On this Flashback Friday episode, Jason Hartman talks to Tom Kraeutler, President of Money Pit Media and Co-host of “The Money Pit.” Tom shares some of the home improvement ideas and tasks that can be done to change the resale value. Some examples are upgrading home efficiency and performance.
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This show is produced by the Hartman media company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts visit Hartman media.com.
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Welcome to this week’s edition of flashback Friday, your opportunity to get some good review by listening to episodes from the past that Jason is handpicked to help you today in the present, and propel you into the future. Enjoy.
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Welcome to the creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You’re about to learn a new slant on investing some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world’s most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who’s actually been there and done it. He’s a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who’s owned properties in 11 states had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to your financial independence day. You really can do it on Now, here’s your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman 1:16
It’s great to have you back. Thanks for joining me today we will have Tom Chrysler on the show. And you may have heard that names rather famous guy, he’s co host of the money pit. And that’s the nation’s largest nationally syndicated Home Improvement radio program. And he’s a home improvement expert, also president of money pit media. And to those of you who don’t self manage your properties, to those of you who have property managers, this interview may not be super valuable or hard hitting to you, but if you’re self managing, I think it will. And it’s just kind of interesting to have another celebrity on the show like him. We’ve had so many in the past and we’re looking to get a lot more and we are still working on both Ron Paul and Rand Paul. And I think we’re going to get one of them by January. That’s our goal. At least, but we’ve got we’ve got some fantastic shows coming up and boy a lot of stuff in the news, huh Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve replacing Ben Bernanke he huh? That’s that could be interesting. The watchers and the economist seem to like her a lot. They say that she cares a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot about jobs. But she also cares a lot about inflation or keeping inflation under control, I should say. And those two things in a messed up inverted reality world in which we live are counter counter cyclical, those are opposite things. You can’t have them both ways. It’s kind of like saying, well, you want real cheap products at Walmart and Costco and Sam’s Club, and everywhere else, but at the same time, you want to have a lot of high union paying jobs in America. Those two don’t go together either. Right? Anyway, we shall see what will happen but the good news is rates are down with good credit. Now you can borrow at very good rates and for investors, you know, investors pay a bit of a premium. But it’s still such a good deal because I say the rates are lower than real inflation. And by the time you put in all the other multi dimensional aspects that make income properties, such a wonderful investment, in fact, the best investment in America, that’s what I say the best investment in America, bar none. The only thing that could beat well planned well executed income property investments is starting a business. And starting a business could be great, much more complex, much more complicated, much more management intensive, obviously, but with what we talked about, and these new, very innovative internet oriented business models on the last show, before we got to our guests for the last show, Clem chambers. It’s so interesting, I mean, in business nowadays, if you’re in one of these types of businesses, but it all starts with having a really great disruptive idea. And God knows I haven’t thought of that yet and I don’t know if you have but if you’re in one of those The cost of failure is pretty low. So I think that is leading to and will continue to lead to in the future, a lot more entrepreneurship, which will be good for the economy. And I tell you, I’ve got to get this person on the show. But Chris Anderson, who is the author of three great books that I’m aware of, he may have authored more books than that, but three that I know of his latest one being entitled makers, and it’s all about the new American Industrial Revolution, largely all about 3d printing, and it’s 3d printing and consumer products and things but also in biotechnology. And I guess with me saying that it’s a good time to announce a new show that I’m launching Yes, as if Jason you didn’t have enough to do already. I know I can hear it now. A new show. Well, yes, I am launching a new show. I’ve been wanting to do this one for a while. And a lot of these things are more hobbies than they are really businesses. But I just kind of I kind of like this philosophy of have anything I want, at least for me, this works. I can’t say it works