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From Pedicures to Properties: My Journey with Leo

Judith:[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered how I meet my clients? Well, today we're gonna talk with my friend and client, Leo, about how we met and how I have worked with him and what kind of, I mean, I've worked with him. He's done work with me. As you can see, we're in a nail salon. So this is Leo. I call him Leo. That's not his like official name.

So your official name is?

Leo: Lee

Judith: Lee.

Okay. And tell me, a little bit about what you do. What kind of work do you do?

Leo: So I am a nail salon owner. I've been so for the last eight years or so. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we do everything from nails to pedicures to waxing. We're looking to expand and, you know, do other services as well.

So we're working on that. Hopefully in the upcoming year here we'll have a, either a massage therapist or, or a massage. Yeah. Either massage therapist or, you know, even an [00:01:00] aesthetician, you know, this eyelashes or facials and stuff like that, so, oh, yeah. Awesome. We're, we're currently expanding a little bit, you know, built some more rooms for it.

You know. Good, good. Upgraded a little bit.

Judith: Yeah. You've changed a lot since I originally met you, so

Leo: I've come a long way since then. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes.

Judith: So I originally met Leo in 2018, the summer of, and we have a funny story.

It's kind of embarrassing.

But we met in the summer of 2018. Right. So they had just opened their salon.

And I'm gonna start the story and then Leo can tie it up. So, a friend of mine was here visiting me from Minnesota and we were on our way up to Jerome, of course, to spend the day. And she's like, I wanna treat you to a pedicure and a manicure. And I'm like, okay. And so she just kind of got on her phone and was just looking for salons and obviously it was a very last minute thing.

And it was on the weekend in the summer. Okay. Pedicures everything. [00:02:00] And we found Leo's shop, L&N Nails, and she called and he was able to get us in later in the afternoon.

Leo: Right.

Judith: So we arrived, my girlfriend and I, and we started with the pedicures and my girlfriend. Just unloaded on Leo.

So

tell us what did she share?

Leo: If I remember correctly, it was about some crazy past relationship, or Well, the current guy. Yes. Yeah. So, there's a lot of like, you know, Dr. Love advice going on and what, how she should be doing it and direction she's going, and oh my God, all these red flags were popping up for the current guy that she was, you know, she was thinking about.

Yeah. So it was nuts. Totally. So, yeah, that was a very, colorful conversation, if you will. And,

Judith: and Leo, you just

rolled with it. I was, I'm sitting in my chair, my girlfriend's sitting in this chair and he sat down doing our feet and I'm like. I was so embarrassed. I'm like, oh my Lord, how could she be sharing this kind of information, number [00:03:00] one to anyone, number two to a guy.

And Leo just rolled with it. He just like, he gave the best advice. I'm telling you, I was just blown away.

Leo: It happens. It

happens so often. Isn't it funny? We're, you know, we're the. We're the bartenders of, you know, of, of the feet, world, of the feet. The queen nail world. Yeah, this is true. That is

Judith: so funny.

So a lot

Leo: of people open up to us all the time. I mean, it's, and it's, you know, it sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's crazy, you know?

Judith: That was

crazy. That left an impression. 'cause that was in 2018. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're talking. Eight years ago.

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: Oh my God. I can't believe

Leo: how, how is her?

Judith: She's great.

She's figured it out more or less.

Leo: That's good. That's a good thing. It's wonderful. She's much better now.

Judith: Yes. She's, I'm very proud of her. She's doing great.

Leo: Good.

Judith: So, yeah, when you, when I first met you, it was my girlfriend just impulsively calling and you and [00:04:00] Nancy, your. Fiance? Wife, partner. Wife. Yeah.

Partner. Yeah. Okay. Wife. Yeah. Okay. So I forget

Leo: sometimes she, like, sometimes she, you know, adopts me. Sometimes she doesn't, you know, sometimes. I know, I know. Well, you've gone

Judith: through a lot in, in the eight years that I've known you. Yeah. And so you had just opened your shop and it was you and Nancy.

Leo: Yep.

Judith: And.

She could barely speak English. It was so funny. She was so funny. But she has now become a US citizen. Yes.

Leo: Yes, she has recently. Yes. That is so exciting. Yeah.

Judith: So I feel like I've just been on this crazy kind of journey with you guys. Yeah. Who went from two kids to five

Leo: Right.

Judith: In the time I've known you.

