I recently subscribed to X/Grok and now have access to Grok bots. It has saved me a ton of time in comparison to the cost of the current plan I am on ($30/mo). They’re really powerful and I am adding features and building & testing use cases & their capabilities daily. Curious if anyone else is utilizing AI in their businesses outside of using ChatGPT instead of Google.

I am not handy at all, but I am attempting to learn some more basic stuff. Over the weekend I attempted to install a new kitchen faucet. Needless to say didn't go as planned, so ended up paying to get it installed. My mistake was trying to disconnect the water lines. For the life of me I could not get the nut to turn and was just twisting the lines and making kinks. Tried watching all these youtube videos that made it look like it was easy so I was very confused and quit not wanting to damage anything. I watched the guy install it and asked questions as he did. Two reasons I could not get the lines disconnected. A. Apparently in plumbing you typically use two wrenches one to hold for leverage and one to loosen the screw, I was just trying to use one like I saw others in videos do. B. The builder used some kind of lock seal making it more difficult to remove. The installer even said it was overly tight and shouldn't have been so. Anyway just sharing this as a learning experience that I had to pay for and maybe sharing will help you avoid the same rookie move. Don't laugh at me to badly 😁

This week gave me another example of why I keep trying to learn how to simplify real estate. I have a rural property that I’ve spent a lot of time bringing back to life. A potential buyer really likes it. The problem? She has two personal horses. She wants to do everything above board, so I started working through the county rules. As they explained it to me, the property is basically limited to about one horse per acre. For ONE additional horse, we may be looking at: • A Conditional Use Permit • Additional cost • More time • A hearing/process • No guarantee of approval Here’s the part I’m having trouble wrapping my head around. On this same property, I could potentially go through the process to build roughly a 1,300 sq. ft. ADU. That could mean: • More people • More cars and traffic • More septic use • More water • More electricity • Another permanent dwelling But one additional personal horse becomes the bigger hurdle. And this isn’t some commercial horse operation. The concept we worked up is pretty simple: use the existing cleared area, fencing, existing structures, a horse trailer and a basic shelter for two personal horses. I understand why rules exist. After 38+ years as a contractor, permits, inspections and regulations aren't exactly new to me. But situations like this make me wonder how often we make something unnecessarily complicated simply because that’s how the rule was written. That also ties into something I’ve been working on personally. I’ve spent most of my life knowing how to build complicated things. Now I’m trying to get better at making things SIMPLE. Dion talks about that all the time. Sometimes the smartest investment decision isn’t figuring out how to overcome every obstacle. Sometimes it’s asking whether the obstacle is worth overcoming in the first place. What do you think? Does this rule make sense to you? And when you hit something like this in real estate, do you keep pushing through it — or does there come a point where the “Lazy Landlord” answer is to find an easier path?

We talked about this on Sundays Contractor call but I wanted to post it here for the masses. I have a property under contract. Original plan was buy at $182k, put roughly $80k into rehab, and rent by the room for about $4k/month. That version means I pay utilities, deal with management, vacancy, and higher ongoing reserves. If I BRRRR it, I’d have little or no cash left in the deal, but lower ongoing cash flow, infinite CoC on paper, and a higher-value property (with higher taxes). Now there’s an as-is option. Current rent is around $2k/month. A national sober living group will take it on a multi-year lease. That cuts out day-to-day management and vacancy. I’d still need CapEx and maintenance reserves (higher if I skip the full reno), but the operational load drops a lot. This path leaves a minimum of ~$40k cash in the deal and currently pencils to about a 10% CoC — short of my 12% target today, but a proposed rent increase in six months could get it there. On a 30-year note at 7.5% the payment lands roughly $1,000–$1,150 depending on down payment. At $2k the note is covered with room for reserves. The rehab/BRRRR path gets to ~$4k but adds the $80k, utilities, management costs, more moving parts, and less residual cash flow after the refinance. The original plan wasn’t crazy — it was a way to push income, improve the asset, and recycle capital. The simpler path also clears basic underwriting with less effort, less operational risk, and still a respectable return. For those of you who underwrite deals like this: Would you stick with the BRRRR / rent-by-the-room plan for the infinite CoC and higher value, or take the multi-year as-is lease, leave ~$40k in, and accept the ~10% CoC (with upside to 12% soon)? What would tip it one way or the other for you?