for everybody. But anything I want to learn. I teach. And so I’m not really teaching it because I haven’t learned it yet for this one, but the new show, you can see it on iTunes soon and you’ll find it on the internet soon. It’s not launched yet, but it’s called the longevity show. And it’s a subject maybe I’m just aging. I don’t know, that could be it. But I’ve also been very interested in the subject from an economic perspective. And as you know, I’ve talked about it on the shows before because, you know, the biggest challenge we’re going to have it’s it’s a challenge, but it’s it’s a good challenge, it’s a good problem to have is, is we’re likely to have too much life left at the end of the money. And this has far reaching impact on the United States economy, on the housing market, on the global economy, on the state entitlements and unfunded mandates, and on on so many things. I mean, it’s really just a probably one of the most far reaching issues. Humanity faces. And with that I did the first interview today with the founder. And again, you can’t listen to these yet because the show is not launched. But with the founder or not the founder, but the president of cryonics the cryonics Institute and yes, cryonics has taken from the word cryogenics, where they freeze people in the hopes that someday they will have the technology to wake them back up. Yes, this is not totally science fiction anymore. I know I’m almost laughing as I’m saying it to you. But it’s really interesting, and you can listen to that show when it’s published, and the others but I think this whole longevity thing is really, really just huge. It’s going to have huge impact on the commodities markets, housing as a commodity, and all the ingredients that go into these houses and apartment buildings that we own and and want to buy more of our commodities. And so as more if more people are alive on the earth at the same time, there will be more and more demand for the three Major commodities required every human life. And what are they food that will include water in that one food, clothing and shelter? Yes shelter, let them rent that shelter from you. So huge wide ranging impacts. But back to Janet Yellen. So why you can’t have it both ways? Well, it’s because of the Phillips Curve. And and if the Fed stimulates the economy as Alan Greenspan did so much and, and you know, I’ve said it before, but I’ll just say it again, now that it’s further back in history. But this last economic crisis, the one that I say we’re still in, this is a phony recovery, in my opinion. And if you’re a member, and you listen to that interview with Harry dent, you’ll you’ll agree, and we’ll eventually release that one to the general audience, but members, you can find that and also the interview I just did with Gerald cilenti. The trends researcher very interesting as well, that should be up in the members section, I believe now, and it’s the Phillips Curve, okay, you can’t have it both ways. Either you stimulate stimulates stimulate you. You have a Keynesian john Maynard Keynes, Keynesian monetary policy where you pump you priming the pump, you pump more of this money into the economy, you make it easier for banks to lend. You get that fractional reserve lending machine going at a higher speed. Well, what does that do? It’s inflationary, it causes inflationary pressures, obviously. And that will create jobs. But hey, that’s, that’s good that you have jobs. But eventually, you know, and it always follows there’s always a lag time to this. Right. So eventually you have inflation. And really what it ends up doing is impoverishing most people, because, well, they have a job, you know. And if you look at the typical American worker, they haven’t had a raise in real dollars in about three decades, depending on how you look at it. There’s always so many ways to slice and dice these numbers up folks, regionally, income strata wise, etc, etc. But basically, it’s about three decades that there hasn’t been a real race in America. And that’s a raw deal for sure. But if you know how to play that game, and that’s the stuff we talk about on this show gaming the system, if you will, then Heck, all this stuff works for you. It all benefits you. In fact, it benefits you extremely, extremely well. But again, rates have come down about four and three quarters percent for investors if you have good credit pretty darn good, of course subject to qualifying, so take advantage of it and also take advantage of this little window in time that we have now. I was in the traditional real estate business for many years. I started my career at century 21 at the ripe old age of 19 years old. I was in college selling real estate at the time I was selling HUD and VA repos in the mostly in the Inland Empire of Southern California, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and, and these were crummy dumpy houses. I’ve talked about it before, but I would sell them to investors and some of them to homebuyers. And then I kind of went the traditional route in real estate for many years and I worked for REMAX for two years and listed properties and sold homes to people and all that kind of stuff. And I’ll tell you what I always noticed, I always noticed the seasonal nature of the traditional real estate market