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Today we talk with Matt Crawford with the Montgomery Company in South Carolina about what is happening in the Columbia Market. We cover everything from the way he works, economic and employment trends, taxes, the current level of competition, and other things that make Columbia an investor's market.  --- Transcript Michael: Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by my co hosts, Tom Schneider and Mark Woodling. And we have a very special guest with us today, Matt Crawford is an agent out of Columbia, South Carolina. And today Matt's gonna be giving us a market overview and talk about some of the things that he and his team are able to assist buyers and sellers in doing in that market. So let's get into it.     Awesome. So Matt Crawford, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Really appreciate you being on the show.   Matt: Excellent. Thank you, Mike. Glad to be here.   Michael: And so you're out in Columbia, South Carolina. Is that right?   Matt: Yeah, Sunny Columbia mass about 85 degrees, you know, beautiful state born and raised about an hour north of here. So fantastic market, man, it's a good place to be.   Michael: Awesome. And I'm curious, Matt, who are you an agent with.   Matt: So right now, my agency is hung under the Montgomery company, which is a pretty interesting story. And just to quickly unpack that, Matt Montgomery, he's a great friend of mine. He runs a massive construction business here in the southeast. And just for the conveniency of our partnership, I ended up creating a brokerage with him. And I'm really sort of the head of the firm, sole proprietor of that brokerage, which I moved my company under, which is technically not a capital in southern capital brothers, which is our investment brokerage underneath this umbrella.   Tom: That’s a perfect segue, Matt, and, you know, before jumping into Columbia, South Carolina, I'd love to learn a little bit more about yourself and your background and how you got to where you're at today.   Matt: Yeah, 100% time, you know, it's a, it's been a journey, you know, as we all are inclined to take. And so, you know, I'm going to probably take this back five years, you know, I'm in Denver, Colorado, man, loving life, sort of so in the proverbial oats of a new broker. And I started really getting into cahoots with a lot of the investors out in Colorado, a lot of these guys were doing huge land acquisitions, building massive multifamily complexes, as well as doing something that I'd never heard of, which was institutional capital investing.   So they were piecing together these massive SFR, BTR portfolios, renting them out, stabilize them, and then doing the disposition strategy. And I was like, what a awesome niche within the real estate arena to start cutting my teeth on. And so we got licensed in Colorado started working with these guys, the barrier to entry there for a new young agent in his 20s was so massive, and like, man, it'd be great if I had $600,000 for my first rental, not the case.   So I look back to my roots back here in Columbia, South Carolina, where I can get that first rental for about 50,000. And so jumped over here about four years ago, and started building some institutional funds with a previous venture, we built that went to about 2200 homes deployed around 220 million over 24 months. I don't think I slept much. I probably lost a little bit of weight. But I learned a lot, you know, and, and from there, you know, there was a talk about destiny, talk about fate, you know, the pandemic arose, a created a little bit of space, to sort of see where I wanted to navigate. And, you know, I decided with a few of my other founders, Jordan, and Alex Fisher, to start our own company. And that's sort of how we got here today,   Tom: I had a boss who had a pretty funny joke. I was like, working a lot of hours. And he's like, Hey, good news. Tom, you're getting credit for two years of work, which is one year by working, you know, every day, 100 hour weeks, you know, yes.   Matt: It is a journey man is like, you know, you know, first and last out, but we had the, the gusto of, you know, being passionate and, and finding, you know, a purpose within the the jumble of real estate, not at one point, I thought it was so binary, you know, it's just traditional transactions between buyers and sellers, and then start unpacking that man, I'm like, oh, man, if you can sell one home, you could sell a portfolio of 1000 homes. And so that's what brought us here.   Tom: Let's, let's learn a little bit more about the practice today. Your guyses brokerage today.   Matt: Yep, yep. So, you know, we really have pivoted to fly a new banner. That banner is called Southern capital. It's a company that we've had for many years. And what that really does is it pieces together investment clients, like you guys have it Roofstock with really high profile properties here in the southeast. And if we can drill down even more granular, you know, Colombia has been our top market. And it's just so funny how it happened. You know, when I, when I ended here, I wasn't thinking, Oh, Colombia is going to be the most fantastic rental market ever. But it is just really happen that way, the average property value in ratio to the average rent rate is just so incredibly strong, that it's created a lot of attraction.   