Let's Get Building with Josh and Kalie

Join Josh and Kalie as they dive deep into their real estate journey in Portugal on this week’s episode of "Let's Get Building with Josh and Kalie". From the excitement of buying properties to the trials of navigating renovations and bureaucratic hurdles, this episode is packed with valuable insights and firsthand experiences. Whether you're a real estate enthusiast, an expat considering moving to Portugal, or simply interested in the ups and downs of building a life abroad, there’s something here for everyone.

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Episode Transcript

Producer Dan (01:28):
Hello, and welcome, my emerging expat.
You're tuned in to Let's Move toPortugal. I'm producer Dan, and
I have the distinct honor ofbringing you YouTube travelers
and our resident Portugalexperts, expats everywhere Josh
and Caitlin. Each week, they'llinspire, they'll educate, and
they'll accompany you on yourjourney to Portuguese residents.

(01:51):
This week on let's move toPortugal, Josh and Kaley
unveiled their exciting newventure.
Let's get building with Josh andKaley, a channel dedicated to
their vertical communityproject. Tune in to

Josh (02:04):
reality. Hello, and welcome back to the Expats
Everywhere presents Let's Moveto Portugal podcast. Kaylee, how

(02:27):
we doing?

Kalie (02:28):
I'm back. I was gone last week. Right? Yeah. I mean, I'm
sure you could still hear thatI'm not great, not a 100%, but
I'm feeling much better.

Josh (02:37):
Well, I've heard it all week.

Kalie (02:38):
Yeah. Yeah. It was rough. It was rough. But doing a lot
better, even though maybe Idon't sound great, but but doing
well.
Yeah. I've got my coffee here,which I think will help. I was 2
days without coffee. That's whenyou know something is wrong with
me.

Josh (02:53):
That's when something's up. Well, we're excited to do
this podcast because we finallyhave a, let's say, a way to
unpack all that has happenedwith our real estate adventure
here in Portugal. This placegives us the space. I think that
was the word I was looking for.It gives us the space to breathe
and to explain to you what we'vedone here in Portugal since we

(03:16):
moved and where we're at now inour process, our real estate
journey here.
I'm excited to be able to havethe space to unpack it because I
feel like there's a lot tounpack and there may be gaps in
some of the things that we haveshared and learned about real
estate here in Portugal that weneed to fill

Kalie (03:35):
because gaps that we because we haven't put it out
there

Josh (03:37):
either either gaps because we haven't put it out there or
because there is there's a wayyou have to craft a YouTube
video versus when you put out apodcast like we can just kind of
free will, and talk to

Kalie (03:50):
it and just talk

Josh (03:50):
and just talk. Yeah. Just get your coffee and just talk.
And I feel like on a YouTubevideo, you're you're pressed to
kind of condense and distill anidea in a way that maybe you
can't communicate everythingthat you would like to. Some
things fall to the, to thecutting room floor and here we

(04:12):
just don't have to do that.
So buckle up, listener. We'regonna take you on a ride, and
the ride does not end today.We'll continue to update. And
most of the updates actuallymoving forward are going to
happen on the new channel thatwe started. Let's get building
with Josh and Kaylee.
We're we'll talk more about thatin a bit, but this is going to

(04:33):
be a different weekly welcome.We've kind of already started,
but I think we should just kindof jump into the content, or do
you wanna do you wanna sayanything to the to the people? I
know we have some new newlisteners because I imagine this
is gonna bring in, some some newpeople who don't know who we
are. So

Kalie (04:48):
Right. Normally, we just start off, explaining how the
week has been, and I think Ialready did. Mine was deathly.
So for me,

Josh (04:56):
I'm just not get much work

Kalie (04:57):
done. Didn't do much. So I I don't know if there's much
much to report. So I think we wecan just jump right in. I mean,
obviously, in our normal YouTubechannel, we've got an interview
coming out with an American whostarted a cafe here

Josh (05:11):
Yes.

Kalie (05:11):
In Porto.

Josh (05:12):
Yes.

Kalie (05:12):
So that will be good. And then we've we're doing a little
bit of Portugal versus Spainbecause we've done Portugal
versus Italy. So you can be onthe lookout for that. So that's
the content coming out. But ifyou wanna jump right in, we can
go for

Josh (05:25):
it. Well, yeah, actually, you you do kinda bring up a
couple things that I wanna say.Okay. So on Spotify, Apple
Podcasts, and and the thepodcast platforms, this episode
goes out on Tuesdays. And sothen the next day, tomorrow, I
should say, for those of youlistening on the day that this

(05:46):
gets released, we're gonna be atCafe Passaport to to meet up
with Emily, the girl that weinterviewed, the owner.
So she'd love to meet you. We'dlove to meet you if you wanna
come out. You have the date onthat? Wednesday

Kalie (06:02):
Wednesday. Josh looked at

Josh (06:04):
that too. April 17th. Yeah. So April 17th, we're gonna
be there at Cafe Passaport fromaround noon. I'll probably be
there around 2 hours.
Grab some lunch and chat with,with whoever shows up. If nobody
shows up, that's okay.

Kalie (06:20):
We're still getting bagels.

Josh (06:21):
Still getting bagels and coffee. And then what I wanted
to say as well with that pieceof content is that we have kind
of a 3 episode run where we'retalking about our trip to
Southeast Asia. So we're we'regoing to Southeast Asia in
September for a big conference.It's Nomad Capitalist Live. And,

(06:43):
yeah, really excited about that.

Kalie (06:45):
Yeah. So that's not what the three pieces are about, but
we will mention that in the next3 coming up. Actually, as you
listen to this, one's alreadycome out. Right? So it would be

Josh (06:55):
This weekend. Yesterday. That's what that's what I mean.
Yeah. Emily's interview.

Kalie (06:58):
Weekend was Emily's. Right. And then we've got the
other 2 as well. But, yeah,heading to Kuala Lumpur. Oh.

Josh (07:50):
So in 2020, October 2020, we moved to Portugal and we had
been living here for about 2years and our desire to buy a a
property, have our own house,have our own apartment started
to grow.

Kalie (08:06):
Yeah. Which for us, that had never happened. No. We've
lived in a lot of places, andwe've never thought about
actually buying a place, in anyof those locations.

Josh (08:16):
Correct. Well yeah. I mean, we were definitely

Kalie (08:18):
hadn't. Had you?

Josh (08:20):
I had. Oh. Well, we were priced out of Singapore.

Kalie (08:23):
Oh, yeah. I didn't even consider it there. But where
were you thinking you thoughtthere?

Josh (08:27):
Singapore. Oh, because

Kalie (08:27):
we love Singapore so much. But, yeah, prices were

Josh (08:30):
so bad. We were just we were priced out, so it was a
very fleeting thought.

Kalie (08:33):
Oh, okay. Yeah. So fleeting that you didn't even
mention it to me.

Josh (08:36):
No. A 100%. That's why I didn't mention it because it
just make any sense. We weren'tearning the income levels and
yeah. It just

Kalie (08:42):
didn't even thought about it. So this is the first place
actually thinking about it, andI don't know. Maybe it's a
different stage of life,obviously, with a child, and we
have different jobs. So maybethere were a lot of factors.
Europe, so we are at leastcloser to the US for family, so
it makes a little more sensethan something maybe in Asia
that's pretty far.

Josh (09:03):
Yeah.

Kalie (09:03):
So, yeah, I guess it started to make sense.

