What Is Alaska Really Like? | Living In Alaska Ft. Andra Holmstrom

Welcome to the Alaskan journey podcast. My name is Jamin Gerker and I'm an associate real estate broker in Alaska, but more importantly, I am your first friend in Alaska and the purpose of this podcast is to talk about um, the good, bad, the ugly, and everything in between about what it's like living up here in Alaska. And today I'm very lucky to be joined by Andra and she is going to be talking about her experience of living up here in Alaska. And, um, yeah, kind of just shining some light on what it's like actually living up here. So thank you very much for joining us, Andra. Thank you for asking me to be here. Absolutely. So let's, uh, let's go and just jump into this then. Um, how, how long have you lived up here in Alaska? Oh, I was born here. So, uh, it's been as long as I'm as old as I am. Fair enough. Fair enough. So were you in South central Alaska the whole time or what, where all have you been? Well, I was born at Humana hospital. You may not have heard of that, but if you have, that's what is now known as a regional, um, regional hospital. So I was born at Humana hospital and my parents lived in Anchorage at the time. Uh, shortly thereafter we moved to Chugiak and we did grow up here in South central. Um, and then in 1990 we bought a lodge on the Denali highway and I grew up in the bush, uh, in the summers. So I spent a lot of time there and in Chugiak. No way. Like what, what lodge did you guys buy? We bought Tangle Lakes Lodge. It's on the Denali highway. It's at mile 22. Every time we talk about it, uh, most, most of the people that I say that to have been to the, on the highway, at least at the very least. And they've seen the highway or the lodge from the highway, but Tangle Lakes Lodge is the lodge. Gotcha. Um, I know that is like a completely different lifestyle. I was actually looking at buying a lodge for a little bit myself, but I mean, luckily I talked to one of my, um, um, one of my friends is also a YouTuber. He runs a lodge and he was like, okay, it's not a quick little investment Airbnb thing. It's a complete lifestyle change. So, you know, what, what do you think about the, uh, the lodge life? I couldn't, I couldn't agree more with that. It is, it isn't a completely different way of living. It's, um, endless work. I would say it's a 24 hour work cycle because, you know, you, you go to bed thinking about what you have to do the next day you wake up and you immediately start on things that are broken, fixed. It's customer service. There's lots of people, lots of reservations. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty much a complete, it's definitely a business of its own. It's a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, it's customer service, but then also you're in like a restaurant or something like that. Like you get burned with someone and it's like, you can just kind of walk away within 30 minutes. But with a lodge, I mean, you're kind of stuck with them for a couple of days. So. Yes, for sure. Yeah. We definitely had, um, you know, we had 10 cabins, um, and they had good people stay. I mean, we had people there for a duration and it was a little bit like, um, you know, making them happy for three days. It's a hostile, it's a hospitality. Um, and they do, like everybody comes here for a different purpose. Most of the people are there to see the highway, to see something very Alaskan and we definitely tried to give them that experience, but yeah. And that's awesome. So, okay. So did the whole lodge thing. And, um, would you say you liked it? Didn't like it? I have really great memories of it. I really do. I have really great memories. There's, you know, hard days where, you know, cause I was a kid and I was the waitress. I was the hostess. I was the, I cleaned cabins. I mean, I did, I did all the chores and, you know, as a kid, I did have a lot of interactions with adults. I didn't have as many interactions with kids and that's probably, that's probably one of the negatives of it was some days were harder because of that. But, um, by and large, I, I, I really do have good memories of, of it. It's a lot of fun. I felt like I was always accomplishing something, you know? Yeah. And, uh, what was that like going from, you know, primarily interacting with adults and kind of the lodge setting and then going to like a high school back in Chugiak, like what was, did you feel like you were, I don't know, like a fifth grader and like first grade or something at that point with all the kids? No, I think I still maintained my, um, you know, my youth. I, I, I definitely really enjoyed being at, there's three months of just really hard work and I made a lot of money in tips and I was very excited about that. Uh, but I did a lot of jobs. I mean, I was 30, I started when I was 13 as a waitress. I remember my very first customer, she gave me a bunch of coins and tip and a tip and she was a bicyclist. And I was like, if this is what is going to happen, I make her