PROOF! The Housing Market HAS ALREADY CRASHED...

A lot of people have been asking me lately, Michael, where is this housing crash that you and all these other people on YouTube have been predicting? You know, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index keeps showing year-over-year positive returns. What's going on? The home prices aren't going down. Well, actually, they are going down only if you price real estate in gold, which is the only real form of money that is in existence anyways. But the problem is people are pricing real estate in dollars, and because dollars are worth less and less and less by the day, you will pay more for real estate or anything else with those dollars than you were paying yesterday or the day before that because of inflation. And so I'm going to show you guys with proof in this video that real estate has already crashed by at least 20% when you price it in gold. And by the way, I did a short segment on this in a video a few days ago, but that video wasn't very popular. So I wanted to, you know, go deeper into this and give you guys more information on it again here today and make it like the main star of the video. And by the way, if you're somebody that likes to watch all of my videos and you say, hey, how come Michael didn't have a video this day or whatever, like there's a good chance I probably did, but maybe you missed it because the algorithm doesn't push videos that are aren't as popular. So always go to my channel and go to the videos tab and you guys can see all of the videos that you might have missed otherwise. So here's the thing, guys, everybody likes to use the Case-Shiller Home Price Index as the most reliable and historically accurate form of real estate prices in the US. And when you look at the Case-Shiller Home Price Index today versus where it was in 2022, you can see on this chart that it's been basically flat. In June of 2022, it rose to about $308,000 and then took a dip over the past couple of years and started rising up again this year and is now sitting at around $312,000. So really, real estate, according to Case-Shiller, has only gone up in value by $4,000 in the past two years, which we can say is basically no appreciation at all. It's basically just sitting flat. Now before you type your comment and tell me I'm wrong and that the new Case-Shiller numbers just came out and now it's at $316,000, I'm aware of that, but I wasn't at the time I shot this video because these numbers literally came out as I was shooting the video. So I just wanted to acknowledge that here in this video and show you that it did go up slightly again, but this is not really going to impact the math I'm about to show you. And it was also right around this time at the beginning of 2022 when I started making videos about a potential housing crash because I was starting to realize that the signs of the bubble were all there. But here's how we can look at this a different way to show you that the price of real estate has been coming down when priced in gold, which is real money, okay? Because in June of 2022, gold was $1,850 per ounce and the median home price was $308,000 per ounce, which means you would need 166 ounces of gold back then to purchase a house, okay? But if we do the same calculation today and go by the Case-Shiller home price index at $312,000 and gold being priced at $2,350 an ounce, and I think it's even higher than that now, it's like $2,370, but we'll use the same calculation that I did the other day and that would give you a house price in gold today would be worth equivalent to 132 ounces in gold, which is a discount, 166 ounces versus 132 ounces is actually less money for the same house, right? Follow me so far. So when you price real estate in gold, this shows you that home prices have actually fallen by 20% over this timeframe, guys. Even though the dollar value and the nominal value of real estate has actually gone up during this time, it's actually gone down when priced in gold. And let's not forget, gold and silver are supposed to be the only legal tender in the United States and that is according to our US Constitution. All this paper, funny money, and printing numbers on a screen is a fraud and it's unconstitutional. And so 166 ounces a couple of years ago versus 132 ounces is a 20% discount today. So that means home prices have come down by 20% if you were paying in gold. Now, of course, I understand that most people don't do this. They save dollars and that's why real estate feels more expensive. But if you were saving gold during the same timeframe and you wanted to buy the same house, you've been saving cash or saving gold, you would effectively be buying a house at a lower price today than you would be if you were saving dollars. And then every time I bring up pricing things in gold on the channel, people bring up things like, oh, what about the S&P 500, Michael? If you would be investing in gold, you'd be missing out on all the gains and returns in the S&P 500 that the stock market have been returning because that's been all booming and stuff like that. First of all, let me tell you a couple of