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This just exploded my head

Heard about a Dallas family of 4 that wanted to go skiing for a week over spring break They priced out Vail and it seemed very pricey so they decided to also look at Zermatt They left today for Europe because it was $1,200 cheaper

In Texas, a criminal can steal your $6,000,000 building for $30 in cash. No ID required. No background check. Just a forged signature and a trip to the county clerk. In 2022, this happened to two of our buildings. If you own real estate, you are a target. The Texas county recording system runs on a "notice" basis. The clerk’s job is to record documents. Not verify them. A criminal created a fake deed for two of our assets. They used a cut-and-paste notary stamp pulled from a different public record. They used a courier to send the documents into the clerk’s office. The courier handed over the forged paper and paid $30 in cash. The clerk accepted the document. No driver's license. No signature check. The public record showed a Delaware LLC owned my property. $6 million in equity vanished from the legal chain of title in seconds. Once a criminal controls the deed, they have two moves. They sell the property to an unsuspecting buyer and disappear with the cash. Or they get a hard money loan against it, collect the proceeds, and vanish. Either way, they try to be long gone before you find out. I found out during a refinance. My title company called with a question: "Why did you quitclaim these buildings to a new entity?" I hadn't. I contacted the Dallas Police Department, the FBI, and the Texas Secretary of State. Every agency gave the same answer: they are overwhelmed with this type of fraud and didn't have the time or resources to pursue it. The criminals hide behind Delaware shells and registered agents. The county takes cash, so there is no bank trail. There is no ID requirement, so there is no face for the cameras. Most investors assume their title policy covers this. It does not. Standard title insurance covers defects that existed before you closed. It guarantees you received a clean deed at purchase. It does nothing for crimes committed after. This is a gap in your risk management you did not know you had. It took 90 days of legal work to fix. The "new owner" was a ghost. I had to file a lawsuit to quiet the title. I spent $20,000 in legal fees and secured a default judgment because the criminals never showed up to court (obviously). I won. But I am out $20,000 and three months of sleep. Criminals hunt three targets: raw land, free-and-clear buildings, and estate properties. A mortgage acts as a tripwire because banks flag transfers. If you own your assets outright, you are defenseless. Here is what I did after this happened to me: Property alerts. Most counties offer a free service that emails you when a document is recorded against your parcel number. Sign up for every asset you own. This costs nothing. Entity audits. Make sure your Secretary of State filings are current. Criminals look for lapsed registrations and "zombie" entities to find their next target. Push for policy change. State legislatures are starting to act. The law must require a government-issued ID to record a transfer of real property. It is insane that it does not.

A vendor just emailed us an invoice. Right logo. Right project. Right invoice number. New bank account. If we had paid it, $50K is gone. No recovery. No insurance. Just gone. We got an email a few days later that the vendors email had been hacked. This is happening to businesses every single day. And it's about to get much worse. AI is an incredible tool when it's used for good. But it is also a weapon. The same technology helping us underwrite deals and manage portfolios is helping criminals build perfect fraud at zero cost and infinite scale. The "Nigerian Prince" is dead. He's been replaced by AI that sits inside your vendor's email for months. It watches your payment cycles. It learns your controller's name. It waits for the perfect moment to swap banking info on a real invoice. It requires vigilance and good processes to not get fooled. Here are a few basic things we do: 1. Banking info changes = full stop. No exceptions. We stop and we call. 2. Never call the number on the new email. That's the hacker's number. We dig up the old contact info and call someone we already know. 3. Hold payment if there is a bank change. Every updated account gets a mandatory hold and a voice callback to the vendor. Two-minute phone call costs you nothing. One bad ACH is an expensive mistake. What else should we be doing?

