From Fire to Fabulous: Transforming Damaged Homes

Stephen Schmidt (01:31)
Welcome back to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host Stephen Schmidt and ⁓ Man,

Speaker 2 (01:38)
I got a really, really, really cool guest for you guys today. I got Robert Bonner in the studio and I set this up because Robert now officially holds the record for the longest pre-show conversation I’ve ever had with anybody. And I’m telling you what, I know we’re going to probably get into some trouble together here long term, but Robert’s been involved in the real estate space.

for over two decades and as he recovers his phone, you are watching on the use.

Speaker 1 (02:13)
That’s how good it is. ⁓

Speaker 2 (02:17)
God. We play. my goodness, guys, we’re going to have an amazing show. I feel bad for my next guest because I’m so going to be late to that. ⁓ man. So anyways, just remember before we get started on our conversation at Investor Fuel, we help real estate entrepreneurs, service providers and real estate professionals, two to five X their businesses so they can build the businesses they’ve always wanted in order to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of.

Speaker 1 (02:18)
Good.

Speaker 2 (02:44)
As I said previous, Robert’s been in the real estate business for over 20 plus years professionally himself. He kind of grew up in it. He watched his parents buy land and just watched the entire process of building, developing, et cetera. And he has a really interesting niche within the real estate space where he actually rehabs homes that are destroyed by fire or water damage. The stuff that most of you guys never even want to touch or look at.

And he does it to the extent that he makes some absolutely crazy profits. So we’re going to get into that. Robert, welcome to the show.

by the way for the record and Seattle Wichita if you’re aircraft fanatic airplane fanatic there’s some synergy there so

Speaker 1 (03:36)
Yeah, we literally have a railroad connection, right? And, you know, it’s like, let’s get into the same boat. We’re like, hey, man, let’s get in the same plane. 737 most profitable plane ever made, you know, something like 90 % of all planes in air right now are from Renton, know, and Wichita, you know, so, man, we got grassroots.

Speaker 2 (03:59)
We do man, this is super cool man. It’s like, you know when you meet somebody and ⁓ you know, it’s like man Man, you’re you’re like, you’re my new buddy. Where have you been though? I like ⁓

Speaker 1 (04:11)
⁓ I know I feel

the same way man. There’s a lot we can do

Speaker 2 (04:17)
And so tell me this man for our for our listeners sake because we obviously have had an incredible conversation thus far. But for our listeners sake, you got involved in real estate. You saw it growing up as a kid. What what got you started in it and why in heck were you like, you know what? Let me get that property that burned halfway to the ground. I’m going to rehab that house. Like how did you get into what you’re doing and how did you get to where you’re at today now?

surviving 2008, like the whole thing, you you’ve been in it for so long, I’m sure everything has just evolved very differently for you over the last few years. So, tell me about that.

Speaker 1 (04:58)
and you give me chills. My arms are like ⁓ tingling and I feel it. ⁓ You know, I remember the moment when my parents were building a house in Niziqua, which is, know, kind of outskirts of Seattle. It’s where Costco’s headquarters is now, not in Kirkland. And my mom was holding me in her arms and I swear I remember the smell of the wood, looking up at the ceiling. You know, I don’t know how old I was.

you know, baby, right? But that’s a smidget of that moment, right? And ⁓ Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, his birthday was yesterday. Key moments in my life, I always saw his stuff. ⁓ They had an exhibit at Bellevue Square and they exhibited a Unisonian home in full scale, but they moved and I got to be in that space. I went to school in LA.

saw the Hollyhock home before it was restored. It moved me in so many ways, because he would compress you in spaces. And man, I called my parents and said, thank you for allowing me to get educated in California. ⁓ And right now, currently, we’re restoring a Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice home in Burien done by Milton Stricker, who was Frank Lloyd Wright’s representative in Northwest. And this was his first home.

And after that, man, he had like an explosion of churches, right? And so, you know, all those things, right? It’s just, you know, key moments where you know that, you know, faith has driven you to some type of direction, right? I can’t explain it. Most people don’t believe me and that’s fine, right? But I seen it, I witnessed it. This is my passion. This is my purpose. I love what I do.