So at Southern capital, I have Jordan shots, he's just like our tech, no, not man, this guy is building these fantastic databases. He's bifurcating all these beautiful codes on the back end, that parallels the software that you guys have, you know, shout out to Andy, and Danielle, for Roofstock. And it's just played so well in our court. And then Alex Fisher, the guys basically like a pseudo General of the military. And he's just running fantastic operations, and allowing me to sort of be on the forefront, gaining knowledge, making really strategic connections, and providing the utmost service to the clientele.   And so Southern capital sort of walks that fine line of servicing large institutional clients. But I've really, really enjoyed the opportunity that mark and Matt and you all at rusak have provided us, which is working really intimately with people from all around the world. I mean, we've had, we've closed deals in India now, like doing five day meltaways. And I'm like, this is awesome, man. Because with the with the large institutional space, you know, with any kind of maybe corporate structure, you almost become a data point. You know, they're they're really looking hard at performance underwriting sheets, which I'm fine with. And I love the scalability of numbers. But there's something beautiful about that connection of getting on the phone with someone who's buying their first rental or their 10th rental, looking at looking at their projected rent rates. And that's sort of what we're doing in a nutshell, on the day to day here.   Mark: Let me kind of unpack it, as Matt Crawford would say, in a sense of connecting why Matt's here with us today, because, you know, Matt's one of our prized certified agents that Roofstock has partnered with, he's the one that's actually handpicking properties to bring over to Roofstock select. So we don't just treat Matt like he's a partner, but he is sitting in the same arena with us, he is there rolling up his sleeves every single day, and really bringing properties a Roofstock. So we want to give Matt a shout out bring him on the podcast because a he's an expert in Columbia, South Carolina, we want people to understand it, but he's the guy that's handpicking the properties for the Select program.   So if anybody likes what you're doing, they're going to see your work. It's almost like artwork that's going up on Roofstock. So great job, thanks for all your participation. And again, I would love to love to get into the market when when we do really unpack it for for the crowd, because there's a lot of things happening in South Carolina, but specifically your market.   Matt: I love it. I love it. Mark within let's uh, let me let me switch some gears real quick. Now you guys have started getting the creative juices flowing. So let's talk about the masterpiece, the artwork, and that breaks down to the underwriting that goes into these problems. So all that history that we just covered, taught us one thing, and that's how to underwrite really well to be the best underwriters, right? In South Carolina, you know, putting that out there into the universe. And so it is an art form. You know, we're looking at a ton of different data points. We're looking at so many different comps, whether it's purchase comps, rent comps, we're looking at outlier data that we're pulling off Airbnb, err, DNA that we're trying to figure out how many data points can I put on this one property to make it a sure bet for an investor.   And that really is what's given us the success with the Roofstock program, you know, as Mark mentioned, you know, we're looking at these properties every single day, manually underwriting them, you know, which is a huge, huge help from Jordan, my partner, you know, really appreciate you, Jordan when you see this, but we're getting on there, and everything is converting, because we've already done that heavy lifting upfront, you know, and I think that's sort of the secret sauce here, as well as being so intimate with the market here. And that's just the beauty of painting this piece for you guys.     Michael: Matt. So if we can peel back another layer of this proverbial onion here, what are you seeing? Are you able to get a finger on what makes great investment properties in Colombia?   Matt: 100%, like, you know, it's, it's gonna come down like the easiest way is my hot zones. You know, there's a, there's zip codes, no 29209, 29206, you know, 29203 I want to stay away from except if I'm on this one side of the street. And so just being able to speak on the micro locality. I think that's such an important word here is a huge service to these investors. And then, you know, like any, you know, skilled tradesmen of his craft, you get to a point where you can Almost looking at property, as long as sort of meets the actual locale checkbox, in my mind, I can tell you, this is going to be a great rental. And I can also tell you if the area is going to have a specific tenant demographic that's going to play in to the longevity of your asset. And that simply just comes from experience from data, you know, those probably now 25 different homes that we've managed to underwrite, put in a pipeline, put a tenant in there and have it stabilized. And so that really has allowed us to speak really clearly to the Rootstock clientele.   