Small Market,Big Cashflow:Maine Multifamily Investing,Vertical Integration & Team Building W/ Dave H

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Dave discusses the potential for making money in real estate across various markets, emphasizing the importance of finding good deals and effective property management. He highlights the subjective nature of real estate pricing and the common misconceptions that can lead to undervaluation.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Dave Holman’s Website
    • Dave Holman on LinkedIn
    • Dave Holman’s Phone no.: 207-517-5700

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Dave (00:00)
  a way for you to put sweat equity into a business that will generate real wealth and either tax free or tax advantaged wealth ⁓ for you over time. And I describe it as a get rich slow scheme. So it’s not overnight. Don’t just go all grant cardone and take down a 400 unit complex as your first deal. But I think that it does pay off for people that are excited to learn and excited to work hard.

  Dylan Silver (00:11)
  Right.

  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Dave Holman is a commercial realtor, investor, property manager, involved in new construction as well in Maine. Dave, welcome to the show.

  Dave (02:15)
  Thanks, Dylan. Good to meet you.

  Dylan Silver (02:17)
  Great to have you on here, Dave. I always like to start off at the top of each episode by asking guests how they got into real estate.

  Dave (02:27)
  So I

  got into real estate later in life. I started real estate later in life. I had no connection to it other than my parents owned our home growing up. ⁓ We didn’t have any rental property or any investments in real estate per se. We inherited like a summer cottage at one point, ⁓ but I had never considered a career in it. In fact, quite the opposite. I thought that people that were big real estate moguls or muckety mucks were kind of.

  dirty, greedy, Scrooge McDuck type of folks. And it wasn’t until ⁓ my wife got pregnant with our first child and I already had my MBA, I was working in nonprofit development ⁓ that I started learning and trying to see what can I do to give a more abundant life to my family and also make the world a better place and live out my values. And suddenly I stumbled on real estate and I was like, wait a minute, I can make my own house.

  as green and energy efficient as possible, but ⁓ that’s not really gonna change the world. Whereas if rentals will pay me to convert their oil burning systems to heat pumps and I can do well by doing good and insulate and make a lot of other places that scale much more energy efficient and then tell that story. And so that people that are much bigger and smarter than me can do it at bigger and better scales. mean, that’s exciting. That gets me out of the bed in the morning. So that kind of got the ball rolling.

  Dylan Silver (03:50)
  RING

  Dave (03:53)
  My first concept was like, I’ll buy like one condo every year. And in 10 years, I’ll have 10 condos and I’ll just rent them all out. And that’s our kids’ college education. you know, and it turns out that’s not a very smart plan. Don’t buy condos and one condo a year. I mean, maybe, maybe, but ⁓ that’s not, that’s, that’s like you said, that’s life on hard mode. You know, don’t, don’t get involved in HOAs that are all up in your business unless you need to. My, my own personal opinion. So, ⁓

  I partnered with family because I didn’t really have capital of my own and they had extra retirement funds that they wanted to diversify. And I think that’s a great place for folks that have family or friends to look if you don’t have capital of your own. ⁓ Paper assets, digital assets are real risky and a lot of people like to have brick and mortar, real asset investments, especially if you’re following macroeconomics, there’s this thing called debasement.

  which has been going on for a long time and it’s gonna go on forever, because that’s how governments avoid going bankrupt basically. So ⁓ you don’t wanna fight the Fed, you wanna go along with it and real estate is a great way to do that. So we started with a single family house back in 2016, did another one and then ⁓ I got my own mixed use building, kind of by accident, it was just the cheapest thing I could find and the only one that seemed like a good deal and that taught me about commercial.

  Dylan Silver (04:51)
  Yeah.

  Dave (05:59)
  real estate as well as residential. And I had a W-2 job still at that time. I held that until I had 32 units. And then like you, got my real estate realtor agent license, thinking that would be a good way to learn about the markets, help other people invest like I was. And I still have that. have a team of agents that work with me now, both in commercial and residential. started that in 2019 was when I went full-time in real estate and pretty quickly.