Speaker 2 (07:34)
Wow, so, you know Frank Lloyd Wright, which I don’t understand Primarily because I’ve been to Frank Lloyd Wright houses on Mike. Mm-hmm. This really isn’t that like this is Huh, what the hell is going on here, you know, it’s I don’t understand how he became so prominent But that’s just how artists are right like they get prominent and you know, it’s everybody’s got their own tastes But on that note like obviously, you know, he was born in 1867, right?

Speaker 1 (07:39)
Hahaha

Speaker 2 (08:04)
long life and made his mark. So with it being your passion, your purpose, et cetera, because it’s more than just money, it’s more than a career, it’s more than a job for Robert Bonner, right? Like what’s the mark that you want to leave in the real estate industry?

Speaker 1 (08:22)
Yeah, going to a small school in LA, ⁓ a new school of architecture. I was really lucky to have mentors who would instill different ideas of architecture within us. ⁓

Speaker 2 (08:38)
You actually went to architecture school, not to interrupt you, but you actually like are an architect theoretically. Is that?

Speaker 1 (08:46)
Yeah, I never got licensed, you know. ⁓

Speaker 2 (08:50)
that

goes to law school to learn the law but never goes and you know.

Speaker 1 (08:53)
Well, not a lot of people know this too. I never graduated, but my school actually calls me an alumni. That’s pretty cool. ⁓ The school had, you know, some changes. They were making deals with others. They never came to me to make any deals. But, you know, the thing that the thing a lot of people don’t know is I did graduate underneath a pseudo name. No kidding. I had a roommate who said, hey, you want to live, you know, with me for free? ⁓ there we go.

That’s when you know it’s getting good, buddy.

Speaker 2 (09:25)
So you were so continue your roommate you want to live with me for free how does this happen?

Speaker 1 (09:35)
Right? You know, and ⁓ he was just like, hey, you know, cause I felt bad for my parents, man, private school, it was expensive. Even though my school paid for half of my education, I sent in a portfolio and I didn’t know this. lot of people still don’t know this, but they would give you a grant if they liked your work. Only one person in the, in the, you know, architecture or fashion or some type of field, they’d give you a half ride.

And you know, so, but even still, you know, living in LA, ⁓ it was kind of expensive, you know, but yeah, so my buddy is like, hey, let’s work together. And that’s how we do it in architecture anyways. Why don’t we collaborate? You know, why don’t we do things together? And that was a great offer because man, he was Indonesian, awesome food, you know, real kind guy. And so when he would do his presentations.

Speaker 2 (11:08)
I’m telling you man. I stayed with this Mexican guy and bro the tacos were the best Okay, so you’re in architecture school we got that down so you’re in architecture school and You’re going through this process. So the mark getting back to that with a mark you want to leave on real estate I interrupted you and we went on own Thank you. Yeah

Speaker 1 (11:14)
⁓ Yes. ⁓

All right, all right. I got sidetracked.

Yeah, so I want to make affordable, beautiful architecture. How can we do that? And so Seattle, it’s hard to find raw land. It’s hard to permit. It’s probably one the most difficult areas. So I specified on tear downs. And I love the before and afters, like Chip and Joanne.

Right, so my joke is like I’m chipping Joanna in one, you know, if you if you want them get them right, but you know, I can drink water out of a shoe and I’m half white half Korean just like

I can do all that they can do in one. And then I can do really well. And the before and afters are even better.

Speaker 2 (12:24)
Yeah. So you’re doing full tear down flips then essentially is that.

Speaker 1 (12:31)
We

actually save them.

Speaker 2 (12:34)
No kidding.

How does that work? What’s like a property that you look at and you’re just like, ha ha, that’s mine.

Speaker 1 (12:47)
I we

did one in Kirkland and it was 700K, you know, it sat on the market. Nobody wanted it. So weird. I mean, you know, now looking back, they were like, didn’t people do it? Now it makes sense, but going back, people had no idea. And so it sat on the market. It went from, know, nobody wanted it. And so, uh, you know, one of the investors I work with said, Hey, what do you think? And Kirkland uses this thing called FAR floor area ratio, and that’s a New York thing.

You know, skyscrapers, right now it’s come down to residential. So 50 % this lot was 5,000 square feet. It means you’re looking to a 2,500 square foot home in Kirkland. is people didn’t know that the basement is not included to the far. We were able to get that home up to 3,800 square feet. All right. 700K purchase, 700K remodel, one four in, sold for two five, sold in 19 days in this really

hard to swallow high interest rates, right? With five backup offers, first listing sold during Christmas. Like some of the slowest times, right? You know, but I got this amazing faith and, and, know, was great to have investors that you work with that trust you, who let you open the door. And, and man, ⁓ I designed a church back in the day, never got built.

And not everybody knows this, but I put elements of this church within these homes. So the powder room, yeah, the powder room was actually two stories tall, right? And was a toilet and a sink, very humble, but, and the ceiling was a skylight. So pretty much the whole wall to wall ceiling was just light. And then, you know, you’re going in there and you know, man, how can you not connect?

Speaker 2 (14:21)
No kidding.

Speaker 1 (14:47)
So doing those kind of things, right? When you have that kind of belief and people don’t always have it and I don’t judge, it’s okay, that’s your choice. This is mine. But let me bring a little light to your path. I’m also known to bring some of the brightest light in homes in Seattle. So bright that they gotta get shades.

Speaker 2 (15:51)
That’s amazing. You know, that’s so in there. I’ll have to tell you this story offline. Honest, don’t know. But to your point there, my marketing, my marketing agency, I started ⁓ three years ago. I actually like it’s so so interesting that you say that you’ve built elements in because there’s like psychological base of like how I did the colors, how I did like all of the stuff. Right. So it’s really interesting.

that to hear that you’ve built in some of those things. So do you do that with almost all of the projects you take on?

Speaker 1 (16:29)
Like, you know what? ⁓ had a friend who told me my profession was frivolous and, you know, I only helped the rich. And so, you know, I prayed. said, God, you know, like, what is my purpose for this? Right. Even though people tell me I got talent, you’re amazing at what you do. I was a prodigy. I had an awesome teacher in high school who taught me how to draft for my whole four years there, created classes for me because he had that kind of belief. And here’s a friend telling me, man, you’re

Your stuff is frivolous. It’s not needed. Right? So man hurt me So, you know what I bring a Jesus table to homes Right, you know in the sense that we have dining rooms that are so large That you have no excuse for your whole family not to be there. Right and that’s an idea, right? So And then and then we have a front porch Right, so you can be welcomed. We’ll come outside. We’ll greet you

You know, so those are the two elements that I thought ⁓ were important. light, light, right? I’m trying to bring the greatest light. And that light also is the idea of bringing solar, right? So majority of these homes are solar ready. And I’ve done two homes where they fully did solar. One in Alki. The house happened to be a southwest tilt. And I do monoplane roofs. I don’t do like

⁓ Gable roofs typically but with a monoplane you got that whole surface and this house and now I got something like 98 % coverage pretty much off-grid Yeah

Speaker 2 (18:09)
It’s nuts. What do you find? So it’s also interesting in the price range that you play around in because like two and a half million bucks, I mean, you’re eliminating 95 % of the market. Let’s be honest, right? ⁓ How much of that plays into strategy in the terms of like, I wanna only deal with these folks or like…

I just, don’t know. Maybe this is just a lack of education on the market. know, every market’s different, of course, but like, you know, a $1.5 million home here where I’m at is going to sit for probably two to three years. Right. It’s not going to 19 days and it’s got to yeah, exactly. Like it just doesn’t happen. Like you see, I was just on Zillow looking at a house that I’m like, that’s basically my dream house. costs $7 million in Florida where I’d want it to be.

Speaker 1 (18:53)
With multiple offers

Speaker 2 (19:06)
Here it’s 1.5 and they just dropped the price 100 grand.

Speaker 1 (19:09)
It’s like a move it over here. No ⁓

Speaker 2 (19:12)
I’m a problem solver. But ⁓ how much of that is your strategy of actually playing in that more luxury market?

Speaker 1 (19:22)
You know, I do it all. ⁓ you know, I’ve worked with some people around here that are known to be super cheap. And I’ve given them a bone. I’ve helped them out. And we’ve done some things where, well, they’ve done some things that weren’t too acceptable by the city, such as rehabbing without permits. And so I’m known to save people, right? Because I’ve seen people lose their homes because they didn’t get the proper permitting.

So, know, permits are important. They take time. They’re very complex. Not everybody can do it. People like to throw me under the bus. I’m like, okay, well you do it. You want to do it? You do it, right? Because a permit tech will cost you four to 10 grand for something basic, right? I do waterfront. I do ECA kind of projects, Steep slope, liquefaction, right? Those things are complex. Some of these permits take two years.

Imagine all the studies we got to get soils, we got to get surveys, and they have to have all the topo. Key elements to these projects are things I know. These are my value points that I’ve learned through what you were saying, we take little bits from these moments, successful or not. We create success through these hardships.

And most people won’t want to do, like you said, you know, tear down homes or ECA or waterfront, but I take it on. Right. ⁓ and I’m successful at it and people know that, but I can’t make everybody happy. And you know what? Not everybody can do this. And I know my value and worth. And so, you know, man, that idea of building a house in Kansas for one five and moving in here and making three, you know, or probably might be 4 million. Right. Over here, you know, this.

Speaker 2 (21:12)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:14)
This is Kirkland, right? So Kirkland is like, I’d say it’s like Redondo Beach of LA or, maybe Malibu, something like that, right? ⁓ Bellevue is like Beverly Hills, Medina is like, I don’t know, Bel Air. So we got some, know, I live, behind me is billionaire lake, Lake Washington. And I think we have the most billionaires on a lake in the nation right here. ⁓

Yeah, and there’s an island in the center which is supposedly the same size as Manhattan, but it’s covered with trees. You know, this place is beautiful, Stephen. You gotta come over here. I’m a good tour guide.

Speaker 2 (21:57)
I love it.

I’m gonna have to come out now this way. Let me ask you this, probably an interesting one for you, but as far as architecture goes, how much of what you do has been inspired by the fountainhead?

Speaker 1 (22:16)
wow, dang. Woo, I’m getting chills, buddy. I love that book, you know, and I’m not one to read that much, right? I’m more of a picture guy.

Speaker 2 (22:27)
Yeah,

especially a thousand page book. Good lord. Right?

Speaker 1 (22:31)
But I love that book, right? And Howard Rourke, my school, Woodbury University, our supply store was called Rourke. And I always wondered, yeah, know, why the name Rourke? You know, and so it’s embedded. then the whole idea of it being Frank Lloyd Wright and Rand just being so stoic and covering probably one of most stoic men ever.

You see Frank Lloyd Wright and all he does and how he’d wear a cape and hold a cane, but it was only for pointing. And he wasn’t a big man, right? So, you know, kind of circling back on the idea of not understanding Frank Lloyd Wright is he would compress you into spaces that you would not know. And then you’d go to spaces where it wasn’t all that high, but it felt that much higher because you were compressed in the entry. He did everything backwards according to what normal man would think.

But he thought if you got into a house with a high entrance and everything was low, you’d be disappointed. But he keeps you tight. He keeps you right. And then he explodes you into different spaces. Kind of a little sidetracked there, but that’s what I like to do. Did I answer your question? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:50)
Sort of. guess the original question, maybe not. The original question was how much of what you do has been inspired by that or how much have you taken from that that’s influenced your style or your thinking.

Speaker 1 (23:52)
found it.

thinking for sure, right? Because I

who criticize, have people who

have clients who tell me I

could do what you do. I even had clients

poke at me so much so they can learn my business and do what I do. It’s weird. But my intentions are clear, right? So Howard work, man, like when he did that building, and then he blew it up. You know, I’m not looking to do that, right? a side note.

My mentor, one of my mentors helped Isamu Minori, the guy who designed the Twin Towers. My mentor is a skyscraper specialist and was hired on to help and assist design the Twin

Now that it’s gone and controversy or what, was it blown up or not?

My mentor said, I’m not a controversial type

but I do question buildings falling down

the rate of gravity.

And then you wonder if how work is under there.

Speaker 2 (25:08)
Yeah, when you said that he helped design it man, I’m sorry I had the most intrusive thought question my gosh, that’s

Speaker 1 (25:15)
I

mean, please ask, right? Because it’s like, I know a few things. And then my last name is pretty perduce it too. So I’m all about it. I understand it. Yeah. ⁓

Speaker 2 (25:29)
So now you’re also like you’re a radio guy. Yeah Is that that is that happen like how much of your time is I’m doing real estate versus I’m on the radio

Speaker 1 (25:34)
haha

Yeah, one of my best friends, man, he’s like my earth angel. He’s helped me in so many ways. Top talent, right? ⁓ Man, I look up to him and anything that he does, I feel like is a precursor of what I can do.

So,

Help me focus again.

Speaker 2 (26:00)
So how much of your time is split between radio and real life?

Speaker 1 (26:05)
Yeah, I’m on the radio probably like once a month But but sometimes on I’m on twice a month Yeah, I designed the radio hosts home Yeah, and and a lot of people don’t know they don’t you got to pay to be on radio Right, know and so, you know, I’m blessed Yeah, so I’m blessed to have a best friend who’s a producer and I’m blessed to have a really good friend who’s the host

Speaker 2 (26:25)
Play thing.

Speaker 1 (26:33)
and actually designing both of their homes. And that’s part of the negotiations, right? So I’m like, hey, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:38)
I’m doing a

little tradesies for services.

Speaker 1 (26:44)
Yeah, and you know and they still pay me right I used to do work for you know other other corporations and friends and You know what if you hook up your friend too much? Sometimes they don’t want to pay you and sometimes they don’t know the worth.

Speaker 2 (26:58)
⁓

My god, I cannot believe you just said that my god

Speaker 1 (27:04)
Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:06)
No, like ⁓ first of all, if this person hears this which they probably won’t I love you, bro But I’ve got a friend of mine dude that it hit me in the last month that I’ve done what’s equated now to thousands of dollars of free stuff for them that like I specialize in and What’s happened is there’s been this interesting relationship curated where now they just kind of expect me to do anything for free

Yeah. It’s really interesting how it’s changed because I’m like, you know, I met this person, they were kind of like the mentee of one of the guys that I would consider a mentee of mine, who I helped, literally pulled the dude. I don’t want to give too much. So this guy…

Speaker 1 (27:36)
No, so weird,

I it’s interesting that you feel this.

Speaker 2 (27:58)
I pulled this guy out of a really interesting situation, got him a job in sales, and like the dude ended up skyrocketing. Like within three years, I mean, he was making a quarter of a million dollars. He’s now the CEO of a company. Like, so it was just like a cool deal. And when I met him, was making minimum wage in a retail store. And I’m like, dude, this is what you need to go do. He’s one of the most successful people that I’ve ever worked with. And like pulled out of something like that. but his buddy, I met him through

this guy and ⁓ and then we’ve just kind of stayed friends. We’ve done some work together marketing wise, ⁓ you know, in his business and things like that. And it just kind of hit me. I’m like, huh? He now just kind of expects me to like take the call. I had ⁓ to like put some barriers in there and be like, hey, man, just so just so you know, I need to be very clear on this that like you’re going to get two people here. Now, our relationship comes first, but you have

this is business Stephen talking and you have this is friends. But so like don’t misunderstand like if we got to talk about business like that we got to put the emotion aside because that’s all to do with time value money etc. Whatever we can’t have this skewed idea of like oh well you’re just my buddy so I’m gonna do it for you know what I mean like in some way that for me.

Speaker 1 (29:02)
That’s smart,

the ⁓

Speaker 2 (29:47)
I am having

high of both of those things. That’s so bad. man, sometimes I wish I was stupider, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (29:57)
No, no, dude, man, Steven, like you said at the beginning, right? There’s a reason for this. And I’m glad that you like that because I do too. You know, everything has purpose in life, right? If you have a purpose, you know, and it’s sad when you meet somebody, you see so much potential in them and you fall in love with that potential and you want to bring a homie up or a beautiful woman. And and and then you’re disappointed. Right. You’re like, what? I all this effort.

Speaker 2 (30:26)
Yesterday, Robert, I saw a guy I used to live with when I was 18. Like I moved out, he was one of my best friends, and I ran into this dude. He was sitting on a curb eating peanuts and just throwing the shells out. I mean, there’s peanut shells everywhere. Dude was high off his ass. And I met him and he’s like, yeah, man, you know, I’ve just been all over the place, just kind of living that stoner lifestyle and whatever. know, I got some conversations that are coming up and whatever. And I’m like,

This dude looks the exact same as in the same exact position that he was in 10 years ago when we were talking about like getting rich together and having fun and whatever and blah, blah, blah. And he’s not, doesn’t have a car, doesn’t drive and is working a minimum wage job 10 years later. And it was just like.

Like what, what a different thing. And you know, again, I think on that emotional intelligence piece, it’s like, I try to understand, like obviously there’s some mental health stuff going on in that situation for sure. There couldn’t not be, ⁓ you know, some probably from the drug usage, some, because I know he does have some pretty, pretty severe childhood trauma. Like was chased by his stepmom with a knife when he was like six years old. He’s got some pretty, pretty messed up stuff that happened. So.

You know, but it’s just like, man, it reminds me of just how no matter what I’m dealing with, of how grateful that I have to be for everything that I’m going through, even the tough stuff. know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (31:58)
Yeah,

yeah, I mean those are the reminders. And it’s so great that you surround yourself with mentors and higher level people and it’s good that you have these moments where you realize how much work you’ve done. Because how much credit do you give yourself? How many people give credit? This is another thing too.

Speaker 2 (32:15)
Absolutely none none, bro. Yeah, what’s

my chief? It’s Like most guys like I find all my worth and what I’ve done and I give myself no credit. Yeah

Speaker 1 (32:27)
And I think that’s why we were talking here so we can be homies and remind each other, you know, as as men, hey, dude, not everybody can do what we can do. Right. And even if they say they can show me proof, then talk. Yeah. Right. But if you see, you know, yeah, it’s only receipts because I got a lot. Right. And and too bad for them. Right.

And believe it’s a blessing when people show you who they are because you can’t bring them around You don’t want to bring them when you you get to your hide, you know and and you know what? It’s weird too when you meet someone through another, know friend who you think is so ⁓ you know like CEO and started from the dirt and you know raised so high and then hey, here’s my friend of mine and then you know, I was You know before I got on the podcast I sent a text to you know, ⁓ so-called friend

I said, man, I’m gonna go on a podcast and I’d love to share our story. So the fact that you’re sharing, you know, I wanna share this too is I had a friend and it’s one of the coolest houses I designed, right? And one of the top photographers who does stuff for like architectural record, which is better than architectural digest, you know, coming from architectural background. Yeah. Tom Bonner, right? All the top architects are shot by Tom Bonner.

Right. And I just, on a whim, said, Tom Bonner, dude, I did a house in Torrance. Can you go out take some photos? And he said, yes. He’s like, you’re the only Bonner that I know who’s in architecture. He’s like, I’ll give you the Bonner discount. And then he showed me the price and I was like, dude, I didn’t even charge that much to design the house for my friend.

Speaker 2 (34:11)
you

For sure.

Speaker 1 (34:15)
I’m like, man, I’m in the wrong… Right?

Speaker 2 (34:20)
⁓ I love that. That’s a lot.

Speaker 1 (34:22)
Dude and and Steven I was willing to pay the price right because I knew he was hooking me up and if I got those photos published I’d be you know a star architect at this point right I’d be designing anything and you know probably you know receiving more hate but you know I feel like I was preserved through this right because I saw a friend so so what happened is we went out we got bids I did all the bids all the prices were double what his budget was so I said hey man how about I build it for you

help you. I’ll fly from LA to Seattle. And I’ll come in and direct you hire, I’ll help you put the bid together. We hired all the separate people because if you’re a homeowner, you can be your own contractor. And I helped him build it. Even even I even lost my wife through it, right. And and and was in financial ruin, going through the divorce and my friend couldn’t even help keep his word when he said he was going to pay me a smidgen of what that was. And then

He even talked shit upon my name, right? So, but you know, God is good. We have a common friend. He hired somebody and he didn’t want to hire me because of what he heard, right? And that was his best friend too. And he’s like, I don’t know, man. And I said, I don’t know either. I don’t want to help you. I don’t want to lose another friend. It’s a lot of work, right? And if you want to pay for my worth, then I can’t help you. I’m sorry. All right. I’d rather be friends.

And so he hired somebody else. It looked really bad. And you know, this guy got good taste. And so he came back to me and said, you know what, Robert, I realized I want to hire you. So I designed a detached double, ⁓ double unit, Donald beach designed his main home in front. So basically he lived in the dad do while they tore down his front home. Now they’re building the front home and this is going to probably be a $5 million project when it’s done.