Josh (09:05):
Yeah. And I would say in a way that this place, Portugal,
has felt more like home thanother places we've lived.
Although we integrated reallywell and had a great community
in Singapore, and it definitelyfelt like home every time we hit
Changi. The the airport inSingapore.

Kalie (09:23):
The number one airport in the

Josh (09:24):
corner. Yeah.

Kalie (09:25):
Not just us. That's actually ranked. Yeah. It's
great.

Josh (09:30):
So Singapore did have an element of feeling like home,
but but Portugal has thatfeeling as well. It feels like a
place that we could we could befor a while. How long a while is
is very much up in the air.

Kalie (09:45):
Notice we don't stay forever.

Josh (09:47):
No. No.

Kalie (09:48):
We can't do that. That's

Josh (09:49):
weird. But we we look at Portugal as a place that we
believe in. We want to kind ofinvest our time and energy in
and and then also, yeah, have aa home that we can make our own,
that when we wanna hang a sign,we don't have to, get approval
from anybody. Although, Antonio,thank you very much. Yeah.
Our landlord is amazing. But,yeah, so we made this decision

(10:14):
to buy after about 2 yearsliving here, and we, we looked
at several apartments kind of inour price range, across kind of
that time period. We were abouta year here, and we started
looking at stuff. But we hadn'treally made the decision to buy.
We weren't in a financialposition to buy.
We had a lot of money tied up inreal estate in the U. S. And,

(10:37):
things at that point, we'retalking about 2021. Things at
that point were not ballooningYeah. The way they did during
2022 and 2023.

Kalie (10:48):
But prices were still quite reasonable. But we when we
looked at apartments, we had ourbudget in mind. And it's funny.
We looked at some really niceapartments that were right at
our budget, maybe a little bitabove. Yeah.
And now those would be so muchmore expensive thinking about
it.

Josh (11:05):
Some of them double.

Kalie (11:06):
I mean Crazy.

Josh (11:07):
Yeah.

Kalie (11:08):
But they weren't I mean, I think if they were for us and,
like, if we felt like this isit, we would've bought it. So
it's not like we feel like anopportunity lost. But I think
what ended up happening is westarted seeing these, renovated
apartments

Josh (11:22):
Mhmm.

Kalie (11:22):
That were maybe were in older buildings. The apartments
would be beautiful. Or what's inthe roof or what's above me,
below me? Like, have theyrenovated recently? The
plumbing.

Josh (11:38):
The electrical.

Kalie (11:39):
Yeah. So that really got us thinking, about how good of
an idea is this or or now what?Right? What are the reasons?

Josh (11:47):
I think I think a lot of things that were done to the
apartments that we saw werecosmetic, And it came down to
the fact that someone had boughtthe unit in a building and they
were like, well, I want to makethis more presentable, more
marketable. How can I do that?And it's like, well, I can paint
the walls. I can put newcabinetry in. I can do this

(12:07):
thing to give it an aestheticupgrade, but the structural part
of of a house is reallyimportant as well.
So we were nervous about that.And then we started to really
explore and get feedback fromother people that we know that
bought apartments like that. Andthey said, yeah. Everything was
good until about, you know, 1 to6 months in, and then they start

(12:31):
finding the problems thatexisted behind the walls. So we
started to think like, how canwe mitigate these risks?
How can we mitigate the risk ofbuying a unit and then the whole
building itself turns into,Airbnb? And

Kalie (12:46):
because that was before the law.

Josh (12:48):
Yeah. And I was gonna say the government kind of took care
of that issue, but that was oneof the motivating factors for us
to pursue pursue the verticalcommunity venture.

Kalie (12:56):
Right. Because also too, we weren't super interested in a
new build because that obviouslywould be completely new. We
really wanted to find a buildingthat had been renovated,
restored. Right. There's so muchbeauty in Porto and there are so
many older homes that, need someloving and need restoration, and

(13:16):
we want to be part of that.
We want to live in somethinglike that. Not necessarily live
in something that had old an oldlook, but maybe the facade was
an older look and the inside wasupdated. So we were looking for
something a bit more like that.So we didn't really pursue new
builds either.

Josh (13:32):
No. No. Not at all. I mean, I think one of the things
that was a big impression on meis that the further we got into
content creation, here inPortugal and, like, realtors
reaching out to us wanting tofilm and having developments
they wanted to show us and stuffto possibly get on videos. We
started to see new developments,not not new builds, but

(13:57):
developments in old buildings,like historic buildings where
the facade was phenomenal.
And then inside, once you stepin, there was elegance,
modernity, luxury, charm, likeolder world charm with some of
the details and features. Verywell blended all together and it

(14:18):
made you feel like, oh, man,this is like kind of the high
life here. Like living in thecity in this old in this old
historic building with themodernity that that you kind of
look for.

Kalie (14:31):
Nowadays.

Josh (14:31):
Nowadays, yeah.

Kalie (14:32):
Right.

Josh (14:33):
So, all of these things kind of had a big impression on
us in terms of what we wanted tolook for, and then it was just a
matter of, like, well, how do wehow do we pull this off? And the
the thing that kept coming tomind was to just kind of do it
as a social experiment and acollective. Like, can we can we
bring people together to harnessthe power of, like, cash and

(14:58):
kind of throw at this project?So that's really how vertical
community venture started,whereby we reached out to our
YouTube community.

Kalie (15:07):
Wait. Wait. Wait. No. Before that, I think the idea
started at a a guys' night.
I think you came home one dayafter having a guys' night, and
you you came you had come upwith this idea. You all thought
it was a great idea. And,initially, didn't you say, we
should all do it together?

Josh (15:22):
Well, I mean, I think that this idea had the the idea of a
vertical community had had notjust been here in Portugal that
we had talked about it becausewe had talked about it with our
friends that had, you know, beenfrom other places. Right? Zach
and Sam, shout out to you guys.

Kalie (15:40):
Live like other, expats we've met along the way.

Josh (15:42):
Yeah.

Kalie (15:43):
Yeah. Yeah. But I think that, that idea really came up.
You did come home one night andtalk about it.

Josh (15:49):
Yes. So there there is an element of that for sure, but I
very much lead these kind ofcrazy wild ideas, in our
relationship.

Kalie (15:59):
This is true.

Josh (16:00):
I'm the I'm the the visionary, if you will, and
Kaley's the integrator. So therewas a conversation at a at a
dude's night, and and I don'tknow how serious the guys were.
I mean, I guess now we know howserious the guys were. Not very
serious.

Kalie (16:15):
None of them are that one. Yeah.

Josh (16:17):
But I think that the kind of the the feedback that I heard
from them is it was interestingand they were into it, but I
didn't necessarily think that itwas gonna happen with them. It's
just too difficult. That's justtoo difficult. So we reached out
to our YouTube community and didall that.

Kalie (16:34):
Who is really interested? Right?

Josh (16:36):
Yeah. So, yeah, it's I mean, it started out as this
idea, and then we started thesearch process in 2022, like,
really in earnest. We got somereally good initial traction
with the properties that we werefinding on the market. Certainly
the prices of the properties atthat time made sense Those very

(16:59):
same properties now, like, inthe same condition they are back
then, now price now wouldn'tmake sense because of the way
prices have gone both on thepurchasing side and the rehab
side. But we also partnered withwith Savvy Cat Realty who helped
us with the search and helped uswith the acquisition.
We did use eD Alishta like manypeople out there that search for

(17:22):
homes. Just what's out there?Okay. I'm gonna go on Elishta.
That's the main site we use.
There are a couple other sites,but basically, all real estate
tends to get dumped onto thatsite. And it's the Wild West on
there.