Michael: that's such a good point. Because like we've sent out other episodes, you know, the, the what the one thing you can never change about a property's location. So getting that right off the bat is so critical.   Matt: Oh, man. And and and, you know, I'm not gonna lie. It's sort of fun. Because you go across the bridge here in Colombia, you have you have greater Colombia, then you have West Columbia, which is a whole different municipality, and it's split by a huge river called the Congo. Five years ago, there was no one saying, hey, let's head across the river, it was almost like that was a less developed obtuse area. Well, now, these veterans just came in, they put $4 million dollars into a brand new brewery right on the river. And so I'm doing reconnaissance, hitting up the brewery, checking out all the properties around there and then actually sourcing data, you know, so it's, it's a lot of give and take, but you know, it's how creative can you get with your market? Know, your market in my eyes is a product, you know, how can you literally turn these widgets polish this product to make it presentable and digestible from somebody who's investing all the way from California? And that's what we do.   Tom: Would love to hear about some of the broader kind of like macro tailwind. So Colombia is the capital of the state. What other you know, how else would you describe this sort of, you know, general kind of tailwinds. Beyond, behind the Columbia, South Carolina market, like what are the major employers all that good stuff?     Matt: Yeah. Awesome, awesome question time. And it's, it's so just, to me, it's a beautiful thing, what's happening here, so an hour north of here you have Charlotte, North Carolina 2018, ranked the number one city for millennial retention in the US. You know, two and a half, two and a half hours east of here yet Charleston, South Carolina, ranked the number one best small town in the US of this several years in a row. If you go an hour and a half Northwest, you're in Greenville, South Carolina, which is also have gone through this huge development curve.   And then you have Little Columbia right in the smack middle of the state that has been like overseen for the last seven years as each one of these towns develops. And we're now starting to see this huge shift of people being priced out of assets and Charlotte green go in Charleston. And so all that wealth is coming right to the center of the state now, and this is super evident. And probably the last three to four years, like you know, call it serendipity or what may have you but right when I moved here, it was the first time institutional capital really got into this market.   And now it is just turning in two parallel that the big players are now coming to town, these huge multinational conglomerates, just to rattle a few law, we have Prisma health Prisma health basically aggregates massive hospital systems, puts them under the Prisma banner sort of puts a new culture and spin on the health care that has exploded here. They bone up everything and Columbia and Lexington and irmo. With that medical Lance now on Columbia, Nephron pharmaceuticals, one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country, actually opened up their HQ here in Lexington. I think it brought around like 12,000 jobs to town. I mean, you cannot go out and meet somebody Now, that doesn't have a gig at nephron.   So those two players really showed that Columbia can get out of sort of the Capitol education scene, and now we're having huge entities pick up. So outside of the medical field, of course, you're gonna have education, you have the University of South Carolina, for all you awesome investors out there. This is a cash grab of amazing students as fantastic business program and a law program that sort of as you can sort of insinuate is going to feed into the rentals, especially if we're going to be plotting these five to 10 miles outside of downtown Columbia.   And I would say probably the third is going to be your, your political and your military industry. We have Fort Jackson right here. It's the largest trainee base in all of the US, I believe, for new recruits. So what we've done as well is we pivoted to the industry. So on my personal portfolios, we're actually doing a majority of short term rentals Airbnb models, which is something that you know if you guys are ever interested in I'd love to also unpack that to sort of look at the underwriting scales between a 12 month long term lease versus if we put this into a another tier of short term leases. But all those things just play perfectly together with the assets that are available in Colombia.   Mark: So Matt, I always like to play around with the Economic Development Council websites and like, really dig into what's happening, like, how are these? How is the local city trying to draw in outside business? Right. And so they're always putting a ton of numbers up there. So I see that there's a ton of renters, there's a young population. But tell me, one thing I didn't see on there is tech, what's happening in the tech scene out there? What kind of jobs do you think are being developed? And maybe are there a ton of startups moving in or Yeah, go into a little detail about that.   