Episode summary
Meet Dave Miller — cabinet-maker, finish carpenter, electrician, and the newest co-founder of The Tartan Team, who recently traded Minnesota for Southwest Washington.
First episodes are mostly introductions, and this one's no exception. I sat down with Dave to get into how he came up in the trades — general construction with his father and uncles, cabinet-making school, his own electrical company — and how he ended up buying his first house at 22 and renovating it room by room while living in it. So when Dave talks about what's worth paying for in a home and what isn't, it isn't theory.
Along the way: how century-old Minneapolis housing stock differs from the newer homes out here, why house hacking still holds up for a first-time buyer, which upgrades earn their cost before the drywall goes up, and the line Dave keeps coming back to — the cheapest quote is often the most expensive one. Plus how to spot a house that's been polished up to hide what's underneath.
(You'll hear us call this the "Mostly True Real Estate Podcast" a couple of times — that was the working title. We landed on Disclosures.)
Hosted by Nick Aufenkamp and Dave Miller of The Tartan Team, brokered by Real Broker, LLC. Serving Clark County and Southwest Washington.
In this episode
- [01:48] Why Dave left an established life and business in Minnesota for SW Washington
- [05:26] Coming up in the trades — general construction with his father and uncles
- [07:03] How century-old Twin Cities housing stock differs from the newer homes here
- [11:10] Cabinet-making school and the underappreciated craft of finish carpentry
- [13:56] Moving into the licensed trades and starting Hot Copper Electric
- [17:35] Buying his first house at 22 — a St. Paul craftsman — and house hacking it
- [34:59] The Stillwater rebuild: foundation underpinning, historic boards, and a two-year grind
- [52:15] The upgrades worth making before the drywall goes up
- [58:47] Why the cheapest quote is often the most expensive one
- [58:58] How to spot a house that's been polished up to hide what's underneath
Transcript
Lightly edited for readability.
Nick (00:00): Hello and welcome to the Mostly True Real Estate Podcast — or at least that's the working title. This is episode one of what may very well be a one-of-one series. My name is Nick, and I'm the founder of The Tartan Team, a real estate agent here in Washington serving mostly Southwest Washington. And I'm bringing on my co-host, dear friend, and newest co-founder of The Tartan Team, Dave Miller. What up, Dave?
Dave (00:33): Hopefully not too overstated. Not a whole lot — how about you, man? Just getting going here on the business. It's been good.
Nick (00:43): It has been good. For anybody watching this, I was a little disappointed that when you first popped on you had a Windows 98 screensaver you were sitting inside of.
Dave (00:57): The beach, yeah — Palm Beach. It was a little pixelated, but it's better than this white wall behind me. It's a little rainy here in Vancouver, so we're waiting for the sun to come out.
Nick (01:12): That's right — we're all living in our beach screensavers. Well, I wanted to spend a lot of this episode just introducing you, because you're new to the Pacific Northwest — you moved here from Minnesota. I'm really curious what would cause you to do a crazy thing like that: leave an established business and life in the Midwest, come out to the wild west, and try to build a real estate business with me.
Dave (01:48): Well, I'd say primarily it's your fault. You moved back from Minneapolis around 2021, and you've been throwing the fishing line out ever since — I finally took the bait. My background is in a lot of different things, but the primary reason for the move was a change of pace: to get away from the construction and contracting work I'd been doing back in Minneapolis and take on a new challenge, hopefully bringing some of my expertise in contracting and real estate investing to The Tartan Team.
Nick (02:46): That's absolutely the hope. For what it's worth, I cast a wide net hoping to bring anybody I liked from Minnesota out here. So far it's just one — and beggars can't be choosers — so it's good to have you. A licensed electrician in the process, too.
Dave (03:01): And apparently a dishwasher repairman, as we found out last week. We had to pull Nick's dishwasher apart because he'd been shoving glass down it or something. The exact details are blurry, but I believe it's operational again.