Lots of babies. Yeah. And then the funny thing that happened, so. We met with the whole nail thing. Right. And I don't know if I came back and was still getting my nails done at that time I lived in Dewey. But another realtor referred you and Nancy to me Yeah. To help you buy your first home.

Leo: Right.

Judith: And I walk, we [00:05:00] met at like a Safeway at the coffee shop, and I walked up to you guys and I went, I know you. And they're like, we know you too. So again, small world. Back together. And that sort of just kind of cemented it. Yeah. And then, that was right. So that was in 2019 and we started,

Leo: we started, we started the whole process.

Yes. Um, you know, getting all my information and

Judith: yes,

Leo: making sure that everything was, you know, pretty much getting dotted and crossed and. To prep us for the first house. Yes. As we, you know, before we started searching. Yeah. So, yeah. Yes,

Judith: there was a lot, lot of preparation. 'cause you're self-employed,

Leo: right.

Judith: So that makes it a little more challenging. Right. 'cause you've gotta be two years.

Leo: It was, yeah, it was two years. And as you know, we just, we had just opened, so like our income wasn't like exactly exploding, so, right. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so it was, look at today. Yeah.

Judith: It's like, awesome. So, yeah, that, that's sort of something self-employed people have to really keep in [00:06:00] mind is that you've gotta be, you've gotta have two years of solid income,

Leo: right.

Judith: Tax. Documents, to show that you can, you have money, right? To buy a house.

Leo: And it's, it's in this industry, it was so hard because mm-hmm. You know, oh

Judith: my God. Remember the receipts?

Leo: Yeah. Because our machine was down for a while.

Judith: Because it was during COVID. Yeah, it

Leo: was, it was at the like. Before COVID was COVID.

Right. Because it's 2019. So like, right. So it was sort of

Judith: like halfway into moving into Yeah, it was,

Leo: yeah. We're, I think we started back in like, I wanna say October, November. And so then it was just, it, it was already like, kind of in the air, but it wasn't a big deal yet. Right. And people were like getting sick, but not really sick and people weren't freaking out and everything yet.

So

Judith: we didn't have

the whole mask. Right. Was six feet. Right. And closing down businesses. Right. This is, so this is pretty Right.

Leo: A lot of

pre COVID, you know, like. You know, barely touching on it. Our machine had went down because, God, what had happened, I, I don't know. They, they met, [00:07:00] they updated our software and the messed up.

Judith: Of course. Yeah. You know, technology. Gotta love it. Hate it. Yeah. So

Leo: it messed up. And then, so. We were doing book receipts. Yeah. Oh my God. Old school ones.

Judith: You had to, you had to,

because you had to prove where your money was coming from. Exactly. So I could give it to my accountant. 'cause a lot of it is, yeah, well obviously at that point it was all either check or cash, which again, you question that, you know, we make sure they're not drug lords or anything, you know?

But you're getting the money from the bad places. Yeah. I

Leo: don't know how the shady dealings in the back. Yeah. And you're like,

Judith: what the heck?

Leo: Yeah, you're like

Judith: looking for receipt books and stuff. Oh my god. So you're like writing the seats. It was nuts. That was crazy. And then. COVID happened,

Leo: right?

Judith: So we're in the middle of looking for houses and you know, we're looking, we hadn't really found anything yet, but suddenly COVID happened and your business got shut down.

Leo: Yep. Yeah, we were shut down for

Judith: no, no more

Leo: month and a half. Yeah. Yeah. That was crazy. Yeah. And it was really slow down. It was, it was

Judith: frustrating as [00:08:00] heck. It was. 'cause we couldn't do anything. Nope. We couldn't. And, and you couldn't even, I mean, even if you had qu had all your qualifications in place.

Leo: Yeah.

It didn't matter. You had

Judith: no current income. Yeah. And that kind of gets the underwriters a little sketchy. It was what, how are you gonna pay for this mortgage?

Leo: Right.

Judith: Um, so that was challenging.

Leo: Right.

Judith: So your first home experience. Tell me what that was. I mean, you went through a lot. How was

Leo: that? Oh man.

Judith: How did we work through that? How was that for you? And working with me through that.

Leo: I mean, we must still went through God a hundred houses. We were just looking through houses. We were looking in the area and then like, yeah, there was, there wasn't really anything that was like hitting all of our specific needs at the, at the budget that we had because of, you know, 'cause of what we only had to spend because Right.