  Dylan Silver (06:26)
  Right. Right.

  Dave (06:28)
  Yeah, used, ⁓ you know, OPM, ⁓ which is an acronym not everyone should be familiar with. It’s not taught in high school or college, but business school taught it to me. OPM means other people’s money. And it’s working, you know, with passive investors, basically, and people that, you know, they know you and trust you and like what you’re doing, and they want to make a good return, but not necessarily give all their money to Nvidia or Tim Cook or whatever in the stock market, where you have absolutely no control.

  You know, your fate is just tied to macroeconomics and corporate America and global corporations, you know, and you can do well or poorly. And I’ve always invested, you know, in stocks as well. I enjoy that, but I don’t fool myself into thinking that it’s a great way to, you know, build wealth for my family in any kind of short-term and reliable way. I think it’s an important, you know, diversification for those, those that can afford it, but real estate offers, ⁓

  Dylan Silver (06:58)
  That’s right.

  Sure, sure.

  Dave (07:25)
  a way for you to put sweat equity into a business that will generate real wealth and either tax free or tax advantaged wealth ⁓ for you over time. And I describe it as a get rich slow scheme. So it’s not overnight. Don’t just go all grant cardone and take down a 400 unit complex as your first deal. But I think that it does pay off for people that are excited to learn and excited to work hard.

  Dylan Silver (07:36)
  Right.

  Dave (07:53)
  and willing to do both of those things.

  Dylan Silver (07:54)
  Sure.

  When we talk about getting into the real estate space and then starting a team, did you initially think, hey, I’ve got this multi-use, I have some history in single family as well, let me build a team of investor-friendly agents, let’s get involved in some commercial deals, we can find deals that way. Or were you thinking of, hey, single family is kind of where people start, let me start in the single family space?

  Dave (08:24)
  Yeah, great question. I started in single family because that was what I could afford and it was intuitive to me and my parents, you who I was partnering with for that first deal. And I think that’s a great place for people to start. You know, I don’t poo poo starting with one single family home at all because it’s like training wheels and it’s like very hard to lose your shirt buying and holding a single family house. Like you really have to do badly and picked at an unlucky time or unlucky place.

  to lose money over the long run with a single family house. And I would say even in a bad market, if you just hold it long enough, you’re gonna be fine. But you have to be able to hold it long enough. And if you’re highly leveraged and you’re everything to the hilt, that can blow up. ⁓ But real estate is very forgiving if you have some extra liquidity and you can ride out the chain. You don’t have to sell. You never wanna be a for seller. So to me, ⁓ flipping is a very interesting business, but it’s a very active business. You have to be very good at it.

  Dylan Silver (09:00)
  Right.

  Dave (09:20)
  And there’s a high degree of risk, you know, especially in a falling market ⁓ that can be very challenging to do well. Whereas buy and hold, you know, rental, multifamily, real estate and diversified markets is, it’s not particularly sexy, but it is particularly reliable and low risk, you know, relative to other, other strategies. I’m sorry if I forgot your original question. yeah, team building. So ⁓ that.

  Dylan Silver (09:26)
  Sure, sure.

  Yeah.

  Yeah.

  Dave (09:44)
  kind of came along organically as I got overloaded. I had a full-time job until I had up to 32 units. And a bunch of those came with a manager when I bought them who was already managing the properties. I was like, oh great, ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We’ll just keep this guy on and I’ll kind of manage him. And then I kind of came to realize like, it is broke. He doesn’t care. He’s not doing a good job. I always aspired to be an A student and he’s like comfortable with Ds. This isn’t going to work out.