pancakes and she puts money on the table for me. I can do this. Like I was very excited by that. And I did go back to school and talk about it with friends and show them my tip money and, you know, spent, spent that money on very silly things as a kid. But yeah, no, I think I maintained my youth. Outstanding. So, okay. So you came up here, lived in Chugiak for a little bit. Uh, well, a little bit, my whole life until you were 18. Yeah. And like, what did, what was it like growing up in Chugiak? Very nice and quiet. Yeah. Very, very, very rural. I mean, we didn't have any, the nearest store was a mile and a half. So we would ride our bikes up to the store and, you know, buy candy bars and ride back home. Uh, but very quiet. I had a few friends up there. I mean, I had quite a few friends in my neighborhood. I think it would be a good place to be right now with kids. Um, but Chugiak was great. Outstanding. Now, one thing I do find interesting, a lot of people that I talk to, like they, uh, they grow up in Alaska and then they end up moving out of Alaska in pretty short order. But, um, did you stay here the whole time or did you have like the striking out moving somewhere else phase? Yeah, no. Yeah. No, my, my dad got us up. My dad got here to Alaska and never planned on leaving. Excuse me. And then, um, when we started growing up, I do remember them talking about moving member probably around the time that we bought the lodge. I think there might've been some discussions about either moving or doing something fantastic, like buying the lodge. And so I think that's what ended up happening is we did not move to Idaho falls like my dad talked about. Like where where's Idaho falls. I'm assuming Idaho. Like I know. Okay. Yeah. Yes. I know. Yeah. Um, and that's probably a question that I probably hadn't made Idaho falls. Where's that? How did you pick that? Um, but we didn't do it and stayed in Alaska and then we were locked in. I mean, you, you know, you make a commitment like that. We pretty much locked right into it. And as an adult, after I was 18, I, I do remember talking about trying to pack up and move to Hawaii, but I didn't know anybody there. So that never materialized. And I just stayed here myself. I get to where all my family is mostly and or was since then things have changed, but that's just how I, I just stayed here. We do think about moving now because of the weather, because we're just so unhappy with these cold summers, but we, we, we are talking about it again, but we're probably not leave for a while. You're awesome. Got it. So you guys really aren't winter activity people. We are. Yeah. I mean, we've, you kind of have to be, I have said that my whole life. If you're going to live in Alaska, you better find something you like to do in the winter. Cause it's a long stretch and you might not be happy if you can't do that. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing I try to explain to people is it's like, you've got, you've got the, um, the holidays you look forward to. I mean, which some are, um, Alaska and the Christmas time, like that's a great place to be. It feels really cozy. Everyone's got that holiday they're looking forward to. And then after that, you've got new years, which, you know, it's kind of, um, kind of hard to follow Christmas. So it's like, yeah, whatever. But then after that, you've got a long, like five months stretch till you get to the summertime. It's really true. Yeah. Yeah. And like this last winter, you know, we didn't have a lot of snow and there's in the past, I've seen a couple of winters where we don't have snow and it really does feel like almost kind of being held prisoner a little bit because there's no snow. And so all those fun activities that you want to do, you can't do. I mean, even the Iditarod is threatened by it because they move their location if there's a lack of snow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it like, I was looking at, um, well, kind of sort of running the Iditarod. Like I was going to like hike the Iditarod like this past year, but you know, family said something, you know, blah, blah, afraid of you dying out in the wilderness, blah, blah. So I was like, okay, we've got enough going on. I don't need to add that stress on top of it. But in my research though, I did find out there's like a solid 50, a hundred mile stretch where it was just nothing but rocks this year on the trail. So yeah, it's, uh, it's too much. Yeah. So. Were there, um, winters like the past winter that you can remember? Cause I, I certainly don't remember. Yeah. We had a stretch about 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago. It was, um, I, I equate it to when Bill Walker was governor because those were some winters where we had three winters in a row where there wasn't any snow. It was really bizarre. Like you get all the way to Christmas and not even see snow. There was a couple of winters right back to back like this. And so for me, it does feel very cyclical. Now before that, I don't remember so much, but, um, I, in fact, I remember before then there was just really solid snow and winters endlessly. Like you couldn't, you couldn't avoid it. Right. Right. Um, have you found yourself like, so I know for a lot of people, it's, uh, the cold during the winter time and the snow, that's really what people focus on, but I found really it's the darkness and how people handle and interact with the darkness that really does kind of make or break a lot of people. Sure. Is that like, are you just a little creature of the darkness and it just doesn't bug you at all? Or is that some bug me? That's so funny. I'm not a creature of the darkness. I definitely, I think, I don't know. I think I probably have just probably really gotten, I mean, I was born here, so it doesn't feel weird to me. Um, I definitely love it when, you know, you're, you kind of like going along and you realize, Oh, it's nine o'clock and I can see out the window. You know, I do like that. I feel like, Oh, I'm waking up again, but I don't, it doesn't bother me. The darkness doesn't bother me as much. Um, I think it's, it's novel in a way, you know, and when you talk about it to other people, they're like, so everybody loves to hear it. And I just say, it's a flip flop. We just flip flop gaining light and losing light. And people are, people are very amazed by it. It's like if you took like the average, I'm sure on average we get the same sunlight everyone else does. It's just our averages are just so like all or nothing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great. We, I, I definitely don't mind it overall. Yeah. Does it, uh, does it feel weird when you go to other places and like the sun's down at like nine or eight, six or like 6pm. Yeah. I go, I was gonna, I almost said it. I think it's, it's interesting when I go somewhere else and I'm like, Oh, it's six o'clock in the summertime and dark. That's lame. You know, I can't go for my seven o'clock hike. I was planning on doing, you know, you've got to change your plans. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, I'm thinking back and like thinking about all the adventures I like would go on and all that. It's like they totally wanted to have worked like what I did if the sun hadn't been out till midnight. I know. I know. People are like out hiking at 10 o'clock at night. You can be on any trail. There's people. Yeah. So that's, uh, yeah, that's, uh, that is definitely one of the big perks here. Well, you know, unless you're trying to sleep, but such is life. Oh, that's another question. Um, do you conversely struggle with sleeping during the summertime? Okay. I don't have any issues. Yeah. Again, born here. Yeah. Some mornings I wake up and the sunlight is streaming into the window and I'm like, Oh, that's kind of annoying. But you know, I just if the curtains aren't closed and it just peeps through that little crack, that's, that's about it. But no, I'm fine. That's about it. So what, um, what activities do you guys like doing here? Cause everyone like talked to any Alaskan. Most of them will have like some hobbies like locked and loaded that they, all those fields, they're going to go do that over the weekend. So for you guys, what is it for you? Well, since we have the kids, we're definitely trying to get our kids out and, um, learn all the Alaskan things. So my husband and my son have really gotten into all phases of fishing. My son is a big fisher. He just talks about it. I think he might be the biggest fishing enthusiast I have ever met is my seven year old son. It's amazing. He just, if he can put a fishing pole in the water, he's happy. So he likes to catch stuff, but he will do it even though there's, you know, the obvious threat of not catching anything. So we definitely try to find ways to fish. My husband has really supported that and gotten all of the Alaska ice fishing gear that you can possibly imagine the tent, the heaters. And I do not like ice fishing. I am like, I'll tell you the story. My mom and I were in a, cause we always had Jeeps and she'd be in one of her Jeeps driving on the ice. And I swear to this day, I was seven and I heard the ice crack. And I, to this day, I'm not a big fan of ice fishing. I do not trust that ice is two feet thick and I'm not going to fall through. I just hate it. I just hate it so much, but they don't mind it. They're not afraid. And so they go. And once in a while I try to join for ice fishing, but it's a short, it's a short visit. Watching, walking very, very tenderly out there. Yeah. I don't know why I'm so nervous about it. I'm actually getting nervous just sitting here talking about ice fishing. But aside from that, we do a lot of, a lot of motor works. My husband really likes, you know, the kids, the kids all have, both have all these motorized and electric bikes and we have a four wheeler for the kids. It's, it's very slow, but we have, my husband just built a track on our lower property. We have an acre and a half and part of the, part of the lower property, there's a circular track. The kids go down there with their helmets and ride around in circles for a very long time. It's very fun. And, um, my husband's a bicycling enthusiast. So the kids have a lot of different types of bikes. Um, those are the things that we do as a family, but we all have our own little hobbies that we all like to do as well. Right, right. So where did you guys end up settling down or what made you decide to kind of pick that area? Well, we lived in Anchorage. My husband and I met in Anchorage and he was living in his house that he had bought with in his previous marriage. And, um, he had a dog and I had a dog and we got together and moved in together in that house and got married, had our children in that house and lived there and just decided that our split level house in Midtown with, you know, kind of the nearby crime areas, we didn't, we just didn't like it. I just hated it really and felt very unsafe. Um, which is sad cause it was a really nice place and I grew lots of really good vegetables in the backyard cause it was hot, but we were going to go to South Anchorage. We were going to move out to South Anchorage. We really wanted to be out there, but it's really expensive and really hard to find as much land as we wanted. And we, we ended up in Eagle river. We weren't even trying to live in Eagle river, but you know, we kind of, we, we bought during COVID when, ah, geez. Yeah, that was a horrible, we had a 93 day closing. Wow. That's a, it was a nightmare. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like even for like up here in Alaska, for those of you who don't know, it's about 45, 60 days average to close, but 90 is, uh, yeah, we ended up, we ended up moving into the house and doing, I forget what the term is. You can help me out with, um, with that. It's, early occupancy. Yes. We did early occupancy and paid rent to live in our house while we were buying it because it just took so long and all of our stuff was in storage and we were kind of miserable. So we did that. But like I said, we weren't even looking in Eagle river. We got our heart broken in about, I mean three days in a row, we kept like trying to go find a house to go look at and it would pend. But the minute we found it online, we got so frustrated by that. And so we kind of just threw our hands up in the air and said, we're not going to buy a house this year, maybe next year. Excuse me. And then all of a sudden on Monday morning, I get this like notification that there's this house in Eagle river. That's it really checked off a lot of our boxes. I mean, it really did. It had, you know, a sizable amount of property, uh, was well within our price range. And we, we jumped on it. And by seeing it at 10 30 in the morning, we had our offer in by one 30 in the afternoon. That's how fast we scrambled to put our, put our offer in on that house. And by nine o'clock the next morning, we had the owners said that they accepted our offer. We were, we were overjoyed and I was really excited to get out of that, that house and into the new one. So. Yeah. And, uh, so Eagle river really wasn't on the radar before, but really. So for you, like what were the pros and cons now of being in Eagle river? Well, I don't, I didn't want to commute because ideally my husband and I would have really actually preferred to be in the Valley with, um, lots of land and then houses were still not crazy. But now I think of a Valley house is just as expensive as an anchorage house. So, um, I, so being in a river, this, there's a slight commute, which I, I find not too bad. I can get to my house and from my house to school, the kid's school or my office, I can get there in about 20, 25 minutes. So that, that's not too bad. Um, the con is we still don't have quite as much property as we'd really like. Ideally we'd like a minimum of five acres, but we're making, we do pretty well on an acre and a half. We do all of our hobbies. We have a lot of fun, have a lot of things out there that we like to use and we can put them away and, and all that. But as far as the cons, there really aren't many other cons. You know, we, I live, we live on the mountainside. I wouldn't mind a little bit more sun, but it's great overall. I love the community. Our neighbors are amazing. Um, we really do have great neighbors. Yeah. I'm assuming that view has got to be incredible up there too. We did get a nice view. It's a funny story. Actually during that early occupancy is, I hope nobody gets mad at me, but this is five years ago now. Um, you know, you're not allowed to do anything at the house cause technically you don't own it. Yeah. You're a renter. And we weren't allowed to cut down trees or paint the yellow walls, but we painted the yellow walls and we cut down some trees. And when we started cutting down trees, we realized we had an amazing view and, and really more than we ever thought that we were going to have. And so we'd, we cut down about, my husband went out there in the woods in the snow in December with his gear on and cut down six big old trees and our view just kind of started to open up. And then we had a, we had a really nice, it was really nice. We really looked forward to cutting down more of them as soon as we could. It's like, that makes me laugh. He just couldn't wait till spring. It's like, no, cut them. In the snow. He was out there and it's the, you know, like a hillside right below our house there. And he was out there cutting down trees, happy to do it. Oh, that's awesome. So for you guys, like what's kind of been your experience with raising kids in Alaska? Like, cause I know that's a concern. A lot of my listeners and viewers might have of, you know, what is it like raising a family up in Alaska? Some people have this really idyllic house on the Prairie kind of vision in mind and other people, you would think you're taking your kids to a, to a ghetto or something. So the expectations are all across the board. So for you, what would you say it's been like? I mean, I, it's really hard to say anything different because as a person who was raised here, I don't know anything different, you know? So all I know is this Alaskan lifestyle. I mean, I grew up with hunting dogs and falconry and, you know, gutting caribou since I was a kid and making pancakes with blueberries that I picked myself. I mean, I've really raised, I've just raised that way. And so, I mean, I would say that it's all that. It's all that Alaskan dreamy stuff that you can imagine, the Northern Lights, all that dreamy stuff, plus a lot of hard work. I mean, it's, it's a lot of hard work. If you're going to be here, you probably should come with a job that pays well. You should get a job that pays well here. And cause it's hard. I mean, it's not easy in a lot of ways, but it is kind of easy too because we have good public schools. We have a lot of activities. If you can figure out an activity that you like and do it, there's a community waiting to welcome you to it. I don't think that any of the stuff that we do, we don't, we always meet really cool people, everything that we do, you know? Right. So a lot of good community, I think here, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So glad you kind of mentioned the school. So what's, what's kind of been your experience with the schools here in the area? Cause yeah, I know that I'm probably very opinionated on this. We don't, we don't use any public schools. Okay. So now in Eagle river, that's different here in Eagle river. I feel like the Anchorage school district schools are really run by people. I don't know why, but they, everybody always says River schools are better than the Anchorage schools. I believe that to be true. I don't believe that to be true for very much longer. They still are governed by the Anchorage school district and the Anchorage school district is a mess. The school board's a mess. The superintendent's a weird, strange makes choices. I don't agree with. And we can't get anybody on the board that can do changes that I think are reasonable. Like the super, the Jarrett, I think is his name. He's making some, you know, like building the inlet view school downtown and Anchorage, but not, you know, and then closing other schools. It doesn't make any sense to me. There's a lot of really, you know, choices like that and of course all the other political stuff that's mixed in there. I don't, I just, I don't want to be a part of it. Yeah, it's, it's kind of a mess right now. Like I, um, I had someone who went to the, uh, the school board meeting a little bit ago and I was talking with him about it and he was like, you know, the Jarrett guy, he was trying to make like this big speech of, well, you know, when everything hits the fan, I'm the guy that you're going to want to talk to. But as he was saying that, okay, first off, he's got coffee. He has a straw with the coffee. And like, as he's saying this, he's like trying to like sip this, trying to sip it, but he didn't like, you know, find the straws. There's a really good Andrew Dice Clay. Have you ever listened to Andrew Dice Clay? He does a really funny story about how you can not look cool holding a straw. And he kind of does this funny thing, you know, with it's, I can picture that. I can just picture that. It's like, dude, what are you doing? Like, you're not that guy, that guy. You're going to be drinking anything. It needs to be like, I don't know, a shot of whiskey or something like that. And then, but I don't think you can pull it off. Black coffee. Yeah. Just some black coffee drink. Diner coffee that tastes, he thinks tastes really good. Yeah. Geez. Well, yeah, that's been, that's been my experience is that that is a person that makes choices that do not benefit the public or our children in general. Yeah. And for you, what would you say those, some of those choices are? Well, I mentioned the one, you know, the, the building schools and closing schools, you know, that's, that's a weird, weird space to be in. And as far as, you know, kind of the, the whole, I, I don't know how, how far to go with this, but this, the whole, there's just been a lot of the, the story that really sticks out in my mind is the one teacher that I forget it. I can't remember his name, but basically was wearing clothing that was too tight and the children were offended by it and he had to leave the school or something. There was just a lot of news about that. And I feel like he was supported in that and the children weren't. And that's kind of my concern is that you know, my kids will see stuff like that. And that's not something that children should be worrying about in school. They should be going there to learn how to read and write. I'm really focused right now on how hard it has been to teach one of my children to read. I think some kids just pick stuff up sooner than others. And I've had to go in and spend extra time as a parent, even though I have a business helping my child spell and I'm a good speller. It comes really naturally to me. And so that's been tough to have to try to figure out how to teach somebody something that comes naturally to me. And, um, you know, I just think that should be the focus is, you know, those are the services and the things that our kids need is really to learn how to get a good education. And the other stuff is parental rights. Those are things that we should be talking to our kids about. Right. And I don't feel like the school district wants us to do that. I feel like they want us to not be a part of decisions that kids want to make with strangers. I don't agree with that at all. They're my children and I will raise them and it's not your job to interfere like that. Right. So those are some of my feelings. I'm being very, um, honest, but I could go, I could go a lot deeper and then we'd have to cancel the interview. It's like, you just get the static. It's like, well, we'll cut to commercial. Yeah. Well, yes. No, that's a, I mean, it's not stuff I haven't heard before. I mean, it's stuff I have heard before. So. It's okay. It's okay that people are different. I like that. I, I, I would be bored. I like different people, but it's not anybody's job to go and put that in my child's face before I do. It's my job as a parent and I don't care that people are different. I like that. I celebrate it. I have no problem with that, but it just shouldn't be discussed so much that the pressure shouldn't be so heavy. It shouldn't be so prevalent. Education should be right. Safety. Right. Yeah. So what, uh, uh, you mentioned having a business. So what, what business do you run? Um, I'm an insurance agent for country financial. I have an office on Muldoon. Very nice. And how long have you been in insurance? And yeah, let's start with that. How long have you been in insurance? Yeah, I started, uh, I started that in, uh, when my, right after my son was born, actually during my pregnancy, I, I, um, sold a business and started in, in insurance and finance. And that was in, it's hard to remember 2018 cause my son was born in 2017. And so I started interviewing in February of 2018. Gotcha. And I'm assuming been in it for a little bit. You do enjoy it. I would assume. Yeah, I do. All of my careers, I've been able to spend time with people getting to know people and helping people. And this is just another one of those things that helps me do that. Outstanding. And how would you say, would you say insurance is any different in Alaska as opposed to lower 48 or is insurance just the same across the board? That's a really great question. As a person who's never lived anywhere else, I really wouldn't know. I do know that some of the differences between Alaska and some of the other states are, is that like, for instance, my husband is from Florida and he tells me that in Florida it's a no fault state, so they don't assign fault to claims and things. And so it's, it's different. So I assume that there are going to be differences state to state. Um, I do know that, you know, I hold licenses in many other states and even just getting your license in another state can be different based on the cost and some of the requirements it takes to get a license. So I have to imagine there are going to be minutiae that are different, but overall having coverage is going to be very much the same. Right, right. All right. Well, that's, that's glad to hear. Um, good to hear that. Um, how expensive would you say insurance is in Alaska as opposed to somewhere else? Cause I know like Florida, it's like a solid three, 500 plus dollars a month for just for basic like home insurance. And you said that for which state? Uh, Florida, Florida. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, you've got your storm states, Texas to Florida. We don't even, a country doesn't even do insurance in. Oh wow. Really? Yep. Too risky. So we pick a country has 19 states that we do insurance in. Um, I'm licensed, I think in about 10 of them. Um, in Alaska, I know that we do have higher rates. Um, and it's actually, it's also not just Alaska in general, it's where in Alaska you are. So for instance, I have a client who, um, was kind of whining a little bit about our auto rates and I get it cause they, they go up and up and up and I don't blame her at all. I say whining because I whine, I'm a whiner, but she was complaining to me one day about how her auto rates had gone up. And I said, well, you know, she goes, and I live in Glen Ellyn a lot. And I'm in Anchorage, just not as much. And I heard that and I thought, you're in Glen Ellyn. Well, let's garage your car. You can as a term called garaging your car. And I said, well, let's garage your car in Glen Ellyn. And we, we moved her auto policy essentially from Anchorage to Westla. It went down $200 for her six month renewal. Oh, wow. So Anchorage is an expensive place to have, um, auto insurance in some cases. Now country financial has some of the best rates for home. You really cannot do better than getting a home policy with country financial. We're, we're very, very competitive and our claims adjusters are amazing. They say yes. They love to say yes to claims. We just are not always as competitive with our auto. We just aren't. They, there's been a lot of crime, you know, since basically, since that period of time we talked about earlier with the snowfall, um, we have had snow problems and the removal issues in the winters and that, that causes issues that causes accidents. Our company has noticed that there's a lot of crime. A lot of petty crime is allowed to continue in this state, unfortunately. Um, so break-ins and theft of cars is common. So our company has decided that it's a little bit more expensive to have an auto policy here. And so we don't always tend to be as competitive. Now that's not always true. I have found myself beating rates for other companies. I'm very excited when I do, but, uh, overall, I would say that we are very, very competitive on home, but not always as much on auto. Right. Business actually is another one that we do that we're very competitive on business insurance. We tend to be very competitive. Outstanding. So I guess if you have anyone looking at, um, relocating up here to Alaska, we'll, uh, we'll go and put the link to your website. Um, so people can get in touch with you if you want, if they want to talk shop about insurance up in Alaska, because it's going to be a little bit different. Um, I hadn't even thought that like the different parts of Alaska would have different rates, but it does make sense. And recently I found out that, um, um, with investment properties, specifically four plexes, technically those are considered commercial insurance realm, but for the sake of financing, they're considered still residential. So I guess for investors just kind of understanding that distinction. And I mean, that's stuff you're just going to have to talk with an actual agent about, uh, to hear more about. Yeah. If you're looking at buying a fourplex and getting insurance, it's getting harder. It's getting harder, you know, much like the storm States, storms became a problem for insurance companies now since COVID it's rental properties. So they're reviewing rental properties in the same fashion that they did with storm States and storm issues. And so some companies will not use that market. They just will choose not to do it. And so because of COVID people, everybody has turned their basement into a rental property. And so now there's a, an increase in, um, passive income issues like that people want to be getting passive income. Now there's more rentals and it's a, it's a higher risk. Yeah. I mean, it's especially cause here's the issue you have with, uh, specifically fourplexes and like those duplexes, triplexes, a lot of first time home buyers, they just don't have the experience yet to recognize that, okay, this property has got a very high ROI and it's going to be a nightmare to deal with. The tenants aren't going to be on time on anything. They're going to be destructive. Just the neighborhood itself is going to be a problem, um, longterm. And they just don't recognize that. They just see like the high ROI. And now, because I mean there's a lot of destruction to those properties and a lot of damage, then, you know, insurance gets drawn upon more and more to take care of stuff like that, which increases the rates for everyone else. Cause I've got a fourplex and, you know, we are keep pretty quiet to ourselves over there. Like I was thinking about it the other day, it's like, man, we've got like four or five animals living in this building. I never hear a single one of them. Oh, that's great. And yeah, I mean, just very put together, like a sock enough money away to make sure if anything happens, we can get it fixed like the next day kind of stuff. But yeah, like our rates are going up because the high risk fourplexes and investment properties are kind of dragging everybody else down. Yeah. Well you bring up a couple of really good points. One, if everything is going up, of course, insurance has to go up. So there is that. And yes, it is nobody's fault in that