Nick (03:17): Apparently it's not manufacturer-recommended to break wine glasses and let the glass figure its way out. So we've got the Realtor slash 911 appliance repair guy — that's really what you were looking to do out here, right?
Dave (03:48): Hey, like you said, beggars can't be choosers. But it's always good to have a few favors over someone like yourself. I'll cash that in at an opportune time.
Nick (04:08): When it comes to favor deficits, I'm for sure in the red — so it makes sense you'd move out here to cash some in. But seriously, on your background — you're being a bit humble, which I appreciate. I've hinted that professionally you've been an electrician; you owned Hot Copper Electric, which has to be a top-five name for an electrical firm. But you've also got an extensive background in construction, real estate, and real estate investing, both personally and helping others. Pick whichever thread you want first — let's talk about some of your accomplishments and how that translates into this new endeavor.
Dave (05:26): One of the big values instilled in me — primarily by my parents, but also a lot of close friends and family I worked with growing up — is just to do what you do well. For most of my life, that's been construction: building and creating things in the physical world. My father and uncles were general contractors, so from a very young age I grew up working in the general trades — a lot of roofing, decks, drywall, painting, more on the remodel side than new construction or land development. And where I was born in Minneapolis, we have a very old housing stock, more akin to Portland than Vancouver proper. A lot of houses here in Vancouver, outside of downtown, you just don't see as many turn-of-the-century historic homes.
Nick (07:03): Yeah, everything here is seventies, eighties, nineties, with just a few pockets. It's almost impossible to find anything from 1900 to 1920. What was the average age of the homes in the neighborhoods you grew up in or worked in?
Dave (07:36): It's funny — the same way we think about development here, like The Glades just got built between 2020 and 2025. In the exact neighborhood I was in, the majority of houses are from about 1900 to 1920. Go down the block and you're in a thirties neighborhood; a little further and you're in the forties — somebody made their millions on those HUD developments. Very old housing stock, and from a contracting perspective, very dynamic projects: lots of complications, stuff that now would be considered nonstandard. It makes you a problem solver, because you have to find solutions you don't necessarily need to in new construction — we build to a higher code standard now, so the engineering is better than what we were doing in 1900. Although new housing has its own issues, less about engineering and more about the quality of materials we use now. But that's a bit of a rabbit trail. The housing stock is very old, and that's what I grew up working on.
Nick (09:41): That's amazing exposure. For anybody who's been in a house built in the sixties or before, where almost nothing is square — when you do a renovation, or even change out a window, you suddenly find the standard sizes don't apply and you have to get creative. So, growing up with all that exposure, you were obviously good at it. You got into carpentry pretty early; I know you've done cabinetry. I've seen furniture you've made — you made one of our friends a wedding gift, one of the most beautiful coffee tables I've ever seen, and I mean that with full jealousy, because I could use a coffee table.
Dave (10:40): Maybe on the next visit back home, where all the tools are still stored in Minneapolis. We'd have to airmail it to you, get it here by Christmas. But you alluded correctly: I started working in general construction in my early teens with my father, mostly through high school. Back in Minneapolis there's a program where the state pays for your last two years of high school. I was pretty confident I wasn't doing a four-year college, so I figured I might as well sharpen my skills — I went to school my last year of high school for cabinet making. It was considered legit, I swear. I took a lot of what I learned there into other things later. It's a very underappreciated trade — the precision and skill it takes to put cabinets together. I'd lump finish carpentry into that category too.
Dave (12:59): I was looking at the value proposition and what I'd need to support a family. The unfortunate reality, at least in that local market, is that there are trade positions that pay a lot better. You can make a good living in cabinet making if you're high up in the company or an owner, but back in Minneapolis around then — this is about ten years ago — the pay wasn't very good. My uncle pushed me to go into one of the mechanical trades: electrical, plumbing, or HVAC. Because there's inherent danger in those systems, there's much more regulation — and as we know in real estate, anytime there's regulation around something, it lets people charge more for the service. So I finished high school, worked in a cabinet shop a short time, and then got started in my electrical career. That was foundational experience.