  And so I hired what I thought was a better management company. ⁓ And, you know, same kind of story. Like they were a lesser evil maybe, but you know, this was not their, my properties were not their baby and they were not ⁓ eyes on the ball the way I wanted. And this is a tertiary market. We don’t have big corporate managers that can just do everything with a specialist very easily. So, you know, I had a friend who had got from college who had gotten involved in syndication in Minnesota. And he, you know, had kind of explained how

  you know his partner had built this management company to manage their syndication properties, not as a profit center, but as a risk management tool. You know, when they know about a vacancy, they find out early because they’re the ones managing it. They know 30 days or 60 days in advance and they can post it well in advance and they can price it as aggressively as they want. They can give a month for three very easily. Those are all levers and gears that when you manage your own properties, you can pull instantly. You don’t have to be like,

  Oh hey, like Chad, like I think last week we talked about maybe like relisting this with different photos, a different price. Can you please get on the, like, I don’t want to be reminding people to, you know, care and have their eyes on the ball. Like I want that to be in my plate. And then if we don’t do it great, which I’m not always perfect, then you know, it’s on me. That was my own fault.

  Dylan Silver (12:01)
  When we talk about some of these aspects of basically being vertically integrated, realtor, investor, property manager, how did the vertical integration aspect of it come about? It seems like it was somewhat intentional, but also there was a progression there.

  Dave (12:21)
  Yeah, I love ⁓ the control that vertical integration gives you. You know, there’s usually some marginal cost savings to doing that. ⁓ But you know, wearing my MBA hat, there’s also sometimes cost savings to outsourcing things and delegating. I don’t think that one is inherently better or worse than the other, but they’re different. And if you’re someone that cares a lot about quality and culture, it’s very hard to build a culture if you’re working with third party management.

  You know, like they’re gonna have their culture and if that jives with you, great, but you don’t really tell them how to run their meetings, who to hire and how to train them, you know. ⁓ Whereas what I get to build my own culture and I see all of our companies here as a sports team. You know, like we treat each other like family, but we’re really a sports team where, all right, if you’re a superstar, you’re gonna get promoted and raises and you’re gonna do great. And if you’re always fumbling, you’re gonna get cut, you know, that’s fair in life. ⁓

  Dylan Silver (12:58)
  Right, right.

  Hey.

  Dave (13:18)
  So, you but I think it’s motivating for me to try to help people find fulfillment through their work, you know, on our teams. And, you know, there’s so many jobs in America that just suck and they just see you as a cog in a machine and you’re just, your bosses are not good. Right. And, and I like kind of rescuing really talented, smart, skilled people from situations that they don’t like. You know, we have a lot of overqualified, you know, moms.

  Dylan Silver (13:30)
  True. Yep, we’ve all had them.

  Dave (13:46)
  that don’t want a 40 hour work week. They’re happier with 20 or 25, but they get more done in 20 or 25 than Chad did in 40. I’m just making up the name Chad. I’ve never employed or worked with a Chad yet. I’m sure they’re great people. ⁓ But sorry, Chad, for the listening. I’ll switch the name. ⁓ So I love team building. I follow sports. I’m a big Patriots fan. So all your listeners can hate on me for that, especially now that we’re back. The dynasty’s back, obviously.

  Dylan Silver (14:14)
  Hi, we’re back. We

  are back.

  Dave (14:16)
  Yeah.

  So that that team building part is fun and it’s grown organically as I’ve needed more help and it’s hard as someone who likes to do it themselves and thinks that they, you know, do things best themselves to delegate. And sometimes when that goes well, the people that I’ve delegated to are just better than me and smarter than me and they’re more on the ball and that’s great. And I love that. And sometimes, well, it’s not quite as good as when I was doing it, but I was taking on that $20 an hour work.

  and sacrificing $10,000 an hour work. And you need to really think about that in your life and deal flow and business priorities as are you doing $20 a work or $1,000 an hour work? And that sourcing and lead finding and capital raising, that’s the $10,000 an hour work that can really move the needle for you over time. And I emphasize, I’m sure I don’t average that even at my best, but. ⁓

  Dylan Silver (14:49)
  Sure, sure.

  Yeah, yeah.

  Dave (15:55)
  It’s looking at that higher priorities. Yeah, yeah.