Of the whole COVID thing. Right. And then

Judith: what else happened because of COVID?

What happened with the housing market?

Leo: Oh, the housing market was crap. [00:09:00] Everything was go getting gobbled up. Mm-hmm.

Judith: It was like gone. It was all, all gone. It was

Leo: God. It was like before you could like hit the market and all of a sudden it was in contention already.

Contention already. It was, yes. So like, even if we found something all of a sudden, like two days later, we're like, oh yeah, hey, let's go walk that house. And you're like, no, we can't because it's, I mean, we can, but there'd be no point because it's already like somebody's already got a, you know, is is already talking.

It's gone. Yeah, it's gone. So, so we had to step out of our, our, our area a little bit.

Judith: Yeah, yeah, that's right. We did, we, we were originally looking, 'cause you're off, your business is in Cottonwood.

Leo: Right.

Judith: And so we were looking in Cottonwood. In Clarkdale. In Clarkdale. Yeah. And a little bit, no, I don't think we really lived in Cornville.

'cause there was only anything in your price range there in corn there. I think there

Leo: was a couple places in Cornville, but it was like way back in like. Off the kind of road a little bit. It was back, I can't remember that. Yeah, [00:10:00] it was, yeah, it was way back there. I mean, we looked at a couple houses. It was way back there.

Judith: I know we looked at a lot of manufactured homes too,

Leo: right? Yeah. There was a couple manufactured homes that was out there that were like, you know what? It's okay, but it's not really this spacious and, you know, us like building on our family. Yeah. Because by the time, we started talking about it, I already had one other kid and then she was pregnant with another one.

Judith: Yes.

Leo: Yeah. COVID baby. So yeah. So it was COVID baby. That was, that was COVID baby. Yeah.

Judith: So we got through, did you buy the house in 2020?

Leo: We did buy the house in 20. We did. I trying remember

Judith: because. We've done several, so that's why I'm like track. So we

Leo: bought, bought it July, or actually I think that we went, we found the house in July and by the time August, September came around, we were finally able to close.

Judith: Yes. And the cool thing is the cool thing. So all of this searching, all of these barriers, a new business, COVID the market, [00:11:00] being insane, trying to find something in their price point before somebody else took it. We ended up, they ended up, you guys ended up in a great house. Oh

Leo: yeah.

Judith: It was a new build, brand new house.

They got a brand new house. It was in Rimrock. It was in rock in the subdivision. Right. Nice, cute subdivision. I remember taking you guys out there to look at it and they had. A clubhouse area and then they had a walking trail.

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: And I was like, oh my God, the views here are amazing. So you guys were thinking, they were thinking, what do we wanna do?

You know, it's kind of far out there. And I said, you guys go, just walk the trail and just, I'll follow up with you later. Yeah. And so they went and walked this like one mile trail in the subdivision. It was so sweet. They were holding your hands.

They were so cute.

And, I called you later and you're like, yeah, we wanna put an offer in.

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: So that was pretty good. I think there was also an issue with, they were getting gift money. 'cause again, they're first time home buyers Right. For my mom. And the hard part that's,

Leo: yeah.

Judith: Yeah. So the hard part of [00:12:00] buying a house when you're a first time home buyer, unless it's a VA loan, which you can do a hundred percent loan, is you gotta come up with money for the down payment.

So on an FHA, the minimum is three and a half, and your lender. Decides how much you gotta bring a lot of times, and it's not always just three and a half, it could be more, but because you were getting money from someone who was overseas.

Leo: Right.

Judith: So talk about how that whole thing went.

Leo: Yeah. We were getting, money from, well, my, my mom.

I borrowed money from people from overseas, so it was going into her account and then going into mine. Ah. And, and so we had to

Judith: So overseas where? Over Vietnam. Oh, Vietnam. Yes. Vietnam. Vietnam. Over

Leo: in Vietnam. Yeah. We, I got some family back in Vietnam, so we were getting a portion of money from over there.

Judith: and that

made it even trickier. Yeah. Because it is out of the country considered foreign money. Right. So and so

Leo: we had to, I think that's why it took so long was 'cause we had to wait for the money to, season. Season, yeah. Season. I didn't wanna word. I'm like, it's not a season. I'm like, what kind of season [00:13:00] are we putting on this?

Yeah. Yeah. So I remember after I first heard, I was like, ah, okay, season. Like you tell 'em about you need like old money. I'm like, all right. So some money that's got,

Judith: something's been rubbed on, some dirts on it, you know? So

Leo: yeah. So we had to we had to wait.