Kalie (17:35):
Dumped. That's a really good, way

Josh (17:36):
to put it. That's the way to put it. And then we, in the
whole process of this, we justcontinue to learn about the real
estate here in Portugal, whetherit be through reading stuff,
talking to realtors, talking toreal estate experts, just
digging deeper into kind of whatall the messes and complex ities
there were in real estate here.

Kalie (17:57):
Right. So I'll just say we had a really good and have
had I mean, they've helped alongthe way, a really good
relationship with Savvy CatRealty. Good experience. So if
anyone's interested in seeinghow they can help you, then you
can contact us, and we canintroduce you. Yeah.
They've been good.

Josh (18:12):
Savvy Cat was an excellent resource for us, and it wasn't
completely flawless. There wereproblems. And I think it's it's
fair to say, like, some of theproblems we ran into with them
had to do with with staffing. Wecertainly had an issue that
arose with, with with one ofthe, with one of the employees

(18:32):
that was basically our casemanager. Case manager, would we
call it that?

Kalie (18:36):
I guess our go to person. I don't know.

Josh (18:38):
Yes. Our main contact point here in Porto, he he
suffered an injury in amotorcycle accident. So then, we
kind of, like, lost that contactpoint. We were given a new
person. That person was thenhaving to deal with 2 workloads,
and then they were having toonboard this other person to
take over our initial person'sworkload and it just became

(19:00):
like, okay, who do we talk to?
So that happened for a couple ofmonths, but it all got sorted
out. And obviously, like, thesethings happen.

Kalie (19:07):
Yeah.

Josh (19:07):
It is life. But we had a close enough relationship with
Anna, who's the CEO from SavvyCat, where she very much kept us
in the loop to the best of herabilities. And, yeah, overall, I
would definitely recommend SavvyCat.

Kalie (19:21):
Yes. Yeah.

Josh (19:22):
Do recommend Savvy Cat.

Kalie (19:24):
Yep. They they were great, helping us with the
search. I mean so the the firstperson we had, and he's okay,
from the from the motorcycleaccident, but what was nice is a
lot of stuff wasn't listed.You'd find things on Idelisto or
sometimes we'd walk aroundbecause we were very specific,
the neighborhood we wanted.

Josh (19:39):
So

Kalie (19:40):
Yeah. So he would actually walk around, and he'd
see buildings that didn't have afor sale sign but weren't going
anywhere. Right? And he wouldknock on doors and try to find
out, like, how can I contactwhoever owns this?

Josh (19:52):
Yes.

Kalie (19:53):
So that having that type of resource and they still do
that. I mean, obviously, he hestepped away, and then they
brought someone else in, who shefollowed us through the rest of
the way was there at the signingand everything. Mhmm. She did
that stuff too. She was youknow?
So it's great that they have,you know, locals who are able to
just chat with, like, theneighbors and stuff and try to

(20:13):
figure out what's going onbecause some stuff a lot of
stuff is not on.

Josh (20:17):
Yeah. I mean,

Kalie (20:17):
there is a lot that is, but there's a lot that's not.

Josh (20:19):
There'll just be a for sale sign on the outside of a
property with a contact number,and that's it. Like, you you
don't know what it is that'sbeing sold. It's just like this
building. It could be thebuilding. It could be an
apartment in the building.

Kalie (20:31):
And how many times did you call one of those numbers
and no one picked up? No onepicked up.

Josh (20:35):
So There's a there's a great piece of land in
combatant.

Kalie (20:39):
And no one picked up? No one picked up. Anyway, so so
they've been great. So thenmoving on, are we getting to
where we signed or not yet?

Josh (20:48):
No. No. No. No. Not yet.
I mean, we we ran into someissues during the search because
the search criteria that we hadwas so tight, due to one of the
people that wanted to investwith us, wanted to invest in
this collective. Initially, theidea was we collectively invest
together. We didn't know whetheror not we were gonna have to

(21:10):
form a company or how that wasgonna work. But we felt like it
was gonna be okay to, cross thatbridge when we got to it instead
of, like, going ahead andforming a company and
formalizing the partnershipamong the people who were
interested in investing. And wehad, 4 3 other families that

(21:32):
wanted to invest with us.
And, one of them one family hada very, very difficult search
criteria, like, box to to tickoff, which was they they needed
their apartment to be all on thesame floor and at least a 100
square meters. And if you knowanything about Porto, the city

(21:54):
center, a lot of the buildingsare long and narrow and the
footprints are not a 100,meters. So that was that was our
our most challenging thing inour search criteria and
inventory was low period like inthe neighborhood we wanted to
buy in, near the street wewanted to be on, or on the
street we wanted to be on,search criteria was low. Prices

(22:16):
were continuing to rise duringthis time period. But then in
early 2023, we finallyidentified a place actually,
revisited a place that we sawearlier, and we revisited it
because the family that couldn'tbe in a place that was less than

(22:38):
a 100 square meters dropped out.

Kalie (22:41):
Yeah. And, actually, in the meantime, I think, we picked
up a new one Yep. And then a cupcouple others dropped out too.

Josh (22:48):
Yeah. So end of the day

Kalie (22:50):
dropping and changing.

Josh (22:50):
Yeah. In the end of the day, we we basically had us and
another family that was willingto, to kind of move forward
together.

Kalie (22:59):
Right. And I think once

Josh (23:00):
they got important for later in this story.

Kalie (23:03):
Once it got real and we were, like, okay. We have the
place, that's when I think somepeople were wavering, I guess
you could say.

Josh (23:12):
Right? A 100%. I think I think that's a very accurate way
to to put what happened. It waslike I revisited this place. We
felt like being on the ground,it was the right place based on
availability, based on what itwas going to cost to acquire it
and rehab it, and the permitsthat were already on the

(23:33):
property.
So, like, the projected timelinefrom purchasing to to to
finalizing or moving in was goodenough to where it was like,
this is the place. And if thisisn't the place, guys, there's
no place right now.

Kalie (23:48):
Yeah. I mean, it had been, what, 2 years that we had
been looking? Year and a half orso?

Josh (23:53):
Year and a half. Yeah.

Kalie (23:54):
And while the location wasn't on our favorite street,
it's still in our favoriteneighborhood, and it's in a
really good location. So whilethat we had to say, okay. Do we
wanna give that up? It madesense with all the other boxes,
I guess, being ticked.Everything else looked good.

Josh (24:12):
Yeah.

Kalie (24:12):
So we're like, alright. We're ready to do this. Yeah.
And so people dropped out.

Josh (24:17):
Yeah. Exactly. But we we felt confident enough because of
the the price, the the, like,initial price that was being
offered that we could actuallyat least acquire it ourselves.
We didn't have to go through thethe kind of partnership
agreement, form a company, orform an LLC or LLDA, I believe

(24:39):
is what it is here, to then moveforward to acquire the property
using a company. We could do itpersonally under our names and
then move forward with financingthe rest of it.
So financing the rest of itlooked, as it would be a
mortgage plus cash from peoplebuying the units.

Kalie (25:01):
Right. So we went ahead and got preapproved.

Josh (25:03):
Yes.

Kalie (25:04):
So we saw what we were working with.

Josh (25:06):
Yes.