  Dylan Silver (15:55)
  focusing on those high priority. Yeah, I want

  I want to pivot a bit here, Dave, and ask you specifically, you know, investing in Maine, I’ve mentioned to you before hopping on here, you know, I’ve had investors in the northeast in New England, ⁓ and most of them are not specific to, you know, their area. And in many cases, it may actually be somewhat challenging to to be an investor in those areas for a variety of different factors. But

  You have specifically ⁓ really done business out there in Maine. How has that been? then also too, is it somewhat challenging but also fulfilling in a way, making Maine your home both figuratively and then also literally?

  Dave (16:43)
  Yeah, I mean, you can make or lose a lot of money in any market, you know, big or small. mean, it’s the smaller you go, the harder it is to find deals because there’s just a limited amount of resources and real estate to transact. And Maine is certainly, you know, the population of like an average city in Texas or a small city. So, you know, it’s a limited demographic, but I’m fishing in a smaller pond, but there’s not many fishermen either. You know, there are very few syndicators that do anything in Maine.

  We are 80,000 housing units short of what we need as a state and we’re producing like one or 2000 a year on average. So it’s a very stable and very undersupplied market structurally. And there’s a lot of them like that. It’s not unique to Maine. ⁓ But I love being a part of my community. I love walking down the main street and seeing buildings that I own and I’ve fixed up and the neighbors are happy that they look better now. And we have great businesses and tenants and renters in them.

  ⁓ and I love being able to touch, see, and feel, you know, what I’m doing and making an impact. Cause like, yes, I’m doing this for money and I’m doing this to build wealth, but, I really appreciate the tactile, tangible part of it. And I really believe that you, you can make money in any real estate market, be it downtown San Francisco or, you know, Rumford, Maine. ⁓ it is, it is about finding good deals in that market. And they’re, they’re in every market because real estate is a horribly priced, ⁓

  Dylan Silver (18:00)
  Hmm.

  Dave (18:10)
  you know asset where it’s all based on people and what they think their thing is worth and a lot of people are just wrong or they’ve managed it wrong and that’s it’s worth a lot less but lo and behold when you manage it right ergo it gets worth a lot more ⁓ so i i i completely appreciate that there’s you know national trends there’s been hot markets you know the south of the midwest and texas especially have been very hot but the problem is that all the smart money but a lot of the dumb money then flows in

  Dylan Silver (18:16)
  Yeah.

  Dave (18:38)
  They overbuild rents collapse and you get this this boom and bust cycle that causes a lot of pain for the people that didn’t time it right. And I don’t like playing musical chairs. You know, I like, mean, actually I do. It’s a really fun game, but in my, you know, I don’t want to go bankrupt. I don’t want to be that person without a chair and a real estate cycle, which is why to me, Maine is a slow and steady state. We’ve had a, you know, slightly growing population. ⁓ recently it was pretty static for a long time. ⁓

  Dylan Silver (18:40)
  Yeah. Yep.

  Yeah. Great game.

  Dave (19:06)
  You know, but it’s a place where if you have knowledge and you have connections and networks, I mean, that’s how I find a lot of the deals that I do. They come to me organically. Like I don’t market, I don’t mail, don’t advertise. I’m just out having coffee and talking with people and helping them with their challenges and problems and whether it’s as a broker, manager or investor.

  Dylan Silver (19:12)
  you

  Sure,

  I want to pivot a bit here and ask you about some dynamics that I’ve noticed that are regional. When I was born in northern New Jersey, I lived in Texas for five years, five, six years. But when I think about places like Maine, for instance, I think about picturesque, I think about single-family homes. I really think about a lot of what

  when we think of the American dream community and having your own home, Maine still seems to be a place where that can be done. And I’m bringing this up because in Texas, ⁓ you’re seeing a lot of new builds, which is great, you’re seeing a lot of new construction, but you’re also seeing a ton of builds in this rental by necessity sector. like multifamily housing, apartment complexes, effectively even with incentives and so on and so forth, you’re still going to

  you know, need to qualify for these homes or have a skilled and experienced lender. In Maine, are you seeing a ton of interest in that multifamily space, that workforce housing space, or is there still this idea that, hey, we don’t need, you know, to have apartment complexes left and right, we’ve got a smaller population, but also that isn’t necessarily the aesthetic of Maine?

