How Land Trusts Protect Real Estate Investors From Lawsuits and Public Exposure

Randy Hughes (00:00)
Well, I’m a single family house guy. I have other have had other real estate investments over the years, but I’ve found that the single family house is best suited for my personality. and I probably had fifteen houses in my personal name back in the seventies until I woke up one night and I thought this isn’t very smart.

Dylan Silver (01:57)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Randy Hughes, real estate investor, educator, and nationally recognized advocate for using land trust in real estate investing. Randy, thanks for joining us today.

Randy Hughes (02:10)
Thanks for inviting me, Dylan. It’s a pleasure to be here. I love talking about real estate, so it may be hard for you to get me to shut up.

Dylan Silver (02:16)
Pleasure to have you on. I’d like to start by asking you what initially put land trusts on your radar?

Randy Hughes (02:24)
Well, I’m a single family house guy. I have other have had other real estate investments over the years, but I’ve found that the single family house is best suited for my personality. and I probably had fifteen houses in my personal name back in the seventies until I woke up one night and I thought this isn’t very smart. All you have to do is go to the public records and look up what I own, what it’s worth, what it’s you know, it’s assess for, what my debt is, at least what it was when I first put the debt on it. And with those numbers, you pretty much figure out what my net worth is. And what real estate investors don’t all always realize is that we are a large target for lawsuits. And the reason why is because we have hard assets that are not easily sold off. you know, if if somebody sues you and you got a hundred thousand dollars in your bank account that’s pretty easy to lose a hundred thousand dollars but it’s not easy to lose a 50-unit apartment building or five or ten houses. So and the and the the the general public’s attitude towards real estate investors that there is that they are all rich. now you may be poor and you may be upside down and have negative cash flow, but your neighbor thinks you’re rich. And that’s the reason why we are at the top of the list for being sued. so once I woke up to the realization that I was putting out too much personal information out there, I started investigating ways of holding title other than in my name. And I came upon this land trust concept that’s been around for literally thousands of years in the world. a thousand years in in England. And of course, we got most of our laws from England, and the first land trust was formed about 130, 140 years ago here in the suburb of Chicago. so what real estate investors need to understand is that their first line of defense against frivolous lawsuits is to not own this stuff in your personal name. And so I I learned all I could about these trusts, studied them, studied the experts and and started using them. And I took everything out of my name personally and put it all in separate trusts. so that was really the beginning. And then that was back in the early 70s and and I’ve I’ve never taken title to anything since in my name.

Dylan Silver (04:57)
Now, when we talk specifically about, you know, protecting your assets, you know, one of the things that comes up is, you know, first of all, it being slightly more challenging to figure out who the owner of the trust is, but but then also too, there’s some protections that are inherent to trust. And we have had folks on the show talk about, you know, tax strategy, and there seems to be something there as well. When you were looking into your first trusts, was your approach to see, you know, hey, I’ve got to have an attorney and have the attorney do all of this, or was it a lot of, you know, trial and error?

Randy Hughes (06:23)
Well, my my first goal was just to get off the title. And and to be honest with you, land trusts by themselves are not great asset protection tools, but the the very first thing we should do as real estate investors is not own this stuff in our name because that takes us out of the public record and and and is just a great benefit. I I do use LLCs in my business and have for years and years, ever since they invented them, but not to hold the title. I make the LLC the beneficiary of the trust and therefore still get the benefits of the LLC, but nobody knows that the LLC owns the trust because there’s no registry for trust. You cannot look up an owner of a trust. whereas I can look up the owner of an LLC, unless you form it in certain states like Wyoming or Nevada or Delaware, maybe one or two others don’t publish the owners of LLCs, but everybody else publishes the owners. So holding title to your real estate in an LLC is not a smart idea from a privacy standpoint. so I like to get the best of both worlds and combine the trust with the LLC because the liability on the property that’s in the trust flows through to the beneficiary. And that’s why most real estate investors will make the beneficiary of their trust an LLC or a corporation. But I started investigating it to answer your question more directly and realize that it just isn’t that hard to do. Now if you go out and ask an attorney to to draft you a trust agreement, they’re going to charge you a thousand, some of them $2,500 per trust. Well, that gets pretty expensive if you’re very active in this business. So I thought it would make a lot of sense for me just to learn how to do it myself. And I did. And it’s not rocket science. It’s not difficult. And I’ve created all my own trust ever since.