things. Number one, I'm not selling you gold and silver in this video. This is not sponsored by anyone. I don't care if you buy it or not because I buy it. I believe in it. And these are the reasons why. But you can do what you want with your own money, guys. If you think that's a better deal, then go for it. But I'm going to also show you here that even when you price the S&P 500 in gold, the returns are lackluster, guys. The reason why everything looks like it's getting so expensive, real estate, the S&P 500, whatever, is because of inflation. So you need way more dollars to purchase the same item than you did just a couple of years ago. And that's what inflation is. But people have been saying, oh, you're missing out on double-digit gains every single year by investing in gold instead of S&P 500 because gold doesn't see these double-digit returns year over year. Well, that is a fair assessment until you start pricing the S&P 500 in gold as well. Then you start seeing some interesting results from this. So let's take a look at the past five years of what has happened with the S&P 500 and with the price of gold, guys. Today, the S&P 500 is sitting at $5,300 for a share, which is a 19% return from roughly the same time one year ago. And we're going by the end of May, which is around the time I'm shooting this video. And then in 2023, a year before this, the S&P 500 was sitting at $4,282, but it only returned 4% that year from the year before. Because in 2022, the S&P 500 at the end of May was sitting at around $4,108. $4,108 to $4,282 was only a 4% return. In 2022, the loss is really racked up because it actually lost value by 2.3% from May in 2021. May 2021, S&P 500 was at $4,204. May 2022, it was at $4,108. It's actually lost a little bit of value. 2021 is when people really made the best returns in recent history because you would have made a 29% return from May 2020 to May 2021 because it went from $2,955 up to $4,204. So you can say, how could anyone miss out on those returns, Michael? You would be an idiot to invest in gold and miss out on those S&P 500 returns until you price the S&P 500 in gold. Then that starts telling a different story, guys. Let's go all the way back to 2019. In 2019, five years ago from today, the S&P 500 was at $2,750, which would be 2.1 ounces of gold. In 2020, the S&P 500 was at $2,955. Gold was at $1,728. So you would need 1.7 ounces of gold to buy the S&P 500, which means it actually was cheaper in 2020 to buy the S&P than it was in 2019, even though the price went up. This is where things start getting interesting. In 2021, the S&P 500 was $4,204 and the price of gold was $1,909. And so then you would need 2.2 ounces of gold to buy the S&P 500 then, which was the biggest increase is percentage-wise in the price of gold, guys. In 2021, the S&P 500 returned a 22% return if you were buying it in gold. So that was the best year by far. But still, we're talking 1.7 ounces of gold to 2.2 ounces, not a major difference. And here's where it gets even crazier. In 2022, S&P 500 was at $4,108, price of gold was at $1,862 an ounce, which means you would need still only 2.2 ounces of gold. 2023, the S&P 500 was at $4,282 and the price of gold was at $1,950. So it actually went down slightly because now you only need 2.19 ounces of gold to buy one share of the S&P 500. And then fast forward to today when the S&P 500 is at all-time highs, guys, $5,300 for one share, price of gold is at $2,370 an ounce right now. So you would still only need 2.24 ounces of gold to buy one share of the S&P 500. And so what this whole exercise just shows you and proves to you, the point I want to make in this video, is that when you start pricing every other asset out there, real estate, S&P 500, whatever, you name it, Bitcoin, it shows you the real value. And people get all gung-ho that they're seeing their money, their cash value go up in these investments not realizing that when it's priced in gold, it's not really going up at all. It's kind of just remaining flat. Look at this, guys. In 2019, one share of the S&P 500 was 2.1 ounces of gold. Today, it's 2.2 ounces of gold, basically nothing. So say if you were somebody that just saved gold, right, and all you had was gold. You could still buy the same amount of shares of the S&P 500 today as you could five years ago. But if you were saving cash, you would be a goner because the S&P 500 five years ago was 2,750 and today it's over 5,300. So it is basically doubled from that point. But so has the value of gold. This exercise illustrates how the purchasing power of gold never goes away. You always retain that purchasing power when you have gold. And so pricing real estate in gold shows you that prices have actually come down by 20% over the past couple of years. When you price the S&P 500 in gold, it shows you that it has basically been flat for the past five years. It's because of inflation has fooled everybody into thinking that the value of things are skyrocketing, guys. It's not. It's just that the value of your dollars are being diminished on such a high level, it makes it look like these returns that everybody is seeing is