Kalie (25:07):
And It's

Josh (25:09):
It's when things it's when things been started to get
complicated. So we put an offerin on the place. We went lower
than the list price because wefelt like there were there were
gonna be some hurdles and somethings that could justify why
the price should be lower, and Ifeel like we were well within

(25:29):
our right to lower the price.The offer was accepted. The ball
got rolling pretty quickly afterthat.

Kalie (25:35):
Right. And then the I guess the biggest issue for us
is a lot of stuff hit when wewere on our cruise back from so
we went to the US for a visit,of course. So we've got, like,
footage of me sitting on thephone with Millennium trying to
transfer over the money for theCPCV because you either have to

(25:56):
do that in person because it'ssuch a large amount or you have
to get off the phone.

Josh (26:00):
Yeah.

Kalie (26:00):
So that was fun because we were back in the states. So
we did that, and then a lot ofstuff needed to happen when we
happened beyond that 2 weekcruise across the Atlantic
where, you know, Internet's notgreat.

Josh (26:12):
Yeah.

Kalie (26:12):
So Josh was freaking out.

Josh (26:14):
And it was it was a massive timing issue and, like,
order operation issue. And I Iwanna say this kind of as a as a
warning if you're looking atpurchasing a property. What
happened for us is we used our Ibelieve it was our 2021 taxes
tax returns to get preapproved.So they were looking at our

(26:34):
finances from 2021, but we werearound the filing period for
filing for 2022. So, because ofthat, we probably should not
have put in the offer withoutactually getting our, like,
current paperwork because therewas a bit of a lag.
Like, we're talking about aseveral month lag between

(26:54):
knowing that preapproval numberand then actually putting our
deposit down and everything orlet's say putting in the offer
and then having to put thedeposit down so because there
was that lag we now needed tosupply our 2022 taxes tax
returns to secure the money fromthe bank. And that's when it got

(27:16):
a bit crazy because it meantthat we needed to file our taxes
while in the middle of theAtlantic with horrible Internet
and just being in a massivemassive time crunch. Being a
foreigner, being an an Americanthat lives abroad, you can file
for an extension on, filing yourtaxes. You you're not beholden

(27:37):
to the April 15th date. You getuntil June, I believe it is, if
you file for an extension.
And the guy that we do our taxeswith

Kalie (27:47):
We always do an extension.

Josh (27:48):
For years, I mean, he just he just goes ahead.
Automatically. Yeah. Theextension, gives a bit, you
know, bit extra time. But thebut

Kalie (27:55):
the thing was is we were in the ocean, like, soon after
April 15th. So for them here inPortugal, they were like, well,
you should have already filed,so you should have your new tax
returns.

Josh (28:06):
Yep.

Kalie (28:06):
And we're like, but we haven't filed yet. We don't need
to. But they're like, but wewanna see your new tax returns.

Josh (28:11):
Like Yeah. They were not going to move forward with our
with our mortgage paperwork.

Kalie (28:17):
Yeah. Because you you get preapproved. I think you're good
for, like, 3 months, and so wewere really close to that time
frame. But I think because wehad passed another tax period
where we could file in the US,they wanted to see the new ones.
Yeah.
So that was stressful. So thenhere we are not having fun, but
sitting there trying to file ourtaxes. I mean, our and our tax

(28:38):
guy was great.

Josh (28:39):
He's like

Kalie (28:40):
Amazing. You know, we put stuff in a platform for him, and
then he files, and he's like,give it to me, you know, and
I'll do it. I'll do it. So He

Josh (28:47):
he, yeah, he really pulled in a favor for us. So we
appreciate it, Steven. Okay. Soafter all of that was done,
there was there was definitelysome back and forth on not
necessarily, like, negotiatingwhat was happening with the
purchase, but the supplying ofdocuments, it got very, very

(29:08):
messy because the buyers sorry.The sellers did not have an
attorney that was representingthem at that time, so it was our
representatives being Joao,who's our lawyer, and Tadeza,
who was our point person withSavvy Cat, who essentially was
like an agent in this yeah theywere the ones going back and

(29:30):
forth with the owners and Iwould foolishly interject myself
just trying to speed things upand, yeah, just essentially
trying to get things donefaster.
It got very messy, needless tosay, but we do end up getting to
our closing date, which is June2023.

Kalie (29:48):
Well, that got pushed as well because It did. Some of it
as well as the bank's faultbecause they'd be like, you
know, we need this document. Andwe'd be like, we already gave
you that document. Here's proofthat we gave you that document.
And they'd be like, oh, yeah.

Josh (30:02):
We do have that

Kalie (30:03):
document. Yeah.

Josh (30:04):
And then

Kalie (30:04):
they'd be like, well, we need this one. And we'd be like
You already have it. No. They'dbe like, yeah. You need this.
And we'd be like, you never toldus you needed that though. Oh,
we need it now. You know? Andit's like, don't you have, like,
again, a platform that you cansubmit all this stuff with,
like, a list of everything? Soit it felt very disorganized for
a bank to be doing this.

Josh (30:24):
Yeah.

Kalie (30:25):
So there was a little bit of that as well. So just strap
yourselves in. Watch for thatstuff if you're looking to buy.

Josh (30:31):
Yeah. Which isn't uncommon.

Kalie (30:33):
Yeah. I know. It's very normal.

Josh (30:35):
And this is where, you know, this is where it goes back
to, like, well, should I justmake a cash purchase or should I
purchase with a mortgage? And Iwould say it very much depends.
I mean, there are positives tousing a bank and getting a
mortgage, not just monetary, butalso, on the the kind of checks
and balances side of of thingswhereby a bank will do a lot of

(30:56):
due diligence and want a lot ofdue diligence done, whereas we
heard about people making cashpurchases and the correct due
diligence wasn't done. And theythey didn't actually buy what
they thought they were gonna buyor there was, you know, a lien
on something or there was therewere problems.

Kalie (31:11):
Like an inspection. Right? I mean, like, the bank
goes in

Josh (31:14):
and then just inspects. And appraisal.

Kalie (31:16):
Yeah. Yeah. So you do have that stuff that the bank
does. Yeah. Pros and cons forsure.

Josh (31:20):
Yeah. Okay. So we end up closing in June 2023.

Kalie (31:25):
Oh, it's.

Josh (31:26):
So that was

Kalie (31:27):
either gonna be a very happy or a very sad Sao Joao
because the day had been pushedseveral times. Yeah. And so
we're like, can we please justget to closing? I remember
telling our lawyer, please getus to closing before I strangle
Josh because he it was it was arough few weeks, like, with all
the delays and and stuff. But wemade it, and it was a very happy

(31:48):
Sauge Rausch Forest.

Josh (31:49):
It was a happy Sauge Rausch And and thus really began
kind of the next phase of ourreal estate journey because now
we were property owners here inPortugal, and we kind of had to
work on the the next yeah nextphase the next group of actions
and activities that we had to doto now prepare this building

(32:09):
for, for being 6 units. So webought a property that had it's
a main building on a mainstreet, and then there's this
kind of annex to the propertythat's on a side street. And the
main building is is gonna bemade into 5 units. That's what
it was approved for. We bought aproperty that already had plans

(32:31):
on it.
It's called a PIP, and you canhave a PIP, and then you can
have something that's evenhigher than that where you have
a, like, a full projectapproval.

Kalie (32:40):
And, well, let me just say this. The PIP is something
that a lot of people, when theybuy a place and that they want
they wanna make renovations andthey say, oh, but it takes years
to even get started. The PIP isthe thing that you need.