Don’t know how big Tesla’s marketing department is but can confirm that having the CEO personally reach out to buyers the day after a sale is a good way to build brand loyalty

Dad's been gone for 5 years. But I'll share his best travel hack: If you ever have a cancelled flight just go to the desk and get routed thru Vegas There is almost always a late flight to Vegas You can always get flight home from Vegas Vegas Baby

At a steakhouse last night Noticed a mom had propped an iPad in front of her 5-year old Disgusting parenting I marched over to lecture her about screen time ruining children But then I noticed The kid wasn't watching Bluey He was reviewing census tract data for Opportunity Zone designation, cross-referencing poverty rates with median family income ratios, and building a 10-year hold model with stepped-up basis calculations His crayons? Actually color-coded for different IRR scenarios I asked what he was working on "Syndicating my first 200-unit development in South Dallas. Already have $2M in soft commits from RIAs. The promote doesn't kick in until we send back all capital and the 15% pref but my waterfall shows 38% IRR to LPs" I asked him to be our next summer intern and he threw his lemonade in my face.

Here's something fascinating happening in the apartment market right now. The cheapest, oldest apartments (Class C) are getting crushed right now. But ONLY in cities that just delivered tons of new apartments. Let me show you the numbers: Denver: Class C rents down 13.9% Naples: Class C rents down 13.5% Austin: Class C rents down 13.3% Phoenix: Class C rents down 10.5% San Antonio: Class C rents down 7.2% Dallas: Class C rents down 6.5% What do all these cities have in common? They just absorbed a massive wave of new apartments. But here's the twist... In cities that DIDN'T get a big supply wave? Class C rents are actually RISING. 20 cities saw Class C rents go UP more than 3%. 19 of those 20 cities had supply BELOW the national average. So what's going on? It's basically musical chairs. When a brand new luxury apartment opens up, where do those renters come from? They don't appear out of thin air. They move from slightly older apartments. Those apartments now have vacancies. So they drop their rents to compete. That pulls in renters from even older apartments. And down the chain it goes. Eventually it hits the oldest, cheapest apartments at the bottom. And here's why they get hit the hardest: People living in Class C apartments are already spending a huge chunk of their paycheck on rent. To fill empty units, landlords have to cut prices A LOT. Sometimes enough to attract people who couldn't afford market-rate apartments before. It's like a waterfall effect. The water (new supply) at the top pushes everything down. But here's the important part: This proves that building new apartments - even "luxury" ones - reduces rents all the way down the spectrum. If it was just an affordability crisis, you'd see Class C rents falling everywhere. In high-supply cities AND low-supply cities. But we're not seeing that. We're seeing a perfect split: Lots of new apartments = falling Class C rents Few new apartments = rising Class C rents New supply at the top creates relief at the bottom. Also: wages have been growing faster than rents for 3 straight years. More people can afford apartments today than before. The bottom line? This is what happens when you actually build housing. Supply works. (Chart and analysis from Jay Parsons - one of the sharpest real estate economists out there)