Nick (14:42): One thing that's unique about your background: a lot of folks either do framing and the big tasks, or they're finish people doing detail work — and usually there's not much crossover between the attention-to-detail finish carpenters and the framers who see the forest for the trees and get the whole project done. It's pretty amazing that you can do both. There's a lot we could talk about — the whole story of you and your business partner, Nate, shout out, one of our six or seven listeners. Not a lot of electricians are doing podcasting.
Dave (15:38): You'd be surprised — it's really picking up. Everybody's jumping on the bandwagon.
Nick (15:56): Everybody's a podcaster now, and it's pretty shameless of me to be the kettle calling the pot black. We could talk about your experience starting a successful company — but let's circle back. I'd love to hear about some of the coolest homes and projects you worked on, because as an electrician you worked on some of the most high-end real estate, a lot of custom builds in Minnesota, which helped you develop your own taste and see the difference in levels of quality and what that means for longevity and how a home lives. But before that — going back to you having both the general ability to build a house and the attention to detail for finish work — I'd love to hear about your own experience doing fix-and-flip or fixer-upper properties. Maybe hit on your St. Paul house first, then I'd like to dig into the Stillwater house, because my goodness, that was quite a project.
Dave (17:35): Sure. St. Paul, for anyone not familiar, is basically the sister city of Minneapolis — kind of like a Portland-Vancouver situation, though closer in size. I always say Minneapolis because that's what most people can place.
Nick (18:06): It is the Mostly True Real Estate Podcast.
Dave (18:10): That's right — going hard with the ethos. I'm actually from St. Paul, not Minneapolis. The first house I purchased was very close to where I grew up: a 1920s, story-and-a-half craftsman bungalow with all the classic charm — stucco halfway up, shakes at the top. Really cute little house. This was right as I was getting into the idea of property investment. We both know a fellow realtor back in Minneapolis who was very into real estate investing — did a lot of research around rental property and running numbers to make sure projects penciled. I learned a fair bit from him early on, and he helped me identify this property as one with a lot of opportunity for expansion. The Twin Cities is a college town with a strong rental market — people come for the universities and then move on, so there's always turnover, especially near the colleges in the older parts of town. I live very close to Hamline University, one of Minnesota's first, founded back in the 1800s. The rental market was good, which is what we were looking for. It was a four-bed, one-bath — but, another difference, most houses in the Twin Cities have basements, because we have a very low frost line, so utilities come in deep so pipes don't freeze in our harsh winters. This one had an unfinished basement.
Nick (20:50): It's funny — I always thought basements were for tornado shelter, but I suppose that's a secondary benefit to getting below the frost line.
Dave (20:57): It is a secondary benefit. Interestingly, in the middle of the Midwest — Kansas, Nebraska — they have a very high bedrock table, so people up north always wondered why they don't have basements. It's because it's incredibly costly to dig when you have maybe three feet of soil and then solid rock. That's not the case in most of Minnesota, so we're relatively fortunate.
Nick (21:39): Sometime we'll have to dig into why the older homes in downtown Vancouver had basements put in — you do find them there, but anything built since about 1960, the only basements we have are the walkout daylight ones. Anyhow, not to derail us. So: four-bed, one-bath, near a bunch of local colleges, strong rental market — obviously a four-one isn't ideal for renting to college students.
Dave (22:23): No, not at all. The bathroom's always a point of contention. But that was okay, because we were analyzing the property for a floor plan that could add finished square footage — a big play where you have unfinished basements. Out here your reference point might be the walkout daylight basement, or one of the really old Vancouver houses where the basement has a short ceiling or is even smaller than the footprint of the house. Most basements in Minneapolis aren't like that — picture the full first floor; the basement is roughly that same square footage, finished or not. So we identified this as a property with a high enough ceiling to create finished space, and a second-floor half-story with a floor plan we could chop up and remove some walls to add a bathroom. We did it in phases for fiscal reasons — added the bathroom upstairs first and finished that space. The hot term at the time was house hacking: get a house and have roommates help pay the mortgage.
