grew up here, I think maryland's the best state in the country, but we've made it so I can't afford to retire here. You know, I mean, and I want to say and one of the reasons general something's I'm fighting. I've said I'm fighting to give me the opportunity to retire here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. That's a good fight too.
Speaker 3:You know, like you grew up here, you want to stay here, but the state's going to push you out when we get to that age and it's not affordable anymore that's right, that's what's happening?
Speaker 1:yeah, I guess I've always been in the camp of just like make more, but there's so many people that are not in that camp to be able to just stay, because I feel like if you want to stay, you you figure it out kind of thing, but it does make sense, like places like new york and places especially when you retire.
Speaker 2:right now my incomes are fixed, generally speaking, right, I have my pension and this and the other right, and I can stay in maryland where it's getting taxed to death, where I can go to Florida where it's not taxed. I mean it's a and I'm getting the same pension because the amount's not changing. It's just what the government's taking is different and it has to hurt the state when people leave. Which is why they raise more taxes on all of us. Those that are left behind have to pay more taxes.
Speaker 1:So it basically all kind of falls down to the people that are owning the businesses making the most money.
Speaker 2:And, frankly, the people that can't leave. It hurts the people the most that don't have the economic mobility to be able to relocate, which is typically middle to lower income. Folks, who are the ones who carry at the end of the day carry most of the burden because, even though they have a bunch of tax breaks, they're still paying sales tax, they're still paying gas tax, they're still paying higher electricity costs, etc. Etc. Higher insurance costs, you know, higher vehicle registration fees. So even though the lower income folks get taxed a lower rate, they're still paying all the main taxes that everybody else pays, but they just can't afford to leave. Yeah, did you see? And doubly so, because they will never be able to get over the hump to be able to ever afford leave because they're so burdened with all the different taxes we have here did you see that uh trump introduced a bill, I guess, to put to put a stop to federal income tax.
Speaker 2:I got to be honest, like when I'm in the middle of a slave session. It is such chaos with what we're facing here, I've not even had really the bandwidth. Look what's going on generally federally.
Speaker 1:So state income tax is that something that you guys talk about?
Speaker 2:I mean I would love to. I love state income tax. Are you kidding me? I mean that's not going talk about. I mean I would love to. I love the state income tax. Are you kidding me? I mean that's not going to happen, right? I mean this conversation. Because our neighbor right, delaware, doesn't have a state income tax Right and that's not going to happen because we've put forth so much mandatory spending legislation that there's no way so it's not worth us writing an email to.
Speaker 2:And we've got to find $3 billion more by the end of.
Speaker 4:March, like as a state? Yeah, what happens if we don't?
Speaker 2:We will. We have to by law. We're going to find that $3 billion, whether it's from cuts, but most likely out of Marylanders' pockets. Cuts meaning spending cuts yes, cuts, but we're most likely out of marylanders pockets.
Speaker 1:cuts meaning spending cuts like yes, but we, but we're not I the there's some talk that they're spending cuts, but the budget's actually higher. What happened? All the gambling money? Oh, spent. Yeah, wasn't it supposed to be spent on the school?
Speaker 2:and they're trying to raise the tax. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, uh, that's a whole different conversation. So, yeah, uh, racing gaming's my committee education's. Wasn't it supposed to be spent on the schools? And they're trying to raise the tax? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a whole different conversation. So, yeah, racing gaming is my committee Education is my committee Taxes is my committee, so I deal with all these issues.
Speaker 4:You said racing.
Speaker 2:Racing gaming is my committee Horse racing. Horse racing.
Speaker 1:Horse racing. Okay, so because they started doing sports betting here. Yep, nick knows all about that.
Speaker 2:Now they're trying to do iGaming, which is, you know, table games online. That's another thing they're trying to push right now.
Speaker 1:So isn't that a crazy way to just like make a bunch of money?
Speaker 2:I mean, you got people spending a bunch of money on gambling, but the thing is, a lot of times the money is spent before the bill's even passed. You know what I mean, which is one of the fascinating things. Like the cannabis money was spent and already dedicated to something else before the bill even became law. They already said we're going to spend it on x, y and z right. So like. One of the proposals in front of us is to raise taxes on the casinos. There's a casino in maryland that 50 of their gross revenue goes to the state not the fed, the state Not the Fed, the state.
Speaker 3:Which one?
Speaker 2:I don't remember offhand, there's only six casinos, but I remember looking at the report as we're getting the briefing on this, because they're trying to raise taxes on casinos once again, because it could keep going back to the well Damn.
Speaker 1:There's so much to know, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:And, frankly, we are scratching the surface. But I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about this and how all these things the ripple effects, every policy decision. Again to go back to the beginning anytime we spend money ultimately ends up in the laps of citizens and landlords and investors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've definitely opened my eyes to. Uh, it's funny. I mean, I guess somebody linked us together to get you on the show, or whatever and I was just like what the hell is a state delegate? That's.
Speaker 4:That was my first like thing, and now I'm like, wow, I need to know way more about what I feel, like that's affecting our lives way more than is there like one day a month that we could just get together and just come down to. Annapolis.
Speaker 2:I'd love to have you guys down, you know, and then, if you want to do a, we get together after sessions over and do a post-session recap, a damage assessment.
Speaker 1:We can do that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah After action. We haven't ever talked about politics on the show or like really pushed it at all, but this isn't politics, right?
Speaker 2:We're not talking about politics. Just to be clear for everybody who's watching. We're talking policy and there's a difference. Politics is bomb-throwing and yelling at each other and shaming everybody, right? This is policy conversations, right Right and lawmaking, and this is really not nearly as partisan as politics is. This is trying to do the right thing, trying to make good decisions, trying to make people successful and thrive, and and when you tax them to death, it doesn't have that net effect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good point all right, so we'll have a second session after your session.
Speaker 4:Let's go, we'll have a second yeah, I think we should have some investors come together and meet up with we have a summit, a panel. That would be sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be kind of cool. All right, Well, keep your eye out for that, Mike. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. We really appreciate all this stuff. Thank you Again. Could you give us Contact your email once more?
Speaker 2:yeah, mikegriffith at housestatemdus. Yeah, that's a mouthful, I know, okay, and that's anybody uh in your constituency or outside any of you can reach out to me. I'm happy to help, uh, and if it's a matter where I need to refer somebody to their legislator, I I'm happy to do that, and are people.
Speaker 1:are all the states set up the same way?
Speaker 2:Generally, yeah, I mean yeah, it's just like the federal government, state government. You have the House Senate and the executive branch in DC, that's the president. Here, it's the governor House Senate and then, of course, the judicial branch, which is the Supreme Court of Maryland Senate and then, of course, the judicial branch, which is the Supreme court of Maryland, you know, okay, great, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, mike. Um, you guys have anything else to?
Speaker 3:I appreciate you coming on. It was great information.
Speaker 1:I learned a lot. I know it's a busy time for you, right?
Speaker 2:now no, but I this. This is a real treat for me. This is kind.