  Dave (20:44)
  ⁓ It’s a great question, Dylan. think in Maine, the NIMBYism is such a powerful force. so, you know, everyone listening can probably appreciate that there’s economies of scale in housing that mean that like density is good. Like density economies of scale mean that multifamily, you know, apartment buildings and complexes are just inherently more efficient and cheaper. Like we built 63 units.

  our roof cost 100 grand. You try to 63 single family houses, your roofing will be a heck of a lot more than 100 grand. You know, there’s so many great facets to the urban density that you see in cities. And that’s the direction that the world is going. That’s the direction that the US is going. We had a temporary, I think like back push during COVID, whenever and wanted to get out of dense places where they were gonna get sick and die. But now that’s gone. It’s

  I think the race is on to be near other people. I think Maine is at the very beginning of that densification in part, because we were settled in the 1600s by the white colonists and land is very fragmented here. Whereas the West, there’s just much more open, things started really in the late 1800s for the most part. It’s much easier to find open land and build. then here there’s this culture where it’s like, we have a housing crisis. We so want affordable housing, but

  how dare you build like that ugly building near me. Like, don’t you dare, I’m going to come to town meetings and planning board meetings and like get, all up in arms about, know, how this is going to increase traffic. And, so it’s a very unfortunately hypocritical and self-defeating thing where like those homeowners that defeat multifamily housing projects ⁓ are increasing the value of their own homes. I mean, they’re protecting that value by prohibiting competition. Yeah, that’s a subtle piece of the NIMBY, you know, motivation, but I think it’s also just.

  Dylan Silver (22:13)
  Yeah.

  Dave (22:37)
  people are scared of change. And a single family neighborhood to morph into a multifamily neighborhood is gonna hurt a lot of feelings. It’s gonna create a lot of change and policies can either promote that or prohibit that. And I think the East Coast has not been a place where we’ve done a good job promoting density and growth in our urban downtown cores, whether it’s small towns or big cities.

  Dylan Silver (22:52)
  Yeah.

  When I’m thinking about, and this is really an interesting discussion for you, because I haven’t even thought about this, Northern New Jersey where I grew up, I mean, it was ⁓ not necessarily uncommon, of course, because there’s dense population centers, you know, you’ve got Newark, you’ve got Hoboken, but most people were accustomed to living in, you know, ⁓ a single family home, right? And then you would understand this idea that, you know, if you were a

  ⁓ maybe young career professional that you would be in some type of apartment or workforce housing. But then in Texas, I’ve noticed in a much more affordable market, I’ve noticed a different trend, which is even outside of major metros, so Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, right, Fort Worth, you’ll have apartment complexes, large apartment complexes, basically right at the edge of a subdivision.

  And so in a lot of ways you might not have that kind of separation that you might ⁓ think you would have or you might be more accustomed to in areas like the East Coast. And I actually don’t even necessarily think that there is a perception tied to it. But when I do think of East Coast, when I do think of a place like Maine, for instance, for better or for worse, it does seem like at least…

  from the outside perspective looking in, they are trying to preserve that element of, we’re not gonna have high-rise buildings all over the place. Hey, we’re not gonna have big multifamily housing popping up left and right, that we’re gonna have smaller communities of single-family homes. Am I right in saying that or is that not the case?

  Dave (24:40)
  No, you’re right on. ⁓ think single family zones usually want to stay that way. And it’s a push and pull, right? From the people that want in, you know, the workers, the people that want cheap housing in that area and the wealthier the town, the more desperately they often need workforce housing for the people that work in the service industries of that town. ⁓ And it’s kind of up to the residents and the municipality of like, are we going to let them build here or not?