situation. And then there are the situations where it is someone else's fault. It is because of claims. Overall, if claims go up, insurance companies have to go, well, maybe it's more expensive to have our company in this area and we do need to raise the rate there. And so it's not just for certain people. It's an across the board increase. Yeah. But, um, and new people that come into ownership of, of rental properties are not as on track as they could be. And they have DIY for their whole mindset. And that includes the management of the property itself. And I really, I can't say enough about rental management. Having a rental property do that stuff for you is because the eviction process itself is challenging. And I've, I learned that during COVID, how hard it is to evict somebody as a bad tenant, the favor, the laws are not in favor always of the landlord. Yeah. Yeah. They decided they're just going to burrow in like a tick. It's kind of hard to get them out of there. Now, luckily for like a lot of landlords, this, I mean, I don't manage property for other people. I do manage my own stuff. And I mean, broker, you know, you're in the industry in the industry. I've got people I can ask if I have like pretty, pretty niche questions about, but for me, I haven't had to evict anyone and it's just because we're just so on top of like screening everybody. I think that's a really great way to go. And, um, I will, I would say you, you probably are doing the right thing and most people probably aren't doing that and they could do that more, but you also cannot control what happens in those other three places because stuff still happens and anybody can get it. I hate to say this, but anybody can get addicted to drugs. Anybody can become a bad tenant. And it's just, it's, it's, I feel like rental property is a gamble. My husband wants to get into it and I keep, I keep the pushback. I keep pushing back cause I'm like, I just don't, I'm just, I don't have as much interest in that. And so, and that, those are my fears. Yeah. Well, I will say if you get a really good quality property that tends to attract a really good quality tenants, they're going to take care of it. And cause I've had some tenants and charge accordingly. Yeah. Yeah. And I've had, um, um, tenants before where it's like, dude, this person's better being a tenant that I am being a landlord. So I need to step my game up. So that's a, yeah, so it can, it can work, but I definitely understand. Cause I mean, you hear all the stories and, um, there's definitely a lot that can go wrong and man, I hadn't thought about that, but I guess working in insurance, you've probably seen everything go wrong before. So I have seen some stuff. Yeah. I think, um, you know, every industry has their, has their setbacks. And I always think anybody, I mean, you can be a good tenant for a long time and then you can lose a job and things can go really South, really fast, especially in our economy where, you know, you know, if you have a good paying job and you're used to living that lifestyle and then that job is lost for whatever reason, you know, the fallback is really challenging for people to try to find something else that pays that well. Right. Right. All right. Well, Pitfall, sorry, bring up the pitfalls. There's a pitfall for every industry. That is very true. Um, I guess moving on to, um, kind of Alaska in general again here. Um, what, what would you say, uh, just kind of in closing here, what would you say are some of the pros and the cons of living in Alaska? Yeah. Um, I think the pros are that people are really fun to get to know here. I mean, I feel like that's the case. I feel like we're very friendly people. Um, I think the cons are of course the long winters, lots of snow, um, the changing political communities is changing a lot. I don't know if you, that bothers you. Um, it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard for me. Um, uh, but you know, if you're an active person and you are versatile, you will do fine in Alaska. If you want to be out in the weather and, you know, you're not doing anything super risky in a bad way. I think you're going to be just fine is wear the right gear, maybe carry a beacon with you, whatever you're doing, just make sure you're protected and you know, your family's protected. There are, I mean, it's, it's a big wildlife is what they say here. And there are lots of ways to have fun and there's lots of ways to get in trouble. Yep. That's a, that's very true. Wear the right gear. Absolutely. All right. Well, Andrew, thank you very much for joining us and kind of sharing your, um, your perspective about what it's like living up here in Alaska. Um, like I said, we'll go ahead and put the link for your website down in our, um, down in the description section below on this video. And, um, anyone has insurance questions, they'll, uh, they'll reach out to you. Well, thanks for having me. Hey, my pleasure. Everyone else again, thank you very much for joining us and we'll see you next time.