Picked up the new Tesla Model Y today It drove us home 🤯

Texas politicians are promising to "eliminate property taxes." It polls at 80%. It wins elections. And it is a mathematical lie. Texas runs on a two-legged stool. Most states have three revenue sources: Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax. We banned income tax. We banned wealth tax. Both written into the constitution. That leaves us balancing the 8th-largest economy on Earth on two legs. Property taxes generate $81 billion a year. Schools. Police. Fire. Roads. You can't delete $81 billion. You have to replace it. The only lever left is sales tax. To replace property tax revenue, we'd need a state sales tax above 20%. A $40,000 truck costs $8,000 in tax at the dealership. Every shirt. Every appliance. Every taco. Plus 20%. "But Florida doesn't have this problem!" Florida exports its tax burden to 135 million tourists a year. Families from Ohio fund Florida schools every time they visit Disney World. Texas doesn't have Disney World. "What about Tennessee?" Tennessee has the highest combined sales tax in America. And they tax groceries. Texas exempts groceries. To copy Tennessee, you'd pay tax on bread, milk, and eggs. Here's what nobody talks about. Property taxes are local. Your school board levies them. Your city council controls them. If the state eliminates property tax, the state becomes the sole funder of every school district. You know the golden rule? "He who has the gold, makes the rules." State pays 100% of the bills. State makes 100% of the decisions. "Elimination" sounds like freedom. It's centralization. Now the math gets ugly. Property taxes hit wealthy homeowners and commercial investors the hardest. Elimination benefits them most. Sales taxes hit the poor. A 20+% sales tax crushes low-income families who spend every dollar they earn. Renters make up 38% of Texas. Landlords won't lower rent because taxes vanish. Markets don't work that way. But renters pay 20+% more for every good they buy. "Elimination" is a tax cut for landlords and a tax hike for working families. So what's the real solution? It's boring. It's happening now. It works. Tax Rate Compression. When oil and gas booms, Texas fills the Rainy Day Fund. The state uses that surplus to pay school districts direct. Districts lower their tax rates. Your mill rate is lower today than five years ago, even if your home value is up. The state raised the Homestead Exemption to $100,000. That wipes out taxes on a huge chunk of your home's value. Not a headline. A managed reduction. Local control intact. And here’s the part that matters for investors: Texas is one of the fastest-growing economies in America. Population up. Jobs up. Consumption up. That growth keeps generating surpluses, which the state uses to compress school taxes again and again. For homeowners and commercial owners, that means one thing: Mill rates will likely keep drifting down over time, even as values rise. You don’t need a fake promise of “elimination” to win. You need a strong economy and steady compression. Next time a politician promises to "end" property taxes, check the math. They aren't offering a free lunch. They're offering a different bill.

Heard through the grapevine One of the largest commercial mortgage brokers in the country was raided over the weekend Fraud was found in loans they'd sent to Fannie Mae This could now trigger a chain reaction of buybacks and less liquidity among Fannie lenders

If you pay for Claude (the $20, $100, or $200/month plan) there is now an Excel add-in that puts AI directly inside your spreadsheets. You can install it from the Microsoft Office Add-ins store in about 60 seconds. Play with it today. Have your mind blown. Then use it to save real time and money on Monday. Here are six simple steps to see what it can do. Step 1: Pick a real file. Open a spreadsheet you actually use, like a budget, a proforma, a deal analyzer. Something with real formulas. Step 2: Let the AI audit it. Don’t ask it to fix anything. Paste this prompt into the add-in: “Do not change anything in this spreadsheet. Audit what you see and give me a detailed breakdown of: (1) the overall purpose and structure, (2) every formula and how it works, (3) the formatting and layout, (4) any errors, inefficiencies, or broken logic, and (5) how this could be rebuilt better from scratch. Be detailed and specific.” You will be surprised what it catches. Step 3: Use your judgment. Read the audit. You know your business better than the AI. Identify the three or four suggestions that would actually matter. Copy them. Step 4: Take it to Claude Chat. Paste the audit and say: “Based on these recommendations, write me a detailed prompt I can paste back into Claude in Excel to build a new spreadsheet from scratch. It must be specific enough to execute without follow-up questions. Include structure, formulas, and formatting.” Let Claude write the blueprint. That’s what it’s best at. Step 5: Build. Open a blank sheet. Paste the prompt. Hit enter. Watch it work.🤯 Use the tools to analyze a template that you use all the time and how to make it better. Claude Chat will tell you how to make it better. Claude in Excel executes it. If you follow this, I think you’ll become a raving fan of Claude in Excel. Report back.

In Texas, someone can steal your building for $30 cash No ID required to file the deed in person In 2022, 2 of our buildings worth over $6M were “sold” to a Delaware LLC using a fake notarized signature. The county recording system accepted the forged deed without checking ID, just took the $30 fee. DPD, FBI, and TX SOS were overwhelmed. It took us 90 days, $20k in legal fees, and a lawsuit to get the title back. Glad to see Governor Abbott add deed fraud to the special session. The law needs to catch up with the criminals.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions that I’ve carried on from my childhood Santa seals off the living room with wrapping paper so no one can go in until morning Makes for great videos of kids breaking through the paper to see what Santa brought