You know, so talk about the 95 % that can’t afford it. This is even higher, you know, elevator, all these things, right? But I just feel like patience, persistence, know, praying, you know, man, that’s what got me through it. Cause I questioned so many things. Why would, why would a friend do this?

You know, and it never got published.

Speaker 2 (36:49)
⁓

my gosh, man. ⁓ Man, so my two of my best friends one of them ghosted me for seven months when I didn’t live in Town like literally I would call him and he wouldn’t answer I knew he was alive and he was fine and he just literally didn’t talk to anybody for seven months and then another one ⁓ Another one and again, we’re past it. We’ve moved past it whatever but like literally was

Speaker 1 (36:51)
What a great friend.

Speaker 2 (37:16)
allotted to be a very, in a very important life event as the very key individual. And I got removed from that. And ⁓ and then he came back nine months later and apologized for everything is I’ve had a really interesting experience with friends myself. Super, super. Man, I’m telling you, just the more we talk, I’m like, my gosh. And had a stop here. And. ⁓ But. man. So let me ask you this last question. ⁓ Last question.

If you could take everything that you’ve learned, but you could go back to the beginning of your career, what would you do different and what would you do the same? If you could take all the knowledge you have.

Speaker 1 (37:59)
Dang.

⁓ I used to work for Starbucks, doing retail design all around the world, right? Did the Shinjuku one in Japan, did one in Taipei, did one in Ireland, and so, not Dubai, but Qatar. And so that was so awesome, right? ⁓ And they wanted to hire me back because I got an opportunity to design a church. And so I wanted to dedicate all my time and focus.

And this was back in 2000. So this is like 25 years ago. Talk about another opportunity that slid, right? So I left Starbucks to do this church. And then after leaving the church or doing, being able to design the church, the artist of the group said, are we designing a museum for Jesus? And I was like, out of anybody in this group, you should understand, right? And you know what? Okay. So I told him,

Hey, your budget’s too small. It’s going to cost 2 million to build. And they said our budget’s 1 million. So I said, OK, what can we do to redo it? Did it again. They hired another person. You know what it cost to build? 1.9 million.

and the building ugly as F, right? you ⁓ know, I mean, dude, that tower, right? That bathroom I was telling you about, know, where there’s a powder room and you see light. Okay, that was supposed to be the pastor’s tower, right? It was gonna be one door, one desk, one chair, five stories tall for the steeple, right? Slanted to the south to get the light.

So that way it’s just you as the pastor and the light and you receive it. And so now it has to be a powder room until that day happens. Right. But, you know, literally taking shifts whenever you can. Right. And praying to see what can come. Right. So I guess if I could do it over again, I would just see that church through and do all that I could have done, you know, because at the end, the reason why they build it for one point nine is

they found someone who would live on site who built it.

And now I think about that man, I could have been that one, right? And that would be so Jesus, right? Like this dude lived in a church to see it through. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:26)
Sounds like you need to build church.

Speaker 1 (40:28)
I’m, you know, that’s what I was telling you about that Milton Strickler poem. That home I’m working on right now, after you did that home? All he did was churches. You know, and you’re bearing the light for me. So thank you, Stephen.

Speaker 2 (40:42)
So let’s wrap this up, man. If people want to connect with you for more, learn what you’re working on, where should they go for that? What’s the best place?

Speaker 1 (40:50)
You know, my website’s pretty good. It’s Bonner, B-O-N-N-E-R, designs, D-E-S-I-G-N-S dot com. Yeah, it has a lot of good information before and afters and, ⁓ you know, my phone number’s in there too, 425-279-3317. You can text me. You ⁓ can call me. You know, we’ll have conversations like this if you’re like-minded. And man, I love

making people money.

Speaker 2 (41:21)
There you go, folks.

Speaker 1 (41:22)
creating shelter. That’s inspiring.

Speaker 2 (41:27)
You bet, man. Well, go follow him, go connect with him for more, connect with him on Instagram, check his website out. I’m on there right now. It looks pretty sweet. So good to see you folks. Show him some love from the real estate pros and the investor fuel family. And Robert, thanks so much for being here today, brother. I’m looking forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

Speaker 1 (41:46)
Me too. Yeah, thank you, Steven.

Speaker 2 (41:48)
See you all in the next episode.