Judith: Three months.

Leo: Yeah,

Judith: it has, I think it's three months.

I could be wrong, but it was a long wait there. Yeah, it was long wait to, that's why we, we had to wait for it to get seasoned. Right. And then at that point we could close. Was the house being built while we were Yes. It was in process. It was,

Leo: it was, I believe it was in process. And there was just a couple of Yes.

Which that

Judith: actually worked to our favor. Yeah. '

Leo: cause then, it stretched out the time we didn't need to close right away. Exactly. Exactly. And so, yeah, so it took, you know, it took a hot minute. And they were just, they did, they were just doing little last minute touchups. Uh, if I remember like some electricals and

Judith: Yeah, remember the bathroom?

Leo: Oh yeah. We like, and I'm like

Judith: the light switches. We, we had a home inspection done. Always do one on a new build regardless, because then it's what they [00:14:00] call a punch list for the builder. These things are not working or whatever. So we did that. The home inspector sells us. The light switch is in the bathroom.

The primary bathroom we're not working. Right. Yeah. And we told them and they fought with me about it. The general contractor argued with me about it. I'm like, so on the walkthrough, he says, we go in the bathroom and he's like, these lights aren't working. And I'm like,

we

told you that. I'm so,

Leo: yeah.

Judith: Not, not real happy with how they handled things.

No. And they did not leave any paperwork for you about the house. Oh, no blueprints. No nothing. No nothing. Yeah. No, nothing. It was,

Leo: and they fought about

this on that too. They fought us to the very end. Like,

Judith: this is his house. These are mean nothing. They left you nothing. Yeah. So that was just an experience I would rather not do again.

Leo: Right. Well, you know, I didn't, this is my first home, so I didn't know what I was expecting, what I was supposed to be getting. And then, you told me all these things, they're like, Hey, they're supposed to leave you this, they're supposed to leave you that. And I was all like, oh yeah, sure. They left [00:15:00] me a house, which I paid them for, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, it wasn't the, the house itself wasn't, you know, the builder itself wasn't the greatest thing about everything. You know, especially 'cause we had like things that were, that needed to be replaced and it never came back. And, I mean, but I mean. Besides all that though, you know, the hunting and the buying and, and the walkthrough.

Everything was so nice, like cool, you know? Yeah. We ended up adding, didn't have to add offense to it. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's for my dog. My crazy dog. Yes. Oh my God.

Judith: Their dog scares me and I, and I am a dog person. Dogs love me. Their dog is psychotic.

Leo: Yeah, my dog is all guard. Scary dog. Yeah. No, nobody walks into the house, so

Judith: No, you do not

wanna walk into their house.

Their dog will take you down. It's vicious. But she says he's a nice dog. Nice to your family. Yeah,

Leo: he, he's a one pack dog, I guess.

Judith: I guess. Scary. So we did that whole thing. We got you into your new house [00:16:00] out in Rimrock. Yeah. And that went really well. And I started coming to you guys on a regular basis. I was driving from Dewey over here to Cottonwood to have my nails done, pedicures.

'cause I just love these guys. And I have to say that they, oh. Just the way that their salon runs. It's not all. How do I say that? It's just more low key. It's friendly. It feels like you're having family doing now. We're not, we not pushing, we're

Leo: not pushing people out. We're

Judith: Oh, and they're not pushing five for this, five for that.

Leo: Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely not

upselling, you know?

if you want it, do we try to make it comfortable?

We try to make it comfortable. We make it, try to make it like you haven't left your house yet, you know, like,

Judith: right. And you do. It's great. Like how it used

Leo: to be like you. You had nail parties back in the days.

Right. So Right,

Judith: right, right. This is

Leo: kind of how we wanted to, to keep it. So it's a lot of, sometimes a lot of vulgar language going on, but a lot of, you know, but it's busy and, it's busy. Yeah.

Judith: People talk to each other when they come in here. It's,

Leo: it's not a silent, it's not, definitely

not a silent shop.

Judith: No, not at all. And you know, they may or may [00:17:00] not have TV on or whatever, but it's like. We kind of jump into each other's conversations a lot of times. Oh,

Leo: too. Oh yeah. It's like, oh, I know you, but i's so have things

Judith: to say.

Leo: So like, I want it to be like something like that came out the movies, you know, like when you, when you hear about going into a nail salon cheer Yeah.