We just built an $18.5M apartment complex in Dallas. In 10 years, we will sell it. The federal tax bill will be $0. Even better: The IRS will permanently forgive $5M in tax deductions we took along the way. This is the single most powerful deal the IRS can offer a real estate investor without dying. Here is how we did it. The strategy is called Opportunity Zone investing. It sounds complex. It is not. You follow three steps: • Take a capital gain (from stocks, a business sale, or crypto). • Invest that gain into a designated “Opportunity Zone.” • Improve the property. If you follow the rules and hold for 10 years, the federal government grants you tax immunity on the backend. But the real magic happens when you combine this with a Cost Segregation Study. This is the “Super Move.” Let’s look at the numbers on our Dallas project. We raised $8M from investors. We borrowed $10.5M from a local bank. We built 75 units. Total cost: $18.5M. Now we depreciate the asset. In a standard deal, you depreciate the building over 27.5 years. You get a small tax deduction every year. It is slow. It is boring. We don’t do slow. We hire an engineering firm to perform a Cost Segregation Study. They walk the building. They identify components that do not last 27.5 years. Flooring. Lighting. Cabinets. Landscaping. The tax code allows us to write these items off immediately. On this project, the engineering study unlocks about $5M in “bonus depreciation.” That is a $5M paper loss this year. Our investors use this loss to offset other passive income. It crushes their tax bill today. In a normal real estate deal, this comes back to bite you. It is called “Depreciation Recapture.” When you sell a standard building, the IRS looks at all those deductions you took. They say, “You wrote this off, but you made money.” They tax that $5M at up to 25%. Unless you are in an Opportunity Zone. The OZ rules change the math. If you hold an OZ asset for 10 years, your cost basis steps up to fair market value when you sell. That means two things: • You pay $0 Capital Gains Tax on the profit. • You pay $0 Depreciation Recapture tax. That $5M in deductions? It was a gift. You never pay it back. You got the tax break upfront. You kept the cash flow in the middle. You keep all the profit at the end. This is not a loophole. It is a congressional incentive. The government wants housing built in these zones. They offer tax-free profits to get it. We take the deal every time.

What’s the least expensive car (new or used) that you could buy today that gets you treated like royalty at a nice restaurant valet? Here’s my submission

The Texas Triangle DFW, Houston, Austin, San Antonio - cheap land, low cost of living, no state income tax, business friendly Name another region offering this much economic opportunity... What's holding you back from Texas?

My 10-year-old daughter is entering her Shark Tank era. She wants your feedback. She binge-watched the show. Like any good entrepreneur, she found a problem in her own backyard (literally) and built a solution. She wants a market check. Be honest. But remember... she's 10. If you own an oak tree, you know. Her Grandmother's 100-year-old oak drops thousands of acorns every fall. They roll under your feet like tiny wheels. Twisted ankles waiting to happen. They turn into oily, gritty sludge when cars drive over them. They're toxic to dogs. They're a nightmare to rake. Her Solution She wants to build a product to solve this "Acorn Anarchy." Here's the concept: Material: Industrial-grade stainless steel mesh. Not a cheap tarp. Design: Custom-fit to your tree's canopy. Up to 80 feet of coverage. Suspended off the ground. Function: A drawstring funnel at the bottom. Pull it, and the acorns dump out. No raking. Look: Clean and architectural. Not an eyesore. The Price Because she insists on quality materials, the price is steep. Around $430 for a large custom unit. The Pitch I told her $430 was too expensive for a net. She told me I didn't understand the "Acorn Economy." She researched it. Acorns aren't trash. They're a product people buy. Hunters use them for deer bait. Collectors buy them for replanting. They sell for up to $6 per pound. Her pitch: "Dad, it's not a net. It pays you back. It covers its cost in two seasons. And you never have to rake again." I fact-checked her. She's right. The Ask: Homeowners, we need to know if this market exists before we start welding in the garage. Would you buy this? YES - Take my money. The acorns are ruining my yard. YES - But only if it's cheaper. I don't care about steel vs. nylon. NO - I'll stick to raking. NO - But I'm impressed she did the math on acorn resale. Let her know. We'll read the comments at dinner tonight.

This just exploded my head

The Texas Triangle hits different DFW, Houston, Austin, San Antonio - cheap land, low cost of living, no state income tax, business friendly Name another region offering this much economic opportunity... What's holding you back from Texas?

Are we nearing the end of checked bags and rental cars for domestic travel? Imagine packing your autonomous car and sending it to your destination the night before you fly

In Texas, a criminal can steal your $6,000,000 building for $30 in cash. No ID required. No background check. Just a forged signature and a trip to the county clerk. In 2022, this happened to two of our buildings. If you own real estate, you are a target. The Texas county recording system runs on a "notice" basis. The clerk’s job is to record documents. Not verify them. A criminal created a fake deed for two of our assets. They used a cut-and-paste notary stamp pulled from a different public record. They used a courier to send the documents into the clerk’s office. The courier handed over the forged paper and paid $30 in cash. The clerk accepted the document. No driver's license. No signature check. The public record showed a Delaware LLC owned my property. $6 million in equity vanished from the legal chain of title in seconds. Once a criminal controls the deed, they have two moves. They sell the property to an unsuspecting buyer and disappear with the cash. Or they get a hard money loan against it, collect the proceeds, and vanish. Either way, they try to be long gone before you find out. I found out during a refinance. My title company called with a question: "Why did you quitclaim these buildings to a new entity?" I hadn't. I contacted the Dallas Police Department, the FBI, and the Texas Secretary of State. Every agency gave the same answer: they are overwhelmed with this type of fraud and didn't have the time or resources to pursue it. The criminals hide behind Delaware shells and registered agents. The county takes cash, so there is no bank trail. There is no ID requirement, so there is no face for the cameras. Most investors assume their title policy covers this. It does not. Standard title insurance covers defects that existed before you closed. It guarantees you received a clean deed at purchase. It does nothing for crimes committed after. This is a gap in your risk management you did not know you had. It took 90 days of legal work to fix. The "new owner" was a ghost. I had to file a lawsuit to quiet the title. I spent $20,000 in legal fees and secured a default judgment because the criminals never showed up to court (obviously). I won. But I am out $20,000 and three months of sleep. Criminals hunt three targets: raw land, free-and-clear buildings, and estate properties. A mortgage acts as a tripwire because banks flag transfers. If you own your assets outright, you are defenseless. Here is what I did after this happened to me: Property alerts. Most counties offer a free service that emails you when a document is recorded against your parcel number. Sign up for every asset you own. This costs nothing. Entity audits. Make sure your Secretary of State filings are current. Criminals look for lapsed registrations and "zombie" entities to find their next target. Push for policy change. State legislatures are starting to act. The law must require a government-issued ID to record a transfer of real property. It is insane that it does not.

A vendor just emailed us an invoice. Right logo. Right project. Right invoice number. New bank account. If we had paid it, $50K is gone. No recovery. No insurance. Just gone. We got an email a few days later that the vendors email had been hacked. This is happening to businesses every single day. And it's about to get much worse. AI is an incredible tool when it's used for good. But it is also a weapon. The same technology helping us underwrite deals and manage portfolios is helping criminals build perfect fraud at zero cost and infinite scale. The "Nigerian Prince" is dead. He's been replaced by AI that sits inside your vendor's email for months. It watches your payment cycles. It learns your controller's name. It waits for the perfect moment to swap banking info on a real invoice. It requires vigilance and good processes to not get fooled. Here are a few basic things we do: 1. Banking info changes = full stop. No exceptions. We stop and we call. 2. Never call the number on the new email. That's the hacker's number. We dig up the old contact info and call someone we already know. 3. Hold payment if there is a bank change. Every updated account gets a mandatory hold and a voice callback to the vendor. Two-minute phone call costs you nothing. One bad ACH is an expensive mistake. What else should we be doing?

Texas politicians are promising to "eliminate property taxes." It polls at 80%. It wins elections. And it is a mathematical lie. Texas runs on a two-legged stool. Most states have three revenue sources: Income Tax, Sales Tax, Property Tax. We banned income tax. We banned wealth tax. Both written into the constitution. That leaves us balancing the 8th-largest economy on Earth on two legs. Property taxes generate $81 billion a year. Schools. Police. Fire. Roads. You can't delete $81 billion. You have to replace it. The only lever left is sales tax. To replace property tax revenue, we'd need a state sales tax above 20%. A $40,000 truck costs $8,000 in tax at the dealership. Every shirt. Every appliance. Every taco. Plus 20%. "But Florida doesn't have this problem!" Florida exports its tax burden to 135 million tourists a year. Families from Ohio fund Florida schools every time they visit Disney World. Texas doesn't have Disney World. "What about Tennessee?" Tennessee has the highest combined sales tax in America. And they tax groceries. Texas exempts groceries. To copy Tennessee, you'd pay tax on bread, milk, and eggs. Here's what nobody talks about. Property taxes are local. Your school board levies them. Your city council controls them. If the state eliminates property tax, the state becomes the sole funder of every school district. You know the golden rule? "He who has the gold, makes the rules." State pays 100% of the bills. State makes 100% of the decisions. "Elimination" sounds like freedom. It's centralization. Now the math gets ugly. Property taxes hit wealthy homeowners and commercial investors the hardest. Elimination benefits them most. Sales taxes hit the poor. A 20+% sales tax crushes low-income families who spend every dollar they earn. Renters make up 38% of Texas. Landlords won't lower rent because taxes vanish. Markets don't work that way. But renters pay 20+% more for every good they buy. "Elimination" is a tax cut for landlords and a tax hike for working families. So what's the real solution? It's boring. It's happening now. It works. Tax Rate Compression. When oil and gas booms, Texas fills the Rainy Day Fund. The state uses that surplus to pay school districts direct. Districts lower their tax rates. Your mill rate is lower today than five years ago, even if your home value is up. The state raised the Homestead Exemption to $100,000. That wipes out taxes on a huge chunk of your home's value. Not a headline. A managed reduction. Local control intact. And here’s the part that matters for investors: Texas is one of the fastest-growing economies in America. Population up. Jobs up. Consumption up. That growth keeps generating surpluses, which the state uses to compress school taxes again and again. For homeowners and commercial owners, that means one thing: Mill rates will likely keep drifting down over time, even as values rise. You don’t need a fake promise of “elimination” to win. You need a strong economy and steady compression. Next time a politician promises to "end" property taxes, check the math. They aren't offering a free lunch. They're offering a different bill.

The common answer used to be easy: Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT Times have changed. What’s the answer now? If your kid could get accepted anywhere, where do you hope they go to college?

Heard about a Dallas family of 4 that wanted to go skiing for a week over spring break They priced out Vail and it seemed very pricey so they decided to also look at Zermatt They left today for Europe because it was $1,200 cheaper

Saw this posted on Zillow 4 new construction townhomes in Dallas where some design decisions were made What do you think? Would you live in something like this? 3 beds and 3 baths, 2,200sf, $700k, Sheetrock not included

Just one question If no billionaires are allowed in NYC anymore, who gets to live here?

What’s the least expensive car (new or used) that you could buy today that gets you treated like royalty at a nice restaurant valet? Here’s my submission

Getting our first new car that I can recall. We’ve always bought used but the year end lease deals on these were crazy low and I’m blown away by the self driving tech What do I need to know about owning a Tesla?

Texas pride runs deep and my theory is that it starts in 7th grade Texas is the only state which dedicates a full year (7th grade) to their own state history. This happens in all public and most private school curricula

Heard through the grapevine One of the largest commercial mortgage brokers in the country was raided over the weekend Fraud was found in loans they'd sent to Fannie Mae This could now trigger a chain reaction of buybacks and less liquidity among Fannie lenders