Josh (32:51):
Yes.

Kalie (32:51):
So that's the approval through city hall. Right? Yeah.
So if you buy a place thatalready has it, then you can
bypass those couple of years andyou are allowed to make changes
to the PIP, which doesn't takeas long. Right?

Josh (33:03):
It doesn't take as long.

Kalie (33:04):
As long to to get approved.

Josh (33:06):
That's key.

Kalie (33:07):
Yeah. So, just, I guess, thinking about that, the PIP is
the thing that expedites some ofthat Yeah. Sitting around
waiting time before you can doanything.

Josh (33:15):
Yeah. So our next step after purchasing the property
was to get with the architectand figure out, okay, what are
we actually gonna do with thisbuilding? How are we gonna get
plans or, like, you know,project blueprints? Because we
need those more or less asmarketing to sell the units that

(33:37):
we have that will then fund theproject itself.

Kalie (33:40):
Right. And, obviously, before we bought the place, we
had already had our architectand engineer go in

Josh (33:46):
Yeah.

Kalie (33:46):
Talk to us about it.

Josh (33:48):
We got quotes. Quotes. Yeah. Quotes from several
actually.

Kalie (33:51):
Right. So we we didn't just go into that blindly as far
as, like, how much stuff shouldcost for materials and price per
square meter and everything.

Josh (33:58):
Yeah.

Kalie (33:59):
So we had done all that, which is how we knew that
pricing would be good for thepurchase of it.

Josh (34:03):
And to give you an indication of, like, what those
prices were, this was 2023.Yeah.

Kalie (34:11):
Yeah. Beginning. Yeah.

Josh (34:12):
Beginning of 2023 when we received the quotes, and the
quotes, range from €800 persquare meter to €1800 per square
meter from the differentcompanies. And the the companies
had different levels of service,and the low end excuse me. The
low end did not provide plans.They were they were just on the

(34:36):
construction side. They couldbuild the preapproved plan that
the architects before hadplaced.
Or if we wanted newarchitectural plans, we could
get those, pass them off to thebuilder, and then the builder
would build at €800 per squaremeter.

Kalie (34:53):
Right. So, anyway, we went with

Josh (34:56):
a company.

Kalie (34:57):
No. Well, we didn't really like the plans anyway of,
what was originally the originalPIP. We wanted to get those
changed. So we went with acompany that did everything in
house. Because that's anotherthing that we've heard is that
when you have differentcompanies doing different
things, the this this is whereyou get a lot of delays because
they can't control, okay.
Now we need to lay the concrete,so we have to hire this concrete

(35:18):
team. Oh, well, they're notready for another month. So then
you just sit there and wait tillthey get there. And what?

Josh (35:24):
You're sounding really congested. So if you wanna take
care of that, I can I can keepus moving forward?

Kalie (35:30):
Alright. I'm gonna go blow my nose to you guys.

Josh (35:34):
So the the company that we use, the name is Pedro Likida,
and it's a company that we foundout about because we hosted an
event at one of theirproperties. They have a couple
of hotels and developments herein Porto, as well as other parts
of Portugal, but they're basedhere in Porto. And one of their

(35:55):
properties is Tipo GropiaDuPont. It's an amazing boutique
hotel award winning design, justphenomenal spot. And when I
walked into this place, it gotme very curious about who built
this, who's the architect, thedesigner.
Lo and behold, it's the, theowner of the hotel is an

(36:15):
architect Pedar Lykita. So weend up contracting with them and
they basically say, our contractsays we're gonna do all of these
things in a turnkey way, meaningthat we'll do the architectural
plans and the actual work andhave it returned to you June

(36:38):
2025, so 2 years.

Kalie (36:41):
I'm back, by the way. Now Yeah. I was just Yeah.

Josh (36:44):
Go ahead.

Kalie (36:45):
I was just gonna say the the nice thing about this is so
she has all the the well, thecompany itself has all the
different teams. So they cantime the different projects that
they're working on. It's alltheir stuff, obviously, for
different clients, but they cantime certain things of when when
like concrete, for example,needs to be laid. So that team
will be ready to go as opposedto waiting a month or something

(37:07):
to get a concrete team in,something like that. So that's
where stuff can go a littlefaster.

Josh (37:12):
Yes.

Kalie (37:13):
What were you gonna say?

Josh (37:14):
I was gonna say is the the confusion that happened with me
when we were having thesemeetings with Alchandra was all
along the way, she kept sayingthis was before we signed with
them, because we did need, like,to have a lawyer involved. We
were we were absolutelyrecommended by Savvycat to have

(37:35):
a lawyer involved between thecontract with us and the company
we were gonna use. And I wouldrecommend that to you if you're
gonna do that as well. If you'regonna have any contractor work
on a property of yours, get acontract and get a lawyer
involved to do that contract.So, all along the way, Al
Shondra, full confidence is likeit's going to take 14 months to

(37:59):
to do these works, maximum 16,but she's like, it'll take 14.
I mean, it was like rock hardconfidence, but then we get to
the very date that we actuallysign. And on the contract that
we've made with Pedra Lykida,and mind you, this is around,
like, June time 2023, she says,or puts in the contract that

(38:22):
it's June 2025. And I'm like,wait a second. That's 24 months.
Like, what the heck yeah littledid I

Kalie (38:31):
know how she's been around the block she knows

Josh (38:34):
how intelligent that was Basically, 10 months were built
in due to kind of bureaucraticand administrative problems that

Kalie (38:44):
She knew would happen.

Josh (38:45):
That she knew would happen.

Kalie (38:46):
Yeah.

Josh (38:46):
And, boy, was she right. The great the very, very great
thing about her proposing thisdate of June 2024 2025, sorry,
June 2025 was that we then had adate that we could tell
potential buyers of units whenthe completion was. So instead

(39:08):
of, like, really, I don't know,cutting our time and making
contracts with people for 14months, it was no, okay. It's
gonna be June 2025. Date.
Yeah. Now those of you who'vealready done real estate here in
Portugal and done properties,projects, you're probably like
freaking out right now becauseyou're like, no way. It's gonna

(39:31):
run over. Like, it's gonna beyou're gonna have disaster after
disaster. You could be right.
We don't know. Like, this storyisn't over yet, but the next
phase for us became selling theselling the units. Right? We're
like we didn't have any funding.

Kalie (39:47):
Yeah. We need needed money

Josh (39:49):
to own cash. We had the cash from the other, the other
family that was investing withus, but we needed more money.

Kalie (39:57):
Well, yeah, of course, we needed to sell the units to help
fund the construction

Josh (40:01):
Yeah.

Kalie (40:02):
Which we did.

Josh (40:04):
Yeah. I mean, we we started we had Pedrileki to
start on the redesign, not usingthe the the plans that we
already had in place, but youcreating new plans and then
taking those and letting ourcommunity know this is now more
or less what we have, available.These are the t ones. These are

(40:24):
the t twos, the 1 bedrooms, the2 bedrooms.

Kalie (40:26):
Right. So we were able to sell those, and that was a
process as well because, youknow, we recommend that the the
buyer has a lawyer and then wehad our lawyer, and then they'd
go back and forth on certainnegotiations within the
contracts. And, that stuff justtakes time.

Josh (40:44):
You know,

Kalie (40:44):
time time. But but, yeah, they're they're all sold. So we
well, yeah, they're all the onesthat we wanna sell are sold,
and, then we could get going, sowe thought.