and now it’s it’s mid October, and we’re certainly into the fall and the traditional real estate market for owner occupied housing. It slows down this time of year now there’s a few buyers that are jumping in because they want to still get some urine tax benefits and so forth. But by and large, the general housing market for owner occupants is busiest in the spring and early summer and slow this time of year. So it’s a good window, we’ve got a window where rates are lower. Now we’ve got a window where inventory is slightly better, it’s not great, but it’s slightly better and investors you should be buying a lot of stuff right now, because you’re not competing with so many traditional homebuyers. And also we’ve noticed and this is just an anecdotal observation, it’s not official, but you know, we have a few Have them as clients, private equity funds and hedge funds and the institutional investors like this. They seem like as I predicted a couple of years ago, couple three years ago, actually, it seems like they’re kind of calming down a little bit now and their acquisition strategies as well. And I’ll bet you the reason for that is is that they’re becoming burdened by the fragmentation, the fragmentation that I always say my famous quote is embrace the fragmentation. Well, that fragmentation benefits us because it’s small investors who want to buy 510 2030 houses or, you know, maybe a couple of small apartment buildings or small apartment complexes, you know, we can deal with that fragmentation. But the big institutional investors, they go crazy with this because what they’re used to doing is they’re used to dealing with funds and, and big, big markets that are highly liquid markets and, and high liquidity creates high volatility. Another reason you don’t want those places to invest as an investor yourself, but again, they They don’t care. It’s not their money, right. And that’s always the thing. And so these markets, they can deploy billions and billions of dollars really quickly and easily. And they’re not going to be bothered by property management or maintenance issues or things like that. So again, that’s what keeps them out of our business largely. And even though we’ve seen a lot of activity from these private equity groups and from these hedge funds, and, heck, we’ve enjoyed having them as clients, we’ve noticed that they’re not too picky. When it comes to price. They just want to buy stuff and deploy capital quickly. That’s their primary motivation to keep the wheels of their machine turning and turning quickly. But this is what preserves that opportunity for us. And it’s such a great opportunity we’ve got with without question, the best investment in American history is income property short of starting a business that’s the only one that could if you’re well funded, lucky, ambitious, really smart. Could be Ben, you’ve got a great idea could be even better. But for the vast majority of us having just build a portfolio of some nice simple income properties, and put time on your side and wait and wait. And that’s a good thing. And before we get to our guest today, I want to tell you, you know, I’ve talked many times about how I love being a renter. For the vast majority of my life, I’ve been a homeowner, and I love the mobility. And I’ve now lived in my swanky penthouse, that is an extremely good bargain here in the Phoenix area for two years. It’s coming up on two years here in just about a month. And the question I’m faced with is should I renew my lease and stay or Heck, should I try something different and move somewhere else? And I haven’t made that decision yet. But with the possibility of that decision looming over my head, I went into my storage unit here in my building, and I noticed that I have a whole bunch of physical products. Yes, we I know. We hardly ever sell any physical products in our educational products. The vast majority of them are sold digitally, but I didn’t make two versions into physical products, thinking that at events and so forth at property tours, I would bring them along and people would want to just buy them because they’re tangible and physical. But the reality was that I didn’t really want to bring them with me, I didn’t want to bother to ship them to the event in advance. So what does this all mean to you? Well, it means I’m about to offer a fire sale deal, because I do not want to move these things. And I have the meet the Masters home study course as a physical product. Don’t quote me on this exactly. But as I recall, it’s about 22 hours of audio content all on CD, 22 hours and 22 disk, this will look beautiful on your bookshelf. In fact, I’m looking at it on my bookshelf now, and it’s really cool. It’ll impress all your friends. And then it’s got it’s got a big, huge workbook that has all the PowerPoint slides, from a combination of to meet the Masters events that we put together into one product we’ve got best practices in property management of the market profile on Austin, Texas, the power of analysis teaching you how to analyze properties and analyze deals, we’ve got my economic and monetary outlook. And these are from a couple of years ago. So these are, you know, but in our business, things don’t change very quickly. So it’s not like this stuff becomes very outdated. Yes, the