It's like cheers. Exactly. Yeah. You go to a nail salon, they're start, you know, everybody's all gossiping and talking and you know, any hair salon Nelson, like your fifties. Exactly. So that's, that's how we like to, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's, that is the, the ambiance of the mood that we're trying to set.

Judith: And it does.

It's great. And you guys have gone through so many changes. Not only have I, okay, so you had the house. So as I'm, I'm getting to know Leo and Nancy, and they're kids now. They have five,

Leo: we are up to five now. And they're so cute. And we're done.

Judith: And they're, they're so cute though. They're

totally the cutest and,

I'm, you know, coming, getting my nails done. I'm, I mean, I'm watching their business evolve as well. 'cause it's how it looks today. I'm looking around at it and I'm like, this is not at all what it looked like [00:18:00] when I first started. Oh no. It's completely changed and you've spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out how to expand.

Yep. How to bring in more, it's hard to keep nail technicians. So I think your current situation is really working out pretty good.

Leo: Yeah, we've, I've changed it up a little bit from, having employees to, just doing kind of like how hair salons do in their rent out stations and Yeah, I thought that was a great idea.

Yeah. So, just kinda like how in their real estate game, they want you to have skin in the game and, you know, and people stick around longer and that concept works. You know, so, it, it lets everybody know that, you know, you're, you're part of the deal. Like

Judith: exactly. They have an investment financially

Leo: invested, right?

Yeah. You're financially invested. You're not just gonna skip town and. Or you know, even just be like, oh yeah, I just wanted to walk new houses just to see what I could have bought.

Judith: Oh, I know. That is so annoying. Sorry. Yeah. What do I call, what do I call that?

I

call that I'm not a monkey. Opening doors.

Yeah. Sorry. People. If you just wanna look [00:19:00] at houses, I can tell you where all the open houses is are at any given time, you just go and look. You wanna look in Sedona, there's always open houses. Go look at those million dollar houses. But don't don't call me just to look at houses. I am not a monkey. Open doors.

Leo: Yeah,

Judith: I'm an I'm a professional. You are a professional and I think

Leo: beauty is

business.

Judith: Treating

treating, your current, partners, I guess I'm trying to call them. Yeah. As they're part of this and they've invested in it as well. You've got your wall of nail stuff. They've gotten their wall of nail stuff.

Yeah. And I just helped them buy a house, which was pretty cool. And I seen that celebrated birthday over there.

Leo: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Yeah, we celebrated a birthday over there. We did. I love

Judith: it. So. Back to your house buying journey. Yeah. So then is it three years ago now? 2022? Yeah. It's been three years.

You were in your house for two years, right? And they're like, we have five children. They were driving [00:20:00] and yes, their business is in Cottonwood and they were driving their kids to school. And as their kids are getting older and more busy Yeah. And activities, it's like this is a lot of driving. 'cause from Rimrock to here is about 30 minutes, 35 minutes.

Leo: Yeah, if you, something like that. Yeah. If, if you don't get stuck behind a slow moving truck. Yeah. A slow moving truck. 'cause it's, you know, mostly just two lanes. Yeah. It's two lanes one way when you're down or the other one it's just full of roundabouts, which is just as annoying. Sorry. Yeah. I kind of like roundabout.

Yeah, exactly. You know, but you know, it's, it is you, it's a lot.

Judith: It's a lot when you have a lot of kids. Yeah. And your business is in this town. Uh, it just.

Leo: And it was a queen town, you know, it was a queen town. There was, but there was a lot of downfalls. So it, like, it's quiet, but there wasn't a lot of, there's not a lot of shopping.

There's not like necessity shopping, not just, you know, any other type of shopping, but

Judith: Okay. So you're in Rimrock and Yeah, you're right. There's not a lot of shopping. It's, it's [00:21:00] very rural. It's beautiful though.

Leo: It's

beautiful and it's, it's gorgeous, you know, it's, like I said, I would recommend it for anybody who's trying to retire or you know, who, who wants that.

You know, like that quiet life, works from home. I mean, yeah, work from home to drive. You're not Yeah, you're not constantly trying to go into town every single day. You know? It was, like I said, it was, it was a great first home. I mean, it was, it was if, if, if I didn't have a gajillion kids and all their gajillion activities, you know?

Yes.