Matt: 100%. And I think that's also the beauty of a lot of people, especially in the startup world, you know, being a entrepreneur myself, you know, might not have that $50,000 liquid to plop down on a $220,000 starter home. Or, in fact, they might have used that liquid to actually inject into their business or building. And we're seeing an explosion of that community here. Maybe it's because FCRA is a huge grantee here in Columbia, South Carolina, they're getting everything from 20,000, up to $200,000 startup grants.   So people are just flooding this town, seeking those grants, you know, there's low, low barrier to entry. This is not Charlotte, this is not Atlanta. So you really can get great visibility into the market without having all the noise of similar competitors. Everything from five bubble five bubble was a fantastic tech startup here. Shout out to those guys. We meet with them all the time. And then even more so mark, to your point, because of that community, because of that influx that's now happening and putting this polish on this town, there's a massive tech, what would you call this, like a, like, tech village, man, it's probably like, I don't know, a million square feet total. But it's going to be housing. Tons and tons of startups that come in and basically have office space for   Mark: Basically like an incubator where everybody can come together, exchange ideas, and magic happens in those kinds of environments.   Matt: It's massive. And I think I can add one more layer to that as well is that at the key here, you know, Tom and Mike to fill you guys in this is a true tertiary market, right? You know, this is tertiary being that we have moderately low purchase prices, and comparative to the historical rent rates. And so in any kind of investors mind, you really want to be searching for that true tertiary market, but not only got a tertiary market, but a evolving tertiary market that's about to flip over into the secondary category, secondary, secondary, meaning you have a little bit more modernize commercial entities, we have a lot more retention of your population that is grown there, then you have just a average household income starting to rise and a gradual slope.   That literally is happening right now. And that's what's helping retain startups retain the young millennials that are getting out of their MBAs or college. And we're bout to flip into a true secondary market, whereas Charlotte, Charleston, Atlanta, I would say a primary, you know, they have massive, massive inventory, but also high purchase prices, we're bouncing the ball, which that secondary market, which I think is the perfect time to start planting some seeds and dollars here, because in three to five years, this, this city is going to have a total different culture, a different field. And as you guys would, you know, understand a totally different marketplace. And that's what makes it so healthy right now to invest in.     Michael: So Matt, let's let's unpack that a little bit further and talk about some specifics. So if somebody is just a first time investor looking at different markets, which is a question we get all the time, and the Roofstock Academy is, hey, what market should I be looking at? Can you give us an idea of what that entry purchase price looks like? And what someone could expect for rent, and maybe give us an idea of some different neighborhoods to look at at a different price point and rental amounts.   Matt: Oh, let's rock and roll. Michael, you know, for everyone out there watching, you know, my two senses. Let's get started. Right? Come on. Like, we will literally show you the ins and outs of this marketplace. But it's easy to have analysis paralysis, you know, especially or building a portfolio or investing, you know, hard earned capital or anything. I understand that there's this level of nervousness. How do I choose between San Antonio or do I look in California? I've never even heard of Columbia, South Carolina.   But I can tell you if you guys just give us the opportunity to show you the ins and outs. You'll see exactly why this is the number one market The Roofstock buyer program right now. And that's because you can come in, you can buy a house for $80,000. For 80k, if we have it in the bank account, collectively, I'm going to put this over in West Columbia, I'm going to literally draw you a circle that is probably around five minutes from the actual river front. And so the fact that we can get that close to a beautiful amenity, you're about to be 10 minutes from downtown for $80,000, it's going to run out conservatively probably 1200 to 1250. Now if we come in there, we slap granite, stainless steel appliances, maybe put some LVT on the flooring, that $80,000 property, literally now could probably fetch $1500 for a modest three bed two bath, and I am hard pressed to find a another market that can support such high rent rates with such low barrier to entry and the purchase price without maybe going to specific places in Birmingham, Alabama, or what have you. But that's the beauty of Columbia right now.   