Dylan Silver (08:24)
Now you mentioned liability several times a as well as the privacy standpoint, but of course frivolous lawsuits, you know, everyone is becoming more and more aware of of how litigious the society we live in is. Right is there one or a specific kind of liability that at that point in time when you were, you know, creating your first trust that you were particularly cautious of or aware of?

Randy Hughes (08:48)
Yes. tenant liability. and as you just mentioned, it has gotten much, much worse over the last five and a half decades that I’ve been a landlord. the tenants are crazier, they they expect more for less. they have no respect many and many times, not always, but they have no respect for property. and they’re they’re looking for an easy ride. And so they go to like a contingency fee lawyer who will sue you without you having to pay him, because he’s going to take his one-third out of any money that he extracts from you. and they’ll they’ll sue anybody at any time for any reason under those circumstances if they’re not having to pay the the legal bill. so an attorney, the first thing an attorney is going to going to do, before he decides to sue you, is he’s gonna turn to his computer and type in your name. And if up pops, you know, page after page of all this real estate that you own, he’s gonna come after you. But if he types in your name and nothing cups up, he’s gonna think twice and probably ask for a a check from from his client to get started instead of doing it for free. So there’s a whole game that’s played here. 97% of lawsuits last year in America didn’t go to trial. So what’s that tell you? That tells me that probably only 3% of the lawyers in the United States know how to go to trial. And more importantly, 97% of the lawsuits get settled. So it’s it’s a game that the lawyers play. Some of them are really good at it, and they’re really good at extracting money from you on a con on a contingency fee basis and a frivolous lawsuit basis. And I can tell you stories if we have time, things that have happened to me and that have happened to my students, that that explains exactly how this works or doesn’t work, depending on if you’re prepared or not. Unfortunately, most people don’t want to be prepared. They want to take the easy route. And and then when it’s too late, they moan and groan about it. So I always try try to tell real estate investors look, consider this like your car insurance and your homeowner’s insurance. You buy that. Why do you buy that? Because you may have an accident, right? So your real estate investments are going to be much greater in value than your car and your personal residence. So spend a little bit of time and a little bit of money learning how to protect those assets as you acquire them. Otherwise, you may end up 20 years from now thinking you’ve got an estate. And you don’t because somebody takes it from you. So it it if you’re going to be in this business long term and be successful, you’ve got to learn how to protect these assets as you’re acquiring them.

Dylan Silver (12:12)
You mentioned two points that stuck out to me. The the first was, you know, only three percent of lawyers may actually, you know, have the experience and knowledge and ability to actually see one of these lawsuits through to trial and how many get settled out of court, right? And I think, you know, that’s that’s probably very, very true. You know, how how many times would someone send maybe a you know letter written from an attorney saying this is what we’re you know thinking of doing, right? And the the person on the receiving end of that, if they’re not prepared for that, that can be quite intimidating, really. And then you also mentioned, you know, people oftentimes don’t consider this until they’re faced with a situation like that. And it it it harkens back to when I’m talking with you know tax preparers and accountants and enrolled agents on this show, and they’ll say, you know, the majority of people, unfortunately, that are new clients that reach out to us are reaching out because they have a big tax bill or they’ve got back taxes to pay. And it’s more of a reactive strategy as opposed to, you know, proactive. And so I I’d actually like to start, you know, there when when folks were are reaching out to you historically, I mean you’ve been doing this for for decades, is it because they’ve already encountered a tricky situation or are they more proactive?