Judith: Yes, you do. So then we put your house on the market. We did in 2022 and the market was still hot in 2022. We put it on, I think that summer, like we, we crossed the two year line. Yeah. So we put it on the market and did open houses, did some showings, and then finally got an offer.

Leo: Right. And

Judith: it was pretty decent, you know?

Yeah. It went pretty well and it went pretty well. At

Leo: first it was a lot of people were kind of low balling us,

Judith: so. [00:22:00] Got under contract, sold your house, but we were looking for another Oh, crumbs. That's right. We ran into an issue. Yeah. Getting you into another house. Right. And out of talk about that, what was that experience like?

Leo: That was totally nuts 'cause the market had just blown up and it was, it was a lot more expensive than, so the, the housing was, was blowing up and, it was just as bad because people were, were, were, this is post COVID, so a lot of people from OUTTA state, namely California, who were selling their little shacks for a million dollars and then coming over here and, you know, gobbling, everything, you know, with cash and the Airbnb business.

Oh yeah. It started booming and so, yep. She had, yeah. So, all these houses that skyrocketing were like, just. It was almost atrocious. On, on, on what?

Judith: We were kind of

back in the same boat that we were before. Yeah. Trying to get you into something that was in your price range that you were comfortable with.

Right. And you know, the down payment and [00:23:00] all that type of thing. So you ended up, and I don't remember how long it was in an Airbnb, you had to rent a vacation rental. Oh yeah. With five kids

Leo: for two months.

Judith: For two. Oh, was it two months? It was two

Leo: months. It was, oh my gosh. It was almost like. 15 grand worth of Oh, it was, it was crazy.

Oh, oh my God.

Judith: Even down

payment money or clothes. It was, yeah. You know, it was like, we gotta get him in a house. So we finally found the house. Yeah.

Leo: Because we were trying to, I. We were, we were trying to have us rent at the house out while we're still looking for the other house. But the people who bought it were not, yeah, they weren't.

They were, they weren't, were, they weren't willing.

Judith: They were household to, and they're like, we need to move in. Yeah. It

was like there was no post. Yeah. No. So you had to move out. Yeah. And yeah, that was, it was tough. Again, these guys have not had the easiest experience with, buying homes.

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: So what we ended up doing is continuing to look, [00:24:00] so we continued to look And you wanted something definitely in Cottonwood,

Leo: right?

This time we looked

Judith: in Clarkdale too. That's not too far away. Yeah. But there just weren't a lot of houses in the price point you wanted. And you also were looking at maybe having a space to rent out to people. Right. So income. So you have like a little extra income. Right. So we found where you currently are.

So now they bought a house, sold a house lived, lived in a vacation rental for a couple months with five children and a crazy psycho dog. Yeah. Yeah. I don't say that completely. Like their dog scares me and I scare easily. So we found the house you're in today, right? So that had

Leo: a detach, two bedroom, one bath mother-in-law kind of suite.

Yeah. And it's, it's super cute. Yeah. Yeah. And it's on like the back half of like the property. So, so nobody knows it's even there. It's, it's kind of secluded in its own little way, so, uh mm-hmm.

Judith: Mm-hmm. And you can access, it has its own access from the alley, [00:25:00] right?

Leo: There's, there's, there's an access, you know, its, yeah, it's like a municipal access alley kind of.

Where like, the water and the electrical people. Yeah, the utility. Yeah, the utility. Yeah. That's what, so yeah. So, so that's, that's what made it even tougher, I believe, at the time. 'cause we're looking for something that was, you know, that could be, that could be generated income.

Judith: Right, exactly. You know?

Exactly.

Leo: To help us, uh, offset the mortgage. Yeah.

The mortgage, which, you know, at the time was. Was getting higher because, you know, the rates were up. Competition. Yeah, the competition was up. Competition, yeah.

Judith: Rates were starting to go up a little bit. Yeah. But

it was mostly the competition and, wanting to stay in this specific area close to where the kids' schools and activities were, where your work is.

Right? I mean, literally you could walk

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: To and from your house to here.

Leo: I

have. Okay, so close. There's been days, it's close. There's been days when I've been in the dog house and she's like, you can go ahead and walk to work now. And I'm like, oh, okay. Okay. There we go. Bad boy. You're a bad boy some [00:26:00] days.

She likes that. Yes.

Judith: Okay, we've digressed here. Okay, so with that, knowing we are kind of coming to the end of our time, is there anything that, as far as what you would have, like what was the best part about the whole experience other than getting the house?