  And I think the smart towns do and the kind of dumb ones don’t. you know, and I, when I say dumb, I mean, it promotes sprawl. so like Portland, Maine, unfortunately is a city that has kind of hogtied itself with, you know, rent control, inclusionary zoning, lot of regulations. They’ve bundled into the green new deal and like, I’m the greenest guy you’ll probably have on the show, but the, the regulatory burden that you put on dense, efficient housing is not green.

  that creates sprawl, like that creates clear cutting for subdivisions that would have been that nice, highly amenitized hundred unit tower in the city. And I think they’re starting, know, cities are starting to wake up to that, but I’m, I’m kind of radical. like, you know, if you fly over like parts of Europe, I think it’s amazing. Cause you’ll, you’ll see this like cute dense town with like multi-story buildings. And then it’s like, and now we’re the farm fields and it’s just fields and we’re done. And I like that.

  Dylan Silver (25:48)
  Right.

  Right.

  Dave (26:06)
  concept of zoning where it’s like, hey, here’s the growth zone, go nuts, no height limits, no density limits, no setbacks, no density limits, like just build what you developers want to risk your money to build that you think is the right thing for this town and meets all the regulatory codes and laws that we have. And then, hey, here’s our historic district, here’s our farm and field, our forest district, or our single family zoning, like no more permits, don’t build there, like we’re done with that, like leave nature alone.

  We don’t need more sprawl. And that’s my philosophy. Not everyone is going to agree with that. And I think I’m not so radical that there’s no happy medium, but the trend, unfortunately, is the denser and more liberal the municipality, the more they say no to growth and they say no to housing, even though they’re trying to say yes to it. There’s like, well, we’ll give you all these subsidies over here. You can get a TIF and you can get this and that.

  But we have all these sticks over here. We have massive impact fees. We have massive height limits and all these things, density limits that are huge disincentives. They’re huge taxes on housing. Inclusionary zoning is a massive tax on housing. And yet no one thinks of it that way. We’re all like warm and fuzzy of what we want to include people. And I’m like, yes, we absolutely want to include people. The way to do it is by building more housing so it gets cheap, like you’ve seen in your Texas markets where it’s been supply has met demand. It’s overshot it.

  Dylan Silver (27:11)
  Yeah.

  Dave (27:28)
  And now lo and behold, who wins? It’s the renters and the buyers, the consumers, that are making money from the developers that got over ambitious.

  Dylan Silver (27:36)
  I’m, you know, this is an interesting discussion

  I think maybe there’s a happy medium. You mentioned, you know, if you’re in Europe and you’ll fly over, there might be a city center, but then there’ll be fields, right? I’ve unfortunately, I would say unfortunately in Texas, seen the city sprawl go out to such a degree that you’ve eliminated some of, and there’s frustration around that, that, you know.

  where are the ranches going effectively? Now of course, they’re still everywhere. There’s still a of vacant land in Texas, but the sprawl is taking away from that. As an example, from Dallas to Oklahoma, what used to be miles and miles of clear open land is now becoming less and less of that to the point where you might just have cities prop up along there. Do you think that places like Maine, I might throw Vermont in there as well.

  that when you look at ⁓ creating more housing, more workforce housing, that that could potentially, ⁓ I don’t wanna say hurt the culture, but maybe hurt some of the identity that people have tied to Maine, tied to Vermont. Would you see any level of fleeing to other areas, or would that not, is that such a low risk because the need for workforce housing is so high?

  that these people would effectively say, we might not love it, but it’s not going to cause us to, you know,

  revolt or leave the state effectively.

  Dave (29:08)
  Yeah, great question. And I think it all depends on how you do it. And to your point, like sprawl would be the wrong way to do it. That would ruin a lot of both our culture and our natural beauty. ⁓ And so how do you incentivize density is the question. And that to me is the key. And there’s cities that have done that very effectively and there’s ones that are just falling on their face with it. And it’s really just removing

  barriers to economies of scale, efficient family housing. ⁓ That to me is the key. think Maine can absolutely, Vermont can absolutely preserve its culture by promoting ADUs. Say, all right, we’re not cutting any new trees, we’re just adding more house under existing houses. We have a new law that’s basically saying any land zone for single family now has to be at the state level zoned for multifamily. ⁓

  You Massachusetts got rid of its rent control, you know, by the state level. And it’s amazing. thus, like tons of housing was created and ironically, rents go down, like rent control increases rents. Inclusionary zoning dramatically increases rents, even though they’re creating affordable housing. It’s like, yeah, for like one half of 1 % of the population. And for everyone else, your housing is getting more expensive because fewer developers are incentivized to develop. And if there’s demand to live there, if the population is kind of trying to grow,

  Dylan Silver (30:36)
  what’s gonna happen.