Josh (40:56):
Well, I I wouldn't even say that. I do wanna just back
up and and mention that Kayleeand I have talked about this
turnkey project withPedralikide. And, essentially,
what that means is it means thatthey're doing both the
architectural component and theProject Works component. But
because they're selling it asthis package, it means for a
lower EVA or, what do we callit, VAT, value added tax

Kalie (41:21):
Tax.

Josh (41:21):
Yeah. In English. So because it's that lower tax,
it's a massive, massive savings.And when you're talking about,
like, sales prices of 100 of1,000 of dollars or euros and a
percentage point means thatyou're talking about 1,000.

(41:42):
Right?
The savings were in the 1,000,tens of 1,000 of of euros.

Kalie (41:48):
Yes. Yeah. So that was definitely a perk to do in the
turnkey.

Josh (41:51):
It's the difference between I think it's 6% 6 or 7%.
I believe it's 6% on thisservice versus 23%.

Kalie (41:58):
Yes.

Josh (41:58):
Yeah. So when we were offered the turnkey, we knew
that we would need to have morecash upfront to pay the deposits
on this turnkey, offer, but itwas gonna save a lot of my 17%
in the long run.

Kalie (42:13):
Right. Okay. So

Josh (42:15):
then math. Right?

Kalie (42:16):
Yeah. Sounds like. So then so the units have been
sold, and now we're, you know,getting permits and stuff
because of changes with the withthe PIP and going through that
process. I mean, Pedro Likudowis the one doing all that stuff.
So it's a lot of back and forthwith city hall and everything,
getting approval.
You've gotta get all sorts ofapprovals, you know, for a demo

(42:39):
to block the roads. They canbring the machines in. Set up
the crane. There's just allsorts of paperwork. Yeah.
And that stuff takes time.

Josh (42:48):
Oh, it it takes a ton of time. It's it's a long and
multistep approval process, andI think what happened for me, my
my kind of most neurotic momentwas during the purchase side for
us. I was very anxious about it.We actually made a video about
it. We'll link it in thedescription section, but or show

(43:10):
notes.
But the process that we've beengoing through over the past
several months about getting newapprovals has been much less
Yeah. Like, much less stress. Ijust I have a lot of trust and
and faith in Alshandra.

Kalie (43:25):
She keeps saying we're still on target date.

Josh (43:27):
So the crazy thing is, like, every month that goes by
and we haven't starteddemolition, or demolition hasn't
started, I'm like, Ashandra, isare we okay? Are we still gonna
make the the June deadline date?Because we have contracts with
other people. And if we don'tmeet that date, there could be
repercussions. So she justcontinues to say yes.

(43:48):
She's like, look. I've built allthis in, and and that's when it
dawned on me. That's why that'swhy you said 24 months, but you
said it'll take 14 to actuallyget the works and everything
done.

Kalie (44:00):
Right. So then we hit it's around November time.
Alright. We can get going. Butthen we we discovered this this
thing ARU.
Right? You wanna explain whatthat is?

Josh (44:12):
ARU is a let me let me see how to put this in a way that
will make sense easily. ADO isan acronym in Portuguese and
it's it's basically talkingabout a rehabilitation urban
area whereby if you rehab aproject, in this area, there are

(44:33):
tax incentives. And the taxincentives can be getting a tax
refund on some of the taxes youpaid when you purchased the
property, and those transfertaxes in Portugal are no joke.
Like, in the States, we paytransfer taxes. We pay taxes
when we first purchase aproperty, and then you have your

(44:55):
annual taxes, your propertytaxes, that are are generally
high, I would say, depending onwhat city or county you're in or
state.
In Portugal. It's it's veryfront loaded. You pay a ton of
taxes upfront, but then afteryou own the property, the annual
property taxes are, by Americanstandards, like, ridiculously

(45:15):
low. I mean, I'm talking, like,a couple 100 a year. So for this
reason, we wanted to pursue thisauto process because it meant
that if we were approved and ourbuilding did fit the criteria,
but you have to go through acouple stages of approval.
But if we are approved, we'retalking about getting back a
couple 100, sorry, a couple tensof 1,000 of dollars. And not

(45:40):
only that, but the first personthat you sell the unit to is
also able to get either thatmoney back or discounted
whatever, or it's it's not atall. The the tax is not applied
at all. Yeah. So because ofthis, we kind of reached out and

(46:00):
let the buyers know, hey, thisis the process we're going
through.
We're gonna have to delaystarting demolition, but it
could save you 10, 15, maybe 20grand.

Kalie (46:12):
Right. It definitely seemed worth it. One of the big
things is they're backed up withthey have to send someone out to
take a look at it, because youhave to prove that you lift it
up to a certain level.

Josh (46:22):
The energy efficiency is raised. Yeah.

Kalie (46:25):
So they said, you know, a lot of people take pictures and
videos, but they could you'renot technically supposed to do
that, so they could be like,this isn't valid even though
there have been cases that it'salready gone through with that.
So we didn't wanna risk itbecause, honestly, we have loads
of videos and and pictures of itso we could show, how much

(46:46):
better it got. Right? But, wejust decided we should wait for
somebody to go out there. Itmade more sense.
So that was just more waitingbecause you have to schedule
that. They're they're backed up

Josh (46:56):
so not only not only they backed up but it's also the time
of year we're coming into likethe massive holiday period when
we're applying for all thisstuff so you know business days
get shorter and shorter thenumber of business days during
December and beginning ofJanuary are cut like crazy.

Kalie (47:16):
And then the person who was assigned to us got sick.
Remember? And they had toreschedule for, like, weeks
later.

Josh (47:22):
Yeah. We had a date, and then that person got sick, so it
got pushed another two and ahalf weeks. That's when I
started to get really annoyed,and I freak out maybe a little
too strong, but I got Yeah.Yeah.

Kalie (47:34):
But I didn't know.

Josh (47:34):
I didn't freak out.

Kalie (47:35):
It was just that was with the purchase. That was a freak
out. This wasn't as bad

Josh (47:39):
as it said. So demo finally started in February of
2024, but then we foundasbestos.

Kalie (47:47):
Which we knew that that was a high possibility that it
would be found. Better lookingto do that. And it was a small
amount, but still there's morepaperwork.

Josh (47:57):
Yeah. But the the problem is is, like, you have to get an
official approval to have theasbestos removed, like a safety
removal, approval. And that wasanother, like, several week
process to have that done.

Kalie (48:11):
Because also too, they have to set a specific date
because a police officer comesout to, like, facilitate and
monitor. Yeah. And right now,the, the police officers are on
strike.

Josh (48:21):
Yeah. So there's

Kalie (48:22):
So there's less working.

Josh (48:23):
There's less working, less availability. It's just an
absolute mess.

Kalie (48:27):
Slow down.

Josh (48:28):
And and kind of the last hurdle we've run into is that we
we we lost our position to havethe crane raised. So, like, you
have to have an approvalessentially

Kalie (48:40):
And a police officer for that too. Yeah.

Josh (48:42):
To have the crane built. Right? They don't just rock up
with this, like, 100 meter craneand just, you know, just boom.

Kalie (48:48):
So it straight up.

Josh (48:50):
You know, they they have to to build it, and we lost our
we lost our position to havethat built, and and we won't be
able to get that approval untilI think it's April 18th.

Kalie (49:03):
So in a in a couple of days approval. No. Like, it
actually goes up. It's beenapproved, I thought.