Nick (24:27): Still a brilliant strategy, especially for a first-time homebuyer. You and I have been meeting with Will — shout out to Will, in his early twenties, getting into real estate but also thinking about buying his first place. House hacking is an amazing way to go.
Dave (24:48): Definitely. As I told Will, I credit that realtor who pushed me into this and gave me the knowledge and confidence — here's what the numbers look like — for something that would otherwise be financially unattainable for someone younger who hasn't amassed a large down payment. There are creative ways to get into housing, and the financial indicators are pretty clear that it's one of the most important purchases to be successful over an average lifetime. Renting's great for a time, but you've got to start building equity eventually. So with that realtor's help and my construction background, we identified this house. It was phased — it's not like you have to front the money for the house and then another hundred grand for the remodel. We did a little at a time, redoing the upper floor while I lived on the first floor.
Nick (26:21): Two clarifying questions. One: how old were you when you made this purchase?
Dave (26:28): This was 2018 — I think I'd just turned 22.
Nick (26:37): Pretty young. And second: you keep saying "we." Who's the "we"?
Dave (26:46): Me, and the occasional help from whoever I could sucker into coming over to swing a hammer. Beggars can't be choosers — I took whatever I could get.
Nick (26:58): Which was never me. I'd met you maybe a couple years before then, but I vividly remember, as you were working on the upstairs, one of the last pieces was replacing all the stairs. I walked in, saw the staircase torn apart, and thought, "Bro, I think you made it worse." That's kind of the theme of my contributions to your work.
Dave (27:39): And it's for that exact reason I'm confident this'll be a wonderful working relationship. The one I always remember: I was convinced — and still am — that three-piece shower surrounds, where you caulk all the joints and corners where it meets the tub or base, I just don't trust them. So I found a one-piece shower surround for upstairs, because of all the properties I'd seen with flooding damage from upstairs showers and bad plumbing. But the staircase in this old house was really tight and doubled back, so it wouldn't fit. I was trying to get all our friends to do what I called "the shower raising." I pulled one of the upstairs windows out of its opening — fortunately, being a 1921 house, the windows had all been replaced with inserts, so you just break the seal and pull it out. I suckered a couple of our friends into it — I don't think you were there —
Nick (29:33): I was not. I absolutely was not there.
Dave (29:36): We raised the thing up with cables to the second floor, got it in, and it worked a treat. I've sold that house since, but as far as I'm aware it's set and ready to serve many generations, because we made a good choice — which hopefully is a theme of what I'm bringing here: a little extra effort on the front end for a better product in the long run.
Nick (30:22): I've appreciated that long-term thinking, because it's all too easy to cut corners — something we see a lot of builders do to save a buck. When they're building 400 homes in a subdivision, a couple dollars per home across ten thousand SKUs adds up. But when it means the life of vital systems — one house we're about to list is only five or six years old and all the window seals are blown. What corners were cut so a window only lasted five years? There are myriad examples. That's one of the things I appreciate most about the perspective you bring: you can identify those things, not just because you obsess over quality and materials, but because of your practical knowledge. So let's fast-forward through St. Paul to the end result — what happened once renovations were done, how you were living there, and the financial position it put you in.
Dave (31:52): The fast-forward: we finished the upstairs, the main floor was mainly done with some light cosmetic work, and the big plan was always a mother-in-law suite in the basement — it ended up close to 700 square feet, laid out like a studio. Once it was complete, I moved into that basement studio. It added a ton of value, but the main way I used it was that we configured the house with a separate entrance, so I could rent the top two floors as a separate unit — which garners more income than the house-hacking, room-by-room method. Because of the sweat equity — not having to pay someone else to do the renovation — St. Paul became a very profitable, cash-flowing property. This was back in the golden age of sub-3% interest rates, so the spread between debt service and rents was so high that I was living for free, with all utilities and debt service paid, and still making a little money. For that time in my life, that was like, "Yeah, we made it." It was the first really large project I took on completely solo, and I carried those lessons into the next property — a much more major renovation in a town called Stillwater. That's still what I think of as my home away from home. Stillwater is a little town outside the Twin Cities — maybe liken it to Camas geographically, a little more rural.