Leo: I think that, if you're planning to buy a house, definitely like it.

Try not to do it on a rush, you know, a rush deal, you know, 'cause it does take a lot of potential time nowadays. I don't know how it was.

Judith: It always takes time, you know, like to make a good decision, you know. But

Leo: if you're definitely, if you're doing like a, a, a first time buyer, you know, or you're, you know, moving out.

Kinda, yeah, you, you definitely have to take your time about it. Like, it's, it's something definitely you don't rush into.

Judith: No.

It's a lot of money. Big yeah's, a lot of money. Big investment. It's a lot of money. There's, there's,

Leo: there's lots of different things that you had to, have done before you, you know, the, the prep work, you know, which I didn't know about, which was [00:27:00] there was a lot of prep going on.

Did I help you with that? You did, yeah. Yeah, she's been great. She walked me through everything and, and my wife threw everything, and she's not the easiest person to please, so, oh yeah. Oh, no,

Judith: Nancy's, well, again, remember Nancy doesn't speak English real well, so, so that was kind of a challenge because.

Her English wasn't that good. So we would have to, I would explain to you and have to translate. And then Neil would translate to Nancy and then Nancy would, yeah. And she would try, and her English has gotten like so much better. Oh yeah. It

Leo: amazing. Oh yeah.

Judith: But yeah, that was part of the barriers we had to get over to the language.

Leo: Yeah, the language is an, you know, it was, it was another big, tough one, so, yeah, I forgot about that.

Judith: Yeah. It's like, what did she say? Yeah, exactly. And you would tell me, I'm like, oh.

Leo: Okay. Yeah,

Judith: she's very, very specific and very picky. Yeah. Which, and which, which helps,

Leo: you know, because it, it, you don't have to waste time going to like a hundred different houses and, and with her too, what made it work was she looked up houses too.

Like we were doing homework. Both our ends, you were looking up houses for [00:28:00] us. She's looking at houses for you to like, maybe that out. Maybe you thought like it wasn't in our best interest, but. You know, and you, you went ahead and did it anyway for us, you know, so you're like, do you know this is not gonna be a great one, but let's just walk it anyways.

Yes. We had a few of those. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we walked in, we're like, all right, kind. Okay, yes you are right. But yeah, sometimes

Judith: you gotta see it to understand like, like

Leo: that dark dungeon one, the one that went downstairs into the. there were several like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of creepy. They were older.

Judith: They were much older homes. Yeah. And there had been a lot of remodeling over the years. Yeah. That was just like sketchy. Yeah. And scary. And I'm like, really? I don't think that's a good one.

Leo: Yeah.

Judith: So, would you recommend me as a

Leo: Of course.

We're looking at it again in a couple years and Yeah. Oh God.

Yeah. Yeah.

Judith: They're always looking. Yeah. We're looking

Leo: at it again in a couple years for

Judith: Nancy. Nancy's on my app. I can see her. She's on there favorithing, favorithing house. I'm like, girl,

Leo: constantly,

constantly.

Judith:[00:29:00] What are you doing?

They're in the middle of remodeling their current home. And I'm like, girl, you are not buying another house till that puppy's done.

Yeah, you're not going there. So that's

Leo: why I told them, I'm like, let's, because we're doing a couple additions right now. So I'm like, let's, let's knock out these additions first and then, yes. We can do additional, you know, like property, you know, so, yeah. Well, we can talk

Judith: about how that can work, because I know you guys wanna have multiple streams of income, right?

So you've got the one rental at the back, right? And you've got your current home. So it may be one of those things that instead of selling it. We'd look at the equity in it and see if you can take some equity out and buy another house. Right. Make that your primary and make that an investment property.

Right. That would be great. 'cause then you'd have two on one. Exactly. So to speak. Which would be easy to manage that. That would be the plan. That good two on one. Yeah. Easy peasy. That would be the plan. So, yeah. So

Leo: cool, cool.

Judith: So that's what happens when you get to know your agent. You get to know your clients.

You build this relationship. And so if you are looking for someone. That actually wants to be in a relationship with [00:30:00] you, not a monkey, just opening doors. Who wants to build that relationship long term with you as your realtor, please, dm comment. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you, Leo.

Leo: Thank you, Judy. And I

Judith: will now release you to go to work.

Leo: Yeah, the house gotta pay, you know it's not paying for itself. That's right.