market changes a little bit, the numbers changed a little bit, but all the concepts still apply. We’ve got an attorney who talks about entity structures and asset protection. We’ve talked about legal services, we’ve got a talk on the Kansas City Market, we’ve got a client panel entitled overcoming challenges, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We talked about some commercial real estate financing. We talked about the three C’s of credit, which are character capacity and capital. We talked about organizing your investment, business, even loan modification. Now that has changed pretty significantly, actually. So that one might be a little out of date. We’ve got my friend Cory that talks about investing in mobile home parks and self storage facilities. We’ve got Danny He talks about credit scoring and improving your FICO score, Kathy who talks about best practices and 1031 exchanges, Randy who talks about mortgages and financial planning, I shouldn’t say mortgage planning, because that’s actually a whole field in and of itself. Now, we’ve got a market profile in Dallas, Texas, we’ve got income property inside your IRA, an IRA, Roth conversion issues, all kinds of stuff. Now, this is what is completely backwards. Okay. I kind of caught myself there because I want to say it’s bass ackwards. And you know what that means when it’s not set in a funny way, but it’s totally backwards because we sell all day long The meat, the master’s home study course, which is the same exact content as a digital product for $497. Well, because I don’t want to move these physical products. We’re going to sell these just to light so I can get rid of them and not move them for $247. Each comes in a nice box. It’s a bunch of CDs, book, everything and it’s 500 pages. With all the PowerPoint slides of all the speakers on there, so this is an incredible deal the digital product is not on sale. Because oddly and is backwards it is it is. I don’t want to sell them any more than I want to sell this one, I want to sell these physical products. So if I decide to make move, because there’s a swankier, newer, high rise penthouse here in my area that I’m I want to go check out and then if I decide to move, I just don’t want to move these because they’re fairly big. These will take several several boxes to have the Packers pack these and move them and then I won’t be able to find them. One someone wants to buy one. So I just want to sell them and I want to sell them quick. So $247 for a physical product. Shipping is free anywhere in the continental United States. All you got to do is go to Jason Hartman calm and click on the physical product for the meet the Masters home study course, and $247 and let’s say we will do this until end of the month. Until Halloween, we’ll make that deal. And if I have a couple left after that, I’ll just probably move them. So there you go, there’s your Deal of the Day. I mean, you got it. I never tried to sell anything on my show. But I just don’t want to move these. And let me tell you one more thing it cost in actual cost. Without the intellectual property content, the actual cost of producing this product was about $140 each without any of the audio editing, without any of the speakers without the intellectual property and all the time that goes in that just to simply make the product and produce it. So that’s to make the CDs and do the printing for all the printed materials that go with it. So there you go. Incredible deal. Jason Hartman comm you can check that out and take advantage and get those out of my storage unit because I just do not want to move them. Anyway. Let’s get to our guest today, Tom Chrysler, who will talk a little bit about some of the physical stuff you do on your properties. And we also have our live meet the Masters course coming up in Orange County, California, for Give me I know a few of you have asked for a specific date. We don’t have one yet. I’m waiting for the darn Hyatt Regency to get back to me, because that’s where we’ve held it for so many years. But they’re, they’re juggling their other events, and seeing what will be the best weekend for us. So we’ll announce that we plan to have that in January at the very worst early February, but probably January. So we will announce that data as soon as we have it. And you can of course register for that at Jason hartman.com as well. And let’s go to Tom and talk about home improvement issues and the money pit. Remember, you’re listening to flashback Friday. Our new episodes are published every Monday and Wednesday.
It’s my pleasure to welcome Tom Kramer to the show. He is president of money pit media and co host of the money pit, the nation’s largest nationally syndicated Home Improvement radio program and Home Improvement expert. Tom welcome. How are you?
Tom Kraeutler 19:53
Thank you very much for having me. I’m great.
Jason Hartman 19:55
Well, good. Good. So you’re coming to us today from New York City, correct?
Tom Kraeutler 19:58
That’s correct. Yes. Thanks. just returned from the 2013 National hardware show, which is interesting, a trade show because it’s where the manufacturers in the home improvement hardware and the core industries roll out all of the new products that you’ll be seeing on store shelves in the coming months.