Tom: As we're talking I'm like looking over Zillow in the area. And man, I love how I love how self serving this podcast is. It was will definitely be talking after math like, I don't know, I'm gonna love the thesis on like this.   Matt: It’s a beautiful thing.   Mark Well, what I love about it's a state capitol, right, and you have a major college there. I live in Dallas, near Austin, Texas. And it's like the two things I see with Austin are the same exact thing that you would see in Columbia, it's just it may be years behind. So people move to affordable areas and where they can stay young, right? You get out of college, you find a good job, you can stay hanging around your friends if you really wanted to. So there could be some really cool things I see in Colombia happening.   Matt: Massive and Mark, I can even add some two cents there. And that can parallel it to with your point, Mike about, you know, what are some micro neighborhoods to start really searching in and so if anybody's taking notes, Rosewood, you know, rosewood is where you want to be it's literally maybe what happened to Austin five years ago before Austin became keep Austin weird. Like, that's what's happening in Rosewood right now. We have world renowned graffiti artists, you know, tagging massive walls, like the coolest stuff that you know, really did not reflect in Colombia, even two years ago, even like pre pandemic like there was no, no justified culture.   There certainly wasn't an art area. You know, I think back to Denver, Colorado when the river North District, which is now this huge art conglomerate, that literally is happening here. So if you're ever searching for properties, massive, massive student population, it's going to be in the Rosewood neighborhood area. And it really is following that path like Austin is of creating its own personality, its own culture, and its own distinctive.   Tom: Where is rosewood? I'm looking at my map right now. And this is probably for helpful people pulling up their map where is rosewood relative to the center of Colombia, maybe like near a freeway or where is Yeah.   Matt: But I'm looking at the center of Columbia, like, literally pinpoint the very center actually is the state capitol. It is three miles to the right. So literally, if you just look to the right, I'm pretty sure the zip code is 29204. Nope, internet 206. But there is a main bang, there it is. It's literally called…   Tom: Inside of 77, just south of 378. Is that right? Cool.   Matt: Yep, that is 100%. Right. And it's just like, it's the coolest spot man. There's like a 19 hundred's airstrip that's been this like massive hangout spot on they actually converted the hangar into a state of the art brewery. And so using those like outlier data points, like, especially with something as commodity commoditized, as a brewery, I've been seeing values on these properties jumped up 10 to 13%, year after year, just because it was getting to attain more and more populations. And it's becoming hit, you know, for whatever arbitrary.   Tom: Looking at the great school ratings, I'm seeing an elementary school and an eight, which is incredibly high and middle school to five in Dre, her high school at a seven those are those are fantastic school scores. And that's one of my big criteria that I look at. So we might need to you know, hide this part of the podcast because     Mark: Or let's do the opposite. So after this, you have you have full control, go ahead and post some properties on a roof stock in the rosewood neighborhood. And let's let's see it through the roof stock lens. So I think we're onto something here.   Matt: Absolutely. And then, you know, Tom, now that you're sort of looking into the map, you know, I'm going to sort of drive us down. I 26. This head west probably about 13 minutes. I'm getting off at exit 103 B and I'm in Lexington, South Carolina. You know, so a lot of people, a lot of people will come in and say that tell me about Colombia. So the big four that you want to really start investing in, that's going to be Colombia proper. West Colombia, KC, which is right parallel to West Colombia, and Lexington man, Lexington is like Hotlanta, baby, but a lot smaller. And it's just fantastic. It's created its own culture. It's right beside Lake Murray, which for this area, you know, is literally as I'm sweating in my back, I'm glad you can always see my front right now is a beautiful thing to have. And these, you know, you're gonna have a little bit more competition, but anywhere in Lexington, especially centralized and looking East fantastic inventory.   Michael: So Matt, this is this is really great. And I love that delta between the purchase price and the rental amount. I mean, that sounds like it's really, really strong. Something that our investors see is either able to make or break these deals as an investment is often Pentagon property taxes. Can you talk to us a little bit about how property taxes work in the Columbia market?   Matt: Yes, 100%. And it may or Benjamin, you're watching this, please answer my emails, because the taxes are tough man, you know, it really is, it's the double edged sword. You know, with such a fantastic market such beautiful rent rates and purchase prices, of course, there has to be some catch. And that is going to be the non owner occupied property taxes, you know, and these are going to really come in roughly around 3% of your gross purchase price.   