monumental. When all that's monumental is how much you're being robbed by inflation. That's it. Here's an interesting quick story I wanted to share with you guys that I noticed. Now that it's getting closer and closer for me to head out to California, I'm just looking at listings and stuff over there in the Bay Area where I'm going to be staying just out of curiosity to see what's out there. And I found this house, guys. Take a look at this. There's a house in Kent Field, California, which is in the North Bay. And this is a brand new listing, came out. They're asking basically $2 million, a little over $1.99 million, right? And then on the same day, a new listing came out here in Miami Beach, a much smaller house we're talking. This house in Miami Beach is literally 1,000 square feet smaller than this house in Kent Field. They're asking $2.425 million, guys. And what upside down world are we living in where the Bay Area, just north of Silicon Valley in San Francisco, one of the wealthiest places in the United States, is now less expensive than here in Miami? I mean, that is just absolutely insane when you ask me. And here's the funny thing. I can basically guarantee you this listing in Kent Field will sell much faster than this house that just came up for sale here in Miami Beach because when the house has come up for sale over there, they tend to not sit on the market for very long. The inventory situation over there is much lower than what we have going on here. And it seems like they're much better at pricing the properties properly over there for a sale. Whereas over here, people just price it to the moon and ask crazy prices and then the house sits on the market for six months to a year or longer. I actually saved both of these listings on Redfin just so I can see what ends up being the end result with these listings and which one sells first and for how much each one sells for. And speaking of California, the only reason that the house could be worth less if you ask me is because all the problems that California has. They recently just introduced the $20 an hour fast food minimum wage, which so far has been a nightmare for fast food franchise owners over there. But now they're basically starting to shoot themselves in the foot in California because what they're doing is they have a new law that's supposed to go into effect in June here right around the corner for $25 an hour minimum wage for healthcare workers in the state of California. And it's funny because all these politicians that make these laws think that this is going to be the greatest thing ever for their economy and for everybody over there, that they're going to be making more money until they realize that this is actually going to hurt them, you know, the actual politicians and the state and the budget. Because in case you haven't heard, California has a $45 billion with a B budget deficit right now that they're trying to solve. And they just recently realized that this new law for $25 an hour minimum for healthcare workers is actually going to hurt that budget deficit and work against them. Because what this is going to do is this healthcare minimum wage would cost the state of California an additional $4 billion more per year. And then we'll go to higher Medicaid costs and compensation for workers at state owned facilities. And they say that Governor Newsom over there was warned about this before they passed the bill, but he signed it into law anyways. The law says that all healthcare workers at all facilities, including even the janitors there, will have to be paid at least $25 an hour by 2028. So it's an increasing system where every year they keep making more and more and more. And all the people who passed this into law said, well, who cares if people got to wait longer for ER services or whatever. But now they're realizing that the state's higher healthcare costs would force bigger government spending costs. Uh oh, what are we going to do now? Now they're looking for ways to basically cut more people out of the program and make it so that less people are eligible for this minimum wage moving forward, which is barreling towards us in just a few days from now. But California's private healthcare providers would still be stuck paying for the wage mandate, which is ultimately going to get passed on to you know who, the patients. Did you pay cash? Paid cash. Cashed it out. No insurance on it. No insurance at all. No insurance. That's the only way to go, right? How much was your insurance quote? $60,000 a year maybe? Couldn't even get a quote. So this house at $4,000, $4,500,000 is uninsurable, right? It's insurable. Probably with like chub. If you wanted to get like hurricane insurance, like the whole nine yards, I gotta believe it's probably like 60 G's. 60 G's. That was my guess. The house was abandoned. What do you mean abandoned? Well, it went into foreclosure in 2018 and I think the bank took it back and it took them a couple years for the bank to get it back. I remember walking past this house and maybe putting it in the videos a couple times. Yeah, yeah. I mean nobody, they couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't sell it, you know. They weren't willing to put any money into it. Last little detour we're going to take here. Just met Matt over here. He just bought this over $4,000,000 house that would probably cost about $60,000 a year in insurance, but he decided to go no insurance because that's the only practical way to buy a house like this. Somebody came to me today and said, Hey, I give you five and a half. Wouldn't even sell it for five and a half. Why not? Just don't think that it's a high enough return. Even though I just bought it for about, I'm at it for about four, six, four, six, five, oh. And what made you decide to buy this house? Like in this environment, no insurance, cash, like what was your decision on that? I bought one in Tampa two years ago for three, eight, sold it for net four, seven, five, oh, to me at exactly after a year. Bought one in lighthouse point last year for five, three, sold it for 6,000,003. So you're able to keep popping up on each one. Now, last one was more expensive than this one. Last one was six, was six something. No, but you're turning a profit on each one you're selling. But we're buying them real smooth. You know, so are you living in this house? You're going to be your home. We live in all of them since we started doing this. This is the third one. And, uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, this is a really solid house though. It's a really great location. I mean, you can't beat it. You can't beat the location, but the money it's expensive. You know, you start talking about 7% interest. Oh yeah. You know, and then you start adding in $60,000 in insurance, which is probably going to go up. It's not affordable for a lot of people. But the problem is, is there's no inventory still to a degree. And a lot of people are like, I don't care. Like you either pay the money or you don't get your house. You know, they're still feeling that way, you know? So what about houses like this? I see houses like this all the time when I'm walking through the neighborhoods here. There's no shortage of four or $5 million houses around here. That's true, but not ones that are in really, really good condition that are on this street. So like if you, if you, let's say you take it at land that, you know, let's say the land's two and a half. And then let's say you want to build this thing. I mean, you're at like a three, you're at like a 24 month build at like probably $3 million bucks with the plans. Right. You know, with the landscaping, with the pool, with everything, you know, that's if everything goes smooth. So you're at five and a half and waiting two years, you know, if it, if it all works out. So at four and a half, I think you're getting a great deal at four and a half. But this thing needed some love, you know, we're going to put some money in this. I'm running this project on my own, you know? So, I mean. You know how much you're going to put into it? I think we'll probably be into it for maybe a hundred thousand bucks or something like that. We have our contractors working on about 30 bucks an hour, you know? A lot of contractors want a hundred bucks an hour, you know? So now's a great time to buy if you can buy, you know, if you have the cash, it's a great time to buy. And a lot of these people are slow. These contractors are slow, slow, slow. Especially around here. They're super slow. That's typical for around here. You're never going to see them move fast, you know? But I'm saying they're not busy right now. They don't have a lot of work right now. Right, exactly. The streets are dry. So that's why you're saying it's a good time to buy because it's an easy time to get people to work. But the first couple of years ago, you couldn't get anybody. You couldn't get any of these people to work. And everybody wants to quote by the job normally. But these guys that are out here now, they're hungry. And it's slow. So they're willing to, you know, work by the hour. They're taking work at 30, 40 bucks an hour. And that's unheard of, you know? But a lot of these companies, they have people on payroll, you know? And instead of getting rid of their staff, you know, they're willing to let their staff go to work at 30 bucks an hour or 35 bucks an hour. So then that way they can just keep their employees. So then hopefully after the election is when I think it's going to get better, you know, they can already have their staff together and they can be ready to go. You know, I think that that's what some of the smart people are doing. But I mean, I could be wrong. But I think that that's what's going on. Miami Beach is always like a huge boom bust town. Oh yeah. You know, so like we were cooking so hard after COVID, you know, for two years, just like crazy. People were paying stupid numbers. Yeah. But a lot of people who watch this video are going to say you paid a stupid number. Right? They're going to say that. Well, you know what? If we have hyperinflation, that's not going to be a stupid number anymore. So that's what you're worried about. That's why you bought this house? Yeah. I mean, where else are you going to put the money? Listen, I said something like that in a couple of days ago. Right. I said something like that in a video a few days ago. Like, if you have the money and you don't care if this house does go down in value temporarily, that's going to be a better bet than keeping your money in the bank. No. Exactly. I mean, you can't even keep your money in the bank. That's just absolutely stupid. Right. Because all the bankers are taking the money that they're giving you at best 5.25% interest, you know, and at worst 0% interest. And then the bankers are, you know, basically giving you that return. And then they're turning around and cutting themselves a check for their salary. And then they're buying the house across the street or down the street at 30, 40, 50 million. Yeah. And they're running the hedge funds, you know. And they're expecting, you know, 20 to 37% return. You know, look at like Citadel. I mean, he's cranking it out here. Griffin's doing like 37% on his money. It's just absurd. You know, I think his Wellington fund did like 37%. It was like the highest. But all those guys, Bezos, all of those guys are down here, you know. And they're all just pumping money into this market right now. You know, whether it's up, down, indifferent. You know, they're buying. They're still buying. But now is a great time to buy. But people at your echelon and those guys, they don't have to worry if they lose a few hundred thousand dollars. But somebody making, you know, 70 grand a year, 80 grand a year. It's a long time. If they buy a house right now and it goes down 20% in value, they're pretty much screwed. It is. I mean, if they can't hold. Right. If they can't hold. And that's true. And I mean, even like my company, I'm the CEO of GoVIP Worldwide. And we're doing terrible this year. It's a horrible year. I mean, we're down like 90%. Wow. And so. So if you're down 90%, what gave you the confidence to make a move like this? No. Now's the time. You know, it's a planning. It's not like, hey, we're going to just all of a sudden buy this property. You know, this is this is a plan that you have over two, three, four or five years, you know, to be making those those moves. We're coming back here because it's a huge buyer's market right now. I mean, you look at where the most extreme buyer's market in Miami Beach right now. The inventory has picked up quite a bit here. I mean, it's up like it's not up to pre-pandemic levels, but it's up like 20% year over year right now. So, like, I think, like, if you buy June, July down here, it's going to be like a lot of people, I think, that are going to be like really feel on the pinch. You know, people that actually really do need to sell. There may be a few. And those people are going to get like really stressed and worn out. And there's not going to be really any buyers. There's not really any buyers right now. Well, one thing I see happening with houses like yours here is that the property and taxes and the insurance are so high. So people can't hang on to it. You know, that's the thing, especially if you don't have a homestead exemption. You're not getting the savings on the taxes like houses like this. You're going to be paying what? Probably one hundred and fifty thousand a year. This is like the 1% of what America is doing right now. And it's sad. It's actually a sad state of affairs, what's happening right now. Well, it's almost like you have to do it. Like if I was in your position, you're forced to do it. Right. That's exactly right. That's how I feel. Like, like our business is down so much. We're having a horrible year. And, you know, it's like, what else do you do? You know, I mean, the government is just. The only issue is this, though, like, say, OK, two years go by and things don't get better and you need to sell this house, but who's going to be able to buy this house from you? There's not that many people in the world that can afford a house this expensive. But I think it's all relative. You know, at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, I mean, if it goes down in price, you know, isn't everything going to go down in price, though, too? Yeah. You know, won't our milk go down? Won't our gasoline go down? Won't everything probably go down? Yeah, probably. But I just don't think there's any better place to invest money than South Florida real estate, especially like West Palm to down here and then especially in the Miami, Miami beach market. I mean, maybe Bitcoin, but, you know, that's that's a big maybe. That's a pretty big speculative thing. Right. I mean, that's that's pretty high risk. You know, I think that's higher risk than this. But they're killing us. The government's killing us. The inflation is out of control. It is out of control. There's a lot of people thinking that hyperinflation may come. And if hyperinflation comes, it's going to be a really sad state of affairs. Even sadder than it is right now. You know? And that's what a lot of people are doing, you know, and they're thinking that and they're thinking it could happen. This house, I didn't even do an inspection on it. I never even came inside. So you just bought it like that? Just straight up bought it. I sold out of Lighthouse Point. Just make sure you don't read the comments in this video. This guy's crazy. But no, like I was I sold out of Lighthouse Point. We took a one way ticket out of Fort Lauderdale like two, two and a half months ago. We're from PA. We were just chilling up there for like a month and a half. And we were waiting, you know. But we've been watching. We know North Bay Row. We know Sunset Islands. I mean, we know the lay of the land, you know. Right. And it was just kind of the best. We didn't even get that low of a discount. I mean, we only we offered them like 7.1% off of the asking price. So we didn't like totally lowball them, you know. But they've been slowly trickling down for, you know, a year and a half of when they've been trying to sell it. You know, starting at 6.7% and they've been reducing it just little by little by little. And, you know, could we have bought it at 3.9%? Could we have bought it at 4%? Sure. But like get it at 3.7% instead of 4.5%? Maybe. But what happens if you're sitting on the sideline? And then all of a sudden the government does some crazy thing. And then the thing 2Xs. Well, I can understand where you're coming from. Like who cares if it's 3.8% or if it's 4% or 4.2%? Because if you have this kind of cash, you just want to protect it. Well, that's the point. And you're not trying to maximize every dollar. I guess I shouldn't say who cares. Because, I mean, it's a lot of money. Right. So, I mean, obviously we'd love to buy it at the least expensive price we can possibly buy it for. But, you know, like... Getting the best deal is not top of mind. It's more preserving what you already have. And that's no doubt. You know, but it is getting... I do want to get the best deal. But at some point you also have... I have fear of missing out. I'm like, you know what? I could sit here and then I could... There could be something crazy that could happen. And then, like, we can't sit on the sideline for too long. You know? I think now is a really good time to buy it. So, Matt, you know, the interesting thing is in this video, before I ran into you here, I was talking about how when you price real estate in gold, okay, based on what it was two years ago, the height of the market in 2022, compared to what it is today, it's actually gone down 20% in value. When you price real estate in gold. Yeah. But because you're buying real estate in dollars, you're trying to protect every dollar. Because you're not buying the house in gold. Yeah, ----. It doesn't matter if the house goes to a dollar. Right. Or it goes to... It doesn't matter. You still have the underlying asset of the house, you know? And you can't live in gold either. Right. You can't live in silver. You can't live in a mutual fund. You can't live in a bond. You buy Bitcoin. You can't live in Bitcoin either. The idea behind the exercise is that you want to look at... That just shows you how much inflation is taking away from, you know, your cost of living here. Oh, yeah. It's out of control. Because if you can buy the same house in gold that you could have bought two or three years ago and the prices have gone up since then, then essentially the house has not appreciated. Yeah. But it has when you're buying it in dollars. And that just goes to show you how much we're all getting ripped off. Oh, it's totally crazy. It's a giant rip-off. The rip-off level is out of control. It's out of control. It's like the biggest scam. It is. It's the craziest time. And then you start to think about the insurance and stuff like that. The insurance almost doesn't even matter either. Because you think Jeff Bezos is buying insurance. Right. I don't know if Jeff has insurance, but I would imagine Elon Musk and Jeff and a couple of these guys, why would they have insurance? I mean, they are the insurance. Right, exactly. They've got all the money. And I'm sure that's your mentality with this, too. I know it would be mine. I think a lot of people are turning to that solution right now because it doesn't make any sense. No, it's just like, hey, it is what it is. And I did get a quote for everything except wind. And it was $10,000 with a $10,000 deductible if you didn't have hurricane insurance. So it was like, all right, so we have a water problem in the house. We're paying the first $20,000 anyways. Right. You can get a lot of work done for $20,000. I mean, so I don't know. I mean, it's a big... And you don't have to jump through the hoops. This is the biggest scam going on in American history. Probably in the last... Probably since they created the Fed. This is probably the biggest scam. I mean, the inflation rates of this is absurd. I'm glad there's other people out there that think like us. Let's walk around the property. You can take a cool look at it. Yeah, show me around. It's like 30... It's around 3,500 feet. Built in 2015. Nice pool. Nice lap pool. Oh, cool. Yeah. But, you know, Cindy Crawford is two houses down. I didn't even know that. Yeah. Calvin Klein used to own the house that's right over across from here. And he just sold it to, I think, the guy that started the Gap. The big hedge fund guy. This is prime real estate. And a lot of these people that own these properties on the street, whether they're delusional or they're right, a lot of them think this is the best real estate in the country. Well, I'm glad I ran into you because it gives a different point of view why somebody would buy a house like that. Because you've seen my videos. I walk past houses like this and people see, okay, the property tax is $100,000 a year. Insurance is another $60,000. No one can afford that except for people like yourself. No, it's out of control. It's stupid. And this isn't even a staged video. I just ran into you. Yeah. Literally across the street. I was like, yo, I've seen your video. Come over here. Yep. And I love your stuff. Thanks, man. And what's going on right now is I watch it a lot because what's going on right now is just a huge, it's the biggest scam in history. It's so bad. And it's so sad because it's harming so many people. There's so many good people that have worked so hard. I agree, man. They've saved so hard. They're such good people. Because they didn't know. Because they didn't earn enough. Because they just weren't in the right position in life. They're getting royally screwed by the system right now. And that is the truth. But even like me, I would normally not be walking around with a bucket. But our company's down so far this year. So even though I have this beautiful house, to a degree, I feel like I'm getting screwed by the people at the next level than me. Because normally I'm running my company and I have a group of people that are there and are working under me and we're all prosperous together. Like I've gotten rid of all my staff. Go VIP Worldwide. We don't have any staff right now. I'm literally the only staff. But we've scaled. I cut everybody. I gutted the whole thing because we're 90% down. How many people did you have to let go? It's proprietary but we've had as many as about 30 or 40. 30 or 40. At the height. And you see those? That's the other thing I talk about too. All the layoffs that have been going on. That's just 30 or 40 people. That's not that many. But you had to gut your company because things aren't good right now. We had to just completely get rid of everything. They keep telling us things are good when it's not. And it's such a lie. It's such a lie. It's all totally BS. I mean that's just it. You are here telling everybody you're the CEO and you had to get rid of everybody. I've had the company for 25 years. 25 years. Since 1999. I started it in the poorest zip code of America. I've come to and then I ended up being on the richest zip code of America. So I've been full circle. I've had a lot of staff and it's like the worst time and I can't even I don't even know if it was this bad in 2009. I don't think so. Nobody's borrowing right now. Nobody can afford to borrow right now. That's the biggest problem. That's complete stupidity. We didn't have that problem. Back then they dropped rates like that as soon as the signs of trouble came. Yeah, I know. So I mean and you look like Jamie Dimon and he's like hey maybe she ought to drop the rates now. So I'm like hey maybe you ought to drop the rates now because this is a delayed effect. But yeah you have people like me that are out here that ran a company with 40 people and I made a lot of money every year and the company's not making any money. So I mean we're still I mean I'm still running it to some degree but now I'm out here running around with a pail and chasing around people that are working at 30 bucks an hour that they're trying to just that they're working for somebody else but they're trying to not gut the people you know and they're trying to just hold on and keep them and they're not making any money those owners aren't making any money they're just moving on. The contractors you mean? Yeah the contractors boss like their their contractors their employees are around here at 30 bucks an hour they're not making any money on that once you pay for insurance and all those other things but they're just trying to hold on they haven't gutted their staff you know. It's a terrible time. I don't know you know like if I could give any advice to anybody that is like trying to figure out like how they could take it to the next level I mean and don't act on my advice because this is not financial advice but you know like now may be a really good time to like figure out if you're not like 100% extended to just figure out how you can 100% extend yourself How do you mean? As long as like if you want to borrow money I don't necessarily think it's bad to borrow even though I paid cash for this house but I don't even necessarily think it's bad to borrow money and buy real estate in Miami Beach as long as you're getting the money at like under 27% and as long as you don't have to as long as it doesn't balloon past 27% in 24 months and you have a no prepayment penalty or a very limited prepayment penalty and you can refinance it I think the rates are probably coming down in the next 24 months and there may be a chance that you may buy it now and you may think