Jason Hartman 20:15
Fantastic. Well, yeah, let’s talk about some of those new products. You know, we’re in a rapidly improving housing market. And there are always Tom certain proven, smart improvements that people can do to their properties to increase value and make them more rentable as well not just increase value, but you know, attract tenants to those properties to what are some of these key improvements and then let’s kind of drill down and talk about some of the exciting products. You know, we definitely want to talk about the the areas of efficiency, energy, water, etc. But smart improvements
Tom Kraeutler 20:49
Well, I mean, or experiment or curb appeal is really a good place to start. And it’s always been important to make sure that your property looks good from the outside. Now, the traditional way of buying real estate is when the you know, realtor fires you in his or her car and drives you around streets, the streets that you could do these drive bys of homes and find one that was of interest to you for curb appeal today has gone beyond the drive by two it’s more important role as setting the stage for great photographs taken from curbside because most folks are surfing or surfing the internet to find their homes today. And you want to make sure that in that thumbnail image that comes up on a prospective buyers screen, that your place looks good. So a curb appeal is still key. If you want to attract home buyers.
Jason Hartman 21:44
Yeah, that’s the first place to start.
Tom Kraeutler 21:46
Yeah, yeah, first place to start. So what that means I spent 20 years as a professional home inspector. So I know you know what folks are going to be looking for but what it means is basically some of the exterior That means, you know, scrubbing the sidewalks, scrubbing the side of the view that you want to make sure that you get rid of any debris that’s lying about the side of the yard. And really throughout the entire house getting rid of as much debris as possible is is important because it’s going to remember that a prospective home buyer does not want to buy a house that’s as crowded as the one that they’re probably leaving. So you want to make your house as as open as possible. So, so making sure you declutter the home painting is a critical improvement. And that includes painting on the outside, make sure that your home has a first coat of paint, it’s a home, it’s paintable at least the trim and sanding on the inside. And when it comes to painting on the inside, you want to choose neutral colors. You don’t want to choose anything that is too strong, because you want to make sure that a prospective home buyer can imagine their stuff in your house and it’s neutral and they can’t
Jason Hartman 22:58
write and then when you say home buyer, I just want to mention, that’s probably completely interchangeable with the word prospective tenant as well, right?
Tom Kraeutler 23:06
Well, certainly, Yes, exactly. The tenant as well is going to want to have a neutral place to move to move into. So I spotted a couple of products that are new that could help with some of those projects, which I’ll mention to you. One, I think is perfect for an investor because when you buy a home, you invariably have to get rid of whatever junk was left behind. dumpsters are expensive to rent. They can damage your driveway or your yard. There’s a product called the Baxter dumpster in a bag that solves that it’s actually a folded dumpster that really
Jason Hartman 23:42
those are really amazing products. By the way, I’ve seen some of them advertised from the waste management companies. Now, I don’t know which one you’re talking about. Exactly. But pretty amazing stuff here. Go ahead.
Tom Kraeutler 23:53
Yeah, I actually think they’re all the same. I think there’s only one size because it’s fine. to open up to a four foot by eight foot by two and a half foot tall dumpster, it’s about the size of the back of a pickup truck. And you know, if you if you’re into remodeling and and you’re buying and selling homes all the time, you can pick up, you know, four or five of these things to always have around because what you do is you pay for the Baxter on the initial purchase, which is 195. And then you fill it out that takes it all 3400 pounds and that’s a lot of stuff. I mean, that’s, that’s called a car pick water heaters and bathtubs and kitchen cabinets and bicycles and whatever term you got to get rid of, and then you call waste management, they come out and they pick it up with a hook and they take it away and ends up being 70% less expensive than the cost of that dumpster rental and a whole lot more convenience as well. Sure.
Jason Hartman 24:42
Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Good. Well, other items. I mean, I definitely let’s talk about efficiency, energy, saving water saving any of those products.
Tom Kraeutler 24:52
Well, when it comes to the green aspects of the home, clean water, clean air. We’re seeing a lot of innovation in in those spaces, for example, one of the other things that I used to have me as a professional home inspector, when I looked at properties that were being sold was you would open up the blower compartment on the furnace, take a look at the blower. And that of course, is where the filter goes for the most part. And it would just be cake and cake and cake with dirt and dust, you really need to change those filters because your air inside can be even more fluid than the air outside the house. And there’s a new filter system out of 3am called the odor reduction filter. It’s a filter free product. And what’s interesting about this is I’ve never seen where you’ve been able to take a filter that pulls out not only pollen and dust, but also scrubs the home of odor. So if you cook fish the night before, you’re not going to sell it for three days and and you know if you’re buying a home that’s been vacated, almost invariably have an odd odor to them and so that can help clean that up. Then you can also clean your water with water filtration systems. You know, you don’t just have to use the small inefficient water filtration systems that fit On a false, there are large hole house systems now, the prices have come way down on them, feel free to test one. That’s a whole house Quick Change system, you install the domain. It’s under $100. And it filters all the water in the house. So water you drink with wash clothes with and so on.
Jason Hartman 26:18
That’s amazing. Under $100 those prices have come way down.
Tom Kraeutler 26:22
Yeah, they certainly haven’t actually they’ve designed the products so that they’re easier to install. That certainly easier to maintain, they’ll still need a plumber to help you put this in, because you’re going to have to cut into your your plumbing line. Now, it’s not hard to do, you could do it yourself, but you may need a plumber to help you on the installation side. But then the filter change is very simple. You simply turn off the main water valve and you unscrew the old filter, each filter you screw in a new one, and they last for 12 months and important and importantly they have an indicator that tells you when the filter needs to be changed. So yeah, prices have come way down and efficiencies have improved and gives you the ability to To enjoy a water that tastes good and is better for your clothes and Washington so on.
Jason Hartman 27:06
Yeah, fantastic. So water filtration, how about water conservation?
Tom Kraeutler 27:11
Yeah, you know, when it comes to water conservation, there actually have been some advances in that. And this includes products like hose nozzles. So for example, you know, when it comes time to hook up the hose, which so many of us are doing this time of year in the spring, and we put on the hose nozzles, they always leak. This is my belief. Doesn’t matter how many times you change the washers, they just seem to leak all the time. I saw one that’s brand new on the market. It’s called a little bit shot, super nozzle, and it’s a solid brass hose nozzle. It fits in the palm of your hands, very small, maybe an inch and a half tall. And it’s made in the USA. And they’ve designed this from the perspective so that now they can deliver 40% more force than the average hose nozzle nozzle put us 40% less water at the same time. And so you can adjust To your shoot a 40 foot stream, or you could dial it back to a very fine spray for, like seedlings. And this product has an interesting backstory because it’s made in USA, and it’s assembled by disabled veterans. And I assume the technology there is it’s somehow turning it into an air jet, right? And that’s where it gets so much for us. And that’s what’s happening with a lot of these efficiencies in plumbing fixtures. So in the faucets and in the shower heads, for example, there’s figuring out how to use air strategically in those streams so that they’re aggressive and they wake you up in the morning or they clean the driveway or whatever the purpose is, but they use less water at the same time.
Jason Hartman 28:43
Yeah, you don’t feel like you’re getting shortchanged on your water pressure.
Tom Kraeutler 28:46
Right? Exactly. And if you look at a product like a toilet, for example, completely redesigned the way that works because you still flush valve in the water is led into the toilet and washes the waste away but the channel that WAV files now is a wider channel. So you need less pressure to do the job. And it’s glazed on the inside. So it’s still there’s no friction. So you can find toilets now that will flush at a rate of like 1.28 gallons of water. So very little water
Jason Hartman 29:16
versus the traditional means five gallons
Tom Kraeutler 29:19
per year three to five gallons. Yeah, right. Yeah, fantastic. And so for investors, this can save them a lot of money. I mean, if an investor is paying utility bills, which occasionally they are mostly in single family homes, the tenant is paying that stuff, but a lot of apartment investors as well. I’m wondering, you know, have you done any analysis on the payback period for this? I mean, say you own an apartment building or you know, a four Plex where you’re, you’re the investor you’re paying the utilities, and you’re just dumping that all into the the lease or you’re paying maybe the water and tenants pay their own electric, etc. What’s the payback timeframe on this? I mean, can you get your money back in two years for the for the increase in efficiency? The ROI numbers looked better and better and better as time goes on. So for example, you know, with with the WaterSense certified fixtures and faucets, that’s the EPA s program is very similar to ENERGY STAR. But if you look at that WaterSense label and it wasn’t certification, it means it’s a water efficient product, you’re going to use 30% less water with that. And the good news is that those fixtures and forces don’t cost more than a traditional fixture flossing is becoming the norm. That’s, and that’s a key thing that’s happening now greens become cool greens become the norm, have to work pretty hard to find something that’s wasteful today, in terms of products. So and then if you look at other things, investments can do control expenses if you are paying heat in your building. Now there’s some really interesting new Wi Fi thermostats that are out today. That where you can program the heat from a remote location. So without standing in front of the thermostat and setting it where you think it should be. You could you know have a Wi Fi connection on your smart On and set the heat wherever you want. So you can set ranges and Wi Fi thermostats today. Like for example, there’s one called nest that that I’ve used. They have motion detectors in them. So nobody’s in the house, you could send an away temperature, right at least the heat down when there’s no movement. So with the technologies, thermostats today, you want to save a lot of money. I mean, a lot more than you could have with a clock setback, because you can even drop the heat down when you’re away.
Jason Hartman 31:24
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Good. Good ideas there. It’s amazing what’s happening. We’re, we’re really moving into the era of the smart home, aren’t we? Just a reminder, you’re listening to flashback Friday. Our new episodes are published every Monday and every Wednesday.
Tom Kraeutler 31:41
We are and and you know, if you go to a trade show with Consumer Electronics Show, I’ve been to a number of times. We saw over the last several years, more and more folks that are working on developing smartphone technologies, where you have sort of common control systems and so on. I have not yet seen a leader emergent So I’m not ready to jump on board with one particular technology because usually means you’ve got to do something to your windows or do something you’ve ordered something or outlets or, or whatever to make it work with the system individually there’s a lot of cool products that work better and better now let’s look at light bulbs. There’s a light bulb out now from crease er II that’s available at the Home Depot. That’s an LED light bulb know when these first came out. I remember seeing them being 60 $70 a month.
Jason Hartman 32:26
Yeah, the prices are coming down nicely.
Tom Kraeutler 32:29
Yeah, well these are now under $10 for a 40 watt bulb and I think it was about I think it was $30 for a 60 watt bulbs. And these are 86% more efficient than condensers and and so not only are they more efficient, the prices come way down and you thought about buying a bowl that’s gonna last you 20 plus years. So you think about it your light switch on your lamp is going to probably wear out before the bowl which you put into
Jason Hartman 32:54
amazing Wow, totally amazing. Yeah, LED is a great Technology. It’s so much better than the compact fluorescents which have just a whole array of problems associated with them, including a toxic cleanup issues, as well. And, and yeah, that’s
Tom Kraeutler 33:12
great. It’s freebo. Well, she got so smart with this, they put a coating on the outside of the bolt. And so if you if you drop it, it’s all the glasses inside of it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. What about color? You mentioned painting in neutral colors and so forth. But what do you think about, you know, maybe one colored accent wall, or just any more thoughts on color and painting, I think color is good, bless you strategically. And you know, you take a little bit of risk. If you’re an investor doing this, I know it’s boring, but nothing beats white walls and beige carpets if you’re trying to sell a house or get somebody to move into it granted, but if you own a house, I think, color accent walls are important. Color can be used strategically, and it really does improve the look of the place and another product that I saw. Well, you reminded me when he said color at this past national hardware show is a product called renew by limited 11th and is famous for manufacturing lights and outlets and switches and things like that. Now what renew is it’s a wiring device and you can be a light or an outlet or dimmer. That is available in 20 different colors. And here’s the way it works. You wire it once, then you have a color change kit, which actually for under five bucks can change it from white to blue to black silver. And if you thought about it, if you had a room that you decorated for your newborn baby, and then that add times within for a girl, you’re redecorating again. And then that baby moves out. It goes to college and then that becomes a home office or redecorate again, you can change the colors of the lights and the Allison switches as you go without rewiring, that’s the key. And literally 15 seconds you could pop off the old colors and put on the new ones.
Jason Hartman 34:52
Yeah, very interesting, very interesting. Talk to us a little bit about painting in the high tech sort of painting. That’s going on nowadays. I mean, there’s there’s been real progress there. It’s not the same old thing as it used to be. Hmm,
Tom Kraeutler 35:06
well, it’s not and this is another area where green has become the norm, it’s hard to find a paint that has dfcs. So most of the pages just feel much more environmentally friendly. And it’s also gotten easier. I always say that what makes it the painters good painters tape because if you do a good job masking, all of the places that you don’t want to be your painting job comes out better. So even masking tape is smarter today. There’s a product by scotch blue, that’s an exterior painters tape that has a new feature and it’s called quick snap. They’re very painted and tried to rip these painters tape. It comes off in sort of this weird 45 degree or less angle. Well, this quick snap feature now enables you to get a 90 degree angle at the end of the tape every single time you tear it. So if you got to get in tight to a corner of a window for example, you can do that. And the tapes now are designed so that if you have to go around a curve like a curved window or or you know curved for trailing something That they flex they bend and you can leave them on now for up to a week without leaving a lot of thought behind when you pull the tape off.
Jason Hartman 36:08
Yeah that’s a fantastic tool. painters tape makes the painter home that’s a that’s a good good way to put it. Well what’s going on with the show give us a little insight into where the shows at and where it’s going and tell us more
Tom Kraeutler 36:20
sure well I mean the money that has has grown steadily over the last several years we’re hearing on 330 radio stations around the country and it’s fine every weekend like those Leslie cigarettes and I get to talk to folks from all across the country and up into Canada and we we answer Home Improvement questions we we solve Do It Yourself dilemmas we give advice to folks that are that are doing it themselves as well as those that are directing it themselves. Maybe not picking up the hammer not taking into saw but hiring folks that do that sort of work but want to know, you know how to find that way professional or if they are going to be building a deck, you know, should they design it with one layer One level or two? Or what’s the difference between a standard roofing shingle and dimensional roofing shingle, and, you know, we serve sort of their home improvement coaches and coaching them through those sorts of decisions and helping them find the information that they need to make this important decision. Yeah, fantastic.
Jason Hartman 37:18
And the website is money pit.com that’s money pit.com
Tom Kraeutler 37:22
money, calm and you can listen to the show there. You can also subscribe to the podcast. And you know, you can also call us 24 seven, we have a live call streaming anytime of the day or night at 888 money pit.
Jason Hartman 37:36
Fantastic. Well, Tom, any closing advice or thoughts for people?
Tom Kraeutler 37:40
Well, I’ll tell you what, the economy has gotten so much better. There’s been a lot of optimism at the trade shows that I’ve seen that are attended by home building industry professionals. And so I think it’s going to be an exciting time to do remodeling work to do home improvement and building work. And there’s more and more information out there becomes more difficult sometimes just Through all of the information that I say always break it down, take one project that you can do, you can do successfully and build on it from from there and you’ll get it done. And if you need help any step of the way, we would love to be able to help you with that process and you can reach us again at money to comm or by by calling us at easy money to
Jason Hartman 38:19
Excellent. Well, Tom Chrysler, thanks so much for joining us today.
Tom Kraeutler 38:22
Thank you and have a great day.
Announcer 38:29
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Jason Hartman 39:07
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