Josh (49:10):
Well, I think I think it just got approved, and that's
the thing that we just paid€1700 for.

Kalie (49:16):
So it's been approved, and it's supposed to go up soon.

Josh (49:20):
Yes.

Kalie (49:20):
So, I mean, demo is fully

Josh (49:23):
Demo has started, and and that's where, I guess, I wanna
tell you that our first video onthe the new channel that's gonna
be documenting this rehabprocess, let's get building with
Josh and Kaylee. That is goingto take a look at kind of our
first days of demo, and I'llcatch people up to date on on
this story in the condensed wayand kind of what we were

(49:46):
experiencing in the momentbecause we filmed all of that
stuff. Showing up to theproperty, thinking things were
gonna get done. Nothinghappened. There.

Kalie (49:54):
Like, wait a second.

Josh (49:56):
Yeah. So we're we're actually moving forward. Like,
we are we are building well,breaking things down to

Kalie (50:04):
that. Right.

Josh (50:05):
Build up. So that's where we're at now. Kaylee, what have
you learned in this process?

Kalie (50:11):
Patience? No. I don't know. I'm not really freaked out
the way that you have. I've beenvery calm through it.
Mhmm. And I think it's becauseAlshonda has been very
confident. So I really justsaid, okay. She should know what
she's doing. She's been doing itfor over 20 years here in Porto
as well.
So

Josh (50:28):
Yeah.

Kalie (50:28):
She should know what she's doing. I think she knows
what she's doing. And so she'sbeen calm. So I've been calm. So
I guess the learning process forme would be it is really
important to have a lawyer, tohave people in the industry.
It's worth the money to hirethat. I think doing it yourself
just will lead to disasterbecause it's a new you know, if

(50:51):
you're not from here, you don'tknow exactly how it works. But
there's just always someone youhave to talk to, something you
have to do. So if you don'tspeak the language fluently,
then you're gonna havedifficulties there. There's all
these little appointments youhave to go to, so having someone
there with you is much nicerthan trying to navigate it
yourself.

Josh (51:10):
So I think, for me, what I've learned is to to let the
professionals take the lead, aska bunch of questions, ask not
not in a a a way that you'requestioning what they're doing,
but you're asking forclarification because I I want,

(51:31):
as a developer now, I guesswe're quasi developers, I wanna
be able to let the people thathave invested and believed in me
know what's happening and knowthat, you know, to the best of
our abilities, the situation isunder control. And really it's

(51:51):
the government side of thingthat just slows everything down.
It's not for a lack of likeeffort on the side of the
businesses, the Portuguesebusinesses that are involved in
real estate, but it's really thedang government.

Kalie (52:04):
Yeah. And I don't want

Josh (52:05):
to slag the government off too much. I don't know their
inner workings and I don't knowtheir checks and balances, but I
just wish they would speedthings up a bit faster.

Kalie (52:13):
Some things seem quite inefficient.

Josh (52:15):
Yeah. So I always find out what governments That's true.
With with administrativebureaucratic stuff. What's been
the most challenging thing thatyou've noticed in all of this?

Kalie (52:26):
The government.

Josh (52:27):
The government?

Kalie (52:27):
Yeah. Just the some of the steps you have to do, you're
like, why?

Josh (52:32):
You

Kalie (52:32):
know, just inefficiencies and then not communicating with
different government entities, Iguess, that have to do certain
things. It's like, can't theyjust share this information with
each other rather than having tosubmit it on all these platforms
or go to these differentappointments that seem the same?

Josh (52:49):
Mhmm. So some

Kalie (52:50):
of that stuff seems a little silly, but I think that's
just normal everywhere. Right?

Josh (52:54):
Yeah.

Kalie (52:54):
Little hoops you have to jump through.

Josh (52:56):
Yeah. I think for me, the biggest challenge has been I get
irritated when people set fixeddates, and then they reschedule,
like, you know, 48 hours out or24 hours out. It's happened so

Kalie (53:10):
well. Growing experience.

Josh (53:11):
No. I don't wanna grow like that. Honestly, like, I
don't wanna grow like that.Like, if you say a date, just
meet the date. Just show up.
Just show up. Like, cancel yourother things. Don't cancel on me
because every time it getscanceled on me, it just pushes
things further further back. Itirritates me so

Kalie (53:25):
bad. Obviously.

Josh (53:26):
So bad.

Kalie (53:27):
Alright. Moving on. What's been the most stressful
thing for you?

Josh (53:30):
I mean, in the whole process, easily was at the at
the purchase side of things.

Kalie (53:35):
Yeah.

Josh (53:35):
I I made You were a little mistakes that, yeah, that just
stress stress me out because Idon't like to be the guy to set
a date and then have to pushthings back because I know how
much it bothers me. Yeah. You?Stressful? You haven't been
stressed really at all?

Kalie (53:50):
No. I don't I feel that you don't understand

Josh (53:52):
the weight of like, the the heaviness, the weight of
this, not the w a I t weight.

Kalie (53:58):
No. I just the confidence okay. So also throughout this,
which is why I think it'simportant to have a lawyer,
who's Portuguese, he was verycomfortable and confident as
well. So the fact that he waslike, it's okay. This is normal

Josh (54:14):
He's not made

Kalie (54:15):
me feel okay.

Josh (54:16):
But but but, also, he's not confident about the the
completion date.

Kalie (54:20):
Well, that. But I'm talking about, like, the
purchase. Throughout thepurchase, he was like

Josh (54:24):
You're right.

Kalie (54:24):
This is normal. This happens all the time. And he's
like, it it shouldn't happen allthe time, but we're virtual.
This happens all the time. Sothis is the standard.

Josh (54:33):
It irritates him that that's the standard. Like, he
hates he hates when the excuseand and Anna with Savvy Cat
hates when the excuse of, like,well, this is Portugal Portugal.
Yeah. Is made. Like, they bothget irritated by that because
they they expect more out oftheir country, which is cool.
I think things will things willchange when that happens. When
more people kind of take thatmentality

Kalie (54:55):
Definitely.

Josh (54:55):
Then things will change. So, who's helped us the most in
this process? I think we have togive a couple shout outs.

Kalie (55:03):
Yeah. Oh, yes. So I would say Rafael for the mortgage.

Josh (55:08):
Amazing. Working working with him was so easy. So And and
he was the one, really, duringthe whole process of getting
paperwork to the bank. He didn'tneed to kind of be in and
amongst it, but he just puthimself in and amongst it and
was like, guys, we need this,this, and this. We've already
sent this.
Let's go. Let's go. He waspushing it.

Kalie (55:29):
Yes. He was pushing the bank as well. So if you like an
introduction with him, you couldemail me. I'll introduce you. He
was good.
Joao, our lawyer. Also, Also, ifyou wanna introduce actually,
anyone we talk about, if you'reinterested, then just email us
so we can introduce you.

Josh (55:43):
Yeah.

Kalie (55:44):
He was great as well.

Josh (55:47):
I really liked Walnut Construction as well. It's a
company that we didn't use, butwe got a quote from them. Pedro
was really easy to talk to, geton with.

Kalie (55:58):
I think the big thing with them was they're based in
Lisbon as well. So

Josh (56:02):
They have an office here, but I think it was I think it
was also price. Because for us,one of the the things that we
wanted to do was to keep theprice per square meter as as low
as we reasonably could, and itwas just a price thing.

Kalie (56:19):
So that we could sell the units at a reasonable and not
inflated price like we we wereseeing.