you're paying a lot of money for it but you may refi that thing and the thing that you buy might just like double or triple in Miami If we have hyperinflation That's all just a maybe though It's a crazy game I tell people not to do that because it's gambling It is a crazy game but it's probably going to happen Well we don't know I guess we'll see I guess yeah but I mean what do you got to lose at this point you're getting ran over either way right I mean if you're sitting on the sideline and you're not taking the money at 27% then I don't know Well nobody's borrowing at 27% I mean No they are in their credit cards Oh right Right It's like an average APY You know They're getting it somehow but I mean hard money is what at 11 12 There's some I mean I don't necessarily think it's bad to borrow at 11 or 12 Why didn't you I'm not sure What's going to happen Because I mean I think that there's a point where like I'm satisfied You know Like could I have Could I have put out 6-7 million and then borrowed another 6-7 million at 11% You're not trying to leverage to the hilt I could have But you're not trying to You're just trying to Yeah but on but for me it's like if I had an 11 million dollar house or I had a 6 million dollar house I don't think it would make my life any better Like I don't think I'd be any more happy Right You know And I think the risk There is a risk But if I was renting And somehow I And I had to try to figure it out somehow And I was going to maybe buy a $750,000 house You know Something that's more modest You know And I was trying to figure out how to buy that You know down here or a million dollars I mean I probably would take the money at 11 or 12% If I could get a reasonable prepayment penalty But then you'd have to have insurance Yeah But I mean it's all It may be all relative Yeah there's lots of what ifs right now That's for sure man We don't know We just don't know No one knows what's going to happen other than the fact that it's terribly slow People are terribly scared People cannot figure out A lot of people are maxed out on their credit cards Yep And the best time to buy is when people are extremely fearful You know what's funny is even though I mentioned stuff like that week after week on the channel you still have a lot of people in denial that that's actually the case and it's actually happening you know Yeah No I know Well a lot of people are like hey it's going to crash you know like they're waiting for like this moment for like the prices to come down significantly Maybe in like markets that are not really as popular But like in Miami in Miami Beach you have Bezos you have Ken Griffith you have all these people that are the richest people in the world that are coming here Like everybody wants to be here So like we're almost like in a little bubble I think to some degree you know But this is good down here Come down to Miami Beach folks Come down to Miami I'm telling you this is a That's mass advice Come to Miami Beach I think this is the spot to be if you can somehow put it together and borrow it under 27% Come on down baby the water is just getting warm and I'm telling you it's going to get crazy I think it's going to get real crazy in the next 12 to 24 months Alright See what happens man I appreciate you talking to me Yeah for sure Good to meet you man Yeah nice to see you in person and love your stuff you know so keep it going So clearly this video took an unexpected turn meeting one of my neighbors right down here Matt who just bought this house and you know guys things like this just happen sometimes in the videos and I think it's important when it happens to share it with you like obviously I didn't get through everything I wanted to in this video in order to you know continue with the content I had planned but it's good to get people's perspective especially wealthy people like Matt CEO of a company had to gut all 42 of his employees guys you know that just goes to show you the real economy right now like yeah he's lucky he can afford that house but the reason he bought the house is to make sure he doesn't lose everything he has left you know and like he said yeah you can't live in gold and that's why you know people don't want to buy gold because it doesn't have any utility other than just maintaining its purchasing power but it still proves my point that when you own gold it gives you those options right it gives you the option to be able to use that money for a big purchase like this one day and it may cost you significantly less than if you were saving for it in dollars so it's just something to think about for people you know and hopefully it can give you a different perspective on why it is useful to own gold because when you look at the price of all these assets compared to gold you know it has not gone up nearly as much as it has in dollars and even big wealthy people like Matt are worried about losing it all to inflation right now so if you enjoyed this video make sure you subscribe to the channel and if you don't want to wait for my next video to come out check out this one on the screen right over here and I'll see you in the next one