So, you know, on a four bed two and a half bath, beautiful new bill, that's, you know, 210,000, man, you're gonna get slapped with, like $5700 tax bill. So I mean, if your cash flowing, you know, a couple 100 bucks a month, that means you're probably only gonna net maybe four to five to 6k annually. It eats up a lot of the margin. So Mayor Benjamin, please, can we change that law and attract more beautiful investors in estate. But what we're doing to offset that is looking for those lower purchase price assets. Right.   So a lot of people they want the new builds, you know, they sound sexy on paper. But, you know, to win to win in this market, need to combat, that 3%, non owner occupied property tax, you know, let's play in the 120 to $150,000 range. So now your taxes are three grand, and we're going to get that thing rented at 1500 to 1800. That's how we can combat such a tax problem.   Michael: And just as a kind of a point of reference. So folks understand why people might be continuing to move to Colombia. What is the tax rate for an owner occupant? Matt: Oh, man, it's less than half man. It's like, you're not really paying much. You know, and there's a ton of grants out here as well, to incentivize people to move to Colombia. You know, and I can even go into a little bit of deeper history of why that is. So, you know, the 1980s, the sort of the war on drugs really hit Columbia hard, because this is this is historically a new labor force town, you know, we have a massive flour mill in the heart of downtown that now it's become sort of a legacy item, no, people have weddings on top of it now.   So that demographic really was affected by the 1980s pandemic itself. And a lot of the assets in the single family units sort of were deteriorated, especially in some zip codes, nobody would move there and develop them. And so now the state is giving tons of grants for people to come in and give more life to this city, as we're sort of pulling out of that prior, that prior culture that really stuck around really, until today, there's still pockets and 29203 that are, you know, less than desirable, because the demographic there has sort of been inundated with the ancestral baggage that came from a few years ago.   Tom: This is awesome. Michael, do you have any more questions or mark, anything else you want to touch on? I'm, this has been? Yeah, I'm, I'm a fan. I don't know. I've been looking at market for a while. And this kind of conversation really is drawing me in a little bit. A little bit closer for sure.   Michael: Yeah, I guess my only other question that would be kind of on that on the example you gave previously. Were you getting in for 80k? Putting in that granite countertops and stainless steel now that thing could rent is renting at 1500? Is there any type of reassessment that the county is going to do in any kind of regular frequency? Or is your property tax truly tied to the purchase price at acquisition?   Matt: Boom! So everybody, Let's get some house hacking skills ready? Because it's tied to that gross acquisition price. And so that's how you get to beat the market here is you can get by a distressed property for 60k You know, that's so 20 $25,000 into it, you know, Sue Paint windows flooring kitchen. And that thing's now gonna appreciate and appraise probably at 120 125k ran out for 1500. But now we're only tied to that $60,000 original purchase price, we're going to let it season we're going to refi our money, and we're going to keep it rolling.   And that's exactly what we did in tranches of 100 properties, every 100, we do that exact strategy, pull that cash out, recycle that it's your, your, your gilded, BRRRR strategy, and it works perfectly for this market. And so, actually, Mark is very well aware of this, that there are a few individuals that have come to this, this market space through you guys. And we're actually doing that right now. So, you know, Southern capital, we are a acquisition renovation management company. And so we have what I literally would crowned the best crew, because we have cycled through the last years of who guys can keep up with the scalability, that consistency and the sourcing of these renovations.   And that's where Matt Montgomery, who we mentioned at the very start of this cast, that company now supports all of our innovations. And so, guys, if you're interested in the Columbia market, you want to find a way to get around the property taxes, you know, my resources are your resources, I'm more than happy to have a scope built for you completely itemized with timelines. General rule of thumb is for every $1,000 renovation, it's about one day. So a $30,000 job should take us about a solid month to do. But that is one really great way to start cash flow and quickly here in Colombia.   Michael: That's great. And let's just kind of highlight that again, Matt. So if I'm an investor, I'm interested in doing some kind of value, add renovation, and then putting a long term tenant in place, I can do that all with you and southern capital, you'll take care of the acquisitions, you'll assist in the renovations, and then you'll manage the property once I've got it completed.   