Josh (56:24):
Yeah. We wanna fight against this kind of inflated
price. And granted, we wanted totry to keep it around 3,000 is
what we were looking to do, itbecame very difficult. I mean
the current market is like 4,000plus. I mean, 45, I think, is
kind of the new norm.
€45100 per square meter on aproject kind of similar to ours.

(56:50):
But you can also find projectsthat are 55, 100, 6000.

Producer Dan (56:55):
If it's

Josh (56:55):
a small unit, it might be 6 1,000 to €65100 per square
meter. It's bonkers.

Kalie (57:00):
It's too much.

Josh (57:01):
Like, at

Kalie (57:01):
the end

Josh (57:02):
of the day, like, I love Porto, but this is Porto. I mean
Yeah. Those prices don't matchup with kind of the the street
level economics of what'shappening in the city.

Kalie (57:12):
Right. So Walnut was good. They were they were really
good. We really liked them, butjust with pricing and then I
mean, for us, Pedralikita, sincethey've been here doing it here
for, like, 20 plus years, theyhad made no people. Connections
in city hall.
So I think that that helped, youknow, sway it a little bit as
well. But Walnut was a goodoption too.

Josh (57:34):
Yeah. So if we're at this point in the process where we're
just kind of starting demolitionand develop, development moving
forward. If you could, would youdo it over again? The whole
thing? Like Would you do anotherproject?

Kalie (57:48):
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I mean, obviously, if the prices checked
out Yeah. That would

Josh (57:54):
be a

Kalie (57:55):
big thing.

Josh (57:55):
That's the thing that concerns me right now

Kalie (57:57):
is that still on the rise.

Josh (57:58):
They're they're still on the rise. I mean, so my answer
is yes. I would do it again. AndI've started to look for other
buildings, but the problem wejust had we just had a building
priced out in terms of the theproject and renovation side, and
it was, like, 33% higher, thanthe quotes that we got a year
ago in terms of what what theconstruction price per square

(58:22):
meter is. That's scary.
So, it does actually make sensein a way that we're seeing the
final product's price being now45100 to 5,000

Kalie (58:33):
Yeah.

Josh (58:34):
Euros per square meter.

Kalie (58:35):
So good investment.

Josh (58:36):
Because it's, like, 33% has been added on. What what's
kind of changed in you duringthis process? Is there have has
there been any, like, big kindof transformation either in
thought or

Kalie (58:51):
I don't think so. No? No. I mean, I guess what's the only
thing that seems to have changedis pricing of things and just
you I mean, obviously, sincewe're in it, we're tracking that
stuff a lot more. I think if weweren't doing anything housing
related, then, we'd have to bemore intentional on seeing,
like, what realistic prices arebecause sometimes you go if you
go on a deletion, for example,you'll see all sorts of ranges

(59:13):
of prices, and you're just like,what is going on?
But now that we're we've been init for years, we know what's
going on.

Josh (59:19):
Yeah.

Kalie (59:19):
So I think that seeing the craziness of that, I don't
know, has maybe changed my viewon on housing and how it works
because we're in it a lot more.Yes. So knowing about the supply
and demand and prices going upand why they're going up and why
they're not going up. You know?Because, obviously, media talks
a lot about certain things ofwhy they think or pushing

(59:41):
something, why it's going up.
But,

Josh (59:43):
I don't even know if it's media then. I think it's as as
much the government.

Kalie (59:48):
As well. Like, they're doing doing different they have
different policies that

Josh (59:52):
You're you're

Kalie (59:53):
think will work.

Josh (59:54):
You're you're talking about, like, the golden visa by
by real real estate investment.

Kalie (59:57):
Well, I mean, some policies that they're doing,
it's hard because it's like, forexample, with the taxes. So for
the longest time, it was it mademore sense, to have a short
term, like, rental Yeah. Than itdid a long term rental because
the taxes were lower on a shortterm rental. Yeah. That's crazy
because you can charge more on ashort term rental rather than

(01:00:17):
long term.
So then all of a sudden, there'sno long term rentals because
why, of course, why would a

Josh (01:00:22):
A landlord can make more money and be taxed less, be more
tax efficient.

Kalie (01:00:25):
Right. For so little things like that, but that was a
government implementation. Well,now they've they've realized
that. Yeah. So now they'retrying to, you know, incentivize
to go to long term.
So little things like that thatit's like the government kinda
made the problem, and maybe nowthey're trying to fix it

Josh (01:00:40):
Yeah.

Kalie (01:00:41):
Which is good. But then it's, like, more policies and
legislation that you wonder, youknow, if they're doing it for
the right reasons, of course,just like a lot of governments.
But so I don't know. I think youwe're in we're in this that a
lot more than I would be if weweren't doing our own housing
project at this point. Yeah.
You?

Josh (01:01:02):
Well, the the biggest thing that has changed for me is
because I've now been looking atthings from a developer's
perspective and looking at otherdevelopments and kind of
tracking what's going on withthat, I see why prices are the
way the way they are. I I mean,yo, guys, it is getting
expensive to do developments.And the amount of risk that a

(01:01:24):
developer takes on, I mean, I'veheard several kind of people in
the industry talk about when thedeveloper actually makes money
because it tends to be on thethe last units that they sell,
right, Because the first onesthat get sold are are funding
the actual cost of the projectand then they don't end up

(01:01:46):
making a return until they sellkind of, let's say, the back
maybe 20% of the units. And whathappens if you get stuck with
those or what happens if there'san economic shift because
there's there's a lag betweenwhen you start a project, when
the project is finished and youcan turn keys over to to,

(01:02:07):
buyers. So I understand whyprices have gone up.

Kalie (01:02:10):
It's a big risk. It's a big up front mess.

Josh (01:02:12):
Massive risk. And we've taken a massive risk, that maybe
I'm a little anxious toobviously see how it turns out
and whether or not we have You

Kalie (01:02:20):
have doubts if it if it will be successful?

Josh (01:02:23):
Yeah. I no. I think I do. I have I have confidence in Petr
Likita. I don't have confidencein the bureaucratic side of
things that could strikeunknowingly, so that worries me.
I have confidence in the peoplethat have bought that if certain
things, let's say, don't go inour favor, that are out of our

(01:02:43):
control, that they won't uselitigation to, to strike us.
Because, like like, legit, wearen't making money on this
project. We're we're trying tosolve a problem that we saw and
meet a need by kind of doingsomething out of the box, which
is why, like, we we call peopleon our new channel rehab rebels

(01:03:06):
because, like, we're rebellingagainst what is kind of the norm
the normal approach, to kind ofrehab or whatever. So wrapping
up, will we hit our target date?What do you think?

Kalie (01:03:19):
I'm gonna go with a bit of a hesitation. Yes. I think we
will. I think we will. And ifnot, it's gonna be very close.
I don't think it'll be like itwas supposed to be June 2025,
and now it's December 2025, or Idon't think it'll be like that.
I think it will be yes. Eitherthe target date or very, very

(01:03:39):
close off by, like, 1 month.

Josh (01:03:41):
Okay.

Kalie (01:03:42):
What do you think?

Josh (01:03:43):
I think that we'll be finished, but we will not have
the habitation license in time.

Kalie (01:03:48):
Oh, because they'll just take forever to get us that.

Josh (01:03:50):
I think so. I I think we've seen too many issues with
having a habitation licenseissued. What that means for the
buyers and and when they canmove in, I have no idea, but
that's just kind of where I seethings. And I have