  Dave (30:37)
  they’re going to go build elsewhere. you know, and it’s, it’s often town by town. Like, one town puts in these, you know, growth limits, you know, somewhat arbitrarily. Well, the next town over didn’t, you’re going to get, you know, growth over there. And there’s, there’s very little kind of thoughtful regional state or even national level planning that would take a lot of the artificial barriers out of housing. Like it’s hard enough with just construction costs, you know, and, energy and building safety code, you know, in the modern day, it’s hard enough. Like, let’s not give ourselves extra.

  Dylan Silver (31:00)
  Yeah, yeah.

  Dave (31:07)
  challenges ⁓ that ultimately create communities people don’t love to live in. know, like ⁓ the Levittowns, the mass production housing that just sprawls out. People go there, but it’s not charming. ⁓ know, charming are the more dense neighborhoods with nice street trees and they’re near all the amenities and things you would want. And there’s great pedestrian opportunities. That’s what we human beings love having.

  Dylan Silver (31:21)
  Yeah, I know.

  Dave (31:35)
  You know, we were talking before the show about living in like a very congested developing country with a ton of traffic. And like I’ve lived in Bolivia, you’ve lived, you know, in Santo Domingo and Dominican Republic. And ⁓ those are there. have great things about their culture, but you know, their zoning, their traffic design, all that stuff. I mean, it can be a lot better. And I was just in Japan this summer and my God, you know, they fit half the population of the US into California.

  And I swear they have like more natural beauty than we do on average. mean, they’ve preserved a ton of that country as rural farm and field land. Cause you know, they want to be able to meet some percentage of their own food production. Um, and they do it with density. mean, there, you know, it’s basically one big city from Tokyo to Kyoto, uh, you know, over 500 miles. Cause it’s just a dense urban corridor, but it’s really just a tiny sliver of the country and they’ve got amazing transit, um, amazing density and.

  Dylan Silver (32:15)
  Yeah.

  Dave (32:30)
  you know, it really is a beauty to behold. And that’s where humanity is going. You know, I read a great article recently about mega cities and, know, Tokyo is no longer the biggest, you know, it’s now Jakarta and, know, they’re, growing these dense urban centers all over the world. And I do think it’s great for humanity because it just, it’s so much more efficient when people live close together. Like we don’t all need two or three cars per household. If we’re living in New York city and things like that, it’s not for everyone. I’m a country kid. love being out in the woods, but

  Dylan Silver (32:36)
  Yeah, yeah.

  Dave (33:00)
  On average, I’m the exception, not the rule. And I think, you know, I’m trying to develop and do things in Maine that promote infill and promote density. You know, I’m looking at downtowns and main streets and saying, okay, why is that building, you know, one level when there’s three and four levels next to it? Can we, you know, put something cool there that, you know, will work really well as an investment.

  Dylan Silver (33:04)
  Right.

  We are coming up on time here, Dave. Where can folks go? Maybe they have a deal in Maine they’d like your perspective on. They’d like to reach out to you and your team. How can folks find you? How can they get in contact with you?

  Dave (33:34)
  Yeah, they should just give me a call or shoot me a text 207-517-5700. I’m not hesitate to give out my personal cell on the podcast and few people do, but I always enjoy meeting those that are brave enough to say hi and I’m happy to have a quick chat and answer any questions.

  Dylan Silver (33:51)
  Dave, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

  Dave (33:54)
  Thanks Dylan, appreciate having me.