Nick (35:13): It's one of the most picturesque — it makes so many "best small towns in America" lists across USA Today and major publications. The coolest little town, tucked on the St. Croix River right on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. It has that artisan, local-pride feel — very much a downtown-Camas kind of vibe. So as you finished St. Paul, what had you looking for another project? Were you just hungry for one? Was there something about Stillwater? Did it fall into your lap?
Dave (36:12): Going back to the long-term mindset — St. Paul was never meant to be permanent. I always planned to buy it, renovate it, and rent it out. After about a year of it being stable, I felt it was time to take on the next project and find somewhere more permanent to land. We're brushing over the difference in career — a lot of these renovations were happening while I was still doing full-time work, some at a different electrical contractor and some after we'd started our own business.
Nick (37:07): Hot Copper, baby.
Dave (37:11): So I had about a year in St. Paul with the property done and making good money, and felt it was time to move forward. I went and found a house — found another project, I should say.
Nick (37:37): Real quick — I want to dive into how you identified this property, but this week's episode is sponsored, so I'll do the quick ad read. Our first episode is brought to all listeners by none other than The Tartan Team. If you've made it this far, one, we appreciate you; and two, if you're looking for more optionality in real estate, you should talk to Dave and me. That was my ad read. It legitimizes us — it's in the operating agreement. So, with Stillwater, did the same realtor friend help you discover it, or did you source it on your own?
Dave (38:34): This was one I was watching for myself, keeping an eye out for deals. I identified it, ran a lot of the numbers and comps myself for the area to see the after-repair value, then brought it to my real estate buddy, and together we got it under contract. It was definitely a creative-financing deal, because the house was in such significant disrepair — major structural damage — that a conventional loan wasn't going to work. It had to be a rehab loan. To cut further into the story, it was essentially a teardown; the structural damage was so significant that, from a money standpoint, it would have been faster and more effective to just tear it down. The difficulty with this town is there are strong protections for historic homes, and because this property was built in 1902, it fell under regulations, and the bar for a total teardown was incredibly high.
Nick (40:35): Hell hath no fury like a historical society that wants to protect the block. You start screwing around with even a complete dump of a home, and — this seems true across all historic districts — there are some strong personalities there to protect their kingdoms, and you get run through the ringer on pretty much everything you need approved.
Dave (41:14): I did. It was an uphill process, to understate it. A quick note: on one hand, I'm for it — to tear down historic properties with craftsmanship we're not putting into new structures would be a shame, so I do believe it's valuable. My argument with these guys — it's a small town, twenty thousand people, a local city-council-type deal with appointed boards — was that we need more micro, case-by-case assessment. The theme through the process was inflexibility to look at things case by case. Maybe someday we'll do a deeper dive and show photos, but this property wasn't in its historic condition — it had been added onto so much that no one with an architectural background would recognize it as authentic to its vintage. It didn't look like the house put up in 1902; it was a cobbled-together mess. There just wasn't enough granularity in their assessments — just "it's built before 1946, so it has to abide by all these rules." And this place was literally falling over on its own. Interestingly, I talked with the head building official a lot, and the building department and the planning and historic commissions were a bit at odds — not uncommon for these cities. She mentioned a lot of people do "demolition by neglect" — they say, "You won't let me tear it down, so I just won't maintain it," won't repair the roof, let it get soaked until it falls over, and then once it's down they can do what they want. There's a myriad of opinions on right and wrong, and I'll go on record: I'm grateful there's a historic commission in Stillwater. I just wish they could look more case by case at structures that are so significantly damaged — because when you make these projects more expensive, dollar per square foot, I'm confident I could have built the same house cheaper on a new lot, which is what it would've been if I could have bulldozed it.
Dave (45:00): We're jumping ahead, since Nick's heard the story. The primary issue was the foundation. Because the city wouldn't let me tear the house down, I had to do what's called an underpin: you hold the house up underneath with big beams while you take out the old, failing foundation and lay a new one up underneath. It's incredibly time-consuming and technical.
Nick (46:02): It was the craziest-looking process. You'd send me pictures of you underneath the house — it essentially looks like it's held up on the kind of jacks you'd use to change a tire, and you're down there digging out massive boulders and rock. It looks sketchy as all get-out. The fact that you had the know-how to rent the equipment and do it yourself is either beyond impressive or beyond stupid — but it worked out, so it must be the impressive part.
Dave (46:41): Definitely probably a bit of both. There's lots of equipment to make it easier, but house moving is a highly specialized business, and not being in it, I only had so much access to the equipment, so we made it work with what we had. That goes back to having done projects like that on a smaller scale over the years. The process was long — it was a grind. It took a couple of years to get the house completely finished, with slowdowns from permitting and the city, and the fact that we were rebuilding a foundation underneath a house.
Nick (47:44): Rebuilding a foundation — if I recall, deepening it so you had the possibility of finished space, or at least storage — and then you did all-new plans for everything above grade with engineered drawings, added an entire floor, and had the creative constraints of everything being approved by the city, permitting, and the historic society. And you did ninety-plus percent of it yourself. It's a Herculean effort.
Dave (48:30): It was an uphill battle. Like the adage goes, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. It stretched me in ways I hadn't been stretched, and I had to learn a lot — more on the permitting side and dealing with the city. The swing of the hammer wasn't new, but the permitting and bureaucracy of bouncing back and forth to get the design where everyone could say "okay, we feel good" and give the approved stamp — that was new. It was a project I could never have anticipated being as difficult as it was. But as is the case with most things, it's the harder things you strive for that teach you new things and make you a sharper version of yourself. It's funny how universally applicable so many of those lessons are, even in the work we've been doing the last couple of weeks since I got out here. Overall it was incredibly difficult, but it gave me experience you couldn't recreate any other way.
Nick (50:17): To give our listeners context, I'll try to add some photos in the show notes. The finished product — Dave's Stillwater home — could go toe to toe with any of the custom builds in the Parade of Homes we host in Clark County every year, in design, quality of finishes, and thoughtfulness of layout. It really is a work of art, a lovely home. And that's one you're planning to keep — that wasn't the proverbial fix-and-flip.
Dave (51:04): No, no. I appreciate you saying that. Maybe someday I'd love to do a series on the choices that go into making a space that's really well done. If all I fooled was you — but I like to think it turned out well.
Nick (51:31): I know a few people who've been fooled. If it's a "mostly true" renovation project — you've got us all fooled, man. It turned out beautifully.
Dave (51:45): I appreciate it. I'd love at some point to talk about the decisions that go into creating a space that serves people well in multiple facets — things people might not think about beyond floor plan: the orientation of the house relative to cardinal direction, and all the back-end things you're afforded to do if you're building and have the opportunity to make modifications before the drywall goes up. There's a significant amount of upgrades you can do for not a very significant cost. Those little details, added at the right time, make a big impact on how the home feels, its livability, and its performance. Those are things I'm passionate about and hoping to bring as we help people pick out the house they want to buy or build with a local builder.
Nick (53:14): It's a huge value you bring to our clients, because there are so few realtors locally with that experience and know-how — ideas on costs, longevity of products, even the availability of what's out there. In an area as rich in development as ours, with some incredible custom builders, the builders have their profit centers and ways to bump up the price. To dive into the nitty-gritty of where your money is well spent and where it's wasted — that oversight and guidance is where Dave adds tremendous value. I want to be sensitive to time, so I think that's a great idea for a future episode — look at us, already planning future episodes — to dive into the choices you made in Stillwater, lessons learned, why this product not that one, and how it translates for our clients. I'd also love to sprinkle in your experiences wiring up all kinds of homes — historic homes brought down to the studs, multimillion-dollar custom builds. You even did the first container home in Minnesota.
Dave (55:06): We did, yes.
Nick (55:23): The idea of wiring up an all-metal structure sounds about as crazy as putting your house on jacks. Living dangerously, Dave. I like it.
Dave (55:30): I hope whatever I become, it's not dull. There are unique challenges with container homes, and I could speak more on that. I'd love to dig into those things and how they relate to making good choices and what we're advising people on now. Buying, building, or renovating a house — these are huge financial choices in life. Make the right one and it can trend your life in a positive direction. At some point we'll go through your home-buying journey from Minneapolis to here. It's not just me — it's everybody. It's a hugely important part of the American dream and being financially stable. We want to help our clients make a good choice and buy the best home they can afford. And, as you alluded to earlier, the long-term cost of owning a home: if we spend a little more now on something better, how does that impact us in ten years? How does it impact the desirability if we sell? If it's falling apart fast — window seals blown — you're doing extra legwork because you thought you saved money. From years in the business, we always prided ourselves on being the middle of the range. You don't want to be the most expensive guys in contracting — a lot of the time those guys are shaking people down — and there are also the guys just throwing out bids, taking whatever they can get. I always wanted our pricing right in the middle. I used to tell customers who'd say, "You're this much more, we found a cheaper guy" — that's okay. But your cheapest quote might be your most expensive, in terms of callbacks and the system not working as intended. That applies to houses too: saving a couple grand because one house is cheaper could be the most expensive ten grand you ever saved. Together, we can speak well to our clients and advise them on what makes sense, what's value, and what's been value-engineered to the point where it's no longer quality.
Nick (58:58): So well said, because the aim is the same whether we're helping someone buy their first home in their early twenties or thirties wanting to house-hack — which can be one of the most dangerous markets to look in, because so many houses are essentially polished-up turds. Once you look past the cosmetic improvements, you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars in work needed in the next few years, which can ruin the investment. Similarly, when building a custom home, recognizing that it might be a couple percent more for this product over that one, but it adds to comfort, longevity, and the things that impact your lifestyle — that's probably worth it, or not — we can help clients there. I'm really excited about the expertise you bring. The way our team is structured, it's nice: with most teams you have the one agent you work with and don't get much from anyone else. That's not how we're structured — you get both of us and our different strengths. In the next episode, it'd be good to chat about what drew you to The Tartan Team and the model — and frankly to talk about what that model is and how it's unique in Clark County real estate. As I've made big shifts in the business over the past six months, you've been the key person helping shape and inform those — I've bounced ideas off you for probably the past 18 months. So I'd love to get your insights and share what this big transition has been like: moving from Minnesota to Washington, stepping away from the trades, getting into this crazy real estate business. For anybody who's made it this far, make sure you've subscribed — whether on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple — so you catch the next episode. From the heart, I'm genuinely excited to have you here. I know we rib each other a lot, but it's all because of the respect I ultimately have for you, even if that's somewhat hard to admit on camera.
Dave (01:02:12): I appreciate it. As I said before, there aren't a lot of people I'd move across the country to go into business with — not to say Vancouver and Washington don't have their own draw; it's beautiful out here — but there were other cities in the running for this change of pace and career, and the respect is mutual. In the several weeks we've been here, I've very much enjoyed working together and thinking about how to best help people in real estate, and I look forward to the near future when we can help more.
Nick (01:02:57): A hundred percent. If anybody wants to check things out — thetartanteam.com. Shoot Dave an email, dave@thetartanteam.com; I'm nick@thetartanteam.com. We'll catch you in the next one. Thanks, everybody.