Randy Hughes (13:27)
Well, yeah, that’s a great question. I’ve been speaking to real estate clubs, primarily REIAs, all around the country and out of the country for 26 years. so I’ve been in and probably 20 to 30 times per year. So I’ve been in front of a lot of audiences. and my personal experience is that only about 15 to 20 percent of the audience gets it, really understands what’s at risk and are willing to do something about it. And then usually a week or two or a month or sometimes a year later, I’ll get a call from somebody that was in an audience that says, Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I should have done something, but I didn’t. and I say, okay, so why are you calling me now? And they say, well, I just heard that one of my tenants is going to be suing me. Just heard it through the grapevine. What do I do? And I say, well, you know, today is today’s Friday. Sunday’s coming up here in a couple of days, so I’d suggest you go to church and pray because that’s all you can do. You can’t, you can’t buy fire insurance on your house when your house is on fire. And you can’t buy car insurance when you just had an accident. So you gotta asset protection is something you have to do before you need it. You have to be proactive to do it. And so unfortunately, only about 20% of my audience gets it. And then they what they do is they they pick up my home study course, which I offer at the end of my speeches, that teaches them how to do all this. and then the smart ones do it and the and the other ones don’t and and usually pay the consequences for it.

Dylan Silver (15:41)
Now is there ever a time where someone should be getting a home in their name, really?

Randy Hughes (15:46)
I don’t think so. There’s no benefit. you get all the same benefits of of controlling real estate as you do owning real estate. So from the IRS standpoint, even if your property’s in trust, they still consider you the owner, and you get all the same benefits, you know, depreciation and appreciation and all the other things that we want from real estate. But from a legal standpoint, when it’s in a trust, you don’t own it. So it’s a real dichotomy there. That’s to your benefit if you take advantage of it, to just not put yourself in that position. And there’s a side benefit to all this too, Dylan. especially if you manage your own property. Because if your tenants think you’re the owner, they will treat you differently than if you’re the property manager. And I’ve I’ve probably at least once a week say to one of my tenants, I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you after I talk to the owner. And it’s it’s a great way to diffuse confrontational issues, rent increases, any problems that come up, because it’s not a direct connection between the tenant and the owner.

Dylan Silver (16:55)
Now, when folks are acquiring properties in in mass, let’s say, and they may have a variety of different strategies, a fix and flip, a short term rental, a long term rental, you know, do they have to have and if we can get a little bit granular here, maybe don’t give away all of the gold, Randy, but a a nugget here. Should they have a separate trust for each acquisition or can they bulk several in one?

Randy Hughes (17:17)
Well, you can bulk several in one, but you got to go back to a basic understanding of asset protection, and that is separation of assets. Grandma and grandpa taught us all you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That same philosophy applies to your real estate investments. You don’t put all your real estate in one entity. so if whether it’s stocks, bonds, real estate, or cash, you do not lump them together anywhere. So I teach my students to put each property into its own separate trust. And then everything is is insulated from from the other. And it’s just much easier easier to deal with one one trust, one property.

Dylan Silver (17:58)
real estate can at times be incredibly localized, geographic and different depending on where you’re at in the country. Does this apply to, you know, how land trusts are established or is it a similar process wherever you are?

Randy Hughes (18:12)
That’s a great question, Dylan. What’s really fascinating about these trusts is there is no federal land trust law. It’s all state by state. And only six states have an actual land trust statute. They are legal in all states, but they’re more familiar in some states. For example, I live in Illinois. Illinois’s granddaddy of land trust law. The first trust was formed here. so many people will refer to this land trust as an Illinois type land trust. Doesn’t mean it’s an Illinois land trust, it just means it’s it’s similar to because land because Illinois has more land trust case law than any other state because it’s been or it’s been more active here in this state. But having said that. I live in Illinois, all my investment properties in Illinois, but I don’t use Illinois land trusts for a couple of reasons. One is I don’t like Illinois trust law. There are some holes in it that I don’t like. And the other thing is I can have a trust formed in another state that holds title to my real estate in Illinois. And then I can have that trust owned by another state’s LLC. And and you can see that’s getting a little convoluted there. Now, I understand it. It’s easy to set up and understand, but if you don’t know what you’re attacking, it’s not easily understood and it’s gonna cost you a fortune to have your lawyer figure it all out and explain it to you. And and the whole idea here, Dylan, is not to avoid your responsibilities in life. I you know, I’ve never gone bankrupt, I’ve never made a mortgage payment late. I’ve all if I promise to pay a note, I pay it. But if you come after me and my assets b and my family and my kids, my grandkids, entire future, because you’re too lazy to go out and earn a living and do this yourself, then I think I’ve got every reason to make your life miserable and run up your legal bills as far as I can to drive you away. And then typically what happens is you go sue somebody that owns real estate in their name because it’s much easier to do.

Dylan Silver (20:17)
You know, you mentioned driving up their legal bill, especially now as I’m thinking about this, you know, out loud, there’s a lot of, you know, renters by necessity. So I would imagine, you know, if folks are in a position where they’re in many cases, you know, living on a tight budget or close to check to check or just check to check, as soon as their attorney says, Yeah, we’re not gonna cover this, you know, contingent on the outcome, that there’s really no path forward. I mean it it’s gotta be very rare where a a renter is really ponying up thousands of dollars to, you know, attack their landlord in court.

Randy Hughes (20:52)
Right. That that’s exactly right, because they don’t know if they’re gonna win or lose. and and let me give you a real quick example of of how this works. I in nineteen in in 19 in I’m sorry, in the year 2000, I sold a property that I lived in with my wife and two daughters. And six months after closing, I got a letter from the buyer’s attorney saying, dear Mr. Hughes, my client had to replace a air conditioner, some wood flooring, and all the toilets in the house. And if you’ll just send us a check for $8,000, we won’t sue you. Now that to me, Dylan, is insane. You’re coming after me for maintenance and repairs after I sell a property? That’s crazy. But that just gives you an idea of how crazy this gets. So it didn’t bother me because I didn’t own the house. It was in a trust. So I sent the lawyer back a letter and I said, Dear Mr. Lawyer, I didn’t own the house. You know, go find the owner. And he sent me a letter back and he said, well, my client said you lived in the house. That was true. Some people in America don’t live. They don’t own houses they live in. and he went on to say, and if you’ll just tell us who the owner was, we won’t sue you. I sent him a letter back and I said, I think the property is owned by some kind of a trust. I I don’t quite understand it. I you know, wish you a lot of luck. And my last sentence said, Good luck finding the owner. And you know what happened, Dylan? You haven’t guessed at what happened?

Dylan Silver (22:12)
Nothing after that?

Randy Hughes (22:13)
He didn’t even have the courtesy to send me a letter back. Nothing happened. And the reason why is because they realized that this sucker wasn’t going to make it easy for them. See, they send these letters out all day, every day. It’s the it’s it’s their business model. And most people are intimidated because most people don’t prepare. So I could just hear him talk to his clients, say, Well, Bob, it’s not gonna be as easy to screw this guy as the last 10 people we send the letter out to. What do you want to do? If you want to write a check for $10,000 from my escrow account, I’ll start investigating this and we’ll go after that trust. And Bob said, heck no, I’m in this to make easy money. I’m not going to spend $10,000 to chase a trust. And they went off and sued somebody else. So that’s that’s a one simple example of how this system works. so I i can’t stress enough, if you’re going to be in this business long term and succeed, don’t own this stuff in your name. It will bite you in the you know what?

Dylan Silver (23:09)
You know, that one story about, you know, having a buyer of a property that was sold eight months after the fact, however many months after the fact, say, Hey, this, you know would we had to replace this and we want you to pay for it. It seems so absurd, right? Because in a pre owned home, right, there’s no warranty on the home. You had an inspection period, you came in and you bought the home. It’s it’s the same thing as being like, Hey, I bought this pre owned car and, you know, now, you know, I didn’t get any kind of warranty on this, but, you know, I’m coming back and I want a new car a year later. and to know that that happens in in real estate, it it really does put things into perspective because any pre owned home, you know, could someone could come in, it’s just not to their liking. It’s not running at a hundred percent efficiency, right? And you could say any number of things.

Randy Hughes (23:54)
Right. And and we had my trustee had signed the disclosure. You know, there’s a standard disclosure that you have to, you know, tell the buyer if there’s a leaky roof or clogged pipes or something, and there was nothing wrong with the house. It was a beautiful home. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, and all the toilets worked when I lived there. So I don’t know what the problem was. I think it was just a scam, trying to make easy money, and I wasn’t willing to participate.

Dylan Silver (24:17)
What do you think are the biggest misconceptions that investors have about trusts that maybe prevents them from even getting started?

Randy Hughes (24:27)
Good question. I think it’s they think it’s too complicated. and then they think, well then I’m gonna have to hire an attorney to do it because it’s too complicated for me to do myself. And and they call their attorney and most attorneys, I’ve talked to many attorneys and they said they don’t get any land trust training in law school, so unless they earn it learn it on their own after law school, they don’t have a clue. So most attorneys will just say, you know, don’t use a land trust, you know, they’re they’re no good. Use an LLC. Well, I agree. An LLC does have better asset protection, but a a trust has better privacy. And your first step is privacy. and the cheapest thing you can do. So I think once once I teach them how easy it is to do for very little money, I mean, I’ve got a home study course, for example, that’s $597. That’s it. The rest of your life. You can create a thousand trusts if you want to. With a lousy $597 homestudy course. So it’s it’s not hard, but it does take some extra effort, some extra paperwork. But I always say to real estate investors, you know, what’s your net worth worth? Is it worth a little extra paper? You know, hopefully it is. If it isn’t, maybe you ought get out of this business.

Dylan Silver (25:42)
When you’re talking with folks who have a substantial number of doors or or even, you know, larger, you know, syndications or what have you, does this become even more imperative, you know, once they’ve scaled a a a sizable portfolio?

Randy Hughes (25:58)
Especially. Yeah. That’s why I teach people and encourage them to get started early with the first or second property. So they they get a habit, they know how to do this, they get that trust agreement on their computer and they can literally spit it out in five minutes. so the easier you make it for these investors, the more likely they are to use it. But I mean you just think of a guy that’s got fifty or a hundred or two hundred houses, you know, the net worth of that is tremendous. And they are they are, you know, just they might as well walk down the street with a red flag saying sue me with their name on 200 houses. so yeah, it’s it’s definitely something you you need to get started with. there are certainly a lot more sophisticated trusts that we can evolve you into, but you gotta start somewhere. And privacy of ownership is the beginning. And if you want to take it to the next levels, you can do that. for example, I also teach people how to put their their personal property into trusts. So your car, your boat, your motorcycle, your shotgun, your hammer, anything you’re gonna loan to your neighbor and he’s gonna hurt himself with and come back and sue you should be in a trust, but that would be a personal property trust, not a land trust.

Dylan Silver (27:15)
When we talk about real estate as far as holding long term and over different conditions and market cycles, people sometimes change their strategy over time a as market conditions change. You know, of course we saw that in two thousand eight when the global financial housing crisis happened. And then I feel like over the last couple of years we’re seen some changes as well. Some people say, are we in a recession now? Were we in a recession over the course of the last five years? You know, what’s happening? And certainly, you know, where you’re at in the country, you’re in you’re in Illinois, it’s gonna depend on the market that you’re in. But you know, some people would say that certain areas of the country had overdevelopment in like this class A you know, luxury rental space and not enough development in affordable housing. So when there’s different market conditions and when things are changing, do the same principles of, you know, having a trust apply, do you make different kinds of trusts? Is it a judgment call?

Randy Hughes (28:14)
Well, I think if if if we’re dealing with real estate, you need to start with the land trust as as as a title holding trust. for example, most Walmarts, most CVSs, most Walgreens are they don’t own those buildings. Investors do. And the investors hold title in trusts. And there’s a reason for that, and and typically in land trusts. so so yeah, you know, real estate investing is kind of like the weather. It’s it’s it’s it’s local. and I think that you you’ve hit on a really good point here because my my mentor told me, Dylan, probably 20 years ago, that he predicted that the United States would become like Europe. And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, in Europe, 10% of the people own all the real estate. 90% of the population are tenants. And when they die, they don’t pass a house on to their children, they pass a lease on to their children. And I and I really think that that’s where we’re headed here. because you know, I’ve got a lot of data, personal data that that that I draw on. So I’ve been a landlord for 56 years. For five decades, I had roughly 80% of my tenants renew every year and 20% move. Until COVID. And ever since COVID, I have ninety-five percent of my tenants renew and five percent move. And that’s mostly because they can’t find any place to move to. Oftentimes I’ll have tenants say, Well, I’m not going to renew. And I say, Okay, well, then you gotta be out by such and such date. And they call me back two weeks later and say, Well, I guess I’m gonna renew the lease. I can’t find a place to move to. And that was a result of COVID. It was a result of low interest rates where a lot of real estate investors sold for top dollar cash. but they sold to homeowners, not investors. So investors sold to homeowners, which took rental property off the market. So you couple that with the fact that we just haven’t been building enough units. And and if you build a unit, it’s too expensive to rent anyway. You know, you know, so we we kind of got a perfect storm going on here. which tells me that there’s probably a really good likelihood that if you don’t get in this game pretty soon, you won’t ever get in this game. so I encourage especially the young people to get in the game because that game may not be there anymore in the near future.

Dylan Silver (30:34)
It’s a harrowing thing to say, but I agree. And I was talking with a guest last week about this, and I think to purchase homes in many parts of the country, in Illinois, in you know, parts of the East Coast, certainly, you know, California, right? West Coast wise, you know, parts of Florida. You have to think like a real estate investor to purchase a home or you have to find a way to have you know, high income. And so one of the things that I’ve seen is people getting more creative to purchase homes, but also I’m starting to see people potentially, you know, putting their heads together and figuring out how to buy homes collectively, which I find interesting. I don’t know if that’ll catch on, but you have to think, you know, if you’re renting with several people and you know these people well enough. And, you know, you can approach this like a business and have, you know, roles defined almost like a prenup. If things don’t go yeah well, you know, this is how this will work. I’ll own this and I’ll own this. What’s your thoughts on, you know, creative ways potentially where folks can get into homes?

Randy Hughes (31:40)
Well, you’re talking about creative financing and and certainly that is the answer in many respects. but you just gotta learn it. And and they don’t teach us stuff in school. They’re teaching crap in school that don’t doesn’t help you get get anywhere in life. and so you gotta seek out mentors and and some of us older folks that that have these concepts. I I’ll give you a prime example. it was pr it was about twenty-five years ago now. I ran into a guy, he and his partner owned 200 houses. And the partner wanted to keep his hundred, and the guy I ran into wanted to sell his hundred. And when I ran into him, he only had thirty left. And I said, Okay, well, I’ll buy all 30 of them. But I need your help. I need some seller financing. I’ll I’ll give you 80% of the purchase price, but I want you to take a note back for 20% of the purchase price. And he did. And I still have those houses today without a dime of my money in 30 houses. you know, so creative financing is is a big answer to your question. because I’ve bought a lot of property over the years with creative financing. I bought a lot of property in 2008 when the crash occurred, and real estate investors were saying, I give up, it’s terrible, the world’s coming to an end. And I said, Fine, sell it to me. I’ll I’ll buy all you got. So yeah creative financing solves a lot of problems.

Dylan Silver (33:06)
You know, it’s interesting because you mentioned the the inaccessibility of this information and sometimes people, you know, thinking that well, if I haven’t learned it at this point and I they’re telling me I can’t get approved, then I’m just gonna throw my hands up in the air and continue renting. I’ve seen that more and more people who you wouldn’t pin to be real estate investors are having to start thinking like investors, seeking out folks like yourself in order to find ways to creatively own homes or you know find non QM financing in order to get into a home. And then also too the other side is if we look back at, you know, two thousand eight, it took out a lot of lenders. And so mo for the most part, all the lenders that are in business right now have been in business, you know, after two thousand eight. They got in when everyone else got out. And so you have I would say a talent pool in the lending space that now it’s coming up on twenty years. So I guess I can’t say this carte blanche, but in many cases they have maybe a handful of skills that they feel comfortable with and they’re looking for kind of, you know, soft pitch, you know, home run balls that they can tee off on, and they’re not willing to go to the mat to help folks who may have tougher profiles get approved.

Randy Hughes (34:21)
Yes. you’re you’re you’re exactly right. And part of the problem also is, you know, some of these younger folks are graduating from college with a house payment already. And you know, their student loan is twenty five or thirty years, so they can’t afford to buy a another house and get another house payment. so, you know, the value of a college degree anymore is something that you really need to analyze before you before you go to college and do that. Maybe you’re better off with a two year degree. but I think from a financing standpoint, it’s it’s funny, I was I was talking to Vena Jones-Cox today. She invited me to come back and speak to her group and and we were talking about this subject of not many younger people replacing us older gurus, so to speak, although I don’t really consider myself that, but someone who’s teaching real estate concepts. not too many people coming up to replace us. So if that’s true, I would suggest the younger people do all they can to get the knowledge from the older people. I mean you know how many how often do you get to talk to somebody with five and a half decades of experience? You know, you know why beat why beat your head against the wall, you know, learn from somebody else’s mistakes.

Dylan Silver (35:35)
How many real estate market cycles is that, right? You you’ve seen everything four times.

Randy Hughes (35:39)
Yeah, I remember, you know, twenty-one, twenty-two percent interest rates and and one and a half percent interest rates. And I remember buying property when my friends said, You’re a fool, why you why are you doing that? You know, buying houses and they were not going up in the eighties. We had it we had stagflation in the eighties, but I kept mine because I had a long term attitude and a long term faith that they they would continue to go up. And you know, I’ve graphed this stuff out and it’s really interesting, Dylan. When when my rents are going up, oftentimes the values level off. When the values are going up, the rents level off. But I’m always getting one or the other, which is fine with me. As long as I’m getting one or the other, that’s fine with me working out. But everything just, you know, nothing goes up straight and nothing goes down straight. so you you gotta learn how to benefit from those waves.

Dylan Silver (36:28)
we are coming up on time here, Randy. Any new projects that you’re working on? And then also anything you’d like to mention directly to our audience?

Randy Hughes (36:36)
new projects, no, I’m a pretty boring guy. I’m just a single family house guy, just you know, out there struggling in the world. but I i i would like to offer some some inf some free information to your audience. after teaching for so long, I get asked pretty much the same questions wherever I go. And So I wrote a little booklet. I’ve written a lot of booklets and actually course guides and materials and all that, but I wrote a small booklet that I give out for free. And it’s got over 50 reasons to use a trust. And if your audience wants to just text the word reasons to the following phone number, you’ll get a copy for free. So text the word “Reasons” to 202-203-2005. And you’ll get a free copy of over 50 reasons to use a trust. And if you want to, if you want to talk to me more, you want to shoot me an email, I’d love to talk to you. That’s that’s what I do, is talk about real estate. So my email is [email protected]. So that’s [email protected]. so shoot me an email and I’d love to talk and help you in any way I can. It’s kind of my way of giving back at this point in my life. Is I i really, really want the younger people especially, that don’t get it don’t get this education in school and maybe really are hungry for it but don’t know where to go to get it, get it from us old timers, you know, before we kick off.