Matt: 100%. So that was the whole idea of creating a holistic turnkey investment centric brokerage. That is a mouthful, but basically, we're here to be your best friend. And not only that, but we have the opportunity and the blessings of working with people like Mark, yourself, Michael, yourself, Tom, the whole team at Rootstock. So their back office, our front office and operations literally have made such matrimony moving forward that we're here to help.   Michael: I love it. Tom, like you said, I got to make a couple phone calls over the over to Matt's office here after we hop off. Yeah.   Matt: Come on the ship is sailing, baby.   Mark: Got one last question. Now that I think about one last question for you, Matt. So buyers can really understand what you know, what the competition level is there? Are you seeing multiple offer situations on every property? Or is it less frequent, like we see in like Birmingham right now where almost every property has multiple offers?   Matt: Awesome, awesome. Question mark. And so Phil, you know, everybody tuning in, you know, it's, you know, we're almost 50% maybe the last that I checked, 48% less inventory, then last April of 2020. So every offer is almost I would say 95% a multiple offer situation. But this is what we're going to do. You know, we're going to get your offer, we're going to expedite it being built out signed by you. I literally pick up my call and just being a player here in Colombia. I know a lot of the brokers say Hey, man, this is one of my investment clients, you know, you know, I know you love your your buyers and sellers, but I really value these people and their trust, can you please put me at the top of the pile.   And so that's, that's me. I'm kissing babies and shaking hands. And so I really push it as far as I can. But if you guys are coming in, we really have, I would say one shot to get it right. But that's not the case. Because if I know that we're not the highest and best, I'm gonna allow us that window, you know, and a lot of times they say, hey, Matt, we're sorry, the sellers didn't even you know, want a call for highest and best but I'm pressing these people I'm following up. I'm texting them say Hey, man, before you accept, you got to give me some feedback.   So that's number one. So guys, if you come in know that we're going to be right at ask, you know, if not five to 7% over ask. But that's not the end of the story. There's a beautiful part. And this is really what I think makes us dangerous is our off market channel. So for the last several years, I've amassed this massive contacts through asset managers to different real estate lawyers from local investors portfolios, trust funds, and say, Hey, guys, like funnel your inventory through me and I can bring a really, really healthy productive investment base to buy these acquisitions. And so I think that's what makes Columbia stand out from the rest is that we're uploading exclusive off market properties every single day that are not publicly facing and not on Zillow. They're not on the MLS stay get the sort of forsee that wave of multiple offer situations and avoid it completely. And that's something that we've done tons of transactions With the Roofstock clientele as well.   Mark: And just to fill in on that, so you're doing that through our BYOB program, right the bring your own property, so you can send our private link, because otherwise we can't post those because they're not on the MLS. And we don't have the listing, which would be the ones that go on our exclusive marketplace. But there's still a way for buyers to get access to that inventory through you. So if they want to reach out, you can show them some of those properties, but still use the roof stock lens, so they can get the roof stock guarantees if if the properties are in the right condition.   Matt: 100% Mark, and you know, you know, Fred Haines, I hope you're watching this podcast, he just picked up four off markets from us here in Colombia. The guy is a champion, Fred, thank you so much pleasure to work with you. And we're going to get those things closed here in the month of May.   Michael: Oh, that's so exciting. So Matt, if folks do want to reach out to you or southern capital or have questions about you know, reaching out, purchasing properties, getting rehab or management services, what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you?   Matt: Man, I love the email. So MCrawford@roofstock.com shoot me an email, I'll shoot you a calendly link we'll get a phone call. I absolutely love that discovery phase, to sort of hear what your investment footprint is. What you are looking from this market that's gonna help me perform for you guys.   Michael: Alrighty, everybody that was our episode a big big big thank you to Matt for coming on the show a lot of fun. Kudos to you for crushing it out there with the roofstock select program as a certified agent. We definitely look forward to having you on again. If you'd like the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is your podcasts. And as always, we'd love to hear new episode ideas, topics feedback in the comment section. If you want to hear about a particular episode. Again, thank you all for watching. We look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing