Before we jump in:
Mitchell Baldridge and I are hosting a real estate happy hour in Houston, Texas on December 12th from 4-7pm.
Invite only. Space is limited. Request to join us here.
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Where to live:
I feel strongly that too many people live where they live because that’s where they were born or got a job, not because they actually want to live there.
More people should take ownership over their location and move away from home.
In 2017, my wife and I were renting a shitty three-bedroom apartment in Medford, Massachusetts above an appliance store. We stepped around broken washers and dryers to get in the door and walked up many steps to our apartment. We had a four-month-old baby, our first.
On paper, it made perfect sense. I had been building my student storage business, Storage Squad, in the Boston area since 2014, and my wife was now a stay-at-home mom for the first time. But we were paying $2,500 per month in rent.
The winters were long, and we parked on the street. The traffic was horrible. The people weren’t friendly. Homes worth buying were $500,000+ at that time and were 45 minutes from the city.
So we decided to leave.
My wife was from a small town in upstate New York, and I’m from a small town in southern Indiana. Neither was right for us. So we made a list of things we wanted and didn’t show each other our lists until we were finished.
My list looked like this:
- Warm climate
- Low traffic
- Good country club
- Major college in town
- Nice restaurants/breweries
- Airport within 1.5 hours
My wife’s list looked like this:
- Good churches
- Family friendly
- Good schools
- Yoga / food / music
- Mountains within two hours
We did our research and found Raleigh, North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina, and Athens, Georgia. Right away, we discovered that Asheville’s airport was too small, and Raleigh was too expensive.
But in Athens, we could buy a four-bedroom, new-build house 10 minutes from downtown for less than $300,000. On our second visit, we put in an offer on a home and moved.
It was the best decision we ever made.
My advice: Have the courage to find a new place to live with more of what you want. Don’t feel tied to where you were raised.
On Friendships:
People brag about the weather in San Diego. The opportunity in New York City. The food scene in Houston. The outdoor adventures in Colorado. The fishing in Key West. The energy in college towns. The list goes on.
But what they don’t tell you is that the most important part of any city you choose is the community. Your friends. The people who you spend time with. Great people can make any city great. No friends at all can make any region brutal.
Making friends takes work. If you aren’t willing to do the work, you won’t make any friends in a new environment and you will be miserable.
A lot of lonely people on social media complain about not having any friends but make zero effort to do things with people.
If you sit in your house playing video games or watching Netflix, you will not make friends. If you wait for people to come up to you and invite you to do things, it won’t happen.
When we moved to Athens, Georgia, we didn’t know anybody within three hours. Not a single person.
Today, seven years later, we have an amazing community of friends we do everything with, from vacationing to playing golf to getting coffee and dinner. Our kids play together. Our community is strong!
My advice:
Bring energy to conversations and ask people about themselves. Approach people your age and strike up conversations.
Ask other grown adults for their phone numbers and invite them to do things like play golf or get dinner. Say yes when people invite you to things even if you don’t feel like going.
Read the book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” - a self help classic.
It works. We made friends this way, and they are a super important part of our life.
On Marriage and Family:
I’m of the opinion people are waiting way too long to get married and have children. They keep working and dating and traveling and putting off making the sacrifice because it isn’t a priority.
That is a massive mistake.
My advice:
Get married young and have more kids than you can afford.
I have been able to accomplish a lot more in business and in life since I married my wife and had kids with her. The priorities shift in a whole new way and you refocus on productive habits that are more beneficial.
There is a level of discipline that is required in marriage and parenting that bleeds over in good ways to other areas of life. Especially your career.
One of the big problems is the illusion of infinite choice. Dating apps where there is always somebody new to meet and have dinner with or date for a little while. Cities may be full of 35 to 45-year-old single people.
In my opinion this is a total disaster. Having kids gets harder when you are older. Changing your ways and settling down with a single person gets harder if you’ve spent 20 years dating different people and doing whatever you want all the time.
We’ve also been sold on this idea that “getting it out of your system” is a good idea. The travel. The sleeping around. The freedom. In reality, it doesn’t work this way. It builds bad habits and delays one of the most rewarding things about life:
Children.
Something amazing happens when you have kids:
You grow up. You mature. You get better at life. You make better decisions. You make more money. I don’t know if its evolution or a natural occurrence but it is very real. I got better at all aspects of life when I got married and had kids.
I’ve never met anyone who wishes they’d had fewer kids. But I’ve met a lot who regret waiting so long and wish they’d had more kids.
Every 50+ year old I know cares about one thing above all else:
Their kids and grandkids.
There is also an illusion of “perfection” that exists as you keep looking and dating and looking and dating when in reality, most people would be much better off finding somebody with two traits and getting married:
- You can trust them. They are morally sound and share your values.
- They keep calm under pressure and they are emotionally stable.
The trust one is obvious. The second one is the one a lot of people mess up.
Life gets hard especially when you have kids, jobs, a house to care for, responsibilities, etc.
If your spouse is an emotional mess every time something stressful happens, you’re in for a long road. Date somebody long enough to figure out how they operate under pressure and then get married if you are happy with the result.
And an important reminder:
Just like your employees, your spouse will not change once you get married.
It is unbelievable how many people expect this to happen. If you date somebody who likes to go to boutiques and spend thousands of dollars a month, they’ll also be poor managers of money when you get married.
Same with partying, watching football all day every Sunday, eating crappy food, not exercising, sports betting, or whatever else.
Do not try to change people. Find a person with good habits and similar priorities right off the bat.
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A few tweets from this week:
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Onward and upward,
Nick Huber
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